We like what's going down over at ILMiXor, where what's going down is a real-time collaborative mp3 mixtape project (well, you try to give it a better description): the guy (naturally we assume it's a guy) running the site decides upon a theme for a mix tape, sets up a rolling list of contributors, and away it goes. When it's your turn, you have to put up an mp3 fitting the theme and, ideally, following on from the previous entry, and writing a few words about it. (Or, in the case of Ned Raggett, a whole lot of words.) So far they have put together one suitable-for-burning 80-minute mix, and are well into the second one. The whole thing is co-ordinated by way of an ILM thread, which reads like the duck's feet thrashing around furiously under the water while the ILMiXor duck gives the impression of floating gracefully along the surface. ("I can't take my turn right now, sorry, I've got to study/work/my computer's been stolen/I haven't slept for three days.")
It is a brilliantly simple idea, anyone could do it (although could "anyone" do it well?), but they thought of it (as far as we know) so full credit to them.
Thursday, February 24, 2005
Daddy Go Down
(alternative title: “Poor Poor Pitiful Me”)
I seem to have spent most of the last week and a half coming down with a mystery viral thing, hitting one of the rockiest rock-bottoms I have ever hit, and then recovering, painfully slowly, from same. There was actually a point, around midday last Friday, when I felt as if my vital fluids had drained completely away. At that stage, I would happily (no, not “happily”; willingly might be better: “happy” does not sit well, especially when over the last couple of weeks we have seen the self-inflicted deaths of, first, Nick Kilroy, a name I did not previously know, although it turns out that his musical tastes have been an enormously positive influence on my own over the last 12 months via gabba.cc, and secondly, of course, Hunter S Thompson, who should never have lived past 35 anyway, whose “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” should be a compulsory text for all self-respecting post-adolescents everywhere, and the last words on whom should be those of long-time collaborator Ralph Steadman, as appearing in the Guardian, preferably read while having open on the other half of the screen Steadman’s drawing of HST in the New York Times of the same day) have gone to meet the maker. I don’t think I have ever felt so weak, so drained.
I seem to have spent most of the last week and a half coming down with a mystery viral thing, hitting one of the rockiest rock-bottoms I have ever hit, and then recovering, painfully slowly, from same. There was actually a point, around midday last Friday, when I felt as if my vital fluids had drained completely away. At that stage, I would happily (no, not “happily”; willingly might be better: “happy” does not sit well, especially when over the last couple of weeks we have seen the self-inflicted deaths of, first, Nick Kilroy, a name I did not previously know, although it turns out that his musical tastes have been an enormously positive influence on my own over the last 12 months via gabba.cc, and secondly, of course, Hunter S Thompson, who should never have lived past 35 anyway, whose “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” should be a compulsory text for all self-respecting post-adolescents everywhere, and the last words on whom should be those of long-time collaborator Ralph Steadman, as appearing in the Guardian, preferably read while having open on the other half of the screen Steadman’s drawing of HST in the New York Times of the same day) have gone to meet the maker. I don’t think I have ever felt so weak, so drained.
Sunday, February 13, 2005
Drowning in my nostalgia
Six years ago yesterday I jumped in the car and took off up the Hume Highway to start my, our, new life in Canberra. I wrote the following piece at the end of our first year up here. The quote marks form part of the title, a la David Bowie's "Heroes".
The High Court building in Canberra is situated directly across the lake from the Carillion, which has a recital each day around midday. So, as one heads out for one’s lunch-hour constitutional, one can leave one’s Walkman behind, for there is usually a musical accompaniment. Anybody who has been to Canberra will know the Carillion. It sits out on an island, looking a bit like an oversized sports trophy, and sounding like Mike Oldfield’s “Tubular Bells”. The Carillion is, essentially, a musical instrument in a big box, and, like all musical instruments, it depends on human input to function. Thus, the music played varies widely. Most is not to the taste of the younger generation. Around Christmas time, for example, we are given an assortment of carols. Every so often there is an unexpected surprise: a rendition of Barry Manilow’s “I Write the Songs”; the theme from “The Addams Family”; “Hernando’s Hideaway”, a much covered song best known from a record by the Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band. As might be expected, this kind of thing is enough to put a spring in my step for the rest of the day.
I remember the Carillion from my only previous visit to Canberra, with my parents in the September school holidays of 1975. My father, amateur violinist and lover of all things musical, took us out to sit on the grass one morning to listen to that day’s recital, which included such chestnuts as “Home on the Range” (still a Carillion favourite). Dad would have been happy. I was bored. On that visit we also saw a model of the proposed National Gallery (now visible from my office window in all its 3-D actuality); the geodesic dome-like science building at ANU (where we saw some part of Phar Lap, the horse whose various body parts can be found at many different places across the nation); roads that go around in circles and make it impossible to get to where you want to go; the little models of satellites and other cool stuff at the Tidbinbilla tracking station. I also remember how cold it was in our caravan.
The purpose of our visit was to see mum’s uncle Arthur Hewson, then the sitting Country Party member of Parliament for the Victorian seat of McMillan (he was to be voted out in the elections of December 1975, so we just made it). The timing was extraordinary – anyone with knowledge of Australian politics will have November 1975 firmly etched in their minds, and events were, of course, unfolding well before that fateful day when Saint Gough appeared to the masses on the steps of Parliament House to vent his spleen against Sir John Kerr. So there I was, too young to know anything except what our parents had instilled in us (in order, I guess, to inure us to the propaganda they assumed would be spewing forth from the Commie-filled staff room) – that Whitlam and his band of idiots were leading this country to the edge of ruin (notwithstanding that only three years earlier, as the result of a sudden and unexpected rush of blood to the head, my parents, and many others like them, who had voted conservative all their lives and for several generations beforehand, had actually helped to elect the Whitlam Labor government) – sitting in one of three rows of seats on the floor of the House of Representatives reserved for “special” guests, and then eating lunch in the parliamentary dining room. The best part was the discovery that, to get to his office, we had to briefly exit the building via the roof. (At least to that extent, it was probably a good thing that Canberra sits in a low-rainfall basin.)
(Arthur’s fatal mistake was running on a platform that emphasised that if he were elected one more time he could collect an MP’s pension. But even allowing for that error of judgment, to this day I don’t understand how a Country Party member could have lost his seat during the ensuing conservative landslide (although the seat of McMillan is notorious for veering from left to right, to further right, and back again in relatively short spaces of time, owing to the existence in the electorate of the Latrobe Valley, its transient population and somewhat “curious” mix of residents).)
Out of the experience came my most famous short story, “Fire at Parliament House”, an epic drama in which, amid high tension and shenanigans, a serious disaster is averted by the heroic efforts of a fictitious Country Party backbencher named, imaginatively, “Arthur Hewson”. (The illustrations were by me, as well, demonstrating my all-round creative talent, which I seem to have misplaced at some point during my teens.) This story was read to visitors time and time again over the years by my mother, and to my increasing embarrassment.
Somehow the subject of my “uncle” the politician came up during the later years of High School. (This was, at least, a more credible claim to family lineage than the outright falsehood put around by me at primary school, that my mother was directly descended from William the Conqueror (later revised to Oliver Cromwell, this being to a very slight degree supported by the research of one of Arthur’s brothers, who went to Ireland with the specific intention of confirming that a Hewson had signed the death warrant for Charles the First and came back with a photocopy of a photograph of a reproduction of a document containing a number of barely legible signatures, one of which, at a stretch, may have said “Hewson” – and don’t forget, also, that Bono’s surname is Hewson, which might suggest that a family connection may be the innate, deeply rooted reason for my hating U2).) One of my teachers, a burly, thunderous man called Ray Wilkinson - one of whose most memorable qualities was the ability to raise his eyebrows while almost but not quite smiling, leaving the recipient of this gesture uncomfortably uncertain whether he was expressing amusement at whatever you had just said or treating you with the contempt you suddenly felt you deserved - heard the name, made the aforementioned gesture, and said, “Ah, Old Tiger Hewison [sic]”. Whether he was privy to some actual and possibly salacious information about Arthur (which he was not about to divulge to me) or whether he was just winding me up I will never know, but I was happy to think that Arthur was remembered by somebody other than just blood relatives.
Amongst our 1999 Christmas cards was one from my Aunt Margaret and Uncle Ray (my mother’s brother), letting us know that Arthur had died, and that there were (unsurprisingly for someone whose entire life seems to have been lived in the public sphere; but quite out of the ordinary in a family that for the most part likes to keep itself as far away from the spotlight as possible) 800 people at his funeral. I felt in some small way like a circle had been completed, because 1999 was also the year in which I moved to Canberra. It is still almost absurdly cold here in winter, and the roads are just as confusing as ever. There is a new Parliament House, and a portrait gallery in the old one. Ed Kuepper played at that year’s New Year’s Eve festivities. I hope this means that one day I get to hear “Everything I’ve Got Belongs To You” cascading out from the Carillion.
"Fire at Parliament House"
The High Court building in Canberra is situated directly across the lake from the Carillion, which has a recital each day around midday. So, as one heads out for one’s lunch-hour constitutional, one can leave one’s Walkman behind, for there is usually a musical accompaniment. Anybody who has been to Canberra will know the Carillion. It sits out on an island, looking a bit like an oversized sports trophy, and sounding like Mike Oldfield’s “Tubular Bells”. The Carillion is, essentially, a musical instrument in a big box, and, like all musical instruments, it depends on human input to function. Thus, the music played varies widely. Most is not to the taste of the younger generation. Around Christmas time, for example, we are given an assortment of carols. Every so often there is an unexpected surprise: a rendition of Barry Manilow’s “I Write the Songs”; the theme from “The Addams Family”; “Hernando’s Hideaway”, a much covered song best known from a record by the Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band. As might be expected, this kind of thing is enough to put a spring in my step for the rest of the day.
I remember the Carillion from my only previous visit to Canberra, with my parents in the September school holidays of 1975. My father, amateur violinist and lover of all things musical, took us out to sit on the grass one morning to listen to that day’s recital, which included such chestnuts as “Home on the Range” (still a Carillion favourite). Dad would have been happy. I was bored. On that visit we also saw a model of the proposed National Gallery (now visible from my office window in all its 3-D actuality); the geodesic dome-like science building at ANU (where we saw some part of Phar Lap, the horse whose various body parts can be found at many different places across the nation); roads that go around in circles and make it impossible to get to where you want to go; the little models of satellites and other cool stuff at the Tidbinbilla tracking station. I also remember how cold it was in our caravan.
The purpose of our visit was to see mum’s uncle Arthur Hewson, then the sitting Country Party member of Parliament for the Victorian seat of McMillan (he was to be voted out in the elections of December 1975, so we just made it). The timing was extraordinary – anyone with knowledge of Australian politics will have November 1975 firmly etched in their minds, and events were, of course, unfolding well before that fateful day when Saint Gough appeared to the masses on the steps of Parliament House to vent his spleen against Sir John Kerr. So there I was, too young to know anything except what our parents had instilled in us (in order, I guess, to inure us to the propaganda they assumed would be spewing forth from the Commie-filled staff room) – that Whitlam and his band of idiots were leading this country to the edge of ruin (notwithstanding that only three years earlier, as the result of a sudden and unexpected rush of blood to the head, my parents, and many others like them, who had voted conservative all their lives and for several generations beforehand, had actually helped to elect the Whitlam Labor government) – sitting in one of three rows of seats on the floor of the House of Representatives reserved for “special” guests, and then eating lunch in the parliamentary dining room. The best part was the discovery that, to get to his office, we had to briefly exit the building via the roof. (At least to that extent, it was probably a good thing that Canberra sits in a low-rainfall basin.)
(Arthur’s fatal mistake was running on a platform that emphasised that if he were elected one more time he could collect an MP’s pension. But even allowing for that error of judgment, to this day I don’t understand how a Country Party member could have lost his seat during the ensuing conservative landslide (although the seat of McMillan is notorious for veering from left to right, to further right, and back again in relatively short spaces of time, owing to the existence in the electorate of the Latrobe Valley, its transient population and somewhat “curious” mix of residents).)
Out of the experience came my most famous short story, “Fire at Parliament House”, an epic drama in which, amid high tension and shenanigans, a serious disaster is averted by the heroic efforts of a fictitious Country Party backbencher named, imaginatively, “Arthur Hewson”. (The illustrations were by me, as well, demonstrating my all-round creative talent, which I seem to have misplaced at some point during my teens.) This story was read to visitors time and time again over the years by my mother, and to my increasing embarrassment.
Somehow the subject of my “uncle” the politician came up during the later years of High School. (This was, at least, a more credible claim to family lineage than the outright falsehood put around by me at primary school, that my mother was directly descended from William the Conqueror (later revised to Oliver Cromwell, this being to a very slight degree supported by the research of one of Arthur’s brothers, who went to Ireland with the specific intention of confirming that a Hewson had signed the death warrant for Charles the First and came back with a photocopy of a photograph of a reproduction of a document containing a number of barely legible signatures, one of which, at a stretch, may have said “Hewson” – and don’t forget, also, that Bono’s surname is Hewson, which might suggest that a family connection may be the innate, deeply rooted reason for my hating U2).) One of my teachers, a burly, thunderous man called Ray Wilkinson - one of whose most memorable qualities was the ability to raise his eyebrows while almost but not quite smiling, leaving the recipient of this gesture uncomfortably uncertain whether he was expressing amusement at whatever you had just said or treating you with the contempt you suddenly felt you deserved - heard the name, made the aforementioned gesture, and said, “Ah, Old Tiger Hewison [sic]”. Whether he was privy to some actual and possibly salacious information about Arthur (which he was not about to divulge to me) or whether he was just winding me up I will never know, but I was happy to think that Arthur was remembered by somebody other than just blood relatives.
Amongst our 1999 Christmas cards was one from my Aunt Margaret and Uncle Ray (my mother’s brother), letting us know that Arthur had died, and that there were (unsurprisingly for someone whose entire life seems to have been lived in the public sphere; but quite out of the ordinary in a family that for the most part likes to keep itself as far away from the spotlight as possible) 800 people at his funeral. I felt in some small way like a circle had been completed, because 1999 was also the year in which I moved to Canberra. It is still almost absurdly cold here in winter, and the roads are just as confusing as ever. There is a new Parliament House, and a portrait gallery in the old one. Ed Kuepper played at that year’s New Year’s Eve festivities. I hope this means that one day I get to hear “Everything I’ve Got Belongs To You” cascading out from the Carillion.
Saturday, February 12, 2005
Listening
Music I plan on listening to over the weekend:
Gillian Welch, "Time (The Revelator)".
"Serendipity: an Introduction to John Martyn".
The second Tindersticks album, conveniently titled "Tindersticks", as was the first Tindersticks album.
Yo La Tengo, "And then nothing turned itself inside out".
David Sylvian, "Brilliant Trees".
Some or all of "DFA Compilation #2".
At least it's a plan, which is more than I can usually come up with. But then something will most likely get in the way. In fact, something already has: I seem to have gotten myself stuck on "Dreams Top Rock" by Pluramon, which has been spun twice at home and once in the car already. Even though Julius said "Can you turn this off!".
Gillian Welch, "Time (The Revelator)".
"Serendipity: an Introduction to John Martyn".
The second Tindersticks album, conveniently titled "Tindersticks", as was the first Tindersticks album.
Yo La Tengo, "And then nothing turned itself inside out".
David Sylvian, "Brilliant Trees".
Some or all of "DFA Compilation #2".
At least it's a plan, which is more than I can usually come up with. But then something will most likely get in the way. In fact, something already has: I seem to have gotten myself stuck on "Dreams Top Rock" by Pluramon, which has been spun twice at home and once in the car already. Even though Julius said "Can you turn this off!".
Friday, February 11, 2005
Root down
The Hammond B3 is the king of organs.
Jimmy Smith was the king of the Hammond B3.
Guess that makes Jimmy Smith the king of kings.
The fact that his key work was created circa 40 years ago doesn't in any way diminish his worth, or loss.
RIP.
Jimmy Smith was the king of the Hammond B3.
Guess that makes Jimmy Smith the king of kings.
The fact that his key work was created circa 40 years ago doesn't in any way diminish his worth, or loss.
RIP.
Thursday, February 10, 2005
what car does jesus drive?
Well, at first I thought, a white Subaru Liberty. Then I had an idea of something more upmarket, but with extra safety features, say a Volvo station wagon (but with a 6-disc CD changer in the back, so he can listen to lots of gospel without being distracted by having to change discs.
But then I thought, no, it's obvious, the long hair, the beard, the sandals: it has to be one of those old Renaults that Australian high-school teachers and academics drove in the late 1970s.
So if you see one, wave. It might give you a leg up, one day. (And if it's a teacher, well, they need all the positive reinforcement they can get, too.)
But then I thought, no, it's obvious, the long hair, the beard, the sandals: it has to be one of those old Renaults that Australian high-school teachers and academics drove in the late 1970s.
So if you see one, wave. It might give you a leg up, one day. (And if it's a teacher, well, they need all the positive reinforcement they can get, too.)
Sunday, February 06, 2005
What will we do when we get there?
I spent yesterday afternoon in the (barely) living centre of Canberra looking for the 2005 Lego catalogue, which someone in our household is desperate to lay his hands on (word is it'll be here in March; that wasn't the word he was looking for).
Rather than come home empty handed, I spent a few minutes looking around in Revolution, unsuccessfully, when my eyes lit upon one of the objects I would have been least expexting to see there, had I given the idea any thought at all: "DFA Compilation #2". Second hand. In Canberra. For about the same price as a discounted new-release "chart" CD. Believing that these things never happen to me, I sensed a trap. But only for a second or two. I grabbed it before anyone else could put their clammy hands on it. I took it home. I will now give it a damn close listen to make sure there are no faults or glitches.
(I will then decide whether I like it or not. And perhaps let you know. Although, after a year of doing this weblog malarkey, I have yet to fall into a pattern of writing "record reviews". I find them very difficult, and frequently pointless (not to mention, in the longer term, embarrassing). On the Internet there are no deadlines. I often take months - or years: take a bow, "Portishead" by Portishead - to decide if I like a record. Then I change my mind. So what I probably should be doing is looking back at what I bought, say, 10 years ago, and reviewing those.)
Rather than come home empty handed, I spent a few minutes looking around in Revolution, unsuccessfully, when my eyes lit upon one of the objects I would have been least expexting to see there, had I given the idea any thought at all: "DFA Compilation #2". Second hand. In Canberra. For about the same price as a discounted new-release "chart" CD. Believing that these things never happen to me, I sensed a trap. But only for a second or two. I grabbed it before anyone else could put their clammy hands on it. I took it home. I will now give it a damn close listen to make sure there are no faults or glitches.
(I will then decide whether I like it or not. And perhaps let you know. Although, after a year of doing this weblog malarkey, I have yet to fall into a pattern of writing "record reviews". I find them very difficult, and frequently pointless (not to mention, in the longer term, embarrassing). On the Internet there are no deadlines. I often take months - or years: take a bow, "Portishead" by Portishead - to decide if I like a record. Then I change my mind. So what I probably should be doing is looking back at what I bought, say, 10 years ago, and reviewing those.)
Now I can remember, now I can remember
January 2005. Sovereign Hill, Ballarat. I had been explaining to the boys before we entered that this was a place where everything was Back in Time, where there would be no cars or televisions. After three or four hours of wandering around in 35 degree heat amidst dust, crowds of people and the smell of several tons of horse poo (and generally having a great time of it), Carl made me suffer a momentary double-take when he said "Daddy, when can we go back to the future?"
Transfiguration of Michael
Some of us are seeing the cold, not-dead-yet hand of Kerry Packer looming larger over the Australian summer of cricket than it has for a number of years. (Maybe we just lost concentration for a while, there.) It would make sense for Packer, and his so-called lieutenants at Channel Nine, to be taking an interest this year: the time seems to be drawing near when even the most die-hard Australian supporter must start to look at the constant stream of Aussie victories and say, "pass the remote".
Thus we have: the Michael Clarke Channel. All Michael, all of the time.
Okay, he is a fine young cricketer and all-round athlete; he is rarely without a smile; and he is a good-looking bloke in the style of, say, James Hird (to pick a name entirely at random). All of these qualities are enough to make someone like myself insanely jealous, so take what follows with a fair pinch of salt. But ...
He has performed well in the Test and One-Day arenas this past couple of months, sure, but does that justify awarding him the Allan Border Medal for best Australian cricketer of the past year? Think back to 12 months ago: his form had deserted him, he seemed to be losing Most Favoured status, the yin/yang star of Simon Katich was back on the rise. (Those must have been nervous times for the Channel Nine Establishment.) So: cricketer of the year? I don't think so. This could only have been the result of a direction from On High. Maybe you could have given him cricket's equivalent of the AFL's "Rising Star" award, but ... If it wasn't Clarke, it would have to have been some much less telegenic, less wholesome version of an international cricketer. And that wouldn't be the ratings killer that Clarke hopefully would be.
And: a few weeks ago the Australian side did something incomprehensible to those of us accustomed to the rigour of the Steve Waugh Years: at the tail end of a one-day game, which was admittedly well in hand, captain Ricky Ponting frigged around for two or three overs in order to give Clarke enough of the strike to (a) let the game run for a little longer, allowing That Channel to squeeze in a couple more high-revenue ad breaks than would otherwise have been the case; and (b) let Clarke score a hundred, giving him considerable exposure and photo opportunities.
Clarke will either survive this unprecedented Cult of Personality or he will not. Kim Hughes comes to mind, in admittedly entirely different circumstances: both were superb batsmen and designated Futures of Australian Cricket. It is a lot to ask of a young man. And the person who is (speculatively) doing the asking, well, he generally speaking doesn't accept underperformance with a smile and a shrug of the shoulders.
We wish Michael Clarke well. He may well be the future of Australian cricket. He is a fantastic batsman to watch; not yet a Mark Waugh, say, but we wouldn't rule it out in the longer term. But, please, let him have the breathing room to allow him to get there under his own steam.
This has been a public service announcement.
Thus we have: the Michael Clarke Channel. All Michael, all of the time.
Okay, he is a fine young cricketer and all-round athlete; he is rarely without a smile; and he is a good-looking bloke in the style of, say, James Hird (to pick a name entirely at random). All of these qualities are enough to make someone like myself insanely jealous, so take what follows with a fair pinch of salt. But ...
He has performed well in the Test and One-Day arenas this past couple of months, sure, but does that justify awarding him the Allan Border Medal for best Australian cricketer of the past year? Think back to 12 months ago: his form had deserted him, he seemed to be losing Most Favoured status, the yin/yang star of Simon Katich was back on the rise. (Those must have been nervous times for the Channel Nine Establishment.) So: cricketer of the year? I don't think so. This could only have been the result of a direction from On High. Maybe you could have given him cricket's equivalent of the AFL's "Rising Star" award, but ... If it wasn't Clarke, it would have to have been some much less telegenic, less wholesome version of an international cricketer. And that wouldn't be the ratings killer that Clarke hopefully would be.
And: a few weeks ago the Australian side did something incomprehensible to those of us accustomed to the rigour of the Steve Waugh Years: at the tail end of a one-day game, which was admittedly well in hand, captain Ricky Ponting frigged around for two or three overs in order to give Clarke enough of the strike to (a) let the game run for a little longer, allowing That Channel to squeeze in a couple more high-revenue ad breaks than would otherwise have been the case; and (b) let Clarke score a hundred, giving him considerable exposure and photo opportunities.
Clarke will either survive this unprecedented Cult of Personality or he will not. Kim Hughes comes to mind, in admittedly entirely different circumstances: both were superb batsmen and designated Futures of Australian Cricket. It is a lot to ask of a young man. And the person who is (speculatively) doing the asking, well, he generally speaking doesn't accept underperformance with a smile and a shrug of the shoulders.
We wish Michael Clarke well. He may well be the future of Australian cricket. He is a fantastic batsman to watch; not yet a Mark Waugh, say, but we wouldn't rule it out in the longer term. But, please, let him have the breathing room to allow him to get there under his own steam.
This has been a public service announcement.
Thursday, February 03, 2005
I must have been desperate
Adrienne convinced me to watch the first episode of "Desperate Housewives".
I think she thought it was a documentary.
The highly stylised, "One From The Heart"-esque streetscape was a good start.
And it was quite funny. And well written.
But it was the first episode. Wait and see, wait and see.
I think she thought it was a documentary.
The highly stylised, "One From The Heart"-esque streetscape was a good start.
And it was quite funny. And well written.
But it was the first episode. Wait and see, wait and see.
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
On The Buses
Observations made while on my way to work this morning:
1, Silly?: a young besuited gent walking along the footpath reading a document, walks straight into the branch of a tree. He was headed in the direction of the Department of Foreign Affairs. Relax, people, your country is in good hands.
2. Sinister?: I'm not sure what I saw, but what I think I saw was three guys, 30/40ish, dressed in running gear, hanging around outside the fence of Canberra Girls' Grammar, looking in at the schoolyard. (This was around 8.30am, prime getting-to-school time.) As the bus that I was on pulled in at a nearby bus stop, they gave a distinct impression of having been caught red-handed, and quickly started doing warm-up exercises with some enthusiasm. What were you doing there, fellas? It may have been totally innocent, like maybe you were discussing the architecture of the recent building works there, but it didn't look too good from where I was sitting.
1, Silly?: a young besuited gent walking along the footpath reading a document, walks straight into the branch of a tree. He was headed in the direction of the Department of Foreign Affairs. Relax, people, your country is in good hands.
2. Sinister?: I'm not sure what I saw, but what I think I saw was three guys, 30/40ish, dressed in running gear, hanging around outside the fence of Canberra Girls' Grammar, looking in at the schoolyard. (This was around 8.30am, prime getting-to-school time.) As the bus that I was on pulled in at a nearby bus stop, they gave a distinct impression of having been caught red-handed, and quickly started doing warm-up exercises with some enthusiasm. What were you doing there, fellas? It may have been totally innocent, like maybe you were discussing the architecture of the recent building works there, but it didn't look too good from where I was sitting.
The things they say
Me: Gosh, those birds are noisy this morning.
Carl: Yes, dad. If they were around you wouldn't be able to hear your poo splash.
Carl: Yes, dad. If they were around you wouldn't be able to hear your poo splash.
Sunday, January 30, 2005
All mixed up
Meanwhile back in 2004, I put together the following “mix” from songs that could have been downloaded from the Internet around that time if one had been that way inclined.
1. Santa Esmeralda, “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood”: all ten and a half minutes. Possibly from the soundtrack to “Kill Bill Vol 1” but our local Tarantino buff failed to recognise it in a blind tasting, so who knows?
2. Shannon, “Let The Music Play”: I didn’t expect this to sound as good as it does.
3. Telefon Tel Aviv, “My Week Beats Your Year”: I like the “attitude” (and the Vocoder usage). From an album called “Map of What Is Effortless”, which I think is a lovely title.
4. Klonhertz, “Three Girl Rhumba”: in which the most recognisable two-note guitar figure of the punk era gets sampled, looped, and fitted out for the dancefloor. Not for Wire purists, perhaps, but if you put that guitar line on an endless loop and piped it into my grave I’d be shakin’ all over until the worms help nature take its course.
5. The Fall, “Telephone Thing”: I rely on others to navigate through the tangled byways of The Fall post-“This Nation’s Saving Grace”. For the most part I’m content in the knowledge that Mark E Smith is still out there drinking, falling down and generally fighting the good fight. This one’s from “Extricate” and it’s everything you could want from a Fall song: a rant, a beat, a mess.
6. Dolly Mixture, “Shonay Shonay”: a sliver of punk that passed me by back then. You only have to hear the first few bars to be transported back. If you were ever “there”. Dig, too, the decidedly un-punk “Stairway to Heaven”/”Bohemian Rhapsody” bit at the end.
7. The song known only as “Popnose 7”. Thanks, Tom Ewing. If I described it to you as sounding a bit like a German “Ca Plane Pour Moi” you would be a few small steps on the road to understanding.
8. Big Youth, “S90 Skank”: best taken on a summer afternoon as the cooling breeze starts to make its way into the house. And loud.
9. Cottonbelly, “Night Nurse”: a malevalent take on the Gregory Isaacs song. Ah, don’t you just love that big dub sound.
10. Teriyaki Boys, “Kamikaze 108”: hip hop taken to extreme levels and then taken a bit further, in the way that only the Japanese cats can do. DJ Shadow seems to be buried in here somewhere, but even he could hardly be expected to keep up this pace. Exhausting but fun.
11. Neneh Cherry, “Manchild”: some songs you don’t know why you hit the right-click button (like, did I really think I ever needed to hear UB40 and Chrissie Hinde singing “I got you, babe” again?) but, to my surprise, this holds up exceedingly well. Sometimes the experts get it right.
12-16: here we go into a bracket of New Zealand music, all from or relating to 1980s Dunedin: “Beautiful Things” by the 3Ds, “100 Times” by the sublime Look Blue Go Purple (at least one of whom became a 3D), the Bats covering LBGP’s “I Don’t Want You Anyway”, our main man David Kilgour doing Chris Knox’s (or is it the Tall Dwarfs’?) “The Brain That Wouldn’t Die” and Knox himself with “Half Man Half Mole”.
17. Yung Wu, “Shore Leave”: essentially the Feelies, but with the drummer singing. This is positioned after the NZ stuff because of the uncanny similarity between the vocals here and those of Martin Phillips of the Chills.
18. M Ward, “Flaming Heart”: during our recent trip to Victoria we drove through Meredith, a one-horse town that also hosts the Meredith music festival every year. M Ward played there last time around. No trace of him could be discerned. Mr Ward remains our standout discovery for 2004 so he should feature on at least one of these mixes.
19. The Walkabouts, “Train to Mercy”: nine and a half minutes of emotionally draining epic drama. Ever since they appeared on “Sub Pop 100” (or was it 200? The one with the Charles Burns cover) I have had the feeling that I should have paid attention to the Walkabouts, and the majesty of this song confirms that I have been wrong yet again to ignore my inner John Peel. Not to be confused with the Walkmen.
1. Santa Esmeralda, “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood”: all ten and a half minutes. Possibly from the soundtrack to “Kill Bill Vol 1” but our local Tarantino buff failed to recognise it in a blind tasting, so who knows?
2. Shannon, “Let The Music Play”: I didn’t expect this to sound as good as it does.
3. Telefon Tel Aviv, “My Week Beats Your Year”: I like the “attitude” (and the Vocoder usage). From an album called “Map of What Is Effortless”, which I think is a lovely title.
4. Klonhertz, “Three Girl Rhumba”: in which the most recognisable two-note guitar figure of the punk era gets sampled, looped, and fitted out for the dancefloor. Not for Wire purists, perhaps, but if you put that guitar line on an endless loop and piped it into my grave I’d be shakin’ all over until the worms help nature take its course.
5. The Fall, “Telephone Thing”: I rely on others to navigate through the tangled byways of The Fall post-“This Nation’s Saving Grace”. For the most part I’m content in the knowledge that Mark E Smith is still out there drinking, falling down and generally fighting the good fight. This one’s from “Extricate” and it’s everything you could want from a Fall song: a rant, a beat, a mess.
6. Dolly Mixture, “Shonay Shonay”: a sliver of punk that passed me by back then. You only have to hear the first few bars to be transported back. If you were ever “there”. Dig, too, the decidedly un-punk “Stairway to Heaven”/”Bohemian Rhapsody” bit at the end.
7. The song known only as “Popnose 7”. Thanks, Tom Ewing. If I described it to you as sounding a bit like a German “Ca Plane Pour Moi” you would be a few small steps on the road to understanding.
8. Big Youth, “S90 Skank”: best taken on a summer afternoon as the cooling breeze starts to make its way into the house. And loud.
9. Cottonbelly, “Night Nurse”: a malevalent take on the Gregory Isaacs song. Ah, don’t you just love that big dub sound.
10. Teriyaki Boys, “Kamikaze 108”: hip hop taken to extreme levels and then taken a bit further, in the way that only the Japanese cats can do. DJ Shadow seems to be buried in here somewhere, but even he could hardly be expected to keep up this pace. Exhausting but fun.
11. Neneh Cherry, “Manchild”: some songs you don’t know why you hit the right-click button (like, did I really think I ever needed to hear UB40 and Chrissie Hinde singing “I got you, babe” again?) but, to my surprise, this holds up exceedingly well. Sometimes the experts get it right.
12-16: here we go into a bracket of New Zealand music, all from or relating to 1980s Dunedin: “Beautiful Things” by the 3Ds, “100 Times” by the sublime Look Blue Go Purple (at least one of whom became a 3D), the Bats covering LBGP’s “I Don’t Want You Anyway”, our main man David Kilgour doing Chris Knox’s (or is it the Tall Dwarfs’?) “The Brain That Wouldn’t Die” and Knox himself with “Half Man Half Mole”.
17. Yung Wu, “Shore Leave”: essentially the Feelies, but with the drummer singing. This is positioned after the NZ stuff because of the uncanny similarity between the vocals here and those of Martin Phillips of the Chills.
18. M Ward, “Flaming Heart”: during our recent trip to Victoria we drove through Meredith, a one-horse town that also hosts the Meredith music festival every year. M Ward played there last time around. No trace of him could be discerned. Mr Ward remains our standout discovery for 2004 so he should feature on at least one of these mixes.
19. The Walkabouts, “Train to Mercy”: nine and a half minutes of emotionally draining epic drama. Ever since they appeared on “Sub Pop 100” (or was it 200? The one with the Charles Burns cover) I have had the feeling that I should have paid attention to the Walkabouts, and the majesty of this song confirms that I have been wrong yet again to ignore my inner John Peel. Not to be confused with the Walkmen.
Saturday, January 29, 2005
Love is the message for us all
Following my usual rule of thumb, viz. that where disco is concerned longer is usually better, I recently found myself in possession of all 11 and a half minutes of "Love Is The Message" by MFSB. Well, what a strange record this is. What you get is in large part perfectly acceptable string-and-sax-driven "classic" disco, with minimal(ist) lyrics (in the style of Silver Convention's "Fly Robin Fly"). There is some nice Hammond bubbling under at various places, and the whole thing really does take off around the eight-minute mark with some rippin' electric piano. But something is not right: for the first three or so minutes, every time the track threatens to go into The Zone we are instead subjected to a totally lame middle-of-the-road saxophone ballad thing a la, say, Kenny G perhaps, or David Sanborn, very "no static at all", anyway, that belongs in a completely other song. And the mood is lost. It's a bit like cruising along the Great Ocean Road with the top down on a blissfully sunny day only to be stopped by traffic lights every thirty seconds.
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
Something wicked this way comes
Over at the Music Box we now have two cover versions of Kraftwerk songs, one faithful and one irreverent. How Australian is that?
Down and Out in Melbourne and Geelong
Two and a half weeks in various parts of Victoria. It’s the longest family holiday we have undertaken. Here is some of it.
Sitting at a kitchen table in the Melbourne inner suburb of Richmond reading a piece by Frank Moorehouse in the Age, I became aware of a sense that I was at a place other than home reading about a place that I recognised as “home”. Given that we have been in Canberra six years now, I suppose that is to be expected, but it still came as rather a shock, given that at some basic level I still regard Melbourne as Home, most of our friends are in Melbourne (although that equation is changing), and I don’t really consider myself a “local” in Canberra. I suppose I had better start to acknowledge the new reality.
We went gold panning at Sovereign Hill in Ballarat. This is an important rite of passage which, having been negotiated, we can now cross off the list.
An unexpectedly memorable (but not unexpectedly pleasant; these two entertain us once a year during our visit to the in-laws) evening was spent with our good Geelong friends Wendy and Roger, eating fish and chips on Roger’s boat, which is moored at the Geelong yacht club, and which they don’t actually take out into the open water very often. Roger was kind enough to take the boys fishing, although they spent much of the time scaring the seagulls away so that they (the seagulls) wouldn’t crap on the boat.
We saw “The Incredibles” at the big Village Cinemas complex in Geelong. I particularly enjoyed the early appearance of a French villain called Bomb Voyage who inevitably but beautifully refers to Mr Incredible as "Monsieur Oncroyaaaable". Julius, the four-year-old, when asked if he would be able to sit through the whole film (he struggled with “Finding Nemo”), said “I can’t promise but I’ll do my best”. He did very well indeed; from about the 90 minute mark his inclination was to join the steady stream of departing fathers with small children, but he held firm (actually he was held firm, by me) and made it to the happy ending (another Pixar appearance for John Ratzenberger, this time as The Underminer - “I may live beneath you, but nothing is beneath me”).
Melbourne record shops, with one honourable exception, were a disappointment. My regular pilgrimage to Greville Records in Prahran served its nostalgic purpose (Warwick, the owner, spent most of the time that I was there walking around the shop talking on his mobile phone), but nothing jumped out at me as a necessary purchase. Gaslight in the city is now so dire that it should just acknowledge defeat and close its doors. Collectors’ Corner has taken the dubious approach of mixing new with second-hand, which means that “collectors” are forced to flick through much run-of-the-mill product as well as having to glance at price tags for each disc to see if it is new or used. Missing Link has moved to I know not where. Au Go Go has closed its doors. Didn’t get to Brunswick Street, where I suspect Polyester may have afforded my only chance to pick up the most recent David Kilgour disc, which thus remains unaquired. The discovery (I have, as in all things, here been well advised by Doctor Jim) was Metropolis, a fairly new establishment hidden away on the the third floor of Curtin House, 252 Swanston Street (the building is being developed by Tim Peach, who, coincidentally, sold our flat in Dalgety Street, St Kilda, all those years ago), where my needs were attended to by the genial, modest Oren Ambarchi. The range here is small, but uniformly excellent, from krautrock to 60s psych/prog to 1970s dub to electronica. (But no Masada.) Its location above the city streets, so the windows can be opened to let a breeze waft through, encourages browsing. I came away with Pluramon’s “Dreams Top Rock” and “Venice” by Fennesz, on the grounds that they were the ones least likely to be found in the nation’s capital.
Adrienne and I left the boys for a day with our friends Peter and Jenni’s nanny and took to the streets, visiting old haunts such as Pellegrini and Tokio, checking out The Little Bookroom and Metropolis Books (adjacent to Metropolis records, see above), where we found Tove Jansson’s picture book “Who Will Comfort Toffle?”, which we have been searching for for some time, and spending time in the Ian Potter wing of the National Gallery of Victoria, wherein lies the best collection of Australian art in this country. The Aboriginal art on display is breathtaking, as are the McCubbins and Drysdales, not to mention Jeffrey Smart’s “Cahill Expressway”. The new building is not bad, either. We also visited the Immigration Museum, which was particularly moving for me as Adrienne relived, via contemporary home-movie footage, her own passage to Australia as a six-year-old.
Another rite of passage negotiated: “Wind in the Willows” at the Botanic Gardens. The night we were there, they had a live broadcast of the weather report for the channel seven news, which may have included a glimpse of Carl or Jules, or an audio snippet of Carl in the background saying “Geelong?” as the weatherman read out the expected temperatures for various regional centres.
We spent a lovely afternoon in the rock pools at Point Lonsdale with the Glaspole Yeatmans (whose Melbourne house we were allowed to mind for six nights; thanks guys, you now have the dilemma presented by owning the first of Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly’s“Little Lit” series of “children’s” books: do you leave Chris Ware’s “Road Rage” intact, or pull out the pieces and play the game?).
Thanks to everyone who either put us up or put up with us, the making and breaking of arrangements that seems to come with travels with children (or is it just us?), and apologies to those whom we managed to miss this time around: please don’t take it personally.
Sitting at a kitchen table in the Melbourne inner suburb of Richmond reading a piece by Frank Moorehouse in the Age, I became aware of a sense that I was at a place other than home reading about a place that I recognised as “home”. Given that we have been in Canberra six years now, I suppose that is to be expected, but it still came as rather a shock, given that at some basic level I still regard Melbourne as Home, most of our friends are in Melbourne (although that equation is changing), and I don’t really consider myself a “local” in Canberra. I suppose I had better start to acknowledge the new reality.
We went gold panning at Sovereign Hill in Ballarat. This is an important rite of passage which, having been negotiated, we can now cross off the list.
An unexpectedly memorable (but not unexpectedly pleasant; these two entertain us once a year during our visit to the in-laws) evening was spent with our good Geelong friends Wendy and Roger, eating fish and chips on Roger’s boat, which is moored at the Geelong yacht club, and which they don’t actually take out into the open water very often. Roger was kind enough to take the boys fishing, although they spent much of the time scaring the seagulls away so that they (the seagulls) wouldn’t crap on the boat.
We saw “The Incredibles” at the big Village Cinemas complex in Geelong. I particularly enjoyed the early appearance of a French villain called Bomb Voyage who inevitably but beautifully refers to Mr Incredible as "Monsieur Oncroyaaaable". Julius, the four-year-old, when asked if he would be able to sit through the whole film (he struggled with “Finding Nemo”), said “I can’t promise but I’ll do my best”. He did very well indeed; from about the 90 minute mark his inclination was to join the steady stream of departing fathers with small children, but he held firm (actually he was held firm, by me) and made it to the happy ending (another Pixar appearance for John Ratzenberger, this time as The Underminer - “I may live beneath you, but nothing is beneath me”).
Melbourne record shops, with one honourable exception, were a disappointment. My regular pilgrimage to Greville Records in Prahran served its nostalgic purpose (Warwick, the owner, spent most of the time that I was there walking around the shop talking on his mobile phone), but nothing jumped out at me as a necessary purchase. Gaslight in the city is now so dire that it should just acknowledge defeat and close its doors. Collectors’ Corner has taken the dubious approach of mixing new with second-hand, which means that “collectors” are forced to flick through much run-of-the-mill product as well as having to glance at price tags for each disc to see if it is new or used. Missing Link has moved to I know not where. Au Go Go has closed its doors. Didn’t get to Brunswick Street, where I suspect Polyester may have afforded my only chance to pick up the most recent David Kilgour disc, which thus remains unaquired. The discovery (I have, as in all things, here been well advised by Doctor Jim) was Metropolis, a fairly new establishment hidden away on the the third floor of Curtin House, 252 Swanston Street (the building is being developed by Tim Peach, who, coincidentally, sold our flat in Dalgety Street, St Kilda, all those years ago), where my needs were attended to by the genial, modest Oren Ambarchi. The range here is small, but uniformly excellent, from krautrock to 60s psych/prog to 1970s dub to electronica. (But no Masada.) Its location above the city streets, so the windows can be opened to let a breeze waft through, encourages browsing. I came away with Pluramon’s “Dreams Top Rock” and “Venice” by Fennesz, on the grounds that they were the ones least likely to be found in the nation’s capital.
Adrienne and I left the boys for a day with our friends Peter and Jenni’s nanny and took to the streets, visiting old haunts such as Pellegrini and Tokio, checking out The Little Bookroom and Metropolis Books (adjacent to Metropolis records, see above), where we found Tove Jansson’s picture book “Who Will Comfort Toffle?”, which we have been searching for for some time, and spending time in the Ian Potter wing of the National Gallery of Victoria, wherein lies the best collection of Australian art in this country. The Aboriginal art on display is breathtaking, as are the McCubbins and Drysdales, not to mention Jeffrey Smart’s “Cahill Expressway”. The new building is not bad, either. We also visited the Immigration Museum, which was particularly moving for me as Adrienne relived, via contemporary home-movie footage, her own passage to Australia as a six-year-old.
Another rite of passage negotiated: “Wind in the Willows” at the Botanic Gardens. The night we were there, they had a live broadcast of the weather report for the channel seven news, which may have included a glimpse of Carl or Jules, or an audio snippet of Carl in the background saying “Geelong?” as the weatherman read out the expected temperatures for various regional centres.
We spent a lovely afternoon in the rock pools at Point Lonsdale with the Glaspole Yeatmans (whose Melbourne house we were allowed to mind for six nights; thanks guys, you now have the dilemma presented by owning the first of Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly’s“Little Lit” series of “children’s” books: do you leave Chris Ware’s “Road Rage” intact, or pull out the pieces and play the game?).
Thanks to everyone who either put us up or put up with us, the making and breaking of arrangements that seems to come with travels with children (or is it just us?), and apologies to those whom we managed to miss this time around: please don’t take it personally.
Friday, January 07, 2005
Huckabees 'R' Us
So, on Wednesday night we went along to see “I [heart] Huckabees”. There are some films where, even if you are quite enjoying it, you find yourself periodically looking at your watch from about 45 minutes in. This is not one of those films. The ascendence from the bottom of the screen of the closing credits marked the first time since the film began that I was aware of the passage of time. About three minutes into the movie, not long after giving Adrienne the customary dissertation on who did the soundtrack music and what else they have ever done in their lives, I said to her words to the effect that “this is the best film I have ever seen”. Well, maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t, but it grabbed me from the outset, and as far as I am concerned it could well have just kept going and going, and I would still be sitting there, absorbed.
This is the latest in a string of films from, primarily, young(ish) American writers and directors that I have found very appealing, in their (overused word, but perfect in this context) quirky, left-of-centre storytelling and visual techniques, injecting comedy into what are not, for the most part, comedies at all. That these films find a wide audience is surprising; there is nothing “pat” about them. That they are able to be made at all, in these days of ever-decreasing circles of creativity in mainstream Hollywood (Pixar honourably excepted), is remarkable. “Huckabees” has taken the dramatic and aesthetic lessons of films like “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and “The Royal Tenenbaums” to the next level. One wonders which of the gang will play the next trump card. (The next P T Anderson film is most likely still some way off, but there is a new film by the Other Anderson (Wes) which should be here soon.)
And how can you say no to a film that features Lily Tomlin and Dustin Hoffman as a pair of “existential detectives”?
Later, there was a man sitting at a table outside Charmers in Manuka, wearing a Bush-Quayle ’92 t-shirt. Canberra in January is another planet.
This is the latest in a string of films from, primarily, young(ish) American writers and directors that I have found very appealing, in their (overused word, but perfect in this context) quirky, left-of-centre storytelling and visual techniques, injecting comedy into what are not, for the most part, comedies at all. That these films find a wide audience is surprising; there is nothing “pat” about them. That they are able to be made at all, in these days of ever-decreasing circles of creativity in mainstream Hollywood (Pixar honourably excepted), is remarkable. “Huckabees” has taken the dramatic and aesthetic lessons of films like “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and “The Royal Tenenbaums” to the next level. One wonders which of the gang will play the next trump card. (The next P T Anderson film is most likely still some way off, but there is a new film by the Other Anderson (Wes) which should be here soon.)
And how can you say no to a film that features Lily Tomlin and Dustin Hoffman as a pair of “existential detectives”?
Later, there was a man sitting at a table outside Charmers in Manuka, wearing a Bush-Quayle ’92 t-shirt. Canberra in January is another planet.
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
I Had A Real Good Mother And Father
Once in a very infrequent while, you find yourself confronted with a piece of information so disjointed, so out of synch with the way you intuitively understand the world to be, that for a brief moment the world spins off its axis and you don’t know which way is up. Then you look again and, making sure that what you just read is still there, ie, you didn’t hallucinate it, you begin the process of letting your brain take it in, and assimilating it into the fabric of what you thought you knew.
So it was a few days after Gillian Welch and David Rawlings’ concert in Canberra (a couple of months ago now), when one of my work colleagues sent me an email link to a short piece about Welch taken from the Melbourne Age. Okay, I thought, some kind of concert review or other item of interest about the tour. I started reading. Apparently Gillian and Dave had ventured to country Victoria to play a show or two. So far so good. All of a sudden I went slightly woozy: one of those places was the Meeniyan hall. What?? I read back over what I had just read. It made no sense. (Even now, it still makes no sense. I have trawled the Internet for an explanation of how it could have come about, but am none the wiser.) How could two of the saviours of modern music finish up there?
Meeniyan. It’s no Byron Bay. Or Daylesford. Or Meredith. Heck, it’s no Fish Creek, for that matter. It’s just a nothing town on the highway, half way between the farm I grew up on and Leongatha, the nearest town of any decent size. No offence to the people who live there, by the way, at least one of whom was one of my best friends at Fish Creek Kindergarten. Also, and this is of no small significance, my mum and dad are both buried there, in a lovely lawn cemetery on a hill surrounded by giant cypress trees. Nevertheless, Meeniyan is no place for American musicians of considerable international standing to wash up, even for one night. Unlike the towns listed above, it has not thus far undergone the transformation to some kind of cultural outpost necessary to avoid stagnation and death.
Well anyway, on a six-degrees-of-separation level, it goes like this: I spent much of 2004 absorbing the music of the two-headed beast that calls itself Gillian Welch into my bloodstream; out of the blue, they get the Profile treatment in the New Yorker, a magazine that, over the last decade, has become a rather unhealthy obsession of mine; unexpectedly, I got the chance to see them play live in Canberra; then they go and play in a town near where I grew up; the town where my parents are buried; a town which it makes no sense for them to play. It’s all a bit, um, creepy, isn’t it?
So it was a few days after Gillian Welch and David Rawlings’ concert in Canberra (a couple of months ago now), when one of my work colleagues sent me an email link to a short piece about Welch taken from the Melbourne Age. Okay, I thought, some kind of concert review or other item of interest about the tour. I started reading. Apparently Gillian and Dave had ventured to country Victoria to play a show or two. So far so good. All of a sudden I went slightly woozy: one of those places was the Meeniyan hall. What?? I read back over what I had just read. It made no sense. (Even now, it still makes no sense. I have trawled the Internet for an explanation of how it could have come about, but am none the wiser.) How could two of the saviours of modern music finish up there?
Meeniyan. It’s no Byron Bay. Or Daylesford. Or Meredith. Heck, it’s no Fish Creek, for that matter. It’s just a nothing town on the highway, half way between the farm I grew up on and Leongatha, the nearest town of any decent size. No offence to the people who live there, by the way, at least one of whom was one of my best friends at Fish Creek Kindergarten. Also, and this is of no small significance, my mum and dad are both buried there, in a lovely lawn cemetery on a hill surrounded by giant cypress trees. Nevertheless, Meeniyan is no place for American musicians of considerable international standing to wash up, even for one night. Unlike the towns listed above, it has not thus far undergone the transformation to some kind of cultural outpost necessary to avoid stagnation and death.
Well anyway, on a six-degrees-of-separation level, it goes like this: I spent much of 2004 absorbing the music of the two-headed beast that calls itself Gillian Welch into my bloodstream; out of the blue, they get the Profile treatment in the New Yorker, a magazine that, over the last decade, has become a rather unhealthy obsession of mine; unexpectedly, I got the chance to see them play live in Canberra; then they go and play in a town near where I grew up; the town where my parents are buried; a town which it makes no sense for them to play. It’s all a bit, um, creepy, isn’t it?
Monday, January 03, 2005
I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night
Actually, I dreamt that Marcello Carlin came into my office while I was out on my lunch break and wiped out everything on my computer.
I don't know what I should be reading into that; but if I were Marcello Carlin I think I would be glad that we live on opposite sides of the planet.
I don't know what I should be reading into that; but if I were Marcello Carlin I think I would be glad that we live on opposite sides of the planet.
Sunday, January 02, 2005
My Label
Santa brought me a rain gauge. It's nice to know that the Germans aren't above splashing meaningless puffery on their product packaging:
"precision - high-quality-materials - first-class finish - tasteful design"
"precision - high-quality-materials - first-class finish - tasteful design"
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