We are apparently all mindless worker bees, drones. Ray La Montagne is on ABC today playing a few songs spilling his words of wisdom about how senseless and mindless people are going to work every day, doing meaningless, time-filling things, going home, sleeping, and that he guesses these people haven’t touched the reality of life so they don’t know any better.

Look as a teenager I was brought up with this idea too; hate the system, hate the mindless corporate scum, they’re just drones. It’s depicted quite beautifully in John Brack’s Collins St, 5pm, and anyone who catches Tram 86 or 96 (i forget which) gets this diatribe spat at them by the abusive homeless guy that harrasses travellers each morning. But it occurs to me these days that this is a very 1950s anti-conformist attitude, it’s SO fucking out of date. Back then, the beatniks were rebelling against an emerging consumerist society a society that is fully developed today, a society we are trapped in. but the beatniks in their day, they still had church, neighbourhoods, and communities. We don’t.

Many of us, not all of us, but many of us depend on work for social contact, for some kind of connection with other human beings. You take work away from us, and we are completely isolated. We rarely talk about the small family units, the loss of the neighbourhoods, the dismantling of community services and the isolation of living in cities. This is not something that successful musicians understand because their job description requires that they are excellent social networkers, so they fit seamlessly into whatever community they need to, in order to be the artist they want to be. How many ‘drones’ are people who used to dream of a career as an artist of some kind, and had to give it up and find an actual way of sustaining themselves in this world? How many things that these artists and musicians depend on would no longer be there if us ‘drones’ abandoned our dronish ways and led our lives like butterflies?

I’m not a fan of schools and therapists molding people into little cog-like citizens that support a status quo. I’m not into popping out kids like ping pong balls. And i’m not a fan of the working hours required to make a living, the way that work, travel and needy children take up valuable thinking and creative time. There literally aren’t enough hours in the day. It’s an incredibly effective way to keep the populace from caring too much about things like art or politics or the direction we’re all going. Office work does stifle creativity, but don’t blame the worker for how the system works, we just try to fit in as best we can so that we survive and get whatever it is we need – security, family, space.

I’m not leaning on family, or my partner to slave away in The System while I fluff about. I’m not the artist who got half rent in our share house ‘because she couldn’t afford it otherwise’ while I paid 1.5 rent because i had a full time job in a fucking call centre. Why am I subsidising her? I’m a musician, I should be subsidising my own work, not her shitty attempts on a canvas. This happens all the time, you talk to the beatniks with their inability to process the idea of an office job and you find out how other people are subsidising their lifestyles. Lucky them. or… unscrupulous…

Today most of us spend more time with the people we work with than anyone else, and more workers than not are completely cut off from any form of solid community. We talk all the time about how workers will work 21 different careers in a lifetime, we don’t talk about that meaning they traverse 21 communities in a lifetime, never fully holding onto a single one. But these transient relationships offer support and encouragement that is all too rare in a modern lifestyle.

PS. i know i’ve been doing a lot of ‘hating’ on my blog here lately and it’s not always so palatable, and i can’t always put it in the context it deserves, often i’ll say i’m talking about ‘musicians’ but really i’m talking about the people who do what i’m talking about, which is not necessarily all musicians, nor exclusively musicians. I’m just processing, thinking critically about what i’m being fed by other people, by the media, using this blog to reinforce my own opinions. You’re not supposed to agree with all of it.

♪♫i’m alone, i’m aaa-lone, i’m alone.♪♫

So i’ve mostly made my life pretty comfortable and day to day stuff is kind of easier. i’ve even organised a housewarming tea party in a couple of weeks (which cost me a fortune in paper cups and things.. yikes!) Now when I get home from work, which I do pretty early, I kind of stare at the tv (off) thinking “i’m bored, what to I do now?” and i (reluctantly) turn the tv on and half watch it guiltily. make some dinner. check my email. i’m always feeling guilty that i’m not vacuuming the house, or writing new song lyrics, or calling a friend to go out. basically, now that I don’t have the excuse of living with family, I feel like i’m ALWAYS procrastinating. i’m told this is just the next phase of living by myself which is a relief, i want it over NOW!

However my sunday has been epic! I vacuumed, mopped, cleaned bathroom, did the dishes, did two loads of washing, got the groceries AND went out to see a gig! AND wrote song lyrics while at the gig!

I finally got to see Flying Scribble and Royalchord and Bachelorette all in one night! it made me sad I had to go on my own, I’m okay when the music is on, but between bands I just want to curl up and die. Sarah says I should feel like the “mysterious lady” . but really I feel like I am wearing the wrong clothes, unattractive and not drinking enough to look like a local. I did chat to the label owner i just thought he was a guy but he had sat next to me and he was interesting. and i chatted with the bar lady she was nice.

the nice thing about the night was that NOONE got out their phones, everyone was too cool to be texting and blah. except me, i felt peer pressured to go outside and check my twitter. and i did take just ONE photo (for you). to prove I was out-of-the-house. Actually the PA system wasn’t insulated properly so poor Royal Chord got the fright of their lives when one of their phones made that ‘clicking’ noise when phones change towers, and it went REALLY loud over the whole PA, it was doing it all night much more quietly from audience phones because people refused to turn them off. FYI i put mine in airplane mode for the photo… and accidentally started playing bachelorette (during her set) on my phone (which was muted dammit!) while I tried to figure out the name of the album I had and whether to buy her new album.

so it was an all girl, all electro pop night! i’m really glad I went. Bachelorette uses the same two casios I use. makes me happy. Her music is much warmer live than on cd, I find some of these types of bands’ recordings are very ‘perfect’, particularly the vocals, and they just don’t sound as endearing and ‘real’ as they do on stage… the opposite of Sarah Blasko who I saw the other week, I expected her to be all acoustic guitar, shy and sweet, like Missy Higgins or something. but she was a fucking marionette play-dancing in front of the microphone unable to banter with the audience at all. Meanwhile Bachelorette a lovely girl from NZ played the whole set herself from a laptop an acoustic guitar and three keyboards, with the sweetest voice and lots of jokes about the ‘bossy new zealand bitch’ that was telling people to turn off their phones.

Flying Scribble are a must-see two piece and they are releasing their ‘album’ as separate singles bit by bit, which is my idea but they beat me to it dammit. and their sound on recording is as effervescent on disc as it is live. which is the best compliment I can give.

any ‘Triple J Hottest 100 of All Time‘ which includes Elton John’s ‘Tiny Dancer’ and not Urge Overkill’s ‘Dropout’ is just another farse hijacked by record companies.

If indeed it is real, and these tweens voted for Rolling Stones and Elton John, they have deluded themselves into thinking that voting for what their Daddy’s like makes them somehow cool.

Either way questions are definitely raised about just who is listening to ‘Australia’s Youth Station’ triple j these days?

Soon I will be having a go at listing songs that would make it into MY Hottest 100 of all time. I don’t think I could actually complete a numbered ordered 100 like Richard Kingsmill, but i’m interested to see what the results will be of this JJJ poll, as the last time they did this was 1991, i have the teeshirt, and the VHS highlights.

comments are no longer monitored… its a risk because i get 12 spam for every 1 genuine comment, I’ll try to get email notification turned on so I can at least reply quicker.

Loving the new Phoenix album!

Just got back from Canberra and Bris on Sunday still adjusting. We did exciting things like go to National Library and walk roiund Lake Burley Griffin. I really love the city though, so many trees, so spacious, it seems easier to think there, and it’s a great walking city as i discovered each morning. Also did a lot of drinking, ate japanese, went to National Film and Sound archive (sucked without a backstage pass though) and National Gallery which i found i really take for granted – as a kid we always had access to the best art in the country, so you know i just go ‘yeah, Charles Blackman, pffft Manet… whatever…” My ultimate favourite there continues to be Imants Tillers Terra Incognita 2005 which was their recent huge purchase… and yes i liked Pollocks Blue poles

Brisbane was all shopping, all the time. It was great to catch up with my favourite human, and peruse Target like it was The Place To Be. Do not ever ever go to Guggenheim for a hair cut they are suburban trash.. I suffer these pains only to serve you!

I watched a lot of Molly Ringwald films Bleak House (with Gillian Anderson in it) and caught up on some quality like Elizabeth and the latest Terminator both of which stunned me.

Bought lots of cds too:://:-
Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus
completely brilliant fun, theres about 5 singles on this album, great for walking/running to as well. Bit samey if you wanted to listen to it all night, but 1902 is SUCH a brilliant track
Lilly Allen – It’s not me it’s you
never really liked her because there were always too many awkward lyricisms and i often felt the stories she was telling made me feel bad/embarrassed, but this new album with the ode to the selfish boyfriend, the fuck you to the nazi loser, the vanity of the wannabe star…. really really brilliant, nice music too.
Metric – Fantasies
probably my least favourite purchase, they’re better than they were. I once heard the singer diss all people who wrote love songs which struck me as such a pompous self important attitude, all her songs have to be about something important.. which means i put my critical hat on and as she seems to have done with others and judge whether she really moves me in any important way. basically it’s nice pop, i’ll listen to it, but mockingly.
Pikelet – Pre-flight Jitters
An EP you can’t get in melbourne anymore which is much better than the new album. Still jarringly strange, has moments of brilliance that are successively destroyed by attempts to do too much, i speak from some professional jealousy as people compliment her endlessly as a ‘genius’ which is not really deserved.

discoveries thru last.fm so far…
bachelorette
electrelane

as a music lover, i do still go thru phases of “there’s nothing good out there”. sometimes for year after year. I love the discovery of a band seemingly noone knows about but me and makes just the kind of music i wanna listen to in my little headphone world.

what i’ve learnt is that there’s ALWAYS great music out there but often it’s a lot of hard work to find, keeping up with blogs, befriending ‘cool kids’ or record store clerks (whom i always end up crushing on). or traipsing through other peoples collections which are similar enough to my own to offer some new listening possibilities.

ANYWAY… this is why i pay for radio. I pay for RRR-fm because if they ever went anywhere i’d have nothing to listen to in the car (old car, just radio and cassette). It’s not cheap and I probably get an understanding of what’s out there more than discover that magical secret thing I’m alway seeking, but i’m supporting the local community which always makes me feel pious and ‘cool enough for the cool kids’.

But then I heard a lot about people listening to custom radio on their iphone/cancermaker through pandora or last.fm, it goes by what is in your collection and finds stuff you’ll like. Unfortunately after listening up my 30 free songs on last.fm I realised I had to pay if i wanted any more, but it’s cheaper than RRR-fm, and gives me the thing I most cherish in life, new music without all the shit. a radio station that will NEVER play ben lee or hole at me making me nearly have a car accident in order to turn the volume off before my ears bleed.

ps. comments at my blog are now OPEN!

i really haven’t bought much music in a very long time. partly a ‘poor student’ money thing but also it’s a lot of work to sit and discover good stuff… having a car is especially good because you can drive around listening to the radio and enjoying the spoils of some djs hard work.

hence two weeks ago…

i subscribed to rrr-fm again for the first time in year. i’m loving having a car!

one week ago…

i went to Polyester in the city (how convenient!) and bought the new Ratatat, two of Au Revoir Simone’s, and the Brunette’s new one.

Ratatat are awesome vintage synths in funky dancey irresistable pop not completely unlike Daft Punk. in a way the new album may be a bit of a rehash, less magical than the first two. These guys and The Notwist were the only things I bought in 2008…. sad i know. The Brunettes one is a bit weird, i’ll come back to it in a year when i have no expectations, i really just wanted songs rather than experiments in mono and stereo…. Au Revoir Simone play casios, so I should automatically love them except they’re a bit polished, both in look and sound. Three unnaturally tall, model-skinny girls all with long straight hair.

Actually this is a peeve of mine lately… how polished and ‘Styled’ bands seem to be, even the indie ones… you think you’ve found something really genuine and beautiful and then find out they’re signed to a major, major, major label and their song is used in a car ad…. it all just feels a bit cheap and nasty. i prefer the old days when bands had to pretend they hadn’t sold out in order to sell a record…. mmmm the nineties!

and today….

today I bought Lali Puna which is playing now and i LOVE it unreservedly, it’s all related to the German family of The Notwist along with Ms John Soda and a bunch of other artists. and the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs which i’ve only heard the single Zero but I love that it’s more electronic, I think they do that well, plus they use my beloved Microkorgs!

next it’s the adventures of last.fm

this is easily the awesomest thing i’ve seen in weeks, pinched from a mate Ryan’s myspace page.

also for a place that links to new and interesting bands, this playdead blog is good too. i quite like FOAM and BATTLES who are both mentioned here… check their myspace pages out. ahhhh myspace. if only the login worked properly i might actually like the place.

so i moved house, i’ve been netless, and it’s completely thrown my creativity out of whack.

I’m now near East Richmond station and the people here seem really nice, but moving is always a wrench, new people to get used to, new house, everything’s been moved, all my routines are out of whack. i lost a heap of weight when i moved but put a heap more on in the last two week discovering the joy of being a 2 minute walk from a Coles that’s open till midnight every night. madeira! pikelets! rhubarb pies! custard! glace cherries! cornish pasties!

ugh..

i’ve potterized in the background of all this – it’s great to have something interesting and comforting to read when everything else in my life has been shaken up. And i also bought the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs ep this weekend, which is a real return to form, i haven’t liked either of their albums, i think the EPs are far rawer, more rock, more interesting.

even their band pic is a return to form, far less commercial and stylised. Reminds me of The Make-Up alot with Karen’s version of Michelle Mae’s beehive.

The best bit of the last week has been discovering the K.O. At Home mp3s which surfaced last December – i didn’t hear anything about this, but apparently some idiot left a cd of Karen’s recordings lying around and then had the gall to get shitty that someone who found it put it on the net – well duh.

The thing is – from a song-writing point of view it is a real eye-opener to hear the stuff that a professional song-writer DIDN’T intend to release. It shows me how Karen experiments, tries things out, sometimes wins, sometimes loses. Most of it is not lyrical either which matches where i am at the moment, heaps of pieces of music but no words to put to them. This has given me alot of confidence that what i’ve been doing is exactly what a song writer does, play collate and then pick out the best stuff. She even uses the loop pedal to practice arranging but playing live at the same time – i got one of these last year quite cheap due to a Coca-Cola competition and my dad’s hard work collecting labels. But due to delivery issues i had lost the momentum by the time it arrived and i’ve only played with it once.

Along side i’ve been listening to Tanya Donelly’s more finished demos of her Belly – Star album, which she reveals she originally wrote to be Breeders songs for Kim Deal’s next album. This explains why the style matched 4ADs Pixies/Breeders stuff so much and is nothing like anything Tanya released after that. Listening to the subtle changes in the songs before she finalised the album versions, hearing her try to realise the sound with only multiple layers of her own voice and guitars. It’s really a treat! The same can be found of early Helium tracks by Mary Timony if you go searching your mp3 networks.

I made some badges today, it was so much fun! it’s all borrowed art from other things but i bought some other people’s badges while i was there of original art and it was so beautiful! I loved it. I’ve been thinking lately of things i can make myself. I can knit, i can design, i can sort of sew.

I really shouldn’t be thinking about this stuff at all, i absolutely HAVE to start looking for a house… really really soon, or i’m going to find myself very alone in a very big house.

inspired by stormymouse’s generosity giving us a taste of The Butchies (who rock, thanks stormy!) i’ve gotten off my ass and put some music online.

The Make-Up, A Best of their Seven-Inch collection.
8 tracks included.

Ian Svenonius is one of the sexiest men I’ve met, partly because of his generosityof heart and partly his strong ideology which at one point led the band to Cuba for some lessons in Socialism. In their black uniforms they came to Melbourne in 1998 and blew us all away. Ian was barely contained upon the stage, spouting his words to the people something akin to Rev Horton Heat getting it on with Jon Spencer. Backed by the luscious Michelle Mae on bass guitar, frenetic James Canty alternating organs and lead guitar, and Steve Gamboa on some very disciplined drums. More of an experience than a band, these tracks barely capture the true spirit of their work. But if you get your hands on their first and last albums both “Live at Cold Rice” you’ll get a good idea of why people say they started the “New Rock” movement that sweeps the charts these days with artists like The Strokes, The Vines, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and The White Stripes.

Live @ The Punters Club, Melbourne.December 1998

i nearly utterly forgot this, fortunately I’ve remembered in time. The Tenniscoats are touring this month… here are live dates for Australians who like interesting soft indie pop.

Tennniscoats with Maher Shalal Hash Baz
presented by Chapter Music

Sunday, October 16
Rob Roy Hotel, Melbourne. With The Hi-God People and Always.
Tickets $15+bf from Polyester, Missing Link and the venue.
Monday, October 17
Synaesthesia Records (Reiko Kudo solo), 6pm, free.
Wednesday, October 19
Mandarin Club, Sydney. With Sparrow Hill and The Garbage And The Flowers.
Tickets $15+bf from Gifted Records and the venue.
Thursday, October 20
Northcote Social Club, Melbourne. With Essendon Airport.
Tickets $15+bf pre-sale from the venue, $20 on the door.
Friday October 21
Bon Amici’s, Toowoomba Tenniscoats only, free.
Sunday October 23
Ric’s Cafe, Brisbane (Tenniscoats only). With the Rational Academy, free.

So i made my little trip down to synaesthesia to see their new building and see if i could find some new music to buy, i thought there would be alot that i’d missed out on, you know… after a year an all.

Anyway the latest thing is Finland. Lucky Finland, where musicians are like one big family incestuously playing in eachother’s psychedelic-folk projects like one big happy/hippy family. Of course i’m way behind on this, like dude, Pitchfork wrote a masterfully confusing summary of the scene in like… April!

I’m so 4 months ago…. there i was concerned with the latest mego releases i might have missed, when apparently they haven’t put anything good out for years. oops. Austria is so 2002.

Anyway being that i actually HATE psychedelic-folk as a rule it took me a while but i eventually settled on Paavoharju (fonal records) who have a bit of electrickery and actual vocals, some of them female, and a very lush soundscape that reminds me of a more daring múm… yes iceland is passe too… that was like 2003.. get with the times.

oh the irony, look what i’m listening to now!

Tujiko was wonderful to see again. it was a very different show this year, in Tokyo she was all dressed up and very careful and the sound was absolutely PERFECT, and she mostly did songs, unless she was working with others, then she improvised more, but it was always emphasizing her dainty offerings. this year she did some quite abraisive stuff and her foldback wasn’t great so she sometimes sang out of tune. she did seem more self assured and had a big genuine smile on her face alot of the time, the best parts were songs i knew, and she did Narita Made as an encore, with a casio-style bossanova beat totally ditzy and unlike the original, it was great fun!

And yeah I still call her by her family name, because it’s so distinctive. I’ve met a few Noriko’s and i dunno, if i’m gonna call an artist by a name it needs to be distinctive to them, i mean, i can’t imagine going “yeah, melanie, what a great artist!” it sounds so weird.

Adrian K. Sahara has reminded me that Retard Disco is easily the most inspiring label out there. Originally just starting with the likes of 14 Year Old Girls (pictured right), who write songs about video games using nintendo samples and casios.

Now there’s a whole range of bands to whet your lips with, there’s online samples of all their records. I recommend Partyline for their version of Bikini Kill, 14 Year Old Girls for a brand of musical innocence and mastery the Shaggs could only wish for, and Totally Radd are interesting too. You can find full length mp3s of their best work on the media page

Frankly this makes me wish i lived in California.

TUJIKO NORIKO is playing in melbourne on the 11th of august. She’s one of my favourite artists, though live she’s very shy and hides behind her laptop. I felt my presence was making her awkward (or my mobile phone camera).

I’m not sure if i’m up for a night at the Corner, or if I have the money, or even if there are any tickets left. But all these doubts are somehow proof that I have to go. Perhaps i’ll see some of my favourite people there, perhaps i’ll see one of my least favourite.

I went to see Múm last time i went to the Corner and bumped into Matt and Ryan two of my favourite boys on the planet, they were out of their minds but loving and sweet as usual, it just made up for the coolness of the audience, and i was enthralled by Múm’s sweetness, i immediately went out and bought a melodica after that.

PS. i’ve been playing with my site a little again, the links in the sidebar are finally updated and now you can see random photos from my new gallery (which awaits customisation).

I’m having a momentary Indier Than Thou moment.

It all started last year in an obscure little record store, where i found a cd that reminded me of the swedish lounge pop i’d once fallen in love with. Took the cd home and found it immensely annoying (along with every other cd i’d bought that day) and put it away.

Yesterday i heard on the radio that Sally Seltmann (New Buffalo) intends to collaborate with Jens Lekman for her next recording.

Today i found of course, that the cd i’d purchased so long ago was indeed Jens Lekman. See how hip and in touch i am with things?

Now, had my cd’s not been in immaculate order i might never have known how ‘on the pulse’ of everything i truly am.

Well everyone train-spots something, don’t they?

Have you ever tried to sort a large cd collection? there’s many ways to do it, by chronological purchase, or chronological release, by genre, or label, by country or… most boringly by alphabet.

As i’m sure we all know the most popular letter in the alphabet is S. theres Stereolab, Squarepusher, Smudge, Spdfgh, Swirlies, Sonic Youth, Shonen Knife, Screamfeeder and Swervedriver to name a few.

But the next most popular secion is the B’s with Beck, Björk, Blur, Broadcast, Belly, Bettie Serveert, Belle and Sebastian, Beatles, Boss Hog, Breeders, and Buffalo Daughter.

My problem is putting Snout with Sonic Youth, Hummingbirds with Juliana Hatfield, Ratcat with Radiohead…. putting my Australian cd’s in with the rest just seems wrong somehow… totally incongruous… Clouds with Cibo Matto? Spdfgh with Stereolab? i don’t think so!

But when you do start separating the game gets dangerous… Once part of a collection is separated it becomes neglected.. never again will I hear New Buffalo or Architecture in Helsinki, Love of Diagrams or Frente, Screamfeeder will become but a memory while international crap like Britney Spears (yes really) will get pride of position… and anyway… is Kylie Minogue really Australian anymore?

So then we start to think hmm… perhaps we could just sort out all the crap, put it at the back and keep the good stuff at the front… or perhaps just one shelf for avante garde and another for indie and another for pop?

But where does Björk go?

And then there’s those bands you loved where you wouldn’t miss a single release, and they will have to have a shelf of their own… Radiohead, The Make Up, Smudge, Lemonheads, Hummingbirds, Stereolab… where will you put all that stuff? they seem to dwarf the one or two good (often better) cd’s beside them…

In the end it’s going to have to be the very frustrating alphabetical, and now with a collection this size, i can no longer use CD cases but have to use 4 bookshelves, each shelf stacked 2 cds deep… so half of my collection will rot in darkness behind the other half that i will quickly tire of.

I even had to throw out 30 or so crap interview cds, bootlegs, magazine freebies, gig freebies and just plain MISTAKES because the sight of them makes me wretch.

.Øye

Erlend Oye is half of Kings Of Convenience and writes soft folky songs but also DJs and remixes others work. His first album Unrest is like a mix of those two worlds, getting alot of friends to remix his tracks.

It’s an interesting mix, close to the world of Postal Service where electronic fuckery is based in actual song writing, and a mood of it’s own, rather than the mood that is currently fashionable with fuckers-who-like-electronic-fuckery.

It’s part of that breath of fresh air and worth keeping an eye on. I havent heard last years album DJ Kicks yet.

Does anyone else miss the way Beck used to meld genre’s to make amazing new electronic stuff? or the way Add N To [X] used to basically write the soundtrack to cyberpunk?