White Stripes BDO sideshow, Festering Hall, Jan 28

Next time I say to a person I'm driving to a gig "Don't worry, they won't be on for ages, no-one turns up when the doors open anyway" the night before a Big Day Out, could one of you guys please jump out of a convenient nearby closet and beat the living shit out of me? Thanking you in advance.

We turned up at about ten past nine, so I don't think we missed a lot of the show, but I have a horrible suspicion that we missed my favourite songs. Even if we didn't – and my memory of the setlist is a bit poor, despite being unwilling to spend a lot of time in the queue for the bar and therefore only having one beer – I didn't necessarily love what was played. There was nothing wrong with the set – the sound was fantastic, the rendition was dramatic and passionate, the lighting and set was striking and distinctive.

But for some reason, this show didn't leave me with the exhausted excitement I remember from, say, The Dictators, The Buzzcocks or even Michael Franti (all of these gigs being several years ago, and in Franti's case ten years ago). Instead of passionate love, all I felt was cold respect. And yet, now that I've come home and I'm listening to Get Behind Me Satan, I'm enjoying it as much as ever, and my favourite Stripes songs are an inspiration.

I am painfully aware that I am very old and haven't been to (or cared about) a rock gig in quite some time. Even so, surely well-executed music, interestingly presented (they had a bit of a leitmotif going with Meg's "Passive Manipulation", as well as some bitchin' blues stylings from Jack) should, if not give me a raging hard-on, at least raise my heart-rate a little?

There are mitigating factors – as Jack pointed out in a very rare bit of between song banter, "it's so hot I can't even breathe" – but I'm afraid I just can't regard the White Stripes as a "live" band. I'm just gonna sit here and bop away to "Take, Take, Take".

"It's almost as if she did not appreciate how cool I was bein'..."

In other news, my 7-year-old niece is getting into the blues and Acca Dacca, so my evil plan is coming along nicely MWAH-HAH-HAAAHHH!!!

Dodge Veg-o-Matic

I'm a Lamborghini Murcielago!

You're not subtle, but you don't want to be. Fast, loud, and dramatic, you want people to notice you, and then get out of the way. In a world full of sheep, you're a raging bull.

Take the Which Sports Car Are You? quiz.

Roman Polanski Is Really Quite A Jovial Fellow

Read this, then flip a coin: do you want to fuck him or beat the shit out of him?

[EDIT: Why is it that when I post a fantastic set of songs like the Pash tracks below, no fucker comments, but when I profess a totally inappropriate interest in adolescent boys with pretensions to alternativia, people pour out of the fucking woodwork? PS jimh: go you good thing.]

A slight change of subject - Pash, Spacehoppin'

I’ve been busy at my new job, and no-one reads this anyway, so I’m changing horses mid-race (“you were in a race?”) to attempt to rectify an injustice.

As we all know, “the worst bands are most popular/arseholes make the most money”, genius may be utterly unidentified and songs that should by rights be in consideration for the national anthem (that aren’t ‘Khe Sanh’) are not even a hit in a tiny indie community, let alone hogging the #1 spot for six weeks before finally being knocked off by Santa’s Super Sleigh or somesuch crap.

Pash’s bass player Ben Life (who sent me the CD) was the editor of Skills of Defensive Driving zine, a Sydney zine which I don’t own any copies of (a bit before my time, and my time was fucking aeons ago), as well as a particularly hilarious screed called “I Hate Myself and Want to Dye (My Hair)”.

Ben sent Spacehoppin’ to me in the mail back when I was doing my zine, oddly enough entitled “Ms .45”. It contains some of the greatest power-pop songs ever written – romantic but not soppy, anthemic but not by-the-numbers, with olde-style organ and sax (and, according to the liner notes, skateboards). They’re not all gems, but I never get sick of these now fifteen year old songs (gee, you don’t sound it) and I think everyone should have them. In reverse order of greatness, here they are.

Pash – Tang

Pash – Instant Date

Pash – The Force