Kempsey Recording #1

My band, Kempsey, is booked in to record an EP on 11th, 12th and 13th of June at Atlantis Studios, Port Melbourne with Haydn Buxton. He did Blueline Medic's 42:19 record, and recently did the debut for Mark from Horsell Common's new band, Jonesez.

We originally recorded 3 tracks in our jam space that we were certainly proud of, but later decided we weren't entirely happy with them being the final product of these songs. I think alot of this was seeing how they paled in comparison with the amazing clip that Rhys Graham (daybreak films) made for us.

We chose Haydn after hearing the Jonesez album. It sounds so alive, and representative of their music. I really hope to achieve that. Something sonically pleasing but with no trace of a soft filter over the lens. It's hard target to hit - kind of like trying to blow up the death star - but I really think we are going to come out with something worth the while. Also we will be tracking almost everything live, but with a few overdubs, so hopefully it will sound tight, but human.

The tracks we are doing are:

Dizzy Head
Keep The Light On
Serious
Feel Less
The Weather

(the latter 3 can be heard at http://www.myspace.com/kempseymusic)

Feeling a little anxious about singing...the sickness is all around me and I can feel it rearing inside me. Oh dear...this could come out sounding far more Tom Waits than I would like.

You make the art that makes you

Lately I have been stuck in that void of panic where you wonder whether or not you are in a place that will allow you to make art.

When I was studying writing at Uni I read "On Writing" by Stephen King; a bit of a retrospective glance at what makes writing an art and how that art is crafted. He revealed in the book that while he wrote his earlier (and most famous) works he was an alcoholic with a cocaine habit. Notably, he mentioned that while he visited his dying mother he was probably "...either drunk or hungover or some combination of the two". He went on to talk about his fears that he would not be able to write if he got his life on track and started living healthily and for his family. He later said that once he went clean and realised he could still write he was enthralled and felt completely liberated. He listed the books he had written since. I hadn't heard of a single one of them. I looked up reviews - they were not good.

This has haunted me ever since. I feel the exact same fears that if I let things get too normal then that might be reflected in the music I try and create, or worse, not reflected at all - I will not be able to create the music in the first place.

As I get older and things appear more stable, I get more anxious and more panicked that this could be the end of my creative drive. While my most prolific periods have been in the darkest times, they produced the work most precious to me.

So I suppose some questions loom patiently: what sacrifices must be made? and must they be made?

TWO BECOME ONE

One Doctor is himself AND his wife. But no one knows – no one can tell. Hijinks arise as he tries to co-ordinate two lives while attempting to maintain the guise of a normal two person marriage.
We eventually discover that his REAL wife has died (possibly he murdered and consumed her?) and he has been covering for her ever since.
‘Mrs Doubtfire’ meets ‘Psycho’ in the most stressful and farfetched sitcom on television.

Your Tax Dollars - My Dollars

I like to do things to unnerve my colleagues. Just to make sure they don’t quite get me...but let’s be honest, it’s mainly to pass time that I wish was passing elsewhere – my job is worse than Ron Howard.

Example 1 - Taking photos of their backs and emailing it to them:

Example 2 – Sending them creepy lymericks:

There once was a great payroll team
Nichole, Shellie, Flynn Lisa, Sween
They processed the leave
And timesheets received
While building a friendship of dreams.

Example 3 - Drawing various pictures (such as the below), and posting them up around the office:

There are plenty of other cases of which I don't have, or can't be bothered giving, proof for, such as setting up overzealous christmas decorations and leaving them up for the rest of the year only to take them down a week before the following christmas; Building a shrine of different photos of myself on one of the filing cabinets; building shrines of other people in the office on other filing cabinets; recording the many farts of the many toilet visits and playing them to people at inappropriate times...the list really does go on. I'm thinking about creating an art installation with all of these included - "Your Tax Dollars, My Dollars".

In light of the intensely misogynist top 100 of all time, here is my top 100 songs of all time performed by a female (in alphabetical order):

Aretha Franklin – RESPECT
Beyonce – Deja Vu
Bjork – All Is Full Of Love
Deadstar – Deeper Water
Dusty Springfield – Son Of A Preacher Man
The Knife – Heartbeats
Peaches – Fuck The Pain Away
Pixies – Gigantic
PJ Harvey – Good Fortune
Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Maps

Housewarming (among other things)

Shoutin' "LAGER, LAGER, LAGER"

The Curse of Rob Fleming

The last three days have been some of the most stressful I’ve endured. The amount of concentration, rumination and focus I’ve had to apply to the task at hand has been completely overwhelming. In fact I really didn’t think I was going to make it, I thought the anxiety would sweep me under like a shell in the undertow. But eventually I prevailed; emerged victorious! So without further adieux, I give you my JJJ top 10 of all time (in reverse alphabetical order):

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Maps
Weezer – Say It Ain’t So
The Verve – Bitter Sweet Symphony
Sigur Ros – Saeglopur
Refused – New Noise
Oasis – Don’t Look Back In Anger
Kings Of Leon – King Of The Radio
The Jackson Five – I Want You Back
David Bowie – Heroes
...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead – Relative Ways

What an ordeal.