five by five » music

This Most Ancient Land – Emma Bathgate & First Chorus

mic — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 22:20:50 +0000

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..

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Bigmouth strikes again

mic — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 22:18:02 +0000

Well that was fun.

Last night I sang with around 80 people in Stephen Taberner’s Bigmouth choir at the Northcote town hall.

We sang stephen’s arrangements of numbers like The Smiths’ “There is a light that never goes out”, and Garbage “Only happy when it rains.

Between choir pieces, he’d orchestrated performers like Dan Whitton of the Wikimen, and a group of singers from Princes Hill HS. These were all amazing and a delight to experience.

I feel bad for not inviting all my friends now. I’d only been to 3 rehearsals and there were around 10 songs so I kinda thought I wouldn’t even perform. But somehow managed to learn most of them in time. The last song i had to have lyrics on my phone, and sneak in a look.

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Listen to Sean M Whelan & The Interim Lovers

mic — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 06:17:31 +0000

I was exploring ReverbNation, and stumbled across Sean M Whelan’s page. Louise and i were about to leave a gig at the Builders Arms a while back, when Sean started playing with Isnod, and we just couldn’t leave. He’s kind of enchanting. Have a listen to Sean M Whelan. Intriguing and delightful spoken word, here with the Interim Lovers.

/via Sean M Whelan & The Interim Lovers | MELBOURNE, VIC, AU | Other | Music, Lyrics, Songs, and Videos | ReverbNation.

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Circus by Susy Blue on Vimeo

mic — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 04:31:36 +0000

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.

via Circus by Susy Blue on Vimeo.

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Junk City 5×5 – the final set list

mic — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 09:19:25 +0000

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. Well not exactly.. i originally wanted to play Chemical Brothers’s In Dust we Trust.. but on the spot i chose Hand Made Hope from Emma Tonkin’s Cave of Lights feat. first chorus band of singers, because it brought me so much joy to be involved in the singing and production – and it’s a beautiful song.

But they don’t have either Chemical Brothers or Emma Tonkin on Grooveshark, so you’ll get Marc Bolan who was next on the list.

The stories? Well.. most of the first 5 – the melancholy ones – involve being a teenager in the eighties, filled with morose longing for adventures and safety all at once.

And the second 5 are all about the joys of moving to the rhythms of an unruly dancefloor.

There you go.

—————————————-
Of course i only got to #11 (skipping #10 in the moment), but here’s the full top20 list if you can’t get that grooveshark player to work for you:

01 – Billie Holiday – I Cried For You
02 – Eurythmics – Here Comes The Rain Again
03 – Split Enz – One Step Ahead
04 – The Reels – Quasimodo’s Dream
05 – Depeche Mode – Enjoy The Silence [Reinterpreted]
06 – Feist – Inside and Out
07 – b(if)tek – Wired For Sound
08 – madonna – Hung Up (The Album Version)
09 – bob marley vs funkstar deluxe – sun is shining
10 – Chemical Brothers – In Dust We Trust
11 – Emma Tonkin with first chorus band of singers – hand made hope
12 – Marc Bolan And T-Rex – Children Of The Revolution
13 – Fingers Inc. – Can You Feel It (Spoken Word – Dr Martin Luther King, Jr.)
14 – b(if)tek – We Think You’re Dishy
15 – Black – Wonderful Life (Original Audio 1987)
16 – Cyndi Lauper – True Colors
17 – Scissor Sisters – Filthy Gorgeous
18 – Patti Smith – Smells Like Teen Spirit
19 – Scissor Sisters – Take Your Mama Out
20 – The Reels – Pleasure And Pain

PLUS there is more

If you’ve never heard this remix of Can you feel it (the Larry Fingers Chicago house original).. tap into it here: The Martin Luther King remix, released in 1988:

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Junk City demands joy and melancholy

mic — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 10:46:42 +0000

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.]

So i’m thinking: what would be my top 5 songs that spoke to my melancholy? Tough one to answer because i just wouldn’t listen to songs like that, i was so prone to depression.

1) Melancholy

Hang on, what am i saying. The Eighties. The Smiths. Joy Division. Dogs in Space. We were fully self-indulgent in that melancholy stuff.

The Smiths: That song about the double decker bus. Of course. When we were 20 and all thought we’d be dead by the age of 37, i decided to have a mid-life crisis early, get it out of the way. I remember driving somewhere with Jude, singing this at the top of our voices. Probably through a tunnel on the way back to North Melbourne.
Heaven knows i’m miserable now, girlfriend in a coma, how soon is now.. etc!!
Lithium by Nirvana was one of the first songs i ever learned to play on guitar, the first time i actually felt i could play a musical instrument. And even though i have no idea what he’s singing about, even thought he starts off with “I’m so happy”.. it just isn’t happy.
Culture Club, Victims. i had no idea what it was about, but it was dramatic and heartfelt, inviting much interpretive dance. My gender was up for grabs, and boy George spoke to many parts of me.
Midnight Oil Short Memory. No wait, that’s not melancholy – it’s despair and fury.
That song from the movie Once – Falling slowly. I remember Jon Murphy singing us this in the basement flat at James street the house on the hill. It was so beautiful i had to see the movie.
“Rooms for the memory” from Dogs in Space, as well as Marie Hoy’s version of Shivers
Mad World, the remake from Donnie Darko
Don’t Dream it’s Over, Crowded House
Quasimodo’s Dream by the Reels.
Cold Chisel: Four Walls, Breakfast at Sweethearts, Cheap Wine, Flame Trees,
Tainted Love
Cyndi Lauper: Time After Time
ABBA: SOS, Knowing me, Knowing you.
split enz: i got you, one step ahead
The Verve: the drugs don’t work
Radiohead: creep, paranoid android
Paul Kelly: to her door (is that the one i’m thinking of?).
..and the very magical Billie Holiday: God Bless the Child, Good Morning Heartache, I cried for you.

Here’s Jose Gonzalez with “Love will tear us apart”:

Songs that bring joy.

Back in the eighties when i was a wee teenager i had a mix tape full of songs to give me that uplifting feeling. Oh it was super-daggy.

Everything’s All Right from JC Superstar,
Black: Wonderful Life: “Look at me standing here on my own again”
Shona Laing: Glad i’m not a Kennedy, and You are the one,
That song.. [from that movie], (by that guy).. hm. What was it?
When Jimmy Somerville and Marc Almond sang I feel love mixed with Johnny Remember Me
The Housemartins: Caravan of Love
Lou Reed: Perfect Day of course – this one because it’s from a day i spent with my friend Annie. We walked around Albert Park Lake and laughed and talked for hours on end. As we drove back along the North South Highway of St Kilda Road, she played a version by the Frogs (or was it the Trogs?).
Toyah Wilcox: i want to be free.

Yeh i was in bad shape, and needed plenty of holding on.

And now i’m looking back across my life, thinking of all the songs that have brought me so much joy and hope:

Blondie: I’m on E, I didn’t have the nerve to say no, X offender, Kidnapper, Man Overboard, Love at the Pier. Blondie’s version of New York Post-Punk was really a bunch of pure and lovely pop, and their first couple of albums are full of songs that don’t really mean much but totally spoke to me at the time.
Come on Eileen wasn’t on the tape, but i can think of many dancefloors where it’s got us all up dancing. Including the other night when DJ Sean M Whelan ripped up the Willow Bar for the High Noon festival.
Eurythmics came out with song after song that were inspired and genius. There Must Be An Angel, Miracle Of Love, Here Comes The Rain Again, Love Is A Stranger, Who’s That Girl, Right By Your Side, It’s Alright (baby’s Coming Back), Thorn In My Side, Sweet Dreams (about half of these belong in the melancholy section don’t they)
Golf Course by the Ears, the time when the band came back for their reunion gig at the Corner hotel.

True love, the marching girls

There are a few albums that it’s really hard to pick any track from, because they form such a powerful and coherent whole.

Koyaanisqatsi (oh all right, the opening track)
Soundtrack from the film Diva, especially La Wally and Promenade Sentimentale
Joni Mitchell: For the Roses is an album that speaks directly to my heart and always has. Recently Lou and i sat and listened to the whole thing together, which was such a special experience – delightful to have someone listen along with me, when it’s usually a solitary affair.
Cocteau Twins: Treasure
Not Drowning, Waving: the Cold and the Crackle
Evolutionary Vibes vol1
b(if)tek: 2020 (maybe Wired for Sound is the stand-out because of its cultural reference to the original.)
Blondie: Plastic Letters is their best in my heart, an early one.
Urban Brazil compilation (Future World Funk Presents Urban Brazil)

Joni Mitchell, “I am a woman of heart and mind”, from the heart-speaking album “For the Roses”:

Since then:

Chemical brothers: Brothers gon work it out, Block Rockin Beats
Mr Fingers: Can you feel it? (the Martin Luther King remix especially)
Underworld: Born Slippy
War Pigs (version by cabaret band, what are they called, with that woman who tattoed her eyebrows back on.. come on help me out here
Dos Gardenias from that movie, Buena Vista Social Club

So many songs bring me joy. How can you choose just five.

Madame Zuzu singing “Besame mucho” at Open Studio.
Flying Scribble playing “Anyway” or Animation in my head.
Martin Martini “take your skin off and dance”.
Half a lamington by Spoonbill, first heard at bar 303.
Paul Kelly “Leaps and Bounds”.
Sweet transvestite from Rocky Horror, Touch-a touch-a touch-a Touch me.
Nick Cave: Wild Roses (no wait, that’s melancholy. Actually it’s melodrama, scratch that one).

Shona Laing was on my original anti-depression mixed tape back in the late eighties. This is such a classic – and totally dated song: Glad i’m not a Kennedy.

photo credit: DrawPunk (Thanks dude). and photo credit: bjornmeansbear

..and another joyous track. This one was playing a lot at the turn of the century. Emma threw an amazing and glamorous dinner party, where Annie and Bruno were on French television as the Antipodean midnight reporters. Hilarious. And we kept playing this track, Sun is shining – the remix. And dancing. “Makes you wanna move your dancing feet.”

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World’s end press: freakin incredible

mic — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 12:04:36 +0000

I just caught the end of a section on world’s end press, speaker tv channel 31 Friday night. This band is fully incredible, and adorable. I started paying attention because Ellie Little was raving about them, and let me tell you her raving was completely justified.

The bass player is one of the grooviest musicians in the whole world, ever.

Their sound is kind of eighties funk but also a reinvention, as the best revisit would be.

I’ve seen them play the workers club, and also that phenomenally strange Anytime Place gig where gray just kept letting people in, even though she really shouldn’t have.

Look the point is they’re going to be huge, see them while you still can afford it..

Can i find a video to put here.. let me look..

Links

Here’s the video from Speaker TV, Channel 31

Here’s their facebook page.

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Flap! is beautiful

mic — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 10:07:21 +0000

I’ve seen this bunch of diehard jazz freaks play a few times now: at the Village in Edinburgh Gardens, supporting the inimitable Bohjass at the Northcote Social Club.. and now headlining at the East Brunswick. And each time i see them, i love them even more.

Such brilliant musicianship, such joyful playing, such contained energy in the singing. It’s modern Northcote music that draws on the traditional jazz styles of the 30′s and 40′s. Songs of love.. songs about the chicken truck that goes up High Street late at night.

My dad was mad for a bit of trad jazz, and i think he would have approved of this crowd as well.

The trombone player just goes off! Her energy is well furious. Eamon’s trumpet is sublime, and his singing is so understated it’s really beautiful. I really appreciate the way the two lead singers sing in their own voice, without American or English accents, and without being affected at all, just straight-up genuine.

At one point, there was a guy in the crowd who was overdoing his enthusiasm – oh yeh it was during the “Naked” song. So much that the lead singer had to mention her state of being married. Which led to some confusion as she implied she was happy about not being married to the trumpeter. Whoops.

Anyway, i’ve managed to track down their Youtube channel. Hopefully they’ll have an album out on the stands before too long.

I’m a poor man (but i’m not ashamed)

Down down down

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Launch of the 8 foot felix

mic — Sat, 21 May 2011 20:04:58 +0000

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

..and here’s their performance of “Biggalong”:

Will wrote the final piece for first chorus by first chorus, so I’m familiar with his work, having sung it before. A brooding and dramatic number it was.

[Links]

Upcoming gigs on their own WordPress site; plus
they’re on Myspace, and faceboo of course.

* ‘this night’ was the launch at Open Studio, mid-May.

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Susy Blue is a burning star

mic — Thu, 19 May 2011 03:26:35 +0000

Well take a look at this. It’s only a tiny glimpse of the amazing Susy Blue. i had no idea her music was so beautiful.

Moose Hooves on Vimeo on Vimeo

via Moose Hooves on Vimeo.

and more

Seesaw – Susy Blue from Susy Blue on Vimeo.

You’ll see her at the Northcote social club on the 18th of May.

POSTSCRIPT: i went to the gig last night and it was LoOvely! They’re so full of delight and fun. Susy’s music is lively and bouncy and gorgeous. Great arrangements. Louise Goh on the keys totally rocks my world, as does Michael Hanley on banjo.

And The Nymphs played a good support. Four ladies mixing up the harmonies and singing acapella. Their best was a combination of “Mr Sandman (send me a dream)” with “Enter Sandman” – in the same cutesy fifties style. Sweet. Ooh look, they did it on Spicks and Specks once:

Barons of Tang go wild in the usa

mic — Thu, 12 May 2011 22:54:00 +0000

I love the Barons of Tang!

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.

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Delights of Castlemaine

mic — Thu, 05 May 2011 07:37:56 +0000

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.

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Ajak Kwai is astounding

mic — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 22:34:04 +0000

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”.

And here is a video where she’s interviewed on her experience of being Sudanese in Tasmania. (Just skip past the hokey travelogue at the start.)

She appeared as the game show guest in Trent McCarthy’s “Dr Game Show”, showing at the Northcote Town Hall. Kevin Kropinyeri was the other third of the show, giving us his Aboriginal Game Show. He’s very funny, and more than a little bit wrong in his comedy.

[Spoiler warning: after the break]

We all went because the wonderful Sam and Booshie were also in the show. That’s right Samara “Hotseat” Hodson owes all her success (on Eddies Hotseat show) to the advice she received from Trent McCarthy. Apparently. According to the promo on the big screen above the stage.

Hilarious.

Trivia: Trent is also a Greens Councillor for Northcote.

Links: Kevin Kropinyeri

A review of the show in the Leader.

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