my new favorite...

And now...

for a wee bit of music....

This was some cell phone footage captured from our show on November 12th this year.

Somedays....for those days when you forget it all gets better

These things.....

It's the beginning of the holiday season over here in Indianapolis and as I sit here at my dining room table looking out the window watching the sleet fall, a chill hits me.

I hate winter.


There. I said it.

I am an Aussie, born in the center of Australia, lived most of my life on the coast, had way too many sun burns in my life, spent one full winter ever in my life in snow.

I like it for a minute, and then it wears off.

The snow, that is.

And here I am. In the middle of what will soon become snow hell. No sun in sight for months. No coast line to run away to. No waves to frolic in.

How did this happen, you ask?

Well, it all started when.........(insert long and winding story here).

It just happened (short story).

So, as I sit here and write....thinking about the cold. A fire about to be built in the fireplace, surrounded by all the creative projects I have to begin now to fulfill xmas orders for people, my walls full of instruments that need to be prepared for their winter as well, a copy of the new Curve Magazine interview on my screen and music playing in the background I feel less like the rock star I sometimes pretend to be and more like the hard working creative individual I actually am. I want to share with you a new 'thing' I have started. It's called The Front Porch Collective...and really, it's just me and a few mates who literally sit on the porch and make stuff that we have started to sell. I just built us a website, and an etsy store and we are hoping as you start to buy gifts for your loved ones this holiday season that you will consider going local and/or independent and buying from us. All of us can make custom pieces too and all of these pieces are one of a kind.

So, warm your  heart and ours...and check out our stuff here:

November 12th....

Now, THIS, is some serious promotion.....we don't do anything by halves over here.

So, you heard it..

November 12th
The Irving Theater
5505 East Washington St
Indianapolis, IN 46219

Martine Locke & Band
With Jenrose Fitzgerald (from Kentucky) opening the show

Doors open 7.30pm

Tickets $12 pre sale through Brown Paper Tickets:
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/206120

Or $15 on the door

Pre holiday trunk show will also take place throughout the night with handmade holiday gifts from Martine Locke, Jamie Price & Dionne Ward. Check out www.inthislifenow.com and www.musekraft.com for some of the items that will be available to purchase. Get your holiday gift giving started early and buy local and handmade!

Miss Representation....

Incredibly powerful and true....the best 10 minutes you will spend today to expand your brain and to incite a riot in your mind. Pass it on mateys....



Newest Miss Representation Trailer (2011 Sundance Film Festival Official Selection) from Miss Representation on Vimeo.

Love my job...

You know....you're driving through Michigan on the way to a mates house for a house concert. The van is filled with all the gear and two of your favorite people...and you start to see winery signs.

So...what do you do?

Well hell, you stop of course.

The Aussie in me can barely pass a winery sign when I'm driving alone...nevermind with my wine drinking mates.

So, here we are at the Karma Vista winery in Colma, Michigan. The new grapes are ready to be picked and we are all heading home with Michigan wine selections.

I love my job and my life. Sideways rain, hand made truffles, good wine, sweet love and friendships...what's not to love?

Xxm

Proudly Australian...
Fiercely independent...

www.martinelocke.com

MuMu....

I hung out with my mum back in Australia in April and had the chance to spend almost 3 weeks with her and the rest of my family just chillin. For those of you that don't know, my mum was also diagnosed with stage one dementia around that time and right around the time this photo was taken (from a webcam session with my sweetheart Jamie, who got to meet my mum for the first time via webcam) she sat next to me on the couch, put her hand on my knee and her head on my shoulder and said, 'well, it looks like you are losing your mum.'

I think I have been acutely aware of the fact that my mum will die, or be taken from me,  since I first realized it when I was about 12 years old. That thought has often reduced my heart to a thumping mess since that time. Watching her get older over the years, watching her lose the people she has loved and have to move on, to start life again has been tough and heart breaking. Sometimes, I am sure it's the same for me now as it was for her when I was growing up. Having her heart broken by my choices and my teenage words.

In the four months that I have been gone though I have indeed begun losing my mum. I hear stories from my brother and sister about their experiences with her. The lies she tells to get more medication, or to not eat or to not shower. The frustrations they feel over trying to explain to her and to her carers, that she has indeed had her quota of pills (this after working out she was taking her daily dosages, and then some, all at once and telling everyone she hadn't taken anything) and has indeed had visits from them and isn't all alone, as she tells them.  I have weekly conversations with her where I sit and listen to the same stories again and again, laughing in all the right spots, trying to work out out new questions I can ask her that might help jog her memory and get her to know she just told me that three minutes ago. Only to find out later through my brother & sister that none of them are true. I feel bad that I am not closer, to help them through it and to be there for her as well. I hear their frustrations and fears around it all and feel pretty useless over here.

Sometimes the only thing that has kept me here in the US over the last 10 years is my mum saying to me that she knows I am following my heart and doing what I want to do with my life, and for that she is proud. I know she has always missed me. I know she has always been excited beyond belief about me coming home to be with her. I know she has always been standing in my corner believing in my life and my choice to be here.

But.

I am losing her.

Infact, I feel like there is a huge chunk of her that I have already lost in the 4 months that I have been gone.

I am trying to work my way to getting back to her for a visit as soon as I can but of course, an independent artists budget doesn't always stretch that far and airfares just continue to go up and often times throughout my day, I wonder if I am doing the right thing.

I know she still has time left on this earth, but in what form? This is what scares me. To watch her slip further and further into what seems like a horribly lonely, sad, confusing existence. I can barely stand the thought of that.

It just doesn't seem fair.....

 'Old age is no place for sissies'
                               Bette Davis

lufituaeb era uoy

So, me and my sweet girl Jamie have been working hard on this new idea that we have. It started because I realized she was a whizz at screen printing and I wanted to learn how to screen print my own merchandise.

So...she taught me how to do it (and now, all the merchandise I have is screen printed, by hand, by us).

We worked on this idea and called it IHA - which is a sanskrit word that means 'in this life'...as in, fully immersed in life, jumping into every moment with both feet. That is how we both want to live. We also wanted to live sending a positive message into the world....even in our own thoughts and feelings. To live in love and kindness. She has taught me a lot about that the last few months.

So, we put them both together...and this is what we got:

This design is actually backwards (the photo you are looking at is taken in a mirror). The idea was that every time the person wearing it looked into a mirror, they were reminded. Another interesting thing has happened with this t-shirt though. It seems that people are turning it around in their own brains and when they see it walking towards them.....it reads, I am beautiful. LOVE THAT!!!!

To see something I help create going out into the world and making people happy and empowered is what I feel like I have strived to do my whole adult life. It's what I want to do for the rest of my life. In my music, in my art, in our t's, in my day to day relationships with people I meet....it is, in my heart of hearts, the way I want to be. I don't always hit the mark but it is truely where I want to be each time.

So....here they are, our new creations....

Hello wind mills...

Hello out there....seems my posts start lately with words of lament about how little I have written on here the last few months. I figured I wouldn't start this post with that this time but alas, its what I think of as I type this out on my little phone.
I am heading up to Milwaukee right now to play a show at the pride festival up there this weekend. The van is full of stuff and people and I am trying to play dj on my ipod...playing Kelly Clarkson to a van full of haters trying to school them in the vocal brilliance of the Clarky.

It's not working so far...

I should show you their faces.....

Anyway, I have gone up this highway so many times but I always find myself thrilled to see the windmills. I adore them for so many reasons. They feel like art and a magnificent display of what human kind can achieve when they/we want. And they also usually signal I have less driving than has already been done...

Life is good. I am grateful.

Hope yours and you are also...

Xxm

Proudly Australian...
Fiercely independent...

www.martinelocke.com

Dang....

It's been a long time between blog posts and all I can say is that life has kept me busy since the last one. It's always interesting to me how things, how creativity, ebbs and flows. I feel like I am being creative and writing, just in other ways right now. Use to be that I would write on here sometimes a few times a day, now I am glad if I can get it once a week. Change. It's a funny thing.

I keep saying to myself 'enough change already'...and then the universe, with it's wicked sense of humor, jumps in and mixes things up. I can imagine, with a wild cackle....interesting that I visualize the universe as a creature with a witch like cackle when it comes to change. I don't enjoy it that much, even though I feel like I facilitate it for myself often.

Anyway, life is grand....and hopefully has settled down for a little while now. Amazing shows coming up, a new live cd that I am incredibly proud of and people around me who I love and am loved by. This is life....in all it's glory. And I am grateful.

xxM