I would not feel so all alone...

Aw, but she was too young to fall in love, and I was too young to know.

Never fall in love if it can be otherwise helped. It’s very similar to falling in-definitely, only just when you kid yourself into thinking it’s flying, you find that definite bit.
I adore finding gems of music in unexpected places. Obviously all those who know me will assure those who don’t that I’m a musical nut, and could serve as an indie-cyclopaedia when it comes to that sort of noisemaking, and I have been having a good couple of weeks.

Firstly, I just unearthed my mother’s previously-did-not-know-existed copy of Dr. Hook’s Remedies… ah sweet vinyl bundles… anyway if you can download (by which I mean legally, ahem) a song called “Levitiate” then I promise you will all be happier humans. It features a rock-n-roll scream, followed by the drummer singing “Stop screaming, it’s messin’ up my rhythm”

Anyway, next on my list is a band called guillemots, yes, with the small g. There’s this song called “Trains to Brazil” and it just blew my mind out of the water. I love it; it’s dark, yet uplifting, political, yet a kinda love story, it’s everything good alt-pop should be.

Mmmm. So my new musical project is ‘The Rainy Day Women’ along with various friends yet to fully congeal into a band, but mainly me and jack wanting to act special.

Hey! I just picked up Zaireeka by the Flaming Lips, and oh wow, talk about an interesting experience. It really is something unique, inventive, and well-developed. Google it, for an interesting lesson.

Finally, the latest Augie March album is exquitiste. It’s gorgeous, lush, archaic yet simultaneously almost post-modern in its off-beat-ness, very lyrical, oddly quintessentially Australian, fairly broad and best (maybe worst) of all: more musically accessible than their last two albums. Never have so many radio-playable songs featured, or such a range of hooks that you can pick up on the first or second listens.
I’m not sure that I want this band to be massive, but it would be indie-snob of me to deny them the commercial popularity they deserve. The thing I hate the most about music lovers is when they want to keep good bands to themselves. Fans who disown bands because they “sell out” or criticize other fans who don’t like their early work, just their later, more popular stuff. That really freezes my ass. The point of discovering a great band is being able to say “everyone should hear this,” and actually MEAN it, not saying “everyone should hear this,” and subtexting “by which I mean everyone should praise me for discovering this great band before anyone else, and hear the music, but if commercial radio gets their dirty paws on it, I was never there.”
Augie March are painfully like this. They are, have always been, and I hope will always be, my pet band. From the very beginning when I heard ‘There’s no such place’ five or so years ago I was an addict and I knew that they would be my musical children. They are so… largely unmarketable, and yet every person I put onto Sunset Studies has come back in either awe or tears, usually both.
I would really like to continue having this masterful and unique band that is a little secret for me and my closest musical allies but the truth is I really want to see these guys go huge.
I’ll miss them, but if the White Stripes can get as big as they are, Augie March are deserving musical heroes… give them a few more albums.

In passing, before I sign off for the moment, Blonde on Blonde sucks more than I remember… very disappointing. There are only a few good tracks. That said, Times They Are A Changing also sucks more than I remember… there are only 3 good songs on that whole record. Infinitely angry at this. I had just pieced together pieces and assumed it was an awesome album. It’s now slipped down to fourth on my Dylan ranking table. Blonde is still second… but weakening. I’m going to find my copy of Blood on the Tracks this arvo and see if it can knock it back a place.
Dylan is INFURIATING.
Bastard idols, can’t seem to attack anything properly, can’t seem to see around their fat bodies, can’t seem to take whole bundles as one piece at a times, it’s always en masse. No damn Dylan album can get judged without the man present. Hate.

I walk in grace, and I will continue to do so as long as there are dirty streets and pretty girls.

Love, and music, for now.