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October 31, 2004
stickers!
Those among you who happen to live in melbourne, keep an eye out for onetonnemusic stickers, they are sneakily hidden about the city and will continue to turn up in dingy alleyways and on poles and other places. I'm planning to do more up, and am more than willing to mail out my dodgy homebrew stickers to anyone who wants some!
Posted by funnelbc at 09:36 PM | Comments (0)
wired mag, free beasties track, cool copyright...
I love wired magazine, apart from it's heavily america centric style of writing, the technology bits and pieces often make it worth the 10-12 bucks you pay for it over here. What I love is how rabidly enthusiastic they are about technology and gadgetry and general nerd culture.
The cover of this issue features the beastie boys and gag is that they've included a 16 track CD with tracks by some big name acts under a new copyright scheme. Not only are you able to download the tracks from the creativecommmons.org website (After November 9th) you are free to do whatever you like with the tracks, redistribute them, remix them and work the songs or parts of them into your own work, and the only major restruction is that you can do whatever you like with the tracks for non-commerical purposes. How bloody awesome is that?
Here's an online copy of the article too.
Click continue for the track listing...
Beastie Boys / Now Get Busy
David Byrne / My Fair Lady
Zap Mama / Wadidyusay?
My Morning Jacket / One Big Holiday
Spoon / Revenge!
Gilberto Gil / Oslodum
Dan the Automator / Relaxation Spa Treatment
Thievery Corporation / DC 3000
Le Tigre / Fake French
Paul Westerberg / Looking Up in Heaven
Chuck D with Fine Arts Militia / No Meaning No
The Rapture / Sister Saviour (Blackstrobe Remix)
Cornelius / Wataridori 2
Danger Mouse & Jemini / What U Sittin' On? (starring Cee Lo and Tha Alkaholiks)
DJ Dolores / Oslodum 2004 (includes (cc) sample of "Oslodum" by Gilberto Gil)
Matmos / Action at a Distance
Posted by funnelbc at 09:09 PM | Comments (0)
October 29, 2004
new ipod hot... surprise
It's all over the interweb, but in the spirit of making sure its ALL over the internet... The ipod photo! It's an ipod, it can view photos. You can also have itunes download the album artwork which is pretty nice. See ray charles wailin' away...
It comes in 40 or 60gb flavours, TV out on the base, so you can show your pictures round at your aunties over a wheaton and a cup of tea. Apparently the backlit screen is "vivid", which is good because if its not, colour LCDs are a bit of a pain to look at in full sunlight. Time will tell. I also love the token outdoorsy couple on the actual iphoto apple page. They're too cool!
Posted by funnelbc at 08:31 AM | Comments (0)
October 28, 2004
well folks... i think you've waited long enough
It's been way too long, and i've been way too busy to sort things out for the site, but I'm proud to announce that we're up and running with a new system and a new approach.
Everyone meet movable type, movable type meet everyone. I'm still in the process of updating the old content, but I will try and get that out of the way tonight so I can start posting fresh stuff.
I'd like to give a big thankyou to Milty from grahammilton.com fame and Dave from AustralianInFront for their patience and assistance to help me get past my own laughable lack of html skillz.
Please stick around and see where the site is going next.... There's plenty to do with the site, and im keen to make it happen.
Cheers to the forum crew for keeping me keen to keep on working and revising the site and taking it up a notch. You guys make up the little community that I want to facilitate and make much stronger...
Thanks to everyone :D
Posted by funnelbc at 07:27 AM | Comments (0)
decoder ring - somersault
If ever a soundtrack was to fit a movie more perfectly, or stand so well in it’s own right, then I’d like to know about it. This is sublime wandering – it echoes welling tears and just plain beauty. Gushing aside, Somersault the album is an incredible achievement.
Somersault details the events of a young girl and her (please hold your cringing till later) and her awakening sexuality. But more so it tells a character story, and feels much more like real life on screen than most movies. It’s simultaneously evocative and unsettling, especially as the film develops. And so too, is the album. Vibraphones and simple rhythms build into complex arrangements and the album evolves into a reflection of the movie – but is not limited to a footnote of the film, it stands on it’s own two feet and shines.
Decoder ring have a hallmark of clanging sounds and more abstract wanderings – but this as an album, perhaps due to it’s nature as a soundtrack has a solid cohesion. The title track Somersault features excellent vocals by a singer known as Lenka. Sonically, it has a feeling that is evocative and deep, it’s not light listening, but it’s still accessible. Recorded in the country on a farm outside Kiama it has a strong sense of place and relationship to the country and feeling of isolation. It’s expressed beautifully. Rough Sex features harmonic distortion not unlike that which we have come to expect from outfits like The Dirty Three.
Lenka makes appearances in several tracks through the album lending an ethereal touch, but also giving the album a more cohesive sound as a whole. While I dread the fact that an album such as this is cannot be left alone, I would be interested to see some of these tracks remixed in a slightly more driving electronic mix – perhaps a little like the endless Beth Orton remixes. But not shit. No really.
I want to go to sleep to this album, not because it’s bad, but because it takes you to that place almost immediately, and gives you a bizarre feeling of elation that has been missing for me in my music listening recently. It could just be a case of the right music at the right time in my life, (If you must know I was very fond of some pretty sad gear in the early nineties. None of which I choose to reveal at this point in time.) but it encapsulates a mood in such a definite way that it takes you to that place and despite yourself, you are happy to luxuriate in it.
Even within the constraints of the album itself, it travels widely in style, and the chordy circa ‘00 Air stylings of Higher Higher sit well alongside Alpine Way, a laid back acoustic affair.
Perhaps a little slower than many albums, but a masterpiece to listen to. If you’re a goth kiddie, you’re going to adore this album, and if you’re not you’re going to go out and look for purple hair dye and black wallpaper samples. It’s a very sexy album, and you should seek out the opportunity to own it. It is one of the best albums that I’ve had the pleasure to listen to for a long time.
This album is excellent and I highly recommend you give it a good solid listen.
Track Listing:
01-Heidi's Theme
02-Somersault
03-Snowflake
04-Rough Sex
05-Carillion
06-Music Box
07-More Than Scarlet
08-The Siesta Inn
09-You're Hot
10-Higher Higher
11-Alpine Way
12-Naked Snow
13-Electrocution (Hydro Mix)
14-Heidi's Theme (Reprise)
15-Somersault (Score)
Posted by funnelbc at 07:05 AM | Comments (0)
art of fighting - second story
It's taken me a couple of weeks, but I think I can finally say that this album is at least as good as - if not better than - their last one, Wires . And that's saying a lot, considering how much I love Wires :)
by Nich
First track, Along the Run , is probably the easiest to get into. It's insistent, yet keeps to itself. Simple, yet still has depth. Where Trouble Lived , in a similar way to I Don't Keep a Record (off Wires), is predominantly the female bassist's vocals - and her voice really does suit the music: quiet, personal, copmelling.
Sing Song is another fairly easy track to get into - unusually upbeat and fast paced, for the band, but still unabashedly AOF. The final track, Heart Transaltion , provides a nice and steadily-laid-back closer for the album, in true AOF style - quietly building to a limax, then slowly letting you go, wishing for more.
I really do reccommend you give the album a go. Even if only because the song titles make great IRC kick/ban messages (eg Busted, Broken, Forgotten ;)
Oh, and if you've never heard Art of Fighting before... well.. CDDB thinks they're 'lo fi', tho' I think that's rather inaccurate. They just have a very laid back sound. Bass, drums, two guitars, and vocals, but a very simple approach. I guess 'subdued' may be one of the better descriptions. Unequivocally complex, without needing to be in-your-face.
Their music works well as both background music, and 'foreground' music. If anyone saw Gomez tour a few months back, AOF were their tour-mates. They received an ARIA in 2001 for Wires, their debut album.
Posted by funnelbc at 07:04 AM | Comments (0)
October 27, 2004
d-link usb radio
Here’s a rather cool thing, a USB radio for your PC. It’s that simple – it doesn’t do a thousand different things, but what it does it does well. Coming in a measly $20AUD helps too – the cost of a couple of magazines, or perhaps a very poverty stricken standalone radio. But that wouldn’t be nearly a transparent and groovy would it? No. Lets check it out then!
Originally Posted Mar 06, 2003 by funnel
The DSB-R100 is a USB radio – it connects via a 1.5 meter (~approx) cable, and also has a line input jack connector. Dead simple really. This makes it a little hard to wax lyrical about its many and varied possible uses, but that’s life eh? If you want to record radio onto your PC and don’t want to run a RCA lead to a jack converter and put that in your box, or maybe you just like to listen to the radio while you work, then this is a pretty damn good option. The actual playback level is actually a bit lower than what is conceivably ideal volume – and as a result you will have to crank up your speakers to get a decent listening volume from the DSB-R100. In the process of recording, the volume is normalized and makes perfectly fine mp3s.
Which is as good a way as any to introduce the recording facilities of the DSB-R100. The software that comes with the radio is a little on the dodgy side. You know they stayed up all night working in the splash screen department and you see...
And you see “Peopel” – there’s no excuse for that. But then again, many of us have experienced the unique “take no prisoners” approach to spelling which has been adopted by our nearest oceanic neighbors. Never mind. The software is a little bit shady looking, but is basically functional – which is about as much as a person can ask for. It does minimize down to a small box onscreen which is quite unobtrusive to look at.
It would have been nice to have been able to skin it but alas, that seems the domain of another program called Radiator. D-link themselves list Radiator as an appropriate replacement for the software that comes with the radio. The only problem being is that you have to install different drivers for the card, and at the time of writing following the instructions I still haven’t succeeded in getting any sound out of the Radiator program. Such is life. I will update in the event that I get it working with the Radiator software – if such a thing happens. Be aware that this may be a quirk of my particular setup- or some much more random arcane thing. Stay tuned on that one.
So, it’s a USB radio that connects to the pc, providing pretty decent sound quality and mp3 radio recording for not much more than the price of a magazine and a hamburger. Check it out!
Verdict
Quality: 3/5
Value: 5/5
Functionality: 4/5
Overall: 4/5
Price: $19.95
Distributor: Harvey Norman, all decent computer stores
Web: http://www.dlink.com/products/usb/dsbr100/
Posted by funnelbc at 11:38 PM | Comments (0)
Creative Inspire 5200 Speakers
For along time, Creative has been synonomous with top notch computer sound products, at reasonable, and these speakers represent this perfectly.
Originally posted Sep 11, 2003 by DJFROGi
Firstly, no, I dont work for Creative (but I wish I did!). I bought these speakers out of a need (or a want, really) for 5.1 sound. And as always, I didnt want to blow a hole in the side of my pants. I was estatic when I found these speakers for $195.
For those who dont know, the first number in the 5.1 refers to the number of satellites (speakers) in a setup, and the second number relates to the number of subwoofers. Don't let the price for this setup fool you- it sounds f*cking awesome. The individual satellites sound crisp and clear, and while quite small, can really pump it out when working in unison.
And the subwoofer hurt my manlyhood, put it that way. (wahey!! -ed)
As with most 5.1 setups, the subwoofer acts as the hub for the sattellites, which use RCA jacks. The subwoofer is then connected to the output device (TV, computer, whatever) with three 3.5mm minijacks.
There was a little bit of distortion in the satellites at extreme volumes, but only bogans and deaf people have it up that loud, so it's all good. And also, while the subwoofer looks plastic (plastic = crap sound quality) I opened it up to find good old plywood in there.
It will work best with Creative soundcards, but with a little know how, you can use adapters to fit any soundcard/receiver. I used my Soundblaster Extigy in it's standalone mode to do this, and I ihghly recommend that you use these two products hand in hand.
You will find better sound quality in it's big brothers, the 5300 to 5700 being the next steps up, but none of these offer the great quality/price trade off as the 5200 does. Also, the 5100 is available, at even cheaper price, but I'll let you guess what the sound quality is like.
Si if you're looking for a simple, cheap, yet effective 5.1 surround system, look no further then the Creative Inspire 5.1 5200 set.
-DJFROGi
Posted by funnelbc at 11:32 PM | Comments (1)
the mark of cain - this is this
This isn’t exactly a brand spanking new release, but I had it in my pile of CDs to listen to and give away and being quite fond of earlier Mark of Cain I was interested to see what this latest studio release was like. Known for their intense riffage and rough vocal styles sounding unlike just about anything else on the local scene The Mark of Cain has etched out a style which nobody else really touches.
This is not the next logical progression from their earlier work, it’s very much in the same style of previous TMOC work and doesn’t depart greatly from that. I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad thing, we’ve all had a band we really dug release a follow up album that we didn’t really like, so if you are convinced that this is the pinnacle of Aussie rock then you’ll more than likely dig on this anyway regardless of what I say.
This album doesn’t really have the same kind of standout tracks such as interloper and LMA which was a big hit for TMOC on their Ill at ease record. The album moves quite nicely though, doesn’t drag at all across the 12 tracks and is pretty easy listening for anyone who doesn’t mind a bit of slightly harder rock. It’s genuine and enjoyable, it doesn’t really feel like they were particularly trying to score a big hit with this record – it just moves along. This could be a bad thing, but in this case it seems to work okay. I would of liked to see a bit more variety – but tracks like ‘Sleep’ really connected well for me and served as a nice counterpoint for the rest of the album.
Standout tracks include ‘Let Chaos Rule Supreme’ I dig the clean guitar opening and the distortion rhythm and drums makes for a rather fine track – possibly even my pick of the album – I’d get down and boogie my head off if I heard them play this one live. If you didn’t already get the references in the earlier albums there’s a lot of references to the second world war – its not that TMOC are all about Aussie war related stuff but they often touch on it – in a respectful but I think, anti war kind of way. Lone pine certainly makes references you’d have trouble missing -
“We dragged our boots over no mans land and held our sway when lead did swing…”
“…Nothing ahead nothing forward but the naked and dead”
I think this could be easily misconstrued as popping a hard topic into a song and calling it thought provoking as an easy out – I don’t think that’s the case, it’s a quite heartfelt tribute I think.
This album had a few surprises for me, I think it’s well worth a listen, and I’d love to see this guys update their website and play a few gigs sometime in the near future. I could say some bollocks including the words “seminal” and “pub band” – but that would be crap of me – when I started getting into their tunes I couldn’t get into the pub, and used to get down to their tracks on my massive old tape walkman on the way to school – they are infact, a mighty fine local outfit and I’m impressed by this album.
Mark of Cain – This is this…
Web: http://www.tmoc.com.au
Review cd supplied by: http://www.amrap.org
Rooart #74321847672
Released: 2002
Posted by funnelbc at 11:23 PM | Comments (0)
jimi hocking - give jimi some love!
This album’s a bit of a creeper. Even to the blues lover it takes a listen or two to get into. You’re probably not going to like this unless you dig blues or have a bit of a rockabilly blues bone in your body. Me, I dig the blues, but even so it took me a couple of listens to get into this album. Some albums are like that. This is definitely one of them. It also wanders a little bit into the jazz electric guitar side of things, which may or may not be a good thing depending on what blows your hair back.
Jimi Hocking is certainly an excellent blues guitarist but the first tracks just seemed a bit middle of the road. There’s a bit of self effacing humour on Skinny White Boy that makes a point of how white-bread Jimi is and that he loves to play the blues. I really think that the first few tracks of this album are very nicely recorded but all in all they’re ultimately unsatisfying.
Things start to turn around with Look at the Damage (Free the Children). The hollow top electric guitar is abandoned for acoustic and a much more stripped back performance. It may just be my personal taste in blues, but I think this is a far superior track to the first four. The second half has a stack of very listenable tracks, Mr Nobody is a more sultry groove, Collar Up features a blazing guitar widdle intro with distorted vocals making a reappearance too. Good Boy features soaring Stevie Ray Vaughn style lead guitar. Romance in Aisle 2 is a nice little track too, with some nice ABC radio style presenter samples, just a fun track that doesn’t take itself too seriously.
This is a nice album, but really only suitable for the blues enthusiast – it's pretty light in nature and it's a not a super serious listen. Best track for my money would be Good Boy or Look At the Damage (Free the Children) (Why won’t anyone think of the children?!)
Jimi Hocking – Give Jimi Some Love
File Under: Nerdy white boy blues
Released: 2002
Label: Black Market Music
Track Listing:
Everybody’s Clown
Skinny White Boy
No Particular Place to Go
Blues at My House
Look at the Damage (Free the Children)
Mr Nobody
Collar Up
Credit Card Blues
Good Boy
Romance In Aisle 2
Boxing Gloves
Posted by funnelbc at 11:17 PM | Comments (0)
jeff lang - everything is still
Leaning towards the emotional side of acoustic folk guitar is Jeff Lang – we’ll be taking a look at his current studio album – Everything is Still. He’s just put out a live album called – No Point in Slowing Down, which I’ll take a look at hopefully sometime soon. But right now, let’s take a look at the album Everything is Still. If you are of the acoustic folk mould then chances are you’ll love this album. It has strong shadows of a traditional blues influence, but doesn’t wander so far in that direction as to make it inaccessible for people who aren’t into that scene.
Orignally Posted On May 23, 2004 by Funnel
What really hooks you in with this album is the mixture of very high quality guitar playing and lyrics you actually want to get into. The virtuosic guitar playing ebbs and flows to allow for Jeff to work in his songs. Often acoustic players of this calibre don’t sing folk – they tend to get drawn off into other genres but this guy just makes me want to pick up the guitar and sing songs about my lost dog. That was a compliment of sorts, even though it didn’t really sound like it. Jeff’s got all the soul and feeling of a blues player but with the lyrical sensibility of a poet you’d actually want to listen to.
This album has plenty of standout tracks on it, if you want to have a quick listen, check out London, and Trainwreck 49 and the title track Everything Is Still. There’s a great deal of variety in this album and it appeals immediately. There’s a depth in the guitar work and lyrics which will make you come back to this one again and again. This is music to listen to when you need a bit of real emotion and something decent to move you up to a higher plane. Highly Recommended.
Jeff Lang – Everything Is Still
File Under: Folk Acoustic / Blues
Released: 2001
Label: Black Market Music
Track Listing:
1. Big Feeling
2. Can't Raise My Head
3. London
4. The Point
5. Everything Is Still
6. No Good Answers
7. Gina
8. Trainwreck 49
9. Release
10. Between The Lines
11. Some Memories Never Die
Posted by funnelbc at 11:13 PM | Comments (0)
downsyde - land of the giants
Downsyde are perhaps the best Australian hip hop out there, the closest comparison being The herd. But with the release of 'Land Of The Giants', Downsyde quite simply blew the competition out of the water.
Orignally posted On Aug 27, 2003 by DJFROGi
Once I gave this album a listen, I was overjoyed to find a rap crew that actually represent the predominent views of Australian society, as a couple of years ago there was no other alternative, all the hip hop being produced in the US and all.
The opening track, Undefined, skillfully mixes old school jazz style instruments and tune with a phat beat, and of course, Downsyde's best trait, skillfull lyrics. Gone are the days of mindless rap, these guys rap with their minds, and more to the point, their unashamed Aussie minds.
Mainstream society is in the crosshairs, with the group constantly taking apart social structures, class distinctions and other flaws of our society, all of which Optimus, Dazastah and Dyna-Mikes (the groups MCs) skillfully blend into a harmony of vocals.
Put simply, it blew me away. These guys are easily the best Oz hip hop around, owing to the fact they stay true to the Aussie people. Chuck some funky samples in, and some skillful DJ-ing in, and you have a group that looks set to make their mark on the international hip-hop scene.
Tracks:
Undefined,
Bittersweet,
Gifted Life,
El Questro,
Land of the Giants Pt 1,
Did not you know,
Robust,
Hot Days Cold Nights,
Keep It Alive,
Kingswood Country,
Neva Enough.
Posted by funnelbc at 11:09 PM | Comments (0)
watch out t.v!
So you’ve made it, you’ve run the gauntlet of gigging, you’ve established yourself a loyal following and you’ve snagged your first big record contract. But somehow your life as a performing artist feels a little… hollow… What could it be that’s missing from your life?
Originally posted On June 8, 2004 by Funnel
It’s it the adoring groupies? Nope, got plenty of them…
Smelly roadies that have seen more concerts than have seen showers? Yep.
Is it the sleazy agent who’s secretly skimming 10% over and above what he was supposed to take at the door? Hell yeah! You should see his new gold teeth.
So what is it then… is perhaps that the hotel room you’re staying at isn’t totally destroyed yet? But what do you mean? Ahhh… Now I see the problem… read on genteel rockstar.
But first a little history...
How long have rockstars been trashing rooms? I mean were Led Zep the collective fathers of room trashing and everyone else a pale imitation of their sheer genius? One of the earliest recorded room thrashers was the great man himself, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The dead classical dude. Apparently the virtuoso was pretty cranky and erratic and had quite thing for trashing hotel rooms, and he hated to clean up after himself. He would trash the room and just get another. What a trailblazer! An inspiration to all aspiring rockstars the world over. This guy had it all, a funky wig AND a dirty room. Rock out 1791!
So after that, everyone else was just paying tribute to the big M. Man, that’s pretty impressive I think, back then I’m sure if you could get transported to prison in the colonies for stealing a loaf of bread, Mozart was probably racking up enough criminal charges to go around the world about 666 times. But of course because he was a genius he gets away with it – another approach is to leave before anyone finds out, but old Wolfgang was the pioneer of the punk “I don’t give a toss, give me another room” attitude.
At the movies…
Of course the best way to get a good idea of how to trash a room, you only have to go down to your local video store… My top 2 (because that was about as many as I care to remember) room thrashings of all time on film…. Grab some popcorn and just watch the masters at work…
The Wall – Pink sits in his seat and quietly builds up the inner tsunami as a groupie is increasingly weirded out with his silence. And he snaps, and in one of the most incredibly full on room trashing scenes in a movie, Pink dismantles the room, piece by piece. He is careful to leave no stone unturned in his destruction. This is an important aspect of the hotel room trasher. Equally important when recalling this tale is that he gets even weirder when he rearranges everything in the room into neat little patterns, cigarette buts, food, broken instruments....
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - when these guys trash a room they really elevate it to a whole new artform. It’s more than the hallucinatory montage and odd lighting.. it’s the collection of pool toys and the foot and a half of water. It’s the surreal level of destruction. If you’re the aficionado you cannot go past this style of habitat re-organization. Not the presence of copious quantities of illicit substances – you need to be really famous to get away with this level of destruction and the amount of gear on you. You’d really need to be playing big stadium events to make that shit fly.
Of course trashing can be available to all levels of fame and musical accomplishment. Here’s a quick set of guidelines to help you identify where you’re at.
1. You just played a six year old’s birthday party.
You are allowed to double dip one savaloy and drop a bit of sauce on the carpet.
2. You just played the school social.
You are allowed one snog with the popular girl of your choice and a bottle of spumante, which you will vomit up about ten minutes later. The vomit can be placed anywhere within the bathroom.
3. You just played your first pub gig to a disinterested crowd.
You are allotted a pickup from the bar of anyone who’s left at the end of the night, a slab of draught beer, and a couple of mates to come over and watch the English soccer. Vomit is allowed anwhere in the bathroom or kitchen. Make sure to do some after midnight cooking and leave a lamb chop down the back of the couch.
4. You’ve just played a bigger pub to an audience who know your music
You get free beer during the gig, and if you’re quick you should be able to nab the bucket full of grog and take it with you. (Some savvy bands will call for their rider drinks to be put in a wheel barrow for easy relocation – highly recommended.) The band and other acts are to be invited back to the room, for a round of spin the support act. Vomit on carpet is essential at this stage. You may also consider putting your head through the plaster board near the door. Check first that it is, in fact, plaster board and not brick – unless you’re truly rock and roll. Make sure to break a mirror and put that lamb chop up inside the range hood where nobody can find it, but will certainly be able to smell it.
4. The Tour – Stadium Rock
This is where things really start to heat up, you are required to step things up a notch. Feel free to bring back concert PA gear to your room. Any other items from the gig, such as screaming groupies, a dagwood dog van and the contents of the bar are all acceptable – nay essential. Especially the dagwood dog van. At this stage of the room thrashing game you should be able to perforate the walls, burst a water main, clog up the toilet and smash every glass surface all by yourself in about 30 seconds. What you can achieve in a weekend blinder with a cast of 150 people is truly staggering. Remember, even every day substances can take new properties with just a little bit of creativity. Vomit on every suface is also mandatory. Consider bringing along a set of screwdrivers so can you open up the back of the hot water service and put 50 kilos or so of raw beef in there. Remember to close it up, but not so tight that the smell won’t get through. Just picture the horror on the hotel mangers face when after finally cleaning the room they think they’ve just found a body. Blue chalk is good for knocking up occult circles too.
Okay, so that’s the basics. Remember to keep the art alive people, be creative and never let them say “Oh Trashing a room, that’s so cliché”. Prove them wrong. Oh and don’t forget the dagwood dog stand.
Posted by funnelbc at 10:55 PM | Comments (0)
brian fraser - finger pickin blues
The first time I listened to this album I was left slightly mystified - the first track dot com is all about having a website.. which is odd for a blues artist! I thought Mr Fraser was taking the piss. But after checking the fridge, it appears the yellow gold is still safe, and my caltraps in the kitchen hall were not needed...
Posted On Jul 18, 2003 by funnel
"Gotta have a website if you wanna become a dot com... yeah!"
Its actually quite amusing in that respect, the slightly awkward use of nerd gramma makes it even more amusing. But after the initial hilarity and hijinks settled down, I quickly realized this is a great little blues album.
It's often difficult to find Aussie blues that sound as effortless and technically spot on - this album is quite amazing in that respect. Brian is an accomplished guitarist, the album has a great tapping rythm and pace to it that that makes it an enjoyable album to listen to. In most of the tracks except when Brian covers "The Ship Song" by Nick Cave, and Writers Curse and Halfway There its just him and the guitar, percussion performed by Brian on the stomp box - nice.
This really is fun album, standout tracks like "every game" and "halfway there" have a driving accoustic sound that just resonates a lighter approach to roots music. Its a good mixture of light and dark, but as blues albums goes, even with Brian's gravel voice this album certainly sits on the lighter side of the scale as an album. Its not as genre specific as some other blues albums, being pretty accessible to anyone who is willing to listen to it more than once to get a quick gist of the flow of the album.
I really dig this album, and if you even have just a passing interest in blues or roots, I wholeheartedly reccomend it - if you are deep into the scene, then you probably already have a copy.
Brian Fraser - Finger Pickin' Blues - 2003
Web: http://www.brianfraser.com
Distributed By: Black Market Music
Review CD Supplied by: Amrap Supporting Australian Music Airplay.
Posted by funnelbc at 10:24 PM | Comments (0)
dung - who flung
This album is funny. It’s got all the elements of juvenile toilet humour, the name Dung, and the title Who Flung. The track titles 20 pot screamer, sort it out, If I’m going to hell (I’m taking you with me) all pretty much reflect that attitude. And make no mistake that’s pretty much what you can expect from this album. It’s ballsy pub rock, and it’s not ashamed to admit it.
If you take a careful look at the back cover, a stick figure of kerri-anne sports the standard stick figure cock and ball. Very classy dung. Of course being released in 2001 it predates a lot of bands that really started to ride the wave of lo-fi punk flavoured rock. That genre has been around since 1970 but this just happens to be a particularly fine example of a genre experiencing a big resurgence. People sick of bands with a dj out the back will dig right into the meat and potato rock sound that’s on this album. It’s nothing but guitars, distortion, drums and bass and a bit more distortion.
There’s actually quite a decent variety of sounds on this album, its all leaning towards the harder pub rock sound, but the album isn’t ‘samey’ like a lot of dirty rock is. There is so appallingly gratuitous guitar solo work on tracks like bee sting, but this album was released long before the darkness made 80’s guitar widdle acceptable. Besides, that’s an unfair comparison; the darkness sound is basic carbon copy of earlier sound, where this is at least musically progressive. Not THAT progressive, but still very much worth a listen.
Vocals are not dissimilar to the Tism vocal sound at full yell. I just don’t think that the Dung boys really give too much of a crap – but then again this album has clearly been professionally recorded and mastered and a difficult mix is quite even and well mixed to emphasize parts of the music as the songs dictate. It’s a bit sneaky like that, it’s quite a polished album in terms of the mix, but still retains a good sized chunkiness that’s reminiscent of pub performance.
Check it out if you like your music dirty and smelly. Stand out tracks for me is Me Volkswagen Iz Kaput or Sort It Out. Sort it Out has one of the funniest starts to a song I think I’ve ever heard…
Dung – Who Flung
File Under: Your grotty beer soaked pub rock placemat..
Label: Shock
Released: 2002
Track Listing:
20 Pot Screamer
Bee Sting
You Lookie Like
Dump On Me
If I’m Going to Hell (I’m taking you as well)
Follow Me Home
5.30 AM
Me Volkswagen Iz Kaput
Miss Me When I’m Dead
Sort It Out
Stick the Pig
Posted by funnelbc at 10:15 PM | Comments (0)