Looking at: the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games 50 cent coin

I just happened to glance at a 50 cent coin that was sitting on my desk last night and I was transfixed by what appeared to an image of a woman whipping a bird.

There is a long (and proud, apparently) tradition of using our 50 cent coins in Australia to celebrate various significant events (uh - like the marriage of Prince Charles and Lady Diana) - mainly because it's our largest coin and being twelve sided (a dodecagon, if you were wondering) I guess it's not distinctive enough already.

(Click on the image for a full size view)



At first I thought it was a nice (if not slightly random) collage of sporting images mixed up with images of native fauna - only after a bit of looking did I realise that it actually represents traditional Victorian events revived for the games.

Obviously, there is our most proud tradition, the bird whipping event. It is an event based on free expression and with roots to the earliest days of European occupation of this country - originating in farmer frustration with drought. Points are given for speed and accuracy but primarily for "making the whip sing".

This shouldn't be confused with a similar event - the bird teasing event. A gentler event in many ways, this consists of tying a small piece of bread to the end of a piece of string at the end of a stick and using it to lure a bird to walk around the "teaser" in delicate patterns. Points again for speed, time before the bird gets bored and flies away and how high up you can make the bird stretch.

(To be honest, I'm not entirely sure which of these two events is depicted on the coin so I thought I should cover both)

Directly above this is the "Chase an emu while walking like an Egyptian) event. This is relatively new sporting event in Australia, designed to celebrate a proud tradition of multiculturalism in Victoria and acknowledge our indigenous history. (It serves a secondary purpose of winding up Howardists in the federal government how want to abolish multiculturalism and wish that Aborigines would just go away).

To the right of this is a complicated event - the "Frog pretend". You will notice that it is the job of the athlete at the top to put themselves in a position judged by a panel of frog scientists to be the most similar to a frog hanging onto a stick. The origins of this sport are shrouded in mystery and it is assumed, clouds of smoke.

Below this is a depiction of basic kangaroo safety. If you are sitting and sense that a kangaroo is jumping on you from the sky, assume the crash position by leaning forwards and resting your arms on the seat in front of you.

Finally, we come to the swimming event. This is essentially the same as competitive swimming around the world but in Australia, we add an element of nature to the programme by having each swimmer compete with a platypus. Games and world record times are only validated if the swimmer is also able to best the platypus - only fair considering that humans are much larger than them.

Curiously, there is as yet no information about any of these sports to be found on Wikipedia (or even Conservapedia). This is disappointing but perhaps just serves to highlight how truly unique these events are to Melbourne.

Another distinctly Australian quality to the games is that (particularly in the Frog pretend and Chase an Emu events) some of the athletes portrayed are actually doing a fairly mediocre job of it. Heroic failure is a cornerstone of Australian history (Burke and Wills, Gallipoli) and something celebrated to this day. (Australian Idol)

Discussing: David Hicks

We were watching SBS News last night (Australia's best - and therefore most important and depressing - source of world news) and Jelena asked why there is such an obsession with David Hicks in Australian news. (There had also been an update on Dateline preceding it)

Her overall point was certainly a valid one - that this is just one guy but because he is Australian, hours and hours and hours of airtime and miles of print are dedicated to him but at the same time, who knows half of anything at all that is going on in South America. (Apart from Hugo Chavez perhaps.)

I had to think about this for a bit but I think that there are a few main reasons for this.

It's easier and more engaging to hang a story on a person than a set of ideas

The war on terror and particularly the whole debacle that is the U.S "system" of military commissions and Guantanamo Bay AND the Howard government's subordination to U.S will is a pretty complex bunch of issues, ideas and problems that can be hard to focus a story on. Particularly a story that viewers/readers can necessarily connect to.

Having a person in the mix adds an essential human quality to a story - people are able to make more emotional connections to someone - whether it be "string the lousy traitor/terrorist up" or "well everyone deserves a fair trial regardless of what they may have done".

It brings our (Australia's) responsibilities in the issue to the fore

There are a lot of things going on in The War Against Terror (or TWAT as I like to call it) that are horrible but which we (Australia) don't have a lot of sway over.

Violence against the innocent (obviously), monsterous war profiteering by big well-connected corporations (e.g Dick Cheney's Halliburton and big oil), erosion of civil liberties, torture, militarism gone mad and divisive attempts to create fear in the name of greater power.

Australia, through our elected government, can jump up and down and stamp our feet about some of these things but in the grand scheme of things, our opinions won't get more than a diplomatic "I'll take that on board now smile for the cameras"

(And of course, that's assuming that the Prime Miniature is of a mind to object to anything in the first place, little neo-con that he seems to be)

The David Hicks matter however is another kettle of fish.

Australia is the only Western "Coalition of the Willing" nation to allow their nationals to be kept at Guantanamo Bay and put through the Military Commission system, a system which to all purposes appears to be highly dubious under any reasonable interpretation of international or American law. (I'm not a lawyer but it certainly doesn't appear to offer any sort of fair trial in any established sense)

This is one area where Australia (more specifically the government) is able to take a position and their (I guess our) refusal to do so is an important issue.

In an election year, this is particularly pressing.

It's like a frackin soap opera

Recent developments in the Hicks case have just gotten more and more out there, giving it a definite (though possibly legal trainspotterish) soap opera quality.

The sudden dismissal of two (out of three) members of Hick's defense team at the last minute and the gradual dropping of all charges but one suggest a lot of game playing and situation manipulating by an increasingly desparate (and seemingly highly politicised) system.

The fact that the outspoken military lawyer Major Michael Mori (thinking woman's crumpet to a number of women I know here) is also under threat of disciplinary charges for his actions in Hicks' defense is just another episode.

It's a wedge issue

Over the last few years the Howard Government has been very effective at using highly emotive and divisive issues to define itself and create a lot of froth and bubble in Australian society as a tool for holding on to power.

Australia's role in the war in Iraq - directly tied to our part of TWAT - has become one of the more substantial issues of our day and is one that is hard for people to be neutral about.

As opposition grows and it looks like this issue could be one of many that forces a change of government, interest grows - just as anything that changes existing power structures anywhere is interesting.

(Let's just hope that if a Rudd government gets in - please, please,please - that there is in fact a more enlightened approach to things. )

Watching: Cirque Du Soleil - Varekai

Wow, just wow.

Everything you expect from a modern circus; acrobatics, clowns, juggling, dazzling aerial work but with incredible costumes, music and overall spectacle.

I come back to the quote that "writing about music is like dancing about architecture" and this seems to fit in this instance.

Here's the search results page for Varekai in YouTube but it's hard to do it justice on screen.

These are some of my personal highlights. (Interestingly some of the costumes for minor characters in the Australian tour are completely different - and in my opinion better)

Connecting: French fries and French food

I took my new girlfriend (tee hee) out for a birthday dinner last night to a French restaurant in town (Ardeche - pretty bloody tasty I might say too) and while browsing through the menu was struck by the inclusion of French fries in the description of the boeuf bourguignon. (Essentially a beef stew with big honking chunks of melt in your mouth beef)


(Let's not get into the failure of 4 years of high school French to get me through the pronunciation of bourguignon here either)

Looking through all the other items, everything seemed so refined and then these french fries just kind of leap off the page at you.

Of course, far be it from me to make the connection between the French in french fries and French food, surely it's just coincidence right? Fortunately my somewhat more worldly dining partner was able to set me straight and make the point that they are actually a common part of a number of dishes in France.

Playing: Trivial Pursuit (online)

Lightening things up a little because, oddly enough, not everyone is interested in educational/learning theory first thing on a Monday morning (actually, that would be Muntzday today - Happy birthday gorgeous), here's something else.

After getting back on the Trivial Pursuit horse on the weekend (with much fun), I thought it was time to share a very evil and disruptive website that I've been trying hard to avoid for a week or so now, in the spirit of offering a mental distraction from work that we all need once in a while. (Like when, oh, I don't know, blogging perhaps :)

There's quite a nifty online version of Triv available here - http://www.gamefools.com/onlinegames/free/TrivialPursuitBringonthe90s.html that offers a scaled down version of the game (playing for 3 pieces of pie) against the computer. It also allows you to jump in first on questions that the computer has to answer and steal the turn back, which is a nice work around to the problem of waiting for it to get through its go.

It's 90s themed, not too taxing and makes nice little chimey sounds when you get it right.

Enjoy.

Learning: about learning

And I thought I knew everything that was worth knowing ;)

I was doing a bit of reading the other day and came across the following tidbit that I thought was really interesting - it's all about how they (the mysterious they) believe our brain works in terms of learning and memory.

Two memory systems, working memory and long-term memory, shape human learning. Working memory is the center of all conscious thinking, including deliberate learning. However it is limited in memory capacity. The well-known limit of seven plus or minus two chunks of information first articulated by Miller (1956) applies to working memory.

In contrast, long-term memory is a permanent, large capacity repository of information consisting of organised structures called schemata. However, it has no processing capabilities. There is an interaction between working memory and long-term memory in that, the more related knowledge that is stored in long-term memory, the larger chunks working memory can absorb.

Therefore, novice learners with little related knowledge in long-term memory are much more susceptible to cognitive overload than are more experienced learners. This is why prior knowledge of the learner is an important individual difference characteristic that must be considered with designing instruction

So in essence, the more you know about something already, the easier it is to digest new information about it. (Maybe this is just common sense but it's exciting to me - I'd normally say I need to go out and get a life at this point but I'm pretty durned happy with the one I have at the moment)

(find out more about this in:

Colvin, Clark, R. & Mayer, R. E. (2007). Using rich media wisely. In R. A. Reiser & J. V. Dempsey (Eds.). Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology (pp. 311-322). Upper Saddle Creek, NJ: Pearson Education.)

Edublogging : why games are good

This is a copy of a post from my edublog - it's only about 400 words so is a little more readable than the sprawling (drawling?) 4000 words I put together the other day.

I'll try to spare you most of my writing but I enjoyed this one

Interactive multimedia makes Behaviourist learning strategies more engaging.

The use of simple online games and quizzes provides positive reinforcement to learners and adds interest to subjects which focus on fact based learning by bringing variety and heightened sensory experiences to repetitive tasks.

Robyler and Harviluk (1997) point out that among the “needs addressed by directed instruction” (their term for the Behaviourist approach) are “making learning paths more efficient... especially for instruction in skills that are prerequisite to higher-level skills” and “performing time-consuming and labor intensive tasks (e.g., skill practice), freeing teacher time for other, more complex student needs”.

This has been demonstrated in a project undertaken in the Learning Medical Terminology subject at the Canberra Institute of Technology (CIT).

Anecdotal evidence from the teacher of the subject indicates that students now learn and retain the words more quickly and complain less about the subject.

This heuristic is useful to me as a learning resource developer at CIT as we are part of the Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector and many of the initial subjects in our courses require learners to acquire a certain base level of technical subject-specific knowledge. Many of these games can be produced easily by teachers with free or inexpensive software and require minimal technical ability to create and put online.

I chose to write about it as I am a firm believer in the educational possibilities of interactive multimedia, particularly in the form of games and quizzes. Games are a familiar, accessible and engaging medium which can be used in situations ranging from Behaviourist drill and practice exercises to more Constructivist problem based scenarios. There is currently a growing group of educational game producers – known as the Serious Games movement – focussing heavily on the possibilities of the latter.

Learning practitioners wishing to make use of interactive multimedia in the form of games and quizzes should allow themselves adequate time to become familiar with the game/quiz creating software that they wish to use. While most of it is designed with the less technically inclined user in mind (i.e. a wizard based approach), it can often still require the uploading of multiple supporting image and javascript files to your website or learning management system.

References:

Robyler, M.D., Ewards, J., & Harviluk, M.A. (1997) Integrating educational technology into teaching. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Chapter 3, p. 54 – 77.

Simpson, C., (2005). Medical Terminology – Prefixes and Suffixes. Retrieved 23/7/2007 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTfs4axi1YU

Ertmer, P.A. & Newby, T.J. (1993). Behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism: comparing critical features from an instructional design perspective. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 6(4), 50-72. (abstract)

Oliver, R. & Herrington, J. (2001) Teaching and Learning Online (p.52) Western Australia, Edith Cowan University

Wikipedia - Serious Game. Retrieved 23/7/2007 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serious_game

Waiting: with baited breath

Sorkin Will Script Flaming Lips Musical | Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots | EW.com Exclusive | News + Notes | Entertainment Weekly

This is just so cool on so many levels. (Of course it could well be one of those things that you hear about once that never comes to fruition - David Cronenberg directing American Psycho for instance)

Aaron Sorkin - wunderkind writer/creator of The West Wing, A Few Good Men, The American President and the upcoming Studio 60 on Sunset Strip - is apparently all signed up to write the script for the Broadway musical of the Flaming Lips Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots.

I think my brain is going to explode.

Here's the video for the title song from the album

Here's a promo for Studio 60 on Sunset Strip. (I'm assuming you've watched The West Wing - sadly S60 is to be screened by Channel 9 so who knows what they are going to do to it)

Blogged with Flock

Solving: the mystery of the missing Simpsons

Thinking about some of my childhood reading favourites yesterday (the Hardy Boys and Jupiter Jones of the three investigators) has put me into a bit of a detective mode - ok, not hugely so but it's all relative.

A quick check of the email last night reminded me that Mum and Dad are off in Tassie and my sister Penny is currently in the U.K (Where hopefully she won't bump into the newly boganish Susan Kennedy/Kinski and Dr Carl - or get mixed up with that minx Izzy). (If you have no idea what I'm talking about there, you're probably better off :)

I'll just have to wait a little while to share the story of the week with everyone.

(How cool would it be if while she's in the U.K, Penny bumped into Rachel's brother though)

Wondering: at the serendipity of it all

This is one of those stories that if you saw it in a film, you'd think that the writer was straining the bounds of credulity (or watched a lot of Bollywood).

But it's true - I know because it happened to me. (It's actually not that dramatic - freaky yes but not so dramatic - I've just always wanted to say that.)

About a month ago I started seeing a (fantastic/smart/beautiful/funny) girl that I'd met through RSVP, a popular internet dating site. We clicked pretty quickly and shared tales that indicated that we had a few things in common in our respective pasts. (Which I guess is one of the things you do in the first flush of dating, nothing unique there.)

We both have (Aussie) dads called Bob who have worked in engineering type jobs, both travelled to the UK in the mid/late 1960s and both met their wives there (our mums - Vicki and Marg) who were nurses and both came back here to live.

Interesting coincidences right but in the grand scheme of things, probably not that unusual. But of course there's more - you know there is - why would I be telling this story if there wasn't more to come?

Anyway, things meander along and Nancy Drew here (not me obviously - if it was me I would have said the Hardy boys or perhaps Jupiter Jones) heads down to Melbourne for work and along to Healesville sanctuary, which triggers memories of a childhood visit there with family friends at the age of five.

Fragments of the visit whirl around in her mind for a few days, gradually taking form until out of the blue, she asks "What's your mum's name?". "Vicki - why?", I reply.

At this point, she gets a little excited. "I knew it, I knew you were going to say Vicki".

Anyway, long story short, it turns out that our dads actually shared a flat in London, our mums did nursing training together and my mum and dad introduced hers to each other.

I haven't had a chance to chat to my folks about this yet but Rachel has confirmed it all with hers and her mum and mine still exchange Christmas cards.

I think I'm still processing it to a degree but it's quite the weird story - particularly given that we may well have met as kids.

Getting: all academical

Because I obviously don't spend enough time in the blogosphere, I've started up another blog where I can get my thoughts out about the things I'm reading and doing in the pursuit of my Masters in Education (ICT in Education).

(Hey, at least I'm not Twittering - now that seems like a massive waste of time - not to mention intrusive, trivial and hyper-ego-centric)

My edublog elearningnews.edublogs.org is probably pretty academic/technical/snorefesty however I have a stack of readings and reflections to plough through and if you're interested in education and eLearning, there might be something worth taking a bit of a look at.

(If not, I completely understand - just figured I'd mention it anyway)

Whistling: in the shower

You know your day is going well (great even) when you find yourself spontaneously whistling in the shower first thing in the morning.

In previous times it's been (somewhat oddly) Click Go The Shears but today's selection was a little cooler - Pavement's 1994 hit Cut Your Hair.

Here's a sample.



Here's the Wikipedia take on the song too

Cut Your Hair is a song by American rock band, Pavement on their second album, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain. The song is Pavement songwriter Stephen Malkmus' snarky ode to selling out, and, as such, it snidely attacks the importance of image and musicianship's decline in importance in the record industry. Perhaps with a bit of irony, the song was also released as a single and became the band's best selling and most popular song.

(I didn't actually realise that it was about selling out, I just thought it was about hair - oh well, there you go)

I wonder if making yourself whistle (or sing) in the shower in the morning would help you to have a good day

Thanks beautiful.

Concertgoing: At the edge

Maybe I'm the eternal optimist but of all the people that I read the following blurb to last Friday, I was the only one not to be dubious.

At the Edge is a new concert series exploring hybrid forms of music and visual performance. This event is the first of two for the year and features exciting and various new media music and electro acoustic composition performances. This concert showcases the talent and diversity of soloists and ensembles within the ANU School of Music and the Centre for New Media Arts.

Now I will admit that I was aware of the possibility that this could well consist of a handful of half naked performers painted blue standing in a circle singing the word "poop" for the better part of an hour in front of projected video of paint drying while some feral banged away mindlessly on a djembe but given that this is Canberra (and the ANU) and interesting things are tucked away all over the place in this town, decided to give it a go. (Just don't get me started on my issues with ferals/hippies/crusties playing drums).

As it turned out, it was great. (Ok, the first half was great and if it wasn't for the fact that I was starving and crying out for a drink I would have stuck around, honest)

The performance was held in the Band Room at the School of Music and entry was by gold coin donation - attendance was sparse and Buj wondered if we might be the only people there not in the performers immediate family.

The programme began with a piece called Piano Phase, which consisted of a man (Gary France) playing midi percussion pads behind a screen on which was a projection of a man (Gary also) playing midi percussion pads.

The two "performers" begin in sync playing a repeating pattern (which isn't drumlike but a keyboard sounding melody) but gradually one of them speeds up their tempo to move an eighth-note in front of them. (I actually thought that there was a third layer of sound - two percussion tracks and a looping keyboard melody - but according to what I have read, there isn't).

Might I just add at this point that the old axiom "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture" feels painfully true at this juncture

Fortunately, I just found an example of Piano Phase - check it out here. (This version seems a little faster than the one I heard but you should get the gist)

This rolls over and over for what felt like about twenty minutes (though who knows how long) with slight shifts in the tune every so often keeping it from being completely maddening. In fact, it was beautifully hypnotic and while I was listening my mind wandered all over the place, all the while tuning into the music to see where it might go next.

The repetitive nature of the piece made me wonder if it was a response to the information age and the way that we are so bombarded with information that it needs to be repeated endlessly to have any chance to get through. This also reminded me of a lot of contemporary electronic music and the nature of samples and repetition there.

On further reading though, I learnt that this piece was actually composed in 1967 by Steven Reich, so there you have it.

Next up were Shoeb Ahmad and Evan Dorrian, with a simple drums, electric guitar and laptop/effects box setup. They played two pieces which brought together random seeming but still somehow patterned drum beats, building "riffs" from the guitar (as well as randomish notes) and beeps, bleeps and other sounds from the laptop. The first track came to remind me a little of early Sonic Youth noiserock experiments and the second was a little more laid back but equally engaging.

(Did I mention the whole dancing about architecture thing?)

All in all, a great way to get out and hear something different and be carried away for a while. Further evidence that while there may not seem to be a lot going on in Canberra, the little city that could, when you get out and scratch beneath the surface, there are all manner of treats.

(Oh and the crowd grew to pretty well fill the hall as time passed)

Feeling: relieved

I submitted my first substantial piece of written uni work in close to fifteen years yesterday afternoon - a timeline of the history of the use of I.T in Education over the last 100 years or so based on a set of readings we'd been given.

As I think about it I consider all the elements that I left out - Open source software, RSS and much of the whole Web 2.0 thing (Flickr, YouTube et al) - but I think it was comprehensive enough to scrape a pass, possibly a credit out of.

As the first piece of writing I've been required to do, it was something of a battle to get stuck into - the required readings seemed just as interested in the minutiae of which professional organisation changed their name in 1923 from the Visual Instruction Association to the AudioVisual Instruction Association (I know this is wrong but you get the gist) as they were in how the advances in technology actually affected people on the ground.

That's academia I guess. (Fortunately my other subject deals with multimedia and seems somewhat more grounded.)

Watching: Battlestar Galactica (end of Season 2)

Wow, just wow. I'm reluctant to say too much in case you haven't seen it yet - there are some major changes, which is refreshing in a series in general - but it sets up for a most interesting season 3.

(Ok, just a short one today as I reeeallly have things to do - hope you have a great weekend)

Quick update - this is just too nerdy not to include here - Digg.com discussion of who would win a fight between Battlestar Galactica and the Enterprise (Star Trek).

One of the comments sums it up perfectly - read the comments imagining the voice of the comicbook guy from the Simpsons.

http://digg.com/television/SciFi_Smackdown_The_USS_Enterprise_vs_the_Battlestar_Galactica

Theatre-going: Noises Off

Noises Off is a classic farce with many doors opening and closing, zippy dialogue and a sometimes confusing but funny mess of lots of simultaneous physical comedy.

It takes a play-within-a-play structure and focuses on the carry on behind the scenes of a production of a farce called Nothing On. This is a bog-standard farce with all of your typical farce ingredients, the aforementioned calvacade of opening and closing doors, coincidences, mistaken identity, bothersome props (a plate/s of sardines in this case), an attractive woman who spends most of her time in her lingerie and a man with his trousers down around his ankles.

We take a step back to see this firstly as a dress rehearsal, complete with actors stuffing up and questioning their motivations, then from backstage as a matinee a few weeks in to the season and finally from front of house as an evening performance right at the end of the season. (By which time, things have completely gone to pot).

After the first act I'd had a few smiles (particularly having done a little theatre in my day) but wasn't guffawing like most of the audience (largely comprised it seemed of the silver-haired set) but as the second and third acts progressed and the whole production descended into impressively organised chaos I found it funnier and funnier. I also grew more and more impressed with both the writing and the talent of the performers (and director) to manage such a complex amount of stage "business" and overlapping plotlines and dialogue. I'd be quite surprised if anyone stayed still for more than 20 seconds at a time in the final act.

I must admit that I've never seen a farce performed before - I've seen farcical elements in film (most commonly the doors trick - one person exits a door just as another enters another door taken to ridiculous extremes) but I had some idea of what it was all about but now really feel as though I haven't been giving the genre (or perhaps it's just this particular play) it's due.

Bravo to the Canberra Rep and to the writer for getting it so right.

Noises Off is playing at Theatre 3 until Friday - definitely worth checking out.

More details on their website here

One of the things I was wondering (being the multimedia type that I am) during the performance, particularly given the chaos and the plotlines and physical comedy being played out often simultaneously, was how it would translate to film.

Rapid cutting seemed the obvious option but perhaps a little too structured - too focussed on drawing attention to each individual act of madness at the expense of losing the sense of overall mayhem. Some kind of split screen approach (possibly up to four screens, Timecode (Mike Figgis 2000) style.

Apparently there is already a film version available, directed by Peter Bogdanovich (1992) that I might just have to check out.

Update - Good ole YouTube comes through once more (to a degree) with a clip from a (significantly) lesser production of Noises Off which will nonetheless give you some idea of some of the dynamics of the play.

This is taken from the final act where the whole performance has completely lost it - cues are being missed, props are missing or just wrong, performers are at each others throats, some try to improvise their way out of the mess while others just stick steadfastly to their assigned lines

Picturing: Golden Plains

Ok, so a more fully formed overview of the festival is still to come - possibly not that soon either, I'm really starting to question my sanity at having dived into higher education at this point in time - particularly studying two units by distance.

Anyways, here are some initial pics snapped at the festival over the weekend. As ever, I have gone with the trusty camera phone for two reasons - portability and also the simplified image that it provides.

Now maybe this is pretentious arty wank talking but there is something about the less than perfect image that really appeals to me - in an age where photos are getting more and more ridiculously sharp and detailed (check out some HDR pics for example), they seem simultaneously more constructed, more stage managed and more designed to push emotional buttons.

The beauty of the camera phone is that it's immediate, it's a small lense and it doesn't have a great depth of field or contrast range. It's reassuringly low-tech (in spite of the fact that just the thought of being able to take a photo one minute and send it to someone on the other side of the world the next would have blown any photographers mind less than twenty years ago)

Anyway, here are a few views of the inaugural Golden Plains Music Festival, live from the Meredith Supernatural Amphitheatre, March 2007.



Meredith has one big stage, purpose built for the festival. People find a spot at the start of the day and tend to camp out there through all the bands. There's a standing section towards the front that it's not too difficult to get into but ultimately, you just want a sit down. (Or maybe I'm just getting old.)



Further back is just a sea of chairs, old couches and the odd lampshade. (Not shown in picture but if you look carefully, the self same lampshade is part of the official Golden Plains artwork)



Is a festival still cool when people are turning up in Beamers? (Yes, even with Beamers)



Navigating your way around a massive campsite can be a challenge, particularly when you realise that most tents only come in about three colours (one of which is silver) and all look alike. Fortunately, the citizens of Box Factory set up next to us and their flag offered a welcome homing beacon. (That and the Norwegian flag near the toilets that marked the left turn to our campsite)



Ok, so there are points at which the phone camera shows it's limitations - but even then, it kind of looks pretty.



Saturday was a brilliant sunny day, maxing out at around 35C with clear blue skies and no wind at all. (Quite the change from the rest of the weekend, which was a much more Melbourne-like overcast and mid 20s which constant strong gusts.)



Sunset was kind of special though.

Quick music highlights:

The Drones (great passion and tight playing)

Ground Components (great attitude, rockstar chops and a sense of fun)

Presets (high energy, loud and fast electronic rock/pop and a definite sense of show)

Fat Freddy's Drop (very talented musicianship, a trombonist able to make the instrument cool and a good attitude)

Gotye (I didn't pick the Thom Yorke-ness of the singers voice until Eric pointed it out - also his observation that it was like Thom Yorke but with a purer sound - but this and the pop-rock sensibilities of these guys made me very keen to check them out)

The Slits (for me at least - noone else in the party seemed to agree but I liked their old-skool pop-punk sound and was prepared to overlook the massive chip the singer seemed to shoulder about not having been paid their dues by history. I mean, yes, they broke some impressive new ground but then packed it in after a couple of albums - then again, the same could be said for the Sex Pistols)

Yo La Tengo (I guess - I was a little hungover by this time but they sounded pretty good from where I was, just wish I was a little more familiar with their body of work.)

Less impressive - The Bellrays - musically tight but too slick, there was something offputting about the way that they made no effort to personalise the between song banter - it was all "You people are great", "Are you all ready to get down?" etc, essentially stuff they might say anywhere.

Comets on Fire - maybe if I'd been watching from a more central spot they might have sounded better but for the most part it just seemed like long winded wanky rock jamming. The Meredith organisers have a definite thing for the noisy rock band and hey, it's their festival but there was nothing new or interesting to it.

!!! - Unusual name aside (pron. chk chk chk or anything single syllable sound repeate d 3 times evidently) these guys started with some interesting sounds but wandered off down long-winded art-rock lane and never came back.

I was a little bit oldman and didn't stick around for the over night techno/dance party thing - hopefully Eric, Fabian or Pippa will be able to put in their two cents worth.

OMGing : They've launched Skynet.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | British Skynet satellite launched

Did these people learn nothing from the Terminator movies?

Fortunately, help is at hand.

It's call How to survive a robot uprising : Tips on defending yourself against the coming rebellion and is written by a guy called Daniel H Wilson (who is actually a roboticist himself). (It's entirely tongue in cheek, just in case you were wondering - although apparently it has upset some in the roboticist community who hate any suggestion that robots could turn evil.)

Anyways, it's got a very cool shiny cover and the pages also have a very cool shiny metallic red finish on them (who says don't judge a book by it's cover :)

find out a little more on their site - http://www.robotuprising.com

(Yes, I know this is a little geeky but there you go. Like Matt Groening (creator of The Simpsons and Futurama) says, "There is no story that can't be made a million times better with a robot")

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Update - hey cool, that was my 100th post.

Regrouping: after a big, tiring music filled weekend.

More to come soon on the Golden Plains Music Festival (including possible special guest reports) as well as the shortcut that should never be spoken of again. :)

Setting off: to the Golden Plains Festival

Featuring

THE BELLRAYS, FAT FREDDYS DROP, YO LA TENGO, !!!, THE PRESETS, MAD PROFESSOR, GOTYE, THE AVALANCHES DJ SHOW, COMETS ON FIRE, DEXTER, THE SLITS, SEBASTIAN AND KAVINSKY (ED BANGER TOUR), DARREN HANLON, THE DRONES, EDDY CURRENT SUPPRESSION RING, SHOOTING AT UNARMED MEN, DUDLEY PERKINS AND GEORGIA ANNE MULDROW, MUPH AND PLUTONIC, GROUND COMPONENTS, RIOT IN BELGIUM, NICK THAYER, GEORGE RRURRAMBU AND BIRDWAVE, MOUNTAINS IN THE SKY, SUNWRAE ENSEMBLE, SLEATER BROCKMAN, JAMAICA IRIE WITH RUCL AND JIGZIE CAMPBELL, MUSCLES AND MORE.

Check it all out at http://www.goldenplains.com.au

Pics and stories when I get back on Tuesday

Have a great weekend