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.

Resurrection shuffled: or getting hammered is traditional for Easter in Ballarat

Another weekend reading the Springfield versus Shelbyfield pissing contest of The Age and The Australian, considering again that perhaps all the best writers of culture have given up trying to be published on dead tree in Australia and are wandering about online, mostly. And then there's us. *tumbleweed*

Musically, the good, bad and ugly list this Easter looks like this: Paul Stanley says he will quit kiss, which only goes to show what kind of sway Len's editorial on last week's show has. My bringing out of Heard It On the X was the precursor to the announcement that ZZ Top are recording again, so I guess it's my turn to line up at the Disappointment Ride for my chance to watch once favoured legends squander their once-shiny legacy.

Yes, my mulleted teenage bad self was there when ZZ Top played at Olympic Park in 1987. Me, my two mates and about 10,000 bikies.They were awesome. Billy Gibbons helped bring me to the psychedelic and freaky in blues and rock and roll music... - ah, the Deguello album - but their gradual decline throughout the 1990s does bring back the classic modern musical dilemma: just where do you go after your psychedelic retro-hotrod becomes a push-button spaceship?

No, what we've seen this Easter is the arrival of the rock'n theme song for Presidential candidates. One of our spiky-haired brethren from Twisted Sister (no, not Dee...) has whipped up a version of I Wanna Rock - except it's I Want Barack.

Yes - how fucking stupid. But is it stupid enough to win more votes? I think so. Which means not only will this get really ridiculous as the major media outlets seek more creative ways to ignore 5 years of carnage in Iraq, and desperate old rockstars seek a way to be relevant again (Bono. Say no more.), but also as with most American political stunts and trends, Australia will either get a shitty copied version of this very soon, or a really good ripoff of it in about three to five years' time.

So here's my early picks for remakes/repostings/corpse raping of OzRock for Oz Politicians:

Kevin Must Be There - Eurogliders

Maxine - Sharon O'Neill

The Phillip Ruddock Blues - TISM

Kochsucker Blues - David Koch goes for Indendent MP with the Beasts of Bourbon

It's A Wong Way to the Top - the massed drummers sacked by AC-DC

What About Pete - Peter Garrett with Shannon Noll and the Hard Knocks Choir

Of course, I live in Ballarat. Where Steve Jones is the mayor. The farking bass player for the Sex Pistols, if you 'aven't 'eard... Although curiously, the Clash's Janey Jones could get a work out... Anyhoo.

At least hearing Sweet Home Bazz Obama sure will be funny... I'm sure. What we need is circuses made out of bread. I'm hungry.

Show With No Name playlist march 19

Easter. Jesus. No breaking stories on the lack of water this week. Although fans will note that the power of the Show With No Name endures, with the report that Van Halen may well be back on the road.

And a discovery: we found out the guy who hosts the 'lifestyle show' from 4-6pm before us was the bassist in the band who supported KISS at their legendary 1980 gig at Waverly Park. Lenny and I consider ourselves to be hard to impress - consider us impressed. Very. Especially when he backed up that tale with one about being a session bass player who knocked back royalties in favour of the one-off payment for his work on a little number called What About Me.
Big Al, your credibility just went up a thousand points on the Show With No Name... so inthe name of respectable lawyer-types who still hold a flame for metal, and with Easter on the horizon, we rolled in the rock:

Prisonshake - Bedtime Beats You Senseless
Rev Horton Heat - Prophet Stomp
Blur - Globe Alone
Harem Scarem - Animal Tracks
Rancid - Time Bomb
The Sparkles - Hipsville 29 B.C
Spanky Wilson - You Can't Judge a Book By Its Cover
Bzark - Be My Parasite
23rd of Elvis - Waco and The Outsider (live Karova desk mix)
Boris Sudjovic - A.Harry & Mainstays theme
Dead Milkmen - Punk Rock Girl
Teenage Radio Stars - Sweet Boredom
Thin Lizzy - Jailbreak

Seven O'Clock Rock**:
Suicidal Tendencies - Posessed to Skate
The Bronx - Cobra Lucha
Ramones - Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment
Misfits - Where Eagles Dare

Detroit Cobras - Bad Girl
Flamin Groovies - Golden Clouds
Circle Jerks - World Up My Ass
TISM - Extreme Sports Can Kiss My Arse
Frank Zappa - Stevie's Spanking
Martha and the Vandellas - Nowhere to Run
Butthole Surfers - Goofy's Concern
AFI - Wester
ZZ Top - Heard it On the X
The Clash - Janie Jones
Joe Jackson - Happy Ending
Alice Russell - End of the Road
Richard Cheese - Crazy Train
Bay City Rollers - Bang Shang alang

**dedicated to all hardcore fans who hang around petrol stations near skateparks

Hot Autumn ideas for Ballarat Festivals

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