1: Why do tradesmen always have to start making shitloads of noise with their noise-accented concrete cutting, jack-hammering machines at seven a.m.? Why can’t they work the same hours as the rest of us? How would they feel if we sat outside their windows when they’re trying to sleep, yelling and sweary, with their horrid FM radios turned up so we’re forced to listen to Diggzy and Floppo or what-the-fuck-ever at Shite FM?

2: How come the women that empty the pad bins at work all look like they’ve been to prison?

3: Why do I still have to warn my travelling friend about drink spiking when she’s going out? How is this even still a problem?

4: How did a MASSIVE international security operation go on a few weeks back without anyone blinking? When a chillingly frightening situation is on the table, no-one blinks when something is done about it? (and I am NOT talking about the Chaser, or APEC..)

5: Do you realise that every one you know, someday will die?

Questions, questions…
Extra points if you get all the anwers right.

xx aa

I have discovered something remarkable today.

“Nap” has the same amount of syllables as “Run”.

And, I can sleep for forty-five minutes in the same amount of time I can run 8k in the soft sand.

Amazing!!

xx aa

Hello.

Think about where you’ve been in the last three months, what web sites you’ve visited, what files you’ve downloaded, who you spoke with and texted on the phone and where you were when you made those calls.

Anything in there you may not want other people to know about?

Anything there you’d like to be kept secret?

Hold on to your hats people, it won’t be secret for long.

I’m all for the protection of the public, we live in a free society and that freedom comes with some cost.
Warrantless tracking of phone calls, location and internet activity?
That’s a price that I don’t think I’m willing to pay.
At least get a judge or something involved, at least have some kind of regulation going on.

My parents brought us to this country after fleeing similar oppression in Europe.
Many people have come to be in Australia to be away from this kind of thing.

I don’t want it to happen here.

xx aa

A quick note about how I can tell Summer is on the way here in Bondi Beach.

- Every third person is either Irish or from the North of England, and they are complaining about nothing in particular.
- Late at night, the fire-twirlers have started to come out on to the sand.
- The first Boobs of summer were out yesterday on the beach in the sun.
- The queue for Boost juice stretches all the way around the corner to the cafe that’s been there for ten years and makes far surperior juices than the fifteen year-old franchise kids anyway.

All that needs to happen now is the horrific, hippy filled drum circles of North Bondi, and people who didn’t plan ahead going swimming in their underpants, and we’re well on the way.

Bring on 42 degree summer flat surf li-lo days.

xx aa

I just got home from the Silverfinger/Powderchair show and my oh my what a proud Australian I am.
Fifteen thousand people crammed into the stadium, on their feet singing and dancing the entire time.
What a great, great day for Australian music, that two bands can put on a monster show like that with world-class production, three hours of hit after hit song.
Superb.
As stated previously, Daniel Johns is your new Rock GOD. Fashion a gold statue out of him and worship him like the Idol he is.
My gosh he’s amazing on stage.
So young, so talented, such a great songwriter, so cheeky.. He’s just incredible.
Powderfinger, after about a four-song warm up, hit a fabulous stride and rocked the night all the way until the incredible grand finale of both bands on stage, belting out The Who’s “Substitute”. What a great moment.
I felt so intensely proud that these two Australian bands brought together such a massive amount of people, and that they rocked the night away and everyone had a stupendous night.

All this gigantic enormo-dome rockmanship though, reminded me of all the times I’ve seen rock bands in huge rooms like that, and how I’ve observed these bands adapt their ultimately “club” show to an enormous arena. Only a few of these were pulled out last night, and that’s fine – the people came to see a show, so give them a show! Though it did get me thinking and led me to make a list in my head (sorry Yumi, but lists are still good)…

Here goes.

GENERAL THINGS THAT I’M NO LONGER IMPRESSED BY AT STADIUM ROCK GIGS.
(all of these things I thought were the coolest thing on earth when I was thirteen..)

1: Being told that I’m part of the loudest audience ever.
2: Being told that I rock waaay harder than Sydney/Melbourne/Dubbo
3: Drum solos
4: The game where one side of the crowd has to make more noise than the other.
5: The “Daaaaaay O” Freddie Mercury-style call and response bit..
6: Bass Solos
7: Having the name of my city mispronounced (It’s not Briz Bane you imbicile)
8: Audiences having no Idea how to clap along without getting faster
8a: Audiences clapping on the ONE and the THREE. (It’s two and four, follow the snare drum)
8b: Crowd surfing.
9: Ragging shit on hard working security for intercepting a stage invader to make you look tough and a man of the people, even when you are wiping your brow that they stopped the nut-job from jumping on you and fan-boy rubbing themselves all over you, and breaking your priceless custom guitar.
10: Walking off with a “Goodnight, see you next time” like you’re pretending not to come back on, and then re-setting the stage and changing wardrobe for the grand finale of the biggest two songs you’ve got.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate that when you’re rocking 15,000 people who’ve each paid $100+ for their big night out, you need to put on a fuck-off show.
I’m just saying that it might be time for bands to invest in some new stadium rock moves.

THINGS I’M STILL IMPRESSED WITH AT STADIUM ROCK SHOWS.

1: Small stages out in the crowd utilised for acoustic jams
2: Pyro
3: Fuck-Off lightshows
4: Any part of a stage that moves.
4a: Double-necked guitars
4b: Any band member on a wire that flies over the crowd.
5: Playing nothing but the hits.
6: Breaking stuff (but not the double neck, they’re too rare)
7: More Pyro
8: Getting punters out of the crowd for participation purposes
9: Wearing underwear thrown on stage (Johnsy did a whole song with a thrown bra on backwards)
10: All-STar end of show jams.

Anything I’m missing?

xx aa

Bow down emo lameness, and bathe in the gruseome power metal galloping glory that is IRON MAIDEN.
Oh yes, my friends.
Maiden are back and they are touring Australia.
RUN, don’t walk to Ticketmaster and secure yourself entry to the greatest old-men-of-metal show ever.
It’ll be bald mullets at fifty paces and Eddie will be there and oh shit oh wow they are going to be soooo good.
All your favourite bands LOVE Iron Maiden. Go and see why the “Machine Gun” is in the Air Guitar arsenal.

And better than ever, lead singer – Bruce “Air raid siren”Dickenson who is not only a national fencing champion, but also a fully qualified commercial airline pilot. Take THAT “I make stencil art on my bedroom wall” emo lame person.
BRUCE will personally fly a fully inked up 757, with IRON MAIDEN written on the side, chock full of band and gear, all the way around the world on the tour.
“Ohh, I’m so sad in my bedroom.. why do my parents not understand me..” Buck up son, grow up, learn to sing and fly an airborne chariot of metal around the world slaying over one and a half million audiences with super rad gallopy guitar riffs played by fifty-five year old men in Spandex pants.
Yeeeeeeeeaarararggghh!!

Here’s something to help you decide to go..

YEssssssssssssssss!!

One of my neighbours on my floor only knows how to cook one thing, and cook it badly.
Six out of seven nights a week I come home to my flat stinking of the burnt bone marrow of lamb chops.
Gross, greasy and stinking of fat, my whole apartment fills with this voluminous cloud of smoky cooking fumes thanks to some ingenious 80’s designed, shared ventilation system.

Not only that, but about an hour after the Lamb Chop smell, comes the sticky green post-dinner choof to fill my front room with the smoky stoner food haze.

Not so bad in summer, I can just open my window – though when it’s 8º outside and a howling southerly coming in from the ocean it’s a little tricky to let the fresh air in without my house resembling the de-pressurization scene from “Total Recall”.

If only my neighbour (I’ve narrowed it down to three flats) could learn to cook something different I wouldn’t mind so much.

Does breathing cooked animal air make me not vegan?
It does turn my stomach a bit, actually.

Speaking of which, a question without notice from the buck’s weekend that I was just away with –
“Andrew, if you’ve been on the piss for two days straight and have a little follow-through burp that you then swallow again so no-one notices, have you therefore consumed an animal by-product?”. So many grey areas…

Do you have stinky neighbours?

xx aa

I’ve been listening to lots of bottle-neck blues artists lately.
Where you get the neck of a bottle and use it to slide the notes up and down the instrument.
Wonderfully crackly recodings from the 1920’s and 30’s.
Songs called “District Attorney Blues”, “Devil’s Got My Woman” and “Stones in my Passway” – performed just voice and guitar, by long-dead blues men with the greatest performance names ever involved with music.

Furry Lewis.
Jack O’Diamonds.
Blind Willie Johnson.

I think next to having “Danger” as a middle name, “Blind” or “Furious” would be the best first name ever.

Enough of this.

Sorry, it’s late and I had to go lef’ my woman gon’ lef’ my woman gon dun headed back on home.

xx aa