the colossal adjective

The Barbarians

2012-01-15T07:39:00.003+09:30

I'm in this this week ... gotta say - the rehearsals are shaping up and the stage looks bloody amazing ... I kind of wish I was in the audience.

Later on when I have a chance to scan them - I'll stick up some sketches I made whilst waiting around during rehearsals. They'll be at my art website.

2011

2011-12-23T10:49:00.004+09:30

Well ... I just did a quick survey of 2011 ... it feels like it was quiet year for Drive West Today concerts but I still managed to squeeze in about 10 concerts which seems to be my average over the last 5 years or so. In fact - that means I've now done over 50 concerts in that outfit ... which sounds like a big number doesn't it!

2012 is looking interesting with projects both musical and visual with
Taking part in an Opera in January in Hobart ... can't say more ... perhaps afterwards.

A concert at the Forest Festival in February where I'll perform a once-off composition for the Tassie forest.

At some point in the year I shall be accompanying my beautiful wife Nadine on her fellowship trip to Boisbuchet in France so she can attend a design workshop of some description ... I'm going to hang out, eat camembert and probably draw comics ... might see if I can get to Paris and meet David B ... and then fawn all over him ... with poor French skills.

Plans in the wings for another collaborative production with the wonderful Chris Downes for a comics/theatre crossover ... stayed tuned for that later in 2012.

My graphic novel is more than half complete ... the full first chaper can be read online here at Joshua Santospirito Art, if you like what you read you'll hopefully like it even more when I get it in print ( that is, after all, how it's designed to be read ... not on a computer screen ).

Late in the year I'm going to be doing a fairly massive comics-exhibition in Hobart which should keep me occupied for some time.

So - I'm liking the lookie of 2012 ... I shall be telling you all about my creative pursuits when the appropriate moments come up ... in the meantime - enjoy Summer (if you're in Australia) and enjoy Winter (if you're in a Northern part of the planet).

My new art website

2011-11-25T15:00:00.002+09:30

I don't know if I've written this here before at the Collossal Adjective ... but I'm writing it here now - if you're interested in my comic art then check my other website - Joshua Santospirito Art. There you can read a few of my one-pager comics, look at my slowly growing long-form essay-comic The Long Weekend in Alice Springs (I'm slowly putting up pages from it as I complete them) and other bits and bobs that I think to put on the web for people to have a gander at.

I will also be looking at a large-scale art project in the next year which I shall exhibit in Hobart in December next year, I might place bits of that up as it slowly evolves as well ... so check back every now and then if you're interested in the process.

www.joshuasantospiritoart.com

Heading back to Sydney

2011-11-03T13:44:00.003+09:30

Looking forward to this - In December I'm headed back to Sydney for a gig at the Silent Hour XX, which is a tops night held at the General Store gallery, a beautiful sounding space in Wooloomooloo. In November, in the meantime, Greg Haines, Tim Coster and Spartak will be at TSH XIX on the 19th of November which should be nice ... but I won't see it.

Ooo ... big city of lights.

December 2nd, (Friday) from 8pm there'll be a few acts on for a fundraiser for the General Store. Playing on the night will be Paul Heslin - who's got some cool little videos you can gawk at here - >

Plots within plans

2011-10-19T07:33:00.002+09:30

One must always have projects ... if one does not ... one gets a little fed up with things. Mental sanity is a fragile thing when one works five days a week, Monday to Friday.
I am constantly juggling numerous plans with a view to keeping myself occupied.

I am continuing my comic - I have put up pages 1-13 on the web now, you can read them HERE.

I continue to look for new and exciting places for Drive West Today to play in ... I have no gigs lined up for certain ... but I'm working on it, not just in Tassie, looking to play in Melbourne and Sydney and Brisbane again one week soon ... and Basel, Zurich, Berlin, Milan etc.

I am in long-term discussions with my partner in crime Chris Downes for further developments of the performance we did in August this year.

I am growing veggies with Nadine ... and fighting off snails.

Nadine and I are slowly revolutionising our house ... slowly.

Trying organise a regular night in Hobart for improv/noise etc with a couple of comrades.

ummm, that'll keep me occupied I think.

Things one forgets to do when one is too focused on plans and plots to keep oneself occupied.

Stop and smell the roses.

Enjoy the sun.

Go for a walk.

Enjoy a beer with a mate.

It's a delicate balance people, don't forget it!

Biophillia

2011-10-15T10:41:00.003+09:30

Gotta say ... Björk's new album is beautifully complex. Dark Matter put my ear's into a state of exquisite bliss. Thunderbolt confused me at first ... but I listened to it another two times ... then I got it, BAM - instant classic to my ears.

I also, just COULD not understand Sacrifice at first ... it has these intensely dense drums that come in over the top of the sluggish movement of the underlying structure, after a few more listens I began to become dimly aware that it works in a way that I had never heard before.

I have thoroughly enjoyed the last few album's use of brass horns, this is strangely augmented somehow on Biophillia by the use of organs and choir which provide this surreal drive to tracks such Hollow and Dark Matter, the best advice I can give is that you listen to this on the best quality equipment that you can find ... beg, borrow or steal ... but don't riot. You will richly rewarded aurally.

Björk's combination of sluggishness and intensity also gets a guernsey on Mutual Core which is also quite a humdinger of music. The final track of the album is a far more subdued and beautiful piece that focuses more on voice, which gives the entire collection a sense of focus that is quite sensual somehow, but in quite a different mode to the rest of Björk's work.

She mixes up programming and the quality of more organic sounds such as choral work with more confidence than ever ... perhaps her collaborator Leila Arab's work has improved dramatically, though Björk's choice in colleagues is always second-to-none and this time around includes awesome "studio as instrument" producer Damian Taylor and again uses the skills of experimental harpist Zeena Parkins.

I note that Björk also did the mixing and producing this time around, Spike Stent, her usual collaborator ain't around and the level of detail in the sound is extraordinary despite having poor quality headphones to delve into this with.

And I cannot believe the font that M&M have created. I know amazing fonts get made all the time and the truth of the matter is that I probably just can't pay attention to all of them because of the media "white noise" ... but the fact remains that it is endlessly fascinating to stare at.

I got the digi pack with the extra tracks on it too ... so I finally scored Nattura ... which is a CRACKING track!! Though it probably doesn't quite fit on the same CD.

Weather is changing yet again

2011-10-04T07:30:00.002+09:30

So I don't tend to blog as much as I used to ... but that doesn't bother me so much.
I haven't got much on at the moment so there's not much to talk about, just beavering away at my comic when I get a second ... which is not often.

Though I did play two gigs on the weekend - the Inflight gig on Friday which I organised - a top success, people hung around and the gallery setting seemed to give the whole thing a great focus with the audience really coming to listen. I was an oddly shaped performance space but it seemed to work pretty well. You wouldn't want more than 30 or so people at one moment in there though.

The other gig was up at the Grand Poobah at the new front room they have called the Swamp Art Compostery which was put together by Aiden Howlett and some other bloke who's name I don't know. Quite a fun space that want to start having music at the same time as the Poobah Bazaar is on in the other room, a nice little market. Not too many people, so I just played a lot more loosely than I would normally, got to see my neighbour's baby crawling across the floor to my music ... well, I think my music was a little incidental to his awareness to be honest. Hopefully, as time goes on, the Poobah gig picks up and more people come on a Sunday afternoon. I think it's once a month.

The weather's warming and I reckon I'll spend more time in the garden as I plot my next musical adventure. We are thinking of heading to Germany, Switzerland and possibly Northern Italy next year so perhaps I shall be checking out the possibility of having a few concerts over there, perhaps around June.

new video

2011-10-02T10:05:00.002+09:30

Sound Klub IV was a great success! Plenty of folks came to Inflight and hung around throughout the four performances

- Flights Habits

- mumble(speak)

- The Hobart Improvisational Collective

- Drive West Today

Here's a video that Nadine filmed from the sidelines

The Surveyor General's Corner

2011-09-22T14:48:00.004+09:30

Here's a photo of one of the markers that're at the corner of the Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia.

There's actually two markers, the first one was in the wrong place by about ten metres ... a bit of a stuff up ... so they did their maths right and put another one in the right spot ... and then they put this one (in the picture) there ... which has a plaque on it, but there's a slight mistake that I noticed on the plaque

... can you see where the problem lies?

Here's another photo of my placing my bottom on the Surveyor General's Corner plaque and doing a wee fart to let him know that I don't think much of his work and that he shouldn't have been given the position of Surveyor General to the Queen, her Majesty, if he can't work out that W.A. should be on the large side of the plaque, not N.T. ... though perhaps some smart-arse Territorian with an oxy-welder came along to have a picnic one day and assert the right of the outback's lonely picnic area policy of tomfoolery.

Easter

2011-09-22T14:31:00.000+09:30

This is a pic of Easter breakfast ... someone who knew what they were doing went snorkling.

Sound Klub IV

2011-09-15T12:15:00.002+09:30

Poster illustration done by Josh, lettering done with major assistance from typographer extraordinaire - Nadine Kessler.

Rod Moss

2011-08-31T09:46:00.001+09:30

An artist from Alice Springs who's work I quite admire. He wrote a book in the last year or so which is quite a read - it's called "The hard light of day".

Video from Sound to Light evening

2011-08-27T15:36:00.002+09:30

Filmed by Nadine Kessler, movie made by Chris Downes, performance by Chris Downes (drawings and poetry) and Josh Santospirito (music and sound), lighting and sound mixing by Jason James as part of the Sound to Light evening on the 20th of August 2011, as curated by Chris Norman and Jason James.

The Shipwright and the Banshee was a blast!

2011-08-20T22:27:00.004+09:30

Chris Downes and I have just this night completed the WORLD PREMIERE of this fine production at the Second Sound To Light night at the Long Gallery (Salamanca Arts Centre in old Hobart town). Ours was by far the most "analogue" looking performance of the night - the rest entailing lots of digital works, some amazing programming by some local artists, my faves being Jordan Marson and Matt Warren's piece which was a gut-twistingly loud feeback session with a projection of a arena stadium set, and a beautiful work by Tonya Meyrick and Matthew Dewey involving lots of mirrors which twisted projected light which was in the room off to the side of the Long Gallery.

Our performance entailed Chris drawing with oil crayon things up on huge sheets of paper, the two main protagonists of our woeful tale - the young shipwright and his bane the moaning Banshee. I produced and played live the music for the piece on guitars and my gorgeous ol' electric organ, projected up on the big screen was the writing of the story, written in 4-line stanzas as written by Chris.

Had some absolutely awesome feedback from the audience ... one person said it was Shmick!! Two ladies told Chris that it was amazingly incredible (or something to that effect) ... numerous people have decided to believe that we based the story on a local ghost story ... which of COURSE is 100% true! It's just one that no one has heard before.

Chris drawings were superb, absolutely suberb! Hopefully I can get my hands on some of the photos and put them up here. Nadine Kessler was great enough to film the performance and I believe that Chris will put it up on the web sometime in the very near future for your kind perusal.

http://www.soundtolight.net/

Picture by the wonderful - Chris Downes

The Shipwright and the Banshee

2011-08-09T08:40:00.002+09:30

Just to add a touch more tease to what Chris Downes and I have been up to in preparation for Sound to Light on August the 20th at the Long Gallery (upstairs at the Salamanca Arts Centre) -

We've been moulding this little baby for months now - It will involve sound and music by in accompaniment to Chris drawing. It will be a ghost story based in little ol' Tasmania (anyone who knows Chris well enough knows that ghost stories are his speciality).

There's a preview pic up on the sound to light website for youse to check out.

I heard that R Crumb has pulled out of "Graphic" at the Syd Opera House due to some bad press. That ain't right at all!! Outraged comic fans - protest against the Murdoch press and boycott Sydney altogether and just come down to Hobart on that weekend!!

Sound 2 Light

2011-08-04T14:37:00.003+09:30

DWT will be performing along with the wonderful Christopher Downes as part of Sound 2 Light at the Long Gallery in the Salamanca Arts Centre, Hobart on August 20th. We've been working on this project for a number of months now - it's been freakin' interesting, Chris will be painting in his inimitable style whilst Josh makes the sound track to this ghostly tale!

Tix - $10-12

Also performing on the night are -

King of the Morning & 313RGB
Nick Smithies & Adam Walker
PilotError & Joseph Barrows
Oceans & Matt Warren
Sam Gregory & Zeal
Matthew Dewey & Tonya Meyrick

Presented by Salamanca Arts Centre and 313RGB.
Curated by Jason James & Christopher Norman.

A night of cross media collaboration transforming Salamanca Arts Centre into a hive of performance and installation.

Sound 2 Light is an exploration in collaboration and process through the combination of sonic and temporal practice. Artists involved in the fields sound and light are matched together and given two months to create hybrid partnerships. These will transform the Long Gallery into a hive of performance and installation based work.

Presented both onsite and broadcast live via 313RGB’s show Synaesthethics on Edge Radio 99.3FM.

Tour-ist

2011-07-01T17:01:00.006+09:30

Just got back from too long away from home- here's some evidence of fun.

New Video

2011-05-18T14:32:00.003+09:30

A recent video of Drive West Today in prep for his little sojourn across to the mainland of Australia from the Apple Isle of Tasmania.

(Part 2 to be posted for those really keen on listening more).

Chugnut Comics #1

2011-05-08T07:36:00.001+09:30

Chugnut Comics #1 can be found HERE.

Organised by the amazing Anthony Woodward (see the links bar on the right of this page for more AW comix)

DWT Bio (2011)

2011-04-29T10:01:00.000+09:30

)) Drive West Today

DWT is Joshua Santospirito, whose guitar has quickly become one of the most unpredictable instruments in the country: sometimes a weapon to be feared, at other times a scrumptious ear-tickling feather. Sitting somewhat uncomfortably somewhere between sound-art and jazz, Santospirito has been speaking with his own excitingly unique and ever-evolving tongue for many years now.

DWT has also been a collaborative project over the years, including musicians: Jnine Stanton (Alice Springs) and Nadine Kessler (as part of Silberhörnli from Hobart) as well as visual artists such as – Christopher Downes (Tasmania), Mimi Leung (Hong Kong), and Anthony Magen (as part of MONA FOMA 2010).

Formerly known as boy Brightlulb, DWT has performed to enchanted, horrified and enraptured audiences all over the country since 2005, and even as far abroad as Berlin in 2008 with another tour planned for Europe in the pipeline in 2012.

Originally from Melbourne, Santospirito has spent much of his adult life living in various deserts and cities of Australia but is now based permanently in Hobart, Tasmania from where he plans world domination.

((( Web

Recordings and video can be found at http://www.camaldulensis.blogspot.com/

(((email disco_jeans@yahoo.com.au

_____

))) Other stuff

Gigography - all DWT's past concerts arranged on one page! oooh
Media written about DWT - reviews, mentions etc.
Video - Some live, some not.

(If you would like a pdf version of this bio, promotional photos or any further information please feel free to e-mail the above address)

The Blues

2011-04-26T19:01:00.005+09:30

At this stage I have nothing in particular to blog about other than the fact that over the last year or two I have rediscovered my love of watching the Carlton Blues kick the lily-white arses of other Australia rules football teams. This quiet little bogan enjoyment has been growing in me for a few reasons ... my brother who was living on the North Coast, but now lives in Albury watches at precisely the same time, as does my elderly father in Melbourne who has joined the modern world and has learned how to text.

We three sit at out respective TV sets in our three different locations on the Australian map. We three TEXT in awe and AMAZEMENT when little Jeffy Garlett moves his little lightning feet through another man's legs and pops out the other side with a little goal and slaps the little arse of little Eddie in a manly and heterosexual (?) fashion in excitement. We gasp by SMS when Judd does his quite-spectacular feats of balance and poise under inscrutable pressure!!

It has been many years since my dad had any excitement on the Carlton Blues front.

The goal goes in - the texting says *WAITE!*
*YARRAN!*
*JUDDY*

Last week the Blues beat Sydney in Sydney. The first time in a long time. It was bloody wet and the Blues slogged it out and WON!!

I went to bed a happy gent, my wife laughing quietly at my excitement. 40 minutes later I received a text which woke me up, from dad - "Here we come" I smiled, imagining Dad walking around the big house I grew up in with a grin on his face, not wanting to go to bed.

40 minutes later I got another one - "Premiership here we come!" I had stopped smiling by this point because I was tired and that was the second time he'd woken me up.

The Acousmatic Tour - June/July

2011-04-25T13:22:00.005+09:30

Drive West Today
beats around the bush in June / July 2011

- Alice Springs, Northern Territory
Saturday 4th of June, outdoors concert - FREE, on the East Side of Alice Springs underneath Spencer Hill near the Goss Street playground at Precisely 7pm. As part of my series of outdoor gigs that I have been doing in Alice, once a year, started in 2009!! Should be a CORKER this time - I have moved the 'venue' North of Goyder Lane ... all the way to the playground on Goss Street near Spencer Hill ... let's pray for no rain in the desert tonight.

Friday 17th of June at Watch This Space Artist Run Initiative as part of Mimi Leung's exhibition. This should be a cracker - Mimi has asked me to play in response to one of her paintings at the exhibit - I haven't chosen as of yet - but you should definitely check out her images at her site on the attached link.

- Sydney (Woolloomooloo), New South Wales
25th of June as part of The Sound Hour at The General Store. Another exciting gig at a slowly growing night in Sydney!!

- Hobart. Tasmania
July - tba
Back in my home again - stay tuned for gig details.

Zines & CDs available at all gigs.

The first new music in the Autumn of the South

2011-04-20T08:31:00.002+09:30

New track here!

And another here!

The dept of conversation

2011-04-15T08:32:00.001+09:30

colour ...

2011-03-29T11:04:00.002+09:30

Whilst at Camp Chugnut with a bunch of comic nerds ... I rediscovered COLOUR!! I'd forgotten that it was even particularly interesting.

Black and White is very nice ... but colour is also very nice ... So I did up a photocopy of one of the sheets that I had in the "Watching This Place" exhibit in Alice Springs.

It's an image of the psychotic tourist on the edge of town - Gilgamesh. The bit you can't see is his ciggie smoke turning into a humungous monster.

Old pages

2011-03-28T11:41:00.002+09:30

Here's an old page that I did when I was still working out what format I'd do with format and style. Some remnants of the layout concept for this page still exist in the more up-to-date version but I've had to tweak certain parts of it since. Don't know if this page makes sense standing alone without the rest of the comic to give it context.

The funny part about adapting a prose piece into comic form is that you have to scrap a lot of metaphors that are in the words. The metaphors are, more often than not, being conveyed by the images. Consequently the words become a little more bland ... but the hope is that the whole piece comes alive with that ... chemical reaction between the images and the words that always seems to happen with sequential art.

Dog

2011-03-24T13:18:00.004+09:30

Here's an old rough from The Long Weekend. I spent a smashing weekend in Victoria at camp Chugnut with a bunch of mad ol' comic artists.

Thanks to Pat Grant for letting me borrow his gorgeous old one speed bike with reverse pedal breaks to get from Lilydale Station along the Warburton Rail Trail to get to the camp ... and for the smashing conversation along the way ... and back again when we were both drained of all energy after a killer weekend.

I got to meet Mandy Ord, which I was quietly excited by since I had just been sent her book Rooftops, by Bernard Caleo, the book was really great! Her drawing style was awesome but - as always - the thing that always grabs me is storytelling. She has a great voice in writing! Which was beautifully megaphoned by her panels. It was a little like watching a film, with her constant panel-size and tops action through the streets of Melbourne that I know so well having grown up there (almost made me sentimental about my hometown ... almost, not quite there ... give me a few more years away from the overcrowded city).

There's a chugnut blog somewhere with some images from various folks who attended, photos, drawings, and most importantly - SEQUENTIAL ART!!! COMIXXX.

Jenny Hval - Viscera

2011-03-23T13:39:00.000+09:30

Many many years ago I became friends with a tiny Norwegian girl who was living in Melbourne. She was studying at Melbourne Uni where I was studying. She was a singer in a few bands and had a phenomenally strange and amazing voice. She was quietly eccentric and it turned out she made private music as well - I was very impressed listening to her private little creations. When her minidisc player broke she gave me all of her minidiscs which had a tops collection of the Cocteau Twins and Kate Bush and Boards of Canada AND - all of her demos. So I walked around the streets of Melbourne and listened to her demos to death, deciding quietly that I was onto something very very special indeed.

She returned to Norway and made an album called To Sing You Apple Trees which was successful since it had a single or two that was quite poppy in it's appeal. I recall thinking at the time that close to every song on the album referred to various body parts, quite visceral in its lyrics, perhaps not in its musical tone. This album ended with the astoundingly beautiful A Flock of Cheshire Cats, which lingers in your mind long after the stereo has quietened, quite a luxurious silence.

Her next album Medea was more Laurie Anderson than pop, far less commercial but achingly beautiful. In listening to it I realised that she was not aiming for broad appeal but reaching very very ambitiously for some greater - something more akin to rock immortality. Oh Anna is a strange novelty, a song in two stages which takes you from electronic darkness to the Technicolor brilliance of its synthetic climax.

The literary focus of her lyrics evident beyond mistake, having built an interest in English literature whilst studying in Melbourne. She has since published a Norwegian poetry book which I, alas, cannot read. Perhaps this is for the better though.

She recently came back to Australia and I saw her perform in Hobart at the Alley Cat with her band. I fell in love with the song Milk of Marrow, a long and drawn out shimmering Lanois introduction to the almost swaggering and anthemic body of the song, Hval singing with more purity in her tone than her usual ethereal meanderings.

I bought her album recently and listened to it for the first time today .... Listening to this album, under her real name for the first time - Jenny Hval - I realise that she has entered a more complete phase of music writing. Perhaps like Smog morphing into Bill Callahan, Hval has become even more like herself. Golden Locks almost freezes the listening experience into a complete catharsis and there is something extraordinary about the suspended state of Blood Flight. I was lucky enough to discover the video clip for this track on youtube. It was created by Hval and her guitarist Havard Volden whilst in Australia, driving up the Hume Highway towards Sydney, characters from the lyrics such as the clitoral sphinx race across the sepia-toned barren landscape - a very fitting visualisation to the drive of the piece. In something that I feel echoes the concept of Oh Anna, the 7-minute Portrait of the Young Girl as an Artist splits the album into two neat apple halves with it's expansive rock-strength. The last two pieces have the gentle feeling of an epilogue helping us digest this story of the body, with the simplicity of a more direct song in the last piece A Silver Fox.

Happy digestion - You can get her album at Rune Grammofon.

I recommend with magnificence!!

Using the work scanner is naughty

2011-02-28T17:30:00.011+09:30

from Josh's blog - The Colossal Adjective

After my last blog about sticking things up on the web I took my sketchbook to work and had a look at the big thing they got there - it's an amazing thing called a photocopier/scanner/fax machine. It even has a function that staples large amounts of paperwork for you if you'd like.

This is a rough little comic I thought I'd make starring Juliette, my oldest niece who is a book-worm ... and RIGHTLY SO!! (Only because I was a bookworm at the same age).

I might make a second page for this sometime.

This other page ( lower down here ) was something I did on the same day ... after reading a favourite ol' book of mine that I'd like to do as a comic one day if someone else doesn't beat me to it ... actually that would be a blessing if someone else were to do it ... then I could get back to projects that I should really be doing - such as Australian comics. But this was just a sketch from my mind about what Gregory Syme looks like. He's the main protagonist in the surreal and wondrous adventure story of "The Man Who Was Thursday" which is a religious but ambiguous swords and chase adventure story set at the turn of the century ... which is BY FAR the best thing GK CHESTERTON wrote ... which is saying a lot since he wrote the whole Father Brown detective story series.

I wonder why no one seems to know Chesterton these days. He was very popular back in the day and for some unknown reason appears to have shrunk back to relative obscurity. But I HIGHLY recommend this book to anyone who enjoys philosophical farce and adventure.

When I say its got a religious core I certainly don't think that should scare off any of my secular friends ... Chesterton himself was a religious bloke but what he wrote is still amazingly beautiful and frankly SURREAL towards the end. It mostly weaves around London, which is of course a great setting for an old fashioned chase sequence.

I love a good chase sequence ... especially at night between two individuals.

momentum

2011-02-25T16:40:00.000+09:30

I’m am labouring on my comic a lot lately. Have done about 47 pages of rough pencillings ... some of which are better than rough ... so YAY! I shall try and show it to people who are attending Camp Chugnut in Victoria in a few weeks which ought to be cracking ... since there’s some comic artists there who I reckon are awesome and may have a pointer or three for me - Jase Jarper, Jo Waite, Mandy Ord, Chris Downes, Bernard Caleo ... I met John Retallick the other night at a comic’s launch in Melbourne who chastised me for not being capable of putting up images on my blog ... I thought it had to be done by scanner ... but he scoffed at me that a camera image would suffice ... never occurred to me it would be that easy ... must find a camera now ... anyone own one?

Also spoke to Jen Breach whilst I was in Melbourne and have realised that I need to tighten the ending ... so perhaps it will be ever-so-slightly less than 100 pages. DAMN!!! I liked the idea of saying “Yeah, it’s over one hundred completed pages”

Now I’ll have to change that to - “Yeah it’s about one hundred pages” ... which sounds a touch weaker.

Can’t wait to comic it up in Victoria.

Summer - food

2011-02-14T08:14:00.003+09:30

Wow - in the garden I have this awesome Zucchini called the yellow Crookneck ... some National Heritage variety that you can eat (when the bureaucrats aren't checking).

And then there's the SWEET Corn ... which is soooo SWEET!!

Kohl Rabi looks kind of ridiculous .. what kind of NON-SWAMP plant has it's roots above the ground? - RIDICULOUS!! But it actually tastes good. Nadine made some up raw with some salt (Deutsch-style) last night with Spätzle ... rockin!

Tomatoes coming out of our ears ... and our ears can't actually hold that many tomatoes ....

The Artichoke is flowering ... I had nooooo idea how bloody NEON the artichoke flower was gonna turn out to be. I also hadn't made the connection that the bit that you pull out of the artichoke (that gross stringy stuff that tastes all manky in your mouth) is turns out like an ugly duckling into the most crazy purple colour when it comes time to attract some bees. We found a bumble-bee dead in one of the flowers ... all that sugar! what a way to go.

what else ... ummm, beets by the tonne.

... raspberries ... the boysenberries are having a late run this Summer ...

The new olive tree has a few fruit on it!!

The Feijoa in the driveway does too ... but they come later ... man that tree needs to be controlled! You can almost not drive the car down the driveway anymore.

Nadine planted a grapevine ... we got one bunch of grapes within a few months ... but the bloody birds were checking them out too! What is it with the birds ... they're so greedy that they don't even eat the fruit when it's at it's best. They must have terrible digestion! Which is suppose is why their poop is so sloppy.

I got back into plating lettuces so in a week or so we can have salad on the table ...

OH yeah - the biggest turnips I have ever seen are out the back. Don't know what to do with them - any suggestions people?

Carrots - paris markets and the usual long ones ...

Taters .... kilos and kilos of taters ... it's time to MASH!!

and lots of other things ... I'm tired of typing now. Time to put these fingers back into the DIRT!

Some bits from 'the Long Weekend'

2011-01-03T08:19:00.005+09:30

Here's some roughs that I did for the Long Weekend a long time ago for your perusal.

Parts of the roughs were included in an artwork that is currently being

displayed at Araluen, the cultural precinct of Alice Springs off Larapinta Drive until February 2011 as I mentioned on this blog a month back.

I'm technologically stunted so I

haven't worked out how to shrink the scans so they can live happily on this space without driving me crazy uploading something that's going

to take out your entire month's worth of download ... if that's even the correct terminology.

Jordan Lint

2010-12-24T08:20:00.003+09:30

I bought the comic - "Jordan Lint" which is number 20 in the "ACME Novelty Library" by the most amazing Chris Ware from Chicago.

This man has the most amazing technique for telling stories that I have seen in a long while. I had read all of the Jimmy Corrigan series with avid interest but it appears that he's taken even more leaps and bounds in his layouts. The entire of Jordan Lint is sequences of scenes from an entire life and the layouts are crafted which such care that they almost mimic the way in which we remember scenes ourselves. It was a true work of art.

As for the story itself - I absolutely hated the character and almost didn't finish the book at all.

What is it with amazing artists insisting on making me feel revolted?
That "Blankets" guy - SAME BLOODY THING!! Beautiful art - torrid story.

_______________

In MY comic - I made the brave decision to just do my own lettering.
It was quite liberating actually. Last week we had three special guest-stars staying in our house - Jenny Hval and her band from Norway - Havard Volden (with an "o" above the first "a") and Kyrre Laastad. They were touring with Laura Jean, a musician that Nadine and I both love. So on the morning of their departure from the island, we all had breakfast together at Salamanca and Laura was talking with her friend Chris about how becoming too precious about recording can ruin the spirit of the music and it can sound overworked - a phenomenon that affects lots of areas of life, not just creativity. Immediately after this conversation I realised that I have been allowing myself to agonise over aspects of the comic and I need to just get the bloody thing started!!

So thanks Laura Jean - you're the greatest!

Establishing legibility is a thing to pay attention to before inking your letters.

Exhibitions and Art Projects

2010-11-23T14:44:00.003+09:30

2010

"Watching this Place" an exhibition at Araluen - I had a piece called "Dog" that I contributed drawings for, made in conjunction with Craig San Roque and Dan Murphy.
"Watching this place" Opening: Friday 19 November, 6.00pm
Exhibition Dates: Saturday 20 November to January 2011

2008

Respond - with Nadine Kessler at the Taste Festival, Hobart, December 27th.

Zines

History - volume #1 - Danzan Rabjaa

Central Oz

2010-10-23T13:50:00.002+09:30

I am back in Alice Springs for three weeks, away from beloved Nadine. Working in the AP Lands in the North-West of South Oz. A truckload of driving to be done in the next three weeks ... community to community doing work that is fairly subtle and is often not understood ... sometimes not even by me. It's funny talking to the general nurses in the clinics about what we do, they often look as though we mental health nurses are a bunch of idiots who don't actually do anything, which is sometimes very amusing. At least they're good natured about it all.

I have been invited by Craig San Roque whilst I am here to apply for a group exhibition around living in Alice Springs and responding to the local environment. Some of you might know that I have spent the last 2 or so years slowly adapting one of Craig's essays into a graphic novel - A Long Weekend in Alice Springs. It's nowhere near finished but it appears to be turning into something more concrete as I slowly iron out the kinks and twists so that it's less like a bunch of loosely connected visual concepts with writing on the top and more like a tight (and loose) narrative that interweaves the psychological and mythical concepts in the essay. He wrote in 2003 and it was published in a book on the Jungian concept of the "Cultural Complex". Probably not the normal fare of graphic novel ... but I'm convinced of the ability of the medium to put across complex (no pun intended) and beautiful concepts to the reader as has been proven time and time again.

I chose to do this because at the time I first read the article I was grappling with the problems of Aboriginal Australia and being a white person who feels strongly but in the midst of so much greyness can't actually see clearly what should or could be done about things. The article (amongst other things) helped me to stand back and take on a bigger picture, it assisted my seeing more clearly something that is, at times, unseeable. After reading it and leaving Central Oz I felt that I would like to renew my childhood interest in comic drawing and I wanted to try to write some sort of graphic based book that would talk about working in cross-cultural areas ... and indeed how people coming from other cultures to "save" the other culture actually do more harm than good ... and why. This has been written in countless books but people still swamp these areas of the world and continue to inflict psychic, and tangible damage upon the locals with their well-meaning kindness. In the end I gave up trying to formulate some sort of graphic piece on this idea and started drawing Craig's article for fun. I realised just how powerful it could be in this format (the original article was also ridiculously powerful in its surreality and strangeness) when I looked at what I had done and showed it to Craig.

Craig, as always was highly supportive and encouraged further forays.

Not having written long comics before, not having scripting skills, I decided to just try and draw the whole thing in some way shape or form and then once I had the whole thing laid out I could go through it as a whole and rewrite it so that it worked in comic-form. I've done that, it was a very long process (when you work full-time, writing/drawing long comics takes a loooong time). Now I'm up the stage where I'm sort of rewriting it and restoryboarding it so that it becomes more fluid and things flow. The problem with adapting an essay is that it doesn't always have a narrative. Visually representing abstract concepts may not be a problem in themselves but it seems to me that one of the tricks is to maintain the visual concepts in keeping with some sort of narrative or central point so that the reader of the comic can understand how to read it in the larger picture of the 'story'. Don't know if that makes sense ... I'm only just working out how best to think about these things myself. It's very interesting and in some ways ironing out the bumps in the fabric of the adaptation is somehow more stimulating to me right now than the actual artwork.

Anyhoo - as I mentioned Craig has invited me to be part of an exhibition with him. He will put the manuscript for the Long Weekend up on a wall and I shall put up some of the rough work that I have done so far (as a work in progress) at the new gallery that is run by Dan Murphy (a wonderful and energetic artist from Alice Springs). I'll let ya'll know more about it as it unfolds.

Thanks must be made to Chris Downes who is a charming Yank who lives in Hobart, Tasmania (where Nadine and I now live), who lent me some comics recently by Scott McCloud on the topic of how comics are actually constructed. They were far more informative than I even thought they would be when Chris explained them to me.

I may put up drawing here as time goes by. My music career is on hold for the time being, though I may try to have a gig here in Alice before I leave.

Speak soon maties!!

xx

September

2010-09-15T13:32:00.002+09:30

Holy crap - it's been months since I wrote anything here!!

Heading back to central Aus in about a month for a three-week stint at the wonderful Nganampa Health which ought to be grand! Work on "A Long Weekend" is getting a lot smoother with me going through the whole thing and re-storyboarding the whole thing and getting a better flow throughout, streamlining visual concepts etc ... adapting an essay into graphic form is one of the more rewarding things I've done in years.

That nice lad Chris Downes dropped around to have a gander - which was great - it was actually nice to have a comic-maker in my house drinking my tea and giving me pointers. When i head back to central Oz I' dlike to show the man himself - Mr Craig San Roque (the author) where it's at ... I might even be confident enough to start on the actual comic pages.

A cracking film-clip from PVT.

My life UP until now

2010-07-19T21:11:00.003+09:30

Here's the synopsis ... ummmm, hmmm.

Blogging seems to be a skill that I have lost, I am unsure as to why. Is it possible to lose your blog-mojo ... your Blogojo?

The problem is that I have such a diverse life that the Collossal Adjective has lost it's specific meaning - I could blog about growing truckloads of vegetable matter in my backyard ... I could blog about my bizarre workplace ... but I don't think you'd understand ... no offence - I don't mean you specifically, I just mean every person I try to explain it to doesn't understand ... and I don't mean that in "Oh why does the world misunderstand me so much" kind of way ... I KNOW why the world misunderstands me ... it's because I work in community forensic mental health in Tasmania. I could also blog about my music ... but although I have lately completely changed my direction into new and abstract forms ... which I think is terribly exciting ... the problem about blogging about it all is that it's all so terribly abstract that I don't know what to write about. I could blog about my brewing wines and beers ... actually that's a GREAT topic - a friend just gave me a pressie for my 30th which was a book about brewing sacred beers with herbs and weeds from various parts of the planet ... sooooo cool. I could also blog about my comic drawing ... but similarly to my brewing ... by the time I've actually got something completed which is worth writing about ... I'm so far into the process that even talking about it seems like old news ... I could also talk about home-renovations ... but there's lots of that on the net ... I don't think I have anything new to add to the world except for my witty banter about not having anything to mention.

Incidentally ... I just bought two new CDs that I am terribly chuffed about and I think that the world should know about my attitude as it may just influence you strongly to go out and buy these damn round pieces of plastic joyness. The first was Laurie Anderson's "HOMELAND" which is freaking AWESOME!! The second is PVT (formerly Pivot until they got threatened with legal action by a band called Pivot ... so they cleverly became slysdexic - top move boys), their album is called "Church with no magic" and it's a little challenging for rock ... which I am certain means that it is a classic ... it'll just take about twenty more listens before I get on their wavelength and then WAMMO!! I'll be hooked for life.

First Images last

2010-07-10T18:31:00.005+09:30

Here's a possible first page for my future hopeful release of "the Long Weekend".

It's an image of Craig, the author/narrator of the article of the same name that I am adapting into a comic ... so the adapted comic will be Craig writing the article ... so here he is thinking ... and grappling with the concepts that he is writing about. I don't have a scanner for A3 currently so I have just stitched together two half pages ... hence the wonderful line in the middle ... I think that it kind of adds something to the whole ambience of the piece ... and perhaps I'll just continue the trend rather than try to fix it up for the rest of the book ... just kidding.

When I was a kid I used to visit a friend of my father's on the way home from school - Peter Foster ... he was a cartoonist, he was particularly into Will Eisner ... a man who's work Peter must have come across in travels rather than finding in a casual bookshop in Australia in the 80's, not sure about that one, must ask Pete one day. Pete was a humble and happy kind of bloke, also conducted the local church choir which both my parents were in. He drew a an adventure comic strip series (which was all the rage in Australia for a few decades). The main thing that he did and was most proud of was doing a black and white adaptation of "for the term of his natural life" which is an Australian classic story about a gent from England who gets accused of the wrong thing and sent to the penal settlement of Port Arthur in Tasmania and winds up miserable and dead and whatnot.

He was very kind to me and let me see all of his set-up when I was a kid. He had this desk that leaned up so that you could draw on it properly and stuff ... I got one of those recently ... so much better for your neck. And he lent me comics that he thought I might be interested in. Some old-style Batman's ... he gave me a couple of Martian Manhunter comics ... which looking back, I'm surprised that he gave them to me since they were a) rare ... and b) highly risque for a child under 10 years ... but no complaints ... it was interesting stuff. He also had a contract to work with a series of kids "readers" called Eureka. These were the readers that my primary school down the road got so I used to read Pete's comics at school and then walk past his home-studio and stick my head in to see if he was busy.

Anyways - I found out that Peter ... at almost 80 years old ... is trying to get his adaptation of "for the term of his natural life" out in colour ... go Pete!! See the article here.

I have to say though ... I pulled out my old copy that he gave our family in 1993 and had a gander ... his arduous cross-hatching has gone with the digital colouring ... and it's a touch sad because it looks beyortifulll!! But, if it gets out to more folks due to the colours then it'll be a good thing.

(because of course the world is split into things that are good and things that are bad ... yes - it's that simple!!)

June again

2010-06-02T18:11:00.002+09:30

Well ... the sky turns darker earlier and earlier in the burn-up to the equinox. What one might think about when one comes to this time of year might tend to focus around the weather. I wonder about our conversation topics ... always about the weather. In days gone by ... that was probably the only topic of conversation. It's possibly just a modern thing - having other things to talk about ... in this specialist world that we westerners who read blogs ... and write them ... the world we live in. So artificial and ... perhaps a tad odd ... but I like it enough to keep on putting energy into it ... so that's all that matters I s'pose.

We're planning fruit-trees ... battling clay-filled soil ... cabbage caterpillars ... filling the roof with insulation ... not with the help of Peter Garrett of course ... a bit late for that.

I hope that I find you all well ... I turn 30 very soon.

Isn't that nice.

Might have a barbecue ... and then keep on drawing.

Suvorov ... and random notes

2010-05-18T14:44:00.000+09:30

some random notes from some months back ... some of this has been moved forward ... but an interesting rambling anyways.

____

- As initiated by living out in the desert for three years in Alice Springs as a base for exploring indigenous communities and landforms in the desert I have become interested in far-flung places. I have since moved to Hobart, a different place, a different way of life. Parked in the harbour of Hobart is the Aurora Australis and L'Astrolabe, pretending to be away on trips to the Southern Oceans. Always fascinated by the idea of Antarctica as a child I perked up my eyes at this - perhaps this new place shan't be too boring after all ... hmmm.

How could I engineer a trip to the Southern Oceans?

Geography series (work in progress, something to develop, future plans)

- Central Desert

- Album - Is this a desert? (2006)

- Comic - A Long Weekend.

- Ink art-works of Indigenous peoples.

- Writings.

- Antarctica

- Art/music concept, perhaps a concert series with other artists and musicians in response to works of particular Scientists.

- Co-opt Scientists into being part of art/writing/ part of the music etc.

- Islands ...

- Triguetra concert concept (Sicilia/Salina)

- Tasmania

-

All of them fall under similar umbrellas, or perhaps stem from the same thought-form. They all have links to psychology. Perhaps humans and the brain is truly just an extension of the world that we live in rather than a separate thing. It is formed locally, takes on local attributes, we think we are separate but we are deluded, we are merely atheistic molecules flowing around our designated parts of the globe having our software developed by "Mother Nurture" within the confines of Nature's hardware.

Electric Ecology - Goyder Lane concert number 2 from Joshua Santospirito on Vimeo.

Electric Ecology under Stars

2010-05-06T16:15:00.002+09:30

Here's a pic from 2nd of May in Alice Springs, Central Australia of the Goyder Lane concert. 'twas a smashing evening, not too cold, not too hot ... stars a-plenty in the sky above ... and no cars came through the small crowd who had gathered to watch DWT play a series of vaguely connected sci-fi meanderings on his borrowed electric.

Thanks for help setting up the awesome evening must go to Nadine, Hilary, Anneke, Lucas, Amy, and Leonardo - all for helping me make it happen ... when it so nearly didn't due to unforseen events.

I also had the chance to play at the second Wide Open Space festival with the wonderful J9 Stanton on the singing saw! The sound was challenging on the small stage but we soldiered on in fine form.

Whilst in Alice Springs I took the opportunity to catch up with the enigmatic Craig San Roque to discuss the "Long Weekend" comic project which I have been working on for over a year now. I showed him the layouts that I had done up to this this point and Nadine and I threw some thoughts out about where to go from here ... hmmm ... I have no idea. Though it has been interesting indeed to note that I have recently discovered that an old friend of mine from years previous has randomly come out of the woodwork and it seems that she has become a writer of comics since we last saw eachother ... how bizarre ... and now to pick her brains.

I am now back in Hobart with the weather cooling off again. Time to install the insulation we bought the other week ... and snuggle up for the long winter.

ciao
jxo

PS - I will see how the video recording of the Goyder Gig turned out and see if it's worthy of youtubing here on this blog.

Alice

2010-04-21T09:31:00.006+09:30

Here's a little something from central aus ... it's kind of nice.

Electric Ecology - Goyder Lane concert number 2

The Long Weekend - font sample page

2010-04-21T09:31:00.005+09:30

Here's a random page which Nadine and I have been using to decide upon which fonts to use. This is one font from an American font company called "face front" ... not being that confident in the worlds of fonts I have enlisted the wise and worldly knowledge of Nadine Kessler, she's a font of knowledge ... it's still a strange learning curve for me. There's some more interesting comic fonts here.

You can click on this page for a larger picture ... panel 8 is completely un-inked: I got lazy and since I was just going to use this page to test for fonts I thought it wasn't so important ... though looking at it now, unfinished is sooooo unsatisfying ... even if I have no intention of using it for the final product.

I do intend to use this layout for the final product, this page belongs to the "epilogue" at the end of the long weekend, where Craig's words meander off into obscurity and darkness ...

Drawing

2010-04-16T11:36:00.002+09:30

I have returned to the world of drawing with a vengeance.

It's bizarre how when you do a long-term project with no deadline how you can flitter from procrastinator to the FOCUSINATOR!! in the space of a couple of weeks ...

I am continuing the mammoth task of planning the comic rendition of "the Long Weekend in Alice Springs" by Craig San Roque. Perhaps I have come back to doing it again because I am heading to Alice Springs for a long weekend in a couple of weeks ... the stimulation that was required to get the arse back onto the camel ....

Some rather odd coincidences have also led to the recent revival. I was browsing the web after rediscovering Bobby N's fine work ... I found his blog and saw the photos that he sticks up of the monthly comic meet-up some artists have in Melbourne. There I saw an old mate of mine from university ... from about 9-10 years ago Jen Breach ... she's taken up the deadly task of writing comics!! How cool is that!!

I have a much clearer head as to what I still need to find to acheive the bizarre task of putting everything in order ... writing/adapting a long essay with many windy and tricky concepts that are not necessarily visual in nature ... and more strangely enough ... are not necessarily narrative in nature ... well, let's just say it's a challenge. One that I've enjoyed immensely. It's not the art that I've derived the pleasure from at all ... it's just been staring at Craig's words and putting pencil to paper and headbutting the problems of coming up with concepts for how this might be conveyed visually in a way that works.

For research into how other people might attack the problems that I've met with I have looked into some obscure corners ... in fact, although I'm certain there are others out there who may have attempted similar tasks, they are not easy to find. Most interestingly I have discovered some great works of art such as Abstract Comics. But I think that the most relevant material to my task remains the monolithic work Epileptic by David B. I'm not suggesting that my work is anything like David B's work ... far from it ... I've just found his methods in visually conveying concepts and feelings through consecutive panels and pages and his overall pacing of his work to be the most influential to my thoughts about how to attack Craig's article.

Pacing will always drive me nuts I reckon ... without some sense of how that functions I think that a comic will never achieve its end goal. But perhaps I place too much emphasis on such things.

who knows ...

it's fun though.

ROIL

2010-03-15T19:57:00.002+09:30

ROIL came to Hobart on Saturday ...

A month or so ago I got a text from Harper saying

"You want a support on the 13th of March"

and I thoughts to meself ...

"hmmm ... "

I thoughts

"hmmm ... probly the Brisbane again ...

A bit sick of playing there ... not quite my cuppa tea"

I thoughts ...

but then I thoughts

"NARRRR, whatthe fark!! I'll do it, could be fun"

So I text

"Sure, who for, what time? and why for?"

Harper texts back

"8pm at Peacock Theatre, ROIL"

I thinks to meself

"ROIL? hmmmmm"

I keep on thinking

"Roil??? ... "

penny drops

"Oh, Chris Abrahams plays with them ... "

"...."

"Hey, Harper - sure fucking thing!!"

"One fucking thing though"

"Can you stop me from stealing Chris Abraham's undies and makin' a dick o' meself?"

Top gig.

Top group.

Mike and James were tops too.

I didn't make a dick o meself.

Inspirational

2010-03-09T12:03:00.001+09:30

Endurance

2010-03-01T13:22:00.002+09:30

Stuck for 9 months in the growing ice in the Weddell sea

and

The hull succumbed to the pressure - October 27 1915 ... and sank, bow first on November 27;
the last ship of her kind.

Endurance was named after a family motto of Shackleton's
"Fortitudine vincimus" (By endurance we conquer).

Endurance appears to be one part of the major theme in the Antarctic exploration era - Mawson's insane sledging trip in 1912, Scott and Amundsen's race to the pole ... the sinking ship enduring the crushing of the pack in 1915 ... enduring in the hope of a Southerly gale that would part the pack ice.

Dr Phillip Law

2010-02-04T12:19:00.002+09:30

Found a cut-out news article from the Progress Press (local newspaper in Eastern suburbs of Melbourne) from April 8th 1997 shoved into the back of Douglas Mawson's "The Home of the Blizzard". My Mum has an old habit of doing that ... finding articles that have to do with a particular topic, she cuts them out and puts them in a book of the same topic, sort of a posthumusly collated appendix.
Dr Phillip Law made the front of the newspaper that week, delivered to thousands of postboxes with the headline "A Fortunate Life" underneath his bespectacled and bebearded face. The article begins by honouring him with the "Boys Own" label, which sets you up thinking that here was an adventurer of bygone eras ... which perhaps he is. He was given the title of Adventurer of the Year by the Australian Geographic Society in 1988 ... long after he had finished adventuring. Interviewed at the age of 85 in this paper he said he wished that they had bungee-jumping back when he was a lad ... but that he had no regrets, just a fortunate life.

As I read the brief interview I got a few chills frommy childhood up my spine ... he talks about Antarctica's beauty - "I think it's an extremely beautiful place and that's what grabs most people. Anyone who's been to the Antarctic is absolutely enthralled with the genuine beauty of the scene and the magnitude of it all. everything is on such a grand scale, you feel humbled by the experience of nature" ... I imagined slowly approaching cliffs of ice and slowly realising how bloody big they truly are ... I imagined ice-clad mountains ...
"Climbing up to a mountain peak and looking out beyond that and realising that yours are the first eyes in the history of the world to see that sight. I was in the Antarctic during the exploration era. I just happened to be there in that exciting time. Nobody can ever have that feeling again."

He was the first man to scuba dive in the Antarctic and his wife Nel was the first woman to travel to Antarctica.

I need to go buy a Boys Own Annual.

1772 - the Antarctic

2010-02-04T11:56:00.003+09:30

1772 saw Captain Jimmy slipping his way in and out through the high Southern latitudes.

Returning to London he told the poms that the far Southern lands had no future, though he also reported sightings of seals in the South which, only a few years later, were returning top notch bucks to GB and the USA. And in the early 20th century over 20 whaling companies were in big business in the Antarctic regions.

Douglas Mawson wrote in his introduction to "The Home of the Blizzard" -

"what will be the role of the South in the progress of civilization and in the development of the arts and sciences is not now obvious. As sure as there is here a vast mass of land with potentialities, strictly limited at present, so surely will it be cemented some day within the universal plinth of things."

A friend -

2010 das ist Hammer!

2010-02-03T12:44:00.003+09:30

Some thoughts I'd like to rapsodise about - MONA FOMA was awesome to be part of.

The magic Anthony Magen of Helmethead did some ripper visuals for me to bounce off of. Doing three 20 minute concerts in a period of two hours was bizarre but forced me to create something of a beginning, middle and end within a much briefer time-frame than I've done before ... which was an interesting challenge. Mags and I discussed methods briefly beforehand but not having a complete idea of how it would work (and the fact that Anthony's bags had been lost by the airline) kept the whole endeavour on an edge ... and on the beautiful Peacock back wall ... rul noice!

I'd love to thank Brian Ritchie for his blind faith in accepting us for the bill, it was pretty surreal and gracious of the big lug!
Long live Surfer Music!

Other tops things that happened in the festival were -

PURSUIT - Jon Rose, Paul Bryant, Rod Cooper and some other bloke who's name escapes me. Awesome excuse to ride bicycles around the Princes Wharf building in the dark with freakin' fun toys made by Rod and co.

HELMETHEAD - Rod Cooper and Anthony Magen completely captivated the hooligans in the PW1, and FRICK! the screen attached to Rod's Helmet got even BIGGER ... Anthony's squirming maggots and fairy lights were beautiful!!

TIMEART ENSEMBLE - but I missed them ... shit!

MATT WARREN - his Beach Boys installation in Kelly's Garden was really quite beautiful and it was a great headspace to walk into after really loud gigs. The little toy piano in the sand played notes that echoed for minutes with the sound of waves ... ahh.

IHOS: KIMIKISS (Falling asleep) - this was full-on theatre!! twenty minutes of slowly evolving, surreal, eye-battering and ear-carressing Greekness. Incredible ... don't see it twice! You'll have nightmares.

CAT HOPE - two things - ABE SADA, SADA ABE: bass drone from about fifteen Bassists surrounding the audience - I could feel the vibrations in the pit at the bottom of my bowels!
and WOLF AT HARP: Four drummers at once ... quite beautiful and textural piece that brings together four drummers - disciples of differing drumming worlds - swing, indie, classical and technical metal. Cat created a new musical notation that allowed for improvisation and breadth within a vague framework ... the notation was fucken exciting too ... my wife, the graphic-design-obssessed, became thoroughly obssessed with the notation more than the music ... despite also being a drummer.

Onward and upward for MOFO ... funded for the next four years, no less.

__________
A shortened version of "One of several centres" by Alex Kershaw, filmed in Alice Springs in 2007.
The long version (the one in the art galleries) had me in it in one of the segments stacking chairs. The screens and the seating arrangements for the art-piece was done by my old mate Trent Jansen and the sound was done by the wonderful Gail Priest.

ABC

2010-01-22T07:26:00.001+09:30

Here's a nice titbit on the ABC website where I got interviewed by Siobhan Maiden (down from Launceston) as part of the MONA FOMA!!

Macroscopic is how guitarist Josh Santospirito describes the music he makes.
Detailed textures within landscapes inform the music Josh creates.

The dirt, bark and sand of Australia inspire sounds Josh he loops live in his improvised performances.

The electric guitarist performed in the Peacock Theatre as part of Mona Foma 2010.

His project Drive West Today is a collaborative one, and for Mona Foma Josh worked with visual artist Anthony Magen who created backdrops to the music.

After living in isolated places in Australia Josh developed his own style of music.

"I didn't have anyone else to play with so had to play on my own, and improvising was much more fun than playing something composed.
"I lived in Alice Springs for three years and worked in Aboriginal communities which influenced my music.
"It reconstructed my view on living and what is important in life.
"The vastness of Australia is filled with lots of shapes and colours and if you remove yourself from cities where most Australians live, you do start to reconstruct your way of thinking and that has influenced my music quite heavily.
"I grew up playing classical guitar but felt it was always someone else's music.
"I enjoy the thrill of not knowing what I am going to be doing in ten seconds.
"I feel letting go and seeing where a performance goes is often rewarded.
"I like to create recreate the mood of moving through a landscape, the feeling of driving up the Stuart Highway for days on end, staring out the car window.
"My music is sort of a soundscape."

The name Drive West Today comes from a sense of exploration that is part of everything Josh does.

"West is a romantic concept I have had since I was a kid.
"I always wanted to go to Broome, but I never got there.
"The name I suppose evokes a propulsion, the immediacy of driving right now, the demand, drop everything and take off."

Anthony Magen provided unique backdrops for Josh's music.

He describes his work as a cacophony of visual mess, but the effect they create is a mesmorising.
Anthony places objects on an audio visual presenter which are projected onto the back wall of the theatre, the beautiful natural rock of the Peacock Theatre.

Objects he uses include fake grass, jelly, lasers, tealights, water, an egg beater, kiwi fruit, maggots and lots of simple objects that create interesting textures and shapes.

"I avoid the MTV approach to visuals" explains Anthony.
"People like to see their rhythms and visuals match, but I don't like to work that way.
"I prefer the random nature of art and the stories and threads that can be created are magic, there is no way of controlling it and making it the same every time.

Anthony likes the detail the audio visual presenter device creates.

"It allows you to interrogate an object visually.
"When you see an object like a maggot or a tealight its interrogated beauty, it becomes something different and beautiful.
"You can get a sense of otherness which enhances the spontaneous nature of the music."

DWT @ MOFO 2010!!

2010-01-20T08:43:00.005+09:30

Whew!

I'll be fuggered.

The performaces that I done with Anthony Magen at MOFO were great fun
... the format was exhausting - a bit.

I was a titch delirium tremens after three 20min performaces in 2 hours ... twice.

I must admit that I was a touch nervous in the beginning of the workshop that I gave about inspiration, landscapes and soundscapes ... but once I read out Jen's poem and the audience started asking questions - including the dickhead front-right - it all started to gel a teensy bit and I was more in me element.

Yesterday I was on ABC radio in Hobart on Rick Goddard's show from 2:00pm. They have a much nicer studio than the Edge Radio one ... it has see-through windows into the next 3 rooms ... which seems a touch fancy-pants ... and a room (which I was in) which is for sound-recording etc ... verrrry nice! Played a couple of ditties on the spot and spoke with Rick himself.

Mona Foma

2009-12-15T14:50:00.002+09:30

DWT is going to be part of the Mona Foma 8-24 Jan 2010

It's bloody awesome to be part of this upcoming festival
in Hobart as it has some amazing people on the lineup.

Aussies - Cat Hope, Oren Ambarchi, Rod Cooper,
the Dirty Three, Robin Fox, Decoder Ring,

Internat's - JOHN CALE, Pavel Kahout.

tonnes more!!

Summer has come upon us all
in the Southern reaches of the world,
We daren't look into the skies for fear of burning.
What fun the sea, the green of trees
The lust of it all strengthened by Winter's yearning.

Kinda Creepy

2009-12-08T08:33:00.002+09:30

A good mate just sent me a christmas card with a picture of Saint Niklaus on the front smiling in his belligerently annoying way with the words "Kind creepy" pixilated underneath.

too true.

the Australian Summer creeps down from the North way down here to the South. I used to live in Alice Springs ... I know that it's already topped 4000 degrees there the other day ... Hobart has cool mornings for a nice comfortable scoot to work on your bike along the train-track bike-path. They had an article in the mockery about making a light-rail tram thingo on those tracks to get from Hobart to past Claremont or something ... if it ever happens that'd make getting to Moorilla a lot easier. 18 view-filled minutes on a tram and then .... VIOLA!! Art-a-rama.

I don't know why Hobartians don't just ride bikes up the path ... and then ... VIOLA!! Art-a rama.

When the museum of a million dollars opens next year of course. At the moment it's still just riding along the bike track and then VIOLA!! Cadbury factory Choc-a-rama ... which doesn't make for a nice ride back into town.

In other news - we have a loganberry bush that produces LOGANS THE SIZE OF A BABY'S HEAD!! One berry fills a few jars ... of course the bush only grows two or three berries a season.

xo

recent events

2009-12-01T11:40:00.003+09:30

DWT will be playing at the fun and strange Mona Foma festival in January - announced today - at their website ... how lovely.

Recent events have conspired against us ... we now are the surprised owners of a house in Moonah ... a place which's existence one year ago I was blissfully unaware of.

It has a raspberry patch, a loganberry bush (which we netted on the weekend) ... a lemon tree ... some feral silverbeet, some rampant potatoes ... completely rampant ... large airy rooms that required some airing ... some wallpaper that looks cool magool ... like the 70's and some from the 40's ... which is also cool magool ... and blue lagoon.

what else ... an ancient oven that works in fahrenheit ... not celcius ... imagine that!!

Exciting news October!!

2009-10-23T08:51:00.003+09:30

Very soon - new CD - being mastered right now as I type!!

"A SHITLOAD LESS UNDERSTANDING THAN IS REQUIRED"
a bold improvised instrumental interpretation of the lessons that were pounded into me about humankind, misery, happiness, life and death whilst wandering the Central deserts of Australia and things that have been ticking in my head since I walked back South-East with my tail 'tween my legs. More information on my myspace page and the Collossal Adjective in the coming month or so.

I shall also have a track ("Anthropology") featured on the upcoming New Weird Australia Vol. 3 in mid-November. You can download the entire volume for free from their website - NWA has been an exciting addition to the Australian music landscape this year, and for all folks interested in innovative contemporary Aussie music I guarantee it's worth checking out.

I hereby decline

2009-10-21T07:24:00.003+09:30

I hereby decline to write anything of value in this space.

I have noticed many silly silly things in the last few days and I find them reprehensible in the majority of cases ... ethically reprehensible! In Launceston they have a park with monkeys in it. Lots of Japanes Macaques (which sounds French, not Japanese ... all historically-inclined zoology students leave educated comments at the bottom of the page as to why this may be the case) ... lots of them running around engaging in Racquel-Welch-Rompy-Pompy with their disgusting red buttocks flailing around enticing their male counterparts into primitive acts of "sex" ... I might addextremely fast primitive acts, they appear to be finished before you recognise what it is that they are up to ... quite strange ... do they enjoy themselves? Is it just something they feel compelled to do? Is it a cultural quirk? Is "culture" a word that is easily applied to Macaques sent to Northern Tasmania from Japan?

So many damn questions. I am at a loss.

I would like to mention also that my dear brother Daniel has skipped his Salsa class in Darwin so that he might engage in the heinous act of "KITE-SURFING" ... how disgustingly fit must he be?

I am now back in Hobart-town ... a place that some know as "the town of the cherubs", as lesser L.A. if you will. We have no such frivolities here. Our parks are those of good mother-England, our walls are those made from good old fashioned slavery. Our streets are paved with concrete ... and in this place I feel a beautiful sense of 'the predictable', 'the controlled' and 'the ... (finish this sentence)
___________
incidentally - Last night I chucked the "stuck ferment" yeast into the pumpkin wine ... I also chucked some in my stuck ferment of the plum wine. I hope these two wines will join forces one day and create a super - Plumpkin wine.

Video of Drive West Today

2009-10-19T14:54:00.009+09:30

Hobart - Sept 30, 2011 as part of Sound Klub IV at Inflight Art's Transit Lounge

Hobart - August 2011 performance with Chris Downes at Sound to Light

Sydney - June 2011, at the Silent Hour

Other videos can be found at my Vimeo site

Tasmania - 2011 video to accompany Australian tour

Alice Springs May 2010 - Electric Ecology

Tasmania 2009

Brisbane - August 2008

Hobart - December 2008

where to from here

2009-10-13T07:41:00.001+09:30

the surreal feeling appears to have disappeared ... what is left is an unusual sensation that I'm back to in the world of concrete decisions and that I'm much more in control ... hmm

how disappointing ...
or perhaps being in control is a 'thing' with a twist of "good"?

I'm unsure ...

perhaps I'll go and play a nice CD.

the old Soak

2009-09-15T11:20:00.005+09:30

Drive West Today has a brand spanking new gig
at the SOAK Bar in North Hobart
with the ethereal Biddy Connor
(Tim Finn, Grand Salvo, Kes Band, Jen Cloher, Laura Jean)

FACEBOOK EVENT

Sunday 4th of October, 7:30pm!!
$5-
(and $10 roasts)

Poster - Nadine Kessler Design

some reviews -
"Composer-vocalist Biddy Connor gently inserted herself between the main works, presenting whimsical and yearning songs, self-accompanied on viola, which by means of simple technology turned into layered contrapuntal chants."
- The Age -

Kes Band review -
“Wordlessly stunning. Although the spectre of the Dirty Three hangs over the album (Biddy Connor’s violin is more elegant than ferocious), there is so much beauty on display, so much space and atmosphere, so much complexity and grace, that it is truly a record in its own class” - THE SUNDAY AGE **** four stars

A very succinct article about Australia's racist policies that I digged

2009-09-14T09:07:00.000+09:30

Here's something that I reckon all you jokers should read and read-it-good!

READ THIS

Australia is a deceptive place, most Aussies are fooled by it.

Most of us reckon we're tolerant and kind blokes and sheilas with idiocyncracies to boot.

I'm not particularly into kicking Australia ... we've putting ourselves down for some time agreeing with ideas like "We ain't got no culture" or "We're just little England" and lots of other bits and bobs like the cultural cringe and things they write about a fair bit in Monthly magazine on a monthly basis.

But sometimes we just bloody ignore our past - not just our distant past, but even our recent past.

Did you know there is no Racial Vilification laws in the NT?

Weird!

One of Several Centres

2009-08-26T14:03:00.007+09:30

Here's something fun I was involved in a year or two back that has reached the ethernet -

Alex Kershaw
Film here (may take a while to upload).

Photo still from the project - here.
and another one - here.

A youtube briefened version

And here's a review which likens my performance to Buster Keaton, then goes on to call me "self-conscious" and "actorly" ... hmmf, there was a camera pointed in my direction ... and a guy (Alex Davies) with a big fluffy tennis-ball microphone boomy thingo!! Good fun though.

Adjective clause

2009-08-10T15:04:00.003+09:30

Have recently completed the first in my series of "History! Weird and Educational too!" A6-sized comics. The first in the series stars Danzan Rabjaa - the mysterious ... and drunk ... monk from the Gobi desert, set in 1847 a couple bring their dying son to him for help, strange and terrifying events unfold.

You can have a copy for $2- sent to you (postage free).
Just send me a coin in an envelope or see me in the street.
Josh
GPO Box 1272
Hobart, TASMANIA
Australia 7001

The long weekend

2009-08-08T14:58:00.004+09:30

Have also begun rendering an essay by Craig San Roque "The long Weekend" into graphic novel form - it's an essay that was originally written for a collection of essays responding to CG Jung's concept of the cultural complex. Craig was living in Alice Springs at the time of writing so the essay describes what he sees, the surreal life of Alice, what is happening all around him during the weekend of football weekend when the people of the bush descend upon the town - who knows what might happen: some family business, some football, perhaps even a few fights.

The essay is divided loosely into three days - Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Friday sees Craig in his house trying to knuckle down with a theme for his essay, increasingly irritated at the guests sleeping in his backyard, until he realises that the cultural complexes are somehow best described by simply describing what occurs in such a town as Alice, where two (or more) cultures rub up against each other - revealing beliefs and behaviours to the other cultures that have their origins rooted in the mystical past.

Saturday Craig visits the hospital mental health unit to sees a young Aboriginal girl who has come in with a ganja-induced psychosis; petrol-sniffing etc. Craig writes about geographical sites, the meanings and stories that we imbue them with and their importance in our understanding of the worlds that we inhabit; this also goes for body parts. He visits the oft-referred to metaphor of the neural pathways for the song-lines of the Aboriginal people and their oral history and story-telling that they use to map out their world.

Sunday - Craig, his family, and friend Amos, inadvertently get dragged into going hunting with some of the women that have come to his backyard. Enters an extended discussion with Amos about how colonisation and its role in tearing people from their methods of understanding their worlds, their links to their mythology, eventually leading to their destruction.

Although the cultural complex is shown to be dynamic, repetitive and resurrective, Craig's observations perhaps lead one to believe that in central Australia the complex is somehow devolving and destructive.

It is a redolent essay, having lived in Alice Springs myself for three years, and struggled in my capacity as a mental health nurse with many of the strange and wonderful issues that face that particular hub of Australian cultures (which I strongly believe that no one person has many answers for) I found this essay to be somehow darkly comforting; if only for the its ability to impart in me the feeling that I am in no way alone in my confusion about what the hell was going on half the time. I also loved its ability to capture the surreality of every day life in that town and the region. Things just happen, you often can't force your own agenda upon the world there - it won't work - the spirit of the land have their own agenda, the complexes of human behaviour and understanding will move on with or without you.

I reckon this project may take at least one or two more years - I have roughly mapped out the story visually, soon to embark on the great unknown for me - typography. Luckily I have Nadine Kessler by my side - an expert in the field of letters and words ... and their place on the page. Hailing from Germany, and taught by the master Weingart in Basel, Switzerland, she will also hopefully agree to do the overall book design.

I hope to get some images of the work in progress up on this blog sometime in the near future - I'd appreciate any comments or suggestions for extended reading on these matters. The more the merrier.

also

Have once again in my life finished watching the entire Twin Peaks saga ... damn that was fun.

History!!

2009-07-16T07:39:00.004+09:30

I have completed a new comic in time for Hobart+music=YEAH!

7 page A6 booklet for $2-BARGAIN!!

It is the beginning of a new series of comics that will be entitled 'History!: weird AND educational'

The first issue will be titles "Despair in the Desert" - it will be set in 1847 in the Gobi Desert and features a little known Lama by the name of Danzan Rabjaa who is having a bit of a revival in Mongolia in recent years - there's a new book out on him by the Lonely Planet writer - Michael Kohn ... who tends to live in Ulaan Bataar ...

AWESOME!!! I shall take some photos soonish and put them in this space so that you may sample the wonder!!!

ciao

Charles du Cane's puppies

2009-07-11T14:03:00.002+09:30

I had a smashing time playing at Charles du Cane's CD launch last night - and then watching the princess of dogs playing himself - highly engrossingly entertainingment.

here's a Vid I dedicated to him - join me on facebook if you dare!

Blue Valentines

2009-06-27T12:36:00.003+09:30

What may be one's desire to rest on one's laurel bush turns out to be some inner want for poor sleep, perhaps that is when we have our best, most creative thoughts - staring at the ceiling with our brains-a-whir, on hyper-hippodrive.

To date the bluest song on record was recorded on a record by Tom Waits ...

the view of the nation

2009-06-19T14:22:00.003+09:30

Go to this page which has a review and read the comments afterwards - fascinating how a film about Aboriginal realities can polarise our fair nation -

the Australian newspaper

jxo

## new youtube thingo on the bottom of this page!!
Fun music!!

I have returned from the desert to the far South of Australia ... just in time for the Hobart winter. You may have noticed Hobart is on the edge of the world ... so's the weather ... but I'll become accustomed to it.

A minority of sufferers get minimal or no result from Botox injections and have to find other treatments. For some, Botox diminishes in its effectiveness after many years of use. An observed side effect in a minority of patients is ptosis or eyelid droop. Attempts to inject in locations that minimise ptosis can result in diminished ability to control spasms.
Stress management and support groups can help sufferers deal with the disease and prevent social isolation.
WOOHOO! T'ank goodness.

On July the 10th Charles Du Cane shall be entering the Siren's ballroom for to make loverly music. He has akksed me too makes loverley mosaics with him toos. jxo

Blepharospasm

2009-06-04T10:35:00.005+09:30

## new youtube thingo on the bottom of this page!! Fun music!!

I have returned from the desert to the far South of Australia ... just in time for the Hobart winter. You may have noticed Hobart is on the edge of the world ... so's the weather ... but I'll become accustomed to it.

A minority of sufferers get minimal or no result from Botox injections and have to find other treatments. For some, Botox diminishes in its effectiveness after many years of use. An observed side effect in a minority of patients is ptosis or eyelid droop. Attempts to inject in locations that minimise ptosis can result in diminished ability to control spasms.

Stress management and support groups can help sufferers deal with the disease and prevent social isolation. WOOHOO! T'ank goodness.

On July the 10th Charles Du Cane shall be entering the Siren's ballroom for to make loverly music. He has akksed me too makes loverley mosaics with him toos.

jxo

Amata

2009-04-27T18:02:00.002+09:30

Am here in Amata for the last time ... pity, the locals are highly amusing.

So I was playing last weekend at the Lane in Alice Springs when all of a sudden, across the mall at the Town & Country, a huge bloody fight breaks out between two or three guys ... I look at J9 and we rush to our instruments and start playing some chase-music just as the cop-cars come vrooming into the mall ... some chicks throw themselves into the fray and then get plucked back out and into the paddy-wagons and off to the watch-house. Charming wenches that they were. And still the band played on ... the atmosphere was electric. Come to the Lane Restaurant for a fine relaxing atmosphere, fine food, wine to boot and a good old fashioned fisticuff face-slamming.

___

See you at Wide Open Spaces
I'm on 1:30pm with J9 yet again.

Fregon

2009-04-22T08:12:00.004+09:30

I am sitting in the doctor's house in Fregon ... she's in Sydney - so she doesn't need to know about it at all.

She has internet connection which is nice.

It's funny trying to flap your way through cultural divide in mental health work. You're never quite certain whether what you see is what you're getting. Perhaps I'm getting bugger-all correct.

I wish the health-workers would turn up to work. They usually have a better idea about what people are talking about - partially because they come from the same culture ... and partially because they speak the same language.

But still, gotta say - playing with Anangu is kind of fun - they're a most interesting bunch of people. Highly dramatic. When they have an argument, they don't bother hiding it - in fact, they let the entire community know
... perhaps because in small communities you can't hide it

... or perhaps as an open invitation for anyone else to express their grievances
... a large group exercise to exorcise all negative feelings out of their souls and into the ether

... I don't know ... perhaps not.

There's a festival down the road from Alice in a couple of weeks -

Wide Open Space Festival

I'll be seeing ya there.

Gilgamesh

2009-04-21T18:03:00.002+09:30

The Epic of Gilgamesh is an epic poem from ancient Mesopotamia and is among the earliest known works of fiction.

In this ancient saga Gilgamesh destroys the bull of heaven with the help of Enkidu - his wild part-stone mate who was created as his equal. There's this other character called Utnapishtim, another called Humbaba (a demon-orge protecting the cedar forests) and a grumpy love-goddess called Ishtar.

I only bring these names up because I know lots of people my age are having babies and I reckon there needs to be a new baby-name rennaissance from the old days.

over and out.

AP lands

2009-04-02T18:16:00.002+09:30

So I'm trundling around the North of South Australia ... tried to find the Surveyor General's corner today ... found some tinnies and a windmill ... nothing but scrub up around there ...Kalka, Pipayalatjara, Kanpi, Nyapari, Amata -> Lasseter, home.

Central Australia seems nice to me ... the buffel grass seems to feel at home here too. Horrible shit! Hope it burns in hell.

Have a gig on Tuesday in Alice - see you there ... I'm not even sure where that is.

Also will be playing at the "Wide Open Space" arts festival on the 2nd of May at the Ross River site. A bush doof music festival for Central Oz ... google it baby!! ooooh yeah.

jxo

Upcoming tour!!

2009-02-06T07:06:00.001+09:30

OOOooo, DWT will be coming up to the mainland ... scooting through the big city of Melbourne and then running off in the buff to the big desert again to play in the dust.

gigs - Hobart, Melbourne, and Alice Springs.

Poster by Nadine Kessler design.

video down below of xmas gig at 6a ARI Hobart.

Fuggles

2009-01-16T10:51:00.004+09:30

It has been a long time since I properly wrote something tangibly delusional on this website ... but I just discovered the desire to do so again ... I have been homebrewing, moving house, changing seasons for sometime now ... and as of today I no longer have to live out of a suitcase - which is terribly exciting.

I discovered there are varieties of Hops (for beer brewing) that are called fuggles. This automatically makes me think of a bad habit that youngsters nowadays and wayward adults have of conjoining the words "f#*&^#g" and "ugly" to come up with the word "fugly". Apart from the usual uproar such a rude title might bring about in civilised society, I believe that this derogatory name is wholly undeservingly bestowed upon the humble hop. The very hop that allows us to balance out the sweetness of a brewed beer with the more subtle bitterness that is intrinsic to the plant and has allowed us a more rounded, balanced and smooth flavouring in our cool and refreshing summer beverage .... our warming winter beverage ... and the other beverage that we drink in other seasons too ... namely the two others that I have not managed to mention as of yet - Spring and Autumn.

I do hope that with your help ... we can rectify the situation by OFFICIALLY changing the name. I hope to set up a facebook page and/or group ... not sure which way to go on that one just yet.

In the meantime - you can all just sign your names in the comments section at the bottom of this blog if you agree with me and when I get over three thousand names I shall present it to the Australian government. We will petition them to go to Oxford to have the name irrevocably revoked from their influential dictionary. Hopefully with this course of action, despite a significant lack of strict language-purity laws in the English speaking world, the influence of the Oxford dictionary will help to eradicate this ghastly name from our failing language and bestow our true gratitude upon this loveliest of plants, which will be remembered daily in the language of our day, henceforth.

amen

Drive West Today - on facebook

2009-01-08T15:37:00.001+09:30

Drive West Today has a track on the Series Two compilation Vol 15

Available from the Series Two Store. Buy ... oooh

Musical Dissidents

2009-01-04T13:09:00.002+09:30

My new radio show The Musical Dissidents is going fine ... I almost know how to slow down my talking to a reasonable pace and I have almost worked out how to not play the wrong song.

http://www.musicaldissidents.blogspot.com

http://edgeradio.org.au

facebook group

Come join me - Sundays AUST EST 12-1pm on 99.3fm or stream it from the Edge website.

jxo

when the kind was a kind

2008-12-24T07:38:00.002+09:30

Hope that you all have lots and lots of FUN at NYE.

Because we all know - if you're not having fun then you're not part of the team!

In fact, you're dropped from the team. See you again for the tryouts in late 2009.

The Peacock Centre sits high, halfway up a humpy hill in North Hobart. There are no peacocks here, they wandered out underneath a cortina and got concertina'd.

I will be playing for three and a half hours on Sunday the 28th inside a shipping-crate at the Tasmanian Taste Festival. Wow ... isn't that impressive ... my fingers will be fairly sore at that point.

Don't listen to Robert Fripp with a hangover.

jxo

This culture of background noise

2008-12-12T06:51:00.002+09:30

This is a newish kind of age where newish kind of music hits the availability levels of NEVER-BEFORE ... and yet somehow our neurons in our head like to travel along the same neuron paths that they've always travelled along. Perhaps a little like jumping on the internet and always going to Yahoo! for information ... instead of ... well-I-don't-know ... somewhere else (... is there somewhere else??)

So we continue to buythe music that gives us the quick fix because it already fits in our brains ... everything else is a little too much to take right now, it may take a while for me to get my head around that and ... by the time I get to work and back for dinner, another thirteen fortnights it's already June and wintery in the southern capitals of the world and there's a new candy-popped piece of candy-pop available at the top of the coca-cola isle in the HMV mega store that'll make me feel sweet in the background at dinner time ... perhaps my husband might say something romantic if his ears are being sweetly whiplashed by big-hipped, long-lashed Sasha Fierce or staring at the candy-popped-crotch jewel-cover of Xtina in her cowboy gear sitting on the stereo.

Maybe we should watch SBS tonight? Check out the Italian news ...

ahhh, Silvio and his bevy of beauties.

6a

2008-12-06T14:12:00.002+09:30

Settling into the new hometown of HOBART. It really is quite warm ... and strawberries are cheap so we tried our hands at Strawberry Wine ... looks nice on the mantel - I recommend playing with Yeast.

I`ll be hosting a new Radio show on Edge Radio starting on sunday the 7th of December

The Potted History of the Musical Dissidents

99.3fm in Hobart

or Stream it from www.edgeradio.org.au

Focusing on the history and the present state of experimental/fringe/unusual/genreless musicians and their art.

In other news - I`ll be playing at 6a Artist Run Initiative in North Hobart on Friday the 12th from 7pm ... also other bands, experimental films ... bring your own stools ... woohoo.

AND - last but certainly not least I`m involved in a collaboration with Nadine Kessler in the container project down at the wharf in Hobart at the Taste Festival. On the 28th of December at the beginning of the Taste of Tasmania - just when the boats are coming in for the Sydney to Hobart. Come and join in!!

Respond

The interactive culture

By Nadine Kessler & Joshua Santospirito

Culture is created by many individuals who help to shape and form it over time, it is a constantly shifting environment in which we make our emotional, physical and mental homes. Through a constant process of responding to the ideas produced around us in the human environment we learn to navigate our way through it.

The shipping container is filled with newsprint sheets, textured and coloured paper on the walls and hanging from suspended ropes. Moving images and words will light the space using a visual projector. Music/Sound will be improvised by Josh with willing audience members, constantly reacting to the slowly evolving environment. Passers by will be invited to respond by writing their emotions, thoughts, scribbles and artwork upon paper and pinning them on the walls and upon suspended string throughout the space. Observers are drawn into the process of interacting with a dynamic environment through sight, sound and touch, becoming observers no more! Thus simulating the processes of cultural development.

Over four hours the space will be continually changing with more and more colour, stimulation, chaos and activity. An observer who steps out at one point will return later to a familiar but changed landscape.

Bio

Nadine Kessler has lived in Australia for four years. She grew up in Germany near the Swiss and French borders and studied visual communication in Basel, Switzerland. She is now a freelance graphic designer whose passion is playing with typography, exhibition design and is particularly interested in cross cultural interactions. Joshua Santospirito is a musician interested in improvisational and experimental music. He performs under the name of Drive West Today and has played throughout Australia over the last few years. In early 2008 Josh performed in Berlin, Germany. Nadine and Josh spent three years living in Alice Springs, being challenged by intercultural issues and work environments, and have now settled in Tasmania.

black man

2008-11-09T12:24:00.002+09:30

man, what a week ...

um, I haven't ranted in quite some time: perhaps I have nothing to rant on/about. I have recently been making a lot of homemade beers: a couple from kits - a stout and a draught; and also I'm now fermenting some leatherwood honey beer from a recipe that I found in a great book on wine-making and beer making ... and I've been doing the ol' non alcoholic ginger beer - fizzy goodness. If you want any recipes, just let me know.

I am yeast man - I have a sourdough on the window-sill named Reginald ... which Nadine put to good use, I have a ginger beer started called Gerry to keep him company, the shed is filled with bottlos and I shall be pickled in Hobart very soon.

The weater is fine, and I shall start to decide what I'm doing with music very soon ... what is it with the ants in Hobart???

crazy

live in Hobart - 24/10/2008

oh my GOD

2008-11-01T08:54:00.003+09:30

I've been doing dome googling ... and I've found some gems.

go to this website - http://www.daxo.de

This Germanic-like bloke Hans Reichel is bloody fantastic - he invented the daxophone ... which is one of the most expressive instruments I've ever heard in my life. It sounds like the human voice and then ... like nothing I've ever heard of before.

Also - to make a Hank drum - go HERE.

find Rod Cooper on the net ... there's one youtube that show's a beautiful creation or three of his.

Summer music

2008-10-29T12:51:00.003+09:30

G`day,

The gig at the Alley Cat was a fine one indeed it seems. The sound guy Chris was a loverly gentleman. Indeed.

In other news, I have had the divine luck to witness Because of Ghosts at the venue at Salamanca, and previously I saw Mt Eerie. Mt Eerie was cool, I never heard of this name, though I`d heard of the microphones before many times ... same dude, different moniker. very eccentric indeed, but so watchable.

The thing that makes Because of Ghosts stand out must to be a bunch of factors … hard to pin down to be sure. One of them I feel is their mixture of Morricone-messy guitar playing from Reuben Stanton and the exuberant drums spraying from Jacob Pearce’s kit … the man has a style it has to be said. The quiet nature that Dominic and Reuben Stanton have at the front of the stage is beautifully concentrated between them and their brother bobbing around over his kingdom of drumskins. Dominic’s bass anchors and paces the music thoughtfully and gracefully. As the spokesman for the musicians between songs his gentle nature further emphasised

On Saturday the 25^th, Because of Ghosts came to play ‘the Venue’ in Hobart, Tasmania. Their first gig on the island. With moppish hair and good Melbournian fashion sensibility they took the stage with an ease and serenaded the audience with huge sounds inflicted with heartache. The one thing that makes them stand out from the mainstay of post-rock fare is their ability to draw out a truly beautiful musical storytelling melody and back it up with a feeling and intensity that seems plausible. Not just relying on the time honoured tradition of building up the sound out of the ground in an hour long crescendo.

I would not suggest that long drawn-out crescendos is a bad way to go about making music on stage. Many a band has sucked the audience in with a breath of their lungs in the valley and spat them out at the top of the mountain. I remain an avid fan of Bolero to this day and believe that it’s relevance will be sustained throughout history and, indeed, it’s simple exercise in crescendo make the point that it should also remain as a damn fine tradition in music which is currently being held up high and true by such greats as Explosions in the Sky, Sigur Ros and other post-rock lumieres of our age. Somehow, this band that we were watching tonight, were standing as tall as the others. Reuben Stanton’s guitar would seem to play billions of separate notes rather than strum his guitar. His hand slowly floats above the strings in his fashion and pulled us up with them into a multitude of loops and longing. If the aim of music is inflict the rainbow of emotions, elevating us above the every day, then this was a music that the world should take note of. And they kindly brought themselves across the Strait to visit. Plugging their album This culture of background noise, they play their way through a barrage of halcyon nostalgia and gorgeous sentiments. These nice young chaps from the mainland left the audience in a very loving mood … buzzing even, like their noise. A rare treat.

The Alley Cat Bar

2008-10-04T17:44:00.008+09:30

Hobart is a very nice little town, it has boats, rednecks, greenies, normalities, suburbanites, reasonable prices, music, cliques, misfits, mermaids and missionaries.

I am still a misfit ... though I aspire to one day become a mermaid.

Gig -

Friday - The Alley Cat Bar, 24th of October, North Hobart.

poster by Nadine Kessler.

DWT’s improv-guitar acts as tour-guide in Australia’s vast open spaces; sound-tracking & sculpting, setting stories out in splayed layers of melodies. Musical cues are picked out of sepia-soaked memories and skilfully formed into gorgeous yet monolithic sounds.

Formerly known as boy Brightlulb, Joshua Santospirito has performed his unique and intuitive music to enchanted, horrified and enraptured audiences all over the country since 2005, and even as far abroad as Berlin in 2008.

Originally from Melbourne, Santospirito has spent much of his adult life scooting ‘round the deserts and cities of Australia in cars and pushbikes - the experiences from which he draws his musical inspiration. Having been largely nomadic he is now permanently based in Hobart from where he plans to make his regular forays across the Apple Isle and on to the mainland for concert tours in 2009/10. Plans are also underway for a series of three EPs to be issued by mid 2009 on his independent label The Colossal Adjective.

Under the moniker of boy Brightlulb Santospirito has released three self-released albums. 2006’s Is this a desert? went on to make some impact despite having no formal distribution and minimal radio play, mostly on the strength of Santospirito’s dynamo live performances.

Hobartianites

2008-09-27T18:23:00.003+09:30

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT:

I live in Hobart ... how strange.

click on the headline for a definition of Hobart.

photo Nadine Kessler - somewhere South of Forster ... near an overfull Lake.

Consolador De Los Caras

2008-09-18T13:19:00.003+09:30

My sister has her sixth baby due in about six-seven weeks ... I have been playing K'Nex with the other five children ... it's highly addictive. My good friend Brendan Phelan is disgusted that I have been staying on the North Shore of Sydney as he has horrifiable childhood memories of the area ... but I think his childhood would have been better if he'd had K'nex instead of Fischer Teknik ... or Lego for that matter ... poor Brendan.

Played in Sydney last night at Club Consolador at La Campana latin nite club - 53-55 Liverpool St: it's on every Wednesday as it has been for the last year or so: run by those charming Dualplover scallywags Lucas, Swerve and Shaun.

On stage I thought that it was probably the worst gig I have ever played ... but apparently it didn't sound that bad ... the curses of having no idea how it comes across to the audience. But there you go people -

Gig - Sunday in Melbourne at the Edinburgh
Am moving to Hobart on Tuesday.

pic - Nadine Kessler

2008-08-27T09:45:00.002+09:30

Car parks always undo me ...

I just discovered Nick Huggins ... I haven't actually bought his album as of yet ... but I am homeless and without CD player so he will have to forgive me ... but his myspace page has three wicked songs on it which take me away. There's also a nice film-clip with a really cute little girl on it with big cute eyes - aww.

And here I was thinking that the only interesting thing coming out of Melbourne at the moment was Laura Jean ... HOW BEHIND MUST I BE?? Are there any other gems that I need to know about pronto, please let me know pronto. Though I note that there appears to be some nice interesting people associated with Nick at twobrightlakes, in particular I reccomend that you discover seagull, and Otouto for meloncholic songwrit.

So I was sitting in a carpark at the dreaded Byron Bay Woollies waiting for my brother to come back from somewhere else (wherever that may be that brothers go to) and I was sitting chatting to myself and this girl walks by who looks as though she's been at some humungous festival who looks at me talking to myself ... her expression said "that's a little weird".

Driving tractors

2008-08-26T15:44:00.004+09:30

The child & the tractor was once what I called my brother ... but now he let me drive the tractor ... and it is a muchly a nice way to pass the afternoon, cutting grass to mulch on permacultural pastures in the hills.

Peak oil is possibly a reality - click on the link for your homework assignment - it may happen a hell of a lot sooner than you realise: do you remember how to chop wood for yourself?

no?

burn your cds

I played Audiopollen on Sunday night in Brisbane's West End - they are a lovely bunch of eccentric young people who put on quite a nice show ... just down the road from rocking bars playing funk pop and blues there's a loading dock out the back of a vegan cafe that hosts a group of avant-bards. This would be the place to come if you feel a little nauseous at the thought of coming down to West End to be surrounded by the beautiful people.

mwah

PS - buy more CDs now ... or move to a warmer climate.

Russia

2008-08-17T08:14:00.002+09:30

Things are not allowed in some places of the world.

In St Petersburg, Peter the Great decided that swamps were not allowed, only buildings with canals weer permitted ... so he banned the swamp completely ... and built himself a new Amsterdam, which was later renamed a few times only to come back to Sankt Peterburg again.

I have concerts up and down the coast, I will ride my little bicycle after Nadine down to Sydney, then we'll drive to Melbourne for another concert and then we'll sit and figure a way to move our stuff to Tasmania ... any suggestions anyone?

jxo

Lehmann Smith

2008-08-11T09:57:00.002+09:30

This young gentleman was brought to my attention by Biddy Connor, violin extraordinaire from Melbourne who refused to play support for on some night. She recommended Lehmann Smith as he wanted to have more gigs. I checked his myspace but didn't listen very closely and thought - why not, I need more people to play.

Then i met him on the night, he seemed very young, clean faced, neat young bloke and I thought - well, there's a young, clean-faced etc etc. and then he got on stage with a gaggle of girls sitting at the front of the stage chattering away in between his songs. And I thought, what an odd performer. His lyrics and style of singing made me stop and think. hmm, Unusual. Which is refreshing to say the least.

Then he got progressively more plastered as the night went on.

but - my GOD his music was interesting.

also plays with Kes Band who are currently taking off in Melbourne and Australia ...

DWT Biography

2008-08-11T09:17:00.008+09:30

((( In brief

)) Drive West today

DWT’s improv-guitar acts as tour-guide in Australia’s vast spaces, sculpting stories in splayed layers of melodies. He has enchanted, horrified and enraptured audiences all over with his gorgeous yet monolithic sounds.

((( Web

www.myspace.com/drivewesttoday

http://www.camaldulensis.blogspot.com/

((( Bookings email disco_jeans@yahoo.com.au

((( In not-so-brief

)) Drive West today

Originally from Melbourne, Santospirito has spent much of his adult life scooting ‘round the deserts and cities of Australia in cars and pushbikes - the experiences from which he draws his musical inspiration. Having been largely nomadic he is now permanently based in Hobart from where he plans to make his regular forays across the Apple Isle and on to the mainland for concert tours in 2010. Plans are also underway for a series of three EPs to be issued by mid 2010.

((( Web

www.myspace.com/drivewesttoday

http://www.camaldulensis.blogspot.com/

((( Bookings email disco_jeans@yahoo.com.au

_____
Other stuff -
Gigography - all DWT's past concerts arranged on one page! oooh
Media written about DWT - reviews, mentions etc.
Video - Some live, some not.

If you would like a pdf version of this bio, promotional photos or any further information please feel free to e-mail the above address.

the beginning

2008-08-10T16:22:00.003+09:30

It has occurred to me today on the bicycle that the name "boy brightlulb" has reached it's end.

What has been an amicable relationship thus far has produced many fine motifs and musical chairs. From jigs to jumbled noise experiments, counterpoint to counterintuition, fugues to fusspots, it has been a long but beautiful growing process.

But,

the world has become complex and complicated. What was whimsical and silly must now become EXTREMELY serious and overrated. I realised today that what began as "Stormboy" in 2003, moved through into adolescence as "boy Brightlulb" in 2005 to present, now has to become a MAN!!!

I'd like to ask that the media respects our mutual grieving processes in this difficult time.

Thank you for listening.

PS - I have no idea what this young man's name will be so please watch this space closely over the next month or so.

Russian Eagles Have Two Heads

2008-08-10T07:03:00.003+09:30

There are mammoths ... huge woolly ones, flying over these hills of Northern Khovsgul. You'd want to be careful they don't do a huge woolly one on ya from the lofty heights. Perhaps when these bicycles have finally broken down and the oil has dried up in the last of the seas and the water has become steamed ... we'll have to relearn how to hunt the gazelles from the skies on the backs of these ruddy great galoots.

aren't they beautiful

I'm sure Georgia's on their mind

A northern country

2008-08-06T07:47:00.009+09:30

here's some pictures that should explain why you should NOT follow suit and cycle around Mongolia ... unless you're a masochist ... Google told me I couldn't put up the pictures with the saddle sores.

spot the caption that goes with the image

a family who fed us ... fed us lots
a nice camp site

a camp site plagued by visitors

a burnt out riot scene in Ulaan Bataar

a broken down bus

a poser on a bicycle

The Old Bar gig

2008-07-27T08:14:00.002+09:30

Was a most enjoyable experience. Seth Rees is a lovely fellow ... he plays guitar like he's waving a wand from the storm above ... goading the electricity in the clouds like he's playing with putty ... I reccomend you watch him in a foul mood ... or if you'd like to be in a foul mood and you just can't manage it by yourself.

If anyone knows a gigable venue in Brisbane in the next month then please let me know ...

If anyone knows a gigably venue in Sydney in the month of September please let me know ...

jxo

Western Media

2008-07-13T13:28:00.001+09:30

It has been intriguing to read the news about the recent riots in Ulaan Bataar, capital of Mongolia in the mainstream newspapers of Australia. I was in Ulaan Bataar as a tourist at on the night of the protests that lead to the destruction of the headquarters of the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party (MPRP or MAXH in Cyrillic). Many Mongolian people told me before the elections and after the elections that the head of the MPRP was corrupt and a bad leader. After the elections they told me with absolute certainty that it was widely known that there had been rigging of the ballot boxes … during the Saturday night when they were counting the votes there had been numerous black-outs in the buildings where they were counting the votes. The Democratic Party had been ahead up until around 1 or 2am in the morning of Sunday prior to the black-outs, afterward there was a dramatic swing in many electorates to the MPRP who eventually claimed victory. In one electorate of Bulgan aimag (province) one of the runners for a parliamentary position told me candidly that the MPRP representative had paid many of the nomadic people of the area 20’000 Togruk (approximately US$20, which is around a week and half’s average pay in Mongolia) to vote for them in the lead-up to the election.
Mongolian people have a very robust and healthy democracy, many people have a moderate to good education and believe that every person has the intelligence to make up there own mind about politics. They constantly have discussion about many topics and are very involved in what they all believe is necessary for the future of their country. Since the fall of communism in 1989, Mongolia has been plagued by many problems to do with their political leaders. Corruption has remained an issue, the MPRP retained power for most of the time since the system change. The leaders of this party have been rumoured as being linked with the Russian mafia and have been seen by the people of their country as holding their country back from economic progress. Mongolia has many natural resources which they have been unable to tap by themselves due to lack of capital or experience. The result has been that many foreign companies have come into Mongolia to mine the resources and have exported out of the country with very little benefit going to the people of Mongolia, a form of economic colonisation you might say. Many Mongolian have strong opinions about this issue and want a system that benefits them more, more joint ventures, higher percentages of the profits coming to the Mongolian government who sets up growth funds to benefit the education system and the building of infrastructure.

On the Monday after the election, many angry people gathered out the front of the MPRP building not far from Sukhbataar square in central UB. The building also housed numerous other businesses that rented rooms from the MPRP. The people demanded that the MPRP stand down or a recount of the election take place. Police attended the scene which gradually became more and more out of control. The fence in front of the gardens was pulled up, people broke the glass on the front of the building and attempted to enter the building. Police attempted to push protesters back, only to be outnumbered and eventually pushed back into the building. The footage from inside the building showed the police attempting to spray protesters entering the building with a weak jet from a garden hose with the effect of getting the protesters a bit wet. Eventually the protesters set fire to the building through the windows and some looting began. Nearby the Mongolian National Museum of Modern Art was also set on fire destroying some reported 4000 or so artworks possibly from smoke damage and there was some looting of other nearby buildings. The television broadcast of this event had been, up until around 11pm, constant. There are around four free-to-air channels in UB which suddenly turned to static except for NBM, the government channel. A curfew was put in place with the conditions of no-one to wander the streets between 10pm and 8am, the main roads in and out of UB were to be closed (smaller roads remained open), main market places were closed and the military were present around the central area of the city. This remained in place for four days. The police and the government stated that they would identify the trouble-makers from the riots from the video footage and charge them. What started off as justifiable anger eventually turned into what was seen by many outsiders as opportunistic vandalism. Many Mongolians I spoke to felt that the destruction of this building was an important symbol of the people’s will and anger. The government was shaken by this event and announced a recount of the election ballots. One person died in the building itself, and on the Tuesday morning it was reported that another three people were found dead from police bullets in the street outside. The curfew had it’s intended effect and things calmed down considerably afterward. On the Friday I returned to Australia.

The Age newspaper had a small article about the riots stated with very little details other than to say that the riots caused instability which meant that foreign traders could not access the natural resources of the country to help bring the country out of poverty. Curious, no mention of the record of the government, no mention of the possibility of election-rigging. The article merely blamed the people of the country for ruining their own chances of having the peace required to allow foreign companies to take away their natural resources.

This was a Reuters article. A very simplistic one. Of course I understand that such articles cannot contain all the local details required to give a whole picture, especially in one that is about a country that not much of the world knows or cares about. But this was the first such riot ever in this country. It takes a lot to make a Mongolian person so outwardly emotional: this was remarkable. Surely Reuters would find the presence of corruption or election-fixing something worth commenting on. It seems to me to be a fairly large omission, or perhaps I am naïve. I was only a tourist in this part of the world and I don’t know the extent of the story. Perhaps the finer details are easily lost on passers-by. If they wrote this article based on someone else’s reporting, then who was it? Was it the MPRP party officials? Was it a Russian connection? Was it Chinese? Who knows, but this of course begs the question, how much else in world news misses such information? Probably a lot … don’t believe all you read kids.

Over and out
bB foreign correspondent.

"return"

2008-07-03T17:46:00.002+09:30

Just saw Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull ... should have known Spielbergo's fetish for aliens would ruin a potentially decent flick ... I liked the flesh-eating ants though, nice touch.

I'm currently in Ulaan Bataar, capital of the Mongolian People's Republic ... the other night there was a riot ... and now there is a curfew! It only takes a few rotters to stuff it up for all of us, bastards.

Nadine and myself have ridden our bicycles very far in this very very unbitumised country (is that a word) ... and now we have very very very sore arses and tomorrow we fly back to mumsy and dadsy's house to recuperate and moisturise.

I shall return to the very nice place of The Old Bar, Johnston Street Fitzroy, on 14th of July ... please come for I shall have nice backup from the ethereal Seth Rees and the charming Lehmann Smith, they are both nice boys and we would lurve your company.

ciao ciao darlings
Josh

Mongolei

2008-06-07T16:16:00.003+09:30

bB plays Privatclub in Berlin - Mai, 2008

Man,

the train across Russia is like they say ... a very long boat trip with vodka, random card-games, lots of Russian people (strangely enough) ... lots of weird food ... overheated cabins ... and mad attempts to buy tickets for destinations at the last minute to uncollaborative ticket-ladies who basically told us to fuck off the second they heard us speak English ... and then a few grand saves by the wonderful Russian people who helped us battle these deadly foes.

I ... wouldn't recommend taking bicycles across Russia by train unless you can speak Russian, know who to bribe (read encourage), and enjoy bureaucracy at it's most 'interesting' level. But of course, if you fulfi all of this criteria then please - apply for a Russian VISA application invitation, hope that you receive a VISA, then follow the cues at the airport that explain how to then get registration ... the cues that only exist in your guidebook.

Russia is an interesting place ... and Russian really are very nice people once you get past the first five minutes of silence.

But, it's utterly astounding how friendly the Mongolian people are ... more later.
jxo

photo - Nadine Kessler, Irkutsk 2008

Farewell Beliner Mauer

2008-05-22T03:30:00.002+09:30

hello Stalingrad...

tomorrow Nadine and I will leave fair, fair Berlin ... I had many conversations with Angels whilst here ... or at least, they listened to my thoughts when I sat in the library ... lazy bastards won´t even read a book for themselves.

Last night I played support for the Chap ... who were nice chaps ... and also Bleubird ...

see hear

I shall not really be contactable much for the next month or so ... I shall be in the depths of Siberia seeking out a cure for liverspots for the multinational drug company Johnston & Johnstons. They pay well ... but the job is dangerous.

and then after that I have a contract with a colonial anthropologist company to document the interesting habits of the Ruaki baki shalucky people of South Northern Mongolia ...

I shall be back in July I hope ... if all goes according to plan ... and it shall

farewell Berlin

it´s been real ...

righteous!

2008-05-09T04:14:00.007+09:30

Playing Fourtrack on stage at the Monkey Club in Prenzlauerberg in Berlin was much funtastisch.

It was muchly pleasur-ass to play with Tomi Simatupang the crazed and with Van Ly the precise.

Other people I have discovered on my travels to European places are as follows - Therese Aune: this girl I saw in a town called Bodoe, in the Arctic circle in Norway ... she will on day be famous ... her live show was fucken unreal ... and she´s only very much just getting started, she lives and plays in Oslo, Norway ... but you may see her in more places later on, just wait a little longer.

Oori - very intriguing percussionist who lives in Berlin, played with Robert Curgenven whilst I was here in Berlin.

Ingeborg Selnes - I hope she visits Australia one day ... she writes nice stuff.

Rockettothesky - whom I have mentioned before: has a new album possibly popping along ... it be sounding very much nice ... isn´t that nice ... perhaps those who don´t live in Norway might get more of a glimpse this album around.

Cold Mailman - an indie band also from Bodo, Norway gave me cause to stand up and take notice

Laura - a teen band also from Bodo (can you tell I saw a couple of concerts in this town) got my heart a-pounding when I saw them ... they sing in Norwegian ... which is most righteous ... one day I´ll get them to tour Oz ... where they can come face to face with their Melbourne name-sakes who keep taking their music off Lastfm ... and then they can all have a fist-fight and have a beer afterwards ... and then create the Laura superband!

rock on Laura!

Coming up
20. Mai 2008 Privatclub Pücklerstr.34. 10997 Berlin. Einlass: 20h Eintritt: 8-10€ amSTARt präsentiert: 21h BLEUBIRD one of the most positive yet bitter MCs. he'll sound as political as Noam Chomsky, as dirty as 2 Live Crew and as emotionally fragile as a young girl's diary entry. endemik bleubird. org myspace. com/bleubird 22h THE CHAP London Art Disko Rock..n Roll Band. Album "Mega Breakfast". VÖ: 19.5.08 Lo Recordings/Ghostly International myspace. com/thechap www. thechap. org + Überraschungsgast Alice Springs. www. myspace. com/boybrightlulb

photo of concert by Nadine Kessler