The mist is grey pink

" The light in the right direction, usually afternoon, can turn a dark grey pink. The air around Mt Vic can be seen to reflect the pink of the stones and the pink and white of the settlement on the hill." this is a quote I like. Not because it is always true but because it always feels true to me.


Mountains Mist and Victory

Feasting Slowly @ altitude

The Blue Mountains has a slow food inclination. Another of it's beauties. Bands of locals in the heart of the heights have gathered and voiced their community desire to eat together. Rejecting McDonaldification and establishing cafe culture, locavore aspiration and a slowfood precinct.

The culture of the mountains operates in it's kitchens, dining rooms and diverse tables. Families and guests mix and combine, new and customary foods cross benches and trigger sensations hourly. Native foods, colonial wet weather staples, and vegetarian innovations diverge with rising Cittaslow appetites.

The apples of Shipley and the stonefruits of Bilpin grace plates with handmade breads and permacultural harvests. That is the ideal.


I hope that family feasts and diverse eating only increase across the blue mountains city. If it is ever just like everywhere else it will be too far away to visit something that is just the same. And that is true of Australian culture too. It's value lies in it's difference.

Cosmopolitan Roving by Mount and Flat

Every second year has become a trend

It is sweet to visit the Winter Magic Festival and greet the winter solstice with a stroll.

Winter Magic 2009

It was great to see the locals out and about this winter solstice. As it always is. It was great to see not just colour but community discourse being represented.

Son of a Lion - Son of a Gun

Son of a Lion - Son of a Gun

With sympathy for the Pashtuns we could transform our hearts. I had the good fortune to attend the Sydney Festival Premier of "Son of a Lion". Directed by Ben Gilmour. It gives an insight into the human side of the North West Border of Pakistan.

Sydney Festival: Karsten John of Cologne

One of the gems the Sydney Festival has given us this year is the late night sophistication of Nujazz and master vibe maker DJ Karsten John.

Direct from Cologne, with a swathe of events and new-Europe club showcases under his belt, Karsten's skillful broken beats, jazz, funk and soul-vinyl smoothness brings the cut of the European mix scene direct to Antipodean ears. Sounds that have enticed the vibe-set stretching from Budapest, through Vienna, Dublin to Munich and back again. With intelligent sounds and aural excursions mined from the deepest grooves of vinyl parlours across the continental Jazzmix soundscape; Karsten John shows us what a record collection can bring to life.
Karsten John's late night set at the Beck's Bar 2008 venue was just a taste of the nujazz stylishness built from smart and serious selection of beautiful tunes. It was a sweet treat to be there, with an appreciative crowd of late night revelers who wanted more, asking for an afterparty to carry on the niceness and vibery. So sweet it was.

If you can catch him whilst he's still down under, do so. Or if you are ever in Cologne head to one of his 'Vinyl Vibes' nights where the freshest nujazz reigns.

Mojo Juju and the Snake Oil Merchants

Burla Excerpt
(expanded article & drawings are in the relevant edition of the Burla)




You should catch Mojojuju and the Snakeoil Merchants. A caravan of feral gypsies and carnies channeling the Weltschmerz of half a dozen fallen aristocrats, the incandescent joy of deranged pychic mediums from the carnie diaspora, buskers, lovers and the possessed; they perform with maddening passion.

So many fine young itinerant talents traversing the landscape, banjos, guitars, saws and accordions in hand makes a festival spontaneously combust wherever they intersect..

Mojojuju and the snakeoil merchants, refined their exploits in the underworld of minstrelsy and their enchanted wanderings make dark deals on their audiences behalf. Spirits of love, desire, death and song rise up and play with them. The mask of comedy and the pants of gravity each find a place in this Novacastrian sect.

They urge you to rise from your chair; with or without skill, they urge you to rise and enjoy. Gently cajoling or swearing at the dying of the light, you will be a participant.

You are not made to feel that everyone else in the room is a qualified lindyhopper, the beat bids you sway, become just a little intoxicated with the snake oil, stomp, or if you wish, bob to the rhythm. The more perverse your dancing the better, shaking and quaking will not be discouraged in the church of the Juju gypsy spell. The music is made for it.




We have caught them at the Factory and the Underbelly, and we are pleased.

MojoJuju & the Snake Oil Merchants

So how good was Mr. Percival ?

How good was He ? Tops mate. He seemed amused that we, the paying public might go to see him loop his voice and build great vaults of sound and atmospheres from it, but we were marveling. We marveled big time.

We caught Mr. Percival at the Clarendon Katoomba. That neat venue that keeps on giving. Tipped off by friends that we would miss something if we missed this something, we cracked a few bottles of the sparkly stuff and sat back and listened. A sweet night of music ensued.

Mr Percival has the ability to make a crowd join in. Humour, fun and a simple idea excellently executed, couple this with an amazing vocal range and you have a vox out of the box that charms you out of your socks. Why is it that truly talented people are so damnably nice ? The joy he finds in the vocalisations he creates on stage live before your very ears are a warm thing indeed.

On the night we heard him he was fresh out of CDs so we missed out, but we'll catch him elsewhere if we are tipped off again. We would love to hear him create a song or two using his Australian voice with an Australian accent, especially those that are about Australia. Seems a challenge worth pursuing, and one a talent like his could meet. But you can't have everything even when you want it. Nevertheless, furthermore, moreover and however, he was a bloody charmer and that can be enough for a nice night's fine entertainment. In fact, given that he builds every performance from scratch and throws in lashings of spontaneous sounds, he is not the type of performer who is going to bore you with identical shows every house. So catching him twice or thrice may prove nice.

www.mrpercival.com