Author Archives: Stu

[gigs] Time to Hibernate?

As usual the approach of winter means the gig guide starts getting a bit sparse. Not much new to add this week, mostly just a few corrections. Why don’t people go out more in Adelaide in winter? It’s not like it’s that cold. We’re not snowed in or anything (in fact, it still doesn’t even rain much). Fortunately, even though there are not many international tours happening, there are a few interstate and plenty of good local bands to go and see. Also while the other touring companies don’t have much for us at the moment, it’s good to see that Heathen Skulls are still bringing bands over here.

MAY

  • 27th Brian Chase & Seth Misterka with Black Widow at the Ed Castle. Now there appears to be a show in Tasmania on this date.
  • 28th Pikelet with Sarah from Batrider at the Metro
  • 28th Wolf & Cub, Jimmy & the Mirrors, Like Leaves at the Ed Castle.
  • 28th Fire! Santa Rosa Fire! at Rocket.
  • 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.
  • 20th The Sea Thieves at the Wheatsheaf
  • 26th Absolute Boys, Terrible Truths at the Exeter.

JULY

  • 9th – Batrider & No Through Road at Jive
  • 10th – Steering By Stars at Jive.
  • 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

  • John Coltrane – Last Performance at Newport cd (FreeFactory)
  • Tom Hall – Past Present, Below dld
  • Autechre – FACT Mix 122 dld (FACT magazine)
  • AFX – Analogue Bubblebath 3 cd (Rephlex)
  • Luke Vibert – Chicago, Detroit, Redruth cd (Planet Mu)
  • Pivot – O Soundtrack My Heart cd (Warp)
  • New Order – Movement LP (Factory)
  • Monade – Monstre Cosmic cd (Too Pure)
  • Primitive Calculators & Friends – s/t cd (Chapter)
  • Chad’s Tree – Crossing Off the Miles 2cd (Memorandum)

Baraka at the Adelaide Cinémathèque

On Thursday May 27 the film Baraka will be screening at the Mercury Cinema as part of the Adelaide Cinémathèque. It really is an incredible film, perhaps the simplest way I can put it is that it is the story of our planet. It has to be seen on the big screen, and such opportunities may not come up too often (I think my last was in 1996 or 1997). Roger Ebert put it very well in this review (for the Bluray dvd release which is about the first thing that’s made me think that maybe bluray is worthwhile):

If man sends another Voyager to the distant stars and it can carry only one film on board, that film might be “Baraka.” It uses no language, so needs no translation. It speaks in magnificent images, natural sounds, and music both composed and discovered. It regards our planet and the life upon it. It stands outside of historical time. To another race, it would communicate: This is what you would see if you came here. Of course this will all long since have disappeared when the spacecraft is discovered. (go read the rest of the review)

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Remember that you can’t get single tickets for the Cinémathèque, the minimum is a 4 film membership, but there’s plenty more coming up, there are films every Monday & Thursday for the rest of the year.

The End of the Line at the Mercury Cinema

The End of the Line is on this weekend and next weekend at the Mercury Cinema, screening details here.

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some related reading:

George Monbiot on the failure to protect Bluefin Tuna

Those who opposed suspending trade in the species argued that the temporary ban proposed by Monaco would devastate their fishing industries. There is some truth in this: for the years in which bluefin stocks would have been allowed to recover, the export ban would have put people out of work and reduced the output of their industry. But the absence of a ban ensures that, after one or two more seasons of fishing at current levels, all the jobs and the entire industry are finished forever, along with the magnificent species that supported them. The insistence that the fishing can continue without consequences betrays Olympic-class denial, a flat refusal to look reality in the face.

The classic case study in fishery collapse – the Grand Banks (from Wikipedia)

The cod catch peaked in 1968 at 810,000 tons, approximately three times more than the maximum yearly catch achieved before the super-trawlers. Approximately 8 million tons of cod were caught between 1647 and 1750, a period encompassing 25 to 40 cod generations. The factory trawlers took the same amount in 15 years.[5]

The industry collapsed entirely in the early 1990s owing to overfishing and debatably, greed, lack of foresight and poor local administration.[6] By 1993 six cod populations had collapsed, forcing a belated moratorium on fishing.[5] Spawning biomass had decreased by at least 75% in all stocks, by 90% in three of the six stocks, and by 99% in the case of ‘northern’ cod, previously the largest cod fishery in the world.[5]

After a 10 year moratorium on fishing the cod had still not returned.[7] It is likely that the local ecosystem has changed, one example being that greater numbers of capelin, which used to provide food for the cod, now eat the juvenile cod.[citation needed] The waters now appear to be dominated by crab and shrimp rather than fish.[7]

The Greens and the ETS

Lately the efforts by the ALP to attack the Greens over their failure to support the ETS seem to be stepping up, no doubt it is in preparation for the upcoming election, with Labor fearing that the Greens may pose a threat in certain lower house seats. Often this takes the form of trying to group the Greens together with the Coalition and Family First in their opposition to the legislation (including in a ridiculous piece by Bob Carr in the Australian recently), though I doubt that efforts to lump the Greens with the climate deniers will have too much influence on the main target  – ALP voters who may consider voting Green thanks to Labor’s failure to take action on climate change, so for this audience the argument is a little more subtle. The idea is to paint the Greens as holier than thou idealogues whose hearts may be in the right place on the issue but who would never comprise on principles and agree on action that would actually work in the real world. Frankly, this is a load of bollocks. The Greens took a position which would, were it not for the extreme positions of the major parties, be considered as mainstream. It was the Greens who were largely following the recommendations of the independent report commissioned on the issue, while Labor largely ignored it, and meanwhile the Coalition, post-Turnbull, were off in loony communist conspiracy land. What’s more, there are always people saying that the Greens had a chance to do something, they could have made a start on tackling the problem but were such purists that they wouldn’t negotiate and voted against it. For a start, the Greens can’t be blamed for lack of negotiation. They put in the work, they told Labor exactly what they didn’t like and offered amendments – but Labor chose not to negotiate. The Greens have been quite open about why they could not support the bill as presented – it’s not just that it wouldn’t achieve much in the first place (which would still leave open the claim they should have voted for it at least to support the principle), it was, as they pointed out repeatedly, that it would “lock in failure”. It wasn’t going to be a good first step because it prevented any further steps. You can get the full story from Senator Christine Milne’s site here.

At Crikey, Tim Hollo (adviser to Christine Milne) suggests that Labor’s strategy all along was to deliberately keep the Greens out of the picture on this issue for political reasons, which really seriously undermines the argument that if only the Greens had been more realistic about it we’d have an ETS already.

So in summary, claims that

    • The Greens don’t really want action on climate change, and
    • The Greens wouldn’t negotiate with Labor on the ETS.

    are straight out rubbish, and

    • They should have voted for it to at least do something.

      is at the very least arguable, and it’s not just the Greens themselves who would argue with it. If the Greens had voted for the ETS, I imagine that at some point in the future they’d be criticised for naively voting for bad legislation (which did not reduce emissions) just because they wanted to look like doing something for the environment!

      There’s plenty of room for argument over what to do about climate change, but cheap political point scoring of the “you didn’t vote for the ETS so you don’t want action on climate change” is not helpful.

      While preparing this post I saw an excellent article in the SMH by Ross Gittins which has many anti-Greens comments of the sort discussed above in the comments section.

      Electronic Music at Adelaide Uni this Thursday

      This Thursday there is a show at the Electronic Music Unit at Adelaide Uni featuring Tom Hall, Ambrose Chapel, Jason Sweeney and Tristan Louth-Robins.

      From the press release:

      It has been in excess of 2 years since Tom Hall’s last full length solo release. Since that release Hall has crossed the globe a number times playing in excess of 250 live shows, experimenting and honing many of his techniques for producing live sound and image performances. However, during this time Hall has been working away on one record, ‘Past Present, Below’, whether it’s been sitting on planes 35,000 feet above the earth or hidden away in a warehouse in San Francisco, this album is the ‘record’ of 2 years of experimentation, honing and life experiences drawn from almost every area Hall has visited, played,tasted or experienced.

      -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=–=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

      Ambrose Chapel is a music project by Ian Rogers (of AXXONN and No Anchor). Forged in the sweltering spare rooms of Brisbane summers, Ambrose Chapel finds Rogers exploring new sounds, production techniques and modes of performance.

      Jason Sweeney is an Adelaide-based composer and the founder of the quartet, Panoptique Electrical. He is a sound artist and musician who has recorded and released works internationally since 1996. He is also one half of Pretty Boy Crossover.

      Tristan Louth-Robins (aka: red_robin) is an Adelaide-based Australian sound artist working in areas of electronic music and new media art. His works utilise assorted media and technologies to realise concepts and ideas associated with sound and its signification in various contexts.

      It starts at 8pm sharp – you need to get there on time so they can let you in. It’s $15, should be well worth it, past shows at EMU have been excellent.

      Press Release(pdf)

      New Theme

      My main motivation for changing theme was that I wasn’t quite happy with way the old one archived posts.  In particular if someone followed a link and got into an old post it didn’t show anywhere what year it was from, so it was potentially a bit confusing. I tend to get hits from people searching for info on gigs, so it’s good if they read a post about someone touring that they know if it’s current or from two years ago.

      Changing this probably didn’t require a whole new theme,  but I thought it was a good chance to try something different. I haven’t made any changes to this one, but the default photo  looks better than the old rayon vert photo (even though the aurora and le rayon vert are not the same thing). Not completely sure about fonts, I might try to get bold type (used to highlight names in gig posts) to show up a bit better. If anyone has any suggestions let me know.

      The Secret Life of the Vacuum Cleaner

      This is the first episode of the classic series The Secret Life of Machines, in three parts. Tim Hunkin & Rex Garrod give us the history of the machines we encounter in everyday life and explain how they work.

      [youtube JKskCLMEX1s]

      [youtube Y5NCqFfvu_4]

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      Published by , in TV.