Gay Your Life Must Be?

I've gotta apologise for my lack of blogging action...

Sorry...

It's because over the last two weeks I've been too busy avoiding swine flu and gangland murders... seriously, all the good shit happens 10 minutes north of Melbourne CBD.

Anyway, for todays blog you'll be treated to my unbiased award-winning journalistic expose on a court battle. Native birds of Australia take on a classic Australian song in a class action law suit.

Men At Work Vs Kookaburras of Australia

Exhibit A.


Remember this song?
How could you not? If you grew up in Australia, you sang it... we ALL sang it. Quintessential Ozzie nursery rhyme. A "seminal" song in all our lives.

Exhibit B.


Remember this song?

If you were a sailing fan in 1983 you would know that Australia II won the America's Cup. The fist time a non-american boat had won The Americas Cup in 6,000 years.

The boat had a SICK sound system.

After they won, they pumped "The Land Down Under at full volume across San Francisco Bay. It was an historic sporting moment and "Land Down Under" became the historic boat's official anthem.

That very day, Prime-minister Bob Hawke made it a public holiday and the whole country got wasted while listening to the song. Whistling the flute line stupidly with some serious national pride.

The song reached number one on Australia, US and UK charts... It made soooooooo much cash for it's songwriter Colin Hay and the rest of the boys in Men At Work...




BUT!!!!!!

There's a line of the flute theme is "allegedly" direct musical quote of the opening line of the Kookuburra laughs theme song. It enters the song about half a dozen times.

It's something that I've noticed for years but it's something that the publishers of the nursery rhyme only just noticed. Apparently after watching an episode of Spics and Specs. Now they're takin it to court.

It's quite possible that the publishers of the nursery rhyme will receive a payout of millions and millions of dollars...

So, since you're the jury.
Ask yourself these questions...

Does the flute line copy the nursery rhyme?
Is it obviously recognizable as a copy?
Does the flute line constitute a significant part of Men at Work's song?

If you ask me the answers are all... "f*ckin oath, yes"


But now it's your turn...
"TRIAL BY ILLEGETIMATE CHILDREN" requires you to leave a comment underneath this blog with the word GUILTY or INNOCENT.

If the answer is overwhlemingly "guilty" then I'll submit it to the supreme court of Australia and they'll tell Colin Hay (Men at work singer) to give a bunch of cash to every Kookaburra in Australia...

Don't be shy... if you get this blog via email, log into the site and leave a comment. Guilty or Innocent? Kookaburra or Colin? Patsy Bisco or Men at Work?

Housing Comission and Beethoven's 7th

Picture from www.theendstop.com

My blog on Saturday morning was crap. I read it back and was totally annoyed at myself... spelling mistakes, grammatical errors etc. It didn't flow very well at all... I've gotta get my shit together.

I've now gone through it and fixed some errors and laid it out better. Sorry. I really dig it when I hear that people read my blog and then I serve up shite like that!

I had a magical evening last Tuesday with my mum... We met after work, we went to a great Tapas resteraunt, drank some wine and had a good ole chat.

Then we walked past some of the most striking buildings in Melbourne on our way to the Rainbow Hotel.
I'm totally fascinated by the highrise housing commission on the corner of Gertrude Street and Fitzroy Street.

The area is sick to the power of mad. ;-)
Million dollar townhouses from early last century, fitted out with beautiful modern interiors, 5 star restaurants and uber trendy bars... and in the middle of it all?

3 monstrous, uber-functional skyscraping cubes. The Atherton Gardens Housing Commission flats. You could consider them an eyesore, but really, they are quite majestic.

from H.e.l.e.n.'s photostream on flickr

The reason we walked through the backstreets of Fitzroy and Collingwoord was to the Rainbow Hotel in order to watch Beethoven's 7th symphony. Performed in a tiny pub by a 25 piece orchestra of professional musicians and some of Australia's best young classical musicians.

25 musicians crammed an area that usually barely fits a 5 piece blues band. The pub, which is tiny was packed full of about 100 punters, you couldn't move... but we were all loving the music... and the environment.

It took all the pretence of the concert hall and packed a tiny suburban pub with beer swilling pub locals. The performance was top notch.

Criticism of classical music abound, but this gig was designed to make it accessible and realler. It was put on by a go-getter i know... check her out.

Normally when you go to see the symphony, you can't drink or talk during the performance. Their are strict protocols governing the performance of the orchestra and the applause and behavior of the audience.
My personal viewpoint ever since I've been going to watch classical music is that these protocols are "GHEY"... get over it. They've existed for hundreds of years but everyone is too scared to change them. Play the music. If you dig it, then let the band/ensemble/quartet/octet/trio know.

Mind you, if it's crap, then they don't deserve applause either.

This time, for this Symphony at the Rainbow Hotel, you could talk, laugh, order a pint of Mountain Goat, a house white wine and listen to the music, just like at a normal gig. You could talk trash and heckle the band (orchestra).
Except this the band wasn't a 4 piece playing indie rock... It was 25 musicians each playing instruments worth tens of thousands of dollars and the repertoire was almost 200 years old with a conductor.

I think Beethoven would have f*ckin loved the shit! I can see him getting into the Stones Ginger Wine at the bar, eating wasabi peas, listening intently between hitting on the barmaid. He'd be having a goddam hoot!

I'm not a classical music lover. I don't know enough of it even though I studied it for 4 years at uni. But I do love some classical music.

It's the same distinction I make for Metal (I love SOME of it but not the genre as a whole) same for Drum & Bass and Jazz...

One thing I do know is that classical music has a pretty bad wrap. The youth of today just don't get it. Which shits me... They write it off as if it all sounds the same...

And now... my point...

All music works through familiarity... If you give something a chance it'll grow on you (Kid A by Radiohead, TV On the Radio, Animal Collective, Fat Freddies Drop, The Beatles White Album)... The more you know a song, the more you can have a chance of liking it. You dont need to know that it is in sonata form, what key it's in, what extra-musical programatic meaning it has... just listen to it and soak it up mofos! If it's good music then it will speak to you in time...



So... next time you have the chance to listen to some classical music... listen to the same piece once a day for a week and I guarantee that you'll start to hummmmmm the melodies, tap your toes, nod your head and really dig that shit...

Will we still be listening to P!nk in 200 years?

F*CK. NO.

Don't Come To Victoria!

Currently I'm suffering from "FLU LIKE SYMPTOMS"...

Seems i've got the Swine.

Reason not to come to Victoria. Number 1.

Victoria's up to about 900 swine sufferers at the moment.



Below is a warning published at Singapore Governments crisis website:

Affected Areas

As of 3rd June, Singapore's Ministry of Health has classified the following as affected areas [that is, areas with evidence of community transmission of Influenza A (H1N1-2009)]:

Mexico
USA
Canada
Melbourne & the state of Victoria, Australia
Kobe & Osaka, Japan
Chile

The public is advised to avoid non-essential travel to the above affected areas.

Yep, seems my fair city is fourth in the list of places not to go to... after a bunch of small, unpopulated and inconsequential places which don't really count for much, called Mexico, the USA and Canada.

Reason not to come to Victoria. Number 2.

Melbournians are attacking Indian students...

No sh*t. Last Sunday I was heading to St. Kilda from Brunswick via public transport. It took 1.5 hours instead of 40 mins because thousands of Indian students were marching in the streets, screaming for justice and protection after a spate of racist attacks on public transport and university campus'.

It caused all public transport through the city to stopp running.
The protesting students didn't leave the intersection of Swanston Street and Flinders until they were dragged away by relatively violent force at 5am the next morning.


It made worldwide news... This from an article in Time Magazine

a disturbing side to Indian student life down-under has come to light, sparking allegations of widespread racism in Australian society, and a failure by law enforcement authorities to act. The first incident occurred in the early hours of May 24 at a suburban party in Melbourne, Australia's second largest city in the country's south.

I feel ashamed.


Reason not to come to Victoria. Number 3.

We're dumb.

I always thought that Victorians were the most cultured and intelligent people in Australia...

Which is what I said to a bunch of Queenslanders before the State of Origin Rugby League snooze fest on Wednesday. Here's edited highlights from an essay on the matter I received from a Queenslander.

Me (ever so smugly, via email):
Ha! ever wondered why Queensland needs to call itself "the smart state"

Fagan (a Queenslander, via email):

The principal at my sisters school recently made a joke about Queenslanders being slow in front of all the staff. This kinda pissed her off seeing she was spending her first year of teaching as a Queenslander in Victoria and she was quick to point out in front of everyone that whilst Queensland has the third worst literacy and numeracy rates in schools they are still better than Victoria (who are only marginally better then the Northern Territory)

You guys are allowed to be proud of your cultural capital though. It is the envy of every artistic person in Australia and as envy turns to desire you get thousands of intelligent artistic types moving to Melbourne from all over Australia and New Zealand thus making Melbourne the fastest growing city in Australia.

Queenslanders are proud too though, proud of our tropical climate and slower paced lifestyle. It too is the envy of many (it’s the second fastest growing city in Oz). Unfortunately though these are mostly over 60's or not so intelligent lower class bogans who don’t care for Melbourne’s artistic culture and realise that instead of living in the cold and working in a factory in Cranbourne they could be living in the tropics and working in a factory in logan.

So whilst our brothers and sisters up north of the tweed are doing their level best to improve their states Numeracy and literacy rates handicapped by the 1000s of stupid Victorians that move their each month, Victoria’s education rates will be benefiting from the children of artistic intellects that move to its cultural capital from interstate and a-broad.


Ouch...

Seriously, get ya shit together Melbourne...

I'm gonna drown my sorrows tonight with other Swine sufferers at the Gershwin Room at The Espy while listening to "seminal" Punk/Rubbish/Grunge/Sludge band Flipper play this uplifting song. Should be RAD.

Sepultura and Bamboo Flute

See these drums?
They're called Taiko

picture from www.disturbing.org.uk

Each drum is made from a single piece of wood and can be up two 2 metres in diameter.

They need incredible rich, strong, dense, old pieces of wood to make these drums.... They'll last forever.
Trees in Japan that come with trunks of beautiful wood several metres wide aren't exactly a dime a dozen. In fact wood of this quality takes at least three hundred years to grow.

It makes these drums priceless.

There are only a few Taiko craftsmen in the world, they come from families that have been making the drums for centuries... A Taiko drum maker today uses wood from a tree planted by his great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather in 1709. He tends to trees planted by all his forefathers since that day and this year will plant a couple more in order for them to be used by his descendants in 2309.

The music is amazing. The tradition is ancient. The performances are equal parts brut force, delicacy, coreography and athleticism.

A good friend of mine is part of amazing Taiko ensemble in Sydney called Taikoz... Check it.
Also if ya want, check out Kodo (the worlds leading Taiko ensemble) play in this video.


When i was a pimple-faced kid in year 9 i had a rather heavy crush on a girl... she was heaps dfrnt to the other girls in my school because she wore more black and liked heavy metal... (sigh). Because of her, my two favorite bands were Alice In Chains and Sepultura.

The point of the story is that we used to listen to a song called Kamaitachi. By Sepultura (who if ya didn't know, are a metal band from brazil). Kamaitachi was an instrumental track which featured KODO (the worlds leading Taiko Ensemble). They recorded it at Kodo Village, Sado Island, Japan.

Brazilian Metal, Ancient Japanese Master Drumming and Shakuhachi. The drums pound, the music is heavy and the combination is haunting and pretty powerful. Unlike a lot of the metal I listened to in those days, I still dig this song.





(Bonus creepy Sepultura claymation film clip of classic song Ratamahata)