Lisa + Mitchell + Z.O.N.D = ROTFL, etc

The three of you may be surprised to know I don't just sit around beating off and thinking about music all day. When not maintaining those two necessities I like to daydream, read books, bake casseroles and knock down cultural barriers. 

So anyway there's been a bit of a slanging match going on at Mess & Noise re: thee Australian Music Prize of 2010. Type the words Lisa and Mitchell into your favourite Internet search engine and you'll find half the country's 'music critics' debating how this little petal won such an accolade. The big names are all in there, even Greil Marcus! Having attempted to decipher Greil's hieroglyphically challenged dribble it's safe to say literacy isn't a prerequisite to the debate. 

Music awards are dumb/pointless/silly/dull/ no matter who wins. I'm surprised these 'critics' are so eager to take off their professional boxing gloves and fight bare-fisted in the public arena. It's an amusing circle jerk. 

One band that'll never win the AMP is Zond. Not just because they were rubbish at Bar Open last Thursday but also because the AMP likes melody and Zond don't do melody. Zond spew out noise and sculpt it into a dick to fuck the AMP in the arse. What was painfully evident last week is they aren't always able to control that noise.  Coffin Run, the 10 minute closer to their split 12" with Hi God People is an excellent tune to write self righteous bloggage to and makes me hope they haven't lost whatever it was they had to make a song like this again. 

Homo Sex U Wall

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.