The slippery backed federal government are already shaking off the burden of responsibility for last weekend’s riots (and ongoing tensions/scuffles). As gravy commented on the previous post, they are already shifting the weight onto state government (calling it a law & order issue) and the media.

So instead of harping on about the PM’s constant efforts to bring back a white ’50s Oz, I’m interested in just what sort of role the media should assume in such a situation. I threw together a quick post for the Media Center’s Morph blog to try and raise some discussion.

Self-censorship sucks, though it occasionally has call, for example suicides are rarely reported.

The government’s been able to plausibly deny the undercurrent of racism in Australia for years, maybe an explosion like this is needed?

Even though it’s been pipped by Tookie, Cronulla‘s been the number one search on Technorati for the past few days. Sydney riot‘s a little further down the list, still top 10, which reflects the increasingly international aspect.

I’m not one of these people saying ‘ooh look what you’re doing to our international reputation’. It’s finally getting some semblance of reality. The New York Times is following the story.

It was quite interesting to hear the Iranian leader slam Australia’s criticism of human rights abuses, given our history of aboriginal genocide and treatment of asylum seekers. Although his comments about Israel were disgusting, they don’t alter the fundamental truth of his comments about Australia’s ability to comment on human rights.

The PM won’t call it racist, but I will and most others have. The riots on Cronulla beach on the weekend are hard to understand/imagine/believe. Radio and print media report neo-nazis, bikers and surfies crowded into the beach to heap abuse on anyone who looked different enough. The picture above (from the SMH) shows a crowd intimidating a couple of middle eastern kids who got in the way. The worst thing is the numbers of teenagers, families with young children and locals celebrating the dark day with balloons, booze and bottle-throwing.

It’s ridiculous, the text messages (and this was apparently built up with text messages that flew around the city right across to Penrith – just the kind of thing the anti-terrorism laws were designed for, though as Crikey says those laws are unlikely to be used against anyone not of middle eastern descent) say they’re just fighting back after a couple of lifeguards were beaten up last weekend. But this was far worse than anything those suburban gangs have done. The call of “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi”, which has always been vaguely threatening yelled at cricket and rugby matches, took on a much scarier tone when it’s “Oi” was yelled by 1000s as they chased individuals across the beach. Worse still, was the Waltzing Matilda and the John Williamson songs and Eureka Flags.

After five years of our government marginalising our middle eastern community as ‘illegal’ refugees, possible terrorists, rapists and fundamentalists, the message has made its way down.

Lots of bloggers writing about this one, jo jo summarises, Technorati has blog posts by the 1000, splat asks what happened there… Who the hell knows. All I know is, whatever Paul Sheehan says, this stuff has been bubbling beneath the surface for a very long time.

It’s been a quiet week here. Apologies, I’ve been temping at a Sydney paper writing and subbing, with any luck they’ll give me a job. Anyway, I wrote a couple of pieces last weekend for 3D World, so here are the links.

Jazzanova have a new set of remixes out and I got to chat with Jurgen von Knoblauch about it. As always only a fraction of the interview made it into the story, there’s only so much you can say in 500 words, I’ll have to get into gear and put up some of these Q&As before too long. Since leaving Compost to set up their own Sonarkollektiv label, they’ve gone from strength to strength, though they haven’t had huge amounts of time to work with. Of the 11 remixes they’ve released since then, my favourite is the rerub of Calexico’s Black Heart, a beautiful meeting of Jazzanova’s stuttery syncopated hip hop and Calexico’s wonderfully rich Tex-Mex indie.

Ewan Pearson was a pleasure to chat with too. Refreshingly articulate, interesting and modest about his achievements. I’ve been a fan of his stuff since the early Maas releases on Soma, but his remixes over the past few years have been particularly special. He was also one of the authors of Discographies, an academic take on dance music’s social impacts. He’s left the university now, but he covers his favourite 10 or so records every week at his blog Enthusiasms.

The inaugural J Award ceremony happened last night at the Annandale Hotel in Sydney. Look, the shortlist was really great. Bands like The Herd, Pivot (pictured above) and Architecture in Helsinki made it onto the list, alongside more obvious names such as Ben Lee, Wolfmother and Bernard Fanning.

The judging criteria suggested it would be a different kind of award and the breadth of acts shortlisted definitely hinted at some kind of watershed moment.

Triple J‘s criteria:
“The J Award is for an album of outstanding achievement as an Australian musical work of art – for its creativity, innovation, musicianship and contribution to Australian music. Fifteen nominations were announced throughout the year.

The J Award judging panel is headed by triple j’s Music Director Richard Kingsmill. The panel includes Robbie Buck from triple j’s flagship Australian music program Home and Hosed, and other triple j presenters, producers and live music engineers.”

That had everyone thinking they would actually award an album that was creative, innovative and a real contribution to Australian music, so most people I spoke to had hopes for Architecture in Helsinki or maybe even the Herd taking it out. (Maybe my friends are too indie!)

Richard Kingsmill said today:
“People have paid out on them [Wolfmother] for being retro. I’d like to remind everyone that Led Zeppelin were criticised early in their career for stealing from blues greats, as were the Rolling Stones, and Dylan was seen as a Woody Guthrie imitator when he started out. So hopefully Wolfmother are also now off to a highly successful career!”

All true. Wolfmother are fun, they rock out and they were quite cute on stage accepting their award (they expressed their excitement in dance!) but noone would suggest that they meet any of those criteria. Half an hour before, on Triple J, The Chaser guys awarded Led Zeppelin with the most derivative album award for completely ripping off Wolfmother.

Still, great afternoon. Lots of old friends and the place had a really good feel, quite different from your standard music industry shindig.

Dave Miller heads into the studio with Pivot in early 2006 to work on the follow up to their phenomenal debut album Make Me Love You. Miller apparently joined the band on turntables for a couple of sets and impressed them so much he wound up being invited in for the recording session. It’s not altogether surprising, since Miller’s drafted Laurence Pike into his own recording plans (as he mentioned in this interview).

Miller supports Jamie Liddell at the Sydney Festival bar, as well as Monolake’s East Coast tour, on the same visit. He’s looking into playing clubbier shows up and down the east coast while he’s here – if you’re interested, drop me a message.

It is tough to play five hours of radio and fit in 75 percent Australian music (and 25 percent of that from Sydney), like really hard. I’m recovering from ridiculous radio slots at both ends of the candle yesterday. I did the breakfast drive slot on 2SER FM with my friend Eli from 6:30 ’til 9am and then the graveyard shift on FBI FM from 1 ’til 6am. Unsurprisingly, I spent yesterday in a hazy kind of place.

I don’t have a song list, I’ll work that kind of thing out when I’m doing radio a bit more often, but I played these amongst others:

The Remote Viewer – They’re Closing Down the Shop
Masha Qrella – I Don’t Like Her
Subs – track one from their killer demo CD goes something like ‘one, i got no money, two, no job…’
Arab Strap – Why Can’t This Be Love?
Pharrell – Maybe (remix)
GM Grimm – Street General – Bush-baiting MF Grimm in fine form
MC Saquinho – Montagem the Smith – Smiths-sampling bomb
DJ Dolores – De Dar Do
Ohmega Watts – That Sound (Quantic Soul Orchestra remix)
Pasobionic – Echoes of Blue
Lush – Hypocrite
Other People’s Children – Transatlantic
Zillions – Step Into the Sun
Acetate Zero – December Sounds Like That
Bombay 1 – More Than Everything
Datarock – Nightflight to Uranus
Sodastream – Keith & Tina
The Free Design – Lullaby (J-Nova remix)
New Order – Krafty (Glimmers 12″ mix)
Dsico – Modulations
Underlapper – Little (Seaworthy remix) – taken from a great little ep of Underlapper remixes that I picked up from the Feral Media people at Newtown Festival a few weeks ago
The Chap – Baby I’m Hurt’n
Five Dollar Day – The Greatest Symphony
Mountains In The Sky – Noah’s Arkestra
Alarm Will Sound – Meltphace 6
The Village Orchestra – Jacob/Bad Hand At Cards v2
Faux Pas – Cup of Wonder
Omar S – Jit
Stromba – Septic Skank
DJ Soup – Smidgeon
Devastations – I Don’t Want To Lose You Tonight
Francis Plagne – Making Wheat Elastic
Sofie Loizou – Lost