I just watched Dreamgirls.
It's the shittest movie ever.
I would rather watch a marathon of Grease 2, Troy and Episode One (previously suspected to be the worst movies ever, but not even in Dreamgirls' LEAGUE) than sit through that shit again.
Not even for twenty bucks. And I'm pretty poor.
So, I went to see Schvendes at The Leopold in suburban Bicton last night. It was pretty sweet, it's a new night they're starting there so there weren't too many people, which is a bit of a rarity at their shows nowadays. They played incredibly well and it was great to see how they've grown as a band since I last saw them. Super-tight. They're experts in the field of putting a sound into a song that makes you feel like the threats they've made have just come true and they're now stabbing you in the gut. Verr' nice.
The new Nine Inch Nails record is pretty ace too, I'm kind of obsessed with it. I've been listening to it, like, twice a day, which I don't think I've done with a record since M. Rosner's spacious soundscapes. I suspect someone's been listening to a bit too much Tomás Ford though, there's such a strong me influence in there it's unavoidable. Seriously, listen to Five Times and then listen to his new stuff. Bastard. His compression is obviously way better (and expensive-er) but the programming is so similar it's scary.
In other news, This Is Not Art in Newcastle are flying me over for their festival in a few months. Bender!
So the weekend just gone was the hardest work since my last Adelaide season. And the last Adelaide season was so hard, I wrote most of the songs in Vs The Audience about it.
Friday night's show was huge, but there were too many idiots there for it to be fun. People were trashing the Bakery's gorgeous mirrorball decorations and generally being obnoxious, then the night ran over to the point that my set, intended to start at 12:30, ended up being at 2am (after the venue's liquor liscence stopped, so the bar was closed). I soundchecked at 3, so by the time I left the venue, I'd been there for twelve hours! On top of this, some arsehole knocked over the table holding my gear without feeling the need to tell me, so halfway through the night I stumbled over all my gear, on the floor backstage. Then it was so late that the people I was collaborating with for that show had a heated argument with the promoters and left. Other things also contributed to my mood, which was pretty intense by the time I went on stage. In fact, it was super intense. I was fuckin' pissed off with everyone in the room and proceeded to lay down the angriest Tomás Ford musical vengence I could manage. No Reaction was a masterpiece of aggression and the underlying themes of frustration and audience blame that creep into my work sometimes really bubbled to the surface for a focused bit of hatemongering. Very satisfying hatemongering, it was too.
Saturday saw me with a near-lost voice from a combination of a cold, the previous night's show and the sleep deprivation I suffered last week while getting everything rolling for these shows. This meant rehearsal was torturous for everyone, as I was tired and could hardly speak, let alone sing or attempt to be on key... it ended up being fine though, my voice kicked in once the audience came in, like it usually does in these situations, though it got a bit red raw towards the end. I managed to super-offend my stage manager without even trying, resulting in her turning a bit, erm, painful to deal with, for the rest of the night. But the shows were an absolute blast and turned out exactly as I'd hoped they would - big ups to the girls from Brash And Sassy, who did an amazing job of sharing the stage with me. Word is that it looked slick. We love slick. Nobody ever calls me slick.
Then on sunday, totally emotionally exhausted and with no voice whatsoever (I couldn't even squeak!), I went to do my dodgy day job, that I do two days a week as a means of feeding my wee family. I was a zombie. I slept through half of monday and then the rest of it I wish didn't happen as my car died (expensively) in the arse and in such a way that, given the stress of the preceding week, I pretty much lost my shit. This was followed by my recieving an email informing me that the long term collaborators who left in a huff on friday were going to stop working with me for a series of the most irrational reasons ever committed to e-mail.
So yeah; I'm tired, I'm drained, I'm burnt out.
Apparently Mercury turned retrograde or something on saturday. Mercury can go fuck itself along with the rest of the universe.
It's not that I don't want to work tonight; I really, really do, it's just my brain is really, really not in it.
I sent out a mailout. Maybe that's all I'll do.
Oh yeah, I wrote a blog.
So I played Forrest Place the other day, which is the main square of the Perth shopping district, and ended up frolicking in the fountain. This had been a vague aspiration of mine for quite some time, but I had thought that logic would dictate, what with the OHS issue of having electronic musical equipment close to water and all, that it was going to be turned off. Thankfully Perth City Council doesn't think about things like that.
I didn't bring a change of clothes, but upon my arrival, seeing that it was on, I instinctively knew what was about to happen. Which was bad news, as I hadn't brought a change of clothes with me. I thought I could hold back until the gooey downtempo centre of the set I'd planned to go splashing about. But I couldn't. The kick drum hadn't even dropped in Audience, and I was already doing surf-lifesaver style wading around, splashing water all over the powerboards, foldback speakers and the stage. I'm stupid lucky not to be dead.
I waded! I leaned on the water! My pants were drenched! The water flowed through my old workboots (still in the cbd, I think)! And it was stinky, algae infested gunky water too. Eeeew. But the fun!
Once I was finished, I noticed how cold it was. And I was going to be meeting some people for coffee, though they'd seen my spectacular splashing and sympathised, so didn't mind a bit of a rescheduling. But I was freezing! I had to make a sarong from one of my pieces of shiny cloth from my set and drive as fast as I could home so as not to get all hypothermia-ed.
Totally randomly awesome. Plus I got to do Forrest Place at peak hour! It was pretty surreal anyway, getting in people's space as they tried to get to the train. I had a radio mic so I performed all over the entire square. It was rad. I get to go back for Rock Against Racism in a couple of months, which is gonna be massive. I can't wait for that, I've got a taste for the space now.
Let's call that one a warm up, then, yeah?
By the way, if you're in Perth, come to my ONE NIGHT STAND at The Blue Room this saturday (the 16th). It's a one-off, supercool megafloorshow with the Brash And Sassy girls and a bit of a taste test of the kind of shows we hope to do together early next year around Australia. You should come, it's only $8. Prebook by giving The Blue Room a call or logging onto http://www.pacs.org.au and clicking on week one of the View Fest season.
No really, go get that Of Montreal album.
So that Battles record Mirrored is a bit of a grower. Apparently it's more accessible than their other shit. I don't think it's very accessible at all, it's been bloody hard work getting into it, but there's something about it that kept me coming back. I think I was fundamentally interested in what they are doing from the outset, but just didn't have favourite bits yet. Now I have favourite bits. It's a nice thing.
I still fucking hate Boris' Pink though. Piece of shit record, that one. And Scott Walker's The Drift. So irritating, I can't deal with it. It's too much. It's too gross, all the time, in my face, and I'm all like shut up, OK?
Still pissed off at myself about the controller. Damn. Trying to convince myself to start working on my website, but so tired, so procrastinateyfeeling. I need a rest, so I think I might just have one today, hey?
Fear Of Comedy's album launch was last night, 'twas pretty exciting. They packed a hell of a lot of people in to the Bakery and it was hot.
My set was pretty dope, even if I did lose my voice halfway through Five Times (it came back) and got all squeaky. Couldn't really have picked a less opportune moment for that one.
But in bad-related news: I broke a vital knob from my midi controller (the knob box that I play with onstage)! I think I'm gonna have to get it replaced, which sucks because at $300, that's, like, two ads in Drum I can't take out now. And I like it when people know I'm playing a show. Bummer, hey? My power supply is fucked again too... I am not a happy boy this morning.
For a man who isn't playing that many shows at the moment, I sure am busy.
Yeah, as I said in the last post, I'm working on the website, but I'm taking a week off from that because it was driving me insane with boredom and I have the Fear Of Comedy cd launch this weekend. I was working pretty much exclusively on the website and getting really frustrated (as I do when I'm not doing getting enough time for making cool sounds) and all of that pent up creative rage has vented itself this week in an entirely remixed live set. I've been listening to a whole pile of 80's 12" mixes, a lot of which were done with simple edits (like just cutting a song up and repeating parts to make it longer) and they're ace. So I got to thinking that I could do that with my tracks, and it's been a bit of a disco revelation. I've gone a bit deeper than that, doing a full restructure into more dance music-y structures, which is great because I think it gives the audience a clear frame of reference to compare my songwriting and production with - rather than these tracks being totally alien wierd pop things, I'm gonna give 'em the space for people to get into the groove. I've discovered that my basslines are pretty dope and that my drum programming has changed a lot in the last couple of years from being minimalist breaks to a punkier, raw four to the floor. It's happened pretty naturally as my work has become more agressive, and I was vaguely aware of it, but listening to this stuff is so much different to listening to my older stuff.
Have got some nice tracks to DJ with next time I spin; lots of gay disco (You Think You're A Man But You're Only A Boy is my personal favourite), 80's stuff (read: gay disco, but vintage), some dope-ass remixes of Aqua tracks (yes, that aqua), some Richard X, LCD Soundsystem (yes, it really is so, so, very good), more Of Montreal and some remixes of Daft Punk that have forced me to reassess Human After All as a shit album that remixes well rather than just a shit album.
Producing this stuff is killing my computer though, I think it might be on the downward spiral to redundancy. It's freaking out with me just putting simple compressors on my tracks. Like, fully freaking out. Not even playing anything. I've gotta render the track and then listen back to it, it's total bullshit. Anybody got a hot new laptop they want to offload on me?
So the contracts have been signed, everything is getting organised, my whole website is getting an overhaul.
I'm setting up shop.
It's pretty cool, I'm going to have a new area full of a whole pile of digital downloads you can buy (good news for you eastern staters who have been buggin' me for a while about this), free stuff, videos, merch, an expanded blog, lots and lots of cool stuff. And if you buy stuff, most of the cash goes to supporting my work and you get reward points to get free downloads and stuff. It's basically gonna let me put a whole pile of ace stuff up - I might even put up some of my text work in sexy pdf's for you to check out! For real.
The catch is that to look at the new area, you'll need to fill in your details, but it won't actually cost you any money. And I promise I'll never, ever give 'em to anyone else and it'll help me figure out where people are into my stuff so I know where to tour and to keep in contact with you in an unobtrusive way. Which is nice, yeah?
I'll still have an open access site, but a lot of it will be feeding people to the new site as there'll be a lot of effort going in to make sure it's interesting and constantly updated.
So today I've been busy organising my new website. You'll have to prepare yourself for a totally different aesthetic: it's black on white rather than black on white. All the effort is basically in aid of me setting up an online store so I can sell all you beautiful people my singles and merch and downloads and stuff. It's hard work, but hopefully it'll all be worth it when you pour your money into my coffers, yeah? C'mon; help put my son through school.
Web programming is pretty tedious. I've found a solution that'll be pretty workable, but it's not gonna have a shopping cart, so I'll be selling my work as whole singles/lps for download (ie much as they are avaliable now but in digital form). I'm kind of more down with that anyway, as the idea of breaking an album into its' component parts is a bit gross, really. Don't worry, they won't be too expensive, it'll be at approximately iTunes prices. You'll be able to help me afford to eat! It's exciting, isn't it?
Hopefully that'll be up within the next fortnight. Oh yeah, another exciting thing is that on Saturday June 16, I'll be taking over the Blue Room again for a one night stand show. I'll be making sure this is pretty special, there'll be some guests popping in and a whole pile of cool shit, so you're gonna want to book tickets pretty badcore. They'll be cheap too, probably about $8.
In other news, I had a psychadelic orgasm this afternoon. Seriously bizarre. I halloucinated all these neon paisley colours, like I was on 'shrooms or something. It sent me into a fit of giggles for about ten minutes. Awesome.
And who says I don't share with you?
Can't believe I, of all people, forgot to put the ö in Björk.
I am such an idiot.
Wow, the new Bjork album is quite excellent. I thought Earth Intruders was wanky when I heard it on the radio, but then in high fi in the discomfort of my studio, it sounds perfect. It's not as disco disco a record as I was expecting though. Lots of tribal sounds though. Innocence is my favourite. Bitch drops it like it's hot, yo.
I saw a couple of bands tonight at Cassette, they were both pretty damn good. Birds Of Paradise took a while to win me over with their Kate Bush/Dresden Dolls thing, but they managed admirably, closing with pretty much the best song I've heard from a local act for a while. It'd be good to hear them with a bass guitar or something, but, really, I have no right to critisise their minimal drums & keys setup. Harlequin League were also pretty damn ace, sitting somewhere in between the Tucker B's, Cut Copy and some kind of commercial rock thing. Their songs are good, even if the lyrics occasionally slip into mild 80's lameness, and their stage presence is really excellent. Watching them felt like it must've felt to watch Arctic Monkeys or something like that play a small club a couple of years back - you know their music isn't life altering art or anything, but sometimes just watching an act you think "could be the next big thing" can be it's own dodgy, consumerist kind of rush too. Lots of fun though, my mini critisisms aside, they're quite rad.
I handed in my remix to the New Rules For Boats kids, it's ended up sounding quite tidy. I'm pretty happy with it. It's not what I'd call a dancefloor filler, more a headphone thing I think, but it has it's moments and fuck it, you know me, I'll spin it anyway and hopefully no-one will notice how fuckin' wierd it is. Sounds good in my car, too. Yay. That'll be on their new single, out in about a month or so.
So, I'm sitting here desperately attempting to stream the new Architecture In Helsinki single through my shitty internet connection when I should really be in bed. But it's just so good. I have vague memory of an interview with them where they said they liked Kanye West's Jesus Walks and there's obvious reference to that in the chanted vocal bassline. But it's under layers of africanish stuff, kinda Tom Tom Club-y stuff and without the irritating religiousity. And there's a bit of The Knife in those random steel drums. When the tune peaks out (a moment I'm currently enjoying in short stutters), I can't even tell you how awesome it makes me feel. The lyrics, in any other situation, would be an issue for me, but here I can safely say I don't care. So good. So so good.
I've been working on my dj'ing today, and it's come together really well. I'm at Cassette on wednesday night, looks like I'll be playing quite a bit of 80's stuff along with the hottest hitz I can find on my hard drive and some new mashups I've done. Anyway, you should come down, if you're around.
And I'll be dragging a new/old song out for my shows this weekend, Audience, which was the opening song from ...vs the audience. It's had a makeover with lots of freaky noise and a kind of rave music as played by Sonic Youth thing going on. I'm pretty stoked with it. It sounds big. Anyway, I think I'm gonna open with it, because I've been opening with No Reaction and that's a bit too scary to start a show with, isn't it? I don't know where to put it in a set though, it's a great track but it can be a bit full on for the audience and everyone needs a bit of recovery. I can't really finish with it, 'cos people don't get that it's a song, it really affects them, they think I'm dissing them out for being shit. Which, I guess, I kind of am. But it's about when my show is going badly, and that doesn't happen all that often to me these days.
Anyway, I should go to bed, yeah?
"...we also heard from tomas ford, a fella from wa who as far as i know, i think it's just a single at the moment, the one i played for you is called "five times" and it features some pretty spanky little remixes as well but i don't know of any other sort of longer players from him, but i hope you enjoyed that one, i quite enjoyed it."
- Caroline Tran, Home And Hosed, Triple J
So I got played on JJJ tonight. We didn't have a working radio in the house, so we went out into the cold to sit in my car on the verge to hear it. It was glorious. They played it. Mz. Tran said nice things. She attempted to pronounce the accent on my á, failing admirably twice before just doing what everybody else does and ignoring it (I really don't give a shit).
Pretty much all you could ask for from an evening. My friend Zack Adams sms'ed me from Melbourne to say our mutual friend and tour bunk buddy Jane had heard it. Excitement immediately spread like overpriced sms wildfire amongst my friends.
Then I went to get a goon bag and we watched a dvd. Kenny, if you must know. It was funny, but the dvd player kept skipping. Infuriating.
So the single launched!
Twice!
Yay!
To get an idea of the vibe of the launch, check out the glowing Drum Media review in my reviews section. Hot, hey? They liked the single as well, they used the adjective "master" to describe my beeps and bleeps. Hell yes I am. Oh hell yes. But they were great, particularly the 18+ one on good friday, which was just mental. There's a video of that being cut up at the moment, I'm not sure what I'm gonna do with it but you'll be the first to know when I figure it out.
Big thanks to everyone who came to both shows, they were a blast. If you can all annoy Triple J's Super Request into playing the bloody thing, it'd be really appreciated. Also feel free to buy a copy, it's well worth it, the artwork and the remixes have come up looking fuckin' fantastic.
The website is under a little bit of reconstruction at the moment, so let me know about any broken links if you find 'em. There'll be some more videos and stuff for you to look at. For the moment, I've updated the discography and reviews sections and if you click through to my Myspace you can even stream Five Times now. Which is pretty exciting, since it's a fucking rad track, you know?
Just had a big brainstorm whilst at my day job about a new approach to selling my recordings. Sounds like a lame thing to be excited about but I think you're gonna think it's well rad when it happens.
Anyway, that's about it for now. Oh, I bought a compilation cd, Ultimate Prince on thursday. I think I've listened to it about eight times now, which is crazy when you consider it's a double album. There's a version of Controversy on there that includes The Lord's Prayer. Yeah, you KNOW I'm gonna drop that when I next dj. I think that's at cassette in a week or so, by the way, check my dates. It's gonna go off. I'm feeling... kinda... 80's...
But yeah, thanks for making the launches so much fun. I really, really enjoyed myself.
The single launch is on friday! I'm so excited! It's gonna be great!
I've got my photographer buddy Shaun Fe taking photos for an online exhibition afterwards (hopefully)! The cd artwork looks bloody amazing (yes, I did it, but I'm always surprised by my ability to make things look the way I want them to, I can be a bit of an idiot savant sometimes)! All the bands are bloody ace! I heard a remix of my track on RTR yesterday, the first time I've heard myself on radio without being in the studio (now, I just have to hear it during the day, in my car, and I will die happy)!
A journalist made mention of my blog the other day, which is nice. At least someone's reading the fucking thing. I don't track my hits at the moment, so I never know, I'm just kind of writing out into the abyss. I guess there are a lot of people with my junk sitting around their house, and it does have this url on it, so maybe I shouldn't be so surprised, yeah?
I played Dunsborough on the Friday just gone with Electric Limosine and Gospel Superstars and had a bit of a blast. I couldn't leave the stage, and there was heaps of feedback from my mic, but everyone at the venue was great and it was a great laugh. They ended the night after we finished by playing Operation Blade ("B-b-b-b-b-b-BASS IN THE PLACE! LONDON!") and Put Your Hands Up For Detroit. Awesome. Seriously fun though, we'll be back down there in about six months' time.
Oh, forgot to mention, ALL THE REMIXES ARE FUCKING HOT. Petrosex's booty bass mix is ludicrously awesome, the kick in it is just stupid, I love it and dos4gw put in an amazing remix using a kind of hybrid jungle/hip hop style that sounds superphat. And Mark from Descend Here did one that sounds a bit like Fuck The Pain Away. Plus the team9 one I told you about earlier that sounds like a glitchy james bond theme or something. I don't mean in a Die Another Day way, I mean in a Goldfinger through the blender kind of way. And on synths. Hot hot hot. Ooooh.
I've been listening to this new Jarvis Cocker record today. It's kind of nice. In a good way, I think. He uses cliches about weather a bit too much for someone whose wordplay I respect so much on this one, but the tunes are really good and it has the same raw accoustic sound as I Love Life did, which is rad, since I reckon Pulp were a band who were on a continuous upwards trajectory, and it would've sucked if he'd gone back to the reverby mid-90's thing they did. Anyway, I think it's a transitory record but worth a listen if only to get a vibe of where he's headed, which I think will at some point will be an extremely cool solo career.
By the way, how shit was the sound mix during my set at the rtr party?
Nothing I could do about that one unfortunately. But dammit! All he had to do was mix a vocal and my laptop! He had a whole hand to work with for each fader! We did a soundcheck!
Sorry, as you'd have noticed, I don't usually bitch about these kinds of things, but it was REALLY bad and I want you to know that I know. And to vent. You know...
So I've been so busy lately I've been getting tension headaches. Gotta start scheduling stuff better, hey?
Anyway, maybe I did. The Five Times launch was supposed to be a week later than this - it's now on good friday, totally screwing up my timeline and melting my head. Good things are happening though - the team9 remix is brilliant, I think you're really going to like it. Got a couple of other mixes due back to me any day now and the full master of the single version and I'm almost finished the artwork and it's rad rad rad. Exciting stuff.
The publicity is going really swimmingly for this one too, it's getting easier as I go now, which is a big relief as it used to be next to impossible to get coverage! Pretty much everyone is happy to cover my stuff at the moment though. When you're whittling away in such a remote city, getting your name out there becomes pretty important to you.
I'm playing a David Bowie tribute on thursday night. This is really why I'm so busy this week - I've got a disco version of Always Crashing In The Same Car finished but I need a couple of other tunes. I think I'm doing Rock N Roll Suicide as well, that's classic - I'm not sure what else though? I spent most of tonight trying to decide. I'd like to do Time or Alladin Sane (pretty much anything from that album actually) as I've just discovered I like that LP after regarding it as a knockoff Ziggy Stardust for years. Actually, it wasn't until I watched the Ziggy Stardust farewell concert video the other day that I really got that album - it's music hall! The piano is awesome in it and the lyrics are way more interesting to me than the Ziggy Stardust ones - much more direct, less about a fantasy other world than fantasies you can have in this one. Rad.
Oh yeah, and Of Montreal's "Hissing Fauna, You Are The Destroyer is repetetively burning me with its' constant inventive twists (despite its' shitty title) - it's Architecture In Helsinki on crack and with added white noise! You know I be diggin' that shit. Waaay diggin'.
So, from the relative safety of this week, I can now blog about the absolute fuckin' madness that was last weekend.
THURSDAY: Rockus.com.au WAMi Showcase
The first two songs went OFF. Absolutely one of my better shows. The crowd was starting to build. And then my laptop's power supply died. Frantically tried to fix it but there's only so much you can do. Apologies to y'all that were there, you were all exceptionally kind. Hopefully you didn't all come out to see me and someone else tantalised you that night.
FRIDAY: Perth International Arts Festival Verandah DJ SET
I was so nervous it hurt - the Verandah is pretty impressive, it's on the Swan River side of the Perth Concert Hall. This was a pretty big deal, playing alongside internationals Love Is All who surprised me with an amazing, cute, exhilerating set. In between them and Sex Panther I played a 20 minute warm up set that sucked serious balls and culminated in a trainwreck when I dropped a Architecture In Helsinki track onto a channel on my laptop that had a million FX on it that I couldn't get off. Torturous. So then of course I was nervous as hell starting my big two hour set, but after half an hour I warmed into it and it ended up being the most physical dj set in the history of the world. The crowd were great too, everyone gettin' down and chatting to me between tracks. Big thanks my dancing girls at the end too, you gots tha serious moves. Awesome set. I've got a recording of it that I'll distribute next time I play at Cassette, so make sure you keep your eye out for that 'cos the last one disappeared in no time.
SUNDAY: Descend Here Reunion
I promoted this exclusively on myspace and to my email list so I knew everybody in the room, either from other shows or because I'm married to them. It was fuckin' awesome. We played a really tight set of a whole pile of songs I haven't done for ages, finishing with a beautifuliscious Domestic Utopia. The crowd were great, we were great, thanks to everyone who came, especially us.
Bit of an intense weekend, that one. Oh yeah, by the way, the replacement power supply I shelled out $80 for on saturday CAUGHT FIRE on tuesday afternoon. How bullshit is that? I ended up having to drive to Cannington to get a replacement replacement. Fucked.
Anyway, my cd launch is set for Saturday April 14th with an all ages show in the afternoon and big kids at 9pm. Should be dope. I think you should also attend the RTRFM "Pocket Disco" fundraiser at the Bakery, which I happen to be playing. Can't remember the date for it but there's ads everywhere and I think I've put it on my myspace if you're keen. THAT will rock. I've got a new version of No Reaction and Letters Of Complaint and a whole stack of slightly new mixes I'll be debuting. Come witness the dawn of a new age, or something.
By the way, my "Current Music" is from Primal Scream's "Exterminator" which is their best album. Bittorrent it or something now. Or just listen to Britney Spears.
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