I don’t have any older siblings. Growing up, I had to forge ahead on my own in terms of discovering music; I had no records passed down to me by a cool older brother. Babysitters were no help in exposing me to new music either. In 1989, instead of blaring the Pixies while my parents were out for the night, my babysitters preferred the likes of Richard Marx and New Kids On the Block. It was dire.

In 1991 things started to turn. That year Ten and Nevermind were released making Eddie Vedder and Kurt Cobain my first rock heroes. Sadly, I was also still into crappy mainstream pop and hip hop. It was not until 1995 that my musical identity, the one that more or less still exists in me today, was established. And what did it? A record by Oasis called (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? made it’s way into my hands and I never looked back. Especially not in anger.

At 15 years old I had finally found a band that meant the world to me. While Eddie and Kurt remained important figures to me (and in some ways they still do), Liam and Noel Gallagher almost instantly became my musical big brothers. My Oasis obsession from 1995-1997 was borderline embarassing – there may even have been an aborted scrapbook. I owned every single single (I even own ‘Wibbling Rivalry‘!), I could sing along to every b-side, I knew where Burnage was, I had t-shirts and posters and I even stuck by them even after they walked off stage in Vancouver after 6 songs.

Growing up in the mid-90s in Canada with only crappy mainstream radio to bring you new music, I also listened to a lot of boring MOR rock (Moist, I Mother Earth etc) in addition to Oasis. But the obsession led me to discover magazines like the NME, Select, Melody Maker, and Q. For a 16 year old in Canada these magazines were a revelation. Since I was buying any magazine that had even the tiniest article about Oasis I very quickly became introduced to tons of bands that were NEVER played on the radio in Vancouver. Bye bye Moist.

Any time Liam and Noel mentioned a band they loved (the Manics and The Verve for instance) I would try and find those records in the shops; I’d buy the records without having listened to a single note. I wasn’t always able to find what I was looking for, but pretty quickly I became ‘That Brit Pop Guy’ and my friends thought my musical tastes were obscenely obscure. Of course in Britain in 1996 owning Everything Must Go and A Northern Soul was not all that odd. In Vancouver it kind of was.

While I don’t listen to Oasis all that much anymore, they still hold a place in my heart. It was because of them that I began to actively search out music on my own rather than wait for it to be played on the radio and it was Morning Glory that made me want to pick up a guitar and write songs. So this week when I found out Noel Gallagher would be playing Sydney I was surprised by how much I wanted to go to see him. The 16 year old Sean might have sold his mother to see Noel play an acoustic-type show and it was the 16 year old Sean that was pretty damn stoked when I somehow got a ticket this morning (NOT EASY). The 26 year old Sean? Well he’s actually hella excited too.

Download:
Noel Gallagher – Listen Up (live in Toronto 2006-11-07)
Noel Gallagher – Strawberry Fields Forever (live in Toronto 2006-11-07)

(Entire show available here courtesy I Am Fuel, You Are Friends)

Well it seems some of the rumours were in fact true, Australia will finally get a tour by the legendary Pixies. The Sydney version of the inaugural Australian V Festival will take place in Centennial Park on March 31 followed by a show on the Gold Coast the next day. And the initial lineup looks promising, although perhaps a tad short on the rock:

Pixies (!!!)
Pet Shop Boys (wtf?)
Groove Armada (!)
Gnarls Barkley
The Rapture (!!!)
Phoenix (!!)
2manydjs (!)
Softlightes
Bumblebeez
The Mercy Arms
The Temper Trap

I saw the Pixies once in 2004 and once again in 2005 and each time I was blown away (even though I’m not the hugest fan); so I’m looking very forward to having my ass kicked by them again. I saw Groove Armada at Glastonbury in 2002 and they put on a pretty good live show (or at least they did). The Rapture will be tons of fun and Phoenix will hopefully be a decent live band (never seen them). Expect more artists to be announced over the next couple of months.

The Great Escape lineup was also announced last night and it (like last year) has a somewhat similar list of artists as the East Coast Blues and Roots Festival. One major bonus is that the lovely Leslie Feist is allegedly appearing at The Great Escape. Although she’s not listed on the website she is listed in the print ads. Now last year she was listed as well and ended up NOT playing but I’m confident she will be making it out here next year as her new record should be released early 2007. If you saw her solo show at the Hopetoun last year you know you’re in for a great performance. Let’s hope for some sideshows.

How about some new(ish) Feist and old Pixies…

Download:
Feist – Sally’s Song (live)
Feist – Phantoms (live)
Feist – See-Line Woman (live Nina Simone cover)
Feist – Feel it All (live crappy quality)
Feist – The Park (live crappy quality)
Pixies – Velouria (live at Coachella)
Pixies – Wave of Mutilation (live at Coachella)

So it was one year ago today I kickstarted this little blog as a way to:

1. Pass the time as I was unemployed after moving here from Vancouver
2. Still talk about music even if I was no longer able to hang out with my friends from home
3. Bring attention to overlooked bands like Radiohead
4. Meet babes

So a year later and I consider this site a success (I’m knee-deep in babes). It’s been really fun to do and I’ve managed to meet loads of cool people while doing it (which means even more to an expat like me who doesn’t know a whole lot of people here). I’ve been exposed to a ton of great music (both Australian and otherwise) by doing this blog which has, obviously, been pretty damn cool. So thank you to everyone who pops by here every now and then and to everyone who leaves comments/emails. You guys rock.

And in honour of the coming Christmas season, my favourite band, and the fact that it’s snowing back in my hometown today here’s Radiohead (minus Jonny) covering ‘Winter Wonderland’ on their Christmas webcast back in December 2002.

Download:
Radiohead – Winter Wonderland

I’ve told you once, and I’m about to tell you again: The Vasco Era kick ass/arse. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a band get so sweaty so quickly as the boys in The Vasco Era did tonight at the Annandale. They played for an hour and with each song the crowd got more into the show building up to some woman taking off her shirt (no bra) right towards the end of the set. It was craziness. This is how lead singer Sid O’Neil reacted to the nudity. The band played stuff off their most recent (excellent) EP as well as some songs that will be gracing their debut album to be released in the new year. I cannot wait for this record. Hit up their MySpace to stream their new single ‘When We All Lost It.’

The Mares played before the headliners and they were alright but they didn’t really grab me all that much. The Grand Sons were on second and I pretty much felt the same way about them. Although the last song with the harmonica I rather enjoyed; it also made me wonder if there there any “alt-country” bands in Australia? Vendettas kicked the night off and I can definitely see them becoming quite popular: catchy songs you can dance to, cute lead singer, synths. They sound a bit like Metric (lazy comparison) and they could easily be sharing the stage with bands like Van She and the Midnight Juggernauts. They didn’t really seem to connect with the crowd all that much, however (but they were on hella early so that didn’t help).

Photos from the gig: The Vasco Era :: The Mares :: Vendettas

Download:
The Mares – Charleston
Vendettas – Running

Big Day Out looks crap (although the later announcements did help), Laneway looks to be an indie dream, and now we have the lineups arriving for not one, not two, but three more festivals in the next couple days.

First up, the East Coast Blues and Roots Festival in Byron Bay will be taking place from April 5-9 and organizers have announced the first batch of bands. And while there isn’t a whole lot here to get me excited, it does look like a fairly hefty lineup including Wolfmother, Dave Matthews, Ben Harper, The Roots, Gomez, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, and Gogol Bordello (sideshow please!). See the lineup here.

And as I previously mentioned, Sydney will be one of 2 Australian locations (Gold Coast being the other) to host the inaugural Aussie V Festival. The official lineup will be revealed on Monday, but we already know Phoenix will be there. In addition, it seems very likely that the Pixies will be playing as well. Other rumours include Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Flaming Lips, Daft Punk, Beck, Bloc Party, The Who, Kaiser Chiefs and………….the Arcade Fire (!!!!!!!!!!). We’ll see all these rumours unfold very soon.

And if those two festivals aren’t making late March/April busy enough for you, don’t forget that The Great Escape Festival will be taking place as well. I’ve not heard too many rumours about this one yet but I’m pretty sure they’re announcing their lineup this week as well so stay tuned for that (UPDATE: apparently they are announcing the lineup at midnight on Sunday).

Imagine all the sideshows. Now imagine your wallet.

Download:
Gomez – Detroit Swing 66 (live) (whole gig here)
Gogol Bordello – The Last Wish of the Bride
Arcade Fire – Age of Consent (live New Order cover)

For the second straight month in a row (for me), the Sandwich Clubbers have put on the best night out in Sydney. Candy’s was packed last night as Marching Room launched their new EP to a very enthusiastic crowd. As I discussed with Hutch, they are a really tight band and they had some pretty great songs that got the crowd moving, but I wasn’t super impressed in the end. On before them was Tokyo Blonde and all I remember about them was the lead singer annoying the hell out of me by not shutting up about the sound/feedback. That said, they were alright I guess even if they are the billionth band with Tokyo in their name. But the story for me last night was the band in the other room who played between the sets of the main acts.

They are called Papa Vs. Pretty. They love Joy Division. And they are 15. The keyboardist was wearing a Radiohead t-shirt circa OK Computer which, by my math, was released when he was 7. SEVEN. They started their set by covering ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart.’ Who were your immediate influences when you were 15? And get this, when I spoke to the lead singer about covering Joy Division he straight up says to me, “I really want to cover ‘Atmosphere’ but my voice isn’t right for it.” 15! I was stunned. Their set was plagued with bad sound but they were damn fun and, as they say, “that boy can play.” Watch out for these guys, they may be your favourite band in 10 years.

Download:
Glass Eyes
The Pretty Minors

Is anyone joining me at The Vasco Era gig tomorrow night? Or are you all seeing Dappled Cities Fly?

And what’s happening next month SClub?

As promised, here is the list of every single damn band that featured on a list submitted to me for Australia’s Top 25 Bands & Artists list this year. I wish I felt like finding MySpaces/official sites for all of them…but there are just way too many and I’m sure you can figure out that google thing.

The Herd, Soft Tigers, Faux Pas, Richard In Your Mind, The Avalanches, The Panics, Dardanelles, All India Radio, I (Heart) Hiroshima, Telecom, Silverchair, New Buffalo, Sparkadia, Xquabed, Tic Toc Tokyo, Macromantics, The Cops, The Necks, Whitley, Damn Arms, Cog, The Vasco Era, British India, Decoder Ring, Kiosk, Sneaky Sound System, The Vines, Sun, Vespers, T.I.S.M., Theredsunband, Coda, The Go-Betweens, The Devastations, Khancoban, Lucksmiths, iOTA, Adam Said Galore, Gallucci, Boat People, Grand Salvo, C.W. Stoneking, The Stabs, Turnpike, Machine Translations, Alps, Clue to Kalo, The Inches, The Devoted Few, Iron On, Starky, Paul Kelly, Walrus, Cuthbert & The Nightwalkers, Sounds Like Sunset, Brilliant Fanzine, Telemetry Orchestra, Mnemonic Ascent, Witch Hats, Enola Fall, Minimum Chips, Children Collide, Wolfmother, Smudge, Batrider, Ned Collette, Legends of Motorsport, The Holy Soul, Screamfeeder, Teenager, Love of Diagrams, Eucalypt Band, Something For Kate, New Rules for Boats, Clare Bowditch, Old Man River, Saddleback, Bridezilla, Deepchild, Tooth, Other People’s Children, Guy Blackman, The Exploders, Darren Hanlon, Pitching Woo, The Scare, City City City, Dsico That No Talent Hack, The Ghosts, Alchemist, Gelbison, Ed Kuepper, Monsieur Camembert, Speedstar, The Orange Humble Band, Subaudible Hum, Ajax, Mark of Cain, The Russian Brides, Moving Ninja, Cloud Control, Ben Lee, Ollo, Laura Imbruglia, Dan Kelly and the Alpha Males, I (love) Space, No Through Road, The Mares, Brian Campeau, Plutonic Love, Midnight Oil, Marching Room, Curse ov Dialect, The Basics, The Red Paintings, The Russian Brides, Pimmon, Icehouse, Bob Evans, Ninety Nine, Koolism, Dave Miller, The Temper Trap, Stick Figures, Pomomofo, Sixftthick, Julian Nation, and Kidzen.

I didn’t even know there were that many Australians.

The American version of this list is up now as well, check it out and argue away (My Chemical Romance?? wtf???). And once again, the Canadian version is here. Still waiting on the U.K. it seems.

Kinda old now, but John K. Samson of The Weakerthans writes for Said The Gramophone. He’s a criminally underrated Canadian artist. Please read.

Stylus reveals the 10 Worst Sounding Records since 1997. Apparently Kid A would have been better if it sounded more like Aphex Twin. Suuuuuuure. Be Here Now! God how I waited for that album…

For the Australians, make sure you bookmark Polaroids of Androids. It’s a tremendous Australian music site with gig listings, mp3s, a forum (sign up!), news, reviews, etc. And it’s run by two of the rapscallions behind Brown Cardigan so you know it’s going to be great.

If you’re looking for something to do tomorrow night, come on out to King’s Cross for the SClub party. A stack of great bands and DJs, so come say hello to all your favourite internerds (cool/hot people will be there too don’t worry). It’s the most fun you can have on a Thursday night in Sydney.

Your reward for reading this far? The brand new Shins single, yo.

Download: Phantom Limb

My first time to Melbourne and I don’t think I could have come on a more insane weekend. We’re here because Amanda is at the U2 shows while I spend time with some old friends from high school who are currently living in Melbourne. In addition to U2 being in town, the world’s most powerful finance types are here as part of the annual G20 summit. On Saturday I walked around with my friend Jen taking photos of the protests and police…before it turned violent. Turns out the group I found the most interesting to photograph were the ringleaders of the violence. And while I’m all for protesting the G20, doing stupid shit like attacking a police van isn’t accomplishing ANYTHING towards the goals they allege to believe in. All it does is take away from the legitimacy of the other peaceful, articulate activists.

Want to see cops defend a Starbucks? How about a Nike Store? More G20 photos here.

Anyway, the weekend kicked off on Friday with the Make Poverty History Concert which featured a ‘surprise’ appearance by Pearl Jam accompanied by The Edge and Bono. They played a lengthy version of Neil Young’s ‘Rockin’ In the Free World’ to a lucky crowd. Check out the video below or download the mp3 (with many thanks to I Am Fuel for the track).

Download: Pearl Jam with Bono and The Edge – Rockin’ In The Free World

Can’t say I’m not a tad upset that U2 decided to play ‘The First Time’ and ‘Bad’ in Melbourne rather than Sydney.

And a very belated thanks to Matt for having me on his radioshow Thursday night. I had lots of fun even though I don’t remember a word I said.

Now that the Top 25 has been kicking around for a few days now I figured I’d post some thoughts as well as the bands that just missed the cut.

Perhaps it was to be expected, but hip-hop was pretty absent from the list. The Herd did pretty well (51) but other than that hip-hop didn’t really make much of an impact on the list. I’m not sure if this reflects the state of Australian hip-hop, or bloggers’ taste. I have my suspicions.

One of the great things about doing this list was that nearly every person who contributed added another artist or two (sometimes more) to the overall list. Even after receiving 25 lists, the last few still added more artists. No lists were the same and no one had their entire list make the Top 25. I think this is a good thing as it reflects the diversity of great bands in this country.

The Sydney-factor. Most of the bloggers/DJs involved are Sydney-based so the list reflects that. Although the Top 10 was dominated by Melbourne bands, there was clearly a heavy Sydney presence throughout. If anyone knows more Melbourne/Adelaide/Brisbane/Perth blogs then please let me know.

And finally, Dappled Cities Fly kind of ran away with this. It’s a good thing the album turned out to be great or this list would look rather silly (if it doesn’t already). Alright, here are the bands (with lots of downloads!) that filled the 26-50 spots (You Am I = 26, then it counts up to 50). I’ll list all the other bands that got a vote sometime soon.

You Am I, The Mess Hall (Download: Pills), The Panda Band (Download: Eyelashes and Mohawk), Jack Ladder (Download: Once In A Lifetime (Talking Heads)), Pivot (Download: Make Me Love You), The Valentinos, Mountains In The Sky (Download: Hawaiian Nights Part 1), Cut Copy (Download: Saturdays), Tucker B’s (Download: Brown Dog), Sodastream (Download: Weekend), Ground Components, Bit By Bats (Download: Dance the Dance), Mercy Arms, Because of Ghosts (Download: You Fool), Deloris, Triosk (Download: I Am a Beautiful and Unique Snowflake), Poly & The Statics (Download: Chainsaw), Van She, Holly Throsby, Pharaohs (Download: Broken Arm), Youth Group, Eddy Current Suppression Ring (Download: Get Up Morning), Pinky Tuscadero, Muscles, Angus & Julia Stone

I was reading in Drum today of a Tim and Jeff Buckley tribute night at The Basement this Friday and was shocked to realize that Jeff Buckley would have been 40 on November 17. What would he be doing now if he hadn’t died so young? Perhaps something like this duet he did with his friend Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins. ‘All Flowers In Time Bend Towards the Sun’ was never released and only performed a couple of times (including the only performance with the band at Jeff’s last Sydney show at the Coogee Bay Hotel in 1996). Below is a recording that I know nothing about. I don’t know where you can find it, where it was recorded, or when. All I know is that it’s Jeff and Elizabeth and an acoustic guitar. And it’s brilliant.

LINK REMOVED

Someone with a much less beautiful voice than Jeff Buckley is me. If you want to hear for yourself, I’ll be on Matt’s radio show Join The Dots tomorrow (Thursday) night on FBi (listen online here). I’ll be on just before 10pm talking about the Australia’s Top 25 Bands & Artists list. No idea what I’m going to say really. In the comments feel free to nominate an awkward word you’d like me to work into a conversation and I will try and do one or two (maybe). Be random. And tune in and see if you can join the dots.