I watched a doco on TV recently on the erratic but – to my mind – much under-rated 60s UK band, The Small Faces. Their 1968 ‘concept’ album Ogden’s Nutgone Flake, a psychedelic rock classic, was one of the first albums I bought. I still treasure this unique work – for the great music, the warped and inspired narrative in “Unwinese” by Stanley Unwin, and the eccentric fold-out tobacco tin cover (in good nick, this album is now a prize collectors’ item fetching $300+ …but I’d never sell mine).
One of my favourite tracks is Song Of A Baker. Strange, but in all the times I’ve listened to this song, I’d never really pondered on the lyrics until the TV doco – even though I know them by heart: Read the rest…
I’m not often lost for words – when writing, at least – but right at this moment I’m blocked. I’m aware of the source of my difficulty, so let’s begin with that.
If I hadn’t been invited to a media screening of In Search of Beethoven followed by a Q&A session with the director, award-winning documentary film-maker Phil Grabsky, I probably wouldn’t have made the effort to see it. And would have denied myself one of the best movie experiences of this year – ah damn it, of any year. Read the rest…
Steve ‘Lips’ Kudlow’s recollection of the beginnings of his musical union with fellow founder member of Anvil, Robb Reiner, was one of many moments in this movie that set the theatre a-chuckle on the night I went.
It was Toronto, 1973. Reiner, 14 at the time, routinely practised his drums in the family home. Flaying the skins as he played his favourite records through a big mother of a speaker set up in a front window (?!), he attracted the interest of a passing Lips, who approved of the rockin’ sounds blaring forth: “Sabbath, Iron Maiden and Cactus…[afterthought, tone of incredulity and unfettered admiration]… I mean, who likes Cactus, let alone listens to them?!” Read the rest…
Background
(Limited concentration span? Skip the background and go straight to the review under picture – see below)
Any cinematic recreation of 1969’s Woodstock music festival is destined to divide its audience – especially the baby boomers who might be expected to make up the main target demographic.
For those boomers who hold the event dear – and often possessively close – as the spectacular generation-defining culmination of all that was good and groovy about the 60s (and their youth), anything less than a reverent portrayal will be pelted with charges of blaspheme. Read the rest…
I usually take some care over my movie reviews, but I’m not going to waste time on appraising The Boat That Rocked in any depth. This crock of shit isn’t worth the effort.
My best hope for this post is that it might provide a community service – with any luck I might spare a moviegoer or two the ticket price, tedium and irritation I went through watching a long, long 2 hours and 14 minutes of this dross. Come to think about it, this review is probably too late to accomplish its mission, having been sitting around growing mildew while I was engaged in other projects and too despondent to make time to finish it. Oh well, maybe I’ll save someone the cost of renting the video – and the time they would have squandered watching it. Read the rest…
Oh, but it’s been a while since I started off the week with a good guffaw. And the source of all this belly-wobblin’? This report from good ol’ PerthNow of none other than Bono labelling Coldplay’s Chris Martin a wanker!
That would qualify for obvious remark of the week coming from anyone but Bono. But BONO calling anyone else a wanker? HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW!!! …cough splutter conniption…HAW HAW HAW HAW HAWWWWWRRRGGHHH! Read the rest…
As you get older, you are less and less affected by news of the deaths of people known to you. It’s always a bit of a jolt, but having been around for well over half the average human life expectancy, I’ve reached a point of choice – get philosophical or get spooked. Not relishing the prospect of an existence even more haunted and death-obsessed than mine already is, I do my best to choose the former, but every so often a SIGNIFICANT death sits you back on your arse and you find yourself immersed in the dark stuff, almost as if any other choice is not yours to make.
Thus it was for me when news came through of the death of Ron Asheton, incendiary guitarist for legendary Detroit proto-punk band, The Stooges (second from left in this 1969 pic).
Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
I was at the computer on the morning of January 7th. I routinely brought up the Sydney Morning Herald site (my default home page) for maybe the tenth time that day and there it was. I didn’t click on the headline at first. Not sure why. Didn’t want to acknowledge it, perhaps. Shock? Some sort of wilful disengagement? Doesn’t matter. Ron Asheton was dead. That mattered. Read the rest…
Once upon a time I nurtured a furtive dream of playing in a rock and roll band. It was way back in a time when rock music was still the dominant youth art form. I immersed myself in a world of records, rock barns (all the popular pubs were rock barns at that time), guitars, Beat literature, tatty photocopies of Jerry Rubin’s anti-establishment rant, A Yippie Manifesto…
I spent all my money – and I was earning better than average bucks at that time, having fast-tracked to a Clerk Class 4 position in the public service office in which I resentfully spent the working week – on records, hifi components, beer to accompany weekend and mid-week attendances at pub gigs, a constant supply of marijuana I do confess, and virtually every big-name rock concert that made it to Perth.
My first – at Beatty Park in 1971 – was incredible value: Chain, Free, Manfred Mann and Deep Purple on the same bill. I was so excited by the finale of the show I passed out in the exit queue and ran head first into a stone pillar, splitting my forehead open to the bone – the scar a souvenir that remains to this day (note: no drugs involved; I was only 15 at the time). Read the rest…
“…and then I looked back at Rod and he was on his back. He’d fallen over and was still playing, and that’s when I decided I should grind my guitar up against my amp and just do feedback for a while and just lose myself in that and look up and see what’s happening with this train wreck of a gig. And we got off and everyone said it was great !! “
Thus spake Matthew De la Hunty during an interview I did with The Smokin’ Eldorados a couple of weekends ago. Matthew’s anecdote says quite a bit about the band – yet could give a very wrong impression (paradoxes are everywhere with these guys).
Inaugural and haphazard, these Boomtown Rap Awards are disorganised, ill conceived and pretty bloody random. There’s an Australian bias, but awards are not restricted nationally. They can be positive or – more likely – negative.
While the awards naturally reflect my own prejudices and tastes, being a democratic and inclusive type o bastard, I will gladly accept reader nominations and suggestions for additional awards not covered below. Just post ‘em in the Comments. And there is no particular deadline. I’ll happily keep adding to the list until such time as it kinda sorta feels too far into 2008 to be relevant.
So, let’s start with something lightweight: the 2007 Boomtown Rap free-to-air TV Awards – introducing The BR Bogeys! Read the rest…
