- Published on
Incremental advances in circularity...
Wednesday April the 2nd ~
Time and tide wait for all at Palmer & Co. 10 til 2
Friday April the 4th ~
The Bob Hawke Beer and Leisure Centre rides (on red) as the campaign begins. Vinyl from 8.30 til 11.30
Saturday April the 5th ~
Our best-laid plans went whack on Jack Off last week, with Guitar Wolf delayed leaving Queensland due to flooding rains. Eventually scheduled to land in Sydney at 4PM, we were watching the clock and the phone like hawks as they hustled luggage, then a maxi taxi. Despite their best efforts they only arrived at FBi at 5 minutes past 5.
Thankfully the hosts of Yanos were stuck in traffic and they arrived late too - generously allowing us another ten minutes of their scant airtime to broadcast a live tune on the junkyard trash we'd set up for the band (thanks Henry and Hugh).
It's rough, it's ready, it's maximum jett rock n' roll - but it ain't on the Jack Off page as it happened after we finished. Listen back from the top here instead!
This weekend we hope to have old mate Geoffrey O'Connor serenading us live with his keyboard. Tune in between 3 and 5 to hear what transpires!
Afterwards I'm bailing to a tennis court on the Upper North Shore to spin for Char and Matt's Wedding. Catch you back around the traps next week.
- Published on
An endless end to anew beginning. Free-wheeling circularity for all (time)...
Wednesday March the 26th ~
Follow old animal tracks downstream, dodge the thorns and part the reeds to find Palmer & Co, for a 10 til 2 bracket of timeless tunes each Wednesday.
Thursday March the 27th ~
Our final daylight-saving Wink & Spin in the Link and Pin beer garden, flying by for 4 hours from 6. Myriad musics mixed live with love for locals / train trippers. It's an all-weather realm with a removable roof - stadium shite on a beer budget!
Friday March the 28th ~
The perfect place to convene after other larks, Pleasure Club plays host to another 4 hour solo set, this time from midnight.
On the crossroads between Newtown and Enmore (we saw Merryn Jean, pictured above by Liz, at the Theatre last week, supporting The Stranglers with preternatural audacity and aplomb), it's the dark heart of the Inner-West late, as recognised by the Bar of the Year award conferred just yesterday.
Best way to kick off yr weekend is to hit Betty's Grumblism at the Rat from 8 for sublime shows and the diabolical deejay line-up of Hot Flush, Stereogamous and Annabelle Gaspar - then skip over to Pleasure to dance til the edge of dawn.
Saturday March the 29th ~
Jack Off welcomes Japan's wildest, Guitar Wolf, back to the FBi studios for the first time in decades. Tune in between 3 and 5 to be incinerated by sound. If they are a jet then our previous guests Hachiku (above) make more like a hovercraft - hear how here.
Afterwards head skyward for another unimaginable evening of surprising song (and staff dance) at Dean and Nancy on 22, from 9 through til half 12.
- Published on
It's good to have goals. Scant shit, shot for free
Wednesday March the 19th ~
Music from memories (can't wait) late at Palmer & Co
Saturday March the 22nd ~
Jack Off with Hachiku. Last week's Alex Cameron here
Luxe derelicte city DJ scene @ Dean and Nancy on 22
- Published on
Sometimes simultaneous sounds. As above, so below...
Thursday March the 13th ~
Underneath the colony's camp @ Palmer & Co. 10 til 2
Friday March the 14th ~
Towards the light, as Shiny Shiny returns to Hotel Hollywood for an Autumn eve, courtesy of Hot Flush and myself, from 8 till 1. Cosmic community, on the second Friday of each month, always free, for all
Saturday March the 15th ~
Jack Off in the bush, or beyond, as Alex Cameron joins Jack Ladder's Dreamlanders live, 3 til 5
Straight after I'll hop over to Sophie and Rohan's wedding, playing songs of love and resonance for them, their family and friends xo
- Published on
As the first cyclone to hit the South-East Queensland coast in half a century bears down on family homes, I'm somewhat on edge - scheduled to fly further south by Friday, due to a long-term plan to attend Golden Plains festival, while fairly weakened from a lurgy that nailed the kids & I too.
The one person who has somehow evaded sickness thus far, despite doing mammoth amounts of labour caring for crook kin, is my phenomenal partner Liz Ham. A vastly accomplished photographer herself, tomorrow she launches the first exhibition she has ever curated of the work of others, The Lipstick Effect, a group effort via the Agender collective.
It is part of the amazing annual All About Women festival at Sydney Opera House and images such as that above (Untitled, from The Quarry 2024, by Tajette O'Halloran) and below (Mnemosyne IV by Petrina Hicks) can be viewed on the Western Boardwalk from now until March 9. There is also a parallel show, The Side Effect, also curated by Liz, on display at the Opera Bar until the 10th.
Wednesday March the 5th ~
Two gratis performances occur before we bail. First,
Palmer & Co in the city, between 10 and about 2.
Thursday March the 6th ~
Thence, as the storm peaks, it's a less formal fiasco at Be A Little Cooler, from 10 til late.
Saturday March the 8th ~
Jack Off will be in the strong and steady hands of Jonny Seymour this weekend. They've been hatching plans and are super-excited to be knitting love and support into our local airwaves again. I'll call in along the way with my standard mangled mentions of the magic and madness manifesting live at Plains.
If you want a massive treat in the interim please feast yr ears on this! Typically I neglected to mention in our last edition that something I'd been working on for nigh-on two decades was imminently about to bear fruit.
The stars aligned at last and Kristin Hersh, stunning solo artist and member of Throwing Muses and 50 Foot Wave, joined me on the program, one of her four sons in tow. We talked of some harrowing family fare past, a long path for diagnosis of serious mental health issues, near drownings, the necessity of feminism, the cost of integrity and the beauty of the gutters we choose.
Hear all of that and two profoundly powerful live songs anytime you care to here. My deepest respect and gratitude goes out to Kristin for her dedication, humility, transparency, ethics and acumen. Now I've gotta start on her books!
Wishing you all safety in these sickening times of endless escalation and idiocy.
See you on the other side!
- Published on
Visions of free soundscapes, yours online each week.
Wednesday February the 26th ~
World's of song, from beyond the binary and across the seas. Palmer & Co provides timeless solace. Pop in after The Necks at the Recital Hall. 10 til 2.
Thursday February the 27th ~
Wink & Spin unfolds in a pink haze at dusk by the waters of Woy Woy, in the beer garden of the smoke-shop-adjacent Link and Pin. Fire up from 6 til 10.
Friday February the 28th ~
Go nuts the night before Mardi Gras, as Pleasure Club hosts identities & outfits akimbo, all the way from half 9 at night til almost dawn the next morn.
Sin City Soirée - with Hot Flush and myself on the decks from go to whoa - brings moving music to the fore and loving larks to the floor. Alone or with crew, we've got you.
Saturday March the 1st ~
Can't quantify the contributions to local culture made by the three Beasts pictured above, so it was an honour to hear two live tunes and shoot the shit with them on Jack Off last week. No idea what will go down this time around. Tune in from 3 to see!
Afterwards come have a cold beer and/or sizzling hot plate at the Bob Hawke Beer and Leisure Centre where I'll be spinning bent music on flat platters between half 8 and half 11. Happy Mardi Gras all!
- Published on
Songman, educator, custodian, family man, friend.
With Vic's farewell tomorrow my heart and head are focussed on him and kin. All of the beautiful photographs in this edition were taken by my love Liz Ham: the portrait above on Bidjigal land at La Pa, before Vic's annual Invasion Day concert last year; those below at the Recovery On The Rocks event we staged on Gadigal land back in 2021.
Wednesday February the 19th ~
Just above the Tank Stream at Palmer & Co. 10 til 2
Friday February the 21st ~
Be A Little Cooler, if you can. 9.30 til 1.45
Saturday February the 22nd ~
Jack Off will pay tribute to Vic by replaying the first of our two interviews in full - where he takes us from a leaky mud-floored shack to child stardom, incarceration in Bathurst, recording The Loner in Long Bay and multiple dates at the Opera House as it opened. Vic also sings his iconic number (composed in gaol) Stranger In My Country unaccompanied, rendering it more stark and moving still.
Astoundingly Vic talked then of being honoured to have been chosen as the support for Tex Perkins' gigs across two States, starting a week later. They would meet for the first time then. Tex is of course noted for his performances of Johnny Cash's prison songs. And guess who is my mooted guest this week? None other than Tex and his bad-ass band The Beasts (no strangers to mortality themselves). If it all comes off it will be perfectly fitting to hear their take on Vic and his craft too.
Tune in to FBi (which is about to announce, also tomorrow, some catastrophic financial news, providing some context for the grave existential risk I have been alluding to for months now) between 3 and 5. Who knows if this facility can even endure?
Afterwards it's the final of these free gigs this week, up top at Dean and Nancy on 22. 9 til 12.30
- Published on
All at sea with an infinite array of elemental audio.
Wednesday February the 12th ~
Old songs by Sydney Cove at Palmer & Co. 10 til 2
Friday February the 14th ~
Shiny Shiny returns for 2025, gratis, on the day after Galentine's Day, celebrating love in all its forms, via a sonic swim through the streams of tide and time. Sham DJs (Hot Flush & myself) on the decks throughout. Kicks off at 8, runs til 1 - within wide-open perfect public house Hotel Hollywood.
Saturday February the 15th ~
Jack Off transmits with renewed vigour, following last Sunday's sublime set, born outta this tiny caravan, perched atop a Centennial Park Pine forest, for the super-excited Laneway Festival PIP peeps. Tune in to FBi between 3 & 5 for fresh air fare.
The outdoor action continues by the Harbour and Gardens, prior to the Open Air Cinema screening of smash hit Italian feature There's Still Tomorrow. This is my last summer date here. 6 til 8.30
Afterwards I'll (re)join Hot Flush, spinning vinyl on the Bob Hawke Beer and Leisure Centre turntables - free, for three hours from half 8 onwards.
- Published on
Blowing the horn for super-natural scalable Shite.
Wednesday February the 5th ~
Palmer & Co post Merivales. Seedy staff + song. 10-2
Friday February the 7th ~
Veges and vinyl to sink yr teeth into at the Bob Hawke Beer and Leisure Centre. 8.30 til 11.30
Saturday February the 8th ~
Reptilian radio on FBi - Jack Off from 3 til 5
High and mighty at Dean and Nancy on 22 for my final free gig this week. 3 & a half hours from 9
Sunday February the 9th ~
An ultra-rare Sunday scenario as I rejoin the Laneway Festival line-up after opting out upon their migration to Homebush. Just couldn't resist the combo of Charli XCX and Fcukers in Centennial Park.
It sold out in seconds (rather a nice change for an Australian festival in this day and age). You'll need one of the top-tier tickets to catch my climactic bracket in the VIP if yr going. 6 til 9
- Published on
Old school audio alloy here to save the twirled!
Wednesday January the 29th ~
Dead do sing (and dance) at Palmer & Co. 10 til 2
Thursday January the 30th ~
Wink & Spin happens tomorrow in Woy Woy, for the first time ever (this year). It's my monthly muckrake through the mangrove swamps of the Cenny Coast, spinning surreal shite all night in the seer garden of livewire musical mainstay Link and Pin.
Hop a train or bus direct to the venue or drive alive. Sample food for thought whilst taking in tunes for twinkly toes. All welcome! 6 til 10
Friday January the 31st ~
Take a leap into the vast unknowable future with yr courageous community kin down in the Pleasure Club cellar as Sin City Soirée steps up again for another absurd year of stretching sound and limbs on the final Friday of every month. Hot Flush and myself pair up on the decks (oo-er!) all night long - from half 9 or so til 4, bar a quick breather or two during shows by androgynous auteur Adam.ext. We're forever free and flying, no matter how low we go x
Saturday February the 1st ~
Jack Off transmits both genuine intelligence and artificial idiocy til 5 from 3 every Saturday on FBi