Brisbane Is Home

You little beauty!

I got my new camera this week. It’s a Fujifilm Finepix S5600, and I’d like to thank patrickg of the Blueberry Fool blog for recommending this camera to me. It was only A$ 429 from Digital Camera Warehouse including delivery and a 1GB memory card.

(To give you an idea of how much that is, I work in an office 3 days a week and get about $A 380 for that).

But a camera is no good if you don’t use it, so last night I recorded videoclips of 4 songs by Brisbane DIY music outfit Lightbulb: (click here for Lightbulb’s myspace page).

“I Had To Grow Up Before I Grew Down” is a song about finally seeing the end of a long, hard, lonely road, and it’s full of heart.

The two instrumental tracks are called ‘Sparrow‘ and ‘Blue Sky Realm‘.

And the last song is a happy, fun pastiche/homage to Bob Dylan’s music, called:

“Dylan Hoedown (I’m Just Chillin’ Like Bob Dylan)“.

If you like Lightbulb, you can visit the Lightbulb myspace page or listen to Lightbulb free on last.fm.

This is just the start of what I can do with this new camera, so let me know if there’s anything you’d like to see. Enjoy the music!

Yes, you read that title correctly. This post is letting you know about a great music website, called - guess what? - Brisbane Music. Obviously, they went to the same “Why be subtle” School Of Headline Writing that I did.

The site is pretty new, but the best thing about it is their Brisbane Music player. They already have 14 tracks from the following artists:

Sonic Porno: Just Like You, Waiting Around

Glasshouse: Take Tomorrow, One in Five (click here for a YouTube vid of them being interviewed for Raw Audio)

Divisions: For Moomin, I Don’t Want to Find You, Hope for Resolution (YouTube user Dspry has some vids)

Asa Broomhall: Driving Back to You, Dark Eyed Darling, Get to You (2 YouTube vids here)

The Rocketsmiths: Some Time of Mine, Worth It

Mary Trembles: Too Much 1 (2 YouTube vids here)

Intercooler: Carving Others (and one video on YouTube).

Winds and Brackets: That Tight

Go and check out the band interviews and news on Brisbane Music as well. And if you’ve got any other Brisbane websites you’d like to see featured on Brisbane Is Home, leave a comment and let me know.

Today’s music is from Brisbane band Repeat Offender.

This clip, by YouTube user xmandaxx, is from the Smile or Die Christmas party at The Living Room (click here for map) on 16 December 2006.

Repeat Offender will appear on the Rock and Roll Cooking Show on Briz 31 TV (UHF-31) at 8.30pm on Thursday March 15th, and repeated at 10.30pm on Thursday March 17th (click here for the Brisbane is Home article about the R’n'RCS).

Do you make video clips of Brisbane bands? If you’ve got some reasonable quality clips you’d like to show off, leave a comment and let me know.

A few weeks ago, I plugged a gig in the Valley Mall, by Tim Steward, (myspace, or last.fm), who is also lead singer of Brisbane band Screamfeeder (last.fm). I tried taking photos and videos, but it was just too dark for my low-end digicam to pick up anything.

But Raw Audio, the Internet TV and Radio station for Brisbane bands, has got a better video camera than me, and they have 16 minutes of footage from the gig:

If you’d like to own the CD itself, you can buy ‘How Does It End’ at Amazon.com by clicking here. 

Screamfeeder’s last.fm page also has heaps of free tracks:

• Take You Apart is totally free to listen and download.
• Rocks on the Soul has 9 tracks that are free to listen.
• Home Age has two songs you can listen to for free.
• And Kitten Licks has 3 free songs.

You can also buy Screamfeeder’s music at Amazon.com, if you want - just click here.

Have you got any Brisbane bands you’d like to see featured on Brisbane Is Home? Do they have videos on the net, or music on last.fm? Leave a comment and let me know.

Iron Chef America look out! You are a pale imitation of the original, and there is no-one on your show who is completely out of touch with reality and wears insane brocade jackets eccentric.

The Rock and Roll Cooking Show, lets you relax with local bands while they play tunes and cook up a meal.

It’s on Briz-31 (UHF-31) tonight (Saturday) at 10.30pm.

And if you’re not in range, you can watch videos, listen to music and see recipes from the show at The Rock and Roll Cooking Show’s website.

Keep reading to find out more, and see video clips from the show.

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WARNING - some of the video clips in this article, and some of the websites behind the links, use quite coarse - even offensive - language. Please don’t press ‘play’ or visit the links if you think you wouldn’t like to hear that sort of thing.

One Brisbane band that’s done very well in the last few years is Butterfingers - see their myspace page and listen to four of their songs by clicking here. (To see the Butterfingers Wikipedia entry, click here).

Butterfingers play hip hop, but they don’t pretend to be gangsters and they have an irreverent Aussie attitude along with a warped sense of humour.

They are definitely a bit rude, but Butterfingers are very very funny. Their first single ‘Everytime’, was a hit a few years ago on alternative radio:

Everytime I skate, I get another bruise
Everytime I get drunk, I vomit on my shoes
Everytime I scratch, the needle jumps
Everytime I drink milk, it comes out in lumps

and

Everytime I brush my teeth, I find another cavity
Everytime I try to fly, I discover gravity
Everytime I have a craving, I run out of food
Everytime we spin the bottle, I’m the 1 who ends up nude

and

Everytime we play piggy in the middle, I’m the pig
Everytime we play tiggy, I’m the one who’s it
Everytime I lick a toad, I get warts on my tongue
Everytime I see a killer bee, It’s me that’s getting stung

These aren’t even the funniest bits of the song, just the bits I can safely quote here without being too offensive.

So if you like this sort of thing, read more to see more Butterfingers - but remember not to do this if you might be offended!

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The Redland Shire is an southern, bayside region of Greater Brisbane (which is not the same as the Brisbane City Council - its my name for a rough area from Caboolture to Beenleigh - click here to see what I call Greater Brisbane).

The Shire has a Ladies’ drum corps - I saw them when I photoblogged Australia Day at Southbank, and Beth Connor from the Drum Corps asked me to let you know more about them.

The Redland Shire Ladies’ Drum Corps practices every Wednesday night in the carpark of the North Stradbroke Ferry Terminal. Click here to see the exact location - click here to see from a distance and click here to see up close.

Any female from 13 to 70 is welcome to join. It’s $25 every 3 months to cover uniforms and drums, and you’ll also get lessons on how to drum in the Corps. After mastering side drumming, and the basic marches and displays, you can learn tenor or bass drumming if you want.

The Corps has performed in festivals and street parades right around the Redland Shire, other parts of Brisbane, and as far away as Stanthorpe (click here to see where it is) to Murwillumbah (click here…)

If you want to start drumming with the Corps, call the Secretary, Ms Jenny Hall, on 07 3206 4765 (+617 3206 4765 from overseas).

Read more to see more pictures of the Corps from Australia Day at Southbank.

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Livejournal user virtualdan has just plugged Tim Steward’s free gig tonight in the Brisneyland LJ community.

The gig is at the rotunda in the Valley (Brunswick St) Mall - there will be several sets between 6pm and 9pm. Click here to see the exact location.

You can see Tim Steward’s myspace page here, and you can listen to the album How Does It End here, for free, on Last.fm

This video clip is from Tim Steward’s own YouTube page - the song is called ‘Before’.

I’ll be in the Valley tonight, taking photos of the gig. What are your plans for tonight? If you don’t know, check out the list of Brisbane Is Home links, which includes a round up of the best Brisbane entertainment guides.

If you’ve got a story to tell about your weekends, just let me know in the comments.

The Grates (official website here, myspace page here, Last.fm page here) are a Brisbane band, and they’ve just made the shortlist for the Australian Music Prize 2006.

They also had four songs in the Triple J Hottest 100 vote this year, including 19-20-20 which came in at number 10 (see this chart of all Hottest 100 songs).

(BTW this clip is from The Grates’ own YouTube account - you won’t be seeing copyrighted video clips here without permission, even if they are on YouTube)

Keep reading to see more YouTube vids of The Grates, and links to their music available on-demand at Last.fm.

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A few weeks ago, I helped Brisbane organic/blues project Lightbulb record the ‘Transition‘ EP.

Read more to see bigger photos, and to listen to the 4 songs on the EP.

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