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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..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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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.

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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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There’s been so much going on in my life lately:

• moved house back to Northcote which is very delightful, Lou and Anto have been putting heaps of energy into making a new dream house with a beautiful garden.. i’m struggling to deal with all my excess baggage newly out of storage (move on, baggage, move on);
• went to Womadelaide music festival, an extremely exciting and wonderful trip involving South Australian salt beaches, Mama Kin, Ojos de Brujo, Nortec Collective from Mexico, and much more;
• went to see Alice in Wonderland and loved it – except for the 3D;
• riding my amazing new bike every day and getting so much enjoyment from it – so super fast i have to be really careful;
• joined in Tim and Sam’s working bee sessions up at Elphinstone Manor, put up curtains in their bedroom, worked on a new carport with Tim, planted some trees and helped dig a long ditch for the plumbing pipes;
• read Russell Banks “Dreaming up America”, a history of the USA through his experience of film;
• went to see Lauren Simmonds’ exhibition down in Footscray, an intriguing paper-based installation;
• saw Monsters of the Deep in 3D at the Comedy Festival – very funny;
• joined the first chorus band of singers in recording with Emma Tonkin at Fairfield tafe studios;
• catching up with Buffy season 8 in comic book form, and it is getting super scary,
• plus all sorts of other things involving meditation and yoga.

But telling stories here on the blog.. haven’t had the follow-through lately. Too busy enjoying life, too nervous about writing in public, too stressed about moving house and finding new workplaces.

So there’s the overview.

Maybe i’ll come back with some detail, one day soon.

photo credit: cloud_nine

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Job well done Sam!!

Tim gave us the brief to be casual and dismissive in our authority as customs agents, interrogating and searching immigrants to the Wealth of Nations Nut Economy by Sanctum Theatre.

Of course Tim has the expertise as Sergeant Blank from the Watch-house. He knows all about tormenting people who refuse to acknowledge his authority or try to play funny games.

Nice to be directed by a master of his craft. 

This was an hilarious evening, as people scrambled to purchase their local currency (peanuts) while the exchange rates went up and down. Tim and Lachy revisited their “Battle of Civilisations” in Michael Camilleri’s huge city-costumes of Gog and Magog.

The Kurts gave us fine music.
The red lentil soup was divine. 
Nobody got arrested.

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i am very envious.
Here is a pic of Tim, Fiona, Sasha and Paul on the train in New York City. i’m following their adventures over on samandtim.blogspot. Their blog is like a fun game, where the reader has to make up what’s going on, from the pictures and the headings.

ok, here goes:
SamandTim and PaulandFiona are on a train, with Sasha, and the train is in New York. They are all travelling from the bronx zoo back to the hotel where they’ll have dinner. And Sasha is drinking from his favourite red cup. Just after Sam took the photo, Paul sighed and said, “Are you ever going to stop taking photos?” Which nearly made Fiona snap at him. But she took a deep breath instead.

Tim is grinning because he loves seeing Sam do funny things on the subway; she’s being zany while she handles the camera. Sam made a joke after taking the shot, and everyone laughed. Then Sasha looked up and smiled, saying, “Was i in the photo?”

PS Funky Shirt, Paul!

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The highlight of the evening is this crazy dvd called ‘The Critic’, about Jay Sherman, NY Film Critic. Jay, a cartoon character, is bald fat and unpopular. His boss hates him because he cans all the holyhollywood films, and his highest rating is a 7. i loved the show. Jay is dark, depressed and funny. Must have been made last century because the twin towers loom over the NY cartoon skyline.

The bad news is Tim and Sam house being sold from under them again. Bloody property owners.

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