HTRK AND THE BIRDS OF PASSAGE

Piper and I are soaring down the West Gate Bridge with the sinking sun coursing in through the windshield. I’m slinging her mandarin segments and trail mix, trying to decipher the map with her ridiculously gigantic sunglasses falling down my nose. The grand rites of love, family and our respective regional upbringings reverberate around the 2004 Toyota corolla, and we bond over the bush and Michelles patisserie. I turn up the music when it dies down, and as fate would have it, HTRK belts out from the stereo so the emerging stars listen eagerly. We're running late. This is not due to my undecipherable navigation, but because the traffic was really really bad. 

A little later, I am fighting with the blue eyeshadow I packed. I look like a clown. Piper sympathises as she pulls on her tights in the corner of the tin shed rental. Because I love her, I approve of LMFAO as our getting ready soundtrack, blistering through an iPhone speaker and making me a bit teary-eyed, fuelled further by the sting of my bargain bin eyeliner. At the Theatre Royal, we’re all thrown together at lightening speed for fear of missing the opening act of the evening, THE LEWERS. In addition to their lure, it’s clear that the Castlemaine getaway entices a certain city-slicker-weekend-warrior. My hunch is secured by the inner-north naarm battalion that emerges on the ballroom floor, but it’s nice though, in a way. I am an artic tern joining its flock in the Antarctic Ocean. The only risks of predation on the course of this long migration are running into a bygone hinge match at the pub next door and not having anywhere to hide. I remember no one will recognise me anyway if I am face painted to this Prussian degree.

Nar, it's chill. mating rituals are ceded on the Journey south anyway.

(courtesy of cannon992.com)

We’re perched up on a couch, knocking back another prosecco as THE LEWERS take the stage. The ballroom gets toasty, and the sounds that start to trickle into the air guide me into a musical coma. I sink deeper and deeper into the couch, so much so that I can no longer see my fellow terns. Through the thick wafts of denim and lint, I hear the unmistakable intro for Kalopsia. The slide guitar + drum machine are savoury and sweet, and Celestial Dogs has a feverish quality to it. Even from the depths of the sofa’s belly, I’m charmed by their Sydney-side manners - apologising profusely for fucking up the start of a song. Their politeness reminds me that Melbourne lacks morals, and I feel a bit homesick for the NRL. Pastoral paints my reminiscent walls a soft bright yellow as the wailing melodica fights for our attention. Each member of this band is another colour in their stained glass window - slotting together perfectly and letting the light in for their congregation.

When interval arrives, I crawl back up through the leather and put Piper down for a nap on the sofa. I tuck her in with our jackets, and set off to find my flute teacher, Hank. He isn’t really my flute teacher anymore, because I bet all of my lesson money on one night at the Crown. For the convenience of my readership, I’ll embellish his character with his musical prowess and silver hustle. We’re seeking darts, and lamenting the eternal construction next door to his house. Outside on Castlemaine’s polar front, he explains that his sense of self is eroding because of it. I listen and look on with my best therapist eyes, suggesting we make a short film about the torment. This would provide a means of processing, documenting and becoming friends with the skull-vibrating hum of the Rotohammer (it’s average Db levelling at 97.8). The other tar-sucking tagalongs are flapping back into the ballroom, so I finish laying out the semiotics of our peace plan and feature film. The frenzy alerts me that HRTK are about to change my stupid bird life forever. 

Anticipation aches through the several thousand bones stood silent in the theatre, awaiting the fleeting presence of Jonnine and Nigel. Starving and starstruck, we look on hungrily from the black sky. They are pelagic invertebrates sparkling in the darkest undulations of the antarctic ocean. I’m smiling at them like a kindergarten teacher as they set off with Blue Sunshine, gentle and slow. Jonnine orbits the stage with timeless kind of grace, nonchalant as the fixtures glow red upon her like the northern lights. Nigel strums the essence of Kiss Kiss and Rhinestones on his guitar, and I am thrown into an unknown sentimental emotion - but I settle on gratitude. I never thought I’d get to see them play. Puddles on my Pillow, spills out across the water like an oil spill and rocks Piper to a gentle slumber on her sailboat sofa. 

“Give your love to me give it all to me, under blue mouldy light… Ocean floods my bedroom floor”

Gorgeous. The whole world waits for HTRK. 

The next morning, we are having breakfast at Togs Place when YUTA MATSUMURA materialises before us. My hangover grants me special powers in confidence, I so blurt out a compliment. I think one of us tells him to “Rise and Grind” after he explains his busy touring and recording schedule. He is so lovely - and I show Piper the Red Ribbon album on the long journey back to the concrete nest. When we land in North Melbourne, I make sure I have all of my feathers and wave goodbye from the front porch. Our wings are adequately stretched and studded with rhinestones. 

DRINKING THE VENOM with DYLAN McCARTNEY of THE DRIN

 

I nearly let this one slip through the cracks! I was too busy howling at the pale moon...

I emailed Dylan McCartney (The Drin, The Serfs) last year, with hopes to stick this micro-interview in the centrefold of the pending Farmdog zine.... One day it will happen - but for now, here is a digital offering.

Hope all is well.

Yours truly,

Farmdog. xxxxx

https://thedrin.bandcamp.com/

https://theserfsmusic.bandcamp.com/track/bodies-in-water

 

WHAT'S A BLOGGER TO A ROCKER? WHAT'S A ROCKER TO...

ON A SWEATY THURSDAY AFTERNOON in the illustrious Port Melbourne, I am busy pissing off my coworkers talking about The Dare. If there’s one hot soirée that will resurrect this blog from its digital grave, it’s a suited-up yank with semi-fucked teeth and an irrefutable sex appeal. With careful and somewhat repetitive execution on my behalf, I am banned from saying his name - ordered to remain in my corner and frame god awful Etsy prints in silence like a sad little elf. I frown at the LeBron James basketball print I have seen one thousand times before in my picture-framing career, and begin to imagine the bands that those evil graphic designers must be counting - reproducing one another’s square purple bullshit in search of global Etsy domination. Linda, the lovely Canadian postwoman, startles me from my stupor - reporting the weeks gossip, and the heat that’s set to vanquish the city. 

“He’s piggy backing off the vast resurgence of… Indie-Sleaze?” She questions in her soft Whistler whisper.

I’m doing my best to explain the trajectory of his lore when the clock strikes five. Blowing the dust off my Ryobi One+ 18V drill like I’m Billy The Kid, I stagger out into the blaring sun and mount my carbon frame steed. I thought I saw a tumble weed, but rub my eyes to reveal all but an empty packet of Coles Deli popcorn chicken - billowing upon the steaming tarmac - is this an omen? Will I be weightless with no direction after 2nite? IDK. Call it fate, call it karma. 

Back at the pad, I frantically fuck it up with my electro-pop drippington. In Chiara’s apartment, we are passing around a fedora like a holy relic to the ancient hymns of Imagine Dragons and LMFAO. I get that disgusting urge to tag my belongings again, but my silver marker drips on Chiara’s beautiful wooden floorboards and I freak out. It comes right off. Thank fuck. We shuffle to Parkville and dexies are divvied out like we are receiving the holy communion. Bishop Casablancas reads us scripture from a UE boom, while Piper calls me Señorita Awesome in my newly adorned skinny black tie. Max’s literal honours certificate for his university thesis is discarded upon his bed, next to a can of deodorant and a pair of socks. I like the girls who got degrees. I begin visualising it’s potential blizzard-white mat board and Tasmanian oak frame when I am alerted it’s time to face the music, time to destroy disco…. I finish my prayers as we head into the city like we’re the charming intro for a coming of age movie.

When we land into the line for Miscellania, there appears to be a distinct air of both trepidation and mania. People don’t look like people, they look like Disney characters - patterned with cyber-sigilism tattoos and gorp-core on they feet. My final destination can of whiskey ’n’ coke hides discreetly in the tarnished lining of my cunty day-bag. It's metallic and very hard exterior unfortunately doesn’t fool the seccy. Feeling around, she looks at me like I am in fact stupid, and asks:  

“What is that?”

The likeness of a question mark emerges in my minds eye, like the spin transition effect on Microsoft powerpoint. 

“Myyyyy… wallet?”  

She seems saddened, more than agitated. I give up the goods (just step) with my tail between my legs then Piper takes my hand and leads me up the stairs. Must be better at lying. And at thinking. We surface up at the rooftop, to an atmosphere I am often induced to peak levels of anxiety within. Weirdly, such perturbations wither, under the impression that I am eleven years old again. Mainly because we are all genuinely dressed like we’ve stepped out of an episode of Wizards of Waverley Place - is my inner child healing? Or is it my vodka JD mystery-festival-floor-baggie cocktail that’s eroding my ego? Hard to say. Everyone is looking around at each other and talking about Harrison in discreet hush-hush type of way - like he’s cancelled, or dead. Piper reveals her secret wish for another lockdown so she can play Minecraft again. Real! People start to abscond from the watering hole - time 2 bounce.

I can’t really breathe because the air is thick with The Dare’s cigarette smoke. I’m also being electrocuted by the high-voltage-performative-vintage-style that’s characterising the room. Being in this crowd is life-threatening, as the daremania climaxes when he rolls out the Guess song. Tune, to be fair, I wanna know what you got going on down there. I bop so willingly that every electrolyte I’ve ever cultivated has been evicted from my pores. DILIGAF? This is awesome. He starts playing The Prodigy and I lose my basic motor function. So fresh. I wonder if Keith Flint would fuck with his suit? All of a sudden, the most peculiar scene begins to format itself in front of me, for upon that stage I see a medley of mfs in huge sunglasses taking turns lighting Harrison’s skinny vogue ciggies. He must rip through at least fifteen, because I have seen the same quantity of girls and gays revel in their intimate spark-up time with him - in a densely crowded semicircle, holding their respective lighters with an unshakeably tight grasp. I see deze hoez shake ass around the decks and I am no longer eleven years old. This is hedonism right before my eyes, elucidated in the polaroid picture I take on Piper’s camera when I reach the front row.  

The communal fedora is now long gone - and I take this as my humble sign to oge. I wipe the sweat off my brow and clamber out of the frenzy while he’s still sending us frequencies from the misc mecca. In that sea of lust and flat caps, I wave goodbye to my new mates and sink into the leather couch at the back of the clurb for a fighting chance of oxygen. I feel like The Bride from Kill Bill when she wakes up from a coma and develops muscular atrophy. 

When I find myself back at the crib, I am still scuffling around like a zombie. It’s 3:30 on the dot when I accidentally trip over the collection of skateboards leaning up against our wall - like the dominoes scene from Robots - the sound is deafening, and I bite my fist in shame. Shimmying into my unmade bed, I kiss my stuffed crocodile goodnight and set my alarm for another day in the frame factory. I attempt 2 drift off to snooze town, but it takes quite a while because I am in fact wired. All I can see when I close my eyes in the darkness, is the shimmering faint outline of the Mickey Mouse Disney logo. All I can hear is the residual chant of 212, and all I can smell, is my perfume.

It’s $5.99

I spray it in my mouth and the taste is divine. 

David Chesworth's Raucous Minimalism

I CAN NEVER REALLY TELL if the sun is shining in the morning, due to a serious lack of window in my bedroom. Instead, a hole in the roof which emits an eternal grey aura alerts me of night and day. In response to this ecological inner-city setback, I’ve developed an intuitive knowing - like a naked mole rat, sensing it’s that time again to get up and thermoregulate. Except I wear clothes and I don’t eat my own shit. (Naked mole rats eat their own shit. It’s scientifically deemed Coprophagy, which I think would be an awesome band name).

I sheepishly burrow outta the Fitzroy hole and pull up on my Apollo Tourista at Eddy Gardens. Posted out the front of the bowlo with the sun in my eyes, I await the arrival of my interviewee - jack of all trades and mountain bike champion - David Chesworth. Migrating to Melbourne from the UK as a young hustler, Chesworth attended one of the first electronic music courses developed at La Trobe University, naturally cultivating a palette for all things synthesiser and all things minimal. Chesworth was also involved in forming Essendon Airport, a post-punk group emerging in the 80's that would become an unrelenting name stay within the more unconventional sub sects of punk. Inviting us to stroll over moonbeams and waltz over clouds, tuning in to this band is like lowering yourself into a warm bath of unbridled saxaphones and merciful chaos. To understand this collage of musical references and time signatures, I get the nitty gritty of Chesworth's influences, as we talk drunk hecklers, euphoria and DIY's endearing incompetence...

DC: ...How did my stuff come into your orbit? I can ask the questions!

FD: From a friend, I’m fortunate to have friends -

DC: With taste…

FD: *laughs* In the punk scene, he was really into Essendon Airport and sent me some albums when I was first getting into post-punk. You have these preconceived ideas of what punk is, angry guitar, angry drumming, loud noises - yours is clearly quite different.

DC: Yeah, we fall under the banner of post-punk… I think post-punk started to reference things, and sort of take apart other structures and mess with stuff. I’d never identify as a punk, I kind of observed all that from a distance - but I was right next to it! 

At that time I was a student, and a bit of a dabbler in music and then I got together with Robert Goodge, the guitarist… I was influenced a lot by minimalism - I was studying that at La Trobe university, the first experimental music course. I was interested in new practises and processes of making music - for eg, additive processes… where complexity builds. 

*church bells start ringing at the nearby parish*

DC: Oh, thats nice! Another influence of mine, was bells. I grew up in a town where they practice ringing the changes twice a week. 

FD: What a happy coincidence!

DC: I would listen to these permutations and combinations. You’d have a particular set of notes, say white notes on the piano, but that order would continually change so that you’d start a pattern… you’d play through all these different patterns… that trained my brain to really enjoy repetition and permutations and things like that. 

FD: You know Tiktok?

DC: *excentuates old timey British accent* Yes, the kids have told me about that!

FD: It’s interesting how it can really influence society in terms of what music people are listening to. Do you think there’s still a counter-culture in response to this? 

DC: I think things are not so defined now… there’s so many subsets of subsets, people are not geographically bound to being into things - things are immediate. Looking back, its hard to believe that things were so layered into zones. There was high culture, and there was low culture… which was commercially exploited through records - with incredibly rich pop music which I loved. Then it was all about striving for a number 1, now, you’d have a very eclectic grouping that would be serving many diverse interests…. A lot of stuff [in the past] didn’t make it, which is why shows like NTS are so amazing, coz its playing all the other stuff which didn’t cut the mustard back then. 

… The whole rock music sensibility has sustained and morphed and sort of hovers there are wont go away. You think we would have gone onto something else… I’m surprised people don’t give up on music and go “we’re sick of this music thing, lets find another way to do things!” 

FD: I know! I give it about 20 years, there’ll be something else goin’ on. We’ll be listening to stuff like 4,33” - it’ll just be silence.

DC: I think music is a concept. It never becomes a daggy thing. The toughest dudes getting interviewed and they’re talking about the music they make… it transcends… its not fashionable, rather a solid term - tough guys can use the term ‘music’! *laughs*

FD: Do you consider yourself a tough guy? On your bike I think you’re a pretty tough guy…

(David had pulled up to Eddy Gardens on a pretty serious mountain bike)

DC: Yes indeed!

FD: Rightio! Did you ever experience any kind of reluctance to embrace electronic/experimental music? 

DC: Reluctance, now that's an angle! No - because I didn’t train as a proper musician, so I didn’t learn the piano or anything. The synthesiser, when I was taught it, didn’t even have a keyboard. You just had one series of voltages talking to another serious of voltages - they’d interact, sometimes producing melodies and sometimes other things. That became my tool. This turned into two records - the first one - "50 Synthesiser Greats" was self-released in 1979 [and has since been re-released by Chapter Music]. "The Unattended Surge", which was quite different, was made at the same time but first released 15 years ago [by Italian label PLANAM]... it wasn’t really setting out to be experimental though. In a sense, I am driven towards catchy rhythms and poppy things, I have to confess. 

FD: You’re only human!

DC: Thats right! [the time of the albums release] was when lack of competence was an endearing quality of music *laughs*. So those two channels - experimental and abstract, VS one that was playing off the melodies around us and the world that we live in… I’ve always had those two sides of the scale talking to each other… I guess I’ve enjoyed the tension, I don’t like giving people exactly what they want.

FD: You’re like Bob Dylan trying to give people a concert…

"...I think I do like antagonising people through the form of things, but that can be the context or alluding to something… Doing the right thing in the wrong place, and the wrong thing in the right place" 

DC: Is that right! I think I do like antagonising people through the form of things, but that can be the context or alluding to something… Doing the right thing in the wrong place, and the wrong thing in the right place. 

FD: Excellent - words of wisdom!

DC: Well, someone else said that…

FD: Better not write that one down then.

(oops) 

FD: The next one is a little bit random, but do you feel more recharged by the sunlight or the moonlight? 

DC: Oh well - that’s interesting - definitely sunlight. I’m not a moonlight person really. Have you asked other people that question? 

FD: No, but I’m interested. Considering some people put their crystals out by the window and charge them at night, by the moon… I dunno, I think I’d be more recharged by the moonlight. 

DC: If i was kind of goth, or was totally pretentious, I would have said moonlight… 

~

FD: Have you heard of Make It Up Club? I live a stones throw away from there… 

DC: Yes! I’ve performed there.

FD: There’s something about the ritual of returning to this space each week. I feel as if theres a constant state of creative flux alive in these walls that's constantly in a cycle [of being renewed] - which is fantastic. But, do you think theres further opportunity for new ideas in more open spaces? As a listener who attends somewhat regularly, you know exactly what to expect visually. You also know the sounds, the drips that’ll come from the pipes, you know it’ll be a bit too warm… whereas attending performances in a brand new location - I feel as if there’d be more opportunity for new ideas for both the audience and the contributor. 

DC: Well, this is just like you coming to see me here, to talk, coz I could see you at my place, but I’d be in my familiar environment, and so you’re not stimulated… most of the world is a world you totally understand and know. To be in new spaces where the world is made slightly unfamiliar to you definitely makes you receive any content in a new way. So yes, I think venues that put things on time and time again, becomes sort of like a scene. You’ve got your friends - a whole lot of factors come in. I think that shifting the context of the music is paramount really. Music is context dependent, for me anyway, it cant happen without the circumstances around it. It’s that cliche of if you’ve got writers block you’ll go somewhere else and have a new stimulating environment. Having said that, I can also talk about the continuities of these spaces. I was the coordinator of this thing called the Clifton Hill Community Centre - will I send you the link to that?

FD: Absolutely - yes please.

DC: I just designed a website for it.

FD: Jack of all trades!

DC: Someone had recorded 4 performances on binaural microphones forty years ago that sat on a shelf… so I thought I’d make those available for people. Clifton Hill was exciting because different people would turn up every day, so rather like Make It Up Club… except we were not into personal expression - “we don’t wanna see people emoting” and using all these cliches, coz that belonged to mainstream music making… Make It Up Club - early days - all of a sudden it all came about sound again. In my view, because computers and new devices allowed incredible new sonic worlds to be made - a whole lot of people starting playing synths, deconstructing drums, rattling things and banging things and it all went back to personal expression… Things can get samey, when people are trying to show each other how clever they are, so, new circumstances… It is better.

FD: Next one is another random one. We were watching the archery last night and there was-

DC: So you actually found something that was watchable? 

(a skater rolls past us) 

DC: Better than the bloody skateboarding. Did you see any of that? What’s normally on public infrastructure is now in a stadium - most of it’s just them falling off!

FD: It’s all a simulation… Anyway! The winning bullseye - it gave us all collective goosebumps. There’s crying, there's jumping, there’s glee. Have you ever experienced euphoria like that before, and where do you find it in every day life? I imagine [your daughter’s] arrival into this world was pretty euphoric.

DC: *laughs* You’re putting words into my mouth! Yes, her beaming eyes looking out from a caesarean… um, that was good! I do find musical experiences I am super affected by… I’m a bit weird in personal life - but I do enjoy performing on stage - I get the adulation of people. My stuff is appreciated by a thin spread of people, but when someone does comment back and says something to me, thats very pleasing! I’ve done experimental performances, operas… So you’ve put this thing on thats almost killed you doing it and the next day feeling - you’ve just done a fucking massive thing thats seemed to have gone down ok - that’s euphoric. But then the next two weeks you lose all that, you get into this chasm of nothingness… euphoria is making something that comes together - when all of a sudden for you, there’s a sense in sensing. That “oh my god! Thats amazing! I wonder if anyone else will think so…” 

"Euphoria is making something that comes together - when all of a sudden for you, there's a sense in sensing. That "oh my god! That's amazing! I wonder if anyone else will think so..."

FD: I feel the same when I put a blog post out and I get a comment back - it’s nice - it’ll put a smile on my dial.

DC: I’d take that as a euphoric win! 

F:D absolutely. We need more of those. One of my fav songs of Essendon Airports, is definitely "I Feel A-

DC: -Song Coming On… *light sigh*

FD: Sue Me! It’s a great one. I wanna know what’s behind this track? 

DC: I’m gonna disappoint you…

FD: Please! Go ahead! 

DC: Palimpsest is actually being re-released soon. We’ve been doing gigs under that guise.

FD: I was at the Hope St Radio one! Brilliant. 

DC: Oh lovely! You didn’t say hi?

FD: I was a bit inebriated. I also remember taking my shoes off and smelling my own feet and I was insecure the whole night. 

DC: Wow. Too much information. Did you hear the heckler? I knew who he was. He was drunk, and trying to be ironic…. We played our first or second song and he goes “BORING!!” It was totally bizarre!

FD: Haha we were very confused, but it was certainly memorable!

DC: So Palimpsest - we build our music on older forms - and so a lot of the songs titles, and some of the forms of the songs are taken from these cheat books - songs of the 30s, 40s and 50s - little guitar songs. I Feel A Song Coming On is… Wizard of Oz… whats her name? Judy Garland! One of her movies she sings “I feel a song coming on” So I literally just sing that song…. We do a slightly different spin on it as you can hear. 

FD: Would you consider your stuff with Essendon Airport more maximalist? 

DC: I’m not sure what it is! … I guess the sincerity factor is hovering and moves around. 

FD: There’s an intensity there. In songs like Re-Funkt, there’s a lot of percussion and chaos. 

DC: Yeah - theres a couple of electronics in there that are very sort of cheesy… As the keyboardist, I have to make my minimal notes count coz I cant do a lot. Often I hit the bass notes which gives a harmonic shift… We just wanna make fun things that work together! Paul has just got this nutty style. He’d never played a set of drums before, and he just sat down and went crazy - he knew that every 16th note had to have a hit on it. He became our drummer but didn’t necessarily keep our rhythm - the guitar kept the rhythm, and Paul hung on. 

FD: But it’s that unique quality that people adore - what were talking about before? 

DC: incompétence? 

FD: That’s it! It’s loveable isn’t it?

DC: A lot of the famous singers are not great vocalists, because people like the sort of damagedness… Nick Cave is obvious… people like the slightly broken element. We will it along, we want it to be complete - maybe audiences complete it a little bit?… The imperfect is the best, it suits me! I’ve found ways to put my imperfect qualities to good use!

David's bandcamp: https://davidchesworth.bandcamp.com/

Essendon Airport: https://essendonairport.bandcamp.com/album/agua-por-favor

Clifton Hill Community Centre: https://www.listeningtothearchive.com/