The Flag of Australia                                             The Australian Aboriginal Flag        The Flag of Torres Strait Islanders




Australia was discovered about 45,000 years ago when they either walked or made short sea-crossings from Papua to the north in what is now the Torres Strait. In Australia they grew into diverse cultures with around 250 languages spoken by nations such as the Koori, Murri, Noongar, Yamatji, Wangkai, Nunga, Anagu, Yapa, Yolngu and Palawah who together may've numbered around 3 quarters of a million.  43,830 years later (give or take a few thousand) it was claimed, like a quarter of the planet, by the tiny, faraway island of Great Britain.



    Initially, it served as a penal colony set up at Port Jackson on January 26, 1788 which is why it's Australia Day today. 50% of the indigenous population died from smallpox within the following years. Massacres and land seizures reduced the indigenous population another 30%. Often the convicts sent to Australia were charged with minor offenses. In the 1850s, the Gold Rush began and with it, an Americanization of the language. For example, "bonanza" (borrowed from Spanish) became "bonzer." By 1827, Australian English was already diverging significantly from British English. Author Peter Cunningham noted a distinct vocabulary and a non-rhotic accent that owed heavily to Cockney. It is typically divided into three accents which owe less to region than UK English or US English.

Vietnamese New Wave

Are any of my readers out there Vietnamese? I have asked the experts here at Amoeba Hollywood about "Vietnamese New Wave" (also referred to as Asian New Wave at times) groups and no one seems even remotely familiar with any of them, with the exception of Chris Matthews, to whom "Modern Talking" sounds familiar ...

First of all, when people talk about Vietnamese New Wave they’re not talking about Vietnamese artists (although there is Thu Thuy, Lynda Trang Dai and supposedly a tieng viet cover of a Night Society song), but rather a movement that includes mostly German Hi-NRG or Eurobeat, Italo disco and English synthpop artists who acquired, through means that no one seems to understand (although it definitely involves mixtapes) massive popularity amongst Vietnamese in Cali, Texas and Canada (and maybe elsewhere).

And whilst there’ve been at least four or five documentarians who’ve explored the popularity of still supposedly strange popularity of Morrissey amongst Mexicans and Mexican/Americans, to my knowledge no one has yet delved into the mysterious “Vietnamese New Wave” movement in which (in addition to OMD, Pet Shop Boys and Gazebo's "I Like Chopin" four German performers, with no radio play, no MTV exposure, no Amazon recommendations, no local performances came, against all odds, to achieve stardom in the Vietnamese immigrant population.

To start with, the term “new wave” as used in music means many different things to different people. History records that Sire records head Seymour Stein was the first to borrow the term from the 1950s and 60s film movements from Europe to describe the bands that played at CBGB like Blondie and the Talking Heads. Before long it seemingly became applied to any band formed after 1976 and was applied to such musically dissimilar artists as Spandau Ballet, Elvis Costello, Tom Petty, the Thompson Twins and definitely anyone with asymmetrical hair or 80s fashions regardless of their sound. By the late 80s, I don't remember anyone really using it anymore. "Alternative" had pretty much replaced it as the term for anything underground or bizarre (at least in Columbia, Missouri, where I was still living.) Anyway, in the context of Vietnamese New Wave, four performers loom large that are pretty much completely unknown by every non-Vietnamese I’ve talked to (except Lance Rock, below).

My spies have told me that season 1 of Newhart is going to be released in the winter of 2008. Of all the shows based around Bob Newhart (the others being The Bob Newhart Show (1961-1972), The Bob Newhart Show (1972-1978),
Bob (1992-1993) and the bizarrely-named George & Leo (1997)) Newhart (1982-1980) remains my favorite. Dick Loudon (Newhart) is a writer from New York City who buys an inn in a rural Vermont town populated by colorful locals who exist to exasperate Dick. I like Bob Newhart in all of his roles which are essentially the same- a mild-mannered, stammering straight man. A bit like Droopy Dog (minus Droopy's explosions of anger and muscle). As David Hyde Pierce observed, "The only difference between Bob Newhart on stage and Bob Newhart offstage – is that there is no stage."

Trivia- the last two times that I flew, Julia Duffy was on the plane.

I was wondering whilst whiling trying to fall asleep the other night why I haven't ever looked up any Pulp videos on Youtube before. Then I remembered that I had a divda called Hits so what else could there be? A few seconds later a vacuum tube in my mind sparked to life and I recalled (to myself) that Jarvis is pretty ambivalent at best about the early years so I was excited to find two early videos.

Pulp was formed in 1978 by 15-year-old Jarvis Cocker, a student at Sheffield's City Secondary School.
In 1980 they, amazingly, recorded a Peel Session and I only just found out that it's available on CD so I haven't heard it but it's supposedly pretty in-line with Sheffield's reigning synth-rock sound of the time.

In 1982 the still virginal Jarvis recorded It

The record reflected a change in direction toward a folky, jangly sound with wide-eyed lyrics about love and being shy all sung rather off-key but kind of managing to sound like early Leonard Cohen.
The following year saw the single "My Lighthouse."
 
And, at the encouragement of someone at the label to record more commercial stuff in the style of Wham!  they followed it with the rare, and not half-bad "Everybody's Problem"

Two years later, frustrated by unfulfilled dreams of success, Jarvis grew rather gloomy and Pulp entered their "arty" phase.
    
                       
Little Girl With Blue Eyes            Dogs Are Everywhere (1986)       They Suffocate at Night (1987)