I saw this aging boy band a couple of weeks ago in Melbourne. Instead of spectating on the Red Bull Music Academy I was at the Packaging Council of Australia’s annual awards at the Grand Hyatt taking in the spectacle of Human Nature live. The all-singing all-dancing quartet is trying to revive sales with a Motown thing at the moment, so the soundtrack (along with a violin trio called Stringed Angels, whose highlight was a medley of The Land Downunder and Waltzing Matilda) consisted of uber kitsch covers of the poppier end of the Motown back catalogue. They even presented the awards, with conviction – “You guys must have been voting for [insert product] when you should have been voting for me in Dancing With the Stars” and bad jokes about their ‘packaging’ – it all seemed pretty funny until they descended on poor defenceless Ain’t No Mountain High Enough. It was disgraceful, I wanted to cry.

Fortunately I had time to explore Melbourne. Slap Records is gone – shock! still there, just moved down the street (see comments). Sub:Strata made up for it though – not sure if it’s generally open for business, but I wandered down and hung out in the shop for several hours, listening to loads of beautiful records (I brought home records by Double U, Alex Cortex, Ammoncontact, Nathan Fake and a carry on luggage overloading bag of others) and chewing the ear off store owner Matt. Why no shops of this standard in Sydney? I also ran into an old friend, Mike from Fang (Canberra), working behind the counter at Dave’s Boutique – another few records into the bag, including tasty records from Chain Reaction and Ferox.

Later on I found myself at Chambers Arcade below Flinders St Station looking for the Sticky zine shop, which I found and seriously raided, but opposite is a new hip hop emporium called Wax Museum. I picked up an old Dangermouse bootleg record and a couple of killers from Digital Mystikz and Soundproof Productions. I’m feeling excited about DJing again after hearing all these brilliant records.

Everyone’s fave dubstep mutha Eli Murray is a hippie at heart, check his mash of dark psych Floyd outtakes (hosted by Southern Steppa).

That’s WIRE MC rocking the mic at the Reggae Block Party in Redfern this afternoon.

Arriving on the Block was intense. Eveleigh St’s this whole other world. I studied around the corner at Sydney University, and lived, also around the corner, on Wilson St. It’s always been a no-go area. I walked past often, but imagination painted it with these dark shadows and malevolent faces. It’s no worse than most Kooris probably experience every day, but it’s strange to feel that fear.

Walking in to the The Resurrectors was welcoming. Throbbing dub and booming vocals filled up the street, kids kicked a football down one side, people wobbled by clutching bagged up bottles and the crowd began to take shape down the bottom of the street. As we got closer faces appeared out of the crowd, loads of friends, and good vibes all round. Next up WIRE MC took requests from his mum (down the front left) and hit a line somewhere between angry militance and soulful warmth – again, just right. Apparently Fat Freddy’s Drop and Basslines Crew played too, I missed them.

As the Firehouse crew took the decks I reflected it’s the Future Classic crew behind the whole jam. I don’t know what’s in it for them, but whatever the inspiration, the Reggae Block Party was a brilliant afternoon. Anything that opens up the Block and breaks down the stupid racist boundaries in this city is worth big praise.

The last ever party from Sydney crew Frigid, on June 10, featured Mark N and Luke Vibert, as well as some of Sydney’s finest record players. Not necessarily the biggest names, definitely no Mark Dynamix or Pee-Wee Ferris action, but all the people playing play great music, from cut-up industrial hip hop and dubstep to seductive Krautrock and psychedelic garage. Frigid was the centre of the electronic scene in Sydney for 10 years, so the gig was well attended, and the music was hot, to say the least. (The panorama above was taken/assembled by Superlight who also VJed on the night)

The great thing was the best acts of the night came out of that Frigid community. And, for me, the highlight was Tooth. On record, they create a warm, sparkling and inviting sound. Live it’s that much more multilayered and plain beautiful – this particular gig featured a huge lineup including Peter Hollo from FourPlay. I sat there with a handful of friends, in the middle of the cavernous upstairs room at the Newtown RSL, skin tingling at the immense and beguiling sound. Here’s a review I wrote on their last album, Mudlarking.

Mudlarking is the exquisitely crafted third album from Sydney trio Tooth. Where the group’s previous records showed potential, this double disc opus represents the equivalent of a whole new world.

Take a second and imagine driving through the desert in central Australia: you barely notice the landscape changing as you race along those straight roads, but all of a sudden it’s all changed, the colours are different, the trees and plants have changed. It’s the same here.

Shane Roberts (Sir Robbo), Kevin Purdy and John Maddox orchestrate this swelling mass of musical elements into a dense brew without succumbing to bloated or noodly excess. That’s a triumph in itself when you consider the blend of percussion, melodica, marimba, glockenspiel, soundscapes, guitars, keyboards, double and electric bass, cello and vibes, as well as guests including Daevid Allen (Soft Machine, Gong), Peter and Tim Hollo (Fourplay), Pip Branson (Something For Kate), Jeremy Barnett (Prop), Rory Toomey and Sloth (Meta Bass & Breath). It should come as no surprise when you know the band members have histories stretching from Sydney’s early 1980s post punk scene through to now, and taking in bands such as Astronomy Class and Madroom.

This magical album skirts the line between warm instrumental music and lithe Krautrock rhythms, soundtrackers take note, and if you get to see this spine-tingling set live, don’t miss out.

Tooth’s website is audio-less, but have a taste at toothspace. Mudlarking comes highly recommended – you’re not going to get a real idea of the humour and warmth and density of ideas in this album from online samples, go and buy it, now!

Kinda random, but isn’t it always, these are the songs that made up the Join the Dots soundtrack on FBI 94.5 this week.

Q And Not U – Collect the Diamonds
Fugazi – The Kill
National Bird – Catastrophe
Dileep – Killing Time
The Instant – Alphateam 107
Tortoise – TNT (Nobukazu Takemura remix)
Tortoise & Bonnie Prince Billy – Daniel
Five Deez – Sexual For Elizabeth (Tortoise remix)
Digable Planets – Where I’m From
Cee Knowledge aka Doodlebug – Space is the Place (feat Sun Ra’s Arkestra)
Sun Ra and His Arkestra – Angels and Demons at Play
The Laughing Clowns – The Laughing Clowns
Ed Keupper – Also Sprach the King of Euro-Disco
X – TV Glue
Pel Mel – Don’t Come Looking
The Limp – Marked Man
No Night Sweats – Who’s Gonna Help Me Now
SPK – Mekano
SPK – Wired For Sound
Tactics - Let’s Go Downtown
Neil Young – Let’s Impeach the President
Dr BLT – Neil Young (Have You Forgotten)
Head of State – Pointless

It’s your birthday, you gonna party, etc. So here’s a soundtrack. 40 minutes of songs. I recorded it rapid fire between househunting yesterday AM and celebrating a friend’s birthday PM. Hope you enjoy.

Suzanne Vega versus 50 Cent – Tom’s Diner (Dangermouse bootleg)
Larry Gold – Travellin
Panda One – She Knows Not (featuring Dena)
Jaylib – The Red
Red Snapper – Drill (Jake One version)
Daniel Merriweather – She’s Got Me (The Calculators mix)
Soundproof Productions – Beyond the Milkyway (120 BPM refix)
Rei Mitsui – Rekodoten Disuku (Max Brennan remix)
Double U – Secret Love (Metaboman remix)

Just got back from Sound Summit and This Is Not Art (TINA). I was only there for a couple of nights, but it was two nights I’m really happy I was there for. A highlight was the panel (pictured, from right) with Ghislain Poirier, DJ Gorky (Bonde Do Role), WIRE MC, Tony Buchen, Filastine and Levins. The topic was Cultural Significance in Contemporary Music – how important is it to know about the music you play. With the guys on the panel all being musical magpies, with the exception of WIRE, I guess as he was the only performer (as distinct from the others who are predominantly producers).

Someone pushing a different viewpoint to these magpies would’ve added a lot to the panel – an academic talking about cultural value of sounds or maybe the potential for exploitation and the exotic attraction of the other – still, it was fascinating hearing Gorky, Poirier and Filastine talk. WIRE seemed off the panel for a while, but Levins skillfully moderated him into the picture, and once he did WIRE took the focus. The only performer there, he worked the stage, challenging the audience about what we thought his background was – corroboree, didge? No, breakdancing and Nintendo! It got interesting when WIRE said he feels uncomfortable using didge on his tracks considering it’s not part of his cultural background.

Chris Lemon-Red talks about it here although he blames the demise of the local economy on the earthquake in 1989 (it was probably more the closure of the steel works 10 years later). He says the talks were dry too, but that might be because a talk on sub-genres had a bunch of white middle class guys talking about music primarily derived from poor black communities. That’s coming from another white guy who does a lot of talking about music. The local guests seem to have been chosen fairly arbitrarily for quite a few panels, including this one – there’s a big pool of talent in this country, but if it had to be another international, Kode 9, who’s just down the highway at the Red Bull Music Academy in Melbourne, would have made this or the previous panel work a little better. (Although I’m told the Red Bull people resisted attempts to set up some overlap…)

A State of the Nation panel could have been important, but ended up being pitched to artists wanting to tour. Dan Haak (The Bridge on FBI) and D’Opus & Roshambo (who have a new record out, now when is D’Opus gonna release some of his instro beats?) were both on the panel, actually everyone was great on the panel, but the moderator kept directing things to touring issues. That may been great for artists wanting to tour, but for someone interested in hearing about new music and the way the different scenes around the country are developing, it was kinda irrelevant. Actually it seemed as though pretty much everyone from FBI was there – really cool catching up when it’s not pre/post show. There were loads of Electrofringe talks I was keen on but couldn’t get to – Robin Fox’s talk on synaesthesia was reportedly good.

I was on a panel too. It went pretty well – one of the best things about it for me was meeting Dan Rule, Ben from Mess + Noise and Ben Eltham from Straight outta Brisbane. Adam Zammit from the Brag was a cat amongst the love-in – he really made the panel work, such an opposite background to the rest of the group, it made the panel real rather than I love you/you love me. A few of the panels were less relevant to me, but another highlight was one at the ginger beer-soaked Festival Club with Kate from Dumbo feather, which I really love, Ben from M+N, Evet from Opulent and people from Sneaker Freaker, Is Not and Voiceworks. Apparently Sound Summit had an off year last year, but Music NSW took over this year and good thing they did – for a first year effort from that team it worked really well, but it’d be great to see the event challenging the status quo again rather than just importing a set of this year’s hyped DJs. I’d like to see more local acts at the gigs too and more mixing up of sets.

Apparently Emmy Hennings is writing a review for Cyclic, and Eliza Sarlos is writing it up for Mess and Noise.

I looked around on Sunday afternoon and thought – this is my idea of a really great holiday – so much of the greatest stuff about being in Newcastle for TINA is hanging out in between panels and gigs and chewing the fat with amazing inspirational people from around the country and this year was great for that. I didn’t like the ginger beer as much as I used to though.