Breeding Pixie Stories (an old man remembers)

The Pixies: Where is My Mind (1988)

In 1989 a friend came back from Sydney with a bag full of records. That summer we absorbed them. Meditating on every note. One of those albums that continues (now a CD), almost twenty years later, to be played at my place is The Pixies' Surfer Rosa.
The thing was that we were in this hick town in the hickest state of Australia (Queensland) and we had no idea who The Pixies actually were. The records arrived with our good friend returning from a mission to the big city 1000kms away (older siblings having already escaped the town we lived in) and like some cargo cult we worshiped these records as divine. It was Mudhoney, Butthole Surfers, Green River, Jane's Addiction (plus more) and as mentioned, The Pixies. I remember we decided that The Pixies were Spanish, as they sang in Spanish (well, we thought it was Spanish, we had not heard too much on the Darling Downs). They also seemed a bit deranged (this was Surfer Rosa's producer Steve Albini's fault I think).
I was just thinking about The Pixies today. How we did not know that they were huge in the world outside our town (nobody else seemed to be listening to The Pixies where we lived). We made up stories about other bands we were into as well, to compensate for the total lack of information we had beyond the amazing records we were listening to (this was pre-Internet kids). It was a magic time.
And now we have the Internet. Here is an entire concert by The Breeders (Mp3s) from a few days ago in Boston, featuring Kim Deal, who after seeing Frank Black (also a Pixie) play a long time ago solo (BORING!!) I now believe was the brains behind The Pixies.

An old man remembers.......noise arts

Now for a little walk down memory lane...careful, it is a dark and twisty lane......The sound art/performance/noise scene in Sydney, Australia between when I moved there in 1992 and when I basically left in 1996 was fantastic. So many places to perform and see others make their art. Today ten years later I find stuff on the net about Lucas (who performs these days as Justice Yeldham And The Dynamic Ribbon Device), Jasmine Gufford, Phoebee Jeebee (the band Seven Golden Vampires was one of the best) and the now becoming quite famous Oren (who with Robbie and the truly Artaudian Nik blew our minds with Phlegm). Plus there is the group with which I still have close contacts, many of which were lurking down the side streets of Newtown in 1993.

From this time "before everyone on stage was a careerist" (to quote Dr Jim Glaspole) there are also available many Mp3 for download, some not so old and some harking back to a time when rents were cheap and noise was for all:

Dr Jim's Mp3s
Dr Jim's Records closed down in 2006. Although based in Melbourne they worked with many experimental sound people from Sydney as well. I spent time with the Dr Jim crew when I accompanied Phlegm and the Mu Mesons on a tour of Melbourne in 1994.

The Mu Mesons
Under the shaky guidance of Jaimie Leonarder (the same SBS movie critic and founder of the Mu Mesons Archive) the mu mesons gave the world something that is difficult to describe really. Part free form sound installation, part punk rock concert, part art brut event.....they changed my life as I saw them perform maybe 10 times over my years in Sydney.

Dual Plover
Started in 1995 by many of the artists involved in the first What is Music? festival in 1994. Dual Plover offer a selection of Mp3 sounds from 12 years of audio salvation as well as video evidence.

Hallo Excentrico
A web music label that does not seem to sell anything but rather gives it all away.
A huge selection of experimental sound and noise music including a whole CD by Justice Yeldham And The Dynamic Ribbon Device (Lucas).

Spill
Among the many gems here is a live Volvox set. I witnessed Volvox in 1994 in Melbourne and it was like giving you mind a bath.

The Spirit of Giving

To keep the gift economy going beyond the hype of christmas I list some great free things online at the moment:

Instal Live
Download muic and stream vidoes from October's Instal festival in Glasgow. Musicians may be new to many people but if you are intersted in hearing interesting music click to.

NPR (National Public Radio) Live Concert Archive
A little bit more mainstream than the Instal stuff. A broad selection of full length concerts including music from the dearly departed James Brown.....

EngageMedia
Whilst not the same as the music downloads, in that it breeches serious and often painful topics, the free videos from engage media may expand your world view a little:
"EngageMedia is a website for video about social justice and environmental issues in
Australia, Southeast Asia and the Pacific."

UBUWEB
The mighty UBUWEB continues to define excellence in online archives. A few weeks ago, in the depths of a short cold spell (winter this year is very "mild" as the TV news keeps saying) I watched a video of Terry Riley milking a goat on his farm in 1975 as he spoke about his music and teachers. The sunny meadow and Terry's calm way about things was like a journey for me. Two nights ago I stayed up late watching Peter Whitehead's film Wholly Communion: A Few Poets Trying to Be Natural from 1965. I witnessed something of the beautiful chaos of the Albert Hall poetry reading featuring Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Harry Fainlight, Adrian Mitchell, Michael Horovitz, Ernst Jaridl, Christopher Logue, John Esam, Pete Brown, Anselm Hollo, George Macbeth, Simon Vinkenoog, Paulo Leonni, Daniel Richter, Spike Hawkins, and Tom McGrath, as well as the playing of tapes of, and by, William Burroughs. I wonder where the women poets were that night??

onliness 1.0 onliness v1.0.1 is an beat-based exposition of 4 years in
The Life of demon doc in NYC. The entire album is
available for free download, no questions asked.

Famous for 15mb
A lot of Mp3s for download by people you may have never heard of but are often very pleasing to the ears. Tracks are uploaded and removed all the time so check back often.

Internet Archive
Even if you lived to be 300 years old you would not have time for all the interesting stuff on the Internet Archive. Overwhelming!