This is why Australia is becoming less and less fun!

The way people tend to write this kind of thing off as irreverent larrikinism, or slightly over-the-top patriotism, or something of that nature is a bit of a worry.

Housekeeping!

Hoorah! I've changed a couple of the template things. We still need a complete redesign, but hopefully it doesn't make you want to stab your eyes out like the previous header/background combination probably did.

I also added a tag at the side for the gig post i'm doing - Hopefully we can do some other parts of the blog that will be worth adding a quick link to. I'm also hoping to find a way to add quick links to just view all posts from one author. Just in case you only come here to read Zohara's thoughts, and don't want to wade through my stuff.
Let me know what you think!

Here's a comic.



Oh, Dan Clowes <3. I stole it from Mr Wonderful, a serial he did earlier this year for the New York Times, which you can score PDF's of for free right here.

The art of conversation and saving Mus musculus.

I am consistently tempted to start these blogs with "So.." as if I’m breaking awkward silences that arise between two people who either have a lack of substance to their conversations or who have been forced into a situation that transforms small talk into a real conversation.

I try hard to be polite in almost any conversation, even if the person is the last person I want to talk to that day or even if I’m extremely upset with someone and want to kick them in their baby makers (male AND female) but I guess the hardest part is initiating the conversation. I regularly "chicken-out" of conversations with a fear that I am going to embarrass myself, flow my words into the deep black hole of awkward silence or out of nervousness. Then I will say "So..".

BUT! There are many times when a conversation is streaming steadily and I say "So" to indicate that I’m going to change the topic to talking about love life (it is a carried out "Soooooo" though), oh how predictable, although many a time people think I say it out of discomfort perhaps because they think they have insulted me. Rarely am I insulted by any such murmers unless it includes distasteful sexist remarks, racism, pure-stupidity or animal cruelty. No i don’t think it’s "sweeeeet" or "awesome" if you went hunting with the boys on the weekend and shot a (gorgeous) kangaroo or possum because it is a pest. I happen to like animals so a conversation about hunting and roadkill is a digging yourself your own grave. Unless you are talking ’Buck Hunter’..that is a different story.

While we are on the topic of animals and while I get on the subject of their instincts..yesterday I had the pleasure of holding in my hand a beautiful complex mass of cells of Mus musculus, or in more general terms a ’house mouse’. It’s beady little eyes sprinkled with dirt gazed up as me, his wiry whiskers surveying the air and his little limp body tucked into my palm. I saved him from the evil jaws of my ginger cat, Pippin, who had caught him and was playing around with him like a hot potato, throwing him around between her paws while she rolled in the dirt under the rose vine. The tiny mouse, so vulnerable, was in shock and his lifeless limbs uncurled in the dirt. I saved him and caressed him in my hands. He was still alive, his chest rising and falling as I observed his injuries..a torn ear and a medial wound oh his back. I knew he was going to die soon so I stroked his crown to calm him down and his eyes slowly closed as he endured his injuries. His chest still rose and fell. I took him to the empty housing lot down the road in my nightwear attire close to midday (how embarassing!) and rested him under a tree that still remained after the large lawnmowers had demolished the lovely long wild grass and weeds.
I revisited him later but he had passed. "The sole quiet thing". At least he died in peace instead of in the mouth of Pippin the Murderer. But as sad as death of living things is to me it is all a consequence of animal instincts to hunt for food, although Pippin is very very spoilt by my Mum who buys her great quality meat as well as Dine cat food.

Pippin.
(Thanks to my amazing photography..)


And to totally change the subject I can’t wait to read the heading articles on sleep in the new ’New Scientist’ magazine. I have been carrying it around with me all day.
:]

The murderer in her hunting pose

Gig Guide! For you! April part 1.

Here we go! I'm going to write a little gig guide, in an attempt at actual music blogging.
These are mostly the gigs i'm going to, which naturally means i'm recommending them.
Well, i'm planning on going to them. Which means i might be there.
I'll post Myspace links so you can give the bands a listen. Hit me up with comments and such, i'd love to hear if you'll be around, or if i've missed something important, or if anyone really finds this useful/reads it at all.
I'll probably post the complete list here, but not do all of the write-ups at once. That would take forever! I'll probably do them a week or so in advance.

Here's the first part of April. It's very punk. April is shaping up to be very punk, actually. Apologies if you aren't into that.

Friday 4th: Baseball (Melb), Ohana and Dead China Doll at Spectrum (Oxford St, Darlinghurst), 18+
Baseball's album is finally out, and it's really great. They are a pretty heavy rock band with a lead vocalist who also plays violin, and Pikelet is their drummer. Their sound is kind of thrashy, but the frenetic violin sounds give it a pretty unique spin.
Sydney shows for Baseball have been pretty rare lately, so don't sleep on this one. Ohana from Wollongong are great, too - their type of music is more precise, think My Disco with a bit more of a melodic, perhaps even "emo" influence (and i do use that term with some reservations).
Myspace: Baseball, Ohana

Friday 4th: The Thaw, Dead Farmers, Radiant City (Melb) and Fail at Helen Rose-Shausberger Laboratorium (1/17 Waterloo st, Surry Hills), 8pm, $8, all ages
So, the night that we finally get a Baseball headline gig, there's also a killer gig going on in an art space. The Thaw are an all-girl group who have been in the Sydney DIY scene for a number of years now, and play some great noisy rock. Think early Sonic Youth and Colditz Glider. Dead Farmers are one of my fave Sydney bands, playing some really raucous rock n' roll that sounds influenced by garage rock and more jammy stuff like Comets on Fire. Radiant City i haven't seen yet, but they sound pretty huge. As for Fail, this seems to be their first gig. They are described as "wimmin centric hardcore bliss". Cool!
Myspace: Radiant City, Dead Farmers
Web site: The Thaw

Monday 7th/Tuesday 8th: Off Minor (US)
Monday: w/ The Diamond Sea + Eucalypt, Sydney Gallery (302 Cleveland st), 9pm, all ages
Tuesday: w/ The Diamond Sea + Strangers (NZ) + Crux, Maggotville Warehouse (Fitzroy st, Marrickville), 8pm, all ages
Tour Poster
Off Minor are a hardcore group from Philadelphia. They've toured a couple of times, but not for quite a while, but seem to have a pretty good following here. They also toured the US with My Disco.
Heaps of local DIY bands state these guys as an influence, and their reputation for live shows is huge. Their recorded work is great, too. Looking forward to this one.
The Diamond Sea, from Melbourne, support at both shows. A relatively recent band, they sound a little more melodic in comparison, and seem to be compared to Sleater-Kinney a fair bit, which can't be a bad thing.
Of the other supports, I only am familiar with Eucalypt, who are a great hardcore-influenced (and probably Off Minor-influenced) instrumental band from Sydney.
Myspace: Off Minor, The Diamond Sea, Strangers, Crux

Wednesday 9th: Jamie Hutchings at the Tokio Hotel (Cockle Bay Wharf, Darling Harbour), 8pm, free!
This just might turn out to be a breath of fresh air in what is a really, really punk-filled month. Jamie is the lead singer of Bluebottle Kiss, one of Sydney's finest, but he's been working on a solo album up at Saddleback, where a bunch of great Sydney singer-songwriters such as Jack Ladder and Holly Throsby have done their albums. There's a song from it on his myspace called "Sir I Am Going To Have To Ask You To Leave". Check it out.
According to his myspace, this is where Home bar used to be, and a quick google tells me that "A complete redesign and a gourmet pizza menu from renowned pizza creator John Lanzafame (of Hugo's Bar Pizza) has seen new life breathed into this waterside hotel, formerly known as Home Bar". Sounds tasty, and perfect for a date. His myspace also says that he'll be playing two sets. What an informative myspace.
Should be a lovely, and potentially cheap evening out.
Myspace: Jamie Hutchings

I'll post about more gigs later. But for now, look over this list for the rest of April. There may be some things that catch your eye.

• 08-04-11 Spectrum + Dimmer + The Lovetones, Gaelic Theatre


• 08-04-12 Witch Hats, Spectrum


• 08-04-12 Dave Nada, Oxford Arts Factory


• 08-04-16 Grand Salvo + Machine Translations + Firekites, Factory Theatre


• 08-04-17 Laura Jean, Seymour Centre


• 08-04-18 The Lucksmiths, Hopetoun Hotel


• 08-04-19 Die! Die! Die!, Oxford Arts Factory


• 08-04-23 Vialka + The Laurels, La Capana


• 08-04-24 Klever, Club 77


• 08-04-25 My Disco + Fabulous Diamonds + Ohana, Oxford Arts Factory


• 08-04-26 Against Me!, Metro Theatre

Yay music nerding!

I dont think anything makes me want to smoke....

...as much as Serge Gainsbourg does.




Amazing.

BRING IT ON LIKE DONKEY KONG!

Dear Adam,
I am already on my way to learning guitar before you.
For the last hour I have been learning some tabs to songs by Angus & Julia Stone and soon will have them down-pat. Soon I will perfect "Black Dog" by Led Zeppelin. I suggest you stop while you are ahead because I'm going to beat you at this competition..unless you feel like a challenge...
Toodles!
MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Oh and this lovely lovely guitar will be my inspiration:

Je ne parle pas bien le français..

It is Good Friday and I am at home just relaxing..I was planning on doing uni work but as I was making my lunch I was telling my brother how much I love the movie 'Amelie' and the fact that I love foreign films. This led me to ponder what movie would be on SBS at midday and I got very excited when I saw it was 'Pinocchio', the 2002 Italian production starring Roberto Benigni who already impressed me immensely from his role in 'Life Is Beautiful'. I've seen a few reviews that gave this movie very low rating but I think the cinematography was absolutely beautiful and it was very imaginative! This movie brightened my day due to the fact that it is cold and overcast outside. Sigh.

Pinocchio.


Ahhhh now I want to sit and watch Amelie and other French movies. I watched La Vie En Rose last week and now I wish I could speak fluent French. Oh if only.

Amelie.

Melbourne Memories! Part 1: Wednesday

So last week I went to Melbourne for the first time since I was pretty young, young enough to have spent it being taken places by my dad and my friend's dad. So I was really looking forward to spending some time exploring the city. Wednesday Arrivals, shitty fries, Nick Cave, and ballin' with Josh On my first day, Wednesday, I landed in Melbourne nice and early, and was in the CBD by midday. Josh wasn't gonna finish work until midday, so i stashed my goods in an overpriced locker at the bus stop and proceeded up Bourke st, planning to see what I saw and enjoy the city. One of the first places that I already knew I wanted to see, I ran into after about 5 minutes. Missing Link is the best record store i saw in Melbourne, and it totally beats anything in Sydney. As me and Zohara have discussed on this blog before, i've recently got a turntable, so the huge vinyl selection made me really excited, and probably took way too much emphasis away from the rest of the city for a while. I decided to come back later so that I wouldn't have to cart my goods around the city all day, and made my way further up Bourke st. After looking through some shops, I decided that it was time to check out the Nick Cave exhibition at the Arts Centre that I had been hearing all about... but first, I was hungry. I had heard a lot of mixed things about Lord Of The Fries, but ever since initially hearing the hype when they had opened, I had been intrigued by their interesting name and promises of the ultimate fries. So I got myself a box of fries, chose the "asian" sauce, picked up a big slurpee from the 7/11 next door, and walked down to Federation Square to eat it in the sun. It turned out to be a heartbreaking experience. They weren't just mediocre - they were the worst fries i've ever tasted. Honestly, for all of their hyperbole about their amazing, highly-developed fry-making methods, they completely ruined it. I've never been to a fast food joint who has completely failed at deep frying fries, but ironically the worst fries I have ever tasted come from the outlet that decides to make them their focus. It's hard to describe these fries - they were certainly unique. They had almost no flavour, but had this strange, wispy kind of texture, and made you feel sick after about 6. I ended up soldiering through about 1/4 of the box before throwing it out, cherishing the palette cleansing qualities of sour apple slurpee, and proceeding across the Yarra to check out the Nick Cave exhibition. And it was a fantastic exhibition. The free entry gets you a whole lot of amazing artefacts from Cave's career - there were original sketches for gig posters and cover art, hand-scrawled lyrics, shelves of books that had inspired Nick, little statues and monuments that he had bought/created/otherwise obtained during his career, and a whole lot more. The large aisle full of big Nick Cave photos serve as a huge reminder that Nick is indeed a sex god, and the little doors that revealed monologues by Nick about his career were really entertaining. As a Nick Cave fan, I was pretty much in heaven - the exhibition really did give equal weighting to each stage of his career, which was a great move - it made his progression from his Birthday Party days to where he is now, and everything in between, much clearer. It's also worth noting that his wife is so, so, so attractive. I had no idea. After the exhibition, I caught up with Josh and we went back to him and Courtney's crib in Kensington, which is awesome - blows everything my Sydney crew live in out of the water. Courtney was out for the night so we went out to his local for dinner and beers before heading back to his. In true playa style, he had some Hennessy left over, so we had some Henny & coke and watched Superbad. After that, I absolutely destroyed him at Wii Tennis until, after he continued to ply me with alcohol, he finally won a couple.

Those famous laneways. More like Lord of the Fail. Slurpee on the left was so much better than fries on the right. Josh's hairy arm and pimp hand. Superbadness.

And that's my first day in Melbourne. I've got to get up in 6 hours for my first day back at uni, so i'll continue the story at a more opportune time.

Zooey Deschanel, M. Ward, and Laura Nyro

Does anybody else think Zooey Deschanel sounds a lot like Laura Nyro?

I've been listening to her album with M. Ward, titled She & Him: Volume 1, and the first track immediately made me think of Nyro's work.
Laura Nyro was a folk singer in the late 60s/early 70s, who never really blew up but is well know enough to still have all of her records in print (remastered, too). I fell in love with her album "Eli & The Thirteenth Confession" a couple of years ago while researching LGBT musicians during the 60s. And this album is kind of reminding me of it - although i haven't quite fallen in love with it yet - I think i was expecting to hear more M. Ward in it. No doubt he's behind all of the arrangements, but he's one of my favourite folk singers, so more vocals from him would've been nice.

Here's a song from each of these records. Both so you can compare, and so you can enjoy a couple of wonderful artists.

She & Him - Sentimental Heart (from She & Him: Volume 1)
Laura Nyro - Lu (from Eli & The Thirteenth Confession)

In addition, here's a song they did together last year for the soundtrack to the film "The Go-Getter". It's a proper duet between them, something i would've liked more of on the album.

M. Ward ft. Zooey Deschanel - When I Get To The Border (from The Go-Getter OST)

For good measure, here's some pictures of them. Because, for me, Zooey is definitely a cinema crush. And M. Ward is definitely an indie hero.



BABEFEST. somebody tour them.

Oh, and as for melbourne.... outta time for today. Pictures are uploaded and ready to go, though...

What happy ground was there to play on that weekend-day?

Last weekend was the weekend that housed Future Music, Playground Weekender and my birthday. Lots to have happening on the first weekend of March and since i am anti-Future Music Festival (hello..its screams out pills, bogans, skanks and crappy music!) I thought that going to Playground would probably be a billion times better.
It wasn't anywhere where near a billion times better, but I found Playground a big big big disappointment.

Firstly: it took forever to get to the destination (by car and ferry and a bit of waiting around) which ended up looking like a large blank area that probably takes in those horrible year 7 school camps..like that one i had to go to TWICE in my highschool career near the Tea Gardens, you know, the one with the scaled-down pseudo-Ayre's Rock at the front where they serve you shredded chicken and powdered mash potato. But I must say the surrounding water and the cliffs in Wiseman's Ferry were quite pretty, minus what looked like a body floating in the water which ended up being a very large log with branches that looked like limbs of a stiff corpse.
We hopped off the ferry and arrived at the muddy entrance to be welcomed by an array of erratic people running around dressed in costume, some girls in hot pink mini skirts with peroxide hair on roller skates (I cringed), there was Jesus, a native American, A man coloured head to toe in green paint, and plenty of forgettable costumes that probably costed a bomb to put together at the fancy dress tent. I was only looking forward to seeing my friends, Reptiles, play at the World Bar stage followed by Dappled Cities (Fly) at the Playground Main Stage. When Reptiles got on stage and let out their garage rock/grunge sound all of the bogans and overly metro kids dispersed to the other tents leaving just a few of us who welcomed bands at this festival that weren't all electro crap.

Dappled Dave.


Dappled Cities saved the day and although the size of the crowd was pathetic there was still a great atmosphere while they were on stage. They played a tight set with a new drummer who has taken the place of Hugh. Tim's sweat patch on his back was the shape of a butterfly..oh how cute! And Dappled Dave's eyes were bluer than usual, perhaps that was because he was facing lovely blue sky. But that's where the chumminess and beauty ended. When they finished their set the double black and the feel of the festival hit me. The atmosphere of the whole festival was pot-induced laziness, bogan, unhygenic and irritating. Trying to not sound like a city-snob, it was pretty hard being there with no mobile phone coverage.

DCF.


I got my breath back and my sanity back when I left Wiseman's Ferry and I shivered at the thought of staying there overnight in a small tent with drunk weirdos running around the place in their creepy costumes. Good thing I went home and ended up going to work the next day. The only downside was missing a great lineup on Sunday but I don't know if I could have handled the blankets of marijuana weaving between the crowds, the wet grass and the piss heads for another day.
At LEAST the sun was out which made the experience slightly pleasant.

It's hard to drink to ambient electronic music.

What was I thinking going to see M83 do a support slot for Midnight Juggernauts?
I didn't know that his band's gear would have been AWOL because of an Air France messup, and that he would be doing an ambient solo set.
But still, it was always going to be a stretch for it to be worth the $35/evening in the city.

But how hard to watch it actually was, probably couldn'tve been predicted. I've never seen a crowd gang up on a support act before, particularly a support act that is actually a fantastic act - M83 is a great performer, even when he's doing a solo set of Digital Shades material. But the audience at this show absolutely destroyed him. I'm not talking "I went to see _____ and there were SO MANY TEENYBOPPERS who were talking and omg so annoying" type of crowd.
I'm talking about a crowd that did slow claps during songs. The kind of slow claps that are fantastic at cricket matches when a bowler is running to the crease, or at the climax of a trashy teen movie when somebody made a rousing speech about acceptance and togetherness. But there was no togetherness, just a pack of arrogant boys treating a musician in the way that is usually reserved for a substitute teacher.

But a gig is not a classroom. The complete dismissal of M83 doesn't even particularly relate much to his act - the most excitable reaction from the crowd had come 20mins earlier, when somebody from The Valentinos dropped "Atmosphere" by Joy Division during a DJ set. And even (perhaps thankfully) that reaction was pretty muted - everyone around us seemed way more interested in either picking up, getting drunk, or taking fantastic social pics.

By the end of his set, after just 25 minutes of his 50 minute set, a completely frustrated and drained M83 stood up, half-heartedly waved, and promised to play "a rock show" with his proper band next time he's down here. (Here's hoping he actually comes back - it was a tough way to see him after waiting for 5 years, personally).

The whole night was pretty pointless for M83 and his fans - and i can't see how the time before Midnight Juggernauts could've been much use to those who came to dance to them either (i hesitate to label them a fanbase, it would be unfair to MJs, who are a genuinely good band). Hopefully all of the boys there completely failed to pick up, and the girls all look really fat in their photos and won't be able to bear to upload them to Facebook. At least next time they think about checking out some live music, they may decide to actually participate in it - and if not, hopefully they will do us all a favour and decide to just spend the night at The Fiddler like every other outing. At least there, being obnoxious, drunk, and desperate for a lay is basically the point of being there.


As a side note, I don't want to hear people attributing this to it being an all-ages shows. Some of the best gigs i have -ever- been to have been all-ages - in the same venue i've seen Flaming Lips, Sonic Youth and a whole lot of other amazing acts play to fantastic all-ages crowds. And my very favourite type of crowd is usually at smaller all-ages gigs, particularly DIY/art space ones. Probably the BEST crowd in my mind was Unicorns at Space 3, and i've never run into a bad crowd at Hibernian House, Frequency Lab, or anything else like that.
The problem with the crowd last night was that it seemed to draw in people who treat music as more of a service than an act of participation - it tends to happen more with bands that attract more "casual" music listeners (and i'm aware of how elitist that sounds).
Where the crowds at the aforementioned shows generally treat performances as something they not only watch, but are complicit in, crowds such as last night's seem to see their investment solely as the $35 ticket price they paid - other than that, they are there to spectate, and they expect performances that entertain. But beyond that, they also have a particular type of narcissism to their watching, a kind of "customer-is-always-right" type of attitude, that tends to result in little personal regard for whoever is on stage, or trying to watch who is on stage.
To me, live music is an exchange - it's hard for an artist to be effective when they feel alienated from their audience.
And age is irrelevant to this. In fact, i find that disinterest usually happens more in overage crowds. Underage crowds spend too much time being cheated out of tours, so when they get a decent act, they tend to suck everything they can out of the evening. Their enthusiasm can occasionally annoy, but i'd take it any day over the stereotypical jaded twentysomethings chatting about employment and relationships in front of the bar all through the support acts.

Rant over. Let me know what you think.

Tomorrow i will blog about Melbourne.

Live from Melbourne!

Just a quick hello!

I'm having the time of my life. Highlights so far:

-Nick Cave exhibition
-Game On! exhibition
-Josh and Courtney's amazing hospitality
-Future Of The Left and My Disco... amazingly good.
-Watching The Breakfast Club at 1am
-Drinking Hennessy and Cokes while beating Josh a bunch of times at Wii Tennis
-Getting Ys by Joanna Newsom on Vinyl (seriously guys, prettiest packaging ever)
-Missing Link Records in general
-Melbourne in general
-Life in general

Better post when i get back. Golden Plains tomorrow, yay!

Trapped in a laneway

So I left Laneway festival today in a relatively bad mood. And I'm not one of those indie kids who rags on festivals. Heck, i even had a great time at Big Day Out and The Great Escape.

Unfortunately I can't say the same for Laneway. The problem is with the whole festival's layout. Take the following example:

You are seeing a band. They are pretty boring, your mates are awol/seeing someone rubbish, and you're generally having a crap time.

You:

Big Day Out:	Walk 5 minutes away	through the fresh air, seeing various things happening everywhere	to a completely different stage	and watch a band that sounds very different.
Laneway:	Walk 5 metres away	through a small open concrete space	to another concrete area	and watch another indie band.

And therein lies the problem with Laneway. There is nowhere to escape to - neither physically or musically. Adding to this the lack of pass-outs, and it becomes a very claustrophobic experience if you suddenly decide you aren't in the mood to watch indie rock in an alleyway. Which probably doesn't happen to most of the crowd, but it did to me today.

Complaints aside, Broken Social Scene and Feist were amazing today. BSS played a huge set, joined on stage by Feist and Amy Millan, as well Amy's bandmates from Stars. They probably got the best response of the day, and had a huge sound. Closing with Ibi Dreams of Pavement capped it off beautifully. Feist was fantastic too, and had a gorgeous stage show. The amount of camera flashes when she came onstage was unbelievable.

An interesting thing happened after Feist: the crowd divided into three very different parts. It's almost as if the big indie melting pot of the day suddenly was separated into factions.

Park Stage	Reiby Place	The Basement

The Park stage, on which Gotye played, belonged to the Triple J kids. I didn't catch much of the set, but what I saw looked pretty mediocre. The crowd seemed to be very much the friendlier side of the summer festival goer spectrum - happily bopping along to the songs, taking photos, and generally seeming happy, but not particularly enraptured.

Reiby Place, where The Presets played, was full of festival bogans. Perhaps suprisingly for laneway, the crowd was ridiculously bad. Full of drunks on each others shoulders, jockeying for position, taking off their shirts, and getting all passive-aggressive on each other as the alleyway got more and more packed, and people got more and more frustrated. Where were all of these people the rest of the day? (I believe the answer would be: the bar.)

Perhaps as a result of that, The Basement, which was headlined by The Brunettes, reminded me of a bomb shelter. It was full of quiet indie kids - nobody was in anybodys way, everyone was respectful, and nobody looked particularly excited. I spent the longest amount of time here - The Brunettes were fun enough, but not particularly captivating. I think everyone was just happy to be back underground - in a room with the smallest crowd, less concrete, and a relaxed atmosphere (half of the crowd even sat on the floor until The Brunettes came on stage).

Don't get me wrong, Laneway is a great festival. But it's just too big for a street party. It would be perfect with about 1/2 of the crowd size, and smaller bands - i'd rather a street party with, say, Black Lips, Eddy Current Suppression Ring and Witch Hats on one stage, and another stage with Jens Lekman, Dappled Cities and Crayon Fields. Or something of that nature.
But as far as big acts like Feist and Presets go... get me back into a big open field. At least at other festivals, when it's all getting a bit overwhelming, you can walk more than 20 metres without running into a fence.

Girls Just Wanna Have Sunscreen

Tonight is mardi gras night, but i am sitting at home in my pyjamas listening to music.
It's been a great couple of days though.

Last night I went to see Cool Kids. And even though they didn't come on until nearly 1am.. and brought the worst merch ever with them, their actual show was ridiculous amounts of fun. Sure, they ran out of steam after 20mins... a rapid fire medley of their 5 or 6 hits (basically their discography thus far) will do that to you... but they managed to keep going after that with some more tracks and covers, and it was exhausting and fabulous.

Then i stayed at Kurt's... and when we woke up we went shopping!

First we checked out the new Graniph store. They had some awesome designs, and a really nicely laid out store. Definitely worth checking out, although i have a sneaking suspicion that pretty soon every sydney scenester will be wearing them... like Threadless shirts, but even more common.

Then we went to the Utopia sale. Usually I wouldn't bother with utopia... but with a new turntable, a lot of enthusiasm, and a sale beginning today, i felt like flicking through mountains of bad metal cds/vinyl/fans to find some nice stuff. And i did - i found something I can listen to tonight, and pretend i actually got tickets to the best part of this year's mardi gras...



Other highlights included Springsteen's Born To Run (to put on my turntable when i'm feeling wistful), and New Kids On The Block's Hangin' Tough (will i even listen to this?)

This afternoon, we went to Slaughter at the Opera, an amazing skate comp on the forecourt of the opera house. We got there late, and it was already full - so after spending almost an hour lining up in a queue that i'm pretty sure never got in (the highlight of which was seeing Dustin Dollin trying to sneak longnecks in), we went around the back and used our best skills (as learned from Solid Snake) to get in. And on my second attempt (and Kurt's third - that Barack Obama lookalike security chief was good, but not good enough!) we managed to get in.

It was a helluva spectacle, a huge wooden structure featuring two rails, overlooking the harbour, with everyone sitting on the opera house steps watching the action. Probably the most picturesque skate comp ever, and it's hard to fault the skaters who couldn't stick their tricks - they were facing the sydney harbour and a huge cruise ship the whole time, which must've been slightly surreal. The comp was awesome, with Lutzka being the clear best of the day. Hopefully some video goes online soon.

The downside to that adventure, though, is that i'm ridiculously burnt now. Burnt and lethargic. So hopefully i'll be re-energised (and covered in sunscreen) for Laneway tomorrow... but for now, i'm spending Saturday night chilling in my room, feeling all dried out and blasting She-Bop from my new stereo. Awesome!

....maybe i should cook some bacon cup salads