antediluvian music

Plagued by the recurring idea that I am walking down the stairs towards a platform, number 19 ... I think ... the one that carries you to another platform. The soothing voice overhead gives it away ... it seems to be a big city ... must be a train station.

the rushing sound is interesting, large amounts of water I reckon.

I wonder when the flood will come ...

Flying dutchman

.

photo

from

Live&LetDIY

festival

2006

Perming

Having just sojourned to Brisbane and the North Coast of NSW I have returned to the infernal inferno that is ... the CENTRE!!!!

Gig at Live&letDIY was amusing, I blew up some electrical lines and stuff ... got lost in Brisbane's oneway streets attempting to find an Allen's music store open on a Sunday (it was) in the name of buying a new transformer for me singed little pedal. Gig was short because I wasn't in the mood anymores ... and I had no real sense of time whilst in front of a half empty room and ... I don't know ... ask the Brissy punks what they reckoned.

My brother lives and manages the Permaforest Trust over near Nimbin/Uki area. So I got chauffered down there in the middle of the night and it RAINED like heavy metal falling from the sky.

There's a link to their website on the right-hand side of this page ... good bunch ... might have to spend a year there myself.
poor in money but rich in food.

I have a good recipe for corn bread which was pretty successful ...

dry ingredients
corn meal - 1 cup
spelt / wheat flour - 1.5 cups
salt - 1 teaspoon

bakin' soda/powder - 1 teaspoon

honey - 2 teaspoons

wet ingredient
egg - 1 of,
milk - 1.5 cups
butter - 45grammage

* mix the dry ingredients together
* melt honey and butter in pot then mix all the wets together
* mix them up all together in a lovely big pottage

* pour it into a buttered bread tin
*bake for 30-35 minutes ... longer if there's a roast in the oven with it.

*tip bread tin upside down and karate chop the bottom and
VOILA ... upside down corn bread.

I also met a psychopath who was riding from there through Wilcannia to Adelaide in an expected seven days ... nice bike ... psychopath.

hippies in drum circles give me the irrates.
But red daka bananas are pretty delish ... down with the cavendish!

Getting married sometime in Janvier.
Learning German.

Concerts

gigs in backwards order from most recent (or even future if they're coming up) to the distant past.
2012

- May 5 - Moonah Arts Centre for Experimental Music Night with the Lords of Leisure and the Hobart Improvisation Collective.

- Feb 18 - MoMa market at MONA - Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart

- Feb 5 - Jackey's Marsh Forest Festival, Northern Tasmania

- Jan 26 - Invasion day playing the look-out building on Mount Wellington with the Hobart Improvisation Collective.

2011

• December 2 - Sydney - The Silent Hour XX

• October 2 - Swamp Art Compostery - the Poobah Bazaar free entry.

• September 30 - Inflight ARI - Sound Klub! Free entry


• August 20 - Sound to Light - Hobart, with Christopher Downes details to be announced


• June 25th - General Store Gallery, Woolloomooloo, as part of The Sound Hour


• June 17th - Watch This Space gallery, Alice Springs as part of Mimi Leung's exhibition.


• June 4th - Alice Springs - the playground near Spencer Hill!! Acousmatic ecology


• April 1st - at the Grand Poobah supporting Enola Fall's "I am an aerial" CD launch


• January 7th - the Hobart Improvisation Collective - 6a's last do. Long live 6a


• January 6th at Quark Quark, Aloo Aloo part 3 - House concert in West Hobart with Silberhörnli

2010

• September - Quark Quark, Aloo Aloo.


• July 4th Sunday at Quark Quark, Aloo Aloo part - house concert in West Hobart


• June 4th Friday Hobart Brisbane Hotel at 6a Compilation CD launch with 'Hobart Improvisational Collective.


• May 3rd Monday Alice Springs East-side - Goyder Lane Electric Ecology free concert 7pm


• May 2nd Sunday Central Australia, Ross River at the Wide Open Space festival with J9 Stanton


• March 13th Saturday Hobart at the Peacock Theatre, Hobart supporting ROIL


• Feb 14th Sunday Florentine Valley with J9 Stanton, Cabaret festival


• Jan 19th Tuesday Hobart ABC radio - live in studio and interview with Ryk Goddard


• Jan 17th Sunday Hobart Mona Foma festival with Anthony Magen on visuals


• Jan 13th Wednesday Hobart Mona Foma festival with Anthony Magen on visuals


• Jan 12th Tuesday Hobart Mona Foma Festival workshop

2009

• October 4th at the SOAK BAR with Biddy Connor 7:30, North Hobart, Tasmania


• July 10th, Friday - With Charles Du Cane: CD Launch @ Siren's ballroom. Hobart!!


• May 12th, Alice Springs - East side Goyder Street Lane - open air gig: 7:30pm


• May 2nd, Wide Open Space Festival - Ross River Resort. Saturday. Three day festival - NT.


• April 25th, with J9 - the Lane Restaurant. Alice Springs Mall


• April 18th, with J9 - the Lane Restaurant. Alice Springs Mall


• April 7th, with J9 Stanton at the DesArt conference, Alice Springs Plaza


• March 5th, Melbourne - Brunswick, the Edinburgh Castle with "Genevieve & Jezebel"March 3rd, Melbourne - Fitzroy, the Old Bar with "Great Earthquakes" & "Wonderful Fellowship"


• February 25th - Hobart - the Brisbane Hotel with various folks (Anthony Rochester, Manchester Mourning, the Love In).

2008

• December 28th, Hobart - Container Project, The Tasmanian Taste Festival with Nadine Kessler.


• December 12th, Hobart - "Reel" @ 6a Artist Run Intitiative end of year party, North Hobart with Soundtracks will dissolve.


• October 24, Friday at the Alley Cat Bar in North Hobart.


• September 21st, Sunday at the Edinburgh Castle with “Genevieve & Jezebel”.


• September 17th, Wednesday at Consolador de dos caras, @ la Campana, 53-55 liverpool st, the spanish 1/4, Sydney


• August 24th, Sunday at the Audiopollen Social Club, West End, Brisbane. (Forest Cafe, Boundary Road)


• July 14th, Monday at the Old Bar (Melbourne), with Seth Rees and the charming Lehmann Smith


• May 20th, at the Privatclub, Berlin, Germany, with Bleubird & the Chap


• May 6th, fourtrack on stage at the Monkey Club, Prenzlauerberg, Berlin, Germany


• March 4th, the Make It Up Club at Bar Open, Fitzroy, after 9.00pm


• March 4th/5th, Tuesday night - Interview on RRR Radio on the To and Fro show from Midnight to 2am Wed morning.

2007

• December 30th, Sunday - Bar 303 ... The Great 303 Gig!!


• November 13th, Tuesday - Bar Open @ the Make It Up Club, Brunswick Street, Fitzroy, Melbourne.


• November 10th, Saturday - Forepaw shop front, 275 High Street, Northcote, Melbourne.


• November 9th, Friday - The Afterdark bargallery, 565 High Street, Northcote, Melbourne.


• September 18th - J'Bird's place, Watch This Space, Alice Springs. Part of the Sounds Unusual Festival.


• August 31st - I Can't Believe It's Not Art! Watch This Space Gallery, Alice Springs. Preview for of the Sounds Unusual Festival.


• January 1st - New years day wind-down, Old South Road, Alice Springs NT

2006

• December 3rd - Live&LetDIY festival, West End, Brisbane, Qld.


• June 3rd - Jamnesia @ the settlers cottage, Alice Springs NT

2005

• February 20th - the playhouse @ the Chocolate Factory, Chippendale, Sydney

Katherine Hot Springs.

photo - Robert Bayer

Come to Brisvegas for Live&LetDIY punk and zine fest ... I'll be there ... someone else'll be there ... it'll be grand-a-rama.

Since I lost the little doobywhatzit from the bottom of this blog that counts people moving in and out of my staked out section of the web I have even less faith that people read this blog ... not that I've been writing much lately ... my life has been fairly busy though I have not much to say.

Consequently ... I shall stop writing.

except to say that - we didn't pay the phone-bill for the landline ... so all you people who never called me ...

the vindication of your reprehensible neglection of me has finally been vindicated you reprehensible neglectors of me.

part

Hey folks … great news!

In January I reckon ... I'm getting married!!

to the gorgeous, sexy and wonderful Nadine!

…
But enough about that … that’s not what this spot’s for … call me for the goss. Or write me a letter.

Scooting ‘round the tracks of the desert even more these days … with the Mark Sheldon Central Australian Remote Mental Health Service …....... .............. .............. or the MSCARMHS for short.

* boy Brightlulb will be playing at the Live and Let DIY festival in Brisbane West End on the first weekend of December. This is a ... DIY culture fest with Zines and workshops and music and stuff ... came across a DIY artist called Matthew from South Australia who made an album -> called "Matthew Is Gay"

Matthew plays the cello like a demon ... I wonder if he is gay ...

Both his album and my album will be searching their way across the world in small and interesting ways.



jxo

man stabbed with fish

My mail-order album is this a desert ? is now available ...

it's ... a few things I s'pose ...

an ode to the australian continent (lower case proper noun intentional)

... and a diatribe about the way politicians and citizens of the country of Australia using and abusing the concept of 'nothing' or 'desert' or 'noone' in terms of the vast expanses of the 'outback' as a way of lowering the significance of these places.
Language is used politically all the time ... It bugs me that by saying that there is noone out there in the desert or that the land is good for nothing, not even cattle etc etc, you pave the way for things such as nuclear waste dumps which get put in quickly and with very little fuss with little consideration for water-tables and the artesian basins far below that will be affected hundreds of years from now if an accident occurs; immediate surrounding areas; very little press interest ... consequently people believe the rhetoric because they have little interest in places that they have been told are barren and infertile - useless.

It's bizarre that Australia can have a cultural identity that has for a large part been built on this place called the 'outback' ... everyone knows that there's nothing there ... we have a big nothing in our backyard ... but not many Australians have even seen it ... if they did they might realise there's not nothing (double negative) there ... there's places, people, history - recent and distant; concepts of distance are different to the city ... the phrase "down the road" means a lot further than when you were a kid riding your skateboard to the milk-bar for a mars bar.

If you'd like to have a copy ... click is this a desert ?

flier no 3

despite what the flier says

... it isn't out in September

... it's out October 1st ...

mail order me around.

I was absent for a while just before ... I had no thoughts whilst being absent ... but here's some thoughts about absentia.

jxo

fugue

/fjug/ noun
1. Music a polyphonic composition based upon one, two, or even more themes which are enunciated by the several voices or parts in turn, subjected to contrapuntal treatment, and gradually build up into a complex form having somewhat distinct divisions or stages of development and a marked climax at teh end.

2. Psychology a period of loss of memory, when the individual disappears from his or her usual haunts.

I have a few things to say on this extract from the Macquarie dictionary from australia ... the use of the word haunts ... how gorgeous that someone can hang out in a section of their brain ... like the local billiard hall in your skull ... but then one day you strip off all of your grey matter and wander off butt naked into the bush in a fuguelike state and psychosis.

the other thing I want to say is that the description in section '1' was absolutely beautiful ... as is Bach's fugue ... though at times slightly clinical ... as is Bach's fugue, and I think that it may indeed be a worthwhile endeavour to create a modern fugue based in themes and effects that are at hand today ... wires and pedals and amplifiers.

Having been somewhat obssessed for some time with Steve Reich's phases and other such hypnotic repetitious and boringly gripping works of art/rubbish I think it that it's time I utilise the fact that I was brought up in a choir loft at the local Catholic Church with the second largest organ in Australia and catapult myself into a psychological fugue that will take me from my useless usual haunts and take us all to places we've never ever ever been before

... just let me get this album out of the way first then I'll move onto this next phase ... I mean fugue .... hm ... shit joke.

jxo

people in the middle of nowhere

When I first went to university I had two tute classes and one lecture a week ....
Brendan Nelson ... then education minister, fired half the tutors and and left me with two lectures, and one tute a week ... significant difference in my experience of learning. I learnt that professional politicians didn't give a rat's bottom about keeping the voters intelligent ... considering most of them smarmy bastards received an excellent free education I find that a bit rich.

Now I find an interview transcript where the smarmy bastard said -
"why on earth can’t people in the middle of nowhere have low-level and intermediate level waste?"

... the smarmy bastard ...

why the hell should we accept it just because people in Sydney are too stupid to realise that Lucas Heights holds 2'000 cubic metres of intermediate waste and all their children's children's children will have four heads.

or perhaps just one demonic looking head like me mate Jen below ... on her new album cover ... available October the 2ooth.









go here please ... thankyou.

I walked 'long Summerland Way

So this bloke pops out o' nowhere and scares the living bee-geezus outta me and says ... what the living friggin' hell are youse on about Brother??" and I looks at him at I reckon he's got a few roos loose in the top paddock 'cos I never seen this bloke or spoken to him at all ... EVER!! So's I says to the poor dopey bastard "Hey," i says "Hey what's your caper mate, I never seen or said nothin' more to ya's than I'd talk to me dead Aunty Polly"

He says to me ...

"oh ... sorry ... wrong bastard"

rockettothesky

Jen Hval (or Jenny Hval if you're Norwegian or demented) of old FOlding For Air fame in Melbourne has come out with a solo album ... it'll be out October 2. Check her site for details on what to do ... it's not too complicated though buying an album in Norsk may be a new experience for us all (the album is in English however) ... it might even be fun ...



enjoy

An Underwater Flyer ...

A story for Fiona ... who lives in far far away Paris amongst those -who -are -French.

there was once a boy who dived deep into the local swimming pool ... the pool was surrounded by dry dry rocks and searing heat in summer ... though some Winter nights it was got cold the top froze over. This story is from Summer though, so we don't have to worry about human bodies crunching themselves on the top layer as they dive in ... at the bottom of the pool he sat and wondered . . .
people move in slow motion underwater ... little kids all waggle their legs; folks dive in a make beautifully graceful parabolas with their entire body ...

to think this basin of liquid sits amongst stones that haven't felt water on them for months ... there was a hose poking over the side.

evaporation must account for some of the loss of water in this pool, thought the boy ... he sat on the bottom looking up at the feet of kids wearing floaters as they splashed silently by above. The boy looked down at the bottom of the pool and thought ... of course they could always fix that hole in the bottom that leaks about 44'000 litres a day into the artesian basins deep below.

That artesian basin is where we get our drinking water from ...

and have you seen what those little bloody kids do in this pool??

a flyer . . .

slightly cryptic good news

This is the Derby Jetty ... when the tide is out there is nothing to see from here except for mud and crabs ... and mud crabs.




The water is filled with salt and salties ... I dare not swim, for fear of being eaten to bits.









This is a bungle ...


the plural of bungle i.e. more than one bungle, is 'Bungle Bungle'

the child & the tractor

2003

the child and the tractor,
stormboy

A creek near a farm
… a bubbling brook

A Kingfisher

The child and the tractor
The boy climbed up
He liked what he saw
The paddocks in front
The pedal, the floor.
The dogs all barking
The horses all whinny
At the Lord of the farm,
The Tractor-God, Timmy.
The bend took too hard
An almighty crashing
Up there near the pigpen
Long live the King!

A duck-billed platypus
A platypus
is a biological oddity
So rare to find
yet a zoological commodity
Only at night
do they dare to show
And down in the mud
of the bed they go

Downstream to the sea
When down falls the soul
and dark falls the sky,
the nose of the platypus
and other platypi..,
Might nose their way up
and across, downstream,
searching the mud
for all things unseen.
But when they smell
the faint tint and taint
of the land of the gulls,
as in some old and
wisened pelly’s tell,
the platypus knows
he has swome too far.

Back to the gully
and in under trees,
for never does platypus
drift the downstreams.

River through a town
The lights of town
were drugged and drowned
and dragged deep down
to their watery grave.

And all that’s left
Of the town of night
Are sparks that escape
To the surface of sight
in broken of shard,
mere sorry reflections
of the glory of former
of formless suggestions.

The people of the darkened town
losesomely look at the river now
throwing stones from
the bridges of stone
and looking down … they dangle.
And at an angle
they just might see …
they crane their dimly eyes …
their nightclubs and scrapers,
cafes strewn with Autumn leaves,
lover kissing, city-light skies.

No longer now, no light to see.
All has been taken away it seems
All these sights and all the light
was taken by the undertow,
and dragged away, away, so slow
the direction that the ships all go.

Downstream, downstream!
Lighting naught!
it winds its way
into the bay
and stays unseen for crabs to glean.

This beach is too small to skirt the seas
This beach, it be
far too small
to skirt ‘round the sea
But it just might be
enough to skirt
‘round the land
Where we stand
if the land where we be
indeed be surrounded
by sea

The pelican and the boy
Said the pelican to the boy
Where you are headed is no place for me.

Said the boy to the pelican
Indeed.

Said the pelican to the boy
It seems wrought with complexity
and uncertainty
and inconsistency
and incongruity

Said the boy to the pelican
Aye indeed.

Said the pelican to the boy
Where you are headed is no place for me.

Said the boy to the pelican
No indeed, nor me.

Then he turned and headed back to his small
fishing boat
as the waves of the incoming tide
lapped at its side

Driftwood and shell in a glass vase
This beack is far too small
to skirt around the umpteen seas
Drifts of wood
and shells of glass
in vase inside the sunrise shards.
Too small to hold the seas inside
the tip sticks out
for you to see
In drifting, shifting sands of reefs
The once held these lives
Now washed with past.
© Joshua Santospirito 2003

water pistol

As I aimed and fired my newly acquired pistol
I felt and saw the water steam and broil

the vaporous mist
did swirl up and hiss
and our twinkling toes left the soil.

“meseemed a cloud enclosed us
lucid, dense,
solid, and smooth, like a diamond-stone
smote upon by the sun’s radiance.”


“And now I must go back:
See how the rays of light
through the thick smoke
grow brighter now?

The angel’s near
and I must leave
before he sees me.”
A cloud enclosed us.
- back –
down to the world
that we know
return

to buy things at your whim
leave knowledge of Angels
to those whom Angels know

And leave to yourself
earthly kind.

comedy

black footed wallabies
at
Ormiston pound
ten metres upwards
four seconds
they bound




Lawrence Leung
Andrew McClelland

ooh mount Sonder

I climbed a hill yesterday ... my thighs are dead tired.
From the top of that hill I could see a damn long way.

I could see Tnorala (Goose's Bluffing), Ikuntji (Haasta Bluffya), zealous Mount Zeil ... and a few other German sounding places ... The western Macs are a flavoursome place ... I met two birthday boys up there at 1374 metres above sea level.
if you could ever be bothered to walk ... HA! ... I mean climb Mt Sonder you'll find a book at the summit -> property of the Northern Territory government ... you write stuff in it when you get to the top ... not many people in Summer of course ... someone did a full moon walk up there ... in January.


Did I mention I saw the Bungles ... they have termite mounds that look like la Madre Maria ... they walk up the domes of Purnulu like a serene pilgrim mesmerised by the landscape surrounding the solid spiralled stone-bed of Picaninny Creek.

I bowed before one.

The trees are bent in Bow river.

tide

the water goes up and down in King Sound ... the crocs swim underneath at the Derby jetty ... but you can't see them ...

the water is chocolatey in a King tide brown ... the tourists snap away and eat Barra chips ... and birds nest in the hollows of the salt munched wood of the Derby Jetty.



Came back from the Kimberleys and it rained this morning ... three weeks elsewhere.

look up your atlases ... you won't see Jen ... she's in a dungeon in Norway ... you may see Pia, she's in paradise in Narooma ... Matt's in Poland, Beck is off to India ... Kat is off to the Simpson ... people are going paces and places.

I saw - the Bungle Bungles .... Mitchell Falls ... the sea at Kalumburu, a few waterfalls, Keep River and Gregory, Zebedee and a cool kid called Harry from Brisbane ... his mad mother and horror-film quoting brother.

I bought a new map but ... Pilbara ... maybe after I see some more desert

... morgen.

who is Brendan Phelan?

CD

2006 - Is this a desert? - AUS$10 - currently out of print

2004 - the balloon - AUS$10

To read about CDs go -> here
or some free listens then go to the myspace link on address bar to the right of your screen.

You can buy through mail order and you'll receive a fantastic, lovingly crafted and packaged delight in the mail.


Money orders -
71 Central Avenue

Moonah, Tasmania

Australia 7009

• I have a track that can be found on the Series Two Records compilation #16

• I also have a track on the awesome free download compilation series - New Weird Australia Volume #3

Soothsayer stuff

future projects -

2008 - I shall be hopefully touring in a couple of places in Europe in the first half of 2008: I will hopefully play in Berlin solo and also with Robert Curgenven (Aus). Oslo, Norway, with the wonderful Rockettothesky who is a native there.

After these wonderful events I shall be relocating from central australia to Hobart, Tasmania, where I hope to drop some of my extra-curricular activities and move onto more interesting planes of existence.

Conceptually speaking of course, I'd like to eventually figure out some minor opus stuff for myself ... I'd dig mixing classical and acoustic funk. Some form of fusion ... once upon a time I was a bit of mahavishnu orchestra fan so you'll have to forgive the wankiness of all of this. I'd like to create a sweeping piece that takes the listener on some wonderful ride the likes of which they've never experienced before .... wow, sounds good doesn't it? The beginnings of such an endeavour has already been undertaken ... it involves an E ... another E except higher up ... a D and an A bending towards a Bb ... nice hey? Needs a little work.

Also thinking of setting up a musical collective for extraneous-to-the-mainstream music ... perhaps silly stuff. This may include anyone from anywhere on the planet since I reckon we can send music back and forth between groups and we can all add stuff over the top just to see what comes out at the end ... or the middle ... or any other point between the close and the far end of the string. Any takers? e-mail me disco_jeans@yahoo.com.au

Other future projects for the boy Brightlulb involve him getting married to his girlfriend - the gorgeous, warm, sexy and wonderfully passionate Nadine Kessler ... getting some rental house somewhere and holing up for the winter.

xo

replace your yellow cartridge

Gatto giallo ... aaaa profundo me!


Caro mio! Che lingue e questo?




It occurs to me that the whole situation with hearing music in your head, ie the tune is "stuck" in your head, is really just an auditory hallucination and any ideation around thinking that music is, in actual fact, real ... is merely an indication of the lack of collective insight that we as a music-loving society have. In actual fact, there IS no such thing as music. I'm sure the DSM-V will have something to say about that when it finally becomes available.


because of ghosts
sam and tully

a new thing

unfortunately ... I have a propensity to garner help from people who have no way of helping me when it comes to making a CD ... I can't get to a damn computer with a mixing program on it ...

in healthier news -

I have a gig at the Settlers Cottage out of the gap Saturday night, 3rd June at around 10pm at Jamnesia (changed venues) ... hope it works well and it ain't too cold for me fingers to move along a squeaky fretboard ... but I shan't fret.

In other news ... I have a new myspace website at the behest of a friend who shall remain nameless ... I shall stick some Brightlulb music on there to download in mp3 formattage.

and my neck is better now ... Steve the chiro is a GOD! Larapinta drive ... he's very serious but there's humour there somewhere.


This is a fat ol' ghost gum,
photo by Jerome Santospirito

flies and tribulations

Full time work and study is hard ... to all those out there going through hardships ... I understand what you're going through and I salute you!

perhaps one day you'll get

to walk through the world

without being bothered by puny insects

oh the trials

a septet

opinion

I have recently been lucky enough to come across Laurie Anderson's O Superman on her bleepin' awesome album Big Science.
_____hmm, an exquisite synthetic crossing of classical sonography and vocoderous wonder.


It has also recently come to my attention that friends and strangers have taken to actually reading what I write here ... this has come as quite a shock and it occurs to me that I need to review the current state of the literature contained herein. Perhaps a news column ... ?



current affairs ?


an "opinion" section ?



an editorial perhaps ?

perhaps an editorial about how that cartoon in Last Saturday's AUSTRALIAN about Indigenous men's drinking habits was damn outrageous


........... or is that "opinion" ?
















photo on this page by Gabby Sprague

A bit of a drive

I have a gig at Jamnesia on Sat the 3rd
not at the promised land ... don't know where yet ... it's a secret venue, secret from me too.
Alice Springs
9:30ish

then my parents come to visit


Then I'm headed up the Tanami for a couple of weeks with whoever decides to share petrol moolah with me ... I'm due for an adventure ...

off to see the Bunglers.

Sol Seppy is a damn fine thing ...

A horror story

The night was dark and stormy
The dunny light was dim
I heard a CRASH!
I heard a Splash!!

BY GOSH!!
he's fallen in

It was in his best interests to serve the potatoes to the large Perentie lizard who hissed at his ankles ... he daren't not ... he better should!

But then he overcooked them and the Perentie ate his foot off in a trribily righteous disploy of rutribishuon ... and the whole seen degenerated into

noonerisms

and

speologisms.

the desert festival 2005, photo by Gabby Sprague

Zeena Parkins , Tecoma , Mick Turner.

is this a desert ?

A friend visited me not long after I moved to Alice Springs from Sydney. We bought a waterproof camera, one of them disposable ones.

There's a photo of me as I am slowly flying underwater, all is blue.

not ordinary blue ... that brilliant blue of chlorinated water. My goggles strapped to my skull making my eyes look bizarre.

Like I was in a large zero-gravity tanning salon under UV lights ... I s'pose I was really.

I saw that photo later and it seemed to me somehow surreal that I had moved to the middle of a dried up crisped up desert of a continent with nothing in it.

as time went on I bought a Beautiful Toyota Landcruiser named Emily and went on many an adventure ...

as time went by I learnt more about this continent ... it always seems that the more you know - the more realise you don't know.

Places and names sprung out of the deserts. It's not so empty as you'd think.

My mother hates the idea of desert. I keep telling her it's not a desert desert! There's trees and birds and grasses and rocks and mountain ranges and roads and people who speak many languages.

I read the newspapers ... mum sends clippings of the Age and whatnot. I occurred to me that it wasn't just mum who thinks there's nothing here ...

hell there's noone out there, why don't we dump some toxic shit in the ground . . . . . if it's over there where there's nothing around and noone to see ... it won't bother us over here on the east coast.

And since the territory ain't a state ... they ain't got the clout to put up a fight.

compact discotheques

2008 - soon to come: A shitload less understanding than what's required
by boy Brightlulb
a mini-album recorded in Melbourne over a few days ... track-listenings may include tracks by the name of
- the cranky story
- know your geometry
- the kardiya jump
- Anome
- Bind us together and lift us out of this pit

This album owes a lot to my experiences in Central Australia and my work with a few individuals in the area of remote mental health. Individuals such as Paul Hills, Craig San Roque, Marcus Tabart and Nazlin Remtulla with whom I worked on the Mark Sheldon Remote Mental Health Team in one of its more strange and unusual applications, that of the remote Aboriginal community setting.

Other individuals to whom I'm endebted to for the intensely educative process they put me through are Marjorie Lindner, Phyllis Gorey, Cecil "Crocodile" Johnston, Maisie Wayne, Marlene Nampitjimpa, Leon Petchkovsky and Frankie Ansell.

I hope to catch all you guys around some day.


2006 -
Is this a desert?
by boy Brightlulb
... ... ... ... ...

Nestling somewhere between the Dirty Three’s Mick Turner and the counterpoint of Steve Reich,
“Is this a desert?” seemingly melds into a seamless narrative of the landscape that Australians take for granted but most have never seen. It examines the way maps deceive our eyes, thinking there is nothing when there is so much, opens the listeners ears and eyes to the different countries that lie in the borders of this continent: the many formations, ranges and flats, the rainforests and the termite mounds of the Tanami deserts.
My dismay at the usage of political concepts such as the word “desert” or the idea that there is “nothing there” was the impetus behind this work.
It even has a lovingly handcrafted front cover made from some materials that I saved from the bins of printing companies (wasteful bastards! G'bless 'em).

available for $25 -
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2004 -
the balloon
by boy Brightlulb
... ... ... ... ... ... these bits follow the story of the boy who lives in a huge city. he sits on the tin roof dunes of a three storey house and watches as a baloon floats past the chimneys of the brewery and out of sight. in his mind he grabs hold of the baloon and floats away from the bizarre landscape only to find more bizarre places.


available for $AUS10 + postage (in Australia this is only one dollar) ... (anywhere else in the world, send three extra Aussie dollars, just use a currency converter anywhere on the net for exchange rates).

if ya's want one, send me a money order (get one from the Post Office) and a return address and consider it postaled.

PO Box 1186,
Alice Springs, Northern Territory,
Australia. 0871

____________________
2003 - the child & the tractor by stormboy (limited edition)
(101 copies only) not available no more

This was a mini-project that was made about the waterways of Melbourne and around. Following water from the hills down creeks and trickles to the larger river Yarra past the town of lights to the bay, and out to the sea. It was made with a microphone, an acoustic guitar, fingers, and a looping machine in the front room of a decaying house in Northcote not far from Merri Creek.

night shift pt. II

I live on a hill ... 'snob hill' to some

.................. I'm not a snob of course . . . our neighbours are wealthy ... and share their wonderful views of the Macdonnells with us plebs. I carried an armchair up to the cliff that overlooks the top of Burke Street so that I can have a beer and a fag in the evenings and watch the light change slowly over the hill . . . sometimes I read a book


I read a bit of Bill Clinton's autobiography ... and as he delivered another ripping section about the 1997 budget ...

I thought to myself "I shall now put this book down and go play soccer with some mates"

I look back on my obscure decision with a sense of odd wonder . . . why would I put that book down at that particular point?

. . . perhaps it was for the best.

musical folk who are worth a shit

Clare Bowditch

Kate Grealy

Eva Popov

Souls on board

Heligoland

Art of fighting

the dirty three

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

there are always more ... I just forgot them momentarily

I always dreamed of Kimberleying ... something has always drawn me to Broome but my only significant attempt to ge there in my life thus far was a complete and abject failure ... of course that was a decade ago now and I should have another crack ... especially since I am halfway across the country now as it is.

I've recorded some music lately (which requires some stitching up before public broadcast) with dreams of places I need to be and memories of places I have been in the past ... from the East Coast to the West ... from the Highways of New South Wales to the Bungles and Boabs of the North West, I mentioned it before here. It's working title is Is this a desert ?

I'll see how it goes ... I have to bug Olivia Swan for the use of her computer this week or next week ... and then maybe see about making covers long after that.

I think that this group of tracks is getting closer to what I want to do with albums ... it's closer to a complete collection, as opposed to a disparate bunch of moments that only have the plastic they are printed on in common.

I recently met a girl too . . . don't know why that is relevant to this website ... but she seems to bew permeating my every moment ... so it's always relevant.

Of course ... now I remember why it was relevant ... she talks of dreaming of Tasmania and the South East . . . and my thoughts always drift North West . . .

Bungles

There's a new variety night in Alice - Jamnesia. Quite the entertaining event at Promised Land every two weeks ... puppet shows and music and kids and adults ...
Come. I'll be playing there in a month, keep you informed. Was thinking of putting on one of my movies and playing the soundtrack to it ... but I'll have to see since I have to get hold of a projector.

Some of the 15/15 movies from Alice Springs played at the last one which was most amusing.



I wonder where you end up

If you have a vague dream to go somewhere, you just do it and there you are.

But I have many vague dreams alla momento so which one do I end up in?

cyclone season

There's a huge cyclone off the coast of Queensland, he's called Larry.

There was one off the West Coast a while back too ... it was called Emma

My niece is a whirlwind.


"Remember son, all our problems come out of a clear blue sky"

Out Ilparpa Way

Gabby used to say that a lot ... usually when she didn't know where something was I think ... "Oh, I dunno, I think it's out Ilparpa way"

There's claypans out there which fill with water when the rain comes ... and dries and cracks when they don't ... the water turns all chocolate brown and makes rippled lines around your ankles, ankle deep in silky brown ripples.

out on the way to Honeymoon gap.

the biggest town on the continent

So Sydney is real big and quite ... quite smelly ... and I didn't end up doing a gig there ... or Melbourne for that matter! ... looks like I'll have to unleash myself on the desert festival in Alice after all. Though in Melbourne I did see a band called Tarcutta which are worth a peek.

The website for the desert festival is on the front page of this webbo ... you should come, Alice is beyortifull in the middle of the year.

Blue mountains .... went there -> I can't believe I lived in Sydney for 14 months and didn't cotton onto that place ... it's bloody phenomenal. I could move there for a while.

xo

Melbourne

the hometown ... hasn't changed much but appears to have changed in subtle and disorienting ways ...

they changed the name of Spencer Street Station to something incredibly boring and generic ... I wonder about the Australian ability to make everything sound so bland ... I always wanted Australia to encourage a public sense of story-telling ... but when a train station changes it's name to "Southern Cross Station" you wonder whether the story was worth the paper it was printed on ... and the roof is all wonky!

the live music is always top-notch ... and you clap like crazy and drink your cute little "pot" of beer before realising that you know the organist and he went to school with your older brother ... small world ... and that was just the first night in town - highly recommend Tarcutta actually ... mesmerising, intense and a bit of an aural trip ... and Bury the Sound were good stuff too, similar deal.

Finished

I'm finished on the medical ward as of tomorrow night ... then I'm off for a bloody well-earned holiday in Melbourne and Sydney ... exit planet dust!

ahhh, the big cities of Australia ... where you can stare at the billions of suited-up sallow-faced delighted dead-eyed eye-ballers on the trams, trains and let's not forget automobiles ... cars ... as far as the eye can see

hundreds of kilometres of beautiful ... sparkling ... CONCRETE!!!

I can't wait!






If anyone is interested click on rockettothesky ... this is my mate Jen who will soon be very very famous ... in Norway that is ... and I, by association, will also be famous in Norway.

Please email her and tell her to move back to Australia and be just as famous here ... and then, if I have this right, I also will be famous in Australia as well as Norway ... hmmm, yes, I like this! Please do email her.

She makes music that is well worth the listen ... she recently got reasonable airplay on JJJ in Australia in the band Folding For Air ... the band disbanded ... and folded ... broke up that is ... because the silly girl went home to Oslo when she should be back here making me famous!

HA!!

Darwin (The Wet)

I'm in Darwin ...

wow ... greeeeeen

The foliage is falling over itself and eachother to get to out of it's own strangehold. The air is much thicker here ..... and the clouds appear to be towering mushrooms carrying the storms of the wet season ...

i don't remember having seen clouds like these ones before.

Perhaps I have but have forgotten.

There are lizards everywhere ... tartars ... little ones you could squash with your pinkies ... if you wanted to of course you could.

The sunsets ... mum told me about the Darwin sunsets once ... she was right .... fuuuu-far out!

And there is REAL asian food ... I've missed the asian groceries where you buy as much stuff as you've never seen before, go home and fry it - assuming that's what you're supposed to do with it ... and then eat it ... assuming that's what you're supposed to do with it ... and then swallow it ... assuming it's not an exotic chewing gum.

I had oysters on the wharf ... I feel like a kid ... a kid with dust on his shoulders and an akubra sticking out in an AJ* baseball cap town

After six months of being stuck in the centre, the bustle of a city is bloody lovely ... but waiting for buses is not something I dig much ... I haven't done that since I lived in Melbourne before I owned a bike ... probably about five or six years - I think I waited about five or six years for the damn bus.

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* Army Jerk

real world

Peter Gabriel is not someone who's music has gripped me ...

HOWEVER ...!! The dude bloody rocks, he started the world music label "Realworld" yonkeys dears ago and on his newer CDs he has a music program for doing your own music own your home computer - >>>

spread the love I say.


I other news, the heat is starting to get to me ... and I may need to return to the cities of the South East in late Feb, was thinking of doing a gig ... if anyone can suggest somewhere cozy (ie - Good Morning Captain-style on Johnston Street ... probably not much larger since I'll get nervous) to have a do that'd be great ... and if someone knows a decent Sydney venue that doesn't have pokies in the background that'd be cool ....

perhaps even someone's garage that they're not using.

mwah
jxo

the hot

it's hot season in central Oz ...

it is ... hot.

but it's no so bad you kno!

my housies left me to my own devices choosing rainy Melbourne and the North Coast NSW instead of stinky (and sweaty) Alice ... they took there dogs too so this huge red roo has parked himself outside my front door in the shade of the overhang. He's huge .... good thing the dogs aren't here or he might tear 'em apart.

no photos because I'm not on a computer with that kind of access ...

the Ross River Resort comes highly recommended ... they have a pool and birds that fly in in groups of ten to dip there bodies in the water mid-flight ... most righteous on a forty degree day ... most!