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John Cale's Keynote Online

February 18th 2010 09:14

Watch and Listen to John Cale's Keynote Online

On February 15 underground rock royalty and founding member of the Velvet Underground, John Cale, cut the red ribbon for Modular and Sydney Festival's Circa 1979: Signal to Noise with a Keynote speech at the Seymour Centre.

Hipsters rubbed shoulders with electronic pioneers in a packed out York Theatre as Cale showed off a few snaps and described working with the likes of Lou Reed, Patti Smith, Happy Mondays, The Stooges and LCD Soundsystem before capping things off with a mind blowing rendition of "Heart Break Hotel."

If you missed the speech or want to listen/watch it again, ABC's Big Ideas are streaming it online.

January 28, 2010 at 10:23am in circa 1979: signal to noise

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Posted By: David Jobling - Category: Review, Live, Sydney Scene, Adelaide Scene, Melbourne Scene, Brisbane Scene, Perth Scene, Australia National , CD/DVD, News, Qstage

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REVIEW | History of the world in photographs

October 29th 2008 10:25

The Encyclopaedia Britannica/Getty Images
“History of the world in photographs”
published by Black Dog & Lev,
distributed by Bookwise International,
RRP $59.95

The Encyclopædia Britannica was born in 18th-century Edinburgh during the Scottish Enlightenment. Colin Macfarquhar, a printer, and Andrew Bell, an engraver, decided to create an encyclopedia to serve the new era of scholarship and enlightenment. They formed a Society of Gentlemen to publish their new reference work, hiring twenty-eight-year-old scholar William Smellie to edit it. The first edition of the Britannica was published one section at a time, in fascicles , over a three-year period, beginning in 1768. The three-volume set was completed in 1771 and quickly sold out.

Mark Getty co-founded Getty Images, Inc; in 1993, with Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Klein. Getty Images are a leading provider of imagery and related products and services which means they generate salable visual content for the advertising, graphic design, news, publishing and entertainment industries; however this book is deservedly marketed as a fine resource for anyone with an interest in history, photography or journalism from students to academics including mum & dad.

Together these publishing giants have created a massive storage facility of images that may be can browsed, including photographs of such luminaries as writer Anton Chekhov in 1901 (CD ROM) or actor Humphrey Bogart facing the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947 (Book). Additional to the actual photographs which range from black and white to full color, there is a chronological time line throughout the book written in text and displayed on the header and footer of each page.

The chronological time line text has been prepared by the editors and writers at Encyclopaedia Britannica. The Design Team has created an uncluttered look, brimming with an average of five images per page. Graphic icons are used to signify different keywords such as History, the Arts, Business & Commerce, Religion, Philosophy and Technology. One may take the non-linear approach and browse any individual year; and or refer to the completely chronological linear notes at the top and bottom of the page. Identifying numbers correspond beside the photographs on the central area of the page with linear notes at the top or bottom of the page it is logical and easy to understand in design terms. The Graphic icons direct the attention to ‘streams’ i.e. the Arts; the text is concise and is intended to directly inform the image if related to an image, otherwise it is related to breakthroughs in imaging and capturing images.

The CD ROM serves as a gateway to Jamd on line, a remarkably large on line collection of photographs. The Book and CD ROM contain over 20,000 photographs taken between 1850 and the present day. The combination Book and CD ROM are published in 2008; a solid 150 year span of capturing that essential picture that may tell a thousand words. By linking via hypertext to Jamd where there are “Millions of pics, vids and music, jamd into one place ” the amount of images available seems impossible, but it’s true.

The CD ROM itself is a searchable picture library set out with a non-linear no nonsense interface that provides options to view thumbnail, small or large sized images from the collection stored within it; and it provides the link which will automatically open your internet browser and deliver it to the ‘consumer oriented web suite on line’ Jamd URL.

Over all this is a striking, accurate and great collection of work; a fascinatingly enjoyable book to go over again and again.

David Jobling

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Posted By: David Jobling - Category: Review, CD/DVD, News, Qstage

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Québec Review

July 23rd 2008 23:41

Putumayo presents Québec

The sheer enjoyment of listening to this sort of music can be a little infectious and you may find yourself seeking out some more material from the artists represented on the album. Putumayo have a vast catalogue of World Music releases; this album was created to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Québec, the only Canadian province whose official language is French. Québec’s local music scene is widely diverse and most definitely essential to the culture. Celebrated music festivals of the province include Montreal Jazz Festival, Les FrancoFolies and the Festival d’eté de Québec. The album has a predominantly acoustic sound and would suit easy listeners as much as French speakers. This is a compilation of polished performers such as two percussionist-singers DobaCaracol and laid back beautiful women, Marie-Annick Lépine, Myreille Bédard among others.

It’s the sort of thing you’d line up for during ant music festival (and be really pleased you did). The freshness and variety of the compilation is consistently relaxing and enjoyable to listen to. I’m not a great speaker of French so I’m oblivious to the content of the lyrics, although I find myself smiling quite a lot listening to the airy jolly sound of La Bottine Souriante a traditional Québécois band – wonderful music. It’s a re playable mini-festival with the tiniest touches here and there that suggest you may be sitting in a cosy Montreal club having a fabulously warm time.

David Jobling

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Posted By: David Jobling - Category: Welcome Release, Review, CD/DVD, News, Qstage

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Cassingle is the new CD!

July 16th 2008 06:12

Cassingle is the new CD release from David McCormack. It is something to nibble on whilst you are having a pre-dinner drink. Expect a full album later in 2008. And DON’T PANIC if you have NO IDEA how to create your own cassette from this CD, Jewel Case and (He)artwork – David has kindly supplied all the necessary instructions in the 10 How To Tips supplied. You might need to look up a dictionary under “cassette”. Others will fondly recall their first time recording a record to cassette many years ago.

The Cassingle is essentially a 6 track EP. And whilst McCormack has produced each track you will also hear that Wayne Conolly and “Master” Magoo have lent a hand here and there, as, well now old mates and cohorts to love to work together, even on the smaller projects. They too cannot help themselves but have something to nibble whilst having a pre dinner drink! New name to some, Wes Chew makes an appearance in the recording process.

First cab off the rank is the gorgeous I Don’t Even Know Where To Start With This Kind Of Music, an instant McCormack classic along the lines of Beck’s Sea Change. It is a hazy meditation on loneliness, music and the passing of time. Backed on this track by his long suffering backing group, The Polaroids and mixed by Magoo, McCormack’s rarely sounded better.

Next up we have two tracks recorded in one evening with a pick up band in Kings Cross. The song writing and the playing is wild and free, just the way we like it. Text Book and A.V.O. have to be heard to be believed. Track 4, Hey Lord sees McCormack entering into some quasi-religious material. Think Tom Waits catching a bus with the Flaming Lips and you’ll be about half way there. At last, the truth about fame and fortune, track 5 Rockstar.

We wrap the whole thing up with I Won’t Let You Down, a beautiful string soaked ballad that let’s us all know McCormack is still out there, singing the blues the way only a Brisbane boy can.

Watch out for the David McCormack Retrospective featuring songs from 1990 to 2008 including songs from the Cassingle in October.

Friday July 18th - The Brass Monkey, Cronulla

Tickets from the venue 02 9544 3844

Sunday July 20th - The Heritage Hotel, Wollongong

Tickets from the venue 02 4284 5884

Friday July 25th The Troubadour, Brisbane

Tickets from Oztix or 1300 762 545

Saturday July 26th - Joe's Waterhole, Eumundi
Tickets from the venue 07 5442 814 and Backbeat 07 5479 5115

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Posted By: David Jobling - Category: Welcome Release, Review, Live, CD/DVD, News, Qstage

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Tamam Shud

July 16th 2008 05:37

Tamam Shud

Goolutionites and the Real People

The words tamam shud are taken from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and they mean: the very end. The band Tamam Shud were gigging around the East coast of Australia in the 1960’s and their music was heavily supported by film maker Paul Witzig who used much of their work in his ground breaking surf movie Evolution and others.

Newly released on CD for the first time Goolutionites and the Real People includes eight bonus tracks including tracks from the surf movie Morning of the Earth and a selection of live recordings from a gig at the Regent Theatre, South Yarra 1971.

The album is fresh and funky in so many ways. The line up over their relatively short life was: Lindsay Bjerre [gtr,vcls] 1967-72, Peter Barron [bs] 1967-72, Dannie Davidson [dr] 1967-70, Larry Duryea (aka Larry Taylor) [congas], Tim Gaze [gtr, vcls] 1970-2, Bobby Gebert [kbds] 1971, Richard Lockwood [sax, flute, clarinet] 1972, Nigel Macara [dr] 1970-72, Kevin Sinnott [dr] 1970, Kevin Stevenson [reeds] 1970, Alex 'Zac' Zytnic [gtr] 1967-70.

The band has obviously been influenced by 60’s musicians Jimi Hendrix, Cream, The Doors and the whole San Francisco movement that discovered and popularized LSD, and their cover notes to this brilliant album aren’t afraid of saying so. Just one 76 minute session listening to Goolutionites and the Real People is likely to make you feel like you’re there, off your face and ready to hit the Uni Bar. It’s down right excellent!

Young cynics may hear it as music to destroy the planet by, but that’s not really the case. Australian youngsters in the 60’s and 70’s were just starting to protest against a lot of the darker things becoming obvious, including war, old growth forests, over population, the slaughter of whales and the mining of uranium… there were plenty of issues to protest against and a great willingness to create Australian experiences that were just as real and valid to the individual as the American or UK experience – thus – music that is honestly Australian but sounds like so many bands from far away in space and time. The lyrics are just as cutting now as they may have been back in the day – possibly more so because in so many ways this is a time capsule for Australian kids particularly to get a grip on what has come before them.

With so much diversity on the Australian music front these days, and the enormous influence of our multicultural society has had on the breaking out of new sounds it’s great to go back and hear something like this.

I highly recommend it to anyone who likes funky acid-rock with an authentic retro feel to it. One of the slickest and entertaining albums to come out for some time, Goolutionites and the Real People is a cracker!

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Posted By: David Jobling - Category: Welcome Release, Review, Live, Sydney Scene, Adelaide Scene, CD/DVD, News, Qstage

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