Stevan: [00:00:00] Welcome, welcome to the Bonzaar Podcast. This episode we're gonna look at Blazing Swan, how it's set up, what you guys, your roles are your, what do you guys do there? So let's, let's introduce yourself to the listeners. Who do we have?

JayJay: Okay. I am JJ Sticks. I am currently on the Blazing Swan Committee. It's my first year on committee and I've learned a lot already.

And I'm also the arts admin, um, unofficial title, artsy, artsy in administration, in on installation administration. And sort of, yeah, basically I organized all the art pieces and process the applications and you ask the artists for more information and talk to them, you know, artist liaison, sort of, you know, it's, it's a work in progress of what that role actually is as well.

'cause it's changed over the past two years, I believe. Um, so yeah, that's, that's a bit of an icky one. But yeah, basically I'm the arts person.

Wesley: And I'm [00:01:00] Wesley Lamont. I'm currently doing event management here as well as being on ranger ops and perimeter lead. Um, I'm not currently on committee, but I was one of the original, um, founders of, of the event about a decade ago now.

Um, so I'm just kind of still around helping out as I kind of do, I guess.

Stevan: Well, how, how has the burn been so far, guys?

JayJay: Um, really good. Really a bit different. A lot of, I think a lot of new crowd. I think we have a lot of new crowd this year, seems like. Um, yeah. Yeah. And the weather's been, everyone was expecting it to piss down with rains, so I think everyone's, um, prepared for like storms, but it's actually been pretty sunny and pretty.

We've had some nice cold days where you can wear like a, you know, fur jacket and all that. And today's, uh, today's probably, uh, yeah, one of the first really like sunny days where it's, it's all, all clear and all good.

Wesley: Mm. Yeah, it's been, been lovely for me as well. I've, the weather's been cold, which I've actually enjoyed.

Last year was quite hot [00:02:00] here. Um, this year's been probably on the opposite end now. It's been quite cold, but yeah, it's been really nice. Um, so yeah, I've been enjoying it, like always do like the randomness.

Stevan: Op ops wise, operation wise, everything was, uh, worked out as, as it is.

Wesley: Yeah. It's run actually really smoothly Operation wise, we've, we've had incident like we usually do, but that's not due to any issues with, um, the operations is more due to stuff happening with some of the people and incidents occurring like they usually do, and they've all been handled really well so far.

Um, so yeah, it's been quite smooth running operationally.

Stevan: Uh, let's, let's get into the origin stories. 'cause this is what I, I, I like the most is hearing people's, uh, journey into the community, the Burning Man or the Blazing Swan community. JJ, you wanna go first? What, how did you get involved?

JayJay: I was, um, I was invited by Fire Tribe.

Um, I was, uh, I used a spin. Spin fire with them at, um, yeah, the weekly meets in, in Perth and yeah. And they said, oh, there's this thing blazing [00:03:00] Swan. I was like, what's that? Um, and I said, oh, is that like one, you know, I know. I've never been to, never went to festivals or anything like that. So everything was all new to me.

And I said, oh, is that like all these festivals that are getting popular? I said, no, no, no. It's not a festival. It's not a festival. I was like, okay, cool, cool. Um, yeah. So they said, no, it's an it's event. And I was like, oh, what does that mean? Um, so yeah, they described to me and they said, oh. It's, um, yeah, it's like every, you know, like there'll be a tent, so there'll be a tent with this kind of music and there'll be a tent with that kind of music and, um, yeah, but nothing they said really, really, like, I

Stevan: Sounds like a doof to me.

JayJay: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I, no, I'd never, like, I, you're probably gonna, everyone's probably scolded me for saying this, but I'd never even heard of Burning Man. Um, I'm a complete, I like to live under a rock, actually, so, yeah. So that, yeah, it was, nothing could have prepared me for what it was. Um, so yeah, I went with Fire Tribe the first year and I, you know, like, as everyone says, like an emotional up and down year, I wasn't in [00:04:00] such a good place.

Um, but then met some really beautiful people that like helped me in my bad place. And then I had some good and bad places and absolutely loved it. And yeah, basically wanted to come back the next year, so, you know, but then I got, I've been with a different theme camp each year. I don't know if I'm cursing them or.

Something. Um, yeah, it might be bad luck for people. I dunno. But it's great. It's good to be with different people every year. And you know, it means that you end up,

Stevan: what year was first blaze?

JayJay: I think it was 2, 2021. It was, it was after there was one that didn't happen because of the COVID. Um, and then I think this was like the first one that happened after, after COVID that we were allowed.

So they, you know, they were all saying to me, oh no, this is, this is Jenny Craig Blaze, this is Blaze Light, you know? And I was like, oh, wow, wow. And they're like, yeah, there's way more people than [00:05:00] this. Um, but that was actually probably a nice first year to come into because you could, if you did meet people, you'd still.

Bump into them again. Um, and yeah, whereas it was a big difference the next year where it was a bit more full. I was like, oh, like it's, you might see someone once and then that's it. Yeah. So it was actually kind of nice. I kind of enjoyed Blaze Light.

Wesley: Um, I'll give my backstory then. So I used to run various conventions prior to, um, blazing Swan, and I knew I had quite a lot of friends in the fire spinners.

And that's basically where I got linked into things. I wasn't a fire spinner myself, just had lots of friends. And a few of those came to me when this idea of running a Burning Man event in, in WA happened. And a couple said, I think you should go along to this committee meeting. Um, well, sorry, It wasn't a committee meeting.

I go along to this meeting to talk about, you know, the, this idea. And at that time I'd just been burnt [00:06:00] out from running a, a another committee with a group of like geeks. And so I pretty much went to this meeting, kind of expecting to say no, and I pretty much said I was the first one there at the first meeting and just said, unless everyone here is is really good.

I'm, I'm not really interested, I'm afraid. But I said, I'm just here to see how it's going. And everyone was amazing. Like I could just tell like the passion, the energy and the interest from all those first people and I was like, okay, yep. They all seem switched on and eager and I'm willing to, you know, step up and give it a crack and see if we can make this idea take off.

Um, that's kind of where I got started on it. Really?

Stevan: Yeah. That was 2013, 14 or something.

Wesley: Oh, that, I can't actually remember when that meeting was. So 13 we started, it might have been 2012, that meeting,

Stevan: right

Wesley: we did do initial, a little mini event up in the hills of, of Perth, um, a little Ignite festival, and that got like 300 people.

That would've [00:07:00] been 2013, the first blaze of 2014. I can't remember if that first meeting or 12 or 13, I really can't remember that.

Stevan: Hmm mm That was, yeah, 2014 was, um, the first year. Yeah. Yeah. That was, um, you, you were involved in that as well, and, and you were the

Wesley: Yes. Correct.

Stevan: You volunteered as the lead ranger and that's how you got your

Wesley: Yeah.

Stevan: Your blazing swan handle,

Wesley: Correct. Yes. That, that is absolutely correct. I was the, the lead ranger. I did the temple design, I did the built the effigy was on the theme camp. I was the secretary of the, um, committee and various other things. I can't even remember now.

Stevan: Do you wanna talk about your theme camp, the insider?

Wesley: Correct. Yeah. Because I had some friends that used to basically drink cider, um, Australia Day and sit down and just rate them all, like do a kind of actual like, um, taste testing thing and just like, this sounds like something we can totally do it. Blazing swan is like, go down with a shitload of cider. Um, and basically have a [00:08:00] massive board of ratings and just let people like hand outsiders throughout the event and people rate them.

And at the end of the event, we have the winning ciders. And that's, that's what we did with a group of my friends. Um, which was, which was pretty good though. I was so hectic. I didn't really help that theme camp anywhere near as much as I supposed to. They're invariably looking after me. Most of that event.

Stevan: Well, I think you guys ran outta sight on the second day or something,

Wesley: It was something like that. We got lots of donations. We weren't expecting the numbers that there were.

Stevan: Yeah. Well, yeah, blazing swan number one. Yeah.

Wesley: It certainly did way better than we expected. Like we weren't sure we'd kind of get around 300 people, um, when we first talked about it and we ended up about 1200.

Um, so yeah, it was, it was certainly proved that there was lots of interest in the community.

Stevan: And JJ for yourself, how did you get involved into the committee and the community Blazing Swan?

JayJay: Um, I. I went to, I look for a long time, I wasn't even aware that there was, you know, an [00:09:00] organization or a membership that you could be a member of.

I, I had attended Blaze, was it? Yeah, so I started, attended Blaze twice, and then, yeah, I, someone, you know, I was dating someone that said, Hey, yep, cool. Like, you know, like, who made me aware that there was a organization, there was an annual, the, oh, there was like a special general meeting about to happen. Um, so that's when I, I joined up and I went to that and yeah, things were said in that meeting that really hit home with me that I was like, okay, I wanna be more involved in this.

I wanna protect this thing we've created because it has absolutely meant the world to me. So I, I did my blazing Swan for me has been. The, the, the doorway into being an artist. So I, you know, I've made stuff and I've, I've been artsy and everything, but I've never really had a purpose for like, for [00:10:00] anything, any of my skills.

But then, um, you know, I was with, I was with the, the, I was gonna be with the Stygian Saloon and, um, this was the year that it didn't happen. There was, yeah, there was a year in between where the event got, had to get canceled. Really, really close to it.

Stevan: 2022.

JayJay: Yeah, I can tell. Yeah. Yeah. So that was the, uh, um, I was gonna be with Stygian Saloon and I'd actually made, I'd actually started making a thing.

I asked, um, I asked James if I could, I said, look, it's like a, it's a mannequin that I'm doing up to be like a, like a witch. And, you know, because we're the, the swamp, the swamp saloon. I said, can I, can I put her in, in the, like, near the swamp and call her the swamp witch? And so that was, that was gonna happen.

And so I started working on it and I was really excited. And then the event got canceled, and then the, it was sort of like closer to when it was started to build up again. I was in, in James' warehouse and I was talking to him and, you know, and he, and he was talking about [00:11:00] art grants and, and he was saying, he's like, well, you could apply for an art grant.

And I said, oh, could I, I don't, they don't, they only give them out to people that are like, I don't know, like, you know, like. Money earning artists or you know, people that are, you know, with degrees,

Stevan: professional people.

JayJay: Yeah, yeah. Professional art, you know, I was like, I was like, no, I'm, I'm just, I'm just must make stuff, you know?

Um, and he said, no, you can apply for an art grant. I was like, oh, I could apply. Oh, I could be an artist. Um, and so I applied my first art grant with, with a swamp witch that was gonna be in the, in the swamp, the year it got canceled. And yeah, so that was how I started with art. So that event, yeah, that was my first art piece.

And yeah, from there, like just, oh, the amount of people that you get feedback from, you know, like watching people view the stuff you've made and you know, and give you so much love back for it. That really built me up and it started a passion where I was like, okay, I wanna start making more stuff like this.

I wanna start making props and yeah, so that was, [00:12:00] so Blaze means a, a huge amount for me as an artist, especially the fact that it was like I didn't have any qualifications. I didn't have, you know, they didn't ask for my. Experience in terms of like, what, what I've exhibited and, you know, who's, who's PR previously said yes to me it was, it was literally like, what's your idea?

I've got a phone call from the art lead saying, cool, tell me more about it. And yeah, and it was my, my passion for the project that, yeah, that meant that I, I could receive a bit of money to make the thing and that that meant the world to me. So, yeah. So, you know, fast forward to when I'm at this, this special general meeting and, you know, and, and I was like, I wanna be more involved and, you know, and protect this thing that's mean, the world meant the world to me.

So I didn't, that was the meeting where I, you know, I was made aware that there was a committee. I didn't stand up for the committee then because, um, to be quite frank, someone stopped me and told me not to. Um, and I was like, okay, yeah, I listened to [00:13:00] that person. And maybe that was a good thing because when I finally did stand up to the committee.

Stand up for the committee and, and, and vote and, um, nominate myself this year. I was in a really good place to be able to do it and to be able to take it on. So, yeah. So I, I sort of, yeah, got voted in the committee in yeah, this year. And yeah, it's been a really cool journey for me.

Stevan: And how do you like to, you know, with, with your, with your leading role now, what, what's your plans for the future?

How do you like to see that, uh, evolve, especially with Blazing Swan art?

JayJay: Um, I think that, like, I, you know, look, I've, I've looked a little bit about what Burning Man does. I think that like this year we've, we've kind of had a few mural artists and we've been able to like, put up, you know, their murals on the, the marquees, um, the, the org are using and everything.

And I'd really like to support. Like murals a bit more. Maybe even have a gallery I've been to. Yeah. Like other festivals where they like, where they have a proper art [00:14:00] gallery. Um, you know, I've, the Burning Man has a wicked little like, mural structure, um, because really like it's, yeah, murals are, they take a lot of work and you know, like this year I've actually, you know, with the rise of things like Temu and all this like instant art, AI art, I like, I would really like to see us actually support artists do who, who put in so much fucking time and work into creating beautiful things.

And you know, I'm not gonna go around telling everyone they can't hang their like, amazing Temu bought. You know, mass produced murals on the walls that are probably ripping off other artists some, but I'd really like us to see, I'd really like us to not do that. Um,

Stevan: yeah, that's right.

JayJay: Um, so yeah, I'd like to see us really support those artists who, and kind of stand up against ai.

And I know that there's a lot of divided opinions about AI in the org. Um, but I, like I'm anti ai. Like if someone. [00:15:00] Someone asked me to help create a logo and they, they sort of said, Hey, like, here we, we've got this logo and can you just make it, you know, black and white? And I said, where did you get logo from?

Oh, ai. I said, no, sorry. Um, I'm anti-AI, it rips off artist and yeah, I won't do it. So it's like, I'd like to see us support, that sort of side of things. We're an arts event where we recognize that it's hard, it's hard to be an artist. You don't get, you know, support from people. People won't invest in art.

Like, they'll invest in, um, like say a brewery where they can, everyone can drink lots of booze. You know, they won't invest in art. Like, they'll invest in things that, you know, won't, like server. A functional purpose. So yeah, I'd like to see us support that and say, this is really important to give all these artists all the opportunity in the world to express themselves, but also to get their name out there and to be able to connect with people.

I don't wanna stop artists from saying, [00:16:00] here's my website where you can see more of my art because it's, it's freaking hard. You know? It's not, and there's been a lot of com questions this year around Decommodification and you know, like if an artist is doing an art piece and they have a, a professional website, if they are an artist that does manage to make a little bit of money off of their craft, you know, there've been questions around is, is it okay to let them put their website in the dust guide?

Um, I think that's fine because the, it's, that's the whole point. We're here to support art. We're not here to say, oh, you can't put your website where you, where you make art on the dust guide. 'cause that's, you know, 'cause that's commodification. It's like, no, we're here to support artists. That's a big thing for me.

Stevan: Your thoughts? We are you, are you an AI guy? Are you, are you a tech guy?

Wesley: I'm a tech guy, but no, I, I agree with JJ as well that I'm, I'm not interested in ai, AI used for anything except things that are kind of a relevant, like any kind of like promotional thing or public thing should [00:17:00] not be using ai and I certainly wouldn't, wouldn't think it should be used.

Anything to do with Blazing Swan.

Stevan: Yeah, it feels like it doesn't belong in the community, but, uh, I guess that's how we're progressing. So,

JayJay: yeah, I mean, even in terms of, um,

Stevan: it's controversial,

JayJay: like the, I know that people have said to me, Hey, like, look, like you should use AI to write a resume. And I'm like, why would I do that?

Because then I'm, I'm presenting, like I'm presenting myself as someone, I'm not, like if you, if you write a resume with AI and you turn up to a job interview and they're like, oh, it turns out you can't say all those big words and whatnot. You just, you're not being true to yourself and

Stevan: no, you're not being authentic.

JayJay: Yeah. And you know, we've, we've used AI too. Yeah. There's a lot of using AI to write, you know, our, our lovely corporate emails. Um, you know, so we can sound very official, but I'm like, we're blazing swan man. Like, yes, we wanna be professional, but let's, you know, let's be human. [00:18:00]

Stevan: Yeah, I think a lot of people go to, to blazing swan for the, for the, uh, you know, authentic experience.

Wesley: Absolutely.

JayJay: Yeah. It's about, yeah, it's about human connections. So why would we support AI in anything we do? Hmm. Sorry, I have some very strong opinions. I might give you a passionate apologies advance.

Stevan: And what do you, what do you guys think about performance art?

JayJay: Yeah, I'd like to see us, um, I know that there have been a lot of, there have been a few art grant applications for, um, for workshops and performance pieces. And I don't know, like, I don't think we've ever really defined any of these rules. So I, like this year I was told on the committee, I was told, Hey, look, there's, um.

You know, we have to, we have to put some rules in place around why we choose art, like art pieces. For art grants, you have to have some criteria and you have to have some, you know, I was, I was told, oh, you have to have a like a point system. Um, straight away. I went, no, 'cause you, you know, you can't judge art by [00:19:00] numbers.

But I said, look, as, as the responsible committee member, adva advocating for art, but also wanting to, um, you know, appease the auditors, can I please write this criteria so that, you know, my aim was to try and make criteria for the art grants that was both gonna benefit artists and mean that we weren't gonna reject applications because they didn't fit in a box.

And, but also. You know, appease the, the paperwork side of things where we, we can justify that we're being fair, um, if we reject a project. So I took that on board as a project. I think I did Okay. It still needs work, but Yeah. So there was, can we, sorry, go ahead.

Stevan: Can we talk about, can we talk about some of the projects that were, that were rejected?

I think there was, it's, I, I, I've seen it in the, uh, in the social media. Blazing Swan Community Page, uh, is that the one with the, the Simpsons? What's the title? Quite long.

JayJay: Um, do you want the full title because it's, it's [00:20:00] probably about,

Stevan: yeah, sure. I think it's for the listeners out there. I think, um, I,

JayJay: I'd have to look it up because Do you have internet,

Stevan: it's a mouthful.

JayJay: Do you have, um, no, no. The full title wasn't, yeah, no. Wez is, Wez is getting the guide out. The full title wasn't in the Guide because that, God, no, I, hang on, see if I can remember. One. One was, um, you are an ugly butt face and something, something, butt face. And I'm a smelly butt face and I like to keep my kiss my own butt.

Wesley: Yep.

JayJay: Um, and then the other one was, what's the point in going out? We're probably gonna end up back here anyway, which I've been told are both direct Simpsons quotes. I'm not a Simpsons watcher, so I, so some of the references might be a bit lost on me. Um, like I kind of, yeah, I, you know, like, I, like, like most people, I probably watched The Simpsons when, you know, when, uh, like when it was on as a kid.

Um, but I'm not a,

Stevan: it's still running,

JayJay: so I don't, yeah, I don't, I don't [00:21:00] know the quotes they're referencing very well, but they're, apparently, they're direct Simpson quotes.

Stevan: And what's the story behind that? The, the theme camp or the art piece and, and the build. Uh, so, um, there's also been a documentary made about it as well.

JayJay: Yeah. Yeah. Um, so she applied. She applied for an art grant and yeah, basically said I wanna recreate the Simpson's house and Moe's tavern, and yeah, and I, I sort of said like, I, I kinda like liaise with her a bit. Like, so as the, you know, I was like, oh, okay, cool. That maybe, maybe in your application, like, you know, like put like, what's it, you know, like what's the point?

Like what's the point of it? And like, you know, maybe put a little bit about, you know, I kind of guided it through it and said like, look, maybe, um, because we, we, we kind of, we had a, like, we introduced the idea of having like a panel of people as well. So it wasn't just, and I, I think to my knowledge in the previous year, it's just been, we've just had like the art lead and the art lead would do like, you [00:22:00] know, like if people applied the art lead would cold call them and say yes or no, and then that would go to the committee.

Um, so yeah. So this was a part of that selection criteria this year where, you know, we were told, no, you have to have a, you have to have a five person panel. Assess these projects. So I kind of treated it like kind, you know, kind of a little bit more official, um, where I'm like, okay, like, you know, I'll be your guide to, you know, to make sure the panel has all the information to be able to look at your project and say yes or no.

Like, you know, can you put in this and this? So I, I did sort of like guide her through the process a little bit and yeah, and she said, you know, she wanted to create it and, you know, give people that like feeling of, you know, like, um, you know, the feeling of what, you know, when you were a kid and everything was safe and um, you know, like the connection with the things that we grew up with.

And I was like, okay, cool. Then that was, and you know, and she, she did really like, she, [00:23:00] she gave a really, um, good budget breaking down everything that she'd need the money for. It was quite a large budget and, you know, and she gave her a decent plan and I said, what's it gonna look on the outside? And she even started to build.

Like a, like a mini model of, of what it would look like. And I was like, wow, that's cute that you're going into all this effort. That was cool. Um, and I said, cool, great. And, but it was all presented at the panel and I was in the panel as well. But yeah, it was there. The five people in the panel sort of said, no, I don't think this really, I don't think this is really suitable for Blaze because of the aspect of it that it's, you know, there, there were a couple of things.

I mean, one, I don't, I don't actually know if I'm allowed to really talk about this, but I'm, I'm, I'm a person that's very transparent and this is the reason why we had the panel and everything to, you know, to be transparent about the reasons why we, you know, we said no to a project, but, you know, basically it was, I guess, yeah, [00:24:00] that, that was for me personally, for me, like looking at it and it wasn't really, like, there wasn't a huge element of it that was like original creation, if you know what I mean.

Like, it wasn't, um, for me it wasn't original design. It was, it was. Like, so, you know, basically like five panel members said no, but like, I, I can speak on my opinion personally is that it's great. It's, it's a great thing for people who love, who love The Simpsons, um,

Stevan: or pop, pop culture that, you know, it doesn't have to be The Simpsons. Yeah,

JayJay: yeah, yeah. So it's like, for me personally, art is like, specifically like blazing swan art, you know, it's all about supporting stuff that is, is your own, like, is your own idea that you've gone, oh my God, I wanna create this thing. And there's, um, you know, and we all have like influences. Like we, you know, I'm, I'm inspired by trees.

I make big fake trees and, you know, I put a bit of a fantasy element on it, you know, so we're all inspired by things and you can [00:25:00] combine things and other things. But yeah, I, I kind of go, I kind of look at the element of it that the artist has put themselves into. So, you know, like if it, you know, with the mural artist, you know, there's a lot of work where.

Like they're putting, they're putting the paint on the canvas and they're deciding where that paint goes. Nobody, they're not using a pattern to decide whether it's not paint by numbers. They're deciding where that paint goes and that's themselves getting put into it. Right. And you know, so, but with this piece I sort of went, well if, if you asked, if you sort of said, okay, well why are you putting the couch there?

Why, why is the room laid out in that way? Oh, well, the answer would be because that's like, that's the way it's laid out in a TV show that I've seen. And that's, that for me is what kind of made it something that, although it's a brilliant effort to. To, to make something. And of course it's going to like, you know, everyone's emotionally connected with it, which is really great.

But for me, that was where it wasn't something that I would, I would like blazing Swan to give art grant [00:26:00] money to because it was, you know, I would, you know, like, I would like to see more of, you know, how much of yourself are you putting into this piece? Like, and you know, the emotions that you're drawing from people, are those emotions are, are you, are you drawing those emotions because of something that you've, you've put into it?

Or is, uh, those emotions being drawn because they relate them back to a TV show that they, they watch when they were a kid. And that, that for me was why I said no, but like, I love it as a theme camp. I think it's really great. It's been really successful and loved it. Although we did. I would, I would, it's probably better.

Like I did kind of advise her to take official references to the show out of it, you know, because a parody is, a parody is where you don't actually mention the original names, right. It's not, it's meant to be that you've, you've altered it a little bit so that people can kind of tell what it's about, but it's not directly referencing the original names, and that's why it's a [00:27:00] parody.

So I think for me, it's a little bit still using original names in the advertising for it. Um, as well as the, you know, in the dust guide, um, using images from the TV show to advertise the fundraiser. That was a little bit off putting for me. But otherwise very well done. Like so, so happy that she managed to fundraise, you know, and, and fundraise for it.

And, you know, I'm so happy that people enjoyed it. I just. Yeah. For me, I, I don't think it was really something that we should be putting as an art piece. I know there's a lot of people that disagree with me, and I'm not throwing any shade towards, to Sarah or her piece.

Stevan: No. But sometimes, yeah.

Yeah. But sometimes, uh, a vision of a build or an art piece can be, can be seen, seen differently, like seen the wrong way or, you know, it's different categorized like, it, it probably, like you said, it's [00:28:00] fantastic as a theme camp. Yeah.

JayJay: Yeah. And it is, it is really hard for the artists to get across their vision. There've been, it's interesting to see all the other beautiful projects people have put across that, um, in their applications. We were like, oh, okay, okay. Yeah. And you kind of just trust that, um, that that person's gonna bring out something beautiful and, you know, you just kind of go with the, the whimsy that they put into it and going, yeah, cool.

Like they're, they've got a cool idea and let's see what they come out with. And, and yeah, it's amazing to see. The difference, like when, you know, when you look at the pieces out and you go, oh wow, I never would've predicted that it would be like that from their application. So you've, you've gotta have such an open mind when you look at the applications to, because, you know, we're like, typically artists sometimes aren't actually great at paperwork as it turns out.

Who would've predicted? Um, so, so I think there's definitely,

Stevan: well just like doctors not, not being able to, to hand write, you know, just, yeah.

JayJay: Yeah. And, and

Stevan: I get it. I get it.

JayJay: Someone actually said to [00:29:00] me, oh, what if, yeah, what if someone's actually like dyslexic or. Um, you know, or, or even if they're vision impaired, I was like, oh God.

Yeah. Like we're, we're not really being very Yeah. With the application process. Like we, we need to offer a bit of help. 'cause Yeah, definitely. If someone's not able to write their idea out, you know, clearly, and like, you know, we shouldn't be saying no to someone because they, they don't have the ability to actually express their idea clearly.

So I, yeah, I like, I'd like to be able to help, you know, like in next year, try and provide a lot more help in, you know, with the applications. And to do that we need a really clear idea of, of what we're gonna say yes or no to, or, you know, like what, what the criteria is. So that's kind of my mission for the next year.

And, you know, and if I'm, if I'm still like, I'm, I'm definitely want to stay on the committee. And if I, if I do still stay on the committee, if the members are still voting for me, then that's gonna be my [00:30:00] mission is to make this criteria really clear and it's all gonna be with the aim to support. Artists who have really beautiful original ideas that are, you know, you know, that maybe even like, that wouldn't get chosen for what I like to call corp, pretty small, pretty art, you know, so, yeah.

Stuff that, yeah, if they have the passion for it and if they, yeah, basically if they have the passion for it, like I wanna support it.

Stevan: Cool. And, and what kind of art has inspired you out there, Wez, this year?

Wesley: Um, I'm always a passionate lover of all the lights and the special effects stuff. That's certainly a, a big one.

And really, they're very obvious and very, like, they're very apparent on site. I also love finding random things in random corners, and I haven't done that search this year. I've just been too busy. Like, invariably you'll find someone set up some. Like some little scene or something like, you know, behind a couple rocks, which I [00:31:00] adore immensely when people put f into this like, tiny little thing that has like almost no visual, uh, awareness until you find it.

So I've only really seen the big flashy things, which I do love, but there's probably other things out there I probably love more that haven't even found yet. Um, so that's kinda where I am this year. I guess.

JayJay: There's been a few, like, like, um, like yeah, I love renegade, art, installation. Yeah,

Wesley: absolutely. Um,

JayJay: there's been a few little like where people have like arranged twigs and rocks and, um, I feel like someone made like a wedding arch out, like near the, near the Sound Camp Alley.

There was like, yeah, there was like, it looked like it was, there was an aisle and a wedding arch there. Mm. Yeah. So I love seeing the things that people actually create while they're out here. Or maybe they're, they're brought as a kind of a little bit of a secret renegade thing. Mm, yep. Yeah. Little. That's cool.

Stevan: What about this year's effigy and Temple?

Wesley: What do you wanna know about it? Or what, what, what's your question?

Stevan: Well, what, what do you guys, uh, think about it and what was your, um, and, uh, yeah, how, how did it compare and like, um, [00:32:00]

JayJay: as a, as a tree lover. I loved and hated this year's temple. So, um, yeah, so this year's Temple Design was a, it was a, I think it was a, it was a beautiful, um, like the whole, like, it had like a kind of wall around the outside of it.

And on the inside was this sort of garden of trees. And then there was sort of like a, I think it was based on a tomb design.

Wesley: I think it was Celtic. Yeah. Celtic Monument style. Yeah.

JayJay: So kinda had like a garden tomb element. Um, and like he. Like a lot of like natural trees, I'm guessing, um, obtained from the nearby property, from the, you know, with the, yeah.

Collaboration with the farmers. So, yeah, I, I absolutely loved it to see a beautiful, like a natural element put into the temple. I loved the, the, like there was a, there was a definitely a artistic twist on it. Um, absolute fan of [00:33:00] Joe's. Work and his, you know, his theme camp is probably my, is my favorite, a blazing swan, you know, it's got, you know,

Stevan: what's the theme camp?

JayJay: Uh, the Magical Frontier. And they're, so they're kind of, they're right up the back of the, like the whole sort of city where they utilize the rocks, um, to, you know, with candles and they have actually have like a live musician. And it's, it's such a small, like, it's, it's like a walkthrough space. There's no, or there's a tiny bit of structure, but it's, it's all just utilizing the rocks and the natural landscape.

Bit of like, yeah, the saloon. Saloon feel, live music. Lots of candles. Lots of lanterns. It's so, it's beautiful and soulful and romantic and I've always loved going there. Um, so yeah, and his, the temple design really reflected his style. Um, I think it had like lots of salt lamps and Yeah, the tomb was, it kind of, it kind of looked to me like, yeah, like they've used, um, they've created like fake rock walls with some render and, [00:34:00] um, yeah.

So, and as you walk through, like they've used, uh, like there was a, well there was a well with like where they've used mirrors to make the, well look like it was deep. And then it was, you know, like, you know, created like fake caverns using mirrors and oh, it was so beautiful. And yeah, so it was kind of bittersweet for me watching that burn.

'cause I was also like, I love trees and it's using trees. Oh, now I'm watching trees burn. And that makes me feel sad. But, um, but yeah, it was so beautiful and like the. The, the best thing was, um, yeah, someone put, someone, put a wedding dress up as as, so you go, as you walk through the garden into the tomb, someone put a wedding dress up on the wall with a note and it's, it's really like I, I've heard people saying, oh, did you see that wedding dress?

Like, it was really like, impactful for people. Um, and when I went to look at the temple I walked through and when I walked through, Joe was standing there looking in this wedding dress and I, I said, oh, cool. Temple design, bro. [00:35:00] That's really, really, I can really see you and your, like, your style in it. And yeah.

And I said, did, did you put that dress there? And he said, no, I, someone else put it there. And he was just, he sort of seemed mesmerized by it. And yeah. So that was really cool as well to actually kind of see the, the artist's, um, reaction to people. Yeah. Other people's input into their thing. And yeah, it's like a beautiful, like, it's just a beautiful little emotional connection circle.

It's, I love it.

Stevan: Yeah, that's very impactful. And the, and the effigy. Can you describe some of the, uh, designs features?

JayJay: Um, it was a, oh, it was like a giant egg. Yeah. Yeah. It was a, it was a giant egg, but like the,

Stevan: a giant egg.

JayJay: Um, I, I kind of, my, my reaction to it is I looked at it and went, this is great. Someone's made like a better [00:36:00] orb to basically just like stick it to the house of orb that it's actually a better orb.

But that's 'cause like there's, yeah, there's just this giant rivalry going between the house of orb and the church of belligerence, which I think is hilarious to watch. Um, so that was my. Yeah, I don't know. Like did you, did you look at it like that way, Wez? Or is that just me?

Wesley: Um, no, I, it certainly came across more sphere than an egg.

There's no denying it. They, they didn't quite get it having a point at the top, so it looked like a sphere. And once you got up close, you could see that laid logs around the bottom of it, and then you kinda go, ah, right. It kind a nest with an egg. Um, but it took a bit to get there, but it was all done of triangles.

Like it was a beautiful geometric shape, the actual sphere. It was, um, egg sphere,

JayJay: I think it was pentagons and hexagons. I was staring at the design when I was in there and I was like, oh, okay.

Wesley: Yeah. All triangles stacked together to make Yeah, to make the shapes. Yeah.

JayJay: Yeah. But did you notice that there was a [00:37:00] pattern?

Yes, there was a pattern where it was like, I think it was like a Pentagon in the middle and then the other ones, yeah. It was a really cool, real, really cool for, yeah, like to use patterns like that as well in the designs of things for, um, you know, like, yeah, people that like to stare at things for a long time.

Wesley: They made an event space as well, which I've done the last couple years. They've made the effigy and event space.

JayJay: Yeah.

Wesley: So this year say the same. It had basically a, a, a dropdown bar or we could pull it up and have a DJ deck. And so there's quite a lot of different theme camps. Took it over for one night and basically did a bar or a, or a dance or something.

So it gi gives a different vibe. Like I'm still a bit mixed about using the effigy event space. Um, why? Because we have a lot.

Stevan: Why? Why is that? Um, why is that? I always, is it sacred?

Wesley: No. No. I don't think the effigy sacred, but it's an effigy is always something large and visually impactful. Like it doesn't need to be event space.

[00:38:00] We have loads of event spaces around, so I don't think we need another one.

JayJay: I think the part in that where it's really important though that it's an event space that like all the other spaces Yeah, the theme camps and the theme camps do their own thing. This is an event space where Blazing Swan can say, okay, this is what we wanna do this year that supports.

The idea or the theme or whatever we want to put across. So. Mm-hmm. Like, my favorite thing was the fact that they had Billy, who is the head of our DPW, like the, you know, department of Works building the place. Um, we had Billy's band play there, um, which is awesome. 'cause he's like, he's such a, a fricking pillar of the community and you know, I've heard about Billy's band, Billy's band, and I was like, oh man.

And I finally got to see them play well, kind of. I kind of missed it because I got distracted. Um, but I, yeah, I do that artist who would've guess, but yeah, I finally gotta see him play and that was amazing. And I, [00:39:00] you know, and then we had, um, Tim stepped up and started singing and playing on the guitar and yeah, Tim another, another cool guy from now our setup crew and yeah.

And that for me really hit home. I was like, I, I would love to see us actually support a live band every year, because that's another thing that live bands are dying out and. You know, it's clear by, like, you can see like the love of like the magical frontier where they have a live musician. Mm-hmm. Like you can see the clear support for it.

And it's hard for bands. Like you think about like a dj, okay cool. You have like a lot of expensive equipment, but you have one person generally that you know, and some equipment that's, you know, could, could probably stack fairly neatly into a neat little package. Um, you think about a band and you think about, you usually got like, you know, like three, three to five musicians.

You've got a huge drum kit. You know, Mike stands all that. Um, it's not a neat little package, but it is a really beautiful thing that's dying out in this age [00:40:00] of, you know, electronic AI and, and, and yeah. All the programs and stuff. I would love to see us say, yeah, pick one band a year and say, look, here's a local band.

We wanna give them five free tickets. 'cause that's, that's a lot of money. Five people buying a ticket to an event. That's a lot of money. So if we can just gift. Free tickets to a band and a, like, you know, give 'em help to get out here. And I think, like, you know, when you think about it, the idea of the effigy being the effigy is life.

And the temple is like, you know, the quiet, you know, the effigy is the

Wesley: soul, often the soul.

JayJay: Yeah. The soul, yeah. So the temple's, the soul, the effigy is like the, like the real, like the high, the high spirit and the you like Yeah. Like the yeah.

Wesley: I's even the tip of the heart as well. So I was thinking about, I'm not sure what you call the effigy, it's kind of like the

Stevan: Yeah.

Wesley: The head of the, the event. Almost like the brain. The brain doesn't give the right vibe though, either, so.

JayJay: Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's like that's the fun effigy the fun and, [00:41:00] and the crazy. And the temple is,

Stevan: it's a climax. Yeah.

JayJay: Is the heart and the emotion.

Wesley: Contemplative

JayJay: and the, yeah. Yeah. And the effigy like, let's get fun.

Have fun and yeah. So it's like.

Wesley: Yeah, so we have had live, live, um, camps before that. That's, they basically just do support live bands. Um, yeah. And back at the start, we also had a center camp, which was actually a place, and we did deck it out with stuff for live bands because the, one of the original founders, he has a band as well.

JayJay: Yeah.

Wesley: So actually brought down and played it. So that I thought worked quite well. You almost have that as well as a, an effigy

JayJay: yeah.

Wesley: Um, or it can be linked to the effigy I'm not necessarily still sold that the effigy has to be an event space, but that, that's, that's my, my feeling. That's all.

JayJay: I think, I think the main thing that, the important thing is the tickets to be able to be able to give the tickets to the band because like, so last year I was a part of Valhalla, um, and we, we had a, yeah, we had a live band.

And the only reason we were able to [00:42:00] get that light band there was because Friger, who, um, you know, she volunteers for DPW every year. She, uh, like last year we actually offered. A lot more. Yeah. Free tickets. So for all the setup crew, if they were doing a lot of hours, they would get extra free tickets to give to their loved ones.

And because she got extra free tickets for all the hours of work that she did for us and all the, all the effort that she went to, she actually gifted them to the band for Valhalla so that we could get the band there. And, you know, in terms of this year's Blazing Swan, I think that if, if Valhalla had come this year and asked for free tickets for a band, they Yeah, it would've, they, they would've had to sort it out themselves.

And so that, that was the point that, yeah. So like, if Blazing Swan could offer, just offer the free tickets to, to the band to say, yep, cool. We want you here, come and give us your beautiful gift of music, whether or whether they play in a theme [00:43:00] camp or whatnot. I would just like to see that happen. And I, but I just think that effigy is a good way to see that happen because it means that we can, yeah, we can.

Say, cool, we've got a space that we can offer up. And yeah. Like, you know, we Yeah. We're in. Yeah. We, we, yeah. Basically, so somewhere we need more than Yeah, yeah,

Stevan: yeah. We need more than Def Punk and Carl Cox. Yeah. Yeah.

JayJay: And again, it's all about supporting art, even musical art. Yeah. It's, yeah. It's, it's,

Stevan: well, you're absolutely right.

Artists that are coming or burners who, who are performing.

JayJay: Yeah. And it's not to say that like live musicians, it's not to say that if you have a five person band that you're worth any more than someone who's electronically creating music. It's just saying that we acknowledge that it's a lot harder when you've got five, physically five people and a drum kit.

The and five musicians. Yeah. And all the gear that's a, you know, [00:44:00] it's, you know, physically, visually it is a lot harder to transport that and get the tickets than one person with similar, some techy gear that like, that is a lot smaller and compact. But, you know, it's still, it's like yeah. Effort wise and, um, you know, value, you know, we're not saying that it's.

Worth more, or you know, they, any, either one of those artists puts in any more or less effort. It's just saying that we recognize that it's harder. Hmm.

Stevan: Yeah. And, and I do like the idea of having the effigy, you know, catered for to, for it to be interactive. So if, if, if an event wants to, if someone wants to host an event there.

Yeah. I think it, it, it brings people to the art as well as, uh, familiarizing and just sort of like getting connected to the art as well.

JayJay: Yeah. And I think, you know, it's important to acknowledge as well that like, like even though yeah, we are a beautiful accepting community, there is still going to be.

Like social and [00:45:00] political circles. Um, you know, and, and because we're such a beautiful connective community, people have, you know, some, you know, everyone's gonna know everyone. Everyone's gonna have relationships with everyone. Um, there's still that thing that happens where people will go, no, I don't wanna go to that theme camp, because those people are involved.

Whereas like the, yeah, the Effigy and the Temple or something. It's like, it doesn't matter who you know in the community or what gripes you have with who or what experience you've had with who, everyone gathers there because that is what it's all about. You know? It's like you put aside all your bullshit and all your, your social stuff and you go, yeah, we all love this thing and we're all here for this thing.

So it's, yeah, it's a neutral space that we can all agree on that we are here for this. Rather than kind of being like, I want to, you know, I wanna go see that thing, but it's in, you know, that person's house and you know Yeah. Like, you know, that you have sort of things [00:46:00] with, and Yeah. It's like where the effigy, it's no one's house effigy and it, it's no one's house.

It's everyone's house. It's a cool neutral space where we can all connect.

Stevan: Yeah. It's a centerpiece. Let's talk about, do you guys wanna talk about the burning of the church?

Wesley: Sure?

Stevan: Literally

JayJay: it took too long?

Wesley: That was, that, that was, how

Stevan: were you both there?

Wesley: Yeah,

JayJay: yeah, yeah. I, um, yeah, so I was, I was down. Did you, did you do the perimeter Wez?

Wesley: I, no, I wasn't, the perimeter was done by the, um, fire tribe.

JayJay: Yeah.

Wesley: I was there just supporting and checking and, and making sure things went smoothly. That was my job at that.

JayJay: Yeah.

Wesley: Particular thing

JayJay: I was, I was on the, and so the burning of the church, the church burn was actually, it was an art piece. They had their, the theme camp, which was separate. And so the burning of the church was an art piece this year. Um, so I, [00:47:00] yeah, I guess I was like, I was there. Um, I knew, like, I knew it was gonna happen.

Obviously the process, the application. It was apparently meant to be a secret. I don't think anyone was really told it was meant to be a secret. Um, there was a little bit of a, um, that, that, you know, like the, it was literally called Burn the Church. Um, and they changed the name last minute. So sorry guys, if it wasn't a secret, 'cause nobody told me.

Um, but yeah, so I was there at the front.

Stevan: It wasn't a dust app, wasn't it?

JayJay: Uh, so yeah, with the Dust app and the WTF guide, they, they changed the name of the, the art piece for at, you know, at the stage where the Dust app and the WTF guide were being collaborate, um, compiled. They changed the name of the piece, but originally it was just called Burn the Church.

So, and, and I, nobody really sort of said, oh, it was meant to be a secret, but yeah, nothing, they changed the name to, [00:48:00] uh,

Wesley: I dunno. Change name to,

JayJay: um,

Wesley: whip Up my WTF guide again. Yeah, I

JayJay: think it was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. The handy beautiful WTF guide where you can look at all the names of the art pieces and, and give all the artists the recognition they deserve.

Yay. Sorry. Sound really Shit, because I don't actually know the name of it, but to be fair, I've been looking at the Burn the church the whole time. I think it was like, fire be, might be thy name or

Wesley: fire Walk with me.

JayJay: Oh, I was so close. I was so close. Um, yeah, so Fire Walk with me. So they, so they wanted it to be a secret.

They didn't want any photos of it because they said no. Oh, you asked one of the guys, why don't you want photos of it? Um, you know, because the major one, the one thing I've got from feedback from all the artists is, oh man, we never get any photos of, we spent so much time making this stuff and we never get any photos of it.

So I kind of came out with my camera being like, yes, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do the deal right by all of this. And, and I was all [00:49:00] ready to like, take photos and then they had to sign saying no photos. I was like, oh, okay. But yeah, so he sort of said, oh no, we don't want photos of it 'cause we don't want it going up on social media because then people will see like, it's location, we'll give away the fact that it's burning.

Um, and I kind of went, oh, um, is it meant to be a secret? Um, so yeah. So, um, the actual,

Stevan: what were some of the comments? What were some of the comments around, um, with the crowd? Um, were people, did people know about the backstory? About the, the whole, you know, uh, meaning to it as well?

JayJay: I feel like, I think the, like the judging by the people standing around me.

I think, yeah, I think there are a lot of people that like, you know, we have a lot of people that don't know, like, that aren't like the, there's probably their first year or their, the sort of travelers or Yeah. So the don't quite understand. I don't know. Wez, can you comment?

Wesley: Um, I, I was not with the crowd.[00:50:00]

I was down at the, the, the perimeter, so I don't actually know how they reacted to it. Yeah, I assume people probably got an idea it was gonna burn 'cause where it was, 'cause then we have areas where obviously we, we put things out to be burnt that aren't, you know, near the edge of the event in a kind of area that if the wind blows, it's gonna blow them into an empty paddock.

So it was out in that area, like kind of down from the temple area. So I think anyone that went out there would've had a probably pretty good idea. It's the odds of it burning were high if they had any knowledge about what we normally do here.

JayJay: Yeah.

Wesley: For some people may have been new, they might have just gone out there going, oh, this is just an event I've, you know, seen on the thing I'll come out to, but what they actually said.

Yeah, that would've been actually quite interesting to hear what people in the crowd,

JayJay: even if it was your first year Yeah. You'd have no idea. Correct. You be, oh cool. This is a big thing. Um,

Wesley: there's a event happening out there. I'll just go and watch. Yeah.

JayJay: Like for, for everyone. I mean, I think that like from, from the years that I've been, the church has always been, um, up the end of the, the Sound Camp alley and I've, I I've heard that.

Yeah. It used to [00:51:00] be down by greeters, so it kind of has moved around a bit. Mm-hmm. So, so maybe some people might not have clocked that it was gonna burn. 'cause they go, oh well it's moved around. You know, it used to be down, down by the GR gate and you know, and there, so they might have been like, oh, cool, it's just moving around again.

But yeah, like it's, I I think it was really cool to see. I know they wanted to do a big performance and Yeah. I think they collaborated with Fire Tribe. I saw some wicked sword sword work by, um, Jed and Shay, and that was really beautiful to see. Um, and I'm sure it was, it was really important for them. And so, yeah, for me, I was, I was looking on it going, yeah, this is really cool how it's, um, I'm sure for the church it symbolizes sort of a change in their direction and a change, you know, it's all the hard work you've put into something over the years and, and you're kind of letting it go.

I, I guess I can't actually speak for them. Mm-hmm. Um, but I, you know, yeah. Like I have friendships with them and so, but I can't speak for what it meant for them. But this is what I [00:52:00] saw. I was like, Hey, this is really cool. They're really putting, um, you know, it wasn't just burning it because fuck it, we're getting rid of it 'cause it's old and molding and it's gonna break down anyway.

Mm. It was like, it was like a ceremony. It was, you know, we had a beautiful performance. There was a, um,

Wesley: there was several different bits

JayJay: chanting. Yeah. Um, I, you know, I yelled out a few comments because as you do, that's what we do. Um, you know, I needed to pee really badly and I was like, fucking hurry up.

Um, fuck if someone's had by all, um, and I'm sure

Stevan: so you're belligerent?

JayJay: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. They, you know, that's the thing. Yeah. Like, you know, like Yeah. They would've understood. Um, I was just like, hurry up. Yeah. Like, you know, you're doing this deliberately. Some of us need to pee, because I'm sure they would've been like, ha, we gonna drag this out.

You wanna watch it burn, we gonna drag it out with big performance. Fuck you. Um, yeah. So, yeah. Fun was had by all, and jokes will be had by all. [00:53:00] Um, I'm sure. Yeah. Like it's yeah. Sparked much joy and, and. Beligerence in the community already.

Stevan: Yeah. I think there's a little bit of church in, in us, in all of us now. It's been burnt down.

JayJay: I like to try and out belligerence for church, you know, like, yeah.

Get, yeah. Yeah.

Stevan: What's, what's your, what's your favorite, uh, stories of going the church?

JayJay: Ah, ah,

Stevan: just, just trying to get a drink and get fucked.

JayJay: Um, look, uh, I have probably only ever stepped inside the church once.

Stevan: You don't, don't wanna get converted.

JayJay: I can tell you my favorite story about going to the church belligerence's photo shoot, where they were, where, um, so they were putting together the calendar, having a photo shoot of the calendar where they were, um, yeah, so they [00:54:00] can, you know, another bit of a.

The, uh, fundraiser for the theme camp. And this was, um, yeah, probably af after, no, before it was actually, no, it might have actually been before my first year of Blaze. Yeah. No, yeah, this was actually before I'd even been to Blaze before they were having, yeah, they're having the photo shoot for their calendar and yeah, this was the one.

Yeah. So, um, Hannah from Fire Tribe was in it. Friend Brie was in it. And um, yeah, so I went along, I got invited along with them. Um, I got invited along with by Brie to come with her and to this photo shoot. And obviously I knew Hannah as well, so I like, yeah. Cool. And yeah, my fun favorite thing to do is when I know I'm gonna be going out with a bunch of people that like to be a little bit like.

Gothy and dressed in black and tell me to fuck off is turn up in a beautiful floral outfit with like, you know, like basically the most, like damn sure it's the most sweet, bumpy pumpkin [00:55:00] looking, you know, curly hair that like, basically just be the brightest little fairy, artsy fartsy pants I can just to annoy the crap out of them.

And so that's me being belligerent. And I, I went to their photo shoot and, you know, they were so incredibly welcoming. And then I played on a bunch of chains. There was some chains hanging down from the celing. It was like a warehouse with like, you know, where they hoist cars up and stuff. And they had some chains that were like, you know, for hoisting cars up and working them.

And of course I went, I'm gonna jump on these and twirl around on them and do some little fun things on them. So I did that and um, Sarah from the church was taking photos of me. Doing that. And it was just fun by all. And that's my favorite thing about it, is that it's like, yeah, it actually doesn't matter.

Like despite the whole we hate and hippies thing. Um, honestly, I think the church loves the hippies. I think they really secretly love. Yeah, they secretly love the hippies because let's be honest, I think I [00:56:00] might be a giant hippie and they,

Stevan: they're actually nice people actually, you know? Yeah.

JayJay: Yeah. They're just trying to hide the focus.

Wesley: I won't, I won't tell them. You said that

they'll come for you.

Stevan: What about you Wez?

Wesley: Um, I, my favourite memory is, is going up there one night, um, around midnight just before they did the blood ritual, which is where they basically turned all the sprinklers and spray, um, sort of blood on everyone. And that to me was one of my favorites. Watching people hang around to, to do that, the people that knew in the pill that didn't know was probably the, the highlight of seeing some people deliberately not get told.

Um, I knew, so I kind of decided I wouldn't step in at, at the midnight, um, bell and just watch other people step in. But yeah, that, that what they did, I mean, they've made this the stunning, like the whole atmosphere of what they do is, is superb. They've always done a great job of that.

Stevan: Yeah.

JayJay: I think what's really beautiful about the church as well is [00:57:00] that it is this, um, I think Craig said to me once that, um, you know, it's like we'll be so belligerent, like we'll be we'll belligerent, belligerently comply with things.

So, you know, it's like you would think, oh yeah. Like, oh yeah, if they tell you to do paperwork, Craig, you're gonna tell 'em to get fucked. He said, no, we'll do the paperwork so well that it'll piss people off because we're gonna be so we'll belligerently, do the paperwork that we'll do it better than they wanted us to, and it's actually gonna piss them off.

Yeah. So I was like, I fucking love that. Great. It's, yeah, it's, it's not actually about, um, you know, just being like, yeah, get fuck cunts. It's actually, yeah, I don't know. I think there's an art to belligerence and Yeah. It's the fact that you can

Wesley: know where to push it, I guess.

JayJay: Yeah. Yeah. You can, you can, you can shit talk, but like, they are the most caring, beautiful people that I have met in the entire blaze.

And, sorry to disrespect anyone that isn't in the [00:58:00] church, actually, there's probably, there's probably, there's a few more caring, beautiful people. But as a group, if I was to kind of look at any group as a whole, they are the sickest cunts of the bunch. So,

Stevan: well, who, who else, who else are sick cunts? Any shout outs?

If things don't work out, I mean, blaze doesn't run. So who are these people and what do they do? And like starting from, you know, all the way down to, from the, uh, gates to the sanitary, to rangers, to all these people.

JayJay: Okay. Is this, is this basically like shoutout hour? We're basically Yeah. Go shoutouts to people that we think are important.

Stevan: Yeah. Let's, let's go, let's, let's,

JayJay: okay, so just give

Stevan: give out some shout outs.

JayJay: Alright. Um, alright, so already, look already, big shout outs to Billy and Friger. Friger has [00:59:00] recently changed her name from Kirsty, so if anyone knows her, it's, she's Kirsty. Yeah. So shout out to Billy and Friger Billy. Like Billy is really Yeah, really well known.

Like setting up the event. He's, uh, the hand of God is his nickname. Oh no. Was it? No. The Hand of God's the machine. He is the, I think he's the voice of God because he is the one that can tell people to, to take the machine places. So he's the voice of God. Um, um, yeah. And yeah, so Friger has been the, you know, the person on the ground at DPW last year.

She like, she's so beautiful and so like, so many people open up to her 'cause she's so comfortable to talk to. And our crew, like, the big thing with the setup crew is they, like, when you think about it, like a lot of them are, you know, they're not people that, I mean, some of them, some of them earn a lot of money.

Some of them might be, you know, [01:00:00] some might be low income earners either way, like taking off, you know, three or four weeks of the year. Um, like if you didn't think about it on a typical person and on a typical full-time wage, you know, that's your whole holiday time. That's like, you know, I'm like, shout out to low income earners because, you know, we all wanna connect and enjoy this experience.

And a lot of us give up so much of our, our freedom and opportunity to come here and, you know, we are going, fuck, I'm gonna be paying for this, you know, in the, in the next few weeks while I'm trying to, you know, like budget my, my food shopping and everything around it and make sure I've got enough fuel money.

But it's all worth it when you come out here for the connection, right? So these, these guys, the, our setup crew, they're giving up three weeks to come out here and flog it and, you know, like, yeah. Exhaust themselves because of the, like, the connection with each other and the comradery. And last year Friger had like, you know, she's such a beautiful person that people go [01:01:00] to for support, that it really, it took a lot out of her.

She, you know, she, she was there to support people and to a lot about her. So, shout to Friger.

Wesley: Um, we've got like over 200 volleys, um, this year, which is kind of nuts from back when we started. So, yeah, I, I, I, I couldn't start a shout out I think, but one thing is my memory gets completely fried. Usually when I'm active and out here and stressed. I think my brain gets a bit wiped in memory. Um, so yeah, I certainly couldn't do any, um, go through a list of people would, I guarantee I'd forget people.

I wouldn't wanna do that, so I'd probably, yeah, probably prefer not to. Um, what was your other question, Stevan? Around, around the people. Oh. What do they do? What do they do out this? I honestly don't know out of most of them. I think we have an interesting mix of people coming from all over the place, which is actually one part that makes it so, so amazing.

You know, we, we go from. [01:02:00] We seem to get a hoard of hippies. A hoard of geeks. A hoard of nerds. We seem to get some professional people come out here like we have some, I dunno, just the, the range of people is quite incredible, I find. And I, I think that's, yeah. That makes it part of what makes it so amazing.

You've got this weird mix of people. They all bring their different

JayJay: Yeah.

Wesley: Backgrounds and interests together. So this, this boiling pot of stuff.

JayJay: You know, I actually think it's really important to recognize our, like, like, so Hannah's our fire lead. And Angus is, um, Angus has done the, the effigy design this year, and also a part of the, um, the pyrotechnic crew.

Um, you know, and these two people, powerhouse, powerhouse people used to be in a relationship. Um, still have a great, you know, a great friendship. So, so oppositely different, you know, and I just, yeah, I just wanna appreciate that, that [01:03:00] we've got our fire lead who is, um, methodical, won't put up with bullshit.

Very, very strong independent woman. And then we've got our, our, our crazy dude that loves to do all the, the, um, I had a wonderful conversation with Angus recently, where he is, you know, he is talking about wanting to get, um, the kids involved as, as everyone's getting older now and you know, the kids are growing up to be teenagers and the kids wanna get involved in.

Planning stuff and they're, yeah, they're not allowed because they're, they're not allowed on site before, while it still works site, but, you know, an said, Hey, I wanna get them, you know, basically like send them out to, um, get them involved in planning the effigy. Like as in like, you know, they have to go talk to the farmer and find out how much, you know, how much it would, you know, if they could trade for this much wood and stuff like that.

And. Send the kids out on a mission, and he's all about like, you know, breaking the rules, but in the right way, like [01:04:00] bending the rules, like trying to get around the rules. And I just look, I just fucking love that. I love that we've got two really passionate people around fire and the, but they're so, so different.

But yeah, it, it's like that's part of the magic of Blaze is that it's not, you know, nobody's looking down upon anybody for being different or being a certain way, you know, it's like, yeah, we can be absolutely immature little dickheads, but we still come together to make this magical event happen. And, you know, and that's a part of like the, the harder blaze is that you don't have to fit in a box.

Stevan: Oh, sorry. Are you there?

Wesley: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We seem to have lost you for a bit.

JayJay: Yeah.

Stevan: I was gonna ask you Wesley, uh, the early days of Blazing Swan, do you wanna talk more about that? Um, like 2014, 2015. Um, uh, with also building that, that relationship with the Kulin community.

Wesley: Yeah, I, I can go back and talk about the kind of start of the, [01:05:00] the, the Kulin relationship. Um,

Stevan: and also God said no. How did that come about? Ah, not just as a theme camp.

Wesley: Okay. Yes. That there, I can tell a bit of the origin story of how he got to Kulin. Um, I can go through. So when we got our community together, like we basically started to decide where we wanted to put the actual event. Um, some of the people were very keen to do it, a bit like Burning Man in the States where we go out in the desert somewhere like way away so people can't come to and from the city, which is fair enough, I wasn't as convinced, um, that we, we wanna do it like five to eight hours out in the desert and make it incredibly hard, which is part of what Burning Man's about.

But, you know, it's not as though we have to follow that. So we basically came up with this whole, like, looking for venues. Um, one of the venues a couple of the committee found was down south, like the southwest corner of, um, WA It was on the property of, um, a, a couple that was basically, I never actually went to this property, but it was basically basin down in a [01:06:00] kind of a bushy grass cold area that was really quite amazing from all accounts.

And they were basically starting to, to talk to these people about, um, using this space, um, to run the event. And during that discussion that it looked like everything was going ahead. And then after a couple weeks. That they had a summons to talk to these, this couple, and they said, I'm sorry, we can't live anymore.

Um, God said no. So obviously they were quite religious and obviously they had some decision was made that they,

JayJay: I've never heard this story,

Wesley: that they decided that, um, that they weren't gonna go ahead, which was convenient. That happened, well, well advanced event ever happening. So we didn't actually start commencing the event.

In any regard before it happened, but that then led to a theme camp here, um, called God Said Yes. God said yes. There was, there was God said yes, there was. God said no. [01:07:00] Um, here theme camps opposite and eventually,

Stevan: and one of them was at, on, on the, on the Salt Lakes.

Wesley: Correct. So that, that was God said, no start on the Salt Lake.

That was a sound camp. And God said yes, was up this end where we're sitting now.

JayJay: What happened to God said yes?

Wesley: It, it never really took, it was kind of part of the joke, but God said no became the actual actual thing. So that was first.

JayJay: Yeah. So actually, so you actually could say that God said no is actually the most belligerent theme camp.

Wesley: Yeah, true, true

JayJay: of swan because that's like a giant finger to the original

Wesley: Yes. The original potential venue. Yeah.

JayJay: Well my god, dunno what we're here.

Stevan: Well if, if God was Aussie he would say Yeah, nah

Wesley: very. Yeah, that's a cool, absolutely. So after that,

Stevan: but there's more. Yeah,

Wesley: there is more. So then it was like, well we, we still need to pursue venues.

So my plan was basically start to talk to the various [01:08:00] shires and local councils to basically look for farmland. So we pretty much started ringing councils, um, out in the wheat belt. We kind of divided up amongst the committee to ring different groups. But I think I might've been the only one that actually rang anyone in the end of that time.

Um, so I had to strip out into the wheat belt, and of course this was like post a whole sort of whole set of massive fires. So when you ring up a shire in the wheat belt or out in our hills and we say, we'd like to bring a festival out to you and burn massive wooden structures, you pretty much heard them like hang up the phone, like on the spot either if they said so they actually did that.

But Kulin was, was not that. So when I actually talked to Kulin, um, the person I talked to was like, oh yeah, we, we actually like burning things. They actually hosted an event in the same location, um, called the Kulin and Bush Races, and they make a big like horse kind of out of, um, hay bales and they burn it.

Like, not, not a massive structure, but [01:09:00] they do burn it. Um, and then she came back that the she actually knows about Burning Man. So it kind of seemed rather. Fortuitous that they, they were interested and they were keen, um, unlike most of the other, other Shires we'd talked to, um, another one nearby Kondinon. And we, we had a chat with them and they actually did end up showing us some farmland as well.

A couple big, like a farm had some massive big plots of land that he was rotating and he was happy for us to use. And then we came out here and if people haven't been to Blazing Swan before, um, it's on basically a racetrack, which is where Bush races is, but it's surrounded by facilities for those Bush races.

So there's a whole set of, um, commercial kitchens. There's showers, there's toilet blocks, there's some demountables, there's a couple other blocks of toilets out in the, kind of the paddock area. And there's another demountable out, like on the other side of the, um, the racetrack. There's a massive big rock on one side, which a Jilikan Rock, and there's massive big salt lake [01:10:00] on the other side, which is the Jilikan Lake.

So the site is stunning. Um, and with all this infrastructure, like it's kind of like it was ready to go and it was just, it was pretty much a perfect site. You know, we went to look to Kondinon, and Kondinon was basically just farm paddocks and it was like, well, do we want to do the plan of bringing everything in or do we basically want to use this gorgeous kind of pre-made site?

And it was pretty much a obvious conclusion that yeah, it made perfect sense to go with. Um, Kulin.

JayJay: So did, did it take much convincing, um, to get the, like the landowners here to agree to use it for this event?

Wesley: No, not really. So the, the landowners, um, actually rent this, this Bush racers block to the Shire and the Shire's looking for other events to run here.

So they, they run their bush races once a year. And when someone rocked up saying, we'd love to run another big festival at your [01:11:00] location, that's for events. They were, they were totally stoked and lu's the, the, the, the landowners, um, Surge and Mary and their son Mick as well, who's kind of taking over. Um, they have been so, in fact, the entirety of Kulin has been super supportive, but it's, they're a phenomenal community and coming out here as well, that, that was another kind of like bit of the icing on the cake was they've actually taken the entire highways around this area and put tin horses on them, which is kind of where the, one of their things, so when you drive, um, out to Blazing Swan, you actually drive the last like section across the Tin Horse highway, which is their art thing.

So they print to have tin horses, like down the highways. It was like, this just seems so,

JayJay: so freaking cute and,

Wesley: and so correct as well. Like the, the art, the randomness location, the people like, it just, it just felt perfect. It really did. Um, the Kulin location, so here we are and have been for like 10 years

JayJay: and people still call it a Playa..

Wesley: Ooh. [01:12:00] That's an interesting thing.

JayJay: I had to, I had to ask, I was like, why do people keep saying, see you on the player? And they're like, no, no, it see you on the Playa. It's, it's because Burning Man's in the desert. There's a playa, and I was like. But this isn't a desert.

And so apparently, apparently, if you tell people it's not a player that's really like, they get really upset.

Wesley: So my interesting thing that the first year I actually invited my dad down to give a talk. So my dad's a professor of ecology. Um, and in his talk he pointed at the Salt Lake and he said, oh yeah, that's, that's a playa. And I was like, what? And he goes, yeah, it's a Spanish word for Salt Lake. And I went, oh my God.

JayJay: all, this time we've been telling lies

Wesley: the playa is a salt lake. So the, the term in playa in, um, burning Man is the actual event is on a giant Salt Lake or flatbed Salt Lake. It's based in Ancient Lake. [01:13:00] We have one, we're not on it, but we're next to it. So we do. So we indeed have a Playa

JayJay: I have a solution.

Wesley: Oh yes.

JayJay: Have a solution. Okay. Um, in Rockingham, we Rockingham, which is, uh. Can, how do I explain Rockingham to No, do we need to? Okay. We, no, we don't need to explain.

Stevan: It's an hour, it's an hour away from Perth.

JayJay: Yeah. Okay. So you Coast,

Wesley: coast, coastal, coastal town.

JayJay: Hour away from Perth, you know, where everyone like, you know, like drinks, Jack Daniels and, um, you know.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Anyway, basically, you know, like, yeah, yeah, yeah. You get away, get away from Perth. 'cause you, you can't afford to live in Perth. You live in Rockingham. Rockingham has a salt lake that looks exactly like Burning Man does. I've seen the pictures. So, solution, solution from now on Rockingham.

I vote. I vote. I would like to pose a motion that we hold Burning Man. Uh, sorry. Blazing Swan. On salt lake of Rockingham. What say you?

Wesley: Well, I still love Kulin. I still vote for Kulin. [01:14:00] Can't get over it. I'm sold.

JayJay: It might be a bit smaller, but I just, I feel like we can, you know, like it's, it could solve this problem. Everyone's saying, see you on the playa. And we like, Hey, they can,

Wesley: we did consider doing the event on that Salt Lake.

That salt, like it's actually owned by the federal government, not owned by WA so we're actually not allowed to, it's actually a, a reserve, but it's like a federal reserve, which is very, I didn't even know we had those, but yeah, it's a federal reserve

JayJay: damn paperwork.

So can't even touch it.

Stevan: Well, I, I don't mind stepping on double G's. It's, it's okay. Get used to it.

Wesley: That's another story.

JayJay: Well, we actually, we actually had a beautiful art piece this year. Mm-hmm. I dunno if you noticed it, Wez, but it's a, it's a, it's a giant light up double G structure.

Wesley: I have not noticed that.

JayJay: Yeah. Yeah.

It's um, it's up the, yeah, up up the end of the sound camp alley and Oh yeah. Yes. So he is actually designed to look like a giant light up double GI love that.

Wesley: I have not tweaked to that. Oh, love that. Of course.

JayJay: I imagine being inspired by this thing that [01:15:00] causes us so much pain and broken bike ties and saying, I'm gonna make a giant light up Ode, do this thing.

Wesley: Yeah.

JayJay: That we all despise,

Wesley: have experience at some point.

JayJay: So much. Yeah. That, see, that's beautiful. That art. That's art. That's love. Yeah.

Stevan: Have you guys been to any of the East Coast Burns? You guys should come and, and visit.

Wesley: I still haven't. I've been to burning Man. Mm-hmm. I'll probably go across to, um, the Aurora Burn this year. Um, assuming things go to play. And that's the new Tassie Burn just 'cause they came across here. And

Stevan: that's the new Tassie burn.

Wesley: New tasie Burn. And I, I actually adore spending time with them and I'm very keen to see what they're gonna set up, um, over there. So I'll probably head across for that. To still not gotten to seed or to the under lands or to meta, um, metier

Stevan: modifyre.

Wesley: Modifier. Modifyre. What else am I forgetting? I'm forgetting something else.

Another one,

Stevan: there's a new one third degree.

Wesley: Oh, yep. And there's another one.

Stevan: Yeah. Third [01:16:00] degree. The Central Coast

Wesley: feel as like, there's another one missing, burning seed. Yeah.

JayJay: I'm, I'm not much of a traveler. Um, 'cause to be honest, I'm, I'm too Povo to travel. Mm. Um, but I have got an invitation that if I want to go to Burning Seed, I have a, have a, a beautiful, wonderful friend that said, come to Burning Seed and you have a place to stay.

And, um, yeah. So maybe I'll go to Burning Seed. Um, but yeah, very, very much love to hear about all the other events and how they handle their stuff and how they do all the, like, all the, the backend secret, secret business mm-hmm. Or the behind the scenes stuff. Yeah. Like I, I, we've got some beautiful people here that are like, you know, they've been learning from so far.

You know, we've got Safety shas and Vida, um, Vida's, our event manager and Safety shas, you know, she's, you know, does all the, the safety stuff. And Yeah, for me, particularly like, you know, in learning how to do all the art pieces and organize all the, [01:17:00] the stuff. They've been really amazing with their advice to me.

Yeah. So, but yeah, I'd love, I'd love if anyone wants to get in contact with me and gimme advice and perspective. I, I would love that. I'm all about hearing people's stories.

Stevan: Yeah. The reason why I ask is that, is if you guys could compare what, well at least talk about what, why Blazing Swan is unique or different to, to the other burns.

JayJay: I, I think, um, I guess you'd, you probably just compare it with, um, like, you know, WA in general, it's, you know, like where everything is, is so very distant where, you know, you know, the whole of East Coast is, you know, like you can travel from al like, you know, one state to another and Yeah. No worries.

Whereas wa yeah, it's a, yeah, everyone's traveling so very far. And I, I dunno, maybe that gets reflected in like what, like, you know, how hard it is to organize. Um, like I think it's. Yeah, no, I, I can't really [01:18:00] comment on that, but I like, yeah, I generally probably, probably just think about in general, the, the population of WA I think makes it harder when you think about like event numbers and stuff.

Um, you know, people buying tickets, like, you know, so like burning seeds Adelaide, right? It's, um, um,

Wesley: not big. Um,

JayJay: is it? Yeah.

Wesley: Victoria.

JayJay: Victoria is it? Oh, okay.

Stevan: It's in New South Wales. Yeah.

JayJay: Oh, okay. Yeah. Well,

Wesley: Victoria, new South Wales. It like

Stevan: Wagga Wagga. Yeah,

JayJay: yeah, yeah. So it's like

Stevan: in between,

JayJay: you know, like all the like, like the capital cities of those states, you know, like everything's a little bit more compact.

So I guess you got like a lot more people living in a more compact space. And so in terms of like everyone buying tickets, you've got a lot more people. And then if you got a smaller event capacity, there's more. People that are likely to buy tickets, it probably fills up faster. I don't know. That's the kind of thing I'd look at and go, yeah, like there's this, the, I [01:19:00] dunno.

Wesley: I, I feel as though WA is kind of a bit unique in the factors when we have unusual events or slightly out norm, because we don't have cities nearby, there's no alternative. I've often found that a lot of our,

Stevan: you guys are isolated.

Wesley: Yeah. And I often find like the factors, um, blazing Swan took off like it did.

I don't believe any other event Burning Event in Australia has taken off at the ex at the rate that, um, blazing Swan has done. And I think that really comes down to quite, in, in part our isolation. The fact is when there's, to go to anything else is really hard. So, you know, if you're over in like Sydney or, or Melbourne, yeah, you can, you could probably hop across a Tassie or hop across to Adelaide or hop across to like Sydney, Melbourne, whichever one you're not at.

And it wouldn't be too much of a drama. Where for us to go from east to west is enormous. So when there's something here, I, I feel as though the WA people seem to jump on it. That's something I've seen to be always felt that if it's, [01:20:00] if it's unusual that we seem to. Be quite ready to Yeah. Accept something, uh, and get involved in it.

That's seemed to be my, um, feeling.

JayJay: Yeah, yeah. No, that's a really good point. 'cause it's, um, yeah, like there's not, yeah, there's not as much like big entertainment. Um Oh, oh yeah.

Wesley: You can't just drive across the east when you feel like it, you know, can't.

JayJay: And it's like, it's like, um, when like, even like bands and stuff, like when like bands and shows and stuff come to Australia, they always hit up the East Coast and then they're like, they get to WA and they're like, oh no, fuck that.

Yeah. And they quit. So WA like Yeah. WA doesn't see as much out there stuff. And yeah, we're almost like the kind of like, we're kind of like the country Hicks of Australia. Really?

Wesley: Yeah, that's true. That's true.

JayJay: Yeah. Like we're, you know, everyone else is, we hick vibe. Yeah. Everyone else is, um, evolving. Mm. Yeah.

I feel like, yeah. I feel like WA lags behind. So, yeah, so people, when they come to, uh, blazing [01:21:00] Swan, it's like, hey, like, yeah, this is, like, this is what we're looking for. So it's yeah. A little bit more of a, yeah, a little bit more of a punch to, to kind of come to Blazing Swan and go away. Okay, cool.

Wesley: Yep.

JayJay: Um, I think it,

Stevan: I think it has a lot of local flavor as in Perth Fremantle also, also Kulin.

Um, we got the, THE camp.

Wesley: Yeah. Correct. They've got two camps.

Stevan: They've the library.

Wesley: Yep.

Stevan: The library where you are, which is from Albany, uh, from where John is. Um,

Wesley: yep.

Stevan: And some local where the pool room from. We've got some locals as well.

Wesley: Um, the pool around the area the pool room's, not local, but I'm not sure where they're from.

So it's the tin horse experience,

Stevan: local WA.

Wesley: It's Tin Horse, um, experience is obviously one of the Kulin crews and they've actually broken out to Sound Camp as well. So they've got Tin Horse internet or, or THE internet or THE for Tin horse experience. Um, so I've got internet and yeah, [01:22:00] basically a, a um, tin horse making like a craft camp as well, which is phenomenal.

I absolutely love it.

Stevan: Yeah. We spoke to will earlier, will and Erin. Yeah. And Will is the, the next generation of Burners of Blazers Yeah. So it it's, it was interesting to hear his thoughts, you know?

Wesley: Yeah. In fact, I would, I would be interest in hearing his thoughts as well. I have to look to the podcast afterwards to see what they think because I, I've, I've talked to Erin a lot, um, 'cause she's been here from the start.

Um, so I know her, her interest. But yeah.

Stevan: What do you guys think about, do you guys think about the future of Blazing Swan? Say, what's your outlook in five years or where do you see heading and stuff like that Because the, uh, it's important to get burgeon in. It's important to get the younger people in.

JayJay: I like, I think it's so amazing to see.

That. Yeah, like the, the people are like, people are growing up in the community. Like, you know, you've got people who, um, oh, was it like Ollie? Ollie is, um, I met, like, I met [01:23:00] Ollie on my first first year at Blazing Swan, and his mom has been a Blazer for a while and Oh, I think he was,

Wesley: he was, he was one of the original, original crew one the founders as well.

Yeah. Yeah.

JayJay: So, oh, so I think he was like, he said he was like nine 19. Is he? I dunno. But like, basically, you know, when, when they're, they've, they've grown up with Blazing Swan and then they've, they've started to attend themselves, like as adults and I think that's fucking amazing that we have like, families that are taking their kids to this stuff and Yeah.

You know, because it's like introducing them to the world and, you know, being free and stuff and Yeah. And then, and then the kids are growing up and. I, I think that's amazing. I like, I, I, you know, because you have, um, you know, like there are other like events and, and bush doofs and stuff, and it's, it's really funny how blazing swans kind of like, it's, it's kinda like the middle ground between a bush doof, which is like ultimately a bunch of [01:24:00] hippies, like real, like real hippy hippies.

And then you've got like commercial festivals where it's um, I guess what we would call sparkle ponies or you know, like a lot of people that are, that are, yeah, like party, party party. And yeah, I think blazing Swans like that beautiful in between where it's like, um, yeah, it's like that, that community element, but it's, it's really.

Yeah, it's still like a big party element. I think that's something really special to hold onto that we've managed to create this environment where people feel safe to bring their kids to an event where people are also gonna be getting naked and, um, you know, getting altered. 'cause you know, that's fun and sometimes, you know, um, in a safe environment and, you know, like it's, yeah.

So that's really cool that we've managed to create a safe space and I think that's the most important thing we need to hold onto, because yeah, we do want, we don't want people to go, fuck, we're gonna have to stop bringing the kids to Blazing Swamp because, [01:25:00] you know, like. I don't know, because it becomes that, you know,

Stevan: it's not safe.

JayJay: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not safe as the kind of environment that you don't want your kids to grow up with, as an example of what a community should be. It was really funny, like last year, this last year, maybe the year before, um, it was ba it was, it was pissing down with rain, and I was in the middle of it, you know, it started raining.

I was trying to take some cool photos. I, I'm trying to do some long exposure shots, and I was like, man, like, oh crap, my camera's not waterproof. Um, and these beautiful girls came over and said, would you like a lift back to your camp? And, and I was like, yeah, yeah, now that'd be great. And I said, oh, hang. I was like, and I was really puzzled because I was like, how old are you guys?

Because they, you know, they were so like, you know, like sweet and young and, but just like, chill. Um, and they're like, yeah, no, we're 15. I was like, wow. I was like, aren't you like, you know, because I like, like, as a woman, you're like, fuck, the world is scary, man. And from like, like from what I've seen, like, you know, like young women, like, we're generally, generally like.

Little bit, [01:26:00] you know, like these girls had such confidence and such, such openness that I was like, generally you don't see that in, in girls. 'cause we, you know, like you go through some shit, you know, like it's, I think that's worth recognizing that girls go through stuff when they're growing up. And I was like, this is amazing.

And yeah. And they said no. Like, you know, I said, aren't you like, aren't you a bit worried about, you know, being out here like in the dark? And, and they said, no, no, no. Like, yeah, we've been, we've been growing like yeah, our parents have been taking us to Blazing Swan, you know, since we were like two years old.

And I was like, wow. I was like, and yeah, I think that's, that's so beautiful. And yeah, like, it's like let's keep that going. It's, yeah.

Stevan: Well, Blazing Swan does give you confidence, you know, it does give you a different perspective.

JayJay: Yeah. And it's, and it's a safe environment where yeah, you can be like, Hey, like I'm a 15-year-old girl and.

I actually feel safe around all these people and all these adults. [01:27:00] Yeah. And

Wesley: really is saying something. Yeah. In this day and age for that, for that to be a, a thing.

JayJay: Yeah.

Wesley: Yeah. That's quite impressive. Hmm.

JayJay: Yeah. I mean, I felt like I, like I did not have a unsafe upbringing, but even, even in a normal, like middle class to Birmingham upbringing, I would still say, I was like, oh, I was a bit uncomfortable, you know, if my parents had friends around and they were getting like, a little bit, you know, too heavy on, on, you know, again, drinking and stuff.

So, you know, so I kind of like worry a little bit, but like, these girls were just like, no, it's cool. Like, it's, yeah. Like, I think that's really great. Like you, you know, you're like, from a young age, you're saying to your kids like, look, yeah, this is, it's community, but also like, people are people and there's gonna be, there's gonna be emotions, there's gonna be out there things, um, there's gonna be different things that you haven't seen before.

And all of that is okay. That is a fucking huge message to be sending, and that is so beautiful.

Stevan: Yeah. One of the, one of the main [01:28:00] things I like to tell people, uh, about experiencing the burn is a lot of skills that you take away from it, especially when you're volunteering.

JayJay: Yeah.

Stevan: And particularly when you're doing it in rangering as well, so you're not just your first aid skills, but you know, just common sense, uh, skills.

Uh, well,

JayJay: yeah, yeah.

Stevan: How to deal with people.

Wesley: Communicate with people. Yeah. Hmm.

JayJay: And like, you know, for the setup crews where it's like, Hey, we're, you know, we're offering you a chance to get training. You know, like, so some, you know, some of the setup crew, like they might work in. You know, like in, is it like blue collar jobs, high-vis shirt jobs?

But then we go, Hey, like would you like to get your certificate to use the tele handler? Cool. Like that. Like, that's fucking awesome. We wanna support training, we wanna support, like, yeah, here's, here's some, like we'll get you a certificate for this 'cause you're gonna help us on setup. And then suddenly, you know what?

That person can go and apply for a job in the real world where they can use that certificate. Fuck. That's amazing. You've just helped that person's [01:29:00] like further their, further their life and actually make a better thing. And you know, that applies to the artist that applies to, um, you know, even like myself.

Like I, you know. Yeah. Cool. I made some cool art. I was excited. I don't have formal art qualifications, I don't have qualifications in administration. But being the arts, you know, like being given the position of arts administration and you know, that it's a safe place for me to learn how to, I mean, you know, like, I don't know how to send emails, but like, you know, I've started and being on the committee, I've started developing my own professional language repertoire.

Um, you know, like I've started developing my own professional confidence. I don't think, I still don't think I'll ever. Get a real world job where I have to do that. Um, I'm a, I like, I work in,

Stevan: but you're ready for it.

JayJay: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But, you know, I work in, [01:30:00] I work in parks and Garden main maintenance, but hey, like maybe if I talk to my boss and I say, look, I would like to liaise with you on creating Opportunity where, um, some people can come and use our gigantic, um, you know, botanical park for a space to hold an event.

Yeah. Maybe I'll be way better at speaking to my boss about that. And yeah, it is all about, like, I, I've been given a massive opportunity for personal development and like yeah. So that is, yeah, like my life has been better because Blazing Swan has helped me to gain those skills and given me the trust of saying, yeah, here's a position.

We wanna give you a go and we're not going to look at you on paper or put you in a box. It's like you have the passion. Cool. Come and learn how to do it.

Stevan: And for you, Admiral, what, what kind of. Acquired from Rangering. And why do you love it?

Wesley: Um, I think it's kind of just part of who I am, tell the truth. I mean, I've always been kind of the person that likes fixing things, helping people, and I see [01:31:00] that in lots of ranges as well.

You very find people that step up to be rangers have that type of mentality, um, as it is in terms of skills, I think it's just more just the more times you do things, the more in, in it gives you just little different bits you find out about yourself. Like I was, I suppose, if anything, I had a couple today, it's a couple, this blazing swan that kind of made me, I suppose, if anything reminded me how I deal with people is.

Probably better than I realize. If anything, I just had a couple of people pull me aside, like after some things and, and just like, just thank me on how I, how I dealt with things. And I suppose I've never really thought of myself doing things unusual, but obviously 'cause, and now I'm realizing the more I get into these things, that probably isn't as, as usual as I realize there's some, this may be more innate rather than, than being taught I suppose, or learning.

But it's, it's time to use those skills and, and apply those skills is I suppose the more chance you have to [01:32:00] apply them, the more chance you get to reinforce them, um, and improve them. So I suppose that's kind of how things have just slowly evolved or improved.

JayJay: It's actually, this is actually a great time for me to segue into appreciating you.

Um, I, so I've rangered for the first time this year and I did the burn permit on the effigy, and I'm a very fidgety person. I often cop a bit of flack for, you know, swaying or, you know, being fidgety. 'cause people kind of go, oh, are you, um, are you, like, are you, you saying, or you, or you know, are you in, are you in a, a sober state of mine?

I'm like, yeah, man, it's cool. I just, I, yeah, I like to fi, I like to rock. I like to rock. I like to fidget. So, um, yeah, on the burn perimeter, you know, watching everyone doing the right thing. But, um, you know, tribal Tribe was going and I was having a bit of a jam and like, you know, doing, you know, doing a little bit of dancing while I was doing my duties.

And admirable kind of was, you know, admirable was walking [01:33:00] past, making sure everyone was okay. And you just pointed at me while I was dancing and jamming, like on the spot and you just said yes. And that like, I don't know, like maybe for you, you probably just, yeah, like, but for me, that was a huge fucking moment.

I was like, hmm, yeah. I was like, huh, I've been given permission to be myself and I will not be looked down on for, you know, on my abilities to keep everyone safe because I want to have a little dance on the spot while I'm doing it. And that was the best thing. Yeah. That was the best thing for me. So thank you so much for that.

Wesley: Well, thank you for saying that. See, that's another thing I would, yet again, I would've not have picked that, but of course someone dancing on the perimeter, I'm totally up for like, you know, doesn't stop you being able to do your job or do what you're required to do.

JayJay: Yeah, I guess it's, I mean, you don't know.

You don't know my history and you don't know, um, you know, we don't know each other very well, but for me that was a huge fucking awesome thing that you did. And, and [01:34:00] that's more, yeah, like that. Like let's keep that energy alive of, of expressing that kind of stuff. Yeah.

Wesley: Yeah. Well,

Stevan: well admiral, you, you also have been known for excessive volunteering, so how would you, how would you try to recruit people to get more involved in, in blazing swan?

Wesley: I usually find it happens automatically. I mean, that, that to me is one of the beauties of

Stevan: what happens if, if I'm introverted or extroverted or not talented or don't have any background. What, what would you say to these people?

Wesley: Well, I mean, e everyone can find a role or something they can do, but what, what I was alluding to just before is that usually people, when they come to these events, like I think this is across the board, any of the, kind of the burning esque events is they see everyone doing stuff, and usually they get inspired.

Mm.

And that, that's what I've, I've seen countless years is that they come the first year and they go, wow, this is [01:35:00] amazing. Look at all these people doing stuff. I wanna do stuff.

Stevan: Yeah. Guilty.

Wesley: I want help. I want to get involved. I always seem to find like second year you suddenly get this influx of people that are like, wanna join theme council, wanna do something or wanna help out with some art piece.

Wanna bring something next year to to, to gift out to people. So it kind of almost happens just as part of the culture of these events, rather than actually happen to say like, you know, would you like to volunteer? People invariably look for things to volunteer. Mm. Rangers, I suppose is a bit bit, oh, I suppose it's a two-edged sword.

We're more obvious the rangers, you know, we're obviously tr you know, we walk around the

Stevan: but you got, you guys got stunning, sexy uniforms

Wesley: and we have sexy uniforms. Exactly. Right. You know, we have to just force people away from us. It's really hard. Um, but do, yeah. Doing lots people see us, so, so it's, I suppose we're very obvious and people know we're there to help and, you know, support the thing.

So I suppose we have probably have it a bit easier if people look for something to volunteer and they go, well, you know, I, I'd like to do that. I, I'd [01:36:00] happily help with that. Where there's certainly some groups that aren't as, as visible that would probably struggle more than, than we do. But if people wanna volunteer at, there is no shortage of things to do.

Like, like we've got 200 volunteers this year and there'll be pro, it'll keep growing through the years. There's always room for more people. There'll always be a role for someone, no matter how you feel or what you wanna do. I mean, I've seen complete. Introverts, like running stuff. Um, you know, they can be hiding away in a corner, just plotting away and doing their work.

You know, there's, there's always jobs that anyone can, can get involved in if they wish.

JayJay: I think that's like, that's a fantastic attitude, but I, I do think we have a lot of work to go to keep that going, to keep that like reinforcing that attitude. And I think the key thing is to say to volunteers, you are welcome.

We want you here.

Wesley: Absolutely.

JayJay: And you are welcome. And, but we do have a bit of work to do in reinforcing that attitude and, [01:37:00] and keeping that, that vibe within the org. Um, I think like, you know, like your attitude's fantastic Wez, and, you know, and safety shaz has said to me, you know, like when we were going through the art application, she was like, look like, you know.

When, when we're assessing the safety aspect of it, we, it's not about saying, you know, this is not safe, so we don't wanna do it. It is about like, just, just helping them to, to find a way to make it happen. And also to say, look, you know, it's, it's not about saying it has to be a hundred percent and you know, if it, if you, if you haven't secured it properly and it falls down, we don't want that.

But also, and we're gonna give you the best advice possible to make sure that doesn't happen. But also we are not going to kick the shit out of you and put you down if, you know, 'cause mistakes happen. And it's actually about giving someone [01:38:00] that safe space to like, to learn who they are and to learn the skills and experiment without going, ah, that went wrong.

Now we are going to, you know, you know, like, hold that against you. Um, yeah,

Stevan: it's funny how. It's funny how we humans learn more from mistakes than successes. So,

JayJay: yeah. Yeah.

Wesley: Very much so.

JayJay: Yeah.

Wesley: Yeah.

JayJay: Education and acceptance is, is a really big thing, you know? So, yeah.

Wesley: Yeah. Absolutely. And support, we have, well, let's, we have so many people in, in the org now. We have layers on layers on layers, a support. Mm-hmm. Which makes things really good now. Like, you know, the, the fact is we have an entire art team, you know, backed by safety. Mm. Backed by DPW. Like, you can just come here and go, I would like to bring art here and do something. And there are teams that will back you to do that.

Yeah. I, which is something we certainly didn't have at the start, you know, there was basically six of us trying to run everything, [01:39:00] but now it's phenomenal.

Stevan: Let's, let's talk about,

Wesley: now it's

Stevan: al Yeah. Let's talk about another volunteering kind of a lead is the Exodus crew.

Wesley: Yep.

Stevan: Where they make sure that you leave, you know. Safely, I guess, that you are able to drive that you are fully nourished or whatever, like you're not too sleepy.

Wesley: Yep.

Stevan: Stuff like that. Yeah. As well as just getting your way out of the, the, um, probably the, the Kulin as well, you know, could be a traffic jam and stuff like that. So

Wesley: see that's, that's a new thing that's come about.

Um, I actually don't know when, what year that started, but that was something that, you know, you realize there's holes in the system, uh, and you kind of go, well actually, you know, when, when we wrap up there's these cues of cars that might be going out. They might not be able to all get out. They may not be all in, in the, um, state to drive.

So, you know, they need some support. Um, so yeah, that's why we got the, the Exodus.

Stevan: Yeah, that's, that's a good initiative.

Wesley: Proof for that.

Stevan: Okay, let's, let's end with more shout outs. Let's, [01:40:00] who else do you guys wanna mention with? Without these people? Blazing Swan cannot happen. Oh, well what about, what about your team leads, uh, in, in Rangers,

Wesley: the crew? Oh, I mean, I maybe going through different crews. So, I mean, Rangers is led by, um, gov. Um, we, we've got, uh, entire ranger ops teams now, um, that, that basically decide how things work. Um, we've got the green dots, um, run by Kelpie who basically look after mental health. We've got medics, um, I don't think I know the name of the medic lead at the moment.

Um, we have got. Firies led by Gareth. We've got the fire team led by Hannah. Uh, I'm gonna forget something. I gu guarantee consent. Um, led by Mel. There is the [01:41:00] forms led by Paul. Paul, it was an ex committee member, but he stayed on to help out doing forms and that's become his, his life is doing forms. He's a form king.

Um, got the kitchen staff. I'm trying to think. All the different groups. Social media. Social media. Um. Um, the art team led by someone, I can't remember the name of,

JayJay: no, I'm not sorry. Clarification. I'm not the lead of the arts department.

Oh, you're not the lead arts?

No, no, I'm, I'm, I'm the artsy installation administration, which is the title I basically gave myself.

Oh. I'm a, a co arts administration with Russell Cherry Bomb. Or Kerry. Kerry or Cherry Bomb is the, as the head of Department of Arts,

Wesley: right? Yes. Okay.

JayJay: Which includes our new I vehicles and, and Temple and Effigy.

Wesley: Yeah, there you go. It's a temple crew, effigy crew, um, DMT crew [01:42:00]

Stevan: and all the theme camps.

All the theme camps. How many were there this year?

Wesley: I mean, that's absolutely true. Like the, the, the org supports the theme camps doing most of the work. I mean, the, the, the theme camps provide the bulk of what happens at the event. Not, not the org, you know, the org does the temple and the effigy and basically make sure things run, which is admittedly an enormous task.

But the theme camps provide that, the guts of everything. And they all put their, they put their, their butts on the line and their people on the line, their money on the line to, to, to come here and do that.

JayJay: Actually, I think we have to, um, I think we have to decide who is the, who is the heart of Blazing Swan.

Um, so a big thing I've, I've been hearing is everyone's sort of saying, oh, like without us, the event wouldn't go ahead. And it's like, hang on a minute guys. Yeah. It, it's, it's without everyone, it's, it's, right. It's absolutely,

Stevan: it's too interconnected now.

JayJay: So one, one thing we did this year was, um, [01:43:00] we, yeah, we introduced, like, we had the, like, we had an arts marque, like in previous years there hasn't been like a artist hub or a, you know, like for, for art installations or everyone.

We've all just used, like, we've all just had one center kiosk. Um, so this year we've, we've had quite a few changes to the org where we've had like an official mutant vehicles department and the arts department has their own marquee consent, has their own marquee. Um, previously a lot of these mm-hmm. Um, you know, if people would take, pick up their photography passes, I think they still pick them up from, but like, yeah, we've, we've had a big of expansion of here's your own little marquee in your hub.

And, you know, yeah,

Wesley: the services have been expanding like every year and it's just growing and growing. It's really nice.

JayJay: And the one thing that we, um, with the art art marquee here is we decided, or, you know, Kerry wanted to call it the Hartery. And, you know, and we, we put in the description Art is the heart of blazing swan.

Now this, I actually found [01:44:00] this in a documentary, uh, document on our, our file storage. And I'm not sure where that's come from, but I just picked it up from there and said, Hey, look, look at this. Beautiful. It tells a beautiful little story. I'm not sure who's written it, but, okay, this is, this must be our thing.

So artists are heart of, blazing Swan. And then, um, I've, I've since then been told actually, um, we've always said. Kitchen is the heart of Blazing Swan. Um, so now, so now I think we're just gonna have to, like, every year we're just gonna have to, it's been decided. We're gonna have to claim that something else is the heart of Blazing Swan.

I think we're all just gonna have to have our turn every year to that. We're the heart of Blazing Swan. So yeah, pretty much like you, you get one year to be the most important thing and then we'll let you have that. And then, yeah, I don't know, like that's an, that's an idea.

Stevan: I've been told that psytrance is the heart blazing swan

Wesley: that'll get you in mixed responses.[01:45:00]

Stevan: Yeah. Thanks. Thanks very much for coming on the show guys and having a chat.

Wesley: Yeah, you're very welcome.

Stevan: That was, that was entertaining and good information and a, a lot of good stories too.

Wesley: Mm Oh, thank you.

JayJay: Thank you.

Stevan: Anyone, anything else you wanna say? Last mentions how, you know, like how would you rate this burn?

Maybe it's recency biased, but.

JayJay: It's interesting.

Wesley: Yeah. I, you know, I've, I've loved it. Um, but everyone's different. Every single blaze is always different. Mm. And they're different in different ways. And, and even every individual's experience of every blaze is gonna be different. Mm. Like, you know, because I've worked most of the start I had one day off so far.

Um, so I've missed a lot of it. So even what I have experienced has been fantastic. But yet again, other people may have had completely different experiences than me. Um, so, and that's gonna be true approach across the board.

JayJay: I feel like's. It's not about what actually happens at the burn, [01:46:00] it's, it's whatever place you are in your life and you know, different things are gonna speak to you.

And I think as long as we have different things. You know, allowing all those different things to come to the burn, then that's great. You know, including bureaucracy. Like, that's, that's a really,

Wesley: I loved it. Yeah. I've got a pastor co suspicious salmon, I'm a fan. Yeah. So

everyone knows I, I'm legitimately allowed to now.

JayJay: Yeah, yeah. So we, um, yeah, so we have the, the bureau. The bureau camp. Yeah. So we can all pretend to be, you know, indulge in bureaucracy. It's, it's basically, we've got our own little, let's pretend to be in the real world thing, but like, it's, it's fun. It's fun and it's, it's not, um, yeah. So we've had the, the high court of petty grievances this year, which was an art piece, and it's, um, yeah, we, we, a place to argue and, um, argue about things in court.

And I would like to say that, uh, like a case has been resolved where I, it has been ruled that I will now. Receive a cup that was, you know, that [01:47:00] was taken from me two years ago. And, uh, and, and the, the high court ruled in favor of me receiving a replacement for that cup. And I'm so happy for that. So grateful for them to that.

And it absolutely had nothing to do with the fact of any favoritism about the fact that the arts department funded their art piece. Mm-hmm. Um, so I just wanna say that straight out, that there was no funny business there.

Wesley: No corruption at all.

JayJay: And that ruling was, yeah, it was absolutely true. And, and yeah.

And there was, there was no, no under the table dealings at all.

Stevan: We might have to get, we might get rowdy in, we might have to get, we won't have to get Hamish in and tell us his, his side of the story.

JayJay: Oh, oh, oh, oh. Hamish, my good friend. Rowdy Hamish.

Stevan: Yes, of course. Yeah. Our good friend. Yes.

JayJay: Okay. So, no, um, rowdy was actually witness to this cup, um, which was, which was given in, in, it was lended.

In good faith, um, with the gift of coffee I might add, um, to my, my fellow camp mate. [01:48:00] And the cup disappeared, rowdy, actually witnessed the cup in a crew vehicle. Ooh. And the, the court, uh, the court actually said, we like rowdy. He's a reliable person. We like him. The story must be true and ruled in my favor, so fuck you, rowdy.

I love you. Yeah, rowdy. Rowdy was the witness and that dude is awesome. And yeah, I, I'm all in favor of getting rowdy on here to tell the account of the cup, but you know, I don't think it's, I don't think it's important. The important thing is, the important thing is that now Steen has to buy me a, you know, a beautiful cocktail shaker with a, a paisley pattern that's silver and shiny and pretty, um, to replace the one that he took from me.

And maybe, I dunno, maybe he can gimme, like the coffee that I gave him as well back, I don't know, might be a nice little charge. But, you know, the court didn't rule that. If he wants to, that's completely fine.

Stevan: Well, the most important thing I think is that we have a new segment here. It's probably like the Blazing court.

Wesley: Blazing court?

Stevan: New segment. Yeah,

exactly. Yeah. [01:49:00] Every episode we can, yeah. This disputes and grievances.

JayJay: Yeah.

Stevan: Let's air it out. Yeah.

Wesley: I was tempted to go to that court and, and argue why the fact is rangers and ranga are spelt the same way and get a ruling. I, I was tempted to go to that court and, and argue why.

The fact is Rangers and Ranga are spelt the same way and get a ruling.

JayJay: Oh, no, no. Isn't it? Oh, isn't Ranga spelt with a W Oh, oh, no, no. You know what? No. Ranga spelled. It's is Ranga. It's R-A-N-G-A-S. Ah, that's no, you spelled Ranga. And if you're spelling it the same as Rangers, then you clearly need to be up with the program.

Wesley: Oh, right. Well, there you go.

JayJay: Yes, because it's a Ranga, like a O-Ranga Tang.

Wesley: So now we need to, now we need to go to court.

JayJay: You gotta get like professional with your slurs and know the origins of your slurs. If you're gonna call someone a ranga, it's because they're an orangutan. Get it. Right. You know what I mean?

Like, you're gonna dis someone.

Wesley: Well, there you go.

JayJay: Make sure you know the origin of the [01:50:00] diss.

Wesley: So we, we got the first part of your segment there, Stevan.

JayJay: Yeah. Yeah. And I, I would like to state, I'm no way dissing ranga.

Wesley: No, not at all.

Stevan: Or, or rangers. So

Wesley: or rangers.

Stevan: We love rangers, right?

JayJay: Yeah.

All rangers. Yeah.

Stevan: Yeah, yeah. We love rangers.

Alright, cool. Let's, let's end it here. Thanks very much.

Wesley: Thanks Stevan.

JayJay: It might be dangerous if we keep going.

Wesley: See ya.

JayJay: Thank you so much for having me.

Stevan: Yeah, no problem. It was, it was, it was a good chat.

Wesley: Yeah.

Stevan: Thanks again to JayJay and Wesley and Erin and Will and Oly for coming on the podcast. Thanks everyone. See you In the next episode where we review the cosmic coincidence burn and stay listening if you wanna hear some more outtakes.

Wait, wait, wait. Recording. Have we got other people joining [01:51:00] in? You got

Wesley: No, just, just me.

Stevan: J Yeah. JJs coming. Is it Arts Director?

Wesley: Um, maybe, I don't know. I mean, I was rocked up because I knew you once on this afternoon, but I didn't really see any, like actual time. You may have sent it to me, but I might have missed it.

Stevan: Yeah, it was, it was about, yeah, an hour ago I think.

Wesley: Yeah.

Stevan: Well, we finished, I was speaking to Erin and Will. Oops. So that was good.

Wesley: I left my shoes on. Let's do this.

JayJay: Had a good, I've got, what are we still talking about jissing?

Wesley: Uh, maybe are. Um, so, so JJ has popped in now. Oh yeah. Cool. Yeah.

Stevan: Yeah. Cool.

Wesley: Sick.

Stevan: Alright.

Wesley: Cool. You want me hop off?

Stevan: No, grab microphone. It should be multiple's

JayJay: actually, I'm actually, um, I'm actually jj. Cool. Cool. Yeah. I haven't been to find JJ all day. Hey, disappeared. Like she always does. What? You want me to sit down here?

Wesley: Yep. [01:52:00] Alright. Actually,

Stevan: can you guys hear me?

Wesley: Yep. Oh, I can hear you. Won't able yet first,

JayJay: basically,

Stevan: yeah. So I, I had a chat with uh, Erin earlier and that was good. Yep. We talked about, we talked about Kulin

Wesley: Yeah.

Stevan: And Blazing Swan and their experience, which is different to ours, you know?

Wesley: Absolutely.

Stevan: We're from the city. And they're from right There

Wesley: was before when I came up here,

Stevan: and they've been to every single one except one, I think she said.

JayJay: And

Stevan: it was good to see the next generation. Ooh, yeah.

JayJay: Oh, um, hello now. Oh, hey jj. Jj, [01:53:00] come here. Um, yeah.

Wesley: Just floating, floating, floating mics in your face.

Stevan: I can hear some, uh, preparations going on.

Wesley: Yep.

JJ trying to get rigged up at the moment.

Stevan: Yep. Cool.

Wesley: That's what's floating noise. Isolation.

Stevan: So did you, did you enjoy the Grundy walk?

Wesley: I didn't see the Grundy walk, I'm afraid.

Stevan: Oh, you missed it? Okay. Yeah,

Wesley: I'm involved in some other things.

Stevan: Right, right. But you're off duty now, you said off?

Wesley: Um, no, I'm on duty currently. I admit, I just turned my stuff off for this and let [01:54:00] people know.

Stevan: Yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah.

JayJay: Brand or I don't remember. I, I, yes.

Stevan: Hello? Can you hear me

JayJay: that now though? Because now I can hear myself and be distracted by my own voice, but that's cool.

We'll deal with.

Steven do a sound check, man. Slacker

Stevan: sound check. Can you hear me? Sound check? Yep. Sound check?

JayJay: Yep.

Stevan: Yep. Check 1 1 2. Yep. Can you hear me? Cool. Hello?

JayJay: I feel like I need a cushion. Oh, that's loud. Have you got a cushion to put my uncomfortable?

Stevan: You guys sitting on the comfy on couch?

JayJay: It's sort of like right attacking my face, but apparently that's, that's how we need it. Um, and the couch doesn't have back cushion, so. Oh, yellow Lion. Excellent. [01:55:00] Hang on. Oh, mate. Oh, mate. Yeah, yeah. Hang on. Can I just touch that? Yeah. Okay. Cool.

Stevan: Okay, so you guys can hear me sound,

we

JayJay: sick. Cool.

Stevan: JayJay, how you going?

JayJay: I'm good. I'm good. A ratbag day? It's, it is not quite ratbag enough though, actually, sorry. I'm, I'm aiming to get there.

Stevan: You're gonna have to introduce yourself to listeners, uh, in a second. Um, so yeah, get comfy.

JayJay: Who's listening? Who is it? I like Who is this for, by the way?

Stevan: Well, this is for the burn community.

So you have some, uh, some fans [01:56:00] over the East coast, maybe, you know. Oh, sure.

JayJay: Oh, so she put my responsible persona on

Stevan: Yeah, of course. Yes.

JayJay: Okay, cool. Done. Nice. I'm there.

Stevan: Have you done something like this before?

JayJay: A podcast? No.

Stevan: Yeah. Cool.

JayJay: I have, I've had, I've given my, um, opinions out. I've given my opinions out a lot before. Mm-hmm. I'm very good at that. So, um, yeah,

Stevan: I think that's, that's why you're invited.

JayJay: Oh, nice. Yeah.

Stevan: Yeah. And Wez, are you there as well? Are you all comfy?

Wesley: I'm still here, I think, considering of things. Yeah. So, yep. Okay.

Stevan: Are we waiting on. Are.