Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Tunes from Monday's show and other generalities

Well, as the silly season moves along it's been getting a little quiet around the old Monday Sunset blog - nothing like work time to inspire you right.

Monday's show was the last (by me at least - tune in next week for special Bonnie arranged guest presenter) for this year and while I had intended to work that hoary old chestnut of what was good in 2005, I think I might save that for the start of next year. (After all, who knows what cool and groovy stuff is yet to come in the next 10 days)

So, for the record or posterity or for some reason I still haven't entirely figured out yet, here are the tunes from Monday.

Fiction The Lucksmiths
AA XXX Peaches
Kemuri/El Condor Pasa DJ Krush
Easter The Patti Smith Group
Monkey gone to heaven Frank Black
Caribou Frank Black
On & On Erykah Badu
Jaan Talvin Singh Featuring Amar
Pablo Picasso The Modern Lovers
I'm Straight The Modern Lovers
Red Right Hand Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Theme from Shaft (vocal) Isaac Hayes
Lifting the building David Holmes
Piazza, New York Catcher Belle & Sebastian
eatthechort Coach Z (Homestarrunner.com)
Popcorn Hot butter
Time Alex Gopher
Krupa Apollo 440
Jump'n'shout Basement Jaxx
Hey boy Hey girl Chemical Brothers
Da Funk Daft Punk
Escape Pod Decoder Ring
Personal Jesus Depeche Mode
Doris Dirty Three
Black Flute Leftfield
45 Machine Gun Fellatio
Crystal New Order
Doctor Who Orbital
Breathe Prodigy
Theta State Sonic Animation
Back to front TZU

As for what else has been a'going on - really enjoying Grand Theft Auto Liberty City Stories on the PSP (still not convinced by the small screen but the gameplay is great), doing the Christmas shopping thing (it still counts if you wander aimlessly around shops waiting for something to leap out right?) in preparation for the trip to Melbourne. Nothing amazingly exciting, when I think about it. (Well, apart from lion-taming classes, but I'm sure everyone does that at some stage or another ;)

Ok, well, guess I'll get back to umm... stuff

Hope you have a great break, Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, joyous Kwanza, Happy New Year and so on and so forth

Friday, December 16, 2005

Riots and Racism

I haven't said anything about this how disgusting episode yet - still kind of trying to process it I guess.

Having just finished reading Philip Roth's "The Plot against America", this whole hideous scenario takes on more weight.

The Plot is a speculative fiction novel set in the U.S between the late 30's and mid 40's and looks at what might have happened if fascism had taken root (or at least tried to). Charles Lindbergh (heroic pilot with some fairly anti-semitic views) wins the 1940 election for the presidency against Roosevelt on a campaign not to take America to war in Europe against the Nazis and step by step, little by little we see the emergence of an anti-Jew demonisation campaign.

Told from the point of view of a 10 year old boy in a Jewish family in New Jersey but taking the wider view when necessary, this book hit me hard. Very much about the whole notion of "evil flourishes when good people do nothing" and with far too many echoes in the Howard government's ongoing racist campaign first of Muslims as queue-jumpers and now as potential terrorists.

I accept that the Cronulla thing has been more than a one sided affair, with unacceptable behaviour all round, however the Anglo response of the weekend is by far the most disgusting, embarrassing and depressing behaviour I have seen in this country for longer than I can recall.

Walking down the street and coming across people from different communities, I've found myself feeling ashamed and wanting to try to explain that it's just a bunch of young, stupid, angry, scared drunk people who have been poked, prodded and generally mindfucked for the last 10 years and beyond by some horrendously evil neo-conservatives led by Howard (and his US Republican masters) and given voice to by nasty nasty greedy media including Alan Jones, the News Ltd stable of press (Is that the whole truth or is your News Limited) and some particularly hateful, slimy and opportunistic toads from the neo-Nazi movement.

But I can't, I'm still too embarrassed. I really felt it yesterday, wandering in to my favourite Turkish place in the city in Canberra - the Turkish Pide House. The place was really busy, which I thought was nice but just the fact that they felt they need to have an Australian flag draped prominently in the doorway really saddened me.

I've always liked the laidback quality of our patriotism in this country - noone has seemed to take things too seriously or needed to be too showy about things (outside of sport), unlike the always over the top American thing. The fact that few people know all of the national anthem has always seemed kind of healthy and very much in keeping with the casual humility of this place. The prevalence of the Australian flag in the images of Cronulla on the weekend had a really sinister undertone to it.

I was glad this morning to read that one of the surfers who was filmed geeing people up at the
Cronulla carry-on has issued a public apology for his behaviour (off his own bat as far as I can see).

Hopefully sense is returning.

I just pray it doesn't carry on.

I'd just like to apologise as an Australian to the world for what my countrymen have done. I'm really sorry.

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Tunes from Monday - bit late - oops

For what it's worth :)


For A Short Time Weddings Parties Anything 5:11 Riveresque
Words Fail Me Tex, Don Charlie 5:01 All Is Forgiven
I love my leather jacket The Chills 2:54 Topless women
This Charming Man The Smiths 2:43 The Best Of The Smiths
Sailor The Brian Jonestown Massacre 3:43 Bravery, Repetition and Noise
Vaporizer Lupine Howl 5:20 The Carnivorous Lunar activities of Lupine Howl
Walking Through Babylon Thievery Corporation 4:26 Sounds From The Thievery Hi-Fi
Jacob's ladder Chumbawumba 2:53 Peace Not War
Hey Nonny Nonny Violent Femmes 4:34 Why Do Birds Sing?
Atmosphere Joy Division 4:10 Substance 1977-1980
I see a darkness Bonny Prince Billy 4:49 I see a darkness
Everything Reminds Me of Her Elliott Smith 2:37 Figure 8
A Clean Slate Sealifepark 3:55 We Get What You Deserve
Drive Blu Mar Ten 3:52 The Six Million Names Of God
Whats A Place Like That Doing In A Girl Like You Devastations 4:57 Coal
Everything breaks the heart The Beautiful Few 3:06 Metal for Melbourne
Godless The Dandy Warhols 5:20 Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia
Caribou Frank Black Francis 3:01 Frank Black Francis (Demos)
Take A Run At The Sun Dinosaur Jr 3:28 Ear-Bleeding Country

Greater Head Crime And The City Solution 4:22 The Brideship
Buy me a pony Spiderbait 1:43 Garage Days
Not That Social The Von Bondies 3:01 Pawn Shoppe Heart
Arse Grabbin' 2UP 3:42 Player's Club
Dope fiend beat Chaos Maths 3:49 Dope meaning good
Growing on me The Darkness 3:31 Permission to land
Batman Neal Hefty 1:11 Single
Paper Doll Louis XIV 3:25 The Best Little Secrets Are Kept
Total Trash Sonic Youth 7:33 Daydream Nation
La Di Doh Ed Kuepper 6:34 With A Knapsack On My Back
Sides Full Fathom Five 3:39 Sides
Venus In Cancer Amusement Parks On Fire 3:37 Amusement Parks On Fire
Mexican Radio Wall of Voodoo 3:57 Rage II
Lick The Bacon Osterberg 2:08 Osterberg
Immigrant Song Led Zeppelin 2:23 School of Rock
Rock'n'Roll worm Hoss 3:34 You get nothing
Bizarre love triangle New Order 6:43 International
Kill All Hippies Primal Scream 4:57 Xtrmntr
Best Of Both Worlds Midnight Oil 4:05 20,000 Watts R.S.L.
Descent Into The Maelstrom Radio Birdman 4:24 Essential Radio Birdman

Monday, December 12, 2005

Calm before the storm

Gee, guess it's been a bit of a busy week - not so much with the time for lolling about the web and posting the odd bit and piece opinion or interesting link to the blog. Fortunately, we got through this whole work thing :) - got all the outstanding projects sorted out for the year, made the presentation video and all seemed to go fairly well. (Actually, forget the false modesty, they loved us - the team here at FLS strutted it)

Anyways, now that there's a little more time, guess it's time to get back to the posting and whatnot. Got a few things to mention but think I might put the show together first up.

Did manage to update the links at least - the Suprglu thing I've mentioned before, essentially it's a site that draws in content that you've stuck up around the web - blog postings, photos on Flickr, favourites from del.icio.us (now pwned by Yahoo apparently - same as Flickr) and bibs and bobs from 43 things and such.

The 2XXfm link is fairly self explanatory - apparently there is a major reworking of the 2xx site coming soon which should be interesting. 2xx is getting pretty switched on with the technology (impressive considering the budget we run on) and there looks to be more new, exciting and funky ways to connect with the community in the pipeline.

Dee's Temporal Island is the blog of an old friend of mine living in Augusta, down in the SW of WA. Lots of interesting musings about life, web stuff, writing, public transport and all kinds of things. Always worth a look.

And finally, there's The RiotACT. Often feisty ACT news and commentary blog (with open posting) which is certainly one way to stay tuned in to what's going on in the 'Can. (Or at least what people think is going on :)

I've been thinking about the way people - and I guess me in particular - post to boards like this and have really started wondering whether it's kind of hypocritical to talk to people in these places differently than the way you would speak to them face to face. Obviously, when writing something there is extra time to compose and arrange your thoughts so it's never going to be exactly the same, but what about tone and manners.

Last week - in the wake of the IR/Terror/VSU/etc laws passing I was thinking it might be satisfying to cyberslap around some young libs (not sure how well I did but I was called an assclown) but maybe there's enough aggro in the world today. Maybe manners is the way to go. After all, I often get the sense when these discussions devolve to general sledging that there isn't so much in the way of an argument behind them and maybe it's the ideas that we need at the moment.

Saturday, December 10, 2005

Monday, December 05, 2005

Today's tunes

Getting in early today as there's much to be done at work (alas :)

Monday Sunset 051205

Cut Your Hair Pavement 3:06 Crooked Rain Crooked Rain: LA's Desert Origins
Hazel Eyes The Darkness 3:26 One Way Ticket To Hell ...And Back
Kali-Fornia Uber Alles 21st Century Jello Biafra With The Melvins 3:19 Sieg Howdy!
Satellite Burgers Of Beef 3:28 Satellite (EP)
Harmonicas And Trams The Lucksmiths 4:45 Why That Doesn't Surprise Me
Harry Was A Bad Bugger Tex, Don & Charlie 5:19 All Is Forgiven
Girl & the Sea The Presets 4:40 Kill Your Idols
Turn Up Your Radio The FBI Idols 4:06 Kill Your Idols
Pills The Mess Hall 4:00 Notes From The Ceiling
Big Buck Cato Salsa Experience 3:51 No. 3
It's My Star Sounds Like Sunset 2:54 Invisible
Stairway To Gilligan's Island Little Roger & the Goosebumps 3:14 Libraryofvinyl.blogspot
If Rap Was A Sport... 2UP 3:55 Player's Club
Interlude ft Ziggy Ziznack The Speakeasies 3:34 Speaken Freely
Diabolik Boogie Messer Chups 3:07 Crazy Price
Eternal Struggle Full Fathom Five 4:00 07 Seven
Space Monkey The Patti Smith Group 4:06 Easter
A big star The City Lights 2:56 Escape from tomorrow today
Kooks Motor Ace 2:58 Garage Days
Love is the drug Roxy Music 3:59 Garage Days
The Jean Genie The Dandy Warhols 2:14 Single

AAXXX Peaches 4:30
Discipline Punish Nou 2:19
Comet Wire 3:18
Lick the bacon Osterberg 2:08
Check level Rogers Sisters 3:20
The Heart's a lonely hunter Thievery Corporation 4:05
Doris Dirty Three 3:26
The Zither Player Dirty Three 5:01
Ain't no easy way Black Rebel Motorcycle Club 2:36
Cherry Chapstick Yo La Tengo 6:11
Speakers push the air Pretty Girls Make Graves 2:51
Recoil TZU 5:00
Back to Front TZU 3:09
Take, Take, Take The White Stripes 4:22
Turn a square The Shins 3:11
Igloo The screaming tribesmen 4:01
Something good Ruck Rover 2:01
Burn in Hell Rocket Science 2:47
Breathe Prodigy 5:34
Nothing on my mind Paul Kelly 4:55

Sunday, December 04, 2005

Stairway to Gilligan


http://libraryofvinyl.org/blog/StairwayToGilligan.mp3


Hmm, child of the 70's much (yep, I'm that old - 34) - this is reasonably amusing mashup of Stairway to Heaven and the theme from Gilligans Island. Actually, I'm not sure I'd really call it a mashup as it doesn't use the originals in themselves, but it's the song sung to the tune of Stairway. The end is cool.

Actually, on re-reading the link from Boing Boing, they do call it a proto-mashup. This actually came out as a single. Wonder what was on the b-side? Nothing about that at the blog this was posted on originally - http://libraryofvinyl.blogspot.com/ but certainly a fairly interesting history of the whole thing. Enjoy.