SLAMMATOWN - New Dress Syndrome

My new dress is better than amazing. I keep looking at it and thinking ‘oh shit’. More like ‘ooohhhhh shhiiiiiit!’. That’s just how awesome I am in my new dress. I love this dress more than marching bands, teapots and machine guns combined. I want to wear it all the time. Everywhere. So far I have worn it to Annual Goth Day, the dentist, my stupid job, the pub, to bed and in the shower. The bed/shower combination was of course one of those little accidents, could have happened to anyone really.

My dress and I have caught one train, three buses and one taxi cab. We’ve made telephone calls, typed letters, read a book, fed the cat, met seven new people, seen three bands, staggered home late at night, made nine pots of tea and telephoned my mother. Did I mention that I bought the dress three days ago?

Continue reading on RHUM...

ARIAballs

Shitballs! The ARIAs was a disjointed and discombobulating exercise in waiting around being bored, having no idea what was happening and trying to stay upright in the dense thicket of a champagne-swilling crowd of wannabes eating miniature ice cream cones.

I have no idea who won any of the awards. My night was spent scrambling through the bowels of the Opera House trying to figure out which was the correct hallway to walk down.

Continue reading on RHUM...

Miniature note about ARIAs

The only interesting thing about the ARIAs was that Lachlan, who plays with Powderfinger, had the shiniest shoes I have ever seen.

Fist City

I had some interesting information from a friend of mine tonight. Originally him and his group of friends were Artboy's classmates at uni. My friend was telling me tonight that he was glad we are friends now, he said he didn't think he would ever be a friend of mine because of what Artboy told him way back when, all those years ago. Apparently Artboy's uni friends thought I was pretty awesome when they first met me and they told Artboy so but here's the interesting part.

Artboy told his friends that he was surprised I even talked to them, that I was prepared to be polite to them but I'd never let any of them in, not really. I think its time for some rule breaking, seeing as I am The Captain of What I Do and also it is three in the morning and I have just arrived home from The Townie (no one tell my mother).

Fuck you Artboy. Retrospectively fuck you.

Just as a side note I have discovered a new way to dry my hands with those loud air-blaster thingy-whatsits they have in public toilets. A foolproof method for actual hand dry-making rather than just standing in an unpleasantly loud and gusty place for twenty seconds but leaving with wet hands despite best efforts. All things considered this evening was triumphant.

Le Noise

There are moments when Le Noise hovers, suspending a single sound apart from its song just long enough to reveal the anatomy of rock and roll. Now that’s what I call the perfect mix of science and love. Le Noise is as wide as the horizon and as intimate the inside of your underpants. It’s not brand new territory; others have been here before but perhaps none so openly as Neil. At the age of sixty-four he’s still singing straight out of that blow-hole in the centre of his chest.

Continue reading on RHUM...

Too many reviews - clearly the editors are slavedriving bastards

Swanlights - Antony & His Johnsons

Antony & The Johnsons is a sometimes-food, unless you are chronically suicidal or just have a penchant for making yourself miserable. Antony & The Johnsons are depressing, as depressing as Jandek or Townes Van Zandt, who is like Hank Williams only sadder.
Swanlights has an operatic sweep to it but can feel a little monotonous until the last three songs, when suddenly it sets like a triumphant tower of berry-studded chocolate mousse and everything begins to make sense.

Continue reading on RHUM...


He Will Have His Way: The songs of Neil and Tim Finn

I once had an argument with an alcoholic in rehab - he was in rehab not me - about which Neil was ‘The Neil’, Neil Young or Neil Finn. Nobody won. Tim is the superior Finn, Rehab Man started drinking again and I went back to listening to Neil Young albums. That little story has precisely one thing to do with He Will Have His Way: The Songs of Tim and Neil Finn but I’m not going to tell you about it

Continue reading on RHUM...


The Very Very Best of Crowded House

Crowded House sound better in your head than they do on your stereo. Inside my head Crowded House are frickin’ amazeballs. Classic melodies, good times and sunshine distilled into song. On my stereo they are insipid and boring. You can hear the years stacked between you and the day the melody was first written.

Continue reading on RHUM...