CAN CELLOS BE GUITARS!?! @ Room 60.

I had the pleasure of playing at Room 60 last week. Tick that off the bucket list.

At the Roost Launch last October a violinist jumped on staged and improvised some wretched jazz for about 10 minutes. I was absolutely awed at how bizarre it was, and vowed that when I returned from overseas I would perform on the stage in some capacity. I found a new love for the cello and, with a lot of inspiration and modelling from Jorane, devised a 25 minute set which would involve me simultaneously playing cello and singing.

My favourite shot that Chris did.

There was a bit of preparation to be put into the event. I went about recording several demos - mostly they were covers by artists like Leonard Cohen, Lady Gaga and Sarah Slean, but I also wrote a few original works. Once I felt reasonably happy with the results, I contacted Room 60 and got in touch with Leila Cosgrove. Leila organises all the music and was intrigued by the idea, and was very enthusiastic. I was asked to send through a bio and a promo shot, so I got my friend Christopher King to shoot some shots in an abandoned house and in a large green field. The bio was more difficult, because I have no credentials when it comes to music. I ended up blubbering something about how I was a 'sound designer' and wanted to experiment with jazz. That's another thing - people ask me what genre I play and I have no idea what to say to them. Once sent through, Leila confirmed I would be playing at 7pm on April 11th. Phew!

So once I had a date locked in, over a few months I learnt the basics of the cello again and learnt some of my favourite songs which I thought the cello could pull off on its own. It's interesting that people are so amazed by the concept of singing while playing, since cello isn't that different to guitar. It certainly has a deeper, richer timbre, and it's unusual to play with the bow - but it's also possible to strum the strings as if it were a guitar, which is a staple in most of my arrangements. It's restrictive, since I feel there's only so much you can do with it. It's not possible to play beautiful melodies while you're on your own, and much of the accompaniment sounds too sporadic and empty if there isn't always a lot of noise coming out of it. But it's relatively unheard of in Brisbane, and people seemed to like the idea enough.

I ended up playing six songs that were all covers - four pieces by Jorane (Musique Pour Gabrielle, Stay, Red Mountains and The Cave) plus one by Lady Gaga (Paparazzi) and Lior (This Old Love). I had written a few songs myself, but I felt that it would be more fun to play covers that people knew, and also it would be useful to gauge how feasible it would be to do something along the lines of it again. Predictably, Paparazzi and This Old Love were the favourites, The Cave and Pour Gabrielle were a bit too bizarre for people, but Stay and Red Mountains were lovely. I think the key is to play simple pieces (in English), and not to take it too seriously. Paparazzi got a lot of laughs, and during Stay the barmaid kept on opening the door to the fridge, so there was some cute comedic timing while I waited for it to shut.

The only shot of the night - courtesy of Ellen.

The response was staggering for me. So many people said things like 'I loved it and can't wait for the next one' or 'I'll be there for the next one', which makes me wonder what the future of me playing is. I have a lot of French pieces I want to sing, but I think the language barrier would restrict people's enjoyment. There are also a lot of gorgeous songs I want to play which require looping and layers, which I don't know how to do live. And many more would need more people other than me, and I hate depending on other people. That, and I'm doing this for fun - NOT for my career. So what's the point . . . hmm . . . ?

The best part of the evening for me was the wonderful turn-out of the audience. People who I had met with over the years, people I am and had worked with, family, friends and future friends were all there - that really meant a lot to me. It was very humbling that people had taken the time out of their evenings to come down for such a short event, and it made me feel so warm and fuzzy :] . I think the premise, length and venue were perfect, and the atmosphere and people there couldn't have been much better. It reminded me how much I loved singing and performing - maybe I'll try it again some time.

Not Famous Yet

Somewhat predictably, I'm not famous yet.

This didn't come as a surprise - I was aware of this for some time. It's not totally me fault either, since Sam Boyd is a pretty common name. What was fairly fairly entertaining were the events the lead up to me discovering just how un-famous I am on the internet.

Thomas and Sarah (Sherlock) Boyd. I'm so not famous that
they even came up before me (Source: Roots.web)

This situation became pretty apparent to me on Thursday, when I was running into people all over university. I'd turn a corner and BAM up would pop up another loveable personality I was glad to have as a friend. After I'd assembled a small entourage, we were congregating outside Beadles 'cafe' when this red haired guy came walking in the vicinity of us. I felt as if I'd run into him a thousand times passing by, since I'd seen him at my club, just below my window World Theatre Festival, FAST, Vena Cava shows, and I'd most recently seen him the week before at Room 60 at a talk.

I felt like I knew EVERYONE that day, so it was good day to make friends - I glanced at him, made eye-contact, and I then I yodelled "HEY YOU, COME OVER HERE. NOW." I wonder if that was daunting, but since we're all part of the same, incestral drama family, it was probably a perfectly legitimate way of establishing contact. He came over and I screamed some more things like "WHO ARE YOU??" and "HOW DO YOU DO?!" before I found out his name was Nathan, and he said he worked on Underground, so that was probably how I knew him. I told him that I did not manage to see Underground since it was sold out, but made an alternative, long, irritating list of everywhere I'd seen him. He laughed and shook my hand. What a nice chap. Newly acquainted, I blessed him with a "Godspeed" and then we parted ways.

"The best Sam Boyd ever" - Everyone ever on the internet
(Source: UNLV)

I realised about an hour later that I didn't know his last name (over that hour I had ran into him twice again), so I looked up 'Nathan' and 'Underground' online and the illusion was finally shattered and I found his last name and I finally put a face to the name. I thought it was pretty cool (and a bit scary) that you can find so many people on Google, so I thought it might be fun to look up my own name. I tried my Dad too, and he popped up with his QUT website as the first result, and also got mentioned in book dedications and thanks before anyone remotely tried to masquerade as him (some country singer has the same name). Unlike  Dad, I haven't really done anything in life, so I knew this already wasn't going to end well since a while back Jeff alerted me there was a 'Sam Boyd' stadium in Nevada. Nevertheless, I typed my name "Samuel Boyd" into the Google machine, and braced for the worst.

Google suggested I change the term "Samuel Boyd obituary" to garner more results.

The #1 result for Samuel Boyd isn't a cracking picture of me, but instead is a rather brief and incomplete (and strangely formatted) Wikipedia entry on Samuel Leonard Boyd, an infamous Australian (!) serial killer who bashed several children and women to death in the early 80s. While that sounds like something I'm capable of, I can't say that it's something I'd ever do or that it was someone that sounded particularly like me, seeing as I wasn't alive in the 80s. The next result is Sam Boyd of the Sam Boyd Stadium/Boyd Gaming Empire. The next few were some obituaries about some boring Sam Boyds who lived in Virgina, a real estate agent, and then it got onto the names where Sam wasn't even the first name, just included for the fun of stealing my thunder (like Augusto Sam Boyd, or Jerald Samuel Boyd).

"Angry Sam Boyd Eating Watermelon in 2002"
(Source: Sam Boyd Fans). This guy actually
look like Tom Noble . . .

The best result was a blogspot called 'Sam Boyd Fans', an extensive fan site of the figure which spans back as early as 2005. It houses many novelties, such as a bunch of fun pop quizzes, such as "What is Sam Boyd's middle name?" and "What would Sam Boyd think of this photo?", in addition to various theories of what Sam Boyd would look like in various outfits or at stages of his life, and there were several thrilling sightings:

"After more than two years, I found him. He was wandering about a little used bookstore in Hyde Park looking for a book to read. I don't think he reads enough. I talked him into letting me sleep on his living room floor and then we went to breakfast the next day where we both partook of a delicious breakfast. I'm probably not supposed to reveal this, but I will anyway. Sam is being courted by an elite producer in Hollywood. I can't say his name, but let's just say it rhymes with Dom Banks. He (or she) wants to purchase the rights to Sam Boyd's life story. 95% of the film will take place in the corner of a library and Danny Boyle is set to produce." (Source: Sam Boyd Fans)

God, I wish my life was as interesting as that. Anyone have any thoughts on who the producer might be?

I finally popped up on Page 7, with a link to my World Theatre Festival blog, except it linked to a dead page when the blogs had been pulled down for being too honest, so all that was on the page was some text that said "Blog posts . . . coming soon!". Hopefully the amount of times that I've written 'Sam Boyd' on this page will help boost me to the top, but I'm doubtful. That's how famous I am; not famous yet.

ETA:

• You can also like Sam Boyd on Facebook.
• I actually appear on the first page of Google Images, since I wrote the music to Of Little Matter. This is me: