Oh fuck no! There's a new Wes Anderson film out. Maybe I should stand outside the cinema where it's playing and confront the turds attending the film and ask them what his contribution to cinema is? You think this shit is Quirky? Funny? Interesting? You Like Sofia Coppola as well don't you. Fuck me did you see her in Godfather 3? Oh right you weren't born then. By the way those shoes are they ironic or are you seriously wearing them?
Is this hipster bashing? I hope so! Have to say I loved Hal Harley films when I was impressionable in my teens & early twenties. I wonder if I'd like him today? You think it's all cool, meaningful, different and fun. Then later realise it's bullshit (anti)marketed at you when you are able to accept this shite ie. anyone under 30. If you're over 30 you're probably still living with mummy so we'll let you off the hook there.
Sunday, 15 July 2012
Saturday, 14 July 2012
Rolling Stone Top 500 Albums
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| The Last truly Great rock band if not the greatest. Nirvana wish. |
Fuck me Rolling Stone have put out a Best 500 albums magazine and geez I'm gonna boil over & end up in the Loony Bin. I've just skimmed through it in a hurry and it's the sane old jive. I thought 'wait I'm gonna spend $10 on something I'm gonna hate, no I will not'. Now thinking that would have been worth it just to write about. God I think I've still got 6 records to go in my Glaring Omissions (on Australian Rock) series at least. So The fucking Clash make top 10 but where are The Smiths, somewhere way down the back. Nevermind is better than Doolittle yeah sure. I even believe they had The Bends and OK Computer above Loveless??? That's pretty funny! The Clash over the Sex Pistols, I didn't realise Americans were so hilarious. Hotel California over The greatest LP of all time Love's Forever Changes. A Moby Grape LP over The Byrds at their absolute peak on Younger Than Yesterday. Highway 61 Revisited I like but you know what Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation is way fuckin better than that. Pavement's Fall tribute LP Slanted & Enchanted but no Fall albums. Nine Inch Nails but no Skinny Puppy haha... These yanks need to loosen up. Sly's There's a Riot goin on at 99, what about at 9.
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| Like RadioFuckhead are anywhere near as good as this! |
It is quite a skewed list when you get further down. The Velvet Underground's Loaded LP comes in way higher than the two more superior records White Light/White Heat and The Velvet Underground (or 3rd). Who knew Eric Clapton had so many projects and that Americans (well RS writers anyway) loved every single one of them. Tracey Chapman's there, but seriously who's listened to that LP in like 20 years. I am coming from an Australian perspective so maybe there's some cultural thing I'm missing. Anyway who really likes Van Morrison or Randy Newman? Oasis made it in somehow but other great British 80s into 90s bands missed out. No Happy Mondays, Pulp, Spiritualised or Stereolab here. Then there were the fab America 90s psych/pop bands like Mercury Rev and the Flaming Lips who don't appear. The 2 strangest entries are The Zombies who come in very high with Odyssey and Oracle who I really like and Peter Wolf with his record Sleepless (who outside The US even knows what this is? Was he the dude from J Geils band?). Things like Alexander Skip Spence's OAR or The Monks: Black Monk Time don't turn up let alone other great stuff like Karen Dalton, Silver Apples or The United States of America. Electronic music forget about it, There is one Kraftwerk LP as a token.
I remember a list like this in the magazine, maybe from 1988 and the first 50 have not changed bar about 3.It's like it's been set in stone and they have to have a Vatican council meeting for the slightest change to be made It's weird, old, way too rigid and no fun. U2's Joshua Tree comes in ahead of The Doors first LP. The anomalies just keep coming. Weezer's debut ahead of the Pixies Surfer Rosa. Here's a ripper Guns and Roses Appetite For Destruction comes in ahead of these 3: Led Zeppelin II, ACDC's Back in Black and Zep's Physical Graffiti. Then there's 3 inferior later Roxy Music LPs that come way ahead of their all time classic For You Pleasure. Joy Division's Closer makes it but where's Unknown Pleasures. Green Day come in ahead of Lou Reed's Transformer with Dookie. They've got token country, jazz Reggae & even trip hop. The most recent LP I think is The strokes debut. It's not like it's all shit music quite the contrary. Maybe they shouldn't number them, you know it's not sport, just put 'em in alphabetical order or chronologically. Oh but then they have to have a secret ballot and get the pope to smoke his pipe through a hole and then a cardinal will have to interpret the smoke for the decision to be made.
Some bands that missed out that perhaps should have been considered - The Residents, The Ventures, OS Mutantes, The Insect Trust, Comus, The Incredible String Band, The Seeds, America, Goblin, Pere Ubu, The Gun Club, The Saints, X-Ray Spex, The Feelies, The Wipers, Can (but they're not American or British uh oh), Cluster, ESG, The Meat Puppets, Burzum, The Dream Syndicate, Vanity 6, Throbbing Gristle, Chrome, Cabaret Voltaire, The Birthday Party, Cocteau Twins, Scott Walker, Donna Summer, Gong, The Groundhogs, Jimmy Castor Bunch, Booty's Rubber Band, Chic, Siouxsie & The Banshees, Flipper, Talk Talk, Dinosaur Jr, Boredoms, Slint, Royal Trux, Aphex Twin, Marc Acardipane, Boards Of Canada, Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti, Burial..........I could go on forever.
I've made up a different top 10 from the top 500 just off the top of my head and in no particular order.
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| ZZ Top's lunch. That cheese is gonna be a problem |
- Tres Hombres - ZZ Top
- Dirty Mind - Prince
- Marquee Moon - Television
- Suicide - Suicide
- Double Nickels On The Dime - Minutemen
- Stand - Sly & the Family Stone
- Paranoid - Black Sabbath
- The Queen is Dead - The Smiths
- Look-Ka Py Py - The Meters
- Let's Get It On - Marvin Gaye
Is there a need for this list now in this day and age of access all areas and Internet flux? No and we're not buyin it. We make our own top 500s now It's 2012 the times belong to the Ariels, Gang Gangs, Ferraros, southern hip hop etc. Then there's 70s Afro psych/beat/funk, Indonesian 70s rock, Chica/Cumbia from Peru, 70's Hungarian Funk, Swedish psych from the 60/70s, Thai genres like Luk Thung & Molam, 60/70s Anadolu pop from Turkey etc. to listen to so why the fuck would I want to listen to Radiohead, Green Day, Pearl Jam, Eurythmics, No Doubt or Coldfuckinplay! It's kinda a little bit sad that the old farts (nothing too modern here please, like from the last decade or anything unless it sounds like something from a previous decade and keep it American or British, nothing too exotic please. Where did I leave my walking stick? Christgau have you seen it anywhere?) at RS are hangin onto their James Taylor's, Janis fuckin Joplins, Linda Ronstadts & Vans. Who cares?
In a word redundant!
Friday, 13 July 2012
Dolphins Into The Future
A Star maker, Strange Dreams & Clairvoyance
Also very diggin this. This could be my favourite Dolphins Into The future tape (well i-tunes download) ever. All sorts of alien bird calls and some kind of spectral communication via song. I don't know if it's coming from the depths of the earth's deep ocean or I'm hearing some intergalactic language. I can picture scuttling electric sea creatures from the darkest depths of an alien deep sea. Sometimes its eeriness is almost cute. I reckon kids would love it. The bands name for the first time makes perfect sense to me. At the start of side b there is some lovely soothing music of what sounds like Aboriginals or South Pacific Islanders with just their voices looped, which is three minutes of pure enchantment. Then it's back to the music of aquatic neon creatures having fun and games in the endless night. This is Dolphins most sparse, clear recording so far and an absolute peak. Bliss.
BEBETUNE$ aka Jimmy Ferraro
BEBETUNES
Inhale C - 4 $$$$$
This is another pseudonym for James Ferraro. I'm diggin this way way more than his LP as Bodyguard Silica Gel which I am struggling to like at all. As one of the tracks says on this record 'It's everything time'. That about sums it up. All channels open, whatever blows in, passes by, nothing off limits, an endless sea of flowthrough. Quite a trip. This is crazy there's track that sounds like I dunno Usher or someone of that ilk and prime Jarboe in band era Swans. Fucking deranged but Jimmy does it again and remains an enigma. I don't read interviews by musicians, I find them tedious-let the music do the talking. Which makes me think he must be pretty interesting. I don't wanna ruin it by finding out he's a big tool but sometimes you have to be to create/channel art. Also lovin that cover. Track this one down it's a gas man.
Myf Warhurst & The Elephant & Beards & The 60s &..
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| Shhhh it's the ABC we can't acknowledge we live in a capitalist society! It's not nice.. |
Don't get me wrong I love Myf (Australian TV peronality in her late 30s), she's a very nice unpretentious person and a self confessed dag. But the tv show Nice and Trendy last night had me perplexed. where was this show sitting? Somewhere between a Sunday magazine article, something a little more intellectually in depth or just a bit of nostalgic fluff where she got to meet some famous people. I was getting frustrated at the beating around the bush of why fashion is cyclical. She nearly got there by asking 'Aren't we going to proverbially eventually disappear up our own fashion arses? Meaning where is the new? how many times can the 20s, 60, 80s even 90s keep returning How the hell are they gonna rehash the 00s? Anyway are people too scared to hear the truth? It's the ABC (Austaralia's Government owned Broadcastor ala BBC) for Christ's sake, nevertheless the real answer wasn't forthcoming. It was a bit like the Elephant in the room, but we're all too apathetic to acknowledge our own complicity so we just ignore it. People in fashion need to keep making money so predict, go random or rip off the hipster setting trends on the street and then convince a lot of us 'this is what's happening now'. It's an massive industry - the magazines, the models, the designers, the sweat shop owners, they're all in it together. If you have 6 pairs of skinny jeans how are they gonna make money from you next season? They need to tell you that the flared pant is fashion forward. We're not all blind Freddy though but most of us seem to just follow along.
Alistair O'Neill in his book London-After A Fashion said "the demand forever evolving newness forced a distraction from innovation & invention towards a plundering and interpretation of historical styles". So apparently retro/pastiche/postmodernism in fashion started in full around 1966/67. So is this when modernism died? apparently in 1966 A shop opened in London Called Granny Takes a Trip (what a fucking great name) that sold antique clothes as well as new clothes inspired by the past. There were other shops too Cobwebs, Past Caring, Biba, Antiquarius et al. They all sound like shops that could now be in Brunswick St, Gertrude St, Greville St, North Melbourne, Northcote, Brunswick and enter new hip new hip Melbourne suburb here___________. I love those names of the shops. Anyway it looks like we've been disappearing up our proverbial fashion arses since at least 1966.
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| There is a granny! She's probably more likely to be trippin' over than droppin' acid but you never know? |
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| Interior of biba Art Deco met the 60s |
Here's my theory - Think of the worst item in fashion (that's not been revived for at least 10 years) in living memory or the living memory of your Mum or Gran and it'll be back sooner than you think. It works with music as well. Many years ago I thought there was never gonna' be any redemption for Elton John then BANG Almost Famous came out as did the Scissor Sisters & other acts that were influenced by him.
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| He was not so bad after all. |
Here's a personal example around 1999/2000 I decided as a tribute to my idol Dennis Wilson circa 1970s to grow rough beard and sport grown out short hair. Let me tell you people thought that was weird people didn't know how to react to me. The only other beards at the time belonged to old men. A few years later some groups and singers started doin the same. Now bloody footy players are doin' it and people whose heroes don't even have that look.
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| Didn't go as far as the overalls though. |
Wednesday, 11 July 2012
Great Plains
The Way She runs A fever
Great Plains
From The Mark, Don & Mel EP
Why wern't they as Famous or as popular as REM or Camper Van Beethoven, their songs were just as good and probably more catchy. Anyway what a great unknown band of the early to mid 80s. They were a rockin' unit of pop distinction. Highly talented legends from Ohio! Pop heaven.
Letter To A Fanzine
Great Plains
From Naked At The Buy, Sell & Trade
More joy from Ohio. This one all about haircuts. There should have been more songs about stupid hair doncha think? Pretty funny probably the only song to contain these subjects in one song - 4AD, New Wave Girls, Nick Cave, SST Records and Homestead Records.
Sunday, 8 July 2012
Vassilieff
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| Theoretical Matter Neil Taylor |
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| Rings of Saturn Inge King |
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| Blue Shop 1938 I'm guessing somewhere in Fitzroy/Collingwood |
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| Mildura Wedding 1954 I've been to a few. Not as dramatic as this though. |
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| I walked down there today Victoria Parade 1937 Hasn't changes that much really. |
Lets Get Fonky
More Fonky Disco here. I wasn't gonna do another bass line post coz nobody seems to have joined the party. Anyway Check this, Probably my favourite library musician on the funky side of things created this astonishing bass line
ALAN HAWKSHAW
How about that then?!!!!
ALAN HAWKSHAW
DAYTRIPPER
*Sorry for my illiteracy lately. Spellcheck's back thank God.
Friday, 6 July 2012
The Atemporality of Australian TV
RE: TV Retromania, I thought of a couple more American tv shows that were always on: Lost In Space, MASH, F Troop, Hogan's Heroes, Mr Ed, very vague recollection of Cisco & Pancho. Then Into the 70s Brady Bunch never seemed to go away and Happy Days. This and the aforementioned shows in the previous post were just on in the 70/80s along with whatever 80s shows were on but it was all the same. Nobody as far as I could remember was placing more value on the new over the old. It was just Telly. Almost forgot about the cartoons of Warner Bros- Roadrunner, Bugs Bunny, Sylvester & Tweety, Pepe Le Pew and The one about the Rooster and the dog. Not forgetting others like Felix the Cat, Quick Draw McGraw & Al Kabong (were they one and the same?) Gumby, Tom & Jerry, Top Cat, Captain Caveman, Roger Ramjet, Huckle Berry Hound &Yogi fuckin Bear. Most of these were constantly on our screens for decades.
They weren't fixed in a time! Who knows when they were made between the 50s and the 80s I guess. Having a quick look on the net though reveals that some had their origins as far back as the 20s. We didn't care we didn't know any better. There were only two channels in Cardross right up until who knows when as I left in 1989, but I think not that long ago. These are only the shows I was allowed to watch as I came from a very strict catholic background. No Sullivans or Young Doctors for me Let alone Prisoner Cell Block H. When The Young Ones came along No Chance! God wait there's more: fuckin Lassie, The Littlest Hobo, Skippy & Flipper which I believe all had the same premise just with a change the animal. The funny thing is I'm not really feelin nostalgia for these shows at all. I like Skippy on a purely aesthetic level. It was shot on film and really captured true Australian light, sun and bush landscape. It was beautifully filmed. Out of the rest of this lot I'd probs only wanna watch Al Kabong, Captain Caveman, Roadrunner, Gumby & Roger Ramjet ever again just out of curiosity. A lot of it gives me a slightly bleak mildly bored feeling. I was probably only watching them because it was too hot outside to play.
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| What a great concept for a quasi-super hero. Cape & Mask with Guitar as weapon! The Mrs doesn't believe this was a tv show. I guess it does sound quite absurd. |
It doesn't inspire me like it does the British who seem to revere (they do make exceptional telly) their shows and their soundtracks, a lot of which we didn't get here (We got Dr Who, The Wombles and The Magic Roundabout of course) or I just don't remember. We didn't have our own Oliver Postgate either. I can't see an Australian equivalent of Broadcast or a label like Ghostbox making music inspired by 2nd hand often 2nd rate American TV. Although the music was often awesome on some of those old American cartoons-quite Avant and mental. Try to play a Carl Stalling compilation to someone, they'll immediately get it and go "oh yeah old cartoon music cool" but by about track 6 it's like "ok enough of that." Weird huh? So it's ok with the visual craziness but as a pure listening experience they cannot handle it. Maybe the BBC Workshop, Oram, Derbyshire, Baker and others like Vernon Elliot and the like were more accessible as music to just listen to whilst still being Avant-Garde and alien. My friends would be able to sit through a BBC workshop compilation much more comfortably than a Stalling one. I do remember some cool music from 70/80s Aussie wildlife documentaries which was probably library music or hopefully commissioned work and yet to be rediscovered, sad to say the former is probably true. We can still hope though.
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| Delia soundtracking the future |
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