Happy Australia Day!

Well, today is Australia Day – and my first one, at that! I've got to give props to my adopted country; everybody has been incredibly warm and inviting for the first four months of my stay. True, the paperwork hasn't gone through all the channels yet, but patience, I'm told, is a virtue. But still – I'm really enjoying it here, and I have been made to feel at home.


That being said, I'd like to showcase some music from the 1986 Richard Lowenstein film Dogs In Space. Set in Richmond, Victoria (an outer suburb of Melbourne), this examination of the 1978 Melbourne punk scene – starring Michael Hutchence of INXS in his first leading role – doesn't, unfortunately, hold much water in the story-telling department. Chockfull of wooden performances, stilted dialogue, and a whole lot of nothing happening throughout its 103 minutes. BUT – and this is a huge 'but' – the music! My gosh, the music gracing the soundtrack, put together by Lowenstein and Ollie Olsen (who was part of the scene back in those days; a member of the post-punk band Whirlywind), is pretty much playing nonstop; so it more than makes up for Hutchence's "acting" (which pretty much amounts to rolling around on the floor in a heroin stupor 75% of the time, all the while "speaking" in hardly anything but barks and grunts). Hutchence: brilliant singer, crap actor. But I digress.

Featuring pulse-quickening tracks by late-'70s acts such as Iggy Pop, Thrush and the Cunts, Primitive Calculators, Ollie Olsen, Gang of Four, Brian Eno, and Boys Next Door (Nick Cave's band before it transmogrified into The Birthday Party), the soundtrack to Dogs In Space is fucking fantastic. And if one is interested in knowing more about the scene personified in the film, one can check out an ABC 1 documentary entitled We're Living On Dog Food, which takes its name from the Iggy Pop track that opens Dogs In Space. So without any further ado, here are some of my favourite tracks from this well-meaning film. 

First up is "Win/Lose" from Ollie Olsen. I love the bit in the film where he sings it in the main house's living room, backed up only by a tape machine!

Here is "Pumping Ugly Muscle" by Fitzroy-based Primitive Calculators. Some brilliant anger going on in this track, with a lot of cathartic screaming and wailing!

What can one say about a band called Thrush and the Cunts? Great hooks, interesting name. Here is their seminal track from the so-called "little band scene", "Diseases." 

Here's "Shivers" by Boys Next Door, which would then become The Birthday Party. Goddamn, look how young Nick Cave is! And dammit, he makes this song fucking ache.

During the closing moments of the film, where Michael Hutchence's character's girlfriend has been buried (she died of a heroin overdose), we're treated to "Rooms For The Memory," a track written and performed by Ollie Olsen, and sung by Hutchence. This collaboration would result in a short-lived side-project called Max Q – which almost broke up INXS, seeing as Hutchence did the recording behind his band's back.

And last but not least, here's "Endless Sea" by Iggy Pop. Now, I know he's not Australian. However, that being said, this song – which plays in the background while Saskia Post's character has her fatal overdose – so completely works in the movie, I just had to include it. And there you go, as I leave you with Iggy. Have a fantastic Australia Day, people.

Tron Legacy Light Show.

From the good folk at io9: 


This is some crazy, awesome shit. For most of late November and early December, the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in London, England was used as the canvas for a projected Tron: Legacy light show featuring the soundtrack from Daft Punk and sound effects from the film. Behold! Here's the 9 1/2-minute video of the proceedings! Man oh man, this kicks some serious ass. I remember seeing the original Tron in theatres when I was a young lad; in fact, that was one of those movies (E.T., Empire Strikes Back, and Predator are others that come to mind) that I went and saw, over and over and over again. I, for one, am frothing at the mouth to see this bugger -- I really hope it's as awe-inspiring to me as an adult as the original was when I was a child. Go, Tron Legacy! And go, Daft Punk! You guys were born to provide this soundtrack.


I recommend putting in headphones, or turning up your volume to full-blast. This is epic.

HP ePrint & TRON: Legacy projection mapping - complete animation from Guided Collective on Vimeo.

Video Disturbeo: Marilyn Manson.

Running through the annals of popular culture and the storied history of pop music itself, the yearning to shock the public's sensibilities has always been a constant in the course of entertainment. From KISS and their demonic costumes, Alice Cooper with his snakes and scimitars, Jimmy Page and his studious transliterations of the writing of Aleister Crowley, Ozzy Osbourne's pigeon/bat feasts, and John Lennon's blasé dismissal of Jesus' popularity to GWAR's epically nasty (and fucking disgusting - in a good way) stage massacres, Revolting Cocks' own name, Nivek Ogre of Skinny Puppy's self-mutilation, and Judas Priest's S&M-inspired frenzies of metal mayhem, there has always been something out there somewhere to shock just about anybody. Heaven knows people can be easily offended; and sometimes offensiveness is just what the doctor ordered when it comes to moving copies of albums off those record shelves. (Or getting kids to clickety-click on the "Buy" button on iTunes.)


So it came as no surprise that, at the end of the 20th century, the bogeyman du jour for middle-American parents was none other than Brian Hugh Warner from Columbus, Ohio -- better known to the world at large as Marilyn Manson. A card-carrying member of the Church of Satan who had supped personally with that church's leader Anton La Vey in his San Francisco home; a provocateur of the highest order with that vaguely disturbing coloured contact lens and the androgynous costumes; an estimable member of the late 90's shock-rock community with blaring guitars and bludgeoning lyrics revolving around violence, drugs, mayhem, and - yes - Satan; and a shameless self-promoter whose often conflicting statements about his "message" in interviews confused many; Marilyn Manson represented many aspects of popular culture to many different people. But on the 20th of April, 1999, when Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris went on a shooting spree at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, Marilyn Manson was ridiculously blamed somehow for the carnage and sadly, his career took a hit.


I've never been a huge fan of his music, truth be told. I usually found his music to be on the puerile side of things -- I didn't think his works represented any kind of shock, per se. More like schlock than anything else. I personally found Portrait of an American Family to be a quite irritating record -- grating, masturbatorial nonsense. Antichrist Superstar fared better in my opinion, but I felt it was outweighed by an almost impenetrable barrage of speed metal. But when Manson and his merry band of mates put out 1998's Mechanical Animals, something snapped in me. Here at last was an intelligent, well-thought out, thematic, aggressive, and entertaining piece of work that still, almost thirteen years later, stands up on its own as a brilliant record. From the squelching drone of "Dope Show," to the hyperdriven manic energy of "Posthuman," to the flat-out rocking "Don't Like The Drugs (But The Drugs Like Me)" -- this is very listenable stuff, and I can't recommend it enough.


Today's Video Disturbeo is not taken from the album, but it was recorded in the same year for the soundtrack to David Lynch's time-puzzle of a film Lost Highway. (In fact, Marilyn Manson had a bit role in the film as "Porn Star #1). The song I'd like to showcase today is called "Apple of Sodom," and it ranks right up there with my favorites. Disturbing vocal distortions, an incredibly menacing synth, and the phrase "I'm dying - I hope you're dying too" make this track a suitable addition for our Halloween playlist here at Second Drawer Up HQ. Enjoy!

marilyn manson

"apple of sodom"

lost highway soundtrack