Blogging politics, culture, sociology and life from Brisvegas
Last July, we directed a few (well, quite a lot of) well-chosen words towards JJJ, its listeners and various other parties over the dearth of songs by female artists in their Hottest 100.
On the premise that it is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness, I would like to draw your attention to this Facebook group.
Happy voting. My Hottest 25 (in no particular order) were as follows:
Continue reading ‘Vote for the Hottest 100 songs of all time by female artists’
2010 is becoming an awful year for losing great singers and songwriters before their time. Ruby Hunter has joined Alistair Hulett and Kate McGarrigle in that Great Gig In The Sky.
The great Canadian songwriter, musician and singer Kate McGarrigle has passed on, leaving behind a musical legacy which includes songs like Mendocino, performed with her sister and collaborator Anna.
“If, when we die, we go somewhere,” (in Tom Paxton’s words) perhaps Kate and Stan Rogers are up there engaged in friendly arguments about which of their respective families is the First Family of Canadian music, in between jamming and collaborating.
If you have been a student at any time in the past 23 years you will probably have been a member of the National Union of Students. If you are the kind of person who regularly reads this blog, you are more likely than most people to have been a participant in at least one NUS National Conference. I myself have been a participant in two. If you have been to an NUS National Conference, you will know that the following ballad, written by myself with apologies to Banjo Paterson and to Wallis & Matilda, is solidly grounded in fact. Those of you who have been mercifully spared the experience will just have to take my word for it.
NB: A “runner” in NUS parlance is an alternative term for a whip.
In beer-stained faction t-shirts
With stickers on bags displayed
The last of the young campaigners
Filed in for the last tirade
Continue reading ‘The Last Tirade: A Ballad about NUS National Conference’
Without the mass production of iron and steel from the late C18 onward, there probably would not have been an Industrial Revolution. In turn, the massive expansion of iron and steel production in this period was made possible by a production process known as puddling. And puddling had to be done by puddlers – human beings working in one of the most arduous and dangerous occupations that capitalism has ever devised for the worker.
The puddlers and their conditions of work are honoured by the great Stan Rogers in The Puddler’s Tale. Stan’s son Nathan has recorded his own version of the song. Lyrics can be found here. Note that in Nathan Rogers’ version the table referred to in the last verse is creaking, rather than breaking.
Update: The song was apparently written with Stan Rogers’ father, a steelworker, in mind, which possibly explains the homely focus of the last couple of verses.
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.
So no doubt all you ladies out there have finally felt that you have permission to admit your passion for the love rug.
“What about the Love Rug?” he demanded. “Can’t you lift your gaze?” (via)
Emboldened by Ms Albrechtsen’s words I will admit to a level of respect for the man. His beliefs really are genuine and well-considered. He, for the moment at least, seems rather incapable of bullshitting the electorate about what he thinks. On a certain level I find that more understandable and easy to empathise with than I do politicians with no discernible policy ideas or passions at all.
But invoking the bad boy fantasy in support of Abbott’s chances is more apt than Ms Albrechtsen seems to understand. Sure the fantasy of catching and taming the bad boy might be common, but almost everyone understands it as fantasy. We all know that in real life it plays out as an action-packed summer, ending in heartbreak and/or difficult life lessons (and maybe even a love child).
Of course, most of us also cast our votes for reasons other than analogies with teenage fantasy. But that’s all a little serious for a Friday afternoon. So instead, listen to Sabian Wilde do a Gregorian chant about the Mad Monk.
[audio:http://inconversationwith.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/091114_icw_madmonk.mp3]
… and I’m a bit over all the red holly/green conifer/snow imagery. Here’s two songs that have a more sunburnt country feel to them:
Eric Bogle’s Shelter gives tributes to our land “dressed in green and gold”:
And here’s Tim Minchin’s White Wine in the Sun, about how it’s possible to enjoy Christmas traditions even when you’re not religious, because in the end it’s all about family:
What do the rest of you like as Aussie summer/Xmas songs?
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.
For people over a certain age, the song “Angel of the Morning” will be most immediately associated with Merrilee Rush. For most people of my generation, Juice Newton’s version will most likely spring to mind first, although I retain childhood memories of the Rush version. For the young fry, the tune is most likely to be associated with the transmogrification of this great one-night stand song into a song of commitment by, of all people, Shaggy.
Nina Simone recorded a characteristically classy cover, and Chrissie Hynde has rendered a gorgeous version of the song. Other versions which can be viewed on YouTube include P. P. Arnold, a later, rockier version by the same singer, and covers by Bonnie Tyler, Jill Johnson and Skeeter Davis.
The linked Wiki in the first par contains a complete-looking list of covers of the song. So, which Angel of the Morning is watching over you, protecting you and wreaking vengeance upon those who afflict you?
I have previously drawn LP readers’ attention to the music of the late, great Canadian songwriter Stan Rogers. I’m pleased to share with LP readers another of Stan’s classics, Forty-Five Years written for his wife Ariel. Enjoy
Another risible article from David Burchell marks the 40th anniversary of Woodstock. In attacking “the Woodstock moment”, he criticises “un-remembering” (what a horrible coinage), the putative sin of the Boomers (whoever they may be), and in the process indicts himself with a ludicrous conflation of all sorts of things into a single generationalist narrative, which has precious little to do with history or cultural memory, and everything to do with right wing prejudices.
Burchell claims that Woodstock “was little more than three wearisome, mud-soaked days of musical chaos”, citing the Wall Street Journal’s music critic, surely itself an oxymoronic title. Apparently blind to the symbolic dimension of popular culture, Burchell blithely ignores the fact that the entire discourse of the culture wars is founded on the symbolic distribution of cultural value. An anthropologist would have no trouble recognising it for what it is – myth-making.
Update: Tim Dunlop.
There will be tributes all over the web for the next few days. Would rock music as we now know it be even possible without his perfecting of the solid-body electric guitar?
Please link to the best tributes you come across in comments below, or name (and ideally link to a video of) your favourite riff or solo played on a Les Paul guitar (Gibson Goldtop not compulsory).
Elsewhere: Tim Dunlop
There hasn’t been nearly enough condemnation or loud denunciation lately. Which evil political, cultural, social, musical, religious, and other phenomena need condemnation? (Or loud denunciation?)
You’re encouraged to condemn anything except David Rovics. Or me, for not being a better anarchist than he is. Or me, for not being an anarchist of any sort. Or me, for posting an audio-only youtube link (have a listen anyway, it’s a laugh). Rovics is touring Australia at the moment, including a free gig at RMIT at midday tomorrow for those of you in central Melbourne.
I know it’s nowhere near the Dismissal anniversary, but I couldn’t wait to share with LP readers this gem.. I stand to be corrected but I know of no other song that quite captures the mood of November-December 1975 like this one.
The band that played the song, Roaring Jack, were a celtic folk-thrash band that were very popular on Sydney’s inner city pub circuit in the late 1980s. Their frontman Alistair Hulett subsequently recorded a series of solo albums and has since returned to his native Scotland where he continues to be a singer, songwriter and performer of note.
Is it perhaps more than just a curious coincidence that two of the pivotal events in Australian history – the Gallipoli campaign and the Dismissal – have been most eloquently interpreted in song by two Scottish-born songwriters – Eric Bogle (The Band Played Waltzing Matilda) and Alistair Hulett (The Ballad of ‘75)?
Larvatus Prodeo is an Australian group blog which discusses politics, sociology, culture, life, religion and science from a left of centre perspective. more»
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