Metal City - Hai Ina Ia Mai Ana Ka Puana

Baby Lemonade.

Syd Barrett has passed away. For those of you who aren't wired up that way, Syd was the original guitarist and songwriter for a band who later became known worldwide as 'Pink Floyd'. Syd's band, The Pink Floyd, released two albums of delicate, graceful fairytale songwriting, tempered by nightmarish excursions into the slowly fragmenting psyche of their bandleader, before the entire thing fell apart in a haze of paranoia, drug worship, and schizophrenia.

Later, Syd recorded three deeply upsetting albums that chart his inner apocalypse - becoming more and more dissonant and fractured as they progress, they are a searing portrait of a young man coming apart at the seams. It's not funny, or cool - it's just a very sad spectacle of a once-groundbreaking talent being laid to waste by forces beyond his control.

And then, it was over. He retreated home, and lived in his Mum's house until the day he died. Syd sightings surfaced from time to time in the intervening 30 years, but Syd slowly transformed into a man utterly unrecognizable from his former self. Overweight, dishevelled, and obviously scared of the entire world, Floyd freaks have been clamouring for a peek into the life of their exiled idol. At least now, he won't have to run from their prying eyes.

I remember, back in the seemingly eternal past of 1993, I asked my parents to buy me the Syd Barrett boxed set for my birthday. They did, and I spent many years afterwards listening and re-listening to those albums, trying to unravel the labyrinthine tapestry of Syd's tumbling, scrambled neurosis. Ultimately, there was no great truth to be learned from studying those records - they are aural portraits of a life-crushing sickness. Yet, so strong was Syd's talent, that even while the chaos inside his head had ravaged his abilities as a songwriter, there remained moments of penetrating, pure, shattering beauty.

"Please lift a hand, I'm only a person, with eskimo chain, I tattooed my brain all the way... wouldn't you miss me? Wouldn't you miss me at all?

So long, Syd.

Smells Like Dead Rockstar

Poems For Kurdt Kobain

Here are some poems, in honour of Kurt Cobain, soul of a generation, and spiritual figurehead of the 90's.

Kurt - A Celebration

Kurt - voice of a generation,
Soundtrack to my masturbation.
Your music is like vegetation,
My stereo craves reformation.

Your lyrics - such self-flagellation,
Your brain is many separate sections,
Your wife gave you a strange infection,
That spread across your small erection.

Your suicide escaped detection,
Your fans waited with nervous tension,
Then learned the truth of your new obsession,
With leadlined cranial vivisection.

I pray there'll be no ressurection,
Of the alterna-revolution,
I hate you, not just on reflection,
Your mere existance fuels depression.

Buckshot To The Face

Buckshot to the face,
Your body fell with grace,
Your songs still stained the place,
Where you left the human race.

Courtney took your bread,
In the wake of your shattered head,
"Better rich than dead!"
Was all she ever said.

The jocks called you a queer,
They laugh and scull a beer.
It was pain you held quite dear,
Later, you took it in the rear.

Now, you've shot yourself,
Which is not good for your health.
Your wife will help herself,
To your bags and bags of wealth.

Kurt's Cash

Kurt had heaps of cash,
After 'Nevermind' was a smash,
Somewhere he got a rash,
Could it be from Courtney's gash?

Kurt's bank account,
Held a mighty amount,
Of precious greenbacks,
Made by his Marshall Stacks.

Your wife is such a whore,
Your music such a bore.
Your albums I abhor,
Please leave via death's door.

Kurdt Kobain Will Have His Revenge On Macleod

The jocks at my school do adore you,
And so, I truly implore you,
Blow your head off, you worthless old junky,
Your music just ain't all that funky.

The 90's produced lots of shit,
With you at the center of it,
At least you'll be dead by the middle,
Lying prone in a pool of your piddle.

Your cranial fluid does splatter,
Like a delicious Aberdeen platter,
Of freshly killed worthless grunge addict,
"Die faster!", the world gives it's verdict.

Heart Shaped Socks

Your new complaint, Kurt, can get fucked,
Your last album honestly sucked.
I laugh at your death,
And your faltering breath,
I bet that your eyebrows were plucked.

You want me to rape you, you perve?
I've only just met you - such nerve!
But for you I admit,
I'll be a nice fit,
So, I'll shag your dead corpse with much verve!

Fuck you, you floppy haired fool,
Do you honestly think you are cool?
With albums like 'Bleach',
The bullshit your teach,
Has about as much worth as my stool.

Small Apologies

When you say 'aqua seafoam' and 'shame',
The question does enter my brain,
If you're such a turd,
Who sings babbling words,
How DID you achieve such great fame?

Your metaphors shit me to tears,
People think you're confronting your fears.
But I know the truth,
You're the voice of the youth,
With the street cred of Britney Spears.

Won't you stop speaking such shit?
Are you really that keen for a hit?
You underground snob,
Please close up your gob,
Stop pretending that you're just so hip.

Pennyroyal Wee

What the fuck are you talking about?
Why does this nonsense emerge from your snout?
Please blow out your brain,
After poking a vein,
Your wife is as sexy as trout.

What the fuck are you trying to say?
How dare you claim that everyone is gay?
I ain't no queer,
But that ain't through fear,
I just don't dig no manspray.

What the fuck are you trying to do?
'In Utero's cover makes me spew,
With the babies and shit,
And no sizeable hit,
Geffen will dump you in poo.

Why the fuck aren't you dead?
Can't you hear a word that I've said?
'Please shoot off your face,
Splash it over the place,
And send me the souvenier lead.'

BONUS:

The Organ Of Corgan

Slice off the organ,
Of William Corgan.
Roast it slow,
For he is your foe.

Chop off the nuts,
And tear out his guts.
Stomp on the pelvis,
Like you're dancin' Elvis.

Kill him for sport,
Allow no retort.
His music is shit,
Like an odd-smelling tit.

Pick up the knob,
Shove it in his gob.
Then throw him real far,
From a speeding car.

The Pumpkins were lame,
It should fill you with shame,
To love William Corgan,
And his now-severed organ.

Ray Charles is dead.

So long, Ray. You'll be missed. I may be weird, but I'm pretty sure that for the rest of my life, whenever someone mentions your name, I'll think of you singing 'It's Not Easy Being Green' on the Muppet Show. Sublime, innocent, and soulful - like your entire career.

Google-eyed Songbird.

Why is that today - of ALL days - I'm feeling a strange kinship with Suzanne Vega? Is that wrong? After all, not only have I never menstruated, but I've never had torrid sex with a swarthy stranger on the polished boards of my NYC loft, with abstract art hanging from the walls while 78rpm jazz records play on my stolen turntable. Are these prerequisites for appreciating her unique brand of socio-politica,l 'new voice of feminism' folk rock? And if it is, and my feelings for Ms. Vega are baseless, is this a sign that my life even emptier than I had at first anticipated?

I wonder if John Fogerty is awake.

Daryl Hall - A question.

I have a theory that Daryl Hall may be God. I shall talk more about this at a later date.

North Star?

Use Once And Destroy.

Every generation has to have a defining image. For better or worse, individual memories never seem to represent a time as well as a communally shared experience - and if that experience can be aural or visual, it always becomes far more potent. Where would we be in remembering the sixties if we didn't have The Beatles on the roof of Apple, or the muddy swamps of Woodstock? Would the 70's be remembered as vividly without Travolta's finger points over a raging floor of disco lights? Would the 80's truly BE the 80's without the joy of watching each and every member of The Brat Pack self-destructing?

The early 1990's were kind of a wasteland. Sure, we had the clownishly masculine buffonery of Guns'n'Roses, and the iconographic idiocy of M.C Hammer and Vanilla Ice. Hair metal was starting to grate. Punk was a distant memory - the Pistols were ancient history, and the foul spawn of electronica was only just beginning to make inroads as the New Disco - except that it was a hundred times more horrible. What was a sensitive young bohemian to do for heroes? What could he do when name dropping Kevin Sheilds and Black Francis failed to garner attention from the young, perky goths that he so deeply desired? And what of the kids? The massed throngs of sneering, spitting, self-loathing kids, in their ripped jeans and dyed hair? What were THEY to do for a spokesman? Who was representing their tireless attention-seeking infantilism in popular culture?

Enter Kurt Cobain. Or Kurdt Kobain. Or Khurt Cobain. His name seems to metamorphose from album to album. I'll stick with the more conservative spelling - 'Kurt' - for the purposes of this piece. The frontman for the first truly internationally successful megaband of the 1990's - Nirvana - Cobain's infamous end at the barrel of a shotgun sent seisimic waves throughout both the music industry and the culture of western society. Of course, for those who had been paying attention, the idea that the brains behind 'Milk It', 'All Apologies', and 'Dumb' could meet his demise through his own hand wasn't exactly a new one. Assuming that Kurt wasn't killed by his shrew of a wife, the concept of Generation X's self-loathing spokesman becoming a celebrity suicide was one which seemed to dovetail perfectly with the nascent culture of empty self-destruction that was about to engulf the kids of the western world.

I remember hearing about Cobain's suicide. It was announced on RRR FM, here in Melbourne, by a teary announcer. Because he wasn't a member of The Beatles, Pink Floyd, and his last name wasn't 'Bowie', I didn't particularly give a shit. Nirvana? They were those oafish punks who polluted my suburb with the endless merchandising of their album covers. For a while there in the years '91-'94, one simply couldn't move without bumping into a baby in a swimming pool, or a winged Visible Woman. Nirvana's ubiqitous public profile, and the repulsive idiocy of their fans led me to savagely mock Cobain's death. My immaturity soared high, as I let my enemies at school know just how pleased I was that their Buddah's brain matter was currently being soaked into the dusty woodwork of his greenhouse walls. I laughed uproariously, detailing the glee that I felt as Cobain descended into drug addiction, feeling that I had been given a second chance to be rid of the skinny fool once and for all, after the mouth-watering carrot of his overdose in Rome in early 1994. I danced merrily through the hallways of my prisonlike suburban high school, pirouetting with unabashed joy as visions of Cobain's shattered cranium and smoking Remington filled my days with a happiness that seemed to find form as an exhilarating sense of release. Never again would I have to listen to the nauseating 'Smells Like Teen Spirit', nor the ludicrous 'Sliver' and 'Come As You Are'. I rubbed my hands together, and smiled darkly: Cobain was gone. All that was left was to find a way to knock off Axl Rose and Billy Corgan, and maybe I'd sleep well at night.

But, with the passage of time, I can admit that I may have been a little hasty in my outright dismissal of the Cobain ouvre'. I'm big enough to do that. I discovered Nirvana, long after they had been forgotten by the fans that only a few years ago, held candles on the roof of the old Flinders Street flatlands, swaying rhythmically in time to their Manson Family-esque renditions of 'Heart Shaped Box' and 'Something In The Way'. My introduction wasn't, as expected, with their grotesquly overrated 'Nevermind' - but rather, with the follow up 'In Utero'. For a young lad who was, for all intents and purposes, a music snob - Nirvana's guitar attack was a jolt to the system. I was only just adjusting to Queen, who seemed a little raucous to me - the grinding assault of 'Scentless Apprentice' was something which was darkly seductive, even at the same time as I considered it artistically repellent. Nirvana was manifestly beneath me, and their fans - their loathsome, insectlike fans - were the very bane of my existence. I had written them off as a joke - a drunken caterwauling which was custom-made for jocks to psyche themselves up to before the Big Game. With my short hair and coke-bottle glasses, I watched Nirvana's music being embraced by the worst kinds of self-indulgent, adolescent swine.

But, I was wrong. Nirvana wasn't a band who pumped out rewritten versions of 'The Boys Are Back In Town'. Nor was their lead singer deserving of death. As I started to go through the band's discography, I found that their albums, when taken back to back, were a deeply troubling cross-section of a mind in disarray. Cobain's seething fury was tempered by an obsession with birth imagery, and an obsessive need to find some kind of mother figure - the absence of which resulted in an emotional catatonia. Cobain's lyrics, while oblique, are an incredibly detailed vision of an individual who has lost control of his body and heart - and as 'In Utero' drags onto a sighing close, seems to suggest that even his guitar, the instrument of his success and his eventual demise, was something that he was incapable of relating to. These are not rock songs - they are exposed nerves, leading directly to Cobain's core. And, for better or worse, he was honest. 'In Utero' is not a rock album in the conventional sense - it is a eulogy for someone who isn't dead yet, written and performed by the corpse. And, in light of Cobain's later suicide, it takes on a painfully resonant quality, despite the schizophrenic dichotomy of the words and music; it is fragile and aggressive, thunderously loud and whisper-quiet, mysterious and obvious, fractured and cohesive.

'In Utero' contains Kurt Cobain's greatest sonic achievement - a largely forgotten track in the album's second movement called 'Milk It'. Those of you who have heard it are probably staring at the screen right now, and smirking derisively. Am I insane? Isn't 'Milk It' just a load of screaming and detuned guitars?

Well, yes. It is. But it is also as brutal and confronting an article on a state of psychosis as we have seen since the final days of Syd Barrett. Over an army of Albini-processed guitars, Cobain rails and thrashes out his scatological and medical-themed lyrics, snarling about his status us '(his) own parasite.. I don't need a host to live..' We are given a snapshot of those final, crazy days in Aberdeen during what remains of the chorus, as Cobain implores us to 'look on the bright side - suicide.' The medical theme of 'In Utero's cover is continued, with lyrics that name check 'ectoplasmic' and 'ectoskeletal'. Cobain mentions his 'obituary birthday', before the track explodes like a supernova into a frenzy of atonal guitar runs with Cobain's unhinged yowling of 'Your scent is still here in my place of recovery', and the song simply cuts off.

Self-indulgent? I don't think so. 'Milk It' is probably as honest as Cobain ever got - and the track is so honest that it leaves any concept of 'entertainment' or 'rock' in its stomping, muscular wake, instead simply flooding the listener with a power to disturb that is almost unheard of in the entire canon of popular music. 'Milk It' is a song with the power to unsettle dreams - and somewhere inside the labyrinthine guitar tracks and deeply allegorical/personal lyrics is a key to unlocking the confused, paranoid, self-destructing soul of its author.

Maybe the greatest tragedy regarding Nirvana is that their fans rarely saw any of these qualities in their work. After all, they rocked - right? That damn riff from 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' is gnarly! Don't you want to bang your head to Lithium? Pass that roach, man - the 'Come As You Are' clip is TOTALLY about to be played on MTV! Because of Nirvana's astronomical fame, and the overtly accessible elements of their Nevermind/Incesticide-era material, the very idea of Nirvana became one which eclipsed the music. Generation X needed a spokesman, and by default a weedy, nervous, chain-smoking drug-addict from the backwaters of America was pushed into the role. It was, as we all now know, a role that he was never comfortable with - let alone even remotely equipped to fulfill. So, instead of a voice - he became a martyr. An exploited martyr. Who could have ever dreamed that one shotgun cartridge could generate so much money? After Cobain's death, the world was inundated with an avalanche of memorabilia - from t-shirts, to cheaply written biographies, to magazine spreads, television specials, and a seemingly endless industry of photos and visual memorabilia. To watch the spectacle was quite sickening, as the buzzards picked Cobain's corpse clean - and it took on newly ominous and sinister angles when one considered the nature of his death.

Why would a 27 year old millionare rock star stick both barrels of a gun in his mouth and blow his head off? Why couldn't he be happy? I guess we'll never really know - we can only speculate, but I think I can take a fairly good guess.

Cobain's woe seems to be twofold: His fans, and his partipation in the rock industry. I don't want to suggest that he was yet another brooding 'I Hate My Fans' style rock star - but I think that it drove him to despair to see his meticulously crafted songs being mistreated and misrepresented by his mainstream fanbase. Maybe the first shot in the war for Cobain's sanity was fired by the two animals who gang-raped a young girl in 1991 while singing Nevermind's 'Polly' to her. 'Polly' is an account of a victim of sexual abuse and physical torture - and, as Cobain wrote in the liner notes to 'Incesticide', the incident made him reconsider being a musician at all. This is an extreme example, of course, but the theory remains the same - how could an artist of Cobain's ability and passion stomach the sight of a seething, thrashing mosh-pit of violent, testosterone-filled teenagers mindlessly destroying one another to the soundtrack of a confessional piece like 'Lithium' or 'Rape Me'? Don't you think it would have driven him crazy with despair to see the same jocks who would beat and torture him in high school deriving pleasure from his work, and reducing his output to the level of a drunken joke by a bunch of ignorant, pig-headed morons? Could his pride have stood by and suffered that final indignity, after a lifetime of psychic wreckage?

And could he ever forgive himself for 'selling out the underground'? Cobain's dislike for the 'grunge' phenomenon was no secret - he saw the genre as, basically, an artifact of the marketing machine which he had inadvertently become fused with. A tireless champion of unsigned or underappreciated local artists, Cobain seemed uncomfortable with what he perceived as his undeserved celebrity status, and the financial rewards that it was bringing, and he sought to allow as much of his success to trickle down to those he respected as he could. But, it was never enough. 'In Utero' was a blatant attempt to derail Nirvana's career, by presenting an album so dark, difficult, and sonically tortured that The Kids would never lap it up - and he could cash in his chips and happily return to obscurity. Instead, 'In Utero' cemented Cobain's status as one of the most important artists of the modern era - and just as 'Nevermind' created Nirvana's status as a commercially viable entity, 'In Utero' legitimized them academically and artistically. He was, at this point, so high on the cultural ladder that there seemed to be no way down, except to leap off to his doom. And, that's what he did.

In the years since, the music industry has collapsed. I blame Kurt. I really do. When he pulled that shotgun trigger, he destroyed market forecasts, publicity schemes, and the bureacracy of the record industry that was surrounding Nirvana - and the corporate music world responded by doing what we expected that they'd do a long time ago. They decided that they simply weren't interested in real people as acts. They didn't want artists. Artists fuck up. They are too temperamental and unpredictable. They get drug addictions, they have illegitimate children, they become alcoholics, and they record music which is 'not up to standard'. In short, they were nowhere near as good as robots - why bother nurturing genuine talent when you can make MORE money QUCKER by creating the Spice Girls and N'Sync? Why risk another Cobain? What's in it for them?

Today is the 10th anniversary of Kurt's suicide. I listened to my Nirvana albums for the first time in a long time. It was a weird experience. I felt desperately sad for a time that is long gone - a time when it seemed that the mainstream really could produce something worthwhile. But, at the same time, I felt unnerved. If Kurt was alive to see the music of today, what do you think he'd say? He'd probably be glad that he shot himself.

So, I was wrong about Nirvana. I hope I never make that mistake again.

The Passion Of The Thin White Duke.

With an example of - quite literally - biblical serendipity, it turned out that I saw Mel Gibson's new porno-religious popcorn epic The Passion, and fulfilled one of my boyhood dreams of seeing David Bowie live in concert the same week. Are the two events that dissimilar from one another? As it turns out, no. And, simply to prove my awesome mastery of the English language, I'm going to present to you - the people - the world's first DUAL review of both The Passion and Bowie Live, because - interestingly - I'm pretty sure that I'm going to be reviewing the same thing. Bear with me, long suffering reader, this is going to get a lot weirder before it gets any easier to understand...

Every young boy has his crushes. I don't necessarily mean crushes of the romantic kind - the innocent kiss behind the bike sheds with Susie From Number 42 pale into insignificance compared with the knid of crushes I'm talking about. The crushes that stay with us for a lifetime - the things that slash their way into the deepest nexus of our souls, clinging to the fibrous strands of memories which weave their way throughout our minds and hearts, becoming as much a part of us as blood and bone. For me, the ouvre' of David "Fancypants" Bowie epitomised this - he was there as a fixture of my childhood, and later my adolescence - growing in resonance as the years kicked on. Bowie never left me, for some reason - his back catalogue stayed with me, and it miraculously avoided being stained and bruised by the psychic carnage that negative memories can wreak upon one's recollection of music. Bowie never got me down - he was always comforting, always made me feel safe, and always transported me to a simpler, kinder place - no matter how bad life got.

For Mel Gibson, traitor to his country and all-round idiot, it would appear that he feels the same way about Jesus Christ. The Lord and I have never seen eye to eye on the subject of his very existance, and he refuses all of my requests to simply show himself, juggle some fireballs, help me score with an awesomely pneumatic babe, and perform a bunch of impressive tricks, hopefully involving lightning, in order to prove to me, once and for all, that he quite literally exists - and isn't simple a mechanism for stupid people to avoid freaking out over the certainty that they will one day die. And it won't be pretty. For the Melster, on the other hand, Jesus appaers to be something that he has loved for many years, and is as much a part of him as Bowie is of me, yet where I treat my love of Bowie with a certain element of pride and respect, Mel's own passion seems to be centred around self-loathing of his own faith. And so, like a spoilt child spitting lukewarm custard down his mother's shirt, Mel has had a tanty. The Passion is two and a half hours of Mel taking out the frustrations of fanhood on the body of his idol - J.C - by destroying the physical body of the man in meticulous, graphic detail. The Passion isn't ABOUT anything, really, beyond Mel's strange compulsion to explain to us that being crucified is a very nasty experience indeed, and even if you ARE the son of God, you shouldn't fuck with Mel's head, because if you do - Mel is going to get pissy, and someone's getting a flogging. Oh, sure - we get some shots of J.C hitting us with some of his more popular soundbites... he tells us that his body is bread, and that you should love your enemies, and other such waffle - but Mel doesn't bother with spending any serious screen time on Jesus The Man. Fuck that shit. Mullet Mel didn't do four 'Lethal Weapon' movies just to end up as a pussy in middle age. He isn't about the gentle teachings of a wise and loving man, dedicated to saving humanity from its own darker instincts - he's all about fucking shit up! What the hell would the be the point of a Mel Gibson film if we didn't hear some snapping bones? What would be the good of that?

No good. That's what. And so, under the auspices of 'cinematic realism', we get Jesus The Whipping Boy, his flesh hacked to pieces by crazy torture devices, and his mouth perpetually wrenched open in a bloody-toothed soundless scream, Mel's camera stiffy engorged with the blood of The Son, as he lets rip with a two hour ode to the problems of being a fan.

Because that's what The Passion is about, and that's what my experience at Bowie's 'Reality' tour apart. You may scoff at the thought of my heathen comparison between the deeply personal questions of faith and redemption, and an adolescent obsession with an androgynous rock star from the 70's. My response to that would be that YOU are the pretentious one - because there is nothing different at all.

Think about this, poor, berated reader. Being 'A Christian' requires dedication, a belief in the unshakeable greatness of the object of your love, ridicule for your impenetrable faith in your beliefs, and a lifelong dedication to not only the expansion and cementing of your own love and worship, but the spread of the word - a constant barrage of attempts at turning everyone around you onto your God.

Is this so different from worshipping Bowie? Even when he released crap, I still bought it - because he was Bowie, and as such, it had to have SOME merit. I was brutally mocked for being such a tosspot, especially in the age of Nirvana and Guns'n'Roses. But I didn't care. As the years have dragged on, I've kept listening to those golden recordings from the 70's, memorizing every note, every instrument, and integrating them into my own life - they are the bedrock of my memories and my interiority. And, as I've met new people, the phrase "You have GOT to listen to this.' is no stranger to those around me.

See?

Are the two really all that different? Can they be reconciled?

And so, just as Mel Gibson dealt with his own fandom by pouring his soul into a piece of boring drivel called The Passion, my own fandom met its destiny sitting in a $175 dollar seat at Rod Laver Arena, the house lights dimmed, and my head reeling and spinning with giddy excitement. I've been to a lot of shows, but this is one of the only times I remember feeling literally nauseous. My hands shook, a thin film of sweat - greasy and hot - coating them, with every indentation of the flesh immediately obvious when I rubbed them together, my palms electrified with tactile energy. A thousand thoughts ran through my mind, copulating with one another in an orgiastic frenzy, as the microseconds ticked by. This wasn't just Some Rockstar - this was David Bowie. Iconic. Detached. Innaccessible. For many, the artist supreme - the ultimate reailsation of rock's possibilities for entering the realm of the avant garde, and leaving behind in the dust the heavy burden of 'teen entertainment' that had plagued it since the 1950's.

And then, there he was. Launching into 'Rebel, Rebel' with the frenzy of a man of half his age. My mind exploded into a thousand shards of ecstasy, which liquified and sloshed around the inside of my skull, as a smile slowly yanked my lips upward, and my eyes locked onto the androgynous figure that prowled across the stage.

But why? Why is it so important to me? Why was The Passion the 'movie that Mel HAD to make'? Why did we both feel such a need to connect with our heroes, even if our methods were radically different?

The answer is memories.

The buffer zone between the presently understood, and the previously incoherent - memories do strange things to people. In my case, as I have already told you, the music of David Bowie plays a huge part in my development as a young shitkicker from the northern suburbs of Melbourne. He was there when I was a kid - in the questionable film 'Labyrinth'. He was there as a teenager, lulling me into a self-indulgent, tear-streaked slumber with his epic tales of woe. He was there as an angry young goth, engaging in an unholy union with Mr. Trent "Magic Fingers" Reznor, stirring me into cheers of support at this industrial superforce. He was there as a young twentysomething, as my first wave of nostalgia kicked in. And now, at twenty(something), he is still with me - coasting gently beside me, reminding me of where I've been, and giving me something to hold onto as I move forward into the uncertainty of the future.

But, this is no different to how it has always been. I have so many wonderful memories of Bowie's music, and it is almost like if I want to be transported magically to a particular time, or place, it costs nothing more than the price of playing a record. I like that - I really value it. I remember being 15, and getting 'Hunky Dory' and 'Low' for my birthday. I never thought I'd need any records for the rest of my life after that. Obviously, that was something I had absolutely no hope of sticking to - but the point is that I was truly in love with them. I remember playing Low's second side repeatedly, positive that I would find some magical truth hidden in the oozing, nightmarish soundscapes that the grooves contained. They soothed me, wrapping me up in their slinking, abstract sound like some wonderfully electric blanket - and there I would stay, often for hours at a time, playing the albums over and over again, and staring at the cover art. Bowie seemed to come from another world - he was absolutely everything I wished I could be. I projected my deepest, most personal fantasies of what life was capable of providing, and what it was that I might grow to be into Bowie - he was like a wonderfully warping mirror that took my reflection and cast it back as I wanted to see it.

Is this so different from Mel's love of Jesus? Isn't this the same redemptive experience as the one provided by religion?

As I sat in awe of Bowie, as he moved across the stage, my fan worship became zealous and intense - I found my mouth to be dry, and my eyes sore from my refusal to blink. I leaned forward, stretching my spine, and my face held the faintest flicker of a smile. I didn't want to grin - because I didn't feel like grinning. I was transfixed - bombarded from all directions by a mixture of the sound of the music, the awesome presence of Bowie on the stage, and the latticework of memories that flooded my senses with each song that he played. My eyes welled up with tears as he launched into 'Quicksand', from 1971's 'Hunky Dory', one of the first songs I learned to play on the guitar, and a fixture of my young, urban-paranoid period, when the more morose and miserable the song was, the better it was received.

Can the same be said for religion? Surely people associate more with the words of The Bible than the cold, clinical teachings of the gospels? When Mel sits down with his Gideon's, does he read Psalms 5:10, and think about the time he fell of his bike when he was 10, on his way home from church? When he reads Revelations 9:17, does it remind him of the last thing he read by the flickering light of his bedside lamp, the night before his grandmother passed away? Was John 13:11 quoted on the front of his high school yearbook?

And does it anger him that he has an idol that is utterly intangible, and impossible to ever engage with on a personal level, without - uh - dying? Does that drive him so insane with rage and insecurity that the only way to vent it is to make a film in which the body of the object of his affections is pornographically destroyed in a two hour marathon of homoerotic violence and loincloth-wearing?

Idols are funny things. They make you go a little crazy. Mark David Chapman shot John Lennon. John Hinckley shot Ronald Reagan for Jodie Foster. The famous are stalked, harassed, and torn to shreds by their fans - because, filtered through the media, they become all things to all people. We see in them what we want to see in them. In Bowie, I see what I wish I was. Even if I never get there, I always have the records when I want to pretend. In Mel's idol, he sees a source of pain, confusion, and self-doubt - and in his testosterone-amped way, he has dealt with it through violence.

My method - going to a show and languishing in a warm bubble of music and memories, seems so much healthier in hindsight. Don't you think?

"You'll die as you lived in a flash of the blade..."

Take a moment, if you will, to study the image above. It's going to mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Maybe you look at it and smile, thinking of your headbanging youth, as you slashed up a pair of Levi's, patched an old denim jacket, and hoped that your mother wouldn't catch you with your spiked wristbands as you headed off to a gig - a gig that you just know will render you deaf for a week. Or, maybe you scoff - recoiling violently at the thought of cheesy metal, bad hairstyles, lyrics about dragons, dinosaurs and war, and endless, turbo-charged guitar solos, each one duller and more predictable than the last. Do you think that it is simply puerile, an immature relic of a dead era, even though secretly - even if only on the inside - it makes you want to smile? Or are you simply neutral - recognizing the name of That Band With The Cool Album Covers, but being too young to remember their heydey, you're satisfied with forking the sign of the devil at the awesome artwork, while leaving the actual music out of your stereo, lest it take up precious Korn time?

For Anton Gustavsson of Sweden, Iron Maiden was the entity that both cemented his place in history, and very likely ended his life.

I remember first reading about Anton on Portal Of Evil, a site dedicated to collecting the weirdest, most bizarre sites on the internet. Anton's homepage archived his legacy - the recordings he made during 1998 and 1999 as his alter-ego, 'Anton Maiden'. Anton loved Iron Maiden. As any metal fan knows, enthusiasts of bands like Maiden, Judas Priest, and the rest of their New Wave Of British Metal brethren are particularly rabid about their idols - taking their obsessions to levels only matched by fans of the almighty Springsteen. These people live, breathe, and worship the music - keeping the flame alive in a world where genuine metal circled the drain in roughly 1991, obliterated by the onslaught of grunge rock and the so-called 'alternative revolution', a phrase which now has about as much credence as 'rapcore'. Anton, like all metal fans, was passionate about his love for the band's work - and decided to pay tribute in a novel, yet heartfelt manner. He was nineteen at the time - and, plugging a microphone into his PC sound card, he downloaded a bunch of MIDI files of various Maiden tracks, and proceeded to record himself singing along with the music. Badly. With a cracked, tuneless wail which had absolutely no hope of emulating the incredible vocal acrobatics of Bruce Dickinson - a vocalist who is very likely the greatest technical performer of the rock era. Anton's thick Swedish accent bent and contorted the phrasing of Maiden's admittedly ponderous, elliptical, and verbose lyrics - resulting in twelve tracks which are quite unlike anything you have ever heard before. And, uploading them to his website, 'Anton Maiden' went live - sharing his tribute to the greatness of Iron Maiden with the rest of the world, trying to connect with Maiden's fanbase, and letting them see just how much he loved the boys, and loved the music.

And this was probably the last mistake he ever made.

On a documentary filmed for Swedish youth television in 1999, we see a smiling, gentle young boy in an Iron Maiden pullover, with one leg up on his computer chair, cropped blonde hair parted neatly on the left and glasses perched on his nose, wailing happily along to 'The Number Of The Beast'. Obviously not taking himself seriously, Anton is filmed running around a rolling mountainside in the idyllic Swiss countryside, his arms outstretched as the soundtrack blares his bizarre, karaoke version of 'Run To The Hills'. Clearly, he is a fan in fan's paradise - he's done something to draw attention to his status as a follower of a band, and he is being recognized as more than the average, run-of-the-mill 'person who bought a best of'. And, as Anton's infamy grew throughout the newly-minted D.I.Y Internet community, where his MP3's were traded - and the CD's that he pressed in his bedroom were quickly snapped up by rabid fans of the obscure, he began to receive legitimate recognition. 'College' radio in the U.S began playing his renditions of 'Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son', 'Children Of The Damned', 'Flight Of Icarus', and the rest of the tracks on the 'Anton Maiden' album. Anton was the first star of the D.I.Y era - adored as an innocent, sweet-natured boy who did what he had to do to show the world by his supporters, and loathed as a violator of the good Maiden name by his detractors - who, by now, were preparing to strike back.

Nobody seems to know, exactly, where it all started to unravel. And nobody seems to know why he let it affect him so deeply. Anton began to receive hate mail. Buckets and buckets of it. Vicious, cruel emails from rabid metal fans, who were incensed at this perceived 'mistreatment' of Their Band. Who was this young upstart - this DORKY little bastard, who didn't even speak English, taking the music of Maiden and turning into a laughing stock for the entire world to see? Who did he think he was?

In a June 2000 interview in Swedish newspaper Expressen, Anton told Martin Carlsson that the fans were expressing their disdain, and that they "think that my interpretations are a disgrace to Iron Maiden. But that was never my intent." Anton's guestbook on his website began filling with abuse, Maiden fans honing in on this innocent boy like a quilt of sharp-toothed rodents, intent on tearing him to pieces for his perceived indiscretion. Eventually, Anton pulled the plug - taking the 'Anton Maiden' section off his website in 2000. As he told Expressen, "It just feels silly to continue. There will be no more records, [and] there's no point in trying to convince me [to change my mind]."

Three years later, something happened. Something horrible. On November 8, 2003, Anton Gustafsson was declared missing. The 23 year old boy was believed to have vanished from his apartment in Hässleholmen on either October 31st, or in the early hours of November 1st - wearing a Goretex jacket, jeans, and a pair of heavy shoes. He trudged out into the snow, and somewhere, for some reason, killed himself. He was found shortly afterward.

I remember reading about this back in November, and feeling close to tears by it. And that feeling was compounded when I went to his website . See, I thoguht of Anton as a kind of kindred spirit. After all, what teenage boy hasn't held that hairbrush and wanted to be their hero? Who hasn't closed the bedroom door, put a towel over the gap at the bottom, cranked up their favourite album, closed their eyes, and pretended that they were doing crazy leaps in the air, impressing the girls at Wembley Arena? Anton took this to the logical, deeply isolated conclusion - and he recorded his flights of fancy, and let all of us stare through the window and smile. Metal fans are often lonely weirdos. After all, Iron Maiden is hardly what you'd call the most 'well adjusted' music on the planet. For all of Bruce's bluster, and Steve's galloping basslines, and the Dave/Adrian interlocking guitar pyrotechnics, it is impossible to forget that most of their songs are about mythology, science fiction novels, and epic, heroic battles - the sole territory of the ubergeek. But Anton didn't care - and he let us watch and listen to him as he kept his childhood dream alive. Maybe it didn't matter how 'bad' his vocals were - what mattered was that he bothered to record them in the first place, and that he gave them to the world in the second.

If anyone reading this has the time, go and see his website. There is a photo gallery there. His sister, Malin, his parents - Ingemar and Lena feature heavily, in a photo album spanning 1987 to 2003. The thing that struck me, and had me swallowing back the huge bubbles of emotion that rose up from my heart and popped in my throat, was the sheer innocence of it. Here is a 23 year old boy, and his website isn't a self-aggrandizing ego trip. He doesn't have it covered in cyber-trinkets. There's no self-serving blog - such as this one. You know what's on it? Photos of things that are important to him, with captions. That's it. And what was important to him?

Photos of his family. His sister. His grandma. Photos of windmills, and cows, and his train set, and his computer, and him in his Iron Maiden windcheater - and the endless, emerald countryside of his beloved Sweden. A countryside he'll never see again. I'm glad that I can't read the captions. I think that they would just be too sad for me. I'll tell you this, though - I have to blink away the tears every time I see the words 'mama', 'papa', and 'Malin'. I look at those photos - pictures of Anton with his Dad as a young kid, playing with an electronics set, or eating popcorn on a hiking trip - and it is hard not to see that the reward Anton recieved for being so honest was not what he was due.

Maybe there was a lot more going on that drove him to take his own life. We'll probably never know. But maybe, if he'd been left alone, and if those bastards hadn't hounded and hounded him until the end, he would still be alive. When his body was found, I remember reading reports of it online, and they were still there - posting their vile, vicious bullshit as reader comments, talking about how glad they were that he was gone, and how he deserved to die, and how they wished that they could have killed him themselves. Obviously, those comments are simply beneath contempt - and it is hardly necessary for me to explain that these bastards should bake long and hard in the hot sun, just for being so worthless.

The point here, loyal, long suffering reader, is that what I'm driving at is innocence. Go through Anton's photo album, and despite the utter lack of pretention, and the curious abundance of love and respect for his home and family, the one thing that you'll see is missing is - advertising. Anton's body, with the exception of his loved Maiden gear, isn't a walking billboard, schilling for the multinationals. He wears pants. Shirts. His sister, a pretty girl, is dressed the same. It is interesting to see that Anton appears relaxed and comfortable with that - and that his attacks all come from the west. America. The boy's total lack of self-consciousness was his undoing - and there is something about that which makes it all the more tragic.

Above all else, though - I see myself in Anton. A tragic, obsessed fan - sitting in his bedroom in the middle of the night, playing his beloved records over and over and over again, dreaming of the day when he might meet his heroes - and thinking about what it would have been like if he could have been a part of it all - alone, insular, and utterly satisfied by the music.

I guess I'll never forget him.

Pop Music - The Scourge Of The Earth (But still a source of genuine amusement) And kids entertainment. A two-pronged attack.

I hate pop music.

Sounds too easy, right? Sounds like the kind of thing you'd EXPECT a twentysomething with floppy hair and an old Holden to say? You'd be right, under normal circumstances. But not this time. This isn't some unfocused bile - a thrashing, wanton attack of vitriol aimed at anyone with a bare midriff and a microphone headset. While, of course, we should hate pop music for the soulless, cash-driven, fat-cigar-choming-guy-Porsche-buying swill that it is - that's not what I'm talking about. After all, weren't The Beatles pop music? The Rolling Stones? My sainted E.L.O - were they not maligned for being the very epitome of pop music, boldly flying in the face of both metal and punk as only a white guy with an afro and aviator goggles can?

Pop music, all. But that's not what we're talking about here - and I think you and I both understand that. No, what we're talking about here is that modern form of pop music - pop music as simulacra. These people are not musicians - and they have reached the point in the public consciousness where to even try to pretend that they have any credibility as artists of musicians is laughable. No, wherever their talents lay, music is not amongst them - and when I say 'them', you know who I mean. Kylie. Britney.

Kylie.

So, Kylie , not content with your album flopping, you've been trashed by a bunch of goons who earn their keep by pretending to be animals, and warbling inane songs at a bunch of whining, overindulged six year olds. My heart fucking bleeds for you.

I hope Kylie Minogue burns in hell. I can't even begin to tell you how deep my hatred of that she-beast is - and it started in 1988. Anyone remember 'The Locomotion'? I sure as fuck do. Even SAYING the name of the song causes it to erupt in my brain like an over-ripe adolescent zit, spraying its payload of foul musical pus across my consciousness, causing me to reel backwards in nauseated horror, waving my hands in front of my eyes and resting my weight against the nearest table, with my breath ragged, and my pupils swollen and dilated. When I was 10, and the bitch was still a part of the putrid Grundy's production "Neighbours", hitting the height of her fame as the spunk-receptacle of Jason "Who?" Donovan, who hadn't yet cottoned on to the joys of his eventual career - professional drug addict and talk-show-wrecker. I remember sitting in my classroom, at one of the graffiti-covered wooden desks that I was chained to for eight hours a day, and for reasons long since consigned to the dustbin of my mind, 'The Locomotion' began blaring over the chewing gum-coated loudspeaker that was bolted angrily to the ceiling of the classroom.

Even then, at age 10, when my primary concerns in life were my Commodore 64, mourning John Lennon, and watching 'Astroboy' ad nauseum, I was smart enough to know when something was truly sick. Truly wrong. And as the Original Moron bleated at me about how 'everybody's doin' a brand new dance, now' - I ground my teeth against one another until they began to crack, fissures savagely wrapping themselevs vertically around my dental enamel, and my nerve endings releasing a steady pulse of blood, which mixed with my saliva and trickled down my chin - providing an interesting visual counterpoint to the tears which were coursing down my cheeks.

Yes, Kylie sucked. 'Ho, ho!', we laughed - as my mother applied another coat of hairspray to her mullet, and pinned her giant gold hoop earrings on, trying to decide between the blue eyeshadow, or the red - 'What a load of shite! She'll be gone in a year. Hell - she'll be gone in six months! She certainly won't be around long enough to get decent seats at Expo '88! Loser!'

But we were horrendously wrong. And as the howling dog of the eightied painfully transformed into the bloated, rotting corpse of the nineties - she refused to fucking go away. Every year, another hilariously inept platter of shitty dance-pop. Every year, another pitiful attempt to 'update' her image, and to prove her 'credibility' as an 'artist' who is respected for her 'music' and not her 'arse'. Remember the video for 'Confide In Me'? Was that the biggest piece of shit you've ever seen? Yeah. Me too. Remember 'Impossible Princess'? Kylie can't fool me. She may be able to fool successive generations of adolescent girls, and the entire gay community, but she can't fool me - she wants to be a cross between Madonna and Joni Mitchell - while only succeeding in being as hideously irritating as the former, and as self-indulgent as the latter.

Which is why it gave me such incredible pleasure to take a brief reprieve from the hellish nightmare of my exegesis to read the facist piffle of news.com.au - and discovering this hilarious piece on Kylie's recent humiliation.

The wench was outsold by Hi-5. For those of you who haven't seen Hi-5's inexplicably successful programme, here it is in a nutshell: Five retarded twentysomethings, harvested from only the finest modelling agencies that Sydney can provide, spend a half an hour grinning like weasels on MDMA as they warble their way through a grab-bag of the most saccharine, bowel-loosening kiddies music imaginable. They all look kind of the same, and they offer the children of Australia an important lesson at an early age - look like a model, or die in your parent's basement. I hate Hi-5, and as each day passes, I find that my hatred of their eye-watering drivel takes on new and more exciting configurations - each more penetrating in extremity.

But, I digress. Kids entertainment just isn't what it used to be. I remember back when I was a spry young lad - with bright, blue eyes and a winning smile - my sandy hair swept back off my forehead, allowing the world to see my firmly-set eyebrows which crackled with authority and poise, signalling that I was a natural emblematic leader - kids entertainment was really violent. There was my beloved Astroboy - a show about a scientist who's son is killed in a car wreck, so he builds a robot version (creepy) - which spends every episode battling evil robots and crazy aliens with his buttock-mounted machine guns. If that isn't a positive image for young boys, then I don't know what is. Then there was the Transformers - a bunch of ultraviolent alien robots turn into overpowered cars, planes, and military weapons, in order to kill one another. Or, if that's not to your taste, what about the homoerotic fun of He-Man? A buffed, overmuscled young boy with hair stolen from Led Zeppelin's bass player receives a sword which allows him to turn into a buffed, overmuscled older boy - with no shirt - so that he can roam around picking fights with anthropomorphic evildoers. Anyone for 'You Can't Do That On Television' - a show which was basically centered around combinations of snot, vomit, slime, and the eating thereof. Perhaps you feel that Little Darling Junior doesn't have enough exposure to hard-core violence, but you can't quite make that leap of faith to hire him Robocop, or Rambo - never fear! With the release of the Rambo and Robocop television shows, Junior will be primed and ready for a lifetime of ID-required video hire, without intervention by those pesky bastards at Child Protective Services.

We are breeding a generation of WUSSES. Our kids are SOFTCOCKS. What in the fuck is going on when our kids WANT to watch Hi-5? When I was a kid - if my evening's viewing didn't have a body count in the triple figures, my mother would know what was in store for her when the silhouette of a 7 year old boy carrying a fence pailing with nails pounded through it loomed menacingly overhead. When I was a boy, if I didn't see someone's head explode in a mist of fine read blood as their body sank to their knees, I would cry, and my mother would have to hold me until I calmed down. The LAST thing I wanted to see was a bunch of fruity models dancing about like whippets on acid, singing about the fucking rain, and how great it is to 'be friends'.

Kylie got owned by Hi-5.

That's too funny.

Forgotten but not gone - Australian Progressive Rock, 1969-1975

Okay. I admit it. I promised myself that I wasn't simply going to spend my time writing endless, endless material on old records - but it's been such an interesting few days that I feel compelled to do it. Again. I'm sorry.

I wrote an article a few days ago about Australia - or the absence of Australia, really. Rather than rest on my laurels and feel all smug and superficial, I thought I'd put my money where my mouth is, and do a bit of digging into the archives of Australian rock albums. Stuff I might have missed. And lordy, was it interesting. This article is going to bore 99% of you to tears. I'm just going to get a few things down that have been kicking around inside my head over the last few days.

Steve is an incredibly cool guy. Steve gives me things. Wonderful things. Steve gives me old records - and, ironically, he has a better collection of Australian albums than anyone I know - and he doesn't even live here. I noticed he had the first two Dragon albums - Universal Radio and Scented Gardens For The Blind - and although I'd read about them many years ago, I'd never actually heard them.

They are quiet albums. The vibrant pop of their later material hadn't surfaced quite yet - they are basically unrecognizable as the band who would later do 'April Sun In Cuba' and 'Are You Old Enough?' - but there is something special about them. Something that sets them apart. There is darkness there - even though Marc Hunter's voice is still undeveloped, lacking his trademark yowl, yet the tracks do sparkle with a pop undertone. You can tell that these guys weren't going to be happy doing psychedelic mood music for too long.

I remember when I was an undergraduate student at Latrobe Uni, there was a market every week - and I became friends with the insane man who ran the second hand CD stall. For legal reasons involving the Federal Police, I can't use his name - but let's just call him Bongwater. Bongwater was a bootlegger, who got me many interesting things - which are stories for another time - but the one thing that he was especially good for was finding out about lost Australian bands. I got my first copy of The Masters Apprentices' 'A Toast From Panama Red' from him, booted from a German import CD - and it truly blew me away.

I'm wandering off the path, so I'll refocus. The point of the story was that Bongwater had a number of albums that were kicking around that I never made the leap of faith to actually buy. One of them, Buffalo's 'Volcanic Rock' had one of the most tasteless album covers I have ever seen - a volcano, the lower half of which turns into a naked female, who is menstruating lava.

Which is, ironically, probably the best way to sum up the album - which I finally listnened to today. Ever have one of those moments where something seems so familiar and perfect that you can't believe you haven't spent your entire life experiencing it? This is one of those things. 'Volcanic Rock' is exactly what it says it is - a punishing, savage collection of progressive rock, with a metallic anchor. There is something primal about it - something hot, and violent, and untamed. The guitars snap and snarl like severed electrical cables, and the whole sound seems as if it will fall apart at any second. It is cacophonous, and expansive in scope - a truly panoramic vision of sonic violence, the only comparison that I can think of being Wizzard's 'Wizzard's Brew', another album that can only be described as an act of terrorism upon the unsuspecting listener.

Anyone living in Melbourne will remember Spectrum's 'I'll Be Gone'. Remember that angular harmonica line, and those lyrics - 'Someday, I'll have money... money isn't easy to come by.. by the time it's come by, I'll be gone..'? If you've listened to a radio in the last 20 years, you will have heard it a billion times. I always wrote Spectrum off as a bad blues pastiche - but I was incredibly wrong. Spectrum's "Part One" is a superb mixture of blues, folk, and prog - and although 'I'll Be Gone' was a hit, it isn't a 300lb canary - it fits into the work in the context of the album. I remember being at Volumes in Eltham - a very snooty, upmarket coffee shop near my house - and seeing a poster for Mike Rudd and Spectrum, who were to be playing there the following month, and considering going, but wondering if I was going to wait for 'I'll Be Gone' before splitting for the bar. What in the hell was I thinking?

Remember "Boppin' The Blues"? Remember wanting to smash the radio? Me too. An insufferably annoying load of old swill, it was - but don't be so cocky as to write Blackfeather off. Just as an aside, when I was a kid at school, they used to make us listen to ABC Radio every Friday afternoon for their 'Sing' programme. Designed to get kids into music, we'd be given a bunch of books from the ABC with the words illustrated by cartoons printed in them - and we'd be bullied into limply singing along with any number of horrendous songs. 'Boppin' The Blues' was one of them - and I stilll reel in horror at the thought of a jiving Melbourne cop on the page. There was another song called 'Exterminate' in there, which went something along the lines of 'Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate all blowflies! Hit 'em with the fly spray! Pretty soon they'll go away!'. If anyone has a copy of this, email me at the usual address - it'll be good for my personal therapy to hear it one more time.

But, I digress. So, the state of play a week ago was that Blackfeather were an insufferably annoying band who had a hit that scarred me as a young boy. Steve reccomended that I download 'At The Mountains Of Madness' - and, reluctantly, I did. And in yet another moment where I realised just how much of an ignorant dimwit I can be, I became entranced. There's a song on there - 'Seasons Of Change', which everybody should hear - at least a million times. The guitar line is pure elegance - a simple, plucked, circular riff, which builds slowly over the four minutes running time into a powerhouse of massed orchestras - and a wailing, desperate vocal which literally shreds itself to pieces.

And, speaking of the Master's Apprentices, did you know that Jim Keays did a solo album? You didn't? Well - that just goes to show what a knave you really are. Yes, our Jim unleased 'The Boy From The Stars' in 1975 - a concept album about a boy coming to earth to warn humanity about blah blah whatever, or some such shit. Forget about the concept, because it makes no sense, and concentrate on the music - which presents a softer, more contemplative, but no less successful incarnation of the basic foundation of the Masters Apprentices sound. The real gem on the disc is only one minute - a snippet of 3XY's coverage of the Sunbury '75 rock festival. It is so interesting to listen to the interviewer treating Jim with such reverance - and the salient point in light of the other night's observation session is that the only foreign band present in '75 - Queen - were booed off the stage in favour of local artists. Consider this - can you imagine Nine Inch Nails or Green Day being told to pack up and fuck off in favour of Powderfinger or Grinspoon, in this day and age?

It has been interesting. A kind of alternate history of rock's development, when you think about it - if you start to trace Australian rock's chronological ascension, it parallels the developments in Europe and America, yet the purity of the music is intact. Trapped on a continent in the middle of the ocean, and ignored by the rest of the world, these people managed to operate unfettered by economic concerns - they exist simple to make the best music possible. I got into a minor scuffle with a friend of mine today over the relative standing of a Led Zeppelin in contrast with a band like Buffalo. Both were extremely good at what they did - yet do we see any VH1 retrospectives on Buffalo's career? Where are the accolades? Where are the reissues? Where are the multi page spreads in Goldmine?

Yes, Led Zeppelin are more popular. That's a given. But WHY are they more popular? What this boils down to is accessibility - and the simple fact that most of these bands were under-recorded, under-promoted, and languished in the idealism of the Australian music industry, which seemed to almost deliberately shun the notion of compromsing artistic integrity for global success. I don't begrudge Zeppelin, or Deep Purple, or any of the megabands their success. They were all fantastic at what they did. It is hard not to listen to these lost Australian records, though, and feel a little sad - the lost opportunity slaps you in the face, and it is hard to wonder where a lot of these bands would have gone, and what amazing things they could have created, if they'd been loved with a little more reverence.

Andy Warhol looks a scream - hang him on my wall.

And, while we're on the subject of Warhol, with an almost cosmic manifestation of the best kind of serendipity, my order of Warhol tapes showed up today. Fortunately, the bastard postman didn't wake me up at 9 this time, and wasn't forced to endure the sight of my unshaven face poking through the fly-wire, his eyes moving slowly down to my yellow, stained boxer shorts - my grasping fingers clawing at his body, raking across his chest and tearing his shirt as I attempt to snatch my parcel from him.

No, we had none of that. I was already awake, since I had to go and see me supervisor today, where we discussed my exegesis, and I laughed at him when he told me I need 50 references. Who the fuck is he trying to kid?

Already awake. And ready for action. I had stuffed myself full of McFood, and was already feeling the speed rush as the sugar rocketed through my veins, causing my pupils to dilate and my breath to come in shallow, ragged gasps. I'd been waiting for these tapes for quite a while. See, I'm rather enamoured of The Velvet Underground. Actually, I have a kind of love/hate thing going on with them - and though there are many things wrong with this world that are directly attributable to the behaviour of Mr. Reed, this is not one of them. Rather, it seems that whenever my life goes wrong, and things seem hideous and shitty - I have been listening to The Velvet Underground. Girl leaves - the Velvets were on the day before. Get drunk and do something unspeakable - listening to the Velvets that week. Fail uni? Spent too much time listening to The Velvets.

You get the picture.

But, I conquered my phobia of their rather wonderful catalogue last year - and rediscovered them. I went and saw Lou Reed - which confirmed my suspicions that the man is a genius, but an utter prick. Not unlike another leader of a certain art-rock band that I could name who's first name begins with R and ends in 'ogerWaters'. He's not quite a 'genius' though, admittedly. Bastard. Grr. I get mad just thinking about it.

So, I ordered Flesh, Trash, Heat, and Women In Revolt - not expecting too much, but figuring that if I'm going to be a film geek/art student poseur, the look wouldn't be complete with Joe Dallesandro's limp, heroin-filled penis sticking out of my television.

But, shockingly, I found the films curiously moving. Profoundly so. Holly Woodlawn was so beautiful in 'Trash', and so heartbreaking - a coil of emotional energy which was so uninhibited and savage that it seemed to manifest itself across the entire spectrum of human expression. She would whip frantically between lust, anger, pity, and loneliness in a matter of seconds - with a performance which simply demanded to be seen.

Flesh was a far more experimental, less accessible outing - with Dallesandro's constant nudity and slurred speech, despite being far more lucid than in Trash, rendering the action - or inaction, as it were - difficult to stomach. Flesh is probably the divider in the Warhol/Paul Morrisey partnership - a hybrid of both styles, with the devotion to interminably long, static shots that Warhol made so famous in 'Sleep' and 'Empire' - but with Morrisey's disturbingly right-of-centre political views, and unerring eye for capturing the myriad details of New York City street life. Candy Darling and Jackie Curtis, however, steal the film away from both filmmakers and fellow cast members in their brief scene, in which they simply talk about banal things - but do it with such style, confidence, and dignity that it is hard to think of them as transvestites (despite Jackie's three o'clock shadow) - and they become elegant, poised women before your very eyes. Candy's death a few years later becomes even more resonant and tragic when one considers what was lost. She was irreplacable.

Women In Revolt is a far more ramshackle affair - a crazed, speed-fuelled parody of the women's liberation movement, featuring Warhol's transvestite superstars - and a young Marty Kove, looking totally out of his element. Heat, with Sylvia Miles, is a far more polished affair - depicting Joe's adventures on the West Coast, attempting to rejuvenate his flagging career. Heat is undoubtedly the most watchable of the Warhol/Morrisey films - but it takes on a bitter aftertaste when one considers that Andrea Feldman, the other leading actress, wrote notes to her ex-boyfriends one day asking them to meet her beneath a building in New York, and then committed suicide by jumping off the top. Heat paints a terribly disturbing portrait of her emotional disintegration - much in the same way that 'Ciao! Manhattan' paints one of Edie Sedgewick, another doomed Warhol starlet.

And, speaking of Ciao! Manhattan - it finally arrived in my mailbox last week, and I found myself unable to shake the film for a few days. A documentary on a woman played by Edie Sedgewick, who is clearly Edie herself, the film tells the story of the downward spiral of a young 'socialite' who became the 'star of the underground New York film world'. One of the more upsetting scenes involves Edie recieving electroshock therapy - something which did actually happen prior to her death in 1972. Ciao! Manhattan is one of the most harrowing, ugly films I have ever seen - but even so, there is a truth, beauty, and grace within it, and Sedgewick's broken-angel screen persona could never be dulled, no matter how much speed she shot.

Which leads us neatly back to today. So, I grab this box and stampede inside, slamming the door shut behind me and lunging for a knife. I hacked away at the carboard and sticky tape, and yanked the tapes out - one by one. And then, there they were.

The Chelsea Girls, Nude Restaurant, Couch, The Life Of Juanita Castro, Lonesome Cowboys, and Blue Movie.

Forbidden films. Lost to time - unavailable to all but the most ardent, determined, dogmatic collector. Sitting on my bench next to my McWrappers and my empty coffee mug. I felt excitement. Ecstasy. The rush that only the archivist can know - a bloating of the heart, and a thumping of the blood as it gushes through the brain, the eyes unblinking and fixed - hands loose and grasping, and mouth dry. They're in my house. I've read about them, studied them, listened to people talk about them - I've read books, magazines, internet articles, website postings, song lyrics describing them, and bio chapters eulogizing them. But I've never SEEN them. And now I can.

With a shaking hand, I slipped 'Nude Restaurant' out of the sleeve and slipped it into the VCR. Viva's face filled the screen - as she launched into a twenty minute rap on her arrests, politics, the counterculture, and her bizarre family life. I was in ecstasy. Here were the images and sounds I had dreamed of. I lasted a half an hour, before I had to see more. I had to put each tape in. I whipped out The Chelsea Girls and slapped it in.

The Chelsea Girls is incredible. At four hours, roughly, it is a task to sit through - but it is one of the most unique and penetrative film experiences one can have. Two images, side by side, are projected simultaneously - the sound moving from one to the other to change your focus, as Warhol's superstars go about their everyday lives in the rooms of the Chelsea Hotel. They shoot up. They slap each other. They fight. Nico trims her bangs. Bridgid Polk shoots speed into Mary Woronov. Ondine takes confessions. Nico weeps. Ingrid Superstar describes her sex life. On and on they go, for literally hours - each image more perverse and assaultive than the last. It's an ugly mess - a raw, open wound of a film, depicting a group of intense, extreme personalities running wild. A liberating film experience.

It's a pity I have to work tomorrow. I'd rather just sit and absorb all of these new, wonderful things. But, unfortunately, Jean Baudrillard doesn't like me and wants my life to be more like pulling teeth than it usually is.

You have to wonder what would have happend if Warhol hadn't died. The old pudding-faced bastard probably would have continued to confound, disturb, and inspire. After all, he was a man who had little regard for the feelings of others - as those who worked at the Factory can certainly attest. How would he have responded to living in the age of pure image - the age that he basically kickstarted? Would he have been gripped by paranoid, postmodern nausea, or would he have simply uttered his usual resonse of 'Uh, yeah.'?

Most people don't seem to understand the life's work of the mop-haired little bastard. They think of him as The Soup Can Guy. I've always found his static art far less interesting than his film work. Intellectually and theoretically, what he was doing was great - fascinating, even. But when he got behind a camera, he gave us the cinema of pure image - voyeurism in an unedited form. True voyeurism - not necessarily sexualised, but simply existing for its own sake. In a sense, everything that is wrong with modern culture - empty voyuristic programming, emotionally vapid simulacra, and ironic posturing can be traced back to Andy and his narcissistic superstars.

I should hate him. So, fuck you, Andy. You're a bastard - and everything that is making me sick, as our culture becomes riddled with thicker and blacker slabs of cancer, is essentially your fault.

The worst part is that I really do love you. WHY did you have to be so damn GOOD?

R.I.P The Divine Miss M, 1945 - 1979

The Divine Miss M, b. 1945 - d. 1979

This is an obituary for a singer that many of you may have heard of, and many of you may THINK you have heard of - but very few of you realise that not only is she no longer with us, but she died twenty three years ago, and nobody even noticed it. It was 1979, so maybe everyone was off listening to The Wall and Aja or something.

An album was released in 1972 by a then unknown singer who used the pseudonym 'The Divine Miss M'. The eponymously titled record is a deeply-felt collection of ballads, retooled girl-group tracks, and maudlin set pieces - dealing with loss, longing, and loneliness. The kick-off track, 'Do Ya Wanna Dance?', covered by everyone from The Beach Boys to John Lennon, is transformed from a speedy, clattering, ramshackle teen dance song to a slow, translucent croon - lithely slithering out of the speakers and raining a cloud of soft kisses upon the listener, before building into a muscular slice of early-70's doo-wop. It became one of her signature songs - and one of the first signs of Miss M's amazing ability to reinvent both herself and the music of others.

Which she does over the course of the album. Taking Leon Russell's "Superstar" - made famous by The Carpenters - she shows a dazzling emotional range, as she allows the song to build to an epic vortex of emotion, before throwing the pieces of sound into the air, and letting them clatter around her - her pained voice, now simply a whisper, cutting through the sonic pallette, and displaying a tonal control and a sense of space which brings out the true sadness of both the music and the lyric.

And, of course, she transforms Helen Reddy's "Delta Dawn" into a gospel-fuelled powerhouse, anchored by both Miss M's undeniable personality and chutzpah, and a melancholy, longing lyric. Underpinning this, of course, is the muscular arrangement, which buffers the lead vocal with a soaring mass of choral voices - texturing the flawless lead delivery which changes in tone from an uncertain quaver, to a melodic scream.

Miss M found the 70's a period of transition, struggling to top her debut - which is understandable, as it would have been a daunting proposition. There were highlights, of course - 'You're Moving Out Today', co-written with Carol Bayer Sager (who also had a criminally underrated debut), 1973's 'Bette' contained a dramatic reworking of 'I Shall Be Released' - thus predating her duet with Dylan on 'Buckets Of Rain' , from 1979's 'Songs From The New Depression'.

It was, however, 1979's 'The Rose' that was to be both her acme and her downfall. Starring in a biopic which told the story of a character loosely based on doomed proto-riot grrl Janis Joplin, Miss M. seemed to feel it necessary to take her emulation of Joplin's eventual expiration to its logical conclusion. The soundtrack album from 'The Rose' is, certainly, the album that Janis never had time to make - a stunning collection of ragged blues tracks which see Miss M's voice slowly disintegrating as her character spirals downward into an abyss of drugs, booze, self-loathing, and eventually - self-destruction. The final song of the film, "Stay With Me", sees Miss M's finest hour as she lets loose with a torrent of howls, screams, and bloated, crazy-eyed rage - thrashing her voice with a visceral fury that seems unthinkable in light of the smooth diva's voice of old. "Stay With Me" builds and builds, filling the sky with sound, anguish, and the voice of a woman in the throes of some insurmountable pain. What viewers didn't realise, however, is that as they watched The Rose overdosing onstage in the final moments of the film, they also watched Miss M putting a pistol to the head of her career and pulling the trigger. Maybe she knew that she could never top "Stay With Me" - and she felt that it was better off not trying.

She's gone now, of course - leaving the stage just as dramatically as she entered it, and although a stand-in using the stage name of 'Bette Midler' has replaced her from 1979 onwards, recording an infinte number of godawful AOR 'hits', and appearing in a series of films which vary in quality, 'Bette Midler' is a poor, poor imitation of The Divine Miss M. Her record company, Atlantic, took a gamble - and guessed that if they hired a stand-in to replace her, the public would never notice. And, sure enough, they never did. Interestingly, this particular hoax has never recieved the amount of attention that the infamous 'Paul Is Dead' controversy that engulfed The Beatles in 1969 has - yet there is something far more sinister about the sudden, disturbing disappearance of The Divine Miss M - and her replacement with a clearly less talented, and far more user-friendly woman, who has spent years riding the achievements of her predecessor.

Wherever she is, I hope she's happy - and I hope she realises that even if she'd only ever recorded those two wonderful records, she would still have done more than most artists could ever dream of. Maybe one day we'll discover what actually happened to her - and then, The Divine Miss M can truly rest in peace, with her legacy intact.

(Some of the facts in this article may have been changed for dramatic/satirical purposes.)

Random talk.

I'm gonna write a bunch of random things about music. Not because I have to, or because I think it will be especially entertaining - it probably won't be. See, tonight was Jon's birthday - the old bastard turned thirty(censored), and I went over to see him to celebrate. I tell you, it is a scary thing to be surrounded by a bunch of postgraduate zoology students - they are a unique breed. Drunk, giggly, and frightening with their talks about muscle systems and chemicals, and 'test results', and other contrabond information. I sat in the back and tried to hide the fact that I put rainbow coloured laces in my Doc Martens. One of them asked me what my book was about, and - as usual - I deflected the question by saying "I dunno." and then "The media." Both are total bullshit, of course - my book is a self-indulgent masturbatory ode to my own out-of-control ego. But I certaninly wasn't going to tell them that.

The point of all this is that I spent most of the night talking to a friend of Jon's - Wiggs. Nice guy. We got to talking about music, and that was when I knew that I wasn't going to be getting home by ten, as originally planned. I'm going to share exactly what was discussed.

Firstly, The White Album by The Beatles is the greatest achievement in the history of popular music. Period. Oh, you may say 'Pet Sounds' or 'Slippery When Wet' or 'In Tha Zone' - but you would be wrong. Any album that has 'Sexy Sadie', 'Julia', 'Revolution 9', 'Helter Skelter', and 'Happiness Is A Warm Gun' on it gets the 10. And how lovely that they bid us all "Good Night" at the close.

U2 are a bunch of talentless motherfuckers, and Bono is better off dead. The only thing they ever did that was any good was Rattle And Hum, and even that is kind of annoying. Fuck U2 and fuck their stinking fans. I will never forgive them for what they did to Negativland, those pompous bastards.

Modern music is an abyss - and there is a distinct possibility that we may never see a major-label band produce anything even remotely worthwhile in our lifetimes, let alone topping something like the White Album.

Jimmy Page is really a nice guy. Robert Plant is a buffoon.

Mick Jagger is a buffoon. Keith Richards is really a nice guy.

Led Zeppelin's last album is a load of horse shit.

The Raspberries and Big Star are sorely underrated.

Elvis's 70's stuff is better than his 60's stuff, while not being better than his 50's stuff - yet everyone should see 'That's The Way It Is'. Guys should definately see it just to see if they can sexually respond to another man. 'That's The Way It Is' now forms one of a two pronged attack on assumed heterosexuality - the other being the movie of 'Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars'.

The Eagles 'Live '80' album must have required one of the largest supplies of cocaine during its recording that the world has ever known. And Joe Walsh never DID become president. Although, Walsh and the current puppet do share the same taste in pharmaecuticals.

I'm sick of people picking on E.L.O. Yeah, I know. The afro. The aviator goggles. 'The Diary Of Horace Wimp". That whole "Xanadu" deal - which I have spent the last five years defending. E.L.O released some of the best music ever made - and any knave who dares to speak ill of 'A New World Record' should be burned alive. I have a DVD of the 'Out Of The Blue' tour sitting here. I'm not sure whether I should watch it - can I take an hour and a half of Jeff Lynne's massive lapels, mighty 'fro, and soaring falsetto? Only time will tell.

Jon Bon Jovi's favourite song is Don Henley's 'Boys Of Summer'. Okay. But I still won't rest until I watch my urine seeping into the turned dirt of his grave. Some evils can never be undone. In his case, his entire career.

David Lee Roth is an idiot of Herculean proportions - but since he doesn't take him seriously, we'll forgive him. As long as he doesn't try that 'surfboard from the roof' bullshit again.

If you don't get a chill when you hear Harry Nilsson's 'Everybody's Talkin'' - you're not human. You have a black, oily, pulsating blob where your heart used to be.

Bette Midler's 'The Divine Miss M' is a great record, and fuck you for laughing at me. So is "The Rose".

The look on Robbie Robertson's face at The Band's last show when they wheel Muddy Waters out is priceless. Never have I seen such a mixture of pride and fear - and when Muddy tears into 'Mannish Boy' - that face turns to ecstasy.

Bruce Springsteen is God. Enough said.

Makes you think. Doesn't it.

BDO Notes - Part Eleven

Nothing to say - Position vacant.

I wish that girl would stop making eye contact with me. Her fuckwit boyfriend will kick the piss out of me. I'm sure of it.

I don't even want to stand. Let alone move.

A perfect tag line to slag off The Strokes -

"It takes diff'rent Strokes to move the world."

Funny!

I wonder if they'll come back for me?

Dissappearring. (sic)

BDO Notes - Part Ten

I am becoming increasingly brain damaged. The body went - now the mind will follow suit. I remember hearing "Sunshine Drive" on RRR, and thinking it was simply marvellous. I was at a low point at the time, halfway through a novel - single, dislocated, and half-crazy with fear.

Ha'ina 'ia mai ana ka puana
Ha'ina 'ia mai ana ka puana

Excuse my spelling, Warren.

And excuse me for name dropping you in THAT speech. Oh, God. I freak out just thinking about it.

But then I heard "Sunshine Drive" and I really thought that The Spazzys were something special. And they are. Innocent and joyous and hopeful - but muscular and posessed by a real emotional and spiritual presence. They are a Girl Group, yes. But a pure one - they are no mere cynical purveyors of cheap sarcasm and bogus postmodern ironic revisionism - they really seem to BELIEVE what they are saying.

BDO Notes - Part Nine

I'm still in the carpet bar. I want to leave, but I hurt too much.

Muse are derivative, boring wankers. And they can get fucked.

Gorgeous girl with the guy who looks like Austen Tayshus, but with a bad blonde dye job. What the fuck is up with that?

Lou Reed understood things that these namby pamby alternashit bastard bands never will - there is only beauty in pain if it is counterpointed by beauty in joy. This is why 'Street Hassle' may be the greatest song ever written. Lester was right in one sense, it is a sound album - not a song album. But the lyrics are so deeply moving, and so powerful that the tailor made for coffee shop circular cello riff stops being melodramatic and makes total and complete sense. I wonder if there'll be another 'Street Hassle' in my lifetime?

The Australian music industry has a hole left by the breakup of the Paradise Motel - a hole that may never be filled. Their cover of 'Drive' absolutely blows my mind.

We don't move - we don't advance. We are worthless necrophiles raping the dead bodies of cultures that have outlived their usefulness. It is everywhere here - re-engineered cultural material from the 70's, 80's and 90's. If done accidentally, as with The Spazzys, the results are not offensive, but reverant and deeply felt. In the case of some fuckwit in a Mr. T. shirt, it is a snide, patronizing and (unreadable). I wonder if Mr. T or Poison or Masaaki Sakai realise that they are being underhandedly ridiculed by the proponents of a culture of cynicism and self-loathing? Do they even care?

"When you're growing up in a small down, when you're growing up in a small town, when you're growing up in a small down, you say 'No-one famous ever came from here'."

Is there any situation where Lou Reed is not appropriate?

BDO Notes - Part Eight

I am watching the random morons on some screen and I really don't care because Wayne Coyne is God and none can compare. Body is too shattered and inflamed to move - I can't do anything but sit here and try and clear the barrels of TNT out of my brain before they explode, killing everyone in the room. This is not a communion - this is a factionalized, deeply cynical paen to arrested development. Nobody cares about anyone else - this is a giant high school cafeteria. Fuck these people, fuck the fucking Strokes, and fuck me for PAYING to be here.

I can watch morons in Greensborough - I don't need to incinerate slowly in order to do it. My coherence is slipping and I can feel my brain slowly liquifying as snakes swim in the lake of water that it leaves, threatening to bite anyone who comes close. Unfortunately, that includes me.

Rock stars are such preening, posing fuckwits - they are show pony whores with no balls and no real humanity. They exist to get blown - both literally and figuratively. And that's it. Rock stars are the lowest pond scum on the planet. I hate this place. I feel like I've gone to the planet of the degenerate fuckheads, and they are living in an idyllic communist paradise, where everybody's needs are fulfilled as long as you are wearing a shirt with 'Mooks' on it. I don't even know what the fuck 'Mooks' is, and I don't care.

My head is experiencing the extremes of weather, from an icy chill to a raging fire. I am seriously doubting that I'll get out of this alive.

Morale low, brain numb, eyes wired up for war.

I can feel the ants gnawing on my muscles, and I want to scream, but I'm afraid that I won't stop.

I hate security guards. Fuckers.

BDO Notes - Part Seven

Sweat, salt, saliva, ink running across the window of the brain. I don't know if I can finish this. How the fuck do these people stay alive? The only answer is that they are so au fait with massive amounts of bodily discomfort that this is just another day at the office for them. I, on the other hand, am wired quite differently. I am the mind of a 25 year old in the body of a 70 year old, and this is JUST NOT GOOD FOR ME.

*NOTE - The notes are rather difficult to read at this point. Apologies for any massive breaches of coherence.

So the Spazzys did Sunshine Drive and it looks like I may be madly in love with all three. I wonder if they'd let me buy them each a cherry coke so that we could sit and talk about rock and fucking ROLL. Or would they call me the kind of suburban motherfucker they are undoubtedly trying to escape?

I want to be the lead singer of The Darkness because he IS rock - fury power and a near deranged bout fo self-mythology. He embodies the idea that if I say I'm cool, I AM cool. I become it by default. Robert Plant understood that. And he's cool.

Or IS he?

(Giant question mark)

BDO Notes - Part Six

So, let's talk about rock and roll for a second.

Maybe The Spazzys prove that there is a place for innocence in art. I don't WANT to know ANYTHING about them. I don't WANT to know who they are.

Because right now, they are the new Shrielles, and I don't want to blow that.

Besides, I think that they are younger than me, and that kinda makes me nervous.

Slower goes the body, faster goes the mind - to the point of absolute incomprehensibility. Slower body, faster mind - faster and faster as dehydration really kicks in and my back is the least of my problems.

Faster mind, slower body. Slower and faster and slower until death. I don't think I shall die but my writing will as my ability to construct a simple sentence evaporates into the air. But I have to hold out for The Flaming lips. They are all that matters. Wayne is here. I wonder what he's doing? I wonder if he knows, somehow, about my indescribable pain? I wonder if he cares?

He asks "Do you realise that everyone you know some day will die?" I DO realise that and now I know what he meant. I don't want to get into THAT though - that's the sort of stuff that could drive you to the very brink of insanity in circumstances such as these, where woodworms are gnawing at my skull. Roger Waters would be proud of me for stealing that from him, but fuck him - he is a prick anyway. I will NEVER forgive him for THAT NIGHT, and one day I will tell him, and it will haunt him to the end of his days, that rat bastard.

BDO Notes - Part Four

My group has deserted me, realising that spending too much time indulging in the peculiar behaviour of the dude in the TISM shirt is A. No fun, and B. Not conducive to a serious expression of latent youth alienation.

Because that is what this is. The BDO is no Woodstock-esque affirmation that the differences between people are not so insurmountable as to stop a non-violent assembly of music lovers.

Instead, this is an expression of violence. And aggression.

BDO Notes - Part Three

*Note, after seeing Peaches in the sweltering hell of The Hothouse, I began to snap - and from this point on, I descend into maniacal drivel. Proceed with caution.

Peaches -

Gender? There is no gender.
If Madonna is regarded as the voice of female sexuality, then where does Peaches fit in?
Madonna was the first instance of the legitimisation of pornopgrahy, pornopgrahy as mainstream entertainment. Peaches is a blank canvas, providing unconventional explorations of female sexuality in popular music. She is a blank slate upon which the sexuality of her audience can be focused. Peaches does not exist, but her audience does, and it is her audience that legitimise her.
Swaggering, pansexual persona.

NOTE: It is 4:30 in the afternoon at this point, and it is time for blast off. I've been sweltering in the 35 degree sun since three, and I don't deal well with heat at the best of times.

Mind and body are preparing to crack - spiders and earwigs are crawling across the field of vision. If Bangs promised a miscatonic journey into The Stooges, then I have descended into a place where the very idea of a rock show becomes a war. At this point I feel more like a casualty than a spectator.

Flat on back in carpet bar. My spinal cord is sending urgent signals that I am no longer 18. Instead, I am a 25 year old fat guy who is not built for this.

BDO Notes - Part Two

The Darkness -

Arrogance, condience, guile.
Best frontman since David Lee Roth?
Are they a smirking, postmodern in-joke, or are they genuine?
Rock ABOUT rock - they aren't a band, they are an amplification of every 'rock' cliche since 1949.
Enery, vibrance, and a band that loves their audience.
"Mother"...."FUCKER".
Are The Darkness an iconographic indicator of where contemporary music is headed?
If so, can rock only progress by the process of cultural detournement? Are the Darkness making pastiche RELEVANT?
And does it matter?
Is a tabula rasa a bad thing?

BDO Notes..

So, I went to the Big Day Out. I'm not proud of myself, but the promise of seeing the Flaming Lips AND Peaches AND The Darkness was too great to refuse.

Over the day, I made notes in a filthy lined pad that I picked up from the newsagent on the way. I'm sure you can imagine just how well I integrated with the Alternative Nation by sitting on the floor in a TISM shirt, scribbling frantically as I became more and more unhinged by the heat.

Because, that is what happened. As the sun beat down on the heads of the 40 or 50 thousand attendees, my brain became to slowly snap in two, and my writing became gradually more deranged. To open Metal City, I have decided to share my brain-damaged rantings from the day with the world, hopefully to illustrate just how awful these big rock festivals are, and as a counterpoint to the polished article which will materialise elsewhere on the site.

So - please - enjoy a little piece I call:

"The Combined Effect Of Heatstroke And Rock - A sweltering journey into the nightmare that is the Australian travelling rock festival".

*Note - All of these entries are transcribed, with errors, from my longhand notes, which were taken lying on my back on the floor of the stinky carpet bar at the Melbourne showgrounds. They make less and less sense as the day goes on.

Young guys - The Darkness, Mars Volta
Overcast - might rain.
Aggression, skull imagery everywhere.
A girl - "Yes! THE SPAZZYS!"
Relaxed, but pregnant with violence.
Retro vibe - Poison shirts, Dead Kennedys, AC/DC, Nirvana
Attempts to sell people stuff.
"No Crowd Surfing".

The Spazzys -
Green stage empty.
Spazzys are fondling equipment.
Guards are relaxed but banded together, with headphones and security passes.
Kids holding hands - first big rock show?
"Making notes already?"
Communal showing off - lots of "nothing fazes me" going on.
Obligatory punks - red, green, purple hair, one in a mohawk.
One girl - "You fucking ROCK!"

First Metallica shirt spotted @ 11:08am.
Spazzys stage playing free jazz.
Throng of Metallica fans.
For the older people, lots of celtic imagery.
"Kill 'Em All" shirt - album released before these kids were born.
Teenages one-upping each other.
Water spitting - he'll regret THAT later.
Posing for a photo - up on shoulders, with lots of devil signs.
Security tells me to fuck off when I ask if they think it is gonna get rough. Big, nasty tattooed dudes - type I went to school with. These fuckers loved pushing people around so much that they turned it into a career. They're standing around attempting to look important. Wankers.