The latest

09
Jun

Review: Various Artists – Soundcrane

By Darragh|Music Writing, Record review, Writing|Be the first to comment!

Soundcrane

Various Artists - Soundcrane

 
I reviewed Soundcrane for Rave Magazine a few weeks ago. It’s a record featuring a host of Brisbane artists doing songs connected to Japanese culture, including popular music, TV themes and movie scores. It’s been put out to help raise funds for those suffering as a result of the Japanese earthquake and consequent nuclear incident. I don’t really know much about Japanese music in general and this very enjoyable release opened my eyes (and ears) to some interesting new songs. The Bigstrongbrute song is a particular favourite, as you can tell from my review.

VARIOUS ARTISTS – Soundcrane
Tuesday, 24 May 2011
(Independent)

Compassionate locals cover Japanese music

Given the solidarity of the Brisbane music community during the 2011 Queensland floods, it’s no surprise that local musicians have contributed their time to lend our Japanese friends a hand in their time of need. Soundcrane is a compilation of songs drawn from Japanese culture, including popular music, anime and video games, performed by (mostly) local artists with proceeds going to disaster relief. While this may sound like something that could go horribly wrong, the results are impressive, serving as a great introduction to Japanese music for those not overly familiar. McKisko’s downtempo yet serene cover of the Tenniscoats’ Baibaba Bimba introduces a record covering a wide net of Japanese music, demonstrated when Charles Dugan’s assured cover of One Summer Day from Spirited Away appears not too far from No Anchor’s fierce rendition of Boris’s Rattlesnake. While it’s tricky to summarise all the highlights (though special mention deserves to be made of BigStrongBrute’s stunning cover of Tujiko Noriko’s Call My Name), Soundcrane is such an engaging release it’s difficult to believe that this project was thrown together in such a short period. Highly recommended.

DARRAGH MURRAY

Have a listen to McKisko’s cover of Baibaba Bimba.

08
Jun

Interview with Peter Combe

By Darragh|Interview, Writing|Be the first to comment!

Peter Combe playing piano

Australian children's performer Peter Combe

This interview appeared in Rave Magazine on 10 May, 2011.

Peter was a pretty engaging guy. Unfortunately, something went dramatically wrong with my recording equipment and made it difficult to make out some of what he was saying. I recall him being fairly damning of contemporary children’s music but his points were well though out rather than irrational.

A nostalgic DARRAGH MURRAY chats to legendary children’s singer-songwriter PETER COMBE about his career resurgence and the current state of affairs within his industry.

Back before The Wiggles juggernaut, the quirky tunes of Peter Combe dominated Australian children’s music. Those born after 1980s who owned television capable of receiving the ABC are likely to be instantly familiar with the work of Combe, whose songs such as Newspaper Mama, Spaghetti Bolognaise and Juicy Juicy Green Grass defined the genre of children’s music. While this generation is now grown up, it’s clear they still retain a taste for the artist’s work.

“I did this gig about 18 months ago at a great big private party – a 21st birthday party – and when I did that part of Mr Clickitty Cane that goes ‘belly flop in a pizza’, this guy stepped out of the crowd with this giant-sized pizza, placed it very carefully on the floor, took off his shirt and actually belly flopped into it. I was so impressed, people just loved it,” Combe says.

Combe is fascinated by his popular resurgence amongst children and their parents as well as those who grew up listening to his songs, a phenomenon that has seen the singer-songwriter sell out all ages matinees and 18+ shows throughout the country over the past few years.

“My career’s taken an interesting turn,” he says, “What’s happened for me in the last four or five years is that my original audience is now in their mid-to-late ‘20s and they come out to these evening shows in big numbers and they have a fantastic time.”

Combe states that he still tends to appear solo when performing in front of his younger audience but emphasises that his evening shows are inclined to focus on the contemporary tastes of his older fans.

“[The two shows] are similar in that I do a lot of the well known songs at both, but the evening show is for the Newspaper Mama band and we play quite loudly! It’s a rock show whereas the morning matinee is much gentler.
“What’s fascinating is we have these parents that bring along their little kids and the parents know the songs better than the kids do.”

Our conversation turns towards the state of children’s music in present day Australia, Combe reluctantly admitting that overwhelming success of groups like The Wiggles and Hi-5 hasn’t exactly been conducive for would-be children’s performers.

“To be absolutely frank, it’s fairly unhealthy because there are far less people doing it. I mean The Wiggles absolutely dominate television. I don’t mean to be critical but people say that they dominate to the extent that they exclude everyone else so any other people who aspire to be a singer-songwriter have a hard road to hoe.”
And despite being known primarily for children’s music, Combe still manages to find time to keep track of popular trends in contemporary pop and rock.

“I like a lot of Radiohead – my son really likes them – and I’m a big fan of Norah Jones. I’ve seen her twice in concert and she’s wonderful.”

07
Jun

Rave special feature: Track And Field

By Darragh|Music Writing, Writing|Be the first to comment!

Back around the middle of May 2011, I was asked to help put together a special feature for an upcoming ’boutique’ music event in Brisbane by the name of Track and Field for Rave Magazine. This event was being put together by Mucho Bravado and Amplifire Music and featured Ball Park Music, The Jungle Giants, The Belligerents and Last Dinosaurs.

It was promoted as half club night/half music festival and had a bunch of popular local indie bands and a few DJ sets. Em from Rave Magazine wanted to do a something bit different and sent through a link to Roots Manuva’s video for his song “Witness (1 Hope)” as inspiration. After some conversation, we settled on the idea of a tongue in cheek ‘awards’ ceremony, based around the loose intersection of sports, art and music.

The resulting feature was magnificently designed by Aaron at Rave and featured three zany categories of awards as you can see below.

Special feature for Rave Magazine featuring Last Dinosaurs, Ball Park Music, The Jungle Giants and The Belligerents

Special feature for Rave Magazine

This turned out to be the most fun article I’ve written for Rave thus far. You can read the web version online at Rave, but the printed copy looks much better.

I wonder if anyone got the Springsteen Nebraska ‘joke’.

There was actually another award by the name of originally planned, but because my limit was only 1,000 words, something had to go. But for the sake of posterity, here it is below.

The Survivor Medal for the most likely to beat Dolph Lundgren in a title fight

Remember Rocky beating up Dolph Lundgren to the tune of Eye of the Tiger? Well, if Rocky can do it, so can Brisbane musicians. Here’s the nominees for THE SURVIVOR MEDAL FOR MOST LIKELY TO BEAT DOLPH LUNDGREN IN A TITLE FIGHT.

Andrew Dooris of The Jungle Giants
“Dooris has has no sense of pain and at one point in his life, he did 100 push-ups every morning. If his fearless reputation didn’t scare away Dolph, his luscious head of hair and boyish good looks would. Such handsomeness would prove too much for any prizefighter.”

Brock Smith of Ball Park Music
“Three of my band mates broke into Lundgren’s home in Spain back in 2009 but they bailed like the pathetic pussies that they are, admitting that Lundgren would whoop their pale Brisbane asses. Considering that Jen and I are rendered useless for any physical activity, it has to be Brock , who is often called Brocky, which even sounds like Rocky. He likes to rumble.”

Andy Keys / Konstantine of The Belligerents
“Tough call between Andy Keys and Konstantine. Andy has ninja skills and could probably knockout Lundgren with a one-inch punch but Konsti would catch Lundgren off-guard because they basically look the same.”

Sean of Last Dinosaurs / Fergus (Dew Process A&R)
“I think Sean is pretty buff, he could probably do it. Though none of us are really strong. Fergus who’s our A&R at Dew Process is pretty big so he could probably take people down at will. So it’s a tie between Sean & Fergus for this one.”

Track and Field #1 was last weekend and, by all accounts, it was good night out.

30
Mar

UN Internship FAQ and Other Tales

By Darragh|General, Internship, Site News, United Nations|Be the first to comment!

It’s been some time since I’ve blogged here. About a year in fact. My bad.

I’m sorry, I’ve been busy. Anyway, I’ve finally gotten around to putting something up of use. The UN Internship FAQ. People kept commenting on my blog entries or sending me private message asking questions so I collated their questions and added in a few relevant notes to help people out. You can read the FAQ here.

I have been keeping my publications up to date which you can see here. I’ve also updated my ‘about me’ page for all you identity thieves out there.

10
Feb

The UN Security Council and Holocaust Memorial

By Darragh|Internship, New York, Travel, United Nations|Be the first to comment!


The UN Security Council

I visited the UN Security Council about two weeks ago. Here is an article I wrote on the experience for the intern newsletter.

One of the perks of being an UN intern is the ability to waltz into open Security Council meetings. While attempting to inconspicuously dance your way past security might raise a few eyebrows, by simply flashing your badge you gain immediate access to the world of high diplomacy.

On January 27th the Security Council held an open debate entitled “The Situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian Question”. Held in the Security Council chamber, it was the first opportunity for many interns to witness the operation of arguably the most important UN decision-making institutions. Along with the regular Member States, representatives from the Palestinian Authority and Israel, as well as the Secretary-General Ban-Ki Moon, were in attendance.

While not a debate in the traditional sense, the topic did stimulate some interesting discussion on the current situation in the region. Centred on the plight of the Palestinian people, Oscar Fernandez-Tarano, assistant secretary-general for political affairs delivered a sobering assessment of the situation on the ground one year after the Gaza Conflict had erupted. He elaborated on cases of denial of food and aid to the Palestinians and argued that the continued stalemate is precipitating a humanitarian crisis in the region.

Many nations urged Israel to loosen restrictions on the transport of aid and fuel into the occupied territories and stop the continued expansion of settlements into East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. Israel stated its willingness to negotiate with the Palestinians, but demanded the cessation of the continued rocket attacks into its territory. Israel also noted Hamas’ continued denial of its sovereign legitimacy. Lebanon provided the most vitriolic reaction, whereas the United States condemned Hamas’ rocket attacks but urged Israel to restrict settlement building in the occupied territories.

While this meeting seemed informal, it gave the interns an interesting look into how the council operates, as well as the nuances of international diplomacy and debate. It also gave insight into the somewhat overwhelming complexities of attempting to solve an issue as old and volatile as ‘the Palestinian Questions’.

I couldn’t stay for the entire debate, but you could see that Israel was in for a bad day. Apart from the US, all other nations condoned Israel’s behaviour. While I don’t condone violence of any kind including the Hamas rocket attacks, but what Israel are doing – namely the expansion of settlements – is not constructive. The rest of the world can see that but not many seem interested in helping the Palestinians people.

The UN issued a press release that includes information concerning the entire breadth of the debate which you can read by clicking here.

I also attended the UN’s Holocaust Memorial Ceremony held in the General Assembly that same night. I have to say, I was disappointed. While the music was quite good, the speeches were sloppy. The keynote speaker seemed a charming old lady and had some interesting stories, but rambled on a bit more than was necessary.

One speech by the Israeli minister for Information Yuli Edelstein could only be described as outright propaganda. He did not really talk on the Holocaust at all, instead gave a demagogic lecture about the right of Israel to exist and the threat of Iran’s (conveniently forgetting Israel’s own alleged nuclear arsenal), glossing over anything that actually had anything to do with ‘remembering the holocaust’. You can tell by his previous press statements, that there wasn’t much hope for the exercise of rationalism.

While I don’t disagree with Israel’s right to exist, nor disagree with their right to be suspicious of Iran, the whole manner in which Edelstein preached to the crowd, taken in context with the current plight of Palestinian, left a bad taste in my mouth. I cannot support the utilisation of human tragedy as contemporary political currency. Simply put, it wasn’t the time or place to talk about such subjects.

There was what seemed like a moving speech from a Sinti representative who talked the 20,000 deaths of the Sinti people during the holocaust, but the sound was so awful that it was really hard to hear.

Still an impressive day – getting to hang in both the Security Council and the General Assembly was pretty special.

02
Feb

Scanning the Scene in the City Tonight….

By Darragh|Internship, New York, Photos, Travel|Be the first to comment!

I’ve been here now a bit over two weeks and thus far it has been a bit of a blast. My fellow interns are generally a fairly sociable bunch so I have been kept occupied by late night trips to the lower east side, karaoke in the Upper East Side and various jaunts around midtown Manhattan. Previously, I was living in a bizarre German catholic male guest house, but I have now moved to an apartment on East 37th street in an area coincidentally called Murray Hill. That’s right; I’m king of the hill.

I’m going to miss the two old guys that used to dish out the meals at the German guesthouse. Despite their somewhat sour demeanor, they were quite amusing. I have no idea what their names were, but fellow resident Ben and myself dubbed them Basil and Manuel after the characters from Fawlty Towers.

“What’s the matter? You no eat eggs, eggs are your balls, they make you grow big balls, you don’t eat eggs, you no have balls!” – Words allegedly spoken by Basil Fawlty to a guest.

However, I can now walk to work without the bother of the subway, which is super handy. That’s pretty radical.


Bob Dylan and the Kids

On the weekend I visited the Brooklyn museum to check out the excellent “Who Shot Rock and Roll” exhibition. It was an exhibition which celebrated over 50 years of music photography and it was pretty darn good. Highlights include an awesome black and white shot of Pavement playing at the Reading festival in the 90s, a great Bob Dylan shot (shown above), a great shot of Paul McCartney in a car looking back through the rear view mirror (taken by Linda McCartney), as well as the classic Paul Simonon bass-smashing photo taken by Pennie Smith, often judged the greatest rock’n’roll photo of all time. Australia was even represented there, with a video installation of the Vines clip “Outtathaway” playing on loop (surely, they could have picked a better song/clip though!).


Arlene’s Grocery

Last night, I took up the opportunity of heading to Arlene’s Grocery – a bar on the lower east side famous for its live music. From the outside, it looks just like the name suggests – a grocery shop. Monday night means rock’n’roll karaoke, with punters getting up from the crowd and playing songs with a live band. The place was absolutely jammed and some crazy characters got up to sing some songs rarely heard at traditional karaoke. There was people doing Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins and AC/DC. The best of the night was some dude getting up to sing thrash metal classic “Seek and Destroy” by Metallica. The band ripped this version out even including Hammett’s epic solo. I never expected to see that one played!

Anyway, I’m in my third week here and it is going pretty well. More to come.

By the way, I was saddened to hear that god-damned phony J.D Salinger died last week. I haven’t really being paying attention to the news, so this managed to pass me by.

1 ... 12 13 14 15 16 ... 19