Summer music

G`day,

The gig at the Alley Cat was a fine one indeed it seems. The sound guy Chris was a loverly gentleman. Indeed. 

In other news, I have had the divine luck to witness Because of Ghosts at the venue at Salamanca, and previously I saw Mt Eerie. Mt Eerie was cool, I never heard of this name, though I`d heard of the microphones before many times ... same dude, different moniker. very eccentric indeed, but so watchable. 

The thing that makes Because of Ghosts stand out must to be a bunch of factors … hard to pin down to be sure. One of them I feel is their mixture of Morricone-messy guitar playing from Reuben Stanton and the exuberant drums spraying from Jacob Pearce’s kit … the man has a style it has to be said. The quiet nature that Dominic and Reuben Stanton have at the front of the stage is beautifully concentrated between them and their brother bobbing around over his kingdom of drumskins. Dominic’s bass anchors and paces the music thoughtfully and gracefully. As the spokesman for the musicians between songs his gentle nature further emphasised

 

On Saturday the 25^th, Because of Ghosts came to play ‘the Venue’ in Hobart, Tasmania. Their first gig on the island. With moppish hair and good Melbournian fashion sensibility they took the stage with an ease and serenaded the audience with huge sounds inflicted with heartache. The one thing that makes them stand out from the mainstay of post-rock fare is their ability to draw out a truly beautiful musical storytelling melody and back it up with a feeling and intensity that seems plausible. Not just relying on the time honoured tradition of building up the sound out of the ground in an hour long crescendo.

 

I would not suggest that long drawn-out crescendos is a bad way to go about making music on stage. Many a band has sucked the audience in with a breath of their lungs in the valley and spat them out at the top of the mountain. I remain an avid fan of Bolero to this day and believe that it’s relevance will be sustained throughout history and, indeed, it’s simple exercise in crescendo make the point that it should also remain as a damn fine tradition in music which is currently being held up high and true by such greats as Explosions in the Sky, Sigur Ros and other post-rock lumieres of our age. Somehow, this band that we were watching tonight, were standing as tall as the others. Reuben Stanton’s guitar would seem to play billions of separate notes rather than strum his guitar. His hand slowly floats above the strings in his fashion and pulled us up with them into a multitude of loops and longing. If the aim of music is inflict the rainbow of emotions, elevating us above the every day, then this was a music that the world should take note of. And they kindly brought themselves across the Strait to visit. Plugging their album This culture of background noise, they play their way through a barrage of halcyon nostalgia and gorgeous sentiments. These nice young chaps from the mainland left the audience in a very loving mood … buzzing even, like their noise. A rare treat. 

The Alley Cat Bar

Hobart is a very nice little town, it has boats, rednecks, greenies, normalities, suburbanites, reasonable prices, music, cliques, misfits, mermaids and missionaries.

I am still a misfit ... though I aspire to one day become a mermaid.

Gig - 

Friday - The Alley Cat Bar, 24th of October, North Hobart. 

poster by Nadine Kessler. 

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DWT’s improv-guitar acts as tour-guide in Australia’s vast open spaces; sound-tracking & sculpting, setting stories out in splayed layers of melodies. Musical cues are picked out of sepia-soaked memories and skilfully formed into gorgeous yet monolithic sounds.

 

Formerly known as boy Brightlulb, Joshua Santospirito has performed his unique and intuitive music to enchanted, horrified and enraptured audiences all over the country since 2005, and even as far abroad as Berlin in 2008.

 

Originally from Melbourne, Santospirito has spent much of his adult life scooting ‘round the deserts and cities of Australia in cars and pushbikes - the experiences from which he draws his musical inspiration. Having been largely nomadic he is now permanently based in Hobart from where he plans to make his regular forays across the Apple Isle and on to the mainland for concert tours in 2009/10. Plans are also underway for a series of three EPs to be issued by mid 2009 on his independent label The Colossal Adjective.

 

Under the moniker of boy Brightlulb Santospirito has released three self-released albums. 2006’s Is this a desert? went on to make some impact despite having no formal distribution and minimal radio play, mostly on the strength of Santospirito’s dynamo live performances.