ah to be on the radio

Radio is the transmission of signals, by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light.

isn't that interesting.

My friend is going to get her novel published ... isn't that even more interesting! Hooroy.

I'm going to be interviewed on my fave radio station in the world ... in Melbourne in March. RRR on the To and Fro show at some ungodly hour of the night ... come and listen at a radio near you.

Isn't that fabbo!!

Just got back from six days in Kintore and Haast's Bluff ... the mountains around the Western Desert country are truly spectacular.
There was some bad news whilst I was in Kintore. Some Walpiri folk with connections to the Pintupi people of Kintore were driving up that shithouse back-road from Sandy Blight junction from Kintore to Nyirripi and their car broke down. Two of them decided to walk, apparently towards a known non-permanent waterhole. Their bodies were found not far from the water-hole dead in the 40+ degree heat. The family member who stayed with the car survived.

Even bushies can die on back-roads.

The Mental Health First Aid Course has been very interesting indeed ... after a few goes (as presenter) you start to get good at pre-emtping the powerpoint slides ... though I get a little bit tired of how text-driven the damn thing is ... but everyone seems to quite like the course ... and I have lots of stories to tell people from experience ... as a mental health nurse you are a little bit like a historian or an anthropologist ... ah the stories ... they are sooo cool! Ask me sometime for a good story.

Is this a desert ? - boy Brightlulb (2006)

This one was a collection of music that I made over a couple of years ... it took me quite a while to formulate what this collection was really about. It was recorded mostly in Alice Springs, NT, where the music is mostly centred, after numerous adventure after adventure after adventure.

I had numerous concepts behind this album, things that i had been pushed into thinking about by the very nature of working in Central Australia ... things are not black and white out here. Some of my thoughts are in this blog entry if you're interested.

"This album gives the privileged feeling of having just been handed someone’s flights of fancy in the form of a personal travel journal—a gift to thumb through at leisure. Sonically, you’re taken on adventures through memory saturated landscapes and shown quirky thumbnail sketches of people encountered along the way. Visually, the piece is somewhat clumsily handmade, scrawled and dog-eared, which is just how such a personal offering should be presented." - Bec Paton (Cyclic Defrost magazine).

Is this a desert ? (2006)
1. Great northern Highway 2:06
2. creation of Gosse Bluff 3:25
3. King Sound (Buckle Head) 4:18
4. ships and smoke of Port Hedland 1:34
5. mice in me boots 1:54
6. Pareroultja 3:02
7. Dance Under Undoolya (redback stomp) 4:10
8. Where in buggery is Borroloola? 0:51
9. I swam past the inland sea 1:48
10. Road train (the truckie’s profession) & Poeppel cnr. 6:40
11. I walk long way tonight (the Summerland Way) 1:27
12. Zoe buses to Darwin 5:00

This hand-made cover was reviewed by Cyclic Defrost by Bec Paton ... (and the music got reviewed at another point by some other people). Check the reviews section for a few reviews of this album, also an interview with Matt Levinson about the time I spent in the remote areas of the world which led to this album. Flying underwater past the inland sea.

feather - boy Brightlulb (late 2004)

Feather
or
Josh plays Amy's guitar (2004)



This was a collection of lonely pieces of music played on a steel-string guitar borrowed off of my housemate Amy Luschwitz. I dedicated the music to her. I have, at this point, not made this music available except for a couple on the internet.

I can't imaginary what your seeing in him?
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tracklisting -

Feather (or Josh plays Amy’s guitar) (2005)
Feather 0:33
Empty house 0:51
Heart-breakingly strange 1:52
traveller from eternity (E.E.Cummings) 0:53
L’homme aux semelles de vent 1:43
Get used to change 3:28
the tale tattle 1:40
the feather medoly 17:24

the balloon - boy Brightlulb (2004)

This cool little album was made by the boy but this time he was living in Sydney in a warehouse with numerous creative people around him ... who offered him no technical advice whatsoever.

I made the cover out of chinese paper bought from a shop in Sydney, Pitt St ... where the majority of this music was created. The artwork on this page was all from the conceptual material to do with "the balloon", as was the poetry of this page, which was taken partially from Dante.

the little boy reached out for the balloon and he lifted up and flew over the tops of the buildings that he longed to escape from, and it took him away.

The balloon (2004)
contrapunto mutevole 3:32
a bathtub near the Grampians 3:31
a cloud enclosed us 1:24
a balloon … 0:20
… rose past the chimneys 1:40
murder on the third floor (Dan’s floor) 1:50
the red sky 1:05
impatient Jah 3:32
horizont 1:16
Merri 2:14
Dante’s warning 2:20
faeries live here 2:04
brewery view 1:58
flying out the 3rd storey window 0:30
ban the whale 1:39
across the tin roof dunes 2:10
passionfruit on the fire escape 0:21

Stormboy - the child & the tractor (2003)

This album was made mostly in a house in Northcote in a shambles house with a shambles housemate ... who was really quite a top bloke but had some severe mental health issues.

This album was about the trail of water as it trickles down a small bubbling brook into a creek in the hills, joining a larger stream which becomes a river which flows down through the city of lights and out into the bay where the ships are and then into the sea. I only made 101 copies, all of which were given away for free. The poems that accompanied the music are somewhere on this blog but I can't remember where ... no, wait - I found it! go here!

tracklisting -

the child and the tractor (2003)
A creek near a farm 5:09
A kingfisher 0:14
The child and the tractor 4:10
A duck-billed platypus 0:58
Downstream to the sea 1:02
River through a town 10:43
This beach is too small to skirt the seas 2:10
The pelican and the boy 1:23
Driftwood and shell in a glass vase 1:38

Why why why

I've recorded enough stuff for a mini-album.

It has a running title ... it may end up being called

a shitload less understanding than is required

it may come next year ... and I may take it on a mini-tour of Europe (since I'm going there anyways). Berlin, Oslo ... perhaps Basle ... don't know anywhere else worth going ... do you?

There's some new photos on my flickr site in the photos section on the right-hand side of the screen that you're lookin at for some reason. The wedding photos have now moved further down the page ... how time flies ... ahhh.

ciao
jxo

photos from 30-12-07 at Bar303 (by Nadine Kessler)

Incidentally - has anyone heard Kieran Hebden and Steve Reid's music ... those guys are unreal ... totally unrealistic non-existentially unreal! I recommend for discerning listeners of out there. They got the sync going on!

a lack of shitloads of understanding

I have returned to Alice Springs in the hope that a cool change from the

Drove in two days from Melbourne ... a record. Gisborne to Glendambo.

Dad remembers when the road swang by Kingdoonya forty clicks to the West of Glendambo.

It's kind of funny talking to people in other parts of the world about Aboriginal people ... I don't think they understand that there is a possibility that they don't understand ... do you understand?

Incidentally I found out that I was played on RRR in Melbourne in December.
Later than that ... but in the same December, I played a gig in the front room at 303 which was good fun, got a little carried away though and played for about 2 + 1/2 hours .... and then I was joined onstage by an elder gentleman by the name of Nicholas who played a nice fiddle with my looping station.

The label that my mate Robert Curgenven is on has a new myspace page that should be investigated for all possible tourist activity.

ciao
jxo