Edward Guglielmino » Features

Cameo

ed — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 01:34:14 +0000

30 ways to make your band underground

ed — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 05:04:50 +0000

This one was written for the new Brisbane Indie blog.

http://www.collapseboard.com/

Most of my post’s will go there first.

30 ways to make your band underground

1. Get your band to rehearse in separate houses over Skype and use the delay between lines as an effect.
2. Sample yourself sampling yourself on a sampler with an 80s sampler and then use protools to loop you looping it.
3. Record everything on tape, not recording tape but sticky tape.
4. Put out all your releases on mono shalack glass plate records that only play on 1940s record-players.
5. Release your album at a secret location, so secret that even you don’t know where it is.
6. Invite Everett True to arrange your songs.
7. Use your brother’s old computer to record your demos in your parents’ garage. Your brother’s old computer is a Commodore 64.
8. Get put into a mental institution and record your music in the electroshock room while being shocked.
9. Release your music on USB sticks buried in 12-inches of cement.
10. Start a Scott Walker Drift tribute band.
11. Put your music up for free on the internet at http://we23403√√ƒƒ˙˙∫∆∆˙∆˙∆å˙∆˙©å©∆©∆ƒ∂∂˙åƒ˙åƒ∆©∆©∆˚
12. Get your niece to play drums. Your niece is two-years-old.
13. Call your band “All asylum seekers should be allowed in without scrutiny”.
14. Record your house-mate snoring, put your Commodore 64 under the ocean and then mix the two together and release it on sticky tape.
15. Record a single… man.
16. Record a song about “space docking”.
17. The only way to download your new album is to get a download code tattooed on your bottom.
18. Your new album is a pitch that makes people deaf.
19. The only way to download your new record is call a fax number, and listen to the noise.
20. Your band is a construction crew.
21. Your new single is a series of ones and zeros when typed into a binary code reader it plays the songs.
22. Your album is only available in selected vegan restaurants.
23. Sign to a Siberian record label.
24. Get David Lynch to direct your band.
25. Get Charlie Kaufman to write your lyrics.
26. Get Yoko Ono to sing lead vocals in reverse.
27. Get get Jarvis Cocker to mention you in a documentary.
28. All band members need to be ex-staff from a defunct vinyl pressing plant.
29. Use film terms to describe your music. Example 80′s Sci Fi, Film Noirish, Mise en Scene.
30. Be from Hobart.

This list can be used to make great underground bio’s.
For example:

Jarvis Cocker (2008) “This great band I love is called All asylum seekers should be allowed in without scrutiny. They are kind of an 80s film noir sci-fi group, David Lynch directed their videos and the lyrics were written by Charlie Kauffman. The band was basically a construction crew from Hobart signed to a Siberian record label. They made they their way as a Scott Walker Drift tribute band and released their first album on sticky tape. “

You can have a go in the comments.

15 things I’ll do when I make my first trillion.

ed — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 05:09:45 +0000

1. I’m going to buy all television stations and put on dead air.
2. I’m going to bribe AFL and Rugby League to make the half time show a lecturer on Russian constructivism.
3. I’m going to buy nova, and then blow it up in a blaze of glory like in V is for Vendetta.
4. I’m going to fund my own political party which is both good with money, and firmly in the 21st century.
5. I’m going to start a record label that signs good bands that will never make any money for me.
6. I am going to start my own music awards, called the invention and innovation awards, and give the most innovative artist $100,000.
7. I’m going to bribe the government to start an independent body to investigate corruption in the arts.
8. I’m going to Bribe the government to make a Jazz number the national anthem.
9. I’m going to build a tram line from Brisbane to Melbourne.
10. I’m going to fund 3RRR and 4zzz.
11. I’m going to start my own 6′clock news program that just reports on the arts.
12. I’m going to buy all the starbucks leases and give them away to independent cafe owners.
13. I am going to start the “Edward Guglielmino scholarship” the best artist gets to go into outter space and have zero gravity sex.
14. I’m going to pay the worlds best neurologists to invent a spray that turns homophobics into homosexuals.
15. I’m going to spray Tony Abbot with this spray.

50 ways to get people to care about your band in Australia.

ed — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 09:40:37 +0000

1. Pick your favorite overseas act and copy them exactly, give yourself a similar name, about put in your bio “Australia’s answer to”
2. Tell people you are all under 18.
3. Use “tokyo, russia, euro,” in your band name, make sure on paper your band name means nothing.
4. Sign to the first label that shows interest, hand over any chance you have of making any money to the company for a minimum of 25 years.
5. Use “Fresh, cool, straight out of, bluesy, roots” in your band bio.
6. Be an Aussie Hip Hop group.
7. Openly endorse a soft drink.
8. After two years tell everyone you’re quitting for good, only to reveal a new project which is identical, only with a very slightly different name.
9. Hire a young manager who will sign anything put in front of him or her.
10. Talk purely about music you really like, how awesome everything is, and never ever criticize anything openly.
11. After gigs in the backstage area openly bitch about every other act in Australia.
12. Find someone famous and start sleeping with them, pretend it is a secret to the public but tell every single person you can in private.
13. Listen to commercial radio for 48 straight and then write a song immediately.
14. Use awesome and wicked to describe everything.
15. Accept your aria and make a joke about how you are still the underdog and still have have no money in your bank account.
16. Have no cultural awareness, have no idea of music history.
17. Live in a share house with more than 10 other people in Northcote.
18. Live in your parents multi-million dollar house and have them bankroll you for 20 years.
19. Live in a share house in Newtown with 40 people, and 10 junkies.
20. Live in the Gap in Brisbane, be seen shopping at Gap Coles, tell people how much you hate fortitude valley, play acoustic guitar.
21. Make lists that people will pretend to like, but secretly they are infuriated.
22. Go to 1971 and copy.
23. Go to 1983 and copy.
24. Go to 1992 and copy.
25. Sound like “Television” (the band see rule 16).
26. Write negative things on forums about your band “Tokyo Russian Underground” Australia’s answer to Fleet Foxes.
27. Turn up to gigs after the band has finished and bitch about the bands performance.
28. Grow dreadlocks, play roots.
29. Be easy to pigeonhole, complain about being pigeonholed.
30. Use pigeonhole in every interview to describe your band, for example “I don’t want to be pigeonholed as Australia’s answer to Animal Collective but…”
31. Be ugly and write joke songs.
32. Continually act surprised that your are successful.
33. Move overseas, and play a couple of gigs, come back and claim that your famous in London, New York, Berlin ect. (note won’t work for 3rd world countries)
34. Go OP shopping before every photo shoot.
35. When being interviewed make ironic jokes that acknowledge that your currently famous.
36. If you are a woman, play up the girl next door thing until you are 45.
37. Talk about your fans as if you know them, if one approaches you in front of a camera act like you know him or her.
38. If a fan approaches you in Australia off camera, tell it to fuck off.
39. If a fan approaches you outside of Australia try not to act surprised.
40. Be from Melbourne.
41. Be from Brisbane
42. Be from Melbourne or Brisbane but play gigs in Sydney every other weekend.
43. Sleep with someone on the radio.
44. Put “despite only being around for 6 months” in your bio, even if you have been around for 10 years.
45. Never change a single thing about your band accept the the name.
46. Call any tour, the final tour ever.
47. After you turn 30 write a book.
48. After you turn 40 write another book.
49. After you turn 50 enter politics.
50. If a fan approaches you overseas, and they aren’t Australian, discount all rules above.

50 ways to tell if nobody cares about your band.

ed — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 08:57:51 +0000

1. No one has ever offered you a lay after your show.
2. No one has ever offered to get you high before a show
3. No one has ever asked you to play one of your songs to them in the privacy of their home.
4. No one that you aren’t already friends with has written about you.
5. Aside from your album launch, you have never sold out a show.
6. Aside from you mates no one ever asks you to join them on a bill.
7. Your mother and father offer you encouragement.
8. Your manager has to ‘network’ and ‘get out there’ to ‘build your profile’.
9. When you tour you have nowhere to stay for free.
10. You have to ask if there is a rider.
11. You give away more than 10 door spots at a gig.
12. Your girlfriends don’t come to any of your shows.
13. You have never walked into any room ever and heard you album being played.
14. Your publicist has to do a big push to get your single played once.
15. You pay more than $5000 for a recording (if you are not famous).
16. You have a close and personal relationship with every fan.
17. You send a text out to remind everyone you are playing tonight (unless its one of your first gigs)
18. An A&R guy turns up and leaves after your support plays.
19. You pay to get into venues.
20. You have to remind people they were at one of your gigs.
21. When the guitar is being passed around people skip you, and you have to remind them you play.
22. You often play guitar and sing at parties, killing all conversation.
23. You ask people if you can be in their top friends on myspace.
24. You check how many plays you have had on myspace today.
25. You spam people’s comments with posters of your bands upcoming gig.
26. You use myspace for more than 15 minutes a day.
27. You talk about your band on facebook and nobody comments, then you talk about the pizza you are making and you get 50 comments.
28. You walk though customs in America and they don’t ask you whether you getting paid to play while in the USA.
29. You need to write lists to get people to read your blog.
30. You let a traveling band stay with you, but when you go to their city they already have guests.
31. You are at the bottom of your managers bio.
32. You managers bio talks more about other things they have done than the management of your band.
33. You managers bio stresses how long he has be in the industry, over your achievements.
34. Not a single person will do anything for your band free of change.
35. The room gets really chatty before you play.
36. The crowd is usually really really drunk before you play, and you aren’t a punk or metal band.
37. You have less than 100 followers on twitter.
38. Your teenage sister is more popular on any social network than you are.
39. You pay for street press advertising, but they don’t have room for an editorial.
40. You accept a low paying gig to get in front of an audience, and you have been around for more than 6 months.
41. Your boss won’t give you time off work to go on tour.
42. No one at centerlink gives a shit about your band.
43. You apply to the NEIS scheme and are rejected.
44. You apply for a grant and receive $50,000
45. You work in retail or hospitality and no-one ever recognises you.
46. You are a teacher, and not a single student comes to your gigs. (unless you teach primary school).
47. You keep a scrap book of news articles about your band, but its very difficult to cut out single sentences.
48. You seek encouragement.
49. You go to bed before 1am more than 3 times a week.
50. You don’t have any frequent flyer miles.

Flowing like the River

ed — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 14:04:04 +0000

I’ve been exercising a new form of meditation being present and being in the now. I go for a walk and listen to a tape and then stop, and continue my walk. The aim of the game is to be in the present moment for as long as possible without thinking about the future or past. I got there for a full 15 minutes last week. It feels a lot liking being on drugs.

When I leave reality and return to the mind (end the meditation), things still seem clearer and more centered than the pre-meditative world.

Many people struggle hard to get to this state, however it seems to come naturally for me, I think its because for a long time I have been practicing it when I write. I generally have to be 100% focused and in the moment to perform well, and also to write new material.

It’s interesting being an artist because your ego, always wants to take credit for all your work. I think though all truly great art is devoid of an author, and that song writing is a state of mediation, much like what I have be practicing, the music flows though you and there is little you can do to interfere with the melody when it comes to you. The clearer the state of mind, and the more present you are the less editing is required post.

The theme song to “Late at Night” “Rhythm of Life” came to me entirely in one sitting with complete lyrics. “Fail with me” came in two sittings. I find if I need more than a few sessions to write a song its best abandoned. The more “pure” a song is, the more people like the song. I learnt this the hard way, for a long time I thought that songwriting was an intellectual process.

I am now starting to believe that all life is best served in a similar way “in the moment” and the less you involve your “mind” in the process the better the result. My mind is begging to take credit for the vast improvements in my life recently, but I think that is has more to do with my mindlessness. We will see if I am full of shit or not in a short time, but recently I’ve tried to make my life flow much like a song does, and its working very well!

Are you a battleship or a Lighthouse?

ed — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 14:17:04 +0000

‘Two battleships were at sea in heavy weather for several days on training manoeuvres. I was serving on the lead battleship and was on watch on the bridge as night fell. The visibility was poor with thick fog, so the Captain remained on the bridge to keep an eye on everything.

Shortly after dark, as the ship pitched and rolled through the waves, the lookout on the wing of the bridge reported, “Light! Bearing on the starboard bow.”

“Is it steady or moving astern?” the Captain called out.

The Lookout replied, “Steady, Captain!” which meant we were on a dangerous collision course with that ship.

The Captain then called to the signalman, “Signal that ship: We are on a collision course, advise you change course 20 degrees.”

Back came a signal, “Advisable for you to change course 20 degrees.”

The Captain said, “Send, I’m a Captain, change course 20 degrees.”

“I’m a seaman second class,” came back the reply. “You had better change course 20 degrees.”

By this time, the Captain was furious. He snapped out, “Send, I’m a battleship! Change course 20 degrees immediately!”

Back came the flashing light…

“I’m a lighthouse.”

We changed course!’

A letter to a lost lover.

ed — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 05:26:35 +0000

Dearest ——

Before you get started I know you wanted a letter in handwriting, but I want to write a long letter so you have to put up with the typed version of events. I’m a terrible “writer” if you get my meaning so I hope you can forgive my digitalness.

— just got back from overseas I saw him list night. That was weird. He looked older. He had a wise look on his face. A new look about him. All that time in london must’ve changed him somehow. Made him a man. —- and him hooked up almost instantaniously. Funny bunch!

Allot of socializing lately there seems to be some sort of party in Brisbane every three days. You know what its like here. Everyone has these big back yards full of people. The smell of fresh cut grass, mixed with cigarette and pot smoke. I have a boys club now called tree house, where jamie, ray, marty matt, and I talk secret mens business and smoke joints.

The rule is that if you pass on anything said in tree house we get to punch you in the back of the head when your not looking. Main rule is no-girls.

Its been one of the coldest Brisbane winters ever. I know you will think it couldn’t be that bad compared the Hobart chill. But with no indoor heating its been a nightmare. Hard to sleep with the cold air nipping your ears. I’ve been good to myself lately. I was recently reborn.

I had the flu bad. I was sick of being indoors and I had been given tickets to the breeders at the zoo. So I went out and drank with three friends to the tunes till we were all deep under lucidity.  After a few joints and still fluey I walked home at 4 in the morning the pavement felt like marshmallows under my feet.  I got home and took 3 night codral and two neurohen plus. The walls of my apartment are melting, My inner voice becomes audible though both ears. I can feel my heart beat in my eyes.  I fell on my bed and passed out, I saw jesus, he flew with me over the crop circles in england, explaining how to decode them. Spirits dressed as aliens read from the book for revelations too me. A healing light shone from within my body.

Expecting to be sicker, and more hung over than I have ever been, I wake up the next day feeling reborn. I’d been baptized by something outside of me or inside of me. The flu had gone. I haven’t felt better.

Since I cheated death I’ve been on my best behavior. I’ve been thinking about what ill do when the records all finished. When I finish this record with matt, and tour it around australia and europe. I will come home. Ill sell everything I don’t need. Ill by a small car, and Ill put my music collection in storage.

I will buy a block of land out in the bush, hopefully near Rainforest. I will construct a tipi and live in it, only returning to the city to play shows, and record. Well Its a dream I have. Either that or the opposite move to New York city. I can’t decide. Maybe ill do both.

I’ve been a total professional musician lately doing loads of shows in Sydney and Melbourne and recording every day. I even got invited to be a part of the songwriters of Queensland weekend at applewood. Where we all team up and take turns to write songs together. A cd is made afterwards, I can’t believe Im on a list with other Queensland songwriters like casey chambers and shit. HAHA!

Two CDS one is the Daniel Johnson tapes, and another is my most recent home recordings. You’ll probably like them more than the studio record which I will send you in a few months knowing you.

Anyway Ill write you more but you got to write back first.

Love Edward G xxxxox

Manufacturing Consent

ed — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 06:51:00 +0000

How to smuggle coke over three boarders

ed — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 03:38:45 +0000

I have a BA in Creative Industries. In my last year I decided to buckle down hard. I didn’t party very hard and was saving money. There was an option to do your last semester of University in New York. I signed up for the opportunity . It was my first trip overseas without Mummy and Daddy, so I saved every penny I had. At the time I was studying so I got youth allowance, plus I was working door to door, and running a music night at the now deceased alley bar. I was a good video store member ship salesman, and the Alley Bar at the time was breaking records for mid week gigs, regularly pulling 100 plus people. I lived in an apartment on Brunswick Street before the area went posh so my rent was only $100 a week. To cut a long story short I saved $10,000 before I went to America.

As my parents saw me off, Mum handed me an American Express card and said “happy graduation, you worked so hard, use this if you need it overseas, have a good time you deserve it”

I think since most of my school teachers told my parents I was going to be a bum, they were surprised to be sending their son over to New York to study.

I stayed in a hotel next which also doubled as welfare housing. After one week in New York, I realized that I wasn’t going to need $10,000 to last 3 months. The people I had met had shown me how to live for around $20 US a day. Once I finished my degree I still had 1 1/2 months left and lots of free time and money. I went on the biggest drug binge of my entire life.

It all started when I was walking into times square, and a drug dealer handed me his business card. Very fast he said ‘coke,weed,pills,pot,smack’ and walked off. I was at first kind of afraid to score drugs off a very tall african Amercian guy. However later that night I was alone in my hotel room, and thought “well I’ll only live once”.

I rang the number.

Pick up “coke,weed,pills,pot,lsd”. I had never tried coke, and I had never had a good pill so I asked for 2 pills and 2 grams of coke. He delivered it to my hotel door, the baggies all had the drug dealers number and logo on them. I did a line and went out to party.

Two days later I woke up and got ready to head to Canada. I had done all my gear so I packed my bags and went to the airport the whole time feeling a piece of lint in my top pocket but not thinking much of it. Landing in Canada, Billy and his girlfriend picked me up from the airport. Bill was a touring musician that had played the Alley Bar when I was running it and told me to come check out Toronto when I was in Canada. On the way home from the airport Bill and his girl started sucking down bongs in the car. It wasn’t just weed, but weed mixed with a strong hallucinogen called saliva. I took a toke and sunk back into the chair. Feeling the lint in my top pocket.

I don’t really remember that month, other than having a huge paranoid drug freak out on New Years Eve, we had been hitting these laced bongs, (the weed was also hydro, and so strong that Bill told me they would trade it, pound for pound for coke in the US, BC bud, its true, google it) and I decided to take two pills, and do a line, it was a very bad idea.

Leaving Canada I was still on another planet, I had dried up but was still Brain mashed, I left behind nearly half my stuff by accident. I flew down to Miami, to spend 4 days at Disney world.

Checking into the hotel, the owner said to me “You look fucked up”.

“I had a big New Year’s Eve” I said reaching for my wallet, feeling a piece of lint in my pocket. I handed him my parents AMEX. He scanned it and handed it back to me, plus a zanax.

“Take this”, he said “It will give you a good nights sleep”

I took the sleeping pill and feel asleep, but woke soon after, the room was full of light, I was levitating above my bed. Green goo was coming out of the celling. I couldn’t move. I stayed like this for 8 hours, till I woke up. It was of course some amazingly fucked up drug induced nightmare. I was still having flash backs as I had my shower, and got ready to head out .

On the way out, the owner said “Sleep well?”

It said (no bullshit) ” I just had the most fucked up dream of my entire life! I am going to Disney world!”

“Wanna do a line before you go?”

Disney World is the size of Brisbane, no shit, its massive. When you having four types of come downs, and your high at the same time, its like some apocalyptic nightmare. Occasionally a cartoon would run up to me, I’d double take and it would be a dude in a mickey outfit. The roller coasters nearly killed me, I left an awesome 3D movie where you didn’t have to wear glasses only to find out it wasn’t 3D off the other patrons. The four days were all the same. Zanax, Coke, Disney, Zanax, Coke, Disney.

Well, I thanked the hotel owner, and flew to New York. One night there, then four nights in Tokyo, then home.

Coming down in Japan was made harder by the obvious language barrier and the fact that the Japanese don’t name there streets. On the third and last day I decided to repack everything, and empty my pockets. Then and there in my hotel room, a gram of coke dropped out of one of my shirt pockets, with the New York drug dealers logo on it.

So I managed to smuggled coke, in and out of America and into Japan undetected, while having trouble deciphering reality at the same time. It was easy. Although this is a cautionary tale, as upon my return to Australia I needed to take Anti Depressants for three months. If I could do it again I wouldn’t. I’ve never really 100% returned to normal.