Me on Jackson (French producer who’s just dropped a killer glitch-out bomb on Warp), Cage (hip hop head who just dropped a new record on Def Jux), Aaron Phiri from Hearin’ Aid and Raw Fusion in Sweden.

I’ll probably run the Q&As somewhere else before too long too, there’s lots more goodness that wouldn’t fit into a 500 worder for 3D World in Sydney…

Me on three new Sydney acts…

Buchman (aka bass player from the Hive/Baggsmen Tony Buchen)
the Presets (aka Kim Moyes and Julian Hamilton from Prop)
Jack Prest (producer and DJ from 3rd Estate, Flowstate and Good Buddha)

The big studio varnish was always a little superfluous to music fans, but it took albums like PJ Harvey’s 4 track demos (far superior to the previously released album-proper Rid of Me) and DJ Vadim’s USSR Repertoire (originally delivered to Ninja Tune as a demo) to cement the idea. Still, labels resisted and for big releases it’s the long trip from songwriting to the shop shelf (via audience testing, market research, branding and 1 in 10s) that really smooth out an album.

For better or worse the Internet and independent labels have handed the demo its redundancy package (don’t worry, it got headhunted). The first recording’s often best and it’s the quest for some perfect sound (for radio I guess) that dulls so many records (don’t even get me started on brilliant house records that have vocals added later). New acts’ demos race around the net like wildfire – check the explosion of new stuff by everyone from Clap Your Hands Say Yeah to MIA – of course, it’s the low-fi aesthetic of most indie labels and beatmakers that’s meant a demo CD is no bad thing, that low-fi-ness is actually a pretty attractive quality. That goes for Madlib’s beats for Stones Throw, Moodymann and Theo Parrish in Detroit, right through to the grime and dubstep crew in East London. Of course, there’s a whole other world where this isn’t the case, where Eno, Jam & Lewis, Visage and/or the Pet Shop Boys are venerated – but although they’re all big influences on much of the sound of the times, they haven’t had as big an influence on production values as you might think.

Anyway, few acts see the need to sign up with a label these days – well, few acts that have any nous – the labels are lost, it’s almost as easy for an act to market themselves via webpages, downloads/filesharing, viral action and so on as it is for a label, so the idea of making a demo to get a record deal seems pretty out of date. There are so many acts… and virtually every act below a certain level have their own label. And no indie label, especially one that’s run by the act itself, is going to tell the act to go spend thousands, 100s of 1000s of dollars, on mixing, mastering and production (of course, unless they’re pop acts and lets face it I couldn’t care about them in general.

In the interests of audience participation, answer the following if you’ve got a moment:

Heard a good demo lately? What’s good about it?

What made it a demo – rather than a proper release – and did they subsequently record a better version for an album??

Any favourite demos?

Feeling quite happily dazed after a delicious roast duck and won ton noodle soup at Tak Kee Roast in Dickson and a very full weekend in Canberra, our bunch of friends lethargically motored down to Toast bar in Civic. It was always my favourite bar in Canberra when I lived in the capital city and returning to town for the weekend it doesn’t seem to have lost any of its charm – though it has attracted some rather weird bits of venue sculpture, including a bizarre big fish over the bar.

Sodastream kicked off early – 8pm – with no supports. Fortunately we arrived promptly, found a spot near the front and relaxed with a beer. They took the stage. Karl Smith played lovely rich tones through his lovely deep brown Fender acoustic guitar (and equally vintage Fender amp), while singing sometimes plaintive, sometimes bitter/sharp and usally melancholy songs clearly at odds with his skinny frame, close-fitted tee-shirt and Brett Anderson/Jarvis Cocker good looks. Pete Cohen, a tall broad-shouldered guy with scraggly long hair, played a big double bass, sometimes plucking, somtimes whipping it with a bow, sometimes almost percussively tapping it with his bow, his deep voice contrasted wildly with Karl’s.

It was the perfect wind-down to such a hectic weekend, their songs melted around us like thick chocolate, plenty of songs from the new EP (highlights including ‘Keith & Tina’ and ‘Steeps & Hollows’) and a handful from previous albums.

Later Pete put down his bass on the stand and pulled over a chair, balanced a wood saw between his knees, grasped the sharp end with his left hand, twisted the saw slightly and wobbled it playing the bow along its edge with his right hand. It was a pretty magical sound – I noticed it on the EP but thought it was a mellotron or a Moog or something – he calls it Musical Saw. Karl played his Roland keyboard for a while, but it had a cold metallic sound compared to the rich tones of the guitar and bass.

The crowd was transfixed, a little too taken by the set in fact. Each song was met with applause and at the end of the set the polite clapping was obviously not enough for the band who didn’t give an encore, even though the setlist had a couple of extra encore numbers jotted down.

Read my review of Sodastream’s Take Me With You When You Go EP at Stylus and if can, go see them.

Listen to Blinky, Otherwise Open and Lushington Hall (hosted by Sodastream).

Getting closer to hot off the presses, as it happens around the clock reportage on what I’ve been up to. In case there’s an audience for that kind of thing. And looking at my stats it seems as though there is, though it’s possible that the audience is entirely made up of the spammers who keep posting comments that just link to offshore gaming sites.

This time it’s Canberra instead of Shanghai, Oslo or Berlin. That town can party… or something. The weekend started off with karaoke at Canberra City Bowling Club. All the rest of our gang turned their numbers into screamo punk so when I took the stage the boss warned me he’d pull the plug if I screamed. I said I’d try my best and everyone said it was ‘soulful’ though Levins told me it was the ‘worst karaoke’ he’d ever seen. His bar is too high.

The Herd (pic thanks to SianB/ITM) played Saturday night at the ANU bar, we got down early and manned the merch stand. D’Opus & Roshambo (whose debut CD got a review here the other day) started things off, D’Opus DJing funky party hip hop early on then a DJ/MC set later on with Roshambo. Cool stuff. By the time the Herd came on it was a full house, not as big a venue as the Metro in Sydney last week, but at least as enthusiastic. When 77% came on there was a roar! We sold CDs ’til the band finished then took off for the Art School.

Changing into our outfits en route, Pol ended up looking like Rick Moranis as the Gatekeeper in Ghostbusters, while I was more the ferris wheel attendant (pic thanks to PhongThrowing The Dice) – the theme was Sideshow Alley and people dressed to the 9s, well as close to the 9s as you can get while dressing up as Carni Attendants and Bearded Ladies. Unfortunately, the party didn’t do it justice, there seemed to be tension between different students involved in organising things this year and the night suffered. The music was nowhere near as cool as last year, the crowd was much smaller, the gig ended earlier (meaning that my set got cut short to just two songs – Phuture’s I’ll Be Your Only Friend and Orange Juice’s Rip It Up). Still the best night in Canberra all the same – it’s all too rare to have crazy freaky music in Canberra and even if it sucks it’s still better than the boring generic sounds that get served up the rest of the time.

I heard this San Franciscan beat maker was doing glitch hop like it was some new thing, so I checked him out, feeling hostile towards it, noone else is doing it, huh?! That’s ridiculous as his sound takes a big bite out of Prefuse 73, Secondo, Funkstorung, Shadow, DJ/Rupture, hell a whole lot of people. But the odd thing is, he pulls it off and as I read more it’s obvious he’s not touting anything stoopid. It sounds really cool and apparently it’s all his own beats. His bio says he’s produced for Paris and the Mystic Journeyman, as well as knocking off bootlegs of ODB.

Anyway, listen to Kraddy – Live Mix (hosted at Kraddyodaddy.com) and tell me what you think.

I just posted an interview I did earlier in the week with Tony Simon (aka Blockhead) at the Cyclic blog. It’s just a Q & A at the moment, but I’ll write it up properly for the next issue of the magazine. There are also a couple of links to downloads of Blockhead mixes and videos.

Also, you should check out Nick Guttah‘s long interview with Barry Lynn (aka Boxcutter) at Gutterbreakz. Now producing jazz and IDM-influenced dubstep and grime, he grew up on Robert Fripp and Jimi Hendrix.

One of the more debaucherous nights on the Canberra calender is approaching and fortunately I’m back in Australia to witness the damage. And the Radness, my friend Al’s bizarre prog-house metal rifferama Glam Radness are on the bill. The theme for this year’s Art School Ball is side-show alley, which I’m sure Al will play to the hilt. Not sure how I’ll fit into that, though I imagine by the time I come on sometime after one the damage will already be done.

It’s happening this Saturday, Oct 22nd at the Art School on Childers St in Canberra and tickets are $18.50.

The lineup so far is:

Pip Branson Corporation
Hancock Basement
Silvia Saint (FuckBurgers)
Moh Van Wah
Glam Radness
Ridge Forrester
SideShow Sam (KremeThroat Karmel)
Calico
The Chuffs
Super Best Friends
Young & Restless
Rubbish Babies
Ben Esguerra and Sam Someone

If you’re in Canberra for the weekend, The Herd are a must see at the ANU Bar. I’ll be stopping there before the Art School Ball. The launch at the Metro in Sydney on the weekend was quite seriously off the hook – people singing along to songs that had only been released the week before (including a photographer from the Sydney Morning Herald) and a packed, sold out house of 1300. 3D World managed to get a review up super quickly in time for this week’s magazine. Plus locals D’Opus & Roshambo are on support duties.

Also Evilchris has US indie beatmaker Smaze, Disjunction Reunion from Couchblip in Sydney, Bec Paton and Canberra electronic heads like Somaya, Alien Digit and Warwick Lynch.

Then Sodastream on Sunday at Toast (finally I get a chance to seem them live, stay tuned for my review of their new EP for Stylus), there’s also an Amnesty fundraiser on Monday in Canberra with Julian Burnside speaking. When you add in some karaoke on Friday night, it’s going to be a long weekend in Canberra.

Thaddeus Herrmann runs the brilliant City Centre Offices label, he records under a handful of aliases and edits Berlin’s (and probably one of the world’s) best street press (De:Bug), so no wonder he was the first person I got in touch with when I visited Berlin earlier this year.

I originally wrote up an article for Spinach 7′s Soundplay, but that seems to have stalled, so my interview with Thaddi is now feeling quite at home with the charming guys at Speakers Push The Air.

Solipsism
Pere Ubu
Non sequiturs
Noble Savage
Narcissism
Pyrrhic victory

Things that I’m not so keen on include dodgy promo CDs from record labels that have lame voice overs on every track to dissuade you from selling the disc at your local shop, cue screwed down vocal on Cage’s new LP for Def Jux “This is promo” blah blah blah. Don’t they know that music writers are horribly underpaid and they should be giving them super love for just considering writing about their record? That’s aside from the fact that most labels only send out dodgy burnt discs as promo these days – btw doesn’t that contravene the laws around copying music? – anyway, fortunately most of the actual music I get sent in these disappointing packages is good.

Recent records that should be listened to far more widely include:

Broadcast – Tender Buttons (my copy came with photocopied liner notes and a burnt disc)

Sodastream – Take Me With You When You Go (beautiful digipack to complement the lovely Sodastream blend of folky melancholy and sound art-esque recording)

Jackson & His Computer Band – Smash (once again, photocopied liner and burnt disc)

Cage – Hell’s Kitchen (the worst, because it’s not even the proper recording)

Breakestra – Hit The Floor (colour photocopied liner notes, burnt CD)

Blockhead – Downtown Science (promo release styles from Ninja, if you have to do a special version for the music journo’s, at least do it this way)

Various: Symbiotic Sound System II – Everything Takes Forever (beatiful Australian beats, not to far removed from the first edition, but then that was brilliant)