Tag: USA

Dub Seven – part 9

(last updated: 9 May 2024)

1)

Asus E410K, 2022, IPS 1920 x 1080, fanless, low-temp, inexpensive (used to be,) light, long battery life, screen decent – not awesome, only 4GB of memory non-upgradeable but good enough for Linux. A Macbook Air with six more cores would be nice on my spaghetti drainer to heat the tent – but for 10 times the price I am not the dark-triad yuppie or rockstar developer – just yet anyway. I drink backyard tea.

Pad 1 | Pad 2 | 12/24v thermostat | kefir | ebay
Asus E410K ( amazon / ebay )

( 1 2 ) 3 …

2)

[ ** ]

pic | CC (self-portrait (2024) insertion)


3)

Everything Pasa (2023 + 1984) [Somma + George Michael]
Que Party (2023 + 2001) [Somma + S Club 7]

4)

pic | CC (portrait extraction and insertion)


Sympin Love (1991 + 2023) [Boyz II Men + Route 94]
Love Ain’t Easy (1991 + 2014) [Boyz II Men + Route 94]
Love of Hearts (1986 + 2023) [Stacey Q + Route 94]

5)

pic |  CC (self-portrait extraction and insertion x 2)

Love or Everything (1988 + 1991) [MJ + Climie Fisher]

– 5a

whitend (2023/2017 + 1991) [SZA/Esentrik + MJ]
Livend (2023/2017 + 2024/1991) [SZA/Esentrik + MJ/Moffett]

6)


Everything Human (2020 + 2024) [Overmono + LK]

– 6a


1 …

7)


1 …

8)

Get with the elements.

9)

src |src 2 | src 3 | src 4 | palette.fm

Vogue Un Deja Vu (1990 + 2024) [Madonna + Tamati]
Teen Deja Vu (1978 + 2024) [Pastorius + Tamati]
Magadeja (2024 + 2021) [Tamati + Fava/Mendes]

10)

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”

Dear Maga (2024 + 2021) [Justice + Fava/Mendes]

11)

The Pickup

12)

13)

Chocolate to your Heart (2024 + 1987) [Opolopo + Wax]

14)

 

[ India 89 -> 90 | Bali 94 -> 95 | Gold Coast ~1998 | Melbourne ~2000 ]

Dreamin’ Hats (2015 + 2016) [PARTYNEXTDOOR + Steve Jordan]
Good Hats (2023 + 2016) [Usher + Steve Jordan]

[ ** disclaimer ** ]

visual and illustrative representations only and not for further distribution unless otherwise stated. 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.
✓ 4 days ago

1991: Kickstarting the Bucket List

So don’t grow old – evolve.

(last updated: 21 April 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 had been in Chicago representing a gallery alongside Tom Spender at the CIAE Art Expo (1991?)

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.

src

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.
✓ 3 weeks ago

Japan Gets Real

Along with new voices.

(updated: 28 April 2024)

I’d always known about Japan. From a very young age, I saw the Japanese characters on the back of soy milk cartons, along with Astro Boy on television. In 1988, I learned Japanese. My dad’s good friend had a Japanese wife. Also, we had some Japanese neighbours in the apartment building in 1987 whereby Mikito Fujimoto and a bunch of us would go to the Fun Factory and blow our coins on Double Dragon and Dragon Ninja.

Mikito was an only child and his dad was a hairdresser. I’m pretty sure their visa application was rejected and they returned to Japan. He brought over his Famicom and used it here and that was amazing to me. He struggled with English but we all made it work somehow and he was a lot of fun.

Back then, we had a Honda Accord and on my way to learning Karate in 1995, I learned Tae Kwon Do at the time too.

Yet mostly I dreaded Thursday’s Tae Kwon Do class because at 2 – 2.5 hours, it was so tiring and stressful. It was also a fair drive to reach the Camberwell Civic Centre. One time, the car ran out of petrol and literally rolled into the servo next door. And that’s the way the class made me feel so often.

But, under the guidance of Jack Rozinsky, I ended up with a yellow belt and two stripes before stopping. Karate in 1995 was with Sensei Joe, which I preferred.

I won an award “Most Spirited Senior” that year and was somewhat sad to give it up due to study commitments and a desire to change my physicality.

1 2 3

I threw away the trophy recently (late ’22) due to it dropping, but should have a photo of it somewhere. I remember sparring competitively with another Jewish guy double my age (Jonathan?) at the second-floor venue in Cato Street.

One of my school friends Peter was doing Chikara style Karate at the time but at a different association and when he found out about the commonality on a lunch break, he played me Pantera in his walkman. He was into the game Street Fighter II a few years earlier and used to emulate the moves he saw and take on the whole theatrical effect.


I went to Japan in December that year too and for the first and only time, I bleached my hair with Tina in Greville Street for the school holidays.

[pic 4: Kobe post earthquake ??]

That trip was with Jun whose immediate family lived in Japan and I knew him from Geelong Grammar, Timbertop.

[ Jun on bottom bunk, in front of Use Your Illusion II poster ]

He slept in the bed next to mine and in fact, on about 3 occasions  in the middle of the night I heard (and saw) him sit up and speak a completely alien language to me.

[ At the interstellar departure gate. ]

No one else witnessed it, and he knew nothing of it personally. At the time, he was on the top bunk, not bottom. So Song and Jun must’ve switched.

[ Song and Andy ]

It wasn’t just a few words either, the monologues would go on for 2-5 minutes and were very fluent. They really should’ve woken up other people but did not.

And Jun was very often the last person to make the breakfast line-up, right after me. Re-orienting with illusion?

The lingo used for sleeping back then was “spine-bashing” and “departured” and it was a favourite pastime for many.

Today, very rarely I might hear music in my dreams – if only I could access it in waking life, like Lenny Kravitz. Perhaps people access past lives too: and languages. I had a massive download in a sleep in Jerusalem in 2005 – maybe that was Jun’s?

I should’ve tried sleeping on the roof.

Another school friend Sascha (brown jacket below) and Jun’s cousin (pink jacket) also made it over to Japan as Jun is Australian/Japanese.

There was a lot to take in including skiing at Tenjindaira with incredible amounts of snow (compared to Mount Buller) and at one point Jun and I spent 45 minutes looking for a ski. I took a fall in the powder and somersaulted and the ski was at the top of landing spot, not down the hill where I stopped. I also recorded a video of me skiing to the base of the mountain, but the camera was on full zoom so it came out poorly.

Anyhow, in Tokyo, January 1996, I checked out the the Elvin Jones Special Quartet with Wynton Marsalis at the Tokyo Bunka Kaikan. I missed Jamiroquai by a few weeks light years.


But, by chance Prince came through a night-club that I was at with his massive entourage. I had last seen him in concert in April 1992 for Diamonds and Pearls. He played a number of shows in Japan also in January 1996. I’m not sure if he came through after his concert but I did see him from about 10 meters away despite me not trying to get a glimpse as he strutted across the dance floor to his next destination.

I bought a number of CDs as well: R. Kelly self-titled, (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? (on Sascha’s recommendation,) Jesus Wept and Back from the Raggedy Edge. All these albums came out a few months prior to me arriving. I really was very fortunate to be able to make the trip to Japan and am very grateful for it.

Continuing, I started Bagua and Yoga in 1997 and became vegan for a period of time. I also gave Pilates a few sessions.

But was I heading in the right direction with my menu? I was using a book to learn some of my Yoga poses. Was it enough?

I was still eager to find new voices, even if I didn’t understand them at first.

So via Sugihara, Japan provided a lifeline for my grandparents during the war on the way to Australia, so where was the next stop? Back to Japan?

TLC released great tracks in 1995, which I first heard in Japan, and I mashed up in Israel in 2013.

So is that where I would find flow?

The plot thickens: how do Israelis find flow?

alike:

1 2 3 4 …

✓ 2 weeks ago

Coastal – Memories (2021)

 

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✓ 2 years ago

Lifelike

Life is what you make of it …or paint of it!

(updated: 27 April 2024)

I saw my late maternal grandmother, Ina Rose at the Tel Aviv Hilton in November 2009 with my mum. I recorded an interview with her during the morning of the 25th. I saw her again that night after TechAviv after a lift back there from Boris Nadion.

In our discussion, she describes her meeting with Albert Einstein in the USA sometime between 1945-1947. It was her being an artist that sparked Einstein’s interest to meet her.

During the war, Ini was freed from an internment camp and ended up hiding in Toulouse, France. There she learned French and followed the painting style of French Impressionism. Ini went to the USA after the war to meet her mother and sister.

[ Einstein ’46 | Ina’s WWII story | Australian naturalization ’56 | Marriage to Frederick ’47 in Melbourne ]

Ini mentions Fred (my grandfather) and Toulouse in her 2000 postcard to Luke and I below:

They met in Toulouse and even spoke French to each other at home in Australia as the norm. My mother, Jacqueline, speaks French very well to this day. I learned it for 3 years but struggled with it, unfortunately.

Anyway, my immediate family actually lived in an apartment down in the dip of Washington Street (but before I was born) before we moved up the hill to #38 that was sold in 2006.

  • pic 2 – 2006
  • pic 3, 4 – early 2000’s (shirt Hard Yakka)

Continuing, Ini’s second home in Melbourne overlooked the sea in Alimart Court (she actually named it after her children), Brighton, where she lived for many decades.

I have fond memories of going there a lot as a child.

It was filled with her art and that was her main line of work for many years.

She held a couple of exhibitions over the years, one even well into her nineties.

The last time I saw her was in July 2013 back at the Hilton (below left) and to her, Israel was fantastic and that was a great realization. She had gone to Germany a few years prior and that really stirred up negative memories.

Also, the first and only time I met her mother, Elizabeth Kaplan was in January 1986, in Boca Raton, Florida.

Elizabeth had a concentration camp number tattooed on her forearm and survived it by being enslaved as a translator for the Nazis. Also, that trip also took us to Disney World and EPCOT in Orlando, which was a very fortunate experience to have.

17 years later in 2003 I reconnected with the late Stewart Springfield again in New York City who was Elizabeth’s grandson from Ina’s sister Rita, and a really nice guy – at least he was to me. He was walking with a limp but I didn’t ask him about it.

Wait, isn’t that VP Kamala Harris schmoozing Hillary Clinton behind me? That’s not a photoshop either.

In the 80s he sent us a box of sunglasses for no charge.

In 1986, Stewart told me that his mum was listed in the phone book as “R Springfield” and ended up getting a lot of phone calls from female fans looking for Rick Springfield and he ended up hanging the phone up on a few.

Stewart’s mother was Rita. (blue pocket below, and striped shirt)

But ladies were checking Stewart out anyhow down at the beach when I went down there with him in Florida, and he popped off his shirt too. Later in the day he showed us cable TV and we settled on WWF.

Anyway, at Venice Beach on Superbowl day, (26 January 1986) some sort of street comedian pulled me out in front of a crowd and said I looked like Dan Quayle (“Who was that?” I thought) and then people cracked up laughing because I was Australian. I was an instant hit.

[src]

The wild thing was that as a result, Andrew saw me and came over and said hello, and he was in the extended family (below, red tie.)

The four of us only had 2 nights in LA waiting for a connecting flight and the Challenger shuttle blew up around the time we were leaving the country although I’m still somewhat perplexed as to the final sequence of cities eventually reached.

I remember it being really cold in Florida and being told to “put on layers,” and that the weather ended up taking its toll on Challenger.

Also, on a later trip to Vail and Copper Mountain, at Westin and Club Med, someone pulled out a dollar bill and showed me the “All Seeing Eye” and warned me about it, yet I didn’t really get the gist of all his fear.

It was a lot for a young guy to take in. Also, another guy Max was ranting about how Def Leppard was the best band ever. In the dining room I met a manager from Chrysalis Records, he asked me “What bands do you like?” I told him “Huey Lewis and the News” and a couple of others. He went beserk. He rattled off some other names and I said I knew them. He also mentioned Was (Not Was.) He was so stoked he ended up sending a box of 30 CDs back to Melbourne for us to play on our new CD player including the entire Huey collection up until Small World, David Sanborn, The Proclaimers, Vinnie Vincent and The Pursuit of Happiness. Very generous and cool guy – a lot of kind people in the USA – great with box shipping too! It could’ve also been guerilla marketing. I also met some guys making a ski movie in the lounge and they wanted me to intro “Teton Gravity Research” or something very hard for me to remember and I kept messing up as they filmed me. Was TGR even a thing back then – it couldn’t have been that!? I might’ve ended up on a bloopers reel. Wait, more likely the US skiing was still on the 1986 trip and the Chrysalis guy we met in India in 1989, or else the CDs were sent much later in time.

Anyhow, back to Venice Beach – the fellow that took us to Venice Beach was an African-American guy who was waiting around the airport working as a city guide: quite a random encounter. I don’t remember much of Venice Beach except for Muscle Beach.

But I also remember a large T-shirt shop with on-the-spot printing which was new to me. It was wall-to-wall with different t-shirt images. I may have even encountered Sky Ferreira’s future dad there – did his shop exist then? Was he old enough? I think there were a number of t-shirt shops in a row. Our tour guide’s name was Michael – I remember because I personally knew another Michael at the time and of course MJ. Strange stuff. I have my old passport somewhere so I Don’t Forget.

So, a couple of years prior to Ini’s passing in 2015, she made this toast after relocating homes – but her art (and husband) came with her!

My mother now paints, and I’m starting to get restless hands myself!

  • pic 1 – ~’92
  • pic 2 – ’93, grandfathers Fred and Oskar
  • pic 3 – ~mid ’00’s after leaving Brighton

 

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pics
www.pinterest.com.au/pin/164311086394226917/
✓ 2 weeks ago

2004: GrooveGuide – where groove meets street!

GrooveTip really should have morphed into a MySpace-type destination for musicians (also founded in 2003) or even CitySearch, iTunes, TicketMaster or Facebook. It didn’t but success still comes in a myriad of ways.

(last updated: 3 January 2021)

In order to launch and promote the GrooveTip website, I distributed a free, pocket-sized, street-press leaflet around Melbourne – only once – GrooveGuide.

Prior to this, in early 2003, I went to the USA and in New York City I picked up a pocket-sized gig guide booklet that inspired me to do GrooveGuide.

[ UC Berkeley | NYC | March 2003]

That guidebook for NYC (and other capital cities) soon shutdown. In hindsight I may have been able to use GrooveTip to consult with that US firm, ie sell the software.

The first artist featured was Snaplock Rhythm. Their music was also sold on the site.

Interestingly, vocalist Paul Havea (1976-2007: pic below left) is on this recording who went on to play with IllZilla – as did the drummer and sax player.

The full PDF download of GrooveGuide is below. After GrooveGuide, Beat Magazine started distributing a full PDF of their magazine via their website.

GrooveGuide June 2004 (PDF download)

To create GrooveGuide, I created filters in TextPipe Pro and scraped websites to rapidly obtain event information to be converted into sql statements for subsequent insertion into a UIPublish database.

From here, the event information was displayed easily on the Xoops Groovetip website using its display blocks and was also reformatted for a single-web page for PDF generation (for printing – see PDF above.)

screenshots: 11 Jul 2004 | 24 Sep 2004

I was then ready to easily create and distribute GrooveGuide every fortnight but that would cost over AUD$500 for each print run – and this wasn’t viable for me at that point without a sponsor.

Eden seen on the GrooveGuide cover is still playing as Eastward and I was playing with Toby at the time.

Of note, during this time in 2004, Moshtix switched from being solely a ticketing provider to also a destination site for event information and still is to this day. It also has a Moshguide.

[ 13 Jun ’04 | 13 Sep ’04 | 3 Jan ’23 ]

As mentioned elsewhere, I had worked alongside Mr Petrie a few times sometime between late ’03 and early ’04 and even drove up to Sydney to do so in the Hyundai Excel. Yet, by the time the Moshtix site had been redesigned in 2004, we had already parted ways. After reading an interview with him, I am confident that it was after the redesign that it became a takeover target as a media destination, not just a ticketing agent.

Incidentally, in that period, I neatened up concert pianist Alan Kogosowski’s site.

The original developer’s name was removed and new “Buy Now” links were added which are not visible in the archive snapshot.

[ 26 Jul ’04 | 6 Dec ’04 | – ]
✓ 4 months ago

Free Fallin’ :

Not everyone sells out! :

Keep calm it’s probably just Unreal Engine:

pics
pixabay.com/illustrations/sculpture-man-falling-hanging-2660273/
pixabay.com/illustrations/female-elf-fantasy-woman-magic-4354079/
pixabay.com/illustrations/dragon-rider-woman-fantasy-flying-4354088/
pixabay.com/illustrations/man-king-fantasy-male-crown-1503546/
pixabay.com/illustrations/man-king-fantasy-male-crown-1503544/
pixabay.com/illustrations/woman-portrait-girl-young-people-4585095/
pixabay.com/illustrations/woman-portrait-girl-young-people-4528351/
pixabay.com/illustrations/fee-elf-arch-arrow-objectives-3369015/
pixabay.com/illustrations/fee-elf-arch-arrow-objectives-3366519/
pixabay.com/photos/red-kite-red-milan-milan-3070295/

✓ 2 years ago