Wednesday, February 23, 2011

The only living boy in Riga

In my dreams last night there were two girls, each playing a guitar, performing for me a rendition of Simon and Garfunkel's 'The Only Living Boy in New York'. It's one of those songs which sounds so melancholy but is so sublime at the same time that it makes you smile. This quality has to some extent been transferred over into this lovely rock steady cover:

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Types of jobs

The blog/website Thought Catalog has some mediocre articles, but most of it is above par. I was just reading 'The Different Types of Jobs You Can Have' and the second one - 'a job that is unsatisfyingly similar to what you ideally want to be doing' - is unnervingly close to describing me. Check it out.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Misuse of question marks?

I've noticed an annoying misuse of the question mark recently, and its becoming more ubiquitous. It seems many people are using it in place of an exclamation mark. I'm not sure if this is being done on purpose or whether it's just a sign of the illiterate times. And it surely can't be by accident as the respective keys on the keyboard could hardly be further apart from each other. But, maybe it's an Australian thing; we have been known to inflect the ends of our sentences to sound like we're asking a question. In any case, this misuse in writing reaaally pisses me off.







Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Tommy McLennan

I discovered Tommy McLennan today. I love his powerful hoarse voice... kinda like Howlin' Wolf with less volume and more hoarseness.



Freight hopping

"Two men caught riding freight train in South Australia" - AAP

Two young men were busted trying to hitch a ride on a freight train from Adelaide to Melbourne. Ever since I read an article in a zine along the lines of 'D.I.Y. Freight Hopping' I've wanted to do this. I've read on the topic and researched a little about the trains which make the trip from Adelaide to Melbourne. The biggest factor stopping me is the danger which is inherent in the activity. If I ever meet someone who's experienced in freight hopping I will seriously consider it. Imagine rocking up to a party in Melbourne and telling everyone you got there by sitting your caboose between two containers on an interstate freight train.

Saturday, February 12, 2011

These are the Days


"No white man sings like Van Morrison...
It is at the heart of Morrison’s presence as a singer that when he lights on certain sounds, certain small moments inside a song—hesitations, silences, shifts in pressure, sudden entrances, slamming doors—can then suggest whole territories, completed stories, indistinct ceremonies, far outside anything that can be literally traced in the compositions that carry them."
-Greil Marcus

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Ukraine

I went to Ukraine in August for a weekend, driving through Belarus. It was an experience to say the least, and friggin' brilliant to say a little more. I had a camera with me but it died on the first day in Kharkhov and I had forgotten the battery-charger of course. The photos are a tad random and most are considerably blurry or out of focus. I like the fact that I don't have many photos of that wonderful trip through Belarus and into Ukraine and back again, it makes me try harder to retain the memories IN MY HEAD! Here are the images that bring back the feeling of that particular voyage into Northern Ukraine.


That cream/green block is the 'Hotel Tourist' where I stayed. There's a pokie hall in the foyer, a security guard that looked like he wanted to roll me, no hot water (despite an assurance that there would be for about 2 hours in the morning), a COMPLETE lack of English knowledge among all staff members, toilet paper seemingly derived from cardboard, and a beautiful view to some form of supermarket which turned out to be pretty much half full of vodka (see below). I wouldn't have wanted to stay anywhere else (honest).






Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Dumpster Diving

Great video about this commendable past-time.

Dive! Trailer from Compeller on Vimeo.



I think I might have to have a scout around behind my local supermarkets.

Bagpipes are 'in'

I like bagpipes. I do. I play them myself and even wrote a fan-piece on them a while ago for a zine (which you can read here). But something's been bothering me recently; their apparent new-found popularity in Latvia.
As you may know, or will find out if you read my zine article, the bagpipe is native to most, if not all, Indo-European cultures. Although you may (no...probably definitely) associate the instrument with Scotland, the history of the bagpipes among the Celtic peoples is in fact relatively fresh. So don't even try to imagine the Latvian manifestation of the bagpipe to be like the Scottish version; it's different. Anyway, after bagpipe playing (and making) traditions all but died out in Latvia, the last several decades have seen somewhat of a revival.
Bagpipes, bagpipe playing, and bagpipe music were, for a while, pretty much strictly confined to folklorists, neo-folk geeks and the like but sometime in the last year, or maybe two, bagpipes have squeezed (get it?) their way into the public eye.
I don't have a television at home but when I do find myself at a friend's house I like to indulge in a touch of guilty box-watching. If it's not an old Russian slap-stick film or an incredibly boring Latvian fishing show it's usually a terrible concert with families singing together or pseudo-pop stars. During these small windows of weekend television viewing that I've managed to enjoy (I'm so glad I don't have television at home) there have been many a concert where bagpipes have been the instrument of choice in accompaniment to either a single vocalist, a band, or even a large combined choir. At first I enjoyed hearing and watching these performances (even though most of them are singularly forgettable). This was because I was glad to see traditional bagpipes being played to a wider audience - on television no less! But after a dozen or more of these performances and seeing posted videos on YouTube, I was tiring of it to be honest. I wasn't tiring of the bagpipes themselves, but the way they were being used; they'd become 'just another instrument', like the guitar or saxophone playing in the backing band. I now sigh, and cringe just a little, every time I see a performance with bagpipes. It's almost become the 'in' thing to have bagpipers, or several, accompanying some extraordinarily mediocre vocalists.
It's curious, because I always pushed for greater awareness of the instrument, and now that they are becoming more recognised in popular culture in Latvia, I find myself cringing and shuffling nervously in my seat. Is it similar to the I-hate-it-that-the-underground-band-I-like-has-become-'mainstream' syndrome? Possibly a little, probably not entirely.
I saw a video on YouTube today which was the impetus for this blog post. It's of a band called 'Instrumenti' accompanied by the bagpipe-and-drum band by the name of 'Auļi'; both groups are Latvian. Instrumenti is a pop group which has achieved reasonable success here in Latvia, and Auļi has been at the forefront in the recent bagpipe 'revolution', if you will. Anyway, here you see Instrumenti trundling through a song, and then suddenly...bagpipers with Panda heads! It kinda sounds okay to the tell the truth, but I still can't help feeling that bagpipes have become a bit of a novelty - I mean, panda heads!?