w/ The Native Cats, Treehouse, Wasted Idol, Sam Upton & The Pollywaffles
The Blog Formerly Known As Noise And Words And Things And Shit (hereafter referred to as “TBFKANAWATAS”) brings you another night of vine-ripened local produce at the Grand Poobah’s Kissing Room on Saturday 9th June.
TBFKANAWATAS (hereafter referred to as “Noise Etc, Hobart music blog”) presents The Native Cats, Treehouse, Wasted Idol, Sam Upton & The Pollywaffles, in what’s being billed as a ‘going away party’. That kid who writes things on the internet is leaving the State, let’s celebrate his exile/departure!
THE NATIVE CATSare masters of their own game, conquerors of the Hobart Domain. With a treasure chest of new material since the release of the sublime “Process Praise”, come experience some minimalist/moodist beauty, 2k12 stylee. There's something special in the way they menace, in the the way they dance.
I don’t think they’ll play Party but they’ll probably party nonetheless. TREEHOUSE are at it again, noise pop with a punkish bent or punk pop with a noisy bent or something. Rob said that they were the “best band in Hobart at the moment for sure” about 10 days ago. Fresh compliments!
In their second ever live show, WASTED IDOL are your new favourite no-wave no-care trio. Featuring members of Bears, Treehouse and Manchester Mourning, they’ve released a tape on Steamboat Records. They play music.
SAM UPTON & THE POLLYWAFFLESis makin’ low-key pop music in C. You really should read the liner notes to his latest, self-produced album.
Come on down for Noise Etc, Hobart music blog’s (hereafter referred to as “Noise Etc”) farewell jamboree in the Poobah Kissing Room. Smoochy smoochy. Doors at 9:00, first act at 9:30, last train home TBA.
The Kissing Room (The Grand Poobah) Event page $5 entry 9:00 PM
Sam Upton's 2010 debut solo package We
Make No Apology went by with little acknowledgement of it's own
existence. It was quietly 'launched' at a show for his band
(Manchester Mourning) and, apparently, three people bought a copy on
the night. You can probably now find it at the back of Tommy Gun
Record's local rack but you'd be forgiven for skipping over the
plain, sticky-taped paper product. "2 albums in 1" the
front declares.
We Make No Apology is completely
self-aware. The plain white packaging reveals itself to be an
imitation 12" sleeve, with a secondary windowed sleeve inside
holding the CD. Two albums, two sides; a small paper insert to match.
The front cover boasts "Quantity Low Quality", an honest
statement. This is bedroom pop to a fault.
The first 'album' on the disc is
Samuptonamonagroanamysharonadaytona500. 'Annoying Intro' is a
kitschy 80s interpretation of 'future space music', that kind of
synth bridge music usually found in educational videos from the era;
those educational videos still shown in schools today. Where the
album first reveals its preoccupation with wasteful bureaucracy and middle/upper-class
misgivings, its still playful: "Trendy Salamanca, trendy
Salamanca; rhymes with something else." There's a subtle humour
at work.
Everything bleeds on. 'The 2nd Intro',
naturally, follows the annoying, while the high society
disillusionment is traced further into 'Mates With Moorilla':
"Sitting in
Salamanca, Sipping a latte, Outside a cafe, with Brian
Richie Talking about the arts, and his biodegradable house."
I'm not sure of Upton's intentions here –
it's mostly just low level annoyance at the Art World's equivalent to
"the Man" – but it's worth pointing out that this was all written prior to MONA's opening; and that's mostly worth mentioning in
the context of Hobart 2012's minor backlash against the art gallery
behemoth.[citation needed] Later, 'Friends With Federal'
charts a similar course to 'Moorilla', lined with poker machine
ka-chings! where the latte
sips previously sat.
In the midst of this home produced
electronic pop showcase comes 'Ruining The Mood' and... it's all in
the name. It's a bit of a fucked-up Sci-Fi rollercoaster, changing
the pace for 'Spacious Audacious', a brief track that touches on
indulgent rocketship wank (read: Sonic Youth's 'Providence'). And
indeed, much of this album comes off as reverential satire of the
indie rock canon. One track references the fade-in/fade-out/fade-in-again intro of 'Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others', except in the outro; while dialogue concerning "that guy from
the Velvet Underground" etc pops up elsewhere.
The most noticeable hallmark of this
album is its self-effacing humour and reflexivity.
Samuptonamonagroanamysharonadaytona500 is
so deliberately plotted and aware of its virtues, aware of its own
slight silliness and bedroom niche. It never hides song-writing behind
lo-fi gimmick – a commonplace pitfall for this kind of no-budget
pop – and instead chooses to take this self-referential approach.
Making note after note of your own album on your
own album isn't exactly groundbreaking by any means, but it provides
something of a conceptual framework for Upton to play with.
Side 2, Morov Thesame, is almost completely
forgettable. The humour, although still self-aware and toying with
the form, is mostly one-shot. 'Roundup To The Nearest Minute' clocks
in at 59 seconds, while 'Track 4' only exists to inform you that
track four has been deleted. Although Side 1 featured passable,
melodious bedroom pop, Morov Thesame
is just lo-fi cleverisms ad neuseum. The joke isn't funny anymore.
More than sixty
minutes of this sonically limited pop is too much. It becomes wearisome beyond the first "album" and regardless of its excess, Morov Thesame isn't particularly worth revisiting. You could scrap the entire second half of We Make No Apology and present a solid debut. This is bedroom pop to a very considered fault. It is amateurish and sometimes grating, enjoyable and worth engaging.
---
You can download a new Sam Upton & The Pollywaffles album for free here.
This band. This fucking band. It's Hobart's perennial Bad Luck Charms, playing a surprise afternoon show at the Brisbane one Sunday in February. I wasn't there but Julian's camera left us loose lot with some footage to fawn over.
Introduction + Frank Daft/The McDonald Sisters
Impossible Love
Match Made In Heaven
Fever
The grapevine tells me a deulxe edition anthology titled The Baddest, The Luckiest, The Charmingest is due for release in 2018, with a bonus disc 'Collected Heckles'. I hear they're rerecording all the heckles though, with professional actors and High-Quality Recording Gear™, so expect Liam Neeson chanting "Don't stop playing that riff, keep playing the fucking riff", et al.
At the end of last year, It was pretty saddening to learn that Charles Du Cane -- the psyudenom of Launceston-based musician/creator Fred Showell -- would be finishing up. Ceasing to exist, hanging up the boots, &c. It's all for a good reason, mind you. Let's celebrate.
He was one of a few early artists who defined local music for me while I still in those teenage years. I started listening to Charles Du Cane in high school. I can't remember how, but I used to trawl through a combination of MySpace and this new Triple J Unearthed website thing, searching for TASMANIAN acts. From memory, MySpace was easier to navigate (yes, queue laughter), but you could download the songs for free from Unearthed! What a revelation. I nabbed the available tunes and threw them onto my Lexar 256MB MP3 player, and listened to those three 128kbps badboys on the walk to school.
The three tracks, of course, were lifted from Charles Du Cane's debut. Tomahawk was the quirky electro-indie-pop thing that sat distanced from any other local 'indie-pop' I had encountered. The sample-based makeup of the album was a personal point of interest after having gone through a dance/electronic music phase the year before, but it was all tidy and structured and just nice, which wasn't something I found in most of my music collection at this time (it was probably filled with indie-rock, Sonic Youth/Joy Division stylee, that's how the end of high school goes right?).
I came back to Tomahawk after high-school, when in college I broke the same MP3 player and ended up defaulting to the trusted Discman. It forced me to choose a CD and stick with it - carrying extra discs was inconvenient and changing albums was clumsy. So it was, Tomahawk spun through my College days, studying/procrastinating in the library. It wasn't as twee as indie-pop could get (although definitely the most twee of all Du Cane records) but still mighty accessible in its approach to electronic pop music. It was fun ('Don't Sit The Woofer Near Your Wham! Tapes, Sweetheart'), light-hearted ('We'll All Be Together') and varied; a subtle antidote to that Year 11 boredom. Crayfish Legs came for dinner and we got to know each other.
Of the three Du Cane albums, 2009's Poets is both my personal favourite and, if I've surveyed critical reception correctly, his most popular release. (By "critical reception" I should really say 'judging from my friend's reactions', really.) Poets starts off incredibly strong with 'Granny Smith' before shifting into a few guitar-lead rock numbers, then landing on 'Judgement Day', an engaging, memorable song that shows off a darker and more lyrical Du Cane.
"I'm a nationalist, I'm a patriot / I'm a believer, I'm a believer," rang out opening number 'Granny Smith'. Poets, I think,has a lot to do with identity, and the identity of history. With my limited historical knowledge, much of the content could be all mock and I wouldn't know. His third record, Port & Rail, is heavily entrenched in true history, a retrospective world where war tempers the usual topics of art, love, life, et cetera. I never managed to grasp much of the historicalities of Port & Rail, but where I found Poets succeeded for me is that it didn't dwell in the details. It created this painted pastiche of a setting (inspired by a creatively rich jaunt in India) that strayed far from the positively electro-pop juts of Tomahawk, and perhaps further than any Australian pop artist of the time.
In about April-March 2011, I wrote 700 or so words for a review for Port & Rail that never found publication. The review felt unfairly finished, neglecting any appraisal of the lyrical content. The lyrics, full of their historical nuances and World War references, appeared delicately sweated-over; and passing over such a central part of the album irked me. Around the same time I got an email from Fred asking if I wanted a CD copy of the album, and I enquired about a possible lyrics sheet. He responded:
"The CD doesn't come with lyrics, but they're all up at http://charlesducane.net/port-and-rail-lyrics
if you're interested. I actually considered adding footnotes & a
bibliography at one point, as it's pretty dense with references that may
not be apparent, but want to leave at least a touch of mystique to the
whole thing."
The URL is now dead and the lyrics can now only be found in the songs (where they should be, really) and not in a booklet or webpage for me to obsessively/compulsively align some abstract review with; but looking back this exchange lead to the clarification of my criticisms. Whereas Poets' referential delicacy in its construction allowed for an unspoken mystique, Port & Rail was too concrete, too indebted to history to ever craft this same touch. If it helps, though, you can now tackle Port & Rail with new linear notes, which act as a kind of guide for those who want to dig a little deeper into the record. It's probably worth it.
It seems that Port & Rail is the point where Fred Showell, kingpin of Project Charles Du Cane, had learnt all he could in the realm of sample-based, beat-inspired pop oddity. It feels a deliberate step away from the inventiveness of earlier work and towards a more naturally instrument-based construction. It's his guitar album, you could say. In a way, it was dually ambitious and laconically accessible: ambitious in its attempts to converge the Du Cane pop universe with heritage rock; yet laconic in its championing of the latter's tropes and conduct. This could be an exaggeration on the whole, as several songs from the record are propelled by those trademark sample-heavy beats, but sometimes even the sampling feels especially fitted for the occasion, with lively 1930s carnival brass filling out 'Best Bent Wire'. As an album that leaned towards this heritage rock, the album material was far more viable to perform live than earlier tracks. Although I think I've only ever seen Charles Du Cane in solo karaoke mode once, the Port & Rail band outshines the funny phoenix singing along to his own backing track via laptop.
I remember the first time I met Fred - a week after our email back-and-forth - in which he gave me a copy of Port & Rail on
CD and excitedly remarked on how the recycled digipak stock smelled
like wood. In this old-time record set with the task of summoning an era
far before digital - a time of port and rail - it was genuinely
delighting to its creator to have this physical analogue. This
authenticity that Charles Du Cane had worked towards in the writing,
conceptualising and recording of the album was evident in the music, and
this little wooden aroma of the packaging was a validation of it all.
Listening to the newly released Rarities collection, the contrast
between demo tracks and finished album arrangements is staggering.
These early takes aren't simply skeletons, but that doesn't
make them mere stepping stones in a grander scheme. They're vague shapes
of eventual pop beauties and though these demoes It's exciting
to imagine the work gone in to reconstructing these malleable walls,
framework piano/guitar mixed down (or out) and replaced by plasters of
considered sampling. The clear, sometimes gaping gap between early and
final version is indicative of the talent at work here. Fingers crossed we hear something from Camp Showell in the future.
On Rarities, one of the unheard covers is "Make Your Own Kind Of Music". It kind of epitomises the reason Charles Du Cane ever existed in the first place; a manifesto of sorts. I don't think you could ever slight Charles Du Cane for having tread in unoriginal art – this was wholly unique, enjoyable pop music. Stylistically, it stands up on two feet as its own kind of music. It faltered at times, sure, but the three solid, individual albums are all something to be proud of; all something to sing along to.
"You've gotta make your own kind of music, Sing your own special song, Make your own kind of music, Even if nobody else sings along."
---
Join the final Du Cane bows at the MONA FOMA Festival Club @ the Grand Poobah tonight. $10 entry / free if you have a ticket to Girl Talk. Capacity will be tight so get in early, doors at 10:30pm.
You can now download the entire Charles Du Cane discography for free on his website.
A sampler of a few artists appearing at this years' MONA FOMA - the Museum of Old & New Art Festival Of Music & Art. You can find all the details here (it kicks off tonight if you didn't already know) but I'm just going to leave you with this totally hot MOFO mixtape. This doesn't represent even a third of the lineup but hey, take it as it is. Mediafire for authenticity. RIP Death Grips.
Just a small new year treat for you, a video of a full 14 minute set from noise artist Oceans at The Brisbane Hotel, utilising a contact-mic'd steel bowl; plus a live rendition of "Wearing The Killer" by The Native Cats in the Grand Poobah's side-room. Fun stuff.
The second Noise, Etc. Live show in what should be the start of a few more monthly/bi-monthly gigs. But for now, the difficult "follow-up" album effort features the talents of...
Noise, Etc. Live #2 is on Wednesday 11th January from 8:30pm, the last Wednesday before those MONA FOMA bastards chew yr brain off. $5 entry. Facebook event page right over here.
It's the answer to all your problems. Three quality acts, yet all completely different. That's the beauty of the Hobart music "scene". Diversity. Regardless of personal taste, you're bound to adoringly love at least one of these bands. Or maybe two! You'll love all three, even, if you’re a total legend. You’re a total legend, right? Anyway, you know what they say, variety is the spice of all the top MasterChef finalists. Variety. Sprinkle it all over your body. It's Noise, Etc. Live #2.
GUTTER PARTIES will set you into a tropical trance (not the malaria kind), before whipping you straight out and onto the dancefloor with some killer-python pop melodies. Equatorial grooves make way for snaking synth lines. Psychedelic instances with innumerable ethnic influences that you’d probably just call me racist if I tried to pinpoint any. See him before he saunters off to blow minds at Camp A Low Hum in New Zealand.
The irreplaceable TRANSCRIPTION OF ORGAN MUSIC is a thing of honest beauty. I don’t really know anyone who thinks even slightly ill of this music, and for a good reason. Damon Bird crafts humbling, nature-filled folk songs that are outstandingly good; etcetera. A voice from heaven. Close your eyes and just listen for forty five minutes.
And just to scare off anyone interested in traditionally structured ‘music’, the night’ll open with experimental luminary OCEANS. Often noisy, but sometimes equally subtle, Oceans is the art-fag-noise-art guise of local dickwaver Jordy Marson (Paint Your Golden Face, Naked). I can’t tell you what it’ll sound like because its different each time, but expect something ‘challenging’. The front bar’s just over there, y’know. As a good friend once said, “it made my head want to explode”.
The Brisbane Hotel
Wednesday 11th January
$5 entry
8:30 start
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Noise, Etc. Live is the extension of a
small-time blog dedicated to presenting and promoting underground
Hobart music. Because words and videos can only do so much, actually
hosting live music shows is the obvious next step in supporting
niche local music. Noise, Etc. Live aims to push the unseen talent of
Hobart and surrounds; those artists who don't share their wares as
often as they should, or any totally new and untested musical ventures.
Just two short videos of Hey Mook performing at the Grand Poobah last Saturday, in support of Sand Pebbles from Melbourne. Didn't take any video of Sand Pebbles because they were a wee bit shit and the bass player told totally boring self-indulgent stories between songs.
I'm sure I'll have another post on Hey Mook when I buy a CD, I'm so behind on these guys. Great band.
In a recent Q&A with MONA FOMA curator Brian Ritchie
over on The Thousands, published on the 17th of October, the topic of
the perception of Hobart arose. In this discussion, 'events like MONA
FOMA' are held up as the shining light which will help Hobart avoid the
stereotype of being little more than a cultural ghetto. Therein, Brian Ritchie makes a few claims about Hobart that I'd like
to disagree with. Here’s the final question and answer from that piece
(read the full thing here), copied wholesale for some necessary context:
Do you think that events like MONA FOMA are changing the wider mentality of people in Hobart?
Tasmania
has an endemic inferiority complex, which I think is being dispelled
because of the stuff that we are doing. We're also not by any means the
only thing happening. There are great places here. There are a lot of
excellent art galleries and music, and a few night clubs with original
music. I think it's maybe changing the attitude of the Hobartians. They
are actually really proud of Tasmania, but kind of afraid to say so.
People ask me: "Why did you move to Tasmania?" and I say, "Well, you
know why. It's beautiful, the food is great, the people are really
friendly." Maybe there's a certain amount of affirmation going on as a
result of the museum being open and a result of people like me and other
foreigners and mainlanders coming down and saying: "Wow, this place is
great!" It's also giving some of the young people a reason to hang
around. Tasmania uses the young population at a greater rate. I've
talked to booking agents about this; you can book acts for really young
people, and for older people, but you can't for 25-40 year olds because
they've all left. There's a whole, like, lost generation in Tasmania. I
think that maybe having a little bit of critical mass on the creative
side of things is providing different possibilities for young people.
Maybe they can stay here and even have an art practice here. It's not a
pre-requisite for them to think that they have to leave. We've actually
had some people moving here because of what's going on. It's changing.
Firstly,
I feel this response is quite condescending. The idea that the Hobart
arts scene can only appreciate itself or realise how good it might be
after the validation of outsiders is a little offensive. That only
through the affirmation of 'foreigners' and 'mainlanders' taking an
interest in our city's culture, we can then ourselves know its worth a
dime? I don't buy it. I've probably blown his comment way out of proportion, but I think its an interesting issue nonetheless. Ritchie
refers to Hobart as having an “endemic inferiority complex”, but I
don't think that's a fair judgement of Hobart's self-perception. Hobart
is small. We're a city of 215,000 people, and we don't have the critical
mass to support a glut of music venues or a huge arts scene. Hobart is small.
Is it an inferiority complex if we accept that we're small or
'inferior'? In terms of critical mass, infrastructure, diversity of arts
community etc, we are – purely in quantitative terms – inferior. We are
small. A little isolated, even. But... so what? I see Hobart as more a
city of realists than one with an endemic inferiority complex. People
create art for themselves and for anyone who gives a damn, and hey –
sometimes those people who give a damn live in Melbourne or Chicago. I don't think Everett True's stamp of approval
on Hobart group Naked made much of a difference in the band's profile
or perception in their home town. People already appreciated the band
and if anything, this tiny little piece of blog buzz just made those
same people turn their heads, nod and say “yeah, we know”, and then go
on with their lives. If you're invested in it, its exciting when it
happens; any kind of recognition is welcome and makes you feel good
about your band/the local scene. I'd debate that it's more “hey, other
people like what we [Hobart] is producing, that is nice and makes me
feel good”; rather than “hey, other people like what we're doing in
Hobart, I didn't realise we were good!”
Side-stepping
for a second, one thing I don't understand is this quote from Ritchie,
in which he talks about these bastions of great local culture as a
reason to live in Hobart:
There
are a lot of excellent art galleries and music, and a few night clubs
with original music. I think it's maybe changing the attitude of the
Hobartians. They are actually really proud of Tasmania, but kind of
afraid to say so.
Who
is honestly afraid to say they're proud of Tasmania? Tasmania is
positioned as an underdog for many reasons – it's size, mostly – but I
don't have any explicit memories of any Hobart artists who would be
embarrassed of their home city. I'm fucking proud of Hobart and that's
why I started this dumb blog, so people both in- and out-side of the
local arts community could read about and listen to Hobart music. I'm
curious who these people are and why they're afraid to be proud of Tasmania.
The
Hobart scene is notorious for falling into, at times, little more than
an incestuous circle jerk. Circle jerks are fun, mind you, but they are
also exclusive cliquey things that reject outside (i.e., the mainland)
influence. We already realise we have something great going on here and
maybe that's what Ritchie wanted to express. Hobart can be indignantly
alone in a kind of fuck-you-'mainland'-I-can-do-this-on-my-own way; the
isolate State proving it can make it on its own terms. Its what happened
in the past few years when many reviews from Melbourne and Sydney
outlets would cite 'isolation' as a thematic constant in many Hobart
music releases. “How dare they! We can fly across Bass Strait whenever
we want! We have the internet!” we'd beckon in a kind of self-assured
unison. While isolation is, I think, a reoccurring element in Hobart music circa late 2000s (Ivy St., hey), the local scene didn't want to be boxed in this way. You can't tell us what we are; we aren't small! It was a shrug at outsider labelling, whether misinformed or not. This
attitude is kind of in opposition to the one Ritchie discusses; and
while I could just be viewing everything from my seat in the alternative
music arena (the outsiders of the outsiders) rather than just a general
'Hobartian' stance (the outsiders), I don't think its completely off.
In
my short experience, Hobart arts isn't as concerned with outside
validation as much as Ritchie implies. As far as I can tell, while
reaching for a wider, national audience is something many artists and
musicians desire (and sometimes achieve), Hobart is not tied up in some
bizarre notion of “we're only valuable if someone outside our city tells
us so.” That's backwards.
I
don't think I can speak on behalf of anyone in the arts / music
community because, for the most part, I act as little more than an
observer, a promoter, a documenter. I'm just a youthful little shit with
an internet connection and an(other fucking) opinion to throw into the
wind, but I think its a discussion worth igniting again. What do you
honestly think about yourself, Hobart?
