Grace Notes @ Snarkattack

Thanks to my housemate Frosty, I’m in possession of a ticket to go and see Ladytron in concert. Woo hoo! Thanks love! Even though he doesn’t read my blog.

A fair while back, I sent M two poems of mine and he sent me back some comments on them. I’m a bit stuck when it comes to what to do with the punctuation of both of them, but these are minor issues. He also seems to think the one on Agamemnon’s death is publishable (very nice of him to say so, personally and professionally his opinion means a lot to me). Initially, I didn’t like it so much when I wrote it, but returned to it a few months after and am warming to it a bit more.

It was actually the product of a writing exercise in Writing Poetry by Julia Casterton - she discussed the death of Agamemnon and then directed us, the reader, to write a poem about how he felt about his death (practically everything about the Ancient Greeks is tragic…).

The other poem is about four lines long. I recently read it to a newer friend of mine, JW, who remarked when I went to get my notebook “How come you don’t know your own poetry off by heart?” You know, I’ve no idea. Why don’t I? I created it, surely you’d think I should…maybe it’s because people never ask me about my stuff so I think it’s not worth memorising (I don’t, actually. Though I should, I’d probably recite it better). I did read it out to him, but was pretty nervous, and read it out quite badly.

I’ll need to work on that. I don’t want to be all Tim Burton and sound dumb when I talk (he interviews really badly - not because he’s stupid, I mean, it’s pretty freaking obvious the man is supernaturally talented. He’s just not confident) or recite my own work. Because then people won’t think it’s worth hearing, if I recite it in a manner that suggests I’m apologising for soiling your ears.

I wish I could be like Fat Cow Poet. She was plenty up herself for the both of us, maybe even a few more people.

It might make a bit more sense if you’ve heard the original…(click here if you want to hear it, it was featured on an Apple iPod advert a while back)

I like the Sesame Street version better, it kind of made my day. She’s such a good sport, ne?

I listen to too much Radiohead. I don’t care, they’re ace! Am loving Hail To The Thief at the moment.

So yesterday earlier in the day wasn’t too fantastic, but the evening got better. I found myself at the pub surrounded by various lovely EMS people (whose ranks I shall shortly be joining. One of my workmates cracked up when he found out I was changing my hours of availability to play flute in a concert band…). I think EMS people might slowly be restoring my faith in the human race. Go nice, smart nerds!
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I’m actually revelling in the fact that I have nothing to do on a Saturday night and just spent most of the day in bed being lulled to sleep by Anner Bylsma’s recording of the complete Bach cello suites…oh my god, can you spell bliss? I need to add more of my classical music to our home server. I specifically ripped the cello suites for Rob (he’s a cellist) as we were having a discussion about the different recordings available (he likes Pablo Casals’ version which I’ve only heard bits and pieces of).
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Nah, not referring to my life…*wink*.

My Jamie McKelvie comic books finally arrived in the mail last week at my parents’ place and I started reading them. I’ve finished Long, Hot Summer which was disappointing only because it was so short. And also not in colour. That was what I loved about Suburban Glamour.

But Phonogram is fecking fantastic. I mean, I had to stop reading it because I didn’t want it to finish too quickly. Let me see if I can rustle up a Wiki link.

Recently, I had a bit of a run-in with members of the opposite sex and it’s left me a bit…burnt. As a result, for some weird reason I find myself listening to Britpop. I don’t know, I kind of find it soothing for a not-quite broken heart (if you have an actual broken heart, then nothing will save you. Nothing).

I pulled out my old Radiohead (not quite Britpop I know…), Suede who just rock (and of course I can’t find one of their albums which is really pissing me off), and Elastica (wasn’t all that keen on their self-titled but gave it a chance thanks to M).

It’s funny, I was talking to K the other day and she said that while she loves Radiohead’s OK Computer she said she just can’t listen to it because it depresses her dreadfully.

I was going to post about my weekend, but can’t be stuffed. Let me just say thanks to Rob, K & M for looking after me last week. I really needed it.

But now’s time to check on the tea and dance like crazy to New Order’s ‘Temptation’! Woo yea!

I can’t recall what Shakespeare play it is that he says ‘If music be the food of love, play on…’

I was telling my friend C when she came over last weekend, that if I were rich enough, one of my eccentricities would be to have a lutenist follow me around everywhere and pipe beautiful music around me like the sillage of a fragrance (how’s that for synaesthesia…?). English Renaissance music is so sexy… (I was watching The Tudors again today, can you tell?)

I seem to be listening to a lot of music now that I spend a lot more time awake, and I’m going to have to make peace with the fact that…I like post-punk. Now, I didn’t actually know that it was called post-punk, it just so happens that a lot of artists I like the sound of are considered post-punk revival artists. And yeah, I like it more than actual punk (now I know how the post-structuralists feel…).

Yesterday at work, I unsuccessfully tried to listen to Last.fm and also Kohina. Sadly, connection was disallowed so no fun music for me. It’s okay though, I got to drink beer (yep, at work!). It’s okay, I’m listening to Kohina now *glee*.

Okay, so I can’t get this bastard image to centre align (stupid coding! grr, damn you, work!) but it’s pretty funny and oddly enough, I personally don’t find it that much of a deterrent…do you? Aha, there we go, centre align should be working now…

I wish Kohina scrobbled…

Thought it might be cool to keep a record of what I’ve been listening to this week. I won’t do the weekend because I think I’ll be fairly busy and probably won’t be listening to that much.

Mon 12th May, 2008

V/A Nanoloop 1.0 - oh my gosh I cannot stress just how addictive this album is. It’s no longer available so I was very lucky to get it. Various electronic music artists, some well-known, others not so, get together and make music using the synth on a Nintendo Game Boy! How rad is that?! So it’s got that chiptune sound that just makes it so fun. Reminds me of when my most recent ex actually liked me. Feck, that was long ago.

Thom Yorke, The Eraser - okay, so if you like Radiohead, chances are you’ll love this, and it doesn’t disappoint. Lush, soothing, and glitchy. Yum. I played it straight after the album above to ‘wind me down’ (the above being high-energy stuff, hehe).

Jan Jelinek, Tierbeobachtungen - haven’t given this much of a chance despite this being by one of my favourite electronic music artists. Glitchy, minimalistic electronica that hypnotises. It’s the sort of music that washes over you. Nice for listening to late at night (which is exactly what I’m doing now).

Portishead, Dummy - me and housie were testing (non seq. thank you SO MUCH Rob for fixing my laptop) a Foobar feature. Man, it’s been forever since I listened to this album. I was a young’un when it first came out…I think my first boyfriend bought me my copy.

Tue 13th May, 2008

Boys Noize, Oi Oi Oi - yeah, yeah, I know I keep crapping on about it but it’s really wicked. The best description I can think of is that the artist sounds similar to Daft Punk, whom I’m not overly keen on (and must be the only person on the planet who seems to feel that way too…gosh, you should hear them crap on about them at work)

Luomo, Paper Tigers - zomg, Vocal City was tha shiznit. The Present Lover wasn’t too bad either. But I can’t say I’m a big fan of this album…maybe I need to give it another chance, and maybe Luomo needs to stop riding the success of ‘Tessio’.

Portishead, Third - I need to listen to this album by the seminal trip-hop act more. Man, it only took them eleven years…sheesh.

Future of the Left, Curses - woo hoo, some members of mclusky! Cursory listen, so not much to say at this point.

Einsturzende Neubauten, Silence Is Sexy - my ex put me on to these guys, and I’m glad, I really like what I’ve heard of them. They have an industrial lilt.

Julie Doiron, various tracks - supposedly a ’sadcore’ artist. Beautiful, haunting folk, with generally pared down instrumentation. She sings in French and English.

Wed 14th May, 2008

The Rapture, Echoes - debut album produced by the DFA - it rocks, I reckon, though they do sound very ‘arty’ for rock, and sometimes wimpy - but I dig that kind of thing.

Peaches, The Teaches of Peaches - I first saw this when I was in the UK in 2002 and because of the cover, said “hmph, why are they flogging this girl band shit?!” - uh, I was an IDIOT. It’s not girl band shit at all. In fact hypersexual electro is where it’s AT. Woo.

Thu 15th May, 2008

Klaxons, Myths of the Near Future - initial impressions are not good…thought I would like this a lot more. Probably need to give it a chance.

The White Stripes, Elephant - the only White Stripes album I own. Can’t figure out if I prefer this or White Blood Cells

The Bravery, The Bravery - fantastic EP. Kind of electro-rock.

Pilot of the Future, 1 - chiptune-inspired music! A duo from Brisbane who have this whole album available for free download on Last.fm which is where I got it from and found out about them. Go 8-bit go.

The Rapture, Echoes - yep, again!

The Soft Pink Truth, Do You Want New Wave, Or Do You Want the Soft Pink Truth? - electro versions of punk songs! It’s really, really good, the songs are so damn catchy and very provocative, as one can imagine. This has seen a lot of play in my car and my various residences.

Internet radio tagged ‘gamba’ on Last.fm - I’m really missing my early music CD collection, need to collect some stuff from my parents’ place. This is the best I can do for now. So far they’ve played some absolutely rapturous Tobias Hume and John Dowland. Thought it would be good music to have playing while I read some poetry.

I rarely post YouTube links so you know when I do it it’s got to be for a good reason. I did see Control earlier this week which was a biopic on Ian Curtis and I tell you what the dude dances like a retard. It’s okay, nice to know he wasn’t ‘rockstar’ perfect.

As if life wasn’t specific enough…I’ve recently discovered that I apparently like post-punk or art punk. I discovered this thanks to Last.fm and an amazing box set of punk I’ve been listening to courtesy of work. The set is called Babylon’s Burning.

I’ve really been digging the Gang of Four Entertainment! album (it’s so damn catchy even if Rob does think punk doesn’t sound like music, hehe). So this box set I was listening to introduced me to a bunch of artists I’ve never ever heard of and I thought “cor blimey, some of this stuff’s alright!”. Turns out that a lot of these artists are actually similar to Gang of Four (maybe that’s why I liked them? Who knows!). Anyway, these artists are Wire, The Fall, Alternative TV and more obviously Joy Division (I think I’ve already mentioned them previously).

If anyone has any suggestions as to any other acts I might like, I’d love to hear about them! I can only listen to Gang of Four and Joy Division so many times!

My poor, poor pusscat. He was in a fight with another evil neighbourhood kitty and now has an infected wound as a result of his labours. So today poor puss had to get packed off in a cat carrier with no breakfast and is at the vet’s to have an operation to have his abscess removed…!!! Ugh, that evil cat that gave him a wound - apparently canines (as in the teeth, not dogs!) are very dirty and that was what put a hole in my poor kitten. I’m peeved to say the least.

I went out yesterday to a fabled dumpling house in Melbourne town with one of my oldest mates and we stuffed ourselves stupid. Had fried pork dumplings, mushroom and vegetable dumplings, spring onion pancake, and finally steamed miniature pork buns. Afterwards we took a trip to a local music shop and bought soooo much stuff (as a result of it being about 25 bucks for the two of us to have lunch, we felt we had money to burn, hehe).

I bought Blur’s Leisure, Gang of Four’s Entertainment, The Knife’s Silent Shout, the Tiga DJ Kicks compilation, and The Good The Bad and The Queen’s self-titled album. I almost bought Joy Division’s Permanent 1995 but put it back seeing as I have Substance. ‘Twas a hard decision though!

That’s not all. During the week at work I ended up buying The Postal Service’s Give Up and Radiohead’s Hail To The Thief (can you believe I haven’t had a copy since now?! Insanity!) and mclusky’s mclusky Do Dallas.

I also had a bout of depression haulage…ordered some lovely fragrances from the fabled Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab - descriptions are as follows - The Candy Butcher: dark chocolate with a heavy cream undertone; The Parliament of Monsters: dust, incense, wet tobacco, and a curl of opium smoke; Eat Me: three white cakes, vanilla, and red and black currants; Bordello: bawdy plum with amaretto, burgundy wine and black currant.

Woo hoo! Today I went to CD store and found 2 CDs I’ve wanted for quite some time…and they were actually there! Usually when I go to buy CDs (yeah, I still buy CDs because I’m old I guess or something) I can’t find what I want and end up with several other things I probably shouldn’t have bought!

Today’s purchases were Bloc Party’s Silent Alarm, Interpol’s debut Turn on the Bright Lights and lastly Pulp’s Hits (a best-of compilation which has a previously unreleased track. That’s how much I love Pulp. Now to get their double CD sets of the albums…even though I already have most of their albums).

My mother also bought me a couple of items of clothing which was cool. All to make up for the fact that I have to new meds to take…wish me luck with the side effects. Usually not pretty.

Now I just need to get a pedicure! Though I confess I’m procrastinating when it comes to ridding my legs of its…erm, winter growth.

I’m trying to listen to music on last.fm and not having much luck thanks to its update not downloading and installing properly.

I can’t uninstall it, meaning I can’t reinstall it and it’s not scrobbling (saving a history/list of tracks I listen to) properly. Thoroughly pissed off. Sigh, I’ll just have to wait till I move out and have my future housemate/good tech geek pal look at it and see if he can fix it for me.

If anyone else has any tips on what I could do, send ‘em my way, I’m all ears.

And I don’t care what my ex says, Joy Division rock. Of course, I haven’t heard as much of it as he did so that might account for my attitude (congrats on the new job too Z if you’re reading).

So far, it’s been a good long weekend - for those of you reading overseas, it’s the Queen’s (of England) Birthday weekend here, celebrated in early/mid-June. I chose not to go away for the weekend with the in-laws to the seaside (not such crash-hot weather, given that it’s winter here and all) and have been at home, relaxing.

As I type, I’m over halfway through Anne of Green Gables - the list I previously posted having inspired me to read. Ralenth, if you’re reading this, I expect a full report on how many of those titles you’ve read (probably heaps, I wager). I’ve been through the list a few more times realising that I didn’t highlight a few books I’d read, so you might want to check over it again as I’ve edited it.

Last night, thanks to a good friend letting me know, I stayed up and caught my pop idol guest presenting on Rage (a video clip programme on [Australian] TV channel ABC). Oh my god, I totally forgot how much I loved Pulp - got to see fabbo clips of some of their older hits which totally blew me away. God, Jarvis is such a sexy bloke. He chose some awesome stuff, I was totally blown away and stayed up till 4am watching. And Pulp were not a one-album wonder as my mate J-P thinks. I’m listening to Last.fm right now and they’re playing Jarvis covering a Leonard Cohen song. Golden.

The other things I’ve done this weekend have been eating yummy food (I don’t remember enjoying food this much…weird), playing World of Warcraft (my human warrior is finally levelled up to 20! yea! Check my character out here) and…the pièce de résistance…I learnt to lace myself into my corset. Still not perfectly, but getting there!

After a wonderful yum cha session with a friend of mine who was down in Melbourne for the last few days, I wandered up to a CD store and bought myself a few albums of some of my favourite artists. I couldn’t actually find the ones I was looking. I ended up with Jan Jelinek’s Tierbeobachtungen although I was actually looking for Kosmischer Pitch, then Luomo’s Paper Tigers though I was looking for Vladislav Delay’s Demo(n) Tracks - they are the same artist but he operates under quite a few different names, the former also being a pseudonym. Lastly, I might have preferred Radiohead’s Hail to the Thief but found Thom Yorke’s solo album The Eraser (not a bad deal, really). Can’t complain too much.

Here’s my excuse for wanting to buy a whole bunch of CDs in the one hit - naughty me. Admittedly, it’s been ages since I bought any. I used to buy heaps all the time.

“I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music. It seems to infuse strength into my limbs and ideas into my brain. Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with music.”

(from http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/1590.html)

Isn’t that a glorious quote? Sums up the way I feel when playing in groups for things…I dunno, perhaps just a very fancy way of saying that music makes me very, very happy indeed. George Eliot was onto something.

A friend (cheers ralenth!) recently told me about Last.fm and seeing as I seem to be in the mood to listen to music (I have a certain suspicion that this may have to do with a certain fellow I know who I discovered quite likes Britpop…enough to wear desert boots like Damon Albarn…drool…) and the fact that I went to an electronic music gig the other night, I decided to sign up and have been obsessed ever since. I’ve been listening to some minimal techno and artists similar to Pulp - ‘egads, Jarvis is married, has a kid and lives in Paris (I’m genuinely heartbroken but maybe it’s for the best - he’s extremely tall and I ain’t. Might be hard to make whoopee).

It’s a bit glitchy in spots, the radio service - sometimes it has a bit of a delay when my connection is running slow but seriously, last night I was just enraptured listening to music for hours. I guess I should link to my profile, shouldn’t I? Edited to add actual chart…

Another service I was trialling the other day was MediaMaster - this service allows you to upload all the music on your computer to their server so that you can theoretically listen to it from absolutely anywhere provided you have access to an internet connection. Again, it seemed to take ages to upload tracks and it wasn’t always fuss-free (it seemed to have an aversion to uploading ‘Stereotypes’ from Blur’s The Great Escape, to my infinite horror). It is a pretty cool service worth checking out, I think I might have found out about it from Lifehack as usual.

Last thing! I read about this on a friend’s LiveJournal - Basenotes have this cool thing called a fragrance wardrobe. Here’s the link to my Basenotes fragrance wardrobe - you can see what fragrances I currently own (that are listed in their database), what fragrances I’ve tested, what I’ve owned previously and even what ones I wish I had! Quite voyeristic, really. Gosh, if only I could list what Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab ones I have! Alas no, doesn’t seem to give that option - yet.

And no, not the music one listens to, but music of the homemade kind! I was beginning to forget that I’m actually a musician first before I’m a would-be poet. I like to call music my wife and literature my mistress…

Over the weekend, I saw a fabulous (though of course a little over-the-top) production of an early opera by Monteverdi called L’orfeo - it’s based on the ancient Greek myth where Orpheus goes down to the Underworld to get back his lady-love Eurydice. He also happens to be a kick-arse lyre player. The performance was directed by none other than viola da gamba superstar Monsieur Jordi Savall - for those of you who don’t know, he’s probably one of the most famous gamba players, and he’s also now a conductor. He heads an early music ensemble called Hesperion XX and they put out some fantastic recordings.

Soooo…I got it into my head that it might be time for me to practise. My arms are sufficiently recovered from injury (overuse of both arms) so I whipped out…

…wait for it…

the flute.

I don’t even remember the last time I actually played my flute and was quite surprised by how natural it still felt. I didn’t play anything shabby either - I went straight for the jugular and cut my teeth into some Bach flute sonatas - oh how wonderful it was to play them! I wish I could link to a recording because it’s such a lovely piece for the flute - kind of the sound equivalent to rich, dark chocolate…mmm…

I’m trying to think of something famous I can play to give an idea of what sort of standard I was but all I can think of is the Sabre Dance by Khachaturian (you know, that stereotypical piece of ‘circus’ music???). Found a sound bite here (it might not seem like it, but the flute part for this is bloody hard - we’re talking harder than calculus or modernism, or something).

But I am practising my gamba, I still suck at it but am starting to sound sort of okay. God, at least I play in tune. Hopefully soon I’ll be doing the damn music and instrument some justice.

I’m falling in love all over again…and I think my treadmill and staircases have helped somewhat!

Tonight, I hopped on the treadmill to get the blood flowing a bit and have a gander on the gamba…and I can’t tell you how wonderful it was to play. It was like seeing an old friend for the first time in ages, and remembering how much you loved their company and spending time and that you hadn’t grown apart like you thought you had all that time.

Well, yesterday - there were hints of this, but today was what really confirmed it. My fingers actually did what they were supposed to. As did the rest of my body without the neurochemically-induced trembling and it felt fantastic!!! I felt alive, happy to be alive and like I was actually playing music like someone who went to music school as opposed to the usual hackery that goes on my way.

This is one of those few occasions where words are just not useful to describe the feeling of what it is like to play beautiful music. Clichés aplenty come to mind. Cannot wait to start having music lessons again!

A good long while back I wrote an entry about Blur’s album Parklife and just how awesome vintage Blur was.

Yet there is, in my opinion, an even better band led by a tall, gangly guy who wears suits no longer en vogue who would be nearly blind without his glasses/contacts. A man that at some stage once broke a few bones pretending to be Spiderman and featured the wheelchair he was previously bound to in stage shows.
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Whoops, All Souls’ Day is November 2nd and November 1st is All Saints’ Day. That means that Hallowe’en is the day when all the bad spirits run around, and All Saints’ Day is the day when the good ones do, then they all go back tomorrow (for me, in Australia). These religious-type days are just plain confusing. Apparently you’re supposed to go to church (if you’re Catholic) and not eat meat.
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