Of Recent Times

This album is amazing. I'm going to have to import it because I've never seen it at a shop and I really, really want it because it's so fucking fantastic. Like super wow, just put it in that top 50 list I made that I'm not going to change because I don't overly care.

Also, I've been listening to a lot of HEALTH. There is no problem to this, HEALTH are a great band and it's a bit of influence or whatever. Noise music is surprisingly hard to make - if you want to make good noise. Riffs / hooks = Not Easy.

And I've been having a jam session every day for the past week(s). My fingers really hurt but it's some good practice. Today while playing Communication Breakdown, I was "shredding" out a solo and my pinky slipped and now the cuticle is mega owned and sliced. I love the guitar. I would also love being in a pub band who plays covers and when we play Brown Sugar, all the 40-year-old women get up and dance. That would be so great. Like, so great. And old guys would be all:
"PLAY SOME AC/DC!"
and I'll be all:
"I'MMA MAKE HELTER SKELTER A SHOEGAZE SONG WIF MAH PEDALZ!"
And I will. And they won't like that. But I will. And that's all that matter, right?



I wanna start a shoegaze band now. Maybe we should be shoegaze/noise. Yeah, I think they kinda go hand-in-hand. And I wanna play on stage. And wanna have people go:
"Hey, that guy's alright..."
That would be a dream come true.

And after the HSC, I'm going to visit 2SSR, the local radio station and apply for some work. I've got connections to there because my uncle (now drive-time "celeb" in Canberra) used to work there. But yeah, if I've got like a dodgy, late-night radio show, I expect you people to listen. We can't talk on air because this radio station is so dodgy you can't actually do that. Imagine, me on the radio for an hour or so. I'd talk crap for a few minutes, kick out some jams that are like my computer on shuffle (like Boredoms followed by The Small Faces then HITS FROM THE BONG!) and then read out some crappy community announcements that don't apply to you because they're all shire. Hopefully I get that gig so I can crap around in a radio booth, bring in a friend and then plug my own bands - MxP will be pretty huuuuge.

Tomorrow, I'm going to Allen's Music in Alexandria to put a VOX Tonelab LE Effects Board on lay-buy for my 18-year life anniversary. I'd put a picture of it up, but I'm keeping the colour in this post pink. Pretty much, if will allow me to make noise along with my Aria Flanger pedal and the digital effects in the amp. Hopefully there's some fuzz and muff so I can 2-cent Mudhoney it up (BTW HARRY: Learn Touch Me I'm Sick) and try to shoegaze and make the kids next door cry to their (hot) mum (happy, Tim?) while their massive New Zealander inslander dad gives me death stares for making his children cry and checking out his wife. Yeah, I'm cool like that.

Boris - Painted With Flame
The Big Pink - At War With The Sun

We Could Do With Some More Poison

This song is the epitome of dance-punk. I realised this while on the train the other day. It is a masterpiece of modern music. I am not exaggerating, this song is pure brilliance and it puts everyone and everything from every dance-punk and nu rave group to shame.

Someone has to give me a copy of The Vines "Highly Evolved" because I lost it in my old school torrents folder. Along with The Smashing Pumpkins' "Siamese Dream" and "Mellon Collie...".

Pretty much the gist of this post is:
It's all good!

The noise band I had an overwhemling desire to make seems to have come together. Hopefully it works out and we call ourselves "Hola Hovito" and we open for HEALTH sometime in the future. That would be mad cool.

And the study is all good. I have high motivation thanks to the 5-stack CD player that keeps me company. One Led Zeppelin album a day, chronologically, of course. Tomorrow is "Houses of the Holy".

Plain and simple: Heavily smitten.

And I got this new application for the iPhone. It's a cool sketchbook that makes me like to think I can draw when in reality I cannot. Here's one crappy picture. It's called "Pablo's Cruise" because I was listening to that song when I made it.



Don't judge me, my fingers are fat and I have virtually no drawing skill. I just make heaps of lines to make it seem I know what I'm doing.

So pretty much, this new computer is great and I can't wait until post-HSC for so many reasons. I won't get into that.

Test Icicles - Circle. Square. Triangle.

Roc-A-Fella, Baby!

I'm just going to put it out there right now: I like JET.

Yes, they are devoid of intelligence and originality, but I don't mind a spin of "Get Born" or some tracks off "Shine On". I'm listening to "Shaka Rock" right now...it's okay, but I'll just stick to "She's A Genius" and maybe another track if it stands out.

I'm not liking the current weather. I want summery summer weather even though it's not summer, I just like the view of a sunny day more than rain. I'm not sure what a rainy Spring means, I can only hope it indicates a hawt summer ahead. I just want a lot of pool parties and no cares and relaxation and all that good stuff that I haven't had for the past years. Only a few more weeks, only a few more weeks.

You know that feeling you get in the middle of your chest when you see / meet up / hang out with that person you like? How it feels all pressured and your excited? I have that feeling right now because I'm listening to "The Blueprint" by Jay-Z. Am I smitten? Do I have a man-crush on Jay-Z? Very likely. H to tha izzo, V to tha izzay!

Also, no time to think about life and all that, it's all study all day. I'm motivated to study because these exams are pretty much the most important thing in my schooling life so far. Looks like I want to go well after all. Haven't stressed or anything though, pretty chill about it. Parents aren't, they're more edgy than me, which isn't hard. Being a slacker is the best.

The computer has not arrived yet either. This is shitty and simultaneously good. I just can't wait until post-HSC when I get to nerd it up for hours (days) on end playing WoW.

Con has Big Day Out ticket. I hope announcement 2 is ABAP, otherwise I'll sell it and make money. Or just deal with it. Probably the latter.

And this video is really hilarious:

Sweet.

Jay-Z - Jigga That Nigga

Feelings, Study and a Pair of Speakers Under The Bed

Dictionary.com defines love as:
1. a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.
2. a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, as for a parent, child, or friend.
3. sexual passion or desire.
Yes, sexual desire. Love is an interesting thing, I'm sure we've all felt it at some point. Not necessarily for someone else. I love Revolver by The Beatles, it exposed all my senses to real music. You know, all that.




All my study has been done at this table. It's pretty much in the kitchen and it boarders the living room where the music is played. I get a nice view over the valley and the sky. It's a nice place to study and I've been getting a fair bit done. Hamlet essay is completely modified, hopefully I get more than 9/20 for that essay.

At the top is one of the speakers I put under my bed early this morning (like 1am). There's something special about lying there, unable to sleep, then you set up a little system that gives you total relaxation and aural pleasure in the early hours of the morning. Godspeed You! sent me to a peaceful sleep when before I was tossing and turning. I urge everyone to set up a similar system because maybe you're like me and you sleep when post-rock is playing.

This post didn't work as well as I was hoping. Ah well. Plus this is a new app for blogging, let's see how it goes.

Hughey Lewis And...

The News

Dad ordered a new computer, it's got some good specs and hopefully it'll be here by Monday. Unfortunately, it's before the HSC and I love to screw around on a new computer a lot, just to see what I've been missing out on for the past few years of having old operating systems and customising it. When I get it, I'll make a sound of my face like Bouzo has.

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Tunage update:

Today I've been studying to:

1. The Beatles - Abbey Road. We all love it and it's great and HAVE YA SEEN POLYTHENE PAM?
2. Pink Floyd - Dark Side of The Moon. A space music classic.

Coming up is:

1. Beth Orton - Central Reservation. Folktronica milestone and a favourite 90s album.
2. Neil Young - On The Beach. One of my fave folk albums and Neil's best, IMO.
3. Gorillaz - Demon Days. And they're turning us into monsters!

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I don't really have any social events coming up in the next few weeks. Study is pretty much all consuming. This isn't a bad thing, I have a lot of work to do, so I'm not overly complaining. Except maybe a movie this weekend. After HSC, I'm looking forward to beer and music sessions. MxP album will be complete. Flex my creative muscle.

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Zombies are pretty rad, so I've been researching zombie films. A movie marathon seems to be in order:

• Night of The Living Dead
• Dawn of The Dead
• Dance of The Dead

Last one is not related to the first to George Romero films, it's just really, really funny and cool. If anyone is in for this, we could make it a pretty big one or not, whatevs.

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I don't really know what's going on in the world, haven't seen the news in the past few days. There's been a second earthquake in Indonesia, those poor people, and Kraft already ditched the horrible name of "iSnack 2.0" for their new Vegemite. Cheesemite, plox. And a flock of 200 birds flew into a jet engine, LOL!

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I also watched Hungry Beast on ABC1 last night at 9pm. It was quite good, I recommend you catch up on the website and then watch it next Wednesday. It's got the funnies and the seriousness and all that.

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Major Lazer - Hold The Line (feat. Mr. Lexx & Santigold)

DiRT

Colin McRae DiRT is a fantastic racer. It's all cool when my car (usually my Mitsubishi Evo IX) gets covered in dust and mud and shit and I win by 22 seconds because Clubman is simply too easy. Speaking of dust...

Predictable photo? Screw you! So I woke up at 5:50am on doomsday and I was pretty freaked out. I though my eyes were bleeding. Then I thought there were bushfires and stuff. Then I went on facebook and Matilda told me it was a dust storm.

The weather has been pretty crappy recently. I was hoping it'd stay all hot and summery but it's now windy. I loaded my 5-stack CD player and was planning to do some outside study, but I thought it was going to start raining when the wind changed so I went inside. My records were:

1. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
2. Kanye West - The College Dropout
3. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
4. Animal Collective - Strawberry Jam
5. Radiohead - Hail To The Thief

I decided to go 2000s because I'm so frightfully modern and hip.

Here's a photo from today:

That was before the wind changed and the dark clouds scared me.

Oh yeah, I also tried to play some Sega Megadrive yesterday, but because it connects to my TV via RF cable through the antenna plug, I couldn't get it to work and I was not prepared to manually search through 199 channels to find if it was working. I was devastated, I am hardcore craving Sonic The Hedgehog 2.

So then I tried to set up my NES through the dinosaur AV cables (yellow for video, black for mono sound!). That was working, but someone was totally farked with the power supply and it kept turning on and off and on and off and it was shit because I wanted to play ExciteBike and Super Mario Bros. Now I've got a lot of work to do in order to play some old school games. HD gaaaames are no problem, though. Well, they aren't HD because I don't have a HD TV. DiRT looks amazing in HD.

So I decided to play some Nintendo 64. And so I began a new game on Super Mario 64, and it was pretty great, soooo nostalgic. I also decided to get out my ol' The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time GOLD cartridge because that's the best game of all time. OF ALL TIME!

DJ Shadow - Midnight In A Perfect World

The Feeling Is Hollow

Only after today do I realise who the true friends are. Sure, a lot of people signed my shirt, people who I only ever see at school, but the post-graduation evening is where the real friends shine through. There's people, a select few, that are not in my direct group of friends who I'd love to keep in contact with; Metcalfe, Wylob, Zeb, Bouzios and Pranav come to mind instantly. There's people I'm glad I'll never have to see again (bar HSC exams).

After the graduation, I greatly enjoyed the evening. I top dinner with the best friends anyone could ever ask for. I never want to lose any of the guys tonight:
Aiden
Pills
Hugh
Al
Tahren
Bouzo
Eli
Alex
Tom
Harry
Everyone is unique and everyone is fantastic.

Only today, my final day, did I feel a part of the school. While I got no special mentions (jipped), the guard of honour illustrated all the people that I've built friendships with, from years 7 to 11. My fellow year 12s were not all friends. Most I didn't like at all, and I'm sure the feeling was mutual, but we all bonded today. All of us will never see some again.

Now I'm very, vert tired.
Peace out.