Reasons To Be Cheerful part Nein Nein Nein

Radio Birdman – Hand Of Law

That introduction, the bass kicks off, the drum comes in and then the guitar riff… fuck me, it’s just about perfect really.   And here I am 40 years later still hearing that song and finding it fresh and exciting and it hits me right in the heart and brain and makes me smile still… all these years and still I can’t help but feel the power and energy and the moment. 

I still own the original cassette copy of Radios Appear that I bought back in the day when I was like 15 and discovered this band and a whole new world opened up.  1978/79 and my mate Mike and I would trek out to the caves with the Radio Birdman tape and my “newest” cassette player, the third one I’d owned by then. Another beat up second hand Sony I think, but unlike my second player, this one didn’t have dual decks but did have a working battery pack and didn’t need electrical tape to hold it together. (Always a bonus) The tape deck would rest on my shoulder and we’d listen to the rumble, the power as we trekked the couple of miles out of town through the pine forest to our hideaway one of many we’d had over the years, forts we’d built from fallen pine trees and branches, dug outs in the soil, old sheds lost in the forest, this time we had a pothole/cave we had made into a fort, a secret space, even putting posters on the wall down there and bringing candles and dirty magazines and food.  Radio Birdman would echo off the damp walls, the sound crashing and swooping all around us and it all made perfect sense.  It would be in the high 30s outside, so hot you could barely think but down here in our cave, accessible only by climbing down a tree branch, surrounded by rock posters and teen goddesses, with the music blaring, it was a cool low 20s and we would lay back smoking and laughing and listening intently to Rob Younger’s scream, Deniz Tek’s guitar, trying to decipher words and meaning, not caring about the heat or the flies or what the future held for us.  There were no thoughts of sawmills or log trucks, no petrol pump jockeys or supermarket shelves down here just cool air and loud guitar, rock and roll escapism and the sounds of birds up above in the trees, flies buzzing lazily waiting for us to surface, the world lazily waiting for us to come up for air.

And we’d always have to come back up, if just to piss but while we were down there, no one could find us or tell us what to do, there were no teachers asking for answers, no parents questioning our intentions, no girls laughing at us, no pressure, no purpose, just the blistering Detroit influenced rock and roll that promised a different world, that signaled the change that was coming, the possibilities… we just had to find it.  

Play It Loud!!

Reasons To Be Cheerful Part Ate

Motley Crue – Shout At The Devil.

 Motley Crue’s Shout At The Devil was another of those ‘chance’ teenage discoveries. I recall seeing a film clip on late night tv of them covered in fake blood and looking satanic and evil.  Well at least evil to a 17 year old kid living in a country town. And come on I was a Kiss fan already, I loved Skyhooks and Sweet and glam so I was already predisposed to the flash and arrogance and dressing up – the escape.  And at 16/17 it was metal and punk that were really providing that route so the Crue fitted in perfectly. Especially the early days/daze before they sobered up and really became platinum hit makers.  This was a different beast, a sloppy, drunk, drug fucked beast that wandered around in leather and sweat and smeared makeup looking for all money like they just needed another beer or snort to feel better, to perform better.  It was like a Saturday night cabaret band had suddenly found fame and didn’t know what the fuck to do with it. When I saw the cassette at the local whitegoods store cum record shop I had to have it.  My cousin Pete and I fell for ‘em hard.  We loved that album for awhile there, played it constantly, sang it, mimed it, played air guitar along with it.

On weekends we’d throw that tape in the car cassette deck, pop the sunroof, sip from the badly hidden hip flasks and beercans and just cruise the mainstreet of Millicent with Vince squealing over that raucous rhythm section and us playing air guitar and shouting at the devil, hoping one of the girls might find our rebellion cute.  They never did.

I still own that very copy of the cassette, the one that we flogged to death in the car as we drove up and down the mainstreet drunk every Friday and Saturday night trying to find girls, visions, anything that would help us get to the next stop on the way.  Hard to believe now I know but back then, much like Kiss, they were a band that alienated people and separated yr friends from yr foes.  They weren’t punk but this was country South Australia, they were alienating enough to be just what we needed. Ugly and discordant enough to be a dividing line between the cool kids and us fuck ups. What else could you want?  cheese with the devil

Reasons To Be Cheerful Part Seven

GARLAND JEFFREYS - MODERN LOVERS

From the album Escape Artist, this was a mainstay of 81/82 for me when I was coming into adulthood, 18/19 years old, in “lurve” for the first time, well the first real serious relationship, the first time I actually thought I meant it when I said it and every weekend I’d be driving around 100 kilometres(round trip) to see that girl so I was buying a lot of tapes to play in the car (or cars since I managed to go through a few back then, none costing more’n $300) and I knew who Jeffreys was cos of that killer song ‘Wild In The Streets’ hell I had the 45, bought cheap from the whitegoods/ record store at one of their 45 rpm purges where they’d throw out singles for 5c and 10c and I’d be there with a handful of change just taking chances, taking names, labels and hoping for something good.  

Garland Jeffreys was good and so a few years down the track, with pubic hair bustin’ out, cassettes piling up on the floor, records spinnin’ all the time, trying to keep ahead, trying to find songs, reasons, voices, I found this album.  I musta heard ‘Modern Lovers’ or something on the radio though I can’t imagine where down there in early 80s AM radioland, maybe one of those late nights when I’d tune in the radio to stations all over the fucking country that would be faintly playing and cross hatching on the big old radiogram that mum and dad had… it musta popped up one night between the hits and memories, the footy scores and rural weather alerts but I heard it and it was enough to make me want the album, while I had money and all that driving and time and space so anyway I bought it (on cassette of course) and I flogged that baby to death – like Jeffreys himself it was a mulatto mix of styles and cultures and pop and reggae and bluesy jazz licks and even though I was a dumb country hick I could dig the world he was travelling in (or at least wished I could). 

Late nights driving that long trip home, headlights dipping and wavering, watching out for rabbits and foxes and kangaroos, fog descending, blueballed and hopeful, Escape Artist cranked up and distorting in the tinny speakers on the backdash or early on thru the portable cassetter player on the front seat ‘cos I just didn’t have the money or wherewithal to get a tape player set up yet, Garland was there for me, it made for some sweet driving, I’d almost be disappointed when I’d see the street lights again as I came over the hill and back down past the pine plantations, turning the volume down just a little so the neighbours wouldn’t have too much to complain about as I tried to sneak in, always failing, always late but at least alive, another trip down, another weekend gone. Escape never sounded so good.

This album is one of the few I now own on cassette, record, CD and download cos you never know when and where you might wanna play it and its still as good as I remember, even if I’m no longer cruising the backroads with it turned up loud, blueballed and stinky fingered… 

L.O.V.E.R.S.

Reasons To Be Cheerful Part Six (and Drugs and RocknRoll)

Daddy Cool - Teen Love

Daddy Cool were one of Australia’s first huge acts of the 70s – Best known for the number one single Eagle Rock and the album Daddy Who? Daddy Cool which was massive making them the biggest pop band of the day in the early 70s but it wasn't that album that hooked my young mind, of course not.  No, it was album number 2 - Sex, Dope, Rock'n'Roll - A Teenage Heaven that I fell for (albeit a coupla years after the fact) I mean with a title like that, how could you not be interested? 

Sex Dope Rock’n’Roll was recorded after a tour of the US and though it had the obligatory hit single Hi Honey Ho (edited down to fit the 45 format but in all it's glory on the LP) it also had the great ‘drive-in’ suite –  a side of songs that was all about that great weekend tradition of getting your leg over (or at least trying to) in the backseat of the car at the drive-in. There’s even a great pisstake/homage to the ballads of the 50s with “Donna” where our hero bombs out when he touches her knee!  Finishing the album with a sub zappa riff jam called Make Your Stash – about hiding yr drugs from the sniffer dogs and you can see this isn’t quite what the kids or the pop press were expecting.  The good time band had grown up a little and even though the album made the top twenty it was a long way off from the number one position that their first album had conquered.  Especially in little old Australia circa 1972!  Of course I was too young to really know any of the goings on that the record was talking about but you know i was well on my way to working it out. 

My first copy of Sex Dope was in a cheapy two record set called The Daddy Cool Story – bought at Coles in Millicent when I was but a tween and one of the first albums I ever owned.  One of the labels wasn’t glued down right and when I peeled it off, lo and behold, underneath was the original Sex Dope label!  The cheap buggers at Sparmac had just taken the first two albums, slapped some new labels on top, put them in a new sleeve (not even gatefold!) and voila – The Daddy Cool story. Put it out there cheap in the supermarkets and get rid of the leftovers. Not that I cared at the time, I was too busy listening intently to the songs, laughing at the audacity and double meanings of such tunes as Baby Let Me Bang Your Box and generally trying to catch up on what had already been and gone. (A common story for me really)  Decades later I managed to finally get hold of the real deal, gatefold sleeve, cartoon inside and the record still kicks arse and subverts minds.  They liked to have fun but this was a band that with Ross Wilson out front had some brains as well. If’n you think they are just that nostalgia act with Eagle Rock and Come Back Again you are way off base.  Hunt this baby down, it’s worth it trippers. 

teenage heaven

Reasons to be cheerful - pleading the fifth

FLASH COONEY AND THE DEANS OF DISCIPLINE –LITTLE DEBBY

You know I really hate those old guys who say, “back in my day…” or “kids today have got it easy” but you know what?  I’ve become one of those old guys and let me tell you, “kids today HAVE got it easy!” This blog itself is proof of that.  We’re giving them the knowledge, we’re sharing the music, the meaning, we’re helping the ungrateful little buggers out and they don’t even have to leave their chair!  It’s all at their fingertips now, the music, the words, they can download songs, albums, movies, books, without even having to get off their arses. 

But it’s not just online either, the whole culture of “underground” is disappearing, long usurped by marketing managers, advertising and the quick buck chase of corporate shysters.  I mean John Waters does speaking tours now, people line up for their photo opportunity and his movies are mainstream. Burroughs and Ginsberg and Kerouac are t-shirt idols and bumper stickers, punk rock is just another genre now, marketed to the kids along with tattoos, body piercing and coloured hair, no longer for outsiders or outlaws, every 20 something schmuck has a full sleeve tattoo, bluebirds on their neck and mama across their back.  How do you rebel now?  There are no more discoveries for the kids, no more moments of “wow, who the hell are they?” it’s all marketed to them now, by demographic and location, the full back catalogue available online.  They are fooled into thinking they are individuals just like the other 1000 “friends” they have online who “liked” the same page. They think they are making great discoveries without realising they’re being manipulated, marketed to and pushed into the right boxes.  Anarchy until lunchtime when they use that voucher they got with the download to buy lunch at that cool new “underground” café in the mall.  So yeah, they have got it easy but it’s kind of sad as well.

 In a world where garage sale bargains rarely exist anymore because people think e-bay counts as a legitimate price guide, the thrill of making their own discoveries, of finding some obscure album that looks kind of cool just because of the cover or finding old paperbacks for a buck at a junk shop or uncovering old Crawdaddy mags in a box of crap, taking a chance on a 45 ‘cos the label looks interesting, those joys, that fun is fast disappearing for today’s kids.   

 They just go online, check to see if it’s ‘hip’ to like this band or author, make sure the cool points add up for owning a copy of the album or the book and walk away from the chance to develop their own taste, the chance to make their own discoveries, their own mistakes.  

 I grew up in a town of 500 or so people, depending on how the football team was going, two tv channels, am radio, no computers, no internet, (hell computers were a mythical machine that were bigger than your bedroom and only seen on science programs) – I found out about music by sticking one ear to the radio, by pouring through the few rock mags I could get my hands on, by going through my parents’ record collection  and their friends and my friends’ older brother’s and sister’s collections, by hanging around the edges at parties and listening to conversation, by scouring liner notes, finding things by pure luck and good fortune, by taking chances, stumbling onto songs, writers, ideas, searching for touchstones and gateways that would lead to other places, other songs and sure that leaves gaps in your musical education but sooner or later you find the things YOU need, the songs that mean something to YOU, the riff that sends a shiver down yr spine, the tune that takes you somewhere else, away from the shitty little box bedroom and out there somewhere else and when that happens you don’t care who their guitar teacher was or when the lead singer was first potty trained, you just care that the song means something to YOU and you alone. I didn’t wait for the t-shirt, I bought the records, I bluffed my way through, gradually building up knowledge, trusting my own instincts, enjoying the trash amongst the treasure.  I wasn’t worried about ‘cool’ – hell I was never gonna be cool, I was a skinny, redheaded mongrel kid who couldn’t play sports or fight, who lived in a dream world of comics and music and books, cool was never an option but I didn’t care cos I had songs, records, music pounding out of the shitty little cassette player in my room, the plastic record player on the bookshelf, I found my own way out.   

Sadly the kids today ain’t ever gonna find their own way… unless of course we help them.   I’m still not sure if I’m doing the right thing or the wrong thing here, it does seem a little hypocritical since they’re still in their bloody chairs looking at a screen but hell, if they find the Deans Of Discipline on line they’re doing good anyway!  I found my copy in a record shop in New Zealand over a dozen years ago and I ain’t ever seen another!  Get out of the house kids, go searching at your local op shop,  take a chance on a beat up record with a name you don’t recognise, buy a book, ask your parents if they still have their records out in the shed, do something but don’t get complacent.  We ain’t gonna always be here to tell you what’s what. 

AIN'T NO PARTY LIKE A DEANS O' DISCIPLINE PARTY

reasons to be cheerful part four

Gary Glitter  - Come On, Come In, Get on 

Now I ain’t defending this pedophile bastard, not at all but after years of just refusing to listen to his music, of bad taste jokes and pretending he just don’t exist I’ve come to realise something… Gary Glitter ain’t the bad guy, Paul Gadd (his real moniker) is.  See the way I see it, Paul Gadd is a rock spider, Gary Glitter is a rock star.  I wouldn’t give Paul Gadd the time of day, the bastard should be castrated and left to wallow in his own excrement in a small dark hole but Gary Glitter, the artist, the singer, the rockstar, well I’m gonna crank up those loud as fuck old school rock and roll songs again and sing along to the hits and misses! 

A touchstone to my youth, Touch Me was one of the first albums I ever owned (on cassette too) – Christmas 1974 and my parents had given me a cassette player of my very own just a week prior, my birthday falling just eight days before Christmas and Gary was one of my Christmas presents.  It was perfect fodder for a preteen boy on the cusp of teenage fears and pubic hair burst growth!  A booming rock and roll soundtrack complete with handclaps, singalongs, loud guitars and a band that was versed in the art of rock and fucking roll -  with two drummers holding down the beat, the horn section swinging like real rock used to be and songs with more hooks than a Japanese Whaler, you couldn’t go wrong with this baby turned up loud.   

Glitter was corny, he was dumb, he looked ridiculous at times but he was fun, that was the thing, he put the fun back into rock and roll.  And if he could do it, hell anyone could.  He gave us all hope, if this middle aged silly bastard in a too tight alfoil suit could be a rock star, a heart throb, then hell, anything was possible.  This tape was played so often during my youth that it eventually stretched beyond rescue and was thrown in the back of that drawer you have for things you can’t quite throw away though you know they ain’t ever getting repaired, ain’t ever gonna be used again.  Besides, I’d moved on, punk and noise and all the other growed up rock had taken over.  I’d put aside the dreams of the alfoil suit and the rock and roll lifestyle for the ripped shirt and dog collar existence of sid and nancy, the deadboys before drifting into comics and words and drinking like Bukowski or at least a piss poor attempt at it. This album was part of my youth, those songs were the soundtrack to walking the streets at night, dreaming of bigger and better things. I’m still chasing those dreams so I need that soundtrack and no rock spider scum is coming ‘tween me and my music.   

That’s the trouble with music and with musicians, how do we separate the artist from the song, from the memories we have, the emotions that songs can trigger within us.  Should we stop listening to Glitter’s songs because of his behavior twenty years later? Should we stop listening to Ike and Tina Turner because he was a wife beating arsehole? Chuck Berry? Elvis Presley’s drugged out fat arse? The White Album because Chuckles Manson misread its intentions? 

I ain’t defending any of these people but I ain’t gonna stop listening to their songs either  (except for the Beatles cos they are  over rated) – I know the difference between the singer and the song, between some three minute pop song and the predilections of some perverted fucker who needs a soldering iron between the legs, and I’m claiming my youth back, I’ve been flogging this (downloaded) album and this song to death for the last month and it ain’t faded yet, it’s still gloriously over the top, swinging, fist pumping, singalong, glorious rock and roll!  And we all need some of that in this age of plastic, computer simulated, mass marketed three minute wonders.  Gimme back my music you bastards, I want to hear it loud and distorted and proud.  Might even try and find that tape and see if I can fix it up. 

dance you feckers! this rocks 

2008 ANOTHER YEAR SURVIVED

So another year down the tube – guess I should do one of them best of lists that are so popular as the year draws its last breath. Trouble is the years go by so quickly now that I’m not sure half the time what happened this week let alone this year. So if I go back a little in time, don’t bug me about it…. Hell it’s all the same anyway… it’s a consumer culture, we’ll have forgotten all about this in a week or two and need something else anyway.

So for what its worth….

Fave Music – Well I gotta say that the highlights this year would have to include the discovery of Big Blood – a husband & wife duo that I discovered via the grown so ugly blog… this is a mess o’ psych folk madness with a keening voice that reminds me a little of Kate Bush on some really good mushrooms or perhaps even Julie Dahlia if she went down that path…
Another grown so ugly discovery (and both are on myspace too) was Buffalo Wings, this kid has a style all his own. This is fucked up folk music filtering charles manson thru syd barrett’s ghost, creepy, crazy but definitely original.
And my personal fave band of the last coupla years (has it been that long? – I can’t tell) Solaris Earth Pipeline hit me with 45 on 33 – another stirling effort of redneck hiphop lounging. And I shouldn’t let the moment pass without mentioning PSY/opsogist’s solo effort Suffused With Static… this guy knows his music, loves it and it shows in these haunting instrumental scenarios/dioramas…
Stuart Busby kept me relaxed too with Radiance & Decay (on Kindling) – a snapshot of his holidays in aural form… this man knows how to relax!

Words – well I guess the biggest thing this year past was the tenth anniversary of Paroxysm Press, my publisher and all round fucked up crazy son of a bitch. Being involved behind the scenes of TEN YEARS OF THINGS THAT DIDN’T KILL US gave me more understanding of just what Daniel does and it was an honour to be in the damn book (which I never took for granted) – getting Kaplowitz, Misti Rainwater-Lites and David Rat into the book was a personal highlight too.
Another find was Glen W Cooper. Damn this son of a bitch can write! I’ve got three of his chapbooks and he’s covered Muhammad Ali, Rimbaud and Neddy Smith! What a cast of characters!
And for music zine type stuff I can’t go past BIXOBAL. After the death of Bananafish and Forced Exposure and the dullness of The Wire I’d given up on finding an intelligent zine that covered the fringes of music properly but Eric Lanzillotta stepped into the breach and has produced a zine that always has me wanting more. He knows his music and his art – hell, he ran Anomalous Records he should know his stuff… and now he’s running a record store!! (Disonnant Plane) A man who loves what he does.

Movie wise I’ve rediscovered my love for the b-grade. Thanks mainly to Demons Among Us, Metal Heads and Isle Of The Damned. Three low budget to no budget labours of love by guys who love film and love the fun of it all. Thanks guys for putting the beer back into b-grade films! And I can’t go past Boxing Day – another low budget, Aussie film made in real time with a story that’ll rip yr heart out. Superb movie.

Let me see, what else? Oh yeah, the big highlight was my stint as ‘boxing expert’ for People magazine. Getting paid to talk to the likes of Danny Green, Jeff Fenech, Nader Hamden, Sakio Bika and Lester Ellis!!! Damn but that was sweet. It’s a pity that boxing itself became a game of “Which old guy can I add to my resume?” Thank Christ for the likes of Vic Darchinyan who was prepared to step up and put his fists not just his mouth to the test. Taking out Cristian Mijares in November (considered the man at superfly) – Vic now holds the IBF, WBC &WBA belts. While other fighters keep telling us they’re the best but refuse to actually fight anyone who might challenge them, Vic has proved he is amongst the best in the world, not just his own backyard. The Margarito V Cotto fight was a corker too – the belter at welter lived up to the hype, one of the fights of the year for me. And David Hayes V Enzo Maccarinelli purely because of the feeling behind the fight as well as the way the Hayemaker played them for fools, talking about weight problems and all and then came in looking chiseled and knocked Maccarinelli on his ass (And Enzo still can’t admit he was beaten by the better man! Damn straight you got suckered by a smarter man and a better boxer, just admit it)
The best fights were local bouts though – like Alex Leapai and Pieter Cronje’s Heavyweight bout in Qld. Ten rounds of heavyweights actually fighting, not holding or dancing but throwing punches. A great bout. Another great heavyweight contest was the OPBF title bout between Nathan Briggs and Colin Wilson. With brother Paul in his corner, Nathan has stepped up plenty and after losing twice to Wilson in the past, the difference was plain to see.
Ahmed Elomar’s one punch knockout of Cool Willie Kickett was a boomer too. Forget the ruckus after, that punch was a beauty. So really the local fights provided plenty, while the big ppvs just didn’t get my dollar this year. Put up fights for titles, legit titles, legit challengers and you can have my money until then – forget it.

Is that it? I guess so. Shit, if you want to know what was good just look back at my Top Ten lists… its all there… (well the bits I can remember anyway)

Personally the year finished on a low with more family deaths and I’m starting to take it personally now. If we can spend a fucking fortune just to create Viagra and bloody creams and pills to make you look younger why can’t we find something to cure cancer?! Or at least slow it down… the modern world with all its artificial colours, flavours, sweeteners, chemical enhancers, ‘roids, pollution and who knows what else is killing us all… and every night on the news they announce another ‘breakthrough’ but it’s always still in development and we never ever seem to see its release. Don’t worry about wars or Armageddon, we’re already poisoned. End of sermon.

Top Ten Time

It’s been a while… did I get busy or lazy? I’ll leave that to you

WWE Smackdown came to town and thanks to the goodwife’s work connections we had a corporate box to watch it from. Free beer, free food, great view, beezlebubby and I had made up some signs, CM Punk was there (beezlebubby’s unrequited love – a tattooed love boy, doh!), Kane, Edge, Batista and we finally saw The Undertaker in the flesh… hell, it doesn’t get much better. In fact we worked out after that the only boofheaded steroid abuser we haven’t seen yet that we want to see is probably Triple H. We’ve seen the others including the late great Eddie Guerrero on previous trips so only the son in law remains. He somehow always avoids Adelaide though. Must be the water.

Fenech Vs Nelson III – yeah I was one of those old farts on a nostalgia trip who went to see the fight. Begged and borrowed money to get to Melbourne to see the blue but it was worth it just to be there. Sure I constantly bag on bands getting back together and refuse to go see them – call me a hypocrite I don’t care. Difference is when a boxer makes a comeback you can be sure you’re going to see him in the ring – he can’t really put the makeup on someone else can he? Imagine the scene – Fenech V Nelson only Nelson didn’t want to do it so we found a young kid who can copy his moves to take his place! Not gonna happen. Of course, it was a one off and they were doing it for charity and pride so what the fuck… I cut them some slack.

Record Fair June Long Weekend where I bagged three, count em, three BILLY ECKSTINE records! (actually four but I already had one, being unsure had to grab it just in case) including some great early 40s material when Billy had his famous band of beboppers and pre stardom horn blowers. Quite a find. And then to make the day even better, three more volumes of The History Of Country Music – a cheapy cd series with all the early hillbilly/folk country music you could damn near want… or at least a fine taster.

Solaris Earth Pipeline – 45 on 33 cdr/download. Yeah the laid back redneck rappin’ fuckers are back with their next step in world domination. This one is a more laid back attack with the obvious maturity that comes with the years showing thru. Psyop’s splicing and dicing has never been better, a lot of the time I forgot it even was sampling and Raven of a thousand feathers has come a long way. Seemingly more accepting in his role and his fate but then, hell he’s just a likely to open the next album with some vitriol so I better not make him think he’s getting’ old. I am so maybe that’s why I dig this so much. And its winter here, when the summer hits I’ll be bumbling around in the back yard pretending to be gardening with this cranked up so loud the neighbours certainly wont feel it’s a laid back effort!

Getting some words published here and there, mostly courtesy of this devil called myspace. But hell I’m rapt to be included with my peers, these are people who’s words inspire me so to be alongside the likes of Jack Henry and Misti Rainwater Lites – Damn but that makes my day. Here’s the links (if the damn thing works, if not do the old cut and paste)

http://www.heroinlovesongsjournal.blogspot.com/

http://evisceratorheaven.blogspot.com/

http://www.lulu.com/content/2706939 JukeBox

http://www.lulu.com/content/2715662 Instant Pussy Dos

And speaking of downloads – I’ve been finding so much great old music and shit on the net that I barely leave the room to piss. Fear, Bad Brains, Emmett Miller, Daddy Cool, Nig-Heist, Vertical Slit, Billy Joe Shavers, old blues and 78s and I spend more time just looking at the sites going “which one to download first?” but to find Daddy Cool – sex, dope, rock’n’roll – teenage heaven that was the baby I wanted. Daddy Cool were one of Australia’s first huge acts of the 70s – Eagle Rock was massive and they were the pop band of the day but they were actually a bit smarter than what they were given credit for. Sex Dope was recorded after a tour of the US and though it had the obligatory single Hi Honey Ho (edited down to fit the format) it also had the great drive in suite – where we follow the young lovers to the drive in and they fumble through teenage lust and there’s even a great pisstake on the fifties ballad with “Donna” where he bombs out by touching her knee! Finishing the album with a sub zappa riff jam called Make Your Stash – about hiding yr drugs from the sniffer dogs and you can see this isn’t quite what the kids were expecting. My first copy of this was in a cheapy two record set called The Daddy Cool Story – one of the first albums I ever owned. One of the labels wasn’t glued down right and when I peeled it off, lo and behold, underneath was the original Sex Dope label! The cheap buggers had just taken this album, slapped some new labels on top, put it with a best of type lp and voila – The Daddy Cool story. Ah the good old days of Aussie rock.

FX Toole – Pound For Pound. Toole for those who don’t know wrote the short story that begat Million Dollar Baby. Unfortunately death had already claimed him before the movie hit and I had assumed that book of short stories, Rope Burn, was all he’d penned. Thankfully it wasn’t. Pound For Pound was the book he was working on when he died. Toole was a former trainer, cutman, insider - he knew the boxing game and it shows. Its been a long time since I sat down and read a work of fiction just for the sake of enjoyment (Easter maybe with JT Elroy’s book) but I sat down and consumed over 300 pages of bravery, tragedy and boxing in just a couple of days. It was a book that I’d pick up, read, put down in frustration, pick up again, put down and pick up again. He had a bad habit of giving too much info at times, especially about boxing but you soon realized it was all part of the story, all part of what he was trying to share. It sucked you in and pretty soon I forgot these fuckers weren’t real, that this was a work of fiction. It’s just a damn pity that there aint going to be anymore from him. He knew how to create a character, how to suck you in to the story, his background obviously gave him insights we ain’t gonna get and how he can’t pass them on to us anymore. But I can tell you, I’ll be using his work to help me with mine. I’ll never write a book this big, my style demands brevity, but much like Hemingway and Hank, Toole is a writer I’ll use for inspiration.

Glenn W Cooper – Rimbaud in the city & Outrun Your Fate. Damn this son of a bitch can write! I’ve got three of his chapbooks and he’s covered Muhammad Ali, Rimbaud and Neddy Smith! What a cast of characters! What a talent! What a son of a bitch! Strange that he’s a fellow Aussie but he’s more well known over seas… then again maybe not, poetry isn’t really given its dues in the land down under. Maybe he’ll have to write one about Cazaly or Jezza… damn it I shoulda kept that idea to myself. He’s on myspace, he’s in my friends list – check him out. He’s a good bloke. (even if he steals my ideas before I’ve even thought of them)

DVD Holocaust. I’ve been doing a few reviews for these buggers lately including the Aussie Classic Stone which has been re-released as a two dvd set and damn but that movie never grows stale. I still love it. Also watched London To Brighton a gritty English flick about pimps and street walkers and let me tell you it’s a fucking corker. See it. Check out the website, log on, get into the forums, spread the word… www.dvdholocaust.com

Z Gun – a yankee newsprint old school zine in a new world that had a great word up with Mike Doskocil about Drunks With Guns, has heaps of reviews for bands I’ll probably never hear cos I’m flat broke but has plenty of spirit, guts and leaves black ink on yr fingers. What more could you need in this new world of blogs and glossy personal zines and shite. I got mine from Big Star here in Adelaide which surprised the fuck out of me but then the world is getting’ smaller. www.zgun.org

top ten things that make it worthwhile

Amateur boxing – went to a fight night recently with the kid to see some boys from back in the country in their first fights. Four boys made the journey up and three of them won, one of the boys even got fighter of the night. Watch out for the name Adam McLaren, if he keeps it up he’s gonna be something good. I’m more of a pro fan usually but this was good. So good in fact that I’ve volunteered my services as newsletter editor for SA Boxing. May as well do something with my time.

Psy/opsogist – Suffused With Static. Downloaded this from Psy/op’s site and its pretty damn neat. Slow, sliding seamless grooves, relaxed and chilled and perfect with an ice cold beer in a big frosty glass. He does the beats and moves for Solaris Earth Pipeline and he knows a lot about the muzak which makes for a great stew of sound and styles that come together so well and so relaxed. It ain’t frantic teenboy, lets impress the girls with my computerized glitch and homeboy rap, hell no, it’s a different beast altogether. Jazz licks and piano rolls, drum beats that just roll off yr speaker, this is just so cool even an old fart like me can dig it. www.myspace.com/psyopsogist

Etchings #4 – an Australian journal of words and pics. I went to the launch of #4 to look at the girls and drink but I also bought the mag (just for a change) Ryan O’Neill’s story Grieve made it all worthwhile. There were a couple of other good stories but that one struck a chord. Worth the money just for that. If you see it in yr bookshop (if there are any decent bookshops left) buy it.

Seven Inches To Freedom zine – no, not my autobiography but a really cool little zine out o’ Florida with a hardcore/punk vibe from a guy who considers himself old at 25!! Joe loves his music, that’s pretty damn obvious and he’s really laid down the words here with reviews, interviews and views on all that is punk or hardcore or whatever it is these days. I’ll admit I don’t know half/three quarter of the bands mentioned but that’s cos I am an old fart but there’s some great writing here in – especially the guide to dollar bin record buying and Diego’s piece on Mexico plus columns on music and lifestyle and the regular “my first record” stories that really made me feel old! A coupla bucks or trade to Joe Lachult 2163 Hoople St. Ft. Myers FL 33901 US of A will get you in the know. www.wtfhttrecords.com

Metal Scratches #9 has my story Cactus Killer in it and I have to admit, I love seeing a story in print, it just makes it all seem worthwhile and Metal Scratches always impresses me with the fiction they publish. Great stories and an obvious labour of love. www.metalscratches.com will get you all the details. Support them cos they obviously have good taste!

My mate Dann sent me a little parcel recently. Beezlebubby and I picked it up from the post office after school, wandered into the pub for a beer and a packet of chips as is our Friday arvo ritual and I opened the parcel to find a boxing glove inside. A name was scrawled on it but I wasn’t sure who’s. Then I read the note Dann had put in the parcel. The goddamn glove was signed by BERNARD HOPKINS! I screamed like a fangirl at her first FalloutBoy concert, Bernard fucking Hopkins, Bernard fucking Hopkins!! You couldn’t take the smile of my face. Beezle thought it was the funniest thing she’d seen for ages, her dad acting like such a fanboy. The whole night I walked around the house grinning from ear to ear and picking up the glove, showing it to beezlebubby and the Good Wife and saying “Bernard Hopkins signed this you know, Bernard fucking Hopkins.” If I was a woman I’d offer to have Dann’s babies.

Watching them Sturt Desert Peas as they stretch out across the neighbour’s driveway and continue to offer a blood red homage to life. Thinking about planting some myself out behind the shed maybe where its all weeds and rubbish right now anyway. Although that’s supposed to be for beezlebubby’s vegie patch but maybe along the side or something, just so I can step out there and look at them grow whenever things start to get to me.

Walking to the local shops the other day, sun shining, not a care in the world except maybe that I wasn’t doing any of the work I was supposed to, just walking to the shops to get a drink and some bread or something and I passed this house that always looks like he’s probably got a crop in the backyard… you know, high fence, growling dog, screen door with extra wire cos the damn dog keeps hitting it head first and busting the flyscreen, extra room being built on the back with gyprock that still ain’t painted despite the cracks already appearing (and all this on a suburban street) and then I hear it – T.Rex Electric Warrior album, crystal clear and clean and crisp and I can see thru the crack ‘tween the fence and gyprock addition that there’s a guy sitting back, beer in hand listening to this classic album and I damn near went to knock on his door but I’ve seen that damn dog hit the screen before so instead I just hang in the shadows listening to some Bolan boogie before I continue on my way to the shop but with a lighter step now and I grab some juice and food and slowly wander home, stopping again to hear more Bolan magic and soaking up the sun and just enjoying the moment before I go home slowly humming Jeepster to myself and smiling on the outside as well as the inside.

Zine Launch Party at La Boheme this past Thursday with the lads and ladesses from Analogue Apocalypse, Feminista & Corrupt Me zines plus my own splurge Sprak! … we sold a few zines, had a coupla beers, Mark Of The Beast played some spiffin’ punk rock (old and new) and I played some redneck lounge and it was a damn good time. Hell, what could be better than playing the music you would play at home anyway while sinking beers only with a better sound system?

Wrasslin time with Beezlebubby last weekend. EPW’s Deception was a night of good guys, bad guys and a late heel turn to get the fans screeching for more. We sat front row centre and got chatting to J-Rock’s family… and I found out he never lets them know what’s going to happen, which was pretty evident by the tear in his mum’s eye when he lost his bout against the new pretty boy Jimmy Scarlet. We always have a good nite at the wrasslin’ though Beezlebubby’s enthusiasm was waning early this time on account of too many school holiday late nights. Still, she made it to the end and picked the heel turn well before it happened! I didn’t. But then I’m not that bright.