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.

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.

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.

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

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.

“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.

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.