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dustedmagazine · 4 years ago

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Dust Volume 7, Number 4

Axel Ruley x Verbo Flow

A little bit of optimism is creeping into the air as Dusted writers start to get their shots. We’re all starting to think about live music, maybe outside, maybe this summer. But as the spate of freak snow storms demonstrates, summer’s not here yet, and in the meantime, piles of records and gigs of MP3s beckon. This early spring version of Dust covers the map, literally, with artists representing Pakistan, Australia, Canada, Sweden, the UK and the USA, and stylistically with jazz, rock, punk, rap, improv and many other genres in play. Contributors include Jennifer Kelly, Justin Cober-Lake, Bill Meyer, Ray Garraty, Patrick Masterson, Tim Clarke and Bryon Hayes.

Arooj Aftab — Vulture Prince (New Amsterdam)

Vulture Prince by Arooj Aftab

Arooj Aftab is a classical composer originally from Pakistan but now living in Brooklyn. Vulture Prince, her third full-length album, blends the bright clarity of new age music with the fluid, non-Western vocal tones of her Central Asian roots. “Last Night,” from an old Rumi poem but sung mostly in English, lilts in dub-scented syncopation, the thump and pop of stand-up bass underlining its bittersweet melody. An interlude in some other language shifts the song entirely, pitting vintage reggae reverberation against an exotic melisma. “Mohabbat” (which is apparently Urdu for sex) soothes in the pristine instrumentals, lucid guitars, a horn, scattered drumbeats, but smolders and beckons in the vocals. None of these tracks feel wholly traditional or wholly Western and modern day, but sit somewhere in a well-lit, idealized space. Timeless and placeless, Vulture Prince is nonetheless very beautiful.

Jennifer Kelly

Assertion — Intermission (Spartan)

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Intermission comes from an alternate timeline. Founding drummer William Goldsmith started his musical career in Sunny Day Real Estate and had a notable stint with Foo Fighters. To cut the biography short, Goldsmith took a decade off from the music industry. He's returned now with Assertion, joined by guitarist/vocalist Justin Tamminga and bassist Bryan Gorder (both of Blind Guides, among other acts). This band picks up in the late 1990s, imagining a new path for post-hardcore/post-grunge music. The trio's name suits, as the songs' energy and the lyrical assertiveness develops the intensity of the release. The group works carefully with dynamics, neither parroting the loud-quiet tradition nor simply pushing their emo leanings toward 11.

“The Lamb to the Slaughter Pulls a Knife” epitomizes the album. The track sounds like Foo Fighters decided to get dirtier rather than more arena-friendly, while the lyrics mix violence with emotional persistence. First single “Supervised Suffering” finds triumph in endurance, turning the aggressive chorus into something of a victory. “Set Fire” closes the album with something more delicate, but it's just the gauze over a seething anger. Goldsmith's time off seems to have served him well, as does collaborating with some new partners. Assertion makes its case clearly and effectively, and if the intermission's over for Goldsmith, the second half sounds promising.

Justin Cober-Lake

Michael Beach — Dream Violence (Goner/Poison City)

Dream Violence by Michael Beach

“De Facto Blues,” from Michael Beach’s fourth solo album, is a barn-burner of a song, rough and messy and passionate, the kind of song that makes you want to take a stand on something, who cares what as long as it matters to you. It snarls like Radio Birdman, slashes like the Wipers and follows its muse through chaos to righteousness like an off-cut from Crazy Horse, just back from rockin’ the free world. It’s got Matt Ford and Inez Tulloch from Thigh Master on guitar and bass, respectively, Utrillo Kushner from Colossal Yes (and Comets on Fire) on drums, and Kelley Stoltz at the boards, and it’s a killer. The rest of the album is varied and, honestly, not uniformly astounding, but there’s a nice Summer of Love-style psych dream in “Metaphysical Dice,” a slow-burning post-rocker in the title track and a driving, pounding punk anthem in the opener “Irregardless.” Beach has been splitting his time between San Francisco and Melbourne, Australia, and lately settled on Melbourne, where he will fit like a native into their thriving punk-garage scene.

Jennifer Kelly

Bloop — Proof (Lumo)

Proof by BLOOP (Lina Allemano / Mike Smith)

The trumpet is already a catalog of sound effects waiting to happen, and Lina Allemano knows the table of contents by heart. So, to shake things up, she has paired up with electronic musician Mike Smith, who contributes live processing and effects to Allemano’s improvisations. A blind listen to Proof might leave you with the impression that you’re hearing a horn player jamming with some outer space cats, and we’re not talking about hip, lingo-slinging jazz dudes. In fact, everything on these eight tracks happened in real time. Smith’s a strategic intervener, aware that too much sauce can spoil the stew, so he mixes up precise layering and pitch-shifting with more disorienting transformations. It’s hard to say how much Allemano responds to the simulacra that surround her brass voice, but there’s no denying the persuasiveness of her melodic and timbral ideas.

Bill Meyer

Bris — Tricky Dance Moves (TrueStory Entertainment)

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Bris left some music behind when he died in 2020, but it took almost a year to shape these recordings into a proper CD. The label CEO Mac J (a fine artist himself) could easily capitalize on his friend’s death, stacking Tricky Dance Moves with features from the artists Bris never would have worked with. Yet the album was prepared with the utmost care, not giving an ugly Frankenstein monster feel. Bris’s references to his possible early death are scattered throughout the whole tape: “Heard they wanna pop Bris cause they mad I’m poppin.” Almost every song could be easily turned into a prophetic tale (a cheap move one wants to avoid at all costs). Nonetheless, something is missing here. Or maybe it is just an image of death that disturbs the whole picture, making us realize that this is the last we’d hear from Bris.

Ray Garraty

Dreamwell — Modern Grotesque (self-released)

Modern Grotesque by Dreamwell

I recently read an interview with Providence’s Dreamwell breaking down in almost excruciating detail the influences that led to the quintet’s sophomore full-length Modern Grotesque. I kept scrolling past Daughters and Deftones and Deafheaven and increasingly disconnected influences like The Mountain Goats and Nina Simone. I went back to the top and looked again. I typed Ctrl+F and put in “Thursday.” Nothing. This is preposterous. I may not be in the post-hardcore trenches the way I once was, but even I’d know a good Full Collapse homage if it swung a mic right into my face the way this one did; hell, just listen to “The Lost Ballad of Dominic Anneghi” and tell me singer Keziah Staska doesn’t know every single word of “Paris in Flames.” That may not look like flattery on a first read, but too often, bands striding the emo/pop divide have chased the latter into sub-Taking Back Sunday oblivion; what Thursday did was much harder, and Dreamwell has ably taken up the torch here. That they did it unintentionally is a curious, bewildering footnote.

Patrick Masterson

Paul Dunmall / Matthew Shipp / Joe Morris / Gerald Cleaver — The Bright Awakening (Rogue Art)

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It’s a bit perplexing that reeds player Paul Dunmall hasn’t spent more time playing with American musicians. He’s firmly situated within the English improvisation community, where he’s perhaps best known for his longer tenure with the quartet Mujician, and his ability to double on bagpipes has allowed him to establish links between improvised and folk music. But

his jazz-rooted approach makes him a natural to work in settings such as this one. When Dunmall toted his tenor to the Vision Festival in 2012 (even then, it could be costly to lug multiple horns on a plane), he found three sympatico partners in Fest regulars pianist Matthew Shipp, double bassist Joe Morris and drummer Gerald Cleaver. They all hit the ground running, generating a barrage of pulsing, roiling sound for over 20 minutes before the piano and drums peel off, leaving Morris to sustain momentum alone. Dunmall’s gruff, spiraling lines find common cause with each of his fellows, and the gradual addition and subtraction of players from that point makes it easier to hear the exchange of ideas, which often seem to take place between dyads operating within the larger flow.

Bill Meyer

Editrix — Tell Me I’m Bad (Exploding in Sound)

Tell Me I'm Bad by Editrix

Wendy Eisenberg’s rock band is like her solo output in that it snarls delicate, self-aware, mini-short stories in complex tangles of guitar, hemming in high, sing-song-y verses with riffs and licks of daunting difficulty. The main differences are speed, volume and aggression (i.e. it rocks.) and a certain communal energy. That’s down to two collaborators who can more than keep up, Josh Daniel on surging, rattling, break-it-all-down percussion and Steve Cameron, equally anarchic and fast on bass. The title track is an all-out rager, thrusting jagged arena riffs of guitar and bass forward, then clearing space for off-kilter verses and time-shifting, irregular instrumental interplay. “Chelsea” follows a similar chaotic pattern, setting up a teeth-shaking cadence of rock instruments, with Eisenberg keening over the top of it. “I know, perfectly well, that we’re not safe, safe from the men in power,” she croons, engaged in the knotting difficulties of the world as we know it, but winning.

Jennifer Kelly

Elephant Micah — Vague Tidings (Western Vinyl)

Vague Tidings by Elephant Micah

The new Elephant Micah album, the follow-up to 2018’s excellent Genericana, has an apposite title. Vague Tidings conveys an atmosphere of feeling conscious of something carried on the wind, a story passed on that may have shifted through various iterations, leaving only a sense of its original meaning. All that can be sure is that this is sad, sober music, unafraid to brace against the chill of mortality and speak of all that is felt. The instruments — guitar, piano, percussion, violin and woodwinds — move around Joseph O’Connell’s voice in stiff yet graceful arcs, distanced by an unspoken etiquette. Repetitive melodic figures, stark yet steady, gradually accumulate weight as they roll along like tumbleweeds. It’s a crisp, forlorn country-blues, in no hurry to get nowhere, carrying ancient wisdom that seems to acknowledge the empty resonance of its own import.

Tim Clarke

Fraufraulein — Solum (Notice Recordings)

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Fraufraulein’s music is immersive. Anne Guthrie and Billy Gomberg beam themselves, and us along with them, Quantum Leap-style directly into multiple environments in medias res. Through the clever employment of field recordings, they transport us to a hurricane-addled beach, performing a voice/piano duet as driftwood missiles careen through the air. In another “episode,” the manipulation of small objects conjures up the intimacy of a water garden filled with windchimes. Partners in both life and art, Guthrie and Gomberg are also consummate solo artists. He is a master of spike-textured drones, while she explores the intimate properties of physical entities. Like a child tends to resemble one parent while borrowing subtle traits from the other, Solum identifies more with Guthrie’s electroacoustic tendencies than it does with Gomberg’s electronics. This is in stark contrast to 2015’s Extinguishment, which felt a little more balanced between those two modes. Both approaches work, yet Solum feels more meticulously crafted and nuanced. Careful listening unveils multiple subtle tones and textures, and each piece is an adventure for the ears.

Bryon Hayes

Gerrit Hatcher / Rob Magill / Patrick Shiroishi — Triplet Fawns (Kettle Hole)

Triplet Fawns by Gerrit Hatcher / Rob Magill / Patrick Shiroishi

The album’s title implies a crew you wouldn’t want on your yard; while those adolescent ungulate appetites do a number on your bushes, the hooves are hacking up your grass. But if they knocked on your door, saxophone cases in their respective hands, you could do worse than invite them around the back for some blowing. Hatcher, Magill and Shiroishi present with sufficient lung power to be heard fine without the reflective assistance of walls, even when they aren’t making like Sonore (that was Gustafsson, Vandermark, and Brötzmann, about a dozen years back). This album, which was released in a micro-edition of 100 CD-Rs on Hatcher’s Kettle Hole imprint, builds gradually from restrained melancholy to pointillistic jousting to a climactic blow-out, and the assured development of each piece suggests that each player was listening not only to what each of the others was doing, but where the music was headed.

Bill Meyer

A.Karperyd — GND (Novoton)

GND by A.Karperyd

On his second solo release, GND, Swedish artist Andreas Karperyd broodingly ruminates on snatches of musical ideas that have been percolating in his consciousness over extended periods. Anyone familiar with his 2015 debut, Woodwork, will find these 55 minutes similarly immersive, as Karperyd manipulates live instruments such as piano and strings into shimmering, alien tapestries. Opener “The Well-Defined Rules of Certainty” appears to take Fennesz’s Venice as its blueprint, issuing forth cascading, percolating tones that tickle the ears. “The Desire to Invoke Balance with Our Eyes Closed” and “Failures and Small Observations” have a Satie-esque elegance to their piano lines, albeit refracted via a hall of mirrors. The 12-minute “Reminiscence of Tar” sounds like a slow-motion pan across the hulking mass of a shadowy space station. And closing track “Mummification of an Empire” slowly fries its piano in static, then unfurls wistful melodica and throbbing synth across the wreckage.

Tim Clarke

Kiwi Jr. — Cooler Returns (Subpop)

Cooler Returns by Kiwi jr

Kiwi Jr.’s brash, brainy indie pop punk vibrates with nervy energy, like the first Feelies album or Violent Femmes’ 1983 debut or that one great S-T from the Soft Pack. Those are all opening salvos for their respective bands, but this one is a second outing, suffering not a bit from sophomore slackening. Instead, Cooler Returns tightens up everything that was already stinging on the Toronto band’s debut and adds a giddy careening glee. An oddball thread of Robin Hood-ness runs through the disc, with Sherwood forest getting a nod in the title track and “Maid Marian’s Toast” tipping the love interest, but these songs are anything but archaic. “Undecided Voters,” the single jangles harder than anything I’ve heard since Woolen Men, slyly upending creative pretensions in a verse that goes: “You take a photo of the CN tower/you take another of the Honest Ed sign/Well, I take photos of your photos/and they really move people.” Has it been done before? Maybe. Does it move us. Yes indeed.

Jennifer Kelly

Kool John — Get Rich, Die $moppin ($moplife Entertainment)

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A year ago, Kool John was shot six times. Yet you wouldn’t know about it from the general mood of Get Rich, Die $moppin, his first tape since then. He does name one song “6 Shots” and explicitly mentions the shooting accident a few times on other songs, but his bouncy music says he wasn’t hurt bad after all. The beats perfectly match the rhymes, playfully ignorant and ignorantly playful. Kool John still doesn’t mix with broke people, doesn’t return calls if it’s not about money and “doesn’t get stressed out.” Instead, he gets high. His new tape is nothing groundbreaking, even though he’s pretending that is: “If I had no legs I’d still be outstanding.”

Ray Garraty

Nick Mazzarella / Quin Kirchner — See or Seem: Live at the Hyde Park Jazz Festival (Out Of Your Head)

See or Seem: Live at the Hyde Park Jazz Festival by Nick Mazzarella / Quin Kirchner

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this recording is that the titular festival happened at all. While most festivals either canceled or went on line, Chicago’s Hyde Park Jazz Festival dealt with COVID by spreading out. Instead of big stages and indoor shows, last September it staged little pop-up events on sidewalks and in parks. So, if the sound of See or Seem feels a bit diffuse, it’s because it was recorded with a device propped in front of two guys playing on a grassy median. There are moments when the buzz of bugs rises up for a second behind Nick Mazzarella’s darting alto sax and Quin Kirchner’s brisk, mercurial beats. But the thrill of actually playing in front of some people (or actually being surrounded by them; when there’s no stage and social distancing is in effect, it makes sense to walk slow circles around the performers) infuses this music, extracting an extra ounce of joyousness from Mazzarella’s free, boppish lines, and adding a restlessness charge to the drumming, as though Kirchner really wanted to squeeze as much music as possible into this 31-minute set. This release is part of Out Of Your Head Records’ Untamed series of download-only albums recorded under less than pristine conditions. A portion of each title’s income is directed to a charity of the artists’ choice; the duo selected St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital.

Bill Meyer

Dean McPhee — Witch’s Ladder (Hood Faire)

Witch's Ladder by Dean McPhee

Finger-picked melodies cut through haunted landscapes of echo and hum on this fourth LP from the British guitarist Dean McPhee. Track titles like “The Alchemist” and “Witch’s Ladder” evoke the supernatural, as does the spectral ambient tone, reminiscent of Chuck Johnson’s recent Cinder Grove or Mark Nelson’s last Pan•American album. Yet while an e-bow traces ghostly chills through “The Alder Tree,” there’s also a grounding in lovely, well-rooted folk forms; it’s like seeing a familiar landscape in moonlight, well-known landmarks suddenly turned unearthly and strange. The long closing title track has an introspective air. Pensive, jazz-infused runs flower into bright bursts of notes, not quite blues, not quite folk, not quite jazz, not quite anything but gorgeous.

Jennifer Kelly

Moontype — Bodies of Water (Born Yesterday)

Bodies of Water by Moontype

Margaret McCarthy’s voice swims across your headphones like being on an innertube drifting languidly downstream. Typically, saying someone’s vocals are like water indicates a degree of timidity or laziness, obscured in reverb or simply buried by the mix, but on Moontype’s debut LP, it’s a compliment: McCarthy floats across the different styles of music she makes with guitarist Ben Cruz and drummer Emerson Hunton. You notice it not just because she often sings of water or because it’s right there in the title, but also because the Chicago trio hasn’t settled on any particular style yet — just listen to the three-song stretch at the heart of the record where achingly beautiful alt-country ballad “3 Weeks” leads into “When You Say Yes,” a sub-three-minute power-pop number Weezer ought to be jealous of, followed immediately by crunching alt-rock swoon and first single “Ferry.” All the while, McCarthy lets her melodies drift to the will of the songs. I’m reminded of recent efforts from Great Grandpa, Squirrel Flower and Lucy Dacus, but the brief, jazzy curveball of “Alpha” is a peek into whole other possibilities. Bodies of Water is a fine record, but perhaps its most exciting aspect is how much ground you can see Moontype has already conquered. One can’t help but wonder what sonic worlds awash in water await.

Patrick Masterson

Rob Noyes / Joseph Allred — Avoidance Language (Feeding Tube)

Avoidance Language by Rob Noyes and Joseph Allred

The 12-string guitar can emit such a prodigious amount of sound, and there are two of them on Avoidance Language. If Joseph Allred and Rob Noyes had planned things out in order to avoid canceling each other out, they might never have picked their instruments up, so they just started playing and listening. The result is not so much a summing of two broad spectrums of sound, but an instinctual blending of similar textures that ends up sounding significantly different from what either musician does on their own. Even when Allred switches to harmonium or banjo, as he does on the album’s two shorter tracks, the music rushes in torrential fashion. Their collaboration is so compatible that it often seems more like a recital for one big stringed thing played by one four-handed musician than a doubled instrumental duet.

Bill Meyer

NRCSSSST — S-T (Slimstyle)

NRCSSST by NRCSSST

There’s no “I” in NRCSSSST but there’s plenty of swagger. The Atlanta-based synth pop band, formed around Coathangers drummer and singer Stephanie Luke and Dropsonic’s Dan Dixon, taunts and teases in its opening salvo “All I Ever Wanted.” Luke rasps appealingly atop Spoon-style piano banging, and big shout along choruses erupt from sudden flares of synths. It’s all hedonism, but done with conviction. You haven’t heard a big rock song kick up this much fun in ages. “Love Suicide” bangs just as hard, its bass line muttering like a crazy person, unstable and ready to explode (and yet it doesn’t, it maintains its restraint even when the rest of the cut goes deliriously off the rails). Dixon can really sing, too, holding the long vibrating notes that lift these prickly jams into anthemry. It’s been a while since a band reminded me of INXS and U2 without sucking, but here we are. Sometimes guilty pleasures are just pleasures.

Jennifer Kelly

Zeena Parkins / Mette Rasmussen /Ryan Sawyer — Glass Triangle (Relative Pitch)

Glass Triangle by Zeena Parkins, Mette Rasmussen, Ryan Sawyer

Harpist Zeena Parkins and Ryan Sawyer have a long-standing partnership in the trio substitutes Moss Garden, a chamber improv ensemble with pianist Ryan Ross. But swapping in Danish alto saxophonist Mette Rasmussen brings about a change, not just in instrumentation, but attitude. She plays free jazz like a punk, impatient and aggressive, and Parkins and Sawyer are up for the challenge. This music often plays out like a battle between two titans, one blowing and the other pummeling, while Parkins seeks to liquify the ground upon which they stand. She sticks exclusively to an electric harp whose effects-laden tone is disorientingly alien, blinking beacon-like one moment, low as a backhoe engage in earth removal the next. The combination of new and old relationships promotes a combination of instability and trust that yields splendid results.

Bill Meyer

claire rousay — A Softer Focus (American Dreams)

a softer focus by claire rousay

In film, soft focus is a technique of contrast reduction that lends a scene a dreamlike quality. With A Softer Focus, claire rousay imbues her already intimate compositions with a noctilucent aura. She has created a dreamworld with sound. One glimpse at the glowing flowers that grace the cover art created by visual artist Dani Toral, with whom rousay closely collaborated on this release, and the illusory nature of the record is revealed. The reds, oranges, blues and purples of deep twilight are reflected in both the textures rousay weaves into her soundscapes and the visual themes that Toral conjures. Violin, cello, piano and synth are the musical origins of this warmth, which rousay wraps around environments crafted from the sounds of everyday life. She recorded herself moving about her apartment, visiting a farmer’s market, observing kids playing and just existing. These field recordings of the mundane, when coupled with the radiance of the musical elements, are magical. Snatches of conversation become incantations; auto-tuned vocals are the whisperings of spirits; fireworks explode into brilliant shards of crystal. With A Softer Focus, rousay takes a glimpse into the beauty of the everyday, showing us just how precious our most humdrum moments can be.

Bryon Hayes

Axel Rulay x Verbo Flow — Si Es Trucho Es Trucho / Axel Rulay (La Granja)

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Axel Rulay must be kicking himself right now. With more than three million plays on the original version and more than five million on the remix that adds verses from Farruko and El Alfa into the fray, the Dominican is cruising into our second pandemic summer with an unbeatable poolside anthem — and to think, after years of clawing his way up through the industry dregs, working to get his name out there, all he had to do was make himself the chorus over Venezuelan producer Manybeat’s 2019 tropical house trip “El Tiempo.” Presto: Massive visibility in the Spanish-speaking world and a song that ought to transcend any linguistic barriers unlocked even if the best I can manage is a title that translates as “If It’s Trout It’s Trout.” Expect that long-desired Daddy Yankee collabo to follow any day now.

Patrick Masterson

Rx Nephew — Listen Here Are You Here to Hear Me (NewBreedTrapper)

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Rochester rapper Rx Nephew trailed brother-turned-archrival-turned-back Rx Papi’s coming out party 100 Miles and Walk’in by just a few weeks with the 53-minute all-in proposition Listen Here Are You Here to Hear Me. Unlike Papi’s Max B-ish smoothness, Nephew is all rough n’ tumble through these 17 tracks, provocative pump action with narrative bursts of violence and street hustling delivered with a verve most akin to DaBaby or, in some of his more elastic enunciations, peak Ludacris. A recent Creative Hustle interview provides some insight: The first time he went into the booth, “I didn’t write anything. I just started talking about selling crack and robbing people.” The stories haven’t stopped since. If he can keep putting out music as engaging as Listen Here��, Rx Nephew is destined for more than just the margins; until then, we have one of the year’s densest rap records to hold the line.

Patrick Masterson

Nick Schofield — Glass Gallery (Backward Music)

Glass Gallery by Nick Schofield

Nick Schoefield, out of Montreal, composed these 13 tracks entirely on a vintage Prophet 600, the first synthesizer to designed to employ the then-new MIDI standard established by the instrument’s inventor Dave Smith and Roland’s Ikutaru Kakahashi. The instrument has a lovely, crystalline quality, floating effortless arpeggios through vaulting sonic spaces. Though clearly synthesized, these pieces of music resonate in serene and peaceful ways, evoking light, water, air and contemplation with a simplicity that evokes Japan. “Water Court” drips notes of startling purity into deep pools of tone-washed whoosh and hum. “Snow Blue Square” flutters an oboe-like melody over eddying gusts of keyboard motifs. The pieces fit together with calm precision, leading from one beautiful space to the next like a stroll through a museum.

Jennifer Kelly

Archie Shepp — Blasé And Yasmina Revisited (Ezz-thetics)

The Ezz-thetics campaign to keep the best of mid-20th century free jazz on CD shelves (yes, CD, not streaming or LP) breaches the walls of the BYG catalog with a disc that issues one and a half albums from Archie Shepp’s busy week in August 1969. Blasé is a stand-out for the participation of singer Jeanne Lee, whose indomitable and flexible delivery as equal to the demands of material that’s be turns pungently earthy and steeped in antiquity. But the rest of the band, which includes Philly Joe Jones, Dave Burrell, some harmonica players, and a couple members of the Art Ensemble, is also more than equal to the task of filtering the blues and Ellingtonia through the gestures of the then-contemporary avant-garde. “Yasmina,” which originally occupied one side of another LP, makes sense here as an extension of the raw, rippling “Touareg,” the last tune on Blasé, into exultantly African territory.

Bill Meyer

Juanita Stein — Snapshot (Handwritten)

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Juanita Stein was the cool, serene, Mazzy Star-evoking vocal presence in the Aussie dream-gaze outfit Howling Bells, and she plays more or less the same role on her third solo album. Yet she is also the source of mayhem here, kicking up an angst of guitar-freaked turmoil on “1,2,3,4,5,6” then soothing it away with singing, hanging long threads of feedback from the thump-thump-thumping blues-rock architecture of “L.O.T.F.” and crooning dulcetly, but with a little yip, in the trance-y title track. This latter cut reflects on the death of her father, a kindred soul who wrote a couple of Howling Bells songs for her and passed away recently. It distills a palpable ache into pure, distanced poetry, finding a cool, dispassionate way to consider the mysteries of human loss.

Jennifer Kelly

The Tiptons Sax Quartet & Drums — Wabi Sabi (Sowiesound)

Wabi Sabi by Tiptons Sax Quartet & Drums

Over its 30 years together, the Tiptons Sax Quartet has done less to hone its sound and more to figure out how many styles to embrace. The group (typically a soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone sax joined by percussion and even including some vocals) can dig into trad jazz but sounds more at home in exploration, adapting world music or other traditional American styles. The title of their latest album, Wabi Sabi refers to the Japanese concept of finding beauty in and accepting imperfection. The Tiptons, despite that sentiment, don't approach their play with a sloppy sound; in fact, they're as tight as ever. The understanding of impermanence and imperfection does help contextualize their risk-taking. When they turn to odd yodeling on “Moadl Joadl,” they find joy in an odd vocal moment that highlights expression and discovery over formal rigor. When they tap in New Orleans energy for “Jouissance,” we can connect the dots between parades and funerals, celebrating all the while. The whole album serves as a tour of styles and moods, always with an energetic potency. If it's more of the same from the Tiptons, that just means continuance of difference.

Justin Cober-Lake

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malaysian-rants · 4 years ago

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In Conversation: Malaysian Strippers in Melbourne

In Malaysia, most sex workers are still referred to as “prostitutes” - women that sell sex for payment, a derogatory slur. The definition perpetuates a very narrow vision of sex work for our population. That, combined with the religious underpinnings of many of our laws, criminalizes most forms of sex work and in turn endangers the livelihood of sex workers throughout the country. Many conflate sex work with sex trade/human trafficking but whilst many people that are trafficked are wrongfully subjected to rape and sexual abuse, it is important to not mix a sex worker that has agency versus someone that is being trafficked. Strip clubs/Gentlemen’s clubs are popular destinations across Australia and are not illegal as opposed to Malaysia. I had the pleasure to chat with Kenji and Aria, both Malaysian born and raised, who are or were strippers in the Melbourne industry.

Disclaimer: To protect their identities, the dancers are referred by their aliases and also the reason why this interview was transcribed into a piece of writing instead of a voice recording!

Thank you so much for joining me today, ladies. Let’s dive straight in. How did you both come into the industry and why?

Aria: I love telling this story because it clearly encapsulates how naive I was! I was an international student pursuing my undergraduate degree in Melbourne - it’s a privilege to be able to study abroad but it also comes with a lot of financial strain if you don’t come from the RICH rich section of Malaysian society. I wanted to do more than just the typical go-to-class, study, and done regime. But applying for a job in Australia when you’re fresh out of college and don’t have any credentials, is so difficult. It’s already difficult enough to get a job when you’re qualified so you can imagine the struggle with not much. A friend recommended trying a search for nightclubs that needed podium go-go dancers. I thought, “hell yeah! I love dancing and I think I’m pretty good at it so might as well get paid!”. I went through different job sites and found something on Gumtree, that should’ve been my first indication of dodginess but hey, I didn’t know better. So I scored an interview with what I thought was a night club which turned out to be a gentlemen’s club - a guy friend pointed it out to me when I told him about the interview and where it was! I tossed about whether to go or not but ended up doing it. I wanted to be able to save money and invest in myself so this was a way for me to do just that.

Kenji: I was studying too. I had a slight idea of what the industry was like having met a dancer through one of my friends beforehand. For me, it was kind of like curiosity killed the cat. I’ve always been attracted to the strip club scene but never had the balls because of how taboo it was or is. On my birthday, I did my first audition. I was fortunate enough that I knew someone that was familiar with the industry - so he pointed me towards the more reputable clubs in the city. I did my thing and there were a few other dancers auditioning - they felt pretty stern and unfriendly but having been in the industry myself now, I understand why they weren’t too warm to new dancers because the more dancers there are the more competitive it becomes, on a broader scale. My audition happened during club hours - didn’t get the part because at the time they were looking for girls that could do pole tricks BUT I got tipped which was a nice birthday gift. King street was notorious for being the hub for strip clubs so unknowingly, my best friend and I stumbled across another club. We got in for free at this other club because we were girls. We went straight to the manager and asked about jobs there so we were kind of scouting and wanted to get a dance from one of the girls there to get a better grasp of what it was like. She to this day is still the BEST hustler and dancer in my eyes. She approached us and worked her magic - experiencing this and getting to work with her later on I will always be in awe of how she hustled us. Many that approached us were standoff-ish after they found out we wanted to be dancers but she wasn’t. I ended up applying to that club a few months later and started working. One of my parents fell sick and filed for bankruptcy a few months after I started working so it worked in my favour because I had this as a source of income to support myself while at uni.

What was it like for both of you starting out? Did you have a friend to hold your hands through the initial few months or did you have to hit the ground running and how did it evolve?

Kenji: I’ve definitely got a broader network of sex workers; dancers, escorts, and even pornstars and it’s completely different from when I started out. Like I said before, I had a friend who was familiar with the industry so he was able to answer any queries I had. I remember him telling me, “oh you’ve really come out of your shell” and to an extent, I had, but in saying that, when I’m stripping I’ve got a whole persona going for me. I’ve noticed that with a lot of girls, they have a facade almost. The more full-time you do it, the more you embody that persona. Then the less you do it, especially now with COVID, so many girls in the sex industry speak out about how they feel like they’ve lost their sense of their identity.

Aria: You know I definitely think the loss of identity also spreads across the board of people that have lost their jobs due to redundancies. The sex work industry definitely suffers more because we don’t have a lot of spaces to openly talk about it. I’m no longer a stripper but I feel for my sex workers across the board. But to answer your question, I started in the industry not knowing anyone - it can be quite isolating. I quickly made friends with girls that auditioned the same time I did. We had a rule in the club that newbies had to work every Tuesday night for the 1st 3 months - it was poker night, also very dead but great to practice getting comfortable with the pole and patrons. I think becoming a sex worker really dispelled a lot of the internalized myths, especially when people say that it was/is easy. It’s something that gets signaled through language, through media when you’re growing up that sex workers choose this line of work because it’s easy but if they only knew the sheer amount of work it takes to be a successful one! You need to act, it’s a business, and it’s also a lot of rapport building whether that’s with clients or your fellow strippers. Sex work also opened another door into the hospitality industry for me and it served as a wonderful stepping stone into different work that probably fit better with my schedule.

Kenji: Yes! Dancers can come off as standoff-ish sometimes but I know it’s just a wall to protect themselves from all the bullshit they go through day in day out.

I know the clubs have different touching and no-touching policies. Can you both tell me about how you navigated those boundaries with different patrons?

Aria: Those boundaries were definitely something I learnt about the stripper world, I guess. There are rules and like any workplace, some people think it fit to bend those rules and blur the lines. It’s frustrating because it skews shit for other dancers because then you get the clients that say, “oh but X did this for me and it was fine” Well I’m not them!

Kenji: Exactly! Every strip club has its politics like every other workplace. Stripping can be seen as teasing. “It doesn’t matter where you get your appetite as long as you go for dinner”. It’s built for these corporate men who have wives at home. I was working at one of the two non-touching clubs in Victoria. I can’t speak for the whole of Australia but it seems like most clubs have a waist and above policy. It would be annoying whenever we’d get clients that kept insisting for more. You’re probably at the wrong club if that’s what you’re after. You came in, there’s a certain set of rules, we don’t want to be touched, none of the girls want that but too often we’re faced with a rebuttal insinuating that another dancer in the club would allow it. When asked who it is, so we can do justice and tell management, often it’s a sham or they’d be ridden with fear. I have seen it happen once or twice but the girls never seem to last many shifts. Some clubs are stricter than others; though it’s difficult to police and check even with all the security cameras because it’s dark and the weekends get pretty busy.

So no touching meaning they can’t touch you at all or are there some exceptions?

Kenji: We call it control touching. So you can sit on them, you can’t grind on their privates. They can have their hands on your waist but not too low.

How did you make the distinction on who to disclose your sex work to? Do you wish you could have been more open about it?

Kenji: It’s something that I’m proud of but secretly proud of. There’s that conflict in my head because it’s not something that’s widely accepted but it’s a great way to filter out those whose values don’t align. People’s views on sex work are a huge prerequisite to whether I can hold space for them in my life or not. I’ve told a few people from home, and there are a few people I regret telling because it’s so easy to slip and that can have a ripple effect. I’ve got a handful of people from home that share this secret, my sister included. It’s a lot easier telling the people I meet in Melbourne being foreign. Dating is a lot easier when you lay out the facts from the get-go - if you can’t take the heat you gotta leave the kitchen!

Aria: It’s so important to be upfront about it. When I started, I told a few friends who I knew wouldn’t react badly to it, all they cared about was my safety. The men I dated in Melbourne were mostly so lovely. Their responses were like “Yas, get that bread!!” It was nice and unexpected. Funnily enough, it was the opposite when I went back to KL and dated during the holidays. I wasn’t dancing anymore at that time but for me, my partner’s views on sex work were important for me to understand their own whorephobia. So I had a great date with this guy and the next day I told him about my previous sex work - he flipped. He said, “how can you be someone that wants to practice feminist values, someone that wants to empower women, and then you do this?!?!”. Sometimes, you have to protect your peace and walk away but I was feeling up to the emotional labour that day. Sometimes, you just have to respond with a little empathy because he grew up with a lot of conservative/puritanical values. So I explained everything to him and unpacked his skewed perceptions and biases; it took him a day to process but hey, now we’ve been dating for almost 4 years. Being a sex worker is part of me and will always be. It’s nice to see people capable of changing their mindset when they get the chance to and when they matter enough to you for you to put in the effort.

Safety is one of the most common things people have concerns about. How did you personally manage your own safety? Whether that's you know, maintaining your anonymity, maintaining safety from clients outside the club, and working late hours?

Kenji: Kenji is my alter ego. Keeping your identity separate definitely helps. With regulars, some have my number but it’s a lot easier to give out your strippergram if you have one. It’s a great way to stay anonymous considering I don’t have my face on there. With physical safety, we’re not allowed to leave with any clients and we’ve got backdoors if we wanna leave unseen. The guards are lovely enough to escort you to your car or uber if they’re not busy breaking a fight or tossing someone out of the club!

Aria: Sometimes, you also just leave with friends and you grab a bite after. Those are some of my best memories after work. It’s 5 am and you go for a quick Maccas run or burger run with the girls.

Kenji: Yes! The guards are your best friends when it comes to safety. They’re big teddy bears to us but vicious to patrons and those who disrespect us. All I have to do is tell a guard someone’s harassing me in order for them to send them out. The night I found out my dad fell sick, I still had to go to work after bawling my eyes out. I went to work at 9 pm and the shift lasted till 7 am. My phone died whilst I was trying to book an Uber so I asked the Head of Security to help hail me a cab. He asked how far away I lived, and it was barely a 5-minute drive so he took his own car and drove me home mid-shift. It’s comforting to know that we’re being looked after.

Aria: I did a lot of half an hour walks back home in the wee hours of the morning. Not the safest, I know but I honestly was at the point where booking an Uber was an expense I didn’t need. I would dress up in baggy clothes and have a large hoodie to protect my safety and you couldn’t tell I was a woman.

Kenji before we started the interview, you briefly mentioned grappling with your sense of identity. Can you delve a little further into this?

Kenji: This club has been my home club for over three years now and that overlaps with the years that I’ve spent in this foreign city. I had a little more of an ambiguous accent back then and it was fun at first but the question “where you from?” grew old. I’d mix it up, play around with my accent, or make them guess and pretend they’d get it right on the first go. These guesses are usually telling of what they want you to be. Further, into my Melbourne journey, it was a lot easier to speak in an Australian accent to cut the story short. This was sometimes confusing to my peers and whoever was close to me. The versatility I have coming from a multiracial country is usually an advantage because of the ability to mirror whoever I speak to but that too can be hard on me especially when I’ve been away from home for a while and it’s difficult to distinguish what home is. That and the persona you adopt in the club because I can be quite the introvert outside of work. I’ve always been an openly sexual person so being in Malaysia definitely hindered me from being my authentic self. It’s suppressing being there in the way I dress, speak, and carry myself. As Aria said, it’s been a part of your life and it will always be there and I completely agree. The best piece of advice I got was that this is a transition, not a destination and I always felt that. You can definitely become a successful full-time stripper and retire with stripper savings but I am studying and I believe that this experience will only supplement what I choose to do in the future!

Aria: That’s definitely relatable. When you’re a dancer, you have to come up with your dancer name and like Kenji said it becomes your persona or alter ego. You have to create a whole character with that and it feeds into how you dress, what your stage performances are like - I feel like my time dancing was a time for me to explore parts of myself I didn't get to, back home in Malaysia. At home, it was always "that's too much" "that's too revealing"....... through stripping, I became so comfortable in my body. The club I worked at had mirrors surrounding the stage and when you turned on the pole, you could see every nook & cranny of your body. If you didn't like what you saw, then you really couldn't expect your clients to buy into your persona - at least I couldn't. So it was almost like I had to fall in love with myself and the character I portrayed. One day I remember thinking "wow, I'm everything.” When you feel that way then people that see you feel similarly when they see you too.

That’s fascinating - so much internal growth. How did you both come up with your names?

Kenji: I always wanted the name KAYA but another girl at the club beat me to it and had it spelled differently. I wanted KAYA because being Malaysian it meant, you know, something sweet, a coconut buttery spread, good ol' Malaysian; it also means rich, and that's exactly what I want to be as a dancer - but of course no one else would know what it meant. Funny thing though, after that I ended up looking up Asian baby girl names because I wanted to market my Asian-ness. "FETISHIZE ME! As long as I'm profiting from it, but don't fetishize me outside of work, that'll piss me off”. The more exotic I was to them, the better. It’s honestly not ideal and I wouldn’t accept it outside of the strip club. Patrons would come up to me and say something like, “My friend likes Asians, do you want to talk to him? I’ll buy him a dance” and I’ll say of course, but in real life, if I were to experience that in a nightclub or a bar setting, fuck no. I will not stand for it.

Aria: Yeah, how do you balance that? I chose Aria randomly actually. With the name though, I realised quickly it was also really racially ambiguous which really mimicked my world outside of work. My name wasn’t a typical Indian name so I’d always get the “Are you Chindian?” or “Are you Eurasian” growing up. And again, you can’t really tell Aria is a brown person’s name, it almost plays into the mystery. Growing up I never felt Indian enough and at the same time didn’t feel Malaysian enough - now I realise that’s absolutely bullshit but we conflate nationality, ethnicity, and culture too often. Outside of dancing, I don’t enjoy it when people fetishize South Asian women and reduce us to just qualities instead of a whole person.

Kenji: I feel that. The more a guy fetishizes me at work, the more of an incentive it is to milk him for it!

Aria: Its powerplay. Who has the power in that moment? It’s up to us to make sure the men believe they do. In the moment though, I am, in fact, profiting from his desires.

Kenji: This is true. One guy pulled the slanted eye gesture and I was quick to walk away from that client. I told the guards about him and this man was apparently being a nuisance to other girls too so it didn’t take long before he was chucked out of the club. Always feels so liberating when that happens. During my baby stripper days, I was naive and genuinely thought I was only selling dances but got to learn that the whole marketing scheme was pivoted around a man’s libido. I understand that now and it’s important to find those boundaries and not let it consume me inside and outside of work.

What are some of the biggest misconceptions of what it’s like to be a stripper?

Kenji: That all strippers are loaded. We all have bills to pay so it’s not like we can dance for free and it’s actually ludicrous the number of times we get asked to do a free dance for whatever reason as if we’re partying with them and not working laborious hours in 6-8 inch heels.

Aria: Another one is that we’re all very sexual just because we’re sex workers.

Kenji: Yes!! We’re sexually open but I think that makes us more protective of whose energies we allow into our personal space.

Aria: When I was dating, I had to weed out the men that only saw me as a sex object. Sex work is my work. Outside of that, I’m not always trying to have sex! I’m a whole person with other interests too. Just like you.

Do you have any favourite clients or stories about them?

Kenji: I love foot fetish guys! They don’t make you dance or anything, they just want to admire your feet. It’s an absolute blessing to have a break in the night where you can put your feet up, literally, and have your feet rubbed and not to mention get paid for it!

Aria: Oh who doesn’t love the simpler clients! My favourite client definitely had to be someone that booked me for 3 hours to just sit and talk. So a regular of one of my good friends at work, let’s call her Lila, walks into the club. He already booked Lila out for the remainder of the night but also had a friend with him and asked her to find a girl to keep his friend company. So she pulled me to the side to see if I was free. That’s where, you know, it’s so important to build good rapport amongst other workers because they can also bring clients and good business to you. It was the best because all this guy wanted to do with me was talk! Lila was fully naked enjoying her time with her person and in my head, I was down to do the same for mine but he turned to me and said, “could you just maybe keep your clothes on and we just talk instead?” so hell yeah! We made great conversation and went on the most interesting tangents - anxiety, his addiction to cocaine and how it fuelled his anxiety which he tried to subside through masturbating to pornography, his struggle dating because most milked him for his wealth.

Kenji: Yes! Completely forgot about those kinds of clients as they’re a lot rarer these days. Some men, typically older and more established tend to just want a chat and have a good time. These men are the best because you can drop your guard and essentially have a break from your usual stripper act. International clients with experience in foreign clubs often come in and you can observe the differences in stripper culture, typically American or European club etiquette... So you have to learn to be assertive of your boundaries and the rules at your club because they come in with their own preconceived rules; especially if you’re in a non-touching club vs a touching club. Clubs have their own set of rules, some have table bookings, some have tipping dollars, some make it compulsory to tip if you’re seated around the stage.

Final thoughts and final words for the people?

Kenji: To anyone that wants to join the sex industry, do your research. It’s so important. It will definitely have an impact on your life. I’ve definitely grown to love my naked body more from this experience. You can say I’m vagina positive - I’m a huge advocate for vagina lovin’, no pun intended. I’ve come a long way from being ashamed of it to be able to recognize that there are so many different types of vaginas and that they’re all beautiful; whatever shape, size, or colour. Anyway, it’s good to know what you’re going up against. For both myself and Aria, it seems like we dove head in. I think it’s done more positive than it has negative for us personally. But many girls do lose themselves in the process, some really hurt themselves because it’s a tough job. Know how to protect yourself while you’re in the industry. Some girls get stuck and don’t know which way is out and it’s difficult when there’s a huge gap in your resume. I feel similarly but I know it’s a means to support myself whilst studying and it’s important to keep a goal in mind and stick to it.

Aria: Sex workers are all different and multi-dimensional, like any other workplace and community. We’re such a diverse background of people. There’s the perception that there’s just one type of person that goes into dancing or goes into sex work, but in reality, people come from various backgrounds. Whether it’s a lifestyle, whether it’s survival work, whether it’s a side hustle; we all deserve respect. To decriminalise sex work and reach a point of respectability, it’s not just us who need to speak out. Clients and patrons need to also try to be unashamed about buying sex or seeing sex workers. People that date sex workers need to call out whorephobia within their circles and address it. Pay for your porn when you have the means to, don’t ask for discounts from sex workers. Respect the work.

It was so lovely to listen to both of their stories. Both Aria and Kenji both talked about how being sex workers pushed them to come out of their shells. Kenji had friends that complimented her newfound assertiveness and Aria personally became a lot more comfortable with her skin suit/ her body. I hope if you’ve made it this far into this piece of writing and conversation that you learnt a new perspective. This isn’t just a story about two sex workers, it’s also a story of two women of colour who are students in a foreign country.

#sexwork malaysian strippers stripclub aria kenji #interview

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adogsdomain · 1 year ago

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adogsdomain · 1 year ago

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jurassicpark1990 · 5 years ago

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i was tagged by @roberthagg to do the below!

Rules: answer the questions, then add one of your own! Tag 5 people to do it too!

1. Who is/are your idol(s)?

uhhhhh my mum i guess?

2. If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?

egypt! i was Obsessed with the pyramids when i was a kid so would love to see them for real

3. What decorates the walls of your room?

i have an orange ‘white’ board that spans one wall and it has a game of thrones calendar, a hufflepuff banner, some polaroid pics of my friends and shit, a map of middle earth + a bunch of random shit written all over it

4. Favourite colour combination?

orange and black + orange and purple + shades of pink

5. What’s on the top of your bucket list?

i don’t have any kind of organised list but i guess travel to america? because that’s actually happening soon so that’s the top of things i want to do

6. Height?

like 5’9/5’10

7. Favourite animals?

cats + dogs + red pandas + zebras

8. What’s the last song you listened to?

probs something dumb on the radio but it was water me by lizzo on spotify

9. How many/what kind of pets do you have?

dalmatian called pippa + greyhound called nettie + grouchy old kitty cat called millie

10. Last movie you saw in theatres?

uhhh probs spiderman far from home or whatever it was called, i don’t really go to the movies a whole lot

11. Comfort food or favourite food?

comfort food is roast lamb and veggies but fav food is probs fried chicken lmao

12. Why did the chicken cross the road?

to get where it was going

13. Book you’re currently reading?

interview with the vampire by anne rice (i haven’t actually touched it in like 3 weeks but i refuse to give up on it)

14. Your favourite season and three things you like about it?

spring! because my birthday is in october + perf weather for long dresses + it’s nice and warm but not so hot that i’ll get burnt as soon as i leave the house

15. You are about to get into a fight, what song comes on as your soundtrack?

that song from kill bill (you know the one)

16. (+1) If you won the lottery tomorrow, what is the first thing you would buy yourself?

i’d buy a place in one of the fancy inner melbourne suburbs that i’ll never actually be able to afford ever

17. (+1) What fictional world would you want to live in?

middle earth especially the shire because hobbits live the best life

18. (+1) If you had to learn a completely new language, what would be?

swedish! i actually got pretty decent at it on duolingo but too busy atm to keep it up

19. (+1) If you were a cartoon character stuck in the same outfit forever, what would it be?

my yellow top with bugs and plants all over it + denim jacket with faux fur collar + black skinny jeans + grey vans

thanks for the tag and i’ll be tagging: @hymanforconsul @officialbabayaga @departmentofmotorvehicles @leftistwinemom @mrdarcysbutt

#long post #hopefully that read more works lmao #thanks so much for the tag! this was fun and realazing #relaxing*#trust me i needed it after today at work #and obvs no pressure on the peeps i tagged #beth stuff

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lindoig4 · 5 years ago

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San Francisco

5 July

Having arrived in San Fran yesterday, just a few hours before we left home, we were dead beat and slept late, albeit somewhat fitfully. We bought breakfast in the hotel, just as they were closing the kitchen at 10am – then went back to bed and slept until 3.15! A very weird day for us!!

We then walked the kilometre or two to Downtown, exploring a little as we went, and called in at several places trying to buy a bigger backpack. The one I was using was filled to capacity so we decided to invest in a bigger one. We finally found a place with a suitable range just a few doors from the Aida Hotel where we will be staying on our way back to Melbourne in a couple of months’ time. The first time we came to San Fran in 1995, we stayed at Aida and bought a new suitcase at the very same luggage shop we bought the backpack. On that occasion, we had broken the wheels off our case getting it down the stairs in Richmond before we even left home on that trip so we had to replace it in San Fran after struggling with it at the Tullamarine and SF airports and then the Shuttle and hotel.

We needed to buy a few comestibles – mainly tea, sugar and coffee – interesting that the instant coffee was under lock and key and we had to get a staff member to free it from its prison so we could buy it. Apparently, coffee is one of the things that is commonly stolen (lots of other very basic things were also locked up) but I can’t see how locking it up protects it. We were still free to walk around with it and presumably hide it in our backpack before approaching the checkout.

Shopping for olives? Large, mild and nutty!

It was great to see and hear the trolley buses (in my view far and away the best, quietest, most comfortable, cheapest and cleanest form of mass transport – as well as being very traffic-friendly) as well as the streetcars (trams). I have long advocated removal of trams and all their overblown infrastructure from Melbourne to be replaced with trolleys. The streetcars have been purchased from all over the world and retain their original livery and branding. There is even a W-class Melbourne tram here – apparently recently acquired and still under test when we saw it.

The clanging of the streetcars, the police sirens and the mournful wail of the Amtrak locos are all very nostalgic reminders of our previous trips here, and particularly of San Fran. It always fascinates me how sounds and smells in particular can transport us instantly to another time and place. Things we have seen and heard in movies come alive when they are triggered by the merest hint of something similar that we experience in real life.

There are so many different forms of transport here. The car is king of course, and there are lots of pickups, more and mostly quite a bit bigger than those common in Oz, but there are several types of buses (hybrids, traditional, double-deckers, very loooong articulateds) – and several more personal moving machines. I have seen hundreds of powered and unpowered scooters and numerous variations of Segways – upright ones, simple wheels with foot rests side to side or fore and aft, all manner of 2-, 3- and 4-wheeled bikes and very cute bright yellow 2-seater, 3-wheeled motorbikes rented to tourists. And of course, there are the iconic cable cars. No place for pedestrians like us.

There are many hundred homeless people, mostly but not only, black and they all have their little cache of belongings, but some quite large collections that are transported in a range of trolleys. Some have their own patches, sometimes quite complex. I have seen mini tent cities, some small homeless colonies, tiny compounds barricaded with wheelie bins or discarded sheets of iron, plastic and so on. It is sad to see but it is America, Land of the Free, after all.

We bought a pizza on our way back to the hotel and ate it in our room – and promptly went back to sleep. Alas another fitful night, broken by a series of midnight messages back and forth to Australia about Heather’s SIM – a little more about that later.

6 July

We purchased tickets for the Hop On Hop Off Big Bus from the hotel and walked the mile or so to Union Square, the closest stop to the hotel. We only went about 3 stops on the bus to Fisherman’s Wharf before they made us all get off and join a long queue to join a different bus - no explanations, but being a holiday weekend and short of drivers who weren’t enjoying their holiday BBQs, we queued for about an hour before we managed to get on our way again. They seemed hopelessly disorganised but off we went on what was about a 3½ half hour trip around the city, out past the huge Golden Gate Park, across the Golden Gate Bridge then back along the beach and Presidio and eventually back to Fisherman’s Wharf where we alighted in time for a late lunch.

The Big Bus was not quite up to scratch really. Commentary was light on and a bit trivial, but passable. Some parts of the route were very slow, almost gridlocked in one stretch approaching the Golden Gate Bridge. As they said, it was a holiday weekend, every man and his dog (and cat and horse) were out and things were chaotic. At least we got to see a lot more of SF than we otherwise would have and we got a better perspective of places we might visit at the end of our trip.

The crowds along the wharves were overwhelming, but we checked out the sea-lion colony and the birdlife in one partially enclosed area before heading for lunch. (We had been thinking of doing a Bay Cruise, but seeing the queues for that, we decided that a couple more hours queueing and getting sunburnt BEFORE boarding wasn’t really desirable.). We eventually settled on Aliotos Restaurant (partly to avoid the long queues of people waiting to use the public toilets). Heather had her heart set on clam chowder in a big crusty bun - the signature dish for the wharf area. We enjoyed them immensely when here 24 years ago, but they seem to have lost the recipe in the meantime (or maybe the clams just weren’t biting) but it was a bit disappointing, mainly vegetarian with very few clams! I had the Fisherman’s Basket and we helped each other with our respective orders but couldn’t finish either of them anyway.

An interesting thing we heard about the sea-lions on the bus (we were on the bus, not the sea-lions!) was that the whole colony lived out on the beach for as long as anyone could remember – until 1987 when for reasons unknown, they migrated up-Bay to Pier 39 and they (and their squealing pong) have been there for the tourists to ogle ever since. We saw, heard and smelled them when we were here in ’95 and imagined that they had always been there.

We then caught a grossly overcrowded streetcar back to near our hotel and walked home. Called in at the local shop for a very small snack and brekky fare, still bloated from our 3pm lunch.

7 July

Heather has spent many hours (mainly in the very early hours of the morning) conversing with people in Australia and New York trying to get the data component of her phone contract working. She bought some SIMs in Australia to be activated along the way and although the voice component worked, the data wouldn’t and she has spent hours virtually rebuilding her phone in consultation with the phone company, but she finally got it working late morning - thanks to a very helpful guy in New York, and absolutely no thanks to the Cretans in Australia.

We then walked to the Bus Transit Station, a few blocks down the hill, to suss out what we had to do to transit to our train tomorrow. All pretty easy so we walked down to the Embarcadero and the edge of the Bay. It was a beautiful summer’s day and there were plenty of strollers out, most with dogs. We walked a kilometre or so to a market in the huge Ferry Terminal and wandered around that for a while before returning to a bayside restaurant for a late lunch and to watch the world go by. One wonderful thing happened over lunch when an Anna’s Hummingbird visited a row of WA kangaroo paws right next to our al fresco table. We managed to get a few photos and had a good look as it hovered around several of the flowers before heading off to places unknown.

That was Bird 13 for me, having seen American robins, American crows, Brewer’s blackbirds, Californian gulls, vultures and hawks, night-herons, cormorants, starlings, sparrows and so on. The gulls are everywhere, but they are well outnumbered by hordes of the dirtiest scungiest pigeons imaginable. Some of the many homeless people here look very sad and bedraggled, but the pigeons look a whole lot worse.

We went to an Indian restaurant for dinner and over-ordered as usual. I thought it was a really good meal and a little cheaper than many places we have looked at. They boast more than 3000 restaurants in San Fran (I imagine Melbourne has as many!) but competition is so fierce that the average lifespan of each establishment is only a few months.

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