We’ve now got a full version of a cover First Aid Kit did for French radio some time ago, of Patti Smith’s eerie, iconic “Dancing Barefoot”. Listen to the harmonies.

This isn’t the first commercial space venture, of course, but it’s the first non-government capsule that will connect to the ISS.

Space programs are huge. Can you imagine the industrial competition that will take place to get such massive contracts? Can you imagine the opportunity, the growth, that could easily produce?

It makes me very excited.

Read more about SpaceX and Dragon here.

EDIT: Nooooo! Engine anomaly means the launch is off.

Dragon. Photograph: SpaceX

Every once in a while I check in to see if anything’s happening: if any ludicrous new claims have been made, or any new demonstrations have failed (as they always have). There’s been no significant events, but there does seem to be an implicit admission in their website. The claims seem to have softened:

Delayed magnetic field propagation is a limited area of exploration within the physics community…The development of this technology is continuous as work progresses to the end goal of providing a safe, stable and continuous electrical power output.

They also talk about the experience in “e-commerce, anti-fraud, and energy” projects. If they still believed they had a machine that could solve the world’s energy problems it seems unlikely they’d list it third.

At least they’ve finally come to their senses. I hope no one outside the company lost any money on all that nonsense.

I saw dEUS again last night at University of Sydney student pub the Manning Bar. The show was pretty similar to my thoughts from before. They’re essentially a guitar band, especially live. Songs like “The Architect” and “Theme From Turnpike”, where they use deeper guitar grooves, remain my favourites.

If anything, they showed even more energy last night. Certainly the sound was much better last night than it had been at Koko.

A few of their straightforward, slow rockers in the middle were a bit generic. But they started well and finished well. Overall it was a very fun show. It was also amusing to be amongst so much spoken French and Flemish.

Listen to “Ghost”, from their new album, below, or to the whole album here.

dEUS. Photo by anke meijer via Creative Commons lilcense

Special note needs to be made of opening act The Paradise Motel who were all kinds of shit. They played at being grim and literary: they’re no Nick Cave. They played at stark atonal melancholia and punctuated shrieking: they’re no Einstürzende Neubauten. They tried too hard, did not connect with the crowd, and were awful.

In fact, if you felt you missed out on good tunes from 2010, 2004, 2003, or 2002 you can download all those too. Mind-bending!

It was the second of three nights called Choral Contrasts. The performance was in two parts: first was French composer Francis Poulenc’s mid-20th century Gloria, and the second was Mozart’s famous (and controversial) Requiem, in the traditional Süssmayr completion (Mozart dies whilst writing the Requiem).

Both pieces were performed by the Sydney Symphony and the Sydney Philharmonia Choir, with David Zinman conducting.

It was all pretty magical. Both works have religious bases but they really couldn’t be more different. Poulenc’s Gloria is a joyful, celebratory ode of praise, while Requiem is a solemn goodbye to earthly life. Each piece was deeply touching. You really can’t go past Mozart, though, for being mind-blowing, even if someone else finished it for him.

Both works also obviously share choirs as major elements. I like choirs: the human element adds emotion and connection, even when the lyrics are in Latin. And the Philharmonia is larger than I’d expected. I liked the guest soloists the least. They were very good singers, for sure, but the symphony and the choir were what I wanted to hear, and were enough for me. The skill and co-ordination required for so many musicians to perform together so well still amazes me.

They were very touching, very emotional performances.

Yesterday was a non-stop smorgasbord of fun.

One of my colleagues brought in a box full of Pasticceria Papa‘s famous cannoli. They are seriously, heart-stoppingly wonderful.

After the workday finished there was a workplace financial year kickoff celebration at The Oaks. We were in one of the upstairs rooms, and I didn’t stay too long, but it was a good laugh.

Then it was time to taxi over to Sydney Uni and Manning Bar, where the gig festivities kicked off with a few good mates. There were several acts, most better than the last. I missed the first act, The Stiffys. Here are the ones we did see.

• Mojo Juju play a swampy New Orleans gutbucket jazz shuffle. Their first couple of songs had me worried as they were slow and similar. But they brought it up in tempo, volume, and attitude as they went on, and got much better. They were fun, and quite stylin’.
• Manchoir were an amazing surprise. They are exactly what the name implies: a choir of men. About 10 of them, all in singlets, some with bottles of beer in hand, performing a capella renditions of such great man-classics as “Wanted Dead or Alive” and “Highway to Hell”. Hilarious!
• The Crooked Fiddle Band played prog folk metal. I’ve never heard such a heavy polyrhythmic racket from a lute, violin, upright bass, and drums. It was mostly instrumental and mostly pretty intense. The woman playing fiddle had virtuoso level: she was amazing. Very skilled and dynamic, but it missed some of the fun and emotion that the earlier two acts had set us up for. But definitely an amazing band.
• The Beards. What can I say about this band that I haven’t already done? They love beards, disdain all those who are beardless, and play many rockin’ tunes about beards. Last night they played several from their new album, Having a Beard is the New Not Having a Beard, which I hadn’t heard them play live before. They were, as usual, awesome. If you’ve missed previous posts watch thesevideos.

Afterwards we had a couple of beers at the Marly Bar in Newtown, made all the more entertaining by a power-tripping bouncer and a soft-porn session by some drunkards who forgot they were in public.

Classy Beards

Steve, if you don’t know, plays the blues on a number of mostly home-made guitars. He’s a good ol’ American boy in the best hobo musical storyteller tradition. He’s a long career of recording engineering and production for other artists, but has come into his own as a performer in the last decade or so. I saw him twice in London. He was here to play the Byron Bay Bluesfest, and I figured I enjoyed him enough to catch him again on his sideshow in Sydney.

Seasick Steve

I skipped the opening act, Claude Hay, not because he’s not awesome – he is – but because I’ve seen him three times already this year.

The last two times I saw Seasick Steve he played on his own; it was just him, his stomping foot, and his guitars. That was more than enough of a show. But he had a drummer this time, a beardy bloke who pounded a pretty good beat. The first tune was Steve playing his ode to his One-String Diddley-Bow: always fun.

But at the second song he introduced his bass player. Bass player, I thought? He’s branched out to entire band now, has he? I wonder what that will be like.

It was only then that I discovered that Seasick Steve’s bass player is none other than John Paul Jones, who was one-quarter of the legendary Led Zeppelin.

Three people in front of us turned around when they heard my brain explode.

Somehow, JPJ has been playing with Steve for nearly a year, and recorded his last album with him, and it entirely eluded my notice. I’ve become a pretty poor music fanatic, honestly.

The night of music went ‘way past all my expectations. All of Steve’s songs are great blues stomps, and he plays a slide guitar with incredible enthusiasm. He tells wry jokes and funny stories and then sings rough-throated hollers while he punishes however many strings happen to be on the piece of wood in his hands. There’s not a lot of variety in the songs, but they’re honest and rhythmic and great roots music.

But then, on top of that, was John Paul Jones. He’s still a demon musician. He wields that bass like a maestro, and lays down some serious groove. But with Steve he played electric mandolin, acoustic guitar, and even a freakin’ Champan Stick. When he was on the mandolin he set out some solos nearly as fiery as Steve’s. I’ve seen JPJ before with Them Crooked Vultures, but he had more to do here, and more fun, I think.

Together they were a phenomenal trio. Wow.

Oddly, one of the highlights was the quietest songs. The drummer left the stage as Steve and JPJ sat alongside each other, John with an acoustic guitar. Steve said that when he and John were both kids, many years ago, the band they each most wanted to be in was The Everly Brothers. He cracked a joke about John going on to be in a pretty good band himself. They then proceeded to duet a slow, tender, quiet version of “Cathy’s Clown”. Magic.

• Seasick Steve: 12-Apr
• The Beards (I know, it’s a sickness): 20-Apr
• Mozart’s Requiem: 04-May
• dEUS: 09-May
• Janelle Monae: 27-May
• The Temper Trap: 31-May
• Flight of the Conchords: 05-Jul
• Ladyhawke: 18-Jul

This Guardian article cleverly draws a line from what the right brain does, to the dark before the creative dawn, to Bob Dylan giving up music in the ’60s only to find a new voice.

Every creative journey begins with a problem. It starts with a feeling of frustration, the dull ache of not being able to find the answer …Tales of insight all share a few essential features that scientists use to define the “insight experience”. The first stage is the impasse. If we’re lucky, however, that hopelessness eventually gives way to a revelation.

During those frantic first minutes of writing ["Like A Rolling Stone", Dylan's] right hemisphere found a way to make something new out of a incongruous list of influences, drawing them together into a catchy song. He didn’t yet know what he was doing – the ghost was still in control – but he felt the excitement of an insight, the subliminal thrill of something new.

The story of “Like A Rolling Stone” is a story of creative insight. It took only a few seconds before a mental block became a work of art.