Another week, another column! Why so late this time? Errr…funny story. I’ll get to that later. Let me begin here by saying that we’ve had absolutely no interest in the competition. Admittedly, it’s a bit restrictive saying, ‘Oh, here’s some stuff but you can’t enter if you’re not Australian’, but whatever. I guess the fact that pretty much all 360 faceplates other than the default are ugly anyway doesn’t help. Anyway, if no one wants it, then, well, I’m not sure what I’ll do. Don’t people want free stuff these days? Crazy.
Bit of stuff to get through this week - couple of games, few CDs. Haven’t been into town for a few days so there’s not actually any comics to talk about. Maybe I’ll edit that part in after I duck into town tomorrow.

———————

Let’s talk music first. This (last) week, I had the pleasure of doing two interviews for dB Magazine. One was a face to face, the other over the phone. One was exciting, one not so much.

The face to face - the less exciting one - was a really last minute thing with (pretty average) Australian pop group Rogue Traders, featuring another former Neighbours star, Nathalie Bathingthwaite. That’s two down, then; 200 or so to go. They were nice enough, but the 20 minutes we had dragged out really badly for the last five - I would have happily left after 15 and could have made my article word limit just as easily.

The phone interview was much more exciting; kind of nerve wracking even, for the first minute or so at least. It was with Ed Kuepper, founding member of pioneering Aussie punk band The Saints, and formidable solo artist in his own right. And prolific too: he released 18 albums in the 1990s alone, and that’s not even counting compilations. That’s incredible. I pretty much grew up listening to him thanks to my dad, but it took me a while to realise Kuepper really is a great artist - it’s not the same as, say, appreciating ELO because you grew up with them or something. His 1991 album Honey Steel’s Gold, if you haven’t heard it, is a good starting place - for an album that’s over 15 years old, it stands up spectacularly well.

I spoke to Kuepper about his new album with his band The Kowalski Collective, Jean Lee and the Yellow Dog. It’s essentially a kind of loose concept album about the last woman to be hanged in Australia - and the only one to be hanged in the 20th century. The story itself is pretty interesting, but the really interesting facts are in the little details, which are a little more complex than I have the time to explain here, so you could check this entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography if you’re curious.

The basic gist is that Lee was a single mother in Sydney in the ’40s, who in order to survive became a prostitute. After a while, she formed a relationship with conman Robert Clayton, and the two would, apparently, blackmail married clients. Between May 1945 and July 1948 she appeared in court 23 times, on mostly minor offences. In October 1949, she travelled to Melbourne with Clayton, and met up Norman Andrews. Then, in November of that year, the three were involved in the murder of 73 year old bookmaker William “Pop” Kent.

The details are pretty cloudy on that event, but Lee confessed, and all three were sentenced to death. There are questions about whether or not she was actually guilty, or whether she just confessed to try and save Clayton, figuring that a woman would not be sentenced to death, and that she would receive the brunt of the law - assumedly life in prison. Kuepper’s album, which features lyrics co-written with his wife Judi doesn’t really make suppositions, but leave it up to listeners, which seems like a good move to me.

Not that it really tells the story in a coherent narrative either, though there are plans for a stage adaptation. It’s more an investigation of the people involved than anything else.

It’s a dense album, and that’s almost surprising in a way - it’s a really claustrophobic in parts, and quite abrasive at times too. Even the quieter moments have a reasonably intimidating atmosphere to them. I like it a lot, basically.

Kuepper was really great to talk to, incidentally. He was happy to talk at length about the album and was really open about his thoughts on what it represented in his career and so on. Should be great once I write it up. And unlike the Rogue Traders interview, I could have easily talked with him for another 20 minutes. Hell, another hour. Really truly fascinating stuff.

I’m slowly making my way through that pile of CDs on my desk now. There are a couple of disappointments, mostly in the form of Hawnay Troof’s Dollar and Deed, a double album that sounds like a lost solo album recorded by Adrock in 1992. It’s really pedestrian in terms of its music, and the rapping is just irritating - there’s no subtlety, it’s all just in your face all the time. Which would be fine for an EP, maybe, but not for a double album. That’s just self-indulgent.

I’ve been enjoying the new Mendoza Line album, 30 Year Low. It’s only eight tracks, but there’s a second disc of live and rare stuff, because this is the last album Timothy Bracy and Shannon McArdle are doing together. They’re now divorced, which is sad. So, there’s a little bit of bitterness in the new music, and a lot of sadness. I’m going to have to listen to it a bit more before I can really get a handle on the mood, but the songs are great, especially the duet between McArdle and Okkervil River’s Will Sheff. I love a good duet, and I love Okkervil River, so it’s like they put that one on just for me. I’m touched.

Nervous Jerk’s ESP compilation is predictably great. The label has been a visible force in promotion and recordings in Melbourne for a while now, and over 23 tracks they’ve put together something really special. It’s got Crayon Fields, who I adore, and the side project Sly Hats, as well as Eddy Current Suppression Ring, The Stabs, My Disco, Calvin Johnson, Michael Yonkers and more. A couple of tracks are a little on the disposable side, and there are one or two that I could have done without, but for the most part, I can’t fault it.

I’ve only listened to the solo album for Gomez vocalist Ian Ball once or twice, but I like what I’m hearing. Who Goes There is a lot smoother and simpler than Gomez. It’s just well put together indie pop with a lot of heart. And you can’t ask for more than that. The second album for Celebration, The Modern Tribe, is another one I need to put a bit more time into. I’ve run it through a few times, but I’m still getting a grip on it. It’s psychedelia with a dash of beats and a great female vocalist in Katrina Ford, but it hasn’t quite clicked yet. That’s not to say I don’t like it - I do - I’m just not at the point where I can say exactly what I like about it yet.

Finally, I received the new Jeffrey Lewis album in the mail. 12 Crass Songs is, as the title suggests, 12 covers of songs by the punk band Crass, redone by Lewis: he changes the music, and updates the lyrics in a few place. It cost me a little over $30, but he’s also donating half the profits to charities that the band would approve of, so that’s great.

He says in the liner notes that when he first heard them he was struck by the fact that their music is so aggressive, yet the lyrics are reminiscent of ’60s counter-culture. They’re remarkably literate, and are worryingly relevant even now.

Lewis’ music took a step up in complexity with his last album, City and Eastern Songs. His first was mostly 4 track recordings, and occasionally just tape deck recordings, so it’s not as if he didn’t have a lot of space to move, but he’s doing some interesting work with layers and percussion these days, and it’s really quite lush in some places. 12 Crass Songs is maybe even more melodically focused than City and Eastern Songs. It only arrived yesterday, but I must have listened to it 10 or more times by now - it’s really that good.

———————

So, why is this late? It’s pretty simple: The Orange Box ate my weekend. It got pushed back to the 25th - though I found a copy on the 24th and finished Portal that night. Then I spent the whole weekend playing through Half-Life 2 and Episode 1, with big patches of Team Fortress 2 as well.

Let me put this bluntly: if you own a 360, and you don’t own this game, you should feel bad about yourself.

I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve never played Half-Life 2 before, having never had a PC up to the task, but I can see what the fuss was about. It’s incredible. The updated graphics in the Orange Box version, which use Valve’s HDR lighting techniques as seen in Episode 1 and 2, are great. There’s a really dense atmosphere about everything. I thought the notorious linearity might be a little off-putting for me, but it hasn’t bothered me one bit. I finished up Episode 1 last night, and I’m about midway through Episode 2. It’s all just stunning stuff - the locales and characters are so full of life. Why didn’t anyone tell me? Jeez.

Portal, however, is the real highlight, and is deserving of all the praise you’ve probably heard about it. Aside from being one of the most inventive games of recent years in terms of its mechanics, it’s also hilariously funny. I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, but the character of GLaDOS, the computer who guides you throughout the game, is terrific, both in terms of the voice acting, and in terms of actually complexity. And as for the ending? Wow. Mind blown.

Team Fortress 2 is actually a little hit and miss at times. If you’re on a team and everyone is in voice talking it all through, it’s more fun than any other multiplayer game I can think of. But if you’ve got a team of people who won’t talk, and who attempt to win the match themselves, then it just falls to pieces, and can be really irritating.

I’m often reluctant to use my mic, because there’s not a lot of point in, say, FlatOut or Blazing Angels 2. But I can’t think of any game that it’s more necessary in than this one. I played with a bunch of other Australians the other day, and that was a blast. I’ve got a few of them on my friends list now, so hopefully we’ll be able to do it again sometime. I just wish I knew more people playing it, because it’s a game that really thrives on communication and being able to have a laugh with the others on your team.

Minor quibbles about team mates aside, and now that the lag issues are mostly fixed, I’m loving it, and can see myself playing this for a long, long time. It’s cool to have finally found a multiplayer game that really clicks with me. Here’s a gif of me playing, just for a bit of fun. That’s over around 45 minutes, which is a bit worrying. I seem to stand a lot while I’m playing, it seems.

I found a little time to touch on Clive Barker’s Jericho on Saturday. I’d had it for two days at that point, but it got caught up due to an issue with not being able to take the Orange Box disc out of the drive, if you know what I mean. In short, it’s a shooter, and you shoot zombie demon things. Oh, and you’re on a special ops team…of witches! The end.

Ehh, I’m being harsh, but it’s really nothing special. You can switch between players on your squad after an event in the first level, but it doesn’t quite work. They all have different powers, but switching is too fiddly to do in the middle of a battle, which takes away some of the use of it. In addition, when you’re not controlling them, your team mates are so blindingly stupid that it takes all the fun out of the game - I feel like I spent more time healing them than fighting.

And what do they do after you revive them? Do they go and heal the other hurt squad members? No, they go and stand in the open and fire at the enemy. And then die. Repeat ad nauseum. For a special ops team, they don’t seem to have a very good understanding of cover.

It’s just bland, really. The only game breaking flaw is the AI, but the rest of the game, which could have made up for it, is nothing short of boring. Barker’s designs may have been pioneering at one point, but they’re generic these days. Oh, slimy things? Didn’t I fight them in Gears of War? Or maybe it was one of the other hundred shooters on the 360. Bleh.

Oh - I’m back with the guys at Strategy Informer, the UK gaming site, so I’ll be doing a few reviews for them soon. Coming my way: Crash of the Titans, the new Crash Bandicoot game, and, erhm, Horse Life for DS. I don’t know a whole lot about the game, but apparently I can “purchase over 80 different items such as clothing, saddles or food and treats” for my horse, as well as entering it in horsey competitions. Rad.

———————

More next week. I’m going to see The Scare on Friday night, so that should be cool. I’m post a few impressions here. There should also be a few more CDs to talk about as I continue to make my way down the pile. And I’m interviewing Faker this week too, which is…eh. Not terribly exciting.

But oh well. I’m off to save the world from the Combine now.