Song of the day – 113: White Woods
There’s a certain strain of Australian music that holds intrigue as its core. If I cared to look closer, I could probably determine its precursors: psychedelic, feedback-laced, blessed with a sense of distance and alienation, probably rooted in the same basic three or four Velvet Underground chords that once led Robert Forster to believe he […]
Song of the day – 112: The Native Cats
Time to spread a little Tasmanian love. I wrote about The Native Cats a while back in the NME, perhaps erroneously comparing singer Peter Escott to Scott Walker. On this new White Denim seven-inch he sounds like a frayed-nerve throwback to the late 70s, fronting one of those scary, dark, misanthropic bands like The Passage, […]
Song of the day – 111: Songs
This song is a couple of years old – and this is newer material available – but have you any idea how hard it is doing a Google Search on the word ‘Songs’? I’m motivated to put this one up today for a couple of reasons. 1. This Sydney band’s self-titled debut long-player I nominated […]
Song of the day – 110: Fabulous Diamonds
Some great trance/psychedelia from Melbourne right here. The duo’s new album, Fabulous Diamonds II is out any day on Chapter Music. And it’s a great album to fill in those roaring spaces in your head, and in the room. There appear to be no song titles on the album, which makes it difficult to recommend […]
Song of the day – 109: The Freshies/Frank Sidebottom
Sad news this morning. Chris Sievey, the musical and comedic genius from Hale, Greater Manchester – a man best known for his big-headed, squeakily-voiced, paper-mâché creation Frank Sidebottom – passed away, aged 54. I was a fan of both Frank and his tiny, aggressively challenging sidekick Little Frank: their footballing exploits based around the club […]
Song of the day – 108: Tom Lehrer
The following article is reprinted from Alistair’s most wonderful (and still missed) website, Tangents – the place I looked to for inspiration when I was helping set up Careless Talk Costs Lives. I am reprinting it to celebrate that I finally have a record-player set up in Brisbane. And of course the first LP I […]
Song of the day – 107: Daniel Johnston
I’ve heard a lot of Daniel Johnston’s music in my life. And I mean a lot. My iTunes folder lists 560 songs by him, and I’m not sure that’s even the majority of it. I dunno. It seems that whenever I press “shuffle” on my iPod Touch it invariably throws up one of Daniel’s songs […]
Song of the day – 106: Mountain Man
OK. Alright. You have my apologies for yesterday’s entry already. Daniel is totally grooving on it, however – although admittedly, right now, Daniel thinks that me noisily putting a plate away in the cupboard is the height of high music. Anyway, I wanted to make it up to all you sensitive and non-sports fans out […]
Song of the day – 105: Pigbag
I’m all for shameless opportunism, if it amuses me. Tons of jokes have been already been made about the vuvuzela, that long thin plastic trumpet that is drowning out all before it at the World Cup this year in South Africa. Sunn O)))) are planning a remix album. Vampire Weekend are going to be ‘incorporating’ […]
Song of the day – 104: The Vaselines
Being Everett True doesn’t have that many advantages these days. OK, so it got me into QUT to do a PhD in music criticism and teach some very cool students: allows me the occasional free download link from record companies I love: means I am still befriended by lonely Goth girls in Buttfuck Idaho: gets […]
