Peregian Beach, Sunshine Coast

I had a great day yesterday out with my mates. We had a bit of a drive up north to Peregian Beach. The simple days are the greatest. Terrible mix CDs in the car, having a swim in the waves at the beach, laughing uncontrollably at things that aren't funny to anyone else, fish and chips in the park and hanging out on the porch until late back home. And polaroids! It was a nice day.

Top 5 Desert Island Discs

Written for a competition at work funnily enough.

Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness

- An fittingly overblown title for a double album boasting 28 tracks. This album is the soundtrack to my teenage years, awkwardly chasing after girls and not quite catching them. The songs are mostly heartfelt love songs, that alternate between heavy distortion at home in arenas to delicate acoustic melodies designed to be played to small audiences. This album feels like a precursor to 'emo' music - which I guess is not a good thing. Around April this year when the band came through on their reunion tour I donned the loose black t-shirt and became my teenage self again for the duration of the almost 3 hour concert - confirming that they are as gloriously overblown as they were 12 years ago.

Neil Young - After the Gold Rush

- A couple of years ago I found a battered old 12" copy of After the Gold Rush in a market stall for $2. It's probably the most I've gotten out of $2 - I have listened to it so much that the scratches and pops have become part of the songs and it sounds strange when I hear a clean CD recording of the album. I found myself relating unexpectedly to the lyrics in a lot of these songs - who knew I had something in common with a hippy with an acoustic guitar in the 70's? Anyway, I don't think I would ever want to part with this album and I'll be happily seeing him live in just over a month amongst a sea of older codgers.

Holly Throsby - On Night

- An album from a young lass who at the time of recording was working in a video-store in Sydney. On Night was recorded in a house in the Blue Mountains, which is evident in the birds calls that are audible in the background of some of the songs. The production is very sparse with many of the songs being only acoustic guitar and Holly's low whispery vocals. The lyrics are based around relationships gone wrong and lonely nights - which I think would be a comfort to me living alone on a deserted island! I personally think this is one of the most underrated
Australian album debuts of the past few years.

Yann Tiersen - Amelie soundtrack

- A soundtrack to a Sunday day out. The instrumental music score to the film is as joyous as the main character of the movie. The main instrument you will hear on the recording is accordian, but there are flashes of piano, strings and even the sound of the keys of a typewriter. This album is a bit of a counterpoint to the 4 others in
the list which tend to be a bit on the depressing side. It's a shame that McDonalds used one of the songs in an advertisement.

eels - Daisies of the Galaxy

- I read that lyrics from this album were posted on George Bush's 2000 campaign website as an example of inappropriate lyrical content. Which is a unfortunate, because if George actually listened to this album I think he would have liked it. The cover of 'Daisies' is in the style of an old children's book drawing - which does have it's own sweetness to it and a touch of darkness. The album sounds much like the cover looks - the music is pretty joyous but the lyrics can be pretty dark at times. This is another album that I relate to a lot lyrically and I end up putting it in for a spin every few weeks subconciously!

Storms over Brisbane

Over the past few weeks my town, Brisbane has taken a bit of a battering from wild tropical thunderstorms. I love rainy days and watching lightning crawl across the sky. If I was younger, or if I knew someone as silly or willing as me to run around in the rain I would take off without a care into the sideways falling rain.


A lot of houses have been damaged in the storms, but we have been lucky to miss any kind of destruction. The storms will continue until the end of Summer, when eventually the rain will almost completely stop for most of the year until Summer comes around again.

Photo Meme

I've been instructed by Soph to pick out my sixth photo in my sixth folder of photos and talk about it. The folder turned out to be a bunch of photos from Laneway Festival held in Brisbane in early March 2008. This shot is of the lead singer of Manchester Orchestra - an American band that sound a bit like a heavier, early-years-Death Cab for Cutie. I was pretty impressed by them and picked up their album a few weeks later. The whole day was great - being able to see Feist, Broken Social Scene, Stars, Okkervil River and The Panics all within a few hours and in Brisbane, I'd never think it would happen.

Shooting photos at gigs is something that a while ago I thought would be a thing I would love doing. My opinion turned during that day when I saw photographers with big ole long lenses pushing their way to the front taking a few shots and leaving within minutes. They just seemed like they weren't there for the music at all. These days, if I do take photos at gigs I try to only take a few shots and put the camera away and don't let the photograph take away from my experience.

And to the thing I like most about this photo - he is totally rocking out in a pair of thongs.

full circle

It's just after midnight on a Monday night, it's raining outside and I have just spent the past couple of hours reading entries posted in my livejournal that I began posting to in the year, 2001. While reading through my past seven years I was filled with warm feelings by remembering events and people that have since faded away from my memory. I read about early musical experiences, girls and how confused I was by them (nothing much changes), great times with friends, regrets and a variety of things that I can see have shaped me into the me that I am right now.

Reading through that old journal has stirred up something in me. The past year has felt a little bit empty for me - I feel like I'm slowly losing parts of myself that I generally would say defined me. I haven't sat down and thought about where I am, or let out my feelings to anyone in any form for a long time. I hope that this new journal will help me express myself without bottling things up inside. Maybe seven years from now I'll look back at this blog and have a similar kind of warm experience like the one I'm having now.