April March

The Necks

2007-02-03T05:44:00.000-08:00

Well here I am once more, languishing under bright luminance, perched over the keys ready at the call to shape at least one. More wretched. Sentence. The inertia of the past weeks is inexcusable and justly have I lost the few fancied readers that I have had conceitedly boasted. No matter. Last night I was privileged to witness the strange conduct of a professional employed in her field. A day found me pouring over the result but was amazed at the discrepancy between the labor I had witnessed and it’s outcome.
Sometimes the Necks can be like that. Amidst the gentle shimmerings of sound of the bass, drum and piano trio there emerges sometimes a guitar chord, electronics, a fanfare of winds, sometimes even voices. These inexplicable noises arise perhaps from certain resonances that Abraham arcanely summons from the keys of his trade. They flit in and out over the set seemingly at random rarely lingering, always leaving the audience in dumb astonishment.
But I am getting ahead of myself. As I was saying I was lucky enough to have positioned myself in the audience behind Age reviewer Jessica Nicholas. But again I have erred and flung myself too far in time. I should have started with, I was at the annual, The Necks performance at the Corner hotel. As I was saying in the introduction I found myself observing Mrs. Nicholas as she was taking notes for her own review. It was quite remarkable to watch, horrifying even. There she was filling page after page of her small exercise book with line after terrible line of what was probably even a short cuneiform, shorthand! Every two minutes she would pause look up at Tony Buck while awaiting some divine inspiration and then down she would be again with line again of admirable verse. She must have ended up with at lest ten double sided sheets in the second set alone. And now I dig up the scant words that I once tried to solicit at a show. One of the more coherent entries I can find, I have it in front of me, “this band fucking sucks!” Must I cleanse the fount of Helicon, swampy with mud and rushes and restore the sleeping Muses, soiled by rusticity, to their pristine beauty. Well enough rhetoric. Far worse was when I opened the paper the next day, or the one after that and found the review occupying but 300 or so scant words. What extravagant waste! Should writing really be such work? Well competent writing perhaps. On the Neck’s practice of purely improvising each gig, “Even the most seasoned mariner would find it daunting to set sail with intuition as his only compass.” Nordic objections aside it’s a million times more imaginative than anything I could have writ, though her trick does seem to be just that, writing a million different things and selecting the best. The nautical themes continue to resurface through her review like the most deferent beluga whale (you see I could easily just rewrite that), “All three players seemed part of the same tidal pull, the music ebbing and flowing with a majestic, rolling momentum.” Coleridge rarely said more.
Anyway I couldn’t agree more with her sentiments, the Necks are an uncommonly moving band. They’re playing a show soon at the Melbourne Town Hall to make use of its immense grand organ. The largest in the southern hemisphere. And I can tell you from last year that it will be two hours of a gradual exhilarated, bliss. Do come.

Cam Butler

2006-11-21T01:21:00.000-08:00

With his album ‘See (symphony no.1)’ Cam Butler and his Shadow of Love Orchestra garnered no small amount of critical acclaim. I read with approval the swooning, sycophantic review in the age. Lush, orchestral, epic, marvelous. Another reviewer described a Cam Butler live show as ‘possibly the greatest he’d seen in a decade.’ His music seemed straight up my alley. Long, loud instrumental music with the pretension to be treated as classical. Consequently I was pretty excited to read that Cam Butler and his ten piece ensemble would be playing a show at the Spanish on the night of my last exam. Oh cruel world. Imagine my disappointment when learning that those reviews had been written by a press agent or at best under duress or perhaps even by Cam Butler himself acting under a pseudonym. I had been deceived the reviews had been falsified the music I had been expecting was played but cruelly misshapen, meanly perverted, broken. What now that I can’t rely on professional music critics. Who am I going to now give my trust, the people? But democracy is for fools, given the choice the people would again choose the murderer Barabbas.

Where to begin with Cam Butler. Well it’s not that he makes bad music, he just barely makes music at all. I’ll describe the structure of one his songs, the formula of which was adhered to throughout his set as some natural law. It will begin with some simple, unexciting, guitar phrase. Repeated. Then one of the two drummers will start playing the cymbals, later the other will join in also. Don’t get two excited though, two drummers is all very well and good but only if they play two different things is their any sort of point to it. Next the four piece sting section advances with sentimental swells and melodic straining. I sure hope you like romantic and banal string music, like soundtracks to old hollywood romances. Because for the next ten minutes the song is going to build up a little as the bass begins, the acoustic guitar starts playing the chords and Cam Butler noodles around for a while. The drums will get a bit louder as the rhythm is established and the strings keep doing their thing. Then it quitens down as it began with nothing having essentially changed except the position of the hands on your watch. Then it’s over. And now ten more variations on the initial theme.

I’m being hard on Cam who doesn’t really deserve me to be. He’s a capable guy who plays guitar and thought it would be a good idea to have a small orchestra back him up. Which would have been fine, had he kept this fancy and it’s results to himself. I blame the people who encouraged him along the way. The people that said, “go for it Cam, you don’t need any knowledge of music to presume to conduct an orchestra”, that said “hey Cam that riff isn’t boring and you should just repeat it for the entire song, the string section will make it sound good”, who told him, “nah mate, you don’t need progression in music, you just need a string section to play to one idea”, who enjoined him to “forget the last 200 years of musical development mate... oh you don’t know it, even better, look just make sure everything is completely tonal and monorythmic” who encouraged him with, “sounds great champ, you should record a CD” who told him, “Yeah call it a symphony, you won’t be misleading anyone or appear breathtakingly audacious” who agreed with him, “what you want to play at the Spanish on the night of the last physics exam, good idea”. So I would absolve you Cam especially for this naive comment (taken from beat), “I have had people insinuate in reviews that it might be stepping over the mark. (to call this album a symphony) But even though I haven’t been to college or anything... this is up there with the great European tradition. The composers of yesteryear would have used instruments that were around at the time, and electric guitar happens to be what’s around now.”

Cam the reason this music isn’t symphonic is because it doesn’t progress. It has no movements and apart from the quiet/loud dichotomy no movement. The music is uninspired and so monotonous that there can not be even a cursory comparison to the most banal works of young Mozart. People are still today composing 'classical' music and they do indeed compose it for modern instruments. You’re not breaking any new ground in here, though maybe in impertinence... In fact a lot of modern instruments were pioneered by mid 20th century composers such as Edgard Varese. Glenn Branca for instance recently composed a piece he scored for 100 electric guitars. I point this out because you seem to think that because you scored your album for a string section it qualifies as classical music. Hardly. And look it’s not because you haven’t been trained musically, it’s because your music is inane and listless. You considering this album a Symphony would be akin to me considering this a well thought out and written review. Alas, however we may like it to be so, it is not.

Also playing at the show were Princess One Point Five and Registered Nurse. Princess One Point Five treated us to a warm set of well crafted pop songs.

Registered Nurse were admissible. Sometimes they really good and sometimes they weren’t but usually they fair. I can’t remember what they exactly sounded like now, but quoth my friend Andrew in a fair summation ‘they sound almost like a band that I’d actually care to see.’

In Which Our Hero Attends a Ska Show

2006-10-29T04:18:00.000-08:00

It’s nice when, with no more than a quick leafing through the gig guide you can appraise from the name of the band alone exactly what a live show will be like. Of course judging a band like this is hardly accurate, think the Dirty Three who aren’t a sleazy pub rock band or The Drones who aren’t an avant-garde noise experiment. But sometimes I am pleased to encounter some degree of success. It is reasonably apparent for instance that Because of Ghosts are a post-rock band, the Oren Ambarchi Noise Trio will play with random static and high pitched squeals or Acid Mothers Temple and the Cosmic Inferno play (obviously) Japanese psychedelia.

But approaching Sunday’s show at the Arthouse (several weeks ago now) I had seriously no idea what to expect of the bands Skaladdin and Skamikaze. (nb. for those still adjusting to my particuarly mode of writing, this is sarcasm)

The band King City Seven played before these mystery acts and here at least I did know what to expect because I had seen them before. Yes, it was a fateful summers day about this time last year when the King City Seven snatched away childhood dreams of being the world’s hardest rocking musicians. You see in the heady days of my youth I played guitar in one of the most promising new outfits around, The Heat Death Of The Universe, combining a love for attitude, rock music, and the thermodynamical laws of entropy. It was a great time, partying every night, rocking out everyday. We had it all drugs, sex, legions of fans and record label offers (well actually none of those things) but on the crucial night of our first gig at the Beaumaris Hotel’s battle of the bands competition the King City Seven stole our dream. The gig went terribly, firstly we hadn’t realised that we needed to do a sound check beforehand and so our guitar chords sounded like harsh and high pitched noise discords. Secondly our lead singer Ben had, citing artistic differences left for more promising prospects interstate. Thirdly and not least, our songs were just seriously lame. Anyway the King City Seven stole the show but I don’t begrudge them, they’re actually terrific guys and play an upbeat blend of ska music and pub rock. It’s not really my thing but they’d be a great band to play a party or a packed pub instead of those awful cover bands that seem to be the trend these days.

Skamikaze had come down from Queensland for the show and it was a pretty enjoyable one. I guess I don’t need to say what they sounded like. The highlight was a cover of the Specials, A message to you Rudy and the Suicide Machines, No Face. It was pretty enjoyable and I was sort of really getting into the whole ska thing towards the end. Which is somewhat strange. For the past few years I’ve been focussing perhaps overmuch on intellectual music to the denigration of emotional music. This subject deserves an essay to itself which I’ll reserve for a more favorable moment but for now these admirable words of Sir T. Browne in his Religio Medice will suffice, ‘And even that vulgar [and tavern music] which makes one man merry and another mad, strikes in me a deep fit of devotion.’

Skaladdin are from Switzerland. They are awesome. Really their show pretty much blew me away with the fun, with the dancing, with the humanity. You see when I was younger I was really into ska music, ska music and oddly metal, in those days would I two step the streets in my Doc’s and ripped jeans, sporting a patched leather jacket, Dead Kennedy’s shirt and a carefully shaved head whilst yelling anarchist slogans at squares. Well not really, though I did for a while endorse anarchism. Anyway Skaladdin brought it all flooding back, they played some Less Than Jake covers (the best ska band ever), Rancid and I think more the Specials. I relearnt and reveled in quite skillfully that particular brand of dancing peculiar to Ska music that is named skanking. The bands originals were ace too, in short I just had a really great time.

Sodastream - A Review?

2006-10-22T08:40:00.000-07:00

Preface:
So yes, it has been notably quiet here of late. And though I use that term, notable it is doubtful that you sir, have indulged to give this fact consideration. At least one possible extenuation, for me may spring to mind, being that it is so near the conclusion of the study year. To this I acknowledge a small concession but far more plausible is the reason you have already settled upon, viz. I have fallen foul of that terrible affliction known as sloth. These past months have seen less updates on the site then even the champion of inertia, Ben himself would dare to permit. To this there has been mounting within me the awful reproach of having left these vital posts unwritten. Well what then, more posting? I shrink to make such a promise lest that dreadful malaise strikes me once more, but nonetheless I shall essay these coming months to endure it.

Of course writing more is one thing and one upon which little effort may be expended. No the difficulty lies in the germ of writing. These are not easily came by and if my efforts lead but to more posts in the spirit of the previous then there is no hope. Another such scrap however will not be this review. It has been over a month since I saw the band, Sodastream and then promised to report and promptly. But I couldn’t do it. During that interval I have made numerous sallies in this purpose but have achieved nothing further than this retarded MS Paint picture.

Introduction:
I just don’t have much to say for the band. I arrived at the show unpardonably late though still warmly received by the friends I so carelessly affronted. After the terrific haste I had made to arrive after work I sadly could managed only a couple of fortifying brews to help overcome my initial discomfiture. On this would I ask the reader to think me no drunkard but for the fact that by the absurdly relaxed criteria this word holds I must confess it.

Well, how for some more preliminary remarks? Sodastream consist of two musicians though on the night I am supposed to right now be addressing they entertained a third. Guitar, double bass and drums for the trine. What of it, then? Dear reader, I must beg your indulgence for some time more. You have come here now perhaps after a long-regretted “sodastream” google search or perhaps from another less inconsequential blog site. Perhaps indeed you have been here before. The point to be made is that though I may in appearance seem to be desperately stalling in reality I am with true literary virtuosity setting the scene for what will undoubtedly be a climactic and insightful review.

Conclusion:
So then, the Sodastream show was satisfactory. Some of their songs were rather beautiful, some were rather dull. A key problem I believe was my complete unfamiliarity with their material before the night but this is hardly an excuse as almost all the bands I review here are previously unknown to me. But they just didn’t make me feel it, if you follow. Of course their are mitigating circumstances; firstly it was held at the Corner hotel leaving little opportunity for the intimacy so vital to indie/acoustic bands further I was little predisposed to hear music that night being still flustered as I mentioned far earlier. Sodastream played a tight show displaying deft musicianship and competent songwriting but it was not anything spectacular or evidently remarkable.

Meaningless Milestone #1

2006-10-14T18:13:00.000-07:00

Alright, this sites counter at the bottom left column just ticked over One Thousand hits.

Thanks then to you generous reader.

Review: [Kes and Band + The Triangles]

2006-10-02T07:38:00.000-07:00

Following even a casual survey of the range of art displayed at the National Gallery of Victoria one finds the majority of the most excellent paintings (and I distinctly recall at least one breathtakingly consummate bust) are based on religious events or themes. Recall the many impassioned images of the Christ painted in the Renaissance and contrast to these the listless virtuoso portraiture in the 18th century. Think you, that Bach could have touched the heights of his St. John Passion, Mozart his D-minor Requiem, Stevens his Seven Swans without being first filled to the brim with the most profound devotion?

Of course the contention I have just now outlined is completely absurd. Confessedly I do in my more frivolous moods I enjoy the argument, yes the one just above, and in a way I would like it to contain some small crux of truth. That is, great art is infused with the awesome power of God’s love. This fancy may account for why I love a band like the Triangles so goddamn much, blasphemy, yes unhappily I am myself an atheist. But you see when the Triangles start playing their gorgeous, whimsical pop music I have something of a religious experience. As the guitar ascends the major key so do my spirits soar and when the xylophone taps out a joyful melody I gleam with radiant mirth and devotion and...

Your pardon. So the Triangles played a pretty good set at the Tote on the Sabbath. Two things were disappointing however. Firstly they have determined to reduce the number of random instruments they use on stage (eg. ukuleles, accordions, cups, bugles, various and manifold random keys, balloons etc.) and instead play a more rock based guitar set. This I feel is a mistake. Their talent lay precisely in the chaos and unpredictability of their music and shows, cutting back on instruments in favour of consistency and saving time between songs is disappointing. Even if they sometimes do forget a bugle say and can't play a song or spend ages looking for a lost harmonica it's all part of their singular charm. My other grievance is that they didn’t play that song about building helicopter number three though bats and i am your valley were particuarly good. Anyway their new songs are meritous if sensible but the Triangles if you have happened to google yourselves and are reading this then take heed.

Also playing was the talented Kes with his very talented backing band. Hopefully I’ll manage a fuller review of Kes at a later date. Basically the set was awesome. Imagine if you will, a folk band jamming psychedelic rock freak outs. Maybe you’re familiar with Syd Barrett? Well a bit like that, nowhere near as inspired and erratic but every bit as good. I really can’t remember too much else though the lyrics were pretty interesting, one song seemed to be about wizardry. But I do recall being completely blown away.

In short, The Triangles and Kes are two bands you really need to see.

Fuck Meredith

2006-09-18T08:20:00.000-07:00

The Meredith Music festival is awful. The past few days I haven’t been able to sleep so strong was my fear that tickets would be so plentiful that I’d be somehow deceived into accepting one, again... I remember it well. That sterile, blasphemous field in the remote Victorian countryside. Deceptively serene but amidst the hippies and indie poseurs an undercurrent of dissidence. There were drugs, alcohol and especially marihuana everywhere. Completely non commercial an entirely non profit enterprise. There weren’t even any policeman. So far we’ve established that this festival is anti- the war on drugs (and probably terror), anti- the economy and anti- law and order. And the noise, gods, the noise they passed off as music. It was a long way from what was played in my day.
Just look at the bands they’ve got playing this year;
Datarock – Norwegian “new rave” according to wikipedia no doubt a pseudonym for “old rave” just with more street credibility.
Midlake – Completely unobjectionable indie rock.
Augie March – I heard a song of theirs on Nova so I guess they’re cool.
The Drones – I read an interview with the Drones the other day where they not only bagged John Howard but also defended the ludicrous Black Armband fabrication of Australian history. Needless to say I’ll never listen to them again.
The Soundtrack of Our Lives – This band just, actually sucks.
The Bamboos – No ones listened to funk music since the early eighties.
Girl Talk – I hear this band strip on stage thus further demonstrating the complete lack of morality in our nations youth. Also, and from their myspace, “It bangs as a continuous mix packed with wildly disparate Top 40 genres and eras.”
City of Ballarat Brass band – As the great conductor Thomas Beecham once stated, ‘theres a place for everything; for brass bands it’s in an open field and several miles away.”
Tapes and Tapes – More generic indie prattle.
Concertino Trio – Not only is this band not either Australian or American but they’re actually from Communist Russia. No thanks, Comrade.

So yeah, that’s why I’m not going to Meredith this year.

And also because they sold out of tickets in about half an hour.

Review: [Alps – Needletail]

2006-09-14T07:55:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately I missed the Could Have Moved Mountains set at the Old Bar last week. I have a bet going that I already know exactly what the sound like, from their name alone. I’ll have to wait and see. Instead I was watching a Handel organ concerto, Haydn symphony and Stravisnsky’s Rite of Spring performed by the MSO. The Stravinsky piece was amazing. The sheer energy and flux of the rhythm, the fierce dynamics and violent sonority. Certainly a confrontational modernist piece though written nearly 100 years ago. An interesting anecdote tells of the scandal that occurred half a minute into it’s premier when the Parisian audience rioted in protest and.... What’s that, sir? I’m supposed to write about rock music... I humbly apologise.

So Needletail took to the stage and immediately started rocking it out. This band is rather good. Their songs typically either employed some pretty melodic counterpoint between bass and guitar and then at the climax, a descent into a dirty maelstrom of distorted guitars, distorted screams and cymbals or else the whole thing was distorted noise. They reminded me a lot in their heavier mode of At the Drive In, which is no small compliment. Their set did lose a bit of intensity towards the end which was not made up for with their increased reliance on distortion. Nonetheless, a highly enjoyable band.

Headlining was a guest to our state, Alps of the New South Wales. This act involved a man, his Casio keyboard, drum machine, xylophone and bass drum. Basically some beats would roll, then a bit of keyboard action would come in with some plaintive whisperings into the microphone. It turned out to be pretty amateurish but it makes me glad that someone can do that even if (especially maybe) it isn’t great. Anyway Stravinsky was good.

Little Athletics

2006-08-31T20:21:00.000-07:00

Another Thursday night spent down at the old Pony bar. And if I had been unimaginative in choosing a venue then this was more than made up for by the nights second band, Go Genre Everything. These crazy kids play music that, as their name subtly alludes, was confused and erratic. Their second song in was played very much in the style of Do Make Say Think i.e. repeated, surging guitar melody playing counterpoint to a complex bass line, but their very next song was a loud, fast and utterly dreadful clamour of punk, rock and noise. They offhand manner in which they played this completely eclectic blend of musical bombast completely won me over. Furthermore I have never seen a band so completely unpretentious. They weren’t afraid to wear shabbyclothing or to banter at length onstage in a painful, boorish manner. So, Go Genre Everything.

The first band that played were the Bright Yellow Doors. They played their rock and roll music in the old rollicking style. They sounded a bit like the Kings of Leons or the QOTSA. (Good, I managed to save some valuable internet space there though at the expense of clarity if you didn’t decipher the acronym) But I was pretty impressed with this band because their music, if not it’s fashion was actually pretty innovative. This will be a band who I will not actively be avoiding in the coming years. (A high achievement by anyones books.)

It seems as if the headline of the night show was Dane Certificate. This probably (though I’ll never really know) wasn’t justified. He was just a man, with a guitar and a bass drum. What could he do with it, you may well ask. Well, as you would expect. I decided to leave after the second song.

Before I did leave the Pony that night, in favour of spending some quality time watching quizmaster, the Little Athletics played their set. I liked them but in a rare display of autonomy in these matters my friend, A did not. I argued that though they’re music was derivative and though the songwriting was poor it was overshadowed by the quality of their musicianship. He argued that virtuosity is irrelevant to musical merit and that my position was in conflict both to reason and to my own opinions, claiming I just liked them because they were girls. He was probably right on this but whatever, I still liked them.

The Dumb Earth

2006-08-30T04:48:00.000-07:00

The Dumb Earth played a few weeks back at a bar which I’m henceforth going to stop advertising. Their music was solemn, poetic and human. There was a bass saxophone and a trumpet. The atmosphere was somber and they wore dark suits, in my notebook I recorded (carelessly) the word noir. That’s probably all you need to know, at least it is all that I care to relate.

Preceding the Dumb Earth was a band called the Gentle Blooding. This band has no business playing music outside the setting of some seedy businessman's lounge.

And to the news writer of the Beat, just because someone sings dreadfully does not mean you can just start bandying about Tom Waits comparison. Keep up the good work though.

Band Meme

2006-08-21T05:04:00.000-07:00

A meme, (noun) as I have just learned is defined as a unit of cultural information.
Stumbled across a book meme at comrade armaniac's website. And now I'm tagged to do one? Well since you probably care less -if possible- about my love for Cervantes than about my taste in music -this indeed being the purpose of this site- I'll modify it slightly to suit my purposes.

1. One band you have seen more than once

The Triangles. I really don't know why I love the Triangles so much, I hate just about everything about them. They're young, clean cut, well mannered and just have such a great attitude. They play happy, colourful pop songs with an array of different instruments and paraphernalia. Once when I saw them they handed out lamingtons to everyone. Another time they had balloons decorating the stage shaped like birds and a big picture of Aslan out front. Yes, they even met on a Christian youth camp.

Just delightful, really.

2. One band you would want on a desert island

I'm going to have to go with the Young Professionals on this one. Those girls are really, really hot. I think I'm most in love with the bass player...

Oh, and the music of course.

3. One band that made you laugh

This songs about rock and roll. It's called... Lets Rock!

Airbourne. Remember them. They're still rocking it oud old style in hilariously comic fashion.

I've got my Harley round back and my girls out front. This songs called... Lets ride!

4. One band that made you cry

As above, on finding out they had scored the biggest Australian contract for a previously unsigned Australian band.

5. One song I wish I had written

Deep water by the Dirty Three. Really just beautiful.

6. One band I wish had never existed

Jet. Overhyped, uninspired, derivative bollocks. These poseurs shamelessly rip off about every great rock band and yet they still manage to suck.

7. One book I am currently reading

I couldn't think how to set this question to music.

I've just started One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez after finally concluding a protracted campaign against the long and convoluted -yeah it's rubbed off- Tristram Shandy.

8. One band I have been meaning to see

Sodastream sound pretty good from what Russ tells me.

9. One band that changed my life

I don't know about life changing but the Dirty Three and the Necks both had a pretty big effect on me. Are you guys familiar with the Necks? Maybe I should write about them some time.

10. Now tag 5 people

If you're one of the first five people to read this, then sorry you're tagged as they say. Now you have to make one of these lists. Or don't, whatever.

Emo is Dead

2006-08-15T05:39:00.000-07:00

When Zarathustra was alone, however, he said to his heart:
"Could it be possible! This old saint in the forest hath not yet heard of it, that God is dead!"
Friedrich Nietzsche

Well, at least acting deputy chief subeditor of Sunday magazine, Amelia Dalton seems to think so. This weeks Age featured a short article claiming "emo is over - and metal killed it."

To justify this statement Ms. Dalton points out that metal band Queensryche toured in July, German thrash band Kreator play this month, my once idolised Fear Factory play in September while perennial favourites, Cannibal Corpse are touring in October.

Convinced? Well unfortunately thats the whole argument.

Last week the Hawthorne Heights played at the HiFi bar, Dashboard Confessional are touring in September while October sees Melbourne play host to an entire emo festival!
As much as I would really like Ms. Dalton to be right about the death of emo her evidence is unsound.

So dear reader I ask you.
Do you think the emo movement is ending?
Would the emo kids switching to the metal bandwagon really be an ideal resolution?
Should we instead just organise an efficient and bloody pogrom?

Just Listen To The Fucking Music!

2006-08-06T05:21:00.000-07:00

I held little doubt, after seeing the poster reproduced below, that anyone who held as distinguished a predilection to psychedelia as I would converge to the Pony late Thursday night.

And so it was. A large and largely disreputable crowd was already packed into the modest club to witness the brash clamour of PBR Space Program. Playing only their second gig the Program impressed the crowd, judging from the attention and applause they received, to no small degree. Their method was to play long jams, broken intermittently - and ineffectively – with standard verse singing about whatever. Where the Program were really let down though was with their triple guitar attack. Why in the blazes would you need three electric guitars? I know that question was loaded with rhetoric but really, most of the time they were all playing the exact chords anyway. It’s an interesting paradox I guess, that by increasing guitar numbers you actually decrease the amount that can be done with any of them. In fact it was necessary for PBR, so as to produce any actual variation in their music, to have the solo parts played by a trumpet. Still it wasn’t an altogether bad set for a new band.

It was disappointing to see a large number of patrons leave after PBR’s set, evidently they were friends with the bandmembers, because they missed out on inventive musical journey courtesy of The Sun Blindness. The beat described this band as an ‘absorbing drone-folk duo’ which is probably a good description although I wouldn’t say they played anything like what I’d describe as drone-folk. -If anyone, by the way wants to actually start a drone-folk band then
count me in.- The Sun Blindness are also the winners of my now weekly prize –nb really only a metaphorical prize- for inspiring me take the most amount of notes during or directly ensuing a show. This prize is in response to readers of this site tiring of the scarcity of detail and the vague and confused manner in which I review the bands. Anyway the complete and unabridged notes I took that night were ‘first like airport 2’. This comprehensive document was supposed to remind me that their first song sort of sounded a bit like 2-1 off Brian Eno’s Ambient 1 – Music for Airports. If you have no idea what that is, don’t worry you’re in the absolute majority of people I know.

So they had two electric guitars and one of them spent the most part holding notes with one of those Electronic Bows you may have seen around. They’re these handheld devices that produce a magnetic field that vibrates the guitar string as opposed to plucking it. The other guy made random noise and played chords and –again disappointingly- did a bit of singing as well. It was interesting stuff, well worth a look, but not pulled off to the greatest effect possible.

Headlining the night’s performance was Blue Sunshine Mind -how awesome are all the band names- who played admirably. Before doing that however a large white sheet was draped from the roof, so obscuring the entire stage. You can imagine the shocked bemusement that ran through the –again swelled- crowd. It would be easy to label this an act of complete pretentiousness and I had decided to do so but the sheet was left up the entire set and not in emulation say of Sigur Ros and torn down after the first song to rapturous applause. So as the band played through their set the sheet defiantly stayed up. I say defiantly because the crowd, still alarmed at being denied the use of their most valuable sense, were baying for the screens immediate removal. These calls were delightfully answered between songs by an annoyed bandmember, ‘just listen to the fucking music’. Admirable advice and those who took it were treated to an outstanding display of musicianship. It seems that Blue Sunshine Mind were really just interested in getting their music across to people for the reason, that it really deserved listening to.

Their music is really hard to describe on paper –though probably only due to the fact I’ve forgotten what it was like. I’ve written, rewritten and ultimately deleted, several paragraphs trying to accurately describe it already. If you know the Melbourne band Laura then they’re a bit like them. If not then I’ll offer the beat's description of,‘trance-dancing’ but I’d say thats almost exactly what they’re not, though the music is a bit more danceable than other post rock bands. You know! Just check out their fucking MySpace page.

Unfortunately the reaction from the large part of the audience was not as would have been envisioned by the band. Rather than get lost in the psychedelic sounds –aided if need be by the strobostropic light effect being played across the screen, the crowd decided to resume talk amongst themselves. Though perhaps that was what the band really intended. Either way the experiment was terminated towards the end of the set when some audience members pulled the screen down to reveal the band as well as –seated in the back corner- the now redundant stroboscope operator who quickly left the stage after the song.

Right, this has been a long and I dare say tedious review so in quick summary; PBR Space Program are pretty ok, The Sun Blindness are well worth a look while Blue Sunshine Mind are a great -possibly pretentious- band.

Review: Dandelion Wine - Pickpocket

2006-07-20T02:17:00.000-07:00

Dandelion Wine are an interesting band. While one half of this bohemian duo plays an assortment of exotic middle age period instruments namely the Appalachian dulcimer, hammered dulcimer, lute and bowed psaltery the other female member processes beats and electronic loops. It gets even better because they play middle age folk melodies while backed by kickin drum beats and vocals. If you’re at all like me this information would be enough to send you rushing out to hear this band without delay. So with very high expectations did I await their set at the Bar Open last week.

Pickpocket were the band who opened the nights show and were another male/female pairing. The difference in this case though was that the male was completely superfluous to the band. The girl member sang and played the acoustic in the expected manner. She was actually pretty good. The guy pretty much just followed the acoustic guitar on the electric and didn’t add particularly to the music. Still not a bad set from a nice band.

When Dandelion Wine had finished assembling their large array of instruments they opened the show (I think) with a small tribute to Syd Barrett by incorporating the theme to Interstellar Overdrive into their introductory bowed psaltery passage. Their music was at times very good, their would be the random electronic beats, peculiar sounds from whatever random instrument and the female vocals but at other times though with application of this same formula it was pretty mundane. Dandelion Wine are an unusual case in that the idea of their band is better than its actual application, this is not to say that they’re not really good it’s just that I had hyped them up way too much in my head before actually hearing what they would be like.

They’re playing a more rock orientated set at the Public Bar in a week or so and I recommend taking a trip down to see them. Walking back from the pub that night I was waylaid at the Old Bar by the enticing thought of being able to quoff a few more beers. Upon entry I found the Bakelite Age finishing off their set. I had seen the Bakelite Age about a year ago at the Corner and back then we were nice, clean cut kids singing rock songs about physics and wine and they sort of... sucked. Now they have been transformed (as if from Ovid) into a straight up dirty, fucking rock and roll band. And though I don’t typically like these kinds of bands I was completely blown away. You should go see them and see if I was right or rather just drunk.

Review: Down Hlls Home - The Get Go's

2006-07-14T01:14:00.000-07:00

The Brunswick Hotel is a nice place to have a drink. Random face-mask wall hangings, Abbey Road on the stereo, the Aladdin pinball adventure (watch out for the spinning lamp) and helpful barstaff who tarry not for you to finish the beer your drinking before pestering you to buy another.

Down Hills Home headlined last Saturday’s show. Their music was not particularly memorable and since I have yet to master the ability of taking down pertinent notes at a show this review will be brief. The only notes I left for myself to decipher now for this band was, Needs Frontman? I was referring to the insistence of my companions that the band was in dire needs of a stage presence. At the time I argued the point since music the quality of a bands music has nothing to do with the theatrical was it is presented. Looking back though I’m inclined to repent my view, the thing with Down Hills Home is that they were just boring. Their music was plain rock with country influences and although they had a lot of members and instruments they just had nothing going on. The fact that noone did anything while up on stage only compounded the tedium.

The Get Go’s who played in support were just terrible. It was the sort of music that you could play and sing along to in your room with your electric guitar and Pearl Jam tab sheet. The extent of my notes on this band was perhaps a little unfairly, they fucking suck. The two members of the Get Go’s just played bland rock whilst singing irreverently about their feelings or whatever mundane triviality.

The band Eon Automatic opened the nights show and were the reason I was there. The lovely Erica of One Foot Down the Rabbit Hole... renown is the bands singer. Consequently in a rare display of integrity I won’t be writing a review of Eon Automatic for reasons of a Conflict of Interest. You’ll all just have to go see them for yourselves.

Conway Savage - Maurice Frawley - The Small Knives

2006-07-09T21:18:00.000-07:00

With just a guitar and organ the Small Knives contrived to pierce my heart with ethereal music but to then miserably gore it bloodily. Their first song was achingly beautiful, a single note held throughout on the organ while the melody subtly unfolded with acoustic guitar and harmonious singing. Bearing witness to the majesty of this piece was well worth the door fee. But to my utter dismay on the next song the small knives abandoned their organ opting instead for a dual guitar attack. For the rest of the set they played the insipid, uninspired chord and lyric based music so many bands play, never again matching the promise evident in their opening.

Conway Savage as you may know is one of Nick Cave’s Bad Seeds. He played piano with an acoustic guitarist and keyboardist. The guitarist was content to faithfully strum whatever chords the tune happened to be in while the keyboardist did her best to enrage me by playing every song with the same tremulous, loitering organ effect while also keeping the same chords. Conway Savage played his keyboard well as would be expected but consequently was rather boring as he played and sang songs about god or whatever. I’m not saying that Conway Savage doesn’t make good music, he does. In fact the music he was playing was actually very good but it just wasn’t particularly new or interesting. This fact was evident in the fact that the patrons of the Empress hotel tonight were predominantly middle aged. When I‘m old myself I will no doubt listen to comfortable, amiable music. But for now at least I prefer (yes I know I’m sounding pretentious and condescending) music to be new and challenging music.

Maurice Frawley and his Yard Hands are a straight up country band. After recovering my senses from the idiot depravity of their opening number I decided to give them one more chance. Aghast I listened as Maurice issued the opening acoustic strums and as the listless bass player started his impertinent plucking and the drummer began to keep an empty, steady rhythm. By the time the lap slide guitar began it’s inevitable cliched phrasings I was out the door.

I'm Still Unsigned

2006-07-05T01:53:00.000-07:00

Three weeks ago I heard about the annual PBS festival song. At the time I thought it would be a really good idea to enter and so finally achieve something worthy of justifying my existance. When I recalled this resolution with less than a week before the deadline I decided I actually would do it as opposed to everything else I've said I would do in the past, such as;

-travelling overseas
-learning German
-learning to read music
-writing a novel
-travelling the country
-starting a lawn bowls team
-trying at uni
-learning to play the piano
-travelling anywhere

So it was that I put everything on hold (I actually didn't have anything else to do) while I hurriedly concieved, wrote lyrics and music for and then recorded three new songs. They aren't particularly good or original, the lyrics and singing are woeful and the recording efforts were shoddy at best but still. For your approval my entry for the PBS Festival of Song;

Dagger - 4.8mb
Theres nothing I hate more than angsty love songs but I just couldn't help it, you just start rhyming words and next thing you know.

Flourish - 4mb
How not completely cliched, an anti-war song. This song's abit more upbeat and the music's not particuarly bad.

Forbear - 3.5mb
This one turned out to be another angsty love song written late on the night before the deadline. I had just reread my previous lyrics about Schrodinger's cat and found lines like;

Spare a thought for the cat,

who's wavefunction has collapsed.

Well that wasn't really, but this certainly was,

I'll give you my heart please keep it in a box,

and you can't ever ever measure it.

Outrageous.

Gabriel's Day and Fourth Floor Collapse

2006-07-01T22:50:00.000-07:00

By virtue of their mildly interesting names Gabriels Day and Fourth Floor Collapse were able to coerce me down to the Carlton Music Room one chilly evening. I will acknowledge at this point that I was probably in a bad music mood for music appreciation that night after having seen a Melbourne University production of Cabaret.

This production turned out to be not from the original play as I expected nor the excellent movie adaptation but instead I was subjected to an interpretation in the form of a Broadway musical. I had never seen a musical before and by the mercy of God I will never have to again. It was just fucking awful. Incidentally I later met up with several of the cast and crew of this travesty at a party. I can’t remember exactly what happened but I think I drunkenly managed to pretty much offend everybody involved in the project with my reproaches and the young assistant director to refuse to even talk to me or acquiesce to my advances.

But I digress. Anyway I’m really pleased that the Dan O’Connel Pub has opened up a live music venue and they generally have some respectable bands there but they certainly didn’t on this particular night. Gabriel’s Day and Fourth Floor Collapse I’ll henceforth refer to them as Fourth Day share the popular practice of writing songs just for the sake of it. The difference between Fourth Day and most songwriters though is that those common songwriters didn’t, that night anyway, have the nerve to take my money and time in return for their bagatelles. In my post on the Drones I talked about emotion in music, Fourth Day are an example of a band who have no instill no emotion unless perhaps apathy into their music and who just don’t understand or at least don’t practice the notion of writing song with any meaning. I mean it was just ridiculously mediocre.

Last Friday night on Rage I actually saw a Fourth Floor video and it was fucking awful. They band played soft rock, the singer sung in that horrible emo style and the video was sucky.

So after sitting through the whole of Gabriels Day and most of Fourth Floor Collapse I hightailed it out of there and straight on to the Old Bar wherein I finally found something to make good my night...

Clinkerfield and Khancoban

2006-07-01T22:21:00.000-07:00

Though I arrived at the old bar as Clinkerfield were finishing their set I saw enough of them to justify and extrapolate a fairly favourable review. My memory’s a little hazy, as by this stage of the evening I was no doubt a little drunk so I can’t really give specific details. But you see, Clinkerfield are one of those uh… good… interesting… sort of bands. You can find some reviews of them on their site here, a profile of them on another site absurdly claims they are a wonkavating, manic-rock, alt-country conundrum, I think that wonkavating means crazy chocolaty fun, what do you think. So you’ll just have to take my word for it and go see them. See Khancoban too, those guys had a lot of guitar noise and I think one guy was playing the lap slide but with a table top covered in effects and they were doing a sort of alt-country thing with some post rock sounds I thought and uh... So yeah, terribly sorry.

If anyone wants to help me out actually knowing anything about these two bands then please comment, I would be most obliged.

Review: Human Six Billion and The Grey Tapes

2006-06-23T22:54:00.000-07:00

Like choosing a book the process of choosing a band to see on any particular night is usually based by how I judge sound from the bands name. With Human Six Billion I didn’t really know what to expect until I managed to find HSB’s personal webpage which informed me that the bands singer-songwriter was both a trained Koto player and recognised composer. So it was with high expectations that I wandered down to the Old Bar when instead I should have been studying herbs for University. Unfortunately I was a little disappointed with the show, instead of playing his Koto or experimenting with the twelve tone scale HSB played just a short set of interesting indie songs supported by a nice backing band. So they were all good and well but nothing particularly special.

The same thing can be said of the Grey Tapes who performed first. They played a more rock orientated set, though consisting of a succession of hits and misses wasn't in all too bad. Regrettably though the Grey Tapes are one of those bands whose lead singer is also the bands drummer. This practice is deplorable and should be ceased by anyone that does this immediately. The drums are a rhythmic instrument while the voice is a melodic one and it’s near impossible to do both well simultaneously. When the drummer tries to do this he is forced to either compromise between singing with feeling but keeping a steady, and boring, beat or to drum well but sing impassively.

All in all not a bad show I won’t be avoiding these bands but neither will I be rushing out to see them again soon.

Review: Spirit of Progress - The McAlpine Fusiliers

2006-06-22T15:41:00.000-07:00

It is possible that Spirit of Progress are a good country band. They play simple country ditties with open chords and a pleasant tune. At their best they will sing about the obscure and fictional Australian poet Ern Malley. At their worst they will sing songs like, 'they're aint no seven eleven in heaven' which is just a really long list of the various items which heaven apparently won't be catering for. I said it's possible these guys good play good country, thats as I know very little about the scene but generally speaking this band is bland and unoriginal, sort of like all the other country bands.

While I'm here I should mention the McAl pine Fusiliers, above. These guys play colonial era Irish-Australian bush ballads with emphasis on some mean fiddling. They aren't musically great, quote "we'll play this song in G major because friends play in G major", but they are good fun. I was enjoying it greatly before being dragged from the Old Bar by a narrow minded friend who would sadly have rather been almost anywhere else.

Review: The Drones

2006-06-20T06:08:00.000-07:00

I first heard the music of the drones listening to RRR late one night after an evening of star gazing courtesy of the university telescope. A Meade Schmidt Cassegrain 0.3 meter reflector if you're interested. The magnificence of the innumerable stars and galaxy’s I saw that night got me thinking about this crazy infinite Universe of ours. If any one band could sum up its vastness and indifference in music then the Drones would be that bands complete antithesis.

The Drones exemplify just what music should be, pure expression of emotion. Their songs are loud, raw and dirty, they play rock and roll but it’s not rock music in the form familiar to listeners of bands like Jet. Of course I’m not implying that they play that horrible emo music either that all the kids listen to nowadays, the emotion they transmit is pure and unrefined not manufactured and the music exists purely as a vehicle to communicate it.

It’s unfortunate that most artists Australian artists either ignored or more worse romaticise our unique and piquant heritage but Gareth’s lyrics, desperately howled and drawled draw their inspiration from the harsh reality of this land and it’s history.
The song Locust for instance,

‘Ether was the town where I was born. They pulled iron from the ground and knife wounds from the port. They built a prison and it tempered in the sun. It rose up off a plateau like the last tooth in a gum... They made the blacks live outside of town, the weekend came they'd tear the whole place down, the Chinese came without weekends at all, and the whites complained the pay was better shooting them in the war... My first girl's old man was in a later war, he drank like a motherfucker, now I know what for, she took my van, put Louie in the jack, left a suicide note and I've got him to thank for that.'

At shows singer and guitarist Gareth Liddiard spits and raves like a lunatic and damn near destroys both guitar and stage in his fits of intense passion. He plays his guitar with such ferocity that he is forced to completely retune his strings after each song. While managing this he is still able to produce some of the most rousing and rending guitar riffs you’re likely to ever hear. To say that Gareth dominates the stage would be an understatement. The other members of the band, bass, drum and guitar players, though each capable musicians seem only subsidiary to the mesmorising intensity of Gareth’s presence.

Recently awarded the Mercury prize for their album, ‘Wait Long by the River and the Bodies of Your Enemies Will Float By’ the Drones are likely, though never will they recieve commercial exposure, to become quite a major Australian group. Unsurprisingly the message of this article is to go see the Drones and to go see them soon.

Alternatively if you have seen them and agree/disagree with the excessive adulation and truely NME worthy hyperbole I’ve demonstrated in here please leave a praise/hate filled comment below.

Disclaimer

2006-06-20T05:34:00.000-07:00

The real purpose of this site is to post some honest reviews of the local bands in Melbourne town. However I make no claims to having any degree of journalistic integrity or even to possessing a coherent writing style. Often times I will probably dismiss or alternatively hype up bands for next to no good reason. When this happens I would like to encourage everyone to write in hate comments or emails. If anyone would like to write an alternative review i will most happily post it alongside my own. It's up to you guys though to act as watchdog in case I start embellishing uncontrollably and use my power for evil like NME.

Of course reviewing all the bands in Melbourne would be a truely Herculean task but I will try to do what I can and possibly take short cuts from time to time. One such cut will be me back dating a few gigs. It isn't really fair since some of them happened a long time ago and I haven't yet been to a show with the aim of writing a review so you'll all have to bear with me for a while. I will also need to be somewhat selective, for instance the Drones gig I'll put up next will be of the first show of their's at the Corner last year. I saw them recently at the Spanish Club but their performance had lost some of its spark and so I have ignored it.

Well thats enough excuses. Just leave comments about anything though.

GrogBlog!?

2006-06-18T18:37:00.000-07:00

Now as you'll all no doubt come to appreciate over the coming weeks i am not at all adverse to a little bit of hyperbole from time to time so that said, Friday's Grog Blog was the world's greatest thing, ever.

Ariving at the pub fairly early I spent an awkward few minutes trying to fit in with my blogging peers. Being new to the game I wasn't particuarly learned in the main topic of conversation and well intentioned efforts by Alex and Nick to make me feel more comfortable had unfortunately the complete opposite effect. One thing that was going to help me fit in though with this crowd was that most useful of social tools, beer and plenty of it. I had quickly came to realisation that these bloggers are actually some really interesting people. I had for instance a conversation with the Amazing Peter Parker for some thirty minutes on his hobby/obsession with bus and train routes. Surprising as it sounds i wasn't trying desperately the whole time to escape at any cost but rather was imbued to some small degree of his enthusiasm and managed to come away with some rather interesting transport related anecdotes. He also i should add enjoys the Ham radio. Roger that.

After witnessing some right vs left action courtesy of TimT and the ephemeral Armagnac I managed to make the acquaintance of the enchanting Erica. A truely delightful girl who's main interest i gather is knitting. Yes not accupuncturing Engels, you conundrum of a man, for more information on Engels or on what he is not please see the previous post. He's actually not a bad sort i hope i didn't come across too harshly.

For the whole Engels episode i blame my mischievous mentor Ben and his blue blooded cohort Jon from Sterne. Jon has the special ability of delivering everything he says in an even droll, autocratic tone with always a slight hint of a sneer. I find this sort of fitting for one i consider an 'alpha' blogger', I believe it was him who also introduced me to that particular term. Points to Jon as well for though i didn't see it myself i have it on good authority that he had the audacity to insinuate his signature and a message of good will on the Birthday card of a group adjacent to us in the pub.

After further drinks and mingling, those who had not yet left by Pub's close decided to hit the town. First we found our way to some seedy karaoke bar secreted in one of Melbournes many back alleys. As Bruce rightly lamented the actual karaoke level, a scientific quantity, was abysmal. Deciding if we were going to do karaoke we had to do it right we set forth and found some crazy Japanese to set us right. Given our own booth a la Lost in Translation the group of us we proceeded to spend the rest of the night belting out the classics. I seem to remember giving a strirring account of the tenor part for Ken in Aqua's timeless duet Barbie Girl.

So it was that after a short stint in Hungry Jacks wherin i discovered to my intense displeasure that the fucking Sundae machine wasn't working, wearily I caught the first train home on Saturday morning, which if you're interested Peter was the 5.10 to Frankston.

Engels

2006-06-17T08:01:00.000-07:00

The name was Engels. Repeated around the room these two syllables were devoured and disgorged by the crowd assembled. Each intoning the word a different way. A sharper consonant or a lengthened vowel brought forth myriad variations on the theme. Constant though was the same end, of reverent silence. The same extended s, trailing dimmuendo. As if repeating the tetragrammaton YHWH, the secret name of god, a sense of awe would fill both the speaker and the listener. The overall effect was of bearing witness to some ancient and pagan ritual. It was intoxicating and I was intoxicated.
But what new heresy was this I asked, who or what is this Engels. Dispelled were fears of a revival of that seditious doctrine from history's most infamous flunky. So too were hopes of a long awaited world tour from German metal gods Rammstein. Affected by both alcohol and lack of sleep I became convinced that Engels must surely be some minor deity sent down from Valhalla. But in vain were my attempts to find Engels that night.
Instead i was presented with a peculiar, somewhat dull but by no means angelic, as a literal german translation of the name would suggest, student of the mathematical sciences. For those wishing to learn more of this chimera, this peddler in disillusion he can be found at this webblog. As for me though I will continue my quest and answer the question that has haunted me this past day, just what is Engels?

2006-06-15T23:45:00.000-07:00

If anyone thinks it fortuitous that i create a blog mere hours before a notorious 'grog blog' event then they would be completely wrong. In fact i've prepared a Venn diagram showing the overlap between wanting to make a blog and wanting to get drunk with total strangers i've admired from afar.

Anyway this blog thing will probably turn out to be a good idea. I do have some ideas other than just taking the random illinformed swipes at various nouns, verbs and proper nouns that most of other blogs seem to be do.

Though i'm not denying that I'll be doing my fair share of that too I will primarily be interested in compiling a list of all the bands in Melbourne coupled with timely information on they're levels of awesomeness which for a lot of these Melbourne bands is sadly low.
I imagine that this sort of information may be useful for those planning a night on the town but primarily it will be useful to me so i don't have to see a horrible band twice after forgetting their name. Yeah I'm looking at you Frankenbok.
I'll probably other things to.
Anyway, time to go drink it up with my new found blogging cred.

Test

2006-06-15T14:34:00.000-07:00

Testing web page, One Two