Seattle

I have spent the past three days on a short weekend trip to Seattle. This was my first time to the city and I managed to pack in a few key tourist attractions and activities while I was here. I arrived early afternoon on Friday and took the Link light rail from the airport to the downtown Seattle Westlake stop. The trip lasted 40 minutes and only cost $3.00 one way, which was a great bargain.

I stayed at the newly renovated Hotel Theodore (1531 7th Avenue), which was centrally located to public transport, shops and attractions. It's a really cute hotel with nice, clean rooms and offers its guests daily complementary happy hour drinks. Check out their website to see if there are any deals before booking.

On Friday after checking in I walked down Pine Street past all the stores and holiday decorations to the waterfront to check out the Pike Place Market. It's a massive space and maze of different food and product stalls as well as little shops (kind of a bigger version of Melbourne's Queen Victoria Market). I stopped in to the French bakery Le Panier for a croissant and some macarons, and after wandering around for a bit I grabbed dinner from Pike Place Chowder, who are famous for their different seafood chowders (I had the New England clam chowder, which was tasty). That evening I headed out to the Neptune theater to see comedian Hari Kondabolu, which was the impetus for this trip.

On Saturday I took the short journey on the monorail to the Seattle Center, home to the Space Needle and other tourist attractions. My first stop though was a walk down Broad Street to the Olympic Sculpture Park, which contains large scale sculptures and native plants within its nine acres along the waterfront. There were diverse and interesting pieces throughout, and it is a calming place to wander around (and appears to be a local exercise spot).

Next I walked back to the Seattle Center and went to the amazing Chihuly Garden and Glass (read a detailed post about my visit here). Then I headed to the Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP) to check out a few of their exhibitions. There were lots of different little music exhibits, including ones on Jimmy Hendrix, David Bowie, and a history of guitars.

One thing I was really excited to see was The Jim Henson Exhibition: Imagination Unlimited. As someone who grew up on Sesame Street and The Muppets it was great to learn more about Jim Henson's career and get to see some of the puppets up close and personal (I nearly gasped when I saw Kermit). The exhibition also has storyboards, costumes and film clips from Henson's various projects over the years. It is definitely work checking out and has been extended until 25 February 2018.

After my day at the Seattle Center I took the monorail back and then walked a couple blocks up to the Pacific Place Center to finally see the movie Thor: Ragnarok. I do not follow the Marvel comics at all but am a huge fan of New Zealand director Taika Waititi (What We Do In The Shadows is one of my favorite movies) so wanted to check out the film. Not really knowing much about the history of Thor made the first part a bit slow, but once Thor (Chris Hemsworth) was captured on the planet Sakaar and forced to be a gladiator under the Grandmaster (brilliantly played by Jeff Goldblum) things picked up. Thor gets reunited in the ring with his buddy Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), and also makes a new friend in Korg (Taika Waititi hilariously voicing the character as a Maori bouncer from Auckland). Eventually they all escape and head back to the planet Asgard to try and rescue the citizens from Thor's sister Hela (Cate Blanchett) who has taken over as ruler. I enjoyed the Australian and New Zealand references Taika put into the movie such as mentions of the film The Castle, the Holden Commodore car, and painting spaceships in the colors of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags. For a big budget action picture Taika did manage to get a lot of his humor and style into the film, and it's great that it has been so successful.

This morning I wandered around a bit at Pacific Place Center before heading back to the airport for my afternoon flight to San Francisco. Overall my trip to Seattle was a good taster and gave me an opportunity to orient myself with the city. I was very lucky with the weather in that although it was cold I didn't experience any rain. Hopefully I'll get an opportunity to return again someday to explore more of Seattle.

Chihuly Garden And Glass

Chihuly Garden and Glass is a long-term exhibition of artist Dale Chihuly's work located in the Seattle Center. It contains a comprehensive collection of his works throughout his career spread across eight galleries, a glasshouse and lush outside garden.

As you enter the exhibition the first room is the Glass Forest which contains a series of neon glass tubes.

Next are the works in the Northwest Room, which take their inspiration from the First Nations people of the Northwest, particularly the form of baskets.

The Sealife Room is full of intricate glass work inspired by different sea animals and plants, including a giant sealife glass sculpture in the middle of the room.

The Persian Ceiling is a room where you can sit and look up at all the works assembled together within the ceiling, which are almost like a 3D stained glass window.

Mille Fiori is a giant floor length garden of glass sculptures, with the little intricate details revealed as you walk around the piece.

Ikebana & Float Boat contain many different types of glass sculptures both within and alongside the boats.

The series of Chandeliers are quite detailed glass sculptures in different colors that located both within an indoor gallery and along a walkway in the museum.

The Macchia Forest is the final gallery room, which is full of beautiful hand blown glass bowls.

The main highlight of the museum is the Glasshouse and the large 100 foot long glass sculpture hanging along the length of its ceiling. It is simply breathtaking to look at as you also get views of the outdoor gardens, sky and even the Space Needle.

The extensive outdoor Garden contains glass sculptures interwoven with plants and trees. It's a very unique way to display the art within a natural context.

The museum also has a theater that shows a series of short films about Chihuly's different exhibitions around the world throughout his career and how they came together. In addition, every hour there is a glass blowing demonstration out in the courtyard where you can watch and learn how a piece is made. For the one I watched they were making a vase and unfortunately it broke off and shattered towards the end of the process (but that's the life of glass blowing - it doesn't always work out).

If you are ever in Seattle you have to check out Chihuly Garden and Glass as it is a must do activity for tourists and locals.

An Evening With Hari Kondabolu

I have become a big fan of comedian Hari Kondabolu through his podcast Politically Re-Active with W. Kamau Bell. Since I missed Hari’s show in Oakland by a week I decided to fly up to Seattle to finally see him perform live at the Neptune theater. Hari did two sold out shows tonight (I went to the 10pm show), which were taped for a Netflix special. After being welcomed by comedy legend Bobcat Goldthwait (who was directing the special), Liz Miele came out and did a short stand-up set to warm up the crowd. Her material touched on topics around family, friends, and health and wellbeing.

Hari came out to massive cheers from the sold out crowd. He started out with some inter-city rivalry jokes about Portland, which played well with the Seattle crowd. Hari covered a lot of material during his set, from the political with Trump and the unleashing of overt racism and sexism that has resulted, to the personal with having people pronounce his name correctly, his relationship and interactions with his parents, and love for mangoes (#MangoTalk). Hari is really good at exploring issues in an intelligent way from different angles, which was the case for his observations on gentrification, healthcare and airport security (which I could really relate to having been on five different flights over the past two weeks). While I was hoping for all new material, I did recognise some bits from his previous comedy album releases and YouTube clips, which was understandable considering he was taping a special.

As these shows were being taped there were points throughout the set where Hari would pause to re-state something for edits. At end they had to do a few extra crowd shots for the opening and closing credits, so while those were set up Bobcat and Hari told a couple of funny off the record stories to the crowd. I'm glad I was finally able to see Hari do stand-up in person, and hopefully he will make a return visit to Australia in 2018. If you haven't had a chance to check it out, I would strongly urge you to watch Hari's fantastic documentary The Problem with Apu.

Here's a clip of one of my favorite bits from the evening about Hari's own healthcare plan:

Grizzly Bear- Painted Ruins USA Tour

One of the exciting things about being home was being able to catch Grizzly Bear play the second of their two shows at The Warfield in San Francisco in support of their latest album Painted Ruins. As the band have yet to tour the album in Australia this was my first opportunity to get to hear many of these songs live. Gabby joined me for the evening, and we arrived as the stage was getting set up with some lovely cloud like backdrops hanging from the rafters.

The band came out onto the stage to big applause and launched into "Four Cypresses." They ended up playing a lot of my favorite tracks off their albums throughout the night, including "Mourning Sound" "Cut-Out" and "Neighbors" from Painted Ruins (unfortunately we didn't get "Aquarian" as it was only played at the first show), "Sleeping Ute" and "Yet Again" off of Shields, "Two Weeks" and "While You Wait For The Others" off of Veckatimest, and "On A Neck, On A Spit" from Yellow House.

It was an amazing live set and I am always impressed by how the band manage to recreate the complex layers of their album tracks live, both through harmonies and instruments. The lighting for the show also added a lot to the mood of the songs. Ed Droste and most of us in the crowd were in a celebratory mood with Doug Jones win over Roy Moore for the US Senate seat in Alabama (a little glimmer of hope in a dark year). For the encore they played the very early track "Shift" and then brought the house down with "Sun In Your Eyes" to finish. I'm looking forward to catching them again when they play Zoo Twilights in Melbourne in March 2018.

Here's the slightly NSFW video for "Mourning Sound"

Maui

For the past few days I have been enjoying the start of my four week vacation with a little stopover in Maui on my way to San Francisco. I arrived on Sunday, 3 December via three flights with brief stops in Sydney and Honolulu. The weather here has been slightly cooler than the heatwave I experienced in Melbourne over the past two weeks, but it has been warm and pleasant. I have been staying at the Aston Ka'anapali Shores in a junior suite with a kitchen (thanks to a free upgrade). The place is very close to where I stayed when I was last here in 2011. They have two great pool areas, hot tubs and assorted activities on the grounds each day, although there isn't really any beach access. However, I still had lovely views of a couple good sunsets along the water when the clouds weren't too thick.

The main reason for the stopover in Maui was to meet up with my brother James, sister-in-law Simi and her family, my nephew Logan and niece Kylie. It has been good to spend time with them and celebrate a couple family milestones. One was James and Simi renewing their wedding vows on Kapalua Beach to celebrate their ten year wedding anniversary this year. After the short ceremony we celebrated with champagne and appetizers at the outside seating area of Merriman's Maui.

We also celebrated Logan's birthday by going to the Maui Ocean Center, which has a mix of indoor and outdoor exhibits. We happened to be there on the day that they do vet check-ups for the green sea turtles, so it was very exciting for Logan to watch as the staff cleaned, measured and weighed them. The place is a perfect spot for kids to explore, and was also a good activity for what turned out to be a very windy day.

Overall these past few days have been fairly chill, with a lot of time spent in the pool swimming with Logan and Kylie. Yesterday I had most of the day to myself as my brother went golfing, so I walked down to the public part of Ka'anapali Beach to sit and watch the waves and get a bit of sun. I had lunch at Duke's Beach House, where my awesome waitress comped me a Hula Pie, which is made of a chocolate cookie crust, macadamia nut ice cream, hot fudge, toasted macadamia nuts and whipped cream. It was delicious (and filling).

This morning I bid farewell to everyone as they were on an earlier flight to Sacramento, and grabbed breakfast at the Beach Club before heading off to the airport for my flight to San Francisco. It's colder in the Bay Area, but not as bad as I was expecting for a nighttime arrival (and no fog!).

Oh Mercy- Jack Daniel's Barrel House

Currently located along the Crown Riverwalk is the pop-up Jack Daniel's Barrel House, which sort of looks like a barn/dive bar and has Australian music acts playing for free each night. It's not exactly the venue you'd expect to see Oh Mercy live, but Alex was scheduled to play tonight so Mary, David, Ebony and I headed down to check out his set.

Alex started solo on electric guitar with "Sandy" and "My Man." We got a bit of a shout out as he said it was good to see some familiar faces in the crowd. During his 45 minute set he was also joined by Grace on piano for some songs. We were treated to the new tracks "Hot Topic," "Restless Woman" and "Auto Bellissimo" off his upcoming album due out in February 2018 (Mary's hoping for a release on my birthday). Tracks off of his last album When We Talk About Love included "Iron Cross," "Can't You Hear My Body (Calling Out To You)" and "Lady Eucalyptus," which was when some guys in the crowd decided to scull their Jack Daniel's drinks to Alex's great amusement. It was a very hot day in Melbourne and the venue was really bringing that Southern feel as more and more moths started flying around the stage lights as the set progressed.

There was a lovely cover of Leonard Cohen's "One Of Us Cannot Be Wrong," and he finished the evening with the current single "National Park" (complete with the opening guitar riff of Guns N' Roses' "Sweet Child O' Mine" at the end). It was an amusing show and Alex joked he was living out his rock star fantasy by playing at the venue.

Eddie Rayner's ENZO: The Songs Of Split Enz

It's been over 20 years since those first ENZSO shows where the songs of Split Enz were played by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. Eddie Rayner returned tonight to Melbourne's Hamer Hall with ENZO: The Songs of Split Enz. This time there was a smaller 14-piece band including strings and brass, with Eddie on keyboards and piano, Michael Barker (ex-Split Enz and John Butler Trio) on drums and Brett Adams (longtime Tim Finn collaborator) on electric guitar. Performing each of the songs were guest vocalists Rima Te Wiata (Hunt For The Wilderpeople), Rikki Morris and Phil Madsen.

Eddie came out for the first half of the show in his Noel and Sally Crombie designed white suit. He started the evening with the instrumental track "Albert of India." Each of the vocalists took turns singing songs from across the back catalogue of Split Enz, ranging from the later Neil Finn tracks "The Devil You Know" and "I Walk Away" to the more theatrical early Enz songs such as "Stranger Than Fiction" and "Time For A Change."

After the intermission, Eddie emerged in his black House of Crombie suit. They kicked off with "Matinee Iydll (129)" and "Stuff and Nonsense," which Eddie said was buried on the Frenzy album because radio didn't play ballads in the 1970s. Rima Te Wiata added a lot of theatricality to her performances throughout the night. It was Phil Madsen though, who was my favorite vocalist due to his amazing voice and phenomenal versions of "I Hope I Never" and "Edible Flowers," which came out of the last Enz jam sessions in 1999 and was subsequently released on the Finn Brothers album Everyone Is Here. Some of the other highlights for me were hearing "Voices," "Give It A Whirl" and "Strait Old Line," complete with a fantastic spoon solo by Michael Barker.

For the encore all three vocalists performed the songs together. They began with the instrumental "Pioneer" which segued into "Six Months In A Leaky Boat," and then finished the evening with "My Mistake." Overall it was good to hear some different interpretations of Split Enz songs, although I did miss having the Finns singing them as it bordered on karaoke at some points throughout the night.

Melbourne Night Noodle Markets 2017

The Melbourne Night Noodle Markets are on again from 9-26 November at Birrarung Marr. Sally and I headed down there after work to try out a few different savoury and sweet stalls. Thankfully it was a decent evening weather wise and there were quite a few places to choose from across the three terrace areas.

For starters we checked out Dum & Dumpling with its booth in an old school bus. We shared the vegetable and shitake mushroom dumplings, which were in translucent wrappers and tasted great.

Next we went to one of my favorite lunch spots, Wonderbao. We got the 3 gua baos for $20 which contained the Roast Pork with pickled cucumber, spring onion and hoisin sauce; Korean Chicken with sweet 'n' spicy sauce, pickled daikon and roasted sesame; and Panko Eggplant with kimchi, lettuce, spring onion and chili lime mayo. Each of them tasted amazing.

After digesting a bit we headed to the Gelato Messina stand for a bit of dessert. They always do special creations each year just for the Night Noodle Markets. First we had the O-No-Giri which contained green tea gelato and pistachio mousse dipped in rice bubbles and white chocolate. Next we ate I Think I'm Turning Sesame which was made up of black sesame gelato, condensed milk coffee jelly, miso crunch, banana miso bread, and vanilla cream and coffee powder. Both of them were really good and had lots of different textures.

Finally we tried the Dancing Dragon dish from Waffleland, which was a fresh baked waffle drizzled with melted chocolate and dusted with icing sugar, along with some ice cream and strawberries. The waffle on the stick was a bit thin, which was disappointing.

Overall we did pretty well with the dishes we chose to eat. This year's Night Noodle Markets are cashless, so be sure you have your bank card with you so you can buy food.

Marlon Williams- Vampire Again Tour

Marlon Williams has spent a lot of this year touring around the world. Tonight was the first of his three sold out shows back in Melbourne at Howler to celebrate the single "Vampire Again" and showcase songs from his upcoming album. Opening the evening was Archer, who played a set of his country/folk songs both solo on acoustic guitar and accompanied by a guy on accordion. Archer was quite the character and has a deep singing voice.

Marlon Williams was joined by his band The Yarra Benders and the majority of the set featured songs off his new album Make Way For Love, which is due to be released in February 2018. The tracks demonstrated the diversification of his sound from his country and bluegrass roots. There were some beautiful ballads such as the new single "Nobody Gets What They Want Anymore" and "The Fire Of Love" alongside more rockier songs like "Party Boy" and "Vampire Again." The standout of the new tracks for me was "Arahura" as you could hear a pin drop in the venue during the song.

We got a couple of old favorites with "I'm Lost Without You" and "Dark Child," along with a cover of John Lennon's "Jealous Guy." Marlon's voice was beautiful throughout the night (especially with his falsetto) and there were some lovely harmonies with the band. For the encore Marlon played another new track "Love Is A Terrible Thing" on keys and then the band rejoined him on stage for a corker of a finale with their cover of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ "Portrait Of A Man." I can't wait for this new album to be released and to get to see Marlon play live again in Melbourne in May 2018.

Here's the hilarious video for "Vampire Again"

The House Of Dior: Seventy Years Of Haute Couture

The latest fashion exhibition at the NGV is The House of Dior: Seventy Years of Haute Couture. It features over 140 garments that have been produced by Dior's seven different designers between 1947 to 2017 and tells the history of this formidable fashion house through the theming of designs to demonstrate the evolution of the House of Dior.

There are so many beautiful gowns that are a part of this exhibition. The layout of the rooms allows you to get close up views of most of the pieces so you can see the detailed construction techniques that have gone in to creating them. It was interesting to see the fashion shows that many of these garments featured in, although some of the John Galliano shows were really cringeworthy due to the cultural appropriation in some of those collections.

Here is a sample of some of my favorite pieces that were on display.

The House of Dior: Seventy Years of Haute Couture is on at the NGV until 7 November 2017.

Wild 2 Free Benefit

Wild2Free is an Australian animal sanctuary that rehabilitates native animals (mainly kangaroos). Last year shortly after opening a fire burned down the house on the property, so tonight's sold out benefit concert at The Croxton featuring Area-7 and The Living End was to help raise funds for Rae Harvey (longtime manager of The Living End) to rebuild.

I will admit that I completely missed the years when ska/punk band Area-7 were popular in Australia in the late-1990s and early-2000s. Danny and Ruth did give me a bit of a primer on their songs in the car ahead of the gig. They played an energetic set, managed to auction off a signed poster for $500, and finished things off with a cover of The Angels' "Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again?"

The Living End opened their set with "Save The Day," which was a bit of a hint that the set list was going to dive deep into their back catalogue for the hometown crowd. The first few releases featured throughout the set with "End Of The World," "Roll On," "Monday," "From Here On In" and "All Torn Down." They even played their eight minute opus "The Room" off Modern Artillery, which I think I've only heard live once before.

The whole show was a bit of a sing along throughout, although Chris thought the crowd's efforts on "White Noise" were a bit weak. The slower tracks "With Enemies Like That" and "Keep On Running" off their latest album Shift provided a bit of a breather, but the crowd surfing really kicked off towards the end of the set with "How Do We Know?" "Prisoner Of Society" and the encore tracks "Uncle Harry" and "Second Solution." It was great to see The Living End play in a smaller venue than normal and contribute to a benefit for such a good cause.

Here's the video for "Staring Down The Barrel"

C.W. Stoneking- Solo Tour

C.W. Stoneking is currently doing a solo tour around the country, and tonight was the second of his two sold out shows at Howler. Opening the evening was William Crighton, who also played a solo set of songs off his debut album, which features stories centered around Australian experiences.

C.W. Stoneking came out onto the stage not in his traditional white but wearing an indigo button down shirt, jeans and a brown wide-brimmed fedora. He sat down on a raised platform on the stage and began the evening with "How Long." The set featured many songs off his latest release Gon' Boogaloo, including "On A Desert Isle," "The Zombie" (where we were encouraged to sing along), "The Thing I Done" and "Get On The Floor." C.W.'s banter in between songs was quite entertaining and covered a wide range of topics such as asparagus, rubik's cubes and trying to sell the guitar he was playing. He also dealt quite well with a woman who shouted for him to take off his clothes, saying that he could undress himself as he was wearing his big boy pants.

One of the great things about this show was hearing some older tracks, especially those from his first album which don't get played live that often. Highlights were "Jungle Lullaby," "Talking Lion Blues," "Jailhouse Blues" and an audience request for "The Love Me Or Die" off of Jungle Blues, and the King Hokum tracks "Dodo Blues," "Goin The Country," "Way Out In The World" and "Handyman Blues." We also got treated to a cover of William Brown's "Ragged And Dirty." To finish the night he played "We Gon' Boogaloo," which sent everyone out on a high note. It's always wonderful to get to see C.W. live, especially in a more intimate setting.

Here's C.W. doing a live version of "On A Desert Isle"

Hokusai

Katsushika Hokusai is one of the best known Japanese artists from the Edo period with his renowned woodblock prints and paintings. The Hokusai exhibition currently on at the NGV International brings together 176 works from across his seventy-year career, including works from seven of his major series. The level of detail and use of color in these pieces was quite beautiful and intricate.

There were many pieces from Hokusai's best known series Thirty-six Views of Mt Fuji from 1830-1834 on display, which depicted Mt Fuji in scenes from different locations and seasons. Included in the exhibition is his most famous piece from this series The great wave off Kanagawa.

Another beautiful series was A Tour to the Waterfalls in Various Provinces from 1832, which was the first series on the theme of waterfalls published in Japan.

The series Remarkable Views of Bridges in Various Provinces from 1834 gives you a sense of the movement of people either going about their everyday activities or travelling across the countryside.

I also really liked his prints of birds and flowers due to the color and beauty of the pieces.

The Hokusai exhibition has been extended and is on until 22 October 2017 at the NGV International.

Oh Mercy- National Park Tour

It's been a year since Oh Mercy last played a show in Melbourne, and tonight they were back at the nightclub Hugs & Kisses in support of the new single "National Park." Opening the evening was James Moloney & the Mad Dog Harrisons with James doing a solo set on acoustic guitar which included a cover of Tom Petty And The Heartbreaker's "Refugee." Next up was the band Ern Malley, who played a fantastic set with their 1970s rock/alt-country vibe. I was quite impressed and will be keeping an eye out for them in the future.

The latest incarnation of the Oh Mercy live band includes all guys this time (the first time there hasn't been a female member in the mix). The hour long set showcased some of the new songs which will appear on the new album due to be released in early 2018. The highlights for me were "Hideous Place" (standout track of the night), the driving rhythm of "Hot Topic," the excellent "National Park" and the slow ballad "Auto Bellissimo," which Alex joked he wants to go viral in Italy (and also led to him singing a snippet of the La Porchetta commercial jingle). Alex had quite a few funny moments throughout the night, whether it was puns, praising Jesus and making a Hillsong reference, comparing a song to a jeep commercial, or doing a shout out to Cameron Daddo and SmoothFM.

We were treated to some Burt Bacharach with a cover of "This Guy's In Love With You" and a few lines of "Walk On By." Older Oh Mercy songs in the set were "My Man" and "Deep Heat" off the Deep Heat album, and the When We Talk About Love tracks "Can't You Hear My Body (Calling Out To You)," "Lady Eucalyptus" solo and "Sandy," which closed out the night. I ran into Alex on the way into the venue, and Mary and I had a brief chat with him after the show and he was as gracious as always. It will be great when the new album is finally released (especially since it's been done for a while).

Here's the video for "National Park" (shot in Castlemaine):