Platform 3
Ed Wong – cycling enthusiast and patron of the arts
Filed under australia …
Let me tell you about Even
I would like to recommend the music of my friends from Melbourne, Even
Back in the day, I was co-founder of a printed fanzine known as Blast! Magazine. I answered some type of ad that I saw somewhere on the campus of the University of Melbourne, my alma mater and thus I became the music contributing editor and general jack of all trades for this publication.
I learnt a lot by putting out five editions of this fanzine in the couple of years of its existence, including design layout “skills”, image manipulation, marketing and promotion, article and review writing…amongst others. In a way, I wouldn’t be where I am now without Blast!
At this time of my life, I spent a lot of time hanging out with and going to see musical artists of the Australian (and New Zealand) independent variety such as Snout (I was their de facto tour manager once…to Adelaide!!), You Am I, The Fauves, The Steinbacks, Rail and Even. I had a reasonably firm ambition to be involved in the live/recorded music industry in some way.
Therefore one of the activities that enjoyed the most while working on Blast! was writing articles about bands, reviews of their recorded output and organising launch parties/fundraising gigs that involved some of the bands that I wrote about in the pages of the zine.
Even were introduced to my by my friend Greg, a sometime member of the aforementioned Snout. It’s a bit hazy but I think it was at a Student Union night. The photo below is of Ash Naylor, singer and guitarist of Even, taken when I interviewed him at the Black Cat Café, Melbourne the afternoon of the launch gig of their first EP In Stereo at the sadly now defunct Punters Club.
In 2002, Even played some shows in the UK as well as recording some songs that ended up on their Free Kicks album. Ash, Wally and Matt were nocturnally recording tracks in London, going to gigs and generally carousing as far as I can tell.
One of the shows was at the Bullingdon Arms in Oxford. They jumped in a van for the 100km trip up the M40 and arrived in Oxford a little bit fatigued. Luckily for them, I was in tour manager mode for the evening because the time for their set was rapidly approaching but the band were nowhere to be found. I went looking for them and found the trio in their van behind the Tesco supermarket on the Cowley Rd, fast asleep.
How rock is that!?
More after the jump…
Another Monday….another gig
Tonight, I passed up the opportunity to see the wonderful, cycling, animated film Belleville Rendezvous which was playing with a live soundtrack at the cinema in my neighbourhood, in favour of venturing to the Fez Club for my first ever gig in Reading. it was more effort to get the train through the lashing rain to go gigging on a Monday night, but a wise man once told me “Effort = Results”.
The gig’s protagonists? Howling Bells, who I mentioned in the comments of a previous post. I’m trying to make a point of getting back to my roots and getting into some Australian bands again.
It was a most excellent gig, with good acoustics and crystal clear vocals through the PA, which was edifying. The performance/music was a little theatrical and slightly dark but energetic and very tuneful. The room was quite full considering it is a Monday with miserable weather outside. There were at least 5 photographers doing the “first 3 songs” thing too. I didn’t realise that Howling Bells were so renowned as to attract such photographic attention.
The video above is of their new single which, as Juanita from the band pointed out, is “on sale from today, so go buy it”.
Their site has their whole album as a stream, so go check it out…I recommend it.
Burns Night and Australia Day
Right nows it’s Burns Night, the de facto Scottish national day (night). No one seems to celebrate St Andrew’s Day as much as they do Burns Night…I could be wrong of course.
Kate and I celebrated with a wee dram of the fine Speyside, single malt, Dalwhinnie. The past couple of Burns Nights we have celebrated by having a gathering where, veg. haggis, neeps and tatties have been consumed…along with several varieties of whisky. Last year, we combined the celebration of the life of Scotland’s favourite poet, Robbie Burns with a celebration of life and times of infamous Scottish “poet and tragedian”, William Topaz McGonagall.
Being Australian, I also marked Australia Day, which is 26 January. Even as I type, it’s officially Australia’s national day. 26 January, 1788 was the day that the first British colonists arrived in Botany Bay. Hence, some people have taken to calling it “invasion day”. Some may accuse this nomenclature as being (overly) politically correct…however I think that there is definitely a logic in thinking about it like this.
Anyway, I think it’s good that Scotland’s unofficial national day celebrates the life of one of their greatest literary figures and not some battle/massacre/victory etc.
So, to the image that adorns the start of this post. TNT Magazine is a publication that has a large focus on the backpacker/working holiday/overseas experience markets in the UK. They cover some latest news from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa…mainly of the “what’s happening on the OZ/Kiwi/Saffa version of Big Brother” variety. Other than that, the rest of the magazine seems to be advertisements for companies that will ship your accumulated crap back to the Southern Hemisphere. They also have Australian and New Zealand editions of the magazine which I imagine work in reverse…target market, Brits on tour in the Antipodes.
Having once been the target market of TNT Magazine UK, I do admit to having read the odd edition picked up for free from stands in London or from Bar Oz when there used to be one in Oxford. So a couple of weeks back on a trip to London, I flicked through a copy of TNT in a café in Southwark.
While I was in Canada, the ski resorts were full of Australians working their way around the world and I met a ton of nice compatriots. For some reason however, I could never see the need to hang out with other Australians in London just because they were Australians…particularly Aussies on tour in London. However, when I saw the ad for the Mr and Miss Australia ’07 competition, I briefly had a flicker of interest but then decided that, I might be a bit too much of a yobbo and too ocker to get through to the final…NOT. Actually, I couldn’t think of anything worse…apart from attending the now defunct Aussie themed “Sunday session” at The Church
Don’t get me wrong, plenty of ex-patriate Australians have class but I fear they might be outnumbered at the The Sports Café tomorrow night.
Anyhow, this weekend I’m going to be at former housemate Jane’s (and Mike’s) wedding in Lanark in Scotland instead. Good luck guys.
Happy Australia Day.
