BRADY CHAT: Instalment one

Season 5 of The Brady Bunch is probably technically the worst season that was made. Well, perhaps not worst...more like least good. The infamous episode 'Two Petes In a Pod' exhibits a common thread that exists in most episodes in season 5, and that is an absurd and unrealistic storyline. 'Two Petes in a Pod' makes me believe that the writers got to a point in their careers and the narrative of the Bradys where the concept of the plot of each episode was dependant on the pun of the title; that is, the best puns the writers could think of ended up being the name and concept for each episode. And 'Two Petes In a Pod' is a classic example.  For those interested, 'Two Petes In a Pod' finds Peter discovering a boy at school who looks exactly like him, so he decides to date two girls at one time using the other boy - it's been a while since I've seen it but it is hilarious and so bad, and here is a little tidbit of trivia for you:  Denise Nickerson guest stars as Pamela, one of Pete's girlfriends in this episode. You will recognise Denise Nickerson from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory in which she played Violet Beauregarde. 

Cool huh?


My sister pointed that out to me very excitedly one day because she and I share an equal amount of love for both 1971's Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and The Brady Bunch, even season 5 because it is so bad that it's just good. Particularly the episode where Pete and Bobby think they see a UFO and when Bobby dyes Greg's hair orange by accident. The quality of the story may diminish by season 5, but enjoyment does not. 

This post is a result of me surrendering to the couch and crawling back to my old friends the Bradys and the safety of 20 minute misunderstandings that are guaranteed to work out by at least the 19 minute mark. 

Yeah, and then what happened?

New Year's Eve 2011. Well, technically New Year's Day 2012 but it was like 3AM and I had claimed the small couch outside, the one that wasn't already hosting my friend who was half-heartedly vomiting into a cardboard box. I leant my head on the old wooden arm rest knowing full well that the next morning my neck would sound and feel like a cement mixer. Moonlight filtered through a Corona bottle that someone had put in my shoes and muffled conversation turned into white noise as I shut my eyes. 


I woke up from strange dreaming about an hour later to the sound of clinking bottles on ice. A particularly loud friend of mine was searching clumsily and determinedly through the drink sink in the laundry where the remainder of my own stash was lying peacefully among half-drunk Cruisers and homebrand Coke. Generous as he is my friend gave a running commentary of his findings despite being completely alone, and lo and behold, he came across my beer, MY beer, which was likely the only drink unopened and unsoiled in the drink sink. Even though he initially scoffed at the brand, he then proceeded to open and drink my drinks that I had stolen from the stock we have at home, leftover from a family party. 


I don't know why I love that story so much. I think the ridiculousness of it appeals - lying in a sleeping bag that doesn't zip up on a too-short itchy couch with shooting stars above my head and a cardboard box full of vomit beside it, listening to a 17 year old boy open and drink my drinks while providing a running commentary for his own benefit and subsequently mine too - and again, I guess there's that nostalgia of actually being involved in a typically teenage situation that just drives me crazy with strange joy. 


Gettin' old. 

Monumental dope

Here is a picture of what I felt like doing for the majority of today taken when I finally got to do it - to curl up into the little ball and rest my nose between my knees and be tiny and insignificant in my bedroom. Today I was 'officially' enrolled into uni and I am so excited and so scared and so happy and so overwhelmed I feel like my bones are scratching at the surface of my skin!!!!


I'm proud to have gotten into the course that I did because it validates what I do musically and artistically and makes me feel as though I'm not completely delusional or crazy and maybe that I could maybe spend my life doing this. I am also proud because I set my sights on it early last year and worked hard and cried and worried and got there in the end. Also my big sister has studied at the same uni and she has been incredibly successful and she's really cool and gives me hope that one day, perhaps, I will have the potential to be as cool/as good an artist/whatever. It was wonderful meeting a few of the other people who will also be doing the same course because I could see the nerves moving under their skin like mine with our frantic note taking and fumbling through booklets and trying to read brochures and listen avidly to lecturers and look totally breezy all at the same time! 


I'm used to doing things alone but this is really something else. 


Students of all ages are enrolled in this course and I feel like a child who has by some stroke of ridiculous luck been allowed to join in on this grown up thing and my life has been short and sheltered and I don't even know it's like I'm suddenly sitting at the adult table looking longingly at the kid's table as they eat chicken nuggets and drink cordial from plastic cups and my feet are swinging inches from the floor as I sit in a chair that's too big and the adults are all drinking red wine and talking about politics and I try to understand but all I do is just sit there swinging my legs and poking my minimalistic entree food with my little entree fork like a monumental dope.


AhhhHHH!!!

Dizzy spells

I'm so sorry I haven't posted in so long. It's been quite hectic at this end and I haven't been home for quite a while, reduced to frantically refreshing my band's group page on Facebook on my iPhone in an attempt to be 'organised' for our next gig while simultaneously rubbing aloe vera cream on my sister's sunburn and wading through the labyrinth of websites and paperwork that is uni enrolment. These are all exciting things (excluding my sunburnt sister) but circumstances have prevented my access to a computer and halted the stream of indirect and clumsy prose that this blog exhibits in a semi-regular fashion. And then I started writing something but got distracted by a friend who had posted a link to a Hilary Duff song that I hadn't EVER HEARD EVER so I'm sure you understand the even-more-extended delay. 

Anyway in between all these VERY IMPORTANT THINGS that I have been doing (helloooo Hilary) I have managed to immerse myself in what old people and school teachers call 'culture' and I would like to mention two main such immersions in this post. Prepare for digression. 


1. Pipilotti Rist's 'I Packed The Postcard In My Suitcase' exhibition (read more here)
I saw this exhibition not long ago and I really loved it for several reasons. Firstly, my family saw it before I did and raved about it which generally means good things as we share similar taste in most things especially cereal (Weeties), Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka, the particularities of Joni Mitchell's 'Blue' and, also, art. I went into it expecting to love it, which perhaps says a lot about being in a certain state of mind when you go out to consume art as a viewer but that's not really the point I'm making here; to be honest I think I liked it so much largely because it reminded me of my family. Perhaps it did this not only because they had recommended it so highly but because the whole exhibition was based around, I think, is taking the best, most beautiful parts of this world, and creating an oasis of sorts. Naturally I would file family under the best most beautiful parts of this world, and in those warm colours and that happy ambience I was reminded of all the good things about being here. 

I love, but am truthfully a little wary of, video art as a medium but in my opinion Rist has created a real sense of time and space - or rather, the lack of - and I found it quite easy to immerse myself in the work. If you like beautiful, simple, kind of naive things then you will enjoy this. My only recommendation is to enter with your mind wide open and without a big hairdo as it will be squashed if you want to experience the work properly (in this case, lying on your back). 


2. Woody Allen's 'Midnight in Paris' 
Ever since I was a little red-cheeked primary schooler I have been fascinated by different worlds. Of course this is totally normal, to find solace in fantasy or friends in foreign fiction. As I grew older I didn't lose this fascination, in fact, I became weirdly intrigued by the notion of dead people and what they would be like, well, living. It's hard to describe this strangeness which resulted in obscure short stories where I would write about meeting John Lennon and playing that white piano in 'Imagine''s film clip or sit, with our feet dangling over the front of Woodstock's stage, with Janis Joplin as we passed a bottle of Southern Comfort between us. Yeah, I know. 


Anyway the point is, this strangeness that still exists in me was delighted by Midnight in Paris where Ernest Hemingway, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Picasso and Dali, among others, all came to life within the realms of a narrative - interacting with a 'normal' guy from this era in the way that many would imagine, or hope, that they would. I mean, in all my youth and haven't-even-read-Pride and Prejudice-literary naivety, I had always been so romantic and fanciful as to imagine these people to react to the world around them as Allen depicts them. It has been cast exceedingly well and I just love Owen Wilson because I think he's a sensitive soul (sigh). Similar to Rist's work I guess this film explores the notion of different worlds - or rather, experiencing this world in a dramatically different way. And I loved this film, for its light comedy, for its cinematic beauty, and for its strangeness that fed the girl who once read a genuine The Beatles fanfiction on the internet where the main girl had a love affair with Paul McCartney and I DON'T EVEN LIKE HIM HE'S THE WORST ONE. 

When I wanna talk, he hangs on every word

 My friend takes nice photos of my friends and me as seen here and I hope he doesn't mind me using them

Sitting on balconies with black cats and a pounding head I've been happier I guess but never more at home in such an ugly place. Maybe we're 'lost at the bottom of the world' but at least I can get to bookshops and Videoland and plunger coffee if I need it around 3am. I have a key to someone else's home and I have blisters from beautiful shoes and I have friends who are still there the afternoon of the morning after $2 pots and sometimes that's all that counts and all we need.

youtube.com/user/eilishdoeslikesongs (and I do!)

Aside from the songs that I write about my little little life, I also dabble in 'sound art', which is essentially using sound as a medium to communicate an artistic intention. Which sounds a whole lot more complicated than it actually is.


The accessibility of art has always been kind of 'iffy', because it seems like a lot of people are intimidated by the possibility of misunderstanding a piece of art and its meaning. I hate that because it means that people tend to switch off before even attempting to appreciate an artwork - in fact I've been guilty of that myself, standing alone in large neutral empty rooms raising my eyebrows at sculptures consisting of a single juice box or something. I always feel like I'm missing something when that happens. But in saying that, I've always stuck by that noble artistic idea that everything and anything can be art, as long as someone truly believes that the object or idea communicates an artistic intention. So even if you don't really understand a piece of art, I guess you just have to take it for granted that it IS art because someone believes it is, and try to appreciate it for what it is and take your own meaning from the experience. But I digress. 


The point of the above paragraph was to reiterate that while 'sound art' sounds like some contemporary artform that you have to listen to standing on your head in someone's loft in Berlin wearing skinny jeans and a beret and even then you're not 'supposed' to get it, all it really is is me, sitting in my bedroom, putting socks over my hands to make a 'beat' and recording audio from The Brady Bunch and playing it over and over again. 


Sound art was my primary focus for year 12 Art last year and I feel sad leaving all my trials that took me hours and hours tucked away in my monster folio underneath my bed. I'm interested in your reactions to what I've done here because several people that I respect have said that they liked it - plus, I had a lot of fun doing it and it's something that I am likely to pursue this year, studying music composition in many of its forms. So let me know what you think!


I have created a new YouTube channel called eilishdoeslikesongs. I chose this name because 1. I do like songs and 2. when asked what on earth I was doing I used to describe the things like 'well, they're like songs...' Which they are pretty much. 


So yeah. That's where you should go, should you require musical accompaniment to Sylvia Plath talking about being compared to John Donne or Marcia Brady commenting on feminism. I'll be uploading sporadically depending on my dangerously severe fluctuation of  enthusiasm and confidence in this stupidity. 


Much love, and thanks, to you all x

Never met a more impossible girl

Well last night was really really cool because my friend and I saw The Dresden Dolls with The Jane Austen Argument and The Bedroom Philosopher at the Forum and it was so cool. 

Above are some bad photos. I didn't really know much of the Dresden Doll's music other than that wonderful 'coin...op-er-a-ted BOY', but it is rare that an act can be so captivating, and so energetic, and so strong, for what was essentially a three hour set. They just kept playing. There are several things I admire about The Dresden Dolls, and I will list them for your convenience now. 


1. 'Keeping good karma'
The Dresden Dolls first appeared on stage at about 7.30PM, in order to announce the first support act. They also announced the second support act, AND, Amanda Palmer performed with BOTH support acts even before her own monster set. There is something very good, karma-wise, about that kind of attitude towards performing. It exudes humility, and while it could be assumed that a special appearance by Amanda Palmer during a set would blow the other band out of the water but it didn't. She knows exactly what's up which is something I will talk about in a second. 


2. 'It takes two'
The Dresden Dolls are two people, Amanda Palmer and Brian Viglione. Their act is essentially piano, vocals and drums, with occasional guitar. The show that they put on last night was quite spectacular particularly when you take into consideration the sheer minimalism of their equipment. And they sound like a 'band', not a 'duo' - and are as entertaining as such. Cabaret the genre has a special place in my heart despite me being not all that familiar with it; there's such prowess in a good cabaret act, and there is something glorious about being about to hold a crowd for an extended period of time with real music, and real performance talent. Or something. 


3. 'Amanda fucking Palmer'
Let's just cut to the chase - Amanda Palmer is one of the greatest performers I have ever come across. Generous with her time and her talents (of which she is inherently blessed with many), unconventionally beautiful, a inspiration in her ferocity and honesty and songwriting skills. She's just so rad. For a little singer songwriter like myself who has always been afraid of being too ugly or too fat to be a singer people like Amanda Palmer make me realise how stupid that is. She is neither ugly, nor fat (far from both) - but she exudes such confidence that I hardly think it would matter if she was. Swoooon! She's the best. Below is a picture of Amanda Palmer in the first encore before she crowd surfed over our patch of crowd. She told us to 'come closer' before she jumped on top of us and I think that that moment made it to my top five sexiest things to ever happen to me in a concert environment (probably accompanied by Adam Duritz shooting himself in the head with his hand in the shape of a gun at Counting Crows in 2010, and when Lady Gaga told us that she'd locked all the freaks outside Rod Laver Arena, also in 2010). 

And I had sushi for dinner with a coffee from McDonald's and I have no money in fact I'm in debt to a few people but it was just a really good time OK and now I'm going to write heaps of songs and be Amanda Palmer well kinda.

Rock n roll is the only thing that makes me feel good! Yeah!

I've always thought that things that can be done in a group can be done just as well solo, which is why I don't mind shopping on my own, or singing on my own, or drinking on my own, or dancing on my own etc etc. You don't have to worry about anyone else's enjoyment but your own which is kind of nice, if you ignore the fact that it's also kind of selfish in a roundabout way. So yeah anyway I went to this gig today (in the middle of the day, yes being unemployed DOES have some benefits) - THE VASCO ERA - flying solo as they say. Also the picture above is from when I woke up at 7AM on new year's day a few days ago - alone on a tiny itchy outside couch, this was glorious. 


I've seen The Vasco Era before, several times, and their three albums are always on high rotation on my iTunes. As a side note I've realised this strange behavioural pattern of mine which finds me listening to the same songs, watching the same movies, reading the same books over and over and over again. I have seen Charlie and The Chocolate Factory with Gene Wilder an impossible amount of times but I've never seen Star Wars. I've listened to Bon Iver's For Emma, Forever Ago pretty much every night for the past year or so but I've never listened to Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures EVEN THOUGH I've been meaning to for years. I guess there's something comfortable in routine that I get so frightened of losing and I feel like if I hold onto some token of this content time to crawl back to then everything will be alright. 


But the point of this post is to reiterate how rad The Vasco Era are, because every single time I crawl back to them they are so great. Lead singer/guitarist Sid O'Neil is that wonderful cocktail of playful carelessness, witty articulation and raw talent and every time I see them play I always want to express how GOOD I think they are but it always ends up like it did today:


Me: (loitering awkwardly on the outskirts of another group near him after the gig biting my lip in that way we do when we'd prefer to gag at our own social ineptness) 
Sid O'Neil: Hey. 
M: Hey! Thanks so much!
S: Hey, no worries. So what are you up to today?
M: (Can't believe conversation has progressed as far as him taking superficial interest in my activities. I am so boring. I do nothing. Today I watched Toddlers and Tiaras in my undies and then I came here. I want to talk about how rad he is. What do I do. Help) Uh. Sorry?
S: What've you been up to?
M: (Forget the Toddlers and Tiaras thing. You're a cool chick. Think of something cool.) Uh, not much, you know. Just chilling. (...) (...chilling?...chilling? When did I forget that I only said 'chilling' in an ironic way? 'Chilling'???). Uh. I just wanted to say thanks so much for the gig today. It was rad. You're always rad. 
S: That's cool. No worries. 
M: Thanks heaps. 
S: No worries.
M: Thanks. 
S: ...
M: Thanks again. 


End dialogue, queue me exiting the premises as swiftly but as 'chill' as possible. 


When the truth is, all I really want to do is to somehow let these people in on how important their work is to me without coming across as pathetic (which I am) obsessive (tick) or mentally unstable (what ELSE would I write songs about). And mainly I guess I want to know how and why their lyrics are as they are because to me they are largely underrated. But asking someone why their lyrics are a certain way is always a complicated business because the nature of lyrics is different for every artist. For me and my subpar lyricism all I know is what I know from my own experiences, and so I write about that in an unfortunately non-cryptic manner. My close friends like to guess which love interest my songs are about and they are usually spot on and I just end up feeling stupid and like a crappier and less hot version of Taylor Swift. 


Which is why I've always admired good lyrics even when they get lost sometimes in the music. We all live for that one little lyric that means so much to us that if it were alive and breathing, we would wrap it up in a little blanket and give it warm milk and flowers because that's what I do to the living things I love. Well the human ones I guess. 


Anyway I guess I should flog The Vasco Era some more because I JUST DON'T THINK YOU UNDERSTAND.