When I was a young, extremely straight-laced and conservative mainstream kid of 12 or so, I told my parents I liked Billy Joel – and my parents, being the extremely straight-laced, conservative cheap parents that they were, bought me a budget tape of Billy Joel’s Cold Spring Harbor for Christmas. Oh, how I loathed that cassette. There I was, with dreams of Piano Man and … [Read more...]

Wildly malevolent and featuring the kind of character you’d find in a William S. Burroughs or Hubert Selby, Jr novel, The Angel’s Take a Long Line is one of my favourite Aussie rock songs -- and after hearing that the band’s singer, Doc Neeson, passed away last week I’ve found myself unable to stop listening to it. … [Read more...]

Amongst the fluoro colours of the 80s there were delightful glimpses of black. While Prince prowled in purple and MC Hammer glittered in gold (and don’t get me started on his ultra-baggy pants), there were also musicians who smeared themselves in black makeup, teased their hair to Tim Burton-esq heights, and dipped themselves in tar and feathers (I’m thinking of the underrated … [Read more...]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzIwfa67oSY Ah, love songs – oh, how I despise you. When you think of how disturbed, conflicted, disastrous and vicious romance so often turns out to be, it’s perverse that most love songs are light hearted, simple-minded affairs that pander to haywire hormones. Well, I’m jack of it. Perhaps I’ve had a bad year, perhaps I’m just … [Read more...]