lee & keshi were talking in the comments to my last post about george harrison and the fact he is their favourite beatle - me too!

this is kind of interesting (to me, if not to you): i am thinking of three bands which i like (to varying degrees), each comprising (in their 'typical' structures, at least) four male musicians, these being a drummer, a bass guitarist and two guitarists (in some cases 1 rhythm & 1 lead).
these bands, in chronological order (of debut/appearance are):
- the beatles
- KISS
- the church

each of these has a kind of 'core duo' which many would say is the dominant/driving force or presence of the particular band - for the beatles it's lennon & mccartney, for KISS it's paul stanley & gene simmos, and for the church it's steve kilbey & marty willson-piper. in each case the duo comprises a bassist & a guitarist, as well as one being the lead singer (or perhaps lead voclas being usually shared between the two).

well, my point is that in each band, my favourite member is the guitarist who is_NOT_in the 'core duo' of the respective band, i.e.:
- george harrison in the beatles
- ace frehley in KISS
- peter koppes in the church

curious. im my opinion each of these favourites of mine is relatively more enigmatic & interesting than the two in the core duo. and they each bring new & unique dimensions to their respective bands, i think.

so there u go. 'well, blow my down with a feather!' i hear u all say as u read this. ;-D
actually it's maybe interesting to note that each of those 3 bands changed drummers quite early in thier careers - well, except KISS who lost peter criss (the cat) after about 6-7 albums.
this drummer turnover reminds me of spinal tap who kept losing drummers, allegedly due to 'bizarre gardening accidents'. actually in the case of spinal tap i guess my favourite would be thier bassist - derek small i _THINK_his name was [?] and he too was not in the core duo of spinal tap!

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hola
just a quick post for now i think.

firstly - the beatles: i've often steered a littel clear of them in the past, probably largely because they were so surrounded by all that ubiquitous beatlemania hype and i reacted to that by giving most of thier musci a wide berth (with a few exceptions that i'll discuss at another time).
but now, having heard most of their latter albums - some for the first time in full this year - i acknowledge they made some good music. i can't fully appreciate the context or the times in which thos music was created & thus the degree to which they were pioneers in one way or another. but i also think they came up with some fairly mediocre music too; and of course they could afford to do so & get away with it. i'll talk more later about such matters, but will for now add that i think that a key strength of their 'sgt peppers' album is the wide spectrum & variety of moods & musical 'personalities' which it incorporates.

on another note, in response to keshi's query: for some reason i didn't really (allow myself to) get into guns n' roses while all my high school friends were getting into their debut album 'appetite for destruction' in a big way. i did however like the acoustic songs on the 'lies' e.p. which came next. and, at some point over the last decade or so, i have come to love the gunners' debut album and i now regard it as quite a classic (at least in that genre of rock). in some ways they were the KISS equivalent of the late '80s / early '90s. unfortunately i don't think they ever did better than their debut album, and went steadily downhill from there. too many lines of coke & hookers, perhaps? although 'the spaghetti incident' did have some good cover versions on it. and yes, i hesitate to admit that i occasionally find myself listening to those power ballads from the 'use your illusion' era, 'don't cry' & 'november rain'! holy sh!t i really have let out a confession there haven't i!?

oh yeah - i heard on the radio this afternoon that g n' r must be refroming for a tour or something; because apparently (& unfortunately) axl has cut the eagles of death metal 9whom i don't mind at all) as the gunners' support act for the tour.

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ok
here's the deal:
until further notice, this blog is going to be dedicated to music; with lee, keshi & myself (and maybe a few other [semi-]regular readers) in mind!!! so be it ...

this evening, since getting home from work, i have listened to the beatles albums 'let it be' & 'seargent peppers lonely hearts club band'. then the songs 'last nite' by the stroke & 'resolve' by the foo fighters, then the 'dynastsy' album [once again] by KISS, which was followed by the albums 'deliverance' by you am i [prompted by an instant messenger conversation with dan] and 'what was left' by clare bowditch & the feeding set.

i highly recommend all of the above songs & albums. and i was happy to see clare bowditch win the best female artist award at the aria awards a few weeks ago!

and - incidentally - i've made a very nice satay marinade [for chicken & tofu] tonight, for consumption by myself & my friends tomorrow!

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i have experienced this before, but not for some time ...
for some obscure reason, soon after getting out of bed this morning, i had a strong urge to .....
play the KISS album 'dynasty'!
so i did

ahh KISS - sooo cheeesey they're good! they were actually pioneers in a number of ways, and they did come up with some good rock riffs amongst all the make-up, outfits, 'cock-rock' & hype.

i started with my two favourite tracks on the album, 'magic touch' ("she's got the magic touch / and you're walkin around in a dream") followed by 'hard times' in which ace frehley tells his story of growing up in new york ("we'd go to shccol / and then we'd cut out / go to the park / and space our heads out / we called it fun / but there was some doubt / hangin out down in the city").

then, while eating breakfast & washing up i played the whole album, including the hit singles 'i was made for lovin you' and 'sure know something', the cover version of the rolling stones' '2000 man', and other tracks such as 'x-ray eyes'.

although maybe not their best - i can't really comment cos i haven't heard all their 1970s albums in full - this was a real breakthrough album for KISS and maybe their most commercially successful album (in australia at least). it was the album of theirs which first captured my attention (as a kid!).

anyhow - my advice to u all today is that if u wake up and suddenly feel like playing a certain song or album, then just give it a spin! don't fight the feeling, regardless of how cheesey or tacky it might be.

oh and incidentally - while at work i listened to 'dig your own hole' by the chemical brothers and later, yes, that 'ziggy stardust' one again (with headphones - my work colleagues probably wouldn't have appreciated these good albums!) .

i wonder what i'll fell like hearing tomorrow?

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i ain't really tryin to get too heavy on u all with the following. and if i were trying to get all heavy, i personally don't think that quoting somebody else's words would necessarily be the best way to do so.
i don't think that the following is really a conscious reaction to any one specific event that i've experienced recently; and i certainly hope it isn't in any way prescient!

but the other night i thought of the following jimi hendrix lyrics which i first heard about a dozen years ago, and which somehow resonate with me at present as i think about a big decision or 2 that i may make over the next year or so:

"Cos I've got my own world to live through and, uh-huh,
And I ain't gonna copy you!
...
I've got my own life to live,
I'm the one that's gonna die when it's time for me to die;
So let me live my life the way I want to."

these are from the song 'if 6 was 9' (which as a title is in itself kind of interesting) off the hendrix album 'axis: bold as love'

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this blog seems to be doing funny things, as if it's trying to evade the time-space continuum ... or is it just me, &/or my laptop?
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we begin our journey in yamoussoukro
take a side-trip to bongouanou via dimbokro, then back
then north to bouake via skassou
a side-trip to bouandougou
then north via niakaramandougou, dikodougou, and ferkessedougou
to ouangolodougou
then it's further north, over the border
to niangoloko
then we take the scenic route via sideradougou, bouroum-bouroum, and diebougou
to bobo-dioulasso
then, via bondoukui, dedougou, and koudougou
we reach our ultimate destination,
ouagadougou

what a trip!

perhaps we should listen to kajagoogoo
along the way?

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this is a dodgy-quality pic, taken on my mobile phone, of the brisbane cbd skyline_plus_the lights at the top of the infamous 'space needle' which belongs to a greek-australian hairdressing magnate known as 'stefan'.
it's a poor quality pic, but the space needle light is the highest in the pic. i took it a couple of friday nights ago from the brisbane subrub of west end.
i could tell other stories about the infamous space needle (of stefan) but for now will leave it at this: on that night, i had some strange, inexplicable compulsion to take a pic of it, whilst on my way to two friends' birthday celebrations; and the next day, it burst into flames, as if by spontaneous combustion!
that's perhaps a wee bit bizarre!?

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quinellaed
quinellaed
quinellaed

now there's a word u don't see every day - in fact, i have never seen it before! until i read it on a newspaper website this morning. it looks bizarre, doesn't it?! is it even a 'legit' word - one which is in a dictionary? i can't be ar$ed to look it up right now.

and before the end of yesterday's melbourne cup horse race, i didn't know for sure what a quinella was. i could guess what a trifecta is, from the 'tri' bit; but a quinella? i probably had thought (correctly) at some point that it referred to a successful bet on both 1st- & 2nd-place finishers in a race, but maybe the 'quin' bit got me a bit confused as i thought maybe that referred to five in some way.

i'm not into horse-racing anyhow.

but i've often got to bring in some inane reference to a song or album i like or know, don't i?! and so: 'quinella holiday' is a track on midnight oil's 1981 album 'place without a postcard'.

quinellaed ... the word seems a bit dodgy, somehow ...

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well from "stoneage romeos" in 1984, let's rewind a dozen years or so.
and going back to my blog posts of a coupla months ago, or thereabouts - i was in the process on compiling my list of favourite albums, which i do still intend to finalise & post here. and coincidentally, the abc tv here then ran a 'my favourite album' contest. i voted online for a coupla my candidates (one to be discussed next), and the results are to be made public in a few more weeks. but my own fave albums list here came before that poll of the abc! ;-D

anyhow, one album that's definitely in my top 3, and possibly first on my list, is the epic "the rise & fall of ziggy stardust & the spiders from mars" by david bowie. i'll talk more about my own reflections on this great rock & roll opus at another time. what i mainly want to draw your attention to today, is the post of yesterday (november 1st) on "the time being", the blog of steve kilbey of the church - see link to this blog on the right. kilbey reflects in detail about his own imrpessions of & reaction to "ziggy stardust", and then subsequent bowie albums & bowie more generally, including what might be termed the 'demise' of bowie as a creative entity from about 1980 and beyond. if one is to take kilbey's perspective on the latter, and i already had similar feelings myself, then it might be appropriate to take a line from the title track of "ziggy" - i.e., "he took it all too far, but boy could he play guitar!". although it must also be noted here that mick ronson was lead guitarist in "the spiders".

until next time, "freak out in a moonage daydream, oh yeah!" ... or alternatively, just focus on getting the mortgage balance down, & other such things ...

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