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QC Music Blog discussion thread

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Inlander:
As per conversation in this thread.

This is the thread for making any comments you wish to make about anything you read on the music blog! Don't feel you have to post in this thread just because it's here. But if you have something you really really want to say, don't be shy!

Also, I guess this thread could be used to let everyone know when a new article is put up on the music blog. For instance, I've finally got around to posting part 2 of the Dirty Three retrospective. It has pictures! The pictures distract from all the words! (Because there are a lot of words.)

So let me start "discussion" by saying: Hey, Kieffer, if you like the Lucksmiths you really owe it to yourself to check out Darren Hanlon.

Jackie Blue:
The signal to noise ratio of that Dirty Three article is not good.

Too many words without actually saying much.

I'm not sure I properly understand the function of the music blog, though, so maybe it's perfect.

As for the actual opinions expressed in it, I disagree that Ocean Songs is anything more than a mediocre album.  "Authentic Celestial Music" is the only song on it that I ever listen to.  All their other albums are amazing, particularly Whatever You Love... and She Has No Strings Apollo for technical execution and the debut and Horse Stories for rocking the fuck out.

Why didn't you mention that the central theme and title inspiration of Horse Stories was heroin usage?

Inlander:
To be honest I'm not entirely satisfied with the latest installment in Dirty Three piece, in part for reasons I alluded to at the end. But I've been promising it for weeks now so I felt compelled to put it up. It's the best I can do at the moment. Apart from time constraints, part of the problem is that in my opinion Horse Stories, Ocean Songs, and Whatever You Love, You Are are all incredible albums, and there's only so many ways you can say "Holy shit, this album's great!" before it gets repetitive. So I settled for the approach of a straight-up run-through of each album, highlighting particular strengths, while indicating the growth in the band's music between each album. The article will perhaps work best if read in installments, as three separate album reviews, rather than as a continuous piece.

I didn't mention the heroin thing because honestly, that's the first I've heard of it. However I don't find it to be particularly interesting: I don't really like music writing (or writing about any kind of art, for that matter) that dwells upon that kind of "insider knowledge". Utlimately, and especially for a band like the Dirty Three, the music is the thing. If I need to know some piece of arcane knowledge to fully appreciate it then it's not going to hold my attention for very long. If the band is doing a good enough job of their music-making then I as a listener won't need to know the specifics in order to appreciate the generalities (i.e., the latent emotion within the music, which shines through on Horse Stories).

The third and final part of the Dirty Three retrospective will cover She Has No Strings Apollo and Cinder (as well as a brief look at the Live at Meredith album). I think there are several of interesting things to comment on in this part of the band's career: it's a kind of post-glory and then rebuilding phase and shows the band very clearly trying to figure out the way forwards for their music. The idea of how such a high-quality band goes about following up such a stunningly good run of albums is very interesting to me, and the ways in which they occasionally fail in their attempts to do so, are very interesting to me.

Ishotdanieljohnston:
i thought your first dirty three installment was really interesting. I think this is because it came very strongly from the perspective of discovering them in Melbourne in the 90's. For me they are such a Melbourne band- even though they have now extended themselves all over the world. As I walk through the streets of the city they are such a perfect accompianment to it's environment.

I haven't gotten all the way through the second one though I'm finding it a tad tedious, which is dissappointing because I was looking forward to it.

I understand where you're coming from though, when you are so passionate about an album or band it can be really hard to express objectively why they are great.

Inlander:
Actually I discovered them in Canberra!

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