John Zorn's "Filmworks": the saga continues

In which our brave correspondent analyses Volumes VII to IX.

"Filmworks VII: Cynical Hysterie Hour" is an absolute hoot. Twenty-three tracks, 28 minutes. It has backstory. It has important broader significance. It is the most fun you can have while keeping at least one foot on the floor at all times.

The backstory, as I understand it: this was released at the tail end of Zorn's relationship with Elektra Nonesuch. It appeared for, like, a couple of days, before it was withdrawn from sale, remaindered, deleted, whatever. Some years later, someone connected with Nonesuch, or its parent company, wanted to use the Knitting Factory, which for a while was Zorn's venue of choice, for a private function. It had already been booked for the night in question by Zorn himself. Result: the company got the venue; Zorn got his back catalogue; and everything became right with the world.

These pieces were recorded as the soundtrack to four episodes of a Japanese cartoon show. (Once again, you have to hand it to the Japanese.) This album, much more so than any of the other Filmworks, makes you want to watch the shows it was made for. They sound so perfect as kids'-TV music. But they also sound great on the headphones - as long as you don't want to concentrate on anything else.

The first six tracks, which soundtrack the first episode, amount to something of a star turn for Christian Marclay's turntables and Bill Frisell's banjo and atypically gnarly electric guitar. Tracks seven to eleven feature - get this - Robert Quine, Arto Lindsay and Marc Ribot on guitars. The music veers from punk snarl to a Morricone-like waltz to near-silence and back again. In five and a half minutes. There is even a really nice airy keyboard sound that I'm sure The Chills used around the same time, somewhere on "Submarine Bells", and which is surely due for a revival. Tracks 12 to 15 are quieter, string-based pieces, although Ribot is in there, as is Ikue Mori on electronics. The final episode, comprising tracks 16 to 23, are as insane as you would expect Zorn pieces with titles like "Stink of an Onion" and "Punk Samba" to be. This is the bleed I was referring to in my earlier Filmworks post, between the Filmworks and Zorn's many other hats. There is a clear line to be drawn between this music and, for example, the first Naked City album; "The Carl Stalling Project"; and "Spillane". It is a lot of fun.

"Filmworks VIII" is more serious. It is also perhaps the most satisfying of the first nine albums in the series, at least as a pure listening experience. It is divided into two halves; the first half is played by a stripped-down version of the "Bar Kokhba" personnel, with the addition of something called a pipa, a kind of Chinese lute. What you end up with might be called Eastern Europe Meets East Asia. The music, although Masada-like (but with an Oriental tinge), hasn't appeared on any Masada recordings, and the limited depth of my Zornology doesn't allow me to say whether this music pre-dated, and perhaps provided the spark for, the Masada avalanche, or whether it consists of unreleased Masada pieces, or whether it was written later (it was released well after the first batch of Masada albums, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything). In any event it is frequently gorgeous. The combination of bass, cello and violin, in particular, is something I could listen to for days on end. In fact, I have. (As a "bonus" you can play the melody line from "Shanghai" on one finger on the piano, while at the same time singing the words to an old Scottish song that may or may not be called "Ye Canna Shove Your Granny Off A Bus".)

The second half of the disc is a series of duo recordings of percussion and vibraphone. We like a nice, well-recorded vibraphone, my word we do. There are also several stretches of shimmering, almost aquatic, ambient percussion which obviously have film-accompaniment work to do but are entirely successful on their own.

"Filmworks IX: Trembling Before G-d", unexpectedly includes some of my favourite Masada pieces, done in a variety of styles and instrumentation (in fact, this disc can also be thought of as another in the series of Masada "recital" recordings). As is often the case with Zorn, you have the impression that the record started out with him thinking, okay, this person is available, or this instrument is one I haven't used before, or this combination of instruments; what can I do with it? (In the case of Masada, the answer being, write, like, 200 songs. And then write 350 more. Football commentators would call that a "work rate".) In this case, you can almost hear him thinking, hmmm, clarinet, that's an instrument I can put to good use; I know, I'll invite Jamie Saft and his box of tricks along. That might work. And of course it does. Although, in a typical Zorn gesture, the general calm is punctuated by a kind of Yiddish knees-up, "Simen Tov / Mazel Tov", featuring some kind of dinky Casiotone keyboard.

Next stop: "Filmworks X". The soundtrack to a film about a "voodoo priestess". Sweet.

Song of the day

"Hello Mister", by Ramases. You hear this song. It sufficiently causes you to prick up your ears that you determine to investigate further. You might say, when you discover who was involved, that you took notice of the song because it triggered some kind of recognition in the deeper recesses of your memory banks. But that would be spinning it. Because really, you had no idea that the bulk of the music was played by the people who would soon become 10cc. Or that it was released on Vertigo during that label's golden years.

There. Now you're interested.

Discogs has this to say about the person behind Ramases, Martin Raphael: "Martin Raphael had a vision somewhere in the mid to late sixties where the Egyptian Pharao Ramases informed him he was his new incarnation on earth and he had to inform the people about the truth of the universe."

And a bit later: "After the second album he faded into obscurity and is presumed to be death."

Which, grammatical glitch aside, is a very sad story. I need to hear the album this is from, "Space Hymns", with its of-the-moment, garish green-and-yellow cover, immediately.

Oils Ain't Oils

Next up on the playlist entitled “Songs From Darren” is “Redneck Wonderland”, by Midnight Oil. Now, the Oils have never featured terribly high on my list of must-listens. In fact, aside from having a soft spot for “Bus To Bondi”, the only track of theirs I ever have a hankering for is the atypical, and Peter Garrett-less, “Weddingcake Island”, from the “Bird Noises” EP.

So, I have nothing whatsoever to say about “Redneck Wonderland”. But I will say this. Peter Garrett has long been one of the most recognisable of Aussie Rock Stars. (It’s hard to overlook a six-foot-plus singer with bald head, Akubra hat, charisma to burn and a dance that he seems to have learnt from St Vitus.) He made the decision to move into politics. He must have known that joining a mainstream political party would cause his personal beliefs, many of which are well known (and admirable), to clash with the party line which he would be forced to toe. And so it has come to pass. Thus far, Garrett the politician hasn’t filled me with confidence. He is trying, but he is also struggling. I wish him well, because his heart is so clearly in the right place. But, in what is a complete inversion of the well-known wannabe-rock-star admonition, I kinda wish somebody had said to him, “Peter, don’t give up your night job”.

Song of the day

"Converging in the Quiet", by Crystal Stilts. One of my problems with bands like Franz Ferdinand and the myriad other exponents of the Post Punk Revival style is that they tend to adopt the vocal stylings of their heroes (be it Robert Smith, Pete Shelley, that Curtis fellow, or whomever) and apply it to music that is bright, crisp and, like, "up".

That is not my post-punk, and it is probably not yours, either. The best p-p, for me, presented a kind of moody beauty, not exactly gloomy (although there was often that) but certainly not good clean fun, either. We are talking, here, about "Closer"; about Young Marble Giants; about certain songs on Wire's third album; even about the first couple of Echo & The Bunnymen albums. We are especially talking about "Pink Frost" by the Chills, one of, perhaps the, greatest record ever made. (For once I mean it.)

All of this is imagined, recreated perhaps, encapsulated certainly, by Crystal Stilts, a band that has seemingly appeared out of nowhere with a seven-song record of surprising depth, feeling and understanding of the heritage and tradition on which it draws. (We may also, in addition to the above reference points, note the nods contained in its grooves to bands like Beat Happening, and your shoegaze exponents of choice.) The instant highlight "Converging in the Quiet", which almost uncannily channels the feel of "Pink Frost" without diminishing what is important about that song. I almost never like songs that remind me of songs that mean a lot to me. Such is not the case here. It is not a song that draws any attention to itself. You are invited in, but only if you want to go.

The only possible negative is that structurally it does contain an echo of Pat Benatar's "Love Is A Battlefield". There, now I've spoiled it for you. (Although that is redeemed, and forgiven, by the echoes of "Closer" in the way it winds down, as if the life was being drained from it, in the final half minute.)

Song of the day

"Trommelstunde", by Gabriel Ananda. Strange but true: hidden somewhere within this incessant ten-minute percussion-driven techno stomper there are echoes of "Trouble's Braids", by Tom Waits.

Playlist, March 2008

Well, we haven’t had a hypothetical mixtape for a while. This one has been sitting around since late last year, but if we call it “March 2008” it doesn’t feel quite so stale.

Bobb Trimble, “Glass Menagerie Fantasies”. Music hunting is a bit like archaeology, or wandering along the beach with a metal detector: you turn up large quantities of useless junk, and very very occasionally a hidden gem. If this really is a lost 1980s masterpiece and not an elaborate hoax (you never can tell these days) you have to wonder where Bobb Trimble went wrong. Putting a record in a cover featuring a photo of a morose (presumably) English young man nursing an electric guitar and a Kalashnikov may not have helped. But if this song is anything to go by, the music inside is gorgeous and brave. I might call it folk’n’Fairlight, which may not be technically accurate but perhaps gets the message across. Kate Bush is not entirely out of the equation. It reminds me a lot of a song by Sally Oldfield which I mentioned in these pages a little while ago.

Nina Miranda and Chris Frank, “Have U Ever”. The title suggests Prince. The music suggests Brazil, but it also contains some nice electronic squiggles underneath the heat haze. A candidate for Adrienne’s 2008 birthday CD.

The Would-Be-Goods, “The Camera Loves Me”. One of my lost seven-inch singles, missing since the horrific and senseless record cull of 1998. On el records, the marque of quality.

Mari Wilson, “Just What I Always Wanted”. Ah, this takes one back to Fitzroy, 1984, the era when beehive hairdos were all the rage, and Brunswick Street comprised a couple of Italian grocery stores, an old-style hardware store, the Black Cat Cafe, Dizzy Spinners (where I bought my first John Coltrane record), Fetish Clothing, and a general sense of inner urban malaise. Gertrude Street you didn’t go along at night; in the daytime, illegal gambling dens and dubious rooming houses didn’t quite reveal themselves (nothing on Gertrude Street opened to the street, at least without a tough-looking guy looming in the doorway). Boy, how that all changed. Mari Wilson exists in a brief moment in time. I suppose it must sound horribly dated nowadays; I don’t think I would risk recommending it to any of my younger acquaintances.

The Special AKA, “Racist Friend”. Eighties in sound and content, like the above, and yet timeless in both. In fact, one of said “younger acquaintances” wandered into my office at work while this was playing, paused, and said “Specials”. I could have hugged him. (I didn’t.)

Billy Preston, “The Same Thing Again”. Billy Preston was the other fifth Beatle. This is a gloriously laconic slow blues with a fine organ solo. We love a good organ solo. Listening to the lyrics always reminds me that Caravan once put out a record called “If I Had To Do It All Over Again I’d Do It All Over You”.

The Merseys, “Sorrow”. I didn’t even know “Sorrow” was a cover. Listening to this, you wonder why David Bowie even bothered: there isn’t much on his version (good as it is) that you don’t get from this. For sure the English did things well in the Sixties.

Marissa Nadler, “Cowboy In The Sand”. As well as putting out one of the better records of the last couple of years, Marissa Nadler keeps her internet friends happy by frequently dispensing demos and one-off bits and pieces that she is happy for you to keep. This, obviously, is her take on Neil Young, and it’s a fine thing, if very different from the original: dreamier; hauntier.

The Sadies, “My Heart Of The Wood”. A particular type of song gets me every time. This is that type of song. It’s not country, it’s not rock’n’roll, but it’s not not either either. We have quiet vocals, strummed guitars, a slide guitar or similar winding its way through it, and lots and lots of echo. I know where I am and I like it here.

Anja Garbarek, “I Won’t Hurt You”. This song, which I first discovered via Dunedin supergroup the Pop Art Toasters, has been covered by so many people that it must be considered something of a standard. I don’t know if this is the definitive version but it is intriguing, a bit mysterious, and very very lovely.

Pelle Carlberg, “Clever Girls Like Clever Boys Much More Than Clever Boys Like Clever Girls”. If there were any justice in the world this would be a summer radio anthem. (Maybe it was; how would I know?) This is jangling pop at its best; the lilt of the bass line, and the trumpet, and the bridge, all point to Belle and Sebastian (there’s even a spoken-word bit in the background towards the end that reminds you of the days when Stuart David was in the band), but hey, you can’t have too much of a good thing.

This time around, the last three tracks are of some length, and are all from the 1970s. The Seventies is a decade that has a reputation for bloated excess. None of these songs contribute to that reputation. They have no fat. Sometimes it just takes 10 or 15 minutes to get your thang across. Introducing:

The Outlaws, “Green Grass and High Tides”. A down-home take on the Chambers Brothers’ “Time Has Come Today”. Or “Hey Joe” taken to its logical extreme (if it has one; even Soft Cell couldn’t break it). Or Crosby Stills Nash & Young if Neil Young had the licence to push their songs as hard as he pushed his own (circa “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere”). This is a song to get lost in. Featuring one of the great Seventies guitar solos. Make that two.

Jay Mitchell, “Mustang Sally”. I am quite sure that this is the most remarkable song I heard last year. Unearthed by the estimable Numero Group label, it is from an album called “Cult Cargo: Grand Bahama Goombay”, and is far from the only jaw-droppingly good thing on the album (there is a version of the theme from “The Godfather” that has to be heard to be believed). Herein the funk is in full effect, with a rippling organ running, or meandering, right through it. Props to the drummer, too.

Min Bul, “Champagne Of Course”. If this year is the year of the bass player (or was that last year? Hey, every year is the year of the bass player), then 1970 must have been, too. They didn’t tend to do samples and loops in those days, so dude’s fingers must have been rather sore by the end of this. I feel your pain, fella.

That Petrol Emotion

We are shortly going to have to fill the car with petrol. It's going to hurt. And we are much better off than many people: we are lucky enough (or maybe it's not entirely luck) to live quite close to most places we need to drive to, and have access to door-to-door and pretty reliable public transport too. Nevertheless, having a car is just part of the long history of human ingenuity and ability to create labour-saving and quality-of-life-enhancing ways of living. Which, hey, I'm not wishing to stand in the way of. (And they have neat things like drink holders and places for charging your laptop and six-CD changers. All good.)

But having a car is also, slowly, killing the planet. [Oh, here he goes again - ed.] We are paying a lot for petrol, and perhaps that might make a difference to car usage patterns. But for all sorts of reasons pressure is being brought to bear on the price of petrol. Well, I am bringing pressure to bear in the other direction: why aren't we paying, let's see, double - or triple - the present inflated prices? That might help. If one thing can turn around human behaviour, it's the hip pocket. This has been proved time and time again. If (when?) running a car, or at least a petrol-driven car, becomes so expensive that we have to think twice about it, we will think twice about it. And that is when we will genuinely, seriously reduce the use of it. It may, in the short-to-medium term, mean that everything, not just petrol but everything that gets made and transported, will get more expensive. But, thinking globally and of the future, it might be the recession we have to have. (Haven't I heard that before?)

Of course, I wouldn't be saying this to people openly, because the likely response would be a punch in the nose. But (I hope) you know it makes sense.

Anyway, why take my word for it when you can read this column by Thomas L Friedman in the New York Times? He's a reputable writer, read by many people (unlike some of us), is frequently right, or at least reasonable, in his opinions, and if he could only shake off the slightly patronising, aw-shucks folksy tone, would be a pleasure to read.

Of course, higher petrol prices are only one part of the problem. Cities are designed all wrong. Houses are designed all wrong. And the person responsible for the concept of "disposable" has a lot to answer for. But we can only save the human race from extinction a bit at a time. And I would hate to think that we couldn't do it, or that it was "just too hard" (although in my darker moments I think exactly that). I need to keep reminding myself that America put a human being on the surface of the moon just because the Soviet Union was going to beat them to it, so perhaps all we need is real motivation. Perhaps the long dry in this part of the country is part of that motivation. Food shortages in Australia would be a rum thing, wouldn't they?

Have a lovely weekend ... (And don't forget to turn off your computers and printers at work before you go. And the lights.)

Neat segue of the day

The iTunes Party Shuffle was in a Carpenteresque mood this morning. It threw up (sorry) the Sonic Youth version of "Superstar", followed immediately by "Clouds Across The Moon", which is not by the Carpenters (it is by The RAH Band) but which is definitely the kind of song the Carpenters might have done, and which whenever it comes on I mistakenly assume, momentarily, is the Carpenters.

Cartoon of the day

Even though my current mental state is one of acute existential dread, which means that I am unable to laugh at it, this is the best cartoon I have seen in a long, long time.

Karma Police

I have always tried to live my life on the theory that What Goes Around Comes Around.

On Sunday night, when I was out picking up the takeaway, I stepped on a black wallet near the darkened footpath at the Garran shops. It crossed my mind that nobody would see if I put it in my pocket, but honesty, and a fleeting but critical premonition of a guilty conscience (thanks, Mum), quickly won out, and I handed it in at the local supermarket for its rightful owner to claim. (Which they did; it was gone the next morning.)

Fast forward to this morning. As we were getting ready for school/work, there was a knock on the door. The father of a couple of the kids at the boys' school was standing there. In his hands was a slightly weatherbeaten red Sherrin (size 3) with our name and phone number attached. It disappeared some time around last August. It had been given up for dead; plans were slowly hatching to buy a replacement. Now we have been reunited, and we are happy. Well, I can't speak for the football.

I firmly believe, even as I stand here before you as a man of science, not faith, that it is no coincidence that we unexpectedly have our beloved footy back so soon after my small good deed of last Sunday night.

Aftermath

And so we say goodbye to another Eurovision Song Contest. As usual, the voting had nothing to do with the music. So you can't really just limit yourself to YouTubing the top three vote-getters. You need to immerse yourself (and perhaps have a good shower afterwards).

This year, for the first time, we let the boys watch for a while. A sign that the days of childhood innocence are fading away: both boys responded with a Woganesque "Crap" to every song they saw (except the English entry, which Carl quite liked on account of its disco tendencies).

If you're talking actual "quality", the Sebastian Tellier was streets ahead of everybody else. (It seemed to have wandered in from another show entirely.) If you're talking sheer Eurovision-ness, I must admit I did like the Romanian entry. But ultimately it was the Latvian pirates that stole the show. For what that's worth.

Sadly we couldn't stay until the end, because "Flight of the Conchords" was screening on Channel Ten.

Chook

His name, it turned out, was Mark MacLeod. Actually I can’t be entirely sure about the spelling. When he first appeared at our school, it was by way of an absent and unknown student’s on the roll. The teacher called out “M MacLeod”. To which some wag replied, “Oh, that’s Max”. When M MacLeod physically appeared, a couple of days later, he slotted into the “Max” role perfectly. In fact, he quite liked it. Called himself “Max”. Which, of course, soon became “Max Merritt”. Which naturally grew into “Max Merritt and the Meteors”, and other variations on the theme of “Max”.

Until, on account of his having a slight overbite and a top lip that kind of came to a little point, he morphed into “Chook”. And it was as Chook that he is remembered. He arrived, as best as I can recollect, in Year 9, and left in Year 10. His father was a local minister of relegion for that time. I went to his house a few times. I met his father, but I don’t recall ever having seen his mother. I suppose it is possible that he didn’t have one, although such an idea was alien to everything I knew back then. What he did have was a lot of freedom. Freedom, mainly, to misbehave, and to spread misbehaviour amongst our innocent ranks.

For starters, he had an impressive collection of dirty magazines, from which he had acquired an equally impressive, if not entirely anatomically correct, vocabulary. The key to all knowledge, for Chook, was that girls had something called piss flaps. From these unimaginable zones, according to Chook, they were capable of doing something called piss-flap farts. Nobody (including, I suspect, Chook) had any idea exactly what this involved. Sounds? Smells? We had no idea. We couldn’t even begin to visualise it. And we weren’t about to be asking anyone. So these flaps remained a mystery, but a mystery that gave Chook an amazing degree of power amongst the boys, for it was Important Knowledge That Only He Was Privy To.

Chook was also into music, which I suppose is why we hit it off so well. He introduced me to “Cat Scratch Fever”, by Ted Nugent, which is how, 25 years later, I was to be the only person in a crowded cinema to laugh, at the end of the Seven Soderberg remake of “Ocean’s 11”, when George Clooney says “Ted Nugent called, he wants his shirt back”.

My parents, nobody will be surprised to hear, didn’t take to “Mark”. (They couldn’t bring themselves to call somebody “Chook”.) But they did let me go to his house from time to time, and in return I made a silent pact with myself never to let slip about the outrageous things that were to be seen at his house, or the schoolyard and classroom antics that were a big part of his reputation. (Of these, I don’t remember much in the way of detail. It was just mostly kids’ stuff. I think it was Chook who was the first to point out how Miss Jones’s bum wiggled when she wrote on the blackboard. There may also have been something to do with short pants and bare knees, but I think that might have been to do with me, and I would need to go through years of therapy, probably, in order to be able to dredge that back up to the surface.)

We took Chook with us to the Melbourne Show. We spent the trip in the car hunched over in the back seat; I was reading music magazines (as always) and Chook was trying his hardest to distract me and make me laugh. It was pretty annoying, although not as annoying as finding when we got back to the car that the newsprint magazines (whatever they were, NME, RAM, Roadrunner) that I had left on the ledge behind the back seat had yellowed in the sun over the course of the day.

For me, the Show was often our one trip to Melbourne for the year, and it was a time of excitement and wonder, and also of a kind of childhood nostalgia, as each year I liked to find things the same as they were in previous years: the scones at the CWA pavilion; waiting for one or another of my uncles or cousins to suddenly appear amongst the cows; the coloured baby chicks and their water slide; the model train display (I may have cried the year it disappeared); and the grand parade in the middle of the afternoon, signalling that it would soon be time to go. But none of this was for Chook. He wanted to spend the whole day hanging around the sideshow alley, saying rude things to girls, simultaneously looking for and staying out of trouble, and eating the kind of crap food I coveted but knew that I would never in a million years be allowed to eat. Chook wasn’t remotely interested in looking at cows. Or chooks. What ended the dream for me was the Mad Mouse. The Mad Mouse was like a miniature roller coaster in the shape, roughly, of a cube. It was another of the landmarks I associated with the Show, but not one that I had any interest in partaking of. Chook wanted to go on the Mad Mouse, and he was insistent that I go on it too. I wasn’t having a bar of it. (I wasn’t, and still am not, good with heights.) This soon went from good-natured stirring to actual anger and abuse: I was a chicken (to which I wasn’t confident enough to say “Well you’re a Chook”, although that may well have been the circuit breaker that the situation needed); I was gutless; I was a pussy.

It was a very long two hours, in the dark, in the back of the car, on the way home. Mum and dad would have had the radio on the ABC, which would only have given Chook another reason to treat us with the contempt he probably felt we deserved. Things didn’t really get repaired between us, but they didn’t have much of a chance to, anyway, because it wasn’t long before Chook disappeared from our lives. I wonder what became of him.

The Overload

My head hurts. You can, it seems, listen to too much John Zorn. I have found myself with access to the best part of all 19 of his "Filmworks" series and I am trying to get through as much of it as I can as quickly as I can. But it may be a case of "less haste, more speed" (an expression I have never understood), or perhaps its opposite.

You can fairly precisely allocate Zorn's enormous volume of work into categories: the modern classical pieces; the jazz saxophone work; the various Masada permutations; the game theory works; Naked City; what you might call his "scare the children" music; and so on. But there is inevitably some bleeding between all of them, and I have often suspected that a lot of that blood might be found in his soundtrack work.

Some of this I have heard before. Some exists by legend (e.g. "Filmworks VII", which inadvertently secured the release of all of Zorn's catalogue from Elektra/Nonesuch, or so the story goes). At the moment it is all a bit of a blur, and listening in sequence this time around I am only up to "VI". But a case might perhaps be made that these recordings are an alternative way into, if not through, the Zorn labyrinth (hint: there is no way out), much in the way the Peel Sessions box set can do the same for The Fall.

Preliminary observations: quite a lot of the first six discs fails to leave a lasting impression, if only because much of it is fragmentary in nature, not to mention removed from its original context. Some is, frankly, a waste of money (viz., the last two pieces on "VI", which make up not much less than half that disc's running time). But it is particularly nice to hear the late Robert Quine being used to good effect, and often, on the early pieces (there are passages that are strongly reminiscent of the first Quine I ever heard (well, leaving aside "Blank Generation", which I didn't know he played on), "Basic", an album of duets with the drummer Fred Maher; kind of like rock and roll played by automatons); and it is always good to hear Zorn's other guitarists of choice, Bill Frisell and Marc Ribot (the latter particularly stands out here; he runs through his inimitable range of twang, plink, chime, and skronk with concision and, well, charm). But what I mostly take away from "I" - "VI" are the first four tracks on "VI", just guitar (Ribot), bass (Greg Cohen, from the original Masada quartet) and percussion (Cyro Baptista, another Zorn regular in those days), laying down some quietly melodic tunes that at times put me in mind of Ry Cooder, but only in a good way; and the "Thieves' Quartet" pieces, on "III", which comprise (I think) the first appearance of what would become the Masada quartet, which I consider to be the pinnacle of Zorn's many achievements (so far). It is exciting (well, for me, anyway; to each ...) to listen to this music in the knowledge of where and how far it would take him (and them; and, uh, me ...) and to speculate on the creative journey involved. Like, was there a Eureka! moment when Zorn heard these four together (Dave Douglas stands out, especially, as bringing a new sound into the Zorn palette) and thought, "I can do something with this"? We will never know, I guess, but these 17 minutes are something of a Rosetta Stone.

More later.

The Darren Files (Day Four)

It's fitting that, as we move into this year's exciting Eurovision Weekend (Latvian pirates!), the next song to rise to the surface of Darren's list of I've-forgotten-how-many songs is "Ma Baker", by Boney M.

In a word, this song is ridiculous. The female harmony vocals alone give it a reason to exist. (Just.)

The most ridiculous things about "Ma Baker" are:

1. Everything about it.

2. The fake "FBI" voiceover that appears in the middle of the song.

3. There is something at the very start of the song that sounds like somebody tapping their teeth with a pencil.

Boney M had four, at least, big hits in Australia. I suspect they will all appear here at some stage. Without hearing the others, my guess is that this is the second-crappest of them. "Daddy Cool", which is very much a carbon copy of this, I expect will be the crappest.

If You Lived Here You'd Be Home Now

Solar Flares (Burn For You)

The newly elected federal government in this country has wasted no time in establishing its "green" credentials by taking the modest rebate that is available to households installing solar panels and, no, not extending or increasing it, but making it subject to a means test, meaning that only households earning over $100,000 a year will qualify.

If the reports of Mr Garrett, erstwhile Aussie Rock Icon, describing the decision as having been made because the rebate was "too popular" are correct, then we are, as I have been hammering on for a long time, all in trouble. What is "too popular" is the consumption of fossil fuels. This move will do nothing to alleviate that, and in the long run the cost of increased (or even, can we now all agree please, not reduced) consumption of fossil fuels will be much, much higher than an $8,000 cash rebate, even if every household in the country applied for it. (And anyway, how could anybody argue that that wouldn't be a good thing?)

This would be all to the good if the money that was to be spent on the rebate were to be channelled into other projects aiming towards the same end result. But that remains to be seen.

Redneck Wonderland indeed.

Song of the day

"Morning Sun", by Happy The Man. If we were playing word associations, the first thing that pops into my head when I hear this song is "Wurlitzer", although I suspect there is no Wurlitzer in sight. Strange.

As for me, I am no "Happy The Man" today. I am getting more than the usual amount of static-electricity shocks, for some reason. It is seriously freakin' me out. The worst ones are when you stick your hand in water. You think you are going to die.

YouTube of the day

I am usually the last person to find out about things like this, but if you haven't yet had the sorry pleasure of watching this, you really should.

All together now:

"Ken Leeeeee
tulibu dibu douchoo".

It would be remiss of me not to draw your attention to the hair on the guy sitting on the left of screen. I haven't seen a haircut like that since, well, last year's Eurovision Song Contest.

Song of the day

"I Dream Of Wires", by Robert Palmer. I was going to say: this is so Gary Numan that it's (not) funny. But what do you know: it actually is Gary Numan, and his bass player I think, with Palmer contributing (only?) vocals. The Bahamas must do something to people's minds.

The Drum's The Thing

Genuine, absolutely one-click-only random Wikipedia page of the day: "Modern Drummer" magazine. Which is all the excuse we need to belatedly mark the passing of Klaus Dinger, which was announced at a time when we were under the malign influence of lurgi, and we somehow failed to get back to him.

Klaus Dinger, as you know, was the drummer who, with "Hallo Gallo", by Neu!, invented the thing known as "motorik". Listen to "Hallo Gallo". You have lost count of how many times you have heard that rhythm. But you heard it there first. Respect.

The end of music

Now would be as good a time as any for me to stop listening to new music. Of course, I won't, because I can't not listen to new music. But Portishead, with "Third", have released the album to end all albums. It's hard to know where they, and music in general, can go from here. The game, perhaps, is up. At the very least, an unexpectedly dark and heavy (and frequently beautiful; don't forget that) gauntlet has been thrown down. It goes without saying that I can't imagine hearing a more necessary album this year, or for that matter for many years to come. As is so often the case, Marcello Carlin is saying, one day at a time, all that needs to be said.

Plug

May we commend to you "Flight Of The Conchords", which is currently screening on Channel Ten late on Sunday evenings. The humour is drier than the Murray Darling basin. We would be interested to know how a couple of jokers from New Zealand convinced HBO to make a comedy series about their struggles to make it big in New York. But we're glad they did.

Elegy

Mathematically, the brand new Robert Forster album, "The Evangelist", is three-quarters of a Go-Betweens album. But some things are not susceptible to simple mathematics, and the Go-Betweens were [it still hurts to type that past tense] such a thing. As is now common knowledge, this album contains several songs started by Grant before he died. It is to Robert Forster's enduring credit that he has made such a wonderful fist of performing an impossibly difficult task.

On the one hand, it is difficult, in the absence of notes, to tell where Grant ended and Robert began. On the other hand, it sounds almost nothing like any of Robert's previous solo albums. In fact, it sounds not so much like a continuation of where the Go-Betweens were headed in their second incarnation, as like a rewind-the-tape continuation of where the Go-Betweens were "at" before they ceased to exist the first time around.

Which is both a lovely and extraordinary treat, and perhaps an unexpected confirmation of my long-standing Theory Of The Go-Betweens, viz., that each time they reappeared, either with a new record or, to stretch the theory a bit, with a new band after a long hiatus, they sounded not like what had just come before but like the thing that came before what had just come before. Try it: I think you'll find it holds true at least up to "16 Lovers Lane". (To be simplistic and not wholly accurate, what I hear are swings between (a) tension and (b) beauty.) And, treating the three post-reformation albums as a bloc, it holds true with this album as well.

Thank you, Robert, this is an album that I will be holding close to me, for a long time. There will be tears (there are as I write this) but they will be as much of joy as of sorrow.

"I had to go vertical here"

We are, as you know, huge fans of the work of Richard Serra. We would give our right arm to be able to see this. (We are left-handed.)

(The above link also takes you to an accompanying slide show, which doesn't really do the work a whole lot of justice but does manage to convey the scent of Paris in the spring.)

The only Richard Serra we have actually seen is a little, but beautiful, piece owned by the gallery across the road from where we work.

Question: A what struggle? Answer: A political struggle.

It is coming up to four years now since those of us in the southern hemisphere sat on our refresh buttons, well into the wee small hours of the afternoon, unsuccessfully willing the tyrant George W Bush to be cast from his throne. Somehow the planet has more or less survived those four years, but can't be said to be in anywhere near as healthy a condition as it was eight years ago.

And so the battle is on again. We have been watching quietly from the sidelines as Clinton II and Obama have tried gamely to dash each other against the rocks of the Democratic Party nomination. We have admired Clinton's gameness. We have cringed at some of the "Change" rhetoric that has been constantly leeching out of the Obama camp. (But this is, after all, America, home of the cringeworthy sentiment.) Ultimately, we have been swayed by the sense that Clinton is running for president because she can, whereas Obama is running for president either because he should or because he must. And we have been swayed also by the view of our good friend, the Very Wise Ian Hotmail, who has spent some time in those United States, that the hurdle to be jumped by a black man is higher than the hurdle to be jumped by a white woman.

But the final straw has been the appalling and opportunistic decision of Clinton to support those calling for a holiday reprieve from the gasoline tax (a call which, presumably, hasn't been frowned upon by the oil companies if it wasn't in fact manufactured by them all along). As you know, our view is that the issue of climate change is the only issue there is. We cannot abide someone who chooses, for their own short-term political gain, to jump on a bandwagon that has the sole effect (aside from the hoped-for effect on the voting patterns of SUV drivers) of spewing even more carbon into the atmosphere. Does she really want Clinton III (a.k.a. Chelsea) to bring her own children into a world that resembles the landscape of "Mad Max II" just so she (Chelsea) can say to them "Both of your grandparents were presidents"?

So we must say, Farewell Hillary, and please remember to take your husband with you when you go.

Victoria

Understandably, and commendably, the first thing Adrienne does when the New Yorker hits our letter box is check if there is a Victoria Roberts cartoon. May must be Adrienne's lucky month, then, because Victoria Roberts is the New Yorker's Cartoonist of the Month. But rather than just cartoons, she is filling the space with little YouTube clips of her own devising, which are, you might say, non-linear, but lovely.

"Look out, Cliff!"

Is this the most important news story of our time?

(Well, probably not, but it does at least serve to remind one of what really matters in this crazy, mixed-up modern world.)

Mash-ups Are The New Mash-ups

In case you hadn't noticed, or aren't on his mailing list, Mark Vidler, the king of the mash-up, has come back from the wilderness with an entire album's worth of brand new cut-n-paste magic. (Well, it's a fairly short album but no shorter than at least one KC and the Sunshine Band album, as I recall.) It's available on his website for your downloading pleasure.

Which is all you need to know.

This Goes With This

Has anybody else had the experience of listening to "Angelitos Negros" by Cat Power, from the second, "bonus" disc attached to some copies of the unfairly maligned "Jukebox" album (a very old song, also recorded by Roberta Flack and Eartha Kitt, and others, and in this case masterfully anchored, but really the opposite, by Jim White's expressionistic drumming), and finding their brain making an unconscious segue into Joy Division's "New Dawn Fades"?

Hey Lawdy Mama

Here at Farmer In The City we reject Mother's Day and Father's Day as the retail-behemoth-driven scams that they undoubtedly are. Nevertheless, they serve as an occasion, in my case, to be the recipient of stray pieces of the Bob Dylan puzzle that I didn't already have, and in the case of Adrienne, to increase her listening horizons bit by bit. Last year, she was given Feist's "The Reminder". This year (I hope she's not reading this) it will be "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga", by Spoon, my second-favourite record of 2007 (how it can be my second-favourite album of 2007 without me actually owning it is a question that shall remain unanswered).

It just goes to show: Indie Rock is the new Richard Clayderman.

Song of the day

"It's Magic", by Pilot. Because I am in the middle of reading a piece by Adam Gopnik, from a recent issue of the New Yorker (what else?), about the place of the magician in the modern world, or some such thing. It's a good article, actually: it could do with being about five times longer. Maybe he'll turn it into a book. It would make a good book, too. Anyway, in it he mentions Tannen's Magic, a shop in New York where magicians hang out, a bit, I suppose, like the Warhammer shop here in Canberra is a place for "enthusiasts" to hang out. It then dawned on me that this very same shop, Tannen's, plays a small but pivotal role in Michael Chabon's "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay", which I am still slowly making my way through, (a) because I am a very slow reader, (b) because reading is what I do for a living, and it's sometimes hard to front up in the evening for more words on paper, and (c) because it's such a fine damn book that it will be a shame to get to the end of it. It has moved from an inventive and entertaining story to something altogether broader, and deeper. You should read it.

Nothing to do with "It's Magic", by Pilot, of course, but we like to throw in gratuitous references to 1970s pop songs whenever we get a chance. It's probably in Darren's list of songs. If so, I'll perhaps have more to say about it on another occasion.

I Don't Wanna Go Down To The Basement

What is it with Austrians and cellars? It's like there's some kind of thought process that happens over there which goes, "I've got a bit of extra space under the house that's not being used. What can I do with it? I know, I'll kidnap somebody and make them my prisoner down there." Seems to me there's a bit of a breakdown in logical reasoning there (I mean, how is that the first thing that comes to mind? What about building a train set, for example), but then, I'm not Austrian. (I am part Swiss, but don't worry, we don't have a cellar.)

Songs from Darren, Day 3

"Magic Bus", by The Who. Like a lot of the songs on this list, I didn't know this song by name, but I did know the song. "Magic Bus" strikes me as being simultaneously a carbon copy of "My Generation" and the closest The Who ever came to sounding like The Rolling Stones. Oh, and just a little bit dull in its forced excitement. The Who did better songs.

Culture Wars, Revisited

It is curious that “Bye Bye Baby”, by the Bay City Rollers, is the second song to rise to the surface in the 1,305-song lottery provided by Darren. It is one of the last things I can remember, musically, before the great dividing line of the Sex Pistols. At Fish Creek Primary School, in 1975, when I was in grade six, the girls were into the Bay City Rollers. The boys were not. We were men’s men. We had already lived through the Skyhooks vs Sherbet battles, convinced, then as now, that Skyhooks were the only possible winner. By 1975, If it wasn’t by The Sweet, or Suzi Quatro, or Alice Cooper, we weren’t interested. (Well, I had, and still have, an unputintowordsable soft spot for “I’m Not In Love”, by 10cc, but I kept that to myself. And, although I hate to admit it, the firt album I ever bought, probably only a year or so earlier, was by Paper Lace, who it now strikes me may have been one of the reasons for the Bay City Rollers’ existence, or particular shape.) The hate we felt for the Bay City Rollers knew no bounds.

None of us, girls or boys, had any understanding of the Bay City Rollers’ background, personal or cultural. Tartan? What was that? They just looked like poofy clothes to us. They girls we figured, were just into their undoubted good looks (another reason to hate them). I suppose it might seem a bit odd that an advertisement for (or against?) Scottish nationalism should be postered on pre-teen bedrooms the world over. But stranger things have happened.

What does it sound like in 2008? Wet, certainly. Naively innocent. About as far from punk as you could imagine. But it is easy to see why this was, and deserved to be, a hit. What’s not to like? At two and a half minutes (including the pseudo-doowop introduction) it lasts the perfect amount of time. And you can detect at least a hint of Belle and Sebastian in its structure, its inclusiveness and its exuberance.

The funny thing is that, even after thirty-three years, I can’t hear this song without superimposing over it the sound of thousands of young girls screaming.

Song of the day

"Nothing Grows In Texas", by the Sacred Cowboys. One of the small pleasures of living in Canberra in Autumn is the occasional chance to sit out on the back deck, in the tepid but welcome morning sun, with a cup of coffee straight from the Bialetti, and a copy of the Saturday Age. Which, today, contained a review of a gig by the Sacred Cowboys, a staple of the Melbourne cowpunk/psychobilly scene of the early to mid-eighties. "Nothing Grows In Texas" was also a Triple R favourite for many a long year. I don't actually remember ever seeing the Cowboys play, but I'm sure I must have. (There is much I can't remember.)

Anyway, here they are miming on Countdown. Watching this feels like it all happened a long time ago, while simultaneously making it seem like it was only yesterday.

(Bonus Australian cowboy connection: this purports to be recent live footage of the Beasts of Bourbon. Tex seems to be aging unexpectedly well.)

Song of the day

"We Are The Sleepyheads", by Belle and Sebastian. "The Life Pursuit", in case you were wondering, is a record that grows and grows. My first impression, which was that it was lacking what made "Dear Catastrophe Waitress" so special (i.e., Trevor Horn), has proved to be rather wide of the mark.

Today I was allowed to have the car (it doesn't happen often, and is not as green as taking the bus: hey, I'm a hypocrite) and it has been a pleasure to have this album as accompaniment. Stevie Jackson is one of the finest guitarists of the modern era, I reckon. I wonder what they're up to.

Song of the day

"Don and Sherri", by Matthew Dear, from the album "Asa Breed". The interesting, and unexpected, thing about this song is how closely it channels the sound and, more difficult to do, the essence of Yellow Magic Orchestra. Now, where did I put that copy of "Technodelic"?

Song of the day

"No Time To Stop Believing In Love", by Daisy Chain, on the fabulous Ze label, and containing a monster of a guitar solo, in fact a very strong challenger to the one in "Beat It". Which, of course, will never be dethroned.

The sound of Canberra in autumn

I emerged from the bathroom this morning, freshly showered, to be met with the unmistakable sound of "Smoke On The Water" played on a melodica by an eight-year-old. (He can also play it on the piano and the fife. To come: the harmonica and the kazoo.)

I wish I had (a) a Moog and (b) a Hammond B-3.

Portiswho?

Well, it may not yet be available in the shops, but "Third", the fourth album by Portishead, is certainly "out there". In both senses: to say that it is going to surprise a lot of people is to say nothing that is going to surprise anyone. If you know what I'm sayin'. Sasha likes it. Reynolds likes it. It took me eight years to "get" "Portishead", their second album, so I'm not going to stick my neck out just yet. (Yes I am: it's stunning; backward-looking in many ways, but not in the sense of having much if any connection to the specific music they have done before.)

Whether you have or haven't heard the album yet, you need to watch this. In particular, the third song (I haven't yet got titles figured out), which starts about nine minutes in - it's the one with two drummers, always a good sign - will stop you in your tracks. It has the same propulsion as the best krautrock, on which it builds, and builds, and ... stops.

The Plot Thickens

Further to the final part of my previous entry: like many a well-framed multiple-choice question, the least likely answer is the correct answer. It turns out that The Raconteurs, from the point of view of Australia only, are a band from somewhere in Queensland. The Raconteurs, from the point of view of Jack White, Brendan Benson et al, are in Australia The Saboteurs. This was confirmed by a visit to JB Hi-Fi on the weekend (en route to a rendezvous with two young boys at the local Warhammer store: now there's an oddly comforting combination of male teenage body odors, death metal music, and impeccable good manners): nothing under Raconteurs, plenty of Raconteurs records under "Saboteurs".

Well, good luck to the Queenslanders, I suppose, in holding out for the use of their own name. But two things come to mind.

1. This type of thing was all very well when all media were local, but such is no longer the case. Folks who are interested in the music of The Raconteurs (the real Raconteurs, that is) probably are also users of the Internet. On the Internet, you will not find many references to The Saboteurs. You will find lots of references to The Raconteurs. Not many of those are references to the Queensland Raconteurs.

2. What happens if the Queensland Raconteurs suddenly find themselves big in a land where the other Raconteurs are allowed to be called The Raconteurs? (They could call themselves The Saboteurs, I suppose. That would be a laff riot, wouldn't it?)

And while we're on the subject of The Raconteurs, does Joe Jackson get a songwriting credit for "Steady As She Goes"? It's in the bass line.

Two Nuns And A Pack Mule

Actually, two songs and a puzzle.

Song one: "Life On Mars", by David Bowie.

Having spent the last week or so gazing unhealthily at the contents of several unfortunate handkerchiefs, I have just now got around to watching the final episode of the second series of the wonderful "Life On Mars". This has been almost a textbook example of the kind of television I like: action, suspense, a wicked sense of humour, attention to detail, solid characterisation (the kind that makes you actually care), well chosen and frequently not obvious music, individual weekly storylines contained inside a deeper overarching narrative. It's not Dennis Potter but it's not "Home And Away" either.

(Actually, one of my favourite aspects of the show was the pub where the officers retired after (or during) work hours, run by a cheery Jamaican who, at least in the early episodes of the first series, seemed to have a direct line to Kingston record bins of the era (1973). It is interesting to speculate whether, in real life 1973, working geezers would have been exposed to deep-rooted reggae music, and if so how that affected, or would have affected, their outlook on life. Did reggae actually permeate as far as Manchester pubs in 1973, or ever? It stands to reason: Manchester was in many ways where punk, and especially what came after, was born, three years later, and we know that Lydon (down in London) and others were heavily influenced by Lee "Scratch" Perry et al. Don Letts probably knows the answer.)

And, of course, the eponymous theme song. If the 1970s belonged to Neil Young, they also belonged to David Bowie (and perhaps Brian Eno, who was moving in vaguely concentric circles with Bowie for much of it). "Life On Mars", and what it evokes, takes you so completely back to that decade that it was an obvious scene-setting choice. But it is also a totally brilliant song. This is proved as follows: you can update it for the glowsticks, tracksuit pants and smiley badges generation (C.O.), or have it played, in Portuguese, on a boat, for the entertainment of Bill Murray and his red-knitted-capped crew (Seu Jorge, as seen in "The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou"), and it still carries the same emotional weight as the original (whether that would be the case if you had never heard the song before and didn't know Portuguese is something I can't answer).

Song two: "Anarchy In The UK", by the Sex Pistols.

Those readers with long memories and nothing better to store in their brain cavities might remember that I mentioned some time ago having been provided by Darren with something over 1,000 songs, not so much songs that I don't know (although that too) as songs that I should have paid more attention to or not dismissed as knee-jerkily as I am inclined to do. These songs have now been added to a couple of hundred of a similar nature that he foisted upon me a year or two previously. I have also culled those songs that I already own (legally) on CD. The number is currently 1305. They have been stuck in a randomiser and duly scrambled. I will deal with them one at a time. I have no expectation of getting very far. What I don't want is for this to turn into some private conversation between him and me, because is there anything more boring than private conversations conducted in public?

It is somehow fitting that the first spin of the wheel landed on "Anarchy In The UK" because, for me, this song was Year Zero. To be precise, seeing the Sex Pistols on "Countdown" opened a door that could never be closed. There I was, twelve years old, having started to be interested, thanks to my crazy Melbourne cousins and some friends' older brothers (if you are somebody's older brother, please remember, your musical tastes will be taken very seriously by small children of your younger siblings' acquaintance; don't take this responsibility lightly), in music that was outside the orbit or 3UL: David Bowie, Pink Floyd, Supertramp, Jethro Tull, Aerosmith, Deep Purple, and other "heavy" type music. The Sex Pistols picked all of that up like a hurricane and blew it to who knows where. Suddenly the possibilities were limitless. And so it has proved. And yet.

And yet. I never owned "Never Mind The Bollocks". My twelve-year-old self somehow intuited that a best-of collection had no place outside of the world that the Sex Pistols had destroyed, and it felt like a betrayal, or a selling out. (I may have missed some notional quote marks around the enterprise, but I suspect that it was exactly what it looked like: an item of product created by a record company in order to make money for that record company.) I did (and do) own the "Pretty Vacant" seven-inch (picture sleeve), but my Pistols collection went no further (although I have always enjoyed Sid's version of "My Way"). I think it's like this: the Pistols weren't as important for the music they made as for, I dunno, blowing open a hole for scores of similarly disaffected youth to scramble through. This is not a new story. Read Jon Savage's "England's Dreaming". (Read it anyway, it's a great book.) The Sex Pistols were negative energy. ("No Future".) The Clash, Gang of Four, Wire, The Fall, they were the ones who saw a future. (Well, nobody knows precisely what Mark E Smith saw.) Nevertheless, the opening seconds of this song are always thrilling to hear, and always will be.

The puzzle.

In a weak and fevered state, I was listening to Triple J last Friday evening (something I haven't done for ages). Twice they played a promo tape advertising the Triple J Album Of The Week. It was "Consolers of the Lonely", by "The Saboteurs". Who? She said it twice. Look. There it is again. "The Saboteurs". What does this mean?

1. For legal reasons The Raconteurs can't be called The Raconteurs in Australia?

2. There happens to be a band called The Saboteurs featuring a Jack White sound-alike on vocals and guitar, who happen to have a new album with the same name as the new Raconteurs album? And Triple J chose that album as its Album Of The Week?

3. Quality control on The Js is not what it was?

I don't know on which day Triple J's "Week" starts, but given that I was listening on a Friday it's at least possible that the promo had been running for a good few days, which raises an interesting, and sad, question: is anybody listening? Triple J, back in the days before it gained the third "J", had as much, if not more, influence on my impressionable mind than seeing the Pistols on "Countdown". It would be a shame to watch it die.

Third time lucky

Wikipedia random page of the day: Irene Purcell, screen actress, who cruelly warrants only two lines of text in her Wikipedia entry. And no photograph! For an actress! Come on, peoples. Still, we discover that her birthplace was Hammond, Indiana, which gives us licence to use as our matching song "The Hammond Song", by The Roches, which we never hesitate to plug around here. Whether The Roches are singing about Hammond, Indiana I have no idea. Maybe Hammond is like Springfield: everywhere.

Unexpected headline of the day

The Feelies Reunite! Pitchfork's exclamation mark, and mine.

Party Favors Two

(Do you see what I did there? No, you probably don't, unless you happen to hold the view that 1982 was the sine qua non for pop music.)

Okay, this Wikipedia random article thing was going to change my life until Day Two, in which the random article was for a band, and not only that, a band of which I know nothing at all, the Golden Horde. What to do? I can't pick one of their songs (don't know any), I could pick one from one of the other bands mentioned on that page (but that would lead me into the world of U2: no thanks; or "Whiter Shade of Pale": too obvious), I could go all elliptical/obtuse but nothing is coming to me on that score, either. So I'm going to pass.

As for the band, nothing I am reading is telling me to investigate further, although any album that contains spoken-word contributions from novelist/maverick Robert Anton Wilson can't be all bad. Or can it?

Party favors

Here's a fun idea: click the Wikipedia random article button, and pick a song to match what comes up. Today's example: Paldiski, a seemingly godforsaken town in western Estonia. What music? Arvo Pärt perhaps, because he is Estonian, but his music is way too beautiful. How about "Without You" by Peter Ham, because both are barren, bleak and lonely.

1001 Uses For A Recycled Monty Python Line

"I'm sorry, I have a cold."

This Sporting Life

After last weekend's debacle, Melbourne's David Neitz was reported as promising supporters that the team wouldn't play that badly again this season. I suppose he was proved right on Saturday: at least they were competitive for one quarter of football. Nevertheless, a losing margin of 95 points as opposed to a losing margin of 104 points is not what I would call a turnaround.

There so many things causing anxiety in the real world these days that it is difficult to justify spending too much worry-time on a football club. But I have been following the Demons, unwaveringly, since I was old enough to choose a team, and I have seen little but failure in most of those long winters, but, in the words of Bollo from "The Mighty Boosh", "I've got a bad feeling about this".

Song of the day

"Lady Bug", by Bumblebee Unlimited. This song, in the entirety of its ten-minute glory, is both (a) utterly ridiculous and (b) absolutely perfect for winding down on the Friday afternoon of a long (albeit only four days: go figure) working week.

Ah, Canberra ...

Thirty-four degrees one day, two degrees the next.

Song of the day

"Hot Corner", by The B-52s. Those venerable B-52s don't seem to have aged a day, if not since "Rock Lobster", then at least since "Roam". The thing about the B-52s is that they understand, like few others, how to do "fun" without going that step too far and into "infantile".

Song of the day

"Down Among The Dead Men", by Flash and the Pan. If a song that you haven't heard, or even thought of, for nigh on 25 years (I can haz brain scan for greater accuracy) suddenly pops into your head when you are in the shower, that song must be the song of the day.

Song of the day

"Tell Me Easter's On Friday", by The Associates. Obviously. (Truth be told, what's working our CD player this morning, as always on Good Friday, is Allegre's "Miserere", which never fails to send a chill up the spine.)

Song of the day

"Walter Johnson", by Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers. What is great about this song, and by inference what is great about Jonathan Richman, is that you can know nothing about Walter Johnson, or for that matter about baseball, and yet you can still feel the love in the room.

RIP Mikey Dread

Sasha sums this sad news up as well as anybody.

I lived and breathed stuff like "World War III" when I was 16. And if you were the producer of The Clash's "Bankrobber / Robber Dub" you would surely deserve to be remembered.

It's A Mad, Mad, Mad World

This week, Fairfax newspapers throughout this country have been throwing in with their usual newsprint a forty-page, full-colour glossy magazine supplement which is intended, as far as I can see, as a "celebration" of Earth Hour, a forthcoming event in which we will all turn off the electricity for one hour on a Saturday night to demonstrate our commitment to dealing with climate change.

Isn't this somehow missing the point? Leaving to one side the question whether the belated recognition that we are living ourselves to death is something worth celebrating, the way to defeat climate change (assuming it can be defeated) is, surely, not by printing several hundreds of thousands of copies of a document, admittedly well-intentioned but also not entirely devoid of underwear advertisements, the overwhelming majority of which will either be put on bonfires, added to landfill, or sent out with the recycling next Thursday night. If Earth Hour is to achieve anything by putting the Climate Change Armageddon Clock back by a few seconds, those seconds have been reduced by the amount of energy it took to produce, and then destroy, this ultimately pointless artifact. Humbug.

And another thing. Our household will, of course, be willing participants in Earth Hour, but we are kidding ourselves if we think it will make any meaningful difference. By my (admittedly back-of-the-recycled-paper-envelope) calculations, it would need every person, company and organisation in every country of the world to switch off all carbon-producing energy sources for two or three entire days every week for the indefinite future in order for emissions to be reduced to the extent that the damage already done, and continuing to be done, to be in any significant way reduced.

And a question: is Earth Hour a kind of "We Are The World" for the climate change generation, a galvanising and positive "tipping point" for change, or is it just another salve for middle-class guilt, as are (I would argue, but in both cases it doesn't necessarily make the venture itself entirely a bad thing) carbon-offsetting schemes? (As to the latter, can't a case be made that they actually encourage carbon usage? As in, the more you use, the more you have to contribute to carbon offsets; the more you contribute the better you feel.) It's just a thought.

Did you turn out the lights and switch off the computer and printer before you went home?

Song of the day

"Stay Hungry", by Talking Heads. Because, if the present financial-markets fiasco crashes into the real world, that's what we might be doing.

Besides which, it is always profitable to delve back into the first four Talking Heads albums (five, if you count "The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads", which you should). There are invariably new things to discover. For example, what a strange song "Stay Hungry" is. It starts off with a verse and a chorus that sound like earlier Talking Heads (historians could say whether that is the case). It then hits the kind of groove that the band started working through on "Fear of Music", and then kind of drifts into something that predicts where they would be by the time they got to side two of "Remain In Light".

Song of the day

"Phase Patterns", by Steve Reich. When I listened to Steve Reich in the past, what I heard was Philip Glass and Terry Riley. (And perhaps, if I was thinking deeply, a bit of Velvet Underground.) What I hear now, particularly with this piece, is The Field's recent "Sound of Light". What I also hear is recent Ricardo Villalobos. Speaking of which, just how mad is "Enfants"? Not as mad as "Fizheuer Zieheuer", perhaps, but only because that remarkable track opened the door which "Enfants" now charges through, so the element of unexpectedness isn't there. Which is only a very small element.

Song of the day

"We Call Upon The Author", by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. On the weekend, I bought the new Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds album, "Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!". (Somebody tell me I wasn't wrong to not fork out the additional eight bucks for the "special limited edition bonus booklet" version.) I am half-way through my first listen. I have some reservations (nobody warned me that Nick Launay was once again behind the desk; I have my doubts whether either Cave or the Seeds are enhanced in any way by studio effectery (Launay has a track record in this regard: see also Midnight Oil's "10... 9... 8... etc" album, and the one he did with The Models)), but overall it would seem that they have pulled off a blinder. Look at all those words, mummy: Cave seems to have been recently afflicted by a second - or is it a third - wind. The language is pouring out of him on this album, much as it was on the magnificent "The Lyre of Orpheus / Abattoir Blues".

I should at this point say that I wasn't particularly excited by the Grinderman project for its own sake, as much as I was fascinated by how it might bleed into the Bad Seeds themselves. At this early stage, I am not disappointed. Even allowing for Launay's looping and enhancing, they are making one heck of an unholy racket.

Song structures are something that Cave has always seemed to have an almost unique feel for. He gets insufficient acclaim for this. Think of "The Mercy Seat", a song whose structure I like to think is old-fashioned (and perhaps it is): the story is told through ever-so-slightly-divergent repeating loops. You feel like it could go on forever and remain interesting and forward moving. And think also of the title track of "The Lyre of Orpheus": I have never before heard a song put together in quite the same way as this, and yet the Bad Seeds (and Cave) pull it off with effortless confidence, like an juggler with an unfeasible number of razor-sharp knives in the air, somehow bringing them down without losing any limbs. The pattern (or not) continues with "We Call Upon The Author", which adds to its structural elasticity some of the most bleakly funny lyrics this bleakly funny lyricist has ever committed to tape.

I also bought the new Magnetic Fields album, but we'll have to get to that later.

The fantastic are in league against me

This is how it went.

"Optus Customer Service, Kelly speaking."

"Hi. I have a problem with my mobile phone. I was wondering if you could help me."

"Could I have your name please?"

[Given]

"Address?"

[Given]

"Date of birth?"

[Given]

"Okay, what is the nature of the problem?"

[Longwinded explanation involving the phone being as old as the hills, and having in the last couple of weeks consistently said "No network" when switching on.]

Brief pause.

"I'm sorry, I'm not going to help you."

"Excuse me?"

"I'm not going to help you."

"Why not?"

"Because you're not Stan."

"Excuse me?"

"You're not Stan."

"Excuse - Are you asking me or telling me?"

"I'm telling you. You're not Stan."

"How - how can you possibly know that? Or rather how can you think you know that?"

"I'm sorry, I can't say any more."

"It's because I talk like a girl." (This came out with an audible sneer, which is regrettable, as is the choice of words, although they were intended to be wrapped in ironic inverted commas.)

"Yes, it is."

"Well, what can I do? I've answered the security questions. I've been an Optus customer for some years, my phone isn't working, how can I get someone to help me?"

"You will have to go to an Optus shop."

"No. Can I put my wife on? Only that won't make any difference, will it?"

"No it won't, but you can put her on if you like."

[Enter Adrienne, who pointed out that I had fathered two children and was indeed a man. At that point I think that Kelly had realised she had made a horrible mistake, made up some story about my being a business customer (I don't see how that could be the case) and transferring Adrienne to someone in a different department, who eventually transferred me to someone in tech support who at least was able to help with the problem - the phone, a dinosaur in phone terms, had finally died.]


Naturally, this has raised some serious existential questions. If I'm not Stan, well, who am I? And who have I been all my life? This could explain a lot of things; like, I've never really felt like I fit in, it's always been like I'm a square peg in a round hole. Of course! It's all starting to make sense now. To reference Morrissey, I'm not the man I think I am. I can be someone. Someone new. I'm Alive! Alive, I tell you! Aaaaaahahahahaha ...

So, if you're listening, Kelly from Customer Service, thank you. Thank you so much. You have changed my life. And all for the cost of a free telephone call.

"I drink your milkshake"

I just got back from seeing "There Will Be Blood". I don't know what to think. I just don't know what to think. Whatever I had been expecting for Paul Thomas Anderson's next film, I surely wasn't expecting this.

Man.

Song of the day

"Where Is Home? (Burial Remix)", by Bloc Party. I wouldn't know Bloc Party if they ran over me on the Tuggeranong Parkway. (Why I would be standing on the Tuggeranong Parkway is a separate issue.) There is probably a Bloc Party song tucked away somewhere in this, but what I hear is 97 per cent Burial, all submerged voices and skittering beats, and that's alright by me.

This just in ...

From the most recently received print copy of the New Yorker:

"Lou Gramm, the voice behind the gale-force mainstream rock of Foreigner, has left the band and is currently pursuing a solo career that flirts with Christian rock."

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Sights and sounds

1. You can perhaps imagine how excited I was to discover this. "This" takes you to a web site created by Kevin Huizenga (current crown-wearer of the grown-up comic-book kingdom), Dan Zettwoch (whose work I only know from a longish piece in an issue of "Drawn and Quarterly Presents" where he tells the story of what John Lee Hooker would describe as "the mighty flood, the mighty flood"), and someone called Ted May with whom I am not acquainted. It is in the form of a blog, so, you know, most recent at the top and all that. One of them puts up a piece. Then someone else puts up another piece. They don't necessarily flow in any kind of linear story sense (c.f. Art Spiegelman's "Narrative Corpse" project from a few years back); but it will be interesting to see where it goes.

2. Jason is doing the latest New York Times funny-pages strip. I don't know that much about Jason; his stuff has never really got under my skin. But three weeks in I think I am getting the hang of it.

3. Holy heck, Batman. The New Yorker lets you read a piece by Michael Chabon about superhero costumes, and listen to him talking about same. Which ties in neatly with something that I wanted to mention, namely that I am currently reading Chabon's "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay", which is perhaps the greatest book ever written (as of today ...). It carries off the neat trick of not only being a book about creation and imagination, but also being itself full to the brim with creation and imagination, down to the ludicrous but beautiful footnotes, any one of which would have provided ample material for a book, or at least a short story, on its own.

4. And not to be satisfied with that act of generosity, the New Yorker also lets you listen to Jonathan Lethem reading and talking about a 1936 Thurber short story. Thurber you generally think of as a humourist, but really what he was was an observer. Much of what he observed was funny, or at least he could see the funny side of it. But, as this piece shows, that was not always the case.

Song of the day

"Confusion", by New Order. I have a confession to make: until last weekend, I had never owned a copy of "Substance", possibly the best, and certainly the most generous, single-artist compilation in the history of the world. I think I held off buying it for so long on the misguided assumption that it was too good to be true; it is too good, but it is also true. Life's not often like that.

"Blue Monday", of course, is the song that blew everything out of the water, and in many ways it continues to do so: try to imagine a world in which it had never happened; you can't, nor would you want to. Michael Clark gave me a copy of the original 12" for my birthday back when it first came out, thus contributing to the financial loss that Factory made on each record sold. (In fact, I can't help thinking that that statistic, even if correct, is as misleading as any other statistic. "Blue Monday" in its original form might have been a loss-maker, but if so it must also have been a loss-leader: much of the money Factory presumably subsequently made from New Order and merely from resultant brand recognition would not have been made but for the doors forced open by "Blue Monday".) Michael possibly assumed, and I'm not going to say he was definitely wrong to do so, that I had a number of self-erected "attitudinal" barriers to entry that would have caused me to reject "Blue Monday" out of hand, and that if it was going to be let into my world, as it had to be, it would have to be pushed. Thanks, Michael.

That said, it is possibly "Confusion" that had the bigger effect on my own ears. Whereas "Blue Monday" took some pre-existing ideas and expanded them out of all proportion, "Confusion" took what we understood as the "sound" of a song and threw it away. I had, literally, never heard anything like it. My guess is that what drew me to "Confusion" was the affinity I sensed between it and the Jamaican dub reggae that by then had long taken hold of me in a deep and profound way, and the way that geniuses (yes) like Lee "Scratch" Perry and King Tubby had opened up the possibilities of recorded sound in ways never before thought of, using in many cases techniques involving nothing more than (perhaps literally) scissors and sticky tape.

The name "Arthur Baker", which meant nothing to me, was what was attached to the sound of "Confusion". It was as if the beats had had all of the juice sucked out of them and had been stripped back not just to the basic sound to something less than the basic sound. Ditto the keyboards. "Minimal" is a word bandied around a lot these days. Is this where it started? Certainly, it is difficult to see how further out New Order, and music in general for that matter, could have gone from here, and indeed New Order subsequently went into a more pop-song-oriented direction from then on - and let's be clear that this is not a criticism in any way. But, in the way of these things, it is arguable that the next step on from "Confusion" was not made for a couple of decades, when Ricardo Villalobos turned up to the party.

Three (unrelated) songs

In chronological order.

"The Bewlay Brothers", by David Bowie. Listening to this song in 2008 provides further evidence that, of the many musical paths forged by David Bowie during his hugely fertile 1970s, some are still being discovered. If you snuck this into a mix after tracks by, say, Tunng and Devendra Banhart, you would have the young and unsuspecting asking, "Who is this hip young thin white dude?". Bowie perhaps does himself a disservice by attempting, in the here and now, to remain "relevant", when his back catalogue is perfectly capable of doing it for him, without the wrinkles.

"Hard Life In Country", by The Fall. Which contains, indeed is dominated by, one of the top five Fall guitar motifs.

"Breathe On Me (Jacques Lu Cont Mix)", by Britney Spears. This is getting a bit old now, but it still hits like an express train. Quality from start to end. Those who wish the worst for poor old Britney have got it all wrong.

YouTube of the day

RIP Teo Macero. Because it's not only the names on the front cover of the record that are the important names.

Song of the day

"Chelsea Girls", by Nico. Somebody should make a movie based on this song. Although I may not have the stomach to watch it.

Yes!

Last night I finally managed to fulfil one of my long-held ambitions (no, not that one): I got to see The Necks playing live in concert. I had seen Lloyd Swanton and Chris Abrahams' previous band, The Benders, a couple of times in Melbourne many years ago, and have also seen Swanton's other band, the catholics, twice. I own almost every Necks CD, which must amount by now to almost 24 hours of music. And yet, through circumstances as diverse as inability to obtain tickets, being interstate, and being too sick to go, I have always missed their infrequent appearances in this town.

Given that my previous encounters with Swanton and Abrahams were all in smoke-filled hotel lounges, it felt initally a little incongruous to be sitting in a theatre looking down on them. But as things panned out, this concert-hall-like setting was entirely apt for the kind of music they performed, which was perhaps closer to modern classical composition (albeit totally improvised) than to jazz. You couldn't tap your foot to it, but you could sway back and forth if, like me, movement is essential to your listening experience.

The first surprise (only because I had never considered it) was how long they waited, in still silence, before anybody started playing. My friend said he thought they were doing John Cage's "4'33"" and was tempted to call out "plagiarists!". That would have been quite funny, but I'm glad he didn't do it. The second surprise was that Abrahams sits with his back to the other two.

The two pieces played, each lasting close to an hour, were quite similar. It was Tony Buck's night: he created all kinds of percussive sounds using all manner of objects, including quite a bit of metal on metal. He worked hard, producing rising and falling waves of intensity early on in the first piece, which then fed through to the second piece as well.

Abrahams meanwhile pulled huge, sweeping washes of sound from the piano, including at one point in the second piece balling his left hand into a fist and intermittently striking the low notes. (This was entirely appropriate to the mood that had been created, which was a bit like the part of "Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow" where she is on the ship, particularly when it docks at that platform or oil rig or whatever it was; the room was full of all kinds of creaks, groans, clanking, and generally unsettling sounds.) Occasionally he would hit upon a melody, usually only for a fleeting moment, but some of those moments were so unexpected and so gorgeous that I could only smile. At one point he was playing a four-chord descending sequence that wouldn't have sounded out of place on a Portishead record. Elsewhere he caused the piano to generate what sounded like early-1970s computer music.

Swanton's acoustic bass was what gave structure to everything else that was going on. Occasionally it fell into the mud of the acoustics, but in the absence of any fixed rhythmic structure, he was essential in at least providing a bit of a road map.

The highlight of the night, for me, was the last 15 minutes or so of the first piece, when for a while the volume and intensity increased. You could feel the three of them breaking their own shackles. It was up to Swanton, then, to bring the piece in to land by way of something like a slowed-down take on The Stooges' "Now I Wanna Be Your Dog".

Having seen it first-hand, I still don't know how they do what they do. Maybe they don't, either. But I guess they have done it so many times now that it just happens. How so much can be teased out of an arbitrary starting point (in the first piece, a slow one-two-one sequence of bass notes; in the second, a simple piano melody) is a beautiful mystery.

Song of the day (2)

"I Think I Smell A Rat", by The White Stripes. 2008 is shaping up for me as the Year of The White Stripes. I have put off listening to them for way too long. Sasha Frere-Jones (yes, him again) has been very critical of Meg's drumming. But she's not there to be John Bonham or Jeffrey Wegener. She's there to do a job. And it's hard to fault her on that score in this song, at least.

Anyway, a certain drummer from Liverpool called Ringo was also the subject of plenty of negative commentary regarding his ability, and he went on to be the voice of Thomas The Tank Engine. So, Meg, I'm sure you have a bright future ahead of you.

Song of the day (1)

"Blind", by Hercules & Love Affair. I think this is a rather good song, although for the moment it is too swamped in Internet hype for me to be entirely certain of my own thoughts. Certainly, this kind of song is a perfect vehicle for Antony's gorgeous voice (see also "One More Try", by My Robot Friend).

What I can't explain, however, is why whenever I listen to this song it triggers in the jukebox that is permanently embedded in my brain "You'll Always Find Me In The Kitchen At Parties", by Jona Lewie. Go, as they say, figure. Do they still say that?

Unexpected Australian music link of the day

I hope nobody minds if I second this sensible proposal.

Song of the day

"Life On Mars", by David Bowie. By way of celebrating the return to our TV screens, in a seconds series, of the BBC show of the same name.

To whom it may concern: Thanks, guys

[Editor's note: May also be of general interest to other readers.]

Let's assume you were the recipient of a twelve-month gift subscription to the New Yorker. What would you do with it? You would read it. Every week. From cover to cover. If you had the time. Which you don't. Here are my suggestions.

Elizabeth Kolbert's writings on climate change are compelling (and frequently distressing) and must be read. Likewise, Michael Specter's pieces on the outer limits of science and research. I would also recommend you always read: Anthony Lane's film reviews and longer-form criticism; anything by Bill Buford, who seems to have found his calling in writing about food (although, like me, he has the annoying habit of throwing parenthetical comments into every other sentence); Seymour Hersh's skating of the thin line between conspiracy theory and How Things Really Are in the murky world of American foreign policy; anything by its team of excellent foreign correspondents, particularly the editor, David Remnick, Jon Lee Anderson, Steve Coll and George Packer (who seems to have developed a second life writing on the US election - and writing well about it, too); and anything by David Sedaris.

It is an election year, after all, so there will be quite a lot about that, most of which will be out of date by the time the magazine has travelled all the way to Australia (most such pieces are available online as soon as they come out, which is the better way to take them in). But there will likely be long-form profiles of the two candidates, whomever they may be, which would be worth reading. If you had the time.

Let's say you are a two-doctor couple: the magazine carries a lot of writing about medicine, particularly the moral and ethical aspects of practice, which you may be interested in; I can't say whether the fact that it is a general-interest magazine means it would be talking down to you.

Let's say you have a particular interest in music: you would do well to read classical music correspondent Alex Ross and pop music writer Sasha Frere Jones (who also maintains not one but two excellent weblogs). Everyone seems to hate SFJ, mainly, I suspect, because he has probably the best job in the world. Also in the arts sphere, I always enjoy Calvin Tompkins' profiles of artists.

What you will look at every week is the cartoons. Don't ignore the other art, either, from the cover inwards: there are often contributions from comic book artists such as Seth, Adrian Tomine, Chris Ware, and others, including the wonderful Jacques de Loustal, Lorenzo Mattotti, and Richard McGuire (who also is/was a member of Liquid Liquid, but you knew that). If you are really lucky, at some point during the life of your subscription the magazine will run one of its infrequent three-page strips by R and Aline Crumb.

As for the fiction, you're on your own, really, although obviously you must read anything by Alice Munro and William Trevor.

And one final tip: what the New Yorker has the enviable ability to do is to run articles on a topic that appears on its face to be of marginal-to-none-whatsoever interest, only for you to discover that it is the most interesting thing you have ever read. Over the last few months, for instance, there have been fascinating pieces on: the demolition of a building in lower Manhattan; the creation of a global seed bank; the harvesting of cocoa beans; a classical-music hoax; and shenanigans in the Italian olive-oil industry.

Enjoy.

K-Tel record of the day

If you had asked me, back in 1979 [1980 actually - see below], to put together a list of what I was listening to in 1979, it would have looked remarkably like the track-list of "Full Boar". (With the exception of the Jon English song, which I don't remember at all.)

Darren, the font of all knowledge, takes up the story:

"The release date is listed incorrectly (a clue is that selected songs such as 'I Got You' by Split Enz, 'Space Invaders' by Player 1 and 'He's My Number One' by Christie Allen were all released in March/April 1980).

'Full Boar' was released in May 1980. At the time I was working in Clark's Sound Centre during the school holidays (I was 13 and probably shouldn't have been in paid employment). We sold heaps of copies but not as many as '1980... The Music' which was considered a superior compilation.

Whereas FB was released by K-tel and therefore contained left-overs from the previous year as they were deleted from the primary catalogues of the major labels (the practice of the day), 1980 was jointly released by EMI and Festival and therefore contained all the hits of the moment.

I think the 1980/FB sales ratio would have been 3:1. Rarely was FB sold in isolation.

In hindsight, FB is the pick of the two (reinforced by the inclusion of 'Confrontation' by the Aliens, a song I have not been able to locate despite many years of trawling the internet, and 'I'm Not Like Anybody Else' by Jimmy And The Boys)."

The funny thing is, it is quite possible that Darren, whom I did not know in 1980, but who is now very close to the centre of my universe, may have been the person who sold me this record.

This just in

Farewell then, Smoky Dawson, who was an important part of my Saturday-morning-television education (and who was serenaded by The Reels on "The Smokey [sic] Dawson Show", from "Quasimodo's Dream").

All together now: "A four-legged friend, a four-legged friend, he'll never let you down ...".

Civics in schools: a case study

Jules: "Why is the radio still talking about the apology? That was yesterday."

Mum: "They are talking about people's responses to it. The apology is a very important event for Australia. There was a long story on the BBC, which is like the ABC but in England. So even in other countries in the world, it has been news. And you got to watch it on television with your class!"

Jules: "And it was very boring."

It's Sorry Day!

I took an extended route to work this morning, so that I could study the vibe at the Tent Embassy, which has been rapidly expanding this week in anticipation of the Prime Minister's apology to Aboriginal people for the acts committed long ago, in good faith but misguidedly so, against many of their people. I was a bit late (on account of my watch deciding to lose a few minutes at some point during the night), so that, when I was walking past, the apology was already underway - was, in fact, being broadcast at high volume so it could be clearly heard, depending on tree obstruction and wind direction, from at least as far as the High Court - and the Tent Embassy residents had made their way already up to the lawns of Parliament House, along with a steady stream of people from, as they say, "all walks of life", whom I saw from the bus. Traffic was also congested, or as congested as it can really get in the Nation's Capital. Even the workers at the new National Portrait Gallery stopped to listen.

The apology was made. From what I heard, it was an understated but gracious speech. At the end of it, the world didn't end. A terribly misguided policy had been, over a number of years, carried out against certain segments of a small but significant minority of the Australian people. It was latterly discovered and investigated, and an apology recommended. It is difficult to see how such an apology could be resisted, and yet resisted it was. The new Prime Minister deserves credit for so promptly doing what his predecessor could not.

Now we can all, as they also say, "move on". My feeling is that the apology will be good not only for those to whom it was directed by also for the rest of us. (I'm not being facetious in saying that I feel better knowing it has been made.) There can't be too many people today who hold the view that removing people from their mothers on account of the colour of their skin is sound policy. That being so, there is no reason why a collective expression of (belated) sorrow should be construed as amounting to an admission of present-day individual guilt or responsibility, or any other narrow-minded legalistic kind of analysis. Shit does happen, and it never hurt anybody to hear someone say "sorry".

Song of the day

"The Number One Song In Heaven", by Sparks. All seven and a half minutes of it, including the lengthy, somewhat abstract introductory passage, which only serves to enhance the thrill, and it is a thrill, that takes place at the 3.30 mark when the song "proper" kicks in. Produced, as if you didn't know, by Giorgio Moroder.

Song of the day

"A Stream With Bright Fish", by Harold Budd and Brian Eno. Unusually for Canberra, today is grey and overcast (although, as we speak, the sun has appeared - as have, go figure, a few drops of rain - through a crack in what is otherwise an unbroken mass of cloud) - perfect listening conditions for Harold Budd, and specifically his collaboration with Brian Eno "The Pearl", which I bought, along with "Eden" by Everything But The Girl (the two albums have remarkably similar covers, although there the resemblance ends), on an expedition in early 1985 with Russell and Roger to the record shop at Monash University. The Budd and Eno I had been looking for for quite some time - thanks to the British music magazines I was aware of its existence, but, in those pre-digital days, the physical object had proved elusive. I should, too, have mentioned it as another record that was predicted by "After The Heat" (passim).

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

Pretty much every second place you go on the Internet is linking to this piece of US election propaganda. Apparently, what we all want is "change" [c.f. myself, who often can be heard asking "Why can't things just stay the same?"]. But the change this video makes me long for is the eradication of the heinous practice of melisma from the face of the earth. (Actually, the saving grace of the video is the totally swoon-worthy smile given out by Scarlett Johansson towards the end. And you can get the full benefit of that with the sound off.)

Song of the day

"Tunic (Song For Karen)", by Sonic Youth. It may be that Sonic Youth's first couple of albums of the Geffen era are not the sell-outs they were pilloried for at the time. Either they have gotten better with age, or they now have a wider context in which to sit (viz., a Second Golden Age around the time of "Murray Street", demonstrating that it wasn't all going to go downhill after "Daydream Nation", after all).

I have always associated the Sonic Youth of the early nineties with Hal Hartley films. "Tunic", to my callow and insensitive ears, was broad, coarse comedy. It is not comedy. And it is more like a Wes Anderson film: a tale of heartbreak and tragedy dressed up in the raiments of slapstick. The lyrics are quite possibly the most direct in the SY canon; and I can't think of a better showcase for Kim Gordon's voice.

2008: the year of the ...

Hmmm. Already we have had a new album from the Magnetic Fields (whose last album was released in 2004). In the pipeline are new albums from My Bloody Valentine (1991), Portishead (1997) and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (2004). Now we discover that there will also be a new album by Tindersticks, who last released an album in 2003 and have since been missing presumed defunct (Stuart Staples releasing a solo album entitled "Leaving Songs" was a pretty solid hint, I would have thought). It is the last of that list that I am most looking forward to. Tindersticks have always produced work of the highest quality, and each album has added something to (or sometimes, crucially, taken something away from) what has come earlier. I don't know where they could go from "Waiting For The Moon", which was a solid (if perhaps in parts less than surprising) summation of The Story Of Tindersticks up to that point, but I am more than happy that I will get a chance to find out.

Song of the day

"The Belldog", by Eno, Moebius and Roedelius. Somehow, many years ago, I must have come home from one of Russell's and my regular Expeditionary Forces to record shops far and wide with SKY021, also known as "After The Heat" by Eno, Roedelius and Moebius (1978). This would have been in the early to middle 1980s, when this type of music was still hard to obtain, and (sudden intake of breath) There Was No Internet. Nowadays, of course, Sky Records has a huge cachet (in certain small but intense circles), and the selling point for the album would no doubt be the presence of the members of Cluster, but back then the drawcard was Eno. I had no idea who the others were. To be honest, I don't remember listening to the album all that often, beyond the last three tracks (the ones with Eno on vocals). But I must have, because last night, as shirt-ironing music, I threw the heavy German vinyl disc on the turntable and was surprised at how well known were all of the music's many quiet twists and turns. I was even more surprised at how it positively reeks of Eno's influence, far beyond just his voice on those three tracks. Most of the album is very much of a piece with "Music For Films" (also 1978), although fragments of "Tzima N'Arki" would appear three years later on Eno and David Byrne's "My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts". "The Belldog" itself is a lovely song, which would, perhaps not surprisingly, slot nicely into the second side of "Before And After Science" (December 1977: can you believe Eno's work rate in those days?).