My New Flat and Pumpkins

Hi gang,

I had to leave my sweet pad in the center of Freo :( The new place is kind of a pain - all I can hear are the waves crashing on the jette and I wake up to the sunrise every morning. Yeah, OK, it's awesome.

I now live at 9 Mews Road. The knowledge of the address is pretty much useless:
1. I can't receive mail here apparently
2. It does not map correctly in Google Maps. See where Mews Road and Molfetta Quays is? keep going down Mews until it ends - that's me right at the end of that little peninsula. Nice boats all around.



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Won't be missing sunsets here. I can sit 50 m (54.7 yards for those of you still in the Imperial measurement system) from my door and watch the sunrise and sunset just by turning my head. Sick.



I filmed a time lapse animation of me going from the end of the jette to my apartment door. I suppose I could have done it real time, it's only 30 seconds, but I thought of this a while ago and I'm married to the shot.



The new apartment is huge. It's a two story, two bedroom apartment. The downstairs is all living room with a full wall slider looking out on Fremantle Fishing Harbor (the other side of the same harbor I photographed the dolphins in). The second floor has a "kid's room" with 2 single beds in it and a master bedroom with a queen sized bed and another full wall slider and balcony.




I really do listen to the waves all night and watch the sunrise in the morning. This was this morning's sunrise - I was still in bed when I took this picture!







I mentioned a while back that I'd start writing down the names of the Aussie bands I hear on the radio. Yeah, disappointing. They are good, but they aren't from Australia. Portishead is from England, the Letter Openers are from Los Angeles (have you heard these guys yet? amazing! check out definistride - shameless plug I know).

I'm listening to the radio the other day and I heard Modest Mouse was playing in town! Conrad got me in to these guys a couple years ago, they are super cool. Great lyrics, unique sound (3 percussionists, occasional banjo, one diverse member who plays keys, trumpet, whatever they hand him apparently).

Anyhow I look up the concert and it turns out to be a huge billing. It's called the V Festival (apparently "Ozfest" was already taken) and included Queens of the Stone Age, and the SMASHING PUMPKINS!! $130?? That's only $117 US. SOLD!

I headed into Perth for the concert the day after I moved. I started at King's Park which, sadly, no longer has any kangaroos in their huge wildlife area. I'll find some dammit. King's Park is bigger than Central Park (over 1000 acres) and is quite high above Perth - it's amazing.

This picture is of the Swan River shot through the Lemon Scented Gum Trees that line Fraser Ave. There is a huge botanical gardens, though they are a little ragged this time of year between the dryness and the Myxamatosis immune rabbits. I have to go back and see more; once I heard they had no kangaroos I decided I had bigger fish on my plate for the day.

The concert was at the Perth Esplanade - a park between the Perth skyline and the Swan River. The skyline is growing here due to the mining fever and all the business that supports it. There is no shortage of money in this area. It makes for a great view from the Esplanade! "That Stage" is on the right and "This Stage" is on the left. "Other Stage" was around the corner.

There was a genuine Aussie band there - Melbourne's own Cut Copy. I'd say I'd hear them again but I don't have to worry about it, they are on the radio constantly. Good stuff.

(Duran Duran and The Jesus Mary Chain also played - you could tell the difference in the crowd. There were a couple forty somethings standing in front of me during the Modest Mouse set and I took it upon myself to point them to the stage that Duran Duran was playing on. They appreciated the assistance.)

After several smaller bands with smaller followings, Modest Mouse wasted no time setting the stage aflame openening with Bury Me With It. About 10,000 people, who had been scattered about, closed in on the stage in a mad rush. They also played Working On Leaving, Float On, Bukowski, Satin in a Coffin. It was a great scene. I've been looking for a blog that listed the whole set but haven't found one. That could have been me!


Then I slid over from "That Stage" to "This Stage" for QOTSA who absolutely rocked. They love the crowd got us all fired up. During "Feel Good Hit..." from the album R he went into "Rehab" by Amy Whinehouse. I read in a blog that they also covered a Britney Spears song but I didn't notice. Whatever, they rocked. Real heavy guitar driven bad boy rock. Dig.


Duran Duran came on next but I stayed at This Stage to get prime standing room for the Smashing Pumpkins (ok ok, Billy Corgan and the replacement players - he tried like hell to insult my intelligence by getting another half-Asian ryhtym guitarist and a cute blonde bass player like I wouldn't know the difference. Well, I did notice the difference but I wasn't offended so hah. What were the other names again?)

With 15,000 people behind me, it was so crowded I basically had to dislocate my shoulder to get my arm up to scratch my nose. I think they had some Peace Corps workers there because they set up a water brigade to keep us hydrated before the show (must have been 40C, hot! yeah yeah, I don't really know what 40C is - I think it was about 90).

When Billy Corgan finally hit the stage, wearing that silver dress he's probably had for 20 years, I was maybe about 20 people away from him. He's a serious showman, and he played the self-indulgent show I think we were all looking for after such a long hiatus. A solo acoustic version of 1979 was amazing. I actually thought Billy Corgan was dead, the Pumpkins just disappeared! I thought Scott Weiland was dead too, apparently they tried to get him to go to rehab and he said "no" "no" "no" so they locked him up 3 times. STP is getting back together too, it's like I'm 15 again. I've had that about Scott Weiland argument with Dan a dozen times, this is me conceding - I now agree he is not dead. Here's just a few seconds of the Pumpkins taking the stage with Tonight, Tonight



It's incredibly difficult taking pictures of a stage - the lighting levels and colors are unlike anything a point and shoot digital camera has been calibrated for (which is why I have 0 pictures of my entire theatrical design career). I took about 50 pictures to get these couple.



Close out with a little Pumpkins:

Shakedown 1979
Cool kids never have the time
On a live wire right up off the street
You and I should meet
Junebug skipping like a stone
With the headlights pointed at the dawn
We were sure we'd never see an end to it all
And I don't even care to shake these zipper blues
And we don't know
Just where our bones will rest
To dust I guess
Forgotten and absorbed into the earth below
Double cross the vacant and the bored
They're not sure just what we have in store
Morphine city slipping dues down to see
That we don't even care as restless as we are
We feel the pull in the land of a thousand guilts
And poured cement, lamented and assured
To the lights and towns below
Faster than the speed of sound
Faster than we thought we'd go, beneath the sound of hope
Justine never knew the rules,
Hung down with the freaks and the ghouls
No apologies ever need be made, I know you better than you fake it
To see that we don't even care to shake these zipper blues
And we don't know just where our bones will rest
To dust I guess
Forgotten and absorbed into the earth below
The street heats the urgency of now
As you can see there's no one around