A Very Aussie Aussie Day

We had no real plan for our Australia Day long weekend up until Thursday night because I simply had not had time to think about it since work was so busy last week.

When we finally sat down to watch the Tennis on Thursday night, I happened to flick to another channel where they were playing a pre-Australia Day concert in Canberra and The Whitlams came on. Of course I had to watch because they're my ALL TIME FAVOURITE band, and right at the end, they mentioned something about playing in Sydney the next day....

What?! I googled it straight away. Apparently the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority was putting on a concert at The Rocks to celebrate Australia Day.

And it's all FREE. So our Australia Day activities were set. (Never had I been so happy to be a taxpayer.)

The line up was great. They had FIVE stages with all Aussie bands (almost as good as the BDO without the hefty price tag). We managed to catch the following...

2.30pm - Holly Throsby

A gorgeous little folk outfit with her as singer guitarist, drummer Bree Van Ryke (who also drums for Darren Hanlon) and a guy called Jens who seems to play every string instrument under the sun - double bass, cello, mandolin, banjo). There was one tense moment when a wild gust of wind blew the double bass off its stand and it toppled onto the ground - thankfully these classical instruments are tougher than they look.

4pm - Josh Pyke
Well we didn't actually watch a lot of it we were off foraging for food. He had a cool violinist.

5.30pm - Alex Lloyd

The highlight for me was definitely when they did a cover of Hallelujah and the whole crowd started singing along.

And also the very dramatic dancing by two girls very close to us throughout the entire set.

7pm - The Whitlams

I haven't seen these guys since the Easter Show last year and they were in good form. They did some of their more political songs (Blow Up The Pokies, Year Of The Rat), a few 'Aussie-flavoured' songs (Love This City, I Will Not Go Quietly, Beautiful as You) and a few of my favourites - I Make Hamburgers, Laugh In Their Faces, and Louis Burdett.

My voice was coarse by the end of the set with all the singing along and cheering.

I also wore my thongs for the occasion, ate two whole corn cobs, got sun burnt and had beer split on my foot. All in the spirit of celebrating being Australian. It was a great day.


Just a few more pics on my flickr.

Lost & Found

This post is about my Christmas present.

I know I know, Christmas is already a distant memory for some of you but there's a reason for this lateness.

I want to start by telling you the back story. (Okay, if you're a little short on time you can just skip down to where I've marked the crux of this post with lots of ******)

Two years ago, the first Christmas after we got married, when I was still under the optimistic delusion that, one day someday soon, I will succeed in training Jerms to read my mind, I began dropping some obvious hints as to what I wanted for Christmas. They include casual comments such as "Oh I found this really cool knitting doll kit online today... it's really really cool... did I say it's really really cool?" and "Um, Ben Folds has put out a new book of sheet music. Did I mention that I'm in love with Ben Folds?"

Even to my semi-delusional mind back then, it soon became apparent to me that he was not catching on. For one, there were no visits to www.dotpebbles.com under Mozilla's 'History' page and definitely no visits to Allan's Music superstore in the City.

But being the refuse-to-give-up gunho die-hard that I am, I decided that I just needed to be more obvious.

So I made a wishlist...

with descriptions of each gift, expected price, and more importantly, WHERE one might be able to purchase these gifts, if one was looking to do so.

To be honest I can't remember what I got that Christmas. Needless to say it wasn't on my list.

************
So this last Christmas, I decided it was time to be practical and give up on any school girl silliness and just tell him exactly what I wanted. Tickets to see the Lost and Found Orchestra as part of the Sydney Festival.

We went to the matinee performance last Sat at the Opera House, (which is why I'm only blogging about my Christmas present now) and it was FANTASTIC.

The set looked quite strange to start with, lots of steel structures and stages, even a bathroom up one side of what used to be the choir circle.

When the lights dimmed, a group of people walked on stage and started playing... instrument cases!!

Basically the idea is that they use instruments made from everyday objects, which, as far as I can remember included...

• different lengths of plastic tubes
  
• drain pipes with mouthpieces that sounded like bassoons
  
• a massive wine glass xylophone
• vibraphones made from water cooler bottles
  
• beer bottles
• shopping trolleys
• plastic barrels
• those bouncy exercise balls
  
• witches' hats as horns
  
• garbage bags
• saw violins
  
• bicycle horns
• a harp made from a bed
• really long tubing with a cone at the end
  

And vacuum cleaners! Serious.

Because a lot of these instruments only made one single tone, it required incredible coordination across a fairly large number of people to produce a coherent piece of music. It was a bit like a concert cross with a dance cross with a circus. There were certainly tap dancing elements (the creators created Stomp), acrobatics, clowning, as well as my favourite, a kung-fu sequence where about 10 pairs of people 'fought' with broom sticks and 'played' a percussion piece at the same time.

You can read a write up here. I'm sorry I have no pictures. You can't take photos inside the Concert Hall and in any case there're probably plenty of pics on the web.

************
btw, to Jerms' credit, he did get me something on that wishlist eventually. But this has taught me an important lesson about marriage... ladies, don't try to change your husbands. It's much easier to change yourselves.

Tooroo.

Butter is for Basting

Yay! Darren Hanlon's new album Fingertips and Mountaintops is getting some great reviews. Read them on the Candle Records site.

The clip for 'Happiness Is A Chemical' is on YouTube. It showcases Darren's unique dance style and is highly amusing.

Here's what he says about the clip on his website...

"The clip features me as an evangelist guitar playing preacher spreading the word of happiness. I got the character idea from Robert Mitchum in Night of the Hunter. In it he has the words good and evil tattooed on his knuckles. I wanted to write sad and glad on mine but it looked silly on film. Also look out for a cameo of the amazing young Jindbyne actress Eva Lazzaro. She's the most intelligent and funny 11 year old I've ever met. She told me her favourite CD at the moment is Cat Power. She also likes The Shins but prefers their first album to the last one. She also told me to 'think of the animals darren' when I ate a lolly that contained gelatin (horses hooves or cow skins)."

And this is him on his addiction to craft...

"I usually become anxious in the weeks leading up to a tour and try to fill each day to take my mind off it. Last week I realised I'd inadvertently become addicted to craft. I went insane and spent 2 days building this 'thing' out of cardboard and paper mache for the window at Polyester Records in Melbourne. The diorama even has a scale model of the theatre we recorded the album in!"

Apparently it'll be on display in Sydney next week at Fish Records in Newtown.

One Angry Dwarf & 80-Piece Orchestra

Have been meaning to post about the Ben Folds and Sydney Symphony concert I went to last Friday.

It was AWESOME (and I'm not one of those cute Gen Y's who use the word liberally).

Here's a not so nice write up in the SMH. While I agree with Mr. Zuel that it's hard to improve on the originals, I think it's a bit cynical to say 'what's the point' when the arrangements showed off both Ben and the SSO's talents (like he , 'not just your usual pop-classic duet), the audience had a heap of fun and all the musos looked like they enjoyed doin' it. Isn't that what entertainment is all about?

Highlights for me were...

1. When he had to stand away from the piano and sing Not The Same - painfully uncomfortable, awkward and hilarious
2. The sci-fi'esq intro to one of the songs - I think it was One Angry Dwarf
3. Getting the story behind Cigarette - all the words are from one sentence in a newspaper article. Strangely he played Landed instead after telling the story
   
4. The orchestra playing the melodian part of Stephen's Last Night
5. And of course, finishing up on Luckiest in the encore - this last one for completely sentimental reasons
   

He also played a few of my favourites that don't usually get much airplay at gigs - Evaporated, Alice Childress and Carrying Cathy.

There are some fuzzy videos on YouTube. Of particular interest is this rendition of Rock This Bitch.

We got our photo snapped by some photographer sponsored by Jameson - hence the annoying logo. This is NOT an ad for them.

Fingertips & Mountaintops

I put in my preorder for Darren Hanlon's new album, Fingertips and Mountaintops, today. It's coming out on October 2nd.

This is the first album of Darren's that I'm actually forking out real money for. I've heard his songs on the J's before and loved them (especially Falling Aeroplanes and I Wish I Was Beautiful For You) but have never really bothered to find out more.

Finally went to one of his gigs a few months ago and absolutely loved it. He is so funny live.

Just to be safe I bought all his other albums as well. To save on postage, you know.

There's a few audio tracks on the Candle Records website. Well worth a listen.

Revenge of the Cardigan

Came across Ben Kweller's free 'One Minute Pop Song' podcasts completely by accident on iTunes. I don't know how I missed them before considering I subscribe to his newsletter...

Anyway, they are quite amusing vignettes* of his life and well worth a peek if at least for this incredibly daggy aran cardigan he wears throughout. (Man, I had one of those when I was a kid in that exact shade.)

I like the episode where he talks about how he learnt the drums from his dad. I think it's ep 4.

You can also get them on YouTube, but mate, if you got this far, just follow the links on his website.

Actually I came across BK's podcast cos I was downloading Zach Braff's (also free) podcast about his new movie 'The Last Kiss' (which unfortunately for Australia, is not coming out til Feb 07). Again they are short vignettes* of cast members doing very very inane things. I'm sure there are links on his blog.

*I really truly hate the word 'vignette'. I think it's one of the ugliest words on the planet, but I was forced by my thesis supervisor to use it over and over again in my thesis to refer to these videos that I showed my research 'subjects'. Clearly the experience has scarred me.

1st Music Post

I know that the subtitle of this blog suggests that I blog about music and bands and stuff but so far, none of that's been happening.

Main reason is that around the same time this blog started I got an iPod (yes shock horror) for the first time. As a result of that momentous development in my life I decided to go through and listen to all my old music, in order to justify my new acquisition (well technically it was acquired by Jerms but what's his is mine, so).

Anyway, long and short of it is that I have not bought ANY new music since the week before Easter (when I bought The Whitlams' Little Cloud, Jack Johnson's Curious George and Augie March's Moo, You Bloody Choir all in one go). That's nearly 5 months with no new music!

But the drought has broken! Yesterday I bought...
Clare Bowditch and the Feeding Set's What Was Left
Kings of Leon's Aha Shake Heartbreak (Limited Tour Edition)

I've had my eye on Clair's album for a while now - she has a mesmerising husky voice. Highly recommended. Loving track 2 'Lips Like Oranges', 3 'I Thought You Were God' and 5 'Divorcee by 23'.

The main reason I got KoL's album was actually cos' it was only $9.90. I did see them at the Big Day Out and they were rockin'. Better than, dare I say, The White Stripes' set (I must be the only person in the world who do not like them live).

Actually I walked into the music shop looking for The Panics' Sleeps Like A Curse cos' it was Richard Kingsmill's no. 1 favourite album for 2005 (Richard is the sexiest man on radio), and I'd listened to the FREE MP3s on The Panics' website and loved every track, especially 'In Your Head' and 'Twin Sisters'. Check it out.

(I didn't end up buying the album cos' it felt too indulgent to get 3 albums in one go... and I'm trying to be more sensible with money. Trying.)