2012 In Review: Honourable Mentions

It's that time of year again. Let's start with what was good. 

Bookshelf: Lolita

A brief look at one of the best novels I've ever come across. 

Pour Habit at Festmas 2012

Hey folks, something a bit different this week; a rundown of my recent experience seeing Pour Habit live in Melbourne. Also, this week sees my first video review. Pretty cool huh? 

Forgot to mention that Colin, the drummer for Pour Habit was amazing, he drove the entire set and didn't miss a hit all night. 

Hat Guy  

Help Me I Hate: Punk Music

Well this one has been a long time coming. It's finally time for me to lay my Punk credentials on the line and try and sell the genre to those who're mostly not interested. To understand Punk, one needs to know a little about where it came from; the downtrodden working class youth of the West who saw no future outside of the shitty jobs their fathers were working. Basically, Punk is to white people what Rap is to black people. Well, sort of, anyway. When Punk started, the prevailing music style was Glam Rock, overproduced, ridiculous and mostly pretty awful (Slade is worth checking out though). In a reaction to this, Punk returned to rock roots for its riffs and the lyrics focused on social injustices and the inanity of pop culture.

So first off, Punk music should sound like this: 

(In my opinion one of the best songs of all time.) 

Punk music should not sound like this: 

(What the hell are they getting at? Is the song Anti-Bush, Anti-Media or Anti-America?) 

Once again, however, it's no challange for me to throw down some Ramones and Clash and tell you that they're good. Just like the pop music, I'll pick 3 songs from the past 5 years and we'll see how we go. 

The Bright Lights of America - Anti-Flag (2008)

American West-Coast hard-left Punk outfit Anit-Flag have a long and proud history of anti-government activity, having toured with Rage Against the Machine and organised more than a few protests. I may not always agree with the band's politics, but I love their music. This song about the disaffection of suburban American youth speaks perfectly to the origins of Punk whilst sounding thoroughly contemporary. Although this song is a little more pop style than Anti-Flag's usual fare, it still maintains the core tenants of Punk Rock, Short, Fast and Loud. 

Xmas Has Been X'ed - NOFX (2012) 

Want to bring down society? Fuck with Xmas. NOFX has a great history of combining humor with social issues and this little number is a good continuation of that. If this doesn't do it for you, listen back to it a few times, lines like "priests and nuns are molesting each other" are far more clever than the chorus would let you think. Even the opening lines about metaphor and mythohistory a brilliant if you take the time to think about them. That's the problem with Punk music, it asks you to think. No music for the feint of heart this, you have to use your brain you lazy bastard. 

Matter of Opinion - Pour Habit (2011) 

Yes, I'm going to keep pimping Pour Habit until they're bigger than Jesus; they're certainly more relevant and sound better. This rocking number tackles racial tension and government policy but at its core, is about the simple notion that The Truth is not a matter of opinion. I don't know what more I can say about this band, so I'll let Matter of Opinion stand on its own merits. 

Now get out there and get you're Punk on!

Hat Guy - I live by the River.  

Do you remember rock 'n' roll radio?

Interesting news my three regular followers! In the next few weeks I shall be joining the exciting world of community radio! Thanks to a kind offer from Gareth Baxter, the host of "Gravelrash" on Inner FM 96.5, I'll be helping out and maybe playing a song or two. Details are yet to be confirmed, but you can stream the show on innerfm.org.au from 1700h to 1900h on Saturdays. Gareth has a great spectrum of music to play, plus you can call in requests (website for details). I'll be keeping you posted on further developments so stay tuned. 

Just in case you were wondering: 

I also considered "Angry James and the Radio" 

Hat Guy - Coming soon to a radio near you, kinda, hopefully...  

Pour Habit Hits Down Under

In just a couple of weeks, Pour Habit, one of the best punk acts touring today, will hit Melbourne for two shows of frenzied awesomeness. So why am I mentioning it here? Because too few people know about this band and you still have your chance to get to see these guys tear it up! I'm actually going to let Chuck speak for himself on this one: 

Shameless plug? Maybe, but no one cared about the Ramones until Joey died, so I consider this a public service announcement. 

Hat Guy - My liver lives life too bold.  

Bookshelf: Gulliver's Travels

One of the first novels ever published, Gulliver's Travels is a sharply written satire of 18th Century society and of the folly of human endeavor. Unfortunately, due to the abstractions of size in the text, with the minute Lilliputians and giant Brobdingnagians, the text is often mistakenly read as fantasy and thus tends to be presented to children. This is a shame because Gulliver's Travels is probably the finest example of literary satire ever written. The story should be familiar to most, Lemuel Gulliver is a traveler and ship's surgeon that is repeatedly shipwrecked on alien shores, learning the culture, language and customs of wherever he finds himself. 
To go too much into the detail of this text would be to ruin many of the delightful surprises that await the reader, such as when politicians start, literally, jumping through hoops to get elected and scientists attempt to return feces to its component foodstuffs. Although it was Swift's aim to "vex the world" of the Age of Reason, the text remains relevant to contemporary society as humans continue to be unpredictable, foul, political and argumentative and far inferior to the noble Houyhnhnms, a race of pacifist, equine philosophers.
One of the hardest parts of reading Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels will be finding a copy of the text that is not adapted for children, a Penguin Classic or similar is about the only way to find the original in its entirety. If that can be managed, prepare yourself for dense 18th Century English ripe with metaphor and allusion, an annotated version (Norton) may be of some help here. For most, Gulliver's Travels is a novel to challenge, but the rewards can be great, if you haven't encountered this text since childhood, it is well worth revisiting.

Hat Guy