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Whoa, thunder road. But the south coast awaits. Photo by Stuart Spence It’s got photos, it’s got words, it’s got music, it’s got film, and it’s got it all in the too-pretty-for-words Tathra on the far south coast of NSW on August 29. What Comes To Mind goes on the road for Australian Made: Music, Images & Stories From The 1980s, at Tathra Hotel’s Headland Theatre, where the entrée is Stuart Spence…
"I love house music … watch this space.” Unlikely DJ Mel Parsons photographed by Sabin Holloway THERE ARE, I TELL Mel Parsons, two disappointments which must be addressed before we get into her work, her new album, or indeed anything to do with being one of the unassuming (of course unassuming, she is a Kiwi) but high quality songwriters from one of Aotearoa’s most musically fecund regions. She…
A solitary man, as usual. In a theatre near you now or soon you’ll be able to see a musical about Neil Diamond in Australia. On one of the streaming services, if you missed it at the cinemas, you can see a film about a Neil Diamond impersonator – played by Our Hugh no less. And unless for the past few years you have been living under a rock – you lucky lucky bastard – you will have encountered the…
THE ANCHORESS As We Once Were (Last Night From Glasgow) FOR ALL ITS ABUNDANT, vital qualities, humour was not readily apparent in The Art Of Losing, Dr Catherine Anne Davies’ last album as The Anchoress. But then there was not a lot of room for it in subject matter that ranged from isolation forced and dementia observed to unalterable, unbearable death, even as the songs had, as I described at the…
It begins sweetly, but we know how this ends, and it's not with peaches and cream. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN Don't be stranded, at a drive-in or anyway, branded a fool because you haven't found more playlists like this one by me at Spotify.
VERDANI The Illusion Is Gone (Dobridust) ICECREAM HANDS Pineapple Pieces (Independent/bandcamp) THE INSTITUTIONALIST All The Bridges Burned (Independent/bandcamp) GOOD NEWS FOR THOSE with reduced spare time or shrinking attention spans or a need to “turn the record over” every 20 minutes or so even if there is no record: relief or reward is at hand. Here’s a batch of local releases which offer no…
Ahoy Magda, where you heading? Photo by Stuart Spence Here we have the next instalment in What Comes To Mind, an alternative series in the Wind Back Wednesday space, based on the work of the brilliant photographer Stuart Spence, whose not-so-secret goal was to dig into my brain or soul or what might pass for both. Each time, he pulls out a photo from his archives going back almost 50 years and…
“It’s being open to creativity, being open to your muses," says Ngaiire. WHETHER IT’S REAL OR NOT – is there a Confucian scholar out there, or someone who watched a lot of (the original, of course) Kung Fu and thinks he is a Confucian scholar, to help confirm? – everyone knows the supposed Chinese curse “may you live in interesting times”. One might say the world was cursed this way not that long…
No coward soul is mine, no trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN More matters poetical and musical in playlists like this can be found on the windy moors of Spotify. Search for my name.
New York supper club habitue? Laufey photographed by Nicole Margo LAUFEY Afterpay Arena, Sydney, August 7 NOT ALL HEROINES wear capes. Some wear felt crowns and bunny ears, or capelet and tiaras, silver boots and lace dresses, and if you’re lucky, some hennins (come on, you know, high medieval conical hats. Obvs.) or a dress partially made from sheet music, one sheet of which has been folded into…
