ianbee: this is instead of getting a dog

All the single ladies

This should entertain you for three minutes. A perfectly crafted nugget of pop, a surreal cover of a great song, and an inspired home-made lo-fi video to boot. Check out the breakfast cereal, and the bit where she excuses the bridge; "don't make me sing this part of the song, the lyrics are so bad ..." Inspired.

Battle of the Choirs

There was an A Cappella battle on the North Shore tonight. Melbourne's Harambee, in black and pink, verses Sydney's Soulfood, in black and orange. Someone is going to have to sort an away-strip out for the return leg; it was too confusing.

Harambee have been commissioned to sing at the 75th anniversary of an umbrella manufacturers (!) and Soulfood still have Abba stuck in their repertoire from when they launched the Mamma Mia DVD. A large proportion of Harambee's repertoire was about water, rain, dampness and umbrellas. They also sang a song about Spiderman and a cover of Coldplay's Viva la Vida. Good gig!

During the interval I took a lot of flack from 'friends' in the audience about my attempt at bird-identification. (See below)

Best choir in the continent

According to the trophy we took home after the the grand final of the Sydney Eisteddfod last night, apparently I sing in the best choir in Australasia. (A dictionary definition says that includes New Zealand and Papua New Guinea!) We beat all the church choirs and chamber choirs and school choirs and male-voice choirs and sparkly-lady choirs by singing a Stevie Wonder song and a Dusty Springfield song. The judges said we were the choir they would most like to hear a whole concert of. So what are you doing on friday ...?

Stage invasion

I went to see Ladysmith Black Mambazo last night. They were wonderful, a beautiful blend of sound that starts in the chest and ends up in the head and makes you think that everything will be alright.

I cynically thought their might be some sort of South African LMB franchise system, but no, it was the original guy who worked with Paul Simon twenty-four years ago and founded the group forty-eight years ago. That's a long career!

At the interval (chocolate cornetto, mmm) the friends I was with said that if they called people onto the stage they would definitely go. There's no way they'll call people onto the stage, I thought. I was more dreading the bit in gigs when the band get the audience to sing. It usually starts with them announcing that it's "your turn now!" No it's not, I think. We're paying you. I get to listen, you get to play.

Sure enough, after the interval LMB made us sing in a 'competition' with their choir. 'You won', one of them said. 'That's not fair', another said, 'they have women'. 'Well maybe we should have some of their women come and join us?'

Bad mistake.

Two of my friends jumped up like they'd had an electric shock and started running towards the stage. From the very last row in the stalls. Running, and waving their arms in the air. (In the post incident debrief they were not able to explain adequately why they were waving their arms.) LMB remained frozen on stage as two tall Australian women bore down on them and lept up alongside. It must have been terrifying.

It became obvious that LMB had only intented the statement as a hypothetical 'what-if?' and never expected anyone to see it as an actual invitation. After a whispered word in their ear from one of Africa's most famous musical heros they made their way back to their seats, simultaneously deflated and triumphant.

The Queen and the Soldier

Hey, I need your help. I have been sucked into an argument regarding the 80s pop/country classic "The Queen and the Soldier" by Suzanne Vega (she lives on the second floor).

Read the lyrics, or better still listen to the song, and come back to me.

Ready? Good song isn't it? Well the way I've been interpreting the second to last verse is that the soldier popped out for a minute and the Queen arranged for someone to sneak up behind him and whack him on the head. Wow! What a twist! This is the version that male friends seem to connect with. The women tend to prefer a scenario where the soldier wonders off stage and dies in battle, and the Queen is gutted. You may accuse me of pandering to stereotypes but I have honestly found opinion to be exactly split amongst the sexes.

The men point to the "doorstep" bit, and remind everyone that he was standing just outside. The women counter with "in the distance", although the men say that it was the assassin that was far off, not the soldier. I guess the men are used to women saying, "hang on, i'll only be a minute" when they call round. Although admittedly they don't expect it to be the last thing they'll ever hear. We don't know how long that soldier waited on the doorstep, probably ages. Long enough for the assassin to get close enough to hit him anyway. I'm imagining that the women think he got bored and wondered off, back to the very battle he'd just said he wouldn't fight in. So when her hair was ready she opened the door and found he'd gone. I imagine.

What do you think?

The Martial Arts

"The Martial Arts" are probably the best Glasgow band you have never heard of. I've sat on the secret for a year now, but I suppose it would be nice to share some jangly guitar tunes that worryingly shorten the commute to work.

I have discovered a band who are masters of the catchy chorus, memorable verse, unforgettable bridge and grungy breakdown. There is about three albums worth of ideas quashed into one here; each song is packed full of pop delight bundled into three-minute nuggets of joy.

Oh, did I mention you can download their album for free? Why are you still here? Someone go see them and tell me what they're like live.

Breakfast Music

There's a restaurant near me that do the most amazing breakfasts. The best thing on the menu is their rhubarb French toast. You get two slices of eggy-bread sprinkled with icing sugar and layered with stewed rhubarb. It looks just like a big slice of victoria sponge! And it comes with fresh figs and honey mascapone on the side. It is absolutely wonderful, both to look at and to eat. And to talk about.

There has been a song on the radio this week called "The Waitress Song" by a guy called Seth Sentry. It is a bit of a Streets/Just Jack/Skint & Demoralised white-guy hip-hop story-song ditty. It contains the line "This relationship is built on breakfast" which is the best lyric I have heard all year. I think most of my relationships have been mainly about breakfast. So I was inspired to make a breakfast-music playlist, when there were lots of other things I should rather be doing.

Here are the obvious ones ...

Breakfast in Bed - Dusty Springfield

Breakfast at Tiffany's - Deep Blue Something

Breakfast in America - Supertramp

And the rest ...

Wake Up O Sleeper - Phatfish

Coffee and TV - Blur

Sun in the Morning - Saint Etienne

Black Coffee - All Saints

Englishman in New York - Sting
"I don't drink coffee, I take tea my dear. I like my toast done on one side."

Banana Pancakes - Jack Johnson

Breakfast in Bed - Dntel

Writer's Block - Just Jack
"I must have got up about twenty to seven, had a shower, and had breakfast, and um, had a couple of pieces of toast, you know forced it down and had a cup of coffee."

Morning Song - Zero 7

Any others?

The Rise And Fall Of ...

I could have sworn I'd written about this already, but I can't find it anywhere so I guess not. I'm on an album! I'm part of an "international collective" of musicians! It's all because of my friend Phillip who has creative energys that overflow into vastly complex musical projects.

This time his modest plan was to make an album that documented the rise and fall of civilisations throughout history using musicians local to those cultures. Easy.

Back in May 2007 I soundproofed my bedroom and recorded all the bass parts onto my computer. I'd then cycle down to see Phillip and hand him my efforts. He'd call me back with comments and I'd have another go. A couple of years pass by and I get a shiny new CD!

You can get one too, from here. Or you could just download the tunes for free from this exceptionally attractive website here. Or come round and I'll play you it.

photo from coda.co.za

Underground Choir

I sing in a choir. Last weekend we sang in a cave.

It was one of the most surreal episodes of my life.

The Jenolan Caves are under the Blue Mountains, about three hours drive from Sydney. We were going to perform in one of the larger chambers, the Cathedral Cavern, an intricate gash in the rock with a 54 meter high ceiling. We descended the 910 narrow stone steps and lay in wait for the unsuspecting members of the public who had signed up for a "cave tour and gospel choir" package. When their tour entered the Cathedral Cavern they found a waiting choir and rows of picnic chairs. We sang our hearts out, popped round the corner into another cavern then back for an encore, congratulated each other with high-fives, then joined at the back of the group for the rest of the cave tour! It was, like I said, surreal.

Here we are busking outside the entrance to the cave.

Here we are milling about inside the cave waiting for the audience (we were told not to touch anything).

And here we are singing inside the cave!

The tour was brilliant. The guide used just the right level of technical detail in his descriptions. There was none of this "cave origin via sulfuric acid speleogenesis and recognition of microbial mediation of cave processes, blah blah blah..." rather, "There are two types of rocks down here. Waxy rocks and shiny rocks. That's a waxy rock, see how it looks waxy? And that's a shiny rock. See how it shines?" You get the idea. Perfect, especially catering for the attention span of possibly the world's first post-gig-party cave tour. The guide proceeded to point out all the stalactite formations that looked like funny objects. We found other ones that were even funnier.

We were taken to the first cave in the world to get electric light (how do they know that?). First we were shown the cave lit up by green light (ooh!), then blue light (ahh!) then red light (ugh). There was one cave where animals used to fall in and die becuase they couldn't climb out. To illustrate this the subtley lit bones of a wombat were pilled up in the corner. This fascinated us.

At the end of the tour the guide asked for questions. Someone asked why there was a tap in one of the caves. Brilliant question! Millions of years of geological history and we want to know about the tap! Tell us about the tap! The guide replied that with they have to wash the caves. With thousands of visitors passing through each year shedding skin, hair and lint, apparently the caves get a bit fluffy.

Gig catch up

Live music! You can't beat it! I've done really well over the past few months and I have totally failed to write about any of it. I keep thinking I'll wait until the next gig and then do a double post. Well, I'm now having to do a major spring-clean catch-up post. Mainly for the benefit of Simon.

Before Christmas I went to see Nouvelle Vauge who are a bit of a niche act, performing French bossa nova versions of 80s and 90s cult classics. The Bridget-Bardot-like singer announced she was actually Australian and proved it by swearing. Any Aussie audience would have cheered, but this one just stood in shock as half were French. Good gig though.

In the new year I saw Stars live. I had only recently heard of them, but had been quickly enchanted by their story songs and the whole guy/girl two singer thing. I think they've been around a bit, but they had a young fervent audience who eagerly swallowed the exuberent package.

True to their name, Cinematic Orchestra make music for a film that doesn't exist. Soulful electronica with a layer of gospel. And they have a double bass, always a bonus.

Mr. Scruff does his DJ thing and also has his own brand of tea. But I have written about him before. He played at the old barracks in the centre of town and it was raining but it didn't matter one bit.

The Cat Empire are one of Australia's biggest bands. Kind of funky skiffle rap fusion with a hint of Islamic-call-to-prayer. They were supported by a balkan gypsy accordian ensemble. I almost missed the start because my friend declared she was too hot in jeans and had to go back to the car to change into shorts. I'm bored of finding links, I'm sure you can google them. The lead singer looks like an architect, I think I've mentioned that before ...

The best gig I have been to for ages was Bon Iver. A group from Wisconsin who play a sort of etherial folky guitar rock that was written in the snow, and you can tell. They were a bit out of place amongst the formal seating of the Sydney recital hall but played with passion and energy; it was the last concert of a world tour and they wanted to make it count. They had one of those flexible approaches to assigning-instruments, the drummer had a keyboard, the guitarist had some drums and the keyboard player had a guitar. Everybody sang, someone made a guitar sing and they all wore singing-checked shirts. Their album "For Emma, Forever Ago" makes me think that everything will be alright and whatever happens in my life, if I at least have track two and maybe track nine, then it won't matter, I'll be safe. You should own a copy, whether or not you're called Emma.