One of the coolest records to appear this year, so far – is that the first appearance of a possible best album of the year yet? This could become the music writer’s alternative to the first spottings of easter eggs in the shops. Wait and see. – in any case, a fine record from the Alex Jarvis Band appeared a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve invited Alex to come on my show this Thursday.

Join the Dots is on FBI 94.5 or streamed online from 9pm until 11 Australian EST.

It’s hard to believe the date. Almost through January already! Tonight’s show was all-Australian and pretty indie too.

Howard – Guitar Hero
B. Calandra – In Space Alone
Holidays on Ice – Love is a Fashion
Knievel – Giant Steps
Hummel – Off My Feet
The Starboard Cast – Hourglass
Midget – Feel Like The Bad Guy
1-2-Seppuku – You’re Not Really a Decepticon
Def Wish Cast – Complete
Resin Dogs – A Destructive Circle (feat Abstract Rude)
Hermitude – Imaginary Friends
The Saints – Ghost Ships
The Laughing Clowns – Ghost Beat
Ed Keupper – Electrical Storm
The Years – Catherine Fields
Dolly Rocker Movement – For Those Teary Eyes
Drop City – Kaleides Into Me
Drop City – Paydirt
The Lovetones – A Place For Us
Blindside – Cliffhanger
The Heavy Horses – Love and Marriage
Further – Yesterday’s Enemy
The Clouds – Say It

A darker side of the Sydney group from post-punk site Nonightsweats‘s newly updated collection. Here’s an old Mark Mordue review from RAM too.

I wasn’t blown away by Deloris‘s first album, Fake Our Deaths, but Mark Mordue got me excited about them when he guested on my show last year.

I went back and listened to Ten Lives and it’s a pretty good listen: big, lyrical and epic. I’m disappointed I missed them live this time, because I haven’t quite made up my mind. It’s funny because I was raving to Mordue off-mic about Mess+Noise magazine, which has featured some really bold beautiful writing of late, and he hadn’t heard of it.

But I’ve since discovered Deloris=Mess+Noise. So Mordue’s obsessed by their band, plus he writes for a great site called Neumu alongside Ben Gook (one of my fave writers at the moment) who is, alongside his bandmate Marcus Teague, one of the key writers/section editors at M+N.

John Shand, in the SMH, describes last weekend’s Jazz In The Domain as “easily the best ever.”

Shand’s recent reviews, including his lyrical piece on Triosk a few months back, have really blown me away. I guess he’s been writing great articles for a long time, but it’s only recently I’ve become aware of them. Thanks. – anyway, I was at the Domain on Saturday, and it was good.

Bossa nova legend Oscar Castro-Neves led the band, and he and Brazilian percussion hero and Miles Davis/Weather Report-collaborator Airto Moreira were the drawcards. That was enough to get me there, despite the threatening weather earlier on Saturday. But they were joined by rhythm section, bassist Abraham Laboriel and drummer Alex Acuna. Damn, that was tight! The first half was a tribute to Jobim, which is pretty much the definition of sophisticated music, and culminated in a blinding solo piece on tambourine from Moreira. The second half was looser, exploding into a burst of percussion with band members running through the crowd.

Fergus Linehan has turned the Sydney Festival around over the past two years. Leo Schofield had contacts, unquestionably, but he was elitist in the worst way possible for a community event like this. Linehan’s got people on board who are engaged in events/music/scenes happening on the ground in Sydney, he’s remade the behemoths (especially the old James Morrison Jazz in the Domain) as challenging crowd-pleasing parties, and with the short shows in the city and out at Parramatta, opened more challenging aspects to people willing to take a chance.

NSW Premier, Morris Iemma, slumped in his seat a few rows in front, clearly had something else on his mind.

The Necks played last night at the Spiegeltent, in Hyde Park. I arrived late, so I didn’t realise how short their set was; in fact, I arrived moments after they started and saw the entire 30 or so minute piece. Thrillingly (and trillingly – thanks John Shand), there was a moment, a movement, where Tony Buck’s repeated cymbal motifs began to send waves of thrilling shivers through me. Spectacular, although rather than leading into a new height, it decayed into a ghostly percussion, and the end.

The last few weeks on my radio show have been very international, but I’ve been hearing plenty of great Australian releases.

So this Thursday night from 9pm until 11 I will be playing new records from groups like the Starboard Cast, the Years (which I love) and Howard, as well as classic songs from Knievel, Def Wish Cast and the Laughing Clowns.

Tonight’s show – on FBI 94.5 – was mostly a big payback to James Brown, but there was quite a bit more on show, especially from Sydney producer Jamie Lloyd.

James Brown – The Payback (Live in Kinshasha, Zaire, Sept 1974)
The Wiseguys – Start The Commotion
Rephrase – Boulevard
Kidzen – Mad Stream (Rephrase remix)
Coldcut – True Skool (feat Roots Manuva – Sway remix)
James Brown – Coldcut meet the Godfather (The Big Payback)
Double Dee & Steinski – Lesson Two: James Brown
Grant Green – Aint It Funky Now
The Last Poets – James Brown
James Brown – King Heroin
Bernard Purdie – Cold Sweat
James Brown – Hot (I Need To Be Loved Loved Loved – Re-edit)
Bootsy’s Rubber Band – The Pinocchio Theory
Fred Wesley & The Horny Horns feat Maceo Parker – Up For The Downstroke
Funkadelic – I Got a Thing, You Got a Thing
Parliament – Theme from The Black Hole
OTW – He Dance Funny
Chicken Lips – White Dwarf
Imagination – Music and Lights (dub)
Jamie Lloyd – Bad Motherfucker
Kidzen – Supersticious (Jamie Lloyd remix)

Playing catch up on air here. Two weeks worth of joining dots. The first week of the year featured an excerpt from DJ C‘s killer mix. The last week of 2006 featured an interview with Melb’s James Wilkinson, who moonlights with bands like High Pass Filter and Bucketrider, but has recently branched out on his own as Post.

>> 4 January

XTC – Bushman President
Lil Wayne – Georgia…Bush
The Legendary KO – George Bush Doesn’t Care About Black People (chopped and screwed)
Eminem – Mosh
Immortal Technique – The Cause of Death
Sage Francis – Makeshift Patriot
Hoonboy – Gold Dust Ragga
Layo and Bushwacka – Deep South
Howard Jones – Like to Get to Know You Well
Toekeo – John Howard is a Filthy Slut
Ride – Howard Hughes
My Bloody Valentine – To Here Knows When
Maps – Start Something
Underground Lovers – In My Head
GB3 – Repitition for Thinking
Mist and Sea – (track 2 unmastered)
Sympatico – Street Talk
Slowdive – Visions of LA
Restream – Christiantelevision
Pajo – Foolish King
Smashing Pumpkins – Quiet
Tricky – Pumpkin (Ambient)
Massive Attack – Euro Child
Bassment – Casual Contract

>> 28 December

Hayseed Dixie – Dirty Deeds (live)
AC/DC – Highway to Hell (PQ remix)
AC/DC – Johnny B Goode (live 79)
Candlesnuffer – Without Xenakis
Bucketrider – Akasa
Post – Heather
Os Mutantes – Bat Macumba
Post – Rounds
Chico Science & Nacao Zumbi – Cidadao Do Mundo
Lines – Short Cut 3
Post – Whales
Tati – Montagem Do Cartao Magnetico
Tom Ze – Peixe Viva (Ie Quitingue)
Post – DLTD
High Pass Filter – Skint (Ross McLennan’s Skinflint remix)
Snout – Night and Day
Rebecca’s Empire – Always Something There To Remind Me
Stardust Five – Things We Said In The Dark
Dirty Three – It Happened
Ensemble – Disown, delete (feat Cat Power)
Dinosaur Jr – Freak Scene

Wired editor Chris Anderson posted a breakdown of 2006 record sales on his Long Tail blog (via Alex Ross):

• Digital track sales: up 65%
• Album sales: down 5%
• The fastest growing music category was Classical, up 23% (this is mostly because Classical is so badly served in traditional bricks-and-mortar music stores. The fact that it’s one of the largest categories on iTunes, despite the demographic mismatch with the typical iTunes customer, is evidence that consumers are flocking online for choice)

The first two points are interesting, but it’s the third that’s got me thinking. Any implications for indie labels?

I’m talking about everything from sound art to dancehall and techno to punk jazz – traditional record shops can’t stock the breadth of all these sounds, so generally they don’t even try. And as record shops gradually decline, it’s these sounds cut first.

But classical has its stars, established names from Stravinsky to Steve Reich – I know that’s a gross simplification given the interplay between the orchestra/performer and the piece, but it does give you many more entrance points than indie music that tends towards the obscure and niche and has a single point of interest.

Any evidence either way?

Sydney’s liquor licencing arrangements have pretty much retarded the growth of the city’s music and arts scenes by limiting live music to pubs and nightclubs – the only venues that can afford the up to $60,000 or so live licences – or much larger spaces. That’s meant music that doesn’t fit those spaces doesn’t get heard. It’s very different to the other cities in Australia, especially Melbourne.

So it’s exciting to read Sunny Creagh’s story on the cover of today’s SMH that proposed changes to the NSW Liquor Act could result in a simpler licence that costs as little as $2500.

The hoteliers are up in arms, of course, being the anti-competitive types they are. But relaxed liquor licences can only be good for Sydney, catalysing the kind of rich cultural life that a major city this size should have, hot-housing emerging musicians and artists, and creating a more social engaged citizenry.

According to the SMH, the bill is “expected to reach Parliament after the state election, and has the support of the Premier, Morris Iemma.”

Crikey’s Michael Pascoe, in today’s bulletin, doubts anything will change for what he calls the Pubs, Clubs and Developers Party (the NSW ALP). He says they’ve shown form by letting clubs become property developers, increase cash payouts, backsliding on smoking restrictions, and Pascoe says they’ve done all this because pubs donate so much to the party.