Blow Up the Pokies

"Blow Up the Pokies" is the second single by The Whitlams from their album, Love This City. It was released in 2000 and peaked at #21 on the ARIA Singles Chart.

Song Meaning

The lyrics written by lead singer Tim Freedman were a statement on the destruction he saw in original Whitlams bassist Andy Lewis's life due to his gambling. The original music and some lyrics were written by Greta Gertler. The song was originally called 'Dwell', before being later adapted by Freedman. During the band's Canadian tour in April 2000 supporting Blue Rodeo, the band received word Lewis had committed suicide back in Australia. Tim soon after wrote "The Curse Stops Here", a heart-rending piece describing being the 'last one' from the original line-up of the band, and voicing his determination to survive. "The Curse Stops Here" was included as a B-side track on the "Blow Up the Pokies" single and also appeared on the album Little Cloud. The song was re-recorded for its single release, with new vocals and different instrumentation. This version appeared on their best-of compilation in 2008.

Blow up

Blow up, Blow-up or Blowup may refer to:

Music

See also

Blowup

Blowup, or Blow-Up, is a British-Italian 1966 film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni about a fashion photographer, played by David Hemmings, who believes he has unwittingly captured a murder on film. It was Antonioni's first entirely English-language film.

The film also stars Vanessa Redgrave, Sarah Miles, John Castle, Jane Birkin, Tsai Chin and Gillian Hills as well as sixties model Veruschka. The screenplay was by Antonioni and Tonino Guerra, with English dialogue by British playwright Edward Bond. The film was produced by Carlo Ponti, who had contracted Antonioni to make three English-language films for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (the others were Zabriskie Point and The Passenger).

The plot was inspired by Julio Cortázar's short story, "Las babas del diablo" or "The Devil's Drool" (1959), translated also as "Blow Up" in Blow-up and Other Stories, and by the life of Swinging London photographer David Bailey. The film was scored by jazz pianist Herbie Hancock. The music is diegetic, as Hancock noted: "It's only there when someone turns on the radio or puts on a record." Nominated for several awards at the Cannes Film Festival, Blowup won the Grand Prix. It was also ranked No. 144 in the Sight & Sound magazine greatest films poll.

Blow-Up (DJ duo)

Blow-Up is a DJ duo from California.

History

Claudio Camaione and Paolo Cilione came to New York City in the late 1990s, then further on to Southern California to build their studio for recording and film editing in a villa overlooking Silver Lake. At the start of their collaboration they scored a few short films and started directing indie pieces of their own featuring Clifton Collins from Traffic, NYC "It Girl" Debi Mazar and Italian starlet Claudia Gerini. In 2003, under the name Blow-Up, they wrote, produced, performed & recorded their debut American LP Exploding Plastic Pleasure. Packed with rhythmic fueled compositions, club remixes and songs in no less than 4 different languages, the LP features guest performances by Debbie Harry, Lydia Lunch and Dee Dee Ramone. This gained them a reputation in the pop and dance music world resulting in requests to write, produce and remix for several up and coming acts as well as some of the top names in music.

The Flaming Lips chose Blow-Up to remix Ego Tripping and Madonna commissioned them to remix her Hollywood single for the American Life Remixed LP. After that project was cancelled, they remixed Love Profusion instead. More recently, they've completed remixes for Yoko Ono, Esthero, Blondie as well as Rod Stewart for a 25-year anniversary release of Da Ya Think I'm Sexy.