The Ego Has Landed

Beck - The Information

2006-10-24T19:07:00.000+10:00

It’s the biggest question of every alternative music junkie’s lips this week: “Will Beck ever return to the epic heights of Odelay?” After all, it’s fair to say that last year’s Guero wasn’t exactly a huge leap forward - in Sir Hansen’s terms, anyway. Rather, it seemed as though the flag-bearer of the ‘postmodern pop’ movement had started appropriating himself. But with the release of The Information, everybody favourite white-trash-geetar-strumming-homeboy has returned to the zenith he left behind in the early 90s. The rhymes are on fire and the grooves are whack, but most importantly, the more serious acoustic numbers (a la Seachange) are still prevalent. It seems like 10 years down the line, this musical chameleon has finally started to feel comfortable in his own skin; willing to show emotion, yet happy to rock out when the need arises.

Once you’ve gotten through the DIY sticker pack and accompanying DVD (a move which got Beck banned from the UK charts under fair trade laws), there are a huge set of fantastic tunes. Cellphone’s Dead in an unintentional homage to Herbie Hancock’s hit, Chameleon, mixes a funky bass line with eccentrically random vocal snippets. We Dance Alone, with its warm synthesizers is the perfect accompaniment to a luckless night out. Then of course, there’s Nausea, which simply rocks. This album is a welcome return for the connoisseur of ‘cut and paste’.

5 Stars

The Inches

2006-10-21T11:12:00.000+10:00

Hot young things out of Melbourne, The Inches are living proof that the Aussie music industry does work in weird and wonderful ways. Signed before they had even played a single show, these boys are now part of the 'Red Label' roster, an underground subdivision of the behemoth that is SonyBMG. With an average age of about twenty-one, the group posses a proficiency which far outstrips their years, as they rip through their modern take on 70s glam in the vein of T-Rex, Bowie, and perennial favourites, Deep Purple.

But it would be wrong to label The Inches as yet another 'scene' band who wear their influences like a second skin. For they also meld punk-funk, disco and most importantly (for this author) extended psychedelic jams into their numbers, which makes for a highly unique sound. There's alot of buzz surrounding these guys, and it's pretty easy to see why. As drummer Manny Bourakis explains 'Melbourne is a city with a good rock community, but lots and lots of sh-t bands.' Good to see that this outfit managed to inch their way to the top of the heap. Who needs the metric system anyway?

The Grates

2006-10-20T17:46:00.000+10:00

I challenge you, nay, I dare you to find somebody who doesn't like these guys. The Grates are leaders of the hyperactive, red-cordial-induced revolution, in which the only rules are to smile constantly and have fun. It's really refreshing to find a group with a high level of professionalism that don't take themselves too seriously. And it helps when the music is so damn addictive. Patience Hodgson (i.e Hottest Girl in Australian Rock) and drummer Alana Skyring make up the core of this 3 piece, while their sunny pop debut Gravity Won't Get You High is getting serious airplay on Aussie radio. For a small group, they make a hell of a lot of noise, just ask anybody who attended their Enmore Theatre gig in Sydney last week.

Patience has a soaring voice which transcends the simplicity of some of the tracks, as she reprimands ex-lovers and schoolyard bullies. Like UK's Lily Allen, The Grates produce candy-coated bombs, tunes which are sunny in their disposition but upon closer inspection, deal with complex issues and themes. But if you can't be bothered worrying about all that, just dance around like a maniac, in true Grates fasion. With cuts like 19-20-20 positively exploding on stereo, it looks like Patience and co. will have a long-lasting fanbase of teenage schoolkids and those young at heart. Viva la Cottee's Cordial Kids!

I Heart Hiroshima

2006-10-15T16:28:00.000+10:00

Right from the name, you can tell that these kids are going to be scruffy "scribble-our-name-on-your-schoolbooks" indie-pop darlings. Like every good lo-fi outfit, I Heart Hiroshima met at a house party last year, did some jamming, decided to ignore bass guitar (who plays bass these days anyway? That's so 1990s..) and record a cute little EP. The result is A 3 Letter Word for Candy, a debut which, rather impressively, manages to encapsulate the spirit and fervour of some of the best indie acts of the recent years. Equal parts Pavement, Sonic Youth and Tapes'n'Tapes, the trio all share vocal duties, making for some interesting Subways-esque texture changes as boys and girls constantly swap from lead to backing. Needless to say, the girl's a lot better, with a sexed-up yet eerily detached voice that would probably give Interpol's Paul Banks nightmares. The production is, naturally, mediocre (as was probably intended), but the songs are tight - and the twin-pronged guitar attack actually works, rather than simply sounding contrived. When a grassroots label pumps some serious money into their studio time, these guys will be huge.

Too Cool For School?

2006-10-12T18:49:00.000+10:00

and now a special message from the little 14 y/o guru Z-Master....

The aforemented "too cool for school" kiddies will undoubtedly lack the intellectual capacity to comprehend what I shall be writing about, but frankly, I couldn't give a shit! Why? Because such playground actually believe that I should worship the ground they walk on. They automatically place themselves on the top of the hierarchy, squashing everyone below in the process . They’re not funnier, wittier, better looking or smarter than you or me: they just live off Daddy's funding and rely on his 'friends in high places'. These dumbasses find it cool to flunk school, while the rest of us are brought down with them. Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for the varying cliques at school just not their subsequent popularity ranking. No child is better then another, none of us has money or a job that rules over anyone else’s. We’re all equal stupid crazy adolescents who take everything much too seriously.

What I personally hate most is the hierarchy, the god damn echelon system which pigeonholes everybody from the 'cool kids' down to the nerds. How do people become what they are? Is it simply how their parents brought them up? Or who they choose to hang out with? I know we’re all different but it doesn’t mean we have to be picked out and discriminated against. It’s like a fucked up form of natural selection. If someone went and ranked what the nerds had to what the 'too cool' had, they would automatically establish that the system wascorrupt. Money doesn’t necessarily mean a good life. The nerds get good marks, giving them a future and have a firm relationship with friends and family. Their relationship is not based around who has what, and is not forgotten as a new craze is phased in. The cool kids have it all until they see their fu%$# mark on the computer screen telling them they’ve failed their HSC. That’s when it hits them, but it’s too late, their education is gone and they can’t remember a thing.

Forty years later at the high school reunion you see these ‘cool kids’ looking like hoboes. They’re middle aged wrecks with no jobs and no friends. They just show up for the free food and drink! Then you move over to the nerds who are wearing Louis Vuiton suites and look fabulous. You then see their kids and understand that you don’t need to be cool in high school to get somewhere....

...But it’s a cycle. There is no escaping it.

Dancing, Drinking Dropkicks

2006-10-08T15:29:00.000+10:00

It’s time to get some genuine insight.

The thing that most angers me in this whole, entire, somewhat corrupt world (I’d better stop before I start sounding like an emo. You know what, they also vex me! But moving on…) is DANCING. Not the parties that facilitate dancing. Those, I can stand. Not even the salmonella-ridden excuse for food or the all-too-revealing Kodak moments which are inevitable consequences of such lurid events. Pretty much, too many dumb drunken dropkicks dancing deliriously makes David (that’s me, enjoying the 3rd person digression?) dangerous. In my irritation I have decided to look for an answer as to why people dance. Why lanky-ass mofos insist on flailing their limbs around as only lanky people can, why short people jump up and down on the floor in a vain attempt to grow taller (or, as a demonstration of their frustration of not being able to) and why hot girls, drunk boys and, particularly, unattractive ugly people find it so easy to get into the mood to dance.

The number one barrier against such flagrantly hetero-homo hedonism is of course an adolescent’s blood alcohol level. If, like a good 17 year old P-Plate driver you have a BAC of 0.00, chances are you're not even at the party.

Instead, you're most likely the taxi driver for:
inebriated-folk,
those keen to become inebriated and
those inebriated beyond all hope.

I suppose, therefore, that it follows, according to the laws of teen-culture that "Dancing Tip #1" for drivers is to ditch the car, tank up on alcohol and get into it. Nevertheless, such is not always the case. Everybody loves a designated driver, their car seats are begging for vomit and no one is paying for a cab, right? So drivers, you'll have to sit this song out.

Nevertheless, those that aren't driving and have hitched a ride from a hesitantly obliging family member or apathetic (see above) P-Plater, don't have any excuse. Upon arriving at the party, if you are not drunk, you're on the back foot. According to teenage philosopher and culture vulture Simon Weinstock:

“Without alcohol, you can't dance.” (copyright, Whenever Weinstock Was Wasted, 2002- Present)

Ain't that the truth. Those looking to have a good time but unwilling to foot an expensive grog bill will evidently end up regretting such a decision for their futile attempts at robot-dancing, raving and the epic “big fish, little fish, cardboard box” dance will unquestionably fail. And as they return home dejected, they’ll probably have 7 less friends as a result of their first foray on the dance floor.

Chronically underage beer-binging boozers, you are in luck! It seems, as the general feeling is around clubs, parties and all other tween-social events, that you are accepted. In the 1930s it was skirts above the knee, top-hats and tails. These days it's no shirt, demonic high-heels and slurred speech that are all the rage. I am not here to pass judgement on drunkards, for the verdict has been passed and it reads 'innocent'. The question is what to do with this innocence. There are, obviously, the antisocial drunks, who, much like P-Platers and those non-intoxicated persons who try to dance, are effectively outcasts in any celebratory circumstance. If you…

a) Throw up copious amounts of vomit after 4 beers
b) Scream and hit anyone who endeavours to say hello to you
c) Fall asleep or eat too much

…when you are drunk, I am talking to you.

Dancing is not for you. Murder on the Dance Floor is not what we are hanging out for this evening, and you cannot synchronise your projectile vomiting with that inane Rainbow Stylin track, no matter how many times you practise. But feel free to try, more fun for the rest of us.

This leaves us with the dancers: those that have enough alcohol in them to throw prudence into the wind and get their groove on. The most pressing question, of course, is why such people dance anyway. Surely there must be better past times. I personally believe that once drunk, there are only four options, 3 of which were mentioned prior and the fourth of which is dancing. Standing still is boring, sitting is cliché and lying down demonstrates that you can't hold your liquor well, so dancing seems the logical option.

Another compatriot and keen social-analyst Matthew Freedman explained to me that drunk people, “…like with any other drug, follow what everyone else is doing.

Studying fellows at a birthday bash he told, “…if a drunk guy sees someone eating, he gets hungry.” So, henceforth it follows that if a 'drunk guy' sees someone dancing, he'd want to be the next John Travolta. Regardless of the fact that 'he' usually ends up looking like Napoleon Dynamite, dancing, like drinking, seems a peer-influenced activity. Leo Sayer, presumably during a bender of his own, illustrates this point succinctly:

“You make me feel like dancing…”

Don't believe me? Try standing bolt upright inamongst a pulsating party of punks. The reprimand will be swift and harsh.

Ergo, people dance for there is nothing better to do. Nevertheless, unless (‘less’, ‘less’ echo) you have the right to be dancing, i.e you possess a license to dance and (preferably) have been on 60 Minutes in a Russian Ballroom Dancing Extravaganza episode, stay away from the DJ. Alcohol may well boost your confidence, but a recent boom in the sales of personal cameras ensures that such confidence will be diminished early the next morning in the form of some punk's MySpace or another similar online atrocity. If you feel comfortable with your 'funky chicken' video up on YouTube and 300,000 views within the first week, go ahead, bust a move.

Personally (and care of the Scissor Sisters, who, unlike the majority of you, are fantastic rump-shakers) I stress my unequivocally intelligent (and hence, correct) view…

'I don't feel like dancing’

Midnight Juggernauts

2006-10-05T20:19:00.000+10:00

"Dude, this crowd is so scene..."

A phrase often overheard at Midnight Juggernauts' gigs, where old highschool buddies Andy and Vincent proceed to blow indie kids' minds, especially in their hometown of Melbourne. Though they have only just released their EP Secrets Of The Universe, the boys have supported with some rock's premier acts. Wolfmother, DFA1979 and songstress/DJ Annie are all quick to praise the duo, currently labelled as the "hardest working touring act" in Australia. And the gigs just keep on coming, as the Juggernauts hit the road this weekend with Canadian wunderkind MSTRKRFT.

Their sound is truly inventive, mashing up pretty much every electro subgenre of the past few decades, leaning heavily towards the moody synth-club sound which echoes New Order and to a lesser extent, Daft Punk. First single Shadows showcases this sort of zombie-flick-vs-neon-disco concept which has catapaulted the Juggernauts to stardom. They've got an album in the pipeline, a headlining tour in the next month, followed by a slot at the prestigious Homebake Festival in December, the lauded, annual all-Aussie festival which takes place in the heart of Sydney. These guys don't even need the promo; friends like Cut Copy, The Presets and Chromeo speak for themselves.

To Mr Marky-Mark Latham

2006-10-04T18:52:00.000+10:00

Plain speaking Australian politician Mark Latham ridiculed contemporary Australian male culture this week, complaining beer swilling macho men of old have been emasculated by feminists and neo-conservatives.

“Australian mates and good blokes have been replaced by nervous wrecks, metrosexual knobs and tossbags,” the former opposition leader declared in his new book of political philosophy ‘A Conga Line of Suckholes’, “It’s the revenge of the nerds.”

Dear Mr Latham,

Firstly, we of the 'tossbag' metrosexual community offer our sincerest apologies for ever having offended you, THE Mark Latham; a national role model for personal style, politcal grace and utter stupidity. It's really quite a shame that we couldn't come to some sort of agreement that made us, the emasculated males of Sydney, and your 'kind of people' (the Neanderthal cavemen from eras past) both happy. Clearly compromise isn't something you learnt during your brief stint in office, before you yourself became a 'nervous wreck'. Don't expect us to feel sorry for you because you were sick, this isn't the goddamn West Wing, you tossbag. Your complete and utter disregard for anybody who doesn't conform to your ideal model of an Aussie bloke makes you about reliable as Pauline Hanson in Chinatown.

A Conga Line of Suckholes. Has quite a ring to it, that title, assuming you're a twelve year old pre-pubescent boy who's just learnt the joys of swearing. There's something about your complete failure to speak without inserting a f**king obscenity every f**king two seconds that really undermines any credibility you might have retained from your failed stint in office. To think that some of us actually considered electing you to such an esteemed position? It would have been quite embrassing when you began to berrate your own party who wore pink or purple shirts for being 'nancy boy queers' and officially declared anybody who owned a suit worth more than five hundred dollars a 'friggin fag'. In a way, that little disease was your saving grace, allowing you to humbly retire from ALP before you completely sunk that ship.

Terribly sorry that we don't drink regularly enough at pubs full of gambling addicts to qualify asreal 'red-blooded Aussie blokes'. Maybe our idea of fun isn't getting into a beer-induced biff, forcing ourselves upon impressionable women and finally, getting into a car inebriated and killing some family of five on their way home from a weekend up on the Central Coast. Beer is not a defining masculine quality in our country. Neither are barbeques, kangaroos, or even the rugby. Have you ever been to Melbourne, Mr Latham? Sure, those men love their footy, but they also love day-long siestas in Chapel St drinking macchiatos and talking about art and music. And quite a few of them are -gasp - married! But there must just be some dumb shelias down there right? Cos clearly, a city with some semblance of CULTURE is Fag Central.

People like you need some serious, multicultural re-education. I suggest a strap-down chair and consistent viewings of Priscilla Queen of The Desert, The Full Monty and Billy Elliot. And maybe chuck in some Scissor Sisters for background ambience. Any straight man can see that it's the fashionable thing to be gay in this present day. Except you, which lends to the the theory that perhaps you are a latent metro, or even homo-sexual.

Wouldn't that be rich?

Big hugs and tight Tshirts....

J-Seid

Reverse Feminism?

2006-10-02T20:44:00.000+10:00

So, boys, men and guys, welcome to the age of reverse feminism. We are priveleged to live in an era which is dominated by the phallus yet favours the vagina. "How does this make any logical sense?" you may ask. Well it's really quite simple. Reverse-feminism is kind of like post-modernism or post-structuralism, a movement which rips apart the tennets of its predecessor and puts them back together with a new focus which is inherently divorced from the original.

Let's take a quick look at real feminism through the ages to get a better perspective of the horrible beast it has become in the nineties and noughties:

1919:
US Congress passes the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution, granting women the right to vote.

1953:
The Second Sex, by Simone de Beauvoir, is published in English; The Kinsey Report is published..

1955:
The Daughters of Bilitis, the first lesbian organization, is founded.(This one i didn't know previously, God love the Net)

1963:
American Women, the report of the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women, is published. Meanwhile, President John F. Kennedy (i.e world's most blatant womaniser) appoints the permanent Citizens' Advisory Council on the Status of Women and Congress passes the Equal Pay for Equal Work Act

1967:
The Chicago Women's Liberation Union is formed, perhaps the first to use the term "liberation."

1968:
New York Radical Women protests the Miss America Pageant in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

1976:
The United Nations Decade for Women begins.

1978:
One hundred thousand demonstrators march on Washington, D.C., to support ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment.

Some pretty impressive shit right there. Kudos some amazing women who stood up to male assholes who were pretty much like male assholes today, but without 'Violence Against Women - Australia Says NO' ads assailing them whenever they sit down to watch the rugby. You did good girlies.

But all your hard work has begun collapsing somewhat like a house of matchsticks, due to the unfortunate events of the past couple of years. Read on, to discover the roots and casues of the plague that is reverse feminism...

1. Nightclubs:
With their stringent door policies and keen eye for inebriated patrons, Sydney's bouncers are some of the most professionally trained megalomaniacs in the city of Ego. Like kids choosing sides for a soccer match, they handpick the most good-looking, virile, young men they can find from the throng of hopefuls at the door. This usually numbers a massive forty. As for the rest of the clubs? Well. they're filled by platinum blondes of course, with high heels, fake tans and even less believable breasts. My girl friends think this is great, as they puff out their chests and sail to the front of the line to enter these dens of vice.

However, what they're missing out on is the chain of events which actually leads them into losing out in a more sneaky and subversive manner than ever before:

Girl gets into club by posing like a pornstar = Male friends left outside = Inside, seedy lotharios attempt to hook up with girls = The only reason the girls were allowed inside in the first place = Women, once again, become sexual objects for men.

This is reverse feminism at its most potent. It looks like the women are winning the war, when actually they're undermining their equality by pandering to the desires of their neanderthal male counterparts. And it shits me, by the way.

2. Paris Hilton and the A-List gurrls:
We all know the deal with she of the hotel chain. Talentless leech gets famous for doing every Greek who owns a shipping company, and a couple more. Porno tape goes on Internet, and suddenly she is an instantly covetable celebrity. Paris, along with fellow conspirators Lindsay Lohan, Nicole Richie and sister, Nicky, represent the end of true feminsim as we know it.

By prostituting themselves not only to legions of promiscous men, but also to the media, these women ensure that Germaine Greer and Simone de Beauvoir's work becomes conveniently irrelevant for the next generation. Forget burning bras, burn cigarettes instead! Women's rights are about looking good at all times, not complaining about work! And as for sex, be as loose as a goose. Hell, you only live once!

Paris and co. have acquired a legion of young fans who track their every move and imitate them. Generation Skank is upon us; in which 8-yr old girls demand lacy bras, 13 yr-olds practise unsafe sex and 16-yr olds develop vodka-induced brain malfunctions. I fear for my nine year old sister, as her womanly integrity is undermined by these vacuous, vestigal (non-)virgins.

3. Pussycat Dolls:
Strippers become pop stars. Hell, anything can happen these days. Only recently it was revealed that Russian lesbian sensations t.A.t.u (remember them?) were actually a psychological project designed to see the influence of raunch in popular culture. And it worked god damn it! Obviously somebody in the US capitalised on this idea when assembling the Pussycats, a quintet with little singing experience and only one member who can actually hold a tune. But if they can dance on chairs, it's all good in the hood.

Britney Spears may have delved into sex a bit much in Toxic, and Christina probably should have cleaned up Dirrty. But for these divas, sex was about personal liberation, not pre-pubescent 13-yr-olds with dirty sheets. Pussycat Dolls (god, just look at the name!) are ALL about sex; giving it, recieving it, selling it and ultimately making you wish you had it with them. "Don't you wish your girlfriend was hot like me?", possibly one of the worst moments in music history. Every guy could turn around to their love of six years and say "Hey, you're not as hot as them! Fuck that - I'm breaking up with you" In the Dolls' world, personality is as relevant as Leo Sayer.

4. Cosmopolitan and Dolly:
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Dolly. Everything I needed to know about sex, i got from that magazine in my formative adolescent years. Which was cool back when Dolly was aimed it 15-18 yr olds. But now its lowered the bar to something like 12. Most of these girls haven't hit their first period yet. And already they're being told about how to get a Brazlian and why condoms don't always work. In a recent press release, Dolly anounced their shift of focus was aligned to a lowered paradigm of sexual awakening. But I offer the view that the chicken came before the egg, and many tweens wouldn't be interested in sex, were they not stuffed full of it by Dolly each month.

Cosmo is only marginally better, because it doesn't pretend to aim for anybody except 20-30 yr old working women. However, the majority of teenage girls (having hit Dolly at age 10) are onto the more chic Cosmo by 15 or 16 years old. Take a look at this publication, and you'll see that it's almost 50% advertising. Promoting expensive perfume and outrageously overpriced clothing to an audience without a stable income is quite wrong, in the moral sense. And Cosmo know how many girls read their stuff, as the someone once commented that more teenagers subscribe than any other age group. Intentionally or not, Cosmo fosters culture of mass expenditure which is far beyond most women under the age of 25. And indeed, without women's suffrage, these magazines would be a pointless waste of paper.

This may be long, and i may be ranting. But my points are valid; the demise of feminism is upon us. And as raunch culture, generation slut and inverted-feminsim take hold, one can only enivsage a new decade in which aggressive misogyny finally becomes maintream fare, as fuelled by the fires of ignorant women.

Violence Against Women's Integrity - Jonno Says No.
Now you do your part.

Hard-Fi and Starky destroy the Enmore

2006-10-02T14:27:00.000+10:00

Maybe it's just me, but I have yet to attend a poor gig at the Enmore. The party vibe in Newtown, the extrodinary proliferation of bi-curious metrosexuals, and most of all, the archaic brilliance of the venue itself means that it's pretty hard not to enjoy yourself. But Hard-Fi's debut Australian performance on 27 October raised my obsession with the Enmore to new heights.

But first, mention must be made of Starky, possibly the most kick-ass support band since a relatively unknown Sarah Blasko opened for the Polyphonic Spree (at this same theatre, might I add) in January 2005. Frotnman Beau, with his eclectic get-up, wild sense of humour and deadpan cynicism really communicated with the audience, who, though initially sceptical, finished their beers and clamoured in to hear this local quartet rock the house.

What I found so refreshing about Starky was their phenomenal musicianship; the fact that despite their tunes had a heavy emphasis on 80s new wave, they posessed the professionalism of a 70s funk band. Every song was a cracker, and I found myself singing along to tracks I hadn't even heard before. The rhythm section was tight, the distortion was in full force, and the absurdly tight jeans just added to the fun. Like Ms Blasko, for Starky this is just the beginning. I see big things for these boys.

Of course, nothing could have prepared the crowd for the force of the Hard-fi gang. Applauded by critics worldwide, with an album that has been stuck CD players for months and tunes that have been transformed into house standards - nobody knew what to expect. As the entry music came on and searchlights darted across the walls, there was a sense of nervous anticipation: Would they show? What would the set be like? Why the eerie prison imagery?

But before any more could be said, Hard-fi literally bum rushed the stage. Not one at a time, but all at once, screaming, yelling and dancing around like a bunch of ex-cons. It was the most fucking scary moment of my gigging career, and this comes from a boy who was in a System Of A Down moshpit at age 14.As the lights went up, we were treated to our first view of the meglomaniacal madman that was Richard Archer. He was even freakier in real life, with lily-white skin, crewcut and piercing blue eyes he came off like the bastard child of Chucky and one of the guys from Clockwork Orange. As his face contorted into a number of gruesome shapes, the band launched into 'Middle Eastern Holiday', and the crowd went sick.

How did a bunch of relative unknowns manage to amass such a huge audience reaction? Confidence. Archer and Frankenstein-esque bassist Kai Stevens commanded the stage, stalking angrily like they werre about to crack any minute. And it worked, the crowd was genuinely excited and thrilled, not to mention a half-time mention of Melbourne which got everybody's competitive blood pumping. When I saw Coldplay, a far bigger and more commercially viable group than these boys a few months back, they asked the seated patrons to get up and dance along. Archer spared us the niceties, demanding that every last person "Gets out of their fucking chair, this isn't a film!".

For a band with a year of experience and only one proper record under their belts, Hard-fi had more talent than many groups hope to achieve five years into their career. Stellar cuts like 'Hard To Beat' had the floor bouncing, while the acoustic guitar rendition of 'Move On Now' was a lighter-in-the-air moment of emotion. Every player was dead-on the mark, and the enthusiastic crowd shouted every word back at them, even creating a acapella template for the outro of 'Stars of CCTV'. The final encore, 'Living For The Weekend' was possibly the most ecstatic rock'n'roll moment of my life, as everybody surged towards the stage in a fever of excitement. And the afterglow continued, with raucous twenty-somethings screaming 'I'm livin' for the weekend' all the way down Enmore Road.

This is the kind of thing that a DJ just can't replace. Long live guitars, bass and drums.

Sneaky Sound System

2006-10-01T23:20:00.000+10:00

As Bob Dylan famously announced, "The times they are a-changin", especially for the Sneaky posse, who seem to have transformed from everyone’s favourite club act into commercial superstars overnight. Of course, Angus and Daimon (i.e, the boys) have been banging out tunes for over five years, acquiring a legion of devoted fans in the process from their ‘Sneaky Sundays’ jaunt at Hugo’s Bar, home to the urban elite in Sydney's party central, Kings Cross. Yet it is only recently that their hard work has come to fruition, in the shape of their banging self-titled album.

Part of Sneaky’s newfound influence can be attributed to their newest member, the stunning Connie Mitchell, whom the boys stumbled across in Hyde Park playing guitar and singing. Like Fergie to the Black Eyed Peas, Connie has only served to enhance the already distinct Sneaky sound. The Sneaky D.I.Y approach has certainly taken them far beyond the realm of their wildest dreams, as they were recently nominated for two ARIAS (NB: One ARIA in Australia = One Grammy in USA, One Brit Award in the UK, etc), and invited to support Robbie Williams on his upcoming Australian tour. Quite ironic, considering their statement “We’re like an electronic garage band with delusions of stadium glory.”

These guys make seriously good music. They make sugar-pop groups with electro trimmings like the Rogue Traders and Bodyrockers look like preschoolers. Rock on.