doodleinacacoon?

BabbelOn loves patronising the arts.  In a respectful way of course. 

Unable to attend the recent Sydney Festival “All Tomorrow’s Parties” spectacular on Cockatoo Island (owing to a bout of anticipatory sea-sickness), BabbelOn nevertheless perused the line-up and did manage to uncover a few musical gems. 

First up – jump to Afrirampo:

Described by All Tomorrow’s Parties mainman Barry Hogan as having one of the two greatest live shows ever to appear at ATP (Lightning Bolt being the other), Afrirampo are in their own words… “Naked rock!!!!! Naked soul!!! Red red strong red dress!! Freeeeeeeeedam.  Paradise rock! Jump! With improvisation.”  Afrirampo is…from Osaka. From Japan. From Space. Comprising one girl, Oni on guitar and another girl Pika on drums. They are, in their own words, “Sooo fantastic & wild performance wowowowowowowowowwoooooooooooowwwwww!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”  Believe it.

After that, drink in the Sounds of Seduction:

The Sounds exists as an exotic oasis of music and dancing in a world parched by the dusty wind that blows off the desert of popular culture. Where genuine Go-Go girls strut their stuff, exciting the passions, urging the throng to dance more wildly.  Where swirling colours from Miss Death’s collection of vintage psychedelic projectors paint the crowd in paisley hues. Where the DJ tends a sonic jungle of rare species of vinyl from every time and place, spinning the most amazing mixes of funk, 60s pop, bachelor pad lounge, goth, Eurobeat, soundtracks and straight up rock’n’roll that ever teased your ears.

Be sure to push on to:

F#@k Buttons were conceived by Andrew Hung and Benjamin John Power in the winter of 2004. Initially born as an outlet for their nihilistic-noise tendencies, they quickly realised they could harness the use of noise as a tool to immerse and evoke. No longer afraid of melody or rhythm, the group started fusing all these elements to the point when drone becomes melody becomes rhythm. Tribal beats and subtle beautiful melodies weave amongst contorting Technicolour dronescapes, while preaching distorted-vocals scream for dear hope herself. 

Lastly, get a big whiff of the piece de resistance:

Blue Mountains-based Passenger of Sh*t is a one-man music act, signed to his own label Sh*twank Records. He produces harsh and brutal electronic tracks and is quoted on his MySpace page: “I make dum erotic speedcore happy terrorcore /hardcore gabba / trendy f@#kwit breakcore tamborine core type dance music game core and sad core, screaming vox and harsh sh*t noise and other dum sh*t music.”  Passenger of Sh*t also belongs to the noise trio ‘Rancid Sh*t Wank’ and has released solo noise albums under the name doodleinacacoon.

If you like the sound of the F@#k Buttons, you can hear their actual sound here.  (Warning – you may want to scream for dear hope herself.)

The next ATP event will be held in July in Islamabad. 

Oz failure

BabbelOn has a confession to make.  It is not an easy one to share, even in the relative privacy of this comfy lounge room of a blog. 

BabbelOn enjoyed Australia. 

This over-produced (more than a dozen special effects companies are credited), over-marketed and over-budget film hit just the right note for your correspondent. 

Admittedly it had more cheese than Switzerland but so what?  Melodrama has been a legitimate genre since Gone With The Wind.  

The biggest box office of all time belongs to Titanic (of which screen writing guru Robert McKee said that the characters could not have been more obvious if they had cardboard signs around their necks.)  It took in a staggering US$1.8B. 

In fact, the top 100 is filled with block-busters bursting with hobbits, boy wizards, pirates, jedi knights and other superheroes.  Big stories for the big screen.  (Australia is 357 on the list with global takings of US$206M as at 20/3/09). 

In BabbelOn’s humble opinion, this is what movie theatre is about.  Drama, huge bloody drama.  Watching a romantic comedy in the cinema is like eating takeaway in a restaurant. 

Anyone who complains about having to spend two and a half hours gazing at Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman probably should see a doctor.   Nicole can say more with a close up than anyone who is not Cate Blanchett.   Hugh Jackman makes Daniel Craig and Brad Pitt look like girly men.  He is George Clooney with a spine. 

What has interested BabbelOn about Australia, however, is the need to confess to liking the film. 

The critics have been great in number and united in their thinly-veiled scorn. 

It has become fashionable in certain circles (BabbelOn hesitates to label them but is willing to run with ”liberal elites”) to express a sniggering disdain (the effect of which is slightly diluted by an implied admission of having actually paid to watch the film). 

One example that caught BabbelOn’s eye recently is the Sydney Morning Herald art critic John Macdonald, who deemed it necessary to work into one of his reviews (of the Archibald Prize) that he found Australia “embarrassing”. 

BabbelOn is intrigued by this admission.  Did Macdonald feel it necessary to go out of his way to maintain his liberal elite media credentials by dissing the film (as have seemingly all those who choose to comment on it) or was he actually embarrassed?

Presumably his embarrassment (assuming for the moment that it was real and not feigned) occurred while watching the film and not in admitting that he had seen it? 

One would have thought that an art critic would have a pretty thick skin.  He must have seen worse on the walls of galleries all over Surry Hills.  Or perhaps when it comes to film he is as sensitive as the rest of us.  (Surely no-one would be foolish enough to describe “Australia” as art.  Other than BabbelOn of course but that is putting the cart before the horse.)   We are left with the fearless Mr Macdonald sitting in a dark cinema, shifting uncomfortably as Hugh soaps up while Nicole peeps out from a tent flap. 

Embarrassment as an emotion implies a vested interest in a particular outcome.  So to be fair to Macdonald, he may have simply been feeling his disappointment (is shame too strong a word?) at the film not living up to his expectations. 

In this he could be described as a patriot, hoping that the eponymous movie would live up to its grand vision and be a serious, historically important rendering like, say, Gallipoli. 

Unfortunately, in his mind, it didn’t live up to the hype; the canvas was just too big, the colours too bright and the tone was all wrong.  His hopes were dashed and there he sat, uncomfortably, wondering how he could have been sucked in yet again by Baz Luhrmann.       

Disappointment is one thing.  We have all been there (see, for example, Burn After Reading).  Embarrassment, though, is quite another matter.  Why should a hard-heart like Macdonald feel shame at the results of an Australian artist’s considerable efforts?  After all, it is not as if there haven’t been any execrable Australian films in the last few years.  Mick Malloy has made a career out of them (it was his misfortune not to have been born in Illinois and named Rob Schneider). 

In fact, such embarrassment is not a new phenomenon and there is even a term for it.  Good old cultural cringe. 

BabbelOn does find it ironic that an Australian art critic should feel the need to publicly express his cringe. 

In truth, BabbelOn suspects that Mr Macdonald was simply following the lib-el-med herd in having a shot at the film. 

Baz Luhrmann must have the hide of a water buffalo.