Recently in Music Category

I keep getting told off for not blogging.

I am being (happily) dragged off to the Entertainment Centre tonight to see Country Rock guitar guru Keith Urban. Having seen him twice before, I am kinda looking forward to seeing his fretboard wizardry again, although I have to say I think I am more excited about seeing support band The Waifs for the first time...

For most of the 1980's, more specifically around 1983-1989, I used to religiously listen to the Top 40 charts on a Sunday evening between 5-7pm on BBC Radio 1. As so many kids seemed to have done during those years of discovering music, I'd have the record and pause buttons pressed down on my tape deck, ready to release the pause if a song came on that I loved. When I got a double tape deck around 1986 time I'd spend hours then re-editing the songs back on to tape cutting out all of the chit-chat. (There were no adverts on the BBC!).

The end product of these taping sessions was a collection of cassettes where I had gone to the lengths of making my own cardboard covers out of the reverse side of cereal boxes because you generally couldn't fit enough songs on the inlay card that came with them.

Now, I don't profess to actually still liking some of these songs and I'm shocked that I even bothered taping some of them, but hey I was coming to grips with music and finding the way to my rightful place somewhere between blues and metal. Not that you will be able to tell from this tracklisting.

One of the first collections I made myself was around 1985.

Side 1 of the cassette was as follows:

Body Rock - Maria Vidal - I used to love this song. This has the typical cheesy 80's pop video complete with bad bluescreen overlays and breakdancing. God I am glad I wasn't 10 years older at the time otherwise I might have looked like these guys in the video.

Power of Love - Huey Lewis & The News - I think I used to say that Huey Lewis & The News were one of my favourite bands at the time, but in truth I used to like this song and one other they released around the same time. My brother had a couple of their albums on vinyl, but I can't say any of their other songs have done anything for me since those first two that I heard. We won't mention that awful ballad he did with Gwyneth Paltrow.

Lavender - Marillion - I only taped this because I loved the song Kayleigh which was played quite a lot at the time. I recently downloaded the two tracks via Limewire and they brought quite a few memories back. Lavender was pretty awful though. Dilly-dilly what?!

Holding Out for a Hero - Bonnie Tyler - This was probably my first foray towards Meat Loaf. The song was written by the genuis Jim Steinman who wrote Bat out of Hell and the more recent sequels. Bonnie had a cute Welsh accent, but didn't have much else going for her.

Angel - Madonna - Who didn't like Madonna? She was a hottie and any young, impressionable young lad would have fallen for her. Her music of course.

Lean On Me - Red Box - I couldn't remember this song or how it went so I looked it up on You Tube and found it (strange that). It's funny how many of the male singers in the 80's look gay when you take a peek back in time.

If I Was - Midge Ure - Errrr. Ok. Moving quickly onto Side 2.

The Heat is On - Glenn Frey - I guess I didn't know who The Eagles were in those days but I loved this song. At the time. I can't stand it now. Go back to your $500 per seat comeback gigs Glenn.

Live is Life - Opus Based on what I remember of this band they came from Austria. This song has fantastic memories despite it's ultimate level of crapness and poor German vocals in English. We went on a school trip to France for a few days (Wissant, near Calais to be precise) and this was a huge hit at the time across the whole of Europe. It played constantly in the jukebox at the hotel. Against better judgement I've included the video clip to this one as well in an attempt to break the world record for the longest blog entry and also for the fact that it had the gorgeously cute Scottish lass Clare Grogan introducing the clip.

Crazy For You - Madonna - Madge when she was good.

I'm On Fire/Born in the USA - Bruce Springsteen - I've never been quite sure whether I like Springsteen or not, but I'm On Fire was and still is one of my favourite tracks of his.

In Your Car - The Coolnotes - I have no freakin' idea. I couldn't You Tube this particular song, but that's probably a good thing.

Crazy For You - Madonna - Yes, I did tape it twice. I have no idea why.

Living On Video - Trans X - Sorry I have to include this one as well as a video clip. I loved this at the time. Check out the robotic dancing - all the cool kids used to do that at the school discos. Well it felt cool at the time. The guy sounds like a girl but this must have been once of the last songs of it's genre to have any success.

Money For Nothing - Dire Straits - My Dad was a Knopfler fan and this used to be played through the house all of the time. Maybe one of my first ventures towards guitar-based music perhaps? I can't stand to hear the song these days.

... and lastly ... (and I think perhaps I should not put this in) ....

Cherish - Kool & The Gang - I was obviously a very confused kid.

So that was it. I may pull out some other tapes soon. Even if nobody else reads this and gets anything from it, I enjoyed doing it. That was some serious retro!

Last night I went to see Evanescence at the Entertainment Centre and I was suitably impressed. Amy's vocals are amazing - she is one of the few performers who can sound as they good as when they are on a produced CD. She was very active, covering the whole area of the stage constantly thoughout the gig, only stopping to sit at the full grand piano that the roadies lugged out from stage right a couple of times.

It was very clear that Evanescene is Amy Lee. The other band members were peripheral to the main show. Probably the only thing I'd pick her up on was that she has limited ability in talking to the audience. Most of the brief chit-chat revolved around bad Spinal Tap style clichés (hand in the air and "Thankyou Adelaide" and "you guys rock"). To be honest though, she didn't need to talk as the band blew everyone away with the clinical musicianship. It was loud, it was powerful, it was just plain firkin' awesome.

Support came from NZ rockers Shihad. I heard one of their tracks a few years ago and didn't mind it that much, but last night they were just a complete mish-mash of poor tunes, weird noises, grunts, fists in the air and not much else. I didn't spot a single tune in anything they did. Nothing caught my attention at all. Quit now boys.

Strangest thing of the night in my opinion was the amount of people who spent most of the night trying to get video clips on their mobile phones. What's the point? They weren't watching the gig and all they get for their troubles is a poor quality clip that sounds awful. Have you seen some of the mobile phone clips on YouTube?

Another strange thing was the guy and girl in front of us that were apparently very much in love. He was an ugly, old bogan with mullet and flannelette shirt and she was a very pretty goth queen of not much more than 18 years of age. He was almost old enough to be her Grandad. It defies belief. And hope.

... I'd marry Julia Stone (**). Last night we went down to the Jive lounge club on Hindley Street (now, there's an eye opener) and saw brother and sister duo Angus & Julia Stone play an exceptional gig. These guys are so talented. Both have amazing voices and there were several times when I became aware that the 200 or so people that crammed into the club were all staring silently and intently at the stage in awe of their abilities. You could have heard a pin drop in the brief moments in the song where they paused between notes. Julia's voice is simply mesmerising. Sensational stuff.

** - I can say this because I know Jo wants to get jiggy with Angus Stone.

This is what happens when you let some DJ's loose on the original version. Terrorvision were a UK rock band in the early 90's but their biggest hit was this pop-heavy track called Tequila. It's a good "getting pissed" song... (crap video though).

While browsing through the last.fm web site yesterday I saw a quote that said "You Are What You Listen To" to which someone replied that what you listen to does not necessarily reflect who you are as a person. Quite a few people are surprised to hear I am a metalhead at heart when music comes up in conversation and it's surprising how many closet metalheads there are in the world.

Anyway... I was on my way home today, sitting at a roundabout waiting for traffic to go past and suddenly had a weird space-time-music-continuum-reality slip. There I was sitting at the wheel of a people carrier style vehicle which someone on the pavement would have immediately thought "family vehicle" without a bat of an eyelid. I was wearing a checked olive coloured work shirt and looked like any suburban Dad on a mission to the supermarket. However, at a very loud volume I was listening to the Megadeth version of the The Sex Pistols track Anarchy in the UK. And fuckin' enjoying it. Sweet.

Over the Xmas break I discovered the Last FM web site which basically keeps track of the tunes you play on your PC and finds people with similar music tastes to yourself. This way you can find other artists that you might like. There's a wealth of information on the artists, charts recording what people are listening to and forums amongst others. I can also see who else is going to see Evanescence and the Chili Peppers later this year. Well, some of them at least.

So, click the last.fm icon below, download the necessary software and show us yer tunes. Oh and don't forget to add me to your friends list ('cos I don't have many).

Two things for me to look forward to this year:

Firstly Evanescence are coming to town on Feb 13th and then the Chilli Peppers are here on April 7th. If their last visit was anything to go by it should be an amazing gig. My one wish for 2007 (musically at least) would be for the continuation of major international acts coming to little old Adelaide. Not too much to ask, surely?

Loved this song when it came out in the early 90's. This is Love Your Money by Daisy Chainsaw.

So as I mentioned earlier I am not a big fan of Robbie Williams but I went along to see his Adelaide show at AAMI Stadium on Tuesday night. I think my preference this week would have been the G3 gig at Thebby the following night, but Robbie tickets were bought first and I couldn't do both without feeling a little guilty.

Part of me thinks that what I am about to write is tainted by the fact that I think the guy is a complete dickhead. Talented and misguided but still a complete arsehole. At the same time, I wonder whether my opinion is more even than the 59,999 other people who went. I'd say about 75% of the attendance was female. I'm sure some of them were there just for the music but the vast majority of them squealed like a pig every time Robbie so much as let a hair on his arm blow in the wind. It was nauseating to say the least.

If I'd had free tickets and was on my own I reckon I would have walked out after about 20 minutes but I stuck with it and sure enough there were a few small highlights, but overall the gig was a bit of a dud. There was no "oompf" to the performance. I didn't get anything out of the gig that I couldn't have got from just listening to one of his CDs.

The best part of the night, apart from the cool breeze picking up and the 34 degree temperature dropping considerably because of a result of it, was the encore because it was then (and only then) that he really ramped it up with some rockier numbers worthy of an encore.

All of the girls who had simultaneously wet themselves every time Robbie said or did something probably don't remember too much about the gig itself other than Robbie prancing around the stage flashing bits of his body. Watching him act like a complete knob makes me feel happy that I have my "in need of maintenance" body rather than his.

I've read some comments that the gig was very loud. On a scale of 1-10, it was probably a 4 and we all know rock gigs should go up to 11 as demonstrated below.

Would I go again? Nope. Waste of money. I think I am in the minority though.