1991: Kickstarting the Bucket List

So don’t grow old – evolve.

(last updated: 20 February 2023)

Purchased in the early 80’s, that amplifier (pic 3) is still sought after to this day.


And for me, coupled with InterDyn P2 speakers of the early 90’s, should be on any audiophile’s bucket list. Only moderate volume levels are required. Slow jams of the 90’s were off the chain.

Those speakers were bought for a “modern” Denon PMA-1080R, which was a good amp back then, but the sound just wasn’t in the same league as the vintage amp that was brought back to life. The Acoustic Research speakers stored away were crackling – they probably should have just been repaired.

The CD player was a Technics SL-PS900. I read Hi-Fi magazines back then and it got an unbelievable review. Our neighbour from Brunei who ended up at HP after RMIT, Lawrance, was also into Hi-Fi gear. He followed on from Mikito with a bunch of other tertiary students from Asia. They had a Marantz amp and kept a lot of vinyl. I think his speakers were JBL but he wanted Infinity. He really got into Luther Vandross. Really nice guy too, and showed me Windows 3 before anyone else and even helped me install it, as well as scan for viruses. This made me a sort of go-to guy at school.

I kind of struggled with fashion back then, I didn’t really know what I liked and what I didn’t. As long as I wasn’t in Stussy pants: I wasn’t good enough at skateboarding for those! They would turn me into a try-hard! I had gray Stussy shorts though as they weren’t as obvious.

[ 1993 ]

Justin and Julian said they met Lawrance on the way back from Chapel Street on the tram and he gave them a whole heap of KFC for free. I’m pretty sure it was them, but not 100%. At one point I gave Lawrance our Paula Abdul Spellbound CD to keep – I think it was brought back from Chicago by my mum and no one really played it. But his whole apartment rocked it, though.

My mum was in Chicago representing a gallery with Tom Spender.

She just went into a record store and asked for their tips. She brought back Diamonds and Pearls with a special edition hologram cover that I didn’t see in Australia. I couldn’t believe the simplicity of the Cream beat.

So I made a mashup with Paula in 2022.

The chorus is only gifted at 2:15. Incredible build-up.

One of Justin’s friends Charles (not from my school) gave me his Billy Hyde drum pad around that time not long after I met him at his home. I couldn’t believe it. It was almost new and he was around my age. He said he never used it. I used it all the time.

People, especially friends and neighbours could really gift more to each other and often it does more for the giver than the receiver because it comes back in multiples. If you have something you don’t want or need, give it to someone who does. So simple, right? The topic of giving is mentioned in this post and maybe the IGs at its bottom could take heed the most. The Earth is said to raise up crystals to humanity when it needs them and there is no need to dig for them. Anyway, there was a film in 2000: Pay It Forward.

So one of the guys at the apartment with a souped up bronze Honda Civic was installing a new radio or sub-woofer and I was trying to screw in a bolt behind the radio with my small hand. I couldn’t see what I was doing and at one point I said “Have you gotta light?” and everyone standing around screamed with laughter. It didn’t matter – I got the bolt in regardless. No smoko required. That was at the back of the building where I often went to hit a tennis ball and their apartment is still standing to this day.

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A few years later the whole apartment had cleared: maybe ’95 but Lawrance is still around somewhere – if you can get his attention for a test drive or test listen.
✓ 4 weeks ago

Dub Seven – part 5

(last updated: 15 November 2023)

1)

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421 Revolution (2002 + 2023)

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NYC radio

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6)

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7)

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8)

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Hey Safety (1999 + 2023)
Hey Safety (live) (2000 + 2023)

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One More Control (2013 + 2023)
Control Machine (2013 + 2023)

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U Send Me Changin’ (1994 + 2023)

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– a different Adrian:

– now playing:

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[ ** disclaimer ** ]

visual and illustrative representations only, not for further distribution and no bearing with any intent or interaction. I do not know the person(s) shown above and have not met them. There is a strong randomness factor too in the selection. They may or may not know about this derivative image, as with their associated photographer and uploader. It is enabled and encouraged by the Creative Commons license attached to the original source image. This is part of a limited series exploring old photos and creating high-quality, composite images related to new music and new music mashups.
✓ 3 months ago

2002: Hella Kool

How much cynicism is too much cynicism? What do you find, rather than think? These are the questions.

(updated: 20 February 2023)

Pre and post clubbing photos in early 2002 in front of the new webcam.

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So I spoke to Ella Hooper briefly when she sat down in front of me at the Saint Hotel.

That was most probably in 2002 and most likely on a Sunday, I think.

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At that moment, I was probably by myself – a sign of strength, I would say.

In 1997, Jack Alan liked The Saint too, and everyone would see whoever walked in due to the open plan and elevated corner entry. Good for people who worked out.

So Hooper was wearing a small “one star” badge with her all-male crew around her.  I said something vaguely like “that looks like an unfinished American flag” and she responded like “I don’t know what it means, I see it as representing one world.”

I would’ve kept speaking but her friends all took off and she left too… because I was about to hit it off with her, non?

Initially, perhaps she missed her own dark brown, wavy hair and was aligned with the whole “one-world/age-of-enlightenment” thing too.

[src]

I still am, but it needs to be balanced with a big, hard dose of conspiracy theory/fact – saints versus sinners.

Moreover, “Lightworkers” are known to commit suicide all too easily, because when the darkness hits them, they can’t handle it. And Bonnie, who I remember from school presumably did just that in July, 2020 during covid lockdown.

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But I don’t know enough about her individual case to make a concise comment, but it is so very sad nevertheless. And as Morgs told me at the 2021 reunion something like “life isn’t smooth sailing for everyone, and not everyone makes it.”

They crop themselves (or others) out. The last time I had spoken to her was at the Chevron in 1997 and I was too tipsy and too distracted (and it was too loud) to have any meaningful interaction. In October 2019 I drove through the Tweed Coast and probably should have reached out, but I thought, what’s the point?

So The Saint has a good vibe and is still running to this day, albeit heavily renovated. There’s a good chance that I saw the late Paul Havea singing on the same night that Hooper came through. He was in Eden‘s K for Kool band and instead of clapping my hands, I would click both my fingers and that was kool to Paul and he started grooving all the same. On another Sunday, the DJ came over to me and kindly put me onto Mark Farina and I bought the CD afterwards.

It might’ve been the last CD I ever purchased. My favourite track is at 32.48 and the one after is alright. The rest of it I can pass on.

I saw Simon Grey there once around that period too. He wasn’t playing but he was with his pals and his plans for eternity. I had already recorded some drums at his studio (or was about to) and he played me a track pre-release through the monitors – I think it was this one but am not sure.

Abby died a few years later too due to liver issues, I think. Very sad loss too.

It’s also worth noting that during Grey’s 2018 Pledge Music appeal, on the forum I suggested that he do more “Jazz House” with a swing feel and some months later a Crackazat remix appeared which I included in Ormus King.

Incredible breakdown at 3.25 — Simon Grey – The Galáctica Suite (Crackazat Remix)

So there was another chap of African-descent who, like me, was a regular at James Ash‘s 2-Step night at Salt Nightclub in the sideroom in 1998. I saw him at The Saint at that time and mentioned something about having a girlfriend and he said, “well, if there’s a girl around, then’s there’s one around, and if there isn’t, then there isn’t. It doesn’t bother me that much.”

I was vegan at that point and was going through what was almost certainly the early stages of a Kundalini awakening, which is considered a feminine energy anyway, so his sentiment was (and is) aligned with my own basically.

Moreover, in Tsfat, Israel 2005 along with other students reading ancient Kabbalistic texts, I learned that a wife is ultimately about enabling a man to find his own inner feminine.

[above left and middle – Ascent Hostel]

How easy. But it made sense. I told Hart about Kundalini and he said something like “we think we’re humans but we’re really just monkeys thinking we’re human.” Yet Kundalini doesn’t mean much to people in Tsfat, but Shekhinah (שכינה) or Ruach HaKodesh (רוח הקודש) does. When I did mention something at  Shalom Rav shule about Kundalini (a Sanskrit word,) someone pointed me to a chapter about Abraham’s gifts going to the east.

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And so it should be noted that Solomon was already prepared for to this.

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But with myself still locked into Baal, and without Solomon as my wingman, I wasn’t sure I had found my wife-to-be as yet and even donated my copy of Bahir to another student while I waited to be illuminated and shown the way.

Anyhow, back in January, 2002, I wrote this in one of my essays.

“The Kundalini-type energy engulfed my whole brain. The sensation was like standing up against a tidal wave without moving an inch! When I made the effort not to resist or judge the energy, BAM! A hit of power went to my central brain and my whole being shuddered. My typical mundane awareness had crashed into an ocean of dense consciousness that seemed to underlie the physical universe. A consciousness wave splashed out from my body and passed through the bedroom walls. It looked like an animation strip. Soon a flashback came to my mind. I saw the empty chamber which exists in the centre of the Death Star as seen in the film ‘The Return of the Jedi.’ This was symbolic for my head – an empty space enclosing a God powered fusion reactor in the middle. In this space the ‘light side’ of the force had just attacked my concept of death in order to bring about immortality. However, the attack was not complete because the death star was not fully destroyed! (film scene below)”

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It’s worth noting that I had a very dramatic internal experience like the one above after going quad biking in New Zealand that year on the north island (Paihia). And that’s 2000 years of pain, unworthiness, misery and torture from Jewish exile being cleared. I struggled on the bike and even lost the group in the forest but by the end was trailing the instructor and was winning (if that’s the right word.) It was also the first year of Heartcarving as done on Ruapehu and there were people attempting to copy my style without poles. So NZ, it seems, was the emotional precursor for me to leave Australia and eventually go to Israel but I didn’t know it at the time.

It was heavy-going stuff, and in the West it was very left-field and prior to that I wrote to the Datre channel in late 2000 and got some answers about Kundalini, specifically directed to me.

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I summarised that answer (above right) in October 2002 as follows:

“Datre are said to exist as a collective of souls whose messages are spoken by ‘human channels’. They view the fully-fledged Kundalini experience as a “crash course in trying to understand what physicality is all about” but with someone not necessarily becoming “a grander person if they have gone through the Kundalini.” Kundalini causes a “re-alignment of the physical construct” and “when that alignment is finished, you will see things differently.” The difficulty is that after a re-alignment it may take “a long time to be able to assimilate the information from that point on” because often the Kundalini can cause “an opening of a flood gate of information” whereby one might have to “grab a hold of themselves and stop it [the information], because if they didn’t they would have gone mad.”

Good to know. That summary was part of my research that I was doing into spirituality where I came up with 3 essays in 2002 and for them, composed some diagrams.

But the “Wisdom Cycle” diagram has gone missing. Looking back now, a transformation did indeed take place. For example, I would lie in bed awake and think in only English words and generally only about the future. That sort of changed and my inner-space deepened. “English words” doesn’t mean hearing voices, it just means normal, day-to-day thinking.

So continuing, another person I spoke to at The Saint was Mieke (below far left.) I actually spoke to her outside while we were leaving (but not together) and ended up saying something like “there are good and bad people wherever you go.”

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Mieke Baxter (@miekejade)


It was an accident that I saw her outside and I had already spoken to her a few times at Saratoga nightclub prior to that where she was working behind the bar, and we both knew the owner there Goofyfoot/Brett who was on Groovetip. Brett was also there that night at Saint and I think there was a function going on at the time. There was also another chap that night that really liked her (one of her co-workers) it seemed and it was an awkward situation for me. Having Jack around would’ve helped but I’ve always enjoyed talking to Brett, though. In fact, I met Cadell and helped get Best of my Love remixed a number of months after that – a song Brett penned.


I never saw Mieke again except on a modelling agency website along with a couple of other people I knew. There was such a strong resonance between us (at least that’s what I felt) that it blew my mind. Sometimes the fuse just blows and it is never reconnected as was the case there. She may not remember me of course, but I’d be curious as to when (and why) she left ‘Toga where she said something like “I saw you burning up the dancefloor” –  I wish.

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I remember first meeting Helen and her guy friend at ‘Toga around that time but I didn’t speak to her for long and I’d be curious if she remembers that night too – but it was likely 2001, though. I even gave them a lift to Greville Street station in the Hyundai Excel and let them use my Nokia 3310 which I disliked due to how much EMF it produced and felt tingly as a result.

Helen dressed like Aaliyah and was so hot I paid her a compliment saying she must “stick out like a sore thumb” at her school and there was a brief interaction about age: I presume the two weren’t underage for the niteclub but I didn’t ask for their IDs – she mentioned something about a birthday. I don’t know her surname but remember the school the pair went to and it wasn’t mine.

By chance, I saw her again at Mink Bar a few weeks later standing at the bar with some other fellow, but much older, he may have been Greek (I’d never seen him before or after) and yet she appeared excited to see me at which point he placed his hand on her jeans just to rock the boat. It looked like she was trying to dress-down rather than up and maybe she was in overalls yet was naturally blonde. I never saw her again – even upstairs at the Prince Bandroom that was in the same building. Wasn’t stuck-up at all.

It’s crazy how a girl can be with a guy and completely ignore him if there’s another guy she likes or is interested in more. Something like that happened in Byron Bay at La La Land with Anoushka and her boyfriend, both from France at around that time. I’ve also seen girls get with guys just to get close to one of the guy’s friends and project that like onto him. Only a theory. But a lot of girls would flick their hair when I looked at them at ‘Toga. My guess is that it was hard to find younger guys that liked and danced to House music, with a fashion sense and outside of a pub (or rave) context.

[2002 – at a birthday funktion]

I mainly bobbed my head to the off-beat.. so simple… who would’ve thought? I only taught myself actual dance steps over a decade later because I wanted to learn the Melbourne Shuffle. But the best place for me to go on a date was a nightclub… for sure.

A guitarist buddy Kiran told me on MSN messenger that the key there is having detachment. Good guy too and amazing player with some type of Shakti thing happening.

That Eclectic Ladyland show was in 2004 at Dizzy’s and was a follow-up to the Human Interest album launch there.

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The venue had a Friday jam session and it was easy to meet people. I also met keyboardist Adam Rudegeair who spins Black Wax on PBS and Harry before The Cat Empire became an empire. I actually took a guest spot on Rasta Radio on PBS in 1997 with Sinatro. Oddly enough, I found myself starting a reggae band after playing in Skaface, and the promoter shuffled me upstairs to meet him.

A couple of other Rasta guys also came in for an interview and I didn’t understand a word they were saying as they sat across from me. There was an interesting scent around too.

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I was answering the phone to ascended listeners and playing my Songs of Freedom box set as well. Then, almost 20 years later I was playing reggae on the streets of Zion with Yoha and listening to his songs of freedom.

I got into RnB by listening to PBS every Tuesday and Saturday and 1994 was just Da Bomb in terms of tasty beats but I didn’t know anyone that was into it as well.

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Eventually, I wound up at an RnB night at the Warehouse/Salt to see it all for myself. It was so gnarly. I got so much female attention. I was probably the only white guy there.

Anyway, I had posted pics of Kiran on Groovetip with a female companion and I ended up having to take them down because I’m pretty sure it caused a female ex of his a lot of stress, and subsequently him. I’d have to double check. Anyway, best of luck to Mieke and her family. Having Facebook around back then and much cheaper digital cameras would’ve helped.I read in the Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle some years after its release in 1997 that females have a very active “pain body” from millennia of rape and abuse by men, and it’s very difficult for them (and their men) to work through, but they should.”Apart from her personal pain-body, every woman has her share in what could be described as the collective female pain-body — unless she is fully conscious. This consists of accumulated pain suffered by women partly through male subjugation of the female, through slavery, exploitation, rape, childbirth, child loss, and so on, over thousands of years. The emotional or physical pain that for many women precedes and coincides with the menstrual flow is the pain-body in its collective aspect that awakens from its dormancy at that time, although it can be triggered at other times too. It restricts the free flow of life energy through the body, of which menstruation is a physical expression. Let’s dwell on this for a moment and see how it can become an opportunity for enlightenment.” – P158So a year or two later after speaking with Hooper, by chance she walked passed me by herself on the footpath and looked at me, smiling away.I think she had a boyfriend at that point, so live without it… like the rest of Australia!

 

 
✓ 1 month ago

Dub Seven – part 2

(last updated: 23 July 2023)

1)

* totally random

Freak Motel Motel Freak (2023 + 1993 ++)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

2)

Laroye – People Out There You Gotta Do Whatcha Wanna Do (2023)

related: I Was Sexually Abused as a Male Model (June, 2021)

/alike

3)

It must have been Supra (1987 + 2020)

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hue_man girl (2014 + 2023)
hue_man girl V2 (2014 + 2023)

5)

Bottom Your Love (2023 + 1994)

6)

Man on a mission
I see no competition
And I mind my business
God is my witness

Someone’s Going to the Titan Moon (2000 + 2023)

7)

I Wanna Bitchin’ Summer (1991 + 2023)
Rust Times (1997 + 2023)

8)

9)

Numb Issues (1993 + 2023)

10)

Hook Me More (1994 + 2023)

11)  WebP

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Felix Back (2010 + 2023)

13)

14)

[src]

Always Blush With You (2004 + 2013)
Vision of Girl (1990 + 1995)
✓ 4 months ago

James Brown and Sky Ferreira – One Machine (RaveDJ) (2022)

3 Dec 2010 +
3 Apr 2004 + 12 July 2004 + 

4 Aug 2010:

uses:

2003

+


✓ 1 year ago

Beyond 2000: When “Accidents” Happen

…no play when away.

(last updated: 22 June 2023)

The first dog we bought Coco (a Border Collie for $200) died at a few months old after she ate snail poison in the garden.

My mum had a discussion with the gardener in the morning before driving to school, but the poison was laid nevertheless. The gardener, Vince (who has since passed himself) said that he’d never had a problem with that snail poison in other homes. After the death, I recall Vince showing me the box that said “pet-safe” on it or something like that.

So when we arrived home from school we called out for Coco but she never ran up to greet us at the gate with her happy self. The dog was actually lying near the gate to greet us (see red below,) but she had sadly passed by that stage.

I never saw Coco dead – my mum did – and the gardener was fired, but I am still in contact with the gardener’s son who is a gardener himself and remembers the story. I later saw the bright blue snail poison squashed into the bricks of the garden path (see blue above.) I think Coco had removed the pellets from the dirt to eat or test out. It was really sad but we vowed to get another dog soon.

Our next dog, Socks was returned after a week due to him being too placid. He turned into a champion show dog.

After that, we ended up with Toby who was one of the last to go due to a wonky ear. He ended up super intelligent and we taught him heaps of tricks. Really I think all owners of working dogs should be training them as much as they can, especially if they are out of their natural environment.

Toby was once taken from outside Fuji restaurant where we were eating (with Miriam as standing above) and kept for a few weeks by some type of dog-napper who didn’t bother to check the engraved collar.

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We searched and searched and never found him. We stuck up posters too. One day we got a call and salvaged him. He seemed contented. The woman who took him thought he had been abandoned because he wasn’t tied up. It could have been far worse.

He used to lick windows, perhaps she would’ve kept him otherwise?

Interestingly, later on, that restaurant ended up abandoned for what could’ve been around 20 years.

Eventually Toby could go to Como park by himself and run around at Thursday night football training and then walk home. He could even cross roads by himself if he had the chance. We avoided all that, though.

He liked to chase buses, from the perimeter of the park on the grass, but never running onto the road.

As mentioned, I made a short film with him and it was shown to the students of VCE Media units 1+2 (for Year 10) – Karen may remember, she was one of the teachers at the time. But that video is no more. However, I did record a short clip of Desmond in 2007, the sequel dog to Toby:

Like many dogs, Desmond had a degree of separation anxiety and unless tied up, could follow me into shops – even supermarket aisles. Yet he had more style than most. With Toby, this wasn’t a problem because we followed the breeder’s advice and let him welp into the night while he was meant to go to sleep in the laundry as a very young puppy – he was left alone. And being more independently minded, it was easy to make a short film with Toby. Then again, it was never a concern for Des to run away.

Des handled puppy school with ease – so much so that he was offered multiple scholarships at various Ivy League schools, which he turned down in favour for eventual professorship at Harvard apparently – but he never told us directly.

Toby rejected the idea of puppy school altogether and even death, favouring the notion of transcending the Earthly realm and merging with an 8th density consciousness.

Back on a serious note, in a related story, in the early 2000s, I was housesitting for someone in my family and also pet-minding.

As I enjoyed the view, and watched an EWF DVD, for a few days I also saw Rozy (the Cocker Spaniel) rolling around on her neck and scratching her head.

I ignored her until one day I saw her attempting to push off her collar in the front garden (below right.) She was actually positioning herself so that I could see her doing it as her system of survival.

I took a closer look and there was a rubber band around her neck hidden amongst her hair and below the other collar.

The rubber band had caused a deep gash in some parts of her neck and there was blood and pus. I took it off and applied antiseptic. I also cut off some of the hair around her neck. She survived and recovered without me needing to go to a vet, but had it remained it could’ve been far worse.

I remember the neighbour a few days earlier coming over and playing with the dog. There was no one watching him – I just let him do his thing and I didn’t know him – I am pretty sure he came over especially to play with the dog.

Was it malicious – did he want to hurt the dog, the family or even me in the process? (I would’ve got the blame) Did he arrive with a rubber band in his pocket? He also had a younger brother, and it may have been him instead but I doubt it. The rubber band may have also been around the dog’s neck before he arrived (really?), but I knew nothing of it. The fellow above, if it was him, and I know his first name, and the incident was in ~2004, may also have been acting out of jealousy against the dog’s or my own attention within the family. Eden once came over while I was house-sitting, and I also met up with Mark (not from Wesley) who was working in the city at the time. Interestingly, there was a police street-homicide in between that residence and the neighbour’s residence in the 80s.

Anyway, I told the family what happened when they returned and they sort of brushed it off because Rozy was almost completely healed. I don’t even know if they ever followed it up. Perhaps I should’ve taken some photos. I never saw the neighbour again – that family moved out.



✓ 4 months ago