Sun, 6 July: Weekly Review 69

Last night’s Rage was programmed by Ambrose Kenny-Smith, son of Broderick Smith. There was a heap of clips from his bands King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, The Murlocs and others. He also included a nice tribute to his dad, who passed away in 2023. We got to see his performance of Ocean Deep from the Andy Durant Memorial Concert, and his rendition of Springsteen’s Badlands with his old band Big Combo. It was great to see, and Ambrose’s tribute was low key but moving. He noted Ocean Deep, a great meditation on mortality written by Andy ‘on his deathbed’, was one of Brod’s finest performances, and I agree.

I’m still working my way through the second volume of the K-On manga. There’s a nice storyline around a school performance of Romeo and Juliet, with Mio playing Romeo and Ritsu playing Juliet. Yui quips that Mio is perfect for Romeo because she’s ‘Ro-Mio’. But actually, they’re both playing against type. The tomboyish Ritsu is better suited for the Romeo role, whilst the sensitive and ‘girly’ Mio could do Juliet. Both girls struggle with this role reversal in their rehearsals, but nail their roles when they realise they should simply reverse their personas. Thus, Ritsu pretends she’s Mio, and Mio pretends she’s Ritsu. Kakifly does a particularly good job of presenting Ritsu as feminine in her girly Juliet outfit during the play, which is a success.

I started reading Diamonds Are Forever by Ian Fleming. It’s hard not to compare it to Modesty Blaise, and so far the comparison isn’t flattering for Fleming.

Watched another episode of Warehouse 13. This one was titled Magnetism and was about a magic old chair that had belonged to some hypnotist who could conjure people’s deepest desires. The hypnotist’s abilities were imbued within the chair so that anyone sitting in it became ‘infected’ with the need to fulfil these desires. Thus, a nun thinks she can fly and so jumps off a roof, and a medic whose wife has just given birth to twins and is breastfeeding them is obsessed with boobies, especially MC Myka’s. It was quirky fun, especially when Myka inadvertently sat in the chair and got infected. Her desires presented themselves in the need to keep punching her partner, Pete, on the nose

I listened to Bowie’s Diamond Dogs album on the Flexi drive to Millgrove today. I was thinking of the genocide in Gaza and how Bowie had used that word at the start of the title track – ‘This ain’t rock n roll, this is genocide’. And so I listened to it. It seems a transitional album. Bowie was still doing the glam thing, but mixing it up with a dirty Stonesy feel like the title track, Sweet Thing and Rebel Rebel. Those songs are a lot like the Stones on It’s Only Rock n Roll, the album they released in the same year – 1974. But the upcoming soul thing is starting here, with 1984 and When You Rock n Roll With Me. I like the title track a lot. It was a single, but it’s really not a single. It’s too long and complex, and the lyrics are impenetrable (though they’re colourful). It’s just a good groove, some great riffs and vocal riffs. Sweet Thing’s good too, but I much prefer the live version from David Live. I think he perfected the song there, especially the middle section, where the melody is so much better on the live version. Rebel Rebel was also a single, and it was a big hit. 1984 is startling the way it seems to come out of nowhere fully formed. And it’s a vocal triumph. We’re way past that year now, but the lessons of Big Brother are still there to be learned in our media landscape. Someone ought to play that this is genocide line over images of Gaza.

My patron Michael borrowed a copy of Rickie Lee Jones’ autobiography, Last Chance Texaco. He’s a big fan of her stuff. We talked about her and Tom Waits. It seems they were lovers for a while there. I remember that first album very well. Chuck E’s In Love, Danny’s All-Star Joint, Last Chance Texaco. Great songs. A great album. Michael likes her other stuff too. I’ve got a five album in one collection and used to play the first album on LP a lot back in the day. A fond reminder of my high school days. Our conversation had me going back to it on the drive back. I’d have to say it’s not a good album, it’s a great album. I can’t think of many albums like it that establishes such a consistent mood. It is a mood, and more. It’s a manifesto, a lifestyle, an attitude, a state of mind, a whole freakin’ milieu. Rickie’s voice is so expressive. There’s a bit in Coolesville near the end where she goes as low as she can, then uncomfortably high as she can. She’s just showing off. Her car speeding past sound at the end of Last Chance Texaco must be the first time a singer has done a vocal doppler effect.

I read a great Twitter post from Dr Wes Robertson, who’s tweets I follow. He specialises in analysing Japanese language terms and constructions, which I realise doesn’t sound very interesting, but believe me, it is. In this one he showcased his June Japanese Slang Review. It’s part of his Scripting Japan site. As he says on the site, in the Slang Review posts he ‘deep dives into Japanese terms you probably won’t see in a textbook, looking at what they mean, how they are used and where they came from.’ I’ll just mention the first one he talks about, namely a new term that’s become popular in Japan called ‘A dragon that likes side dishes’. It originated with a song of the same title by a ‘vocaloid’ singer called Kasane Teto. In the song the dragon announces various side dishes it likes, like hamburger steak, karaage, boiled beans and so forth. Once it caught on, people were posting parody and associated memes and cartoons, like ‘the dragon who announces place names they like’ and so forth. There was even one about ‘a side dish that announces dragons it likes’. It’s basically become a new way of announcing things you like on the internet. I think I might use it in my Faves section on this site. I like it. Anyway, there were plenty more items in the post, but hopefully this gives you a sense of why I found it interesting. Dragon likes these tweets…I must check out that song on Youtube!

I listened to my Bird and the Bee album Recreational Love on the way to and back from work today. It’s another fine collection of bouncy quirky pop songs with Inara George (love that name!) singing exquisitely. The opening track Young and Dumb is an absolute earworm, with the chorus ‘Wracking the wracking the wracking wrecking ball’ stuck in my head in a good way. Another one, Will You Dance?, may be the best of all. They have 1.2 million listeners on Spotify, but man, have you ever heard of them? They should have hits! I love the Bird and the Bee.

I borrowed yet another book from the library today. It was Understanding Media, Communication, Power and Social Change by James Curran and Joanna Redden. I have a bunch of books about media, but this one has the merit of being completely up to date in dealing with the digital age. One of its main themes seems to be that, despite hopes of a free press in the internet age, large corporations have managed to edge out more independent voices due to their ‘economies of scale in the media industries’. This has lead to a greater stranglehold on information and news that, frankly, continues to benefit the rich media owners. To this point the authors cite this gem of a factoid: ‘…the issue of tax avoidance had received little press coverage partly because most large press groups in Britain were themselves heavily involved in tax avoidance’.

I continued with that Understanding Media book. I’m getting into the meat of the book now with a chapter titled Who Controls the News? The authors immediately cite Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman’s Propaganda Model in Manufacturing Consent then go on to expand upon that. Although in broad agreement with the model, they suggest it leaves out things like the disagreements that occur within elite groups (ie, they’re not all in consensus) , and that society and the media are not always dominated by top down processes and institutions (ie, that civil protest and ‘real’ journalism still exists). Just how true this is, I’m not sure. Further chapters might throw more light on this. 

I finished the K-On manga today. The Romeo and Juliet storyline was the highlight, the rest was a bit disappointing. The author Kakifly didn’t seem to know how to conclude the story. Not that there was much of a story. It was the epitome of slice of life. It ends on a very sentimental note – the four senior girls are off to college leaving little Asunan on her own in the After School Tea Time clubroom. But not for long: she’s already recruited her friends June and Ui, Yui’s little sister, for the new band. I believe the author did follow up mangas based on these characters plus one of the original K-On girls going to college, but they didn’t get anime treatments.

I bought two more volumes of Bocchi the Rock manga from Dymocks today. These were volumes 4 and 5. Seems an appropriate manga to take up after just finishing K-On. More girls and guitars.