Current adventures in pop music: It's OK 'cause I found multi-part harmonies

One of my all time favourite concert experiences was at the hands of The Polyphonic Spree. They evoked such an ecstatic feeling from within that if they were indeed they great cult that some believe they are and they started handing out little vials throughout the enmore theatre claiming that drinking it would enable my soul to be teleported on to an spacecraft flying overhead I probably would have believed them. At that point everyone was so ridiculously happy, who really would've cared?

Needless to say, this didn't happen; the aliens didn't take me, and bless their cotton socks The Polyphonic Spree have a new album coming out in June titled The Fragile Army. Teleporting your web browser to their myspace page will reveal to you that they've ditched the iconic robes in favour of black, military style get up [they're an army after all] as well as a streaming version of their new single Running Away, which is rather lovely in my opinion.

The most curious thing however lies at the end of the playlist; a cover of Nirvana's Lithium. Covering Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band I could understand but Lithium is a rather odd choice; not being the happiest of ditties after all. Of course it works; utilising a kill them with kindness attitude to things and stranger things have certainly occured before and since. Perhaps this video of the group playing the song in Dallas puts things in perspective. The quality is suitably bad, but it's all about the choir in the background.

Good advice.

I stole this from here. But then, the sex pistols [or at least their designer] stole the idea from the situationists and William Burroughs, so I have no problem with this.

Go on sue me Malcolm, I dare you!

Current exercises in productivity #3: A trip to Carriageworks

Through no fault of my own, I'm opening the Sydney leg of the 8th edition of Liquid Architecture, the national sound arts festival. This will be my second attempt at "The Daniel Green Tribute Show," which I did for the first time at the zine fair stage at last year's This Is Not Art festival in Newcastle. All I'm telling anyone is that I'm performing songs from musicals. If you want to know more, you're just going to have to come aren't you? It's going to be quite the thing.

***
SYDNEY
Performance Space at Carriageworks
Thursday June 28 – Saturday June 30

Thursday June 28 from 8pm – Gala Opening!
$10/$8
WINNER
TONY MASON-COX WITH ANN ONYMOUS
THE DANIEL GREEN TRIBUTE SHOW
+ Very Special Guests!

Friday June 29 from 8pm – Main Concert One
$15/$12
RUNZELSTIRN & GURGELSTOCK (SWITZERLAND)
DAVE PHILLIPS (SWITZERLAND)
NATASHA ANDERSON (MELBOURNE)
THOMAS KNOX ARNOLD

Saturday June 30 from 8pm – Main Concert Two
$15/$12
CELLULE D’INTERVENTION METAMKINE (FRANCE)
LLOYD BARRETT (BRISBANE)
ABJECT LEADER (BRISBANE)
KAMUSTA
PETER NEWMAN

+ ‘TERMINAL’ Exhibition
Artists Include:
NATASHA ANDERSON
JASPER STREIT
RIK RUE
WADE MARYNOWSKY

Season Passes - $30/$25

Current exercises in productivity #2: A trip to Melbourne

After all the trials of the aforementioned trip to Luna Park, the end result of sitting on a ferris wheel and contemplating one's existence was The Duration Of The Ride Will Be Approximately Eight Minutes. This new work was completed for the group exhbition "Raise High The Roofbeams," which ran at Bus Gallery in Melbourne between the 8th and the 25th of May. The exhibition served as an exchange between Bus and Firstdraft Gallery in Sydney, as well as being part of a larger project called Making Space, which celebrates Melbourne's various [and many] artist-run-initiatives.

After being initally quite unsure as to how the work would turn out in the realm outside of my brain, I was very happy with its final state. It looked great, sounded fine [despite my various attempts to destroy my speaker cables during installation], and was suitably painful to watch. Have to be happy with that. The work isn't hard to imagine; it's eight minutes of me sitting in a carriage on a ferris wheel, filming outwards towards Sydney harbour. The video starts when the ride does, and finishes when it ends. Like most of my work of late, you get the point pretty quick. Yet it never ceases to fascinate me that people will stick with it until it ends, like something truly exciting will happen, and then complain that it doesn't. Admittedly, this is part of the point of undertaking such things, but it makes me laugh nonetheless. I think this is one of the better realised versions of this theme that I've done, but I do wonder how long I can push it for. It's one thing to be repetitive about being obvious, but that all changes when the reverse becomes the norm.

The trip to Melbourne itself was great, as any stretch of being somewhere else tends to be. It's the closest thing I've had to a holiday in a very long time, and it was nice to come back feeling energised about what one does. So much to see there is, and simply not enough time to get through it all.

Might have to go back methinks.

Current exercises in productivity #1: A trip to Luna Park

On the 29th of April myself and a comrade took a trip to Luna Park in Milson's Point with the noble intention of standing in a queue for the dodgem cars and filming the experience [well, at least I was going to stand in the queue for the dodgem cars and film the experience, said friend needed the distraction on a Sunday afternoon]. This was all in aid of a video work I've been planning on doing for quite some time, which surprisingly was to feature footage of myself standing in the queue for the dodgem cars at Luna Park, shot from my perspecitve. This was all well and good until I realised that going to a theme park at 4pm on a Sunday afternoon isn't exactly the optimum point of the day, and that subsequently there might not be as many people standing in queues as one might hope. When this turned out to be the reality of the situation, it seemed my own folly had cost me the opportunity to do the work. At least for this particular weekend anyway. Pacing through the fun fair, all seemed very lost. Then my counterpart brought the ferrris wheel to my attention. A great, hulking, steel testament to life in stasis. Better than a queue, and far less exciting than the dodgem cars, it all seemed a little too perfect really.

And so children of the modern world, contemporary art lives to fight another day. May this be a timely lesson for us all; when there is no hope, there is always a ferris wheel.

Inexcusable behaviour.

I like Silverchair. Apparently this is a bit of a faux pas these days, but I'm ok with this. As far as Australian pop acts go, their ability to consistently reinvent themselves with each new release is more than admirable. Sure, their videos aren't all that great and Daniel Johns has conducted some interesting experiments in facial hair over the years, but I've still been willing to stick by them. Their current incarnation though, in support of their new album Young Modern has led them to some very bizzare territory. Having Peter Garrett recommend their song Straight Lines as being helpful to Australia's water crisis (perhaps a slight nod to John's campaigning for Garrett's political future) I can accept, but can someone tell me why the hell Daniel Johns is being interviewed by Richard Wilkins?

As of 23_04_07

Super Furry Animals - Rings Around The World [Album]
Wilco - Misunderstood
Wilco - A Shot In The Arm
Wilco - Heavy Metal Drummer
[All from album: Kicking Television - Live In Chicago]
Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot [Album]

Not at all.

It's an internet cafe you see, and the sign points down a flight of stairs; it's pure genius. I'm amazed that great feats such as this don't occur more often. Perhaps the expense in vinyl lettering is just too astronomical to calculate.

Between this, and the piece of cardboard in a martini glass at my place of employment that says "Show Us Your Tips", I sometimes really worry about the state of things.

As of 10_04_07

Grinderman [Album]
Pink Sheets Edition One [mp3 blog]
LCD Soundsystem - Get Innocuous!
LCD Soundsystem - Time To Get Away
LCD Soundsystem - North American Scum
LCD Soundsystem - Someone Great
[All from album "Sound of Silver"]

As of 03_04_07

Silverchair - Young Modern [Album]
Gang of Four - Entertainment! [Album]
Real Ultimate Power - ...for real [Demos]
Machine Death - We Can All Fade Away Sometime

Life on planet UG.

Open a new floor of a shopping centre and a brave new world certainly awaits; like new signs in inoffensive grey, written in an oh-so-sharp white sans-serif font.

It's ok though; according to the UG ramp, freedom is just upstairs.

"Death is the road to awe".

Maybe one day I'll be able to comprehend this.
In the meantime, at least we have Darren Aronofsky to bend our heads.

Linkin Park are unbelievably lame.

Perhaps the fact that Linkin Park are terrible doesn't need to be raised. Heck, it might even be a given. At the very least, they're plenty stupid. Case in point; the video for their new single "What I've Done". Being a Linkin Park track, I'm sure the narrative revolves around some kind of inner-hardship mixed with layers of self-loathing. As mundane as this is [leave it to Trent; you're obviously fans, just let it go], it's the montage of the video that disturbs me most. The whole thing seems to be some sort of musing on important events in American history in the last few years. So we have scenes of bombs dropping, firemen carrying people to safety, petrol bowsers ticking, and then mixed in is stock footage of Castro, Stalin, and the Klu Klux Klan for good measure. Because it's all the same in the end really.

And in the middle of this we have the band, our heroes, doing whatever it is they're doing; but at least they're making a stand right? Well, when you want to make to make point about the current state of things, perhaps the best place to start would be anywhere other than in the middle of the desert, surrounded by amplifiers and enough lights to illuminate a small suburb. Unless of course you're powering all this equipment on bio-diesel, in which case I'll retract my statement.

I'm sorry Al Gore and Dan Ashcroft, but it really does look like the idiots are winning.

The words "Completely," "Freaking" and "Amazing" are something like what I'm after.

Rage have a competition running where you can program a playlist of 20 videos. Wow. Ten kinds of wow even. The fierce competitor within me is quite upset that I'm posting this; as if I had control of some incredible secret that could change the world, as long as I don't tell anyone else about it. But this is too important to keep to myself... plus I'm sure you would find out anyway.

Do me a favour though. If you win, please program "Babe, I'm On Fire" by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds; making sure that's it's the full 15 minute version, as opposed to the 3 minute single edit. That thing needs to be seen by as many people as humanly possible.

Dead Jesus TV

Buried at 11pm on Channel 7's Friday night schedule was Mel Gibson's "The Passion of The Christ", in all it's bloody, Aramaic glory. Although it makes perfect sense for The Passion of The Christ to be on TV somewhere, being Good Friday and all, for some reason the whole thing seemed very odd. Our Lord and saviour (or Jim Caviziel, however you wish to perceive the situation), trapped behind a cathode ray tube; the closest he may ever come to sharing any kind of physicality with all those tele-evangelists. Perhaps that's why it was on at 11pm.

Mind you, my intended source of entertainment for the evening was to go an see "300" at the IMAX theatre in Darling Harbour... however it was sold out. Somehow this was perfectly within the realm of comprehension. Choc tops go a long way to suspending one's disbelief.

I just can't do house parties.

I'm sorry if this is your kitchen. This is not a comment on you, the politics of inner city living, or even the dishes on your rack. I had a perfectly lovely evening; it was just a little odd, is all.

Michel Gondry does You Tube... Bloggers fail to find witty way to describe it.

I was going to do this whole big rant about how Michel Gondry has a You Tube page, and then talk about how I inevitably caved in to the ridiculousness of linking stuff from You Tube to my blog, as many foolish people have done before. However it's now quite late, I can't be bothered, and quite frankly, I really like Michel Gondry.

So, if you would like to see a video of Michel solving a Rubik's Cube with his feet, click here. Or, if you would rather see him solve it with his nose, click here. If you wish to watch both, I recommend starting with the feet.

A warning; there are links from both videos to others claiming to expose "how he does it". I recommend leaving these alone; don't kill the magic, even if it is streamed via You Tube.

He should really get that nose looked at though... that's just not right.

"Let's drive to Brighton on the weekend..."

Bloc Party are coming. I have tickets. I am ridiculously excited. They play the horden on August the 4th, 2007.

Should be back by then.

Welcome Back (This One's For Chuckles)

Hmmm... Deliberately abstract. I like it.

Ducks should be free from persecution

Should you happen to find yourself in Newcastle between the 10th and 13th of May, and you really felt the desire to do so, you could visit Field Gallery - located at 255 King St, Newcastle [if you do this, I would strongly suggest visiting between the hours of 12pm to 5pm; disappointment may ensue otherwise]. Their current exhibition is entitled "The Farmyard Animal Challenge," which required artists to respond to a small farm animal they were sent in the mail in whichever way they chose. I was sent a pony, for the record, but didn't receive it until after the exhibition had opened.

For the show I produced a new work, Ducks Should Be Free From Persecution. Continuing a body of work which is centred around the reworking of footage from video games, this piece contains a sequence from the Nintendo Entertainment System game "Duck Hunt". The game's objective is simple; a duck flies on screen, you shoot it, then you wait for the next one. You receive three shots at each duck, and must shoot [I hesitate to use the word kill, as there's no blood, but I guess that's effectively what you are doing] a certain quota to progress to the next level. If you fail to reach the quota, the game is over. There are options to play the game with two ducks on screen, or even a mode where you shoot clay pidgeons. Very exciting.

Using the option with two ducks [for aesthetic and practical reasons], I recorded about 15 sections of the game where the gun is never fired. In the actual game, missing the ducks results in hound appearing from behind the pictured green bushes and laughing at you. I simply edited this out, and looped the footage [using about 5 of the recorded sections] so that the ducks continuously fly through; uninterrupted, without fear of execution.

There are a number of things going on in this work [most of which occurred to me after its completion], that make it quite different from the other works I have made in this vein. I could ramble about said things, but this most likely isn't of much interest to many in the here and now. Perhaps if I ever get around to a full blown website I could write a big think piece on it then. I quite like this work though, and have really began to feel for the ducks' plight. At the opening of the show, a small child looked at the tv this was playing on, turned to his Dad and asked "Why does it say 'shot' Dad?"

"Because you shoot them son," came his quick reply. It made me quite sad to hear that, and I remember saying to myself "No! That's not the point, at all!" But I guess it is, as that is the the only reason the ducks exist. The importance though is the passive act on the part of the player / viewer. They could be shot, but the choice has been enacted to let them live. I think that's a much nicer way to look at things.