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Anarchy Wall / Easey St. 3066

Absolute Boyz

Beaches: Austin,TX

Radio Ga Ga

I may be listening to some uber-underground, super out-of-print radness on the headphones as I write, but I gotta say, Lady Gaga stole my heart this weekend. If I ever had any credibility with the three people who read this blog, it's shot. That's fine with me. I'm not cool. I like good art and if that happens to be made by the most famous pop star around, then more the better. 

"I don't want to sound presumptuous, but I've made it my goal to revolutionise pop music"

Gaga is total punk. Check out those fucking glasses. Check out her clip for the song Telephone. For me, she's a conceptual artist and not a pop singer at all. The image is so far ahead of the music it practically negates its point. She understands the entertainment machine and has made it work for her. She leads, it follows. Lady Gaga, I'm yr fan. 

Alex Chilton RIP

I get on here to write some crap and see Alex Chilton has died. Heart Attack. Listening to Big Star now and gonna blast the first Cramps album as soon as possible.

Divorce: The Juice Of Youth

Last week I wrote about a band from Glasgow called Divorce but it didn't make any sense cos I was on the crack pipe so I've cut out all the crap and now you're left with nothing but the dull, raw, aching facts. If you like No Wave, Big Black/Scratch Acid etc, check these girls (and a guy) out. They have my blessing. 

Divorce drummer Andy Browntown kindly provided answers to the three most important questions of modern times. He also recommended I include the Divorce MySpaz (which does their music no justice) and this live footage of Zombi.

Did you get your name from that Tammy Wynette song D.I.V.O.R.C.E?
Nope, our name didn't come from anything musical, it came from the legal process of terminating a marriage.

How did you get to be so good?
We paid a lot of money to a lot of people.

Do you guys ride bikes?
Some of us do, aye. VSO's [bass] '80s Tour de France white dog shite is a fixture on Glasgow's roads, running red lights & ploughing into crowds of scenesters.

Andy / Divorce =x=

Missing Link Love

Wounded Lion. Carol Cloud / Pony People

I don’t know anything about this band except they come from LA and this is their first single. I haven’t made my mind up on the cover yet. It looks like it could be Arcade Fire dressed up as the cast of Wizard of Oz, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. This 45 sounds very cool coming through headphones. Much better than Waylon Jennings coming through headphones, believe me.

WL mix cool guitar tones with a solid backbeat and big old organ up front. I love the idea of not knowing anything about a band beyond their music; maintaining mystery is a difficult thing to do these days. I know this is gonna put you off, but Wounded Lion are kinda like a garage-punk version of Vampire Weekend. Can you even imagine how good a band like that would be? I already know you hate Vampire Weekend cos your friends said they were 'gay', 'soft', etc. School girls like Vampire Weekend and I like school girls and I like Wounded Lion and here's their self-made clip for Pony People.

Death Party

I'm tired and bummed out. You're not supposed to admit that on the internerd, are you? Have been reading about death way too much today. Can it possibly be true that an Australian takes their life every four hours? The cops shot a lot of people in New York this past weekend. And Mark Linkous shot himself in the heart. I wasn't a big Sparklehorse fan, but Good Morning, Spider is a great record. I adore the tune Chaos Of The Galaxy/Happy Man; the low-fi to high-fi switch at the 2'20" mark is genius and makes me smile every time I hear it.

Direct From...

For the past decade or so I’ve taken great pleasure in watching the Music Industry Whore flounder upon the jagged rocks of her own pigheaded greed. What an amusing journey it’s been. Still, the old wench continues to cling to archetypes from the Jurassic age. One such technique is the use of the words ‘direct from’ on posters. Not only is this a cliché-turnoff, it’s usually a geographic falsehood.

In the street press this week, the Mistletone label advertised four bands that it’ll be touring in the coming months. They are the Chills, the Bats, Wooden Shjips, and some outfit called Bright Black Morning Light. If I had the opportunity to bring said bands to the insatiable mass of heaving music lovers that is Melbourne, I’d be more than excited. What I wouldn’t do is put the words ‘direct’ and ‘from’ together at the top of the tour poster. Now, learned reader, this may seem pedantic and I admit it is a trifle trivial, but allow me to expand my argument, if you will.

The word ‘direct’ in the case of our example is used as an adjective, which according to the Random House Dictionary means ‘proceeding in a straight line, or by the shortest course’. Here’s my beef: If the Chills, on their (poorly designed) poster are billed as ‘direct from Dunedin’ why are Christchurch band the Bats only billed on their poster as ‘direct from NZ’? Wouldn’t it make more sense, in keeping with consistency, to put ‘direct from Christchurch’ on the poster? Is the word Christchurch too long or the city too uncool to risk the Bat's credibility?

As for the other posters, Bright Black Morning Light are said to be arriving ‘direct from New Mexico’. Is it possible to fly direct from New Mexico to Melbourne? I’m no travel agent but surely the band would connect to an international flight at say, LAX? Wooden Shijps’ poster makes no mention of any ‘directness’ which is puzzling since the quintet are likely to arrive direct from their hometown of San Francisco.

Call me a nitpicking shit-stirrer, but this ‘direct from’ nonsense has been creeping onto indie posters for a while now. Promoters, let the band speak for themselves, please. No flowery ‘direct from’ junk required.