Zach Gill – Beautiful Reasons
Zach Gill is notable for the fluid motion he exhibits while playing. An animated pianist, he rarely stops moving in his trademark jellylike, swaying way. His piano stylings ranges from haunting (Shapeshifter) to upbeat and controlled-substance induced (Wasting Time) to mythic sounding (Barbeque).
He is a notable accordion player. On Jack Johnson’s DVD release A Weekend at the Greek, Gill joined Johnson onstage during the song Belle. That song, combined with another song, Banana Pancakes, are part of what is referred to as The Accordion Set.
Gill also plays the melodica. He played one during Jack Johnson’s Live Earth set.
He is currently featured on a song with Jack Johnson and Matt Costa called Let It Be Sung and he recently collaborated with singer/songwriter Aimee Mann on a song called At the Edge of the World. This song is the opening track for the Paramount Pictures release Arctic Tale He also wrote The Sharing Song in the Imagine Entertainment, David Kirschner Productions’ animated film “Curious George” featuring the the voice of Will Ferrel, Drew Barrymore and the music of Jack Johnson.
Gill’s latest album with ALO called “Roses and Clover” is available on Brushfire records and the band is touring in North and South America, Europe, Japan and in support of it.
Gill’s solo debut, Stuff, was released July 28, 2008 via Brushfire Records. The album features guest appearances by Steve Adams from ALO, Tristan Prettyman, Merlo and Adam (his Jack Johnson bandmates). The first single from the album, Family, features Jack Johnson on drums and appeared in the movie “Baby Mama” with Amy Poehler, Tina Fey and Greg Kinnear.
New Augie March single "Watch Me Disappear" Listen & Download
‘Watch Me Disappear’ is the title track from the follow up to the bands 2006 breakthrough, Moo, You Bloody Choir. Which of course spawned the all-encompassing single ‘One Crowded Hour’. Recorded in New Zealand with US producer Joe Chiccarelli (The Shins, White Stripes, Beck) and mixed in LA, Watch Me Disappear is set for release October 11.
Springing largely from a driving bassline, the five minute track is uncharacteristically bare for the band. Not to mention positioned amongst their "best set of songs to date". Explains Glenn Richards on the band’s site:
"Funny track, wholly written with bass and drums not unlike a lot of the Dark Satanic Mills EP. Quite distinct from the rest of the album structurally. Thematically a return to the Eden subject previously explored in the Sunset Studies track ‘There is no Such Place’.
However, in place of trembling dilettante, now find shivering buccaneer on last voyage, minus sea legs. Driving on Paradise? Or one way ticket to Narragonia? You decide, (or don’t!)"
- Augie March songwriter Glenn Richards
Google Street View stops for a Tyre Change in Paraburdoo
August 14, 2008 by Kevin
Filed under Australian, Information, Kevin
In the remote town of Paraburdoo in Western Australia, life is tough. The orange dirt gets in your hair, you’re miles away from the nearest town and your streets apparently have walls of tyres blocking the way.
Or – in a hypothetical place a lot closer to reality – the town is so tough that it gave the Google StreetView car that was photographing its streets a flat tyre. Funnily though, the camera decided to document the experience of getting its tyre replaced, including photographing the workshop that it pulled into for a quick repair job.
While I fully expect the images to be pulled down and some outlets of the media (and privacy groups) jump on this as a gross invasion of privacy into the tyre repairman’s workshop, I say we should go out of our way to congratulate the workman for helping a StreetView driver in need.
So if you ever happen to be driving through the small town of Paraburdoo in WA, make sure you swing by to get your tyres checked – let’s use this as a chance to grow a man’s business in a small, outback Australian town.
Bird Automatic – "Suburbs" Mp3
Apologies for not posting much new music lately but here is a song that I have been really enjoying lately, Feel free to download it, the link is below.
Emerging in late 2006, Bird Automatic began to play shows and record homemade demos. Since then, they’ve sure been busy, touring with the likes of The Shout Out Louds, Art Brut and The 1990s! Bird Automatic’s sound is a marriage of Light Electronica with elements of Post Rock and Indie-Pop.
How Google’s StreetView put Bill’s grief on show
August 11, 2008 by Kevin
Filed under Australian, Information, Kevin
Losing his best friend in a freak boating accident was bad enough.
But Google’s Street View has made a bad situation worse for Bill, from Victoria.
Bill – not his real name – had been drowning his sorrows over the weekend after the Friday funeral of his friend and felt worse for wear when a taxi dropped him off at his mother’s home early on Monday February 4.
Feeling ill, he lay on the grass, and fell asleep.
The next thing he knew was being woken up by police in the morning.
He wasn’t aware that Google’s camera-equipped car had driven by earlier and snapped his picture.
Last week when Google launched its Street View tool for Google Maps, that picture was on display for anyone with an internet connection to see. It has since been taken down after it was flagged by users.
"I’m not too happy about it – I mean, I shouldn’t have been there in the state that I was in but I wasn’t really thinking there would be someone driving past with a video camera on the roof filming me either," Bill, who spends around 10 months of the year fishing off Darwin, said via satellite phone.
The issue highlights some of the concerns voiced by privacy activists, who say that while Street View is a great tool for armchair explorers, people are not given the choice of whether they or their houses appear on the site.
A form inside the "Street View Help" page allows people to report images they see as inappropriate or invasive, but the Australian Privacy Foundation said the form is not visible enough and Google was too slow to remove images reported by users.
Street View has already exposed a cheating spouse, uncovered a lying neighbour and snapped a man sleeping on the job.
On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday last week, "street view" was entered into Google’s search engine more times than "olympics", according to Google’s Insight tool.
Despite Google’s commitment to blur faces and number plates, people can still be identified by location and their appearance.
The weekend before Bill was snapped by the Street View cameras, his best mate was killed when his 5.4 metre fibreglass runabout smashed into a compass pylon in waters at Lakes Entrance, Victoria, around 1am.
It was Australia Day weekend and Bill, a 36-year-old skipper who leads a crew of five fishermen in the Northern Territory, had just returned home to Lakes Entrance for a much-needed break.
For five months prior to the accident, the pair had been planning a motorbike trip around Tasmania.
With that plan in tatters, after the funeral Bill and some friends decided to drown their sorrows all weekend and "come Monday morning, I got out of the taxi and rolled over on the grass and went to sleep on the footpath".
"What do you do when you lose a mate like that, you know?," he said.
"I know what he would have done if I left – he would’ve partied too, that’s what I would’ve wanted him to do so that’s what we did."
Bill said he understood that he could not expect complete privacy in a public street but did not expect his embarrassing moment to be broadcast over the internet.
He was fearful that those living in his area would log on to Street View to check out their neighbourhood and stumble across the image of him passed out on the footpath.
His mother, asked for her reaction upon hearing of the Street View images, said: "I was absolutely horrified – I was horrified that anybody had even heard about it."
A letter writer in last weekend’s Herald, Janice Creenaune, was similarly mortified after logging on to Street View.
Both her parents were pictured outside their house but her dad had passed away a month ago.
"While recognising that Google-time is never real-time, the image renews the raw loss," she wrote.
But another letter writer, Elizabeth Maher, had a more positive experience: "While others may have legitimate complaints about Google publishing pictures of their house, I was delighted to views ours, with me pictured hard at work in the garden, complete with broom and bucket, thereby dispelling any uncertainty as to who is the gardener in the family."
The Privacy Commissioner, Karen Curtis, has said her office continued to monitor Street View and would be meeting Google representatives shortly to discuss recent privacy concerns.
Google Australia spokesman Rob Shilkin said Google could not comment on specific images but noted the positive side of Street View, such as the fact that it has already been integrated on property sites like Domain.com.au as a way for home buyers and renters to research suburbs and addresses.
He said the company had taken significant steps to protect the privacy of individuals, including face blurring and tools for people to flag sensitive imagery for removal.
But in Bill’s case, having the imagery taken down promptly would have been difficult without third-party assistance as he does not have internet access on his boat and his mother does not have a computer.