The Brisbane Powerhouse is currently hosting the Festival of Tibet through until the end of this weekend. It is the second such occasion, with the first being organised at the time of the most recent violent crackdown by Chinese government authorities in Tibet. The Festival features a lot of Tibetan music, art and other cultural and…
Continue reading →This week on my regular shift on 4ZZZ FM, (Brisbane’s independent music and news radio station), I interviewed Ember Swift, an interesting Canadian-born musician and advocate for activism. She recently made her fourth appearance at the Woodford Folk Festival, and is playing her final Australian show this weekend on Saturday night (Jan 23) at The…
Continue reading →Yesterday on my weekly shift on 4ZZZ, I did an extended phone interview with Queensland Liberal Senator, Brett Mason. He talks about the CPRS and the climate change issue, the upcoming election with new Liberal leader Tony Abbott and where things are at with proposed changes to the Youth Allowance. You can listen to or…
Continue reading →This week on my regular Thursday morning stint on independent community radio station, 4ZZZ-FM, I’ll be interviewing Graham Perrett, the member for the southern Brisbane based seat of Moreton. Apart from being a relatively new MP from the Queensland seat with the highest proportion of residents born overseas, Graham is also a published author, with…
Continue reading →When I finished my time in the Senate last year, I started doing a weekly shift on 4ZZZ-FM, Brisbane’s groundbreaking community radio station. One of the main reasons I decided to have a go at this – even though it involves the horror of rising at around 5 o’clock every Thursday morning – was as…
Continue reading →There are a couple of interesting events being held next week in Brisbane. On Tuesday night at the Uni of Qld, two films about children: The first is called “Child in Charge” on the lives of child-headed families – children who have raised their siblings in post-genocide Rwanda. Director Kym Rolle will also be there…
Continue reading →The online video of Susan Boyle’s singing performance of the reality TV show “Britains Got Talent” has reportedly set online viewing records. In a little over a week after being posted on YouTube, the video has been viewed more than 30 million times, and “according to Visible Measures, which tracks videos from YouTube, MySpace and other…
Continue reading →Regular readers will know that since last July I have been doing a weekly shift on Brisbane’s original community radio station 4ZZZ (102.1 FM). It’s something I did very frequently throughout the 1980s, and apart from the occasional hardship of getting out of bed in time to start at 6am every Thursday, it’s been a…
Continue reading →I wrote in June about a screening of a film called Hope – the story of Amal Basry, an Iraqi woman who was one of the few survivors of the sinking of the SIEV-X refugee boat. The film is being shown again in Brisbane at 6.30pm on Saturday 6th December – Human Rights Day – at…
Continue reading →A commenter brings news confirming the rumours (including Paul Kelly being the support act) that Leonard Cohen will tour Australia early next year, after a 24 year break. This site lists five ‘day on the green’ concerts in various regional areas in January/February – although it also states “the tour will include a series of…
Continue reading →Leonard Cohen fans (I’m sure there are some of you out there) would know that the living legend is currently embarked on a world tour – his first extended run of live performances for many years. So far this has meant a heap of shows in Canada and Europe. But I heard a reasonably strong indication…
Continue reading →The Greenfest being held at Brisbane’s Southbank over this weekend has been getting a lot of media coverage around town. Organiser Colman Ridge has obviously pulled out all stops (and a lot of his own money too by the look of it) to try to make the event a success and help encourage people to improve…
Continue reading →I had an offer today to provide the opportunity for 5 readers of this blog to win a double pass to a performance of a new play called The Modern International Dead, which is about to start a season at the SBW Stables Theatre in Sydney’s Kings Cross. This was rather unusual, as I’ve never…
Continue reading →I am not overly fond of parochialism, but there is undoubtedly a lot to recommend about the cultural treasures within the soon to unfold Brisbane Festival – not least the free opening event of The Black Arm Band – free at the Riverstage in the Botanic Gardens. There are not stars here, the ‘star’ is the music…
Continue reading →I went to a CD launch today at the Powerhouse down by New Farm Park. The band was called the Danger Bunnies, a local group of 11 and 12 year old girls (plus a newly added boy) who’ve been playing for a couple of years. It was the first live gig I’d been to in…
Continue reading →As most readers would be aware, I have a bit more spare time at the moment than I’ve had for many a year, so I am trying to take the chance to do a few fun things that I have let slide. One of those things is having a go at doing a weekly shift…
Continue reading →A documentary film about a survivor of the SIEV-X tragedy is being screened around Australia for a couple weeks as part of Refugee Week, starting June 19th. The film is called Hope. I’m sure it was done and the title chosen before Barack Obama burst on the scene, but in any case, hope is a…
Continue reading →The controversy surrounding the Bill Henson photographs coincided almost precisely with when this blog was offline. There has been extensive and often very interesting debate on a range of blogs, which I found more stimulating than most of what occurred in the mainstream media, which seemed to mostly reflect the extremes of the debate without much…
Continue reading →I got sent this clip from YouTube today. It has been up there since August last year. It’s a short (5 minutes) film which won best Film at the Queensland Short Film Festival 2006, among other awards, but it was the first time I’d seen it. It grabbed my eye because the opening scene is…
Continue reading →Brisbane’s Gallery of Modern Art is currently hosting a major exhibition on/of Andy Warhol. I managed to get along to the opening night last Friday to have a look around. I’m no expert on visual arts and am just a casual observer, so I don’t profess to have any great insights. As far as I’m…
Continue reading →