22 Dreams

I've posted an article about ukulele in Suite 101 .   I've returned to learning-up, playing and performing with the ukulele with a view to making this my 'main' instrument.  The quest for me is divine the instrument's complexity, its magic , contrasting as it does with its face-value simplicity. Ukulele's a great way to meet new people.  Carrying your ukulele around is a bit like walking your dog. If you meet someone else holding a ukulele there's no barrier to striking up some conversation.  It's real, it's vital; the ukulele represents that sensitive area in the solar-plexus or the human psyche that is innocent and luminous.   Barriers are gladly overcome with ukuleles in hands.  And like dogs, we often want to know and chat about which breed of uke the other is holding. You can't really have any of that guitar-attitude bullshit with the ukulele which is one reason I find playing it so refreshing.  The ukulele disarms all sense of ...

To me, the magic of songwriting isn't so much about writing a great song or being able to just write songs.  I think the magic lies in witnessing talented writers who've been granted the opportunity and freedom to write a string of great albums that are touched by that certain 'spark' or spirit; zeitgeist.  All styles of music apply, as do all art-forms.  Channeling the zeitgeist never lasts for any artist; all who've been blessed with the opportunities and freedoms to create great work must one day forgo it, either by the times that have moved on, by death, by change, by life. Where we can all think of numerous artists whose work is charged by the comet of genius within a certain trajectory of time and space, my favourite example of this is Joni Mitchell.    I love how Joni's first two albums of the late '60s: folky, sensitive, albeit startlingly & piercingly deep given her uber-creativity and free use of open-tunings, are nonetheless akin to compila...

Shit - I have in mind to "formally" review the Cure at the Sydney Opera House for the Vivid Festival concert for "sweet one oh one" but I'm stuck in this quagmire of trying to make every sentence right, every word right, every passive phrase reversed so that the active is thrust out in front (always), and it's tiring me out like writer's quicksand.  So this is it, the looser-uperer blog.  After this I'm hoping that I'll be able to draft that thing properly so that a formal review is written and that it gets posted and I can start earning big bucks for my efforts.  Why, my Neil Finn article has been sitting in the "sweet 1 oh one" for over six months now and already I've accumulated 40c.   Ok. Cure.  Best concert ever.  They performed their first three albums with two intervals in between each album, coming back afterward for three encores.  It was...sensational.  I couldn't believe it was happening, but there it was.  I...

All these photos taken in July 2008 Perhaps the most iconic of Sydney's many singer-songwriter nights had its final gig last Monday night.  We're talking about a place everyone called "the X".  Sadly, the pub has been sold to a pub-entrepreneur who is infamous for ripping out the p/a systems and destroying any vestiges of the live music that in the past had served each venue so well and the people and performers who had involved themselves with it. Monday nights at the X were a great deal more than just a singer-songwriter night.  There are many of these all over Sydney, and many fine ones too.  With the X there was the location, the room and the buzz all combined; making it a creative and social hub with few comparisons. The X is situated on Foveaux Street, Surry Hills, just at the base of the steep hill with the one-way traffic running towards Elizabeth Street and Central Railway Station down towards the southern end of the city.  It's one of those pl...

There are no problems in my life.  No tangible, real problems.  I've no problems with circumstances, no problems with people, no problems with family, no problems with friends and loved ones, no problems with work.  Any foreseen problems in any of these areas are summarily dealt with; life goes on clearly. There may have been problems in the past, but there are no problems now.  No real problems.  Sure I'm depend on my job for my livelihood, but doesn't everyone?  And for those that don't, are they any happier? In fact, from a moment to moment basis, excluding past circumstance and future speculation, some aspects of my life may be considered to be 'perfect', or near perfect.  If "perfection" is about 80-90% good and 10-20% then I'm definitely in this category of doing well for my self and situation within the context of coping and living in a large city. But there seems to be one problem, one massive almost insurmountable problem. T...

Prior to Easter I took off on a two-day road trip down to Yass, situated at the westbound edge of the Great Dividing Range.  Yass is just over three hours drive from Sydney.  No-one goes to Yass for the sake of it.  Yass is a pretty, though pleasantly downbeat town of about 5,000 people and it's very much a passerby, truck-stop sort of town.  It's generally a wool centre, but for me I was attracted to rolling hills, space, sheep, cows, and I happily encountered all of these.  I also wanted to be far enough from Sydney to avoid vestiges of cosmopolitanism that tend to creep in up in satellite villages surrounding the city,  without having to drive too far.  Here, in Yass, the cafes and shopfronts were delightfully ordinary, and I reveled in the peaceful feeling you find in a small town away from the big city. Monday Morning in Yass is slow and sanguine.  The big city, even in its quietest moments, can in no way compare.  Below is a photo of ...

After many years of wondering and waiting I finally got to see this 80s "Ozploitation" film I'd been wishing to see for ages.   Dead End Drive-In , directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith, was released originally in 1986.   (I bought the DVD for work - such is the advantage of running a library.  And besides, the new Head of Film and TV requested that I source as many Australian films as I can, so...) My interest in this film is not necessarily because it's Aussie, or because it drips and and reeks with every 80s cliche, but because it's based on a short story that I love, that being Peter Carey's "Crabs". I'd never read a Peter Carey novel.  I've only read most of the short stories that make up the volume called "The Fat Man in History" of which the first story, 'Crabs', is the best.  With some writers you find yourself wanting more after reading one novel or story that you love; you're hungry to read the rest of their ...