top ten again

Top 10 again

Solaris Earth Pipeline – all that glitters aint gold. The man of a thousand aliases raven mack and his boy psy/opsologist doing something close to rap but really in their own little world of rednecking/sampling/talking about life and all its foibles with some great and just damn right riffs running behind and you can download it from their myspace site! (it’s the first damn time I’ve ever managed to work out how to do that) and I’m becoming a bit of a mark for the mack – telling everyone who will or wont listen to check him out. It’s weird cos on the one hand I don’t want to share this shit, I want to keep it to myself like a little secret cult or something but on t’other I want everyone to hear this stuff and go ‘fuck yeah!’ like I did.

Sunday markets at Marion, going through a suitcase full of old 45s and finding two singles that I’ve been looking for for like thirty years! See there was this guy I saw on countdown singing in 1975 and I didn’t know his name or anything just the song “Canberra we’re watching you” and then he did “checkmate on love” - I asked all my nerdy music friends and nobody but nobody knew nothing about it… and then I’m flicking thru this box o’ records and there it was Dalvanius and the Fascinations!!! Two singles and they cost me a buck twenty five each and they were worth every cent. A funky soulful kinda style I had assumed he was American being a big black guy with the back up singers and the soul sound but nope he was a kiwi and then I got on the web and discovered that Dalvanius Prime was big back in kiwi land and had only recently passed away and fuck why didn’t anyone know who the hell he was?! This is the kind of stuff that makes the search worthwhile now I’m after a song called “Shotdown in Denver” by some perth band same era – anyone help me out here? Or do I gotta wait another thirty years?

Its looking like a musical top ten this week! DRUNKS WITH GUNS!! First two singles sitting in a pile of second hand stuff that was waiting to go on the shelf at Big Star the place I used to work at until I got sick of selling wolfmother and Bernard fucking fanning but I still do the odd job or two or at least call in and see what’s going on and there they were. The real deal, the first two singles and now I gotta work them off cos I damn near came in my pants when I saw the records so now the boss knows they must be worth a few bucks so yeah, I’m gonna have to go in and do something to pay them off but shit yeah it’ll be worth every minute. And yeah it is kinda anal since the songs are on the album anyway but fuck it we’re talking drunks with guns the greatest fucking rock slab o’ snot you’ve ever (not) heard. I had to have the records I just had to.

Beer swill romanticism – new literary zine by the kid who’s just so full of enthusiasm and drive that he makes us go “yeah lets do it” and we get off our jaded arses and do some work too. Great little mag full of some half decent words and the launch was last Thursday at this cool little club/bar called La Boheme and we did some readings and there was a good crowd and some damn fine eye candy then we got drunk and then we did it again the next night to launch the latest little spoken word cd from Paroxysm Press… actually I better make that number five…

Radio demo #2 – kerryn, me and the publisher reading some stuff we did wayback for a slam in Melbourne but the quality was damn good, the readings were spot on and what the hell we wanted something new for people to hear so we launched it at kerryn’s birthday bash and we got drunk again and now my head hurts and I really need a drink but nope, I ain’t gonna. But the cd is top notch and the publisher is now looking at next year when paroxysm turns ten!! Yeah we been doing this shit for a decade now! Fuck, I thought I was old and jaded when publisher first walked into my shop and started asking about local writers and I was thinking “who is this fucker?” and now ten years later I still think it but I’m kinda proud of the way its gone and that its still going and that publisher still wants me involved even cos hell I woulda told me to fuck off a long time ago. But its this sorta shit that makes it worthwhile, we aint getting any money from it but we are gaining some slow recognition and you know what… this is what we do and that’s all that matters…

EPW wrestling night a coupla weeks back with beezlebubby. She took her title belt along and waved it in the air and we were two rows back from the ring so we’re close enough to see and hear it all and next month is their first year anniversary and we both went “wow we been doing this for a year now?!” Its our bonding thing, no matter how shitty the day might have been (and there’s been a couple where we damn near didn’t make it to the wrassling) as soon as we walk in the door we just smile and go yep this is it. And we know who the good guys and bad guys are and there’s a coupla faces in the crowd we know and the lollies and beer are just behind us and we have a good time. And this time they got us good with a late heel turn that nobody saw coming and now we gotta go next month to find out just what the hell is going on! and that day we saw two of the wrasslers walking in the mall in town but we didn’t want to talk to them cos it woulda ruined the whole thing. They were badguys so you don’t want to say hi and find out they’re actually nice guys do ya? That’d fuck the whole game up.

Tent Boxing by Wayne McLennan – a great little book by this guy travelling with a boxing tent as they do the circuit. Not just about boxing, it’s a book about the lives of the carny crowd, the aboriginal fighters, the last frontier type stuff where you do what you gotta do to survive cos its in your blood and there’s pride and fear and respect and all those things and its written damn well and it’s the real deal and you find yourself wondering what happened to this guy or that guy and wanting to know more and just wishing the book, the travel, the adventure had kept going but you know it couldn’t but its that kinda book. Find it and read it and learn something.

Writing three new pomes– a burst of inspiration and embracing my redneckin’ white trash childhood which I’d never really turned my back on just kinda grown out of (though there’d be plenty of folk who would debate that) so I got a little set of redneck lounging type pomes and they seemed to go over okay so who knows maybe there’ll be some more. Depends how comfortable I get I guess but shoot I am a whitetrash boy from the wrong side of the tracks its just that the goodwife has tamed me a little and taught me how to dress better. or at least to wash my hands more often.

Yellow polo shirt with Millicent country music association logo on front and back – cost me three bucks at Lifeline and I wear it with pride. Anyone can get an acdc shirt or a nirvana pic but how many of these you seen at the pub? Just another good ol boy come to the bigsmoke and staring in awe at all the pretty ladies and the bright lights.

Getting a highly commended for my story the ballad of pissboy from the bundaberg arts festival. That’s the second commendation pissboy has earned so it must be an okay story. Its always good to find out that just maybe you are on the right track and that the light at the end isn’t an oncoming train.