chris caines

I was looking through the fantastic archive of Australian music videos on youtube and was reminded of what a blossoming of indigenous rock/pop there was in the 1980s. Seems to have ended with the Yothu Yindi hit in 91 and nothing like it has resurfaced since.

This is No Fixed Address from the 1980 film Wrong Side of the Road that gave them some profile.

This is Coloured Stone from 1984 – Black Boy.

Them also doing Dancing in the Moonlight from 86.

The fabulous Warumpi Band doing Black Fella, White Fella from 87.

And the original of My Island Home from 88.

Kev Carmody with Thou Shall Not Steal from 89.

Archie Roach, Down City Streets from 91.

What do you think of Treme so far? We’ve been enjoying it, a change of pace from The Wire certainly (and strewn with Wire references if you care to trainspot). I found it hard to believe someone wasn’t about to get killed in the first couple of eps. Used to the slow character building now, only 4 eps in but looking forward to it each week. Doesn’t have the air of a series made by some people given a blank cheque after the success of a hit, though on the other hand you can’t imagine anyone being given the opportunity to make something like this in many other circumstances.

The wealth of music making apps being launched all around the place for the iPad this week has reminded me to post the next in my most beloved apps series. This one being about songwriting tools, I’m not talking about actual audio creation tools or instruments, but more tools for coming up with chord progression ideas. The best of these is called ProChords and whichever starting chord you choose to begin with it gives you a series of chord choices to continue with based on a huge song database ranging from the most common to least common following chords from your starting point.

You can then save combinations and sequences for refining later on the keyboard or fretboard of your choice. Unfortunately all of the samples used to play the chords are of big acoustic piano sounds so it can feel like you are writing a 90s house anthem. Nonetheless it is a great way to tinker around with sequences you might not come up with otherwise. Simple Songwriter uses the same idea but restricted to a smaller pool of chords, the LE version is however free.

The only instrument I have enough fluency on to then start fleshing something out is the guitar, and I’ve found this Chordmaster app invaluable as a chord lookup dictionary. Again there is a free LE version, I eventually moved on to the pay one for the wide range of different voicings up and down the fretboard for trying out the progressions I’d made.

There is a project in western Sydney at Blacktown Arts Centre that I’ve been involved with for a while called CODED, a series of projects loosely based around contemporary art approaches to coding, tagging and writing in place. There was a Sydney Writers Festival panel back in June last year that I participated in & now there is an exhibition to which I’ve contributed an audio installation piece called Orbital.

Orbital consists of four train of thought monologues by drivers on the Sydney orbital motorway network, visitors walk the floor map of the network a camera sensor system triggering playback of the audio pieces around the space.

Installations are not my usual thing & thanks go to the curator Sophia Kouyoumdjian and the installing team at BAC Tim & Bo for the fantastic help they gave. The show is there until the end of march and all the artists involved have done great work, so please drop in if you are in the area. It opens next Thursday the 4th at 6pm. I’ll post video and audio here after the documentation shoot happens.

Down here in the beach shack we do a lot of laying about on the couch. And when the weather and sunspots align right we can pick up 4 snowy channels on the old TV, we’ll watch whatever is most visible as a rule. So it came to be last night that we saw the first of a BBC doco series, “The Seven Ages of Rock”.

I realise that once having a great civilization or empire and then having it no longer can be hard for a society to process no matter how much time passes. Often you’ll see the more nationalist elements using the great legacy as a rallying call for a return to supremacy, Italy during the Mussolini years or Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge years for instance.

For Britain this tendency gets acted out most noticeably through the BBC, its world spanning ubiquity an echo of empire. The documentary productions especially follow the intrepid British explorer model bringing insight and a civilising influence to the world. Always the authoritative voice pronouncing whatever is before them as the biggest, oldest, deepest, hungriest, most dangerous thing in the known world.

And so it was with the 7 Ages program which proclaimed Rock to have started in 1965 and to be invented by English people by combining an African American legacy unknown to clueless Yanks with native British ingenuity. As well as ignoring every other part of the world, the only American featured as a bit player in the Rock story was Dylan, portrayed as a minor folkie until being galvanised by the electric sound of the British invasion.

It continued on with the Boomer history of the 60s we’ve seen thousands of times, intercutting Vietnam, etc. While trotting out the usual suspects as talking heads (though I’m always entertained by Keith Richards). I wonder where they go now from here constructing a British history of popular music, the next episode previews with Pink Floyd & Bowie featured heavily point the way forward, the sun never sets on the BBC.

The other night I finished reading “The 10 Rules of Rock and Roll”, the book of recent collected criticism by Robert Forster of the Go-Betweens. I know the Go-Betweens are no more after Grant McLennan died so suddenly and unexpectedly a few years ago, but because they spent so long in hiatus as a band after they dissolved in the early 90s and reformed ten years later I’d already grown used to thinking of both of them as members of the band whether it was active or not.

The book is mostly a collection of music columns for The Monthly, I heard Robert talking at the Brisbane Writers Festival about how trepidatious he was about becoming a critic after one of the editors of the magazine called him out of the blue with the offer to write about whatever caught his fancy. He’d had one piece published ten years earlier and that was it. He described at the festival how he’d started writing no less than thirteen opening pages for a novel over the years, but now thought the short form of these collected pieces suited him much better and he’d finally come to a form of writing he could embrace.

I’ve been a fan of Robert & The Go-Betweens since starting high school so not being a regular Monthly reader I would have sought out this book no matter the quality. But the reviews are good and as a musician he brings something to the table you don’t read much of in cultural criticism, a sympathy for the creative drives and impulses, compromises and failures that rule musical production and a sense of the strength of feeling artists can have about each other’s work. Some of the more unlikely pieces are the best. The reading of the career of Delta Goodrem, the appreciation of The Monkees, the review of the most recent AC-DC album and the evocation of Brisbane in the live review of the reformation of the original Saints.

There are two pieces that are kind of eulogies for Grant that end the collection and are quite moving if you’ve followed them both over the years. If are interested in the band and the relationship of these two seek out the live DVD from a few years back called That Striped Sunlight Sound, the extra disc is a long loungeroom interview with the both of them and the dynamic between them is revealing and entertaining to watch.

We watched Moon last night down here in the holiday shack, the surf a constant pounding white noise and the moths flying into the projector beam up onto the fibro wall. It was directed by Duncan Jones, famously the son of David Bowie & is his first feature. It is a weird collection of 70s sci-fi riffs joined together into what feels like an elegant though unadventurous cover version.

The look and feel is equal parts Silent Running, Dark Star, Solaris, 2001, Alien and the TV series Space 1999 and the later Star Trek series. It is also owes a lot to the stories of Phillip K Dick and Thomas Disch, even early Arthur C Clarke. It doesn’t do much with these ingredients except join them together and re-present them, though it does so with conviction and heart. One thing you can see them going for that doesn’t quite work is the tone of mystery and horror contained in some of these source films. Finding out what happens (which I won’t reveal in case you haven’t seen it) feels quite procedural, though gripping in a low key way.

Still, it is great to see someone trying to do something psychologically challenging with science fiction as it is rarely attempted in cinema post Star Wars with any of the depth you find in the written form. Clint Mansell did a fairly over the top score, heavy on complex synth textures which I enjoyed and was prominent in the mix filling lot of the space left by tracking shots across empty moonscapes.

The wonderful Golden Live performers. Videos below in order or appearance on the night. Roger Mills & performers with Idea of South, Emily MacDaniel & Emma Ramsay as well as Alphabet Soup the first collaboration between Nick Wishart & Miguel Velenzuela.

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Norie Neumark & Maria Miranda have just posted the video from the installation they did at CarriageWorks earlier this year that uses one of my songs from the Beardwagon CD.

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I’m organising a performance night for the Golden Eyes festival next Tuesday night with some fantastic performers, come along if you are in Sydney town. See blurb below for details.

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Golden Live – A performance night for the Golden Eyes Festival

8pm Tuesday the 20^th of October 2009. Bon Marche Studio. UTS

The bi-annual Golden Eyes Festival of Media Arts has been held at UTS for over 20 years. This year it will also include a performance night showcasing the very active AV performance scene among undergrads, postgrads and staff at UTS.  Three groups of performers will be presenting on the night in the wonderful purpose built Bon Marche Studio at UTS with 9.1 sound and high resolution digital cinema projection. Performers will be: Emily McDaniel & Emma Ramsay, Roger Mills & Neil Jenkins as well as Nick Wishart & Miguel Valenzuela.

Entry to the Bon Marche Studio is on Harris St, Ultimo on the ground floor of UTS Building three. http://www.uts.edu.au/about/mapsdirections/citymap.html

8pm Tuesday the 20^th of October – The event is Free. Duration approx 80 mins.

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Emily McDaniel is an Aboriginal artist, curator and educator from the Wiradjuri Nation. Her work traverses performance, new media, film and sound installation. This year she has begun curating and coordinating Refraction, a UTS Media Arts performance night that encourages the next wave of artists to get amongst it. She is currently completing her BA in Media Arts and Production.

Emma Ramsay works across many platforms of art including sound, video and installation. She is a founding director of Sydney based ARI Quarterbred, that promotes cross disciplinary practice and developmental support for emerging artists. She is currently completing a Masters in Media Arts and Production.

Emma and Emily have been collaborating for over a year and have recently exhibited and performed at Electrofringe. Their practice tries to achieve a good feeling through sonic spirituality, by fusing installation with performance and lo-fi with hi-fi. Although they can be placed under the umbrella of new media, sometimes, they just like to leave the brolly at home. Golden Live will see the two of them collaborate with stunning visuals and epic sounds to create a cockle warming sound that will make the little hairs on your spine stand on end.

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Idea of South – Roger Mills & Neil Jenkins

Exploring ontological notions of southernness, Idea of South is a three part radiophonic composition combining live networked terrestrial radio and Internet streaming. It is a musical sound journey integrating spoken word, live processed trumpet, violin and location recordings contributed by sound artists and phonographers throughout the southern hemisphere. It was originally broadcast simultaneously over Radio 2SER, FBi Radio and Shoutcast stream in June 2009, and will be performed for Golden Live as a six channel mix with a live visuals by artist Neil Jenkins.

Performers are:  Roger Mills – Trumpet, Hogi Tsai – Violin, Bernie Maier – Spoken word, Visual Mix – Neil Jenkins.

Roger Mills is a composer, sound artist and writer whose practice focuses on networked collaborations, internet performance and radio. He has worked internationally as a composer & sound designer, and is editor of the online sound art magazine and net label Furthernoise.org. Roger is currently an HDR student at UTS, researching improvisation in remote online collaborations and founder of the Ethernet Orchestra.

http://www.eartrumpet.org

http://ethernetorchestra.netpraxis.net

http://www.furthernoise.org

Neil Jenkins is an artist whose practice is heavily engaged with

electronic media and the Internet. He creates highly interactive works

that often require a live internet connection and the participation of

its audience to function and exist.

http://www.devoid.co.uk

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Alphabet Soup, is a new audio/visual performance by Nick Wishart + Miguel Valenzuela

Using a hacked Speak n Spell and other circuit bent alphabet toys, animations,a cube, some code and an asprin,  Nick & Miguel will attempt to reassemble language into a sonic & visual feast.

Think R2D2 on acid!

Texas Instruments released the Speak n Spell toy in the late 70’s and are now the holy grail for circuit benders. Containing one of the 1st commercially available speech chips, these wonderful toys can be retro fitted with a MIDI input kit allowing the phonetic sounds to be triggered by keyboards and sequencers.

Nick Wishart – Working in music, sound and multimedia his main area of artistic practice is in the development of Physical Interactive Systems. Combining his skills in electronics, tactiles, MIDI, interactive devices, audio production and circuit bending techniques, Nick creates interactive multi-media installations and circuit bent instruments that form the basis of the all toy band Toydeath.

www.toydeath.com

www.cell.org.au

Miguel Valenzuela has been making video art since 1996. He has exhibited at Artist Run Spaces such as Mekanarky studios and Newman Lane Gallery, as well as in various public spaces around Sydney. He is currently researching multidimensional interactive video/sound art and its associative dimensions with regard to social norms, laws, formalities and their relative elasticity.

http://fmgrande.blogspot.com/2009/02/film-art.html

There is one of these Doepfer analogue synth modules in the studio at work, used for teaching synthesis concepts. I’d been meaning to learn how to use it and play around with it for ages but didn’t do it till just recently. I think for the first time after years of using virtual analogue and various types of hybrid sample sound devices I really began to understand the practical basics of designing sounds this way and I can understand how it can get pretty addictive. Firstly, compared to software it feels quite out of control and you can never save anything so unless you record as you go (or are willing to document patches) its all pretty in the moment. Secondly, it’s quite a lot of fun. I spent a few hours burbling away with it the other night, forgetting all worldly cares. The Doepfer is quite cool and germanic sounding, a cliche I know but I even thinks its true of Native Instruments products, compared to the only other analog synth I’ve ever played (a Moog).

Unfortunately I can’t drag it home to my studio, so back on the software instrument trail I’ve found something very similar.

Somehow Fab Filter Twin 2 pictured above here captures that weird fragile instability, that feeling that you are playing with modulated electric current that is more the attraction of the real thing than the sound for me.

I’m doing a fair bit of sound design work recently, mostly soundtracking for some longish sound driven video pieces I’ve had percolating for a while and recently I’m very excited to be re-discovering the joys of the sampler. What I do sound design wise has been formed by the sampler as a tool/instrument to a large extent, when I first began experimenting with types of non-linear sequencing with tools like M.

I was working at ANU and in the wonderful studio at ACAT they had an early Akai S900 & I spent a lot of time squinting at the two line display finding loop points.

The last few years I’ve been much more into synthesis (especially on playing with things like this) and re-discovering sequencing through the wonderful Nodal developed by the Centre for Electronic Media Art at Monash.

And along the way I somehow lost touch with the simple joys of the sampler. Of just recording something in the world, mapping it across a keyboard and playing it. And so I’ve been spending most of my “sound time” recently in Kontakt, playing along to the images the projector throws onto my studio wall.

If you do get into Kontakt, don’t miss the Vimeo tutes from the Create Digital people, like this one with a great downloadable musicbox sample set at the original post.

Music-boxing in NI Kontakt from Create Digital Media on Vimeo.

Recently I was browsing a site somewhere and I came across the youtube clip above of the Sonics from 1965 or thereabouts and the crazed intensity of it got me looking for more stuff of the same ilk. I was vaguely aware of there being a much loved 60s garage rock back catalogue, but I’d only encountered it really through people influenced by it or covering it. You start to look a little and pretty soon you come across this famous anthology, Nuggets.

Then you come acros Nuggets 2 which has a handful of Australian tracks. I’ve been very excited to find all of this stuff, some of which I’d heard, most of which I hadn’t and have been playing it nonstop for a few weeks. My favourite is this extraordinary psych pop single from 1967 by the LA group Love.

We went to see Grouper on Friday at Serial Space in Chippendale, the room was packed and totally oversold such is the buzz around Liz Harris from Portland. We were right up close in front of the little collection of cassettes around her feet that she uses to playback different out of focus textures which she accompanies on dreamy vocals and guitar so buried in layers of processing it sounds like a perpetual drone of underwater bells.