Mel From Melbourne - Music & Words

  ‘Peter & Paul’   The scientist obsesses in his lab The poet adores the great spaces & if he does not Then he’s a lab rat A man of the cage & it’s suppressions of rage That from a blank room He may patent universals The poet is particular That flowering twig, that passing bird He must know its seasonal songs & his cadence must never be wrong & in his odes He must sing along   © Malachi Doyle 2021.     ‘Troubadours & their pearl inlaid guitars’   We’ve become more emotional about ourselves & less so about others Love poets & their muses no more Fetishists & their porn & preparing for war   Bring back the love song, bring back & those singers who warm & heal And open chords plucked on strings That vibrate in concert with our heart strings   © Malachi Doyle 2021.        

  St Kilda in the 1990s (by Malachi Doyle) Dear Brother,   I’ve been thinking a lot about St Kilda in the 1990s, when we were in our 20s and discovering the world outside of our boys-school-raised-leafy-bayside-suburban-world of our adolescence. Anyway, to a kid like me, it was totally EYE bloody marvelously OPENING! We were lucky that our man Terry McCarthy was living in a share house in Park Street, St Kilda just off Fitzroy Street, right near the Prince of Wales backbar I loved so much, which was of course, now that I think of it, opposite that boarding house which the BLUNT! or whatever, fucked up & pimped out like the ladies it used but never recognized from their corporatised day jobs. This corporate world would of course change St Kilda dramatically for the worse, but we’ll get to that. Or not, just saying that Kaiser Jeff bulldozed the soul of St Kilda to let the nazis in for the sake of their casino & grand prix. He as you reminded me, “CLEANED UP”...

"Woodcutter Cut out my shadow Free me from the torture of seeing myself fruitless"                                                                                                   - Federico Garcia Lorca What is Art Shall Be Free Recordings? Art Shall Be Free Recordings is a not for profit collaborative working to raise awareness of the work of underrepresented artists - usually for reasons that they challenge the mediums they work in. They are artists who are solely about the art and a love of humanity told through their communities. What we do is help them get their music to a wider audience. However, everything we do is based on a principle of community versus the usual thing of throwing money & power behind the project. If you are i...

 ‘Race theory’ was a collection of writings, cartoons and forms of entertainment which gained popularity with the Political Right in Europe in the late 1700s and 1800s, which built its pseudo-science, adaptating amongst others, Charles Darwin’s theory of Human Evolution (1858). It painted a view of Humanity as divided up into more and less ‘advanced’ ‘races’, which was and is often used since to justify a particular group of people’s belief in ‘racial superiority’ and ‘racial inferiority’. Such a view still persists amongst certain Far Right Political Organisations today. Without such a view 6,000,000 Jews would not have been exterminated by Hitler’s Nazi Party during the Second World War (1939-1945). ‘Race theory’ was used to Justify the Atlantic Slave Trade (1500s – 1900s) in which European Countries and Companies stole people from Africa at gunpoint to work as unpaid and severely tortured labourers and domestic workers in the Americas and other parts of the world. Race Theory ...

Siriaki Boleasi is lead guitarist of the band, Naigani Serenaders from Naigani Island Resort Fiji, the very first sigidrigi or ‘classical Fijian string-band music’ album to be released through iTunes and Spotify. In February of 2019 I interviewed Siriaki Boleasi, interested in the question of how Siriaki learned to play guitar, and the recording of the album, Naigani Serenaders Volume 1 in 2012. It was a thoroughly interesting and relaxing (thanks to the kava imbibed) afternoon when I interviewed Siri in Boronia, Victoria, Australia at the home of the album’s producer, Dr Robert Wolfgramm. When reading this text, a Fijian ‘reserve’ might be inferred by a Western listener on the part of Siriaki, but I feel the afternoon might be better understood not in terms of Western-style interviews but in terms of Fijian conversation, a talanoa, where there are always multiple foci of attention and people are patient and considered and it’s as if the group who has the word, rather tha...

‘English’ English is an urbane tongue stuck in my mother Inevitably it tolls an ironic heart Not worth the blood it is printed in Does death do that? Time Commanded to kill in hymns of praise By a god of vanity Hellbent on total disclosure No, really What NEEDS to be said? Surely there’s a reason we have 6 ears and 5 eyes And only one gape And this one is tooth filled So it whistles and sucks Sucks the life blood of the land & Befuddles the patience of man © Mel From Melbourne 2019.

I n addition to this scribble, when I was better I completed the two songs commenced inside my flu: 'The Mystery Naked by Mel From Melbourne' (on Bandcamp.com - see link  https://melfrommelbourne.bandcamp.com/album/the-mystery-naked  ) Words to go with music. By way of explanation. For the path of preconceptions. By way of making off the path more like on the path. There were no paths in the making of this music-sound. Use your God-given ears. You are a miracle. Be miraculous!  Vocals recorded on my phone. My Father-in-Law’s iPad for free download keys. Free audio software. Self Produced and Mastered. Inspired by an illness and watching a doco about Barry Dickens and his visual art. Most of my music comes that way. Is that enough to go on with? I need a coffee.  ©Mel From Melbourne 2019. https://melfrommelbourne.bandcamp.com/album/the-mystery-naked