Ramshackle Eclectic 1. My Father 2. Song For A Beatrice 3. Bleak (going nowhere) 4. Twins Of Siam 5. Middleborough Road 6. Barge 7. Never Let 8. Trampoline 9. Sweet Dream 10. Cry For Me 11. Mangoes 12. Birthday
Last night we filmed our first film clip! Well, I'd like to take responsibility for the filming as well as the playing the song over and over for a few hours, but it wasn't I (Wes), or Brownie or Johnny, but the wonderful Emma and Tom (no, not the juice people) from Little Green Light Films.
We spent about 4 hours in a dance studio just off Chapel street, Prahran, plodding our way through "Space" (and trying to remember the specific eccentricities we recorded on the day). Perhaps aptly, the place we were playing at was actually called "The Space", seemingly a hub of dance academy activity. The sounds of Lady Gaga, Britney and numerous other pop music wafted through the windows and walls as we slowly increased our volume to compete.
It seemed such a shame to be surrounded by numerous pro-am dancers and not involve them, but we stayed true. Whilst a synchronised dance
routine would have been wonderful, and oh so appropriate, we feel that us playing the song will hopefully be enough to keep you interested. Next time we'll have a full 3 minute bump and grind extravaganza, I promise*.
What else is there to say? Have a look at the photos, please check out the Little Green Light Films website - they have a short film coming out soon which I have a very small cameo in as a seemingly perennially angry boyfriend ('Mates'), which should be screening soon (possibly accompanied by our video!). The video will be up soon, and we will alert you to it's presence! Next stop, the EP!
So, I've covered "Paparazzi", by Lady Gaga, in what's starting to become a tradition of posting covers on the weekend.
Why "Paparazzi" you ask? Well, it's a great song. Shock, horror, I like it. I consider it this years "Umbrella". There's too much to like about it - It's well written, it has a solid backbone, slightly darker lyrical themes (in this case Gaga is positively stalker-esque), and the chorus it just sooooo catchy. Catchiness alone does not a good song make, but when accompanied by an actually admirably well-written song-structure, a great performance and a charismatic personality behind the same thing (Gaga is like Madonna and Bowie has a love-child and raised it on baby food crack), it's unstoppable.
And like "Umbrella", "Paparazzi" has simple, strong writing at it's core; Marié Digby covered "Umbrella" on her acoustic guitar and rocketed to fame - it helped that she's quite easy to look at... I'm not sure what's happened since though. "Paparazzi" practically sings "COVER ME".
So, with accompanying ludicrous images for a film clip (thank you $2 shop wig!), here is my cover (on behalf of the full Little Bones team).
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Think cafe style mud cake. There is no flour in this cake. There is also nothing to replace the flour.
It's just chocolate, eggs, butter and sugar. And it will blow your mind. It's so rich it would probably buy and sell google ten times over if it could get its wallet out.
It's Oprah rich, 'sall I'm sayin'.
I grew up with a very similar cake to this, which regularly made an appearance at family birthdays (it was cooked by our neighbour Barb).
In honour of this momentously rich cake, I have recorded a new cover for you.
Click above for my cover of Crowded House's incredibly bitter (90% cocoa dark chocolate bitter) song "Chocolate Cake". It's also a download.
(Please note, this one take, plus another for the solo)
I've also included the recipe for the cake (courtesy Tyler Florence's Tyler's Ultimate - a great book all round, well worth the $7 [!] I picked it up for at a Borders sale)
Ingredients
450g Dark Chocolate, chopped into small pieces
250g unsalted butter (plus a little more for
9 large eggs, separated
3/4 cup granulated sugar, plus 1 tablespoon
Directions
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C/350 degrees F. Butter a 23cm springform pan.
Put the chocolate and butter into the top of a double boiler (or in a heatproof bowl) and heat over (but not touching) about 2.5cm of simmering water until melted. Meanwhile, whisk the egg yolks with the sugar in a mixing bowl until light yellow in color. Whisk a little of the chocolate mixture into the egg yolk mixture to temper the eggs - this will keep the eggs from scrambling from the heat of the chocolate - then whisk in the rest of the chocolate mixture.
Beat the egg whites in a mixing bowl until stiff peaks form and fold into the chocolate mixture. Pour into the prepared pan and bake until the cake is set, the top starts to crack and a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out with moist crumbs clinging to it, 20 to 25 minutes. Let stand 10 minutes, then remove sides of pan.
Serve at room temperature dusted with icing sugar and topped with cream.
Whilst it's been some time since Sufjan Stevens' Come On Feel The Illinois, it's best songs still haven't lost there spark.
"John Wayne Gacy Jr." still hits me hard. Until now I hadn't seen the accompanying film clip. If possible, it makes the song even more poignant; the Simon and Garfunkle style vocals are accentuated by the mix of primary school "stranger danger" instructional videos and out of context 8mm home movies.
The overall effect is a jarring juxtaposition of nostalgia - for a time when home life was simpler, hitch-hiking was not loaded with innuendo or possible abuse and families were tight nuclear units - against the overwhelming feeling that any perceived normality during any era is a facade.
The public consensus, if you read your daily newspaper, watch your A Current Affair and eat you Weet-Bix every morning is that we're living in less safe times than ever before; the Gacys, Beaumont twin abductors, Dahmers, et al of this world have opened the floodgates to a deluge of paedophiles, rapists and murderers who lurk around every corner.
"John Wayne Gacy Jr" as a song, especially when combined with its film clip, suggests (accurately, to my mind) that there was never a golden age of innocence, more a willing ignorance from the parents and police forces of times gone by; the assumption being that everything was alright, and that if something went wrong it was more than likely the work of someone outside of the community. The fact that Gacy's own neighbours testified on his behalf in his trial, despite the overwhelming evidence (over 30 bodies in his house's crawl space, plus a confession) is a shocking indication of the ability of people to protect community (or at least the sense of it) at all costs.
The vocals are a trap, drawing you in with their S & G-esque bitter-sweet harmonies, just to pull your breath from your lungs during the chorus ("oh my god"), then kick you in the stomach as the final lines fall in to place, where Stevens seems to suggest that each one of us buries the reeking bodies of our secrets in the crawlspaces of our lives.
And in my best behavior
I am really just like him Look beneath the floorboards For the secrets I have hid
The last lines can seem a little disingenuous, Stevens turning the camera around on himself and us for a last shock-tactic that is somewhat clunky. However the most disturbing thing about serial-killers, to my mind, is their ability to function as amplified portraits of the society around them. Again, the ability of Gacy's neigbours to testify on his behalf points to this - don't exhume our secrets, we don't want you to know. And even more to the point, we don't want to know. In this way, Gacy functions, at least metaphorically, as the body in the crawlspace of 70s and 80s America.
In Little Bones specific news, I have ordered a hand-wired 18W 1974X clone from a guy called Eric McChanson who makes boutique valve guitar heads, which should be in my hands around 20/07. We're not playing the Arthouse this month, as you may have guessed, but we're looking to record together in late July, and get a booking agent around the same time so we can start gigging earnestly.
Thanks to everyone who came out on a cold Tuesday night to see us play our first gig as a solid three piece, the feedback has been resoundingly good!
Speaking of feedback, we were very lucky to have Gavin on the soundboard, who stepped up at the last minute and mixed us a thousand times better than our past gig at the Spot, and at the Barley Corn before it.
We all managed to get very drunk off the generous
(considering we didn't expect one) rider, and the cheap drinks after said rider was exhausted. Somehow I managed to drag myself out of bed for work the next morning.
Apologies for the lack of CDs at the gig, I know it was promised, however as I left the house with everything I thought I needed, I forgot the one thing (apart from live music) I'd promised.
So our first paying gig and a joyous occasion too. It's great to be paid to do something you love, no matter if it's token only.
Wellity, wellity, wellity. Looks like we might have a few gigs coming up soon after the success of Tuesday night. No big news yet, don't want to jinx the plans. We may have a slightly left of centre one though. Will let you know.
More photos on facebook, become a fan for updates, if you haven't already!
Here's the next one I'm pulling out of the closet. This song I wrote about a month or two before I broke up with my ex... I guess you can tell what was coming from the lyrics. I couldn't at the time, it just needed to be sung.
That's what a bone song is, something deep in your marrows you need to get out.
You don't always know what's coming - all the best songs (or the songs I feel are the best) have fallen out, almost fully formed, telling their own truths about me, usually things I didn't even realise I felt or knew.
In related news, I highly recommend you find a copy of Chad Van Gaalen's Soft Airplane. It's a gorgeous album, recorded in a home basement studio. It's so warm, and yet so thin and skeletal. Listen to it, love it. The whole thing is infectiously good. Watchthisfor an indication of the power of Chad Van Gaalen's work.
So I'm cleaning out the closet, I'm sick today, and our gig is in just over two weeks, so I thought I'd upload a whole bunch of old demos for the upcoming EPs up towards the Tote gig.... which as you should know, is Tuesday 26th May, at the Tote, doors at 8pm.
So we've been rehearsing like mad each week to no end, exactly.
Mainly it's been an excuse to get together, have a few beers, and practice until our fingers blister, bleed and eventually fall off.
The very fortunate bi-product of this hard, fun work is that we are getting tight enough to burst at the seems, and we're also developing an incredibly keen sense for each other's rhythm.
All of my favourite live bands locally have been three pieces, and I've always wondered how they manage without a second guitar. It makes for a tight sound, but I think it's easy to fuck up, either by,
a) trying to play a four piece's sound with just the three piece, either by using pedals, or simply skipping the chords and going straight for the solo melody, or
b) not ramping up enough tension with the small crew you have.
I think the main thing is to build a big sound around great chord progressions, simple flourishes, and tight melodic bass lines, with a great rhythm backbone, which is what I think we're doing, right about now. Tough to work to, but I think we're there.
But as I said, until now, at least since December, we've been playing together simply for the music - writing a bit, rehearsing a fair amount, and turning into a strong musical tripod.
So, without further ado, it's time to play our first official gig of the year, at the Tote, Tuesday 26th May, we'll be on stage at 8:30 (opening slot), and we'd love to have you (yes, you!) there. We'll be playing one or tow old songs, a few new songs, and if we get the chance, a surprise or two.
Little Bones is a band. Little Bones was one man, but it's now three. It's kind of like in the bible, but less dogmatic. And no-one is anyone's father, nor ghost. "Ramshackle Eclectic", the first album under the Little Bones moniker, was the work of several years gestation from Wes as a solo artist. Very much a bedroom album, recorded in several different home and professional studios (including Sound Solutions in Frankston and Andy Albert's Soul Chicken Studios), it's a dog's banquet of old-fashioned song-writing, intimate recording and explorative recording techniques. It's an album of friends, memories, regrets and bitter-sweet melodies. It is available for download at http://littlebones.siamesetwin.net/, or in hard copy for $10. The full band formed for the 2008 Mofest gig, with Luke Brown jumping behind the kit, and John Lipscombe picking up his trusty bass to bang out some tunes for charity. The old songs worked well with a newly found rhythm, and the new songs to come out of the band harnessed the tension and strength of the Little Bones live three-piece. With plans for several new EPs during 2009, including the fully written and partially recorded Bone Songs (from which the track "Another Cup of Coffee" was featured on the Triple J Unearthed Featured Music List), the band is looking to gig more extensively, and shake the Little Bones of the Australian music industry.
