The Living End - 27 Nov 2012 - Hi Fi Sydney

I am old, I am old, I wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. So I’d enthusiastically agreed to the idea of reliving being 14 as soundtracked by The Living End, but after dinner, a cup of a tea and a rest of a super soft couch, I was feeling much less enthusiastic about venturing out at 9pm into the pouring rain.

 And when I finally entered the Hi Fi, soaked from waiting at the door, finding myself at the back of the room packed with tall people, and realised The Living End weren’t going to be on until 10:30, I had a mini tantrum inside my head. Gah, It’s a work night, I think. Then, FFS, I’ve really turned into a grumpy old woman.

But we’d arrived mid-set for Area 7, and I’d forgotten just how many of their fun songs I knew. And by the time they finished their set with Bitter Words I was smiling and singing along. Things were looking up!

 I’d seen The Living End once before, though seen might be too optimistic a description because their average fan is a burly dude twice my height, so the last time I saw people’s sweaty backs a lot. But we got lucky this time around and found a patch of good ground with a decent view of the stage, and juuuuust shy of the inevitable circle pit in the middle of the room.

The night got off to a great start with the delicious irony of a roomful of adults regressing gleefully to their teenage years by screaming out, “I’m a brat and I know everything”. After that blistering start with Prisoner of Society, Chris said fondly, “This album never gets old.” Pause, and following cheers, “Even if we do.” So so true.

But there was so much love in that room – the band for their creation, for each other, for the fans, and vice versa for the fans. This was the perfect nostalgia show, seeing a beloved band from your teenage years playing an album that’s aged well and seeing them enjoy it as much as the audience.

 All the big hits got the loudest singalongs, the most frenetic dancing and movement. But even the deeper cuts were great: Trapped was so much fun live, with the Area 7 brass section adding even more oomph. Have They Forgotten sounded immense and angrier live, and it’s sad that the lyrics are still so relevant today to the asylum seeker situation today.

 In fact, the whole album has aged remarkably well. And as me and my friends said over and over to each other after, hearing their self-titled album played end to end live only serves to remind what a great album of singles it was; there wasn’t a dud song in the mix, not one song we couldn’t sing almost word-perfectly, even after 14 years.

 The band also kept the set fresh and interesting by deviating into great, tight jams that played with familiar songs, like in All Torn Down. And watching Chris Cheney play guitar is still….what do the kids say these days? Ah that’s right, he can still get it, yeah.

At night’s end, teenage me (okay, adult me too) was in raptures at seeing them play Closing In live, which has been one of my favourite songs forever and ever. Scott even still does the trick where he slings the double bass over his shoulders to play behind his back! Though I guess with age this only lasted for like five seconds, hahah.

 To further remind everyone of their advanced age, towards the end of the night, Chris thanks the audience for “buying the album…yeah, remember buying?” Cue LOLs from a roomful of people who still remember and own CDs.

 But all in all, a great gig - high energy atmosphere, awesome playing, and incredibly catchy tunes. I ended the night so sweaty, so happy, and with so many fond memories - what more could a girl (okay, an elderly lady) ask for?

Prisoner of Society
Growing Up (Falling Down)
Second Solution
West End Riot
Bloody Mary
Monday
All Torn Down
Saves the Day
Trapped
Have They Forgotten
Fly Away
I Want A Day
Sleep On It
Closing In
(Georgie Girl – Seekers cover)
Tainted Love – Soft Cell cover

In Time (2011, d. Andrew Niccol)

So last year, I saw In Time and was horrimazed at what an absolute mess this movie was on just about every level possible. This belated post is to try and explain why, from a bunch of stream-of-consciousness notes (rants) I made at the time. 

Be warned: I'm just going to go ahead and spoil the whole movie for you. One, it's not possible to talk about the crazy badness of this film without discussing the details, and two, hopefully after reading this you'll not want to see it for yourself. Unless you happen to like complete trainwrecks, in which case I recommend you rent it for cheap, then down a few drinks beforehand if you don't want to be going "...what the - did they just - but that didn't make sense - really?!" every couple of minutes.

So you know you’re in for something awful with the first line - the first time (chortle) there’s a portentous use of the word ‘time' (and there will be many of these) - when we start with Justin Timberlake staring pensively (i.e. blankly) out a window. 

Oh JT. Such a great musician. Such a terrible actor. The king of literal choreography goes all out in his first starring role but is shown to be lacking within minutes of the start. In his face off against Matt Bomer, a quiet one-to-one scene in an abandoned warehouse, Bomer manages to convey more with one look in his pretty blue eyes than JT can even try with his whole body. 

In fact, Matt Bomer comes off best in this whole movie because he looks utterly gorgeous, he's only in this travesty for 5 minutes, and his last scene doesn't involve flinging his dying body into JT's arms so he can weep horribly and scream “NOOOOOO” dramatically to the sky (sorry Olivia Wilde). Vincent Kartheiser comes a close second, well cast and doing his best with the poor material as the cold, rich bastard dad of Amanda Seyfried's character. Of course, when one of your villains is the most logical, intelligent and relatable person in the whole movie, you have problems...oh, and what problems they are!

Apart from JT being so wooden and unconvincing as an actor, Seyfried looks like she’s here only to pick up a pay check in a bad wig. But that might not be all her fault - she's been given absolutely nothing to do as her character, Sylvia, is entirely underwritten as the clichéd sheltered rich girl longing for some excitement in life. When excitement supposedly comes in the form of being Stockholm’d into a Bonnie-and-Clyde lite relationship, it's unfortunate JT and Amanda having zero chemistry. The relationship comes out of nowhere except for the fact it’s scripted and it’s literally laughable - when they mechanically move into place to kiss for the first time, the only thing I could do was giggle incredulously, as did the two rows of people behind me in the cinema. Even more unfortunately, JT has more chemistry with Olivia Wilde, who plays his mother. 

Wait, there’s more! On top of the bad acting, there's odd choppy editing, really terrible lines (poor Cillian Murphy - completely wasted as a character whose incomprehensible motivations waver all over the place - has to utter inane gems such as “I'm a timekeeper...I keep time”), the egregious mis- and overuse of the word time ALL OF THE TIME, and some completely random characters for god knows what reason. Alex Pettyfer as the only British gangster in an Ohio ghetto in a ridiculous and unnecessary subplot - why not? Johnny Galecki, hopelessly miscast as an unbelievable 25-year-old alcoholic - hey, this cast can't look uniformly hot! 

But even more than these sins, this movie hurt me most, deep in my soul, because there was absolutely no internal logic or consistency. Niccol (the Australian writer and director) blow his wad trying to set up and exposit this complex world of rules using time as currency, and then flies in the face of it all in just about every scene and plot twist. Firstly, the monetary system itself. Four minutes for a cup of coffee! Loans of a month at 30% interest! People living literally day to day! Dear sir - no economy could ever run like that .And then supposedly, the solution Will and Sylvia come up with to right all wrongs is to steal 1 million years from Sylvia’s dad (which just made me lol and think of “one miiiiiiillion dollars”). And again, Vincent Kartheiser is the only one who’s smart enough to point out that um, what good's that going to do for the larger population? 

It's like no one understands maths in this world!

And yet, more stupid events occur - like Will and Sylvia robbing a timelender with a smash and grab. You mean no other criminal element in the ‘ghetto’ has ever thought to do the same thing? And then Will and Sylvia able to do this extraordinary crime five more times without getting caught by either the non-existent guards at these timelenders or the cops? Not to mention Will keeps hiding out at the same places within blocks of his crimes, over and over again, and yet the police don’t find them for ages. And when they do finally catch up with Will AT HIS OWN DAMN APARTMENT they park right out in the street so Will and Sylvia can see them coming and have enough time to get dressed and escape out the back – which no cops had covered. Because there's only three cops in this universe. 

Also, while the rich people all have bodyguards, they must really suck because Will manages to hide himself in a pack of them without detection. And when he reveals himself, the other 9 armed guards give up without a fight, and none of them raise any alarms when their wealthy employer is kidnapped and taken hostage. Uh. 

And don’t even get me started on the ARM WRESTLING. That's right, in order to expound on Will’s sob/back story, JT and Pettyfer have the world's most boring and ridiculous confrontation where they arm wrestle TO DEATH. Then there’s the other stupid death scene, with Cillian Murphy killed by the most stupid deus ex machina ever (and yes, once again, it involved impossible time shenanigans). So Will, earlier in the movie, manages to make his 2 hours from capture last from night to day and across several "timezones", overtaking even Sylvia’s clock, but somehow Cillian dies because his character forgets to top up his per diem at just the right moment after surviving 50 years of policing. Riiiiiiiiiight.

I could go on but let me summarise: this movie's not just bad, it's lazy and careless and a waste of some real talents. I mean, Oscar nominated cinematographers! Oscar winning costume designers! The writer of Gattaca and The Truman Show! A really attractive cast, with some fantastic talent (plus JT). And yet, the sum of its products is this fiasco that is so terrible that ripping it to shreds kept Al and I amused for hours afterwards.

Fun. - 25 July 2012 - The Metro

Their band name invites all sorts of terrible puns, but after seeing them live, the plain and simple fact is that they are very aptly named. I really enjoyed this show - great songs, good showmanship, and the clear joy of performance emanating from a band on the cusp of really making it big, as they faced a sold out all ages gig halfway across the world from their home.

 While I've seen criticism that Fun. songs can often sound overproduced and too busy with their bright mix of beats and genres and instrumentation, the music comes across really well live. The core band (lead singer Nate Ruess, guitarist Jack Antonoff from Steel Train, and multi-instrumentalist Andrew Dost) were ably supported by their touring band, giving the perfect pop melodies have a better chance to shine. Anthemic songs like Carry On lent themselves well to stirring the enthusiastic crowd while tearjerkers like The Gambler were soft and lovely and clear.

 Carry On

Even with the (surprisingly tuneful) audience clamouring to singalong to everything, as encouraged by Nate, his wonderful voice managed to ring out above it all. Ruess really knows how to use it as an instrument, swooping from high to low and back again, with great tone and warmth. And it didn't hurt he was so beautiful to watch all through the show, with his brilliant grin, so amazed and pleased by the reception. 

The crowd was generally quite young, and I'm pretty sure I saw a child aged 8 year old or thereabouts. So I felt a moment of irony standing in that crowd during their breakout single, singing “WE ARE YOUNG” at the top of my lungs with everyone else - but it didn't spoil the fact it was still a great, epic moment of song.

One Foot 

Walking the Dog 

Why Am I the One 

All Alone 

It Gets Better 

At Least I'm Not as Sad (As I Used to Be) 

Carry On 

The Gambler 

All the Pretty Girls 

Barlights 

We Are Young 

You Can’t Always Get What You Need (Rolling Stones cover) 

 Some Nights 

All Alright

my dinner, let me show you it

Sunday night, I volunteered to make a pasta dish for dinner (an old favourite I had up on the previous blog). But after binging on recipes on the internet that afternoon, I ended up making three courses. It was fun, but I think I overdid it and I've had a sore back since then.

Yes, I am a useless weakling. But a well-fed useless weakling.

Roasted garlic and pumpkin soup


recipe adapted from soup, soup glorious soup

1 kg butternut or Jap pumpkin, seeded and roughly chopped
2 garlic gloves, peeled, whole
1 large brown onion, peeled and quartered
4 cups vegetable stock or chicken stock
1/2 tsp grated nutmeg
1/2 cup cream
Salt and pepper
Parmesan cheese

1. Preheat oven to 200°C. Put pumpkin, garlic and onion in a roasting tray, drizzle with oil and roast 50 minutes to an hour, or until pumpkin is golden and cooked through.
2. Scoop pumpkin from skins. Add hot stock, 1 cup at a time, and blend until smooth.
3. Transfer to saucepan over medium heat. Add remaining stock, cream and nutmeg and cook until soup is heated through.
4. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve with bread (I sprinkled parmesan on mine and put it under the grill until it melted).

Smoked Salmon pasta


recipe

Lime soufflés


recipe adapted from Taste for Adventure

3 large limes
2 large egg, yolk and white separated
1/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoon all-purpose flour

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celcius. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. Trim the tip off each lime so the fruit sits flat. (I accidentally cut too deep, but I had so much trouble with the innards - see below - that this turned out not to be a problem.)
3. Slice off the top of each lime, making cut parallel with the bottom, for a little lid.
4. Place a fine sieve over a bowl. Using whatever implements you can make work (I struggled with a paring knife and a tea spoon - not recommended!), try to get as much of the pulp and juice out of the lime and into sieve, the reserve the juice in the bowl.

Aside: This part will likely drive you nuts and make your fingers all wrinkly - you're soaking them in acid for ages after all! At this point, I was seriously hoping this freaking dessert would be worth all the trouble.

5. Place hollowed-out lime shells on prepared baking sheet.
6. In a heat-proof bowl, whisk egg yolk, half the sugar, 1/4 cup lime juice and flour until pale yellow.
7. Place bowl over a pot of simmering water, whisking mixture constantly until thick and curd-like, about 7-8 minutes.

Second aside: Use a bowl that can sit in the pot without touching the water, and so steam doesn't rise up and burn your hand. Just a tip.

8. Remove from heat and whisk until cooled, scraping down sides of bowl. Set aside.
9. In a clean bowl, combine egg white and remaining sugar in bowl. Place the bowl over the pot of simmering water and stir quickly until sugar is dissolved and mixture is warm to the touch. Remove from heat and whisk until frothy. Gradually increase speed until mixture holds soft peaks. Be careful not to over-beat.
10. Whisk 1/3 of the egg-white mixture into the lime batter. Carefully and slowly fold in remaining mix, then carefully fill each lime cup with the mixture to just below the rim. I had enough to fill two 3/4 cup ramekins too, so I guess this recipe serves up to 6.
11. Bake lime cups for 12-15 minutes, until meringue is lightly golden and has risen about an inch above the rim. Remove from oven.
12. Take photos - I mean, serve immediately. (But seriously, I threw those babies onto the table and started snapping away madly because I needed to capture the success of making my first ever soufflé!)

Manchester Orchestra – 4 Mar 2012 – Hi Fi Sydney

Um, long time no see…I blame tumblr (and occasionally, life). Anyway, back with an old favourite, the gig write-up.

Manchester Orchestra (4 Mar 2012, Hi-Fi Sydney)

It was a wet night, the rain at one point so heavy that Al and I despaired of having to walk up to the Hi Fi (formerly the Forum). But rain had not stopped Manchester Orchestra from playing last night, though it had cancelled the festival they were originally coming out for, so I sucked it up as well and ended up with squelchy, gross shoes for the rest of the night (yeah yeah, first world problems, I will quit whining).*

But Manchester Orchestra were totally worth it.

The band were obviously happy to be here despite everything, and in fine form. Andy Hull was such a sweetheart, thanking the audience a fair few times for coming out, saying they hadn’t been expecting the obviously enthusiastic crowd - admittedly, the Hi-Fi appears to hold less than the Metro, but the room was well-packed last night. There were way more dudebros present than I’d expected (and TALL ones, at that), but it was a mostly pleasant crowd apart the obnoxious jerks who were trying to start a circle-pit centre front. There were plenty of sing-a-longs, for songs from all three albums, but the crowd was good at keeping a hushed, awed silence during the beautiful, quiet moments; all the better to listen to Andy’s fantastic voice.

And he was in such fine form, from the get go with that distinctive voice on show (and Simple Math) opener Deer. The whole band was great, really tight and giving the massive, monstrous songs their all. But mostly, I found myself thinking, at different times during the night, that Andy Hull really was both the master of the melodic scream (such as in the angrier, powerful songs like Everything to Nothing), and also of the most delicate heartbreak.

It wasn’t a show with a lot of banter (though Andy and Robert were funny and easy-going when they did speak), but it was a beautifully thought out set. There was a really great flow from one song to the next, whether it was the almost perfectly natural slides from one musical theme to a complementary one, or a thrilling jump from the soft and lulling to the shock of the loud and vice versa.



Highlights for me included the a monster-sounding My Friend Marcus early in the set, an utterly gorgeous near-solo performance from Andy of a summer demo (see video above), and then the entirely unexpected The River, followed by a stripped, slowed down version of The Only One that drew out the anticipatory build to the moment everything cut loose, followed by the sombre take of their cover of The Party’s Over – “Turn the lights out / All good things must come to an end” - to lead them off the stage for the first time.

They returned after a short break for an encore, starting with I Got Friends, “the only popular song we’ve had here” (which I’m sure is a LIE considering how well the crowd knew most of the songs), followed by a fun Now That You’re Home. There was some self-deprecatingly funny banter thrown in there too; Andy brushing back his sweaty almost-fro like hair and saying despairingly, “I hate my hair. That’s all I’ve been thinking about all night,” to which Robert tried to reassure him he looked like Dylan. “Bob DYLAN?” Andy answered disbelievingly. But to end the night, I’m glad they went with Where Have You Been, one of my favourites, and its haunting refrain lasted with me long after the show.



Deer
Pride
100 Dollars
April Fool
My Friend Marcus
Pensacola
Pale Black Eye
We Were Made Out of Lightening
Shake It Out
I Can Barely Breathe
Colly Strings
Simple Math
Everything to Nothing
The River
The Only One
The Party’s Over

I Got Friends
Now That You’re Home
Where Have You Been

* PS I just realised that the last time I saw them, I was also wet and damp and they were also totally worth it then too. :)

i made some foods

So I've been cooking my way steadily through a bunch of recipes this month and while almost all of them have been delicious (I have discovered that I'm not a big fan of polenta), I keep forgetting to take photos of them before I eat.

But I remembered this weekend! \o/


Pea risotto with salmon

1/2 onion, chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
150g arborio rice
50mL white wine
350mL low-salt chicken stock, hot
70g frozen peas
2 salmon fillets (about 400g)
1/2 lemon, juiced
1 tbsp cream

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius.

Fry onion in oil on high heat. Stir in the rice to coat in oil. Add the wine and stock and season (I added a little dash of chilli flakes at this point). Simmer until the rice is tender, about 20 minutes, stirring constantly.

Meanwhile, place salmon on a baking sheet and pour over the lemon juice. Season and roast 10-12 minutes until cooked through. (I also roasted some pumpkin tossed in honey at the same time).

Once the rice is tender, stir peas into the risotto with the cream. (I added 1/3 cup grated cheese too).

Serve salmon on a bed risotto. Makes enough for two.

**

This next one's not as pretty, but it did make for a satisfying dinner tonight while I watched young kids who could trounce me in cooking skills AND presentation on Junior Masterchef. :P


Chicken noodle soup

300mL low-salt chicken stock
1 tsp 5-spice powder
1 carrot, thinly sliced
1 nest of noodles
shredded, cooked children
beansprouts
1/2 tsp light soy sauce
1/2 tsp spicy sesame oil
lettuce, shredded

Bring chicken stock to boil with 5-spice powder and carrots. Lower heat to simmer and add noodles (I used udon). Cook until noodles are tender.

Stir in soy sauce and sesame oil. Add chicken (I had some chicken I'd roasted and frozen earlier in the week), beansprouts and lettuce.

Serves one.

Okkervil River - 18 Oct 2011 - The Metro

The last time I saw Okkervil River (in May 2009) I never wrote up the concert in detail, but this was my gobsmacked, joyful summary:

"Oh my god, Okkervil River. They were AMAZING and totally renewed my faith in the power of live music. Will Sheff had the audience completely enthralled with his musical storytelling, and the whole band was having fun and playing well - loose and a little rough, but really good, and passionate. <3333333"

It still sits in my personal pantheon of best live shows EVER. So while I was really really looking forward to the gig on Tuesday night, part of me was also worried that I would be disappointed because of my stratospheric expectations.

But I needn't have worried. They are still one of the most face-meltingly fantastic acts live. They dove straight into it with a rollicking Wake and Be Fine from their latest album I Am Very Far, and then just barrelled through one high-octane, wonderful song after another, the energy levels lowering for just a few quieter moments here and there, like on the lovely A Girl in Port.


A Girl in Port

While last time what I came away with was an awe at the intimate, intense experience at the Annandale with more broody songs like A Stone and Another Radio Song, this time around I was struck by the energy and joy emanating from the stage. Hearing Okkervil songs live is a revelation; it's not about hearing a note-perfect copy but the the music coursing through your body, thrumming with energy and emotion.

I loved hearing every song on the set list, though particular surprises and highlights were Piratess came across like a torch song, more haunting in person with Will Sheff's mournful voice; and the one-two-three punch of Your Past Life as a Blast, Our Life is not a Movie or Maybe and Lost Coastlines where each song ended on such a terrific burst of energy that I thought surely, they're done for the night, and prepared myself for their exit - and then they'd throw themselves into the next song with glee.


Lost Coastlines

For every song they played I could think of another I wanted to hear played, but still I walked out humming their songs, grinning from ear to ear, madly proselytising about Okkervil's supremacy as a band to treasure.


Wake and Be Fine
For Real
Rider
Black
Piratess
A Girl in Port
Son of Our So-Called Friend
We Need a Myth
The Valley
No Key No Plan (Will Scheff, Richard Pestorius)
So Come Back I Am Waiting
John Allyn Smith Sails
Your Past Life as a Blast (mp3 from last.fm)
Our Life is not a Movie or Maybe
Lost Coastlines

The Rise
Westfall
Unless It's Kicks