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”.
Boho Masquerade Fun
April 11, 2011
So i’ve been looking for photographs of the Bohemian Ball. Luckily there are some really good photographers hanging around with this crowd. There’s even a new book coming out that seems inspired by the ball and its coterie of performers – “This City Speaks to Me“.
The shows have been hit and miss over the years. i think i went to the first one at the Regal Ballroom in Northcote, and the music was decidedly non-boho. Disappointing in fact. But they’ve settled on a combination of Spoonbill and the Barons of Tang for recent years, and also for their whirlwind tour of Australia last year.
Found a set of (NSFW!) photos from the March 2010 ball, by Luke David Kellett over at flickr.
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
Air Orchestra for the Songroom
January 28, 2011
Have you seen the Air Orchestra? Directed by Virginia, in concert with the songroom. Apparently this was on TeeVee.
Hilarious and super adorable!!
Links:
The Songroom does amazing things. i think they’re at the Abbotsford Convent.
Funky Brassroots do Radiohead
December 18, 2010
Ah, Saturday morning. The dripping sounds of night rain outside my room.
Housemates emerging from their post-whirlwind-tour funk. Time to hit the couch and go you tubing.
As Lou says, these players are my new favourite thing. i think they’re in the UK though, East London. They played Glastonbury this year. Brassroots playing Karma Police, somewhere in London.
via YouTube – Brassroots – Karma Police Radiohead.
They also do a version of 7 Nation Army. Ooh yeah, i want them to play in Melbourne.
Seems to be a few bands around with similar names: Here’s their Myspace just to be sure. And yes i think this album is theirs too, over at Last.fm.
While on the topic of Dreadlock-inspired Radiohead covers, who could go past Radiodread from the Easy All Stars!! Here’s No Surprises, with the original video.
i think it’s going to be this kind of Saturday. Clothing sales, picnics in the rain, exotic midnight parties.
Laid back.
What if the tea party was black?
December 17, 2010
Nice work from a rapper known as Jasiri X in the United States of Hell: “What if the Tea Party was black?”.
The Tea Party have been seriously dissing their president. If they were left-wing or non-white, the media would interpret their messages as seditious, treacherous and Anti-American. They would be vilified in the most ugly ways imaginable. But no, the Tea Party is the darling of the media with their horribly misguided and intellectually-damaged thought missiles. Reprehensible rubbish.
Thanks for this video!!
via YouTube – What if the Tea Party was Black?.
Ok, irony alert. i got the video from “Stuff White people do”, chapter entitled: listen to anti-racist music. Yes i’m trying to salve my bruised conscience. Whatever.
While i’m talking of anti-racist music, one of my all-time favourites is “George Bush don’t like black people” by the Legendary KO. Impressed to see this song has its own wikipedia page.
..and here’s the original quote from Kanye West that led to the remix:
..and another video mix
This originally came out back in ’05. Xeni at BoingBoing pointed everyone toward it. You can still get the mp3 file too: “George Bush Don’t Like Black People” MP3 (8.7MB). [Lyrics here.]
On the other side of The Pond, a 15 year old gains notoriety with this stirring speech during the recent demonstrations around education fees. Good to see the next generation coming up and with such strength and passion. Really like the way he weaves narrative into the invective. No music, but a really good talk eh.
Awesome evening of magic and gorgeousness
December 14, 2010
Finally we made it to the performance night.
“first chorus: a retrospective” was a celebration of the first 4 years of Virginia Bott’s amazing Band of Singers. Such a joy to be involved with a magic and gorgeous bunch of good people.
The venue: Anytime Place in Brunswick. Gray Taylor and her team of speakeasy angels worked hard to get the venue looking its best. They are incredibly adept at adapting their environment to suit different kinds of performance.
The acoustics and sound engineering: Simon did a truly amazing job with the sound setup. What a dude. Thanks to Marianna and Ro for pointing out the need to turn down the band and the solo singers. Amazingly, we really had a good balance of volume from choir and soloist/band. (i heard later on from someone who sat both back and front that it was still pretty quiet out back in the standing room.
The audience: what a delightful and generous audience we had, filling out the space with warmth and focus.
The director: everyone knows now that Virginia Bott is a complete genius.
The new CD: Cave of Lights, the collaboration between Emma Tonkin and first chorus: band of singers is now available, hot from the CD burning presses. Launch should be around February. So lucky to have a preview copy that we gave a good spin last night after the gig.
Woohoo. Wish we’d recorded it.
Did anyone video?
Some people go destructive, other people make art
September 17, 2010
Dude you have no Qu’ran.
You’ve got to love the Autotune remixes.
i don’t know what’s going on in the USA at the moment. They’ve got a brilliant leader, and a whole bunch of intelligent creative compassionate people working for social change, but somehow there’s still idiots who want to burn Holy Books during a really ugly world war.
And then there’s the cool people who just run up and spoil the media event.
On top of that, someone is going to make an autotune remix out of anything these days.
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Thinking:
One of the comments on the youtube video page was this:
‘so, let me get this straight: hippies love to burn flags but can’t stand to see the Koran get burnt?’
Interesting point.
i think it’s a bit like Jewish jokes.
You can make all the anti-Jewish jokes you like, if you are in fact a Jewish person.
You can burn the US flag if you’re a US citizen.
(okay, it’s not legal, i mean under my rules which i’m making up right now)
You can criticise the heck out of your own relationship, tear yourself to shreds, burn the Bible if you’re raised a Christian, find the weak spots in your cooking strategies, etc.
But lay off other people’s business.
.
.
.
.
.
Bicycle joy
September 17, 2010
How about this joyful piece from andrea dorfman in Halifax. The same woman who made that previous one.
Cycling is something i love too.
Thanks Andrea!
Kate Bush by Wolfmother
August 9, 2010
i’ve been listening to a lot of Kate Bush lately, after reading an article in Uncut magazine – “25 Years On – the inside story of Hounds of Love. And how it haunts the music of 2010.” Many many songwriters say the album had a huge impact on their musical creativity. For example, John Lydon (!) says, “Hounds of Love is beyond an album – it’s an opera”.
And Lee Scratch Perry says, “i no longer smoke weed, but you don’t need to if you have Kate Bush. Her music is all the high you need.”
Had a great musical evening with Jen and David lately, where we attempted to bash out Wuthering Heights on the keyboard. Got a bit trapped with some of the chords.. trying to work out the exact sequence of Ebm F# Ab C# during the chorus.
One of my highlights from the Falls Festival at New Year was this cover of Wuthering Heights by Wolfmother.. and here it is on TripleJ Like a Version. Nice one. i was really underwhelmed by the Wolfmother show until he launched into this song, which made up for the lacklustre quality of everything before it.
You can see from my latest ‘Loved Tracks’ from Last.fm, that Kate Bush has 3 in the most recent 10 right now*.
- The Avalanches – Frontier Psychiatrist
- Lisa Hannigan – I Don’t Know
- Amarina Waters – Kissed somebody Blues
- Parov Stelar – The Phantom (1930 Swing Version)
- Aphex Twin – Polynomial-C
- Amarina Waters – Watching Me
- The Innocence Mission – Happy Birthday
- Peaches – Fuck The Pain Away
- Lenny Kravitz – It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over
- Spoonbill – How It Goes
- David Bowie – Oh you pretty things
*Right now, meaning when i write this. Not when you’re reading it.
And my most loved tracks of all time at Last.fm – a lot of B(if)tek in the Top Ten! Because they are one of the best musical collaborations of the last 30 years and i love them.
Surprise visitor at scissor sisters gig
July 28, 2010
What a gorgeous surprise!
We’re about 5 metres back from the festival hall stage, soaking up the funky glam rock disco..
When the crowd starts to go wild over a song I haven’t heard before.
Must be a good one, I guess.
Then I notice a third singer on stage between Jake and Ana.
No way!
It’s Kylie.
Home town crowd, at a disco gig, you would expect some excitement, but this was hysteria.
..and for such a super-daggy song!
i tried to take a photo on the phone, but my phone’s camera is not great at night.
PS oh whoops, i just discovered that ‘super daggy song’ is Kylie’s latest release. *Not* a lame cover of some country and western number. That was the encore – she sang harmony on one of their songs during the show.
Classic Carrot Clarinet
March 14, 2010
Zoe comes into work the other day and starts raving about a party in Newport where she saw Lindsay Pollak playing, and his partner leading the whole crowd through a silly bum dance. i’ve never heard of him, so Zoe says, “Look him up”.
Turns out he’s been uploaded all over youtube, and featured on Boing Boing and everything. This is hilarious: watch Lindsay drill some holes in a carrot and then start playing a series of loops.
Maybe i’ll start collecting videos of fruit and vegetable instruments.. are there any more to be found?
Oh yes, there’s a whole vegetable orchestra:
..and a watering can clarinet too:
Lindsay Pollock again with a rubber glove bagpipe:
Links:
Lindsay on carrot clarinet
watering can clarinet on youtube
Rubber glove bagpipe
The vegie orchestra
Music videos from Barkly St (wealth of nations)
November 16, 2009
Wealth of Nations – the fringe festival experience – is all over, but i managed to grab some photos and videos. Lachlan’s uploaded them to places like youtube and flickr.. and there they are.
Pete and the Tar Gang were one of my favourite performances from the season. Pete is such a bold character on stage, with his old sea shanties.
They played the following week at the Fringe Club in North Melbourne, and followed up with the Tar Pit Men’s Choir. One of the guys sang a truly amazing solo piece which got the whole crowd turning their heads (at the Fringe CLub). Talk about upstaging!
Mamushka were hilarious and jazzie. Aviva is so stunning up front, and when she pulls out that bass clarinet, you know you’re in for some rollicking.
(i saw them again last week at Open Studio.. without all the costumes. They leap from their circus jazz into a bit of rock thrash every now and then.. and back again. What a blast.. but why was nobody dancing?)
The Kurtletts of course were thoroughly gorgeous.. Kirri and Sofiya play so beautifully together.
Links:
- more videos from the Tar Gang, and their myspace
- mamushka on myspace
- sanctum theatre (main site, youtube, flickr)
Oh, and the photo slideshow, which has some of my photos mixed in with other people’s too.
