Miles Electric: A Different Kind of Blue (2004)

Another interesting Miles Davis documentary. This one focuses on the new direction, into the style that would become known as "fusion", that was heralded by the 1970 "Bitches Brew" and Davis' landmark performance at the Isle of Wight festival in the same year. The latter is included in its 38-minute entirety at the end of the doco, which also features some very interesting interviews with musicians involved with Miles around that time.

I found the Isle of Wight "jam" to be fascinating primarily for the feeling that you're witnessing a primordial evolutionary moment in music history. As a piece of music it is not particularly accessible (with my usual weaselly proviso: at least not to me, at this point in time). This is understandable, given that it was pushing the boundaries of what any of the musicians were familiar with, and in the process forging a whole new genre. I'm looking forward to listening again to the "Bitches Brew" album, which for some reason has escaped my attention thus far.

Meet The Fenders

1. Fender USA Deluxe Stratocaster (colour: Olympic Pearl, Maple neck); Fender Blues Junior 15W tube amp. [Also in picture are my trusty Zoom G2 multi-effects unit bought ages ago in Strasbourg, and the Boss RC20XL loop station that I bought last year.]

2. Squier (by Fender) "Affinity" Jazz Bass; Fender Rumble 15W bass amp.

Purchased from The Guitar Lounge in Sydney, which I heartily recommend for all things Fender: www.theguitarlounge.com.au

The Funky Meters @ The Metro

Went to this concert last night. The Funky Meters are the current incarnation of legendary New Orleans funk group "The Meters". They've been around forever (well, the fifties anyway) and can lay claim to having influenced almost all the funk acts that followed and therefore, indirectly, almost all popular music today.

For all that, last night's show will be primarily memorable for me as the first concert I've ever walked out on early. Did I say "concert"? Well, fair enough -- that is what the ticket said -- but it would probably be more accurate to call it a jam session. Now, a priori there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. And, despite an average age that must be north of 60, the guys still give up a mean funk groove. The trouble is, they only seemed to have the one groove: with only one or two brief pauses, the band kept up a raw, grinding -- but above all unchanging -- riff. It was perhaps analagous to hearing a finely tuned ferrari purring along -- but never getting out of first gear. Awe inspiring, but fairly soon you've heard enough.

Worth mentioning that the show was opened by local soul/funk band "The Hands" who were quite good.

Round Midnight (1986)

Interesting film based loosely on events from the lives of troubled
jazz legends Lester Young and Bud Powell. It tells the story of a
fictional saxophonist called Dale Turner (played by real-life jazz
legend Dexter Gordon) who is living in Paris and struggling with
alcohol and drug addictions. It's an interesting portrait of the ex-
pat jazz scene in Paris and features many real-life jazz stars (among
them Herbie Hancock, who also wrote the soundtrack). It is a little
slow though, and the acting isn't always first-rate (understandable
given that half the cast are musicians). Realistically, it is probably
only going to interest fans of jazz.

54 (1998)

Fairly enjoyable film based around NYC's infamous Studio 54 nightclub
at the end of 70's. The (fictional) main storyline, revolving around
characters played by Ryan Phillipe, Salma Hayek and Neve Campbell, is
fairly light-weight and superficial; however, the back-drop of real-
life events surrounding the now-iconic Studio 54 scene is interesting
and quite well done. Mike Myers steals the show as the eccentric and
flamboyant Studio 54 owner Steve Rubell.

Un Prophète (2009)

Just watched this recent French prison flick, which tells the story of a young french-arab prisoner who falls under the influence of the Corsican mob and subsequently works his way up the ladder. It's fairly bleak -- as you'd expect from a movie most of which takes place in a french gaol -- but not a bad film. I'm not sure it merited the fan fare that seemed to surround it at the Oscars.

The Mozart Maulers: Memoir of a Football Legend, by Dorian Mode

The Mozart Maulers: Memoir of a Football Legend by Dorian Mode

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Entertaining memoir of Sydney writer and jazz musician Dorian Mode. It tells the story of the rugby league team, dubbed the "Mozart Maulers", that he put together with other students while an undergrad at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. A light and enjoyable read, though at times the author's self-effacing fictionalizing gets a little tedious: the passages that are genuinely funny and moving are, for the most part, the ones where he isn't trying to crack a witty pun or one-liner.



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interesting post on zero hedge blog

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/guest-post-devolution-consumer-economy?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+zerohedge%2Ffeed+(zero+hedge+-+on+a+long+enough+timeline%2C+the+survival+rate+for+everyone+drops+to+zero)

For some reason I seem to be stumbling on ideas like this a lot lately --- and they're resonating.

I particularly like this comment (emphasis is mine):

For those of you who haven't read 'Walden' by Henry David Thoureau, it is highly recommended.

I can't possibly do it justice with a brief summary, but one of its main reflections is that by reducing the itemized list of things we need, we realize the superfluous crap we don't, and thus don't have to painfully slave away time and energy on unpleasant experiences to obtain such unecessary things.

As for credit, the advent of credit cards, home equity lines of credit, reverse mortgages - all of these things fuel irrational consumption and create hundreds of millions of debt slaves in the U.S.

Commercial advertisements, slick and glossy, appealing to Id & Ego of man, tapped the 'want' culture, driving people to lives of misery in order to worship the new religion of staying ahead of or at least keeping up with the Smiths and Jones.

Debt slaves. We are a nation of debt slaves. Most people have but one or two true passions and talents, and instead of cultivating them and pursuing them, we expend time and energy on anti-passions in order to obtain shit we don't need and that only makes us more unhappy and distant from our passions, so we're not perceived as falling behind based on the subjective, and mostly incredibly irrational/superficial opinions of others.

chris jordan photographic arts

Some distubing images on the effect of plastic rubbish in the oceans:

http://www.chrisjordan.com/gallery/midway/#CF000313%2018x24

And some grim visualizations of statistics relating to our (global -- but let's face it, ultimately American in origin) consumerist/capitalist culture:

http://www.chrisjordan.com/gallery/rtn/#light-bulbs

http://www.chrisjordan.com/gallery/rtn2/#seeds

Filth, by Irvine Welsh

Filth by Irvine Welsh

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


A fairly entertaining yarn -- if you like Welsh's style -- but it's missing the light relief that characters like Renton and Sick Boy brought to Trainspotting and Porno. I found it just a little too unrelentingly grim and lacking in any real redemption (though the "pink cigarette"-esque ending was unexpected).



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