The world adores matt hayward

If you’re Australian you will know of the inimitable music guru Molly Meldrum. If you’ve ever drawn breath, you will know of equally inimitable Joey and Johnny Ramone from The Ramones. This has to be the biggest culture clash of the century. This one probably isn’t for those of you who like vivid colourful movement or lively conversation. In fact I don’t think i’ve ever seen anyone so sedintary as Johnny. But as always The Ramones rocked, and Molly, well he just keeps being Molly. This is worth watching just to see Johnny Ramone say ‘Briz-bayne’ and ‘Mell-bouuuurrrne’. Bloody priceless.

When will America wake up and smell the bullshit? Robe Lowe is using his acting kudos to preach hybrid cars to Capitol Hill’? In this Autoblog Green article, there’s a Youtube video of newfound hippie Rob Lowe preaching the merits of hybrids a House Committee. How much is enough?! I mean GM produced a perfectly awesome FULLY ELECTRIC car in the 90s that could make mince meat of a Corvette (in a straight line) and decimate a Prius at saving the planet. But we’re still going to pretend that hybrid and alternative fuels are the only solution? Is our only salvation in warm fuzzy actors and not scientists and analysts? Did we never learn anything from Reagan and George HW Bush?

I just want to end on an anecdote. The reason we’ve never seen a crash test in a hydrogen powered vehicle is because the resulting explosion would probably destroy the whole Melbourne CBD. This is why I agree with your sentiments Rob, but keep your politics to The West Wing, and go back to shagging under age girls in your spare time. Until Detroit can find a way to put the consumables (all the profitable, servicable bits on cars) into electrics, there is no environmentally friendly solution. And all Lowe’s patriotic schooozing (Check the video. It’s pretty naff) ain’t going to do anyone but yourself any good. But hey, I guess that’s the intent.

Hey Funkstas, more wine news! Over the summer break, the guys from the Eat It crew couldn’t be arsed and gave some other blokes a chance. Their show was called Plonk, and unlike Eat It, they deprecated the restaurants, fine dining and cooking and got to the heart of the matter: good vino!

For better or for worse, when Cam and the Eat It boys resumed their awesome Sunday show, the Plonk boys lost their gig. RRR couldn’t find any air time for them. But they did think there was enough merit in doing a podcast - thank god!

This is a one hour show and it looks like it will be a monthly podcast. Production quality is a bit naff, but the content is all great stuff. Three panelists talking all aspects of viticulture, tasting, the wine glut, vintages, regions, varietals, food matchings, you name it. The favourite is WWWW, or Wanky Wine Word of the Week! Each week they endeavour to demystify a new listeners wanky vinofile term.

If you don’t know RRR, trust me this is cool community radio. So think young, laid back, totally non commercial and funky. Not old men with overalls and beards talking about things they found in their shed. Well worth a listen. Subscribe to the plonk podcast, or listen to the first episode.

After my third bottle of this over a few months, this is a dead set bloody winner. It’s not cheap, it’s not expensive (probably about $28 if you can find it), it’s just really, really, really good. I seldom mention wines on the old blog, but this is now my undivided favourite red.

Wrattonbully is a region not far from Coonawarra in South Australia. No I can’t think of anyone else with a winery there. In fact this is their first vintage (2003). Unlike a lot of Aussie red wines out there at the moment, it’s not about overripe fruit. Nor is it about alcohol content or ball tearing tannings (a la McLaren Vale Grenache blends and there’s NOTHING wrong with that!). It’s actually the balance of this wine that makes it so good.  The acidity is as close to perfect as i’ve found in any wine. The fruit doesn’t dominate and is just right, and it’s beautifully savory on the palette. Very mellow, not too complex and oh so drinkable. Hollick describe it as elegant, i’m inclined to agree. It’s what a drinkable Aussie red should be.

Don’t know about their passion fruit skins on the palette that Hollick describe though. A bit too high falutin for me . . .

Food wise, the Wrattonbully would work with anything from a pasta to a good old fashioned rosemary and thyme lamb roast. Or for that matter cheese, more wine and shit talking. That I can certainly vouch for.

This one can’t be missed if you’re a Coonawarra red lover. Look for the navy blue wrapping over the cork. I got this as a mixed dozen from the winery. In closing, a few people i’ve spoken to have had mixed emotions about Hollick. All I can say is that the quality is all there and everything i’ve tried is dead set impressive.

Links:

• Hollick Winery on Australian Wine Region Maps
• Hollick’s tasting notes for the Wrattonbully Shiraz

Everything i’ve read about this album says that it’s self distributed. So you can only assume it’s exactly what the band wanted to do. After all they didn’t have a label to answer to. Turns out Rune Rebellion is quite the business man.

There’s 3 absolute killer tracks: ‘Do you, Do you Dig Destruction?’, ‘We’re Going to Drop the Atom Bomb’ and ‘What is Rock?’. The first of which I still can’t stop listening to. The later is a 7 minute flawless history of rock, with inspirations from Ozzy Osborne’s Mr Crowley to Chuck Berry to Guns N Roses. It’s probably the only track that’s got the trademark old school Turbonegro humour right through it. And it’s bloody funny! The remaining tracks are tongue in cheek, mid 80s glam rock. We’re talking LA Guns, Faster Pussycat glam almost, it really is different.

According to the Wiki, Turbonegro are good at reusing riffs, which is kind of a good thing. Because the boys always do it justice and it’s interesting finding out what they’ve borrowed from! On this album, they’ve straight up taken a riff from ‘Danny Says’ from a Ramones album on ‘I Wanna Come’. ‘Boys From Nowhere’ also screams of some 80s song but it may well be original. Those few remaining tracks probably won’t ever make in their live set, but they’re really growing on me.

No doubt this album is going to dissapoint a lot of fans. At first it really did me. But there’s something to be said for a band that keeps challenging and changing each album, not doing the same 12 tracks every two years. And good albums do take a while to grow on you. Although lets face it, no one else is doing what Turbonegro are doing and sadly probably never will. And even at their worst, their 10 times better than any emo screamo band! Death punk forever.

3.5 out of 5 stars.

Well fuck me if the Convulsions just aren’t getting tighter and tighter. You’d need a micrometer just to measure the tightness between these guys now. They’re so tight musically you could throw a keg load of beer on stage and never see amber liquid hit the ground. OK, dodgey metaphors aside, the guys kicked Melbourne arse and took names tonight. I started watching the riff-tastic band on after them, but meh, i’d had my fill on the Convulsions.

Newest addition to the fray, Juzzie the drummer is fighting in really well. He makes me wonder how the band ever got by without him, blasting away on the double kick pedal. One thing’s for certain though, tonight I felt like I saw Johnny and Dee Dee Ramone incarnate. Not three dudes from Geelong. It was just one big blur of down picking wrists, tight guitar and trembling bass to the shriek of Wayne screaming his guts out, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. There’s a bit of Aussie underground rock in there too (especially the Lobby Loyde cover), plus a healthy dose of The Melvins bunged in for good measure too.

This was their second gig at the Espy, though the first in the new public bar. I dare say it wont be their last. I don’t wanna jinx the boys, but they’re getting to a level of professionalism that deserves a devout following, and hopefully more Melbourne (and interstate) gigs. All the best for the Adelaide gigs boys.

On Australia’s finest stoner television, Today Tonight with Anna Cohen, I almost found myself applauding the TV at a news piece.  One of our mates across the pond on Maori TV called John Howard a ‘racist bastard‘. It was a New Zealand MP Hone Harawira that made the comment, and despite Coren’s reprisal, I damn well agree with everything he said.

If nothing else, Today Tonight is not current affairs journalism, it’s Cheech and Chongesque stoner comedy desperately looking for a red eye time slot to compete with Rage. It’s often so biased, typically lacking even the most basic neutrality and objectivity, you just have to laugh. How people watch this show every night with their children and tell them it’s news, I don’t know.

It didn’t take them long to start the attack. Tonight they interviewed the Maori party leader representing Harawira (interestingly it’s not on their website). In fairness to TT however, they did air about 2 minutes of Harawira’s dialogue that appeared unedited. Harawira claimed que bono [who benefits?] with Howard’s current action up north. Stating Howard’s modus operandi must be that if you move native people off of their land, they relinquish their rights to it. Not to mention to the plethora of natural resources under it. Oh yeah, not to mention that there’s an imminent election. Que bono indeed. With all this alleged child abuse occurring up there, it doesn’t seem the kids they’re so concerned about. But doing something about it while there’s an election imminent.

This much of what Harawira said is true: "He never sat down with the land councils. He never said to them ‘there is a problem here but we recognise that the best people to sort it out are yourselves, and here are all the resources’,". It would seem at least the most humane and altruistic way to solve a crisis. But no politician has altruism at heart. Evidently not Howard.

Insofar as Howard has a lot to gain by taking affirmative action on a very safe, if not problem of his own creation, I agree with Harawira. One thing is for certain that if Howard was genuine he’d should be flying in doctors, teachers and coppers, not soldiers and politicians. This isn’t affirmative action, it’s parapsychology. It reeks of Jimmy Carter’s Iran Hostage Crisis, where he delayed freeing hostages until the election was imminent, so he’d look great for it.

Even if Howard’s motives are pure, how come they have some much propaganda on the TV of soldiers and politicians flying into Aboriginal settlements like Condolezza Rice and George W? How can a man that refused to say sorry to native Australians have such a change of heart? Even if it was a bit harsh calling Howard a racist bastard, there’s enough to suggest it’s true. Maybe lying bastard would’ve been more accurate. There’s plenty to back that up. Like the GST we were never going to have!

Anyway one good thing has come out of this. New Zealand is by no means completely socially harmonious. They’re not without violent gangs or issues. But it does make you swell with pride to see a strong indigenous culture with a prominent voice stand up for what’s right. Oh yeah and if you really want to get me to vote Liberal John, get the hell out of Iraq!