Artist: Big Star
Title: #1 Record
CD/LP: LP
Pressing: 2010 Reissue
Purchased: Dixon’s
This is early 70s power pop at its absolute finest. I’ve been meaning to get hold of this one for a long time and as the odds of finding a reasonably priced original pressing are similar to the odds that Kylie Minogue will become the next Queen of England I finally caved and bought a reissue.
Student, full time ‘retail slag’, online magazine editor, music fanatic and all round cool cat Sarah P (known by those close to her as ‘Rah Rah’ or ‘Cupcake’) has her finger in many pies. I shot her a few questions to try and gain an insight into what floats her boat and what get’s on her goat. Let’s get straight into it.
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Favourite Passtimes? Listening to music of all sorts; reading anything I can get my hands on; avoiding uni work and transcription; plotting ways to take over the music media; planning my next trip to Melbourne; and spending money I don’t have.
Fave Places to Hang Out?
What albums are currently on high rotation turntable/CD player/MP3 player? The new Amity Affliction track; Kap Bambino’s “Zero Life Night Vision”; Fugazi discography and Carpathian’s “Isolation”.
Please describe the most memorable gig you’ve ever been to: At the moment it’s the Shai Hulud gig I went to last night [EDIT: The gig she's talking about happened on the 14th May. I've been meaning to write this up for a while!] I went to do an interview with the guitarist and see a few local bands I had been meaning to check out. I missed the local bands because the interview ended and I ended up sitting around talking to the guitarist for another hour and a bit about books and music and theatre and film, among other things. The rest of the night was just spent in the company of cool people. Other than that, probably every single time I’ve seen the Bronx or The Dillinger Escape Plan!
Favourite Venue/s? The Metro Theatre; the Wall at the Bald Faced Stag; Enmore Theatre.
Who is the King? Presley or Costello? Impartial really … But if I had to choose I would go Costello.
Stones or Beatles? Beatles. Easy one!
And last but not least I will allow my ‘TALK’ subject an opportunity for some shameless self promotion because, let’s face it, that’s what the internet is all about! I run an online music magazine called No Heroes. It’s pretty cool and it makes me happy. I’ve met rad people because of it and I look forward to doing it for as long as I can. It takes pride in the fact that it’s all online and so 100% free as well as the fact that we only publish good writing and brilliant photos. It’s mostly punk, metal and hardcore, but there have been other things in it from time to time. We just put in there what we like, basically. You can check it out here.
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Thanks Sarah!
Elvis Costello is the latest in a growing list of artists who have vowed to boycott Israel. Costello has cancelled his upcoming tour citing as his justification the mistreatment of Palestinians. His wife, Diana Krall, doesn’t appear to share his feelings on the matter and is planning to go ahead with her tour later this year.
Whether he has done the right thing or not is a question I cannot even begin to answer. For one, I don’t feel as though I’m well enough informed about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and secondly I am not going to deny that I am quite biased when it comes to matters concerning Mr. Costello. He has described his decision as ‘a matter of instinct and conscience’. You can read his full explanation here.
I was very pleased to discover that one of my favourite authors, Bret Easton Ellis, will be coming down under to give a talk as part of the Melbourne Writers Festival in August. Ellis is probably most famous for his confronting 1991 novel ‘American Psycho’ which carries an R18+ rating and is sold shrink-wrapped in many countries. A number of his novels have been the subject of film adaptations. By far the best and most accurate of these was the 2002 adaptation of ‘Rules of Attraction’. Translating this novel to film was no mean feat. The format of the novel revolved around the narration shifting between a handful of main characters. As the novel progressed the lives (and therefore stories) of the young narrators became more closely intertwined, highlighting the conflicting perceptions that can arise from the same set of circumstances. The lives of these young college students are punctuated with innumerable sexual encounters and failed romance and characterised by escapism and an overwhelming sense of hopelessness.
Ellis’ new novel ‘Imperial Bedrooms’ is a follow-up to his debut novel ‘Less Than Zero’, fast forwarding twenty five years to give an insight into the life of main character, Clay. The fact that title for his upcoming release is taken from an Elvis Costello album of the same name gives me one more reason to like the guy.
‘Imperial Bedrooms’ is set to be released on the 15th of June this year. Ellis will be appearing on the 13th of August in the Athenaeum Theatre at the Wheeler Centre.
As I child I was practically obsessed with constructing things whether it was hammering two bits of wood together or making houses out of cardboard; my personal favourite, though, was Lego. The other day when flicking through a magazine in the airport newsagent I was both shocked and delighted to learn that Lego have released limited edition Architecture sets of two of the most famous Frank Lloyd Wright designs the Guggenheim and ‘Fallingwater’. To those who have been following this blog it will come as no surprise that this collaboration between Lego and the Frank Lloyd Wright foundation should grab my interest (see ‘Book Lust: FLW‘ May 16, 2009). I particularly admire FLW for his ‘organic’ approach to building design and his focus on the harmony of a building and its surroundings.
For more information about these models you can check out the Lego Architecture website.
The saying ‘love is blind’ gets trotted out on a regularl basis and in general I agree with this sentiment but there are some fashion faux-pas that should simply not be forgiven. If any of your loved ones should attempt to leave the house wearing such an outfit then I would suggest an intervention of some sort. These include (but are not limited to) the following;
Cargo Pants- Why on earth do you need pockets THERE? If the pants are tight fitting and you put something in the pockets they’ll bulge, if they are loose the contents will slap your leg as you walk. It is also worth keeping in mind that should you need to retrieve an item from one of these inappropriately placed pockets you will be forced to assume an uncomfortable sideways crouching postion. These were once worn only by compter programmers and the chronically fashion challenged but nowadays even designers are jumping on the bandwagon. Check out these puppies from Balmain which will set you back USD$4,705. Umm, I think i’ll pass!
Wearing Running Shoes Casually- Let me clarify. I’m not talking about fashion sneakers here. What I am talking about is the look favoured by Jerry Seinfeld; running shoes worn casually. This particular type of footwear is not designed to be worn on a daily basis. It is designed to be worn when undertaking particular kinds of physical activity. This look often goes hand-in-hand with #1. Equally bad is the socks+sandals combination.
White Pants- 
White pants should be avoided at all costs. Not only are they completely unforgiving, showing up every little stains and spill, they are also equally unforgiving when it comes to showing everyone your bum. I don’t want to see your underwear and if said underwear is not providing adequate converage I most certainly do not want to see your bum. Sure, there are some people who might enjoy seeing this but they can easily use the internet to fulfil such desires. Please don’t inflict this on the unwilling majority. Don’t. Just don’t.
I’ve been intending to put together a summer playlist for quite some time. Seeing as the first week of summer is almost over I figured i’d better get my act together.
You can listen to most of my playlist here. I couldn’t find either of the tracks from the Aussie bands but there are links to each of the bands’ Myspace pages where you can check out the tracks. I couldn’t find the Shin’s version of Plenty is Never Enough so I included the original in my playlist. Enjoy!
THOUGHTS: Internet Dating. Is it just for creeps and losers?
11 OctApologies for the hiatus; I guess I’ve been a bit slack of late. I blame the process of uprooting my old life, transporting as much of it as I could fit in my tiny car across the border and trying to establish a new one for myself in a different city for preventing me from recording my thoughts in any meaningful way. Let’s call it my ‘Writer’s Minor Holiday‘, shall we?
Enough of that.
On to today’s topic: Internet Dating. This has been floating to the surface of my brain quite frequently over the past couple of months, mainly because I decided to bite the bullet and try it out for the first time in my twenty-four-and-a-bit years of existence. I think this came as more of a surprise to myself than anyone else as I have always held the opinion that internet dating was for creeps, geeks, losers and the desperate. Despite hearing numerous success stories about friends of friends who had met their significant other through internet dating, I was still skeptical.
The idea was initially conceived over a few drinks with one of my housemates. We agreed that it would be an interesting social experiment to give it a go for ourselves. Would we have trouble finding any normal, respectable, non-stalkerish and generally suitable men like as suspected or would we be surprised by the quality of young men gracing the world wide web with their profiles? There was really only one way to find out.
The purpose of this entry isn’t to share my internet dating success and/or horror stories (I will save those for another day) but more to share some of the things I have learnt in the process.
My Observations:
We are willing to trust the internet to purchase goods from strangers, find a place to live, connect with new housemates, recommend a restaurant, find a new job and tell us what music to listen to so why not trust it to help us with the difficult task of finding someone to start a relationship with? Although internet dating can be contrived, the use of the internet has become so pervasive in our lives that we may as well be willing to embrace this and use it to our advantage. I am in no way implying that internet dating is the perfect way to meet people or that is it necessarily suitable for everyone but I would encourage anyone who is even the slightest bit curious to give it a try. You might be surprise by what (or who) you find.
Tags: dating, internet, internet dating, love, online dating, relationships, rsvp