Como Collection 2
In response to Petra's comment on my previous post ... here's some more Como goodness :-)
In January I visited some lovely old cottages in the Dandenong Ranges in Victoria. Tastefully restored and surrounded by all manner of photographic goodness :-)
Como Collection
In January I visited some lovely old cottages in the Dandenong Ranges in Victoria. Tastefully restored and surrounded by all manner of photographic goodness :-)
All of my heart
"Once upon a time when we were friends
I gave you my heart, the story ends.
No happy ever after ... now we're friends..."
ABC - All Of My Heart
Not that my heart is breaking ... far from it :-)
I always loved this song and was singing it this morning ... I think it works :-)
Bad Pharmer
From a quick band shoot I did at the end of last year of local Polish punk band Bad Pharmer the afternoon before their final gig in Canberra and they up and moved to greener pastures in Brisbane (the shining lights of Bris-Vegas!)
I purchased a copy of their EP Where The Wild Bison Roam ... it's very tidy and contains some great tracks :-)
How's about lead singer/bassist Ania and that yellow couch!
Links
- Listen to Where The Wild Bison Roam
There will be a little period where my posts here will not necessarily follow chronological order as I find interesting things to post from the period I didn't update the blog at all ... does this really matter? Likely not... I just figured I'd let you know anyway 
Words await an eye's caress
letters strewn with love
words await an eye's caress
as breath brings forth life
A haiku for today.
Image is one of a series I created in 2011 to document the hand-crafted books of Fran Ifould. This particular book was titled Enviroroulette and you can view the complete series here.
Blackstar
After a long silent time
With a friendly peck on the cheek
She was off to the ocean with it's crystal blues and sunsparkl'd azures
He cleaned up after she left
The glasses and tobacco
plates and sheets
papers and her hair
Draped on pillows
creating casual arcs on the tiles
debris on the shore as after a rough sea
Emerging into sunshine
hot and beating
to return to the bench
with a cordial
and a smoke
the litter of butts surrounding
testimony to the time spent there last night
and one...
the first one
the one when she first arrived
happy and expectant
hair cut and straight
new skirt
and totally gorgeous
with lipstick
a touch remained on the single butt
the first one she kissed
before the blackstar
emerged later from behind the moon
and played it's game of scramble
and miscommunication
and churned joy into turgid silence
and distance
The first one
with lipstick
he cried then
when his eye caught it
hot tears of hurt and love
for their fragile hearts
each now cracked
and from where?
How?
He dare not seek a why and be forever searching
for something he would never find
for the blackstar
in wicked interferences conspires never to reveal
It has it's methods own
The blackstar
honed on our fears
with twisting happen-stance and evil synchronicities
bent on undoing the fine tapestries
of our lives and dreams
Plans? Pfft! She told me once
[and not very long ago!]
She had met the blackstar before and is no stranger to it
Perhaps she called it something else
We've all known it
sometime
somewhere
with someone we love
Begone!
Enough of the blackstar!
Just fuck off back to wherever you came from.
[He uttered it forcefully enough to cause a magpie to tilt and peer]
[OK it wasn't quite screamed but it had intent!]
In the heat of the sun
breeze hot and crisp
it left him alone
and he was
alone
alone.
He thought of her then
driving down the mountain
Her hair fragranc'd with his shampoo
The road a focus
for the singular cogency that road tripping delivers
angling to arrive
at land's edge
the coast
and the promised purity of the ocean's kiss
the refreshing salty cleansing
and momentary exhilaration
of the heart
only the sea's immersive embrace
as only the ocean can
and will
when nothing else works...
Swim strong my love.
[8 February 2014]
Gettin' the Groove On
I'm shooting a wedding this afternoon ... it has a Retro theme. I thought I'd best try on my outfit this morning and there was music playing and there was a bit of camera gear about and here are some of the results.
The sky-blue linen safari suit was tailored for my father in Penang in 1972 ... it's going to be a fun afternoon and evening Gettin' the Groove On :-)
PS ... I know I've been vey slack in attending to everyone's blogs ... life here has been very full and I'm only just starting to get on top of that ... I'll be around to visit soon :-)
Dead Pegs
The first printed compilation of my Dead Pegs project ... a copy of which is currently hanging in the Members Show at PhotoAccess in the Manuka Arts Centre.
I've been long fascinated by these pegs ... single-function objects that have reached the end of their useful lives and left to decay in the pebble-field beneath the clotheslines ... I've been photographing them on and off for about 6 months now ... time to get them out there ... both prints measure 420mm x 720mm.
Dead Pegs was printed on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Ultra Smooth - a fine matte paper with excellent colour depth
Also in the show is a print of my Starfield I picture printed on Baryta Photographique, a fine grained lustre because I thought a small degree of gloss would increase the depth of the picture ... given it's our galaxy after all :-)
Both pictures were printed by Stephen Best of Macquarie Editions in Braidwood.
Links
Thrift Shop - (Workin' The Fields Version)
On Saturday night I played host to the wonderfully talented Jodie O'Regan and Emlyn O'Regan who were in town for their Kitchen Table Tour. As a host I got to make a request and I chose Macklemore's Thrift Shop ... Emlyn and Jodo got to work on an arrangement and this recording is the first live crack. Kids were asleep in an adjacent room hence the hushed kinda approach ;-)
I was aiming for nonchalant dish-hand and I think I pretty well hit the target. I join in toward the end ... it was fun :-)
For anyone who wants to see me deconstructedly animated and vocal ... this is the clip for you ;-)
May I present Thrift Shop - (Workin' The Fields Version)
Links:
- Follow the Kitchen Table Tour Blog
- Emlyn & Jodie's Tour Page
- Emlyn & Jodie's Web Page
- The original Thrift Shop by Macklemore
In Review - Steve Lane & The Autocrats
In Review - Steve Lane & The Autocrats - The Front, Saturday 28th September 2013
I had a most wonderful experience on Saturday night. I was in the mood for quiet and low key. I wanted some live music but nothing rowdy. I know I'm coming across all fussy and selective like and well, yes I am both those things but sometimes you know you're looking for something but you don't exactly what ... it's just a vibe. I checked a gig guide, saw there was a band playing tonight down at my local, The Front in Lyneham. The Front’s website said Tonight:Steve Lane & The Autocrats and there was a little bio - I’d never heard of them, it sounded perfect.
Guide said the show started at eight and so I headed down to meet a friend before then. Gosh, there's no one here. OK, that's not entirely true, there's two bar staff including the one with a smile like a ray of sunshine and two tables of three just chatting quietly. The instruments set up against the wall indicate there is actually a band on but there's hardly a soul around. I grab a glass of house red (and return the two glasses I stole the night before ... all nicely washed of course :-) ) and take a seat on one of the leather couches. My friend arrives and adds significantly to the audience size. We're chatting away when Jimmy Williams gets up with an acoustic guitar and begins. He's been doing this a while this guitar performing thing and not because he looks like he has, nor the ease with he performs his clever and observant songs ... I reckon it's the fact that he appears totally comfortable performing to an intimate audience of six.
There's a cosy lounge room feel to the Front and this gig has that feel to the max. Like all the best lounge rooms, there's an outside space too and we relocate to a couch out there just before the end of Jimmy's set.
It's a September evening in Canberra and although it's been 20 degrees today it's chilly tonight but warm on the couch. We're out there looking in when Steve Lane & The Autocrats take the stage. A four-piece, drums, bass and two guitars. Steve is joined on vocals by Jimmy and I immediately like the feel. It's part Church and part Lightning Seeds and all their own ... it's music made for driving and I imagine rolling fields of wheat and canola sliding past the window interspersed with the strobe of golden sunlight through trees. I can't make out the lyrics from my outside couch spot but I like the way they're sung with a broad rounded inflection.
The band clearly get on with each other as they produce rolling tunes without stepping on each other's toes. Steve Lane, in dark shirt, glasses and thick black beard greying stylishly sings about life with a wry and poetic eye. He has a rack of guitars and there's a beautiful semi-acoustic sunburst orange Rickenbacker amongst them. It sounds rich and mellow with just the right spread of spangle. Steve is joined by brother Tim Lane on drums and I dig the gold strip over the deep red of the shells. In a simple black shirt, he plays with craft, attention and an intensity totally appropriate to the space. On electric bass, and looking like the perfect subject for a Roman bust is a young man in a royal blue buttoned up cardigan ... In fact he wouldn't look out place in the band The Cardigans or Fun Boy Three. I mention that he's young because he must significantly lower the average age of the rest of the band and I mean that in the nicest possible way ... with age comes experience and it's precisely that which is making this band and tonight's initiate gig so special. We find out later that his name is Kai Lane-U'Ren and he's Steve's son. Jimmy Williams on electric guitar makes up the on-stage foursome ... Jimmy’s a great guitarist and in a blues-inspired number later in the night he totally shreds the solo. There's a fifth, non-stage member on door bucket who is lucky he's accompanied by someone 18 years and over! From the way he and Kai stand the same way when together I’m guessing he’s related too.
The songs are evocative and well crafted. There's a poetry to the lyrics that I find captivating and the stories weaved by Steve wander from the plains to the sea to the office water cooler. There's heartfelt and sunshine and there's deep introspection wrapped in joyous guitars pop. There's fun banter between tracks (I mean who can ever remember the names of songs?) and interaction with the audience, which at this end of the room is just my friend and I. I'm suddenly torn between the intimacies of tonight's performance and thinking that Steve Lane & his Autocrats deserved a much bigger crowd. It's a testament to the experience and professionalism of the band that the small audience doesn't seem to faze them. The last four songs see the band really gel it together, not that they were loose before, and really deliver. The power pop chorus of Forgetting Is So Long is fantastically catchy and lingers beautifully. I resolve to buy their album Birds Taking Flight which tonight's gig is touring and when I'm listening to it the following the morning I'm taken right back to the gig ... it's fresh and alive and rich and a great listen.
The gig ends and we're sitting outside watching the band pack up ... I have to admit it's the one part of gigging that I don't miss (well, not as much as I miss some of the other parts) ... And then we finish the night sitting on the outside couches with the band (and for a little time the bar staff too) talking about music and life and the shapes of clouds. I’d go and see this band again without question ... especially now that I've heard of them ;-)
I was also trialling a new camera, the Fujifilm x100s, which I plan to make my gig review camera as it's small, has fantastic lowlight performance and means that I'm not lugging my DSLR in crowded pubs and essentially spending my time worrying about someone stepping on it. This was the first time I had used the camera at a live gig and I have to say I'm very impressed with the results.
Links
In Review - Fine Young Animals (Bacon Cakes, Alex Richens and Joel Davey, Dylan Hekimian, Lucy Nelson, Buck et al)
The CMC presents Fine Young Animals @ The White Eagle Polish Club - 20th September 2013
I arrive late and unannounced. Nigel and Beth inform me I have to pay as they already have a reviewer for the night. This is a first(!) and there's an awkward moment as it's eventually revealed that the night's allocated reviewer has in fact just left at this, the half-way mark, with 4and a half acts remaining. I offer to take the reins and you my reader may get not one but two reviews this week... a part one and a part two if you like. This is Part Two. Beth stamps me gently and I offer to pay my way for half the door charge seeing as I got there late... late like I do just about every gig anyways ... it's a strange introduction to the gig.
There’s a function on in the restaurant and the tables are full and generating happy noises ... I grab a Zhiv-ee-yetz and have a quick chat to Ania whose Polish Punk band's album 'Where the Wild Buffalo Roam' I purchased recently. It's a very tidy EP with some respectably tight tracks and as I’m talking I hope I'm not gushing too much.
I head into the hall. Oh ... there's hardly anybody here! I suddenly feel a little guilty for getting in free but that's pretty much all I do about it. I take a couch, Bacon Cakes are on and I'm back in the 90's with shoe gazing introspection... dressed in slack, dark street wear with a Mod-roundrel kick drum, there must be something terribly interesting on the floor because that's all anyone in the band is looking at. The exception to the drab fashion (I hear someone refer to it as 'understated' but I think she's being terribly kind) is a slight girl dressed in fine black and white polka dot dress with the whole straight fringe thing going on... She's playing the tambourine with a lazy, melancholy sway which would be fine except the tambourine is to be found nowhere in the mix.
Tonight's house music is by The Doors and while Jim writhes away in spirit Lucy Nelson takes to the stage with a ukulele. Red floral print dress over bright red tights and black boots, the uke looks at once demure and purposed. Lucy puts it to good use with nicely crafted ballads with 'a beginning, a middle and an end' unlike the DJ she's decrying in the first number. After lulling us with upbeat, Lucy launches into reflective and here something nasty happens to the tuning. It's as though I've had a go at tuning the instrument... it's almost there but noticeably off and a quick call to her friendly professional tuner puts everything to rights again. Lucy's show is quiet but her songs fill the room. A few people come in and sit respectfully down, lifting their chairs so as not to scrape. I hear the Polo’s air-conditioning for the first time ever... (It's that quiet!)... And its gentle white-noise hum serves as a pillowy doona to Lucy's gentle songs.
John Lennon's 'We All Shine On' booms out and Buck plays along on the piano, warming up behind the curtain... I feel perhaps I was a little unkind to Buck last time I reviewed him (spoiler ... it doesn't last)
The unseen playing works.
Alex Richens, Joel Davey and Nick Churchill come on ... three-piece drums, cello, guitar and voice. Southern blues feel with a voice that sounds to me like a call across a wide river - strong, curled and mellowed by the moister air over the water's surface. I rack my brain for the reference. It's just there... Oh it’s so fluid and watery, only a cello can do that... that watery swirl... that suck of life toward an inevitable dark. I have it! It comes to me in a flash... I'm listening to the love-child of Gomez and Ed Kuepper. There's even Mark Dawson on drums, well not him obviously but someone who sounds a lot like him. Ed Kuepper... I know who I'll be listening to in the morning :-) The trio weave rich landscapes of hope, power and above all... love. Breaking rains and sandstone escarpment lit by the golden storm light that comes with a setting sun. Most enjoyable and I am so taken by the music I take no notice of what the trio are wearing.
Dylan Hekimian takes the stage... There are lots of acts tonight in keeping with the theme 'Fine Young Animals’ and everyone's playing four or five tracks... kind of like a degustation... it’s a lot for a reviewer to take in and I suddenly suspect the first reviewer simply became overwhelmed like I’m suddenly feeling ... but I digress.
Dylan... solo... faded red t-shirt, long dreads and acoustic guitar, fresh from the rainforest... well, after a shower perhaps and healthy food. Songs delivered with punch and conviction but the in-between dialogue incongruous and softly spoken as though he lacked the conviction of the beliefs expressed in song. He's young at heart too... with the expressed beliefs of the young in love... perhaps I'm simply jaded and cynical (I am as it happens rather aware of this)... Perhaps it's Dylan's song for his girlfriend where he doesn't care what she thinks of him but he wants her to look at him like a hero... I literally say WTF? My friend who has chosen this moment to pretend to be less cynical and jaded than I challenges me to, for just a moment, remember what it was like to be so young, in love and enraptured (and I suppose actively seeking hero-worship) but I find it hard. In fact I find Dylan's well crafted guitar songs and ingenious percussive interludes (methinks for a moment he has swallowed a drummer's soul) lightly mismatched to the person delivering them. I ponder for a moment the nature of artistic delivery... that as artists we temporarily inhabit the person of those we wish to be.
Oh and here’s Buck! I have a flush of doubt. I wonder if my first review of Buck, skewered as it was by his leather half-tights, was perhaps a little judgemental of Buck and his inspired songwriting and piercing observations. He's talented, there’s no doubt. He's impossibly slender and he's lost the leather half-tights tonight and of that I’m glad... I can focus on the man and his music. Wow, he really is a bitch. What last time I could forgive or pass off as a nervous ironic understatement is demonstrated this week as quite intentional. OK... I'm wandering along in a funny space of watching someone I've previously reviewed... I'm wondering whether my review is an accurate portrayal or whether I got it all wrong... I have this benefit of the doubt thing happening for Buck... maybe I was a bit harsh? Buck's got this great Ben Folds thing happening... piano driven commentary and then Buck says... "I was on Community Radio this morning, it was sooo mediocre"... he lost his audience there. It‘s the wrong thing to say not only because it offends his audience; Not only because it’s rude because well for fuck's sake he was the radio station’s guest. It was rude because it totally lacks any sense of retrospective irony. Perhaps if he’s being self-effacing and labelling himself mediocre as humour ... maybe then? I thought, at that precise moment that everything I had written previously was spot-on. That Buck, uncannily brilliant as he is, lacks the compassion of his audience.
Mixing tonight was someone I didn’t recognise and while he performed splendidly given the variety of acts and changing instrumentation, I thought there were highlights missing from the drum brasswork particularly during the rich soundscapes produced by Alex, Joel & Nick ... I could see the complexity but I couldn’t hear it and I really wanted to. The aforementioned tambourine was lost. Regular mixer Dave Howe was mixing it up over at In Canberra at Gorman House which is where, I suspect, many of the CMC’s usual Polo crowd were tonight.
Thanks to Nigel and Beth and the Polo for the opportunity to bring this to you.
Links
- Canberra Musicians Club
- The White Eagle Polish Club
- Fine Young Animals
- Bacon Cakes
- Alex Richens and Joel Davey
- Dylan Hekimian
- Lucy Nelson
- Buck et al
SHOOT!
Well, I'm on the cover of SHOOT! Magazine's September 2013 (Volume #003) edition. I'm also the featured artist and there's an interview in there too. As far as I know it's web only but it's lovely that someone has gone to all this effort over mine and the other included artists' work though the editior assures me a hard copy is on it's way to my post ofice box as we speak! I'm quietly chuffed and I think he's done a great job with the layout. It is somewhat funny and totally cool to see a whole stack of your pictures laid out like this in a mini-collection. Clicking on the cover image will initiate a download of a web resolution (~8MB) copy of the magazine via safe WeTransfer from the host site. If, for some reason your browser doesn't like that I've made a copy for download here ... oh Yeah and the mag is written in German but my interview is in English ... lucky eh?
Sly Fox Coffee
Meet Patrick. Patrick is an entrepreneur. Earlier this year he set up a coffee machine by one of the main cycleways running from the Inner North of Canberra (where I live) into the City ... he makes very good coffee and I always stop for an espresso (that settles in the glass like tap Guinness!) if he's up and running when I'm cycling past. I recently stopped by to take some photos of him ... I think this is my favourite.
Patrick called his coffee spot Sly Fox Coffee
But it's about more than the coffee ... it's about a social hub ... a little networking space. I've met a stack of different folks down there and stopped for a quick chat or hello. Sometimes I'm a little late and I stand at the table straddling my bicycle while I sip a delicious coffee ... afterward, the ride into town just flies past as the caffeine kicks in by the time I've reached David Street.
There's often an assistant, Byron or Roley. There's a bicycle mechanic, Rex, who's there on Tuesdays and I could make lewd suggestive comments about the delights of an early morning lube but I will refrain today.
The Sly Fox is blossoming and I've noticed an increase in custom as the morning's warm. Great coffee - great vibe.
Patrick also had his girlfriend's little pug pup with him ... hi name's Bob ... everybody say Awwwww... :-)
Links:
Moss Effect
Spring is officially here! We've had rains and warmer days and while out walking with my camera on Saturday afternoon I saw the moss has geared up for sexy time.
Mosses as you may or may not know reproduce sexually via spores not seeds There are male parts, antheridia, and female parts, archegonia. They can occur on the same plant but are most likely found on different plants. The antherozoids or sperm are motile, swimming using two theadlike tails and are chemically attracted to the archegonium where fertilisation occurs to create a zygote. It is then that the second phase of the moss reproductive cycle begins with the formation of the sporophyte or spore plant. An interesting fact is that the sporophyte grows out of the archegonium of the female plant by cell division and is effectively a parasite for this phase. The sporophytes have a distinct four-part structure comprised of a foot, a long erect stem called a seta with a capsule at the top which contains the maturing spores. A peaked hood called a calyptra sits atop the capsule. A single sporophyte may contain anywhere between four and one million spores depending on the individual species. It's the sporophyte structures that are prominent in these pictures ... these ones are about 15mm tall.
Not that I initially set out to craft a post on moss reproduction this morning but I thought it may ... you know ... add something to your experience if you knew vaguely what you were looking at. Besides I find it fascinating and it is Spring after all.
You may also notice I'm using a new gallery technique to disply the pictures ... like it? Do let me know :-)
A Little Piece of Me
A Little Piece of Me
Dark
I feel it's pull
tangible as a kiss never realised
Cold
the space between
whirling sheets of colour
Light
a piercing clarity
precision at a price
Warmth
strangely within
Life
unfurling
a fern glowing against shadow
(August 2013)