The Jackette

Join us at Live Journal!

2005-09-26T21:29:00.000+10:00

Join Alex, Andrew, Heesco, and James at Live Journal just click here to create a new account. It's a blog that connects up to everyone else. So once you've signed up send us an email, or leave a comment so we can connect up to you.

Inarticulate Sex

2005-09-19T18:09:00.000+10:00

"J.A.C.K.'s new single "Probe" made me feel like getting rollingly drunk in a very small empty room and throwing myself against each wall so I am bouncing around a hard-edged dizzy space, then someone comes in and I have rough inarticulate sex with them."

Download: Probe

"This can't be J.A.C.K! They have melodies."x
Well if anyone was lucky enough to see one of our two shows last week they might have noticed that J.A.C.K. is a little different. Probably the most noticeable difference is that there are only two of us on stage most of the time - but thats only temporary until Chris returns from somewhere in China. Also we have a brick of a computer on stage that plays music so we can dance along. We still however continue to explore the idea of "Geek Shakes" - the jerky rhythm that penetrates all nerds from spending too much time flicking between internet porn sites and peer2peer services - that psychotic angry bug that lives on the top of your thick black framed glasses and crawls into your eye and gives you that nervous twitch that causes you to keep slapping the faces of small children, screaming whAT whAT WhaT! Well we're considering a drummer: could this be the end of the all synth orchestra? Does anyone have any suggestions?

To find that twitch in some more music I strongly recommend electronic punk duo 'Mu' and in particular their album Afro Finger And Gel. Check out a review of them at Stylus Magazine

Oh and I now have my own blog at anewman.net to leave The Jackette with just J.A.C.K. related stuff.

Producing (Pictures)

2005-09-03T00:24:00.000+10:00

A few people may have heard me yapping on about about how I have decided to quit art because it seems to be nothing but colouring in the same old shit. Despite this: I'm still producing art, although usually without producing any actual "picture". If a picture's worth a thousand words - one word is worth many more pictures. I say "tree". You picture a tree, I picture a tree - but its a different picture.... oh rambles. It's a difficult exercise writing an honours paper for a visual arts degree when you can no longer stomach the visual. This is all besides the point. I was just posting to say I will be featured in two group exhibitions coming up in the next week and you should come along to the openings for a drink or two.

"Under the Hammer" Sir Herman Black Gallery 6-8pm Tue 6th Sept

"Travel Documents" Newspace 6-8pm Wed 7th Sept

Both exhibitions run for a week and check out their sites for the address details and opening times.

Recording with DJ Hansom

2005-09-01T23:04:00.000+10:00

Well James and I have recently returned from the studio of DJ Hansom from Sydney hip hop group Frangipani. Hansom was kind enough to knock together a demo recording of our newest single "Probe". Hopefully it should be on Fbi 94.5 in the next week in the lead up to our "Die Art Wanker Die" gig at the Sydney College of the Arts with The Bzillionaires and The Captains Package. 1.00pm Wednesday 14 @ The Sydney College of the Arts

Transit

2005-08-26T22:51:00.000+10:00

Fatigue is what I feel, 11 hours on a bus last night. Random chance brings me across a tall beautiful Croatian girl I passed once before. Now accosted I ramble with incomprehension as I walk with her, she is on her way to work. I can't even recall why she is familiar. She turns left at the lights, I wander on forward with a dazed farewell. The green man pulls me away, I never even asked her name. I leave at 4 this afternoon facing another 6 hour journey on a train. No sleep dreams well, but dreams always come a moment too late with the taste of cheap cigarettes and coffee. Drift, drifter.

J.A.C.K. is Back!

2005-08-26T18:13:00.000+10:00

We have 2 gigs lined up for September:

7pm Tuesday 13/9/05: Manning Bar as part of Video Screenings
1pm Wednesday 14/9/05: Sydney College of the Arts w/ The Bzillionaires and Captain's Package

Both gigs are free.

Kevin is back too, with his journal of foot oriented poetry, so expect some sexy spoken word. We are also recording a demo with some new unheard tracks that will be free to download from this site in a couple of weeks.

Hope to see you at the gigs - we recommend the one at SCA, as there will be a barbeque (I think free) and a whole lot of other stuff going on. Plus the other bands are surreal.

Girls in parks

2005-07-27T06:24:00.000+10:00

The problem I find with reverse romanticism is that it causes you to fall in love with random girls in parks through a constructed romance of nostalgia.

I lay in the grass and watched her breath.
When I opened my eyes she was gone.

The experience itself though is false, an illusion. It is built from the reservoir of memory, a cut up of nostalgic experience and ideals. The true experience is the nostalgia of the construction. Time and consciousness distort and become virtual in the Bergsonian sense. An inversion of memory and experience occurs. You live a constructed dream that never happened. I'm not sure if I like it, there is no pain that makes it real, there is no dialect within the construct. Dead dreams of control, a stale romance.

Whiskey, Mystics and Men

2005-07-03T11:30:00.000+10:00

Something about characters.

Dancing in a murky whirlwind of smiles and sentences. Berlin is an
empty space. Saddened. Tired. It is the people and not the places who
fill Berlin with the unlikely adventures that are to be had; and
although the city is batting is eyelids for one last time before it
drifts into some sort of Yogi Bear slumber... these people refuse to
fuck off.

There's the American lad named after a whiskey. What a pleasure it is
to befriend someone that always looks at something with fresh eyes...
And is therefore excited and enthralled by everything. I often catch
myself fixed upon the wide-eyed wonder of toddlers, staring at some mad
man's big hair, waistcoat, and striped pants. Oh, to be astonished as
they are. To be a child thrilled by the world, finding colours for the
first time. The lad named after a whiskey still is this child. His
ginger dreadlocks, his cheshire-cat grin... His absurd enthusiasm for
this city's public transport system.

Whiskey attracts crazies like my hair attracts pollen from Berlin's
persistent spring air. We were outside a squat of sorts; fenced in by
great rusty steel sentences of nonsense that a metal fetishist welds
together from the beaten up parts of an old upside-down helicopter;
Whiskey's arms are waving. Waving like those impotent propellers would
have spun in their happy days had they not now been buried in the dirt
beneath empty bottles. Bottles of Becks that some bum is collecting and
hording so he can cash them in and buy himself a nice fresh cold
bottle of Becks. Whiskey's arms are waving. And most of the junkies,
queers, and mad men that have joined our table are mesmerised by these
ginger arms... Perhaps mistaking them for the twirling firesticks that
the weekender cyber hippies would have been spinning here in the dark
wet air had it not been a school night. You have to be one of these
crazies to be as blue as we were... Drunk on his enthusiasm and
encouraged by his bearded, bordered grin to toungue out our madness in
a cut-up of sentences and languages.

As a sufferer from Clinical Art-School Cynicism I usually tire pretty
quickly from this sort of eagerness with the world; its' cities and
its' people.

"Things are just like that... What's so special about Berlin having two
transport zones... Yeah the tower does look pretty cool tonight, like
it does every night... ultimately, when you boil it all down,
EVERYTHING is bullshit"

But as I said earlier I envy that wide-eyed wonderment that I am so
often the subject of and although I couldn't wave my arms around like
him; I was blissfully content not splashing about and just simply
bathing quietly in that surreal glow that he expels; a toxic gas... All
of us getting high off him and a small hill of charcoal hash that had
been supplied by the "Egyptian with the Mexican brother who is from
Spain". Who I think had joined the table with the objective of selling
it to us but instead got caged in by an endless spew about moon cycles
and Greek Gods that one of the other crazies had been covering me in.

I was relieved for an opportune brief breather and I was able to wipe
myself off in time to see some young, blonde, well-mannered teenager
with a freshly pressed shirt seat himself as close to Whiskey as he
could, his thigh rubbing against Whiskey's. This was followed with an
outburst from one of the junkies, who Whiskey describes as "the coolest
guy". I've never been able to grasp why he has been given this title as
he usually doesn't say much but just sits there zoned out; ocassionally
offering somebody a drag from his joint. But apparently he once had
some really groovy glasses that he had made himself; I'd never seen
them as the night I had met him they had been smashed into pieces
against the floor of his apartment after some cops had barged in and
started hammering his head against the ground. He wasn't sure why. But
although he didn't seem particularly pissed off about this enforcement
of the law... He was now enraged, and I suspect from jealousy, with
this kid that was coming on to the very man that had been kind and
enthused enough to knight a beaten busted up junky as "the coolest
guy". So The Coolest Guy starts pitching a string of endless babbling
insults at this boy while the boy, calm and collected, translates its
from German to English for Whiskey's benefit.
'You are a prissy cock sucking faggot who... "
The boy keeps on translating until The Coolest Guy becomes bored and
uninspired and zones out again with his joint.

Gad, I need a holiday from this insanity.

Reading Books.

2005-06-13T10:04:00.000+10:00

It was one of those open and shut cases. He was open. She was shut. You could read them like a book that shouldn’t have been read. When it was written she was open. When it was read. Shut. They were bound that way. She should have had a spine. But did he. Split open. Page eleven, but she was page three. Staying up till dawn wont take its toll till we get old. I could sing her the Birthday Song on her birthday but it never crossed my mind till I ran out of time. All the time.

A Post for Free.

2005-06-01T21:48:00.000+10:00

I was... not what: Then it cost me a little more. Then it cost a little more again. My shoes are red I can run faster now. But they give me blisters. Wait five. Walk up four. Walk down three. Queue. Or in American. Line. But its a wait. Fifty. You have to be kidding me. I need fifty? Walk that direction and then turn left. No idea. Not near here. Maybe try that gas station over there.

Fifty I find. But I'll take four hundred. Out: Home. Zu Hause. I'll walk around a bit more. Then I'll take what I need. I'm walking so fast now. So very... Oh the floor is moving. I'm not. Look at the wall.

Paris. Barcelona.
Beach. Birdshit.
Smile. Frown.

I could drown. But I can swim. So I won't drown. But if I couldn't swim. I would drown. Unless I floated. But I think I sink. Although I wouldn't know because I can swim. I follow a whim. And buy a donut. It doesn't go very far as whims go... far that is. Whims can go far. I'll dunk a chino, that's what I'll do. But an asterix isn't a comma... or for that matter a hash isn't an apostrophe.
A post for free.
A post to support a tree.

It smells like a forest some time although I have floral air freshener. And a floral shirt but that smells like cigarettes. I hate cigarettes. And donuts. Especially cigarettes with donuts. I can't smoke a cigar through my... because I don't have one. But I've seen it done. Cigars take too long to smoke anyway. No I'm not going to smoke that. That's an inch from your anus. When you smoke cigars the ends get all soggy.

The Golden Poo

2005-06-01T21:41:00.000+10:00

When I was in Tokyo and I went to Ueno or there abouts with the random
japanese guy I met, there was a large Golden sculpture on top of some
building. It was made by some international architect, somebody not
Japanese. When I asked the guy I was with what it was meant to be he
said it was shit. Initially I thought he meant is was he didn't like
it, but with a secound glance and a few more questions it really did
look like a giant golden poo. Apparently none of the locals knew what
it was other then thinking it looked like a shit.

This is kind of how I feel about Paris. I have been here just over a
week and I am reminded of the golden poo near Ueno. I was near the
Eiffel tower on the other side of the seine standing in between two
rows of golden statues and there stood a golden statue of a woman
holding a dove in each hand striking one of those poses so typical of
the classicism, filled with grand stillness. As I stood looking at
this a pigeons few on top of her head and promptly shat. And this is
Paris I thought to myself as I entered a fit of laughter amongst
numerous tourists clicking away.

I perhaps should not be so hard on Paris, as it does have its merits
they just come a such a high price and my oh my does it hurt my
pocket. Pizza hut pizza's cost 14 euros, though its not all that bad.
The rumoured french or rather in particular Parisian arrogance has
really only confirmed itself in the waiters here. So far at every
restaurant and cafe I have been to I have failed to negotiate a glass
of water. Generally I just get some remark of some sort in french as
they walk off after I try to ask them and never return with my glass
of water. Even worse was the last restaurant I went to with Andrew for
a few drinks, the waiter spoke english and pretty much said unless I
was going to buy sparkling or still bottled water he was too busy to
go over and stick a fucking glass under a running tap for a few
seconds. I refuse to pay 4 euros for water. I am cheap and Paris is an
expensive whore, we don't get along very well. However, to an extent
I will even forgive the waiters as the Parisians are outnumbered by
tourists and I am one of them so I would be a little pissed off if I
was them.

There have been some good moments though. Yesterday I went to this
free street performance act thing that was held in a small public
grand stand near a park. It was pretty cool, the acts where mostly
juggling and balancing orientated some of which where actually
impressive. This went for a few hours and then we went down to the
park which was filled to many people juggling things, doing poi, devil
sticks and other various things of the like. There was also a live
band who where pretty good, reminded me of the time I saw waiting for
guinness. So the park was fun, filled with burnt out hippies,
children, families, the alternative performance type, clowns, fools,
guys with patterns shaved in their heads; one had his phone number
shaved on the backed, techno hippies that breast fed rats and other
randoms. A general fun filled afternoon.

Illegal Prostitute Clown Riot

2005-05-12T20:02:00.000+10:00

I'm riding the train across the German border on the way back from
Amsterdam smoking cigarette after cigarette. I'm waiting. Will they
check my passport this time? If they do, I'm not going to be allowed
back in, I'm "illegal". Three weeks past my visa; I haven't bothered to
get my student visa yet, although I think I will tomorrow morning. But
they didn't check this time. No men in uniform so it's cool. I have
more time to buy.

The world was bouncing a bit still. Thirty different types of weed to
buy over the counter, I ask the guy for something that's going to make
a little wander around the city interesting.
"This stuff will make you high man, so high, it's all in the head."
"Sounds all right, I'll take it" I said.
"Have a nice walk" He says with a grin.

Not that things need to be made interesting. Flowers and fucking. It's
a nice town; English men in dresses. So I bounced, bounced through the
streets with Sarah, who I have been making weekend trips - trips. with.
And it was all in the head, my body didn't sink like it usually does
but floated.
There were three of us but there were two. Count again. My head. My
body. And Sarah.
It was Clarke Kent. If he had breasts and the rest. She was a
prostitute in the window who seemed to have the curtain closed the
most often in all of Amsterdam. You walk up knock on the window. Go in.
Close the curtain. Fuck. Wave your goodbyes, from the window again.
"I'll see you next time Frank." She says.
He smiles. He doesn't mind that everyone knows he just paid to be loved.
So she looked like Clarke Kent. And the guys seemed to like that. When
the curtain was closed maybe she was Superman.
They fuck on stage here. It's a little too choreographed though. Penis
goes in. Penis goes out. They don't even bother groaning. They don't
dare orgasm. They have to be back on stage in an hour. Where was the
passion? Where was the love? Sure you shouldn't expect to find that in
a strip joint, but where was the seediness? Where was something a
little dirty? It was a stage show. A broadway musical. A little too
clean cut for fucking.

I'm bouncing around again. I have my bouncing ball. A friend in Berlin
had given it to me. I was concerned about time. What to do with it when
I'm waiting and not smoking. (I've quit smoking every other week since
I've been in Berlin). I said maybe a yoyo - she said a bouncing ball
and gave it to me the next day. It went far with me, but today I lost
it on the U-Bahn tracks. So I'm a little anxious again.

Bounce. Bounce.

I'm a creature of habit. It has lead to the prostitutes in Berlin
knowing my face.
"Have you got a little time this time" They ask in German.
"Come on, let's just hang out"
"Nay, nay" I say as always.
But every ten metres, as I walk home from this Jazz club I go to every
Wednesday night, the same young girls with their bum bags around their
waste to keep change in, smile at me, flirt and jump up to me excited,
maybe this time... maybe this time. But their hopes are dashed. The
euros of this big haired boy aren't ever ending up in their bum bag.

It's the same band every week, some old New Orleans styled swing played
by a bunch of Germans with moustaches. It's great though, I can never
stop tapping my feet. It's my "Stammtisch"... Which literally
translates to "Party Table", and it's just a place where you regularly
hang out, and meet up with all your friends. It's cool, you go alone
but you'll always know there will be at least 20 people you know there.
But I always walk home to my cement jungle along the strip where all
the hookers wait on the street for some car to stop passing them by.
They don't have the warm glass booths of those in Amsterdam.

He had shaving foam in his hair, a dressing gown on, a few violet
coloured scarves and a rose in his pocket. In his pants was a bottle of
dry gin with some blue liquid in it. He walked into our Stammtisch the
other night, offered us a drink, smiled a toothless grin. Grinning and
smiling. We drank a shot. It didn't taste like alcohol. Was it acid and
mouth wash? It didn't matter, he just hung out with us for a but.
"It contains the three energies of Germany" he softly growled.
At the back of the room that fucking clown - or as he likes to be
called "Performance Artist". He had just walked in. He roams the
streets, entering bars and restauants trying to sell a copy of his
manifesto. It'd go down well if he wasn't always honking that fucking
horn. The toothless bum who was now sitting at our table agreed with us
over that.
"A Clown can't sell anything when he honk... " And then he started
going on about sex or something, but I couldn't be bothered translating
him anymore. I just wanted to get up and knock over that clown and rip
that horn from him. But maybe that was the "blue gin" talking.

On the weekend there were some more riots of sorts. The Neo-Nazis were
doing their annual march, a funeral march, to mourn the end of the
second world war. The police had closed off the whole eastern sector of
the city, you couldn't cross over any bridges as they just had walls of
helmeted riot police and what looked like tanks. Managed to lose the
police though. There were hundreds, if not thousands of them, just like
the May Day riots the week before. You'd see parades of 80 vans full of
these armoured police go down the road with their sirens blaring. The
clash was incredible, the police had marched off in the other direction
weren't aware that all the soclialists and most of the population of
Berlin had cut down another road to cut of these Nazi fuckers. So
everyone hit eachother hard, only a couple of hundred Nazis survived to
get to their little sermon over by the Brandenburg Tor. But you
should've seen these super police flying down ropes from the
helicopters - all dressed in black - looked like Darth Vader. They were
on the side of the Nazis - it was a political march and everyone has a
right to a peaceful parade. That was the cops argument anyway.
The old folks kept shouting at the cops.
" I remember what the real Nazis were like - not like these fucking
neonazi kids.... But you (they said to the police) you are just like
them."
And they were... There was this guy in a wheelchair who wasn't even
involved in anything - he was just in the wrong place at the wrong
time. But the police were marching in his direction. Not one cop got
out of formation to move hime to the side or even let him know what was
happening. They just marched through him, knocking him out of his chair
to the ground.

So this is Berlin and that was Amsterdam.
Just thought I'd share some insanity from the last week. Also saw an
incredible contemporay dance work - but I'll write a review of that in
the Jackette at some time, oh and if anyone's in Tokyo this weekend
check out our JACK exhibition it's a part of "Design Festa" somewhere
amongst Tokyo Big Sight, East Hall 4, 5, 6 and the Outdoor Exhibition
Area.

The Body as Language

2005-04-12T23:33:00.000+10:00

"The being [self] used as an art language always involves... a loss of personal identity, a refusal to allow the sense of reality to invade and control the sphere of the emotions, and a romantic rebellion against dependence on both people and things."

Lea Vergine - The Body as Language

My Self-Portrait pieces involve the break-down of identity to the basic forms of language - abstract thought - and thus consciousness and the physical - the body as the basic tool of existence. Consciousness is not necessarily existence but the "potentiality of existence" - language is memory, language is yearning. The body itself is existence. The body however when existing in a virtual space does not exist. Or does it? Does the virtual body dismembered from the physical world exist only as language and hence memory? It is a "romantic rebellion" the abstracted space, usually transisitional or lacking a specific purpose of space i.e. my work "Vang Vieng", a desert with no end; the empty waiting room in "Self-Portrait in Waiting Room", or the door in "Self-Portrait at the Door". The self when exorcised from the physical and tangible realm is no longer dependent upon "people and things", but it becomes embedded with an immediate desire for these things.

"At the basis of Body Art one can discover the unsatisfied need for a love that extends itself without limit in time - the need to be loved for what one is and for what one wants to be - the eneed for a kind of love that confers unlimited rights - the need for what is called 'primary love'."

Lea Vergine - The Body as Language

The Other

2005-04-05T15:08:00.000+10:00

"I cannot write myself. What after all, is this "I" who would write himself? Even as he would enter into the writing, the writing would take the wind out of his sails, would render him null and void - futile, a gradual dilipidation would occur, in which the other's image too, would be gradually involved (to write on something is to outmode it), a disgust whose conclusion could only be: What's the use?"

Roland Barthes - A Lover's Discourse

So when I write "myself" in my self-portrait pieces I am always inextricably writing of the other.

Whenever I write and whatever I write, I am always writing to the other. The other I seek, the other I intend to communicate to, the other I create. The other I remember.
The other is a construction. The other is a language - an image-repertoire. The other is an archive of all that I desire.

"When something precious and irretrieable is lost, we have the feeling of having awakened from a dream. In my case this feeling is strangely correct, for my happiness did indeed arise from the same secret as the hapiness in dreams; it arose from the freedom to experience everything imaginable simultaneously, to exchange outward and inward easily, to move Time and Space about like scenes in a theatre."

Herman Hesse - The Journey to the East

I'm Going to Glastobury!

2005-04-05T08:21:00.000+10:00

I got tickets to Glastonbury! I'm going there with Sarah, an American friend who is studying music over here.

So who's playing, nothing's been officially announced yet but confirmed rumors include:

Van Morrison, Elvis Costello, New Order, Brian Wilson.

Not that you need to be young to be a pop star or anything - but is anyone under 50 playing?

How old is Kylie Minogue - She's going to be there too, and I think headlining the last night.

Van Morrison will be awesome
Gloria - as I do believe some of you might know - won me a Karaoke championship - so I expect some first rate singing along.

Elvis Costello is incredible also... Did you know he's writing an opera that will debut in Copenhagen's new opera house next year? The opera is based on Hans Christian Andersen’s romance with the Swedish soprano Jenny Lind and is called "The Secret Arias".

I love Brian Wilson - I think he is probably one of the greatest songwriters of all time although only the stuff he wrote for the Beach Boys, because his new stuff doesn't really do it for me. Pet Sounds. Now that is a great album.

New Order was a big influence on J.A.C.K, despite none of us really having heard them before.

Kylie? Ich hasse Kylie!

The White Stripes might be there also, and possibly Beck. Nothing is absolutely set in concrete yet, but when it is I will keep you updated because I'm running over the rumor mills everyday until the Glastobury web-page actually publishes the list of acts. All this stuff is only the main stage. There is a lot of other stuff around. It's big and it's a festival where one goes for the festival not the line-up - unlike the Big Day Out. I excited. So very excited... but I have to wait until June so I need to forget about it for a bit.

But I got tickets! Ha HA HA... Do you have any idea how hard they are to get?

The People Watching

2005-03-30T12:19:00.000+10:00

Remember the people watching see things differently see things differently, the people watching see things, differently the people see, watching things and they’re in the audience and we are on the stage and we’re thinking of dying and thinking of crying they are thinking of skin tight clothing and that stain on the bus seat this morning – or they might be listening – listening to the rages and watching, watching the skin

New Media. New Arse.

2005-03-29T18:14:00.000+10:00

At the bar of Transmediale everyone was generally speaking German or some other European language and I was sure that they had no interest in a provincial convict like myself, yet a heated topic for debate amongst these Europeans was what our council for the arts, the revered Australian Council, was doing at the moment. The Australian Council is dissolving the New Media Arts Board, and delegating proposals for potential trans-media practices between the Music Board and the Art & Craft board. New media art in Australian is being unplugged.

What does that matter, one might ask, new media art was simply a fashionable phase that occurred during the nineties in the visual arts. Its time is up, there’s nothing new about software art anyway. True it’s no longer new and hence I believe that the term “new-media” should have been retired by the Australian Council and instead replaced with “transmedia”. They have done this to an extent, they intend to open a “Trans-Arts” Office which will deal with any problem artforms that cannot be categorised by the Music Board or the Visual Arts board, but why dissolve the board, how is that going to “support true hybrid activities”. Keith Gallasch The managing editor of real time imagines a scene in this Inter-Arts office:

"What is it?" "Looks like an installation." "Send it down to Visual Arts." "But it says sound-work." "Try Music." "But it's created by a visual artist." "Visual arts 60/music 40. Send it to Vis Arts. Let them work it out." "But it's attached to an online thingy. And it's a community project with a performance art component. Gawd, can we refer it to a peer?" "Maybe, but we're not a board, we're just an office." "Should we send it to the Office for Too Hard Basket Cases, Herr Director?" "Don't call me that. I'm not a director and I'm not on Council."

What is it? What is it we “new-media” artists practice and what is it we study? A one-word answer could not be agreed upon at Transmediale. The seminar for new-media education had representatives participating from a variety of backgrounds – television studies, design, fine arts, music, information technology, film studies… and new schools are now popping up all over the place in Universities calling themselves media studies, media arts, new media or digital media, but a lot of these places are intrinsically bound by technology and often become nothing more than technical schools training their students how to use their tools. Here at SCA we have Electronic and Temporal Arts, which along with Photography is separated by those “fine” artists across the other side of campus by the term “Media Art”. Electronic and Temporal Arts might as well be called Screen-Based Arts as I am having difficultly recalling one ETA work in a SCA undergraduate show from the last 3 years that was not screen based. Half of J.A.C.K. jumped ship from the ETA studio to SPI because they wanted to create installations, although both Kevin Platt’s and Chris Takacs works in the Gradshow also ended up being screen based but instead displayed on multiple screens rather than just one.

Here in Berlin I’m studying Visual Communications rather than Visual Arts and Experimental Media Design rather than Electronic and Temporal Arts. I’m still making works mainly for screen. But it now bores me. I’m interested in language, writing, performance, the symphonic form in music and the television screen. I feel I have to decide, choose between an art-form – change “studios”. This is what I believe the studio system at SCA does to an extent and why Kevin and Chris were attracted to the broader practice of the Sculpture, Performance and Installation studio. This is also what the Australian Council will do by spreading new-media between the two other boards, artists will seek to define themselves in order to acquire funding just as we define ourselves by our studios in order to acquire our education, and by seeking definition and categorisation our practices will become limited. Transmedia artists will have to choose a roof to cover their heads, the Australian Film Commission or the Australian Council, “experimental film” or “installation art”. Rather than encouraging the innovation, exploration and experimentation which the New Media Arts Board or “Trans-Media Arts Board” could have done Ozco now enforces a conservative practice of categorisation.

I went to art-school wanting to be a filmmaker as do many of us in the ETA studio but after classes with John Conomos I soon changed my tune. He preached of a practice where we could cut-up and glue together different medias, artforms and schools of thought. He told us to avoid at all costs being enslaved by our tools. When Kevin and Chris jumped ship they battled administrative red-tape to stay in John Conomos’ studio theory. After seeing the practices of my lecturers I also realised there was much more than the film narrative. Going to the game-theory conference which Josephine Starrs had organised further extended my interests in what could be done as an artist. But where is a video game going to land in the Australian Council? Something needs to be done to encourage a practice of crossing over, slipping inbetween, mixing up and blending through. This is the future of art. Something needs to be done in the Australian Council and SCA to formalise the informal and create a space that encourages mixing with between practices and artforms.

For an interesting Article about what’s going on with the Austalian Council checkout:

http://www.cpsu.org.au/campaigns/AC/resources/1107387193_22516.html

Or visit www.ozco.gov.au to read their propaganda directly.

I'm a Clown After All

2005-03-23T18:02:00.000+11:00

The machine self stutters. It is an image, her blue lit back, only an image. Cameraman cries foul, that’s not on the screen. But neither am I. Picnoleptic plague. Writing two screenplays for one stage show. Her army of neon lights can’t cut it. Cut.

Each time I shoot myself, I lose myself. Shot myself in the head. Read a novel, see a play. Both times I cried foul. The cameraman won’t remember the day or the night when there is nothing left to see. Photographs, slide show, another musician’s soundtrack. Play it backwards I look like a clown. Play it straight and I lose my clown face.

Open the hangar door and there is a jet plane. Open the garage door and there is a seven year old automobile. Open my door and I’ll close it on you.
Wait.
I’ll open it again because I’m singing again.

What is the self. What is the lover doing here. It isn’t even open anymore. Vital Illusion. Love is the last vital illusion. Sensory perception perceived. I stutter once more and shuffle in the streets. Swing with me baby. You’re out of step. I bounce. I bounce. Like a basketball. I bounce. Smile at me again I’m a clown after all.

Guatemala City meets New York

2005-03-03T09:14:00.000+11:00

Guatemala CIty meets New York
Originally uploaded by jackette.

Having my first exhibition of sorts at a club called Clash next Thursday night. I have 8 hours of screen time to fill and will be showing a new durational piece that I'm working on at the moment. Everyone is invited, only 5 Euro entry and a just under $2000 for a return flight from Sydney. Oh and free Bed & Breakfast if you book in advance!

Click on the picture to see the flyer.
The party, as the title suggests is some sort of South American and New York fusion thing and I'm not too sure how relevant I am to this theme. But I'll have a captured audience and can flash whatever shit I like up there on the screen but I am going to try to avoid showing my self-portrait pieces as a giant me dancing above everyone else will just be weird.

“Um. What was that?”

2005-03-02T15:05:00.000+11:00

“Um. What was that?”
Nothing on… it was over the white noise of their scalps anyway. Twenty-two. Twenty-one. Ten. One. Be. I was outside now. The doors had opened and the patch of murmuring black cabbages had evaporated.
“Do you have a light?”
I wrapped my face tightly in a fresh bandage. This will keep it contained.
“Um. What was that?”
I hadn’t understood, nor did I answer.
Their thumbs up.
They should have extended one thumb and then bent it twice. The thumb, after finishing a piano concerto, now bowing proudly to the sleeping audience of fingers. I would have understood then. Now. It hadn’t mattered anyway, I was simply comforted by their positive judgment of my mummification and bowed my head in appreciation. Thumbs up cut to… my black boots… everyone needs a pair of good shoes that fit good… cut to…
I had stopped staring blankly.
My hungry pupils were now contorting a rhythmic Ali. A Sim metric Ali. Dancing in the ring, his arm outstretched, a claw grasping for lavender blue penguins. My eyes following this dizzy dance routine; a choreographed conceptualisation of the feeding habits of the house fly.
They. In front. Below. They instead were now staring blankly.
Thumbs down.
“Do you have a light?”
I still hadn’t understood and I was hungry and cold. I needed a cigarette and I didn’t have a light. A Sim metric. I was a Sim measured. I had more white and less red in my red and white bar than was healthy. I needed to click on the fridge or something. But a cigarette first. It was cold. I asked the lone cabbage. In front. Below.
“Do you have a light?”
He looked up at me and replied.
“Do you have a light?”
I didn’t understand so I took out a cigarette and gave it a long kiss and waited.
He did the same. Took out a cigarette and kissed it. Kept kissing it and waited.
Our scalps became noisier till they were eventually screened out. More white. It was the climactic end to Rachmaninov’s Eighth. My thumb bowed. The audience asleep in cashmere body bags. My thumb bowed anyway.
They. In front. Below. They nodded in appreciation of the performance.
Reassured. I waited.

Re: Andrewette

2005-02-27T13:54:00.000+11:00

Well the Jackette now bores and disappoints me. It is worse than writing group emails in that I have no idea who will receive and read my words... well I have some idea as I have a Statcounter installed, I thought it would simply tell me how many people visited but it also tells me what IP addresses (the address of your computer on a network) have visited, from what city, using what sort of OS, browser, screen resolution, how long they stayed, which site they came from and which site they left to, what time they came and what time they came before... quite a few people from the states landing here which puzzles me... The whole things very creepy, it is scary how much information it collects and has made me a little paranoid about using the internet... I learn even more information if your computer accepts a cookie... so don't... If I was schooled enough I could probably hack into your computer while it was online, considering all the information I have... Anyway I'm quitting the Jackette, I'd rather write emails... and the main purpose of this site was so everyone could interact, post comments, and leave little messages... the rest of JACK would use it too... but alas like many of my schemes, The Jackette has failed, I don't know why I use so many ellipses... I guess because I'm rambling... I will still use the Jackette to post reviewy things and little essays, and turn it more into a zine than a blog, also I'm going to send the stuff I write here to The Scar and try to encourage the others over here too. Oh yeh Oslo was cool by the way but I'll tell you about that in an email later on.

Happy Birthday

2005-02-27T01:36:00.001+11:00

Happy Birthday Lauren, Lorna, Tim, James, Leah and Dagney.

I would send you all a present, or at least a post card, if I knew what the German word for "stamp" was. I will however send a belated one after a couple of weeks of German classes, and Lauren and Leah, you can just wait till you come and visit.

Kreuzberg Montmarte

2005-02-20T19:33:00.000+11:00

Well I have a home and a bicycle, I've gone grocery shopping, my German is slowly improving and I no longer need a map.

This is my life in Kreuzberg, I've landed a really nice room, in a really nice are for really cheap ($80 a week) , and it was the first place I looked at. Andrea and Henriette are both very cool and probably the best housemates I've ever had. Admittedly it has been too short a time for anything to go terribly haywire. Since I got back from Paris I've been generally chilling, literally. Been riding around my area in the snow, getting used to the road and footpath laws, suprisingly it's not very slippery when riding over snow.

Been going out at night wth Henriette and her friends. Last night we went to this wine bar with framed upholstery hanging from the ceiling and lots of comfortable antique couches. The "groovy" (trying to reinstate this word into my vocabulary) thing though was that you didn't really pay, you bought a glass for 1 dollar then you just helped yourself throughout the night to a selection of different wines, some quite good and others very interesting, and when you left you paid whatever you wanted into a glass jar at the door.

I really enjoyed Paris and had a great time with Leah and her friends, including David. Her uni is quite cool and the studio she has there, a bright loft shared with a very "artistic air". I suffered very many old school romances of an artist in Paris, the fact that you make some artand then walk outside and you are in the middle of St Germaine des pres, or the fact that Leah has a 10 minute walk over the Senne to uni in the morning. All very romantic, it was a nice place to spend Valentines day.... oh and the cheese and the coffee (espressos) baguettes in the morning... nice place to eat. But too expensive. So many cafes but all you can afford is a coffee at te bar.

Also met some Berliners, who I hung out with a bit in Paris, Max und Amelia, caught the plane over there and back with Max, and I am designing the flyers and posters for some big party he is having over here in Berlin. Tried to explain that although I study art, I don't really draw much, if anything at all, but he insisted. Anyway it's a nice little project to have.

Well I'm off to Oslo tomorrow to hang out with Jade and enjoy a more bitter winter. I'll be there for four nights and then I'm back in Berlin to start my German study, and my holiday ends. I will have to make only weekend trips for 2 months if I do go anywhere as I have German every weekday, it'll be just like school. I think I will just ceck out German speaking places in this time, find ZKM, visit Lauren in Constance, check out Switzerland maybe as its nextdoor, go to Vienna meet up with the Americans, and then to Linz also in Austria to check out the Ars Electronica Museum, and visit Marlene somewhere South (the German who stayed with my family for a while) but I will have to see if these little weekend trips are worthwhile time-wise and cost-wise.

I hope everyone is well and enjoying the sun and have a swim at the beach for me.

EEK-A-MOUSE

2005-02-10T15:00:00.000+11:00

Last night I went to a reggae/dancehall gig in Prenlzlauer Berg (the "trendy" area of Berlin: think Paddington with a Soviet history). Went with a group of American girls who are studying in Vienna. The band were called EEK-A-MOUSE, and they weren't German, genuine Rastafarians that had gone to the extent of banning Red Bull at the bar, and punctuated everyone song with the chant.

"How are you feeling tonight?"
"What are you smoking tonight?"

I was mainly smoking Marlboro Lights, which are called Marlboro Gold here.
My favourite lyrics, if I heard them right were:

I too tall
She too small
Cannot find her virgin hole

Anyway the girls were all really cool, and I'll meet them again when I get to Vienna. But for now I'm off to Paris. Flying out tonight and will hopefully catch up with Leah. I had time to kill until I can move into this share house with two German girls - Andrea und Henriette, in Kreuzberg (think Newtown with 4 storey buildings). They both seem nice and the room is quite big, on the top floor and with huge windows, and a nice view. I move in there next Tuesday, so hence why I am off to Paris until then. Didn't want to spend money at a hostel in a city I'll be living in for six months.

Well I have to go drag my luggage up the four flights of stairs and get to the airport.

Turned

2005-02-07T00:20:00.000+11:00

The multimedia dance performance is a synaesthetic coupling of the elements of dance, painting, visual art and music. The moving body produces visual material that is sampled in real time, trace-elements of these stances and movements are deconstructed in both a poetic and unsettling manner. Thus, an initial glance at the losses that accompany each replacement and each dematerialisation is provided.

I saw the performance of Turned tonight as part of Transmediale. It resonated with me as one of the better examples of the concept of a digital rhythm infiltrating the body and hijacking its movement. There was an extensive use of video delays and feedback loops that were projected on the screen behind the dancer that replayed her movements. The whole thing was produced live, the video and sound generated on the fly although obviously following some sort of set composition, however it did seem to allow for an interesting interaction between the sound artists, video artist and dancer that provoked a moment of call and response during one particular scene. It presented the dancer and two delayed video projections of her on either side. These projections seemed to randomly capture fragments of her movement and then replay them with a slow stutter. The interesting thing ocurred when the dancer seemed to become the delayed image, and her movements followed those of the video. This did not happen through a simple shift of gear but rather the choreography of the piece, although each movement seemingly unique and hardly repetitive , fedback on itself in a similar method to the reverse delay effect used in audio production. I was watching the piece and all of a suden the human real figure became a shadow of the virtual figures. The whole work was built around this, the sound generatedby looping noises and scratched on a turntabable, and then manipulated with various delay effects. Hence the title Turned, everything turned on itself. This is a slightly incoherent review I know, but I just had to write something about it - and there is free access to the internet here at Transmediale.

Otherwise... I'm having a fantastic time... haven't found anywhere to live... still at the hostel... haven't really looked... like the hostel too much and too busy... have the flu... Becks Gold doesn't seem too different to Becks... Berlin is spacious... deserted on the outside... but alive on the inside... discovered Breakcore at ClubTransmediale... I liked it... doner kebabs invented here... use toasted turkish bread instead of the pita bread or whatever we use... they're much nicer here... had a Curry Wurst this evening which was really ordinary... otherwise haven't really come across much German food... not expensive... not cheap... just run of the mill... I'm very cold... I feel like an idiotic tourist reading maps all the time...

The Lazy Language

2005-02-06T12:12:00.000+11:00

Nationalism is a strange thing. I've never really identified myself by my country, my nationality, or my home town. But when you're sitting aroung a table of various nationalities you become acutely aware of it. I'm the Australian. Those two guys next to me are the Italians. The girls opposite drinking vodka and cherry juice and churning out joint after joint, they are the Spanish girls. The man who hasn't stopped talkling since we sat down. He's French.

English is generally spoken at the table, but constantly invaded by some sort of Latin language. They are speaking one sentence French, the next English, followed by an Italian explanation and a Spanish exclamation.

But whenever it falls back to English, things start to get serious. The tone more sombre and the atmosphere chilled. It seems English is a dead language. And I am stuck with this dead language running through my head, a treadmill of phrases and thoughts, serious and sombre, but now punctuated with some absurd German exclamations. The subject of these exclamations may not necessarily be absurd, but they sound strange enough.

So it seems our character and our performance of our self are significantly constructed around the language we use and the nation we come from. Once we start thinking in another lanuage, dreaming in another language, we will have extended the capabilities of the construction of our identity. Whether or not German is the language I want to broaden the performance of my "self" is another question. But all I can do now is be "The Australian" with the lazy language.

Punk Wannabe Arseless Fuck Head

2005-02-01T19:06:00.000+11:00

It's my last night in London and I'm making a concerted effort to suck up as much English as I can before I revert to Deutsch. I dream of a place where my hair is simply let be. The fondling and the remarks have put me on edge and I think I will make a pilgrimage during my stay in Europe to find some sort of colony of big hair people.

But at least people aren't grabbing my arseless arse, which seems to happen here more than I expected. It's a slap and grab - a behaviour that steps in step with my memories of a southern Europe, not northern.

I stopped off in York on my way down to London yesterday. It was simply for nostalgia's sake. I was trying to find familiar places from when I was last here during my school band tour in 1999, walking around madly on a mission to find the tattoo parlor place where I got my ear pierced for the first time. Unfortunately the only thing I recognised was Yorkminster, and I was unable to get my ear successfully pierced there. Mister York a punk wannabe no more. The bass guitars gone. Just some silent prayer and large tombs.

I hope everything goes well with the tentacle rape James and you look a little more healthy and a little less emo. Would love to hear about the experience!

Where did everything go?!

2005-02-01T18:09:00.000+11:00

It seems time has misplaced itself once again. I have said my final farewells to Bryn as he ran back to a mysterious car after I reclaimed my Lain boxset, I also bugged out on Pete and never returned from my quest to find a payphone. It seems I cannot understand when or where things are meant to happen. I have lost the essential happening part. I shall have a chance to redeem myself with Pete given that he can make his peace with the weatherman. The eternal next sunday at Bondi.

So,
whats news..
what is new..
the many new things..
the news..

Today I believe the reclusive dental assistant James Brown will undergo an episode of tentacle rape. Strange unwelcome cords shall do what they want and will keep a video record of this internal violation, perhaps he will come out on top though, a healthier James Brown.

Other then this I have finally got my ticket, which I was meant to pickup today but didn't. I still have to to get a passport, but I have passport photo's and have pretty much filled out the application.
Soon. Soon.
It will all fall into place.
The horror of working to many days will be over.
Escape, run.
I have become a robotic monkey. I exchange my ability to function within a system for money. Protocol has become God.

Funderland in Sunderland

2005-01-30T14:30:00.000+11:00

Order a sandwich, it comes with a side of crisps.
I'm in Sunderland, twenty minutes from Newcastle. Staying in student accomodation with Anna, who is studying fine arts over here. I'm sleeping in her housemates room... plastered with thousands of bare breasted page three girls, that's the news here, on page three anyway. Skirts so short, boots so big and skimpy see-through tops and its on the verge of snowing. It's a nice place though, scenic anyway, rivers leading into the ocean, seagulls, rows of houses that all look the same. Street Spirit. Fade out. Again.

Very happy to be hanging out with Anna, and I think if I get the chance I might come up here again, and try to get up to Glasgow, it's only two hours away. But we're planning to head down to Barcelona together for the Easter break, which will be terribly fine by me considering Anna speaks Spanish.

I'm still shattered from Tokyo, that place knocked me about like a masochistic dead fish... it was such a trip, she was hardly there, she had orange ribbons in her hair.

Pumpkin Cook.

Had lunch there in Harejuku, served nothing but food with pumpkin, I ordered a pumpkin pizza. It turned out to be half a pumpkin stuffed with tomatos and melted cheese. This was after the entree of pumpkin soup.
The live house/dark house was pretty cool also, although it still meant conversations with randoms using only the body. A lot of people that looked on must have thought I was a travelling mime. The music was varied, some Japanese Limp Bizkit wannabees followed by some no-wave stuff, rockabilly, and a clash-like act. Everything except for the Limp Bizkit was amazing, the energy on stage far outdoing the most energetic gig I have seen in Sydney.
Checked all the artist-runs around Harejuku and came across this amazing complex with huge murals all over it... there are about eight litle gallries in the building, where you can put on shows for two weeks, I can't remember what the place is called but I've got it written down and I'll post some pictures when I settle in Berlin - but definitley plan on getting back to Tokyo and putting on a show there.

Went to the ICC centre in Tokyo which is like ACMI in Melbourne but bigger, finally got to ride through Jeffrey Shaw's Legible City, along with some other interesting works which I want to tell you about, but can't be fucked right now as I am suffering from a slight hangover. Tate Modern in London had an excellent collection as well as a mammoth sound installation by Bruce Naumann. Yesterday went to the Baltic Centre in Newcastle, which had the most intense art installation I've ever participated in, happened to be by some Australians, but their name escapes me right now... it involved taking of your shoes and lying down on an illuminated floor that was glowing red, you were sandwiched between that and an illuminated ceiling. The colours change rapidly, the sound making your body shake, your eyes are watering and you are soon seeing your kindergarten teacher dance past your eyes.. it reminded me of the last scene in Space Odyseey 2001, and a work Chris would make if he had more funds.

So I've been seeing some amazing art for the first time in a long time and I haven't even got to Transmediale in Berlin, but only a couple of days to go.

Now for an afternoon breakfast and a pint of Stella.

Duress

2005-01-25T19:00:00.000+11:00

After much preasure from Andrew and ultimatly boredom at work, I've taken the plunge and am trying my hand at the exploration of the virtual.

I think I might acutally think further on my needs for a passport and achieve something, I also have to book my ticket before then end of Jan, but at the moment I am content to watch the seconds slip by.

By on by,
By, by bye.

I just have to remeber that nothing bad ever comes of these things.
I shall finish work soon.
It will be time to get drunk with girls that I shouldn't.

Kore wa doko des ka?

2005-01-23T16:58:00.000+11:00

Originally uploaded by jackette.

Tokyo.
Arrived here this morning, spent the first hour trying to buy a lighter, cigarettes are easy as they have street vending machines, lighters don't... so I needed to communicate. Thumbs up, thumbs down. Didn't have them at the cosmetic store which I read as convenient. Convenient. There are men in hats crossing the street here, so many hats.
Had a cigarette and a coffee.
Japanese punk rockers with guitars on the back kept walking past.
Don't know if they were going to a gig at 10 in the morning or if it's simply an accessory.
Realised I had been walking for an hour straight and wasn't watching where I was coming from.
Ah. Tokyo.
Not a word of english spoken but you can get by with some nods.
Had a free translator for a moment in a Myers like store, she was an Australian... managed to buy a coat, I now no longer need to fuel myself with nicotine.
Hung out with her for a bit, she wanted to kill time from work, put me onto some punk gigs in some "dark rooms", which is the name here for a venue... I'm tickled with anticipation... she put my name on the door for one place tonight - The Dead Pan Speakers, Gasburner and Head Job.

I highly recommend anyone flying out anywhere to go via Tokyo as I have only been here for half a day and I am knocked about by some sort of speedy hysteria/euphoria... and I must get back to it.

Mr. Gone at The Bank

2005-01-17T15:43:00.000+11:00

The madness of a Sunday night... had some successful going away drinks last night at The Bank in Newtown... successful because I now feel gone.
Mister Gone.

The Maxx's arch nemesis, the man who causes worlds to collide, the subconscious and the sublime. Cut. Tear.

Into
You
Every/day/aware

So I feel I'm slipping into the other/day. The space that thrives during the first hammer of that snooze button.

I spent a lot of time there this morning... a time staring at a word like "tear" for so long that I soon forget why it's there and what it means...

tear around: to move about in excited, often angry haste.
tear at: to pull at or attack violently.
tear away: to remove (oneself, for example) unwillingly or reluctantly.
tear down: to take apart; disassemble.
tear off: to produce hurriedly and casually.
tear up: to make an opening in.
tear hair: to be greatly upset or distressed.

tear: a profusion of liquid spilling from the eyes and wetting the cheeks, especially as an expression of emotion

Like those bugs in the grass during the opening scene of Blue Velvet... another world under the white picket fence, I feel that's where I'm flying to on Saturday... I'm leaving Lumberton.

Timber doesn't arouse me like it used to.
You can't tear it till it's paper.

The few photos I managed to take between cocktails at the Bank can be viewed here.

Please leave a comment with your name, I'm interested if anyone is reading this...

Dance Dance Dance

2005-01-10T10:49:00.000+11:00

Twelve days to go.
That means I only have one Sunday left in Sydney.

I've been searching the net for places to stay, and as of yet have been unable to find a cheap apartment above an auto-repair shop similar to the one Bowie stayed in when he recorded "Heroes". However, in terms of finding my way around once I arrive, I am reassured by my lecturer John Conomos' story of artists being picked up from the airport by limousines; this after all was my primary reason for applying for an exchange to Berlin.

I'm preparing myself for my three nights in Tokyo by reading Haruki Murakami's novel "Dance Dance Dance" and praying that the reality of Japan compares with the absurdity of his writing. Still deciding whether I want to sleep in a pod or not. Any ideas?

Anyway I've booked my around the world ticket and here is my current itinerary:

22 Jan - Leave Sydney
23 Jan - Tokyo
26 Jan - London
02 Feb - Berlin
20 Feb - Oslo
26 Feb - Berlin
18 Jul - Dublin
21 Jul - New York
24 Jul - Montreal
27 Jul - New Orleans
30 Jul - San Francisco
06 Aug - Sydney

Welcome to The Jackette.

2005-01-10T01:02:00.000+11:00

Due to the unfortunate lack of generous offers for international tours, J.A.C.K, the synth orchestra of art-school drop outs, have now graduated and decided to take on the international scene on their own.
Unfortunatley however, not quite together.

Andrew, the inflicted frontman, will be the first to abandon the ever accomodating Sydney scene and will instead struggle as an artist in Berlin for six months.

Chris, the brooding producer of beats and noise, will be next. He will attempt fulfil his dream as a writer/illustrator of a cyborg porn comic series in Tokyo for a month before it proves to be fruitless. He will then try to express his desires in other ways through touring the spoken word circuit in continental Europe throughout their summer.

James, the manic masochist of melodies, will be last, almost leaving Sydney completely devoid of the invigorating essence of J.A.C.K were it not for the inverted "K". James will focus his energies in the U.K. on improving his English accent since it has been crumbling quite significantly these last few months. He will also continue researching the concept of love for further J.A.C.K lyrics after his bandmates both abandoned their studies.

This blog has been devised to record and communicate the international adventures of these three musical pioneers as truthfully and ethically possible. We welcome you to The Jackette.