I’ve been busy with many things lately so haven’t had time to post about much here. I’ve mainly been updating my photo blog with shots of bands and other random things i’ve been snapping. You can check out milesage.wordpress.com to see what i’ve been up to but this place should be seeing some new posts once i’m done with my last bit of work. I’ve attached a couple of sample snaps below, i also have a Twitter account you can use to keep an eye on what i’m posting: Milesage

 

There’s been a decent amount of activity in the Radiohead camp recently, a slew of songs have been put out by both the full band and it’s front-man.

Radiohead

Harry Patch (in memory of) - This is a benefit song in honour of the last British soldier left alive from WW1. He died recently, all the lyics in the song are Harry Patch quotes. It’s just 1 pound and all the money goes to the Royal British Legion so please buy it if you enjoy the tune.

These Are My Twisted Words - A new track recorded with Nile Godritch. I’m hoping to hear it in the context of an EP eventually but for now they’ve released the song as a free download on the radiohead site.

Thom York

Hearing Damage - This is Thom’s contribution to, teen vampire film, New Moon’s soundtrack. I read an interview with New Moon’s director, in it he said “Actually, i’m on my way to listen to Thom York’s song after this and unless it’s just him breathing eratically on mic i’m going to use it.” Luckily we got more than breathing…

Feeling Pulled Apart By Horses - A new single which was written and recorded with Jonny Greenwood. Apparently i grew out of something that had been kicking around since 2001. This is an excellent track, it reminds me of massive attack at the beginning but kind of disintegrates by the end, could have been a tad shorter for my tastes.

The Hollow earth - b-side to the above single. You can buy both on a 12″ vinyl here.

All For The Best - This is a cover recorded as a benefit album for the late Mark Mulcahy, former Polaris and Miracle Legion lead singer. Interestingly he didn’t layer his voice for this track, that’s his brother singing harmonies. The album will be called Ciao My Shining Star: The Songs of Mark Mulcahy, if you like Thom York’s tune you may want to track down the whole disc when it’s released (29/9/09), there are some other cool covers on it including one’s by The National, Frank Black, Dinosaour Jr, Ben Kweller,  Michael Stipe and Mercury Rev.

Bootlegs: Thom York Live at Latitude

Cymbal Rush – Black Swan – Videotape – These are great tracks though a bit quiet and with an occasional click due to the nature of the recording.

Videos: Thom York with his crazy new band (which includes Nigel Godrich and Flea)

This American Life is a weekly hour long radio program produced in the states. Each week they pick a theme and do a series of related stories, most of the time they are real stories told by real people, occasionally they are comedy routines or fictional stories. They can be funny, heart warming or spectacularly depressing. The show can be a bit hit and miss, sometimes the theme is a really tenuous link between stories. Each piece can also be a bit weak at times but is just as likely to turn out to be an amazing personal insight or investigation into something you think you should have known about a long time ago. In addition to the radio show they have a TV show but i haven’t looked into that yet. On their website you can subscribe to the podcast which will send you a show each week, you can also stream any past shows, check out their favourites or, probably the most important thing, donate some money to keep the show going.

I’ve cut out two stories from two separate episodes, if you’re going to listen to both of them i suggest you start with Life After Death, because it’s horribly depressing and you’ll need the charming and funny story about putting a band together using only the classifieds to cheer you up.

Download Life After Death – 23min – This one’s horrible but very good, though i think it could have been a shorter piece. In the full show the sad story you’ll find here is followed by one about a retired soldier who stabs his girlfriend multiple times in a bout of post traumatic stress disorder. I thought i’d spare you a double bout of crushing despair but if you’re keen for the whole episode you can stream it here.

Download Classifieds – 15min – This is from a week where they put together a show based only on what they could find in the classifieds section in a newspaper. This is my favourite story, a cute little piece about putting together a band that will only perform once. You can find the whole episode here.

Lately i’ve been trying not to just re-post news but this is too good to pass up. Over on Pitchfork they spotted a new Sufjan Stevens track on Youtube. He played the new song in Ithaica, New York and someone was on hand with a snazzy video camera to get it all it great quality. There’s Too Much Love shows a different Sufjan than the one we’ve gotten used to over the past few albums, the track it infused with odd beats, electronic jitters and crazy trombone!

EDIT: or just go to Stereogum and get your hands on a rip of this song and two other new ones, Age of Adz and Impossible Souls.

A Casual End Mile: discovery of the night.  She was playing in the bar area for free and just had the most wonderful haunting voice echoing in the silence over there. Now that i think about it this was probably what marked her out to me- every other time i’ve been in that bar at the OAF several dozen people have been trying to talk over the very loud sounds of trendy DJ’s blasting the latest hip offering. This time everyone was quiet as Ms.EndMile did her thing. You can find A Casual End Mile’s demos on her MySpace.

Royal Headache: These guys are quite fun, they just go nuts with short, fast and loud songs. They actually created a moshpit in front of the stage and pulled off the first successful stage dive i’ve ever seen at the OAF (unsuccessful one involved a drunk/drugged woman at Pivot- they were just as surprised as we were!). MySpace.

My Disco: A force of nature, there’s no other way to put it. They are a fierce and uncompromising band who manage to combine loud rock noises with the hypnosis of a repetitive beat. From the moment the curtains opened they had me and didn’t let go until  the last note, which is a pretty amazing accomplishment for an hour of music. Their new material was excellent, i can’t wait for the new album now! MySpace.

All bands played at the Oxford Arts factory on the 25/9/09, you can check out some select big pictures here or the whole Flickr gallery.

Playing with The Devoted Few at The Hopetoun Hotel Thu 24th & Fri 25th September

I forgot to post about these guys (and girl) until today! The first show in Sydney is tonight but there’s one on tomorrow as well, even if you miss them they should be playing around the city sometime soon. Sherlock’s Daughter is one of Sydney’s most promising little indie bands and i can’t wait to check them out this week. They’ve already released a few solid singles which are great to listen to at home but they’ve also got a strong live presence. I’ve seen them perform short sets twice, at World Bar and The Metro and i urge anyone who likes their sound to get out and see them live!

Listen to Kids and Song For Old People

If you like their stuff please Buy Sherlock’s Daughter tracks from iTunes or hunt down their EP in the shops. They’re a very small band and any form of support will help to keep them going strong! This is just the type of band where every sale really does make a huge difference. You can also visit their MySpace page for more tour details and streams of their music.

You can find the Hopetoun at 416 Bourke St, Surry Hills, NSW.

props to Only An Earthling for reminding me to post about this!

Director Hayao Miyazaki has made another brilliant new animated film for Studio Ghibli, the Japanese studio responsible for Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro, How’s Moving Castle and many, many more. The movie makes, at best, very little sense. It involves a magical fish (with a human head) who’s father is an underwater dwelling wizard who hates humanity. Our little fish decides to sneak out one day and ends up meeting a young human boy and within an afternoon the two five year olds have formed a friendship that can’t be broken. Of course this doesn’t stop her grumpy dad from trying. Yet all his best efforts to get Ponyo (the aforementioned fish child) back into the sea culminate in her absorbing unimaginable cosmic powers! Soon havoc breaks out in her quest for friendship, human form and ham.

The plot may be a bit incoherent at times but two things stand out from this film: the dialogue and the visuals. While most animation studios have today moved to increasingly realistic 3D computer animation Studio Ghibli have gone in the other direction, keeping things looking traditional and even getting further abstract. Some of the scenes are beautifully rendered, with animated figures walking around a landscape that appears to be drawn with coloured pencils. It’s simply stunning to look at and only gets more fanciful as the the plot rolls on: giant waves of water made from magical fish, children running on water, huge mystical gods of the sea, prehistoric fish going about their business in your backyard, the list could goes on and keeps thing interesting through most of the film. The dialogue is mostly between two five year old children and as such is incredibly weird but almost believable much of the time. It’s very charming and funny, i challenge you not to laugh when Ponyo makes her remark about wizards and evil.

Overall it’s not a perfect film but is just the kind of nonsense that should make your day.

Buy it here – More about FBi

This is a new compilation Inertia has put together as a fund raiser for Sydney’s FBi radio. I really don’t want to be an FBi whore but this is a pretty damn good compilation for $12. It’s a mix of local and international artists who have donated all kinds of stuff, live tracks, older songs, new material and unreleased songs. There’s something for everyone here, i really enjoy the indie and dancy tracks while someone else could get behind the more hip-hop flavoured stuff.

My highlights include Bibio’s happy Ambivalence Avenue, the Midnight Juggernauts acoustic take on Road To Recovery and newcomer Deastro’s poppy Vermillion Plaza.

My one gripe is the ‘booking fee’, it’s sold as a $10 compilation but there is a booking fee added to that. It’s probably something to do with the station needing to use a concert ticket widget to make the sales but a $2.30 fee is pretty steep on something that’s meant to cost $10. But even with that,  if you’re looking to get your hands on some good tracks and give money to a station that deserves it then this is the way to go.

1. Bibio – Ambivalence Avenue
2. Unkle with The Heritage Orchestra – Heaven (Live)
3. Kid Confucius – Good Luck
4. Decoder Ring – Beat The Twilight
5. Bridezilla – Forth And Fine
6. Buraka Som Sistema feat. Petty – Wawaba
7. Caspa – Lion’s Raw
8. Dappled Cities – Middle People
9. Midnight Juggernauts – Road To Recovery (Vendetta Acoustopia Remix)
10. The Herd – Under Pressure (Live)
11. Roots Manuva – 9 Dubs A Year
12. Deastro – Vermillion Plaza
13. Circlesquare – Dancers

This is a Quentin Tarentino film. If you like what he does you’ll like this film: long, darkly funny conversations; intense suspense; grizzly, sudden violence; a plot involving an eccentric cast of characters. If you hate what he does this film isn’t going to win you over, it’s great but it doesn’t trancend the directors name in the credits.

The cast are great, Eli Roth is huge, Brad Pitt has a funny accent, Christopher Waltz is brilliant as a chiling, if eccentric, Nazi. Melanie Laurent and Diane Kruger both play great female leads and that guy at the beggining with the pipe was also awesome, though i can’t bring myself to look up his name.

The story is a simple affair, WWII boiled down to Nazi’s vs Everyone (mostly Jews). The Jewish people get to F@&( up a lot of Nazi’s, the Brits get 5min of hilariously British dialogue, the yanks do some scalping and history is not a concern.

Good film, check it out if it sounds like your thing.

28th Aug – The Metro – Sydney
5th Sept- Hi-Fi Bar – Melbourne
12th Sep – Baroque Bar – Katoomba
5th Dec – Homebake – Sydney

Oldest – Protein Express
Old – Welcome Shoppers, Alsace Lorraine
Not As Old – Heidi’s Theme, More Than Scarlet
Even Less Old – Escape Pod
New – Beat The Twilight, Let A Thousand Flowers Bloom

You can buy Decoder Ring on iTunes or eMusic or visit their website for more info

That is all