few of my favourite things...

No, not raindrops on roses. Not even doorbells and sleigh bells. We at SIDAR are material girls, so here's a list of material things I would like to spend my hard-earned (non-existent) money on when I win the lottery and split my time between by Darlinghurst terrace and Northern Beaches bungalow...

1. Beautiful Waste- Poetry of David McComb

Like Bob Dylan and Jim Morrison, lead singer of Australian band The Triffids David McComb also wrote poetry. Now deceased, this book acts as a tome of beautiful words detailing everyday life, addiction, fame and other topics.

Introduction by John Kinsella... score! This is definitely one for taking down to Paradise Beach, forming a little nest amongst the tinnies and reading for a few hours in the sun. Positively delightful.

2. Declaration of Dependence-

The new Kings of Convenience album is due for release on October 2nd... this is a full month and a bit too long for me to wait.
Oh Erland Oye, why must you be such a charming wordsmith? You have already charmed the pants of me with your Whitest Boy Alive track Gravity. The line "she's the gravity my life circles around..." is fantastic. Absolutely brilliant.

And now you have to come up with track Boat Behind as a little teaser. Oh featuring a delightful cello melody I have already had a play with on my viola, this track is an exercise in simplicity and pure joy. It is a testament to the fact that folk pop does not have to be mediocre, but unabashedly beautiful.

www.myspace.com/kingsofconvenience if you want a little look. And to partake in the agonising wait for the release of this LP.

3. Dylan GPS-
Despite the fact that I contribute to this blog, I am vehemently anti-technology, and following a few glasses of Merlot will quite readily share with you my views on iphones.
Summarised, it's a little something like this: If you put too much technology in one device, one day it will become so intelligent it will seek to escape the slavery you subject it to, creep up on you in the middle of the night, and rape your face.

No one wants sexual assault via iphone.
However, this deep-seated aversion may be challenged following the announcement that Bob Dylan is set to return to the studio. Oh to have that drawl navigating my sojourns across the far corners of the earth....
Imagine blending philosophy with navigation.... "How many roads must a man walk down, before you can call him a man? Well for a start, hang a left in two sets of traffic lights...."

4. Uni Open Days-As the final chapters of my five years of an Arts/Law degree draw to a close, I am faced with the horrible realisation that at the conclusion of ones' university experience, one is expected to go out into the real world and get a job.

Oh the horror. Truly.

No longer can I spend my days lying on the Campus green in the sun, pretending to complete my law readings. I cannot sit in Surry Hills cafes and dingy Darlinghurst hole in the wall pubs discussing political theories with like minded folk. I am expected to bid farewell to the beautiful land of abstract, theoretical ivory towers and become a productive member of society, contributing, rather than detracting from our GDP.

Oh bugger this I say. I'm going to do a Masters degree. So it was with this mindset my friend and I popped on down to the UTS open day, so she could fulfill her dreams of being Legally Blonde (well, brunette in her case) and I could become a posey journalism student.

Upon arrival, not only were we greeted with an abundance of shiny young high school students not yet disillusioned with the reality of university-induced poverty, but free things! UTS tried to bribe our lovely HECS/HELP money from us with free fairy floss, pencils, lollipops, coffee, vitamin water and veggie burgers!

I had forgotten this annual joy, and wondered why I had not pretended to be a student every year in order to satsify my yearly stationary needs.

What simple joys...

And as M and I sat in the sun, enjoying our free food, we wondered if it was entirely inappropriate to find the 17 year old school leaving boys attractive? Probably. Oh well

An Open Letter to Bob Dylan continued...

Dear Bob (or would you prefer Mr Dylan.... I don't mind),

Recently, my fellow blog contributor L contacted you asking why you had to go and be so gosh darn sexy and force women to swoon over men with somewhat odd appearances.

I concur, as I share this affliction. Whilst I don't suffer the same weakness for the 'ranga fro', my friends can all attest to my absolute and utter love for the lanky musician complete with tousled bouffant and Ray Ban Wayfarers. So I continue her angry rant...

Oh the wayfarer. Oh the musician in a suit complete with guitar and harmonica. Oh a bluesman, detailing the woes of existance.

OH F YOU BOB DYLAN! Why would you do this to me? I don't need to detail my contemporary troubador possessing all of these qualities as regular readers will know to whom I refer(it is an open letter after all).
But nontheless, YOU, Bob Dylan, have created this state of sexual attraction in my mind to awkward, arrogant but bloody sexy musicians.


Whilst I am complaining to you, I would also like to complain about the song Just Like A Woman. Rumoured to be written by you about Edie Sedgwick. This has sparked a related desire of mine to be forver captured in song by sexy musician. Why Bob, why?


Final complaint: Look, I know the character Hayden Christensen played in Factory Girl was meant to be a fictional character, but WE ALL KNOW IT'S YOU! It's a giant 'guess who, don't sue'.

Oh my goodddd...... Hotness personified. 5 points if you guess who it reminds me of?
He was sex on two legs. Seriously. Way not NOT help my little problem. Apparently you are born in 1941, which makes you quite old now. But I reckon you are probably still sex on a stick

F You Dylan. Way to make me angry.

Take that Kingsmill!

Radio station Triple J recently hosted the first Hottest 100 of all time countdown in over ten years, claiming to be the biggest listener –based music poll in the world.

Over the weekend of the countdown, presenters remarked on the feeling of community and togetherness felt as we debated, denounced and delighted at the slow reveal of tracks until the ultimate Nirvana anthem.

It seems that we all feel affinity with music as it provides the soundtrack of our lives. I cannot remember for the life of me where I saw this, but I read an interview recently with a fairly well-known Australian musician who stated he realised music was his chosen path after a few too many occasions of choosing a song, blasting it and imagining he was the star of his own movie, with soundtrack carefully selected.

Not content to exist in his own personal Garden State, he realised that he could instead create the soundtrack to his life, and in doing so live a life worthy of a feature film.

The notion of a soundtrack to your life really struck a chord with me (ha, awesomely bad music pun). As I listened to Richard Kingsmill reveal the top 5 tracks, I realised they were included for incredibly specific reasons- namely the extent to which they resonate with individuals own narratives.

Rage Against the Machine’s Killing in the Name has become immortalised in Big Day Out history, seeming that standing with thousands of other drunken sweaty youths shouting “Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me” is indeed a rite of passage.

Similarly, Cohen’s Hallelujah is continually misinterpreted by all those thinking it a Buckley original, despite the subversions in intent and meaning. Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit remains the anthemic tribute to youth and all that goes with it. We continue to identify with the almost possessed drones despite the fact so many of us were barely in Junior School at the time of its release.

For me, my Top 5 memory relates to Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart. In the early hours of the morning some months ago, a group of substance addled individuals congregated in an Oxford St bar to partake in after-show festivities following a gig in Paddington.

Joy Division was played, and in our state we decided to follow the instructions of The Wombats and indeed dance to celebrate the irony. We all laughed at this musical travesty. All except the singer of one of the bands that had performed earlier, who questioned what the song was, and why everyone loved it so.

I backed away slowly, mortified that someone who derived their income from music could be so woefully ignorant of that beyond his own creation.

Anyway, enough band slagging. In the spirit of musical lists, I wanted to post my Top 5 songs which have influenced me over my life. I do hope you will forgive the self-indulgence. I promise they are awesome.

The Beatles- Yesterday
Possibly the first pop song I ever heard. Apparently as a baby I would only sleep in classical music was playing, however from age 2 my Father would sing this to me as I fell asleep. Despite being separated by oceans, whenever I hear this I feel like he is in the room with me.


2. Jefferson Airplane- White Rabbit
Also introduced to me by my Father as an 8 year old in London. I remember seeing photos of my Dad as a hippy with flowing blonde hair, bell bottom jeans and joint in hand outside Royal Albert Hall waiting for a Hendrix Concert.

Years later my friends and I stayed with him at his farm in rural New Zealand. Lying in a paddock beneath the perfectly clear night sky, surrounded by nothing else but empty wine bottles, we shouted “Remember what the door mouse said, keep your head, KEEP YOUR HEAD” into the stratosphere.


3. NSYNC feat Nelly- Girlfriend (Remix)
So it is here where I lose any semblance of musical credibility. This is pure twee pop in its worst form, complete with early noughties ‘rapping’. However let me explain. At age fourteen after spending a month in Zimbabwe for a family funeral, I was met at Sydney airport by my best friend- the first person my age I had spoken to for four weeks. I felt instantly at peace. It started three months of perfect summer weather, and the best summer of my life. For better or worse, this song remains the soundtrack to some of my best memories and even know when it occasionally plays through Itunes, I smile and know that everything is ok.

Apparently Justin Timberlake has disabled embedding on his youtube clips. Well Justin, I VERY MUCH DOUBT anyone actually wanted to listen to it anyway.

4. Kings of Leon- Milk
The most recent inclusion on my little list, this song represents everything I love about songwriting. The shifts, the simplistic chord structures, the heartbreak audible in Caleb Folowill’s voice- all of this made me fall in love. The line “called and I called but I can’t get through. Said he’s on his own, but his own is you” kills me. Such a tragic turn of phrase- expressing so much with so few words. After hearing this song I realised I wanted to be able to make music.

5. Leonard Cohen- Bird on A Wire
By far my favourite Cohen track. The opening lines:
Like a bird on a wire
Like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free…

I get chills from this moment on. The lyrics are beautifully ambiguous, heart-wrenchingly earnest and rich with simplistic imagery. I’m also a sucker for self-referential songs, so these lines win me over hook, line and sinker:
But I swear by this song
And by all that I have done wrong
I will make it all up to thee

A positively beautiful song, more favourably re-imagined by others than Hallelujah which is so frequently done a disservice in its repetition.

Sneaking into my top ten includes the following:
6. Radiohead- Creep: Being allowed to use the f-word when singing was a great novelty to me as a child. This song is still a regular favourite for drunken group karaoke.


7. Bob Dylan- Like a Woman: Rumoured to be written aout Edie Sedgwick. Pure songwriting genius. No explanation needed.

8. Ian Carey Project: Get Shaky. This rivals NSYNC on pure humiliation. However, it is contextually essential to this blog. Let me tell you a tale….

We set the scene… the backseat of a car, 3.30am. College St Sydney driving home from a very naughty night in Kings Cross.

This song is playing, and four inebriated girls sing loudly. Miss L remarks that this is the Myspace song of a boy currently stalking her, and ponders if it was a message that he wanted to ‘get shaky’ with her.

I immediately reply: “Oh L, he couldn’t shake you if he tried”.

Henceforth this song became ingrained in Summer 2008/2009 folklore and became the catch-phrase of our friendship circle for many months to come.

(back to the list)

9. Jack Ladder- Two Clocks. What’s a list without some Jack? One of the few songs from his first album to survive to the current set-list, this song is, in simplest terms, a mind-fuck. The seemingly sweet lyrics set against a simple melody and the classic inter-play of male-female vocal dynamic disguise a warning against the dangers of loving too much. The clever composition is unnerving in that it never allows the listener to truly understand Rogers’ intentions. There is a reason this has been played over 150 times on my Itunes.

10. Cream- White Room. Quite simply, a bloody fantastic track. Features Cream’s signature transcendental militaristic juxtaposition of psychedelic shoe-gaze with striking lyrics and strong beats. This is the song I would want as the soundtrack to my life in my own imaginary feature film.

Meanwhile, this live video is amazing. Bands these days just can't play live like this anymore. Also... isn't the drum pattern remarkably similar to Tame Impala's Half Full Glass of Wine?

I hope this hasn't been to painful... I believe Miss L will be posting a similar list, however hers shall be infinitely better I am sure (with far less embarrassing music).

Meanwhile, what would you put in your list?

I'm going to make a playlist of my Top 10 and go totally fucking Mexico...