32 Songs - Track 18

Burn One Down - Ben Harper

If you don't like my fire
then don't come around
cos I'm gonna burn one down

A song about smoking marijuana is the inital impression. And for many it is the lasting impression as well. But I like to take it one step further as this song encapsulates my entire world view in three short lines.

your choice is who you choose to be
and if you're causin' no harm
then you're alright with me

Wouldn't the world be a much nicer place if we all thought like this?

It might also be a nicer place if we all took Ben's advice to burn one down.

It would certainly increase Tim Tam sales.

32 Songs - Track 17

Dumb Enough - Hilltop Hoods

I’m scared of getting old, so when it comes D-Day,
I’m a thank you all for dissing me, then say something clichéd,
And when I’m dead and buried I want you in ‘Life Be In It’ shirts,
At my cemetery singing…

Hilltop Hoods and we’re coming up,
So step on up if you’re dumb enough
Hilltop Hoods and we’re coming up,
So step on up if you’re dumb enough.

When did rap become hip-hop?.......... and what the hell is hip-hop?

And since we're at it can someone please tell what the fuck roots music is? I'm the production manager of one of this country's larger music events and I still have no idea what roots music is. Personally I blame Jordie Kilby so maybe he and I can sit down over a Pale and he can explain it to me one day.

Apparently Hilltop Hoods are an overnight success in the Australian music scene. Which is funny because I first saw them at the Cargo Club in Adelaide sometime in the mid-nineties. They were pretty messy that night. Thankfully ten years has done wonders for them and they brought us all a present a couple of years ago when they released The Calling. The Hoods have brought intelligence and wit back to rap music. Illustrated with aplomb by the excerpt from Dumb Enough at the top of this post.

Rap has taken a beating in the last fifteen years. From the "CNN of the streets" that was Public Enemy and Run DMC to the "look at my pretty gold chains and cars" of the current crop of rappers like - well they all have stupid names don't they? Thankfully it seems to be comming out of the wilderness thanks to groups like the Hoods, Koolism, The Streets and a few others.

Dumb Enough makes this list for the following three lines

"I'll make origami of your lyrics"
"Gee that's good Suffa, what is it?"
"It's a SWAN!"

It's pure lyrical gold that made me laugh out loud and because of that I will never forget those three lines. Which is exactly what a good song should do.

32 Songs - Track16:

Bug Powder Dust - Bomb the Bass

Never been a fake and I'm never phony
I got more flavour than the packet in macaroni
Rock drippin' from my every vowel
I've got the soul of the sixties like Ginsberg's Howl
Shootin' mad ball and I'm always jukin'
Take you to the hole and I'm surely hoopin'
Top of the pops like the Lulu's show
I'll take a walk on Abbey Road with my shoes unsoled
I got a splinter though, damn, you know man it hurt
I got a Vegemite sandwich from Men at Work

It makes no sense, is about nothing and has the lyrical quality of a Salvador Dali painting.
But I love it for the line "I got a vegemite sandwich from Men at Work".

I highly recommend the Kruder & Dorfmeister remixes found on The K&D Sessions compilation.

32 Songs - Track 15

Come Together - The Beatles

He wear no shoeshine, he got toe-jam football
He got monkey finger, he shoot coca-cola
He say I know you, you know me
One thing I can tell you is you got to be free
Come together right now over me

Like most kids I found myself going through my parent's record collection in my early teens. There was a large number of stage musical soundtracks, a whack of odd classical stuff and the occasional Kenny Rodgers, Billy Joel, ABBA, Carol King, Cat Stevens, the Stones or Barbara Streisand (that white cover with Kenny and Babs haunts me to this day too). Frightening stuff really but lurking within it all was a smattering of Beatles albums.

Let's face it. Unless you grew up in Africa, Antarctica or the Middle East chances were you've heard a Beatles song at some point in your life and if you grew up in the UK, US or AUS then you've had them rammed down your throat for fourty years.

Oddly I can not remember my parents playing their Beatles records. Not once. In fact I have very little recollection of my parents playing music at all, except for the occasional musical soundtrack (and you've already seen what effect that had on me).

The Beatles that I knew did Hard Days Night, Help, Obla di, Obla Da, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, When I'm Sixty Four and were quite boring. Ho hum was perhaps the best description. Then I put Abbey Road on my parents old record player.

Up comes the bass line for Come Together and it's bye-bye first impressions of The Beatles. I think the bass line for Come Together kick started puberty for me. Definite rumblings in the lower trouser department. Dum Dum Da Da Daa Dum. Can't you feel it?

The first side of Abbey Road starts with Come Together and finishes with I Want You. And then side two opens with Here Come the Sun and then finishes with The End. To put it simply; Abbey Road dies a slow painful death on CD. Go out and buy the vinyl and listen to it as it should be.

Celebrate:

Three days it has taken me to convince my speedbump of a toshiba win98 laptop that the iPod shuffle my delectable better half gave me for my birthday is worth recognising.

Now i have USB back and forward from laptop to work handsome desktop apple.

All those horrible words sitting on the broken lump of grey plasic can now be given to the world.

Now what number are we up to in the 32 songs?

Things:

1.
The Australian Government's Budget for the upcomming financial year is only a few days old. And it doesn't seem all that bad really. I wasn't expecting a tax cut at all and still got one. The shift in tax brackets always favours the higher earners and the new shift is no different. Maybe with a little extra cash in their pockets the high earners will turn around and invest the money back into their own country. We can dream. What it did do was solidify the Liberal Party voting base. And, remeber that some plumbers, builders and other tradespeople earn over $75,000 a year, may even have extended it a bit.

The Budget also further pushed the Liberal's conservative agenda (and i can't believe those three words go together) of pushing for families with more than three kids where the wife stays at home and the father works. Notice i said wife and husband? Partners of differing or same gender or single parents don't fit into Mr Howard's ideal world. And i worry that maybe they don't fit into Beazley's either.

It is also a piece of political genius by the Libs to send the legislation for the tax cuts for lower earners to the senate while Labour still holds the power. If Labour does its usual thing of knocking it back on principle they will put themselves further into the hole.

2.
I worry that i live in a country where the government still allows one of its' nationals to be held by a foreign government in a third country without charge. Doesn't this raise the hars on the back of your neck? Your country couldn't give a stuff about you. You know what it reminds me of? Our policy on terrorists. We do not negotiate with terrorists for the release of hostages. Is the US a terrorist state and we have no affirmed it by our lack of negotiation? Or is our government too worried about annoying the US State Department?

I worry more that the people of this country seem to be just accepting this fact while they pull hair over a woman who has been charged and awaiting trial in a country just to the north. I am not saying she is guilty or deserves to be held but surely what is happening to David Hicks is much worse than Ms Corby and deserves as much, if not more, attention?

3.
I've been thinking about singles. They don't seem as strong as they once were. To me they should be a taste of what the band/group is trying to get out there. With the prevelance of mp3 players and the amount of time we spend infront of computers i would like to see it return.

Actually what i want is this. A fortnightly/monthly e-zine that shoots into my email box. It covers new music releases and with each release are two or three mp3s hotlinked to the review/article. Click on the hotlink and it gets zapped into your itunes library as an album. Each month 20 or so new tracks by bands. Heck i would probably pay 5 bucks a month to get that too.

I guess this is the way podcasting is going. But i just don't want to have to spend eight hours looking for it. I'm getting lazy in my old age.

Singles are what comic books for adults should be too. Something cheap and flimsy that has 60-70 pages of a larger paperback. Keep the single in print to drag people into the story and maybe even as a throw in at bookstores.

You just bought George P Pelecanos? How about this free 60page comic that is the first chunk of Sin CIty. Read it on the train on the way home, or in the toilet because you can lay it flat on the ground.

I just bought the first three chapters (heh) of The Ultimates for 6 bucks. Something to read on the bus and hand around. If i like it i'll get the big book when it ships.

I like colour and weight which is why i will pay 6 bucks. Kids don't. Comic books for kids need to be something different. Comic books for kids need to be 40 pages for 2 bucks on cheap, cheap paper. They don't want to lovingly caress it for eternity. They want to read it, share it and then forget about it.

Childhood is about living it, Adulthood is about collecting the things from your childhood so you can remember the bloody thing again.

4.
iPod good. Now Mr Jobs can you give me one with bluetooth so i can zip what i like to my friend?

Two years?

Bastard.