A balanced diet: getting my nerd AND bogan on
13 Mar 2011 Leave a Comment
in Music Tags: bogan, cars, john williams, mso pops, music, star wars, top gear
This weekend has seen me both nerd it up and bogan it… down…
Saturday night we headed off to the first MSO Pops event for the year. It was called “Star Wars and Beyond,” so I was expecting it to be space-y type stuff, much like the one we went to a few years ago. Rather, it was subtitled “A celebration of John Williams,” so it wasn’t quite what I was expecting. There were still 5 pieces from Star Wars, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Superman, and Lost in Space… but we also got music from Memoirs of a Geisha, JFK, and Schindler’s List, to name just a few. The music was, of course, exceptional; the conductor was the same guy we saw do the space-themed one, and he did the same Superman joke – pulling his shirt apart – and he wore the Obi-Wan cloak, and even pulled out a Princess Leia hairpiece! He’s a good sport. Perhaps the best bit was him coming out on a tiny little bike, with a red hoody on and an ET in the basket in front….
With a 20 minute intermission, the concert lasted just over 2.5 hours, and by the end of it I was definitely done; my tolerance for instrumental music had definitely been reached. I have so many classical music aficionados among my friends that I sometimes feel quite guilty for not being that interested. But I realised something last night: I am not interested in being challenged by music. I am challenged in my reading, and I do not care to extend that to my ears. And that’s OK.
Today… well, today was different. Today we went to see Top Gear Live. We were three rows from the front, front on to the screens; we were close enough that when the flares flamed, and the cars were on fire, we could feel the heat on our faces. The ca-soccer was marvellous: played mostly with Reliant Robins (the three-wheeled jobbies), it was incredibly skilful driving. And there was a motorcyclist doing stunts that involved a JBC digger. But the bits in between the stunts… Jeremy Clarkson and James May were kinda funny; Richard Hammond wasn’t there so they’d replaced him with Steve Jacobson (Kenny), who was mostly unfunny; and sadly, the repertoire of jokes largely consisted of fat jokes, homophobin jokes, penis jokes, and poo jokes. Not the sorts of thing that are actually funny. If I had paid for the tickets, I would have been disappointed.
I did enjoy looking at the range of racing cars in the museum they had set up, though, with Mustangs and Corbettes and Alfas and Selbys… there is a little part of me that is quite the rev-head. I was sad that the rain had started when the performance finished, because it meant we didn’t get to see the drifting demonstration.
Sound Relief
17 Mar 2009 Leave a Comment
in Music, Random Tags: gig, music, wolfmother
Yes, we got tickets. Well, I got tickets; my IT-pro husband has decided that I am the one to do online bookings and ticket purchasing. And in just 7 minutes of refreshing I got tickets. We’re old, so I bought seats; I couldn’t bear the thought of standing for 12 hours, or having to sit in the mud. As it turned out, this was a very good thing, since it rained for about a third of the day, and we didn’t get too wet, because I bought the best tickets in the entire world. We were in the second tier of seat at the G, in what is officially the Members Stand, and we were just far enough back that – except when the rain was going horizontal – we didn’t get wet at all. Hurrah! We were also right in front of the stage, so basically I am the Ticket Buying Master.
We got to the G a bit before midday, having not drowned in the torrential rain; this was quite an achievement. We left a bit before 11pm, again having not got too wet throughout the entire day. There were a couple of points at which we saw blue sky, but not many. I was viciously pleased to see that Sydney got some rain, too; is that mean? Not that I’m complaining about the rain per se, of course; we needs rain, precious, and we loves it. I’m just not a huge fan of being out in it. We had surprisingly few people around us; given it was meant to have been sold out, I think a few people must have piked out because of the rain. Also, I guess some didn’t come to their seats and just stayed standing up, probably propping up the rather expensive bar ($6 for a cup of Carlton Draught?? Hello…). Also, I have to say that a lot of the MCs were shite; they got basically every major Melbourne FM station to send along one of their DJs, and… it was just bad, mostly. Hamish and Andy were the best, even though I don’t always like their style; they were lightyears better than Gold FM’s Grubby and Deedee (urgh).
Anyway, what follows here are my rough thoughts on the whole day… which I’ll admit to basing on what I wrote on the day, which J thought was utterly hilarious and nerdy.
Jet: first up – a bit boring, and I felt a bit sad for them, because the crowd was largely disinterested and still coming in to boot. They then flew off to double up in Sydney; I hope they got a better reception there.
Gabrielle Cilmi: who?? I had actually heard of her, because she appeared with the Cat Empire for the Aus Open grand final concert; but seriously – who?? 17 years old, apparently youngest ever ARIA winner. Woohoo. She started with a verse of “Buy me a Mercedes Benz,” which had me amazing all these kids thinking it was her original…. Her band seemed to be made up of her Dad’s friends – old men! – and she finished with “Whole Lotta Love,” which made me nearly wet myself with laughter.
Coldplay, live from Sydney: yes, we got some stuff broadcast from Sydney, and vice versa, which was a really nice touch.I enjoyed Coldplay more than I expected, since I usually think they’re just whingy Brits.
Kings of Leon: a short set, but not bad.
Hoodoo Gurus, from Sydney: they’ve very cool for old blokes! for young blokes too, actually.
Paul Kelly: got a better reception than I was expecting from a fairly young audience; people didn’t seem to be paying much attention to him but every song got a rousing round of applause. I have a love/hate relationship with Kelly; I love his songs, but I hate them because they often make me cry.
Little Birdy, from Sydney: I love them!
Augie March: better than I expected, but I still see them as filler.
Architecture in Helsinki, from Sydney: didn’t find them that interesting.
Bliss n Eso: the only ‘urban’ act on the bill, J was very dubious, but he really enjoyed them – they have a brilliant stage presence and routine, and they worked the crowd exceptionally well. I liked their utter self-deprecation. And I quite liked their music too.
You am I, from Sydney: not really my thing.
Kasey Chambers, Shane Nicholson and Troy Cassar-Daley: for a set that’s really not my scene, they were ok.
Josh Pyke, from Sydney: we just didn’t get enough of him! We loves Joshy, eh, ?
Liam Finn and friends: the first couple of songs he did with Barnesy’s daughter EJ, and the first half of each was fine… but each one degenerated into self-indulgent bashing of instruments that utterly lacked musicality. Then he was joined by Tim and Neil Finn, and they broke out a couple of Crowded House songs, which everyone sang along to, and Liam was redeemed (a bit. Not much). Basically everyone singing along.
Taylor Swift, from Sydney: who the hell?? Funniest moment: she ripped her long black dress down the front to reveal a little gold dress underneath.
Jack Johnson: a man and a guitar and nothing else. Very Roy Orbison. Gosh he’s good.
Eskimo Joe, from Sydney: I do like the Joe. I do wish they’d sing the Sweater song still though.
Wolfmother: sadly for them, it was during their set that the rain was going horizontal, which of course stuffed up the sound for them. But they still rocked out. (As an aside, I think Andrew Stockdale chose new member of the band based on whether their hair matched his or not.)
Funniest moment of the whole night: a recording of earlier in the afternoon, John Farnham singing “You’re the Voice” with Coldplay. Every single person in the 80,000 crowd sang along, every single word. Truly we are a nation of patriotic bogans. Me included.
Kylie: suddenly appearing on stage after the minute’s silence, which most people observed (except for some drunken yobs). And making everyone sing along to “I am – you are – we are Australian” (with words on the screen! No trust of the Australian public).
Hunter and Collectors: oh. my. goodness. I had no idea they rocked so. hard. They were utterly, utterly brilliant. They finished with “The Slab,” which I’d never heard before but which is the most amazing pub rock thrash song. I LOVE the Hunters. And again, everyone sang along with “Holy Grail,” which was an awesome moment.
Presets, from Sydney: woohoo! So glad we got a little of this set.
Split Enz: a lot weirder than I think a lot of people would have expected; I had a hunch they would be. They started slowly but they finished well, and I really enjoyed them.
Icehouse, from Sydney: one of the bands I was a bit sad not to have in Melbourne, so again I’m glad we got them for a couple of songs… including, of course, “Great Southern Land.”
and, finally…
Midnight Oil: who were, frankly, the reason we went. Interestingly, it was almost a let down. They were what we expected – we’ve seen them live on DVD (from Wave Aid, and that live gig they released before breaking up), and they basically lived up to expectations. Which was fine, except that the Hunters had blown expectations out of the water; really, anything after that was going to be a little flat. Don’t get me wrong – they were good, Garret was as nutty a dancer as I could have hoped for – but opening with “Redneck Wonderland” felt odd, and… like I said, they met expectations, but didn’t exceed them
Overall, it was one of the greatest 11-hour stretches in memory. I’m so very glad we went, since we’ve been regretting not going up to Wave Aid for about four years now. No more regrets! I have seen the Oils live! And Hunters and Collectors!
Liberation Blue
17 Mar 2009 1 Comment
In light of Sound Relief (on which, more in a moment) on Sunday I finally checked out the Liberation Blue site, basically to find Mark Seymour (I can’t say loud enough how much he rocked at Sound Relief). My dear friend K has been raving about this series of albums of ages; I borrowed her copy of James Reyne’s “… and the horse you rode in on” (still one of the awesomest album titles ever) a while ago, but it was before I got back into my James Reyne phase; I also recently borrowed her Michael Spilby album (remember the Badloves?), which is now a big favourite. Anyway – Liberation Blue is basically old-ish Aussie rockers doing acoustic versions. Diesel, Mark Seymour, James Reyne, Nick Barker… etc. Taxiride sounds something of a bum note, to my ear, but K assures me the album is quite good.
Anyway. “Daytime and the Dark” is raw and acoustic and a sheer delight. Not everyone can get away with stripped back acoustic; Seymour can.
While I was on the site I might also have got a bit carried away. I grabbed the Best of vols 1 and 2 (I think there’s 8 artists on each, doing a couple of songs each: how can you go past an album that opens with Mark Seymour and James Reyne duetting on “April Sun in Cuba”?? WIN!). It’s currently on back order, but I also ordered the “Signature Songs and Classic Covers” album – double CD, exactly what it says. Dragon doing “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” and Michael Spilby doing “Jive Talkin’”? Hello!
I’m so excited with new music. And, before postage, about $22/CD! Noice.
Hottest 100 voting
29 Dec 2008 Leave a Comment
I love voting in the Hottest 100. There’s always songs I forget the name of, but nonetheless I manage to find 10 songs I liked and would want to hear on Hottest 100 Day (aka Australia Day). My sibs also have this fascination, but this they are both overseas and may not have the internet access that will allow them to vote! Ha ha!
Anyway, this is my list for 2008:
Birds of Tokyo – White Witch
Fratellis – Mistress Mabel
Goldfrapp – Happiness
John Steel Singers – Evolution
Josh Pyke – Make you happy
Lyrics Born – Hott 2 Deff
My Morning Jacket – Highly suspicious
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Dig Lazarus Dig!!
Presets – Talk like that
Ting Tings – Great DJ
My sister hates the Ting Tings. And I think Lyrics Born may get me kicked out of the family.
Aliens walk amongst us
03 Nov 2008 Leave a Comment
I found out tonight that Mondo Rock sang “State of the Heart,” which I adore.
I found out a week ago that Ross Wilson fronted both Mondo Rock and Daddy Cool.
Tonight, I went to see Wilson at the Spiegeltent here is lovely, wonderful Melbourne. And it was very cool! He’s got a new album out on the Liberation Blue label – which is doing some awesome things for Aussie music – it’s basically all old stuff, reworked: imagine a honky tonk Eagle Rock, for example. It’s a lot of fun. He was a good enough showman, bit of banter with the crowd, obviously a good vibe with the band – there was a lap guitar! I love lap guitar! – and it was all a really great night.
I love that I don’t have to work tomorrow.*
*We worked for our day off tomorrow, don’t worry: it counts as time in lieu.
Le Chocolat
09 Oct 2008 2 Comments
So last night I went out with my dear uni friends A and K. The night involved chocolate, singing, and dancing; the only way this was different from normal was that someone else was doing the last two (ha! boom boom).
I made a resolution this year that I would go to more Melbourne stuff. I have lived here for many years and have been to almost nothing! So I made my love come with me to the Great Debate, as part of the Melbourne Comedy Festival, earlier in the year. And A and K came with me to see “Le Chocolat,” as part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival.
It was great. It was awesome. It was basically a play about flatmates talking about chocolate, break-ups, chocolate… and more chocolate. It was done at Trades Hall, in a little room, so there was about 30 of us in the audience. As K feared, there was indeed some audience interaction… but fortunately they were looking for a boy, to demonstrate how to teach boys about the joys of chocolate.
(Interesting point on that: on the programme, the bio includes favourite chocolate… the boys say things like Twix, and Timeout. How do they count as chocolate?)
The band was cool: violin, guitar, and drums – blokes who were allegedly from different countries, making a few rude comments – and the bass player, Musical Director and Translator for the other boys. Interaction there was funny and well scripted.
It was billed as a cabaret, and it really was. It was basically a series of vignettes, connected by the threads of being housemates and experiencing break-ups and chocolate. There were only a few songs I didn’t recognise; some were ‘as-written’, some had words changed to make them appropriately chocolate-y. The words to “Candy Man” still make me a bit embarrassed ;] There was also a bit of tap-dancing, which was fun.
Juliet and Vivienne (Carla Conlin and Diana Scalzi) were both very good. They clearly have a good rapport, and worked off each other – one a bit skinnier than the other, playing off that (“she works hard for the money chocolate…”), as well as the standard housemate bickering.
At any rate, it was a highly enjoyable hour or more of entertainment. Melbourne folk – for $16, it’s a fun night out!
Music… so much music
06 Oct 2008 Leave a Comment
We went record-shopping yesterday, on Brunswick St. (And yes, I do mean LPs.)
At Polyester Records, we scored:
LOVE – the Beatles – yeh, that one George Martin and his son re-mixed for the circus act. It’s pretty cool; a bit more than simply a best-of, although it has that aspect too.
The White Album – the Beatles – I’m not actually a huge fan, but I like them well enough that this looked like a very cool album I should own.
Taj Mahal (self-titled) – I’ve heard about Taj Mahal in discussions of blues and funk, so I decided to go out on a limb. Gotta say, I love it!
I’m Not There – soundtrack to the movie – brilliant!! I’m not a big Dylan connoisseur, so most of the songs on the album (4 LPs!) are unfamiliar to me, but it’s the best of both worlds: Dylan’s poetry and music, but done by people who can, like, sing!
Then, we went to Dixon’s, and bought second-hand:
Best of Janis Joplin
Urban Renewal – Tower of Power – apparently this is quite rare, because my love nearly went apoplectic when he saw it
couple of Rickie Lee Jones albums (because sometimes my love is a bit of a sap, and I have to admit that I quite enjoy her too)
Diesel and Dust – Midnight Oil
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 – Midnight Oil
Blue Sky Mining – Midnight Oil
Graceland – Paul Simon – mine!
I did not buy the Grease soundtrack. I’m not entirely sure why. It might have been that it was very cheap and therefore very bad quality…
Quite the haul, really; we had a lovely afternoon listening to half of them!
Not so secret inner 80s child
11 Sep 2008 Leave a Comment
I am so excited.
Again.
Yesterday, this arrived on vinyl. I got this on cassette as a young thing, and adored it; I have listened to it occasionally over the last few years when I had access to a tape deck (in the car) and was allowed (was alone). Then it died… and then I realised it would be totally awesome on vinyl, so I searched and I found!!
And I still remember all of the lyrics, too. And it is still as good as I remember, too.
It joins my INXS and Boom Crash Opera and Australian Crawl (all on vinyl) for those days when I really need to express my inner bogan.
Across the Universe
30 Jun 2008 Leave a Comment
in Movies, Music Tags: beatles, movies, music
Finally saw this yeaterday, with the squister. I loved it! I don’t know what to say about it, exactly, except that it was awesome… the actors were all good, and the music fit the storyline superbly. ‘Sadie’ was clearly channelling Janis Joplin. I loved all the silly little references to other songs (“she came in through the bathroom window…”), and I’m sure there were lots I missed – I’ve never heard of Mr Kite before, and let me say Eddie Izzard is something of a genius. The sets were brilliant, the costumes delightfully stereotypical, and it was not as saccharine as I had at first feared. As a hyped-up, wishful version of the 60s, it worked very well and dealt with some of the issues we now think of as pertinent to the era rather well. The Vietnam bits were poignant… the parallel scenes, and the dropped-in bits, were powerful.
My squister loves Jude. He’s a bit too broody for me.
Space Classics
22 Jun 2008 2 Comments
in Music Tags: mso pops, music, star wars
When we saw that the MSO was doing Space Classics as part of their MSO Pops series, we bought tix as soon as we could. And it was last night; we’ve only been waiting for about three months.
So, a few of the nerdier moments: the trombones and a couple of French horns had glow-sticks strapped to part of their instruments; there were Stormtroopers and Darth Vader wandering around beforehand, posing for photos (a few kids had brought their own lightsabers…); but I didn’t see anyone dressed up who wasn’t meant to be, thankfully.
As expected, the night began with “Sunrise” from Richard Strauss’ Also Sprach Zarathrustra – and I still get goosebumps when I hear it. They did very clever things with the lights during this, and in a number of other pieces too: for this, they had a line of lights basically imitating sunrise, which worked surprisingly well. That went straight into the main theme from Star Wars, which was awesome.(1) It just never gets old.
There was a lot of Star Wars, unsurprisingly. We also got Close Encounters of the Third Kind; three Holst pieces (Mercury, Mars, and Jupiter; it may be my favourite set of classical music in the world, which is not that hard, admittedly. It’s possibly that only The Nutcracker Suite would give it a run for its money); J. Strass’ Blue Danube (so lovely!); ET – bike ride and main theme; Star Trek, Thunderbirds are GO!; and Superman. Personally, I think the last two were stretching it a bit. I would have thought maybe X-Files or Twilight Zone would have been more appropriate, and probably more recognisable, than Thunderbirds at least. There’s an ongoing discussion about just how space-y Superman can claim to be.
One of the possible reasons for including Thunderbirds was, of course, audience interaction. That’s right, gentle Reader: if you listen to the Classic FM broadcast sometime in the future, you will indeed hear four sections of the audience count down (begun by the orchestra with FIVE!), and then everyone shout “Thunderbirds are GO!” It was quite funny. In my vast experience of these things, when conductors are allowed to talk to the audience about things other than ultra-serious matters of musicology, they tend to think they’re very damn funny… and stray in to dad-joke territory. Last night’s conductor (Anthony Inglis, if you’re interested), nearly did so. A couple of things saved him. One: acknowledging he’s a trekkie. This doesn’t necessarily save him from dad-joke-hell, but it does at least give him a context (and a reason for including a pre-recorded ‘Captain’s Log’ bit before the Star Trek section). Two: the intro to Superman. He made the audience stand up, and pretend to get into superhero clobber, starting with underwear over pants (including the all-too-predictable stern, “I said on, madam!”), then ripping jackets off. Apparently the audience didn’t do it to his standard, so he had to show us how it’s done: he took off his jacket, and tie, and then – can you credit it, Reader? – ripped his shirt open to reveal a Superman tshirt! We were in hysterics.(2)
And then, for the encore, we got the entirety of the throne room/end credits sequence from A New Hope. Brilliant! With Mr Inglis as Obi-Wan. Also hysterical! But not nearly as funny as when Darth and his Stormtroopers marched in and stood in front of the stage, pointing their guns at the audience – and Darth turned around and, standing directly behind the conductor, started conducting with his light-saber…
Two things to gripe about, though, both in the programme.
a) The Herald Sun ad: “But seeing as though we’re a sponsor…”. Argh!
b) Star Wars is “now officially the fourth chapter”. You what?
Overall, it was a great programme of music. My love is now investigating the 501st Legion and considering a career as a Stormtrooper for charity.
(1) Interesting fact: the Star Wars music was done by the London Symphony Orchestra originally; the main trumpet then is the same person today! Amazing. And when he first played the opening fanfare, he reportedly declared ‘This is going to be huge,’ or words to that effect.
(2) And I couldn’t help but wonder whether it was completely set up – whether his shirt had press-studs, for example – or if authenticity was sought, with buttons flying out over the violas.
