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.
