Pearl Jam

There was an interesting program on Music Max today about the top 50 albums of the 90's. This interested me as this is my favourite music period. Whilst I did not have much time to follow the full program, I did see about an hour of it and was in time to see them feature "Vitalogy"

I still remember buying this CD from my local record store back in the days where i would scour for my collection. The cardboard cover meant that it did not fit into my CD rack and I had to sit it on the floor of my stand.

Vitalogy Cover

I still remember one particular Thursday night back in uni days where a friend and I were at uni bar having a few drinks and we were talking about Pearl Jam touring and playing that night, only a few hundred meters away. The show was sold out months before but we took our chances and headed to the Entertainment Centre and tried to secure a couple of tickets. Ended up paying $100 each for a ticket from a scalper not even knowing where we were sitting. This was quite a massive investment for the time as was about twice retail price.

We entered the venue about 2 or 3 songs in and were ushered to our seats - first tier, Front row center. You could not have found better seats (although there was a large standing moshpit in front of us). We really enjoyed ourselves and the gig and in hindsight it was money well spent.

A few months later I was playing pool with some old school friends and picked "Spin the Black Circle" from the dukebox. They looked at me as if I was from another planet and could not understand how I could listen to such fast paced and alternative music.

Pearl Jam are a band that I have had alot of fun with and one of the bands that defined the 90's for me, yet I still would not put them up there with my favourite bands or call myself a die hard fan. Nonetheless, I still think they were a quality outfit and well worth a listen.

Custardo

I was thinking today about the last band I saw live. I had to wrack my brain, but am pretty sure that it was Custard. They did a 10-year reunion show just off Oxford Street - I really liked their music when it was released and used to have a "We Have the Technology" poster on my bedroom wardrobe. A friend from uni was a die-hard fan and when she offered me a chance to buy her spare ticket I jumped at the chance and attended with a couple of other uni friends.


The first thing that hit me was that the crowd had aged and matured, all except for the one twat front row center who was spilling his drinks and getting in everyone's way. The venue was quite small and would not have fitted in more than a few hundred people. It was apparent that the people who were there were true fans and most knew all the songs.

Dave McCormack came out to an almighty roar. He was not as shinny as I had remembered him but hten again, none of us are. Custard played a prety comprehensive set list and played all the hits with the exception of "inner West Girls". Nonetheless it was a rocking night and I had no voicebox left by the end of it. Now I'm hoping Machine Gun Fellatio reform for a 10-year reunion - I miss you Pinky!

Big day out for some...

Today the Sydney Big Day Out was held. I did not attend, but it was as good a time as any to reflect on them. It feels a bit weird that it is hosted so early - I've long associated the Sydney show with Australia Day but the organisers decided to shake things up a little this year.

I was relatively late on the festival bandwagon and attended 1999 - 2001. I loved the idea of spending a day out, analysing the set list, pulling my hair out because two of the bands I liked were always on at the same time, running into people that I did not expect to run into and trying to cram as much music into a 12 hour period as humanly possible.

In general, I've found that I have most enjoyed the bands earlier in the day - it is so much easier to get intimate with them and I guess as the crowds are smaller and as your energy levels are higher. I normally spend most of my time around the main and essential stages, venturing to the boiler room for a single token act and chill out at the Lily Pad when there is a break in the schedule.

I tool a long break from Big Day outs and returned in 2010 and 2011. I had wanted to see Rage Against the Machine for so long and the thought of seeing a reunion show was too much to pass up. They were fantastic and I was up the front, left of stage. I went with a friend in 2011 and reminded myself how old I was getting - back in 1999 I think I visioned myself attending every year, but particularly after such a long absence, the crowd had changed and felt so much younger, it had me thinking - I was one of those people once!

Highlights in past years include RatM, NiN, Marilyn Manson, Regurgitator, TISM, Bluejuice, and CSS off the top of my head. I have had days there with past girlfriends, with friends and on my own. Whilst my time there has been largely positive. Nonetheless I attended the year that Limp Bizkit battled the security guards and organisers, the rush that followed was blamed for Jessica Michalik's death which was heavily publicised in the media at the time. Sadly, a friend passed away not long after that event and it is very hard to think of the Big Day Out without thinking of him.

No Friggin' Ad's.

One of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam's greatest achievements was to set up the youth radio station no known as Triple J. It is a government owned national station that has no friggin ad's and plays a wide genre of music including Alternative, Hip Hop, Metal and techno. It is hard to be pleased with all the music they play given the wide variance in genres (and I'm not a big fan of the latter two genres) but it does try to cover the spectrum well and has a good focus on unearthing Australian talent. They are not the type of station that plays the same top 40 songs over and over again.

Just about everyone you speak to have a sentimental attachment to the music they listened to from their late teens to early 30's. i am no different and Triple j helped me along with those emotional bonds. In the last few years, my interest has been more towards politics so my radio listening has moved away from Music and onto the AM dial, as such, I've lost track of many of the new bands that are popular with the youth of today. I still tend to listen to Triple J over the Christmas and summer breaks.

one of the biggest Triple J summer rituals is the Hottest 100 countdown on Australia Day. Voting opens on New Years Day and stays open for 20 days. I vote every year, but voting gets harder every year as the bands I used to love and listen to slip out of fashion or lose their edge. This year was very difficult for me and I had much catching up to do - it was obvious early on that listening to an hour or two's radio in the car each day for a month wasn't going to cut it this year. Today, I voted in this years countdown.

I've needed to get creative in finding new songs. I've searched top 10 lists and previewed the favourites and picked the songs I like out of it. I remember years where I would struggle to get down to 10 songs from a short list of 30, this year I barely made the 10.

My standout choice was Icona Pop's "I Love It"! - i first heard it on an ad but it was ringing in my head for a week or so and is the only new song this year to give me an ear worm. I was happy to discover that the Presets, Metric, The Herd, Hilltop Hoods and Regina Spektor were still pumping out decent tunes and also voted for some bands I had heard of but their music is relatively newer to me - Seth Sentry, Birds Of Tokyo and Rudimental.

Whilst the exercise was difficult it was not in vain. I made an opportunity to familiarise myself with some of this years new songs, even if I didn't vote for it. Now all I need to do is wait for the countdown on Australia Day.

Oh Oh Oh Oh

It is amazing how the music you grow up with from your teenage years through to your early 30's sticks and resonates with you for the rest of your life.

I have lived through Bros, Vanilla Ice, MC Hammer and various other phases in my youth and it never ceases to amaze me how an act can infiltrate itself into pop culture and take over. In today's internet age all it takes is a catchy tune and funky film clip to storm the charts and 2012 has certainly been the year of PSY and Gangnam style.

How he managed to generate over a billion hits on YouTube by inventing a dance is outstanding. I've seen PSY pop up with Hugh Jackman, used in ad's.The icing on the cake was an ad for a Gangnam dancing competition in Singapore

Gangnam dance competition in Singapore

However he managed it, good luck to him. For a non-english song to crack the charts is phenomenal. Just goes to show that the next big thing is always just around the corner.