Keeping Music Evil - The Brian Jonestown Massacre at The Factory (Thurs 28th Aug)

Anything could’ve happened at this gig - or not happened. Newcomers to the band may be forgiven for focusing on front man/songwriter Anton Newcombe’s reputation as a kind of unhinged, drug-addled genius - especially those who arrived at the music via Ondi Timoner’s (albeit fascinating) 2004 documentary DIG - or dismiss him as a mimic. Whatever way you figure it, one thing's for sure. This is sublimely cool music.
In a career spanning back to around 1990, the band has accrued an impressively large catalogue of releases, featuring a sound that suggests '60s and '70s psychedelia. Think early Stones, The Who, The Byrds and, at times, even The Velvet Underground, Pink Floyd and David Bowie. But the sound is their own and, despite any points of reference, sounds fresh and relevant now as I'm sure it will be in many years to come.

This was the first of two Sydney gigs and an all-ages one. It was Anton's birthday. The 7 band members played for over two hours, with Anton talking and free-associating between songs to the audience and introducing band members. At times, Anton even heckled. We sung 'Happy Birthday' and band members (though not all of them) became progressively wasted, as they passed a bottle of something hard-looking between each other during these breaks. In a recent interview, Anton said that they just like to get drunk and see what happens. I really appreciate that from a music group - the creative, in-the-now approach to playing live (however achieved) - rather than just delivering a perfect set every time - introducing that level of chaos and uncertainty. They seemed to focus on playing their all-out epic, killer songs, including personal favourites from the several BJM cds I own. Somehow, I was transported. It was almost like an out-of-body experience, which lasted for over two blissful hours. I felt like I was being cradled in the arms of long-lost soulmates - in heaven. As if I'd been reunited with my true family, after a lifetime of being alone. Apparently, I was dancing, but I was only aware of the music and of my friend standing close behind me as I kind of floated through the hours. And no, I wasn't intoxicated!

Wonderful playing, but it never lost its rawness and became slick. At times, it actually felt like it could just fall apart, like all the best rock 'n' roll music does. Tambourine man, Joel Gion, serves as a sort of anchor to the music - always beating perfect time and stoically cool in expression, but about midway through songs, I noticed his mouth would have worked its way to being slightly open, with a euphoric smile plastered over it.

A transcendent experience.


Photo credits: Lori Baily

Green

Getting up the other day, things just didn't feel right - a continuous high-pitched drone clearly audible over the other typical sounds of another daily bread day grinding along. Disturbing dream images lingered. Things seemed out of sorts in the kitchen somehow and outside my living room window too, where I caught a flash of something green, somewhere around the building entrance on the opposite side of the road. Walking over to the window, I looked out and saw a group of people in turtle costumes holding a banner - with the words 'Don't Say Ta Ta To Turtles' boldly emblazoned on it (with 'Greenpeace' logo underneath) - facing the street (and my window) for a photographer.
I guess it's not that strange really.
I guess you had to be there.

Yes, I Had A Wonderful Birthday, Thank You

Today's State of Mind

Love Sucks

And so it goes ....... living the life of a serial monogamist. You get to a certain age and start to wonder if relationships are really worth it - the emotional highs and lows, the laughter, tears, pain and inevitable disappointment, and the ensuing retreat back to being on one's own again. I realise I'm sounding like a tortured cynic, but let's face it - nothing lasts forever.
I used to place so much importance on finding a life companion, but somehow it ends up going wrong. Inevitably, I guess I prefer to live alone, but that hasn't stopped me from blaming myself for not compromising enough for the sake of the other person. But just how much of myself was I expected to subdue?
I'm envious of those people who find someone they click with and keep it together. I wonder if they are just faking and forcing it, or if one is simply compromising all for the sake of the other - and biting their own tongues till there is barely a sliver left.

Without wanting to get all feminist about it, I have perceived that men, in general (no one person in particular), expect their women partners to be endlessly agreeable with them; consistently assertive and hot in bed; always interesting, tender, attentive, caring and reassuring; happy to be around them when they're uncommunicative (focused on tv or otherwise distracted); non-talkative, non-complaining, non-confrontational and endlessly placating their egos. We're supposed to put up with moodiness, being undermined, neglected and even taken for granted, but never ever complain. I smehow just can't seem to go the distance, myself.

Pressing On

Train fades into abyss

Living walls glow up white

Star night stain shooting fire

Red horizons

A force more bright than death

Tuned to 128,000 separate radio frequencies

Cross bearing Jesus for killing

Civilisations aimed at heavens

The war's already here

What stands if freedom fails?

Who dies if freedom lives?

Autumn Days

Went for a wander, beyond the usual zones, in the aftermath of a storm that had turned day into darkness as the southerly blew in. Fork lightning streaked across the sky and it rained hard. It's less than an hour later and the light is so bright and strange that things appear transparent as I move towards them. Big dried-out plane tree leaves are mounting in the streets and stairs.

Returning the dvd.....

Female pressure

Give this a whirl:

('Amoureux Solitaires' - music by Jenny Goes Dirty (Jennifer Cardini) & video by 4youreye)

http://www.femalepressure.net/videos/14_amoureux_4ye.html

Still confused and missing my friend

Never Trust an Ex

Still a little freaked out. Just can't get a grip on what happened - over two weeks ago now. My best friend, who happens to be my ex-lover, finally felt it was time for him to meet my new lover. It had been years since we'd been intimately involved and I had been with my new partner since last year, so it had been getting a little difficult for me, isolating the two of them from each other and seeing them separately.
My ex and I had talked clearly about it - how we really wanted to remain friends (we do genuinely like each other, after all!) and how, since we consider ourselves older and more mature now, we would rather expand our friendships, rather than reduce them. He had told me he was ready and invited us both for dinner, along with a couple of his other (female) friends, who I am also familiar with.

I should've known something was up after an hour or so, when my ex was clearly having problems getting started on dinner - so that his friend (who'd been at his flat for 4 hours previous to our arrival) actually cooked the food. But aside from seeing him 'drift away' to somewhere in his head sometime after eating - which isn't exactly unlike him - I thought things were going nicely. But then, after one person left (the cook), my ex surprised me in the kitchen as I was tidying up a bit, telling me how difficult it had all been for him, and after this sat down in front of the final three of us and, across the coffee table, proceeded to tell us - almost aggressively - "this has been really difficult for me, you know ...... after seven years ...... seven years ........ but you two, you're good ..." Added to this condescension, was an implied suggestion that he was handing me over to the new person. OK, so it'd been difficult for him. If he'd said this once, it would've been alright. But he just kept repeating it, necessitating a hasty exit on our part. Were we supposed to just sit there, feeling ambushed, tipsy with booze, food and a few hours of pleasantness, and then have a 'deep and meaningful' with him about his feelings? And what made him think it was appropriate to say these things to my (horrified!) new lover, who barely knows him and whose comfort (in this situation) I was responsible for? I felt hurt and betrayed that he would put me in such a position, because I had always felt I could trust him more than anyone else.

He's not around at the moment. When he called - 2 days after the event - and discovered I'd been upset by what had transpired, he was defensive at first and then avoided seeing me for the next 10 days (even after I'd suggested - via an email - that we needed to talk face-to-face about how to move on from there) and then went overseas for his planned 17-day holiday/visit to his family on Tuesday the 1st of April. However, he (predictably) phoned on the Sunday evening before leaving and left a message on my machine and then phoned me the day before departing - no doubt in an attempt to put his mind at ease for the good of his holiday. In the aftermath, he seems perplexed that I should feel this way. He appears to think it was big of him to do what he did and ask us over for dinner. He thinks it was all about him and his feelings - clearly no one else's. But it's not as if he'd been rejected or dumped or cheated on.

Anyway, I couldn't answer my phone, because I suddenly don't know how to relate to him any more. The person I thought I knew doesn't appear to exist.

Listening to........

TODAY'S FAVOURITES:

Pantha du Prince - This Bliss (Dial)
Dark, deep bass and melodic ambience, with a rolling beat and beautiful use of bells. Melancholic, nostalgic, subtly uplifting, but never wimpy. Sort of soothing and punchy at the same time. Rich and luscious.

The Field - From Here We Go Sublime (Kompakt)
Wonderful, unique sound. Emotionally charged, deliciously beautiful sequences that switch from one to the other - each pitched differently, yet perfectly complementary to the one following and preceding. Actually, it's best listened to, rather than described.

Chromatics - IV ... Night Drive (Italians Do It Better)
Laid-back synth-pop songs with melancholy vocals (by Ruth Radelet) that are almost deadpan, or somehow bored-sounding. Almost electro, almost pop, with a lovely beguiling quality. It never dominates, but it draws you in to listen, without trying to grab you. The last track - an instrumental - is the longest one and quite different from the others, in that it chugs along somewhat 'Suicide'-like, but slower and without the vocals. Intriguing.

James Holden - At The Controls (Resist)
From 2006, this is an awesome 2-cd mix and the third from the 'At The Controls' series that I've heard. They all share an eclecticism that is really refreshing and this one includes acts as diverse as Trans Am, Malcolm Middleton, Paul Kalkbrenner, Water Lilly, Petter, Death In Vegas, Aphex Twin and 2 tracks from Holden's 'The Idiots Are Winning' ('Border Community'), along with an Apparat remix of label-mate Nathan Fake's 'Charlie's House'. Consistently engaging and interesting.

Too busy listening to music right now.......

Summer Rant

Summer holidays in Sydney, Australia and so what's going on?

1. Killer humidity - like living in a sauna. It rained during almost all of December.
2. Everyone's in party mode and, amongst the well-heeled, money - especially in my "inner-city wealth ghetto" (thanks SB) - is ostentatiously splashed around, whereas those less well-off seem somehow absent from the mix.
3. I'm broke - as are most other people in the 'less well-off' category - after Xmas and New Year festivities.
4. I'm working. Gotta rake in that part-time (yep! only paid for hours worked) income.
5. Too much entertainment/culture. Too little time. The Sydney Festival and a bunch of music mega-gigs are a case of too much all at once. It'd be nice if they could be spread over the year a bit better.
6. Yobbos galore. 'tis the season of the backyard bogan barbecue, that inevitably continues late into the night - and often all night - and keeps those of us trying to sleep in the bedrooms of blocks of units above from getting any sleep.
7. Too many drunks everywhere. Too many horrendously sunburnt backpackers in my local supermarket queue. Too many idiots. Too many suntans. Roll on autumn........

Try this - new rock'n'roll by 'The Kills'. Love it!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3fZP7QC4PE

Crazy recurring dream

I hadn't experienced recurring nightmares since I was a child when, for quite a long period of time, I kept waking in a cold sweat after dreaming that the world outside my family backdoor was basically a spaghetti can of writhing earthworms that I was compelled - through some obscure but powerful sense of duty - to burrow my way through, in order to get to the nextdoor neighbours' house.

And now, it's happening again. I keep having this dream that I am - in fact, rather joyously - picking up one big live white rat after another, putting them into a big kitchen blender and ..... errr.... blending them! And, strangest of all, the resulting product is a combination of bright red blood and scraps of pure white rat fur. The whole time, I am jolly and laughing, despite waking in that familiar cold sweat.

I wonder what Dr Freud would have to say about this one?

Central Business District

Picture this. When walking the other day in Sydney's CBD, I passed a bar that I'd never noticed before - not that there's any wonder! It's entrance was starkly lit and it's name - emblazoned over the door - 'PRIVILEGE'. In fact, the only reason I noticed was that its two security dudes, unusually dressed-up (for bouncers, anyway) in suits and ties, were standing outside on the street arguing with another suited knob, bemoaning the number of "idiots, with no understanding of interest rates!" They were getting really aggressive about it. Gee, that's right. We're all economists now!

It just looked so funny - these basically dumb-assed bogans arguing about interest rates underneath a sign saying PRIVILEGE.

(Perhaps you had to be there!)

Yes, I still go to gigs!

Yes, yes. I've been neglecting my blog, I know. There's just been too much other stuff on. Like a bunch of contemporary electronic music gigs by Euro acts such as M.A.N.D.Y. and Booka Shade from Berlin's 'Get Physical' record label and Trentemoller, from Denmark. Continuing to create within the evolving tradition of house music, the artists from the 'Get Physical' catalogue, along with Trentemoller and many others, represent a new-wave of tech house music that can be intelligent, diverse, danceworthy or shoe-gazey, beautiful, disarming, melancholy and/or playful.
So where are the people over 30? Going to these gigs is like a kind of playground dance party for 'Schoolies Week' or something, with literally hordes of hyped-up kids. At the 'Booka Shade' gig on Wednesday night (at the Gaelic Club, Surry Hills), the majority were no more than 18 or 19.
In a packed house, there certainly didn't seem to be anyone over 25 - all seemingly cashed-up, with the latest flashy mobiles and cameras in the air, expensive clothes and those darned shaggy (emo-style) hairdos, with very expensive, elaborate colouring (males and females). They went absolutely nuts!! Most of the subtlety of those great pieces of music was somewhat lost in a rather muddy mix and in all the yelling by the crowd. It started almost like a kind of Booka Shade 'medley' - with tracks merging as if they'd tailored it to be for a pumping, rave/dance party and these jumped-up kids.

By contrast, Trentemoller retained all that subtlety - as he mixed his music live last Friday night. Some pieces were more upbeat, but overall it was complex and rich - the crowd more shoe-gazey, rather than dance-crazy.


I wasn't disappointed though - neither was my friend. Although perplexed about the fact that we have never (at these last 3 gigs) glimpsed anyone else over 30 (possibly 20!) there, apart from us, it was extremely interesting - almost as if we're on the crest of a new music renaissance, or something - a new movement for the iPod generation. Each track they began was greeted with a deafening roar of approval (and hands in the air) by the crowd - almost drowning the music out. They were so off their faces, the whole venue was a moshpit. We stood above, watching and listening. I kept thinking, why is it that I love this music, when none of my supposed 'peers' (being similarly passionate about great music) are here? Where are they? This is good stuff! Yet the crowd seems to be made up of pretty nice kids really.....no punch-ups, despite the overload of testosterone and 'out-of-it' state of them - friendly. I never felt self-consciously 'older', or anything. One girl, brushing past me excitedly, said "Sorry, I'm just a girl!" When I answered: "What?" (semi-horrified at her self-effacement), she said sweetly: "I'm a girl and you're a girl too" and touched my shoulder, kind of affectionately. They were just totally into the music! And they certainly approved of Booka Shade. These kids at least have good taste - and why wouldn't they? - even if it is doled out to them via 'Ministry of Sound' compilations, or whatever. It was great to feel included (yep! we actually did feel a part of it and welcome there) and it's great (I must say) to be alive and actually living. Hail the new music revolution!

Exhumation

Since APEC, it's as if I've been asleep. There's still plenty to complain about and there are plenty of good things too, so why do I feel like I've just been unearthed?

Been hearing a lot of criticism by academics about the proliferation of blogging - all these people with nothing much to say apparently shouldn't bother. But I thought that was the point - giving everyone a voice.

It makes me feel like just listing what I eat for meals. Instead, I'll post a photo of my work/office area.....

until I have something more to say......

Thank Goodness It's Over

After a week of dreary rainy weather, the sun is out this morning. George W. Bush and the other 20 'world leaders' have flown home, the constant drone of helicopters overhead has dissipated, the streets are ours again and life is returning to normal after the insanity of APEC. It's over and thank gawd for that!

The main protest march on Saturday resulted in no more than one or two "scuffles" amongst a 5,000-strong crowd that was almost overwhelmed by nearly as many police and the riot squad (and looking at the TV footage, those involved in these scuffles seemed innocuous, as they were overwhelmed by police officers. Perhaps they'd thrown coke cans or something.) The water cannon and other new shiny black riot squad vehicles were not used. All the media hype and politicians' rants about "violent protesters" were unfounded as Sydney residents took to the streets to voice their protest against our involvement in the war in Iraq; the Government's industrial relations policies and their lack of any real commitment to dealing with climate change, beyond the nuclear option of course; and APEC itself and a refusal to be intimidated into 'staying away and doing what we're told' - exercising our democratic right to protest. Instead, the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum resulted in nothing other than a plan to sell 'yellowcake' to Russia and get better access to military technology from the US, as well as making some sort of nuke deal with them.

The excuse given for the ridiculously intensive security during the event was to keep terrorists and protesters out, but it was pretty clear that it was to keep the protesters out, especially after the prank executed by the 'Chaser' team, where they managed to get through two checkpoints in a limousine bearing Canadian flags and security passes that had "JOKE" printed on them clearly and the word "Insecurity" instead of "Security". As exec producer Julian Morrow said: "It's a good thing we weren't Al Qaeda".

APEC = A Pointless Expensive Crock

Thanks to 'The Chaser' team (satirical ABC TV show) for staging the fake motorcade on Thursday. And unbelievable too in that although they had been certain they wouldn't even get past one checkpoint before being stopped, they had cleared two of them and were only 10 metres from Bush's hotel before they handed themselves over to police. The police chief is furious at their irresponsibility, since they could easily have been shot by snipers - positioned on rooftops all over the area. As Julian Morrow (executive producer and one of the stars of the show) commented yesterday, it's a good thing they weren't Al Qaeda members (Chas was even dressed as Osama bin Laden!). Their limo was decorated with Canadian flags, even though no one noticed that Canada isn't even being represented at APEC. Hilarious! Also great is that this was the only thing that has ,so far, hit world headlines about the entire forum.
The Australian culture of larrikinism is alive!
And for those who haven't seen it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-DDWGKqGmI

Fuck Off APEC!

There's a nasty virus about to descend upon Sydney. It's called the 'Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation Forum' (APEC) and is already making us sick. To make it worse, we are all apparently supposed to just lie down, put up and shut up, as our daily lives are inconvenienced to the max - with essential services postponed, 'no go' zones and an inevitable ton of traffic chaos. And all the while, we are paying for it (a cool $300 million!) out of our money - public money.

Worst of all, we're being censored from bitching about it. Well, they're trying to get us off the streets, anyway. It's the old terrorism excuse again, of course. But we should be really pissed off. Entire precincts of city buildings are being caged off. In fact, a tall fence was erected today, at a cost to taxpayers of $1.5 million, extending along 5 kilometres of footpaths in the northern part of the CBD, as a pre-emptive measure to "protect against terrorists and protesters". Main streets must periodically shut down, just so George W. Bush and a selection of other creepy old 'world leaders' can drive in their motorcade to their destinations without interruption. Armed military helicopters will be on 24-hour patrol. Just the other night, a huge helicopter, apparently carrying out a practice operation, hovered pretty much straight above my apartment building in the city - otherwise barely moving - from 1.45am to nearly 3.30am, making sleep impossible. It's all such a big wank!

And, predictably of course, any mention of protests almost always has the word 'violent' attached these days. In a rather interesting linguistic twist, the word 'protester' has been dispensed with, in favour of 'violent protesters' (in the future, they'll probably be simply referred to as 'terrorists') who are, we are told, to blame for all inconveniences to be experienced in our city, despite the fact that there haven't actually been any protests (or terrorist attacks for that matter) as yet. It has actually been decided that the riot squad will be using a water cannon against these supposed 'violent protesters'. You can pretty much guess that such provocative assumptions are already setting emotions aflame, so that either side is likely to lose their cool early on and result in some seriously injured people and needless arrests. Democracy is being squashed and I, for one, am appalled.