Tag: Rock’n’roll’n’stuff

Journal

Credit Where Credit’s Due

On Friday night, after a panel at the QWC’s One Book, Many Brisbanes program, I got the opportunity to go hang out with Cat Sparks, Trent Jamieson, and the elusive Ben Payne. There was beer and chatter and hot chips with tomato sauce. The true value of this experience probably doesn’t sink in unless you know Cat and Trent and Ben, but fortunately for me I do, so I got to be there (although, given I had to drive home, I elected to drink coke. This seems to keep happening when I find myself in pubs; somehow I seem to have lost the ability to get my drink on). Should you not know Cat and Trent, the short version goes something like this: one is the author of Death Most Definite and Managing Death and more quality short stories than you can poke a stick at, while the other possesses a resume similarly stacked with quality short stories and recently

Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

6 Cover Versions Worth Tracking Down

I love a good cover version, especially when the artist finds a new spin. You could say it feeds directly into my own impulses to mash genres together and see what results, but musicians tend to be somewhat cooler in their experimentation. To whit, 6 cover versions I think everyone should listen to at least once: If you’d prefer not to listen to the youtube playlist, I’ve broken ’em down one-by-one below. 1) Drive, the Paradise Motel There’s a strong possibility that the pang of pure melancholy I feel when I hear the opening guitar notes to the Paradise Motel’s Flight Paths album is a pure Pavlovian response to one of those albums that served as a soundtrack for three or four straight years of my life, and the real centerpiece of the album is the cover of the Car’s Drive. The Paradise Motel take what was a minor pop hit, slow it the fuck down, and imbue it with the

Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Female Appreciation Month

So the erstwhile editor of Twelfth Planet Press, Girliejones, has dubbed this month Female Appreciation Month in response to the all-around sausagefest that was the Triple J Hottest One Hundred of all Time*. Being a fan of female musicians in various genres, my immediate thought was “sure, I’ll be in that” and I went and pulled about thirty-odd albums out of my collection to serve as my listening for the coming month. All involve either female singers or female songwriters. Being the utter High Fidelity loving nerd that I am, I’m trying to resist the urge to blog at you about the absolute awesome of every single album on this list with top-five lists and random gushing. I may well break at some point. Until then, you’ll probably see a theme running through the Friday Youtubery posts. And I should be rocking out with a month full of XX chromosomal goodness. *This list, incidentally, has completely cured me of this lingering desire

Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Friday Youtubery

I’ve been thinking about my obsessive love of cover-versions this week, and near as I can tell this was the first cover I ever recognized as both a) a cover and b) far more awesome than the original.

Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Friday Youtubery

It is Friday. I have a hankering for some Sonic Youth. I blame the Gilmore Girls. And, no, that’s not a random non sequitur – for a fluffy, family-friendly show the Gilmore Girls is loaded with Sonic Youth references (and occasional guest stars).

Journal

The Catch-up Post

My brain is full of much-ness today. As in there is much I want to blog about, but little time and space in which to achieve this, so things kind of bump up against each other and nothing gets written. As always, I blame the thesis – in some ways it feels like I’ve been talking about it for so long that the opportunity to talk about something else triggers this rush of “oh, and that…” (I shall stop that train of thought there, I think, lest I start rambling; rambling is the symptom of a brain full of much-ness). Okay, lets focus on the news in short form: On the writing front, some good news – I sold a story, Clockwork, Patchwork and Raven, to Apex Online. This was the source of much huzzah around the writing the desk, as one might imagine. Also on the writing front – the Black Dragon, White Dragon anthology is available now. It’s one