Currently 8:20 am in Sydney and happy to report that the New Year is going fine so far! No cause for alarm, just yet anyway! Proceed into 2026 with confidence!

The national broadcaster, the ABC, does a NYE concert outside the Opera House leading up to the fireworks. As always, a bit of a curate’s egg as is the nature of these things. Cops a panning from conservative media for being too woke, and it’s always a mixed bag who’s free: this year Sporty Spice Melanie C headlined (good pipes); last year Robbie Williams (good freely-proffered arse). But I think the ABC do a great job generally given the wide demands of the brief.

The undeniable highlight, however, was a very enjoyable and surprisingly moving set celebrating the 60th Anniversary of Play School, our pre-eminent kids TV show, a real institution. Some of the hosts past and present appeared, some in ruder health than others, and it was a lovely shared moment.

I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before (and I think I caused him some embarrassment for which I again will apologise) but our friend Mousey, is the long serving pianist on Play School, and was an integral » Continue Reading.

Posted just now on Ryan Adams’ Instagram: “Sadly this will be my FINAL visit [to Australia/NZ]. I am so honored by so many of you having bought tickets so early. These sets are 30 songs long…You can expect the best damn setlists…I’m sorry to say goodbye but I’m grateful that I’ll have the chance”

My question is this: Has any artist to your knowledge ever publicly retired from just one part of their market? I understand an artist retiring all together, or moving to Las Vegas, and God knows we’re used to bands only touring here every three or four albums, but I don’t ever recall an artist doing this before. (Maybe Townshend saying The Who would never return after some shabby journalistic treatment in the 70s).

I’ve seen him ‘enough’ and have enjoyed it very much, so I was giving it a miss anyway (and the thought of 30 acoustic songs in a pretty big enormodome doesn’t appeal). But if I *were* on the fence, I think this decision/announcement would be far more likely to make me decide to tell him to go f— himself.

Just me?

I very much enjoyed the Yacht Rock documentary. I’ve never liked that kind of music – probably because of its ubiquity growing up – but it was a well-told story that had a light touch, and the participants seemed philosophical about it all. Even one of the Steely Dans’ involvement seemed a humorous nod to their grumpy reputation rather than casting any mean-spirited pall over the flick. I still don’t like the music, mind, but that’s OK. Not everyone has to like everything.

Rick Beato who, like many of us here I’m sure, I hold in high esteem, wasn’t having it. Such was Rick’s umbrage on his recent video about the doco I had to turn to my son and say “OK, Boomer”.

My thoughts, though, are these: I can only think of Northern Soul as another genre whose boundaries are defined by retrospective curation (rather than, say, New Romantic who were labelled and defined as such at the time). Were NWOBHM acts termed as such at the time or was this retrospective? With musical culture moving the way it is, is there likely to be any organic genres that have enough shared to purpose to be regarded as a » Continue Reading.

This morning, the car bluetooth randomly threw on “Twisty Bass” from Neil Finn’s very good (but overlong) Try Whistling This album.

This then reminded me of Suede’s “Indian Strings”. By this stage, the red mist had descended.

Is there anything more annoying* than songs which have obviously retained their working title through to their finished place on the LP?

Gentlemen – and ladies – you have not finished writing the song.

Are there any songs that, like me, and even at a subconscious level, you hold in slightly lower esteem because of what appears to be the use of their working title?

Also, are there other songs whose excellence transcends the mental image of the singer chewing on his pencil and saying “Y’know lads, I really do think ‘New One’ really nails the song’s lyrical and thematic brilliance” and render this crime acceptable and, indeed, become part of the song’s appeal?**

*your annoyances may differ **Most pieces on The Church’s Priest=Aura were reportedly given one word vibe-based titles by MWP which SK then tried to write ‘toward’. This method doesn’t count in terms of the OP.

See what you think of this. I had vague ideas it was in the works, but the trailer has come as a welcome surprise.

Obviously, trailers will play to the back row, but it does seem on first glance to look pretty generalist in its focus. Like all things Fab, it’ll be on my immediate to-do list, but I had maybe hoped for a more nuanced take on the man than this suggests. Given that most folks will only be vaguely aware of him, there may have been scope for a more niche portrait?

We’ll see.

Over on the Hoffman forum about Crowded House, I’ve just claimed that my favourite album credit of all time is: ‘Produced by Fleetwood Mac (with Special Thanks from the band to Lindsay Buckingham)’. I always wonder how many lawyers arrived at that specific wording. And how much per hour each was paid.

I also like, on Disintegration, ‘Lol Tolhurst: Other Instrument’

‘Mal Evans: Tea & Sympathy’ is gold, obviously.

Any other notables from the sleeve-note aficionadi among us?

In a previous post, I’d suggested that the final Beatles song was more an experience or epilogue than a song, and is best enjoyed as such. Peter Jackson’s video has only added to this idea. I was initially taken aback by some of the lightness of the interspersed Hello Goodbye imagery, but isn’t that what we love about them? And hasn’t everything related to John and George’s deaths become a little mawkish in the narrative? On first listen yesterday I could hear many of the limitations of the song an posted as such; since then it’s been a haunting melody in mind, I’m in love with it all again, and the final frames of the video had me in poignant tears. They’ll always be the best.

On the thread about intermissions, I mentioned how, rather than just leave the stage and then have the sound engineer pipe through low-level music of his or her choice as the audience leave, a recent Sydney show of Something for Kate had them taking their bows to the top-volume accompaniment of Ver Minds’ (Don’t You) Forget (About) (Me), effectively allowing the crowd to ‘see the band off’ and remain singing for the rest of the song. It felt like a really nice touch, and made me realise how often a band will just slunk off stage after finishing the hit/trashing the stage/leaving a feedbacking guitar leant against the amp/telling us we’ve been great, and that’s your lot. U2 [*ducks*] would encourage a crowd singalong when they used to close with “40”, leaving the crowd to effectively finish the show.

One of Robert Forster’s rules of rock n’ roll is that nothing new happens on stage after the first 20 minutes; any other gig experiences where you’ve felt just as much of an eye for theatricality has been employed for the ending as for the beginning?

Been grooving lately to New Order’s Here to Stay, closing song of the film 24 Hour Party People. Coproduced with superfans the Chemical Brothers, it’s a great distillation of all that made New Order great. Also on the playlist was Untitled by Smashing Pumpkins, recorded for a Greatest Hits, which matches (nay: transcends!) the mix of hard rock and melodicism on the highly underrated Machina LP. Thinking about other recent listening: I Burn for You was The Police’s contribution to a soundtrack, combining brooding music, brooding lyrics and delivery, and could have been an absolute centrepiece to side 2 of Ghost in the Machine. Michael Hutchence’s Rooms for the Memory, which soundtracked the film Dogs in Space, pointed to an intriguing and more thoughtful way forward for MH had he had gone through with (apparently frequent) urges to step of the INXS juggernaut. It’s a wonderful song.

What is it about soundtrack songs and one-offs for Greatest Hits compilations that can often see a band on very top form? I wondered if it was because the pressure is off in some way (compared to a whole album and its subsequent tour)? Alternatively, maybe they want to be an uber-version » Continue Reading.

A quiet Saturday afternoon here, so doin’ my jigsaw and listenin’ to reckurds. Not unusually, I reach for INXS’s Welcome to Wherever You Are (their best) and am struck anew at how horrendous the cover is. (The vinyl version, not the CD.) I couldn’t help wondering if there’s a a wider gulf between a great album and a misguided sleeve in my collection. No, there isn’t.

Anyone else’s favourite records dressed in clothes that fail to maketh the music?

Not so much ‘bad cover’ as ‘magic album/bad cover’ juxtaposition.

Johnny Bubble’s post about Springsteen has got me thinking about excellent stage entrances – as this one undoubtedly is. As with his Live in New York City filmed concert, there’s an affecting balance of the impact of the usual theatrical ‘bang’ of the show, with the sense that their individual intros have them appearing as a cast as characters and (given the history of the band) even as friends. (The New York version has a few of the band coming up in pairs and wishing each other a good show.) It feels like the staging speaks to the relationship both between the band, and its fans.

Clips of The Cure’s recent shows have them arriving onstage to the sound effects of thunderstorms, and remaining pretty still for quite a while, all ready, no gurning or cavorting for the crowd, before playing. It feels like a ‘steeling’ of the band and audience before what everyone expects will be a long and intense experience. The last few tours U2 has come on with the house lights still on for the whole first half of the first song before the lightshow kicks in dramatically. Neil Finn and Paul Kelly arrived from separate wings » Continue Reading.

Hi all. Going through a bit of a rough patch, but nothing life-threatening or that most people haven’t been through: long-term marriage problem, perhaps amicable separation on the cards but the kids are fine; an old girlfriend returned to re-enact some anxious/avoidant friendship dynamics; ensuing lack of focus at work and having to leave the classroom in tears. So currently living out of home (but among friends and safe and housed). It’s not a crisis – I’m trying to see it all as a gift or lesson, and part of Lifes Rich Pageant – but much of my reading keeps coming back to the same thing: self esteem. Doing some meditation – check. Good friends to chat to – check. Breathing exercises – check, (but still doesn’t feel natural). Being in nature – boring, but I’m trying to look at the trees.

So my question to the learned folk here: any tips for putting some lead back in the pencil and feeling generally more Ok with yourself? Any strategies that help you ‘speak to yourself as a friend’? Anything to counter that innate sense that you’re just a bit shit?

Sorry if it’s a bit of an amorphous question – » Continue Reading.

As is the case for many of us, George Harrison’s magnum opus has been at the forefront of my listening of late. However, for no particular reason other than its magnificence, last night I listened to Spiritualized’s Let It Come Down. A few similarities jumped out immediately. A questing and sometimes existentially tired voice amid an expansive canvas. American/blues colours after previously more psychedelic excursions. Religious exploration, An (arguably overlong) indulgent ‘statement’ album. Anyone have any ‘sister albums’ (without them being already critically-noted as indebted or deliberately inspired by) that sit together, ‘twinned’ in your mind?

I dreamt last night – Wait! Come back! – that Richie Edwards, late of the Manic Street Preachers, came up to me and declared “In any given classic lead singer/guitarist double act, the guitarist will have the more recognisably ‘regional’ accent. Fact. Morrissey/Marr. Bowie/Ronson.” He then triumphantly left, never to be seen again.

I didn’t know who else to tell.

A misheard lyric on the new (and very good) Ryan Adams record had me hearing the line: “I heard your voice saying ‘Ryan’”. This got me thinking about singers quoting others talking to them by name (or merely referring to themselves by name). Always raises a chuckle from me.

“You say ‘David, what can i do? They wait for me in the hallways’.” “But this is Phil talking: I want to tell you what I’ve found to be true.” In live versions of Reptile, the Under the Milky Way Hitmakers’ singer reports that Eve says ‘Steve, we’d better blow’.

Aside from Sweet-style intro chants or MCs mumbling their own names over the intro, any other instances of conversational self-identifiers in pop?

Congratulations @mousey for getting published in the civilian press. Made a nice change from the usual this morning to see a Letter to the Editor in the Sydney Morning Herald about the none-more-Afterword-friendly topic of Frank Zappa.

I’ve spent this afternoon listening to INXS’ Shabooh Shoobah and Morrissey’s Your Arsenal (don’t start…). What I’ve realised they share is a final song that is upbeat and hooky, that was released as a single, and that remain(ed) a fan favourite and live staple. It’s as if the songs want you to flip the album over and start again, rather than offering the deliberate closed curtain of a grand ballad, space opera, existential nightmare and/or three-part epic. On looking at my collection, I couldn’t find many others that buck the trend . It’s almost received wisdom that that last song has a definite role to play. All well and good, I like the format, but any of your favourite LPs break the mould similarly with a single- or encore-worthy sing-a-long? (Since you ask: Don’t Change, Tomorrow)

I like superdeluxedition. Even when I don’t like an artist, I’m always impressed by Paul’s eye for detail and his insistence on poly-lined sleeves. Anyway, with a few recent releases (Tears for Fears and Prince particularly), I’ve noticed vinyl reissues particularly that feature 7″ edits as the extra tracks (rather than, say, b-sides or live cuts). Is there anything less enticing that a shorter version of a song already on the original album? I’ve never been tempted by New Order’s Singles 4LP because of the edits. So leaving aside debate about completism and/or overpriced box sets – which are different issues – has any song ever been improved by a 7″ edit? Are there any songs you’d rather the single version than the album version?

There was some talk of this in the previous thread about the rooftop show, but am interested in thoughts on this new film. I’m super excited about Peter Jackson’s involvement (also surprised that in the finer print of a few press releases I’ve seen it says that the original film of Let it Be will also be remastered etc), but I’m also detecting a theme: While I bow to no-one in my admiration of Giles Martin, are there echoes in Peter Jackson’s comments that “the band were playing great, the chemistry was still amazing, don’t believe the hype that they were at loggerheads”. While I loved the remixed White Album and await The Fellowship of the Ringo with bated breath, I wonder if (given that one could point at any arbitrary month and make, say, Revolver that year’s superdeluxeedition just in time for Xmas) those in charge (ie Paul) are choosing new projects with just as much an eye on airbrushing the past as to bringing the catalogue ‘up to date’. Don’t get me wrong: I’m excited.

Ok. This will probably only end in tears. I posted tonight on the social media a screenshot of Jeff Buckley’s Grace LP on my turntable with a caption to the effect of “after a 20 year layoff, it is back on with this album”. One comment from a friend (in her forties, as am I) says she loves the LP; another comment, from a former student (I’m a high school teacher; she’s probably now late 20s, early 30s), mock-chiding me for not listening to it for the last 20 years. All in good humour and a shared understanding that it’s a great record. My existential question is this: Is there a (admittedly loose) cutoff point in the future from which someone could post an FB pic about a particular LP and have both peers AND people, say, 20 years younger still claiming it having a lasting resonance for them? Are the doors of the canon closed? Or, have they been closing? Have we been hastily waving (say) the new Radiohead album under the steadily descending door? I do want the answer to be no. But I remember discussion here about Mark Lewisohn’s Beatles biography trilogy and people quite genuinely and » Continue Reading.

M’learned colleagues. Am travelling to London from Sydney in a couple of weeks with the family to see the sights etc. Am also looking to sneak away and shop for records. Berwick St is obviously on the list, but has anyone any tips for their favourite vinyl haunts?

Not usually my style on here, but here goes. Been going through a tricky patch of late – just the slings and arrows, complex life stuff, but no threats or dangers – and have spent much of this late Winter morning (Sydney-time) pondering about gratitude. I’ve been feeling like I’ve had my head up my own arse for the last while and am trying to mindful of the good things and to actually express them, to notice lifes rich pageant in a way that’s more positive and outward rather than being caught up in my own processes, which are becoming so well trodden I fear I’m becoming a kind of meta-consciousness, reflecting on my reflections ad infinitum ad nauseam. So, sitting on the lounge, my wife at work, the kids, 7 and 2, and I watching Play School which this year clocks up 50 years. As part of it, one of the old presenters of this much-loved kids TV show, John, comes on to reprise one of his songs from my own childhood. Instant tears of recognition, sadness and joy. Anyway, as I’m sure you know, @Mousey on this here blog plays piano on the Play » Continue Reading.

The FPO and I have just spent a very enjoyable evening listening to Never Mind the Bollocks (or as Tina Weymouth would say, “Don’t Listen to the Bullocks”). In our admiration, we remembered a great quote by one of the guys from Def Leppard about AC/DC’s Back in Black. Wonderfully, he said the album was “sonically correct. It doesn’t date”. In our ensuing discussion (we don’t get out much these days) we liked the idea that that “sonically correct” meant it was somehow the high watermark of that field not just musically but in its sonic texture, overall shape, dimensions as an artefact etc. Back in Black… Never Mind the Bollocks… I then advanced Wish You Were Here as the uber-70s Floyd sound. We also mentioned Please Please Me as the sonically correct (TM) early Beatles sound. As a long time lurker and very infrequent poster, ‘er Indoors suggested that, yes, it *would* make a great Afterword post! Any other suggestions for albums that are ‘sonically correct’?