That title's gonna be suck aint it?
Chinese Whispers - Southern Roots in the Australian Swampy Sound
Filmed in Melbourne, Australia, Gretchen Wood examines how music from the American South has influenced the roots of Aussie punk. The film features music by and conversations with underground veterans Kim Salmon of the Scientists, the Surrealists, and Beasts of Bourbon and with Beasts of Bourbon founding member Spencer P. Jones also of The Johnnys and currently leader of the Escape Committee. Melbourne music entrepreneur Bruce Milne, pop culture historian Clinton Walker, and The Age newspaper's music and film editor Jo Roberts also weigh in on how the vast influences from blues and country, perhaps the South's greatest cultural exports, are instrumental in creating the distinct swampy sound that defines Aussie punk. This was mostly shot by Wood on an iPhone 4S, but Melbourne photographer Carbie Warbie contributed the vast majority of performance footage which was essential to the film's distinct look.
This the first version of Wood's film. A graduate student in Southern Studies, Wood will base her master's thesis on this work.
I met her (briefly) at the Tote. It sounded like an interesting project.
It's a great little doco, considering that there isn't much archival footage available. At first I was dubious about the need to relate Australian music back to overseas ''roots'', but Gretchen pulled it off without it coming across as yet another instance of cultural cringe. Kim Salmon is a great interview subject. Love his description of trying to learn blues licks from records, getting it wrong, and then turning this into his own unique style.
And I love his hipster hoodie :)
...and skinny jeans, too! Kim really was a great interview.
@Rene, I caught plenty of skepticism over here, too. can totally understand why you were dubious. It would have been too easy to focus on derivative sounds. Much more interesting - how musicians there transformed these influences to make music distinctively Australian, quite the opposite of culture cringe. Also encouraging, having both Bruce and Clint on board... but by no means am I implying that the Aussies owe everything to the South. I just wanted to talk about this one part of the gumbo.
Thanks for watching, y'all!
Thanks for making this :-)
Lax, my pleasure! I hope to do more.
I hope you do too. You did a great job
was a good little doco. well done to all involved.
Salmon never lets an opportunity pass where he doesn't claim to be the inventor of ''Grunge'' though, hey? farrrrk! wish the poor bugger could just move on
Pretty sure he has ''moved on''. Kim has taken on many different sounds since Scientists...so he likes to bring up his part in Grunge evolution...ummm wouldn't you?
I just find it endlessly baffling and interesting that there is a greater awareness of his music from factions of overseas bands, bands that are arguably more successful and well known here than Kim himself. It'd like saying you love the music of Rolling Stones but who the fuck is Chuck Berry...so yeah I think it's justifiable that he often mentions it.
This sounds fucking awesome. How can I get around to watching this?
click the vimeo link?
Cool. When I get home and this shit isn't blocked.
unlucky to find a workplace that blocks vimeo.
Everything is blocked at my workplace. Except for M+N. It slips under all the radars.