Live Review: Michael Chamberlin - Joy & Despair (The Pun)

By his own admission, Michael Chamberlin lives in a constant state of either joy or despair – no grey areas to be found in his life of loneliness, bewilderment and often crippling neuroses. A screenwriter by trade, Michael has written for Skithouse, Rove Live and Adam Hills in Gordon St. Tonight, and has even lent words to the legendary John Cleese. A veteran comedy writer and stand-up comic, Chamberlin has won acclaim far and wide for the last decade, but it seems that his dream joyride has now run into a wall built by despair.

Read the rest as well as many more 2012 MICF reviews at The Pun.

Interview: Angela Gossow of Arch Enemy (the AU Review)

At the turn of the century, traditional heavy metal forged in the crucibles of Europe had been muscled out of the popular consciousness by an ostentatiously presented, teenaged television marketing campaign known to the world at large as nu-metal. Long haired metalheads hurled their steel cups of mead at speakers in frustration, wondering if the creative wells of their beloved genre had finally run dry, fingers crossed in a futile/paranoid gesture hoping bulldozers from MTV (sponsored by Monster Energy Drink) wouldn’t raze Wacken Open Air three to four years hence (Or have a band like say, Korn headline, which would more or less have had the same effect.)

But locked away in Gothenburg’s premier metal recording house Studio Fredman, the phoenix like Arch Enemy was preparing a new album with a new, Germanic recruit standing before the microphone. Oft-criticized vocalist Johan Liiva had departed. Angela Gossow entered. She turned how we had always thought about metal on its head.

Find out how she did it at the AU Review.

Media Consulting: HistoryWow website and app

Respected Melbourne corporate communications and public relations consultant Richard Craig, in a special project, has created a unique international website and iPhone app to deliver a "short, sharp hit of history" because history is, in his words, "fascinating and inspirational."

I wrote and edited content for screen (see our series of "introduction" videos) the app and website; organized logo, website and app design; liaised with developers, provided publicity support and consulting; technical support and implementation; intellectual property management; social media management; and trademark filing. It was project built to Richard's meticulous standards, exemplifying his unique adoration of history and one of the most rewarding ones to have taken part in.


Get your history fix at http://historywow.com.

Live Review: Devin Townsend Project and Meshuggah w/ dredg at the Forum Theatre (Metal as Fuck)

Devin Townsend and his project played unforgettably at the Forum Theatre on that Thursday night. Meshuggah and dredg on the other hand...well...funny you mention them... 
 
Stuck in horrendous Melbourne traffic, I missed dredg much to my annoyance. Having been a fan of their Catch Without Arms record, I was relishing the opportunity to see them in an intimate club setting prior to my Soundwave adventure due in a couple of days. Alas, I was just pipped by the line which had snaked its way back behind the dingy alleyway of the Forum Theatre, much in contrast to the classical opulence of its facade and interior (Read more about the decor of the Forum here, if you’re into that sort of thing.) One newbie approached me and asked, “Is this the line for Devin Townsend?” How did the legion of metalheads not give it away? It was either that, or his name emblazoned above the door?

Find out why I forgot all about Meshuggah during their own show at Metal as Fuck.

Live Review: Melbourne Soundwave 2012 (TheVine)

It’s the time when metalheads and punks are vindicated for one week out of the year - Soundwave Festival. The event, now in its sixth ambitious year, is most likely the greatest expression of rock music Retromania that one could ask for. A phrase coined by acclaimed rock journalist Simon Reynolds (blame him for the term “post-metal”) in his book of the same name, which asks “is popular music addicted to its own past?” The short answer? You bet your arse it is.

The long answer? Read on.

Read the long answer at TheVine.

Live Review: Zakk Wylde's Black Label Society and Hellyeah at the Forum Theatre (Metal as Fuck)

It was an all Southern affair in Melbourne as the shred king addressed his subjects from stately chambers, occupied in the name of the Black Label Order. 

Sultry, rainy, miserable. To the perpetually meteorologically bemused residents of Melbourne, experiencing all four seasons in the space of as many minutes is a given; we see rain, take a piss and by the time our flies are half way done up, it’s sunny once more. Ho hum, pass the butter. After two days of summer, it rained and rained. Fortunately this humid night just lent itself to the atmosphere. With beer in hand as the aroma of cheap cigarettes wafted over me, I felt like I was back in Atlanta, GA hanging out with pre-fabricated good ole boys wearing denim and leather kuttes direct from the merch desk - the real 1%ers were most likely cooling their boiling blood with beer as they planted themselves on the edge of the pit, their arms as thick as oak trunks folded together and just as immovable.

Read the rest at Metal as Fuck.

Article - Currents of History (Full Version)

The following article originally appeared in the Big Issue (Australia) #392, All rights reserved.

I am posting this here as I've been informed that my Baba, the greatest person I have ever known, will not be with us much longer. I dedicate this to her. Please read so that her memory is kept alive.

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It is easy to underestimate older people – as Tom Valcanis realised when he learned about his grandmother’s life and noticed her electrical skills.

One frosty morning when I was six, I was sitting in my grandmother’s lounge room transfixed by Agro’s Cartoon Connection. As usual, I was toasting myself against her glowing gas heater. Back then, I knew my grandmother as my Macedonian “Baba” but, apart from that, I didn’t know much about her at all. For all I knew, her life was full of cooking, cleaning and telling jokes to keep us young ones occupied when there was nothing good on TV.

Baba always wore a simple, faded floral apron and cheap, unassuming clothes no matter where she went. This day was no different.

Leaving me to watch cartoons, she set up her ironing board and went to the kitchen to make a cup of tea while the iron heated up.

Minutes later, my concentration was broken by the sound of Baba, back at her ironing board, muttering a string of Macedonian expletives at her unresponsive iron.  She whisked out of the room again and returned just as swiftly with a tool box in hand. What on earth was she doing with a tool box?

With deft precision and lightning speed, she opened up the iron, examined the parts, twisted some screws and, within minutes, had it up and running again. I watched in awe. “How… How did you know how to do that?” I asked. The answer was more remarkable and inspiring than I could ever have bargained for.

It started with Baba as a nine-year-old girl in the midst of a war that eventually tore apart an entire continent. After guns fell silent between the Allies and the Axis forces, another conflict engulfed the Balkans just a year later – the Partisan War. Baba’s village life on the Aegean coast was turned upside down as the fascists invaded. Her family fled into a cave, hiding for two days without food or water. Emerging unscathed, she returned only to watch her house burn to the ground, all of her possessions engulfed in the conflagration. Within a week, Baba was a refugee on the run from both Greek fascists and Yugoslavian communists.

As bombers choked the sky and bombs slammed into the ground mere feet from where Baba stood, the Yugoslavs separated children from their parents. “Give them your blankets,” the soldiers commanded. “They will need them.”

With nothing but their parting gifts to steel them against the bitter winter, these refugees were marched off to safe havens – Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and Baba’s final destination, Romania.

During the day, they would hide in makeshift bunkers. At night, they would walk for hours and hours in pitch darkness. All the while, they felt nothing but pain, hunger and exposure. When they finally arrived in Romania, soldiers confiscated their blankets (“the worst part was over,” Baba said), but the refugee children were still shunted around between all sorts of buildings and temporary shelters commandeered by communist forces. Householders were ordered to take in the children when nightfall came, sometimes in grand feudal estates. “We even slept in a palace,” Baba recalled in her croaky, careworn voice. “Not in the good part, but, still, it was a palace!”

Eventually she ended up in a convent. It was there, as a teenager, that she was assigned a job like all the other girls and boys of her age. She stood in a line as an officer designated their new life-long occupations. The hand of fate chose doctors, bakers, boilermakers. What would Baba become? An electrician in Transylvania.

Baba’s next base was a plant near Bran Castle, the supposed residence of Count Dracula. There she learned her trade, mending fuses, constructing simple circuits (like those in her iron) and manning the power station that supplied the town. For foreigners and refugees, punishments for mistakes were harsh. Baba found that out when she inadvertently blacked out half the village, including the castle, during a training exercise. She got a beating for her error.

When the Red Cross informed her that her parents had escaped to Australia, she made the journey through Hungary and Vienna and on to Italy, where she boarded a boat for a new, peaceful life.

When Baba finished telling me her story, tears were trickling down into the contours of her cheeks. Even at the age of six, I could feel her gratitude for living in a country where she’d never had to go through that kind of pain again. Her former life under the grip of terror was over. For good.

An unbreakable connection with my heritage was made that day. I stopped whining when I was taken along to migrant reunion picnics and dances – I wanted to connect with my ancestry and hear others’ stories. I learned that through knowing Baba’s place in time, I also knew my own.

Sometimes we underestimate our elders, but their stories are worth so much more than the afternoon cup of tea we only seldom afford them.

Review: Woods of Ypres - Woods 5: Grey Skies & Electric Light (Metal as Fuck)

The Grey Skies are wet with tears; the last recording made with David Gold (RIP) takes on a new, powerful Romantic dimension while still retaining their bitter cynicism and expert musicianship. 

 

There’s a particular twinge of grief that threads itself through this record – of course, the untimely passing of David Gold was as saddening as it was sudden. As he mournfully and sonorously rattled off his desperate words, screaming “Only death is real!” one’s eyes feel pregnant with tears and almost nothing can stem the flow. The heinous crime the Earth has committed in prematurely claiming our dark dreamer only serves to intensify this monochromatic vista of doom metal, like a portrait washed in rivers of hatred and modern bile, dripping with venomous, jarring guitar lines.

Read the review over at Metal as Fuck.

Writing: Australia Day - And What it Means to Us (Onya Magazine)

(By Editor Sandi Sieger with contributions from the Onya Team)

I’m in the business of celebrating Australia every day. Being Editor-In-Chief of this magazine means I see, do, taste and feel so much of this great land every day of the week. So when I sat down to think about the meaning of Australia Day, I was a little stuck. It’s just another day, after all.

Sure, there’ll be a lot of stereos beating to the sound of Triple J’s Hottest 100. There’ll be a lot of barbeques sizzling with snags and steaks, and tops being twisted off bottles, and corks being popped. There’ll be Australian flags emblazoned on windows and cars and tattooed on the shoulders and backs of the citizens of this country. But what about it should matter?

Read more at Onya Magazine.

Article: Migrant Metal (The Big Issue)

Far from being a closed-door cabal, Australia's metal scene has become a proudly multicultural subculture.

Watching a heavy metal show as an outsider is like walking into a psychotic circus that’s as bizarre as it is fun. Confronting by nature, metal is defined by its hulking, “louder than hell” guitar driven sound, occult or satanic imagery as worn by bands and their fans with a cult like devotion to the scene and its craft. Bands run the gamut from cool-headed, wispy-haired heavy rockers to leather clad black metal fanatics, brandishing fake axes, their faces greased up in white “corpsepaint.” Some frontmen (and women) growl, some sneer and some sing to ear-shattering, herniated heights.

Read the rest in The Big Issue (#398) on sale from vendors across the nation - buy a copy to help the homeless and long-term unemployed.

Article: The Recess of Electoral Education (Onya Magazine)

What are the most important subjects taught to our children in primary school? Mathematics. History. English. Foreign Languages. Politics. If you thought the last subject felt out of place, you aren’t alone. During my time at a state primary school in the South Eastern suburbs of Melbourne, politics was a barely touched upon subject – I scarcely recalled learning about the separation of powers or the Australian Federation until at least the intermediate years of high school. Although it didn’t deter me from higher studies of politics at VCE and tertiary levels, it would seem an exception to the rule. In Australia it’s compulsory to vote in elections – another exception to worldwide democratic norms – but are we afforded a suitable introduction to our vital institutions, civil society and its processes to make an informed decision from a young age and into maturity? What is meant by “political literacy” in 2011?

Read more at Onya Magazine.

Report: Olympic Gold Medallist talks Taekwondo

Martial arts in films and comics is far removed from street combat or sparring activities. Though many are ancient practices, the knowledge they yield is still pertinent for the modern age. More importantly, many martial artists attain benefits that reach far beyond the physical as routine training strengthens the mind as much as it does the body.

What is often forgotten are the benefits of martial arts in education. The tradition of many martial arts dates back hundreds, if not thousands of years. Passed down from Grandmaster to student, martial arts instill the virtues of self-discipline, harmony, compassion and clarity of mind in its practitioners.

Read the rest at the Melbourne City News.

Media Consulting: The Yard Restaurant and Bar (mX Melbourne)

A client of mine, the Yard Restaurant and Bar was featured in the mX "Night Out" section on November 10, 2011. Here's a peek:

Assuming the frontage of a quiet terrace, inside one finds an idyllic escape from the city that's not too far away from all the comforts of urban life, nestled in the back streets of South Melbourne. Warming oneself under the glass atrium is a delight to behold - and will become a fixture for dozy after work drinks and "morning after the night before" brunchers.

Interested? Feel free to contact me for further information.

Report: Finding the right tools for better health (Melbourne City News)

In Australia, one in six men will suffer from depression at some point throughout their lifetime. For every one woman that takes her own life, four men do.  When it comes to mental health for men, the statistics are worrisome yet crucial to understanding the inner life of men which are blighted by a raft of largely unknown “mental hazards.” It’s not uncommon to hear of men avoiding to see a doctor until it’s almost too late; the same phenomenon unfortunately occurs the realm of mental wellbeing. The Western definition of masculinity emphasizes strength and silence; which means not opening up and discussing problems to find solutions. Often times, depression leads to self-destructive behaviors such as alcohol or substance abuse.

Read the rest in the November 10 edition of the Melbourne City News.

Interview: Fair to Midland’s Cliff Campbell (The Void)

Ripples of interest in alt-metal combo Fair to Midland have turned to crashing waves that have reached from shore to shore in recent times – and it isn’t hard to figure out why. 

Armed with hulking riffs as well as playful whistles and soulful banjos, they charm indie kids as well as their transgressive metal brethren with an energetic mix of southern twang and hard driving rock. However, it hasn’t been a smooth ride toward peer acclaim. Though picked up by System of a Down frontman Serj Tankian’s vanity label Serjical Strike in the dawn of the new century they parted ways in 2009. After much searching, they finally put ink to paper at E1 Music under their burgeoning metal sub-label.

Read more at The Void.

Article: Heavy Metal para siempre - Latin American metal and Las Marimbas del Infierno (Metal as Fuck)

A special feature taking a look at Latin American heavy metal in a new film which spins a tale of extortion, survival and the unlikely blending of traditional marimbas and death metal. 

 

On the front of Don Alfredo Tunche’s intricately carved marimbas, careworn and chipped away by countless hours of practice and performance are the words “Siempre Juntos.” In his native Guatemala, this means “always together.” For Tunche, a deliveryman broken down by extortionists who have him on the run, forcing him to keep his family far away in hiding, his cumbersomely large yet prized marimbas are his only companion. He wheels them around with great difficulty everywhere he goes, lest damaged by scorned ex-band mates or worse yet; it’s stolen for some quick cash.

Read more at Metal as Fuck.

Article: Currents of History (The Big Issue)

It is easy to underestimate older people – as Tom Valcanis realised when he learned about his grandmother’s life and noticed her electrical skills.

One frosty morning when I was six, I was sitting in my grandmother’s lounge room transfixed by Agro’s Cartoon Connection. As usual, I was toasting myself against her glowing gas heater. Back then, I knew my grandmother as my Macedonian “Baba” but, apart from that, I didn’t know much about her at all. For all I knew, her life was full of cooking, cleaning and telling jokes to keep us young ones occupied when there was nothing good on TV.

Baba always wore a simple, faded floral apron and cheap, unassuming clothes no matter where she went. This day was no different.

Read the rest in issue #392 of The Big Issue, available from street vendors around the nation.

Archive Interview: Cult of Luna - Enigmatic

This interview originally appeared in Buzz Magazine, September 2008.


Johannes Persson, enigmatic guitarist for sludge/doom band Cult of Luna makes the unlikeliest of friends up in the wintry steppes of Umea, their home town. “We have made lots of friends from people in Australia. One of the bands that recorded up here, you may have heard of. We’re very good friends with the Dukes of Windsor.” I was flabbergasted. The Dukes of Windsor? From Melbourne? Persson too was taken aback. “Yeah,” he laughs. “I thought I recognized the name of [your] town. They played up here in our hometown. I was totally blown away by them. Jack, the vocalist, has a voice that could not be compared to many people on this Earth. They’re a great live band too.” A ringing endorsement from a man who lives and plays in the extreme? Priceless.

Persson is one of eight members that includes some three guitarists and two vocalists in the gargantuan line-up of Cult of Luna had humble beginnings, with most of the core group playing in a hardcore band called Eclipse. “Well we just started to write slower and slower songs…eventually the band broke up and our sound changed so much that we decided to change the name of the band.” Persson says. Persson also quite earnestly enlightenens us on how a band with eight members forms one cohesive whole in the songwriting process.

“Well, we start off with a basic idea that someone in the band has. There’s no pre-defined structure or anything like that, we just jam it out. It would be a lie to say everyone has as much to say in every song, but it’s usually I, Fredrik (guitarist) and Erik (guitarist) that writes most of the stuff, and a majority of the songs come from me, to be honest.” Persson, not shy of telling like it is, even confesses that CoL’s latest album, Eternal Kingdom has its rough edges. “Well, some of the best songs on there is some of the best material we’ve ever [written], he explains.

“But some of the other songs could have used a few more jams in the rehearsal room before we went into the studio.” He also quashes the rumor that CoL recorded the album in a disused psychiatric ward, evoking images of a haunted menagerie of padded walls and blood-curdling screams. “Well, where we recorded was on the site of a big institution. It’s all been rebuilt now. There’s a cultural centre, music studios, etc.”

However, the use of a madman’s diary as the central theme to Eternal Kingdom is very much true, as Persson tells. “Well, a year before we started writing music, we did a T-shirt design for one of the characters, which was a hare, but with moose-horns. (laughs) - It was a hybrid kind of animal. Besides, when a story like that just falls into your lap you can’t not do anything with it. It was an interesting story and a good story.”

Persson, being the earnest and endearing musician he is also has a strong passion for raising moral and political issues through Cult of Luna. “Well, every album has to have a clear and [defined] issue running through it,” he tells me. “If you’re in a band and people listen to your music, you may as well say something important.” He even rages against the established music “machine”, critiquing the homogenization and routine dumbing down of popular music culture.

“When you pick up any music magazine it almost makes you want to poke your eyes out,” he laments. “[Musicians] sometimes get really stupid questions from journalists about the ‘sex, drugs and rock and roll’ lifestyle; it’s all uninteresting and it’s been done so many times. They ask you things like ‘what’s your quickest tap solo’ – f—k off! That kind of music journalism isn’t journalism at all. Having that said, we’re not a band that wants to point fingers and tell people what to do. But we’re also a band that doesn’t avoid controversial and important issues.”

Such as?

“Well, [for example], every time you pick up a magazine it [reinforces the] male-domination of the rock ‘n’ roll business and traditional male values. I don’t want to generalize, but a lot of the American bands have this jingoist, macho attitude. First off, it’s just plain boring; it’s very unoriginal and just lame.”

Living in a land of extremes ourselves, Cult of Luna would find themselves at home among the “cult” like following of the sludge and experimental doom movement, with Isis, Sunn O))) and Boris all touring successfully here – I ask, would Persson like to take his outfit down under? “Yes, we would love to tour Australia. We have many friends that loved touring there – in fact, every band I know that toured Australia say that it’s the best thing they’ve ever done. In that sense, we want to go to Australia as soon as possible…hopefully we’ll be there soon.”

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Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved, Crushtor Media Services Pty. Ltd.

The Facebookless Frontier, two months on

Two months ago I deactivated my Facebook account and never looked back. Last month sat from the sidelines, irritated by the routine "complainageddons" that spring from a well of minor interface changes to the free social platform/marketing exercise. People said that throwing away Facebook was akin to severing a healthy limb which had served me well and would continue to in the future. But after two months, I barely recognize that it still exists to other people. The my social world continues to turn and I've come to view this so-called "third hand" as useless as if both necrotic and lame (and selling my particulars to third parties.)

My phone hasn't been ringing off the hook with former Facebook friends wondering if I'm still alive, but the core of my friendship groups has been strengthened since I'm taking the effort to call, text or email friends instead of passively staring at an abstracted representation of them on a screen. Interestingly, I've met more people through Twitter via the Melbourne, Australia twitter meetup known as MTUB than I ever have through Facebook. I've made many new friends this way. Post-Facebook, I still keep up attendance at my interest group meetings, either through organizing them myself or attending new ones.

Thus I pondered it from a media ecological perspective, in the vein of my revered Neil Postman; just what problem did Facebook solve for me? Discovering that it caused no subsequent problems resulting from my exit, it actually spurred some solutions insofar my relationships and how I approach them is concerned.

• New friend? Give them a text or a call: Adding them to Facebook is much like slipping a dollar bill in a wallet. People aren't trading cards to be collected and traded. If I genuinely like someone or enjoy their company, I will let them know one way or another. The experiential "addition" to one's Facebook friends list means many things to many people. There's a certain personal development "bonus" for acting as an initiator.
• No invitation, no attendance: I've missed out on various social engagements the past two months; but if I don't know about it, I'm not there! I don't miss whatever I'm unaware of, right?
  If I'm told in person, I reserve the date and make sure I attend. There's only a "yes" or "no" option for me!
• Less distraction: Yesterday, I went on a half-day Twitter moratorium and completed all my "to-do" tasks prior to 2pm. I interviewed broadcaster and journalist Steve Cannane for the book project, completed an article for an online mag and started work for a new client. With no "Twitter-Facebook moebius strip of distraction" for my attention to contend with, stuff gets done!

I think it's safe to declare that I won't be re-joining for good. The benefits greatly outweigh any drawbacks and my social life feels as vibrant as ever. If you're considering whether to write the final words in your 'book and put it to rest, I cannot recommend it enough!

Brazen rock attack on train scares passengers

A commuter train was pummeled by projectiles in what appeared to be a coordinated attack near Toorak in Melbourne’s inner suburbs at approximately 8:30PM on Sunday.

The train’s power was cut and halted before a gang of unidentified attackers hurled rocks and other materials at the train smashing windows along its entire length, frightening passengers.

Commuters were forced to take cover as heavy objects pelted the windows in near darkness. A few passengers immediately telephoned police. Some on the train believed a gang of over five individuals used makeshift weaponry to inflict the damage.

It was unclear whether the train was targeted specifically.

Shattered glass littered the interior of the train and was taken out of commission at Flinders Street Station. No injuries were immediately reported. Metro Train attendants made no attempts to ascertain passenger welfare upon arrival.

Metro Trains was contacted for comment at the time of writing; none has been forthcoming.