Erin Rae
Lagniappe Session (ep)
Independent / Aquarium Drunkard
The great Aquarium Drunkard site/blog started up this thing a while back called the Lagniappe Sessions – getting artists to record covers and inspirations, a short-form thing, an EP the result. It’s been a great way to discover both new musical talent (the artist) and rediscover great material from the past (the songs). Read More
Songs
Don Walker
Black Inc.
Don Walker is one of the great Australian songwriters. And that would be the case if he had done nothing but write the majority of the great Cold Chisel songs. His career extends beyond Chisel though, to solo albums, to material for the trio Tex, Don and Charlie – to assisting his Chisel mates with their solo ventures and to a few other collaborations and ‘giftings’. Read More
Vince Mendoza & Temple University Studio Orchestra
Constant Renaissance
BCM&D Records
Award-winning multi-discipline arranger/producer/composer Vince Mendoza was here commissioned to create a new work for the Temple University Studio Orchestra as part of a week-long residency. The man that has worked with almost every name in pop and jazz created this three-track, EP-length album-suite for trumpeter Terell Stafford and alt-saxophonist Dick Oatts. They play the shit out of these charts of course. Read More
Chrissie Hynde & The Valve Bone Woe Ensemble
Valve Bone Woe
BMG Rights Management (UK) Ltd.
Well this is a lovely surprise. And for many reasons. Five years ago Hynde released her debut solo album and I thought it was a stinker – so this one gets a tick just for not being that. But also this one is the correct approach for Hynde to take with a solo album. Where Stockholm, the previous record, just felt like a pretender-version of a Pretenders album (ha!) here she actually does something different. She was back to the Pretenders name in between these albums (proof that first stab at a solo direction didn’t work). Read More
Iggy Pop
Free
Loma Vista
Iggy Pop’s catalogue is a strange mess – a couple of very fine albums, plenty of rewards to dig and gather across the records that followed and some filler-fodder too. There hasn’t been the late-great comeback that many other heritage acts have offered. But there hasn’t needed to be. The myth of Iggy is profound in and of itself. And if he needed an extra kick, or thought fans did, he had The Stooges to reform for a lark. Though that’s barely the option these days. Read More
The Pink Hammer
Direction: Conrad Newport (written by Michele Amas)
Circa Theatre; Circa One (September 7 – October 5)
The Pink Hammer is simply not very good. It pains me to say it as I’ve spent the last two or three years talking up almost everything I’ve seen at Circa (indeed the standard is high). But this is a one-dimensional script of bleating caricatures and features the laziest direction since George W. Bush said, “aim over there eh…”
A talented cast of actors is caught squirming in these silly, OTT characters – the flirty backpacker type (Harriet Prebble as Siobhan), the uptight wallflower (Anne Chamberlain Louise), the know-it-all counsellor with a messy private life (Bronywyn Turei as Annabel), a not quite toxic, stubborn rugby/racing/beer builder (Alex Greig as Woody) and a horse-breeder with terminal cancer (Ginette McDonald as Helen; actually McDonald is the only portrait of restraint here. Hers is the only character with anything resembling depth – or for that matter something actually ‘real’, believable). The “meet-cute” is that the four 
women have signed up to the titular workshop, a building course for women. They find the home-owner (Woody) not happy, unaware that his estranged wife was offering this course. He is grudgingly subbed in. And jokes as subtle as the worst moments on Mrs Brown’s Boys start to fly. Quick, duck!
It’s a premise that could only ever sustain a broad farce. And though we have dumb innuendo and instantly overly familiar dialogue this still aims for wholesome, tender and thought-provoking.
It’s not hideous to sit through. Just a bit dumb.
There are moments. Attempts. No one quite embarrasses themselves but it’s just all a bit daft.
And I can’t have been the only person thinking this on opening night. A friend in the crowd called out to me at half-time, “how are you enjoying the panto?” Surely one of theatre reviewing’s cruelest barbs. Even when uttered at a panto.
The Pink Hammer does have a musical number, of sorts, and it’s actually the tenderest moment. It allows for something nearly moving to take place toward the end despite the clangingly unsubtle and paint-by-numbers foreshadowing. So it’s almost by fluke, and certainly by virtue of Prebble’s great delivery in that moment.
But saying something is ‘good’ isn’t ever good enough. And this is only ever occasionally quite-good. And nowhere near often enough. A real dip in quality for Circa – and despite the usual great set (John Hodgkins in this case) and overall production design it just doesn’t really mean anything near what it’s trying to mean. This doesn’t live, it doesn’t deliver, it dies because of the script. And the almost profound lack of dynamics in delivering. People just walk on and off and say lines. Some fold their arms to show they are vexed or about to mean something.
We’re supposed to believe the flimsiest of narratives just suddenly gives way to a whole layer of thematic meaning about connection?
Nah.
This was a dud.
Gerald Murnane
Words In Order
Culture Sack
Last year word started to really travel about Gerald Murnane. Which is almost ironic, given the small-town Australian author doesn’t really travel himself. He lives in a town with a population of around 600 (Goroke) and has only been outside of the state of Victoria a handful of times. But he published two books amid talk that he was not merely one of the greats but a possible Nobel Prize candidate. Read More
M. Geddes Gengras
I Am The Last of That Green and Warm-Hued World
Hausu Mountain
As has so often been the case across, particularly, the last half decade I turn to ambient music as conciliatory device; a balm. The tonic. Its often distinct ‘uneasy listening’ aspects helping to calm, to galvanise, and if not to prepare than at the very least to offer soundtrack (if not actual solace). Read More
Jimmy Cobb
This I Dig Of You
Smoke Sessions / Smoke Sessions Records
Jimmy Cobb has just gone 90. He’s still playing beautifully. The cat swings. He has that touch. That same touch that has powered a couple of dozen albums as a leader but perhaps more importantly was there on several key records by both Cannonball and Nat Adderley, as well as albums by Paul Gonsalves, Joe Henderson, Curtis Fuller, Art Pepper and Sonny Red. Oh, and, um, the small matter of a half-a-dozen or more by Wes Montgomery and same with Wynton Kelly. Then there’s the handful of killer Coltrane records he powers and, ah, several great Miles Davis albums from the late 50s and early 60s but for brevity’s sake I’ll just point to Sketches of Spain and Kind of Blue.
Cobb is one of the guys you study. One of the true greats. One of the best jazz drummers in the history of the music.
And here he is knocking it out of the park (again) with his regular band.
Pianist Harold Mabern, bassist John Webber and guitarist Peter Bernstein are all longtime associates of Cobb. Here they go back to the music of Cobb’s Mob, his first working band. The title track is by Hank Mobley. You’ll also hear standards (I’m Getting Sentimental Over You) and tunes from jazz greats like Dexter Gordon (Cheese Cake) as well as sweet, simple, understated balladry (My Old Flame).
It’s a great quartet and the worlds of wisdom here shine. Lush arrangements, beautiful playing. It’s a modern jazz album built from the parts of the past that have informed all of these players – and of course so many of the intended listeners.
Andrew Fagan
it was always going to be like this
(Independent/Bandcamp) / Plus1
Andrew Fagan is a poet. Has always been a poet. In and around the albums by the Mockers and his solo fare there were books. And readings. Performance poet. Poet for the page. Taking poems to the people, putting poems on the stage. Andrew Fagan has a great voice for poetry. A mind for it too. Poetry is not cool. But he can make you feel like it is – and here he released 40+ poems on a spoken-word CD with some soundscape moments and sound effects to give it a feel. But the real feeling is in his voice. Read More
Daniel Hart
The Old Man And The Gun [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]
Varese Sarabande Records / First Score Music Ltd
Daniel Hart has his own thing going as a solo artist, member of bands and touring/recording component for other artists as a multi-instrumentalist trained in classical violin. In recent years he’s turned his hand to the world of movie scores – with great skill. And he first really interested me with his music for A Ghost Story (I’ve yet to see the film but loved – the score). Read More
Paul Kelly
Live at Sydney Opera House
Universal Import
I realise now that my ‘break’ from listening to Paul Kelly came about due to the embarrassment of once trying to jump on stage with him once, of nearly wrestling a guitar from his hands, of all the silliness of youth…
I was – and am – such a fan. Read More