Are the Yeah Yeah Yeahs paying hommage to Kate Bush?
One of my favourite songs at the moment is Gold Lion by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I think it has an excellent film clip, one of the best I have seen for a while. Having said that there was something strangely familiar about it. Could it be that the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are paying a subtle homage to Kate Bush?
Am I onto something here or am I just letting my sexual infatuation with both singers get the better of me? What do you think?
Kate Bush - Babooska
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Gold Lion
Showing my age
Went to see Peeping Tom at the Forum last week to relive my early-twenties fascination with Mike Patton, who was the front man for Faith No More. Saw him at Alternative Nation in 1995 (I think) when he was 10 times better than headlining Trent and Nine Inch Nails who climaxed with a lame instrument smashing exit effort.
Mike was great then and is great now. He is funny and he has a great voice with awesome range and he assembled a diverse bunch of musicians ranging from a sultry songstress with Macy Gray hair to a slim girl with a huge beat box talent, to a dextrous DJ and a geeky guy on keyboards and close trio on drums and guitars. They did hip hoppy tunes and got the crowd involved and there was a bit of banter. It was great.
Until a bunch of morons in black tshirts in the front row started spitting. At Mike. He’s seen it all, being a festival heavy in the eighties and early nineties, but even Mr Patton commented on the gross gesture chosen by these supposed ‘fans’. They persisted. And so it was only right that he reciprocate. Good one Melbourne morons. Thanks for making us a memorable crowd for all the wrong reasons. And reminding us just how ‘base’ the Australian male can be.
I look forward to hearing him again, next time in a smoke free venue.
Pavement drawings: Julian Beever
I came across Julian Beever’s chalk drawings in a lesson plan someone had put together for a high school art class. They are pretty amazing. One of my favourites is below. There are lots more here.
Watch the weirdo
A good mate of mine is an actor. A very fine actor who I have had the pleasure of seeing on stage and screen.
Here is his latest work. It might make you blush.
What will you give this one David?
This is exceptional work Margaret. I’ll give this one 5 stars.
I agree David. 5 stars from me too. But only cause I could see his cock and balls.
The streets are galleries
The dust has cleared and athletes, gardeners and moto-maddies have handed Melbourne back to the locals. I spent the Commonwealth Games either interstate or wandering around looking at the festival freebies. And feeling glad that the law-makers with their extraordinary measures to make Melbourne as palatable as possible for overseas viewers had not managed to deter guys with spray cans with something to say.
I have started collecting some graffiti art:
High tide
Greener pastures
Cryptic suggestion
Horsin’ around
Make your customers happy and proud
eNthem is a new service where professional musicians will compose an anthem or “eNthem” for your company for $500 USD.
What a great idea! The results speak for themselves.
“Well, just like each and every nation has an official national anthem, we believe, so should each and every company have an official eNthem!”
Of course! Corporate interests own most governments anyway so this is a logical progression. Conveniently it opens up a world of advertising opportunities and lets face it, we never get sick of advertising.
For example:
I was at the Commonwealth Games a few nights ago and we had to sing the Australian national anthem 5 times. This was an opportunity missed for the advertisers. Rather than have the crowd of 80,000 sing Advance Australia Fair, which is outdated and does not sell anything they could have had us sing the McDonalds, Channel 9 or Nike eNthem.
It would be a win, win situation. We won’t get bored singing the same song over an over again and the advertisers literally have us singing their praises.
Out with patriotism! In with consumerism!
Brilliant!
The Commonwealth Games don’t suck as much as I thought they would
Anyone who knows me would know that over the last 2 years I have been very critical of the Commonwealth Games.
Many of my criticisms and soap boxing has been justified. Some of them have not.
Therefore I would like to say without equivocation that I have enjoyed the Commonwealth Games. I do not have a TV so I think that has made it better because I have only seen the events I want to see.
- The fish are kinda cool
- I saw a free concert at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl by some immensely talented African musicians. I am ashamed that I do not know their names.
- I saw the Men’s Triathlon in St Kilda
- I went to the athletics with Campbell and saw an amazing 5000 metres race where the Aussie guy came a close second. The crowd of 80,000 went nuts and we were all standing on our seats cheering. I even had goose bumps, but it was a cold night so it could have just been that.
- On Sunday I am going to watch the Men’s Road Race. Unfortunately Australia’s strongest riders are already competing in Europe but I am sure it will be a good race nonetheless.
Largely it has been fun.
Despite all of the above Karak is still a knob.
Review: Mihirangi at 303, 3 March 06
Ended up at 303 on Friday night. Mihirangi, who I’d never heard of before, was just starting a set out the back. When we first walked in she was midway through a song and I didn’t really pay that much attention- just aware of a lone woman on stage with a microphone fiddling with pedals with her feet and singing to a sort of world music/boom box fusion backing track.
But when the next song started I realised that her performance involves recording and mixing each track live- starting with a couple of percussion tracks, several backing vocal parts on top of that, then some kind of Maori flute made out of a bone and finishing with a song over the top of it all. All of this without missing a beat between tracks so the whole act of creation is virtually seamless. No breaks, no second takes. It was incredible to see and hear- this one woman on an empty stage weaving layer upon layer of the piece around herself and the audience.
When friends and I have played around recording stuff it’s taken hours to get a few tracks down (and even then they still sounded pretty crap!)
Don’t know that I’d buy her CDs or anything, but would definitely go and see her perform again some time.
Review: Flagfall film festival
It’s a pretty cool concept. Popcorn Taxi (who run regular screenings and Q&A sessions for all things cinematic) and Touch Taxi (who have a fleet of about 50 Melbourne taxis with interactive video screens for their passengers) join forces, get a few sponsors on board and launch the Flagfall Film Festival- a film festival for short films under three minutes. The taxi guys get some new content for their displays and the film makers get their films seen by people other than their friends, family and the film world (I think the films will also be shown on the big screen at Fed Square and possibly on SBS).
Last night I went to a screening of the sixteen films that were selected (out of about 80 nominations). The genre obviously lends itself to the gag-film and I was a bit disappointed that many of the films were built around one fairly simple joke told fairly simply- 3 minutes can feel like a long time when you’ve guessed the punch-line in the first 20 seconds. But that being said the final collection spanned a wide range of styles, techniques, budgets and a huge amount of passion and energy had obviously gone into all of the films.
They’re all up here for viewing. If you’re pushed for time/bandwidth my Top 6 would be:
- Café Noir
- Every Day
- The Arsonist’s Riddle
- Medusa: First Date
- Seven Days with Seven Dogs
- Brunswick 2005 a year to remember
United by the moment
With the Commonwealth Games just under three weeks away Melbourne is really buzzing with excitement.
Forget the Winter Olympics, The World Cup, Wimbledon or the Tour de France… The Commonwealth Games is the premier sporting event of 2006. Australia VS India in the basketball will be a match for the ages and the much-anticipated clash of table tennis powerhouses Canada and New Zealand will be the stuff of dreams are made of.
I can’t even begin to list my favourite memories of the Manchester Commonwealth Games and I expect Melbourne to be no different.
If the responses to the Karak Lookalike Competition is any indication of the what we have to look forward to then we are set for an unforgettable two weeks of sport.
