Steam Machine is exactly the machine I’m living in right now.  It’s hot here! and we’ve run out of milk so I’m giving ice cream a go in my tea?  Ok here’s the trick - lot’s of sugar.   Oool little white lumps come to the top, pure fat I guess, I can’t recommend it…

A live version of the song with another one is on their myspace website here… but it doesn’t have much of the album version in it, hardly any truth be told.  A good listen just the same.

Now quick while the song is playing.  It’s basically a pinball machine sound track, sinister in sound.  Grungy and dirty like the rest, the only smooth thing in it is ‘Steeeaam Machinnnne’ that is breathing out steam all over the rest of the grungy pinball machine beats.  If I was photographing it in stead of picture making it, I would have definitely taken a photo of an old pin ball machine surrounded in dry ice and darkness beyond. 

It’s repetitive and sort of simplistic made me think of industry stuffing up the skies with steam.  Well at least as far as you often see pollution causing cooling towers being blamed for screwing with the environment.  (Hey TV people, point the cameras at the tall thin stacks, not the low fat ones, but anyway.)

click to make bigger

Out of all that I did this?  Now I can’t remember exactly how the picture relates?  The steam machine is there at the bottom and it is pumping it out, sort of dirty steam all over the back.  Ahh I remember, I also thought I couldn’t miss a train reference and the black bars are sort of tracks.  But also they do well to bring in the heaviness of the sound visually.  Overall, the picture is repetitive beats and marks under which the murky steam swirls below.    

So that’s track 4 on the album Human After All by Daft Punk.

Click on the thumbnail to see a full size version and head over to eBay to buy it if you want… here.  (Ok it sold for a dollar too! - I’ve got to start listing these as starting a $3 to cover my listing fees)

More on the way!

The very first one! 

I was actually going to reorder these not in the order I had painted them, since it seemed they were getting better as I went.  (a little secret… I’ve already done a few ahead of time).  But I figured to see them in the same order I do them is probably more interesting.   

The 1st track off the album Human After All by Daft Punk is actually the title track!  Well you would think that meant it was a bit more important than the rest of them… well wouldn’t you think so??  So I decided it should be the last picture to be painted.  By that time, I figure I will be at saturation point and sort of ready to do that one-footed karate kid kick to the picture.  HAA will be in my veins.  (Actually, since my foot is actually broken atm, that makes more sense than you may think!)  

The prime time of your life; a very crunchy sounding song.  If you open this link (it will be in a new window) a streaming video clip for the song start playing.  Big bass thump thump thumps in.  I wasn’t sure either at this stage how I was actually going to do this whole song to art thing?  So I started as simply as possible, which seemed to mean leaving the actual lyrics alone and just concentrating on the sounds and progression of the track.  For whatever reason, I did this as if travelling from left to right across the paper as the song progresses.  Everything is wide open in the start, the beat gradually raises, the tempo increases and everything intensifies.  Over all this are the words “the prime time of your life” ringing in waves.  What starts out open and definite gradually bears in on being closed and cluttered cramping down to pure noise, which shatters suddenly leaving that a smooth wake of sound.  The harmonics of the previous deafening noise is all that remain and green felt right for that.  In the song that happens right at the end, just in the last few seconds.  But in terms of presence I had to give those few seconds much more room on paper, in order to match how much space it takes up the song really.  

As I was finishing it, I decided that at some stage I had to leave the song behind for a moment and see what the picture wanted.  I’ll admit, at that point I felt rusty as I wasn’t sure what to do with it.  Extra red dots went on, the one in the middle had been there right from the start… I guess that is the prime time red dot, but I thought it to need company.  I’m not so sure about it even now.  But when I listen to the song it makes more sense. 

Hope you like it. 

It will be on eBay for the next 7 days find it here, starting at $1. (And as it turns out it finished at $1! as well, well my fears of having an initial success with this only to have it followed by a deflating slide into obscurity have gone unfounded!)   I’ll be sending it off unframed, just gently rolled up.  

Took a bunch of pictures of the storm last night.  Hope you like them!

See the collection by clicking on the thumbnail!

Just in case you were interested in seeing some photos from our trip up north with some friends.  Head over to the gallery where they can be found.  (click on the picture to the right!)

These are all photos I took the day after Rose’s birthday celebrated in Robinson (the pub! mainly).

I can’t remember the name of waterfall we went to see, suffice to say it’s near Robinson and no, it’s not Fitzroy Falls! 

After the walk to the waterfall, we drove down the road a short way and did a different walk.  This walk sort of finished at the top of some cliffs, others might say that we were lost, and happened to be near the top of some cliffs.  Either way, it was around the point that we turned around and started walking back again. 

Fun all the same and is about as much as anyone take after a ‘Rose’ party.

This is my first post in this category!  At last I’ve got a place to put these photos up for everyone involved to see. Click on the thumbnail to see the full set.

The day was the 31st of December 2005, a day or two before that record breaking hot day in Sydney, that 45 degree day!  Wasn’t quite as hot as that, but it was hot.  Amirah and I hadn’t been climbing in a long while, so for me it was a day to take a few snaps and give climbing a go again.  As it turns out we remembered a thing or two and had fun. 

If anyone is interested in a particular photo here I do have the full size versions available, plus there are more photos from the day.  If you would like to have some more photos of someone (and you’re not a crazed stalker) email me.

Enjoy!