Rarely does a band come along with such an unpretentious and groovy approach to music craft. In today’s commercial climate, most bands are afraid to deeply explore the nature of groove and rhythm for fear of losing sales. It’s all image and style, rather than music.

The Sure Shot Hunters, as their name suggests, have no such fears; bringing a confident approach to their music, unafraid to explore the boundaries of rhythm, blues, funk and reggae, they blend the principles of all styles into a truly unique package. The range of influences among the band members is staggering, and each man pays homage to his roots somewhere on the album. This isn’t the mixed bag of lollies most starting bands come up with; this is a distilled product of many years’ experimentation and craft, evident in the smooth tones of Zevon’s guitar and the bold precision of Nick’s bass.

Their live performance is the genuine article of upbeat, home grown, progressive music carrying a feel-good vibe which they have captured well on record – as only the genuine article can achieve. This is not the manufactured, street-preacher image of roots music as evidenced by artists such as John Butler; the Hunters bring a real smile and a hip-shake to every room they enter, having as much fun on stage as their audience. It’s in their feel, their craft, even in their lyrics – “We only want you to have a good time,” from the song ‘Thoughts into Your Mind,’ is the band’s entire motto, and they live by it.

After Midnight is perhaps the most unique and inspired Australian roots album to hit the scene for several years; a range of influences means the album will always surprise you from song to song, phrase to phrase, and still delivers a solid sound that is truly their own. Zevon’s voice has a raw, far-away sound; perfectly accompanying his Fender Strat, often in scat with refrains and solos. In any three-piece outfit, the bass has a lot of sound space to cover, and Nick takes to it like a man possessed, tastefully applying groove and fills in all the right places; the band’s intuitive changes are what makes listening to this album so easy and fun. The drummer, Ali, sits comfortably between these two creative monsters, ably interpreting the groove and accents of both men into an infectious feel.

Zevon showcases the amazing versatility of his 66 Strat, to which he pays tribute in a song of the same name. From the Nashville tones of ‘I Got A Confessions To Make’ to the deep southern slide on ‘Family Style’ and again to the growling wa-wa on ‘People’ Zevon’s chameleon guitar-speak reflects the band’s ability to forge something new from the ashes of the old. Their genuine approach to making music and dedication to spreading the good vibes among their fans has fostered a keen following that highly anticipates the upcoming release of After Midnight – so named by Zevon when he noticed that the majority of their gigs took place in this time slot. You can almost hear this elusive quality in the two live tracks, ‘Living Around’ and ‘Mother Nature’ – a slick reggae track with all the mellow intensity of the musician’s witching hour.

I cannot recommend this album enough; packed with pleasant surprises and genuine home grown talent honed in the fires of the live circuit, After Midnight is set to position The Sure Shot Hunters as one of the finest Australian bands in local history.

Cripes.

Dear Sir or Madam

I have visited your website and have noticed you could be the perfect
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Floris Lap
Sales Department
RGL Music Productions B.V.

I turned 23 a month ago, and looking back at what’s happened over the past few years it’s weird to see where the successes and failures have been. I’m going to recap some stuff that’s happened, how my opinions have changed (and some vanished completely) and try to figure out where to from here.

I’ve realised what an overidealistic, naive arsehole I’ve been, and it’s quite humbling.

Part of the reason I haven’t kept this updated is that I’ve been too busy doing things to write crap in a diary. It’s a bit like ‘business forums’, where all the people who are actually doing something are too busy doing it to waste time posting stuff on internet forums.

#1: Money and motivation:
At the start of this I honestly believed people would do stuff for nothing more than an ideal. This is such a horrendously false premise that I am amazed I believed it in the first place. People want money, recognition, or a kick-back of some sort for everything… and that’s totally okay. You get what you pay for. We have spent thousands of dollars very recently in the studio for the latest album my band is releasing and it’s shaping up to be worth every cent. Our engineer is fucking unstoppable and he’s doing seriously amazing work for us. Despite being a really good friend, this wouldn’t be possible if we weren’t paying him well for his work. He would feel used if we didn’t pay him for his expertise and it’s likely someone who would do it for free isn’t worth the wasted time and effort.

I’ve also realised that in many situations related to releasing records and stuff the only person who is motivated is you. Everyone else who’s motivated is usually doing their own thing. This, also, is okay. As is proving more and more common in this industry, I am functioning as singer, guitarist, producer, project manager, artist, web designer, album cover designer, etc, etc, all at once. This too is totally okay and leads us nicely to our next point.

#2: Profit and loss:
So far I’ve lost horrendous amounts of money with this label, not only in hard cash form but also in lost time. I’ve spent hours and hours doing stuff for free when I could’ve been sitting at a desk earning a chunky wage in a day job. More sleepless nights than I can remember trying desperately to get some project off the ground, running around postering, building websites, creating samples and art…

Here are the negatives: Pith’s label’s first release was followed promptly by the band breaking up, deciding they hated the album and ‘dissapearing’ the remaining product. Another release is still sitting in boxes, with the band probably unlikely to play another show ever again. Yet another band somewhat closely associated with the label has decided not to put the Pith name on their recent (totally fantastic) release. The festival we ran had a killer lineup, art, backing, and still somehow managed to only barely cover costs. Purely by being too naively trusting and trying to be the “good guy”, I have recently been flat-out screwed out of about $10K in unpaid wages at a day job. Hopefully I’ll get some of that soon though…

Funny thing, and maybe I’m maturing or something freaky like that, but I can honestly say “all of the above is harmless, expectable, and actually kinda positive”. It’s kinda impossible to have any animosity, regret, or anything like that. People have to pay the rent, people often have an overinflated sense of entitlement. People are lazy, people have love interests and other friends and a billion other things in their lives to deal with. It’s all okay. Life gets in the way of ideals and stuff. I feel like I’ve let some people down myself in the past 4-5 years, and the issues I haven’t been able to rectify I’ve had to just put behind me… I feel okay about that too. Even having been a bit of a git is a really strong motivation to do things smarted, nicer and more honestly in the future.

The reason I feel so positive right now is that it seems that the hard work is all paying off…

Very recently I’ve teamed up with an awesome systems architect / coder who I met about a year ago and started a web development firm together. We’ve attracted the attention of an investor / partner with utterly priceless connections and experience and we’re already excitedly scoping the second project before we’re even half-done with the first.

And here’s the great, great thing about this: The positives happened because I put in a shiteload of work for quite a few (rather unappreciative people), did the trial-by-fire thing on many levels with other stuff and got a bunch of experience in business, media, and the fundamentals of managing a project and dealing with people. It’s given me the respect and admiration of some really key people who are actively opening doors for me I never thought I’d get a foot in for years.

I put in the effort, and people noticed. That’s the crux of it. It’s so satisfying to have tangeble results from an un-tested ideal…

It sounds like the crap dad used to tell you, but it honestly looks like the fundamental lessons from all this are:

1. Work your arse off and someone’ll notice
2. Always be positive. Even if you’re undebatebly ‘right’ you become the arsehole if you’re negative, even a tiny bit
3. Expect very little from people you’re paying to do stuff, expect nothing from people you’re not paying, and be really grateful when anyone delivers
4. Don’t care too much about past failures and shitty people, they are inherently less valuable than you are if you can put a positive spin on everything and keep on going (they’ll probably be exactly where they are now in a few years)
5. Words are worth nothing, and opinions even less. As soon as you have the latter, they’re probably wrong and you’ll piss someone off you wish you hadn’t. People respond to positive action, not positive words
6. You can only attract motivated people by being insanely motivated yourself.
7. Anyone who follows through with stuff they say they’re going to do are solid gold and should be treated as such.

So … here I am at 3:30am on Christas eve trying to tie down ideas floating around in my brain about building some kind of interactive indie mp3 distro thing. It might just work. And hey, if it doesn’t, it’s another great experience.

What happens from here:
I feel I’ve been really lucky to have so much experience with the internet as a day job. It’s growing more and more revelant to my passion for music. I have a sneaky feeling that some sort of Music 2.0 thing is going to follow the trail blazed by Web 2.0. It’ll be smarter, younger, more mobile companies that capitalise on this.

The Signal vs. Noise blog by 37 Signals (a company I really admire) said something a while ago that really stuck with me, the crux being that all the awesome web applications built in the next 10 years will be created by small teams in their spare time, the people part of that buzzwordful ‘long tail’ of business.

As far as the music industry is concerned, I wonder if the same thing will happen. Small teams of people producing albums in spare rooms, getting exposure via social networking and file sharing, releasing single tracks online, generating revenue via more innovative new media placement, much more direct-to-customer interaction… I’m not sure, but it sounds like it would be fun to be a part of.

Anyway, that’s all for now. It’s been a weird few years… but the future’s promising.

As for the immediate practicalities, right now I’ve got this idea to launch our upcoming release in a small independent cinema in the city with some ridiculous 45 minute long film clip, a making-of documentary, and limited edition framed artwork.

This should be interesting. I have no idea what the costs involved are, the album isn’t even mixed (let alone mastered and pressed), the artwork’s not even finished, I’ve never made a film clip in my life and I don’t even know the first thing about how to edit video. I somehow have to factor in starting a web development business in the time I don’t spend learning how to mange the above.

I’ve got … less than one month. This is awesome.

The Mudbomb Radio Show, hosted by JD and Tory, is simply put the best and worst toilet humour show I’ve ever heard.

If you love politically incorrect fun, try a dose of this shit. Each show these guys select random, crazy events from the news - both from America and Australia - and poke a shit-covered toilet brush at it.

JD, from ‘the South’ of America, has no understanding of Australia and was probably one of those annoying fuckers at school who liked to play pranks and make fun of everything. Tory, who vainly attempts to explain Australia to JD, and usually fails miserably, also sounds like a fat annoying bastard who thinks more of his ego than of the culture growing on his back.

This show is usually terrible to the point of morbid fascination. I often find myself laughing along, but do not seriously expect real refined humour from these blokes. It’s all about taking the piss and poking fun at the weird shit that goes on right in front of us through the media on a daily basis. The topic range is fairly broad, so you will at least find one or two things to take with you from each show. This week’s topics include a fat bitch who gave birth on a McDonald’s toilet and tried to flush the baby, a cop who shoots himself in the leg whilst delivering a speech about gun safety, Eggburgers served by angry Greek bitches, and Owen Wilson admits to an Ass-to-Mouth fetish, then pops some pills and fakes a suicide over his break-up with Kate Hudson …

The show is recorded in one of two dingy sheds, one based in Victoria, Australia, the other somewhere in Hicksville, America.

If I haven’t made this clear already, this show is retarded, trashy and just plain sick.

Five stars.

www.mudbomb.com
www.myspace.com/mudbomb

The week’s question was interesting; though I have an extensive library of my own that I have invest over $1000 worth into building, I realized that I didn’t have any “prize winners.” I guess I just don’t like being told by some committee that the book they think is great is any better than the one I’m reading.

So, I brought up a list of prize winners to search for something I had read. To Kill A Mockingbird came up, but I had only seen the film, which was enthralling I admit. Then I found it - Paladin of Souls, by Lois McMaster Bujold. It’s the only one in my collection that is a prize winner, and it’s a double whammy - it has picked up both the Hugo and Nebula awards, and well deserved in my opinion.

When I received the book as a gift for my birthday I wasn’t expecting much; to my delight, it was a page-turner, completely enthralling, sucking my life force from my legs and leaving me glued to my chair.

The story opens with the death of the protagonist’s mother, whom we quickly learn was a matriarch of iron will and iron fist. The protagonist, a royal dowager in middle life, is no spring chicken or naive heroine. She has a murky and sinister past, half-remembered in tones of the madness that once gripped her. She has a powerful daughter, but herself is recluse and over-protected by her servants, who all remember the time she was not herself, and treat her accordingly.

Before I knew it I was feeling stifled and cloistered and found myself urging the protagonist on to adventure. Well, she gets it alright. In a land beset by war there is another, deeper threat - that of demons, which is where Bujold won me over. Her handling of creation myth smacked of deep study of the classics but also rendered with originality. Her demons were not lummox-type war-mongering redskins but sinister, ethereal cyphons of life, possessing mortals and bestowing sorcery - for a price.

In the realm of fantasy, using the much-worn tools of demons and magic and war can make an author faceless and the book humdrum. Bujold’s world, however, is a stroke of inspiration and thoroughly engaging. She is able to re-create the intimacy of power, lust and war and pull her readers into the fears and hopes of her characters.

If that’s not enough, the mythology is not passive - the gods in this world are active, untrustworthy and manipulative. The protagonist comes under the scrutiny of not one but two of these immense beings, as Bujold has tied our heroine both spiritually and physically to her tasks. Truly, this is one instance where changing the gender of the protagonist would have altered the entire course and quality of the story. Yet, she is written in such a way that male readers can also empathize with her struggle.

In typical fantasy settings, the gender of the author also dictates how the opposite gender is handled in the novel. For instance, in David Gemmel’s books, women are either subservient, Amazon, or hardly seen. In Katherine Kerr’s books, heroes are effeminate and villains drawn in the cliche of bad men doing bad things. Bujold holds neither to be true and represents both sexes in their roles convincingly and without favoritism.

This is truly a masterwork fantasy novel. The prose and pace are intuitively laid out; you cannot turn the pages fast enough. Descriptions are clear and uncomplicated; personalities so vivid you’d swear you’d met them before, and the ethereal magic of storytelling compliments the ethereal nature of magic in this world. As fantasy novels go, this one steps beyond its genre limitations and could easily be accepted in mainstream.

Highly recommended.

* David Koch. Sunrise presenter. Needs to go because he is phoney; i.e. pretends he is funny but is a bean counter on the inside.

* Mel Doyle. Sunrise presenter. Must be kicked out for thinking her legs are so hot when clearly they are NOT.

* Anna Coren. Today Tonight slut. Is the subtle yet annoying face of proletarian exploitation and sheer ignorance.

* That old hag who hosts A Current Affair, for that very reason.

* James Packer because he thinks he’s the pope of scientology and looks like a fag.

* Kev Rudd for being a Dudd.

* Mark Philopoussis for having the emotional quotient of a scientific calculator.

* Deltra Goodrem for being so phoney.

* Missy Higgins for prostituting herself.

* Darryl Somers because he has totally had it and so has Plucka.

* Bert Newton for having a head too big for his body.

* Gretel Killeen. No explanation needed.

Of course, we should give them all a chance to step down voluntarily, like John Laws did. Geez I am pretty mean. But you know what I mean.

On SBS, during a show called Rockwiz, filmed at the Gershwin, one night, Sean Kelly of the Models is asked by the presenter what the first record he ever bought was.

“It was a beaten up album, torn on one side: the album was Still by Madder Lak.”

The audience is struck silent with incomprehension. Yet, Stillpoint by Madder Lake was one of the biggest sellers of its time – the progressive rock era that shone briefly before the scene changed forever with the arrival of Skyhooks in 1975. In a show filled with music history aficionados, not a single soul had any idea who Sean was referring to.

“But it’s not just us,” says bassist Kerry McKenna, now in his mid 50s. “There are so many that have fallen through the cracks. Bobby Bright, Ray Brown and the Whispers, The Dingoes, you name it: they’re either dead or playing in some filthy pub circuit somewhere, just trying to survive. Now Lobby is gone; but who remembers him?”

Surely some people know who Lobby Loyde is?

“Maybe, now that he’s died and been on TV. Lobby once paid a visit to Musiclink Australia, the biggest distributor of musical equipment in the country, where I work part time as the guitar quality control tech. Not a single person working there knew who he was, except for my son, who was filling in for me that day. Lobby ended up buying around $15,000 worth of guitars and gear, but it wouldn’t have happened if my son hadn’t been there. Imagine that.”

Four of the original five members of Madder Lake were available to play for the Lobby Loyde benefit gig in late 2006. Industry politics had by no means abated, even on such a momentous occasion.

“We were approached by Billy Thorpe personally to play for Lob. We agreed to do it for a paltry $500 per gig, of which there were three. Yet, after the gigs, Thorpe refused to pay us, citing other expenses.”

Did you get paid in the end?

“Yes, eventually. Trevor Young [Coloured Balls] stepped in for us and we finally got some cash to cover our own expenses. But that wasn’t the worst of it. Lobby himself didn’t see a cent of his benefit money, somewhere around $80,000, for three months. He had to get a lawyer to step in and have a serious chat with Michael Chugg.”

A long, weary sigh escapes him then. “But no one really appreciates musicians in this country, anyway. I saw about 10 cameras filming the event, but you won’t see the film until after Lobby passes on. You watch how much comes out now he’s gone.”

So what happened way back when? Where did all of this start? What was the scene like?

“Madder Lake formed through art school, most of us doing graphic design at Swinburne. That’s where Brendan and I met Mick and Jack, who rang in John. Everything was all so new back then, like mucking around with a brand new PS3, no one understood it.”

“Whereas now rock bands are a dime a dozen, so few people played around town back then and so it was a novelty – you’d go to a country town gig and you were like aliens landing … even in the city it was new; just having long hair was pretty extreme, and in the real rough pubs in, say, 1970’s Wangaratta, it was pretty touch and go.”

“All the bands were young, about 20 or so, and we had camaraderie among peers, seeing each other’s bands and hanging out in the city.”

“There was a kind of innocence: it was always in Gudinski to become a sort of modern day robber baron, but he started as a babe in the woods same as the rest of us. Ignorance was their way of pulling the wool over us; nobody understood the business of creativity. We didn’t even know we could own our songs. It was always kept from everybody.”

“Nowadays you can do a course and go into the industry armed to the teeth, but back then we didn’t even have an air rifle, so to speak.”

He chuckles as the memories come flooding back. “Gudinski knew all the artists and all the right contacts, so he was just following a natural progression. He named the company Mushroom and then took some to initiate the celebrations and totally freaked out.”

The heady days of progressive rock lasted briefly in the scope of history. It was an era before Lobby Loyde and Billy Thorpe introduced pub rock.

What were the gigs like?

“All the places we played were totally alcohol free. In those days most places weren’t licensed, like Garrison; it’d be packed to the rafters but all you could buy was coffee, or cordial. Kew Town hall was the same, Berties and Sebastians; no grog at all. In those days it was all town halls by day, schools at night time. When Thorpe came in he and Lobby opened up the pub rock scene. The music itself had to change to go into that scene; it went to big barns like Village Greens from places like TFM Ballroom.”

“The music in pubs became more primitive, less complex than what we could get away with in the barns full of hippies. It comes down to the question of the art of the times imitating the life of the times.”

So what was happening in the absence of alcohol?

“Everyone was either tripping or stoned, and the dope back then was really good stuff, all natural, so you didn’t need grog. There was never any violence; the only rough ones were the roadies, in fact. They’d come in with boxes on their shoulder but they wouldn’t warn anyone to move or watch their head, and so they’d knock people out, most of which didn’t know what had hit them, they were all so out of it. When the big beer barns started happening, we started seeing more and more saloon brawls.”

Do you think pub rock incites violence?

“No, but alcohol mixed with pub rock does. It’s a recipe for thugs.”

So what changed our audiences? What makes people sit and listen and do nothing?

“Audience changed after Disco came in. I remember Ronnie Charles would get his shirt torn off every night, sometimes before he even got to the stage. In those days everything was new, so at first the audiences would go wild. I remember playing with Sherbet at Festival Hall, and you walked out on stage feeling like the Beatles with all the screaming and carrying on … Then, one time in Adelaide, as Disco crept in, they’d start putting disco tracks on during the band breaks; so while we played, no one moved; then, the disco would come on, and suddenly the dance floor was packed, maybe precision dancing to Nutbush, or whatever. It was insulting. I think DJ’s undermined live acts then as now. Dancing along to a rock band just isn’t done anymore, even frowned upon.”

So what happened to bands like Madder Lake and The Dingoes?

“First you have to remember we were all ignorant of copyright, it was a mystery. We had no idea how the business worked, or even how our gigs were booked. APRA was the light in the dark, tracking what these guys did. The only way we discovered we were selling in New Zealand (through the Interfusion label) was because I went there. I even heard a radio edit of our single, 12lb Toothbrush, on a bus in Paris.”

“Gudinski was out of it when negotiating contracts, and was always onto the next big project. He’d no sooner have signed one band than he’d find another that was more interesting, or whatever, leaving the other band to rot. We realized we weren’t going anywhere so we wanted off the label. It was then we realized the kind of Mafioso-style power he and Frank Stivala had over the industry.”

Without any competition, Festival and Mushroom had all the local acts signed to them.

“So then Gudinski black-balled us; told all the venues that if they hosted us again, they’d never see another live act come their way. We had to put an ad in the paper; it read ‘Madder Lake regrets their fans can’t see them, but due to industry politics beyond our control we can no longer play live’.”

In 1975, the next big thing for Gudinski was Skyhooks.

“That ended the progressive rock era, and perpetuated commercialism above content. The Dingos copped the same punishment after some communication breakdown, saying Gudinski was fickle as a manager, and they wanted off the label.”

Many bands have since received poor treatment from the label, fleeced for their flavour of the month and shelved on a contract, never to be heard from again.

“They’ve created a league ladder mentality: if you’re not in the top 10, you’re not anybody. It’s that kind of mentality that is so damaging to artists. Poor Ray Brown, such a talent, used to sleep on the floor of our motel and eat whatever we could spare. He died of a heart attack in the streets. He was comparatively as big as Farnham, once.”

What do you think is causing this decline?

“The record company party line is population; there isn’t the regard for the artists for lack of numbers in Australia. But the reality is there are no gigs here; population might be a factor, but it’s a lack of support and recognition of local talent. Look at the Badloves; Mushroom sucked them in, set them up for great things, and then they disappeared off the face of the earth. They had something really going on, you know. They’re probably still playing at some pathetic pub circuit trying to survive. Whatever happened to the Baby Animals? What about Bobby Bright? And so on it went, until suddenly our premier act is Missy Higgins … Venues are gone, quality is gone; it’s just a general musical malaise.”

Is there anyone from your era that is still playing?

“Mike Rudd and Bill Putt from Spectrum are still playing. They’re real rock n roll soldiers; they always stuck to their guns. One time many years ago, Mike put it all on the line for one album; sold his house and went to Germany to record an album. I think the producer had a nervous breakdown; the band smoked too many drugs and the album never saw the light of day. But they recovered, and are still going strong, despite the lack of regard among the younger people.”

Who was the first band to receive an all-Australian Gold Record?

“We were, actually,” he laughs. “The first totally Australian Gold Record, produced by Australian artists, making Australian songs, awarded by a totally Australian company; Mushroom was a subsidiary of Festival. I think that was 1974. But you wouldn’t know it if you asked Gudinksi. He’s been waging a private war on history, erasing our part in it. Quite successfully, I’m afraid. Even people my age don’t remember us anymore, although it was a pleasant surprise from Sean Kelly to give us a mention. Good on him.”

In 2001, Mushroom released ‘101 Greatest Australian Hits,’ a 4 disc compilation of number one chart hits over the history of the label. Madder Lake, who’s single ‘12lb Toothbrush’ sat high on the charts for weeks, was not to be found. Instead, it had the Uncanny X-Men, who were a self-proclaimed spoof band, and also Merril Bainbridge, who had one song and vanished entirely. There was also a supposed documentary on Australian Rock History, but it “completely overlooked our era and when it got to Billy Thorpe, it stayed there. They were under Lobby’s spell, at the time, but this documentary was all about Thorpe and Gudinski.”

What do you think might be a solution to this malaise?

“If Gudinski had supported this kind of talent, he’d have a legacy to leave. They went into the forest and logged it bare. What’s his legacy? Kylie? Skyhooks? The public needs to learn to appreciate what it has before it’s gone … Australian musical inspirations are given no due respect, and our musical heritage has become a ‘cringe’ factor of some kind.
At least Americans appreciate their musicians, whether on the street or in a dodgy pub in New Orleans. In Australia, you’re nobody until you’re somebody overseas.”

Is there any hope?

“With noise pollution complaints all the rage, I’m not sure; people seem to move into places next door to venues with the sole intent of shutting it down and ruining it for everyone else. It happened to the Armadale and Windsor, and now I hear the people in the St. Kilda flats over the road from the Sidney Myer Music Bowl are kicking up a stink. Just recently the Red Hot Chilli Peppers were playing a gig there, and they were forced to turn their PA down so low the sound was just shit-house.”

“As a result, the pub scene is reverting back to acoustic measures. There was a brief acoustic era that came through Melbourne in the late 70s, in places like the London Tavern and so on. Pubs had maybe three stage lights, green, amber and red, and if you stayed in the red longer than 3 seconds all the power to the stage would fail!”

Kerry chuckles at the memory.

“So, it feels like its going to be the only acceptable music thing in live venues. I went to the Brunswick Club a little while ago, and it was packed to the gills so I thought there must be a really good band about to play. But all that fuss was for two acoustic duos – the Handsome Family from the USA and Darling Downs – in a room as big as the Gershwin, packed out, for $25 a head … I thought; what social phenomenon am I witnessing here?”

Has there been any attempt to revitalize the progressive rock artists?

“The Sounds of Sunbury was a project we were going to launch, but that failed because none of the bands of that era exist anymore; Johnny Dick, the Dingoes, musicians with astonishing talent, all of them fallen through the cracks. Musicians with the kind of talent you don’t find in young bands today, because their mentality is different, the scene is different; it’s about expendable albums rather than substance, going with fashion, copying the images of the old legends, wanting to be accepted for a quick buck rather than making a statement they believe in, or even just enjoying the music.”

Are you recording?

“I’m working on my solo project, Alien Hand Syndrome. Well, I’ve been working on it off and on for around twenty years. I’m using the internet to publish it, however. I think it’s a wonderful tool for artists. It’s the only thing that allows us to bypass the pricks in upper management. As Lobby said, it’s a means of liberating ourselves from them, and they know it. Look at how they fight tooth and nail against downloading. But they are beaten, whether they realize it or not. The removal of the protection laws on importing was the first real step towards liberation. Gudinski had it sown up so you couldn’t import unless you went through his company. He sold it after protection laws were removed.”

Would you put the social influence of your era on a par with, say, the Anzacs?

“Well, I wouldn’t compare us with the Anzacs, no – people still remember them, but our social and musical influence was quite significant at one time, and the people and all the bands that came after are a product of these things; whether they like it or not. Raising awareness and shining lights into those dirty little cracks is a good thing, and Sean Kelly giving us a mention proves there has been a chain of influences in the Australian music scene, largely unacknowledged or buried in the past.”

Do you have any favourite memoirs?

“Probably when Queen first arrived in Australia; we got into an argument about who supported who – we wouldn’t go on first, and neither would they. It caused both our roadies and theirs to get into a vicious brawl. Eventually we went on first and played a killer show. As a result, Queen came up with their weird British stuff and got booed offstage. Freddie himself swore never to return, and they didn’t. History books have changed that, strangely enough; I have a book that says it was AC/DC who got booed off, which is totally untrue. Both AC/DC and Madder Lake were highly popular with the locals, so it just wouldn’t have happened.”

Is there any solution to the current disregard for local talent that you can see?

“I can’t see a solution to it, no, but the internet is the only way bands can overcome the current dilemma, and I’ve always believed that because of bootlegging, eventually live gigs will become so exclusive that that’s where they’ll make their money, with tickets from 150 – 200 bucks … Hopefully that would also recreate an interest in buying albums and investing in their cover art, with respect and loyalty to an artist. Only time will tell.”

Editor’s note: The article above is strictly off the record; the opinions of the interviewee are not necessarily the opinions of this company.

For further information see:
http://www.myspace.com/alienhandsyndromeonline
and
http://www.myspace.com/madderlake

I am pleased to announce that A Friend of Mine’s online shop is now open for business at http://www.afriendofmine.com.au/shop/

We have the one product: If Your Head Explodes You’ll Never Make It EP, straight off the presses.

If some bastard can try it please to see if it works.

I assume all of you are probably too smart to subject yourselves to the fucking shit which is The Biggest Loser. Well, it’s a show produced by FremantleMedia, which basically owns every fucking show you watch. They even do The Bill. Fucking hell. That’s why the show’s so fucking shit. Anyway, on this show overweight contestants go to this ‘White House’ (btw this show is so fucking American), and train their arses off until they get angry and vote their fellow contestants off.
Anybody who wants to study the psychology of outer suburban nimwits should make Loser compulsory viewing. For all of its false hopes, Loser conveys a startling message: you have to be a prick to be successful (in that not getting voted out, rather than losing weight, is the aim of the game), and that young middle-class men obviously do better than women and older men. Even though crazy Marty with his big fat smile, a typical middle-aged bloke from Queensland couldn’t beat Chris, he was the people’s choice siply because he had personality. Chris was declared the Loser because the ruling elite want to portray this fucker, who has less emotional ability than a used calculator, to be a model citizen. Somebody who shuts up and competes. My attraction to the show came because I felt a bond with the other contestants but Chris was such a wanker. Even when Damien (who was a contestant who was a musician; yes there are talented people who sometimes pop up on these shows) was singing at the end and tried to do a duet of a popular song with Chris he wouldn’t join in. And this is the shit we need to live with for the next year on television adverts regarding weight loss, although when you start watching Loser it’s apparent that the show is about everything except weight loss.

As much as I hate Chris, it’s important to note this hatred is due to first impressions being beamed onto television screens by FremantleMedia. “Buddy27″ on the show’s web forum noted:
“Chris’s portrayed first impression was “right… my eye is on the prize” and there seems to be an unwritten rule in this show that for you to justly win this game - in the eye of the viewing public, you have to be not doing it for the money, have a hard luck story and cry a LOT.”

(http://forums.thebiggestloser.com.au/forums/5/115848/ShowThread.aspx)

The fact is that the show is all about impressions. While the men compete against the women, they are portrayed as having different qualities relevant to their sex. The blokes are supposed to be hard, mean and competetive, while the sheilas were meant to be soft, bitchy, collaborative. Yet the sexes compete against each other, with the masculine sex always coming on top. This is nothing more than blatant sexism in a supposedly equal opportunity society; so girls, you are free to compete against the boys just as long as you don’t stifle the capitalist’s attempts to make the fellas win. As for the non-contestants, host AJ is a blonde bimbo with an age and IQ bracket in the mid-20s, while trainers Shannan and ‘the Commando’ are exemplify traditional tough-love manhood. Trainer Michelle is another image what the capitalists want us to be;thin and with a face so ugly it needs heaps of makeup. The thing with Loser and other reality shows, and even commerical blogging spaces like mysapce are all examples of capitalist exploitation in the information age. It defies the bourgois view that ‘history has ended’ and that we now live in some la-la land where we all get along. Because we fucking don’t. And the sooner we all stop believing in the pathetic lies capitalism throws at us the better.
They all have their own reasons for being on the show, but the fact is that two things make people fat slobs; eating a shitload of Maccas and having a sedentary lifestyle (no, not one in the bush smoking hash but watching stupid shows like Loser). It is here we must find what the real reason behind the show is. Are we witnessing the capitalist exploiters actually giving us a way to break free from their fast food consumerism and become free-thinking people for godsake? I think not. Is it an effort by a self-destructing society to heal ills, just like companies are supposed to be reversing the effects of global warming? I doubt it. Is it an effort to reduce consumerism by warning against excessive Quarter Pounder intake? Fuck no. The show is nothing more than a ‘circus’ of capitalist exploitation aimed at winning the hearts and minds of the proletariat in the outer suburbs whose lives are at the mercy of the bourgoise, who through their agents, AJ, Shannan, Michelle and the Commando, exploit a bunch of unsuspecting victims in their ravenous search for profit.

The Book Thief is narrated by death, which is only suitable as a lot of dying happens in the book. The death is only suitable as well considering it’s set in the early 1940s in Nazi Germany. The scenes are pretty vivid, but in a funny pastel that draws you in without you realising it. All the death is laid out so casually.

Liesel, our leading lady, starts at only 9 years old at the beginning of the book has quite a few people die and dissapear on her. The story that stretches out between her and her foster parents, the jewish fist fighter and the scruffy boy next door goes from mundane to grisly to humourous to heart-breaking, but all in shades of grey. Grey, with snow and dirty footprints. It weighs you down as you read it (not just because it’s a pretty hefty book).

It’s a book that weighs heavily up on the power of words; stirring and hateful from Hitler, caring well wisely placed from her Liesel’s foster father, desperate and shaky from the man hidden in the basement. It really does place you in Germany with the humiliating parades of wiry emaciated jews and controlling horrors of bombings.

I couldn’t put it down, a definite page-turner. How it manages to be so engaging is beyond me. I think it might be the humanity of it all, it’s imperfect imperfections, that seem too true and real to be fictional.

9 and a half tear-streaked bomb victims out of ten.