japanese blues muso

Caught George Kamikawa playing as he put it, a John Lee Hooker version of a Ray Charles song by a Japanese in Melbourne. He was in the Bourke St Mall again over the weekend. He's worth a few minutes of your time and a few bob from your pocket. George will be playing his National Steel and JLH boombox at The Noise Bar 291 Albert St Brunswick, in front of the station. On Thursday 17 August 2006. As part of Australian Japan Rock exchange Vol 2. Also playing: The Styles, Japanese Samurai Kabuki Rock of Orochi, The Christinas.

Hear, and see, George playing slide on YOUTUBE and perhaps a better performance here. George rockin it up with When The Saints Go Marchin In, Shake Your Money Maker,

artwork by expat daughter

Cover of Total Cardboard 8

More offspring artwork at Total Cardboard 8 - a small magazine, includes interview with Robert Dessaix

candid in the wind

Theodore Dalrymple writing in Our Culture, What's Left Of It, notes that Blair both created and caught the mood of the nation when he called Diana "the people's princess" and that this appellation made it difficult (for the British) to express reservations about the ensuing circus or to cast doubt upon her historical importance. With that branding a doubter was exposed as an anti-democratic elitist.

Despite Dalrymple not always reaching useful conclusions, I do enjoy his writing and get more than the odd chuckle. Take this example:

"That her tastes were, despite her privileged upbringing, utterly banal and plebian appeared very clearly at the funeral, where Elton John sang his bathetic dirge immediately after the prime minister read St. Paul's magnificent words in Corinthians. It was highly appropriate (and symbolic) that this lugubrious booby, with his implanted wig, should sing a recycled version of a song initially dedicated to the memory of Marilyn Monroe - a celebrity who at least had to make her own way in the world, and who also made a few films worthy of commemoration. 'Goodbye, England's rose,' he intoned in a mid - Atlantic accent that spoke volumes for the loss of Britain's cultural confidence, 'from a country lost without your soul'

You can say that again."

the craggy island examiner circulation up

Shaun, no doubt worried about being untruthful about his impure thoughts about Chrissy Amphlett last time he went to confession, in a comment below, asked if I'd be going to Craggy Island.

Probably not, as the island itself was just filmed from one of those modern helicopter things and is actually Inisheer but I will be looking for The Parochial House and feckin' around and posing for eedjit photos snapping a few well framed mementos out front.

Apparently it's McCormack's at Glenquin, on the Boston road from Kilnaboy, on a backroad in the Burren about 15-20 miles from Ballyvaughn. Basically you have to get onto the R476 from Corafin and go to Kilnaboy (look out for a ruined church, post office and phone box), take a right, go past the school, and just keep on following the road, you know you are near when you see a stream running on the left of the road, a bit further and the house is on the left. (not that I've thought about such purile time wasting trivia much - as you can see)

And Shaun I've told you before - the money was only resting in my account.

I will be looking for a priests' shop to buy proper black socks:

"You see, ordinary shops sell what look like black socks, but if you look closely, you'll see that they're very, very, very, very, very, very, very dark blue. "

"That's true. I thought my Uncle Tommy was wearing black socks, but when I looked at them closely, they were just very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very dark blue. "

"Never buy black socks from a normal shop. They shaft you every time!"

a quick one

A million half started, or is that half finished, posts. A longer one coming up. A short one here to keep us going.
I'm off to Ireland in October and was looking up gigs on while I'm there. The Saw Doctors reminded me of their song, Bless Me Father:

Bless Me Father, for I have sinned
She had big brown eyes and silky skin
Bless Me Father I couldn't resist
Father, you have no idea what you've missed

and who hasn't pined for a Presentation Boarder:

she's the last of her species
be no boarders anymore
the nuns say it is far too dear
to keep the girls away from home
ah! but who's gonna tease the boys now
standing at the window in the light
and who's gonna pack out novena
every monday night

john howard answers questions

In 1955 a 16 year old John Howard appeared on a radio broadcast of Jack Davey's Give it a Go quiz show. It is mighty revealing. The Prime Minister is exposed as a cocky kid with absolutely no clue about the answers, but a cheeky confidence in going for it, anyway.

All schoolteachers are familiar with this kind of kid - basically ignorant but always open to negotiation when it comes to catching the teacher's eye. It is an old plaint of feminists that the schoolgirl who happens not to know the answer won't put up her hand; the boy with half an answer (or in young John's case, none at all) will still have a crack at it in the hope that something will turn up. In the broadcast, it becomes evident that the audience (which probably doesn't know the answer, either) begins to side with the kid, and the quizmaster, sensing this, encourages him - an early lesson in populism; perhaps a crucial one.

Why does Howard stay on? The naughty-boy thesis would be that he could not help himself - he was just having too much fun! Years ago, everybody wrote him off, but now he's the king of the castle.

The prize was 10 cakes of Velvet soap for every correct answer. Howard didn't answer questions correctly, but it didn't matter, he walked off with 100 cakes.

Listen to Howard on Jack Davey's Give it a Go quiz here. (Unfortunately it's in Real Audio - my least favourite audio program)

Text slightly edited from: Naughty boys rule, OK?, By Alistair Mant, The Age August 2, 2004

costello in shock announcement

NEW YORK Jun 25, 2006 (AP)— Diana Krall and husband Elvis Costello announced Sunday that the jazz singer is pregnant and due in December just in time for their third wedding anniversary.
A spokesman confirmed the pregnancy.

Costello, 51, is touring with Allen Toussaint in support of their album, "The River in Reverse."
The 41-year-old Krall will release a new album this September.

...a glimpse of stocking was something shocking...

A shocked father wrote to THE ARGUS (19 Sept 1925) .." .. a dance is but an excuse for kissing and cuddling, and even worse"

Also in 1925, The South Australian Methodist Conference after discussing "The Lure of the Dance", passed a motion recommending that their halls should not be used for "mixed dancing" as it was an "inexpedient pastime"

Anticipating the current education debate by a few decades, P. F. Rowland, in an article entitled "Five Thoughts on Education" (Australian Quarterly 14 September 1932) wrote: " .. speaking generally, in music do we ask anything more than jazz, in art the jazz equivalents, in literature the latest naughtiness in novel form? Is not this due to the fact that in our age.... the cultural subjects are being crowded out of our curriculum?"

From: Black Roots - White Flowers - a history of jazz in Australia Andrew Bisset ABC, 1979.

kiss kitsch koffee klutch

Yesterday the world's first KISS Coffee House was opened by Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley. You can get a Demon Dark Roast or a French Kiss Vanilla or a Rockuccino. The plans, building and menu.

The tongue tied Gene Simmons says: "Every army needs food and drink and the KISS Army is no exception! Even the non-enlisted will find our treats and java rockin' good!"

The KISS Coffee House, joins the KISS Kasket, a KISS themed coffin and KISS Kondoms (“Rock N' Rubbers” ) in the product line.

Even though I'm a rock snob, I'd go to KISS Coffee for a jolt of java, a pot of hot, a mug of mud. It looks like fun. Somehow a Kiss themed coffee shop seems a lot more authentic than a lame Hard Rock Cafe franchise. For a bit of chat on authenticity in rock you can go to Shaun's Rock'n'Roll Damnation where he notes and points back to Gary Sauer-Thompson's Junk For Code where Gary writes about the authenticity of Cobain and Nirvana

this is what is wrong with australia

I just made myself 15 minutes late for a meeting by waiting in the car listening to ABC radio because they said Les Murray would be on soon.

Turns out there's a soccer guy called Les Murray. Not the real one.

I hope Keith Windshuttle can sort those ABC wankers out.

marvin gaye doco tonight

Living Famously Marvin Gaye
ABC TV 11:05pm Thursday, June 15, 2006
The life and career of one of soul music's true legends, Marvin Gaye, from his unhappy childhood in the ghettos of Washington to global fame as Motown's top solo star, to his drug-addled decline and death at the hands of his own father.

slippery slope

e-commerce doesn't work

As noted in my previous post I had ordered a Bob Book and Scott Walker CD online from Amazon USA. I'm here to report that cross border e-commerce is a fraud, con, shonk and unworkable for honest people like myself.

I ordered online from Amazon using another computer and location from my usual spine killer. I ordered on Friday the other week. On the Tuesday I thought I'd log in and do a bit of supply chain observation and track my order. Nothing recorded. I refreshed and logged in again. Still nothing. I was about to pick up the phone and complain to Amazon. (How I don't know but that's what I was thinking) Checked again. Nothing. No record of order. Mmmh perhaps I should check the email address I used. Oh dear. Three or four emails requesting confirmation of order and one telling me order was lapsed due to non confirmation. Bugger.

Anyway I mooched down to JB in Motor Bike Elizabeth St. Strolled nonchalantly over to the W's under Alternative !! and picked up Scott Walker's The Drift for ~$23. Hitching my frayed overcoat collar up against a sharp CBD alleyway wind I shuffled past the lunchtime civilians in Chinatown, dodged a Big Issue extravert, stumbled into a bookshop and fell upon Jared Henry's Head Shot, a mean streets crime novel set in Melbourne. Bingo.

Think Global. Act Local.

Review of CD coming. Sometime.

globalisation

As Ned Kelly said on the gallows "I guess it had to come to this". Despite my doing a CBD gig for the last little while I haven't been able to "........get what I want"

I have remembered intermittently to check my to do list. I wandered, lonely as a melbourne cloud, down the lanes and alleys of the city centre looking to buy a copy of Scott Walker's The Drift. No luck. Sold out or blank looks. Some had it on computer - "Computer says,.... yes" - but not to be found on shelves. "Should be in the pop section". I only muttered wtf silently.

I had also been, less determinedly, looking for Song & Dance Man 3: The Art of Bob Dylan, by Michael Gray. No luck.

At about 2:18 pm this Friday, whilst tanning in the blue light of a poor definition LCD screen searching for that sentence that wasn't too academic, too rhetoric filled, too poetic, too animated, too idiosyncratic, too dry to make it through the various spending departments' secretaries and ministers and to also satisfy the dry departmentals and their ministers by not being too wet and perchance have it survive almost recognisably intact to cabinet policy and even a news bite, thereby thrusting me into immortality, I decided it was a lost cause. Facing my addictions head on I pondered how to decide between the new collection of all (except The Biplane Houses) Les Murray's poems, or Seamus Heaney's new hardback, or the Neil Young Nation book, or Neil's new CD or....

I logged on the Amazon USA. Scott Walker isn't released until June 6 in USA. The Bob book is available. Tipped them into my online shopping cart, entered Visa details and for $49.00 usa = $65.5203 AUD. I'll have them in my mailbox possibly in 6 - 10 days. Possibly also cheaper and quicker than I'd get them by mooching around Melbourne and hard acquiring them the old way.

Let's see how it pans out.

sarsaparilla

Sarsaparilla is a new group blog devoted to discussing books, writing, film and television, theatre and the performing arts, music, publishing, the humanities, reading, cultural studies, and… other things, from a distinctively Australian perspective.

It's got Alison Croggon, Ampersand Duck , Boynton, David Nichols, Galaxy, and Genevieve Tucker of You Cried for Night and The Weblog Repository, Georg of Stack, Kerryn Goldsworthy of A Fugitive Phenomenon, Laura from Sorrow at Sills Bend, Tim Sterne from Sterne, Wendy James from the old Troppo and possibly many others.

nepotism roolz - ok?

The offspring gigs again. Sons Of Mothers Website The Rob Roy Melbourne Pubs - Wiki Brunswick Street - Wiki

ivor cutler music eccentric

"My way of writing poetry was to go to a jazz concert and just let the music come through me and just write nonsense poems, so that one was listening to the noise of the words rather than the meaning. I wouldn't allow my intellect to get in the way. After six years I found certain sounds more to my taste than others and I gradually began to use actual words".

Ivor Cutler was born in Glasgow on 15th January 1923 to a Jewish middle-class family.

"My parents were orthodox Jews. My father moved from the orthodox to the progressive synagogue. He had been able to read Hebrew but wasn't understanding the traditional service. For me the language was then exposed as boring. I liked the incomprehensible noise of foreign words."

Victimised by anti-Semitic teachers at school for not being a "real Scot" he got the strap 200 times for not being able to write. In his twenties he looked into other religions, visiting various churches on Sundays. He converted to atheism and then, in his early twenties, having explored astronomy, he decided to become an agnostic.

When he was fifteen he thought;
"I'm going to be a composer. I'm going to make simple but strong melodies like Drove or Schubert. I've got a thing which I call my first Piano Concerto and it's only in three lines, because I didn't know what a concerto was. I took it to school and showed it to the music teacher and she was knocked out. It was a load of rubbish. Then I did a serious one called "Funeral Bells", because being a humorist I'm naturally a lugubrious kind of bloke, and suicide always has a big attraction to guys like me."

In 1950-51 he taught at A S Neill's Summerhill. He then moved to the Inner London Education Authority in 1954 for whom he worked until 1980. From 1961 to 1970 he taught music, African drumming, movement, drama and poetry to 7-11 year-olds.

Fame first came in the late Fifties. He was lying on his bed with a primitive tape recorder for company and, as he puts it, a story came out of his brain. Surprised at the ease at which he could bypass his intellect he tried again, and a second story emerged and was also recorded. Then a third. Writing poetry then began to manifest itself.

"One day I went into a place called Box & Cox and the boss man there was a fellow called Boxy. I was dressed up all peculiar, a big bag on my back with paintings in it and a dirty old duffel coat. I put on a deadpan voice and said, "I understand you buy songs here." He said, "Yes", carefully. I said, "Would you like me to sing one of my songs for you?" He said, "Yes", it was five o'clock in the evening, he had a fire going, he was relaxing.

So he got one or two of his chums and pointed to a piano that was against the wall and he sat behind me. I said "I've got different songs. It could be a funny one or it could be a serious one." He said, "Oh, play what you like." So I sat down and played this funny one. After a while I was listening, I heard. I carried on to the end, turned around, and Box was lying on the floor, his face purple. I said, "It's OK, you can laugh." He said, "We get some funny people in here and they would be terribly hurt if we laughed, because they see themselves as being very serious." So he took me on and started me in my music career"

Cutler was invited to read his idiosyncratic poems and stories on the forerunner of BBC Radio 4. Frequently he performed to the accompaniment of a pedal-driven harmonium which could only, as far as listeners could tell, play in a depressive minor key. He broadcast thirty-eight stories on the BBC's Monday Night At Home between 1959 and 1963. Cutler's artistic career started with a gig at the Blue Angel in Islington in 1957, which he reckoned was "an unmitigated failure". In the 60s he became a popular figure on UK radio, and in 1961 released his first record, the "Of Y'Hup" EP. He started writing poetry aged 42 three of his poems appear in Faber's collection of Scottish verse edited by Douglas Dunn.

Cutler found an avid fan in John Lennon, who persuaded him to take the role of Buster Bloodvessel in the Beatles vehicle Magical Mystery Tour (1967). Beatles producer George Martin produced his album Ludo (1967), released as the Ivor Cutler Trio.

Cutler remained active in his later years. He wrote children's books as well as collections of poetry and prose; recorded albums for such influential labels as Virgin, Rough Trade and Creation; and continued to record radio sessions for John Peel and Andy Kershaw. In February 2004 a frail looking Cutler gave a farewell performance of poems, songs and stories at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall. Highlights from the show were later broadcast on BBC Four under the title Cutler's Last Stand as an accompaniment to a documentary, Ivor Cutler: Looking For Truth With A Pin.

He died age 83 on 3 March 2006.

Some examples of Ivor's Music
Jackfish - A Cowboy Song MP3 1.9MB
Women of The World MP3 1.2 MB
I Built A House (around a mouse) MP3 1.2 MB
(I am going to watch my woman walking down the street with a) Bounce Bounce Bounce MP3 2.1 MB
Poem
I Ate A Ladies Bun MP3 0.4 MB

Cobbled together from various BBC sites, Wiki and here, and more downloads here.

kiko and the lavender moon

Los Lobos gig. Melbourne. The Forum. 2006. Tuesday 11 April.

Due to the rural brethren arranging the meet spot I went to Federation Square. The night was surprisingly warm and mild for this time of year enabling me to sit outside with a $6 pot of Stella . By 6:30 pm the country cousins were just entering the Tulla Freeway and I was wishing I had ordered a Guinness and by 7 pm they had parked and were strolling into Transport, (beware arty FLASH web site) which I'm told is trendy and cutting edge.

Cutting edge means sharp on prices and badly tuned doof music on small inadequate but ubiquitous tweeters masquerading as speakers. Not a good start to a night of music. [no points to readers who can detect a theme lately or can see where I might be heading here]

Anyway seeing as the wind was only occasionally strong but still warmish we skulked outside and found a defunct speaker and propped at a table with Stellas and some food. Unfortunately I ordered a huge plate of Tapas $17 which contained some nice bits, olives, grilled capsicum, lettuce , bread but also some items I do not eat, grilled baby octopus and mushrooms. Luckily the rurals are more sophisticated than me and they managed to scoff a few baby octopii and mushies. But really it was more like an anti-pasta than a proper tapas. After a few more beers it didn't matter so much.

After spending a lot of time finding the well hidden toilets in Transport we shuffled over the road to the venue - The Forum. If you haven't been to the Forum click onto a few of the pictures, like this one, or this one, or this, to get an idea of what it is like inside or from the outside.

We were a bit early and were pleasantly surprised to discover that there was booze on sale inside and seats. The usual suspects were gathered to the fray, boomer guys with balding heads, pony tails and earings, the women in either stuck in 70's hippy gear or trying hard with jeans and jackets, with the odd feet on ground person who just arrived from work in a suit and tie. Plenty of room inside, didn't look as if it would be a sellout at 8 pm.

The opening act was some young guy who looked about 16 playing guitar in a fast and flash way. Amongst other competent stuff he knocked out a few versions of some Beatles songs which seemed to go down well with some of the punters. Luckily he seems influenced by Leo Kottke and John Fahey, so when he pulled back the speed a bit it sounded sweet. I didn't catch his name but he said he was off to Byron.

After he went off there seemed to be about a 3/4 full crowd. I'd say break-even crowd. Given that on that same Tuesday night in Melbourne there was a choice of Keb Mo, Hothouse Flowers, Daniel Lanois and Los Lobos, it seemed to me the gigs would appeal to the same markets and that the promoters were segmenting the market and giving punters an impossible choice. So I'm guessing attendance at all those Tuesday gigs were down. My country pals had seen Lanois the previous weekend up at the Palais in Daylesford and pronounced it a good show.

Wandering around during the first act we attempted to find the sweet point for sound. Seemed to be up front, leaning on the stage middle.

Los Lobos arrived. Loud. Tight. Wall of sound. Huge bass thump. Sounded a bit muddled up in the seats, standing down the front was clearer but very loud. The sound tends to wander around in that huge cavern up the front at the Forum. As usual I thought the sound could have done better.

Anyway. Good concert. Not great because of sound muddle. Highlights. Anything where the accordion featured. A very good version of Kiko, vocals clear, accordion clear, atmospherics clear. The real highlight you ask? End. Crowd demands encore. Band comes back to encore and launches into a loud, chord, riffing, rolling version of, guess what, Cinnamon Girl. Crowd, well me at least, go beresque, band plays tribute to Neil at end of song. No La Bamba.

Out dreaming 'bout green shoes

Haircuts and cake

And then he wishes

The world away

And then he kneels

As if to pray

He dreams and dreams

Kiko and the lavender moon

wasted days and wasted nights

Ellen Fanning nearly wasted my night by managing to take an opportunity to talk to the Stones for 30 minutes and with Channel 9 turn it into an hour of ads plus a few truncated live clips plus nonsense from Ellen. What on earth is that woman on about. Bert Newton would have done a better job of interviewing. Stupid questions about their age and nudge nudge wink wink smirks about sex. Then a bit about drugs. Nothing about the music. No context. No comment that in comparing some live footage on a few songs Jagger's voice seems to have improved over the years. Still not up to his admitted hopes of a Howlin' Wolf sound but fuller and more authoritative nonetheless. Pity his lyric writing is still stuck in the teenager stage.

Luckily I had my new DVD of The Mavericks LIVE in Austin TX @ Stubbs BBQ. It is good to see my favourite beer when in USA Dos Equis are only $3.75 at Stubbs. The DVD arrived 10 months after I had ordered it, so long ago I had forgotten all about it. I could have got the bloody thing direct from Amazon delivered to my doorstep in about 7 days for less than half the price it cost me to wait 10 months then have to drive to the shop and wait 20 minutes while they tried to find it. When will retailers learn who they have as competition.

Anyway after I gave the Stones special away as a bad joke I started sampling the DVD. The band is augmented by horns and extra other musos on this concert. They are in great form and deliver the goods. Raul Malo is a chunky sublime singer who manages to sound like all his influences at the right times and to also sound uniquely Raul. He channels the best of Elvis, Roy Orbison, Merle Haggard and a bit of Hank as well as Frank and even croon like Humperdink. And do it all well to a driving country, tex-mex, rockin' ska showband. Or something like that. He also writes great songs and even does Besame Mucho on this concert.

The Extras bit on the DVD is a long "interview" with the 4 core band members, it focuses on the music and is better by a factor of about 100 than the Channel 9 attempt with the Stones. A nice touch in the extra at one stage they break into Van Morrison's Bright Side of the Road in a practice session.

In The Mavericks' arrangements, and they are arrangements, and especially in Raul's voice you can also hear, Bob Wills, Louis Jordan, Patsy Cline, Ray Charles and Buddy Holly, Bing Crosby, Ray Price, BB King, Roger Miller and George Jones, The Beatles, Burt Bacharach, Gram Parsons, Elvis Costello, The Pretenders, Steve Earle.

Trampoline is a landmark album that should be in every serious collection. I'll take a few paras off the web page below:

From the opening salsa swing of Dance The Night Away, the rip roaring rhythm and blues of Tell Me Why, the pop blizzard of I've Got This Feeling, right through to the funky sounds of the exotic/erotic I Hope You Want Me Too and the dance hall jazz of the 20's inspired Dolores. The Mavericks do all this without forsaking any of the fabulous melodies or sparkling musical touches of past efforts. In fact, due to the method of recording the album; the band, singers and orchestra all playing together in one enormous renovated church; they have captured the spirit of The Mavericks in the most powerful and vibrant cool-lection of songs recorded to-date. This is the album which spawned 'The Havana Horns', who would accompany The Mavericks on the road and in additional new recordings, through to 2000.

This vibrancy was well and truly pounced upon by the European audiences throughout 1998 and 1999, especially in the UK, where Dance The Night Away managed to reach No 4 on the 'pop' charts. (It also achieved the status of most played 'live' song of 1999 by the UK Performing Rights Society.) During 1998 the album sold unexpectedly well in Europe, exceeding 850,000 by the end of that year. However, their homeland only showed comparatively scant regard for this joyous triumph; with mainstream radio (both country and pop) unable to cope with this outburst of originality, and promptly threw up the shutters. Consequently, Trampoline in the USA suffered minimal sales.

I just love Raul and the band. Get on the train.

Further info:
Raul runs a well written blog or journal. It is worth reading his most recent entry about his relationship with Buck Owens.
Introduction to the band The Mavericks.
Info about Raul.
New CDs coming out
Review of CDs by BBC
THE MAVERICKS , The Definitive Collection , (MCA Nashville), US release date: 28 June 2004

the last week in lent

Tonight I'm off to the famous Rainbow Hotel (pity about their web site) to hear Rob Luckey and The Lucky Bastards on the recomendation of Amanda F. E. Mule and Denise. [I think you might be able to stream TWANG if you check this arvo]

On Tuesday, yes Tuesday, I'm off to see the only band to be a living history of rock since The Band. Los Lobos.

Next Tuesday must have a certain alignment of the planets, because if I wasn't off to see Los Lobos I would be off to see Daniel Lanois at the Atheneum, or Hothouse Flowers at The Corner Hotel,or Keb Mo at the Prince. I see Lanois is doing something at Readings Carlton @ 6 pm Monday - I might pop along.

Thursday I'll probably be along at the West Papuan Benefit at The Grand Central.

The next week Eddie Reader is doing gigs with Boo Hewerdine.

Phew!