one fellow's political coverage, music ramblings and general hijinks across decades under a range of guises at several locations often in a state of awe.
back 1998: The manic grin here belies a couple of stories. While living it up in HK is fun for a while, if you’re not entertained intellectually it just gets freaky. Nina didn’t like HK, had no inspiration to be there, thus left for Taiwan shortly after. I stayed to play the game. We broke up 8 months later. Credit: Adam.
back 1998: There is no lesser word for it – we were plain-out rescued. Liz and Bex took us under their wing as we were invited to share their flat on Conduit Rd, Midlevels. And I got a dream job with Time Magazine. Credit: Adam.
back 1998: Our first digs were the infamous Mirador Mansions, then Rent-a-Room in Jordan. The insanity so deep that The Bee started wearing disposable underwear on her head. Credit: Adam.
back 1998: Nina and I basically didn’t have a single clue when we hit Hong Kong. This could be one of the few times we’re smiling so broadly – Chinese New Year 1999. Credit: Unknown.
* I’m not certain this was by me. I really can’t recall! It’s got elements of my style, but I’d bet Alison Humphry had a huge red hand in this.
Interview with Brian Hooper
There is a song called Fake on the new Beasts of Bourbon album, titled Gone, which has Tex Perkins screaming ‘don’t know myself, don’t own myself, I’m a fake’. The power, venom and dirge of the Beasts’ traditional blue-collar sound permeates Perkin’s personal attack on himself, Fake being a song which could well be his retaliation to anyone critical of this, the seventeenth year of the Beasts of Bourbon’s collective mindset.
Metropolis Perth
For the many kids who saw the end of the pop and pulp Countdown generation mutate into the all-embracing Rage regeneration, Dinosaur Jr has alway signified low-brow indie rawk and roll. In its early years, ABC TV’s Rage would screen the video of Dinosaur Jr’s Freak Scene every weekend as the epitome of US college radio’s adoration of long haired, lo-fi guitar discordance, a saturation which most loud Australian bands in the past decade can trace direct descendency from.
Perth Entertainment Centre
The tendency for withering rockers to beef up their shows with awesome explosions, technological diversions and improbably large inflatable farm animals is the norm in this age. The fact that we see none of it on this tour simply reiterates that this was Alice Cooper’s nightmarish gag twenty four years ago and he would now rather let the Marilyn Mansons of the world set the pace in cheesy theatrics.
Burswood Superdome, Perth
One would have thought that Gloria Estefan had far outgrown the Latino strut and golden shimmer of Miami Sound Machine. Still technically their lead singer, she has overshadowed the big Florida party band sound with her solo accolades and through the synthesiser-swelled conservatism of love balladry and tales of broken hearts.
Continue reading “Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine, Monday March 31, 1997”
McGilvray Oval
Through the tiny window of opportunity that ‘grunge’ opened for simple youth bitterness, Newcastle’s silverchair (mind the non title case punctuation, they like it that way) was Australia’s gift from the great Kurt Cobain in the sky. Recorded while the members were just fifteen years of age, frogstomp, silverchair’s debut album, went on to platinum sales in the US, Australia and New Zealand. With album number two, Freak Show, already following the former’s trajectory, their motives and talent became blazingly clear during their sermon to 6,000 kids in Perth last week.
