Grace Notes @ Snarkattack

I confess when initially I was told that I was bought a ticket to see some musicians from a film I’d never seen, I was not exactly brimming with enthusiasm.

It’s good to be proven wrong about such things – what I assumed would be some love story with boring folky songs, was actually really touching: the film is Once which tells the story of two strangers who connect through their love of music, and inspire each others’ personal lives.

I felt a bit guilty about missing the support act, a Sydney busker that the Swell Season folks loved and just plucked from the street. Was pretty chuffed that Glen and Marketa came out and sat on the edge of the stage and started with the song ‘Fallen From the Sky’ which has a cute little synth keyboard drum beat.

Because of my overconsumption of tea, I apparently missed Glen’s best song – the man can sing, even without a mike he has amazing projection. He also plays his guitar hard and snapped a string during the night. They covered most of the repertoire from the film, and admirably so. The crowd loved it.

As an encore, Glen and Marketa covered a Tim Buckley song (that I am sorry to admit I wasn’t previously familiar with), and Glen cheekily worked a few lines of a Jeff Buckley song into it. In a previous song, he’d also done the same, quasi-randomly breaking into Marvin Gaye’s ‘Sexual Healing’. Just these casual nods to some awesome songs.

Two of my personal highlights: the haunting solo violin traditional Irish song dedicated to some mates who’d just got married – the violinist recorded loops and played with himself. Got me all excited in the way Owen Pallett (formerly Final Fantasy) does.

Second highlight which really cracked up the audience was the cover of Empire of the Sun’s ‘Walking On A Dream’. As soon as I picked it, I couldn’t help but laugh. They introduced it as a song they’d liked the sound of in a shop in the States, so perhaps understandably, the audience felt pleasantly pranked. Best thing about live gigs is these such surprises.

It was lovely to actually go to a gig and sit down, too, with people of all ages (I attended with people significantly older and younger than myself). The sound was very clear. Or perhaps that’s just because I’m used to grungy old venues with speakers that sound like they’re about to die. Despite the size of this venue, it still gave off an air of intimacy with the performers. It might be one of the few times I admit to enjoying such sappy music, giggle.

Met up with friends and gig-buddies beforehand and ate like kings. As usual, things didn’t get packed till it was time for Spinnerette to perform. Initial observations indicated that there were plenty of Brody wannabes, and people looking for a reason to get ‘loose’, by which I mean thrash themselves around and try to knock people out. I’m not kidding – I got hit in the head by one such idiot, and my mate Ollie rescued this girl from getting seriously trampled.

This made things a little less enjoyable and reminded me a lot of my experience at this very venue when I went to see the Horrors.

Just like the Horrors, however, Brody has her audience completely captivated. The girls want to be her, the boys want her babies, and they made it known vocally. There’s always one, isn’t there?

I missed the first support act, but caught Mini Mansions who did a pretty cool yet uncharacteristic cover of Blondie’s ‘Heart of Glass’ (but seriously, aren’t all the best covers uncharacteristic? To me they are). I did feel sorry for them because the masses were rabid with the promise of Brody by the time they got into being on stage.

I really love the edge to Brody’s sound, and we were pretty lucky she performed at all, given she was recovering from laryngitis. I’m glad that other gig-buddy Tara said she felt she was getting too old for that shit – is it a bit too uncool to desire a music space where you can just listen and not have to worry about whether or not you’ll accidentally get the stuffing bashed out of you?

Needless to say, I didn’t get to take any remotely decent photos. I left that to the taller kids.

What awesome luck it was to not only get a half-decent parking spot near the place, but as I walked to the Corner, I saw two musicians sitting on a park bench, playing softly to one another. The man had a guitar, and the girl had a keyboard with a mouthpiece.

It was just perfect, and I very much wanted to take a photo, but felt this would intrude upon their intimacy. Later on, as I surmised, they were on stage as the support act Tenniscoats, for Deerhoof.

I struggled very much with the first support act Minimum Chips who are from Australia. They had given a copy of their CD to the drummer of Deerhoof and all band members fell in love with unanimously, they claim. Nothing was wrong with Minimum Chips as such but something was missing…they didn’t enthrall.

Unlike Tenniscoats. As soon as this duo walked onto the stage and began to play, the crowd hushed and seemed enraptured by their playfulness and child-like innocence. I loved them, more so than Deerhoof, actually.

Deerhoof were very cool and ridiculous fun to watch on stage, but I felt like each band member played for themselves, rather than as a tight band. The drummer chatting to the audience was nice, but disrupted the energy of the gig – the band is frenetic on stage, and the drummer was a stammering, rambling mess. Maybe the fans loved him, but I was kind of glad when Satomi, the lead singer told him to get on with it. Don’t get me wrong, the drummer is freaking ace – pretty sure he made some sort of mad pact with Mephistopheles.

I am ashamed to report that when Satomi held out the microphone to the dirty hipsters around me, I was the only one uncool enough to shoot ‘woo!’ into the microphone. There’s my five seconds of fame.

It’s quite hard to believe that The Forum didn’t want Amanda to play at this venue because they didn’t believe in her ability to gather the required numbers to fill the space. Incidentally, her gig last year was at The Corner Hotel in Richmond – a much more intimate space (yes, way smaller). Thanks to my chum @maxcelcat, I was able to get tickets to go to her gig tonight. She even did a secret gig at the Butterfly Club a few days beforehand!

Amanda personally introduced all her support acts, which was quite sweet. We were greeted in by a song by a local band called The Jane Austen Argument. The male vocalist apparently picks up Amanda from the airport every time she’s in Melbourne town.

The main support act, however, was Mikelangelo, a fellow she’d met at the Spiegeltent. That was where I first saw him, a few years ago with back-ups the Black Sea Gentlemen. Mikelangelo is old world sex and sings with gusto such songs about cannibalism and attraction. This time around he had the One and a Half Night Stand to back him up. Mikelangelo also plays the clarinet for a dose of schmaltz (quite well too!).

When Amanda came on stage, it was just her and a keyboard. Very early on, the keyboard accidentally slipped into harpsichord mode and Mikelangelo gallantly hopped back on stage to fix for her. As a performer, she is very generous – not just in performance, but to her audience. One gets the impression that she really is glad you came out to see her. She signed a copy of her book when asked (she wanted to see a copy and a fan got it passed up to stage. She was asked to sign it and she happily obliged).

She played songs from her solo album, as well as a couple of Dresden Dolls ones, and a new song slipped in. At one stage we were all treated to Paul Kelly and Mick Harvey (of Bad Seeds fame) as special guests. Ace.

Just when you thought the concert was finished, Amanda appeared in the upper level, spotlighted, and played a cover of ‘Creep’ (ya, Radiohead!) on the ukelele. The audience was thrilled. Corny, but we all sang along.

Amanda even managed to march along in the SLAM rally a few days earlier. Perhaps all performers feel obliged to say it, but she professed to love Melbourne, and is coming here next year for a few months.

I forgot to post that at the end of January, I went to see the Horrors live (thanks @tephdee for selling me a ticket!). It was the same day I got back from a week in Sydney – my first proper time there.

Crowd-wise, I had a terrible experience. I was bullied by this horrible drunken yob who thought it fine to tell me off because he was thrashing his ugly body all over the place and right into my elbow. But cheers to the lovely strangers who stood up for me. Most of the folks there were respectful and stuff.

I couldn’t really see much from where I was, but holy fuck the lead singer. Lovely hair, eyes that draw you in…I was mesmerised by his stage presence. He’s a very charismatic lad. So much so that I must confess that I didn’t really pay much attention to the rest of the band members, and that’s very unusual for me. It was a damned fine gig.

The support act, the Fabulous Diamonds, took a bit of time to warm up to. Long, instrumental, psychedelic tracks. Eventually vocals would come in but not after several minutes. I liked that the drumming and keyboard parts were so minimalist – I mean in the classical music sense.

Got a few gigs coming up from next week onwards. Should be ace fun.

(it’s not essential but you might want to read part #1 of this here, and part #2 of it here)

Beirut, March of the Zapotec and the Realpeople Holland

Zach Condon’s Balkan gypsy stylings returns! With added ambient electronica! I can’t really fault it.

Explosions in the Sky, The Earth Is A Cold, Dead Place

A girl I’m no longer friends with suggested this album to me and I guess it’s my first proper indoctrination into post-rock. This is a gorgeous album to have playing really late at night when you’re feeling slightly lonely. Ideally, I’d like to be lying on my bed, next to someone I consider close, and we’d just be looking at the ceiling, not talking, and just listening to this album. Good music after all is best shared with good friends.

I found out about this on a music community on LJ of all places, yeah okay, admittedly they’re pretty hip…

So this dude decides to dance to 100 songs, in 100 different places, in 100 days. His moves are awe-inspiring. I feel happy just watching him strut his stuff, seriously. Some people just make life look so…fun. Ely Kim, said dancer, is one such person.

BOOMBOX from Ely Kim on Vimeo.

Tracklist is as follows (if you’re not interested, skip):

001. Heart of Glass / Blondie
002. Jimmy / M.I.A.
003. Deceptacon / Le Tigre
004. Im on Fire / 5000 Volts
005. Je Veux Te Voir / YELLE
006. The Way I Are / Timbaland
007. Too Young / Phoenix
008. Over And Over / Hot Chip
009. Stick It To The Pimp / Peaches
010. Say My Name / Destiny’s Child
011. Pin / Yeah Yeah Yeahs
012. Geremia / Bonde Do Role
013. Let Me Clear My Throat / DJ Kool
014. Point Of No Return / Expose
015. Bubble Sex / The Seebach Band
016. Pump Up the Jam / Technotronic
017. Let’s Make Love And Listen To Death From Above / CSS
018. Hella Nervous / Gravy Train
019. Me Plus One / Annie
020. Don’t Go / Yaz
021. Bootylicious / Destiny’s Child
022. Electric Feel / MGMT
023. Boys Don’t Cry / The Cure
024. Lose Control / Missy Elliott
025. Ride The Lightning / Evans And Eagles
026. Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough / Michael Jackson
027. Hearts On Fire / Cut Copy
028. Tainted Love / Soft Cell
029. Between Us & Them / Moving Units
030. It Feels Good / Tony Toni Tone
031. Polaris (Club Mix) / Cyber People
032. You Never Can Tell / Chuck Berry
033. Huddle Formation / The Go! Team
034. Pump That / FannyPack
035. My Love / Justin Timberlake
036. Hung Up / Madonna
037. Justice – D.A.N.C.E (MSTRKRFT Remix) / Justice
038. Cybernetic Love / Casco
039. Creep / TLC
040. When I Hear Music / Debbie Deb
041. B.O.B. / Outkast
042. Bubble Pop Electric / Gwen Stefani
043. Miss You Much / Janet Jackson
044. You Spin Me Round / Dead Or Alive
045. Slide In / Goldfrapp
046. Kelly / Van She
047. Mine Fore Life / The Sounds
048. Disco Heat / Calvin Harris
049. Nighttiming / Coconut Records
050. Club Action / Yo Majesty
051. Pogo / Digitalism
052. Lip Gloss / Lil Mama
053. Heartbeats / The Knife
054. Enola Gay / OMD
055. Goodbye Girls / Broadcast
056. Kids In America / Kim Wilde
057. Kiss / Prince
058. Tenderness / General Public
059. Push It / Salt N Pepa
060. Circle, Square, Triangle / Test Icicles
061. Day ‘N’ Nite (Crookers Remix) / Kid Cudi
062. Shadows / Midnight Juggernauts
063. Paris (Aeroplane Remix) / Friendly Fires
064. Out At The Pictures / Hot Chip
065. Me Myself and I / De La Soul
066. AudioTrack 10 / Diplo
067. Girls & Boys / Blur
068. Heater / Samim
069. I Wanna Dance With Somebody / Whitney Houston
070. Hands In The Air / Girl Talk
071. Limited Edition OJ Slammer / Cadence Weapon
072. Meeting In The Ladys Room / Mary Jane Girls
073. NY Lipps / Soulwax
074. Lex / Ratatat
075. Gravity’s Rainbow (Soulwax Remix) / Steve Aoki
076. Once In A Lifetime / Talking Heads
077. Leave It Alone / Operator Please
078. Half Mast / Empire Of The Sun
079. Hardcore Girls / Count and Sinden feat. Rye Rye
080. Dance, Dance, Dance / Lykke Li
081. Never Gonna Get It / En Vogue
082. Blue Monday / New Order
083. Crazy In Love (Featuring Jay-Z) / Beyoncé
084. 10 Dollar / M.I.A.
085. Love To Love You Baby / Donna Summer
086. Steppin’ Out / Lo-Fi-Fnk
087. Karle Pyar Karle / Asha Bhosle
088. Love Will Tear Us Apart / Joy Division
089. Straight Up / Paula Abdul
090. My Drive Thru / Santogold, Casablancas, NERD
091. Like A Prayer / Madonna
092. Freedom 90 / George Michael
093. Black & Gold / Sam Sparro
094. B-O-O-T-A-Y / Spank Rock and Benny Blanco
095. Great Dj / The Ting Tings
096. In A Dream / Rockell
097. Don’t Stop the Music / Rihanna
098. Hong Kong Garden / Siouxsie & The Banshees
099. It’s Tricky / D.M.C.
100. Bizarre Love Triangle / New Order

Now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s a certain funky dancing friend of mine I want to grab and dance like a retard with.

I can’t even remember how it was that I came to think that I’d like The Grey Daturas – maybe it was the drone/noise thing, whatever. It’s not really important.

The short review of their gig at the Arthouse, Melbourne is they produce sounds that made me want to take off my panties and press my privates to the bare wooden floor.

The long review is as follows.

Distortion on the guitar – lots of it. Just the two guitars, gently building note upon note, harmonic upon harmonic. Some of the sounds spike up towards the higher registers (I didn’t like these so much) but most were very low and vibrated constantly.

I begin to understand why noise gigs are so amazing: it’s as much a physiological experience as it is an emotional one. I felt many of the long, droning, low frequencies vibrate up as far as my throat, and move down to my hips. Given that everyone has a different resonant frequency (our lungs are cavities, after all), I imagine that it’s going to feel different for everyone.

So the guitars are building this gorgeous lush wall of noise and vibration, and everything gets louder and more intense. Eventually, the drums come in.

What I loved was they really control how they lead their audience up to their climax, and let them down with as much care. I am not kidding when I say this gig was as moving (and heartbreaking, in a way) as some of the best classical music concerts I’ve ever been to.

My only complaint is they didn’t play for long enough – just the one track (which, to be fair, went for at least half an hour).

Afterwards, Flipper played for a good two hours. They were great, but The Grey Daturas had already carried my heart away. Awesome rowdy punk. I went alone (again!) but very, very pleased with myself for having made the effort on what was a very cold winter night in Melbourne. Cheers to @lukeii for having dinner with me beforehand.

(continuation of CD reviews from this post)

Future of the Left, Curses

The band Future of the Left is made up of some of the members of the now-defunct Welsh punk outfit mclusky. They loved Australia, and gigged here frequently. Sadly, I was not able to catch them in that incarnation, but when I heard that all of them were still musically active, I got excited.

Having said that, I’m a bit bummed to say that Curses is not quite as exciting as I hoped it would be. Sure, we’re graced with Falkous’ unmistakable vocals (seriously, the man could make joining the KKK sound fun and punchy…I don’t know if that’s a good thing!), and the guitar is nice and crunchy like mclusky’s but it’s different, probably because it’s got a bit more of a psychedelic rock edge to it (cheers to the keyboard). The drum tracks sound synthesised, too.

The album does open on a strong note with ‘the lord hates a coward’, and songs like ‘fingers become thumbs!’ or ‘kept by bees’ sound very pub-rock rollicking and cheery. ‘wrigley scott’ sounds a lot like old-school mclusky. The songs are also really short, just like good old-fashioned punk. My favourite song off the album is ‘real men hunt in packs’ which I believe was released as a single.

That’s cool though – of course they don’t need to sound like their previous incarnation. This album’s a bit more deliberate and produced.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs, It’s Blitz!

They’re definitely continuing the more mellow vibe that was displayed on their previous album Show Your Bones; personally I prefer their more raucous, punk sound as evident from their debut album.

Having said that, the opening track ‘Zero’ is pretty sexy. It’s a nice, slow lead-in to the album. This pretty much continues with the second track ‘Heads Will Roll’ but after that, I have to say, it’s a little lacking in energy (usually you wouldn’t be able to listen to one of their albums for some late-night quiet reflection time, but am finding this fine for just that). But…is it okay to suggest that the YYYs have got soft in their older age? Of course, that’s fine, but I don’t know that I really will enjoy this album as much as I did the previous two. It’s an interesting mood change for them.

Not sure if all copies have them but my copy was advertised as having bonus tracks – four of the album’s songs as acoustic versions. These are beautiful (I am partial to acoustic renditions, I confess).

I expected to get obsessed with this album and play the hell out of it, but it’s not going to happen.

I defy you to think otherwise after viewing the following clip:

Hee hee. I’ve got more poetry cred than a member of Blur! I read complete Auden in high school. Yeah, that made me popular. < / sarcasm >

By no stretch of the imagination am I a tech geek. Nu-uh. I think as far as arts geeks go, I tend to like getting my feet wet in some geekery, but not much.

A few weeks ago, I got a Nokia N95 and didn’t really think much of it at the time. I mean, it phones people, it saves numbers, woo-hoo.

Then, one evening I sat down with it and started to look into what it was this thing could really do. Hm. Mobile versions of websites, applications. Wot wot? I thought that stuff was only good for iPhones (which are the devil but I secretly lust after it. Are you happy, Amy?).

Some of you may know about my love for music. Fewer of you know of my love for scrobbling and last.fm. Imagine the figurative jizz in my pants when I discovered an application, specifically for the N95 that allows whatever I listen to on said N95 to scrobble.

The application is called Mobbler. I’ve installed it on my N95 and it indeed does work. I haven’t tested it with listening to actual last.fm radio stations (I don’t use that function much as streaming is slow and to be honest, I have shitloads of music to listen to as it is).

So yeah, now the music I listen to at work to combat Bad 10-Year Old Techno-Listening Guy will actually scrobble. Yeah, I know, easily amused. My life is crap, cut me some slack.

Friday afternoon, week before last. Melbourne was torrential. I was due to have lunch with IP and having stayed up the entire night before was too wobbly on my legs to ride to the train station.

I walked down Bourke St to JB HiFi to get a whole stack of CDs I’d been lusting after…none of which were there, and ended up with the following:

Dark Was the Night, various artists
2CD set, with what is essentially fantastic indie music. I’m really picky when it comes to indie. So yes, Bon Iver is okay, as is Bright Eyes (though I’ve heard some of his live stuff and he seems to sound so much better). This compilation is just gold. I prefer the second disc to the first because it has more electronic-indie stuff, whereas the first disc is more folk-based.

On the first disc, I liked The Books featuring Jose Gonzalez’ ‘Cello Song’, Feist and Ben Gibbons’ ‘Train Song’, Iron & Wine’s (who I understand is just one fellow) ‘Die’, and the Kronos Quartet’s ‘Dark Was The Night’. I’ve heard a bit of Iron & Wine before and didn’t really fancy it much so I’m surprised I liked his contribution here. As for the Kronos Quartet, well, I’m a bit biased there: I love string quartets, it’s my favourite chamber group. Their track is purely instrumental. Sufjan Stevens’ track ‘You Are the Blood’ is quite quirky – bit more electronic than usual. Recalling his Illinoise album, that uses a lot of traditional band instruments, and other acoustic ones like banjo and such. Reminds me of a really slowed-down Dan Deacon.

The second disc is much more upbeat. I loved a lot of tracks on this – Arcade Fire’s ‘Lenin’ (I keep meaning to check this band out but haven’t got round to it) is really boppy. Again, with great bias, the Beirut track ‘Mimizan’ comes recommended though it’s a little less gypsy than the stuff Zach Condon has come up with. Dave Sitek’s ‘With A Girl Like You’ is a cover! A very DIY Casio keyboard version of The Troggs’ song, I think? I love it, it’s hilarious. I’ve subsequently learnt that Sitek is of TV On the Radio fame. There are so many songs on this that I really like. I’ll limit my comments to two more: Conor Oberst singing his ‘Lua’ with Gillian Welch sounds a lot less broken in this rendition, gives it more of a country lilt, and Blonde Redhead with the Devastations is haunting in their collaboration ‘When the Road Runs Out’. This disc has the songs that speak to me more, I feel, but that’s purely down to personal preference.

Oh! and it’s put together for fundraising and awareness of AIDS.

The Fall, Totally Wired: the Rough Trade anthology
Ugh, such a sucker! Ground-breaking British post-punk band with an anthology put together by a famous independent record label?! How was I supposed to resist? After not being able to find Joy Division’s special edition of Closer, I defaulted to The Fall. To my surprise, shitloads of their back catalogue was there, but not my beloved Slates. Then I happened upon this comp and thought “must have!” Seriously, I have an album of The Fall from 2002 or 2003 and Mark E. Smith (a founding member and pretty much the core member) still hasn’t lost it. He’s looking ancient now but his voice has barely changed. Still sounds like he’s spitting out the lyrics in his inimitable fashion. Now he just gets these young things to play around him.

The first disc has a lot of tracks easily accessible from the extended re-release of Slates – many of which are just gold to my ears. The second disc contains songs less familiar to me but notable were ‘Hotel Bloedel’ which is sung by a woman, the Hexen Definitive track ‘Strife Knot’, and ‘Eat Y’Self Fitter’ – a more than fitting parody on society’s fixation with eating right for health. Of course I am going to feel passionately about this comp because it has one of my all-time favourite songs ‘An Older Lover Etc’.

I’ll try to review the other CDs I bought a bit later.

A couple of weeks ago, I had the good fortune to see this amazing crazy musical artist called Dan Deacon, thanks to my chum @futuresandwich. I met up with him and his dapper brother @jawclick, watched the two of them argue and natter like a married couple before we bumped into more Twitterers at the Tote.

It was my first time at the Tote: it’s well-worn, grungy but inviting. It’s all about the music! I lost @futuresandwich and @jawclick for most of the gig, but oddly kept bumping into @lukeayresryan who I’d seen at the entrance madly doing something with his iPhone. I know not what these iPhone users do, not having one.

When Dan finally came on stage, everyone gathered around him. First of all, he wasn’t on the stage proper: he was at the front of it, and people circled him. The gig started with Dan instructing us to do all sorts of things. It was really a grown-up version of the game “Simon Says”. He told us to do things, peppered instructions with anecdotes, introductions, and managed to tame to at least one crowd clown.

Eventually, the music started. Electric, retro in a kind of Texas Instruments “Speak and Spell” way (I had one of those, loved it. Outgrew it quickly, hee hee).

At one point there was some sort of dance-off. You weren’t allowed to refuse to dance which was awesome and no one cared how retarded your dance moves were. It was actually really ace to see so many guys grooving like the most adorable dorks. I wasn’t any better, I assure you.

After the dance contest (I’m still trying to figure out who Dan bet with that he’d have to eat cooked penises if the people dancing let him down with their moves – wasn’t far enough at front), we formed some sort of double gauntlet. Groups of people went to two opposite ends of the Tote, which isn’t exactly huge, then two people in the middle formed a bridge, a la “Oranges and Lemons” (nice British schoolchildren game!). As soon as you went under the bridge, you then went next to the people and became part of the bridge.

The only reason I’m going to the trouble of explaining this is Dan insisted that this Melbourne gig saw the debut of the “double gauntlet”. It was loads of fun.

We also had a sing-along. It was called “Silence Like The Wind Overtakes Me”.

I’ve never been to a gig that’s made me so happy and huggy. Yes, this was minus drugs and alcohol. I have it on good authority that I wasn’t the only person having trouble winding down after that gig.

The atmosphere was infectious, and a lot of the people there were really friendly. It probably sounds completely and utterly dork-arse, but you left feeling like you all shared some amazing, mind-changing experience. Before the drudgery of everyday life returned, the following day.

Here’s the skeleton prop that was lit up and waved around every so often:

Cheers to @futuresandwich, @jawclick, @lukeayresryan and @nedwin for one ace evening. Even if I did feel brainwashed to be exceedingly and unnaturally happy.

He’s definitely not for everyone, I recommend him to people who love to dance and don’t care what they look like when pulling the most dorktastic moves, and also to those who are really open-minded about music, and the definition of music. I can imagine some people thinking he produces noise (and I’m not even thinking about my former housemates who don’t really like post-punk or industrial). At my most arts-student wanky, I’d say that his gigs challenge the notion of what a gig actually is. Meta-gig? Okay, I’ll go now. But he’s ace fun.

I’d never made a mixtape for a crush till late last year. Z and I, when we first met, chose a whole bunch of CDs we thought the other would like and swapped them over. Got introduced to some fantastic music that way. M already listened to a lot of stuff I liked. He’s also the only sort-of normal Tool fan I know. I can’t remember who told me that Tool fans were weird, but they were right. They’re kind of creepy. Or, the ones I’ve met, anyway…

Anyway, here’s my list. Non-music nerds might want to tune out at this stage. It’s not going to be overly interesting for you.
Continue Reading »

Wow, my blog heard me complaining about how slow it was to load up and did the opposite. Awesome.

I missed the EMS softcore ride this weekend, sadly. I didn’t have enough money to get my gear and such sorted. Shame. The housemate tells me it was a lovely trip.

However, I was banking on going to see Simian Mobile Disco at the Prince Bandroom as an excellent consolation prize. A few days earlier, SM said she’d acquire a ticket for us both (there was some awesome 2-for-1 thing going) and she delivered the goods.

Melbourne town is bursting at the seams with acts at present, because they’re all here for the Big Day Out festival. Simian Mobile Disco is one of them. The others that sounded interesting were Hot Chip, Boys Noize, and Holy Ghost (yes, a musical act, not actually part of the Holy Trinity).

I didn’t really do a very good job of explaining to softcore-bike-tour housemate what was so good about the gig, particularly when told that he couldn’t really see how an electronic act could be better than they are on the album. The light show was extremely impressive, though I don’t really need that sort of thing to be entertained. The crowd was a good deal less polite than the last gig I went to.

When I did finally get to see the two producers on stage, I saw one fellow with very fluffy hair, and another with very nerdy glasses, furiously running around on stage – SM rightfully noted that it looked like he was manning an old-school telephone exchange. They were expertly faffing about with these massive consoles with lots of knobs and wires.

The best I can manage for a review is they did inventive mixes of the stuff from their album, left you begging for more, and did all sorts of cool pitch bending things. I know, not a very good explanation. The bass was intense and it took me hours to wind down afterwards. Lucky I have ace decaffeinated teas to drink, mmm.

I guess another qualifier for “good gig” is it makes you all excited for music – more music, new music, whatever the hell you’ve not listened to before. Makes you hungrier for experiencing music.

I did really want to go on that bike tour though. Live music is fun, though. I am sore from the retarded dancing my arse off. And very, very happy.

I think often about the Final Fantasy gig I went to see in mid-December. It’s probably one of the happiest moments in what has been to date an unhappy period of my life.

I’m not sure I did a good job of explaining what it is that Owen Pallett really does in his gigs, so I recommend you watch this. You’ll be able to see him record short ‘loops’ which he then plays over, and also changes. It’s pretty non-classical stuff, yet after the harrowing training at the Con, it makes me so happy to be a classically trained musician.

Will try to catch more classical music things this year. Most likely chamber music. I do miss seeing string quartets. The pitch (A = 440 Hz) still fucks with me, haha.

Off the top of my head, only…four, maybe five people know what my Achilles heel is? Rephrase: how badly it actually burns.

This, though it’s soppy, did make me feel exceedingly…oh you know. Thanks to @Katrucia for showing me. Animation is adorable.

Due to various circumstances out of my control, I missed out on acquiring a ticket to see Final Fantasy – initially. However, a former workmate who has industry contacts told me that tickets were on sale and after a mad flurry, I headed down to The Toff In Town, some fairly swanky venue in Melbourne town.
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(if it has an asterisk next to it, it means I’d buy it on CD if I don’t already have it)

First some all-time faves…

1. Coil, Gold Is the Metal (With the Broadest Shoulders) (easily one of my fave bands this year. Never mind that they’re ancient, and no longer exist)
2. Radiohead, The Bends (I usually struggle to choose either this or OK Computer as my fave Radiohead album; at present this loses out slightly but am still pretty bloody obsessed)
3. Pixies, Doolittle (thank you Z, this really rocks)
4. Marie Antoinette soundtrack (thank you Anya!)
5. Bauhaus, Press the Eject and Give Me the Tape (has one of my fave songs ever on it)
6. Radiohead, In Rainbows (CD2′s ‘Down Is The New Up’ rocks)
7. Interpol, Turn On the Bright Lights (also has one of my fave songs ever)

then I moved onto mainly what I’d never listened to before…

8. Late Night Tales compilation – Air* (has an awesome Ravel (!) tune on it!)
9. Malcolm Middleton, Sleight of Hand (he’s better in Arab Strap)
10. The Fall, Slates (extended) (one of my fave albums of the year, despite its age [1981?]! probably going to become one of my fave ever)
11. Dr Horrible soundtrack (Joss Whedon’s therefore ace)
12. Ellen Allien, Sool*
13. TV On the Radio, Dear Science
14. The Trip compiled by Jarvis Cocker and Steve Mackey (some old croony stuff on this)
15. Y Pants – self-titled*** (amazing!)
16. Cervello Elettronico – Electrophobia* (bit dated, but still ace, haha)
17. Sothis, De Oppresso Liber* (omg I listened to melodic metal and enjoyed it)
18. Echobelly, On (poor man’s Sleeper?)
19. Isis, Celestial*
20. Isis, Panopticon*
21. John Cooper Clarke, Ou est la maison de fromage
(not really music, spoken word, properly)
22. Kitty, Daisy & Lewis, self-titled* (best country I’ve ever heard)
23. Lone, Lemurian*** (lush electronica)
24. Love and Rockets, Lift
25. Magnetic Morning EP (very unexciting)
26. Polarkreis 18, self-titled (first half – killed it halfway because wasn’t feeling the love)
27. William Shatner, Has Been (funny covers)
28. Sebatien Tellier, Sexuality (recommended; very good)
29. Rafter, Sweaty Magic (disappointing)
30. Serge Gainsbourg, L’Homme a la Tete de Chou (the hypersexual genre-spanning French crooner – some of his more recent stuff)
31. Thievery Corporation, Radio Retaliation (not too bad but nothing will ever be as good as their The Mirror Conspiracy)
32. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, self-titled* (guilty pleasure)
33. Radiohead, Amnesiac (return to one’s roots is inevitable)
34. Digitalism, Idealism*
35. Metric, Live It Out (bit too pretty for me)
36. Les Georges Leningrad, Sangue Puro*
37. Autodrone mix*** (this is really fucking good but I know nothing about it, or producer…)
38. FabricLive 41 Simian Mobile Disco*
39. Radiohead, OK Computer (probably my favourite album of all time. Lame, I know…)
(the next three are wonderful wind-down albums)
40. Final Fantasy, Plays To Please* (he’s coming to town! whee!)
41. Final Fantasy, Spectrum 14th Century*
42. Max Richter, 24 Postcards In Full Colour
43. Russian Circles, Station* (reminds me of Battles but better perhaps?)
44. Jody Wisternoff October 2008 Intensified (yea, it doesn’t make me sad anymore!)
45. Richard Hell and the Voidoids, Blank Generation
46. Psychic TV, Allegory and Self
47. Psychic TV, Dreams Less Sweet
48. Psychic TV, Toward Thee Infinite Beat (they’re great but this album in particular is ace though quite different from the first two)
49. The Birthday Party, Drunk on the Pope’s Blood
50. Dead Boys, Young Loud And Snotty (wow, older than me! rather melodic punk, too melodic for me)
51. the world on higher downs, land patterns (one of my favourite albums of the year, best played when about to go to sleep)
52. David Lynch & Marek Zebrowski, Polish Night Music
53. Fischerspooner, #1
54. Wire, Object 47 (their latest album)
55. Sunn O))) With Boris, Altar (soundscape/drone stuff. Nice)
56. Rush, Moving Pictures (hehe, really cheesy)
57. New Order, Substance (one of my favourite wake-up albums)
58. Pretty In Pink soundtrack (it’s got OMD on it! whee!)
59. Punkettes compilation (female punk artist comp though to be pedantic some of it sounds post-punk)
60. BIPPP – French New Wave compilation 1979-85 (there is some hilarious shit on this)
61. Joy Division, Live at the Preston Warehouse (a live album, 1980)
62. Liars, Drum’s Not Dead (prefer their older album)
63. Susumu Yokota, Grinning Cat (unbelievably prolific Japanese electronic music artist)
64. Explosions In the Sky, Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place (one of my fave new bands of the year)
65. Swell Maps, A Trip To Marineville
66. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time official soundtrack (I can’t believe my brother actually gave me something he knew I’d like. Weird…)

So there I am, just about to enter Jordi Savall’s masterclass, when I see him walking next to an old uni teacher who at first didn’t recognise me.

I’d had a nosebleed for verging on two hours, and had to stick a tissue up my nose and ride to uni.

So Jordi Savall looks at me with disdain, and rightfully so. Old music prof says he didn’t recognise me with the funny thing stuck up my nose (no one seemed to notice my lack of hair. Perhaps they think I have cancer. Kind of look like it at present. Well, a fat cancer victim).

The masterclass was pretty cool – it ran for two hours and there were five musicians present?

But the recital – oh my. It was packed, I got a seat right up the back, didn’t bring glasses and could barely see Maestro. The programme was fantastic – my favourite items were probably the French (Sainte Colombe pere et fils) and Tobias Hume (tablature love!). He played a piece I could play once…

It was over all too soon. We did get an encore, though. Tomorrow, Hesperion XXI play at the Concert Hall – am pretty much spending my last pesos to go.

The gamba is the perfect instrument for pedants. I’d forgotten how fiddly it was, and also how bloody often you have to tune (Savall tuned pretty much before/after all pieces because gut strings are pesky!). Kind of amusing given that it’s fretted.

I still remember, one gamba class I had, the weather was fine. Then bang! rain starts absolutely bucketing down – and the instruments went haywire. Our teacher was livid. Giggle. It didn’t take much…but that’s another story.