Category: Sounds (page 2 of 5)

This section features downloadable mp3s of poems and music, as well as links to other sound pieces published elsewhere online.

28 May 2008 / 0 Comments

Davey Dreamnation: That’s Buddha

Davey Dreamnation, ‘Buddha Machine Four’ (5:24)

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 we get on this hastily-cobbled together “album” is not exactly what its title says we should get.

To begin with, the title track “That’s Buddha” has been mysteriously deleted and replaced by “Buddha Machine Four”, an exercise in layering using the Buddha Machine.

Instead of a straight rendition of “Harbour You” we get a remix and an instrumental of the same track.

And instead of Clint Bo Dean on guest lagaphone we get the half-rap, half-too-cool-to-care “Clint Bo Dean Is Really Cool”.

In addition, the maniacal seether has also seen fit to include three other tracks on this release, namely the truly barmy “Snelheid” featuring Chris de Burgh on mute, “Inflated Lanes” (a tribute to 1980s ten-pin bowling TV advertisements) and “Just Riffin”, which could be about anything.

Mp3 tracks available here for a limited time only.

The album itself is technically deleted but, as it hasn’t been thought of yet, we’ll make an exception and mark it, simply, “released back into the wild”.

FULL TRACK LISTING:

1. Buddha Machine Four
2. Clint Bo Dean Is Really Cool
3. Harbour You Two
4. Inflated Lanes
5. Just Riffin’
6. Harbour You (Instrumental)

28 March 2007 / 0 Comments

Audio from the deep vaults

David Prater, Last Night Betty + Red Room Interview (2002)

Sorting through some old unlabelled CDs yesterday, I came across a few gems, including of course a couple of CDs worth of pictures from previous overseas trips, when I looked slightly younger but no less idiotic than I do today.

Then there were the failed band experiments, the obscure software updates and one disc from my old job at RMIT last century when Napster was still legal, and when I downloaded a whole stack of songs with impunity. It made me feel old – well, older than I was then, naturally.

I also found about a thousand images from my time in Seoul in 2005 – boy, do I miss that place!

Mind you, I don’t miss my ridiculously long (for me) hair, the extra ten kilos I put on while there, or the murderously icy streets of Seoul in winter, but overall I do have happy memories of my time there, perhaps best summed up by a song a group of my Australian Culture students wrote and recorded for me as part of their extremely brown-nosed presentation.

The song’s called “Aussie and We Korea” so listen and learn.

I also found a poem and interview I recorded for Johanna Featherstone’s Red Room Project about six years ago (yes, feeling older by the minute now).

The poem, “Last Night Betty” was also featured in Short Fuse: the Global Anthology of Fusion Poetry, edited by Todd Swift and Phil Norton.

I performed the poem in New York City in 2002 as part of the launch of the book and this recorded version is pretty much the same as that live version. The poem’s followed by an extract from an interview I did with Johanna at the same time. I sound pretty naff, I’m afraid.

Speaking of all things not naff, Babble in its heyday was a pretty rocking joint. Not that it doesn’t still rock but, you know. I mean, if you were there then, you know what I mean. You understand. I don’t. Whatever.

Anyway, in 2002 somehow I got put onto a Best of Babble promotional CD along with numerous luminaries including Ian McBryde, Sean M. Whelan, Emilie Zoey Baker, Phil Norton, Dan Lee, Andy Jackson, Chloe Jackson Willmott et al.

The poems’ called “Madchester” and, as ever, it’s a bit shouty, a bit strained. But it remains a collector’s item. That is, of course, if you’re into collecting Davey Dreamnation juvenilia.

2 February 2007 / 2 Comments

Davey Dreamnation: Themes

DNRC075 | EP | 2010 | DELETED

Davey Dreamnation has stunned the music industry by releasing an EP’s worth of theme songs entitled, appropriately enough, Themes.

The opening track is ‘A Salute to “A Salute to Themes”‘, a barely-disguised tribute (in mono) to Johnny Hawksworth’s original ‘A Salute To Thames’, which used to play on Thames TV in the UK.

A YouTube clip featuring Johnny Hawksworth’s “A Salute To Thames”.

Next up, a real rarity and a treat for D/DN fans: an unreleased version of Davey’s theme song, originally recorded during the harrowing Islands In the Stream of Consciousness sessions in 2002.

Bearing all the hallmarks of a traditional “outtake”, the song is nevertheless highly collectable due to its massive wordplay and false innocence.

The third track is another unreleased gem, Davey’s first foray into the mind-boggling worlds of rap and hip-hop.

‘Dubbo Boy’ is an unacknowledged masterpiece, with some terrific production work by Davey’s some-time co-conspirator and Kevin Bacon lookalike DJ Admiral Tuna.

Next, something of a novelty: ‘Scaramouche’s Theme’ is, obviously, the signature tune of Davey’s friend and troublemaking llama, Scaramouche.

We’re not quite sure how this track ended up on the EP but sources close to Davey suggest it may well be because ‘Stung’s Theme’ had already been released on the Tribesco EP.

Not that that stopped Davey from including it again here.

Breaking with tradition, and with the terms of UNSC DDN1, Davey also refused to delete this EP on release, prompting further speculation that he had, at last, completely lost his marbles.

11 October 2006 / 4 Comments

Karin Revisited: the audio

David Prater, ‘Karen Revisited’

Last Friday’s Poetry Picture Show event in Sydney was a lot of fun: 10 poets reading out poems about the moving image, followed by short films based on the contents of those poems.

Highlights for me were Kate Lilley’s take on Mildred Pierce and John Tranter’s “Paris Blues” but of course everyone was wonderful.

The crowd was great too, packing out the old Darlington School hall, a building I’d never even been to, though it’s in the grounds of Sydney University, where I scraped through an undergraduate degree.

Justine Bateman in Can You Feel Me Dancing

You can read my poem Karin Revisited (inspired by the film Can You Feel Me Dancing, starring Justine Bateman as Karin) online or listen to an audio version above.

One thing I noticed about the text version of my poem, which is written in four line stanzas, is that I inadvertently included a stanza with only three lines.

Does anyone have any suggestions for the fourth line?

Here is what it looks like right now, in context:

Dancing makes you free. You're in an invisible
machine, standing upright, & each movement of
your body bends space & time. For Karin, that
moment before lift-off comes like a swoon, or

a screen kiss at the end of a dance. She freezes
in mid-air like Superman before a blue screen,
or a magician's assistant, supported by strings,

listening for the end of each scene. A minimum
of crowd noise, just the tube's silver surf. The
way it was that afternoon at home when she sat
& listened all the way through it. That silence ...

Any ideas?

Update: never mind, I just changed the stanza structure. I’ve uploaded the final version of the poem to this site, for posterity. It also appears in my debut poetry collection, We Will Disappear.

2 October 2006 / 0 Comments

Clint Bo Dean releases first tracks from debut album!

Clint Bo Dean, ‘Snelheid 2’ (4:50)

After years of inactivity, lame excuses, courtroom dramas and peanut allergies, Clint Bo Dean has finally got around to releasing the first tracks from his startlingly-weird debut album, currently entitled Never Go Ashtray.

Rumoured to be even more incendiary than Ash Wednesday, the album may well be released in time for Christmas, but that’s anyone’s biscuit.

The songs, both instrumentals, are known as “Snelheid Two” and “Klein Uurtje”.

You can check out “Snelheid Two” here.

Rumours that the entire album will be released in Dutch are “heel gek,” according to the pixellated star.

« Older posts Newer posts »

About this site

This is [d/dn], the home of David Prater, a writer and editor currently living in the third person.

Category archives
Yearly archives

About David

Search