2010

This is a version of “I Walked With A Zombie” by psychedelic rock legend Roky Erickson. Arranged and performed by myself and local dark rock superstar Carol Blaze. Includes wild footage from Pittsburgh’s annual zombie march in Monroeville Mall:

2009

I scripted, presented and wrote most of the music for five short promotional videos for Pittsburgh Citiparks. Episode 5 features The Jilted Brides frolicking to ‘Feelings Never Felt Before’ from our Larceny of Love (2008) album:

You can view all the other episodes here.

2008

When The Jilted Brides were in Montana, we stumbled across Nevada City, a perfectly preserved mid 19th century gold rush settlement, often used over the decades as the location for Westerns. It was locked up when we got there late on a June afternoon, but we snuck in and shot this clip for ‘A Lot To Learn’ with the help of Scott Reagan:

Also in Montana, we took an unforgettable road trip to Glacier National Park, near the Canadian border. We brought our bridal outfits and struck poses against the dramatic mountain scenery. Several park visitors came up and congratulated us on our wedding, others stood at a distance and took snapshots, like we were moose:

2004-07

During this time I put together a psychedelic/ country/ progressive band called Dust and we gigged around Melbourne. We released one album (simply called ‘Songs’) which was produced to sound like a ’70s classic album and received excellent reviews. Although, we did a lot of photo shoots we never made a video while we together. Tanya Andrea Stadelmann has put together a beautiful clip for one of our songs ‘The Message’ using some footage of our last gig at the Wesley Anne in 2007 and road tour montage.

2004

With Byron ‘Boz’ Scullin, I co-wrote the soundtrack for the first series of Lonely Planet’s ’6 Degrees’ TV program, which was subsquently syndicated to cable worldwide.  Lonely Planet reused a lot of our cues in subsequent series.  I wrote the theme to the intro sequence, world music motifs over a break-beat:

2003

This was the year B(if)tek released our last album, ‘Frequencies Will Move Together’ and launched it at the Sydney Opera House.

We made two clips: the first ‘Read to Me’ was stitched together by award winning Sydney editor and all round super-nice guy Nick Meyers.

The second ‘Unisex’ was shot on actual film stock by genius Brisbane based film clip maker and pop culture connoisseur Jackie Ryan. Kate and I play two bored fashionistas wearing mind bogglingly expensive suits. We also get to play our keyboards facing wind machines, another long-held dream realised:

2002

I released my second solo album as Artificial called ‘Libraries Are Fun’. It was my ultimate coming out as a book nerd. Jackie Ryan wrote, directed and edited two perfect studies in retro nerd culture.

‘Any Ladies?’ (written with the fabulous Ms DJ Toupee) is a tribute to ’70s British TV comedies, complete with the nostalgia laden Thames TV introduction. It was shot on 16ml in the Kurilpa library in West End, Brisbane. While I play a prissy librarian, the local ladies (played by kookster dance troupe Frank) have a lot of fun in the book stacks.

‘Macrame’ is a take-off of the 1980s craze for aerobics videos and cardio-vascular work-outs. So culturally accurate (right down to the lone guy shoved up the back of the class) it should be on a history curriculum somewhere. Shooting was constantly interrupted due to everyone breaking down in hysterics.

2001

From 2001-2003, B(if)tek developed, organised, funded and presented our own awards for the electronic arts called the WINK awards. Unlike the ARIAs, the WINKs gave reward and recognition to artists who were taking genuine risks, and who also had a social conscience. We attracted entries from all round the world. Some of our winners included Melbourne Indymedia, refugee activist merry pranksters We Are All Boat people, and the scientists who risked their lives and reputations to climb to the top of the Sydney Opera House and paint ‘No War’ when Australia joined the US in declaring war on Iraq (our support for the latter briefly made B(if)tek and the WINKs the bete noirs of right wing opinion columnists). The snippet below is of myself and Kate giving our introduction to the first awards night in Melbourne, May 2001. Clip courtesy of the Australian Center for the Moving Image.

2000

B(if)tek did a lot of TV appearances. This segment is from one of our performances on ABC TV’s Alchemy show. It is the only one on-line at the moment, I’ll be digitising and uploading some others soon.

‘Wired for Sound’ was our second single with Sony, featuring the stunning Julee Cruise, the haunting chanteuse of cult TV show Twin Peaks. This was shot in a hotel in NYC. Directed by Scott Anderson and produced by Sophia Zachariou.

‘Machines Work’ was also off ’2020′ and received a great deal of airplay. Here is a super-cute animated clip depicting myself and Kate in our retro spacecraft recording studio, created by the multi-talented Scott Anderson:

1999

B(if)tek’s first single for Sony ‘I Think You’re Dishy’ was shot on film, directed and edited by Morgstar. The location is Club Kooky, Sydney’s legendary haven of cutting edge beats, loving vibe and uninhibited patrons.

B(if)tek was commissioned to write the soundtrack for a Brisbane based teen angst feature film ‘City Loop’ (Red Movies). Heres an excerpt from the introductory sequence for which I wrote a spooky theme:

Tim Patterson produced excellent videos for two other tracks on ’2020′ – Japanese Game Show and ‘EEG’.

EEG was shot at an actual disused psychiatric institution in Parkville, Melbourne. Kate and I are sporting the nurses outfits which (at the time) we used to wear for our live performances. Features our long suffering heavily bandaged friends.

Japanese Game Show, as the title suggests, is a bit of bouncy Nippon fun.

Last but not least, I released the first of my three volume vinyl series ‘Stoner Classix’. Volume 1 contains tracks only by my good self, but Volumes 2 and 3 featured some stellar local and international funky artists. ‘Fallin’ Ditch’ (my lo-fi hillbilly acid tribute to Captain Beefheart) is a track off SC Volume1. The video is by the enigmatic Stoner Boy, who produced the most dazzling and intricate of psychonaut visuals for my tunes, equipped only with a VHS recorder, a Mac and hundreds of late nights editing in a ‘lower fidelity for a higher reality’ state of mind. A slogan still worth living by:

1998

B(if)tek released an EP for Festival records (then one of Australia’s most successful local record labels until it was taken over by Warners in 2005). The EP featured the track ‘Bedrock’ plus a couple other tracks including a remix by Paul Mac. Here is the first B(if)tek clip put together by my old friend and visionary Sally Harbison, using found footage and images of myself and Kate looking incredibly young and goofy:

Also the year I released my first solo album Electro-Lollipop-Explosion, under the moniker Artificial. Unleashed upon the world thanks to the co-operation of some of Melbourne’s finest underground electronic labels working together: IF? Records, Seraphim and Angel’s Trumpet. One reviewer described the album thus: “if you could listen to velour, it would sound like this”. Here is another found footage visual delight by Stoner Boy:

1995

My very first band was an “indie crossover group” (as we called them way back then) called Area 51, based in Canberra, Australia. There were a few line-up changes over our brief existence, but the stalwarts were the beautiful Bronwyn Ormsby on vox and Lucy Foley on guitar. I wrote stuff, played samplers, sequencers and the occasional live bass. This track is called “They’re Human”, which seems like a compassionate precognitive statement about our human ‘style’ frailty and the relentless Darwinism of fashion, now I look and listen to this fifteen years later. Video by Sally Harbison. Includes footage from some of the early local free forest parties: