View from Pindari

Monday November 13th

Here’s a video of Jo and I improvising on the wires during the broadcast.

Thanks for the response and thanks especially to Alan Lamb and the Wagga Space Program for giving us the opportunity. We had lots of fun and learned heaps : )

sonic overhang

Sunday November 12th

eeeurgh.

What’s the time?

[silence]

Bet I’m the only one awake.

Bet I’m the only one awake feeling like this.

Was it raining? The earth is refreshed, but I feel like…

{c’mon, guess}

a long drive? uh-uh.

coffee? goes without typing

wine-tasting? still can.

What?

[incomprehensible]

Oh.

hoo boy.

Bet I’m the only one awake feeling this GOOD.

Bassbar

Saturday November 11th

Upstairs Home Tavern, 142 Fitzmaurice St from 8:30pm

Featuring performances by Tom Ellard, Robin Fox,  Bradbury & Dave Noyze, Robbie Avenaim, Sleepville and more.
Meals are available in the Home Tavern café downstairs

Unsound statistics

Saturday November 11th

T-shirts or outer/upper-wear by colour
Black/olive (inc camouflage) 62%
Blue (including navy)/grey 12%
Floral/”rainbow” 8%
red/pink 11%
white 4%
industrial or safety wear (either as regulated or for effect) 2%
other 4%
Note: because of rounding, these figures may not add up to 100%

Participant size
XL/XXL 18% (national average 13%)
L 22% (14%)
M 29% (45%)
S 20% (20%)
XS 11% (8%)

Average volume (ie, sound not capacity) 28dB

Average volume except during performance 8dB (NOTE: includes sleep time)

Psychological well-being by activity
Smiling 19%
Concentrating 71%
Fidgeting 16%
Drinking [statistic auto-removed by site-controller]
Photographing (including video) 27%
Photographing others taking photographs (or video) 14% (over time)
Performing 1-12% (over time)
Reporting or composing 8%
Dancing 2%

amidst the reek of industrial glue

Saturday November 11th

a live connection from Junee, and a chance to upload these notes from live unsound06:

Live blog on bus
The legislative system on the bus “Fatal Irony” is discontinuous from the laws and regulations which apply outside, in Wagga Wagga proper. The manner of application is also novel – only on Fatal Irony, for example, is there continuous and direct quasi-governmental oversight.
As Patrick White notes in The Eye of the Storm (with slight paraphrase here for the sake of syntax), “Time and arthritis clinch the matter.”
It finished with little net efficiency increase, as crossing cattle added more than an hour to our journey through the visibly drying Riverina hills.

Wire
The wire interacted in an almost inflammable (or flammable) manner with my newly borrowed Kenneth Koch poetry anthology All Unsound participants quickly improvised a gorgeous verse, an abstract L*A*N*G*U*A*G*E number not unrelated to Old Man Emu. Subtle reverbs of occasional gumnuts hitting the wire from Eucalypts 41 and 46 (at a probability hiss/miss of 3/86) certainly added musicality.

Coolamon
First signs of the rift which resulted in some productions leaving a space between un and sound: that between shriekers and whisperers. One shrieker had somehow captured a whisperer, hogtied and suspended him above three hundred turntables at 33 rpm ± 8%. Each turntable emitted an array of researched frequencies designed to anger different bee and wasp species. As many of you saw, the result transformed the whisperer in the desired manner.

Café, Coolamon
The rift in some ways widened at the café, where Coolamon had come up with its first vegan menu (an interesting combination of vegemite and rye bread rolls). A waitress was delighted to be invested into the Order of the Noisy, and the café name is now changed to The Fox and Banjo.

Out of diesel
The train pulled out of Coolamon Railway Station under a clear blue sky, and yet under a cloud. I could not see how a unified journey to Junee, let alone back to Wagga Wagga, would ensue.

But once under way, the parties reached an accommodation of sorts with the spontaneous invention of “Heat Art”, and the dubbing of carriages 8-13 “Unheat”.

The searing Riverina temperatures played the traintracks liked a ukelele, twisting and twanging up a mean groove which our train, newly named Caldogare, danced to with the unfailing taste of an Adelaide limbo-ist (obscure reference to 1996).

Loco-Motivus

Saturday November 11th

Departing Wagga Wagga 10:30am via bus (bus stop is at Cross St car part – opposite Civic Theatre – river side) to visit Alan Lamb’s wire at Brucedale, outside Wagga Wagga, then onto the Coolamon Up-to-date Store where Ernie Althoff’s work will be installed. Lunch will be available in Coolamon.

The train will depart Coolamon station at 2:15pm for Junee, arriving at Junee Roundouse at 3:30pm where Arthur Wicks and Rod Cooper’s work will be installed. Anthony Pateras will perform a piano piece as well.

There will be performances and installations on the train and at Coolamon station by Bradbury and Dave Noyze, Alex Gawronski, Justice Yeldham and the Von Krapp Family
The train leaves the Junee at 5:25pm to arrive in Wagga Wagga on 6:00pm.

Read more about loco-motivus

Unsound dreams

Saturday November 11th

Shoulder to shoulder, arses swinging, and filling the footpath like three lanes of buses, no catching up, no getting past.

Oh shit, the bus!!! Gotta go.

Music of the spheres

Friday November 10th

At the Monster Trucks tonight, the long-term resident band — Wall of Walls — happily included a juggler with those whistling gyroscopes which play Ave Maria. [Note: image to follow, and for all those there, please post your own images.] Despite some uneven amplification (resulting in, at times, an excess of harmonics), WoW’s driving bass rhythm really got us all revved (assisted by huge quantities of the Beer Formerly Known as DogBait). WoW were well-supported by cosy a cappella from King’s College Cambridge.

The light show was marvellous too, a result of the application of letratone and letraset onto clear film. For some reason I was reminded of the joke about how Native Americans got their names (when they were still called Indians (ie, even before the term Amerindians passed in and out of use)).

As for the trucks: disappointing, especially compared with the Gundagai meet last week. Much had been made of the Wagga Wagga debut of GM’s Rockwell 2 1/5 ton top-loader axles, now combined for the first time with hydraulically dampened traction bar suspension. To me, this dampened velocity and did nothing for traction. My companion, usually of gentler critical intensity than I am, went so far as to say, “I’ve seen wilder moves by SUVs in the Sydney Harbour Tunnel.”

Wagga Wagga Civic Theatre

Friday November 10th

Tarcutta St

Unsound launch, includes performances by Rod Cooper and Al Duvall & Singin’ Sadie plus film screenings by Otherfilm (Brisbane): THE FRESH PRINTS, new 16mm experimental film recently acquired by the National Film and Sound Archive in Canberra.

Apparently…

Friday November 10th

That last was “rude”: some members of unsound06’s vast readership felt certain references were too pointed and even the man on the Clapham omnibus had or would have identified each of my alleged cerebro-linguistic offenders immediately.

My remorse is shown in the following haiku:

Raspberries all round.
see you on dusty ground for
actual unsound.