I would like to use this review of Adelaide-based Syrian Oud player Adnaan Baraky as an opportunity to make a comment on the multiculturalism debate, and this so called notion of “assimilation”.

A number of years ago I started to learn the Oud with a wonderful teacher in the Western Sydney Turkish community, which culminated in me joining their community orchestra as the token White Anglo-Saxon. I didn’t speak a word of Turkish, I was not a Muslim, I had never been to Middle Eastern country, I knew nothing of the culture – and yet I was welcomed with open arms because of my willingness to cross the cultural bridge halfway on account of my love of the instrument. And I came to learn and love that there is such a thing as a unique Australian Turkish culture, a thing in itself. This was for me represented best in a song composed in Turkish Classical style by my Oud teacher which sang the history of the Australian “Johnnies” and Turkish “Mehmets” fighting on the shores of Gallipoli. “Assimilation” as the critics of multiculturalism would have it, would prevent art such as this from being born in Australia.

During the performance by Adnaan, a highly skilled and creative artist with a learned musical pedigree, he spoke of composing his piece Melodies from the Other Side as the US Forces invaded Afghanistan, written for the dead on both sides of the conflict. He was unable to finish the song. Then when the US invaded Iraq, again he tried to complete the piece but was not able. Finally, after moving to Australia, he was so touched the tragedy of the victims of the Victorian bushfires he was able to finish the song, as if the spirits of the dead were saying to the living “Don’t worry about us, instead, worry about yourselves, for we are in peace”.

This is what is created in the crucible of multiculturalism.

Much of his new music being showcased tonight from his newly released album is born of his migration to Australia, of the search to find a means of expressing his Syrian heritage in the Australian setting. The Blues was not born here, but we are often happy to talk about an Australian Blues scene, and cultural context. Why are we then so hesitant about recognizing Australian-Middle Eastern culture and music, or Australian-African, or Australian-Asian for that matter?

There are songs of geographical dislocation, Ya Balady, of Sufic spirital ecstacy through Union with the Divine, Dinaan and well as traditional dances, Lawha. Through all these works and thematic melodies he conjures amazing taksim (improvisation) that carries one into deep meditative admiration.

Adnaan Baraky will be doing one more performance for the Adelaide Fringe on Sunday 13 March. Attendance would be all the more culturally enriching for you I think, an opportunity to pick up his CD while you are there.

Now, I like Dave Callan, MC for the Burlesque Beauties this evening – he is a funny bastard. But please Dave, please – no more clichéd Adelaide jokes involving Fruchocs, Malls Balls, The 5 Way Roundabout of Death or Iced Coffee. In exchange we will refrain from all Leprechaun, IRA and Michael Flatley jokes. I hope we have an understanding here?

The evening’s conviviality commenced with Lyra La Belle and Radha Leigh doing a ‘Bump and Grind’ Balloon adornment. Now, I’m probably too much of a hedonist because balloons pinned on full frilly undergarments aren’t quite titillating enough – the slow popping and removal to reveal what one can essentially see anyway left me scratching my head. This was followed by Lolly Dolly doing a grown up Shirley Temple ‘Good Ship Lollipop’ routine with giant novelty candy– which, admittedly, I thought a little “Sailor Moon Fetish” like, albeit quite innocent in intent I’m sure.

Thus the start, I will admit, had me worried that things might stay relatively safe. But then things got shifted into high gear and the girls made the rubber hit the road.

It is here I really need to mention Moon Daze singing a slow Billie Holliday ‘You’re My Thrill’. She smouldered, she was intoxicating, she prowled the stage and she made me sit up and take notice.

Radha, Lyra and Lolly brought in a good dose of Andrew Sisters tropical fun with ‘Rum and Coca Cola ®’  - it was sassy, it was sexy and made good continuity of burlesque sensibilities in the 1940’s blitzkrieg era setting, and hooray – pasties! I did mention my hedonist tendencies didn’t I? - oh, good.

‘Take It All’ - a musical number by the gorgeous Dahlia D’Frisco was an inviting, honest and upfront performance. This was followed by a mandatory gymnastic ‘Fever‘ routine, on chairs, draped by Lyra La Belle and Radha Leigh. Nice flow and form, maybe not scorching hot but a fever worthy of a pharmacy strength analgesic nonetheless.

There was no lack of good humour in the evening either – Lyra showing that Cos Play is now legitimate game in burlesque when dancing to ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’, and Dave Callan proving he is the new driving force in Boylesque by nailing almost perfectly an entire routine to Beyonce’s ‘All The Single Ladies’ with support from the Beauties cast.

Maybe my main critique of an otherwise enjoyable evening is that some routines felt a little rushed. A bit more holding back, a bit more tease might up the intensity further  – but nor was it absent, accolades again to Moon Daze for hitting the mark bang on.

Burlesque Beauties continue their season until 7 March 2011 - and already sold out!

Many of you may not know the name Barry William Hale, but then surrealist & visionary art has never received the serious consideration it has deserved from the cuvée & canapé set. William Blake and Austin Osman Spare were not necessarily artistic doyens while they were still breathing, but then recognition is not the priority when the human canvas – that of the artist and the observer – cries out for transformation.

Over the years I have often found myself tripping into the path of his work. From some of his earliest showings in Sydney in the late 90’s to this latest manifestation conducted in collaboration with soundscape artist, Scott Barnes, and visual cortex metaphysician, Michael Strum, I am not necessarily convinced that I have ever stepped outside of a particular art gallery bound not by spatiality, geography or chronology. A veritable Chapel Perilous.

The contented ’spiritual’ middle class will continue to flock to the words of visiting Tibetan Lamas or the dances of whirling Dervishes and their ilk. For most, this will ever be pantomime, the gulf between the performer and audience as wide as an abyss. A devotion to secular-flavoured Catholic indulgences for universal peace of mind.

But what if you could be in a space where the bolted gates of your conscious and subconscious Self could be gently assaulted by wave after wave of drones and beats, epileptographic machinations, Gyuato growling & Lilithian cries, all resonating to sacred form and syllables that arose not from some ascetic Bodhisattva on an Eastern mountain, but through the endeavours of a genius wife-swapping Elizabethan mathematician of high regard who spoke to angels?

To further describe the work presented this evening, representing just two of twenty one works in development based around Dr John Dees Enochian Alphabet, would be subjective in the extreme. What will you get from it? I couldn’t say – these things sometimes take time to work the required neuronal sublimation. Look to Youtube, keep an eye out on Fulgar Press.

Maybe I’ll see you in the Chapel sometime?

When you want an evening of dark cabaret, a heady atmosphere like that of somewhere from the Deep South can’t hurt – and Adelaide’s weather has certainly come to the party on the eventide, a readily thickening humidity rolling over the Fringe site, amplified within the performance tent, pushed even further by the performances in Noir Revue.

Our Mistress of Ceremonies, the Blue Angel, an ethereal creature somewhere between Little Nell and Marlene Deitrich has promised us dark tragic beauties & troublesome fellows.  This they delivered and more.

Throughout the evening we had wonderful stylistic counterpunctuality between songstress Baby Blue Bergman & Dizzy, who delivered beautifully aching renditions of Blue Velvet and Bang Bang, set in a balanced dichotomy against the deep soul driven lamentations of Chantal delivering Blues in the Night and Folsom Prison Blues amongst her repertoire.

The theme of knife edge balance curiously continues amongst the routines of Paloma Negra & Missy – who together performed an erotically charged Chair Tango, reinforcing an old saying that the Tango is horizontal desire expressed vertically. When separated, each demonstrated no shortage of matched aerial skill – Paloma on the Delta Trapeze and Missy on a Trapeze Ring, the attention of the audience held not through circus trickery, but in the discipline each demonstrated in slow deliberate contortions.  The tightening of a muscle, a tendon stretched, maybe a bead of sweat delivering the fascination to the observer, each of us being compelled and drawn into the very restraint itself.

And old favourite, Mr Gorski delivers a new take on his amazing hat & cigar juggling skills.  Whereas the last time I saw him the routine certainly had a nod to the good Mr Chaplin’s physical comedy, Mr Gorski’s present incarnation presents a much darker, uncontrolled protagonist. Drunk, leering and pleasantly unwholesome, this Mr Gorski comes from a tenebrous corner of the psyche, a development I appreciate considerably.

Our required dose of tease was delivered in medicinal spoonfuls by Scarlett Jezebel and Sarina del Fuego - both together and in separate routines, some parts deliberately understated, some exorcising any need for subtlety.  Scarlett was resplendent in glory in her amazing Peacock Feather Fan bustle, azure magnificence as she swayed and bumped her way before us, peeling away the layers to our delight.  And the divine Ms del Fuego delivered the naughty and naughtier, forgetting the nice somewhere along the way. Her Perdita Smoking routine was sensual and a source of ignition (not only from the cigarette), while her fan routine held something of the Norman Lindsay aesthetic, like some dryad celebrating release from one of his etchings.

I would hasten to add that like shadows, the full range of noir sensibilities is cast only in the presence of a suitable light source – and tonight’s performance carried enough light and shade from each performer to emotionally move one between states of engagement, from awe to sympathy, through titillation and doses of whimsy.

The remaining performances are Saturday 19th and Sunday 20th February, I suggest you start your 2011 Adelaide Fringe off with a bang, bump and grind at the Noir Revue.

The Swiss are famous for many things - chocolate, wristwatches and half-assed neutrality. But one should never forget that many of the traditions of absinthe distillation were kept alive in the Alps of Switzerland amongst clandestine bootleggers when prohibition was enacted and operational.

These uncoloured La Bleue absinthes are quite a different style to many other continental absinthes, and La Clandestine Absinthe is no exception. The love child of distiller Claude-Alain Bugnon in Val-de-Travers, this particular incarnation of this very old style absinthe had its origins in a secret still next to his wife’s washing machine, before becoming the commercially produced and legally distributed product it is today.

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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!

Fortune presents gifts not according to the book
When you expect whistles it’s flutes
When you expect flutes it’s whistles

‘Letrillas’ (1581) by the priest Luis de Gongora.

Thanks to the folk at Absinthesalon, we were supplied with a bottle of Nemesinthe, an absinthe produced by Liqueurs de France and distilled at the Timbermill Distillery in South West London.

As the product promotional speil goes, Nemesinthe Absinthe takes its inspiration from the ancient Greek Nemesis, although known as the Goddess of Vengeance and Retribution, Nemesis was also a distributor of fortune, in due proportion to each according to their deserts.

Well, my lotto numbers clearly did not come up tonight. And I obviously did something worthy of retribution to be presented with such disappointment.

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While enjoying the afternoon at the Absinthesalon, I had the opportunity to partake in a sneaky glass of absinthe, and chose to indulge in the Jade PF 1901 – yet another creation of the master, Ted Breaux.

PF1901 is a tribute absinthe to perhaps the most famous of absinthe’s, Pernod Fils, with the date reflective of the year that the famous Pontarlier absinthe distillery caught fire and was destroyed.

from the Melbourne “Argus”, 15 August 1901

This verte absinthe comes in at 68% alc/vol, in an attractive amber bottle with a ornate label highlighted in gold leaf.  The liquid was clear and intense in a convincing natural peridot colour, leaning more towards the olive yellow end of the spectrum.

My first long inhale was something of a surprise – to be honest I did not get the usual herbaceous hit of many absinthes, rather this absinthe had some similarities to a fine Pinot Noir.  It was an integrated perfumed nose, touches of violet and other sweet floral notes. It actually initiated discussion about the use of wine as a spirit base and to what degree this can influence the taste of an absinthe. The other surprise was I could smell a certain pleasant minerality that usually I only taste and generally seek out as one of my benchmarks for quality.

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Burlesque Beauties, by Kitty Kemble’s Mirror Mirror Company, at La Boheme has made something of point of difference in Americana inspiration, whereas many a burlesque and cabaret troupe give a good nod to the stylistic themes of Vegas, this performance took more cues from New York.

Chair routines, and somewhat tame but aerobic Feather fan performances to the likes of All That Jazz, show where a good dose of the aesthetic was pitched.  There were some very good traditional French style tease routines and acrobatics amongst the dancing, the latter quite commendable given the restricted stage area.

The Broadway nod continued with a rendition of New York New York by a shirtless, buff and highly capable male cabaret singer, Jesse James, with him really hitting his strides and owning the performance space by the second number, a soulfully delivered Cry Me A River.

Singer, Madison K, is a stunning performer who really impressed me with a particularly striking cabaret number involving murder and comedy – singing while manipulating a corpse on stage is no mean feat.

The laughs were maintained through some other well delivered cabaret favourites by other performers,  Whatever happened to class? and a witty fashion advice number with an unsuspecting audience member ending up as a Corey Worthington clone.

Again we have hit that interesting question of continuums between other forms of dancing, Show Girl routines and Burlesque.  Maybe one of the things I like about burlesque is that it is often a celebration of ‘beautiful imperfection’. The character portrayal, physicality and the delivery of routines have a certain realistic quality that are within the grasp of any woman (or man).

As a result, when I am presented with burlesque performed by athletically buff and stunning performers, delivered with a certain military precision, sculptured perfection and style of choreography I would normally associate with other exotic dance forms, it does give me moment to pause.

Maybe I feel we weren’t quite teased enough…that the bridge between performer and audience had not quite been traversed.

Did you know the domestic adoption and use of the vibrator preceded the home vacuum cleaner by nine years?

Neither did I?

And that once upon a time medically administered manual masturbation by your local doctor was the standard treatment for women suffering genital congestion and hysteria and that it was not regarded as anything to do with sex?

But could you claim it on Medicare?

All these tit bits, and historical pink bits, are contained in cabaret song and delicious silliness in this production by Isabel Hertaeg on “the little death”, La Petit Mort – The Orgasm.

Accompanied by her talented pianist, Geoff “Magic Fingers” Urquhart, this sexy siren, a metaphorical and literal Lady in Red, gets us into the mood with a good dose of Luciferian lavisciousness as she serenades the Devil’s horn.

Alternating between story and song she takes us from period Germanic art song dripping frank Freudian connotations to lesbian laments for labia left behind.  If I could critique one thing, it would be that the strength and delivery of her dialogue maybe didn’t carry the gravitas or conviction of her singing, less vamp, more vixen.

La Petit Mort has two more shows, 11 & 12 March at the Promethean Theatre.  Grab a ticket, but not yourself, and see why this show received rave reviews at the Edinburgh and Melbourne Fringe Festivals.

On the related topic of vibrators, and the absinthian cultural mores of neo-Victorian Steam Punk, here is a website by a creative genius who has managed to bring the two together.