Sunday, January 10, 2010
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Animal Shapes
I've let this blog slide!
Finished the first day of Animal Shapes film clip filming underslept and slightly hungover. Unfit men in lycra = hot!!
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
3 Lectures by Daniel Dennett
I've just posted the first video (of 12) of each of the 3 lectures. The last one has a post-lecture commentary by Steven Pinker!
BATTLES IN THE BRAIN
MY BODY HAS A MIND OF ITS OWN
HOW BRAINS BECOME MINDS
BATTLES IN THE BRAIN
MY BODY HAS A MIND OF ITS OWN
HOW BRAINS BECOME MINDS
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Monday, June 15, 2009
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Ricky Gervais on Animal Rights
If only he would ask the same questions about his unnecessary meat consumption! Oh well.
Here's a link to the rest of the videos.
Here's a link to the rest of the videos.
Dirty tricks and ad hominems: The disturbing willingness to confuse the fact of evolution with the fear of racism.
To all my wonderful friends in Adelaide: I was motivated to write this after spending the past weekend in your city, and after having heard a number of slightly weird comments made by various Adelaideans. I feel the need to respond to them. They have something in common that needs to be quickly put out of its misery, and then the comments themselves can be doubly dispatched.
THE CLAIMS
The aforementioned comments variously expressed four basic ideas:
1. Charles Darwin possessed dubious judgement and/or dubious moral values.
2. Charles Darwin was a racist, and furthermore:
3. The theory of evolution is intrinsically racist or will motivate racist attitudes.
4. Hitler’s genocidal eugenics was motivated by his “Darwinism”.
AD HOMINEMS
While all of these premises have both factual and conceptual problems, I think the spirit in which they are uttered is more problematic still. Invariably, the implication is being made that if these premises were true, then this would have something to say about the veracity of evolution or natural selection (or what is sometimes strangely called “Darwinism”). The first two premises are straightforward ad hominems, aiming to undermine an argument by attacking the arguer. This is a blatant and well-known logical error. If either of them turned out to be true, this would have no bearing on the truth or falsity of Darwin’s theories.
AD HOMINEMS AND RELIGIOUS INFALLIBILITY
One of the reasons this kind of argument is so compelling to some people is that they have misapplied the specifically religious requirement of infallibility to scientific ideas. If it turned out that the word of a god was fallible or immoral, this would undermine the notion that the god is omniscient or benevolent, respectively. Or perhaps it might imply that the sacred text is man-made, not god-made. However, this has no bearing on matters of falsifiable theory and on science in general. This mistake can be seen in the way people sometimes refer to evolution, natural selection, and the neo-Darwinian synthesis interchangeably as “Darwinism”, as if it were an ideological dogma of person-worship, not unlike the religion with which they are familiar. Some may subscribe to the apotheosis of Darwin, but the fact of the matter is: Even if Darwin never existed, it is enough that someone, somewhere thought of the theory of natural selection. It is this theory which is important, because it elegantly describes masses of data, and makes testable predictions – none of which has led to the rejection of the theory. So, whether Darwin was a good man, or a bad man, should be of no consequence to anyone but a historian or a biographer. In contrast, it is clearly of great importance to every Christian whether Jesus was a good man or a bad man, or whether god is just.
THE REIFICATION OF WISHFUL-THINKING
The last two claims concern whether evolution justifies, or leads to racism. The first thing to say about this is that, as in the case of ad hominems, if it were the case that evolution or natural selection in some way justified or motivated racism, this again would have no bearing whatsoever on whether they were true or not. One reason this might seem relevant to the veracity of a theory is that, in the case of religious belief, a preferred outcome is often reified as a true proposition. This is one of the features of religious belief that I find hardest to understand: How does someone make the Freudian switch from not wanting to die, to actually believing they will survive their own death? Or from thinking atheism is immoral, to thinking it is untrue? Needless to say, an unfavourable outcome is not incompatible with truth. However, I fail to imagine any possible implication of evolution justifying the cruel treatment of another human or non-human animal. It is just as well that modern evolutionary theory does a great deal to undermine almost any racist assertion. I will address this below, in my criticism of the factual and conceptual underpinnings of the claims.
DARWIN WAS A BAD, BAD MAN
Although it has no bearing on whether natural selection is true or not, the claim that Darwin possessed dubious judgement or morals should nonetheless be scrutinised. It has been claimed a) that Darwin married his first cousin and his children were “retards” and b) that Darwin was racist.
Indeed, just like Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Darwin married his first cousin. This was actually not unusual for the time in which he lived. Applying the standard of our modern understanding of such things is misguided, as this information was not widely appraised in Darwin’s time. Ironically, the problems themselves would come to be further elucidated by post-Darwinian biology. Even so, they were more within the purview of Mendelian genetics, which was only combined with Darwin’s natural selection in the 20th Century’s neo-Darwinian synthesis. Further, as the morality of the time condoned such relationships, it seems dubious to impugn Darwin’s moral or rational judgement.
As for Darwin and racism, it is widely known that Darwin was hugely progressive for his time, being opposed to both slavery and the subordination of women –commonplace institutions in the 19th Century. Some of this confusion probably stems from the fact that the full title of Origin of Species is “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life”. The confusion only exists because people read the book’s title only, and fail to realise that the word ‘races’ had a different meaning at the time. Darwin, and indeed any contemporaneous naturalist, routinely used the word ‘race’ to refer to any class that required differentiation. As such, ‘favoured races’ just meant those species or groups that happen to survive, which is the crux of the theory of natural selection. It is only in modern times that this once polysemic word has developed a more specific and dysphemistic use.
Again it must be emphasised that however we view Darwin’s character, this says nothing of his theories. Edgar Allan Poe married his (13-year-old!) first cousin and this has no bearing on his works. By all accounts, Sir Isaac Newton was quite a disagreeable bastard, and yet Newtonian physics sinks or swims based on scientific observation, not the strength of Newton’s character. This is not revelation. These are not prophets. These are men who had good ideas. All ideas should be robustly attacked or defended without the slightest consideration given to the people who hold them, or to those whose heads were first struck with the apple.
THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION IS RACIST!
Remember the problem of reification: Wishful-thinking is not the same thing as truth-finding! Even though the theory of evolution is as supported by evidence as the theory of gravitation, or the heliocentric model (also resisted by the religious), it seems people are willing to deny it based on what they see as its moral implications. This is an obvious non-sequitur, and it also seems to motivate those non-religious academics who resist evolutionary psychology on the grounds that it has unpleasant results. The claim of Darwin’s own putative racism has already been assessed, but there is a more general claim that the whole idea of evolution is racist.
This could have something to do with a racist idea popular during the days of British expansionism, namely that the natives of Africa and of the new world were less “evolved” than whites. When the morphological similarities of humans and other apes first led people to think of them as our close relatives (a view pre-dating Darwin), the earlier racist idea came to include the idea of black Africans as a kind of ‘missing link’, closer to apehood than whites. It should be clear that this archaic view was based on no evidence whatsoever, and has been completely refuted. Not only that, modern evolutionary biology indicates that almost the complete opposite is true, and I will come to this later.
IMPERIAL RACISM AND THE X-MEN
It should be pointed out that this racist view towards Africans harboured a misinterpretation of evolution that is still widespread today; a premise assumed, for example, in the X-Men comics, and the television show Heroes. This is the idea that evolution is teleological – that it is a guided process somehow constantly aiming at improving species. This is not the case. Although some species, such as humans, have experienced what seems like gradual improvement, especially with regards to brain-power, many species have remained completely static for billions of years (bacteria), or have lost certain abilities or features over time (colour-vision in most mammals, vision itself in the naked mole rat, etc.). The fact is that whatever variations lead to increased progeny will persist and thrive, even if this leads to the loss of some feature no longer necessary for survival. So when the British colonists called the Africans “less evolved”, they were buying into this mistake. Nothing is less evolved than anything else.
THE GENETIC DIVERSITY OF AFRICANS, THE GENETIC UNIFORMITY OF THE REST OF US
In fact, if anything, modern evolutionary theory confines racism even more to the shadows of ignorance and propaganda.
Firstly, there is the genetic diversity of Africans. Remarkably, Charles Darwin was the first to predict that Homo sapiens originated in Africa. He made the prediction after noticing the close cousinship of humans to the rest of the apes, and realising that most apes were to be found there. Fossil evidence and molecular genetics have since confirmed Darwin’s prescience, with further implications borne out by genetic studies. Black Africans are the most genetically diverse people in the world. So much so, that if you had to choose a thousand people to survive human extinction based on genetic diversity alone, that thousand would consist completely of black Africans. Because humans originated in Africa, this means that people living on that continent have been evolving and diverging for longer than anyone else on the planet. This means that, if anything, black Africans are more different to other apes than any other human group, the complete opposite of the colonial assumption. What’s more, while native Africans are descended from a variety of human tribes, the rest of the planet was populated by the descendents of only one tribe, which left Africa around 70, 000 years ago.
So, black Africans are more genetically diverse than the rest of us. But humanity as a group is actually one of the most genetically uniform species ever studied. It has been predicted that human populations hovered at around 2000 members when confined to the African continent. Given the fact that 70, 000 years is an insufficient amount of time for any significant evolutionary change to take place, this means that all the noticeable ethnic differences between humans are completely superficial. At a genetic level, there is more variation between individuals within the same ethnic group, than between ethnic groups. Modern genetics has made biological racism impossible.
WHY IT WOULDN’T HAVE MATTERED ANYWAY
Briefly, it is important to stress that even if biology hadn’t uncovered the universal uniformity of humanity, racist policy could never have been justified on any biological difference found. It is just plainly irrational to base treatment of a given individual on the statistics of the group. The inevitable overlap in ability would always necessitate caution in regards to stereotypic expectations. A further point to be made is that if significant racial differences in, say, IQ were actually discovered, they could not be wished away or denied based on their possible racist consequences. It would just be true, whether you liked it or not. Luckily, genetics has already made such discoveries massively improbable.
DARWIN MADE HITLER DO IT!
This final premise belongs to the great repertoire of theological propaganda. The idea is that Hitler’s genocidal eugenics was based on Darwinism. We’ve already seen that any attempt to ground racist or eugenic ideas in biology is unsupported by the evidence, revealing them as pseudo-intellectual Trojan horses for ideological interests. Nevertheless, the Hitler story is more deeply flawed that just this.
Hitler (a Roman Catholic) never mentions Darwin once in Mein Kampf. This is because his racist ideas had nothing to do with Darwin’s theories. Hitler’s eugenics stemmed from the well-understood process of animal breeding, something that was knowingly practiced on dogs and pigeons hundreds of years before Darwin. Darwin’s idea of natural selection consisted in applying the ancient principle of breeding to the mindless competition of nature. His insight was that the same thing could happen in the absence of human guidance. Hitler, on the other hand, merely applied this old technique simplistically to human beings, attempting to selectively breed a master race and murder those he viewed as inferior. The only reason people confound these two extremely different applications of breeding is because of the effectiveness of propaganda on those whose agenda it supports. Any dirty trick will be deployed by the dogmatic if something doesn’t sit well with their dogma, even if the claims are untrue and desperately beside the point.
SO...
Ad hominem pseudo-arguments and irrelevant propaganda sprout ceaselessly from a hopelessly illogical and unstable worldview. If something supports your most dearly held beliefs, this is even more reason to question its veracity and logical relevance. This is because we think with brains that evolved a bag of heuristic tricks, adapted to specific ancestral circumstances. We are fallible and susceptible to confirmation bias. The fact that theological interests seem bent on perpetuating fatuous lies and misguided distractions should give you pause. To those good friends in Adelaide and elsewhere: You don’t have to put up with this. Have an open mind and do some reading (and not just the one book). I may not understand why you believe such implausible things, and why you are so obstinately incurious about these most important of questions; but a good grasp of science, and of critical thinking in general, might help you avoid being suckered in by some of it at least. Darwin was not a prophet. It doesn’t matter what he was like. It doesn’t matter whether his ideas were abused to justify Social Darwinism or whether racists are apt to throw his name around. Evolution by natural selection is the thread that connects and makes sense of everything we know about the biological world. It makes powerful predictions that are still informing medicine, psychology, and computer science. It is something we can know and test. It doesn’t tell us we have the answer already, or confine us to infinite regress, or posit some unexplained complex intelligence. And it doesn’t rely on accepting a barbaric Iron Age text on faith alone.
THE CLAIMS
The aforementioned comments variously expressed four basic ideas:
1. Charles Darwin possessed dubious judgement and/or dubious moral values.
2. Charles Darwin was a racist, and furthermore:
3. The theory of evolution is intrinsically racist or will motivate racist attitudes.
4. Hitler’s genocidal eugenics was motivated by his “Darwinism”.
AD HOMINEMS
While all of these premises have both factual and conceptual problems, I think the spirit in which they are uttered is more problematic still. Invariably, the implication is being made that if these premises were true, then this would have something to say about the veracity of evolution or natural selection (or what is sometimes strangely called “Darwinism”). The first two premises are straightforward ad hominems, aiming to undermine an argument by attacking the arguer. This is a blatant and well-known logical error. If either of them turned out to be true, this would have no bearing on the truth or falsity of Darwin’s theories.
AD HOMINEMS AND RELIGIOUS INFALLIBILITY
One of the reasons this kind of argument is so compelling to some people is that they have misapplied the specifically religious requirement of infallibility to scientific ideas. If it turned out that the word of a god was fallible or immoral, this would undermine the notion that the god is omniscient or benevolent, respectively. Or perhaps it might imply that the sacred text is man-made, not god-made. However, this has no bearing on matters of falsifiable theory and on science in general. This mistake can be seen in the way people sometimes refer to evolution, natural selection, and the neo-Darwinian synthesis interchangeably as “Darwinism”, as if it were an ideological dogma of person-worship, not unlike the religion with which they are familiar. Some may subscribe to the apotheosis of Darwin, but the fact of the matter is: Even if Darwin never existed, it is enough that someone, somewhere thought of the theory of natural selection. It is this theory which is important, because it elegantly describes masses of data, and makes testable predictions – none of which has led to the rejection of the theory. So, whether Darwin was a good man, or a bad man, should be of no consequence to anyone but a historian or a biographer. In contrast, it is clearly of great importance to every Christian whether Jesus was a good man or a bad man, or whether god is just.
THE REIFICATION OF WISHFUL-THINKING
The last two claims concern whether evolution justifies, or leads to racism. The first thing to say about this is that, as in the case of ad hominems, if it were the case that evolution or natural selection in some way justified or motivated racism, this again would have no bearing whatsoever on whether they were true or not. One reason this might seem relevant to the veracity of a theory is that, in the case of religious belief, a preferred outcome is often reified as a true proposition. This is one of the features of religious belief that I find hardest to understand: How does someone make the Freudian switch from not wanting to die, to actually believing they will survive their own death? Or from thinking atheism is immoral, to thinking it is untrue? Needless to say, an unfavourable outcome is not incompatible with truth. However, I fail to imagine any possible implication of evolution justifying the cruel treatment of another human or non-human animal. It is just as well that modern evolutionary theory does a great deal to undermine almost any racist assertion. I will address this below, in my criticism of the factual and conceptual underpinnings of the claims.
DARWIN WAS A BAD, BAD MAN
Although it has no bearing on whether natural selection is true or not, the claim that Darwin possessed dubious judgement or morals should nonetheless be scrutinised. It has been claimed a) that Darwin married his first cousin and his children were “retards” and b) that Darwin was racist.
Indeed, just like Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Darwin married his first cousin. This was actually not unusual for the time in which he lived. Applying the standard of our modern understanding of such things is misguided, as this information was not widely appraised in Darwin’s time. Ironically, the problems themselves would come to be further elucidated by post-Darwinian biology. Even so, they were more within the purview of Mendelian genetics, which was only combined with Darwin’s natural selection in the 20th Century’s neo-Darwinian synthesis. Further, as the morality of the time condoned such relationships, it seems dubious to impugn Darwin’s moral or rational judgement.
As for Darwin and racism, it is widely known that Darwin was hugely progressive for his time, being opposed to both slavery and the subordination of women –commonplace institutions in the 19th Century. Some of this confusion probably stems from the fact that the full title of Origin of Species is “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life”. The confusion only exists because people read the book’s title only, and fail to realise that the word ‘races’ had a different meaning at the time. Darwin, and indeed any contemporaneous naturalist, routinely used the word ‘race’ to refer to any class that required differentiation. As such, ‘favoured races’ just meant those species or groups that happen to survive, which is the crux of the theory of natural selection. It is only in modern times that this once polysemic word has developed a more specific and dysphemistic use.
Again it must be emphasised that however we view Darwin’s character, this says nothing of his theories. Edgar Allan Poe married his (13-year-old!) first cousin and this has no bearing on his works. By all accounts, Sir Isaac Newton was quite a disagreeable bastard, and yet Newtonian physics sinks or swims based on scientific observation, not the strength of Newton’s character. This is not revelation. These are not prophets. These are men who had good ideas. All ideas should be robustly attacked or defended without the slightest consideration given to the people who hold them, or to those whose heads were first struck with the apple.
THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION IS RACIST!
Remember the problem of reification: Wishful-thinking is not the same thing as truth-finding! Even though the theory of evolution is as supported by evidence as the theory of gravitation, or the heliocentric model (also resisted by the religious), it seems people are willing to deny it based on what they see as its moral implications. This is an obvious non-sequitur, and it also seems to motivate those non-religious academics who resist evolutionary psychology on the grounds that it has unpleasant results. The claim of Darwin’s own putative racism has already been assessed, but there is a more general claim that the whole idea of evolution is racist.
This could have something to do with a racist idea popular during the days of British expansionism, namely that the natives of Africa and of the new world were less “evolved” than whites. When the morphological similarities of humans and other apes first led people to think of them as our close relatives (a view pre-dating Darwin), the earlier racist idea came to include the idea of black Africans as a kind of ‘missing link’, closer to apehood than whites. It should be clear that this archaic view was based on no evidence whatsoever, and has been completely refuted. Not only that, modern evolutionary biology indicates that almost the complete opposite is true, and I will come to this later.
IMPERIAL RACISM AND THE X-MEN
It should be pointed out that this racist view towards Africans harboured a misinterpretation of evolution that is still widespread today; a premise assumed, for example, in the X-Men comics, and the television show Heroes. This is the idea that evolution is teleological – that it is a guided process somehow constantly aiming at improving species. This is not the case. Although some species, such as humans, have experienced what seems like gradual improvement, especially with regards to brain-power, many species have remained completely static for billions of years (bacteria), or have lost certain abilities or features over time (colour-vision in most mammals, vision itself in the naked mole rat, etc.). The fact is that whatever variations lead to increased progeny will persist and thrive, even if this leads to the loss of some feature no longer necessary for survival. So when the British colonists called the Africans “less evolved”, they were buying into this mistake. Nothing is less evolved than anything else.
THE GENETIC DIVERSITY OF AFRICANS, THE GENETIC UNIFORMITY OF THE REST OF US
In fact, if anything, modern evolutionary theory confines racism even more to the shadows of ignorance and propaganda.
Firstly, there is the genetic diversity of Africans. Remarkably, Charles Darwin was the first to predict that Homo sapiens originated in Africa. He made the prediction after noticing the close cousinship of humans to the rest of the apes, and realising that most apes were to be found there. Fossil evidence and molecular genetics have since confirmed Darwin’s prescience, with further implications borne out by genetic studies. Black Africans are the most genetically diverse people in the world. So much so, that if you had to choose a thousand people to survive human extinction based on genetic diversity alone, that thousand would consist completely of black Africans. Because humans originated in Africa, this means that people living on that continent have been evolving and diverging for longer than anyone else on the planet. This means that, if anything, black Africans are more different to other apes than any other human group, the complete opposite of the colonial assumption. What’s more, while native Africans are descended from a variety of human tribes, the rest of the planet was populated by the descendents of only one tribe, which left Africa around 70, 000 years ago.
So, black Africans are more genetically diverse than the rest of us. But humanity as a group is actually one of the most genetically uniform species ever studied. It has been predicted that human populations hovered at around 2000 members when confined to the African continent. Given the fact that 70, 000 years is an insufficient amount of time for any significant evolutionary change to take place, this means that all the noticeable ethnic differences between humans are completely superficial. At a genetic level, there is more variation between individuals within the same ethnic group, than between ethnic groups. Modern genetics has made biological racism impossible.
WHY IT WOULDN’T HAVE MATTERED ANYWAY
Briefly, it is important to stress that even if biology hadn’t uncovered the universal uniformity of humanity, racist policy could never have been justified on any biological difference found. It is just plainly irrational to base treatment of a given individual on the statistics of the group. The inevitable overlap in ability would always necessitate caution in regards to stereotypic expectations. A further point to be made is that if significant racial differences in, say, IQ were actually discovered, they could not be wished away or denied based on their possible racist consequences. It would just be true, whether you liked it or not. Luckily, genetics has already made such discoveries massively improbable.
DARWIN MADE HITLER DO IT!
This final premise belongs to the great repertoire of theological propaganda. The idea is that Hitler’s genocidal eugenics was based on Darwinism. We’ve already seen that any attempt to ground racist or eugenic ideas in biology is unsupported by the evidence, revealing them as pseudo-intellectual Trojan horses for ideological interests. Nevertheless, the Hitler story is more deeply flawed that just this.
Hitler (a Roman Catholic) never mentions Darwin once in Mein Kampf. This is because his racist ideas had nothing to do with Darwin’s theories. Hitler’s eugenics stemmed from the well-understood process of animal breeding, something that was knowingly practiced on dogs and pigeons hundreds of years before Darwin. Darwin’s idea of natural selection consisted in applying the ancient principle of breeding to the mindless competition of nature. His insight was that the same thing could happen in the absence of human guidance. Hitler, on the other hand, merely applied this old technique simplistically to human beings, attempting to selectively breed a master race and murder those he viewed as inferior. The only reason people confound these two extremely different applications of breeding is because of the effectiveness of propaganda on those whose agenda it supports. Any dirty trick will be deployed by the dogmatic if something doesn’t sit well with their dogma, even if the claims are untrue and desperately beside the point.
SO...
Ad hominem pseudo-arguments and irrelevant propaganda sprout ceaselessly from a hopelessly illogical and unstable worldview. If something supports your most dearly held beliefs, this is even more reason to question its veracity and logical relevance. This is because we think with brains that evolved a bag of heuristic tricks, adapted to specific ancestral circumstances. We are fallible and susceptible to confirmation bias. The fact that theological interests seem bent on perpetuating fatuous lies and misguided distractions should give you pause. To those good friends in Adelaide and elsewhere: You don’t have to put up with this. Have an open mind and do some reading (and not just the one book). I may not understand why you believe such implausible things, and why you are so obstinately incurious about these most important of questions; but a good grasp of science, and of critical thinking in general, might help you avoid being suckered in by some of it at least. Darwin was not a prophet. It doesn’t matter what he was like. It doesn’t matter whether his ideas were abused to justify Social Darwinism or whether racists are apt to throw his name around. Evolution by natural selection is the thread that connects and makes sense of everything we know about the biological world. It makes powerful predictions that are still informing medicine, psychology, and computer science. It is something we can know and test. It doesn’t tell us we have the answer already, or confine us to infinite regress, or posit some unexplained complex intelligence. And it doesn’t rely on accepting a barbaric Iron Age text on faith alone.
Monday, June 8, 2009
DISCOGRAPHY (2001-present)
_
Staying at Home (2001-2005)
These Moments Minutes CDEP (Humble Pie Records, 2002)
001/01 The Sun Comes Up
002/02 Brighter Frame
003/03 A Lesser Half
004/04 Three Square Meals
005/05 Isn’t This Where?
006/06 Out the Carriage Window
007/07 The World Ends
008/08 Few and Far
Staying at Home / Seconds Away CDEP (Humble Pie Records, 2002)
009/01 Submarine Diary
010/02 Harbour
011/03 Jettison
Staying at Home / The Stockholm Syndrome 7” (Deplorable Records, 2003)
012/01 A Martyr Apart
Reaction Heroes CDLP (Set Fire to My Home Records, 2004)
013/01 Air, Water, and the Grave
014/02 Living Silver
015/03 The New Chapters
016/04 Oh Five Hundred
017/05 Pinpoint Pupil
018/06 Chiswell Green
019/07 Pacific Streetsweeper
020/08 Dendrite
021/09 Stained Glass Swing
022/10 Axis and Atlas
023/11 Stopwatch
024/12 A Monologue in Two
Never Take Me Alive CDS (Set Fire to My Home, 2004)
025/01 Never Take Me Alive
026/02 This Muscle Speaks (demo)
027/03 Limelight (demo)
000/04 A Martyr Apart
Boundless CDLP (2005)
028/01 Gil Elvgren
029/02 I Frowned All Day
030/03 Splintering
031/04 Muscles Better and Nerves More
032/05 Carryover Champ
033/06 Boundless
034/07 Tell Me Sweetness
035/08 Suburban Undead
036/09 The Quiet Chemist
Lightweights (2005)
Government Hurricane Machine CDLP (Soviet Records, 2005)
037/01 Introduction
038/02 Million Airs
039/03 Peppermint
040/04 Little Turbulence
041/05 Petrol Confetti
042/06 Do the Panic
043/07 Wingshorn Skew
044/08 Holy Elevens
045/09 Seated Skydivers
046/10 The Futility Whistle
047/11 Cottonwool Slam
Oh Messy Life (2005-present)
1+1-1=1 CDLP (Hobbledehoy Records, 2005)
048/01 Greetings & Salutations
049/02 And Build Me a Church on What’s Left
050/03 Redyellowbluered, Yellow Blue
051/04 Vanilla Varnish (Vanish)
052/05 First Born Bribe
053/06 Sundays Are for Regret
054/07 It’s so Hard to Say Goodbye, so very Easy to Ignore You
055/08 Sad Romantic (Ruins)
056/09 Playing Corners
057/10 How Do You Like Your Blueeyedboy?
058/11 Selfsaboteur Extraordinaire
059/12 King of Bad Timing
060/13 This New Year Will Self-Destruct
061/14 Sugar Lines
The Literature EP CDEP (Hobbledehoy Records, 2006)
062/01 Gathering into a Leap
063/02 Even Artichokes Have Hearts
064/03 Centipedes
065/04 Otaku No Geronimo
066/05 The Worst
Lungs (2005-present)
Breathe, Bastard, Breathe CDEP (Poison City Records, 2006)
067/01 Seesawed
068/02 Reverso (Told in Flashbacks)
069/03 Huxley
070/04 Gasping Organ
071/05 Johnny Fontane
072/06 Better off Betting
073/07 A Crunch Under Foot
074/08 The Spider That Ate Itself
An Anatomical Guide CDLP (Poison City Records, 2007)
075/01 Tens of Thousands
076/02 Avalanche At Last
077/03 Naota/Ikari
078/04 I Lost My Legs
079/05 Isolately
080/06 On/Off
081/07 Simple Second Law
082/08 Gamerism
083/09 World Lines
084/10 Heart-sized Brains
085/11 Slack and Field
086/12 Villain of the Week
087/13 Machocide
088/14 Alone in a Godless Universe
Solitary, Poor, Nasty, Brutish, Short CDEP (Poison City Records, 2008)
089/01 Radical Science
090/02 The Expanding Circle (A Second Open Letter to Sam Neil)
091/03 Grey Walter, Wilder Penfield
092/04 Ghosts/Robots (Robots Win)
093/05 Vessels
The Two Chief World Systems CDLP *forthcoming* (Poison City Records, 2010)
094/01 Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems
095/02 The Making of Phineas Gage
096/03 Disqualified from the Knowledge Game
097/04 Forever Eighty-Four
098/05 Action Potentials
099/06 Slips: Lamark/Baldwin (Baldwin Wins)
100/07 The Rosenberg’s Piece of Jell-O Box Code
101/08 Bunyip/Chupacabra – The Battle of the Cryptids Part I (No One Wins)
102/09 Mobius is (Not) a Liar
103/10 Alvy Singer Didn’t Write Practical Ethics (II)
104/11 Sweating the Implications of Time Travel
105/12 The Machinations of Gilbert Ryle (Nozick Loses)
106/13 For Dad
Animal Shapes (2008-present)
Calabi-Yau CDLP *forthcoming* (2009)
107/01 Ransacking the Chinese Room
108/02 Smiling for Cash
109/03 Planck
110/04 Attack & Arrest
111/05 Hooks
112/06 Where a How Wins When a Why Tries
113/07 Sweet Teeth
114/08 En Masse
115/09 Fives
Staying at Home (2001-2005)
These Moments Minutes CDEP (Humble Pie Records, 2002)
001/01 The Sun Comes Up
002/02 Brighter Frame
003/03 A Lesser Half
004/04 Three Square Meals
005/05 Isn’t This Where?
006/06 Out the Carriage Window
007/07 The World Ends
008/08 Few and Far
Staying at Home / Seconds Away CDEP (Humble Pie Records, 2002)
009/01 Submarine Diary
010/02 Harbour
011/03 Jettison
Staying at Home / The Stockholm Syndrome 7” (Deplorable Records, 2003)
012/01 A Martyr Apart
Reaction Heroes CDLP (Set Fire to My Home Records, 2004)
013/01 Air, Water, and the Grave
014/02 Living Silver
015/03 The New Chapters
016/04 Oh Five Hundred
017/05 Pinpoint Pupil
018/06 Chiswell Green
019/07 Pacific Streetsweeper
020/08 Dendrite
021/09 Stained Glass Swing
022/10 Axis and Atlas
023/11 Stopwatch
024/12 A Monologue in Two
Never Take Me Alive CDS (Set Fire to My Home, 2004)
025/01 Never Take Me Alive
026/02 This Muscle Speaks (demo)
027/03 Limelight (demo)
000/04 A Martyr Apart
Boundless CDLP (2005)
028/01 Gil Elvgren
029/02 I Frowned All Day
030/03 Splintering
031/04 Muscles Better and Nerves More
032/05 Carryover Champ
033/06 Boundless
034/07 Tell Me Sweetness
035/08 Suburban Undead
036/09 The Quiet Chemist
Lightweights (2005)
Government Hurricane Machine CDLP (Soviet Records, 2005)
037/01 Introduction
038/02 Million Airs
039/03 Peppermint
040/04 Little Turbulence
041/05 Petrol Confetti
042/06 Do the Panic
043/07 Wingshorn Skew
044/08 Holy Elevens
045/09 Seated Skydivers
046/10 The Futility Whistle
047/11 Cottonwool Slam
Oh Messy Life (2005-present)
1+1-1=1 CDLP (Hobbledehoy Records, 2005)
048/01 Greetings & Salutations
049/02 And Build Me a Church on What’s Left
050/03 Redyellowbluered, Yellow Blue
051/04 Vanilla Varnish (Vanish)
052/05 First Born Bribe
053/06 Sundays Are for Regret
054/07 It’s so Hard to Say Goodbye, so very Easy to Ignore You
055/08 Sad Romantic (Ruins)
056/09 Playing Corners
057/10 How Do You Like Your Blueeyedboy?
058/11 Selfsaboteur Extraordinaire
059/12 King of Bad Timing
060/13 This New Year Will Self-Destruct
061/14 Sugar Lines
The Literature EP CDEP (Hobbledehoy Records, 2006)
062/01 Gathering into a Leap
063/02 Even Artichokes Have Hearts
064/03 Centipedes
065/04 Otaku No Geronimo
066/05 The Worst
Lungs (2005-present)
Breathe, Bastard, Breathe CDEP (Poison City Records, 2006)
067/01 Seesawed
068/02 Reverso (Told in Flashbacks)
069/03 Huxley
070/04 Gasping Organ
071/05 Johnny Fontane
072/06 Better off Betting
073/07 A Crunch Under Foot
074/08 The Spider That Ate Itself
An Anatomical Guide CDLP (Poison City Records, 2007)
075/01 Tens of Thousands
076/02 Avalanche At Last
077/03 Naota/Ikari
078/04 I Lost My Legs
079/05 Isolately
080/06 On/Off
081/07 Simple Second Law
082/08 Gamerism
083/09 World Lines
084/10 Heart-sized Brains
085/11 Slack and Field
086/12 Villain of the Week
087/13 Machocide
088/14 Alone in a Godless Universe
Solitary, Poor, Nasty, Brutish, Short CDEP (Poison City Records, 2008)
089/01 Radical Science
090/02 The Expanding Circle (A Second Open Letter to Sam Neil)
091/03 Grey Walter, Wilder Penfield
092/04 Ghosts/Robots (Robots Win)
093/05 Vessels
The Two Chief World Systems CDLP *forthcoming* (Poison City Records, 2010)
094/01 Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems
095/02 The Making of Phineas Gage
096/03 Disqualified from the Knowledge Game
097/04 Forever Eighty-Four
098/05 Action Potentials
099/06 Slips: Lamark/Baldwin (Baldwin Wins)
100/07 The Rosenberg’s Piece of Jell-O Box Code
101/08 Bunyip/Chupacabra – The Battle of the Cryptids Part I (No One Wins)
102/09 Mobius is (Not) a Liar
103/10 Alvy Singer Didn’t Write Practical Ethics (II)
104/11 Sweating the Implications of Time Travel
105/12 The Machinations of Gilbert Ryle (Nozick Loses)
106/13 For Dad
Animal Shapes (2008-present)
Calabi-Yau CDLP *forthcoming* (2009)
107/01 Ransacking the Chinese Room
108/02 Smiling for Cash
109/03 Planck
110/04 Attack & Arrest
111/05 Hooks
112/06 Where a How Wins When a Why Tries
113/07 Sweet Teeth
114/08 En Masse
115/09 Fives
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Music listened to while studying Science, Statistics, Research Design
All - Allroy's Revenge (Full Album)
Sharks Keep Moving - Desert Strings & Drifters (Full EP)
*Shuffle*
Shellac - My Black Ass
Joan of Arc - For the Skinheads and Hippies
Hella - Bitches Ain't Shit But Good People
Party of Helicoptiers - Steve, Dude, My Bud!
Miles Davis - Move
Foo Fighters - My Poor Brain
A Wilhelm Scream - Career Suicide
Minus the Bear - You Kill Bugs Good, Man
Pink and Brown - Union Bomb
Elvis Costello - You Left Me in the Dark
Gerling - A Student Eating Sushi with a Chimp on a Glass Island
Texas is the Reason - Dressing Cold
Lightweights - Peppermint
Q and Not U - Sleeping the Terror Code
Shellac - Be Prepared
Kid Dynamite - Copout
Bad Religion - Eat Your Dog
Nirvana - Come As You Are
Love of Everything - Summer Somewhere Else
Heavy Vegetable - Green Light Gorilla
Cornelius - Wataridori
Two Guys - Another Chance to Fuck Up
The Optionals - Misery is Bliss
Bjork - Vokuro
Rob Crow - Who Takes My Recyclables?
Hey Mercedes - Everybody's Working for the Week
No Use for a Name - Permanent Rust
Planes Mistaken for Stars - Standing Still Fast
Bad Religion - Beyond Electric Dreams
Weezer - My Name is Jonas
Lagwagon - Foiled Again
Sam Zurick - Who
The Optionals - So Long Lungs
One Inch Punch - That Way
Make Believe - Say What You Mean
One Inch Punch - Locked
Screeching Weasel - Identity Crisis
Malady - Said Simone
Rainer Maria - Viva Anger Viva Hate
Guided by Voices - Shocker in Gloomtown
The Promise Ring - Between Pacific Coasts
Elvis Costello - Home is Anywhere you Hang your Head
Sharks Keep Moving - Desert Strings & Drifters (Full EP)
*Shuffle*
Shellac - My Black Ass
Joan of Arc - For the Skinheads and Hippies
Hella - Bitches Ain't Shit But Good People
Party of Helicoptiers - Steve, Dude, My Bud!
Miles Davis - Move
Foo Fighters - My Poor Brain
A Wilhelm Scream - Career Suicide
Minus the Bear - You Kill Bugs Good, Man
Pink and Brown - Union Bomb
Elvis Costello - You Left Me in the Dark
Gerling - A Student Eating Sushi with a Chimp on a Glass Island
Texas is the Reason - Dressing Cold
Lightweights - Peppermint
Q and Not U - Sleeping the Terror Code
Shellac - Be Prepared
Kid Dynamite - Copout
Bad Religion - Eat Your Dog
Nirvana - Come As You Are
Love of Everything - Summer Somewhere Else
Heavy Vegetable - Green Light Gorilla
Cornelius - Wataridori
Two Guys - Another Chance to Fuck Up
The Optionals - Misery is Bliss
Bjork - Vokuro
Rob Crow - Who Takes My Recyclables?
Hey Mercedes - Everybody's Working for the Week
No Use for a Name - Permanent Rust
Planes Mistaken for Stars - Standing Still Fast
Bad Religion - Beyond Electric Dreams
Weezer - My Name is Jonas
Lagwagon - Foiled Again
Sam Zurick - Who
The Optionals - So Long Lungs
One Inch Punch - That Way
Make Believe - Say What You Mean
One Inch Punch - Locked
Screeching Weasel - Identity Crisis
Malady - Said Simone
Rainer Maria - Viva Anger Viva Hate
Guided by Voices - Shocker in Gloomtown
The Promise Ring - Between Pacific Coasts
Elvis Costello - Home is Anywhere you Hang your Head
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Monday, April 27, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
Friday, April 17, 2009
Swollen Acoustic Guitar Digits
I'm in an acoustic song-writing buzz. The proper earnest kind I mean, not silly 50 second songs with casio keyboard parts. Well, I've been doing those too. Anyway... this is probably all because I intended to use this week to write an essay. I have three new babies this week. We were hoping for an essay, but we got triplets instead. I love them just the same. Maybe when they're a bit older I can dress them up in paper and staples and hand them in.
Don't worry Owen!
There's still some mathy pop goodness amidst the evil thrash. And I'd like to think the evil thrash is still Owen-friendly. But still evil.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Lungs Album # 2
I have no idea whether anyone reads this. If this was someone else's blog, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't bother reading it. Nonetheless, I'm going to post away just to accumulate further evidence that I in fact exist.
Anyway, I am at least pleased to know that all the music and lyrics for the second Lungs album have been completely written. We have learned four of the songs, which happen to be the first four (numbered) on the following tentative tracklist. Nelson sings (well, yells) bits in most of the songs, which is new, and we're going to take more time and care polishing these babies up before we record. I think we're going to send it away for mixing and mastering too! The working title for the album is World Systems. Anyway, here is a tentative tracklist (it will probably change) of all the songs:
00. Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (Intro)
01. The Making of Phineas Gage
02. Disqualified from the Knowledge Game
03. Action Potentials
04. Forever '84
05. Slips [Lamark/Baldwin (Baldwin Wins)]
06. The Rosenberg's Piece of Jell-O Box Code
07. Bunyip/Chupacabra - The Battle of the Cryptids Part 1 (No One Wins)
08. Mobius is (Not) a Liar
09. Alvy Singer Didn't Write Practical Ethics (II)
10. Sweating the Implications of Time Travel
11. The Machinations of Gilbert Ryle (Nozick Loses)
12. For Dad
I'm heaps excited about these songs, and now all I can think about is getting them down and recording them as soon as possible. It's also good to know that starting a punk band in 2006 didn't turn out to be a novelty with limited development potential. I've busted out the capo for two of the songs as well. I think there might be more thrash than rock in this batch. Not sure...
Anyway, I am at least pleased to know that all the music and lyrics for the second Lungs album have been completely written. We have learned four of the songs, which happen to be the first four (numbered) on the following tentative tracklist. Nelson sings (well, yells) bits in most of the songs, which is new, and we're going to take more time and care polishing these babies up before we record. I think we're going to send it away for mixing and mastering too! The working title for the album is World Systems. Anyway, here is a tentative tracklist (it will probably change) of all the songs:
00. Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (Intro)
01. The Making of Phineas Gage
02. Disqualified from the Knowledge Game
03. Action Potentials
04. Forever '84
05. Slips [Lamark/Baldwin (Baldwin Wins)]
06. The Rosenberg's Piece of Jell-O Box Code
07. Bunyip/Chupacabra - The Battle of the Cryptids Part 1 (No One Wins)
08. Mobius is (Not) a Liar
09. Alvy Singer Didn't Write Practical Ethics (II)
10. Sweating the Implications of Time Travel
11. The Machinations of Gilbert Ryle (Nozick Loses)
12. For Dad
I'm heaps excited about these songs, and now all I can think about is getting them down and recording them as soon as possible. It's also good to know that starting a punk band in 2006 didn't turn out to be a novelty with limited development potential. I've busted out the capo for two of the songs as well. I think there might be more thrash than rock in this batch. Not sure...
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Monday, March 16, 2009
A Footnote to An Open Letter to Sam Neil
The statements made in the currently most-aired MLA advertisement featuring Sam Neil (2006) are a tangled mess of fallacious reasoning, confused semantics, and misrepresentations. Try to spot a statement in the advertisement which isn't:
1. A MISREPRESENTATION OF THE FACTS
"When our early ancestors the Homo Habilis started to eat red meat, our [sic] brains began to grow".
[OUR brains, or the brains of Homo Habilis? Also, there is considerable controversy about whether either Habilis or the later-mentioned Homo Rudolfensis are even ancestors of Homo Sapiens!]
"Today, lean red meat is just as important".
[Important for what? In the industrialised West, it is unnecessary.]
"...its nutrients...are still essential for brain development".
[Apart from the fact that these nutrients are available from sources that never had a nervous system, he has at this point only asserted that meat was involved in the EVOLUTION of the human brain, not the DEVELOPMENT of the human brain. This conflation is a semantic bait and switch, exploiting the likelihood that the public will not adequately distinguish phylogeny from ontogeny.]
2. THE CONFUSION OF CORRELATION AND CAUSATION
"When our early ancestors the Homo Habilis started to eat red meat, our [sic] brains began to grow".
[This statement does not establish a causal connection between eating red meat and evolutionary increase in human brain volume. Factors with a correlational connection are often caused by a third factor influencing both. The script goes on to treat this correlation as if it were proof of red meat causing accelerated cephalic growth in Human ancestors.]
"If Homo Habilis hadn't eaten red meat, our brains wouldn't be the size they are today."
[This statement repeats many of the aforementioned errors of reasoning, making what amounts to unfounded speculation into an unequivocal assertion.]
3. THE PRESUMPTION OF TELEOLOGY
"Red meat: We were meant to eat it."
[This is possibly the most heinous of the logical errors contained in the advertisement. It is suggesting that because red meat happened to play an intrinsic role in the web of factors contributing to human evolution (a fact that is not really in any serious dispute), that this somehow implies a purpose or design which prescribes the consumption of red meat to modern humans (even where less cruel alternatives are available). I have called this the presumption of teleology, as it just asserts that an IS equals an OUGHT; that once some behaviour is established to be a fact about our natural history, there is some divine purpose wherein we ought to continue with that behaviour. Presumably if we discover the same thing concerning rape or sexual infidelity or racism or homicide, we would be hesitant to suggest that these ancestral behaviours are 'meant' for us, and essential to our wellbeing.]
All of the aforementioned flaws of reasoning and confusion of ideas should start alarm bells ringing in the mind of the sceptic. When science is mangled and imperatives hastily issued in this way, it tends to betray a powerful a priori bias for which any dirty trick will be recruited. I suppose we could have guessed that the MLA would have a pretty obvious motive behind their ads - to sell their product! - and are likely to use the same half-truths and methods of persuasion as any other advertising campaign. But I can't help but feel a little sick in the stomach when the product in question is as unnecessary as anything else being pedalled on prime time, yet is presented as being necessary for your health, and is orbited by strong ethical objections for which I am yet to hear sufficient (read: well-conceived and executed) rebuttal.
1. A MISREPRESENTATION OF THE FACTS
"When our early ancestors the Homo Habilis started to eat red meat, our [sic] brains began to grow".
[OUR brains, or the brains of Homo Habilis? Also, there is considerable controversy about whether either Habilis or the later-mentioned Homo Rudolfensis are even ancestors of Homo Sapiens!]
"Today, lean red meat is just as important".
[Important for what? In the industrialised West, it is unnecessary.]
"...its nutrients...are still essential for brain development".
[Apart from the fact that these nutrients are available from sources that never had a nervous system, he has at this point only asserted that meat was involved in the EVOLUTION of the human brain, not the DEVELOPMENT of the human brain. This conflation is a semantic bait and switch, exploiting the likelihood that the public will not adequately distinguish phylogeny from ontogeny.]
2. THE CONFUSION OF CORRELATION AND CAUSATION
"When our early ancestors the Homo Habilis started to eat red meat, our [sic] brains began to grow".
[This statement does not establish a causal connection between eating red meat and evolutionary increase in human brain volume. Factors with a correlational connection are often caused by a third factor influencing both. The script goes on to treat this correlation as if it were proof of red meat causing accelerated cephalic growth in Human ancestors.]
"If Homo Habilis hadn't eaten red meat, our brains wouldn't be the size they are today."
[This statement repeats many of the aforementioned errors of reasoning, making what amounts to unfounded speculation into an unequivocal assertion.]
3. THE PRESUMPTION OF TELEOLOGY
"Red meat: We were meant to eat it."
[This is possibly the most heinous of the logical errors contained in the advertisement. It is suggesting that because red meat happened to play an intrinsic role in the web of factors contributing to human evolution (a fact that is not really in any serious dispute), that this somehow implies a purpose or design which prescribes the consumption of red meat to modern humans (even where less cruel alternatives are available). I have called this the presumption of teleology, as it just asserts that an IS equals an OUGHT; that once some behaviour is established to be a fact about our natural history, there is some divine purpose wherein we ought to continue with that behaviour. Presumably if we discover the same thing concerning rape or sexual infidelity or racism or homicide, we would be hesitant to suggest that these ancestral behaviours are 'meant' for us, and essential to our wellbeing.]
All of the aforementioned flaws of reasoning and confusion of ideas should start alarm bells ringing in the mind of the sceptic. When science is mangled and imperatives hastily issued in this way, it tends to betray a powerful a priori bias for which any dirty trick will be recruited. I suppose we could have guessed that the MLA would have a pretty obvious motive behind their ads - to sell their product! - and are likely to use the same half-truths and methods of persuasion as any other advertising campaign. But I can't help but feel a little sick in the stomach when the product in question is as unnecessary as anything else being pedalled on prime time, yet is presented as being necessary for your health, and is orbited by strong ethical objections for which I am yet to hear sufficient (read: well-conceived and executed) rebuttal.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Lungs with Propagandhi, Feb '09
My band got to play with fucking Propagandhi, man. Here are some happy snaps from the band room in the Corner Hotel, Richmond, VIC.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Lungs at the Arthouse, New Years Eve 2008
These are some photos of Lungs playing at the Arthouse in Melbourne on New Years Eve, 2008. They were taken by Bandphotosrock.com. This may have been a fancy dress kind of thing...
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Recording The Animal Shapes Album (Photo Diary)
We just finished recording our first album in THREE days. Are we insane?! Are we masochists?! Are we shit poor?! Yes to all three questions. The deed was performed with Lachlan Mitchell at Production Avenue.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Animal Shapes at Beatdisc Records!
All these photos were taken by Dan at BMHC Photography.
I forgot to mention that when we arrived at the show, Jonny opened his case to find that a bass string had spontaneously snapped on the way. Given that only Tyre Swans were playing, the fact that Pete had a spare acoustic bass Jonny could use was, like everything else about the man, miraculous.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Tyre Swans & Animal Shapes Part 3 (Canberra A.K.A. Epic Fail)
We were all set to drive off to Canberra to play a Jonny-less set.
Then we realised we wouldn't get there in time for the show. Embarrassing. It was painful to cancel. Needless to say, the three of us were dejected.
It was Animal Shapes Amateur Hour at its best. The night was not a total loss, however. This is what happened instead:
Ladies and Gentlemen: The One-Man Scorpion!
Who's throwing coasters?!
Then we realised we wouldn't get there in time for the show. Embarrassing. It was painful to cancel. Needless to say, the three of us were dejected.
It was Animal Shapes Amateur Hour at its best. The night was not a total loss, however. This is what happened instead:
Ladies and Gentlemen: The One-Man Scorpion!
Who's throwing coasters?!
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Animal Shapes & Tyre Swans Part 2 (Sydney)
Okay, I really photographically dropped the ball on this one. I was in fine form when we met up with the Swans near the Annandale Hotel, as you can plainly see:
All well and good. And then I didn't remember to get my camera until it was all over, which is embarassing really. Especially since I was committed to completing this Blog to the best of my ability. I knew this would happen. Actually, this also means no shots of the proper Animal Shapes, because tonight in Canberra we are doing Animal Shapes Lite, with Jonny not able to come with us. It will be no bass, clean guitars, and minimal drums. Brushes and stuff. I will have to hope for photographic donations from various sources, at which point I'll update these bad boys.
So anyway, visual aids aside, this show was great. We have decided that Animal Shapes feels best in close quarters, with sound bouncing off the walls and layering up super thickly, and Animal Shape faces face-to-face with other faces. Beatdisc in Parramatta was the ultimate record store, the sort of store you dream of opening up. And then when you realise how much hard work it would be, the sort of store you dream of working at. Pete is living that dream. Both of them. And he's definitely on my list of the Top Ten Nicest Dudes Ever. I love a big guy with a beard who doesn't mind a hug and smiles a lot. More dudes should take a leaf out of Pete's book. Then the TTNDE would be rendered utterly obsolete.
From the moment we got there, the hospitality was relentless. Actually, it even started on the way there in the van, when we realised that Pete had put a big ad for the instore in Drum Media. Then as we loaded the gear into the alley out the back of the store, we were greeted by three ice-filled tubs with a.... RIDER?! I briefly felt like I was in Motley Crue. Coke and about three kinds of beer. Pete had bought, seriously, three cases of beer for the bands. Unbelievable.
As we scrambled about, setting up our equipment amidst browsers and paying customers, Pete provided all of us with fresh towels. Fresh Towels! Ahh, Pete. You good man. Nick assembled his drums behind the counter and we tried to take up as little room in front of it as possible. The kids came out in full force for this one, and I'm sure it was the star power of the busking super trio Tyre Swans. Nonetheless, the Animal Shapes grooves raped their movements. I saw some swaying. I saw some head nodding. The Shapes had arrived. The only other show that felt as good was Jonny's house party, and for similar reasons; volume and close proximity.
There was the small matter of my forgetting how to play and sing the first half of the verse of a song. But whatever. Plus we may have been a little argumentative on the mics. That's what you get when you have four guys in the band, all with microphones and ego problems.
We packed up and raided the beer tubs, then Tyre Swans were happening. These guys have been actually busking non-stop on their way down the coast from Brisbane, paying for their petrol and getting some free food and coffee in the process. These guys are the real thing. They sounded great without a P.A., and I guess the majority of their playing has been sans-power. Their voices and acoustic strumming were pretty arresting in the small confines of the store. The kids loved it.
There was a minor hiccup during the Tyre Swans set, when it started raining all of a sudden. Chris and I pumped our little legs from the front of the store 'round to the back so we could help get all that gear in the alley under some cover. Crisis (somewhat) averted.
I didn't really want to leave Beatdisc. Heaps of familiar faces came out for the show, which was really great to see. But we had to finish the last of the beer and get the van back to Dylan by 10.30. So there you go, an early night this time. And I feel so much better for it today. Although, taking the week off work is going to destroy me. As soon as it dawns on me, I think I might be reduced to emotional as well as financial ruin. Oh well.
Canberra tonight! This will be interesting, as we have to re-invent our set on the fly. I'm not sure we have the dexterity for it. Not to mention all that driving (that someone else will have to do). This time I'll be more thoughtful with the camera, I promise! And remember: photographic donations would be much appreciated.
Oh yeah, I managed a few happy snaps like this one before we left:
Songs that iTunes shuffled into existence while I was writing this:
L'Spaerow - The Pharmacists
Jawbox - The Big Shave
Castor - Pontiac
A Wilhelm Scream - Killing It
Front End Loader - Faster alone
Fugazi - Bed For The Scraping
Piebald - Grace Kelly With Wings
Decendents - Cheer
I-Spy - God. Family. Country
All well and good. And then I didn't remember to get my camera until it was all over, which is embarassing really. Especially since I was committed to completing this Blog to the best of my ability. I knew this would happen. Actually, this also means no shots of the proper Animal Shapes, because tonight in Canberra we are doing Animal Shapes Lite, with Jonny not able to come with us. It will be no bass, clean guitars, and minimal drums. Brushes and stuff. I will have to hope for photographic donations from various sources, at which point I'll update these bad boys.
So anyway, visual aids aside, this show was great. We have decided that Animal Shapes feels best in close quarters, with sound bouncing off the walls and layering up super thickly, and Animal Shape faces face-to-face with other faces. Beatdisc in Parramatta was the ultimate record store, the sort of store you dream of opening up. And then when you realise how much hard work it would be, the sort of store you dream of working at. Pete is living that dream. Both of them. And he's definitely on my list of the Top Ten Nicest Dudes Ever. I love a big guy with a beard who doesn't mind a hug and smiles a lot. More dudes should take a leaf out of Pete's book. Then the TTNDE would be rendered utterly obsolete.
From the moment we got there, the hospitality was relentless. Actually, it even started on the way there in the van, when we realised that Pete had put a big ad for the instore in Drum Media. Then as we loaded the gear into the alley out the back of the store, we were greeted by three ice-filled tubs with a.... RIDER?! I briefly felt like I was in Motley Crue. Coke and about three kinds of beer. Pete had bought, seriously, three cases of beer for the bands. Unbelievable.
As we scrambled about, setting up our equipment amidst browsers and paying customers, Pete provided all of us with fresh towels. Fresh Towels! Ahh, Pete. You good man. Nick assembled his drums behind the counter and we tried to take up as little room in front of it as possible. The kids came out in full force for this one, and I'm sure it was the star power of the busking super trio Tyre Swans. Nonetheless, the Animal Shapes grooves raped their movements. I saw some swaying. I saw some head nodding. The Shapes had arrived. The only other show that felt as good was Jonny's house party, and for similar reasons; volume and close proximity.
There was the small matter of my forgetting how to play and sing the first half of the verse of a song. But whatever. Plus we may have been a little argumentative on the mics. That's what you get when you have four guys in the band, all with microphones and ego problems.
We packed up and raided the beer tubs, then Tyre Swans were happening. These guys have been actually busking non-stop on their way down the coast from Brisbane, paying for their petrol and getting some free food and coffee in the process. These guys are the real thing. They sounded great without a P.A., and I guess the majority of their playing has been sans-power. Their voices and acoustic strumming were pretty arresting in the small confines of the store. The kids loved it.
There was a minor hiccup during the Tyre Swans set, when it started raining all of a sudden. Chris and I pumped our little legs from the front of the store 'round to the back so we could help get all that gear in the alley under some cover. Crisis (somewhat) averted.
I didn't really want to leave Beatdisc. Heaps of familiar faces came out for the show, which was really great to see. But we had to finish the last of the beer and get the van back to Dylan by 10.30. So there you go, an early night this time. And I feel so much better for it today. Although, taking the week off work is going to destroy me. As soon as it dawns on me, I think I might be reduced to emotional as well as financial ruin. Oh well.
Canberra tonight! This will be interesting, as we have to re-invent our set on the fly. I'm not sure we have the dexterity for it. Not to mention all that driving (that someone else will have to do). This time I'll be more thoughtful with the camera, I promise! And remember: photographic donations would be much appreciated.
Oh yeah, I managed a few happy snaps like this one before we left:
Songs that iTunes shuffled into existence while I was writing this:
L'Spaerow - The Pharmacists
Jawbox - The Big Shave
Castor - Pontiac
A Wilhelm Scream - Killing It
Front End Loader - Faster alone
Fugazi - Bed For The Scraping
Piebald - Grace Kelly With Wings
Decendents - Cheer
I-Spy - God. Family. Country
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Animal Shapes & Tyre Swans Part 1 (Newcastle)
There's a funny thing about 'The Side Project'. On the one hand the mutual assumption is that, by definition, it will occupy a lower priority on the schedules of all involved. On the inevitable other, there is the distinct realisation of the Law of Diminishing Returns; even a little bit of effort is too much if there's no pay-off.
So here we are: Animal Shapes, the paradigmatic Side Project, recently demo'ed at the burgeoning Stu-Stu-Studio, poised for our first recording (a full-length no less), and maybe 5 shows deep. What little money we collectively have is locked up in other things (Main Projects?, rent?, food maybe?), only two of us drive, only one of us has a car (a small one), and only a disparate smattering of gear even if we had the means to transport this gear where it needed to go. If we weren't enjoying ourselves, one might question whether a pervasive masochistic funk had descended upon us.
Case in point, these Tyre Swan shows. A great way to refine our songs for the upcoming recording with Lachlan Mitchell, right? Sure. It was only until possibly the day of the first show that we realised the importance of the fact that all three shows are on weeknights, and many of us work until 6pm (remember the money-shortage). Two of the shows are situated hours away (remember the lack of transport), and the gear... The logistical shambles that is Animal Shapes revealed itself in all its retarded glory.
After a lot of stressful shuffling about (mainly on the spot) which doubtlessly reduced our collective lifespans by at least a year or two, we somehow managed to borrow a van (thanks Dylan!), an amp, pick Jonny up in Chatswood on the way through, and get on the highway to Newcastle at a (sort of) reasonable time. Things were finally looking up, even if the viciousness of the lowering sun and the broken air conditioning was fraying our nerves. Sometimes our attentions lapsed and we thought perhaps Nick was taking us all for a lovely trip to the beach.
At the very least, a lesson has been learned and characters have been further formed. After making pretty good time, struggling to find the venue, and phoning Jamie from Tyre Swans about thirty times, Animal Shapes were in the building. We shook off the van sweat, loaded out, greeted some of our favourite people in the galaxy, and then almost immediately mounted the stage like ravenous animals. Or the shapes of animals. Unfortunately, I forgot to give anyone my camera, so there is no visual evidence of the sheer slaying we bestowed upon Newcastle. For example, I'm completely sure that if Amy from Like...Alaska hadn't dropped and smashed two full schooners right in front of the stage, the whole place would totally have been pumping their fists directly into my face. You know, if it weren't for the slippage and glass hazards.
I do, however, have some shots of those aforementioned people, in various states of mid-week drunkenness and unease.
We loaded out again as soon as we finished playing, made note of the fact that Rockin' Sweat is distinct from and much preferable to Van Sweat. We managed to finish a beer each and watch a bit of Tyre Swans before we had to hurry off so we could get home and sneak in some sleep before work.
Chris and I both enjoyed Tyre Swans quite a lot.
We performed our secret Animal Shapes four-way handshake, and then posed for this photo before getting back in the dreaded van for the midnight jaunt back to the inner west. I can only say that I am disappointed in myself for looking the way I do in this picture.
Chris might swear it isn't true, but I think this photo attests quite clearly to him falling asleep at the wheel, almost making him responsible for the tragic deaths of himself and three of his closest friends.
We got back to Stu-Stu-Studio in Annandale to drop off the van at around 1.30. I remember feeling like my eyes were dissolving. Dylan dropped us all home because he is some kind of benevolent supersoldier. He also mixed the vocals on the demo too low because I whinged too much about them being too loud. That doesn't excuse all that chorus or whatever the hell you put on the vocals though, Dylan. I'm watching you. Do you think you're Butch Vig or something?
Stay tuned for Animal Shapes & Tyre Swans Part 2 (Sydney), as we tear up Beatdisc Records in Parramatta with the summer buskers. I'll try to get some photographic evidence of the Animal Shapes carnage this time. Hang on, how are we getting to Parramatta? Who can I phone to borrow an amp?
The Blogger's Manifesto
Okay, so one of the things I'll be using this Blog for is uploading random songs I've written (usually in a quick and unrefined fashion) and recorded at home (with minimal know-how or gear), that I don't intend to use for a particular band. This could approach the presumptuous, except that it derives more from compulsion than from expectation. Hopefully these little brainchildren are of some value to someone. For the moment this serves to relieve the pent-up anxiety to exorcise some creative demons.
I'm going to try to write a bit too, post some photos and stuff, but from experience the motivation for this kind of thing is extremely seasonal.
Let the self-absorption commence!
I'm going to try to write a bit too, post some photos and stuff, but from experience the motivation for this kind of thing is extremely seasonal.
Let the self-absorption commence!
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Roboto
As a member of the Heroic Warriors, Roboto is notable for being the only fully mechanical warrior in their ranks. His metal body makes him invulnerable to pain and able to resist many attacks that would leave an ordinary warrior injured. His computer brain also renders him highly intelligent. He has a transparent body, through which his inner working gears can be seen, and his right hand is a mechanical claw, which can be replaced with an axe or laser gun.
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