RIP

By the way, I know this is a little belated, but I saw this article on Jezebel this morning and thought it was worth a mention.

Psychonanny And The Babyshakers on Celebrity

Let's all participate in a little group activity. Like the ones they used to make you do in school, and probably now at your job, to build up a little "team spirit" (I know, I hate them too. Isn't it ironic how those types of things usually do exactly the opposite? I don't know about you, but I like people a lot more when they're not touching me. And I like my boss a lot more when s/he's not trying to get my co workers to touch me. Or that thing where you buddy up with someone and they're all like, "Okay fall backwards and I'll catch you, thus proving how trust worthy I am! For realsies, go ahead, I'll catch you!" And you're all like, "Of course you're going to catch me, shit brick, our boss is standing right there! Let's get stranded in a cave together and see who takes the longest to try and eat the other person. Then we'll know who's trust worthy!") Anyway, this group activity isn't that bad, because it's more of a collective consciousness activity. Think back to the 21st of May. It was a Friday night. What were you doing? Maybe drinking some Pimms with your posse, watching Full House? Wishing it was still 1995? I guarantee you, whatever you were doing, my Friday night was better. Cuz you know what I was doing? I was interviewing Sonia and Simon from Psychonanny And The Babyshakers! At Buzz Bar! Drinking Bloody Marys!

Do I need to tell you how great Psychonanny And The Babyshakers are? They're great! GREAT! Go and see them on the 26th of June at the Red Rattler, the 1st of July at the Oxford Arts Factory or the 18th of September at the Excelsior. Actually, fuck it, go to all three of those shows. Full House ain't going anywhere.

_{CS: Do you wanna be celebrities?
Sonia: I think I would, actually. Yea.
Simon: I want Sonia to be a celebrity.
Sonia: He wants me to be a celebrity. (To Simon) I want you to be a celebrity too.
Simon: I don't think I'd be very good at it.
Sonia: I think you would. You have really expensive, decadent taste and you're an exhibitionist, you'd be an awesome celebrity. We'd be celebrities in the grand style of celebrity. Not, like, boring celebrities.
CS: Like, plastic surgery, tabloid magazine types?
Sonia: Well, not plastic surgery/tabloid, but you know, old school grand gesture, 1940s celebrities.
CS: So the fur coats and the fancy cars types?
Sonia: Not the fur coats. No, I think it's just all about making grand gestures in public. And have the ability and power to do so. The money to do so.
CS: Do you think becoming rich and famous can compromise musicianship? Like, if a musician gets a lot of fame and attention, how do you think would that affect their output?
Sonia: I read the dude from Portishead was talking about how, before he was famous, he was making this really lo-fi, depressing music. And then after they got famous, when it came to the second album, he was like, 'Suddenly, I had money to pay my electricity bills, had a girlfriend, I was kind of happy. I didn't feel like writing that kind of music any more.' But, I don't think that would necessarily happen. I think that as long as your music's still coming from the same place and it's not, as you grow in popularity, trying to please people, then I think it'll be essentially the same.
CS: Except with more money.
Sonia: Yea, except with more money. Maybe even just more time on your hands to write music and practice it and play it and spend time on recording your album. Not having to go, 'Oh, we only have this much money, and I can't take the day off work.' And, you know, (to Simon) how many times have you wanted to take the day off work and just stay home and play guitar all day or work on a song, and you can't?
Simon: This morning.
CS: What do you think the pros and cons are of being famous?
Sonia: Maybe altering your behavior for the public.
CS: So that's a con?
Sonia: Yea, that's a con. Maybe, trying to like, cater for more people whereas before you might have just written for yourself.
Simon: Or maybe people discovering secrets from your past.
Sonia: Yea... digging up the real dirty shit. And all of your friends from high school coming out in Hello! Magazine, saying that you diddled with them or something.
Simon: What?
Sonia: I don't know! I was looking into your past, you look like you would've been a little pervert. People cashing in on you, not being able to tell who your real friends are... But I think you'd have to be pretty stupid not to be able to tell who your real friends are.
CS: I guess it'd be hard when you're a celebrity though.
Sonia: I think it would if you started believing in your own mythos. Which is, you know... dangerous. If you're prone to flattery.
CS: What do you think it is about regular people, the plebs, that makes them want to buy tabloid magazines and watch reality tv, and just buy into this whole cult of celebrity?
Simon: It's a fantasy.
Sonia: Yea, it's just a fantasy. You know, they're the new gods, the new royalty.
Simon: It's like that game you used to play when you'd imagine you'd won the lotto. And you think, 'What would I do with all that money?'
Sonia: Yea. But I don't like that they're on reality t.v shows and whatnot, because celebrities should be these crazy, well dressed, god like figures who do grand gestures and they live in this realm where... like, you know, in the middle ages where you had the serfs and the peasants and there was this noble class who were allowed to just go about their business and practice stuff and learn languages and become accomplished. And there's that realm of people and once they're separated enough, once they have enough money or whatever, then they can do all of that. You can concentrate on creating something. You're supposed to be a, you know, a light. And all of these other celebrities, they're just boring. Who gives a fuck about Jennifer Anniston, walking down a beach with her dog, looking depressed?
CS: She's probably thinking about Brad.
Sonia: Yea
CS: But yea, there's been a lot of stuff around about the death of the "Star." That there aren't any Stars anymore there's just these dickheads in tabloids. You know, we used to have people like Rock Hudson who could be gay as anything and women still worshiped him because you never heard about that sort of thing.
Sonia: I reckon George Clooney's gay.
CS: Yea, for sure. Maybe he could be the new Rock Hudson. Or maybe not...
Sonia: No, totes. Or, who's another one? Cary Grant. Cary Grant was fine, and then he married Dyan Cannon so he could have the perfect Jewish child. No joke.
CS: What do you think the implications are, though?
Sonia: Of what?
CS: Of having these boring, ugly celebrities who we hear everything about? Of losing the idea of, you know... crazy, enigmatic Stars?
Sonia: It's just boring. It's just photos of Britney Spears dressed like a dairy queen, looking like white trash. Putting petrol in her car or something. It's really mundane. It's like, what do we have to aspire to? That's why I like the Kate Mosses and the photos of her taking coke and... celebrities should misbehave, like rock stars. Like the Rolling Stones.
CS: Do you think that... I mean, I'm probably going on to a different subject now but do you think having these famous people who see pictures of all the time, looking more or less like a regular person on the street, do you think that ever affects the way people dress or act or relate to each other? Like you said, it doesn't give us anything to aspire to.
Sonia: Yea, I mean, it's just celebrating mediocrity. And maybe people, they like that better. The girl next door or whatever. Maybe it's a group thing, but it's still fucking hypocritical. Because people are like, "Jen looks like the girl next door", but she still spends thousands of dollars on a personal trainer, and on her clothing, it's just really boring clothing.
CS: Do you think we tend to project on to celebrities at all? Like, with the whole binary things they set up all the time with Jennifer Anniston v. Angelina Jolie, and Taylor Swift v. Miley Cyrus?
Sonia: I don't know, I think idiots do that. Like, they'd go, "What are you, a Jen or an Angelina?" I don't think it affects as many people, I hope it doesn't affect as many people, as you might think. Simon, do you have any thoughts on that? Am I a Jen or an Angelina? Please say I'm an Angelina.
Simon: I did have a thought, but it's gone now.
CS: What are your thoughts about the celebrity photoshopping stuff?
Sonia: Interestingly enough, I was at my mum's house the other day, and she had this Woman's Day, and they had a photo of Britney like, before and after shot for this new underwear thing she's doing or something. And it really was amazing, like her arse looked awesome in this shot...
CS: Oh, I think I saw that. Is that for the shoes?
Sonia: Shoes or undies, I don't really know.
CS: Well, I saw it, and it's like Britney Spears' new ad for Candies?
Sonia: Yea, Candies.
CS: Yea, but she's wearing that two piece swim suit thing? With her back to the camera? And I was like, how is that advertising shoes? I'm not even noticing the shoes...
Sonia: Yea, you're just staring at her awesome photoshopped butt. But it was dramatically different. Like, in the before shot, she had all of these bruises on her legs and this kind of dimpled arse. And what they could've got for that ad, if they wanted a girl with a perfect arse, they would have just gotten a model. But they just want Britney Spears. And it just shows there's no imagination in advertising, you'd probably rather see something real, like bruised legs and-
Simon: Why do girls have bruises on their legs?
Sonia: They don't always.
CS: Britney probably gets them from falling down outside nightclubs.
Sonia: Yea, totes. Or carpet burn.
CS: Or dropping her children.
CS: Yea, dropping her kids. I loved it when she went nuts. There was this photo of her, and she's get like no hair and she's just going, "RAAHHHHHHHHH". She looks like Sigourney from Alien. But yea, the photoshopping... I think most of the time, these days, you can pick it. Most people assume a lot of things are photoshopped. I mean, of course, it's like, 'Oh, it puts unrealistic, you know, things on women and people' but even a model who's not photoshopped does that.
Simon: And it's been going on for years.
Sonia: Yea, I mean 'lighting' it used to be called.
Simon: Or 'retouching'.
Sonia: Yea, 'retouching'. It's always gone on.
Simon: Anyone who wears make up is basically photoshopping their face.
Sonia: Yea, exactly. Same shit.
CS: Do you guys ever read tabloid magazines? Do you indulge that?
Sonia: Like I said, I read them when I go to my mum's house. Because she, out of habit, just buys one every week.
Simon: When I used to shop at Coles or Woolworths or something, and you're standing in the line with your trolley. That was the only time I really read them. But I don't shop there anymore.
CS: What do you guys think think about them? Have I already asked you that? Sort of.
Sonia: Yea, sort of. I don't know, they're just kind, of whatever. They've got some glossy pictures in them, but I don't know how they come up with writing stuff every week, because there's nothing...
CS: Yea, that's one of the things I really love about them. Because they've got heaps of pictures and words and stuff, and then you look closer and it's like "Sarah Jessica Parker took her dog for a walk!" And that's it.
Sonia: Yea. "A friend says she really likes her dog!" She looks like a horse.
CS: She looks like a foot.
Sonia: Australian ones are the worst. Australian celebrities.
CS: We don't even have any good celebrities.
Sonia: They're just people from Home and Away.
Simon: I said hello to Peter Garrett last night.
Sonia: Did you?
Simon: Yea. He's getting on.
Sonia: Anyway... Staying with the celebrity thing-
Simon: I'd like to buy the Hydro Majestic.
Sonia: In the mountains. Which you could do if you were famous.
Simon: And maybe a steam train. Or maybe, like a (here Simon made an up and down pumping motion with his hands and made some squeaky noises, which I'm assuming is meant to indicate a hand pump rail car, which I've helpfully included a picture of below, for those of you born after 1900).}

HOPPEERRRR

This totally sucks, man.

COLEMAAANNNN

He's cracking wise in T.V. heaven now.

I don't like to end a post on a downer, so here's some good news:

"John Gay and Robin Gray have been forced to step down from the Board of Gunns Ltd and will no longer have any further involvement with the company or its subsidiaries.

This is fantastic news for Tasmania's precious forests - it now creates the opportunity to achieve permanent and lasting resolution to the conflict over forestry in Tasmania."

That's from an email I got from the Wilderness Society this morning.

Tasmania's forests: one. Gunns: shit all.

Well... that's probably an overly simplistic assessment of the situation but their share price is plummeting and pretty much no one wants to get behind them any more. So I'd say they're losing at this one.

Cheer!

SJP: Suck My Wang

So obviously I haven't seen the new SATC movie. It doesn't come out here for another few days. But I have seen the previews, and a few leaked clips. And can I just say that ever since I heard that the retarded, drunk monkeys who apparently own the rights to this sinking ship had decided to make another movie, I've been on a roller coaster ride of emotion.

Yes, I saw the first movie (with my mum) and yes, it was kind of shit and full of gaping plot holes (Carrie's suddenly rolling in money, how? And more importantly, why?) but I gave it a pass because I loved - correction: love - the television series and obviously the movie wasn't supposed to be taken seriously. It was fun and sweet, the clothes were beautiful and whatever. It's Sex And The City. And when I got wind of a second one, I sorta knew it would suck but I was initially planning on just smoking a few bowls with my sister and going to see it anyway because, like I said, I love the television series.

But when I read this review something shifted inside of me. The reviewer had just described what it was, deep down, that had kind of been bugging me about the movie(s). It's that, for so long, I had been a defender of Sex And The City. Pointing out, again and again, to its critics (who usually didn't even watch the show) that it wasn't just shoes and gratuitous boning. That it was a funny, intelligent, sensitive, brilliantly scripted and shot representation of modern female sexuality and human relationships.

Like the episode where Steve breaks up with Miranda because she makes more money than him. Or the episode where Charlotte realises she may never be able to have a baby, at the same time that Miranda finds out she's pregnant and decides to have an abortion. Or the episode where Charlotte gets married and decides to stop working, and feels incredibly self conscious that she's starting to turn into “one of those women we hate”. Obviously, it was limited in that it only really dealt with the relationships of wealthy, white Manhattanites. And it shits me that Big was always a total prick to Carrie and yet she keeps going back to him. And eventually marries him (but not before he abandons her at the altar). But it was a good show, dammit.

But it seems that, with these movies, SJP and her gang of inexplicably fabulously rich “girls” are trying to prove all of the critics right. Saying that, “Yes, we're all vacuous imbeciles who measure a man's worth by his penis and wallet size”, “Yes, all we care about is shoes and cocktails”, “Yes, we diminish the complexity of, and objectify, representations of homosexual and minority characters and are totally classist”. Honestly, taking an all expenses paid trip to Abu Dhabi because marriage and motherhood is just too fucking hard to deal with? In the middle of a global financial crisis? That isn't escapism, it's insensitivity.

And what's even worse is that they're going to make a buttload of money out of it, so none of this will matter. They'll just cash their cheques and proceed to pinch off another steaming cinematic multimillion dollar turd. All of a sudden, I feel like the girl who always defended her drop kick boyfriend, only to turn around and find him sleeping with every pimply, chlamydia-ridden skank on the block. Like, dude, I was on your side! What are you doing??

So I for one, am not going to be a participant in this farce any more. SATC, I am breaking up with you. Because I love you too much to keep watching you destroy yourself, and I've got better things to spend my $15 and two and a half hours on.

Like the Crayon Fields gig tomorrow night, amiright????

Kite Club! Kite Club! Kite Club!

Come forward, my children, and hold out those hideous protuberances you call arms. Come forward and luxuriate in this glowing wordy manna, flowing forth from your computer screen for I have a new interview! I know it's been a while, but things are tough all over, okay? I've been busy, I've had a headache, I just haven't been in the mood. But let's all put that behind us now because I have a squeaky, shiny new interview. And it's with none other than Nicholas Futcher, a.k.a Kite Club! And dood, Kite Club's fuckin' awesome! You can download Kite Club's debut EP totally for free right here, listen to stuff at his myspace, or just go check out his blog. But for now just shut up and read. It's an email one, about control, in case you can't figure that one out by yourself.



Do you ever feel like song writing is helpful in regaining a sense of control over a situation which would otherwise feel out of control? Why/Why not?

Penning thoughts and things into a pad is certainly a release of the otherwise sweltering mind that I carry around. This is also great for the accounting of your thoughts. Some situations require utmost concentration, as opposed to wailing a Dionne Warwick number in your head.

To what extent do you think a musician has control over his or her creative output? Does a song happen spontaneously, or can it be made to happen?

There’s a plethora of artists who are pressured and made to write songs or perform.

I guess this ties in with the first question, as people have lesser control over their art when these things come into account. For me, writing a song is definitely spontaneous, however, there’s usually a dwelled upon concept behind it.

Should a musician’s performance contain an element of control? Why/why not?

As far as skill, and execution of medium (instruments, larynx, turntables), I feel this is very necessary. It’s common sense. There’s is also an aspect that should be completely out of ctrl, this leads to experimentation and further, progression.

Do you think it’s fair that a record label exerts control over a musicians material if they’re (the record label) financing the musicians creative process?

Sure. It’s an investment, and foremost a buisness. One of the highest grossing industries in the last forty years is records. I’ve analysed this big grey area for a few years now, and it seems ‘labels’ can’t sell units as well as the past due to free-source information (Online etc.) What was a bustling trade, where bald obese men in suits can eat lunch at the finest in town, suck back a Cuban, and rake a few bills in, is now a field of dandelion where anything can happen, and usually does. In the late 80’s, an inquisitive hacker named Kevin Mitnick delved head on into a free-source information renegade. He was jailed for this, and now works at the CIA as one of the highest expertise they merit. This is a funny link to the music industry, as major ‘labels’ have less and less control, less consumers and more overheads. On the contrary, there’s countless artists blossoming from the bed of the interweb, (Atlas sound etc.) on next to no budget, through a wonderful concept, free-source information. There’s no possible way to police this, some may profit, but for the all round well-being of musicians and music appreciators, it’s a win. FREE KEVIN.

In what kind of situation do you feel like a loss of control is more important than being in control?

I feel some things should not take a constant conscience, for instance; dancing, sex, swimming, meditation, golf. Making love to your girl is not like driving a manual with a cigarette. Physical control is essential in executing day to day activities, one, so you can get it done right, and two, so you don’t hurt yourself, ha.

Mental control is imperative in not being taken to the funny farm. It takes a few parts reality, one part ambition and a hint of opportunity to pretty quickly realise that there’s more to life than this.

Do you believe that the role of the government and police is more one of control than of protection? Or are they two sides of the same coin?

It’s the same thing, right? Liberal v Labor, Democrat v Republican. They are all in this together. The only difference is either side has a different face, so the masses think they really have a say. There’s so many topics and tangents from this subject e.g.: Illuminate, World Trade Centre, New World Order.. Fluoride.. that I won’t preach on, but think about this;

If the ‘police’ presence helps the world sleep at night, I’m sure they won’t have any problem being controlled.

Do you think that people as a group, subconsciously prefer to be controlled rather than be completely autonomous? Why/why not?

Human nature, I think, is designed (with the instinct) to seek freedom. Whatever form; religion, drugs, commune etc. The subconscious is a powerful force, I would even go as far to say that I don’t think a lot of people can tell the difference (i.e conscious). Many aspects cause us to ‘escape’ whether it be circumstance, financial situation; However, there’s a hell of a lot of folk that don’t mind the simple life. They must have very vivid and awake subconscious. As far as autonomy goes, it’s entirely up to the individual. Some don’t have or want the capabilities to think for themselves. These people commonly take form in bassists ;P x

What are your thoughts on music censorship? Should the government have any control at all over what kind of music people can or can’t listen to?

Content, definitely. There’s a fair and fine line between Zac Delahoya screaming ‘Fuck you I won’t do what you tell me’ into a angsty teen’s ear in his mid 90’s bedroom, and deep gangster rhymes that promote hate, death and misogyny. It’s also up to the individual, but that’s also where curiosity comes into play. Pure self-exposition. As for authority on what one should listen to, from a governing body, is outlandish. There’s again, no way to police such things as long as the resources are still available to share it.

Baby, It's Cold Outside

Busy busy busy busy busy. I barely have any time to transcribe the interviews I've done lately, and I don't like doing posts about nothing (like the ones I've been doing for the past month or so) but I just thought I should stick something on here to let you all know that I haven't died or been apprehended by the authorities yet. And to let you all know that I still love each and every one of you. Even you, creepy guy who sent me that email asking if I was a guy or a girl because apparently that kind of thing still matters these days?

Anyway... I'll be on mid year break soon so I'll have some time to work more on this. I'll be posting more photos and shit and working on some different zines (and traveling! Like! Wow!) over the holidays so don't touch that dial! By dial, obviously, I mean URL bar, but... I guess you'll have to touch it eventually 'cause I don't want you just staring at this page and nothing else for ever and ever. I guess you can check your facebook. And check out some of those links I've put up on the right there, they're all pretty nice.

Don't go outside though, the weather's sucking pretty hard today.