Research - 26th of March, 2008.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frets_on_Fire
http://fretsonfire.sourceforge.net/

It's all very simple.

In one of those "it's my birthday but you get the presents" kind of moments, I would like to engage in you, the members of my blog republic, in an experiment. I would like you to send your postal address to the following email account:

an.unexpected.gift@gmail.com

In return, I will send you something in the mail. That's it. Call it a gift really.

And yes, it is my birthday so I can make all the bad puns I like.

Useful advice from Alexander Stainthorpe of South Australia.

"Am I surprised? Yeah, I'm surprised that... I get to go to the next level, because there is a real bias against fictional people. Especially with reality tv, because they want it to be really real, but I can connect, you know. There's some real moments here, even if I'm fictional, you gotta get over that."

(Belated) Australia Day resolution, 2008.

Build less barbeques.

Current adventures in pop music: "he scratches his beard"... then wonders what the hell is going on?

It's difficult to say whether or not the world needed a cover of The Sugarcubes' song Birthday by The Mars Volta, but we have one nonetheless. Stranger still [that says a lot considering pretty much everything to do with this song is somehow odd], it's somehow popped up as an "exclusive" on amazon.co.uk [admittedly I first stumbled across it via Pitchfork's forckast section but we won't split hairs]. Some digging around has discovered that the track is a bonus on the Japanese edition of their new album The Bedlam in Goliath. Score!

As far as it goes, despite The Mars Volta's leaning toward apocalyptic melodrama with guitars, their version of Birthday is painfully faithful. Cedric Bixler-Zavala isn't Bjork, but he knows this, choosing a series of electronic mumbles for the chorus as opposed to the original's proverbial primal scream. The overall result is strangely alluring, but I'm not really sure if it's any good. A friend of mine described it as "like an underwater elevator nightmare". Even with it's slightly negative slant, that's still the best description of the song I can offer.

The morbidly curious amongst you should proceed here. One thing's for sure; no matter how horrible you think it might be, it beats 30 Seconds To Mars' version of Bjork's Hunter by a long shot.

I know that reads like a cliffhanger, and you're going to want to know more, but trust me, just leave it alone.

Research - 7th of January, 2008.

" 'We go to highschool. We dig rock 'n' roll. We date and go to parties and yes, we sometimes neck but no, we never pet. We also fall in love and that really burns us up. Then we pass notes in class and don't eat and even cry at night. We also think coke and hamburgers are really neat. We wear sneakers, short shorts, highschool sweaters. The girls have ponytails and the boys are crew cut. Our parents can be kinda draggy at times but, gee whiz, they were young themselves once and they're only trying to do their best for us. Finally, we dig America. We think it's really peachy-keen.' "

- Nik Cohn, Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: Pop From The Beginning.

(The things of 2007) Current adventures in pop music: (Grudgingly) Sharing the love.

Some may note that my first attempt to backtrack though the back log of my brains blog-related sector didn't end so well. In fact, it never really started enough for it to end badly. Nevertheless, in the interests of persistence and flogging the proverbial dead equine I am going to try this again. So over the next little period of time I'm going to through up the occasional tidbit left over from last years' notes. This won't make any chronological sense, but I feel that that we'll all be able to cope. That, and I like the name I've come up with for it, so that settles it then.

That's it. I'm not going to introduce the blog post you're about to read, that would be pointless. Really.

...

Discovering that someone else likes a band or artist you otherwise believedly were relatively obscure can be a bizarre and disarming experience. You initially feel excited and safe in the knowledge that there are other people as clever and enlightened as you are, but this can sometimes give way to pure unadulterated jealously. How dare someone else be in tune with your intimate knowledge of the underground's underground! Surely only I could possibly be aware of this sub-genre of electronic post-grime break step??? Ultimately though, this feeling and it's true implication is no different to walking down the street and seeing someone wearing a t shirt you also own; you initially feel that someone's been through your wardrobe, then you realise that Target probably sells clothes to people other than you.

My most recent reencounter with such a feeling occurred whilst reading the music section of the Sydney Morning Herald supplement Spectrum on the weekend of October the 15th, and discovering reviews for Jens Lekman's new album Night Falls Over Kortedala and The Pipettes' album We Are The Pipettes, which rated as album of the week.

I had been introduced to The Pipettes and their poptastic stylings by Katherine earlier in the year, and had become quite a fan since acquiring the album over the internets long before any sign of an Australian release. Essentially, the music is no different to the product of anything a hundred Phil Spectoresque girl groups have ever released. There's the harmonising over love gone wrong, love that's unrequited, and love that's in process. And of course, there's the Be-My-Baby drums. Can't forget those. There's also harmonising over one night stands, boys who won't leave girls alone, boys who don't get the point, and boys trying moves on girls to place them in uncompromising situations. The production is so on the mark, and the vocals so sweet and lulling that you initially don't notice, and you almost do a double take when you do. It's this complementing bitterness to the saccarine sweet melodies that makes The Pipettes really interesting. That, and it's great to dance to. I talked about this with Kate at the time, and how these contradictions in the music pretty much alienates them from an Australian audience. Who do you possibly market them to? It's too pop for alternative radio, and no where near family friendly enough for the pop charts. But there was the review, glowing at that, so someone obviously thought it was a good idea [this would be later reinforced by the fact the group toured at the end of last year, but we'll get to that another day].

As for Jens Lekman, this was the second occasion I'd been reminded that someone other than myself had heard of him. The first occurred in 2005, when he toured on the back of his first album When I Said I Wanted To Be Your Dog. Playing the Hopetoun Hotel on a Tuesday night, I expected a fairly quiet evening with the odd punter strolling through. By the time Lekman hit the stage, the gig had sold out, and the room was filled with adoring fans. That the gig was great needs no mention; there was audience participation [via egg shakers thrown to the crowd], and backup tracks provided by Lekman's laptop which he dubbed "The Party Machine". Gold stars all around. I managed to speak to Jens after the gig, telling him that I'd first discovered him by accident via the video for his song You Are The Light buried on a rage new year's special I'd taped earlier. I thought this would make a nice anecdote, instead he replied [very nicely] that a few people had told him the same thing. Despite all of this, a return trip [which saw him playing on a Sydney harbour cruise no less] and and year and a half of building a fan base, I still was amazed to see the write up for his second album. The album, whilst a little tougher to crack than the first, is wonderful. Bursting with bombastic samples, witty lyrics and melancholic romanticism [yes it's possible, and I'm standing by it], Lekman's meticulous construction of pop songs has improved greatly in the passing years.

Zuel, as the narrative structure of this post would have you believe, agrees with me. Pitchfork agrees with me too. Lots of people probably share similar opinions. And yet, there's something mildly heartbreaking about this. Moments quietly spend taking in the music in the realms of your private universe seem to have a lesser value when you consider when it's occupying other peoples' universes too. The fact that it's easy to torrent only reinforces this [insert moral stance about paying for music you like here]. But of course this is a ridiculous stance to maintain, as painful yet obvious a point as that is. Not only for the fact that if there's a greater fan base, this may lead to more great music, but for the equally wonderful moments to be had in sharing your great little discoveries with other unsuspecting pop tragics. The furthering of enlightenment, if you will.

And thus we arrive at a point where the interests of sharing for the sake of global musical consciousness and harmony throughout all human beings is reached. We all learn a valuable lesson, and continue with our lives in the exact same way nevertheless. At least, this post now makes some sort of contextual sense, so I'm happy with that.

Oh, and if someone actually comes up with "electronic post-grime breakstep", I totally want full wikipedia credits for the term.

Victory and multiplicity.

There was running, hiding, occasional terse phone calls and many misunderstandings. But I found you, thai chilli jam, yes indeed. Many people [alright maybe a couple but many sounds better] had shared with me my concern over the lack of easily locatable thai chilli jam, but I had yet to find any leads as to where such a thing could be located [and before you say it, prospective commentor, I tried Chinatown, I really did. I know I probably didn't try the little obscure shop you can rattle off from the top of your head, but try in a superficial manner I did]. Fortune struck upon a visit to stupidly fancy restaurant Longrain in Surry Hills. So stupidly fancy are these people that they produce their own condiments. And what a joyous thing it is people. I mean sure, it does cost twelve dollars for a jar of this stuff but you really can't put a price on such a thing. You see the paper bag in the first image? That comes with it. Score!

You might think this is a slightly odd item to kick off the year with, and perhaps it is. But I think it's important to start the year off with a win. You can apply this to your own lives boys and girls. The chilli jam you seek is out there somewhere. You only need to have lunch to find it. A word to the wise though, when informing the masses about your new found spiritual experience, stick to the delivery methods you're aware of. An attempt to post something about this late last year via a feature on my new mobile phone lead to an entirely new blog being created, and the phone wouldn't tell me where that is. Or what it's called. Or how to delete it. If someone out there somehow comes across it, please let me know.

And in case you're wondering, I'm having doubts about the chilli-jam-as-metaphor-for-what-your-life-lacking thing too. Perhaps it would be best if you provide your own motivational metaphors from here on in.

The robots are coming.

Daft Punk / Modular's monstrosity of ridiculousness, Never Ever Land, arrives in Sydney this evening. I'm going, and maybe you are too. I really don't want to descend into gloating territory; chances are if you aren't going you will be soon attending events that I haven't managed to get tickets to [namely, anything at the sydney festival]. Nevertheless, I am more than a little excited about this. It quite possibly will be the best thing ever. At least the best thing ever for those who like robots, dancing to robot-made-music, pyramids, and lights... lots of lights.

Incoming politically themed art show!

My previously mentioned vile act of boredom Four More Years will be showing from this Thursday as a part of The Howard Years, a group show in response to eleven years of John Howard's Australia, being held at At The Vanishing Point in Newtown. These kind of shows usually bring out the worst in a geographic locales artist movement all presenting works that essentially preach to the converted in new and possibly not so interesting ways. I can safely say that my work will probably continue this trend. But if you happen to come along, wander to the back of the gallery and find that for some reason or another you aren't able to shake John Farnham's You're The Voice from your sub-conscious, I'll consider that a minor victory.

Of course it's not about bad art, it's not even about bad art and drinking [although both events are easily achievable if you so desire], it's about showing solidarity at a time when a Australia could do with a few subtle changes. Thanks my excuse any way. Annoying video art is just a bonus.

***

The Howard Years

The ATVP Spring '07 Show of the Season
Artists In Response to John Howard's Term As Prime Minister

Artists include:
Lachlan Anthony, Mick Bales, Gav Barbey, Gustavo Boke, Stan the Bottletop Man, Jenny Brown, CACA - featuring Schappylle Scragg, Pierre Cavalan, The Collective, Michael Davis, Maz Dixon, Seiko Furuse, Alyx Guidi & Bob Cooney, Daniel Green, Thomas Hungerford, Amanda Hunt, Rolf Knudsen, Amanda Le May, Wendy Lowe, The Motel Sisters & John Howard, Peter Moore, Audrey Newton, Jade Oldfield, Jaqueline Olivetti, Brendan Penzer, Georgina Pollard, Tony Priddle, Elizabeth Rankin, Tanya Richards, Che Ritz, Chris Samuel, Holly Schulte, Beau Scott, Wendy Shortland, Kirsten Smith, Megan Sprague, Jasmine Steven.

25 October - 18 November 2007

Opening Launch Thursday 25th October - 6:00pm - 9:00pm

At The Vanishing Point
565 King Street, Newtown.
http://www.atthevanishingpoint.com.au/

The only gay headmaster in the village.

J.K. Rowling says that Dumbledore's gay. Fair enough. It's nice to see that Hogwarts is such a progressive institution. Can't help but feel this isn't really going to do much to the right-leaning amongst us who think that the Harry Potter books are a recipe for one's soul burning for all eternity. These people probably also think that a thorough reading of said books will result in depraved children who can open locks with sticks, fly brooms and make their stairs move.

At least you get to hang out with Alan Rickman though, he's pretty badass.

"How long can we look at eachother..."

In a stroke of genius that's surprising myself in a way a blog post is never really going to describe properly, I'm currently rendering a new video work that features a seamless loop of a section of You're The Voice by John Farnham. It's quite possibly the most vile act of boredom I've yet produced, and I'm alarmingly comfortable with this.

As I said to a friend of mine yesterday, "I can feel my powers growing".

Members of the 2007 John Howard retirement campaign, your time is now.

http://www.aec.gov.au/

If you are an Australian citizen aged 18 or over and not on the electoral roll, you have until 8pm on Wednesday the 17th October 2007 to fill out an enrolment form and get it to the Australian Electoral Commission.

If you are on the electoral roll, but need to update your details, you have to do this by 8pm on Tuesday the 23rd of October 2007.

Now for some reason the whole thing about not being able to enrol once the election is called seems to not have come to pass. This is good. Get cracking.

That's not a moon... It's a money vaccum!

You do realise that while you are sitting there reading this, you could be spending your hard earned cash on a special edition Transformer that starts off as the Death Star and turns into Darth Vader, and another that starts off as the Millenium Falcon and breaks down into Han Solo and Chewbacca. It's just a matter of what you find important I guess.

[03.01.08 - Over Christmas I saw an ad on TV for the Darth Vader / Death Star number. This thing is available in Australia.

Seriously, what are you still looking at this for?]

Minor backtracking #1: Is beauseless is a word?

I don't know about other bloggers, but I find it difficult enough to keep up with the vast amounts of wonder and stupidity the world throws at me on a daily basis, let alone to then post it online in order to share said discoveries with all those out there in the internets. I try to keep track of various tidbits and webpages in the hope of going back to them at a later date, but this process has now blown out to four word documents and a large section of the to-do list in my diary from two weeks ago. I've decided that now is the time to combat this; that I will retread through my collection of abandoned data, if for no other reason than to finally realise that I really do spend too much time being fascinating by things that aren't really that interesting.

To begin proceedings, I offer you two gems from Wired.com. First of these is a guide to compiling a mix tape, courtesy of DJ Whoo Kid, which will surely come in handy at some point in your life. Secondly, from Wired's How-To-Wiki, is a guide to making a cake shaped like Nintendo's Wii console, which is beautiful. But you can't eat it, which is useless. This is quite annoying, but it's probably just as well; those motion-sensitive controllers would not be pleasant to digest.

Newcastle migratory season 2007.

The October long weekend means a number of things in New South Wales; like the AFL grand final on Saturday [alright, that might be more of a Victorian thing, but just go with it OK?], the NRL grand final on Sunday, and a day off on Monday to recover from the hang over. For a large group of artists, musicians, writers and other miscreants however, it means trying to find somewhere to sleep in Newcastle [and trying to work why you didn't learn from your mistakes last year and book accomodation earlier this year]. Now in its seventh year, the This Is Not Art Festival provides refuge to a number of oddballs and curiousities over four days and four smaller festivals - Electrofringe, The National Young Writers Festival, Sound Summit and Critical Animals.

I'll be running around town committing a number of acts of mischief in the name of Electrofringe. My video Ducks Should Be Free From Persecution will be showing as part of the Electroprojections screening series. On Thursday night I'll be stalking Newcastle's walls armed with a video projector and a power generator. Next Monday I'll be taking over TIN Radio with Ben Byrne to present two solid hours of something between 20:30 and 22:30 and this Friday I'll be presenting ElectroPopQuiz!, which may well just be my finest hour.

Taking place at the TINA Festival Club between 17:30 and 18:30, ElectroPopQuiz! will be your opporunity to flex your intellectual muscle over a range of topics that potentially you and most likely far less actually care about. Think of it as Wednesday night pub trivia hosted by your high school electronics club. It'll be sensational, I guarantee. And there's prizes too. All the trimmings.

If you're planning on entering, I suggest you bring a nerd along for back up. You have been warned.

Experiments in italics.

Hmmm... interesting.

Videogames... really.

Most nerds who were alive during the eighties would be aware of the notion of audio cassette tapes being used for the purposes of data storage. An odd concept perhaps, but at the time we all just went along with it. Fisher Price even developed a video camera, the PXL-2000 (more commonly known as Pixelvision), that recorded video to such cassettes and was famously used by video artist / filmmaker Sadie Benning in the production of her works. What I wasn't aware of was the application of VHS tapes for similar purposes. Stranger still, toy maker Hasbro sunk $20 million (US) into the development and production of a videogame system code-named NEMO (which stood for Never Ever [or Even, depending on who you ask] Mention Outside) that ran off specially designed VHS tapes. The system apparently worked by encoding multiple audio and video tracks on to the tape that could be accessed in any order necessary. Interesting perhaps, but possibly limited in what could actually be achieved by the format. The inherent nature of the system also meant that the games were extremely costly to produce, with productions costing millions, which was unheard of at the time.

The combination of this, it's potential $299 (US) price tag, and the dominant Nintendo Entertainment System, which retailed at $100 (US) and was infinitely cheaper to produce titles for, seemed to be enough to sink the system before its release in 1989. There's an article from Gamespy here about why the NEMO was a terrible idea and why we're better off without it if you're keen. Or you can go back to playing Night Trap; the choice is yours really.

Current adventures in pop music: The absolute finest pop song Jens Lekman has ever written.

I like Jens Lekman a whole bunch. I would even go so far as to say he is one of my top five in my top ten of Swedish people. He makes great pop songs that traverse the whole canon of twee-ism; misanthropy, lost love, found love, unrequited love, love that turns psycho, and misanthropy about all of the above. He has a new song that's about none of these, it's about bingo (amongst other things), and Jens believes it's the absolute finest song he's ever written:

On Swedish Radio it's on E-rotation. The lowest rotation. Which only further convinces me of what a genius I am. I'd like to change my opinion from what I said in the previous post to call it not "one of the finest...", but the absolute finest popsong I've ever written. Fuck Black Cab. Fuck Mapleleaves. In ten years this will be a true classic.

See, I don't just make this stuff up. These are certainly strong words, and what's more he may just be right. I mean, who can argue with a man who gave birth to the lyric She said it was all make believe / But I thought she said maple leaves. Genius. You can stream Friday Night At The Drive-In Bingo from here (here, being Service, his Swedish label), and order the vinyl for 7 Euros while you're at it. That's a Euro per inch, that's a bargain in any Scandinavain language.

[06.08.07 - According to the Service website, the vinyl is 6 Euros. I'm not going to correct the main text though, as that would require deleting the joke about paying a Euro per inch and I honestly don't think I can do any better than that. But in the interests of ethical blogging, I feel it's important you know that I know I made a mistake.]

[04.01.08 - I moved the sentence "See, I don't just make this stuff up" from the end of the paragraph before the quote to the beginning of the paragraph after it. I also took it out of brackets for grammatical correctness and such. I'm sure you don't need to know this, but transperancy is always nice.]

Condiment-induced distress.

Once upon a time, the brand Asia at Home used to offer a Thai Chilli Jam stir-fry sauce. It was amazing. It was sweet, but had sufficient bite in it to remind you that you hadn't confused the order of your meal; you were definitely in savoury town here. It was all so very simple; chicken, an onion, a red and a green capsicum, a couple of cashew nuts if you felt fancy, and the sauce... done. Now, I'm very much aware that stir-fry sauces of this ilk are technically cheating, but then short of you growing the chillies yourself, and harvesting the sugar cane while you're at it, I would dare say that even the greatest cullinary masters amongst us have been guilty of skipping a few steps from time to time. This is all irrelevant though. The point is the sauce is gone, and I want to know what happened to it.

It's not as if the concept of the chilli jam stir-fry has gone out of fashion. Most Thai restaurants offer it, you can even get beef with it if you want to go all out. This hasn't stopped Asia at Home from deciding that Australians don't need chilli jam, covertly removing it from supermarket shelves and replacing it with single serve packets of "Thai Sweet Chilli". I'm sorry, but that's just not going to cut it. I can get sweet chilli anywhere; chilli jam I've discovered is somewhat more difficult to come across. Asia at Home, you had a market on Australian laziness. You had it all cornered to yourself, with no one even attempting to move in on your turf, and you gave it away like a Red Hot Chilli Pepper. So I denounce thee Asia at Home; I don't want any sunday markets preserves or other supermarket jams as substitutes, I want the real deal. So onwards I quest, in search of newer, better Thai Chilli Jam experiences. And I will find it, even if I have to turn to the internets to do it. But if you decide to bring back your version Asia at Home, you know there's always a place for you here. I won't ask any questions, or pry into the whys of the disappearance; but the damage is done now, and I just don't know if things can be as they were.

Performance evidence.

Shannon O'Neill has posted some photos from the Sydney leg of the Liquid Architecture festival on his flickr page, including some of myself in various stages of silliness. I also have some pictures I took from the opening night extravaganza, which I'll one day get around to uploading, but these will do nicely in the meantime. Thanks Shannon!

Flashy design that means nothing gets you everywhere.

Someone purely in the name of frivolity has decided to put on a gig at Chalkhorse gallery in Surry Hills. It only costs $5, which is a fairly cheap way to spend a Saturday evening. I haven't heard of most of the lineup, but I have seen Moonmilk play a couple of times before so I imagine the evening will be filled with music of the loud, improvised, drone variety. Have fun if you go won't you. I have to work, so I'll have to give it a miss. I do like the flyer though for some reason, so I figure it's no harm to pass the details on to the masses.

...

Intense Nest presents:

Moonmilk
Always
Knitted Abyss

Saturday 21st July 2007
8pm
$5

Chalkhorse Gallery
56 Cooper Street
Surry Hills

"I got the child edition and the adult edition, just to check that there are no differences in the text."

Before you ask, no, three copies of Jo Rowling's newest licence to print money aren't enough, but thanks for asking. I at one stage had four copies in fact, but posted one to a relative whilst on my way home with the goods. I know it's a big deal and all, with various news outlets claiming queues of people lining up at book stores from thousands into the billions, but I somehow figured I wouldn't have to sell vital organs or endure Playstation 3-launch-style wrath in order to get a copy. But then I wasn't silly enough to preorder the thing either; those poor souls are probably still in queue. It has been weird (though I guess not unexpected) to see how avidly people have dived into the book since its lauch at 9:01 this morning; as I made my way home after making my purchases, there were many excited individuals clutching specially made tote bags, if not the book itself. Some seemed to be unable to contain themselves, sitting on the edges of footpaths to begin reading, resigning themselves to not move for fear of finding out how it all ends from someone else. This catatonic, ritual-like state extends to my housemate and a friend of hers, who are both sitting on the couch opposite me ploughing through the tome as I write this.

This is the challenge that now awaits me. I'm still only up to ...The Goblet of Fire, the fourth book in the series. Somehow, amidst all the excitement about I'm going to try and not find anything about what happens. I don't like my chances either. Still, I manged to get through almost two years after The Sixth Sense was released in cinemas without finding out how that ended... only to guess the twist within the first half an hour when I finally watched it. I'm hoping this won't be quite that anti-climactic.

"my headphones : they saved my life"

While we're on the topic on banalities, I went out and bought new headphones earlier today and they're freaking amazing. And it only cost me $29.95. Think about it; completely amazing only costs twenty nine dollars and ninety five cents, who would've thought it? Well, compared to the $5 wires that emitted noise that I used before these, pretty much anything would be wouldn't it? And google agrees with me; according to some random website I pulled up whilst pursuing my various options for aural enlightenment, cheap headphones can damage your hearing. Sure, there was absolutely nothing offered to back this up, but I'm more than happy to go along for the ride in the name of idle consumerist ideals. The important thing is that I've reclaimed the soundtrack to my life, and my inner sanctum is all the better for it.

Culture is finished.

This is a finished book. May not look like it, but I assure you it is. I've been reading this copy of The Culture Club by Craig Schuftan on and off over the last four months, and while I have no idea why it's taken me this long to finish it, I'm quite glad that I finally have. Don't get me wrong, it's very good, particularly in a "beginner's guide to how everything is connected to everything" kind of way, and has led to a number of new pursuits including a minor fascination with existentialism's connection to pinball. More on that another time.

I've even managed to finish another book in the week since completing this, A History of Violence by John Wagner and Vince Locke. Admittedly it was a graphic novel, but that still counts right? I mean, it is a novel after all. It's all gearing up to a complete onslaught of the final four Harry Potter books before various people I know succeed in revealing all the major plot points to me. I'm tired of being behind the times people. And I don't want to hear anything from anyone about how Harry Potter is intellectual dross. Face it, if you cared that much about such things you wouldn't have ended up here in the first place would you?

Check.

Current adventures in pop music: "Don't make me hold your hand through the whole boring summer..."

Since first discovering them via their single Cry in 1998, I've been a very large fan of The Mavis's. I like to look at that particular era of my adolesence as the point where I began to realise that there may be interesting music on stations other than 2Day FM. At the same time, Cry was still very much pop enough that I still felt like I had a connection to my past as a someone with a more than mild appreciation for Roxette. Over the years I've somehow managed to acquire a number of their singles from the period between their second album Pink Pills [released in 1998] and their dispanding in 2001, but somehow never managed to buy any of their albums. Whilst sifting through a $10 rack in a music store in Newtown a few weeks ago I managed to come across a copy of their final album Rapture, which caused somewhat of a joygasm on my part. Aside from the fact that most of The Mavis's catalogue is difficult to come across in the first place [I'm pretty sure that most of, if not all of it has been deleted], Rapture is particularly notorious because it played a small role in the band's dispanding.

[At this point I'd like to note there may be some errors in my account of events, but while I can't back up anything here with specific examples, I'm pretty sure this is how things happened.]

Scheduled to be released in 2001, Rapture was preceded by two singles, Coming Home and Happiness [which was launched as backing track to a Coca Cola commercial, and would later be used in a series of promotions for Hyundai]. The Mavis's label, White [an imprint of Mushroom records] collapsed just before the album's release [This may have had something to do with the buyout of Mushroom records by Lachlan Murdoch's label Festival, thus becomming Festival Mushroom Records, or FMR, but I honestly can't remember exactly]. With the album pushed in to bureaucratic limbo and possibly never seeing a release, frustration (amongst other things most likely) led to the band calling it a day. A slapped together best-of called Throwing Little Stones was released soon after the split, and contained five tracks from Rapture. Protesting from fans saw the album given a proper release in 2002, though the cover art still states the original 2001 date.

So now you know. Despite being around for about ten years, it was the period between the release of Pink Pills and their split in 2001 in which they burned brightest, but never really succeeded in ascending to the outer reaches of the pop statosphere. More Daniel Kowalski than Kieren Perkins, so to speak. Following the break up, various members of the band emerged in other outfits [such as co-vocalist Becky Thomas's current outfit Beki and The Bullets], but pretty much all existence of The Mavis's has been relegated to second hand music stores and ebay. But that's where the social networking comes in. Some good soul has started a myspace page in honour of The Mavis's, and in true fashion it's badly laid out and not great to look at. But then maybe it's better that way. The page also links to video of Cry and Naughty Boy posted on you tube [and if you dig hard enough, you can even find Matt and Becky Thomas backing up Paul McDermott on a version of Lou Reed's Perfect Day (like how everything connects... I sure do) recorded for the first episode of the short lived Good News Weekend], along with two tracks from Pink Pills, a demo, and a version of Burt Bacharach's Walk On By, recorded for the all-Australian tribute album To Hal and Bacharach.

To channel Molly Meldrum for a moment [and believe me only a moment], do yourself a favour and allow yourself the opportunity to stream Cry through your speakers. You can't tell me it's a bad thing [there are about three people I can think of off the top of my head who may try and tell me it is... so they don't count]. In this humble little fanboy's opinion, your life will quite simply be better for it.

Current adventures in pop music: You're going to reap just what you sow... and you may not like what that is.

Aside from some interesting choices in hair and spectacle fashion [you may have realised I notice these things], Lou Reed is a pretty cool guy. Heck, I'll go so far as to say it's a given. If nothing else, he's earned his place amongst the list of rock stars who somehow managed to live through 70's. However, he does like to test the friendship it seems.

In 1997 Reed approved the use of his song Perfect Day for use in a campaign by the BBC to promote the diversity of their music programming across their various radio and television stations. This took shape in the form of a cover of said track with various musicans and performers being enlisted to perform various segments, with Lou opening and closing the number . Apparently it was quite successful, so much so that a single was released, which hit the number one spot in the UK for two weeks. The proceeds of the single were donated to the BBC charity event Children In Need [possibly in line with Reed's belief that the BBC requested to use the song for charity purposes, as opposed to self promotion].

As tends to be the case, my interest lies with the video. Originally designed to be screened in cinemas and on television, the clip became a music video in its own right due to the popularity of the advertisement. While the wikipedia article on Perfect Day contains the full list of who appears, the little details one may notice if they take the chance can provide minutes of amusements. Should you choose to look, you will find:

1. Lou Reed wearing a leather jacket that doesn't quite fit him.
2. Bono, circa U2's album Pop along with the well trimmed haircut that came with it, looking immensly soulful.
   
3. David Bowie in a white room, in a white suit, looking thin [get it, get it?] and experimenting with designer earings.
4. Boyzone playing the "we're what the kids are in to" card.
5. Opera singers performing the lines "I'm glad I spent it with you" and "You just keep me hanging on" with the intent of re-contextualising them to a level of contemporary relevance, but just looking humourously juxtaposed.
6. Huey from the Fun Lovin' Criminals being only trusted with two words, and being unable to contain the urge to stick the word "Yeah" on the end.
7. Brett Anderson from Suede doing what he once knew how to do really well and look sleazy, as opposed to just desperate.
8. Tom Jones putting in way too much effort. This might not seem like much of an oddity, but you kind of have to see it to get the true scope of it.

Use this list as merely a starting point. If the weather turns grey on you one dreary afternoon, formulate your own compilation of cynicism to pass the time. Much amusement to be had, I promise. The weird thing of it all is that somehow through all this the song is somehow strangely compelling, as big a car crash as it is. I'm going to credit Reed with this more than anything else, though maybe on some level it's because it reaffirms my theory that the 90's were worse than the 80's. I can't prove this of course; you're just going to have to go with me on that one.

Avoid the cold with Kork Chork!

My friend Anastasia has put together an evening of frivolity in order to raise some pennies for a school in Camboida where she volunteered earlier this year. You should come, it'll be quite the thing. You should bring other people too. That'd be swell. If you're keen you can click on the above image or read below for more information. It's tonight, you should probably know that. Sorry about the late notice, but face it you had nothing better to do anyway.

***

Kork Chork

Wednesday 20th of June, 6pm
$6 and $8 entry
Pact Theatre, 107 Railway Parade, Erskineville

Cameron Foster, Suzan Liu, Miri Wheen, Pip Johnson, Anastasia Freeman, Daniel Green, Monika Brooks, Alice Amsel, T.R. Carter, Louise Dibben, Emily Morandini, Anna Chase, Jade Oldfield, William Noble.

A night of experimental sound, video and performance
A fundraiser for the volunteer development poverty children school in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

In association with Quarterbred and Pact Theatre.

Current adventures in pop music: Can you DJ slowcore?

In the midst of the world's craziness, I've found myself listening to Low's album Drums and Guns a great deal over the last couple of months. Definitely one of my favourite albums of the year thus far [no, I can't believe I said that either... let's move along...]. There's lots to like; it's brooding, minimal and epic all at once. It's also mixed in a really strange way that has the majority of the vocals coming out of the right speaker... crazy!

One of the things that has me most interested however, is the video for the song Breaker (which along with the clips for Belarus and a remix of Hatchet, both from Drums and Guns, can be downloaded from their website). A simply designed scene; we see guitarist / vocalist Alan Sparhawk sitting in a kitchen, with drummer / vocalist Mimi Parker and bassist Matt Livingston standing either side of him. In front of a Sparhawk is a piece of cake, the rest of the cake and a glass of milk. A minimal drum line begins, and the band members at the rear begin to clap in time. Once the organ kicks in Sparhawk makes for the uncut portion of the cake, ignoring the slice, and proceeds to make a large mess of things.

Given Alan Sparhawk does all this wearing some sort of military uniform, one could be forgiven for thinking Low are making a none too subtle statement about the political state of their homeland. Sure they might just like cake, but something tells me it's a little bigger than that.

[For the record, despite being so-called pioneers of the slowcore genre, it's a term the band themselves aren't very found of. I'd quote them, but you might as well just read the wikipedia article and be done with it.]

It's all gone really bad

I was joking with someone I work with last Friday night about how things (ie, the world at large) had all gone a bit pear shaped of late. Nothing horrendous, just a little odd. The end result of this discussion was that the moon was full (or at least recently had been), and that must be the cause. Sure, I can handle that. Generally speaking, I know the world's weird. I even think that most people would agree without asking too many questions. Somehow though, over the last few days a series of head-scratchingly bizzare moments have occured in relatively quick succession that have caused me to question this. It's been kind of hard to keep up, so I offer you the following in evidence; in no particular order :

1. The Australia Council for the Arts (Art having a capital A, don't you know) is offering a $20 000 "collaborative artist residency" to be conducted within Second Life.
2. Universal Studios is building a Harry Pottter theme park, to be completed in 2009. And they're building it in Florida.
3. Mark Philippoussis is starring in a reality television dating show called Age of Love, where a group of contestants (half of whom are straight out of college, the other over 40) fight it out for his affections, Bachelor style.
4. A Dutch reality tv show, where a terminally ill woman was offering the public the chance to decide who would get her kidneys, was declared a hoax (re: "fantastic stunt").
5. The Wachowski Brothers are writing and directing a film based on the cartoon series Speed Racer, starring Charlie from Party of Five as villian Racer X. I don't even know if I watched Speed Racer a kid, but the word "sceptical" comes to mind. Still, they wrote and produced a film where the main character spends the entire narrative in a mask, I'm sure they can make this work.

It's not just me is it? This doesn't happen everyday, right?

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.

Another fantastic use of public mental space

Apparently they’ve made a film out of The Da Vinci Code. It also appears that Sony Pictures, who have put the money into the Ron Howard directed extravaganza, believe that people need to be told about this. A lot. So much so that Central station in Sydney has been converted into a three dimensional billboard in the areas attracting the most traffic, to the point where in every direction you look you are reminded that your role as citizen could be made that much more complete if you just took the time to see The Da Vinci Code. Of course, it would be nice if you read Dan Brown’s original novel on the way to the cinema, or at the very least listened to the Hans Zimmer composed soundtrack on your music delivery device of choice. It seems to be of genuine importance to the human race that this film is supported, so much so that the marketing doesn’t even begin to touch on this film’s potential to enrich the very fabric of our existence, it simply advises us mere mortals to “Be Part Of The Phenomenon”.


What are you doing still sitting here? Are you not aware they’ve made a film out of The Da Vinci Code?

I’m not so naïve as to bemoan the nature of this kind of saturation marketing, but it bothers me when advertising assumes a group of people are that stupid. This thing is going to make money, it’s a given. And how could it fail; the starring line up [which you would be able to see if I took the shot of the banners from the opposite side] contains nothing short of Forest Gump, Amelie, Magneto, Geoffrey Chaucer and Jean Reno! In doing this they seem to have covered almost every possible movie-going demographic, Ian McKellen for your superhero fans, Tom Hanks for… well, pretty much everything else, and with Audrey Tatou and Jean Reno you have TWO token French actors [because, you know, they go to the Louvre, and that’s in France, so they need someone to speak English in a French accent]. I for one am sold. Bring on May the 18th.

I hate that this sort of thing makes me angry, largely because I know it means the ad wins; since I’m spending my time droning on about it. Somewhere, there’s a marketing executive who is sitting in front of google tracking how people are reacting to their campaign, fingers crossed, hoping that someone who reads this may go to themselves “I want to go and see this thing that Daniel’s so upset about, just to see what all the fuss is about”. Don’t try and tell me that this is a ridiculous notion. As far as I’m concerned it’s no more ridiculous than spending millions of marketing dollars to publicise a film that most people are aware of based on a book that even more have read.

Back in the early days of my university degree, I came across the album Dispepsi by Negativland. Basing its content around the much-touted “cola war” of the late 80s to mid 90s, the tracks featured very heavily cut up commercials from two very large soft drink manufacturers, along with telephone conversations and really horrible pop songs [if for some reason you go looking for it, track 8, “All She Called About”, makes for some very eerie listening]. The thing I remember most about the album though, was a leaflet inserted into the liner notes from an organisation called One World Advertising entitled “A Proposal to Coke and Pepsi: Conclusions of the Corporate Cola Strategy Analaysis Project - WITH NON-PROBLEMATIC SOLUTION RECOMMENDATIONS”.

Basically, it suggests that both organisations could eliminate their marketing expenses by simply not marketing a product that almost every man, woman and child is familiar with. It’s a lovely thought. But then what would I have to post about? Content and quite possibly at one with the universe because stupidly receptive brain was free from bombardment of unsolicited data, maybe I could just read a book.

I’ve heard The Da Vinci Code is good.

Current adventures in pop music... 03.05.06

I'm not one to usually jump on the bandwagon of whatever has been declared the saviour of music for the week, but I have taken a particular interest in Gnarls Barkley of late. This collaboration between Danger Mouse and Cee-lo Green has caused all kinds of fuss, most prominently due to the fact that their first single "Crazy" is the first song in UK chart history to achieve number 1 status purely on the sale of legal downloads. This sort of news is being seen as a revival of the single, and needless to say is probably making a slew of record company types [and Steve Jobs... can't forget Steve Jobs] very happy.

But is Gnarls Barkley any good? From what I've heard I think so. It's down the line enough to make indie kids dance, alternative radio can play it without losing cred, and commericial radio can flog it until everyone's sick of it. There's something really interesting about this particular jaunt though, as this clip recorded from top of the pops in the UK shows. This is unashamedly well produced pop, but like the Gorillaz and even Daft Punk before them, this seems to be an excercise in seeing how much they can get away with.

I for one, am quite intrigued. That, and you've just got to love a group of people dressed as pilots and stewardesses for no reason.

I really just don't know.

Distractionary Measures #1

There are no winners

A new work of mine, There Are No Winners, is currently showing at MOP Projects in Redfern from April the 6th to April the 23rd. The work is part of a group show entitled Sometimes, dealing with moments of grandeur that should've been, and some that never were. There Are No Winners is a video installation centered around my 2nd-place-worthy performance at the Townsville heat of the 2006 Australian Air Guitar Championships. Aside from the video footage of the event [captured on a mobile phone], also on display is the trophy I was awarded, along with a framed voucher for one free drink at the Seaview Hotel in Townsville. I dare say this is one of my finer moments.

...

Sometimes

Katy Plummer, Elizabeth Reidy, Helena Leslie,
David Lawrey, Daniel Green, Kathryn Gray

April 6 - April 23, 2006

MOP Projects - Room 16, Level 2, 617 Elizabeth Street, Redfern
Thurs to Sat: 1-6pm Sunday: 1-5pm

The fridge between us

Dylan Moran came into the restaurant this evening after his last show in Sydney [at least I think it was, let's just say it was]. This is what he ordered. In terms of what's on offer, he wasn't particularly adventurous [though he was with friends, so I guess one must cater to as many tastes as possible], though truth be told we forced him into a quick decision as the kitchen had already closed by this point. The whole situation was fairly amusing. He had come in a few hours earlier and asked a member of the bar staff if he could come in and order 9 pizzas five minutes before we closed. Assumedly star struck by the whole thing, said bartender said yes without asking us mere peasants; some of us were less than impressed. Being the only person in the kitchen who actually knew who he was I didn't mind too much, knowing the opportunity to make a long-winded story about how I'd made a pizza for the man who played Bernard Black was far too tantalising to pass up.

In the end, the whole thing was rather painless. He was actually quite pleasant to deal with, and extremely apologetic about the whole thing. I thought of trying to ask him to pose for a photograph with me, or at least sign something [purely for the purposes of evidence], but I figured that no one really wants to be bothered when they've just finished working... they just want to be a human for a while. The irony of the situation quickly dawned on me that by obliging his [and his fan behind the bar's] request, I was prolonging my own downtime. This feeling was reaffirmed as I glanced in his direction after finishing my shift; his eyes meeting mine in a completely disaffected stare, before averting his gaze and replying to a companion's comment with a two word sentence that caused much raucous laughter.

At that point he blended into the rest of the bar's clientele, and I went home safe in the knowledge that not only is Dylan Moran human after all, but he's a customer too.

Happens to the best of us I guess.

Aren't we the little rebel? (After Jeremy Deller, via Pascal Anson)

Taken at UTS Gallery during the opening of Great Brits: The New Alchemists and the launch of the 2006 Realise Your Dream campaign [the British Council will be pleased I told you about that]. The stickers are initally the work of Pascal Anson. The show is on from April 4 to May 5. It's design, but worse things have happened.

See kids, all those people who told you it's not a good idea to walk around town with a permanent marker in your bag of tricks... what do they know.

Iggy and The Stooges are better than you.

Pictures taken at the Sydney Big Day Out, Sydney Showgrounds, January 26, 2006.

Long accompanying ramble coming soon.

"You've changed man... you used to be cool."

I often wonder how people would be able to appear witty and insightful if they were unable to quote from the simpsons...

I changed the name of the blog. This is highly irrelevant, but one person commented on it, so I'll assume that maybe someone else will notice [this is assuming more than one person reads this... one was strange enough to comprehend]. For anyone curious as to why, "Title of Blog" was what this blog was always called, I changed the name to "Arrogance Is Bliss" sometime in early February. I don't know why I did this; for all intents and purposes we'll assume it's because I quite enjoy the odd one line cheap joke.

After ego-googling "Arrogance Is Bliss" the other day, I discovered that my blog stood one entry in front of another one with the exact same name. Unable to stand for this [be damned if someone else should have a totally original idea exactly the same as my totally original idea], I've changed the name back, for better or worse. I figure that admid the narccisistic splendour of the self-publishing revolution not many people would be silly enough to name their blog something that benal.

Hooray for generic, I say.

[21-03-06: For anyone who noticed, is confused, or just plain bored, since writing this I've changed the name again. Temporality is the new black.]