In keeping with this whole new multi-disciplinary vibe the internet brings us, here’s our first feature with NO SOUND.

You might remember Amber and Erin from The Mill and an interview we had with them on our penultimate program. After an arduous journey of finding a space and slashing through Adelaide’s bureaucratic jungle with a machete of pep, the pair have gone and achieved their goal. The Mill is, in their words, a multi-disciplinary creative hub for young and emerging cultural practitioners and entrepreneurs.

Amber and Erin are currently setting up their space and held a working bee this past middle-of-March weekend to bring people into the space and help out with the heavy stuff.

Roving reporter, John Dexter, checked out the working bee and made this photo essay to show you lovely people what the hell is going on at The Mill. Enjoy:

Remember when we said NO SOUND, yeah? We lied.
Here’s a clip from the Mill launch at Magazine Gallery, featuring John Dexter chatting with Amber, Erin and Renew Adelaide’s Lily Jacobs
themill.mp3

For more from The Mill, go here

Love from,

The Scenery

FORMAT FESTIVAL 2012s FIRST ANNUAL DO WHAT YOU PEEL FESTIVAL, was the brain child of Radio Adelaide’s the Range presenter Casey Briggs, Format’s Managing Director Stan Mahoney and the Scenery’s Alex Gordon-Smith. Stan and Alex did all the cool stuff though. Stan got the street closed with his patented council whispering, much like his police whispering, but more vibrant. Alex came up with Mass Karaoke. And Casey used his maths degree to divide the live Radio Adelaide broadcast into separate yet equally important parts.

Radio Adelaide presenters from The Scenery, Behind the Screens, The Range and Streetcast joined forces to bring a three hour broadcast live from Peel St outside Format. They joined the South Australian Parkour Association, the Alley Cats, Choral Grief, Dancing Room, Collarbones, the Wild Things, artist Sam Howie, roving reporter John Dexter, handball curator Dom Mugavin, handball enthusiast Kat Botten and the unenthusiastic Matt Hayward in the live action festivities.

This was the fifth year of the Format Festival, which initially started out as a zine fair by one Ianto Ware. The consecutive Format Festivals have been an open call out to people with “ideas”, such as art exhibitions and installations, DIY fairs, weird group social experiments and live music extravaganzas. Behind the Screens’ Chrissy Kavanaugh and the Friday Range’s Casey Briggs spoke with Format’s Grandfather and Father, Dr Ianto Ware and the Reverend Stan Mahoney.

peelstanian.mp3

The Scenery’s Alex Gordon-Smith and Streetcast’s lovely Jennie Lenman gave ya’ll a live first person description of the Peel St goings on. It’s not as easy as you’d think, except if you’re Jennie Lenman.

peelalexjen.mp3

One of the many special guests of the Do What You Peel Festival was the South Australian Parkour Association. The collective built a scaffold at the Hindley St end of Peel St to demonstrate their urban acrobatic

skills. They also helped paint the undercoat of the Format mural, which council failed to do because they didn’t have a ladder. Casey and Chrissy spoke with the president of South Australian Parkour, Travis Ronson.

peelparkour.mp3

The Scenery’s John Dexterity Dexter acted as the broadcast’s roving reporter, always in the thick of it, trying to pry the facts out of the closed in secretive public (except for Dom, he was really great). Over this post we’ll have a few snippets from John’s day, all except the one when some jerk interrupts Angela and hogs the mic for himself, fuck that guy.

peeljohn1.mp3

As the date of the ‘Do What You Peel’ grew closer, the powers that be at Radio Adelaide were like “Alex, are you sure everyone that you’ve organised for the broadcast are going to be there” “Sure”, he said, confident that promises were promises, right?. No, not right. Due to various mis-communications and a case of “taking people for granted”, one of the programmed bands were unable to play.

Enter C. Briggs.

By a stroke of genius, unrelated to mathematics, Casey made the call to Collarbones asking if by chance they could play in Peel St. Fortunately they were more than happy to do so, and thus the day was saved.

An amusing side story though – Collarbones are Format alumni, and were clearly more than happy to play the street. We contacted them directly, rather than through their management (which I’m not sure even occurred to us). When their management eventually caught wind that Collarbones were playing the street, they lost their shit, fearing that the place they were actually playing that night “Rocket Bar” would feel slighted. So the guys asked if they could be billed as Sean Lockhart and Penelope Nettles, but Stan went for the Clavicle Brothers.

So here’s Sean and Penelope Clavicle’s cover of Ginuwine’s Pony featuring Paul the Hobo.

peelcollar.mp3

Here’s John, with Hayward. I don’t think Hayward was wearing underwear, or something.

peeljohn2.mp3

Casey and Chrissy had a chat with Marcus and Travis from Collarbones.

peelcollartalk.mp3

The Scenery’s Ryan Winter had been a busy man during the week. On the Sunday of the Festival he took a recorder down to the DIY fair to discover just what it was all about.

peelryan1.mp3

Alleycats, organised by one Ben Reichstein, whilst a part of the Format Festival largely takes place away from it. Best described as a scavenger hunt on bicycles, people congregate at Format and then set off in competition. Casey and Chrissy spoke with Ben all about it.

peelreich.mp3

There has been a lot of talk about the Format Peel St mural, painted by artist Sam Howie with help from Tom Squires. Property Developer Zis Ginos’ son George certainly wasn’t a fan, nor a random council worker who without any authority demanded that Sam cease painting saying that “this isn’t art” and that there was “no way this was approved”. By the end of the same day Format had received an apology from council. I for one think that the mural was genius, there isn’t a day that goes by that people don’t stop to look at it, take photos and discuss what it is about it that they love/hate. That’s the beauty of the mural, the discussion that poured out of it.

Streetcast’s Jennie Lenman and the Scenery’s Mateo Szlapek-Sewillo spoke with the man behind the creation, artist Sam Howie to ask exactly what his intentions were with the wall. All you curious people, here it is straight from the horses mouth.

peelhowie.mp3

The second live performance of the evening was by Adelaide’s The Wild Things, featuring Mark Curtis of Oh Minor and the British Robots, Luke Eygenraam of Central Deli Band, the Waterslides and Antony of the Future, photographer and all round sweet guy Hugh Langlands-Bell, and some guy who curiously shares two thirds of my name and can play an amazing array of instruments, Alex Gordon. I apologise, as I don’t know the track names, but they ended their set with this one

peelwildthings.mp3

Oh, and here’s John again with the lovely Kat Botten.

peeljohnkat.mp3

…and then Mateo and Jen talking with the Wild Things

peelwildtalk.mp3

Of course Do What You Peel wasn’t the only Friday event for the Format Festival. After the street festivities was the Steph Crase curated Great Band Party, featuring XiXi Cao, Big Richard Insect, Matt Banham, No Action, Summerflake and Good Heavens. Mateo and Jen caught up with Sarah from Sydney band Good Heavens, to chat about the formation of the band from the ashes of Wolfmother and the Red Sun band.

peelgoodheavens.mp3

The final day of the Format Festival was one that will live long in the memory, and also started our strange love affair with Melbourne band NOZU. I will hands down say that NOZU are the ultimate party music party band, never have so many hips moved so feverishly, and so much sweat turned a seedy basement into a tropical paradise through Sparkling Ale glasses. The Scenery’s Ryan Winter got a call from NOZU earlier in the week to talk the new album, and their expectations for the final day.

peelnozu.mp3

Mass karaoke, the greatest thing to have ever happen. Imagine four hundred people, a choir, a dance group, a gigantic karaoke projection and a crazed man with glasses with a loud speaker all synchronised with an eighties love ballad. Radio Adelaide told me it was crazy, and that it would never work, but those of us that were there know. Credits – Stan Mahoney, Alex Gordon-Smith and Nick Moss aka big.dos. THE GREATEST THING TO HAVE EVER HAPPENED. YOU’RE WELCOME.

Apparently the broadcast run out of time to record the whole thing, but you’ll get the idea.

peelmass.mp3

The First Annual Do What You Peel Festival will sadly be the one and only, as Format is pushed out of its Peel St residence. That might be a good thing though, as who can really be arsed living up the expectations of such an awesome day.

Thanks to everyone involved, they are too numerous to list here, but you know who you are.

Love,

The Scenery

Oh and here’s a random photo of Alex and the Mayor. If you trawl the net hard enough you’ll find a picture of the Mayor dressed up in oversized baby clothes.

Night night.

We are back. And we are recapping all that has been since we last spoke, namely The Scenery from September until now.

We shall be doing this with month by month recaps, before we re-format our website to suit our new doings.

As of February 16th The Scenery no longer broadcasts on community radio station Radio Adelaide, and instead we shall be releasing podcasts directly to our website, not to mention other forms of media. We sincerely thank Radio Adelaide, and are eternally grateful for all they done for us and IMPLORE you to subscribe to Australia’s first community radio station at www.radio.adelaide.edu.au/subcribe/

So there was September…

The ongoing Jade Monkey saga was a grievous one for the Adelaide live music scene. Many positives and negatives have since been born over the debate about Adelaide’s live music culture, that has seemingly drawn a line in the sand between the industry old guard, and the grass roots purveyors of culture.

The Scenery caught up with Zac the week of the Jade’s last show at it’s Twin Street abode.

lastzac1.mp3

lastzac2.mp3

lastzac3.mp3

As it stands now the Jade Monkey are currently going through various legal processes in order the get a liquor license for a space at the rear of the St Paul’s complex. We wish Zac and Naomi all the best in their strenuous fight to re launch “The Jade”. We will endeavor to catch up with Zac in the coming weeks to keep you up to date with the Jade’s future.

By now you all should have heard of Fascination Street. A group of architects and designers who have furiously plied their wares all over our fair city. Their credits to date include Moving Music, Lost City, and The Depot to name a few. John caught up with Branko, Josh, Rene and Sarie back in September to talk about the idea behind Fascination Street, their motivations and their goals.

fascinationstreet1.mp3

fascinationstreet2.mp3

September also saw Adelaide’s first glimpse at it’s Live Music Thinker in Residence, Martin Elbourne. Various stakeholders in the Adelaide Live Music Scene were invited to the World’s End Hotel to presumably rub shoulders with one another and get an idea of how M. Elbourne thought. The Scenery were in attendance and reported back as to how we thought the night went, and our impression of the man who is to save the scene.

worldsend.mp3

In a response to the growing criticism of the Adelaide live music scene, Fowler’s Live proprietor Peter Darwin announced his intentions to host a Music Awards ceremony for South Australian artists. There were many critics putting in their ten cents about the announcement, including one Ryan Winter and one Alex Gordon-Smith of the Scenery.

fowlers.mp3

It was that time of year again when we rustled up some torches and gum boots to go searching for the infamous Stan Mahoney and talk about the happenings of Format Festival 2012. Stan, along with gallery exhibition Rosanne Angry curator Amira H, joined Ryan, Alex and John in the studio to give us the low down on Format, the Festival, Rosanne and miscellaneous life advice.

formatintro.mp3

formatamira.mp3

formatmore.mp3

Don’t ask me why, but someone thought it would be a good idea to give Adelaide’s favourite seedy uncle Matthew Hayward his own segment. You don’t want to know how many takes it took…but here’s A Thought with Matthew Hayward.

athought.mp3

Finally. You may have heard the urban legend of ‘The Poisoner’, but you probably haven’t. In the interests of public safety, here’s the story behind the myth.

formatpoisoner.mp3

And so we have it, the first, hastily done Scenery post in let’s not talk about how long. More to come imminently.

Your friends,

The Scenery.

During the great Jade Monkey saga of 2012 it was easy to forget that another victim of the developing minds of this city was the basement dweller, Two Ships, and it’s proprietor Luke Davey. The small basement bar, the very thing that many in this city have been calling for to invigorate the identity of the city (ie VIBRATORS, liquor licensing reform etc.) has housed an array of good fucking bands of varying genres, as well as tequila fueled dance till four in the morning parties where you were inevitably going to be grinded on by Mike Radz. Perfectly partnered with the Jade Monkey, the stalwart live music venue, the Ships would open doors as the Monkey closed.

Two Ships was still in it’s infancy when it was revealed that the Jade Monkey building was to be demolished and replaced with a hotel complex. It was only fitting that the venues should receive a sending off that was deserved of their positive effect on the Adelaide live music scene, and culture as a whole.

Enter Ocean Graves.

For the first time The Jade Monkey and Two Ships joined forces and opened both floors to give the people of Adelaide a true live music party. Two stages with four bands each. The Jade stage featured the veteran players of the Adelaide music scene, Avant Gardeners, Central Deli Band, No Through Rd and Banham led band The Dreamboats. The Two Ships stage housed the next crop of Adelaide favorites with Swimming, Major Crimes, Sparkspitter and Old Mate.

The show, a sell out, was an endearing testament to coming together of good people who do give a shit about being able to see a real band, have a beer or what have you and importantly just have a honest good time.

Speaking of honest good times the following audio, the first time we’ve podcasted an entire show, was neither honest or good. We are very, very sorry (actually we aren’t, it was fucking awesome. beep bop.)

intro.mp3

partone.mp3

parttwo.mp3

partthree.mp3

partfour.mp3

partfives.mp3

partsix.mp3

Spoz did his blog thing for the Graves here

and Sia took some nice photos here

Here’s the feature tracks for this week

Remember this one forever Adelaide, it was swell.

to your good health.

Founder of ActNow Theatre and current artistic director for the University of Adelaide Theatre Guild, Edwin Kemp Attrill kindly gave us his time, on the night of his preview screening, to chat with Mateo about his last production with the Guild, Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice.

Not familiar with theatre as much as I should be, I struggled in writing a fitting introduction for Edwin that would be deserved of his work within the South Australian theatre scene. In the research of trying to adequately do him justice, I stumbled upon this video from the TEDxAdelaide talks. It seemed fitting, and easier, (and lazier) for you to find out about Edwin from the man himself.

Here now is Mateo and Edwin talking about his undertaking of the Merchant of Venice, including the controversy that surrounds the subject matter of the play. Incidentally the play featured The Scenery’s very own John ‘Dexterity’ Dexter in the role of Bassanio to critical acclaim (true story).

edwin.mp3

There has been a lot of talk about the current state of the Adelaide live music scene of late that has somewhat eventuated in the appointment of Live Music Thinker in Residence, Martin Elbourne. Of that talk, that has included a push for small venue licensing, and the lament of the exodus of Adelaide bands, is also the lack of skilled live music infrastructure, managers, promoters, and the people with their fingers on the faders, the sound guys.

Pat Lockwood, of bands Box Elder and Cool Jumper, is a sound guy. His home is the Format basement, that has seen an array of Scenery favorites, but you’ll also see him on the desk at the Metro, Tuxedo Cat and the odd gig around town. More than this he records albums, having worked with Terrible Truths, Old Mate, Big Richard Insect and Wild Oats. Alex caught up with Pat to talk about his beginnings, and thoughts on the Adelaide live scene.

patone.mp3

pattwo.mp3

The Scenery continues it’s Format Vaults song feature, this week with a delicious intro from Safe Cracker John Dexterity. This week’s track belongs to Gold Bloom, recorded live by Pat Lockwood in the Format Basement.

vaultsgoldbloom.mp3

clap your hands, I’m out.

SALA Festival (South Australian Living Artists) has now been running in our fair state for some fifteen years. The 15th SALA festival saw the work of over 3,453 artists showcased in over 500 venues across all regions of the state, incorporating and array of different mediums and interpretations of art. Mateo caught up with General Manager, at the time of the festival, Penny McAuley, to speak about the festival’s impact on the South Australian art scene. There has been some criticism of late that the festival is far too vast and sprawling, or diluted. Ryan, John and Mateo have a post interview chat about the issue of dilution, among other things.

salaone.mp3

salatwo.mp3

One of the Scenery’s highlight shows was the exhibition ‘Drawn In’ at the Seedling Art Space, situated within the Blackwood Forest Recreational Park. ‘Drawn In’ was a showcase of eight artists using sculptural based art to illustrate how the mind utilises curiosity. Featuring eight artists that form The Elvis Collective including the winner of the Adelaide Central School of Art Professional Development Award, Madsion Bycroft and her fellow artists Kate Power, Gen Dawson-Scott, Derek Sargent, Carolyn Sugars, Jaimie Wearne, Grace Mitchel and Olivia Kathigitis.

This week’s feature track is the first in our Format Vault series. Scenery Friend, Format Sound Engineer, General about town band room mixer, and all round swell guy Patrick Lockwood has a plethora of live recordings, mainly from the Format basement, but also venues such as the Metro and the Jade Monkey. This week’s Format Vault Tape comes from the Dick Diver show at Format November 5th 2011, with their track Hammock Days.

HammockDays.mp3

Phew.

It has been a great passion, and pleasure, of ours to be a conversation partner with you all in the debate about liquor licensing reform and small venue licenses.

Let’s go right back to VIBRATORS, Renew Adelaide’s forum that kick started the conversation about small venue license reform. There were many an invested person in attendance that night including one Ian Horne, General Manager of the Australian Hotels Association South Australia. Ian was offered the chance the stand up and speak on the night…

PartSix-AHA.mp3 (apologies for audio quality)

It was positive to note that Ian saw “no particular conflict” with the implementation of a small venue license. Also noteworthy was the seemingly placing of the blame upon the shoulders of local government.

Next, I suppose, came this opinion piece by the Advertisers David Penberthy entitled: How the hotel lobby is wrecking our city

In it Penberthy describes the AHA, and Ian Horne as it’s head, as a major obstacle in the implementation of a small venue license, citing the oldest of all the motives: greed. Liquor licenses are a sacred thing in this state, and worth a whole lot of money. The more liquor licenses that are granted, the less one’s license is relatively worth. Not to mention the competing interests of attracting the drinking consumer. Penberthy does note that the likelihood of any real competition is minimal, as small bars would cater to a niche that wouldn’t derive from the stalwart pub drinker. Penberthy also laments the seeming loss of actual pub culture, cleared away for the pokie.

Ian Horne quickly responded with a letter to the editor that you can find here

It is clear that Penberthy wrote an impassioned piece that could well have done with some fact checking. What is interesting to note is that the AHA’s policy is they “are not yet convinced that current liquor laws can’t accommodate that outcome with some tweaking” in reference to encouraging small venues. Again the AHA places a chunk of the blame upon local government.

The AHA released a information booklet entitled Raising the Bar Ignores Reality, which you can find here. It contains some of the dubious statistics that Penberthy talks about in his piece, as well as a direct attack on the Raise the Bar movement launched by John Wardle at the Small Venue Licenses forum.

After the VIBRATORS forum we spoke with both the Lord Mayor Stephen Yarwood, who bizarrely spoke of golden taps, and the Premier of South Australia Jay Weatherill. Asked about whether he agreed with the Penberthy article, the Premier responded “To the extent that our liquor licensing laws are preventing small bars and small organisations like arts and other culture groups, live venues from getting a foot hold in the city, they need to change. I agree with his analysis”. Mr Weatherill went on to state that he “didn’t beleive the hotels lobby have anything to fear from this”, in reference to liquor licensing reform.

That same night the Premier announced a last Thinker in Residence to tackle the live music scene, which would encompass liquor licensing, building code, environmental code and music infrastructure.

All well and good.

But it was time to hear another point of view. The Scenery invited General Manager of the AHA Ian Horne onto the show to tell us his point of view of the liquor licensing reform debate. To his credit, Ian immediately replied and booked in a date for a live chat on the show.

Like with the Premier we decided to section the show into particular topics.

Firstly, in light of the Crown and Sceptre closure, and the going into administration of the Dublin, Holdfast and Talbot hotels, was there a problem with the current hotel culture that has seen a reduction in patronage?

Secondly, in the 90s and early 2000s the Producers, Tivoli, Austral and Exeter were all pubs integral to the live music scene. Apartment blocks went up around all of them, noise complaints were made and live music was severely reduced or cut all together. The Tivoli sat vacant for some time before eventually being renovated into a trendy professionals bar; the Producers went through a handful of owners and a handful of names and now has sat empty for some months, if not over a year; the Austral tried to set up a club in the backroom which failed, and now has no live music; the Exeter continues to have live music in the squashed front section of the pub, but regularly receives noise complaints. What can be done, either legislatively or politically, to prevent these common sense issues from being detrimental to existing, live music venues?

And finally, what is the opinion of the AHA when it comes to liquor licensing reform in regards to small bars and venues.

ianone.mp3

iantwo.mp3

ianthree.mp3

ianfour.mp3

A polite conversation was had by all, with some off the record insight that gave a little more heart to the matter. Noticeably the common thread of blame in the eyes of the AHA, in terms of the struggle to obtain small venue license, seems to continually lie with local government.

It is no surprise that an organisation that represents hundreds or more hotels around the state, which represents hundreds of millions of dollars, would be defensive when talk of something that may weaken their market share is spruiked. To the credit of the AHA, though, they seem to want to be part of the conversation, perhaps recognising the inevitability of it all. In this cynics opinion though, there are many forms of easier revenue raising for pubs and the AHA then the unprofitable struggle of lobbying for live music.

What is a beer without a good chat? What is a glass of wine without a wanky conversation about where it was grown, and the shit art that’s hanging up in front of you? What’s tequila without the tapas to soak it up? And what the fuck is a pub without a sweaty, stinking shit band that can’t play. The fucking Havelock.

This week’s feature song was going to be Old Fool, as performed by Matt Banham and Summerflake, but those arseholes didn’t allow it to be streamed from their bandcamp. But we’re good chaps, so here’s The Real Thing by Summerflake.

“Thank god Sam Wright isn’t an Evangelist, or else we’d all be fucked”.

It’s bizarre to think that this was Sam Wright’s first ever time on the Scenery in person. We have of course featured him before with previous Moving Musics and his 6 on the Street documentary.

Growing on the successes of the previous Moving Music outings, Sam plans for the January festival to be bigger and better than ever. Featuring eight locations, and teaming up bands with visual artists, along with the scallywag crew of Moving Music architects, this festival will truly be one to remember.

This time around, the Moving Music team decided to employ the crowd funding website Pozible, to finance a portion of the festival. Setting the modest sum of $2000, the team reached their goal within nine hours of the campaign being active, a testament to the festival’s endearment.

samwright.mp3

Adelaide artist Joel VDK along with fellow artist Matt Stuckey operate a graphic design business called Tree house Projects. Interested in the business side of the design world, and making art a viable and sustainable commodity, Ryan caught up with Joel to discuss his experiences.

vdk.mp3

This week’s feature track has to go to Radio Adelaide institution Casey Briggs from the Friday Range and his two second intro into this month’s Radio Adelaide subscriber promo. We love you Casey.

briggs.mp3

Monday night has been, for some time, an established Grace Emily night. Well it turns out ‘some time’ is a decade. For the last ten years Billy Bob’s BBQ Jam have been hosting what has essentially become an open mic night at the Grace Emily. From the early days of blues musos to the current packed out bar of people from all walks, that stage has seen few dull moments, well maybe..but that’s the beauty of open mic night. We caught up with Billy Bob to talk about his time at the Grace, as well as his involvement with this years Adelaide International Guitar Festival.

billybob.mp3

Tomasso Pascale returns with another installment of I HAVE A THEME, his series of screen printed t-shirt exhibitions. Former Merge Magazine graphic designer turn T-Shirt Printing Mogul in waiting, Tom has based his Red Tomato Design label out of the tea brewing surrounds of Magazine off clubhouse lane. The first I HAVE A THEME, entitled ‘Flight’ brought together an array of local and interstate artists to each design a t-shirt around the theme including the usual local suspects and insterstate artists Twoone and Beastman. This time around, under the theme Fright, Tom has paired artists together to create twice the goodness. It all goes down Friday the 13th (that’s right) at Magazine from 6PM

We caught up with Tom at the Ex to talk Print Life and T-Shirt Beef.

Red Tomato Design by sceneryradio

This week’s feature track comes from The Owls with Better off Deaf. Ryan doesn’t think much of Joshe Homme, doesn’t know Brant Bjork, but he loves his stoner rock and he likes this.

Renfield…Reeeenfield…NIGHT NIGHT.

South Australians, and many people around the world, are slowly changing the way they view the world around them. Design is encroaching on every aspect of our day to day as we are start to think about the way that things exist together, and co operate with each other. Instead of looking at one aspect of our lives at a time, we are starting to integrate everything into a sustainable, streamline nature. From the ideas of the Thinkers In Residence, to the Integrated Design Commission and 5000+, the work of Renew Adelaide, the visions of an optimistic Mayor, and even the cover of a little Magazine we, as a city, have changed.

When we get beyond the buzz words of ‘activation’, vibrancy’ and move beyond the idea of making Adelaide like Melbourne, we are left with a city and it’s people. Adelaide is a long city, that now encompasses what ten years ago would have been considered satellite towns. Adelaide also has a small population, so essentially more space taken up by fewer people, meaning we are further apart then most capital cities in the world. It’s the result of, among many things, the quarter acre dream. It seemed we wanted our own little feifdom, with which to retreat behind our 12 foot fences, double garages for the SUV, and the wall sized television.

And then we forgot to be neighbours…

I still remember the corner store that sold slush puppies, and the butcher that would know my name and always give me a slice of fritz, and the deli guy that looked after me after I ran away from home. Soon enough they gave way to the Foodland, with their bag packers that would then deliver the groceries to your door. Then the super markets paired up with department stores, and I would wander off as my mother looked at clothes, only to eventually burst into tears when I couldn’t find her again. Then all the super markets amalgamted into two and a half, and they want you to check yourself out.

Slowly and surely we have sacrificed our relationships with each other to the point where we can live a productive life without ever having to interact with a single person.

We all know that we’ve lost something, some richness to our lives. Forever we are seeking out nostaligia, that untangible memory of sun faded happiness that we love and destroy. We all want to be recognised by the guy/gal that sells us coffee, we all want him/her to say our order before we have to.

Enough, enough…

Scenery man of mystery, the puff of smoke known as John Diabolik Dexter, caught up with the former Thinker in Residence and head of the Urban Renewal Authority Fred Hansen.

fredhansenone.mp3

fredhansentwo.mp3

This week’s feature track comes from Adelaide/Sydney duo Collarbones. Described by one phrase music review site Crow Eaters as “Half-Adelaide duo ditch the bangers, lament subsequent loss of banging “, we still think the moody glitch sway is a swell soundtrack to driving at night.

Missing by Collarbones
OUT.