Brushstroke 1

So I thought that I might do a weekly blurb on what I've been listening to.. I have three main listening styles.... My music I listen to before going to bed (I have chronic insomnia, and I cant go to sleep without something playing), the music I listen to on Triple J, and the albums I listen to at other times - I normally by a new one every two weeks, which gets high rotation - for a while anyway... I also have music on my computer at work, for when my MP3 battery is charging. I go on about metal a lot, because that is where my passion lies, but I haven't been listening to that all that much lately... just because I mostly listen to the radio...

Night Tunes: I made a cd of all my favourite Radiohead songs so this is mostly what I have been playing each night... Also been playing some Sigur Ros and Goyte.

Day Tunes:
Alums:- Gossip, Rise Against, Tool, Dredg, Ihshan, Karnivool, Tori Amos
Loose MP3s:- Anima, Bertie Blackman, Deep Sea Arcade, Metric, Sarah Blasco, Yves Klein Blue - basically all the ones I downloaded from the JJJ website this year LOL

Radio Tunes I've taken note of: "Goreki" - Lamb, "Simple Things" - Seth Sentry, "The Start of War" - Claire Bowditch and the Feeding Set (its been stuck in my head all week! yeay, they are playing it again as I type!! that’s twice today *sigh*), "Dominoes" The Big Pink, "Its nice to know you work alone" - Silversun Pickups, "Little Lion Man" - Mumford And Sons etc

CDs purchased: n/a (I'm broke)

Reflections:

• I've been watching season three of Skins (my DVD purchase this week), and I'm really loving the music... Some of the songs I recognised, some I didn’t. I think I’ll be doing a search to find out the track listing..

• My friend Aaron Symonds played at The Basement this week!!! And it was awesome.... the club has a fairly big rep, so I was surprised how absolutely miniscule the backstage section is! seriously, its the size of a walk-in wardrobe... Awesome tho - its got street press posters and graffiti covering all the walls..... The club itself is a lot of fun.. posters tastefully covering the walls, great lighting... its such a small place, but has such heart... The showcase was Soundsalive and most of the performers were part of the Singer Songwriters comp of a few months ago (I missed that one - I was at the Bald Stag seeing Ba'lakor etc that night..). Its a TV show on TVS and Aaron was a finalist or something (I'm not sure if they had just one winner, or runners up or whatever.. I'd been doing tequila shots when Richelle invited me to that gig...). Anyway, there were six acts, and Aaron was on third. The first was fun - Nathan McKenna’s Hermione song was fucking hilarious!! Lets just say, it had adult themes LMAO I need to see if he has a myspace... After Aaron there was this girl, Naomi Merciai who I really liked... But, and I’m not being biased because he is my friend, and going out with one of my favourite people, but I think Aaron really outshone them. Maybe because he has done a lot of live gigs, but he really has stage presence, his songs are tight, he has the right amount of chatter between songs, his guitar playing is solid and he engages the audience. Plus his songs are awesome... he needs to hurry up and cut a cd, because I always get Angels stuck in my head for days after I hear him play it!! This time he did a flamenco introduction. I wasn’t aware that he had professional flamenco training!! Awesome, you all know how much I love flamenco!! god I love guitar!! He also played a new song he had just written, which was gorgeous. I wish the Strawberry Hills still let him run the Jam Nite.. that was always a lot of fun… I told Richelle if he has more gigs, and she wants someone to hang with, to let me know… I miss catching live gigs…………. And hanging out at pubs… and I never see Richelle anymore LOL isn't it funny how we get so wrapped up in our lives, but when asked what we have been up to all we can say is “not much”…

• They are playing the new Muse album, The Resistance, on Triple J this week... as they did last week... I just think it is overkill... I still cant tell if I like it or not.. I hate “United States of Eurasia” as it sounds too much like Queen, and grates every time I hear it. They do have one song I think I like, but the rest is just so... I don’t know, I just know that if Triple J hadn’t been pushing it the last two weeks, I wouldn’t have too big of a problem with it. But last week, they were doing a pre-release showcase where they would play a new song each day, then they played the whole thing later that week. I thought, yeay, now I can have some peace... until I found out that its this week's feature album! WTF!?! So my sigh of relief turned into a groan, and I am getting PO'd every time they play a song... Seriously, THERE IS SUCH A THING AS OVEREXPOSURE!! Cant wait for next week, just so there is a new artist to listen to...

• I bought my Soundwave tix this morning!!! So freaking excited! I'm flying up to Brisbane in February to attend... Lillian is bussing down from Toowoomba, and Sami, Tara and Bubbles (AKA Colin) are flying down from Townsville.. Ari and Rat have also said they are likely to be going, so should be able to catch up with them too. I wish Lindy could be there, but the tickets are $164, so I can understand that... Its gonna be freaking awesome!!! plus, I miss Sami... she is flying down in Nov for the Australian Metal Awards, and it will be brilliant, but I miss hanging out all the time. and she is my only friend who likes the same sort of music events as me.. we have to same style of music appreciation LOL so this will be brill!

*the naming convention of this series is from Dredg's El Cielo album...