Chairman of the Bored.

At the end of August, I attended the 18th and final AustralAsian Music Business Conference, and covered it for Mess+Noise.

I went in to bollock the conference; rip it to shreds (fucking suits in a circle jerk collecting money from naïve wannabes, etc.) but was proven very wrong. On the whole, it was a good experience, though I do still have issues with the whole thing, as outlined in my piece.

I was deliriously ill, so I still can't be sure whether it was just my perception, but I came out of it feeling totally mindfucked.

Enjoy, and make up your own mind.

Part 1: "I Can't Believe You Asked That Question."

Part 2: "I'll Answer That, 'No'."

Part 3: "Things Are Fucked."

The Curse of Zounds

My review of Dappled Cities' Zounds for M+N. It's an amazing rekkid, and I've fallen completely in love.

Just beautiful. The album, that is, not the review. Although...

Young Folks

Here's my review of The Nice Folk's debut studio rekkid, Devil At My Door, for Mess+Noise.

Really great band; be sure to see them when they're in yr town.

Do The Pop (Blurbs)

Okay, here are the blurbs. Don't judge me; I do it for money.

I don't know enough about C-Pop to be funny. Sorry:

C-Pop
(MMS Audio Program)

Enticing, earnest, and spanning some of Chinese Pop’s brightest stars is our new MMS audio library “C-Pop”!

This brilliant audio library features some of the best tracks from Asia’s most popular artists, such as Taiwan’s Jay Chou with, amongst others, his beautiful “Ocean of Flowers” and best selling Canto-Pop female (also known as the “Diva of Asia”) Faye Wong’s glorious music, such as “Queen’s New Gown”. That’s not all! We also have an extensive range of "The Prince of Love Ballads" Jeff Chang’s sentimental Mandarin pop tunes, the music of Fong Khalil, such as “100 Expressions” and many tracks from Singapore’s much-celebrated Stefanie Sun. Just for good measure, we’ve included Hong Kong’s Kay Tse and the music of JJ Lin, of Singapore - this and so much more!

For some brilliant Asian pop music to spice up your business surrounds, be sure to sign up to “C-Pop!”

To order or for more information, contact our sales team on [...]

And the Chart Audio Hits:

Sarah Blasko - All I Want
She just keeps getting better! Taken from her third album, ‘All I Want’ employs a spooky musical saw, percussive flourishes, and strings under Blasko’s distinctive voice. A haunting song of yearning, confusion, and the search for personal actualisation, this dark, beautiful track proves the ARIA winner’s talent is something with which to be reckoned. Hear it first, before everyone else does – it’ll be all you ever want!

Hilltop Hoods - Chase That Feeling
This track is absolutely everywhere, and now you can have it too! With a soulful piano track and vocals, brass swells, fierce raps, a steady beat and a social conscience, ‘Chase That Feeling’ is another notch in the Hilltop Hoods’ impressive belt. Be sure to chase this feelng – only available on Chart Audio Hits 0907!

Sigh.

You Wanna Go Get Some Chinese Rocks?

At my day job, I get to listen to some pretty awesome things. Sure, there are the latest pop charts (and hey - pay attention to them and they'll surprise you), the club remixes and the slow jazz covers which involve such travesties as an unnecessary 8-minute-long version of 'She's Leaving Home' by some guy who's name eludes me (sleep will do that), but there's also some pretty cool music I'd never bother to hear otherwise. Old school hip-hop, South African trad-pop stars, Middle Eastern beats, Italian and French cafe tracks (so much accordion!), electro Gainsbourg covers and what I find myself writing about tonight: Chinese pop music, or C-Pop.

I've again been given my monthly task of writing the blurbs for the company newsletter (I see it as a great writing exercise), encouraging clients to purchase our tracklistings with as many active verbs and exclamation marks as possible. If you can't imagine a smug, toothy grin and a thumbs-up when reading it, I've failed. It's so much fun. One of few scenarios in which I can't actually succeed without taking the piss. I'm in my fucken element, that's for sure:

Pure Country 17
March Chart Hits (the first line of the Franz blurb remains my favourite)
May Chart Hits
June Chart Hits
"Get the Party Started!" Best of Pink - The Video Collection
100% Hits - Can't Get Enough of... Rock!
100% Hits - 'Girls on Film - Life's a Beach!' (Which I described as "a celebration of the female form and the joys of summer," instead of my first reaction, "sexist priggery")

So, C-Pop. This shit's hilarious. I'll admit that if it were in English I'd probably hate it - there's definitely a kitsch factor here.* They're so earnest - some titles include:

A-Yue's 'Lonely Night Of Sentry Post'
Jeff Chang's 'Beauties in the Troubled Time'
Jay Chou's 'Ocean of Flowers'
Anson Hu's 'As If the Sky Had Feelings'
Stefanie Sun's 'The Splendidness of Uncertainty'

And so on. Tonight, I write. This month's blurbs (including C-Pop!) to come soon.

*Racist? I'm not sure. Maybe it's just that I can't get infuriated by terrible lyrics if I can't understand them. Perhaps there's a linguistic interest at play. I won't analyse it too much.

Rock 'n' Roll (Reviews Are) Where I Hide

Just over a fortnight ago, I reviewed Dave Graney's latest effort, Knock Yourself Out (Cockaigne/Fuse). It was a hard review to write, as I found myself displeased with everything I wrote. The album's just too good. I was also fearful of what Graney would think of my poor effort, he having written a Track By Track for Mess+Noise the day before - he was certain to read it. After many rewrites, I finally found myself against a deadline and decided to give up on the frivolous search for perfection. Submit.

Dave Graney
Knock Yourself Out

Loops, dirty R&B, funk licks and beat poetry. A.H. CAYLEY finds a hint of modern noir in Dave Graney's 'Knock Yourself Out'.

First impressions may not mean everything, but they do account for something. A hint of what is to come; an idea beginning to form. An instinctive judgement, one that may or may not later be proven true. It is rarely surprising when they are found to be false, but incredibly satisfying when correct. On first impressions, this is a great record. Smart, witty – very sexy. It is with great satisfaction that I can declare this first impression to be correct. Graney has done it again, in a way and a style he never has before – and this time, solely billed.

He’s moved on since his last album, the Lurid Yellow Mist’s fantastic We Wuz Curious. If that record was set in a garish, 24-hour, ’60s-themed cocktail bar, this one is set in the doorway behind some dark, hip speakeasy no-one else knows about. Modern noir. It’s about the voice and the beat. There are loops, dirty R&B rhythms, funk licks and the contemporary beat poetry of Graney’s lyrical stylings.

From the first track, the titular ‘Knock Yourself Out’, the mood is set. The lyrics span a career of song titles. No, the lyrics are a career of song titles. His own. Is this egotism or cheek? Probably a bit of both, but in a good way. A characteristic way, even. Originally written as a cameo for a track by Melbourne hip-hop musician Plutonic, it was rejected for being too long. No wonder – it’s 5.08 long, and backed here by Clare Moore’s musical input in a “groove she brewed up” (as she did for almost every song).

Some of Graney’s appeal lies in his possession of a strange vocal talent that always makes it seem as though he is singing directly to you, and not some generic audience of which you happen to be a part. The refrain on ‘Bodysnatcher Blues’, for instance, sounds as though it’s being whispered heavily into you ear – at least it did in mine. Perhaps that’s just wishful thinking convincing the senses of some sort of artist-audience solidarity. Graney has that effect on many. To paraphrase a fellow critic, no-one says “yeah” quite like him.

‘Dylan the Indie Fake’ is one of the best swipes I’ve ever heard, taking a vocodered swing at the mythology and deification of a man proclaimed to be a prophet but wanting none of it: “Furball music/Suckin’ the lint from your sleeves/He’s beside himself/He never asked to be here/Dylan, the indie fake.” ‘Sellout’ sees a dope, tripped-up beat beneath alternating funk bass and fuzzy guitar parts, under such great lines as, “It used to be a pejorative term of abuse/Once upon a time, people gave a shit/(Sellout!) while you can.” You can almost see the thinly-moustached sneer.

The album wraps up with ‘2068 Babe’, a track almost eight minutes long, placing the tumultuous ’68 of last century to the noisy, lo-fi tune of this one, looking to the future from the past, as Graney often does: “Molotov cocktails/Shaken and thrown/The Stooges rehearsing in an Ann Arbor basement, stoned.” By the end, the fuzz and feedback just cuts out with a reflective chuckle. We’re left without a conclusion. Fuck it – make your own.

Knock Yourself Out certainly leaves an impression. It’s an intelligent, audio pleasure. It’s so cool it hurts and its effects can be felt outside of the stereo. Rarely has an album so made me want to fuck. Get into it – knock yerself out.

The day after publication, I received a text from my dear friend and fellow critic Ross Clelland, stating Mr. Graney had posted my review on his facebook and myspace pages, declaring the second-last line of my review to be "the BEST note [he has] ever received..." He later sent around a press email full of condensed versions of the latest reviews of Knock Yourself Out, in which he bolded the infamous line of my piece.

Certainly high praise for a young critic, from a 30-odd year veteran. High praise for anyone, from Dave Graney.

Things got cooler. I sent him a thank you email regarding his kind reaction, and received an email the following day. Though I don't believe it right or well-mannered to copy and paste his entire email, I will state that it included this amazing and humbling line:

Your review hit us very strongly as we had not even dared to think that people actually listen to our music with much of a generous spirit, let alone a rarefied aesthetic.

RAREFIED FUCKING AESTHETIC!

It then got even cooler. Another friend and fellow critic, Trevor Block, attended a Graney instore last Friday at Melbourne's Basement Discs with - amongst other awesomes and an incredible awesomette - my editor, the wonderful Darren Levin. They approached Graney and asked him to sign a copy of the album specially for the woman who declared that it made her want to fuck.

I am told he was very excited to do so, and even blushed.

In my letter box, I received a surprise copy of the album with "AAAAH! A.H.!" written on the inner fold.

Awesome.

Dave Graney will be playing the following dates to support the release of Knock Yourself Out:

Wednesday 24th June, Royal Exchange, Newcastle
Thursday 25th June, Lizottes, Central Coast
Friday June 26th, Brass Monkey, Cronulla
Saturday June 27th Sandringham Hotel, Newtown
Sunday June 28th, Manly Boatshed, Manly

See you at the Sando.

Know Your Product

It is with great trepidation that I decide to create an e-zine (let's avoid the term "blog" from here on in). Not skilled enough to make a website; not enough time to make a physical zine. Not humble enough to believe people won't give a shit. 'Course you fucken do. Right? Right.

Where to start?

I'm doing an English/Linguistics Double Major at Sydney University as a Bachelor of Arts. This means I will one day either be educating your children, or pumping your gas. Let's hope it's the former, as I would detest to become a bourgeois Americanism used to reactionarily define the working classes as static failures only capable enough to perform a simple service for rich fuckwits on their continuous ascent along some proverbial highway of life. (Most likely handling miniature animals and pursing lips at little Chloe in the backseat. She really needs to put in more practise before the violin recital). Fucking toffs.

I have been writing for Mess+Noise for roughly 2 years (and love it) as well as the odd piece here and there for street press. On weekends I work on the door of a Sydney rock 'n' roll nightclub, Spectrum on Oxford Street, (and also DJ on occasion at Vegas) and during the week, outside of Uni hours, I get paid to listen to songs and watch filmclips at SBA Music. For a while there I was worried it would affect my ability to critically evaluate music, but instead it seems to have just made me less of a snob. I still hate shit, though. Don't you worry about that.

A very short list of my favourite bands would include The Who, You Am I, Radio Birdman, The Stones, Dylan, the Sex Pistols, The Stooges, The Pretty Things, and Aleks & The Ramps. I won't hear a word against any of them or I'll knife you.

I once had a shoe pelted at me for playing different versions of the Batman theme in succession repeatedly at a nightclub (The Jam's, The Who's, Neal Hefti's hip original). It was a very nice shoe, but sadly not in my size. Poor thanks indeed. I love Batman, but not as much as Judge Judy.

If you were to meet me, you'd probably find my freckles distracting. I still do.