A sunday walk- May 2013

Recently I went on a lovely Sunday walk... From Fitzroy, to North Melbourne and then back to North Fitzroy. Not only did I manage some exercise, caught up with friends, but I also took these photos:


A sign that the seasons are turning:

Reflections and multi-angled mirrored glass:

You know I just had to do this:

After having coffee with friends, we found a disused room full of light (don't ask). My friend Nadia used my camera to show me that 'anyone can take a photo'.. yes Nadia, but seriously, how many people can model as good as me?

Leaving my 'show off' friends behind, my ego and I came across some pleasant and respectful company in the form of geometrically interesting buildings. Who would have thought that buildings could make great friends?:

There is something 'an artists inpression' about this image:

Walking through one of the universities I rediscovered the famous 'underground' carpark!:

Ahhhh University students and their bicycles:

All photographs copyright matthew schiavello 2013, except of course the photograph of me, taken by Nadia, which apparently, anyone could have done ;-)

"I don't do the high-five thing"

If you try and high five me and you are neither a child or a client of mine, I will stare you down and say (in a nice and polite way) "I don't do the high-five thing".

People generally laugh at me and say I am insane. Just last week a new work colleague said that I need to talk to someone about this and "unpack it". He then pushed me and insisted that I tell him why I don't high five, to which I responded "I don't like it, It is so American, It is childish and fake... not that I am saying that you are fake, cause your not." My colleague thought I was a nutter and almost fell off his chair laughing. Well he did ask...

Only a few days after this event, a volunteer I was supervising, tried to high-five me, I did my whole anti high five thing.... and he counteracted and said that if I didn't high-five him, he would stop volunteering for the organisation.... I was in a pickle. I weighed it up... the team, my values, the team, selling my self out, the team, whoring my self, the team.... I'm sure you follow... in the end I took one for the team and high fived him. I felt like a dirty tramp of a traitor afterwards and had to take a shower. But we all know that it was to no avail because soap cannot wash away guilt and sin.

Don't get me wrong about it being 'American'. I am not anti- U.S.A. After going there and meeting some lovely Americans and having a really positive experience, I see them as being the same as us and just like us, having crap people in power and ordinary citizens in the limelight who do not represent the views of the majority. So maybe instead I should say, it's unappealing stereotyped American behaviour from trash/pop culture, which is over-represented and inaccurate of the behaviour of the majority of Americans or something similarly politically correct, watered down and almost unintelligible. In fact, I may as well have not said anything in the first instance.

Speaking of Americans, yes again with those crazy Americans (I have heard others 'pesky', but I am not one to get involved in international scandals or slagging and I love those crazy Americans, except of course when they are being pesky).. anyway, they even have a national high five day!!!  Apparently it is the third Thursday in April.

The website Mashable posted a '10 types of palm smacks for National High Five day. Included in this list are; the selfie, the air high five, the Van der smack and high five/fist bump combo! A few days after reading this list of the differing types of high-five, someone at work tried to fist pump me!!  Thank god I knew it is a type of high-five, so knew to refuse! 'Be prepared' is my moto!, well... a moto I stole from some children's club. Speaking of being prepared, a little known but important  fact is that on the eighth day (yes, after the seventh day of rest) the lord spoke and said "go forth and act in an age appropriate manner!' It is also unsurprisingly the eleveth commandment, but butter fingers Moses dropped the third stone tablet, so that knowledge was never widely shared. If only at the time he didn't try and do it all himself and asked for some help. A little humility never killed anyone!

If all of this is not enough to sway you to act, dare I say- age appropriately and stop it already with the high-five shenanigans, then hopefully these clips will.. Just remember, 'there but for the grace of god go I'...and if you have no idea what that means, yes I'm talking to you, the high-fivers and potential high-fivers out there- this could be you!

20 years of the Annual Hottest 100!

To celebrate 20 years of the annual Hottest 100, Triple J are asking people to vote for their favourite 20 tunes from the last 20 years. You have 20 days to do it in, starting from last tuesday! The website can be found here!

I trawled back through the last twenty years of hottest 100's to eventually pick about 60 plus tracks, I then whittled it down to the required twenty. I didn't pick anything outside the previous lists such as Bonnie Prince Billy or even some of my fav's that were in the list ( Massive Attack, Bjork, Faith No More, You am I, Beastie Boys etc), but that doesn't mean that you can't! I tried to throw in a good balance of local acts and some tunes that were great at the time, but if that artist was played on the J's now, listeners may complain (i.e Kylie). So go on and vote, especially if you are over 35! don't let the young un's do all the voting, besides they might not know half the great stuff that was out there 15-20 years ago, we oldies need to REPRESENT!!

Here is my list:

- Dave Graney 'n' The Coral Snakes - Night of the Wolverine, Part 1 (#48 in 1993's hottest 100- Aussie artist, sexy sounding, stylish and brilliant!)



- Underground lovers - Losin' It (#19 in 1994's hottest 100- Aussie Act!)



-Kylie Minogue - Confide in Me (#30 in 1994's hottest 100- Aussie artist, Kylie Minogue say no more! (well, you can say 'singing budgie')

-Garbage - Vow (#15 in 1995's hottest 100)

-Regurgitator - I Sucked a Lot of C*ck to Get Where I Am (#23 in 1996's hottest 100- Aussie Group!)

-The Whitlams - I Make Hamburgers (#79 in 1996's hottest 100- Aussie Group!)

 -Ben Folds Five - Army (#51 in 1999's hottest 100)


-The Avalanches - Frontier Psychiatrist (#6 in 2000's hottest 100- Aussie group!)

- The Strokes - Last Nite (#12 in 2001's hottest 100)

-Gerling - Dust Me Selecta (#24 in 2001's hottest 100- Aussie group!)


-Groove Armada - Superstylin' (#48 in 2001's hottest 100)

 -OutKast - Hey Ya! (#2 in 2003's hottest 100)

 -Blur - Out of Time (#98 in 2003's hottest 100)

 -Kings of Leon - The Bucket (#31 in 2004's hottest 100)

 -Babyshambles - F*ck Forever (#79 in 2005's hottest 100)
Warning, this clip has the F word in it!

-Arctic Monkeys - When the Sun Goes Down (#30 in 2006's hottest 100)

 -TV on the Radio - Wolf Like Me (#63 in 2006's hottest 100)

 -The Wombats - Let's Dance to Joy Division (#12 in 2007's hottest 100)


-Bon Iver - Skinny Love (#21 in 2008's hottest 100)
This clip is of Bon Iver performing the track live at Glastonbury in 2009


-Hermitude - Speak of the Devil (#44 in 2011's hottest 100)



What are you voting for?

Modern day artists

The past few weeks as I have been walking down lanes and back alleys, I have stumbled across some really cool art. Here are of few of the pieces, starting with this very cool statement:

Fitzroy: ah, the good old days of playing my neighbor's Atari.

Westgarth:

Tetris:

Cool door in an alley way:

I love this wall, hidden down a lane:

Don't forget that this is Strath's porridge spot!, but you can still sit there:

North Fitzroy: I love Kaff-eine, not only is her art lovely, but I met her once (yep, I am a name dropper) and she was soooo nice. You can read more about these images at her blog:

Just remember:

So get out there, make art, view art, encourage art and love every minute of it!


All photographs copyright matthew schiavello 2013
Art is copyright the individual artists.

Something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue - May 2012

Something old: 

Otis is always amazing. He could sing the telephone book and still be captivating. This live clip was recorded about 6 months before he died in a plane accident.

Otis Redding - 'I've been loving you too long (live in Montreux 1967)'



Something else that is 'old' and very cool (and I can't recall if I have posted this before, but it is worth a second look), is Bright Eye's - 'First day of my life'. I really like this simple clip.

Bright Eye's - 'First day of my life'



Something new:

My mate Dean turned me onto the group called 'Chvrches'. I kept hearing the track 'Recover' on the J's and really, really like it. This is what electronic pop music should sound like!

Chvrches- 'Recover'



Another (and very different) band that my mate Dean turned me onto many years ago, is Yo La Tengo. I have been playing their new (and thirteenth) Lp 'Fade', a lot on sunday mornings. It is one of those beautiful, rich albums that gently make their way to you and grow on you with each listen.

Yo La Tengo' 'Cornelia and Jane'



Something borrowed:

Our own Angus Stone, does a version of Alabama Shakes track 'Hold on' on Triple J's 'like a version'.
I love this song, so this is really just another excuse to watch and listen to it again. The track starts at the 1.21 minute mark, so feel free to fast forward.

Angus Stone- 'Hold on'



 Something blue:

I recently stumbled across this man Jackson C Frank and wow, his voice has life in it. Unfortunately, his story is a really sad one. Trusty wikipedia says that  he was hospitalised at age 11 with burns over half of his body due to the school furnace exploding and killing 15 of his fellow students. Later on he moved from NYC to London, played music, met Paul Simon who recorded his 1965 LP 'Jackson C Frank'... A year later his mental health is said to have begun to unravel... in the seventies his son died of cystic fibrosis which reportedly lead to him plunging into depression and being institutionalized.  In the 1980's he was homeless in NYC and was blinded by being accidentally shot in the eye. He died aged 56 in 1999 due to pneumonia and cardiac arrest.

Jackson C Frank - 'Blues run the game'