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A Review of Avast! Wretched Sea by The Good Ship

Ration My Rum! Something of a Post Office Box mix up courtesy of the local Postmaster meant this CD didn’t land in my hands much sooner, but I’m happy it did.

The Good Ship are no doubt Australia’s newest exponents of maritime Indie Folk. More fun than keel-hauling Angus & Julia Stone under the hull of a heavily barnacled clipper – maybe with the Able Seaman Nick Cave releasing the rope of one side, and Bosun Shane McGowan pulling up the rope on the other under the watchful eye of the Captain Eugene Hütz.

Avast! Wretched Sea is subtitled as a work of Undulating tales of woe and intrigue. Indeed they are.

After many months at sea, we approach port with A Harbour Fair, a rousing anthem to gambling, grog and loose women.  Frantic fiddles and homebound hollering set the pace in this slick shanty.

Spanish horns and straight vocal delivery subtlety mask the true bawdiness of A Few of My Favourite Flings, showing that one can still have a girl in every port.

The demonic domains of Davy Jones Locker are captured in the rocking three-step Sea Monster, over the skeletal jangle of dancing castanets.

6000 Cocks is a tragic ‘working girls’ lament with a catchy sing-along tune, though you may want to be careful where you sing it. Public transport is not a good idea.

Cougar culture and the tragedy of mutton-dressed-as-lamb is pondered in a country-ballad-like 18 When You’re 44. Lock up your mothers…

You’ll have a tea-bagging good time with Don’t Kiss Me With Your Lips, and a pick up line guaranteed to either get you laid or arrested.

The waltzing Tavern Song is a rollicking good folk tune that is a wonderful musical advocate for extended trading hours down at your local.

Slow and wistful, No Shortage of Company opens the bloodied and broken heart of the rejected. Misery indeed loves company.

The previous tune is almost a segue into Bury Me, a tune dressed with moments of rousing spiritual gospel, with counterpoints of delta blues fatalism.

These lads and lasses of Good Ship must be sailors because the next song, I Can Make Her Laugh– full of beautiful melodies and harmonies, is also replete with sodomy and pearl necklaces. You heard me.

Cut Off My is a psychopathically sordid love tale with wailing violin and sinister military snare, no doubt deserving of a Tarantino film clip of its own. Being stuck in the middle is easy with no limbs.

Last Song of the Night brings our journey to an end, the thankless job of a musician in front of an uncaring audience, disappearing slowly into their beer glasses in melancholy and indifference.  Whatever happened to the Piano Man?

Avast! is now out on Autumn Recordings and a selection of tunes available for a listen at The Good Ships myspace site.

Upcoming gigs include

3 Oct 2010      Peregian Originals     Peregian Beach, Qld, AUSTRALIA
8 Oct 2010     BAM Festival     Peaks Crossing, Queensland, AUSTRALIA
29 Oct 2010     The Troubadour     Brisbane, Queensland, AUSTRALIA
20 Nov 2010    Grace Darling     Melbourne, VIC, AUSTRALIA
21 Nov 2010     The Tote Melbourne     Melbourne, Victoria, AUSTRALIA

Go support some local Australian music ye Lily-livered landlubbers!

Salutations Libertarian’s all,

there is a smorgasboard of decadent entertainment, titillation and whimsy coming in a few short weeks with the Adelaide Fringe on our doorstep once more.  We will be giving extra attention to the burlesque arts this year with the following on our shopping list:

Vari-A-Tease – with the divine Danica Lee, mischievous Missy and a cast of performers delivering a menu of burlesque, vaudeville, magic and cabaret.

A Deli Burlesque – A cross-pollination of neo-burlesque and vintage charm.
Babes on bikes; hula-hoop aerobics; exotic bird rituals and more.

Burlesque Beauties - Reminiscent of 1920s, 30s, 40s and50s, three sassy burlesque beauties present their unique blend of classic burlesque, comedy, music and vintage sass.

For events closer to hand – 2pm Saturday the 13th of February at Gallery Serpentine, in Newtown (Sydney) are having  special Valentine Day event, with Jocelyn from the Cult of Scent showcasing a range of new and favourite hand crafted artisan fragrances.

Come and find out which of the Cult of Scent perfume best suits you and - if you’re very very nice -get your bottle of Cult of Scent perfume customised especially for you!

Happy New Year Antipodean Absintheurs & Libertines

This year, instead of sticking to crusty old New Year’s Resolutions, why not get involved in making a Renew Year’s Resolution?

Urban renewal for artistic endeavour is a growing movement internationally, but probably the best example in Australia has been the Renew Newcastle project. These canny Novocastrians find short and medium term uses for buildings in Newcastle’s CBD that are currently vacant, disused or awaiting redevelopment and matches them with artists, cultural projects and community groups to use.

It is a problem common to all cities - urban sites are boarded up, heavily vandalised or decaying because the is no short term for use them and no one taking responsibility for them.  The Renew Newcastle project has actually been instrumental in turning a primarily industrial and mining town into a thriving arts community, and shaming many a capital city in terms of public accessibility to the arts.

And now it is Adelaide’s turn.  Renew Adelaide is a non-profit, artist run initiative following the lead of Renew Newcastle, that also believe artist and community run spaces have the power to transform cities. Like it’s forerunner, they aim to fill empty spaces and disused buildings in and around the city of Adelaide with artist and community run ventures, with the minimum possible cost to those involved.

Both the Newcastle and Adelaide venture have Facebook groups you can join, so keep up with the developments.

More projects like this should be started nationally, and to help prevent other potential hubs of artistic creativity becoming another Sydney (albeit there is some hope).  Melbourne is on top of it in another way with their CreativeSpaces project.  So what’s going on in your town? - email us and let us know.

Stop Press

By happy coincidence, ABC Radio National program Life Matters featured an interview on the 6 January 10 with Renew Newcastle founder Marcus Westbury on his urban artistic renewal project - mp3 audio available here.

Industry intel from the Just Drinks media group alert us to multinational wine and spirits behemoth Pernod Ricard announcing that it will support emerging visual artists, through a competition featuring its Pernod Aux Plantes d’Absinthe Superieure brand.

The contest will award its first place winner $1805 US in cash with a second place prize of $500 and third place $250. There are plans for a celebratory event to be run concurrently with The Armory Show, the annual international art fair, in New York City.

Brian Eckert, Pernod brand manager for Pernod Ricard USA is quoted as saying “Pernod has been a strong supporter of the arts since the brand debuted in France more than 200 years ago” - a statement I am sure is true if you count keeping bohemian artists in constant creative lubrication.

“Since its debut, Pernod has been a favourite drink among the cultural elite including Picasso, Van Gogh, Monet and Poe. We thought it fitting to honour this relationship with a contest that celebrates the artist in us all.”

While some may suggest that these cultural elite were also regarded fringe degenerates by polite society in their time, certainly Pernod Ricard as a modern company are doing their bit to support the arts so they are putting their money where their mouth is.

Interested artists must submit only original works, and all works submitted must include the date 1805, the date the brand was first launched.  Submissions are being accepted until the end of  January, 2010, in the following categories: painting, illustration, photography, video, digital/animation.

Submissions will be accepted entirely online at www.facebook.com/pernodabsinthe.

I had a most unusual realisation the other day.  I realised that I had grown up with British Musical Hall tradition tunes.  Now, being in my late thirties this may seem incongruous with a musical tradition that spanned the late Victorian and early Edwardian eras, a hey-day for absinthe.  But something triggered a long forgotten memory in my mind of spending a good part of the late seventies as a child watching ABC television on Sunday nights I believe, following a long-running BBC show called “The Good Old Days“.

For those post-Gen X, this was a somewhat gloriously hokey romp of a tv show (yea, camp even - Victorian Drag anyone ?) where the entire audience dressed up in period Victorian-Edwardian garb (today we might say old school Steampunk….) and sang along to old show tunes with the performers, often well known comedians and singers of the day, hamming it up on stage reliving the glory days of British vaudeville. Such was its popularity that it ran for 30 years.

That’s what people did before Torrent downloads of Joss Whedon shows and internet porn.

It must be said that with the meteoric Burlesque revival, the revival of Music Hall must surely not be far behind, or have a potential niche in these “new old times”.   And so it is with some delight that I stumbled across the Australian performing duo known as Bygone Error, who are making a mark in the Australian folk scene with their resurrected show tunes and bawdy British humour from these delightfully fruity times past.  Think of a musical ‘Are You Being Served?’ in a snazzy bowler & waistcoat and you’ve hit the vibe.

I think these chaps have potential to go wider than the folk scene - any promoters in the Fringe Festival or neo-burlesque milieu should go give them a listen now.  I can easily see them being an excellent support to the other revived lost vaudevillian arts now back in vogue - and to my mind the musical side has been the one component of these traditions largely overlooked with the exception of specialised cabaret chanteuses such as Meow Meow.  But there is so much more musically from this era, and I am glad for one that this dynamic duo are broadening the re-experience of entertainment history.

She’s back.

The chanteuse on the loose, noir pop-cabaret songstress Amanda Palmer, one half of the Dresden Doll duopoly, once again graces our fair shores to promote her new album, Who Killed Amanda Palmer?

With songs full of wit and woe, you get be the forensics expert and pour over her exposed brutalised entrails of emotional…I believe the term she used on JJJ today was…’wangst’. Maybe it was only ‘angst’ she said, but hey, wangst implies some degree of self-loving through self-flagellation.

And who doesn’t enjoy a tad of slap, tickle and self torment?

Already winging her away around the country - if you want to her see her on stage exposing her soul and maybe several other parts, pay close attention to the following dates:

26 & 27th February - The Studio, Sydney Opera House, Sydney

1 March - The Tivoli, Brisvegas

3 March - The Corner, Melbourne

4 March - The Gov, Adelaide

6&7 March - Fly By Night Musicians Club, Perth

10 March - The Studio, Auckland (that’s across the ditch guys…)

12 March - The Bodega Bar, Wellington

14 March - The (geographically confusing) Brisbane Hotel, Hobart (back in Australia but still over a ditch)

Want tickets? Then go you should go here.

If one were quicker off the mark, one might have tried to find out more about the slumber party she hosted in Melbourne….flannelete PJs or satin I wonder? Sigh, time for some wangsting…..

It’s Fringe Festival time in Adelaide again, and we at absinthe.com.au will be on the ground at the Garden of Unearthly Delights and other venues, bringing you some of our reviews and experiences at this month long celebration of underground entertainment.

If you haven’t downloaded the program yet, grab one now and become befuddled by the choice before you.  Not in Adelaide?  Grab a discount fare, jump on a plane and come join the frivolities.

The Opening Night Party kicks off this Friday the 27th February with a free party, parade and concert, with TZU, Fire! Santa Rosa, Fire!, The Levitators and Well Being all on the bill.

Some of the performances that have caught our eye that we will be attending include:

CW Stoneking : bluesman and raconteur, letting loose with his pot’o'jazzy jungle blues, straight outta a smokey boozy speakeasy (one with absinthe of course…)

Imogen Kelly - The Undressing Room : Not just a Queen of Burlesque, but an Artist, darling. Take a peek in her undressing room and give yourself something to confess the following Sunday….

The Kustom Kulture Weekend : Hot rods, quiffs, tatts and zombies. Everything goes better with zombies.

Die Roten Punkte : Ich bin ein Berliner! And you too can be a squishy jam donut just by attending the witty punk-pop performances of Astrid and Otto, everyones favourite eurotrash.

And that’s barely scratching the surface……

If you were that sort of soul, you could very well go out every night for the next 30 days.

If that is you, then we raise a glass of the finest jade in your honour….

Ben Cauchi, Dead Time, 2008, ambrotype

A new collection of works by emerging and established Australian and New Zealand artists puts a uniquely contemporary spin on the Victorian age.

New Victorians opened at Sydney’s University Art Gallery on Sunday and re-interprets the complexity, excitement and political intricacies of Queen Victoria ’s rule (1837-1901) - the longest reign in British history.

New Victorians showcases the work of seven artists who have been inspired by the Victorian era and who have been influenced by Victorian imagery, materials, themes and processes. Artists whose work is featured in the exhibition are New Zealand’s Ben Cauchi and Liyen Chong and Australia’s Sharon Goodwin, Emma van Leest, Julia deVille, Starlie Geikie and Pete Volich.

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With apologies to Noel Coward.

It must be the season for art-macabre with Robert’s recent note on the exhibition in Japan, and now this - Neo Goth: Back in Black, an exhibition at the University of Queensland’s St Lucia Art Gallery.

While many think of dear old Queensland as the state of sunburn, surf and politicians with ‘interesting’ political views, I have always felt assured in that sunshine state in years past, by the sight of the young & beautiful darklings who assemble late afternoons in Queen Street Mall in Brisvegas.  I suppose it’s all Emo now….why, when I was a monochromatic lad, frock coats were all the rage, Big Electric Cat were the local heroes and…yawn….young whipper snappers……zzzzzzz.

Kirra Jamison May all your wishes come true 2007

Anyhoo.

Curator Alison Kubler (as in the Absinthe!) has assembled 170 works from 60 artists over two levels of the museum, covering the mediums of music, fashion, film and literature.

From the exhibition flyer:

“From its subcultural origins in eighteenth century literature, through to the movement’s dedicated tribes of black-clad youths in the 1980s, Goth culture is no longer underground or fringe, but mainstream. Is this ‘new’ interpretation of the Gothic aesthetic just that – an aesthetic – or is the neo-Goth impulse a considered response to a darker, more pessimistic world? The major exhibition neo goth dips beneath the surface and takes a peek at the noir underbelly of Australian culture as it is manifested across art, fashion, film and literature.”

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Review of “New Music To Fall Asleep To…(Lullabies by Justin Ashworth)”

When new members join the merry band of Absinthe.com.au subscribers, occasionally one observes that the email with which they have subscribed deserves further investigation. It is with no small amount of pleasure that I have discovered that we have a broad church of libertarians under our humble canopy, from visual artists, poets, magicians, distillers, dancers, authors, actors, courtesans, journalists, the odd dominatrix or two, and importantly, musicians.

One such Australian musician, and dedicated absintheur, that I would like to bring to your attention is Melbourne based Justin Ashworth.  I have for many years been a devotee of the dark ambient and experimental soundscape genre, and certainly Australia has had no shortage of exponents of this particular craft over the decades.  The opportunity then to explore new work by a local artist over a glass of absinthe or two is a welcome one indeed.

Being armed with droning loops, acoustic neo-folk attitudes and unpredictable acts of psychadelia, he is actually a hard artist to buttonhole through comparison. A good thing I say. You can hear a track or two from the following reviewed album on Justin’s MySpace page - maybe pour yourself a glass before you click through.

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