Music

Okay this blog is all a bit Clan this and Clan that. Time for me to talk about something different.

Like, what's on my iPod?

Yes I do listen to a hell of alot of mashups, to the point where I sometimes don't even recall how the originals go. Is that a bad thing? Oh well. Currently the ones that are getting the most iPod time are these tasty eighties-flavoured ones:

- Cassie vs Yazoo - Me & You & Yazoo (DJ Matt Hite Extended Mashup)
Case in point. I can't quite recall how Cassie's Me & You goes but from what I remember I think it was pretty boring.
- Yeah Yeah Yeahs vs Madonna - Do Ya Want My Burning Heart (DJ Paul V Final Mix)
- Falco vs Sean Paul - Temperature Calling (DJ Schmolli Mashup)
- Madonna vs Cassius - Toop Toop Groove (Loo & Placido Mashup)
- The Cure vs The Boomtown Rats vs New Order - Don't Like Mondays, It's Friday (Go Home Productions Club Mix)
- Wolfmother vs Gnarls Barkley - Daddy and The Thief (team9 Mashup)

After compiling that little list I've decided that I really need to update my iPod! Some of these are pretty old.

Anyway. On to *real* music.
- Mika has a terribly cute album at the moment in Life in Cartoon Motion. It would be rude to say that Mika is ripping off Scissor Sisters because, hey, Jake and his mates are too busy *taking inspiration* from heaps of other acts (and doing a darn good job of it, let it be said). But it's hard not to make that comparison, especially when he does tracks like Relax, Take It Easy. But I do love it when he "tries a little Freddy", Grace Kelly instantly puts a smile on my face, it's a great way to start the day.

- Forget about the gay guy that's friends with the gay guy that used to live with that red head chick in Manhattan and think more what a Robbie Williams album would sound like if it was produced by The Streets and that would sort of come close to describing Just Jack's Overtones. Ooops, did I just offend you Jacko? It's not true! You're alot more laid back, less aggressive, but just as observant as Skinno. Especially love the dramatic strings in Mourning Morning. And I Talk Too Much has a great 8-bit C64-style intro.

- Speaking of the C64, how's about the whole furphy with Nelly Furtado and Timbaland ripping off some obscure track remixed for the C64. See the evidence here, and Timbaland's response here. How hard is it to acknowledge your sources? I like what he's done (in fact the whole "Nelly slutting herself off to the mainstream" has grown on me enormously since the last Sound Observation) but, geez, how hard is it to footnote and post that cheque?

And that is all, for now...

Anyone who saw the Australian Dance Awards last year would be familiar with movement and the design of this but it all works well with the music too. Soon to be broadcast on TV soon but you can enjoy it here.

Mr Jigga - Garage Party
Directed and Choreographed by Anton, DILM Films
Produced By Gavin Jarrett
SFX Owen Norling
Performed by Dirty Feet
Shot By Dean Tocchini and Evan Papagergiou

I had installed an audio feature to allow y'all to download my mixes but unfortunately posted the link to Blentwell. The result being a massive increase in downloads which shut down the site. Oops!

Lucky for me it all happened near the end of the month so I only had to wait a couple of days for the bandwidth usage level to reset. Even so, I was anxious to have it offline even for that short amount of time. Just in case I have disabled the download feature for now, which is a real shame because I really wanted to have it all come from here. So much for trying to get a little bit of extra traffic!

But do enjoy the mixes, even if they are being kept elsewhere!

Sydney Festival 2007
Wow it's been a terrific start to the year in Sydney. As far as festivals go, it's right up there with the time when Stephen Page was running the show in Adelaide and Bangarra was the headline show... thankfully we didn't have to perform here in Sydney so I got to see heaps of things. And what a program it was! Here is my top five festival events:

5. Lou Reed - Berlin
Not my cup of tea, to be sure, but the musicianship was unquestionably good. Guest vocalist Antony, who was here for last year's festival, blew us away again, with his soaring voice. It was standing room only at The State but it was worth it.

4. Australian Dance Theatre - Devolution
The dancers of ADT are superhuman and are appropriately matched with the un-human robots. It was like we were on board the Nostromo, battling Aliens. It's undeniably spectacular, ambitious and mind-blowing but, like the soundtrack, it all runs at volume eleven. Halfway through you become thankful for the beautiful calm projections, as if someone had turned the volume down to about three, so that you can take a moment to breathe again. Strangely enough, and in contrast to alot of other reactions to this work, I wanted to see more robots, or at least more interaction with them. The two large robots entering the dance space to inspect the dancers, and the large tentacle-like robotic appendages protruding from the dancers' torsos were highlights, teasing the audience to believe that we would actually see a devolution where the dancers would become totally integrated with the robotic mechanisms. It never happens, though, instead we get to see an explosive finale full of daring acrobatics at warp speed. Am I expecting too much from them already?

The next three I couldn't decide between them so they're all equal first!

=1. Back To Back Theatre - Small Metal Objects
This production turns the theatrical experience on its head and manages to effortlessly deal with improbable contradictions in less than an hour. It is sad and funny at the same time. The audience becomes the stage for random passers-by to watch as we laugh at them and their silly human ways. Actors intermingle through a sea of *real people* in transit, some intrigued by the spectacle of a full audience stand while others simply ignore it as they get on with their lives. As one of the performers stares blankly into the audience (he's a bit wrong in the head, apparently) he becomes a people magnet, attracting the passers-by to stop and watch us, oblivious to the fact that there's a personal drama being acted out in this most public of places, The Circular Quay train station. You can't help but laugh when tourists stop to take photos of us, and there was a hilarious moment when a couple of toddlers took the opportunity to run up to the audience and do their own little performance. Seemingly incongruous to the fact that we are watching a rather large drug deal but, then again, where better to supply gear than a train station? (not like I'd know) Intriguing theatre.

=1. Lucy Guerin Company - Structure and Sadness
Guerin amasses a talent pool of dancers to match ADT but the production is on a much smaller scale, the cold robotic metal replaced with the ordinary slabs of wood. But boy is she meticulous about the wood! I could watch the dancers build that house-of-cards structure all night, knowing that the domino-like collapse of the building was inevitable. And unlike ADT, Guerin delivers on the title of her work: there is a structure and, after it collapses, there is sadness. Simple, really. There's also rebuilding, a coming-to-terms with the disaster, that's quite touching.

=1. La Clique
The Tennis-Racquet guy was especially hilarious. This was a perfectly entertaining piece of theatre, perfectly staged, and was amazing the whole way through. I felt like I had gone back in time, to the era of burlesque theatre (whatever era that was...)

Not to forget:
Akhe Russian Engineering Theatre - White Cabin: No discernible story. More like an excuse to get onstage and get drunk whilst spilling lots of wine and burning things and getting a bit wet. I have no idea what I saw but was more than happy to experience it. Those crazy Russians!

Akram Khan, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Antony Gormley and Nitin Sawhney - zero degrees
This could have been a good work but I went on opening night at The Carriageworks and, along with about 95% of the audience, couldn't see what was going on. Thankfully it all got sorted by the time I went to see ADT. Love the venue besides...

Tags: Sydney Festival, Dance, Theatre, Music, Australian Dance Theatre, Lou Reed, Antony, Back To Back Theatre, Lucy Guerin, La Clique.

• Madonna's film clip for Get Together looks like a Winamp visualization.
• Nelly Furtado's Promiscuous is so ordinary, it could have been done by any one of the BEP wannabes. I'd rather she'd just released Man Eater worldwide, though you've got to appreciate the effort of releasing three different tracks for different markets. No wonder she was reduced to silly little giggles on Rove the other night...
• I prefer tone396's version of Lily Allen's Smile better than the official release version.  It's such a cute song, though.
• They had a report on Ten (?) last night about there being too many sexy music videos like Pussycat Dolls' Buttons but, to illustrate their point, they included a clip of The Aphex Twin's Windowlicker which was was strange choice to make and in any case they should have shown the part where the women all start to morph into the Twin himself.  Hot.

A random on-the-spot list of hot songs of the moment:

• Mary J Blige and U2 - One
• Lily Allen - Smile (tone396)
• Beyonce ft Jay-Z - Déjà Vu
• Scissor Sisters - Don't Feel Like Dancing
• Londonbeat vs Moby - Thinking About Lifting You (DJ Tripp mashup) (though I have to say that Moby's vocals really shit me; it's not uplifting, it's a dirge. I do like the beats, though, and thank god Londonbeat come back to pick it all up again...)

Technorati Tags: music, pop

Choreography doesn't get any better than this!

Tags: music, video, OK Go, treadmills, choreography.

I finally made it to Katherine last night (big ordeal, tell ya about it later...) It's always like going back in time, nothing much changes. Oh sure we might have different dogs but at least their names don't change. And while the furniture is as uncomfortable as ever, at least there's always a new television or hi-fi component in the living room (this time a huge widescreen CRT which runs rings around LCDs and especially Plasma).

I was digging through all my old stuff and came across a book that I kept a weekly top 10 favourite songs through 1990 (in 1991 it expanded to a top 20). I even had a point system whereby I could collate the year's top songs and even assigned gold and (multi) platinum status to long endurance tracks. Fifteen years ago the chart looked like this (don't laugh!):

15 December 1990
(9) 10. DNA ft Suzanne Vega - Tom's Diner
(6) 9. Dee-Lite - Groove is in the Heart
(8) 8. Kylie Minogue - Step Back in Time
(10) 7. Technotronic - Wave
(RE) 6. Jean Michel Jarre - Equinox
(4) 5. Vanilla Ice - Ice Ice Baby
(5) 4. Jean Michel Jarre - Industrial Revolution
(3) 3. Snap - Cult Of Snap
(1) 2. Technotronic - Megamix
(2) 1. Betty Boo - Doin' The Do

Let me explain: Jean Michel Jarre was only in the charts because some boy that I had a crush on started listening to it so, voila the Jarre-meister makes a mid-chart entry. Bad move. Apart from that, everyone thought that my taste in music sucked but I thought I was too cool.

Anyway, the year-end chart went a bit like this
G 10. MC Hammer - U Can't Touch This
G 9. Young MC - Bust A Move
G 8. Kylie Minogue - Better The Devil You Know
G 7. Starlight - Numero Uno
1P 6. Technotronic - Megamix
1P 5. Rococo - Megamix
2P 4. Madonna - Vogue
2P 3. Technotronic - Pump Up The Jam
2P 2. Technotronic - Get Up
4P 1. 49'ers - Touch Me

Sure, I had a thing for crappy girly Euro-housey stuff but, hey there's classic Kylie and Madonna in there! The rest of that chart went past 100 and also included alot of Paula Abdul, Grandmaster Chicken and DJ Duck's Check Out The Chicken and two different versions of Lambada.

Oi! Stop laughing! Things have gotten better: stay tuned for the Top 50 of 2005...

Tags: Music, Pop, House, Charts, Retro.

I told Pandora that I liked Kylie Minogue and after supposing the reasons why I would listen to that kind of music (it features "pop rock qualities, electronica influences, a subtle use of vocal harmony, mild rhythmic syncopation and extensive vamping"... well, yeah, I guess so...) she gives me a track called Sugar Daddy by Laika: kinda nice in a airy-fairy kind of way. Then she gives me Britney's I'm a Slave 4 U. Umm... no... not quite... After a crap electro-pop cover by The Pussycat Dolls and some Euro-crap courtesy of Cynthia (who?) I'm thinking I need to give Pandora a bit more information.

"I also like M.I.A.

"Is M.I.A. an artist or a song title?

"An artist

So now Pandora thinks I like certain songs because they feature "danceable beats, a highly synthetic sonority, prevalent use of groove and many other similarities identified in the music genome project". Whatever. The second track sucked. She's got alot to learn about Jhuny...

Tags: Music, Pop, Music Genome Project, Pandora.

Update: A bit of Goldfrapp and a bit of Depeche Mode and, by golly gosh I think she's starting to get the hang of it!

Update: Radio Romance by Tiffany? Pandora has a sense of humour!

Update: Now this is getting scary. And this is after telling Pandora that I also like Goldfrapp and Bjork. She's now playing Kim Wilde's You Came. I hate to admit it but I really did like this song (as well as the Tiffany song) when it first came out. What's the connection?

I'm not a particularly big fan of Madonna's music. I can't get passionate about the music she puts out there. I think her persona is far more fascinating for me and for a lot of people.

- Alison Goldfrapp

You make a few well-timed comments about Madonna and suddenly there's alot more interest about you than usual. In Goldfrapp's case, Madonna takes a few pointers from you ("Like It Or Not", a track off the latest album that I'm starting to like more...), you make a few comments and suddenly everyone's asking questions. Or, in my case, you devote some blog space talking about Madonna's new single and album and suddenly your hits counter is going ballistic or, more realistically, it splutters around the 50 per day mark and then goes all quiet again. Kylie doesn't have that kind of effect, even after talking about the televised snippets of her Showgirl concert. And now that the initial excitement about Madonna's new album has died down a bit I don't know if this desperate ditch for hits will attract that kind of attention again.

It's been on my mind for a while now: What do I have to do to get hits? As a gay blog there aren't nearly enough pictures of naked men and stories of exciting sexcapades to entice the pink readers but I just simply don't want to do that. In terms of pop culture I guess my taste lies in the no-man's-land between the overly maintstream and the downright geeky. And contemporary dance has never had a large audience, on stage or in blog space. Sure, I started this thing (almost twelve months ago now!) for my own interest but now that there is a bit of an audience out there, why not try to get MORE of an audience? Without losing the "essence of Jhuny"...

A few concise and well-timed references to things that would conceivably generate alot of hits?

I've got a couple of weeks in the middle of nowhere to have a think about it some more. In anycase, this site is due for a re-design anyway...

Tags: Goldfrapp, Madonna, Kylie Minogue, hits, pop, blog.

The first twenty shuffled tracks on my iPod

1. The Prodigy - Charly
2. Madonna - How High
3. MIA - 10 Dollar
4. Big Ruckus - It Takes a New Sensation
5. Shirley Bassey - If You Go Away (DJ Skymoo Mix)
6. Freestylers - Push Up
7. MIA - Bingo
8. Kiko, S. Deschezeaux - Rock Your Body
9. Kylie Minogue - Put Yourself In My Place
10. The Darkness - Love Is Only A Feeling
11. The Prodigy - Voodoo People
12. Spanky Wilson - Sunshine Of Your Love
13. Black Box - Everybody Everybody
14. Roisin Murphy - Leaving The City
15. Deep Dish vs Madonna - Sexy Music
16. Sugababes - Million Different Ways
17. Sugababes - We Could Have It All
18. Duran Duran vs Fake ID - Fake Reflex
19. Eric Prydz - Call On Me (Filterheadz Remix)
20. Kylie Minogue - I Believe In You (Skylark Mix)

Beyond that there's a bit of Scissor Sisters, Cyndi Lauper, Franz Ferdinand, a hell of alot of Kylie and a shitload of mash-ups. Actually, I don't really mind this shuffle playlist. It's much better than the last one.

Tags: iPod, playlist, shuffle, pop, music.