Sometimes it’s important to play to your strengths. Sometimes it’s important to work on your weaknesses. For some reason the former always sounds much more appealing than the latter.
After a nearly ten year break, I have returned to study. I am hoping some of the topics covered will be within my existing areas of knowledge. At the same time, I both look forward to and fear the parts that are at the moment completely foreign to me. Time will tell I suppose.
This is the 116th installment of Music For Small Audiences. At just under four hours, it was recorded live on March 2024. As befits my current headspace, it contains within at least one unveiled reference to the connection between effort and reward. As always, perspective is everything. I hope you enjoy.
Never trust a thought that occurs indoors, the saying goes.
We are into the final third of summer here in Australia, and at the risk of tempting the sun gods, I daresay the weather has started to stabilise – as far as Melbourne weather ever does, anyways. The combination of pleasant weather and still-long-enough evenings makes for plenty of time to be outdoors and introspective, while the ever-shortening days also serve as a reminder that soon enough we’ll be back to heaters and scarves.
As the year comes to a close, it seems natural to reflect on the year that has passed, and where it has taken us. Are we where we intended to be? Where we wanted to be? Or are we somewhere else, somewhere better defined as the logical destination given the decisions we made over the course of the year?
So I suppose too that it’s natural to cast a critical eye to the year ahead. What needs to change – and what needs to continue – if we are to hit closer to the mark of optimistic intent, come twelve months from now? As always, the answer (for me at least) lies in balancing the needs and wants of those two eternally uneasy acquaintances – my present and future self.
In line with the spirit of reflection and relaxation that is generally intended to accompany one’s summer holiday, this is an extended, exploratory mix. In its latter half it has a number of modern takes on some timeless clubland classics that I hope spark some positive nostalgic memories for you as they do for me. Enjoy, and here’s to our 2024.
I have recently returned from a few weeks in Canada. The trip included a weekend with some very good friends, during which I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to play an extended set on what is probably my favourite pair of speakers in the world.
Set up well in a great sounding loft conversion in Toronto’s inner west, it was a chance to reconnect, recharge, and recycle the same stories that seem to get funnier each time they are told.
This is the live recording of the set that I played on that Friday night a few weeks ago. It includes a few of the vinyl records I took as gifts, a record I was given in return, a few classics both original and reworked, and a lot of the music that kept me company on the 32,000km round trip.
As always, good friends with good records makes for a good weekend indeed.
I’ve long been intrigued by the end user experience of modern medicine, and what can at times feel to the layperson like a focus on only fixing what is broken. If we are unwell past a certain arbitrary threshold, we receive medical intervention until we are back to baseline. We heal, we rehabilitate, we repair, and we focus on eliminating the negative to bring things back to where they should be, wherever ‘should’ is, and that’s it. If the symptoms aren’t serious enough to warrant intervention, we ride them out.
But there is an argument to be made that health – both physical and mental – exists on a continuum. At any given moment we’re neither well nor unwell, but somewhere in between, doing the best we can. As such, we take in stride the odd intermittent symptom or mood that shows up while we are trying to get through the day in one piece. In that regard, I reckon both Seal and Gnarls Barkley had it right with their take on things – that we’re all a bit not-quite-right at times, just to varying degrees.
This is Episode 112 of Music For Small Audiences. Recorded a few days ago on the last weekend of the southern winter, it leans heavily on a few bits of vinyl that have recently arrived in the post, and contains much of the music that has been keeping my boat afloat in recent weeks.
Much has been said about the importance of time management. When time is tight and competing priorities overlap, it can be easy to succumb to a sense of guilt that things may be missed or not prioritised appropriately.
I had a bit of an epiphany from an article I read a few years ago – a lightbulb moment after years of reflecting on how to best manage my time, where I realised that it was just as much my energy that I needed to better manage.
Doing stuff is hard, and is made harder by not being in the right headspace for the task or project at hand. Determining what needs to be done against both objective priority and in-the-moment capacity is as much art as it is science, and the reality of knowledge work is that there is never enough time or energy to get everything done to the standard it deserves. Sometimes all we can do is work to the moment as best we can, and hope we are leaving the right things undone.
Negativity can be seductive. As we get older, our awareness seems to build about just how much can go wrong at any given moment – personally, professionally, geopolitically, economically, and physically. It’s easy to be fearful, and the more acutely aware we are of the worst case scenario, the more tempting it can be to jump at shadows or assume the worst.
Having taken a month long break from running on account of a strange feeling in my left knee, it was a huge relief to get back out in recent days to find the pain gone. The last time I had an issue with my knee I ended up needing surgery, and so the wave of optimism I felt with the realisation I was back on track was palpable.
On an administrative note, I’ve recently updated a few back end settings on my podcast feed. If you have found this episode in your subscription alongside the previous episodes and are none the wiser as to this change, then I have set things up correctly! If you have had to unsubscribe and resubscribe, or if previous episodes are not showing up prior to this one, then my apologies, I’ll keep on it. As always, every episode of MFSA is available for streaming and direct download in high quality MP3 format at mbelleghem.com.
We all have our idiosyncrasies. Two of mine are closely related, in that I love a good quotation, and I am a sucker for a good cliché. In both cases, I like to think of them as bits of distilled wisdom that have stood the test of time. But as Abraham Lincoln once dryly noted, the problem with looking up old quotes on the internet is that you can never be too sure if they have been attributed correctly.
With that said, it has been a really interesting couple of weeks, both for me and for some of those I am closest to. For some, new beginnings and new hope. For others, closure and completion after a period of turbulence and difficulty. It is a strange thing to see so much change clustered around the late April and early May period. As Alexander Graham Bell may or may not have opined, when one door closes, another one opens.
This is Episode 109 of Music For Small Audiences. An extended set, it evolves over a series of distinctly different phases, each with its own energy and emotional content. I hope you enjoy.
A commonly accepted definition of sustainability is the ability to meet the needs of the present without compromising the needs of the future. So how then to make a future worth waiting for, without shortchanging our ability to fully seize the present moment?
There are many tradeoffs and worse in daily life as we try to ensure that today is OK while not robbing ourselves of tomorrow. Stay up late or get up early? Smash the fun button, or play it safe? Keep your eye on the prize, or sit back and enjoy the spectacle? Focus on the destination, or enjoy the ride? Recent weeks have given me a newly refreshed appreciation for both sides of that balancing act – leading in turn to the inevitable question, why not both?
The summer holiday period is drawing to a close here in Australia, and we have just come back from a few weeks travelling through New Zealand’s South Island. The landscape is extraordinary to the point of being mind expanding, and every day was a reminder of just how beautiful the world can be. We were fortunate to have had excellent weather, meaning plenty of time to hike and bike and further explore a very special corner of the world.
Travel is often an opportunity for personal growth. In this case it also provided a catalyst for a bit of longer term, whole life planning and reflection. Thinking at these longer time horizons leads to some existential reflection, and the realisation when trying to talk it out that not every emotion has a name.
As the old Hans Christian Andersen quote goes – and with due credit to Eelke Kleijn who duly reminds us at the start of each of his podcast episodes – where words fail, music speaks.
This is episode 107 of Music For Small Audiences. It was recorded live just a few hours before Santa’s anticipated arrival down the proverbial chimney on Christmas Eve, marking the first day of my summer holiday break. It has some very new tunes, some timeless classics, and some very new reworks of some even older timeless classics. As befits a proper end of year celebration it is again an extended affair, best enjoyed wherever you happen to be.
There is something exciting about covering new ground. The transition from known to unknown brings with it a sense of renewal and energy, and it can be quite fun to explore that little bit further, and to cover a little bit of new ground at the edge of a previously understood boundary.
One of the things I quite like about Melbourne is the quiet sense of perpetual renewal I feel when exploring it. While the city’s infrastructure is not perfect, it gets incrementally better each year. The paths get a little bit wider and more clearly marked, the streetscapes and amenities are refreshed and the structures and signage are rebuilt, meaning that even familiar territory is constantly evolving.
Sometimes when I’m out on foot on one of my usual routes, I even find a well-worn path has a new addition at the end of it – adding a little bit of unknown at the end of a well-trodden familiarity. New can be challenging, but new can also be invigorating.
It has been an unusual weekend. It has been an unusual year.
Springtime in Melbourne often brings a bit of rain. With another La Nina apparently on the horizon, we have seen quite a bit of rain already. So much so, in fact, that it has exposed the failings of our second story roof drainage system. Not a fun way to spend the weekend.
While there is plenty of truth in the old adage that if you want something done right you have to do it yourself, there is an added element of excitement and uncertainty when the task involved requires working at heights.
Even still, if 2022 has taught me anything, it has taught me that life is short. As such, there is a balance to be struck between getting things done and staying alive. The joys of home ownership indeed.
This is episode 105 of Music For Small Audiences. It was recorded live the evening of a belated birthday celebration, and at four hours and twenty two minutes long, it represents a bit of a catching up with regards to some of the music I have been enjoying in recent times. Having spent a few months overseas this year the episodes have come a bit more slowly, but the good news is that the travels have introduced me to some fantastic new tunes, some of which are here, and some of which I will be showcasing in the episodes to come.
Winter has arrived in Melbourne. To me that means short days, falling leaves, and the occasional smell of a wood stove across the city at night. It can be easy at this time of year to withdraw a little bit, to bunker down and count the days off until warmer weather returns.
Of course winter here means summer somewhere else. As is the case with many things, where one is experiencing the sunset, another is experiencing the sunrise. Nothing lasts forever, and we all get only as long as we get. Soon enough the winds change, the cycle repeats and things begin anew.
This is Episode 104 of Music For Small Audiences. It was recorded on a lovely winter evening in warm surrounds.
Coordinating travel, as with coordinating a lot of things these days, involves a lot of time waiting on hold on the telephone. As such, I am becoming something of a hold music aficionado. On many recent calls the music has been punctuated with a repetitive series of apologies explaining that, due to the pandemic, hold times are longer than they might otherwise be. If the past two years have taught me anything, it is the extent to which a pandemic involves an awful lot of waiting, and more than a few apologies.
For more than two years, it has felt that relationships with friends and family overseas have been on hold. As such it was great to reconnect during a recent return trip to Canada, and to spend some quality time with loved ones. While telephone and video connections are valuable, they do not fully replace the magic of real human connection.
As I grew up my two older sisters were a constant source of musical guidance and inspiration, taking me to concerts, bringing me records from overseas school trips and keeping me up to speed on the hottest bands across the genre that was then called New Wave. Throughout our early years growing up in suburban Toronto, one radio station in particular was held high as the mythical point source from which all good music came. That station was CFNY, 102.1 FM.
Following on from high school some years later, I managed to convince a local synthesizer shop to give me a job in sales. The shop owner became a dear friend, and the shop was quite popular with local dance music makers, in part because of the owners incredible collection of vintage synths. Channeling my paternally inherited passion for all things beeping and flashing, I got quite into learning every bit of gear I could get my hands on, with my mother eternally patient while an endless parade of boxes, wires and devices began to take over more and more rooms of our house.
As luck would have it, one day the Roland product rep called, asking if I could demo their new DJ oriented stereo sampler to one of CFNYs on air crew, by bringing it to demo live on air during their midnight to 6AM weekend dance music broadcasts. At a time when the Toronto rave scene was exploding and so many new genres emerging, there was no shortage of amazing music to be played each week. To make a long story short the experience up close was eye opening. In the process I learned a lot about how to build and shape a six hour set through the wee hours to sunrise.
This is episode 102 of Music For Small Audiences. A suitably extended set, it reflects to me the free spirit and genre exploration of those all night radio broadcast sets thirty years ago.
Sometimes it’s important to play to your strengths. Sometimes it’s important to work on your weaknesses. For some reason the former always sounds much more appealing than the latter.
