Me and my band have done some fun shows lately; two specifically memorable shows: we're going into the studio to record our first EP, but these shows have the relaxed fun of a gathering of friends, which, in both cases, they actually are.
FREE MP3's AND PURCHASE CHATS MP3 ALBUMS:
For $5 you will receive an exclusive one-time link where you can download a rare, unique show by The Chats, including between-song banter, rare improvised songs and others.
We accept payment via paypal or direct deposit. Msg or email ben(dot)cheshire(@)optusnet(dot)com(dot)au for free mp3 or payment details. Leave your name as payment description and send me your email address so I can email you the link.
Shows available are:
1. The Living Room Gig:
The Chats blow off a shitty band-comp and took our friends back to Joe's place for a private performance to remember. Recording thanks to Joe Gould.
Introducing the Audience / Nightingale / Heaven / Who Am I / Love Song / Mexican Gin / Happy / Looking Out / Noting's Going To Be The Same Again / If Life Were Like Porn (excerpt) / Holiday / The After Party.
2. Chats in the Thicket:
The Chats were invited to host the birthday picnic of a special musical friend; the Chats first outdoor performance is accompanied by the lovely rustling of a gentle wind; and the laughter of a bunch of friends having a great day. Recording thanks to Alex Shaw and Peta Wood, and all others who made it a special day.
Happy / Nothings Gonna Be The Same / Love Song At The End of A Rope / Holiday / Lull in the Set / Heaven / Ice Song (Who Brought The Ice?) / Who Am I (Drunken Sing-a-Long Version)
Wednesday, 22 October 2008
Thursday, 9 October 2008
Curio: Pic on the back of a sanitarium box
Bad direction, or twisted sub-text?
This was supposed to be a shot of a mother and son, but if you look close up, the kid actually didn't know it was an ad, this random woman just came up to him and held his hand. He thought he'd scored.
Friday, 26 September 2008
Blog: Recent Acquisitions
Something told me I needed to spend $100 on books this week; some of my recent acquisitions being:
Allen, Woody. Complete Prose.
O'Rourke, P.J. Eat the Rich, Give War A Chance and others.
Palin, Michael. Diaries 1969-1979, The Python Years
Thompson, Hunter S. Gonzo Papers 2.
Wolfe, Tom. In Our Time; Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers.
I then proceeded to spill a hot coffee on most of them, then pore over them, wimpering, with a hair-dryer. At no point during this did I wonder if I had become too attached to my books. Luckily no words were damaged in the making of this sad physical comedy routine.
I watched a documentary today on how Americans are using computers to rig their elections now. It was called "Hacking Democracy." It made me proud to be an Australian. Mainly because I don't know how they rig our elections.
I spent some time today being glad that I don't have a speech impediment. It was the most valuable time I spent all day.
Happy birthday Dan.
Ben
Allen, Woody. Complete Prose.
O'Rourke, P.J. Eat the Rich, Give War A Chance and others.
Palin, Michael. Diaries 1969-1979, The Python Years
Thompson, Hunter S. Gonzo Papers 2.
Wolfe, Tom. In Our Time; Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers.
I then proceeded to spill a hot coffee on most of them, then pore over them, wimpering, with a hair-dryer. At no point during this did I wonder if I had become too attached to my books. Luckily no words were damaged in the making of this sad physical comedy routine.
I watched a documentary today on how Americans are using computers to rig their elections now. It was called "Hacking Democracy." It made me proud to be an Australian. Mainly because I don't know how they rig our elections.
I spent some time today being glad that I don't have a speech impediment. It was the most valuable time I spent all day.
Happy birthday Dan.
Ben
Thursday, 18 September 2008
Blog: Writings That Are Not Drug Induced But Have Nothing To Do With Anything Especially David Foster Wallace
New idea for character: carrot man. Second thoughts: perhaps limited in emotional aspects, but possibilities for merchandising good. Read today that David Foster Wallace died. Strange because I read it today, but it happened a week ago, but at least my world-awareness gap is getting smaller; earlier this month I read that Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes had died on the same weekend, a month before I read about it, which made me feel bad, but not as bad as their loved ones, and perhaps for different reasons.
Hayes and Mac had just completed work on a movie about a man whose only joy in life is composing internet blogs about dearly departed celebrities, or dead celebrities as people with other joys in life call them. In the film the man (unemployed, alive) had an unhealthy appetite for loneliness but constantly failed at it, acting out by going out all the time and meeting lots of people. The man, not apparently based on the screenwriter or any of his family or friends or internet favourites, despite being memorable to all those who remembered him, had the strange fear that he was completely unmemorable; that even his very own mother would just walk past him on the street, even if he was bleeding from the eyes and she recognised him. The man also had a private paranoia that there was very little money in his bank account, even when there was none at all. To assuage this, the man retreated into the internet, like Hollywood Star in one of those 80’s sci-fi movies where special effects are hand-drawn. The rest of the picture dissolves into self-reference and the greater bulk of the audience are lost, with only those who can find a good book or supermarket brochure on their person not realising that the final twenty minutes don't make sense.
Apparently its Citizen Kane meets David Bowie; sad about Mac and Hayes though.
More thoughts on carrot man: definitely a promising idea. Refer to Coles docket from January; I remember I left another vegetable themed character there who would go nicely with carrots.
Have begun painting my nails with this cleverly titled don’t-chew-your-nails paint, which looks just like a bottle of nail-polish, which seems flammable enough to add fuel to the fires of my masculinity, ongoing ever since I began walking like my first female “crush.”
I’m always too shy to admit it, but when I hear about a celebrity who’s died I feel kind of like the first time a grown-up gave me free money. I sit there, helpless as to when the good news will next return. My days are long and quiet, and aside from packages arriving bearing the latest Bryce Courtney, which I need because I have a squeaky door that disturbs my writing, all that keeps me going is the hope that each dawn will be greeted of something significant.
For what is more significant than dying? I mean, not many things we have no control over, aside from being born. Everything else we can influence to happen to some degree: getting married, getting a job, voting to encourage the politicians; its all stuff that in a free and right-thinking society we have full control over. But I have to admit that aside from writing another book, dying is one of the only ways I can get any excitement out of David Foster Wallace; and I find that sad, which is why I say I’m sad he’s died. But J.D. Salinger is another story. That bastard has for years stubbornly refused to let me read any of his unpublished books or died, so I get nothing from him.
If I ever do something significant, I’d like it to be very reckless; like wearing a bath-robe and slippers to the shops; because I think I’ve been through my sensible period. The only times I’m scared about are the puritan period and the idealistic period. As soon as I start shouting at dinner parties because of baby seal farming or baby Jesus farming just shoot me dead with a witty insult and bury me in hypocrisy.
Final decision on carrot man, and any derivations of the vegetable theme: I retract all these ideas and deny I ever had them.
Hayes and Mac had just completed work on a movie about a man whose only joy in life is composing internet blogs about dearly departed celebrities, or dead celebrities as people with other joys in life call them. In the film the man (unemployed, alive) had an unhealthy appetite for loneliness but constantly failed at it, acting out by going out all the time and meeting lots of people. The man, not apparently based on the screenwriter or any of his family or friends or internet favourites, despite being memorable to all those who remembered him, had the strange fear that he was completely unmemorable; that even his very own mother would just walk past him on the street, even if he was bleeding from the eyes and she recognised him. The man also had a private paranoia that there was very little money in his bank account, even when there was none at all. To assuage this, the man retreated into the internet, like Hollywood Star in one of those 80’s sci-fi movies where special effects are hand-drawn. The rest of the picture dissolves into self-reference and the greater bulk of the audience are lost, with only those who can find a good book or supermarket brochure on their person not realising that the final twenty minutes don't make sense.
Apparently its Citizen Kane meets David Bowie; sad about Mac and Hayes though.
More thoughts on carrot man: definitely a promising idea. Refer to Coles docket from January; I remember I left another vegetable themed character there who would go nicely with carrots.
Have begun painting my nails with this cleverly titled don’t-chew-your-nails paint, which looks just like a bottle of nail-polish, which seems flammable enough to add fuel to the fires of my masculinity, ongoing ever since I began walking like my first female “crush.”
I’m always too shy to admit it, but when I hear about a celebrity who’s died I feel kind of like the first time a grown-up gave me free money. I sit there, helpless as to when the good news will next return. My days are long and quiet, and aside from packages arriving bearing the latest Bryce Courtney, which I need because I have a squeaky door that disturbs my writing, all that keeps me going is the hope that each dawn will be greeted of something significant.
For what is more significant than dying? I mean, not many things we have no control over, aside from being born. Everything else we can influence to happen to some degree: getting married, getting a job, voting to encourage the politicians; its all stuff that in a free and right-thinking society we have full control over. But I have to admit that aside from writing another book, dying is one of the only ways I can get any excitement out of David Foster Wallace; and I find that sad, which is why I say I’m sad he’s died. But J.D. Salinger is another story. That bastard has for years stubbornly refused to let me read any of his unpublished books or died, so I get nothing from him.
If I ever do something significant, I’d like it to be very reckless; like wearing a bath-robe and slippers to the shops; because I think I’ve been through my sensible period. The only times I’m scared about are the puritan period and the idealistic period. As soon as I start shouting at dinner parties because of baby seal farming or baby Jesus farming just shoot me dead with a witty insult and bury me in hypocrisy.
Final decision on carrot man, and any derivations of the vegetable theme: I retract all these ideas and deny I ever had them.
Wednesday, 17 September 2008
Blog: Why the white suit?
Or What Is It That Tom Wolfe Thinks About As He Is Dressing In The Morning, And Other Time-Saving Tips.
Or Is Tom Wolfe Wearing A White Suit Or Is He Just Happy To See Me?
Or Ernest XIII: Ernest Wears A White Suit, Starring Tom Wolfe.
Or Imperial Trooper Cloning Facility, or Tom Wolfe's Wardrobe?
The House That Tom Built
In His Long White Suit
Was a long boring book.
Tom's significant other: Tom, come in here for a minute.
Tom (or, if you prefer, Foghorn Leghorn): Why yes Maude?
Tom's significant other: I was just getting ready for the wedding, and I was checking what you were wearing...
Tom: Why Maudie, I'm wearing my birthday suit, you know I always wears my birthday suit when I'm composing a thousand-page novel.
Tom's significant other: I'm sorry dear, I didn't realise you was workin', will this one be about racist rednecks who dress up in white suits and talk like Foghorn Leghorn too? I so loves it when you writes like that; hot darn.
We interrupt this smattering of jabs at Tom Wolfe to inform you of a real tragedy in the literary world: David Foster Wallace has died.
Or Is Tom Wolfe Wearing A White Suit Or Is He Just Happy To See Me?
Or Ernest XIII: Ernest Wears A White Suit, Starring Tom Wolfe.
Or Imperial Trooper Cloning Facility, or Tom Wolfe's Wardrobe?
The House That Tom Built
In His Long White Suit
Was a long boring book.
Tom's significant other: Tom, come in here for a minute.
Tom (or, if you prefer, Foghorn Leghorn): Why yes Maude?
Tom's significant other: I was just getting ready for the wedding, and I was checking what you were wearing...
Tom: Why Maudie, I'm wearing my birthday suit, you know I always wears my birthday suit when I'm composing a thousand-page novel.
Tom's significant other: I'm sorry dear, I didn't realise you was workin', will this one be about racist rednecks who dress up in white suits and talk like Foghorn Leghorn too? I so loves it when you writes like that; hot darn.
We interrupt this smattering of jabs at Tom Wolfe to inform you of a real tragedy in the literary world: David Foster Wallace has died.
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