Been a long time, been a long lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time

Hey all,

People have been telling me to update this thing for some time now, and now I think I have something to write about the time feels right to bring this blog back...

So, it's been 8 months since I last posted something. So much has happened! In no particular order, I have:

- become a DJ (though some may dispute this)

- turned 21 (!)

- quit Stature::Statue

- took 6 months off from uni and returned last month full time

- discovered JUSTICE ✟

- formed a new band

- been photographed in public

- and a whole bunch of tears and controversies brought by various people

Indeed I have done much in my time away from this here blog, but I'll try and intersperse events from the past 8 months into current entries in some relevant contextual manner. I hope.

I'd like to firstly draw attention to some other blogs that I follow and greatly admire in terms of the work they do. Firstly is Jacob Lambert's photography ( http://jacoblambert.blogspot.com/). Jacob has only been into photography for a year, being a total novice when he began. The work he's done on that site and for various patrons (the esteemed getanightlifemaaaattteeee included) is incredible, or at least I think so. I like the way he sees and captures things, his use of light to humble the subjects he photographs, whether they be landscapes, people or animals, is very organic and his photos never cease to catch my eye and imagination.

Keep in mind I am not aficionado on the art of photography, but I think there lies the beauty of Jacob's work. You don't have to be to appreciate the authenticity and substance of his photographs, many of which depict experiences shared between himself and his closest friends and the places and scenarios in which they take place. I won't say too much more as you really do need to see these photos for yourself, but I will say that the fact that he's had no prior experience in photography outside one year ago is astounding, and so refreshing when someone is both passionate about what they do, as well as being really fucking good at it. I'll post up some of Jacob's stuff a little bit later on which will tie in nicely with the subject of my new band.....

The other blog I would like to draw attention to is Turn it Up! (turnitupto10.blogspot.com/). Essentially, a library of one man's concert experiences, accurately recorded through in-ear microphones, documenting concerts from Rosie's on a Thursday night to the Primavera Sound Festival in Spain. Some absolute gems in there, and seeing as I write enough about music, I'll leave you to check it out.

Onto other matters. My departure from Stature::Statue was as controversial as it was necessary, after about 18 months of hard work from everyone and no release and endless delays, I finally decided that I'd rather do things that warranted my time and energy proportionate to how much fun I was getting out of it. This is not at all to speak ill of my bandmates, with whom I've shared many many hours and experiences, all of which I dearly cherish but no less also contributed to my eventual decision.

Having made that decision though, I have gained a new perspective on what I feel it means to play in a band, be creative and be successful. I've decided that doing it for fun is the best way to express yourself and not to be concerned so much with the indie pop culture in terms of creating the music for a purpose any other than enjoyment. However, with this paradigm you run the risk of developing tall-poppy syndrome when acts other than yours achieve greater success while having a perceived lack of talent/ability/style or the plain fact you don't like their sound and you believe you deserve it more than they do.

Deserving it, however, couldn't have less to do with it. Far be it from my place to name who I think does and does not deserve success of the generally understood sort (JJJ airplay, contract, touring, merch), I only write to illustrate how trivial it really is. It doesn't matter. I wouldn't call my new band THE SUPER ELECTRIC TRIO OF DOOM if I gave a shit, would I? That name is a calling card of a person who clearly has very little pop sensibility and wants to keep it that way. For this group, I sought out two other musicians who are superior (in my mind) both technically and musically to myself, got some basic ideas together, and jammed out. To me, it's been great for my playing technically and musically, and I can easily finish a song or session and know that I've expressed myself to the utmost extent in a manner appropriate to the music that was being played. That is a very satisfying thing, something that you can't always get from playing a set of radio-friendly singles in the vain hope of capturing the trendy audience's ear.

And to simply express my view, fuck that.

Why bother? I would sincerely hope that as a musician I am worth more time and attention than 3 minutes on Triple J (maybe not...?), and as such I have gone off the idea of truncating musical ideas and exploration through improvisation. But this perspective does have some merit when you consider that bands can spend thousands of dollars and hours on releasing music, touring, driving, lifting equipment and just the amount of pure mental work it requires to be consistently creative for a commercial purpose. Most of all those things are spent in vain with very little artistic fulfilment (or so I would argue), but of course no one listens to music made by musicians for musicians, so basically it's all pointless. Time to find a new hobby? Perhaps.

But I gave up on the idea of pleasing most people some time ago, I'm constantly validated in my non-interest by simply catching public transport, talking to punters, listening to the radio or reading promotion material on facebook. It's literally all shit, all sounds the same, made for the same people who spend the same stupid amount of money on the same festivals every year. Snore.

Anyway, enough of my ranting. My new group is actually really good. Probably better than your band. We've only been together a month and I literally couldn't be happier. Check us out at

http://www.myspace.com/se3od

or

The name is staying.

Download our recordings here: http://www.mediafire.com/?mzwm4yicz5h

and here: http://www.mediafire.com/?mnoyhmymnnm

And as promised, some wonderful photos of the group at a recording session on 20/03/2010. Neal on bass, Eddy on guitar/keys and myself on drums. Thanks to Peter Hüttenmeister for recording us, though I did dirty them up a bit afterwards... Enjoy!

Live recording

Bought a Zoom H2 last week, brilliant. Tried it out the other night at our show at Rosie's, and am pretty happy with how our set sounded. A tiny bit muddy, but considering the room and the amount of people in front of the mixing desk, the recording turned out very clear (a bit of EQ wouldn't be bad though). Anyway, here's new track 'Rumours' live and very very raw. It'll be on the EP, but a bit more polished, as I'm sure you'll see. A bit of a throwaway song, so much fun to play and I get to pretend to be Dave Grohl for about 2 minutes, what more could I ask for?

Get it here.

Recording/Recent Purchases (Short Version)/Super top secret awesome production notes

Hey all,

Glad to see I have quadrupled the number of followers of this blog, thank you and thank-you kindly.

Of late I've spent huge amounts of time around this funny looking contraption:



And also this funny looking person:



But have still had time to get some decent CDs. No reviews this time, just check them out if you're interested, none of them are duds really so you can't go wrong. I will say, however, that when I purchased the Trio Of Doom/Mahavishnu stuff at Rocking Horse on Friday, the cashier said "A couple of fusion grails for the weekend hey?" to which I responded "Yes." I wonder if I helped perpetuate the stereotype of the jazz-fusion fan, equipped with facial hair, uncomfortable demeanor and defective personality? But after all it was Friday afternoon and I knew very well what I was buying.



Oh, this is me trying to make you jealous:



There. As for the purchases above, I'll have to come back and review a few of them, some interesting finds in there that I wish to discuss. Another time for sure. Anyway, here are some notes I've made on the Stature EP thus far, just got a rough mixdown (with only a few guitars to be thrown in) and shared my thoughts on some aspects of the recording. I should say now that it sounds absolutely killer and Glen (our engineer and perpetual dinner guest) has outdone himself in his ambition in producing and engineering this recording, and the results will blow minds if what I've been hearing is any indication. Not really sure why these notes are important, they're probably not, but I thought I'd share.





I have glasses now too. Great fun. Speaking of, if you're not busy this weekend:



We're on at 10:30. Come and see me in equally unflattering poses, with music! Fun!

- James

Last Day of April/Led Zeppelin

Very nice day today.

In terms of music stuff, I have some goodies to share. Tomorrow, going into the studio with S::S, getting drum sounds all right and tight, should be great fun. In terms of reviews etc., I have a bit of a treat. If you like rock. Here we go!


Quick rundown of grading:

0.0 - 2.0/10 - Shit Purchase
2.1 - 4.0/10 - Poor Purchase
4.1 - 6.0/10 - Average Purchase
6.1 - 8.0/10 - Good Purchase
8.1 - 9.0/10 - Great Purchase
9.1 - 10/10 - Excellent Purchase

Led Zeppelin - Discography

(Click on the picture to open it in another tab/window)




So I'm just going to assume people know the story here with the group, there's nothing really that I can share that would be much more insightful than a quick wiki and internet dig. So, Led Zeppelin (1). Everyone remembers when they first heard this album, such a unique musical sound to the whole thing. Heavy but wholesome, so many nuggets of awesomeness and modest displays of musical ability. Essentially there's not a bad song on here, and I realise even doing this review is extremely cliched. But I haven't listen to Led Zep properly for a good couple of years, and when you actually sit down and listen to the albums objectively, you can really fall in love with them all over again.

Speaking of love, and a lotta love, this brings me to Led Zeppelin II (2). Pretty bad-arse, thick guitar tones, wicked drumming, very sexual lyrics and imagery, I remember blushing when I listened to this all the way back in grade 7 or something. The whole album exemplifies Zep's 'tight but loose' approach to live performances, especially seeing as this was recorded on the road during 1969. Some of these songs are blogs in themselves, Heatbreaker, Ramble On...all classic. Basically, all the live versions of these songs shit all over the studio ones, just because they don't sound as proper and are so much more raw and energetic, not to say that there aren't moments of brilliance, of course. The most bizarre track is surely Living Loving Maid (She's Just A Woman), which should have come about 5 years before this album did. Drums sounded better on Led Zep I, in my opinion.

Led Zeppelin III (3) is a tough one, but at the same time an easy one. Let me just say very quickly that I was never a fan of their acoustic stuff save for a couple of songs. And let me say that Friends, Hats Off To (Roy) Harper, Bron-Y-Aur Stomp, Gallows Pole aren't among them. I respect the idea and of course they are quite good songs, but Since I've Been Loving You has got to be the highlight. This is one of the ultimate sad songs for me. It brings you down with the start, then by the guitar solo something is definitely brewing inside you, resulting in one of the greatest climactic guitar solos I've ever heard. Plant's delivery is flawless, the drums sound amazing, the organ is so moody it's unreal. Out On The Tiles could probably be my theme song. Unless it was Houses Of The Holy, but we'll get to that.

Led Zeppelin IV/Zoso/whatever (4). Don't really need to say anything about this one, other than that if Going To California wasn't on there the album would be perfect in every way. I wish they would've fucked off the acoustic stuff onto one album so they didn't have to screw up my enjoyment of the finest-crafted heavy music on the planet.

Houses Of The Holy (5), I thought this was probably their most consistent album since the debut, no lame acoustic pandering, just all prog and rock. This album sounds like fun. And it is fun! The opening double of The Song Remains The Same/The Rain Song couldn't have been done better, atmospheric and powerful, I've listened to these songs on repeat many many times. Over The Hills And Far Away sucks compared to what it became live, a grooving, heavy beast of a tune, here it just sounds too tame. Bonzo's drums are too low in the mix, too much acoustic guitar...blah blah.... The Crunge is on par with Eddie Murphy in terms of humourous tribute to James Brown: "I'm just trying to find the bridge!". When I heard the drums I made sure I learnt it straight away and could play it perfectly by the next week's band practice back in grade 11. So great to hear musicians having fun, especially as seeing Robert's crooning and uber dorky keyboards may not be to everyone's tastes. No Quarter is the best track on here by a mile. I can't believe they had to resort to ripping of Sean Kingston for D'yer Mak'er though, really guys, I expected more. The Ocean is a fun song, much more powerful live though.

Ok. Let's talk about some real shit. Physical Graffiti (6). From the fuzzy guitar and clavinet opening of Custard Pie, it's clear something epic is about to happen. Basically the first 7 songs are absolute classic (this includes Kashmir, In My Time Of Dying, Trampled Underfoot, Houses Of The Holy), that has to be some kind of streak. If you ignore Bron-Yr-Aur and Down By The Seaside I personally don't think you'd be missing much. Ten Years Gone is every bit sad and moving as Stairway, The Rain Song or Since I've Been Loving You. A great story combined with watery guitars and excellent songwriting makes this an absolute treat. Night Flight sounds like it could have been sung in Motown by someone like Clarence Carter. I really like what they've done with it. The Wanton Song is a favourite of mine, particularly because of the chorus, that chord progession is amazing, nothing comes close to comparison or describing what I feel when I hear it. Forget Boogie With Stu and Black Country Woman, Sick Again is a solid rocker which was a great staple in their sets from '75 - '77. Despite some interesting experimentation, this album is solid gold, the only one being heavier or more bad arse being.....



Presence. (7)


Achilles Last Stand is probably one of the greatest songs ever written. Epic in every way, an extremely complex and difficult song, you can't pause or stop this song once it plays, it's instantly captivating and the perfect way to start off Page's guitar swan song (no pun intended). For Your Life is a fantastic song and ridiculously heavy, bluesy romp. Royal Orleans/Hots On For Nowhere/Candy Store Rock are good songs and feature impressive riffing, but unfortunately not as strong as Achilles or Nobody's Fault But Mine or Tea For One. The former is a phaser-heavy guitar-glory jam, the latter, a heavy-starting shimmering desert blues. Brilliant. Have to be in the mood for it though.

The movie mostly sucked, but the performance pieces are where it's at, and that's just what the Soundtrack To The Song Remains The Same (8) is all about. I think it's superior to the reissue mainly because of the version of No Quarter, featuring one of Page's best solos (live or studio) without a doubt, which is chopped and changed on the reissue. A shame. The recording does sound a bit dated but does keep the theme of the film and having heard the bootlegs it's a fair representation of their fabled performances at the Madison Square Garden in 1973.

Led Zeppelin Vs. Impending 80s doom. In Through The Out Door (9) is the venue. How do they fare? Well if you were listening to the album for the first time and heard In The Evening, you'd be chuckling to yourself gleefully. However after South Bound Saurez starts up you find yourself in unfamiliar territory. Not in the sense that they're having a bit of harmless fun with a boogie down, but it actually seems like a lot (too much) serious thought went into this song. A shame. Fool In The Rain is great for two reasons: 1. The drums. 2. That octave/fuzz pedal Jimmy uses for his solo. Not a huge fan of the street-party fiesta break down, but I can live with it with all the other incredible musicianship on display. Hot Dog. A turd. A Turd Hot Dog. I actually quite like Carouselambra, I mean, if I was limited to the number of presets on a synthesizer that John Paul Jones probably was back in 1978, I would've thought the opening sounded pretty cool. It seriously dates the recording though, which sucks, because you don't have that problem with almost all of their other work. The bridge is amazing though, a suitable reward for listening to 10 minutes of keyboard work most bands would imitate nowdays to be funny. If you just cut to 4:05, you'll be fine, that's where the glory starts. Trust me. All My Love is a great song, but it suffers from the god awful synths again. Everything else is fine. Closer I'm Gonna Crawl is a track I nearly always skip, and I can't find any justification to reverse that decision.

Coda (10), you really either love or hate this one. I personally think the new songs that they were working on fucking sucked, I'm kind of glad they appeared on here rather than squeezed out as the turd-twin to In Through The Out Door. It's good for a couple of old rarities and Bonzo's Montreux, but not really essential. Which makes sense because it's not really an album. Sigh.

The first disc of BBC Sessions (11) is great; a collection of various early radio spots for the BBC in 1969 (mostly, I think). Some hot and not-so-hot versions of classics such as You Shook Me, Communication Breakdown and my favourite The Girl I Love She Got Long Black Wavy Hair (which would later become Moby Dick). A good document of the early bluesy live sound of the band if you're not keen on straying from the official releases. Disc 2 is a concert from 1971, warts and all. A very raw and revealing recording, probably didn't help that Robert's voice wasn't in great shape. It has its moments though.

How The West Was Won (12). I'm not saying anything about it. Discover it yourself, then see what happens.

Finally, The Song Remains The Same reissue (13). Now, you can't have the reissue and not the original, so you really should get both, because they're both great in their own ways and together they form a more complete document of the performances. I'd still go the original over this any day, but I've got both so it doesn't really matter. Yay!



I do realise I've left a lot out about the albums, but I'm leaving it to you to discover them and enjoy them in your own way, that's the best part.


Ok. So how do Zep Score? (I'm scoring them relative to each other)

(1)::: 10/10 - Excellent Purchase - Led Zeppelin
(2)::: 9.4/10 - Excellent Purchase - Led Zeppelin II
(3)::: 8.9/10 - Great Purchase - Led Zeppelin III
(4)::: 9.7/10 - Excellent Purchase - Led Zeppelin IV
(5)::: 9.5/10 - Excellent Purchase - Houses Of The Holy
(6)::: 9.6/10 - Excellent Purchase - Physical Graffiti
(7)::: 9.7/10 - Excellent Purchase - Presence
(8)::: 8.5/10 - Great Purchase - The Song Remains The Same Soundtrack (Original)
(9)::: 6.8/10 - Good Purchase - In Through The Out Door
(10)::: 5.9/10 - Average Purchase - Coda
(11)::: 8.0/10 - Good Purchase - BBC Sessions
(12)::: 28/10 - You can't not have this. - How The West Was Won
(13)::: 8.0/10 - Good Purchase - The Song Remains The Same Soundtrack (Reissue)

Thanks for reading, go forth and listen!


- James

Recent purchases and reviews

I love amazon. Without it I'd be stuck paying $150.00 for a Miles box set as opposed to just over $40 on amazon. Sweet sweet amazon. Anyway, a decent and compact summation of my basic musical tastes. Been on a bit of a Miles binge for a good year now I think, reaching a head soon I think, really love the period that these box sets represent. Kind of weird to see why everyone was so excited about Bob Dylan when this shit was being recorded, phenomenal stuff.

Quick rundown of grading:

0.0 - 2.0/10 - Shit Purchase
2.1 - 4.0/10 - Poor Purchase
4.1 - 6.0/10 - Average Purchase
6.1 - 8.0/10 - Good Purchase
8.1 - 9.0/10 - Great Purchase
9.1 - 10/10 - Excellent Purchase

So from front to back, L-R, row by row:

Flying Lotus - 1983

His first album, pretty good, Los Angeles shits all over it though. In between making this album and LA, I think he learnt that ambient dusty instrumentals aren't really designed to go for 6 minutes and that sometimes it is possible to be too minimalistic in his beats. At only a few listens, it has some great ideas and the sound that everyone loves about FlyLo is definitely there, but not flourishing as it has later on. 6.5/10 - Good Purchase.

"1983" by Flying Lotus



Miles Davis - Filles De Kilimanjaro

One of my favourites. The second electric outing of Miles' Second Great Quintet. Tony Williams is amazing on this album, but when isn't he, really? Released in 1969, preceding both In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew, the themes that started on Miles In The Sky return for a more rhythmically free exploration of early jazz fusion. Not that fucking distasteful Weather Report synthy shit, or anything Chick Corea did after about 1972. No way, genuinelly innovative and captivating, a great listen. 8.5/10 - Great Purchase.

*Note: I did have a copy of this previously that I bought second hand in NYC, but upon further inspection the CD was a bit scratched, so I thought I'd order another copy to fit in with my pristine Miles collection. So there.

"Frelon Brun" by Miles Davis



Miles Davis - Water Babies

Haven't really had enough of a listen to this one to give it a rating. Basically it's a collection of B-Sides from the period of Filles De Kilimanjaro/In A Silent Way etc., will report further upon further listening. Not expecting amazing things, but who knows.


Various Artists - African Scream Contest

Sub-title reads: "Raw & Psychedelic Afro Sounds from Benin & Togo 70s". Probably one of the greatest album/compilation titles of all time. Basically this guy (can't be stuffed to look up his name now) travelled to Africa a couple of years ago to investigate some of the music of this period, and actually met with and interviewed the artists whose tracks he wanted for this compilation, some very interesting stories inside. So he got personal permission from the dudes who wrote and played this music and then just puts it out for the world to see, very cool stuff. The music is an eye-opener, the opening track is killer. You hear the western influences of James Brown etc etc, but the whole sound is totally unique and infinitely listenable. I can't speak African, but the music seriously speaks for itself. A great collection of otherwise certain-to-remain-unheard tracks from the continent that gave us humanity, AIDS and Fela Kuti, also the liner notes would've been a total mission to compile, and the music is fucking rad. 9.2/10 - Excellent Purchase.

"Mi Kple Dogbekpo" by Lokonon André & Les Volcans



Eddie Kendricks - The Motown Solo Albums Vol. 1: Keep On Truckin'/Vol. 2: The Thin Man

Former Temptations frontman Eddie Kendricks. You know he must've been cool when the liner notes start by saying how handsome he was and how it was basically inescapable that he pulled bitches above and beyond what the rest of Motown was capable of at the time. Having a distinctive falsetto voice, maybe a little less earnest than Curtis Mayfield, it's interesting to see what Eddie's albums actually contained. The results may shock you. For being famous for that one voice, he has a great range of timbres and a strange affinity for male back-up singers on quite a number of his songs. An odd choice, or so I would've thought. I basically bought this for three songs: My People....Hold On, Intimate Friends, and Girl You Need A Change Of Mind. Also because I thought that the rest would be quite decent. I was mostly right, but again, if you're presented out of the blue with about 5 CDs worth of Eddie Kendricks (88 Tracks), 85 of which you've never really heard before, there's going to be some dud, standard Motown-filler material. Aside from all the baby-missing and sugar-loving and mind-changing there's a real talent in Kendricks himself, a versatile and honest voice that is entertaining and convincing. Definitely would not recommend this to anyone who has no idea what the fuck I'm talking about, but if you like your soul smooth, and your voices high, and your heart on the verge of breaking, you clearly need these. Vol. 1 is marginally better than Vol. 2 because from about 1975 onward Eddie does just a little too much blow and gets caught up in the disco thing. Inevitable really, but quite good. Overall though.... 8.0/10 - Good Purchase.

"Intimate Friends" by Eddie Kendricks



Miles Davis - The Complete In A Silent Way/Bitches Brew Sessions

Quick and easy review. If you know and love the two albums which these are documents of, then the purchase is essential. But if you decide to buy these on a wing you'll be severely disappointed. Here's what's on them: All, or nearly all, of the complete takes of the recording sessions which produced both albums. Lots of experiments, some work, some don't, some 3 minutes long, some 26 minutes long. This is Miles Davis in transition. The best thing about these is you can actually HEAR the transition, you can hear the band figuring out what to play, exploring new musical territory. The finished products (aka album cuts) are included here too, so you can again hear what innovation sounds like. Not to mention read about it in the gorgeous and extremely detailed booklets that come with each set. It will tell you when what was recorded, where it was recorded, who played on it, where it appears in the final album and general notes and awesome photos from the sessions. A blow by blow account of how Miles changed jazz forever. You'd be hard pressed to find more innovative albums in the world of jazz (relative to the time period, of course) and to have them documented in their (almost) entirety is such a great treat and worth the price, which still isn't that hexing. 10/10 - Excellent Purchase.

So yeah. That's about it for this round of purchases. Let me know what you think, I have a ton of other music to sift through, which I'll no doubt get to at some point.

Til next time -

Blog the first

Welcome, this is new and will probably be great. This blog has been created under similar circumstances to which I'm sure countless others have, having taken a nodoz while attempting to write assignments, but dedicating time to far more important things.

So where does this leave us? I suppose I'll just put up music I have and like and share with people who want to listen, but also call out shitty bands and other stuff as I see fit. I'm not really expecting anyone to read this so we'll see what happens. I play drums, mostly, in two arguably shitty bands, one more so than the other, or so I hear, so maybe expect some news from there. I live in Brisbane which is not too bad at all, it's not New York, but then, not many places are. First post proper will be up soon, hope you find me as interesting as I do.

Cool.