…Ingredients for vicarious living

1. Keep your options open. If you decide something, that instantly means you have to do something.  And if you have to do something, you don’t get to be a spectator.  So ignore any twinges of inspiration, forget about having a timetable, and stay in those PJs.  Don’t let life get in the way of your doing nothing.

2. Unlimited supply. Line your every surface with stimuli – books, DVDs, music, games – so you don’t have to actually do anything in order to feel everything.  Any kind of adventure or fulfilment you could ever want is right at your fingertips.  Sure, your skin may go translucent from lack of natural light, and your torso may adopt a spherical shape, but those people in that frame/on that page/in that song are doing more than enough attractiveness for you.

3. Cloak of invisibility. If you’re too noticable in real life, you’ll be too busy being you and won’t have time to experience life through fictional characters.  But if you’re invisible – like a ninja or… someone who’s invisible – you’re free to live life to the emptiest.  Free as a dodo or a pterodactyl.

…I’m grateful for:

1. 6/8 time signatures.  I’ve long been a fan, and many of my favourite songs have this feel to them.  I think it all started with Pearl Jam’s Elderly Woman Behind a Counter in a Small Town.

2. Viognier.  Not only is it delicious, it’s also a name you can say to make you sound like you know stuff about wine – unless, that is, you frequently confuse it with other wines that start with ‘v’.

3. The antonyms ‘dearth’ and ‘plethora’.  They sound like a pair of characters from mythology.  Hell, for all I know, they are.

…live show highlights of my 2009 (across three continents!)

1. Yankee.  On Broadway, I enjoyed watching two of this year’s Tony winners, best original musical Next to Normal and best original play God of Carnage.  But my personal favourite was 9-to-5 the Musical.  Exuberant and hilarious, this toe-tapper had the most amazing production design I think I’ve ever seen (not as shiny as Wicked, but much more ingenious).  Add to that, the pristine comic timing Allison Janney, the bolshy vocals of two former-stars of Wicked, and a whole bunch of new songs written by Dolly Parton, and you get a show that just couldn’t be more fun.  Meanwhile in Vegas,  Mystere by Cirque du Soleil showcased artists at the pinnacle of human physicality performing feats that most people wouldn’t even imagine, let alone attempt.  But the unexpected part was that it had not only a sense of breathtaking beauty, but a great sense of humour as well.  The experience was so magical and spectacular, I cried and ran straight to the gym*.

2. Yurp**.  I may have mentioned two or three (hundred) times that I was at Edinburgh Fringe Festival this year.  In technical/industry terms, there was an arseload of shows.  Austrian duo Living Room is the world’s only bass-clarinet-and-hang-drum pairing.  On a chilly, gray day, coffee in hand, I revelled in their warm rich tones in a tiny venue on Grassmarket.  I grew particularly besotted with the hang drum – at only 8 years old, it’s one of the world’s newest instruments.  It’s a convex steel drum with incredible versatility – both rhythmic and melodic.  And it’s not like you can walk into your nearest music store and buy one.  If you’ve got a hankering for a hang, apparently you have to write to its creators and explain why – but if you were a kick-arse percussionist looking for a new and unique challenge, it’d be so, so worth it.  On the other end of the spectrum were Aussie acrobatic spectacle Controlled Falling Project – like Cirque, it put feats of strength and balance in the spotlight, but with a simple almost vaudevillian aesthetic.  And last is the mammoth acapella troupe, Out of the Blue.  These dorkiest of dorky Oxford boys would, on the rare occasion they weren’t sold out, storm The Royal Mile in full force and belt out a gloriously energetic number.  People would stop in their tracks.  Then, almost as quickly as they arrived, they’d be gone again.  Their show was similarly energetic and delightful, featuring wacky stagings of pop tracks in quality arrangements.  No wonder they’re the best in the UK.

3. Yowie***.  Surprisingly, for someone who doesn’t love stand-up as much as other forms of comedy, two of my favourites on the home front are stand-ups.  Way, way back at this year’s Melbourne Comedy Festival (which seems like years ago now) I saw Janeane Garofalo.  Now, I know a lot of people (read: guys) weren’t happy with her piecemeal approach to storytelling, but I loved it.  She is ridiculous in a way I really identify with.  My second stand-up rave comes from Cockatoo Island, home of World’s Funniest Island festival where Princess Cabaret did a post-Edinburgh reprise.  There I finally got to see a full show by Fiona O’Loughlin and, my god, I laughed until I couldn’t breathe.  Not only is she hilarious, but she’s a wonderful storyteller.  I made fool of myself on the post-festival boatride, excitedly telling her I was “the tragic lapsed-Catholic in the front row” (FYI, I’m not often starstruck, but when I am it’s embarrassing).  She laughed, perhaps in sympathy.  Finally, just the other night, I saw a wonderful local show called LoveBites.  It’s an ensemble-based musical revue on all things romance - a teensy bit like Australia’s answer to I Love You You’re Perfect… Now Change! but simpler and tighter.  It’s funny, clever, moving, and has just the right amounts of light and shade to make it immensely satisfying.  In terms of writing, composition, singing, and acting, it was as good as, if not better than, anything I saw on Broadway.  The lyrics were particularly awesome.  I walked out at the end smiling and inspired.  This show not only has legs – it has wings and a turbo-charger.

*in this case, gym = all-you-can-eat buffet at Mandalay Bay
**that’s Baltimorean for Europe (I chose this dialect here for no particular reason)
***this is the only Aussie-ism starting with ‘Y’ that I could think of (I bet there’s a really obvious one I’m missing)

…Sing Sing Sing

1. We have some kick-arse jazz songstresses here in Oz.  I went to see Michelle Nicolle on Saturday, who has the brightness of Doris Day with the vocal playfulness of Ella Fitzgerald.  Another is Kristin Berardi, who brings a hint of the best possible brand of pop sensibility and playfulness to very, very smooth jazz.  And I saw Jacki Cooper a couple of years ago at Manly Jazz Festival, who can sell a song in a way to aspire to.  I wish there was somewhere in this town you could go listen to singers like these every week.  ‘Cause, dangnammit, it’s educational and I could claim it on tax.

2. Practice makes perfect - 10,000 hours of practice, in fact.  When my singing teacher mentioned these alleged ”10,000 hours”, I didn’t quite believe her.  Surely, I thought, it’s 1,000, not 10,000.  But no - 10,000 hours is exactly what the studies say. “You’ve clocked up a few this year!” she reassured me.  
I thought so too.  I did some calculation and found that for roughly 400 hours this year I have learnt and performed around 40 new songs (and still my repertoire blows – how does that work?) in four back-to-back shows, plus a few other bits and pieces.  Sounds like a lot, right?  It felt like a lot, starting the year with a shiny new approach to my voice, discovering new things, tossing aside preconceptions of the craft and of my voice,  getting ever-so-slightly better at reading music, being constantly thrown out of my comfort zone and into the deep-end, at home and overseas.  Well, if I continue THAT for a total of 10,000 hours, I’ll have all the muscle-memory, skill and stamina to “make perfect” singing BY THE TIME I AM IN MY MID-50S.  Awesome.

3. Over and over and over till I got it right.  I’ve resumed this playing-one-song-repeatedly thing I used to do years ago.  I don’t mean stuff that I have to learn – just songs that fit a mood or make me feel better or, especially, match the weather.  On a sunny day, Get-Well-Cards by Conor Oberst is one of them (FYI, I’ve just changed this link because the previous one was rubbish!).  I still can’t get enough of that song, even though the lyrics make no discernible sense to me.  It just sounds like sunshine, despite the fact that it talks about peacock people and sunscreen and wanting to wrap your head in a picket fence.

This week, Aussie non-commercial alternative radio station, Triple J, held its Hottest 100 Songs of All Time as voted by its listeners.

It was a particularly cold and dreary day on which they played through numbers 50-to-1, so I decided (read: couldn’t be bothered getting out of my PJs and away from computer and heater) to Tweet my way through them. 

Here’s some of my inert running commentary:

• Silverchair are embarrassed by the immaturity of Tomorrow but what about “You’re the analyst, the fungus in my milk”, like, TEN YEARS LATER?!
• Thom Yorke recorded Fake Plastic Trees in one take, then burst into tears = Thom Yorke cries after a wank?
• Reckon if we play Thriller loud enough, MJ might climb back up to the surface and do the dance again? …Too soon?
• Teardrop by Massive Attack. So good. V.glad Madonna didn’t sing it as per original plan. I like my trip-hop to be pole-dance-free.
• Reckon if we play These Days loud enough, Heath Ledger might climb back up to the surface and do the dance again? …Too soon?
• Mixed feelings about Bittersweet Symphony (I’m here till Thursday, try the veal, etc)
• Bless you, Jonny Greenwood, for trying to destroy Creep with grindy guitar noises. You’re way cuter than Thom.
• “Radiohead’s DNA worked its way into Vanilla Sky“? OMG, my comedy gland just ruptured…
• “Oasis could do no wrong”? Uh…
• I could never like Wonderwall after a stalker sang it at me.
• Under the Bridge! *gets out lighter* *accidently sets fire to post-1995 Chili Peppers albums* *realises it wasn’t an accident*
• Reckon if we play Last Goodbye loud enough, Jeff Buckley might climb back up to the surface and do the dance again?
• Love you Jeff. For realz. Would totally become a zombie if it meant I could marry you. HOT.
• Bohemian Rhapsody plays. Neck and spine specialists rub hands together with glee.
• @triplej drags out lead-up to top 5 like Eddie Maguire drags out answer to million-dollar question
• Love you Thom. For realz. Would totally become a zombie if it meant I could marry Jonny Greenwood. HOT.
• Take Five by Dave Brubeck Quartet for number one!
• Seriously, did the Joy Division frontman also do vocals for The Monster Mash?
• It took Jeff Buckley 20 takes to record Hallelujah – and I bet he still didn’t cry afterwards. I’m looking at you Thom Yorke.
• I loved Jeff Buckley and Radiohead most when I was most depressed. Australia, is there a boy you like who doesn’t like you back?
• Reckon if we play Teen Spirit loud enough, Kurt Cobain might climb back up to the surface and do the dance again?