i can sing synesthesia

I've been thinking about this for a while and I even tried it out yesterday, but I don't understand. Synesthesia is the concept of hearing different musical tones in colours instead of what notes they are. Like, G minor would be turquoise or C major could be red. But then I thought, what if I just imagine a chord and see what colour it comes as? 

Now, I searched and searched for something to describe this to me in more detail and I came across an article written by a synesthesiac who says that he "believed that everybody 'saw' life this way, and it wa rather surprising to find out that those of us who make these kinds of addociations are actally in a very small minority." 

I can relate to this completely. I see my school toilets as days of the week and if I don't go into Thursday I feel all funny for the rest of the day, and I imagine the number 2 as being a stuck up old ponce who thinks he's better than anyone just because most numbers can be divided by it. J and K and L are all really close friends and have inside jokes, and M and N are fighting over who gets O. 

Now, this is just a self-diagnosis so don't go telling everyone that I see Friday as an evil green bunny and that the number 6 isn't too self-assured. 

But some really famous musicians were synesthesiacs, like Olivier Messian, a famous French composer. He associated the music with different colours, and he believed that musical terms like "tonal" and "modal" were incredibly misleading and that music either had the colour or it didn't. He also stated that the music by composers such as Mozart, Chopin and Wagner was all extremely coloured. 

I can't think of music as colours, but everything else has some kind of name. Imagine hearing an A flat and going "oh, that was blue!" or seeing an F chord and stroking your beard and saying "hmm, seems a bit like a browny-red to me..."

It all baffles me, but I love it. I've been reading things about synesthiacs all day and I can't get enough. Apparently John Lennon and Jimi Hendrix were synesthiacs aswell, so if it turns I am one then I'll two of my favourite musicians saw what I see.

frankie, my dear, you do give a damn!

Well, I finally got around to writing this post. It's been brewing in my mind for waay too long and it's been churning up all my thought and I just can't get it out of my mind so I thought what they hey and finally got around to writing it. 

Lets get right to it shall we? No dilly-dallying for us! You've all heard of frankie magazine, haven't you? Cause if you haven't, well boy oh boy are you missing out. frankie has a way of turning confusing political/world/peace/homophobic topics into really interesting articles in which I can actually grasp the concept of and I understand and I get and agree with!
But not only this, but they have cute little titbits at the beginning to ease us into the brilliance that frankie is!
In their most recent issue, they mentioned a band (or should I say orchestra??) that I'm sure I've mentioned before, and if I haven't then I'm shocked at myself!
WELLINGTON INTERNATIONAL UKULELE ORCHESTRA! UKULELES! ORCHESTRAS! INTERNATIONAL! WELLINGTON! UKULELES! UKULELES! Have I mentioned the ukes?
WIUO does covers of songs - good and bad, your choice - and makes them better. 'Sif you can't believe me, they are an orchestra of ukuleles! And you all know how I feel about those petite guitars, absolutely love 'em. Also, Bret McKenzie from Flight of the Conchords is in it? Just got cooler? Couldn't be possible, but it happened.
I'm going to let you rest now. Catch up on all the wonder that frankie is and somehow manage to remind yourself to go buy frankie and WIOU new cd right now if you aren't already getting your coat and hat and being on your way. As per usual, I leave you happy and content and listening to New Zealands Christmas Tree. Xx!

hear it here, part 3

its sunday pumpkin

I am so ridiculously bored you don't even understand. I've been browsing the internet for the past half hour trying to find a good concert or something that I would want to go to but its either all sold out or at an over eighteen venue. Damn you, 1995!
So, instead of doing my English like a good school girl I'm watching Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist and still surfing the web and making cookies. Procrastination, baby!
So, whats up in the muso world? Any goss? Any music? Any anything. I can't even get excited for Grizzly Bear, I'm that bored.
Thom and Dev found a drummer! Yey! Okay, um, lets just say:
Boredome equals brainless searching for music which equals in rediscovering lost artists like Alison Krauss? Um, yeah I though so too. Let's go find Where's Fluffy, shall we?

hear it here, part 2

for jettson

Pop-Tarts are amazing. This because of what they taste like and what they look like and because of the amount of different flavours there are, theres 28! To begin with there's there Frosted Flavour. Some of these include: Blueberry, Chocolate Chip, Hot Fudge Sunday, S'Mores, Cinnamon Roll and lots more. Then theres the Unfrosted and the Pop-Tarts Splits. These one are very yummy also. These are Chocolate Vanilla, Strawberry Blueberry and Maple Brown Sugar.
Some other flavours are Chocolate Graham Cracker, Vanilla, French Toast and Frosted Wild Watermelon.
My favourite is Blueberry because it is fruity and sweet at the same time, whatta mix! It is very rare to find Pop-Tarts in Australia because they simply don't have them here! But some shops are sly dogs and get them anyway which is so good because I simply love them.
I must again, thank my lovely proxy-sister Allya for telling me that the corner shop on her street sells them and for buying me my very first Pop-Tart (Frosted Brown Sugar Cinnamon) and being there when I tried it and fell in love with it.
Some people think that Pop-Tarts are very unhealthy and they are right but I don't care because I love them. They make me feel all nice inside and I feel badass eating them in a country where they aren't produced.
Because of aforementioned reasons, I conclude that Pop-Tarts are amazing for the reasons mentioned above and that everyone should try one! Especially Jettson J, but hopefully if I manage to gather the energy he will try one today. Yay!

somebody loves you!

Who's got two thumbs and just bought tickets to Grizzly Bear on the 25th of July? This guy does! And pretty soon we'll be adding Florence and the Machine to that and then Band of Horses. I could not be any more excited.

So, so, so, geed I'm almost h-ed. Now, the only reason these are all happening are because yours truly is turning the big one five in 13 days. Exciting, isn't it?

Thats all really. That I'm going to be lucky enough to experience the wonder that Grizzly Bear is yet again. And then some. Woo! While I go and wallow in my humble abode and dream of July you can watch Beirut's 'Elephant Gun'.

hear it here, part 1

New favourite song. Meat and Potatoes by Belle & Sebastien. I was flicking through my iPod and I came to this song. Well, all I can say is my love for B & S has been rekindled.

crater face

It has come to my realisation that there is actually good rap out there. I was all annoying and "rap is all so similar and no rap artist can think for themselves" blah blah blah, but I'm starting to think I was wrong. Well, not completely. There is still all the people out there singing about broken hearts and screwing people on the bathroom floor and getting it on with girls in bars and stuff like that, but some rappers are just plain cool and who cares what they rap about!

All my friends are really surprised when I say that I've found my new favourite song and I play it to them and it's a rap song. There is just some people out there like Jason Derulo and Ke$ha and all those kind of people whose songs seem to be so flippin' familiar. People who actually listen to that music are probably all freaking out about now and saying "What? No it's all completely different!" 

But I was listening to Blakroc, and yes they sing about coochies but I actually like their stuff. I think it's because it's mixed in with the Black Keys that it just seems to have so much more, um, oomph to it. Other people rapping are all about electronic sounds and synthesizers and things like that. Blakroc has guitar bits in and drums and bass and well, I like it. 

The Gorillaz, well, don't have much to say about them. They are just pretty much plain cool. They're music is electronic in a way, but not always. They rap and sing about things that matter. Example?

Well me, I like plastics, 

and Digital Foils could wrap up the sun

and protect the girls from the spiritual poisons

You spill at night

Like phony clothes, but I really like my...

Some kind of nature, some kind of soul 

So is there some kind of hidden message in there saying he wants to screw the girl on a bar top or is it about covering the sun and protecting girls and liking phony clothes? The latter, I think. But then again, this is just me. These are my though and what I think about rap. Lets leave it at that, shall we? 

hapay biffday!

Happy Belated Birthday Tchaikovsky! 

I love you very much and hope you enjoy being six feet under. Love Coco xoxo

forty three dollars

Just now right today all this morning and this afternoon was the Bondi Sizzle Community Garage Sale!
I honestly can only say that it was one fine day filled with the calming strum of four ukuleles and some homemade jazz, along with knitting in the sun and just general happiness all round.
But, not only that, but I got my camera working! Which means soo many more photos on here! It'll be colourful! I'm very, very excited.

This was only the beginning of our stuff, you should've seen the stacks and stacks of clothes and bits and bobs and plain old junk we had!

Sadly, this Twiggy wasn't for sale. But isn't she pretty?

 

Books?

yess, it is an alarm clock, I'll give you about two minutes to freak out over its coolness. 

Okay, so this is where the really cool stuff happens. This guy was selling boxes and boxes of old records and just some mad vintage stuff. I could've spent hours there but I had to scurry on home to our own sale, but I managed to snap a few before I left. All these brought me back to my post a couple of weeks ago about how no one ever buys vinyl any more, but seriously if I had had anymore than four bucks in my pocket I would've gone beserk. 

Damn right he's a soul man!

I took a dodgy photo of the absolute ultimate disco record, but it was just so dodgy I couldn't even look at it. Apologies? But this guy, pretty sure his name was Tim, was just really plain cool. He had on this tartan suit and some braces and a cute little bowler hat and was just chilling in his front yard with this cool group of people. Couldn't want any more in life, personally. 

But, more to the fact, new obsession: The Dodos. They're originally a two-man band but now have a vibraphone player and are, no surprise here, an American indie rock band. What I find quite interest is that the drummer, Logan Kroeber, doesn't use a bass drum but raps out rhythms on the rims of drums and also uses a tambourine that he's taped to his shoe. 

Their vibe player only plays during live performances, but from what I've discovered and uncovered they sound like a pretty mean band. I use the word mean in its positive way, like "he plays a mean guitar!", geddit? But just take a minute to listen to Horny Hippies by them. Completely astounded me. 

SIMA

The other day my music teached took me and about thirteen other kids on an excursion. I didn't really know what was going to happen, so I just let it all roll. We ended up at the Seymour Centre in the city, and made our way into the famous Sound Lounge. I still had no idea what was going to happen.
Miss had told us that we were gonna be treated to a performance by some of the best jazz musicians in Sydney (she wasn't wrong) and that we would then have a improvisation course. She was half off.
We did see some of Sydney's, nay, Australia's best jazz artists but we didn't get the improvisation couse. Mind you, I'm not really complaining although I should start working on improvising, I'm really not that great. I just don't have the guts...
Anyway! So, the fifteen of us got to see the Sandy Evans Trio and the Phil Slater Quartet, how exciting! They were really brilliant, the skills that they have. Sandy Evans is absolutely amazing. The things she can do on that saxophone just blow my mind. Same goes for all the musicians there. We had question/answer time after their performances, and someone asked if they had had any classical teachings before they moved to jazz, and surprisingly only Sandy Evans had.
Most of them had no classical background, but Sandy had started off with classical flute and then moved to saxaphone in highschool.
Oh to be a cool jazz musician!
The Phil Slater quartet was also just as incredible and, in a way, fascinating. They were so tight and together and never swayed away from the beat. It wasn't a solid beat, and I think that was the main thing for their quartet, that a group of people can stay so together but still be improvising over a tripppyyy bass line. Phil had the most unbelievable chops ever ever ever, and that comes from a fellow trumpeter. My dad's friend was the bass player, which I reckon is pretty cool. But then again, the Jazz Community is much more tight-knit than those of indie or hip-hop, if you get my drift.
It was pretty special, going to see them. Front row seats aswell. I only wish I had the skill and the stamina and the patience to become who they are now, that would really be something now, wouldn't it?

i've got a biiiiggg lessbiiaaan crush on you!

The hall is black, the only light shining down on the stage. The lady there picks up a sea-foam green guitar and plucks a couple of notes. Someone nearby wolf-whistles. 
"You trying to say guitar players are hotter than piano players?" she jokes, her voice soft. The room laughs. "They are," she adds. More laughter. Her voice is soft and timid, she looks scared and shy. She starts to sing. Boy oh boy, that voice. Like nothing you've ever heard before. Strong, beautiful, amazing. Who is this lady? Why, none other than the gorgeous Regina Spektor!

Yep, thats right. Last night was THE night. Josi and I got there and, seeing as she's a bit of a newbie at all this, she started snapping pictures of the great Opera House. We mingled and talked and went outside but that doesn't matter. Because the only thing that matters right now is her concert. The support act, Brooklyn band Jupiter One, was quite good. I'm not completely sure of my feelings towards them, but it's definately not negative.
Anyway, so they played. Weird mixture if you ask me, cello, drums (or bongos, the drummer wanted to be "subtle" for a change), and a guitar. But the guitarist slash lead singer slash violinst slash piano player did play alot alot of instruments. They were also the band for Regina Spektor!
It started out with just the main guy doing some pretty wacky stuff on the violin, and then he picked up gee-tar and did some wicked cool pluckin',

 ...and then the cellist came in added to the funky sound going on. Pretty sure his name is David Cho. 

...and then came in the drummer! Seemed like he already had a couple of fans out there in the audience. We could hear people cheering as he walked on. He was pretty mad. They rocked out for a bit, nice.

Then they left. They went offstage and it was intermission. We were so much closer to Regina Spektor! It was kinda cute, the lead singer kept thanking her and saying how nice it was that she let them open for her. You could tell her actually was thankful! Anyway, so we left, got some maltesers and drank some coke from a glass bottle and made a pretty statue:

...and we made a video of a malteser falling down a hill. But then we heard the *dongdongdong* informing us that the concert was about to commnce, so we collected up our bits n bobs and headed in! Boy oh boy, sitting down in the concert hall for Regina Spektor was amazing. It was completely packed.  Unlike for Jupiter One. We all waited and you could hear people around you talking animatedly about her songs and which ones were their favourite. Josi and I didn't talk, we waited. We were so flippin' excited! Then the lights went dim and the members of Jupiter One walked out followed by the most cutest woman ever: Regina Spektor.
She sat down, looked at her band members and started to play The Calculation which was shortly followed by Eet.  She was amazing. Her voice was so strong and so confident! Various cries of "WE LOVE YOUR REGINA!" and "YOU ROCK!" made her smile her adorable smile but she was undeterred. She. Is. So. Cute!
She just played and played and played, and then when she spoke, well, slap me round the face and call me donkey but her voice was so soft! I thought it would be loud and boisterous but it was small and quiet. She is a very deceiving person. Because of her talking voice I thought she'd be not funny or anything, but she was really entertaining aswell as funny and smart. People calling out comments all over the place, she had answers for the majority of them.

Okay, soooo, anyone else agree how gorgeous she is? I don't think I can come up with any really intellectual words right now. I'm still in awe of how gut-wrenchingly spectacular her performance was. She had the whole entire crowd under her little finger. Not only that, but everyone was so polite. We didn't utter a word when she was getting ready and only a couple of times didn't someone scream out or 'wooo' when she was preparing her lovely self.

"Hold on, one more time with feeling,"

I've droned on long enough. In a nutshell, Regina Spektor is supermegafoxyawesomehot and her show was that times about the google xponential. Be jealous! Oh, whatta babe. 

Oh! Almost forgot. You will never ever ever ever ever ever guess who is playing at the Enmore Theatre on the 25th of July. Don't go Googling that, its cheating! Guess!

"You've got to dig it to dig it, you dig?" -

I dig it, Thelonious, I dig it. Some songs just make me think. I put them on and I'm off, wondering about why we have eyelashes or if dogs are really some kind of alien animal and they're going to take over the world someday. But other songs, boy oh boy, I don't even know how to explain it. They put me in this kind of trance and it's like a montage of my life. Kind of like, oh this reminds of the time this happened! And then this happened! Oh yes, and then I meet this person. I wonder if we'll be friends soon? Anyway, and then I wanted to learn this instrument and blahdiblah.
In a way, music is all rather stereotypical itself, isn't it? There's the group that goes out all the time, and they seem to listen to rap and electronica and stuff like that, then theres the group that doesn't go out that much and they are kinda more of the indie/rock persuasion. Then there are the just pretty much cool kids, who everyone secretly wants to be but won't admit it, and they listen to the jazz and the funk and the soul and the classical. Some people are part of their own boat, and occaisonaly visit others but they stick to their own stuff. Me? I think I'm part of Group 2. I'm spreading out though.
I probably sound like the biggest stereotyper (is that a word?) out there, but from where I'm standing thats what it seems like. This is the view from my third eye...

Do the Shuffle Struggle

Ahoy there, mateys! Me and my loverly friend Isabella are playing a game. Not necessarily a game, but something like that. We have both decided to make our way through our music makers/iPods/portable music players, what have you. It's on shuffle, and if you start again then you lose or you just have to, well, start again!
The rules are as follows:
1. You can only skip a song if it's at least halfway/three quarters through.
2. You can't change the song to your liking! Unless you wanna lose the game!
3. You have to listen to every song. You can't "accidentally" leave it on while playing/reading/making/watching something else. Like I did. In English today. But that was an accident.
Thats it! Oh, no, one more thing. There is no winner. Why would there be? It's not a race to see who can get through their music first, no, no, no! It's simply a little fun to see what you used to listen to, what you have on your iPi that you didn't know you had, to rediscover old tunes that you forgot about. It's purely for the nostalgia, on my part. So far, I've listened to the craziest of mixes. Something along the lines of: Randy Newman, Grace Jones, Spoon, The Mama's and The Papa's, The Cinematic Orchestra and some calming Chopin. Weird, huh? Maybe they can tell what music you like and don't like...hmm...thats a thinker.
Wanna join in on the Shuffle Struggle? Be my guest, and trust me when I say it's a struggle. I'm up to song number 123 (!!) out of 1310. Whoopee!

scandanavian ukulele shmootz

Oh, ukulele players. Where would be without you? I don't really have much to say. Promise, though, that this is the last video I'll post for a while. You just kinda gotta see it. Oh, and again, thanks Allya. Merlin, woman, you needa stop finding so much cool stuff! See, this is what happens when one has to go to school and her proxy sister is home sick and can just find sweet things on youtube. Flip on a stick with a brick, mother bees!

Okay, well enjoy. Thanks Allya. Again. Sweet Merlin, woman, you da bomb. Also, because they keep getting cut off and I'm so over it I'll just link it up. You'll love Brett Domino after this. Forever more. Babe!
One more thing:

REGINA SPEKTOR NEXT WEEK !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

tube tube tube !

grab a cup of tea and shush yo trap

Gorillaz: Some Kind of Nature ft. Lou Reed

Sia: Soon We'll Be Found

OK Go: This Too Shall Pass

Mayer Hawthorne: Green Eyed Love

The White Stripes: Seven Nation Army

The White Stripes: Doorbell

Blakroc: Coochie

I don't own any of these videos. Also, I realise that some of these videos may be sliced in half and/or aren't the actual video for that song. I don't care, I just want you to hear the songs :)

the awesome apple does fall far from the awesome tree

Babe Alert! Right now, all that is going through my head is: "Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, Sold out Strokes tickets, Chuck, Chuck..." I think you know what it continues as. Have any of you seen it? Not only is Chuck one of the most awesome shows of all time, but it was made by Josh Schwartz - the creator of the O.C and a freakin' genius - but its theme tune is Short Skirt Long Jacket by Cake! Cool much? Again, I thank Allya. Or should I not thank her? I can't get my mind off of it now and all I wanna do is watch Chuck, bother.
Anyway, lets stray away from my obsession with Chuck and talk about The Strokes. Alas, I was not succesful in my atempt at getting two tickets for my birthday. One show only in July. "Oh em gee, babez, seew devo", if I wanted to turn bogan on you.

can you ever just be whelmed?

My brother made a fair point the other day. While I listen to anything my sisters (proxy and normal) give me, I rarely listen to what he points my way. Why is this? Because the majority of his music is classical, and for some reason unbeknownest to all of us, I automatically think its going to be boring. But more often than not I'm proved wrong.
You heard Scheherazad? Cause you really should, its flipping amazing. The violin solo, the percussion, the everything just blows my mind. My brother took me to see it last year and I just went into that kind of trance and just all these thoughts swarmed into my head. I could feel my mind just breaking into little bits at the genius work that is Scheherazad. I wanted to fall asleep but I knew that if I did I would so regret it later,  why would I want to miss out on this extravaganza.
Again, my bro made another fair point. The music I listen to now, how long will that be around for? The average time for a really popular hiphop/rock/rap song to be 'in' is probably a couple of weeks, my kinda music lasts a little longer. Months or years maybe, I prefer to go for not just one song but the whole band. For example, me getting into The Shins was simply an accident. I had my iPod on shuffle and the song Australia came on and I thought, hey, if I like this maybe I'll like the rest? Good thinking 99, they changed your freakin' life.
But classical stuff, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, Handel, Bach - they've been around for hundreds and thousands of years. Dude, and we thought The Beatles had it good for staying so well-known for so long? Pfft, pretty sure the composers win that one.
Even if people have never heard their stuff, they surely must've heard of them. Even if only in passing. I guess, what I'm trying to say is that no matter how popular a band or a song is it's going to get old. But classical isn't. Ever. And I'm pretty sure I can say the same for jazz, yeah?
Never mind, consult your pillow on that and share your thoughts! Tea and sympathy for those who do :)

P.S In a way, you gotta give it to the musicians aswell. Imagine playing this in front of an audiece of thousands:

Difficult, ey...

i like toastems

I was with Allya yesterday, my lovely and gorgeous proxy sister, and it was a pretty damn good time. Not only is she the Guru of all good movies but basically she's the Dalai Lama of music aswell. She knows her stuff, and its all legit.
To start off, we went to video shop and got out Jennifer's Body. Creepiest film ever, probably third most quotable...or fourth.
But thats not important. Whats important is the fact that when it comes to Music Festivals, Australia positively, 100%, utterly and completely comes up not trumps. It sucks. It was okay when we had Great Escape n shizz like that, but we don't anymore!
In a way, we still got it good. We have Big Day Out, Byron Blue Fest., Wangaratta Jazz Fest., maybe Australia is more of the bluesy/jazzy feel.
Anyway, so this festival is the most epic festival ever. Allya showed it to me, and I actually wanted to cry. Would you like to hear the lineup for 2010? No? Didn't think so, but you're gonna hear it anyway:
Lady GaGa, The Arcade Fire, Spoon (!!!!), The National, The Black Keys, MGMT, The Strokes, Erykah Badu, Grizzly Bear (!!!), Gogol Bordello, Wolfmother, The xx, Dirty Progectors, Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes, Temper Trap, The Walkmen, Mumford and Sons, The Dodos, Rogue Wave, The Ettes and oh my gawd so many more but I won't talk about it. We can't get too upset, now can we? Lets just put this behind us, and imagine what it would be like to live in the windy city of Chicagi!

Just try and read these lineups. Literally mind blowing. Blood and guts everywhere they're so flippin' grand.





I could ramble on for ever, but I won't. I'll shut my trap and go and clean my room like a good girl. Is this a pathetic excuse for a post? Never mind. I'll just sit here and listen to The Beatles marathon kinda thing thats on at ABC digital radio. Listen to it. So goddam good. Looovveeee tthhheeeemmm !
Oh, and before I choof off, just thought you should all know: I'm moving to Chicago. And thats final. Lollapalooza, here we come!