The world adores matt hayward

Lately I have been really digging listening to interviews. Because you listen to music all day at work on your headphones and you’re gonna get bored with it and just want some talk that’s interesting. That’s when I found Nardwuar the Human Serviette. Who the hell is Nardwuar? He’s a crazy plaid clad, irreverent, hysterical, slightly effeminite interviewer from British Colombia. A celebrity from nowhere, if maybe the local college radio scene. That in itself wouldn’t be noteworthy, it’s his interviewing style that puts even the most well touted celebrity off guard.

This guy is a touch bizarre, but he’s very, very good. Every interview starts with "Who are you?!" Wham! A microphone in the face without any further ado. No patronising "OK we’re rolling" or any of that. Then comes a blitzkrieg of questions so left of field, so hysterically rambled out, yet so intricately researched, the subject of the interview doesn’t know whether to be outraged, complimented or just plain flabbergasted. It can and often does go either way. Oh and he’s the master of the segway. Particularly any segway that links the subject to his beloved Canada. Once Michael Moore was so taken back, his only response was ‘OK I thought it was coffee, now I know this guy’s on crack!’

Initially I was mistaken for thinking that this guy was some Canadian prime time personality. But he appears to have worked for a college radio station CITR for at least 10 years. On Nardwuar’s Youtube page, you’ll find a bunch of short sub 5 minutes interviews. But the on full podcasts of his radio shows, he plays some of the most bizarre flea market stuff you’ve ever heard. From promotional records for record manufacturing companies, to advertising jingles of the 1960s. It’s often said but seldom true, Nardwuar is eclecticist in extremis! This eclecticism stretches out to his interviewees, ranging from emo, to hair metal, gangster rappers to pop to the prime minister of Canada.

If you’re talking qualities though, he’s not just a whiny guy in a polyester suit. There’s also a strength of character in Nardwuar, not just celebrity that’s not always found in his subjects. Often interviews take a turn for the worst but he holds it together so well. Some subjects (especially major label punk rockers who sell their music for shampoo commercials) really don’t get it and react pretty badly. Even the dorky looking guy in glasses from Blur repeatedly bullied him until walking out of the interview. Albeit it seemed to be taking the piss, just a little rough. Nevertheless, he always takes retorts and shoves in his stride and keeps plugging away at his subject till he gets his interview.

In his interview with Nirvana, Courtney Love (accompanying Kurt) said "you sooo want to create a scene around yourself don’t you?". It was like water off a duck’s back. Alice Cooper didn’t do so favourably. When Nardwuar kepy shouting down the phone ‘hey stoopid’ the minders came on the line and hung up. Sebastian Bach formerly of Skid Row once stole his plaid hat causing psandemonium amongst Canadian college students to get it back.

Once he even managed to unravel the usual good guy Henry Rollins. In 1998 he got particularly short with him over his petty questions (it really does depend on the celebrity and personality of his interviewee) and gave him the ultimatum of one more question. Nardwuar dropped the minutia and the hysteria a bit, but stayed true to himself. Nardwuar responded to him with a choice of 5 incredibly well researched ones.  It turned the whole interview around to the point that Rollins ‘got it’ and walked away happy.

What makes a Nardwuar interview truly entertaining though is what the English call ‘taking the piss’, something truly rare in a North American talent. In other words, he brings them down to their human level. Porno magnate Al Goldstein came across as the absolute prick he makes himself out to be. Gene Simmons didn’t go much better (not that he came off bad, he just came across as the upper class, Israeli businessman he really is). So you guessed it, there’s no human side to some people! Yet it’s supposedly scary guys ones like metal bands (Cradle of Filth, Motorhead and Megadeth) or punk bands (like the Rancid, the Damned and the Sex Pistols) really respond to it and give far more of themselves away than they normally would do in an interview.

He even has the versatility to make Kelly Osborne and Franz Ferdinand briefly entertaining! But someone of this manic and eclectic nature is always going to be unpredictable.  I guess you never know which way a Nardwuar interview is going to go. It could be two minutes or an hour. Some great piss takers like Blur and Rob Zombie really have pulled one over Nardwuar. In the aftorementioned Blur interview, the band members stripped off glasses and hat to expose the real Nardwuar, exclaiming ’see we really like this guy!’ It’s a true battle of wits. However, Nardwuar will usually spin it so both interviewer and subject come out on top. How perfectly Canadian!

If you’ve read this far, check out his web page. A word of warning, his extensive interview libraries are addictive and sadly just not updated often enough. Leaving on a good note though, as he would close off ‘keep on rocking in the free world Nardwuar and do-doo-da-do-doo. Do-doo.’ Interviews are seldom this entertaining. Ba Boom!

The problem with that big box with the silver screen in the living room is it doesn’t have a keyboard. It’s dumb. It can’t tell you the weather. It has no idea that there’s a far more useful box upstairs called, the computer. Seldom the domain of the female of the species, the computer connects to something called the internet and can access a plethora of movies, videos and christ knows what else! So if one fines what’s on the dumb silver screen uninteresting, chances are, they’re upstairs on the computer trying to find something interesting. And so the female of the species complains. Bugger. If only there were a way to combine the two . . .

Well bugger me dead, there is! It’s called a Phillips Streamium SLM5500. It provides a wifi link between your computer and your TV. So now anything on your PC can be watched the way it was intended. Rather than all cramped up on your desk in the study. And let me tell you, it’s bloody brilliant. It’s a box no bigger than a lunchbox with an aerial out the back. But the best thing is that the box blends in perfectly with the stupid silver screen. It doesn’t look like a computer at all! Nor does it make a stupid whirring noise.

To set it up, you plug it in, and after about 40 mins of setup (it’s fiddly, but it’s not that difficult. Not nerd difficult, but not iPod easy). There’s also some software you have to setup on your PC. It tells the streamer what directories you want to share out. From here on in, it’s driven by a very simple, quality remote control. All the menus on your TV screen are simple, clear and easily usable. No complex navigation.

At this point your probably asking, ‘does it have a hard drive?’. The simple answer is I don’t know! Does it run an operating system? Dunno. Frankly, it works and I don’t care. There are more complicated media gates out there. But I dare say there not as living room, or female friendly as this one. And besides, you don’t necessarily want to save everything to your media gate. I don’t. I’m quite happy to stream them. It’s a living room, not a laboratory.

Load time for movies is OK. It takes about 3 seconds to buffer the file you want to watch. And get this, I accidentally left it on for about 12 hours. I came home from work and it hadn’t stopped. It paused for about 20 seconds AFTER 12 HOURS OF CONTINUOUS PLAYBACK, and then just kept truckin’. No dramas at all. So far it hasn’t overheated, reset or shat itself in anyway. One thing is though, when you turn it on, it does take almost a minute to load and get on the network. But who cares, it looks good!

So there you have it, If you can find one they’re cheap, relatively simple and they make your TV useful again. My suggestion is bloody well buy one now. It easily plays files of your PC, there’s no FTP, no Linux, no shared drives and very little stuffing around. What more do you want?

Well I guess you’ve heard about the controversy. Big Day Out promoters yesterday were asking fans not to bring Aussie flags to the event, to combat, well boganism. Everybody gave a bit of a serve to the BDO - to some extent justifiably so.

Firstly, I am biased as hell. Because for one, I am not about to give Americans heaps of crap for their stars and stripes regalia and then be a hypocrite waving the Southern Cross. The best celebration of patriotism are the quiet ones. Why should you have to wave a flag to prove your love? What if you don’t care so much about the flag, but more what makes us different as people first, then a nation? And you betcha I hate it when people hide behind unAustralian. So if I was told I couldn’t bring a flag, well that’s another hand I can carry beer with. And it doesn’t bring everyone else down with their populist, macho, jingoistic bullshit!

Secondly the lame part of the argument. BDO is about beer, ecstacy, speed, mates, moshing, pashing, pushing, groping, shagging, techno, metal, rock, exhaustion, cracked ribs, crowd surfing, injuries and the occasional punch on. The promoters have to turn a blind eye to everything but the punch ons or the crowds won’t come.  So they need to pay for police attendance, security and insurance for the event. So in lieu of a few hundred bogans on speed looking for a big arsed punch on with a bunch of drugged out emo kids, I say anything that doesn’t evoke racially motivated violence is a good thing. But my viewpoint on flags (in general, not just the Oz flag) makes it easier for me nonetheless.

Frankly I couldn’t think of any better way to celebrate the history of this country by just doing what you love. I for one don’t think that those that fought and died in the great wars (or those that refos that plain risked everything to get here) would want it any other way. I certainly don’t think they’d want us fighting each other to prove our love for a nation. And when the NSW Premier says ‘just kick out the trouble makers’, well what are you going to take away the sniffer dogs and add extra police FOR FREE to deal with the punch on ready bogans you’re defending? If it’s at a state event fine. But at a paid private festival, blow it out your arse! You didn’t even offer any extra police!

There’s no better way to pay tribute to your freedom. But punching the crap out of people because they won’t kiss your flag is what you’d expect Russian nazis to do to Chechnian refugees or some other Eastern Bloc country. A Macedonian mate of mine always used to joke that in 500 years, Aussies will be fighting each other like Macos and Greeks do now. Like time just never heals wounds. It scares me that some are trying to speed up this process.

Now the meaty stuff. Did anyone else notice that second in the news was one of the biggest cabinet reshuffles in Federal parliament Howard has ever done? What convenient timing! Bring up some ‘You have to agree with us, it’s unAustralian not to‘ bullshit and everyone’s too pent up and angry to ask who’s still around and what political alliances are being formed, and god only knows what else.

Now the big Kahuna. It won’t matter a flying fuck if we have the right to take our flag anywhere. Why? Because AUSTRALIA HAS NO CONSTITUTIONALLY PROTECTED RIGHT TO FREEDOM OF SPEECH. IT WOULDN’T REALLY MATTER WHAT LAW THEY MADE UP. So why not get to the heart of the issue and have a referendum to change the constitution. Then flags are protected under the freedom of speech addendum in the constituion. But geez, I hate it when people carry on about petty stuff and not with the real issue. Not to mention the fact that Australians’ are loosing their rights to freedom of speech, sorry liberties, dramatically over the past 3 years - either at state or federal level.

Fact of the matter is, I think my Macedonian mate was right. Give it time and Sydneyites will be throwing Molotov cocktails at Melbournites. And one thing that’s always true. You can’t trust Howard as far as you can throw him. Oops the thought police are here! 1984!!!

Man, James Brown, the most sampled man in history, the Godfather of soul, the awesome balladier has died at Christmas! Holy crap, what an exit! I’m speechless! Truly, there’s not many grandads that could top James for coolness. The thought of a world without the king of soul is kind of bleak.

For all you young uns that think you don’t know who he is, just about every DJ in hip hop has sampled Jimmy Brown, and will continue to be. Rap and hip hop wouldn’t exist without the man - PERIOD. His music was the perfect backdrop for gritty movies like Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. His music was even used in cutting edge video games like Grand Theft Audio San Andreas. These three accolades in my mind alone are awe inspiring.

He was also known as an obsessive compulsive musician and insisted on absolute perfection from his musos. According to legend, he’d pay his musos in cash at the end of the gig, docking them for every bum note! He also hijacked an insurance convention in the 80s, jacked up on PCP with a shot gun, because he thought these nerds were using his private crapper. That’s pretty cool.

Well now he truly is a legend. Raise a toast to James Brown, the one and only. Rest in peace brother. The world won’t be the same without you.

Got a great surprise when I woke up today. Was driving to my GF’s place when they said on RRR radio that the new Tim and Tex album is out today. Bloody corker!

So Borders had it for $24.95. Gave it a very quick listen and man is it catchy. There’s none or very little of the melancholy strums of Ghost Songs, or the hip flask swilling sleaze of Dirty Ron, but a hell of a lot of tongue in cheek outright cheekiness. Will require several more listens to give a more thorough review, but so far the only track I don’t get is ‘Fire Escape’.  Frankly I think this easily tops that double album.

Everything else is fresh, and almost reaks of Willy Nelson and Johnny Cash (or Julio Iglesius(?)) duets of old. There is an aural texture to this album that seems instantly legendary. The superlatives keep coming. But you can hear whisky being poured between tracks it revels so well. Even Richard Kingsmill, radio JJJ music nerd, at first thought it was a throw away album and admitted Rogers had come out with some belters. He’s right.

Some of it also reaks of ‘What Rhymes with Cars and Girls’ which is a bloody good thing. Timmy has several solo tracks where this becomes apparent. One track had strong violin tinged bits which sound like the mellotrons used on ‘Hi Fi Way’. Tex has at least one. I hope the boys have another album in them. Because so far, this is a fantastic album. Rogers seems to be in a bit of a happier place with these tunes, but there’s some bitterness there. But it’s mostly good time, drinkin’ tunes. God bless ‘em. Some are for you and your lady will appreciate, but they work on all levels.

Of particular coolness are the last two tracks: Come on and Love Me (a very old Kiss song off the album Dressed to Kill) and Rod Stewart’s Tonight’s the Night. These are absolutely brilliantly cheeky but awesome acoustic renditions!

So bugger it. Tomorrow should be a sunny day. So buy this album, get some snags and a slab of Coopers Sparkling, fire up the barby and crank these tunes with some mates. That is the best possible way you can pay tribute to this album and these fine lads. Tim Rogers for president of everything.

I read this while on holidays the other week. All I really knew about Bon beforehand was that he lived up to his reputation as a heavy drinking, hard rocker. While that is true, Bon had one of the most interesting lives of anyone you can care to imagine. This book is amazing!

This book calls on archived rock magazines and interviews with Scott’s wife, girlfriends, family and flings. Of course, there’s heaps of interview excerpts with roadies, friends but sadly very little first hand stuff from the band or their record label Alberts. Apparently the author suggests they run a very tight ship.

Unlike Lemmy’s bio, this book is written by the erudite and journalistically inclined Clinton Walker. He’s very successfully journalled Scott’s teens, in Fremantle, his family background, a brief stint in a correctional centre, right up to his formative years in bands the Valentines and Fraternity. The hard ships of these times in his life, and the depiction of the Australian music scene (in all states) in the late 60s/early 70s is vivid and enlightening to say the least!

It’s evident after reading this book that there was no accident in Bon Scott’s stardom. Scott gigged his arse off all over Australia and had been through the band ringer not once but 3 times. Scott was definitely the antipode of the Young brothers. He was experienced, sociable, well aversed and exuberant. Qualities that the very talented, and youthful Youngs, lacked. Especially Angus who was still in his teens when Bon was almost 30. The recalcitrant and apparently paranoid way in which the Youngs ran the band would ultimately ostracise Scott into a life of loniless and alcoholism on the road.

The events around Bon’s death are discussed objectively. Around that time, Bon had found all the trappings of success but still no life partner and was living a lonely existance. Suicide is implied in that he was drinking especially heavily before his death, but there’s nothing too conspiratorial here. But those who’d think he was a chauvenistic old rocker would be interested to see all the letters in this book he’d written to lovers. He also had a penchant for all things Japanese. He was far more gentle, according to Walker, than most would imagine.

This book is well worth a read just to remember how much cooler other people lives are than yours! There’s plenty of rock and roll stories, anecdotes and the plain the good, the bad and the ugly. I’m loathed to say that the Australian history aspect of the rock scene is in itself enough reason to buy the book. But the real reason is that whilst you may not have a Whole Lotta Rosie, your life’s definitely a lot easier to live than that of a soon-to-be iconklast rock starm waiting to be a millionaire. Yes, the whole book is worth it just for that. Bon lives. 5 out of 5!

Had a difficult decision to make the other day, whether to buy this book or ‘The Dirt’ about Motley Crue. Lemmy being the all-enduring, reptilian like god of rock that he is, I decided to go for this 300 page manifest on the big man or metal. Let’s face it, he makes Keith Richards look like a scared little mouse.

So anyway, as some of you will know, I am an awful reader. I ploughed through this in a week, or four sittings. 150 pages in the first night. That’s somewhat of a record for me. Yes the book is a ripping read, but it would’ve taken far longer had the book had any real depth to it. The first half talks about Lemmy’s upbrining and the early days of British rock in the 60s. We see Lemmy leave remote Wales, get a guitar, take up speed and basically become a roady and a professional drifter. But it seems fairly scattered. Infact, I think it’s so scattered because the poor sod doesn’t really remember half of it!

There are some classic rock star drink and drug stories and insights into other bands and rock stars, but there’s very little detail. Just "he’s OK" and "she’s a bitch" or whatever, again probably because old Lemm’ was stoned out of his gord the whole time. The last half of the book however, is more to do with the low lever, "we hired this manager, fired this producer etc" all the operational stuff to do with running a big Rock and Roll band. A little dissapointing in that regard in all honesty.

Lemmy also offers a few insights into his thoughts on sexuality, terrorism, his penchant for history and chauvenism, but nothing shocking. If anything, yes the boy is overtly macho, but he has actually gone quite far out of his way to aid the careers of prominent ladies of rock including Lita Ford and the band Girlschool. Overall, Lemmy comes across as a rock stars’ gentleman, and a very good one at that!

In short this book is a fast paced collection of vignettes, rather than extended focus on any one period of his career, band mate or personality. I wish it was 500 pages longer, but that just wouldn’t be Lemm’. This is the epitome of the man and a good read at that. Hopefully one day we’ll get the full story. Now for that 600 page Motley Crue book . . .
About 6.5 out of 10. Worth a look.
Buy White Line Fever at Amazon.com

Timmy and the boys have bought out their absolute heaviest release to date. There’s every chance when you throw in the CD and hear Thank God I’ve Hit the Bottom, you might think you have the wrong CD. Rest assured you haven’t. This album sounds more like the result of an amphetamine fueled punch up in the back of a tour van then 12 months in the studio. And with Rock and Roll, that’s a good thing!

There are some out and out classic tracks straight off the bat. Highlights are the angsty My Own Hand, the aforementioned Hit the Bottom, Nervous Kid and The Sweet Life. Slower moments such as Explaining Cricket (to Americans), Thuggery and Secrets still hit the spot. Even though they slow down, they never go below the speed limit. The page of this album is like mashing the loud pedal down through the floor and only slowing down when you see cops coming. All 35 minutes of it!

Sonically, this is You Am I’s best sounding album since Hi Fi Way. Songwriting wise, probably their best written since #4 Record. Every song is full of Roger’s trademark Aussie lingo and experiences. From the getting picked on by BMX Bandits as a teenager in Nervous Kid to the ‘You’re beautiful, but you’re fucked’ of The Sweet Life it’s all there.

What I like most about this release is that it’s the tightest lead guitarist Davey Lane has ever been with the band. There are great duel guitar parts in Gunslinger and sleazy bluesy harmonies in The Sweet Life and just plain no shit, hard hittin’ riffs all the way through.

If you want a listen, NineMSN are still doing a free preview of each track on the album. But you know what, screw that. It’s worth just going out and buying this. It’s pretty damn good.

Ok Funkstas! A buddy forwarded me a link to this new site the other day. Quite literally if you have speakers (or headphones at work) and a web browser, that’s all you need to listen to heaps of unlimited radio. Literally this is all you do is:

1. Go to www.pandora.com
2. Type in the name of your favourite artist when prompted
3. Music starts playing music in a Flash plug in by (or similar to) that artist
4. Now you have your own personal radio station based on music similar to that artist.

The audio quality is good, but the simplicity of this application is just staggering. Within 15 seconds, you’re up and running. And no other site I know can boast that. I was a veteran of www.launch.com before they were bought otu by Yahoo and insisted that everyone be American. In fairness, Launch was a better service only because it was more complex in its rating of artists and tracks. Pandora only lets you ‘thumbs up’ or ‘thumbs down’ a track and not black list an artist, which would be nice.

Obviously, Pandora could be the greatest thing in the world, but will rise and fall based on the catalogue of the music avaiable. Well, in terms of rock, so far so good. No problems finding Motley Crue, Motorhead or Turbonegro. I’m told it’s not so good for doof doof, but that’s a good thing as far as i’m concerned!

What really is amazing is also that they say that they recommend music not basic on ‘what other fans of artist X like . . ‘ but apparently the Genome project (of which Pandora resulted) suggests music based on musical characteristics, pitch, tone etc. I will need to read up more on this because I am heavily skeptical, but it certainly is providing different results to Launch. Well in the sense that they’re all melodically similar.

According to their site, the Musical Genome Project participants have "Over the past 5 years, we’ve carefully listened to the songs of over 10,000 different artists - ranging from popular to obscure - and analyzed the musical qualities of each song one attribute at a time. This work continues each and every day as we endeavor to include all the great new stuff coming out of studios, clubs and garages around the world." So there, something a little different!

You will notice a little further down the page is a list of my 5 favourite tracks on my Pandora stations. This too is a cute little feature. It should also be noted, these tracks don’t describe my musical taste to a tee, but it’s close! So make your work day a little bit more interesting and visit Pandora.com. It friggin rocks.

The other day I downloaded this bands first album Gabba - Leave Stockholm (a pisstake on the Ramones second album ‘Leave Home’. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not exactly brilliantly recorded or fantastic. But what a fantastic parody. Gabba are equal parts ABBA and the Ramones.  And yes, that means punked up versions of Knowing Me, Knowing You and Waterloo. But it also means faintly disco concessions to Ramones songs.

So the Ramones aesthetic is obvious, these dudes don stripey shirts, bowl haircuts and black leather jackets. The addition of a blonde bombshell Anneke adds the necessary Abba. Judging by their web site www.gabba.co.uk, the band appear to have put out two more albums since Leave Stockholm and are touring in 2006. But the satire is laid on so thick, right down to the Ramones most infamous producer (Phil Spector) and their long time tour manager (Monte Melnick), it’s hard to establish anything about this band but they’re based in the UK. I’m not even sure if they’re Swedish!

They would have to be fantastic to see live. In fact this level of piss taking can only have originated from England. So i’m going to go out on a limb and say they’re plain old John Bull English. Unfortunately with the first release, they’re nowhere near as good as Beatallica.

Anyway, if you like your satire rock, check them out. They can only have improved since the first album.