Tuesday 10 March 2015

Pop needs to get political again

Rocking Cambodia: Rise of a Pop Diva (BBC)


Chris Snipes: Our Town Episode 7 - William S. Burroughs & Lawrence

DJ Spooky - Of Water and Ice (Free Download)


HERE

Monday 9 March 2015

Rinse FM - Hyperdub (8/3/15)

See if you can spot the Secret Service man?


Charlie Drake - You Never Know

UK comedian Charlie Drake (1925 - 2006) released this odd single in 1975, featuring an unexpected array of musicians including Phil Collins, Robert Fripp, Keith Tippett, Sandy Denny and Peter Gabriel, who produced and co-wrote the song! A contemporary promo sheet also lists Brian Eno as a player. An unusual aspect of the career of all involved. Phil Collins explained the recording on his website:
"It did indeed feature Robert Fripp, Percy Jones, Keith Tippett, me and Peter G. A friend of Pete's, Martin Hall wrote the song, or possibly co-wrote it with Peter, called You Never Know. Apparently Charlie Drake, who was a huge comedy star of the 50s and 60s, wanted to make a record. How he ended up with this line-up I have no idea! It seems the most obscure set of people to make a comedy record. On the day Charlie, who was quite small, turned up with a brand new denim outfit for his rock debut... it was quite touching to see him at it. Percy Jones and I were already in Brand X by then. The whole session was one of life's interesting snapshots!"

Black Cab - Sexy Polizei (Live @Shebeen Melbourne 25/1/15)


You can listen to my recording of the whole show below:

Upcoming:

Sunday 8 March 2015

Kill The Baby



Written, Directed & Produced by Alex Kavutskiy & Ariel Gardner

The Pop Group (Gareth & Mark) - Echelon


Have the Pop Group finally become a pop group?

Selma: Then & Now


50 years on, the Obama and Bush families lead the march

Winning Korean team salute the crowd in Cologne

Awkward

A.M.O.R., Nightwave, Nancy Whang, Mamacita & Coco Solid - Transition


Produced by Violet. A cover of Underground Resistance's Detroit techno classic Transition made solely by women, in celebration of International Womens Day. This year's theme for IWF is "Make it happen" and this track that we all love and that influenced us deeply seemed like the perfect way to soundtrack our love for all women around the globe

The Pop Group - Live @The Corner Hotel Melbourne Australia (7/3/15)

Dave Graney, Gareth Sager, Mark Stewart and Neneh Cherry last night

(Click arrow to download)
We Are All Prostitutes
Citizen Zombie
Thief of Fire
Mad Truth
Words Disobey Me (Dedicated to Tracey Pew)
Age of Miracles
She Is Beyond Good & Evil
Shadow Child (Dedicated to The Boys Next Door)
Spanish Inquisition
Sophia
Nowhere Girl
Trap
We Are Time
Encore:
Where There's A Will (Video)

Mark Stewart - vocals
Gareth Sager - guitar, keyboards & clarinet
Bruce Smith - drums
Dan Katsis - bass
Alexi Shrimpton - guitar and vocals
(An exceptional live mix from Charles Poulet)
...and from the night before in Sydney

Friday 6 March 2015

#StopDataRetention


Thursday 5 March 2015

Robyn Hitchcock Live @The Yarra Hotel Melbourne Australia 4/3/15 (FLAC/mp3 Download)


Robyn Hitchcock and The Abbotsford Three
The Yarra Hotel
Abbotsford (Melbourne), Australia
2015-03-04
Tracklist:
01 Mexican God
02 Kingdom of Love
03 Madonna of the Wasps
04 banter
05 Leppo and the Jooves
06 banter
07 Flesh Number One (Beatle Dennis)
08 Hurry For The Sky
09.banter/tuning
10 Airscape
11 Only the Stones Remain
12 banter
13 Be Still
14 banter
15 We're Gonna Live In the Trees
16 banter
17 Queen Of Eyes
18 Insanely Jealous
19 audience
encore
20 Raining Twilight Coast
21 I Often Dreams Of Trains
22 banter
23 Tryin' To Get To Heaven Before They Close the Door (Bob Dylan)
24 banter
25 I Wanna Destroy You
26 Listening to the Higsons

Robyn Hitchcock - vocals, guitar
Mick Thomas - bass
Mark McCartney - guitar
Gus Agar - drums
+
Charles Jenkins - backing vocals on I Wanna Destroy You

Recorded on handheld Tascam DR-40 by Tim Niblock
Download
FLAC
mp3

Although I say so myself the recording above came out very sweet.
Here's also my recording of the last time Robyn and The Abbotsford Three played at The Yarra Hotel from December last year. Unfortunately that time I forgot to take along my mic wind muff forgetting about hot summer nights in Australian pubs with their air conditioners and ceiling fans!

Wednesday 4 March 2015

Kathy Acker and Peter Wollen in discussion (ICA London 8/5/86)

HERE

Kathy Acker - Redoing Childhood (1999)

Tracklist:
1 President Bush
2 Miss Savage's School For Girls
3 The Temple Of Eros
4 A Country That I've Never Seen
5 I Will Stay With You Tonight
6 Hotel Etoile Rouge
7 Outside The Law, Which Is Language
8 The Female Doctor
9 Hotel Of Lilac Eyes
10 Face To Face With Death
Producer: Hal Wilner
Musicians: David Cunningham (keyboards), Ralph Carney (reeds), Joe Gore (guitar),
Steve Bernstein (trumpet), Kenny Wollesen (drums), Tribe 8 (backingband)
Listen/Download
HERE

Robert Creeley interviews Kathy Acker in 1979

AUDIO

Tuesday 3 March 2015

The Flaming Lips - Cloud Taste Metallic (First Avenue Minneapolis 24/2/15)

The Teardrop Explodes - When I Dream

The Teardrop Explodes: How we made Reward


HERE

Ikue Mori on life after No Wave

The Teardrop Explodes - Tiny Children (parjo01 re-edit)


+

Via

Kim Gordon: By the Book

Mbongwana Star - Malukayi


Via

Monday 2 March 2015

Baba Commandant & The Mandingo Band - Juguya

Truth

Why racism is not backed by science

Star Wars Desert Rave in Tunisia

The Dunes Electroniques dance festival opens to the mellow beats of one of Tunisia’s biggest up-and-coming DJs on a stage planted in the middle of the Sahara. It is a surreal sight. The festival setting is cocooned by sand dunes, and the backstage area is the film set for the town of Mos Espa on the fictional planet of Tatooine.The “Star Wars” films used southern Tunisia as their dusty backdrop, borrowing heavily from traditional Berber fashion and architecture. Of course, Mos Espa is a made-up name. Tunisians call the place where the festival is being held Ong Jemal (“neck of the camel”), near the villages of Nefta and Tozeur, which lie on the edge of the vast Chott el-Gharsa salt lake.But some in the local crowd embrace the “Star Wars” theme, donning Darth Vader masks or sporting Princess Leia hair. Some dancers opt for selfie sticks to wave in the air; others brandish lightsabers.At first glance, it could be a dance festival anywhere in the world, but it’s distinctively Tunisian. Hipsters from the capital dance alongside locals wearing traditional burnooses, the long brown wool cloaks well known to “Star Wars” fans, over their jeans. The clash of modern with the old at the unusual event strikes a chord with some of the cultural shifts, economic issues and political transitions that Tunisia is facing in tumultuous times...

Heroin

Heroin has rightly earned a sulphurous reputation for destroying the lives of thousands upon thousands of people, killing many - including scores of important artists, writers and musicians. There is, though, another story to heroin. In this programme, Professor Andrew Hussey sets out to explore the extent to which it's possible to say that the drug has a particular effect on the creative output of those who have been heavily involved in using heroin, and before it, opium. He argues that while heroin won't make somebody creative who wouldn't otherwise have been, its impact on an individual's perception of time and space can be seen to modify the work of addicts and former addicts. He'll talk with, among others, author Will Self and Christiane F., whose book about her own heroin use in Berlin became a cult classic in the 1970s and 1980s, and hear from pianist James Young about the way heroin's influence can be witnessed across the works of such disparate figures as Berlioz, Bill Evans and Nico. The programme in no way seeks to glamorise heroin use, it simply addresses the question of how artists who've used the drug have been influenced as a result
LISTEN

Heroin: art and culture's last taboo

Sunday 1 March 2015

No one could see the colour blue until modern times

Karl Ove Knausgaard: Travels Through North America

Joy Division - The Documentary (Grant Gee 2007)

Black Cab - Supermadchen (Live At PBS 2/15)

Ad Break: Leonard Nimoy for Magnavision Laserdisc (1981)