Parklife 09

The lineup for Parklife is for me (the girl who is crazy about dance music) one of the best I have ever seen. It's so good, that I knew there would be some clashes and I would have to pick favourites. My only non-negotiable is seeing the Rapture. It was their song House of Jealous Lovers that lured me into dance music in the first place. It's also because of that song that I have such a fondness for the cowbell.

12pm: Knightlife

Song I need to hear: Crusader and one or two of their Cut Copy remixes

3.30: Joakim

Songs I need to hear: His remixes of Metronomy, Cut Copy, Royskopp and Simian Mobile Disco...

3.45: Shazam

Song I need to hear: His remix of Shooting Stars by Bag Raiders

3.50: The Cool Kids

Song I need to hear: Gold and a Pager

4pm: Busy P

Song I need to hear: Nothing specific, he was great at Rhythm and Vines so I expect he will be again. Any Ed Banger tunes would be good.

4.40: Lady Sovereign

Song I need to hear: Love Me or Hate Me, of course.

4.45: Junior Boys

5.15: MSTRKRFT

Songs I need to hear: Work on You, Street Justice and just about all of his remixes.

5.30: Aeroplane (DJ Set)

Song I need to hear: His remix of Paris by the Friendly Fires featuring Au Revoir Simone. And his Hearts on Fire remix. (So many people on the Parklife lineup have done a Cut Copy remix, I suppose hearing all the remixes will almost make up for the lack of live Cut Copy on Saturday)

6pm: Metronomy

Songs I need to hear: Radio Ladio, Heartbreaker.

6pm: La Roux

Songs I need to hear: Bulletproof, Colourless Colour.

6.30: Crystal Castles

Songs I need to hear: Crimewave, Vanished, Alice Practice.

6.45: Yacht Club DJs

Songs I need to hear: I've seen them a few times since I moved here and they're always lots of fun.

7.15: Erol Alkan

Songs I need to hear: His remixes of Diplo, Justice, Franz Ferdinand, Digitalism, Bloc Party...

7.30: Metric

Songs I need to hear: I dunno, apparently they're good and I'm so out of the loop for not having heard them before?

8pm: Empire of the Sun

Songs I need to hear: Standing on the Shore, Walking on a Dream, We are the People, Half Mast. The rest of the album is rubbish.

8.30: Tiga

Songs I need to hear: Pretty much everything on his album 'Ciao!'

9pm: The Rapture

Songs I need to hear: House of Jealous Lovers, Whoo! Alright, Yeah... Uh Huh

So, yes, timetable dilemmas. But I've learnt to not plan out your day too thoroughly otherwise you worry too much about what you're missing out on, rather than enjoying the day and the music that you do get a chance to see.

For now all I am hoping for is that the weather stays this good for the rest of the week and I can get all of my assignments in before then so I can enjoy the day guilt-free! I'm so looking forward to dancing all day.

Have you seen any of these acts before? Are there any you think that I absolutely must go see? Others that are lame and not worth my time? Did you go to the Perth or Brisbane Parklife this past weekend?

too erotic for the bus!

L-R: Sean, Ash, Eammon, Ellen. Photo by Liam.

This is my favourite photo from last summer, taken at Camp A Low Hum. It reminds me of beers in the sun, watching good music with good friends, warm summer breezes and mid-afternoon naps (a.k.a. The Power Nap) under a tree. You can tell it's summer because my legs have some semblance of a tan (my face doesn't because I always put sunblock on my face, though my nose is a bit pink in this photo). When the polaroid developed, we realised how much it looks like a band photo. Thus, too erotic for the bus! was born. I can't remember who came up with the name, but I have a sneaking suspicion it was Eammon.

Though I've learnt a bunch of instruments throughout the years, I can't play anything more than 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' on any of them. I can't sing for peanuts either, so I think I was given tambourine duties. The other three are all talented musicians in their own right, and they clearly have more experience with band photos than I do. I look like a loon, grinning away in the corner there. They've got the 'cool' thing down better than I do. Each of them have a couple of musical projects on the go, and they're all so lovely and modest about it you wouldn't really know it unless you happened to stumble across one of their gigs.

Sean and Eammon (along with another one of our friends, Chris) join forces to make sweet music in Seth & Merle (download here), Sean's solo project is Seth Frightening, Eammon also plays under the moniker Basketball Nightmare (download here) and Ash plays bass for Over the Atlantic (easily one of my favourite bands to come out of NZ these last few years) as well as creating music as Secret Knives (download here).

As I understand it, Ash has only played a couple of gigs (the first of which was at Rhythm and Vines last year) because he's so shy about it. There's a funny story that I've heard about Ash, I'm not sure exactly how accurate it is, since I wasn't actually there and this might be a case of Chinese Whispers, but apparently at a party his friends put on a Secret Knives song, which Ash didn't recognise at first and said something along the lines of "Is this Interpol? I like it." and it was only when he heard his own voice coming through the speakers that he realised his mistake. I wouldn't really say that Secret Knives sounds like Interpol, but I can maybe hear some elements of them in there, in some of the guitar parts.

Every time I see Sean, Eammon and Ash I bug them to come play a gig in Melbourne. Maybe if I nag them enough it'll happen.

One song I can see myself trashing this summer is 'The Community Service Announcement' by Jonathan Boulet, Modular's latest signing. You can download the song here. I'd heard the song a lot on Triple J, but it was only when Modular announced the new signing that I was able to figure out who the song was by. I love the whimsical feeling of it. There's something about the song that reminds me of all those wonderful things about summer that I mentioned at the top of this post. Do you have any songs that you like to listen to because they remind you of summer?

A friend and I are doing the graveyard shift on Melbourne's SYN, the place where I did the radio course last month. We're doing it on Thursday 8 October 2-6am. I'll be playing a lot of the music I have mentioned on this here blog, including Jonathan Boulet, and some other sweet tunes that I'm loving at the moment. I have no idea how we're going to stay awake, any tips?

What Becomes of the Broken Hearted?

CUT COPY - "HEARTS ON FIRE" from Diaspro on Vimeo.

I wish I had red hair...

Photo Credits: The Sartorialist, Turned Out, Yvan Rodic, Elinkan, Jak & Jil

Interview Scraps: Van She

Photo Credit: Cara Stricker

A while ago, I was lucky enough to do an interview with Mikey from Van She. It was one of the most enjoyable interviews I have done. I am often nervous when doing interviews: I'm worried that I'll ask lame questions and I'll be wasting their time, or that the conversation won't flow, or the tape recorder won't work, or that any other technical difficulties/wardrobe malfunctions will occur. Often I'm interviewing people whose work I admire so much that I can't help but be a little flustered when I first meet them.

Photo Credit: Cara Stricker

I met Mikey in a restaurant in St Kilda, where we talked for an hour about all things Van She. He was polite (he held the door open for me), he was friendly, he offered plenty of anecdotes (a journalist's dream) and explained the lyrics behind Cat & the Eye (a fan's dream), but it was his story about his experiences with Daft Punk that really stuck with me. I notoriously get all fan-girly and gushy (though I prefer to say 'passionate') about music that I love, so it was nice to hear that a musician I admire does the same thing. This story didn't really fit in with the final draft of the article, but I think it's one that needs to be shared.

"I suppose meeting Daft Punk [was one of my highlights]. If it wasn’t for them I wouldn’t be into dance music. One of my fondest memories was when we saw them in Perth. It was the first time we saw them and it was at an amazing open air venue next to the water. They were doing Stardust in the encore and Tomek [Van She's drummer] and I were just running through the crowd, dancing and spinning round in circles. It was amazing. Just smiling.

Would you say that they are one of your influences?
Yeah, definitely very influential. But also figuring out who their influences are too. I remember hearing them and then going out to house nights and stuff and, being a musician, studying music, being like ‘Wow, how do they play like that?' To me, figuring out how they play was the best. Getting into disco and buying disco records and hearing bits of those disco records in Daft Punk tracks and realising it and putting it altogether.

Did they pass on any words of wisdom when you met them on the Nevereverland tour?
No but I got to ask them about a specific bass sound that I had always, always wanted to know what that sound was. When Play Paul was here, he’s Guy-Man’s [from Daft Punk] brother, we heard he was playing and he’d never been to Australia before. That was when Daft Punk were really happening… So I went to one of his gigs and said ‘Oh hey, I am a massive fan, do you want to hang out in my studio, do you want to work on some stuff?' He was with another guy who was an artist as well so they both came over to the studio. It was myself, Nick [Van She's singer] and those two guys and we wrote a track which actually ended up on the album. That was ‘So High’. Being with him in the studio and him saying 'This is what my brother did...' and just telling stories and him seeing a piece of equipment and saying ‘Oh yeah you know the high-hat on that’s on Alive? That’s that’ so it was really cool. You just realise that all these people that you think are amazing, they just like the same things as you and it’s not that big of a deal."

Hopefully I can include this 'Interview Scraps' section as a regular feature. And they won't be actually be 'scraps' either, they'll be little nuggets of gold that were too good to be published... perhaps I will come up with a better title for it later.
I've got some interviews lined up exclusively for In Ghost Colours too, so keep an eye out for those.

This is what tax refunds are good for...

Photo Credit: Hobo from Hobo Gestapo

I bought these Docs, $100 brand new from ebay. I know it's sad to be in love with a pair of shoes, but I am, I really am. You know when you buy a new dress or get a new haircut and it makes you feel that much better about yourself that there's a spring in your step? That's how I feel about these. And it's not just because of their trademark 'Bouncing Soles' either.

Okay, enough gushing now, I'm going outside to enjoy this sunshine and do my media readings.

Dat Chu Props Boy?

Photo Credit: Jak & Jil

Backstage line up at Thom Browne, NYFW.

We were just talking yesterday in my English Literature tutorial about how the polka dots pattern was apparently voted the ugliest pattern by Cosmopolitan magazine, haha.

For those who didn't grow up in New Zealand in the '90s, Props Boy was the 'zany' sidekick on a popular children's TV show called What Now? he never spoke, just made noises, kinda like Anne from Little Britain. Aaah, to be the writer of a children's television show.

Nirvana

Photo Credit: Yvan Rodic

Making Moves and Starting Grooves: 4 reasons why I love OMC's 'How Bizarre'

1. This song reminds of good times in the '90s: hot summer nights in the Coromandel, scrunchies and fluro bike shorts. Ooohh yeeaaah. 

2. The saxophone and the accordion (is it an accordion?). Who knew these two instruments would work so well in a pop song?? Who knew?!

3. I think this video is where hip-hop videos today take their inspiration from: sweet ride, hot babes, throwin' money around like it's no one's business. And his suits! Big collars, a couple of buttons undone... the cravat is a nice touch too. 

4. OMC are soooo insightful. Life is bizarre. It is in my face every time I look around. I can totally relate to the bit where it says: "Pele speaks 'Righteous' , Sister Zina says 'Funky'". I also like the bit where they won't tell you how it ends, instead you have to "...buy the rights".

Just on a side note, apparently the band reformed in 2007 and released a song called '4 All of Us'. I didn't hear it, did you?

Deadly Ponies Precious

Oh boy, I so want one of those sparrow foot necklaces, and one of the rope rings, and a flower bud pendant...

Karen Walker S/S 2010 'The Village'

Photo Credit: style.com

I love so may things about The Village, and it's been a while since I've been truly in love with one of Karen Walker's collections. These are my favourite looks. I love the navy blues, the sailor stripes, the clashing prints, the ruffles and I love that it is very distinctly Karen Walker.

In an interview with Sassybella last week, Walker said inspiration for The Village came from "re-watching ‘The Prisoner’ (a British television series set in a mysterious seaside village, airing from 1967 – 1968) and [I] have always loved the it look it had – a 60’s Edwardian seaside. I also loved its idea – a Seaside holiday resort that is actually a prison for retired spies."

The model in the first picture is gorgeous, who is she? She reminds me a little bit of Stella McCartney. When I have white hair and I spend my weekends gardening and going to book club, I want my whole wardrobe to revolve around the outfit in the second picture. I'm loving cropped pants at the moment, I'm just looking for the perfect pair. Perhaps Karen Walker is the answer?

Thank You for Not Smoking

"Me, I don't smoke.  Smoking can be a beautiful gesture for a picture. But it's easy - it's too easy - to make a beautiful picture with a beautiful girl smoking a cigarette. And what is the picture saying, when you have a beautiful girl and she has a beautiful outfit and a beautiful handbag, and a cigarette? No. We have to find a new gesture, I think. Because smoking it is not good for you. Or for your teeth."

-Carine Roitfeld, Editor, French Vogue

Carine is so right. Even though I have said before that I think smoking looks oh-so-cool in fashion shoots and that I wish a strawberry, non-lethal cigarette was invented for this very purpose, health must come first. Sure, you may look cool and untouchable, but you're also killing yourself. I recently had a couple of friends give up smoking, who are now distracting themselves by going on long walks. Keep it up, you have my full support!

Sorry Grandma

I saw this yesterday on the corner of Collins and Elizabeth... is Sorry Grandma behind it? It looks like their googly eyes. I like it!

Hey, Ellen...

Bah, I'm having an inspiration crisis. As you can probably tell from my lack of posts this past week. My brain is frazzled from studying for way too long today so, here's me being lazy and I'll just post a video. I don't know how many times I've watched it now, but it ALWAYS makes me laugh. Hopefully you will too. Or maybe you'll just think I have a weird sense of humour. Hey, whatever.

Sweet Child of Mine

Last week I decided to get my nose pierced, after talking about it for years. Less talk, more action, I say! Seeing this shoot definitely gave me that extra nudge to finally get it done. If I can make it look even half as cool as Abbey Lee does - jeepers! I'd be set for life. 

The complete shoot can be found here