It was high spirits at the Farm Gate Bush Dance yesterday. Two great projects came together. CERES Joe’s Market Garden is a certified organic farm on the Merri and part of the CERES Fair Food program. They’re in need of hot water, but decided that instead of getting a conventional system they would buy a solar hot water system from the Earthworker Energy Cooperative in Morwell, for which we were raising funds. Earthworker are a worker-owned cooperative that are part of the just transition towards renewable energy. Both projects have a huge emphasis on community, and the community was out in force to support them and have a good time.
The Earthworker Bush Band played which offered the technical challenge of having about ten musicians crowded around one condenser microphone. This setup was at their request and is usual for this style of music. The mic was a RØDE NT1-A and was very sensitive to feedback. It was mainly there to emphasise lead fiddle. I didn’t feel like I was getting enough of the beat for dancing, so I plugged the double bass into a DI which filled out the mix. We had just one more microphone for the person calling out the dance steps. In dedication to all the vegetarians in the room Flick changed the Sausage Machine dance into the Vegan Sausage Machine dance. No animals were harmed in the making of this hoedown.