Hot Autumn ideas for Ballarat Festivals

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Ballarat festival ideas

Shit! Goddamn! Make mine a cheese and ham! Mick Dog's revelation of another fantastic attempt for Ballarat to sink a shitload of money into something other than the behemoth of boring, the Begonia Fester-Vale, ignites a spark of interest in the cloistered explosive fumes of my pants. A festival, you say? Not like at Sovereign Hill, where a tonne of money was dumped on a sad and pathetic retelling of the tragic story of Australian music in the 1980s, as re-enacted by the people who were actually there (was it true the staff of Sovvie Hill were PAID to watch James Reyne?)

How to get the folk of Ballarat on board and supportive of something more complicated than queuing for dimmies at the Hamburger Cart, yet not as awkward as standing around on Camp Street watching councillors get drunk and Ballarat artists get short shrift during the Commonwealth Games...

Here's the grab bag of festival ideas we could - or yet might have if the collective genius of the Middle Aged Caucasians Without Soul has its indomitable way in Ballarat:

Crimean War Festival: everyone has to dress up as their favourite character from this charming 19th century fracas between Russia and the Poms, Frogs and Turks. The highlight is a restaging of the Siege of Sebastopol, with Ballarat's own namesake of this historic place heavily bombed, and then invaded by the armies of Wendouree and Redan in their fleet of P-Plate Commodores.

The Plugger Festival

A festival of quietly spoken, barrel chested large men who can kick footies a fuckin' long way. They will all gather at a footy ground and begin drinking in March. In April, one will say "jeez, I'm a bit hungry" and then the 8 weeks of barbque food festival will begin. Sausages of the World, Celebrity Steak Sandwiches (I'll have the Terri Irwinburger) and Exotic Onion Cutting With Chainsaw displays ensue. A sideline program of dishlickers and a parade of beefy blokes in utes driving past giving a passive 'owyuzgarn?' will also bring put back the 'big bastard from the country' that's been missing in Ballarat's marketing.

Single Mums on the Tear

Finally, a week long shindig for all those young women who found out just being able to shoot a wad into the back of the net doesn't neccessarily qualify a man as good fatherhood material. Instead of just wandering mindlessly around Stocklands Wendouree or the Mall with your screaming brats, here's the chance to get together with other mums and really discuss those big issues of whether Breehanna has become an over-used name for the effects of unwanted pregancies and maybe cop a rough shag from some miscellaneous speed freak from Colac. Music from live Britney and Bon Jovi tribute shows and, of course, an invite out to every tattooed dirty bastard across the state that there's plenty of desperate-for-any-action types gathered in one spot, so we can begin the process all over again 9 months after this event.

Stupid people and the impending massacre in Ballarat

My favourite author of all time is a bloked called Harlan Ellison. Your fuckin' uneducated fault for not knowing who he is. He's doing some interviews with people because there's a movie coming out about him. Knowing Australia we'll get the usual 5 second-crap press release rewrite, about 8 months after the fact - not unlike SBS TV news finding out that Terry Pratchett has dementia last night... like it was fuckin' news.... (can't even find the story on their website, that's how important they thought it was)

Anyhoo, I read this interview with Harlan on salon.com and I thought this particular quote resonated best, although sadly, it may mean the end of Ballarat as a heavily populated regional city if Harlan ever moves here:

"I'm an elitist because I think there are too many stupid people in the
world. But one must not pity them; one must take an AK-47 and kill them. You
just need to kill as many stupid people as you can find. Go out in the streets
and ask them if they have ever heard of Guy de Maupassant. No? Bam, you're dead.

Have you ever heard of Bessie Smith? No? Bam, you're dead. Beyond that, I
think it is really smartass of me to be cranky at people for not being as good
as I want them to be. I have, I suppose, a very peculiar love-hate relationship
with the human race. As a concept, the human race seems to be a very workable
idea. When you get down to the individuals, most of them need a ball-peen hammer
to the middle of their forehead to make them move even as a slow pony. I figure
any species that is capable of writing "Moby-Dick" and painting the Sistine
Chapel ceiling and putting people on the moon does not have to settle for novels
by Judith Krantz, McDonald's toad burgers and movies like "Dumb and Dumberer."

What is that Latin phrase? Spero melior -- I hope for better things. I have
a very low tolerance threshold. It's one of my many, many flaws and I get cranky
with people..."

Hits and Gig(gles)

Hello Fans,

It's been a while, but then again I have been hiding in the cavities of certain diplomats to bring you this fast breaking news story.

I must say it's serendipitious (thats the word for covering your lovers rooty bits in Ice Magic and making them stand in the fridge so you can crack their rocks off) to read Dr. Le Skips well deserved skunking of the Begonia debacle.
Indeed it's good to see someone backing up and squeezing the anal glands hard at those motherfluffers.
Anyhoo......

The rumour is that somehow, somewhere the City council has actually managed to hire someone competent and fun to do the big Arts Officer job, (rather than another middle aged nitwit who thinks water colors of menopausal clowns are the ducks guts) and that there may be (drum roll please...) the chance of getting a proper festival in town.

Y'know.....a festival that has fun in it. That you look forward to. That lets new stuff hapen. That contains no Brian Adams.

A festival that makes the final few seconds of the National News just after the Weather (thats when you know you've made it in this country.....when some be-suited gonk says "rain and drizzle in Canberra...and now lets take a look at the Ballarat Festival where forty seven competitors had to swim through ice water, root a peguin and do three vodka luges in order to be crowed "Mr Hypothermia....." (fade to Summer Bay).

Yup. You heard it. A festival.
The question remains...how do we stop the Menzies frotting conseratives from giving it the icy dick of Satan?
Or letting Mr. Bus and his cardboard minimalism (or as we older types say "Fuckin boring horseshit") from hi-jacking the thing and using this fuckin "Tolerance" card to be piss poor and drag the whole thing down so Ballarat can hate itself again?

Is it possible in this town to say "We are just as mad as any other bastards. Our freak flag with be made of colored steam".(?)
Is it possible to get a festival up that shows those boring city doodles that no one here gives a shit about goast cheese ceramics and get Lydiard street covered in snow by one of those big snow blowing bastards?
Is it possoble to say "Shut up already with the cold. Put on another jumper and create a huge percussion sculpture that plays a tune when it pisses down on the locals?
Is it possible to have bands playing in the cold and (gasp!) you might have to dance (is that the word? I've only seen it in movies....) to keep warm?
Is it possible to have on street carveries of delectable roast meats and rivers of molten chocolate?
Is it possible to have a chilli fest in amongst it all so you have to roll around in the snow to stop your head from exploding?
Is it possible for the waring faction of ning nongs in this buggered burgh to set aside tribal differences and having a crack at defeating the larger threat of being bored fucking stupid?

Who knows?
But it's on the cards again.
Admittedly its a bit like a bunch of old soviets (sitting in the streets of Moscow with a McSomething, talking to the Ford dealership on the mobile about getting extended warrenties) suddenly geting teary about how much fun home made pickles were.

But they were good pickles, goddammit.
Damn fine pickles and when you dropped a few of those saucy gherkins down the cakehole and chased it through with some of Uncle Vlas's homemade thistle vodka, you did feel beter.

Even as you went blind for a while, (Uncle Vlas always loved the thinner in the mix. Cheap bastard...) and the pickle popped out a freshly burnt gullet hole, you realised what a good short film it would have made and realised no where else could a metaphor for a festival in my town be made but here.

And that's got to count for something.

Til next time

Mick "The worker's flag was in this box....shit...where it is?....hang on I'll ring her Maj..." Dog.

Show With No Name playlist March 11

OK, so the Van Halen thing didn't quite work out. It was always going to be a short term deal... but speaking of breathing life into a rehabbed body, Lenny was just a little bit chuffed with the news that Ace Frehley was back out and touring again. KISS may well be playing to an audience of broom pushers, waiters and freebie holders at the Grand Pricks, but we'll be holding out for Melbourne shows of Ace and his new crew of drug-free, boozefree (we used to call them straight edge, dear...) young hotshots. Bring the fuckin' Ozone, baby...

So anyhoo - in the wake of Golden Plains it was a mixed bag this week in terms of music choice. I'm still a bit flutter-hearted over the Dirtbombs and those insane Taswegians the Scientists of Modern Music. We did help promote another massive story from the Courier about needing rain to break the drought... awesome stuff.

23rd of Elvis - Way Before That
Frank Zappa - Muffin Man (live)
AC/DC - Beating Around the Bush
Roky Erikson - Standy for the Fire Demon
The Monkeywrench - Bring on the Judgement Day
Big Star - Life Is White
John Zorn - You Will Be Shot
Dirtbombs - Everlovin' Man
Leafhound - Freelance Fiend
Richard Cheese - Rape Me
Cosmic Psychos - Shove
Andre Williams - Sling It Bang It, Give it Cabfare Home
Prisonshake - $20
Guns n Roses - Anything Goes
The Fireballs - Big Black Hearse

7'oclock Rock
Sick of It All - This Day and Age
Henry Rollins - Stop, Look and Listen
One Inch Punch - Insult Your Intelligence
The Vandals - Behind the Music

Ace Frehley - Rip It Out
Lobby Loyde - Heavy Metal Kid
Aerosmith - Mama Kin
Blondie - Dreamin'
Spencer Davis Group - Time Seller
Flaming Lips - Mr Ambulance Driver
23rd of Elvis - Outsider
Ace Frehley - What's On Your Mind?
5678s - Guitar Date
Ace Frehley - Wiped Out
Bay City Rollers - Bang Shang Alang

Oh, by the way, did I mention down at Golden Plains I was told AGAIN the story of a plucky promoter who thinks they can get Led Zeppelin to play Kryal Castle?

Oh! And we got our first international shout-out from our man Jeckles at shittyblogradio. Always so nice when the folks responsible for voting in the next man with their finger on the world nuclear trigger smile upon us peasants of the Pacific... big ups!

Stick your begonias up your arse; we're at Golden Plains

Our humble state of Victoria has few rivals when it comes to shit-awful/boring-as-sand festival events, but few of these can better the absolute creamy fly-covered turdness of Ballarat's Begonia Festival. It takes a special kind of journalist to whip interest out of this shallow grave of ratepayers money, and we salute the hardworking womble who chiselled out this particular irony-free zone in the Courier, Ballarat's august paper of record. All errors of grammar and syntax have been kept from the original publication, and I've highlighted the bits that nail the sad, decaying corpse-eating pit of sadness that is Begonia Festival 2008:

Traditionally the festival is based around the flowers, art,
craft and stalls. But this year younger children could not get enough of
the "We Built This City" cardboard box arena and jumping castle. Not to
mention the mobile entertainment vehicle simply known as The Bus, which came
complete with Internet access and console games.
About 250 children had visited the cardboard box area in just the first few hours it had opened Saturday morning.
Box City "safety officer" Nathan Gurney said safety was his middle name.
"I have got cable ties for tricky corners, a texta for making signs and then a spare texta just in case," he said.
"We haven't counted exactly how many boxes are here, but there is at least 2000."
Children were encouraged to stack boxes as high as possible, before knocking them down and starting again.
While children had fun with the boxes, the Begonia Festival was of
course about the begonia's. Festival volunteer Graeme Strachan said "bus
loads" of tourists had stopped to admire flowers inside the Robert Clark
Conservatory which this year came complete with an Aladdin theme. Mr Strachan said the drought had failed to dampen the size, or colour of the flowers.

Ladies and gennilmen, it don't get much better than that. I missed the parade, but again, the laser-sharp reportage of The Courier mentions this year had more floats than ever. Ballarat folk who were there say this is because most of the city's garbage trucks and Council vehicles were tacked on to the end of it. Apparently you could SMS a vote for your favourite garbage truck. Instead of whinging about the hijacking of more than $200,000 of public money to feed the sad egos of a few people who insist there be nothing interesting allowed to happen in Ballarat, just down the highway we were losing our minds to two insane Tasmanians with synths and vocoders

It was Golden Plains the 2nd, and yea, did it rock verily. Here's the shortlist summary:

Ween: overblown, overhyped and over here. Two hours onstage and you still can't play Gabrielle? Sure, you're a shit-hot guitarist. But if you can't do something more than play your own jukebox in double the time allowed the other bands, you are boring. Fuck off back to novelty songland.

Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings: plagued by a dodgy microphone but nailed the funk/soul banner to the wall and made everyone dance a funky salute to it

South Rakkas Crew: when will they learn? Dancehall djs are fine, but don't ever walk onstage at the Supernatural Ampitheatre and think you can pull this 'put your hands in the air' shit. We will call it as we see it. And you are wankers.

The Dirtbombs: Everything that is good about rock. Totally awesome, two drummers, awesomely huge sound, tight as fuck with a proper traincrash finish. A joy to behold.

The Vines: will the crowd stop giving this guy shit about antidepressants and being bipolar? Probably not. But the crowd danced. The old folks remained impassive.

Jens Lekman: somebody call TISM. I have a new target for them.

Buffalo Tom: OK... but making jokes about Altamont? *yawn* And he fucked up the chorus on Taillights Fade. Seriously, mate - you only had to get one song right. Is that too much to ask some hasbeen college rockers?

The Panics: great stuff. It's true what people are saying about them being the new Go-Betweens. If only he can keep from sounding like whassiface from the Whitlams, he'll be alright.

Pikelet were a tasty discovery early on. Kind of like Bjork, but from Northcote. Chick plays accordion, makes her own live loops and sings. Never seen a band all recline on banana lounges while the singer does a solo number... these guys were interesting.

Beirut got bigged up to me by the aforementioned Systah BB. She said not to miss 'em. I say: what if Morrissey joined a Balkan-gypsy band? The girls sighed. The band were great, but never hit that vodka-fuelled gypsy speed metal vibe that I like with that kind of music.

The Bamboos: the night after Sharon Jones, the skips had a crack at this "funk and soul" thing, and these bad boys from Melbourne danced up the pitch and belted it waaaaay out of the park. I'll never see the Bar-Kays or the Mar-Keys, but by Christ I saw the Bamboos knock it out with total sharp-suited aplomb, ably helped by Kylie Auldist on the mic and - I shit you not - a freestyle rap sesh from the TimTam Genie.

Jay Reatard: just when I thought I was going to die from either the heat or boring music, these guys played a set of furiously fast and stupid punk rock. And the bass player was playing a four string Flying Vee - how rock is that?

Jane Badler and Sir: most of this was spent explaining to sad young folk what the tv series V was all about. Her music sounded like something you'd hear Sunday arvo at the rehab clinic. The musical equivalent of a trip to Wobbie's World - it's never going to be great, but it's important you at least see how crap it can be.

Iron And Wine: great, but I wish I was sitting down and it wasn't so crowded. Which is a stupid thing to say at a music festival. Perfect music for hot days amid the gum trees.

Scientists of Modern Music: two little guys from Tassie goin' ballistic. What can I say? I hate keyboard driven Pseudo Newman tunes (that's the fusion of Pseudo Echo and Gary Newman, y'all..), but these guys were stupidly infectious and fun.

Meanwhile, in Ballarat's Botanic Gardens.. Councillor Hudson encouraged residents to come along to the Lake foreshore to soak up the festival atmosphere. "We have a great entertainment line-up in store this year with everything from Kylie Minogue's pop anthems to tributes to Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Junior with The Rat Pack Show," he said.

Songs to play in space should not be picked by children

I guess if you're feeling shitty you go and listen to shitty blog radio. So I did. Ah, Jeckles. Just one microphone away from climbing the watertower, and I for one salute you. You sounded like you're having a much worse time of it, and that's one thing that always makes someone feeling shit feel better. Remember, we're shittier than you though. We can't even afford to get our audio online yet. Did we mention public radio in Ballarat is not as gorgeous as you'd expect, although broadcasting from outside a donut van is a bonus

Of course, one can't go far before one stumbles upon a class piece of pissweakness: this one inspired by the loving folks at the Australian*

"ASTRONAUTS on the International Space Station (ISS) are to get an unusual treat - an MP3 player loaded with a playlist of songs specially chosen for people in orbit.The top ten was selected by a 14-year-old Norwegian girl, Therese Miljeteig, who won a competition staged by the European Space Agency (ESA)."


And the results from this inspired act of collective decision-making?

- Here Comes The Sun - Beatles
- Come Fly With Me - Frank Sinatra
- Rocket Man - Elton John
- Up Where We Belong - Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes
- Imagine - John Lennon
- Flashdance - What A Feeling - Irene Cara
- Walk of Life - Dire Straits
- Fly - Celine Dion
- Rockin' All Over The World - Status Quo
- I Believe I Can Fly - R Kelly

What is happening to the youth? Have the Norse begun injecting the essence of babyboomer into the livers of a new master-race of Power FM listeners? Whosever idea this was should be the next person we fire into space. Preferably at a course intersecting with that of a miltary satellite on its way down. Preferably with Mark Knopfler's black abyss-like boringness turned into a solid fuel.


*conditions apply