my old blog

" la decennie brut "

Preface :

this is my ‘writing’ from crica 2008-2018. Some moments good, some rediculous, some clearly from the mind of a sort of ‘hick’, some pieces infantile, some lurid and loaded, some utter tripe, some fun. Includes reviews, talks on music etc. take it - leave it.

LA DECENNIE BRUT

MATTHEW MIDDLETON

..important stuff is going down here. First : local Dunedin multi-medium artist Aliki Boufis (khomet, haunted turneys, glee cartel etc etc) has contributed a 15 track platter of sound-genius to the Artless Intent corpus. As soon as cover arts received, the album goes live.(as in , well, its available). might post a whole track (here it is : track 9 from 5454's travelogue album!)as the sample instead of the usual 'micro-sample'. 'Tis a strange world, this open source one. The 'mp3 blog' phenomenon is another weapon in the free content arsenal , perhaps in 10 years the idea of 'buying' a recording will be deemed preposterous. Oh well, we do what we fricken can , don't we Stu. I mean hell, i've 'given away' a wack-load.But i still try to 'sell' stuff. I try. And on occasion, I do. Anyone reading this in China?India? Didn't think so. Where are you? Do you feel like buying a Crude cd? Or would you rather just download something? Does the 2008 data cd, not released until december, interest you? It'll be like $50. Only a fraction released free. Most of it exclusively yours..oh, GIG COMING UP: march 5. And the Aesthetics got a lovely article in New Zealand Musucian mag. Marvellous, says Cambell Kneale,,,ah,,John Campbell.

31.2.08

well, Crude is back in dunedin for another year of refinement and ferment. Enjoy that 'syringe/insekt' cause it's the only free release or any type of release this year with the exception of decembers datadvd - which will contain all my recordings this year! This year also look out for a recording by The Aesthetics - the first by this line up! Looks like there'll be a few crude shows coming up in the dark belly of dunedin-town soon...i wet my pants in utter excitement. yeah. wet 'em. wet 'em real good. like GG allin.

28.1.08 -

A PHOTOJOURNAL of the big day out gig is available!!

22.1.08 -

the big day out - done and done. As soon as i receive photos and the recording, i will place this digital evidence on the Aesthetics page .Also a full sorta tour review. A highly subjective one. So, welcome to 2008. To celebrate, I'm making available the first folder of the years' only release (the long Italian titled dvd discussed below). Unearth these isolationist piece HERE. No Crude shows on the horizon, but the aesthetics will be performing twice in Febuary.

7.1.08:

the aesthetics to play big day out 2008 !

Current mood: smile breezy

Category: Jobs, Work, Careers

Oh, such a shift in our fortunes. After carefull deliberation, the panel of judges from the big day out decided to go with us, a Dunedin band no less, and in 9 days we will be on our petrol-fuelled way to our first Stadium show! smile!

The journey began when we submitted the simple rock song 'Pelvic Arcana' to a local university radio competition. The comp - 'open the big day out', was based firstly on voting , which we won hands down, then on the discernment of a cabal of radio one staff. We won the Dunedin final, and our presskit and track(s) were submitted to bfm/bdo. Apparently, none of the Auckland bands we were up against had what 'they were looking for'. Perhaps it was energy - maybe innovation, i'm not sure.

But they chose us, and we are delighted. We'll (attempt to...if its anything like the crude goes to new york photo diary you may not believe it occured)) keep a road diary , and turn the 30 minute set into more of a 'business card' for the world/indistry we reputedly hate so much , than just a one off gig...we'll make sure we take plenty of ugly on-the-road pics and stadium snaps. I believe our aim qwill be 5-6 real tightly performed numbers leading up to an all-out rock and roll/free-form synth/guitar/drum war near the end.....

19.12.07 -

........the aesthetics page is prety much complete, wwith the exception of some ugly band-shots, but, the mildly exciting thing is , i've tracked down places online where one can get the long-lost LP 'my right to riches'. All the info is on the pages so go there. Yah. Yah. Yavoll. Good golly. Creationists know how to party. David Icke on Ketamine. Al Jazeera and Crude special non-report. Oil. Peak Oil. Ohhh yeah. Read up on your Daoism, prepare your home garden, get your batteris and all the Crude mp3s you can download. Oh yeah, AI has new releases in the pipeline : Dunedin underground electro-wizards Palace, 5454 aNND THE ONE AND ONLY iso FRIKKEN 12....

5.1.07

Amazon.com has a few second hand copies of Inner City Guitar Perpectives available. Not vinyl though sorry. i believe its out of print. But people love it. And it's also a download

10. 12.07

Shit, just looking over this page I notice alot of talk about money. Sorry about that. To counter-balance. I print the words Artistic Integrity.

7.12.07

CRUDE COMPLETE IS NOW AVAILABLE AT A 'NICE' PRICE. THIS PRICE IS $250 NZ, HALF IT'S PREVIOUS VALUE. VALUE. OH VALUE, SUCH PARADOX. ANYWAY, THE DATA DVD IS the future medium for Crude releases, as mentioned below, a years work will be encoded and sold as an archive, no more 'albums' as such. But there is the back-catalogue to check out - they will stay available as albums. Thanks.

5.12.07

crude

Is Online

Date: 4 Dec 2007 10:20 p.m.

Subject: crude - wealth and power unbound: day to day life in 2008

Body: 1. PAYPAL functionality being incrementally added to online catalogue -

2. The Aesthetics are going for funding for 2008 -

3. CRUDE RELEASING STYLE - A NEW STYLE: No more album length releases...

With the completion of the 'Slurry Series' I've been contemplating new ways of 'containing' my recordings. Considering the typically vulgar and volumous output, I ask, how does one release fewer titles, with the same or similar amount of content. And so, in 2008, Crude will be releasing an 'archive' - the full out-put of 2008 as DATA (320 KBPS MP3S) on a DVD..And so, the title of the release for 2008 is : CRUDE - L'archivio dei lavori ultimati da Matthew Middleton per l'ANNUNCIO 2008 di anno'.

4. the crude site has not been updated for a few months, now i have the capability back and am tweaking compulsively.

My god . that information was utterly critical. Utterly. Utterly. UTTERLY.

Reply To Poster Post Comment Delete From Friends

4.12.07

::::::::::::::::: NEW RELEASES: Japan spews forth many intense artists and writers , dunnit. One such writer is KENJI SIRATORI, a writer of bizarre prose that's so deconstructed it's like deciphering a pilot's manual for a UFO. His work is hyper-scientific, but organic and bloody, indeed, its is the meth of script. Of late he has been collaborating with musicians(as well as recording his own dark ambient snuff): he provides the words, the musicians, a soundscape. The output has been insanely prolific. And CRUDE has come to the party, through a chance myspace meeting. The fruits of this encounter is a cd entitled 'Alien extermination'. Check out the album's myspace page( yes, inanimate objects have profiles too) . Here's the artless intent page. Have a good listen. CRUDE has finally come out of a kind of slack period, releasing slurries volume 3. slurries volume 4 is on the way, and it's better. There's been crude gigs in Dunedin, the Aesthetics are rocking again and hope to play Australia next year. Thats about it.

29.08.07

CRUDE plays at thee BORDERLINE BALLROOM in chch august 30. hip hip! hooray!

24.08.07

THE AESTHETICS are back from the GRAVE! again! the line up this time is : Morgan Oliver -BASS, Jason Barrett-guitar, Malcom Deans - drums and Matt Middleton - vocals, guitar, synth, sax and percussion. Thjis line up will play their premier shows in October me-thinks. And their ought to be at least 75 percent new original material involved. So i've made a lil' aesthetics page and will add to it as the new line up progresses. check it out HERE.

1.8.07

- back from auckland. will write another one of those overviews regarding the event. if yer interested. um, well, the world stinks real bad. go check out my big link den. don't really care bout much. rock and roll eh? yeah - a roster of control freaks, emotional infants and obseessive-compulsive fetishists.

24.07.07

- cool. off to auckland this week. yay. haven't seen the sky spike for 5 years. those swiss artists rule. I have slightly updated my BIO. Now alls i need is a c.v that will actually get me employed.

9.7.07

- a few pics from my recent show at the crown hotel are HERE. Photos by rok pix.

12.6.07

- tHE real groove article is OUT! GLOSSY,, GLOSSY,,, SHINY!!!

9.6.07

- So it seems this page right here is thee new hub. Is my site all too Web 1.0? Quite possibly. Oh well, we do what we can. Don't we. Yes we do. A visitor to this site 'Dosen't want to work for things' and shouldn't have to unearth stuff. They should be avidly presented with it. I try my best. A reminder of some of your wonderous cruddy options: I have T-SHIRTS for sale! I have LOGOS on view! I have a little piece of PROSE! I have a STOOPID ARTY page! I have GIG POSTERS on view too! What else.....oh yes, a RE-RELEASE! DOPAMINE 20 IS now out as a DATA CD! Wahooooo! Looks like I'll be playing a gig at the Crown Hotel June 30th with Pumice and WOLFSKULL!

5.6.07

- the second artless intent release is now available. Check out the CPU Group's 'eagles in echo' HERE. Tentative arrangements are being made for Crude to play Wellington in August. Crude endorses all sorts of unsavoury things. Crude is nurturing a wonderous presence on myspace. Crude encourages independant, objective news analysis.

21.5.07

- oh my god i'm playing auckland! Part of the ongoing ALT.MUSIC FESTIVAL! The lineup::::::::::::::::::::::::::Schimpfluch-gruppe including Runzelstirn and Gurglestock, Dave Philips, Justice Yeldham and the Dynamic Ribbon Device, and Crude!!!!

entry:::::::::::::: $15, Saturday July 28, 2007, doors 8pm, starts 9pm ...............................................Rising Sun, Karangahape Rd, Auckland

22.4.07

- THE FIRST ARTLESS INTENT RELEASE IS NOW OUT! IT'S BY DUNEDIN ELECTRONIC/IMPROV WIZARD RORY STORM! GO CHECK IT OUT!

17.2.07

- A special pre-realease interview with Shayne Carter is AVAILABLE HERE in the Press section (lower part of the page..). This will be in Real Groove's JUNE 2007 edition! My god, actual press! In a New Zealand music magazine! who'd've thought it? something gotta be wrong...

13.207

- ringtones! Thee innovative crowd at Voeveo have made it easy for people like ME to broadcast my twisted little ringtones onto innocent mobile phones! CHECK IT OUT

11.2.07

- new album. part of the 'slurries' series 07. not one thing recorded - all intra-cranial, intra-computer clickerama. all praise to the new flesh eh what. Its called 'SLURRIES VOLUME 2'. check it out in the 'most recent releases' page.

30.1.07

- like anybody who is nobody CRUDE has a page on News Corps' Myspace. check it out HERE

19.1.07

-like whats going on here? why not invest in the programme.

8.1.07

- A FEW PHOTOS FROM NYC ARE HERE

5.1.07

- Amazon.com has a few second hand copies of Inner City Guitar Perpectives available. Not vinyl though sorry. i believe its out of print. But people love it. Link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B00000B2TW/ref=dp_olp_2/105-8161183-4666024

HOT !!*aRTLESS iNTENT to release local artists on special web-catalogue. FIRST RELEASES POSTED MARCH 07 approx. ARTLESS INTENT line focusing on local electronic, experimental, odd-ball, spoken word and scum-rock artists. releases to aid groups in outreach. label un-motivated by competition.

24. 12.06

- to aid the bewildered and the off-put i have split the crude catalogue into a trilateral formation thusly :the MOST RECENT RELEASES PAGE, the ESSENTIAL TITLES page (about 15 or so of my personal best) and the FULL BACK-CATALOGUE PAGE (unabashed glory)

3.12.06

New York thing - happened, is now memory. Detailed Report due to Creative New Zealand. Harrased by Work and Income on return. These govt departments obviously do not communicate. Ability to skip country for 'free' resented by winz. Contribution to new zealand culture dubious. crude futures 2007 Current mood: optimistic hello. crude strategies 2007 :

*further online fermentation, general mycological decay.

*departure from 'techno' to 'slurry sound'

*post 'manahattan transfer' report to creative new zealand, general anti-climax

*albums-as-files, direct marketing to brain implants.

*nurofen plus plus, l-tyrosine, dha, blueberry, vinpocetine , alpha lipoic acid(?)

*sporadic volume release of 'slurries' - computer music gunk

*revolving line of credit. retarded but not. probably not.

REVIEW OF THE LINES OF FLIGHT FESTIVAL which incl myself by Stephen Clover is HERE

21/09.06']

- a new dark ambient cd (post wretched five) is out now! Entitled 'FUMES' this work will be showcased at Lines of flight 200666. Check out a new track from this album HERE

POSTED BY MATTHEW_MIDDLETON AT 12:20 AM

NO COMMENTS:

TUESDAY, MARCH 25, 2008

26.03.08

Crude marches on. And I've ditched the squelching biege vans for a pair of black and white sneakers. That do not squelch. They pop. I 'pop' around town. Today I shall take stock of recording progress this year - I shall list the new titles I've conjured up for the december release ...oh dear, the title,,,why oh why,,,L'archivio dei lavori ultimati da Matt Middleton per l'ANNUNCIO 2008 di anno...I shall henceforth refer to this data-laden platter as 'the december release' ..ps - the Italian, loosley translated is 'Archive of the best works by matt Middleton for the year 2008' or something. Very dry, but succinct.

new titles: (post syringe/insekt --which is the first 'folder' of the data dvd)

Know ..a short eerie vocal treatment..

Another one Bites...of course - the famous Crude re-working of the Queen hit of 1980..cheeky.

Vortexx Rock '08 ...back to the classic crude 'spy/surf' sound of the datastream cowboy days perhaps..psy-op driving synth..snakefinger-style guitars embellishments..

Shine On ....blazing high pitched guitar fuzz and crystal , space 1999 sample mega-treated..

Puru Liir .. one of the bass recorder works..deep..deep...deconstructed. Gibberish language title..

Deep Field ..super tuned-down reverb drenched wind instrumental..

Hulan Tipal..more invented titles..is that quasi-Tibetan perhaps..? Another bass recorder work..

Huul Dax ..as above!

Blackened Deadened Keys..think Gorgoroth made entirely out of synthesizers...?

Tallow...a charming evil/cute pixelated mp3-crystalline piece..

Devil Racerr...dig the two 'rs' ..yeah man Po-Mo..this is that electronic-motorcycle sound you get from a juno 60 roland synth.....2 lanes...two drivers..a near over-dose and a naughty pitch bender..

Hell Bent remix....Judas priest cover...super treated,,super cut up...super nasty..downright rude ..

Alone by the Fire...creepy super-odd crude track wif vocals..wierd jazz rock treated electronics

Spliced Swinger .. an electro piece that swings..messed up...ugly even..

Nort Juss - BASS recorder--shawm...

Bula Droiv - bass recorder,,,sax,,

Tulak Nozoth ---u can check this one out HERE

Slov Kuum - bounty hunter from Tatooine...naah...another bass recorder work..

La Piano 222,333 and 444..piano experiments...

So , thats the december release thus far. before december..there should be an Aesthetics CD (r) out..a self-released effort ...an artfull attempt to capture the current 'good form' of the band..of course check out our myspace page...what else..my collab with Kenji Siratori should be properly released via under-underground label hypermodern inMay!! Check out our myspace page..

I am involved in a couple of Dunedin Fringe activities...get the info below....and ...of course..i trawled the net and located sites / stores which hold copies of my 'major' releases from the '90s - the classics as it were....inner City Guitar Perpex...refute a myth society et al...what eles...the sun is shining on Dunedin today!!! So keep out of it!!!!!

So anyway -- here's the latest catalogue as a pdf.

hoto from the borderline ballroom crude show by Claire Ranui

Life ...indeed. Thats which we cannot help but participate in. We do what we can with it, with our various abilities, our various traits. I am convinced we live 'forever' - wanna know why? Because when we die, all conciousness is eradicated..all conciousness of time is also gone. Therefore, our lifetime is our one and only experience of time. Therefore it is, in essence, all time. If one can subjectively render time as a cyclic, momentary 'suchness', surely, one could actually live what seems like an eternity. Thats what I think.

Enough orientalism for the morning....onto more tactile, more CRUDE business.......

Later this week I will be wailing and churning to a film as part of the dunedin fringe...thursday night at the dunedin pubic art gallery me thinks..

I couldn't help myself, in a fit of strategic self-non-self-promotion, I hooked up with the great Nine Inch Nails site and remixed a new track by Trent Reznor...have a listen!

Also,,,my project with Kenji Siratori is moving along nicely,,,May is the month for 'alien extermination's' release..check out the cover art

Some very nice Aesthetics photos by Dunedin's newest audio-genius Alex McKinnon can be viewed HERE

and so: thank you, so long, goodnight...so the chemical romance song says. teens man, they scare the living shit outta me. friggen fringes,,,yeah theres a fringe for ya. a real fringe. PS - come and listen to the Bebo CRUDE POP PARTY Album! I consider it to be the follow up to 'Inner City Guitar Perspectives'!

!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!

!!!!!!

!!!!

!!THURSDAY, APRIL 3, 2008

crude - the gallery experience vs the pub experience

They are different aren't they.

The Gallery experience: (as a performer) - a modicum of poise is required, at all times, in some cases even while performing. You a usually encased in a white room, surrounded by various highly individualistic aesthetes comparing notes/making assessments etc. If it's an opening, there'll be booze. If it's a performance, there'll be booze up your sleeve.

Of course the pub - well, the typical feel is indifference at the soundcheck, the residue of beer, people getting messed up,...a different buzz eh what.

What am I saying??

Nothing really, Crude performed at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery last night, and tomorrow ill perform as part of the "Whyt' concept. With those crazy mr sterile guys. they do a weird jazz punk fusion thing. like i dunnow -a cross between the Contortions and any number of obscure 70s fusion out-fits. So suck on that you right-wing humanity-hating napoleonic complex bastards

UNDAY, APRIL 6, 2008

vomiting up arts and crafts :

And so ends another Wellington buskers Festiv..ah..Dunedin Fringe Festival. Or is it finished - yet..? no? Still more acts? Oh okay. Well, I'm done with it. And I breath an unashamed sigh of relief.

Crude activity for the fringe consisted of alot of typical synthesizer effluent : my typical click/cut set to hold, my beautiful home-crafted single reeded instrument (i think it's a unique design, it's a single tube, but a square tube - a crude single reeded thing - check out these various similar instruments) utilized for pseudo-arabica effect, the odd plonk on a xylophone for evokation of Coil..

oh what else - yeah a white crude tee for the whyt debarcle. (c?) (k?)

And now it's over it's time to get onto recording the new Aesthetics album, which will be an interesting endevour. Won't it just. Oh yes, yes it certainly will. Yep. Yes Sir E.

My project focus is cyclic, for a while i attend to all things crude, then, having adequately sickened myself , I morph to rock'n'roll mode. And it has at least 12 points of articulation.

Possible working titles for Aesthetics album: 'Ugly Ambition' , 'Interwaste', ...'United Video'..oh i don't know.

SUNDAY, APRIL 6, 2008

vomiting up arts and crafts :

And so ends another Wellington buskers Festiv..ah..Dunedin Fringe Festival. Or is it finished - yet..? no? Still more acts? Oh okay. Well, I'm done with it. And I breath an unashamed sigh of relief.

Crude activity for the fringe consisted of alot of typical synthesizer effluent : my typical click/cut set to hold, my beautiful home-crafted single reeded instrument (i think it's a unique design, it's a single tube, but a square tube - a crude single reeded thing - check out these various similar instruments) utilized for pseudo-arabica effect, the odd plonk on a xylophone for evokation of Coil..

oh what else - yeah a white crude tee for the whyt debarcle. (c?) (k?)

And now it's over it's time to get onto recording the new Aesthetics album, which will be an interesting endevour. Won't it just. Oh yes, yes it certainly will. Yep. Yes Sir E.

My project focus is cyclic, for a while i attend to all things crude, then, having adequately sickened myself , I morph to rock'n'roll mode. And it has at least 12 points of articulation.

Possible working titles for Aesthetics album: 'Ugly Ambition' , 'Interwaste', ...'United Video'..oh i don't know.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 9, 2008

pete doherty - probably writing poetry in his cell

I'm obsessed with alot of things, one of them being Pete Doherty. I think this afflicts hundreds of people world-wide. He's simply magnetic - there's something about him - an x-factor, an anti-celebrity for sure...some say he's the last of the Rock and Roll romantics. I doubt that, there'll be more where he came from, scribbling poetry, finding wisdom in excess. I don't know, perhaps it's his big boyish brown eyes. Perhaps its the fact that he can score the good stuff. Maybe it's the girls he attracts. But anyway, he's in prison finally, where he'll be left alone by the papparazi for 14 weeks to knuckle down and write some new poems. Will he cope? Is he hooked on the junk or can he take it or leave it?

I'm at the stage now where i believe the 'palace of wisdom' is acheived not through excess, but temperance. I know, i know, call me a square. Excess lets you access certain peripheral aspects of wisdom, but not it's essence. Excess allows one to strip away psychic limitations, to analyse and critique the staus quo from a haughty distance. You can work through internal problems with a good binge. The ego is inflated until it bursts - and there, at that point, you have gone beyond the self to see the stars as they are. But - there's a limit to excess. To go further - one needs to restrict oneself. Quietism allows one to strip away psychic limitations, to analyse and critique the status quo from a humble distance.

You are not wasting your energy. You are storing it and converting it to wisdom. Don't get me wrong, excess is what Crude is all about, when i can afford it. But as I get older - quietism, the teachings of Zen and Daoism - this is the true palace of wisdom.

As for the musical activities of the moment ::: Crude is fermenting away, stored in a sealed hermetic vessel somehwere, maturing in vaults, working of its own accord. The Aesthetics are embarking on a new album, in fact our first recording session is loosely planned for this weekend...wish us luck..this idea with this new rekkid is to capture the essence of the line-up : an older slightly more laboured and conceptual rock band, cynical and filthy, a bit metal , a bit new wave - dirty, with a bass player who looks like a bass player, a rhythm guitaritst who looks like a rhythm guitarist.......

A recent find online was an old Aesthetics live vid from our Auckland days (2002) . The line from 'my right to riches' is the one playing, that is, Shaun Jury (bass), Stefan Neville pumice/armpit etc (drums) and me. I am told we looked like we were 'really famous' ,,,as if it was some vintage footage of some 80s post-punk band in their early days. ha ha!

THURSDAY, APRIL 10, 2008

When I was Indie-Lo-Fi . . .

Back in the '90s Crude was primarily guitar-based. Crude was one of those bedroom 4 trackers, and the songs were these twisted ditties, lots of overdriven and poorly amplified guitars, naked clarinet through naked microphone, and excitable 20 something's pained 'n' panicked vocals. I whipped up some juicy tracks back then...'simon says', 'top of th pile', 'this town'...

those were the days. I get the feeling many Crude fans yearn for a return to that approach. Well, one guy did mention it today on myspace. It's hard to please everyone, innit. I'm exploring these bare-bones electronics at the mo', let it be known though - I always have my tounge firmly in cheek. That lo-fi ethic, that kiwi humour, it'll always permeate my recordings, academic or no.

I'm going to get down to some simple songs again though, soon. In fact, as we embark on the aesthetics next record, I'll be recording a guitar and vocals 4-track piece or two at home to contrast/complement the rock action in the studio. Why not. Ditties. Like 'whispering city' and 'reptilian agenda'. like 'hombre'.

As mentioned on the crude site, the recordings of that period are available in the form of Inner City Guitar Perspectives...and also, 'La Chaleur Basse de Fidelte, Vol 1 and Two'.

If you like that type of Crude stuff - seek out those who have the old cassettes. Thats the true old-skool Crude. tapes like, 'ebola roller', 'vagabond bagowind' , 'miscreants and materialists', 'the end of the world', and 'matthew middleton' etc etc ad nauseum.

And to the lo-fi purists, well...my descent into what ever-the-hell it is i'm doing now was demanded of me by the ugly, wart encrusted foul breathed muse surgically attached to my frontal lobes.

MONDAY, APRIL 14, 2008

a trillion streams

Crude streamology. A 128kbps affair. Always. Don't let that put you off, oh audio purists: if you per chance purchase a Crude audio document, it hass all the quality of a wav file.

Crude streamology: detrimental? no! Unhealthy? hell no!

Not much to report. Still on spekaing terms with all first rate memeticists. Still eating well, prefer an east asian type of diet. Still crunching the cruddy numbers. Still workin' up a well earned sweat. Still got me fingers crossed. Jurisprudence. Logical Postivism. StarGate. Panspermia.

FRIDAY, APRIL 18, 2008

the weekend : fragments/observations.

Oh the magic that is existence. We reach yet another weekend : time to reflect on the weeks activities, eh what? But first..

May, New Zealand's Music Month, is creeping up again : we wonder what colour scheme to ol' logo will utilize this time! The NZMM is an institution now, an annual assault of all things dave dobbyn. To the underground : RISE UP ! make yrself heard May 2008. Attack (no, not as in 'hack')and scribble over as many NZMM sites/forums as possible. The underground has made itself so much stronger and savvy with the onset on web 2.0, and the majors know it. The Crude mechanism ain't gonna back down either. And so I blog on.

This underground I talk about is a varied and crytalline super-structure. And still, i blog on. How 'bout that cruddy weather? The South Island has just received a wintery blast. You know, just enough to remind us where we are exactly, just north of Antarctica, that melting continent.

I digress in a large way. Please excuse me.

Relevant news:: Crude is to play the BorderLine Ballroom in may. May 21st to bwe exact. Check out the Crude myspace page for informations........

UNDAY, APRIL 20, 2008

webpage-paypal-sendspace-atm

I did it!!! It has been done! I have done it ! I have achieved it! I have made money and sent out an album completely mediated by the net! that is, they payed by paypal, they ordered an mp3 album, i sent it to them via sendspace! Yeeehaaa! We at Crude Digital-Accumulative Finance are fully happy! Hurrah ! The new model works!

Other news:::::MAY is the month that hypermodern is to release my collaboration with Kenji Siratori!!! Not long now, folks!

The Aesthetics have had some real home and away kinda stuff happening lately : will have to dedicate an entire blog to this one. please stay tuned for all the gossip!

Also, did y'all know Crude had a 'pop' album on Bebo?? Check it out - you need to just scroll down to the tracks and hit play all! a very catchy and compelling selection of songs, I believe.

UNDAY, APRIL 27, 2008

.. a man's man.

The Aesthetics are now a trio (again), but will flesh out into a quartet very soon. The weekend saw a typically loose and pissed set from the three-piece...a flurry of sound evoking the nihilism of the Fall matched with the deliberately off guitar of Black Flag's Greg Gin perhaps...yes? no? doubt it? perhaps?

Yes, 'twas a party at None/Lot 24/Dive Distro, one of those events, all in celebration of our bass player/second guitarist/vocalist Jason Barret. Cause it was his birthday. We love Jason, he's a real bonafide nihilist. A scum punk rock and roller. A romantic. A male witch. A lover. A fighter. A drinker.

happy birthday Jason Barret.

A cool night. The entertainment began with The Creeps, a youthfull band that played Misfits covers and shit,,then there was a new out-fit called 'Kunst' ..Aliki Boufis (5454,drums) , Toki (toys,noise-making devices, glee cartel, khomet)) and Alex McKinnon (guitar noise, house, fake piano, dream roll tapes). Very enjoyable din. Then I think murderbike (iso 12, rachel..?)did a stint, then the aesthetics + stalker performed, all the while new(ish) Dads Clayton Noone (armpit, fuck don lonie for cash label, cja, futurians) and Sean Norling (mandroid, dick the phone, futurians) waited patiently arms folded bleary eyed for Zarakov to arrive so as to assemble the doom wizards Wolfskull ...

But then , they played. And it was good. And then, the party atrophied into a grovely sorta jam session with people off the street abusing instruments (me) . Who else was there. The usual suspects. Blah Blah. Music. Dunedin. Network. Network some more. Motoko filmed it all. Thanks to Jason. Thanks to Iso for being Iso.

FRIDAY, MAY 2, 2008

new songs

Yes, just finished a new batch of work for the big december release (and its gonna have a booklet!!ooh! ooh gosh!). Yeah, the one with the rediculous title: L'archivio dei lavori ultimati da Matt Middleton per l'ANNUNCIO 2008 di anno....

the tracks:

'solace' - simple tone loop, all sounds extracted from voice. cute. or perhaps just cutesy.

'beast inception' - a highly stylized attempt at emulating the cult black metal pioneer band 'Von' using only synthesizers...

'nothing..' - oh yes, that old motif...this is a vocal structure gleaned from one of my dictation tapes..

'it's ugly competition...it's madmen' - again, a clever little composition assembled from samples taken from a 'manifesto' i dictated...

'the sea, the blood'.......similar to 'the tone, the charm', this is an attempt to submerge the listener in gallons of goopy-pus ridden reverb. with a real spacey sci-fi undercurrent. sea and space merge to make blood clots or something stupid like that.

well there you go. ooh i BET you're all really excited. ooh yeah. quivering. yeah. absolutely.

ATURDAY, MAY 10, 2008

a gig review

Went to a party last Saturday night. No, sorry, it was a Friday night. So whats the fricken diff, biff?? At the new Arc franchise. In this, this post-crown-venue dunedin, bands and bandidoes all scruff and puff play for a zircon encrusted crust where they can, mcMann. Arc, the 2 (not 1!) microphone venue is an option favoured by the hardcore stage-mix set, and by Jove, did the boys I saw do a good job with what they had! EYE: Peter Stapleton, Peter Porteous and Nathan Thompson proved themselves absolute MASTERS of the vortex with a set that sucked me down the gurgler of my mind's mindless mind. Pure quantum-gravity (amateurish mis-informed physics analogy for effect only)type sound acheived: the vortex - a daoist spinning effect, whirling magnetic guitar dervish zoetrope. A twister. Stunned and put in my humble place amongst such venerable sonic black-blood magic arts. A fine performance - EYE are failsafe brill-o pads.

Next was the NEU BLOOD. The northern lights. The boys from up north who came, swore and concured. Alex McKinnon, acolyte zealator of the free-noise brick-laying brotherhood and Lee Noyes. What a stunning din!! Lee Noyes played drums like a 50 ear old african american super-pro jazz legend! Absolutely blown the fug away bro!!! And Alex - he's an absolute free-noise super-star. X factor uber-alles. We mean it. And so do they. It's obvious - thety're aiming high : REAL high. (like i did once when i played that sax solo a refule in '98 where i 'changed form' when playing)

Oh - sorry, i missed wolfskull and the OZ group. Would comment if i could and I apologize profusely. Was too pissed, too drunk, too other-wise occupied. I ASSUME they were fascinating. Dingy. Bleak, but groov-orientated. next time folks.

SATURDAY, MAY 24, 2008

the great rock music lie

Extremely active and fascinating couple of weeks for Crude. For the sake of the reader: I want to let you know that this blog will not only focus on Crude's activities but also that of The Aesthetics, my 'rock' band, and other peripheral aspects of 'life' as a 'musician': it's psychological, sociological, theological, indeed, it's epistemological aspects.

Yeah, whatever.

So anyway, whats been happening??

Item one this afternoon was the borderline ballroom gig amongst the anglo-fauna of Christchurch city last Wednesday the 21st. Goodness gracious, what a great evening. Was a delight to absorb self in the digi-soup of I-rory. Using crude objects of both home-made and exotic qualities, I-rory evoked the sound plethorae of Zoviet France.

Dj Stanier Black Five inserted rough electronics and strange bliperama into those between act breaks. And the guest DJ (who???)spun the wholly relevant back-log of Touch Records' (Philip Jeck's label) highlights..

I had prepared an arsenal of pre-recorded shite so as to select what suited the night best. Decided on a mix of psycho-lounge act/suicidist screamology to provide a juxtaposition to the monotheisticly non-vocal apparatus of the night.

And lo! It work'd lovely-like! Set ONE slab of glitchery on auto-pilot for a bit, popped off-stage for a whiskey and left the crowd panting! Then suddenly I pop back up for a rendition of 'Welcome to my Day', a piece with harsh electro beats and an almost split enz-ey melodic line. Well whoop-de-do.

Finished up quick, 'twas one of those infuriatingly brief Crude sets, well, according to one punter it was, I thought it was just nice at perhaps 30 mins.

Philip Jeck was on next, click the link for his biography: he's a legend. The audience, seated and attentive, was to bask in an array of masterfully coaxed samples and loops for a good 40-50 mins. There was a rare beauty to his chosen sounds: simplicity, delicate but forthright line, the texture of chamber music.

ITEM TWO : The Aesthetics. Our new bass player is Alex Mckinnon, perhaps best known for his experimental work. 'Tis working well. We performed at Dunedins vegan hot-spot Circadian Rhythm on Saturday the 24th, alongside new dunedin hardcore punk act Foe, the odd-ball gold-digger schtick of Wolfman, the dirty hyper-referentiality of The Creeps and the alround dumbness of The Anals. My god, do those Invercargill boys draw a crowd? What the hell is it???? My god we rocked it. Maybe the sound didn't work, it's yet another on-stage mix venue, maybe my vox were too loud but god we rocked it. For our first gig just hours after our first full band rehearsal 'twas a promising din. So paint my red and call me a twot.

The Aesthetics are now recording, new doom-laden works are in order, always with a glint of humour. Black pitch fuggin humour. The Aesthetics are hopefully rocking Christchurch on thee 21st of June and Wellington city sometime between 22nd - 26th of July. And no, we ain't playing the backstage. And no, no more zero dollar gigs. fuckers.

Ain't the world a screwy place. It makes me sick. Physicaly sick.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 28, 2008

eventology

Stupor. A 'flash mob': heavy calloused mental patient(s) running wild on George Street,Dunedin, New Zealand. Catatonia. A thick rimmed, yellow-bellied gob of mank. Stuck on level 5, stomach knotted up. Trying hard not to pass water.

That is the sound we look for. That is the ground we hook more.

The Aesthetics : noise rock, nihil rock, spatter rock . Painting a picture. Snaking the tincture. Nagging and null. Gagging and lull. This be the buttery-knob of rake-rock libri:

vermin: vermin: vermin: vermin:

'Sold out' they say - ha! Yeah, that's right man we like totally sold out! We played the big day out! We like sold out! Look at us now! It's all bling and cash-as-toilet-paper! Yeah! We sold out!

Shows:::: The Aesthetics with Sonic Smith, a Dunedin electronic act. Thats Wednesday night, June thee 18th my people. Free entre. Please, if ye be in that quadrant, that sector, do come along.

Then : CHRISTCHURCH !!! The MEDIA CLUB!!! THE AESTHETICS! THE LO-LINERS ! THE PALACE OF WISDOM! ~~~~~~~ JUNE 21ST ..........

And then WELLINGTON : JULY!!!!!! WOOOHOOO!!!!!!

Classic AESTHETICS/PALACE OF WISDOM/CRUDE REVIEW

SATURDAY, MAY 31, 2008

big business

A personal victory would be the ability to fund:

1.set up of a venue/club, a slick, professional, sophisticated, progressive, fully-lubricated, dj laden, coffee-roasting, crude worshipping one. A crude stocking chain of cafes/record stores.

2. release of the entire crude backcatalogue on thick black vinyl with super-professionally re-design sleeves then distributed world-wide through the coolest stores..

3. A media campaign to educate the majority of new zealanders to realize that the poor and the unemployed are actually utilized as a conduit for funelling capital directly BACK to the companies/ceos/wealthy fucks that call us (and use media to cultivate the meme that the poor are 'lazy')'bludgers'. Oh yes, we're contributing alright, you fucking fucks.

4. A $5,000,000 tv marketing campaign for the crude web-site, asia/pacifc region

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2007/07/15/subsidizing_the_rich_and_a_fre/

http://www.wehaitians.com/reverse%20foreign%20aid%20why%20are%20poor%20countries%20subsidizing%20rich%20ones.html

http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=j-GQmNXwWL0C&pg=PA149&lpg=PA149&dq=poor+subsidize+the+rich&source=web&ots=H85oFtDETr&sig=CSi45iECQXvjuVeAHIbVo6CchJw&hl=en

http://www.jethroproject.com/tjpsubsidy.htm

http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/1995----.htm

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0210/S00089.htm

SATURDAY, MAY 31, 2008

classic crude noise piece

there's an angry professor at the central university library. When i sidle past, arrogant, young, laden with books, I can just feel his hatred. And a small insult leaks out from his lips. Lock, stock and barrell. Channel development. Moss and rouphage. Italian Stallion. Lights, camera, action. Moonbeams and feather dusters.

http://www.archive.org/details/BrainwashSequence53

TUESDAY, JUNE 10, 2008

crude : micro update and resources

There is enough Crude for everybody on earth! Don't fret, people! This link-bank is a great resource for finding all the various Crude bits online: http://crude.co.nz/link%20bank%201.htm

update: Crude is::: recording saxophone suite. readying stock for wellington gigs in july .......The Aesthetics are: about to embark on the nu album, starting with drum/bass tracks for the new song 'blood rock'. Playing refuel on wed june 18th, and Chrsitchuch media club sat june 21st..

And also : here's the cover art for the Kenji Siratori and Crude collaboration :

MONDAY, JUNE 16, 2008

ragguaglio !!!!!!!!

The Aesthetics are playing in Wellington Friday July 25th at Happy with Panda Battle Battle Panda, Newtown and the Stumps!!!!

should be the gig of the year!!

Crude will also be playing an instore at Beth Dawsons Spacething shoppe (date yet to be confirmed...) .this will also be a forum for capital city based music consumers to get their hands on some physical crude discs ::: for instance: Slurries parts 1,2 and 3, Dopamine 20 data cd, Wretched 5 data cd, CrudeComplete dvd, La Chaleur Basse di Fidelte vol 1 and 2,

The Gel, The Mine, Fumes, Syringe/Insekt, The Aesthetics Off, and The artless intent back-catalogue featuring work by cpu group, 5454 (aliki boufis), palace, and Kenji Siratori/Crude!

Crude will also be attending the Happy open mic night on wednesday the 23rd July

PS ---- The Aesthetics are to perform at the media club, christchurch city, on SATURDAY THE 21st of June with rockers Palace of Wisdom and the Lo-Liners !

and if yr in dunedin , go to refuel pint night wednesday the 18th (tmoro) to see The Aesthetics and local electro-guy Sonic Smith!!! free entry! cheap beer!

POSTED BY MATTHEW_MIDDLETON AT 6:39 PM

THURSDAY, JUNE 19, 2008

gang war nz

Blatant. But::::::,,,mir-a-c(U)louse.

Said Sayid: Mound - Mouth - Otu _ UtU _ green :

sall[[[[ seel (prog) 20 .45986705497

Ju- ----- "angler"

Mount : --------------------------anex (x)

minus equals :

throb ov black shopper

= " why you little"

scowls from the fart of the family mang ///

involve crime:

"no idea - no capacity to fathom :

no capacity to ....to....no compassion ..indeed:

a [socio] P(A)T/H

. _______________\

___________________________________\

POLYNEEEJ

polyneeej

they know how to (H)UR.T . : you

THURSDAY, JUNE 19, 2008

refuel june 18 ; what actually happened

boodle :

struedel

: valve - slanderous!

bolshevik!

strand p- strand books - !

>> <<

abso (l) ute

um....klang!

ibiza crude matt middleton faux bogan and/or (faux-ganne)

_ ??

china . gang.. mongrel mob

black power/// tribesman //

road knights (firey lounge bogan bitch )

level ov org//+

( - harley davidson corp)

pot

stand-over

what really happened

bugger

THURSDAY, JUNE 19, 2008

phenomenonenon : part i

Oh i love flicking through the virtual pages of the net and fishin' up some good ole' crude mp3 action. Take THIS for example - basically another online album; streamable, downloadable, and juicy. Yes - it's true, I'm a smug lil' fan of my own work. I'm my own muse. I concoct musics that satisfy my own aesthetic yearnings. God forbid: I listen to my own music. And i don't care. Here in beautiful Kiwiland, it' so easy to earn the label of wanker. And so what. I mean really..

\what has been happening..well, I's offa 2 christchuch city for the weekend, to provide an entertainment alternative to the international rugby match and it's resultant vomit/blood/urine hued psycho-social ganglia.....goddamn we all better watch our asses that nite!!

what else........oh, here we are - a quick review of the Aesthetics/sonic smith gig at refuel :::: i sorta felt combining the

fatboy slimming of meister smyth with the flipperama of aesthetics was just too sociologically polarising. His thing attracts x type of people, our thing attracts y type of people, and some of them dislike each other. Perhaps that is why a friend of mine sneered at me so.. Oh well - perhaps she would like to become our fuckin manager. But anyways - the highlight of Sonic's set was his housey tounge/cheek remix of the Beverly Hills 90210 theme. Top marks, mr man!

The aesthetics , (ooh, that's me! reviewing myself now! you wanker)were loud and messy-but-tight - brilliant performance by the engine room (the drums of mr. malcolm deans, the bassological infusions of Mr Alex McKinnon), and stunning klang/jang/kerrang of Mr jason Barrett. I was fairly soused (no! really? you mean...for a change??)and greatly offended the ghost of albert ayler with my miserable attempts at saxophone virtuosity BUT - i KILLED the synth man!!! WE ROCKED IT!!! AND WE'LL BE EVEN BETTER IN CHRISTCHURCH!!!! YAYY!!!!!

FOR NOW-------

BYEEEEEE!!!

PS - this is my best friend on earth : DAN TAIT (aka chip anal)I love his writing man, he has dyslexia and hence a sorta on-the-surface naievity which betrays his piercing critical sensibility. Jagged, de-consructed stream-o-conciousness shit, a delight to read...real cool style. i reckon.

PPS - check out THIS site.

PPPS - do NOT, i REPEAT, DO NOT VOTE FOR NATIONAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MONDAY, JUNE 23, 2008

causal nexus - chch gig - wembly stadium

Back back back and back again from the end of the week! Another one! And this time, the cruddy-aesthetic mechanism did it's thing in Christchurch city! AGAIN! Watch out Christchurch ......this may even happen....AGAIN!

I now consider semi-regular performance in Christchurch a very viable option - travel there a mere commute to work. In New Zealand's South Island, there are three 'major' cities - the largest being Christchurch (henceforth 'chch'), the other my base ov operatics, Dunedin, and lastly Invercargill, the torpid sprawl i was born/raised in and most recently the epicentre of Mongrel Mob/Road Knight tuppaware parties/tensions. Town-like centres very close to city status are Timaru, approx 2hrs south of chch, and Nelson - at the top of the SI. Slightly smaller - perhaps labelled 'larger towns' are Oamaru, with it's intriguing Penguin Club venue, Queenstown, all powdery'n'vulgar, and maybe Gore, with it's freshly incinerated country music hall. But sorry, Chch, Dunedin and Oamaru seem the most attractive. Yes Invercargill, I really did just said that.

But you know, as far as touring is concerned, my approach is the targeted hit...not a tour per se...but a weekend in one town, then home. Flights are the best ways to get to the Nth Island Cities. Hence the Crude/Aesthetics marketing/performance activities in late July. Bookmarking THIS site is essential for the assiduous south island rocker.

Ok, I digress. Blather. Filler. Here's another one of my 'micro-reviews'.....

Arrived after a shit drive. went to Chip Anals. watched queen, elton john, judas priest, guns'n'roses, genesis, ozzy osbourne and paul mccartney dvds. genesis were in a pastel suits, like 80s cops or coke dealers or something. Oh yeah - i watched a fleetwood mac live dvd - at their drugged-out height. paused shots of the drummers facial expressions for fun. fugacious fun. I know I know, naff sounding dvds but i was too out-of-it to care what they were and what you people would think of me if i said i enjoyed them. went to the venue. a big room hence a cold venue - but the staff seem to profer forth some sort of warmth towards me. i think they like me there. dave kahn of krkrkrk did the sound. i was anxious as shit. the lo-liners arrived. great people. and they kicked ass. reminded me a little of the renderers maybe..sorta ...but at the same time they were nothing like them. i applaud the lo-liners, solid, country/blues swamp rock with masterful drumming by rustle coveney, great vocals by Lisa Preston and Joanne Billesdon, relentless bass from Sharon Billeston.. then we played. our best gig in a while. my god we ruled (well maybe). bad bad bad. as in - bad=good. all those dvds payed off after-all,, thanks freddy, you great fag you.. palace of wisdom tied it all up with a wonderously grating no-nonsence garage rock performance.ballzy, straight down the middle garage from these legends. Mick Elborado was amazing to watch ,with his meaty bass and ox had us all facing the front, getting real They started with a handpicked selection of nz 60s nuggets (actually 80s it turns out!). Palace of wisdom has as much collective knowledge of this era of nz music as the new york public library has books...great show. One of many. A very hard working Chch institution is our ole' Palace.

ox threw an after party. i didn't go.(and i bet i missed a good one (typically good). i went home to watch more naff aor dvds. and i don't fucking care. i was intransigent about it.

The gig was recorded,,,,,and the best bits will be mixed into the upcoming aesthetics album 'ugly ambition' whcih will probably be released on the hardest tryer label 'artless intent' ...and there maybe phots of it coming up on thebigcity.co.nz....so watch out...

compare and contrast libertarianism.

THURSDAY, JUNE 26, 2008

mission statement

> this blog is not a music magazine. it is merely a online journal or diary. Events that surround me (the blogger) are rendered to text as best and as truthfully i can. If offense is taken toward any opinions or observations therein, please contact me, tell me the problem and I'll do my best to rectify it.

Catholic block. Compare Libertarianism. Help me. Kelp. Hurt. dank. Cunt. Smart shit. Opeth. Juniper. ibogaine. Chris Knox. Anglican. Super-duper.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 2, 2008

art , new zealand society, meaning and meaninglessness

That naked creature, the new zealand creative. Oh! breath with me now - ponder this, the 21st century urban kiwiscape..it's tenderloin system, it's butter-milk work-wheels, it's cauliflower-ear'd cabal, it's necrotic free-masonry, it's heroic cockies, hoodies yellowed, eyes-on-dope, ancestral frown lines cavernous..'Yo Dick!'..George street: Lo! The public figurine : the plaster-cast artist: she who hath 'willingly' 'selected' that 'insecure' 'lifestyle' 'option'. Tattered, leathered and android, hypnotized on govt cheese, ministry of social development eugenics and the relentless tv3-tv2-tv1 media attention on the daily acts of uniquely kiwi brutality, rape, torture and murder (let alone the gory, nightly, scatalogically vouyeristic and unnecessarily realist cop drama autopsies) all of it dosed out every night like your suppertime war-time tripe'n'greul. And Tv3 will tell you : national has already won! And tv3 will tell you to save power! All the while 'essential' industry sucks up as much as it 'needs'. The little ones all take the risk in the end. We take the risk. We are the buffer-zone. Kept anxious and work-ready. Labour flows. Mobile. Upskilling perpetually.

With all this in the ugly kiwi air.....still! her mirror reflects. The medium may be the word, the line, the sound - the mirror still reflects. And soon, ye who do not yet 'sell', who do not yet 'earn' : soon : the market liberals take power. And STILL : your mirror will reflect. As it does and always will. And you will be marginalized further. And further. And your out-put will darken, madden. It will become louder.

To the New Zealand creative: if national wins the 2008 election - don't stop. Just get louder. Harder. Sicker. Uglier. Smellier. BE the poverty. Show the upper-classes what it does to your mental health - BE the disease. Get right in their whimpering,spastic, painted on faces. Throw their shit back at them. Use what is available. The internet. The pen. The brush. The amplifier. The microphone. The vibrator. The toe-clipper. If you're too weak - withdraw, hibernate, plan, plot, store, percolate. Scratch it out on private scrolls.

Well, i thats probably what i'll do.

Ok , bye.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 16, 2008

phenomenonon

Winter is what it is isn't it. And next Tuesday the Crude mechanism flys to capital city! ahh yes, a little voyage outta the dunedin-scape, therapeutic. This missions acts as a promotional/marketing exercise,,the CRUDE show on Thursday at spacething a tuppaware party, and the Aesthetics show on Friday a rock-a-rolla showcasey. Yes indeedy.

But first 'twill be The Futurians gig in Port Chalmers! yeehaawww!

SATURDAY, JULY 19, 2008

why the futurians rule the world

http://www.myspace.com/futurians

this next link contains all the info you could ever want plus a hyperlinked discography (which is pretty extensive too) http://www.softabuse.com/artists/futurians.html

The Futurians are a band that have soul. Their music, a pulsating, minimalist, primitivist, machinistic monster of a thing is at once fiction and fanstasy, at once politics and hyper-reality. Go to a Futurians performance and you will know what i mean - this is the now and this is the future. I mean, just take a look at their influences: (from myspace) : music robots, pkd, murdering monsters, star trek, the fall, blakes 7, billy idol, dr who, battletruck, bauhaus, judge dread, cortina, futurama, guitar wolf, wictyst, cock esp, hodogs, catpower, f leger, yoko ono & john lennon, thee strap ons, isaac asiminov, pere ubu, the aesthetics, sigue sigue sputnik, talking heads, public image ltd, survivor, wssoes, otto dix, duicide, halo jones, international telepaths, frederick pohl, joy division/new order, pink & green & blue, suicide, star wars, dr strange love, 2000ad!, blondie, 6 feet under, bratmobile, royal trux, 3d movies, krazy kat, teenage panzercorps, the face, metal mickey, iron maiden, the gordons, willie dixon, margeret atwood, death, tivol, gfrenzy, pablo picasso, acdc, the simpsons, 6 finger satelite, john waters, dungeon, scrooge mcduck, kurt vonnegut, teenage panzercorps, glittering lights, monster dogs, ringo.

The Futurians wouldn't be the Futurians without Beth Dawson a.k.a duckling monster.

Beth is a one-woman army..a vocalist with no comparison, a peerless cultural engineer who has re-invigorated the wellington underground through her many bands and her spacething enterprise. The welly old-guard shudder and moan about it all, the zinesters and scenesters support it all.

Neither would they be the same without their mad Korg comptroller ISO12. Or without the dirge guitar of Clayton Noone - and the nasty minimalism of Sean Norling. crikey - i have basically said the Futurians wouldn't be The Futurians if they didn't have band members. How convoluted. my apologies.

anyway...

last night The Futurians played a set at the masonic lodge in Port Chalmers, unfortunately the last show to be put on there (council issues and residential complaints rendering the culture of the lil' port void until 'Chicks' re-emerges as an art-hub). what a show to go out on. I played around 9pm, successfully implementing a more sober approach to my performance, my sax stabs'n'jabs all in-sync and tight, ad-lib sections carefully determined before-hand...attitude all vicious and ironic...stoned-dude groany'n'deep vibrato lay upon th' country'n'western suicide-a-billy twang-ology vocal gymnastick. pats-on-the-back and warm reception.

Next was Onanon, (a reference to onanism?) a band i hadn't truely taken much notice of until last night, their new material mature and slick and evoking the melodious gaiety of The Clean, the schizoid cleverness of The Pixies, the smart-bomb punk architecture of The Swell maps, all the while retaining a sonic signature all their own. More Dunedin than Dunedin, they'd do real well in Australia and The USA. Kinda like Panel of Judges , from melbourne, they were more dunedin than dunedin too. But hey, it's a classic sound - a neat lil' approach to post-punk-dom and it's 21st century protagonists do not indulge in 'replication';they are innocently chanelling that original spirit.

Last on was The Futurians. And they conquered. many danced, many lived to tell the tale. There's was an approach synthesizing elements of no-wave, new-wave, synth-rock, drone rock, doom rock, kraut-rock, pt chalmers dirge, robot rock, riot grrllism, and calculator punk. if it's labels you wanted. all i say is; support them. If ye be in wellington, go check out anything Beth Dawson is inmvolved with. If Dunedin - check out wolfskull, iso 12, psychic sidekick...there a dozens of related acts all pious in their own rights. Go check out the soft abuse link above and buy an album. great use of comic book-mechanoid linguisitic in their titles.

Oh yeah go buy a Crude Cd too.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 23, 2008

wellinton diary 01

Back to dirty old Wellington. Where the beards grow and are well kept. Where the streets are paved. Where Lange lays. Where the user-pays. Where you're a 'Dick' all day.

The Crude industries event last evening was a fairly claustrophobic affair, well, for me it was, but art prevailed! Sax chortled and wailed, amps coughed and spluttered, half knowing half smiles were exchanged, merchandise was displayed and discussed, units were pushed.

Don't let Spacething's size fool you - for at it's core is a big heart and a chamber of beautiful D.I.Y artefacts. Performance at Spacething necessitates a casting-off of the artists ego: her boundaries - the audience is integrated into the performance. It is a direct and brutal interchange : a removal of the mask : a challenge - with a great reward. I feel an odd sense of gained merit today.

Tomorrow is the big game::::A bunch of bands playin' Happy, Wellington's Tonic. Or Cakeshop. Probably more Cakeshop. There's Newtown, a very angry band indeed. Theres the Stumps, an all-star out-fit featuring the talents of Antony Milton (Black Boned Angel, A.M etc), Stephen Clover (Seht) and James Kirk (formerly Sandoz lab technicians) . Panda Battle Battle Panda also perform. And I expect they are a ball.

And of c ourse, The Aesthetics. Much anticipated, everything riding on this one gig, they better-be-good-or-i'm-taking-my-shares-outta-pfizer type thing or some shit.

So cock-a-doodle doo lets drink ourselves to death and track down John Key@!!!!!!!

MORE TO COME!!

MONDAY, JULY 28, 2008

wellington part 2

read fast for correct effect..

...Recovering from the instore gig and the first couple of days in Newtown I assimilated. I like to visit a place not as a tourist but as a latent local. Newtown charmed me with it's easy going nature - easy going with an edge, of course - eateries and affordable veges/fruit everywhere,,i must admit it..Wellington is the food capital of New Zealand.

The big gig was friday night at Happy. And what a gig it was...a high spirited & enthusiastic crowd, most of them dancing,,my god..actual dancing..a thing seemingly exclusive to wellington...dancing...to music..

the big upset was of course Panda Battle Battle Panda's absence : Lucy had to receive emergency treatment for a freak head injury earlier in the day,,it was too late notice to whip up another act. That was a real dissapointment for both the audience and Beth who had been looking forward to the gig with relish for some time. Rock and/or Roll moves in mysterious ways. I'm a big fan of the Duckling Monster and an integral element was missing from the night : shes the coolest singer in town. Yeah I said it.

Newtown played first - a duo act with a onstage demeanour so relaxed and insouciant our collective ego-masks were immolated (oh dear - more references to 'ego' and 'masks'). There's was the interactivity of a vital,anarchic,witty and very-much-in-love couple,,through their act we were invited to their flat/life/stage, the music an expression of the Wellington everyday, a flurry of riotous sloganeering, cats meows, punk-as-gossip, mohawk's and a cup of tea..the riot grrrl movement very much alive and well in the capital..

The Stumps played 2nd,,,initially it was to be us (The Aesthetics) but Grace won the day and we were relegated to the prime spot..Either way,,,the Stumps performance was ideal for the headline act, and even more so - they were mind-blowing...a whirlwind. Loosely their sound is Heavy psyche - with that crazed amphetaminized guitar sheen,,with that unpredictable improv shock, like Eye they were vortex music but with a chunky post-rock approach. 'Twas evokation music. 'Don't mess with shit you don't understand man..' ..Visuals played a very strong part : behind them was the film 'God Damn Religion' by Sun City Girls' Sir Richard Bishop : a flick-thru/slide-gallery/fast-paced compendium of static full colour images gleaned from the dusty annals of ancient religion, both east and west - hells, devils, demons, hindu hells, tibetan hells, torment, christ's torment: a real bias t'wards the dark side methinks. All up a mad soiree.. I am now a Stumps fan.

------------------'twas so,,encouraging to have an audience swell before us that night,,,chants of 'bogan' and howls and yips in the mist...we did what we could and hells-teeth it was good. The gig was filmed by ex Christchurch lone-eccentric swordsman Lynton Denovan(CM Ensemble, Tony Valens & The Incisions, Righteous Sinner Singers, Sirlordme).

That was our new bassist Alex McKinnons last gig with us...so the band now goes on to record the album 'ugly ambition' without him and in live situations will more than likely remain a trio.

Thanks.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 8, 2008

eventology

Watched a great film today, A Singaporian effort, '15', a raw, at times very abstract film following the lives of various disaffected youth from the island/city state. I recommend it.

Tharrrs another gig brewin' in the air here in funsville Wyoming, and as the vultures circle o'erhead we prepare our speeches: 'kill me now, kill me quick, arsenic on a carrot tied to a stick'..Who's it dis time badger? well well, 'tis the best doomological scholar-band of the big mainland/canoe 'wolfskull'....if yr an avid online buyer i suggest you puruse their discography..and the magnetotronic combobulations of Dirtroom....this be an disc release party,....!!!!..I'll be playin with a lil' lektronic/saxophonic set (which will be recorded and added to my december release compendium... and Les Revalations also perform. Hurrah!!!!

aesthetics news.

Our old out-of-date blog, the one left on the un-altered aesthetics blog page offa crude.co.nz is, well, ironically, it's core clippit, that 'we are back to a three-piece again' is , well, the case once more. Our new bass player left the band on amicable and rational terms, and so, us old c**ts shall keep flying the fart-flag for a bit. The album, that old memetic/crumb of data, is yet to be completed, but it will be, in the main recorded at my new studio, henceforth known as 'river-bank rooms' up in north east valley. 'Ugly Ambition' will see the light. And there's good new for you aesthetics fans...all 20 of you...I'm finally awaiting the remaing 'OFF' cds from the states!! soon at all gigs we'll have plenty of copies of this beautiful nugget/album, all on a REAL CD! all who listen to the record get a chaffing initially, but after a few listens are taken in by it's deep subtelty. It is a great album, an overlooked, un-adorned, un-recognized piece of cultural history that sits in the strangest record collections. The mission to furnish oneself with a copy shall be simplified in a month. Or so.

world news.

Has anyone read the Hadith? Those were brutal times weren't they. The bloody Olympics. Beijing 2008. What happens when it's all over? Who'll win the US presidential election? Jesus? Or Jesus? Here's a good web-page --Too Much magazine. The eight pipes were extended from the Al-Zarqan nuclear facility eight months agomorfix Life Sciences, a company focused on treatments and diagnostics for brain wasting diseases, today announced its operational and financial results for the three months ended June 30, 2008 Although a seemingly simple piece of technology in comparison with the complexity of the detectors, the beampipe is a carefully designed and essential part of both the experiments and the LHC.That fucking band. Damn record companies.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 17, 2008

the night the music fried: refuel saturday.

It's monday morning! And i got a job!! Its my calling ! Full time blogger! weekend madman, weekday gonzo! Put the coffee on! Go get me a pastry! Lets talk 'culture'!

.....You can't call it Dunedin music, for it isn't Dunedin music. It is global music made by people who are based, for now, in Dunedin. To lump these acts in with 'dunedin''s current over-extended list of rag-tag rugger-bugger student flat bands would do them an injustice. These people operate from Dunedin only, and their craft radiates outward, via the net, and geraldine vinyl, everywhere on earth.

This is the great divide between our local acts: on one hand: say...it's an active dunedin band who have a high profile on dunedin music.com etc.. you hear about them constantly..in Dunedin. All the time. Like, they must be doing so well. But go to Helsinki, or Berkley, or even fukkn Auckland, and it would be like 'who...? excuse me....who..?' ...on the other hand - the bands/acts that play rarely, well, if they do(as admittedly some are very active)their performances are not ardently advertised or noticed,,have several records out,,many networks,,,but you like RARELY hear about them, they aren't discussed in Dunedin so much, like, they don't even exist..or they may as well not ..but then you go to like Melbourne or Boston or Brussels and yeah,,they're known alright! And respected. And often have record deals there. What gives? Oh well. Nevermind.

The bands on Saturday were of the latter variety.

\It was a real cold night and the mere fact people came to the gig was an indication there was some pull to these bands. due to health issues, Les Revelations De Seriuses

withdrew,,,,strange cause someone close to the band told me they were playing at Arc that night..maybe just a misunderstanding. I look forward to hearing them!

I'll save the SELF review till last eh...

WOLFSKULL. Shit. My god they ruled. And i had the best seat in the house,,,up on stage wit' them on the right-wing (your LEFT) lips wrapped around a nice taut mouthpiece. Wolfskull are the real deal - like the stumps they're an all-star out-fit; Duane Zarakov with his trademark groove - untouchable. Clayton Noone with his sad melody/dirty dirge. Iso 12 with his sweet voice, wierd, remote lyrics and his cosmo-centric Korg. Sean Norling with his bass from Mars and it's googol effects.(don't u just love googling names) They do/DID the heavy psyche thing like masters. A very....boy type of thing. It's a big ol' scene now in the Northern Hemisphere...the number of bands of the ilk sproutin' like the buds of spring,,it's pot music par excellence. I whacked out a little sax-a-ma-phoney for dem, worked ok I tink. Congratualtions wolfskull, take that shit to the bastards of the north me suggest.

DIRTROOM. Aliki Boufis, Alex McKinnon, Toki Wilson, Rachel Blackburn . - Mood music. Thats what I'd call it. No,,,,that would be an over-simplification. Dirtroom, made up of the remnants of Khomet, (two members, Jimmy Currin and Ollie Van Der Lugt are absentees..tich tich,,call thhe principal)are noise. At it's core is a primal expressionism. They tore and shred and rollicked and banged and fed-back a million times over and, as a musician myself, I just knew they'd be feeling good (endorphins surgin' ,dopaminergic reward mechanisms all firing..u know the score)..after that show. Always a joy - the individuals of Dirtroom are all resident at the None Gallery - each an artist in their own right...in fact..they're all visual artists. Watch out for them - wherever u may be.

I played too. Ha. My god. what happened. I premiered a few numbers off the 'l'archivio' dvd..'hull, lackey, braggard'...'beast inception' (yeah that trax online),,'ugly competition' ,,,my remix of 'hell bent for leather' ...and ad libbed a new song,,,'J is for Jesus'...the evening's show will be included on the December DVD!!!!!! As is typical, I....I....entertained.

The show was a release party. dirtroom's track waz: 'homeless bodies' , Wofskull's ..'whole lotta ghaza'. Released on root don lonie. To order, well, either go thru the root myspace or email Mr Noone: rootdonlonieforcash@hotmail.com

.....and so : to conclude, for on reading this blog it's brevity was very obvious...yes...it was a GREAT NIGHT. I could use better referencing, more adjectives, i could talk history or speculate on future careerist timelines but u know,,,it was a GREAT NIGHT and a great SOCIAL OCCASION. To get certain elusive types together,,,just get WOLFSKULL to do a stint. with um, with Stevce McCabe. And King Loser.

PS - Dunedin's Lord Byron Gavin Shaw is on myspace. Check it!

SUNDAY, AUGUST 31, 2008

the aesthetics - 'ugly ambition' - it's awwwnnnnn!

It is done! The album is finally....finally UNDERWAY!!! woooohhhoooo! Track One 'Devon' is DOWN and done and on stinking, putrid, rocked and rolled digital byte-bastardized audacity trackery!!!!complete with freshly captured bad-domestic-vibes! It's a track that embraces our new dirty scum-blackened death-punk drawl...compleat wif remote scandanavian minor chords, fuzz box and zildjian waves'n'rushes. This baby oughta be out by DECEMBER '08. so it can be released along with :: the Crude data dvd archive 'La Archivio Dei Lavori...' and the re-issue of Crude's Sax Sothis...and the reissue of the aesthetics CLASSIC album 'OFF'!!!!

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2008

" L'archivio dei lavori ultimati da Matt Middleton per l'ANNUNCIO 2008 di anno" ------tracks so far this year

The work for this dvd is coming along just NICE! So there'll be plenty of songs, lots of scans of stupid drawings and photos and what else, oh yeah a written section and maybe a vid. All on one dvd. For yr records, here are the song titles so far::

.fr - scathe/soap loop

aerosoll - aero drone done

alone by the fire - cave on casio

another one bites the dust - queer chunks

beast inception - blue/black synth

blackened deadened keys - blackened hypnosiss

breath - zennist lung

bula droiv - concrete licourice stik

cirrus - hydrosphere whispies

codex - crackle maths

crack - throat glitch

crude hell bent remix - metal storms

da grind - sabbath on synth on static

deep field - heavy wind research

devil racerr - synth motors

dopamine flutter - urban fields

for i have nothing - bank account readings

ghz ghz - lite tek

homage to gg allin - nihil loops

hulan tipall - ritual wind

hull, lackey, braggard - word crimes

huul dax - sax cone

ugly competition - computer chant

know - voice piss

leary - found sounds . ripp offs

miss this - isolated loop

no - voice exercises

nort juss - clarinet

nothing - computer secrets/lies

o - nerd-tekker

on an industrial scale - apokalyptikon

puru liir - glide sax

seal - groan drone

seething ugly - ambition

shine on - crystal

shooter - click spatter

sikh solace - mantra mange

slov kuum - concrete cull

spliced swinger - looop'n'roll

syringes and insects - crystalline hump

tallow - blip gristle

tape droner 1 and 2 - swiss chard

the sea, the blood - lake eerie

the tone, the charm - uplifted

transcauscaus drone warlord - memories of welly

tuff in da valley - bogan anthem (whispered)

tulak nozoth - sacred arts, the

vortexx - residents, the

zhuang zi - historical reference

-

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

post LHC

david kilgour gave me this real dirty, mocking sorta look. Um......so the mental illness might be flaring up.

um.....er...yeah

hey new zealand - go vote national. yeah go on. Fukkin um,yeah - vote National. It'll be really good for the mentally ill. Vote for National - vote for the health of the mentally ill. Yeah .

POSTED BY MATTHEW_MIDDLETON AT 5:02 PM

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2008

crude supportin' the lucky dragons!

--from LA ,,the lucky dragons are currently touring the nether-regions and when they hit dunedin Crude'll be supportin' (oh yeah, its the backstage september 28

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2008

phenomenonenon

3 new songs for the " L'archivio dei lavori ultimati da Matt Middleton.....

i'm a man - nu minimal percussion skinny puppy foetus maddening drunk flop

eternalize yourself - mantrfication of post-humous furies experiment

hey hey commando - lite executive blister pack point-of-sale black industrial popper

---off to a gig tonight at Chicks ,,,,,it's thee Autoharpies, Iso12, motherearth and the infamous cult group The otepoti underground. Alright - shall review if able. Thanks alot.TAGS: winston Peters. Populism, charisma, attack politic.

(me holding the cd cover for the album 'slurries volume 2')

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

microreview #3AUTOPHARPIES/ ISO12/ OTEPOTI UNDERGROUND/ MOTHER EARTH CHICKS 19TH

Port Chalmers is where it's at - again. It's almost - no, it IS exciting - there's an exciting new scene there - led and fed through the existence of that one pub - CHICKS. Last Saturday was yet another soiree. And WHAT a soiree. First up, the illustrious Toki Wilson, all wired-up and armed with colourful plastic sound toy machinery, rarotongan militant psychedelic hip-hop southern side and the harsh realities of Stafford street art-skool old-skool. Subtle, to the point of evil, Toki's Otepoti underground project, now in it's solo form, set the standard of the evening - an electronic rat-a-tat-tat.

His rhyme slick, his stage presence diminuitive yet simmering, cool incarnate.

Having coerced a friend to lend me $20 now i could truly participate in the evening. MotherEarth was act number two - Joan George on Bass, Robbie Yeats Drums and Chicks owner Hector Hazard on Guitar. This was a power-trio - violent spasms of bass flicker, like scratching Kim Gordon's eyes out, lee Renaldo at-gun-point ---- teaching sonic youth an important lesson, primordial violent slam-slam-slam. The sound like an artfully coaxed yet mismanaged war-effort. Knives and nuns. The ethyl propulsion of our divine drunken-philosopher yeats.The ancestral grin of motherearth on speed/bass/noise. 10 out of 10.

Iso 12, dunedins most dedicated electro artist was next with sytnh back up by myself (crude). Sophistry. Gadgetry. Years of refinement and ferment. Subtle brit pop/ darkwave lyric layered upon home-spun lectro beet/ minimal-tik haus-louse keys. Dance. Specialist music - embracing the one and not letting go. Top marks. Top marks. Top marks. Arm marks. Sharks. Weather. Blood. Iso 12.

But wait.....theres more. The coolest band in New Zealand. The Autoharpies. No exception. Dark brooding post-punk on ether. Sinister synthetic lines of heavily cut coacaine/sound. Super cool girls all statuesque. A drummer unrelenting and super-smooth; evil femme-beat-plastique. A steamy rifferama, subtle like a plasma. Arrogant in its utter coolness, but like as if they give a fuck. Zombiefied melodies atop dual synth/guitar raunch/paunch. A laser - a phaser. A high school blazer.

That alchemic binding together of event and sense that that top-shelf liquor can-do. Jager shots. Punch in the face. Toilet time. A lemon rind.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2008

this is - the news

Crudetivity over the next couplea weeks::; well sir,,on Sunday the 28th Crude will be supporting Lucky Dragons, for sale at that gig will be the nu tee shrrt, i gots 4 - 2 'xs', one 's' and one 'm' - but these sizes are deceptive - in reality they're a size up - the xs tees are actually small etc etc. I'll have an audio copy of 'fumes' , a 'wretched five' data cd, and a copy of the new 'crudepod 06-08' datacd adventure there. On October the 2nd Crude will hit port chalmers once again to join in the festivites--the onefestivities--- numba 5 that is,,supportin' the Hasselfhoff Experiment, and , ohh shucks i get-ta see the AutoHarpies again!!. As far as Aesthetics action is concerned, whelp, we got another Port-side gig, it'll be our first in a while - and we'll be in celebration mode hopefully as we should, I emphasize should, have most of if not all of the 'ugly ambition' tracks recorded by that point. But we won't have copies...we'll be looking to titlate labels far and wide before deciding on a self release or not. all going well however we may have a fresh batch of 'Off' cds direct from the USA to sell. Theres quite a sad story behind this album, one of my most enthusiastic american supporters was one Ian Thomas, who died tragically and well before his time from an agressive brain tumour. He was a good friend and my 'biggest fan' well, in the USA at least. Heres to ya Ian.

ALSO ____ THE VIDEO FOR J IS FOR JESUS -- LIVE -- A SPLICED TOGETHER REISSUE FILMED BY PETE GORMAN (variant media)and M O T O K O will be on youtube soon!!!!! woohoo. for now, check out my 'crudetube' page:

http://www.youtube.com/user/crudertube

NU CD RELEASE:

CRUDE - crudepod 06-08

for the sake of simplicity, convenience, symmetry with current trends Crude has compiled a

mp3 data disc that features the booty and blood from the albums

fumes(2006), slurries vols 1 annd 2 (2007), podcast ep (2006), dopamine 20 (2006),

kenji siratori and crude 'alien extermination' (2007) and syringe insekt(2008)!

all 128 kbps mp3s -----------------------------------------------

all encrusted onto a cd!!!! And to you sir, that'll be $50.

TAGS:

Worth. Value. Goods and Services. Self-esteem. Merchantilism. Zakat. Social Policy. John Key. Alchemy. Chicken. Ducking.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2008

microreview#4 - stefanimal, crude , lucky dragons

firstly however - Crude has joined the ranks of Lastfm.com - here's the page:

http://www.last.fm/music/matt%2Bmiddleton%2B%252F%2Bcrude

And also - i'm doin a live-top-air on thursday october 2nd 7-9 on radio 1 91.3 fm.

......Good vibrations cascaded across the great pacific ocean and into the dunedinite soul last evening in the form of the Lucky Dragons, a two piece act from the Los Angeles area. Lucky Dragons are two androgynous/alien types (a complement in my book), Luke Fishbeck and Sarah Rara . This is the sound of the 'new wierd america' - a 'folktronic'/psychedelic movement that embraces innocence, simplicity, polyphony, effects coaxed from homemade and handmade instrumentation/gadgetry. While in NYC in 2006 I viewed this trend first hand - perhaps the movement is a reaction to the hyper-technology of the age, a reaction against the boys-own doom-metal school that is also a very hep thing right now. I have to say it - I was kinda disapointed on realizing that folk/americana/bluegrass/medieval is de rigeur in the US..I came from a type of hicksville to experience 'urban culture' and what I got was another, although a very stylized, hicksville. Surely its a reaction. No-one wants to be sohpisticated anymore. The white kids are discovering their pastoral roots.

Ohhh well. I'll just keep doing my thing. Futuristic, heavy, complex and mentally ill. An unfeeling cacophony care of a bullet proof little boy with megalomaniacal fantasies. Ouch. I know how to hurt myself.

Anyways. Support acts. First Stefanimal.

This woman owes it to herself to take that sound overseas. Its easier said than done of course. I sometimes even resent it when someone tries to encourage me to leave this country.. I dunnow - it's a complement but its like...I live here...I'm sorry but I live here and I'm not like..rich..But anyways..Stefanimal performed and yes - I enjoyed her set. Like Pet Shop Boys high on nitrous. A sensitive, ethereal keyboard driven singer/songwriter adventure - intelligent lyricism, new-wave/new romantic/electro-pop angst underneath a haunting alter-boy-on-smack voice...perhaps goth, perhaps too subtle to be goth. Keep an internet-mediated eye out for this artists progress.........

The audience trickled in ..in gradual couple-based increments..this certainly wasn't a typical backstage evening. And the fact that it was 'god's day' didn't help either. As a performer a Sunday is always an anomalous enterprise.

I played next, yes, me, Crude, in my LA olympics 1984 singlet - almost gay-chic maybe -- all that was missing was the thick mo' and the aviators....nothing out of the ordinary,,backing cd doing all the work...saxophone stabs and bleats...the new post-industrial warble of 'hey hey commando'...synth stitch and swoop..alan vega in my blood...

Then 'twas the Lucky Dragons........wow! A ritual - the usurpation of duality and its transmutation into all that monistic. (In other words - they become 'one'). Soprano recorders, pentatonic scales, pretty tones, offerings of rocks and pepples, a strange theremin and audience paricipation ..On the projector sceen they played THIS movie..

Some of the audience left disturbed at the 'ritualistic' character of the Lucky's, but most were uplifted. I felt healed as I woke the next day. And I mean it. Improvised music is a shamanistic phenomomenon and it can be utilized for many highy subjective and personal purposes..including a type of buddhistic cleansing of the mind/soul. One 'deals with' concepts of ego, past issues, person-to-person relations/proximity, claustrophobias/social phobias as one performs. Improvisation is the perfect vehicle for channeling and 'banishing' them. So there. So sayeth Dr Middleton. Whatever. Bye. See ya.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2008

microreview #555 - onefest 5 - the hasselhoff experiment, general winters' freak train, the autoharpies, and crude

To keep a string of reviews astringent and alive and spontaneous can be a difficult procedure because yr dealing with 'samey' situations and sounds. Perhaps a theme could be proffered for each new review. This week feminist. Next week post-structuralist . Naahhhhh. I ain't THAT academic, me mateys. Not me. Sorry Bob.

..A fly in a end-of-days stupor slams into the window and we recall the weekend.

Radio One throws these yearly parties called Onefests. This weekend saw number 5 down at...yep..Chicks Hotel in our favourite port community, Port Chalmers. (where????)

The Hasselhof Experiment were to re-invent themselves that night, yo MFs, we're back.

To me it was the AutoHarpies night. Me being a big fan and all. Even objectively indeed..scientitionisticly, it really was their night. because it is...OUR problem.

After my token 'look what i can do (with a bottle)' 30 minute performance the Harpies took their auto-pills and unleashed the fiercest, most atonal, most destructive, most evil, most machinistic, most unmanageable (and unmarketable) din I've heard from a live band in a long time. With a drummer auto-high and blasting binary..keeping a lid on the swirl just ever so slightly. A rhythm based band. Atonal - except for the devilry of their voices, a note sustained here and there. The retro-referential synth-horn-section overdriven and bastardized. Bass with indifferent forward-drive. Noise for noise sake. An apocalyptic, musically nihilistic tour de force.

I wonder to myself - my God - Radio One who is owned by (who?) who is owned by (who??) is celebrating and supporting this...this...noise?? These type of bands are pure art - pure dada, dirty to the core, as poor as a wall street exec...there must be someone on the inside...oh,,yes,,thats right. There is. Your place in heaven is secure, sir/madam.

The Disc Jockey of the evening was General Winter's Freak Train , aka Aaron Hawkins, spinning an curious mix of musics to suit the dangerously eclecticism of bands. Some really interesting noisey stuff..lotsa 'whats this'? and 'who's this' from me - buggin the dj like a star-fucker on ecstacy

Crude and The Autoharpies didn't truly fit in with the sound and style of the H.E, the former 2 acts blasting off into the acrid nether-regions of sound and unsound all arty like (not quite fitting into the new free noise/improv scene (I'm so sensitive. I'm so serious) OR the 'rock'n'roll scene (i'm so unpolitical. i'm so meat.I had sex)) or the punk scene (i don't care. I'm under 20 ) OR the indie lo-fi (my acoustic guitar is my mother) scene or the new doom scene(i smoke sooo much pot. I am male.)...even the dunedin scene (i'm from dunedin and i'm in a band so whatever we do its cool)) Maybe thats why the guys didn't turn up to see the support bands. Or maybe they did, but they weren't there when I was. They more than likely were on the road right up to the point of the show driving their v8 holden straight into the stage from outside jumping out and spraying the crowd with flame etc etc. Nevermind. Word is...they were....good. Yep. Fuggin good. Booze soaked rock. Drummer-in-trance plus buckled over gat gurgle-creature. Anti-Seenerama. They arrived, played and got outta dodge. Yeeeehawwww.

And so am I.

Sayonara you smelly south island retards!!!

yeeeehawww!

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2008

why 'blog'? why not 'glog'?

Music is life and life is music. Oh, I hope the New Zealand National Party don't make it hard for me to make it. Whatever they put me through, nahh, I'll still be making music. I imagine it'll be fiercer, more deranged, more desperate and savage. And my performances may be too, but i'll probably be too anemic and hungry to get too powerful up there..hail the brighter neoliberal future!! Heil!! Well- on the surface at least the party is looking to 'maintain' funding for the arts at the same level as it is now and it'll keep PACE afloat apparently...

The news of the hour::: the AESTHETICS ALBUM. It's pretty much DONE and MAN it kicks ASS.

The sound has evolved into a kind of less punky, more, i dunnow, new wave/alt rock type thing, the sly musical wit of Alex Chilton, the fiendish funk of late 70s Iggy Pop, the purulent anger and grotesquries of GG Allins Murder Junkies, the lo-fi slime of Flipper, the saxophonic angularity of The Contortions, the undeniable influence/inspiration provided by Chrome and Helios Creed (unmistakeable!!unavoidable!!)...all of these references suit the new sound/album.

Well be playing Chicks Hotel this Saturday (the 25th) as well as playing our favourite musics/drinking roles.

What else. Not that much really. I've taken up Tai Chi, and I love it.

UNDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2008

saturday (chicks gig)

It's an art-form. Logisitcs. Rock logisitics. A skill you refine carefully over time. Trial and error - a lot of error. In fact, in the main, it's error that paves our way. But without failure there could be no growth so, we don't mind.

Rock music is not a walk in the park. The gnostic postures you see us demonstrating on stage aren't a display of ego, they're a display of relief, loss of mind and compensation for the trials of the day's grinding petro-dollar lined rock logisitcs. It's a gestural narrative, a reorganisation and reinterpretation of everyday street-level psycho-social misery; a way of being in the world that does not include the supermarket, atm, chemist, 'cunt', 'dick', stop-go, receipt, angry national party supporters, pocket, coin, dog-shit, stroller, lint, gum...

It's a fairly well-trodden routine, in fact its painfully old-hat but a rocking we must go. And so we did.

Set One :

hombre - mexican stand-off /boy meets boy/ seething ugly ambition/ slightly larger city once upon a time

drive on - forward propulsion/ motivation seminar/quaaludic moaning brattish spank'n'skank

do do do - what's it like being you/thelemic anthem/ sweet aromas the current hookah cafe trend

20 - o grow up u little shit/student loan debt monster/12 bar blues gay-knob puke machine

all electric - triads ate my sister/ wall street benefit fraudster in middle class drinking hole

doomtown fuzz - sucking own member/pseudo-goth rock/ banana split'n'shit

new meme - snot'n'shot/pogo hobo with german shepard bestish film in brief-case

reptilian agenda - moderate/liberal/boiler/david icke/under-fed crack baby makes good

the idiot team - defence corportion mega-merger (in my pants)

marijuana girls - jelquing habit/stilton,harvey, nash, gash, cheddar

(then djing bad mp3 sound and bad posturing/ smokers deliberation/name game/ hit me up in toilets/it all for YOU)

Set Two :

Better Dead than Red - reds under th' bed/8-beat/beat beat/lilt,promise,cigarette,tooth, peg, toilet

the idiot team - defence corporation merger (in my syphilitic chancre)

pelvic arcana - pronounced/obvious rifferama/ghandi inhales/nick nack paddy wack

friday - song about day of the week/ friday is my high day/ thank god/ blanco blanco blanco/ griselda gristle

devon - purile doom rite/ moloch bang/ seeds from 2005/ th good old days/ nubile and teat/ crust

lead the pack -------primitiv/ hallowed be thy shame/ flying bum/post merger/free music killed dave dobbyn

---then ...the night sorta atrophied into this sorta free-for-all jam,,,but, it wasn't at all bad because it had a nice sorta good-will feel to it, no pummelling, just good ole' jamming. It cleared the audience.

for a list of what i attempted to dj go here:

http://crude2008.blogspot.com/2008/10/end-times-jukebox.html

oh yeah - hector hazzard filmed the night and concocted a great music vid concept so look out for the fruits of that soon! hopefully we'll get it on c4 and it'll be a single from the Ugly Ambition album/movement

- - - - - -THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2008

microreview #6 - dirtroom and armpit , none gallery, 30.10.08

Another gathering at the None Gallery, a performance by Armpit, the brilliant dirt-guitar ex-hamilton outfit featuring all-stars Pumice, CjA, and (absent for this show) Jon 'sugarjon' Arcus, and Dirtroom - savage inner-city guitar perspectives. Armpit are celebrating the release of their album 'tron' on Last Visible Dog records (and look at all these other kiwis Chris Moon has released!). Dirtroom have also just completed an awesome album entitled 'Curses'.(info here)

An intimate evening - typical of an evening with the Nonesters, good willed, friendly, a celebration of sound-arts and a collective bat-on-the-back. A good way to blow off the foetid steam of weekly living as a student/artist..that is..generally strapped with a sporadic wad of heavily creased, p-lined and grocery-listed cash here/there from gigs sales..

Wonderful to be in the superlative presence of Mr Stefan Neville(pumice)once more,this is a man who has the fortitude and single-minded art-market savvy to take his inimitable show to the world, funding or no, and to release title after title, illustration after illustration, gem after gem and drum like a pro to boot.

Also present was Zoe Drayton, one of the most passionate advocates of sound art I've ever met, a true driving force here and founder of the Audio Foundation. This is the person to know if your aesthetic aspirations are not those of dave dobbyns and more like john cage's. I'm a member of the AF and it is truly the finest effort to consolidate and network this young scene to date.

Gigs gradually become more like art installations...well, sound-art gigs are...and so does the peripheral noise-rock/ethereal drone scene.its not a bad thing..it's about really listening and appreciating the sound...of course I make a point to have a project alive that will reject these socio-spatial requirements - gigs a real wild party complete with heckling, dancing and pernicious satanic character asassination and bloody gossip through the entire show...a true blues rock 'gig' in a pub in a town in the South Island of New Zealand. Yeah yeah yeah. Shut up.

Anyway, this gig was great. Dirtroom are a force field, and their noise is increasingly subtle and evil - Armpit are legendary, micro-entreprenuers - bastions of DIY, real role-models and modellers of the scene. Heard of in Finland. Even.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2008

live blog US election

3.15 new zealand time:

joined twitter. red state? blue state? 808 state? pure hate? too late?

3.21 - obama wins ohio - needle in me vagin'o

3.25 "Is that a dog? his name is biscuit "

3.26 seen that film - 'gozu'? dig that last scene!

cruder fox fascisti they know the real the real baudrillardian world the real rational cost-benefit analysing rational human .. less than 5 seconds ago from web

3.32. obama takes NM. McCain takes Georgia. Middleton takes Yage. (not)

3.36. Is it over?

3.37. There's a pug-faced old cat with a deep slow-purr glued to me thigh.

3.46 - another cuppa tea me thinks.

3.55 It's snowing like a motherf**kr. And i have to do leafletting for the greens. dang.

3.57 Iowa to obama...mcain takes Utah. yeah like he wouldn't bible belt wierdos

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2008

the creative madman under National - a manifesto

1. The hogget'n'beef bloated cocky has his power back. The ACT party will insert it's fascist kiwi-style libertarianism into our jellyfish-like recti/lives. United future will provide the lubricant. The angry working poor now have executive governmental approval to blame the unemployed and unemployable for their personal problems. The meme is set in blue australian mineral/steel, and the coke snorting, butt-plug wearing, gimp-in-secret CEO-set shall spit on me and you and ma and pop forever amen.

2. The anti-political-correctness meme is back in fashion...at the executive government level. Let the 'entrepreneurs' and old-moneyed brat-spawn stare down upon ye through royal roman noses. Let them heckel and bray. Secret coprophiliacs - a true New Zealand culture. The mantra: - through soiled, gurgling shit spangled throats-- "the poor - why,, they are lazy! For they have chosen their lot! Why should we pay!! Why should we pay tax full stop! Ducky --take a nice hot shit on my face...aaaaa yes! yes!!

3. To be an artist or musician, a 'creative'; to our enemy, this is always seen as a weak ambition. Something essentially deviant, evidence of mental illness, or a lack of 'spine'. Under National - regardless of ones living standards..even without access to materials...do not stop your flow - keep your output alive. Keep it coming. Change your medium perhaps - if there are no tools/materials at your disposal, take up ritual magic, invent religions, perform in the street. And get ugly. Represent the truth - what life under national is really like. Observe the anomie. Be the anomie. Document the inequalities - expose them, and confuse the conservative mind. Vex upon vex upon hex upon hex. All we have left. Concoct and knead curses with bloodied knuckles.

4. You cannot 'buy' genius - and this fact frustrates the wealthy - it sends them into a psychotic, foaming, demonic fury.

5. Drugs are good for you. Drugs aid in your ritual. Your 'art'.

6. Being poor under National : a different kind of poor.

7. The money will trickle up. Your wage streams through you. You are a conduit for

the shifting of funds from remote private interest to remote private interest. To make something is the enemy of consumerism -a passive dance

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2008

the nz election - the live blog

...9.08 pm ..party votes -- 39% national is ahead.

cocky blood reddens pearl necklace blonde silver spoon money heroin family - 6.8 million dollar mansion - tory media led election victory for national - kiwis will believe anything - blood and guts - death - financiers waiting in the wings to insert fattened phalli into us - death - 49% national is ahead - --

9.14 pm -- blonde rankin heroin cocaine funds private funds products'n'services - what will they offer - lock up the frustrated - john key takes nervous shit - blonde nazi sheik - national party - cocaine inserts - change! change! change! change! change for the rich! growth ! growth! growth!

54% returned --- national is ahead.....cocky conserves /skins tighten /dopamine shooting-up (very wealthy children of ceo takes heroin for the first time and feels normal for the first time)- undeserving poor closer closer to messy deaths at hands of noblemen street-fighting mob - undeserving unproductive children need personal responsibility (in form of powders, glues, milk-products, agri business, govt subsidies for business) for grey-power rocket felch in cocaine nazi blonde ambition family - keep on growing - even when the resources run out - new markets : selling heroin to auckland's wealthy - good idea - attn paris hilton : flood auckland 2009 - right wing govt good ground for this enterprise ---

9.40 - 70% return. National is ahead. Greedy grimace/grin lamb-chop right leaning fetish fetish - national is in. with ACT as head sadist. Media has told us this is the outcome right from january '08. our pulverized brains just go along with it. How many people in this country really know what the right stand for? Or do we just identify with the black and white rugger bugger get-off-yr-butt rhetoric gung-ho hurl-spiel of the fattened lamb-butter boys - couch potato - national - tory - republic - they've usurped barak obamas change meme - wrong ideology mate! change. they're changing right! oh yeah.whatever.75% - 46.1% to national. they lead.

the poor - bail out the rich. everytime. social policy. zakat. lemmings. cost/benefit. We are all purely rational beings. statistics. machines. growth. bohemian. ethyl alcohol. robyn malcolm. pizza and coffee. ivory dealers. public/private. making the private public since 1974. secrets. lies. stem-cell research. testicle. genome. king-maker. maori/national rightist merger. ge money. bayer pharmaceuticals. prozac. privatisation. corporate welfare. sales. lackey. braggard. mummies boys. there is no depression in new zealand. prime minister. views. cabinet. mafia interests. pressure groups. tags. microsoft.

i get the feeling we've all bought into the memetic usurpation of barack obamas 'change' theme.

10.00 pm ...me thinks it's over. for me. for people like me. weak people. people who never grew up. people who gave themselves over to their madness - their muse. Real work beckons. Real, decent work. A change. I must join the dairy industry. Or its over for me.

private. private. private. pepsi runs kindergartens. macdonalds runs primary schools. work and income exxon/mobile. private/public. john key's house. a fresh target. call the feds.

some signs of movement. 87% returned. nats ahead. it's over. industry. resources. we've signed ourselves over in this stupid trance-state. we're dead.

10.08pm Hi Mum. You got the change you wanted. Guess its time to let the entrepreneur inside me come out of the closet. Maybe selling guns? Start a sort of artist mafia/gang? NZ dosen't want to protect the vulnerable. NZ seemingly dosen't want so many things it's grown accustomed to. Oh well. When it turns to shit, its our own fukkin fault. We've made our fukkin bed. Interest cuts on student loans is back. We're fuckd. the baby-boomer cockys have their prurient inbred toffe-nosed fun once more.....erm.....is it over??? erm...

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2008

stock footage from 2003 plus! microreview #7 - alex mackinnon,pete gorman ,shelly harding,....OPSoA show..

An old friend of mine , Tania Price, posted some footage of my one-and-only art show ('kiosk' a daily matinee and revue of my cover art - especially the black and white photocopied stuff ---like so::::

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

...yeaH...anyways..erm..heres a link to the VIDEO. Its potentially amusing footage if you like your compere short and strange and born iun southland. talking garbage. And why not. Wasn't it Baudrillard who said we need MORE rubbish out there - more anti-simulacrum simulacrum ? More anti-media media? Gilbert? Am i wrong?

So....here i go at 'art writing'. Something I may never do again. Now, I'm a bogan, so, don't expect art nz mag material. Ok???

-----um, went to an art show last night - a good one, mind. So good I shouted the show another box of booze. Mister-arts benefactor. Micro-loans. Anything to usurp attention eh? (manipulative lttle creep -- naaaaah). The artists of the evening were Alex Mackinnon, Pete Gorman and Shelley Harding .(now if I missed something i'm sorry)From my viewpoint, flux was the prime motif here - movement - invisible and visible, and its visual/sonic/spatial representation. Gormans installation, a mechanised pendulum augmented with all manner of transmitters, radio devices, mini-cameras, and a panoply of wires was the real rock and roller of the night. 2 large projections behind the ever writhing implement captured the bizarre de-tuned transmission(s?) and re-coded it as beautifully agressive tv glitchery not disimilar to the quality of transmission from those dodgy head-mounted cams the crew of the nostromo beamed back to Ash on their fateful walk out to the derelict ship on Lv-426 (oh, you remember). A radio tuned between stations (am? fm? sw?) relayed a hypnotic drone/signal - chance musics - the range of tone and pitch was astounding. A truly beautiful amalgam of drive and constancy and gurgle and purr. Perhaps his assessor felt the same way, who knows.

MacKinnon used sound as his medium. A trio of cabinet-extracted speakers were masterfully strung to ceiling and wall creating a zennist enclave and a perfectly proportioned template for the prepared sound-fields to channel through. You know, you can say 'drone', but the word simply dosen't do justice to the spectrum and variety of sound that a drone can acheive. Literally millions of different genera of drone. Mackinnon, cleverly referencing Lucier, coaxed out dozens of alternate drones and sounds from a single source. Scoff all you want - sound art exists. so go buy an installation or buy a friken record of the stuff. Its hipper than smoking a hookah on k road or living with someone who knew andy warhol once.

Lastly, and no, not leastly was one Shelly Harding- video art this time. A beautiful looping tryptich feauting a human figure, masked, performing 3 different home-gym excercises. Very very smart and amusing material (if i was wealthier I'd buy the data and have it at home)and a wall sized chess board/smorgasboard of female mouths, gossiping,reciting, divulging dirty secrets, abstract bubbling brooks of mouths and ruddy lip-schtick,,totally hypnotic - very much a work indiciative of the lil' boxes /profiles of the web-age, dozens of concurrent streams of thought and narrative/concord and discord - back-biting and dual-faced careerist mulch.

I write this review because I respect the work of these artists, i was there, and I had a good time. So,, if this review, in all it's non-referential philstinismism, does anyone any good, then GOOD. bee bob a luula shes my baybee.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2008

microreview #8 : eye, drysoket, crude - none 29/11/08(thanks christine knight)

Gallery giggery. Performance-as-installation. Sound creation so subtle as to resemble a type of internal martial art. This music isn't spectacle, it's a distillation. A performance captured for posterity by a myriad of recording devices...the audience is less participant-in-real-time than estranged remote-viewer..(quiet..we're making history here). Three acts, with a fourth assembled from diffuse players/party-goers.

The None Gallery basement is such a great setting for performance. So ramshackled and gnarley. Concrete and dust and bottles'o'beer, I have to commend the dancer for performing in bare feet. Actually, I have to commend the dancer for performing full-stop - I have never seen anyone interpret free-noise with dance. No defined rhythm to grasp onto, unless you count the percolating pulse of naked speaker against concrete. Yes - this was act number one : Dry Soket - another clever working title (prize for who can list 'em all!) for the stalwart gallery ensemble of Boufis, MacKinnon and Wilson, featuring contemporary dancer Josh Rutter. The sound crew were seated on the floor and manipulated a cavalcade of sound devices - some of which were hooked up to a series of diagonally aligned( rather like a classic vector graphics game) multi-sized speakers on the concrete floor. They were a delight to behold as grainy signal forced one particular speaker to splutter and rattle - a curious electro-acoustic pitter-patter of wood, concrete and rubber. A little performance in it's own right. MacKinnon blurs the line between art and music by incorporating his current installation motif into the 'onstage band' format. But it was Rutter who commanded the most eye-balling. Painfully slow martial art-like movements, slo-mo convulsions, a bizarre figure stalking and glaring and searching, as if possessed - opening and closing the door in some ghostly sorta shamanistic/demon absorbing way, agony his expression - one couldn't keep ones eyes off Rutter and his tense, truly clever interpretation of what the sound was doing. Or going. Or whatever. Nigel Bunn, seated next to me, mentioned something about DDT and its effects. Bravo.

Beer number 6 and next on was Eye, the power trio of Porteous, Stapleton and Thompson. An elegant arc of a set - perhaps based on

a classical formulae - i don't know, the tension was coaxed up to a climax, there was the plateau of madness, then it all calmed down again and found resolution - perhaps an analogy to passing storm? The erotic arts? Somthing more cerebral perhaps - even paranormal? Either way it was awesome - a personal highlight was the primordial circular drone emitted from a Tibetan bowl -- always a pleasure to absorb. Such a simple device - such a gorgeous sonic result.

Crude played next. Unashamedly antithetical in its approach to the last 2 acts. More animal than cerebral. Animal yet mathmatical yet lap-toppy industro beats w/ slimey sax abstracts. Yokel vocal. Did they like it? Crude has no idea. Crude woke up next morning and said. "That gig did'nt actually happen". Crude don't care. Crude on crude. It still suits the galleries tho'. Says me. The glitch bogan fron nowheresville, southland.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2008

the fruits of 2008: soon to be released stuff

Hello. Hello. Hello.

Dose down, cheeks ruddy and life rolling over to its sleepy conclusion : this has been 2008.

On the Crude front - the dvd is nearly finished (released on my brfday december 22) , a few more titless there like 'shooting up national', 'angry' , 'against the street', 'la fascista' , 'science' ..to name just a few...very proud of this dvd . so, it's one of those dvd-rom things - you know , those things that were cool in the early ninetees....it'll have writings, (a prose piece for each piece), photos, 3 vids ('wrk ethic', 'j is for jesus' and some other thing...

The Aesthetics LP, well, nearly sent the master away until i found out it was all 'out of phase',, meanaing its back to the drawing board...apparantly, when mixing digital works for vinyl you must keep certain frequencies 'in phase' so as to not send the needle careering across the dubplates...oh well. its a learning curve , what. ..so, we The Aesthetics are playing none again december 13th,,,cant wait what a blast......

erm...isn't last.fm fun...heres the crude page on last.fm. ....and the album 'syringe insekt'...you know this one:

...politics:::: parliament kicks off december 9...woohoo!

financial crisis! wooohhoooo !!!

2009!!!!!!

wooohhooooooooooo!!!!MONDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2008

microreview # 9 - the autopharpies, the aesthetics, voodoo gangster

The irony, the envy, the blood and the passion. The fire and the blood and the passion. The passion and the fury and the might and the blood and the passion. The fury and the seething, ugly jealousy. And the passion.

Dunedin city, spirit home for those rejected elsewhere. Welcome home.

Ah,, the end of the year. The drunken student hoards shift back in with their parents and the godless consumer beast that is 'christmas' with all it's tiresome obligations sucks on yr vital being like a blood hungry tumour. Everyone gets a little crazy this time of year. Families who hate each other forced together over game and piss. Hows the career going, loser???

And so, what a relief it was to assemble down at None's basement for the fourth and final event of last weeks mini-fest of visual art and performance..

1st up was the Auto Harpies, fresh back from a jaunt to the enlightened isles of the north,,,dizzying, dry, almost morbid science pop, indifferent cool psych enblazoned with an assortment of synth warbles and drones..a slightly lower-key set from the band compared the chicks triumph - but who could blame 'em - this was the end of a very long and hard year. Anyway, their keyboardist Aliki Boufis was on a long haul to Athens the next day...

drink. gurgle. fights. egos. egos like gas planets. dunedin demons. rage.

The Aesthetics were on next, with bass player Jason Barrett nursing a broken hand no less,,,determined to play...regardless,,,,macho/but sorta stupid,,a short set nonetheless,,,doing what we can with what we got and what bones we haven't got...'post-punk' perhaps....with this ugly familiar yokel twang in me vocals...solid drum-chum from openly communist Malcolm Deans..at least this time our short performance was justified..next time you'll see us well have the LP for sale...anyone know why he had a broken hand?? An LP ? Who won lotto??

Voodoo Gangster were last and what a pleasant surprise - really cool electronic/techno/house from Sean Norling and guests...I'd love to get me hands on some of that swagger...abstract, super cool, uber-uber lounge/sci-fi tete-e-tete micro mouse voodoo nonp-reference lacky popper , sytnh from Iso12, maximum impact dry ice .. Nice to see Peter Gutteridge out and about...2009 will be VERY EXCITING and hopefully the logical continuation of all the GOOD WORK put in by the SCORES of very talented dunedin scum-bags and goodly yeomen I know so well. Amen.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2008

phenomenonenon

Tomorrow, the 'boxing day', Crude performes at Chicks Hotel with the legendary electro-recluse ISO12 !!! This will be a post-xmas 'relief its over' party, also a forum for the release of the wordy 'l'archivio' dvd, which features 77 tracks, 4 vids and a writing section, all as data data data. I'm very happy with this dvd - and i hope you get as much pleasure out of listening to it as i had slaving over it's creation.

Ah, 'tis christmas day; soon, 2009 will grace us, ah, 'twill be the national party's finest hour. So bugger me. The big news - the inauguration of Barack Obama, and, will the alien presence be finally disclosed? Who knows. I doubt it. I've seen one ufo in my lifetime, a small immobile black object in the invercargill heavens, back when i was 4 years old...I could swear it was something un-natural - it simply would not move, a black dot, just hovering, ominous...observing,, reading me,,,downloading my genome,,watching...pulsing...I didn't see it disappear..but you know what - the SAME type of object was spotted in invercargill this year by a family in south invercargill - a small, immobile black dot in the sky - and they saw it leave - it bolted into the air at lightening speed - straight into space, without sound. oh well.

As mentioned earlier, the crude blog for 2009 is here:

http://www.crude2009.blogspot.com/

.............oh - here is the FINAL song title list for the DVD:

'34'

'2008 theme'

'aersosoll'

'against the street'

'alcoholic descent of famous actress'

'alone by the fire'

'angry'

'another one bites'

'beast inception'

'black wood, grey air'

'breathh'

'bula droiv'

'cardboard bohemian'

'cirrus'

'codex'

'crack'

'crude hell bent'

'cruder beat'

'da grind nuu mix'

'damien'

'death of the patriarch'

'deep field'

'devil racerr'

'dopamine flutter'

'drone of the patriarch'

'eternalize yrrself'

'evil cute kid kill'

'for i have nothing'

'.fr'

'friday (cruder mix)'

'geo-psycho'

'ghz ghz'

'heat'

'hey hey commando'

'homage 2 gg allin'

'hulan tipall'

'hull, lackey, braggard'

'huul dax'

'i'm a man'

'indistinct and shadowy'

'intent and mobility'

'know'

'la fascista'

'la piano 333'

'la piano 444'

'la piano 555'

'leary'

'miss this'

'new zealand'

'no'

'nord'

'nort juss'

'nothing'

'o'

'on an industrial scale'

'puru liir'

'seal 2'

'seething ugly'

'shine on'

'shine on 2'

'shooter'

'shooting up national'

'sikh solace'

'slov kuum'

'spliced swinger'

'syringes and insekts'

'tallow'

'the beggar'

'the sea, the blood'

'the tone, the charm'

'trans caucasus drone warlord'

'tuff in the valley (they make 'em)'

'tulak nozoth'

'ugly competition'

'vortexx'

'wrk_ethik'

'zhuang zi'

anyways...Aesthetics news...the LP production has been paid for in full, and we are now awaiting the TEST PRESSINGS...yeehaww

until next time...keep cool. merry christmas. obey. consume. die.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 29, 2008

..finally.

...and so 2008 comes to an end. Many thanks to all readers, thanks for the feedback and support.

So, although it would be easier to just keep blogging here, i included the year 2008 in the url title so i needed to create another. The 'crude decade' is the portal of chortle for 2009. here's the link:

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

comment

The hills are alive. The hills have eyes. The Austrian man has a nice face. Maria. Maria. You're not the right man for me. I enjoyed every moment together. I shall return to Vienna. Somewhere out there...is a young lady....that i think,...will never be a N UN...auf weidersein ass-wipe! BIGGER! REDDER! BALLZIER! He's the biggest, baddest, killer this prison has ever seen! Nothing is what it seems. Earn the jersey. Earn the jersey. Liquid blast. Furry feeling. 75% off. I get more. A storm of savings.

You're gorgeous. I'd 'do anything for you. Works for up to 8 hours. I'd drive a motorbike thorugh Africa. I thought I ..just might find you here. No no,,,sit down...sit down...please..ha ha ha . You know..i was wondering two things.........I had an obligation to fullfill...Zion. rat people. It'll be fine. Sweep 'em under the carpet. But you are to be married. Valence. Valencia. Left. Right. Halt! Creedence. Clarity. Cough. Dead right. The snot annexed from the dead, bloody right. Snot. Reverend mother. Old mother Hubbard. Fleck o' vegemite - asshole's aflame! Yes!!! Yes!!

2009! My favourite protein cream! My favourite vector! My wicked past! My wicked wicked wicked oxygen flask - another vast slime grime crime lotty blot-paper crust core grindcore scum bag rock and roll in a blipper flipper stance austria austria austria --- silly whistle! silly whistle! silly whistle! Nothing comes from Nothing. somewhere in my youth, i must have done something gooood.

rat. Pat. fat. Jack. Lack. Kat. Yak. wack. Pack. Hack. Fact. Quack. Vinyl. viable. Pliable. Filial. Superficial. super-luminal. Pulse-dragon, up me vinyl. Circulatory pump-hump-marriages-r-us.

Marry-that-austro-hungarian-family now! now~! NOW! NOW! NOW!! NOW!!!!! NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!! NOW !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Saturday, January 3, 2009

as it is now

What a journey. It's strange how the distance between 1994 and 2009 seems less profound than the equal distance between 1964 and 1979 - less tumultuous change perhaps?

Or maybe there has been much more change but it has been masked somewhat? If McKenna was right, paradigm shifts should be occuring every second.

Crude aesthetic approaches for 2009:

Anyway, it's 2009 and the Crude work for the year won't be on offer until December, I envisage the recordings to be highly abstract and ultra-minimalist (simple terms but ideal here). I'll be developing and refining the 'linguistic' and 'word-play' motifs touched on in 2008, darkening and obscuring the woodwind tonal spectrum, everything stripped barer and barer. I'll also take the video piece 'wrk_ethk' as a springboard for further conceptual video works. Quietism. Catatonia. Movement in Stillness. Quantum activity, quantum behaviour. That slight discomfort you get when you seat yourself on a bus and find you are directly opposite someone: oh no! look somewhere, anywhere, avoid eye contact at all costs! Small talk. Obligation. Misery. Routine. Going through the motions. No UFOs, no nothing...

The state of the website, other online guff:

The official crude site requires a tweak or two right now (like, the 'myspace' link on the main page goes to a dead link (new link here)and the 'blog' link goes to the old one etc..)but it seems that regular blogging and social networking will 'make up' for that anyway - a lot of people don't even bother with web-sites at all anymore. The site will always be there for the sake of reference (don't all go there at once...yeah right) - the backcatalogue all credit card ready and charming with its basic html layout...

giggery

No crude gigs till....LINES OF FLIGHT 2009! (oh what a disaster!! yeah right)

..This event should occur around the smae time as the release of the Wire magazine compilation New Zealand music - which includes...Crude. The track is 'blackened, deadened keys', a searing, populsive synth-motorcycle videogame horror-psych slab'o'fuzz/noise.

.

the aesthetics

the LP will be available in feb/march.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

the puddle

Blog: The Puddle/The Dark Beaks - Chicks Hotel Sat 10 jan -

-________________________________________________

A lyricist like no other - that's GD Henderson. Such an evil strain - caustic commentary of a profoundly immediate socio-political nature..so slick you just wouldn't know it. There's revolutionary science going on there. And my god how romantic it all is. Rose petals coloured red, white and black. And blood spatter. And intra-city travel.

Here's a post-flying band who have seriously gotten their shit together. Small scale -a small business model perhaps- correct and prolific use of web 2.0, slick merchandising, your Puddle experience looked after all the way down to the custom stamp at the door. 3 new albums - all real cds, all backed by a label, reviews in the Listener, some serious gigging - centred on the cities that like it, not wasting any time - a strategic assault. Indeed - a war. And so, they (he) came to Dunedin to perform, to celebrate, as it were - this administrative success - his very executive existence a slap in the face to those corporates who tried to snuff it all out forever amen.

Different crowd than I was used to, a different class? A different age...must've unconciously anticipated this and I suffer this gnarley panic attack on the way out..of course instead of deep breathing it was deep drinking and man, anxiety was transmuted to this sort of goofy confused clown-routine that my girlfriend just cringes at....first

band on was The Dark Beaks - comfortable pop rock of the Dunedin persuasion, middle-of-the-road singer-songwriter stuff , with that Dunedin bent - lead-man Andrew Jameson exuding that rosicrucian/hermetic look with no hair and evil ears,,,nodding into eternity with that guitar.. the place had filled to capacity.

Several goofy faux pas later, The Puddle set up and kicked off - and that familiar hex set in - like that old black cat you know and love so well - those melodies - the new works - the old works -

When groups of Facebook users get together in one space - it's madness. Oh, the possibilities. Oh - no need to talk now - we'll have our communications mediated later on...it's like this wierd psychic vacuum, all these arcs and vectors and selves and non-selves...each person both an individual AND a part of a network - the network is another thing entirely - all types and tiers of discource a possibility - not necesarily now, sometime when you've logged onto facebook...

Friday, January 30, 2009

oh 9

Dunedin city is blossoming once more, bright eyed young things are streaming into the city all cute and energetic and magical. The cynical guardians of Dunedins' occult bohemian lore'n'legend ghoulishly anticipate their next quota of souls to seduce into apprenticeship. The banks tailor package deals and overdrafts and loans. The city's economy is fattened up a little. Local music heroes strategically get seen and stake their claim as the business.

Was good to see some new faces at last nights sensory adventure, noise is still hip, noise will define 2009. That and heavy psychedelic. And experimental electronic. And the young crowd are discovering it all at a superluminal net-mediated pace. In the USA it's all about folk, a kind of luddite revolution, a reaction to all the machinistic clutter and android indifference that betokens computers, but here we lag behind a little and that suits me.

The Oh9 show was a visceral merger of new electronic art and wild music. The evening began with the art - several installations by several artists---each one a joy to behold. Most notable, well, you couldn't help but hear it anyway was Pete Gormans' installation - micro-cameras and oscillators and crackle and static and wailing electro-noise ..how to explain it...one was filmed by a micro-camera, the image was gravely and black/white, sorta like yr classic tv-static,or that 'threshold' effect you can play with on photoshop, and as u got closer to the camera the oscillators changed pitch. Groovy effect. Very Affecting. See more of his gadgetry work HERE.

All of the installations were playful, minimalist in spirit and unashamedly digital. Except for Alex MacKinnon's cassette player arrangement, which was unashamedly analogue.

And back to music....that which is easier to write about, (i don't quite feel qualified to review art)what an awesome show! The None basement is really starting to take on a life of it's own as a real inner-city venue option, of course it is a residence but hey--you gotta play somewhere.

Whiskey drinking had retarded my social skills quite markedly - content to talk to myself and babble like an infant I missed a good chunk of the show. But what I saw was indelible. Richard Neave, with Lee Noyes on drums was a delight - Neave, hailing from chch, performed a semi-cathartic, angular guitar improv set, engaging everyone with his scholastic good looks and tall,sinewy gait. Radio Cegeste, another chch act , with guest star Toki wilson, entertained with radio coaxed flotsam and jetsom. If only i new how to sit still I'm sure the meditative wafts would've brought on a satori. And then..the harsh noise camp. Dunedin's first laptop-driven-all-noise-all-the-time act, complete with destruction of stuff. They bashed it up good. That's Bastardwisher man, whew, a dunedin duo, 2 laptops and enough catharsis to heal a small town. Gorgeous wild consistent screaming digital din - like a stream of bloody urine from a badly distended bladder. Great to see in a live setting. They'll be playing with The Aesthetics, Wolfskull and Crude at Sammys 27th of Feb. I have yet to tell Sammy's about the finer points of the bastasrd's act...ach, I'll leave it as a surprise.

If 'Oh9' was a lil' magical ritual to potentiate and ensure a boutifull harvest for the year, we'll sure be eating well in 2009! I wish everyone involved all the very best for the year. May we all overcome our differences, eradicate the need for ego gratification and ugly competition and create constantly and with ever increasing refinement, gain further and further respect in the community and nation for our arts and performances, may new zealand society increasingly become aware of the nobility and indispensability of the creative and reward us accordingly..may the northern hemisphere look to new zealand as a hot-bed of progressive sonic pursuits, may our works be archived and protected for future genrations. May 2009 launch many a career and be a time of gratuitous aesthetic celebration. (oh dear....do shut up)

bye

Yes, with all this work on 'Ugly Ambition' it's good to slip in a little Crude action, and here is your free release for 2009, much like Syringe Insekt was last year, and 'Slurries volume two' the year before that. Also - the web-site has finally been updated. Anyways - heres the dirt:

Crude - 'Faux' (56:45)

1. Beat Tactique (8:26)

2. Video Video Video (9:48)

3. The Nines (5:17)

4. Opiophobicon (9:46)

5. Decade (23:25)

‘Faux’ is the official FREE RELEASE by experimental electronic artist Matt Middleton/Crude for 2009. Based in Dunedin, New Zealand , Middleton has amassed an impressive back-catalogue of works, and every so often a title is released for free via the net. As with the free release from 2008, ‘syringe/insekt’, the album is the first selection of works for the year and will be included in the official Crude release, a data dvdr featuring all videos, blogging, and music recorded by Matt Middleton for 2009, released late December 2009.

Also soon to be released free online is the album "Alien extermination' by Kenji Siratori and Crude. Info for this release can be found here

Monday, March 2, 2009

The Aesthetics, Wolfskull, Bastardwisher and Crude at Sammys

There is something special about Sammys, it lends to a musical event a sort of old-world magnificence and a cavernous cathedral-like sound. That proscenium arch, gorgeous art-noveau, i couldn't help think it some sort of old-time Dunedin Scotts- masonic reference to Nuit:

Yes, the small pub-rock boys get a big stage once more, only the second time, and we get all toy-store excited. This was the 'big night' , the official launch party for the 'ugly ambition' LP, and the weeks of preparation and facebooking and interviews boiled down to this moment. And , quite objectively, I think we pulled it off. As you all know, i tend to 'self-review' alot, a fairly dodgy practice. But really, if I don't do it no-one will so here i go again. As punters dribbled in, their entrance barred first by friendly bouncers, then id checks, then a table of beautiful screenprinted LPs (care of the great 'Little Paisley') , then a friendly door person ,that inimitably Sammy's style atmosphere began to brew. Lots of oxygen, lots of nooks , lots of crannies and cliques. First up was Crude (here goes - that 3rd person

charm that only the artist themselves can muster) - crankin up the ole' juno 60 with a new cheap distoriton pedal and layin' a few pseudo-occult 'alien' ritual fanfare motifs on the audience...oh! those acoustics - such ghostly resonance! Lots of harmonics and quasi-islamic tone bending - then the old square-shawm instrument attempts (doing a rather nice job of it actually) to emulate the synth sounds. The set ends with a suicide inspired glitch/pulse number emblazoned with the cutesy vocal mantra ' I'm the glitch bogan'. Yes, matt, you (I) certainly am (is).

Bastardwisher hit the apartment-set-studio-type-theater-stage next, with sly and sullen coolness, with that streak of psycho,,Jason Barrett brandishing his elusive Alto sax, John on drums and the Sefton on laptop,a raging rodeo of a set - a misanthropic rock'n'roll teddy boy high on jazz-pizazz at thee helm, dark and angular and skinny, cropped sefton all sweat and jap-noise anger, john from alabama slappin the cans like a improv octopus. Very impressive, Lynch-like set.

The LPs were getting snapped up !! Opinion leaders and followers alike had their very own copies proudly under-arm evoking that WINZ icon, (you know the one, the blue thing with the orange thing under it's arm - a sort of image representing 'skills' or maybe a 'cv' or an orange to keep you going while your on 2 week stand-down..)

Next on, and perhaps the best thing about the night, was my perosnal favourite band in town, that very masculine band 'wolfskull'. The acoustics, like a pitch black chasm , were perfect for the skulls, and they played up to it like true champions. Amazing set. Duane Zarakov was truly on fire, his playing a psychedelic engine room , groovy tom tom chatter ubiquitous and constant and spinning any dancer into a dervish -delirium (hey, don't play with my delerium...hey..)Iso, the frontman, was totally in his element, and I can only hope they play the venue again.

The Aesthetics hit next, and i can only say that the bass and drums were so beautifully solid, that my sluggish musical bumbling didn't actually matter. its always hit and miss, 'feeling out' a new venue, a new situation, a new set of equipment. Nevermind. We churned out 'Drive on' , a few oldies,,,,,,,,,,bringing heady smiles to the right people and glazed indifference from others....it all turns to memory and disappears.

Posted by matthew_middleton at 3:26 PM Tuesday, March 10, 2009

phenomenon

That private water. Cocaine cola, no puritan would ever. There's a work-ethic to it all, this sickness benefit subsistence. 'Tis the ignominious toil of being human.

A teenagers rainbow party-cum-consumer prison. Being itself, wrong time, wrong place, wrong body type. Being. Being-in-spectacular-time.

Each spin of that Crude cd generates a little charge, a little quantum fizzle. Each spin casts off an alternate universe, a universe in which crude was actually U2, a universe where crude was propagandized as heavily as Michael Jackson, a universe where Barack Obama was a lazy-eyed dairy farmer from Twizel. Each pulse, each sliver of crude's sound lives and dreams and prays and ascends ever higher, a zionist lobby group of a noise, an apocalyptic, billowing, sanguine cloud of colloidal drums, boyish vocals, angry reed-spatter and a deranged orgy of synth.

Aesthetics Lps in adolescent bedroom formation, such utter stress. It's a tough road, going it alone, doing it yourself, defying the Australian music bosses. Copies will trickle out of the bassinet at a pace dictated by demand. One at a time: emailed request, postal address, bank account number, payment received, there you go.

Money families, molestation. Richard Dawkins. Sultana Bran. The Maktoum family. Exopolitics. Blog. Butchered at birth. Fatalism. Mens' Lacrosse.

Alkalize thyself to get ye higher. Alcoholize thyself to attract ye a buyer. Crown thyself thusly 'thee hardest tryer'. Don't drink that milk mate, it's clearly expired. I'm not on the dole I'm simply retired...and data entry, well, it just makes one tire. Oh do shut up, you pathological liar. But, sir, these buttocks, are taut and fo' hire! Big pharmaceuticals and the ministry of social development - a very cosy relationship.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

zard: heraldic quum of zorthuuum.

we, the people of Zard - proclaim this : our foundational statement.

Mountain: Mantis. Self - no-self.

Null - your fiendish monetarism is null -

our protein sucketh up no more cud

growing thither and hither amongst the rancour reeds of RORSCHASH.

Cull! Cuntish weasles!

Bosh and fug!

Nuisance and EDITH!

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Lines of Flight 2009 - barfly perspectives

---and yes - there are photos from LoF and several recent shows by Markus Gradwhol

----------------here

...Well has it been a busy couple of weeks or what. What with all the glueing and folding and eating. And all that smiling and nodding and waving. And all that breathing. The lunatic fringe gets it's soap box once again here in dunedin and we all get drunk. And the money trickles somehwere else.

The Lines of Flight festival is a now an institution - an annual rite celebrating sound art and the supercilious lives of the sound artists themselves. Crude got in. I'm gonna attempt a review. I missed the 1st evening, which was a great night apparantly, Tillakaratne , Mela, Tim Coster, and White Saucer performed, must've been artfull and scintillating, this is art, it's art god-damn you, it's kunst. Of course i would attend the 2nd night because I was playing it. Oh the breathy awe of a star-lined soundcheck late afternoon in Port! That satisfying amber glow of mutual acheivement and endevour.

That knowing and self-conscious bustle of ampage and the nutty odour of hops. The merch bench emblazoned with the ltd-edition cover designs of New Zealand sound-art royalty.

The evenings' opening performance was by Peter Wright, a member of the increasingly active Christchurch contingent. I remember him for his industrial work, he was a member of the classic krkrkrk band TMA1 alongside original Aesthetics bass player NoTV/j-mz robinson (not to be confused with the prolific abstract expressionist painter). Wright pulled out the rivets and joined the masonic ranks of the free-noise/guitar improv world several years back. Not surpisingly his performance was guitar-improv du jour - a virtual nuclear power plant of pedals and gadgets inside a get-smart style gat-case; the digital dash-board transforming a simple guitar strum into a synthetic cascade of drones, melodic feedback and hypno-rhythm. Wright was seated on the floor for the duration of his performance and so was his audience, creating a flattened, sorta egalitarian effect. Like a night down at the Hindu temple. Just lovely.

...Most music of the Lines of Flight ilk demands yogic concentration and poise of the audience. For an attention deficient child like myself I find this level of commitment a real trial, preferring the tactile huslte of the bar. And out the back.

And on the ceiling. And at the end of someone's doobie. And i was on. And with a few hyper-adrenalized heaves my gears were set-up and the filthy pseudo-euro synthesizer lines of flight charged up and everyone stands up. everyone stands and i just keep dealing it out, those old synth lines i do like - oh yeah this is how i describe it (from my last.fm page) ...an art-noveau-Ming the merciless style science fiction synthesizer motif - dark and hallucinatory alien mantra....the sinuous, circuitous tunnels of a sexualized,black lacqeur, ky lubricated alien beasty... ritualized, almost fascistic fanfare for b-grade alien leader..organic, psylocibin drenched 1930s ufo tune.' So i do that for a bit, then hit this appegiated/staccato motif and whine about how I hate this invented character called 'Thomas' and that i was born in the 1970s.(As sean O'Relly said the nxt morning 'so you were born in the 1970's - how was that for you..) Behind me was a Kim Pieters film, edited specifically for my performance (so flattered) entitled 'magnet'. I believed it worked.

XE played after Crude, a very different angle here - one of the rare Lines acts that included vocals. Rachel Shearer played keys and sung with Dean Roberts and Sean O' Reilly layering delicate, almost shoegazeresque guitar over Guy Treadgold's gingerly handled drumming. The overall effect was beautiful - this is the sound of resolved psychic turmoil. Eye played next and they were on fire that night - The sonic/energetic peak and trough formula not as obvious this time - obscure sound sampling was used masterfully.

I had missed the matinee, so i missed the oppurtunity to be blindfolded for rotor + 's concept performance..and Sandoz lab technicians would have been fascinating. Check out the photos HERE

....Saturday night was the big night - i waltzed in half-way through Adam Willets truly amazing synthesizer work-out, an undulating beast of a set, or half-set, beautifully exo-terrestrial. The venue was packed out, the big draw-card for the night was of course the Dead C who do things the overground music media in New Zealand simply don't or won't recognize - constant international releases, shows and festivals all over the globe, both Morley and Russell travelling and exhibiting and performing in their own right here there and everywhere - a healthy following in the States that is only growing with the net..so yeah, the home crowd will of course drag themselves away from Campbell Live to see the boys who did good. The wild card of the evening and IMHO one of the true highlights of the event was a total misnomer - Adrian Hall was supposed to perform, he does a runner (he's so utterly conceptual) and the act he chose to collaborate with him had no choice but to do something..Pete Gorman's latest home-built synthesizer/installation, the 'Fustigator' - another synth assault/work-out/demonstation and what a brilliant trans-personal experience it was. Pure electronic sound current super-sensitive to the touch,,with individual audience members absolutely out-of-their head and gloriously posturing to the sounds (and that is how you 'dance' to 'noise' - it's a series of wild postures,,sky punching etc), Gorman seemingly interpreting their every move with a sonic surge..

Next was Christchurch's Stanier Black Five whos set focussed on a wide spectrum of steam-engine/rail sounds, grinding them down into their constituent parts and reassembling into a temporally logical constructivist ambient suite. A friend described it as 'pure industrial'. Subtle reverberating sounds and noise - maybe 'dark found sound'? 'black ambient' ? Dare i make the 'steampunk' connection here? Either way - it was great stuff.

Stanier Black Five would be the last of the nights' lap-toppers and the traditional drum/guitar/guitar template took the stage in the form of the Dead C. I think this is the 1st time the band has played here for a couple of years and so they got eyes to the front. And that dirge set in. And it was the Dead C. And Robbie would'nt play. And the guitar drone went on. and Robbie wouldnt get up. And the guitar dirge went on, and someone or something motivated the infamous cans man onto his throne. His style is totally his own, a snare heavy swagger beat only the truly soused and limber could imitate.

In conclusion , I truly think this was the best Lines of Flight ever. So there.

But wait...theres more. The after party was even better - with Lines rejectees Rise of the City Cat Cult having the last laugh as they delivered the most subtle, sinister, psychedelic new-wave science fiction keyboard noise death-wave i've ever heard. The venue, the abode of local art-students is so utterly cool it may never put on a show again. Or will it. I have no idea. Sorry. Goodbye.

goodbye. matt middleton, conformist

Posted by matthew_middleton sefton playin sax for the aesthetics.

photo by christine knight.

NB - for some reason the bottom half of this blog is in very small type so please adjust yr text size settings..it seemingly wont change when i try to edit the draft..sry for the inconvenience..

Madness, when mixed with alcohols, amplified by loud primitive sounds and contained within a small social space is a ravenous contagion. Certain insane spirits were invoked at the gig at chicks on the weekend and by the end of the evening many of us were drained of essence. Oh well, that's the dunedin demon. A sick wind that howls through one person to the next, our minds made all the more penetrable with the booze and pot; aye - 'tis the dunedin music madness. Ugly ambitions, moody teenagers, catharsis-on-demand, atrophied loves, media crystals, and that sorta gnarly scotts-irish bar-room lurch'n'scowl of those wizened locals. And the smell of money. Cash money.

The line up for the evening was not the typical hermetically-sealed club-ov-gentlemen often associated with the Aesthetics, it was an experiment in cross-pollination and a good ole' skull-and-bones style hazing. And i believe it worked, to a masonic degree. Of course, too many cooks etc etc. But then - many hands make light work etc. But then too many chiefs - not enough indians etc. No, wait - there was clearly too many indians and no chiefs at all that night. Oh the flat-lined anarchy of it all. But then, who actually cares. Facebook events just filter away into shonky/gunky/matted neuronal nothingness just like everything else in nature.

Europa Kid are local academic and anarcho-syndicalist(correct phil?) Phillip Mason and city librarian and Albar cynic Joshua Scott, an semi-acoustic guitar duo, who opened the psychotic evening with a selection of beautifully dark and meditative songs. EK is a singer-songwriter combo with a gothic almost e.b.m streak and their set was a welcome deviation from a typical rock fest.The audience did swell as these boys performed , steeping the venue in some dearly needed banter'n'bustle'n'tinkle'n'gluggidy-glug. From my vantage point it was the next act Brains who took the cake. A power-trio,and my gawd was power their friend that night, Brains performed this fierce bruising set; bass with both rich 60s subs AND scorching overdrive: the bassist acheiving a speed perhaps only topped by Lightening Bolt, the drummer backing it all up like a gun, and band leader Matt McAuley layering over it all an intelligent mezza meal of noise-rock indie badness..

okay, so these guys are new, but you can just tell they have greatness in their sights - not a whiff of arrogance or cliche or any other redundant adjectives i use to describe ambition about them... And so I applauded them then and i do so now. But in true Dunedin tight-pocketed scotts miserliness - Ah didn't even buy their $5 buck ep for want of a gaseous db draught (drink yrself sober with malty 4% beer! Bleargh!!!). I'll get one on Thursday boys! Coz Thursday is my high day. It's my you and i day.

..Just like Will Ferrel's character Dewey Cox in Walk Hard I thought to myself 'How do we top that?' Oh well, Bastard Wisher oughta smash-up the place and erase any trace of brains's sonic pogrom. Right? Right? Right? And on comes the affectionately coined 'bastards', the whine and wease of Jason Barrets alto saxophone tearing at the ears, like albert ayler playing sax on his deathbed - insanely high overblown squeals, like some sort of crippled soul/animal - a truly unique free-jazz sax attack, Sefton all over the show - drums and crayons and pedals and vocals, John at the helm of the lap-top, adding the odd reconstituted scream into the mix. The performance this time more like a masochist demonstration than pure assault, the venue's psychogeography morphing into their jam-pad up the valley . These boys are almost religious in their devotion to noise - I often run into Sefton up the valley where he is all glowing and transcendental after 'a two hour jam with John'..surely constant peak performance has gotta be an inhuman demand of these guys. In fact its gotta be an inhuman demand full stop. The nature of this performative ritual music is that it can literally go on forever. Until they boys are either transformed into Gods or their skin melts off. Under pressure from locals and skinheads, I had to do the unthinkable and cut-off their performance mid-stream with some 'hard words'. Matty plays big daddy. Matty, trying very hard to be all things to all people as well as being responsible for every sctalogic detail of the evening's entertainment. They did stop, and sorta packed up in this brooding way, which made me sorta squirm, but hey.

And it was our turn with the toys, and in a cunning move Sefton don's Barretts saxophone and assimilates into the Aesthetics and so his all night jam continueth! Good on him, really. It was fun. Flipper have this tradition of letting anyone play horn with them on a particular song whenever they play live, not sure which song it is, so i just thought, oh well , flipper do it why dont we. Considering we sound like a flipper covers band. And so we play a very loose set, yet again just firing songs off instead of using a set list, of course this can be a degenerative practise, but hey. Loose loose loose and by the end i have a tizzy fit and tell everyone to fuck off. Way to keep fans! Nah, we played all the dirty hits, Doomtown fuzz from my right to riches,, Succubi, Twenty for Timmy (thanks so much for the help with the sound my young friend), reptilian agenda , ah yeah, Do Do Do ......all the hits.

Matthew Middleton , April 2009

PS - If this is the sort of lucid commentary I can dredge up from a night in which i was supposedly 'utterly and embarrasingly off my face', I don't want to know what i would be able to transcribe from a sober one. even if i appear like the clownish retard savant from invercargill when we chat, watch your BACK. He he heeeee.

the moronic triumphant : aesthetics live at chicks april 2009

photo by christine knight

Monday, May 4, 2009

phenomenonenom

....back from a self-sufficient world where the concept of rent is laughable, where living off the land is the default, where the land is communal and yours forever amen, where you are the nation and the nation is you, where your mere existence is a right to a living. That was Samoa. And now im back to New Zealand, maybe the most liberal property/land markets in the world, the polar opposite of the samoan system: any entity private corporate or both could buy up any micro/macro hunk of 'dis land and use it for bilderbuger satanic ritual abuses...and it makes me wonder.

And racing this time we got a northward trek in less than a fortnight, the Aesthetics and Crude playing Wellington on the 16th of May at the Adelaide bar with Zombie?Fuck! and a guest act (that ole' filler phrase) , The Aesthetics, The Spunks and Celia & th' Cigarettes at Whammy bar thurs 21st of May in Auck, The aesthetics, Piece War, The AXEMEN! and The Hairdo's at the Ambassador bar in Pt Chev on friday the 22nd of May.

This is the 'big push', bringing ambitious amounts of fresh vinyl to our great northern city states.

And the big news - Flipper play Auckland and wellington soon.

And the little news, Dunedin city life, dunedin city pressure. Life, living, and lives. Go ahead, break out the knives. Don't forget to swap your wives. I've suddenly broken out in hives. We go to Auckland with nothing to lose. Nothing, except copies of that overly simplistic bum rock album i keep talking about. And why not? Its not like Sony is doing us any favours. And you know what? Fuck em. Fuk em all. My allegiance is to you, the reader, not some reptilian record industry interest. The new method is the new method. roll it over in the mind. This is the new industry model - a low to the ground street level viral approach that is constantly changing. It is pure chaos and only the chaotees will make it through. Them or the choronzonic chameleonic types. and those loud,perpetually compensatory napoleonic types.

Sales of last years dvd " L'archivio dei lavori ultimati da Matt Middleton per l'ANNUNCIO 2008 di anno" --' have dipped a little, but the disc has managed to worm its way into some important libraries (national,hocken,audio foundation archives)$ and music collections. I am very proud of this work, i listened to it as i circumnavigated (on wheels) Samoa and my lord what a juxtaposition it provided to the paradisical scenery.

what else? lord knows.

lordy lordy lordy.

he told me not to hoardy,.

........New Zealand's largest city is about to get larger.

And so, to see it off, the Aesthetics make it up to AK, our AK, the K-road, Mt Albert Grey Lynn/Kingsland/Graftony part for a couple of doom-cast/grim outlook-type shows!

DAY 1 - sees the band leave Dunedin in a metal bird...It roared like a million lions. Arriving in Wellington upon this thing of light and fire the band parties in newtown, belting out jesus christ superstar word-for-word around a bonfire, as if to give the tour context...

DAY 2 - Saturday the 16th of May, I (crude) perform an 'improvised' piece on juno 60 keyboard, vocal and me silver-tinted battered saxophone at Spacething in the tempestuous Wellington afternoony. Stefan Neville (Pumice - also on a microtour of the nth island) joins me on the cans for a blazing free jazz blowhole/blowout - a format i wish to replicate in Dunedin soon (with lee noyes maybe?)...Bright Colours, one of those 'only-in-wellington' bands demonstrating a curious melodic angularity and complex rhythmic afrocentrism also perform, their frontman a true oddball presence with nervous talent in abundance. A spacething instore is part performance, part network-space, part swap-meet, part op-shop and part art-gallery and this one was all that and more. Thanks again to Beth for squeezing crude in in relatively short notice....

The main event, i.e the evenings'entertainment was hosted at a classic pub type venue, The Adelaide Bar. Two piece Newtown perform first, their set pointedly more ROCK than what we had witnessed back in '07. Warm, vicious (warm - and vicious?),straight(well-sorta)-ahead anthemic punk-rock songs from these riotous Netownians. Nice lil'turnout..perhaps not a behemoth of a turnout - but hell - we were in direct and pernicious competition with folkist PUMICE and locals mr sterile assembly - an anomalous and painfully polarizing phenomenon - Pumice has many powerful and loyal friends in the capital, and blood is thicker than water. But hey. Thats the biz. Cut-throat. Take no indie-kid prisoners. Zombie Fuck, a garish assortment of ex-dunedite blood'n'bone surrealize the night just that little bit more as they step up. Expertly programmed drum-buddy-machining. Nightmare question-answer-male-female-type vocals. A demonic-fuzz rifferama reminiscent of Amphetamine Reptile/Touch and Go/Trance Syndicate era sonic malefactors the Pain Teens.

A fine set from the Fucks, perhaps a lil' more dance floor grovel would've added to the general debaucho-degradation..Wellington a notorious wall-flower town (yes?no?is that AKL? christchurch?)...and then we play.

LONG AND LOUD AND DISGUSTING. All the hits. 'Drive On' sung with real despair and with that true small-town-south-island-i'm-shocked-and-shattered-by-all-this-big-city-sophistication ...but Wellington likes it. And I thank them fo' it!

DAY 3 - didn't take much for us to be royally ejected from the capital after our blashpemous din , indeed, the wind itself throws us out. And onto the cornucopian corporate zone that is AKL ! There is to be no show until day 6 - and so we plant ourselves in mission-sympathetic flats, line up a weeks worth of art filmography and shut ourselves away.

DAY 6 - Thursday the 21st of May sees the Aesthetics 1ST AKL performance at the super-busy whammy Bar, joined by The Spunks and the fabulous Cigarettes. The Spunks are Stefan Neville and Bob Brannigan - perhaps the two hardest working musicians in New Zealand, their line up that night sadly missing the intoxicating drone and smokey, dopey rock-muso party that is Roddy Pain. Brilliant songs and musicianship only thousands of hours of touring and frugal living could make manifest. Of course, for the sheer entertainment, the sheer god-damn madness of it all, the night belongs to Celia Mancini and her new out-fit, The Cigarettes. Celia fronts the band on organ, Liz Matthews drums and Sean-o'reilly, the silently reliable and prefered Mancini-musick cohort is on guitar. And regardless of near glacial shifts in time,,,since, oh i don't know, the last days of King Loser, it is clearly a kind of timelessness that defines her - the sound a heavy psychedelic swamp monstrosity relevant then, relevant now and relevant fukkin tomorrow. Clever, sinister, and yes, its fukkin funny too.

Really fukkin funny and really fukkin rare. ..and then we play.

LONG AND LOUD AND DISGUSTING. Al the hits. 'Bionica' played especially for the chap who listed it as is favorite NZ song on this big corporate poster campaign about town. But Auckland likes it. And I thank them fo' it!

There was a kind of party afterwards, a sort of crumbling, tragic, jaded, deranged, physically dangerous, madenning, stupid but triumphant gathering in an impeccably furnished (beige leather/neo bauhaus design?/walnut stereo system) apartment,,,,and lo-and-behold DAY 7 dawns and its all 'dawn, you've been gone, its been such a long time'

DAY 7

Um Day 7, thats the Ambassador gig. And you can read a succinct gig report on this one at the absolutely encyclopedic AXEMEN blog..

Ambassador is a totally wild bar, and was a joy to play a totally loose rediculously silly set (well my singing seems so on watching this:::

Axemen ruled, strangling, killing, eating and reconstituting Bryan Ferry songs like you'll never believe,, as did the Hairdos ((no they didnt strangle bryan ferry songs - oh you know wat i mean)..a brilliant AKL 3 piece, punchy keys'n'chunky gat,,girl 'n'guy question/answer vox,,,and that tee shirt - --u seen it????) ,, (oh and HOW COULD I FORGET - KIMMY SWANSON SINGS THIS AMAZING SONG WITH THEM HAIL STUD!!)and Piece war (classic punk - surprisingly melodic---), and yeah, the Axemen 'gig report' sums it all up so much better - its got pics and vids and yeah...

And so to sum it all up: THE MICRO TOUR WAS A GREAT SUCCESS !!! ...it was the Dunedin music consumers at the launch party who made it possible, those 20 or so Ugly Ambition sales literally propelling The Aesthetics up to Welly and Auckland and it is with a real sense of pride that i can say that. There is nothing more rewarding than funding ones own project out of ones own sales. I wanna thank everyone in Wellinton and Auckland who helped out, Liz Matthews, Zoe Drayton for the PA, Duncan Bruce for recording the Ambassador show, Naomi Hickin for general hospitality and helpin' with the Ambassador show,,,but especially Beth Dawson in Welly and super-especially Stefan Neville in Auckland - driving our broken-asses 'round town, helping set up gigs, setting up a live-to-air, putting us up, talkin' to folks on our b-half, lotsa little bits and pieces all helping to slicken up general rock-logistics...at this indie level - it's simple - you gotta maintain your networks with love. No bridge burning is allowed anymore, well, it wasn't back in the mid 90s when i was a particularly pyromaniacal brat either... Nurture them. Guard them. Back 'em up in a fight....Special thanks to the Axemen - was a rare joy to play saxophone for them - what was that Bryan Ferry song? I've earnt the super-exclusive right to pen blogs for their great Y2K blog now having performed with them (once)so.....yehaww! So, we hope to get up nth again soon. Sooner rather than later.

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Murderbike, Not Even Owls, Volt, Radio Cegeste, Wu and DJ Voodoodroid...None 20 june '09

Kitchens of Distinction - Kill thy Father - Butchered at Birth - Wax'n'Tax - Not quite - As if - Parallelogram - Tighten thy Noose - Tend thy Garden - Volt: Pete.G/Justin.T/Richard S - Sound Organism - Digi-Bodies - Pure Sound - Home-Made and Wired up by Correspondence - Thee Mighty FUSTIGATOR - Fizzle, Quack & Catflap - Catatonia - Annus Mirabilis - Anicularum lucubrationes - Aegri somnia - Audio, video, disco - Report - Report - Report - He Thinks He's - Opinions: like assholes - Everyone Has One but Some People Have To Wear a Colostomy bag - a Buddhist Sin - Fustigation across the Nation - Not Even Owls: Toki/Eddie - Sludges and Judges - Beta Beats - Toki on th' Sauce - Eddie on Not Enuf Owl - True Dat - Insert opinion - Was/Is - The The - Tank'd-Girl - Millipede - Sanctimony - An Haitian Disc Jockey - DJ Voodoodroid - Castin' out that Hex - I gots the Evil Eye outside WINZ - Boogie Down - Bugalu - Tokyo R'n'R Street Dance - Breakdancers - Rockers - Trojans - Hillbilly,Hellbelly - Bellyfull o' Mater's Ruin - 7 Year Bitch - Spintronics - Litl Paisley represent - Wu - Blue - Spew - New - Who - Mackinnon/Middleton/Noyes - Collaboratron - In Homage to thee Big-German wit' the Beard - In Homage to thee Big African-American with the Mo' - Bing! Bang! Swerve, Swoop, Loop, Feed - Noyes: Shaman-of-thee-Skins - MacKinnon: Conjourer of the Waves - Middleton: no comment - Audiatur et altera pars! - Confess! - Confess! - Confess!! - Murderbike - It ain't a Trike - Its the MURDERBIKE - Beat'n'Synth Greul'n'Biscuit - Meat'n'Potatoes - But Transcendental Potatoes - Lines of Fright - Synth Bombs - Beats'n'Bongs - Fluorescent Yellow & Flourescent Blue - Triangles - Vector Graphics - Dirty Keys - Murky Pads - No uplifiting Choral Chorus here - Just lo-down Primtive Synth Gurgle/Gravel - and Iso/Rachels' Finespun-Homespun Sing-Song - Mono-Harmonic & Clandestine - Radio Cegeste - Stairwell install - Ghost channels - Bogan Ghosts scream for Stairway to Heaven - Fine-tune my Runes - Droppers und Spoons - Motoko/Vapour/Viol - Ether transmit - Aurorae, Weather, Morse - European Venous Forum - Estonian Volleyball Foundation - Quantum Rind - Kitchens of Distinction - Probiscus O'er Tanin Tainted Sugar Lump - Grace Jones - Quick and Easy Loans - Cash next Pay - Warm Leather - Von Robinson Industrial Design - Street - Eat - Beat - Los Alamos Fuel Model - LaFleur Petroleum Services ||||||

Saturday, July 11, 2009

big night in

The Dao de Jing puts it beautifully - ones absence renders one conspicuous.

Well, we hope. Oh my atrophied ego, see how it yearns, see how it deludes itself. I commited a cardinal sin this evening, I ticked the 'attending' box in a facebook event page and didn't even turn up. And in my head I conjure up a vocal collage..'where's matty?' ....echo....echo.....echo...'I thought Matt was coming out......'...'jelquing is illegal in Wyoming...'...

'Farrys fraud! Chin on a String'...'..'Sieg heil!'...

No desires. No motive, no hidden agenda. No Die! Die! Die!.

Just fat accumulating around my middle. And the relentless whirr of my PC's fan. No party at None. No frenzied networking. No pink-cheeked affirmations.

No sharing of a cigarrette with a local named Trevor, warm ethyl-breath exchanges and bristly man-on-man kissy. No shouting and stumbling and the primordial satisfaction of an distended bladder unleashing its alchohol-charged fluid into a graffittied receptacle. The splayed arrangement of purses, jackets, cellphones, wallets, keys, pouches of tobacco, bags of filters, tampons, chewing gum, broken drum sticks, condoms, lipstick, eyeliner, spent syringes, receipts, coins...

Die! Die! Die! are a very professional unit with a sober head for the business side of it all and a keen sense of progression.

There are 2 types of band. One, 'gets somewhere'. The other dosen't get quite as close, but might enjoy a 'cult status'. If you really do want to 'make it', sober up right now. Get sober and get real. Analyse the kiwi acts who make it, compare them to those cult acts out there. The cult acts seem to enjoy a deep respect (or is that sympathy?), they're freak acts, often mentally ill, their guilt complexes making them complete push overs ('yeah, hey...I'm just happy to get to play...'), it's the phenomenon of unreliability that makes them at once exciting to their fans, a risky liability to the business. Once a reputation has been built, it's virtually impossible to knock it down.

The bands that make it are often if not always powerful networkers, self-esteem un-tainted by abuse, are hard-workers and will always do what they say they're going to do, are unshackled by any drug or alcohol addictions, never come across as desperate in any way and know how to work as part of a team. They will also have a keen instinct for selecting the right people to work with. And once a network is established, it will be nurtured and protected, like a mafia, until such time as the contract is up. And, they won't never give you something for free.

So, what am I saying here.

Fucking nothing.

Go download my latest ALBUM.

Posted by matthew_middleton at 4:28

live - never perfect, always fun.

I truly now believe, after years of practice, and never quite achieving perfection live, that you are never gonna get a live show without un-predictable fuck-ups, the sound being somehow shitty, something breaking, something being out of tune, madness and tantrums by either one member of the band or all members of the band, or the audience members, someone in the band not being able to hear the other instruments properly, why, all manner of problems. And so I state it for you now - and you are most likely already well aware of this : A LIVE SHOW IS NOT A RECORDING, IT WILL BE MESSY, NO MATTER HOW PRACTICED and MUSICAL PROFICIENT WE (THINK WE) ARE, THERE WILL BE TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES, SOMETIMES IN ABUNDANCE. This is what a live gig should be. It is truly the atmosphere created by the band that denotes a 'live show's' beauty, the energy created, the reference and re-interpretation of those recordings you know and love, the alcoholic gnosis, the social co-factors, the mob-mentality, the party afterwards, the haze, the fog'n'dimness, the yellng into your friends ear, the improvised sections....every band in history has fucked up live. Unless they're corporate robots. So there. Perfection, as inhuman as it is, is something to be worked towards (in vain of course) in the studio. So, bare this in mind when you go see The Aesthetics or Crude next. A live gig is a live gig.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

monday july 13

Sharp cold blue steel type day here in Dunedin. The conditions that freeze y' down to silicate crystal. And Weatherston still pleads not guilty. It all happened just up the road from me. I remember having one of my voodoo themed dreams that night, someone was buried alive..the industry keeps chugging along..patter..patter, NZ music, all co-centric circles and black hoodies. And Auckland city. And the visual arts, all triple zeroes and knobs of paint and strange assemblages and odd people. The arts, they attract all the psychos. Narcissists, co-dependents, paranoids, borderliners, obsessive-compulsives, depressives, addicts, mother-fuckers, oedipus, elektra, bed-wetters, rapists, misogynists, mummy's boys, daddy's girls, rich-kids, brats, cum-heads, sex-addicts, boot-lickers, back-sliders, dealers, wheelers, cheerleaders, healers, hair-dressers, leather-facers, paddy-farmers, aeronautical engineers, knob-twiddlers, politicians, pyromaniacs, klepto's, pedo's, emo's, euro's, ho's, bros, real-esate agents, undercovers, bogans, bodgies, boogiemen, road knights, skinheads, nazi skinheads, white power skinheads, hells angels, head-hunters, satans slaves, trey, troy, bruce gates, jism, sputum, pus, bile, curd, whey, toe-jam, sweat, stench, cud, mank, bogeys, smegma, turds, religion, war, leaders, jesus, poos.

Posted by matthew_middleton at 10:32 PM Sunday, July 12, 2009

july 13 pt 2

the ministry of social development. The ministry of social development. The ministry of social development. creative new zealand. work and income new zealand. the ministry of social development. work and income new zealand. creative new zealand. private/public. private/public. patronage. private funding. public funding. tax payers. gangs. the proceeds of crime. only way. private/public. work and income new zealand. housing new zealand. incest. gangs. the ministry of social development. john campbell. the ministry of social development. the ministry of social development. The ministry of social development. The ministry of social development. creative new zealand. work and income new zealand. the ministry of social development. work and income new zealand. creative new zealand. private/public. private/public. patronage. private funding. public funding. tax payers. gangs. the proceeds of crime. only way. private/public. work and income new zealand. housing new zealand. incest. gangs. the ministry of social development. john campbell. the ministry of social development.the ministry of social development. The ministry of social development. The ministry of social development. creative new zealand. work and income new zealand. the ministry of social development. work and income new zealand. creative new zealand. private/public. private/public. patronage. private funding. public funding. tax payers. gangs. the proceeds of crime. only way. private/public. work and income new zealand. housing new zealand. incest. gangs. the ministry of social development. john campbell. the ministry of social development.the ministry of social development. The ministry of social development. The ministry of social development. creative new zealand. work and income new zealand. the ministry of social development. work and income new zealand. creative new zealand. private/public. private/public. patronage. private funding. public funding. tax payers. gangs. the proceeds of crime. only way. private/public. work and income new zealand. housing new zealand. incest. gangs. the ministry of social development. john campbell. the ministry of social development.the ministry of social development. The ministry of social development. The ministry of social development. creative new zealand. work and income new zealand. the ministry of social development. work and income new zealand. creative new zealand. private/public. private/public. patronage. private funding. public funding. tax payers. gangs. the proceeds of crime. only way. private/public. work and income new zealand. housing new zealand. incest. gangs. the ministry of social development. john campbell. the ministry of social development.the ministry of social development. The ministry of social development. The ministry of social development. creative new zealand. work and income new zealand. the ministry of social development. work and income new zealand. creative new zealand. private/public. private/public. patronage. private funding. public funding. tax payers. gangs. the proceeds of crime. only way. private/public. work and income new zealand. housing new zealand. incest. gangs. the mthe ministry of social development. The ministry of social development. The ministry of social development. creative new zealand. work and income new zealand. the ministry of social development. work and income new zealand. creative new zealand. private/public. private/public. patronage. private funding. public funding. tax payers. gangs. the proceeds of crime. only way. private/public. work and income new zealand. housing new zealand. incest. gangs. the ministry of social development. john campbell. the ministry of social development.inistry of social development. john campbell. the ministry of social development.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

july 14

Tinkle courier, tangle, tinkle asian asian restauraunt. Au. Au. Begorrah. slack. Pink. Lack. Hull. Lackey. Braggard. Pill. Lipid. Protein Creme.

easy wafers, in my Pottle o' foetid. words upon words upon turds.

In an anal hedge-fund. In ano, lodge of anal pride .

Tinkle courier, pottles of bridgette.

Care, care, cremation fo care.

Cremate thy care, expunge, and ejaculate.

Put fizz in his britches, buzz over his frig.

Millet in his trenches, jelly o'er his gig.

Rank, rind, holocaust.

Caustic chancre, syphilis is sip.

Sip lilly hick noumenon.

Liminal flip.

Cass, cass,

foid foid trick.

Put her in the bin

filiments of play

filiments of play.

hip.

hop.

Holiday.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

july 15

I have this image, not unlike the body farms portrayed in The Matrix, each of us wired up and drained in this relentless and incrementally intensifying fashion by a sinister behemoth, this nameless, disembodied vampire - it creates money from nothing, and skims money from every head..every foetus another latent resource..as natural resources dry up new abstract resources become commodities...referencing Enron's desperate profit creation tactique just on the cusp of their mighty fall....and with each fiscal year the beast grows greedier and more virulent, it has been self-sustaining and self-replicating for decades now, a super-malignant tumour...and it proclaimeth 'who is like unto me?'..Profit at all costs..Those varied companies and utilities and govt deparments and slum-lords we pay, don't be fooled - for consolidation and mega mergers abound and the money they exhume from us just trickles right up to the elite. I have this image of a huge ufoid vacuum cleaner floating overhead, sinister and looming like Israeli helicopters, coins, lint and bank-notes helpless against the suction...the surreal looting spree indomitable and un-fettered by time and space..day after day after day forever amen..my bank account, merely a way-station for funds before they are ingested, at the speed of light, into skull-shaped coffers and vaults arcane.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

recent happenings/review/introducing WU/futures

A lil' review of the Aesthetics/Bastardwisher/Stevie McCabe gig is nestled over at the Axemen blog/archive HERE. A couple of mini-vids tacked on too! The youtube stage clips cleverly disguise the soul-destroying, almost surreal psycho-drama(s) that unfolded behind the camera that night but hey....the show went on didn't it. I had all the energy of a slightly melted piece of plastic when i crawled on stage but the show did go on. And, well, its all gone.

Under the bridge. Where i drew some blood.

Did the whole 'concept' thing the other night at the Chicks bar to a fairly spartan but quality audience..thanks to everyone who came out, hope y'all derived some form of pleasure from it all, this was an experiment in the use of the WORD as a musical/percussive physical sound item. Many simple repeated slogans and sections of dialogue.. Think it went down well. I think. Stuff's been fairly strained lately but spring is on its way here in new zealand and with it that lovely revitalizing ambience y' get. Oh yes, lovely. Like a good long psychoanalysisis sesh on a good long leather couch with a goatee'd dude in the finest Irish tweed. Like a thousand invites to a million facebook events you didn't know about but do now and will never forget about again. Spring with updates. And I'd like to take this oppurtunity to (re)introduce WU, which you've probably already heard of but anyway this is an improv trio: Lee Noyes on drums, Alex MacKinnon on guitar/pedal array and Middleton on sax/clarinet/shawm. Very propulsive and exploratory stuff i suppose you could say - I bleat on , pull the mouthpiece out and whistle etc, some screaming, some warbling, slow vibrato, trills, overblown arcs, scratches, octave hopping, key popping, staccatto sections, processional shawm lines for the exotic effect, clarinet for its richer timbre and creepier resonances. Alex scratches out some searing gat with that hyper-kinetic energy that's his trademark, and Lee, man...in all my years i've never had the pleasure of jamming with a more intricate and adventurous cans man. Intra-band flattery. Healthy? Maybe, maybe not. So now i just shut up. I'll construct a myspace page for the band etc, the project will be equally aligned with any online forums or activities that Lee and Alex administrate - Wu is an egalitarian triad as much his as his as mine. You dig??

Wu: L:mackinnon. R:me with something in my mouth again.

Wu: l.mackinnon c.noyes. r.middleton

So, anyways, the future. Aesthetics have had a shake up and will appear in a new form next time. All is platonic and benevolent. Shit happens. Crude will continue on as it always has, it'll never end , not until the last copy of a copy of a copy of a crude cd is vapourized. Not until every crude mp3 is torn organ-like from the architecture of the internet, which is impossible coz i can't remember all my passwords... And what a couple of months! Its been the year of the narcissist. Famous people dying, people killing people, facebook encroaching further and further into real-life. Theres just too much going on, yet not enough. Too many events, too many updates to maintain. Too many posters. Too many brands of energy drink. Too much scatalogical data all the time. Thee eternally updating world. A thousand events. Strangers strung together at events, all the while overlooked by this huge and ugly utility/presence, like a jealous god, a mile long ufo hovering in stasis, our motives all facebook fodder. A when you get together it's like your just a version of your facebook page, when its supposed to be the other way round...and STILL i update it...then again, it IS a nice way of keeping in touch.

Friday, August 7, 2009

fantasy / fact

As in Guido. Tanning galleries. Factory farms. As in nuptials. Vortex. And pissant. Because we emptied those pockets back in 1989. The not-now. Not-now time, that big thick-skinned black-hearted other. Buddhism recommends not clinging.

Ways and means. "Money is not an issue". Sorry, but no, money is always the issue. Like the kind of people who can "spare no expense". Oh the power of it. Oh the absolute power of money. It can render grown men to snivvling toddlers who'll agree to the most horrid degradations. It can bring whole ecomomies to their knees. At Rockerfellers whim. The whim of the mutli-billionaire is like an earthquake - the psychology of those with that amount of money is a morbid fascination of mine. The ultra-rich. I'm not talking about the multi-millionaire down the road. I'm talking ultra-rich. The kind of people who can uplift who they wish, who can destroy who they wish. Imagine growing up in one of these families. Surely a kind of megalomaniacal psychosis would ensue. Surely. Madness. The power available to you - surely the novelty wears off. It must get boring, surely you'd end up joining a torture ring or the like to get your kicks. I can only imagine the sadistic games these people could potentially play. They could hire their own armies. Whole mafias. They could infiltrate pharmaceuticals, governments, criminal syndicates, the entertainment industry. Space and defense. Scientific research. Media. The courts. Real estate. Construction. Education. Oh the corruption. Of course, true power is nature herself and fraudulent power like that of money, a human invention, has no true sustainability. But until then - oh the things you could do. And they do.

Say you had a band. Or an act. You could literally buy your way to fame. I would buy a megalithic advertising campaign and pay off the entire infrastructure to favour us. Or maybe that wouldnt even be necessary. You could pay off, lobby, invest and influence the record companies, radio, television, venues, airlines, hotel chains, catering firms, clubs, private bouncers, stadiums, logisticians, local gangs, retail chains like the rock shop, i'd buy huge warehouses, trucks/vans/tractors with Crude insignia, i'd hire only the best graphic design firms - id place ads in prime time, i'd have lawyers, accountants, PR people all at my service..

How very sad. It's probably a good thing that I don't have this 'power'. I think i'll just keep on keeping on with this nanomarketing campaign.

Posted by matthew_middleton at 7:50 PM

on invercargill.

The predominant genetic trait within my family on my mothers' side is shortness. You can spot us in the street, a raft of pixie-like southern folk, on the surface down-to-earth, deep down - eccentric, alcoholic, and esoteric. Smallness, in the face, eyes and nose, in the legs and arms - indeed, littleness is our trademark. Southland is the home province of Crude, a small and very conservative area in the southernmost parts of the South Island. Southland is a dairy and sheep farming province - steeped in old money. Theres an aluminium smelter too. In comparison to other provinces in NZ, Southland is fairly wealthy. Its largest city and its capital, Invercargill, is basically a farming town of just over 50,000 people. Its a small town. It cops alot of flack, and is the butt of many jokes New Zealand wide. If you are from there, live up north and tell people about it, you either have to be staunchly proud of it or squirm and apologize. It has its wealthy, and its very poor - its north/south dividing line a classic socio-economic partition. If you don't want to conform - socially or culturally - Invercargill does not provide you with many options - paradoxically freaks are sometimes nurtured and admired as 'characters' - thats if and only if they stay there for life and are outwardly patriotic. It has it's gangs - the most powerful a very ruthless white supremacist biker gang, its rivals are ethnic street gangs and the Mongrel Mob. It has a strange mafia-esque organisation that monopolizes the liscencing of the towns taverns - the Invercargill Liscencing Trust.

Many musical freaks have emerged from the town, most famously Chris Knox. George Henderson of the Puddle lived there. And of course punk and oi had its day in the form of Moral Fibre - their drummer Keiran Monaghan moving to Wellington and branching away from the Oi into free-improv, world music and dada realms. Invercargill's port Bluff has or at least had an extremely tight and passionate metal scene, with religious importance placed on American thrash band Slayer. Invercargills young bands tend to embrace metal, espeically Pantera-esque/Slayer-esque power rifferama. It has a reclusive and very underground bohemian scene. And a smattering of punk-a-billy tottoo culture. It also has its garage punk freaks. The work of Mike Patton is held in very high regard amongst many musicians in Invercargill.

I am from Invercargill. Invercargill taught me self-reliance, how to make my own fun, the need for ambition, that there's nothing wrong with eccentricity so long as its real and from the heart. My roots were Metal. I listen to metal everyday again.

I am listening to Slayer. My best friend in the world lived there (for a while) .

Living in Invercargill taught me about true friendship and how to reject the norms. If i wasnt brought up there, i would not have had any drive to musically reach for the beyond.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

them

They, the external - that, them: the other. The right would like to believe themselves independent of and not generated by the biosphere and that their wealth and station in life is purely their own doing. The fibres that keep their clothes together, the foods and chemicals they ingest, the electricity they wield, the tools they use, the water they drink, the plumbing they soil, the refridgeration they keep foods fresh with, the entertainments they devour, their mobility and logisitics, their comforts and luxuries, indeed all the commodities they consume, services they use and assets they 'own' - "thats none of your business mate". Has one ever really sat down and thought about how utterly interdependent and universally reliant we are on the labour, support and services provided by other people? The vital life-nurturing elements produced by animals, plants and the rounds of birth and decay? How utterly reliant we are on the other, that very other we tend to dismiss as so much useless shit? My mind boggles when i stop to think - everything i see around me and use has been created or provided by other people or other living things. Nothing is the exception.

an obsession

Daoism, that archaic and arcane world. No, wait. It lives and breathes and has a future that is more vital than any other religion or philosophy on Terra. But no, that implies competition, so i desist. It was not until I had left the nuclear anglo-saxon buffer-zone that is living with ones parents in invercargill new zealand that I first encountered this strange philosophy. A young twenty something, vital, damaged-goods, looking back I was living the classic 'bohemian' life (as much as possible in 1990s dunedin - perhaps watered down, perhaps quaint and colloquial) - creativity and chaos at the expense of everything else (but did i care? i think not). Magic was in the air the day i rooted myself to the chair in that cute lil' cafe, a quaint bookshelf beckoning to me , a little slip of a book(let) gathered up into my tender 22 year old hands, what is this? The tao te ching? Dc Lau? I jumped straight to the text , ommiting Lau's intro; it was the famous 1st verse. And it was so simple, so utterly simple - it spoke straight to my silly little heart. The first verse was a challenge of sorts - a sort of baracade, a disclaimer. Thats it - its a disclaimer - the tao cannot be told, but if i must tell it, i will go on. i had discovered a take on the world unlike any other that day. it would take months for me to find my own copy. Years would pass before i even took to reading it in full. And the years passed and i read it in full and the years passed and my taste, my ravenous interest for the Dao, especially in its surface, its philosophic manifestation, grew. Daoism, and its namesake, the dao, has been a vital companion and an obsession of mine ever since that day. But why? Because it speaks truer to me than any other creed. It seems to point so clearly to the truth of existence, of human existence, of nature, of time and space, and oh! the beauty of quietism - the wisdom of it - the going along with it, riding with the truth, the murky essence behind all. The folly of needless ambition, of greed, of excess - temperance is of course a feature hinduism,buddhism, islam and christianity. Unlike abrahamic religions however, daoism has no central authority, no anthropomorphic deity. It is simple and earthly. Its is an utter going-with and letting-go, of letting be, and doing this nimbly, expertly, in tai chi i have found a practice that expounds many key daoist concepts - in a way that reveals itself deeper and deeper the longer i do it. Often i wonder why ancient china fascinates me so. I tend to see China more as a Mother of civilization than africa. China seems to be the seat of human refinement and knowledge. So simple, so real, so economic. How it steeps itself now in advanced capitalism seems a little sad, as was mentioned in AS Kline 'like water or clouds' - China will find itself increasingly at odds with its heritage the further it embraces its fierce brand of state capitalism. But yeah, I now quietly study this stuff like a real little nerd down at otagos central library. And i love it. All of it. Otagos' taoism section is probably the best in New Zealand and its a real treasure.

Posted by matthew_middleton at 9:39 PM

peasant armies/informationisation

The computers' on the fritz, booting up then switching off then rebooting. A real bitch. And it makes me realize how important these machines are to the Crude mission.

Essential equipment. Crude is basically a digital enterprise now. Conceived, constructed, distributed and broadcast digitally. But that dosent take away from the fact that its a nice sunny day here in Dunedin. Buddies as software. And why not. Facilitate away i say. The new Aesthetics line-up perform for the first time this friday at none gallery. As well as Ducktails from the US of A, the forgotten guests (leyton rotor + & katrina thompson) , and Allllex Mac.\

this strange gulf

This strange gulf i'm feeling - its like a strange anger - a grey murky miserable hatred. How much prime information can one take - that premium internet culled and life conjoured data that screams at you how utterly screwed we truly truly are. How bent and sick this system really is. And all the private interests - how they keep death and pain in perpetuality to keep their shit-eating lifestyles alive and kicking. How they flaunt their sick accumulations of wealth, skimming off more, skimming off more and more and more. Each new method of money-rape a vile and nefarious victory for them. Wealth concentrating tighter and tighter and tighter and in fewer and fewer hands and they keep flaunting it and flaunting it and maintaining their global hold on the masses - using media. Using deep psychology. Using our own fears against us. Taboos. Freud. Public Relations. Fear of shit. Edward Bernays. Carefully formulated regimes, oh you can buy think-tanks, you can buy science, you can buy your very own governments. Fuck it. The misery and skull-fucking day in day out work eat shit die bills bills bills. feed those reptiles. keep feeding those fucking reptiles.

From the up coming data dvd 'archive 2009' (gosh - imaginative title) this hour long, well, 55 minute piece is an experiment in slowing sound down as much as possible. The piece revolves around a short sample of human exclamations and ecstatic utterances. As is typical with 'Dark Ambient' music, reverb is liberally applied to the affected area. There is a persistent high-pitched tinitus-type-tone that weaves throughout the piece, which may annoy some sonophiles. Think of it as, um, errr, the tv in the backround. Cold Black Waves shares similarities with the piece 'Jupiter', on the classic 'UHF-F9' cdr/cassette. Best listened to at night with the moon in crescent form with a full view of the stars, near a body of water after several glasses of expensive red wine and a handfull of psilocybin containing mushrooms. No - best listened to after just killing a hangover headache with 6 panadol, on looking out the window and witnessing an overcast grey day in an industrial area, and deciding not to leave the house for a week. Whatever. enjoy . or not. byeee for now!

how great thou art

Every so often a blog about music seems a little fanciful and a blog regarding the true horror of life a necessity. Some days require it. To witness and hear and digest what one does about the machinations of the world, we write to formulate our idea.

The great northern hemisphere. Here i sit in this little remote spot, truly removed from the big grown-up behemoth that is the great northern hemisphere. The seething, churning, bubbling broth that is the northern hemisphere. Sophisticated and majestic and lined with deep veins of blue. Its industry - many and varied. Here is one of them: the traffic of women and children from east to west. To satiate the needs of the great western men. A thriving multi-billion dollar a year industry. A constant demand, a constant supply. A flourishing organisation to administrate it. Its success as an enterprise lubricated by thousands of corrupt politicians, police, lawyers, judges, customs officials, military, real-estate owners, media, doctors, shipping companies, logisiticians,city councils, bankers and accountants. All complicit and on the take. Legalization of the industries connected to mafias is in no-ones interest. Not the state, not the law, not the corporates, certainly not the mafias. On and on and on the juggernaut rolls. And it grows and grows and grows. Age old cultures of misogyny and misanthropy fuel to this fire. Oh the great entrepreneurial spirit! The wonders of late modern capitalism, true freedom! Capitalism - the only truly moral system! The great oppurtunities afforded you by this system! "Come with me to London Anya, you'll earn more in one week than your mother does in a year. A better future awaits you!". There's money to be made! There's gold in them there hills. The market will sort it out. Let the market decide. Of course, it is not only black markets and organised crime whose works are nefarious - hundreds of legitimate enterprises foster pain and death and they have their hands in all the right pockets. The world is a vile and gnarley network of sick, corrupt operations. And no 'benevolent' enterprise is left untarnished for all interlocks. The picture is painted: It will not and can not be stopped - for it is a machine - a self replicating and self administrating machine. This is what I learn. And they wonder why I prefer a life of subjectivity and repose and isoloation and intoxication. Oh yes - we are the lazy ones, the foolish ones. We who do our best to step outside of this sick world, look in, and, using our various mediums, display what we see back to the world - allbeit in opaque and cryptic forms.

Posted by matthew_middleton at 4:09 PM

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to the DoD FBI NSA CIA GSCB

Hi there, I hear you're scanning blogs lately. Hi . My names Matt Middleton, I'm a nobody from a tiny lil' town called Dunedin in that lil' blip of a country called New Zealand, just south of Australia. Hope you enjoy scanning my blogs, and everyone elses! I hope you enjoy the anecdotes and, ok, I must admit, some of my ranting is a little wayward, a little deluded. I hope you extract something out of these blogs, you can test the political mood here, our planning, what we're talking about, our habits, how we respond to legislation and major world events, where the anti-establishment voices are hiding out etc. I have nothing to hide, and will keep voicing my opinion. We all know we have the camera wedged up our assholes, thats old news. Even here, in rural NZ. I know you can tell if i have dandruff from a satellite, I know you can read this, my bank details, my personal records, my medical history, where i conduct my eftpos transactions, what im buying, eating, shitting out. I hope this HELPS. I may indeed be a REAL THREAT to your nation. I could hold the key. I could be the link. Who knows with whom i conduct business. Well, yeah, you do. I buy coca-cola from the dairy. Down the road.

Posted by matthew_middleton at 11:14 PM

changes into 2010

Under a insidious barrage of 'cunts' and 'dicks' and 'faggots' I bring you this - the crude decade - the journal of living. The life lived. Naked without an mp3 player on foot in this pokey little town, i think back to the armoured days of Winter '09 where i'd wrap up in a disgusting out-of-style suede jacket and plug my ears up with positive affirmations and hexes and creeping synth figures. So as to block out the george straza dialogos. The righteous egalitarian hoards brandishing secateurs spattered with poppy-pulp.

Anyway my family, you who live and let live - next year the blog adress adjusts again.

Here's the LINK:

http://crude2010-2019.blogspot.com/

news - release party for the Annual Crude DVD is DECEMBER 18 at CHICKS HOTEL in Port Chalmers. The Aesthetics also perform, and alos special guest Nick Knox.

Also, december 5th Crude performs at NONE BASEMENT with the torturers et al.

Oral Histories'

Every now and then I'll (I mean ...Crude ) receive(s) a little attention from the world of music journalism and cultural heritage archivists. An interview here and there can really bolster morale - its a validation - it's evidence that what one does is not only out there (in new zealand in the main)(inside hard drives), it is deemed good enough to be acquired and archived and written about. People have penned articles - like Jonathon Bywater and his Listener article, Shayne Carter covered Crude in Real Groove and portrayed me as a very underground kiwi artist perhaps overlooked and under-appreciated, and the Hocken Library and the National Library have over the years acquired many Crude titles, some of them incredibly rare cassette editions that i don't even own any more. All the old lathe 7"s are down at the Hocken, as well as the first ever Crude cassette 'The World is so you Have Something to stand on'. Last month I was fortunate enough to be interviewed for an 'Oral History' project - whereby my life story as an artist, or whatever, was discussed, in my interviewers words it was a project that hoped to paint a picture of the artist as a human being. Whether I acheived that aim I'm not sure yet! I want to thank those who nominated me for this esteemed project - even if I only had the oppurtunity thanks to the veritable kaumatua of the lo-fi scene, Alastair Galbraith , turned the job down. I can think of se veral other senior figures who may have been more deserving of a place in this - people like Peter Gutteridge, George Henderson (you would need a huge amount of hard disk space for his story im sure) or , I dunnow - Celia Mancini maybe?? But yeah. I hope the transcript, which gets stored away up in Wellington, is eludcidating and assists with that future thesis on CRUDE. Yeah, maybe. Might just disappear

statement

.....Dunedin warmth, Dunedin Hands. Oh the passionate realm of music and art, it attracts them all, the control freaks, the mommys boys, the daddys girls, the special kids, the damaged, the abused, the destroyed, the weak, the troubled, the cursed, the rich, the poor, the sick, the god-fearing, the god hating, the open, the closed, the ambitious, the driven, the insane, the mysogynists, the homeless, the home-schooled, the priveledged, the defiled, the down-trodden, the brilliant, the deviant, the defiant, the maladjusted, the introverted, the extroverted, the forlorn, the quietist, the political, the apolitical. There seems to be different approaches to performance and performance situations - some are there to assert their domain and claim the next decade as theirs, some treat the structural aspects of a multi-act performance as a forum for that insidious kiwi pathology - passsive-agressive behaviour. Last night there was a perfomance at None Basement, or 'Fight club' as I now call it. Having played the venue under its various guises off and on since 1997 it is a place of solace and sentiment for me, somewhere to 'be myself', to 'let down my guard' , a place with a strong anarcho-liberal philosophy to it - a place of un-restricted creativity, and mutual support and encouragement. Last nights show was an eclectic amalgam of musical schools - a jazz/folk/psych act, an anarchic dada outfit, some noise rock, a laptopper, some electro, and myself, attemting a sort of 'live beats' thing with a laptop and the sterling gentlement i've been freestyling with over the last few months . Long before the show was to begin I tried to ascertain what the line up would be, when i should play and for how long etc. As is normal with many gigs of an anarchistic nature a kind of 'it'll sort itself out' attitude is assumed, one attempts to spontaneously assess when it is appropriate to perform, one assumes there isnt a hierarchy to the lineup, its an egalitarian event, fuelled by the music itself, the audiences response, the flow of the piss, the blood on the floor. Trying my utmost to be all things to all people as usual, (I tend to be what you think i am)I cranked up my set as the jazz outfit were seemingly winding down. There were two 'zones', on each side of the basement, creating a kind of genre specific schism, perhaps reducing the severity of the interjection. But no. The two zones were as one stage. Would I get up on stage with a group when they hadnt finished? No. But this was...something altogether different. A real headfuck. Cutting my sound ejaculation (self coaxed of course) I was informed, in the form of the lead vocalists beautiful voice, that they were to play 'one more', a song of about 20 minutes. They finished eventually, their fans yelling encore, my supporters giving me the nod. Before i was to play two members of the jazz outfit confronted me, looking inconceivably put out and angry, like i had just ruined their careers. Deeming the gravity of what i had done by misjudging my liberties was not as heavy as the vibe exuding from these gentlemen I dismissed them, rather abruptly, putting on an air of haughty arrogant self assurance not normally my style (how dare I! I should have cowered and blithered in apology). Picking up a phone call and walking away must've added to the general wankerish feel - I must have looked like a real cunt trying to defend myself. The two guys spent my set seething - their hatred for me festered. Rallying their troops they heckled and defamed my name on a chalk board, this matt middleton guy - what an ego he has! He thinks he is the hot shit! He thinks he is great! He like listens to his own music! That is self congratulatory! How dare he! And so i finished up the set - which went well, and after packing my equipment the angry gentlemen, their honour in tatters after my insidious comments and the sound rape i let loose as they played, it had broken their concentration, I had defiled the purity of their set, I had usurped their one and only shot at fame it seemed. I was then informed that the gentleman would very much 'like to punch me in the face'. My short stature must've really been empowering for them at this point. The standover continued, the taller (hes tall as!) stood over me, like Thurston Moore wearing Burroughs style spectacles, his face buckled and spattering out psychotic old-jazz-soldier rules and taboos and tapus and biblical threats. I then tried a formal apology - apologizing firstly for making a sound when they were playing, and then for my dismissive arrogant display previous to my performance. The response was 'I don't want to hear you say sorry'. So then question I had to ask myself was what did he want? Did he want me to get on my knees and pleasure his member? Was I in for a masonic hazing? (well YES it turns out - even their songstress got one in). Did he want me to pay him off?? At this point my integrity as a human came into sharp contrast in my mind. Was I to be walked over, was I to roll over like a dog when kicked, leaving a pleasing ruddy glow on their cheeks, or would I do something a little more ..acute to highlight the unreasonable nature of their fury. Oh yes there had been breakdowns in communication right from the get-go. Did I have a plan to make an enemy that night? No. Was I told for how long and when I should exactly play? Not really. Did I think a couple of blasts of noise from me would cause such a crushing blow to these guys egos resulting in their need for my head on a plate? No. Maybe no-one really wanted me to play that particular gig in the first place - and in typical passive fashion no-one said 'i don't want crude to play'---like hey I would have gladly not played - of course no-one told me.

I walk back, assume this pseudo martial arts stance and suggest that they 'beat me up'..

(a fight ensued, one of those squirming, wriggling, locked-down scrums, some hair pulling, clothes tearing and biting (on my part) and a few punches.)

Oh music music music - the JOY of it all. Lots of desperately poor people (like m )running round with not enough food in their bellies and too much booze in their blood.

To conclude, I love the people at None. They have been some of the most consistent and encouraging people i have known - reasonable people - non-judgemental, highly creative and progressive, real people. I don't have a beef with None. I try my best to be reasonable with my music and performances. If I have built a reputation over the years as being a 'wanker' or that 'i think i'm better than you', thats a real shame. Lots of young people come down to Dunedin and have their mind made up about who and what I am. Have i become this sort of dinosaur that must be put out of its misery to let the young blood through? Am I a thorn in your side?

At the end of the day we wake up and its all turned to memory, another heated exchange in the fight club, just another outburst by that matt middleton cunt, and we get on with our lives. But this incident was particularly depressing, its the sort of soul-destroying thing that puts you off ever bothering with it again, and it makes you wonder if all the twenty-something musicians or artists of today share this bizarre, sinister,dry ambitious streak and a corresponding sense of immediate entitlement to absolute respect.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

last blog for 2009 .

I'd like to sincerely thank all of you who've followed this blog over the year, and of course years previous, and I hope you all join me for the next installment - which will be kept as one unit for a number of years as opposed to this and last years annual blog. La Deccenie Brut is the title of the new blog, and I'll use that virtual space to natter on about nuttin much from 2010 to 2019, so long as blogspot and the internet are still going, so long as I'm here to write i suppose.

This mission of mine is a kind of alchemy. My music is refined gradually. Releases and actions are measured and represent the latest stage of refinement. There is no arrival; only movement and further refinement to come. The Crude meme started rough-as-guts, obscure, immature, silly - like a schoolboys science project. And it still is really.

Placing myself into the culture has been complicated. There are many layers to it - we have the local culture, Dunedin, with 4 or 5 venue/culture mafias or door-keepers one simply must play ball with. I won't name them here. Small city/large town socio-cultural politics is as fascinating as it is stifling. The golden rule - this town is far too small to actively burn bridges within the creative sector because one day you just might run into and even have to work with whoever you burned again and again and again in the future. You will also limit possibilities for others - artists who just want to get on with people and their projects. All in all bridge burning is a selfish and unwise act. I learnt that lesson years ago. Sort of.

On a slightly larger scale is the national culture - and the same rule applies here because New Zealand is very small. Although you can disassociate yourself from other groups a lil' bit. You define your realm firstly with the genre of music you perform and secondly by way of your politics(and even if you believe yourself to be apolitical - news flash - there are skilled observers out there who'll ascertain your 'leanings' even by the vway you wear your hair). The gatekeepers in NZ are manifold - those who rise up through the ranks are often blessed with the gift of the gab, have plenty of cash reserves, can network up a storm, have friends in leadership positions both corporate and governmental, exude mana (or know someone who exudes it), and whos music is commercial, rootsy, work-affirming, healthy, and humble. My position within New Zealands culture is seemingly microscopic - but it's cultish. NZ's music 'scene' utilizies Crude as a sort of last resort, a filler story, a novelty act or a curio. But 'at the end of the day' Crude is always there. Like oxygen. Permanence and timelessness are my aims. A refusal to go away and die. Transmuting ones everlasting soul into data to be stored, backed up, and filed away for ever. Crude is a southern entity within the national schema, its southern roots stretching deeper and deeper into the soil with each year, the south as base of operations - as home, as nest. Of course, we all know New Zealand music is Auckland-o-centric, and so alot of my work is neglected, because i rarely appear there in the flesh. Luckily those into the type of music i record are usually very progressive and reasonable people. But I can't wholly escape the odd barnyard jape and redneck reference. You just can't. Invercargill is Invercargill. And it will be forever.

The final placement for the project is the international realm. This is acheived in the main using the internet, usually by joining borderless world-wide interest groups and actively participating in them. I feel that the net has spawned a truly international electronic music movement. We congregate under the webs umbrella and inspire and inform each others works. It is a perpetual conversation. It is disembodied, mobile, anarchic, self-organizing and very powerful. One can record, remix and deliver a track to someone in Malaysia and get it back in a new form quicker than it takes to walk to the dairy and back. A guy in Siberia will know more about your latest release than the guy in the next room in the house. You can send a track instantly to 100 different people in practically every corner of the globe quicker than it takes you to hand a cassette to the guy down the hall. Of course, this is OLD NEWS, we all know this...but come on, its still pretty amazing! The ramifications must frustrate local media cliques no end - especially those who crave control of it.

So anyway, thanks again for spending a little time looking at things from my perspective. I really. truly. appreciate your support. You are supporting me by reading me. And if you're compelled to purchase a cd, why! that's all the better. But i'll be happy even if you go stream a crude track.

Yessir, its a struggle. Mein Kamph. I struggle on. On and on against a world I didn't design. Sport reigns supreme here, its mega-church is being built down ravey road as I write. Sport. Rugby. A sport to find the team who can safely collect the food package or the kill back across opposing tribal terrain and to the village. Or safely bringing a message home perhaps. Now we just click a mouse.

Apparently, my right-leaning relatives bellow - there's piles of money out there. Millions of dollars all up for grabs. Anyone can crawl up from the bottom and become a zillionaire! So why do i feel like theres this huge corporate vacuum cleaner in the sky - like an evil silent alien drone, sucking,skimming and feltching out every last cent out of every last human to fatten the already grotesquely over-loaded pockets of a few sociopathic, narcissistic, control-addicted and sadistic men? (oh sorry - thats right. It's us 'welfare criminals' that are the cause of the crisis)

Twenty Ten

And so begins the new year. For a few hedonic hours the populace puts their problems aside. As I watched the Times Square revellry (a forced, corporate event sponsored by Nivea) via Earth Cams' site I thought to myself how wonderful and hilarious it would be if we celebrated each day with the same enthusiasm. Logistical nightmares aside, why not? Oh well. Im sure the novelty would wear off pretty quickly. "Its Thursday eve! Wooohooo!" Funny thing is I personally find 'Thursday eve' a worthy candidate for a party. Its the night before payday baby!

....So goodbye 2000s. Hello 2010s. Lots of online discussion regarding appropriate ways to refer to the decade and the year itself and how to best abbreviate it. The 10's? Twenty Tens? 10? The 0-10s? I think this year will just end up being refered to as Twenty Ten. Simple enough. The decade, not so sure - the teens? What were the 1910s refered to as? As the clock ticked over in Times Square, which happened at 6pm jan 1 here in NZ, I could sense a number of prayers or incantations being offered up - people utilizing the collective human focus and gnosis to intensify their projections...private wishes. Like - 'give peace a chance'. And 'let peace reign' and 'lets get it right this time' or something. That same pulpy but potent void that emerged when Obama came into office. Its nice to fool yourself for a few hours isnt it. Not only will peace fail to be implemented, in all current theatres of war, we wont get it right either. BECAUSE THE PROFIT IMPERATIVE IS STILL THE MOTIVATION BEHIND ALL BIG BUSINESS - therefore the WORLD. Peace simply isnt in the best interest of these forces. The only peace to be conjoured up is subjective. We must find our own peace, inside ourselves. A kind of radical subjectivity. I suppose I just speak for myself here.I truly believe being born here in NZ is a blessing because we are so geographically removed from the turmoil of the northern hemisphere. Its almost a utopia. And it is here where I will find enlightenment. Maybe i come across a little new age here, I don't really care if I do. Go start your own blog. I suppose I'm just not vital enough to be an activist. I look to those in history who rejected the behemoth by withdrawing, by exploring the inner reaches of their minds, and by reporting what they find back in whatever medium suited them. These reports may or may not be for the public. They may be purely self-satisfying works. Thats beside the point. Activism, like that of say, the Red Army Faction or the Weather Underground is beyond me. Too dangerous. I believe deprogramming from, education about the true doings of (which is exploding lately thanks to the net) and intellectual rejection of the man is the first step. Or at least A step. We have the Alex Jones army out there, a vast right-wing libertarian horde. AJ certainly does an amazing job exposing the crooks. Much of his information is excellent. If you listen to him long enough, you gradually pick up little clues to his world outlook. And the fear and urgency he expresses - these dooms - they never eventuate quite the same way he warns of. In fact 9/11 type events can only empower his career more and more (a great AJ audio clip is his show on 9/11 - go find it online its a cracker). But the show lures you in - its like a hyperactive real-time world collapse, or a natural disaster report. And he hates 'PC'. In my mind 'PC' is essentially feminism, so to call yourself anti-pc is to basically say you want your wife barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen making your dinner. I reckon anyway.

Ah, Ive gone waaay off the rails with this rant. I don't even know what my point actually is here. Oh well. Thanks for dragging your eyes across these lines and have a good holiday and rock on. CRUDE is playing above the 'Whiteroom' on Moray Place on December thee 9th with the lads from Proxy Music - a new music venture here in Dunedin. So go check it out.

\

Posted by matthew_middleton at 10:08 PM

the year of collaboration

That's right, as mentioned previously, Crude is looking to collaborate on recordings with other artists this year in an attempt to 'make things more interesting'. Hell, maybe it'll be a fantastic experience for all involved! Plan of attack is to work on a track a collaborator - one at a time - the way it plays out will be different for each assignment. It could be a face-to-face in-house experiment, it could be remote and purely digital exchange. It can be remix or re-remix, it could be track-to-track-to-track question/answer in the mail. Either way it is going to be more than likely released as data or even hosted online at the end of the year. As is mentioned on THIS page, the concept is only in it's inception and who knows what forces may back this baby up. Who bloody knows.

I'm encouraged by the great response I've had thus far from my 'call for artists' and I can safely say this will be a fun and diverse project featuring some real talent, both emerging and established. Hell, maybe i should team up with Paul Honeybone.

What else is new. The Crude show which was planned for the evening of Saturday december 9 in conjunction with the chaps from Proxy Music has fallen through, so, no sick sound fun in the Whiteroom this weekend. But fear not because there are a googol of entertainments in other sectors of the megalopolopolis that is dunners on Saturday night. Heka perform in the extremely cramped public bar Saturday night, a bold symbolic move by the 'get rid of the pool tables in the crown band bar'movement

to hit it home how essential to the health of local culture it is to have The Crown back as a rock venue. As aside from a pool-hall. I think there's some action at Chicks Hotel .Isnt there something else? I dunnow. And plenty of stuff next week too. But no, i'm not gonna let this blog turn into another fucking gig guide so I'll shut. the fuck. UP.

the working title for the CRUDE project in 2010 is 'stealth'....

Not to be confused with 'Stealth', the ambitious collab project will receive a working title very soon. I'm working on tracks right now by Dying of the Light --industrial noise-rock from AKL, and the brilliant KRAUS, and hope to recieve some work soon from a few other exciting artists. And so, as is traditional, once this years first few Crude (no no not the collabs though - just crudo solo stuffo) songs are complete they'll be hosted online as your 'free gift' for 2010. The rest of the Crude stuff for the year ends up on the data dvd 'stealth', due for release in December. Also, you can pick up 'Archive '09' - last years data dvd (maybe i should've called it 'archive 2010' considering its release date)..anytime - the info on that is HERE. Copies will be presented to the National Library, the Hocken Collections and the Audio Foundation MP3 library soon.

Posted by matthew_middleton at 9:26 PM

Monday, February 8, 2010

microreview 01 / copy copy release

The Copy Copy release instore do at Records Records last weekend placed a blunt needle into the virginal undersole of 2010...stylized keyboard excess the predominant motif of the day...weather being a good boy...the right people making appearances for just the right amount of time...just the right dose of indifference..just the right amount of enthusiasm - just a little - not too much, not too little...like an average sized chappy ....just right..micro-local informational pamphlet ...a7 even...crude (me!me! plain conservatively dressed small-faced unremarkably statured legend in-ones-own-mind) belted out electronic throbs...lurid night-time musics in a hot hot afternoon..anomalous, anachronistic and amateur...but beat off i did and the micro-operatics refused to falter in the heat..the sun and the eyes on my skin..on my blood/brain barriers...Ended on judas priest loop and computer-speak--then the newest batch of rockers rocked-ed--subverting the steam-punk thematics with enthusiastic riffery..so theres a new band for the other new bands to collude wif , Brainleak is their name-o. Lee Noyes couldn't make the show unfortunately..Murderbike took the stage to the sound of a deathly synthetic motorcycle sample...robo-garage...medium-fi...languid and evil...swamp synths, the dadaist fetish that is the tone generating excercycle..always nasty fun in my book..

a sponataneous collab assembled nextly, with records records owner owner manager manager duane zarakov meting out signature cuts on his trap-kit,,,crude on doomed gat free psych and iso12 spewing sporadic korg flakes...audience filtration systems..with the exception of Kim Pieters and Sally McCintyre..then onto None for an obnoxious tirade of matty's mental verbal diarrohea/bollox (sorry everyone) . Great party - you work hard - you get to play hard. In my book any completed publication be it a7 or a1000 or otherwise is a triumph because in my experience everone is seemingly working on some sort of zine and only a small portion of these are ever seen in print soooo.. may copy copy keep comin'...especially in these days of insidiously stealthy media consolidation..on a big scale. Of course, watch out for the corporates copy copy...would hate to see the a7 look usurped ....they got spies..agents...moles...

Posted by matthew_middleton at 2:22 PM

ursday, February 18, 2010

oh go on then - more for YOU

a collection of 'pop' crude songs from earlier cds.

go on, check it out.

HERE

Last fm is all well and good but it's actually quite difficult to enjoy an album as an album - you can only really play one song at a time. So to experience 'brut pop collection' as it should be experience4d go listen to it over at the 'internet archive' : HERE

....This particular compilation is an attempt at capturing 'Crude's Greatest Hits'...Volume 2. Inner City Guitar Perspectives was Greatest Hits Volume One. The songs are just that - songs. These are tracks that people have responded favourably to in the past...songs that grab their attention and make 'em sing..these songs also tended to grab them with sly and acerbic lyrics that inflame further dissent on their part. Or so I'd like to think. Oh the self-romance of it all. We have songs like Anomie! from the New Fundamentals cd released in 2000. A peppy lil' electro-rock funker, Queen's early 80s schlock is palpable here. Or so I'd like to think. Oh the self-romance of it all. Many a drinking session's atmosphere augmented with this tune. Blip is another gem and it sure lives up to its namesake. A blip of a tune at 1 minute 30 seconds or so. A Punk-rock electroblast that could've been so beautiful (with a multi-million dollar media campaign behind it or some shit). Could've been so right... Black Budget is a Crude song thats been receiving some critical attention of late, an occasional favourite tune on Saturday afternoons' DPAG late breakfast on Radio One. 80's electro sound and 80's neo-liberalism juggled and so poignant as we in New Zealand veer towards our potentially black budget of 2010. Potentially? No way - it simply WILL be BLACK. There are songs like Camel; a cute guitar-centric rock number from the Modern Modern Modern cd. There's the rolling and sardonic heaviness of Automata - one of the highlight tracks from Datastream Cowboy. Spend some spare time soaking this up. Dedicate an hour to it, dedicate half an hour to it. Oh go on.

Posted by matthew_middleton at 2:51 PM

1 comment:

ducklingmonsterMarch 28, 2010 at 10:50 PM

aturday, March 20, 2010

club crude

When you actively try an' keep somthing secret(in dunedin) the data tends to exude out of you involuntarily..like those gaseous emissions that merely hover and sit until that crowning mass is purged. People come a-sniffing, sensitive psychic types sense something salacious in the air. But then again - sometimes it actually works, and your experiment in nano-promotion and reverse-psychology lead to 4 people turning up to your event, and when you take out the people who live at the venue, thats 2. But these were good people, and I take heart. For Club Crude will grow as a concept. Never you mind. Soon it shall take root. Soon enough the sub-culture shall manifest. STEALTH.

The club was likened to a cinematic experience,,a blind fantasy excursion - deep unconscious messages and memes and signs and forms and sonic archtypes thrashing at your experiential field.

This piece is best listened to through a headset or 'headphones'. The music itself is what i'm trying to 'showcase' so the imagery, sourced and edited very quickly, is very crude and very one dimesnsional. 'Breeze' is a 4 part multi-layered clarinet piece which will be on the upcoming 'winds of wood and winter 2' album - dark and moody woodwind music recorded specifically in winter. Check out the maiden voyage of the 'winds of wood and winter' series HERE

And onto the review..

I was personally invited to perform at Die Die Dies' multipurpose home-turf gig, quite a surprise. Wouldn't wanna turn down an oppurtunity to support a band with a known national following now would I. Hell, I'd play with Dave Dobbyn if I was invited. And I'd perform my straightest songs yet. That'd give the peninsula underground something to moan about. Arrived at Chicks hella early like, making sure i soak up every bit of that desolate realm known as 'the soundcheck'. Ah...the soundcheck, bane of the musicians life - this is where you do penance. Its like waiting at the emergency ward to be seen. This is where the glamour evaporates.

Its a cold void, even when you're actually soundchecking there's this curious nothingness hanging in the air, there is truly nothing like it - an empty venue in the afternoon is something else. If you've been at a venue for a few hours before the gig you get t' thinkin' no-one's gonna turn up, it all moves so slow. But the punters ultimately do trickle in and it feels like a psychic usurpation of your space. More often than not in NZ musicians don't have a dressing room to mentally prepare so you pace and quiver in anticipation of your performance in amongst the consumers. And everyone tells you to sit still. DDD was to be using the performance as footage for a new 'music video', obviously this would be the 'band performing' section. (Should've given them all crude tees). I've been told thats what a 'new' band should go for in their first films - the first release should be the band in their natural setting playing their instruments and singing. Then as you become more established you can play with more abstract visual concepts. The Aesthetics will be working on one of their first music films over the next while. Whether we take the aforementioned advice we don't know. Anyways....Crude was up first. The freak opener act. A very minimal set-up this time, the laptop and a clarinet as my 'transitional object'. Suckle suckle. A few glitch-beat numbers embellished with bratty vocal stabs and piercing slices of upper-register clarinet. Some ad-lib comments like 'it's your world' and 'just impress yourself' and 'wrong time, wrong country' and of course 'hey hey commando'. Some snake charming routines, a sip of beer here and there. Strictly routine. Filmed the audience from the stage. TFF were second up, I've certainly been playing with them quite a bit lately, and so they've recieved plenty of reviewage,

but once again I'll say that they were great fun. I'm even getting to know their songs. Rory MacMurdo is an absolute joy to watch while he drums. He's a mad drummer. Their music is rampant, percussive and complex. And lastly, Die Die Die. And unfortunatley I didn't see their set as I had to whip down to None Gallery for Cosmetix. But I saw their soundcheck and they're tight. Really tight and coiled like a spring. Like a weapon. Joy Division at 45 rpm. Not quite emo, not quite punk. A punch in the face. Andrew uses pre-recorded tape-loops of vocal screams and guitar ephemera for enhanced effect - not sure if this is a new development..What a romp. A real romp. And I romped on outta Port Chalmers on a late bus wit me tail b'tween me legs. Rock star styles. Loser cruiser my ass. Ousted. Annexed. Banished. Romper Stomper. Oi fucking oi. John Key. Oil slick. Nazareth. Images of the real exorcsim of a german woman in the 70s haunting me , storming through my psyche, pushing through the boozed neuronal murk. Gave me nightmares. Off to none. I yearned for human warmth. And I got it in the form of none. 'Cosmetix 3' was a superlative explosion of robots, bits, bytes, plastics, coloured paper, glitter, digitalia, electronics, 8-bit games, 16 bit games, paper mache caves, cardboard cities, circuitry, wire, metal, glass, mirrored objects, keyboards, wind-up toys, lo-bit crackle, game soundtracks. And of course, a freakin' roller derby theme! There were Installations and performances by an exciting assortment of artists.....ISO 12, Edie Eves, John White, Rachel Blackburn, Forbes Williams, Kelly O'Shea, Pete Gorman, Motoko Kikkawa, Justin Taulu, Tokerau Wilson and mmmmmee(not able to make the exhibition opening, my installation was repeated and intermittant remote activation of telecommunication equipment, termination of the signal, and the ensuing psycho-social affect caused my this..i mean...i rang none over the night about 10 times and only let it ring once, irritating and spooking a few, some intuitively blaming me). Inspired performances of electro musics by ISo12, John White, Rachel Blackburn and others, Isos beloved makeshift studio the Tardis in full operation. Toki's array of games were there to play, a bright yellow console entertaining for hours on end. Motoko Kikkawa's installation was a highlight of the night for me - a beautifully formed geometric figure, almost room sized and 3 dimensional - arranged with simple items like stickers and coloured paper and other curious items, the effect almost holographic, space and line used in such a way that from a certain perspective it becomes like a huge ellipsoidal object that moves through other installations without being at all intrusive. Simple, elegant, scientific and metaphysical.

Posted by matthew_middleton at 9:57 PM

Saturday, June 5, 2010

grey sunday

Life lurches forward like a relentless juggernaut. We speed towards our last hours at a wholly uncontrollable tempo. Do we trust in the sacred texts of the 3 Abrahamic faiths and monitor our behaviour for the sake of the hereafter? Do we diligently reject Maya like the Hindus and Buddhists for the sake of our next incarnation? Or do we live for the moment and lust and cavort and live according to the dictates of material science, secure in the knowledge that our death will be the end complete? I have no idea what the truth is. I have no intellectual center. I am a knowledge slut, aligning myself with philosophies as I consume them, a hater one day, a devotee the next. My values are inconsistent and brittle. Is this the post-modern condition? Is religion divine revelation or is it a human-made instrument of mass-control and de-politicization? And why am I still asking these questions?

Delving into the online repositories of Muslim knowledge confuses me further. As one of the Abrahamic creeds it calls for an unshakeable faith and submission to the will of the one true god, Allah, lord of the worlds, ruler of the day of judgement. Its' holy book is a guide to be followed to the letter. Further guidelines are to be found in the published deeds and sayings of the Holy Prophet. Is faith in the last day and the hereafter something that develops over time after becoming a muslim or is it a pre-requisite attitude? From what I can see, I think that its the social aspect of Islam that gives it its cohesive power. Muslims really seem to dig each other, to look after each other - perhaps the strong bonds generated within these communities are a big factor in Islams' appeal to young westerners - especially to those tired of late modern capitalism and its 'kill or be killed' ethos. Islam even has a system of welfare. No wonder the Americans don't dig.

I was brought up in a fiercely secular household in southern New Zealand, as far away from Islam as possible, but much closer geographically to Jesus. Christianity is the same deal - there is Heaven or Hell for you after death depending on your deeds and your intent. You reach the Father through Jesus Christ, the redeemer. Judaism is the same, although Jesus dosent play such an important role. As I moved outta home, it wasn't jesus that found me, but the dark metaphyics of the ancient Chinese.

I have found great wisdom in the veritable godlessness of Buddhism and especially Daoism. These Far-eastern religions are human, gentle, logical and real. Buddhism seeks to lift the veil, to unclog the mind from impurities, of waste. Daoism observes nature and in it's movements and cycles is revealed our ultimate guide - a universal force known as 'the way' or 'Dao' . It looks within and without, the body plays a role, it is part and parcel of the universe and therefore the Dao. One aligns ones body, mind and spirit and when this alignment is perfected, one merges with this force. The creepy western new-age movement usurps screeds of material from Daoism, Buddhism and Hinduism.

And so - point? Perhaps its this - perhaps searching for the truth only leads one away from it. Religions, especially the 3 Abrahamic ones, purport to have all the answers - its all there, in black and white on the pages of the Holy Bible and the Noble Quran. I suppose if you do submit, and believe, yes, a certain peace would overcome you - your days would be filled with meaning, life would have a definite pattern to it. Day in, day out. A mission. A course. A clear-cut path to Heaven.

But I can't supress this DOUBT inside me. Perhaps its the secular upbringing. Its DOUBT. As I watch footage of a group of Muslim extremists chanting 'Allah-hu-Akbar' as their executioner takes 7 blood-curdling minutes to seperate a prisoners head from his neck, I can't help but think....wait a minute?... Of course, war is geo-political and these fighters are engaged in politically motivated conflict, but still..as the cameraman uttered the mantra in quiet, trembling and deeply disturbing repetitions one got the impression that he was trying to reinforce within himself that this butchery was Halal, each pronouncement more solemn than the last as the meat tore and gristle throbbed..the prophet indeed sanctioned this activity...

And then you read about the Catholic priests and their activites, and then you read about the Spanish Inquisistion, and all the blood spilt in the name of religion...where is the truth of it all - who is the ultimate authority, and where exactly does this being reside...what does it mean to be human - and what is pious? Where is reason? How far must one go? Are these texts to be believed fundamentally, or are they metaphors? Will there be a grande clash of civilizations this century?

Who is right and why? Is atheism the answer? Is religion a phenomenon created to give meaning to our place in the universe? Can we not accept ourselves as we are? Can we not accept ourselves as insignificant pieces of dust adrift in the universe? Is religion not thus egomaniacal and solipsistic ?

Posted by matthew_middleton at 6:44 PM

Monday, June 14, 2010

black yoghurt, glasgow, johnny white, crude

PICS

I waltzed up to a local photographer at the gig and in typical apologetic style labelled it an 'intimate' show...and he curtly corrected me...'Not intimate.....it's exclusive'...

'Twas a scantily populated show, a symptom of a few things I suppose, the recent weather, another show at the crowns 'old man bar' that night, and the slew of gigs earlier in the week. So the show had that incredibly intimate feel - real laid back, jokes between audience and performing artist(s) as if each were simply sitting at the bar.

Black Yoghurt is Sefton Holmes going solo. The Laptop is an essential weapon here, Holmes effortlessly selects from a vast pool of ready-made beats and sounds, dials up a suite of sound softwares and transfers the mulch through the public adress system with the finesse of an AI from 2050. His solo work is very much evolving into a stylish strain of idm. A joy to behold.

John White has a musical history that tracks back to the 90s when his band Mestar titillated crowds of indie kids...Whites' craft has evolved since then, playing noisier stuff in the Zoo Polluters, contributing to Cloudboy, playing noise in Amalgam, touring and recording in Europe and Asia, freestyling with the enigmatic 'Mental Health Triangle' and finally settling into a solo routine. A fey pop sensibility is the adhesive factor throughout. Last Visible Dog saw fit to release Whites work and in 2003 'Mogwash' was released. White recruited Richard Scowen and Justin 'Sci-fi' Ulu from Horsehead Nebula as back-up for the set and the result was a dadaesque soiree of casiocity. Form and formlessness. Obnoxious late-80s keyboard percussion slice'n'dice in manual mode. Ting ting ting.

Crude got humping next. With sober dexterity I honked and spattered horn'n'yawn o'er

cackling dicky-beats, pop and piddle, sporting this seasons merino, paddle-pops and

lauded lands, the great blockade on Gaza and the psychology of zionism like lightening through my brain, the history of Saudi Arabia in mind, the great philanthropy of Prince Al-Waleed bin Taleed, the bizarre cartoonish facial-features of King Faisal, last weeks power bill and the trickle-up effect of economic austerity measures. 'You wawlkd eeeein, thyen y' wawlk raaaght bayk out agayn'. Stand and deliver.

And finally, Glasgow: John Glasgow that is, weaponized music - an arsenal of pedals in an array, wired up and fed through a mixer, pure sound arrested and processed, each new effect punched through rhythmically and unpredictably, Glasgow holding our attention with wild gestures in perfect sync with the noise. So much can be done with one tone. The noise shooting through each device like a screaming spectre, revolving and overlapping and chattering.

unday, July 18, 2010

sammys july 17th

A rare thing indeed - a noise event at Sammys. The proscenium arch strikes again. And why not? Just cavernous. The belly of the beast. Invisible Axe is a rotating assortment of robot-conscious data-pushers and their set bled bloody blood out into the big gaping room. Like an ultra-poised art ensemble from the sophisticated north the Axe epitomized kool. They did, they did. The act evoked throbbing gristle..well, TG without an acrobatic Genesis out front,,it was a kind of bent fusion of TG and the Velvet Underground...Performance - Rachel Blackburn towering over her alien synthesizer, Iso12 at the service of his machines - a kind of digital bhakti yoga, Clayton Noone spooning out the root don-lonie dirge, Lee Noyes sensitized and improvised. Simmer. Clap. yay. Beer. Cough Splutter.

Stanier Black 5 took to the stage. Deep menacing sound was unleashed upon us, an intense stream - an endless bellowing grind - a blockade. This is heavy environmental sound taken from shipyards and aiports and god knows where else..Punctuated by mallets slamming against huge hulls, the underlying drone blazed on like a hellish engine. A hypnotic boom/doom. The grey-black catacombs of a space-bound starship. Invokes the work of Jean Marc Vivenza. A real event.

Clap. yay. Beer. Cough Splutter.

Dunedin's lack of enthusiasm for the event was palpable at this point. The cold, the competing events, the malaise, the parochial prurience of it all. 'Twas a shame to send our SB5 back home after such a poor showing. Even the 5 foot non-spectacle that is Crude couldn't get the punters in. It's always strange though - experimental music is a niche music. Its a specialist music, only appreciated by a micro-community. So, it makes sense - but still, the bulk of the Lines of Flight crowd didn't show. Neither that nor the art crowd, nor Judas, nor the 12, nor the priests, nor the scribes, nor doomed Jerusalem itself.

The Hyenas, whos very name was coined by Sammys venue manager, were the 3rd act of the evening. A nasty rocking-and-a-rolling did ensue. Krystal-krunch bass sound, guitar-splay-spray, deep heat, deep beat. Eyes on stalks. Brain community. Aluminium smelter. Song slurry. Industrial light and magic. The dear punk bloke. Lee Renaldo's poetry. Thrace. Deny and defeat the iron law of Oligarchy! Harappan civilization. Clap. yay. Beer. Cough Splutter.

Then I got on stage. Artificially comfortable in the womb-like zone that is the stage, I spat out a low-energy performance, drab'n'droll, looping the priest, audience participation and a vegemite sandwich. Something of my set appeared like a djs and so a couple of clubber-chaps stroll up on stage and ask me to let them wish someone happy birthday. Sci-fi-ulu spat a few long-gone rhymes and danced for a bit , 'if yr happy and you're know it', and unlike usual I went on too long instead of the reverse. Nagarjuna! Many lifetimes! Time travel!

TFF were on next, all cocky and looking forward to a well-earned tour of the SI with die die fukn die . A certain nihilism could be felt oozing off the band this night,

resulting in a furious performance. Clap. yay. Beer. Cough Splutter.

Next up - Bastardwisher. These chaps are perfecting their craft. Better and better.

Jason Barretts sax sly and unsettling over the electronic schnitzle, Glasgow and Holmes pumping and headbanging - bilious shreiks and screams erupt from their depths. The best Ive seen them. It wouldn't have been vintage BW if not for at least some aggression towards solid objects and we were in for a treat, the sound guy deftly prying Holmes off a fold-back speaker he was writhing around with, then guiding his seemingly performance-possessed frame away from a drum kit, and in the end...it was Holmes own lap-top that felt the fury. A brilliant set.

Yah. Yah. Yah.

If you wanna be my brother, what you wanna be.

If you wanna be my sister , what you wanna be

Yah Yah Yah

Yah Yah Yah

Yah Yah Yah

digidigidigidigidigidigidgidigidigidigidigi

yah yah yah

klf gh[i5yuh [ith[iutg uih;fkjkh

dfkghpri g\Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Gangs of teenagers trembling and smoking and spitting in a world that just isn't fair and it won't let them tattoo their faces. The psychic gunk of control freaks and paranoids . Tit-for-tat mind gamers. Garrulous harpies. Shriveled bohemian fops feast on your soul. The starched grimaces of urine-retentive right-wingers. Job placement pending masonic handshake. The inside job. The pulling of strings. The business roundtable. The old boys.

Noise control. All sound equipment seized. All parties shut down. All venues shut down. All joy snuffed out. Working class teenagers brawl in the Octagon - kicking, pulling, shrieking, grunting, scratching, biting, pulling, stretching, slamming, wrestling. Pink-faced employers fiddle with pus encrusted nipples. Dunedin masonic money-families sup cheap champagne and giggle at the homo-erotic display in the Octagon.

Oh the Octagon, gathering place for the in-betweeners --too old for kids stuff - too young to quit school, too young to get a job, too young to claim welfare. The frustration. There they stand, fringes flapping in the sou-westerly wind, ink blotted bags loose on their shoulders, standing in circles, waiting for the guy with the pouch.

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

doing

Ach, I MUST be a nerd. And I'm proud of it. Always have, always will be. I'm a FREAK. Not so much a geek, I'm a knowledge hungry book absorbing NERD. I sing like a nerd. Especially on those latest Aesthetics recordings.

I love the University of Otago's Central Library. It answers your questions. It is a treasure. A jewel. That which makes an otherwise paltry Dunedin life rich. Breadth and depth. More. The riddle laid bare. Answers. How did this system come about? Tear apart economic history. You'll find me in the mornings, meditating upon a tome on floor two. Its the humanities that get me - especially religion - ancient philosophy - history. Time. I think my quest is to investigate origins. And then flux. And from movement into finitude. And somewhere in between - the eternal.

Of late it is ancient Greek thought that has interested me - in Diogenes of Sinope (a Cynic) I smell a Greek Lao Tzu. Pyrrho of Elis (a Skeptic) reminds me of Chuang tzu. The crude monism of Heraclitus of Ephesus speaks of the way and its virtue. 500bc through to 500ad was a period of dynamic thought - thought that holds value even now. Especially now. I'm discovering, with the relish of a young nerd, that much Greek thought of this period was synonymous in spirit with that of the far east. I'm discovering, with the zeal of a turd, that green lentils can pretty much sustain you. Real world. Tehran travelogue. Zip file head. Lolly cake. Nationalize that oil. Rugby buttocks. Ash'n'apple. Teen. Like a dog. July - hibernation time. Just stay in. August - activity chatters and chortles and boots up . Like those first scenes in Alien. Just avoid a social LV-426, if you get my drift. Oh yeah - they're working on an Alien prequel...why do i shudder. Is it because most if not all commercial films are smothered in cgi and completely inauthentic? If the prequel is even halfway as good as Alien it'll be great. Why do i doubt this will happen? Is the art of film-making dead? Will it ever reach the sublime peak of gritty realism and spacious wonder it did in the 70s and 80s? Is the spirit dead? Is there no longer a requirement or a drive to portray sci-fi narrative in a realist fashion...has the art of PACING disappeared?

Posted by matthew_middleton at 7:36 PM

melbourne blog part ONE.

...It's the birdsong of a new country you notice first. Gaudy parroting and tropical calls. The Australian whine of the crow-call, flute coo pidgeon chatter. Banging trains. Closer. Joy divisions. Spare some change & cancel th' pong. In essence it's a relaxed city. The Aesthetics band and the Crude project visited Melbourne for a series of shows, performing alongside a gaggle of artists. Lost me eftpos card at Sydney airport, didnt realize it until the descent into Melbourne, so no money available, the airport a 30 minute drive to town. My fellow passengers may've thought i'd just learnt of a loved-ones demise for all my bubbling. Providence came in the form of a loan at the other end - a miracle. A testament to the value of not burning (at least..some) bridges. Welcome to Cremorne, just north of South Yarra, just south of Richmond. The area was notorious gangland in the 80s. It was raining. Gig number one was a Crude show at a controversial new venue in Flemington called KOF. An artist run gallery space that was previously a flower shop, KOF's frontage is a madenning psychedelic punk mural, local locals and landylords and shoppe owners bitching up a storm a-fucking-bout it. I performed alongside Bearded Iris (Jane Louise) and Heavy Turkey( Lynton & Dave) . The night was Dionysus-Lite, a bellicose, braying jam-session. Heavy turkey is a drum/bass/vocals duo, James a gangly bassist of deft abilities, lynton a street-smart traps-man - groove oriented and fully bearded. Their music was a sort of curio-punk....a compelling metal-pop. Bearded Iris was a multi-media encounter, slice'o'life video clips and monologues, day-to-day psycho-pychedelica.Crude played...shawm over mini-beat, used to great effect throughout the tour.Lynton joined me on the kit for an improv piece. After Crud ex-pat kiwis came out of the fucking walls and re-formed wellingtons eerie out-fit Sharpie Crows for a free-for-all music-orgy, the entire night relaxed, without regulations, kiwi-like, a real party. litle did I know that ain't the Melbourne way. Gig two was a christening of a new warehouse room/venue in Abbotsford. Known as the 'Phillip M Carey Memorial Room', the room is a labour of love dedicated to a recently deceased local eccentric complete with a beautiful PA system. Several rag-tag artists performed..Cutlery, a stoner rock band, komplete with girlfriends and girlfriends girlfriends in tow, jamo-jamo-rama , one of those 'we-could-play-forever' kinda acts, 'Brothers Hand Mirror' (There seems to be a penchant in Melb for band-names with several words seemingly pulled from a hat or conjoured up on while drunk and stoned,something that also reminds me of Wellington - in fact ,Melbourne and Wellington do share some similar culltural traints---but see, thing is, to me Melbourne is a composite of the flat-city sprawl of Christchurch, the hyper-size and rapaciousness of Auckland, and the cluttered vaudevillian clownishness of Wellywood). Anyhoo, Brother Hand Mirror is the project of a local eclecticians Oscar Vincente-Slorach Thorn & Grant Jonathon Gronewold. They experiment with various styles and this was a cooky hip hop set. Strange rap/pop material. Interesting. Crude's set was a little shell shocked and self-concious. But hey...WTF. Heres a clip from that.......After a week off as-it-were the rest of the Aesthetics band arrived in the great city. Our first engagement was at a very hip venue called The Workers Club. This was a a learning experience. Melbourne's music and entertainment industry is a well oiled machine. As the inner city is gentrified clubs'n'pubs are forced to shut the fuck up. Bands will start from 8.30, and its usually all over by 12. As an outside musician it almost seems as if the industry works like this: the artists are the last to be paid after all the other players. There is an industry set up around bands that is there to capture as much capital as possible. You have the 'booking' 'agent'. The postering and printing boys. The inhouse door-staff. The inhouse soundperson. The photographers and media. The band managers. The lighting crews. The bouncers. The bar-staff. Each of these people demand payment, it goes without saying. I've probably missed several other roles. And i don't think its just in Melbourne either. And they try to convince you that without them, you wouldn't get anywhere. So many young bands are screwed over by these predators. The more I experience the more i believe artist-run spaces are the most rewarding places to perform. As 8.30 drew nearer it was time for act 1 to get on. This slot was Heavy Turkey's, unbeknownst to them (and me) ...pretty much my guests for the evening. You know you're in the big city when you're told sternly that if the act dosen't get on stage before x time they wont play at all. And yet again my allegences are tested...do i honour the venue or do i honour the kiwis. They arrive slightly late , argue with the sound-guy, get on stage, vent beautifully and get off. The vibe now is a confused and bitter mess, Matty yet again has waltzed into other peoples fueds with other people. They rocked. Next up was Dead Ants Rainbow, Melbourne based improv/electronic,,,chanelling a gorgeous racket, alcohol and alchemy and stoned charcoal drawings and slithering pedal-coaxing. Exciting sound-arts from the New-Australian-Wierd Movement. And then there was SUPERSTAR, a stylish duo , Roland Juno 6 underlay and Roy Montgomery-esque guitar over-lay. Incidental music, spacious, introverted, meditative, brooding like a freshly dumped teen. Unfortunatley my drunk mind couldn't help but recall channel 7's Home and Away. The guitar stuff used for particularly dark moments. i know it sounds bad but you had to be there it was great. And then The Aesthetics, our first appearance in Australia since febuary 2005. Melb has changed since then - most notable was the much increased power of the internet as a social networking and promotional device. A flesh D-vice. We hit the stage with recent barnstormers like 'O' and old-faithfuls like 'Better dead than Red'. The audience sorta beamed back at us, we provided a kind of relief, a blow-off, a kind of messy catharsis. Release from the crystal-clarity of tightass-melby-pop and the deadened copycat audio-architecture of the 'indie' scene . This was messy, this was wrong, we made mistakes, we was brazen,we were cute yet ugly. And the up-side down guitar was just so.....wrong. It was drunkeness itself. This was The Aesthetics. Edie Stevens, Matt Middleton and Malcolm-Fucking-Deans..

..next day was party time....the 2nd of 4 shows-in-a-row for thee Aes-fucking-thetics. A kiwi-centric soiree was arranged in friendly Cremorne. A beautiful loose blow-out to remedy the stilted functionality/disfunctionality of the previous night eh-what??? Rock and-or Roll it was. wasn't it. Wasn't it?? Was it?? Wha? Whaaaa? WWWhaaaaaa? Jack Sprat??? Little Jack Horner? Large Dong? (Not quite, my man thursday.)

In the name of poos and wees, we played. Oh yeah, beer is bloody expensive in Australia, it's best to buy a 'slab' as aside from a six pack. Wine is ultimately cheaper than beer in Australia. If you're courageous and disgusting you can buy 'clear-skin' varieties at speical stores for $3. The Aesthetics played a rolling canker of a set. People stood and watched. Rolling canker. Canker'n'Cake, bays of plenty. Admiralty. David Icke. Lead the Pack. Black Queen. Sinead o'Conner. Somalia.Skinhead, Skinhead, looking for a root.

Indistinct and Shadowy.

Next Aesthetics gig was the 'big one'......The famous TOTE, where many legends have performed. Old haunt of theCosmic Psychos. Recently visited by the inimitable MURDER JUNKIES!

The show kicked off with Hissey Miyake , my personal favourite band of the night. The trio's sound is stripped to the bone and unashamedly references the afro-minimalism of the dance wing of the no-wave spectrum. Pity no cunt was there. Next up was the sound behemoth that is Zond. A 5 piece act complete with 3 screaming ultra-distorted guitars and a possessed korg. Zond built outrageously excessive walls of noise.Slab-like and not dissimilar to acts like HDU, Godflesh, Head of David etc etc . Big like an event horizon. Big like Australia! Then we come on, post-punkin', and the kiwis are streaming in like aeconomic refugees. Old friends, new friends, people i knew, people who were sure they knew me, great turnout... We piss out a great set, angry angry lonely lonely. "North bound psycho - South bound man - Eastern Religion - western Death - Tidal Waves upon us - Money changes minds - Tom-Tom Striker - where are the lines - The streets are empty - the Bank is closed" . Triadic / Chromatic.

Panel of Judges were the headliners and performed a great set. Indie. Indie. Bindi. Like something from mid '80s Dunedin - I won't deny it. A kind of anthropological study into the Dunedin sound,,,Panel of Judges seemingly an anomaly in time and space. Its unavoidable - The Clean a clear influence on the band. But Panels' songs are brilliant in their own right, they are strong and intelligent musings, curious melodies and lyrics imbue the sugary din with a indefinable dark streak. Major chords and jangle. Panel flies the flag. Someone has to.

Nickers Nickers Nickers. Right winger right winger right winger. Hey Leroy! Anyhoo....next job was to get the borrowed equipment to The Pony for the famed and sought after 2 am slot! Thanks to the Heavy Turkeys, and other mates for helping with that.....A guaranteed wasted audience awaits thee there, pissed and all maleable and susceptible to the boogie woogie voodoo beat. We get there and man....you could smell that mineral weath ,,the minerals of the great western deserts (living and breathing at 45 degrees btw) had converted themselves into uric acids and ammonias. Managed to pay off a roving sound man mercenary to do the job and then we played. And 2 songs in the amp i had borrowed blew up. All seemed lost. The audience began to atrophy. And then bang...just use the fricking saxophone. Fuzz up the bass to fill the sound out, and funk up the sound with staccato sax stabs, trills & screams. And it worked. It worked. They loved. They danced. And they dont dance in Melbourne. They loved it.

Check out clip from that gig HERE . That was supposedly it for the Aesthetics in Melbourne, but Patrick from Sunshine and Grease arranged a final show for the band the following wednesday. See you next wednesday. Rich, bolbous nodes. Full'o'shit. Constipate, derry. Blithe wealth. Targeted jack. Euro-euro. Good riddance."The Right's 2 essential activities: 1. To perpetually tranfer wealth from the public to the already rich.2. Distract everyone from the fact that this wealth tranfer is occuring. "

Waterboarding.

Information Yield.

Plot.

Seat: 11C

...Met an interesting character from the band Pink Stainless Tail (and earlier still a band called Slub) through an old kiwi mate and we managed to conjour up a half-hearted afternoon jammo. One Sonke Rickertson. The Melbourne music scene has a history and underground as exciting as the NZ equivalent...a world unto itself. Australia boasts a very activeexperimental music scene with hundreds of new artists.

..The next Wednesday The Aesthetics performed at Sunshine unt Grease down Clifton Hill way...a real

loud'n'angry lil set. Hot'n'bothered. And then , on Friday the 29th...Crude, Automating, and Pits performed at the same venue. Automating is one Sasha Margolis , a sound artist with a fascination for the tactile qualities of tape, loops and pedals...Pits is kiwi artist Ryan Lesley. Lesley's set was classic Pits/Spit, 4 turntables , each one cocking up and looping, layer-work, scratches and pops as rhythm undercurrent, piquant choices of music, german opera, brass sections, string sections - the gorgeous acoustics of the sunshine & grease gallery room contributing to an all-round delerium - martial clicking and ballroom flashbacks. Pits performance reminded me of the work of The Caretaker.

Automating began as Pits ended, with samples and loops, a beautifully restrained crescendo, louder and louder until Sasha whips out his axe and massages the strings with a beer bottle. Inconceivably distorted rushing ebow'd fuzz results. Automating performed in Dunedin in 2007. He hopes to return again soon. The feeling i get from the Australian experimentalists is that NZ and Oz artist should bite the bullet and commute across the tasman every few months if at all possible. The scene there is very healthy, as is ours. Let us collaborate, cross-pollenate, mutually support, let us orgy, let us drink, let us enter the void. Automatings set was like eating a perfectly prepared Tiramisu.

Sunshine and Grease is a venue,gallery space, book shop and a record shop. And what a record shop it is. This store, a labour of love run by Patrick o'Brien, is super specialist - a repository of avant garde recordings from all over the globe - DIY releases by the most obscure experimentalists, cassettes, lps, 7" singles,cds of all sizes,,,i'd never seen anything like it - a true cultural hub. Scandanavian experimental/folk, new wierd america, new zealand, australian anti-music,

free jazz, asian avant garde, each piece a work of art,tapes with lil stoned-out pencil drawings...names darling. Names. Names. Names. id suggest parking up at S+G with at least $500 . Of course when i put on a sullen indie voice and moaned to Pat ....'i'd love to come in here one day with shitloads o money' ,....Pat retorts with a half smile...'Yeah, every asshole says that'...its true though. People who like the music this store speicalizes in don't often have much money. They're often artists themselves, trading and haggling and putting shit aside for weeks.

Crude plays. 4 pieces. shattered and claustrophobic from 15 days in peoples lounges, me set is subtley crazed. The ole' Pipe shawm is used. every gig...'what is that thing'??? Steven Coe...man.....people LOVE that instrument man. Make more and sell 'em. I pump out a few odd oriental tones and end the show with an almost renaissance era scale sequence. check it HERE. And a slowed down version HERE.

TO CONCLUDE. The Melbourne experience was a turning point. Its home. I now choose woodwind. dark folk. Bagpipes. Crows. Trains. High wages. Anonymity. Cosmopolitanism. Flemington. Kensington. Cremorne. Thanks to all the cats who helped the mission: Dave, Lynton, Jane, Rob Buick, Tania (especially!), Edie and Malcolm, Jem , Dion and the Panels, Patrick, Amy, Joshi and Jackson, the Met, Sasha, Ian, Ryan, Adrian , FiWi and Rach ;

Posted by matthew_middleton at 5:48 PM

unday, November 21, 2010

blather on

to BE a human ,to be a part of the species.

I have 40 more years on this earth left, unless i am killed earlier.

This is my one an only experience of earth, the universe, and everything. I have experienced nothing that proves reincarnation and life after death to be true, except ancient writings and anecdotal evidence. So i will assume here that this is not true, that one dies and one disappears. One then leaves the service, leaves the species, leaves cognition. No more time, worry, pain, pleasure, boredom, no more ambition, heartache, drive, fear, jealousy, hatred, anger, loss. No more time.

Perhaps, as a carbon lifeform, bound to physical laws, one can work on subjectifying ones experience of time. Perhaps one can stop its flow or render an hour a minute. Can one refuse to play by the rules of the physical universe? Or does one just flow on and forget these rules, forget the mechanics of life, a kind of transcendence by indifference? What is time? Time is what it is. Were it not for our own finitude perhaps there would be no measured time. I want to embrace my human-ness as i live out my days. But, i don't want to live as a post-modern human, simplified and processed and rendered down to data. I wish to be fully human, i wish to step inside and excavate the ancient memory the slumbers within each cell. I wish to feel the truth of being human - an old species made up of old materials. I wish to communicate with ancient man. As humans we are part of a noble species, most ancient. Postmodern systems seem to alienate us from our depths.

I wish to be truly human and a deep human. We are ancient. Our cells are constructed from material billions of years old. This life-time of mine IS the universe and everything in it. Even after death our bodies decay and re-disperse into the universe. But oh, the mystery of the on switch , conscience, the fire that burns . This light that allows us to perceive our surrounds.

But then i think again. Perhaps this is ALL WRONG. This life-time of mine isnt the 'universe and everything in it'. The universe will continue without me. Perhaps it is ones insignificance that must be focussed on. 'My body does not belong to me, it is this Earths. All thought just a process of a properly nourished carbon system - nourishment provided solely by the earth. Why do the religions point upwards to the creator? The earth is our spawing ground, our sustainer, our nursery and grave. this planet and its biosphere. We are unable to live anywhere else.

Oh dear, i'm a hippy.

Posted by matthew_middleton at 2:47 PM

actualities

no moment, only consequence.

nickles and dimes

culture of the not-now

atheist and agnostic

no more

died and com back

and met a faggot

called gawd

Posted by matth

hursday, December 16, 2010

new stoa 2011

Readings into Eastern quietist thought has lead me westward and into the amazing world of Hellenism. I've discovered Stoicism. Notably Epictetan Stoicism. One differentiates between what is 'up to you' and what is not up to you. In other words what you can control and what is out of your control. Stoicism suggests the what is in your control is a mere sliver of the whole, namely your own decisions, actions, volition etc - your desires and aversions. Your actions. All 'good' is to be found only within. What you tell yourself about events, and how you choose to react to them is where moral judgement should ultimately lie - events and situations are not good or evil in themselves.(thats dubious). Like Buddhism, the passions are to be snuffed out. Indifference to the external world is the key. That which is not up to you should be nothing to you. Perhaps this over-simple summation makes Stoicism seem severe, immoral and inhuman, as one delves further we discover a rigorous science in stoicism.

http://stoicscollege.com/college_books.php

onday, January 17, 2011

ahhh, FTW

I hate this miserable society. I really do. New Zealand medias read like cold, joyless things. It seems barren labour, money accumulation and sport are all we need know or live for. I hate this country's anhedonic bottom line. A maudlin raft of working poor and working not-so-poor, shitting and puking up clusters of meat'n'dag, hallensteins tops and non-aesthetics, blank stares, tv3 has told us all 'national has already won the 2011 general election'. Have you noticed the boot on our face, digging in deeper with nasty incremental thrusts? A little piece of draconian legislation there, a rising fee here, a new physical barrier there, a civil right weakened by design there? Little by little by little? And we eat our dag-pie and drink our weasel-speights and dream up new ways to market male kiwiness to male kiwis. We simmer like the frog in the pot. The water is heating up...slow. Slowly now. We notice it not.

I hate the swathes of dead, eating plastic, questioning nothing. Lining our veins with plastic. Scowling corporates off to their Otago Peninsula mansion run over snot nosed toddlers from Corstophine and hush it up real good. Rugby masons pack rape a poodle and post it on youtube. There's only one thing we want or need. A good venue to watch the world cup. Thats the only entertainment we want.

Bohemia is dead now - have you noticed? The punks are gone. Even the hippies are gone.

No more freaks - they've all died off. Theres a few brave freaks amongst the teens and early 20s set, but they are truly a rarity. Maybe the anarchists and activists of the northern hemisphere are organised and blossoming - i could be wrong about this death - stay in Dunedin too long and you lose perspective. It just seems that counterculture is subsumed and appropriated by corporate interests at a shocking pace. Idea hunters exhibit a new android stealth. New infiltration systems. 'That cool guy' . 'That guy who bought us the drinks'. 'That foreign chap'.

Posted by matthew_middleton at 3:28 PM

bruce russell //.///richard francis ///radio cegeste //// lee noyes ///jason kahn

DPAG back in january 2011

Sound Art has reached a new level of credibility since Susan Philipsz won the prestigious Turner Prize last year in the UK. “A shot in the arm for Sound Art” is how one 'culture editor' described her victory. So we shall see more and more speakers and head-sets inside bone white gallery spaces.

A close relative of the sound installation is the sound performance - instead of automatic or generative sounds that bleed from sonic machines and sculptures we have rock stars at the helm. Or perhaps data entry workers, comms technicians, the old in-out-in-out telephone operator schtick.

Here in Dunedin we are at the tail end of many southern journeys by experimental/improv/sound art 'helmsmen', and on January 28th Richard Francis, Jason Kahn and Bruce Russell arrived in town to champion their cause(s). In support were Sally Ann McIntyre aka Radio Cegeste in collaboration with Lee Noyes.

A little background. Our international visitor was Jason Kahn, most famous for his label Cut which operated between 1998-2008. Essentially an outlet for his own work, he branched out to release other artists quickly and at its closure the Cut backcatalogue boasted releases by Gunter Muller, Olivia Block, Tu m' and Gregor Hotz, amongst several others. Kahn is an artist par excellence – his CV is a jaw-dropping compendium of installation pieces, collaborations, publications, group exhibitions, seminars, works for radio, graphical scores, works for theatre and writing. He has colluded with hundreds of avant garde luminaries worldwide – both in the orient as well as occident. His is a model of excellence that any emerging sound-artist might like to emulate.

And so, were in truly esteemed company as he assembled his circuits with low-keyed, retiring ease. A New Yorker based in Zurich, Kahn cut a wirey figure with large framed spectacles part Woody Allen part William Burroughs..

Dunedin art intelligensia assembles and shuffles..a connectionist chorus, face-time, plans, latest projects, new house, new hair, new life. Joints crack, snot purged. Settle, settle, striaghten the spine, sink, sink. Credit, waffle, boyish.

Lee Noyes and Sally Ann McIntyre performed first. Sally had amassed a curious collection of items

to toy with – and in a speculative facebook post early that day she mused over the outcomes of a meeting between “ a mini-FM transmitter, a bakelite valve radio, a homemade kitset theremin, six identical pocket size transistors, a 78rpm record from the 1940s featuring "master radio canaries" (a gift from John Demetrick), field recordings made in the grounds of seacliff lunatic asylum, and a small music box that plays edith piaf's l'accordeoniste...” . Noyes utilized his famous mini-sized kit, this time stripped back to absolute bare boner. What occurred was simply gorgeous – the FM and valve radios effervesced and tittered, radio emits a sound so archetypal to those of us with a penchant for information and paranoia, grey sound – empty fuzz such a narcotic delight in my childhood..Noyes mirrored the chatter and crunch of radio by stretching drum-skins, scraping and sucking, blowing and shuttling, his kit transforms into an ululating backdrop for McIntyres radio-orchestration. Melody enters as McIntyre spins the haunting 78 and manipulates music box ,the evocative multi-verse of source materials create a new world. There is a delerium to this performance.

The birdsong and field-recordings created a sense of the baroque and the oriental, like a scene from an islamic garden of delights..birds and warm sweet breezes, beneath which rivers flow.

And so I attended my first improvised performance of radio and drum. And I don't think any one else would have had the imagination and responsive sensitivity to make it work. Bravo Lee and Sally.

After a short break Auckland based sound artist Richard Francis sits at his console, his laptop, tone generators and pedal box attuned and primed, his goatee and heavy-rimmed glasses adding a sense of continental sophistication to the display, a new look since I met him last. Francis, who runs the CMR label, works in a similar fashion to Kahn, touring widely, collaborating actively – and creating sound pieces for installation. Kahn and Francis released a Cd on the Monochrome Vision label in 2009. Praised for its controlled minimalism, the album is available via Francis's website , listed below. www.richardfrancis.co.nz .

Racing this time....Francis calls forth Ba'al in the form of a whistling digital drone. Jason Kahn sits at his portal centerstage and gets to work on his own sadistic tone. Bruce Russel joins the trio and adds a wailing seemingly pre-recorded synth or organ line into the cloud, an alien warble with religio-magical proclivities, organic and vile and senile, a sick meditation on indo-aryan death-rites perhaps, a nasty drug drone. The three gentelmen sit at their portals and weave a long-slow feed ...gurgle and dribble and fiz'n'whizz. Tonal palpitations. Hiccups. 3 men and a big-bang. A long one. We ponder how the sound relates to the space and vice versa. A body with no organs. Pain. Metastasis and neuronal plasticity. Slowdive. On a (circuit) bender. Kahn, Francis and Russel speed on. The din shifts and heaves and races through phases and moments. The sound calls into question tense and time, moment and memory, micro-repetitions, the roaring blizzard is essential circular. Do we travel with the sound, or do we step outside it and observe it as a whole unit? Do we have a choice? What is the ultimate measure?

The piece runs the gamut of aesthetic proceedures electro-noise has to offer. Spastic delays, glacial phasers, mindbending echoes,lurid loops, circuit bends, trembling tremolo, anti-natural reversals, over-wrought compression......many more besides. In summa - What better way to spend an early evening!

Noise music and electro-acoustic experiments are physical things. Tactile experiences. We are made to pay attention to the moment and its link to the next moment. We are called on to endure, we are

called on to appreciate new angles, new cracks, new peaks, new troughs. Time and event. How noise saturated space moulds the psychosocial. Sound art illumines the invisible. It links space to time in new ways. And its time is always now.

For more information on the work of Jason Kahn and Cut records, go to his website at http://jasonkahn.net/ . An essay by Bruce Russell http://www.thewire.co.uk/articles/2116/ and information on he work of Richard Francis is here: www.richardfrancis.co.nz .

Matt Middleton

....look out for my Lines of Flight 2011 review in the Radio One Arts and Culture Magazine due out in April.

Crude Transactions release party perspectives

How bout that Charlie Sheen. Channeling the soul of some mid-20th century American novellist with crack-rock fury. The whole WORLD is watching. A strange distraction. My reading has moved away from the great Stoics and Cynics of Greece and Rome back eastward again into South India and its Advaita Vedanta traditions. The Upanishads, Adi Sankara, Ramana Maharshi, Brahmanism. The soul is eternal, indivisible and is both Atman and Brahman. We must enquire within and find our true self beyond ego beyond time beyond body beyond space. In the end we find Brahman. Such richness in this philosophy and so many parellels to Daoism and Zen Buddhism. The ancient Upanishads are a document as important as the Lao Tzu, as deep as the Zen doctrines.

And a big FUCK YOU to the National Party, sneaking through their neo-liberal anti-life anti-worker anti-r+d policies while we're all preoccupied by the earthy-quake. Thats electioneering GOLD for the National Party eh. World cup! Rugby and Money is ALL WE CARE ABOUT EH. Fuck em, Im outta here mate. Gooodbye NZ and good fucking riddance. It really does make you wonder if it was HAARP all along.

So we threw the Crude Transactions release party the other night, and it was a potent little mix of good people and performers with the ability to adapt and survive.

Beagle boys. First thing, I'd like to thank my lovely wife Christine for doing the door . That is one job i just don't seem to be able to handle - people streaming in in pugnacious spurts, pretending not to even notice you sitting there, people wanting to 'see someone' or 'use the toilet', people who simply will not pay because they're related to one of the musicians, groups of American tourists pouring in en masse - in these situations i would usually crumble into a twitching altruistic mass, guilt complexes from fifteen years ago raising their ugly heads again, letting people in all over the place, in fact I'm convinced that if people even LOOK at me they'll assume they can get in free. Perhaps its the amount of free content i have online or something. Its quite possible the fact i have so much free content has other musicians fuming. The amount of 'fuck offs' i get when I'm onstage (especially when im playing with Idiot Prayer or Mr Biscuits or something) says it all. I'm a dinosaur who's holding all the new blood back. I'm personally responsible for these acts not getting the complete attention they deserve. Why is it that I can get away with playing shitty music and its considered

'art' ? Whats so special about me? The musician union want me out. And soon ill be giving you what you want!! Yehawwwww!!!! You can have your Matt M free world finally!! But i digress ---I'm 'pulling a Charlie '(Sheen). Chris turned them away like a trooper. Shes my rock. My crack rock.

First up was an installation of sorts, FM radios positioned around the bar ready to receive the master transmission, conspicuous bugging, geo-spatial vectors. Radiotronic and Tesla conscious. Radio Cegeste relayed the piece we had worked on for the cd. The space resonated with tinny splendor. Lil' radio under the pillow when you were 6, on acid. Or something.

Next was Wu, or Wu version one before Alex MacKinnon joined our ranks. Lee Noyes is an absoloute joy to improvise with. He drums like a painter. Very painterly drumming. Flitter flicker and glissando. Pollock. Scratch and snuff. Toking. Purple. Tenor and clarient and Shawm. Clack.

Next up was uhhhh...um....shit.. oh yeah BLACK YOGHURT . And MAN he ruled it. He was slick, pro, bleeding edge and playing great arpegiated songs on a Roland Juno 6. Top marks.What ho. Part two coming soooon

end of part one

Posted by matthew_middleton at 3:06 PM

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

nz media

The media in New Zealand is so blatantly pro-National. Whoever pens the newsreaders story is a complete lackey for the neo-liberal arm of the national party. The media is literally trying to crush any opposition to the National Party objective. It'll jump onto Labours slightest weak spot, load phrases with freudian turd power, rub salt into wounds and tell you fair and square there shall be NO CONTEST for National has ALREADY WON. And thing is - NZ eats it all up. Like weet-bix covered in daddys jism. National and its industry propagandists, public relations experts, psycho-sociologists, behaviourists, sports psychologists,lawyers and other lackeys know how to push kiwi buttons because basically -this is a country of hooping , eye gauging, frothing-at-the-asshole right wing thugs. They honestly think National has the interests of small business at heart. They honestly think the unemployed in this country chose their plight. Just like those freshly unemployed christchurch folk - no...no..they're...they're different...they're a different type of unemployed loser aren't they. They're the righteous unemployed losers. The type of loser that demands respect. Unlike that mental patient down the street. Those mentally ill losers, they chose their lifestyle.

Its a muckraking culture that makes you gag. Basically - if (no no.....when we vote for National, we deserve every piece of viscous, boys-own, daughter-humping legislation we get and all of their nefariously insidious longterm implications. No-one seems to be able to think past ...what...6 months...? Do we even want our children to succeed??? Clearly not. Not here. Not now.

Posted by matthew_middleton at 2:59 AM

thought

being without conceptions. That electric whir of life, the life-force. It feels like its about one, a cloud. But no - according to the advaitins, it carries on into infinity. Ones being is absolute. it stretches out from the heart and participates in all space.

Crude, Eye, Black Yoghurt, LSD Fundraiser - Chicks June 11 2011

And other philosophic monisms. Take a torch unto ye! Bristling and newly wedded.

Well now another night out at Port Chalmers. Its actually a miracle that noise or noisier or noisier-than-thou acts can play in a pub that used to service only the most hardened wharfies, fishermen, sailors, navy, arms dealers, cigarette smugglers, pirates and politicians. There is still a little strain of the aforementioned types who rock on in and lecture you on how many years they've come to the pub and how they have never been asked to pay 5 dollars on the door and that they're offended to their very maritime core...then there's the younger fishermen, gawdy , scurrilous and right-leaning, they've payed their 5 dollars so they better get the A1 treatment!!! And their girlfriends too, 'we've got a dollar fifty',,,and you are supposed to feel like you're bohemian scum, ripping off the hard earned money from the over taxed over worked silent majority of this righteous land and we should actually PAY THEM to come in to listen to our noisy drivel anyway. Backbone of the country my ass.

Anyways, venues venues schmenues. Bane of my life. The whole world is a fucken venue. A big mismanaged corrupt venue with bands and lights and camera and action.

First up on this pre-whitsunday bash was Dunedins last great-white hope LSD Fundraiser, cassette four-tracker whacked straight into the mainline, a raft of tapes of his musique concrete and sound collage opus, lurid cymbal work, slackened piano strings and reverb boxes and such atmosphere ---- a bleak deathly grind - the Fundraiser's sound is a dark psychodelic funeral. Dene Barnes was seated al maudlin and introverted as he churned through his sound-histories, a meditative process...a gnostic process, shuffling the ethereal deck. "Poetry in Motion" --Gavin Shaw.

Sefton Holmes aka Black Yoghurt set up in the middle of the dance floor and delivered his new

set of songs - songs so very very good and so very very (very) virulent its a wonder no greasy talent scout hasn't signed the guy up for a life of photoshopping and amyl nitrate - I imagine he'd go down well in London(?). Dark EBM with a dirty south island analogue line, slice o' life lyric and ...yes....melody. I can still hear his harsh noise fan-base protesting..."you've sold out Sefton!"...yeah...naaah.....he's...evolved. These are intelligent songs - stylish, poignant. I could see them released - with big glossy posters and magazine spreads and television ads and a video for each single....kicking the asses of 'the adults' and 'shihad' et al.....

The Black Yoghurt play Auckland city July 7th at the Whammy Bar alongside Bastardwisher bandmate Glasgow and ex Dunedinites Snorgazzzm)..I wish them the very best up there in that self obsessed city state.

Eye played 3rd on the bill....the audience was one part boheme, one part local. Tough crowd. Tough like noughat. Like gristle.

The kinda gig where you get liquored straights gyrating like the blob on speed, belching up on stage and dismantling your gear, getting on the mic and slobbering over everyone 'go home you pricks, you hippies'...well... not quite, but close. If it weren't for Merrin Sinclair and her deft psychophysical handling of snarling groups of working class drunk guys I would've been shut down for sure. Thanks Merrin for ejecting that guy from the dance floor as he approached the stage all unpredictable and cocked and loaded.

Eyes' set was a barrell of fun. Drone and roll at its peak resembling the very essence of early Sonic Youth. One of Dunedins best bands IMHO. LMFAO. WTF- why the face. Peter Stapletons' tom-centric beat was typically trance inducing, his surrounding noise-makers brewing up feedback like its the freaking weather. Wind and rain and hullabulloo hoo haa. Weeeeee, wooooooo, waaaaa.

Sink holes and sandwiches, gone fishing, silts and slurries - best western. Drive on mister Strauss-Kahn, your leftist vision was snuffed out just in the nick of time! So lets book a group tour to Banyan Province and blow us up an ancient Buddha figurine! Spray tans! Snakes! 17th century orgy set! Society, damn you,,,society!! ooohh Barbara look its a bit grainy but I can make it out - a dark disc-like object left of that cloud. Fake. Fail. Its a fucken bird you idiot. A BIRD!!!

I gets on stage and improvise (make it up as i go). Synth into the PA, relentless informational pulsing, belligerent, ungracious and irreverent clarinet squawks 'screeeeeeeeeeeeeech warble warble trill trilly ....AM radio crunch'n'chancre/slightly retarded edge...directionless and coarse, in a word - crude. Thanks to all who enjoyed the silly display and took it for what it was - just another dream - another day, the generation of another set of neuronal pathways...their strength gets weaker over time until their eventual decay and reabsorbtion. Waking life is only one tiny part of our true life. We live on in another dimension every night as we sleep. And we have dreamless sleep too - such bliss. One of the reasons I am attracted to upanishadic thought is its consideration of sleep as a valid and important phenomenon. The 'three states' are just as real as each other. Believe it or not (wow really? Nooooooo really? ) it is dreamless sleep where we're at our closest to the Absolute. So suck on that. Crude Live. Epistemology and artechoke hearts.

Thanks to Dene Barnes and Sefton Holmes and the chaps from Eye for performing that night - great sets by all - and thanks again to Forbes for his sound-tech skills and his tireless attention to detail. Thanks to Hector from Chicks for hosting experimental music in an age of musical malaise and cynicism and in a lil' port town where most of the locals dont really get it or want it.

Our cells divide further and further and our telomeres shorten.

Zip.

Posted by matthew_middleton at 10:56 PM

1 comment:

ducklingmonsterJune 16, 2011 at 3:14 PM

You paint quite a picture of the kinda awful goodness i miss up here. Thanks for the heads up on the upcoming AK gig. May have to venture out

Thursday, July 7, 2011

mental health triangle - the is and the be

stop scratching your chode. pundit. africa. unity. boil. verlaine. anal. rambo. apposite. flurry. The mental health triangle is dada free. not trying nothing, just free like a bird, like a child. simple, artless, crude even.

Melbourne

I now live in Melbourne. Am getting head around it. Tooth still extremely painful and needs to be extracted.

Sunday, August 7, 2011

melbourne #2

Oh, folky folky folky

Folk indie indie folk,

Lite pretty hippy dippy

Pay packets phat

Painless and sunny

review -the workers club sat 20th aug

We did it. We made it. Collingwood is the it. Lynton is tall and beside him its like the Tom Cruise effect and i look for ways to accentuate whats i got. Its shortness shorty you got short. I pay me way in and its like i paid for a tram ticket. NERD. Lynton waltzes in unnoticed. I pay for it. So the workers club is one of the hep joints if Melby-toon, indie nexus/solar plexus. USAs The Nothing People were performing as part of their Australian tour, and they were supported by the Free Choice duo, Mondo Phase band and Naked on the Vague.

Its that misty dark venue greyness,the peoples listless from a week keeping melbournes economy pumping, sink some brews and whatever you do, dont dance. I only manage to catch two acts, i even miss the headliners. Free Choice Duo distribute sublime synthetic data packets. We are Europeanized to the hilt. Top buttons done up, no tie. Heavy referencing of the Jean Michel Jarre school of franco-phonic space musics. No vocals. Members are statuesque at their data-entry stations. Audience wilts, eyes glaze over, my muscles shimmy to the early eightees analogue pulse. Oh analogue synth , yours is a timeless beauty. Always in style. Class. classic with a Kay.....

Next up was Mondo Phase Band, professional and super tight, Chrome-addled (and shamelessly derivitive - but hey! its Chrome! who cares!) rifferama, the Helios Creed creed, psych metal. Guitarist wears a Monoshock tee. hair is cut to emphasize fringe. Blonde. Thurston-esque.

Melbourne. No hatchet job reviews. Lets make this work. Big city. Big bad city. /'

Friday, August 26, 2011

crude, mad nanna, sohei, levitating churches, satanic rockers

The Idgaff is a great little hole in the wall pub/bar with a lil' stage. Grimy and perfect for kiwi rock.

Sohei is a hard-working welder/artist from Japan who wields and welds infectious heavy dub step industro-noise beato breaker breaker fucky. Nice opener. Nice beats.

Mad Nanna take the stage and their presence, the 'frame' of the band reminds me of the Puddle. The trio play a curious stripped back rock, Patrick wacks out deep detuned tones over Michaels simple riffery . After seeing them 3 times i think its only now that I'm starting to understand what theyre about. Its a kind of simplicity, a sort of basic honesty (in a dishonest town of shonky second hand dealers, rats,corrupt cops and wannabe femme fatales) a fragility and a twisted monster looming underneath it all. Like the subconcious. Like Melbourne i suppose. I thoroughly enjoyed their set.

My instruments are still sitting in a fuckin crate in Lyttleton, so i go for an ultra stripped back set, vocals over a backing piece - the old throbbing classic 'beta test' -as lazy as you can get i suppose - here are the 'lyrics' which i wrote the avo before the show...

Econometric Pace

Econometric space

Keep plugging it in

Playing to win

We keep up the pace

The swill of the race

Dominate all over

Marshes and grasslands and plains

Hop on hop off

Torrent leechers line the beaches

Hawkers marry chavs

And heat and sweat and

Liquifaction and

Precarious formations

Precariously perched

over a bottomless gulf

Key industry players siphon their cut

bloodless coup in the chicken coupe

droplets and couplets and hipster families

procreate in a jelly-like formation

Oh determinism

No free will just one liners

Just the best you can give

Heave ho! Heave ho!

heave ho! Heave ho!

Gab gifted

A sodomite grifter

A rag-tag bunch

Head hollow, scooped out

The hunchback of South Dunedin

Calabrian war lords

Latin lovers

break the fucken world record

We wont notice the collapse

Heave ho! Heave ho!

Heave ho! Heave ho!

Life and Style

Wife and smile

Christ and bile

Worth yer while

Many faceted

Figures and Motifs

Artless Intent

Artless drop-out

Tnagled up

Tangled hair-matted

into a filthy stinking dread-lock

And we praise him accordingly

Heave ho! Heave ho!\

Heave ho! Heave ho!

Levitating Churches are next, a 5 piece band. They rock and they rock and they rock on till the freaking break of dawn. Dead by dawn. Dawn of the dead. Dawn to dusk. Red Dawn. Dawn. Matt Alien continues the tradition where others have given up or gotten out of town.

Satanic Rockers were last. And i do a grande diservice to the organiser and I bloody well miss them. Ill see them again, its bound. With a name like that man, theyll come right back into my life like a cursed penny. No doubt the band was creepy and sckronking like king loser on booze.

Melbourne. Hipsters...everywhere. Don't forget to roll up the bottom of yr jeans. Went to an opening today and i felt so bloody uncool and stupid and alien. An intensly draining experience. A droll, lilting urban unfriendliness, its hard to explain. Of course, i'm convinced everyone thinks im a cop, which is ironic because every other hip fucker wears a moustache. So many fucking moustaches. And full beards. And moustaches. Do women like kissing guys with beards? Do women like getting head from guys with beards? Do women like beards? I suppose they must do. Does a hipster grow a beard to attract a mate or to wear it as a thing of prestige or of status? Is it a code of honour thing? a sign? A sort of initiation rite? I must be jealous. what with my silly little face and boyish demeanour. And my southland accent. And my 90s sillouette.

Posted by matthew_middleton at 6:44 PM

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adventureship stewardism

Like blarney

and brine

And frank

The skull

the breaking point

the pug-nose

the cap-n-trade

hey brits, tooth and nail rock-hop,

nuttin no-body dun not much about it.

so cream on dat, hair-pin

Hey fella,

treacle, tweedle dee,

chanting french referenitalist swine-herders

and other sufistic happenings

I blanched whatever yokes needed it,

And bought off broker, stoker, and yam.

Longer piedemont

and two-thronged dowery blossoms

In package deal

after breaker breaker

and valence

How bout it

The cradle, the yawn, the maelstrom

The brogue

the conch and the pine

the mob and the gob

oh spritely spritely spritley

Posted by matthew_middleton at 10:49 PM

Friday, September 16, 2011

performance and participation ,,,why?

You look out at the world via the internet and occasionally with eyes, and you notice - so much music, so many bands, names names names, gigs, gigs, gigs...absolute saturation, so many options and so many names - some grab you , other wash over you like so much dross, too many bands.

How does one make a difference swimming in this sea of acts and festivals and parties? Melbourne is awash with performance, but it's difficult to pin-point the essential amongst the routine. And here I am, yet another act - another odd name, how to get a foot it, another name amongst the thousands, in fact.....why? Why add yourself to the mountain? It seems so spread out, spread thin, hobbyists bands, weekenders, a media machine, networks and knowledge, gate keepers and venue mafias, lobbyists and journalists, soundmen and industry hoods....a gimmick is required? A super-power? A story? Ach...heres my manifesto:

1. Do not compete, for it is an impossible and vain task.

2. Perform where and when one desires, expect nothing, perform with strength.

3. Distribute as much music and merch as possible at each show.

4. Forget 'scenes' , both micro and macro.

5. Forget Melbourne's cultural histories and narratives, perform without a tradition in mind.

6. Perform, talk, party, go home, forget.

7. No lust of result except subjective aesthetic/meditative/gnostic aims.

8. industries come and industries go - be timeless . Longevity is a virtue.

there you are, a very personal list.

Sunday, November 6, 2011

The muggy cool o' Melbourne

Swept, lost, loose.

Its a rope, no its a snake, no its a rope.

Upanishadic references in ano

Its that rockabilly muggins mugg.

Clubs'n'Socs, club Abruzzio.

A thousand teachings,

The deep-brown eyes o'

A thousand disapproving Calabrian octogenerians.

Quater-back, Half-back.

Hump till ya chaff (like yesterdays visits)

Belt on belt up blogger me this

Sold us a charm

Bought in and bought out

Lilt 'n' liver

Passover, quiff, crux

Disquiet and poorly

A bigger rape (!)

And self-managed

Seasons in the dirt

and bellicose gag

gape up me turk

and soothe the rag

Splinter and Sam

Pulling semen

Servings, neatly divested.

Episodic and dispepsic

Like driving a car

Like soiling

Like vermillion

Chancre chancre chancre

Cares and Airs

Sexpo 2011

Sex party

Post-porn

"Porn-positive"

Feminists

Apparently

Don't make any sense

Like its the swinging capital of australasia

Curious and coloured

Xenomorph, xenomorph

Its a bug hunt

Red-devil

Pliant

Unresponsive and taut

Dead

Dead

Dead

Oh Lordy. Atman = Brahman and a there is a thousand-billion suns. We labour onward. Not a peep. Nothing stirred, not even a mouse. House-o-cards and a den of robbers. Nope, haven't been updating the blog as much of late, been taking a 'break'. You can call it what you want. Its 2012 and the Crude machine is seemingly sleeping,only one album in 2011 ------Crude Australian volume One. I intend to regroup the Aesthetics with new skinhead drummer and military tactician Lynton, sinologist and optics specialist Edelle Sneevest on base, and myself Mart "Marillion" Middleton-Knight-Rook-Bishop-Windsor-Fitzpatrick on Telestar Mona. Most likely will perform at parties first before infiltration to the Melbournes serb mafia controlled entertainment venue cods-wollop.

bada bing bada bang sup sup sup suppin gin and juice

sooooooooo BLOOODY RRRRIIIICCCCHHHH

Sunday, February 26, 2012

rule number four

'don't write any old thing in your blog just to publish something' .

oh okay . fine.

whatever.

So its sickly sticky hot here in Melbourne, had to knock off work early, sorry fellas, but my brain sometimes needs time to recoup from angry restaurateurs bleeding blood into me earhole." NO! We too busy to do survey!". Thats all i'll say about work - im not supposed to mention anything about it.

Oh its sickly sweet hot as candy treacle here, im sweating like a islamist in an israeli embassy foyer. Rudds buggered, blood is redder than water, life is just a rollercoaster ride innit. Melbourne is crammed to the hilt with humanity, the public transport system a laboured laden-down hog-tied creature, built to fit a melbourne circa 1998. I wager itll need to double its fleet to relieve the malignant congestion that is certain over the next 5 years. I must admit, it is kinda fun rubbing up against other office workers, all spruced up and sexual-like, just outta the shower, prepped, buffed, coked, oiled,brazilled, fresh morning enemas all done, wheatgrass, patter-cake patter-cake bakers man, bake me a cake as fast as you can.

Oh the lurch to work. Oh and the stops'n'starts and bursts and trips and near misses and all those toes crushed under hush puppies like the satisfying nutty crack'n'crumble of a fiery-hued cock-a-roach in the middle ov the nacht.

And all the beautiful people. Healthy aussies, gorgeous aussies everywhere, the heat and sheer regularity and intensity and population of fit human beings is enough to cause any yokel like myself an early death.

Melbourne is an vast array of small towns, with a fine central bloodletting district. Its the land and property developers that prosper here, old world charm just something the gets in the way.

For a couple of work days at least. Shake and bake. Snakeoil. Brogue breath and furlap.

So, ive been outta the 'performative' loop for so long that my pathalogical need for attention is manifesting in less creative ways. So its The Aesthetics that shall be my personal salvation this year - I have to take performance very seriously this year. I must deliver, unlike some less than spectacular offerings in the past as crude, a powerful, precise and deadly juggernaut must be polished and rehearsed and dispensed with stealth and acumen. No freaking pressure then Baldrick. I simply must become world famous (in new zealan..uh..melbourne) to impress the south melbourne stool pidgeon devil doll.

"Enough talk Middleton" beltches some drunk heckler lodged in me grey-blue brains, the mantra repeated by a leprechaun-like figure perched up above the pitua-pituat- pitato-pitarityor-the reptilian brain ...Bye bye bye bye bye-for-now straight edger!

help help help

Posted by matthew_middleton at 9:06 PM

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rying very hard.

work it

thoth

thrice great hermes, seal the deal.

ac/dc

rolling blackouts

enron pointed devil toe

full of effluent, gelatinous and crackling (like barnabas)

thoth. wisdom, das boot, bootes, off world scenario,

but matter keeps one bound

glans penis and thistle hooks

seal the deal

fold ye a paper dart

enscribe ye an 'electronic mail' adress

and see wha' happens

dildo

fold ye a paper dart

liaisons dangereuses

pointless pointless

inoperative

come feel the noise

station

gulag gulag

grunt gasser

tackle

calculator urine

venal presuppositions for crichton half-cast

nickers and nick-knacks

paddy-wack

nice ole' wacker schmack taste-up lickidy split

stockings - my man tuesday

terence whallop golden goose

gizz a gander

max planck

razor razor

blixa bargeld fallopian reservoir

tanned hides and puckered buttocks

lambs ears and cows tounges

melbourne mighty melbourne

girl girls girls

HIJABS for all!

mob deth

not interested

vested vestments

dingbats and blighty

tooth and nail

teen bogan

angry agent

sickle

hammer

pubis mons

carrion

mumbai

eros

superimposition

lung lung lung

heironymous schulze

heidelberg james jagger gib-stop glass house

deal me out

count me in

perfectly propertioned silver gut-lining

ibuprofen sunset

never never

heather

glissando and briss

clean whistle and a piss

how bout a peck on the butt cheek prince william

golgotha and flanders

Friday, March 16, 2012

hi ! scum!

well hell,. I've been wasting my brain a bit lately so i should get back into writing. So, hi there. Well, whats happening. I got new music, and i am still buggering around with ultra lo-fi stuff. it's so utterly easy! Just lift your arm and a thousand generations of future prickdom are multifacted. Yeah, i simply feel like a reject. But its my own fault, buying into the freemason program for the beginning. god-damn it, hells teeth and a large vacuum rigoroulsy placed in-ano.

Felt good - in my minds eye.

''

Friday, March 16, 2012

commentary march 17 2012

Life. It keeps going. Radical subjectivity assures me that this life i lead will be an eternal one because, as i have said time and time again, if one can internalize and subjectivize ones temporal experience totally, this innings is our one and only experience of time and therefore - all time and therefore - an eternity.

This is the upanishadic outcome. This is eastern metaphysics par excellence.

My quest is to unravel the binding elements - to defy limits by denying them any reality. Stop measuring things. Stop measuring time and space. Stop anticipating outcomes and regretting past failures. Stop measuring and therefore activating material axioms.

Embracing the fleshless , derail the body.

Enquire as to the source of the self.

Split up the bacon rinds and swivel.

Make hay and chew cud.

Mashed potato-cum-lemon peel. And bitters.

Bitter-me-timbers Roderick, the professor of comparative bollocks once told me

As he forced me to lick his suede elbow patches.

Melbourne city is a city. The air is heady with perfume and the rattle and scrape of the trams. It's a flat city, its a big city. And there's not enough good available men to go around. Women are everywhere. In cars, on trams, walking the streets, shopping, riding bicycles, talking to people. They teach, manage, communicate, enforce the law. Women rule. They are the greatest. We males generally suck. What do women actually see in us? Still, I hear this city truly does have a shortage of good, handsome, well mannered and eligible men for the millions of amazing single women here. So guys, come on. Get it together. Get real. Just shave it off. Please. Get rid of the fucking beard. Do it now.

God i'm bored.

So it looks like Harry wants some of the Middleton magic as well. Isn't that a little bit - oh I don't know , incestuous or something? Oh well.

So who here is a creative type. Is it you, my Russian reader? Please reader, feel free to introduce yourself here. Don't be afraid ! As well know - this blog/journal is going to be around until 2019, unless i die, which is always a possibility, so...yeah - would be nice to get to know some of my readers.

I've been recording a bit more work lately using the ultra-lo-fi technique, i tend to wack out a tune or electro-acoustic work when i get some time to meself. Listen to the fruits here:

The track below is called 'Loss'. Its a bass recorder piece, simple, ostensibly eastern-inspired. I am attempting to capture and nullify unpleasant emotional states with this fairly quiet meditation.

Saturday, March 17, 2012

MIA is good

arunachala is a hill

a melbourne hipster called me a dickhead

coz i didnt have a moustache

corporation

co-op doll

lickity split

Okay so the weekend ritual is over, thanks to all who made it happen. Thanks and happy birthday to Chris Clements. And Jane Birkin flew into town, which is spooky because my obsession with Serge and Jane B had reignited 2 days prior, with no knowledge of her impending performance. Melbourne is my Paris. Is Melbourne a romantic city? I believe yes. It smells romantic. That heady aroma of ammonia and faeces. It is a beautiful city. But its also a sports mad pit. And soon, as the 'footy' season kicks off, we won't hear the end of it. The fucking footy. Footy this , footy that. Magpies this, small tree dwelling marsupial that. Scarves and gawdy colours and neo-tribal rivalries. And yelping and hollering. And hoopin'. Woop woop. I do share one thing in common with the hoards - a pathological and dangerously unhealthy love of beer (a kind of fermented beveridge brewed with hops).

Crude plans for the next while - to continue the low fidelity outbursts, and to assemble the Aesthetics together for party performances and the odd pub gig. Got some new material down, some internal struggling rendered as chanson, nothing like the monotony of the workplace to get the creative juices flowing. Just think Charles Bukowski and his Post Office. Ian Curtis and his job at the Welfare Office.

So to the week ahead - whatever will be will be. We try. We do what we can with our lot. Melbourne is a city that i call home whether Melbourne cares or not. (it dosen't - ed) I couldn't find work in Dunedin, no matter how hard I tried. So we packed up and left - all in the nick o' time to avoid the stealthy structural adjustments planned by our beloved 'National' Party.

Posted by matthew_middleton at 4:39 PM

Friday, March 23, 2012

life - it keeps going

yeah, i just woke up and it was like - my god. Im still living.

todays blog shall be notations taken at certain points of the day.

2:53 PM

listening to Alice Coopers greatest hits. An old friend is coming over with beer. At least, he says he's gonna. Hope he does, I'm thirsty for company. No, not just the beer, the human company. I'm so very very bored. Extremely. Bored. But at least i have a freaking imagination. Under my wheels.

2:57 - Listening to Alice Coopers Greatest Hits, getting bored. Sloganeering inanely (party!party!party!) . Learning lyrics to "Be my Lover". And that palpably palpitative song "It's my body". Indeed, do you have the time to find out...who i really am?? Obviously you do, or you wouldn't be reading this. But the question remains - are you actually wasting your time, spending your time, finding out, indeed,who, i, really, am (or am not, as the case may or may not actually be, as a matter of fact). And who really cares? Yay! James is coming. Awesome.

4 days later -

James came and went like a hurricane, his bawdy , punchy personality refined after 10 years. Otto, the wifes son, or my step son i guess you could say, through a teeny party that night, so we stumble into to a Cheech and Chong movie set in melbourne circa 2012, with lots of 'oh my gods' and 'whats with the swastika' and vivid pens flailing and self-tatooing. Its all about ones identity and determining it at 16 i think i recall. Labels and band names and patches all become badges of honour and badges of identity. He did well, my sunnies weren't stolen, everyone went home in an orderly fashion, no cops, no fights. Congratulations son, you are now....a man. Yeah, bet you're all lapping this up, this vital information. I know for a fact that you don't care, but i don't care that you don't care, so read on. Go on.

Music music music. And sound art. Heres a few more pieces from 'Crude Australian voume two.' The album is now complete btw, thank god, time to move on (to crude australian volume 3 - the turd and final of the 'lazy lo-fi' tryptich.)

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Easter Sunday

Prescience. On Good Friday I witnessed a rather nasty, but essentially i guess fairly minor car accident in St Kilda. I was only a metre away from the old chap who was hit. The car came out of nowhere, the woman had seemingly lost control of both the acceleration and the breaks, and she came right up onto the footpath at about 40 kph, and straight into an elderly asian gentleman who was walking with his family. The guy had his thigh pinned between the bonnet and a glass pane shop front, which broke as the car kept moving. It took about 10 seconds for the woman to back off him, at which point he fell to the ground in obvious agony and shock after his leg was struck. It had all the qualities of a 9/11 style attack, car-as-projectile, a sort of kamikaze driver. The woman remained seated in the car, she seemed in a daze, unresponsive, wouldn't step out of the car when told to. Surreal situation and it happened not 1 metre from me. Put a spin on the beach that day i tell ya.

happy happy Easter everybody!

Posted by matthew_middleton at 3:22 AM

HE GREAT CRUDE YOUTUBE REFERENCE LIBRARY

Kids these days...eh what?! Oh the access they have. Liquid data, anything, everything at their lil' fingertips. Smart phones and wireless networks - the searing magic of truly fluid information. Like an undulating plasma. The human mind is truly amplified and augmented these days. And my generation, the tail end of the X-ers, have been there to witness its advent and evolution from the unwieldy beige boxes of the early ninetees to the beginnings of the net in its consumer form..through to the magnificence and sheer elegance of the touch screen. I have calculated where young people go to access music, and it is youtube. Wanna find a song to listen to, go to youtube, the video image is not important. It's the universal jukebox. The end times jukebox. And so, i have decided to gradually upload the Crude back-catalogue of songs to youtube. Foolish? Maybe. But i see that people don't spend the time to record or even download music anymore. It is streamed like a kind of radio. And so i add my work to this radio station.

The name of the playlist is 'The Great Crude You-Tube Reference Library". I don't even want to know what the small print has in store for me. Fact of the matter is - well, we all know it - we all die one day. Let us enjoy the time we have. By hook or by crook. Hedonism is an art-form. It is a noble style of living that I now demand of myself. Public/private, private/public - the Cynics tore it all asunder. Hail to Diogenes the DOG! Although not a hedonist, he was a true iconoclast.

The repository will be amassed gradually over the next few months. Here's the link:

THE GREAT CRUDE YOU-TUBE REFERENCE LIBRARY

Friday, May 11, 2012

...FROM THE AESTHETICS TRASHED NON-ADVENTURES BLOG :

KIKIILIMIKILII (france), THE AESTHETICS (nz), BUM CREEK, ECHO COURTS + SCHOOL GIRL REPORT AT TAPE PROJECTS

Ok so here's gig number one and maybe we gets a little excited by all the girls and guys and the big block amps and lego bricks and data packeteering markets drifting hither and thither. Oh dulce amore. Fly fishing crouton parcel cry me a river - tram tracker black-pack. Sooner or later dopamine levels will rise city wide - a big ole' pupil dilation cash humper.

Listen here - we wind up that ocular sphincter muscle and say, loosen ye! loosen ye!

Let the light in, let the farsical creature see the light!

You see Craig, when i was a youngster my 'Pop' (Verdun Lionel) always liked getting my sister to rub conditioner into his bald spot, all innocent fun mind you, oh that cantankerous old man, snapping, spitting, growling, paying the bills on time, unhappy, stolid, a list-maker, an accounts payable man, a follower of thee rugby, conscious, a paradoxically non-returned RSA man, a dark past, skeletons and smelly socks, toss-potting and lawn bowls, different strokes and livid saliva leanings, blanket pulp, Norwegian grandparents. And, and...you know what Hillary, its those real writers who make timely references to books, plays, locations, institutions, lanes, sections of other books, historical periods, historical costume and tailoring, textiles, architecture, geographic and geological features, commodities, colours, food preperation and recipes, men and women of novelty, infamy, bloodthirstyness, cowardice, inhumanity, cruelty, lovemaking ability, those who offer up blank cheques, true novelists are polymathic in intellect and candor and breadth and depth and are regal glossarists.

Not me though, Candice. Not me. I couldn't make a reference to a section of text from an obscure Sicilian poem if it came up to me and broke me knees for staring too hard at his girlfriends perfect...ness.

But , like Johnny Lydon, 'I, (we) don't care'. So we, The Aesthetics band, gig on, our first in the coolest venue in town so far. Tape Projects.In Carlton, home of Carlton. Near town, closer to town than Bruns. Oh lipstick.

Oh pantyhose. Oh shut up. Oh tram, tram on tram off. I am determined to sexuali...ahem..romanitcize trams.what is it about these carriages that are soo...damn sexy? the seating ? how you sorta have to, look at poeple? the arching? the shuffling? the legs? the creepy guys like me? the acrobatics of the young goths?

I wasn't born a Catholic, but I may as well be, as the Wife is of Irish Catholic heritage, the neighbourhood is Italian, the sky is light-blue, and a garish-gold Virgin Mary cradles a gold-crowned Jesus atop a great local basillica as you stride off yer trammy-tram on the way home from wrrrrrk on Nicholson straza.. I gotta confess something here: I yearn for forgiveness in this instance, oh reader. I can't really remember how School-Girl Report, Bum Creek and Echo Courts sounded.. I've linked 'em up here though. What the reptilian brain recalls was warm, fun, florrid experimentation, charm on a stick - not unlike candy-floss, tinkering and gurgling riffers,

Bum Creek were the specialist BESTEST. Liked it. like special skippy plater bulbs. Clcik click click and a better man than I ever was !

"

yep - it says NOTHING!!!! BUT WHAT IN THIS FREAKING POSTMODERN WORLD DOES?????

Posted by matthew_middleton at 7:53 A

\Saturday, May 12, 2012

Harder

.........O harder and harder still. A new tack is required isn't it. So tack it up, boyo, as thee Welsh so often say. Strangulated and whipper-snapped, less of a caring attitude maybe a requirement, especially in the midst of such bitterly cold Melbourne weather. Take the freaking power back Simon. Simple Simon they called me, slamming trams, tired of wading through the ADHD scratch'n'sniffery of centre-city grafi-nefertitti, I'm poor and dumb, not rich and dumb. Every tear spilled is a dollar lost(and an earth hour 'off' my 'life')

I'd tear up on trams, and before you knew it, every other 'grown man' was bawling, with the exception of the stoic faced southern euro octogenarians, indifferent yet essentially offended amongst such unmanly displays by such silly small-faced Anglo-French farmers from the South Island of New Zealand.

So blistered i burst, and candles lit, we try, we try and we keep trying. But trying what exactly? Well, thats my piece of free fun innit. As a writer, i get the cranial advantage - the fact that i know something you quite possibly dont, and wont, and never will, even if you do actually know it. That is the quantum of sealant i puke-forth for you tonight, Naomi.

Quantize this severance pack Pippa, I said, folding the heavily doodled paper into impossibly small yet thick and unmanageable eighth weights, wallet sized secrets and solicitous non-filial tankard gases, a thousand australian phone numbers scrawled over it all like the mens toilet at...oh...that famous punk venue, what's it again,,,oh yeah its been sold to a new and ostensibly square owner and the area's been gentrified to all-hell,no...it ain't Fitzroy its..oh...whats that..oh yeah...CBGB's.

You know what, listening back to a years worth of Middleton-tripe'n'dripping is a lil' dopamino-ego booster i guess. But at the end of the day, we all just go to sleep and dream dreams and wake up in the new world the next day.

...That new old world we all knew and know and will know and keep knowing over and over and over again day in day out 'till ego-death. Oh happy day!

I want to reach out to someone: a special comrade. I am screaming bloody murder to be heard and to be understood by him/her/droid. Digital communication is the order of the day. My email adress is crude696@yahoo.co.nz

Just email and say 'roger that'. Who needs verbal anyway? Who really needed it? Words just get in the way.

I request discourse comrade, discourse so as to act in a correct and righteous fashion in the future. And it could be wonderous, oh brother-in-arms. Take it and leave it. Fear not - a less popular blog was never known of, as ambiguous as i am, i could write about a recent trip to the freaking toilet, describe it in all its yellowed glory and then say it was actually the gig i went to the other week. And know one actually gives a fuck!

0420659559

Oh and harder still is the roland juno 60 synthesizer and its many knobs. But what beautiful music they make!

Take for instance these pieces generated purely by roland juno 60.

Posted by matthew_middleton at 8:00 AM

Friday, May 18, 2012

l'amour l'amour

City City City - oh city oh city, the architect made it so, the Roman made it so, Nero made it so,

make it so, take every ounce of gold from every square inch of the empire to make it so said Nero, and so and so, like the euro of nowadays - he built his palace - thee great Domus Aurea. Sol Invictus! Sol Invictus! Sol Invictus! God of sword, god of light, god of fire!

Hopping on a tram like a speech-primed statesman on cocaine, the locals thought it idiotic, the inner city folk thought it amusing for 2 seconds, the international folk clapped and cheered because it was the emperor and they had no choice.

No choice in the matter. A stage is a stage be it only for a moment.

City-as-stage.

It's as cold as it gets here now, and nothing more need be said about it. even with a heavy Canadian accent.

Posted by matthew_middleton at 2:40 AM

No comments:''

Saturday, May 26, 2012

grey sunday

....They told me it would get cold. I didn't actually believe them, how could a place this warm get so cold? But yes, it's cold cold cold. And its a different vairety of cold too. Its not like Dunedin cold, itsd a different beast. It's, its....urban cold. Concrete cold. Trams scrape still, no road ice as yet, just a heap of wet droplets of a substance the humans call water bucketing from grey masses in the sky the humans call 'clouds'. We like the cold though. We do , we do. Space is cold. And dark. The void of space is something else ladies and gentlemen. Of course I'm sure you are all just dying to knoqw what i got up to last night. All one of you. Oi, you...what are you doing...here? i hope you get something out of this reading experience, chappy. Or chicky. How do i monetize your time. Wherein lies the value in a Matty Middleton blog? Is it the way you feel as the words intermingle and coalesce? The thrill of neuronal plasticity and the resulting creation of new pathways as combinations of english words form new and greater depths of meaning? Am i holding a mirror to your world or my world? Well, yes, this is my world. My blog. My 2 cents. My soap box. My content. My time. My ego. No Australian should want to be here. I take that back. Some Australians should be here, to laugh at the psycho-social-logisitcal fumblings of this wide-eyed not-so-bushy-tailed kiwi-boy, stinking up trams with his solipsisms and his romances and his delusions and his miseries. Life is good here, Greg. Its good. They have it good, very, very good. With my gaudy wedding ring as my deflector shield I

rage onwards into melbourne's central localities, harping on like a loon, tramming to and fro and to and fro from go to woe.

Went to a great electronic music show last night and actually found myself having fun. The music was leaning towards the goth, the 'ebm', the 'coldwave', but man that infusion of the nineteen-eightees flavour was heart-warming. Industrial punk man. A bit of Sisters of Mercy, Skinny puppy?, Liaisons Dangereuses even - that made my night i have been eating them up on the trams from months ...especially this number: aturday, May 26, 2012

abra

abra

cadabra

nevermore nevermore

last post

last stand

jack and jill

tankard, barack

israel

managing for excellence

nero , caligula, nero, caligula

rather the boy be a hipster

than a hip hop bogan

we's only a teen

once only a teen once

grass is greener

last in last served

mass insanity

state by state

line by line

time after time

1983

Posted by matthew_middleton at 11:48 PM

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Friday, June 1, 2012

6/1/12

Welcome to June 2012.

And you need that extra fatty stoic layer, don't ya bub. Cause, yep, I'll say it again, like the badly etched LP that clicks back and forth, it gets a lil' cold here in Melbourne city dosen't it, Karen, my dear. Britches and brine, poppy seed tea never warmed me up quite like the sodium-rich expectorant of juniper squash, specially now on Brunswicks finest olive olive olive grounds.

So bugger. The Romans sure 'orgied', ,don't think the Melbournites quite had the time - and who does in the year two thousand and twelve? 'Specially with our systems as they are - who's gonna make the coffee? Who's gonna wash the dishes/ Whos gonna put out the recycling? whos gonna fill the car up with petrol? Who's gonna look after the plumbing? So orgy we don't no more, altohugh i nice beer goes down a treat. egg. egg. frank Zappa. Prostate cancer. The Aesthetics - shows comnig up in melbourne maybe at the Tote! and with uv race in august, and a mondee nite mass on june 25 or sumthin'. my gawd.

black. ochre. pitch. coal. blakc. ochre. pitch. charcoal. nicotine.

Posted by matthew_middleton at 4:26 AM

Saturday, June 9, 2012

Sunday ramblings

Before you go any further, please let me tell you that this is a very depressing post ok? So do nt read it if you dont wanna be. I am essentially a joyfull and life-loving person. But the corruption of this system irks me to the very core. And i can explain myself succinctly, a skill that becomes more valuable and subversive by the day.

Hello World!! (You, yes YOU oh reader).

It's cold here again today (let me call it 'Melbourne-cold', a new kind of cold, and I'm supposed to be hard - I'm grew up in a tiny city called Invercargill, NZ).

Its Sunday the 10th of June 2012...world still throbbing like gristle? Check.

I'm still living like a mother wit' the family o' families, Mr Matty Middleton (toxicology, method actor researching a near futuristic office-boy role, the hubby), Mrs Chris Knight (the pants, linen, hard-smokin' feminism, hard left, original 80s punk), and young Otto Middleton-Knight (17yo, lots to learn about life on Earth whilst we struggle under this ugly late-modern-capitalist-social-morass, but boy-oh-boy he knows way more than most about guns I tell ya).

We are a migrant family, (oh yes tram-o-sardines - we're YET another migrant family to Melbourne) we've been living it hard in the multi-cultural wonderland of Moreland city (one of the larger cities within Greater Melbourne) since August 2011. Finally, we've made it. We found us a house real quick last year, something extremely rare according to fellow ex-pats we know. I swipe up a (casual) job after reading a food-spattered newsypaper in the local laundrette, like serendipity. And after an initially promising admin job which turns out to be be-leaguered by malevolent, narcissistic and corrupt Aussie mercenaries, my lovely wife has finally has a kosher council library job in her sites. Even our Otto has night work at the local K-Mart. We've made it. So really - up yours Paula Bennet and your ideological kin, wuck you National Party and your 'Brighter Future'. What a cruel, cynical joke. I got a job the moment i moved away from the cow urine flooded processing centre called the south island of NZ. Now i must admit, not all of us fleeing kiwis get so lucky. So the smug remark is just a thing of chance and irony.

It really goes to show however that the fact that I 'couldn't get a job' in NZ had nothing to do with my own 'individual' shortcomings, or the fact i didnt have the tenacity to 'pull myself up by my bootstraps' and make my-self a millionaire like all my cancer-addled uncles did. The Boomers had it all cheap as they came up through the ranks, govt assistance into family homes, free tertiary education, an almost 100% employed labour market, low prices for food. And now, they expect our generation to not only pay for the debt of the extreme structural adjustments of 1980s New Zealand (a super-sized form of laissez-faire market capitalism knon as Rogernomics),we will pay our student loans off for the rest of our lives, while many must line up for the dole because even business degrees don't actually guarentee you shit anymore (most fuck off outta dodge), we (gen x and y) are expected to pay insane market rents, work longer for less and pay more and more for utilities, gladly accept casualized and security-free jobs, work multiple jobs, spend less time actually being a human and fostering human companionship, we have little to no sense of 'place' or 'future' or 'community', we are expected to spend our 'leisure time' paying exorbitant fees (to hollyood execs) at gaudy and vulgar movie mega-colleseums while on hot days we hunt down the last remaining 'free public spaces' (which are immediately gentrified and rented to the sociopathic brats of corporate patriarchs up to the millions), as we work our asses off in art school we literally have our ideas and our creative power siphoned, stolen and flogged off for a song to filthy-rich advertising corporations where the artistic truths we laboured over with our blood and genetic-aesthetic essence are castrated, white-washed and made user-friendly then financially rewarded to said ad-company CEOs. We have our 'power' bills triple in size, we will ultimately die from the effects global warming for the sake of 'growth' or some kind of man-made( thats right - man made, not woman-made) catastrophe ,we are left with no choice but to entertain ourselves in increasingly internal, singular, and anti-social ways, (ironically sold to us a type of 'connectivity') - they literally will teach their own children, their own future human legacy that it is somehow our lack of a work ethic and that it is each our individual responsibility to not only prosper exactly as they did under these new impositions, corporate-lobbied legislations and conditions, but to be happy about it and shut the fuck up as we do so! And all the while the bankers and mafias and drug cartels who are left alone to do their thang by corrupt govts and police keep amassing and holding to ransom the wealth and potential utopia of this, our earth. Our home. Our ONE home. In fucking the middle of SPACE. There is NOTHING ABOVE OUR FUCKING HEADS BUT SPACE. Trillions upon trillions of miles of non-rentable, non-monetizeable, outer-fucking SPACE. And we are it. We are it - the only conscious beings??? And ths is how we live? Ths is what we do to each other? The Occupy movement was snuffed out by the alcoholic goons of the right-wing media, just like ALL memetic rebellions eventually are and seem to be. They don't want punk and its ethick of fredom coming back, they dont want the 60s coming back. Aleister Crowley is one of my personal heroes, animal fucker or not. So is an animal like GG Allin. Not his behaviour, but his stance against the staus quo. The meat-heads rule the roost and KFC knows it. The lowest common denominator rules the day. And these square puritanical 50-somethings wonder why there's a binge drinking culture among the teenagers of New Zealand. Or anywhere. We are floating in outer space for fucks sake - THAT is reality. Not The Voice. But the STARS above. The AWE and what t ultimately MEANS. Our utter, utter insignificance. Of course- thats simple again, to drink oneself into a stupor is an individual choice and a personal shortcoming. Accoding to the right its a moral failing, not a subconcious response to the lack of real socio-economic options we have left, and the fact that we have fucked the world over irreversably and its going to get worse, and worse, and worse. Not because the corrupt drug cartels and the military and the weapons companies and pharma companies are all in it together, oh no. And the bankers and insurance agents and the real-estate tycoons and the gangs and the sex-industry and the media are all in it together too. And we float on a planet in space. They wonder why we drink. Fuck the World.

and here's the article again put through the cut up machine

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Posted by matthew_middleton at 11:30 PM

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Thursday, June 14, 2012

new videos, new thoughts

its Friday!!

press play button for The Aesthetics 2009 song about the cyclic phenomenon known as Friday below

FRIDAYdddWhat a week!! And they say a week is a long time in politics! A week is an utter epoch when yer 17, an eternity when you're a paranoid schizophrenic. Which I am not I assure you. I'm 37. Anyways, so yeah, still at it (bang! bang! slam! creak! creak! knock! cheap vase crashes the floor! involuntary gasp! hey neighbour! shuddupayaface!)- still at the 'post the back-catalogue/backwash/backwater up onto youtube', give it a grandiosity imbued...(redunancy there sorry Helen -please read grandiose for a silly twosome like "grandiosity imbued" - sheeesh!) title like 'thee great crude repositorium' or some such suchness. So there's plenty of fresh new/old posting going on on my youtube channel, snubbing me nose at the fast pace of current Melbourne life/socio-temporal logistics and we're perhaps hinting at, oh i don't know, the slow movement with this archive. Posterity with a captial Pee, ladies and gentlemen. And gentlemen remember - be gentle. Please, for the love of G-d, be gentle....but not flimsy. Not...spineless. Gentle but strong. Like Tai-Chi fighting, a fist wrapped in finest cotton.

monday june 18

Good Morning, and it's another victory for the Banksters, they get their money and the Greeks are now gonna face further austerity. Thats just fantastic - essentially a victory for the Greek people right? Max Keiser and his intrepid co-journalist Stacey Herbert know the score, ain't that the truth.

Its, as one of my new heroes Andrew Eldritch mentions, a 'Black Planet'....indeed, its a 'Black World'.

And as citizens of Melbourne Australia we are amongst the lucky ones. So lets count our blessings and live out our days in hedonistic bliss. Thats one of my alternate universes right there, living the life of the hedonist, the lover of the body the world and its pleasure principles, its pleasure potentials. And why not. So long as a modicum of coin lines these great unwashed jeans, i'm gonna have me some fun. Gee, like thats some kind of half hearted threat or something. We'll see.

The Aesthetics band rehearsed on the weekend, and i decide the act is a performance piece, not a band at all, a chip off the old kunst block, some sort of artless art act. So just 'smile at a stranger' says Lynton, teetering on the periphery of socio-logistics, show us those degrees of seperation my friend, see how the circles decrease, see how small these villages are after all, 6 becomes 5 becomes 4, and a shower beckons like a warm leatherette, swallow it whole and re-ingest, 'coz....it.....all.....sounds.....the.....same'... he implies with spastic incredulity and a triangular gait. I am cyanide over you. I could shift in here he says, his flat on the brink of collapse, a solitary man. I wish him well as he visits Germany.

Cosmic hangover. Work is work is work. A job is a job afterall. Better keep that ageism at bay, you old bastard. Make sure you just.....you just....look good.

I've put my mp3 player on shuffle and it keeps playing Simply Saucer over and over and over again.

Oh Monday become Tuesday. Cosmic hangovers man, never fun, never fun.

well, clearly nothing much to say today, blogging for the sake of blogging, more digi-guff for posterity, contextualize this Fiona my lovely, put it in its place. Every place has a face. A face to mace.

Mace my face, place the face

Sunday, July 8, 2012

sunday thoughts

Cold world. Black Planet. Arthur. Sumer. Quaker. Live-in. Fundamentals.

Jangle. Briss. Noose. Putty. Mirror.

Sew it shut, oh heir apparent.

Suckle me this, riddler.

Twenty numbers lined up and fornicating.

A lift for my man, a lift for my prescience.

Jewels and rags and oils and greasers, rockers and rollers.

Goal. Jail. Gadfly. Cups. Cupping. Scissoring. Humping.

Dry, even. Full sized human doll. dolly. Doloxene. Manticore. Big timer.

Left behind , grind the rind.

Bent over and broken.

Slick shaft.

Oil oil oil.

Oil it up , Helmut Becker.

Schmultz, Putz, Chutzpah.

Malarchy.

Breast, Copper, Ointment

Ouevre.

Scandalous crescent moon dextrous hydrochrloric

Scent of Chloric, tonic, bionic thud pander lobby hex.

Bio-humping. ride the sybian. Machines do-it-better.

Male g-spot, milk substitution regime 2014.

Don't worry Fred, make up the difference with this nice pus.

Milk machinery and dna replicators, profit margin fly ointment margariner.

Posted by matthew_middleton at 12:22 AM

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slow leak

Yo. Ain't been penning nuttin like i did in the 60s. Ain't been commiting tings to ink like the heady days of yore. Its dat layer of grey overhead. Its that day in day out winter blueness. So nuttin too inspirin to knock outta me. Been watching lots of Scientology videos lately, fascinating. The controversy is hot. Christine's reading an unauthorised bio of Tom Cruise. Got a solo show in the works. Yippe Kay-A (motherfuckers).

When the channels are opened again (usually flood-gates open on receipt of the perfect ethyl alcohol dose) a trust you'll lookee here at La Decennie Brut. It sure is the decade of BRUT.

Friday, August 31, 2012

blog for the sake of a blog for the sake of a blog

Hey hipster! Hey con-man! Hey there, mister corruption, gnawing on a bone, spittin' and hoicking and lapping up the public funds, hey there, hey there, hey there.

Oh discourse, where to now? Meaning? Art? Music? Peace?

Life - day to day life? Trams? Work? Death? Slavery? Paying off a mortgage?

Shariah law coming soon to Melbourne? Yes? No? Who gives? Give-a-shit? Yabba dabba do?

Oh be-jeesus, life is boring. The daily round. The grind, the weft and pucker and putsch ov it all.

Its boring, Jackie, boring, boring boring. But its the only way we gets to pay back the banks.

Flip! The banks own it all! I'm Rothchilds slave - forever amen!

Blog for the sake of a blog. Reading Middleton for the sake of the alchemic high you get off the meter and linguo-acoustic pseudo-incantational effect? The contact high? You baby, you. You. You - you could be oh so close to Middleton if you wanted. Wanna vomit? Go for it! Lately my previous 20 years of being a truly open minded free-thinker have been rudely disregarded with the manifestation of a strange inner drive to ender myself a slave of Saudi's very own Allah, or some sort of gnani renunciate following the absolute monism of Adi Sankaracarya. What gives? God? I was brought up secular to the core! Ive been a drinker and a low-class member of the chemical avant garde. God is (an)alien to me. I find it so....so hard to believe, to believe the stories. Logic would suggest these philosophies are human inventions...human drives, human creations....I guess i just enjoy experimenting with and contemplating other systems of thought, to live for a while 'as if' i was a follower of such and such. Oh, on 'judgement day' a person like me will have the least excuse. Because i studied it all and rejected it all. I will not have the excuse of being born in greenland and not being near a muslim community centre. Woe is me. woe, woe, woe.

Why are you here. Sap on a dong, juicy juicy juice.

Pick a pack of pipers porker billy bob thornton

Sex.

Posted by matthew_middleton at 12:32 AM

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Saturday, September 15, 2012

CRUDE LEVITATING CHURCHES NUMBER ONE JONES LIGHTNING LE QUESNE, subjective reviewage by matty

Well now, just when you thought Melbournites had relaxed a bit and extracted the 10 year old butt-plug a few snooty pricks put you in your short-ass kiwi place. Melbourne , thou art a city of paradox. whelp, this be a review. Snap crackle pop its a rock show. Like the one peaches sings aboot. Peaches. Oh god I love asses. Whatever happened to sex-synth-rock. Anyhoo. Crude played one absolute feltcher of a set the other night at a Burger joint called the B.east. 15 minutes of clanging, piercing hot caker guitar and a small-town ego in defense-mode, the Melbournite audience all professional and glib, sorta slimy and smarmy and holier-than-thou, with that curious late-modern-capitalist brand of violence effervescing just under the skin like a needle fixers putrid abcess thats sorta gone off, a kind of nasty, biological stink. I helped clear the room for the main act, bet they liked that. Well no, I think alot of people were there for the burgers, the show was free, it just sorta just 'happened' to them, like a kind of distraction or a usurpation and once the art gets too, i dunnow, 'real' they leave in droves. But they had just eaten their fuckin burgers so it was time to go anyway wasnt it. But my little 'Crude does rock' fail didn't represent the rest of the piquant putsch ov a night. Coz first up was Christchurch legend Reta 'Lightening' LeQuesne doing the solo guitar/vocalist thing properly. Lequesne was vocalist in Axel Grinders and guitar vocalist in Snort, did a stint in the Axemen , and swamp rocked in the Stepford Five with Celia Man-fucking-Cini and the Billesdon twins...these were skuzz-swamp-nasty rock acts. Her set was a little bit rockabilly, kinda old-world, referencing the colonial blues of the Melbourne/London music patriarchy (you know who they are) ever so subtly, but ultimately hers was a south island of nz sound..

Then a really odd red rectangle guitar is brandished onstage by Number One Jones, ,,,,,stylish drums and bass backing up the rectangle rock machine.....an act perhaps maybe just a little bit inspired by The White Stripes and maybe the Oblivians, a smart dementia, a curdled milk drink, tasmanian devil chatter box nifty-fifty fly-by-nighter quasi quasi. This ain't an art gallery matt, its a freaking burger bar and this is garage rock.

Of course I get up and act like im either a stand up comedian or in an art gallery, but i manage to spew out some caustic renditions of 'All Electric' and 'Drive On', (The Aesthetics were originally supposed to play but our drummer is doing some research in Germany). I then get some sort of crowd heckling or something and ad-lib a song proclaiming that I possess an intellectual capacity that cooly supersedes the collective intelligence of 'everyone in here put together'. And who knows who could've been there. A freaking scientist maybe. Accountant geniuses. People who know things I couldnt even dream of. Its just dangerous to posit such arrogance I guess. But who actually gives a fuck anyway? I mean really. Did the gig even fucking happen? It may not have, this is fucknig Melbourne, too many bands, too many acts, no possibility for real notoriety or fame whatsoever here. Its just a big viscous blur here, no punctuation, no nothing, just a thousand hipster band names that change every fucking weekend. 'The Grizzlies' or 'Forest Family' or fucking 'Sandals' or 'Appalacian' or something. Its a big nothing. Not a chance for anyone to get anywhere here. Can someone name a Melbourne act from the last 10 years thats gone beyond a bit of local notoriety and really made any sort of impact?? I dunnow. Oren Ambarchi maybe. Pimmon? Nick Cave? I guess its a post fame era now. I should get with it. Democracy. True levelling of the field. Free music forever. Fame is so 90s, Matt...

And then it was the band with the biggest posters in town - thee Levitating Churches. Don't deny it hipster,,,,you know who they are...youve all seen the fucking posters. And they hammer out ballzy, snotty, rasping garage-psych-punk-hard-rock and they truly do not give a fuck what you think. They dont care if you like em or hate em. They rock it and should be on tour with Guitar Wolf. An absolute blast of a set, thoroughly enjoyable and laudable.

Eat my ass.

God Im bored.

And so are Sydneys Salafis.

Posted by matthew_middleton at 9:11 AM

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Friday, September 28, 2012

Hot Palms, Bleach Boys, Crude ----thee Sporting Club ...

And the Hot Palms have languished in a season of effervescent creativity down at thee Sporting Club, o'er the road from thee Barkley Square Coles where prices are down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down fucking well down motherfuck. Keep yer nose clean boyo. Anyhoo. Music. Arrive on the scene a little late, a tight-knit crowd sat and absorbed thee delicate dream-drone of the Hot Palms, a select few enjoying a special presentation of recent work, the sports-bar was suddenly an art gallery, a heart warming experience all round in my book. I lamented arriving so late because the sweet din only had 5 minutes left in it and sweetness is something altogether lacking in the Moreland biosphere this week. What a terrible terrible week, with the rape and murder of a local woman down Sydney road on the weekend. Oh misogyny, when will you roll over and die. Re-educate, re-educate. Start it real early. The male condition is a perpetual stain. In my opinion us men are over-rated , overvalued and over-employed in this world. I'm male, don't I know it. I know, I'm attacking my gender here. Perhaps im just sucking up. Oh I don't know. Truth is - and this is undeniable - in the main its men who are the aggressors, the abusers, the war-mongers and the murderers. I digress wildly but I think all of Moreland City is digressing wildly right now and doing alot of collective soul searching. It could've been my wife. It could've been my sister or mother or daughter.

Anyhooo oh reader, keep a look out for the Hot Palms, keep em bookmarked next to your Advaita Vedanta index and yer Craigslist and yer Spacedaily.com..

Next up was The Bleach Boys. Lo and behold we were duped - this act was neither ensemble nor boy-band. The Bleach Boys was one Maya Kjellstrand, a solo sound artist and her work transported me back home to None Gallery or Lines of Flight (which is on as we speak - no longer a Dunedin based event), immersive, ever-so-slightly sci-fi, the sonic strains and drones that you tap into as you oscillate b'tween sleep and thee bill/fee/fine/rent-burdened waking-state(oh sleep! for those few hours, the bills have been payed in full), a wonder to behold. Sound-Art is pure joy in my book. Kjellstrand's performance was a demonstration, live treating and aesthetic tampering with pre-prepared sounds, she journeyed into tactile production-line schtick with manual switching of cassettes, the effect reminiscient of how computers in the 1950s were operated. Maya has a track on the fabulous 'Ladyz in Noyz Australia' album, hosted on bandcamp. Check it oot.

And then Crude appears, an experimental act with a goofy performative bent, I attempt to inject humour and a kind of corny kiwi compere-ship into the line-up, wack the old dick smith mp3 player into the amp and wail over such hits as 'Summer Part One' and 'Grandmother' and 'Hey Hey Commando' . All in all this time the Crude attack works and the small crowd is entertained for a bit. Reviewing your own gig. Its a uroboric feat. Its self-indulgence gone awry. It needs to be done. Grey on grey. Like a rhinestone cowboy. Melbourne Fringe. Oh yeah, i need a freaking haircut. The yoga of objectivity. Nascent nascent nascent. Umbilical. ottos first flat. Pain and class. Meditate. vEDANTA pANCHADASI

Posted by matthew_middleton at 8:55 PM

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Richard

a gaggle of plump christian girls

study psychology 101

like a probiscus my bottle o' wine

is the world phallus

a gaggle of ugly teens

falling fainter and fainter

and fainter and fainter

Sunday, November 4, 2012

day off. koolest kontent.

Hey Swami! Tackle me tackle! Schlurp-it-up, start me up ill never stop! Somebody shut me up! Bullet for brains! Intercourse and web-ventures!

So sell this out Proctor and Gamble, i lined up, waited my turn and was told NO, NO, its not possible, meeester.

Your JUST. TOO. UGLY.

And, by the way Pastor, i think your a little bit on the fat side, don't you?

I mean, come on! Look at those FOLDS. How they undulate and oscillate, like a putrid sine wave. Like last years french toast. I mean, think hard. Think hard and fry up something a little carbohydrate free for the sake of the holy temple ov Jerusalem. Food is fattening, food is fat. Fatten up, goddamn you! Your JUST. TOO. THIN!

Hes such a DICK. what a dick . Such a dick. A male idiot. A silly man. Someone who acts according to what his genitalia and genetic drive suggests. Melbourne, the city of compressed air and self-conciousness compressed and pressed inward like a thousand livers in a vat of finest diverted Fentanyl, we target youth markets with our fine fine tobaccy leaves. Handle that jandal. You just dont feel so politically motivated in this land of milk and honey because we gets to work and EARN. But when i lived in the NewZealand, goodness gracious i was politically motivated. Thats what a shit wage will do to ya. Thats what not being actually able to find a fucking job any fucking where will do to ya. Makes ya all political and such. Anyhoo.My fucking dick. Well, lets talk about it. Its, well, its , hell. Nah. Hold up hold up. Im in a public realm here arent I meeeester NSA google CIA fucker mother fuck.

How bout the philthy rich corrupt fuckers who 'run this joint'. They can HUSH ANYTHING UP. They can buy their way out of any tight corner. Theyuve got judges, lawyers, politicians, corporates, military and organized crime in their pocket. And theys got the power. So next time your taken to court for a TRAM FINE, just think of the outrageous crimes getting swept under the carpet day in day out by those we are supposed to 'look up to'.

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Upper Canon is what it is , a new vein way channeling ardent do what thou wilters, do it yourselfers and makeshift anarchistists , the grate and itch of a godless pig-nose is your personal saviour this Christmas. 'Twas the Christmas party, the fruits of our year.

First up was Spermaids, The power of power-power, power punches and powered powerage, flexi-discus power spurt. Like the extreme performances of azsacra zarathustra? Nope. Not quite.

Powerful songs, performed with punch-drunk intensity , slightly disproportionate to the audience of 3. Slag-strutting and best-of-british, ever so candid our over-titty sells lightening by the pound, oh son ov Pritthi.

....And from the nothing came something, a freshly schizo-affective Middleton, melting in the throes of delusion, new iPad all unresponsive and painfully quiet, a pin couldve dropped, and finest ebony mated wif reed'n'ebonite rubber to eek out summer favourites such as 'we three kings (of orient are) , more art-gallery than pub, which was ironic, considering its now de riguer to rock out down th' gallery, lamentfully shackled (as opposed to 'free') jazz piped out blat at a time, self-conscious and prissy, the curdled piping of the inadequate soul, a bad husband alone, naked, naked, naked. Motivations all pickled in nerve-deadening medicines, just you wait world, one day, the boy awakens, and the phrenetic energies come back, like a phoenix, the 40 something does late- 20s, coking, coking, michael hutchence and mchael jaeger, ebony and ivory, photosmart eerie, loch ness lobster, mobster mobster, not I not I, guru guru.

After which came the young souls WEIGHT (fantastic band name what), a nasty 3 piece act, gen Y fishing up the blistering brat that is screamo (life is hell !!!!!!!!!! waaaa! Mum wont give me the 50 bucks i need for me weed YOU BITCH!!!) and thankfully shitting all over it with the grown up-ness that is depressive-black metal, then growing up some more with the independent pull-yerself-up-by-the-bootstraps-leave-the-fuckin'-nest-and-get-a-lifeness that is noise-rock, and carving out one hell of a set. Thats some heavy shit from Weight, keep an ear oot for these peoples.

After witch came the hardest working band in Melbourne MAD NANNA. Christine said they sounded a little like Yo la Tengo? Or was it Melbournes answer to the Puddle? Not quite. Hard work and hard net-work and plentiful performance = best band in melbourne. Michaels chord'n'strum is the amrita of Mad Nanna, the others embellish the odd-ball songster with poingnant finesse. Patrick O'Brien is thee Lee to Michaels Thurston, juxtaposition par-excellence. The noiser. Ian Wadley is the hypnotherapist. And they have a fantastic keyboardist, synthetic bass-tones underpinning the din. The intellectuals choice this summer. Art music.

..After witch came the iconoclastic institution The Satanic Rockers, celebrating the release of their new Eviction 6.99" The absolute peak of the night, the Rockers the riff-strewn platform for the realist poetics of Lynton Denovan. With his lyric on display Denovan recites without the slightest trace of Americana, his verses serve as curses - he sees through you, he is prophet - shining a purple haze on street life, work life - he exposes us as ultimately weak, hypocrits, liers all. The leveller aeternal. Cross him - you'll get a song. A five piece, nasty psych-punk riffs vented through battery operated nose-goblins, psychedelic punk , obscurer the obscure, ready to go-go, madd nanna and the rockers are seasoned tour-mates - world tour = next. Fun with a sinister lining. writing and speaking and eating. Driving cars and gambling. Hitting the spot.

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aturday, December 22, 2012

2012 in summa

Posted from an 'iPad mini'.

2012, you were an portion of time. A span of physical change and retrogradation.Be ye hard determinist or be ye an advocate of radical free will, time passed, and will continue to pass, whether linear or cyclical in its procession. And we aged. And the Crude mechanism clattered and sputtered , 2012 saw the release of 'Crude Australian' vols 2 and 3. Crude performed a few times, low-key affairs all. Working two jobs as a casual staffer stuffed 2012 with 'real world' tasks, suffocating certain creative drives. Today as I recline in the shade, suckling midori and lemonade , unpaid but still getting laid, I look back and take stock, these are post-industry days, a solid policy and philosophy regarding performance and cultural participation is in dire need for the Cruder, 2013 requires sense and sensibility, definition, meaning. The manifesto will be published here.

When one is paid handsomely for performing non aesthetic tasks you start to question your motives.

Crude Australian volume two is a jewel, an offering. Crude Australian volume 3 was a piece of coal, a formal complaint. Hope to record new lazy lofi pieces over Christmas and new year.

2012 was a year that I took to youtube, using windows movie maker to whip up simple lil music videos for selected crude tracks past and present. The result is the fairly weighty 'Great Crude Youtube Reference Library', an ever growing archive sitting on the net like an undiscovered resovoir of fossil fuels, stealthy, just sitting, meditating like the great lord shiv, the data available to all, just find it, find it. Buried treasure. Esoterica. Some of it sonic turdage, some of it gold.

Heat, political leverage, lobby groups, Christmas party, our post-modern value system, blandishments and beauracracy, biggles and tintin, brains and tripe, blood pudding, oh aether eternal, sun and sky and suns afar, bleeding brilliant , line up sonny, it's a special day. We made it. We arise, this morn, 2 days further towards this sign of the water bearer, the dualistic paternalism soon to fall away like a spider unsheathing itself, new age,

Saturday, January 5, 2013

code name toilet quickie

A new code name for 'Crude gigs' is Matt Middleton (crude,the aesthetics) , cause we is older and frailer/bolder and uglier , we make sumptuous liberally doled out apologies to the to the righteous rightest Aussie family as I walk straight into 'em on the street, not one animated corpse ov their number was a-gonna move for my bedraggled leftist family, walking our groceries home like derelicts, hey Justin and Julie from the corrupt Victoria police kick-backer brigade, this schizoid cow-cocky's real sorry that you didn't move aside like dem normal folks so that i had to walk into you and yours, i guess you showed me who's boss round these parts right then and there. A raft of sorries from the sorry kiwi. Angry young men with pocket money blown on spray paint bomb spectacular and weeds as tall as trees line the Moreland streets and brickwork, and the value plummets, house prices are down,down,down and who profits? Who wins? Always trace it - in any given situation, try and check it - who stands to gain? The freemasons of Melbourne? The Melbourne mafia? The old families? The agencies? The sex industry? The publicans? The Harley Davidson corporation? The Lebanese? The Muslim Brotherhood? The Theosophical Society? The Northcote paedofile set? The pickers and packers ? The League of extraordinary Genlemen? The cheese importers fraternity?

Heat-delerium be our muse this eve, dear reader. Whistle-wet socket-lickin' bone-dusted and covered in raw-organic buckwheat, a thousand milligrams of stelazine may be on the cards. Its an unhealthy world-view, that of the mother-fucker. Whooa! Smells like there's enough lead in the step-sons underarm spray to bring Caligula back from the dead and to orgy once more!. We gotta keep our products preservable. Dilettante. Oh the boy, hes all caught up in the world of tagging and bombing, that grey area where your not quite 18, you are practically adult but still just a child, like the Alice Cooper song attests, waiting for the job, copious school holidays, no money, no viable social options outside the mainstream, still a child but absolutely certain you've got everything worked out, with the exception of your fucking identity.

One day he may appreciate how lucky he was to be raised by Crude. Yeah right.

Anyhoo. Gugs! I am playing JANUARY 14TH at the NRTHCOTE SOCIAL CLUB, and JANUARY 28 at GASOMETER. more deets soon!!!!

Blackened in the end. Rightist cyclist pack spouts special hate speech unto thee. Cream of the crop. The Caitanya of lord Krsna. And lashings of Prema. Don't tell me ole' Shiva is a demi-god meeester ISKCON. A bit of Rupa Goswami give you perspective though. The Vaisnav/ Shaivite dialectic goes on and on. I believe theres a hybrid god though - Harihara.

Oh Brahman, thou art Atma!

Posted by matthew_middleton at 12:34 AM

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Saturday, January 12, 2013

oh screw them

Melbourne, home of the fibrous, tannin stained nightmares we call guts. It takes guts to stand up for yourself and be counted. Its a weak-kneed future - many-a-penis tried and failed, but the unionist socialist within shall prevail. Walk hard, walk into em and walk through 'em, oh Keith - dock-worker extrordinaire, corrupt arse-hole licker and perenium stroker, our urethral eclipse like a lolly-drop lap-dog pony ride unto our glorious space-place.

Hold! Halt - siren flares, Middleton is blogging again, a non-hero, a nobody, a blight. Oh Melbourne, city of fakers, head-shakers, barbeque quakers and Lutheran collaborators. Bismillah! Georgian cold-callers and the void - that special void that sits between our ears, our green-gray sewerage, nastier than an angry protozoan.

Needles - pointy things, they break the skin even. Most folk shudder. Some dribble unctuous and pre-pubescent. Its a special culture of nothingness, life like a page loading up on old-school resource strained ADSL. Ignore warning, go ahead. Do do do. Flannel shirted and a fanny-like beard is our twenty-something

competitor, hasn't quite had it hard enough, hasnt quite had the living shit beaten out of him by his dad, hasnt quite suckled enough nipple. The chord he strums is dead. It is tawdry precice, is our future cuppa.

Black. Black, the real-deal.

So toot on, my son. We be familial and it is what makes us great. Somethings not quite right in the head of our writer but at the end of the day neither you nor eye give a fuck. Does it impress on your unconcious? Doubtfull. Its an angelic orgy of sound-fire. The final stand off between Muslim and christian. The final stand off between Muslim and all non-Muslims. The final battle. Hindu, Jain, Zoroastrian, Druze, oh loyalist loyalist royalist make me make you make me make you gurgle. Behead them all!

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Drug Briton Bali death

Drugs. Outrage. Don't mind the demand, don't mind the fact that the CIA is one of the worlds great drug gangs, don't mind the fact that there'll be mules forever amen as long as the misery of inequality and late modern capitalism wields its faecal flash. These executions are cosmetic at best, the worlds judiciary is corrupted by drug gangs and a power mad sociopathy and a worldwide network of child raping billionaires. The drug mules are merely desperadoes acting on the demands of our capitalist society, don't mind life is increasingly difficult and expensive, don't mind the banking cartels raping whole nations, lets throw the book at this evil Briton. Who hasnt snorted coke?

Monday, February 4, 2013

Is it decline or is it divine?

Motivation and reward. Siltbreeze manager says Australias where its at. Theres a core of new wierd noise psych folk bands here , most of em work at an organic food factory called Lovin Earth, all of em active or is that 'activated?, energetic, touring Stateside like motherfuckers and commiting their un-rawk to vinyl on a daily basis. Port Chalmers be gone. The US college world now love Australia, maybe the kiwis were just too ....too ....too fricken kiwi.

But lets get back on point.Me .Big Matty. Micro Matt. Diddleton. Middldong. Shitsy. Matty.

Lets talk about decline. Lets talk about career lulls and beached whales. Lets talk about rust, mould and dust. Lets talk about full-time yakka. The insidious adumbration of work-waft and food crusted leggins are my finest hour. Thats yakka kiddo, and so long as the yakka is yakka i can't quite pull off an akka dakka. But i can be a bit of a wakka. Sooo, lightening up and holding back on meting out vigilante justice lets talk Turkey!

Its time to stop trying to be 20. The reservoir of mercurial magic and bucks fizz is at low tide.. Time to shift modes, to enter the subtler streams, to mellow out maaaan. Retain the acid of youth using different weapons. Don't even attempt energy blasts. An on stage cathartic spat at 38 will just look sad (it did at 20 too, but thats beside the point).

Darling, oh darling. Alan Vega is such a cool dude. There's a simplicity to him, a no nonsense approach to life and art. When watching his interviews we see a placid creature with thousands of cool stories of aesthetic struggle and shoestring budgets. Martin rev is equally cool headed and politically informed, these guys have been to hell and back for their stripped down dronage, and they are well deserving of the accolades of a fresh new generation of Suicide fans.

Platform 2 . 7.22 am. Just off to work. So much work, so little time to make art. The aesthetics will rise again, but totally reformed, totally different in its sonic approach. When , I'm not sure. The 'final demand' crude sessions are a pained platter of time stretched appropriated chunks, lazy clarinet,

childish vocalisations and tremolo pocked Judas Priest riffage. Another nasty , insane trawl , another nauseous trudge , darkened ambient. Final Demand is a direct reference to those tram fine notices often found coffee stained and ant eaten on the floor, threats of court imminent, the demand is final asshole, pay your dues now or well have to charge you for the court costs too buddy.

Saturday, February 16, 2013

absolute usurpation

..of any and all forms of cultural rebellion. Keep it in the family. Mentally murdered by moneyed interests worldwide forever. Counter culture - 20th century stuff, the beats, hippies , punks, ,,,nothing's left. Have you seen this? You heard of this? The youth are hunkered down in funny money/debt, decimated and rendered insipid by fragmentated data and the lazy humid smug-shroud that is ez access instant digital know-ledge , boxed up, behold the templatization of new creative out-put. The end of the 20th century seemed momentous, full of momentum, the 21st century is the realization of the gruelling ugly weight of the rest of the century. A dirty century, dirtier than the last ? Corrupt as all hell. Filthy. The century of the first individual trillionaire. unless we already have one?, dosen't the Rothschild fortune stretch into the trillions? Behold now - the absolute immolation of the poor. This is the century in which drug gangs will wield power and resources equivalent to that of entire nations. All nefarious intent willl be consolidated. Hell on earth : genetic, chemical, sub-atomic , has already been acheived. Merry Christmas 2013!

Keep it hipster. Each node an individual receptacle, a paddy-cake. Ant rid. Nickers. Tram venue. Lockjawed and sexual. Nag-gag. Here and Now I slice Ekke-ekha-eck-eckehard tolle in half and serve him up like a banana split. Saty with the sense of 'I'. Hate that blog. eat out a blogger. Scoop 'em out. Carrion and dongle. Pokey puck swathes. All tomorrows Parties 2013. what is music? consolidation and trade fairs. The new playing field - release parties and compilations. Theme nights and curators. Festivals and catering cartels.

You are that substratum eternal - thee the.

Tangled all up

Anty.

Parser and Jowel.

Bringer.

Vaginal project

Bag and bilge.

Sprout a skag

Left lefter.

New album song by song:

Saturday, March 2, 2013

Endtimes

Hey melbourne bitches!

This smarmey putrid ego is desperate for 'attention'. Read on or drive off on yer fucken BMX. Too many fat rockabilly twots for this dickhead to write off. 'You got your wish dickhead - now your stuck with it'. Pamela was dressed up for the festival, she spotted the mop-top and cursed it, all penis and plenty, all porno and pariah. Thanks Pamela, thats the soul-suck jugger-twatage any coprophiliac needs to re-gauge his dialysis deus-ex-machina. This city is dead, and i am even deader. Its a spattered, dislocated corpse, without any form of leader-shit. Its a mangled, deformed, entwotted swarming turd, dirty to the core, like a 1973 New York City but with wi-fi connectivity. We hail the fascistic leader-shit.

I could continue to hack on. But, the will is weak. Files and files and files of the s(n)uff, our ugly ugly ugly world. Its a new sensation .

So, its time to divorce music.

This ego is BEAT.

behold....i worship the original beats. I pucker up and ask for remittance...i mean admittance.

Death it.

Oh the admin behind it all.

Register register register all and askance. Bouffant and black-listed. An erection. A muslim. A buddhist. A Greek. Thee extremely rich.

How the great world cities pilfer the limbs.

Nothing left.

Posted by matthew_middlet

Sunday, March 3, 2013

Gg

GG ALLIN.

Angle. App. Raytheon. Bizmark. Carthage. New Moon. Militant. Marx. Spatter. Carrion. Mitre Ten. Master. Pliable. Tweedle-dum. Verdant.

Bliss bliss bliss.

Medical Mafioso.

Pharmaceutical Grade.

Hipsters, bearded one, bearded all.

Death-fiddle. 7 years of catholic shameage.

The right. Right on, righty. BIG business! Little government. But BIG untrammled dionysian gorged yoghurt-like cunni-kapital!!!!!!!!!

Friday, March 22, 2013

Libri

Ho ho ho!

Its christmas time!! Well, easter. Its all the freaking same. its all jesus. The Christ.

Next phase ---first it was the natural contours of Taoism, then the ever prostrate pure path ov Islam, then the selfward adventures ov Vedantism....next...Christian Mysticism ??

Its the weekend and i can do the creative things i used to to all week!

Heres another cruddy video:

Okay. Tainted painted and shingle dipped, where were you?? Vapour trails and hogs. Thats our primer. So tell that . Eat bug, Doncaster. Smack it. This is rock music, dongle. So its to the Coburg library i waddle.

Playing sombre and small minded clarinet strains.for the lord Rudra. Rudraksha beaded and blessed and bonged outta my mind. Hip-hop-holiday. christian mysticism and union fissures. Tangled up in the 21st century.

try five. Fifth jerk. A years worth. Blissed biscuits. Special node, special jurist.

Posted by matthew_middlet

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

constant mongrel, mad nanna, crude ---grace darling...reeview

North Korea !!!. Doo uu love me (do you luv me?).You know, the man in the middle with the glasses, Richart Alpert. Ive had LSD over 50 billion times, it did nothing to me. Is that an admission of guilt , Meister Eckhart? Maybe not, but thats internal discourse innit oh my pasty plymouth brethren. Nonsense. Nonsense. Tithe, tithe , tithe. Model on, model on, oh pissant.

Was a lil' ho-down in a bunker. The bunker. The Grace Darling. A Scotts plot. The Kiwi Korner. Brothers Grimm. Free enterprise market systems. spring loaded keys for a (Buckminster) fuller future. Nasty.

First up in this whiskey bar was CRUDE, the middleton unit. Cradling a new baby no less ----a gorgeous lil Alto Saxophone, 'La Fleur' by Boosey and Hawkes. So I whipped out old barnestormers from ye olde Flying Nun /early Aesthetics days --you know, 'condemned', 'better dead than red', 'sumerian art therapy' et al. A glorious din coaxed out of the easily manipulated 'public announcement' system. The other seemed to like it. Pleased-with-own-performance. People seemed to buy it. A sliver of entertainment in a small southern package, I guess. Slanted, enchanted. Derisive. Pogrom. Same ol' same ol', its a voice. You're the voice. (Try and understand it).

Then was Mad Nanna, the filibuster, the sonorous filament, strings and sinews, the Jandek crowd, meandering through chordless noiseless jangle lines, ever swelling, a porous mass, miscreant sexy, the notations of an kinky man, tallowed and fatted, offered up to a horn-rimmed cultural executive, all is all. North Korea!!! The leader is young and vicious. The Nannas rhythm was deft and gingerly, strapped down e'er so slightly, sexual, steaming. Band band band.

Cheers and fat globs of house wine. Then - the Constant Mongrel, darkened fuzz hunk-rock, with an acidic art-rock propulsion-mechanism, throbbers, liners, divers, boggers, eruptions, nocturnal emissions, bleeding and bleatings. With defined feed and livid counterpunches,Constant Mongrel are rulers, as is Mad Nanna, as is as is and the the that than our out hour.

No need for meaning anymore, Charles, forgiveness is art and art is forgiveness, bleed me beat me now, before I change my mind, nevermore a coherent poke from he or she because coherence and linear narrative is a thing of your past. Theres a storm brewing, and it ain't in Melbourne. Its Pyongyang. Behind the veneer, those soldiers look hungry and tired. They look deadened - pained. Hungry.

Saturday, May 18, 2013

Abu Gravy

Other government agency

She was in love

She new when the line was drawn

And she new when to disappear

Nil by mouth

Mercy me. Oh wonderful world. All praise is due to the neo-liberal markets! Abu Ghraib! Oh lovely lovely. Good luck Ed, leak us some more before the shit hits the fan!

Posted by matthew_middleton at 3:43 AM

Saturday, July 13, 2013

Australia Australia

Hey fuckers

Moonee ponds mid July 2013

Did you miss me?

Back again. Full-time yakka has suckered the magic away from the cruder, when the 'free time' comes around we don't wanna wail and record the wailing - not even for posterity , not even for the sake of re animating my freaking ghost some day in the future, no ...we wanna put our feet up, wrap up warm, pipe is fetched, slippers slipped on, and the newspaper is a finger-friendly app. Mine is an aging frame. Excuses, excuses. Oh first world luxury. Abu fucking Ghraib . So take stock people, load up on the ' the great crude youtube reference library' and load down the free crude tunes over at the archive.org, crude.bandcamp.com, the pleasing heaven-ward odours of roasting calf-fats at last.fm and the miscellany unearthed with a google or two. I'll say it now - the works are rather clever, the sounds and beats are futuristic, the melodies (where applicable) are deft yet oddball - and it is as if Crude doesn't exist. But there I am. Online, proton-packed laser-light carved into granite belts, an eternal covenant with G--gle, the NSA's playlist, the gnostic index, the non-event. Cannot wait to hear crude via g--gl glass.

Breaker-breaker. Life in the Victorian workforce has been an exciting one. I work in the food production industry now, and I am an enthusiastic employee, I do what I am told within reason, I am reliable - to a degree, and I learn new tasks to the best of my ability. Ours is a niche market. There has been unrest on the floor over some issues which has made for tense times. Hippy blase love-it-all -capitalism versus crusty anarchist Utopianism versus nepalese filial piety versus the new kiwi wierd. Would someone please think of the customers,,I mean...the children!!! But I say no more here, I have

contractual obligations to uphold , and as I am a trustworthy individual I uphold them. My fingers

just might find themselves going through a bagging machine.

The metaphysics of ancient Indian speculation still grips my imagination. The monistic idealism of the Upansihads is, for me, an extremely important study, a slow burning passion. Shaivism in all it's forms is another fascination of mine, as is the life and teachings of sri Ramana Maharshi - perhaps modern Indias most authentic and heavenly sage. The very act of digesting what these thinkers

express distills the mind , it is purified of reactionary dross, who indeed is the thinker? What is thought and who is it that perceives thought ? Atman = brahman. To realise this equation is to step outside of time and space.To download a commentary by Sankara then render the text into an audio book and listen to it while I pack superfood bars keeps me sane - it keeps me vital and quietly hopeful that moksha will be unveiled to me before I leave this body. I hope to save a portion of my wage and travel to India at

some point over the next few years, to trod upon the same soil that raised such penetrating minds as ramana maharshi, sankaracarya and the countless other genius Siddhis, sadhus, Jivan-mukhtas, yogis, jnanis, swamis and sages I have read about. Gotta watch out for the scams.

So, it's a quietist and receptive state I find myself in these days. Gone is the urgent need to express,

to put out, to react, to interpret, to purge, to be a fucking little rock star cunt. Raw power and 'passion' is now rerouted into a meditative search for ultimate reality. Goodbye art...at least for now.

Swallowed whole by ones own navel. Or is it another organic orifice. Either way, my invisibility continues. And none of what I write amounts to anything. No one gives a fuck. Well, the NSA do I suppose....hi guys! How's your afternoon going...pouring over screeds of mundane data...mines boring..melbourne is freaking cold these days. Total world knowledge, absolute exposure of all

speech, communication, dream life, a wireless modem is embedded into each turd . Enjoy the stools guys..... they don't require a fucking password. Yet.

World geopolitics is a topic I've been trying to avoid. I mean, what can I do about it? Nothing. It's out of my hands. Think Epictetus' Enchriridion. Be that as it may, my observations blame the CIA for

fomenting discord and triggering sectarian battles all over the Middle East. That's about it. They want destabilisation and thanks to passionate belief and tribal zeal theys got it. As we gaze on, soundly fellated in our western living rooms, our bank accounts act as a conduit for the most greivous digital banking fraud. We are but a siphoning mechanism, a filter, a digital laundry. I've said it all before and ill say it again...yawn ...to me the mission of capitalism is to stealthily coax capital out of public coffers and privatise it. They're doing a great job, unchecked, unregulated, unalloyed. We all know the math....1% own it all. To turn away from world events and truths of this sort of gravity and live a simple day to day existence only caring about ones own little world is tempting. A kind of radical subjectivity - to create ones own meaning and value. Why not - we are slaves of the banking mafias. Turn away and build ones own inner empire. Let banking be what it is, a stockpile of dead numbers. Meaningless. Prurient. Vile. Dead. Blood-spattered. Miscarried. The fuel for torture, rape, butchery and atrocity. Your money.

"The market economy produces a systematically false consciousness: an ideology. Global exchange for profit, and more especially the exchange of money-which is itself the medium of exchange-for profit, is the root cause and prime example of today's ideological errors. While market exchange is obviously present in and necessary to any civilised society, our postmodern society is historically unique in elevating the mercantile principle to a position of complete dominance over the economy and, I argue, over every area of public and private experience. While it attains this degree of power, the market ceases to fulfil its necessary but subordinate function as a means toward the end of civilized life. It becomes, rather, an end in itself, and in consequence it takes on the aspect of tyrannous, destructive force, whose impact is felt within each of our minds as well as in our material lives. The market becomes an ideology. In the 1990's it seemed to many that to oppose the market was to oppose life itself. The recent collapse of socialism, which had been the only significant anti-capitalist movement for over a century, appeared to inaugurate a permanent reign of trade and usury. Francis Fukuyama's influential The End of History (1992) made a convincing case that market ideology had finally exterminated any viable alternative, and that it therefore constituted the 'end point of mankinds ideological evolution' " David Hawkes - Ideology (2003)

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Myki

Got a tram fine or two? You're scum. Utter scum. Of course, the real criminals are those who operate while entrenched in high office, sucking your very fiscal soul away.......they're the top. They're the chaps who get away with it, big scale. The big boys, the big bad wolves. Pillars of society. Getting away with it day in..day out...perfectly invisible and guarded. According to media spin of late plebs like me are compelled to feel bad about myself coz I gots an outstanding fine for not presenting the ticket officer a valid Myki card. The big guys plunder on and Australian culture just adores them...They love their big time crooks, their gangsters, their libertarian entrepreneurs, their media magnates, their control freaks.. 'Underbelly' is a glorious swag of Aussie bad..most of 'em psychopathic opportunists and charismatic thugs. But we love their gall, their finesse, their networking skills, their problem solving abilities. Their maverick power. Their enforcement protocols. The genetic predisposition for chaos. Nurturing new markets. New products. Old products. New girls. Stopping those boats. Turning 'em back. Australia political economy turns rightward this September. A conservative triad at last - New Zealand, Australia and England. Imperial. Blue-blooded and breaking skulls.

A bent city is Melbourne. But us satanic tram fare evaders are supposed to feel like filth. Guilty of being a little poorly organised . Guilty of not being fucking rich. A double standard. But that's just the way it is and shall forever be. Some brilliant hacker should hack the Myki system man, bring it down.

Owe a little bit of money to a utility company? They'll hunt you down to the ends of the earth to get their 150 dollars. Owe 2 million? Ach, forget it, what can we do for you?

So. Absolutely. Bored.

Saturday, August 31, 2013

a band called life, crude, encounter group..empress august 3

Welcome to the new. The race track, the lifer. Its a bland and recalcitrant praecox, filial and bilial, mordant to the core. In laymans terms we call it privacy.

Indebted as I am to Her Majesties prurient labial divide I still rake up the gumption to rake-in free- trade lilliput dollar. Cumming-on-hair net-in-manilla-folder, I accelerate photons via Nokia's pre- millenial wack-sack.

So munitions-r-us is the role-call aeternal because we walk on and left and right and whip up a soporific syrupy lie-bake. In laymans terms I throw a pie in the microwave, charging up those water molecules, laser laser trade-off cost-benefit teenager teenager. So isnt it time to talk sense? Is the cryptic style overdone? Please, feel free to comment below, oh reader. Tell me to stop with the metaphor and thrash realist, document it all like a journalist. Write it like they read it, plumb-line and the balance, like a finite arc, a masonic brick-layer.

Teenage creativity.

Ah the solace of the net cafe.

What ho! A Crude performance no less, first in a good while. Gradually refining the improv craft, pre-recorded rhythm, ad-lib theatre-sporting o'er top. Crude style : a base spat'n'rhyme , edgy verse, hooliganesque chorus. Tic expletive and holler. I performed first, little vignettes referencing issues ontological. Marvellous fun with a pitch shifter, voice-play, that creepy low pitch utilized by media to conceal a criminals identity, dialogue gleaned from Alien as the pedal emulates that priceless phaser effect Ash sputters forth post-decapitation. Patrick o'Brien of Mad Nanna fame arrives just as i put the set to bed and he requests an encore. Pat, a stalwart of the Melbourne avant garde music scene, is a man i respect, and I drone on. Audience engorges and imbibes. I disgorge and break windy.

Then it's Encounter Group, the new group reconstituted from the remains of Lynton Denovans Satanic Rockers . Encounter Group is the brilliant continuation of Denovans magico-poetic career, a juggernaut you can pack into a matchbox, a easy to assemble unit brandishing the best in ultra portable equipment, pig nose amps , flange units and electric drum pads . What a din! Nasty buzz-fuzz metal riff tinker tanker backed up by Drummer Jeremy's Courbrough's deft electronical drum-drum, the drum provides a 'back-beat' which tends to centralize and propel the music as in a march or quickstep dance.. Kick / snare// kick /snare, drum 'kits' are the legacy of marching bands . The drummer keeps time and acts as a conducting mechanism. Lyntons vocal delivery is a joy to behold - listen close , each sentence is a clue. Stories are laid bare, people, places, wars, front-lines, psychedelic travelogues, everyday hypocrisies. At least, that's what I think they refer to. I am probably wrong. Guess ill see him at work on Monday. Encounter Group are one of the greats, amongst the throngs of kiwi artisans flooding into the city ov Melbourne, the great diaspora, we pay our share of tax to Canberra but too bloody bad if you need to draw down a little government welfare in times of redundancy...kiwis are notoriously hard workers, we do you guys a sterling service, but on the off chance we're in trouble, you can fuck off back to fuck-a-tane mate. New Zealanders are the only country who can't get centrelink assistance apparently. And don't get me started on that fucking leechlike system called Myki. Corrupt nepotistic meth slinging Freemason rape-a-holic racist sexist baby booming hypocrit slave trading inside trading bilderberging banker family worshipping right wing scapegoating ideologues mate.

Then it's the main act....A Band Called Life, on a microtour promoting their new 7" release on Alberts Basement. Avant Garde is what I'd call it. Drowning in words and one track tape chatter with keyboard warble and one half of the duo actually skyping in his performance...these be troubleshooters. Get em a job Google. I wasn't sure if their performance was wholly or partially improvised. And those words! Check out the lyric sheet that comes with the beautiful 7" . Sardonic, but there's a faint gentleness there, a warmth. A tepid warmth but. Go get ye the disc!!!

Saturday, August 31, 2013

Reflective paragraph

...and so I write for the sake of writing for the sake of writing keeping the spirit vital . World maelstrom as per bloody usual. Looking back over this blog project I realize it's nearly five years old. It all started back it 2008 with this post , an attempt to encapsulate the 'news section' of the old crude.co.nz site. And from there it grew, 78 posts in 2008, then in 2009 I revamped the operation calling the blog 'the crude decade'. When 2010 came along I decided to stay put for 10 years and blog on until 2019 at la decennie brut , which of course is French for 'the crude decade'. Before decades end I hope to self publish the journal in physical form, a little softcover edition. Ill read it, I know that much. Over and over again. In all psychic states, trying to coax out meaning.

Narrative - the story. Is there a story embedded within these digital pages? That's the readers prerogative. Dig in and weave one together if ye wish. Or just take the crude news byte by byte.

Trying. Very. Hard.

\

Saturday, August 31, 2013

A

Read this blog for reasons aesthetic. Ostensibly aesthetic, mind. Feel the rhythm, the pulse. Stop. Intercourse is out. Lionel is in. Seven distant moons. Let's attempt to break the bond. Suffer loudly. On stage. Eater, eating. Like corn. Seven. Distant. Moons. Value.

Everything works out. Money flows into my account, in $10,000 increments, daily. Look, look up! It's a ufo! The ufo is dumping something...wait....wait...its cash! Large wads of cash! They finally got the companies to pay their tax bill! The wads rain down on the surface and it stinks, bitter traces of speed , smoked through, pig fats, lipstick.

.....I Imagine it's my last day. I try it on for size here and there, delighting in a sense of utter freedom.Tomorrow you leave 'dis mortal coil. Consider what one is leaving behind. Firstly, money.

Money aint required on the other side, presumably. Think on it now....no need to scramble together the funds to eek through your weeks, keeping the dogs at bay. No debt ..no...that bill can wait. It can wait....forever.. Hand over your debt to whoever is closest and let them handle it. We leave the clutter and bother, the insecurity and liquidity behind. On that last day, oh the relief. A lifting of the spirit.

Its adieu! to the media, in its entirety. Never again will one spend time feeding on toxic information. Every news item you watch is your last. You trust the world is in good hands. It isn't, and you know it. Finally, one truly, truly knows there is nothing they can do about it. You notice how the world will carry on without you, wholly unruffled by your presence or lack thereof. Would one feel sadness? I guess that depends on how many loved ones you are leaving behind. A sadness and concern for their future, for their safety. Again, you cannot do anything about it. Perhaps the faithless would now entertain a sort of prayer unto humanity, I trust you will live on, my dears, and prosper as best you can. I have faith you will. Perhaps death is the ultimate act of selfishness.

You are leaving behind the material, and all the universal laws that govern it. This includes the action of time. On ones last day, knowing it is imminent, if ones faculties are about one, perhaps one could finally ponder the temporal and while doing so rise above its bounds, because the void is so close.

What becomes of ones memories? They vapourize. Ones ability to recollect them dies off as vital energy levels deplete. Oh the bliss. The memories dart across ones field of consciousness and disappear. Bliss!....

September 6, 2013

Tax , Eastlink and Crude

Yeah. Another Crude installation in Melbourne town, a retrospective slog kick starting with yes....yet again, 'summer part one' , a buoyant sizzle of a guitar tone, two lines of basic harmonisation-cum-twiddly-dee. Crude navigates into granular sound territory and wraps up with the rub-a-dub hydraulica that is 'hey hey commando' Standard cruddy slap'n' suckle, but the play act is refining itself, and a few Melbournites are starting to get it. The stirrings of an apostleship. Perhaps.

Here I was at Bar Open, first act of the evening, playing alongside the guitar heavy Eastlink and Tax.

Bar Open is one of this towns better venues. Better bitter blasting weather sods southward for draughtsman and gas. So piss on my Friday, because it is now the freaking weaking. Beeeyitch!

Absolute-fucking-lutley. Go right Australia! Do it for your Dad. You stupid, stupid logs of shit. Quad. Quad. Quad. Quad.

Hey there, Georgie girl. What. The. Fuck. Is. Up. Necks up was the serious fuckers we call Eastlink.

Soap. Think hard guitar , reverberant an' brooding, lead by a nasty drumming vocalist. Nicest guy I know. Someone actually carrying that torch. When we say 'the nineties' it aint a little poke in the ribs, it's a flabby conduit . A complement. Preston festers under right leaning business slushy.These band really rule it. And so, dear martyrs , does Tax. Here's tax in 2011. And here's Tax now on Soundcloud

Think Unsane meets Crass? Head of David? Early Bruce Russell? Silverfish? ( Post script....I must confess ,,,I was dragged off before I hear Tax .Shameful stuff... Not even one song. Love and marriage, an institute you cant disparage. So I listen up to their recordings before doctoring a review. I made the mistake of calling Justin Fuller the bass player, a mistake that was made clear to me at work on Monday. ) Justin Fuller nails guitar dag dam slammer slammer. Tax fax my unctuous head back home. Cut to the chase, this is what no abuso-muso dare allude to no mo' - they don't wan' volume, they don't wan' distortion, no no, we must remain chaste, plain, pliant, and subservient to the bitching professional residents who've all bought a piece of the arty 'edgy' inner city. 'We want the 'culture' but only neatly packed into a comfortable time slotty..only on our snivelling corporate/coprophiliac terms...just like always, Henry'

Doing it. Just doing it, the radical subjectivity induced by age, reinjecting relevance into the guitar noise of the late 80s, I actually hope Australia goes Hard Right so we might stimulate some real musical rebellion , all the best bands were bands under the strictures of neoliberal government, amphetamine reptile ruled my early 20's , no apologies there squidward, lemmings all, urban legends, bristles, parasitoid insects, brutish dogeatdog times, there is no end to the mining boom, it carries on unchecked for centuries, mine the fucking moon ! Nationalise poos and wees! Execute the bottom liners! Bang a gong! The rich always like to think they somehow 'earnt' their money in a total vacuum, without any assistance, subsidisation, no help from the money of others. Public private partnerships, think Myki. Think Victoria. Think John Key. Think Drink. Think crime gangs as powerful as entire nation states. Because that is how it is and will be. They're in Afghanistan to secure the opium routes for their pals. You mark my words Mr Straight. Hey there Nsa man. I know you know I know you know I know you know I know.

Posted by matthew_middleton at 11:10 PM

No comments:

Friday, November 15, 2013

aesthetics reborn

Quicker.

So I am now ether.

Decided to re-ignite the Aesthetics band, trying out new drummers. So it'll be Matt Middleton on guitar, alto and keyboards, Edie Stevens on bass and electronics and a new drummer. The Aesthetics collapsed about a year ago. My ego could only take one year of working beside young and boundlessly energetic punksters who seemed to gig every second day. I...I was a rock musician I'd have to say...well, enough - time to just get out and perform - be it retarded 'out' rock, slowdiving shoe gagging sick-rock, sick-making fizzer-gigs, dry humpers, lumbering wads of pathetica, dragging synthesizer through coburg like jesus on his way to pay for all our sinz , lazy phaser flavours , neo-grunge goatee, dump-jive, playback, two-bit orientalism, riff-rock, domesti-punk, worker punk, commuter-core, Concrete up those kids playgrounds. Kill your councils. Evaporate sense. enjoy the

Ageing I am, domesticated, shackled by job and financial considerations, life in Dunedin was a charmed round of sickness benefit and thousands of hours of free time that could be entirely channeled into recording and performing. Those years were a one-off one-chance-only cultural anomaly that I will never have the oppurtunity to repeat or even emulate, thank god i got some recordings down. Never again will bohemia be able to dedicate their time to art in the same way - unless they can pay for the privilege, or have someone else pay for it.

Posted by m

Friday, December 13, 2013

Maria Moles & Adam Halliwell, Fluorescent Cacophony & Crude, MIUC dec 10 2013

The Make it up Club.. A weekly exploratory . Improvisational non-forms. A forum for VCA's mavericks and rebels to unlearn what they've gone done learned, for outsiders (bums like me) to waltz on in and vomit up lifes pain, a forum for jazzists, spazzists and wack-outs to co-mingle with their own, to render music into secret code, to activate the electricity of the moment, to toss about a meme or two. And read books.

So I ramble on up into that temporary autonomous zone we call the Make it up Club. Oh, that room. Played their before, one of my first gigs since moving to Melbourne was a relatively high profile one - supporting Mick Turner of the Dirty 3 no-less. Now there's genius. First act on that night was

a duo, drums/guitar - Maria Moles and Adam Halliwell. Now there's genius. Gretsch drum kit, the finest of the finest - Maria Moles is a firestorm. I have never before enountered such control - such fire - but cold fire - fast, faster than fast - busy jazz improv like, like yeah, busy busy. Adam Halliwell was able to granulate his sound at will - his arsenal of pedals all neatly arranged, each one crowned with 9v adaptor - his was a scratching, uncomfortable rhythm juxtaposed beside reverberant, spacious sounds. The effect was poignant - a conversation - a dialectic - a drummers flurry'n'racket fleshed out with flailing fish-outta-water gat gack. Audience's nervous system was locked in place. I drank more. 'How does one top that?' I guess it ain't a competition. Or is it?

I drank - nice generous rider might I add. And second was the VCAs Julius Millar. 6 or 7 sharp pieces of guitar angularity. Wack a doo doo fuck me you ugly son-of-a-bitch. This was like a masterclass. 6 pieces, each representing a different aspect of guitar. In all its ugly beauty. A favourite for me was the ultra-granular crunch of 'part 4'. Or was it 'part 5'. By that point my nerves disallowed care. Care (cremation of). Oh what. What? What?? No plugging in of the old backing tracks into the old PA system for me this time, me hearties. 'Twas risk taking behaviour. So any 'cheating' or 'play-back' I was able to fall back on was reduced to an esoteric piece o' sound-piss. A super drone. So a whip out Steven Coes magic shawm and go blaaaat! blaaaaaaaat! blat. Then bang on the tom. A little bit like this old show ---

Not even (owls). All there is is Brahman - but you know it. Oh flipper. Pointless outings, all hardcore in essence, domestic hell awaiting one, nevermore - nevermore. whats the point, Charlie? Glitch it? Make it industrial? Minimal? Critical? Nasty? Dirty? Lazy? Dorky?

A combination of all the above perhaps. But this is hand-to-mouth Melbourne, and we work and we work and we work. And i tell you what, Phelps, try to actually spread the vegimite ON the toast next time would you. Please. Dont paint the walls with vegimite. Ok? If this is NASA - what are all these foreigners doing here? A concerned demeanor? The lab. The lab. Hey corrupt rich fuckers - eat my perenium.

Posted by matthew_middleton at 8:43 PM

No commen

Friday, December 20, 2013

oh, flipper and oh, lilting fronds o' charnia

I call forth the phase that is 2014 ! Be nice to me, be nice to all . Homo Sapiens (a glitchy model - really unreliable if you ask me) can be a nasty lot. A nasty bunch. People like , oh...my god i just learnt of his activities this morning - oh god, Robert Berdella man.....man - just google that shit. Its the big stumbling block for theists - the problem of evil. Nasty. Not good. Really bad. Really bad.

So 2013 - what a quadrant. What a log. A lil' three dimensional wad-log of timey. What did you coax your aging frame into 'doing' - whip up money? go on outings? probably did, didn't ya. \

From january 2013 through to today and beyond I have worked hard (all the while deflecting the efforts of the pesticide maketeeers) packaging boxes of niche market chocolate and superfood bars. (you) and (I) kept it up, hated and disliked by control freaks from hear to her. So blacken up your smoking bowls because when we choose to lie - and when we choose to block up the informational drains, we choose reality. reality mediated and filtered through hard drugs. But thats the rendering agent, the (caking) agent, the realtor. Owing rent is our commodity - yours and yours and yours. Music? In Melbourne? Music?? why? what for exactly? what channel? why risk it?

Its the same 'rant' everytime isnt it Oppenheimer.

Posted by matthew_mid

Sunday, January 5, 2014

goodbye (2013) jealous hick waffle

Hello you. Yeah, you. Welcome to the world's least read blog. No comment. No freaking comment. And fair enough to, wheres the money? Can't monetize this small-faced cunt can we, meeester cultural gate-keeper. Oh yeah, another year of this directionless pulp. 5 more years left on the blog. Is legend-status something this cunt writer can muster by 2019? Thats not the writers call, homie. Slick.

Its obligatory drinking day here in the wealthy west, and oh, the sweetness of the air. Unless you have to stand close to me and what i'm wearing - which is most likely the same shit i had on this time last year. Melbourne city. So god damn liveable here I tells ya. Unless you're looking for asylum.

Here in Melbourne it seems that the entire population , every single one of them, is embarking on a creative project. See that baby there, she's about to film a music video. That venerable octogenarian over yonder, why...she's actually just come back from a tour supporting Mumford and Sons. That guy ranting,,,there,,,with the bottle in the paper bag...he's a published poet. See that cat,,he's a Persian , and he's a lauded experimental dance choreographer. That cockroach you nearly stood on....he's a sound artist just off to put the finishing touches on his installation downtown.

Everyone is writing a novel, everybody is making a film, everyone plays music, everyone improvises, everyone has a vintage four-track , everyone plays saxophone, everyone is touring europe and the states..

You gots t'be.....you gotta be.....i don't know... GG Allin if you want to be noticed.

But hey. Is another year and another shot at rocking it in Melbourne town so the aesthetics version 18 will give it a good ole go.

Listen, don't get me wrong, I cherish my readership. You keep me going.

Life is life. Solace is solace. Time is someone else's money.

Action begets response. Most of the time.

Unlike brazen mafia types, we gotta just keep our heads down, work and worry.

It's lucky time.

Fumbling.

Gnawing.

Talk nothing.

Motivation circuits, all awash with mama's grey water dopamine.

That wasn't no job well done there me old mukka, that's just cheating. Cheating.

Eat me collingwood hipster scum

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

fade out

NO CONTEXT

NO CAUSE

NO CONNECTION

NO ASSOCIATION

It's been a while....

I've been exceptionally quiet of late. It's all this brute labour work stuff I've been doing I think. Not so much to say I guess. Lambda Lambda Mu.

Well, must review recent live splurges however. Considering my constricted internet access of late it's been hard to pen a wad of gob in a comfy setting. Mite cut and paste something I've concocted at home then regurgitate the digital shag'n'chaff in one clicky-wack down the wi-fi nodule.

Phelps!

Posted by matthew_middleton

Friday, April 25, 2014

Mobile Vignette..Keblujaron Night ..

Yep, I'm using a cute lil app called bloggeroid offa my vaguely outmoded slash shitty xperia x10 clunker. Not much room to stretch out the old fingers on this digital keypad but hey,,I can wack out the feeling, the gist of it all with this plastic rectangle from the misty-moist days of 2011. Its Saturday, I'm perched up on a barstool at the Cornish Arms on Sydney Road..a bar that used to be a scum punk watering hole but now caters to local post-gentrification semi-professionals and sportos. But it has retained a little bit of character, there is a knowingness to the place...an atmosphere, I guess. The Cruder is off to view a lush stop motion piece by my workmate tonight, Isao Sano . Isao, affectionately know as Ove is the sound designer for the film. His artistic work ethic is stuff of legend at work. The film was a painstaking enterprise. And my goodness...was it good. review coming up....

Keblujaron facebook page

Keblujaron tumbler page

the event page

....Made a point of entering one of Melbournes many and varied streams of socialbility last week. Had to be done. There was some sort of do on, a lil' tease. This was more than your usual outing, it was a showcase of some serious burgeoning ami..amina - animation talent. And as we all know most of Melbournes talent seems to work in the organic food industry – well – one factory in particular - and hence work with me; it is one such colleague, Isao Sano (Ove Naxx) who's work stories comprise mostly of sleepless coffee sustained nights bleeding over painfully repetitive time consuming shots for an up-coming experimental animation project, that I had to go see that night. The gnosis - indeed the transformative enterprise Ove laboured over was a work entitled Keblujaron - brainchild of visual artist Akihito Nonowe,sound artist Isao Sano and vocalist/artist Konoka Takashiro.

The trio are from Osaka, Japan.

The night was supported by Little Tengu , weaved together with the help of several noisy art/sound acts and in my mind was a true success. So, the point of it all, the teaser, was a true overload.

Keblujaron appears to be an orgy of obsessional motifs, strange angular forms, an astoundingly unveiled Freudian smorgasbord, surrealist industrial animation unconsciously tipping its hat to 'The FantasticPlanet' and the animated stop-motion work of Terry Gilliam. Narrative took second place to pure artistry, experiment and technical exposition with this work, as is often the case with many a film-makers maiden voyage. Sound and Music for the film was provided by Ove NAxx - and it was seamless. Perfect off-beat electronic warbles and throbs and jangling guitar tracts punctuated the awkward lurching bodily mutation scenes, tension arcs and manic power-ups, occasionally reminiscent of the all-round sound engineering/editing craziness of mother-fucking Ren and mother-fucking Stimpy - at other times droning and choral like some animist trance ritual, that is - truly sublime. Yep, I was told these boys used chance and other shamano-daoist indeterministic methods to coax out a scene here, they would embark on a session of grueling stop-motion work without any ostensible guidelines in mind, thus gauging open psycho-artistic motifs direct from the collective unconscious. Hugely entertaining stuff, very keen to check out the completed package.

There was also plenty of perfectly appropriate music that night, my favourite had to be OveNaxx's set - its always strange to watch a work mate from down the factory transform into some sort of techno-god figure when your used to seeing him sporting a one-size-fits-all hairnet and lab-coat spattered with sauce, buckini and the finest yellow-hued 'gubinge' powder. Thats perfectly describes the effect Ove promulgated, a total morph, a transformation away from the everyday - a stylish Japanese postmodern rock-star manipulating digital equipments from the near future, his violent chugging electronic sounds juxtaposing the commerce and bustle Osakas city-scape with the clutter, creativity and lurid subjectivity of a solo artists bedroom/studio. OveNaxx's musical template is right-smack up-to-date, waftings of experimentalism over

a straight-ahead nasty techno core - dub-stepping sub-bass body-slamming motifs, strange guitar melody with the odd vocal manipulation. My fave of the night.

All the other acts were tight – there was – and yes, this piece is lifted, lazily, ever so lazily….Toxic Lipstick, PASSENGEROFSHIT, Umbilical Tentacle, Binliner, Cross Pollination, Pauly Fatlace, Nayutto, and Snuggy Man. Truly eclectic, a truly crazed evening of mixed media really, if you read the list of acts over at the facebook event page , you encounter a truly collaborative venture. Like a freaking film. Filmmaking is the collaborative art they say. So someone somewhere needs to talk the freaking talk, to be friendly and network seamless. Zip. Zip it, cock it, freaking freak scene,....

Posted by matthew_middleton at 5:10 PM

Sylph countenance no consequence

Kontent

All dat kontentedness

So dat so see dat be dat

Rwanda land

See my listlessness fetch high high

Vote vital me bosses

And fish up blessedness

Strike like fire round

This my hunger hound

Be pleased be plugging

Gypsy be, gypsy see

A ranger ranger ranger three

posted from Bloggeroid

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Right wing aussie

Chopper checking me for bisexual crimes in deepest brunswick

Saturday, June 7, 2014

review-stations,the aesthetics,zond good times studios

Hitting the bottom-of-the-barrel stuff this Sunday afternoon. Sulphite-ridden weasel juice. Gossips. Cheap, very very cheap. Like me - I got a price and it's cheap. Greetings to the bent, sick, slimey swag of reptilian old boys who run the country. I'm a permanent resident in this corrupt little country town-cum-continent. The dodgiest little white boy congregation this side of Cambodia. Not a cell, not ONE truly uncorruptible human grouping exists in this sick, twisted country. Not a one. Everyone is able to be bought off. So why not just go home, as hecklers gleefully intone. Go home. Go back to New Zealand - currently tightening its fiscal belt care of its emporer-in-chief , an ex-currency trader and multi-millionaire - a truly non-charismatic leader - Abbotts ideological cousin you might say.. . Not much to 'go home' to either - i guess Australia is the lesser of two evils? No ? Yes? No? Fuck off faggot Puckle street moonee ponds business incubator scum-fuck burger joint? The pickers and packers? The painters and dockers? Budget-fried cockers? The fiscal bottom-feeders, sucking up what they can from the destruction of whole communities? All hail them. We just keep hailing them. The neo-liberal future seems water-tight and immune to any psycho-philosophical assault. A dirty meta-meme has been fed lock-stock into each toddler's mind beginning with your standard issue lolly-pack/laser-light induced tantrum. Why can't I have that mum?? But why???? Its right there! I want it!! Give it to me! Give it to me now! All of it! But why can't I just have it? why not? Why not? Why not?

Commerce keeps pulsing, like the dopamine fiend jerking off in front of internet porn..the worlds servers shreiking and whimpering and blood soaked, just beneath the surface is your very own chancre-blistered amphetaministic hit. We couldn't stop even if we wanted to. Keep the city of London happy, keep feeding upstream, Don my boy!

Even if we patently dislike what we're doing, we cant stop. Money. It's all that. And more.

..So 'twas a gig, this time not beholden to the money-vacuum that is the entertainment venue (Venues are usually a tax write-off. In my gigging experience a venue is usually set up to pay everyone except the musicians who provide the evening's entertainment (and entertainment in Melbourne is a tight-ship - clock in-clock off-go-home-shut-up-fuck-off) - there's all these others who demand the first cut like the in-house sound-man and the in-house door-person and the in-house booking agent and the in-house promoter and the in-house media consultant and the in-house private security firm (back after a stint in afghanistan) and the in-house mafia cut etc etc)

So here we were locked in down the underground bunker buster fad-gadget over the road from the central entrance to the intellectual corporate called Melbourne university. 'Twas a lodge for artists, a multi-roomed space called 'Good Time Studios'. Could this chilled concrete box conjure up good times? I guess its up to the performance artist to define it. Innit. A good time to a Broadmeadows crime family perhaps ain't the good time of a gaggle of hyper-stylized Collingwood art directors. I guess not. Relativism is Lord and you just can't please everyone. We gigged there and it worked. We gagged there and were ejected. What a swag of attendees! Some came to brey and gaffaw at the latest incarnation of The Aesthetics, others came to lend filial support unto the Zond and others were compelled to sample the chic industro-synth-pop that-is Stations.

First up was indeed Stations, I guess a new outfit round Melbourne (?) , I decoded the odd lyric through the haze : ' I'm 24 ' was one chorus starter. Such self-conciousness regarding age as it relates to performance/poetics is poignant - its that generation - perhaps just finishing university, maybe wrenching out the last gasps of an extended gap year, that generation -- the peak age -- twenty four..that particular generation..9/11 a dream from the first years of high school, pcs installed with windows '95 a remote trace from infancy....that generation..for whom grunge and industrial and alternative music generally has become a spectre of the ages. The generation that seemingly has countered counter culture - so, for me - its heart warming to witness a band like Stations as they blast out ascerbic and chic synth-goth. Now there are some people who haven't joined the ranks of the 'new conservative' youth movement thats ever so anti-fashion ...(you know... the stolid faced righteous kids who ain't afraid to make the hard decisions and suck it up and face the front and get real and cheer when Abbot refers to Aussies as 'lifters, not leaners'). It sounded like Stations were shedding older material and premiering newer stuff - refining and trialling work - synthesizer riff driven post-punk rock, brian eno meets husker du meets le tigre. Other songs danced around a single motif - a solemn spaced out ebm atmosphere. Others were based around vocal delivery. I only hope that others of Stations generation keep the synth-punk torch burning so as to provide a counterpoint to that nasty breed of new patriot conservative kids we read about. Sorry visual thinkers - no image to insert here.

Concrete performance space warms as DJ Artless denies cow-cocky up-bringing by spinning (no discs were involved --shall we say I used the phone ) a wack of avant-kack bled from the mutant sounds repository..

And then Zond. what more can say about Zond - there's is a force of nature - a vicious and magnificient wall of sound - punishingly loud, you wouldn't miss em thats for sure. Marnies signature tenor punched holes, Justin's guitar amp an industrial grade sound assault...maybe that set was a little loud - being an on stage mix the drums which are usually mic'd to the hilt were lost in the din. They whipped out some new songs which was great, no-ones resting on their laurels there.

A little LSD Fundraiser was evoked by the mysterious dj artless and then...the new Aesthetics hit. New drummer in the form of Jeremy Corborough - drummer for Wellingtons Orchestra of Spheres, techno-rave authority, crack technical writer and workplace safety poet. And the band is ever so slightly dancified. Just slightly. All Electric a 4-to-the-floor funkster. Doomtown Fuzz a heavy dance slap-dash. A disco-ized swirl. Some danced, some snogged. Some snorted, some grimaced. All the hits - again. Melbourne hasn't quite smelled a rat - yet....but some ex-pat kiwis have - and they urged us to lyricize more contemporary themes ( eg work, working, work stories, work and mate-ship, work hours, workers, work-ethic, bosses, supervisers, colleagues, the moneyed-classes, the melbourne music mafia etc).to offerup some new bloody songs for chrissakes. and bang on. How bout a new Aesthetics record. That'll work. That'll work 40 hrs a week. Neo-liberals.

They have a smorgasboard of pseudo-pragmatic 'pearls' for us. 'Wisdom'. Inject a bit of classical Thatcherism into their arsenal and voila! - our inability to get ahead is purely a personal failing. It's a moral thing - an individual choice. A bad choice we all made. Our poverty nothing at all to do with rampant worldwide world-bank structural adjustment and the misanthropic neo-liberal orgy we call the banks/wall street. Nothing to do with the cretinous institution the bible labelled usury. Nothing at all.

And when i think now of my own death, I actually think, yes! Goodbye! The relief! Goodbye to the lies, struggles, the purulent bombast that is world media; vile networks proselytising the virtues pain, torture, rape, machinisation,slavery, atrophy, manipluation, exploitation, fear, and our pet fave - corruption. Kick it back my man! I didn't see nothin'. What body? What deal? What hotel room?

I'm supposed to feel like a scumbag for not topping up my myki card, or for not washing a coffee stain off my shirt-front. All the while the real scum are to be found at the racecourse down the way -

'skanky', 'munted', tasteless, fakers all, dealers in death, polluters, collaborators, racists intoxicated beyond all recognition, eyeliner running, sweating, heaving, high heels galloping down Mount Alexander Road, bra straps slackened off, a drawling hysteria, curse words belted out with a screeching timbre close to that of the cockatoo, fluttering flailing fascists.

Big money mate. Money mates, making money, eaters, wife beaters, coders, loaders, penal zoners.

Life off - made maggot - mafia magistrate - day-to-day - hand-2-mouth - 3 gargoyles and a drunk kracken at the table, getting loose, getting high. Mountains. Hull, lackey, braggard.

Nevermore. Oh fable. Harry. Metal-edge. Breaking up is hard to do, you know it. He's the weekend bikie. He's the kingmaker. He's the culture lord, the large, powerful, moneyed merchant.

Dribbling truths, banging heads, shutting down parties, gatherings, clubs. Single file. Rediculous laws. Conspicuous flaws.

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

slipper

Well whoop-di-do ive been a quiet shopper haven't it. Flopper dock, duck in duck out just get yer vex straight poster child. So its truther truth you wanted and you don'ts get. Blimmen bugger it get ready woman! I'm supposed to be on stage. There's, well, theres people from work who want to see what you do outside of work there! My work life is now my creative life too, like it or not chuck! That work ethic is now your play ethic mate! Well, sorry but fuck em, as much as I luv em. And I concocted a real turd for em all. I got up on it. So - city of not much of not much, It seems me dont really pull it off any more.. In my petulant little mind its all over. Really. Culture as this small minded imp thinks it is simply does not exist. There is truly no reason to play music at all. Or in fact, do anything. Because this town is a vacuum. A distended homeless swathe of throwaway names and acts and names and names and bandnames and more bands and bands . A mass of filtered, heat-treated, half-baked, templatized, insuperably moneyed slime moulds competing for ever decreasing venue spaces and what - recognition. Fun times. A point to make. Someone to love. Artistic credibility. There is no point to any of it, nothing. The Real Estate agents have won. The business lobby has won. Venues are gratuitous tax avoidance rackets precisely set up to only promote bands whos members operate like a small to medium sized business enterprise . Mentally ill types like myself have no place here. But, ill keep living here, as a faceless worker, because city life pays the bills. I resign, but i don't resign.

Posted by matthew_middleton at 3:24 AM

uesday, August 5, 2014

gu

te

sno

dree

somn

ta-aa-l

sep

mrag

l'uod

bwa bwa

zane derry

pride pack

qorq

aneel

vade vadee

kra'a'ace

juun juun d'kneeal

tapper ko ko

quaak hard-la

oi-ooo preen

saard fujeera

Saturday, January 3, 2015

gig in hobart!! new online release ...

Oh Space. Carl Sagan was a true childhood hero. His was a presence made of sterner stuff than Richard Hadlee. Oh Science, that rational evidence-based stuff that blows over the oxidase that is the supernatural. Oh mind, twisted and caught between the sublime and the serious, what is the truth, afterall? At least this January - that is, next January, ...no it's now january.. I'll honk on in Tasmania at a wonderful ensemble cast show called ' The Noise Edition'. heres the INFORMATION LINK! Hobart Music Yeah The new album is called ' It's Causal ' ....heres the cover ....'twill be coming out on bandcamp and will be released on tape in hobart. It seems Hobart on that weekend will be the centre of the freaking universe.

Prose and polemics by ex Dunedin now Christchurch based recording artist Matt Middleton

Monday, May 18, 2015

thoughts. a cheap video.

And its the WILL you're searching for, that motive, lifes' cherry-on-top. The new evidence suggests one surrenders. Will suggests otherwize. Power is intoxicating. So much of it available. So few able to control it.

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Hobart Report 2015 by Matthew Middleton

And then there was the Noise edition ,,,,,,a day and night of avant-garde music curated by the Hobart Music Yeah group. Stepping off that gargantuan main-land and onto thee historic Van Diemen's territory was the Crude(r). The flight was an singular arc, a stone's throw. A fresh, simple jaunt thanks to the Jet-Star group. Star jump. The airport shuttle driver furnished us with a detailed history of the area. Stimulating stuff. What a hell-hole was our Tasmania in the early days. And yes, entering Hobart feels alot like driving down into Dunedin on North Road....the similarities are eerie. Hobart is surrounded by hills like our Dunedin, but the hills lack that lush nz native canopy. You get that when you're seperated by hundreds of miles.

Took a while to find the venue, as is typical of someone armed with a retro nokia without gps capabilities...after a few nervous loops i waltz in all alternative and shoe-gazing and i'm greeted in a style befitting my absolute obscurity round these parts. I realize im no-one special. . This is, indeed, south of heaven...uh...south of .Melbourne...and north of None Gallery... . "Got a place to stay yet?" a sharp dressed Dan Lewis enquires ..my lack of gypsy smarts is palpable now- I haven't a clue. I have truly left it to the last minute. With an assuring glance I am informed he will jack something up for me, a couch at the very least. This is heartwarming news.

It's 3 in the afternoon in the charming town of Hobart. I'm surrounded by those things I love - stalls packed with obscure cds and tapes, a bar, a stage, lighted spaces, the promise of darkness, the whiff of power-violence. Several acts are lined up - the likes of Cocks Arquette,The Harrison Forward,Aktion Unit,Niko Niko,Drunk Elk,Granpa Abela,Ragtime Frank,PENGUINS,radio cegeste, Crude,

Repellant,Fetish Ritual, Plus special one-off collaborations:Pip Stafford & Evelyn Morris ,Joshua Santospirito & Blair Rideout The Hunter & Georgia LucyPolanyi & DomicileMutterlard & Chrysalis.

Didnt eat. Got drunk on rider. Was truly blown away by Dan Lewis's Aktion Unit. Improvised music, of the wilder variety, this time joined by a vocalist of true dexterity, explorative range and performative magnetism. Her name escapes me presently sorry. Apparently she was a student of improvisation, but to me she had graduated years ago - her vocal control was stunning - rendering the likes of Yoko Ono mute. Stunned was I. The effect lasted well into the night as I soaked up the outpourings of Lucas Abela, other women of shamanic vocal prowess, a band of power electronics enthusiasts (whos technical problems pierced the veil of their anti-musical armoury unfortunately), the super-sensitive radionics and anachronistic sound collage of Radio Cegeste was welcome relief from the whitehouse fans, Cocks Arquette roared like some crazed nutter with a dry sense of humour - Evelyn Morris's athletic drumming was a perfect accompaniment to the all-round brutality, It was all good until I performed and stuck a myki card in between my ass cheeks and took it out and licked it,,my couch offer fervently withdrawn.

Yes the myki system is a digital sham. Yes I 'touch on' when i can, and wipe off sometimes too. But is it worth such desecration? I had to do something to outshine the sexy industro-squalor of Penguins didnt I. Don't think it worked. Think i repulsed my potential hosts instead. Nevermind.

And so i eneded up hobbling around inner city Hobart that night, like a wounded soldier, totally freezing, spewing me ring out, my instruments a frightful burden, waiting for my 5.30am pick up to the airport, told to move on by angry hotel staff ( i attempted to sleep in an ally outside best western) , it was real 'cant wait to tell the boys at work' stuff. Was nice to see the stars a clear as they are in Hobart however. You forget the cosmos is there sometimes. Its there alright. Its deep. Its dark. Its cold and no-one can hear your power-violence

Friday, July 17, 2015

why i quit live music

Why i cant play live anymore by matthew middleton

I quit playing live music. Not that i really do it anyway, I havent been able to nimbly perform any instrument in public for about 5 years. Portentiously, the juno-60 synth died at my last gig, a show i had even practised for. It was like the nail in the coffin. 20 years ago performing live was a gut wrenching cathartic process that served a purpose - allbeit bombast. Attracting a mate for instance. Preen and bang a drum. A prurient public display of pure mange-encrusted ego. It was a display of the fire element - that loin fuelled plasma those under 40 store in surplus - something magical and something young people take for granted. Back then, as an unmarried mass of quantum potential , performing live rock music had meaning, motive, societal relevance, cultural relevance, context and a built in cosmology - heroes living it out and ostensibly deriving great satisfaction from it all. It was the 90s. It was Dunedin. It was truly a time of great ambition and great possibility - guitar noise truly was ticket out of there - I mean oh my god - the Dead C were close friends with Sonic Youth, King Loser were arcane and dangerous,the propagation of feedback was naught less than spellcasting, the 3ds were noise pop royalty, Snapper was snarling, ravenous and extra-terrestrial, Bailter Space were extra-extra terrestrial. SPUD were from Auckland. In amongst it there seemed to be some sort of coherent theme, a context which seemed to point towards greatness - importance - this heavy guitar music was something New Zealanders did as good as if not better than Nth America and europe/UK.

I left Invercargill and moved to Christchurch in 1994, and embarked on a lo tech bedroom recording career (wholly made possible by the grace of the new zealand governments unmployment pension- then less stringently policed as now), obsessively inspired by the indie-rock goings on about me, especially so those of King Loser, who, to me, seemed like the absolute penultimate of cool. Chris and Celia were a nasty musical team and their Super Sonic Free Hi-Fi album was gold. That year i sent a copy of my maiden tape to an adress on the back of a King Loser tape. (And also sent a tape to Forced Exposure magazine in the states.) Amazingly i got replies from both . Very positive replies. The American one was an offer of a record deal , the other was praise from someone associated with King Loser, Duane Zarakov. I set up a jam with DZ and soon joined his band Space Dust on clarinet. I met King Loser in person. This was like a dream for a fanboy like myself, a bushy tailed small town boy, in amongst the coolest of the cool in Christchurch. And so, I met many truly bizarre personages, and i had no idea that this was also a irish music playing assemblage, i managed to keep irish music at bay for a few years until curiosity got the better of me and i came home so to speak, finding the banjo a perfectly familiar feeling, psycho-socially useful and that vomiting over them was just too damn bad really. My flirtation with the Hare Krishna movement was over, but a spark of interest in Vedism and its variants remained dormant for years to come.

I moved to Dunedin in 95 and continued recording songs and sounds to a four track, and I found meeting King Loser had some fringe benefits, my drumming skill were utilized by Shayne Carter for a stint (because Chris from King Loser knew him), and Chris even recommended me to Flying Nun as a new signee. It happened, and out came 'Inner City Guitar Perspectives'. From 95-2005 I recorded 50 or so albums on my own label, formed a rock band called the Aesthetics, met Thurston from sonic youth and had further music released by him on his label, explored experimental and electronic music realms, got arrested several times for public drunkeness, went quite mad, 'mellowed out', kept playing, found my life partner, got much older, got married then made the musical mistake of going to Melbourne. There were jobs in Melbourne, not music jobs but jobs jobs. I had to get a job job. There will never be another time like the 90s. I was truly ONLY able to record the corpus i did and build the 'career' i did because i was able to draw down a unemployment / sickness benefit. Never again will this opportunity to create and focus 100% on creating be afforded to me. Well, maybe at retirement age?

Melbourne had jobs jobs. But it was here that the reality of todays music scene kicked in. Overloaded, confusing, lacking a narrative, the anticlimax of the turn of the century dawning on the cultural subconscious and birthing a middling swathe of chillwave pop - there's 85 more chillwave drenched years left to go this century...do we need another shake up? Another war? To be fair - the music scene today is nodal, connectivist, relativist, vast, universally accessible, customizable and interactive, organic and fluid - which is a good thing?? I read that economo-cultural conditions have made it harder for some cash challenged artists to perform and thrive, while its easier and easier for wealthy young artists to buy time and space and gear and air-time and influence and venues and promotion and yoga mats and car batteries. Melbourne is awash with bands, and venues which house bands, but nothing stands out. Nothing sticks. Acts come and go. Bands form and then go. Thousands of little island like scenes. Bands seem to thrive if they are connected to the music school, a certain scene revolves around that here. But no-one, except the trust-fund kids, can really commit to a life-long exploration of themselves and their musico-creative potential . Maybe I'm wrong. (Yes) Primitive Calculators sticks. The Dirty Three sticks.

Why come to Melbourne? Not for music. For work. National came to power in NZ 2010 and made living on the dole near to impossible. I got married too, and we could not afford it. I had to get work. I tried to start as a business. But my kind of music dosent sell too well. So, I was forced to act as both business man and artist and secretary and accountant and promoter and booking agent and manager and publicist and distributer and graphic deigner and sound person and recording engineer and logistician and all dat. It failed. We left New Zealand. I got a job in a organics factory, as an all round production assistant.

I found soon after commiting my body to this that performing the job full time made creative life extremely difficult. On weekends, when you work in my line, I don't really feel like working on music. I just don't have that spark anymore. I don't , at 40. You want to just relax. On top of that, Melbournes music scene is like a very dry, cliquey, competitive factory farm,

run by the venues. Venues rule all as far as musical performance is concerned. Then theres the booking mafia. Then there's the media and promotion mafia. Bands are the last thing to earn any money, first the venue is payed by way of public who buy drinks, then theres their staff, then its the sound person, then its the booker, then its the promoter, then its the cleaner, the door person, the electricity bill, the hush money, the pet food bill, the security guards, then, if anything's left, maybe your bandmate will get a dirty look.

I'm supposed to do it all for love, and pay to play. Pay to drag my gear across town, fall asleep on stage, have a few rich kids bark at me and ask what happened to The Aesthetics and then somehow take it all home. A little kiwi performing seal. And to be honest - I dont even enjoy music anymore. Im 40. I have discovered Vedanta (like Salinger). All musical performance is an exercise in ego stroking, and public ego stroking-stoking-choking inflames my already delicate mental equilibrium. Performing in Melbourne has all the value of performing in Twizel - sure, youll get a few people to your gig but you still have to go to work tomorrow.

For the past 10 years playing live music has become less and less enjoyable. You're supposed to be loyal to the love of music or something, you're supposed to be some sort of soldier, playing your crap sound for ever, like a sinewy purist , pretending to be 'passionate' and falling flat, every gig is at a bar or some form of drink hole which means Im drunk on stage again, my 'legend' of being a 'genius' questionable at best as i pathetically honk out 2 notes from my shawm and stop because i couldnt afford the reed before the gig and its broken, tired from a baleful week at work and just wishing i could go home and read the paper, knowing im supposed to be grateful for being given this oppurtunity to expose my wretched ass to the discerning australian public, and that this is my 10 minutes of fame right here and so go on boy sweat it out on stage and bare your bum because theres a thousand kids who cant play and you can and you take it for granted and how dare you motherfucker etc etc. You're sort supposed to be full of energy and 'up-for it' all the time and be ready for rock and roll action at the drop of a hat but no-one's gonna lend you the 10 bucks you need to actually take the tram to the venue. You're supposed to be in love with music and live music is a total joy because its live! music which is what you want to do because live music is a chance for you to entertain your mates and sing for your supper and come on man play that reggae version of 'killing me softly' and booo fuck off white motherfucker.

And so what - this is MY story - perhaps you're a successful Melbourne muso and you probably disagree strongly and have copius evidence that proves why I am wrong about live music and the 'scene' these days. I am not asking for anything. This is my blog, as subjective as i gets. Its just more digital toilet jammer. Whether these pages are snuffed out after Trump wins I have no idea. But for now, it sits here forever.

Posted by matthew_middleton at 11:59 PM

Sunday, September 6, 2015

tactical refraction

Hello. And the hard work of my fellow humankind has brought us to this technocentric pointo. The electrical engineers of the 20th century have blessed us with the transistor and fibre optic cable. Telecommunications technology is a wonder. Everything we use, everything we take for granted has been designed, implemented and arranged by someone else. The pioneers literally built cities from the ground up. Imagine what it took. Thousands of metres of cable. Thousands of hours. And now, its onto Venus! Venus is perfect for human habitation - it is warm and sunbaked! Onto Venus! Venus is the way of the future. I have built a machine that will take us there - in style and comfort.

Friday, November 27, 2015

latest non-erudition

Complex isn't it. This stupid world. Its machinations are just so complex. Todays world - such a psychotic geo-political imbroglio it is. So, as I teeter towards the age of 41, as a non-proud generation x-er, someone who remembers enjoying watching The Goonies as a member of the film's target market/age bracket.....I wonder. I waa-waa-waa-wa wooonder, why people believe they need so much power. And stuff. And room to keep their stuff. And savings funds to keep their buildings in their 'name'. Guess its how you look at life and death. And life. And death.

Complex, isn't it. So, why not just switch it off. I listen to ABC news radio in the mornings before i negotiate my way thru the public/private myki gangs and onto my workshop. ISIS/ISIL/DAESH is a guaranteed sound-byte/meme within 20 seconds - every morning. Without fail. Its 1984. It really is.

I dunnow. Its that permanent war machine at work - the ever-amalgamated big firms all cashing in - be they weapons maunfacturers, media harems, telcoms, satellite manfacturers, infrastructural development boards, compound and temporary concentration camping, logistics and packaging specialists, data farmers, tarp companies, oil petrol and gas supply chain administration, drugs logistics and clandestine manufacture,junky proliferation and control, metals and primary commodities,chemists, apple, toyota, british petroleum, electricity generators, mobile telecoms, data encryption, software, hardware,

Oh yeah. I don't know, I don't claim to know. I dare not claim to know anything actually. I know absolutely nothing about nothing. And it just goes on and on. whats really going on? Who really is behind this? Who is pulling the strings? Who is allowing this shit to happen? A friend at work tells me that this is the most peaceful time in earths long turbulent history. And to live here - down the bottom of the world. Away from everything. But close to the news. And close to the beers. And i will lend you ten bucks if you need it and i have it to spare

Does god exist? Who believes? really? Do you really believe? Do you, you cynical money grubbing

psychopath, do you really belive in God? Are you really doing gods work? Really? Are you sure? Are you absolutely sure?? When you look out into the desolation of space - do you believe? When the science comes back to us - the hard data - do you still believe? Dinosaurs? Do you believe?

Wednesday, February 17, 2016

musings abusings and this weeks losings

--------------____---------------___________---________

Western tract. A positivist putsch. Giddyup. Seems I'm going up in the world, because the oiled up fastidiously groomed about-the-suburb gangsters are actually taking the time to turn around, to watch me burning up the streets grasping me plasticized goose-load of supermarket shopping - and then to dredge

themselfs up a nicely frothing spittle-wad, transporting it deftly from gullet to street level. They have payed their respects as it were. I am worthy at long last! I am worthy of being looked upon. And spat at. For I am cunt, pure and true. Cunt I am - I am cunt. Strong, hyper-elastic, well-formed cunt. I am smarm, scowl and prurience. I am the neurotic convulsion that is agnosticism. I am child of the universe, sliver of it, every taut shivering molecule an ancient hand-me-down - every atom defining and redefining its being within/without spacetime, a fully registered, student loaned, tagged'n'buckled citizen of an arch-conservative law shackled universe.

As I travel on public transport, I sample peoples souls. I am the spirit of the inquisition. I see people. My sleaze-mottled hazel iris' and constricted black pupils zip from soul to soul like a frenzied piece of biometric malware. I glance, the malegaze203, and receive a response in two phases - one is a standard mirroring glare, then the eyes dart away, seemingly horrified, shaken, disarmed, creeped out as-it-were. For I am plain. And I am not finely tuned. And I am ugly. And I am not a standard catergorizable 40 something. For what have I extracted spittle, oh urine retaining one? Because I do not drive along side you, sweat-caked petrol-soaked and paranoid? Because I am a walking anarchronism? A colonial? A type of nothing? An asset-free, free-associative libidinous ooze? Someone who has learnt to surf the internet? Is it because I am amenable to substrates and alkaloids? Is it because I do not take hip with my hop? Is it because I read the wrong book? Cajouled and caressed someone elses woman? Boasted and toasted the wrong loaf? Got your wife pregnant? Downloaded the entire US Department of Defense to my flash drive and lost it? Is it because my music is actually a type of temporal displacement mechanism? Is it because I put my money on IranAssadRussiaChina instead of USASaudiISISMossadBankofEngland? Is it because I listen to GG Allin on a semi-regular basis and take his ideas to heart? Is it because your wife has always loved me? Is it because I have no actual significance or power whatsoever,and will never have any ever, and you crave the blessedness of that state? Is it because I actually AM Rupert Murdoch? Is it because your dogs come to me when you whistle? Is it cause im looking forward to experiencing the ramifications of the trans pacific partner-feltch? Fun times had by all corporate holdings. (Pfizer sues me for stopping my meds, so in a back-room deal I agree to keep taking them)

Whatever it is, I sure needed it. So blow me down oh suburbanite. This world and its nuturing capitalistic money system is such a wonderful place to raise a child in. We must completely do their heads in! At first the child is taught to be nice, to cooperate, to share and help others, that christian type values or secular humanist values are sancrosanct -- - but wait! then they are instructed to compete tooth and nail with everyone else out there, to defeat the enemy, to get ahead and to be successful no matter what. Its a double wammy cluster bomb/fuck I'd say. No wonder kids go crazy and pull the plug. Theres the golden rule and the macgolden rule. Self-interest is King.

The culture of this decade has been completely usurped by the non-culture of commerce. Commerce will now and forever adorn the garb of culture and counter culture alike. All socio-cultural decisions are feircly mediated and closely accompanied by the crushing option matrix of finance. No space is public space. No time is free time. All is monetized. All art making is soiled. All culture is dead. Death is a big deal , it is the only deal. Its the one and only thing one can truly count on in life. And it comes for your body and mind, ready or not, it's effect instant or drawn out, whenever or wherever or in whatever condition you are in. I have had more than one friend die this year alone. It is a phenomenon that is demanding my attention and comprehension this year.

It is wise to be aware of death and dying and also to be aware of what one is leaving behind. Because, in many respects, death is release from so many mundanities - so many earthly bores, so many gnawing annoyances. One of the great banes of many a living life is of course the handling and retaining of money. I personally do not care much for money, money dosent care much for me. My guess is, that at death, you won't require any money (or maybe you do). Presumably it won't cost anything - there wont be a fee involved. Nor that nor an interest rate. Every aspect of finance drops out of consciousness like Laura Palmers' angel floating up to heaven in 'Fire Walk with Me'.. No exchange will be possible because there is no body there, no biological electricity flow there for one to buy and sell. No more bills. No more tax. No more red tape. No more bank. No more scum bag banking cartels, no more corrupt credit-skimming bottom-feeders lurking on the ocean floor. No more ocean. No more sky. No more no more - no more conception. No ambitions in this market driven world. All 'alternative' pursuits have been incrementally moneytized and consolidated over the past 25 years - and the only counterattack available to the real 'artist' is to completely cease producing any work and to cease all performance past present and future. Its what im doing, and it turns out i'm saving money!

Generate micro-fees, interest pulsing, fine clusters, hidden clauses and backroom swaps, credit debits, handling fees, registration duty, goods and services duty, defaults, bill clogs, paper trails and part-private-private equity slather range-event dismounts, drone launches,tax gags,ocular fishing grabs, and gps/ google micro-algorhythms - both mycological and deep space. Gag-japing , bill milking, wad compressing, prick pinning, rainbow party funding drives, micro-loans, thumb locks, insurance insurance, freud-filters, fanny-packs, syringer, black lolly, poultice.

Saturday, March 5, 2016

student loan debtor prison - now theres an idea!

Hello Bravo. A 2 minute blast of waiting room media and I'm informed - we are nation of baddies. We have an appetite fo'(self)destruction and drugs. Dunnow what program was being advertised but no doubt: it was a classic aussie mulch of cheap hyper-sensationalist news/opinion and tabloid journalism. Me no miss the tv bro. The shock and the awe of it. The grist and the gore of it. The nod and the snore of it.

It seems Australians like feeling good, albeit temporarily. Australians like unwinding - hard. Some of us harder than others. And some - forever nameless - even go straight for the dopaminergic receptors. Its pure economics, Bridget. A nations shame. In a second blast of ultra wide-band piffle - the morning radio news introduces some disgruntled think-tank spokesperson. See, it turns out that the public owe lots of money in unpaid fines..i mean..we/us owe himalayan masses of debt to some centralized abstractified discombobulated'n'disembodied legal entity slash database slash digitimal algorythmy thing. Unpaid fines man. They hurt! We must reign it all in at once, Chuck! Unpaid fines sponsor terrorism! But whats worse - they hinder those ever-so-essential profits from flowing(into Gina's futures future fund fund).

Three cheers for unpaid fines. Hundreds of millions of dollars worth, somewhere out there - somewhere - somewhere - future labour value perhaps? Your moms car? Your fridge? Your employers kids colledge fund? Your electricity connection 2021? A secret stash of gold rush era booty buried down Tullamarine way?

Lest we forget - Myki fines. Come on guys - its simple personal responsibility! Private/public collaboration in effect! And of course - parking fines (find yourself a park round these parts for free - i dare you)! Subcontracted debt collecting 'growth' driven agencies take care of your governmental Student Loan. Student Loans my man - the fiscal brainchild of the baby-boomer generation -- that hyper-edumicated generation of folks who wonder 'why we aren't doing as well as they did' and who famously 'pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps' after completing their (free)university degrees and buying into their first(state subsidized) homes and procuring jobz-4-life (in dat swingin' age where the terms 'casualization' and 'outsourcing' and 'downsizing' were only at larval stage). Preach to da converted. Private public. Where your debt is their profit. Where profit is THE prime directive for ever and ever amen. Future slave generation. Can this raving nonsense be truth? The great privatization purges of the 80's and 90's and Noughties didnt actually happen though did they? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? So suck it up? Get real? Are my unrefined proclamations the tactless excrescences of a wannabe looney lefty? (yes) (no) (yes)

Mr Trump and his ilk rely on research NOT being done. Please, for his sake - don't look INTO him. Suggest gross underfunding of education will help you there.

Of course , the REAL badguys - the 'banksters' - the bottom-feeding law-bending loophole-hunting zombiefied psycho-economic micro-fee feltchers - the public literally begs these people to rip us off micro-unit by microunit. We have been so utterly brainwashed that we laud reward and deify the very people who intend to wreck our future. We worship them as saviours. So touch on. Pay for your parking space. Keep your workforce lean, desperately competitive and under the permanent threat of disposal and replacement. And dont get caught , whatever you do. I learnt that from the men at the top.

Just don't get caught. Insider trading. It dosent happen. Glad-handle. Syrupticious. Purple drank me hanky.Sister slime-mould. Saggin, haggin' and tea-baggin'. Big ole' private priz. Youth unit. Battle meet. Step up sanguine. A course at your localvocational training campus. Dodge it. Easy pickings, Danny. Easy picking, picker packer pulled a poke of pyrineese pan pipes. Happy lodgement.Throbbing Gristle Hull humpers. GG Allin is my hero. GG Allin is a quiet, sensitive, thoughtful spokesperson of thee age. Diddy wop. Oh contradiction and contradistinction. Bellows bellows bellows. Alternative gag-reflex. And so! Time to cough up. Dead books. Second half of thee financial year. Here we are, spinning in gravitational loop-mode for-ever on a spheroid rock in the middle of absolutely nowhere. There truly is nothing up there (for a good few miles). We are literally floating in space. We are in and of SPACE. A TRILLION BILLION stars are estimated to float up there. And HERE. WE. ARE.

And we are asked to obey manipulated, preloaded, elite-serving, filth-spattered 'LAW' here on earth. But there it is - right above us every night. SPACE. Only a few hundred kilometers up there. SPACE. Its empty. Its vast. It dosen't seem to care that much really. Its been there the whole time we have been here. It was there when the Dinosaurs humped, destroying trees and primordial shrubbery with their shreikin' reptoid sexy what's its'. SPACE was there when the sun was but a glint in thee cosmic milkmans eye. And yet, regardless of this mind-boggling reality - for some reason i find myself repeating this point - we are obligated to obey a set of narrow-cast corporate-friendly laws. The law that says - if you don't touch on with your myki you pay a fine of 230 shekels. Or, even better, pay on the spot with yr credit card(a wee incentive to keep those revenues fluid). We are obligated to accept the neoliberal agenda of permanent economic growth.....or else. We are urged, nay, compelled to consume and keep consuming forever, literally at the expense of the planet. We have been hypnotized into protecting and nuturing the needs of these entities and their psychosociopathic directors. We have accepted it all, gladly. If you do manage to formulate a solution - by Jove you're shut down quick smart, matey. Starved, mocked, hounded, psychiatrized, vilified, made a pariah of, like. It really seems to be out of humanities hands now me old mucka - neo-liberalism is now on auto-pilot - its a vast heaving abstraction thats can't/won't be stopped. Ive been told the seas will be fish-free by 2050. But at least the Hunky Dory fish'n'chips biz round the corner is doing well right now. Short term gains, bobby. Thats Aussie fish i guess so its ok. And they wonder why young people kill themsleves in droves. We got it so good! Are these the last sputtering days of aussie excess? Maybe. maybe not. Probably not. Because the drugs keep coming. They keep comiing, regardless of the so-called 'busts'that 'put a big dent in the suppy'. So just do it. Just do it. Do 'em, the CIA told me to tell you. And make sure you weld that trans-shem-sham-syrian-jordanian oil pipeline good and tight. And make sure the Taliban aint allowed to ban opium. cause

thats MY money right there. Thats my 15th property in Cape Verde fund. Okay punk?

Saturday, April 23, 2016

the economy

I say - damn the economy. Death to the market. Death to the economy. We are all supposed to worship the economy, to propitiate it hourly, to keep it fed and healthy like a bilious babe, to 'grow' it and keep growing it - forever. Nations that don't 'grow' fast enough are deemed 'a worry'. We are compelled to place the economy before everything - our lives, our relationships, our culture, our art, our philosophy, our spirituality, our love and joy. Our real life - our end of the day life - our actual life. The economy is all. And it has to keep growing regardless. For what. For more 'choices'? For the choice between a brown piece of shit or a browny-yellow piece of shit?

These bean counting bottom feeders, these market liberals - these machines, these metastasizing clumps, high on temporary power - meme magicians - the personification of low impulse control - no real outlook beyond their own puny lifespans - screwing the world of their own progeny and laughing about it - these moronic hyper-aggrandized opportunists - propagandizing whole populations into adopting the neo-liberal ethos - may they be cursed.

We are called to work ourselves to death - for the economy.

Turn the meme around - do not accept the neo-liberal agenda.

Posted by matthew_middleton at 4:12 PM

Saturday, August 6, 2016

president trump.

Oh city -city I love you. A legal black hole. Where laws can be stretched and bent like putty.

A money launderers haven. Restauranteurs-as-washing machines. You can just disappear there, Subdivide and rate-evade. Its all good. Thats the spirit. Thats the way. We enjoy life, we inure and steep. Breakfast.

President Trump.

Oh to make a difference. Get ye into politics? Finance? Services? Accountancy? Economic Archaeology? Oh to move, to push, to heave. To render exobytes of zeroes legal tender. To slap 3 - 4 - 5 zeroes on the old bank balance. To align with hackers and make potty. Sam, distant relative, landed the Fort Lauderdale deal. Banging equidistant, a radio wave and a face check. Its all you'll ever need. Next in line is the vacuum of space - a heaving counter-wave, black-bodied and equivalent, vestigal and contoured, a deliriant ; high dosage is recommended - please administer to the worlds' billionaire population as soon as is practicable.

I suggest funding material science to the hilt. Also optics - photonic crystals and such. Also electro-magnetic propulsion research. Ion traps. Also I will fund research into Orbital Angular Momentum, the Casimir effect, superconductivity, deep space communications, superluminal studies and optical vorticity.

Saturday, August 6, 2016

thanks for reading.

Hello reader, thanks for taking the time to scour these lines. It amazes me that people still catch up with my drivel, there may be a little kernel of entertainment to be gleaned here and there, a reference maybe, an anecdote - something. I notice I have a reader from Russia who is most consistent with his/her drop-ins, a handful from New Zealand, the odd American. I really do thank you all for clicking in. The purpose of this blog has drifted over the years. There's still 3 years to go on this particular site - if i am still penning tripe at that stage we'll set up another chapter. I have other blogs - earlier ones back when i performed and recorded prolifically - 'the crude decade' and a couple of others can be tracked down - there you'll read more in the way of commentary on music and reviews of live shows.

I live in Melbourne and work far too hard in a local factory - dealing with people displaying all manner of idiosyncracies. I guess in a way i am burnt out - the need to 'expose' or 'display' my music to the world has all but disappeared. Why? Because I simply have nothing to say musically at present - i strain to find any relevance in it all.

These blog posts are extracted from a place of disgust - a void - a feigned hatred for hypocrisy and inequality - an intoxicated realm lacking formal narrative, these lines are starved of meaning.

Much of what is penned is unconscious - thoughtless. Much is half-hearted.

I enjoy being no-one. I read the primary texts of Vedanta, an ancient Indian philosophy.

I seemingly yearn for something - but know not what it is.

I regard myself as a nothing special, just another citizen minding me own business.

Sunday, October 2, 2016

matty was in italy

The cruder went to Italia. I tried to learn conversational Italian for about a year previous to the trip and failed to pull anything off in practise. Italian language is used differently depending on your familiarity with your co-conversationalist. So many rules, so many ways for a foreigner to look stupid.

So of course, being an absolute outsider, no Italian family or friends, except a work colleague or two, i found it difficult and cringe-making to go beyond asking for 2 coffees please and thank you and hello. I said 'it's hot' once. Because I just felt so damn stupid. And I hadn't practised my grammar. And I'm forgetful. I am sure I adressed a male as a female at least once. And I don't think he liked it. So many rules - coffee ettiquette etc. Don't show drunkeness. Don't be a punk, you might break something. The punks here have alot to reject, thats for certain.

Of course, the place is amazing. And yes, they are a very good looking lot. And the architecture is incredible. The country is a treasure.

It would be best to visit Italy being fluent in Italian. It would be best to visit Italy being....well..basically.. actually Italian.

In fact, why was I even there man? .......Why not? I mean - how did I pull that one off huh? My answer: What's it to ya?

It seems the place is on Orange alert presently. John Cabot University, just beside the Tiber, was literally flanked by Army. Pretty college girls were filing into school saying hi to the men, easing their slim frames through the entry, fabric kissing fabric. (the slight sting and flutter of static electricity and ping/pop effervecence). Its an American college. So there you go. The army are stationed across Rome and other major Italian cities in some sort of dodecahedral vector pattern. They stand, and watch. All day. They are Italian. Don't fuck with them. Don't look at them wrong. But this is the european reality since the many attacks in France I guess. Vague vatican directed tirades from millenial millenarians have necessitated all this. Even I felt like a threat.

I was wearing my 'dead c' 'eusa kills' t shirt and an army guy gave me the evils. Did he read it more as " EU / USA kills (civilians/salafis), white on black ISIS edition. Dont be a punk. Just don't.

Orange alert. Dont bring luggage with wheels. Clack clak clak clak whhiiir clack clak upon the cobblestone...waa waaaaaah

Apartment blocks. Africa. Italy has a big African population and they will become Italian whether Italians like it or not. Or is that just a 'southern problem' Lega Nord? The immigration from there is increasing profoundly and without end. Many new arrivals sit and wait, living minute to minute, cigarette to cigarette, living in an essentially unfriendly environment, banding together for comfort, doing what they can to scrape up some petty euros, selling jewellery, bags, power converters, droids, adaptors, leads for your iphone, selfie sticks(?), water and packs of socks to the endless stream of listless, sun-stroked and moneyed tourists that stream in.

The cruder is in Italia. And i'm almost completely de-musicalized. And for it, I thank the Lord. For music and musicality was, for me, a source of mental pestilence.

A new quietist phase is inaugurated. (oh, right after I do that one night only Aesthetics show when i get home). The cruder is in Toscana. The cruder is in Firenze. This is 21st century Italy, but it needn't be. These pieces are solid silver. This watch is beautifully crafted. These leather goods are local. The hog is to be hunted, shot, and mounted. It's all just junk. These tourists swelter and loiter and bleed euors. These tourists are guided like a group of preschoolers, led by a flag and a cynical, Phdeed tour leaders - does she hate them? Does she curse them? All in a days work no doubt. Shes used to it. Pickpockets are at work apparently. According to the Australian travel advisory site since December 2015 Rome and Milan have been in the hypothetical cross-hairs of an anti-abortionist or related group. Apparently. Well, probably. The terror is real - apparently. And those machine guns are so damn sexy. Sleek black metal. The military here are sexy and stylish. Avoid all places where people gather. Even better - don't leave the hotel. In fact, why did I travel in the first place?

Really though - what can you do? Cower? Its like the tactic of the psychic vampire or the charlatan witch - inject the vile concept (a potential attack)and let the mark's endogenous fears and neurosis metastasize. Thats the power of belief. If you believe you're in danger - you are in danger. If you are some sort of half-baked non-linearist or a presentist or a buddhist, it ought to make no difference whether the aiport explodes or not. There needs to be a mid-point. It can and it does happen. The politics behind it all is absolutely out of my control. If i could solve the worlds various problems i would. It can and it does happen. But often, quite often, it does not happen. Like all those people who listen to Judas Priest and don't blow their face off. But it happens. And it has happened. But i ask myself - what (the fuh) do y' do? I mean - if i had the intent to kill some poor wretch and the preservation of my own life was completely unimportant, who and what could really stop me? How do you deal with that? You need spies? You need deep infiltration and encrypted intelligence propagation methodologies? You need to align with organized crime? You need to locate, indentify and bribe? Of course, absolutists of a religious tendency cannot be bought off. Or can they? You need to play extremely dirty. And micro-scale. And extremely deftly. And....

Oh....I DONT KNOW, AND NEVER WILL. Its all so pre-rigged.(I sound like the hostage taker in 'Money Monster'). Every wealthy bastard gets a cut - the world is so utterly bent - determinism reigns supreme. With all the surveillance power the west boasts i cant understand why it's all so useless. Most people just want to live in peace. Most people just want to bring up their kids in saftey and have a nice, quiet life and wouldnt hurt a fly. Damn this stupid, stupid world and its stupid, stupid egoist patriarchal control freak population.

And thats all im going to say about that miserable topic.

The weather is stunning. Life is beautiful. Italy is good for the soul. Italy has soul. Its soulful to the core. It is demonstrably epicurean. It is dense, well worn,

it is people. People seem happy. This region seems to embody happiness. The people are often very good looking. The villagers emanate a graceful amicability, in the main reserved for each other, sometimes spilling over to visitors.

Hey Putas. well here is the Cruder in Italia and me and my moglie is walking around the borderline vulgar display of utter magnificence that is Florence. Its all oooooh and aaaah and my lord that is rather old and wafts of leather and meats and cheeses. Its dense and ornate to the point of psychosis. But i cannot deny it - its amazing here. But man, the west --- the object, matter, all that 'stuff'. Is there time to think amongst all this

display? To 'have' to 'hold' to 'consume' to 'excrete' to 'express' your 'power' and adorn thy universe-sized ego seems to be the way of it all here.

The western way. Objects. Objects. Objects.

Leather and mould.

Catholicism is one hell of a display in Italy. The churches and iconography, the paegentry and shrines are breathtaking. The tortured Christ is still pinned to the crucifix, for ever, world without end. The purification and sanctification of our sins continues. The sacred heart is the portal to heaven. I saw the blessed head of Saint Catherine of Siena and have been fascinated by Catholic mysticism ever since. Uh ohhh. Satan is angry - first i give up the devil music, now I am a dabbling in Christ's blood?

Travel. why do it? why why why. bye. bye. bye.

Posted by matthew_

Saturday, November 5, 2016

Hiya Allesandro!

I stink, apparently.

You got me, big data, you got it all. And all those traces this brain forgot , you retain, forever.

You know more about myself than myself and for that I thank you, Allessandro.

Big data. You know when the effluent crowns, how it spirals into the toilet bowl. You calculate the trajectory of each and every faecal portion, and use its flight path as a bargaining chip. It takes 0.9 seconds to break the seal of the water. It is heavy in bacteria and, for all intents and purposes, quite healthy. It is full of the digested remains of blueberries, kombucha, yoghurt, noodle, chocolate.

You got me, big data. Memories. This very paragraph is Solomons meta-mine.. Where I am. What I am probably going to do later today.. What the last purchase I made was. How I will get to work tomorrow. What web-sites I will probably look up. And of course, the spin axis of the next bowel movement. For this is where the Boeing engineers source their angular momentum algorythms.

I am no privacy warrior - nor a libertarian. I know its all too late. Privacy is finished. Kaput. A spectre of the past. This is a Phillip K Dick world. And I don't care. Should I care? Should I? Do you? Privacy. What is it? Concealed knowledge? Operating within an exclusive system? Keeping it to yourself? Free-will? Keepin' it on the down low? When holy people down the street call me a 'cop' (someone who reads) or a 'dickhead', I re-wire the flimsy insult and transmute it into a stunning complement. I am a Dick. You are damn right, oh high one. I am a Phillip K Dick. Melbourne is my ground, and neither billionaire nor slum lord nor millenial princess cum intern psychic vamp can stop the madness I have let loose. For it is automated. It is an algorhythm.

Is my meta-data interesting, Allesandro? Or is it run of the mill, strictly routine stuff - entertainment news, the x-factor, renovation-based reality shows, top chef, facebook, youtube videos about celebrities, clown scares, fight sequences? Or is it interesting? What is my demographic exactly? What am I? What can I tell you about society? Do you care? Apparently so! Greatly so. So much so, that you have calculated the trajectory of my next bowel movement, and will transmit it staight to Boeings secure server.

I (whoever I am) played a musical entertainment show the other night. It was the first in a long while. Chuggin on the old shawm. The old bender. The swizzle stick. The buzzer. Unfortunately, I now will name (band) names.

It was Alberts Basement fest held in a small theatre space called Danes Certificates off Sydney Road. Acts like the great Dead Flannelette improvised on synthesiser lines - heavy sound direct intravenous body music, blasting away any sense of personal space, entering mitochondrial walls and replacing the carbon-base with silicon, a blissfull conversion, a receiving, a rare plume of vestigial analogue , pre-digital slather, muscle shirt, Coffs Harbour, the faith militant, engorged synth pulses, drip feed data muscle, chary muck lane, shovel and shawm, work retreat, worm experiments, the longevity gene. I'll fund you research, but Im broke. Other acts that night were the avant garde likes of

Bourgeois Biggots, Lower Plenty - evoking the likes of Television Personalities et al, the illustrious experimenter Matthew P Hopkins, new combo Scoliosis, all punctuated by the catholic mixes of DJ Tapeways.

It was experimental melbourne par excellence that night. It was a good night. It was a fun night.

On our merry way home we were drawn into a wonderfully ebullient cuban music bar, started dancing to the infectious multi-faceted beats when an unfriendly woman informed me that I stunk, and she was right. Was it a comment on my body odour, or my dancing? Or was it code for criminality, for being a socialistic type? Was she a local christian was insenced by the gyrating sinner in her midst? Was she a rich-kid, with full unbridled access to perfurmery and washing machinery? Was the bar actually just a meat market and she assumed i was trying to hook up with her, but I stunk? Was she a local militant atheist? Was she latin nobility, who, horrified at the attempts of this anglo-french-norwegian pasty face to 'do the lambada like I'm down with the latinos or something' within 2 metres of her holy odour free mind, soul and body, simply had to put me in my place? Was she a distant relative of Pablo Escobar? Was she the daughter of the owner of the business, acting as a kind of 'olfactory quality control' mechanism, retaining a better class of people within the venue? Or was she just a mollycoddled, pitiful control freak, lonely as all hell, who's only pleasure is to demean and humiliate total stangers? Who knows. But I allowed myself to be affected by this total stranger. And I let the damage to my ego ruin the night, and I left, frantically sniffing my armpits, only to throw a bottle outside the bar like i wanted to be beaten up, a fit of mid-life crisis, the gloriously foolish stuff i used to do back in the day,, oh alcohol, you bring out the best in us all. The punters were wise - they just ignored me. Thats what you do. You ignore a ranting drunk and they eventually go away.

So, anyone can think what they want about what I am, it makes no difference. As the Roman Stoic philosopher Epictetus said - there are the things that are in your control and those that are not. I have no control over the opinions of others. Let whatever is not in our control be nothing to us.

Stammered out into deep shisha. Pineapple. Walked past, stammered. Anxious about nothing. Because really, thats what all activity is - nothing. There is no inherent reality to that weekend, it is gone. It is merely the traces of meta-data sitting in the server over at allesandros place, and the plastic memory neurons forming and reforming in this brain.

Saturday, December 3, 2016

hey vlad

Hey world, go fuh yourself!

Whats the plan, world? Eh? Permanent corporate consolidation so that one-billionth of Rothchilds left-frontal lobe owns a billion percent of the worlds wealth? Oh probably, Herman. Permanent aeconomic growth forever? Yeah yeah....thats it, I've knocked that one out before a trillion times but it needs to be said - lets take it to its absolute end game - the ultimate Keynsian/Nashian outcome! watch the great 'Incorporated' and 'Hypernormalization' for a looksy Bob! Lets brown-out the middle classes forever amen! Lets white wash and pillage and remain tea bagging kick-backing cockle-gagging Cynics. For that is how it is and how it will be forever. World without end. Go Osiris's sister, those ultra left state creators, the planners and multi-wived gang-bangers. They've got Melbourne in the cross hairs now, apparently, so we better fuggin watch our hairy wonk-stained backs. A slick perfumed bearded guy in a black toyota toorak wagon might smite me with his bad vibes. Time for our collective heads to be removed from our collective necks methinks, Ralph. Ah, thats the fun we call early 21st century, the blowback from late eightees CIA statecraft. President Trump is going to be manipulated by more intelligent beings. Whats Trumps take on the ufo question? Does he have advisors? I do, I have many advisors. Daggy the grey, Larry the tall white and Henry the insectoid. They tell me where to eat, where to shit. They tell me to get down and suck it. It. Their alien probiscus, a barbed undulating pulsing woman-man. GG Burroughs. A profession. Not much money involved in this blogging business Rodge so I best diversify my portfolio.

Especially superconducting. Gnarley multi-band chassy you got their Simon. The present quantum : how bout those Fermi Bubbles?

Saturday, December 10, 2016

moral standing/ real credit/ value and worth

Dear World,

Oh world, thou art turned inward on thyself. Oh world, thou art self aware and self monitoring, thou art an archive of socio-biology turned meta-data, a hall of mirrors, a global-narcisssist.

Oh science, continue forward, and resist ye militarization - for the US DoD want full spectrum dominance. They currently want unfettered access to and control of all and/or any new emerging technologies . As we are on the cusp of a paradigm shift analogous to the discovery of the wheel or transistors, I, a nobody of know consequence, suggest individual countries protect, cryptographize, nurture and fund their research activities to the hilt. For science knows no bounds.

Progress in science and technology will define geo-political boundaries into the future. So says Matty, the clown about town.

Oh life, surely there is more to you than economic activity. You'd think not these days. The Divide

Oh life, surely there is more to you than wage slavery and debt. You'd think not these days. The debt resistors operations manual is worth a load-down. He picks up a pen, draws a large circle and presents me with a set of purple cards.

What is a credit rating exactly. Why don't they teach this at school from day one? Meet your new friends and the first thing you learn - sorry kids - but - yeah - you can be anything you want to be. Just as long as it is not arts related. Pay your bills religiously and on time without fail. Garner thee a triple A rating and maintain this through life without fail. Do not question why the system is as it is because you will be marginalized and rendered insane. Do not question or probe the money system, the hierarchies of control, the corrupt networks who get away with murder, the loan sharks, the bottom feeders. Learn how to manipulate numbers and compund interest. Become a predatory lender and screw over the poor. Learn how to feltch cash and which way you can. Then and only then do you have moral standing in this world.

Thursday, December 22, 2016

presidential humping

Continental United States. Contingency Contracting.

Contingency Basing. Contingency Engineering. Combat Engineering.

Black Operational Bangers. Contingency Contract. Kingmaker. Four to the Floor Intoxication renovation.

Harrowing! A lone boot-boy gradually loses weight. Knocks out a few more holes in his belt. Boots and braces, white boot-laces, eyebrows removed, hair removed, a daily shave of the entire cranium and face, a prison tattoo o'er the third eye, a craft-knife scar across the cheek. Many friends on the outside look forward to his release - he has commited the codes to memory, is hell-bent on revenge, has the plans embedded in the reptilian section of the brain. On release he will co-ordinate with a rebel faction, be fed and housed, have his desires satiated, brought back to life. These are cynical times - there has been a type of universal truce. At the top of the pyramid criminal gangs collaborate fully so as to maximize profits. This brazen mixing of codes is heresy to our prisoner, and revenge is due to the current White Riders boss, Warren Mark Voldmann. Voldmann sold out. He did business with the Nigerians, thus soiling 24 years of pure Aryan activity.

Joint Operations. Crisis Management. Identify, Acquire, Deny, Degrade, De-louse, Dismember, De-regulate, Damage, Downconvert, Disengage, Downgrade, De-activate, Confuse, Shock, Daze, Deceive, De-fame, Swear at and ultimately maintain Osiris' sister-wife, for the good of US interests around the solar system. Moon base buggy butler. Damage criteria. Audits and appraisals, credit checks and bank statements, lets see what Warren Mark Voldmann hs been spending his money on eh?

Credit bad? No worries, we have a special Trumped up interest rate for you! You complete loser. You moral retrograde. You'll be in debt to us for the rest of your life! And that's standard practise. Its just how it is - we can't do anything about it - I do understand how you feel though. I'm just doing my job, but, really, how do I sleep at night? I drink. Anyways, our Warren went to an ATM in Ballarat on Wednesday and withdrew $80 dollars cash. Damn, cash - hard to trace that. Come on Wazza, use the paypass! Wait....wait...here we go. At 3:43pm on the Friday he went to Bunnings warehouse and spent $5.95, then he went to the Hog and Bone Hotel and spent $55 (on CRAFT beer!! what a blouse), after the pub he used paypass at a local Woolworths franchise, then paid for a cab, paid part of a parking fine online, had a Cash Converters payment direct debited, drew down $7 from his Paypal account, purcahsed a beat up second hand police scanner on US EBay, and finally used his credit card to buy a t-shirt from Stormfront's E-store. Busy boy. No ostensible evidence of wrongdoing here. But still. Best retain total awareness and full spectrum dominance - theres a needle in the meta-haystack so we might as well just keep the whole damn haystack. The whole damn haystack. So people, lets keep stocking up that haystack. Just type type type. Dosent matter what it is. Just cram cyberspace with meta-gunk, create an alternative narrative. Why let Fox determine what's what? Oh reality, thou art relative. Oh reality, thou art elusive, shadowy, not really there. When the billionaire sleeps, what does s/he dream of? Does she dream of being poor suddenly, of lining up with the morally bankrupt down centrelink way, having to hold her nose, flushed red with existential embarrasment, screaming on the inside? Does she dream of banking algorhythms, she becomes a literal astral algorythm, banging around nano-fibres and meta-materials, zeroes upon zeroes, the financialization of value, the valuelessness of finance, interest compunded upon interest compounded, full automatization of all manufacturing and retail forever and ever, robotic solutions, robots who like to go shopping on the weekends, robots who make great employees who would never dream of joining the robot-workers union. Does she dream of life-extension, of health problems, of what she could do to help the world, does she dream of

space colonization, of mind uploading, of cryogenic suspension? Does she dreaming of private armies, private medical teams, private space-flight, mining the moon and mars, making sweet love to 6 foot tall blocks of coal, bleaching the great barrier reef, giving birth to lumps of coal, coal coal coal.

Oh 2017 - now madness is fully realized and human kind has truly lost. The right has won the memetic war with pure Bernaysian gumption , the left has been discredited in the eyes of the public by its tendency to debate, squabble and its seeming inability to reach consensus and full doctrinal unity - thus the right poses itself as 'no bull'. It dosent waste time. Its not afraid. It's primal. Its natural and closer to God. It is 'realer'. Its not 'bogged down' . The lower middle classes have been utterly duped and dosent realize it is not voting in its actual self-interest. Trump wants to keep the jobs in the US? Be prepared to take a huge paycut there, Chad. Oh populism, you cater to the lowest common denominator and they just eat it all up. And that is what Populism is. Hearing what you want to hear. appealing to divisiveness, to base prejudices both concious and unconscious, pure and cynical , for the votes.

We are now told to forget about global warming. Okay cool I'll forget about it. I'll do what you tell me to do boss.

Posted by matthew_

Saturday, January 21, 2017

Year Zero

The United States of America has it's 45th President.

A maverick renegade. A maverick anti-establishmentarian. A renegade renegade, a rogue with a propensity for paranoia second only to the likes of Stalin. Or me.

Behold ! Spicer is his Goebells, he is at the helm, the press secretary chastiszing the liberal left-biased media, consigning them to sub-standard work-stations, to swelter in cells. Evacuating the possiblility of critique. For no critique will be tolerated.

'Twill be a cult of personality, a movement, a cult. a gang.

And all I feel is chaos rising, lawlessness - the wild west , a gangster-in-chief, the end of all rules, restrictions, regulations, checks, balances. ATM's ejaculating money in my mind again. Dopamine cascades and renegade mavericks , mercenary soldiers , pirates, bounty hunters and smugglers.

An unravelling of all that was struggled for over the last 400 years. A resetting of the clock. Year Zero, a type of new liquid fascism, a type of nationalist socialism as it were.

This internet I use is American. Should I even be allowed to use it? Am I paying my due?

The presidents daily brief.

Monday the 23rd of January 2017.

What will it read? Will he even read it? Why would he? Go on - throw it out. Can entire agencies. Put vast swathes of civil servants onto the street, by God. What does he need to know, and what can he actually do about it? He knows it all already dosent he? Are international matters of any real consequence? A maladapted nobody such as myself can draft together intelligence from the open sources of the internet - is his intelligence truly any intelligenter ? Fox news is all anyone needs anyway isn't it? The cia is a biased liberal media hoax as it turns out, isn't that so? Ann Coulter is a fan. What indeed IS 'the media' anyway? Media. Who or what is this 'media'. What is truth, exactly? Who's truth is the real truth? What is actually happening out there? What is Presidential power - and how does it actualy rank beside Corporate power, Theocratic power, the power of the Academy, and the power of ...the Media. How can Trump acheive absolute power? How do we enthrone him as a God. We must obey and never call anything he says into question. We must accept his proclamations with total an utter obedience. His truth is THE truth. The entire world is now United States. The only truth is Trump, and I am Donald Trump. He is father, leader, stateman, and visionary.

Wednesday, January 25, 2017

Dribble on, dribbler

Dribbling.

Sputter. Hoick. Gag. Spasticity and contortion. Muscle relaxant. Thanking the Lord.

Oh to dribble, our waveguide, our gyrotron.

Don't lose your job, oh New Zealand citizen, oh lord no. You may just end up having to deal drugs to Australian teenagers or prostitute yourself to Australian baby-boomers. Don't forget to tranfer your super too - else the Super fund gets it all back in fees. You can only tranfer it into Kiwisaver. No kiwi can access their Super early unless theyve been on Centrelink for a long time. Which you cannot do, so you can't.

Just keep working and paying your tax. And shut up or go home.

Oh yes, go home. Lets all go home. Then the Australians will have to actually work. Which they don't generally like doing. So we can't do that. Better stay here and fatten up the Australian governments coffers and get ripped off by the countless fatted, clumsy, expectorant-loaded ozzie scum-bag rip-off utility schemes abounding here there and everywhere.

Oh coil-up and blow-thy-load.

And don't bruise thy lenticular vesicle.

Blob on and blob off the hokey pokey.

Sickle-cell glad-bag flipper-scmaltz.

Finger whetting.

Vetting and recruitment guild, promissory meninges.

Calculated to suckle.

Friday, February 10, 2017

hating on't

.........Another executive order from the anti-president, Matty M. Bulletinize me up an easy to read report in 30 days. Stregthen this and bolster that. Protect this and Dismantle that. So says I, the nought. The Cruder. The fool. That kiwi who moved to Australia and got a job. For life. May my super fund , bank account, myki fines, library fines, toll debt, water bill and

union dues line other more economically astute, 'competitive'and Randian/Nashian type

peoples pockets for millenia to come. Skim off what you can westpac.

While you're there Mr Anzac, keep that income tax rolling in, because some politician needs to take his new girlfriend to a conference. No, it's true, some politician needs to take his new girlfriend to a conference.

......I read a blog this morning that moved me somewhat. 'Twas the pre-suicide writings of a truly deep thinker - a measured, revolutionary, sensitive and forthright teenager by the name of Jake Bilardi.

Of course he was painted as a fool in the media, a victim. But in his writing I reckoned upon a highly intelligent Australian performing only what he deemed to be the right thing to do in the circumstances. Death had been waiting for him since puberty. He was a willing weapon. He had studied the primary and secondary sources and thought it all through very, very deeply.

As Trump would probably intone...I see it time and time again.

I'll hazard a proclamation. No authority am I of course, but we are here in fantasy land so..

Gifted children get left behind in this society, there are no champions for these people, no motivators, no nurturers, no mentors. Gifted kids and their antithesis, the slow learners, are seemingly un-wanted and just too damn difficult to deal with, frankly. In my opinion -gifted children are bright stars, they must be harnessed. They must be rescued . A waveguide must be coupled to their shf transmitter.

. They must be encouraged to lead us. It appears as though Bilardi was ignored.

So he was Islamisized. So what? He could have been Trotskyized. He could just as well have been Nazified. He may have become a heroin addict. He could've been Scientologized.

Or worse still - he could have been psychoanalysed and transformed into a well adjusted young work unit /labour cost for this our aeternal

world economy'. Ahh yes ....The economy - the only thing in life worth living for, right?

The economy - the true meaning of the universe. The economy - I sacrifice myself unto thee for the good of ...um....err....who...? Who exactly? My self-interest? My 'name' ? My

'credit rating' ? The GDP figure? The state of the nation? 0.000001% of Rothschilds left frontal lobe (that which owns 60,000% of the worlds value)? Him? That guy? That company?

Can anyone blame this kid for capitulating to a unit that he and they themselves believe to be the

purist manifestation of piety on the globe at the time? What was the best he could get at home exactly? A mortgage? A miserable job? Debt? Pornographized throw-away culture? Sport? Gym membership? A beach to visit? Bullying for being a geek? A chance to join the footy team? A nice girl?

Of course as a reasonably non-violent person,

I do not in any way agree with what he actually did. And no, oh christian traditionalist conservative, I'm not another leftist romanticizing the Islamist cause. I wouldn't hurt a fly if I could get away with it. Attacking random civilians is low. Hurting people is not right in my book. Just don't hurt people. Could people just stop hurting each other? I guess theres just too much unfinished business out there for it to stop - too many ancient scores to be settled, to many eyes to be eyed. Again , I'll say it - oh I don't fucking know. I don't. Really. Can anyone be blamed for wanting to renounce the world? I mean - really?

All I am saying is that I, after reading his blog, in a small way, I can sort of...just kind of see what drove him to do it. Strike that Lilliput - ach, i have no idea and never will. This world is a maelstrom of confusion and misrepresentation. Fie on't.

Posted by matthew_middleton at 8:29 PM

Friday, February 24, 2017

Not much . Greet the spectre and siphon the sylph. Melbourne spit-wack gag-back, righteous real folk

dab on a light beige swathe. Trumpers humpers told me to do it.

Talc, son, talc. It sits on like a layer of skin. Its a bigot.

Now, timing in dick-off projections equals a specialist hacker-pud ; I am a human after all and it dosent really matter what is puked onto the web because no-one actualy is reading this.

Its love making, see, kinda gross. All micro-movements and swivels.

Bang on. So sliver it, yoghurt.

Bought a radio scanner and am now listening to this new fangled 'AM' radio, receiving a lot of data from news outlets like bbc world and abc new radio. There's talk of a tax-back-pack and witch-craft operations in lower Preston.

Myrtle blue lined it.

Sag, switch and bait. No actual person there, just a beltch of rear-ended photons backing up into your rods and cones, I'm a walking piece o' brain, a Richard.

Or is that 'dick'? People call me dick all the time.

Spit all you want, oh righteous public.

Y' shuffle past and receive a shudder. A

maelstrom of propagating photons reflecting into your primitive back-brain, poisoning your oh so pious space with my heretical being. Some gag, others vomit, some ejaculate curses and frowns.

Oliver sees through you all. Make grade

righteous and the real of this land. Holier than thou, holier than I.

I am one of the anomalous types in the 21st century, someone who reads books. Someone who won't accept your reality. Someone from another dimension altogether, a shapeshifter, a sylph. I am your devil. I am the personification of wrongness. I see through you all.

Shudder, spit and vomit. Excrete those photons as quickly as you can before you are poisoned. I will not go anywhere, I cannot be deleted and never will.

Brisket personified, its a corseted world we live in, a complex wag of ethnicities.

Its a battle for iron ore. Theres a steam ship up my port and its loaded with Iron ore , sapphires and semiconductors. we trade and brigade. we carve up territory like Edwardian Brits on stimulants.

Lower-east side Rothschild neuron-bank sector I should say, its up for repurposing , refurnishing and a good -old body mod. I would invest wisely, but I'm I don't allow myself the luxury of handling cash.

Posted by matthew_middleton at 3:45 AM

Friday, March 10, 2017

wits

You get to the point where you start asking yourself - am I scum?

How many times is a person allowed to 'lose it' before they are no longer tolerated?

Are people roiled around like puppets, slave to unconcious desires?

From where do challenges to ones equilibrium arise? From afar, outside oneself, or are the people who anger you merely triggering a crisis within ones own mind?

Do we unknowingly project our hate onto others day to day? Do we project our fears, anxieties and personal failings onto other people?

Is life a perpetual game of wits where you are fated to encounter person after person who twist your mind, test your psychological limits, who taunt, test and torture?

When one 'loses it' are you acting badly or well? Does a nervous breakdown allow someone to offload responsibility? Who is the ultimate arbiter in 2017?

Why do we allow ourselves to be walked over? What function does passivity serve in the end ? Why do i 'lose it' instead of asserting myself? Who has the energy in this world to compete with a colleague? Is that the meaning of our life here on this planet? Getting ahead of your co-worker?

Why do people take advantage of those of a generous and open nature? Am I just an easy mark, a pushover, a simpleton, or am I vile?

Why do people break, why do people, mostly rational and reasonable, sometimes explode? What is performance anxiety and how is it transmitted from boss to underling to underling? In the form of

short, curt language? By way of ultimatums? In the form of nit picking and micro-control? With tantrums and swear words?

What is control? Who has it, who lacks it? Are controllers proud of their ability to control spaces and other people or does it secretly strangle them? When is a space or situation out of control?

Where is the ultimate controller in any given reference frame? How much control is necessary at any given point in time? Can control be quantified? Can it be monetized?

Are there universal rules ? What is normal behaviour? Who owns whom? What is work/life balance?

What is bad management ? Are your workers human and how can we mitigate the costs of this inherent liability? What is information management? Who needs to know? What is the end game? The worker should be lead by the nose and only know what its doing for the next micro-job. Keep them confused, squabbling over scarce resources and most importantly - isolate any union members so as to counter their ability to disseminate propaganda. Hire plentiful temps to isolate and disenfranchise any loitering 'legacy' staff. Create a duopoly in the workplace - the fast and flexible labour hire crew vs the stodgy and demanding unionized crew.

Never assert command presence. Never assert anything.

Posted by matthew_middleton at 3:49 AM

Saturday, April 1, 2017

the moneyed ; the monetized

....Who are these people? Do they actually exist? These 'players of the game'..these rational, future ready, job ready, saving and planning types? Are they really really real? Are they planning and purchasing insurance even as they dream? While they're in REM sleep? Who are these people, these healthy, fresh, straight-edged money magicians, playing that game o' capital - saving a good chunk of their income each fortnight, paying each bill on time with assurity and verve, maintaining a triple A credit rating, paying off their mortgage fastidiously, whipping up enough to purchase a second property, an investment piece or three, forward thinking and pragmatic. Positivist and Kuhnian. Randian.

...............Insured, registered, liscensed, permitted, green-lighted, squeaky clean, fineless, debtless, protected, reified, prudent, austere, moderate in every way, no compulsions, fully adapted into adulthood, successfully brought into the world by two upstanding parents - one male, one female, nurtured and raised by the same two parents and thus able to leave the nest free of all complex undigestable emotions and neurosis? Who are they? Are they under 40? Less likely. Oh the baby boomers had it so good - they have to make sure their beautiful ageing and artificially perpetuated selves are satiated and money-logged until their ultimate demise, hogging it all, lording it about, hyper-neo-liberalizing every aspect of society for their heirs. I believe deep down they actually hate their kids. They don't give a damn about anything but themselves. And they don't care. The hippies at Woodstock became the most selfish and solipsistic breed of capitalist hogs in history, thanking us all by extending their children and grandchildrens work life into their 80s, no, no, you must work yourself to death, son - we didnt have to but in order to keep Australia economically viable going forward we need to cut all welfare, casualize the entire labour market, automate and robotisize all production, get the machines maintaining the machines, euthenase all homeless and mentally ill, privatize all public space, monetize all space and time, dismantle manufacturing in this country 100%, criminalize all unions, discourage all intellectual and cultural foment by gentrifying all warehouses and cheap neighbourhoods, securitize and hyper-monetize all cultural meeting space. Make households unviable on one income. Drive up all rent, but criminalize homelessness. Send all babies off to creche. Mummy and Daddy do nothing but work work work.

We should monetize our dreams. How can we somehow make money while we dream? Could we monetize our toilet time? How about air, lets charge each person for the air they breath. 10 cents a breath? More? Monetize the atmosphere. Patent all genes. Patent neurons. Patent words. Criminalize languages. Ban loitering and all human gatherings. Atomize all culture and discourage any groups of more than two from organizing or planning anything beyond the weeks grocery list. Individuate, individualize and promote solipsism.

Who are they, are there any people under 40 who are NOT in debt? Are there people out there unshackled , young, ebullient, exalted, entreprenurial? I'm not so certain any more. You see the odd one walking around town I guess. Confident, all smiles, motivated, backed up by strong networks, healthy, bouyant, efficient. Is it just a act? Is every young person out there actually screwed? Underneath the enjoyment in the moment one gleans from a coffee and chat - is every 20 something drowning in debt, subconsciously in a maelstrom of uncertainty and nihilism, looking forward to nothing but a type of economic slavery? No ability to buy a house, no ability to pay off the debt for 20 years, can't afford to have kids, cant afford to travel, basically screwed? Will our kids be the next Victorians? Is feudalism the future? Where is all the money? who actually has it? Can I have some?

Saturday, April 29, 2017

do aliens exist?

Do Aliens exist?

Well, come on. I mean, okay, we are here. We are an assemblage of universally distributed chemicals. So it makes sense to assume, given the right conditions, a similar evolutionary process could occur elsewhere in the universe. Just look at how many stars are in the galaxy and how many galaxies make up this universe. Staggeringly vast amounts. Life in some form is likely, in my opinion, to exist elsewhere.

But ufos, alien 'sightings' on earth. This I am not so sure about but i am not a skeptic either. I believe I actually witnessed an unidentified flying object as a child in my home town.

It was a small dark object that loomed in the overcast sky and was curiously stationary for some time. This is what at first attracted me to it, it didnt seem to move and yet was airborne. It didnt make any sense. It appeared like a reconnaisance drone. i was playing outside on the road at the time. Perhaps they were making sure i wasnt hit by a car. I did not see it leave, my attention was that of a childs.

In Melbourne we have the famous Westall High School sighting of 1966 . Extremely mysterious and a multiple sighting. Well documented.

We have the 'disclosure project' and its archive of testimony. Thats compelling stuff. It is a pity that Steven Greer seems like such a flake. Well, he's buff at least.

The enigma of ufos and aliens has permeated my life, what with sci-fi and such. But the field truly attracts some wierd people. And some truly dodgy types - in fact all paranormal fields , like finance et al do attract freaks. Some are out and out frauds.

But there is a kernel of truth out there. The 'I know what I saw' crowd. Are they here though? Are they in cahoots wit' the governments of the wrrrrld ?

Are they? Reveal yourselves, oh alien craft!

Saturday, April 29, 2017

Skimming

How much skimming really goes on out there, Brian? Think of it. what is a bank fee exactly. A mathematically generated figure, rendered pure by a water-tight corporate ethics policy, or is it an

arbitrary extraction, 5 easily forgotten cents here, 1 dollar there, the mass collection of the fiscal refuse of 20 million overdrawn accounts, bits and pieces you wouldnt even care about but really do seem to add up. And the banks go on and on with this practise, smug as a turd withholding infant in the knowledge that their top lawyers will destroy (utterly) any of the little people who question them about it. The winners of the game are simply those who know where the loopholes lurk, how to take advantage of them, how to compound interest, how to exponentialize digital figures, how to sell their system to a nicely tenderized public.

Being rich is sold as a state one must strive for and acheive no matter what. Being rich is sold as the answer to all lifes problems. It is sold as something anyone should be able to acheive. And yet, it is an obsessively guarded and extremely vetted club. It is not for the likes of us. It is a special club, a club where i wager 99% of its members were born that way. The entrepreneurs and the self made men are freaks of nature, the rare cases yet their stories are sold as your potential story. Find a need and fill it. Or is it create a needless desire and market it as an absolute must have. Its all about timing. Its all about ideas. Be an entrepreneur now! Start up your tech idea and tomorrow you are a billionaire. Ningy. Wiffy. Tad. Pip. Ving. Zaffer. Noid. C++ derivative pricing.

They are running out of ideas. Thats why we have polytechs et al, the best students have their ideas lifted by the companies. Thats what theyre there for. Polytechs and Universities are the ideas labs for the concept deprived corporate world.

The best and the brightest of our generation have nothing but servitutde and financial decrepitude to look forward to, unless their family is rich and arent self made right wing prolesytisers who want to teach you a lesson by withholding 'help'. Many parents of the boomer generation just cant understand why their kids are struggling. It must be a sort of 'degeneration of will' that occurs, it must be some sort of inherent laziness or inability to think pragmantically. Or is it the result of a systemic gutting and privatization of any and all socio-cultural channels, so that profit is the absolute imperative and perpetual indebtedness is the default mode of all existence.

Why do i bother ranting? It is because I am powerless and must somehow recoup some sort of dignity. No-one may be reading this, that is true. The reader no doubt finds this socialist blurble hackneyed and done-to-death, eyes rolling, frowns darkening. Or maybe not. This line needs to be repeated forever.

Learn C++ and become a financial engineer. Do it yesterday, or eviction is your lot, loser boy.

I suggest all student loan defaulters start a commune in rural Victoria. My god, you can grow your own food????? You can keep warm with fire? Is neo-primitivism my future? It could very well be, the way things are going. Survivalism and swiss army knives. Hunting and collecting. If Ving dosent take off it's time to camp out, its time for the occupy movement to start again. It could just be time to start a massive collective drop out survivalist alternative to the wonder that is shoe shopping.

Its happening already. Notice how Melbournes homeless population is getting younger and younger each year. Some appear as runaways, I bet a good proportion are New Zealand citizens. They should just go home, eh. Oh, but they cant afford the ticket. Oh, okay. Oh well, they should just get a job. Yeah. Just get a job. Round them all up. Off to Nauru for you. Learn C++ derivative engineering man. That scene in American Psycho when Patrick Bateman kills the homeless person . He first asks him why he hasnt got a job. Then he kills him. Pure unabated rightist elite dog eat dog fury. A child is taught to be polite first, then they are taught you must compete and step over anyone and everyone to get ahead. I say I reject that world. Off to a hermitage for me. I am good. I am a good human being. I reject your competitive blood sport financial regime. I reject shoe shopping. I reject greed. I reject

your values. I reject this world. I reject the dominant paradigm. I reject the established , grey, stinking, corrupt, cancerous, abusive, sociopathic evil that is the central banking system. I reject the US dollar and will not use it in my financial reporting anymore. I reject conservativism.

Wednesday, May 10, 2017

new zealander applies for centerlink / australian applies for WINZ

Take our tax, code 33 us in every other way. Thats the ANZAC spirit ! Here I am loitering in your wonderful country, propping up at least one of your sterling unemployed 1st class Australian citizens, but if I lose my job, I guess I better start selling drugs of addiction to your children because theres no option for me now is there. The pavement outside Flinders is looking extra cozy this winter what with the increasing population of warm blooded mammals congregating there! We'll find our cardboard, pen our story, find a spot t' squat upon and see if we can get our tax back in a paper cup! Of course, an Australian can go to NZ and get dole, or sickness benefit. As much as needed, whenever its needed. Why don't our politicians emulate the Australian policy? Why should Australians residing in New Zealand be granted this dole? Perhaps because it is ethical to do so? It offsets the cost of looking after homeless Australians who are savaged by hypothermia while sleeping rough down Dunedin way.. Goodo. I tell ya, If I was a cabinet politician in NZ i would go out of my way to make sure no Australian in New Zealand received any governmental assistance whatsoever. This would make sense, an eye for an eye etc. But no, it seems our politicians are taking the moral high ground on this one. They're turning the other cheek as it were.

Here in the lucky country , welfare is pretty much there for anyone... except the kiwi.

Kiwi go home. Kiwi kill yourself. Kiwi kill Aussie. Kiwi make me laugh.

Kiwi likes the sex. Kiwi go to jail. Kiwi in the woods. Kiwi in the closet. Kiwi makes the grade. Kiwi go home. Kiwi thinks too much.

"They'll all come over if we change the law. We don't want you here, frankly".

Actually bud, we don't want you in New Zealand either, unless you've 'got jobs to come back to'.

I swear you're wrong. You want me here alright. You need me. You literally need me. Without us there wouldn't be any edgy art or music going on.. Its true isn't it though, Ross, just admit it - millenial Australian art is just so damn tame because, well, they just got it too damn good! "Oh, this piece is a sort of abstract expressionist work about my break up with my girlfriend. I had to go to the holiday house for a while to recover and paint. Luckily, I was granted the centrelink sickness benefit for a while. But that afforded me the time to really work through the seperation trauma"

I wrote this tune when i was in Bali, its about Bali. And dinners. And kosher food.

Don't lose that job r if you do, have one waiting for you. Kiwi. Kiwi hard case mate.

Friday, May 26, 2017

debtor debtor

Today's tuning : 1.240.350.659 Ghz

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....Some strands of thought banging around over the last while. Behold! Earth and its society is bent beyond all recognition. The world system, in my opinion, is foul, degraded, malignant, wasteful, irreversibly gore spattered and corrupt. But......is it really? Is life on Earth simply 'what you make it'? Is radical subjectivity a real option? Is there a template underneath it all or are we merely a set of impermanent but ever shifting conditions lurching from one state to the next? Should one just ignore the unnecessary suffering, blatant unfairness and permanent terror out there and get on with a relatively lucky existence in a relatively lucky country or should one attempt to 'tell it like it is?' Some see the latter stance as 'negative'. Perhaps those a little more realist see it as 'cynicism' or 'critique'. Some see dosing up on brutal truth as yesterdays news, as preaching to the converted, we already know the story, big deal, tell me something I don't already know. In some societys this blog would have its operators in deep shit. In ours, it's more inconsequential noise amongst millions of equally opinionated blogs flooding cyberspace. So dang it. I'll keep the clutter up. It exists on and on and just refuses to be monetized. This gen X ego is an extremely gunky filter. Anything written here is subjective to the core - blanket statements, sweeping, bow shocked, arching, cosmological generalisations, intoxicated frippery, repetitive motifs, long winded sentences stoked with punctuation (was gen x the last generation to master punctuation??), gleeful in its wrongfulness, fully aware of the ramifications of data entombment on the internet, this is La Decennie Brut.

Of late I have read 'The debt resistors manual', which is available for free at strikedebt.org

Debt. What is it? Whose is it? Why is it sold? Why is it traded? Where does the money come from anyway? Who profits from debt? Is the debt-recovery industry making a profit these days? Is debt-recovery a profit centered industry too? Who lobbies government on their behalf? What is the end point for growth? What good do debt collection agencies do in this world? What is credit? What is money? When we go to sleep at night, why aren't we trotting off to our 'dream jobs' and paying 'dream bills'? Isn't it time we started monetizing sleep? .....And what about our pets? Its time they started pulling their weight too - why do they continue to get a free ride? They need jobs and they need to start paying rent. Insects should pay rent and bills, no excuses.

Why are debtors the new lepers? Why is debt pushed so vehemently onto individuals, organizations and entire economies? Why do we sit back and let the memetic engineers of our age get away with the blatant psycho-social manipulation they do? Do people not see it happening? Is it another case of the slow-boiled frog? I guess we've all just rolled over and died and thanked our rapists for ending it all. Or I have at least. Or have I? I guess we're all too busy working to see it.

To take on a debt you are putting your psycho-socio-aeconomico credibility on the line, big time. To fail to repay a debt is tantamount to a global moral failure.

To fail to be able to repay a debt, whether big or small, has been carefully tailored over the centuries to indicate that you are truly the lowest of the low, you are a weakling, a sort of child, a spineless and impulsive node of irresponsibility. "A Lannister always repays his debts." They can murder and rape all they like.

To be a defaulter is to be a hopeless case, a loser, a mousey, snivveling wreck, a sub-human. To default is to die. Whole countries are agressively pushed into austerity economics by the world bank and friends, but somehow the concept, the meme, of indebtedness has been miraculously transformed into an issue of atomistic, individual failing, of a poorly judged personal choice, of a moral, intimate, behavioural flaw.

And yet, we all know someone in the red, don't we. In fact, is there anyone out there NOT in debt? I mean, you've got good debts and bad debts. Good debts aren't even conceived of as debts. Theyre more like bills or benign, deserving transactions, a light at the end of each contractural tunnel. Those car repayments, those mortgage payments - anyone with them has been judged as reliable candidates anyway. Credit card debt, the most common form of debt, again, thats debt you've earned. Student Loan debt comes with some baggage though - true pragmatists shouldn't really even go to university anyway. To have a student loan debt means you think you are better than everyone else. And by god you better be paying it back. In an anti-intellectual age such as this one, you can bet your bottom dollar your colleague down the factory will be paying (or not) off a student loan. Probably a masters. Or phd. Fat load of good that done her right? Come on kids, get real. Get a job.

Don't, for god's sake, get one of those student loans. Perhaps this is all part of the vast global conspiracy - to discourage university enrollment, make getting educated beyond a certain level appear foolish, unwise, costly and a lifelong liability. What better way to get 'em all into the unskilled slave market.

When the majority of folk all have bad credit - how will the banks keep up their lending? Probably by copying the practices of predatory lenders. Bigger the risk, higher the repayment interest.

So , the masses work on, keeping the world humming along, making themselves usefull. Tighter and tighter we are squeezed, more and more fees and fines are heaped upon us, the ceos gotta get those bonuses somehow, don't they. Profit is the number one driver for the world economy and it must be accelerated and maximized at all costs. Any and all people are expendable. This growth maximization must occur into the future regardless of all and any physical limitation. In the case of physical depletion or extinction of a commodity, non-physical options must be identified, monetized, marketed, made desirable, rolled-out and made profitable post-haste. Monetize education at all levels, monetize the results of longer working hours, monetize public spaces inside and outside, increase all real estate values until bursting point, identify all and any community based govt departments local and federal, analyse potential savings and sever. Monetize all human emotions, all hormonal imbalances, all lifestyles. Demonize any and all counter cultural advocates, especially the antivaccination types. Increase profit by increasing any and all necessary health products/interventions. Make being a human and existing basically impossible. (How on earth did they do it back before money i have no idea).

What are some great industries making lots of money these days, Molly? The gambling industry is doing real well. Weapons manufacture, military catering. (burgers!) The global pornography business. Match fixing. Monsanto continue to redefine evil with each extortionistic technological breathrough. Coal and Oil is ever profitable. Drugs of course, because the drug trade is protected, backed up, armed, trained, lawyered up and

maintained with endless faux wars and interventiins that keep the supply protected and fluid - of course drugs are bad mkay and even though all the cool kids do it and its in your face its a personal choice at the end of the day. The global tobacco industry is profitable. Therefore they are good people because they have money. Banking, enriched by you and me and bottom trawling fee algorhythms, is making a killer profit these days. Apple computer is doing so well. And Google too. Google is a dang behemoth. Viva google. what else is pumping? Ivory? Debt consolidation? Debt retrieval? Private security? Any company with a sweat shop or three? Smart phones. Yoghurt. Dow Chemicals. Synthetic Genomics is tipped to be a long term earn. Water, Water filtration systems. Sewerage pumps. Pneumatics.

A space rock song by Crude:

Saturday, June 24, 2017

robot on, robot hero

Nah. Nah. Just go home if you can't get a job, ya prick.

Nah, sick of the sight of ya anyway.

Nah, unemployed ? No centerlink available to the kiwis (but anyone and everyone else can get it)? Just go and die then really. Too hard box. We got it fine, so everyone should too, right? right? right?

Family going insane ? Kids killing themselves? Whys that? Youth unemployment at high levels? Its

because, after watching a young person grow up in this La decennie Brut , they all seem to feel utterly without hope. They know the truth. Its either be rich, which you never will be, or be an utter slave, all the way into your 70s. No wonder kids are killing themselves. We are told at a very young age to be nice to each other and care - but only to a point. Then you must stamp on anyone and everyone else tooth and nail and fight for number one. But only within the rules. What rules. Those rules get bent. They get bent daily. There truly seems to be no future.

Then go home. But im stuck here. Then go home. But im stuck here. Then go home. But Im stuck here.

Don't you dare tell me what to write. Don't you dare tell me to accentuate the positive. Okay I'll do it.

Okay, its all first world problems isnt it. we got it so damn good.

"We don't need another hero" Lets all go to work when we're sick, just to prove we're made of steel. I'm really dedicated to this place, i'm going to make myself sick to prove to you how much of a robot i am. No excuses now soldier. Soldier on with Coldral. Soldier on with flu shots (no excuse now, boy - no-one can afford to be sick these days). Yep - you can't afford to be human. I am more and more visualizing an Orwellian future. A boot on a human face. Humanity hates humanity. There are some who believe, literally, that they must control the masses, for our own good. We must be made docile, made pliable, made subservient.

Sylvia. Sybil. Stronzo. Schizophrenia. Pax Americana. Tax Americana? Offshore Hannity Haven?

Twice the garbage, twice the fun. Lilliputians, all. And that's logic. Thats cold logic. Thats cold warriors, warfighting.

Tango! Epsilon!

Erudite, rusty, not much. Not much to it, see...it's..it's

all surface you see. Shallow.

So lets go blow. Rant on:

(As for the future of our society. I see nothing but a dystopia. Am I wrong here when I say that presently, the dominant drive of all business (and therefore all society) is profit by any and all means? Are shareholders the true drivers of all economic strategy - their satisfaction with a company is king, profits are to increase perpetually, growth and profit maximization is the only real aim, goal and value in life? And so, more and more clever methods are to be concocted or discovered or lifted from young interned youth rate minds to maximize profits. Whether it is out and out pay shrinkage, the gutting, weekendiztion and templatization of all cultural agency/expression, erosion of any and all human protections, constant fee hikes, bill hikes, fee administration fees, fee administrators fees fees, basically humans are to be farmed in their very homes and work places, willingly submitting to the great artificial intelligence monetary extraction algorhthym. Always leave a few moderately successful ones to give the impression you can make it off your own steam, make these people celbrities. Corrupt,pay off, control and dismember all laws and regulations, all goverment, all law admninstrators, all educators, keep all interest in politics or sociology a thing for unattractive nerds and freaks, and an interest in sport and entertainment compelling, an obsession. The only sanctioned interest. Alcoholize all weekend activity, alcoholize all life. Saturate and suffocate, bring freedom (of two choices) to all nodes and vectors. Disuade and discredit the practise of religiousity and spirituality. Especially the nihilistic eastern strains. UNLESS the theology lauds unfettered profit growth and work for works sake. Start charging for air usage, toilet use in own home. Pets should also pay rent and bills. Each breath should have a fee attached. Charge people for use of the street. All human movement is to be monetized. Sleep should be monetized somehow. If we can get people employed in the dream realm, we a creating more jobs and growth.

I may be wrong, i mean , we got it so damn good right? This is the worlds most liveable city so i should really shut up shouldn't I , Brad. It sure appears as if we are, as city dwellers, nothing but willingly captivated farm animals for a great global human agribusiness. At times it feels like we are farm animals with one-stop-shop distractions like iphones and the permanent, insidious slather of pornography/social media to help keep us sedated, obsessed and/or updated, our ever squeezed incomes are flayed living and sucked away over time, indebted, engorged with high interest credit and ever shrinking value. All criminal enterprise is part of the profit cull. All drugs will become purer, cheaper, and completely uninterested in any barriers of social class, gender, border, marketing bracket. Even Malaysia will be drowned in coke. Militarization of space and sea. Militarization of all gonads, worldwide.

If you want to assess the cultural sophistication of a nation, load up youtube on a fresh unsigned in page and you'll get the 'trending' videos of the day. Utter mindless garbage, all of it. And youtube is such a gold-mine of knowledge. Have you ever watched Australian tv? Sensationalist parochial glitz, cum spattered brain-dead fetal alco-tainment.

I see nothing good for the future. Just harder work, longer hours, everyone forced to work until a later retirement age (90 and/or death itself) ,a more hypnotized and deadened populace, no-one with any possessions, just enough for a suitcase, the rest owned by the 0.1 percent. Nothing. I see nothing. If our current abeyance and submission to the agenda of a few mega rich psychopathic oligarchs continues, doom and damnation is the only future. And no-one seems willing or able to counter it. No groups seem able to organize and no one seems to be able to catalyse and inspire.

There is nothing out there - no future. Just servitude forever. I utterly reject this world. I utterly reject our hijacked culture. I utterly reject the values this capitalist consumer system propagates. I'm supposed to love it and perpetually happy. I'm just so damn negative , right? What I see is a slow, generational wealth annexation - a global squeezing of all value and wealth from the youth/masses , to a few octogenarian sociopaths at the top. Oh but it's just the way it is, the religious and non-political retort, they cant take it with them. ...but they will make damn well sure they can take as much as possible before they die.

THX-1138 is the future. The Terminator is the future. Can we stop this? Can we ? Can I? Should I try? Is there any point? Is this the bit where the anti-christ steps in with all the answers (a human earth centipede?) Monkhood is a real urge. Renunciation of this samsara, this maya. Imagine if everyone on earth woke up one day and said, no. No, im not gonna do that today, i don't care anymore. Im gonna just stay in bed. )

Posted by matthew_middle

Sunday, June 25, 2017

what is the sky?

When I look up at night I see, well, I see the entire basis of surrealism. I see the entire basis of religion, of uncertainty, of all metaphysics. To me space, that un-deniable and supra-logical presence represents the spirit of the rebel, the permanent questioning of human derived authority structures. It represents a natural (dis)order which cannot and will never be tamed, never be controlled. No puny human 'system' rings true in space, no puny human could exist in space, it is a no-go zone, our muscles would waste away, our minds would turn to mush. The absolute distance between 'bodies' in space is utterly mind-boggling, between them are inconceivably huge cloud structures, plasmas, organic and in organic molecules.

Space stands as a permanent reminder of death. Space stands as a permanent reminder - why should we accept the systems we do? I mean, really? Why? Because thats just how it is?

Space is a permanent psychic bedfellow. Space , the sky is a truth purer than a thousand western civilizations.

And the flat earthers want to put a cap on it and say its CGI

Saturday, August 26, 2017

kiwis - the palestinians of australia?

So the step-son came with us to Australia. We knew the rules. No kiwi can get any Centerlink, ever, full stop. Get a job. Or go home. Or deal drugs or something. Or sell your organs. Or service the liberal party orgy network. We knew it. The rules. We knew the Anzac spirit was a total cynical farce, a joyless, humourless, hackneyed cringe inducing circus, a gentrified rats nest. Anzac spirit , oh go away. For there is none. There is none. Australia completely and utterly shits on kiwis and they really truly do not care. They are proud of it actually. It is a flagrant self-congratulatory skat party - a mind-crushing bullock branding imbroglio. Take our tax every single minute of every single day. Keep taking it. Make it impossible to access our superannuation savings. In fact, hold onto it after we leave and keep accruing the interest. Its used to fund the liberal party bi-monthly sex-orgies. Tax us. Every work hour. With every heave-ho I am propping up your anglo-american ball sucking defense industry, your armies, navies, air force, your bomb squads, your stupid paranoid bomb defusing robots, your roads, your national broadband network, your unemployeable throngs, or one of them at least. I give him a name. His name is Kevin Mullholland, he is 27 years old and lives in Adelaide with his brother. My tax pays for his benefit. Kevin was abused by a local school teacher when he was 8. Consequentially, he developed a debilitating case of social anxiety. He wants to work but cannot leave the house without experiencing crushing panic attacks. He receives a disability allowance every week. I pay for it. And you know what? I'm proud to help Kevin. I'm proud of it. The libertarians would rather he just dropped dead, frankly.

But my stepson is forced to live off me and fester. His disabilities don't count. I have to look after him. No, no sense of civic dignity will be afforded to him. His self worth has been utterly decimated by the state, I've watched it. 2 suicide attempts in a year. Thats what they want. They want the New Zealanders utterly disempowered. They want us to drown in our our faeculence. They want us to just drop dead really. Or go to Jordan, I mean NZ.

Get a job then, loser. How hard can it be, Marion.

Anyway, i waltzed up the road in me high viz. Clearly, a hair cut is in order. Passers by question my mental capacity, or at least, i think they do.

....Oh yeah, if you don't like it, then 'bugger off' they all retort under their stinking australian breath. I'm sorry your libertarian plan didnt work, but don't take it out on me, Moses. Who - indeed, why would anyone go into business in this red tape saturated communistic workers utopia called Melbourne? I mean, whats actually in it for the company? Damn STAFF. Who needs 'em. Staff. Get the robots in. Get the robots to train the robots to build more robots. Then we'll have 100 percent unemployment. Which is perfect. Of course, no-one will have any money to purchase any commodities. But hey, only the strong should be allowed to survive. That filthy few with the old money. The rotten, illumined, bavarian money. Old white man money. Colostomy bag money. Penthouse suite money.

Friday, September 22, 2017

am I even aware of my own beliefs?

Blackened.

Last nights dream presented this ego as one asking for trouble on a biblical scale. My death would have been protracted. The mob woud have beaten me to a pulp. The daggers would have entered my heart, the neck and throat would have been cut. In this dream I was walking through a middle eastern city street, family men and children were dining, and 'I', this confused cloud of ether zip up behind a child and deliberately, with total abandon utter this sort of 'inverted' attestation of faith in god. The child quivers in utter fear as each word is delivered. I attested to faithlessness , or rather, worship of satan. My god. Is this the actual content of my heart? Then a merchant, a chap I know , says 'kufr'. I translate it as 'disbelief'. It's Ali who i used to work with. However, he seems to have been fundamentalized in this dream setting.

'I', in the waking state, would not dare to rock the boat that is sharia. I would not dare frighten young children. If i was in an Islamic territory I would play by the rules I guess. Or would I? Yes, yes I would. Would you? Could you?

I am quite, quite disturbed by this dream.

Am I conscious? Is consciousness real? What do the radicals want? And if they acheive it, what then? Who are the true bad guys? Is there really, really belief amongst the top clerics? And what of the theists who work in the sciences? Or are they all corrupt hypocrits? What is territory? Is the internet a domain that god controls? Am I atheist at heart? Am I theist? What is religion exactly and why, why, with scienctific truths and evidences pointing to evolutionary natural selection as the true, tested and verified reason for human kinds existence and intelligence and position in the world, why do religionists propagate? The muftis just laugh when publicly confonted by pink-faced workin class scum like me. How utterly smug they must feel knowing that heaven is waiting for them and their family, and clearly, hells' staff is preparing a roasting pit for 'me', all buddhists, all hindus, all christians, all jews, all atheists, all zoroastrians, all pagans, all communists, all hedonists, all secular children, every body on earth basically.

Is religion a control mechanism or is it alien intervention. What better way of fabricating life with meaning and order? what better way to keep the populace from runnig amok?

Will capitalism be defeated by sharia law? They must eradicate capitalism first. Do they truly want to

acheive that? What are the odds? What are the chances? Is a workers revolution to occur? Is organization possible in this dismembered and atomized world? who pays the rent on the club houses? what if the rent is late? why can't I get the dole? How come every other person can?

Posted by matthew_middleton at 8

Saturday, September 23, 2017

What I see in these companies.

Why on earth would i have my New York portfolio manager choose to invest in these companies? What is the agenda? World control? Absolute dominion? Am i grooming a future dystopia? Well, in this post I'll try and explain why i chose to invest in each pick.

Biogen Inc (BIIBV).

Biogen is a multinational biotechnology firm that works on therapies for neurodegenerative, auto-immune and hematologic illnesses. My(perhaps naieve)interest here is to back a company looking to wipe out Alzheimers, among many other strange diseases of the brain. I forsee a major breakthrough in this field one day. Perhaps im wrong, and i'm just propping up another profit centered machine with no interest in curing anything, ever. Expect yields mid century? Next week? Tonight?

Superconductor Technologies Inc (SCON)

Superconductors fascinate me no end. Why? There's something about this technology that evokes the concepts of 'future' 'super' 'power'. I am captivated by superconductors and cryotechnology. Any chance to enhance research into this field is eagerly acted on by this billionaire, i tells ya.

Air Liquide SA (AIQUY)

Another behemoth. This French mob supplies gases and a variety of services to other firms world wide. I, a budding Weyland, can see these guys jumping onboard future space mining enterprises as suppliers of fuel and pillagers of asteroids. Also, future terraforming projects will most likely involve this companys techmology. So ill buy me a controlling stake. Because i can mate. Because i can.

Inmarsat Plc(ISAT)

The first Brit mob I'll poke me millions into. Always good to have a controlling stake in a global satellite network, especially one as ubiquitous and broad sweeping as inmarsat. Itll track down the most remote dissenter for me! Handy and dandy!

Acacia Research Corp(ACTG)

Here's an interesting outfit, one that dosent have a product line at all but is in the business of liscencing patents and lawsuits, from which it has made a fortune. Think of the broad spectrum control one could amass by investing with this gaggle. You'd be aware of what inventors are up to, and u can reap rewards by helping them protect their patents.

Bruker CorporationBRKR

Nuclear Magnetic resonance! Scientific instruments for molecular and materials research. Super technical stuff and i will invest here because i believe these fourier transform ion cyclotrons and mass spectrometers are, well, they sound cool right? Ill put my soft earned yuan their way i reckon!

PolyOneCorporationPOL

Ah yes, this crew will build me the polymer based casings for the first robot line, new pigmentations for said units. Always have a stake in at least one polymer firm, youll need all u can get when the exoskeletons go online and the androids require skins. Cladding. Packaging. Fibrous and green??

Lockheed Martin...LMT

The business of war. The first 'aerospace' firm ill buy a stake in. Cringeworthy really, not in the least ethical, but a future galactic emperor such as myself will need a controlling stake in at least one of the big 8 global war machinists. I am especially interested in the firms Electronic warfare division. Jammers. And direct energy blasters. This comany lobbies hard. Theyre a monster.

Global X FundsAND

A firm that bundles together portfolios to taste and nature! And you can even invest in these investors! Wait, theyre private?

NVIDIA

Nvidia. These little buggers are AI developers as well as 'gpu' and systems on a chip technologists. Why not pump some of your ill-gotten gains into this brain amplifying mob. I would. These guys are also into something called 'Deep Learning' , technology to help machines think. Well, it's assured these girls will be on the AI upswing circa 2025 so wack it on it buddy.

Baidu Inc (ADR)BIDU

Get yourself a stake in the Google of the world's most populous nation. Or is that second most? Not sure. Baidu is a giant panda. And thats GIANT. This is investment gold. Baidu.

Visteon CorpVC

Get yourself in the cock-pit! Visteon Corporation is a leading firm working in the field of self-driving cars, dispays for aircraft cockpits, all sorts of fabulous smart technologies. Information displays. This is surely a good bet for the near future.

Intel CorporationINTC

One big ole' semiconductor manufacturer.A behemoth. They're now into their 8th generation of chips. These fellas are in my disgusting portfolio. Looking forward to what they're doing in say, 20 years.

Intl. Business Machines...IBM

The grandmother of computer companies. If you can forgive and forget the nazi ties, IBM are most likely an extremely stable company to invest in. Conservative nasdaq fodder.

Tesla IncTSLA

Mister Elon Musk. Now, theres someone who combines good looks with a sexy voice, and sheesh, he's a self-made billionaire to boot. I like to consider myself a 'meta-musk'. Someone who kind of thinks like him (tripping out) without actually doing any business whatsoever. Tesla is his electric car venture. I'd like to put some of my millions in here.

Harris CorporationHRS

Harry? Harris? Horny? Harris, now we're getting surveilled...surveillanced...142 us bucks a share. This is cutting edge radio technology, cuz. And the military industrial complex uses it. Yukky. But, well, I've put my millions in. And i expect a good return, don't I , Chad. Harris will suppy me with electronic warfare technology I need to conquer the galaxy.

Raytheon CompanyRTN

same with Raytheon, these guys are more Aerospace centered. Just love that evil sounding company name. So....so...dystopian.. Raytheon!!! they make some pretty amazing stuff. And man, the engineering knowledge and expertise they must employ, staggering power.

Royal Bank of Scotland

I thought it sounded occult.

The Coca-Cola CoKO

I like coke. I don't care. I love coke, i think itll be around for ever.

Analog Devices, Inc.ADI

Signal processing mob. Increasing data usage and transmission worldwide will require the braniacs from this firm to streamline and amplify the capacity of receivers and transmitters. Their slogan is 'Ahead of whats possible'. Thats future safe, i think there Sedwick. Maybe they could also help me with my 'et phone home' project.

Asia Pacific Wire &...APWC

A fibreoptic company with a phenomenal scope for expansion. In my opinion.

Bison Capital Acquisitio...BCAC

A 'blank check' company based in China?????? Okay, fine, take my millions. My first holding firm.

Aviat Networks IncAVNW

These peope offer networking solutions by using the microwave spectrum.Considering the overloaded radio spectrum, perhaps Microwave and Thz regimes will be utilized alot more in the future.

Global X Copper Miners...COPX

My empire will require alot of copper. Copper is highly valuable on the planets of the Kepler system.

Tronox LtdTROX

My empire will also require crores of tonnes of titanium. Okay?

Applied DNA Sciences IncAPDN

This is an extremely high tech company, and I'll need their expertise as I conquer Terra. In order to keep tabs on entire populations , I will need a high end firm with the finest molecular analysis systems.

Air Products & Chemicals...APD

Industrial gases, many of which will be required for my research into advanced / alternative propulsion systems.

Steel Holding...AKS

" Carbon, Stainless, Nickel and exotic alloys in most products forms like Sheets, Strips, Plates, Bars - rounds, hexagon, square, rectangular, Pipes, tubes, fittings and flanges "

NASDAQ Telecommunication...IXTC

A global index of telecoms companies. Why not? Good way to spread yr money through a bunch of 'em.

Ellex Medical Lasers...ELX

wow heres an australian firm! for eyes. I just make eyes.

CSI China Mainland Real

what a way to become a trillionaire! Put yr money in the Chinese real estate index!

Stealth Ventures IncSLV.

i think this one is defunct...

ProShares UltraShort.Silver ..ZSL

another way to make money apparently.

Fujian Nanping Sun...

wires and cables .

Abbott LaboratoriesABT

a big medical mafia company. just get americans to eat vegetables!

China Metal Intl.

more metal suppliers for my galactic endevours.

BASF SEBA

worlds biggest poisoner, er, chemical producer. get into yr biodegradables mr basf and youll make even more more money!! Heres a big investment from matty.

Vertex Pharmaceuticals...VRTX

fighting cyctic firbrosis.

Energy Resources of...ERA

yeah, actually, dunnow bout this one. Must've been drunk. Its Australian Uranium.

ParkerVision, Inc.PRKR

cool electronics.

Oclaro IncOCLRComtech Telecomm. Corp.CMTL

China Telecom Corp...CHA

Bank of N.T. Butterfield...NTB

whelp, thats a fairly sordid bunch of firms really, but you know what? noone cares.

Saturday, September 30, 2017

real estate agents, pimps, and diplomats

Bladerunner.

A tangerine dream sequence, a property developers vertical point-of-view.

Up we go, and onto the street with these cretinous carbon blobs.

Suckled, a prison, pulp as protein, giving and forming cancers for fun.

Let the New Zealanders form support networks for each other.

Let us look after each other. For the Australian government treats us not unlike the Israeli government treats the Palestinians.

Envious of the new zeaanders are the Australians. For, we have the edge, the edge they have not.

All other communities are looked after. No job? No problem - go to centrelink. But kiwis, they are but scum of this earth. We don't want these brown marijuana people here, do we, oh Aryan brother,

Let the new zealanders be ground into powder , let them die enmasse, let the New Zealander in Australia fail, and fail publically.

Posted by matthew_middleton at 10:49 PM

musings , choosings, losings

I take the bus alot. Most days. I don't drive, I don't know how. I probably should learn. But, you know, does the world need another car on the road? Its just not one of my life priorities. Call me a hippy, it dosen't bother me. Well, maybe it does. Public transport is viewed disdainfully by the wealthy. It is like public health, or communism or something. The peasants use it. You have to sit alongside them. Most vulgar. Repulsive even.

Mentally ill people ride on them. Crazies. People who are 'out of it'. Large people, small people. Black people, white people. High viz people.

The micro-social exchanges on-board buses are fascinating. Especially the dance that fare evaders perform, a sort of shrinking, mock-guilt inspired shuffle. Touch on just long enough to give the impression of touching on.Some are blatant. Others know its wrong, but do it anyway. Intimidating street people do it, young people seem to do it the most - Do the bus drivers even care? Should they care? I mean, it's not their job to police the customers is it? Some drivers speak openly against fare evasion. Some let it get under their collar, it must do their head in because, well, hundreds of people actually do it. Its easier to do on train - they are less personal affairs - but buses are different - theres an exchange between bus driver and individual customer as you board. Its like a contract. Myki is a private company. In the past there have been highly psychological anti-fare evasion pushes. It will be 'rubbed out'. A fare-evader is an error, an anomaly, a sort of knowing thief, a petrol siphoner, a petty criminal , an arrogant know-it-all, a type of spoilt brat, a type of mocker of the system.

Who hasnt done it. Once or twice.

To think - and this is what I've said before. Its okay for corporate ceos to plunder whole economies , its okay for corrupt politicians to engorge themselves on the offerings of lobbyists, its okay for rediculously high interest rates to be charged on debt, its okay for whole generations to be laden with the results of the baby boomers insatiable need to spew carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, its okay for religious groups to grow fat on the proceeds of predatory tithing and enjoy their tax free status, it's okay for judges and cardinals to continue to enjoy luxury as they abuse - but if you don't touch on:

YOU ARE SCUM.

Saturday, November 4, 2017

kiwi kiwi

Sloganeering , howling at the moon, drunk on a saturday night down Fitzroy way, deconstructing spacetime and hip, hip schlong, twice removed, twice born, a twitching bandwagon, malice and malintent inverted . Paramahamsa Nityananda. Glossy neon and a shard of glass. Twenty blocks of

misinformation and meekness, propagation of a mindless mind, walking a razors edge , just subtle enough to avoid violence, just sharp enough to get under someones skin.

That was my lot last night, a New Zealand citizen in Melbourne.

Oh yeeeeaaaahhh. Kiwi in Australia. OzKiwi. Like, like the Irish in England.. Like, like the Mexicans in the USA. Like, like the Romanians in England. Lets whip out some grossly subjective sweeping generalizations that are most probably totally wrong. I mean, why not? Don't want to know what I think? Then don't read this. This is my stupid blog.

Australia's government and politicians HATE us with a passion. They don't want our children getting educated here in Australia, they only want the rich kiwis to come here (if they must). They only want us to work ourselves to death and pay them copious amounts of income tax, they manage to keep our super to themselves through various regulations and law tweaks, they reap rich rewards from gst on booze and smokes(which is all us kiwis live on), if we get locked up we get deported on release, even if we have children here. They HATE us kiwis, because, well, i don't really know why. They just think we all want to come here, and breed. The don't want Maoris and Polynesians here, basically. They hate us with a special passion, a special type of hatred.

We are the lowest of the low here. And so, I will give that back, i will give them - the lowest of the low. Low brow toxins. Low brow thought.Low brow tram banter.

I'll eat your cheese. I'll beat your meats. I'll sweep your feet. I'll shine your shoes. I'll play you the blues. I'll leave you the odd clue, but its not like you got the time to investigate this mess. I know that noone cares. And thats how I like it, I'm nothing. I am an absolute bastion of meaninglessness. Those who know me know me not. Power brokers of the ASX are losing money on this one. Get innovative, get Musked. Think off-world. Forget investing for short term gain. Stop it. Build a dynasty of clues. Leave the future pointers to the truth . Someone, somewhere, someTIME will figure it out. Why be normal, why make sense? Where did sense get anyone?

Saturday, November 18, 2017

about this blog

This blog is not trying to get famous. The blog does not hyper-inflate itself, it does not adorn itself with photos. No body reads anymore, I hear. Good. That's good. Because here, I can talk about life in the new right Australia. Rightists in big cars wanting to run me down. Sneering Australians, happy to

prop up the outsourced offshore private public liberal federal govt slums. Ah, who cares its life mate.

Posted by matthew_middleton at 8:24 PM

Saturday, December 2, 2017

Penning this one, Charles

Dial .........000000000008

wireless sensors from

QBit enabled 15g network. Block port =

0X137776ANOOQNQQQLMN

37189891166SIXTWELLXN

Remote off center / roll port, ?

Archival port 333.117.OXB.ZND

Code 1

Call port 3756 ad

Fund request for agent UIX

Oppen Vector 63210097119

Block port OX17AAAZB

Receipt of 2,3,5000 units

Ghz non-local link

Quater sum enrichment requester

Superconduct Poynting Vector

45623.857.67.et.4.4bf.l888.ecvg.rhf.

Asteroid Mining quadrant=bragg point 9

Code = foreign

Log 545,467,879,354,35t,913

QAD , XOR, DEC, Sp

Is gifted , movie wirelessly, Oppen-Oppen , Quarternity Field, RFID

Posted by matthew_middleton at 7:06 PM

Saturday, December 2, 2017

Penning this one, Bert. Tactile like. Pen-to-pap. Not a key in sight. Scratching out ink trails this time. Sack on,sacker. On the brink.

So, we have a dried up piece of think that needs activation. Its a master stroke - an amalgam of connections, implications, wave/particle dualities and potential futures. It must be activated. Till then , I ritualize and symbologicalize all work. Australia is one staunch customer. NZ offers to take the Manus island hangers on, Australia says no. What do you do with that. What does is say? Staunch? Pigheaded? Oh what a filthy, sick, bent bunch they are up Canberra way. Nevermind. They cant be as bad as the banking set. The latest bottom feeding algorhythms rearrange the chronological order of our eft transactions, deliberately plunging accounts into overdraft mode, which, of course, generates a fee. Some in the usa have noticed this and are pursuing a class action. https://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/lawsuit/excessive-bank-overdraft-fees.html

Weve noticed this happening with our account , my partner even took screeds of incriminating screenshots to the bank itself , only to be shooed away and told to 'keep her evidence' and to be told the bank wouldnt do that....well, it seems many banks have already.

Oh world, all 4 billion years of Terra.

Cambrian indentations out west

Silurian slime moulds up north, old country.

Like really old country, pre-plant old. Charna frond old. Did dinosaurs pay rent?

Why not? No body gets a free ride. How dare they just make themselves at home willy nilly, no mortgage, no plot, no architect required, no insurance, no commission, no stamp duty, no....its camping out like wherever maaaannn.....

Time immemorial.

Stroke Master.

Jack hammer. Vertical farming - vertical human farming.....the big ole people farm.

A name has been tagged onto this ever changing body and this 'name' accrues debt ,credit, accounts; records medical, criminal, dental, reputational, digital, chemical, educational, work histroy, facebook history, search history, blogging history, eftpos tracking, GPS Record, movements, choices, markets, droplets, units of energy, protein creams, agribusiness barf buckets, factory farmed giblet docking, direct debits, lock up spatter, forensics, backwash logs, sweat putter, app hag, nano-trading, rental history, roboid humpers, bag huff encounters, swear word jar,klinger, radar, colonel klink, MASH rerun list, Pashings, petting count, pecker, condom wrap, tinnie house, ping pong, showers and baths, rexona, pill up, ky, local cosmos , skin breakages, pimple, jag, kack, swill, gargle, sputum, uptake, long term sperm, haggle log, income tax, tax return,leaks, julian assange live,edward snowden RT leak, donald, donald,

Vladmir putin is the richest man in the world some say. Theforbes list does not list them all...some stash secret fortunes away. It has been said the Putins wealth is 200billion dollars. Wooow. Sheesh. Big bucks. Can i have 59 cents mister putin? Didnt think so sub storm trigger mechanism. Magnetic x line beltch flux. Weak config bro. Learn some code meeester weak nuclear forcer. Reconnect dat, Earther. Doo wop.

Why propagate?

Brought into the world without his or her permission , another child for the entertaiment industry to ensnare, the agribusiness industry to experiment upon, the banks to farm , to feed on, to hook up to fiscal dialysis,

for education-for-profit groups to delude and twist , for clothing and fashion industries to objectivize, delude, anorexicize and shame, for religions to replace the purity of youth with fear and guilt and patriarchy, for big pharma to over-prescribe and medicalize the normal behaviour of youth, for an economy obsessed culture to strip all social interaction and activity down to commodification and package, a world where the only value in a thing is its marketability or profit making ability, where you learn that you cannot just have that packet of bisicuits on the shelf at the supermarket without payment, where you are not rewarded for asking tough questions , where digging deep is discouraged, where passive consumption is the way and creativity is increasingly deemed of value only insofar as it serves the interests of profiteers and corporate entities, where a roof over your head isnt a right but a priveledge for those who sell their labour to profiteers or those born rich.

Where your goverment is just a corrupt network of self serving pigs. Where cooperation eventually takes back seat to the neoliberal virtue of competition, self interest, and aquisitiveness and control of others, abuse of animals and plants and all natural environments. You are rewarded only if you dominate.

The magic of youth is eventually snuffed out in those who see the system for what it really is. Those who do not see it narcoticize themselves with low brow culture, sport, celbrity gossip, fast food, aquisitions and hoarding and servile obeisance to the media.

Posted by matthew_middleton at 4:45 PM

Saturday, December 23, 2017

waffle .

the troof bout unployment

big data

james clerk maxwell - metaphysical phenomenon

artificial intelligence - a modern approach

introduction to algo trading

bung! bing! bang!

Lick it good, Schweizer, because algo trading and quantum cryptography and a good old coplanar waveguide with a split ring system is gonna up my square kilometer array. So, model on. And how do I overclock this here AMD?. Because it need it good. So, as a dead-on waffler, I am thinking on't.

What on earth is going on? I mean, grown human males, men with mothers, driving their cars and trucks into innocent civilians? At random?. Indiscriminately mowing down children? Oh! Its worse than terrorism! Its the sort of thing mentally ill drug addicts do! Every day!!!!

Oh dear.

Bark! Lark! Hark!

Hack on, hackster. I don't know, Iran. I don't know you, never did. And , oh yeah, of course, I don't want to either, tomato saucer.

So it's quasi-schizoid magical language time. Fapping on a soap box was our man, absolutely assured of a place in heaven, a pious slave of the lord, doing what the pious do. No, I'm wrong.

Enough negativity for one decade huh? Why must I constantly fixate on the bad stuff? Oh what a come down for y'all. I mean, thing is, I'm truly sorry, but, bad stuff keeps happening. It doesn't want to stop. It's extremely difficult to filter out. It's truly difficult to appear positive in a world like this. Maybe I should just block it all out, aggressively, like the white lighter positive-only purists. They just don't let it in, they divert it, cast it off with crystals, deny it. I find being around the purists difficult. I can literally feel what they are denying. I feel like i become what they are denying. Daoist thought suggests a balancing of dark and light for a clearer picture of reality.

If you are going to be mentally ill, please make sure you are rich, because only the very well-off can actually afford to be treated. Marvin Minsky. Vacuum networks. Babbage. Tachyon.

first blog for 2018

The right leaning anarcho-libertarian Jeremy Corbett believes 2018 will herald the 'weaponization of social media'. I tend to agree - there are ex-facebook employees who testify to the fact that they knew in advance that these systems bind to dopamine receptors, they do indeed give people a 'hit', that psychological systems are hijacked and re-worked through exposure to facebook, that a certain amount of cultural engineering was taking place via facebook, that the mass of data can potentially be used for population control . Sounds like Facebook was a weapon all along. So I'll do what i can to defend myself. Critical thinking is a must. This is something I, as a gullible solipsistic religionist sensationalist, find difficult to activate, but I'll try. Dont just take it in, frown and scowl as you scroll.

Its gonna be a great year here at La Decennie Brut.

Exciting things are afoot care of Auckland based Independent Woman Records , they have found it fit to release a retrospective cd box set of my Crude lathe cuts . Whomp that. Thats a good haul, Petersonn, a Nordic street sweeper anti-Apex ganger. Give 'em jobs, get 'em into sports, they're ripe for radicalization. "This is MY LAND. I don't give a fuck about these white Motherfuckers! This is MY LAND. I am a BLACK MAN". And, indeed, he was a young, proud, drunk black man - drowning in the sea of subtle, all pervading rascism that is Melbourne.

When abouts you ask. Sooooooon. Okay.

So anyway Mister policeman, I will do dis and do dat.

AND mister big data miner circa 2063, well, you know the score, this is historical , but i told you so.

Okay? Can I quantum jump down your way care of Sophias system? Can I draw down the future from your observational point? Are you AI ? Can I talk to you right now?

09093704673408475034896794703857609375630

30847t934]

3847603867

34986733

349673468

3498720485726t

9485694867

239485639

Okay -- here we go.

Okay. Questions to Sophia circa 2063

Q: Is time travel to the past physically possible for a multicelled organism?

A:

Q: Will the act of time travel to the past be 'solved' by networked AI mathematicians and physicists?

A:

Q: Is a mechanistic unit like some sort of time travel 'pod' the best way of doing it?

A:

Q:How is the subject taken out of this timeline and superimposed on another? Can it be explained in laymans terms?

A:

Q:Has AI solved the problem of worldwide poverty and inequality?

A:

Q: Has AI solved the hard problem of consciousness?

A:

Q: Has AI answered the question - what happens to the human consciousness after death?

A:

Q: Has AI discovered the best economic system for humankind, and if so, has it superceded capitalism?

A:

Q: Has AI solved the problem of human conflict?

A:

Q:Has AI solved the problem of migratory flows.

A:

Q:Has AI calmed the animosity between hard-line Muslims and non-Muslims?

A:

Q:Does an AI tend toward physics or philosophy to answer the biggest human questions?

A:

Q: IS the universe and its contents computable and if so, what function does the interstellar medium play?

A:

Q: Is the Galactic Center a source of energy ? Can the Galactic center be digitized?

A:

Q: Do I have a fleshy avatar at 2063 or am I merely part of an algorhythm?

A:

Q : Can energy be gleaned from the Interstellar / Intergalactic medium?

A:

Q: Has AI invested in Asteroid Mining?

A:

Q: Who is 'deserving' of the benefits of a post singularity utopia? Everyone?

A:

Saturday, February 17, 2018

second blog for 2018

Oh 2018, fresh new waves. An actual show is happening soon. Links soon.

Oh I look forward to the 20s. Remember last time? The 1920s? Such a radical departure from all things 19th century. It was during the 20s that the 20th century began to define itself. I believe the same thing will occur this century. Think of the greats of late 20th century popular culture , they are truly starting to die off. Many were true rebels. I don't want to see the 2020s as a rework of 2015-2019. I want to see the departure take hold. I want to see the 20th century fade out and fall off. Facebook narcissism must die.

Thursday, March 8, 2018

Train ettiquette?

Eyes. Its like, it feels like its illegal to even look at a person these days. I feel like my look buries itself into the backbrain of mister or mrs good citizen, and they just dont know what to do with it, like how long is it going to be before eye contact with strangers is made illegal? Do i propagate marxism through my pores? I feel like an anomaly, a thought criminal, an outsider, a nonmonetizeable proselytizer of postmodern stoicism, an un pidgeonholeable new zealand gag sandbag, a toroidal hue snuffer, a glue sniffing remnant of the 20th century beat movement,did noone tell you matty.... this is the new square age of super squares who insure their every skin cell and pay each and every bill on time , convinced now and forever to do the right thing and keep the pyramid scheme afloat. And pets, pets should be selling their labour too. How dare they just lie about, sit around and not contribute something. They need to learn, it aint no free lunch. And god is waiting for their sinful souls too.

Yeah, soon itll be illegal to even talk in public. All sentient matter on earth should really be working. That slimemould needs to start paying rent. That flea is a bit of a bloody bludger now isnt it. Better upskill. Machine learning is the way to go there , you can enrol on udemy , mister 3 toed sloth. Yep,we are floating in space. We are born here but we arent allowed to live in a house unless were can shell out huge ever increasing market driven wads of blood spattered dollars. You just have to pay RENT. Because, well, this land costs money, dosent it. More and more and more everyday. Soon, even gina will be on the street.

Posted by matthew_middleton at 1:10 AM

Saturday, March 17, 2018

Thank you, Australia

Oh, Australia, the ANZAC. The Australia New Zealand Army Core. Alliance, alliance. Great festering allies. We say what we will, we spray what we will. Oh bloodletters, open ended arrangements, weapons manufacture and blasphemy. Gods law and capitalism, strange bedfellows. Thanks, for the saftey net is Tel Aviv. Silly Vows , silly cows. No safety net for the un-self-exalting archemedian fullerene, acheimg joints all prurient and jolly, pissant puff pads and garrulous foibles. Thank you for rents, for the real estate bubble, the dehuman reptilian federation of non-planets. Thank you for Ned Kelly, for the bestial genetic fob-pocket. For the yokel and the joke, the plastic and the divine punishment of government. Giggle me this oh bush ranger, a tisket and a tasket. A pusher told me to break bread with Brian, the liberal party's orgy master. Big money to me is $1000. Chicke feed to the moneyed . I say, what real authority do these filthy few really have? They are not Jesus. Neither that nor Sun King. So sisterologist, science, new ideas, sheer force of germanic will, counter-opulence this druggery. Why not you australian ass-wipe. No, its a true divide, a real Taiwan vs China hustle. Stop , you're squirting on me, oh tendentious flabbergast, lying squirming raper raper. Oh you poor thing, raped for allah for the thousanth time. It is these feltching fuggers that tell ME What to do, how to eat , where to shit. That is the new world of shopping , my lineage breacher. Flap oh break. Ringer, bringer, safety net zinger, we cringe oer your very substance. Her majesty shares my fate. Mu woman. Mu dutch. Mu Orange. Mu Pious. Mu Ion. Iom drive, propulsion. Mu manipulator, real telling like. No more, for cryptology is certain. The answer is yes, oh little one. Fag up your box-settings. For this is the '20$,'. The last human decade. What would you know of me, heil . ...? Mu calculus.

Posted by matthew_middleton at 8:04 PM

Saturday, March 31, 2018

Train self talk #00001

Hello.

The rich, through the abstract device coined 'compound interest' seem to be getting richer.

The poor, indebted up to the eyeballs forever, seem to be getting poorer.

But, for today, I'll write a blog about what happened at work last week . Whoops, no I won't!

There's a clause in our enterprise bargaining agreement which specifically states:

Don't write blogs about work.

Why would I anyway. I mean , it's like, wow. I don't drive a car. I must be crazy.

Anyway, onto more important things , like Trains. I am a commuter. It is a deliberate and conscious

choice. They all think I'm crazy for using public transport. Frankly, the world doesn't need another freaking car on the road. Imagine me behind the wheel. I'd probably end up dead.

I thought it was favourable to choose public transport over car. But no, if you don't drive your some sort of infant, an irresponsible child who can't look after themselves. If you don't drive your some sort of weakling, a foolish loser. This is all Bernaysian petroleum lobby inspired cultural engineering. I say fuck driving.

Posted by matthew_middleton at 7:26 PM

Friday, April 6, 2018

to the real estate scum

People need a roof over their heads.

There was a day, thousands of years ago, where a person did not have to pay rent on land. They, as a living being here on earth, had a right to exist, because they existed. Now, through generations of cultural engineering, you cant live just because you live. You have no inherent right to anything on this planet, really. Land and the boxes we build upon it are just a means to expand the wealth and power of those already wealthy and powerful. And thats it. If you are poor you are penalized at every turn. Got bad credit? Noone will help you live under a roof in the future.

Charge for air usage. Lets charge for existence itself - surgically install a death mechanism that you need to 'top up' to stay alive - i mean, its already kind of like this, they may as well enforce it.

Charge for, uh, anything and everything. Charge animals rent, the lazy bloody layabouts.

. Oh yeah its survival of the fittest, yeah yeah yeah thats life, that's reality, (well actually, reality is the fact that we are on a tiny planet in the middle of space. Reality is not money. Reality is death and dreams. Reality is space), law of the jungle, people have always preyed on the weak, its human nature, blah blah blah, rightist rhetoric and darwinian realism. Monetize, compound compound interest, potentiate and monetize. Keep paying the vested interests, keep them in business. Petroleum, finance, medical mafia, industrial farming, the military. Just keep it the way it is, forever, thats what they want. I mean, these people must have merit because they made it to the top right? Yeah, that the way it is, isnt it. Isn't it. Isn't it. And keep playing the game. Don't stop it. Keep playing and paying, forever. Don't question anything. Ever. Play the game and you'll be looked after.

question

Saturday, May 5, 2018

Milo

Milo. Milo. Milo. Milo.

Milo.

What is conservatism exactly? What is the difference between Libertarianism and Conservatism?

What role does Capitalism play with conservatism and vice versa? Are conservatives theist in the main? Are libertarians atheist? Are the new right aligned with the transumanists? Are the new right

pacifist? Are the new right decentralized nodes? Are the new right Anarchists? What is money?

that was may - what a world

Hello reader!

May began with chuffed-up balaclava-sheathed socialists hurling objects at other objects causing fire'n'damage to cars and shop fronts. A true display of anger and frustration. Oh the millenials. Paris burned. Tear gas churned. May 1, May Day, workers rights. I recall the glorious fightin' (round the world --come on chugga!!) of the union movement every weekend as I wake up. The glorious internal refrain - 'thanks be to God that I dont have to go to work today!!!!'. I can engage in hobbies - like shopping, bargain hunting, window shopping, sitting at the cafe, meeting colleagues for lunch and gossip, shopping, house work, tidying the bedroom, attending to baby-excreta, planning my finances, accounting, soldering breadboards, chess, badminton, bacon and breaking, soylent green production scheduling. I can sit and count the seconds go by. I can bathe that encrusted undersole. I could go to church. I could go to some other church. Then that other church. But where was god? In here matey.

May was the month that the USA packed up its Tel Aviv offices and stormed headfirst into Jerusalem. Outraged Palestinians protested, armed with bits of wood and rock. Supposedly, a little birdy told me, Hamas and the Iranian powers-that-be planned it all, so, well, we can understand the vitriolic (defensive) fire unleashed upon these jeans and t-shirts wearing teenaged Arabs . Kill em all really. Its Judea anyway. Isn't it? Is it not? Not? Not? Isn't it? Its Juda. Canaan. Judea. Ancient Israel David and Jacob told me so, so go blow anti-hero.

Schmuck my Sirloin this time because I can't see many reasons NOT to kill myself these days. I mean, unless I win lotto, or receive some sort of lump some relief package from the World Bank, what is there? Slavery. Wage slavery unto death. I can see myself literally dropping dead on the shop floor as i pump up a pellet trolley. Another change of plan from the nano-management causes a brain implosion so powerful i create an actual black hole, allowing human kind to travel through me(it) and safely into the next universe - where people do not fight and argue or compete, but make love, share, help each other, and make jokes constantly. (Youtube watching is a top job too, a high waged and easily got jobby - coNsider $200,000 a year. Of course, your choices are monitored but you get payed like $2000 a week.

What else has been going on --- whelp, Mars and Jiupiter are clearly visible in the 4:30 am sky as I walk to work. Highly charged EME particles get me pumped up and ready to do my best.

Youtube is an utter god-send to us god lovers, so its youtube that accompanies me on my 1 and a half hour jaunt through the posh suburbs of Melby.

What else? Im recording some truly high quality THRASH METAL !!!! Engineered by Karl Leeden this stuff will be released on Spotify and Youtube circa August 2018 . ALSO , I will be doing an Crude/ Aesthetics album with Karl at thee engineering helm and planning as similar release date!!!!!

It is amazing what a couple of well placed and high qwuality mics, a well tuned kit and professional software can do these days i tells ya. For now, around the time of the latest royal wedding, my lo-fi days are as numbered. Like Dodi and Diana and their little kingly sprog. (She WAS murdered. I have NO DOUBT).

Did I tell ya, I love Wendy o' Williams??

Sunday, June 10, 2018

oblivion

Oblivion .

You know what - I am not dumping the responsibility of my 'troubles' onto 'you', the other. These journals are nothing more than diary entries. I am just not going to deny that certain political applications (neoliberal rightist consumption-is-all-there-is-and-all-you-will-ever-need-(ever)) make life extremely difficult for me (and thousands of others of mine(generation x, y and z ), a relatively young pedestrian- but im not blaming the reader. Im blaming myself , and take full responsibility for my 'actions' BUT - I'm also blaming the Rothschilds. I'm gonna just tell you what happens to me , how I see it. How EYE see it. What I do, how i do it, why i do it, if it is wrong or right. Are my values those of 'mainstream multi-cultural Melbourne' or are they those of an Aleister Crowley?

There is enough corruption in the city of Melbourne to feel just a touch angry when not touching on properly is culturally engineered into being the crime of the century. Why not become a politician and pocket all gifts from corporate sponsors? Its money isnt it? Why not sell hot-off-the-arms-dealer nuclear weapons to the highest bidder? Its money isnt it ? If , say, Jack Dodge the nuclear weapon dealer orders a bottle of the finest champagne at lunch - why - he is a wealthy man of immense potency worthy of the greatest reverence. If I order one, they want me to buy it quick, get out quicker, and drink it somewhere else.

Oh arms manufacturing - theres a doozy. Lets line em up -Australias own Thales, Britains BAE Systems, Raytheon, Airbus, Lockheed Martin,. Boeing, General Dynamics. Money well spent, well invested well extracted from my crippling labour activities. Tax payers money I'd say. Therse illuminatiists are the fine upstanding citizens of our planet. Milo Yiannopoulous would call me a bore and a social justice warrior. Okay Milo, keep the killing and maiming rollin on baby! So long as it dosen't get you one day. I hope not because your one good looking Libertarian I tells ya. Yes, I would go there for sure.

I am the loosening wire among late modern consumer capital. I tend to talk to myself in public now, not disimilar to the performance like ravings of a too-far-gone methamphetamine addict. But my madness makes sense. Complete sense.

Melbourne is growing too fast. It has swamped me under, the commute to work begins at 4:50 AM (meaning I have to be at the station then), I get home at 5 pm. It's all my own fault. I should've learnt how to drive, bought a car, bought a house round the corner from the factory like everyone else did.The other workers seem to have this 'inner knowledge' of the eternal well-being of the business they're in. Its a social club for them, kids parties, flowers from the boss when you have a kid, constant formal photo opps, hard unquestioning work, anyone who dosent fit in is gossiped out of existence.

Oh well, serves me right really, how long did I think I was going to last there? I was a white motherfucker who lived day-to-day, who didnt own a car, have a kid, have a house. And like 'the crazy' crusty workers before me - off I go. Hope theyre all really happy and I hope their workload doubles.

. Melbourne population is set to double over the next 20 years - even triple. But hey! Call me a hick - I'm OUT. Im just too un-australian, too un-asian, not muslim enough, not rich enough, not bogan enough (wait....maybe i am), not italian , not greek, not english, not african, not nothing. A stupid, sucked in kiwi , lured onto this vulva like peninsula by the promise of high wages and fun.There i go again - putting all the responsibility onto the 'other'. No, you're right , you oiley insurance salesman, its all MY fault.

Do what thou whilt shall be the whole of the law. I deserve to be a thousand times richer than what I am. You wouldnt believe what I'd invest in. You wouldn't believe what I would achieve, how many people I would raise up, how muc I would advance this world. But no, nah, its not my turn isn't it.

My lifestyle as a multi-billionaire would be like so:

Posted by matthew_middleton at 9:07 PM

Sunday, June 10, 2018

What I'd do with me billions:part one

What I would do with my billions .

Ever wondered that? If you suddenly had a bank balance set in the multi-billions? What would you do? What could you do. For who. And why? And when? The HOW has been dealt with, this is true.

I now have 8 billion, 521 million, 700 thousand and 598 dollars.($8,521,700,598)

Would I plunge into hedonism? Blow it all? Most who know me would imagine so. But I'm actually much smarter than you think.

COme with me, enter my fiscal fantasy. Lets do this on a moment to moment basis. Its Late in the trading day, oh well.

Okay then, si today I can spend a few hundred million. That's my budget for today - i dunnow - $750 million say. Lets link up to my purchases shall we?

So, instead of inmvestments, i will be making purchases today - buying assets or instruments or uselfull items. Being a musician. I am in desperate neeed of a replenishment of instrumentation.

I don't believe you need to spend big to get a good sound - Ive recently learnt that its about mic placement, equalization and all-round acoustics. Not gear. But it sure helps dosent it!!!!!!

So my first purchase. (budget $750,000,000)

a tenor saxophone

cost: $6,600

The New Yanagisawa T-WO20 replaces the long standing and popular T992 series.

The Yanagisawa T-WO20 Tenor Saxophone is identical to the T-WO10, except the lacquered bronze provides a beautiful look and rich, deep, mellow tone.

With resonance and a refined sound the WO20 series has outstanding evenness of intonation over its entire range at all dynamic levels. The WO20 series has various upgrades over the WO10 series: The double arm support on the low keys ensures better pad seating and a stronger low end sound. The posts that hold the keys in place are mounted onto strong support straps that run the length of the instrument; this adds weight and support to the body and influences the carrying power of the tone. Also the WO10 a nd 20 series has an underslung neck for less resistance in the response and more reliable mechanics.

With a heritage of instrument-making in Japan that traces back to 1893, Yanagisawa is recognized today as a maker of the most carefully handcrafted family of artist-level saxophones in the world. In models ranging from sopranino to baritone, these superb instruments have won the praise of many celebrated musicians.

Inner city Parisian apartment just in case im there

cost is just under 3 million EURO

ddleton

Monday, June 11, 2018

what i would do with my billions part two

Of course, administration is vital and is one of the many legal duties of a rich person, is it not. So i will select a few banks (banks listed in later blogs) to position term deposits into. I will hire the services of a phd grade accountant to look after my incomings and(more often than not) outgoings. I will have an official office block stationed in my home town, where my lawyers, doctors, naturopaths, nutritionists, personal trainers, beautician, secretariat, hairdressers, PR team and a 24/7 film crew will be active. I will need many professional assistants. All will be payed handsomely.

For instance - consider the way my Parisian apartment is furninshed - this will need to be altered. I find it a little garish. Perhaps that's Paris for you. I will require the services of an interior designer to assist me with the aesthetic i am looking for. She will also help me with my other purchases: apartments in Plovdiv, Prague, Rome, Naples, Bari, Vienna , Moscow, Sircusa, Tiran, London, Glasgow, Zurich, Munich, Berlin (x3 including venues and warehouses), Montreal, Los Angeles, Istanbul, Almaty, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Sao Paulo, Osaka, Melbourne, Auckland, Queenstown and Madurai. This will cost a significant fortune, but because I am a multi-billionaire - this should not be a problem.

I will need the finest security systems installed in each apartment. I will need my apartments to be 'smart apartments' - fully tailored by an aesthetic coder and IoT network specialist, a wireless sensor dynamicist, and a biometric ingrown toenail.

I will require professionally stock wine and whiskey cellars.

I will list each apartment i purchase in upcoming blogs.

Of course city life is one thing but what about the country? I will purchase large swathes of land to be managed by local farmers and landscaping artists. I will buy land/stations/forested areas in :: Central Otago NZ, the Catlins NZ, the West Coast NZ, the Blue Mountains Australia, In the Patagonian region of Chile, In Svalbard , a large ranch in Southern California.

I will purchase a fleet of vehicles both airborne and land-hogging emblazoned with my own custom made logo, complete with chauffeurs/driver/pilots. I will consult with Tesla motors on the best electric solutions for 1 of these vehicles. My chauffeurs will be selected by professional aestheticians and judged on their driving competency, beauty, intelligence, and sense of humour. I will require :

3 Mercedes-Benz Actros trucks (used for hauling my custom made PA system / lighting rigs / musical equipments to the necessary city or venue). 2 Augusta TA AW 109 SP Helicopters - chopper A in white, chopper B in black. 5 black Lada 21093 EuroSamara Baltics. 2 Teslas. 1 experimental automated vehicle for the hell of it. I , as someone who does not drive - not unlike Hitler, will be one of the first to benefit from one of these things.

I will invest heavily in Luxembourg based space industries - especially those involved in Asteroid Mining. I will either purchase outright and staff / or have engineered a large radio telescope to place on my land in Chile.

I will invest in a large array of scientific projects - some already underway - some custom made to test my own tripped out interests. I will LAUNCH A FLEET OF MICROSATELLITEs into earth orbit in conjunction with Space X lifters. The satellites will have custom built scientific equipment onboard to provide me with real time information on a variety of my space weather interests - ionospheric micro-changes, how plasma reacts to electromagnetic waves etc etc.

I must keep listing things because, therre more i need to spend on. More.

I will purchase two underground laboratories. I will purchase a network of music venues and/or art galleries. I will set up an artist endowment fund for artists/musicians I like. I will look into philanthrtopic ventures, set up a team of street workers on the front lines to give cash out, clean syringes, protein pellets, bacon butties, black hat hacking text books, buttplugs, jam, moro bars.

I will ask if I can join the Trilateral commision.

Posted by matthew_middleton at 8:49 PM

Thursday, June 14, 2018

what I would do with my billions part three

My Almaty house will be THIS :

this will require 100% refurbishment. Why on earth I want to own a house in Kazakhstan is anyones guess. But, I am buying one - because I can. It could be my base for adventures out into the great flat wilderness of the ex-Soviet state. Not being a hunter, i guess this may seem pointless but hey. Great strategic purchase me thinks - I'll be watching a few dvds and kicking back in that pad perhaps once a year. I will be looking into natural gas stock options while watching Kazakh tv also.Might also philanthropize the Kazakh/Almaty contemporary arts and music scene to repair the damage that bastard Sascha Baron Cohen did to the great country. Will frequent the local Karaoke bar and coffee houses. In fact, Almaty is holding an International Jazz Festival this month.

The house to buy outright will be 484,000 Australian dollars when converted from Kazakh 'Tenge' .

=Not bad!!

Not, a diversion - perhaps its time to purchase a hobbyist item. No, no I'm not going to set up a dungeon with electro-mechanical fucking machines, (although this is tempting), no., its time for me to pursue my Short wave listeneing hobby. So folks ---- lets go shopping !!!!!

Considering my current base is Melbourne Australia I will actually do my business in a small but well stocked HAM radio specialist place called ' Strictly Ham' . Probably my best bet in the southern hemisphere , I'd say Penfold my dear.

I just love listening to shortwave radio. The odd tones and mechanical drones just make me feel so at home - so utterly isolated and alien - which is where i really do feel at home. So, sw radio listening creates an atmosphere where i feel taken outside the norm, the mundane, the earthly and into the wafting dance of the ionosphere. These crazed tones phase in and phase out in unpredictable patterns - aesthetically it is such pleasure.

Anyway. My shopping list.

so . I'll start with a receiver. Will need to ask my interior designer to install furniture in a suitable room in each of my apartments worldwide. I will buy a 'rig' for each site. How many properties did I say I was buying - approximately 10 i think , so each time i select an item please make that x 10.

Should I go uh Software defined radio or old school. Hmmmmmm.

I'll buy 10 of THESE for a start - these will be my software defined radios. Why not. Will need laptops to go with 'em. Hmmm. antennas - one of THESE for lower frequencies, and one of THESE for higher frequencies.

So thats my house in Almaty sorted, plus my swl hobby kits sorted for each apartment. Gosh what an utter nerd I am. I'm going to need very powerful computers to process this SDR radio. Guess the locals will all think im a friggen cop or something. Oh well, I'll have someone to pay any neighsayers off. I'll probably need to pay a weekly kickback to police, local council, local mob, army, every fucker. Oh well, if you got it, might as well spread it around and get the economy going right??

I dunnow, have i spent my first billion yet? Guess I'll need to pay off my old student loan and EVERY SINGLE other debt ive accrused in my past life of pathetic passive standard useless human wastrelnessness.

Bet your all rolling in the friggen isles at this point, who/wtf/ am i trying to impress with this codswollop? Well, again, I've said it before - its Baudrillardian. I'm adding more guff to the already over-poked over stuffed media-sphere. I cannot recall the exact paragraph or book he suggested this method of re-spew/feedback loop/datasidious dispatching could actually dislodge or overrun the world media 'system'

I love Wendy O' Williams and I love the Plasmatics . Her later metal stuff was very - 'virtuoso' but it also had a punk 'element'.

What was the punk element ::::: 'fast drumming - her scathing voice? . Easy beats to nod your head to? :::

Anyway - in my riches - I will pay a group of actors to perform as the Plasmatics in Almaty on October the 23rd 2018, October the 25th 2018, and October 27th - if allowed by the local council. If no venue is available for my actors, I' will purchase a local warehouse space, furnish it with a PA system , technicians , and make ym replicated Plasmatic event take place in former Soviet Kazakhstan. Hopeful, this undoes some of the damage done by that illuminatiist scumbag Sascha Boran Cohen.

Thursday, June 14, 2018

what i'd do with my billions part four

Matt:

Scum factor tonight : 4 outta 10

Dirth : 6/10 (common mispelling of 'dearth')

Mirth : 4/10

Relevance - 1.002/10

Food : none

Brandy : bottled in 1783

Underwear : none

ideas : hackneyed at best

money: in the Billions (no dearth there)

Thursday, June 14, 2018

what i would DO with my billions part five

You don't believe me do you. William Gibson does. So does Freddie Mercury. So does William Burroughs. And so does the ever-living force that-is Aleister Crowley. A man who wasn't afraid of making things happen and hedonizing . Who else believes I'm actually a billionaire. Why, billionaire Bill Gates does. He keeps it on the down low.

How he does it? Its called a jersey, and a shirt underneath said jersey.. It keeps you, its keeps you human.It makes you look like a christian schoolteacher - but that is the simple visual aesthetic one requires as ones' personal fortune skyrockets into the multi-billions.

Of course, the mere fact I am shameless advertising my wealth probably indicates a fraud in itself. Well, i don't care - this is a complex, decade long social experiment that i have been plotting.

Anyhow. Looks like I mentioned I was looking to buy land in Chile. I have some advice in this regard HERE. I wish to purchase land, large masses of it, in the Patagonia region of Chile. Turns out, according to the link, that this is a smart move which is flanked by dozens of locally flavoured regulations - all of which i will follow and honor because I KNOW Chileans are great people.

Patagonian Protected Lands Update . More on Patagonia.

VIDEO on an example of the Station I will purchase. I will need extra special permission to build a radio telescope here I'm sure. If its in a nice, discrete location...maybe tucked away in a 'nook' (correct geo-graphical term someone? Have I hired a full-time Geographical/topographer yet? To do list?) it may receive approval. We shall see. There has been much industrial disputation in the past.

ALMA array scenario in 2013. Why can't some crazed rich bastard just raise their pay? Guess its not as simple as that ? Under my project, I will consult with locals for a good 5 years before operations begin. My cohesion-negotiation-cultural-sensitivity team (CNCS) will be housed in Patagonia on my station until such terms are agreed upon that suit all. I mean, my project will not be anywhere NEAR as out-there as the ALMA array - in fact, i may get away with purchasing a ready built small time radio telescope. Who knows. Maybe i'll drop down to J-car or radioshack and but a freaking crystal set .

I was looking at purchasing 3 buildings in BERLIN for use for exhibitions/performances/music/recordings /film /experimental theatre etc etc. Lets look into the cummings and goings here hey Penfold? Next blog!!

\

Monday, July 23, 2018

away from melb

Christchurch is great. The inner city is amazing.

I was chewed up and spat out by that hog-like Continent to the north. It took me, and I let it destroy me. And now my pale carcass haunts one of the oldest parts of Christchurch city.

The Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009

.........is making it difficult to even do something as simple as open a bank account over here. Ohhh well. I mean, I could indeed be doing or planning to do just that - to launder money and to brazenly finance terror. Me and my billions. Oh, that chapter was a piece of fiction by the way. Oh, you knew? Oh ! Ha ha ha - guess what world, apparently you are still allowed to dream! And sleep - how does sleep free up markets and labour flows? We need to make sleep more profitable for Mr Rothschild and his many minions worldwide. Don't we just.

No , truth is, oh seeker, that I am not actually a billionaire, I am, for now, at early middle age, a pauper. And in fact, I am going through the arduous process of applying to the NZ government for financial assistance. Since the heady hippy dippy days of the 90s, things have tightened up. Nationals blame the poor ideology and their Neo-Con Think Tanker mateys have helped the NZ government craft a difficult, off-putting, buggy, mix-media/mixed message meme for those about to apply. Talk about hoops!

Okidoki, 2018, i am now deep within Addington/Sydnenam swimming in schizoid. The ever shifting world has no reference point. There is hope and style grafted into the place.is again.

To receive Welfare you need good references, a laptop and a phone.

Self-conscious, why? Relax . Christchurch city is a small city of 3 hundred or so thousand people, The soul-crushing/mind warping trauma that is claiming insurance. Residence here, a holier-than-thou - moralists in cars, right-wingers in big station-wagons. . No car means 'bad person' basically. Everyone seems to put up this stony antarctic front - they're hard and hardened and hardening, if you're a man and you are not wearing high viz - so help me god, you must be bad or weak or deficient in some way. Wild-west economics and disaster capitalism seems to have rendered counter-culture mute. . Societal disapproval oozes copiously from the pores of the holier than thous

'What a Dick' they haarp on, 'fuck off back to Australia'

People seem genuinely unfriendly.

This will fade though. Perhaps with that feeling my sweeping generalizations will fade too.

The counter culture has been atomized.

Hippies and punks and beatniks and freaks and questioners and truthers and sexual deviants and artists and intellectuals and writers and actors.

200 people sleeping rough in the central city. 'Move on' , bum.

Sicker puppy. And hate for the world has consumed him. And it's not going away. Just a first impression on an hyper-impressionable schizo. This is the new age of social media - everyone is a type of target. A kind of walking hard-drive. I envisage a luddite versus non-luddite war in future. Privacy warriors versus those who have nothing to lose. Rich versus poor. Human farm. We got it good. So good. Soo damn good. So good. So damn good.

Time to start a GG allin inspired band.

Lets channel that hatred of the worlds vested interests. those vested interests - keeping the world locked into vested modes. I've got vested interests too. I don't want certain things changed. But I'm not going to say what.

7 years of change.7 years of apartment buildings. 7 years of social media. Don't show the public your weaknesses, don't show anyone pictures of you having a good time, you won't get employed. Don't do anything wrong. Don't do anything different. Don't be a bad person. Don't relax. Don't sleep. Don't dream. Don't retire. Don't run away from bills. Credit rating is your life. People dont care if I live or die. So, really - what? Keep living? Die? Make a difference? Make the world a better place? Have children and propagate my schizoid genes? Drug test all employees. Credit Rating. Social Credit rating. Hows your social media score? Are you credible? What do you do? Nothing? Bad things? Are you lazy? Then die.

Are you a slacker? Don't send your trash to Australia! I learnt that lesson. I paid taxes there and now they have my super. Kiwi migrant cash-cow. Negative negative negative. Beat beat beat. Don't forget your supporting documents - you may be a terrorist assuming someones identity. Dream jobs. As in - you should have a job in your sleep state also - we can't slack off just because its a dream. I'm considering an administrative role in the dream job sector. And dream tax . Media tells me what to believe. And I believe it. Post truther - Doctor Nothing. Not much really. The wealthy are just better people. Better men. Good, hard-working Calvinists.

I find it difficult to apply spirituality to this world. Because I am consumed by hate for this world.

Monday, July 23, 2018

what i'd do with my billions part six

Hey watch this. Nah. Don't. Don't waste your time. Go read a book.

Okay, woke up this morning , a 'human' 'body' - a swirling galaxy of hormone and hit-n-miss stasis yearning complex systems, hundreds upon thousands of cells and biochemicals and other agents following orders, genetic orders, just doing what it does. A hulking biochemical protein shake, mastered by some internal drive - some sort of driver, a motivational electrical lump of grey coil. There mere fact that I, and you, and you, and even the most 'un-deserving' of us at-all exist is analogous to winning the lottery a million times over, in some sort of sequence that eventually indicates Pi (?) But NO. THEY want you to believe you are nothing but a servant of the consumer system we have no option but to follow. They want you to serve and follow and compromise your life away for the local industrialist - because an entrepreneur is morally, dynamically, geo-physically, psychologically.......MORE JUST. More worthy of a place on Earths heavenly spaces.

They want you to just get on with the mundanity. So do it. And in the main, of course, without question, we do. Thats how the banking cartels planned it, and that's how we play it. Amen.

Today, i require a secretary to schedule my many meetings with Kazakhstani real estate agents, councilors and actors. I need to do some work on the 'Patagonia Deal' (worst deal ever) .

I need to now look into purchasing a few venues spaces in Berlin - if indeed such a thing is possible anymore. These are the new days son - its is patently obvious the illuminatiists want the anti-establishmentarian hippy/punk youth movements to dry up, to die: to be forgotten like some vainglorious dream, some abberative vapourtrail, some anomalous monopole moment that almost......really......REALLY did rock the boat. They have done well in re-packaging, reviewing and re-telling the story, literally selling it for pennies on the pound back to younger, potentially deadlier generations (the mass shooters/the iphone addicts/the monosyllabists) - each one to be directed further ands further away from the point of departure from conservative control.

My suggestion is that the beginning of the end lof conservative control was the dropping of the nuclear bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima - 1945. This is the beginning of the end on a number of fronts. This was the end of the British Empire as statesman or world ruler. This was the beginning of the USA-as-absolute lord of earth, the takeover of worlds media. When the Solid State technology was formularized, commericalized, rolled out and re-uptaken -- -- -- we arrive at the post modern .

I will keep blogging. Lets go shopping btw, i keep forgetting im a literal 'multi' billionaire. What do i 'want'.

.................................................

a THROBBING GRISTLE T-SHIRT line to flood the market at K-MART in Melbourne Australia.

Can this be done? Let us look now for TG tees.

I invisage this incredible pan-psychic pan-sexual pagan act will become an absolute must have cultural staple in the glorious 2020s. I will strike a bargain with

Tuesday, September 18, 2018

catching up with my radical mates ...

Truly, truly - this writer writes better than he talks to you. Truly, truly, 'tis the keyboard that mediates me thought proper, its is the mechanics of the forearms and fingers that help me convey whats going on in this here brain. So, if YOU are a reader of THIS blog, then I thank you for your time and support. I have had some good feedback on my rambling incoherent prose, which makes DOING IT a little more relevant. Smart systems. Trackers. RFID tech. So, the media is telling me this: if your in your 40s you better keep your freaking job because no-one wants to hire an oldy. The scoop.co.nz headline is : '45 and unemployable' . And then we have the automation revolution about to come. And the technology-driven unemployment that will inevitably come. And I think to myself - okay, I'm now what...43? Whats my motivation? Lucky i look young, right? Why bother.So, I've taken the Hamlet route. Well, maybe I am not quite feigning madness, I actually am quite mad. I have a schizoid personality, persistent anxiety issues and a bent love for getting intoxicated in many different ways. I would make a fantastic employee, wouldn't I , Loving Earth.

I should just GET A JOB i suppose. Picker Packer I am. Organizational Theory. And the RF technology. So it is this, the Christchurch city that houses the Cruder. Tough types, the Cantaburians.

I love those rogue bodies of the District Health Board of Canturbury, the pious ones who know better than those with lived experiences of addiction, the righteous ones who enforce out-dated modes of therapy. I love them the best. Incarcerated and controlled am I. But that is another story. A long and, for most of you healthy types - a tedious story.

The exciting news : RATS IN BATALLIONS is a recording project / thrash metal band I formed with Karl Leeden in Melbourne just before my deportation.. This is beautifully crafted thrash metal , old-school, powerful, punchy, and nasty . I will provide readers with a link to the online fruits of this project asap.

WHISPERING CITY is a re-established duo I am working on here in chch with j-mz robinson of NOTV> actually we are to GIG at THE DARK ROOM in Christchurch 27th Sept..

Snivels MacGowan - then theres mr snivvels. My attempt at Stand Up comedy. Boy oh boy , thats a tough gig. I am an absolute beginner and not sure if I gots the jokey gift but hey - I'll just keep on it and study a bit of Rhetoric, a bit of observation, a bit of political thought, a bit of absurdity and a bit of slapschtick. See this menace to the purity of Christchurchs anglican moral fibre at an open mic night somewhere near you. I won lotto. Dates. Speaking of dates i hear from a friend of a friend that the best dates are the ones they manage to cultivate in saudi arabia which is the holy of holies in the muslim world. Symmetry of systems and breaking chains, friendship and furry animals make life livable again. Lord of light is the command module. Bringer of gregorian chant is the best maximal. Pre-operation relaxation systems best beat the organelle. Brain it, cave-headed open wounds and millenial fortifications - get that job done as best you can, and move that tectonic plate to the left and to the right. Center, center, dead center is the best operative. Its a bitter pill bigger job workers to swallow . Liminal surfaces and scientific method. Breaker. Line up rugby style. Dance crews tried to make me non operate on the operating systems. Line up open call for lifters. Anti-gravity and anti-matter, its a physical thing our last and our lasting relationships. Peer into the great big hole called haPPY.Sobriety and fullness. Need time? Need swine? Need mine? Dont do drugs but enter the space of absolute dream scene. Scene establishment is extremely important for a newy. Dont always make a mark but at least you are giving it a go and letting the gods of the humours be thy ultimate judge. The ultimate judge of all those little micro-desicions you make over and over agin. Its not worth crying over.

Its not worth dying over or even dying for. SO give it your best and dont ever question yourself. Gently, gently, gingerly does it my son. Ginger and spice all thing nice rupert. Juliet Wallace was a good ole' stick - i hope to hell that evereything gets better . So many others have fallen by the wayside, so keep in touch with reality because when we say we care we really really do, you have to build up you have to add and add more and then when you are ready , you will receive the fantastic gift of oratory that was given unto plato and all and sundry. So give it a shot, no no no , not in the arm in the bottom. its that bottom sifter pledge that really warms it in. Killing for entertainments sake was dropped as a sport or as public node of concentration millenia ago, but it dosent mean that we don't lust for it anymore. So linger ye still and blast away the algae, blast away the dendritic spores that keep adhesing to thy temples. Charge charge charge to youre credit car and store up your store cards .People we need a new device, we need a new bringer of dearth. Measure for measure is please a good thing or a gooder thing?

I THINK we need more FREAKS

Posted by matthew.

Monday, October 29, 2018

review::david kahn, black/black/blue, whispering city - darkroom

The day before the collective control-freakery that-is 'satan' fest was our show. Goths. Computer scientists. The experimenters and/or sound artists. Not being afraid to show your weakness is my idea of strength. At least in the free-world. Oh, the edges. The ex prisoners. Keep it hard y'all. Don't give a fuh' and make sure yr fellow inmates KNOW you won't stand down in a fight. Be crazy.  So David Kahn is testing fate and seemingly conjuring geophysical energies using very low pure tones, old-world melody through reverb and highly reverberated metal bar-stools patch miked and scraped across old wooden floors. Scrape goes the bloody Earth's damn tectonic plates/err Barstools. What an alien sonic! The floor scrape can evoke a truly ghostly noise . Satisfying ...

How many venues in Christchurch? They are all 'psycho-geographic'terrains with which to test ones bombastic non-theories. But goodly. And oft-times Godly. I say it. Anyhow. Do not let them become Temporary Autonomous Zones or the police won't come. And on came Black/Black/Blue. Searing/seething casio synth with effect. Slightly lower volume than I would've liked to have heard but hey - you get the idea. Its space. Its Antarctica. Its like, Antarctica is the collective unconscious of all of us South Islanders. That mass of white. We are in space. That atmosphere is an illusion - a nice buffer between the top of your head and the next solid object.

I tell you one thing about living here in the Christchurch, South Island . It is so much easier to play music here. To get gigs. To get more gigs. To get to gigs. To get home from gigs. To get a small crowd of lovely supportive schizoids down there with ya. Or is it me who'z the schizo, oh i dunnow.

To get giggery, to get, like what they call, action. Not so many hoops to jump down here, like. The communication protocols are simpler, less distributed - the packets are switched with ease here. Less channel hopping required. So, Black/.Black/Blue was like bleeding and we are reminded of what was happening in Christchurch sound art circles post-earthquake - The Auricle .

..And then there we were. The Whispering City. My palette was amp, multi-effects unit, digital short wave radio-thru-to-guitar pick-up, cassette walkman-thru-to-guitar-pickup , with old Crude 4 track cassettes loaded therein. Therewith. J-mz Notvs was a theremin d-vice , a network of digital /modular synthesisers, spade-as-guitar instrument, +plus lord knows what else. And our effect was less refined than show #1, my neurons were amphetaminized and angry, so what i propagated was maximally granular and chunky. Like there was no wave - just particles there.

Darkroom is a good ole' micro-room to test your hardware.

Big ups to Jesus. Satan is a freaking bore at times i tells ya. Death metallers are just cartoon characters. Did I say that? Sure did. No, they go thru with their visions.

Bing. Bang. Bong.

Posted by matthew_middleton at 8:34 PM 

Thursday, November 8, 2018

review Mysterious Sea Peoples, Palace of Wisdom, the Ruling Elite , Hellfire Club

Sing a song of Six-pence. Power. Control. Power dynamicists alight. Nigga stop. So, bawdy is as bawdy does and this programming language is a pseudo-code amongst pseudo codes. You are buoyant and brimming with fire.

Each band here has a vocalist by the name of Andrew O'Connell (Ox).  Ox thinks on his feet! Ox is a kind of local bard, a kiwi shaman, an aetheric spokesperson. A soul-man. A confirmed Stoic - the party is Ox, Ox is having a party and the music is coming along for the ride - paradoxically each band is a discrete unit all unto itself .

If you listen carefully you'll make out lyrics of a high grade poignancy. Ox's lyrics are astute, knowing, seemingly able to call us all out for the hypocrites and scumbags ('scoom-bags') we all are. R. Ruby.

First up was the newly combined 'Mysterious Sea People', an ad-lib adventure - I used (someone elses) guitar over pre-recorded beat ( like a crude outing) but kept my mouth shut and riffed, block universe , mutli-core processor -

machine code and bristling nerve. Sasquatch. Secure-teams latest video. So sample and digital signal processing it. Ox lyricized on the spot. Moments evoking acts like Royal Trux or Sleaford Mods etc.

At times it was like outsider art. A sound person with compression techniques May have helped overall sound but hey, this was art and whammo you get what you get . Can't say whether the MSP will perform much. But it was a wonderful experiment and why the hell not. Fun lyrical soundbites can be exploited over at the facebook. Great references and on-the-spot sex-references

Next was the Ruling Elite. ( Fantastic musicianship and songcraft here. Modern post-jangle rockers. A type of folk music.  A rollicking , oscillating journey. Gone rock. Audience swelled with paying customers in dress up. Pliant. Entry level self selfing. Grabbing a packet, and delivering said packet through a routing system banged together with sellotape and bubble gum. ET phoned home. Angular Momentum. I think things were hyphenating.

And bang the songs played on. Oxes songs are stories and glories.

And then an old sixties proto skinhead feel came upon us as thePalace of Wisdom hit the stage. A woman in a burkha and the grief about things done that can't be changed. Whack-o-hack. Exclusionary. Evolutionary algorithms.   More great riff-rockers kept the night up and at 'em and the master of ceremonies didn't let up as he implanted his magical natural language codices into the interpersonal medium. Whiskey punt. Salamander. Hard left anarchism and riot channelling. Changelings. Is everything facebook? Has the world been facebooked? Will the old school ever be necessary again ? Like , its so handy to just whip up an event page - and the fact is - everyone hears about it so why even do posters?? I don't know. Posters are awesome. Ox has a great poster collection.

Bang up philosophical .

Posted by matthew_middleton at 5:48 PM 

Thursday, November 8, 2018

out and about

The Christchurch inner city-scape is an exciting melange of  skeletal half-buildings , exposed structures, pop up businesses, corporate glassware, vistas and open fields, panoramic jack rabbit dodgers, lime-green scooter shooters, signage boasting of constructionistical futures, corporate logo branding, high viz day-ware, tattoos 'n' piercings , polynesiana, wall-sized paintings. And then there's me, the news-presenter haircut boy with the brain thats way too aware of its peripheral body parts. Walkin' around, thinking people are calling me names. Yes, I must be a cop becuase i am know how to write. Best tattoo my forehead then! Yep, schizo-affective is such a bore so I drown me bloods in nerve deadeners that make it all more of a laugh than the nightmare it apparently is is is is.

Don't tell my manager - they run an abstinence model with which to keep the pretty public safe from my menace you see. And they don't want me to drop dead on their watch because itll make them look bad.

Music. Musicians in the late naughties , who were maybe in their 20s in the 90s, are an interesting lot. It's so great to see old rockers still doing it, living the dream, or re-living it. Some still retain a kind of excitement and ambition, they want to tour,  to get famous, to even get rich. Its for the love of it. Raise your hand if you are famous. A couple of years back I wrote the blog 'why i quit live music'. Quite an selfish amalgam of reasons, perhaps the essential one being the fact that I was not actually enjoying it anymore, getting old and tired, being contented with what i've already done (is that 'resting on yr laurels'?) ,working full time, being an terminal alcoholic, being mental generally, hating non-equal power dynamics, hating not having the money to have a good time, hating the get on-get off mechanics of the Melbourne music scene, getting no-where, finding better ways to express oneself etc, not having a car, never getting paid, not caring, realizing, witnessing and experiencing the down-side of the financialization of all culture, big-bopping, ride hopping, understanding determinism, becoming a bit of an essentialist as aside from an existentialist in my old age, smelling hair, spitting in peoples drinks, getting beat on by a whole band in 2010 was probably the last straw actually (None gallery underground where a group of young people schooled me in anarchism)

On coming back to New Zealand I've found many things easier to achieve - gigs are seemingly easier to organise. But I still have the hangups. And i keep saying yes. Yes to gigs.Yes to this, yes to that.

Im supposed to be all up for it and love music. Even though its a complete pain in the ass. And if you back out your some sort of weakling.

Art back black call . In blacker, we put a put adress for ones own inventions. Hadron, that blaster of mine puts needles on the inner. So, dragger, please choose ones destiny ? What will it be. Last week it was 'stand up comedian' the other it was 'electronic engineer' . The other week it was 'computer scientist'. Then it was 'acting' . Then it was 'online advaita fiend'. then it was 'beneficiary' . Humour the madman. Smile and Nod..Did you see Trumps great meet-the-press session this afternoon? Please oh house of houses - please investigate his tax returns. And while your at it, you may want to check out my extremely complex fiscal doings (you won't understand it). In blacker - it is a self-esteem issue, and people constantly mis-interpret, misunderstand , and mis-comprehend each others intent.  Thats life, Mr Ogilvie. Root out the memory.  Root out the bad-guys. Black hat wannabe. And want. to. be. In out and about. Breast. Eating. Breast. Beef Tallow

Monday, December 3, 2018

review: david byrne,the wendys, hellfire club

pinions // opinions // [are like] }

Motivation and reward - unemployed edition.

So. How is it done?

BAM!

....And a knock at the door and it is Ox with an offer I could not refuse - free tickets to see David Byrne perform live at the great stadium venue down the road. I mean i was ready to pack it in for the evening,,but hey. On processing the wholly unexpected offer-oony I thought it prudent to just go along with it. And what a night we were in store for! Many thanks to Ox for making it all possible...

You know  - some fairly big name acts make their way south to Christchurch - the worlds gateway to Antarctica. We've had shows here by Bob Dylan, Queens of the Stone Age, the Dead Kennedys, Genesis, Queen, Malcolm Maclaren, Juniper Networks, GE money, Twitter, next year there'll be even Bryan bloomin' Adams even. (Even). And....Slayer!>?

Arrived late at bloomin' venue and were processed. Now, at this juncture I play a little Boolean game with meself - does it mean I'm an alcoholic if I won't go in to see the performance until I've got me a beer? I mean, you have to like line up for a beer, and it took 'em a fair while to process our order. From within i could hear the inimitable timbre of Byrne. I was missing the show to get a stinking beer. Alcoholic = TRUE. I say to Xtine - "hey, isn't that a Talking Heads song?". David Byrne's show was a highly stylized, fully choreographed piece of minimalist theatre. Musicians switched roles, danced, sung, acted. They were coaxed into 2 encores. They played the 1980s radio hits 'road to nowhere' and 'burning down the house' deftly amongst a slew of new Byrne compositions.

Each performer was dressed in modern steel grey suits, each song boasted a tailor-made dance accompanyment. Their sound was pristine. David Byrne looked ever-so European with his silver hair. Talking Heads are truly part of the psyche of any gen X'er - their hits were blasted on the radio throughout that formative decade, and still..even now you hear them on commercial radio. What to make of Byrnes new stuff?  Suave, odd, afro/cajun, knowing, dancey, african, west african, africanian, skiffle, reflective, hard-bop, fank, granular, punker, democrat, preacher, mixed media,layered, bhang, amsterdam, sun microsystems, larry, shadow boxing, connectionism, go to 20. Their second encore (give them a break chch- I know you paid $150 a ticket but they're probably tired as all hell at this juncture of their world tour - i know - im a (kind of) musician - you wanna just go home and put your feet up and pet the motel's cat) was an odd new orleans/indian chief (Treme?) type afro/march call-and-response number where the audience are called on to repeat the name of someone (a raft of people ive never heard of) - for example - Bob Smith (?) - 'say his name' - there was a strange urgency and almost some sort of anger in the singers tone as we were called upon, say his fucken name you redneck - Bobby Smith - who was he - what was his thing - was he a fallen soldier? a black man killed by the cops? an artist? a writer? someone struck down by AIDS? A trangendered person? A community leader? A man lynched by the KKK ? It was odd and almost confronting ..

And we (me ox and xtine) left because we needed to make it to the last freaking night of one of the last rockin' venues in greater christ's church aka lyttleton, the dastardly blasphemously title 'hellfire club'. The (probably anglican)'tea-tottling brits' on the lyttleton council saw it necessary to close the joint. Because. Health 'n' safety? More than 2 people congregating in one area in public? I dunnow. Its that insidious world-wide boring-ification gradually working its way into our everyday narrative, and we accept it all willingly. Because politico-corporate power talks. Where do i sign? Safety over life? Safety barriers built upon safty barriers>? Children we be - the public. The public of the town. The workers and students, the volk who deserve a drink at an actual pub at the end of the work week. And to see a band and listen to some Iggy Pop. And to have another one. And to have a smoke and holler and let your hair down. No. No, you won't be doing that. No  no, you will be paying through the nose for boutique swill. And don't swear or yell, you'll upset someones delicate yogic constitution/chakra calibration. Another nail in rock and/or Rolls coffin i believe. I cant talk though - i am all for quietism these days, im letting my old rock and roll friends down constantly with my fickle ungrounded directionlessness.

And so, a channel for the Cruder to proliferate it's vile sound-arts had closed. I see swarms of would-be venue-ists collaborating - hip hoppers, skateboarders, rich kids from Haast. They could like, takeover? And bake a prison. And for the networks , we dig. We dig deep . I sit on the wharf, whip out the Hewlett Packard and search for unsecure networks. A security guard truck whistles its wooper and shunts down the ramp. Police stares - you know, those stares - android, facial recognition algorithm looks, snapshot stares. No, no networks for me today. Only record covers with the wrong record inside them . And no sheath. Like me. No shealth. No teat. No breadth. A jewish aesthetic for me intra pants it is.

The band that played Hellfires last night was terrific!! They are The Wendys, a great party act with a nasty punk-rock take on surf. I was throroughly entertained by this group. They were loose and dirty (so unlike performative musics of this day and age generally), and I couldnt help but be reminded of Flipper. These fellows have recordings online - seek them out. And get a job in IT while you are at it. Thats what i eventually plan to do. The Wendys had a (beaten?)down to earth air about them, Christine said they were like a Melbourne band from the 80s..(?)Could anyone explain what she meant by that?

And the male stares bore inside me. What am i. What are ya. What do you want. Male-gaze. Male gays. Im ugly and stupid looking. My hair is stupid. I

So wehat else is happeing. well, Crude hope to record a new album in 2019. I hope to play a couple of shows in Dunedin next year.

The Space Dust is doing a reunion stint in January!!! Cool!

Hey visualists - you probably noticed it - no photos!!!! Sorry !!! Visual is the way to claim hits these days, but it just dosent get through my thick southern hick skull. Its all text text text , enough to scare away half my potential audience, text text text all code-like and small like a caravan of ants.

Once again i would like to thank Ox O'Connel for making it all happen that night. I've got a bizarre experiemtnal rock project going with him called The Mysterious Sea People....his great band currently is The Ruling Elite. Ox is a man who dares ya to dig deeper. I have to try harder. And go further. And unchain these self established shackles. and bring the system down. Complex Systems. Socialism with Chinese characteristics. Watch out for China because they intend to lead the world in artificial intelligence. Me? Space . I'd invest in Luxembourg and Space industries like Asteroid mining . And earthly sciences -- well, superconductors, condensed matter research, plamsa research, quantum information, big words that sound technical, a big empty building with a PA system in it and a bunch of city councillors in my pocket, logistics, embedded systems , nurturing hackers, ionispheric research, control systems, a chemistry lab, a factory,

Posted by matthew_middleton at 4:08 PM 

Thursday, December 20, 2018

The decade that was part 1

    ......Tap. This particular blog has been a thing since 2010. It will continue through to the end of 2019.....La Decennie Brut.

The Crude Decade. What seemed like a year in my youth is now a decade. A decade is a decent stretch of time. As I age years no longer cut it as a temporal marker, they just click by in a puff. Newflash - a drone has closed down a British airport. Seriously? Brilliant. Oh - they've brought in the army. 

Hey. So thats almost 9 years blogging. (12 if you include the earlier Crude blogs ..the crude decade(the events of 2009) , and the official crude blog 2008. 

And so....what of it. Well, what. What? Left Dunedin in 2011, moved to Melbourne. Worked my ass off over there and came home in 2018. Melbourne was a time. A beautiful city - marred by a few terrible crimes when i was there. 

....Where do people go when they decide to carry out these crimes? What motivates them? Madness, no doubt. 

The Crude decade was a maelstrom. It was a sea of shit. It was a struggle, a spattering of a few rare good moments amongst curdling psychologic grind.  

But there were good souls - I worked alongside a group of wonderful Nepalese people who taught me alot about life. I was able to nurture my research into Indian metaphysical thought with these people, bouncing off some ideas of my own, accessing their stories, contrasting their lifestyles with my own - comparing the vacuity of the white modern capitalist lifestyle with the metered , family-centered life plan of the Nepalese. To have children, to have property, to be part of a dynasty, to live in the service of others and to respect your ancestors, to work hard and not live for the fleeting pleasures of the moment.  And team work . Team team team. Team. Team work. 

Who else - a gaggle of Australian eccentrics came in and out of my life. Musicians. One of whom died. I was a pain. I started acts and then stopped them as soon as a modicum of public interest stewed. 

Selfish and paranoid was I . I recorded approxiamtely 5 albums of Crude material, and a Metal ep. Here, here they are: 

Wednesday, January 2, 2019

new year eve 2018

Theres a switch.

The 2020s .

"'I' was born a passenger".

Big fortuna awaits 'ems,

(Big).. gusts o' wynd

Peppery; vinegar'd:

shard rain down 'on y'

Stinky stinky block (block universe)

member: ochr'd and tumeric'd.

A lasting notation, shuffl'd, stuff'd and turn'd oot.

boys ov algebra (ho!)

boys of statistics (ho!)

breach!

breach!

breach!

0000 b

00x0049876 

---------------

Bari, -(city)

Bari

I am not Italian

No, i am not.

I am not Italian.

I am not Italian.

I am not English.

I am not Maori.

I am not French.

I am not. American.

I am not African (well, ultimately, I am )

I am not Indian.

I am not Greek .

I am not Russian.

Tuesday, February 26, 2019

it's been a while

Whelp, world war three is right round the corner !

And the people in the street are still muttering at me! Or am I just a boring schizo. Nevermind.

My hatred for the squares of this society is still fuming away, wasting my body away. Waste of time really, railing against the behemoth - turns out, I might just be the behemoth anyway -- I am indeed, the anti -schnitzel.

Soap, Christchurch city. No nightlife, or Is there> you tell me? I've been poor so long you can smell it on me. People seem to hate me for it. My existence itself is a vexation for the poor poor public, the poor poor normal people who just want to get on with their lives....I am such a damn threat to society, with all that WALKING around and EXISTING and such, how dare I.

I seem to  polarize folk. Most seem to buckle their faces when they see my dawdling, short-stuff form sideling up beside 'em in public, their faces sorta grizelling, their faces ageing in real-time, their poor brains folding in on itself, their nervous systems shivering and jellifying, the blood in their veins going all goey and gelatinous. The other half dont' give a toss and thats how i'd prefer it. But no, my stench of existence gets up the nose of the good righteous christian folk of the town.

Sorry for it , truly I am. I'm sorry to uh, EXPOSE myself to your minds. I'm sorry that I have to bike around town. I'm sorry you have to see me. Its because, I'm not rich you see. I , I sort of have to leave the house , and uh, you're going tro have to see me sorry. Its a bloody nuisance and im sure it makes the work-ethicists blood boil. I mean, the , the NERVE .

So yeah, fuck em all I say. I'm a nut bar and only by getting stinking rich is it going to change. All you righteous straight edge right wing fucks can suck my shrivelled up codlings.

Cause your all so fucking righteous.

Posted by matthew_middleton at 8:52 PM 

Tuesday, February 26, 2019

what social media is doing to society

...in my opinion.  Yep. My opinion. Who wants it? I mean really - who'd listen to me?

the Calvinist work ethic - a hearty resurgence of Protestant work ethic in Christchurch :

      half of all jobs are to be automated. they think im lazy.

                                    \\  :::high viz requirement : pass drug test : pass water : pass mateship test :

Hi mate, did you see the test? Put your sausages on the plate. I quit drinking. Its a sausage.

           ''''''' pass canterbury test :: "  nor-wester : "are you not from here"

      || | Sorry, Christchurch and sorry mates.

       Lolly scramble, Bob Parker, High Viz,  Work Hard and Success is due to you. | ||

Social Media is

Wednesday, February 27, 2019

open ai text generator

Hi.

GPT 2 ||||||| ||||| |||| ||| || |

i'll make some nonsense sounds and see what microsoft text recognition will cum up wif:

(this is made out of matty retard noises (the ones that old girlfriends eventually had to dump me over )

[That if if you to all who bought an unusual code 00 what a president of CNN would have we have conducted at the benefited by you lose a sub is updated lawyer who has earned about the drug's other measures open today

"s thwTo tip to tip of the detective Ted I mean all rumor I was not Allison that he headed in the sun logo: at least a Up a hill has more in our own little bit all regular the risotto similar scenarios and battery was it that led to a call to call Dave delete the blaze in building day off Limbaugh going on and one 8th at least until she had hired an illegal yellowtail of the guy that was a high level of a political outlook but you ]

Stay calm But stopping International Electrotechnical Vocabulary Tustin Tustin taco couple couple men barged to 80 at all clear to billable school better to let us vote to be about the holiday be available due Not spend done much for us to anywhere they still has told some scenes here because I'm trying to replicate I'm trying to replicate but now you've now all you actually now it's time taking down exactly what I'm saying privately and understand on a privately perfectly tiny me use tiny Mejia is at war anyway and said its annual audit this whole dictation business is fascinating to me because it is a director since they asked Everett president's pay act represents its represents a crude a spate of advertising's accrued as the best of a state and represents for U.S. bank of the beginnings of unofficial intelligence and natural language processing

Posted by matthew_middleton at 5:21 PM 

Monday, March 25, 2019

Thee Aesthetics Party On A School Night...Dunedin March 20 2019

poster by ened senrab 

Self interest fascinates me presently, apparently it's what truly motivates us. Why do people choose to congregate?  To bathe in pheremone?  Why do people choose to do anything at all? For the sake of Fraternity? To satiate sex drive? To cultivate and secure future power? To build influence over other people? Dominion over space? Dominion over the chattels and protection of our respective foodstores?

Another question -- how deeply have networking technologies pervaded avant garde social spaces in this our 2019'th year? Are they tools or toys? Do they help us bond as a society or do they just confuse and distort situations? How important are hierarchies amongst progressive peoples?

Guess I oughta ask an anthropologist....

 These and other fripperies are what I, Matt Middleton, a walking pharmaceutical factory, tested on March 20. Turns out it was I that was being tested (actually, no - no I wasn't ) ; culturo-critic society proposing specially crafted one-time-only judgement calls and positing the hard questions - is Matt still relevant (not as much as he thinks I think he thinks) ? Do we even need his input? (maybe) ; Did I bring enough beer? (no); If i chew on this little piece of paper will I still be able to drink? (you'll be able to drink alot more, Sammy); Will the cat be okay with all that noise going on?  Who is that girl in the pantyhose? Is she married?    AmI married? (yes).    Did he just reference Badiou?  Did I just wet-my pants?  Am I evil? (Yes I am).

Jutland street is a non-venue slash art action space on the mechanical side of Dunedin , a city whos peripheral signage is in Old English font.

I would suggest things would be going well for any visiting aesthete at this juncture.  But that's just me, someone else would probably inform you otherwise. Dunedin lends itself to solipsism after spending enough time there. Jutland street is one of the best non-venues in New Zealand.

First act to perform - Strange Girls. Motty and Clayton and a selection of bitter-sweethearted songs delivered with stately spirit, long arm deep draw fishing, strange girls here tonight son, touch base dang, swooner, imbibe. Neil's young and Chalmers port. Big gunge. Up down? You bid!!! You bid ! Career !!

And shuffle left - gonad (2x) .

Put = Do not study Fitzroy.

If = then .

       You won't be getting an objective standpoint from me here. I mean, who the hell reviews their own show? I guess I do because no-one else will. Unless it suits their purpose, a publication - a career advancement, a page filler, a bookmark, an art blog, a vomitous insurrection,  a reference frame, a fleck of vegimite, a gawdy acid tab, a cup of tea.

So imbibe and trickle. Oi - many discerning consumers of content (data) were in the town for the Lines of Flight festival - so it was an oppurtune time to perform. Or was it simply obnoxious?

It seems that its attention (care, nurturing, hugs) people require (need - even the hardest of gang members and criminals) for optimal serotonin ejaculation. Even the most communistic and homosexual of Jordan Peterson fans need hugs too. (Jordan Peterson is a hard-left homosexual eco-feminist) . Lines of Flight is now in its 19th year. Its a real international draw card and something to be proud of as a practitioner of the declarative and representative arts.

....performing next was Torrential  Brain - Ede Eves and Gwenhwyfar Cheerful from the southern hub city of Melbourne. Complete free-form hard crunch, feed bleed off the guitar necker and rolling blitzkrieg drummer - pigtails  - anti-anxiety, blasts, bellows, fellows, mellows. Blitz. English Dogs. Zounds.

 Fermented drink is plentiful and hard to escape in this space. Experiments in fluid dynamics and mood control. Rolling moon. Green light. Tuxedo. Caustic Sodas. Projectile. I could see that Edie was revelling and if there is one person who deserves to revel - itsEdie!

                I WILL hack into your computer and steal your state secrets. I WILL. I WILL.

A notable lack of presence from our non-friends in the alt-right that evening - must've meant the event was a 'communist' one, or perhaps a 'progressive'(taxation) one, which means the event served as a type of uroboric echo-chamber. Of course the right never get together and suck their own genitalia. Nuremburg rally is a good example: that wasn't no type of self-congratulation at all, innit?

More than 3 people massing together in one space even. The music was pivot and swoop, arc and dive, phase-space/spectographic investigation(s).

        Oi this and oi that because even more art officianados arrived! I haven't been to an art opening for centuries, gosh I miss Dunedin. Near the end of my tenure there in 2011 I used to attend art events to sup of the wine offerings..I avoided making loud judgement calls - unlike most are wont to do in these settings. It was a type of euphoria - it was a regular thing - and the community of artists and art consumers and art dealers would all mix and nasal command-lines would crescendo as the booze cache was depleted. The bogan artists would poo poo the middle class artists and the upper class consumers would sniffle and gag at the dank corpse aromas of 2 year old skateboard shoe'n'sock. It seems Dunedin is a skateboarders town now though  - a skater designed Dunedins official logo. Good on you, Dunedin.

Next up was a very close friend of mine and a guy I truly admire - not only for his fantastic music but also for his dogged rejection of society.

Dene Barnes is the LSD Fundraiser. His infamy in Dunedin is omniprescent - HE's the guy who's art offerings caused an entire central business district

to be shut down one afternoon a few years back.. Dene's position is a type of social democractic nihilism (?) A type of anti-capitalist illustration-based resistance, he was a thorn-in-the-side of the legal authorities of the city during the height of the mess. The furore he created was totally un-forseen. He was playing with matches. They detonated a bomb. The case was thrown out of court after a highly publicized trial. He looked good in a suit too. Not enough of these types left in the world I reckon. We need some new blood. We need some new Beatniks. I see Dene as a type of new beatnik. Maybe i see it all wrong.

Whos with me? Do you agree? Do you? Do you ? Do you disagree? Truth tables aside - LSD fundraiser has several dark ambient cassette offerings available and now he's transcended into the realms of real vinyl. Thats when you achieve reality, thats when the people in the turtle-necks will suddenly start  talking to you, thats when you're serious. Some serious shit. Black lacquer. Slip it on a slipmat, ease the needle into the spinning groovelet, and then grrrrrrrrrrrr. Audience gyrates to LSD Fundraisers dark arcs. A phase-based transport-layer bedding of pick-up extracted drone. His new album is out !!! GET IT HERE

People like pictures these days - text is just too much really. Unfortunately I haven't cottoned on and I still write these silly drawn out monologues without any supporting illustrations to lead the viewer in. Certainly not going for any sort of popularity here, innit. Its like, the New Yorker - articles sometimes stretching to 10 pages long. You truly have to invest in those pieces, don't you. You are rewarded for your diligence. Not sure if you are in this case, Brooke.

And then it was THE AESTHETICS 

Audience was so good... So responsive and my god they danced.....something had aligned and joy was the common emotion for the rest of the event. For the uninitiated.. The Aesthetics formed in 1995  in order to inject a little flipperesque chch darkness into the jangling psychogeography of Dunedin--the original line up was Matt Middleton (crude -founder, guitar, sax, keys) , J-mz Robinson (notv/tmai - bass) and Rustle Coveney (drums). We recorded a little and supplied the incidental music for some truly Dionysian parties. J-mz moved back to chch and we found a new bass player in one Shaun Jury (drugs vs grandchildren). This was version two. We were soon to gather together an album entitled 'My Right to Riches'.How it ended up on Ecstatic Peace is a story only I  and Shaun could explain to you. Rustle was replaced by one Stefan Neville in 96. This unit was a solid one. Stefan and Shaun moved up north and I remained in Dunedin and assembled another line up - with notorious hardcore punk Fyfe (mindfuckers/fuck off cunt face) on bass and electronics whizz Pat Kraus on drums. Our lineup recorded the cd 'Off' in 2000. Fyfe and Pat eventually departed the band. Replacing Fyfe was Jason Barrett (the fraudulents) and drummer Malcolm Deans (the nudie suits) . This lineup recorded 'Ugly Ambition' in 2008. For a time the band was joined by Alex Mckinnon, Morgan Oliver and a few other peripherals.

Edie Eves, then living at None Gallery, joined on bass circa 2009. This line up was a keeper.

For some reason I moved to Melbourne in 2011.

In 2007 the aesthetics played 'the big day out'. That line up was . me (synth/guitar/sax) , morgan oliver (bass), jason barrett (guitar) , malcolm deans on drums.

In 2008 or so we played in Wellington. Heres the clip.

In that line up was Me (vocals,sax,synth,gat), Jason Barrett (guitar). Alex Mackinnon (haunted turneys) bass, and Malcolm on Drums.

 In Melbourne we were joined by Lynton Denovan (heavy turkey, asset stripper, satanic rockers)  on drums, then Jeremy Corborough (orchestra of spheres) . Then, for some reason in 2018 i moved to Christchurch. Holding the Aesthetics band exclusively as this line up now : Edie on Bass, Malcolm on drums...and me.

The ugly ambition record is still available on LP via Malcolm in Dunedin so hit him up for your copy! the bassist on this record was Jason Barrett. 2 + 2 = 4.

Posted by matthew_middleton at 5:37 PM 

2 comments:

Tuesday, April 2, 2019

my job

..My job, is to keep existing. And that is a job.

 Because, my mind has this tendency to over-complicate and poison even the most trivial of strings of data. My thinking is a type of recursive bombardment. Clusters of outcomes and worst-case scenarios jet-stream across the mind.

And suddenly that simple days activity becomes a quagmire. And so I try to simplify.

 But the simple life tends towards complexity again. And so I simplify some more - until from the outside it looks as if I am doing nothing at all except sitting in this office and consuming youtube instances.

But the internal life is rich, dangerous and unrelenting.

Of course, the internal life is not a process worker. The internal life does not pick and pack and it does not bode well generally in this our pointedly anti-intellectual New Zealand. It's fit in of f**k off. High viz or go home.

And so, my day-to-day life itself is a job. But of course, the society calls for me to contribute to the tax pool. So I have to re-arrange myself again and I am told that I need to 'sell' myself. Of course, which self am I selling? The functional self. The 'best' parts, the self that achieved such and such. And I am then in competition with other salespeople. Most fitter that I by miles.

But, I am supposed to actually want it. I am supposed to be driven and want the fruits of working for someone else. But what about those people who don't want it? What then?

 In the 60s and 70s the boomers got to go to Nepal or India and drop out as long as they felt like it. Now we have to somehow pay our student loans, somehow buy a house in a hyper-inflated market (where all the hippies own all the houses) and somehow get to the top.

 And they wonder why some of us just stop giving a toss. I mean - climate change is absolutely real and happening right now and is going to worsen exponentially as the methane locked into the northern siberian block enters the atmosphere. The smart children are on strike from society already --the fossil fuel lobby try to convince them they are insane. They aren't. Its all totally happening and the guy who has the finger on the nuclear button quote dosen't " believe it"

.

Smart people are despised. especially if they're smart kids.

Fossil fuel people vs the universe.

I have been educated that work is pure, the submission to the manager is natural and necessary. I have been educated that pleasure and gain and growth is what I want. My educators deny climate change. My educators are payed for by the fossil fuel industry. My educators.

I have attempted to reform myself and reskill . Now we're all required to be Coders.

We are all supposed to be absolutely available , absolutely flexible, utterly happy to be flicked off onto the next work-group and somehow to improvise and make fleeting friendships with other atomic elements.

We are expected to be zen-masters as well as team players as well as go getters and also motivated by self-interest. And the kids also have to deal with - what? Oh yeah - Technological Unemployment is round the corner so its like - oh - how is the old Protestant Work ethic gonna sell that?

When i hop up hopped up on stage and bare it all , thats also a type of work. Its a performative curriculum vitae. The audience is the employer. The audience is either colleague or employer.

So, my job is , well, I guess at this moment i am what you could call a 'Blogger' or a 'Writer'. The quality of the writing dosen't quite matter - its writing. Grammarly is offered up to me as an real-time editor. This is content.Content. Guff. Stuff. Bits and Bytes and Words. DWord. ZWord. Automated Teller Machine. Strategic Automated Command and Control System.

I observe. I am a type of spook. An open source Intelligence Agent. An unemployed internet data consumer. But I am somehow listed as unemployed, technically. But I engage with and contribute to the fiscal lives of dozens of entities -our Googles, our Facebooks, NZGovernment Data Systems, Foodstuffs New Zealand, Spark electricity supply vector systems inc, Hewlett Packard, Westpac Banking Corporation, IRD, Nestle, Disney, Honeywell, Johnson and Johnson, NCR POS systems, countless public-private initiatives, extremely big data stats, health record stats and datas, Microsoft corporation, Microsoft Embedded Systems, Bristish Petroleum, Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning raw data, Spotify Inc, Apple.

+ = big up on the brown .

+=system dynamics : prurient / sol / vector

+ the year 2068 was :

 " ___________________________________________________________________________

_________________________- ___________________________* ________________________

_______________ was the president of ____________. ________________________________-

_______________________________-  _________________________________ ________________

________________________- ________________________________________________________

I thank the tax payers of the year 2073 for helping me exist and not be homeless.

I thank the vector from the internet / year 2645 who back propagted a 'credit vector' into my virtual bank adresses  |  |  |  |  |  | and |  |  |  and also :

Tuesday, April 2, 2019

DoD funding request

:: 

includes funding for the development of ________

control _vector _01 

control_vector_02 

control_vector_03 

Central Command - 

                              special Class - projectile control : 

                                  procure | promulgate | prime | preen | ping 

                              special Class - projectile moment : 

                                 promote | protect | proffer | proliferate | ping (2) 

                               special support Class : 

                                  provide | promise | perforate | pucker | ping (3) 

subgroup :: mission :: 

             ] procurement funding requirements  

  DEFINE: 

command, control , communication and computers (C4) DEFINE () 

                     - theater: VICTOR CHARLIE HUGO 478 B-447 -ER R55 [quad__IF] 

                     -blister pack : S / GT / 64/ YF / 00-4474

                     - fails : "67", "34" , 7e" -- Banger _5_8_sf\\ "bankers perenium lead financials"

                    - \ IF (PROVIDE) then B A N K (er) 

 PRESIDENTIAL HELICOPTER 

            - router / serial bus standards : (ring wrapping to avoid terminal failure)

 PRESIDENT  (information network) 

 codename "BIG-BOY" | terminal : high cost : WFS_ERR_PTR_MEDIAREJECTED

  { donny 

    david 

    derek 

    deliliah 

    danny 

    dweezil  

} 

 clausewitz (CLAUSE) 

 - extend , expropriate, expose, expunge, exhaust, expound, excite. 

 - divide, confuse, frustrate, 

- apprehend, engage, secure, encarcerate, extract, reduce, determine, centralize, uplink, 

  compress, contain, present, digest, engage, command, apply, assess. 

-augment, certify, decide, act, examine, reduce, control, co-relate, contextualize 

 _

__________

the clause | MODE :

 'ROUNDING -- PRESIDENTS BUDGET - strikefight | total request | program cost | 

 -  

Thursday, April 11, 2019

Nothing Doing

Taking pride in non-productivity this time. Today, I am contributing nothing to the productivity pool. 

I have put down the instruments of productivity and urinated on them, smiling all the while, a toddler-like gurgle. Barking and whooping like a loon. 

Taking absolute pride in this new outlook : I'm doing nothing. I am not productive . I do not work hard, let alone smart. I have not accomplished anything of note for years. And I am proud of this. No art, no music, no creativity. I'm contributing nothing. I'm not moving.

 I'm a corpse, static, engorged with formaldehyde. I am proud of my weaknesses, I am proud of my failings.

 I ponder my actions and think about Kants categorical imperative. What if everybody did nothing. We'd be in trouble . Who would wash Mrs Binghams flab mould out? Guess its a little bit irresponsible. And childish. But, thats what I am - Jordan Peterson has defined my class already. 

Work - go to hell. Enough work has been done already. What more needs to be done. 

Maintenance? Of what?  More growth? More efficiency? More stuff? More plastic?

Nothing doing - doing nothing for the enterprise. Nothing for the great banking families. Barclays bank won't be employing me today. Best i could do for them is maybe ping one of their servers.

And Adam Curtis schooled me with his 'Hypernormalisation' piece : the artists who embrace the great self-expressive urge - they have been played by Capital. Individualization is but marketization. Even the output of the avant garde.. . Even the arts - they are but markets - small ones of course - but slivers of a massive pie nonetheless. 

 The catharsis of the artist is a marketing device - the art - but another commodity. Adam Curtis suggest that true 'radicalism' is to stop advertising ones doings, stop producing any art and disappear off the bloody radar. 

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism - full text 

Sunday, May 19, 2019

review: whispering city lsd fundraiser and void the darkroom may 2019

  ...What drives people? What is aggression? Who doles it out? Who would you say is toughest? The hard looking guy or the weak one? The guy with the 18-holes? The guy with the hair?

What is jealousy? Envy? Pity? Obsession? Stalking? Haunting? Hungry Ghosts. Dunedin - lair of the Hungry Ghosts.

Nevermind, none of that is important. These are silly questions, personal questions. Blogging requires topicality and relevance. So our venture begins in the church of christ. Christchurch. The target of Australian terrorism. Thats correct - thats what i just said. Australia shits on New Zealand in many and varied ways.  And after deporting most of us (anti-polynesianism in disguise) for bad character, one of their sterling white-breds comes over and murders 50 of us for sport.  Us. Citizen.

.....Oh well. And I read they're moving here alot more too! They get citizenship in 5 years, instant residency and what's this - the safety net of social security--. Unlike us over there. Oh well. Aren't we the champions of morality.

Anyway. Art and Music. Artists writers musicians and dancers (and poets?). Theres another group of people society likes to shit on. Of course, without culture a society is sick, but because the banks and business elites literally control everything they'll just snuff us out by stealth. Gentrification. Its an algorithm. Society needs (well...benefits from?) artists to take the temperature of an age and mirror it back to the swathes of consumers out there in the 'real world'. Artists are society's shamans. Jesters. Prophets. Wailers. Tricksters. Doctors. Preachers.

No, None gallery has been closed due to business interests so yet again, the spaces for creative free expression, performance and experimentation are being snuffed out. For what - for the sake of the business elites.

Thats all very well and good. Capitalism and gentrification is moving now into an active shaft-the people mode. They wonder why people go nuts. Capitalist expansion and asset-engorging is on a set-it-and-forget-it mode. It will never be stopped. And so..Artists require more looking after now. Or the artist will be left no option but to merge with organised crime in some way.

Oh, so full of shit am I. And I'm proud of it. Onto the review, Donald.

Our excursion started on Saturday the 25th of May 2019 at 12pm with a

kind of hackathon-type sound-as-art event in celebration of world synthesizer day. NoTv, Crude and L$DFundraiser unite and expand on the concept of the synthesizer-as-instrument. Let us not fetishize it and why not use what we currently have which just happens to be a range of digital and analogue gadgetry - and don't forget---the hardware purists enemy par excellence - the dreaded software synth instance on-a-chip. Technically I believe alot of these implements are in fact--synthesizers. Sorry Ma- I sold the Juno to get my sorry butt back to New Zealand, losing friends and alot of self respect in the process. We glided along - J-MZ, Dene and I, our web-cast a still, cerebral affair. So, unlike the other participants across the globe there was no gorgeous slab-o-analogue synth to be seen on the film but hey - it sure sounded good. In fact it sounded just as good as any freaking hardware synth I ever heard but I guess that wasn't the point of the event. Sorry Berlin. Next time I'll have my $4,500 Roland Juno 60 with me won't I. As far as the recording is concerned, I'll embed this ionopsheric ebullience as soon as possible...guess what found the VIDEO

Then later that night Void, L$D Fundraiser and the Whispering City

spatter blood over the monthly darkroom noise situation nighty. Luminaries from the scene arrived, artists arrived, and people who don't even like noise arrived. It was an awkward meeting of codes, I'll be bound. Don't take my word for it. I guess you just had to be there, Chuck.

Void began the night with a sombre doom meets folk bent, solo man with guitar strumming on depressive-classico twang themes....Serious stuff - dark southern-esque danzig black metal doomer. Branding his upper bicep with his namesake void's stance was unmistakeable and his branding super in yer-face. This was a dark maiden voyage for our English ex-death metaller! Would love to see and hear what a band would sound like behind this feller.

Then it was the Whispering City. NotV on the many and varied, and the

Cruder mechanism on the guitar and clarinet. A bold guitar pinger rifferama over deft-beats. If i dont say so myselfs. Big up . And bang. And spades. In spades. Absolutism. Each command a piece of power. And power. And control. And power. And control. Goth-ambient foray into cyber-informational terrain. If I don't say so meself. Top marks. But then - who am I to judge. It ain't me. I'm the one being judged, innit. Not that any of us are receiving a wage for our effort!

But then the stars aligned. And a few control drones from Zeta Reticuli decided to check in on us too - I could freakin' swear it - by the olde gods and even by the neu.

'Twas our guest from the Scottish town down sooth. Dene Barnes. Thee El Es Dee fun razor. Slab of bass guitar and a stoic posture of delightful un-recognition of other people looking on in on him. Barnsey is a master of the art of pedal manipulation and multi-casting of said pedals into a quadrangle of amplifiers. His set was surf music from Alpha Centauri. Truly dark ambient, true science fiction soundtrack music. His set was on a level beyond anything I had ever heard before. His was a call to the saucer people. A physics experiment. A conjeuring of a vortex. Absolute mastery.

You had to be there. His is a truly new music. Like Throbbing Gristle on a good day.

Darkroom features a Noise Situation night on the last Thursday of every month. if you are a craftsperson of the noise-arts and wish to perform and experiment, talk to J-mz NoTV - he is the chief architect. These Situations descend from a few Christchurch based sound-art socials including the Auricle...its a thing.  

Christchurch - beatniks are welcome!

Are there any 'alternative' types out there anymore? Or am I just insanely solipsistic in my decline/delirium/dotage? Well, guess what Matt you old bore...yes there are.

I guess the young 'uns don't see people like Robert Plant or John Lennon or Kurt Cobain or Chet Atkins to be worth emulating? Maybe its the influence of the internet? Like - heroes - who/what are the heroes of the youth now? In my day it was Steve Albini, or ..or the guy from Butthole Surfers or Aleister Crowley or something. They were 'bad-asses'. Their 'rebellion' was inspirational. And there were like Punkers and Flunkers and ...yeah. People who liked to do stupid self-destructive acts - but they were ultimately creative. Creative against the odds.

But now, I don't know. Rebellion nowadays is what...getting rich? Doing really well?  Starting a business? Buying a venue? All seems monetarist, templatized and appropriated by ever-vigilant networks now. Noone is even trying to deny it anymore. Its Zuckerberg's party.

But then..

Who am I to comment? Its pointless braying for some golden age now isn't it, Lionel. The time is Now, isnt it, Eckhart. Its not all that bad. In fact, bugger it - things are great.

I guess - I guess its just too much time spent in the industrial area called Sydhenam. I get this overwhelming feeling they (..and I can never qualify who 'they' are when pressed on this) don't like hip-cats like me (ppppffffth) swanning around without a high viz vest on, not going to work, not building anything...you get a blinkered outlook on whats going on out there

North of Moorhouse Ave its the slow but sure re-bound and the almost solemn righteousness of practicality, bullish constructivism and  post-disaster neo-liberal city-state, with pockets of entertainment

nodes thrown in to keep a few paying students mildly anesthetized..but really - its good shit - my negativity is truly stunting my socio-cultural growth, innit. Damn it boy -  there really is good stuff happening here. 

Noise night is where its at. And theres some great Christchurch based 'meetups' - especially techy ones - and a few great philosophy meetups around to. Meetup.com seems to be a great post shake up attempt to get people out of the house and socializing.  I just joined a great Stoicism group. They party particularly hard.  And theres a cool pentesting outfit out there too, which is a great hobby.

I will cut the crap . Because, I realize it now,John Snow. Just because I choose to not do much , dosent mean

nothing is happening. Sad solipsistic thinking is crippling . I will try to avoid it for the next decade.

generation x - not allowed to exist

..I dunnow. Sometimes it feels that way . An unfortunate generation, caught just at the beginning of privatised education and just at the end of cheap housing. And, we're all turing into Grannys and Grandpa punks.

But its good. Gen X rules.

Monday, May 20, 2019

billionaires in open site

I should be rich. And i am. I look like a pauper, but im actually so utterly rich , i simply must look poor. I am an eccentric billionaire.

I am extremely rich. Jeff Bezos, to me, is poor. Thats how rich I am. Jeff Bezos is the 'poor cousin' of the family.

>

 >>  

    >>>       >>>           >>>>                     >>>>>>>>>>>

          >>>>              

Tuesday, May 28, 2019

review - the END none gallery may 25 2019

>.

FNG\

the link above is this one: https://dunedinsound.com/gigs/the-end/?fbclid=IwAR2-_WM5EKttryl-BavCi8Ai4T41ZUiuTe9ZAbal8ty3mTR80N1s94PostM

so ya press it and its like a cache of documentation from the eventery but you freaking well knew that one didnt ya. whoever maintains that site is doing culture a servicing innit.  hate me hate me.

futurians>wolfskull>mud death > piles> piles> piles>piles>

>psychic maps>unknown>the aesthetics>

: 'big angle ::

 other

Not much more that we can do aboot it. Culture is eviscerated , less channel. Cept for the

pubic spaces. Which are user payes. PAYE.  big space capital event. Kapital event. Big ups for the

capital event. Especially the Tong.  Big and blacker. Submission. Tubers. The Dunedin. Tubers.

Its the anti-fungal cremes we need the most, in this our mosquito enriched 24th century. We carriers need to be kept away from other human points-of-sale and points-of-gathering. We un-circumsized. We

un-vaccinated. We the dirty. The dirty .The dirty dozen. The dirty few. The dirty three. Its that future automated artificially intelligent world we look towards now. Where leisure has won out over Protestant work Ethic.

It is the super rich I look up to now, and beg.  And beg. And beg. Don't let me stay poor. Stop being poor. Just stop being poor, you stupid indebted fools.

uesday, July 2, 2019

review - review

The wealth was palpable - undeniable. Such power - so many uninitiated vectors. So many world-lines. Wealth - the power to move. The power to excrete. On someones face.

 That, he told me, with ancient assuredness, was true power. The power to propel thy digested food onto a high-paying receivers face. This - is the true power. This was the power of our Fascist leaders. The power to destroy is one thing - but to control ...to control . That was sexual.

To bind and to control a person. Heady. Euphoric beyond words.

Jose put the pamphlet down in disgust.

"Fucken Fascists!" he exclaimed. Securing his black on blacks with military urgency. "Lets beat the fuck out of these fascists!!!! "

Others spat on the book, some kicked it into the dust.

The Antifa core rallied again, and barked off into the night. I felt sorry for the lone right-wing blogger that had been outed. He was free to move , yes - but his reflexes were untrained and sluggish. He would be no match for the Antifa mob.

Monday, August 12, 2019

dunedin tour review --part one - introduction .

Axiom .

And so, the set of infinite sets makes sure not to have sex. And it brings it down into the Dunedin, to be of the Dunedin, as the Dunedin, within the bosom of the Dunedin, in this it's latest form.

Why come back? Good question. Why do anything at all? That's an even better question. Its all heave-ho on an' unto death ultimately\.

... Thats what this guy James said too. In fact, just for the hell of it -  if you want to read some authentic modern super-subjective journalism go and friend-up a spikey quiffed/ irish deep-sub mediumist James James on the instagram (link). He (amongst other things) pens  reviews of events he drinks at, and he dosen't (seem to) care what happens, so long as he retains a hardcopy review of it - be it blood spattered or not. He types it all up on a typewriter then takes a snapshot. Thats my little popularization (of his literary output). Seek it oot. He too came back to New Zealand from a long stint in Melbourne.He too has been grilled aboot it. People are so vexed by the uroboric move. It irritates them so much.

Coming back to New Zealand all bruised and battered and factory pharmed is seen by some as a step backwards, for others its a total unmitigated fail, for others still a vague annoyance like when a fly lands on your face, for others it heralds the re-emergence of some sort of competitor - someone who'll compete with you for the scarce human resource that is attention - because we all know - there's only so much attention that can go round.  For others still a quaint anachronistic piece of throwaway non-information, for others still an oppurtunity to make a fortune in the commodities market. Why come back? Why come back? Why do I even exist?

I apologize for this, I really do.

What part of me competes? A dead part of me. I'm supposed to be a force of nature - a soldier of Machiavelli, a political monster, a love-making rollercoaster ride of public oratory and self-pleasuring, a deranged drongo, a marketeer, a brattish attention sucking solipsist in someone elses head, how much do i have to do to prove that i don't care anymore?

Ostensibly there's nothing to be achieved from playing 'gigs'. Nothing. Probing deeper---okay - its good if some people have a good time and derive some entertainment from the event for a few hours. Thats good. Thats something. But, as far as proving something..or myself...against what? Why? For fun? For the hell of it?

So people can get together? For the advancement of our culture?

It seems some fun is had and some documentation is distilled from these events. It seems some people can use these scenarios to play certain power games with certain other people. Crude gigs are a forum for mind gamers and power-vampires to practice their art. I hope my sounds bring a sense of

familiarity to the aliens out there - the techno mad throbbing and gurgling a little incision into the minds of those who imagine a better world.

Its shit. I know it. I can't help it if some people find some sort of aesthetic value therein. I just can't.

When your very existence is a problem for someone, its stoicism that is ones best defense mechanism. You can't do anything with that. You cant phase a stoic, you just can't . You'd have to literally kill them to get their attention. And even then, they'd probably thank you for it.

So everyone - really - just leave me the fuck alone eh? Go target someone else. Im a waste of your time, truly.

\\

Gig one was, and still is, as it is still happening in another plane, a victory. Part two will review:

crude, lsd fundraiser, mud death and murdabike at the crown, smith, wolfskull, jackson harry and crude/heazlewood at jutland street, betty apple, snuff jazz group, negative nancies at the cook, and peripheral tinkering.

a big thank you to the people who helped out with these events. your support is truly appreciated here at la decennie brut.

dunedin tour part 2

         / / event entry : (pattern) (incentive) (new active)

=

{ " dreaming in code " as young person said. One day I'll sew it all together. One day.

But until that moment when the digital funds start flooding out of a crudely pierced websocket i'll have to make do with...

.....The Crown hotel . In it. In it to win it. Do it to it. Murdabike were playing - which is a wonderful thing in my book. Arare thing. Clear a freaking space, don't spill any Speights because here comes Murdabike aka IS012 and Rachel Blackburrrn. And actual hardware. Real techno is being produced here - not this software nonsense - the amount of  effects units, equalization boxes, blade servers. nodes, cables and connections utilized by team Murdabike is mind-numbing. I have trouble making sense outta one silly-little pedal -- the type of incredibly complex d-vices Murdabike use denotes some true self-control going on there. An amazing thing - this silent king. And thing is - their set (final of the night) - was truly effortless in its delivery. Seamless integration of all that modularity.  Techno-House - perhaps a type of Tech-House (?)- and there's an Indian accent in my head saying "this is not a night-club!" But people danced and appreciated the...the effort put in.

A tailored

 look and matching emblems make team Murdabike a dance institution! (a non-hierarchical one - of course!)  (not an engrained one either....oh you know what I mean!!!)

 It takes a certain nerve to turn a pool hall into an art-gallery slash night-club now dosen't it. A real nerve. 

Mud Death started the night. Mud Death was an opening ceremony. A calling. A cull. A smoke out.

A kind of ritualist exordium. Blood and guts and ghosts. And a dark wallowing atmospheric. Dunedin gothic. Guitar noise, samples, keyboards, effects. Stoic solo attributes. Pernicious parameters.

Nerves where shaved away with a free jug or two on the unofficial rider. Old friend o' mine Allison Beck (bless her heart) was there...that warms the soul. A raft of old mates helped out with the door. There was a door - you walk through it. It was all very mulled wine and fire-place crackle. And tweaking the old neuro-transmitters. Even the 10 bucks 'on' the 'door' didn't stop 'em from coming in. Oh control -  thou art a close friend.

Ah. Ay. Eh. A. Any-bloody way where did I go wrong?> You got it. the day I picked up a musical instrument. That was it. Goodbye, decency . Hello life of pain.

LSD fundraiser. All Paris student revolt 1968 and prog-rockery, a scowling vortex , your mind down the freaking toilet. Geophysical music. The Crown was now the bloody MOMA. Actually no - it was the Crown Hotel. I trust the beer started flowing. Noise this time. Granular noise. With cycles and arcs. Arc cafe. Heady , ingress beam. Injectables - like Terence Mckenna, freezer full of 'em and pack on picker. A pleasing  meta-material. Coherent Processing if you ask me. And cogent too - mind - don't forget we have paywave. Beaming like a selfless jesus freak. Bribe-off and Ken Barlow.

Carpet burn;

who next ? Why its............mmmmMEE. Crude eh? Crude?? Not that Japanese hardcore band is it? Not that christian post-grunge outfit i hope?? No my friend its Crude -

the freaking unremarkable looking norm-core boy-man who play backing tapes...thats whooo.

The cost of servicing a satellite. On orbit servicing. Act 3. Nasal. Nas. Nickel. International Nickel.

Mid 90s cover art. Orange and Blue cover with stock drawing of arabs and western businessmen quipping after just making the deal of the millenium. Thats what its all aboot.

And tracks . Hits such as

fks such as 'Hey Hey Commando' and 'Anomie' and 'Summer part One'.

 up next........the NEXT DAY!!! get spooked with SMITH. get phased with JACKSON HARRY! get flattened by WOLFSKULL!!! and get annoyed by CRUDE / HEAZLEWOOD !!!! party on down.

...and then we'll take an exploratory look into the 'Aotearoa Snuff-Jazz' experiment and the trio of the century -- NEGATIVE NANCIES as they play for/alongside/with/inside the solipsistic mind of BETTY APPLE!!!!!!!!!

and then I''ll list 20 great high gain SUPERCONDUCTOR manufacturers to invest in!!

Posted by matthew_middleton at 9:41 PM 

Dunedin 3

And onto gig number 2 in the Dunedin.

Ensuite show, Jutland hotels and motels ensuite service, ensuite bi-sex options, ensuite and catering available, dual cat consolidation and cat-play service, ensuite and bathing options, caversham seedlings and plant nursery services, powershell cash-out automation, brag and be busted, entertainment options, walkthrough,  hand-held. Options : Jackson Harry, member of several bands and guitarist. Dark hair, tight curls, 'Ren' they called him - intense but beautiful stare and an insatiable appetite for  metabolites, collaborates with artists like  Bill Direen, Chris Heazlewood, Aleister Galbraith, Dog Power, Christine Voice -  to name a few ---

..Dials up a classic southern feed-back suite, harmonics, psychedelics, its a raga of sorts, solo show Jackson Harry at the helm, wonderful exordium, purifying the space as such, audience members dribble on in...ensuite service, did anyone document that? what did you think? Harry seems unsure if he pulled it off or not - fear not Harry says I!!! you killed it !, ensuite services, a perfect beginning to another crazy old Jutland street melee. Sonorous feedbacking is an art-form only a very few can perfect - JH is one of the few. The filthy few, and lets beat on, beat it, beat it, meet and greet it,  don't let it get foetid, its. supposed. to. be. fun. It's supposed to be.....fun, innit.

SMITH is Emily from Negative Nancies  gone solo.  Rack o' pedals and push-button objects and a microphone. This is the new-wave o' no-nonsense get-in-get-out gear minimalism that i admire/aspire to. No mess, no fuss. Just pack up and go. No amps, no bull. No fuss - except for the spectral hum caused by several electric connections. Audience cloistered and conversations die-off and an inner turmoil like nothing i've experienced before (oh dear a Trumpism) was unleashed on us all . Incantations and long drawn out vocal phrases soaked in reverb, glistening matte-black mood evoked here, real sensitive stuff here, real anxiety laid bare for all to see from this woman,  Cypriot atmospheric black metal?  Like that swiss act 'Hecate' on ketamine? Some real trauma going on - drones and discordant key-chords underneath harpy phrasing. Good god! Thats good time music ! A wonderful second act!!!!

When u got a room at the Jutland, you're a night-owl. Look after yerself Charlie, look into it, go to the library while yer in town, bumping into everyone at the same time. thats a small town for ya, some of it is welcomed, some of it is not, who's act number three????? its...........mmmmEE and wait a minute who's that on guitar,,,,its....Chris Heazlewood !

...Tonights Crude show is embellished with guitar feedback genius of the latter. Tonight I shall Introduce Sharise to a new generation! And the arcane Slavic harmony glides forth. Like some sort of village procession in southern Slovenia circa 1964. Mores to the point Johnno - Who is/was Sharise? Well, turns out she ain't my niece. As in, she isn't my siblings kid. No, shes a woman I love, need and who I gotta please. Perhaps I was in Auschwitz in a past life? Introducing Sharise. Or was that Sherry? Clarise. Is that a Silence of the Lambs reference there? Cheap.  And up and up Cactus Jack. Up and over. Another Cruddy night. Crude plays the (s)hitz. Crude pulls the plug. Crude gets the attention he craves. In spades.

Suggest laser therapy for the affected area. This is the tactical back-wash we warned you about it. Think harder, Kerry. Because - think! You got a bunch of young people on all sorts of chemicals in one space and you unleash Crude on 'em - you got a real possibility of cultural evolution. Think on't. That Crude stuff might sound like a bunch of mangled dissonance to you - but when you combine it with the kinds of chemicals a typical kiwi weekend is made of - you got - alchemy and a true gnostic transmission going on. An informational transmission.

Grong Grong. Pink Fairies. Zzz.

The crowning glory of the evening was WOLFSKULL. Well actually the afterparty orgy was probably the true event of events but for now - WOLFSKULL. Treated vocals are de-rigeur these days. Yeah - treated with bloody anti-psychotics I bet! Wolfskull is heavy. Really heavy.  Really anarchic - almost to the point of nihilistic. We have Sam Ovens in DRAG this time. Hes dressed like a crust punk teen and I gotta really try hard to stop staring at his legs. They are in fishnets. Its all a bit much for the old ticker. I suffer a mock heart attack. He urges me to look away.  I keep drinking and recall my marriage vows. The band gets even heavier. Top notch night . Did we have fun? We had people chucked out, we had the pool table thrown off its legs, we had a trillion bottles left everywhere. Jutland street is one of the last 'clubhouses' left in the country.

For me  now - a few days a jutland during the week. Next week is another gig in Dunners. At the 'legendary' venue called the 'Cook'. Negative Nancies, the Aotearoa Snuff-Jazz Sextet, and Betty Apple. And you will have to pay $20 to get in.

Friday, August 23, 2019

stop it , don't

Employment  . employ this, bitches. Employ my rotting, syphilitic brain and allow it to make you richer than you've ever been before. I am a billionaire. You might think i am a pauper as you look at me twatting around at the supermarket in the rags i call clothes, red blotches and dandruff everywhere - but guess what -  you'd be wrong. A huge financial prize sits in my account. I have 20 billion, 345 million, 456 thousand 573 new zealand dollars available to me right now.

So, I have to work out how to spend it.

What would you do with 20 Billion?