Music For Small Audiences

How do you make decisions? Do you go with your intuition, collect and assess information objectively, or solicit opinions from those you trust? For some, it seems that consciousness is a smoothly flowing river. For others, conscious thought seems to drift between an orderly committee meeting and a raucous debate between opposing parties. Some of these internal forces are inclined towards action, a...

Today marks the start of my southern summer holiday, with a two week break planned that will see some interstate travel, some time at the beach, some time working on music, and some time spent catching up with family and friends. For those of you in the northern hemisphere, the good news is that summer is now less than six months away. 2016 has been an interesting year for a lot of us, good in som...

We do not always get it right the first time. Particularly where emotions and affections are involved, it can be easy to make mistakes, and hard to pick up the pieces afterwards. In love as in life, we sometimes need to try it a few times before things click in to place. But with proper perspective, there is a silver lined lesson in every cloud, and from every bag of lemons a decent glass of lemon...

Spring has returned to the southern hemisphere, and it brings with it the smell of new beginnings. From food festivals to inner city art exhibits to new restaurants, there is often so much to do that it can be hard to keep track of, let alone attend. With all of the options available in the city it seems one can feel spoiled for choice. Despite this, there is also value in getting away from it all...

A square wave is a waveform consisting of instantaneous transitions between two levels. Fans of Fourier analyses argue a square wave can be made by summing a fundamental with an infinite series of odd-multiple frequency sine waves at diminishing amplitude, while audio engineers suggest familiarity with the tonality of a square wave helps identify symptoms of distortion, given the extent to which c...

Watching science fiction on television tends to put interesting ideas in my head. A recent program that has captured our interest explores the idea of resistance, suggesting that when things are not supposed to happen, reality can push back and present all sorts of obstacles and interferences in order to ensure that the correct chain of events is unbroken. Where it comes to the interpretation of s...

For reasons I am not entirely sure of, I enjoy taking pictures of signs. Some warn of danger, some announce the location of a place of significance, and some indicate a suggested path or direction. In every sign I see, I see a bit of certainty, and the chance to make an informed decision. I also like the idea of events as signposts in the metaphorical sense. When something happens, we take meaning...

Insofar as one can trust the attribution of quotes on the internet, Brian Tracy once observed that self esteem is the opposite of fear, and that the more we like ourselves, the less we fear anything. By this principle, it should follow that we take greater risks when we are feeling better about ourselves and our circumstances. Risk, particularly when taken by choice in the context of a positive st...

Everything old is new again. It has long been true with modern music and so too is it true with video games, with a reboot of the classic ultraviolent shooter DOOM having been released in recent weeks. Hard to believe it has been 23 years since the original, which I recall playing on my beloved 486 across a coax ARCnet LAN set up in my basement until the sun came up on many occasions. IDDQD, those...

In my experience, stress and boredom exist as opposite ends of a continuum. As such, professional development is the process by which we keep the goalposts apart – ensuring there is room to carve out a life between the things we find too boring to tolerate, and the things we find too difficult to deliver on. For those who experience stress as excitement, the world can be a very exciting plac...

Lighting, temperature, humidity, sound and smell. Ambiance. Mood. Vibe. Feel. Every space, every place has its own unique character and dynamic, the sum total of the sensory input of being there. To me the best nightclubs always have more than one room, so that you can leave without leaving, and come back without having left. At Altitude on Russell St here in Melbourne it was the balcony. At the R...

Part of becoming an adult is learning impulse control. As we mature, we learn to fully consider the consequences of our actions. Over time we realise that what might feel good right now may not actually be in our best interest in the longer term, and that by spitting the dummy we may well be cutting off our nose to spite our face. Some of us learn this more readily than others, and some of us are...

I look back fondly on the 3+ years I spent living in Calgary, Canada. While I could write volumes on the many amazing people I met during my time there, Area709 patriarch Wes Straub stands out as someone who has really had a profound impact on my life. Without getting all misty eyed, lets just say he is a pretty good guy. I was honoured to contribute a one hour guest mix to the 100th episode of 70...

In 1965 the Byrds released a song that, drawing heavily from the Book of Ecclesiastes, equated the changing of seasons to the changing phases and fortunes of life. It is an apt metaphor. As children we may have dreamed of being race car drivers or royalty. In our teenage years we wanted to be rock stars. Now as adult life brings forth its many opportunities and limitations, the goalposts and inten...

Australian wine country is truly spectacular. A few weeks ago, we were lucky enough to spend a long weekend on the Fleurieu Peninsula in South Australia, in a little town called Willunga. Nestled in the hills of McLaren Vale about 45 minutes south of Adelaide, Willunga is within spitting distance of more than a hundred wineries, and just a few km away from a number of beautiful beaches. It is also...

Despite the rise of social media, there really is no substitute for face to face engagement with friends and family. As mentioned in a few recent podcast episode writeups, the tyranny of distance is a recurring theme for all of us with our hearts in more than one part of the world. As we are not yet blessed with the clear calendars and fat wallets needed to see our friends and family for more than...

Spring has finally arrived here in Melbourne. In fact, with temperatures forecast to rise above 35C in the coming days you could say that we have bypassed spring entirely and headed straight into summer. With the warmer weather comes the inclination to head out to the beach, and spend less time indoors. I recently shared lunch with my good friend Marsh in Flagstaff Gardens, a lovely inner city par...

There is something about catching up with old friends that puts the passage of time into perspective. Our circumstances, locations, and priorities evolve as our lives move from one stage to the next, but I would like to think that our essential character remains the same. For this reason, there is a special magic in catching up with the wow-we-have-been-friends-for-a-while crew that is both irrepl...

For three and a half years I lived in Calgary, Canada. Tucked into the foothills of the sunny side of the Rocky Mountains, its a city full of lovely people, and a city with a buzzing dance music scene. Returning for a visit a few weeks ago I was honoured to be given the opportunity to play a two hour set on a Saturday night at my favourite place in town. With an incredible sound system, positive b...

Just seven days until I fly back to Canada for two weeks. A week in Toronto with friends and family, a weekend gig in Calgary, and then the better part of the week in the mountains. Looking forward to the break and the upcoming adventure! A guy named Max once told me that every record I fall in love with changes my sound as a DJ. As my music collection continues to grow and expand, I continue to f...

There is something uniquely interesting about preparing to embark on international travel. The combination of project planning, packing, social arrangements, and general getting-in-order-of-things prior to departure provides a structured timeframe and sense of urgency that is sometimes missing from every day life. We may be OK being late for work now and then, but no one wants to miss a flight. Th...

My good friend Kevin once explained that one of the secrets to success is having smart friends. Along similar lines, the secret to good podcasts is having friends with excellent taste in music. This mix contains more than a few gems that have found their way to me via the collections of others. From suggestions made during social get-togethers and mixes exchanged through to emailed promo links and...

It has been said that just as art is used to decorate space, music is used to decorate time. Having just moved into a new place in Richmond six weeks ago, I am surrounded by a number of undecorated walls, with frames leaning up against the walls in proposed locations. We have yet to get up the courage to take hammer and nail to wall, but I suspect the time is coming soon. Thankfully we have not be...

From early 2012 to early 2015, I lived by myself in a tiny-but-beautiful apartment high above the South Yarra railway station. Nineteen stories up and facing straight west across Port Phillip Bay, it offered panoramic views of the city and a regular rotation of the sort of slow-motion sunsets you read about in photography books. For three years my best friends were a king-size bed, a lazy leather...

Urban living and travel means noise is never far away – and while we cant close our ears as easily as we can close our eyes, we can still find pockets of silence through mechanical means when we have the right equipment. My favourite earbuds block out so much ambient noise that I can have the volume on nearly zero even in a crowded city street. This lends an air of surreality to the surround...