Antenna - Installation

This was a 1998 project with Kim Salmon and Dave Faulkner with Justin Frew and Stuart McCarthy.
Christina Amphlett does a lead vocal on the song "Divine". I saw on one of the weekend current affairs shows that she is having a hard time with cancer at the moment :(  ..  good luck Chrissy!
Most people will only know one song from this cd, "Come on Spring", but this cd has had high rotation in the house of Chuck now for years and worth checking out here



This was from the T.V. show Recovery live in 1998.



I found this tonight on the ol utube.. a version by Mick Harvey


As a side note,,Kim Salmon in Scientists mode performed "Blood Red River" at a recent ATP gig in New York...  Big thanks goes out to the guy from Sun Distortion who gave me the heads up on the location of a recording of that gig found here - 
http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2010/11/the-scientists-live-at-atp-2010-mp3.html
Lots of other goodies at that site worth investigation.

As a side side note: Sun Distortion is a new warehouse gig space in Albion that seems to be run by some well meaning people with good intentions. Good luck peeps.. Brisbane needs some more venues.

Slowdive

I first met Claire over a conversation about the Regent theatre being pulled down. At first I thought she was just another bleeding heart on a crusade. .. but after a few minutes I recognised that she really loves Brisbane and its history. Not long after that I realised she was a multi-talented artist and music lover..
Her most recent project "Slowdive" has a Powerhouse week long run and looks funtastic.

Brisbane-based choreographer, Claire Marshall, who has worked with the likes of Darren Hayes, Megan Washington, Powderfinger, Kate Miller Heidke, The Sleepy Jackson, John Butler Trio, The Living End, Little Birdy, Savage Garden and more, continues her exploration of the Fortitude Valley’s club district.
This is Claire Marshall’s penultimate development of Hey Scenester, which sold out in January.

Slowdive sees the Visy Theatre transform into a night club where performers and audience share the space.

Slowdive is a look at the good, the bad, and the ugly side of club culture, and human behavior in the increasingly busy and often absurd scene in Fortitude Valley on a Friday or Saturday night. Set in the early 90's in an underground scene, Slowdive shifts between the strangely compelling and the somewhat disturbing as it explores the agendas of the DJ, bar staff, club owner, and punters.



This video is a 5 minute grab from Claire's previous related project "Hey Scenester"

http://www.brisbanepowerhouse.org/events/view/slowdive/

Join: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=122425044482740

Marseille and going out on the town with Annie.

What I did on my holiday part2.

Marseille what a wonderful place, famous for its history, its ancient
port,its Bouillabaisse and of course its home for Annie who runs
Meltingpod, the greatest Rock and Roll Podcast on the planet.
Marseille is France's 2nd largest city and Frances capital of Rock
music. Right on the Mediterranean its a wonderful place with its
North African cultural influence, near islands and beachs.
It is one place I shall return to and spend much more time

We met Annie ( pictured on the left above with my wife Carmen)
the afternoon we arrived and being the weekend She had a full
weekend ahead. She took us through the wonderful Souk like
markets, we spent some time at her home ( the first pic is the
view from her balcony), went out to tea in a hip restaurant
and after headed to Enthrophy, a small very underground
nightclub to see a couple local bands.
We entered via a back laneway, where you had know which
big heavy metal door to bang on.
No sign or anything, very do it yourself punk style!




Clan Edison were an energtic 3 piece that warmed up the crowd,
you can read more here
Described as follows

powerful and heavy, bluesy rock mixture where you can feel the
influences of Fugazi and the Gun Club,
but you'll hear the spirit of Nick Cave

The headline act was Conger! Conger! a favorite of Annie's who
showed us some of her video of them earlier. Their myspace site is
here
Alt post punk, bloody funny at times, they had loyal fans enthralled.
Annie has a review and some video of them up here
Here's how she described filming the band,
this really made me laugh!

I couldn’t really filmed in front of the stage because of the
usual pogo and I escaped behind jumping on a chair…
though there I filmed with one hand, the other one was
busy to quietly stop a young excited punk whose hands
walked too much on my legs and tried to put my nylons
down…ambience:)

Ahh France its like nowhere else!


We had a really fantastic time in Marseille, I could go on for hours,
the markets and the nearby Islands blew me away.
And Annie helped our time there to be especially special.
So all get along to Her web site if you haven't already
Meltingpod is found Here

Leonard Cohen with Clare Bowditch in support - Brisbane Entertainment Center 06-11-10

I know this is an Australian music blog but for Leonard
I shall make an exception.
I'm a little bit after the fact too, oh well better late than never
What a great concert, Clare was great as support sporting her
new hair do and stripped back sound. A short but enjoyable set.
Last time Leonard came to town Paul Kelly did this spot,
so she had big shoes to fill.

Leonard was fabulous, its hard to explain how good a show this
man puts on, a fantastic band, amazing songs and 3 hours long.
He did all the favs plus a few that weren't done last time.
If you ever get the chance to see him don't knock it back!
I managed a few shots, I was about 9 rows back so not to bad.

Models' frontman tragedy: James Freud takes own life

Its a sad day indeed, I just heard from Chuck that James Freud
is dead. I guess the tributes shall be flowing very soon for one
of Australia's most talented. Here's what I found online.

Read the whole article with video Here

Australia's music industry is reeling following the death of
the Models frontman James Freud today.
The 51-year-old singer took his own life following a long
struggle with drug and alcohol addiction, just one week
after the Melbourne band was inducted into the ARIA Hall
of Fame.

Musician Scott Carne, of '80s band Kids in the Kitchen,
said Freud's bandmates were devastated by the news.
"It was one of the great '80s bands that shaped the music
of Australia today," Carne said.
"They're the band that took us under their wing and took
Kids in the Kitchen on our first ever East Coast tour."
Freud was the band's bassist and lead singer.

Music promoter and close friend Michael Gudinski said
Freud would be "greatly missed".
"James's battle with alcoholism has been well chronicled.
His two books on his recovery and five years' sobriety were
bestsellers and gave a lot of people who were suffering the
same affliction comfort and hope,"
Gudinski said this afternoon.
"Unfortunately, James has succumbed to his disease and
taken his own life this morning."
Gudinski said Freud should be remembered as one of
Australia’sshining lights in the music industry.
"James was a true pioneer – he successfully crossed over
from Australia’s burgeoning punk scene in the early '80s,
to then create some of the most played tracks in
Australia’s recording history."

Ratpak - welcome to the rat race

I sent this collection of songs to Bob over a year ago but they were full of clicks and pops and he never posted it..  I had another chop at it today to remove the noises and here we are... download here.

Ratpak featured :
John Smethurst
Mario Spina
Nigel Baker
Cliff Hoad

This group played around the Gold Coast circa 1979 then for reasons unknown to me broke up. Two of the musicians here reformed in a different sounding band that got lots of 4zzz airplay at the time - "Seven Ballerinas".  The Ratpak sound is not unlike early Riptides to my ears. Great power pop - 'get up of yer ass and shake it' stuff I could listen to all afternoon over a few XXXX at the Miami hotel. A few extra tracks have been posted on the meyedream youtube channel. Not so much full videos as still pics with soundtrack. Good songs well worth checking out.






I guess its a good thing that noise filled version never got posted as its now a good excuse to bring to wider attention that John Smethurst was induced by the Crazy 88's just the other week to get back up on stage for an old Seven Ballerinas song "Circles".



You can check out a wider explanation of that performance, a link to a better quality audio file and sad news of Mario's passing away and other passings of Rock n Rollers of that Gold Coast scene at last years Seven Ballerinas post here.