All I dig is bottomless

The Pains of Just Being So Great

...And I'm not referring to myself. I'm actually referring to the Pains of Being Pure at Heart. At this present time, these New Yorkers are simply the coolest people in the universe. They released their debut LP back in February (which was several months ago, but only seems like yesterday). And while you probably already knew this, or at least can infer from my already over-gushing prose, its a bit of a winner (and for once, pitcharse agrees with me).

The record seems like a glorious throwback to the 1980s, coming out like a more cheerful Morrissey. Like many bands seem to be doing nowadays (think M83, Phoenix etc), the sound resembles that typical of songs that would find themselves on 80s teenage film soundtracks - the difference is telling though, The Pains do it much better.

Ahh nostalgia! Tis, great, ain't it?

Jangly fuzz-induced guitars are the nature of the game on this one, with some great tracks like "This Love Is Fucking Right!", "Everything with You", "A Teenager in Love" and the awesome "Stay Alive".

My ears had caught hold of the Pains late last year after I heard their stellar single 'Everything With You', but I've only just got round to getting my grubby paws on the actual record.

Trust me, it's great.

P.s. Is it just me or does the album cover resemble Belle and Sebastian's "The Life Pursuit"?

Shady Memory Lanes Part One: The Dirge Pit of the mid to late 90s or How I Learnt to stop worrying about Pop and came to love Thrash.

1994 – 1998: Part 1.
Heavy Metal t-shirts acquired during this period: 10
Girlfriends: 0.
Is this relationship inversely proportional?

As you may have been reading yesterday, I decided it might be a bit fun to look at how my own ‘musical appreciation’ evolved (or perhaps devolved. Ok, lets just say ‘progressed’) over the past few years, roughly taking in the time from when I started high school in 1994 until the present day. The focus is ten albums only of which I enjoyed mostly in full. No strict hierarchy here, just exposition on the album and why I did, or may have, enjoyed it during a specific era of my existence, and what other contingent factors may have been linked to how I came to acquire the records. In retrospect, these records create their own myth.

In this first post, I’ll cover five albums, with the other five coming in the next few days (thus fulfilling my first epoch of music love).

As I’ve said, this first section covers my high school years. Years that can be described as the fairly ordinary and probably fairly typical of most 90s kids. I loved school, but when I heard Nirvana for the first time, I wanted to be Kurt Cobain That didn’t really change my love for school, but it did mean I became more open my mind to alternative music. It inspired me to start teaching myself guitar and as it happens, one of the first songs I learned was ‘Come as You Are’ (even today it is still my ‘tuning’ song).

It was pretty damn obvious that my high school years were dominated by grunge, hard rock and heavy metal. I hadn’t really heard of Triple J or 4ZzZ. All I listened to was the ‘rock’ hour on Triple M every night whilst doing my homework. Most of my music came from tape swapping with my friends such as Steve and Conor who shared mutual interests in popular music, and generally speaking, they shared similar taste with myself (though Conor went all psychedelic during years 11 and 12, which our friends and I thought was kind of strange and amusing but later proved to be well ahead of his time).

Ok, enough of the back-story and on to the meat and gravy.


Metallica - …And Justice For All.
This was my first Metallica record and it was life changing. I didn’t know people could play at these speeds. It was different from grunge, somewhat more rebellious, as well socially acceptable amongst my peers (Grade nine boys). But it was the extreme solos that sold me. Take for example the Hammett’s work on tracks like ‘Blackened’, or the drawn out mostly instrumental pieces such as ‘Too Live is Too Die’. Hetfield spoke of the hypocrisy evident within society, a themes that my 14-year-old brain could readily identify with. This served as my introduction to Metallica and, in many respects, 80s thrash metal and heavy metal, despite that the fact this particular record arguably was Metallica’s initial steps towards outright commercial success and the alienation of their former fans.

The Smashing Pumpkins – Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
This record was my awakening into alternative rock. It wasn’t grunge, it wasn’t metal, but had elements of both, but also included other links to other genres which at the time I didn’t appreciate, but are more fond of in the present day. While the first disc was more commercially friendly, I was fonder of disc 2. Great songs like, ‘Where Boys Fear to Tread’, ‘Bodies’, ‘XYU’, ‘Stumbleine’ and ‘1979’ (the last one still holding its own even after over 10 years) were the highlights.

Suicidal Tendencies – Lights…Camera…Revolution.
I got this album on tape from my Irish cousin, who had just immigrated to Australia and introduced me to a whole new world of music (he also gave me the Therapy? album, which I will talk about later). This stuff wasn’t being played on Australian radio. It was strange, unusual, and awesome. Suicidal Tendencies played something you could call an amalgamation of punk and metal, even bordering on rap in some cases. I never really listened to any other of their records, but I read that this one is probably their best. Best tracks include ‘Emotion No.13’, ‘You Can’t Bring Me Down’, ‘Lovely’, and ‘Disco’s Out, Murder’s In’. Funnily enough, at this time, Suicidal Tendencies featured Robert Trujillo, who is now Metallica’s current bassist.

The Doors – Self Titled.
My school friend Conor loved the Doors. He’d go into fits during the psychedelia of Morrison and company. The rest of our friends, including myself, were a bit concerned by such behavior. In our final year of high school, Conor convinced myself and a few others to perform a several Doors covers at a ‘Battle of the Band’s’ exhibition, where we went by the name of the ‘Pakistani Ratmen’. From memory, I think we played ‘Break on Through’, ‘Alabama Song’ and ‘Not To Touch the Earth’. It ended in comedic circumstances, with Conor going into a trance, falling off stage and ripping his leather pants. Anyway, after listening to album in order to learn the songs, I eventually came to really enjoy their debut LP, more so than any other of their releases. ‘Take It As it Comes’ was probably my favourite track at the time, but I really enjoyed the entire album.

Black Sabbath – Paranoid
I came to Black Sabbath via Metallica. My friend and Steve and I sought to investigate Metallica’s influences and stumbled upon Black Sabbath. I had heard that Ozzy was a bit mental, eating bats and all that jazz, but, man, they were a cool set of dudes. As everyone acknowledges, they pretty much influenced every genre of metal (which, depending on your musical orientation, could be a good or bad thing). I loved the Ozzy years, rather than the later incarnations. Classics like ‘War Pigs’ and ‘Iron Man’ are well know, but the songs like ‘Fairies Wear Boots’ and ‘Rat Salad’ (along with an outrageous drum solo stuck in the middle) were also as good. My personal favourite was ‘Hand of Doom’, with an mind warping closing section with a killer Iommi riff.

Well, that was a bit of writing. Part 2 to come soon.

Glastonbury 2009. Wow.

Yes, this is not the post I was talking about yesterday. That will come later today. Just a quick word on Glastonbury 2009.

I was lucky enough to go to the Glastonbury festival last year. Twas great. Had the Three 'Gs': Good company, goon and great weather. The lineup was pretty good as well.

However, I was looking at this year's lineup, and I must say, its pretty damn good. Arguably better than last years and certainley would be even more appealing for me.

Unfortunately, I now live on the other side of the world, and have little chance of making the commute.

If I was going, here's who I would be seeing (ignoring time constraints, sleep and band clashes)

Pyramid Stage:
Neil Young
Fleet Foxes
The Specials
Regina Spektor
Bruce Springsteen
Crosby, Stills & Nash
Blur
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Madness
Tom Jones

Other Stage
Ting Tings
The View
The Friendly Fires
Pendulum
Maximo Park
Peter, Bjorn & John
The Prodigy
Bon Iver
Bat for Lashes
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Art Brut

Jazz World
Lamb
Rolf Harris (!)

John Peel Stage
Doves
Jack Penate
Jarvis Cocker
Passion Pit
Echo & The Bunnymen
Emmy the Great

Acoustic
Ray Davies(!)
Tindersticks
Lisa Hannigan

Any of the Dance Stages
Peaches
Calvin Harris

The Park
Animal Collective
The Horrors
Noah and the Whale

Avalon
British Sea Power
Badly Drawn Boy

Woah, that would be one intense festival!

Shady Memory Lanes: Introduction

I was lying in bed just last night and my mind turned CD collection that sits unsorted in the corner of my room. I’ve managed to acquire quite a few albums over the years, some I rarely listen to anymore for various reasons. Mainly, due to the fact that I’ve moved on - possibly to better things, possibly not – it depends on circumstances I suppose.

So, I guess that in many ways, old records are like ex-girlfriends, you feel affection for some time but just after a while things just don’t work out, you split and both of you move on. In the case of my record collection, they get sent to the cupboard to gather dust and on rare occasions, thrown out altogether (that’s what must have happened to my Roxette ‘Tourism’ album I bought back in 1992 – damn, that was short sighted).

Generally speaking, unlike ex-girlfriends, if a whim grabs you, you’re free to reacquaint yourself with the dearly departed. All you have to do is grab the disc/cassette/record from its container, pop it in the appropriate media, have a play, then retire it once again from whence it came.

So I was in bed, thinking many random thoughts (mostly concerned with Michel Foucault’s ‘genealogy’, which I had been reading all day, a nexus from which I guess where these thoughts sprung from). I got on to the idea that it would be fun and interesting to do a personal feature on the albums meant most to me during certain periods of my life and possibly reflect on why that isn’t the case anymore. My starting point was how to divide my life into periods of music appreciation. Turns out it is easier than I thought. I define three broad periods.

I can see the first ‘era’ as the time from when I first got a CD player until the time I left high school (Circa 1992 - 1998). The second ‘era’ comprised of my undergraduate university days (1998-2003), and the third from then until now (2003 – 2009). I listed down ten albums that I can remember being intimately involved with during these periods – the present being a lot easier to remember than the past obviously, and I can definitely see some trends emerging.

However, a disclaimer is probably appropriate. This is a personal project that I’ve decided to share and keep in mind that what I liked back then may differ a lot to what I like right now. I’m not trying to say I’m ashamed of what I liked back then or anything like that, simply that it would be unfair to judge me now by the fact that I bought a copy of Roxette’s greatest hits back in 1992. And for those who think this denies me indie credibility (fuck you anyway!), it’s also a fact that I bought Frente’s debut album at the very same time. So ngha!

Also, keep in mind that I’m focusing on complete albums that I liked and not listing them in any strict hierarchical order, just picking the ten records that I can remember enjoying the most in full from these times. I have to admit that while choosing some of them, I found my memory of these times, and the music, to be fading faster than a flower (third Roxette reference in this introduction). I admit that it took me some time to compile the lists.

So jump in while I take a drive down memory lane over the next few days. We’ll be travelling the highway from the early 90s until now and stopping at rest stops like grunge, to thrash metal, hip hop, to indie pop and alternative country. It’s going to be wild. Part One will begin tomorrow.

Hottest 100 of All Time - Mark 3

Way back in 1988 when Triple J stole the hottest 100 idea from Brisbane's 4ZzZ, Joy Division's seminal post-punk masterpiece "Love Will Tear Us Apart" took the honours of allegedly being the best song of all time according to Triple J listeners.

JJJ repeated the exercise in 1998, where Nirvana’s ‘Smell’s Like Teen Spirit’ became the new sovereign of the Australian alternative music episteme. Funnily enough, Love Will Tear Us Apart dropped a whopping 15 places down to 16th. My, how times change in less than 9 years.


Well, Auntie is at it again, encouraging everyone to vote in the upcoming third ‘Hottest 100 of All Time’. Voting opens on June 1, and closes on July 5th. The list will be announced July 12th. Naturally, you will be able to vote at the Triple J website.

Inevitably, the latest evolution of the ‘hottest 100 of all time’ will be shaped by the aural perspectives of the epoch in which voters exist, and with that in mind, I fully expect a Kings of Leon or MGMT song will be featured prominently at the fountainhead.

Saying that, I suspect that number one will once again go to Nirvana. If you’re born within the last thirty years, you’re pretty much sure to acknowledge ‘Smells like Teen Spirit’ as one of your favourites of all time. On the basis that it will likely be in the top ten of many people’s lists, I think it will be once again recognised as the number 1 song of all time, considering the demographic.

I haven’t thought of it much, but, off the top of my head, I would probably put at least some of the following songs down in my top 10.

Guided by Voices – Game of Pricks
Radiohead – Let Down
Roy Orbison – Cryin’
Phoenix – Too Young
The Beach Boys – Don’t Worry Baby
The Beatles – We Can Work it Out
The Clash – Lost in the Supermarket
The Replacements – I Will Dare
The Shins – Saint Simon
Mic Christopher – Heyday
New Order – Bizarre Love Triangle
Belle & Sebastian – Ease Your Feet Into the Sea
The Magnetic Fields – I Don’t Want to Get Over You
The Lemonheads – Down About It
Wilco – Pot Kettle Black
You Am I – Berlin Chair

And I could keep going forever, but I’ll leave at that for the moment.

Hunz - Thoughts that Move - Album Launch

I've gone on about how capable local artist Hunz is in the past, but now it is relevant to mention him again.

He's gone and finished off his second long player, "Thoughts that Move". And, because he is such a nice guy, has offered it to punters for free from his website. What a guy.

He is launching the record at the Troubadour on May 28th. That's a week away. Chiptunes artist Dot.Ay is also helping him out (his show is quite entertaining and interactive) as well as Toy Balloon.

While the album is available for free, I encourage you to get a physical copy of the cd and support a local guy!

Hopefully, if I get a bit more time away from my studies, I'll get the chance to share my thoughts on Hunz's latest work. I'm sure it will be ace.

In other news, how good are the new Phoenix and Passion Pit releases? OMG.

The Lucksmiths No More

Well, one of Australia's best loved and chronically underrated indie-pop bands The Lucksmiths have called it quits (or are about too).

In a message on their website, the band has explained that they've decided to do a 'Devo' and "whip the proverbial cream before it sits out too long".

They have indicated that there will be a final farewell tour around the country in August.

A shame really, but they've had a great run."T-Shirt Weather" and "The Golden Age of Aviation" are excellent pop songs from arguably the best Australian indie pop band of the last ten years and certainly one of the most respected internationally.

Oh, look, I'm getting all teary. Make sure you check them out when they hit your city.

New Wilco Download + Other Random Information

Well, well well. I haven't been able to keep my finger on the pulse of music news in the last week. I've been waylaid by essays, the natural enemy of the masters student. I've also been quite depressed - the depression mainly concerning recent events at the Arsenal football club (my other great obsession) - they got hammered by both Manchester United and Chelsea within the last week. Let us speak of this no more.

I just wanted to mention that Wilco have put up a pseudo-free download at their website. It's a Woody Guthrie cover. Wilco are asking for a $2.00 US donation for the pleasure of listening to the song.

Quick review: Its OK. It actually reminds me of a song that I just cannot put my finger on at the moment. I think its some kind of irish traditional music song, something concerning 'scupples' or something. Anyway, go have a gander at it. Tell me what you think.

It's natural that Wilco should dabble in a bit of Woody, after all, their great collaboration with Billy Bragg in the late 90s "Mermaid Avenue" was a contemporary take on Woody Guthrie's lyrics (meaning, the songs were Woody's lyrics, Bragg and Wilco wrote the music).

I hear rumours that Wilco are set to tour Australia some time this year. I hope they do. I've stupidly missed out the last two times they were here. Must. Rectify. This. Error.

In other news, local Brisbane acts Skinny Jean and Little Scout play at the Brisbane Powerhouse this coming Sunday. Oh, yeah, its also free.

My Fiction also play at my house this Friday night for a private party. And you're not invited. Oh, perhaps that's a bit harsh. Everyone's invited!

Correction: Phoenix Probably Not Doing Splendour.

Thanks to Zan Rowe, the lovely JJJ morning presenter, I'll have to go eat my own hat.

Seems Phoenix will be 'definitely not' doing Splendour, as I had ranted about the other day. They will be elsewhere when Splendour is occuring.

Apparently, they will be back for a full tour next January.

In the meantime, I'm left wondering if I should book a ticket to Melbourne to go see them. Hrm.

Tonight, Live, Only! Screamfeeder

Lucky I read Before Hollywood this week, I completely forgot that legendary Brisbane band Screamfeeder are playing their great album 'Kitten Licks' in full at the Troubadour this weekend. I encourage you all to go along - I know I will (hopefully) be there.

Speaking of gigs, a few good local bands play tonight, including Last Dinosaurs play at Rics Cafe whereas Blame Ringo! play at Bar Soma.

I think I'll mosey on down to the valley tonight.

Phoenix Confirm Tour in Australia and in the Process Really Piss Me Off

You know what really irks me?

A great international band that tours Australia infrequently and only plays in Sydney and Melbourne.

This is exactly what looks to be happening with the upcoming Phoenix tour, a band set to release their fourth album this month.

I note that dates for Sydney and Melbourne appear on their website, but no dates for any other Australian cities. The tour coincides with the Splendour in the Grass festival and one could probably say that Phoenix will play this festival.

The only problem is - Splendour in the Grass tickets are notoriously difficult to get a hold of and means that in order to see one particular band, the individual must instead pay to see half a dozen mediocre ones as well.

Lets hope this doesn't occur, and Phoenix do indeed announce a Brisbane show.

I'll be first in line to get a ticket then!

Some Thoughts on the Hifi

If you live in Brisbane and have been paying attention to the music blogs, you'll no doubt have read about people's reaction to the opening night of the Hifi Bar in West End. Before Hollywood, Andrew McMillen (via Mess+Noise) and the Brizband blogs have each contributed their own two cents, and the consensus is, generally "exciting to have a new music venue that isn't in the valley, the sound might need a bit of work, and the atmosphere needs a bit more time to develop p.s. thank god for the air con".

I was lucky enough to attend the opening last Wednesday night and I can pretty much agree with the previous sentiments. It was opening night and everyone wanted to take a gander at the place so that perhaps meant that a few punters were a bit surprised or disappointed by artists on display (I wasn't, the Drones are awesome). I think its a bit unfair to walk in and expect that the venue will have the same character as say the Zoo or the Troubadour, not enough beer has been spilled over the upholstery yet.

It is refreshing to have alternatives to the valley which has finally succumbed to the weight of the miscreants that converge on its streets every Friday and Saturday night (I'm waiting for the inevitable day when God turns his/her back on Fortitude Valley and destroys it Sodom and Gomorrah style).

For my own two cents, I didn't mind the Hifi. I definitely appreciate the air conditioning and the space. The sound well I didn't think was that bad, it was a bit verby, but I think that the bands who were on display suited that kind of mix. It was, however, extremely loud and my ears were bleeding after the gig.

On a positive note, there are some great shows coming up, and also when they finish the Vinyl bar - an external bar that pipes music and video from the bands playing in the Hifi directly into the bar - I'm sure it will construct its own myth, culture and reputation.

Oh, and yeah, The Drones were awesome as usual.