// Publishing News
My 2008 PublicationsIn 2008, on the poetry front, A821.4 appeared in PFS Post (USA), ‘Great Big Star’ in FourW, Sunbathing in Overland, ‘O’Dowd Seeks Whitman’ in Going Down Swinging (#27), B’rel’n and Bushpo in Cordite Poetry Review (#29), ‘Rain Loop’ in Meanjin, ‘Kerry’ in Famous Reporter, ‘Nieuw Holland’ in Island (#113), ‘De Kraai en het Paard’ in [...]
// DNRC
Eyna: “Watercress”
Scientists from the future will stumble upon this album and think: so that’s what all the fuss was about. For clearly, if not obliquely, Watercress, the breakthrough album for Dutch-Celtic songstress Eyna, signalled a shift in fortunes for DNRC Records and its enigmatic founder Davey Dreamnation, despite the fact that said ‘fortunes’ failed, as ever, to materialise in the company’s profit and/or loss statements. In short, Watercress is a classic. Here’s why.
// Features
Time Out Amsterdam (Part II)Further to my post from a couple of weeks ago about Time Out Amsterdam, I can now proudly say that I’m a published author here in the Netherlands! Not just once, but three times! Bam!
// Music
Pop lyrics - do they matter?Here’s an interesting post by Laurie Duggan on the wall of sound, where he makes the point that the vocal track on My Bloody Valentine’s song ‘Come In Alone’ works because of the wall of sound surrounding it. While I think this is true, a closer inspection of the lyrics to these kinds of songs [...]
// Music
Lee Ranaldo’s Hello from the American DesertI picked up this chapbook last February in Sydney for AU$15 after seeing Lee Ranaldo’s band Sonic Youth perform its 1988 album, Daydream Nation, in its entirety at the Enmore Theatre. While that concert was the most electrifying experience of my gig-going career (thanks again Joey!), it makes me sad to say that this little [...]
// Music
MurmurThe summer of 1981 comes like a scene change and I’m lying on my back in the middle of a montage, flat out on the concrete listening to that tape. The hot wind coming off the river is laden with moisture that beads on my upper lip, and crawls from my armpits all the way [...]
// Music
Chris de Burgh: An Appreciation (Part Four)I’ve been flat out digging through the online archives of the Chris de Burgh website, in particular the vast wealth of information contained within the Man On the Line (MOtL) section, wherein Chris personally responds to questions and queries from ‘fans’. One such fan asked:
“… any chance you’d release some of those haunting lyrics as [...]
// Music
Christy Burr: “Sunlight & Vodka Cruisers”DNRC086 | LP | 2017 | DELETED
In a world filled with tribute acts, cover bands, barely-disguised parodies, comedy comebacks and on and on, it’s refreshing to know that we are just ten years away from the release of this remarkable album by Scotland’s Christy Burr, whose name, when spoken aloud, sounds exactly the same as [...]
// DNRC
Eyna: “Watercress”Scientists from the future will stumble upon this album and think: so that’s what all the fuss was about. For clearly, if not obliquely, Watercress, the breakthrough album for Dutch-Celtic songstress Eyna, signalled a shift in fortunes for DNRC Records and its enigmatic founder Davey Dreamnation, despite the fact that said ‘fortunes’ failed, as ever, to materialise in the company’s profit and/or loss statements. In short, Watercress is a classic. Here’s why.
// DNRC
Benelux: “Feng Haag Shuiling”This tremendously barmy two-tone release, from possibly the world’s most electrifying three piece act, came hot on the heels of ninety one other DNRC releases and yet still sounds today as if it had never been thought of (let alone heard) at all.
// DNRC
The Hague: “Haagse Bluf”DNRC091 | LP | 2021 | DELETED
A string of line-up and name changes, several major tour cancellations, one breach of international diplomatic protocol and half an aspirin were all that stood between The Hague and worldwide fame. Having formed in the old Dutch imperial capital in 2019, The Hague rapidly became well-known for their [...]
// DNRC
Davey Dreamnation: “That’s Buddha”DNRC090 | Mini-LP | 2020 | DELETED
In 2010 Davey Dreamnation stunned the music industry by releasing an EP’s worth of theme songs entitled, appropriately enough, Themes. Breaking with tradition, one decade later Davey released a mini-LP on his own record label, prompting further speculation that he had, at least, completely lost his bonkers. What [...]
// DNRC
Waning Gibbous: “Upper Left Hand Corner of the Moon”DNRC089 | LP | 2018 | DELETED
Strange retro-fitted space capsule band Waning Gibbous checked out of the collective sub-conscious some time in 2019, making this their last and, in some respects, worst album. In others, it resembles nothing so much as the scene of an aircrash investigation - a random smash-wreckage ensemble of rivets, torn [...]
// Fiction
Spam Disaster Email 1On Internet forums there appeared messages of a powerful explosion at an Australian nuclear power station located in the suburbs of Sydney. According to witnesses’ statements the explosion happened at about 3 pm on the 9th of September. In particular, one resident of this town has made a call and had time to inform her [...]
// Fiction
MurmurThe summer of 1981 comes like a scene change and I’m lying on my back in the middle of a montage, flat out on the concrete listening to that tape. The hot wind coming off the river is laden with moisture that beads on my upper lip, and crawls from my armpits all the way [...]
// Fiction
Remembering Shelton LeaMy review of Diana Georgeff’s Delinquent Angel, a biography of Melbourne poet and raconteur Shelton Lea, has been published in the latest issue of Overland (#190). Interestingly, the editors have decided to put most (if not all) of the contents of the issue online, so you can now read the review in its entirety! Here’s [...]
// Fiction
Smoke ThirtyThe final scene of the holo depicts Moon’s troubled return to earth, a slow-moving, almost haunting montage of his metamorphosis from an astronaut into a late twenty-something average Korean man catching the subway to Incheon. Nobody recognises him. His journey decelerates as he switches from subway to bus, and then to just walking on foot. [...]
// Fiction
Smoke Twenty NineIn the final holo for the night a young engineer becomes the first Korean to land on the moon. The drives are packed with Aramis pods, lasers carve advertising daemons in the crackling air and for once I’m grateful for the busyness, seeing the holo drive pumping like it should, a packed house to compensate [...]
