Today my wife returned home after flying down to Wellington to be with her family and attend the funeral of her nana Mary Harmer who passed away just last Saturday night.

Mary was a lovely nan and the couple of times that I had the privilege of meeting her she showed me so much love and kindness, it’s easy to say that she will be greatly missed.

Rest In Peace.

I can’t believe how lonely I was by myself in our home and it was only 2 nights… 
This was the first time that I have been in our house without Helen, and I guess now I know how she feels when I go away on tour, it sucks!

My body didn’t even know what to do with all of the spare room in the bed and somehow I also kept sleeping through all of my alarms, even though I am normally the one who wakes her up each morning.

So glad to have her home with me, I’m such a wuss.

She even bought home Wholly Bagels, a huge bag full, sooooo good!
(5 slices of bread in every bagel… <—- this one’s for you xhaydenhorrorx)

Tonight we also went to a great little show in a small cafe/bar/venue in the city called ‘The Winemaker’s Daughters’.

It was an acoustic tealight show that drew little under 30 payers, an intimate vibe albeit one I am not used to with weird ‘in-between song banter’ from solo artists and a bunch of hipsters and indie scenesters gathered around drinking coffee and wine.

Helen and I had been planning to attend this show for a few weeks now, not only because our good friend Ben was in charge of helping out with the local show (part of a national tour of small venues and house shows) , but because it was headlined by none other than Arkansas, USA’s Bradley Hathaway.

I first discovered Bradley through the spirit-filled hardcore scene in the USA which I was following closely when he published his book entitled ‘All The Hits So Far, But Don’t Expect Too Much” which following it’s release saw him tour stateside alongside many Solid State Records bands such as The Chariot, As Cities Burn, He is Legend and Blindside among others.

He is recognised mainly for his poetry and spoken-word performances, but as of the last few years, also for his song-writing, in an eclectic folk-style mixed with many of his poems.

Although I am certainly no authority on the genre, nor do I even like this kind of stuff 99% of the time, but I must say I thoroughly enjoyed his performance and look forward to seeing him again at this year’s Parachute Festival in Auckland which we will be playing at the end of this month.

He had a great personality and was a fun guy to chat with after the show, very down to earth and humble, also has great taste in hardcore (Bradley mentioned that he is a huge fan of the new Advent record… yes, you need to get that record).

Bradley Hathaway’s new record “A Mouth Full of Dust” is available now from his online store along with some sweet merch.

If you get the opportunity to see this gentleman perform, I suggest you go.