Went to the school concert last week, which was at Monash. Mucho traffic congestion on Wellington Road due to roadworks. Some people who you’d think could figure out a simple row/seat ticketing system seemed to be very puzzled. Some toddler sitting behind me yapped through much of it. A mad woman (probably someone’s grandmother) started ... [More]
Category: music
The Choir of Hard Knocks, made up entirely of homeless or disadvantaged people, played the Town Hall last night. But on Friday night they were singing in the Campbell Arcade (Degraves Street Subway), evidently opening an exhibit down there of portraits of the choir members. You could barely see or hear them amongst the big ... [More]
Categories
It was forty years ago today
(Well okay, forty years and 3 days ago actually.) Sgt Pepper was the first cassette I owned, back in the late-70s. It lacked a lot of the non-musical extra bits and pieces of the original release: the cardboard cutouts and lyrics and so on. At that age I don’t think I really “got” the concept ... [More]
Categories
Follow-up comments
I get some terrific comments on this blog. Quite a few of them, too. The database reckons over 6000, though I think there might be some suspected spams in there. Then again, there are some old comments from 2003 that haven’t been imported into WordPress yet. Here’s some followups on some recent comments, and on ... [More]
Occasionally on a Saturday night just before seven, I’ll be slumped in front of the telly, flicking from SBS over to the ABC to keep up my quota of TV news (which is somewhat lacking during the week). I’ll see the end of Gardening Australia, and ponder its tiddily-pom blandly inoffensive music, which conveys pretty ... [More]
Categories
Young Years
Marita was reminding me on Saturday of Dragon’s song Young Years (a discussion of various music lyrics that culminated in my car gaining the nickname Black Betty). Secret meetings at the river’s bend Simple days when I called you friend Came a time, we went separate ways — Dragon, Young Years As it happens last ... [More]
The school concert was last night. I’m sure I don’t remember us doing these kinds of full-blown all-of-school proper-concert-hall events when I was in primary school. But the kids all seemed to enjoy it. And the bar was open before the event started, to help the parents… uhh relax. Danny Katz (whose kids go to ... [More]
Categories
My most played songs
Here is a combined list of my most played 21 songs from both my home PC/iPod, and work PC. I’ve listed 21 (rather than 20) because I’m going to assume the top one is some kind of computer glitch, since there’s no way I’ve listened to that song more than a couple of times since ... [More]
Word on the street is that if you want to see any movies, do so this weekend, because by the following weekend they’ll have all been swept away by blanket screenings of the bloody Da Vinci Code. On the train, which do you think there’s more of? Dan Brown books, or iPods? Dan Brown books ... [More]
Saw a guy on the train with an old-style portable CD player. ‘Cos, you know, digital music from real CDs have a warmth that MP3/AAC on iPods just can’t match… Watched WarGames again the other night. As Marita commented, no wonder geeks like it — geeks get to save the world. (Though they almost destroyed ... [More]
Categories
Just buy the CD, old man
Tickets for the Ben Harper concert have suffered from a similar fate as Belle & Sebastian: The concert is on a “school night” plus expensive at $79.95 plus booking fee equals Stuff it, just buy the CD, old man. (And wait to see if they schedule a second concert on a better night.)
Categories
Number one
For a while earlier this month one of the hot email memes going around was a Number One In History web site, though it’s been taken offline now. Happily there’s another site which is online, and even better, it can tell you the number one hits in Australia, the USA and the UK. Like many ... [More]
Categories
Music meme
Tagged by Rae: Seven songs I am listening to right now and a lyric or two that sounds good New Mistake, by Jellyfish — I have no idea what this song is about, but I like it. Got hooked on this band after seeing the music video for it (which is just as confusing) on ... [More]
At the Sapporo Snow Festival in Japan, they’ve built a copy of Flinders Street Station from ice: (via Rod) The Grauniad have done a London tube map of 20th century music. Full version here
Categories
Happy Gravy Day
Happy Gravy Day everyone. May you and yours all be together for Christmas.
Categories
Fathers Day
On any other day I might care what you say But every Saturday is Father’s Day And you might call it sad And you might call me mad But I’ve got one — who calls me Dad. — Weddings, Parties, Anything: “Father’s Day” I seem to recall Mick Thomas saying he was surprised at how ... [More]