Month: October 2009

Acts of Deceit Between Strangers in a Room

Past Projects, Theatre
Acts of Deceit Between Strangers in a Room
This play was an adaptation by the director Gary Abrahams of the novel Giovanni’s Room. It depicts a tragic romance between two men in post World War II Paris, one a middle class American tourist the other an impoverished refugee working as a bartender. The music I wrote took the angle of 50’s melodrama, it kind of works although in hindsight I would have liked to have done something a bit more accomplished.

This play was an adaptation by the director Gary Abrahams of the novel Giovanni’s Room. It depicts a tragic romance between two men in post World War II Paris, one a middle class American tourist the other an impoverished refugee working as a bartender. The music I wrote took the angle of 50’s melodrama, it kind of works although in hindsight I would have liked to have done something a bit more accomplished.

Sleep Sound

Past Projects, Theatre
Sleep Sound
This was piece made in the first year of my course at VCA in collaboration with and led by Brigid Jackson. It was about the intimate world of beds and bedrooms and the emotions that revolve around them. I made some cute little pieces of music for it as well as the scungiest remix of Lionel Ritchie’s “Hello” I could manage. Poor old Lionel didn’t deserve that kind of treatment. Maybe.

This was piece made in the first year of my course at VCA in collaboration with and led by Brigid Jackson. It was about the intimate world of beds and bedrooms and the emotions that revolve around them. I made some cute little pieces of music for it as well as the scungiest remix of Lionel Ritchie’s “Hello” I could manage. Poor old Lionel didn’t deserve that kind of treatment. Maybe.

The Robinson Family Singers

Audio, Bands, Past Projects
The Robinson Family Singers
This was almost exclusively a recording project apart from a few performances for friends. It a massive technical achievement for me and my very modest sound engineering skills and ended up being a bit of crash course for me in that regard. I recorded it in my lounge room with a moderately OK laptop and an SM57 microphone (anyone with any knowledge of sound will know that’s far from an ideal choice for a recording using solely acoustic instruments, akin to Kubrick using a mobile phone camera to shoot 2001:A Space Odyssey). The performers were myself and my wife Bec, singing, strumming guitar, blowing melodicas, bashing tambourines and glockenspiels, pounding at a harmonium and sawing at a violin. The focus of this project for me, apart from the technical recording stuff, was writing melody and convincing my voice to carry one. The lyrics aren’t massively far removed from the Tang ones, jokey or at least ironic, although less dark…ish. I don’t mean to brag but I outdid myself on the cover art for this one, I spent a lot of time in Photoshop faking my and Bec’s embossed silhouettes on an old book cover.
Recordings:
The Robinson Family Singers – The Robinson Family Singers
Songs:
Peace Love & Sunshine (The Man)
Not A Lighthouse Keeper
The Dirty Bird
The Biggest Hit
After The End
Butterflies & Bumblebees
H
Hey Missy
Little Tiny Robots
Down
Sweet Little Lies

This was almost exclusively a recording project apart from a few performances for friends. It a massive technical achievement for me and my very modest sound engineering skills and ended up being a bit of crash course for me in that regard. I recorded it in my lounge room with a moderately OK laptop and an SM57 microphone (anyone with any knowledge of sound will know that’s far from an ideal choice for a recording using solely acoustic instruments, akin to Kubrick using a mobile phone camera to shoot 2001:A Space Odyssey). The performers were myself and my wife Bec, singing, strumming guitar, blowing melodicas, bashing tambourines and glockenspiels, pounding at a harmonium and sawing at a violin. The focus of this project for me, apart from the technical recording stuff, was writing melody and convincing my voice to carry one. The lyrics aren’t massively far removed from the Tang ones, jokey or at least ironic, although less dark…ish. I don’t mean to brag but I outdid myself on the cover art for this one, I spent a lot of time in Photoshop faking my and Bec’s embossed silhouettes on an old book cover.

Recordings:

The Robinson Family Singers – The Robinson Family Singers

Songs:

Peace Love & Sunshine (The Man)

Not A Lighthouse Keeper

The Dirty Bird
http://sites.google.com/site/camillerobinsonmusic/tunes/03TheDirtyBird.mp3?attredirects=0

The Biggest Hit
http://sites.google.com/site/camillerobinsonmusic/tunes/04TheBiggestHit.mp3?attredirects=0

After The End

Butterflies & Bumblebees

H

Hey Missy

Little Tiny Robots

Down

Sweet Little Lies

Robinson-Family-cover

Triple J Unearthed page for The Robinson Family Singers

Say What

Bands, Past Projects
Say What
This was an acoustic cover band which I mention for only one bizarre reason: it involved having a giant billboard of myself and the two other guys in the band stuck on the side of a pub. No-one should ever have to see their own head blown up to be 10 feet high.

This was an acoustic cover band which I mention for only one bizarre reason: it involved having a giant billboard of myself and the two other guys in the band stuck on the side of a pub. No-one should ever have to see their own head blown up to be 10 feet high.

Tang

Audio, Bands, Past Projects
Tang
This band continued my creative relationship with drummer John Fredericks after Ortonomy finished up and it indulged a penchant for the style of the band Primus we all had at the time. Unfortunately over time that penchant wore thin for me and ofter Johnno moved interstate I hung around just long enough to complete our CD. The line up was: myself on guitar, voice and writing songs, Nathan Laidler on bass, voice and writing songs and John Fredericks on drums. All the songs in this band had a black comic tone and we reveled in a certain grotesque cartooniness. I have to say I’m very proud of the cover art I designed which features a set of plasticine caricatures I made of the band, and photos featuring me with perfectly straight super long hair and my wife Bec in a chicken costume. With a few more personnel shuffles somehow Nathan has managed to keep Tang going to this day (4 and a half years later), I admire his tenacity. Our achievements, apart from making the recording, included again winning the NMIT heats of the National Campus Bands Competition, beating the soon be very successful hip-hop band Fizard, goes to show competitions don’t mean all that much. We also won the band category in the 2004 Acoustic Underground competition.
Recordings:
Tang – Sweet & Salty
Songs:
Pawl
Egg
Go To Woe
The Chicken Song
Shred
The Stickman
Likes To Play
Rollercoaster Ride to Hell
Freak Show
(also a rewritten version of Hodown 2)

This band continued my creative relationship with drummer John Fredericks after Ortonomy finished up and it indulged a penchant for the style of the band Primus we all had at the time. Unfortunately over time that penchant wore thin for me and ofter Johnno moved interstate I hung around just long enough to complete our CD. The line up was: myself on guitar, voice and writing songs, Nathan Laidler on bass, voice and writing songs and John Fredericks on drums. All the songs in this band had a black comic tone and we reveled in a certain grotesque cartooniness. I have to say I’m very proud of the cover art I designed which features a set of plasticine caricatures I made of the band, and photos featuring me with perfectly straight super long hair and my wife Bec in a chicken costume. With a few more personnel shuffles somehow Nathan has managed to keep Tang going to this day (4 and a half years later), I admire his tenacity. Our achievements, apart from making the recording, included again winning the NMIT heats of the National Campus Bands Competition, beating the soon be very successful hip-hop band Fizard, goes to show competitions don’t mean all that much. We also won the band category in the 2004 Acoustic Underground competition.

Recordings:

Tang – Sweet & Salty

Songs:

Pawl

Egg
http://sites.google.com/site/camillerobinsonmusic/tunes/02Egg.mp3?attredirects=0

Go To Woe

The Chicken Song
http://sites.google.com/site/camillerobinsonmusic/tunes/04TheChickenSong.mp3?attredirects=0

Shred

The Stickman

Likes To Play

Rollercoaster Ride to Hell

Freak Show

(also a rewritten version of Hodown 2)

Tang-cover-2

Ortonomy

Bands, Past Projects
Ortonomy
This is the band I feel most nostalgic about. The line up was: myself playing guitar and writing lyrics, John Fredericks playing drumkit and occasional trumpet, Nick Carver playing bass and Petria Eaves on voice and occasional flute. We all worked together on chord progressions and riffs etc. The style of the music fiercely eclectic inspired by an obsession with John Zorn and Mr Bungle, we threw whatever catchy ideas came up together as a song regardless of style, and most of them worked out pretty well. There are demos of our songs floating around somewhere which I need to dig up, and our crowning achievement of our career was winning the heat at our TAFE (NMIT) in the National Bands Competition. I hope someone has a picture of me in my green boiler-suit, awesomely funny.
Songs:
Fighting Time
Hodown
Hodown 2
Put That Funk Away
Big Brown Blues
Keys
Prison Tats
Theme From Ortonomy (aka Meander)
Stew Meat

This is the band I feel most nostalgic about. The line up was: myself playing guitar and writing lyrics, John Fredericks playing drumkit and occasional trumpet, Nick Carver playing bass and Petria Eaves on voice and occasional flute. We all worked together on chord progressions and riffs etc. The style of the music fiercely eclectic inspired by an obsession with John Zorn and Mr Bungle, we threw whatever catchy ideas came up together as a song regardless of style, and most of them worked out pretty well. There are demos of our songs floating around somewhere which I need to dig up, and our crowning achievement of our career was winning the heat at our TAFE (NMIT) in the National Bands Competition. I hope someone has a picture of me in my green boiler-suit, awesomely funny.

Songs:

Fighting Time

Hodown

Hodown 2

Put That Funk Away

Big Brown Blues

Keys

Prison Tats

Theme From Ortonomy (aka Meander)

Stew Meat

Writing One’s Own History

Past Projects
Writing One’s Own History
:
It’s weird as someone who does a fair bit of reading and pays a lot of attention to the biases in historical writing to be doing it myself to my own history, and to watch myself revising the past. Be warned people, take everything with a grain of salt.

It’s weird as someone who does a fair bit of reading and pays a lot of attention to the biases in historical writing to be doing it myself to my own history, and to watch myself revising the past. Be warned people, take everything with a grain of salt.

No Avail

Bands, Past Projects
Past Projects
The Bands
:
No Avail
My first ever band and not really ‘my’ band at all. Before I could really play or write or do anything particularly musical these guys got me in as a singer when the wanted to make the transition from punk to mopey post-punk a la Joy Division & early the Cure.
What happened? Absolutely no singing technique and having no idea of how to acquire one after a while completely shredded my voice. That and the fact that the other guys were already having ‘artistic differences’ when I joined, and given my own moody hormonal teenage disruptive influence it didn’t last long.
I wish I still had the demos, at least to know what I put my throat through all that pain for. Somewhere I have a tape of me and the guitarist/drummer Steve Ward playing ‘Dumkopf’ which he wrote for our high schools’ gala evening for its’ language courses. I believe the lyric went:
“Dumkopf
Ich bin nicht ein
Dumkopf
Du bist eine
Dumkopf”
…repeat
That’s some quality vocabulary right there.

My first ever band and not really ‘my’ band at all. Before I could really play or write or do anything particularly musical these guys got me in as a singer when the wanted to make the transition from punk to mopey post-punk a la Joy Division & early the Cure.

What happened? Absolutely no singing technique and having no idea of how to acquire one after a while completely shredded my voice. That and the fact that the other guys were already having ‘artistic differences’ when I joined, and given my own moody hormonal teenage disruptive influence it didn’t last long.

I wish I still had the demos, at least to know what I put my throat through all that pain for. Somewhere I have a tape of me and the guitarist/drummer Steve Ward playing ‘Dumkopf’ which he wrote for our high schools’ gala evening for its’ language courses. I believe the lyric went:

“Dumkopf

Ich bin nicht ein

Dumkopf

Du bist eine

Dumkopf”

…repeat

That’s some quality vocabulary right there.

3rd Year CFI

Uncategorized
3rd Year CFI
:
I’ve been neglecting this blog since I first put it up but I now have a motivation to turbo-charge it…uni assessments! (Hi David) I was going to use one of my creative projects but none of them are panning out to be terribly uni-assessable so here we are, documenting all my projects… I’ll be including all the stuff I’m currently working on here, as well as past projects and bands.

I’ve been neglecting this blog since I first put it up but I now have a motivation to turbo-charge it…uni assessments! (Hi David) I was going to use one of my creative projects but none of them are panning out to be terribly uni-assessable so here we are, documenting all my projects… I’ll be including all the stuff I’m currently working on here, as well as past projects and bands.