A dubious clustering of unedited ramblings.

WARNING:The following has very little point. I enjoyed writing it though. 
I've just been wading through a vast amount of recent music journalism that's about music journalism, beginning with the 'notorious' Everett True (who seems to be boss cocky of music journo's in Australia and elsewhere these days) dissing of Australian Street press, and the ensuing mass of reaction that spawned. I rather think that much writing  about music in Australian Street Press is dire to the point of excrement (indeed, I line my cat's litter tray with SAUCE, the Tasmanian street rag), but it's a bit of an easy target and doesn't quite get to the core of the boil, which is probably the Australian Music Industry itself, and that could itself be something to do with Australia's general attitude to Arts and Culture, but maybe this is getting all too large already.
Street Press is, in my humble opinion, pretty irrelevant these days  - it exists to sell advertising, and that largely for clubs rather than dedicated live music venues. I really don't know enough about club music to feel that I can say something about it with any degree of knowledge, so even if it's a cop-out I'm going to have to leave it alone, and everything else seems to be about presenting a particular image not of a band or a musician, but of the venue itself, and that includes any writing about a particular night out. Everything, everything comes across as advertorial in street press, and it has for a long time, because street press doesn't seem to have much function beyond selling advertising.  I don't think critical opinion is wanted there, and really, I'm not sure it ever has been, at least not in Australia to any major extent.

I blame Molly Meldrum - he always seemed to like everything.

But I turn an look at my own house first and pretty much, everything here is positive. Am I lame? Probably, but I really don't want to write about stuff that's dull. I started writing a negative review of Calvin Johnson's solo album Before the Dream Faded..., called him a low-rent Tom Waits and then just couldn't be bothered finishing because the album was so dull. It was just dull. Droning baritone, some funny bits, nothing to see here, have a bong and forget it.  I I didn't hate it, it just wasn't the glory of the Beat Happening and that's hardly his fault, and I just sold it on, because someone out there will probably love it.I haven't bought anything I hate in ages because I'm pretty tight and pretty careful and do a bit of research before making a purchase anyway.

So, that's probably me out anyway on that tact.

I do think an awful lot of current music is dire but i hate very, very little of it and if it does not anger me to the point of frustration, I cannot be screwed writing about it, as I don't write here all that much anyway. The last act I really disliked was that atrocity of a band Aleks and The Ramps (a cross between the worst aspects of Pavement and Hi 5ive), who I heckled like a drunk arsehole at the Brisbane one night. What a nasty man I am; I'm told they're nice young people.
I rarely do that these days - when something bores me I piss off to the front bar of the Brisbane and talk to someone, or more correctly at someone.  A band has to be amazingly shit for me to want to tell them to never touch an instrument again. 

So perhaps I'm just noting that at least one reason why I think there's not a lot of decent criticism is that most bands in Australia are too dull to write about, why would you bother?
You'll get nothing out of telling people Ash Grunwald is an awful sonic experience, because people either do not agree or they already know - although Ash is one artist whom you really only need to see a picture of to know he's dreadful. Better to aim locally or more directly into some sub-scene? yeah, but in those areas, I'm going to write about what I enjoy far more readily, as I have done thus far, although I could slag something without fear of income loss. I've been punched for heckling a couple of times, it's just that in the gas-heated comfort of my lounge, there seems to be little reason to subject myself to listening to Grafton Primary for the express purpose of dissing them when I already know they were shite from reading their advertorial disguised as an interview in some rag.

But I will ask this: do you think it possible, since the dominance of cover bands and the relationship between covers bands and the alcohol industry that was cemented in the late 70s and early 80s in Australia that the music industry has been shaped into one big, jolly, way to sell beer to idiots? I mean, paranoid and conspiratorial, and all, but do you think that the relationships between advertising, venues, alcohol, bums on seats and music is all mixed up somehow? Where can you slot criticism into that relationship?

I don't know. I need to think about it more.

CHROME DOME S/T (Lexicon Devil)

I like Chrome Dome a bunch – or I liked version one a whole lot. When they were a two piece, they came down to Hobart, drank everything in sight and and fell over their keyboards in a totally entertaining manner. “We're just wastoids” Shaun South said after I found him in a South Hobart flat, listening to Rocksteady with Brendan, who had rescued him from Hoart's cold streets, drinking Black label cider and drooling. He'd gone missing the night before and had various adventuresbefore being found and given sanctuary. The gigs had been messy but fun – the simple synth riffs had got my head nodding and the guys despite being total fuggen ratabgs, were pretty hilarious and nice cats to have in one's home. The smattering of recorded material, underwear and Lynx they left at my home served only to cement them in my eyes as a decent act in Australia now. Not the greatest thing but solid and energetic in a woozy, swollen way. I guess they have a sound the reminds one of SCREAMERS or of PRIMITIVE CALCULATORS, but I feel lazy saying that because those bands are 'snyth punk' and I guess these fuckers are as well, and I hate saying this is like that because of instrument choices are some other such guff, but there is a driving energy in the music that is pretty similar – though the vocals are more droney and bored much of the time, not so grumpy as the the Calculators nor as angry as the Screamers.
Anyways, things changed and the half-naked gimp boy was removed or left (someone told me he walked out mid-set – punk as fuck) and two people replaced him and a rather more professional CD has emerged, and on the highly worthy Lexcion Devil label.
It's good and to the point at 17 minutes of length but there's something wrong – why do the songs pull up so quick? I mean sure, do what ya like guys but it'll just be starting to send me and the song finishes. Y'goddamn cock-teasers. I get that these are the breaks, and that sometime all one should have to do is just nail the riffs in place and move on – but I'm here waiting for the epic – I really want something to unfurl and develop over a length of time rather than tease me as this thing has. A dud? Nah; it's just sort of frustrating, like not having quite enough coffee, realising you are sporting a minor addicition and wanting to do something about it. So I wrote this. I doubt it'll have any effect but I have to say something – I like this release, I like the new arrangements, the addition of an actual live drummer has filled things out rather than changing the sound – it's still spartan and bleak - but I want to be driven a little further into the zone rather than just being pointed in the general direction.
Having said all that, this does build on the prior release/band version and I'll be paying attention. I really need to see Chrome Trio live so come down again huh? ?

Kemialliset Ystävät

FAMILY BAND Blessed Ep (self-released CDR)

Family Band is some kind of creepy new folk or maybe new country that has a wee bit of Low, a smidge of Cat Power and other such things, but gropes around in the mire enough to find some strength of character and stand on it's own feet. I tracked this via the Arthur nexus of cultural detritus and these cats were nice enough to send this five song release all the way to Hobart – and well, it's been played a lot by me ever since it landed in my post box. Craft and song writing are the core of Family Band on this sampler, but I was drawn in by the sweet timbre of vocals and the slight darkening of the instrumental sounds- a little echo here, a tiny muffling there - as if everything was swathed in smoke. A hint of otherworldliness never hurts.
Melancholy and simple, there's something that slowly unfurls with repeated listens – the subtle feedback swatches, the strange poetry of the lyrics all have found a tiny niche in my head. I like to sit in our kitchen and drink red wine of an evening with this one, and it seems that the music likes that too. Wooden floors and garlic and rain otuside.

Check it all out here. Tell 'em I sent you.

THE PAUL KIDNEY EXPERIENCE – Flower Punk

This is a huge stumbling splattering mess of sound. It's music as expression, unleashed Id breakout, it throbs and it's a cosmic lurching slug that exists in different time phase, oozes past dimensional gaps, has sex with mountain ranges in the past eras of the earth's geographic history. This music roars, screams, and humps the couch because the whole sound, where it in fact not mere sound but in fact one magic daemonic entity, and said enity would be so, so out of it's tiny mind that it would be certain that the couch is a large sac of molten jelly that can only be prevented from exploding and causing a potentially fatal overload of bad vibes by being humped. Soundly. Because it is, actually, sound. Right?

Alright, calm down. Blimey, was that the caffeine talking. Look this CDR release on Sunshine and Grease is a one-track monster. It's a big old jam by a bunch of freaks from Melbourne. It sounds like these things do, which is like a fucking mess fucking a couch. This is no bad thing at all – I'm a couch-rooting advocate. I've done it and if you haven't – well you're probably too old and may have missed that vital window when couch humping is a genuine option, because you can't fake it – I just tried and the magic is gone.
How lucky am I then, that this big throbbing wave of sonic mess exists to transport me back to a glorious time when I could hump couches with total commitment? I do wish I'd been there to see this recorded because the joyful, expressive explosion of 'music' - and I use the term loosely - is infectious and exciting. This is not some epochal release but it is the sound of people going fucking nuts and loving it, with little regard for form or narrative other than that which is imposed by the tyranny of music's time-based nature. Special mention must go to Matt Gleason for providing propulsion and a thrilling sense of vertigo, but all the players are having a ball, none less than the man himself, Mr Kidney. Screaming and growling and avoiding any semblance of words – well there are some but fucked if I can make them out and why the hell should I try? It's scarcely the point.

The point is that this great big splat of fluoro paint bombing is a great start to any day, a good end to any night, a smokers delight and a fun listen. I guess it might be in the Acid Mother's Temple realm, but then again, it could also just as easily be a squalid little universe of it own, one with elastic boundaries and lots of shrilling guitars that carry screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaming monster with long, skinny limbs into the clouds where they can piss all over the deserts and bring new life, over and over again in an endles cycle of destruction and renewal that echoes Ragnarok itself

Or something like that. I dunno, it's fucking nuts. Good shit.

out now on Sunshine & Grease. In an edition of 100. You snooze, you lose.

Music is Math

Well, I sure have neglected this dang blog of mine - and it's a bit crappy, as I really do have a whole lot of interestng music to waffle crud about, but in the meantime - this is a pretty interesting little talk about well, stuff like music blogs. I'm guilty, we are all guilty, but give this a little time and see what you make of the opinions here:



the fellow making the comments is one Chris Weingarten.

Rowland S Howard

Well, there goes a great Australian musician. I've enjoyed his music for most of my life, and to know that he will not be writing anymore songs evokes a sense of loss in me. I never met the guy, but did see him perform.

anyway, there's this clip from ATP.

Nice banter, as well as a great song.