I had to get my glasses adjusted at the optometrist, which happens to be next door to Baz at Egg Records. Cleverly, he had a box of singles & EPs on his counter. I said, Hi and what in here. I found an EP from 1993 from the Frumpies: "Babies and Bunnies" - lots of fun and thanks to the always entertaining Youtube, there's even some clips of the songs from this EP.
An extra on this vinyl is around the inner part where there's usually a serial number etched in - something a person doesn't often look at. There was no date on the record itself so i held it to the light to see if it was etched in. It wasn't but "SKANK AND CHILL" is beautifully engraved there. On the b-side is engraved: "UNFOCUSED HATRED SEEKS A VICTIM"
now I'm off to meet my good friend, Sylvia for a beer and no doubt a chat about her lovely fella & my fabulous gel... as well as, you know, stuff including this little treat of a record
that's my scribble on the flyer - wot a dork! (if you click on the picture, it will come up bigger & readable)
== Siouxzi Mernagh has just finished her fellowship with Berlin ici (Institute for Cultural Inquiry) - an institution that organizes fellowships for people to work on projects that require lots of brains. Stuff like: Death Drive, Repetition Automatism and Seriality in the Intersections between Psychoanalysis, Cybernetics and Popular Culture With thanks to Siouxzi up to 20 of my images (from the series I have posted online on my website (some other shots SM chose from here)will be shown as 3x4 metre slides during the course of a "Sydney" evening in Berlin she is putting on to celebrate the completion of her fellowship film. She wanted to show Sydney different to the usual Opera House & kangaroo look by presenting a quirky, inner west view - more like the Sydney she knows. I share the Unseen Sydney part of the show with Megan Yeo - we are both rapt. Lucky Megan leaves for Europe on Monday, just in time to catch the show - I'm looking forward to hearing all about it.
A glaringly sunny morning and there's dozen policemen & big vans in our street before nine on Sunday.
Our house was door-knocked - I was lying in bed vaguely waking up listening to the news on Radio National.
Two pleasant policemen waited at the door while I got decent - ish. The main fellow asking questions was very interested in those annoying noises I heard sometime between 5 and 6 AM.. I think that was the time. "Are you sure it was two male voices" "Yes" "Could you hear what they were saying" "No but I tried to listen to what they were saying - I thought it would be better than telly but I couldn't hear anything"
Rats! In the early hours of the morning I was annoyed by the noises & talking but just as I thought I would do some, "bloody stop it with the cars doors will you!" yelling out the window but suddenly they either stopped or I went back to catatonic land. The other thing is it may have been the media opening and closing car doors a dozen times & trying to talk quietly in our little street with all those trees and warehouses now made into apartments - sounds bounce all over the place.
Later, resisting the urge to gawk (a fine art in need of practice), AH went for a little walk & met other neighbours also not gawking. from what they heard from someone who heard - who probably heard something, it was a balcony fall... jumped or maybe he/she was pushed...
In-house events or "serious incidents" (as the nice policeman called it) are less frightening than say, the robbery outside our front gate or the aggravated rape just up the road in the park at 9PM one night...
One thing I do know - I'll be gawking at the news tonight.
I finished off some old slide film I had in my op-shop bought 1975 Ricoh Rangefinder and had it processed as print film (cross-processed)- it took a few goes to get the negative to scan ok.
Today as I post this, I'm feeling a little Gothic... and it's raining outside.
Marijuana grows wild in Missouri but eerily drawn eyebrows and 3 toned permed hair takes true mastery
=== if you click on the image, you will get a better view - Dorothy Peterson: Trend Setter! And I know what else she thinks about when she's slipping on that uniform: shoulder pads would be nice. (I told you she's ahead of her time!) +++
A week ago I visited Meggs Yeo in her shared studio space in Petersham with the purpose of taking some photos of her and her work. an enjoyable time was had.
Friday 6 March AH and I potter into Sydney town & check out the Hyde Park Barracks, which is now a museum. By 3PM I really need some lunch and the cafe there closes at 3. I suggest we go to the little place opposite the NSW Art Gallery - get a coffee & salad roll. On the way down Art Gallery Road, AH says, "what's that?" and spotted next to a large Ficus Hillii (fig) what we thought to be a rat but realised it was a very, very young ring-tailed possum, the size of a little guinea pig. It was just sitting there, unafraid, enjoying a forage and munch on the fig fruits...
Fortunately there was gardener nearby and I brought him over & asked him to call a ranger to take care of the little one. The ranger was there in under 10 minutes. The gardener asked for us to stay with the possum, which was a good thing as I had to ask 2 people who stopped to see to please not use their camera flashes. Then it occurred to me that I had a camera in my bag that would not need a flash to get a record of a really cute little creature.
Finally to the little snack bar for very good coffee and a salad roll. Other native animals we saw or heard that afternoon were; Kookaburras, Sacred Ibis, Rainbow Lorikeets, Little Corellas, Sulphur Crested Cockatoos, Little Cormorant...
We popped into the the NSW Art Gallery and had a look at the 1600-1800s Korean paintings (Joseon Dynasty) - fabulous - there's some amazing surrealist looking pieces, 200 year older than the Surrealists we all know about (not quite the images I saw but the only samples I could find):
There's been a bit of protest from people mostly the workers about to lose their jobs - fair enough. There has, I suspect been a lot of shrugging of shoulders with an "oh well, that was bound to happen" and "what can we do?" etc etc Bonds, home of Chesty Bond in his famous singlet (that has a minor celebrity spike in the late 1990s when gay men visiting from the USA reckoned the singlets and Tasmania's Blunstone boots were the thing to wear). Now the lot (not blunnies yet though.. I think) are moving off to China, home of questionable work practices and pollution. I wonder what will happen when Chinese workers get unionised to help stop the exploitation and punishment.
Addison Road, Marrickville, Sydney Australia - a crazy mixed up street. Partially paved with bitumen, partially with cement. It has a feeling of Carnie people sometimes (Carnival types) rather than the edgy, could be protection racket people on say, Marrickville Road...
A mix of residential, commercial (mostly scruffy secondhand DIY) and industrial buildings.
some of the buildings look like bathrooms.
And just to prove it girls serve beer in their underwear in the pub on the corner: "Lingerie Waitress" (just the one then?)
But it is the Ming On Trading Company that's my favourite building on the street.
so what does one do on a Sunday when I was gunna then gunna and then some. I went for a walk around Enmore and Newtown. On King Street Newtown, where Alice Street intersects there's a car wash. The owner of the car wash is frequently in the local paper due to council breaches and neighbour complaints. To get customers on a Sunday (or any other day, I wonder?) he's employed someone to wear a monkey suit & wave at passing motorists. It could actually be the owner in there. It was rather humid today and I wondered how the weather was in the suit and then I actually thought about how I could do that job - provided it was for no longer than, say once a week for say, no more than 2 hours.... just a thought.
People could call me that Dumb Monkey Person
Then again, I'm probably not the right height for the suit and I would likely have egg thrown at me or get pushed over...
Sunday night already! damn. I'm procrastinating again. AH & I pottered down to a rainy, muddy Gay & Lesbian Fair Day today, ate white flour stuff and sunk a can of Coopers Light beer. We signed petitions and smiled at women and walked home in the rain. AH has gone for a walk to buy a bottle of red to have with dinner. I don't know what I'll make us for dinner. I know if I turn on the television, I probably won't do anymore work tonight and I haven't done anything yet. Oh, except email an Australian in Berlin who is after some Sydney urban shots to project onto a wall for a thing she's doing (x fingers).
on the penalty notice page (http://www.foodauthority.nsw.gov.au/penalty-notices/) there was only one place in Newtown that was caught out for dodgy hand towels but the Blue Mountains makes me think twice about a weekend away. Fair enough, there are a lot of food places in the BM but Newtown has heaps of places too. Ashfield has quite a list... Glebe had none.
I get annoyed when I waiting to be served to get, say, a salad sandwich and I watch the way some people use the same tongs for ham, chicken, cheese and then the tomatoes. Then it all goes on the same bread board, which is wiped with a grotty tea towel... I usually leave. Happens a lot. One time I asked the person serving not to use the same tongs she'd just used to cook bacon with to make my lunch. She replied, oh, you don't like bacon? geez.
meanwhile - I found a photo I took window shopping on Parramatta Road in October last year. At first glance the model looks like breast surgery gone wrong, "Oh nurse, what happened to the nipples I had in that dish?" but I expect it's what women can buy to have that little extra in their cup. Living with breasts that discovered gravity as soon as they began to grow, having a D-cup since probably high school I'd swap with the lesser chesty any day:
noodling about my folders, found a set of shots from 2 or 3 years ago - playing with orchids and cornflour mixed with water. gross, hey...
it wasn't a rainy afternoon when I did this. I was playing around thinking I'd come up with some fantastic art project and be held in awe and all that shit.
I had the idea of placing a dripping orchid in the hands of young men - one youthful beauty with ivory skin could hold it to his chest etc etc...
I saw the project run in my head, was duly entertained and left it at that.
I may watch the re-run one day.
a flat day - it's been raining for 2 days (the rest of last week, just drizzle). there's a radio babbling on in the next room - it's been chattering for hours now... No new old records this week... I even played a CD yesterday... Walked in the rain to pick up some photo orders only to find I'd incorrectly re sized 4 and they are too small so I will have to get them re-done and be out of pocket - again. Think I'm in some mug's game.
I couldn't help it - a favourite from when I was a kid. We take in a lot when we're kids - like knowing lyrics to a song without consciously learning them. for years I didn't connect the female singer in Blue Mink was THE Madeline Bell and of course, it's her voice that makes the song
this treat in the mail means there's another tape on the way for Meggs! I ask myself, why fuck around with accounts and tax when I can play with records!
I've been having great fun finding some old favourite songs.
at a shop in Erskineville (funny how I seem to make time to pop into some shops when I'm out to meet a friend).
As we sat in the yard of a pub, I showed off my treats one being one of the most fab songs released at the very end of the 1960s 'Venus' by Dutch band, Shocking Blue:
this clip is so worth it just to watch the wonderful Mariska Veres (1946-2006)
Along with that I picked up a Nancy Sinatra LP for just one song, Bang Bang (damn, I wish that was released on 45 - however I scored an excellent copy the 45 of These Boots Were Made for Walkin' from Phil at Vintage Records - love ya Phil!)
Bang Bang was written by Sonny Bono (go figure, hey.. I couldnt stand him on the Sonny & Cher show. He died 10 years ago when he hit a tree while skiing) and was the biggest 1960s hit for Cher but her rather muffled version is not a good production and not a patch on Nancy's crisp telling.
Cher also didn't do a good version of "Take Me for a Little While" - I've got to ask, knowing Dusty Springfield's version (from her "Where am I Going" album), "Why, Cher, why??"
but Cher did have a couple of gems - the one I like and collected is a fun epic:
and that will do me for Cher but I do admire her acting - Silkwood, Mask (not the comedy), Moonstruck and Mermaids (but before she acted well she did things the film clip to her Half Breed is a cracker! - remember the docile horse she's sitting on ? There's Cher in feathers, spangles and not a lot of clothes - the horse is so docile, I think it's chewing dope, not wheat)...
- where was I? I was showing AH and wonderful friend, Meggs Yeo (http://meggsyeo-art.blogspot.com/) my bargain purchases and we decided then I would make her some tapes of some of my 45s - home later last Sunday and a little wine under the belt saw AH and I having a great time making a fun selection for Meggs (who owns a cassette Sony Walkman - I'm a bit more into my Creative Zen mp3 thanks!)
making tapes was always fun. side A goes like this:
1. Venus by Shocking Blue (45 1969)
2. Gypsies, Tramps and Theives by Cher (45 1971)
3. Only For Sheep by The Bureau (45 1981)
4. Sugar Me by Lynsey dePaul (45 1972)
- AH has just called out, "you're not linking that to your blog are you?"
Of course I am!
Phil at Vintage Records (http://www.thevintagerecord.com) let me have it for nicks when I made my other purchases, it made him cringe so much he simply couldn't not ask me to pay money for it! I had to return the next week to tell him we are still getting a kick out of it!
- everyone who does remember her remembers the mole on her top lip.
a warning, just because one song is fun, doesn't mean the B side will be ok - the B of Sugar Me is truely dreadful and we could only listen 1/3 the way in...
LdP also came 2nd in the Eurovision with some other song I don't want to ever hear again, sang a song for the British conservative party (Tory Tory Tory or something) and made a women's self defence DVD.
It is also reported that she did a tell all interview about Sean Connery after she found out he was violent with Diane Cilento and asked him to donate to a women's refuge - he refused and the money she made from the 'kiss&tell" she donated and it paid for the running costs of a women's refuge in Chiswick UK for a year.
note the floppy had matches the outfit...
5. Let's Spend The Night Together by David Bowie (45 1973)
6. Aquarius / Let The Sun Shine In by The 5th Dimension (45 1969)
7. I Can Never Go Home Anymore by The Shangri-Las (EP 1964): an hilarious piece of teen drama
8. New Toy by Lene Lovich (45 1981)
9. Counting the Beat by The Swingers (45 1980)
10. Hush by Deep Purple (45 1968) - I've had that 45 since I bought it for 5 cents at trash and treasure when I was 15 - a lifetime ago)here they are playing at Hefner's Playboy mansion. One has to ask where Rod Evans got those pants from - not a good look... (Ian Gillan became the lead vocalist in 1969)
11. The Wizard by Black Sabbath (45 1970) - B side of Paranoid another 5cent gem
12. Georgy Girl by The Seekers (45 1966) I have no idea where I got this one!
13. Lola by The Kinks (45 1970)
wish I could get The Raincoats version on vinyl but that first album of theirs sells for big bucks
14. D Days by Hazel O'Connor (45 1981) - yes, Des O'Connors daughter
Days (decadent days) by Hazel O'Connor didn't quite fit so I flipped the tape and put the last part on at the beginning of a much fun side B.
2. Can I Get A Witness by Dusty Springfield (EP 1964) (well, I had to put something of hers on!)
3. Echo Beach by Martha and The Muffins (45 1980)
(see blog: http://artzinephotography.blogspot.com/2009/01/45s-in-mail.html )
4. After Midnight by Eric Clapton (45 1970)
5. Spinning Wheel by Blood, Sweat and Tears (45 1969)
6. These Boots Are Made For Walkin' by Nancy Sinatra (45 1966)
7. Santa Baby by Eartha Kitt (EP song originally recorded in 1953)
8. Too Drunk To Fuck by The Dead Kennedys (45 1981)
9. Turn Up Your Radio by The Masters Apprentices (45 1970)
10. Itchycoo Park by The Small Faces (45 1967) (I know it's one of the least cool songs they released but it's the only record that I have at the moment - Tin Soldier may come home if I find it cheap enough...)
11. Ruby Tuesday by Melanie (45 1970)
12. That Old Black Magic by Dean Norman and Terri Greer (45 - date unknown but it's a heavy piece of vinyl probably late 1950s)
13. Leader Of The Pack by The Shangri-Las (45 1964) more fab teen drama!
14. Silver Threads And Golden Needles by The Springfields (EP 1963)
it was a number 1 hit in Australia when it was first released in 1962 and they were the first British group ever to have a record (this song) in the top 20 of the USA Billboard 100 - 15 months before the Beatles conquered the world...
(while I looked for a clip of The Springfields I found a 60s cover of that song by a Singapore band called the Crescendos but I can't bear to put the link up - it's really awful - you can go to youtube and find it.. if you dare)
15. Bang Bang by Nancy Sinatra (LP 1967)
16. Ghost Town by The Specials (45 1981) viva the specials!
I suspect this is the most truthful ending to THAT story of HIM... (oh dear, here comes that lightening bolt!). Javier Prato (the filmmaker) is still alive too - there's something in that...
and isn't it nice to hear Gloria Gaynor's version of this song song NOT lip synced by a drag queen again and again and... again!
in the post this week: Treats! in great nick - sometimes records made in the 1980s are in worse condition than ones I find from the 1960s and I reckon I know because as I recall some of the 1980s and the condition I was in... ok, enough - this be about me getting treats in the post
A Canadian band with a big hit: Martha and the Muffins' Echo Beach. damn I love this song!
renovation madness People who complain about live music and a handful of people chatting on a footpath after a gig in the inner west are usually the renovators from hell - like the guy 2 doors down who had his large tree removed on a Sunday morning... last Saturday morning, he had a bloody great cement truck that ran it's mixer for over an hour... it's been almost a year in our street of non-stop renovations and building for 6 days a week - now and then, hey, while I'm complaining, Sundays also include using a bobcat, spray painting and some digging... At the moment, yes, I know it's a weekday, some guy is banging a large crow bar into cement next door. i wonder if it's the same person who used a silly amount of water to hose out the rubbish bins earlier when it was raining...
Exhibition is go - despite the heat I got the photos up (123 in total)on time and Madam Squeeze played & then Baby Machine - 3 rock musicians who'd trekked up from Wollongong AND provided a heap of food, played nice an loud. this weekend has a weather forecast in the hideously hot range so that will be me in the corner, a puddle of my former self, gallery sitting.
was allowed in to the top floor where some Sydney artists are currently in residence... snuck a couple of quick photos - I regret my politeness in Sept 2000 when walking through the artist squat with walls covered in murals at Tacheles, Berlin where a sign said not to photograph out of respect - so I didn't and those walls are now gone.
these walls are way different than those in Berlin and will likely be added to and eventually painted over...
FREE TO A GOOD HOME or FREE TO SOME SUCKER TO BLOW THEIR ELECTRIC FUSE (back lane, Camperdown) - yes it really is a cassette player and TV / radio all in one
finally a day home. I picked up the last of my Lambda prints for the exhibition on Tuesday and yesterday headed out to pick up some mail, NOT go to the day job (fucking hooray) & get some rock moll posters up in a couple of local record stores etc. I'm pretty tired and, although it's only 23 degrees, the humidity is a bit... there. My final walk was to the Vintage record store on Parramatta road but it was shut. I satisfied getting sore feet on the way home by taking some photos with my bargain bin mobile phone.
this is why youtube is such a fabulous resource. and I am such a sucker for a husky voice. I'm working on images for my exhibition with 5 CDs in the player on random - good fun includes Deep Purple and Julie London - when "Come on-a my house" came on, one of my favourites, I wondered if any clever person had found some clips & there they are - Julie London performing in 1964 in Japan - not the song I wanted but fab just the same
how cool
hmmm, the microphone looks like an internal ultrasound thing (be pleased if you've never experienced one!)
Walking to work in the drizzle this week & spotted a photo negative strip wet on the footpath - I walked a few more steps, turned & picked it up, complete with little wet worm attached (think it died from eating emulsion)
Picking up other peoples personal photos is always weird - creepy almost. There's something eerie about images of strangers - are they dead? Is there no one left to keep the memento? Maybe they just don't give a shit. I let the neg dry on my desk in the day & brought it home to scan - now I can call it art - found in Annandale Dec 2008.
This is Compostt (she will be one day...) and it's her birthday this week - on the cusp of Scorpio & Sagittarius November 1989. Makes her 19 (92 in human equivalent according to a vet chart I have). That's a long time to be co-habiting with another living creature - longer than with my parents (about 17, I think..) or my partner (15 years). Her kitten sister (same litter & looked like the same father), La Cretia de Borges sadly died earlier this year but Compostti just seems to keep going even though she weights just 2KG (that's all fur you see)and has not good digestion, ingrowing / over-growing claws, furballs that are hard to remove (she gets a little cross). I think her longevity is due to a quiet & secure life. She's also a sweet natured animal - as a good friend says when he visits, "Quick, call the cute police!" Some days she is so odd and cute, one has to resist squishing her till she squeaks.
She often finds interesting places to sleep and can make a brick look heavenly comfortable. The telephone table is a favourite and even the shrill bell of our original GDR telephone (complete with numbers to call including the Volkspolizei - People's Police) doesn't put her off. I'm sure she does that cartoon cat in the air when it does ring. So, anyway, happy birthday little cat.
Below: here she is about 10 years ago when we lived for a year in Abercrombie St, opposite the Darlington primary school. I would secretly watch her at the front gate waiting to receive pats from the children. when a child or adult walked past, she look hopeful but if they didn't stop her shoulders would drop... where are those cute police!
I'm jumping in the deep end with the setting up of my 4th solo show: 5 years as a rock moll. It's a documentary of the gigs I go to in the inner west of Sydney - mostly Scooter gigs - here's their blurb:
Scooter is a non-profit venture set up by a bunch of queer Anarcho punk girls in Sydney to provide space playing instruments and forming bands. It also involves a network of girl zine producers, artists and contacts with overseas / interstate girl bands with similar focus. Live bands perform at every gig along with djs.
I went along to a Scooter gig about 6 or 7 years ago (a late comer) and have made fabulous friends, heard some excellent and not so excellent music drank copious amounts of beer and, along the way, have documented some of the gigs as a project using 3200 speed black and white film that I hand process in the bathroom & then scan into a computer in the corner of the lounge room. All the images for this exhibition will be printed on a professional Lambda printer at Pixel Perfect in Chippendale.
I've put together the first of my promotion below (I hope the first prototype I put into cyber land isn't accessible... it was late and my spelling sucks). I'll be taking this one off to OfficeWorks to play with their Xerox machine and make a few A3posters - That's Kristy Machine in an audience moment - obviously a really cool band was playing that day.
the one and only time I want to buy a single song off itunes... my version of itunes on this computer (and no others at home) happens to be in German and it has nothing to do with my beloved. I have no idea how the latest update ended up Deutch but it is.
almost Monday again...7 days ago started like most - ho hum day job and relying on Sydney Buses to get to work got impossible so I've started, much to my left knee's protests, walking to work - from home through Annandale & up to big noisy Victoria Road with a view of Sydney harbour as a working harbour - lovely in all its scruffiness - I wonder when it will become a fancy marina for the wealthy only... View from the bottom of the hill - 2/3 the way:
I get these views when I take the route for banking & post box pick on the way - about 5km.
by Wednesday things are looking good - I take off from work an hour early so it's not such a hurry to get to the much anticipated Patti Smith concert. Not at the Enmore like in 1997 (an exceptional gig! we all got up and danced much to the dismay of the ushers afraid of... ? who knows what dancing can do!) but in the Opera House. we had fab seats, thanks to a very generous friend giving me my ticket as a birthday gift. I saw the song list, looking down on the mixers desk - I'm rapt!
a band called the Drones opened - we walked in, walked out and had another glass of champagne. Patti Smith was on top form - despite having to see a doctor that day - she told us about him asking her to donate his fee to the Obama president campaign in USA. Patti is rock and roll * is a poet * is a patriot * is absolutely American * but of the world. She tried to get people on their feet by walking through the audience. People stood, waved, held out their hands and sat down once again. Oh so well behaved except for the tall white blond bob woman in the blue top in the front row. She was on her feet, shaking and dancing all night. Her shiny blue top showed a lot of cleavage and only just held substantial breasts. she would turn now and then to implore those around her to stand and join her in dance - leaning over with arms out - a fun sight! when Patti, lovely Patti was doing her walk, she came around the stage to the front row and that's when I cracked up, "Look out!" I exclaimed to AH "Patti's going to be swallowed up!" because blue top was so tall, I imagine Patti's view was all voluminous cleavage, she didn't linger and continued her royal walk. There's a good review in the SMH but for my liking, I think the microphone filtering was over done - the gig was so produced, it couldve been a CD if it wasn't for Patti Smith herself - she spits on stage sometimes and she spat in the opera house... and everyone else behaved... we can be a lame lot! We got home near midnight and disturbed the neighbours. http://www.smh.com.au/news/entertainment/music/because-the-night-belonged-to-her/2008/10/17/1223750280309.html
On the following Saturday, I finally get to see Roman Polanski's 1965 gem, Repulsion starring a 22 year old Catherine Deneuve and her hair. An intense, imaginative and truly entertaining film.
The next day we head down for a Sunday one-off screening at Dendy cinema, Circular Quay of the Patti Smith Doco, Dream of Life.
I wasn't as late as AH (who was on bicycle) but we ended up probably pissing off the sold out room full by having to be led with torch right down to the front row... whoa, that's a big screen! turned out well though - having no choice where to sit meant no debates and moving again as there was no one in front of us and, fortunately, no overwhelming aftershave / bad perfume nearby either. the next hour + was spent totally involved in Patti Smith's life. Sure you can make criticisms of the doco (like the wanky hand-held deliberate moving bits during live footage)but for me it was further insight and following so closely after the concert days before, like a good, savoury plate after a really good meal. Go Patti!
