Crash Course in Australian 1970s music

First band I went to see was Skyhooks, though apparently I was taken to Sunbury Festival, but I do not remember (first international act I saw was Deep Purple, followed soon after by the Sweet). Anyway, Australia had some fine live bands allthrough the seventies, and thanks to things like GTK, Meldrum’s Countdown and Rage, you can see some of it. I nclude a selection of the more popular and somehow usually topically about TV/Media, below. But first…

Because I can (reciting from memory got 80% of this) I reproduce the lyrics from the track ‘Living in the Seventies’, written by Greg McAinish for the ‘hooks 74 album of the same name:

I feel a little crazy
I feel a little strange
Like I’m in a pay phone
Without any change
I feel a little left yeah
I feel a little weird
I feel like a schoolboy
Who’s grown a beard

I’m livin’ in the 70’s
Eatin’ fake food under plastic trees
My face gets dirty just walkin’ around
I need another pill to calm me down

I feel a bit nervous
I feel a bit mad
I feel like a good time that’s never been had
I feel a bit fragile
I feel a bit low
Like I learned the right lines
But I’m on the wrong show

I’m livin’ in the 70’s
I feel like I lost my keys
Got the right day but I got the wrong week
And I get paid for just bein’ a freak

I feel a little insane
I feel a bit dazed
My legs are shrinkin’
And the roof’s been raised
I feel a little mixed up
I feel a little queer
I feel like a barman that can’t drink a beer

I’m livin’ in the 70’s
I feel like I lost my keys
Got the right day but I got the wrong week
And I get paid for just bein’ a freak.

_____________________

So as to show that Skyhooks did not come out of nowhere, nor have little influence on what comes after, here is my version of how to get from the Real Thing to the Go Betweens. Course this is arbitrary, reliant on memory,and not at all to be considered even remotely related to difinity (the possessive form of the noun definitive). Let me know what you think.

1969 (Russel Morris – The Real Thing [video remixed post 1989]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zMgzM0wAWs

1971 (Daddy Cool – Eagle Rock)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQfAZVsz6KM

1972 (Aztecs – Most People I Know)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pziFUtBmLV8

1973 (Dingoes – Way out west)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUmtSpGhMEs

1974 (Skyhooks – Horror Movie)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7l8rlnMpCI

1975 (Skyhooks -Ego is not a dirty word)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UduuxKdPt9Q

1974 (again) (ACDC -Jailbreak)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmiF1JQvf_A

1976 (Jeannie Lewis-Celluloid Heroes [I loved her so much)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fdJwroB24E

1977 (Radio Birdman -TV Eye)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ky7UdRbKZ3Q

1976 (again) (Angels – Am I ever going to see your face again)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZtWh8bYle4

1978 (Go Betweens – Lee Remick)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2p9lNUHM_pc

1979 (Loaded Dice – Mam’selle)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woS_Aupe3sg

1982 (More Go Betweens – Your Turn My Turn)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rzd9lJ91Yow

And your favourites are?:

Eleven theses on art and politics, #10 & #11 (not the last)

10. Repetitions as farce from the Brumaire. 20 years ago Rushdie was the part catalyst for an insurgent Muslim political articulation in Britain. Among the reasons why the threat to Rushdie was picked up so prominently – as a case of freedom of expression – was that the demonization of Islam and the Ayatollah greatly suited a West that had recently lost its favourite cold war era demon. 20 years ago this year also the Berlin Wall fell down, heralding the end of sausage-and-three-veg socialism. Recently we organised a conference in Berlin on the theme of Borders and the anniversary of this event was a topic of conversation after a presentation by the Goethe Institute on their plans for a commemoration ceremony (here accessed 6 June 2009).

The wall was famously a site for artistic expression in critique, and sometimes denial, of its repressive function. Famously graffiti marked the wall, appearing for example in films like Christiane F and Himmel Uber Berlin – during which the artist ThierryNoir appears himself, chattingtoBruno Ganz. Each act of resistance becomes a contribution to the economy of film. In 2009, the commemoration involves recreations of some of the art work – controversially – and the Goethe Maurriese project which also, not without problems, focus only upon artistic elements and wholly ignore, for various politically sensitive reasons, questions about the political wall, the place of the former DDR in contemporary Germany, the changes since unification, and the ways this symbol of division has become a marketing tool for a new (hygienic) Berlin. Instead, neat project this may seem, with cheesy website, foam sections of the wall have been made and shipped to Goethe Institutes worldwide. These are to be decorated by children at the various global Goethe offices, and returned to Berlin where they will, in November, be lined up in the manner of dominos along part of the path of the former wall, to be ceremoniously toppled on the anniversary. Without irony this is presented as the Goethe Institute’s effort to do work within ‘all’ Germany and to change its perception as primarily a West German international agency.

The fall of the wall marked the end of the Cold War and ushered in a new demonization, of Islam, that culminates in the 1990s and early 21st century Iraq wars, not to mention ongoing conflict in Afghanistan and Palestine. But it should be noted, that just as the fall of communism has been cleansed, the art burned but resurrected in film and in commemorations (though there will need to be two new walls to protect the reconstructed domino wall), there is a readiness to move on in Berlin that moves past the old wall and border. The wall was degenerate, not the art.

11. Might things also be moving on elsewhere? Is it plausible to see another event of 20 years ago as significant? This month in June the 20th anniversary of Tiananmen is commemorated. The build up to Tiananmen had been a protest by students, then joined increasingly by workers, against the corruption of the Dengist capitalist road clique. A media event as much on television as in China, the protest was aggressively crushed, a famous image of a man in front of a tank becoming the iconic, and ironically inverse, image of Beijing controlled by tanks and the 4th Army. Deng Xiaoping’s control affirmed, in some ways this event can be seen as the confirmation of China’s economically driven capitalist restoration today, with Tiananmen erased – no press or TV commemoration in China – in favour of a new nationalism, ‘to be rich is glorious’, the celebrate the Olympics, to take a place on the security council, China ascendant, significant growth rates… Only outside China is Tiananmen recalled in books, and even in a Tank Man ballet, a favourite on you tube (with instructions on how to perform the tank man dance). Here art contains a critique that is inverted in the real. That the elevation and erasure of the tanks coincides today with the credit crisis and global anxiety about the environment. Three Gorges Dam, plastic manufacture, six billion car owners and other news about economic growth is calculated in terms of climate change and corruption, so that China-anxiety has a certain significance not unrelated to the triple crisis of the automobile industry, financial regulation and environment. Would it not be a surprise to see China emerge soon as the new scapegoated demon for a war that is neither cold nor hot, but played out as an art of manoeuvre, with orientalist backdrop, over which an inter-imperialist rivalry of a new type is engaged between the West – Obama/Clinton – and the East – Deng/Hu Jintao group. Art – the tank man – here becomes hygienic yet again in the face of a struggle over productive power – the struggle for productive dominance, mediated via the financial markets, the steel industry and climate (read oil). It may seem a strange thing to say, but the culture industry could be set a task now, if we were cynical enough: never more than ever was there a need for Chinese Rushdie. What shall we burn?

Of course that would not be serious. But the exposure of Art as always being caught up with politics, at both its moment of explicit politicization and at the times when it claims conceptual or abstract separation, are in a certain way equivalent. The role of bees is to busy themselves with flowers, but this does not set them apart from the biosphere nor disconnect them from architecture, or institutions, or commerce or geopolitics. The secret omnipotence of production shoots through the most obscure corners of the culture industry and only the bee that turns to drawing has a chance to make this apparent – there is where attention can be focussed, there is a contribution towards changing the world – the point is not just to paint it.

Previous posts in this list:

do-bee-do-bee-do/

11-theses-on-art-and-politics-continues-parts-2-3/

11-theses-on-art-and-politics-4/

11-theses-on-art-and-politics-567/

Theses 8 and 9 (its getting ropey now)

There will be more than 11of course.

Border Documents – final program, with venues

PROGRAM

Monday 9th November 2009
Venue: Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi
Kongens Nytorv 1, 1050 København K (The seminar is free)

11.30-12.00 (Room: Den gule resilit)
Prof Frederik Tystrup & Prof John Hutnyk:
‘Introduction’ to “Border Documents”

12.00-13.30 (Room: Den gule resilit)

Lecture by Mathias Danbolt:
‘Queers Without Borders: Activist Travels in Elliat Graney-Saucke’s Travel Queeries’.

Presentation and screening by Maria Finn: ‘A Technical Problem’ (DVD, 16. min).

13.30-15.00 Lunch break

15.00-16.30 (Room: Den gule resilit)

Lecture by Dr Hito Steyerl: ‘Border performed’
On 3 recent video art works, parts of which will be screened (Amar Kanwar’s “A season outside”, plus work by von Wedemeyer and Mik) and discussed in relation to their relation to border and performance.

17.00-19.00 (CPH:DOX Tent)

European Premiere screening of Musafer: Sikhi is Travelling with Q@A with one of the directors Kushwant Singh (the other director is Michael Nijhawan)

Musafer is an independent documentary film that has been shot in Frankfurt, Paris, London, Delhi and San Francisco between 2003 and 2009. The film portrays the interconnected lives of a younger generation of diasporic Sikhs by giving emphasis to their artistic expressions and in-depth conversations about the meaning of Sikhi in times of political upheaval and social uncertainty. Musafer does not attempt to portray the Sikh tradition (Sikhi) in its multifaceted forms, but instead sheds a light on the inner and outer journeys of particular individuals, their homing desires, as well as their boundary crossing endeavours.

 

Tuesday 10th November
Venue: Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi
Kongens Nytorv 1, 1050 København K (The seminar is free)

11.00–13.00 (Room: Den gule resilit)
‘Borders and Selves’

Heidi Hasbrouck:
‘Personal Borders: The Filmmaker’s Family through the Lens’

Elena Papadaki:
‘Even better than the real thing: when fiction becomes more convincing than the truth – Stefanos Tsivopoulos’ documentaries’

13.00 Lunch break

15.00-16.30 (Room: Den gule resilit)
‘Verité Border’

Ray Ganz:
‘Radio Verité and Acoustic Osmosis’

Jennifer Otter:
‘[Dancing In] Isolation: Joy Division Tribute Bands Transmission of 2.0’s Melancholy’

17.00-19.00 (Room: Den gule resilit)

Lecture by Dr Bhaskar Mukhophadhyay:
‘Ritwik Ghatak Documentarist’

Lecture by Abhijit Roy:
‘Documentary Diversions? Factual Popular and the Reality Debates’

19.00 Dinner break

20.00 (Festsalen)
European Premiere screening of Understanding Trafficking plus Q&A with the director Ananya Chatterjee Chakraborti

Legend goes, there is a magical line that Laxman drew around Sita, which no woman is supposed to cross. If any woman dared to cross the magical line, she would risk being kidnapped by Ravan the demon.
Women have for centuries been discouraged to cross the line, to remain indoors, and within limits. The lines and limits of their existence have always been defined by patriarchy.
So what happens if a woman does cross the line? By circumstances, through need, or just by a desire to dare the magical line?
Camera Joydeep Bose, Sound Sukanta Majumdar, Editing Saikat Sekhareswar Ray, Direction Ananya C. Chakraborti
Reviews here: http://www.cinemawoman.in/review.html

 

Wednesday 11 November
Venue: Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi
Kongens Nytorv 1, 1050 København K (The seminar is free)

11.00–11.30 (Room: Den gule resilit)

Ruth Hogarth (Beyond Text Program Co-Ordinator): ‘The Wider Program’

Mary Claire Halvorson (Goldsmiths Director of Professional Development): ‘Alterity, mobility and rhizomatic model of learning’

11.30–13.30 (Room: Den gule resilit)

Dr Dietmar Kammerer:
‘Official, unofficial, invisible – the role of the filmic document in “Operation Spring”’

Renate Wöhrer:
‘How (Not) to Be Seen. Contemporary Attempts in Social Documentary to Contradict Hegemonic Discourses on Labour’

13.30 Lunch break

15.00-17.30 (Room: Den gule resilit)

Raul Gschrey: ‘Between Fact and Fiction. Artistic Works on Visual Surveillance’

All: Discussion of the Future of Beyond Borders.

uses of trinketization

Various posts from the interwebtoday using the term trinketization (I claim no copyrite):

From Maverick Kansas: “So I’m part New Yorker, so what? But that’s not the end of the story, not by a long shot, because it’s a part of my identity that has a lot less purchase now that I am back in New Zealand. About three months after I returned here I was invited to what I was told was a “Natives Party”. And, after forgiving the hosts for the horrid example of the trinketization of culture that such a party theme provokes, I decided to attend, and so began the business of imagining what kind of a native I was”.

From Devu Dada: “this kind of change is known as or the process of becoming smaller is known as trinketization. since the art becomes touristic product, the artist will not follow iconography. this means the art becomes fake which has no originality”.

From High Peaks Alliance: “Social Costs May introduce lifestyles, ideas, and behaviors that conflict with those of residents • May create crowding, congestion, and increased crime • May encourage “trinketization” of local arts and crafts”

From SlackBastard: “speaking of expensive trinkets, john hutnyk (sounds troublingly foreign to me) has a blog called trinketization, and on it a post all about rock against racism”

From Absent Narrative: “It is somewhat disheartening to think of how commercialized modern holidays have become, what I call the trinketization of celebration; there isn’t one major American holiday where you can’t find enormous amounts of junk decorations”

“Understanding Trafficking” a film by Ananya Chakraborti – Monday 16th November, 2009 Goldsmiths Cinema

UK screening of “Understanding Trafficking”

plus Q&A with the director Ananya Chatterjee Chakraborti

6pm Monday 16th November, 2009 Goldsmiths Cinema (Richard Hoggart Building, New Cross, SE14)

Legend goes, there is a magical line that Laxman drew around Sita, which no woman is supposed to cross. If any woman dared to cross the magical line, she would risk being kidnapped by Ravan the demon.

Women have for centuries been discouraged to cross the line, to remain indoors, and within limits. The lines and limits of their existence have always been defined by patriarchy. So what happens if a woman does cross the line? By circumstances, through need, or just by a desire to dare the magical line?

Camera Joydeep Bose, Sound Sukanta Majumdar, Editing Saikat Sekhareswar Ray, Direction Ananya C. Chakraborti

Reviews here:

http://www.cinemawoman.in/review.html

note to howard p

Do you know Joel Kovel’s wonderful book ‘Red Hunting in the Promised Land’? Excellent if you are writing on anti-red hysteria.

Kovel was recently forced out of his job at Bard for writing a book on Israel/Palestine as single state.

See:

http://www.joelkovel.org/

and maybe (though I have problems with its ‘quivering’ tone:

http://ellissharp.blogspot.com/2007/09/kovel-controversy.html