Oct. 21, 2008 - VJs betrayed by technology

Oct. 1, 2008 - Help us win a live set spot at the 2009 Big Day Out

Oct. 1, 2008 - Big Star's Basement and Beyond

click here for event review on inthemix.com.au

We've also had a slew of great feedback from the Rip It Up gig the other week too, and from that we've booked another show, as VJs performing alongside an acoustic-world-groove act called Seeing Orbo. We're collecting visuals for that now, while we also rip some Atari samples for future shows and prepare some new pixel-based animations. Be sure to check out our show widget on the right side of this page for details about coming gigs.

Sep. 7, 2008 - Three Supermarket sets in one week

     

• Radio Adelaide's Live Music Week - Live-to-air on 'Reeltime' September 10 @ 10pm - free

•  Rip It Up's 1000th Issue Party - The Gov, September 11 - 8pm-1am - $5

• Spring Breakdown ft. K-Oscillate (Melb) & Track Team - Crown & Sceptre - 9pm til late
  

Aug. 20, 2008 - Beck's Soundtrack Competition Entry

May. 31, 2008 - Viva New Mexico!

I knew precious little about New Mexico as I sat soaring above the ground, enroute from Texas. Reknown for Roswell, alien landings and its formidable and expansive deserts, I had two engagements there, both premiering Supermarket, and screening several other short works. My first stop was Albuquerque, the state's 'big city' and features the best airport I've ever been through. Colourful and full of Adobe and native American charm, I snagged myself a tourist t-shirt on the spot, and made my rendezvous with Sarah Wentzel-Fisher from Basement Films- a organisation dedicated to alternative screen culture in ABQ. The weather was a carbon copy of the summer heat I'd left behind in Australia back in March, only with milder nights perfect for music, beer and conviviality. My show in ABQ was to be held at the Albuquerque Centre for Peace & Justice, and before the show we performed a guerilla style raid on radio station KUNM, where an impromptu interview unfolded and a Supermarket track made the airwaves. I also had a chance to marvel at Basement films' inpressive collection of 16mm film prints, some of which are pictured above. The show drew in quite a few walk-ins from nearby El Patio, a sweet little eatery complete with nylon string guitarist. The show went down well and drew some great feedback from the audience. Sarah's partner Ben was playing in a folk/bluegrass band at an incredible place called The Press Club on the same night, so after the chatter died down and we packed up after the show, it was off to a log cabin retreat, spilling over with vibrant youog revellers, vocal harmonies and some keen musicianship. Full of nooks and crannies, the unusual venue was unlike any I'd ever been to, and made a lasting impression on me with its library enshrouded stage, swirling partnered dancers and authentic pioneer period charm.

Basement Films' 16mm film catacombs

The next day began with another great mexican meal with Sarah and Ben; Huevos at another sweet little eatery. From there it was a rendezvous with Martin Back, arguably the most enthusiastic Supermarket host to date, who picked me up and took me down to Santa Fe, the state's capital for a performance at the Centre for Contemporary Art there. The set up in the venue was terrific, with the biggest and best screen/projector combo to date.

Centre for Contemporary Arts, Santa Fe // afterparty at Martin's place

I also had time to tinker a little more with my sampler than usual beforehand, which led to a few new sonic discoveries which I used in the set- altering the playback speed of samples on the fly, and working the dope tape echo effect. For it's intimate size, the crowd response was absurdly positive, and there was plenty of demand for drinks and revelry to follow. Booze ensued, and as the night wore on, we took the party back to Martin's place where liquor flowed like water and good spirits sailed well into the wee hours. Of all of my travels in the USA and Canada, I felt most at home in New Mexico and the pull to return is strong.

Leaving town on the pink walled highways of New Mexico

May. 29, 2008 - Austin, Texas - Our fair sister city

Getting to Austin from Jamaica proved to be far more painful that I predicted, beginning with a 3.30 am cab pick-up to whiz me to the airport. Foul weather in Dallas was keeping us in the air as I flew in from Miami, to a point where our plan was actually diverted to Oklahoma City to land. Fortunately we were turned around again after being given clearance to land, where after we sat on the tarmac for the best part of an hour while safety staff decided whether the threat of lightning was low enough to bring out the boarding bridge. During the course of the delay, several flights to Austin had been cancelled, including mine. The end result was a spot on a jam packed flight which brought me into Austin over six hours later than expected- hungry, dazed and dog tired. The beat changed thanks to a friendly cabbie from the airport and a pit stop at Wendy's... the driver was actually just getting into documentary film making himself, so the conversation was rich. My accommodation was a little lonely, but otherwise beautiful- a guest house reminiscent of places I've stayed at in Columbia, Missouri and Sedona, Arizona on previous visits. The vivacious Gretchen Upshaw, director of the Austin School of Film met me in the morning and introduced me to the wonderful staff and facility there, and the charmingly eccentric Kirk hooked me up with everything I needed for the show. Popular demand brought A Shift in Perception to the screening preceding Supermarket, and I enjoyed watching it again after some months leave of absence. ASF provided a spread of drinks and a great open house type presentation, with the work screening on two screens, with plenty of bottom end, courtesy of a bass-bin woofer. The night was lively, the artist talk fruitful and it felt good to get back into the Supermarket groove after being so focussed on the documentary shoot for the previous three weeks. An ill-fated trip to Barton Springs, a cool water aquifer and popular bathing spot followed the next day, along with a brief city sites tour of the downtown area complete with swinging cranes and ugly new skyline alterations. I hit it off well with the Texans, and look forward to returning in the near future.. maybe with ASF's help, and for the auspicious South by Southwest explosion of music and film!

Apr. 18, 2008 - Welcome to Oil Country

This blog entry comes to you from the super-deluxe Red Arrow coach between Edmonton and Calgary in Alberta. Our time in Edmonton will remembered fondly thanks to our warm-hearted hosts Eva and Bill Colmers, and Edmonton's remarkably fickle weather. Our first day out in Canada in shorts and t-shirts took us to the Edmonton Art Gallery, where we saw an exhibition called 'Projections'- a retrospective of Canadian media art, much of which combined moving image with sculpture, reflection, illusion and other experimental approaches. Edmonton itself is a strikingly young city, which in recent history celebrated its 100^th anniversary. The economy of Alberta for the most part appears to be drilled and slurped from the ground, and it is good to see that some of this economic boom from the oil industry makes its way into the arts, though inevitably sport and spectacles like the absurd West Edmonton Mall appear to hog the spotlight.

You're probably wondering what makes the West Edmonton Mall does to deserve the adjective above. On its website, WEM claims to be the World's Largest Entertainment & Shopping Centre and I am certainly not qualified to argue the point. With a whopping eighty something unisex clothing stores, forty something selling shoes and more thematically designed areas than I'd care to count, WEM even houses a built-to-scale replica of the Santa-Maria, Mr Columbus' famous pioneering vessel. Columbus I'm sure turns in his grave every time some holds a wedding reception on the replica's deck, or the sea-lion show starts up in a neighbouring pool.

Look where Christopher Columbus' tub washed up- the West Edmonton Mall

The mall also features multiple roller coasters, a candy-coloured eye-sore amusement park, and an impressive climate controlled 'oasis' for those wishing to escape Canada's cold and splash about in a giant wave pool, or lay back on a deck chair atop a rubberised beach. For those who like target practise there's the inappropriately titled 'Adventure golf' and for the real sportsman, and NRA approved Shooting Gallery. Real bullets, real targets, real good times (no doubt). While I can understand the attraction to escape the peaceful rolling hills and prairies of the Alberta area and Edmonton's generic suburban sprawl, the mall is nothing short of a temple for the worship of consumerism and decadent escapism. With Supermarket's over-arching theme in mind, this was Edmonton's must-see feature for us, and the cameras rolled. Thank Christopher it was a Monday night, and crowd pressure was low. Did I mention the iceskating rink, filled with aspiring figure-skaters? Well they have one of them too.

Mini-golf, kids? Where else can you ride a tank for a quarter? There's a store with your name on it at WEM

Our epic five hour Super8 workshop at FAVA was appreciated by the modest turnout, who managed to bone up on some techniques and tips, shoot a roll of super8 film each, and get dirty with the development process and only run two hours overtime. We performed Supermarket at the end of the session, to which Gary James Joynes, an Edmonton media artist who works with live visuals and electronic music made it along and brought his six year old son. Gary had plenty of encouragement to offer us after the show, and our new piece, a remixed montage of footage from kung fu and ninja movies became a new favourite with Ayden, our six-year old critic. Gary has performed at New Forms in Vancouver and Mutek in Montreal and offered some great advice on further opportunities worth pursuing. Despite attendance being down at our FAVA events, we took from Edmonton some great new contacts and some vastly contrasting experiences. Tonight promises to be our biggest crowd for Supermarket yet, as we open the Calgary Underground Film Festival's launch party at the city's premier nightclub... but first, some rest...

Apr. 16, 2008 - Laudromats: a blogger's best friend

The densest block of time and activity in our tour schedule started with Vancouver, where I sat just a few days ago, writing this while our laundry tumbled dry beside us. Vancouver seemed like a scaled up and over-developed version of Victoria; its greatest feature could quite likely be the mountainous landscape it's snuggled into. Our date there was with Cineworks, a non-profit organisation that's been serving the media arts community for over twenty years. Catering for the most manic of filmmakers with such crazy devices as an optical printer (which fills an entire room) our task was to provide a workshop on Experimental Music Video Production. With the help of Jorgen the projectionist and our host Cheyanne, Em and I showed examples of music video which defied the popular music video approach to great effect, and we discussed the evolution of the form. Check out one of our favourite examples below- an inspiring use of pixillation. We then stepped the group through our current Supermarket show, discussing our production techniques and artistic intentions. The group was attentive and focussed, and included a healthy mix of participants, from experimental and dance film producers to emerging would-be music video producers, and a few Cineworks regulars. Cheyanne's partner Eric introduced us to the Caesers cocktail... a bloody mary with extra twang that apparently is a Canadian treasure, and just the ticket come Sunday brunch. Their place was a kooky 100+ year old joint with mouldy moose antlers hanging out the front, full of screwy taps, creaks, freaks and furry pets. Our few days in Vancouver flew by as we caught up with film festival and community radio distribution, further tour scheduling, washing, sleep and other such glamourous fruits of 'life on the road'.

above: music video for No Escape by Le peuple de l΄herbe and feat. UK Apache

Taking the short flight option over the 23 hour bus ride through the Rocky Mountains, Edmonton was the next node on our itinerary. In the neighbouring province of Alberta, Edmonton was a place I had not heard of until late last year when techno producer Karri O had warned us of the prohibitive cost of flying there from Toronto to play a set. As the mountains thinned out, the landscape was replaced by dusty beiges and browns, peppered with patches of snow and the promise of a warmer change. When we arrived in the airport, a scrolling banner bade us 'welcome to oil country'...

Apr. 15, 2008 - Thank you, British Columbia!

We took the lengthy trip from Dawson City to Victoria in three stages, starting with a ride with Greg, a local who was taking his donkey Noodles to his new home in Carcross (near Whitehorse, the territory's capital). Em and I were witness to increasing evidence of the change of season as we rode, flew, bused and ferried our way to the southern-most tip of Vancouver Island, in temperate British Columbia. We'd been invited down for a couple of days by experimental filmmaker Scott Amos, with the added bonus of some potential time spent hand-developing Super8 film in his basement of oddities. The hand developing didn't happen, but we were able to tee up a short notice Supermarket set at a chic little joint called Whitebird. A groovy meld of record store, fashion retailer and restaurant/lounge bar, managers John and James were eager to make room for us in their schedule and installed a projector and screen combo beside the DJ booth for us. Victoria seems to be a town which knows how to give, and we were spoiled with tickets to Hook 'n' Sling, and 'The Autobots' on two consecutive nights at the town's hub of electronic music, a club called Hush. The town is also home to two enticing large-scale events for the electronic music lover: Victoria Electronic Music Festival and Soundwave and will make a return visit in coming years more than worthwhile.

Victoria's picturesque waterfront // shots from our show at Whitebird Lounge

Props also to DJ Tedder, the town's 'Mr Liquid Funk' who made good company after our set and now has our tunes in his armoury. Whitebird was pretty well at capacity during our spot, and the visuals mesmerised a few heads, and caught an occasional glance from many more. The night dragged on to a post-party in locals Chlo and Ryan's abode, which dripped with opium den chic. Victoria is a town in which young and old thank the driver when they get off the bus, which serves as a good symbol of the courteous and agreeable citizens of the place. The crowd at Hush for Hook 'n' Sling had also raised the roof at the end of that set, so the place certainly knows how to show its gratitude.

Our last two days in Victoria took us to the Royal BC Museum, which had a particularly impressive section devoted to first nations' peoples and their culture. Imposing totem poles and small intricate carvings abounded, and there's obviously a talented taxidermist or two in town, as the displays of wildlife (including a mammoth) were fantastic. Our last rainy afternoon took us to a tropical butterfly house and finally a decadent example of gardening of the strictest order: The Butchard Gardens. Scraping home with just enough time to stuff our bags and race to the bus terminal, we bade Scott and his partner Rosalind farewell before embarking on the pleasant four hour ride to Vancouver. Next stop: Cineworks...

Apr. 10, 2008 - S'no place like the Yukon

 
View from Dempster Highway // Dan Sokolowski & Mike Yuhasz // The Macaulay House, our home in Dawson

From the Yukon Territory to Vancouver Island, and now writing from Vancouver itself, Em and I are now four weeks and three stops into our current Canadian tour. This chapter of the Supermarket story began with an artists residency at KIAC, the Klondike Institute of Art and Culture, just a few hundred kilometres south of the arctic circle. Celebrated as Canada's 'True North' we found ourselves shacked up in a hundred year old house in Dawson City (population 1300) a town with lingering facades from goldrush days gone by, and a seasonal tourist influx every summer. Northern lights danced in the skies at night, waving ethereal green curtains, while the crunching of snow underfoot became a familiar daily sound. The crawing of ravens echoed off the surrounding mountains, and beyond the city we experienced quiet like never before.

As guests of the Dawson City International Short Film Festival, we prepared the latest development of Supermarket, completing a new track/piece driven by footage remixed from martial arts films. Technical difficulties prior to the show cost us some audience numbers, and our show was compromised by not having a video mixer at our disposal (only a clunky switcher which freaked out the projector) but never the less, a few enthusiatic audience members bought copies of our 'We Never Close' DVD and enough good conversation ensued for us to feel we'd left an impression. Considering the staple musical fare in Dawson City tends to be laid back and acoustic (folk, country, rock and extensions thereof) perhaps the joint wasn't ready for analogue synthesisers and drum n bass beats rushing by at 170 beats per minute?

 
Our Super8 workshop begins // Lori, Dan, David and the two of us in Dan Sokolowski's pad

The hospitality in Dawson was second to none, though in the arts community there, it was surprisingly difficult to find anyone who'd lived there for more than 5-10 years and thus adeep-rooted 'sourdough'. With winter wrapping the community in darkness day and night, and temperatures dropping to -50 degrees, can you really blame people for making Mexico their 'other' home? KIAC's Dan Sokolowski, Mike Yuhahz, David Curtis and David Fraser all made us feel right at home in Dawson's art community, and new friends were made from Ottawa, Montreal and Victoria through chance meetings during the festival and our well attended Super8 production workshop. The films screened during the festival were refreshingly varied in form and content, and many of the films gave us new insights into Canadian culture past and present, on and off screen. Near the end of our three week stay, a day trip north along the Dempster Highway gave us some deep-cleansing nature therapy before the long ride south to Victoria. Em and I collected sounds and images along with our fond memories of our first Yukon spring and I've no doubt that the experience will be reflected in a Supermarket piece or two in the not-too-distant future.

Mar. 10, 2008 - Adelaide Fringe & the eye of the storm

It seems like only days ago that Em and I returned to our home in Adelaide after our first taste of the international touring life. In reality, it's been almost three months... each one spent heads down promoting Supermarket, programming our next tour, writing grant applications and planning and producing new work. Meanwhile, the South Australian sun has blazed down outside of our air-conditioned studio bubble, and Adelaide's summer party season has kicked into gear and held form. We hit the ground running in January with preview sets at Shores on a New Year's Day (headlined by De La Soul), Salmonella Dub (New Zealand's premiere live electronic act) and Calyx (UK) shows which whet the scene's appetite for something beyond the familiar DJ or live electronic music experience. The climax of this quarter was undoubtedly our three independent Supermarket shows during this year's Adelaide Fringe Festival. We worked hard to make them work, and the results were worth it. With the invaluable support of projectionist Ryder Grindle, the Mercury Cinema's 'Iris' micro-cinema became our home away from home as we expanded our performance rig to feature Em's VJ kit for the first time. A mixer, software video sampler (resolume) and occasional webcam use added an improvised layer of vision over our familiar DVD backing track. Local DJs Derek Lang, Batch and Trebek played sets of complementary music in the cinema's foyer before and after, and the venue's low-priced beer hit the spot with many. Thanks to the support and interest of Onion Magazine, The Adelaide Fix and websites inthemix.com.au, fasterlouder.com.au and adelaidemassive.com, word spread widely and good crowds rolling up on all three occasions. A specail thanks must be give to James Rowbotham for his great photo-documentation of our performances. The shows modest profit was handed straight to our travel agent this week, and we'll be back in Canada to share our wares on Tuesday. Stay tuned for tales of arctic adventure- Dawson City here we come!

Mar. 7, 2008 - Texas & Mexico, '07 tour wrap

Dec. 18, 2007 - Small town hospitality, USA

our 'Missouri Mom' Ann Mehr prepares for the season // the Mehr's front yard after first snow

Perhaps the most gratifying parts of the Columbia experience were our presentations to elementary school students. We showed the four pieces from our 'We Never Close' DVD to several classes of excitable juniors sitting patiently on the carpet in the art room, and were taken aback by their reactions to the works. The verbal responses to the pieces were unrestrained, and were even accompanied by impromtu dance and humming along to the melodies in the pieces. The children of Lee School reminded us why we do what we do, and we may have just discovered a key future audience demographic... look out Peter Combe! Not only were the kids a great audience, Ann followed up by showing further groups of students our work, and surprising us with some jumbo thankyou cards featuring drawings inspired by our work and general gushing praise. Once again our departure was marked by the first big snow dump of the winter, which gave us a few scares on the road, but otherwise created yet a beautiful suburban snowscape which will no doubt remain etched into our memories. After a 'potluck' dinner on our last night in Columbia, Paul Sturtz (Ragtag's manager) struggled get his pick-up truck out of Ann and David's iced-over driveway, making for an entertaining twist to the farewell. After some neighbourly team-building, salt dispensing (it melts snow rather quickly) and hot-revving Paul was on his way, and so were we.

The Ragtag Cinema's beacon light burning // the kids of the Lee School

Dec. 10, 2007 - Capital Punishment in North America

The next blip on our radar was the much-hyped venture to the big apple: New York City. We had tee'd up a show and workshop at an arts centre in Greenwich Village called The Tank, but aside from that, we hadn't made hard and fast plans for the big smoke apart from aiming to hook up with another good friend and Adelaide ex-pat artist who now lives there: Alex Carpenter. The high-rise urban canyons of New York City were something to behold as we swerved, crept and honked our way from La Guardia airport past the Rockefeller Centre and tree-lighting ceremony to our hotel in the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Our immediate focus from there was to find our way to The Tank where we were set to perform that night. Negotiating the alpha-numerics of the incredible subway network (without a hitch, remarkably) we rolled into The Tank with time enough to run cables and set up for the first of our 'big city' shows. While the show itself was eclipsed in attendance by the workshop the following weekend, the show expanded another degree, with narrative samples featuring more prominently (and naturally) than in the previous St Catharines show. In between times we took trips to the Museum of Modern Art, making it through five of the six floors during their 'free entry friday night' period, wandered through the squirrel-ridden Central Park and ogled the atrium and annexes of the Guggenheim Museum. Hanging out with Alex was great, and he took us to a Lamont Young (one of the fathers of minimalism in music in the 1960's) sound and light installation that was only a few doors down from The Tank which gave us further insights into an arts practise that is virtually non-existant in Australia. On our final night in NYC, Alex and I hung out with Susan Agliata, the programmer of the New York Experimental film series at The Tank and some of her friends before squeezing in some last minute, late night filming in the wildly illuminated Times Square.

We awoke the next morning to be greeted by the first big dump of snow of the NYC Winter. As a result, flights out of La Guardia were backed up and ours was cancelled outright after spending close to two hours waiting on the tarmac. This cost us our connecting flight to Missouri, and gave us a painful eight and a half hours to kill in Washington DC Airport. Capital punishment indeed.

Nov. 28, 2007 - Destination: Mall

The new audio narrative was loaded in blocks into my cute Roland SP303 'dr sample' sampler, which allowed me to manually cue sound bytes as our vision stream played off a DVD. Steved mentioned that he approved of the social commentary the narration provided, and the guys noted the occasional shopper stopping to heed the words of the charismatic phantom narrator broadcast through our PA system. Karri O and Marinko resumed their playful harmony of deep fruity electronica and vision mashup after our half-hour set wrapped, and after the closeure of the mall and some aerial stunts pulling down the screen, we retired to NAC for beers and a good nights sleep.

The next day saw us prepare for a workshop on music video and experimental audio-visual production, which to our delight was attended by artists and enthusiasts of all walks, from twenty-something year old beat-freaks to a 92 year old installation artist (with over sixty years of work behind her) called Alice. The workshop ran well, and this time around Em and I ran through our show (as many attendees had not seen it previously) discussing our production techniques and artistic approaches. We also screened a number of existing music vids which had made lasting impressions on us, and washed it all down with drinks with the charming rogue Steve (NAC's director) and his partner and fellow artist, Mel. Among the abundance of whiskey, beer and heartfelt hospitality, it was interesting to learn that NAC has a very passionate and broad member-base, and their activities extend in many directions- even onto the sporting field. After parting hugs and smiles from our new best friends in St Catharines, we hit the road for the nation's capital, braced for a serious up-scaling of urban experience.

Nov. 19, 2007 - Our premiere & getting there...

It's Sunday here in Buffalo, NY, and Em and I have spent a lazy day recovering from an insane week preparing and presenting our first Supermarket show and workshop. After working increasingly long nights with Em editing and myself animating, titling, post-producing and preparing audio, we realised as the big day approached that we would have to reign in our ideas somewhat. Originally aiming to drop the whole audio-visual performance set featuring keys, samples and some video mixing, we surrendered to the notion of simply presenting our complete Supermarket series of works in a sequential screening. To our delight, the audience rolled in in healthy numbers, and the show also featured prominently in Gusto, a section of the major daily paper, The Buffalo News. Visually, the works involved sampled and remixed footage, original animation (digital and Super8 film) some HDV footage and plenty of experimentation.

On the night we found some further technical hurdles to overcome, so after a flattering introduction speech from Squeaky Wheel's executive director Dorothea Braemer, I introduced the show, with a little improvised speech about our residency, project and the format of the night's screening. The first bracket then followed, featuring several experiemental screen works from the 1930's through to our break-through experimental documentary A Shift in Perception (which had screened at Squeaky Wheel several months prior.

Meanwhile, my diligent partner Em was backstage, struggling to output the show's second act to tape: our series of eight Supermarket audio-visual films, five of which were set to be world premieres. Cameras, hard-disks and firewire ports were freaking out all over the place, so we decided the only immediate fix was going to be to screen it directly from the computer. A note to filmmakers: avoid this at all costs, as laptop outputs can create ugly artifacts when the refresh rate demands of your work can not be met.

Beside our preoccupation with overcoming this technical problem, what really struck us about the night was the responsiveness of the audience at Squeaky Wheel. They clapped respectfully after each film, with an intensity that exceded the forty-strong number in attendance. After our set wrapped, we were ovewhelmed by how well the new works were received (particularly those featuring visual material gathered locally) and a slew of intelligent questions followed. Em had her chance to share the spotlight having saved the day with output trouble shooting, and the two of us retired exhausted, but deeply satisfied after a full-on three and half weeks of production. Despite us not being able to break in the live show in Buffalo, we did complete five new works and we are confident that the show will expand and improve with every following performance, starting with St Catharines in Canada next Friday night.

In the remaining three days we're spending in Buffalo, Em and I plan to catch up on some of the local experiences that had to be put on hold while we prepared our new works. Visits to the Albright Knox and Hallwalls galleries are high on our list, along with a return visit to Niagra Falls, this time viewed from the American perspective. We'll also endeavour to spend time with our hosts and new friends, and somehow, I'll be finishing a one minute trailer for an animated series that's now long overdue. No rest for the wicked!

Nov. 9, 2007 - Niagra Falls & the Great Indoors

The chills were easier to overlook as Em and I stood on the verge at Niagra Falls the other day though. The first thing that struck us about the place was the way the area has been built up right to the rim, and following that was the surprisingly low tourist-density despite it being a Sunday. The water in the lake looked low, with the 'Maid of the Mist' (the site's signature tourist vessel) in apparent dry-dock. The view was tremendous through... the approach to the mighty Horseshoe Falls was slow and broad, with an almighty plummet casting up plumes of mist, thick enough to partially obscure the far side of the falls (which sits on the US side of the border). Birds circle in the brisk air, diving for the occasional fish, while tourists peep though coin-operated binoculars, and take self-portraits from the handrails with their loved ones. Naturally, Em and I did the same (sans coin-op binoculars) and shot some HDV footage at slow shutter-speeds of the impressive torrents of water for inclusion in our Supermarket work. We'll more than likely cut some of that into a clip which features visuals shot in Amsterdam as well as here in Buffalo. When the sun sets at Niagra Falls, the light is nothing short of gorgeous, as the ghostly mist is kissed with pink and amber hues. As darkness settled, Em and I were ready to head home, then to our surprise, a light tower sparked up and cast beams of brilliant (albeit somewhat tacky) colour upon the bellowing curtains of white water. I'd rather not mention the tacky installed novelty lighting intended to spruce up the long walk from the falls back to the carpark- though I was tempted to film a super-dorky illuminated snowman playing the drums. Evidently Niagra Falls is something of an entertainment hub, with a huge indoor aviary, waterpark, Marine Land and a very clearly marked casino. Playing for the tourist dollar? You be the judge.

Nov. 7, 2007 - Welcome to Canada

Today's blog entry comes to you from the land of the maple leaf, ice-hockey, mounties and some seriously warm hospitality. Living in Buffalo placed us absurdly close to the Canadian border, so when we were scheduling our trip, Em and I touched base with a few artist-run centres in Ontario, and reconnected with some relatives I'd met once back home in Australia about eight years ago. The first of these artist collectives we hooked up with is called Ed Video, and they're based in Guelph, a university town a couple of hours north-west of Buffalo. Scott McGovern, the organisation's head of programming absorbed some of our work into a public art exhibition called 'Edifying Edifice' which saw video and projected imagery roll out over eleven specific sites in downtown Guelph. With an opening scheduled for the night after Halloween (and a Thursday) the works sparked up by night, and we rolled into town thanks to my relative Margie, who drove down to Buffalo to pick us up. Abstractions Nos. 2 & 3 (from the Supermarket project) ran silently in the window of a swanky martini lounge downstairs from Ed Video's HQ, where we entered a hive of activity... artists folding and glueing catalogs for the show into beautiful handmade cardboard replicas of the Ed Video building, while an audition for a musical production spilled out from the large studio space out back. Scott and his partner and fellow artist Jen proved great hosts as we yacked the night away, shared our first round of Canadian brews and crashed out at a nearby hotel. That's Scott standing between Em and I, below.

Margie kindly left us with the keys to the 15 year old Toyota van we crossed the border in, with all of its inherent charms. Dubious electrics, some beligerent locks and a few other signs of the effect of the Canadian elements, then a cautionary mention of the lack of spare tire. This last feature I flippantly dismissed, proudly stating I had not had a puncture for about ten years. Mistake.

Driving back from Guelph, we made plans to hook up with Steve Remus at NAC (Niagra Artists Centre) and maybe check out the Penn Centre, the shopping mall where we're scheduled to perform on the 23^rd. Margie had also mentioned in her appraisal of the car's quirks that the car was prone to being blown about by the wind on the highway, and I was starting to feel the effect... the car resisting my attempts to contain it between lane-lines. The weird thing was, there was virtually no wind. Cautiously slowing down from 100 miles and hour, the wobbling feeling got worse not better, so Em and I hastily decided that taking next exit was the best next move. Unfortunately the next turn-off was a junction with another highway, and shoulder to park on was minimal, but we managed to skid over towards relative safety. I jumped out of the van in time to see the last inch and a half of air wheeze out of a hammered rear tire, which sported a gash all the way from rim to tread through the side wall. This set the scene for an elaborate rescue operation by Chad and Steve from NAC, who rolled up casually and introduced themselves; Steve throwing himself mohawk and all under the car to fashion a fix to our predicament. Stuck with a spare rusted tightly to the car's underbody, the boys bailed us out and took us back to NAC headquarters, where we had a quick tour of their beautiful premises.

   

Our scheduled attempt to shoot some material at FrightWorld had been thwarted by the tire blow-out, and we rolled back home to Buffalo round midnight, a tow-truck ride, several wrong turns and a night-shift tire change at Canadian Tire later. Unable to resist Steve's invitation to return the following night for 'Strutt', NAC's annual wearable art show fundraiser, we made a repeat journey the following night in time to see naked men in fully-body cling wrap hopping down a cat-walk, a dress adorned with thousands of metal pins, and the 'march of the merkins'. The night's DJ, Mirenko, took Em and I under his wing and we crashed at his joint after the party people receded into the night. Mirenko and I have a lot in common, from our passions for dance music, sample culture and skateboards to our respective collections of audio and video hardware obscuria. I can't wait to get back here and have a jam with him before we do our gig together at the Penn Centre.

Oct. 31, 2007 - Pumpkins a-plenty

After making ourselves a production schedule for the rest of our stay here in Buffalo, Em and I are confident that we now have a blueprint to achieving a tight half-hour audio-visual set for the debut at Squeaky Wheel. The coming three weeks hold for us a diverse combination of shooting, cutting, animating and locking down musical arrangments and mixes- and we're pumped. Yesterday we'd planned on heading to University at Buffalo to use the Arts Centre's 16mm film telecine setup, but we were distracted by the wild array of halloween decorations draped from peoples porches and gardens. Riding our bikes towards Squeaky Wheel, we stopped regularly, taking pictures of pumpkins, jack-o-lanterns, skeletons, headstones, bats, giant inflatable monsters... and the occasional live squirrel who chose to cross our path. No black cats fortunately, so with any luck, good fortune will prevail. Halloween is a big deal here (especially for families with children) and we'll post some of the stand-out decorations once we have a card-reader for our digital camera (it's arriving in the post this week). Couples pick through pumpkins at the local food market to choose the right one for their holiday decor, while kids carve wild expressions from the sinister to the straight-out goofy in their jack-o-lanterns. We've never seen so many pumpkins in our life, from those as big as beer kegs to small round ones like the kind Hobgoblin has been known to throw at Spiderman from time to time. Em and I are also now well aquainted with the region's fierce winds, which send chills up our sleeves and down our necks as we continue our Buffalo adventures.

For now our indoor explorations will be on hiatus, after a couple of days' successful digging through film cans in Squeaky Wheel's archive. The core of our discoveries contain footage of inidigenous peoples from Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, North America and Australia. Once converted to video, we'll cut this material to a shuffling house/dancehall remix of Zed Bias' 'Boomerang' as one of Supermarket's song modules (you can listen to the track here). We also found some great stuff in a 1958 documentary about Australia that we'll be including excerpts from in our performances also, and some great intro footage from an 'Origins of Man' film. There are films here from NASA, educational films and all sorts, and after our performance on November 16^th, we plan to whizz through a few more titles before we move on to Canada. Our official welcoming party is tonight, and we're both looking forward to meeting more members of the Squeaky Wheel family.