Monday, 3 August 2015
Some other things...
Ai Weiwei to attend the NGV expo here in Melbourne. While travel expenses are in the news out here in Australia here's some funny stories about moon travel claims. Scorsese has rebuilt Max's Kansas City. RIP Buddy Emmons. Some of Ollie Olsen's favourite records. Peter Capaldi and Craig Ferguson's punk band. The children of ISIS. The torture centre. Cool at 13, adrift at 23. The global war for sand. Michael Franti gets a great review. On the road. First we take Manhattan. How El Chapo builds his tunnels. Russia's prisons. Captain Sensible's guitar up for sale.
Australia's problem with racism explained perfectly. Funny how the Adam Goodes' affair is defined by old white men in the media out here. Bolt. Jones. Newman. McGuire.
The party of ALA. Erikson hacked again eh?...and Blair seemed like such a nice boy. How unfortunate that with all the musicians demanding that Reclaim Australia/UPF stop using their songs they have to rely on the calibre of this and this. Talk about (c)rap. I almost preferred Burgess's neo nazi hardcore stuff...
Finally onto real music, the past three Thursday nights has seen me attending one of rock's true gentlemen Ed Kuepper's solo residency at my local The Northcote Social where Ed has played new unrecorded music in the first half of the show followed by audience requests in the second half. The final song in the series was a wonderful version of 'Eternally Yours' which also happened to be my request. I am really looking forward to hearing this new album when it is released as this is really strong material. Here's a recording from last Thursday of one of my favourites of the new songs 'Some Said'
Saturday, 1 August 2015
NASA's Golden Record: The Sounds of Earth
Launched in 1977, the two Voyager spacecrafts were each loaded with a golden phonograph record documenting life on Earth should either probe ever contact aliens. Their mission was to explore Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune before floating out of our solar system into interstellar space, hurtling away from the sun at 17 kilometres a second. Famous space guy Carl Sagan called the project a "bottle in the cosmic ocean."
The recordings contain greetings in 55 languages, from Akkadian to Wu, as well as an assortment of sounds representative of life on earth, like a heartbeat, a mother kissing her child and the whistle of a train. The golden records also carry 90 minutes of music (not upped to SoundCloud, presumably for copyright reasons), including standards like Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, First Movement.
Via
Ed Kuepper - Never Too Late (Northcote Social Club 30/7/15)
Taken from The Last Cab To Darwin soundtrack. Well I must say that having seen all three of Ed's NSC gigs this new album material is sounding very strong
Flipper reuniting with David Yow on vocals
We want to thank Bruce for being part of what was a hell of a run from 1979 to now!
With all the ups and downs and craziness that is all part of the punk rock package we managed to make “music history” with this band. For that and all the fun we had, we are eternally grateful.
Bruce is moving on to do solo projects and Ted Falconi along with Steve DePace are going to carry on with long time 5th Flipper, Bruno DeSmartass on bass and we will be performing 3 shows in Italy with David Yow, formerly of Scratch Acid and The Jesus Lizard.
Via
Richard Witts: The Velvet Underground - A Contextual Study of the Band and Its Music (Free Download)
Witts places the band and its genesis in the cultural context of Manhattan’s beatnik bohemianism, its radical artistic environment, and the city’s reaction to California’s "Hippie" counterculture. Lou Reed’s Brill Building background is also considered, while his Primitives (1964–65) and Velvet Underground (1965–70) songs are examined within the stylistic context of rock music. The band’s sound world is likewise considered in this light. John Cale’s experimental contribution is assessed, especially his work for LaMonte Young (The Theatre of Eternal Music), and what he carried from that experience into the Velvet’s sound.
Andy Warhol, known to the group as Drella, became the band’s manager and producer in 1965. He installed his "superstar" Nico in the line-up (which already included a female drummer). Witts examines the radical nature of the Velvet’s Warhol-period performances, vis-à-vis issues of gender, sexuality, and the drug culture which was associated with the Warhol Factory scene, and contemplated in many of Reed’s songs.
Witts studies the musical influences of The Velvet Underground on punk, post-punk, and subsequent rock movements, culminating in the group’s 1993 reunion. He also indexes the variety of media constructions that the group endured through the years and how these affected the attempts of Cale, Nico, and Reed to establish solo careers.
Download
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Nico: The Life and Lies of an Icon
You may have to sign up for academia.edu to download but it is free. Other papers/reviews etc are available to download from Richard's site HERE
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