#9: Melbourne, Talking Heads, and Fuck Buttons

Last week I said that sometimes I hated being an Australian. This week I want to suggest that there are some things that redeem Australia, and one of those things is Melbourne.

Now, Brisbaneites are particularly prone to getting upset at the suggestion that Melbourne is better than the fair city that they and I call home. I’m not going to make that call. I will say that Melbourne is cooler than Brisbane. That one is no contest. There are just so many awesome things that Melbourne does that Brisbane could never dream of doing. I’ll list them later. But first, what sucks about Melbourne:

#8: World Youth Day, Tenzin Choegyal, and Leila

Sometimes I just hate being an Australian.

The problem is that you can be fooled into thinking this country has got its shit together. We finally voted out a dangerously conservative loon who was happy to ignore UN reports about our country’s laundry list of human rights abuses (they’re only poofs and abos, John, why should we bother?). But instead of a seasoned political warrior with the balls to make a few prinicipled calls, even if they were unpopular, we got a preening media tart who does stupid shit like pass judgement on an exhibition he hasn’t seen, ignores four departments’ reports about how idiotic the Fuelwatch system will be, and thinks that mandatory ISP-level filtering is a good idea (oh, and if you disagree with him on free speech grounds, you’re a paedophile supporter). Even so, I lived in hope, until I read this: ‘Police investigate WYD queer kiss-in’.

#7: The Worst of the Internet, Gotye, and Charlotte Gainsbourg

So, in last week’s blog, I said I may have some nice rare .mp3s for you from my vinyl collection. Alas, it appears that these plans will have to wait: the Sherwood table turns out to be something of a lemon. The output levels are really rather low, even with an appropriate pre-amp, and this means that there’s not enough signal for my audio interface (a sexy MOTU 828 MKII) to pick up on. Boosting the gain in software ramps up the noise and distortion, and removing that leaves the sound quite hollow. A lesson learned: in music hardware, there’s no such thing as a too-good-to-be-true bargain. So once I get the Sherwood refunded, I’m aiming to pony up for one of these lovelies:

#6: Funky Nassau, Tom Tom Club, and Cristina

This week’s post is a short one, since there’s not much going on for me right now except thesis work, and the fact that I purchased a this awesome turntable today for a mere $200. I’m super excited about this development, since it means I can listen to all of the stuff I have on vinyl that I don’t have on CD: the 25-minute long version of ‘The Diamond Sea’ from Sonic Youth’s B-side and rarities collection The Destroyed Room; Fleetwood Mac’s album Tusk; and some super-limited D*I*R*T*Y Sound System vinyls that I managed to pick up recently. I’ll try to record some tracks from the turntable and convert them to .mp3s over the coming week. If they sound okay (there’s an odd humming issue that happens when my amp is on ‘phono’ that I’ll have to sort out) then I’ll post them up here.

#5: Public mourning, LCD Soundsystem, and Smog

As most of those to whom I speak frequently will know, this week’s ‘Facebook murder’ occurred on my street. Or, to be more precise, it occurred in a boarding house two doors down and across the road.

#4: Mr. Oizo, Mr. Oizo and Mr. Oizo

No Friday Night Thought last night because, despite the fact that it was a Friday (which is everyone’s favourite blogging day, I’m sure), I was asked to review We Love Sounds at the Empire. As a bonus, after several frustrating phone calls, text messages, and general back-and-forthing, I got to interview Quentin Dupieux, better known as French musical genius Mr. Oizo (pronounced ‘wah-zo’).

#3: Childhood, Ladytron, and the Rapture

I’m not exactly sure if I want to write this post, but I guess I have to engage with this issue, since a whole bunch of my friends have been chatting to me about it today. Anyways, some artist called Bill Henson has been interviewed over the content of his latest exhibition, and the exhibition scrapped, because (it’s argued) some of the images constitute child pornography. And I guess my friends wanted my opinion on the whole fiasco, since I part of my honours degree was looking at the historical construction of childhood and sexuality, and how these two constructs combine to create certain interesting social phenomena, much like the one we’re witnessing now. So I suppose I’m honour bound to cover it. More below.

#2: Racism in The Australian, Surkin, and Malcolm Middleton

This post hardly qualifies as a Friday Night Thought, since it’s delivered on a Monday. You’ll have to excuse me; my weekend was damned busy (a friend’s birthday and another friend dropping into Brisbane with zero warning from interstate on Friday night; then a crazy ‘H’-themed party on Saturday night), with incriminating evidence below:

#1: Alcopops, Death Cab for Cutie, and Syd Matters

This blog’s purpose is simple: I get to rant about stuff that’s annoying me, and unlucky people get to read about it. Consider it catharsis. As an added incentive, I’ll add some music I’ve been digging. I’ll do these posts weekly; you’ll have one week to check out the mp3s before they vanish into cyberspace. If you like the music, go off and buy it. First post, then.

So: alcopops. As I’m sure most of you know, the Australian government has doubled the excise on ready-to-drink (RTD) or pre-mixed spirit beverages, commonly known as ‘alcopops’. This has been something of a lightning move with little prior public discussion (perhaps a first for the Rudd government), and so I’ve spent the last week or so listening to people moan about the new price of booze. Fair enough, I originally thought. It seemed to me like a pretty transparent case of the government deeming certain types of alcohol consumption to be declassé (these alcopops are supposedly largely consumed by feckless youth, particularly young women) and taxing them to pocket a nice little windfall. Seems like we can make a fairly valid complaint against the government here. That is, until we examine the figures.