Sydney Tea Party

One of my all-time favourite bands, The Tea Party, are no longer in existence, but their former lead singer, Jeff Martin, is touring Australia at the moment.
He's set to play here in Sydney next week, but unfortunately I am out-of-town, back in Perth for one of my best mates bucks party and wedding. Should be a laugh catching up with all of my mates again. We all get older on the outside, but stay the same age inside - so a weekend in Yallingup, should churn out a few classic stories.

The link with The Tea Party and in particular Jeff Martin, ties in well. Martin, a Canadian, married an Australian girl and now lives (unless things have changed in 8 years - which they most probably have) down south in the Margaret River/Yallingup area.

So, when he visits my adopted home town of Sydney, I'll be lying on the beach somewhere near his home town in W.A.

Sights from the road

I thought I would post some of my favourite photos, taken over the past few years....

Bubbles on Broadway, New York, 2007
I found hope somewhere between Little Rock and Dallas, Arkansas, USA, 2007

The Wild West, Monument Valley, Utah, USA, 2007
View from the Southbank, London, UK, 2007
Finding the kings, Valley of the Kings, Luxor, Egypt, 2007

NYC Taxi, New York, USA, 2007

Sunset on the Thames, London, UK, 2007

V-Day

Here are a couple of songs in tribute to Valentine's day....

Lamb - Gorecki
I can't get enough of this song. I think I went through a phase where I listened to it everyday. The perfect love song.


Ryan Adams - Sylvia Plath
A different sort of love song. Probably, technically not one at one - but, I wish I had a Sylvia Plath.

Bring on Saturday Night

The Counting Crows played a show at the WXPN World Cafe the other night. Adam Duritz went through some of the new material which is on the new double album Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings.

The show was very Storytellers-esque, with Adam talking about the lyrics and themes of each song and what each of the songs meant in context with the rest of the album.

I am super excited about the new album - I am definitely a big CC fan - and this album is long over due.

The tracks are available to listen to over at I am Fuel, You are Friends - along with a pretty cool Valentine's day mix.

Heading Westward

I, by no means, am a hip hop fan. The whole hip hop/rap/R&B scene, with its bling bling, money flaunting sideshow has never really been something that has drawn my fancy. So, I have tended to stay pretty far away from this genre, dipping my toe in with some DJ Shadow every now and then pulling right back out.

But, recently I have grown some admiration for Kanye West. My first foray into Kanye’s world was when I inadvertently saw him ripping up the stage on BBC1 at the “Concert for Diana”. His was the stand-out performance of the night – putting P Diddy (with his “we miss you Diana” calls) to shame. I caught a “Life and Rhymes” episode he featured in over the weekend, and then watched his kick ass performance at the Grammy Awards on Monday night – which has led me to make this statement….I think I like Kanye West’s music.

Controversial I know, but anyone who collaborates with the ever-brilliant Daft Punk must have a bit of talent – shouldn’t they?

Easily the best performance at the Grammy’s, with Kanye shining though, surrounded by a sea of mediocrity – that is the current state of American popular music. A pumping version of Stronger, followed by a touching tribute to his recently deceased ‘mama’, enjoy…

Back from Bondi Beach

Here are some pics from Bondi yesterday...

Walking Trent's Line

I am late bloomer when it comes to Nine Inch Nails. I remember in high school a few friends really loving this band - starting back in the Head Like a Hole days, and even more so after the release of The Downward Spiral.
At the time I wasn't into the industrial sound, it has only been in the past three or four years that I have truly began to love this type of music and appreciate the brilliance of Trent Reznor. I suppose, that like most of musical reportoire, it was a live album that sucked me in. Live: And All That Could Have Been was an album I downloaded from Napster and fell in love with immediately. It seemed to fit with my life at that time - with the heavy sounds becoming the perfect backdrop to the gloomy dark days of life in London and my daily walk through Soho.

I caught NIN live at the Brixton Academy in the months before I left London. It was a kick ass show (that is the most apt way to describe it). It is all power and all passion. A highlight from that night was Hurt - probably my favourite NIN song - and probably the slowest.

I watched Walk The Line, the Johnny Cash bio-pic, the other day and it reminded me of a great version of Hurt which he recorded, short before his death. The film clip below is the last one Cash ever created, and it seems fitting that it was for this song - given the challenges he overcame in his life.

It is one of my favourite covers - you can see that the song really means something to Cash - you can hear it in his voice.

Lucky lane

Went for a walk on Friday down Lucky Lane (a trip into another world :) ) so I thought for this Sunday's post i'd write about some of my favourite "road songs"....

Sullivan Street - Counting Crows

Take the way home that leads back to sullivan street
Where Im just another rider burned to the ground

I have always loved this song, ever since I heard August and Everything After. I love the version on the Across a Wire CD. For me, it's a great "homesick" song.



Thunder Road - Bruce Springsteen

Its a town full of losers
And Im pulling out of here to win.

Nick Hornby wrote about Thunder Road in the opening chapter to his novel 31 Songs (the book I wish I had written, and in more than one way an inspiration for this blog). He decribed how it made him feel, especially the last line (italicised above), like there was something better out there for him, something to look forward to. It's a great song, with some killer lyrics, one I definitely try and listen to at least once a month for a little inspiration.



Long Road - Pearl Jam

And the wind keeps rollin
And the sky keeps turning grey
And the sun is set
The will rise another day

One of my favourite Pearl Jam songs, from the classic Merkinball disc of the late 90's. I read a great story about Long Road the other day, maybe on the Red Mosquito forum, i'm not sure. But it described how the song was written, and how Eddie came up with the music immediately after he had heard that a friends family member had passed away. Apparently Ed went into the sound booth and just started hammering away on the open D-chord that rings out at the start of the song. The other guys (including Neil Young) joined in soon after and that's how the song came about.

The original version (in the clip below from a Bridge School concert) was sung with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the brillaint Indian musician, but I prefer the live Pearl Jam versions - especially Perth 2003 and Wembley 2006, as I was there singing along. The clip below is Eddie at his best though, feeding off another artist, taking a song to a whole new level.



Street Spirit - Radiohead

Rows of houses all bearing down on me
I can feel their blue hands touching me
All these things in all positions
All these things will one day take control
And fade out again and fade out

It's Radiohead, it's from The Bends, what more do I need to say? Brilliant band, brilliant album, brilliant song. When I was living in London this song felt really right, with the endless rows of houses down every street, I really felt the song when I was there. Whenever I hear the first lyric it'll always take me back there - which is why I love it I think.

Lyrics that strike a chord...

I'm going to start a few posts that mention a few of my favourite songs and (generally) the lines, the verses or chorus that really make a perfect song (in my eyes anyway).

I'll start with my favourite Pearl Jam song...

I Got ID

My lips are shaking my nails are bit off.
Been a month since I've heard myself talk.
All the advantage this life's got on me.
Picture a coffin in the middle of the sea.

And I fight back in my mind.
Never lets me be right.
I got memories. I got shit so much it don't show.
Oh, I walked the line when you held me in that night.
I walked the line when you held my hand that night.

An empty shell seems so easy to crack.
Got all these questions. Don't know who I could even ask.
So I'll just lie alone and wait for the dream where I'm not ugly and you're looking at me.

And I stay in bed. Oh, little ive seen there.
If just once I could feel loved, oh, Stare back at me . Yeah.

But I walked the line when you held me in that night.
Oh, I walked the line when you held my hand that night.
Oh, I walked the line when you held me close that night.
I paid the price. Never held you in real life.

My lips are shaking...



I remeber the day I bought the 'Merkinball' single - the Pearl Jam emmissions from the collaborative effort with Neil Young, Mirrorball - which featured this song.

I bought it on the same day in 1996 that I got my tickets to see the Smashing Pumpkins. I had lined up at the ticket booth for about five hours (with about 100 other keen fans) to get a ticket. Once they were in my hand I went into the shopping centre and bought this CD, it had just been released that morning.

This song, along with Long Road on the same disc, has always resonated in me. To my ears these lyrics are so apt. If I had to write the perfect song then this would be it.


I've heard it played live at both of the last two Pearl Jam concerts I have been to - Pistoia, Italy in 2006 and Wembley Arena, London 2007. Pistoia was particularly memorable - in that setting this song really couldn't help but make an impact.

Wellies, Mud and Music

News out of the UK today triggered some good memories of the festival season. News of the festival line-ups for the impending year used to give me hope that soon the wet, cold, dark days of winter will slowly turn into the the wet,cold, light days of summer - bringing with it a smorgasbord of sounds for every music fan.

Glastonbury kicks it all off - in the often muddy fields of Somerset in the west of England. The years I lived in London the pictures coming back from the countryside more often than not featured rain and floods - surrounded my thousands of smiling faces.

Glatonbury is a unique festival. Punters go for the experience, which is typically seperate to the music. Tickets are ballotted off - to the hundreds of thousands of hopefuls - even before the line-up is announced. This year however, there has been a some insight offered from Michael Eavis - the Glastonbury impresario - as to what everyone can expect.

Jay-Z will headline the famous Pyramid stage this year. NME.com speculated on this news for the past week or so after Eavis remarked that a "black artist from New York" was heading over for the festival. That narrowed it down quite a bit - with the big money dumped on Jay-Z and Kanye West. Now the web is abuzz with questions over whether "Mrs Jay-Z" will be tagging along.

This headliner is quite a change from the traditional Glastonbury fayre. In previous years the likes of Muse, Coldplay and Radiohead have had the nod from organisers to be the name featured at the head of the line-up.

Bands bring their A-game to Glastonbury. The storied atmosphere tends to inspire musicians from the world over. I guess it is the closest thing they'll ever get to Woodstock so they go out there and leave it all on the stage.

Those that were there still say that Radiohead's 1997 headlining performance is one of the greatest shows of all time.



They returned in 2003 - my first year living in England - and again, they were amazing. One of the best things about Glastonbury is the extensive TV coverage of the festival offered by the BBC and BBC2. It's hours and hours of footage - with the headline acts getting broadcast live and uniterupted all over the UK - so that everyone can enjoy it.

Unlike the purely commercial ventures, such as the V Festival (which is basically a once a year roadshow for salesmen to pitch their products to that years batch of 15 to 20 year olds), Glastonbury is a festival for and about music culture - not pop culture as so many other ventures are these days. It doesn't chase the disposable income of Gen X, Gen Y or Gen Z - intead if offers an experience outside of consumerism, all sponsored by Greenpeace!

I tried to get tickets to Glastonbury last year - but missed out in the ballot (the odds were only slightly better than lotto by the way!). So I never got to go. I hope to one day - it's on my list of things to do along with Coachella and the Bridge School Benefit.

I'll let you know how I go.