I look at a lot of visual art because I want to see an idea that’s vague to me, expressed in piercing clarity – because when I do see that, I’m often amazed, dumbfounded and moved by the experience. Likewise when I find a song or album that wipes away the fog that shrouds a thought or a memory then I’m drawn to listen to it and make it my own. To hear in a piece of music or to see in a painting something deeply personal something you could never get out of your mouth is a wonderful thing – that sense of connection to another person or a wider idea. Go to a concert and listen to hundreds if not thousands of people all singing the same song. That shared emotional experience is so wonderful and life affirming. It’s the greatest thing about art (as far as I’m concerned).

And so, due to this train of thought, I look for new art, new music all the time. I buy records almost every week. I scour through art books almost daily looking for that mirror that will tell me something more about who I am and maybe why? I’ll tell you that, at least on the music side of things, I’ve discovered so much about what I love and hate through music. And I think that the more you understand why you are the closer you can get to being happy with the person you’ve become.

All of this though does lead me to one piece of music. One I came across by pure chance some eleven years ago. At the time I thought it was nice, pleasant even and nothing more than that. But over the years and with what must now be literally hundreds of listens has come to be the only (and I stress the use of the word only) piece of music that has embodied perfection. I know it’s my perfection and so I don’t expect that to be the case for anyone else.

Domenico De Clario is the artist/musician in question here. The album is called ‘Shaker Road’ . In the most biographical sense it is seven tracks on a cd of improvised solo piano recorded in June of 1996. There is a background story of sorts detailed in liner notes inside the albums sleeve. I don’t remember the specifics because I haven’t read them in years and have since made the decision to not re-read them. Sure they will tell me when and where, possibly how and even one person’s perspective on why but I know it won’t be the why that I’m looking for.

I’ve never tried to articulate this before but you see, there is music here but it’s not song. We’re not talking some free-jazz exploration of sound or anything. It is the other properties of this music that keeps me coming back. Apart from the first few keys that open the album, I can’t remember a single note of the whole 72 minutes of music. Not one. I’ve listened so many times but somehow the music only exists when the album is playing. As soon as it ends or I hit stop the music no longer exists in my mind or my memory. I own thousands of albums and can probably hum or sing hundreds of them without hesitation but this one album refuses to adhere to such traditional parameters. Do you know what it’s like to listen to music that you will never remember? Confusing at the worst. Siren-like at best.

There are two main factors here, the memory aspect above and the aspect of time. Music accentuates time. The verse, chorus, solo, outro or whatever jigsawed part you wish to elaborate on is a measured piece of time that you can follow like a guide. The people playing the music rely on ‘time’ to play in harmony with one another. When music has structure it inherently has time. Domenico De Clario has fully removed time from the music here and so when listening to Shaker Road I never know how far into the album I am, how close to the end I might be and when I program it to play on repeat I am left with such a wonderful sense of inertia that I don’t feel with any other music or art.

There to seems to be so little to the music on this album but if it’s that concept of finding clarity and holding the mirror up to ourselves – I can only assume that this album is the single most effective tool that allows me to completely stop everything that runs chaotically around my head and forces me to be still, to be at peace with myself. It is the closest thing to perfect that I’ve ever heard in music.

On the back of the album the subtitle to Shaker Road is ‘quit existing’ and with that exclamation I’d have to say that De Clario has achieved (at least with me) the ultimate goal of the music. It may not be the most valuable album I own in my collection but it’s without doubt the most precious album I have and I just wanted you to know that on the off chance that you go, listen and also find something beautiful within it.

Nonplace (who released the album)

You probably know this guy… his name is Steve Albini.

Todd Trainer on drums and Bob Weston on bass.

“what do I do with this?”

Everyone’s a drummer!

…until it becomes some kind of synchronised swimming type affair.

And then Todd went for a wander around to declare the end of radio.

You would think the whole show would be about the guy on the guitar but Todd took the rock star role and made it some of the nights true highlights.

To finish the set in a tidy and timely manner, Steve and Bob decided to down tools and then help todd remove his kit from the stage… while he was still playing it!

…and with one swift steal of the snare, the show was over!

After waiting 19 years, this show was so worth it. 11 out of 10 rock show! My next stop, Brisbane. Below on the left is the poster from their last Brisbane show… 19 years ago!

You Can Check Out More Photos HERE

You should head over to my printmaking blog and see the art show I’ve been a part of, the t-shirts and other art I’ve been making lately…       http://againstthewoodgrain.wordpress.com/

Also the band I drum in is releasing a new 7-inch vinyl in a few weeks. I’m currently making the covers and sleeves for them. You can check it out at http://noanchorband.blogspot.com.au/

I’m not complaining but I do hope I find the time soon to pick up the camera again.

Scott Baizley played next. Secretly I was really annoyed at the end of his set knowing that I’d just seen and heard some really magical music that I wasn’t going to be able to hear again anytime soon – it really reminded me of James Blackshaw.

Scott Kelly came across as a really friendly dude when In Tym Guitars earlier in the day but on stage, fuck he had an aura of intensity that was palpable. It certainly translated in his music, easily the best acoustic music I’ve seen live since I saw Michael Gira.

Scott and John ended the night with a Towns Van Zandt cover ‘St John The Gambler‘. Perfectly articulating a certain kind of weather-beaten American musical underbelly that is a very scant whisper in the wind these days.

I sure felt lucky to see this show. Thanks to Robbie for all his hard work bringing these guys to Australia… and thanks to Nath and Tim for convincing me it wasn’t stupid to go talk to John. Such a rad dude.

Top Albums of 2011

1.Harmony – Self Titled

Really there’s not a lot more I can say that isn’t said here.
I will add though that while I am Australian, I am in no way nationalistic. There are however been a small (very small) number of albums that speak of places I have lived in and the things I’ve seen – things that seem part of the unique Australian psyche as far as I can make out. There’s something about suburbia swallowing you alive in the music of The Mark Of Cain. There’s the discovery of our country in The Triffids. There’s the urban solipsism that you may not make it out in The Drones. I’m adding to this, not the pain of modern life in Australia, but what comes after that with the music of Harmony. Not someone you love dying, but what happens weeks and months after they’re gone. Not the achievement of owning your first house but sitting alone at night years later in something that never became a home. Things that might be universal but seem intrinsically slanted to our Australian way of looking at things. These things don’t make easy listening but you can’t deny that they’re not out there and if it’s not us, It’s someone we know who fits into some of these characters. This seems like an album that couldn’t have come from anywhere else. It comes at you like a bored driver hitting a cyclist. It also can hurt as much if you’re on the wrong end. It’s easily the best and most challenging album to come out of this country this year.

2.Harmony – Self Titled

No not a typo. That’s just how much time I’ve spent listening to the band Harmony that they take up the top two spots on my list. Coming at it from a really narrowed, personal aspect (as opposed to thinking of the album in a broader context) – I can’t think of another band or album that has perfectly articulated the psychosis that goes on in my head on a daily basis better than these 10 songs. There’s a few tracks here that stack up as mirror images to things in my past I’d sooner forget and there’s emotions in this music that I get to indulge in all the while hiding any evidence of those emotions from those I love. Maybe, just maybe I’m not the only one in this world with these fears and desires… and that’s what makes music so special.

3.PJ Harvey – Let England Shake

For the past 20 years I’ve listened to punk records (amongst everything else) and my enjoyment never wanes with them but from time to time I wonder about the argumentative nature of a small band of people disgruntled with modern paridigms yelling and screaming at another small group of people who we colloquially speak of as preaching to the converted. Now I’m not saying that this isn’t worthwhile (see above for the power of feeling connected to a message). But I do look out upon the landscape and wonder where are the albums that challenge and call out the wrongs to those whom we think of as the unconverted. I can’t help but think that it’s much more rebellious for someone in the comfort and trapping of a successful career to push themselves to call out the wrongs they see. It’s from this perspective that I have to say that PJ Harvey’s latest is the best punk album released in the last 10 or so years (GY!BE being the one before that comes to mind).
Her songs are beautiful. Her voice angelic and alluring but it’s a poisoned chalice of a message that slips from her tongue. Drink up these songs and think about their words and it’s a telling damnation to our blood-thirsty ways – both of the past and present. Let England shake is a harrowing album if you let it be. I just hope a decent proportion of her vast audience take the time to listen and not just hear.

4.Tommy Guerrero – Lifeboats & Follies

From here, the emotional drama of my musical tastes start to fall away a bit. Tommy is from San Francisco, an ex-pro skater and the maker of great dub-styled jams. This is what goes on in my house when there needs to be some grooving in the kitchen, some chillin’ and relaxing and when everyone in the house just needs to put a smile on their dial. And you know what? Just like the rest of his back catalogue, it works a treat every single time!

5.Teargas – The Way Of All Flesh

A large part of my obsession with this Brisbane hardcore punk band is the musicianship of its members. I’ve seen plenty of sloppy, fun punk bands making a racket and starting a mosh pit but something very different happens whenever Teargas play. Sure things often get violent and I’ve seen a few bloodied noses over the last year or so but the music is so ferocious and so fast and so damn tight that your head feels like an expanded rubber band held that way for half an hour – the tension of it all unrelenting. I figure that’s why folks loose their shit so easily to these five guys.
For me as a drummer, I am mesmerised by Lee Parker, Teargas’s drummer. It’s one of those things where you watch someone and you know what they are doing, you understand the mechanics but you still stand there, a confused expression plastered across your face, not understanding HOW the music is played that way. Teargas are amazing. Great on record. Phenomenal live!

6.Tom Waits: Bad Like Me

Again, I possibly said it better here but Tom is just doing what Tom does and god knows we all dread the day he hollers his way into the hereafter. A really heart-warming album.

7.Earth: Angels Of Darkness, Demons Of Light

There are not to many people who can make Metal truly soothing. Dylan Carlson is someone who has mastered this art. Metal that is slow and seeps into your pores. Metal that weighs down on you like a dense fog and Metal that takes you places that no other metal bands do (not even Sunn O)))).

8.REM: Collapse Into Now

I’ve always thought that you can’t effectively appreciate music unless you have vast and broad tastes and reference points. Hey, it’s just how I look at things. REM are one of those bands I like that sit at the other end of the spectrum of most of what I listen to these days. When this album first came out I wasn’t to fussed on it. But over time, the stronger songs came out and the “I’ve heard all this before” kind of disappeared into the background. Sure they’re probably not repeating themselves as well as Mr.Waits above but upon the news recently that the band had called it a day, I couldn’t help but think that this was as good and as strong a note as any to bow out on. An added pinch of Pattie Smith also makes any REM album that much better!

9.Boris: New Album

I listen to pop. I own Dépêche Mode records. So I didn’t have to stretch myself that far to take in the latest tangent of Japans Boris. This trio’s version of pop music still doesn’t fit into your standard definition but this album is the most far removed from the heavy hitting Doom and Metal of some of their albums. This is still an album that holds the high standards the band employ on everything they do and while it won’t change your life. It is a great listen and a great record.

10.Boris: Heavy Rocks 2011

For the Most part, what I said above applies to this album too. Not as heavy as Heavy Rocks Mk.1 but I can’t think of Boris ever repeating themselves or their music. This is fun skuzzed out rock that will no doubt really hit it’s mark when we get to see it live in a few months time. Sure it’s quite possible that this band might not ever make an album as life changing as Smile (to me) but still this bands ability to marry the beauty of their music with the sheer force of amplification and distortion that only metal can provide makes them one of the most important musical discoveries of my life.

Best Album/Band/Music discovered in 2011.

Julie Christmas/Made Out Of Babies/Battle Of Mice

You ever skip a band because they have a weird/silly/nonsensical name? I do, all the time. Sure Made Out Of Babies are on Neurot Recordings but they’re still called Made Out Of Babies. Now that’s the biggest single musical mistake I’ve made in a long time. I picked up a cheap three-way split release on Neurot because there was some Neurosis on there I hadn’t heard. The other two bands were Battle Of Mice and Made out of Babies. Both of the latter bands featured a lady named Julie Christmas on vocals.
I was fucking slack jaw after hearing the Battle of Mice song. I bought the album 24hrs later and was left virtually in tears by the emotional vehemence of its music. A few days later I bought ‘The Runiner’ by Made Out of Babies and listened to it more than any Unsane album I owned. The only tempering aspect of all this was Julie Christmas’s 2010 solo album ‘The Bad Wife. Equally beautiful and bad-tempered. These three albums being just about the best thing in both Metal and music I discovered all year.

Top live shows in 2011.

Teargas / No Anchor / Last Chaos @ Burst City

It’s probably because it was at Burst City, run by friends and with bands, who are our friends. This was a great and punishing night. No Anchor tried and in some ways succeeded in punishing folks with light and sound. Teargas just proved that not just anyone can make great music. One of the first shows of the year and still a favourite.

Propagandhi @ Hi Fi Bar

The second of two nights of seeing Canada’s Propagandhi. A band that keeps getting better and better. Almost a religion instead of music.

Built To Spill @ The Zoo

Indie rock never got so good. They played all the favourites and made good on years of wearing their records out.

Bronx @ Step Inn

The night before the big festival and several hundred folks crammed into a room fit for only a hundred. Another one of those shows where rock is meant to be uncomfortable and visceral and memorable for enjoyment that all this brings.

Kylesa/High On Fire @ Hi Fi Bar

Metal in its varying degrees. From the power of High On Fire to the psyched out dirge of Kylesa, it’s shows like this one that prove I enjoy metal more now than any other time in my life.

Future Of The Left @ The Zoo (Both in Jan & Dec)

Snotty, cathartic and funny as hell. Another one of the few rock bands on the planet that have gotten it so damn right. And don’t bother trying to tell them otherwise, you’ll just get hilariously cut in two by their frontman Andy.

No Anchor Album Launch @ Woodland

I have to put this one in. The Launch of No Anchor’s third album went a lot smoother than the launch of the second on (which resulted in a heart attack on my part). Still stressful, still fun and worth all the effort when those amps get dialed to 10 and the wash of sound cracks your skull. Sometimes it’s fun not being in the crowd.

Harmony @ The Toff

A funny one to put in. From all reports, this was a shit show on the bands scale but not to me. I put in a few kilometres to get to this, the bands 7” launch but it was worth it. I heard all their songs for the first time and was devastated by the brevity, brashness and brilliance of this band. It really is a battle between the forces of darkness and light.

Harmony @ The Zoo

Not the only time in 2011 where Harmony were the support band and I didn’t even bother staying for the main act. No point really when you know there’s no chance the headliner is going to be any better. The trauma is worth so much more when it’s mixed with the volume of full PA.

Harmony @ The Waiting Room

Jeez. How much do I have to bang on about this band. It’s embarrassing. At least you didn’t try to listen to the album a 100 times like I have at home. It’s definitely easier being a fan on your own, with your stereo. This intimate show, supported by locals Turnpike was a the second best Harmony show I saw this year but most beautiful of all their shows – thanks in a lot of ways to the surroundings and folks there.

Footnote: About 15-20% off all music I listened to this year was actually released this year.

I like Tom Waits, I imagine that he’s a gut-feeling kind of guy. Maybe I like to think that because I’m a gut-feeling kind of guy. When I first heard his new album the thought most prominent was that these 13 songs* were the best kind of ‘more of the same’ that you could place upon your turntable. On one level that’s about all you need to say. If you know Mr Waits already then off to the record store with you. If you don’t know Tom Waits, welcome to the carnival!

But for many, it’s not even about the music any more. It’s about the enigma that is this exulted musician. A man who will be, as you read this, exclaimed as a genius, lavished with superlatives and over-zealous declarations. But, you know what I love about Bad Like Me? You know what I really love? And this plays into the enigma thing. I love how unremarkable this album is.

Tom Waits is not a genius. At various junctures of his career he most certainly has been a maverick and he has almost always been a role model in the act of creativity shacking up with commerce. Tom’s not a KO kind of boxer – getting that No.1 knock out hit in the first round. No Mr. Waits has been a stayer, connecting when needed and shadowing when the road gets rough. You and I right now are most likely watching the minutes pass of the final round of his long career and we all know that the umpires will unanimously pronounce him the winner when the final bell sounds. Listening to Tom Waits really is feeling the craggy rocks and grit between your toes on the walk down that long dirt road – and it’s a good feeling.

A completely engrossing and dog-eared page in the Tom Waits songwriting rulebook that gets wheeled out on just about every album is his undying dedication to romance. Take the title track of the album. A eulogy to his demeanour?  A warning to those who try to step up? No god damn it. It’s a love letter to his wife. He’s saying ‘I’m half bonkers. You’re a freakin’ weirdo. How great is it that we’ve lasted over three decades together. That shit never, ever gets old!

No, Tom Waits hasn’t reinvented his wheel or anyone else’s but he shouldn’t have to for his chosen craft to be worthy of our time. His back catalogue of music is unique and the fact that Keith Richards, Charlie Musselwhite and a host of others are on this album make it no more remarkable (Marc Ribot however does make it somewhat more pleasurable). Time will only reinforce Tom Waits’ uniqueness – who else after all is exclaiming “heavens to murkatroid” in song? Nobody, that’s who!

www.tomwaits.com

www.badasme.com

*13 songs on the LP version of the album. There’s also deluxe and really deluxe versions with either one or three extra songs and photos and guff.

It was the 24th September 1991 that Geffen Records released Nirvana’s album Nevermind. That’s 20 years ago this week. You already know the story of Nirvana so I’m not going to repeat it. As for me. I was 15 and I’d just moved from living with one parent in the rural Darling Downs to living with another parent in coastal Mackay – both far far away from the bright lights of the big city. It was rough seas in my teenage world with trouble at school and at home. I had spent about seven or eight years previously listening to my dads old-school blues and white jazz and me listening to whatever eighties pop was in the charts. I read Smash Hits magazine and the outer reaches of alternative to me was Aerosmith.

I’m not lying when I say that I still remember sitting on the floor in the loungeroom on a Saturday morning in November watching Rage when I first saw the film clip for Teen Spirit. Something really clicked with that song. It so sounds like cheesy nostalgia to say that now but it was all I talked to people at school about the next week. A friend who was already switch on dubbed me two tapes, the two in the photo below:

I played those tapes incessantly. I played and paused Teen Spirit until I had the lyrics written out and blue-tacked to my wall. I sat there and tried to figure out what ‘Chaka’ meant written on the front of Dave Grohls kick-drum (it was many years later I found out it was a LA graffiti writer). That week, I also discovered The Ramones, Sonic Youth, Henry Rollins, The Pixies (The UK Surf Mix of Wave Of Mutilation is still my fav Pixies song to this day), Concrete Blonde, Leonard Cohen and more. Soon I would hear Black Flag, Bad Brains and more amazing bands. I have a recollection from around that time of throwing the John Farhnam cd my mum bought me, onto the train tracks outside my back fence just before one of the cane trains came rolling past.

I put this tape in the tape player last night and listened to it. It sounded so terrible. No treble left at all but it still played!

A few months later home life went south and on my 16th Birthday so did I with a train ticket for a birthday present. I didn’t have any money to buy a proper copy so I just listened to my tape in my walkman, turned it over and listened to Bleach, turned it over and so forth and so forth… until I need to go and get more batteries. Unfortunately I returned to Brisbane four weeks after Nirvana played Festival Hall. I didn’t get to go (of course) but I did track down a tour poster.

Soon I started working my first jobs and as soon as I had saved enough money, I started buying proper copies of what ever I could afford. I would catch the train for an hour into the city, go to Kent Records (my teenage self was too intimidated by the staff at Rocking Horse to go there). I didn’t have a record player but I didn’t care because I’d started… collecting records. I think I spent at least two or three years listening to my dubbed tape and just reading and looking at my records. I also bought any and every magazine that had anything to do with Nirvana in it.

As time passed, I really started to get my record collecting on, nabbing all kinds of weird things. I spent a good few years between ’92 and ’94 spending all the spare money I had on anything Nirvana – I really became consumed by the music that much. Surrounded by many years of turbulence, it was definitely the one constant and reassuring bedrock in my life.

I was still at school when I left home to go live on my own in a awful suburb called Eagleby. I saved up enough money for one of those cheap cd/tape combo players. Then I finally rested the tapes and started listening to all the Cd singles and I’d bought and I finally got proper copies of the albums.

I discovered some of the weirder people in the world too. Sure I had done plenty of experimenting in my life already but this was how I discovered William S. Burroughs.

I remember arriving outside the record store at 7am the day In Utero came out. I bought the tape/poster combo. I could have bought the cd but I wanted to be able to listen to the album on my walkman no matter where I was or what I was doing. I got the Lp and the CD versions with each subsequent pay-cheque.

So by the time April 1994 came around, I had piles of magazines. I think I owned at least five t-shirts. Lots of music, lots of bootleg CDs and concerts (thanks Rocking Horse 2)

Just like my vivid memories of Teen Spirit in Mackay. I have vivid memories of waking up in my share house in Southport and turning on Triple J to hear that Kurt was dead. I’d lie if I said I didn’t cry that day. Crying for a stranger I had never met and in truth didn’t know apart from what he wanted to tell journalists. It took 24hrs for things to be confirmed and all the details to come out. I have this tape with compiled news reports from the 9th April 1994. I think every time a news story came on. I just hit record. I don’t think I’ve ever actually gone back and listened to this tape…

Apparently, next week there are cinemas around Australia, there are Nirvana screenings of a live concert from back in the day. I can’t go because I will be on tour with my band and so I have ignored it all so I don’t feel like I am missing out. I do remember however when MTV unplugged came out. I won the opportunity to go see it in the cinema just before it was released. I won the pass by listening to and phoning into Triple M (the things we do?!?!). There was some obscure quiz question after the screening and I was the only one in the packed cinema who knew the answer. I won a numbered single and a promo single. It’s maybe not much but I was stoked!

As the years passed, I searched for more and more new music. I discovered a lot of amazing bands that I learned more of life’s lessons from. Money got tight and life got hard in the late 90′s and I sold a large quantity of what I had collected. It’s a shame but you do what you’ve got to.

I remember lots of people getting Kurt and Nirvana tattoos in ’94 and ’95. So many smiley faces! I wanted one but was never game to do so. Just a few years ago I read ‘Nirvana: The True Story’ by Everett True. Again, like so much to do with this band, I bought it the day it arrived in Bookstores. I remember reading it over a few days. I remember crying when it got to those final chapters and I remember feeling amazing a few weeks later when I finally decided with complete resolve to get this tattoo…

I’ve read lots of stories over the years that say that everyone has an album or piece of music that changed everything for them and that they, from that moment on judge everything else by. I guess that’s why there are so many babyboomers who never made it past Led Zeppelin or The Who. I have been buying new albums by bands every single week since 1993. I think there has only been seven or eight bands that have equalled how Smells Like Teen Spirit made me feel that first time I heard it.

Sure, a bunch of record execs have made lots of money off people like me. They still are today seeing as I’ve pre-ordered two different 20th anniversary deluxe re-issues of Nevermind but you know what? I don’t care how many times I’ve heard these songs, I still haven’t worn them out! I also haven’t worn out many of the records I’ve collected over the last 20 years and to this day still get a kick from searching out and finding a record by a band I love.

We all start developing an enlightened view of the world from one kernel, one flash-point. This was my kernel that helped me to understand, read and discover more on feminism, social hierarchies, the ideology of music, outsider music and the underground, suicide and the philosophies of death in modern culture and more. Sure if it wasn’t this it would have been something else. But it was this and this week I’m celebrating that!

Evil Eddie

Mt.Augustus

In fact, Pastel Blaze might have been back in February. It was five minutes in cramped, packed & dingy female toilets. Guess who felt like the odd one out as a line formed at the door?

Pastel Blaze

The Anchors

Halfway

Die On Planes

Sometimes you photograph people and you walk away with that one good shot. Sometimes folks actually work with the camera and you get several shots you love. That was the case with the Rationals…

Rational Academy