How's this for a line from a gig review:
"Then there comes a sound I can't quite place, like bacon frying, but amplified. It's applause."
"the wavelengths and the resonance align"....writing and playing I like.
Showing posts with label reflection. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reflection. Show all posts
30 June 2012
22 June 2012
Sometime in the last few years - by which I mean a decade or so, they fly past so quickly - I started noticing and thinking about changes in popular music. I've been keen on popular music, of various genres I suppose, for some time but don't pretend to be an expert (until I've got a skinful, then I'm absolutely like every other expert).
But I started thinking that somehow songs were getting more realistic, more reflective of a broader take on life. The pop of the 1950s seemed so "white-bread" I guess (yes, this post will be littered with unsubstantiated, vast generalisations). The 60s were love love love and surfin', but even the evolution of pop/rock etc into the last 60s and early 70s, ie hard rock or whatever, didn't seem to change the subject matter (maybe exempt the Hair/JC Superstar kind of thing).
Hard rock bands had to slow down occasionally, hence Bad Company's Feel Like Makin' Love. A ballad, you see. Here, if you feel the need.
Then disco. Then punk, but somehow with the rosy tinted glasses of hindsight punk never really plumbed the depths of human emotion.
Sometime around this period someone will no doubt reference Joy Division but as I never heard them then, I can make another outrageous generalisation and move right along.
After returning to Australia in the late 80s I had a lot of catching up to do, as I'd been in parts of the world where contemporary music just wasn't available.
Slowly getting to my point, I think when I first heard Betterman I started thinking that popular music was reaching into the types of lives that many people were living where the world wasn't all roses and kittens. And I guess then I started thinking about the changes in society that I'd been privileged to have witnessed for some 50 years. But that's for another time.
Then this. That's my point. Spine-tingling on so many levels.
More later.
But I started thinking that somehow songs were getting more realistic, more reflective of a broader take on life. The pop of the 1950s seemed so "white-bread" I guess (yes, this post will be littered with unsubstantiated, vast generalisations). The 60s were love love love and surfin', but even the evolution of pop/rock etc into the last 60s and early 70s, ie hard rock or whatever, didn't seem to change the subject matter (maybe exempt the Hair/JC Superstar kind of thing).
Hard rock bands had to slow down occasionally, hence Bad Company's Feel Like Makin' Love. A ballad, you see. Here, if you feel the need.
Then disco. Then punk, but somehow with the rosy tinted glasses of hindsight punk never really plumbed the depths of human emotion.
Sometime around this period someone will no doubt reference Joy Division but as I never heard them then, I can make another outrageous generalisation and move right along.
After returning to Australia in the late 80s I had a lot of catching up to do, as I'd been in parts of the world where contemporary music just wasn't available.
Slowly getting to my point, I think when I first heard Betterman I started thinking that popular music was reaching into the types of lives that many people were living where the world wasn't all roses and kittens. And I guess then I started thinking about the changes in society that I'd been privileged to have witnessed for some 50 years. But that's for another time.
Then this. That's my point. Spine-tingling on so many levels.
More later.
19 June 2012
feats don't fail me now
There's not a hell of lot of space between my ears for things to go round and round in, but go round and round they do.
I was particularly taken with this commentary about the new TV ads for Woolies, which features an unbearably twee voice singing about love and unbearably twee visuals of people who evidently love working for Woolies and because it's all new and whatevs.
Except it's actually just a colour-by-numbers rebranding of a rapacious duopolist as we all know and actually, you know, you can't suspend belief indefinitely. I really wonder whether they think people get sucked in by this. There's that old saying about advertising, that the advertiser knows that 50% of the ad works, they just don't know which 50%.
I reckon that saying must date from the 1960s or so and I wonder whether today's figure shouldn't be closer to 10% or even 5%. Surely people...I mean, really?
So when you've got such evidently deep and complex stuff revolving between yer ears, it's wonderful to come upon an article like this one. Because it, like, simplifies and stuff? The notion of a warehouse of failed products is a wonderful concept in itself, but for those of us for whom the glass never passes halfway, some justification for feeling somewhat better about it all is quite reassuring. You know there are others out there of similar ilk, but finding a space to share is far from easy.
On the other hand, writing 'ilk' brings about a quite naughty feeling and on that note, we retire.
I was particularly taken with this commentary about the new TV ads for Woolies, which features an unbearably twee voice singing about love and unbearably twee visuals of people who evidently love working for Woolies and because it's all new and whatevs.
Except it's actually just a colour-by-numbers rebranding of a rapacious duopolist as we all know and actually, you know, you can't suspend belief indefinitely. I really wonder whether they think people get sucked in by this. There's that old saying about advertising, that the advertiser knows that 50% of the ad works, they just don't know which 50%.
I reckon that saying must date from the 1960s or so and I wonder whether today's figure shouldn't be closer to 10% or even 5%. Surely people...I mean, really?
So when you've got such evidently deep and complex stuff revolving between yer ears, it's wonderful to come upon an article like this one. Because it, like, simplifies and stuff? The notion of a warehouse of failed products is a wonderful concept in itself, but for those of us for whom the glass never passes halfway, some justification for feeling somewhat better about it all is quite reassuring. You know there are others out there of similar ilk, but finding a space to share is far from easy.
On the other hand, writing 'ilk' brings about a quite naughty feeling and on that note, we retire.
14 May 2012
08 May 2012
papa's got a brand new bag
umm, where to start...?....?
I was going to start with (x), but perforce I must start with (y), which is "Blogger has a brand new bag", or something to that effect. I had to read the instructions (anathema to a bloke, y'know) in order to get to here, although - in keeping with traditional VVB wryness and circumlocutery - I don't know exactly where here is. In fact, better make that "here."
No, attention. Of course I do, I am now at (x), which was that I was talking to a friend, in person, at the weekend about blogs and blogging and he mentioned this here VVB (once was chateau, now seaside-ish) and I says, I says to him, that I don't write much any more and he replies, that yes he has noticed this.
Which - I says to him - means he must be coming past to read here.
So, as night surely follows day, we are now jointly and severally at (z), which is that nothing bloody well changes, I have nothing particularly interesting to write about, so why on earth do people - well let's assume the plural, shall we - drop past?
'Cos it's like the human condition, innit? That's what we all write about, devastating insights into the human condition that, by the time they are rendered into the written word, by some strange mutation are less than insightful than originally envisaged.
It's unfortunate: well it's a lot of things, but unfortunate certainly ranks amongst the things it is.
During the same conversation at (x) above, said same interlocutor reminded me that I hadn't finished the series about the cars. Quite correct, I haven't, and to do so I'd need to go back and try to find all the ones I did write so as to know which ones remain unrepresented. Does Blogger's brand new bag (C) (tm) do that, I wonder?
It would be extraordinarily unfortunate if it didn't, nicht war?
Anyway I am now again scouring the layout of the Brand New Bag, there are lots of twiddly things which it might be fun to play with one day.
However for now I must away - an early start awaits (business breakfast - what a stupid idea, where do people come up with this stuff?). We have no further insights into the human condition - well, maybe you do - and I need a new obsession to make this place meaningful again. Trouble is, I am less obsessed about things than I used to was. Which is - on reflection - probably a good thing.
Au revoir, mes amis.
I was going to start with (x), but perforce I must start with (y), which is "Blogger has a brand new bag", or something to that effect. I had to read the instructions (anathema to a bloke, y'know) in order to get to here, although - in keeping with traditional VVB wryness and circumlocutery - I don't know exactly where here is. In fact, better make that "here."
No, attention. Of course I do, I am now at (x), which was that I was talking to a friend, in person, at the weekend about blogs and blogging and he mentioned this here VVB (once was chateau, now seaside-ish) and I says, I says to him, that I don't write much any more and he replies, that yes he has noticed this.
Which - I says to him - means he must be coming past to read here.
So, as night surely follows day, we are now jointly and severally at (z), which is that nothing bloody well changes, I have nothing particularly interesting to write about, so why on earth do people - well let's assume the plural, shall we - drop past?
'Cos it's like the human condition, innit? That's what we all write about, devastating insights into the human condition that, by the time they are rendered into the written word, by some strange mutation are less than insightful than originally envisaged.
It's unfortunate: well it's a lot of things, but unfortunate certainly ranks amongst the things it is.
During the same conversation at (x) above, said same interlocutor reminded me that I hadn't finished the series about the cars. Quite correct, I haven't, and to do so I'd need to go back and try to find all the ones I did write so as to know which ones remain unrepresented. Does Blogger's brand new bag (C) (tm) do that, I wonder?
It would be extraordinarily unfortunate if it didn't, nicht war?
Anyway I am now again scouring the layout of the Brand New Bag, there are lots of twiddly things which it might be fun to play with one day.
However for now I must away - an early start awaits (business breakfast - what a stupid idea, where do people come up with this stuff?). We have no further insights into the human condition - well, maybe you do - and I need a new obsession to make this place meaningful again. Trouble is, I am less obsessed about things than I used to was. Which is - on reflection - probably a good thing.
Au revoir, mes amis.
03 April 2012
breathe
Well it has been a very long time between drinks, as I waited for a suitable, appropriate, telling, devastatingly insightful (you get the picture) moment to celebrate blog the one thousandth number.
I have been tempted, ohlord have I been tempted. The actions of the UK government give no pause for thought as they embark on the further enrichening of the rich classes, and you know who that leaves. It's a neoliberal project of biblical scale and, almost assuredly because of aforesaid scale, the wheels will come off in a very big, almost enormous, way at some stage.
Australian politics at any level is leaving me - along with a goodly proportion of the Australian public, it would seem - feeling more or less meh, if you follow me.
The US continues its fine tradition of allowing, nay encouraging, its citizens to not only bear arms but to use them. Frequently. No links, I know you will have read the stories.
And I've been on the lookout for the whimsical, the wry, the gently cynical insights into the human condition that make blogging of that ilk so incredibly popular. And lightweight. Except for xkcd, of course.
And all along the wearying burden of knowing that my devoted readership (11 followers? Say again? Don't you people have anything better to do with your time?) have been waiting in anticipation. More than likely breathless anticipation because, as we all know, most anticipation is indeed breathless.
But for nought. What possibly could substantiate this epochal hopping into print?
OK then: this.
It's kind of political, it's certainly got a galaxyful of whimsy about it, it's not cheap or nasty, maybe it falls short of real human condition type stuff but it tells us a story.
And now I can take another breath.
For reasons that some readers may divine and others don't need to bother about, we are living in interesting time.
Keeping on breathing is going to be critical.
I have been tempted, ohlord have I been tempted. The actions of the UK government give no pause for thought as they embark on the further enrichening of the rich classes, and you know who that leaves. It's a neoliberal project of biblical scale and, almost assuredly because of aforesaid scale, the wheels will come off in a very big, almost enormous, way at some stage.
Australian politics at any level is leaving me - along with a goodly proportion of the Australian public, it would seem - feeling more or less meh, if you follow me.
The US continues its fine tradition of allowing, nay encouraging, its citizens to not only bear arms but to use them. Frequently. No links, I know you will have read the stories.
And I've been on the lookout for the whimsical, the wry, the gently cynical insights into the human condition that make blogging of that ilk so incredibly popular. And lightweight. Except for xkcd, of course.
And all along the wearying burden of knowing that my devoted readership (11 followers? Say again? Don't you people have anything better to do with your time?) have been waiting in anticipation. More than likely breathless anticipation because, as we all know, most anticipation is indeed breathless.
But for nought. What possibly could substantiate this epochal hopping into print?
OK then: this.
It's kind of political, it's certainly got a galaxyful of whimsy about it, it's not cheap or nasty, maybe it falls short of real human condition type stuff but it tells us a story.
And now I can take another breath.
For reasons that some readers may divine and others don't need to bother about, we are living in interesting time.
Keeping on breathing is going to be critical.
12 February 2012
as time goes by
As time goes by, I find that I understand less and less about stuff going on around me. You know, like life and stuff.
A simple example might be WWE. I followed this for a little while some 10 years ago as kind of a sociological experiment. Leave it for a period of time, come back and it appears to exist in some kind of parallel dimension where nothing that is said is as it appears. I could go on but I fear that I would end up in some kind of space-time continuum that doesn't. Continue, I mean. For one thing, I couldn't see the dozens or hundreds of John 3.16 banners that people in the audience routinely waved while two overmuscled brutes jumped up and down on each other.
All this reflection - well a lot more than what was just represented above, naturally - emanated from an article in the paper about the launch of Bob Katter's Australia Party tilt at the Queensland election. The bit that caused me to pause was this:
"The crowd, made up of Decembers and Mays, cheered."
I mean, December and May whats?
Anyway I ran it past Mrs VVB and she equally flummoxed at what the phrase might mean and from which cultural phenomenon or understanding it derived. So we remain flummoxed at VVB by the sea and this post desperately seeks your assistance to throw some light.
So, throw away.
A simple example might be WWE. I followed this for a little while some 10 years ago as kind of a sociological experiment. Leave it for a period of time, come back and it appears to exist in some kind of parallel dimension where nothing that is said is as it appears. I could go on but I fear that I would end up in some kind of space-time continuum that doesn't. Continue, I mean. For one thing, I couldn't see the dozens or hundreds of John 3.16 banners that people in the audience routinely waved while two overmuscled brutes jumped up and down on each other.
All this reflection - well a lot more than what was just represented above, naturally - emanated from an article in the paper about the launch of Bob Katter's Australia Party tilt at the Queensland election. The bit that caused me to pause was this:
"The crowd, made up of Decembers and Mays, cheered."
I mean, December and May whats?
Anyway I ran it past Mrs VVB and she equally flummoxed at what the phrase might mean and from which cultural phenomenon or understanding it derived. So we remain flummoxed at VVB by the sea and this post desperately seeks your assistance to throw some light.
So, throw away.
26 December 2011
insert title here
I would just like to take this opportunity to wish all of my occasional reader the best of what you think you'd like as we head into this new/next /biggest whatever.
Over the past few days I have read a few things that make you go "wtf" and in some cases the nimble juxtaposition of some of these may have made the occasional reader go "hmmm....amateur" but fortunately I've forgotten them and, in any case, mere reporting here or even highlighting of the ironic juxtaposition would not have added to the sum of human understanding.
Ummm, offspring no 1 and I have been watching the Test and we have been...yeah, well, you know an' all.
Again, may you have all things and stuff.
Over the past few days I have read a few things that make you go "wtf" and in some cases the nimble juxtaposition of some of these may have made the occasional reader go "hmmm....amateur" but fortunately I've forgotten them and, in any case, mere reporting here or even highlighting of the ironic juxtaposition would not have added to the sum of human understanding.
Ummm, offspring no 1 and I have been watching the Test and we have been...yeah, well, you know an' all.
Again, may you have all things and stuff.
25 November 2011
let's go
Well not the actual title of the song but right in the groove for a Friday night.
It still makes me smile...as do some of the comments.
Reaching even further back into the recesses of the memory, we get this. Holy moley, there are actually some memories not exterminated by the quantities of beer that used to accompany going to a barn where these blokes might be playing.
It still makes me smile...as do some of the comments.
Reaching even further back into the recesses of the memory, we get this. Holy moley, there are actually some memories not exterminated by the quantities of beer that used to accompany going to a barn where these blokes might be playing.
Good times....
13 November 2011
like a rolling stone
Well there's stuff in this story that I wouldn't have dreamt of. Margaret Trudeau? Ronnie Wood? Really?
Anyway out of the gazillions of words that have been written about the Stones, these are some more.
Time to get some old CDs out.
Anyway out of the gazillions of words that have been written about the Stones, these are some more.
Time to get some old CDs out.
04 November 2011
rough boy
I caught up with an old school friend last weekend - hadn't seen him for over 40 years. We exchanged e-mail addresses and cemented the reunion online...so to speak.
Epically strange...still digesting some aspects. Anyway given all of that I figured it was relatively safe to give him the link to VVB: it's semi-anonymous but various folk, mainly from work, have the secret password.
He wrote back to say he'd spent a pleasant (yes, I know...) few hours trawling my back pages and passed some kind comments on what he had read. Yes, I know, redux.
Anyway I've done similarly tonight and was quite taken with how much I used to write before I either (a) started trying to be wry, or (b) just got lazy.
All of which is simply a prelude to something entirely different, namely this. I'm kind of a ZZ Top fan but I don't think I've ever seen a David Lynch film (he is a filmmaker isn't he, or an I mistaking him for someone else?). Not that it matters; it's a quite entrancing little article which is borne out by the entrancing little comments thread.
The ideal thing to post on a Friday night...sleep well.
Epically strange...still digesting some aspects. Anyway given all of that I figured it was relatively safe to give him the link to VVB: it's semi-anonymous but various folk, mainly from work, have the secret password.
He wrote back to say he'd spent a pleasant (yes, I know...) few hours trawling my back pages and passed some kind comments on what he had read. Yes, I know, redux.
Anyway I've done similarly tonight and was quite taken with how much I used to write before I either (a) started trying to be wry, or (b) just got lazy.
All of which is simply a prelude to something entirely different, namely this. I'm kind of a ZZ Top fan but I don't think I've ever seen a David Lynch film (he is a filmmaker isn't he, or an I mistaking him for someone else?). Not that it matters; it's a quite entrancing little article which is borne out by the entrancing little comments thread.
The ideal thing to post on a Friday night...sleep well.
12 October 2011
giggle eyed goo
In lieu of writing about nothing, allow me to introduce you to a new - I hope - mindworm or eyeworm; which, in the manner of all things modern, should probably be represented as iWorm.
Ha bloody ha, I kid you not. It's a laugh a week around these parts.
Anyway you may get the odd giggle therefrom.
Ha bloody ha, I kid you not. It's a laugh a week around these parts.
Anyway you may get the odd giggle therefrom.
21 September 2011
a...b.....c (*)
So now, all ABC radio news bulletins lead with "the Opposition (or Opposition Leader) said..." That will then be followed by a direct rebuttal by a Government Minister or reference to the Government's position on whatever the issue was.
So: is this the pro-Coalition bias that has the left-looniness of the blogosphere in perpetual meltdown? Or is it a subtle way of giving the Government the last word on everything, so as to get the correct message to listeners? But simultaneously confirming the rabid right's assertions that the ABC is nothing but a bed of communists?
(*) de jackson five
Confusing, is it not? All I want is the news. That said, one of the many joys of regional living is that, with all the driving I do, I spend an awful lot of time listening to the ABC. It is a good thing...along with regional living.
So: is this the pro-Coalition bias that has the left-looniness of the blogosphere in perpetual meltdown? Or is it a subtle way of giving the Government the last word on everything, so as to get the correct message to listeners? But simultaneously confirming the rabid right's assertions that the ABC is nothing but a bed of communists?
(*) de jackson five
Confusing, is it not? All I want is the news. That said, one of the many joys of regional living is that, with all the driving I do, I spend an awful lot of time listening to the ABC. It is a good thing...along with regional living.
19 September 2011
advertising space (*)
You really really need to read this quite funny, in a try-hard sort of way, article but then read the comments. Why are Pommy commenters so much more cleverererer than our own variety? At least when not engaged in he said-she said point scoring on politics, in which endeavour they are indistinguishable.
(*) apparently a Robbie Williams song.
(*) apparently a Robbie Williams song.
18 September 2011
16 September 2011
it's the end of the world as we know it
Via Crikey, this from TV Tonight.
If not showing a footy game - oh all right, an important footy game - on high def television is a "rude shock", I suggest we should all pack up our tents and roll over now, because we're so far up a river in a barbed wire canoe...
End of the world? Hah.
If not showing a footy game - oh all right, an important footy game - on high def television is a "rude shock", I suggest we should all pack up our tents and roll over now, because we're so far up a river in a barbed wire canoe...
End of the world? Hah.
14 August 2011
back on the chain gang
To respond to Gerry's question on the last post, yes I've been away and only with access to a work computer that I don't like to use to post blog pieces, even in my own time. Could have gone to an internet cafe I guess...but I didn't.
Any way it was a good break to go and do some other work and cacth up with a lot of people I haven't seen for a long time.
Any way it was a good break to go and do some other work and cacth up with a lot of people I haven't seen for a long time.
22 June 2011
smokie
I had an idea for a TV advertisement. The purpose of the advertisement would be to inform people about the costs to the healthcare system of people who get sick - and when I say sick, I mean fixin' to die sick - from smoking. Maybe if people realised the impost on their taxes through the healthcare system, there would be more of a mass movement to reduce the incidence of smoking throughout the population.
I would use the notion of an old fashioned nanny. That is to say, an older, larger, warmer, in a dress and pinafore nanny, the style of nanny you think of when you maybe think about the upbringing of the privileged scions of earlier generations. I believe there is an alternate image of nannies based on some recent, populist notion of them being strict and harsh. Probably a short term ratings winner but no resonance, you know what I mean?
The nanny would be all soft and comforting, you know, and would say that if you really understood the social and financial burden that your smoking brought on the whole population, including your city, your neighbourhood, your workmates, your friends, your family, yourself, you'd reconsider the habit.
The language would be as one would use to a child to get him or her to modify behaviour that they know is unhelpful, but just need a push. The tone would be uplifting and hopeful to insinuate that, with your help, we'll all be better off.
What do you reckon?
I would use the notion of an old fashioned nanny. That is to say, an older, larger, warmer, in a dress and pinafore nanny, the style of nanny you think of when you maybe think about the upbringing of the privileged scions of earlier generations. I believe there is an alternate image of nannies based on some recent, populist notion of them being strict and harsh. Probably a short term ratings winner but no resonance, you know what I mean?
The nanny would be all soft and comforting, you know, and would say that if you really understood the social and financial burden that your smoking brought on the whole population, including your city, your neighbourhood, your workmates, your friends, your family, yourself, you'd reconsider the habit.
The language would be as one would use to a child to get him or her to modify behaviour that they know is unhelpful, but just need a push. The tone would be uplifting and hopeful to insinuate that, with your help, we'll all be better off.
What do you reckon?
19 June 2011
05 June 2011
complicated
Appropos of absolutely nothing at all, I had a random thought about quite common phrase. So I looked it up on Wikipedia and this is what I found:
Lovers of 60s and 70s pop and rcok might like this one. Even though youtube shows other songs, I think they were pretty much one-hit wonders with this one.
The form without the hyphen is also commonly seen, but can beWho'd have thought it was so complicated?
construed as a "wild chase", but not an inevitably fruitless one, after a
possibly domesticated and flightless goose, rather than after a wild
goose.
Lovers of 60s and 70s pop and rcok might like this one. Even though youtube shows other songs, I think they were pretty much one-hit wonders with this one.
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