Author Archives: Stu

Bakesale at Format

This Saturday May 15 there’s a bakesale at Format, 15 Peel St city. Not only can you get delicious baked goods, they have craft as well! And it’s all for a good cause, to raise money to keep Format going. In case you haven’t been there, Format is a fantastic space where they have great gigs, art exhibitions, a zine store and various other events that help to make Adelaide an interesting place, so they deserve your support. Go there this Saturday between 1 and 5pm. Details about Half Baked ( … Half Craft) at Five Thousand.

[gigs]

Small gig update, not too much new to announce. There is a rumour that the Avant Gardeners could play as many as 3 gigs in July, but no details yet.

I recently linked to Five Thousand as somewhere else you can find out lots of things on in Adelaide, now I should point out that the gig guide content is increasingly being sourced from Faux Friends, so go over there and have a look, and bookmark them and check regularly for upcoming gigs, and then go to those gigs.

This week’s big tour is Spoon but they just didn’t do much for me last time I saw them (which was rather a long time ago so perhaps I should give them another chance). I’m more interested in the Fair Maiden gig on Friday, especially since it seems that it’s going to be with the full band. Previous performances that I’ve seen (and maybe all of them?) have been Ellen Carey (of Birth Glow, Clue to Kalo, Jemima Jemima) solo, now it’s a band with (according to myspace) her brother Joel (Wolf & Cub, some recent appearances with Bitch Prefect) and Liam (presumably the Liam from Bitch Prefect and every other Adelaide band). Already sounds great, but as an added bonus the support is Shame Spiral.

Nothing much on Saturday though … might have to find out what one can do when not attending a gig.

I heard that The Dead C were playing in Sydney and was hoping for a full tour but it’s looking like a single show only. Also in Sydney, Crow are launching their new album at the start of June, they were one of my favourite bands when I was going to gigs in Sydney in the mid 90’s, it would be great to see them again so hopefully the album goes well and they do a national tour.

Update:  A tour by doom/drone metallers (and former members of Sleep), OM has just been announced, they play Fowlers’ in July (14th or 15th … not clear which). Was previously incorrectly listed for October.

One more thing, last week’s show at Format was excellent, while the visitors from Melbourne were great, I was really impressed by Batrider (who have been adopted by Adelaide) and Bitch Prefect. If you live in Adelaide and are yet to see these bands then you should really do something about that at the next opportunity.

MAY

  • 13th Spoon at Fowlers.
  • 14th Fair Maiden (band) and Shame Spiral at the Metro.
  • 17th Dan V and S.Wilson at the Wheatsheaf.
  • 21st TTT with Terrible Truths and Fair Maiden at Rocket.
  • 22nd Cheer Advisory Council Humble Bee, the Honey Pies at the Grace Emily.
  • 27th Brian Chase & Seth Misterka with Black Widow at the Ed Castle.
  • 28th Pikelet with Sarah from Batrider at the Metro
  • 28th Wolf & Cub, Jimmy & the Mirrors, Like Leaves at the Ed Castle.
  • 29th Brian Chase & Seth Misterka with Black Widow at the Rhino Room.

JUNE

  • 3rd No Zu and Slight Visions at the Metro.
  • 4th No Zu and Fake Tan at the Exeter.
  • 5th Steering By Stars at the Ed Castle.
  • 12th Bitch Prefect at the Exeter.
  • 13th Friends, Harmony, Dud Pills Taught By Animals, The Crying Game at the Metro.
  • 26th Absolute Boys, Terrible Truths at the Exeter.

JULY

  • 9th – Batrider & No Through Road at Jive
  • 14th or 15th  – OM at Fowlers.
  • 15th – Hit the Jackpot, Terrible Truths at the Metro with some visitors from Sydney, Royal Headache and Bed Wettin’ Bad Boys.
  • 30th – Zack Kouns, Rory Hinchey, Alps, S Wilson at the Exeter.

AUGUST

  • 7th Laura Marling at the Gov.

On the Stereo

  • Various – Loose Cannon: Sounds from the Australian Experimental Underground 2cd
  • Tactics – The Sound of the Sound Vol.2 2cd (Memorandum)
  • Radio Birdman – The Essential Radio Birdman cd (Trafalgar)
  • The Triffids – Come Ride With Me … 10cd (Domino)
  • Leyland Kirby – Sadly the Future is No Longer What It Was 3cd (History Always Favours the Winners)
  • Current 93 – Judas As Black Moth 2cd (Castle)
  • Jandek – Portland Thursday 2cd (Corwood)
  • M. Gira – Drainland cd (Young God)
  • Earth – Pentastar: In the Style of Demons cd (Sub Pop)
  • Ornette Coleman – Croydon Concert cd (FreeFactory)

Le Rayon Vert Music Archive #2

This track is from about January ’99 I think. It was inspired by two records I’d picked up from new arrivals bin at Big Star records, Will Oldham’s Black/Rich Music and Autechre’s Peel Session, so the result was called Blackpeel. Actually, the original recording was the electronica parts (as part of a larger session of electronic tracks … though there is a limit to the extent that you could emulate late 90’s electronica with 70’s analog instruments and effects pedals), the organ and slide guitar was added later, initially intended to be two pieces that could be listened to separately or combined together, but then I just decided I liked it better mixed.

Like everything from mid ’98 onwards it was recorded on a Tascam Portastudio 414 (I really should get that out and see if it still works).

Blackpeel

Le Rayon Vert Music Archive #1

This is the first in a series of posts in which I dig deep into the archives of obscure music that I’ve made. The first goes back about as far as possible to one of the first things I can remember doing, like all my music of the era it had no title when recorded, but retrospectively is called Original Axolotl since it was later turned into a song called Axolotl by a band called Bill Yakshard (whose one and only appearance was at the UNSW band competition in 1997). This recording is older, from some time in ’96 but I think it was around for a couple of years before that. It is uncharacteristic for my music at the time, mostly in it’s catchiness, in hindsight I can’t help but feel it was inspired to some extent by the theme music to Barney Miller. Here is the mp3, click on the play icon on the embedded flash player to listen.

Original Axolotl

and here is the Barney Miller theme:

[youtube ox-DmJ9H3ng]

Five Thousand

Now there is another way to find out what’s happening in Adelaide besides reading Le Rayon Vert – which, given the sporadic updates and frequent mistaken listings is admittedly not that great for knowing what’s happening anyway. You can go to Five Thousand where you can read about what’s happening in music, art, cinema and … um, mini golf, amongst many other things. Go check it out, they have some good people writing reviews, and you can sign up to get it regularly in email too. You should still visit here as well though.

Janus Series 2 on dvd

The ABC has completed the Phoenix/Janus collection on dvd with the release of the second series of Janus on dvd this week. A few years ago I was very disappointed when I decided to watch these series again and found that they weren’t available, so great that they are all out now. Once again I’ll use the occasion to recommend them. I can’t think of any Australian drama series that I’ve liked better. I think they should appeal to fans of The Wire, as the approach is somewhat similar (and rather groundbreaking when they were first aired), though admittedly on a rather more modest scale. Each series follows a single police investigation (in the case of Phoenix) or court trial (Janus) over 12 or so episodes. They took a much more realist approach to any other series around at the time (early to mid 90’s), for a start they were set in a real city (Melbourne) which was very recognisable, and many events were loosely based on real life events (not uncommon now with the likes of Underbelly, but not common then). In the same way that the Wire shifts focus each series, there was a shift from following the police investigations in Phoenix, to the legal process in Janus, with one character being the link between the otherwise largely independent series. It will certainly look rather low budget compared to the Wire, though aside from that comparison it stands up very well. It is really worth seeing if you haven’t already (and if you have you’re probably already getting the dvds).

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