Reels/Models, Prince of Wales, 25 September 08

It's been a while since I've been the youngest person at a rock show, so this gig was rather special for me. Paying $9 for an Asahi was a sure sign that I'm a real old person now - fortunately I was prevented from any further financial stupidity by the massing hordes of Reels fans refusing to let me get back to the bar.

I was never into the Reels when they were big - I was too young (I had my ninth birthday the year Shout & Deliver was released) and later, too much of a rockist. I'm still not in love with a lot of their music, finding it a bit dirgey, although I like their Bacharach covers. But they were on the bill and I'd paid for them, so there you go. Dave Mason didn't do much for my expectations by turning up on stage looking like your friendly neighbourhood kiddy-fiddler, and his voice took a couple of songs to warm up. The fans, however, did not - I was being regaled with tales of how awesome they were at this or that festival and how excellent this show was going to be well before the band got anywhere near the stage. Between the adoring audience and the band being MUCH better live than on record, I had an unexpectedly good time, bopping away to comparatively unfamiliar songs like 'After the News' and 'Prefab Heart' as if they were old favourites. It's a pity they couldn't have had an encore - the crowd wanted it and the band deserved it. Also, I spent a lot of time yelling "Play some Chisels!" and they didn't do it!

Reels do Chisels:


Models were... interesting. A bit of backstory - last time I saw the Models it was a free show at the Espy featuring the classic lineup, before James Freud joined. Unfortunately, I had my period and despite being one of the best shows I've ever seen, all I could think of was the fact that I had a molten rock in my lower abdomen. So I was keen to see them in a slightly better state of repair, and only slightly disconcerted by the fact that James Freud was featured in this lineup. (Note for overseas readers - James Freud is alternately blamed/praised for taking the Models in the direction of commercial career success, having written the mega-hit Out of Mind, Out of Sight. I tend towards blame, myself.)

I didn't know who most of the band were, and I suspect the fans behind me may have been less than impressed. James Freud is looking surprisingly good these days, having presumably gone on the wagon for real this time. However, Father forgive me for I have sinned, I spent rather a lot of time drooling at his 20 year old son Jackson (rhythm guitar). It's a fine line between cougar and pedophile and I think I may have crossed it.

I own a copy of Alphabravocharliedeltaechofoxtrotgolf, and of course I know the big radio hits, but I don't know any other songs. Most of the setlist was from Cut Lunch, Pleasure of Your Company, or Out of Mind Out of Sight, and included On, Two Cabs to the Toucan, Cut Lunch, Facing the North Pole in August, and a bunch of other stuff I didn't know. Still, it was an OK set, even when they let Freud's other son Harrison come on and sing one of his own band's songs (inoffensive commercial heavy rock), and I was rather getting the shits with the woman behind me who kept yelling "Local and/or General, Sean!" as if Sean Kelly is her personal valet. And I really enjoyed hearing "Modern Girl" live.

It wasn't what I hoped for, but I didn't feel ripped off.


James Freud and the Teenage Radio Stars, Modern Girl



Two Cabs for the Toucan, Models


On, Models



Jackson Freud's band Sonic Dogma on triplej unearthed - don't bother with Rock City, listen to Dog Day Afternoon.

EDIT: Commenter Dick Bukakke/newtownmack has posted videos of the Sydney show over at YouTube, as well as ROOT!, Ween and DEVO!

Lady Love Your Brain - George Carlin's big 7 continued

As a feminist I've spent most of my life trying to emphasise that I have other features than a cunt (and, OK, tits), so the whole Cunt Love thing leaves me pretty cold. I sit on it, I wee through it, every once in a while I get to stuff a kransky into it. My brain, however, enables me to do all sorts of fun shit like writing Investment Logic Maps and being an appalling indie snob who spends her life trawling the internets for increasingly obscure and semi-listenable music by angry loners with skin diseases.

I'm really proud of today's compilation - there's some incredible stuff here, and I mean that in the literal sense of "unbelievable".

Northern Bushmen - God's Cunt - I have to confess I didn't actually have a lot of songs featuring the word Cunt - this list features pretty much all of them. So I turned to my eternal saviour the Hype Machine, and this piece of shrieking math-rock with possibly the best song name ever jumped into my lap. Do you want to marry Steve Albini? Download this.
Read more about Northern Bushmen at the Built on a Weak Spot blog.

The Cunt - Me & A Great Big Leather Man - My first boyfriend used to rent two small rooms in a shop on Sydney Rd in Brunswick in the early 90s. One was for him, the other for his vinyl collection. I wasn't allowed to touch the vinyl. In the case of Leather Donut, the Black Eye Records compilation this song appears on, I wasn't allowed to even look at it. "You'll leave eye-tracks!!!" Leather Donut now sells for around a hundred bucks on eBay if you can find it at all, so he may have had a point. Rooms on Sydney Road now rent for more than he or I can afford, and we have jobs these days.
Cousin Creep's remarkable essay/book Pissant! chronicles the alternative music Scene of the 1980s, including the Leather Donut and Waste Sausage comps. It's a bit controversial.

Jarvis Cocker - Cunts Are Still Running The World - Is this song more awesome than Common People? It's kind of neck and neck for me - I'm waiting for Leonard Nimoy to cover this one.

Nasenbluten - Cuntface - Nasenbluten was a band composed of the sort of fucksticks who think it's anything other than simple button-pushing to pick a "controversial" issue ("controversial" to the sort of people who watch Barcelona Tonight without having a headful of codeine) and write something "controversial" about it. Cuntface is hardcore techno, a genre which can collectively suck my metaphysical cock, so I'm posting Cheap Whine instead - it's at least a bit funny.

TISM - I Might Be A Cunt, But I'm Not A Fucking Cunt - I wanted to post the video to this,
but can't find it anywhere. Here's the lyrics to an earlier version of the song. This is not my favourite TISM song by a long shot, but it's a cold, cloudy, shitty day today, and when I played through this list on iTunes, it cheered me up no end.

[Brief recap for those of you who came here on a search for TISM or George Carlin - I'm posting a series of mp3s collected by typing Carlin's "Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television" one by one into iTunes. This is entry #4, Cunt.]


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