There are very many things to rage against in the meaningful meaninglessness of this poll, but the Number 1 album pretty much sums it up. At the risk of sounding old and angry, I'm going to suggest that this album was the very precise moment that the Australian rock-based music scene got a tad full of itself and dived straight for the middle ground.
Despite small glimpses of genuine gold since Fanning put his ovary-friendly intentions overtly on display with this insipid and weak brew of songs, it's all been pretty much downhill since then.
Bar-fkn-humbug. And Doc - the kids can have their fkn station back. It appears to be broken, anyway.
So, to re-cap an entire afternoon's worth of productivity sapped away by Twitter:
@DocYobbo thinks we're all far too over the hill to even be discussing such things as radio polls;
@beeso thinks we've all got our heads in the sand thinking that guitar music has a future, despite overwhelming influence that a dude on a turntable standing behind some dude delivering nasally poems is, by and large, "untrammeled shite";
@Medway has been voted unopposed to the Treasurer position of the Blokes Punching Way Above Their Weight club (with myself as self-admitted president and @JohnBirmingham firmly ensconced in the Patron role);
I seem to be the only one valiantly flying the flag for honorable, left-minded, honest inner-urban hipsterism into the third decade. I even have the bicycle, dastardly disheveled beard and copies of Monocle to prove it.
And, finally, the pricks over at @triplej are a pack'a cunts for getting us once again on this pointless round-a-bout discussion.
Oh, and for the record, my short list of Top 100 Australian Albums Of All Time (the top ten I voted for in italics) were:
You Am I - Hi Fi Way AC/DC - Back in Black Alex Lloyd - Black the Sun Archie Roach - Charcoal Lane Augie March - Sunset Studies Church, The - Priest = Aura Church, The - Starfish Custard - Wahooti Fandango Cordrazine - From Here To Wherever David McCormack - Little Murders Dirty Three - Ocean Songs Gareth Liddiard - Strange Tourist george - Polyserena Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu - Gurrumul Gin Club, The - Deathwish Go-Betweens, The - Spring Hill Fair Hummingbirds, The - loveBUZZ INXS - Kick Jeff Lang - Half Seas Over Midnight Oil - Diesel and Dust Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Murder Ballads Paul Kelly & The Messengers - So Much Water, So Close To Home Paul Kelly - Ways & Means Pollyanna - Longplayer Powderfinger - Double Allergic Powderfinger - Vulture Street Regurgitator - Tu-Plang Sarah Blasko - As Day Follows Night Something for Kate - Beautiful Sharks Weddings Parties Anything - Donkey Serenade
Sax is overdue for a revival in modern music. The soul-revivalists like Sharon Jones and The Dap Kings and Black Joe Lewis are doing their darnedest, but by Jesus a saw solo like this absolutely needs to be re-introduced. Vale, Big Mr Clemons.
Some shit's just magic to witness, isn't it? Luckily the prophecy wasn't true - the Tote's still alive and well (even though I've yet to be fully immersed in its sticky-floored greatness)
Musically I tend to fall for the enigmatic frontman, generally one who can turn a hefty phrase plus also know there way around a fretboard or two. It’s not hard to see why - music, for me, is fundamentally modern poetry performed on stage without the wanky posing (for most parts). I’m a lover of the written word, so give me a beautifully crafted story over a clumsy chord progression any day and I’m essentially yours.
But sometimes, just sometimes, one of the accompanying musicians will grab my fancy. Usually its a rhythm section maestro (I mean, who doesn’t love someone who knows there way around a clever back-beat), but every so often it’s a flashy axe-man who tickles the bones. Recently it’s been The Drones’ guitarist Dan Luscombe - a man sometimes overlooked due to the sheer weight of personality displayed by his no-holds-barred band leader Gareth Liddiard.
I’ve always wielded a huge respect for the no-nonsense vibe Luscombe was able to bring to Liddiard’s stories (and, to be fair, Liddiard’s very own solid guitar work). There’s nothing new about what he’s doing, really: an easy equation of simple, clean guitar lines played on decent instruments and done so with absolute confidence. To be able to forge a distinctive guitar sound in this day and age is no easy feat, but to do it by bringing the whole equation back to absolute basics is impressive.
Tonight, I paid for a ticket to see ex-Augie March lead singer Glenn Richards ply the boards at the Northcote Social Club, but found myself increasingly attracted to the left-side of stage and the often-silhouetted figure of Luscombe creeping in. He straddled his side of the stage well with his axe of the moment (generally a clean Strat or a Tele put through a couple of effects) and barely moved. His guitar body stayed welded to his right hip, with the neck thrust to the left and slightly forward, like a loaded weapon. The nonchalant breezy air of his playing gave way to moments of complete tension as his shoulders hunched in and the strain of the upper reaches of the fretboard worked its way right through his neck muscles. Those moments built an enormous tension, which broke satisfying as his body floats back towards the drum riser. Man, that’s intense. It had been a while since I was musically smitten, but boy this lad with his shark-fin hair-do, barrel chest barely contained by his open-collared shirt and a don’t-give-a-shit swagger really does do things. Check him out.
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