It’s been a long time between (metaphorical) drinks… I ended up pulling out of the Michael Rother shoot at the last minute. It was a difficult decision, as I was very much looking forward to the show and eventual film, but a (not so secret) mystery show I shot the night before occupied all my time in planning, and the Rother show slipped through the cracks. I think I may always wonder if I made the right choice by pulling out. Anyway, there’s still Adelaide legends Grong Grong this Sunday for a project by Neumusak, and hopefully later this year you will all get to see this weekend pasts mystery show.
Spencer’s material, however, has hit bit of a hurdle and needs a massive rethink (and reconnection I believe). I look forward to the completion of those works, but I think it will by a while yet before the great public sees them. It’ll be well worth it though.
I also realised the other night I still have a couple of sets by The Stabs and the Drones floating around – I may have to resurect them.
Once again, for quicker info, you can always find me at: My Facebook
Just a quick update, I now have one of those Facebook page things up and running. You can find it here:
Matthew T. Ellery – Films (Facebook)
Please add it/like it if you haven’t already!
In other news, last night I shot The Nation Blue and Little Ugly Girls at the Tote as part of a project lead by TNB’s Matt Weston. I’ll be very interested to see what becomes of it.! More details when I have them.
Coming up this Saturday though, Immigrant Union live at the Espy, and hopefully Mark Seymour too.
Not a great deal to say about this, just another Saddests video from their amazing Electric Shadow performance, seen here with their take on the Shangri Las. With the Queenscliff Music Festival approaching at JP playing in virtually every band there, keep an eye out for some more videos of the Saddests in the next few weeks.
Last week it was announced that Harmony would be playing Meridith’s ‘Golden Plains’ festival, March of next year – an amazing achievement for the group! What thrilled me even more was when a friend pointed out to me that my video of Harmony was now being displayed on the official Golden Plains website, something I never saw coming…
With this all happening, Tom requested that a filmclip be made out of the Old Bar footage (well… he actually asked a couple months back, but there was now some urgency in the matter). I happily obliged, though wondered how different I could make it given that their playing style and perfomring style are so similiar – I have to wonder if anyone can even tell the difference without looking at the names!
Well, I did what I could to make it different, and here it is, hope you enjoy:
http://2012.goldenplains.com.au/whos-playing/harmony/
It’s been a while since I’ve posted, but I’ve been busy in the down-time. A filmclip has been recorded with Spencer P. Jones, as well as a live dvd, with even more clips to come… but you’ll have to wait a little longer for them.
In the mean time, I’ve continued going through the old Dimitron footage, with mix results.
First up was New War, a group that gave a really stand out performance on the night. I’d never encountered them before, and their minimalist rhythms and sounds really got me intrigued – however, it’s taken me a year to get around to them!
Secondly is Matt Bailey. An amazing performance from the second stage, I fell in love with his sound immediately- the delay in bringing some footage to you was due to the audio problems we encountered on the smaller side stage – no line mix! But, not wanting to waste the footage, I’ve persevered with what I had, and here’s the resulting low-fi recording and video if his great performance. With a bit of luck, I’ll be recording him again very soon, this time with a much higher audio quality.
Some months back I saw Harmony at the Old Bar. I don’t know too much about them – but what what I do know, is that I consider them to be the best band in Melbourne at the moment. Not much else to say apart from that.
Roughly this time last year, I was nervously setting up in Mick Harveys studio for a messy evenings shooting of Brian Henry Hoopers’ ‘Wasting Away‘, when I heard some beautiful piano drifting down the corridor. I didn’t speak to the girl playing it (at least I don’t think I did…), who, from what I gathered, had come along with JP, but the music certainly pricked my interest. A few months later, upon the completion of the piece, I received a message from her praising my efforts on I Get Up Again and expressing interest in some videos for her own work – my first fan it seemed!
Over the months, we would talk of a concert at Montsalvat, a Super8 clip at a windy beach, and even improvised shows on street corners – obviously, none of those things came to be (at least not yet), as last month she announced she would be playing a last Melbourne show at the Northcote Uniting Church, and then leaving, for Paris, indefinitely. This was certainly a shock to me. The Uniting Church show sadly fell through, owing to a missing door key, but a replacement was hurriedly pieced together for Tuesday at the Old Bar, Saskia’s birthday, and the day before she would leave.
It was certainly a bizarre show – the gentlemen before Saskia were very easy to listen to, and I regret not recording them as well. Saskia came on at 11, an hour after her scheduled start, and in between wandering around the bar gathering friends from the smoking area, she played just three songs before the publican issued his ‘wrap it up’ orders to the mixer. Sad, but a beautiful performance none the less, with its own eccentricites – I was glad to have seen it and been able to pass it on.
Another band to perform at Dimitiron: Benefit for Dimitria, and a band that I’d been hoping to track down for over a year, was the Stabs. A very loud and aggressive and thoroughly enjoyable Melbourne trio, I’d first seen them at Summertones almost two years before hand, appearing on the small stage of the Espy front bar some time around 2am, clad in free-flowing dresses – because it was summery, apparently. Next time I saw them was opening for Rowland at Ding Dong, and then many times afterwards – always a deafening group that you would be painfully aware of the next day.
I remembered their Dimitron appearance as being a lot softer and more restrained and, regrettably, weaker – however, upon looking through old footage, I rediscovered their set and suddenly have no idea as to why I ever though it was a weak performance that night.
Here’s No Hoper.
Earlier this year I received an email from Kornelia Kecskes regarding an upcoming multimedia show at the Espys Gershwin Room that she’d like filmed. Some how knowing my weak spot already, she lavished praise on me informing me that JP Shilo had given her my details and that by all accounts if anyone could shoot this show minimally but effectively, it was me. Well, who am I to turn down someone who says something like that? After some umming and ahhing, I took on the job, with a keen interested to shoot JP’s (relativley) new band the Saddests.
GHOST got wind of the show and, upon learning that JP would be performing Rowland S. Howard’s ‘Ave Maria’ from Pop Crimes, gave me full backing and support, hoping that the piece might be good for inclusion in AUTOLUMINESCENT, but that wasn’t to be for a couple of different reasons.
The first group up was new Melbourne band Mr. Hyde. I hadn’t heard of these guys before, but it was immediately obvious that they wont be disappearing any time soon. Their sound reminded me of Pompeii-era Pink Floyd, and their stunning visual display was certainly adding to the feeling.
Second was the Saddests. I wasn’t really sure what to expect from these guys, a veritable Melbourne ‘supergroup’ (well… with backgrounds including The Triffids, Blackeyed Susans, Hungry Ghosts, etc locally they could be seen as one). JP was my contact point for this group, but he was still largely a mystery to me. Only in the days leading up to the show did we begin to talk in earnest – at first about his amazing Hungry Ghosts clip Peak, then to various film tecniques, including the construction of the video backdrop he created for the Electric Shadow performance.
Well, what a great set it was. The quintessential ‘Melbourne sound’ I think, though they’d probably see that description as a disservice! In the weeks after the show as I’d spend more time with JP, I found him to be quite the perfectionist. Every video I’d show him would require several more edits before it met the mark… and then it would still be a hunt for a better piece. Ultimately, we came to Let Me Bring You Down, written by Tim Foljahn.
The headliners were of course Mikelangelo & the Tin Star. I must confess, it’s not a band that I could see myself regularly listening to, but for the music they make, you’d struggle to find someone making it better. A very over the top and flashy performance (in a good way), they certainly make their mark. Unfortunately, during a harddrive crash, I lost the audio recorded on the night. Nevertheless, I cobbled together a couple of videos using tracks from their new album. A blend of filmclip and live music I guess. The process took a lot longer than I expected it would, but I think it yielded some pretty attractive results. A lot like the Rowland Howard clip I did last year, I think.
Very early last year I was spending a fair bit of time in St Kilda, whether it be house-sitting, working, or very rarely, actually socialising. A band I repeatedly heard mentioned was Bitter Sweet Kicks, their wild performances, and their frequent collaborations with Brian Hooper and Spencer P. Jones.
They were a band I wanted to catch up with. I spoke to Brian about them one day at Orange, and he agreed they’re probably be interested in a filmclip or live piece, and that they were certainly worth getting in touch with. I sent off some emails, pitched them my film, and they were more than happy to be filmed for eventual inclusion. I’m pretty hazy on when abouts it happened, but I got myself down to the Tote one evening to see the band open for Brian Hooper’s band. It was an amazing show, I must admit.
This was also one of my first experimentations with basic colour grading, and I think it works in some of the brighter segments.
At the end of the night, Brian worked his way out of the smoking area and joined the band on stage for the Beasts cover of Chase the Dragon, but sadly I was changing batteries on my recorder during the first minute, resulting in a reduced quality. Brian maintains that this was a terrible performance owing to inebriation, but I absolutely loved it.