Daniel85

Beautiful song. My favourite from George Harrison’s solo career. Billy Preston rocks it hard. 

(Laura, you’re not allowed to watch this. I know you have a crush on Dhani Harrison.)

This has always been one of my favourite 80s songs. I never realised the band was from Melbourne, though.

For some reason the song makes me think of the Target in Bay City Plaza. (Fuck you, Westfield… it’s called ‘Bay City Plaza’.)

The video is pretty awesome… great New Wave aesthetic.

Why didn’t I think of this?!

John! Paul! George! Ringo! Zombies!

Okay, now I wanna see someone run with this and do a Zombeatles cartoon or comic, a la “Marvel Zombies”.

And just ’cause I’m a huge nerd…

While My Dismembered Leg Gently Seeps
A Taste Of Brains.
Fixing A Hole (In My Chest)
Everybody’s Trying To Eat My Baby
All You Need Is Napalm
Mmmmm…. Mr. Mustard

And of course…

Help!

Come on then, out with ‘em…

Love this song. Love ‘the Crawl’.

It’s one of those half-forgotten ballads you always hear on Gold 104, sandwiched between Crowded House and Human League.

The lyrics (and the video, which I’d never seen before I sought it out recently) deal somewhat with a topic I’ve been halfheartedly interested in lately, the new Orientalism (new compared to Romantic Orientalism, I mean) that permeated Australian culture after WWII and Vietnam. It’s a subject close to my heart, considering that my grandad fought in Vietnam and he (and my grandma) lived in Malaysia for several years of his Air Force career. My mum was born there; the housekeeper’s Chinese was her first language.

Anyway, the song is brilliant. Australian music was really something back then. Doesn’t it just make you wanna rock up to your Year 10 formal in Dunlop Volleys, catch a green/silver V-Line train to go see a Hawks/Cats game, then head down to Lorne on the weekend?

I suppose that in a post that has centred around Orientalism and Australian music and Australian military involvement in the Pacific I should be talking about ‘Khe Sanh’, but I’ve always dismissed that song. Cold Chisel to me is just so much posturing, over-compensated masculine bathos. And not in a good way, like say in Australian Crawl’s later hit, ‘Errol’. Parenthetically (not really, considering I didn’t put it in parentheses), my grandad’s name is Errol, named after Errol Flynn, whom the Australian Crawl song is of course about. Everything is connected.

Oh yeah, whenever Australian Crawl comes up I like to mention that I’m (extremely distantly) related to James Reyne. My mum shares a great-great-great grandmother with him, on her Dutch side. And no, there’s not a straw in the world I won’t grasp at.

So, to summarise… love ‘the Crawl’. Don’t love ‘the Chisel’. Fat middle aged dudes in Hawaiian shirts getting drunk and dancing with Asian girls is hilarious and depressing.

Yeah, I’m not doing a blog anymore. Just posting YouTube vids that amuse me. It’s a very Baudrillard thing to do.

… is coming (Combing?) to Melbourne!

He sent a bulletin out on MySpace to say that he’s gonna be in town from May 13-29, and possibly doing some uni or pub shows. I’ll definitely be going along for a laff if he does end up doing something. Maybe I’ll finally be able to find out what the hell a ‘knucklebone face’ is… oh, what’s that you say? It’s ‘knucklebone phase’? Well, that makes sense, I guess.

Seriously though, did anyone else used to think those lyrics were “I’m like a yo-yo face, I’m like a marble face, I’m like a hopscotch face… etc”?

Since I posted something from Motown 25 the other day, I wanted to share my other favourite moment from the special. It’s a ‘battle of the bands’ style medley with The Temptations and The Four Tops. Enjoy: 

I think The Temps sealed it when they busted out ‘My Girl’, although technically The Four Tops should win simply because it’s actually The Four Tops, and not a bunch of replacements.

I love how the audience goes nuts just when the instantly recognisable tunes begin, before the groups actually start singing. Ah, the magic of Motown!

And check out the sweet bass on Otis Williams. He should be the conductor on the Soul Train.

Remember this little ditty?

It’s not the actual video clip for the song, and the guy wrongly credited it to MC Hammer (who did the similar “Addams Groove” for the Addams Family movie). It’s by Partners In Kryme.

Such an awesome song. It was everywhere in 1990.

Ironic props to the Partners In Kryme for coming up with some ridiculous, overwrought rhymes. (’They didn’t say we’d be there in half an hour!’)

Whatever happened to blockbuster movies getting rap track tie-ins? This, The Addams Family, Men In Black… it was great! And to think it all started with Prince’s song for Batman.

The Motown 25 TV special is best remembered for Michael Jackson introducing the world to the moonwalk, but to me the most interesting thing about that night (I speak as if it wasn’t aired two years before I was born) was when Lando Calrissian joined the Jackson 5 on stage for their reunion performance.

Marlon Jackson wasn’t available for the reunion, so the General (an old friend of the Jackson family) came along to help out. Check it:

Amazing how General Calrissian found time to learn all the Jackon 5’s songs and dance steps in between waging guerilla war on the Empire and feeding his gambling habit.

(Behind-the-scenes photo of father Joe Jackson guiding Lando the stage, under threat of violence).