The moment of revelation

Which reminds me, there was a period of a few months in the late eighties when I actually believed there were two bands, one called "In Excess" and another called "Inxes" (rhymes with "lynxes"). For some reason I never twigged to the fact that I only ever heard about In Excess and I only ever read about Inxes. Until one day I was on a plane listening to the pop music channel (8 separate channels!) through those old rubber-tube stethoscope-style earphones (aaah, no wonder I became a doctor) while perusing the playlist in the back of the in-flight magazine, and I realised that I was listening to INXS. 

Earworm

I heard a great song the other day.  It went something like this:

A-jump-a-jump-a-jump-a!
A-jump-a-jump-a-jump-a!
A-jump-a-jump-a-jump-a!
A-jump-a-jump-a-jump-a!
A-jump-a-jump-a-jump-a!

A-dance-a-dance-a-dance-a!
A-dance-a-dance-a-dance-a!
A-dance-a-dance-a-dance-a!
A-dance-a-dance-a-dance-a!
A-dance-a-dance-a-dance-a!

A-jump-a-jump-a-jump-a!
A-jump-a-jump-a-jump-a!
A-jump-a-jump-a-jump-a!
A-jump-a-jump-a-jump-a!
A-jump-a-jump-a-jump-a!

A-boingee-boingee-boingee!
A-boingee-boingee-boingee!
A-boingee-boingee-boingee!
A-boingee-boingee-boingee!
A-boingee-boingee-boingee!

[Repeat ad nauseum with verbs or onomatopoeia of your choice]

Really great lyric writing like that can just connect you to a higher plane.  Especially when you hear it coming from the back seat of your car for about 45 minutes non-stop as you drive along a long, straight, wilderness road while your Smaller Half snoozes in the passenger seat.

What a trip!

Hottest 2013

Triple J, Australia's official government mouthpiece for youth radio, is holding a poll to find your favourite music.  You have twenty days to vote for your twenty favourite songs from the past twenty years.

Fair enough.  But it doesn't go far enough.

So for the next 2013 days, I want you to vote for your top 2013 pieces of music from the past 2013 years.  Votes close in six years or so.

Go!

Charms to soothe a savage breast

Music which puts the Hatchling to sleep:

• Mozart's string quartets
• Johnny Cash
• I Monster
• 30's swing
• Paul Kelly
• The National

Music which does not:

• Rage Against The Machine
• Queen
• George Michael
• Gillian Welch
• Ladyhawke

Draw your own conclusions.

Top 10 Australian Albums

A little while ago my Wise Brother asked me what my top 10 Australian albums were, prompted by Triple J's recent poll.  I had to dwell on it for a while and then set myself some ground rules.  Here are the rules:

1. No pseudo-Oz Kiwi bands.
2. Only one album per artist.
3. No "Greatest Hits" or "B-sides" type collations.  Which is a shame because some of my favourite CDs are in this mob but it's not really an album is it?  Feel free to assail this decision in the comments section.
4. I must actually own the album to nominate it.  If I don't like it enough to own it, well...

So here's my list, in alphamobetical order, with as brief a review as I could summon:

Cat Empire - Two Shoes.  Joyous chaos.
The Cruel Sea - The Honeymoon is Over.  Dark swaggering.
Mia Dyson - Parking Lots.  On the shady side of the street.
The Herd - Summerland.  Opinion columns to a beat.
Lazy Susan - Long Lost.  Anecdotal.
Professor Ratbaggy - Professor Ratbaggy.  Unscientific experiment.
Powderfinger - Internationalist.  First half: rock epics.  Second half: zap gun duel
Josh Pyke - Memories and Dust.  Extroverted introversion.
The Simpletons-  Matter.  Sign of things not to come.
Something For Kate - Echolalia.  Black humoured life.

Some things jump out at me about this list.  It's surprisingly narrow, dominated by music that got played on Triple J in the late 90's, early 00's, mostly because this was when I had a job (hence could buy music) and also listened to the J's in my car to and from work.  Since then I've been either incomeless or radioless or both, so I've strayed far from the rock of mainland Oz.

Nevertheless this list would be one I would happily take on a long driving holiday.  They're all musically rich and lyrically interesting, at least to me. They're all albums that very quickly got put onto high rotation on ye olde NAD 510, and hence are intrinsically entwined in my memories of those times.

I'd be interested if a few of my Gentle Readers would post their own top ten lists as comments for perusal.

That's my hatstand

In 1983 Paul Young topped the charts with his cover of a Marvin Gaye song in which he sang, "I'm the type of boy who's always on the roam."  I remember wanting to be that kind of boy when I grew up, probably because it seemed like a good way of getting on television.  Although I haven't done much in the way of "love them and I leave them, break their hearts and deceive them", I do have a history of career instability so perhaps I have achieved my aim in other ways.  Nobody's written any songs about me yet though.

It made me start wondering - what type of boy am I?

I'm the type of boy who:

• gets the Vegemite out of the cupboard, opens it up, realizes there isn't quite enough left to top one piece of toast, and puts it back in the cupboard again.  And does the same thing the next day.
• spends more time doing background research on his lecturer's unusual given name from Greek mythology rather than going through the respiratory physiology pre-reading that the lecturer gave him.
• has seven books in progress at his bedside and goes looking for another one because none of them are quite right.
• piles stuff up on one desk until it is unusable then moves to a new desk and starts piling stuff up on it too.
• writes a shopping list using the word "the" in front of everything because it looks funny: the onions, the celery, the butter, the paper towels, the soap, the tinned tomatoes.
• knows your name but is too afraid to use it in conversation just in case he appears to use it too hesistantly and makes you think that he's unsure of it.
• will give you a large though unspecified number of chances and then hold an iron grudge against you for the rest of his life if you screw up that last time.
• often tries so hard to do something well that he does it badly.
• bought some headless plastic Roman legionaries on eBay for 99 cents and free shipping because it might be fun to glue monster heads on them.

Do you think Marvin Gaye could write a good song about me with that material?