Born To Run?

My Dad is a runner. In 1963 he almost won the Open Mile at the Achilles Cup, Adelaide’s private school boys’ athletics meet. Dad was the favourite, but he went out too hard and the Scotch boy caught him on the final straight. I like it when he tells this story.

I like to tell a story of my own, about my name. When I was born, in 1980, the English runner Sebastian Coe was preparing for the Moscow Olympics – and Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) was still top of the pops as far as Mum was concerned. My name represents Dad, the jock, and Mum, the intellectual, finding common ground. Like most good stories, there’s some truth in it.

Growing up, my brother and I loved sport but thought running a strange pursuit. In fact, in some ways I took after J.S. more than after Lord Coe: there were more family concerts of baroque music, with Mum accompanying my recorder on the harpsichord, than there were jogs along the beach. Dad dragged us out for a run around the oval once or twice, but Thomas and I would soon get distracted attempting left-foot banana kicks at goal from impossible angles. More fun, less effort.

With very few exceptions, I never went running solo until much later in life. At age 27 I moved to Sydney, as much to improve my health as to see family and friends. I ate well, bodysurfed a lot, stopped drinking and smoking – and then one day, perhaps when the beaches were closed, I decided to go for a run.

It was a rather sobering experience. I lasted two minutes on the steep slopes of Randwick and Coogee before breaking into a walk. A few minutes later I attempted to run again. Then walked some more. Returning home with my tail between my legs, I could easily have forgotten all about running for another twenty years. So why didn’t I?

Mainly I kept at it because I’d been unhealthy for so long, and now I wanted to get fit. Running was a means to an end, but more than that it seemed particularly efficient form of exercise: you could run from the moment you left the front door to the moment you arrived home, the odd traffic delay notwithstanding. And, even if every minute of the run was painful, there was always the high that came afterwards.

There is an equlibrium here. For several years I appreciated the benefits of running enough that I could put up with the act itself, two or three times a week, for four or five kilometres. But running along the Yarra I began to glimpse something better, a higher state where I actually enjoyed being outside, running through the trees and up the riverbank.

Back in Adelaide before Christmas 2010, I went exploring the hills around Mum’s new place in Balhannah. I chose a loop on the map that looked about 7kms in length, and managed not to get lost. It was a beautiful, undulating course but what struck me most was a feeling I experienced about twenty minutes in. It only lasted about five minutes, but I instantly recognised it as the Holy Grail I never knew I’d been seeking.

I felt like I could run forever.

A week later I ran the 11km loop in Chambers Gully with a friend. We climbed (slowly) for 6 kms, ran along a ridge with a stunning city view, and descended for 4kms. My mate nursed me through it and bought my Gatorade at the end, but I still felt like I’d won the Boston Marathon.

A week after that I kicked a soccer ball barefoot on the beach, and broke a toe.

So the first half of 2011 was a write off. I got depressed. I swam a bit, and a few times it felt good and right like running had begun to feel. Mostly it was quite boring; with all due respect to the Northcote pool, the scenery (especially underwater) is very dull. Slowly I began to realise that, even though my toe wasn’t fully healed, I could still run without doing it further damage.

My road trip up the east coast was the real turning point. I camped by deserted beaches and woke up with a barefoot run and a swim. With my friend Daniel I ran the hills of Goonengerry, the 8km loop around Minyon Falls, the beaches and cliff faces of Bunjalong and Yuraygir National Parks. We weren’t just exercising, we were exploring, socialising – and getting buff to swan around Rainbow Serpent with our tops off.

More than once Daniel led me down a trail that wasn’t signposted. We’d follow it for a kilometre or two, and just as I began to complain aloud and suggest we turn back, we’d arrive somewhere magical: a hill with a view, or a river for swimming. We’d stop and enjoy this place we’d discovered, then run back.

Returning to Melbourne, I’ve kept running but struggled to recapture this sense of adventure and pleasure in running. Thankfully, the other day a present from Daniel arrived in the post: a copy of Born To Run by Christopher McDougall.

This post has been rather subdued thus far – partly because I’m recovering from a bug, partly because up to this point in the story I have more or less uninspired about running. For now at least, Born to Run has completely turned this around. Two weeks ago I was back in the habit of running dutifuly, nose to the grindstone. Now I’m dreaming of running around Australia barefoot. I simply cannot wait to get back out there.

Born to Run is a classic piece of “participant-observer” journalism. The book opens with the injury prone McDougall being counselled by top doctors to give running away for good. It finishes with him completing a 50 mile ultramarathon through the Copper Canyons of Mexico, a race that pitted the legendary endurance athletes of the local Tarahumara people against some of the best US ultrarunners.
It’s a cracking read: every chapter ends on a cliffhanger, or with a mystery that needs solving. And inseparable from the physical quest to run the race is McDougall’s inquiry into the crucial role played by running in the story of human evolution.

It’s hard to imagine a greater motivational tool for runners than this: apparently we really are born to run. Worried about your big butt? Well, you don’t really use those gluteus maximus muscles to walk, only to run - and if you don’t use them they’re only going to get bigger. What about your body fat percentage? Apparently humans have relatively high body fat (compared to, say, chimpanzees) precisely to enable us to run long distances.

And why did early humans need to run so far? To hunt. Most animals can beat us pretty easily over short distances, but when it comes to distance running we are right at the top of the tree. The technique of persistence hunting, which has probably been in use since the arrival of Homo erectus 2.6 million years ago, is still practised today by some traditional tribespeople in Africa. Homo sapiens’ ability to run might even explain why we succeeded and the Neanderthals disappeared.

Lastly, if we’ve been running so far for so long, why do we need all these fancy shoes? Well, the good news for people who hate Nike – or just enjoy the feeling of the earth under their feet – is we probably don’t. Cushioned shoes encourage us to run with a gait that actually increase the impact of running on our bodies. Going barefoot is much healthier, as long as you run with proper form. (Wearing shoes is also fine as long as your form is good.)

This post has become, if not a marathon, then at least a longer, slower version of my usual method. I have much more to say on this brilliant book, my Dad’s illustrious athletics career, the genesis of my name and who knows what else – but now I’m off for a run. Not because I feel I should, but the fact it's my evolutionary destiny helps to explain why I want to.

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If anyone out there wants to join me in exploring Melbourne on foot, I’m going to start with the Merri Creek Trail later this week.

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There's lots of good reading online on the science behind the Running Man hypothesis. You can read a quick article that sums it up pretty well here.

Aphex Twin @ the Palace, 8/3/2012

As JPS and Mike Hunt go three for three on stage at the Palace Tuesday night, it occurs to me that warming up for Aphex Twin really is a dream gig.

Think about it, you can play anything. And I mean anything.

What are you going to do, clear the dancefloor? It’s filling fast no matter what records you spin. Freak the crowd out? These people have paid good money to be freaked out. Upstage the main act? Um, yeah. Good luck with that.

The boys seem to enjoy the freedom to go dark and heavy, banging out Autechre (‘Second Bad Vilbel’), Nosaj Thing, Eskamon and Plaid. Heads nod and knees bend in appreciation. The only misstep comes towards the end when Mike, sporting an oversized Underground Resistance tee, takes things too far into minimal tech territory - but Jerry quickly jumps up and fades in Autechre’s ‘Bike’.



It’s a masterstroke. Many of us gathered here tonight have listened to this track many, many times in the privacy of our own homes. Now, it bursts out of the huge sound system like a coded message for the faithful: you’re not in your bedrooms any more. This is where you, and this music, really belong.

Mark Pritchard’s arrival is another sign we’re in an alternate universe for electronica geeks. Where else are 40-something white men in shorts and glasses greeted so ecstatically? (Well, perhaps the punk scene). And three nights after Africa HiTech’s triumphant Espionage show, he deserves a rapturous welcome.

Pritchard has been in the game for over 20 years, through innumerable partnerships and monnikers like Global Communication, Jedi Knights, Link, Reload and Harmonic 313. He relocated to Sydney several years ago, and is now the closest thing Australia has to electronic music royalty on a global scale. One happy result of this is that, when living legends like Autechre and Aphex Twin tour, there is a man with the credentials and the record bag to play alongside.

“He should play something hard!” we joke to each other as the 303s roll in. Tonight we’re partying like the Noughties never happened, but it doesn’t feel regressive. In the Nineties, UK electronic music hit a sweet spot where anything was possible. With inspiration streaming in from across the Atlantic and across the Channel, rave music cannibalised hip-hop, breakbeat, house, techno, electro, ambient, krautrock and more  (including chin-stroking academic music) in the search for the perfect party where the beat never stopped – and never got boring.

Underpinning this, of course, was a unique scene that, while growing, was still relatively united and utopian. But packed into the Palace tonight, we are a long way from London warehouses or the fields of Castlemorton. As Pritchard drops a hint of his/Reload’s classic “Feedback Energy”, it’s becoming increasingly hard to dance.

By the time he plays the VIP mix of “Out In The Streets”, all we can really do is pogo, headbang or hug friends – and from here on it’s a 20-minute jungle rinseout to the finish. To be honest it’s a bit much for me at 9:30pm on a Tuesday, and if this is the warm-up act then I’m getting slightly worried we’ll only be visited by the evil Richard James tonight.

After a tense few minutes of quiet anticipation, the stage is bathed in an abstract pattern of light that quickly coalesces into the famous Aphex Twin logo. Somewhere up there, we can just make out the head of the great man “Believe in me” intones an electronic voice over an ambient track. “I believe in you!” shouts a bloke behind me. An 303 line creeps in and then the beat drops – it’s hip-hop! The crowd roars and begins to dance. Or at least bop.

For the first half of the set, I find it difficult to enjoy the music as much as I feel I should. Partly it’s my own expectations, which are ridiculously high. Seven years ago Aphex played the Prince of Wales and the music was two hours of danceable bliss – even though we were practically dancing in the toilets to find space.

Partly it’s the squash, but perhaps partly it’s the sound? Stevie T from 8 Foot Felix reckons the speakers are set too far apart and there are too many dead flat walls. I look around. It’s a beautiful venue, and the three packed tiers above make me feel like I’m in a Lenny Kravitz video. But the sound is a little trebly, the bass a tiny bit boomy, and the melodies in the mid-range are getting lost.

Should I join my friends who fled upstairs to find room to move? A beautiful moment early on decides me againt it. The second track breaks down into a rolling synth line bathed in chorus, and as the beat comes back in the visuals morph into close-up, live images of punters dancing.

Most fans would be expecting this, but it’s still a trip to witness up close. And for much of the show, amazingly, the visuals seem to take centre stage. They are constantly entertaining – especially the sequence that puts Aphex and some punters’ heads on the bodies of Aussie icons like Shane Warne, Bindi Irwin and even Julia Gillard being bustled away from the Tent Embassy protesters – but at times almost distracting.

I can’t help but compare this show to Autechre, who play their music in total darkness (the Exit lights and a lamp on stage the only exception). An Autechre gig is ipso facto all about the music: find a spot, open your ears and listen. Dance if you will or can.

I’m tempted to say this show is all about spectacle. But afterwards my mates who fled upstairs to dance tell me they had heaps of space, tore it up, couldn’t see a thing and loved every minute of it. A matter of perspective, then.

The crowd greets “Fingerbib” (off Richard D. James) and “PWSteal.Ldpinch.D” (off the Analord Eps) with ecstatic hands in the air, but the turning point of the set,  for me, is when Aphex drops Surgeon’s “Radiance”. It’s a monster of a track, timeless and terrifying rave music, and the carnivalesque visuals of red and white fractals complement it perfectly. It’s the epileptic fit you want to be having.

Hints of Drukqs drum ‘n’ bass takeover, and then something very unexpected happens. Two hooded figures appear on stage, making their way down from Aphex Twin to the lower stage near the punters. They are wearing unbelievably awesome fluourescent orange onesies. Then they pull out mics and start rapping in South African accents – it’s Die Antwoord!

With hype levels going through the roof, Ninja and Yo-Landi rhyme and dance over some seriously hard, jumping rave music before Ninja decides to somersault into the crowd and lead a chant of “Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi!” from mid-air.

It’s all over before we know it, and the whole episode sums up Die Antwoord. They’re fun and they get the party started, but they’re in pretty bad taste and you wouldn’t want them sticking around too long. IMHO, as it were.

If there was any question Aphex might be upstaged, he puts it to bed with the last twenty minutes of his set. The intensity builds and builds as the tempo ramps up and the sound palette heads inexorably towards white noise. We move through jungle into gabba and breakcore territory. People are moshing, people are leaving, people are covering their ears, people are laughing and letting it wash over them.

A set that began in relatively ambient territory finishes in a screeching squall of sound. There’s even a hint of “Ventolin” in there somewhere. It’s an undeniable visceral experience, and when Richard James leaves the stage with a little thumbs-up the place goes bananas. What follows is the lengthiest, most boisterous attempt to win an encore I’ve ever been a part of – and even though most of us must know we’ve got bugger all chance of the man reappearing on stage, it feels right. Like a tribute.

After all, who knows if we’ll ever see Aphex Twin in Australia again?

Maybe as you’re reading this you’re on your way to the Future Music Festival to see him headline a stage after Sven Vath, no less. If so, I’m a bit jealous. At least at Future most of the crowd will be off at Skrillex or whoever, and there should be plenty of room to move.

Maybe one day we’ll get to hear music like this in the setting it really deserves. Mark Pritchard and Africa HiTech at Rainbow Serpent 2013 would be a pretty good start.

Maybe I'm just an old raver who can't accept that it's not 1998 any more.

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(Maybe I should have written this piece on Wednesday. Sorry it took me so long, and it's still a bit rushed.  I’ve been sick as a dog and am just feeling better. I’ll post more videos when I can.)

Espionage feat. Africa Hitech @ Miss Libertine, 3/3/12

Halfway through the Summer Innit party in February, Scotty cracked the shits , got on his bike and headed southside to a trance party on the beach.

“When I first moved to Melbourne I spent years going out and supporting the bass scene”, he said as he was leaving. “And you know what? No one ever dances. The crew here are just so fucking uptight!”

I looked around. A hundred or so people sat placidly on the grass around us as the DJ dropped an old jungle remix of the Fugees’ ‘Ready Or Not’. Our mate Daniel was doing his best to ignite the dancefloor, chasing a little kid around with the inexplicable energy of a onetime raw vegan drum ‘n’ bass fiend. But apart from that, an energetic frisbee circle was the closest we’d come to getting our collective boogie on.

This scenario is something of a recurring nightmare: the more adventurous electronic music is stuck in its ghetto of pot-smoking chin-strokers, while the rocking parties are soundtracked by house and trance. It’s like I’m 21 again, and either freaking out at the What Is Music? Festival or queueing up with a heavy heart to get into Q (Adelaide Q).

The good news is, Melbourne has a new crew hellbent on making a mess of these age-old distinctions. In the last year a bit, the Operatives have thrown their Espionage parties with the likes of Flying Lotus, Mount Kimbie, Clark, Marcus Intalex, Nosaj Thing, Klute and Martyn. On the same date as my birthday bash last month they put on Rustie, Hudson Mohawke, Araabmuzik and Balam Acab at Roxanne – just about the most so-hot-right-now lineup I can recall seeing (even on paper) in Australia.

So when Scotty grooves over to me on Saturday night, with Africa Hitech easing into their 3-hour set at Miss Libertines, gestures despairingly at the crowd and shouts in my ear that “Someone has to shake these people up!”… well, it’s not a good sign. Except that onstage Mark Pritchard and Steve Spacek are beginning to do just that, moving from the soulful reggae-infused breakbeats of their opening into Shangaan electro vibes. Happy hardcore party in a South African village, anyone?

As the music heads for the darker climes of grime and dubstep, Scotty starts to shake himself and the dancefloor up with some frenetic moves that raise the bar – and draw looks of bemusement and admiration from the odd chin-stroking bystander. But before long he’s back in my ear about the mixing.

“It’s Jamaican style”, I tell him as one track is wound noisily down and another sprints from the blocks. And when you’re traversing as much territory as Africa Hitech are tonight, Jamaican style seems like a safe bet – fair enough too, Kingston is one of their spiritual homes (along with London, Sheffield, Chicago and the afore-mentioned South African village).

It’s not like they never beat mix, either. With the room already cranking at around 160bpm, they bring in “Out In The Streets” to a roar of approval. We all do our best “Melbourne Shuffle Meets Chicago Footwork Inna Dancehall” before BOOM, they drop that classic dub reggae song we all know but I sadly cannot name and then BOOM straight back to “Out In The Streets VIP” – now with extra jungle!

It’s full ragga style and the perfect climax of their set, and from here on they drop one massive drum ‘n’ bass tune after another until I’m retreating to the toilet to douse my head in cold water. JPS AKA Jerry from the Operatives takes over and plays one of the craziest tunes I’ve ever heard first up, but by now I’ve realised I’m done for the night. I’m not 21 any more, after all.

“Top five all-time best music heard in a club”, I suggest to Scotty, and he tells me he’s always going to trust my musical recommendations from now on.

Well, my next tip is pretty obvious: Espionage featuring Jacques Greene, Machinedrum and Funkineven on Easter Sunday night. Sweet baby Jesus! And tomorrow night Jerry AND Mark Pritchard are back supporting Aphex Twin at the Palace.

I just hope we’re not the only ones dancing.

Top 20 Tracks of 2011

I'm a tad late with this, so I've had the benefit of trawling through the end of year lists produced by The Wire, Pitchfork, Bleep, XLR8R, FACT, etc. And what a bizarre decision by The Wire to give James Ferraro their album of the year! Good grist for the blogging mill I guess...

I've put the tracks together as something of a listenable playlist, rather than in any particular ranking. I'll write a little something below each track to give some context too. Enjoy!




The somewhat atypical opening track of Hecker's Ravedeath, 1972 album has been mesmerising me all year long. Sheer transcendent beauty! See also his Dropped Pianos EP and, for techno trainspotters, his early work under the Jetone alias on Force Inc and others.



For those unfamiliar with rapper Lil B (and I'll own up to that), Clams Casino seemed to come out of nowhere with a fully-formed, blissed-out downtempo hip-hop sound. 'Numb' is the standout cut on his Instrumental Mixtape, followed later in the year by the rather disappointing Rainforest EP.



With just one EP and a few singles to his name, Holy Other still managed to make the Sonar bill and top several end of year lists. While decidedly easy on the ears, his sound has just enough melancholy and sonic depth to invite repeat listens. A little over-hyped but undourbtedly perfect for the morning after a big night.



One half of UK dubstep duo Vex'd, Kuedo was another artist who seemed over-acclaimed in 2011. His album Severant is as a patchy listen, but when he does nail the vintage synth with modern beats sound, he really takes you there. 'Salt Lake Cuts' is a perfect slice of sunshiney euphoria for the edge of the dancefloor.



A friend of a friend of a friend who witnessed Matthewdavid performing live in his native Los Angeles reported "making love to the speaker all night". There's a lot of low end, a lot of high end, and it's all swirling together in a glorious kaleidoscope of sound. 'Like You Mean It' comes off his Outmind EP, put out on Flying Lotus' Brainfeeder, and for mine it beats any of FlyLo's recent output hands down. See also Matthewdavid's amazing XLR8R podcast of November 2010.



Looking back, why was everyone so surprised that trance and hip-hop made such sweet love together? 'AT2' was the first Araab track I heard, on Laurel Halo's FACT mix, and although the album Electronic Dream didn't quite live up to my high expectations (especially the terrible production quality) it remains on high rotation. See also 'Golden Touch', in which he samples Jam and Spoons 'Right in the Night' to great effect. Touring Australia this February.



Not much from Burial lately, but everything about 'Street Halo' is pretty much perfect: the vocals, the crackle, the drop and even the unexpected coda. One night I was inexplicably holding down the pavement outside some footballer bar in Richmond when the DJ inside dropped this; I ran inside to show my respect, only for the bartender to cut the music and turn on the house lights just as I made ecstatic contact with my new favourite DJ.



A new Modeselektor album is a real event, and although Monkeytown is even patchier than usual - there's a track for every DJ on there, and a lot of cheese - 'This' is a superbly tense and haunting piece of electronica with all their trademark polish and bass weight.



Not only the best of the TKOL remixes, but better than any originals Radiohead or Caribou have put out for some time. When I played this off the Bose Sound Dock at Rainbow Serpent, a hush fell over our little teepee; at the end, Ned remarked that he wanted to hear it again the next day so he could remember it. (I hope you're reading, Ned.) So graceful, yet so propulsive - and with an unexpected euphoric payoff to boot.



Byetone is Olaf Bender of German label Raster Noton, known for the intellectually rigorous and often demanding electronica of the likes of co-founder Carsten Nicolai AKA Alva Noto. So it was a pleasant surprise to find his Symeta album featuring some very danceable, crunchy industrial beats. Bleep obviously thought so too, naming it their album of the year.



Having produced some huge, synth-driven dubstep beats over the last few years (see especially 'Quantum Leap'), it was a nice surprise to hear Slugabed drop something close to a four-to-the-floor beat - although still with a monstrous wobble. The Moonbeam Rider EP was full of ecstatic melodies and strange twists and turns, and rather unfairly lost in the flood of UK beats. Expect big things in the future from this guy.



I hear he's a great DJ, but I can't really imagine going off on the dancefloor to Martyn's music: on the whole it's just too polished, too housey and too minimal for my taste. But this last track off his Ghost People LP is pure rave joy from start to finish, unloading one catchy synth line after another over a breakbeat that's perfectly in the pocket. A whole album like this please, Mr Martyn!



You know what to expect from Surgeon: serious, uncompromising techno. Breaking the Frame, Anthony Child's first album in over a decade, delivers this in spades - but incorporates more broken rhythms (even dubstep) that lend the work a real freshness. And 'Radiance' is so mind-bendingly immense, it makes me long for a warehouse big enough to do it justice.



One half of US post-garage outfit Sepalcure, Travis Stewart aka Machinedrum is an electronic chameleon who lately has latched onto Chicago juke with interesting results. While much of his hyped Room(s) LP veered dangerously close to the background (a bemusing result for such frenetic rhythms), 'Flycatcha' takes the sound back to the dancefloor with a vengeance. Touring Australia in April.



Now living in Sydney, Mark Pritchard is probably the closest Australia has to electronic music royalty on a global scale. As Global Communication (with Tom Middleton), Reload, and more recently Harmonic313 and now Africa Hitech (with Steve Spacek) he just keeps on releasing great tunes in an amazing array of styles. The 93 Million Miles was a sometimes difficult blend of juke, dubstep, acid house and free jazz, but this jungly remix of monster hit 'Out In the Streets' cannot be denied. Playing a three hour show at Miss Libertines in early March.



Carrier was an interesting album on Dusk and Blackdown's Keysound Recording, half 'purple garage' (to coin a stillborn term), and half juke-infused, wistful electronica. 'Trust' falls decidedly into the latter category, and was easily my most listened-to track of the year.



It took a while for Blue Daisy's modern take on trip-hop to hit home - and the first half of The Sunday Gift still leaves me a little cold. 'Shadow Assassins' straddles an unusual space between a fist-pumping dancefloor and the couch at the back of the room. You may wish to blaze, but there's really no need.



Wander/Wonder is, aptly enough, a meandering and beautiful album of warm bass, treated vocals and artful sound collage - and 'Await' is its emotional highpoint. Balam Acab is touring in February, although the live show is apparently terrible. He sings. Why does everyone want to be a rock star?



2011 was Nicolas Jaar's year, and the title track off his debut album shows why. The rhythm section is a perfect low-slung swagger, and up above the vocals reverberate endlessly like a dream that might just become a nightmare. The whole album is amazing, although if you want something more upbeat try his EPs and remixes. They're mostly amazing too. Oh yeah, and he just turned 22.

Apparently GusGus are a veteran Icelandic group of musicians/artists who once counted Emiliana Torrini as a member. Their latest work is being released on Kompakt, the ageing Cologne colossus of minimal techno, and although much of it is too vocal-led and cheesy for my taste, there are moments of beauty and beautifully sparkly production. Hopefully 'Benched', the last and slowest track on Arabian Horse, hints at their future direction.

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Thanks for listening, and reading. Comments welcome!

Peter Haas(z) - Almost Certainly Not a Dud Root

I’ve been thinking of reviving this blog.

Actually, I’ve been thinking about starting three blogs: one on electronic music, one on sport and one on politics and society. It didn’t take me too long to detect a small flaw in this plan, though. So for now I’ll see if I can write enough to resurrect this one.

Somehow in my absence this blog has reached almost 900 views. Perhaps the Anonymous who wrote “Seb Prowse is a dud root” in the comments section of an older post has been checking back regularly for signs of a reaction? If so, they just got one: I deleted the comment. There are some things a man likes to keep quiet.

Interestingly, the same phrase also appeared in the women’s toilets at Trades Hall late last year (or so I was told). The plot thickens. Either our perpetrator is being rather presumptuous, or we are dealing with a rather short list of suspects. Or, perhaps., I am merely the incidental subject of a post-ironic slogan which will soon be as ubiquitous as the dreaded Vote for Pedro or, preferably, the mysterious “Who is Peter Haasz?” graffiti campaign at Melbourne Uni in the late 1990s.

I never knew the answer to this question at the time, although I have met Peter Haasz several times in subsequent years. We bonded over achieving fifteen minutes of name recognition in ridiculous circumstances. If I ever meet him again, I’ll ask if his name has a ‘z’ on the end. I’ve written it both ways and neither looks quite right.

Pretty soon we’ll be saying that if you can remember the late 1990s in Melbourne, you weren’t really there. Or, at least, you weren’t getting your gear from Carl Williams.

Here I was taking a leisurely stroll down memory lane, and now I’ve run smack bang into a dead drug dealer. Time to end this post and think about what comes next.

Welcome back to A New Rhyme, and thanks for reading.

E-Tome Part Deux: The Slowening

"Well, I'm back."

(A bag of delicious hemp seeds for the first person to correctly identify the above literary reference AND decipher the puerile Hollywood referencing in the title of this, my second e-tome.)

I'm back in the spare room in Goonengerry, promising you, dear friend, that this e-tome will be HIGH IMPACT, in fact PACT WITH TOP ANECDOTES and even, dare I say (I do) ALL KILLER NO FILLER... there will be at least one NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCE - not including the FISH HITTING ME IN THE HEAD incident - plus TWO LEECH STORIES and a potentially numerous CASUAL MENTIONS OF THE "BEARD". And all this in a GUARANTEED LOWER WORD COUNT (claim may not be accurate) than the first e-tome.

When we last left the story, your hero was bravely negotiating the faunal deathtrap that is the hinterland of northern NSW. Now make an extra-strong coffee and strap yourself in for Part Deux!

The Germans and I spent a sunny afternoon in Nimbin. And why not, after all? We are consenting adults. Hard to find good drugs in Nimbin though - on the main street at least - unless you want to buy them from the guys with the zombie eyes. The old woman offering cookies and mushrooms seemed nice, as was the guy in Happy High Herbs who sadly reminded me that Philosopher's Stone is no longer legal. But we are health-conscious, sporadically law-abiding folk and so, after a brief visit to a sparsely attended market where the undoubted highlight was three women singing accapella (is it still accapella if they hit wood blocks on every second downbeat) songs like "Shakti Woman", we bought some picnic food and headed to a swimming spot by the creek.

Later in my trip, my Uncle Neil caught me by surprise when he told me he had attended the Aquarius Festival at Nimbin in 1971. He then went on to explain he had been there with the Christian groups trying to save the hippies from eternal damnation, and that when the hippies had surrounded the tent and threatened to burn it down, angels with fiery swords had appeared and protected God's faithful servants. At the time I was somewhat lost for words but, looking back, it seems possible the two groups had been drinking from the same waterhole. But I digress.

On the drive back from Nimbin, we made a spontaneous decision to go to Queensland. It sounds crazy until you realise that Queensland was, like, 50 kms away. So that night Sarah, Marco and I camped once more at Brunswick Heads, or, as we soon came to call it, as loudly and as often as possible, 'Bruns' - before starting the drive north in the general direction of Agnes Water and the Town of 1770. According to the Lonely Planet, it is the 'next Byron Bay'. Warning signs NOT HEEDED.

It didn't seem that far on the map, but Australia is a big place, hey? Not to mention all the roadworks... Still, a few weeks' driving through potholes had completely changed my political philosophy from socialist ravetopia to "full employment through a permanent national road-building program", so I took my medicine with good grace. And a dose of Phillip Pullman. After a swim at Caloundra we made it to Rainbow Beach - on the mainland just south of Fraser Island.

And there we met the schoolies. And they were just so... cute! So friendly and not even that drunk - probably because every time word went around of a party on the beach, the police turned up and confiscated all the grog. We mainly talked to a funny bunch of boys from Maryborough (a middling size town nearby), of whom as many were coolies (they'd left before year 12) and or toolies (their older mates) as actual schoolies. And when girls walked past one of them would skate over casually and then chicken out from actually making conversation. They thought we were cool because we came from so far away, had tattoos (OK, I don't have tattoos myself, but some of my best friends do) and looked like drug dealers (Marco).

So off we drove the next day with the scent of hopeful youth in our nostrils - for a vain attempt to see the turtles at Mon Repos, the desert vibe of Bundaberg which drove us panting into the nearest MacDonalds (I had a McFlurry) and finally, with fists pumping in the air, to Agnes Water... of which we quickly formed the impression that it was the next Noosa, not the next Byron.

But happy days nonetheless! Travelling with the Germans was a joy: so much nutella, so much banter, so many opportunities to say "I go to the toilet"... there was the time I panicked and forced them both to help me look for my glasses in the dark sand around my car, before feeling in my back pocket... the beautiful headland at 1770, where Captain Kirk and Mr Banks had landed all those years ago (not a joyous spot for indigenous locals, then)... and so much bodysurfing in underwhelming swell. The best waves were just south in the Deepwater National Park, where we spent a fun arvo in 1-2ft while birds divebombed into schools of fish - one of which, it is true, leaped out of the water and hit me in the head. A strange occurrence, and one that had me questioning my place (or otherwise ) in nature. It remains an open question.

I was due in Brisbane for a family do, so we headed south again via Poona west of Fraser - a strange campsite by the river where the sandflies vied with a fishing party obsessed with the Foo Fighters to see who could be the most annoying locals. By this stage I was sleeping in my tent to stay cool, as overnight lows were around 23 or 24, and with the music pumping until well past our bedtime (9pm) I just read by headtorch and rejoiced when the the Counting Crows came on. Torture is a relative concept.

In Brisbane I lived like a king for two days. My Dad has cousins in Brisbane, and although we have only been occasionally in touch over the years it was lovely to join Dad and Annie and all the family for my Aunt Pam's 70th birthday. My four (second or whatever) cousins were all there, a lovely bunch of boys who are all over 40 with families and jobs but very funny and playful with each other. I ate more seafood than I care to admit - including one prawn that bled on my bread when I ripped of its head - and a Moreton Bay Bug that looked a bit... chopped in half. And then fish. And chips. And fish kebabs. And cake. There may have been some more fish, but I made my excuses and drove into the Valley to meet the Germans for one last hurrah at the Dub Day Afternoon, where my friend Joe Lorback/ Comrade Dubs was playing... a lovely event with just the right amount of non-dub to keep us ravers interested. And surprising run-ins with mates Yasmin and Kaoru. And silly sober dancing which, at the ripe old age of 31, is apparently the order of the day.

A tearful farewell session with the Germans in the Brisbane CBD: one last iPod on shuffle, one last mango, and a tangy pineapple to boot. But in case you missed the memo: The Germans Are Coming To Rainbow Serpent!

The next few nights were spent with Dad's cousin Carolyn and her partner Anna, with whom Dad and Annie have stayed many a time in Taringa. I slept on the balcony, which was dry and mozzie-free and glorious. Carolyn told me a whole bunch of family history which was surprisingly fascinating - all these ancestors living these mostly forgotten lives! Thank god for Facebook: now we are all immortal. Dad and Annie did their morning walks up and down the hills, and on the second morning I boldly went out for a run - scarcely making it past them on the last climb before home.

Ew new (as Theresa would say), this e-tome is completely extra control...

I had a sweet couple of nights at Lennox Head with Joe and his housemates Dave and Emily - and the lovely Natalia who is now back in Melbourne. I jumped from a rock 10m high into the water at Dalwood Falls! I ran barefoot along the beach and made my calves sore! I made a deicious pasta feast with Joe and borrowed his copy of Bass Culture: When reggae was king (almost finished). I went to all nine op shops in Ballina. And I got to skype Theresa WITH VIDEO!!! I've been missing my beautiful girl a lot.

Saturday was Daniel's birthday, so I brought the Goonengerry crew (including Phoebe's indomitably pregnant friend Mikhaila) down to Byron for Joe and Dave's first reggae pool party at the Aquarius Backpackers in Byron... also on Blonderer's special day, we ate chocolate pancakes, hit the beach at Broken Head for the first time, swam and ran around the headland for a mad bodysurf at the next beach south which may or may not have been a beat... not knowing it was his birthday, I had found China Mieville's first novel King Rat for 50c in Ballina - a Pied Piper fantasy novel set in London's 1990s jungle scene... Bo!!!!

ANyway, I'm bored again DAMMIT!!!! And I haven't told the story of the leech (it was only on my ankle, and there is video footage), or Dan's leech (it was in his ear when he ran the Minyon Falls loop), or me and Dan running Minyon Falls (about 8km) sans leeches and sitting atop the 100m falls at the end... or all the healthy food we've been eating in two large meals a day... or Phoebe and I trying to improve Dan's djing... but I'll just end up with the (so-called) NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE, which took place at Bruns yesterday.

Dan and I drove down to Bruns for a bodysurf, despite the inclement weather. There were a few waves the around breakwater, and a southerly was blowing them towards the rocks - so we got in about thirty metres down. The water was warm and we caught a few waves, but after swimming back out I realised we were out of our depth, being swept towards the rocks... and it was all looking a bit dicey. We tried to swim away from it but had no luck, at which point Dan (being super-fit, a strong swimmer and an all-round gentleman) offered me the fins he was wearing. These I put on as the waves buffeted us around, and then we spent a few minutes trying to swim away from the rocks again... to no avail...

Now in case you didn't know I grew up by the beach, am experienced in the surf and a reasonable swimmer. I am generally confident in the water but this was fast becoming the dodgiest ocean situation I'd ever gotten myself into. We decided to try to surf towards shore, and Dan caught a little wave and managed to get out on the rocks - only cutting his leg slightly. I was further out and briefly tried to do the same, but it quickly became apparent that this was more dangerous than the alternative - I almost got smashed on the rocks and had to backpedal fast.

In the back of my mind throughout the last five or so minutes was the idea that I might have to go beyond the breakwater and try to swim in the head of the river. I was getting knocked around by waves and at one point swallowed a fair bit of water, was feeling buggered and a bit panicky, and decided to give it a go. As soon as I stopped fighting the current it quickly swept me around the rocks to the head of the river, where I floated on my back and used the flippers and the current to kick my way into the river (where we'd swum many times before - thankfully the terrain was quite familiar).

Dan was on the rocks where a few fishermen were also standing, and we gave each other the thumbs up because once inside the river, although still tired, I knew I'd be fine. I still had to swim a fair way into the protected beach, but I'd rested a bit and that only took a few more minutes. he dived in and swam the last fifty metres with me - and then went off to try to bodysurf further down the beach while I got my breath back and got changed, feeling a bit spooked but relieved.

So there it is, my brush with death... not really, but a dicey situation and one that should have been avoidable by sitting and watching the surf before we got in, as Dan said afterwards.

I'll leave it on this note. I'm alive and well, and in fact healthier than I've been in ages... tonight we're dining at Mikhaila's place, tomorrow Dan and I go camping for a few days, on Saturday surfing with Joe and Dan, maybe a doof at Broken Head after that... and next week I start the trek down to Melbourne to meet Theresa and hopefully enjoy a short camping trip with her before our longer trip to Tassie in January...

If you made it this far, HAVE A GOOD HARD AT LOOK AT YOURSELF! Seriously, get a life wtf. But I love you for it, and hope Part Deux has lived up to its predecessor.

Missing all my friends and family, and looking forward to seeing you all soon :)

Love Seb xx

P.S. The 'beard' is a day-by-day proposition... some days I think it's a goer, other days not so much... on a good day you can almost see it from a distance of more than a metre, in a certain slant of light, if you know what you're looking for...

P.P.S. I have lost it!!! I almost forgot an awesome dinner with my beautiful buddies from the student activist days, Edmee, Jess and Kim up in Brisbane... see my iPhone photos for proof... love you guys!!!

The first e-tome

(What follows is, by now a retrospective: the first Facebook note I posted about my recent ravels on the east coast of Australia.)

I'm sitting in the spare room of Dan and Phoebe's house in Goonengerry, near Mullumbimby in northern NSW. There are two "Dan and Phoebe"s, in case you didn't know. There's Danny Duck and PB down in Melbourne, and then there's this lot, recently of Docker River, NT. We've spent a few nights with them in the last week - and we is me and the Germans. Sarah and Marco are sleeping in Roland, their trusty Holden Jackaroo, although I reckon the sun will just be waking them up by now.

It's hot sleeping in a car, so I'm usually pretty comfortable with my choice of vehicle for this trip. I ended up with a 2002 Camry station wagon. It's just big enough to sleep in at a pinch, although so far I've been very happy in my swag. It's one of the deluxe models with three little poles that form domes at head, waist and toe - plenty of room and a reasonable foam mattress to boot.

You know the start of The Lord of the Rings, how it takes them a while to actually get anywhere and get going properly on the quest? (No? Well, take my word for it.) Well, I think I've finally arrived in Rivendell. From here on in it gets serious...

The trip began in Adelaide, where Mum helped me buy the car and I spent some lovely time with family while stocking up for the trip. My first long solo drive was the familiar road to Melbourne, Triple J alternating with Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy on CD, and a night with Theresa and then another at Candy St before heading to Canberra for a couple of nights with Dave. I drove into our nation's capital listening to the Senate on the radio, and with Dave hung out at the National Library, the Rob De Castella running track, the local pool and a sinophile dinner party.

All very, very civilised - unlike the first experience striking out on my own. From Canberra I drove to Newcastle, where I had my first ocean swim of the trip before realising I was due up in Byron Bay the next evening for a 6pm rendez-vous. Somehow I'd lost a day already. So I pushed on north and ended up just north of Port Macquarie as night fell, hoping desperately to avoid sleeping in a highway rest area. Thankfully the little town of Crescent Head turned out to be a great find, and I spent the night in a deserted carpark by the beach with my swag beside the car. At first I experienced a slight combination fear of rangers/ drunk locals/ Wolf Creek scenario, but somehow I feel safe in my swag. What or who could harm me in there? How would they even be able to see me? I slept like a log.

Waking at dawn and walking on the beach was a magical experience. I had the whole place to myself, the surf was beating down on the shore and I wandered sleepily around collecting beautiful shells that seemed to be everywhere. Then I climbed the headland for a view as the beach began to fill with runners and dogwalkers. I think I'll be back in Crescent Head before too long...

The drive to Byron still took most of the day, but by 5pm I had negotiated the descent from Bangalow and had arrived in what seemed to be the right place - but without a single sign welcoming me to Byron Bay. Was I in the right place? My iPhone confirmed that I could have just kept driving and hit the beach, so I got back on the main drag only to see Sarah and Marco walking up in the opposite direction. After a quick hello I parked right on the seafront and jumped in the water - it was raining, but I needed a wash and had already broken my rule about swimming in every beach you walk on that morning.

The Germans had already been in the area for a week or two, and had a found a nice place to camp a few days before - only to be moved on by the irate owner of the property! Undeterred, they found us another secluded, empty block of land a short way along the road to Bangalow. It's a good spot, and we've spent a few nights there already when we're around Byron.

Have you read The Byron Journals yet? When I wander around Byron I keep thinking about Melbourne Dan's novel, as well as all the stories that didn't make it in - could there be a second book on the cards... Bullshit: The Real Story Behind The Byron Journals??? (I taught the Germans 'bullshit' as part of my very brief Surfing 101 class, which also included how not to drop in and get your lights punched out by psycho locals - and Sarah hasn't seen Point Break, and neither has Phoebe, so we are building towards an epic viewing at some stage soon.)

We've experienced the drum circle, complete with Byron hardcore local boys trying to pick up dolled-up tourist girls, and the Pass and Tallows, although the waves have not been great at either. We've been camping more regularly at Brunswick Heads just 15km north, a pretty little town with a great beach and river that is perfect for swimming - a rope swing to jump off and local kids doing back flips off the bridge. And we've got our hippie on up here around Goonengerry, swimming at the foot of Minyon Falls, eating 'organic doughnuts' at the Mullum markets and mostly raw food feasts on D and P's beautiful deck overlooking gardens with wallabies and pademelons... and, last night, visiting the outdoor compost toilet in the dark and then keeping perfectly still, heart in mouth, as a large snake slid slowly across the path. I think that one was the friendly local python, but Phoebe has video footage of two brown tree snakes FIGHTING IN THE LIVING ROOM from a few nights ago.

The two funniest stories from the trips so far both happened around here. After the first night we spent here, almost a week ago when it poured with rain, Daniel (as Phoebe calls him, and it might be easiest if I do too) and I got up and went for an early morning run. It sounded doable, 5kms return to the orchard where you can pick up custard apples on the side of the road. I hadn't factored in the steep climbing driveway however, so I was buggered before we even made it onto the road, and exhausted by the time we made it back - with Daniel carrying all three custard apples. We stripped off for a dip in the waterhole (and yes, skip this part if you are squeamish), and I waS feeling almost human again and was giving myself a, ahem, cursory wash when I noticed something that felt unusual attached to the side of my scrotum...

We had already been enjoying Daniel's "leech on penis" stories for a while, so I feared the worse... but upon exiting the water it became clear that it was, in fact, a tick. So it was the naked walk back up to the house, where Phoebe, Sarah and Marco were relaxing on the deck - and Phoebe used her apparently renowned anti-clockwise rotation technique to remove said tick with the trademark popping sound. "We're friends for life now, Seb" she told me.

So, story number one is the tick. Story number two is a more straight up Seb travel story.

On Friday morning we woke up at Brunswick Heads, and after my morning swim we headed up to Mullum to rendez-vous with D and P at the Farmers Market. I drove into the carpark with the electronic dub sounds of Bluetech blasting through wide open windows, before we wandered around drinking cane juice (amazing)... and ran straight into Fred, a Melbourne man who lives ON CANDY ST, and who told me with a big smile that his band Lubdub were supporting... you guessed it, Bluetech that night at the Buddha Bar in Byron Bay!

So Friday night was a surprise party night. We chilled out in the afternoon with a swim at Brunswick Heads, the now traditional lunch with way too much nutella, and then Dan drove us all down in the Camry. The Buddha Bar is at the Byron Bay Brewery, and out the back in the beer garden a band played covers of U2 and god knows what else while inside the launch party for the Earth Freq festival 2012 was going down. We missed Lubdub but caught The Mollusk (that guy could get a dance floor going in a morgue), then Kilowattsplayed a mix of broken beats and crunchy dub techno before Bluetech took over for an hour and a half of thunderous bass and waterfall melodies that, apparently, made Daniel need to go to the toilet five times during his set.

It was an indoor venue and, with the exception of The Mollusk, the music was mostly on the chilled side of party, but it was still a shoes-off dancefloor with lots of smiles, interpretative dancers up the front, the occasional smelly hippie and LOTS of beautiful people. I ran into a few friends of friends too, so have a few more people to hang with if I stay in the area a bit longer. Bluetech played only three tracks I recognised, and at one stage I confidently declared (with the holier-than-thou certainty of the fully sober) that his fourth track was one of the best bits of electronic music I had ever heard. I'm not sure if anyone was listening.

But enough! It was fun, and a lovely coincidence - and afterwards I was the designated driver doing 30kmh up the dark winding roads to Goonengerry, and we all arrived safely home to listen to happy hardcore on the deck (it's a long story, but a true one).

By now you must be as sick of reading this as I am of writing, but I did want to check in with my friends and family and assure you that ALL IS WELL! The only downside is how much I'm missing Theresa, but we have skype chatted the last few days and I'm looking forward to a Tassie adventure with her in the New Year. Oh yeah, if you have an automatic car - or even just a licence because she will soon have use of a car - and want to take her for a drive, do it!!! Her Ps test is in a couple of weeks :) :)

All that remains is to say I LOVE YOU ALL (obligatory) and I'm sorry not to be writing to all of you individually - I'm sure you understand. Be assured I am driving carefully, eating too much and never showering.

The next few weeks I'll head up to Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast, hang in Lennox Heads with my mate Joe, and who knows what else? Oh yeah, and tonight I think we're going to the premiere of a new indigenous-themed doco in Mullum, with Xavier Rudd playing live - sounds all right, hey?

xx

Oh yeah...

Reading: American Gods by Neil Gaiman (next is The Turtle Diary by Russell Hoban). Marco is enjoying the copy of Hating Alison Ashley I bought him and Sarah at an opshop.

Listening to: my iPod on shuffle, Marco playing the guitar, Spiral Tribe.

Eating: coconuts, mangoes, bananas, hemp seeds, strange berries, avocado, crumpets with nutella.

Learning: German, driving, hopefully sewing because my stubbies are in trouble.

Growing: what is euphemistically being described as "a beard".

P.S. I forgot the story about trying to find a bush doof, going down a dodgy track, puncturing a tyre, not being able to get back up the track, calling 24-hr roadside assist, getting the tyre changed on the slope and then towed back up, completely missing the party which was shut down and then moved 30kms away but deciding maybe that was for the best because everyone who stopped and asked us for directions seemed a bit weird and possibly too stoned to be driving safely... oh well, that's not a very good one anyway.