Holy shit I am super excited about this album. TV Colours are either one of the best bands you’ve heard in years, or you haven’t listened to them yet … or you’re a god damn monster. Purple Skies, Toxic River is out June 1st on vinyl from Eighteen Records and CD/digital from Dream Damage. The new single Beverly was the opener on Skydreams Top Five #20.

In which the guys wonder how to pick up at a pharmacy, Jarrod gives his Mum bad ticket scalping advice and Brian re-lives a traumatic childhood experience.

Since I concocted this recipe I have been eating variations of this dish almost daily, and I am yet to find myself getting bored of it. When I eat other food I often find myself comparing it to this and wishing I had brought a lunch box. I feel robust. I feel strong and healthy. In our day-to-day lives there are no miracles except for those you allow to happen by putting yourself in the place where they must land, and if you want to be healthy you need to eat healthy. Period.

The secret of the Bachelor Gruel is that it’s a collection of healthy foods combined to make something that is delicious and able to be eaten every day. It tastes good yet is not exciting enough that it becomes boring. Though variety is the spice of life, health is the source of life, and as Hippocrates said ‘Let your food be your medicine, and your medicine be your food.’ So, while you are sitting around at home, not really indulging in life’s variety, pretty much doing the same shitty things for your body over and over again, you might as well have such a medicinal concoction as your dietary base. If you get the opportunity you should complicate things: choose ingredients to add that suit you beyond the basics provided here. And if you don’t have everything on the list at any time you can always strip it back. When you are adding ingredients, keep in mind that the rawer they are the better.

When approaching a Bachelor Gruel one must remember that even if you don’t like it at first it is malleable, and the idea is health more than anything else. Taste is a multi-faceted sense, and the great thing about our tastebuds is that if you push them to a certain point with things you don’t like then you can acquire new tastes, and after a while experimenting you can find that the boundaries of ‘what you like’ are much broader than you ever expected.

All this is not to say the recipe isn’t delicious in more conventional ways, I am assured by others that it is, but it’s said to encourage a less arbitrarily descriminatory perspective when it comes to preferences in taste, and a more descriminating view when it comes to health and a broad experience of the potentials of the palate.

Ingredients

1 mug Brown Rice
1/4 mug Buckwheat
1/2 mug Quinoa (any colour/s)
4 and 1/3 mugs Water (purified if possible)
Pumpkin, cubed, skin on
Carrot, chopped, skin on
Sweet Potato, chopped, skin on
Broccolli, chopped
Green Beans, chopped
3-4 Cloves Garlic, diced
Ginger, diced
Tamari
Tahini
Turmeric
Cayenne Pepper
Flaxseeds (Preferably ground)
Black Sesame seeds (if available)

How to Make the Gruel

1. Pour the rice, buckwheat and B/W Quinoa into a large pot. Add the water and start this on a high heat.
2. I usually start preparing everything else now. Though the grains have fairly precise quantities, everything else is imprecise. Access your intuition. Read on to understand the point of each ingredient and then come back to this to work out how much you think you will need.
3. Chop up all your vegetables, the garlic and the ginger.
4. When the water begins to boil, turn down the heat to medium and put a lid on the pot.
5. When the water has boiled down to just above the rice mixture (1cm or so) throw the vegetables in. Do not worry if some of them are not submerged. The secret is to let them steam/boil.
6. When the rice is cooked, which is shown by the water pretty much disappearing, turn off the heat, stir the vegetables through, and leave the lid on. Be careful that you dont wait too long to turn off the heat. When it is cooked the water should be below the level of the rice, but not completely gone, otherwise the rice will burn.
7. Add the Garlic and Ginger and mix it through. Let that sit fof 10 minutes.
8. The vegetables should be soft enough that when you stir the gruel they will fall apart, becoming part of the mush. Do this.
9. Add Turmeric to taste. This is variable of course, and trumeric has a strong taste, but keep in mind that Turmeric holds many health benefits, so add as much as you can. When you taste it, you should be able to taste that it has turmeric in it, but not enough that it just tastes like turmeric. The rule of the gruel is that all the tastes sit just below the overall taste so that all are noticibly present but none are overpowering. Stir.
10. Add Tahini to taste (as with Turmeric). Stir.
11. Add Tamari to taste (this is the least healthy thing, lots of salt, but it makes it taste real good, so add as little as posible while still being able to taste it). Stir.
12. Add Cayenne Pepper to taste. This stuff is so incredibly good for you. Have heaps of it. Toughen the fuck up.
13. Add Flaxseeds and any other seeds.

And now you should have an Orange/Yellow Goo filled with black seeds and vege solids that is salty and spicy and delicious. You will have quite a bit if you use a mug of rice, enough to last a few days if you are a solitary type, enough to feed the family if you prefer company. You can eat the gruel hot, or it can taste even better cold (depending on the batch). If you have cold gruel, you should add freshly crushed flaxseeds just before you eat it, because they are awesome for you as well. If you aren’t a vegan you can fry a few eggs and chuck them in as well. Cold Avocado pieces spread throughout a hot and spicy gruel is excellent. Excellent as a side dish, once I garnished it and took it to a party as a dip. Go wild.

- Concocted by Lucas George, 2013.

There are still so many great bands out there … and it’s a hobby now. I’ll try to keep it up. All of the previous editions are available at Skydreams Top Five.

= = = =

TV Colours’ debut LP Purple Skies, Toxic River is due June 1st on Paris-based Eighteen Records and digitally via Dream Damage. Beverly is the advance single. You should be impressed by my restraint, as I considered heralding this 20th Top Five by featuring Beverly five times. I’ll save that idea for an entirely TV Colours Top Five upon the record’s release. Don’t think I won’t.

The band is the solo project of Bobby Kill, based in Canberra and formerly half of the excellent Assassins 88 with Danger Beach creator Lachlan Thomas. In a fashion slightly confusing to the outside viewer, these guys cross-pollinate and staff each other’s bands, as Bobby plays synth live in Danger Beach, and TV Colours’ live show currently features members of Danger Beach and The Fighting League.

I discovered TV Colours in 2011 at the Totally Autumn Festival in Newcastle, organised by Chris Hearn, and have been evangelising ever since. With little doubt, Purple Skies, Toxic River will handily ensure that by 2014, many more music appreciating people are going to know about this band.

Oscar Key Sung is a 23-year-old singer and producer from Melbourne, embedded in the Australian r n’ b scene that seems to be doing well and attracting international listeners. I claim no proper knowledge of these circles, but offer Collarbones and Guerre as further examples of the sound. He’s just released two tracks, It’s Coming and Sure Thing (Miguel cover), both indicative of his capacity to sing real well and produce the hell out of a beat. He is performing in Sydney next week on Thursday May 30th at FBI Social with Jones Jnr. and Tim Fitz.

Straight Arrows are the always enjoyable Sydney garage band steeped in a musical tradition imparted in some small way by singer Owen Penglis’ famously amazing record collection. I don’t even know the guy and I’ve heard tale of its wonders. The It’s Happening LP from 2010 is dynamite, and hopefully there’s another on the way. If you’ve never seen them live, check out this clip of them at Sydney Town Hall in January for the Sydney Festival. Can’t Count was released in 2007, I think? It’s a feel-good winner, like most of their tracks. Funnily enough, like Oscar Key Sung they’re playing Thursday May 30th, only at GoodGod Small Club for Vice Australia’s 10th Birthday with Flatbush Zombies (US), Raw Prawn and Housewives.

Harvey Sutherland is apparently one of the background guys and session players from the //This Thing// label from Melbourne, and NEXUS is the first track from a new cassingle (first time I’ve ever used that word) to be released May 21st. I really dig it, ambles along nicely, the beats are deceptively simple and the synths sound good. I don’t know much in the parlance of the electronic world, but I know what I like.

Pets With Pets round out the Five this week, performing at The Red Rattler in Sydney on April 9th, 2011. Their set was recorded by soundman Nick Hoare, who’s collected a store of such pieces under Horiscopic, including Witch Hats, Mangelwurzel, Oscar and Martin, Whipped Cream Chargers, Peak Twins, Sarah Chadwick and Kitchen’s Floor. Anyways, Pets With Pets have been one of my favoured bands since seeing them by accident at a trendy club in Melbourne in 2007. Zayd Thring conducts some serious business. I filmed the clip below at Dirty Shirlows in Sydney on their 2011 Saturday Aquatic Pixie Acid tour. It was a really good show for the first hour, but some people complained slightly as it neared the two-hour mark. Streaks of brilliance and long, long sets, it can vary.

Skydreams T0p Five #20

1. TV Colours – Beverly
2. Oscar Key Sung – Sure Thing (Miguel Cover)
3. Straight Arrows – Can’t Count
4. Harvey Sutherland – NEXUS
5. Pets With Pets – Live At The Red Rattler 2011

In which the guys discuss penis size, Brian asks a groovy hypothetical and Jarrod embarrasses himself with a case of mistaken identity.

Skydreams has been filming bands about Sydney since July 2010, which means in a couple months our operation with be “three years old” in that naff way websites and club nights like to anthropomorphize their entity as a means to bestow increasing levels of credibility and drink themselves into profound and unsettling confusion, respectively.

We’ve posted more than 300 videos on the Skydreams Vimeo, including Absolute Boys, Adults, Angel Eyes, Black Vanilla, Broadcasting Transmitter, Buzz Kull, Damo Suzuki & The Holy Soul, Danger Beach, Dark Bells, Day Ravies, Dead China Doll , Dead Farmers, Domeyko/Gonzalez, Dominic Talarico, Donny Benet, Dora Maar, East River, Eating Flowers, Edwin Sheather, F’tang, Family, Ghastly Spats, Guerre, Haunts, Hence Therefore, Holy Balm, Housewives, Jack Mannix, Jon Hunter vs Scissor Lock, King Tears Mortuary, Kirin J Callinan, Luke O’Farrell, Making, Mangelwurzel, Mere Women, Model Citizen, Nakagin, Nhomea, No Art, Ombudsman, Option Command, Owen Penglis, Pets With Pets, Pimmon, Pop Singles, Reckless Vagina, Regular John, Rites Wild, Scattered Order, Sick Python, Silver Moon, Straight Arrows, The Holy Soul, The Laurels, The Nugs, Thomas William vs Scissor Lock, Through The Forest Door, Trent Marden, TV Colours, Untergang Von Menschen, Whipped Cream Chargers, White Ox, Whores and Wooshie.

Good right?  If you don’t like a fair number of the acts in that list, I don’t know what to tell you about Australian music.  Considering that soon enough we’ll be hitting 400, 500, 600+ videos, I thought to give a view of what was happening in Sydney in 2010, before many of today’s bands had come into existence.  Enjoy!

1. The Laurels, Friday July 23, Northcote Social Club, Melbourne.

2. Dominic Talarico, Saturday July 31, Oxford Arts Factory.

3. Whipped Cream Chargers, Saturday July 31, Oxford Arts Factory.

4. Dora Maar, Thursday August 26, Lansdowne Hotel.

5. Silver Moon, Thursday August 26, Lansdowne Hotel.

6. Dead China Doll, Thursday August 26, Lansdowne Hotel.

7. Nhomea, Thursday August 26, Lansdowne Hotel.

8. Whores, November ?, Chippendale House Show.

9. Aemon & Dave from Nhomea, November ?, Chippendale House Show.

10. Sick Python, 2010 ?, Oxford Arts Factory.

Everything is great people. God damn great. Five really good tracks for this week from five very different acts. B. Deep is a producer from Melbourne and Drug Hugs is his latest, an advance from an EP he’s working on. This track is bursting with energy and an unexpected feeling of nostalgia for the time around 2004, when all was shining light, limitless potential. It reminds me of driving around in “deathie,” a vehicle of damnedly questionable safety that thankfully never fulfilled its namesake, streams of colour and trailing traffic lights along the motorways at night … foolish runs from the Central Coast to Sydney or back from 3 to 5am.  Also green fields and an age when music festivals were genuinely rapturous.

Wheat Fields’ new Saturnalia EP is the second release on Octopus Pi Records … following 2012 time-capsule WHATISPSYCH … young folks from the Blue Mountains who reportedly set the project in motion after dabbling with mind expanding hallucinogens up north at a camping site I had the privilege to visit around the same time.  There’s dolphins up there too, and beach cricket.  This record is very breezy and quite accomplised for such youthful characters.  Expecting good things.  They’re launching it in Sydney at The Old Gaelic Upstairs on Saturday, May 25th with God K, Burn Antares, Bad Valley and Spoonty.

True Vibenation are the clever guys behind Project USB, and a powerful three-piece from Sydney with their second LP on the way sometime later in 2013 on Big Village Records.  DIY or DIE hits on winning lines like “This is your brain on drums” and “In Zimbabwe, Mugabe never gave us jack so we make our own.”  Really dig it.

Document Swell is Simon Cotter from Melbourne, an ever pleasant unfolding of synths and house beats … evidently OOOT heralds the coming of a four-track 12″ this year, following the release of Lost Steam in January.  He just toured with label mates Yolke and Big Yawn on the Fallopian Tunes USA Tour … you’ll be the first to know if he’s coming to Sydney.

Peak Twins is the duo of Joel Carey and Liam Kenny. Steppin’ Off came out a few weeks ago and is the first single from their imminent debut LP on Bedroom Suck Records. This band triggered the irrational go-slow impulse of my ‘Ah the entire “cool” internet is leaping on these guys like they have all the answers,’ feeling but I’ve gotten around to listening and as is more commonly the case, they’re popular for a reason and it’s good.

Skydreams Top Five #19

1. B. Deep – Drug Hugs
2. Wheat Fields – Lets Play
3. True Vibenation – DIY or DIE
4. Document Swell – OOOT
5. Peak Twins – Steppin’ Off

Dead China Doll are playing with OM at The Annandale in Sydney tonight, Thursday May 9th. Bound to be a pretty fantastic and memorable show. To herald the occasion I thought to post this recording of DCD’s recent set at The Red Rattler in Marrickville, uploaded by the chaps on Soundcloud a couple days ago. I’ve included the footage we shot from the same show, because I’m super friendly and to be honest, your mere presence on this site implies that you deserve it. Well done.

Black Vanilla put it down at Petersham Bowling Club on Sunday for the inaugural SHAMBLES Festival.  They’re something of a Sydney super-group, featuring Guerre and Marcus Whale from Collarbones.   Three gentlemen in pursuit of the good times.  Enjoy.

Skydreams is all about filming great bands that square society has never heard of and delivering the videos to the convenience of your internet. We do it to help you hear new bands, or to catch shows missed by attending some other gig on the same night. Years from now it’s going to be a rich and deep archive of Australian music. This is the cause.

We’ve posted some remarkable shows of late and I thought to create a mini-retrospective of 10 clips from the past few months … believe me there’s plenty more at the Skydreams Vimeo Page. There was definitely a golden age of music in Sydney about five years ago, but it feels as though it’s never been better than right now.  Great bands, records and shows are happening all the time.  Skydreams is devoted to documenting whatever we can.  Enjoy!

1. Day Ravies at Brighton Up Bar

2. Holy Balm at Fitz Fest

3. Nhomea at WHATISPSYCH

4. F’tang at Circle Jerk

5. Kirin J Callinan at Enmore Theatre

6. No Art at WHATISPSYCH

7. Nakagin at Fitz Fest

8. East River at Brighton Up Bar

9. The Laurels at The Standard

10. Buzz Kull at Beach Road Hotel