australian rozie

Kevin, Jacki & Rozie

Originally uploaded by Australian Rozie

You can’t keep an old raver in the closet. When I heard about this “flash rave” I had to be there. I used to do the good old “wait for me at Town Hall steps” when I was young. At first it was a bit hard to tell who was waiting to meet their friend before going to the pub after work and who was about to burst into spontaneous dancing. There were a couple of news cameras and lots of photographers and being the poser that I am, I was in my element on Town Hall Steps. I thought it would be a great photo opportunity, but I was so swept up in the “flash raving” that I didn’t get any really good pics. I’ve seen some good shots from some other people like Royal
Dave was a bit upset that it wasn’t a “proper” flash mob as it went on way too long (from Wikipedia: A flash mob is a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, do something unusual for a brief period of time, then quickly disperse). It was so Sydney, there were probably as many people taking photos as there were dancing. Eventually the police turned up and I saw some video footage of it. It was a bit lame how some guys were shaking their fists & yelling “f-off” to the cops, they were getting a bit too angry. Anyway, I had fun for about 15 minutes – you had to be there. More info on ITM
Afterwards, we went to see “Superbad” which was actually quite funny and free (coupons).

Dave & I were doing our fortnightly-ish recycling on Sunday afternoon. This involves taking a couple of boxes of recyclables from our apartment down to the garbage room in the carpark. As I was about to put our paper recycling into one of the big bins, Dave saw clothes in there. Perfectly good, clean clothes (ok they weren’t very fashionable, which I guess was why they were being thrown out) but what the !@#$ were they doing in the paper and cardboard recycling bin? Anyway, I dutifully pulled out about 20 items to Freecycle (you all know about Freecycle don’t you?), but Dave said we had to get rid of them immediately otherwise they’d just take up room in the apartment. So we ended up going to the local shops and putting the bag of clothes in the charity clothing bin.
Further reading No More Stuff and Enough

I went to these gigs:

Pet Shop Boys at the Hordern Pavillion – Hey it was Good Friday, nothing else was open. Lots of gay men young and old, and a few women in their 30s. Obviously rejects from the 80s. Lots of hits and memories, quite few new songs which I didn’t know but the costumes, dancers and visuals made up for it. See photos here.
John Mayer at the Sydney Entertainment Centre – a last minute freebie from my bro and seated 12 rows from the front. He was very “pleasant” or shall I say, “Middle of the Road”, but he was on Chappelle’s Show once, so he must be cool. Everyone around me was loving it and knew all the words to the songs. I know the one he did with Herbie Hancock (Stiched Up)and the one “about his body being a temple” (It’s actually called “Your Body is a Wonderland”) which he didn’t sing. When he did one of his fancy guitar solos – the audience went wild. I just don’t get the glory of the guitar solo! I guess I was brought up on DJs and turntable tricks as an impressive live performance. Ben Kweller was the support, he was good in a twangy guitar/country/blues/white boy kind of way.

The jazz legend Herbie Hancock – at the State Theatre. The night it pissed down with rain and I was ankle deep in water, but anyhoo it was fantastic to see Herbie live in concert. He was definitely one of the musicians I needed to see before I die (or he died). He started with a classical piece which was really ambient and slowwwww. It lasted about 25 minutes and I was hoping the whole show wouldn’t be like that. He came out and spoke to the audience numerous times which was great. He has a personality, a sense of humour and a strap—on keyboard. He played some awesome tracks with his wonderful guitarists and drummer. The only lowlight was the version of I Just Called to Say I love You, which he did on the Possibilities album. It’s such a cheesy song, he could have picked any other Stevie Wonder tune.

The flicks I saw this month were:

Rock the Bells (5 stars) – a freebie from FBi radio about a hip hop festival in LA which tried to get the whole Wu Tang Clan back together live on stage. This docu had intense suspense and drama. As someone who has put on events before, I was cringing and crying when things went wrong. I really felt for this guy and it was brave of him to show his naivety/greediness/failings on film. I won’t tell you what happens at the end.
Sunshine (3.5 stars) – because we had vouchers that were about to expire and Dave got to pick. As if you could fly that close to the sun!!!
Running with Scissors (4 stars) because I loved the book (but the book is better).

In case you didn’t guess the theme:

New York, New York – Frank Sinatra
New York City – They Might Be Giants
Streets Of New York – Alicia Keys feat. Nas & Rakim
King of New York – Fun Lovin’ Criminals
Welcome To New York City feat. Jay Z & Juelz Santana – Camron
New York Minute – Herbie Hancock
New York City Cops – The Strokes
No Sleep Till Brooklyn – Beastie Boys
All The Critics Love You in New York (Basement Jaxx Remix) – Prince
Kids In America – Kim Wilde
N.Y. State Of Mind – NaS
An Open Letter to NYC – The Beastie Boys
NYC – Interpol
We Live In Brooklyn Baby – Roy Ayers
New York I Love You – LCD SOUNDSYSTEM

See the photos
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mymachines/sets/72157600040078767/

That was frigging awesome! As a jaded raver/clubber/pop tart/whatever I am, I have to say that Diplo played one of the best DJ sets I have EVER heard! And definitely one of the best DJ sets I’ve seen in Sydney in many many years. And I have seen many many DJs in Sydney. What did he play??? Everything from techno, electro, hip-hop, pop, rock, baile funk to krunk. Sweaty bodies jamming the Mandarin Club – all going off like there’s no tomorrow! Diplo was also very considerate getting on the mic and saying he hopes everyone is OK even though it was boiling hot. A truly awesome night! See more photos here.

Well, it turned out to be a great night, with about 250 people bringing in the year of the dog down at the Mandarin Cub. The SingStar Lounge proved very popular with all the wannabes and a frisky couple near the end of the night. Red Peugeot started the night with his “oriental”, “dog” & “lucky” themed tunes. I dropped some cheesy disco (Village People, Donna Summer), S.A.W styles such as Bananarama, and some Canto Pop. At midnight we counted down (forgot to do it in Chinese) and let off some popper streamer things. We were meant to play the midnight year of the dog theme song but unfortunately, it stuffed up. The song was “Who let the Dogs Out”, so we’ll have to wait another 12 years to hear that again. Enari dropped some awesome krunk, hip hop and party tunes that had the dancefloor going wild and then Dave played old school dance classics, disco and hip house until we were too tired and sent everyone home.
See photos here
and Kung Hei Fat Choy!

Finally I have been asked to DJ at a Popfrenzy night, the occasion was Cutz + Tbird’s B’day at the new Popfrenzy night, King Hit. I was soooo excited!! Years of buying records and haven’t had a gig in a real night club since 1991. When I arrived at Suzie Q’s, Wu greeted me with, “there’s a little problem, there’s no electricity!” Waaahhh. I just sat on my record box thinking “Damn, I finally get a gig and there’s no juice!” Thankfully the strains of Relax by FGTH came through loud and clear about 15 minutes later.

I played for an hour and a half with such glorious 80′s tunes from MJ, Madonna, Eurythmics, Blondie, Human League, ONJ, Rockwell, Rock Steady Crew, Vanilla Ice, Technotronic, Pointer Sisters, Freeze, Nu Shooz & Duran Duran. Had a top night, hopefully the birthday girls did too with my ladies top tune selections. AND no-one abused me and said my music was shit! Got quite a few requests though!

See photos here.

I was having a coffee with Josie & Beta at Tropicana Cafe last night when Beta said to me, “Isn’t that Courtney across the road”? I turned around and indeed it was the big man himself coming out of a fancy restaurant. Then I saw a blonde girl with who was Hayley, then Dan Bell, Chanel, Anthony and my favourite Ricki-(YOU WERE ROBBED!!!)Lee with him as well. I, of course was very excited to see so many of my reality tv favourites in the same place (and not on the telly but in reality – the irony of it all). Then they all walked down the street together and we went back to our conversation. When we left shortly afterwards, I thought I saw “our 2nd Australian Idol” Casey talking to some people at another cafe, it turned out to be some homeless woman with dishevelled hair and the same body type asking for money. Bwah ha ha.

Went down to Melbourne with Jo, Nadia, Kristy H and Amelia via Virgin Blue. I was on holidays between Xmas & NY but Dave wasn’t, so I decided to crash the girls holiday. I tried to pack as much into 2 and a half days as I could. Unfortunately the other girls were going to be there for a whole week and so didn’t see the urgency of doing much each day.

Highlights for me was checking out Federation Square (I like it) and the National Gallery of Victoria, the new “Australian” one in Fed Square and the old “International” one refurbished on St Kilda Road. It was also great to catch up with Martin & Gaby at the tail end of their world tour. Their Melbourne friends really enjoy their reality television and had a big Amzing Race Finale party. There was shouting and screaming, like it was a footy final or something. It was so much fun to be with people who appreciate such fine entertainment.

I almost missed my plane on the way home as I didn’t quite know how to get to the bus depot at Spencer Street station. I should have checked in at 1:45pm, but didn’t get to the airport til 2pm, when the plane was taking off at 2:15! I was the second last person on the plane. Whew! See the pics here.

What happens at the exclusive Linenoise Xmas party? We eat, we swim, we give nutty gifts to the value of $10.
See photos here