A new, more definitive, edit of Greetings From Australia by myself and Colin Hodson.
Sky Needle + Clinton Green – Long Play, Thurs 14 Sept 2023
Sky Needle + Clinton Green
Thursday 14 September 2023, 8pm
Long Play Cinema – 318 St Georges Rd, Fitzroy North.
Sky Needle is an improvising band that originated in Brisbane in 2009, taking its name from the ‘sky needle’, an architectural oddity built by the Japanese pavilion for Expo 88, which remained abandoned for many years. Mainstays of the group have been Sarah Byrne, Alex Cuffe, and Joel Stern, joined over the years by Ross Manning, Michael Donnelly, Glen Schenau, Daniel Jenatsch, and Alan Nguyen amongst others. The band’s performances feature an array of self-made and invented instruments, including ‘leg horns’, ‘speaker box bass’, and ‘the plank’. Sky Needle’s sound is difficult to place but instantly recognizable; a confounding and detuned hybrid of rhythm, noise, repetition, and wordless vocalization that oscillates between broken motorik grooves and psychological collapse. Since its formation, Sky Needle has released various LPs, 7″s, and tapes, including works such as “Rave Cave” (Negative Guest List), “Debased Shapes” (Bruit Direct Disques), “Neckliner” (Albert’s Basement), and “Acid Perm” (Nihilistic Orbs). The band has performed extensively across Australia, Indonesia, and Europe.
Clinton Green is an Naarm/Melbourne-based experimental musician who has worked with hacked and faulty equipment and idiophones, including turntables, bowed metal and telephone pole infrastructure. His latest work involves drawing rhythmic minimalist music from decrepit Walkmans playing parts of themselves.
Long Play – Thurs 10 August 2023
Clinton Green presents a new work for sound generated from the insides of broken Walkmans.
Jasmin Wing-Yin Leung plays various huqin (erhu, zhonghu, yehu), presents material from her ‘Fishing Songs’ series – fingertip precision, patience, and Cantonese folk aesthetics.
Studio Norwood Lab (Colin Hodson) debuts a new instrument that detournes the bicycle as a sonic object.
Long Play, 318 St Georges Road, Fitzroy North – $15 on the door.
Greetings From Australia
Greetings From Australia is a new video piece I’ve made in collaboration with Colin Hodson, for the “Here and Now” exhibition at Verwalterhaus in Berlin from 13-23 July (cnr Prenzlauer Allee and Mollstraße, Berlin, Germany). Thanks fro Brimbank Council who provided access to Sunshine Art Spaces for parts of the filming process.
Exp-West
Next Saturday (1 July) I’ll be presenting a new solo work I’ve been working on of late. It’s at an event called Exp-West, which I’ve curated for Sleepless Footscray, also featuring Whitehorse, Maltese Well Monster/Mito Elias/Fina Po, and Deep Sneeze (a new trio of Jen Callaway, Llara Isabell Arena and David Palliser). Fucked up music from the Western suburbs will be flying our flag high in the old Club X shop in Footscray.
Saturday 1 July, 7:30pm
Exp-West
170 Nicholson St, Footscray
Green/McNab/Stewart at Long Play
Clinton Green/Michael McNab/Allanah Stewart + Like + Dale Gorfinkel
Thursday 22 June 2023 – 7:30pm
Long Play, 318 St Georges Rd, Fitzroy North
$10
Flyer (made of clay/pottery) by Allanah.
Review of “Archive 7:2004” in Tone Glow
Tone Glow has included the recent digital reissue of Archive 7:2000 in their favourite music of 2023 so far:
Here’s two hours of varied recordings from Clinton Green aka Undecisive God, an Australian underground legend. I’m drawn to the absolute zero-effort art work for this, the lack of extensive background info provided, and how the majority of the tracks aren’t even listed on the Bandcamp page until you purchase the music. It’s a simple invitation: pay $7 AUD and you’ll get a trove of material that you have to make heads or tails of on your own. I like the quiet beauty of “The World is as I See It,” meditative in its oceanic ambience and glints of guitar. It’s as calming as “Can’t Get Better” is anxiety-inducing. On that track, he mischievously ruptures the space with shards of noise as different radio broadcasts (?) play, one of which is a woman that keeps repeating the titular phrase. The “Three Movements for Batman Bridge” tracks are simple, edited field recording soundscapes that capture everyday mystique while “Guitar and Feedback Study 1” is the process of him trying to attain magic through different tools. Consider Archive 7: 2004 a sonic diary that’s been thrust into the world. —Joshua Minsoo Kim
Performances/happenings, May-June-July 2023
-Friday 19 May, 7-9pm – Intersection (Cnr Swanston and La Trobe Streets, Melbourne).
-Tuesday 6 June, 8pm – Make It Up Club (Bar Open (upstairs), 317 Brunswick St, Fitzroy).
Take two of my duo with Carolyn Connors, which was postponed earlier this year due to illness.
-Sunday 11 June, 3pm – Merri-bek City Band Room (16 Cross St, Brunswick)
I’m joining the extended Snacks Super Group for this gig. Also playing are Adam Gottlieb and Peter Farrar visiting from Sydney.
-Saturday 17 June, 7-9pm – Intersection (Nicholson St Mall, Footscray)
Interested and non-interested parties gather at a certain location on a certain date and time, but what is not certain is what may occur and who is or is not participating. What makes this occasion an event and what is it to participate ? Does this mean that whoever happens to be present at that location at that time is a participant in an event marked by the specifics of time and place ? What separates the location and the start and end times from adjacent locations and times ? Where and when precisely are the boundaries of place and time ? Who is cleaving time and place and for what purpose ?
Of the co-occurring actions, stories and trajectories jostling en route which one(s) constitute the specified event INTERSECTION ?
Propositions for a start to speculative performance.
-Thursday 22 June, 7:30pm (Long Play, 318 St Georges Rd, Fitzroy North)
Clinton Green/Michael McNab/Allanah Stewart + Dale Gorfinkel + LIKE
-Saturday 1 July, 7:30pm – exp-west (Sleepless Festival, 170 Nicholson st, Footscray)
Whitehorse + Clinton Green+ Maltese Well Monster & friends + Deep Sneeze
–13-23 July – Here and Now (Verwalterhaus, cnr Prenzlauer Allee and Mollstraße, Berlin, Germany).
I have a new video work called “Greetings from Australia” premiering at this exhibition. The work is made in collaboration with filmmaker, Colin Hodson.
Live soundtrack with Adrian Sherriff, Thursday 30 March
I’m playing an improvised soundtrack at SeenSound at Long Play this Thursday night with Adrian Sherriff, for a new short film he has made. Haven’t played with Adrian for some time, looking forward to it.
SeenSound
Thursday 30 March, 7pm
Long Play, 318 St Georges Road, Fitzroy North.
As the edge of autumn arrives on the breeze, SeenSound gets cosy with new audio-visual works and live performances featuring Dan Senn, Alan Tulloch, Esther Lamneck, Alfonso Belfiore, Disconnectica (Robert Webb), Brigid Burke, Adrian Sherriff, Clinton Green, Ren Walters, Mark Pedersen, Grania Burke, and The Glass String Ensemble by Brigid Burke (Ashley, Arthur & Jack Cross, Josh & Harry Burke-Blasco)
Clinton Green 