Taylor Project - co-workers who don't suck

Back in the late '90s, when I had no job skillz worth speaking of, I worked at an accounting firm. It was, shall we say, a subculture free zone. When I mentioned that my boyfriend was in a band (a shite band, to be sure, but a band that had original songs nevertheless) my cow-orker responded "Oh yes, my boyfriend's in a U2 covers band". All I could do was nod and smile. I don't think I've really developed my nodding and smiling abilities since then.

In the mid '00s, I worked at a certain statutory authority (won't say who, but I will say that once you work in public service departments that are answerable to a Minister, you start to appreciate statutory authorities, who are answerable to "Parliament" and therefore don't have to give blowjobs to ministers as part of their role - in fact they can deliver six of the best and demand that Parliament beg for more) and met one of the members of what is currently called The Taylor Project. At that time the band was called Because We Can, and clearly their ability at naming bands has not improved at all. Thankfully, there is an almost perfect inverse correlation between how good a band's name is and how good the band are. The Taylor Project have an album out, and a Myspace. You should look them up and see them.

Taylor Project - Ballarat On A Good Day


Last time I was in Ballarat was the last time I saw Uncle Brian alive. At that time, I weighed 90kg and had been single for a piddling 12 months - little did I know that my vow to not sleep with anyone for any reason other than clitoral (in other words, only because I'm horny - not because I'm lonely, bored, depressed or any other excuse) was going to collapse into a tragic punchline. I was 28 and I decided to go on a roadtrip, said roadtrip eventually taking me to the George 2000 Hotel, where the concierge/waitress/bouncer was legally obliged to warn me about the over-28's disco downstairs. My plans to go to bed early were disrupted by the fact that, actually, the over-28's disco downstairs was every bit as obnoxious as the concierge/waitress/bouncer had led me to believe, so I went to the movies at the lovely old cinema next door. I chose Bridget Jones' Diary.

See "tragic punchline" above.

The next morning I caught up with Uncle Brian and Auntie Maisie - strictly speaking my mother's aunt and uncle. We hit a few op shops, where I picked up a goodly selection of trashy novels, including Paula Christian's excellent Love Is Where You Find It, and went for coffee. I had a lovely time, and Brian kicked off a few years later at quite a decent old age. It's a nice way to remember him.

Taylor Project - Making Other Plans

I would just like to say to Chris whom I spoke to at the Espy on New Year's Eve - I wasn't politely giving you the flick, I gave you my Facebook details because I figured it was less invasive than giving out a phone number. I swear I'm not mad at you for squashing me the first time we met.

Taylor Project - Animals (They Dream In Black And White)

In which Sarah and Liz somehow make grinding inevitability sound sexy.

Because We Can - England

Frank Bongiorno, Of Tinnies and Sheilas, Inside Story, 02/01/09

I have lost 13 kg in 9 months

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George Carlin's 7 Words You Can Never Say On Television, for the last fucking time

This is entry number 5, and final, in my Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television challenge. The idea is/was, type each of George Carlin's Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television - shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfuckers and tits - into the search box of iTunes and see what comes up. This is the final entry because a) my inner adolescent boy has had a wank, rolled over and gone to sleep and b) I don't actually have a lot of songs with the words cocksucker, motherfucker or tits. As you can hear, however, I think these are some pretty good songs. Starting with...


COCKSUCKER

The Beasts of Bourbon - Cocksucker Blues
I saw this performed at the Big Day Out in... 1992, I think. (Can we not discuss how old this makes me? Ta.) Those of you who are not feral Rolling Stones fans need to know that Cocksucker Blues was written by Mick Jagger as a contractual obligation to Decca Records. (One of these days, I must do a blog post about contractual obligation music... is anyone not aware of the delights of Van Morrison's efforts in this area?) The Beasts version is totally convincing.

• Cocksucker Blues, the movie - BitTorrent

MOTHERFUCKER

Supersuckers - The Fight Song (album: Motherfuckers Be Trippin')
Supersuckers - Run Like A Motherfucker

I saw the Supersuckers twice this year - once at the East Brunswick Club and once at CherryRock008 at what used to be the Metro and is now called the Palace, just to make sure old fucks like me get totally confused with the Palace in St. Kilda that burnt down in a self-inflicted wound a while ago. It was fun, but I was kind of disappointed - Supersuckers have been one of my favourite bands (if not the favourite band) for the last ten years, and to experience anything other than full-body orgasms at their show was bound to be bitter. But that's live music sod's law for you - I find the most memorable, awesome shows are often by bands I couldn't give a stuff about, like the Dictators at the Corner Hotel where I'd never heard their songs and they played "punk classic hits" and Handsome Dick Manitoba worked the crowd like Dennis Walter himself.
Eddie Spaghetti is one of my favourite songwriters ever, as I'll explain when I get around to doing my "These people are incredible songwriters and I am a lowly pubic servant with the natural rhythm of a taxidermied sloth, OH GOD WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME YOU BASTARD" post. In the case of The Fight Song, it's because of the line... actually no, they're all awesome and they don't work out of context. You'll have to wait, and that could take a while. Stupid day job (that's bullshit, I post more now than I did when I was a student).

G.G. Allin - Gypsy Motherfucker
Q. Why is a progressive, feminist, law-abiding person like yourself promoting the lawless, anti-social, frankly fucked up and barely listenable G.G. Allin?
A. Because G.G. wrote fucking great pop tunes, and besides, the cunt's dead.


TITS

Feist - Lovertits
I do not listen to Yoof Radio nor do I watch television, so the only knowledge I have of Feist is that I have a copy of Mushaboom which I like very much, and apparently she was in an iPod ad. I do have a fair bit of Peaches for reasons unknown - it's not a feminist thing, or maybe it is as I like the idea of Peaches much more than I actually like Peaches. I like this version of Lovertits better than the original. Unfortunately that link is just to a sample at Last.fm, but I'm sure someone will have it. No? Shit, sorry.

The Pleasure Fuckers - That Magic Kiss (album: Ripped to the Tits)
The Pleasure Fuckers were from Spain, and made some fun guitar tunes that won't hurt your brain. (See why I'm a public servant?) This song has the chorus "bam-bam-bam-bam, bam-bam-bam-bam", so you can tell they're deeply intellectual.


Well, that's it. It's been fun and I think if you like punk rock and have a blog you should give this a go. Amazingly, you can do such an experiment with non-swear words! But it's surprisingly hard... go on, try.

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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In Which A Whimsical and Cute Idea Turns A Bit Maudlin - George Carlin's Bogus Journey

I was sorry to hear about George Carlin's passing, but 71 is a very respectable run for a guy who not only turned "Shit piss fuck cunt cocksucker motherfucker & tits" into poetry, but probably "nicotine valium vicodin marijuana ecstasy & alcohol... c-c-c-c-cocaine!!!" as well. This weekend, pull some bongs and watch Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and Bogus Journey in his honour.

All of this faff is leading up to the Fuck entry in the Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television iTunes challenge, in which people with more mp3s than fat cells type rude words into iTunes and post the results. Today will be a heavily edited entry, obviously not out of concern for the kiddies, but because typing fuck into my iTunes search box yields a massive 84 mp3s for 253Mb. Some are repeats from earlier entries (GG Allin's Tough Fuckin' Shit), some are from albums (Who The Fuck Are The Arctic Monkeys?), and there's band names (The Pleasure Fuckers). I'm sure as hell not posting 83 songs, so here's a quick edit of the most interesting songs.

• I Like Fucking, Bikini Kill - I did coffee with one of the younger pubic servants the other day. I'm in a graduate program and I'm clearly one of the older entrants, and she was asking "So were you into grunge? Did you wear a flannel shirt?" No young lady, I danced the Charleston and wore spats. I always hear the last spoken bit of this song as "I believe in the radical consequences of pleasure", even though it's the exact opposite intent of the song (the italicised word is possibilities).

• You Fucked Up, Ween - this actually sounds fairly Melvins-ish. That link leads to a recording of the Enmore Theatre show in March 2008.

• I Got The I Fucked Someone Else And You Found Out About It And Dumped Me Blues, Mississippi Barry - from the A Minute or Less compilation, the title is pretty much the whole song.

• Too Sober To Fuck, New Waver - I'm not uploading this as apparently Greg is donating sales of the Neuters greatest hits (er... work with me here) compilation to Amnesty. If you're not familiar with New Waver's work, it consists of reworkings of popular songs with what might be called more realistic lyrics. Other efforts include Prozac (was: Heroin), Chadstone (was: Jackson), and Monday Morning's Alright for Working. You can buy Neuters from various sources.

• Well Fuck You Then, Dark Meat - this is a total cheat as I did not have this song when I first created the iTunes list, but I discovered it on You Ain't No Picasso via the Hype Machine, and fell in love instantly. Even though I feel like shit, this song is relentlessly bouncy and cheery.

• I Don't Give A Fuck, TISM - This was performed live on the best.off tour and is not released anywhere. Craplister fleur_ishere was generous enough to provide a decent recording. Why am I not posting "I Might Be A Cunt, But I'm Not A Fucking Cunt"? Because it's crap, that's why.
  

• Fucking Boyfriend, The Bird & The Bee - very pretty indie song that was a hit on RRR Breakfasters last year.

• Motherfucker from Hell, The Datsuns - unfortunately I have yet to attempt to actually fuck somebody with this song on the stereo. I do use it on the elliptical machine/cross-trainer thingy a lot, the need for which would largely explain the lack of actual fucking.

• D. F. F., Blood Duster - Let's go motherfuckers!
  

Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television, But Radio? Go Nuts.

The challenge - type each of George Carlin's Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television into iTunes and see what comes up. Post some kickin' tunes. This week, the word Piss doesn't seem to be used a lot by my favourite artists (or even the ones where I've just gone "Meh, that looks interesting" on Hype Machine then forgotten about), but what lacks in quantity we make up in quality.

• Jon Cougar Concentration Camp, Cold Piss - I wasn't expecting much when I downloaded this, being that I was more interested in the fact that this band has the funniest name I've encountered in many a year, but it's actually shitloads of fun. You think you're hot shit, but you ain't nothin' but - Cold Piss!

• Nirvana, Territorial Pissings - anyone remember the rivalry between Guns'n'Roses and Nirvana? Axl Rose, apparently expecting that he and Kurt should be natural allies - we both got beaten up at school a lot, right? - approaches Kurt in a friendly manner only to have Kurt immediately identify Axl as the guy who beat him up at high school a lot. Hilarity ensues.

• TISM, A Hard-Earned Thirst Needs A Big Cold Beer, But I Drink To Get Pissed - Truer words were never spoken.

• Patti Smith, Piss Factory - Keith McEwan, in his memoir Once A Jolly Comrade, recalled that the trigger to his joining the Australian Communist Party was getting the sack for being too good at his job. In this song, Patti discovers that on the production line, nobody likes a smart-arse.
  

• Ween, Piss Up A Rope - Apparently, you can't do it. I missed Ween's live shows this year, because I am an idiot, but Captain's Dead have kindly posted the Enmore Theatre show, which you should download immediately. This is nicked from that post. (You may like to cross-reference this with the similar sounding Tie My Pecker To My Leg, by Mojo Nixon.)

Honourable mention to Against Me!'s Piss and Vinegar - not my sort of thing, but it's available for download somewhere in this list.

Today's uploads hosted by box.net

Seven Words You Can Probably Say On Television Any Time You Like, Part I

So here's the deal. I want you to type George Carlin's seven words you can't (OK, couldn't - this is 2008, and on Australian television you just need a warning before the show) say on television, one at a time, into the search box in iTunes (or another player if that will work). Post a list of what comes up, and post some of the more interesting tunes.

This will probably work better on punk rock blogs than any other kind, but country-and-western and metal should get a look in and who knows? There's some pretty explicit olde-tyme jazz and blues out there (and yes, I know what "jazz" means, but I would never say "Jazz me baby!").

Today's word: SHIT

Song	Artist	Album
The Ol' Shit	The Beasts Of Bourbon	Sour Mash
Shit Like That	Butthole Surfers	Weird Revolution
I Wanna Fuck The Shit Out Of You	G.G. Allin and ANTiSEEN	Murder Junkies
Tough Fuckin' Shit	GG Allin	You Give Love A Bad Name
Shitcanned Again	The Immortal Lee County Killers II	Love is a Charm of Powerful Trouble
The kids are all shite	Mikrofisch	Demo 2007
Boss Shitkicker	Moodists	Two Fisted Art
Degrassi Junior High	Pigshit	Box - a tv theme tribute
3D Sex Show	Shitdisco	Kingdom Of Fear
OK	ShitDisco	Kingdom Of Fear
Bullshit	This Is Serious Mum	De Rigueurmortis
The Horse, not the Horseshit	This Is Serious Mum	De Rigueurmortis
I Shit Me	This Is Serious Mum	Great Truckin' Songs of the Renaissance
It's Novel. It's Unique. It's Shithouse	This Is Serious Mum	Hot Dogma
TISM Are Shit	This Is Serious Mum	The White Albun
Don't Shit Where You Eat	Ween	Chocolate & Cheese
You're Full of Shit	X-X	1st 7"

TISM represent! This is not a bad selection of indie rock and punk if I may say so myself.

"I Wanna Fuck The Shit Out Of You" is about one thousandth as good as it should be, but "Tough Fuckin' Shit" is great and has a wonderfully incongruous surf guitar intro.

"OK" by Shitdisco is on permanent rotation in the "Aerobics" folder of my iRiver.

"You're Full of Shit" is a mystery song that sounds quite a bit like the Voidoids. I don't know where I got it, I don't know anything about the band, and I can't find them by searching (x-x is one of those unsearchable band names, like Fuck and The The) - little help here?

Ween are represented in other sections of this list. Today, they have some advice you really can't ignore.

OK, now it's your turn. And you know, tits shouldn't even be on the list!

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You Got Nothing I Want - Cold Chisel 101

Back in December '07, Bitterandrew from Armagideon Time posted a summary of an old issue of Hit Parader from November 1981, which rather intriguingly mentions Cold Chisel as "an Aussie rock outfit deemed 'likely' to follow in the footsteps of AC/DC and Air Supply". I asked if he'd actually heard any Chisels and he was curious, so I thought I'd remedy the total lack of Cold Chisel on The Hype Machine and try to explain it to our FTA partners.

How would you explain Chisels to an American? The first thing that jumps to mind is the "Freebird" joke. You know how this goes - you go and see some sensitive balladeer like Sufjan Stevens or Ryan Adams and, during a lull in the show, some wag in the audience yells "Freebird!". Well, in Australia, it's "Play some Chisels!".

An unsuspecting migrant trying to fill in Australia's immigration tests might wrongly think that Australia's national anthem is Advance Australia Fair. The correct answer is, of course, Khe Sanh, the poignant tale of a VietNam vet who returns to Australia only to fail to cope with civilian life. To adequately describe the significance of this Australian Marseillaise, I must turn to people far more competent than I:

an incredibly annoying song that is played at the end of every outer suburban Year 12 Social to a group of vomiting underage drinkers, and every function involving boorish Rock Spider Aussies making utter cocks of themselves abroad, and every footy trip/Grand Final barbeque/buck's night, or any other gathering popular with people who's main philosophy is 2-4-6-8-Bash-A-Gay-Til-He's-Straight...

During the 70s and 80s, Cold Chisel and their fans were despised by indie and alternative types, many of whom bore bruises inflicted by Chisels' more closely-related fans, and it was not until about the middle of this decade that Cold Chisel enjoyed a certain amount of rehabilitation (although songwriter Don Walker has always been held in high esteem by your male white Hornby wannabe's, and rightly so).

In general, Cold Chisel's most popular songs are straight-down-the-line rock, with some sentimental ballads slowing the pace a little. What saves Chisels from being utter shit is the quality of the songwriting. Mostly handled by Don Walker - but all members of the band contributed songs - the songs enable you to see the characters and step into their lives. I don't write this lightly - when you listen to Ita, you can see the stoner share-house full of bogans watching quality TV like Beauty and the Beast. You can relate to the guy who foolishly told his girlfriend they should take a break from their relationship, only for her to up stumps and get married to someone else. I absolutely guarantee you're hankering to rip the headset off, tell the customer to go fuck themselves and head off to Bow River, whatever that may be for you. I mean, for me Bow River is the East Brunswick Club (I have small dreams). The point is that just because I'm a middle-class* softcock doesn't mean I can't see myself in a Chisels song. Here's a great little explanation of the appeal of the Ian Moss-penned Bow River.

*For widely varying definitions of middle class - the reason this post is four months overdue is that I got a job as a real live pubic servant in February, and my life has been a whirlwind of business cases and benchmarking and probity, but not the good kind of probity.

You Must Know:

Khe Sanh
Just what it says on the box. If you don't know any other Chisels songs, this is the one you need to know.

My Turn To Cry
"When I told you just have a good time I think you took me all wrong - next thing you're engaged and a kid is coming along." Remember Barnsey next time you're thinking of suggesting to your partner that you should consider a trial separation.

Choir Girl
Possibly the world's only Top 40 hit about abortion.

No Sense
No Sense is unusual in two regards - firstly, it's stylistically quite distinct from Cold Chisel's typical output, and secondly, it was written by singer Jimmy Barnes, whose career both in Cold Chisel and as a solo artist has not suggested that spiky, post-punk screeds are really his thing.

Bow River
Like a more mainstream version of Take This Job And Shove It.

You Got Nothing I Want
Chisels' response to not breaking the American market.

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Matador Intended Play sampler 2008

I'm not the kind of person who buys everything on a label - I'd like to think people are over that by now - and samplers are often, erm, samply, in the one-song-is-awesome-the-rest-are-pants sense. But I downloaded Matador's annual sampler for 2008 (warning: that's a 70Mb zip file) in a flurried frenzy of downloading in preparation for Cherryrock08, and there's quite a range of decent stuff on it. My picks - Mission of Burma's That's How I Escaped My Certain Fate, The Cave Singers' Helen, Jay Reatard's Always Wanting More and Matmos' Polychords.

There's a reason I'm a public servant and not a record reviewer, you know.

The New Pornographers - All The Things That Go To Make Heaven And Earth (live)

The Cave Singers - Helen

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ROOT! Supposed He Was Out of the Question

Having seen ROOT! several times over the last few months, it was inevitable that the album wasn't going to be as awesome as the live shows. Whereas on stage DC Root sounds angry, or as angry as he ever gets in public, on the album he sounds like he's on Play School. It's like Tony Martin's story about seeing Neil Diamond live, but in reverse - whereas Diamond failed to deliver the line "Good Lord!!!" as promised on Hot August Night, on the otherwise awesome album version of Back to Mine, the bit about wrapping a brick in the cover of a book on management theory to take someone out of their comfort zone is mysteriously missing. Similarly, on School Mum (see below), the line "skinny girls with big fat issues/see you later, ain't gonna miss you" just disappears. Don't get me started on the fact that Crown Tower Blues isn't on the album at all.
Still, not everyone has had the privilege of having seen ROOT! five times in as many months, so those of you who have been cursing us Melbournians to the sky can finally taste the ROOT!y goodness. You'll like it - it's funny, it's bouncy, it bears only a cursory resemblance to country & western. And if you buy it, they'll be able to afford to tour, so you know what you need to do. Give ROOT! some much-needed touring money.

School Mum
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I took the "the temperment type" quiz on gURL.com
		I am... melancholic According to Galen's ancient theory of temperaments, people with melancholic temperaments are often perfectionists, and are analytically oriented. They are said to be sensitive and loving, but may also be hard to please because of their high standards. Read more... What's your temperment?

I'm not the revolution, I'm just your boyfriend - new Electric Six

It took me about four years to get into Electric 6, mainly because Danger! High Voltage! is, if not a novelty song, close enough if you need one. What converted me was the discovery that E6 are basically AC/DC on acid and possibly sleep deprivation. They bring the riffs and every other song is about fucking, with the additional benefit of strange, original and thought-provoking lyrics (admittedly, the thought is usually "WTF?").

Exterminate is a bit more polished and commercial than previous albums, but having been absolutely shat on by critics and fans alike for the grossly underrated Switzerland, they seem to have bowed to the demands of the fratboys derided in It's Showtime! and brought back the giant riffs and shouting. However, for those of us who actually liked Switzerland, there's still plenty of relatively subtle, poppy material and electronica. Supposedly, the theme of the album is "excess" (write me 6000 words on the theme of "excess" by the end of today, two weeks detention). The lyrics appear to have, if not story arcs - this is not a Tom Waits review - a self-contained motif, as opposed to shrieking about fire and America and stuff (not that there's anything wrong with that). That doesn't mean I have any fucking idea what they're on about; although there does seem to be a significant whinge about women who are just too demanding (Kukuxumushu, White Train, Lenny Kravitz... I mean, suck it up, dude), there's still plenty of senseless rhyming for the people who like that sort of thing (Rip It, Dirty Looks). Along the way there are Easter Eggs like "Satan destroys you/but Jesus puts you in a bowl and smokes you" (White Train) and the title of this post (Kukuxumushu). Even the songs that are a bit less good may have irresistible hooks (Dance Pattern) or amusing lyrics (Fabulous People).

I wanted to post a selection of tracks that would represent the range of styles here, but quickly realised I would just end up posting the whole album, and if I do that I'm never going to get another Australian tour. So I chose these two as covering the rock-electronica spectrum:

Rip It - YAAAAAAAY RIFFS!!!
Broken Machine - Emo electronica, Gary Numan stylee. You know you're chronically depressed when you think shit like this is really profound. Help me, I'm turning emo!

I've been an impoverished student for the last five years and therefore missed their last tour. For the love of Zod, buy this album!

My life as a rockist

I'm not gonna pretend I had an idyllic childhood - it frankly sucked - and, like all bullied children, I had my refuge. Others had dungeons and dragons or SF - I had rock music. If, for any reason, I'm ever called on to discuss my religion, I'll say I'm an atheist or agnostic (depending on whether it's a nice day or I've gotten laid recently), but it would be pretty reasonable, given the role that music plays in my life, to describe myself as a "rockist". Consider the following:

ROLE IN FAMILY LIFE: My mum recently confessed that my parents' marriage is based entirely on the fact that "we both love rock'n'roll music". We spent a lot of time travelling (in one jaunt, we were on the road for six months in a hotted-up F100), and in that time not once was the radio off. We would sing along to "House of the Rising Sun" in our genetically-disadvantaged voices, in a painful but effective bit of family bonding. When we settled down nothing changed. I would wake up on a bright sunny day to be informed that, although the desktop hides Ita's hips, Barnsey's imagination is strong. When my mum discovered my dad was screwing around on her, she sang him Mental As Anything's "If You Leave Me, Can I Come Too?" Alhamdulillah, they got back together after awhile, owing to the healing powers of rock'n'roll (and possibly being too cranky for any other partners).




RITES OF PASSAGE: Beginning with my seventh birthday, I would annually receive a gift certificate for Brashes record chain. The first album I ever bought myself was with one of these. Given my avowed love of disco, you will not be surprised to learn that the album was The Pointer Sisters' Greatest Hits. In addition to the rite of passage of learning responsibility for one's musical choices, I also learnt the taste of bitter disappointment as the season's current hit, I'm So Excited, wasn't on the album.

It's not just me, though: my sister and I were sitting around at Mum's place, as young adults, listening to Black Sabbath's Paranoid. My mum sighed nostalgically and told us, "I had my first passionate kiss to this song."




RITUAL AND SACRIFICE: As you would expect from a family of devout rockists, we owned a pretty decent stereo. My dad had this alarming habit of putting a pillow on the floor, putting the speakers on each side of the pillow, plugging in the headphones and switching the settings to play through both speakers and headphones (no, I don't know why it had this function either), lying on the pillow with the headphones on, cranking it up to 11 and playing Stairway to Heaven, loudly declaring "This song is better than an orgasm!!!".

Unsurprisingly, he suffers from tinnitus these days.*

*Just to let the truth ruin a good story, the tinnitus is probably industrial rather than a result of musical self-abuse, but this couldn't have helped.

ADORATION: Despite my self-description as a "rockist", I don't shy away from great pop and electronica, and as a kid I was a Durannie. I was deeply in love with John Taylor, and have only recently realised that he's actually a pretty decent bass player. My devotion was such that, when offered a chance to learn to ride horses at the age of 11, I refused, because The Reflex was showing on whatever shitty afternoon music video show was the shit at that age. (It was hosted by Jonathon Coleman and was called "Live Wire", if I recall correctly. It definitely wasn't Simon Townsend's Wonder World, which I also watched religiously.) I never really liked horses.



ADULTHOOD: For my 18th birthday, I was given tickets - plural - to the Angels at EV's in Croydon, an all ages venue. I say plural because originally, my mum's best friend's husband had bought one ticket for me. His wife tore him a new one and demanded that he buy me another ticket - a pointless and humiliating exercise for this friendless wonder. I asked some people who didn't really hate me if they wanted to go, but they were washing their hair. I tore up the extra ticket in fury, and went by myself. It's still one of the greatest rock performances I've ever seen, and I still go to gigs by myself.


Disappointingly, they didn't play Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again.

VIRGIN SACRIFICE: The loss of my virginity, at the age of 19, involved no music at all. Unsurprisingly, it was shit.


To be honest, this has nothing to do with any specific event in my life, although it was a huge hit at an impressionable age and is one of my favourite songs of all time. It's mainly here as a reminder that Stephen Cummings was totally hot back in the day, and prematurely gray 30 year olds still totally do it for me.

TISM for non-TISM fans

This is a range of TISM mp3's for people who haven't heard any TISM or who have only heard stuff like Greg! The Stop Sign! They're in chronological order, and were originally intended to show the diversity of TISM's oevre... then I realised that I'd just picked comparatively obscure songs that I like and that weren't so topical they were outdated or incomprehensible to anyone outside of Melbourne's south-east, so they're not that diverse.

Lyrics range from extremely clever (Sex Tonite) to extremely stupid (Sid Viscous), so there's something for all levels of intellectual development. The main thread is that they all bring the rock - even the comparatively electro (There's Gonna Be) Sex Tonite is crunchy and satisfying. Enjoy!

I'm Interested in Apathy, Great Truckin' Songs of the Renaissance
Let's Club It To Death, Hot Dogma
(There's Gonna Be) Sex Tonite, www.tism.wanker.com
Sid Viscous, Best Off bonus track

[EDIT: I've just re-uploaded the Christmas specials from 2004, I Ain't No Christian, But I Believe In Jesus and Then The Answer Came.]

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Live Guns'n'Roses

Darren over at He's A Whore has a post devoted to 1987, the year I stopped listening to commercial music (actually, that's frogshit, I didn't really jump the fence until Nevermind was released). Of particular interest is the live set of Appetite for Destruction - scroll down for pure live pleasure.

(Oh yeah, there's some U2 for the people who like that sort of shit.)

The album, not the country

I haven't had a chance to pick up the belowmentioned Electric Six album I Shall Exterminate Everything Around Me That Restricts Me From Being The Master, as I'm saving up to move house and will need the first month's rent and bond. I did buy a copy of Switzerland a while ago, and on searching blogs for it, was a little surprised that it didn't do very well. It doesn't have any obvious iconically awesome hits like Gay Bar or Danger! High Voltage!, so alternative radio seems to have just gone "Meh" and bloggers just shat on it from a great height.

This is a shame, because, whilst it would obviously be blasphemous and stupid to compare Switzerland to Exile On Main St, like that favourite Stones album* it's a good solid album on which every track is pretty decent and you have to listen quite a few times to mine all the awesome out of it. The production and riffs smother the fairly clever lyrics (I said clever, not intelligent!), so you can listen to a song for ages before you realise "Hey, this is fucking funny!". These are some of the more overtly sexy tracks.

Slices Of You
Germans In Mexico
Mr Woman

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*My favourite Stones album is Some Girls, continuing the theme of my tragic addiction to both rock AND disco.

Got a ROOT! out of it

ROOT! on Best of the Brat, 3RRR, 60Mb

I have no idea how to do streaming audio or any of that fancy-schmancy shit, so there you have it - 1 hour of the singer and guitarist from ROOT! playing their top 5 rooting songs. Highlights include The Legendary Stardust Cowboy and the exquisitely named Smegma (played with the spindle in the wrong hole...).

The next ROOT! show is at the Retreat Hotel, Sydney Road Brunswick, Cup Day November 6th. I shall be there in my fascinator. If I can find one that costs less than $250, I mean.

Dick.... That's an interesting name. "Dick".

There is a new Electric 6 album out. It's called "I Shall Exterminate Everything Around Me That Restricts Me From Being The Master." This appears to be the first single.



If you've really missed TISM, but are more interested in the prosciutto and melon-like pairing of rock and disco than in lyrics that "make sense", I strongly recommend uncritically absorbing all of the Electric 6's oevre. Or egg.

Stereo Total!

I'm not sure how to describe Stereo Total, so I'll let them do it...

40% Yéyétronic, 20% R'n'R, 10% Punkrock, 3% electronic effects, 4% French 60ies beat, 7% genious dilettantism, 1,5% Cosmonaute, 10% really old synthesizers, 10% 8-bit Amiga-sampling, 10% transistor amplifier, 1% really expansive and advanced instruments, a minimalist production, meaning a home- made- trash- garage- sound crossed with underground, authentic as well as amateurish, ironic as well as effective, pop as well as political.

They make funny electropop which may remind you of cartoon shows on SBS back in the 80s when it was still Channel 0. They have a new album out called Paris Berlin and they're playing at the Northcote Social Club on Friday September 14th. If you're conflicted about whether you'll go, check out their live set on WFMU (scroll down a bit).

I Am Naked
Musique Automatique

Stereototal.de
Stereo Total at Myspace

Spill blog

Greg Wadley of the Spill record label (and, far more importantly, legendary loser-core band New Waver) has started a blog called Letters to the Editor. It's rather good, so check it out.

New Waver:
Dying Patients
4'33" Techno Remix
On Prozac

Yay Wouter!

Congratulations to Wouter Visser, who won both the JayIsGames.com Casual Game Design Competition #3 AND its Audience Award with Gimme Friction Baby (named for a Turbonegro song - you frickin' rock, Wouter!).

If you enjoyed the soundtrack to Gimme Friction Baby (ironically, the music is kind of shoegazey, quite the opposite of what you'd expect from the title) the band responsible are We vs. Death and their website offers many free downloads. May I recommend:

Wake 44 (the song used in Gimme Friction Baby)
(yes,) we went to Novgorod
mkultra

JayIsGames.com are already gearing up for the Casual Game Design Competition #4, with a longer lead time and even more valuable prizes. If you're an aspiring game designer, keep an eye on the JiG site for an announcement of the theme. Hopefully it'll be more useful than "replay"!