Tag Archive for 'Music'

I won’t add my condemn to your condemn XLI (End of year edition)

Well, we haven’t condemned for ages, so it must be long past time again to condemn. Here’s a 41st open condemnation thread. What’s been worthy of condemnation in 2009? Which evil political, cultural, social, musical, religious, and other phenomena need condemnation? (Or loud denunciation?)

You can condemn anything you like except Sarah Blasko.

I won’t add my condemn to your condemn XL

Well, we haven’t condemned for ages, so it must be long past time again to condemn. Here’s a 40th open condemnation thread. What’s getting up your goat? Which evil political, cultural, social, musical, religious, and other phenomena need condemnation? (Or loud denunciation?)

You can condemn anything you like except the soundtrack to The Hunger.

JJJ Hottest 100: Women free edition

As observed here:

Only 10 songs on the hottest 100 list were made by a band who had any women in it, ever (if we include Massive Attack, who, technically, only ever had female guest vocalists); the highest of these was placed at no. 20 (The White Stripes, “Seven Nation Army”). The only two songs with female lead vocals are the two by Massive Attack. Finally, no solo female artists at all made the list.

John Gunders has some speculations as to why this happened at The Memes of Production:

the absence of women from recent, mainstream rock music is troubling. I want to argue that there are two, interconnected reasons: the first has to do the masculinist nature of the “rock myth”, and the second is the increasing commercialisation of what we used to call “alternative music”.

There’s a third factor. As Mel Campbell argues at The Enthusiast, these sort of lists form part of a self-reinforcing cycle which diminishes the presence of female and women fronted bands on radio playlists.

Bah to JJJ.

Elsewhere: Rosanna Ryan.

Update: Lauredhel at Hoyden on the Hack segment, who also has lots of links in her post to other commentary and discussion.

The age of creativity?

In a post reproducing and expanding on his op/ed in the Australian Financial Review today, Andrew Leigh writes:

For not-so-surprising reasons, I’ve been thinking lately about lifecycles. My AFR op-ed today (partially written with a newborn babe in the crook of my arm) is on age and creativity.

[The prompt for his reflections, by the way, is explained here.]

Leigh’s piece reports, inter alia, on the work of the American economist David Galenson. Galenson has developed a binary typology of two forms of innovation – conceptual and experimental. Interestingly, this classification is applied to both economists and creative artists; and a taste of what he’s getting at is easily discerned from this excerpt:

What marks a conceptualist from an experimentalist? In art, Galenson distinguishes conceptual artists (Pablo Picasso, Edvard Munch) whose work aims to communicate specific ideas and emotions; from experimental artists (Edgar Degas, Wasily [sic] Kandinsky) whose ideas are vaguer, and often regard the artistic process as a journey.

I don’t know about that. Continue reading ‘The age of creativity?’

I won’t add my condemn to your condemn XXXVII

Well we haven’t condemned since, well, forevah, so it must be long past time again to condemn. Here’s a 37th open condemnation thread. What’s getting up your goat? Which evil political, cultural, social, musical, religious, and other phenomena need condemnation? (Or loud denunciation?)

You can condemn anything you like except The Michael Garrick Sextet. I do condemn myself for not blogging for ages!

BrisCulture, the CPD and Eidos Institute present ‘Creative Brisbane’ tonight at 6pm

Folks might remember I talked a while back about the ‘Creative Brisbane’ event we’re presenting tonight as part of the Brisbane CitySmart Innovation Festival. The response to both this conversation and to the BrisCulture concept has been really exciting. I thought, therefore, I’d post a quick notice to let people know details of the event, should anyone who hasn’t already responded to our rsvp be interested in checking it out. Details are available at the BrisCulture website, and on the Facebook event page. Over the fold, I’ve posted the programme for the evening.

Continue reading ‘BrisCulture, the CPD and Eidos Institute present ‘Creative Brisbane’ tonight at 6pm’

BrisCulture: Creative Brisbane

A lot of my academic and consultancy work at the moment is focused on online urbanism, distributed knowledge and urban creativity. I’m loath to use the term ‘action research’ loosely, but this form of public sociology is really impossible to separate from creative practice. One of the projects I’ve been working on with some lovely and talented colleagues is about to launch itself on the world, and now has its own web presence – BrisCulture.

While literature about Creative Cities abounds, every city has its own urbanism and its own distinct culture. A ‘one size fits all’ model doesn’t map neatly onto the specificities of place. While Brisbane is now on the arts map with new cultural infrastructure capable of attracting visitors in the hundreds and thousands to major exhibitions and events, what of the sustainability of the city’s everyday lived cultural experience and production? Our town has proved its value in fostering distinctive and innovative forms of cultural practice – the germination of the music scene in the Valley or the arrival of grunge lit being notable moments in time. But much of this activity takes place ‘underground’ – it bubbles up alchemically from below; drawing energy from serendipitous connections and a sense of locale. Although we welcome the era of government support, public art and creative industries policy, we contend that embedding, celebrating and fostering emergent practice is a task still to be thought out.

That’s the task we’ve set ourselves. It sounds ambitious, but it’s realisable because we’re approaching it as an exercise in making connections and fostering the art of public conversation and collaborative policy making. You can read about the project at BrisCulture and stay tuned for our first event. As part of the 2009 Brisbane CitySmart Innovation Festival, we are hosting a joint event with The Centre for Policy Development, and in conjunction with the Eidos Institute, on the 26th of May at the Old School of Arts in Ann Street, Brisbane – Creative Brisbane: Rethinking Innovation. This will only be the beginning – we’re conceiving BrisCulture as a rolling series of events, policy interventions, performances and conversations which exists in a virtual locale as well as in the spaces of the city.

If you’re interested in all this, whether as a Brisbanite, an occasional visitor, or just curious about the town, I’d encourage you to join our Facebook group, which will be utilised to keep everyone in the loop. I’m very excited about this project, and I think it will lead to some really interesting things!

J. G. Ballard: Autopsy of the new millennium

Sadly, J. G. Ballard has died. An enormous literature has appeared online paying tribute to his life and work. Noteable, I thought, was an article in Salon by Simon Reynolds, who treats Ballard as a fabulist of ideas, and interestingly traces his current influence on post-punk and popular music.

[Image courtesy of blank [AT] null66913, reproduced under a Creative Commons licence. An extensive gallery of images of the “Autopsy of the new millennium” exhibition on Ballard’s work at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona can be accessed at Flickr.]

Update: A round up of tributes to Ballard.

Gig guide

It’s been absolutely ages since I saw any live music. I’d planned to remedy that tonight by going to see Way Out West – a jazz act influenced by African and Vietnamese music at Jazzworx at Bowen Hills – but unfortunately I’ve got a virus. But this post is both promo for Way Out West and an open thread where folks can give me some vicarious enjoyment by recommending or reporting on any fab gigs attended recently!

I won’t add my condemn to your condemn XXXVI

Well we haven’t condemned since early March so it must be time again to condemn. Here’s a 36th open condemnation thread. What’s getting up your goat? Which evil political, cultural, social, musical, religious, and other phenomena need condemnation? (Or loud denunciation?)

You can condemn anything you like except Beth Orton.

I won’t add my condemn to your condemn XXXV

Well it’s March so it must be time again to condemn. Here’s a 35th open condemnation thread. What’s getting up your goat this year so far? Which evil political, cultural, social, musical, religious, and other phenomena need condemnation? (Or loud denunciation?)

You can condemn anything you like except Deborah Conway.

I won’t add my condemn to your condemn XXXIII

Well we’ve had almost a month of 2009 so it must be time again to condemn. Here’s a 33rd open condemnation thread. What’s getting up your goat this year so far? Which evil political, cultural, social, musical, religious, *specifically 2009* and other phenomena need condemnation? (Or loud denunciation?)

You can condemn anything you like except Juana Molina.

I won’t add my condemn to your condemn XXXII (Welcome to 2009 edition)

Well we’ve had almost a week of 2009 so it must be time again to condemn. Here’s a 32nd open condemnation thread. What’s getting up your goat this year so far? Which evil political, cultural, social, musical, religious, *specifically 2009* and other phenomena need condemnation? (Or loud denunciation?)

You can condemn anything you like except the news that M. Ward has a new album out in February. [Via Three Imaginary Girls]

Best and worst of 2008

They’re everywhere. Lists. Judgements. Retrospectives. Loud condemnations. Paeans of praise. Make your own on this thread!

Christmas Silly Partay Season! Open thread

Aside from the LP drinks across the length and breadth of the eastern seaboard (well, that may be a slight exaggeration…) summer is here, work is supposedly winding down (though I haven’t noticed) and it’s time to … party! It might be a good time to have an open party experiences thread – share tales of doom from work functions, report on exciting gigs, tell us about your fancy dress themed events, etc, ad infinitum!

I’m not really one for parties as such (if defined as a stack of people crammed into a kitchen and on a verandah or drinks with colleagues at a dreary suit bar) but I have been going to more gigs recently… last night Mr Mark and I caught The View From Madeleine’s Couch at The Press Club. Great OzBrazilian jazz, and I can recommend gin, lime and soda for those sultry and humid Brisbanian summer nights!

Live @ The Press Club, Brisbane