Archive - Oct 2005

First the USB connector in my handy little portable hard drive broke. And now my DVD burner is making funny sounds. Not happy.

You heard it first here on living, breathing, dancing... Jhuny is coming home for a limited time. Twelve and a half days, to be specific. So get in early to book a time to see me...

Tags: Jhuny, Travel, Northern Territory.

Typical. I've been trying to find Madonna's new song to download and so far all i could find is a handful of mashups courtesy of HOW TO KILL THE DJ.

Don't worry, Maddy, I was always going to buy your new song. Honest! I just couldn't wait for you to release it! And, besides, your new *song* is like a mashup anyway (nevermind the fact that Hung Up doesn't exist as a standalone song independent of Gimme Gimme Gimme), does it matter that someone else thought that your lyrics sounded better with New Order rather than ABBA? The mashing up of Madonna with Gwen Stefani is particularly interesting (even if the actual mashup isn't so exciting): when I first saw the filmclip for No Doubt's Don't Speak I couldn't help but notice the similarity between the upcoming pop-rock-ette Stefani with the then fading Queen of pop Ciccone. Nowadays, while Gwen (the New Madonna) is pilfering eighties sounds, Madonna (the Old Madonna) is just blatantly ripping them out intact, which I guess is even more "now", more "pop", where innovation is to find the best samples and to use them in the cleverest way. Today SP brought into the studio a really cool eighties mix that has the track that contains that "Music makes you lose control" sample that Missy Elliott uses.

Pop has well and truly eaten itself, but we already knew that. I just want someone to please point me to the proper version.

Tags: Mashup, Madonna, Hung Up.

Diamanda Galas - Guilty Guilty Guilty
The State Theatre, 21 October 2005

I had tried to explain to YB what I was going to see. Considering she is also a vocalist slash pianist (slash dancer...) skewed a couple of degrees anti-clockwise from the rest of us, I figured she might be a bit interested. Couldn't quite do it. Explain Diamanda. And after seeing her show I still can't.

I had expected the screeching and the wailing, the dark and morbid themes. Somehow having her at the State Theatre, a venue of such excessive, dramatic and opulent features, seemed quite appropriate even though I didn't really know what to expect. JPB wasn't sure if I would like her but a couple of seconds into her performance I knew I was watching something special.

I wasn't expecting her to be so bluesy, though. And unexpectedly humourous, too, launching into a jaunty little ditty about how her baby was a bit insane, and her version of I Put A Spell On You is wickedly and disturbingly funny. With her much-spoken-of four-octave range she begins from the pit of her stomach to soar to operatic heights only to crow like some possessed rooster, sometimes all in one very long breath. And the songs are so dark one can only wonder what kind of relationships she has had in her life to sing like this. She uses some audio effects; an everpresent echo throughout the show, the occasional incomprehensible chattering voices trailing her lyrics, and in one song her piano sounding like its from some 50's B-grade sci-fi - nothing too overwhelming though it makes me wonder what the show would be like, completely stripped back to just vocals and piano. Considering what she does with her voice, is there really a need for F/X?

Offstage, Galas is reportedly quite unlike her onstage tortured persona. Pleasant and quite likable (shouldn't really be that much of a surprise though, I find it is quite often the case that the performer doesn't usually correspond to the performance). She was gracious in her curtain call, extremely modest in her onstage badinage, and she took two encores. The next day I tried to explain to YB what I had seen but could only describe it as "Gothic Blues" which doesn't quite sum it all up. I guess you just had to be there.

Tags: Diamanda Galas, Guilty Guilty Guilty, State Theatre.

Sure. I'm a bit desperate for things to write about at the moment. There's only so much I want to publicly write about JPB, work is slowly winding it's way down for the end of the year with a handful of shows to go, and I don't have much time for anything else. Greg sent me this via group email which is soooo last year. So this will have to do for now...

1. What time did you get up this morning?
6:30, 7:15, 7:25, 7:35...

2. Diamonds or pearls?
Diamonds. They are a testament to the wonder of the element Carbon.

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema?
Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of The Were-Rabbit. Funny, clever and awfully cute.

4. What is your favourite TV show?
I've gone a bit off TV at the moment. I'd have to say Queer As Folk but that's only by default, it's the only show that I'm regularly watching at the moment.

5. What did you have for breakfast?
JPB prepared for me two slices of toast with honey this morning.

6. What is your middle name?
I'm not saying...

7. What is your favourite food?
Ice cream.

8. What food do you dislike?
There really isn't alot that I wouldn't eat...

9. What is your favourite crisp flavour?
Salt and Vinegar!!!

10. What is your favourite CD at the moment?
Goldfrapp - Supernature.

11. What kind of car do you drive?
A white Mazda 323 Sedan.

12. Favourite sandwich ?
Anything with beetroot.

13. What characteristic do you despise?
Selfishness. Not to say that I'm not...

14. Favourite item of clothing?
My brand new white and gold Puma Future Cat Low shoes. Sleek, cool and comfy.

15. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go?
Europe. I'm not fussy, it's all good (or at the very least near something that's good).

16. What colour is your bathroom?
White tiles and off-white paint that's cracked and peeling. Maroon concrete floor. Pink towels.

17. Favourite brand of clothing?
Syke. And G-Star, if I could afford it.

18. Where would you retire to?
Wouldn't have a clue. Darwin?

19. Favourite time of the day?
Dinner time.

20. What was your most memorable birthday?
My twenty-eighth. Mainly because it's my most recent. Also because we had a day off, I was meeting up with people all day to celebrate. The next day we went on a harbour cruise as part of work, it was a beautiful day. On the weekend I went out (with ST) and got some birthday action.

21. Where were you born?
Manila, The Phillipines.

22. Favourite sport to watch?
Tennis, NRL and Gymnastics.

23. Who do you least expect to send this back to you?
No one because I'm not sending it out to anyone.

24. Person you expect to send it back first?
see the answer to Question 23

25. What detergent do you use?
Green Clean. I think that's what it's called. Or whatever they have in the laundry room at the studio.

26. Coke or Pepsi?
COCA COLA!

27. Are you a morning person or a night owl?
Night Owl.

28. What is your shoe size?
UK9

29. Do you have any pets?
No.

30. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share with your family & friends?
I've got a great boyfriend that I love very much.

31. What did you want to be when you were little?
An Astronomer.

Right. I'm off to see Compagnie Jant-Bi's Fagaala. Tomorrow night I'm seeing Diamanda Galas at the State Theatre. Saturday I'm performing in Roseville. There's a few posts waiting to happen!

JPB said he had a surprise for me and led me up to his room. This is what I found:

(point at the pictures to see what the labels say)

Aww... It's the sweetest thing yet, even better than key-swapping and leaving toothbrushes.

The next day, Jonathan Cainer has this to say to me:

Tuesday, 18th October 2005 What goes up must come down. Unless, that is, it happens to be a rocket, capable of defying the earth's gravity. Such vessels only have to come back if their pilots want them to. They can float in space forever if they are not deliberately drawn down again. You are launching a satellite. Or rather, you are pursuing what you hope will be a permanent plan. You are setting a process in motion which, you feel sure, ought to continue for the rest of your life. You are a little scared in case it fails to fulfil its promise. But it will.

It hasn't been long but it's been brilliant.

I wandered down to the Sydney Theatre box office to get two tickets to Stephen Petronio's The Gotham Suite after JPB tried to deal with their really annoying online box office (it seems to select seats for you closer to the stage whereas I would prefer more to be seated closer to the middle and, especially for dance, I would normally prefer to have some distance from the stage) and was pleasantly surprised to find that they had a two-for-one offer. Hooray for me! Really bad news for them, though. But it's not much of a surprise: at $69 a pop it's more than what you would pay for mainstream high-profile Australian contemporary dance such as SDC or ADT and almost places it in the realms of the Ballet. Not to say that that Stephen Petronio's dancers were less deserving of your money than a ballet dancer, on the contrary, those dancers were working pretty damned hard!

The Sydney Theatre online box office would have you believe that there were now only a limited number of seats left but, having chosen seats for JPB and I the middle of row N over seats to the left in row L, we found that there was absolutely no-one sitting behind us! What a shame. And how many people know that you can buy two tickets for the price of one, when the online box office doesn't mention it at all?

I was always intending to go to see this show at $69 anyway but at $34.50 each (as well as sitting next to the one you love) it's an absolute bargain that deserves much more attention than it's getting. Petronio's choreography is fast, full-bodied, and highly detailed and its amazing to see these dancers that have so completely mastered it. Makes me wanna get up and swing my head around while catapulting myself across the room. That being said, again it's a case of: Good dancers, shame about the dance Petronio goes from starkly abstract to rock-song-lyric literalism with no middle ground. One minute it's like a fractal: impossibly detailed but with little being expressed besides what you make of it. Next, it's like a connect-the-dots: the song words tell you what's going on. I want to see a painting. SDC's Petronio-choreographed Underland was a much more coherent production (though I do recall being a bit frustrated by that work as well.)

Not a bad show. But I wanted to see something that was more deserving of the dancers' abilities. It seems to want to say something but, to me anyway, doesn't quite get there.

Tags: Dance, Stephen Petronio, The Gotham Suite, Sydney Theatre.

Start The Dance 3
Originally uploaded by Jhuny.

Previous: Club SP

As with the last mix, my intention was to complete this compilation on tour as well. Had I actually copied the required files onto my laptop I could have done it. It's been difficult since getting back from tour to finish it because of all the time I've spent with JPB. One weekend I resorted to perservering with the laptop (at half the normal amount of memory because, post new hard drive installation, it simply doesn't like having more than one stick of memory in it) at JPB to get it done, only to find that I didn't like what I did.

Anyway, I've been wanting to do a mix of nineties house and garage tunes and, prior to the tour, it was going really well. I'd gotten my hands on a whole bunch of acapellas, I was raring to go. But I just can't seem to quite get it right. I love it from Hideaway to Deeper And Deeper, and the mashup of Britney with Size 9's "I'm Ready" seems to work pretty well (although I'm sure that a more talented masher would be able to do a better, crazier job). I'm also happy about ending it with C&C Music Factory's "Just A Touch Of Love", which was my overall favourite song of 1990. I haven't decided if Vanilla Ice really fits where it is, the two *songs* after Deeper and Deeper seem like a cop-out, and I was really hoping that I could fit in Crystal Waters' "100% Pure Love" in there somewhere (maybe over the top of Aretha Franklin).

Quite possibly I was aiming for something more than I'm capable of. Hopefully by the time I get to Start The Dance 20 I'll get it right.

Tracklisting:
1. (Intro)
2. Beyonce - Work It Out
3. Sub Sub ft Melanie Williams - Ain't No Love, Ain't No Use
4. Snap - The Power
5. Vanilla Ice - Ice Ice Baby
6. De'Lacy - Hideaway
7. C&C Music Factory - Do You Wanna Get Funky
8. Black Box - Strike It Up
9. Livin' Joy - Dreamer
10. Aretha Franklin - A Deeper Love
11. Aretha Franklin - A Deeper Mix
12. Madonna - Deeper And Deeper
13. Eve Gallagher - You Can Have It All
14. Robin S - Show Me Love
15. Britney Spears - I'm A Slave 4 U
16. Staxx - Joy
17. Black Box - Everybody Everybody
18. C&C Music Factory - Just A Touch Of Love (Everyday)

In there is M People "Open Your Heart" and Size 9 "I'm Ready", not to mention multiple mixes of the listed tracks all mixed up.

Tags: Mix, Start The Dance, nineties, House.

STC Blueprints and The Malthouse Theatre co-presents an Australian adaptation of Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis.

All I knew about the work was that it was about a guy who wakes up to find that he's turned into a bug. Who knew that he meant that the character ACTUALLY turns into a bug, it's not a metaphor for the way he feels or the way his life is going. He actually becomes a creepy crawly thing that leaves goo all over the walls. And here's me only just dealing with the idea of a metaphor, after this weekend's weekly horoscope in The Weekend Australian that said that I have just found the perfect pair of jeans, that fit perfectly, that has the perfect butt and the perfect crotch... (JPB tried to explain to me that the jeans are a metaphor but I just wanted to go shopping...)

So anyway, it's an absurd idea, turning into a bug overnight. I spent a good few minutes trying to decide which bits of the work were similarly odd but everything seemed quite familiar (if a couple of degrees off reality). What, the family are not intrigued about how a man can turn into a bug, they are just concerned with how gross he is. We could have been watching some bizarre parody of Neighbours, there was quite alot of commentary about suburban Australia in this adaptation. Except that there's this bug.

The bug was pretty impressive, though. Sorry, don't know his name. He didn't REALLY look like a bug but he had a certain bug-like quality when he moved around the room. There was a little bit of physical theatre thrown in to complete the effect as well, nothing too energetic, just a couple of precarious balances and wall-climbing. Poor thing, really, what happened to that character. The breadwinner one day, ugly and repulsive the next. We'd expect people to have a breakdown when being the sole provider for such a dysfunctional family, but not to turn into a bug.

Anyway, it was funny and manic. And clever. Not being too familiar with the original story I'm not sure what exactly is adapted bits, though it would be safe to presume that the original family didn't talk about taking the bridge to Auckland. Neither did the daughter hope to make it to the Australian Idol final twelve. But was the original mother so obsessed with cleaning because of her asthma? (the theory goes that there's a link between hyper-cleanliness and the asthma *epidemic*, and the image of the mother keeping her suburban house clean with Enjo and all sorts of cleaning products is so familiar) Certainly the original family themselves were just as repugnant as these modern-day suburbanites that are able to completely reject a member of their family just because he has become grotesque and unintelligible, so obsessed they are with the superficial.

Two thumbs up.

Tags: Theatre, The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka, Sydney Theatre.

On Saturday JPB and I got invited to go to a BBQ at the apartments on top of Oxford Square. From floor fifteen, Oxford Street actually looks quite pretty (It's a shame that I didn't bring my camera!) especially knowing what it looks like at street level. No trash, no scum, and that's just the people. You can barely make out the litter and the worn-out pavement from that high up, it's all about the trees and the car headlights, reflecting off the windows of the buildings along the street. Pretty.

Being higher up, the view isn't quite as good as the skyscraper panorama from the Burton Street roof-top (there is no Harbour Bridge from this address) but it has some things in common. Horizon, that wavy white monstrosity is seems even more obtuse at this distance, it's so abrupt, it just comes out of nowhere, and just because some rich people want to see the ocean from the centre of town. And Oxford Street is several orders of magnitude more luminous than anything else around.

After a few bottles of wine, stumbling back up the road and it's back to reality: crazy people, construction and chaos. I have to move back to the East!

Tags: Oxford Street, Sydney

Update: Got pictures!!!

See? Pretty.