Monday 19 November 2012

Hospital


Well I'm out of the hospital and recovering. This is the only overtly hospitally song I could come up with, bear in mind painkillers are in full effect. I know The Go-Betweens and Nick Cave have made references to hospitals before. There must be though a whole like mini sub-genre of hospital songs I just can't seem to think of any others at the moment. Oh hang on here's another one!


Then there must be hundreds of videos of people dressed up as nurses and doctors and I don't mean those kind of videos. But that must be one of porns greatest themes surely. Throbbing Gristle make me think of doctors and nurses.



Nurse Genesis


I was never sure if the guy on the right was like a psych nurse, a scientist or some kind of doctor. Is this the greatest LP cover ever? I could look at it forever. It brought me much amusement as a youngster and really made me think just do what you want! The music was good too. I must admit though this did just come into my life as a sleeve hanging on a wall in my first flat with the vinyl long gone. It was a few years later I heard the contents that were supposed to be contained within. I'm sure Throbbing Gristle would think that was great that I saw this cover as a piece of art for many years before hearing the tunes.


Zombie Nurse!

Thursday 15 November 2012

see you in a while

Here's some loveliness until next time!!

 
 
This is slightly different to the version
on Vol 2 I think?


Umberto - Night Has A Thousnad Screams


Just got this today and am V excited and cannot wait to listen to it despite having to go to hospital tomorrow and miss a once in a lifetime chance to see Goblin live in Melbourne. So this is the new Umberto LP Night Has A Thousand Screams. If it's anywhere near as good as the last one Prophecy Of The Black Widow and the one before that From The Grave we're in for a real treat. I was gonna do an extensive post about awesome spooky soundtracks and their fake soundtrack spawn. That'll have to wait though. I'm sure I'll have plenty of time to write that when I'm convalescing and bored shitless. One flicker of happy in an otherwise dismal day. Hopefully it'll be Umberto's 3rd classic in a row.


Emeralds again or was that Sand Circles

I was in the newsagents today flicking through the current issue of the Wire and I came across a review of the Emeralds LP  Just To Feel Anything. And thought this guy's ripping me off. My little one line review of Sand Circles great tape Motor City from earlier this year said "This is 2am driving music for the city's bewildered lost souls." This dude has just expanded on my one line and made a review from it. Imitation-the sincerest form of flattery? I dunno if I like it. By writing these concise slivers of gold am I giving other writers a blueprint for them to expand upon then claim them as their own?



Wednesday 14 November 2012

AR Kane & Disco Inferno

Wow an interview with AR Kane as well as Disco Inferno over at FACT. The godfathers and their godchildren. I've still got AR Kane's Sixty Nine and "i" on tape. Released on Festival Australia licenced from Rough Trade. Still sounding fantastic by the way, recorded on BASF chrome tape. Most record companies would not have used such great quality tape. I love those tapes. They were so fucking original, like no one ever before! While the classic debut LP Sixty Nine gets all the kudos  "i" is their eclectic & surreal underrated other classic. Must admit I never heard that 3rd album, was that like a reformed/comeback kind of thing? On those 2 Rough Trade LPs they were magnificent!


I wanted to play Down and Love From Outer Space from "i" but they weren't on the youtubes! I must admit they are one of those bands I rediscover every 6 months and go 'How are they not legendary?' Well they are in my book. These albums are an essential peak of late 80s musical creativity, along with fill in________________.


Hang on I found it!

Then there were some acolytes I recall on AR Kane's own label hArk. I had an ep by Papa Sprain called May I think ..er...can't find that one in the closet. I had a cd Onomatopoeia by Butterfly Child as well. Those were both good records. Those acts came and went in a flash though.

Anyway Disco Inferno were influenced by AR Kane and were a great, unique, strange and groundbreaking band as well. All I can find is a lone cd single Summer's Last Sound/Love Stepping Out in my closet. They had some fine records DI GO POP & In Debt are 2 more gone missing from the crates! Whatever. Post Rock in its original meaning. Radiohead wish.


Nice & weird.
Onya FACT!


Tuesday 13 November 2012

Being a cunt.

"....I appeared to be pretending to be a cunt. Why was I doing that? There are enough cunts in the world already. We don't need anymore. The only kind of pesron who would pretend to be a cunt probably is a cunt. This faux-cuntiness was a cunt's game"

Caitlin Moran, moranthology, page 12, 2012.

This is a quote in regards to a review in 1994 where she wished the singer of Ned's Atomic Dustbin dead in Melody Maker. Anyway It was probably worth it just to write that 18 years later.

In regards to the use of the word cunt it seems people from the UK and Australia have a very different use of the word compared to Americans. For us (Aussies & Poms) it's a wanker who is an arsehole and could be a man or woman. Whereas in the States it seems reserved for the most misogynist men to use towards a woman to denigrate her to being of use for only one thing- her cunt. I've been watching dvds of the Sopranos and boy when it gets used in that it seems filled with so much hate and resentment towards women. Someone said to me the other day 'the way you say cunt it almost sounds nice.' When Americans say it, it seems way more offensive. Am I right?

I agree with Caitlin that pretending to be a cunt is being a cunt. Make of that what you will.

 
 
Anyway I reckon this is a fantastic pop tune as good as anything the much overrated Nirvana ever did. This'll get yer party started every time. Style and taste are overrated. C'mon Caitlin you know you like this.

Emeralds - Just To Feel Anything


I've been meaning to write about Emeralds new LP Just to Feel Anything since I mentioned it in a previous post. I've had notes scribbled down for over a month now. Anyway my computer is playing up or is it blogger? Doing a post at the moment is quite frustrating. Anyway Emeralds are a group I thought were really going to push through some kind of sound barrier into something new, not just update the Kosmiche stylee. I think maybe they previously came close or did bring something new to the Kosmiche table. Perhaps it's my recent Back To The Future phase ie. re/listening to UK hardcore/Darkside/Jungle etc. that has put some things into perspective. In the early 90s the future was really actually happening.  This new Emeralds LP seems to be their most retro and least forward thrusting to date. I think they've added beats. Did any of the other LPs have beats? In my notes I have written (and this is from a while ago):

Nostalgia for Top Gun,
Nostalgia for Dire Straits,
Nostalgia for Harmonia,
Nostalgia for Arcade games,
Nostalgia for Pink Floyd,
Nostalgia for Cluster,
Nostalgia for Bruton Music's BRK series of library LPs.

Nostalgia for the future might be what I'm trying to project onto them. I mean this is nostalgia for the future but an older future. Not a future so much rooted in the UK early 90s so much as a 70s/80s vision of the future. If nobody is going into a new future can I value one vision of future over another? Who's being more cynical me or Emeralds?

Anyway having said all that it's another top record from Emeralds albeit one that's a little more guitar centric. Atmospheric, sad, uplifting and beautiful as usual. Nice. Is that enough?

Brostep/The Zone Formerly Known As Dubstep

Here's the missing Knife Party song that I was shown due to my interest in Skrillex. I can't really remember what the rest of the post was about! Maybe how slow I am to catch on to such homegrown greatness. Hey I like Severed Heads! Anyway this is brostep right?


I was off the continuum for a while by the time Dubstep came along and hey I didn't dislike it like I did with 2-Step & Grime. Some Dubstep I thought was grouse. Then I was slightly confused by Burial's LP. Was it even Dubstep? How can something be the pinnacle of said genre if its barely even a dubstep record? 'Was Burial's debut all that?' I thought it sounded like you know Pole/Basic Channel/Chain Reaction kind of gear with a bit of Maxinquaye chucked in. Don't get me wrong I love all that stuff, a lot in fact. But how could Burial's version be a whole new thing?  It's not a bad record per se but was it groundbreaking? Or did I miss something?

Sunday 11 November 2012

Deleted Scenes

That post I did on brostep, nowtro, EDM, Knife Party and Bassnectar has disappeared. Warning don't drink and blog.

Wednesday 7 November 2012

Genius

Conrad Schnitzler, electronic guru, picks
 up no genius on Australia telly!
In the Australian Big Brother on the telly at the moment they keep calling a bloke in the house the genius of the house. So this guy got a high mark in an IQ test once but don't you actually have to have done something to warrant being a genius ie. not just sittin' around a house in your undies getting on the nation's tits. I should really look into what the real definition of genius is and if you're not one yourself can you tell who is one? Is anyone in pop culture a genius? Who decides? Can I say Arthur Lee is a genius? Francis Ford Coppola? What about Sean Penn? Miles Davis anyone?  Vince Gilligan? Conrad Schnitzler? Ed Kuepper? These people to me have extraordinary intellectual and imaginative faculties pertaining particularly to being creative and inventive. The guys who invent stuff in technology seem more seriously genius, you know like Steve Jobs? Mark Zuckerberg? The guy from London who invented the Internet?  Mike Goldman? (er.. a little BB humour there) But why should they be?  Should there be a board to decide who is and who isn't a genius. It all sounds a bit subjective to me. Should we do away with the concept of it all together? I mean if someone sittin' in a house for 3 months on national tv gets to be a genius don't I get to be one? After all I did write this blog post.