Bonjah - The Corner Hotel

As I have previously and very loudly professed my love for this band in the stalking episode of this blog way back in 2009, I will not bore you with spouts of gushing adoration or the desire for musical love children yada yada yada. I will however say that Bonjah's live performances are very much like a good cheese or a nice bottle of red wine, in that they only get better with age. You would assume that this would be the case for all bands, what with practice and experience and perhaps even a tour budget, but this can often replace that all-or-nothing intensity they had when starting out and were still fighting to break into the industry. You have probably heard me go on and on how much I would have loved to have seen Tori Amos play back in 1992, before she had a tour bus and costumes and emotional stability; that's an example of what I'm talking about.


But back to Bonjah; I remember driving up to Bendigo with Ruby just to see them play at the Karova lounge, I remember dancing like a dirty hippy with two middle aged fans wearing Bonjah t shirts, and I remember smiling awkwardly and staring at my feet as Ruby got them to sign her CD. This time around they have two albums under their belt, and what I remember is how packed out the Corner Hotel was, how there were lots more hippies that could put our feeble dancing to shame, and I remember how loud and good the music sounded. But the thing I'll probably remember the clearest and for the longest, when I am sitting in my tiny flat with my cats drinking white wine and reliving my 'glory days', is that after the second encore, Bonjah, Daniel Lee Kendall and the Joe Kings, who we did not see but who looked like they would have been good purely on the basis of their hair styles, performed the most ridiculous cover of 'I Touch Myself' by the Dyvinyls I've ever seen. It was beyond hilarious, and reminded me of how live music is often the catalyst for spontaneous super-groups, and why I love it so.

Photos courtesy of this flickr
These are actually pictures of them busking on Bourke St, I couldn't find any pictures of them from the Corner, and have no blurry iphone photos or shaky videos with poor sound quality to share.

Beautiful Geometry

This post was inspired mostly by the album art on Gotye's new album cover, which I am currently obsessed with. I have a poster of it now on my wall, and I can't stop looking at it. I also can't stop listening to the album. It's that good. You should listen to it.

Sources:  Gotye, Making Mirrors Album Art by Frank De Backer, Flower Geometry, Origami Lotus Blossums by Me,  Geometric Head Pieces, Polygon Double Deer by Kohei Nawa, art by Louise Despont,

Owl Eyes - Northcote Social Club

Every now and then we see something magical emerge from the quagmire of mediocrity that is the '(insert country) Idol' franchise. First we had Lisa Mitchell, and now there is Brooke Addamo, or Owl Eyes as she prefers to be known. Lovely and I went to see her last night at the Northcote Social Club, and it was the first time I've seen the place filled all the way up to the stage (granted this was only my third visit to the venue). Having two sold out shows for an EP launch is pretty impressive to say the least, and she emerged streaked in glitter with a feathery headdress and her gracefully erratic stage presence (this sounds like a paradox but you'll get what I mean when you see her). She seemed completely in her element, and despite confessing to being rather unwell two songs in, and trying to encourage our lazy Sunday night crowd to help her out, she pushed on and played a really great set, including the super sweetened Like a Version cover of Pumped Up Kicks by Foster the People. Highlights for me included Crash, Dancer, and the title track Raiders (see below), which was a really strong closer, and also signaled that there would be no encore. To be honest, I don't think she even needed one.



You've come a long way, baby.

Seeds

We girls begin not like flowers, but like seeds falling from the bellies of trees; we lay dormant under the carpets of leaves, minding our own business until the age of thirteen, and then the fire ignites. It unlocks us from our hard cocoons we inherit from our mothers and we begin to grow, slowly with young green flesh so fragile and so determined to reach the sun. It is so bright we cannot see those who love us, we cannot see those who have come to cut us down. 

 First four photographs are by Nirrimi Firebrace, last photograph by Matt Caplin. Words by me

Poor, Obscure, Plain and Little

I just saw this movie, and it immediately goes into the category of so beautiful no words can express how beautiful it is. Everything is captured perfectly. It's just........I can't even.

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I think I need to go have a lay down

Parting is such sweet sorrow

So a few weeks ago, an inexplicable amount of clothes and trinkets and bric-a-brac were donated to the op shop, and I and a couple of my colleagues got to help bring it all in. There were some INCREDIBLE pieces, as this woman, who is sadly no longer with us, used to be a model for Myer in the 50s and 60s (oh gosh! said I). There were jackets, dresses, angora sweaters, pant suits, overcoasts, blouses and cardigans; seriously, you could have opened a store with the amount of beautiful cloths she had, it was like discovering an Egyptian tomb of fashion. Of course I wanted everything (and probably would have bought it all if my financial situation would have allowed it), but by some good fortune or other I ended up taking home this lovely houndstooth overcoat! Hoorah!

Sadly, the ending of this story is more of a Romeo and Juliet type scenario, the coat playing Romeo and me the Juliet, and thus we must forever be separated. By this I mean that the curator of our op shops found out that said coat's label, the rather prestigious 1950's label of Raoul Couture, is being sought after by curators at the National Gallery of Victoria, and so it is worth a lot more money to them that I had already paid for it!
So sadly me and my coat shall have to part for the good of fashion history and animal welfare, but its kind of cool to know that something that may end up hanging in the NGV once hung in my humble wardrobe! So I can't really be too sad about that! Plus, the money can go towards buying some new shoes which I actually desperately need, and if they don't want it in the end, well, I'm not averse to taking back rejected goods!
 

Noah and the Whale - The Corner Hotel

So last night Lovely and Ruby and I went to the Corner to see Noah and the Whale.

Honestly, they were a lot better than I expected them to be; I liked Last Night on Earth but found it almost a polar opposite to their first album, which is my favorite of theirs, and not just because Laura Marling was in the band at the time. What I loved about Peaceful the World Lays Me Down was how a lot of the music on that album was so light and full of jaunty melodies and woodwind instruments, yet the lyrics were so melancholy that they gave the melodies weight, and I was afraid that because the two sounds were so different they wouldn't play much of their old stuff, save maybe 5 Years Time (which they did play, and it was awesome). But they ended up playing lots of their old songs from Peaceful (Shape of My Heart, Give a Little Love, Jocasta, and Rocks and Daggers) that they had reworked to fit in with the rest of the songs. Just imagine if all the ukelele parts of those songs were replaced by electric guitars, and you'll get an idea of what I'm talking about.

Shame on me for having such little faith!!! But then I guess the surprise made it all the more enjoyable.

So all in all, it was a great gig, I recommend you catch them if you have the chance. Oh, and they're all really adorable.

Naww look at them!! And they all have such great hair.
All photographs are by Autumn De Wilde