Australia Day Melbourne Special

Total Control are a current Melbourne supergroup. You Know people from 'The Melbourne Bambino Music Mafia' This one is so much good, it was in my best choonz of 2014. Rock's not fully dead yet!

This tune was from Ooga Boogas excellent LP from 2013 Ooga Boogas. Guitarist Mikey Young is in the above Total Control rock group as well as the Eddy Current Suppression Ring rock band. Leon Stackpole singer, guitarist and keyboardist is an enigmatic man walking the earth and bringin back his casually odd tales for you to enjoy with an incredible backing band of course.

Now this is a Melbourne (Is there a Geelong connection? I don't know. Danno why don't you let us know?) smash from 1987. I think the members of God were all teens at the time of this recording. They did an LP too but nothing can compare to the teenage kicks of My Pal. I cannot believe how fucking good this song is to this day! That intro, that riff, that singing man, those words, this song. Similar themes to the previous Sunnyboys tune I posted but this friend doesn't even like him. Members went on to be in bands Hoss, Powder Monkeys, Tendrils, Philistines, Bored and more. My Pal would always be the best thing they would ever be involved with despite how talented they were/are or aren't. Two of the members of God have now passed away both, I think, of heroin overdoses in the early 2000s. The Melbourne rock scene loved their heroin, hello Birthday Party. RIP Tim Hemensley & Sean Greenway. 

The title tune from Dave Graney's awesome solo cd, Knock Yourself Out, from 2009 is so great. So Dave tells us how fucking great his songs are and how great he is in true boxing/hip-hop narcissistic boasting sylee and it's infectious as hell. Then there's that great bit where he sings in French, Belgian or Dutch I don't bloody know but i can't get enough of that bit. Knock Yourself Out makes you wanna get out all the great tunes of his that he mentions during the song like There He Goes With His Eye Out, Night Of The Wolverine, I Got Dimensions etc. The video kind of fades out though when there's still like 2 minutes of the track left which is a shame. You gotta see the film clip though coz it's so Melbourne hipster it's hilarious. Then there's Mr Graney the one and only charismatic star who, as the rap kids say now, 'is in his own lane'. What's this look he's got goin? Some kind of double leather or hang on is it triple because of the hat? Wait are his shoes leather too?, if so that'd be quadruple leather. That would be Avant-garde couture almost would it not? Jesus I was just getting used to double denim as a concept. It's a bit Melle Mel meets Lou Reed 70s heroin chic in a Belgian sailor's bar. The full version of this tune is below because it's such a great song. You should also check out the entire album as it's a peak in his incredible career. Possibly his finest.

Phew that's it for Australia Day now. Jesus there were some odd selections there, huh? Strange. Well what did you expect? Did I post any Church? I've been listening to them all day anyway........ so....oh well next time.

Oh...... here's the full version of the tune Knock Yourself Out. Dunno 'bout the video.

Under Currents

Lovin this! It's got a really sad lost future vibe running through it. Like what happened? Is that all there is? What now? Who's got the vision?  Is this retro-future better than other versions of futures put forth by other artists in other genres of popular culture/music? Why does no one care? Not even us. Featuring the new millennium's only guitar legend Mikey Young.

.....and this from like 2 years ago now. Featuring the main man Brendan Huntley (from Eddy Current) hopefully still in fingerless gloves. My theme tune of the last 2 weeks, except I did mind gettin caught in the rain. Every time I get on my bike it bloody rains.

Classic from 2008 with Mikey & Brendan together in Eddy Current Suppression Ring. Dunno if this is their video or a custom made fan job. There's was something so peculiarly Australian about Eddy Current that was so fabulous, you couldn't ignore it. Then there was Brendan who is so damn charismatic. They didn't seem fake either like say The Arctic Monkeys or The White Stripes. Primary Colours feels like it was released a lifetime ago but it's only 6 years old. That can't be right? I saw this album Primary Colours (from which the above track is from) along with Ooga Boogas Romance & Adventure get reveiwed on daytime tv by Dicko (ex-Australian Idol Judge) and David Reyne (ex drummer of shite 80s girl pop group The Chantoozies and brother of Australian Crawl's James). Reyne had a go at the drummer of Eddy Current and said with disdain that they reminded him of The Saints as if the Saints were the worst band to come out of Australia and not the greatest. This made me think Reyne was a turd, even though he was in the classic 80s tv series Sweet & Sour (which was about underground inner city hipster post-punk/new pop bands). Primary Colours even made it into the end of year Pazz & Jop Poll in The Village Voice of all places. They placed somewhere in the top 70 which was pretty good but Guns & Roses' Chinese Democracy placed ahead of them!? Make of that what you will.