They were a cartoon band really, but just crazy fun with it. Eyman and I were skiing one weekend, as per usual, and the local pub in Jindabyne had a sign up for them that night, so there was no choice but to go.  Continue

I love these guys unreservedly, unapologetically, unendingly. They probably haven’t written a truly great song in over a decade, but I really don’t care when they still play as sound as ever, and the songs they play are as good as this.  Continue

That first album of his, Maxinquaye, was so incredible, wasn’t it? I remember hearing it the first time and thinking ‘oh, so he’s the talent in Massive Attack’.  Continue

There seemed to be a lot of cool rock chicks back in the 90s: Hole, L7, The Breeders, this lot. Must have been something in the water.  Continue

It could be any of his songs really, depending on the day, but today it’s Could You, just for the insistent guitar riff and the ooh ooh oohs peppered throughout. Continue

I don’t really have a story for this song: it just always reminded me of walking around Newtown, wishing I was cool enough to live there. No one ever sees themselves until it’s too late.  Continue

Come on, Kim Deal was always the coolest person in the Pixies, even when she was Mrs John Murphy. Monkey Gone To Heaven. Gigantic. You see? So what could be better than another Deal in the band? As the father of twins I can vouch for how little they can get along at times, so I can understand why it all fell apart (even without the heroin), but what a divine thing they left behind for us all.  Continue

Another band I will forever associate with the Big Day Out because I saw them on the main stage at the Showground, back in the days when they had 2 stages side by side so they could alternate bands faster. I really liked Gish, I loved Siamese Dream, and I couldn’t wait to see them: when little Billy walked on in his pink Superman t shirt he had the crowd in the palm of his hand before he played a note.  Continue

What an incredibly varied band The B-52’s were for a supposed one hit novelty band. Sure, it’s impossible to roll past Rock Lobster, because who didn’t dance like a maniac to that one every time they ever heard it, regardless of venue, but so many of their songs are just perfectly constructed, inhabiting itself for the duration and then moving on to new pastures. Look at Private Idaho, which just nails that incredible 60’s pastiche sky/surf area (and wow, Fred’s moustache) and never lets go, driving forward all the way to the end. And then flip to Roam, a call to arms for travellers worldwide, and be amazed at how the same ingredients mix together to form something so different.  Continue

Australian bands have stupid names: it’s some immutable law that must be obeyed. Spiderbait. Regurgitator. Grinspoon. Jebediah. You Am I. The list is endless, and no one overseas believes me until I get down the list, and they reply “yeah, they are pretty stupid.” I mean, most bands have stupid names, but Australian bands just go the extra mile.  Continue

I always hate doing a blog about Silverstone, largely because my mother always told me that if I can't say anything nice about something, I shouldn’t say anything at all. I’m sure you can see my dilemma.  Continue

Sometimes music is functional, it has a physical effect on you that changes you somehow, that leaves you different to the way it found you. Go for a run listening to a podcast, as I sometimes do, and it’s an efficient use of time, but go for a run listening to music and it will be different, faster, better maybe. Whenever I hear this song it perks me up, makes me pay attention to what’s about to happen, because I’ve been listening to it for so many years, for 3 weeks at a time and then nothing more for a year, so when I hear it I know I’m going to be interested in what comes next.  Continue

I really didn’t know if this was my favourite ‘Gurge song, because I’m pretty partial to Superstraight and Happiness and (of course) Blubber Boy, but this has the best story, so in it goes. When I moved to London I was working at AIG, and there were four of us in the City Claims Unit running all the interesting European claims for the company: we sat in a square with brokers having to sit in the middle, knowing that they were really broking to all four.  Continue

I was talking to a 21 racing driver the other day, as I have a tendency to do, and we started talking about music, which happens far more rarely than I’d like. Racing drivers tend to be nerds, more or less – it’s an incredibly hard thing to do, because it takes over so much of your life if you want to be even vaguely competitive – and so they don’t tend to have any interests other than racing and training, which makes it notable when they have an interest in anything else.  Continue

They were strangely popular in Australia, and I really don’t know why. I mean, beautiful songs and everything – who could find fault in something as gorgeous as This Must Be The Place, for example? – but Australian audiences aren’t generally known for their appreciation of something pretentious or arty, both terms of derision there.  Continue

How the hell do you explain This Is Serious Mum? A band so self-sabotaging that it almost seemed like their version of career planning: who became popular despite always wearing balaclavas of various flamboyance and singing songs about car accidents, local politicians and drug overdoses, who got interviewed on MTV via fax and somehow ended up on Hey Hey It’s Saturday (with Saturday Night Palsy, of course) and The Panel before trying again to destroy their career by releasing their catchiest song ever with a name that ensured it could never be played on TV or radio  despite sampling the Flying Nun.  Continue

Cockatoo Island. Never went, but listened to the whole damn thing on Triple J, back when they did that sort of thing. They were an immense band, but by the time I started going to shows they seemed to be playing around the world rather than at home, so I never got the chance. And then Peter went to parliament, the band was on an endless hiatus, and then I left to play around the world. That was that, I figured, there’s always stuff you miss out on as you move through the world.  Continue

How can anyone stay in a bad mood after this song comes on the radio? It’s just so relentlessly cheerful that resistance is impossible. I remember they played in Sydney when I was a little kid, and I really wanted to go but I was way too young, and my parents wouldn’t have wanted to go, and even though I knew it was impossible I still wanted to see them because I loved loads of their songs, and because I heard that they used lasers in their shows, which seemed incredibly cool.  Continue

They’re from the Mornington Peninsula, not Mount Gambier as I’d always assumed for some reason, and although it means they’re not from quite as secluded a place as I’d thought, they’re still from somewhere plenty weird enough in its own right. I went there once for a wedding, and before that I’d only really known about the place because of the song Mordialoc Road Duplicator by TISM, from the gloriously named Great Trucking Songs of the Renaissance (and which I only knew about because of the groom, who loved them and enjoyed the fact that they wrote a song about a construction project - “if you’re interested in roadworks/see me later”).  Continue

Grace Jones might actually be the coolest person on the planet. I doubt she’s ever looked less than stunning, even holding an accordion. Which has, over the last couple of years, struck me an instrument that well overdue a comeback.  Continue