Apologies for the non-communicado this week. Every now and then I slide into a postless void and it usually happens without warning. If I know I’m going to be away or really busy for a few days I usually schedule a few posts to appear periodically to cover myself, but for some reason this week things just weren’t happening.
I have a couple of two hour drives to do this weekend, so I plan to listen to lots of new music and (hopefully) return next week ready and raring to go!
Something I have managed to notice this week is the amount of attention Florence and the Machine have been receiving lately. Whenever I turn the radio on, there they are, and every ad break and Olympic montage seems to feature this track in particular. Florence even made an appearance on Spicks and Specks this week.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind ol’ Florence, nor the song, but I still prefer this version. A version that, until recently, I just thought of as ‘that song from Sex and the City’. And yes, I watched SATC, despite my healthy dislike for SJP. The movie was pretty bad though, apart from the bit where Carrie hit Big with the flowers and then Charlotte screamed at him and looked like she was about to throw a fit. That bit made me laugh.
Some links for your amusement, edification and jollification!
Did anyone else read Sid Fleischman’sMr Mysterious & Company when they were a kid? I loved that book, and that was Mr M’s introduction to his family’s nightly magic show. Well, given that it was set in the American midwest in the 1880′s the links bit isn’t so true, but the rest of it is.
Lie prone on the couch, watching the Olympics or the 90′s British drama of your choice on DVD (here, it’s ‘This Life’), while scoffing down cheese on toast and mainlining ice cold water.
Revisit an album you’ve not heard for a while with the volume up loud and the windows flung wide so that people can hum along while passing on the footpath.
Check out the fresh faced boys and girls of Balmorhea performing new song ‘Bowsprit’ from the just-released Constellations. It takes a minute or two for it to get started but you’ll be treated to a little crowd banter, some footstomping and some seriously gorgeous shots of the wonderful string section before the song is through.
I’m an idiot. I meant to post about the Groovin’ The Moo festival last week before tickets went on sale, but I forgot all about it I’m afraid.
Here’s the lineup – a mix of established and up and coming Aussie acts, plus a few international blow-ins:
Vampire Weekend
Tegan & Sara
Spoon
Silverchair
Grinspoon
Empire Of The Sun
British India
Lisa Mitchell
Kisschasy
Miami Horror
Bag Raiders
Kid Koala presents The Slew live
Muph and Plutonic
Funkoars
Illy
Ajax
Jonathan Boulet
Yacht Club DJs
I’ve never been to Groovin’ The Moo before, but what I like about it is that it gives those of us out in the rurals half a chance of getting to see some decent live music without having to travel to the big smoke. Groovin’ The Moo will hit up Bendigo, Townsville, Maitland, Canberra and Bunbury in May, and tickets are on sale now. You’re looking at shelling out just under $100 for the privilege. I won’t be attending myself, but let me know if you are, and who you’re looking forward to the most. I welcome your comments!
Maybe you’d like to read the back story. Maybe you’d like to learn about how a fellow blogger stopped writing last year until a certain amount of people had purchased Sam Baker’s album Cotton.
Maybe you’d like to watch the video. Maybe the words will make you cry. Maybe you’d like to read about how difficult it was to find them. Maybe you’ll adore those stirring strings. Maybe the piano at the end will get you all caught up inside.
It’s all remarkable stuff, and my words alone just don’t do it justice.
North Carolina’s Brice Randall Bickford has been releasing music as The Strugglers since 2001. I only have three of his tracks on my ipod, but for some reason they pop up regularly whenever I shuffle. I’m currently redoing my iPod after ditching iTunes in favour of MediaMonkey (do it!), I have 3875 tracks loaded at the moment, and both of these tracks popped up on shuffle this afternoon while I was pottering about. The man obviously wants to be heard!
I’d never heard of this song before, but after a quick Google expedition it appears to me that this is something of a Scottish traditional (Scots, correct me if I’m wrong!):
A song long associated with the late, great Hamish Imlach (1940 – 1996), whose ‘evil’ laugh added immensely to the number. His recording of ‘Cod Liver Oil’ became the most requested song on British forces Radio. Hamish was probably the most popular and best loved singer/entertainer during the Scottish folk Revival. He is sadly missed.
I nabbed this from Song By Toad a month or so ago but only got around to hearing it this Friday evening, and I love it. This particular version is by The Fence Collective, which from what I can gather from their website is a collection of Scottish artists who collaborate on various musical endeavours – in this case I believe this performance comes courtesy of King Creosote, Player Piano and the Pictish Trail. I can’t listen to it without breaking into a big dopey grin at the ‘aw haw’ bits and I LOVE that gorgeous Scottish accent. In the words of my former eight year old self: I love it, I wanna marry it.
Chorus:
Oh, oh, Glory Hallelujah,
Cod Liver Oil and the Orange Juice.
Oot o the East there cam a hard man.
A’, A’, the way frae Brigton.
He went intae a pub an he cam oot paralytic.
Aw haw, V. P. an cider.
‘Does this bus go tae the Denny Palais,
Aw haw, I’m lookin for a lumber,’
In the Palais he met Hairy Mary,
Aw haw, the flo’er o the Calton.
He says tae her : ‘Hey hen are ye dancing?’
‘Naw, naw, it’s just the way ah’m staunin.’
He says tae her : ‘Ye’re wan in a million.’
‘Aw, haw so’s yer bloody chances.’
‘Can I run ye hame, I’ve got a pair o sannies.’
‘Aw haw, ye’re helluva funny.’
Up the back close an doon the dunny.
Naw, naw, it wisna for the first time.
Her mammy came oot tae go tae the didgy.
Aw haw, he buggered aff sharpish.
She tried tae find the hard man. He’d jined the Foreign Legion;
Aw haw, Sahara an the camels.
So Hairy Mary had a little baby.
Aw haw, its faither’s in the Airmy.
Reading the lyrics, it’s clearly a sad tale, but you wouldn’t know it from the sound of the song itself. And there are some bloody great lines in there – it’s damn good fun from start to finish. So much so that I think I’ve listened to it seven, eight, nine times already tonight. You should too.
Matthew has also released another artist on his wonderful record label Song By Toad Records. Read Matthew’s thoughts on Maxwell Panther here, and sample a track below.
I don’t have any cod liver oil. Sadly. Or orange juice. I’ll be making do with the glorious nectar you see above – what’s left of it. And the background? That’s the sheet I strung up last week to cover up the brown brick wall in my loungeroom. Yes, I know it needs an iron. Be quiet.
So… I have a new photo blog. One photo a day, all of them taken by me. Images from my house, my hometown, places in Australia further afield and from my trip overseas. All of the photos were taken with a basic Pentax point and shoot, but I wouldn’t mind owning one of these one day.
I’ll still be posting some of my photos here too of course, but I like having a blog where the photos are the focus and not so much the commentary or the music. That, and I’m a bit of a blog addict. Though being ‘a bit’ of an addict kinda negates the meaning of the word ‘addict’ doesn’t it?
Nigel over at Under The Counter wrote a wonderful post the other day about ‘things that are ordinarily ecstatic‘, like the minty freshness of just-brushed teeth and a long-forgotten song popping up unexpectedly while listening to an old mix CD.
I loved this post, because there is so much beauty in the everyday, and I think we forget this sometimes. One of the things that I listed in my reponse to his post was about saying good morning to random strangers as I pass them on the footpath during my (semi-regular) morning run. There is also an old man that I see every so often, depending on what time I drag myself out of bed, who will wink and lift his hat to me as I run by.
I started thinking about this further, and I find it really strange how reluctant people are, in general, to even make eye contact with strangers on the street. I really don’t like doing it myself to be honest, I don’t know if it’s shyness or a lack of confidence or if I don’t trust people or if we’ve all just become really insular, but I find it quite difficult to look a stranger in the eye as I pass them by and I have to almost force myself to do it sometimes. I feel bad when I don’t do it though – after all, what’s the worse thing that can happen? They don’t look back at you?
It wasn’t until I went overseas I think that I started doing this more often. I was just so thrilled to be in a foreign place that I couldn’t help but look at everything I passed, including the people, and I relished the conversations that I had with the locals, most of which started with a simple hello and usually developed further when they heard my broad Orrrstralian accent (though it’s nowhere near as twangy as Missy Higgins or as over-the-top as Steve Irwin’s, thankyou very much!) Being overseas and having all these new experiences meant that my mind couldn’t help but become more open and receptive and somehow that lead to me becoming a little less reserved when it came to talking to new people. Being over there by myself didn’t hurt either – I was almost forced by circumstance to meet people.
This all seems quite obvious when I write it down, but as somebody who often finds it quite difficult to interact with new people, the experiences I had meeting people overseas – people who went out of their way to make me feel comfortable and welcome – have made it a little bit easier for me to get up the courage to look strangers in the eye when I pass them on the street here at home.
Now I make sure that I look at people when I pass them because more often than not you’ll get a smile or a hello or at the very least, that strange little grimace that people do when they’re not sure why you’re looking at them, but they’re at least willing to acknowledge your existence. And it really is nice to share that moment with a stranger, a moment where you’re both treading in the same space and sharing the same air, even for the briefest of times.
Image: Isn’t this a gorgeous photo? This girl looks a lot wiser than her years. It was taken by Sam Hood in July 1935 and is from the State Library of New South Wales’ collection on flickr.
