Andrew Silke Blog

About time for some blog updates…
As most of you know Happy Feet won an Oscar! Was great to see George on the tele accepting the award. When he returned to Sydney I was lucky enough to have my photo taken with him holding the Oscar. Woohoo!

George Miller and me with the Oscar!

Here’s some music made in my home studio. The first is my own creation, the 2nd written by my mate Malik (can you hear the heavy metal influences?) I played the bass and some lead guitar only on that track.

The drums were made with my drum kit then cleaned up a lot in midi. Midi is so cool. I have this program where you can record all the drums off my electric kit. Then clean up all the bad notes add complex fills (that I can’t play) then you can apply real sampled drum sounds to the midi notes. You can change the speaker placement and room mix all in real time. It’s really quite incredible.

These songs are both very rough.. just works in progress. Anyone know how to sing?

My Song

Maliks Song

Some might remember the start of my sculpey Thorny Devil. Here’s an update. Not quite finished yet. The bumps and thorns have taken a while to create. The small bumps were made with the inside tube of a ballpoint pen.

Throny Devil sculpted with Sculpey

Found this grasshopper on the window sill. Thought he was pretty cool, stayed still enough for me to take a few pics.

A Friendly Grasshopper

Gill and I went on a camping trip for New Years, it turned out to be a bit of a surf Safari. The first night was at Seal Rocks, we were lucky enough to catch a spot at the beautiful Tiona Campgrounds in the Booti Booti National Park. It was packed but the grounds are so beautiful and were right on the beach so we didn’t mind. Highly recomended.

Back through Newcastle the next day I took a photo of some of the industrial equipment that you can see from the road. There is some huge industrial machinery in Newcastle, this photo doesn’t show it very well, I’ll have to go back and take better photos one of these days.

Industrial Park Newcastle

We met up with Gills friend Manuella and Co at Putty beach which is about half way between Sydney and Newcastle for 2 nights. The beach looks towards Palm beach on the other side of the Hawkberry River. On new years Eve we went for a surf at McMasters Beach. later on we watched the distant fireworks over Sydney. (From the spot this photo was taken earlier in the day.)

Putty Beach New Years Eve

Gill and I went on to camp for one more night but we had no idea where to stay. A friendly couple at the Gosford info center let us know of Freemans Camp grounds. Unfortunately the map wasn’t nearly so helpful and we almost got lost. In the end we made it the camp grounds which was placed on another spectacular location. Gill and I got a bit battered by the surf in this unprotected beach.

Birdie Beach. Check out the Horizon’s Ship Queue

Freemans Camping Ground Site at Birdie Beach

Walk from Camp Site to Beach

A Washed up Fish

I took a detour to Brisbane, stayed at my sister Kirsty’s place (thanks Kirsty) and caught up with Dave C and his new girlfriend Kylie, James B and Sammy, Mike P, Andy G, Hamish and Jay, and last but not least James Cowen.

We headed to a Happy Feet screening, everyone seemed pretty impressed. Bennett took some photos so I’ll post em when he sends them through.

I bumped into my friend Stu in the middle of Brissy which was very bizzare, so I went and played some pool with him too.

This year it was my time to go to Gills family for Xmas. Luckily the weather wasn’t too hot. The whole family cooked up a massive Xmas lunch. Brendan’s bugs were a highlight.

Xmas Lunch at the OConnors

The afternoon was spent in the pool drinking scotch and coke, not a bad day!

Up to visit my folks at Townsville for a couple of weeks. Was a pretty interesting time up there. Families can be like that sometimes ; )

Mum and Dad

First Stop Rocky to visit my my relatives Nana and the Acutts and I also got to catch up with Ryan one of my oldest mates.

Me and Nana

Great to catch up with Nana, she is extremely energetic for her age though she switches the tv up too loud for her lack of hearing!

Ryan Sheedy and I

I’ve known Ryan all my life - literally. He’s by far my oldest friend. We were born in the same hospital in Mackay a couple of days apart. Was great to catch up as I hadn’t seen him for at least 4 years.

The Acutts and I

Above is a photo of my Auntie Liz, Uncle Bruce and my two cousins Harry and Lachlan. Lachlan used to be the small one but he’s grown tall, I called him Harry when I first arrived much to his delight. Below is their beautiful property they’ve donated for Veterans who like to stay from time to time. Bruce and Liz live at Emu Park right on the sea.

The Acutt bush property

Travelling again. I liked these clouds.

Somewhere near the border of QLD and NSW