This Most Ancient Land – Emma Bathgate & First Chorus
December 14, 2011
I’ve tracked down this recording of Emma Bathgate with the first chorus band of singers from the Fairfield Amphitheatre. It’s a pretty good recording i think. This was a hilarious day. We debated for some time about whether to perform because of the rain. During this song, the umbrellas all came out. Emma waved away an umbrella when it was offered.
Via Soundcloud: This Most Ancient Land – Ema & First Chorus Band of Singers by EMA..
Dancers in a 3 way mistletoe dress
November 15, 2011
Now here is a remarkable performance, for both dance and costume.
You’ve got Zoe and Bronwen and Priscilla dancing in Rebecca Mayo‘s mistletoe dress.
Looks like Some Kind of Art to me.
.
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I work with Zoe. She is an amazing person to have around the office. Really brightens your day.
via Precarity on Vimeo.
Circus by Susy Blue on Vimeo
November 13, 2011
This was a really fun day, helping out Susy and her band by dressing up at the Toff in Town one Sunday afternoon in September. They won a competition to have this video made, and ran a Pozible campaign to fund extra bits like the catering. The cello belongs to Anto, and there were a couple of moments when i was roughly in tune with the music, but no.. i am pretending to play.
Above all, it’s a beautiful song. Enjoy.
Junk City 5×5 – the final set list
September 25, 2011
It was so much fun to be involved in Tim and Sam’s radio show. The whole process of choosing songs, trying to find stories for each of them, burning them to CD.. and then driving off without the CD. As we were leaving Elphinstone, Tim drove off without an essential set of headphones. Then we got caught behind a learner driver, already behind schedule. Ah yes.. all part of the adventure.
The open mic can be a little terrifying.. even though we suspect there’s an audience of somewhere between 1-6 people. However these two wonderful people do their very best to make their guest feel comfortable. They are hilarious together, and are building up such a lovely new radio show.. i heartily recommend you listen in (fortnightly Wednesday evenings, wmafm.com).
Okay, here’s the set list i finally selected for Tim and Sam’s Junk City. Read the rest of this entry »
Junk City demands joy and melancholy
September 19, 2011
Been listening to Tim and Sam on Castlemaine community radio. They have a delightful session of stories about melancholy and joy, called Junk City. Each fortnight a guest will come on and talk about their top 5 songs in each category, songs that moved you or touched you in some way. Helen’s an artist in Castlemaine, and i loved her choices of Cat Empire, Paul Kelly’s Billy Baxter and yes Tim Deee-lite Groove is in the Heart.
..and now they’ve asked me to join them. The show is coming up: 9:00-11:00 pm AEST Wednesday 21 September. [you can stream live at wmafm.com] The thing is to choose songs that have affected me deeply, songs that have a story. How will i choose? Here’s the long-list (below).
[Note, post-script: this long shortlist is out of date already. You'll see from my Last.fm profile what i've been listening to and loving in the last 24 hours - a better indication of what i'll be playing. And there's even a list of my most recently loved tracks, or sorted by all time.]
Launch of the 8 foot felix
May 22, 2011
We all know there’s no shortage of mad latin/gypsy pirate bands at Open Studio in Northcote.
Just when you thought the world could brook no more such narrative, along comes the wonderful 8 foot felix. Their shtick is that of a group of sailors setting off on a wild and perilous journey, with adventurer Will Tait at the helm. On this night* they set sail, gradually building up to a rollicking, fast-paced mayhem, that had the crowd jumping, stomping and crying out for more.
Brendan’s carousing trumpet plays first mate to Will’s captain Tait. And there’s the masterful Kirri on fiddle, Francesca playing a soulful cello, as well as Steve on perčussion and others on delightful French horn and double bass.
This is meant to be a video from their myspace, but i’m not sure it’s working.
Excerpt from Amorcito Corazon
8 Foot Felix | Myspace Music Videos
Barons of Tang go wild in the usa
May 13, 2011
Ok for a few years I’ve found them too hard core, and they were always playing at the same time as spoonbill, so I would never stay and listen.
But tonight* they hit the spot like never before. They are extraordinary. And they’re going to the usa. i don’t think i’ve seen them properly since Aviva joined – her clarinet and bass clarinet riffs added a lot to the sound for me. Loved it.
Dance! Did we? I love those gigs where you start out kind of half-hearted, an you wind up jumping like a mad thing and shouting for more.
*When i say tonight i mean: Northcote Social Club 30 April.
dr brown heals what ails ya
May 11, 2011
Lou and I went to see dr brown play the tuxedo cat. It was the final night of the mammoth comedy festival and our last chance to catch this californian doctor clown this year.
He is insane. We hooted with laughter, and I can’t even remember why. He’s just really silly, and open, and ridiculous.
But the lovely thing was this: the week before i’d been to his “clowning with doctor brown” workshop, and as i saw him in performance – it all made sense. Everything he’d been trying to teach us, all the wisdom he’d aimed to impart; it all fell into place.
The workshop was crazy. I went because Lynne and Ahmarnya were going, and i’d wanted to try this for a while. The thing about simple clown is not that you have to make people laugh, which is good as I have no skills in physical comedy, but that when you fail – people need to see and feel your genuine emotional response. You need to connect authentically. To be vulnerable.
We all try to act upset, or show our masks of distress and failure, but the clown can simply be open and present, and let the whole world in.
It feels impossible, the more you try, the more you fail even at failing.
And then comes a moment of extreme frustration where you surrender completely, and the doctor calls out, “Yes you’re beautiful right there, we love you there!” Ah, thank heavens i got it finally, the surrender moment.
of course, if you can make people laugh.. it’s a whole lot better.
Sew Funky presents Beasty Beats
May 6, 2011
And the next day – after the Castlemaine festival madness – we all supported the legendary Sam Downing in her Sew Funky event “Beasty Beats” at the Elphinstone Hotel.. an awesome day of monster-making. Around 80 people, children and their parents, designed and created their own monsters in all shapes and sizes. At the end we had a monster monster dance. Fun.
Delights of Castlemaine
May 5, 2011
One of the highlights of the Castlemaine festival was the Baroqu-eoke performance, “So you think you can Prance”. This was a very fun event. We’d seen them dressing up in the early part of the day, and i was looking forward to finding out more. The costumes were magnificent, as were the instruments and their players. Genuine harpsichord, viol-de-gamba, mediaeval flute and fiddle.
For the first part of the show, the MC taught us a range of emotional expression, Baroque-style. When expressing emotions in the world of Baroque (restoration?) one must always place the weight on one foot or the other. Never evenly balanced.
After teaching us the basics, we were asked to dance these emotions to a series of classic karaoke numbers: Dancing Queen, Don’t you Want me Baby? and You Should be Dancing. Classic! At one point, there were no volunteers for the karaoke, so Tim in his role as Barry Fluff the festival host pointed at Sam and me, calling out, “They’ll do it! Choose those two!” Nice one Tim – clearly we were being too shy. Sam and i belted out a raucous version of ‘Don’t you want me baby’, and were awarded a free jug of Pimms next door at Madame Brussels. Sam mentioned later on that perhaps we might have attempted to sing in a more refined way, however i’d been following the lead of the “Village Idiot” character who would sing in the most tuneless and hopeless way.
Tim made a quick video, you’ll get the idea. Oh boo, it doesn’t work. Why not? Oh well you’ll have to go over to their site to watch it.
Ajak Kwai is astounding
April 19, 2011
i’ve seen this woman before somewhere. She plays a very good innocent character, pretending to be no-one in particular, who then goes on to take the audience’ breath away with her incredible voice. So as well as buying her cd, i went out hunting on the youtubes and found these live performances, from a show in Melbourne in 2008: “Yego Luelku (Leave Me Alone)”
Wait, there’s another one: “All My Wives”.
Tasting Treasure by Roundangle
March 24, 2011
I love the work that Roundangle does. Their multi-sensory adventures are challenging and fun. This one was at the Melbourne museum, and made for the under-five crowd. So i invited Isabella and Lynne to join me and we had a lovely day.
At the beginning of the show, we were invited to crawl past the cardboard city, through the plastic-filled tent into the forest of the senses. Most adults thought this was a children-only affair, but Ilan and i agreed that we were definitely going to join in this adventure.
Plus the stage manager insisted that i “Crawl Through the Tent Michael!!”
(i paid my $2 and i’m not missing a single moment!)
They taught us the Indigenous phrase for ‘welcome to country’ – WoMinJaika – and as each group called out their part of the word, we were called to our part of the journey.
A forest fairy made us all into seeds, growing us with sun and water and love, sharing the treasures of native Quandong and Lemon Myrtle. An old woman of the mountains showed us how to make soup with Mountain pepper leaves and Old Man’s Weed.
A delightful honey bee took us into the flower forest and showed us how to sprinkle our pollen on the flowers. This was really fun.. huge flowers that opened up and produced fruit as we showered our pollen.
And then the spirit of the rocks, who brought his very small puppet mate along to share wattle seeds. (Really yum seeds and great puppet work!)
Afterwards Lynne said one thing she liked was that they weren’t doing that hyper-energetic, super-lively “children’s theatre” thing, but rather playing to a crowd of all ages, and telling warm engaging stories with a sense of kindness and humour. i think by the end of it, most of the adults had learned to join in as well.
i wish it was on again soon: i’d tell you to go and see it. Especially if you can take children along with you. Great work Roundangle people!
The magical funkiness of Jamie Lidell in Brunswick town
March 14, 2011
So Amarina and i went to see Jamie Lidell at the East Brunswick club. i’m still reeling with the pleasure of the experience. He is funny, fabulous and so funky! Did we dance? Oh Yes. Everybody danced.
A good, well-balanced set of old and new. i’m so glad he played one or two of the solo numbers – the ones where he builds up the entire song using his voice and some kind of loop pedal / electro board thingie. The one i recall is “The City”.
The rest of the set, he plays with a fantastic drummer and this astonishingly energetic keyboard guy, who went topless and sweaty at the first opportunity (it was a hot evening). In contrast Jamie kept the black and silver vinyl jacket on all night, occasionally flashing us the neon heart blinking away from the inner lining.
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Here are some videos showing his enchanting and soulful vocal beats. Not as good as live, but hey.
The official vid of Multiply