October 14, 2009

Thoughts for this week:

- Placebo, Anthrax, Motion City Soundtrack, Shinedown, Set Your Goals, Enter Shikari, Closure In Moscow. With one swift blow this week Soundwave has bent Big Day Out over the back of the couch thoroughly sodomised it. And the fact that Big Day Outs are selling out across the country, while Soundwave still has tickets remaining is testament to the fact that BDO is no longer the bastion festival of music lovers. Music at Big Day Out is now secondary to warm $8 Tooheys cans, Australian flags and bad tattoos. I dare you to argue otherwise.

-“There’s no shame in acknowledging your influences. Bands never want to say that they are influenced by the bands that they sound just like. When a new ‘melodic hardcore’ band comes out, they’ll never say “oh, it was the first major label Rise Against record that really helped define our sound.” They’ll instead say “oh, we listen to lots of Sammy Davis and lots of Judas Priest and so we combined those sort of melodic elements with the sort of aggressive drum machine blast of late era ministry but we used a real drummer.” No you didn’t. You heard “Give it All” when you were in the mall shopping for a new belt.”- Brendan Kelly (Lawrence Arms)

- My cat’s breath smells like cat food.- The new liquor licensing laws that dictate any venue with live music requires security are so idiotic, it’s horrifying. Whoever decided that there is a correlation between bands and alcohol fuelled violence needs to pay a visit to my local. This rickety pub smells of trench foot and moth balls and the bands will attract a crowd of about 50 people on a good night, yet they’ve had to hire a security guard. The poor guy’s only legit threat is being relentlessly hit on by amorous middle-aged women gone a bit ‘silly’ on the sherries. I hate you Brumby.