I first got into R.E.M. in Los Angeles, in the holding zone for our trip where we were buying bikes and hanging out with Mickey and Scooter, learning how to just be, how to exist without a timetable.  Continue

Talking about moshpits at Selina’s, these lads got everyone moving.  Continue

I know they were rubbish, but my god they were great at being rubbish.  Continue

I could never be a Goth, sadly. I mean look at me: I’m bloody ginger, I’ve got blue eyes, it’s too ridiculous for words.  Continue

I don’t really get homesick. Maybe it’s because I’ve moved around the world so much that it burnt out, or maybe it’s that I tend to live in the here and now, not the there and then.  Continue

They were one of the few bands to convince me to see a show at the Sydney Entertainment Centre (because obviously I’ve always been a music snob, and big venues suck).   Continue

They were supposed to be U2 sized, weren’t they?  Continue

Remember when people danced in their clips? Amazing, wasn’t it?  Continue

God, where do you start with The Smiths?  Continue

I miss those nights out, doing whatever the hell we did back then, and coming home at some ungodly hour but not wanting to sleep, so putting on Rage to see what they were going to show us.  Continue

“All I see is washed away, I am the voice left from drinking.” The genius of this song is to go from that despair to the unbridled joy of the chorus.  Continue

Mark Seymour, lead singer of the Hunters, wrote probably the best music memoir of all time, so there’s not a lot I could add to what he’s already written.  Continue 

He’s just so effortlessly cool, isn’t he? Defiantly geeky when he arrived on the scene, he clearly didn’t care what people thought of him with his giant glasses and fifties styling, because he knew his songs would last forever.  Continue

Back when I was a kid I used to play soccer for the local team, and because my folks were working in the shop on the weekends I used to get a lift to the games with Gabriel Keegan, a curiously named Argentinean kid on my team, and his dad in his old blue Bedford van.  Continue

Most people think that the only thing you need to be a successful racer is speed. If a kid has speed, the saying goes, then the rest can be learnt: you can’t learn speed. We’ve all heard this saying, maybe you’ve even said it. But what if it’s wrong? What is speed isn’t all you need? Continue

The first record I ever bought was Zenyatta Mondatta (and it was a cassette, from Target in Parramatta), and the first song of theirs I learnt the bass line to was Walking on the Moon, but this song was the one that captured my heart.  Continue

I have no idea how disco managed to resonate in my young head, but that bass line / hi hat combination gets me every time  Continue

They really were a cartoon, but became a band.  Continue

We’ve seen a lot of things in Monaco, but a riot surrounding our paddock was a new one for all of us.  Continue

I never knew The Beatles were a real band at first: I thought they were a cartoon.  Continue