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.
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.
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.
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!
21st June, 2024 at Factory Theatre
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.
I've been entering the ballots for Phoenix Central Park's music programmes for a while now and never managed to get tickets. It's a tiny venue and the gigs are free, but often artists you've never heard of. They've partnered with the Biennale of Sydney to run gigs at the White Bay Power Station. This giant industrial edifice has been closed my entire life in Sydney, so I've spent many years going past and wondering what's inside.
So of course I jumped at the chance!
The music? Yeah, interesting enough. The DJ set played before the acts were really good: a combination of DJ Vadin-style dubbed out hip hop samples and bass-heavy interesting beats. Dunno who they were though. The rest? Yeah okay whatevs.
But going around this giant industrial hulk: amazing! And the art scattered around for the Biennale was pretty cool too. I'm going to have to head back with the family for another look in daylight.
Looking forward to more music at this place though!
As a kid of the late 70s, Oz Rock was my childhood soundtrack. In the mainstream in the 1980s it was bogan classics: Cold Chisel, The Angels, Rose Tattoo, Dragon, The Radiators, Australian Crawl, Barnsey. Ugh. It's blokey. It's ocker. It's got all the sexist, racist tropes. You can see why I went all in on electronic music as a teenager.
But early 80s pub rock in Australia also had good stuff that broke through: Goanna, Midnight Oil, Men At Work, Hunters & Collectors. Music with a distinctly Australian sound but without needing to drive a ute, wear a mullet and get blind drunk and beat your wife. It's technically proficient music, varied stylistically with great songs and often with a political edge.
Enter Floodlights, a band from Melbourne with a distinct sound. I don't know if they think of themselves as Oz Rock influenced, or part of some kind of revival, but their sound brings to mind bands like Goanna and early Hunters & Collectors for me. Their live performance—and the audience reaction—makes me feel this band is about to go huge.
I love seeing a band in a small venue just before they go huge. You think to yourself "this is the last time I'll see this band somewhere so small". The lead singer has frontman energy (and good looking too, which never hurts) while the band are tight, the harmonies strong and the harmonica comes out quite a bit.
Support band Sweetie were fun, and having fun, with catchy tunes. Melodrones sounded okay but a bit loose.
This was my first time at The Great Club, a terrible tragedy. It's been open years now and I haven't made it. It's a great small-mid sized venue, walking distance from home and well set up. Now that I've been, I'll be keeping an eye out for more bands playing there.
Holly and I have been going to this incredible festival as often as possible since 2018. It's like no other festival: amazing people and vibe, single stage with a really diverse lineup of bands and some kooky traditions.
It's the best festival I've ever been to in Australia. Not the gravitas and lineup heft of Glastonbury but certainly captures a lot of the vibe, better in a lot of ways even. Not easy for us to make it from Sydney, involving finding hosts for our kids, flights, car hire and getting tents and the like all the way there.
This year we had to deal with serious heat. 37 degrees every day and on the Saturday night it was still 30 at 10pm. Seriously hot, so there was a lot of sitting around sipping drinks and hoping it'd cool down a bit.
One of the funny traditions of Golden Plains is The Boot. To show their appreciation of a show, attendees hold a boot aloft above their heads. Charlotte Adigéry was very confused until some of the crowd explained what was going on. People also dress up in crazy stuff. And weirdest of all, you're allowed bring furniture to the festival, so there ends up being a whole array of couches at the back of the crowd area.
The sunsets from the hill beside the main stage are spectacular. A big crowd forms on the hill as the sun goes down with cheers, claps and hoots of appreciation. They're really stunning sunsets.
Musical highlights this year: Elsy Wamayo played a great afternoon
set in the heat that forced me up onto my feet. King Stingray's recorded
music hadn't set my heart alight but live they were great fun. And best
of the fest was Charlotte Adigéry and Bolis Pupul. I've been following
Adigéry's music since 2017 so I was super excited she was on the bill
and they were amazing. Absolutely owned the crowd. Cymande were also a lot of fun, spotting those samples that you've heard everywhere.
I'm currently in Austin, Texas for MeasureCamp so when I read you could book demos (via The Sizzle, of course) I waited until it was 7 days out and booked it in. Easily done on the Apple site, though you do need to sign up for an Apple ID.
My appointment was at a swanky mall in the Austin suburbs so it was a $15 Uber ride out and the same again back to town. Waiting outside I got asked by a Jehovah if I wanted to join a bible study. I suppose if you're camped outside the Apple Temple your chances of finding an easy mark are good.
Once my turn came up, my demo guy introduced himself and of course now I can't remember his name, but he was great. He took my glasses and put them in a machine that measures them and orders the appropriate optical inserts. Apparently there's some prescriptions they can't handle, specifically if your script has a "Prism" value which I think is people with astigmatism. My bifocals were no problem.
Next we had to measure my face using an iPhone app. A bit of a delay because I'm not in the cult and they had to find an iPhone I could use. You then do a process similar to enrolling for the face unlock feature: stare at the dot and slowly move your head left, right, up and down. Repeated again and the order for your seals around your face.
A few moments delay and out comes my demo set, ready for my head, face and eyes. Served on a platter like a fancy meal.
The first phase of the demo is going through some calibration and learning the gestures. Calibration involves looking at dots and doing the tap gesture, touching your forefingers to your thumb briefly somewhere in the wide field of view of the front-firing cameras. The other two gestures are scroll which is pinching your fingers together, dragging in the appropriate direction and releasing. Zoom is two-handed tap, stretch and release. All pretty easy once you get the hang of it.
Then the magic starts. There's a knob on the top-right of the goggles they call the "crown". Pressing it functions like the home button on an iPhone while turning it dials up or down how much of the outside world you see.
Immersion
For the next bit I dialed the outside world entirely out for the full immersive experience. The environment is a stunning mountainous outdoor view with water gently moving. The windows of applications are suspended in the air in the environment. I was instructed through expanding and placing windows in that environment.
This experience is pretty amazing. I could see it being super productive: distractions dialed out and you can easily have 3 or more massive, super high res screens arrayed in front of you. Brilliant. Apparently you can bring a Mac's desktop into this environment which would be pretty sweet.
Passive immersive experiences
Next up demos of the immersive experiences. 3D photos and videos as taken by the device itself, then ones taken on iPhones. They're pretty mind blowing quality. While the 3D visuals are as expected, the bit that really blew my mind was the audio. It really comes from the point it should, even as you move your head around.
Some demos of different immersive experiences. A clip from the (execrable I hear) Super Mario film, a bunch of immersive clips of scenes from nature: a women climbing a sheer cliff, people cuddling a baby rhino, baby bears walking into a stream, sharks underwater, a singer half a metre away from you singing straight to you. All amazing.
And that's it, the demo is over and I have to take the headset off. Smart business: they definitely leave you wanting more! Yours for only $3,500 (AUD5,400). Where's a black market kidney buyer when you need one?
Wrapping up
I'm no Apple fanboi: I own a Mac because I got it from my last workplace and while they're amazing hardware, I'm not a huge fan of the OS and GUI. Better than Windows and I can bend it to my workflows with some effort, but there's clunky things I dislike,
But this? This I like. It's really quite impressive. Once they get the price down, I'd consider buying one. I'd probably want to borrow or rent one for a week or so to see what the working environment is like, but I could see it being super productive. And games are gonna be _incredible_. This is a much slicker, better rounded experience than the Oculus from the House of Zuck.
Issues
I had some minor quibbles with the device, and things I think need more exploration.
Conclusion
It's a brilliant piece of tech. Apple should be rightly proud of it. It's interesting that they're doing these demos: I feel like it'd be quite hard to get across how damn well it works in a video or other method of demonstration. And people have been burnt with similar products in the past: everyone who tried the Google Glasses was surprised to see the screen is just a tiny piece in the corner which isn't clear in the demo videos at all. This isn't like that: full immersion!
But wow it's expensive. I'm keen to see how much it comes down with V2.
Rounding out 2023 we saw Egoism on the 22nd December. The gig was a fundraiser for Cystic Fibrosis Community Care so there were a few bands. Sound seemed a bit iffy on the night though one of the supports, Jet City Sports Band, were really great and worth checking out.
alias: "Air con: Power-driven cool excess power"
description: ""
trigger:
- platform: time_pattern
minutes: "*"
condition:
- condition: state
entity_id: input_select.air_con_mode
state: Power-driven cool
- condition: numeric_state
entity_id: sensor.envoy_current_net_consumption
below: -1000
action:
- service: climate.set_temperature
data:
temperature: "{{ states('input_number.air_con_target_temp')|float - 5 }}"
target:
entity_id: climate.daikinap26021
mode: single
alias: "Air con: Power-driven cool no excess"
description: ""
trigger:
- platform: time_pattern
minutes: "*"
condition:
- condition: state
entity_id: input_select.air_con_mode
state: Power-driven cool
- condition: numeric_state
entity_id: sensor.envoy_current_net_consumption
above: -1000
action:
- service: climate.set_temperature
data:
temperature: "{{ states('input_number.air_con_target_temp')|float }}"
target:
entity_id: climate.daikinap26021
mode: single
alias: Shed aircon automatic on
description: ""
trigger:
- platform: time_pattern
minutes: "*"
condition:
- condition: or
conditions:
- condition: state
entity_id: input_select.shed_air_con_mode
state: "on"
- condition: and
conditions:
- condition: numeric_state
entity_id: sensor.envoy_current_net_consumption_5_minute_average_linear
below: -500
- condition: state
entity_id: binary_sensor.shed_door
state: "off"
- condition: numeric_state
entity_id: sensor.shed_weather_temperature
above: 25
- condition: state
entity_id: input_select.shed_air_con_mode
state: Excess power
action:
- service: switch.turn_on
data: {}
target:
entity_id: switch.shed_aircon
mode: single
