There's a short list of bands that I'll see every time there's an opportunity. Nick Cave, The Cure, Billy Bragg, The New Pornographers and... Belle and Sebastian. Always a great night out and this was no different as they played the Enmore Theatre last week and played all the hits. Big singalong for The Boy With The Arab Strap with a bunch of the crowd up on stage. Loads of fun!
I did my second crack at sous vide pulled pork using Serious Eats' great recipe. First time was great though my smoker gave up soon after getting it going, so I finished it using a foil-wrapped packet of woodchips in the gas BBQ. Worked fine so I went all the way with that.
22 hours in the sous vide circulator, then a couple of hours in the BBQ with smoke. Brilliant. A crunchy, super tasty bark and unctuous, flavoursome meat. Brilliant taco filling! Nom.
I've been waiting for this band to come out for a couple of years, seeing them play Glastonbury and all the European festivals. Finally they made it to the Hordern Pavillion. Interesting crowd: lots of young women dressed up in lacy, flouncy outfits, a smattering of middle aged music fans like me, a huge bunch of the Sydney band members' family including her grandmother. Lots of fun!
Highlights: the cover of Sparks' This Town Isn't Big Enough For Both of Us (needed more gunshots) and the lead singer being convinced to do a shoey, for when you really need to cringe about Australian "culture".
For sculpture the space is incredible with dark corners, controlled lighting and a dramatic entry down white spiral stairs.
For music I think it's hard to get the acoustics right. It's a giant sealed box with vertical columns every few metres.
Genesis Owusu tried to make the space work for his sound, presenting a very stripped back version of his best songs. Not sure it worked though. It felt stilted and the tempos were off, when his music is usually boisterous and wild enough to break the floor.
Fun to see the space used differently though. It would work brilliantly for reverb heavy music: The xx or Portishead would be great. Dubby music perhaps?
Though what I really want is a rave in this space. Umek or Speedy J playing dark techno with a monster kick drum and minimal lighting. Perhaps a bit too wild for the Art Gallery?
Friday night rolled around and we had Melbourne band Mildlife at the Factory Theatre, conveniently around the corner from our place.
Normally I'd take my mate Gab to this gig but he was in Japan so Holly came along. Not really her thing: a bit too much on the jazz end of the spectrum for her. When the jazz flute comes out you know shit's about to get real.
But for me, this gig was heaven. Deep, funky bass-driven grooves and a band of great skill. Their music has elements of late 1990s French filtered house. In fact one of the tracks had a bass groove that could be Pnau's 1999 Mellotron. Other tracks reference Steely Dan and the vocals and synths evoke Alan Parsons Project.
Loads of fun. Holly actually went home early and missed their best track, The Magnificent Moon.
I've gotten a bit behind in my gig reports so here's a big dump of what's happened since May.
Nick Cave
7th May, 2024 at State Theatre
We've seen Saint Nick of Warracknabeal many times over the years in many great venues including the Tate in London and the Sydney Opera House, but there's something special about the State Theatre. It's one of those beautiful, ornate old theatres with ornate gothic mouldings and an intimate feel. Nick playing solo with just bass accompaniment from Colin Greenwood was fantastic and he was clearly enjoying himself.
Oh and on the way home this beautiful autumnal tree presented itself.
The Clouds
25th May, 2024 at Factory Theatre
Another band I've been watching for years, first seeing there in 1992 or so at the Three Weeds in Rozelle. As always, loads of fun, though the band didn't seem so into it this time around.
Elefant Traks 25th Anniversary
26th May, 2024 at Sydney Opera House
This one is tinged with some sadness. Elefant Traks are a record label from the late 1990s who triggered a massive boom in hip-hop in Australia, launching the careers of a bunch of huge acts. Super engaged with politics and building an audience from the ground up, they did huge things. Of course the supergroup The Herd were a massive highlight. I was there at a lot of the early gigs, seeing early iterations of many of the acts up close. They were always such lovely people, humble but hugely talented.
So the sad part is that as well as being the 25th anniversary, this was also farewell from the label which is now going through an orderly shutdown. That's a true loss for Australian music, but the gig was a reflection on all that was achieved and created. A fantastic set in a spectacular venue.
Thanks for all the memories Elefants!
Glass Beams
21st June, 2024 at Factory Theatre
They're clearly supremely talented but the gig itself was a bit disappointing. They were incredibly tight and disciplined but that kinda made the gig a bit dull. They need to embrace improvisation a bit more I think. The style of music should have more wigging out, solos and craziness.
I'm sure they'll develop in time! They're playing some massive festivals in the Northern Hemisphere this year so they'll have plenty of practice!
Coming up
Lots of exciting gigs in the calendar: Mildlife, Genesis Owasu, Belle & Sebastian, Olivia Rodrigo.
A few weeks ago I was roasting some pumpkin for a delicious soup and towards the end of the cooking time the fan on the oven started into overdrive, making a lot of noise then it started beeping and popped up this obscure error message. I phoned the manufacturer, Electrolux, on the provided number and they told me I'd need to pay at least $160 to have their engineer come out and tell me what was wrong.
You've probably had this experience with lots of stuff. "Sorry, the item is out of warranty so you'll have to pay." The problem with this is that Australian Consumer Law gives an automatic warranty. You can expect the item to last a reasonable amount of time. Now an old fashioned light bulb shouldn't be expected to last a decade, but an oven?
Challenged on this, I went around and around in circles with the Electrolux call centre worker. "So you think an oven should only last for two years?" and eventually I asked to be escalated to a manager who could actually make a decision. After some follow up, I finally got a call from a manager who was well drilled in shutting down any idea I should expect something from them. Eventually I said okay thanks, I'll see you at the Tribunal.
How long should an appliance last?
The "warranty" companies talk about is actually an "express warranty" and if you read them you'll notice these days they now include mandatory text about how they aren't able to exclude guarantees that come from the Australian Consumer Law. Anything they offer in their written warranty is in addition to your base rights.
So you have a reasonable expectation that your appliance will last a reasonable amount of time. So how long is reasonable? Well if you look around on the web you'll find different lengths of time for different classes of appliance. And if you buy the cheapest Chinesium appliance, you shouldn't expect it to last as long as the exxy Miele model.
So my Electrolux was a mid-range model bought in 2015, so it's about 9 years old. Hilariously the retailer's parent company has a blog post that gives explicit ranges for different appliances. Electric ovens should last 13 years according to them.
Time to book a court date
NSW (and I think all the other states) has a tribunal especially for consumer claims, what used to be the "small claims court" is now the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal, NCAT. It's specifically designed to be low cost and straightforward. You shouldn't need a lawyer and can turn up with your documents.
The important thing to know about tribunals like NCAT is you're paying mostly with your time. You'll need to front up on the booked date and make your case. There's a small filing fee: in this case it was $58, which is still a lot less than Electrolux wanted to charge just to tell me what the problem was.
Before you book your date, you need to work out who is the other side of the transaction. You don't ordinarily go after the manufacturer but the retailer. So I contacted Appliances Online to talk it through. They took the same line as Electrolux that it was out of warranty and so not their problem. Again: see you in the Tribunal.
I filled in the forms. They're annoyingly slow, but the online system mostly works. Paid my fee and bingo, out comes an email with a tribunal date and location.
Amazing service, just add NCAT date
And the next day I get a call from the lovely Dylan from Appliances Online, someone who's evidently empowered to make decisions that make tribunal appointments go away. He tells me he'll get Electrolux to invoice them instead, an appointment is booked and we're off to the races.
One thing worth understanding is this: if the retailer has to send someone along to the Tribunal, they lose already. Even the cost of a junior lawyer going to the tribunal is going to be more than it would cost to repair your appliance. They might do it on principle if you're taking the piss but if you have a decent case they're wasting time and money.
A couple of engineer visits
Don't go cancelling your NCAT date just yet though! First you need the problem resolved. Remember, this could have all been resolved by them applying Australian Consumer Law when you first asked, so keep that clock ticking, it keeps things moving.
I had a lovely engineer from Electrolux visit and take a look. He wasn't sure what the problem was: tested the fan and heater element and found no problem. In the end he replaced the light bulb (which hadn't worked for years, we hadn't bothered replacing it) and the message had gone away anyway.
Next day the message is back, and Dylan drops me a note asking me to remove the NCAT booking. I respond saying it still isn't resolved and magically another engineer appointment pops up.
The second visit does the trick. The engineer replaced the heating element and fan and the message has gone away. We've done a few baking projects since and all seems good!
Satisfaction, but annoyed I have to assert my rights
So my oven is fixed. Otherwise it's a great oven. It's annoying that I have to push to get my consumer rights though. It should just be standard! My hope is that by encouraging others to also assert their rights it'll become easier. Don't put up with this shit about appliances having a tiny warranty period!
25 years ago a bunch of Internet people cracked the shits with the inhuman, one-way corporate speak employed by the companies they interacted with, consulted to and advised. Those rants became The Cluetrain Manifesto. There's a copy sitting on my bookshelf right behind me, probably the fourth copy I've bought because I keep loaning it out to people who need to know and forgetting who had it.
25 years on it's still utterly fucking standard to get a stupid email like this one:
So what you're saying, Electrolux, is that I shouldn't reply to this email. But you're willing to receive emails from me at another email address. Somehow it's too hard to make the From address the one you want to receive replied on. Hell, if there's some dumb technical reason, you could even use a Reply-to header.
You know this makes you sound like an arsehole, right? You had an opportunity to provide care to customers, you know like a "Customer Care" function, and you fluffed it. Golf clap time.
Last Saturday night I went to see sleepmakeswaves at the Manning Bar in Sydney Uni with a couple of mates. I have many fond memories of this gig: the epic Freaky Loops gigs, Terrence McKenna and lunchtime gigs during my brief time as a university student, I remember seeing DiG and Trout Fishing in Quebec.
The lineup for the night got moved around so that Taiwanese band Elephant Gym were moved up to slot 2, so I had a chance to catch them. I had minimal expectations but really enjoyed their set. Wikipedia describes them as "math rock" which is, of course, a terrible genre name. I'd characterise them more as jazz rock except instead of improvising onstage they're playing out the result of past improvisations, with exceptional accuracy, tightness and structure. Really good fun.
sleepmakeswaves were, as always, awesome. Dreamy soundscapes with dramatic crescendos. Brilliant.
