Golden Plains stole my dingo.

Yo Ho little fishies,

Ahh....The Ribald debauch that is Golden Plains. Or Golden Showers as some quicker witted degenerates have dubbed it.
Indeed, as one great old man of rock has said "This is for the children of Woodstock!"
Whether he meant the freak fest of 60's legend, or the cut price Bourbon sold by the bucket I'm not sure, but luckily we can get a little goodness from Column A and a little sauciness from Column B, provided Column B hasn't been drunk by fridge hobos.

Any hoo...here's the run down of bands that were doco'd by the SWNN team (which means Me. And I'm not that reliable, given I'd just out Hunter'ed Leary at the time).

The Harpoons - I was asleep in tent
Deaf Wish - Think i may have rolled over and heard something. I dunno.
Dan Deacon- Still snoozing but he seemed like a pratt. Yeah fuck it. Lets go with that.
Brant Bjork and the Bros- When will he be famous? You have to ask. My first band of the Fest had all the charm of a hairy children's bulldozer. The bass player looked like some sort of chromosome deficient pan handler and ten points to a band that can play a riff for 15mins and still get into it. Mind you, if you shaved the lead singer you could re-fur a balding Lama. No worries. Good to see some sludgey, fudgey rock goodness. Were nearly as good as my steak sanger. Maybe they should've poured sauce on the drums. Just a thought.
The Black Seeds - Yeah yeah yeah...boom chika reggae nerds try and make N.Z funky. Good luck with that kids. Standard issue rasta pasta. With Bonglignaise sauce.
Black Mountain - The best bit about these electric fuzz tides was arguing with camp members as to whether the lead singer was a bloke or a shelia. Any bands that confuses everyone gets a tick from me. Loud enough to make you sign "My ears are bleeding amniotic fluid!" which is what you want at a Festival. Good solid affair.
Mogwai- Ever wondered what would happen if you turned everything up as loud as it would go, linked all your effects pedals together twice and then stared moodily at the floor for 40mins? Then Glasgow may be for you! Bunch of electric tsunami humping bum fondlers. Thank you. Off you pop, back to Shitville.
Of Montreal- Dunno. Crashed.
You Am I - These bastards woke me up. I''m hating them for that alone.
DJ's- Sounded like someone crashing helicopters together.

Woke up bright as a button on Sunday (assuming the button was pretty fucked up and had probably fallen off an op shop cardie to start with) and got into the culture again via a pie and a can of cut priced German beer (what the fuck is hopsextract?)

Luluc- Yup. Pretty. Good music to find your brain again too. Mind you, don't know what i would have done with it had it been located. Coherence is a liability at these gatherings.
Dan Kelly and the Ukeladies- I fuckin' hate ukuleles. End of story.
Jim White and John Doe- Ten grand to tell funny stories and then try and figure out what your gunna play next? Ten grand to ring up a mate and say "Do you know the chords to Sweet Home Alabama and I'll yak on about some hobo being stabbed during a chitterlings fight in a swamp with a blind banjo preacher with a girl who snorted coke off her own boobs in a Cadillac during a hurricane? Course you do my son!". I lasted about four songs and then went and had a lie down.
Bridezilla - Don't know. Eating.
Pivot- Still eating. Sounded fuzzy from camp.
Old Crow Medicine Show- Yup. Tops. Jangley, clangly bluegrasshole dudes who put the Old in Golden. A nice change from ethereal whisperers and infernal buzzery. Just shows Australians are possum guzzling hillbillies at heart.
My Disco- Was in a tent laughing at a shoe
Quintron and Miss Pussycat- Good reports but I had been booked by musical maverick JonesCo to run a small off-broad way festival in a tent. All went well. Tickets on sale soon. No idea about other band.
The Church- Shit then. Shit now. Some dirty looking bagwan guitar player put in a blinder but Steve Kilby is a knob. First song was about God or some shit. Get ya hand off it Steve-o.
Tony Allen- Billed as a top Afropop drummer who was going to turn this sucker out, but ended up as dithery lounge act. The easiest cash made by a Nigerian dude outside of a Internet scam.
The Drones - Ha! Good stuff. I'll go as far to say these guys should be talked about along acts such as ACDC, The EasyBeats and Flash and the Pan. Top blood-sweating schitz smash folk. Worth price of entry alone. I heard three songs then went and had a shit. Strangely, that was a very high compliment.
Gary Numan- Old man Numan cranked up the pop moves and exhibited struts and pouts thought to be extinct. Nu-man does nu-metal to nu-kids. He's like the Ikea Nick cave. Flat packed under the bed for too long. Hope for us all (assuming we all hope to be ever so slightly paunchy versions of nineties synth crunch.....mmmmm...synth crunch...where's my handbag?......)
DJ's- More airport misdirection from DJ Arse Clown and The Crack Pinger Crew..

And that was it!
Special thanks to JonesCo for the eight ball tournament, to Ray's for knocking out the big, cheap tents and to those crazy kids who like to muck around in chemistry class.

Kick on til' next time.


Mick "I've glad I'm past three-ways with nutty strangers" Dog.

Stick your begonias up your arse; we're at Golden Plains

Our humble state of Victoria has few rivals when it comes to shit-awful/boring-as-sand festival events, but few of these can better the absolute creamy fly-covered turdness of Ballarat's Begonia Festival. It takes a special kind of journalist to whip interest out of this shallow grave of ratepayers money, and we salute the hardworking womble who chiselled out this particular irony-free zone in the Courier, Ballarat's august paper of record. All errors of grammar and syntax have been kept from the original publication, and I've highlighted the bits that nail the sad, decaying corpse-eating pit of sadness that is Begonia Festival 2008:

Traditionally the festival is based around the flowers, art,
craft and stalls. But this year younger children could not get enough of
the "We Built This City" cardboard box arena and jumping castle. Not to
mention the mobile entertainment vehicle simply known as The Bus, which came
complete with Internet access and console games.
About 250 children had visited the cardboard box area in just the first few hours it had opened Saturday morning.
Box City "safety officer" Nathan Gurney said safety was his middle name.
"I have got cable ties for tricky corners, a texta for making signs and then a spare texta just in case," he said.
"We haven't counted exactly how many boxes are here, but there is at least 2000."
Children were encouraged to stack boxes as high as possible, before knocking them down and starting again.
While children had fun with the boxes, the Begonia Festival was of
course about the begonia's. Festival volunteer Graeme Strachan said "bus
loads" of tourists had stopped to admire flowers inside the Robert Clark
Conservatory which this year came complete with an Aladdin theme. Mr Strachan said the drought had failed to dampen the size, or colour of the flowers.

Ladies and gennilmen, it don't get much better than that. I missed the parade, but again, the laser-sharp reportage of The Courier mentions this year had more floats than ever. Ballarat folk who were there say this is because most of the city's garbage trucks and Council vehicles were tacked on to the end of it. Apparently you could SMS a vote for your favourite garbage truck. Instead of whinging about the hijacking of more than $200,000 of public money to feed the sad egos of a few people who insist there be nothing interesting allowed to happen in Ballarat, just down the highway we were losing our minds to two insane Tasmanians with synths and vocoders

It was Golden Plains the 2nd, and yea, did it rock verily. Here's the shortlist summary:

Ween: overblown, overhyped and over here. Two hours onstage and you still can't play Gabrielle? Sure, you're a shit-hot guitarist. But if you can't do something more than play your own jukebox in double the time allowed the other bands, you are boring. Fuck off back to novelty songland.

Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings: plagued by a dodgy microphone but nailed the funk/soul banner to the wall and made everyone dance a funky salute to it

South Rakkas Crew: when will they learn? Dancehall djs are fine, but don't ever walk onstage at the Supernatural Ampitheatre and think you can pull this 'put your hands in the air' shit. We will call it as we see it. And you are wankers.

The Dirtbombs: Everything that is good about rock. Totally awesome, two drummers, awesomely huge sound, tight as fuck with a proper traincrash finish. A joy to behold.

The Vines: will the crowd stop giving this guy shit about antidepressants and being bipolar? Probably not. But the crowd danced. The old folks remained impassive.

Jens Lekman: somebody call TISM. I have a new target for them.

Buffalo Tom: OK... but making jokes about Altamont? *yawn* And he fucked up the chorus on Taillights Fade. Seriously, mate - you only had to get one song right. Is that too much to ask some hasbeen college rockers?

The Panics: great stuff. It's true what people are saying about them being the new Go-Betweens. If only he can keep from sounding like whassiface from the Whitlams, he'll be alright.

Pikelet were a tasty discovery early on. Kind of like Bjork, but from Northcote. Chick plays accordion, makes her own live loops and sings. Never seen a band all recline on banana lounges while the singer does a solo number... these guys were interesting.

Beirut got bigged up to me by the aforementioned Systah BB. She said not to miss 'em. I say: what if Morrissey joined a Balkan-gypsy band? The girls sighed. The band were great, but never hit that vodka-fuelled gypsy speed metal vibe that I like with that kind of music.

The Bamboos: the night after Sharon Jones, the skips had a crack at this "funk and soul" thing, and these bad boys from Melbourne danced up the pitch and belted it waaaaay out of the park. I'll never see the Bar-Kays or the Mar-Keys, but by Christ I saw the Bamboos knock it out with total sharp-suited aplomb, ably helped by Kylie Auldist on the mic and - I shit you not - a freestyle rap sesh from the TimTam Genie.

Jay Reatard: just when I thought I was going to die from either the heat or boring music, these guys played a set of furiously fast and stupid punk rock. And the bass player was playing a four string Flying Vee - how rock is that?

Jane Badler and Sir: most of this was spent explaining to sad young folk what the tv series V was all about. Her music sounded like something you'd hear Sunday arvo at the rehab clinic. The musical equivalent of a trip to Wobbie's World - it's never going to be great, but it's important you at least see how crap it can be.

Iron And Wine: great, but I wish I was sitting down and it wasn't so crowded. Which is a stupid thing to say at a music festival. Perfect music for hot days amid the gum trees.

Scientists of Modern Music: two little guys from Tassie goin' ballistic. What can I say? I hate keyboard driven Pseudo Newman tunes (that's the fusion of Pseudo Echo and Gary Newman, y'all..), but these guys were stupidly infectious and fun.

Meanwhile, in Ballarat's Botanic Gardens.. Councillor Hudson encouraged residents to come along to the Lake foreshore to soak up the festival atmosphere. "We have a great entertainment line-up in store this year with everything from Kylie Minogue's pop anthems to tributes to Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Junior with The Rat Pack Show," he said.