Music For Small Audiences

Recent weeks have shown me just how much things can change quickly. From moves across the globe to changes in fortune and circumstance, it seems that for many people close to me, recent events have served up a decidedly different state of affairs. From flights to fights to crashes and funerals, these events, while unconnected, seem to collectively reinforce the fragile, ephemeral nature of the current state of play. Is time precious? Is life short? Where does one differentiate between an experience endured and an experience enjoyed? Does knowing one will look back on a set of circumstances positively in future, make any difference to our ability to endure it in the present? Wherever you happen to be on the seemingly circuitous trail that loops us all between enduring, persevering, prospering and panicking at this particular moment, godspeed, and may good spirits, good music and good companions help light the way.

In recent weeks we have been watching a thought provoking TV series focused on time travel, and how the choices we make set us on certain paths. Having finished the second season of the series, one line in particular sticks out - the observation that every choice for something is a choice against something else. When in the thick of things with a given set of circumstances it can be easy to feel limited, constrained or stuck on a track towards an unintended destination. Sometimes a good bit of television is all we need to be reminded that we always have choices, and that as often as not inevitability is just a state of mind.

I read once that being organised means that where things are suits what those things mean, so that each thing takes as little psychic energy as possible to find when it is needed, while not being in the way. With spring arriving to Melbourne, the days are getting longer and the weather more variable. As such it feels like a great time to get a bit more organised, and to make sure everything at home has an appropriate home of its own. With a bit of motion and a bit of consideration, we can get things in order for the warmer months and adventures soon to come.

We recently returned from a very special overseas trip that included a weekend stop in Toronto. For a trip full of highlights, one of the absolute standout evenings of the entire adventure was a Friday evening spent downtown in the Toronto Fashion District. It was a pleasantly warm summer evening, with great music, great food, great company, a splash of suspiciously good champagne and a particularly good sound system. Friendships were refreshed, stories told, and bonds strengthened across the group. The geography makes it hard to do often, so when we do it, it is nice to do it well. This mix is built around some of the music that was played that night by the rotating cast of characters that took the controls over the course of the evening. It was recorded a few weeks after our return to Australia, and it owes a lot to the musical suggestions and impressions made over the course of that memorable summer evening in Toronto.

For the four years we lived in Richmond, we lived in the shadow of the London Tavern, an old school pub full of character and charm. Great beers, decent food, a lovely beer garden, and just a few steps down the street from where we lived. We got to know it very well. Settling in to South Yarra, we have yet to settle on a place that we can call our own to such an extent. There are plenty to choose from, from traditional to stylish to upmarket to wowzers, and perhaps it is the incredible range of choice that has led us to be unable to pick a new favourite. The London, for all of its faults, was really our only choice and so we loved it, flaws and all. This mix was recorded live on the Saturday night before my birthday, having returned from a celebratory dinner at one of the many local options. An unassuming place with a French name and a Carlton Draught beer sign lit up on the roof, it is mix between gastropub and fine dining, and it was a great place to ring in a quiet birthday celebration. I suspect we will be back there many more times in the months and years to come.

It is the winter solstice here in Australia as I write this, which means short, cold days and a lot less sunshine than one might like. Cold weather often leads to contemplation, and having moved into a new home earlier this year, we are now assessing how to balance heating levels, taking into account comfort on one hand and the cost of energy on the other. With modern electricity providers able to provide hour by hour readings, a logging thermometer has given us the chance to experiment with how we set the controls. The questions raised are both economic and philosophical. How much is it worth to be comfortable? Is it better to rug up, or to shell out? And just how do you decide where to draw the line? Hopefully a new programmable thermostat will help us zero in on a reasonable balance between comfort and cost.  

I have many fond memories of road trips over the years. Some were with family, some were with friends, and some by myself. Whether flying solo or with a copilot alongside, a journey by road can be a transformative experience. For every road trip I can remember, music was a big part of the experience. There is nothing like a big chunk of seat time with good tunes and good scenery to stimulate conversation, introspection, perspective and reflection. The nature of road trips is that they often represent (or in hindsight end up as) turning points in the broader journey of life. As such, the car stereo ends up providing the soundtrack to an important period of change and growth. We have been spending the past few weeks planning a road trip in the mountains in the coming months, and it feels like it is coming together well. Maybe that is what has me all nostalgic. Either way, this mix was recorded with mileage in mind. It starts slow, covers a fair bit of ground, picks up speed towards the end, and ultimately ends up far from where it started. It was recorded live in South Yarra in early April 2019.

Funny how the future keeps showing up. There are a handful of books I buy and shove into the hands of anyone who will take a copy. One of these is by Daniel Gilbert, and it is called Stumbling On Happiness. One of the key themes throughout the book is how we imperfectly perceive the future, and by extension how we imperfectly relate to our future selves. As Gilbert sees it, we tend to believe that who we are at the moment is the final destination of our becoming. As such, present day us sets goals for future us, without really understanding who future us will be. Working through this realisation may not be a blueprint for living, but it at least helps shine a light on how we see the future, and what we might best do in the present to balance the here and now with the coming soon. On a personal level, at least in terms of living arrangements the future has finally arrived, and looking at it in detail it is for the moment pretty alright. This is Episode 072 of Music For Small Audiences, and it was the first mix recorded in the living room of our new home in South Yarra.

The weather can change quickly in Melbourne, particularly when a cool change comes through. So it was on the day this mix was recorded. It was a Friday evening in early January 2019, after a day spent at the beach (Jan Juc). The mix itself was recorded live in the hours after an obscenely hot summer day quickly transposed into a mild evening, thanks to a typically Melburnian temperature drop of fifteen degrees in thirty minutes.  This mix also came hot on the heels of a fantastic New Years Eve party, and a bit of a send off of our current place of residence in Richmond. After four years we are packing up and moving out, and we were chuffed to have had a group of beautiful people come help us say goodbye to our lovely little yellow house on the hill. For one last night the crew came together, talking old times and planning further adventures for the months to come. This mix accordingly contains a few unique tunes, some inspired by the 90s theme of the evening, and some brought around as special treats from those in the know. 

Last weekend I was lucky enough to be invited to play some house music for a housewarming party celebrating the newly expanded home of two very good friends. Located in the inner west, this groovy pad was once two separate residences, which through some creative design work now works as a beautiful single home. The party was fantastic, and the setup superlative, from the lamb on a spit through to the top range Pioneer hardware set up in the DJ booth. As a get together it was one we had been looking forward to, and it did not disappoint. From a musical perspective I had a chance to play exactly the set I wanted, from early afternoon trip hop through to some rather large late evening tunes. It was also a chance to make new friends, and to share a booth with two solid blokes across ten plus hours. In DJing as in life, good preparation is key. This mix was recorded the weekend previously, as a test run through many of the songs I hoped I would be playing at the housewarming. It represents a fairly accurate snapshot of the set I played once the sun went down, the crowd moved indoors, and the lighting rig came out.

Finding a place to call home is never easy. Putting roots down means taking a chance, joining a community, and committing to the transition from transient to resident. With that in mind, I am exceptionally excited to be moving back to South Yarra in 2019, to call our new house our new home. As a suburb South Yarra has a bit of everything, close to the city but with plenty of parks and quiet pockets, while our new home has everything we need for the years to come. While Richmond has been good to us, the timing is right for us to move on, to settle down, to settle in and to set ourselves up on the south side of the river. This mix was recorded live on the Friday night before the auction that found us our new home. Feeling vaguely guilty for not making it to Sasha on the night, we settled for revisiting a couple of classic tunes, presented here alongside some of the newer material that has risen its way to the top of my record collection in recent weeks.

We measure progress in increments. Major life events stand as demarcations, with time able to be divided into before and after. As a recreational long distance runner, I know that it sometimes takes everything we have to make it around the next bend. Other times, the distance seems to fly by in the background, while mind and body are at peace and at ease. Either way, a kilometre is a kilometre, and the distance must be covered one step at a time by putting one foot in front of the other, for better or for worse. However the distance goes, it can be quite rewarding to then look back from a vantage point and realise just how much distance has been covered. So too it is with relationships. What starts as a single moment can grow over time into something special and significant. It certainly has in my case. We returned to Castlemaine in recent weeks, and on a very special day made a very special commitment to one another, marking a milestone for us both and sparking cause for significant celebration.

We spent a recent weekend in the town of Castlemaine, ninety minutes outside of Melbourne. It was a lovely, rustic weekend with a bit of fresh air and a bit of adventure, and it was a fitting way to cap off the transition from winter to spring. My mother has long espoused travel as a catalyst for personal growth. While we were not away long and were not especially far from home, the distance and experience was enough to help drive a meaningful shift in perspective. It also served as a helpful reminder of just how much fun a morning at the markets or an afternoon on a bicycle can be.

I read somewhere that our memories change every time we recall them. Each time we remember something it seems we are reassembling the story anew, distorting and reshaping the past through the influence of present day emotions and values. English philosopher John Locke posited that our identity only persists as far back as we can remember. But basing our idea of who we are on a foundation of distant, intangible, and evolving recollections is hardly a recipe for certain self identity. Perhaps ambiguity is to be embraced, then, while history gently rewrites itself in each of us.

As an experiment in delayed gratification, the marshmallow test pitted the willpower of young children against the tasty appeal of one or more marshmallows, with a stopwatch in between. Sometimes the children won, and sometimes the marshmallows won. Follow up studies suggested that the kids who were better able to control their desires were more likely to succeed in life. Sounds reasonable enough, if a bit disappointing for the impulsive types among us. More recent analysis casts a bit of shadow on the marshmallow model, however. As is the case with a lot of famous social science studies, it turns out the key findings are hard to replicate, and that the predictive relationship between self control and success may not actually be measurable in marshmallow minutes. Do the savers really have the edge over the eaters? Does struggling against desire really build character? Or are we just as well going with the flow, picking up the marshmallows as they come, and letting the chips fall where they may? Hard to say. Depends how much you like marshmallows I guess.