The Winds of Change

As my commitment to this blog dwindles to zero, I write to announce that something new, improved and shiny is coming soon. If it doesn’t, then catch me floating on Tumblr somewhere.

Led Zeppelin Sued by Jake Holmes for ‘Dazed and Confused’, 41 years later…

The most obvious question is, why the hell did Holmes wait so long? As the Guardian reports, Holmes long suffered the ignominy of a highly popular rock band reaping massive acclaim and royalties from their uncredited rip-off of his otherwise obscure composition. After decades of Led Zeppelin hagiography blatantly acknowledging this fact, Holmes decides to sue the band, his possible rewards limited to only the last few years of monies made due to the statute of limitations applicable.

Jimmy Page, the band’s chief and top thief, was ‘inspired’ after hearing Jake Holmes perform the song in a New York club in 1967, and promptly lifted the omnious descending-into-doom riff for Led Zeppelin’s debut album two years later. While the old chestnut that ‘Zeppelin was nothing if not a great cover band’ rears its head once more, the other chestnut, that Led Zeppelin mapped part of the genome of rock music, usually prevails. For every song ripped off, another 5 brilliant originals were penned (don’t quote me on the math). That’s kinda hard to argue with.

Wire – Pink Flag

Don’t let Rupert’s ugly spectre fool youse, Wire are PUNK 4 EVA. Timeless.

Australia’s First Female Prime Minister

Notwithstanding the putsch that enabled this to happen, Julia Gillard is also…a GINGER!

A coup d'état this morning allows a red-headed woman to take the throne

The Cramps called it many years ago, with Jim Dickinson.

Internet Kill Switch

A new U.S Senate bill, sponsored by Senator Joseph Lieberman, proposes to give the president the authority “to seize control of or even shut down portions of the Internet” - CNET.com

June Solstice Message From Hell

Hello there children. Some heartfelt words to carry with you in an empty world:

1) Fuck the iPad. By ‘fuck’, I mean ‘throw underneath a train’. I’m saying that in a nonchalant, dry kinda way, not in a bitter Luddite kinda way. If a device cannot make you a coffee, do your taxes, or let you generate EMP waves to fry your neighbours’ appliances, then I don’t want to know about it. iPhones and Macbooks are still okay.

2) I no longer care about how inclement the weather is anymore. Past winters used to really bother me, but now I have gum boots (wellies), the flooded Sydney pavement is my bitch.

3) The I-Ching may have been good for Carl Jung but I cannot re-interpret dusky and arcane imagery about pigs, wagons and dangerous river crossings to fit my current mileu and lifestyle. Yet I am too tight to pay for a psychic who will cheerfully rip me off. Maybe I’ll look into reading entrails.

4) Regardless of how many times you think you can overcome the taste of box wine, each sip is a painful reminder you could have spent $5 extra to get something that doesn’t taste like Chernobyl rainwater and Jonah Hill’s arse sweat shaken together in a rusty can.

We’re In Ur PC, watchin u browze

Apologies for the bad lolcat. (Is that a contradiction in terms?)

The Australian Labor government welcomes a a new internet policy advisor

At the risk of appearing like a poor imitation of a news aggregator, I am linking youse all to something that makes me feek queasy shivers of dread in my guts just by thinking about it: the possibility, and perhaps imminent reality, that the Australian government will be able to keep records of everything you look at on the internet. For about five to ten years. Let that idea just hang in your head for a while.

Read this and weep: Zdnet’s web browser history article

I thought I’d send you a story that has recently popped up (in the last few hours according to Google) via Zdnet – covering the Australian Government’s intentions to implement a web browser history retention system, via ISPs, for all users. Link: http://www.zdnet.com.au/govt-wants-isps-to-record-browsing-history-339303785.htm
This is of course uncomfortably too soon after the Aus. govt’s reprehensible policy to quash an open internet in the form of their pointless mandatory internet filter.
Even though Australia is frequently regarded (and often dismissed) as a remote outpost of the West with somewhat diminished significance, developments of this kind are at the very least a warning to other officially ‘democratic’ countries. Legislation of this kind seems to be proposed with increasing speed and intensity in Australia with very little fanfare commensurate with its severity. That the EU has implemented something similar does not make it any more technologically viable or democratically germane.
In other words: Not cool. Okay my rant is done…

Georgia Guidestones

Georgia Guidestones, originally uploaded by Michæl Paukner.

Michael Paukner is a graphic artist not afraid to explore themes of mystical, paranormal and unexplained phenomena. His ‘infographic’ designs (visual representations of information, data and knowledge) are sourced from all corners of geography and history.

Possibly one of the weirdest of these is the Georgia Guidestones, a monolithic structure purpose built by an anonymous cabal of apocalypto-philic Yankees. Americans just LOVE all that “end of the world” shit.

Forget Shorter Showers – Orion Magazine

“Consumer culture and the capitalist mindset have taught us to substitute acts of personal consumption (or enlightenment) for organized political resistance…More than 90 percent of the water used by humans is used by agriculture and industry. The remaining 10 percent is split between municipalities and actual living breathing individual humans…”

I knew it! I knew it all along!! Read more of Derrick Jensen’s article in Orion Magazine.

Tame Impala/Laurels/Silents

As I write this, I wait for the plumber to arrive. The hot water tank has finally packed it in and I’m dying to have a shower, but I’m scared my laundry will turn into the River Ganges. I am heartened from reading in the Australian that Christopher Hitchens drinks half a bottle of scotch & a bottle of wine a day to make others seem less boring. That’s usually how it starts, doesn’t it?

On the 16th May I caught Tame Impala w/ the Silents + the Laurels at the Gaelic Theatre for a Sunday eve of soporifc substances and sounds, and as far as the stoner motif went, I was not not deprived of atmosphere. But perhaps I just had a little too many beers before that spliff, because Tame Impala felt like an anticlimax. Buried under layers of flange and phaser pedals, the sound’s muddiness killed the otherwise pretty shimmering  guitars that makes the band sound so great.

My buddy deduced it was that it was the sound guy’s fault. He may have been a little too charitable. The Laurels, up first, provided exemplary tattered-cardigan shoegaze + 60s psychedelia. On after Sydney’s Laurels were headliner buddies the Silents from Perth, who were by far the darkest and punchiest act of the night. Both bands are highly recommended checking out. As for Tame Impala, maybe they were having an off night?

Anyway, here’s Solitude is Bliss from Innerspeaker.