Blog: A Has Been That Never Was

Cansai Der Sexy at last year's festival. This year looks to end with a bang for me when I go to the Falls Festival with some old uni buddies. I've never been before and have wanted to go for years. The first lineup has just been announced! This year those lucky enough to purchase tickets will get to see: Kings of Leon Groove Armada Paul Kelly Black Rebel Motorcycle Club The Waifs [...]

The Mercury Award Nominees for 2007 have been announced! This is a pretty prestigious award and in the past winners have included Portishead (with their album Dummy ) and Antony and the Johnstons (with I am a Bird Now ). You can learn more about the awards here. The line up for this year is: Arctic Monkeys - Favourite Worst Nightmare Basquiat Strings - Basquiat Strings [...]

So this entry is a pretty obligatory one for Sunday but it's one of the best songs on Buffy and it closes Season 2 ("Becoming Part 2") sadly. The story so far is this: Buffy had slept with her vampire-with-a-soul boyfriend, Angel, who, in turn, lost his soul because of the naughty sex they had. After an apocalyptic face-off Angel meets the pointy end of Buffy's sword and is sucked into hell. Buffy, who's had a falling out with her mother after a "coming out" announcement about her Slayerness, catches a Greyhound to L.A to [...]

Image of South Beach taken from this site I've been having computer troubles lately so sorry bout the lack of postage (particularly the supposed weekly "Soundtrack Sunday" mixes which haven't been happening since the first week). Here's another mix to wind down the week. Liam Finn - Second Chance [buy] I've been waiting ages for Liam Finn's debut album to come out after hearing this song on JJJ. Of course Second Chance is the best song on the album but it's a strong [...]

Image of Bondi on ice taken from this site A friend of mine at the start of July said something along the lines of "this is the worst month of the year." At first I thought that was an obscure thing to say but the last month has been a pretty hard one for myself and my friends. There's been plenty of bad news and illness to go around and it's a relief to see the month of July ploughed off and the last month of winter coming in now. Thankfully there's plenty of quiet slow [...]

Bryan Fuller, who brought us the brilliant and short lived story of the "lives" of grim reapers, Dead Like Me , now brings a new perhaps more subtley and carefully worked series called Pushing Daisies. The story is basically this: From an early age a boy named Ned learns that he has an uncanny ability to bring the dead back to life with a touch. He also learns that if he touches that reliving thing again it will return to its dead form. Interesting and very specific story, which seems random, until they throw [...]

I finished watching season 3 of Battlestar Galactica last week. It was a pretty strong finish as it sets things up for the fourth and final season of the smartly written, fast-paced series. I'm not normally a big fan of scifi. I'd watched Firefly (and the film Serenity ) because Joss Whedon had his creative hand over it (and of course, since he'd created my favourtie series Buffy I couldn't turn away from it). That was probably the first time I really loved a full on scifi show. I'd liked [...]

Sorry for the lack of posting the last week. I've been writhing in cold sweats and breathing through a congested nose. If you haven't heard of Gotye you're missing out big time! This guy has crept his way into my subconscious mind over the years, through his eptness at exploring a multitude of moods and rhythms through his experimental music. "Out Here in the Cold" first caught my ears' attention, not just because of the way this Melbourne musician, Wally DeBacker, skips easily between a mood of wintery melancholic isolation and fearful tragedy - But also [...]

Hopefully a series I can continue each Sunday, wherein I share some of my favourite music from my favourite films, television etc. Magnolia is one of those somewhat pretentious films where separate lives culminate in one big supposedly profound conclusion. PT Anderson does a good job of it, though. I didn't find the end particularly profound, simply quirky. What I particularly liked about this film was the way the characters' emotions were displayed so realistically and affectingly. Due credit also goes to the cast for their phenomenal performances (though these are all known [...]

There seems to be plenty more guitarists than piano players in the world. Which makes sense because although I've played neither, I've heard the piano is a good deal more difficult to play. But all that work pays off I think. Nothing sounds better than a simple piano melody. Don't get me wrong, I like to hear good strumming and plucking of the guitar too but it really touches something deep to hear the keys of a piano delicately, or sometimes ferociously, tapped. Some well-known artists have showed just how beautiful the piano can sound. Ben Folds, Sarah [...]

Postponing a Pash For those who don't know, NSW has been copping some mighty powerful storms lately. The kind that only roll in every decade, at most. In Newcastle a coal freighter ship, the Pasha Bulker, was washed in by the rough seas and stranded on the shoreline. Apart from the threat of pollution and the fact that a whopping big ship has lost its purpose, it has a nice spectral ghostship-like presence for visitors. Since it's quite a drive to Newcastle I haven't had the opportunity to see it, though I [...]

Cordrazine were a very talented, very underrated Aussie band, who released their debut album, From Here to Wherever, in 1997, which hit the aria charts at number 9. Their song "Crazy" made it into the JJJ hottest 100 top ten in 1998. I actually didn't hear them until I heard another song off their album, called "Memorial Drive" on a Hangover Cure compilation, alongside other artists like Portishead, george and Paul Weller. I followed them up from here and never heard of them again. Cordrazine had this soulful mourning cry seamlessly weaved into strong piano melodies, [...]

About 6 years ago one of my favourite bands was george. This band of five: Nick, Paulie B, Geoff and sibling singers Katie and Tyrone Noonan developed a sound that was at first embedded in progrock and jazz and went on to a more nuanced unique style. Over some years they released three EPs. One self-titled which was only available when you attended gigs. The next two, You Can Take What's Mine, and Bastard Son/ Holiday, are probably what started a strong underground following and this was when I first heard them. I was listening to radio station [...]

It was innevitable that I would mention my favourite tv show of all time Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Joss Whedon's series carried a huge following, which still seems to be growing in number. It was the show I grew up with. As I went through high school I watched Buffy, Willow and Xander, along with Giles and others who came and left (and usually returned), struggle through common, and not-so-common, day-to-day life "issues." By the time I'd finished my English undergrad degree I was already determined to do English honours and write my thesis on Buffy. [...]

After the last two Spiderman films I was excited to see the latest (and possibly the last) addition to the comic epic of nerd-boy Peter Parker-turned badass Spider-like creature. I took the time to rewatch Spiderman 1 and 2 over the weekend in preparation but Raimi kindly recaps the most important events of these two films in the opening credits of the 3rd. True to Raimi's last features our hero continues fighting those who have also turned creature-like in some way (eg, the Sandman) whilst retaining his charmingly naive and coy outlook on life. Perhaps the [...]

In this blog I plan to write entries about literature I'm reading, films and television I'm watching, and music I'm listening to. At some point in time I'd like to post mp3s of music artists' songs to give people a taste of the range of music out there and give a little free publicity to those artists I feel strongly about. There will probably be a strong focus on Australian music since few music blogs seem to share the wealth of sound coming from my home country. I'm not posting mp3s at this stage because I still need [...]