life is noise

Picture the scene: it’s the tail end of the ‘60s, the decade most romanticised for its ideals, however misplaced, its spiritual awakening, however misguided, and for bringing some kind of revolution, however non-existent. A younger man has just gone to the home of an older woman, not much older mind you, with her two friends, one around the same age and one roughly twenty years older, the age that one would consider fossilised at this point in social history. They talk, their smiles and laughs hollow, for there’s tension and it’s building. The younger man puts a record on the timetable, a dance track, so lo and behold, he starts to dance. The women stand around and sort of dawdle, that is, except the oldest person in the room, who throws caution to the wind and decides that yes, she does in fact, want to fuck. She throws herself at the younger man, they dance and it is a good time, isn’t it? She draws him close and whispers sweetly, behind tears, ‘kiss me’. The younger man does, they embrace, but they’ll never consummate. The oldest woman in the room, tired, lost, asks to be driven home. The younger man obliges. Read the rest of this entry ”

There ain’t no two ways about it: you need Deerhoof in your life. Rather than try and meander about the point for a number of sentences, fumbling around in the dark or sorts, let’s dive right in, as the band is often wrought to do. Here is an anomaly of a group, one built from the dank, depressive depths of improvisational sick from the stomachs of compositional turmoil (this will hopefully make sense later and also more often than not this is the death knell of less expansive or searching minds), who developed into probably the most dependably surprising, tight and all out fun group of the past decade. For the poor souls steeped in Webern, or the ones reared by Yes, they are always engaging, amazing and interesting. They are like the memory of the first hit of raspberry cordial on a Friday afternoon in the summertime, the electricity of the touching of hands between you and your first crush, the contortion of movement that comes with the seventh or eighth drink as you sprawl your limbs across the dance floor, ready to rumba. Listening to the best of Deerhoof is witnessing a wonderful group of people sharing their sugar high with the rest of the world. Read the rest of this entry ”

Just going to jump right into this one: what can you possibly say about Prince that hasn’t already been said? He’s a pop-culture icon, representative of all the excesses of one particular decade, has millions of fans both fair-weather and die hard, the images of his tear drop guitar, purple threads and his endless quest for some good loving forever ingrained into the minds of several generations among countless other little factoids. So why tackle such a veritable figure in one of these humble columns? Although I haven’t delved into the completely obscure I have generally kept a policy to write about musicians less well known or celebrated. Herein lays the rub:

PRINCE NOT ONLY WRITES PERFECT POP SONGS, HE IS A HILARIOUS MAN Read the rest of this entry ”

Hands up those of you whose formative musical experiences involved getting wasted (for me it was on sugar) with your mates while pissing around on your instruments, trying to make each other laugh as hard as you possibly could manage: you can put your hands down now. It’s something of a rite of passage, that bonding between friends that only comes from collectively writing a musical masterpiece about boobies or that Red Hot Chili Peppers parody you yelled cunningly titled ‘Suck My Dick’. Not only does it occasionally result in material suitable enough to showcase for people who weren’t there in the first place, it cements the bonds of friendship in a way that other forms of social interaction and expression cannot: it’s fucking funny fun stuff that you wouldn’t trade for anything.

Imagine making a career out of this. Read the rest of this entry ”

OR: HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THINGS I LOVED WHEN I WAS FIVE

I have to say, straight up, no fooling, readers of all things noise: this will be the most pathetic column you’ll ever read on this site. I’m not focusing on anything that could be remotely considered ground breaking, subversive, musically challenging or even another ‘70s singer-songwriter. Ladies and gentlemen, today I would like to draw your attention to the world of…

VIDEO GAME MUSIC

Of course this will be met with derision and the occasional belly laugh from most: “Video Game Music, on an alternative music website?” Hey, you there, FUCK YOU! Let me throw a loaded question at you: ‘Are Video Games Art?’ Are they? To be honest, I used to ponder this question as your typical lonely nerd (some things never change) and while there are some games that push the boundaries of what an interactive medium can achieve, by and large the industry is one built on repetition and refinement, not on innovation or progress. That’s fine, that’s ok and for most people (myself included) it’s more a form of escapism. Rarely do I ever have the opportunity in real life to be an overweight unemployed plumber who constantly does mushroom after mushroom while jumping on turtles; it’s not a realistic lifestyle choice. Yet I choose to do it on the TV screen every couple of afternoons or so. Read the rest of this entry ”

Alex, I owe you ten bucks. Although I said at the conclusion of last week’s motorik throwup (as in, some vomit that repeats itself over and over) that I would cover some video game music in this week’s column, some changes have happened. One, I got drunk. Now even though the column is named WHISKEY RAMBLE I have not gotten completely shitfaced writing a column since maybe the Sharrock edition. UNTIL NOW! I’ve had lesbians over for dinner, y’see. And while I was cooking I needed something to listen to that wasn’t completely rambunctious and not totally laid-back. Naturally, some ‘70s singer-songwriter fit the bill. Read the rest of this entry ”

There’s this whole bizarre attitude with some people and hell, even other musicians who scoff at like say DJs/people who use samples or samplers as not musicians or creating some hellish spawn that doesn’t compare to the grandiose beauty of a properly-composed Bach Concerto. It does continually boggle my mind that in this day and age where computers are ubiquitous in modern life that they are reserved such scorn in the Musical World by some. Hell, talk to anybody in the hallowed halls of a conservatorium and although most will be open-minded about the whole goddamned thing, there is this traditionalism bollocks that people cling too, that a person has to be playing an INSTRUMENT PROPERLY to convey any sort of thought or emotion. This infliction is also referred to as ‘Rockism’ by some and if you’ve ever heard your parents say ‘What is this bleeping blooping horseshit?’ to maybe The Avalanches then you’ve witnessed it in your own life. It’s just kind of fucking strange. Read the rest of this entry ”

Absence makes the heart grow fonder, no? Apologies for being away for so long; I just haven’t been able to ramble, due to various difficulties that I won’t dwell upon. I hope I can regain your trust, your loyalty and perhaps maybe a classy peck on the cheek. A discreet fondle of the arse. Maybe even a devilish tongue-wagging duel? Maybe!

Anyway so this one is about James ‘Blood’ Ulmer, again a case of the world at large ignoring a great artist for trivial reasons. If you’re aware of him, you probably know of his work with Ornette Coleman (most likely a future star of one of these rambles) or of his later work recording Blues albums with Vernon Reid. These are all fine, even though his recorded output with Coleman is minimal, there’s a plethora of crap on Youtube you can access at the click of a mouse. Or pad. Or whatever those fucking Macs have. Fucking Macs! Read the rest of this entry ”

The continuing quest for truth defines our waking lives. Yes, I do like to open these diatribes with increasingly open-ended nonsense words but surely this also strikes a chord within you. Whether we find solace in the cold one after a long day’s work, or ignore certain artists’ work for being ‘fake’ or forced by convention or commercial aspects, or meeting a glance on the train or smiling at a pretty girl or myriad other things, we hate being lied to. We want all our actions and all that happens around them to exist without smoke and mirrors. Being aware of your place in the world and of others is the essence of truth and it is also what I believe all creative people aspire to convey through their chosen medium, be it wanting to express the enveloping darkness behind every action (the complete works of David Lynch) or something lighter, like say the fear of impending global destruction (This Heat’s Deceit, a record/band so good I should write about it/them). It’s something pretty abstract and arguably ‘pretty fucking wanky’. Read the rest of this entry ”

Japan! That besieged isle is one built upon the bastions of politeness, awareness, technological advancement and a pre-occupation with American culture, we curse the nation for hunting some big ass ugly mammals and we adore them for their bizarre sexual practises with eels. Obviously I am generalising pretty hard and should be thrown in a dungeon but what I am working towards is that Japan holds a curious place in modern society, a mixture of throwbacks to a bygone era stewed all up with neon lights and animated swords and breasts. And so also we have “J-Pop”, that glorious concoction of ponytails and synthesisers and good intentions gone badly, a Shakespearian or rather Kurosowian look beyond the lens of bug-eyed teenagers and adults vicariously looking through the glass. Or something I don’t even know anymore. Read the rest of this entry ”

Death is the quickest way to sainthood in the artistic world. Would people even consider such suchness as The Doors if Big Ji(l)m Morrison was playing Mah-Jong in a nursing home this very second instead of being immortalized in his drunken bathtub, or consider the possibility of Hendrix being a member of some ‘Best of the 60s’ nostalgia act (all with Grace Slick on vocals, Phil Lesh on bass and, say, Charlie Watts’ son-in-law filling in on the drums), or maybe even fucking John Kennedy Toole releasing A Confederacy Of Dunces 3 in 2012, all with Ignatius struggling with fatherhood or some nonsense. Basically a premature death is a veritable golden staircase to canonisation. So what then if an artist perishes you know, by natural causes after their work has already been appreciated for decades, already been absorbed into popular culture and already a touchstone for a certain scene or ideal? Read the rest of this entry ”

Oh shit! Oh shit! Whoops! I completely forgot to write some columns over the past few weeks. Actually, this is a lie I have felt pretty bad that I haven’t been able to furiously string sentences together for the sole purpose to yell at you, the humble reader, for not appreciating the finer things in life like say six grown men hitting themselves in the belly with only a cow mooing through a pitch-shifter for accompaniment (if this record exists I would totally buy it). So I’m back you cretins, you goddamned fools, to take a hearty sip of whiskey or scotch or whatever is in arm’s length and in the words of Sister Act 2, be BACK IN THE HABIT, pontificating endlessly on the virtues of records loved only by the loveless, those who sit in their one bedroomed apartments and blissfully reminisce about that one turnip they kissed back when they were young enough to not realise how truly pathetic life is. So really this includes you, the beautiful readership of this WAMI-nominated powerhouse. And it includes me obviously. Shit! Read the rest of this entry ”

Does humour belong in music? Frank Zappa posited that it did, with tonnes of crass booby puns underneath his typical eager-to-impress schizophrenic messes many moons ago (not a slight), but does it really exist in music? If we look at other expressions of art, like say, painting, we have the Mona Lisa, is she smiling because Da Vinci made a funny face? Film, we have Woody Allen pontificating on the nature of existence between discussing premature ejaculation tit-for-tat with his therapist/Diane Keaton stoned out to the bejesus belt, or Literature, James Joyce in between rambling over how Greek mythology mirrors life in Dublin always remembered to stumble around drunk and point out his wife’s fart in a room of farting women. Read the rest of this entry ”

Let me begin with a personal anecdote, if you will. Will you hate me if I do? Will you forbid me from ever writing such tripe on this INCREDIBLE website ever again? I’m going to do it anyway so eat a bag of dicks, if you so choose to. Anyway, the story goes that once upon a time I was a university student. This time is still going. In my first year however I was studying in the ‘Jazz’ stream at the prestigious Western Australia Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA (which when you say it reminds me of that Saturday morning Cartoon show Teamo Supremo, you ever seen that? (If I was a real writer or David Foster Wallace these would all be footnotes/endnotes and not break up the narrative flow))), and naturally I was called upon to play a concert, as musicians often do. So I was playing in such as a jazz standard, try to guess which one, but hell man, I never really been into that stuff playing wise. I’ve always dug the far-out shit, the jazz where it’s a bunch of grown men slash women just busting their guts, busting their LUNGS to find something through that mess of sound, find some meaning and find some sort of expression. Read the rest of this entry ”

Well, here we are then. You often hear of the difficult second work, one that pales in comparison to the beloved initial salvo (hey, I got like three people saying they liked the last column). Think of Television’s Adventure, Liars’ They Were Wrong, So We Drowned, or Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Will this entry end up like an Empire Strikes Back or more like an Attack of the Clones?

Bah, enough frankly NEEDLESS exposition. Let me talk. Let me talk goddamn it. About a band, one I absolutely adore. Hell, I even spent hundreds upon hundreds of dollars I never even had recently to see them on the east coast. The band I speak of is of course SWANS, led by the veritable M. Gira. Read the rest of this entry ”

A TRIP INTO THE HEART OF WHAT MAKES A MAN/LADY APPRECIATE THE FINER THINGS IN LIFE, LIKE SAY, FUCKED UP WEIRD SHIT

Perhaps the loosest theme for a blog since, I don’t know, THE DAWN OF THE COMPUTER AGE but that ain’t a thing really, is it? It could’ve very well been called ‘The whiskey-soaked ramblings of a guy furiously ejaculating over his keyboard while gently caressing his copy of Coltrane’s ‘Meditations’, but ummm I didn’t call it that, jerk. Read the rest of this entry ”