Tourism #3 (The End)

# SYDNEY

Oh Sydney, you wretched drab weirdo, we meet again. It's been a good long while but I love you and I hate you and you love and hate me back don't you. Thankfully, I'm in the sheltered workshop of New Weird Australia. They treat me well, better than I play this night where unexpected (but not all together unwelcome) carnage visits my laptop and the PA. Stu tells me he likes it.

The Red Rattler is beautiful. And as I stroll down the rainy streets of Marrickville trying to find it, as the planes fly close overhead and the holes in my shoes let the damp in, I think it's been a good time this tour. Thank god/satan for Sound Travellers (RIP).

PS: In a room in Sydney city is me. There is - strangely - free internet access and a computer terminal in my room. Free pirated movies too. I check the internet history, I have to. It's a bad idea. The guy two nights back probably fucked a prostitute in my bed. That's what it says right there on the screen.

# DOCUMENTATION

Live At The Red Rattler (SYD)

Source: This guy.

Currently Hearing: 'Things We Lost In The Fire' by Low

This album really hots up on Side B.

Currently hearing: Numb by Nadja

There's a point in this 20+ minute epic where the drums start to morph and I feel like parts of my brain are sheering loose. It's a great feeling - not at all unpleasant. Nadja are a band that brutalise you in full colour.

This Sunday:

From the Facebook page:

SUNDAY ICE CREAM SOCIALIST / BASTARD THEATRE OF BRISBANE

SUNDAY JULY 18

A FESTIVAL OF THE BRISBANE UNDERGROUND, ALL AFTERNOON BEERS + BBQ IN THE TROPICAL WINTER SUNSHINE.

with

CURED PINK (SABBATICAL RECORDS TAPE LAUNCH)
CRAFT BANDITS
HEART FLEW
YOUT DIEM
KITTEN PARTY
SKY NEEDLE
6MAJIK9
PSY ANTS
AMBROSE CHAPEL
GERALD KEANEY + THE GERALD KEANEYS

SLUG GUTS SPINNING TUNES ALL NIGHT

and appearances from

OTHERFILM
THE NEGATIVE GUEST LIST
BEDROOM SUCK RECORDS
UNIQUE BEAUTIFUL FLOWERS
REAL BAD MUSIC
BATS MAGAZINE

2 STAGES, MUSIC, ART, STUFF, SKATEBOARDING, BEERS, BEERS, BRING THEM.

2PM ONWARDS, $6 ENTRY. PUBLIC WELCOME.

#

Afterwards my band No Anchor is supporting Om from San Fran over at the Hi Fi Bar. It's gonna be a good day.

What Would Trent Do?

Interesting article over at Wired on Trent Reznor's work flow for How To Destroy angels. It's a step-by-step for a track and includes snippets of the work in progress. I thought the inital step was really great: Reznor and his producer work on two totally different projects then see what happens when they chop and change between then. Nuts. But you can totally hear how it ends up in the song.

I also read somewhere about KTL doing something very similar, with much less song-like results.

Ten Years of Bardo Pond

Dan Cohoon has been photographing Bardo Pond for almost ten years and has blogged about it here. Not only is the site a major Bardo-Dorkfest (that's a good thing), it's fun to watch Cohoon get better and better at his craft. His early work starts off fairly plain; the latest batch are tripped out and beautiful.

Favourite Records of 2010 So Far...

Amazon posted their Top 50 albums of the year so far here. I have listened to exactly none of these records. Are any of them any good?

Mess & Noise asked all the contributors to compile a list of what they liked this year. Here's mine:

Document 250407 by Whitehorse (Cassette on Sweat Lung / Sabbatical): Recored live back in 2007 but released earlier this year for the band's national tour, this tape destroys. I bought it on a whim but it hasn't left my stereo all year. My skull actually glows a little when I have it on.

The Witch Must Be Destroyed by Black Boned Angel (LP/Download on Conspiracy Records): This is a world of tar black, slow moving molasses but I can still listen to it on the bus. I'd like to think that says more about Campbell Kneale's ability to make drone/doom as exciting as it is monolithic but maybe I just listen to too much of this stuff and now have an unnaturally high tolerance for it.

Liars by Firewitch (CD on We Empty Rooms): A reissue but who doesn't wouldn't want to listen to dual bass stoner jams from Melbourne's yesteryear when they're as nicely presented as they are in this package.

Mid-Centuary by Do The Robot (Cassette on RR Records): Brisbane duo Do The Robot are a band perfectly suited to cassette. In the past their recorded output has lagged behind them, often documenting already obsolescent ideas and lineups. Here, they present almost exactly where they are and just as well, as their unique brand of dubbed out shoegaze has never sounded better.

We Have Secrets by Nobody Cares (CD/Download on Rice Is Nice) by Seja: This is the type of sunny afternoon synth pop I always imagined Seja played at home by herself for herself. Now we all get to hear it and thank god, it's beautiful.

Uhm?

Facebook made some interesting recommendations today:

If only all political decisions were directly dependent on someone liking Bill Murray. We should all follow Bill Murray. We should do as Bill Murray says. I've always said that.

Sydney Show:

My first ever Ambrose Chapel show in Sydney! Details are here and there's a Facebook page here. Should be a good night.

Lori? Is that you hanging out with Ringo?

Is this a photo of a future Melvins bass player? This person thinks so. So do I.

In 1989, Lori Black aka Lorax aka the daughter of Shirley Temple (yes, you read that right) joined the Melvins. To date, she is the only woman to have joined the band and she played on two of my favourite Melvins albums: Ozma and Bullhead. The little girl above - next to Shirley - does bare a resemblance to Lorax pictured here:

He's The Uncle

Sometimes when you hear a song, you kinda hear more than what's there. You hear the sound but - sometimes - you sense more than that; you feel some way about the people who recorded it, you have ideas about where it was recorded and how, you tap into a history and thus you get the feeling that a particular song might just be a pinpoint on a map of something a lot bigger than the song itself. You want to explore that map.

That's how I felt about this record when I first heard it:

Released by Australian label Fellaheen to coincide with a joint tour by both bands, it's a pretty killer 6 track EP. I bought it for the Superchunk songs (GBV didn't even make the tour in the end) but it was a track called 'He's The Uncle' off the split that really caught my ear.

In Guided By Voices folklore, 'He's The Uncle' is a bit of mythological song. Apparently recorded for an aborted concept album (gloriously titled The Power of Suck) but later scrapped and reconfigured into 1996's Under The Bushes Under The Stars. It's the Guided By Voices b-side that everyone knows is a stone cold classic. The band know it too, I noticed they played it at their final show.

To me, it's a song that captures everything I like about GBV: a big chorus, noise, melody, tape compression and hiss all recorded by one of my favourite GBV line-ups. It's somehow BIG and lo-fi at the same time.

What I didn't know then was this: (1) 'He's The Uncle' would be my gate-way drug into the spiral of GBV fandom, something I'm happily floating around in a decade later (2) the song sounds so fucking good because it sits at a bizarre intersection of so many things I like about music. For instance:

• Steve Albini recorded it at home. On the CD sleeve it says Tobin Sprout recorded it on 4-track but bass player of the time Jim Greer seems to remember it otherwise.
• Jim O'Rourke performed the noise interlude in the middle-8 that I've always thought was just mildly too far-out for GBV.
• Later Bob Pollard messed around the mult-tracks at home and added the guitar solo and some delay.

That's a perfect storm of everything I like about music made in the 90s.

That's what I heard but didn't really comprehend.

But it was all there all this time.

Music is awesome like that sometimes don't you think?

mumble(speak) at Almost Invisible #4

New Weird Australia Vol. 6

I've got a new track on the most recent New Weird Australia compilation.

The whole thing is free to stream and download here.

Here's the track listing:

1. AMBROSE CHAPEL, Black Lava (7:47) previously unreleased
2. JONNY TELAFONE, Stardate 2012.1221 (3:33) from ‘Rainbow Genesis’ (self-released)
3. CHROME DOME, She Said (1:13) from ‘Chrome Dome’ (Lexicon Devil)
4. WIGWAM, Ancient Path (3:31) from ‘Sweat Lodge’ (Badminton Bandit)
5. J NEWMAN & R SQUIRES, The Church Of Our Lady Of Pompeii (Excerpt) (3:50) from ‘Our Lady Of Pompeii’ (Gift Project Audio)
6. KYNAN TAN, Melt (4:44) from ‘Two Clouds’ (self-released)
7. TRJAEU, Hull (4:56) from ‘Home EP’ (self-released)
8. EASTERN GREY, 24-5 (9:23) previously unreleased
9. PANEYE, Staircases Under the Sea (3:20) from ‘Lying Under Moribund Waves’ (Secret Station Records / Butter People Records)
10. ISLE ADORE, Keep A Lid On (4:53) from ‘Perfect Dust’ (OWLS)
11. UNDERLAPPER, Elephant Shoe (2:51) previously unreleased, from forthcoming album ‘ Softly Harboured’
12. DANGER BEACH, Milky Way (2:02) previously unreleased
13. PHILIP SULIDAE, Dead Horse Gap (6:07) from ‘An High Land’ (dontcaresulidae)
14. ANNA CHASE, Lines (3:42) previously unreleased

Compiled by Stuart Buchanan.
Artwork by David Egan, www.badmintonbandit.com
Click artist title for background information and links.
All music licenced via Creative Commons (Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives), except track 9, all rights reserved.

Seven New Songs of Mt Eerie

This is one of my favourite records:

A few years back my then room mate - now next door neighbour - Ben Thompson went to see Mt Eerie perform at Rics (no you didn't read that wrong - can you imagine it now?). He actually bought a copy of this CDr and we played it to death around the flat. I think it even came for a ride in the Iron On tour van as well. I have memories of listening to it in regional QLD where Wooly Mammoth's Absence's steady strumming seemed to roll along like the dry countryside.

I don't think anyone knew back then that it would become a rare and collectible item.

Anyway, it's legally available free-of-charge here.