I like finding new record labels, especially when they’re based in Sydney and doing something cool like being online and giving away their music, and, even cooler still, make music I like. Cabinet Pin is a newish label run by a guy called Jeff who has a band called the Desks. As well as his songs, Cabinet Pin has songs from Sparrow Hill and Fisheads of Fun, which I like.
The sunny state is growing fast. We’ve been hearing it since the ’80s. But however many years after a generation of aspirational suburbanites upped stumps and moved north for sun and surf-brand t-shirts, there’s another generation coming of age, kids old enough to party, make music and get involved. Whatever you think about Queensland, and there are no shortage of pejoratives available, the state’s given Australia some of its finest bands – from the Go Betweens and the Saints to the Resin Dogs. And that output seems set to expand.
Ben Eltham writes about music for Murdoch’s Courier Mail in Brisbane, the only metro daily in a one paper town – though Fairfax recently stepped up with the online Brisbane Times. Ben started the city’s Straight Out Of Brisbane festival and he plays in a instrumental hip-hop group called Briztronix. He’s my guest tomorrow night on Join the Dots, 9 until 11pm on FBI 94.5 in Sydney or online anywhere.
The Cosmonauts of Inner Space featuring Ari Up – Allergy
Arrow – Groove Master (Acid Soca House Dub)
Donovan Bennett – Jonkanoo
Explainer – Rasta Chick
Mighty Duke – Rock Meh
Morgan Geist – Probs
Dimitri From Paris – Dirty Larry (Idjut Boys Roast Beef Remix)
The Tiki Two – The Best is Yet to Come
One of the most curious characters I met while living in Canberra was Darren Ziesing, better known in some circles as Stalker.
Turning out album after album of dense, layered techno in sleeves that were desperately short of information, especially for a liner notes junkie like me; he does something and moves on. That’s great musically. But it’s consigned him to a bit part in the broader music scene – if noone hears the music, was there any point making it?
Fortunately, Ziesing’s reappeared with a new online music shop, Polybonk, and apparently, a sixth solo album.
The site’s ‘about us’ section link is broken, but from what I can gather from the blog, it’s still germinating. Pitched as a community site where artists can upload their music and sell it to each other/others, you can find three minute tracks through to hour long epics from Stalker, Sleep and Exo available in what almost seems like a pro rata price of around $1.80 to $10.
I had a great, brief conversation on Saturday with Lee Tran Lam about the differences between blogs and fanzines (at the zine fair) – for me, a great zine is so much more exciting than a blog, but my generational fixation on objects may be just that, generational. A lot of the zines for sale at the fair were not much more than cut+pasted blog posts interspersed with pictures and degenerative photocopy. The way I interact with blogs is different, in most cases it’s something semi-parallel to a ‘real life’ relationship with the person.
I was skeptical about the Writer’s Festival session on fanzines considering the lack of zinesters on the panel. Like other music panels there was some confusion around the topic, in this case whether the panel was even on zines or blogs – two fundamentally different things, although superficially both fill a similar niche. Stu Buchanan’s late addition evened the balance, towards blogging at least. I didn’t make it – I wound up in East Sydney at the Italian Festival. Fortunately, Stu covered it on his other blog.
Stu sees blogs as a fundamental change in the way we connect as human beings.
To dismiss blogs – as happened on yesterday’s panel – with the premise “just because everyone can blog doesn’t mean they should” misses the point. Unlike fanzines or any other form of self-publishing, blogs are not about ‘making one’s mark’, or setting yourself up for a career in journalism or creative writing. Rather, it’s a further extension of self-expression (haircut, t-shirt, blog). In the same way that we don’t take photographs in an effort to become photographers, we don’t blog to become writers.
I love the idea, borne out in my experience, that the end result is all of us being more creatively engaged and creatively aspirational – ‘produsers’ according to Stu.
The more photographs we take and post to Flickr, the better photographers we become, the more we begin to appreciate the aesthetic process, the more we become aware of composition and form. If this spurs someone onto to becoming a professional photographer and ditching their mundane 9-5, then so be it. However, the most likely outcome is that we as a society become more creatively minded. Our ability to appreciate and critique art and culture – in all its boundless forms – improves, and with it, the potential to herald a renaissance of sorts.
Youth Group – Shadowlands
Golden Rough – People in the Street
Jason Walker & the Last Drinks – Dissatisfaction
Flying Burrito Brothers – Dark End of the Street
Golden Smog – He’s a Dick
Wilco – Passenger Side
Billy Bragg & Wilco – Hesitating Beauty
The Autumn Defense – Written in the Snow
Loose Fur – Elegant Transaction
Jason Walker & the Last Drinks – Streets of Baltimore
El Mopa – Casuarina Sands
Glovebox – Please Skill Me
Night Radio – Timber Town
Minh-Tu Duong – Chickpea
Saddleback – Rain in Sea
Drawings on a Chalkboard – Childhood Profession
Young Professionals – Smug Man
Sly Hats – Someone to Dress Up For
Sly Hats – I Miss Your Old House
The Minimum Chips – Goodbye
Molasses – Fingers in my Eyes
Jeremy Dower – Windy Ponies
Georgia Anne Muldrow – Blackman
Georgia Anne Muldrow – Leroy
Sa-Ra – Fly Away (feat Erykah Badu & Georgia Anne Muldrow)
Common – Heaven Somewhere (feat Omar, Cee Lo, Bilal, Jill Scott, Mary J Blige, Erykah Badu, Lonnie ‘Pops’ Lynn)
Erykah Badu – The Grind
I’m playing records at the Metro in Sydney next Wednesday before Dave McCormack and the Polaroids play. It’s part of the Sydney Film Festival, details here. Other DJs throughout the week include Peter Hollo, Jack Shit and Dave Regos.
The PM talks about being forward thinking, but he’s hooked on vintage fossil fuels. He leads one of the country’s most exclusive boys clubs. He travels a lot and has a big entourage. He can chat about himself for hours, but sidelines critics.
Replace the fossil fuels with the just about fossilised musical medium of vinyl, and… that’s a DJ, right?
Nicely manhandled pic thanks to patopeaking.
Or at least get three Snawklor albums.
The 10 year collaborative project between Melbourne’s Dylan Martorell (Hidden Archive) and Nathan Gray (Undo Design), Snawklor, produced beautiful sound art and experimental music. Go to the duo’s blog, where they’ve made three albums available for free download.
Context is everything.
Especially in music with its varied layers of meaning and shifting poles of cultural cachet. The mix of sounds, the place you hear the music, the attitude – whatever that means – and the music itself. That’s why disco occupies such a fraught place in the cultural landscape. It’s hedonistic music. Sleazy, superficial, getting off, getting on your feet and partying music. And all too often you hear it in glamorous marble-lined bars or on sparkling film soundtracks – it’s all high and no low, you forget what made disco essential: partying your way out of a bad place, the dancefloor equaliser.
Context was why I fell in love with Nottingham’s DiY label back in the mid-’90s. They had characters like Nail, Brooks and Atjazz playing beautiful deep house at squat/free parties. The glorious deep house records released on the label were like a slap in the face, packed with context unlike so many of their contemporaries.
Since getting back to Sydney a year and a half ago I’ve heard about a party doing similar things. For one reason or another last Saturday was the first time I’ve made it to Paradise Lost; for anyone who’s yet to go, they’re as great as everyone says. The DJs know their music – bits of uptempo hip-hop, house and techno in the mix, but the main sound is disco – the crowd knows what’s going on too, but in a friendly and excited way. The blend is intoxicating.
Held on the anniversary of Mabo and coinciding with Reconciliation Week, the party was a fundraiser for Aboriginal women’s health. A Koori elder rapped about Mabo while Silvio Mangels worked the EQ. That’s context!
Silvio Mangels – So Much For Love, So Much For Happiness (48.9M)
Talk to me