Archive for the ‘Music’ Category

Icehouse

Tuesday, April 26th, 2016

1

It’s always cold inside the icehouse
Though the rivers never freeze
There’s a girl inside the icehouse
I can see her clearly through the trees

2

And now she’s dreaming of a new love
And she hopes he’ll be there soon
But she’s got so long to wait for him
Because he needs another year to get there

There’s no love inside the icehouse

3

The devil lives inside the icehouse
At least that’s what the old ones say
He came a long time ago
He came here in the winter snow
Now it’s colder every day

4

She’s still dreaming through the summer
And she’s hoping through the spring
She says she’s got no time for winter nights
She doesn’t notice as the days grow darker
She can’t remember getting any older

There’s no love inside the icehouse

5

Words (c) Iva Davies

Singles

Tuesday, April 19th, 2016

When I arrived in the USA almost 23 years ago, I was strip searched at LA airport. They had me down to my daks, going through my clothes and shoes looking for something that wasn’t there. Part of the process was a thorough luggage search, and I can only imagine how surprised the guy was when I opened my (only) suitcase to reveal this:

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This isn’t a post about that experience, it’s a post about what a 21 year old man that emigrated to the US thought valuable enough to pack with him. My suitcase that day contained a tiny amount of clothes, one extra pair of shoes, a few important documents, and hundreds of CDs and 7″ vinyl singles. Looking back on it now I can’t imagine how heavy it was (I had to use a cart in the airport for a single large hard-case suitcase) or how I wasn’t charged extra baggage. Those were the days, I suppose.

I’d always loved singles, and bought them religiously for all the bands I followed. I treated them well, and still have almost all of them today. To get them here I bundled them up in bubble wrap (in other words, inadvertently made them look as much like drug packages as possible!) and packed them tightly in around the similarly packed CDs. I don’t recall any of them getting damaged, and ever since arriving here they have lived in the comic box shown in the above photo.

I’m reasonably sure the first 7″ single I ever purchased was this one, probably bought in 1982:

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In those early days I owned very few since I didn’t have my own record player. I bought them every now and then (Homosapien by Pete Shelley, Rockit by Herbie Hancock) but mostly bought cassettes of new albums. It wasn’t until maybe 1983 that Bernard and I started buying vinyl like no tomorrow, and by 1986 I had my own record player in my room and bought new records (often singles) almost weekly it seemed.

Here’s another one from those early days:

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I bought the above because of Michael Hutchence (!!) recommending Nick Cave in an interview. I remember liking it, and thinking he looked like Julian ‘Zzap64’ Rignall on the cover 🙂

But enough history, let’s look at some highlights from the big box of 7″ vinyl that lives, mostly ignored, in my house today:

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That’s the first ever Mute records release! I was a fan of so many bands on the label, when I saw this guy for sale used at Rices it was an instant buy. To this day I can’t imagine how it got there (much less to Australia) given it was released it such limited quantities. A treasure of my collection to be sure.

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That’s Depeche Mode’s first single Dreaming of Me (on top, released in 1981), and there last wide-released 7″ single from 2009. I remember having trouble finding it, but eventually did in Japan a couple of years later. In those days vinyl was almost completely dead, and 7″ singles in particular hadn’t been seen for years. You may be aware of the big vinyl resurgence in the last few years, but 7″ singles aren’t exactly coming back.

The box is about 40% Depeche Mode singles (including three copies of many – UK, USA, Australian), about 30% Erasure and the rest Nick Cave, Sisters of Mercy, Mission, Fields of the Nephilim and a few random ones thrown in. As you may imagine of a collector as crazed as myself, many of these collections are complete (for instance, I have all known Mode, Nephilim and Erasure 7″ vinyl). Getting them entailed many trips to the import stores in Sydney (I used to go monthly), as well a semi-regular purchases from UK shops for which I used ‘international money orders’ and would wait months for the package to arrive. I also had a penpal (!) in The Netherlands that helped me get some of the harder to find European releases during the early 90s; I even still have one of the ones he sent me still in the bag it was purchased in!

Here’s some of the attractively-designed Sisters singles:

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And the Nephilim stuff, which includes multiples since KLS & I merged our collections:

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There’s a large amount of limited editions in the box as well, and in fact towards the last years of the popularity of 7″ vinyl, many releases were only available in limited or unusual versions. For instance many singles are pressed in coloured vinyl:

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Or transparent vinyl:

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Or picture discs:

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Or – and this one is quite special – silver vinyl:

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I’ve also got quite a selection of bootleg singles (which were very popular with the ‘goth’ bands):

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And even several flexi discs (pressed on acetate so they could be included with magazines):

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I hadn’t looked through the box of singles for many, many years and it was a bit like opening a time capsule. While I still have a working record player, I didn’t actually play any of them yesterday since every song on every one of them has since been made available on CD or for download, so their more curios now than essential possessions for the diehard fan.

But I had fun buying them back in the day, and used to listen to them over and over again. I’m happy I’ve still got these things; they’re one of the few possessions from my youth I still own today.

That Time I Made A Record

Sunday, December 6th, 2015

Many many years ago, I had a good friend. Let’s call him Rooster.

If I recall, he and I bonded over music Depeche Mode to be specific. We were both big fans, although possibly more I. We both liked synthpop bands in general, in those early days, and spent endless hours debating the merits of artists such as DM (great!), New Order (bleh!), Skinny Puppy (eh?), Art Of Noise (snooze) and OMD. That last one I dismissed then, but now recognize as one of the greats. Rooster was a curious fellow, unpredictable and often inscrutable. I could fill this blog with amusing (and fond) memories of him and the stuff he and I got up to.

This would have been about 1985 or 1986.

Anyway he lived in a big house with his parents and sister. I’m hardly sure the sister even existed, so infrequently did I see her. She was younger (I think) and didn’t go to our school (I think) and was very shy (I’m sure). Or perhaps her mum just hid her from us, since Rooster’s mum was intense. His dad was a judge and I rarely met him, but his mum was often home when I visited. She was friendly to me, but Rooster and her argued a lot and it tended to make visits often awkward. Also I don’t recall ever going upstairs despite many visits to the house. In fact I don’t recall ever being in any other than one large downstairs room, which looking back on it seems weird. But I went a lot, since we were friends Rooster had a lot of stuff at his house.

For instance, he was the first guy I knew with a video camera. It was a massive over-the-shoulder thing that used full sized betamax cassettes and couldn’t rewind itself.  I dimly recall us wandering the streets and recording random things and eventually having a police car stop and question us about what we were doing. I also recall taping other friends at a party at his house (in that one room…) once. I’d love to see that tape today.

Rooster had a lot of musical instruments as well. A piano (which neither he nor I could play), a guitar (ditto), a drum kit (!), an accordian (!!) and then one spectacular day, probably in ’87, he produced an electric keyboard – a synthesizer! – and something that looked a bit like this:

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That’s an early drum machine, specifically the Korg KPR-77 released in 1983. It was one of the first with an LCD screen and an memory to save the ‘song’. Rooster’s was better than this – much better in fact. His not only included a basic drum machine, but also a sampler and sequencer. Think of the iOS Garage Band app in a plastic box (much bigger than an iPad!) and that’s about what he had.

We had it all: the keyboard, the drum machine, the sequencer and the new romantic attitude. It was time to start our own synthpop band!

Looking back we probably lacked the most important requirement: talent!

But this hardly slowed us. The keyboard was connected to the sequencer, as was a tape and a microphone. Nearby we had a stereo so we could ‘dub’ things from other songs. And then, in one single day, we laid down an albums worth of tracks.

There was the eerie opening song: ‘Doubter’s Son‘, which consisted of a sub-melodic drone speckled only with the eponymous lyric which increased in frequency until it took over at the end. There was a song about a dog. There were a few instrumentals that at first glance sounded like random noise. There was a spoken word piece that read some lines from a greeting card. And there was the inevitable first single: ‘Hello I’m A Fish’. We collaborated on the ‘music’, and I recall most of the ‘singing’ was provided by me. About 6-8 songs in all were recorded that day, carefully saved to tape and even adorned with a homemade ‘record sleeve’ with liner notes and lyrics. It was dedicated to girls we liked (but we didn’t name). I believe we made three copies in total. We we very proud of it. We loved it.

I used to listen to mine a lot! I still remember (and this is no exaggeration) with great clarity the tune of Doubter’s Son. There were discussions about a second album, or even renting studio time to remake our first one more professionally. Rooster may have even sent one copy to a radio station!  If our ‘band’ had a name, I don’t recall.

We shared out creation with others and it was immediately obvious that we had produced something challenging. Most of the initial reactions were giggles, which quickly became uncontrolled laughter. They loved to hate it, calling it noise or garbage. This bothered Rooster a bit, but I didn’t care. In those days I may have said “Geniuses are rarely appreciated in their time” (with a big grin myself). A friend of mine (Thud) did a fine rendition of ‘Hello I’m A Fish’, but his heart wasn’t in it like mine had been. Most of the girls I played it for hated it, but then they thought Rooster was unusual anyway. I stopped playing it for others.

I wonder what my family thought? My brother will remember it. I look forward to his comments.

Only a year or so later Rooster and I had turned our back on synthpop – at least publicly. Who cares about a-ha when The Sisters have a new record out? I had long since stopped playing the tape, but it still languished in a drawer somewhere. It became the brunt of infrequent jokes, sometimes dragged out to laugh at when people were drunk. In the last year of high school Rooster got a job as a DJ on the radio, and sometimes I’d go in and sit with him while he played records. The studio had a bulk eraser in it that I occasionally used to erase cassettes. One time I took a whole bunch in with me, including ‘the record’. We had a laugh about the idea of playing one song on the air but never did.

I honestly don’t remember if I erased it that day or not.

It’s been many years since I heard those songs. When KLS came to Oz in ’92 I never played it for her. In fact just now she told me I’d never even mentioned it. I don’t remember the last time I listened to it or even saw it. I don’t remember even forgetting that it was important to me. Even if any copies still existed after 30-odd years it’s unlikely they could play.

That brilliant first album of a nameless band – crafted in a single day – is probably now lost forever.

Elektronik Muzik

Sunday, March 8th, 2015

Between Christmas and my birthday, I obtained several unusual musical instruments. Obviously it was time to put my talents to use and create music! Therefore I announce the formation of my band ‘The Ultra Man’, and the release of my first single ‘Journey to Albion’. In this entry you’ll witness the creation of this soon-to-be-chart-topping hit.

The first instrument is the drum machine, otherwise known as the ‘simple buzzer circuit’ made using components in the ‘littlebits’ circuit kit JBF got me for Christmas. This is nothing more than a 9V battery connected to a pulse generator (to vary the speed of the beep) and a buzzer. Not a traditional drum machine perhaps, but The Ultra Man is no traditional band:

The electronic bass is achieved via the Otamatone device. This is about as unusual as instruments get these days, and creates sound via a pressure pad and an adjustable echo-chamber (opening the mouth of the device changes the pitch). Here’s the mysterious Ultra Man playing it:

You can see the song coming together can’t you?

The final piece in the puzzle is the Stylaphone. This gift-from-god is like a chiptune-in-a-box, and (once again) uses electronic wizardry to create astounding sounds from the future. The stylus completes a circuit when touched to the metal keys, and as you can see here the results are nothing less than magical:

So what happens when all three instruments used simultaneously to create a song? Well readers, this happens:

Even if I do say so myself, that’s pretty special 🙂

Sounds Of The Universe

Saturday, December 13th, 2014

Well my friends it’s been altogether far too long since my last blog post! I won’t list the reasons since they are history now, and truth be told I was holding back a little, since today begins my third ever ‘blog event’! I present to you:

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What does this mean? A new post a day, for twelve (very majestic) days! You can look forward to posts about crafts, weird collections of mine, year-in-review posts and even a secret or two (bears??!?).

What better way to start this cosmic event than with this:

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Yes, it’s a vinyl record. I obtained this prize from a second-hand bookstore when I was in San Jose earlier this year. Although Bernard saw it first, he was strangely uninterested and I knew it had to be mine! Here’s the track listing:

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This is not a music album, this is a sound effect album! None of that ‘Doctor Who Theme’ stuff here, no sir. This is a record for true fans!

Yesterday, I removed the album from the sleeve for the first time, spend about 10 minutes trying to remember how my record player worked, and gave it a spin:

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The sounds that came from the speakers were not like anything on this Earth! It was as if I was right there on Exillon as I listed to the sonorous droning of ‘The Central Control Room in Exillon City‘. It was bliss.

But the next track blew me away, and since describing it is almost beyond words, why don’t you listen to ‘The Dalek Control Room‘ yourselves:

And so it continued as I listened to such wonders as the electronic hum of ‘Styre’s Scouting Machine‘ or the astral winds of ‘Sutekh Time Tunnel‘. I was being whisked from planet to planet with each new track.

Side two continued the trend, although the tracks are a lot more uplifting than on side one. As en example, here is ‘The Mandragora Helix‘ in it’s entirety:

Beautiful isn’t it? Believe me when I say the rest of the tracks on the record are just as good 🙂

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This album was released in 1976, and I have the US version from 1978. It’s in astonishingly good condition for something 36 years old, and even though I will go to the grave without ever playing it again, it is certainly a jewel in my record collection!

I think these guys may agree with me…