“Do you think you’ll see The Offtopics again, Monsieur President?”

“I don’t think. I know.”

Hey there Offtopics Pals,

It’s your P.A.L. here – that’s right, it’s me – Polash A Larsen, your friendly neighbourhood funk dynamo just dropping you a quick line to let you know what’s in the offing for the next couple of months.

Firstly, let me apologize for the radio silence. Looking back I’m stunned to see that the last update was aaaaalllll the way back in late June. I suppose I could put a positive spin on it and say that we Offtopics take our commitment not to span our subscribers seriously, but the honest truth is, as George Harrison said, “it’s been a long, cold lonely winter”. The last mailout was full of optimism about future gigs and my efforts to fundraise for mental health and suicide awareness through doing LOTS of pushups. While we did get to play an absolutely amazing show at POME in late July, pretty soon we were packing up again and well on the way to making Melbourne’s the world’s longest lockdown. Our Macedon gig was postponed for the third time and our August, September and October POME shows were cancelled…

BUT… like the rest of that song goes – HERE COMES THE SUN…

The band is fully vaxed and all our worries have been axed. I’ll be celebrating my birthday on the night of Saturday 27 November and, as it happens, The Offtopics are playing at POME that night.

If, like me, you’re ready and eager to participate in the vaccinated economy, then I’d love to see at the gig. Honestly, the only birthday present I’ve been dreaming of for the last few months has been playing at that gig.
Tickets can be booked here:

If you’re not quite ready for an outing, and hey, a lot of people I know are still feeling squirrelly at the thought of being out and about, then you can watch a bit of the show online via POME’s social media pages. The good folk at POME have locked us in for Friday 17 December as well where we’ll have a couple of special guests to help celebrate Festivus.

So what else has been going on? It hasn’t all been doom and gloom. In fact I was recently pretty chuffed to see that artist and illustrator Aidan Jarvis stuck us into his inspo list to drive his drawing through Oz Music Month. We’re amongst some legendary names there, and I’m pretty curious to see how my lines affect his lines.

I’ll be heading out for a little road trip on Saturday 20 November as my friends down at In The Skiesin Lorne have invited me down to do a solo acoustic show. There’s a clip on Facebook of the show I did there almost exactly a year ago.

At some point in the next couple of weeks I might be getting called upon to fill in for Brett Dellavedova on rhythm guitar for a Short Order Schefs outdoor Jamaican music extravaganza. Keep an eye on the socials for when that happens – because when it does, it’ll be at short notice. Speaking of the Schefs, this won’t be my first collab with them. As some of you might remember I did this tribute to Toots Hibbert with them last year.

Since then we’ve been slowly working on a series of recordings around the working title “Dancing with Polash and The Schefs”. I’ll look forward to sharing that when I can.

That’s probably enough news for now. I think you’ll agree that three live shows (and possibly a cameo with someone else), all within a few weeks of vaccination targets being reached is cause for cautious optimism. I really hope I can catch up with you at one the shows listed below.

Stay safe!