review

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Adalita: singing with ghosts

adalita self-titled album

I’ve been spending a lot of time with ghosts lately. They’ve been surfacing from old photos – some, not that old – as I’ve been digitising my negatives. Loss, it’s like a sea creature, isn’t it; a kraken, rising up when you least expect it, wrapping its long, sticky tentacles of lost love and missed opportunity and abject failure, all those dark tendrils that curl around your heart, your mind, even your lungs. And squeeze. It’s hard enough to face in the privacy of your home, let alone taking it on the road and singing it to faceless masses. Masses who chat over the top of your hearteache, who pay lip service to your craft … no, I can’t imagine it.

Which is why I found Adalita’s solo show at Melbourne’s Toff of the Town so damn engaging. I’ve seen her rock out before at the helm of Magic Dirt – I think the last time, maybe the time before, her lead guitarist stabbed his guitar neck through the low ceiling insulation at Brisbane’s venerable sweat box, The Zoo. Great gig. Great emotion.

And last night at the Toff, it was all about emotion, and there’s no better way to explain it than by starting at the finish, the sole, perfunctory encore tune, anything but perfunctory here. Adalita and guitarist JP Shilo duetted while MD guitarist Raul Sanchez slowly wound up a buzzing guitar, its recurring rasp slowly drowning out the singers as they backed away from the mics, until it was only the guitar, discordant, chaotic, howling. The guitar was loss and the crowd applauded as silence fell, because they understood enough to know that when Adalita dedicated that song to Rowland S Howard and Dean Turner, it was a eulogy.

The ghosts… Howard, an Aussie music legend of Birthday Party fame who had a big hand in Shilo’s career, and MD bassist Turner both died in 2009. The latter co-produced Adalita’s self-titled solo album, which she’s touring now. As if stepping out from the shadow of a band isn’t enough pressure; isn’t enough vulnerability.

In the absence of her band, Adalita had PJ providing effects and support on guitar and violin. Sanchez stepped up for an atmospheric dual guitar instrumental, and support act Amaya Laucirica played drums for one and later a guitar duet for ‘Good Girl’.

It’s a line-up you’ll hear on Adalita’s album, which provided the set list for the evening. She has a great voice, Adalita, and it was grand to hear her playing with form, breaking up the rock song formula to turn songs into stories with changes of pace and volume. It was a short and sharp set, a little melancholy, a lot hungry, a solid chunk of Gibson-driven rockin’ with backing tracks and effects pedals filling out the sound where needed. But that encore: such a powerful ending for a gig on a tour that signifies a new start.

I should think the ghosts would be happy with that.

WE got to the Toff halfway through Spencer P Jones‘ support gig, and apparently halfway through an argument as well. The one-time Beast of Bourbon was hurling insults and guitar licks at a section of the crowd in a performance that straddled the line between performance poetry and song; there was a certain air of Johnny Cash-style maudlin in there, between the shots of tequila (was it?) and slurps of beer and fiery glances. For the record, Amaya Laucirica played first support.

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One Man Lord of the Rings: a melee of one in Melbourne

Charlie Ross is an affable Canadian who has been making a globe-trotting living with his one-man Star Wars trilogy show, and he has expanded his sights with the movie version of Lord of the Rings.

I caught his one-hour adaptation at Monash University’s Clayton Campus and what a madcap hour it was — with a water break at each movie change-over. The thing that makes the show so winning is the humour Ross injects, whether in-jokes, ad libs at the audience, references to other movies (such as ‘Elrond’, played by Hugo Weaving in the movies, uttering a “Mr Anderson” line in firm Matrix style) or comic physicality.

The hour passed in a whirl — Ross is very physical, spending almost as much time on the ground as on his feet — of vocal sound effects, movie lines and characterisations (his Gollum was wonderful, especially doing both Gollum and Smeagol at the same time). I got lost at times — I think he slipped into the superior extended versions at times — because it’s been a while, the cast is huge and the movies are massively long; I’d hate to think of anyone trying to follow without any familiarity with the movies at all.

It was interesting to note which characters really stood out in a propless, costumeless one-man performance: Legolas’s hair, Frodo’s whining, Denethor’s ugly table manners …

It’s been a few years since I saw Ross’s Star Wars show but I remember it being very easy to follow, probably due to my exposure to the ‘good trilogy’, as he calls it.

As an epilogue, Ross had a quick chat from the stage about his career to date: I should think there would’ve been a few jealous geeks in the audience who wished they’d thought of turning loving mimicry into a career, even if the franchise owners take their slab of the gross!

LOTR provided a fun night out with some great chuckles, and whetted the appetite for another viewing of Peter Jackson’s sensational trilogy.

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Books! King, Powers, After the Rain, Shaun Tan, the Man Booker International shortlist

After the rain

The news:

The Man Booker International shortlist (NOT the Man Booker, for a book, but rather for a lifetime achievement) features John Le Carre and Philip Pullman, and Aussie David Malouf is in the 13, too. I find it cool that Le Carre wants to stay out in the cold — he’s not competitive, it appears, and the organisers have politely declined his equally polite request to be withdrawn.

And FableCroft has opened pre-orders for After the Rain, which includes my cyberpunk homage to misspent RPG days. The story has been fine-tuned since it was included in FableCroft’s flood relief charity e-version. The physical release is due out for Easter.

And it would be remiss to fail to mention the ongoing Year of the Shaun Tan, with the Aussie artist adding the mortgage-killing Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award to this year’s Oscar. Huzzah!

And the reviews, briefly:

Full Dark, No Stars, by Stephen King, collecting four yarns all uniformly bleak. The opening novella, ‘1922’, is classic obsession/haunting stuff, I had a couple of wee niggles, but I can’t go past the man’s command of character and, in this collection, the economy of words and gorgeous phrasing. ‘Big Driver’ is an ugly tale where the ugliness is not just foreshadowed but announced — you’d think that’d kill the suspense, but it doesn’t. The short story ‘Fair Extension’ is probably the least engaging, a Faustian exercise in human bitterness with surprisingly few twists. And ‘A Good Marriage’ is another simply domestic bliss gone bad, an one way in which we can handle home-grown evil. Even when the story has a kind of happy ending, there are no real winners here: such an apt title. King at his best or even his mediocre is a great salve.

And the other novel to have travelled from the to-read pile to the finally read one is Tim Powers’ The Stress of Her Regard, a fetching alternative reality in which the poets Byron, Keats and Shelley battled very literal demons. It’s clever and I can only imagine how much fun the author must’ve had digging up the poetic extracts to head each chapter, selecting not only for theme but to set the mood on the action to follow. It’s a pedestrian pace but well worth the stroll through this superbly imagined fantasy.

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Tasty reviews for Ticonderoga’s fangtastic anthologies

more scary kisses paranormal romance anthology

dead red heart Australian vampire anthology

Publishers Weekly has posted reviews of two forthcoming Ticonderoga Publications anthologies — Dead Red Heart (“solid”) and More Scary Kisses (“beguiling”) — and that’d be a thumbs up for both — yay! Both anthologies are due out around Easter. And yup, I’m chuffed to say that I’ve got stories in both of them.

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Pseudo Echo love an adventure at the zoo

lion at melbourne zooThe lions enjoyed Pseudo Echo. At least, that’s how I interpreted the wonderful roars and coughs coming from the nearby enclosure while the veteran synth pop band sang the night down at Melbourne Zoo.

The zoo’s Twilight concert series proved the perfect accompaniment to a cloudless evening as we sprawled on the grass and munched on fair-priced and tasty Asian meals with pinot noir and cheese platter chasers.

Children gambolled in the dark as the crowd sang along to a parade of hits: ‘Listening’, ‘Love an Adventure’, ‘Funky Town’, ‘Living in a Dream’ and more. No sign of the ’80s hairdos, but the music was as vibrant and fun as ever, with a short-haired, bearded Brian Canham out front on vocals and guitar, and some wonderful drum work.

pseudo echo

Pseudo Echo at Melbourne Zoo

Before support The Hiding signalled it was time to hit the turf, unroll the picnic blanket and pop the cork, we had an hour and a half to wander a large portion of the zoo, taking in the giraffes, seals and aformentioned lions. It’s always a bittersweet visit, zoos: cats prowling their petty slice of turf, living the easy life but seeming to simply not belong behind the wire. The zoo is beautifully landscaped but, especially having seen many of the animals in the wild, I couldn’t help but feel a touch of sadness. It’s the price of conservation and, in some cases, preservation, I expect.

Regardless, it was great to Pseudo in the wild. Let’s hope they continue to prowl!

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Rob Zombie truly animated in Melbourne

Rob Zombie headlined a Shockwave sideshow at Melbourne’s Festival Hall on Thursday night, unleashing an hour and a half of metal goodness in the suitably bare bones venue.

With a fence between our seated area and the central floor, it felt like being in a boxing arena — funny that — and it was left to Zombie to deliver the knock out performance on a bill including Dommin, Monster Magnet and Murderdolls.

Extra lights and three screens — a big one at the back and two smaller ones for the sides, showing horror movie montages and raunchy anime — were rolled out, along with a small raised stage from which Zombie held court. It was an impressive rig — there was even a mirror ball, and inflatable beach balls! — that set the mood for a thumping sound and entertaining act involving several costume changes for the four-piece band. Joey Jordison provided some impressive drum solos, John 5’s guitar laid the soundtrack for a crowd walkthrough.

The set list — a song for every year since Zombie last toured, he promised, so that’d be about 16 — went way back to White Zombie and came up to the present. Highlights included More Human than Human, Living Dead Girl, Dragula spearheading the encore, and the Grindhouse faux trailer for Werewolf Women of the SS.

The crowd showed the range of Zombie’s influence: rockabillies, rock pigs, metalheads, goths, and a higher proportion of female fans than what might usually be expected at a metal gig: all bouncing shoulder to shoulder. Wicked fun, wickedly entertaining.

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Amanda Palmer, roamin’ at the Forum

Back to back Amanda Palmer aka how sore are my feet? A little tenderness in the soles is well worth the effort of standing through performances by AFP, especially when she’s backed up by such splendid talent.

It’s a real cabaret atmosphere, with Palmer the centre of attention for the cultish fans: hence the non-stop murmur of conversation and bint-twittering throughout the rest of the gig. The inane shout-outs were saved for AFP: you know you’re old when you want to get to a gig that starts on time, where the crowd doesn’t squish you, where you can listen and watch and be a part of the performance without being a party to someone else’s casual chat.

But don’t let the grumblings of an old fart put you off, nor give you a false impression: last night’s gig rocked, and Melbourne’s Forum theatre, with its peeling walls, faux Roman architecture and star-studded twilight-blue sky, was the ideal backdrop for this kind of controlled mayhem. (Can’t wait to see Gary Numan tear it up!)

In fact, this was perhaps the most orderly show I’ve seen of AFP’s, though it wasn’t a regular rock gig, oh no (never!). Guests kept coming back; having played their own couple of tunes, they’d pop back to duet a bit later on. The Tin Stars, with Mikelangelo up front, provided the bulk of the backing — very sharp — after they held the main support slot, with the dashing Kim Boekbinder, the divine Jane Austen Argument and Jason Webley all contributing wee sets. With Webley in the house, it was always on the cards that Evelyn Evelyn would make an appearance — just the one song tonight. The line-up showed much parallel with AFP’s Opera House gig on Australia Day and Webley’s Fitzroy show on Friday night, but it ran to a much tighter schedule with changeovers quite quick. The atmosphere was always relaxed and comfortable, though there were sombre moments: a collection for Christchurch quake survivors (the Australian Red Cross is taking donations) and an echo of Oz Day with a rendition of The Drover’s Boy.

AFP began the night topless in safety harness atop the theatre staging with a quiet ukulele number (Makin’ Whoopee) before doing a slow quick-change on stage — Aussie and Kiwi flags prominent — to get the show on the road. An all-in encore, complete with strip-teasing koalas, of Map of Tasmania and Leeds United — earlier, Coin Operated Boy (and a promise of a possible Dresden Dolls tour Down Under) and Oasis were among the crowd pleasers in a set drawing heavily from the Amanda Palmer Goes Down Under album — led to another, a repeat of the previous night’s drinking song. As AFP remarked, you know it’s been a good night when the stage is littered with headless koalas, women’s clothing and beer.

We could all drink to that.

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Evelyn Evelyn at the Evelyn, with friends

A late start to the morning, now listening to Kim Boekbinder’s The Impossible Girl album hot off the merch stand at last night’s gig at The Evelyn Hotel in Melbourne’s Fitzroy, and again feeling really sorry for her that last night’s late start resulted in her set being reduced to two songs.

Boekbinder, who does wonderful things with loops and squeeze-squeak plastic crocodiles when she’s not simply enthralling with insightful snippets of love and life, backs up tonight and tomorrow, and is hanging in Oz for a while, apparently. Her album shows a wide range of musical styles and some quirky stuff to leaven the heartbreak and acerbic observations. Catch her if you can.

The reason for last night’s foray was Evelyn Evelyn, a concept act put together by Amanda Palmer and Jason Webley. Webley was headlining last night’s bill, which also featured the intriguing Jane Austen Argument (although it was only Tom last night, with support from guitarist-singer Gemma O’Connor whose voice was sensational).

It’s an amazing line-up of talent for a pub gig.

The conceit for the Evelyns is that they are conjoined twins: Palmer and Webely sharing a suit, the illusion given a delightful touch of the absurb by Webley’s beard (the other one should grow a beard, he reckons, to much LOLing). The Evelyns were much fun, though the theatrics did drag out the set a tad — moments of too little happening stretching an uncomfortably crowded room’s attention span, allowing the bar chatter to rise. I couldn’t see much of them when they were playing the keyboards, a hand a’piece and brilliantly clever, ripping out a cover of Lean on Me that was a highlight of the night.

They juggled an accordion, a guitar and then — with a sly wink to a third hand — Amanda’s trademark ukulele, and then did a bit of improv word-by-word Q&A with the audience.

Later, when Webley, ripping through Gypsy-ish accordion tunes (fave: Dance While the Sky Crashes Down), called Amanda back for some duets, the rapport between the two was centre stage. As was the rapport between Amanda and the audience; she strikes me as a natural cabaret star — the cellar kind, not the Vegas kind.

The gig dragged on a bit, given the crowding, the malfunction of Webley’s guitar undercutting his set, and the night stretching out past 1am, but you’d be hard-pressed to get better bang for your buck than this line-up offered.

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The Tough Guide to Fantasyland — don’t travel without it

tough guide to fantasylandI’ve just finished reading The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, by Diana Wynne Jones, first published in 1996 and updated in 2006. It’s something of a classic, and now I see why.

Laid out like a guide book, it provides an A to Z of fantasy tropes as though the reader was a traveller about to take a tour of a generic fantasy world. From Adept to Zombies, she lists the likely events, people and places you’ll encounter,all delivered with a deliciously acerbic twist.

There’s a bit of repetition as the various entries cross-reference each other, but there’s much to take home from this guide, from cliched character tropes to the commonality of stew to the formulae of epic fantasy: bar brawls, eccentric wizards, lost heirs, vestigial empires.

For anyone interested in writing fantasy, it’s a wake-up call about just how entrenched certain tropes are, and just how blase we might’ve become about travel and culture in fantasy settings.

I’m filing it next to my copy of The Writer’s Complete Fantasy Reference, should the day ever come when I’m tempted to revisit my misspent youth and pick up the sword with my pen: nothing like a dose of salt with your how-to.

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Things to do in Melbourne #2 — Moreau at NGV International

Gustave Moreau has turned out to be something of a surprise package. I rolled up to NGV International for its Gustave Moreau and the Eternal Feminine exhibition expecting a bunch of, well, second-tier oil-rendered classical views of some cool myths, and was pleasantly enlightened.

Mr Moreau, painting in the 19th century and not someone whose works I was acquainted with, might have started in such terrain, but his use of wide-ranging cultures, abstract elements, patterns and different media, proved there was a lot more going on.

Lady Macbeth by Moreau

Lady Macbeth by Moreau


I loved his Salome series — sadly, this exhibit of more than 100 of his works did not include a couple of key pieces referenced with working sketches — and two exquisite pieces, one showing three sirens as the vaguest of shapes lurking on the shadowed shore, the other a featureless Lady Macbeth roaming the gloomy castle with a taper. There were others, of course, ghostly renderings, emotive splashes of bright oil amidst the dark, textures of oil and inlaid pieces of coloured stones. This article from The Australian gives a much more informed overview.

The Apparition by Moreau, showing Salome encountering the ghost of John the Baptist

Also showing, and free, is Unnerved, a survey of modern art from New Zealand on loan from the Queensland Art Gallery. There are a lot of photographs, a striking sculpture of a seal balancing a piano, and some audio-visual presentations, as well as paintings and installations. Post-colonial themes abound. I particularly liked Lisa Reihana’s large digital images reflecting Maori heritage.

It’s impressive that a collection such as this is free.

I can also recommend lunch at Persimmon, a restaurant tucked away at the rear of the gallery flanked by water features and offering a view of the gardens. For $55 a head, we enjoyed two courses — we had a prawn salad each for starters and lamb backstrap and pork belly for mains, with a glass of chianti and coffee, and tickets to Moreau. The food was delicious — note that the kitchen shuts at 2.30pm, though the restaurant hours are till 4pm, and the gallery’s till 5pm.

Note that you’ve got till the end of February to catch the Rock Chicks exhibition at the nearby Arts Centre: free, and a wonderful introduction to the history of women in Australian rock and pop.