Show With No Name playlist April 8

The Light an Olympic Torch for Sally from Home and Away Tribute Show
We promise. We never heard of the video. Anyhoo, tonight we rocked out good and hard for a couple of epic, historic moments. Sally from Home and Away has left, leaving a Grand Canyonesque hole in the Australian minor celebrity grid (just think! now everyone will demand their own mini-issue of TV Week).

Husker Du - Sorry Somehow
The Bellrays - Change the World
The Saints - Erotic Neurotic
The Dirtbombs - Leopard Man at C&A
Kiss - Watchin' You
Big Mama Thornton - Hound Dog
King Curly - I Am Coming Back
Alice Cooper - Cold Ethyl
Frank Zappa - Zomby Woof
The Hives - Outsmarted

The 7 O'Clock Do You Remember the Episode Where Sally Went Nude Car Surfing Slot
Motorhead - I'm So Bad Baby I Don't Care
The Monarchs - Loud
Dead Kennedies - Drug Me
Butthole Surfers - Some Dispute About T-Shirt Sales
The Supersuckers - On the Couch

The Who - 5:15
Soul Asylum - Get On Out
Prisonshake - Bedtime Beats You Senseless
Detroit Cobras - Slummer the Slum
Nebula - Do It Now
Sonic Youth - Youth Against Fascism
Painters and Dockers - Die Yuppie Die
Wayne Kramer - Boys Got that Look
The Von Bondies - It Came From Japan
Bay City Rollers - Shang A Lang

What they hey - here's a band I never heard of doing a cover of a toe-tappin' Ministry number... dedicated to all the people on television.

Ideas for Ballarat 2020

There's a gathering in Ballarat today of 150 people selected as the best, brightest, most visionary in the local land, sitting down and knocking out ideas for their local member Catherine King - for her to dutifully bind together in a specially labelled ring-binder, cover in pithy post-it notes and place on the ever-expanding desk of Prime Tin-Tinester Kevin Rudd.

I managed to call the media guy for Catherine King and asked if anyone could pop down and have a chat. Or even have a listen to what was being said. The short answer was... no. Apparently what these people discuss and chalk down for the future of Ballarat is not for Ballarat people to know. Knowing what the popularly elected member for Ballarat will do with the opinions of these fellow electors is not for the electorate to know.

In light of that, here's my basic questions/discussion tips for Ballarat's future in 12 years time.

- stop electing pitiful dickheads to your local Council and then complaining about the pitiful dickheads at the local Council.

- why is it a small cabal of former private school rowers can command the Council and State Government to pour millions of dollars into refilling a lake that has gone dry?

- how come one ex-police officer can control nearly all of the licensed venues on one block of one town?

- why is it the Begonia Festival can drain the council of so much money when so many people of Ballarat think it's shit and never go?

- how much money did the Council sink into the Sovereign Hill Music Festival, and why didn't they book any local artists?

- if there's such a skills shortage, why then does the newly opened UB Tech have such a low number of students?

- how can one cinema manage to maintain a monopoly on cinemas, and why do they insist on showing only shit films continually, with only the briefest of schedules for anything vaguelly grown-up?

- do you really think the superpipe is going to fix all your water worries?

All these questions and more... but my feeling is we'll get muddled gravy of bureaucratese feel-good, with some basic keywords: "sustainability" "fighting obesity" "lowering petrol prices".

Meanwhile... the ship continues to flounder.

Show With No Name playlist April 1st

This week found us broadcasting on that most auspicous of occasions - the day after Angus Young's birthday. An important date - just to know that a 53 year old man is still making money by dressing up in a school uniform and hammering out guitar solos is alright by us.

This week was also special because Voice FM's program manager had supplied me with a special rectal vocoder implant, allowing me to transmit my thoughts through my arse and onto the airwaves, where once I was forced to communicate with only the aid of an Etch O Sketch and superb mime skills.

AC/DC - Let's Get It Up

The Vandals - Come Out Fighting

Lunachicks - Say What You Mean

The Misfits - Helena

TISM - 10 points for a Razor Scooter

Agnostic Front - Anthem

Dead Milkmen - Punk Rock Girl

The Descendants - Rotting Out

The Hold Steady - Your Little Hoodrat Friend

Rancid - U Don't Care Nothin'

Iron Maiden - Powerslave

Sublime - We're Only Gonna Die For Our Arrogance

7O'Clock Drown Out the Drama Mix

Pennywise - It's Up to Me

Dramarama - Anything, Anything

Mid Youth Crisis - Mid Youth Crisis

AC/DC - Kicked in the Teeth Again

Henry Rollins - What's the Matter Man

Gorilla Biscuits - Start Today

Helmet - Biscuits for Smut

AFI - My Michelle

Black Sabbath - Faeries Wear Boots

Fugazi - Waiting Room

Fishbone - Let Them Ho's Fight

Circle Jerks - Group Sex

Ramones - Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment

Van Halen - Ain't Talkin About Love

Bay City Rollers - Bang Shang Alang

BMX Brand X ride again

And the verdict? The Brand X boys let loose with a mighty roar of rock that threatened to drown out the Sunday arvo's reverie right across the town. I went a block away to a servo to get a can of drink and could hardly hear myself in the shop. Noice. The teenagers were all suitably surly and unimpressed. The band who owned the P.A were... adequate. 10 Second Riot is a great name for a band. Now they just gotta write some songs to match.

The bands set up on the edge of the skatebowl apron, and bychrist did a couple of the riders give it a red hot go. Props to the guy who continually tried to pull off the 720 degree spin and continually came within a pube's length of nutting himself. Big-ups to the poor little bugger who found out who wins in a game of Razor Scooter versus BMX. Seeing what looked like a 3 year old strapped into a camo-green helmet and wraparound glasses calmly trot out on his mini-scooter while all about him insane teenagers on BMXs flashed past with nary a care gave me hope that a new generation of youngsters without fear is on its way.

I'm talking, of course, of the inaugural Fuck this All Ages Gig At A Venue Bullshit Let's Just Set Up and Give It A Crack at the Skatebowl gig last Sunday, which for all purposes, went very nicely. Always nice to see some coppers running the barbie and handing out snags to the very people they're used to hassling. It was so easy, so stress-free, so easily organised there is no possibility of it happening again this year. Why would ya? Someone said it might happen again next year....

Me? I set up the Dodgy DJ kit in secret and patched into the P.A system. It all went rockin, until I was given the nastiest, most terrible thing a DJ could hear. "Could you turn it down? Some of the kids say they can't hear each other speaking." Outrageous. This is what 11 years of unmitigated evil in the shape of a man built only of eyebrows and fundamentalist Christian dogma brings.

Tomorrow we have another Show With No Name. Somehow I'm going to have to work in the classic Break the Ice by John Farnham. The very keen will know it's John's contribution to the classic BMX film Rad. In fact, here's John in all his glory for you right now - hope Lenny's not watching....

Do you wanna DJ me gig?

That's not what he really said. The man known as Jones rang. He said there was a gig at the Ballarat skatepark. His band, the Best Boy Band in Ballarat, were gonna play. Condition was, the guy who owns the P.A. and he has a band, too.

Thinking this could go anywhere, I wondered....


Because the Brand X are a bunch of guys in their 30s holding on to the dream of fuckin' loud, fast, funny music.. I heard these guys the night I met Hot Thighs, my gorgeous girlfriend. First thing I thought was 'hillbilly fugazi'. Which is pretty accurate, except any accusations of being straight edge...

But this other band? Could be a bit soft... And when you're old, you want to let the skaters know that loud, ugly music is a family. And the elders must be respected. Ladeez and gennilmen, this is how the Brand X take to techno...


It's a four hour gig. One of the bands plays really fast, quick songs. Umm... and it looks like the 'DJ rig' is going to be a portable CD stereo patched through a mixer into the P.A.... cheap? punk? p'shaw!

And take that fuckin' mp3 player outta here, kid! I'm tryin' to patch me record player into that gas barbie!

Show With No Name playlist March 26

Hard to say what the theme was this week.
'Disjointed' comes to mind.
Have been gradually adding some new links to folks who write with a passion, verve and the usual grab bag of adjectives you can't apply much to music writing these days.

Take Last Tram Home over there in the 6 Dim Sims of Separation box. Or the extreme rock and jazz excitement of Dave Lang over at Man With No Shame. And the man who's so Sydney underground/birdman/newchrists/iggy/diedprettyrock it hurts (in a good way), the Barman's Ranting at the I-94. This be good writin'. The Herald-Shun, the pAge, the former Government Gazette turned "We can make hate and right wing frothing into objective debate" pamphlet. They not be good writin'.
But I digress. Disjointed, you say. Yes. Here's what we played. Including a tribute to us getting Van Halen back on the road.

Radio Birdman - New Race (1992 version)
Front End Loader - We Don't Understand You
Motorhead - Stay Clean
Wagons - Snakebite
The Hold Steady - Hot Soft Light
Jimi Hendrix - Crosstown Traffic
Colonel Claypool's Bucket of Bernie Brains - Junior
Frank Zappa - Jonescrusher
Heeby Jeebies - Rubber Biscuit
Tragically Hip - Silver Jet
Lobby Loyde - Too Poor to Die
Lazy Farmer's Sons - Withered By the Dawn
Fugazi - Screaming at a Wall

7 O'Clock High Octane for Helen mix:
Pennywise - Bro Hymn
Mighty Mighty Bosstones - Lights Out
Bad Brains - Jah People Make the World Go Round
Voodoo Glowskulls - Monstruo del Gabinete
The Misfits - From Hell They Came

Van Halen - Dance the Night Away
Red Kross - Any Hour, Every Day
Dubrovniks - She Got No Love
Merry Clayton - Gimme Shelter
Purple Hearts - Just a Little Bit
Andre Williams - I Wanna Be Your Show
Celibate Rifles - Jesus On TV
The Now Time Delegation - Bye Bye
The Replacements - Bastards of the Young
The Gimmies - Living on 16 Shadows
The Victims - Television Addict
The Powdermonkeys - The Doldrums

Death on wheels: the traditional Easter media snuff fest

There are some Australian media cliches that withstand the test of time - we will always have rain failing to dampen spirits of revellers at the Melbourne Cup, and close-up shots of fat arses and guts during stories about obesity, but at this time of the year we get long, drawn-out cavalcades of B-grade personalities during interminable telethons accompanied by images of people handing over giant novelty cheques.

We all feel better, some kids get to say 'hi mum' on telly and some of our more colourful 'business identities' get to write off another bag of money for the taxman - with the added bonus of televised character references for the next time the Feds come a-knocking.

The other grand tradition in Australian media is counting how many people are being killed on the roads - and then running a national scoreboard between the states, showing how many people got splattered. Currently it's 19 - but we can do better, Australia!

Have a look at how West Australia is going at it: Easter road toll in WA: 5 and rising See? That's a state that's getting behind the annual cull of young and old alike. Right now it's lunchtime on the Easter Monday and so far Google News has 399 stories listed about the Easter road toll. Extra bonus points to the kids of Cressy, however - for taking cops on a car chase after robbing a service station, while one of their mates was in the boot. They stacked into a tree. Sadly, officers were not allowed to handcuff any of them to the bumper bar, hand them a hacksaw then set a small fire in the dripping petrol.

At this point in Easter you can start playing media coverage bingo - you get bonuses for these particular words used in any headline/story text combination:

Horror, Carnage, Police Frustrated, Toll (never a bodycount or a corpse-score, it's always a toll), Young Lives, Fatality, Tragedy and Lives Shattered.

Tomorrow, we will bank the money Holden and Ford paid us to advertise stupid-fast cars to 19 year olds needing a manhood ritual, and the money we made from BMW and Mercedes making giant four wheel drives the new must-have accessory for the over 50 executives who just can't bear to be dragged off by those fucking 19 year olds. And then we will write an editorial about there needing to be more education and tougher laws. Australian media, you make me sick.