News
Author Adam Morris
Blues and roots songwriter launches debut novel with second album
19th September 2011
It’s double trouble at the Perth Blues Club on Tuesday 27 September for blues and roots musician Adam Morris and his musical outfit The Murder Mouse Blues Band.
The band will serenade punters with tunes from their second album The Thirst, The Hunger and The Horn while launching Morris’s debut novel My Dog Gave Me the Clap (Fremantle Press).
Morris said he and producer/band member Jon Edwards took nearly two years to complete the album, while the novel was written in six weeks or, in other words, “just enough time to vomit up fifteen years worth of frustration.”
“Rodin said if you want to sculpt a horse you grab some marble and you take everything away that’s not a horse,” said Morris.
“I see songs and books in the same way really, they already exist in a perfect state, you just need to remove everything that isn’t the thing you’re after,” he said.
My Dog Gave Me the Clap is a grungy novel about Saul, a not-quite-successful musician, who hangs out in his mate’s chook shed planning the best way to spend his unemployment benefit on booze while working out answers to the big questions of life, art and the universe.
Like Saul, Morris said he has had his fair share of “failure” alongside the success he’s had as an award-winning songwriter and performer.
“… the message everyone gets is, all you have to do is work hard and believe in yourself and you can realise your dreams, but the reality … [is] you are guaranteed absolutely nothing,” said Morris.
Morris said My Dog Gave Me the Clap would make many readers laugh while letting aspiring musicians and artists know that their experiences were shared by others.
“Also, those battling with venereal diseases, caught from animals, may find some points of general interest,” said Morris.
The launch of My Dog Gave Me the Clap and The Thirst, The Hunger and The Horn is at 8pm on Tuesday 27 August at the Perth Blues Club, Charles Hotel, North Perth. Members $10, non-members $15.
The Murder Mouse Blues Band will headline the blues and roots section of Singapore’s Mosaic Festival 2012.
My Dog Gave Me the Clap is published by Fremantle Press. It is available at the launch, in all good bookstores and www.fremantlepress.com.au
For more information please contact Claire Miller, cmiller@fremantlepress.com.au
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