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‘It seems Brisbane’s experimental music scene may be flourishing again. Peaks and troughs, ebbs and flows are common not just to Brisbane’s music scene but to its very demographic. Census data tells us that huge swathes of ‘young people’ leave Brisbane yearly to live, work and study abroad. The entertainment sector presents us with film titles like ‘All my Friends Are Leaving Brisbane’ and local band nights called ‘God Hates Brisbane’. As an outsider looking in you have to wonder how Brisbane’s creative side feels about itself. The creative arts have had, historically, an uneasy relationship with Brisbane’s conservative and rural minded heritage.

‘Musicians support each other by swapping members between bands, which deepens the level of respect and camaraderie, although finding venues to play in can be a challenge. While there was a shortage of venues over the last 18 months, Brisbane’s musicians took advantage of their enviable weather and planted the scene in backyards. Tom Hall’s regular house party series, Sonic Boom, of last year seemed to be dictated entirely by the idea that good sound is good sound so let’s all get drunk in the back yard. — Cyclic Defrost

‘In terms of the music scene Brisbane is good, maybe better than it has been for ages. Some really inspiring bands around the place. Some pretty cool and unexpected things coming out of Brisbane lately, like the Bedroom Suck label, which is looking pretty promising, and the Negative Guest List ‘zine, which is just one of those crazy opinionated publications that you always hope will come along. Otherwise the city is hot and they are always building new buildings. They re-did King George square, which you might remember is this big public square in the middle of town, in this really expensive landscape-architect’s-wet-dream kinda way. Only problem was they used these concrete tiles that heated the square up to over 50 degrees celsius, and people hated the new square, and goths don’t hang there anymore. Brisbane just isn’t ready for that kind of change.’ — Daniel Spencer

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Primitive Motion
‘This duo is an offshoot of Brisbane’s Deadnotes, and while they share some similarities to that outfit’s stumbling gait, their approach is way diff. Electronics, male/female voices and echo-up-the-wazoo make me think of a creation strain of San Francisco post-punk aesthetic of the very early 1980s. But the label’s reference to the Door and The Window is accurate as well. Very diffuse, non-anti-hippy pop-weirdness. With flute!’ — Byron Coley

live in Brisbane

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Kitchen’s Floor
‘Kitchen’s Floor takes nothing for granted. There is nothing escapist, mystical, or blankly comforting in their music. It’s anthemic, but not in an Arcade Fire sense. That band’s music is about 5% struggle and 95% chest-beating triumph. KF inverts that ratio, to spectacular effect. They know that the beauty exists in the effort, that perseverance in the face of hopelessness can be its own kind of victory. In this sense, KF embodies the experience of most people in their early to mid-twenties. ‘Regrets’ sounds drunk and unfocused, well-read yet barely articulate, profoundly furious and desperately in need of a map. There’s something very early 90s in the way the album straddles the line between fighting to the death and walking away. Barlow, Cobain, Westerburg, et al would be very proud.’ — Collapse Board

‘orbit’

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Feathers
‘Feathers remind me a lot of Vivian Girls; don’t be quick to pan these ladies, that girl-group comparison is only for comparisons sake. Feathers have got just enough rowdiness behind them to keep you engaged but don’t sacrifice DIY pop charm. From the sweet trance jam “Early Morning,” to the up-tempo “Cruel For Love,” there’s some killer sound going on; bass heavy tracks brimming with infectious hooks and stellar guitar. To say Feathers are good isn’t enough. I’m pretty jazzed on this release, as an LP it’s rather strong and I can only imagine how these songs sound live. Potentially my new favorite act.. someone get this band to tour the states as soon as possible.’ — Heartbreakers

Live at Latrobe Tce. Brisbane 15-07-10.

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Cured Pink
‘Cured Pink is artist/musician Andrew McLellan whose “music may sound like a man raging at (and in) a void” but “is also a defiant act of celebration. These spontaneous howls and improvised song fragments are teetering on the edge of chaos. […] But it’s also fun!” (Mess and Noise magazine). In 2010 Cured Pink appeared at Psycho Subtropics curated by OtherFilm (Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces), Make It Up Club and Stutter and at Cairns’ On Edge Festival.’ — DISEMBRAINING SINGLES CLUB

Live 23-12-2010 Underneath the William Jolly Bridge

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p.s. Hey. ** Matthew, Hey, man. Lispector, that’s interesting. Yeah, that’s cool. Good mental move there on your part. Kudos. The working girls/ guys ring is still there? That’s crazy. When I was at the Book Fair, I never left the official grounds except to eat near the Fair and/or smoke, so I didn’t get to check out possible local bookstore finds. I just googled the topic, though. There’s this. You could try that. Yeah, I’ve read some Will Alexander. Very, very interesting stuff. I read, uh, let’s see … ‘Exobiology as Goddess’ and ‘The Stratospheric Canticles’. Maybe one more. I’ve heard great things about ‘Sri Lankan Loxodrome’. I’m going to get it. Hang in there. How has today turned out? ** Allesfliesst, I’m afraid I do, although when I polish it my eyes are usually kind of semi-beat, so it probably doesn’t read like it’s been smoothed. But I do try. Thanks for the celebratory pen rotating on my behalf. Yeah, seriously, doing this blog is like having a full time volunteering job. I try not to think about that too much though because I don’t want to risk coming to my senses. But I like that the blog feels like it just magically appears. You get a pen rotation for suggesting that this place might have been the result of a spontaneous combustion. If only. The buches were good. My plans got fucked up because both of the limited edition ones I wanted got sold out before I reserved them. So they looked more normal this year. You can see a bunch of people plus me eating the best looking one of the two in last weekend’s Varioso post. The one Yury and I ate on Xmas was so normal looking that neither one of us remembered to take a photo. ** Jeff, Thank you, man. A belated Happy Birthday to your mom, and, of course, I’m glad you had a good time. ‘The Collected Connoisseur’ looks/sounds pretty tasty. I’ll see if I can search it out. Thanks again, Jeff. ** David Ehrenstein, Congrats on being one of the winners of the Jon Swift Memorial Prize! Whoever does that yearly wrap-up is very attentive. That’s nice. Everyone, David E.’s FaBlog won a cyber-certificate of very high merit at the Jon Swift Memorial Roundup 2011, which is kind of an annual awards for blogs and posts. Go check it out. ** JoeM, That makes sense about the market size and swift reactions, yeah. I’ll watch the new ‘AbFabs’ when they get available, and I know they will. I watched it the last time they revived it, and it did feel kind of stiffened and too self-conscious, but nonetheless blast-like, of course. I’ll try to be more careful in the future with the fast judgement of long-haired old guys. It’s the old rockers who did it to me. Steven Tyler and the rest of them who I assume think that as long as the cameras taking their picture aren’t too close, they’ll look like they used to. And maybe Bob from ‘Twin Peaks’ influenced me too. ** Killer Luka, Cool, you’re welcome, awesome! ** Ken Baumann, Ken! I quite liked ‘The Last Novel’. See what you think. I’m reading almost only mss. right now that people have sent me either to read or blurb. Tao sent me the Megan Boyle book, and I just got it, so I’ll read that too in the spaces in-between. Best to you, buddy. ** Trees, Hi, T. Oh, yes, I saw Mike’s personal finale of your Xmas Eve-ning together via a video on his FB wall. It looked to have been, um, very effective, ha ha. Very cool about you reading with Lonely Christopher and Richard. Do get someone to put their iPhone in video record mode at the very least, okay? That’s funny ‘cos I’ve been thinking I should try to listen to more older stuff ‘cos I’m in such a phrase of devouring the New these days. Godflesh is awesome, of course. Maybe I’ll go back and start there, come to think of it. But I don’t want to get evil or more evil, hm. You don’t seem evil, so maybe I’ll go ahead and take the chance. Bon everything, man. ** A.r., They/it kind of are, right? It’s fun to see you and Joe go back and forth on Saville. I’m starting to think I should do a post about him. ** _Black_Acrylic, The book is pretty good, yeah. Kind of wandery, but even that feels like it’s happening out of necessity. ** Bernard Welt, Yeah, I think that new ‘AbFab’ thing is coming to the US on some official TV channel or other soonish. I read that somewhere. ** Misanthrope, I get you on the tea thing. That makes sense. I almost kind of wish my tea drinking wasn’t a habit ‘cos it kind of has made me take tea for granted. I will not make an escort joke. I will not make an escort joke. That is weird. I agree with Joe that your job is wacked. Maybe you should do a blog post about it. I thought about adding a ‘ha ha’ there, but then I didn’t. Interesting. I hope what’s-her-butt gets assigned to DC longterm, obviously. I used to spend big wads at Xmas too when I had people around who I had to buy presents for. Like Cody. Every Xmas, I tried to buy him into being a cool and weird guy when he grew up. Seems like it worked or helped at least. ** Chris Cochrane, That Linton thing sounds nice, Oh, the Clock Tower. It’s still going? Awesome, cool place. Is that recording of the Nayland/Ish/you thing watchable by bystanders like me? I’ve always wanted to see it, natch. Yesterday I just listened to the stuff in the post above when I was checking to make sure the videos I imbedded were still there. ** Postitbreakup, Yeah, a few people wrote to me to congratulate me on that lifetime achievement award thing while I was asleep. I guess it’s very cool, but as it’s called the ‘Foer/Franzen’ Lifetime Achievement Award, it also seems like it could be mean or something. I’m going to go watch the stream of the awards ceremony thing and try to suss out Roggenbuck’s tone of voice when he gets to my award. Maybe I’ll do that now while I’m doing the p.s. Hold on. Okay, I’m watching it. Man, he talks really loud. I had to turn the volume down to almost the bottom. Anyway, in theory, yeah, that’s pretty cool, I hope. And other awesome people got awards too: xTx, Richard Chiem, Blake, Ofelia Hunt, etc. Thanks for your congrats. I hope next year is your alt lit gossip rewarding year. ** Chris Dankland, I have no tattoos. I’ve never thought of anything that I wanted to be attached to and saddled with for eternity. That tattoo you’re thinking of imbedding in yourself sounds really cool, I have to say. Yeah, nicer the more I think about it. Mm, it’s weird ‘cos I relate to Whitman’s Transcendentalist thing more than I do to Dickinson’s Isolationist thing, but I don’t really like Whitman’s poetry, and I do quite like Dickinson’s. That’s strange. Anyway, I say go for the tattoo. I feel no reservations while encouraging you to do that whatsoever. ** Statictick, Cool, you’re welcome. I’m sure Jeff thinks ‘you’re welcome’ too. I’m so sorry to hear about Moose being sick. Having little kids means one gets sick a lot more than un-childrened guys like us. Well, you get sick way too often too. Anyway, I sure hope it’s just some particularly vexing but brief winter- related thing and that it’s evaporating right now. Let me know what you hear from her, and I’ll check her FB wall too. ** Chilly Jay Chill, Hi, Jeff. Yeah, Coley’s a longtime treasure. It’s very cool how he has remained totally in touch with new music for so long. I thought The Wire’s best-of list was pretty reasonable. It made me go buy some stuff. I hadn’t heard and have just downloaded that latest Ferrero album, for instance. I think it’s interesting that The Wire loves that Reed/ Metallica album when so much virtually no other music review place can stand it. I haven’t listened to more than a fragment. I wonder if I should extend my experience. Have you heard it? What did you think of The Wire’s picks? I hope you’ve nailed the ending of the theater piece now. Endings, yikes. The only Mario Vargas Llosa books/stuff I’ve read haven’t done all that much for me, no. ‘The Cubs’ … I’ll try that. Nice title. But, yeah, his work has never instituted passion in me much at all. ** Steevee, Hi. Yeah, exactly, on the estate stuff. Sure, I’ve heard Francoise Hardy. I knew her work a little when I was living in the States, but I’ve become much more familiar since I’ve been over here. I don’t own anything other than a handful of tracks. I just hear songs there here and there a lot. I’ve liked everything I hear, pretty much. I think her singing/ interpreting is particular in an intriguing way, although I don’t know if I would have picked up on its specialness if I wasn’t so surrounded by the sounds of French chanteuses all the time. See what you think. ** Shannon, Thanks, Shannon! I want to be entirely ridiculous. That sounds so inviting. Any tips? Happy New Year three days early to you, buddy! ** Alan, Is that true about the plural of p.s.? It looks ugly. Or maybe it looks interesting and I’m just being afraid of the new. Let me try something. ‘p.ss.’ But my spellcheck just underscored that spelling with the fatal red line. Let me try ‘p.s.es’ Okay, that’s interesting. The spell check automatically changed it to ‘p.s.s’ How about that? ** Joakim Almroth, Hey, J! I’m doing good, I think. It’s kind of too cold outside, but, wow, here I am griping about cold to you who are probably frozen everytime you even slightly crack one of your windows right now. I feel like I’m being sloth-like too. I guess it doesn’t show up here. I have plans to get less sloth-like today, but I haven’t figured out to do that yet. I think it might have to involve a ride on the metro. Anyway, I hope your distractions are good ones. Love from your pal and collaborator, me. ** Oscar B, Hey! You know, until the night before last, it was really mild in the cold department, not that Kiddiepunk wouldn’t been complaining, ha ha, but now it’s actually pretty cold outside. So maybe this cold right now is a freak thing, and it’ll be all temperate again upon your return? Let’s hope so. How hot is Melbourne? Go ahead, tell me, I can handle it. ** Okay. Uh, yes, quite simply there was the article/scene report in the last issue of The Wire about the experimental music scene in Brisbane, and it sounded really interesting, so I researched it and its music makers and listened to a bunch of things, and, yes, it is very interesting, and, yes, as so often happens in cases like that, a post was born. Meet the Brisbane experimental music scene. Enjoy. See you tomorrow.

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Welcome back to DC’s Writers Workshop. This is the twelfth in a series of days on the blog where writers who are part of the blog’s community present work-in-progress in search of the opinions, responses, advice, and critiques of both readers who don’t normally post comments here and local inhabitants of this place. I ask everyone to please read these works with the same attention you give the normal brand of posts here and respond in some way in the comments section below. Obviously, the closer your attention and the more you’re able and willing to say to the writer the better. But any kind of related comment is welcome, even a simple sentence or two indicating you read the piece of writing and felt something or other about it would be helpful. The only guideline I’m going to give out regarding comments is that any response, whether lengthy or brief, praise filled or critical or anywhere inbetween, should be presented in a spirit of helping the writer in question. I’ll be responding to the work too in the Comments section towards the end of the weekend. So, I guess all of that is probably clear. Giving support to the artists of different kinds who read and post on the blog has always been a very important aspect of this project, and this workshop series represents an opportunity to make that aspect more formal and explicit. This weekend’s workshop features a new short story by Postitbreakup — writer, blog/site proprietor, and one of this blog’s longtime distinguished locals. He asks for any thoughts, support, or criticism you can give him. I thank him greatly for entrusting his work to us, and I thank you all in advance for your kind participation. — D.C.

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p.s. Hey. So, yes, please give your attention, thoughts, and some commentary to Postitbreakup’s short story this weekend. I would appreciate it greatly, and, obviously, so will he. I’ll pipe in with my own comments towards the end of Sunday. Thanks very much! I got okay sleep last night. My jetlag is sort of just a fuzz so far. We’ll see. D.l.s Joakim Almroth and Disco 3-way are in Paris, and I get to hang out with them today. I’ll tell them hi for you. ** Thursday ** Sypha, Hi. ‘Death Note’ … that’s a TV thing or what? I’ll find out. Thanks. I kind of want a movie theater franchise too. Some kind of quality populist dependable thing. Hm. Oh, you’re playing that Skyrim game. A few people I know are in its midst. I would play that in less than a heartbeat if there wasn’t so much battling and fighting all the time. It looks incredible. The ‘American Psycho’ remake is, obviously, an incredibly stupid, ghastly idea. I’m sure you know they’re going to set it now rather than in the ’80s. Why would Bret agree to that? I’m completely confused. ** Bernard Welt, Well, it was supposed to be a 5-way gang banging orgy type of deal, but none of us was able to make any of the rest of us hard, so it’s kind of a soft core deal. ** Posing at the Louvre, Hey, buddy! Yeah, I got the email/post, and it’s super awesome, and I’m very grateful, and I’ll give you the launch date very shortly. Some people have found melatonin helpful for jet lag. I take it every night, so I don’t know if it helps or not. I’ve scoured the net, airwaves, my fellow afflicted, you name it, for any help on that gruesome condition, and I’ve never found a thing that makes much difference. From Europe to LA is, whoa, hard. My strategy is just the simple one of doing what it takes to stay awake until at least 9 pm the first night. In my experience, the first night isn’t so bad, so you might be okayish for the thing you need to do. It’s the second night onwards when the lag really kicks in. Serious sympathy and hugs, man, but I would guess you’ll be okay. ** MANCY, Hey. Thanks, man. Wow, very cool that your friend’s band played with later era Sky Saxon. I had a few brief encounters with him in the 90s, and trippy is the word. I know of The Birds, but I’m not sure that I’ve ever actually heard them. If they’re kind of like The Creation, I’m definitely geared to dig them. I’ll hunt. Thanks again! ** Killer Luka, Who’s JKR? I know I’m going to slap myself and go ‘duh’ when you tell me. I do remember you talking about ‘House of Dolls’, sure. Well, it sounds intriguing to ay the least. I’ve already started looking into doing a Stalag post. Maybe I’ll have beginners luck. So, I’m guessing that bacon flavored floss tastes more like Bacos? I love Bacos. I eat them like popcorn. ** Kyler, The first cigarette post long flight is always a mixed blessing, which is strange. I think in my case it’s because I wear a nicotine patch when I fly, and so the reunion with my cigarettes feels more like a detour. Well, cool, about your novel. Look forward to it. G’morning. ** Pilgarlic, Hey. Great Garage Rock stories, man. I knew I could count on you. I saw Tommy James/ Shondells at one of those festival situation you describe, i.e. at a big, very hip LA rock festival in the late ’60s. Devonshire Downs, for the record. Same deal with groans upon their arrival and then a gradually won-over enthusiasm. That Tommy James fella was kind of a pop rock genius. The band on the bill at DD that arrived to groans and did the opposite of winning the crowd over was Creedence Clearwater, who did not sound good when one was tripping, not even in their famous attempt at trippiness, ‘Suzie Q’. Super glad the rehab has started and is making you feel good. Great! ** Bollo, Hey. I don’t when that NYT thing comes out. If I find out in advance, I’ll let you know. Soonish, I guess. Nice Xmas gift there, man. Nice lil brother. I’ve flown Air France so often lately that I ended up running out of movies that I could tolerate watching on that last flight. I did watch ‘Submarine’, which I liked ok. Still, how many more movies like less daring ‘Rushmore’ clones with a stick up their butts are people going to make? You hate Love? That’s crazy talk. I don’t even know what to say to that. Holy shit. ** Ken Baumann, Ken! Yeah, I mean, I walked to the photo studio (Chelsea Piers) in the rain from SoHo and they didn’t powder me or anything. I just wrote down that Lebanese restaurant’s name for future NYC reference. Cool. I ate at this kind of very good noodle place, Kelley & Ping. Greene Street between Houston and Prince. It’s been there for almost forever. Good stuff. My caffeine comedown is pretty mild. It doesn’t get emotional for me. It’s just a slow energy drain thing. I probably drink a lot more coffee more regularly than you do, and my body has probably built up some kind of defense system against the let down part. That sounds awful. How are you with sugar, sugar rushes, post-sugar come down? ** Misanthrope, Didn’t meet Amis, no. I hear he’s super short. I’ve met people who’ve known him a little, and some say he’s nice, and some say he’s a total prick, so maybe he’s both. I’m happy that, within your top 5 writers photo shoot, I’m still the weirdo of the bunch. Thank you! I’m starting to get this ‘Twin Peaks’ vibe from your work situation, which is not a bad thing, obviously. It was big Jim’s birthday two days ago? I’ll bet Pere Lachaise was hopping. ** Alan, Ooh, that sounds good. ‘Possession’. I’ll get myself an uncensored torrent from somewhere, you bet. I’m not too lagged, thanks. I’m really glad to hear you’re submitting the novel. Yeah, diligence, stay the course, don’t let any rejections you might receive mean much of anything to you. It’ll happen. ** Steevee, You saw ‘Possession’ too. Hm, yeah, it sounds well worth seeing. Thanks! ** David kelso-housman, I don’t think I’ll be writing any blockbusters. If I ever speak of such a goal, I hope someone here shakes me back to my senses. In fact, if I ever speak of wanting to write any kind of ‘genre’ book, even a YA book, I’ll expect a wake up call from people here. Originally, my Horror Hospital story was going to be the beginning of a YA kind of novel, but as I had apparently already crossed the no-no line within about six sentences, according to my agent, it never happened. ** James, Hey, James. I was put up at the Mondrian Hotel, Soho, on Crosby St. just south of Grand St. New, chic, but not obnoxious about it. If you ever stay there, ask for a room high up and on the corner of the building. That’s what I had. Really, the walls — or two of them — were windows. Crazy view. Love to you too, bud. ** Bill, Hi. The flight was okay. Great that you got to see Bill Jones. Yeah, he’s terrific, as is his work. 40+ dronesters? Excuse me if I get excited by that prospect. Can you say more? Will you do a sound drone or a visual drone or both or … ? ** Friday ** Marc Vallée, Hey, Mark. Yeah, Cameron is trying to bring down Europe singlehandedly, ha ha. Good luck with that one. Oh, Dom Lyne, awesome! He’s great! That’s fantastic that you guys are going to work together. How is that going to work? I would love to see the results, obviously. Give him a hug for me. Very cool! ** David Ehrenstein, Thanks for the Buckaroo hologram link. I remember that now. Nice. Very, very sad about Gilbert Adair’s death. Amazing guy for so many reasons. His Perec translations alone are totally heroic. RIP. ** David kelso-housman, Oh, ‘Wild Palms’. Back when TV took some chances briefly in the light of the initial popularity of ‘Twin Peaks’. ** Steevee, Hm, I’ll give Jacques Vallee a look. I don’t know his stuff at all. ** _Black_Acrylic, Nice to be back, thanks! Great about finishing your YnY article. The anticipation builds. Bawbag is quite a word for a scrotum. Wow. I’ve got to use that somewhere. ** Chris Cochrane, Hi, C. Well, Ira’s job change affects me in that he’s not my agent anymore. I have a new one now. It’s great for him, but it is weird ‘cos he had been my agent from the beginning, and I’ve always relied on his advice and counsel. Even though he’s younger than me, it kind of feels like losing a parental figure. But my new agent is going to be great, I think. That Fight Magazine thing isn’t online, right? All I could find was the issue’s cover. I do know ‘River of Orchids’, yes, and it is a very swell song, I agree. Bon weekend, my friend. ** Shannon, Hey, Shannon. I slept okay, thank goodness. Tonight’s the real test. Great, thank you for the link to your essay! I’ll read it when I’m done with the p.s. Everyone, it was mentioned here the other day that a nonfiction piece by the ultra-fine writer and d.l. Shannon has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and she has kindly linked us up. I very highly recommend that you go read it, ‘cos she’s awesome. She has a little pre-reading advice for potential readers, and here it is in her words: ‘Fair warning, if anyone does not want to read true words about my pussy don’t read this piece. It’s an essay about the first girl to ever make me squirt.’ Okay, now head over there. Can’t wait to read the piece. It’s fantastic that you’re on a writing jag. I’m sure someone will want those new pieces, strange or not. If places are foolish enough not to grab them, listen, this blog would be honored to have any of them anytime. ** Chilly Jay Chill, Hi, Jeff. I don’t know when the photo thing will run, but maybe I’ll be told in advance, and I’ll let you know, if so. Split on ‘Gummo’ is better than I expected based on their reticence with the other films you showed. No, I don’t know that Coleman Dowell novel. I think I’ve only read his diaries. I’ve been meaning to read his fiction for yonks, so maybe I’ll try that one first. Have a free as a bird weekend, pal. ** Okay. Now, please do spend some time with Postitbreakup’s short story over the next couple of days, and please give him your thoughts, however brief or in depth. I’ll see you in the comments arena on late-ish Sunday, and I’ll see you back here on Monday morning.