After interminable speculation, the music geeks’ music fest, All Tomorrow’s Parties, is finally doing something in Australia. For now it’s just the offshoot Don’t Look Back series – one off gigs featuring a band doing a classic album whole (past shows have seen Gang of Four doing Entertainment and Dinosaur Jr on You’re Living All Over Me) – but who knows what else might be in store.
It’s exciting, the thought of an election!
My brother’s obsessed with sport, so are lots of my friends, but I’ve never been able to muster up quite the same passion. Teams lining up for games and big cheques doesn’t get me. The election, on the other hand, and especially this one, is a desperate battle of wills. However similar their policies, everything’s riding, for both teams, on the outcome of this every now and again marathon.
That’s why this short doco is worth watching.
According to Crikey, this new footage of events that led to the Port Hedland detention centre riots, 2001, was released because:
producers of the US reality television program Most Shocking sought it from the Australian Migrant Resource Centre this year. The producers of the program, which airs on Channel Seven, eventually rejected the Port Hedland tape on the grounds that it wasn’t “pro government forces”.
It was filmed by the government contractor, Australasian Correctional Management, to be circulated in the Department of Immigration.
This competition isn’t just about betting on the outcome at the TAB; it’s going to profoundly affect many many lives. Both sides have similar policies, but things have changed dramatically under the current watch.
The major labels strike an increasingly hysterical line about what’s legal and what’s not in music filesharing.
But it’s happening, and I’m more interested in whether internal controls, like a developing ethics of filesharing, are appearing.
Some things I hear are:
I read a thread on M+N promoting a blog called Sure ’nuff ‘n yes I do. The blog’s sole purpose is providing free album downloads from artists like Ash Ra Tempel, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, John Fahey, The Congos and Arvo Pärt. Aside from their good taste in music, I was a bit disturbed by comments like:
I don’t believe in selling music personally, I think it is something that should be shared. Not everyone has hundreds of dollars to spend on CDs. Don’t you think that poor people deserve to hear music too?
That’s nice, but the reality is someone will search for, say Mick Turner’s record, find the blog and download it, instead of going and buying it from whatever online store where it’s actually quite cheap.
And as Emmy posted:
it’s not just audiences who are poor, it’s artists too. An artist like Mick Turner isn’t rolling in cash, you know. He lives in suburban Melbourne with two young children and a partner who is also a musician – it’s not exactly a financially stable lifestyle.
It does feel cheap and mean. With the music by dead people, and the stuff that’s commercially unavailable, I say big ups. But many of those listed are amazing records by people who are still alive, and I think that sort of blog/fileshare situation disrespects the artists it purports to be about.
The alternative, and pretty seductive viewpoint (quoted from forum regular Blake3030) goes like this:
I don’t mind the Dirty Three. I’ve never heard Mick Turner’s solo music. Usually people from bands’ solo work isn’t as good as their bands work. I wouldn’t risk $25 of my money on it when I have a list of about 30 records I do like and want to own that i’m trying to find. However, I would download it for free and if I enjoyed it, I would buy it.
I tend to think that’s too idealistic. I mean could you imagine going into a restaurant, asking for a meal, and then paying if and only if the meal was a taste-bud sensation (and in the real world, most people not even paying for a mind blowing three chef hats 10 course spectacular).
I hoped Anton Corbijn’s take on the Joy Division story would be this good.
And it was.
The stark, monochromatic scenes, and Sam (“at least you’re not the singer from the Fall”) Riley, pushed you into Ian Curtis’s world – it was pretty overwhelming, to be honest.
Moving Ninja – Tunnel (Garage Pressure remix)
Flippo – Rain
Westernsynthetics – Revolution!
Ed Seven – Oh Haych
Monk Fly – The Coming Summer
Thief – Worldwide
Agency Dub Collective – Light It Up Dub
Baseball – Faith Like a Cross/Trust Like a Flag
Pikelet – A Bunch
Pikelet – Bug In Mouth (Faux Pas remix)
Faux Pas – Changes
Panel of Judges – Faux Park
Panel of Judges – Gothic Picnic Basket
Hi God People – The Sunshine Decides
Dead C – L.A. Confidential
Ed Kuepper – Yellow Dog
The Sunnyboys – Physical Jerk
Even – Show Me Some Discipline
The Meanies – Ton of Bricks
Even – Stupid Dream
Hoodoo Gurus – Leilani
The Victims – I’m Flipped Out Over You
The Scientists – We Had Love
The Scientists – Frantic Romantic
The Someloves – Know You Now
Makers of the Dead Travel Fast – Taels of the Saeghors
Simon Kelly Band – Heavy Load
Backsliders – Duke
Pang – Ghosts
Justice & Kaos – Paperchase
Regal – The Village (AGFA Remix)
Chris Gudu – Bavimbeni
Renovators Dream – In Pieces
Sublime – Slow Ride
Pepper – Rent
Slightly Stoopid – Fat Spliffs
Damian Marley – One Loaf of Bread (Something For You)
Ray Darwin – Peoples Choice
A Certain Ratio – Good Together
New Order – Vanishing Point
The Emergency – Spending Time
Watussi – Mira
Juke Barritone – Oh Yeah
A Made Up Sound – 699
Grand Danois – The Yell of The Spirit
Digital Mystikz – Guilty (w/- Sgt Pokes)
Mista Savona – Sharazad
Flying Lotus – Spicy Sammich
Katalyst – How About Us (w/- Steve Spacek)
Stalker – Fragil
Stuck for something to do on the Saturday after the one after next?
It’s a party at the Sly Fox in Enmore (Sydney). Free entry and cheapish drinks. Diverse music – take a look at that list, from Paradise Lost’s Silvio Mangels (disco and old school house) to live music maker The Sculpter – and my first time DJing anywhere for absolutely ages, how could you miss it.
I’m writing a piece for the next issue of Cyclic Defrost (looks like being one of the best issues yet) on the emerging dubstep community in Australia. So this week – being APRA week at FBI – I’ll be dropping a very Sydney-centric selection of off-kilter beats, to start with, including brand new stuff from Westernsynthetics, Ed Seven and the DNBBQ crew.
Regular guest Andrew from the Drum called in sick:
I’ve just been handed a metric fuckload of work that needs doing in the next 48 hours, so instead of being cute and knowlegable on radio I’m going to be spending some relaxing time doing extra unpaid work from home all evening.
Which just means there’ll be more music on the air tonight – FBI 94.5 from 9pm, Join The Dots.
Contributors were emailed yesterday to say the recently published 15th issue would be Melbourne music mag, M+N‘s last as a print publication. The email, from editors/proprietors Danny Bos and Craig Mathieson, said they plan to carry on online.
The site’s forum immediately moved to outpouring of grief mode, but Bos said it might be premature:
We are indeed looking at new directions for Mess+Noise, we’re certainly not struggling at all, albeit my hair isn’t blowing out the window of my soft-top but that was never the plan (hang on let me turn down my many plasma tvs). There’s plenty more awesomeness on the horizon for us here, whether it’s in paper, online, cloth or smoke signals. We’ll have a full run-down of the direction we’re keen on for 2008 in the next week.
The mag was a gutsy, ambitious move from the moment it was first touted – 10,000 copies of perfect bound, gloss paper with exciting, personal and passionate music writing. The format was expensive, but as as a statement of intent it was pretty impressive. I’ll be looking forward to what comes next.
My ears are still ringing.
I’ve been looking forward to Ed Kuepper’s gig at the Basement for ages. And what we could hear through the noise sounded like it was probably good, but the sound was so loud. So loud. All I could hear around me was glass shatter treble splashing, reverberation and people complaining about the sound. I assume the Basement would hire a sound guy, but there was no evidence to support that tonight.
It started well. I arrived at about 7 to interview Ed for my radio show. We caught the last bit of sound check, including the band’s gorgeous Go Betweens cover, ‘Finding You’. I chatted with Ed over a beer for half an hour (it’ll air on my show in a couple of weeks), then went back to the bar as the tables filled up.
Married 50-somethings – a fair few looked like fading rock stars themselves – took up most of the dining area. Bottles of red wine, steaks and plenty of gesticulation. The band took the stage with little fanfare, horn section, keys/double bass, former Saint/Laughing Clown Jeffrey Wegener’s handlebar moustache and Sunnyboys bassist Peter Oxley.
It was LOUD from the first moment they touched instruments. Bogong moths careered down towards Ed’s mic as though their kamikaze manoeuvres could stop the frightening, ear quiveringly dense sound. No luck.
A shame because at points it was transcendent in a way few music makers can manage. Those 50-somethings had their fancy phones recording video and pictures, and instrumental space jazz jams gave way to bluesy riffs, the fantastic sax player blasted squealing vocalisations, and it was just magical.
Too bad we had to leave before the second set.
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