I’ve been hearing a lot about Joel Stern’s Audiopollen nights up in Brisbane of late. It’s a Sunday nighter that sprung from Stern’s radio show of the same name. And with local bands The Deadnotes and Blank Realm, it’s become a hub of activity that balances Lawrence English’s Room40 label nights. Last month’s Wire has Jon Dale covering the OtherFilm festival and Audiopollen scenes, and online a selection of tracks for download. Keep an eye out for a Blank Realm interview in the next issue of Cyclic Defrost.

Clearly people have differing opinions on the programming at this year’s Sydney Festival - I’ll show my cards and say that every year for the past three or four (that I’ve been in Sydney) I’ve found more in the program I want to see and hear.

High points this year:

• the Kev Carmody show at the State (Tex, the Drones, the Herd - even Claire Bowditch and Missy Higgins were great - but Kev’s voice had a texture, a quality that cut through me)
• the unexpected and disarming charm of Tunng
• the guys from Uber Lingua in Angel Place on the opening night
• Moodymann’s shambolic record spinning at the Beck’s Bar
• Weatherall, Pivot, Mountains in the Sky, Caribou and loads of other stuff was great too

Most of those acts could have played on a standard festival or on their own steam.

That’s the general criticism. The festival should use its funds/power to stage important, challenging art, rather than Brian Wilson’s Beach Boys at Bernie’s show. But getting people engaged in the festival takes talking to them, it’s a conversation about what art is - and if you’re not engaged with performance and art and music, then Brian Wilson’s necrotic wobble might take you back to a time when you were, giving you an in to the rest. Same with Weatherall or Low.

Mark Bahnisch from Larvatus Prodeo wrote about the high/low art thing in the Australian’s Higher Ed section on Wednesday.

High art or heritage arts (as Julian Knowles described in a comment to the previous thread) is the ‘dead white male’ stuff - Bach, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Donatello, etc. Low art is the stuff you’re running into regularly - The Smiths and Kelis, Gondry, Hussein Chalayan, the Simpsons. One of the biggest differences between pop culture and high art is scale. Theatre production or classical performance demands specific location/space, people/talent, advertising and so on. An indie band comes road-box ready to ROCK! Okay, got a bit excited there, but you get my point. There’s a difference.

Bahnisch quotes Oxford researchers Tak Win Chan and John Goldthorpe’s cultural survey results:

We find little evidence for the existence of a cultural elite who would consume ‘high’ culture while shunning more ‘popular’ cultural forms … There are certain individuals who fit this description, but they are too few in number to figure in any survey-based analysis.

Bahnisch followed:

What they reveal is that the tired arguments counterposing high and pop culture have less and less resonance with reality.

So people don’t strictly consume high art, it tends to be high and low. But not low sans high, right? And while Shakespeare wasn’t exactly high art in his time, now it takes a certain amount of cultural capital - which Bahnisch crystalises as “the learned set of dispositions necessary to appreciate high culture” - to appreciate the nuances, the language, etc.

But you need to learn a new language of music and subcultural signposts to understand house music, too, or noise. You need context to understand any niche area of music making. That’s why people often dismiss such music at first glance, then come back as their understanding increases.

The idea of cultural capital comes from French philosopher Pierre Bourdieu, and Bahnish argues that in Bourdieu’s time, there was a high correlation between bourgeois status and a taste for high culture. But Goldthorpe argues that status is now attached to material rather than cultural consumption - kicking the ladder out from art’s feet.

So, coming back to the festival, you’ve really got a few categories: high cost events that connect with people and those that don’t, and low cost ones that do/don’t too - then there’s the art context, you’ve got events that are challenging and events that are safe, and some of those are successful and some fail, too.

But art still plays an important role in our society, even if it’s not tied to the aspirations of the middle class, right? Should the festival’s limited dollars be spent on the art people need or the shows they want?

Today, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologised to the Stolen Generation as the first priority of his newly elected government.

(pic by Wendy Tanner)

In one of the many philosophical asides in E.L. Doctorow’s tale of the machinations of NYC, The Waterworks, he comments that the only place you’re outside history is in heaven - a boring, eventless place - otherwise you’re in history and the events of history are happening around you. That may be true, but things got stuck for the past decade of dogged, determined neo-con (were those three letters ever so well used?) politics. What a difference a couple of months make, it’s tough to avoid the conclusion we’re now living in auspicious times.

The death throes of the Howard years are plainly visible in Wilson Tuckey’s cries - Chris Graham, editor of the National Indigenous Times, wrote in Crikey last month that the ordeal would be worthwhile if it forced Tuckey to sit through the apology, because “there’s a very real chance his head might explode … [doing] more for reconciliation than any apology ever could” - Tuckey, however, continued his past few days’ distinguished behaviour and left the parliament, loudly reciting the Lord’s Prayer (hands on ears and stomping his feet, I suppose), before Rudd began.

Rudd’s apology this morning was frank, sincere, and most importantly, unqualified. You can only imagine the semantic, condescending mess it would have been in the opposition’s hands (actually you just had to watch Nelson’s attempt, with Julie Bishop watching tersely); but that’s it, they’re opposition now. And the thrill of this thing, this apology, that a lot of Australians thought might never happen - and preceded by a welcome to country to open parliament - auspicious indeed.

The things Rudd apologised for, however, did not happen in the past 11 years. It’s Australia’s chequered relationship with its first people, and it’s something that’s going to take a lot more than just words to fix. Stark differences in life expectancy and education levels between Koori and mainstream Australia must be addressed. The apology is a vital step, but it’s just the first.

Tropfest is about as thrilling a destination as the cafe that spawned it, however many years ago. But in possibly the clearest sign it’s become a big ticket festival, the short film showcase has inspired a fringe event that’s notched up six or seven eight years itself. Not sure if they’d like to be known as a Tropfest Fringe, but there it is.

Same day as Tropfest (Sunday, February 17) and running since 2001, the festival uses battery powered video projectors with sound simulcast on FM radio - bring your battery powered radio. And if you’ve got a film/video, send it to Squatspace (PO BOX 391 Newtown NSW 2042). Click on the pic above for all details.

If you want something DIY but a little live-er, then the Imperial Panda festival at various Surry Hills galleries will be on the cards. Indie theatre and DJs will abound. This weekend, check the pic below for all details.

Sufjan Stevens’ show at the State Theatre on Monday night looked good. There were moments of bombastic brilliance, from the band, there were the gorgeous evolving geometries of his psychedelic visuals - in fact, the whole thing was a visual treat - the outfits, the cute attempt at hula-hooping. Too bad it was, to twist Emmy Hennings‘ words, “contrived, twee schoolyard indie”. Though you wouldn’t have picked it from the audience, which bordered on the sycophantic, calling for how many encores - I lost count.

They all loved little Suffy, even him (though agreeably not him).

There were songs about towns and highways, about serial killers, he had an explosive band and quiet folk songs, seemingly stream of consciousness anecdotes about sugar highs - Suffy had plenty to grab your interest. Just not much charisma or spark, or as my partner of 10 years said afterwards, “I just wasn’t intrigued by him”. I agree, musically and personally I just didn’t care. I am, however, seriously in the minority.

This article in today’s Good Living reminded me of something: is it true the recent spate of inner city bar renovations has been funded by the tobacco business (to get around recent legislation banning smoking in licensed premises)?

It’s inevitable really.

Kev Carmody tribute show tonight at the State. My fam’s saying last night was “special”.

Jazz in the Domain tomorrow night, with Phil Slater’s band and the Spanish Harlem band, followed by Andy Weatherall at the Oxford Art Factory

Tunng on Sunday night, Spiegeltent.

Sufjan Stevens on Monday night.

And then I’m playing records on Thursday night at the Beck’s Bar with Caribou, Mountains in the Sky, Jamie Lloyd and Somatik - you should come if you’re around. How I’m going to work out what to play amidst this craziness I have no idea. You?

The man may have a history in advertising and the arts stretching three decades, but by the end of his Sydney Festival tenure he was a fogey. Plain and simple. Boring, stuck in his ways, and running a festival that was polarised between (a) a majority of elitist events celebrating the work of dead white dudes and (b) a few low-brow mainstream events, who could forget how middle of the road Jazz in the Domain was. And his regular columns were fixated on grafitti artists.

I guess he’s retired, at 72, though he’s still writing a column for the Bulletin and doing the talks circuit.

The reason I bring it up is Daily Tele writer Nick Pickard’s comment that people are complaining about the festival.

In the Oz, Matthew Westwood said this year’s festival “lacks balance and is a disappointment to some … Theatre has only a small presence, as does visual art. Classical music is absent altogether.”

The Herald Sun’s Chris Boyd said Linehan’s 2008 program is “seriously lacking in good judgement and good taste.”

Pickard reckons critics are dreaming of the past and forgetting the reality of that past.

I am not sure where it all comes from, but I suspect it is certain sections of festival going people who have a shared nostalgia for the days when Leo Schofield and Brett Sheehy were the festival directors. They were the days when chamber music and good old text based theatre were the big hit numbers.

I have a different recollection of those days, and am firmly planted in the camp relieved by current artistic director Fergus Linehan’s vision to create not only an exciting festival, but an energy that fills the streets. It’s a less dusty and more accessible programme that makes The Arts sexy, beautiful and brazen.

Me too. It’d be great to see some more challenging works presented. But the festival’s mandate isn’t polite music, arts and theatre programming you can get year round in Sydney. It should be new or new to us. It should make people think differently. It should fascinate and inspire. And while that may not be true for Brian Wilson, it’s been true for a lot of Festival shows I have seen over the past three years.

It was the harbour city collected en masse last night to open the Sydney Festival. A huge public affair with much less of the usual VIP business.

When you talk about getting cities working better, this kind of event has to play a crucial role in getting people out of their usual head (and physical) spaces, thinking about the city differently, and meeting, listening, dancing and celebrating.

There must have been at least 50,000 people squashed into the city’s mesh of interconnecting streets, although the SMH says “tens of thousands” (the Telegraph has since reported 150,000). Three couples got hitched on Macquarie St, Brian Wilson and Paul Kelly played in the Domain, Fuzzy threw a nu-rave/Baltimore/beats party in Martin Place, Spankrock played around the corner; and even further around the corner, in Angel Place, the Uber Lingua crew had their own thing going on.

I’ll start with the biggest. Brian Wilson was as banal and Bernie-esque (as in Weekend At Bernie’s) as he was at Byron Bay’s Splendour in the Grass festival, 2006. As he sang from his LCD autocue, and told the crowd to put out their (”god damn”) cigarettes, I wondered if those amazing albums (Pet Sounds, Smile) happened by accident rather than talent. Probably not, but these tours are diluting his legacy.

The dancing, singing-along and beaming Boomers loved it.

Spankrock and the Fuzzy party with Kato et al sounded hot, but the respective spaces were crammed with kids in bright clothes, and I couldn’t be bothered fighting my way through. Instead, I went to Angel Place to check out the Uber Lingua crew.

Bemused middle agers, Shire blondies, music geeks, hip kids, Japanese and Indian Australians, loads of Brazilians, actually people from right around Sydney and the world were squashed into this Melbourne-esque laneway. I’ve loved the space since the mid-90s when I organised parties at the former Angel Place Brasserie (as Obvious), so these days even a classical piece at the Recital Hall has a nostalgic charge, let alone a no-holds-barred street party.

The light sprinkling of rain did nothing to dampen spirits.

Instead of performers on one central stage, different performers were based at each corner in the weaving laneway between Pitt and George streets. It was kinda sound system style, though they never battled, they simply took it in turns, with the focus of the music shifting from time to time.

Stu Buchanan (who the Guardian just voted best blogger for world music) selected music between performances that spread the gamut from indigenous and Asian hip-hop, to Gypsy beats, reggae and soca to techno, baile funk and a world’s worth of other music. It was an obvious thrill for everyone involved (on the performance and audience sides of the equation).

When you’re cooking a spaghetti bolognaise, there’s a point where all the ingredients coalesce into a flavour that’s more than the sum of the parts. You get the peaks of individual ingredients, but there’s something more too. It was like that tonight. Fabulously inclusive, welcoming and cooperative, an event that uses space in the city in a different and innovative way, that gets people interacting with the city spaces in a way that town planners would spend millions and still fail to do.

And that’s just the first night.

(last night at Five Dock, Sydney)