Let's Get Ready To Rumble

Yes, as UT has been lamenting, I have been away for a little while. After spending each day throwing my head at what little snow there is on Mt Hotham I spent each evening locked in a chalet outnumbered by girls. As lovely as they were we spent all our time listening to U2 and Phil Collins.

I would spend each evening humming along: “And all the promises we gave from the cradle to the grave and I can feel it in the air tonight oh lord” thinking to myself damn, wouldn't some Sonic Youth go down nicely right now.

It has been far too long since the Squids have played. I am ready to rock.

Dead End Town

The quiet times at Squid Ink HQ continues. I have returned from a pretty unrock'n'roll stint in Adelaide and no one has posted anything. I think it's about time I rumbled Crafty for not keeping to the original idea of a post from each once a week. Ho hum...

So it seems I'm not as alone as I thought.

Which is comforting. Sadly the blog will be largely postless tomorrow as I am away for the whole day.
In Silky-D news check this out. He looks hard. And I thought he was in London.

Here I Come Again

In an idle moment at work I penned this verse or chorus to a song about the pains of cross-dressing entertainer:

They come to see my mascara tears
I'm a legend in my own braziere
I find their cheering kind but their laughter cruel
I'm just a Hinny in a pair of sequins mules



Quite touching if I may say so myself.

The Youth Gone Wild

Well it seems this becomes my personal blog for the next little while as Silky-D is away on a fact finding mission for our upcoming UK tour, P-Borg is out setting up some alpine shows and Crafty is choosing his words carefully. I went and saw Sonic Youth last night. A top show. 5th time I have seen them I think and they always put on a great show. No greatest hits this time, mainly stuff of the new album and the last couple. Eric's Trip got an airing and a very early one (I think this is their 25th anniversary tour!) which I missed the name of with Thurston on bass. They are a fine example of why 2 guitars are better than one.

From Hinnies to Finnies...

I give you Suomi's finest...Park.

They make "dark yet beautiful and catchy music" and have a slick website (again, if only we knew a web developer who was a major shareholder in a vertically-integrated multinational web-hosting and content-management company). From the picture they try to give the impression that, despite having one fewer memebers, they would rip the head off Silkstone and shit down their necks but it looks to me like it is all front and it would be one of those embarassing situations where it turned out that the keyboardist from Silkstone is in fact a ninjitsu instructor and the boys from Park end up having to hand over their nokias and get rolled for their dr martins.

While we're at it...

Here's a happy-snap of my favourite Dutch modern adult rock combo,
named... wait for it...
SILKSTONE
Their myspace site describes them as "Pearl Jam meets Coldplay" (hopefully in some kind of no-holds-barred death match). Look carefully and you'll note (re. previous thread on mottos) these dudes have A LOGO
Seems we have a lot to learn.
If only we knew an artist type, who wasn't busy ripping up floorboards and sourcing exciting new varieties of tiles...

The plot thickens

I entered Douglas Park into the google image search and in the bottom row was a picture of a pretty unhip dude (not me). He seems to be in a band called Meridian and they played a gig at Douglas Park. The link is here. Now considering I lived with the lead singer of a band called Meridian and spent two fine years collecting money at the door of their shows I am feeling a little hot right now. If this isn't a sign telling me to take drugs and sell them I don't know what is.

Position, Profit, Potential - The Hinny Verdict

I can't listen to the song as my crap-top is too slow to open it on the dial-up connection in my seedy hotel room.
So I grabbed my guitar and played the chords and I think Hinny sounds good. I presume it's even better when tedium plays it and not me. Are there lyrics?
But I did also want to register how impressed I was that you posted a comment in response to your own original post.
you're conversing with you!
While we're on the subject of DP, here's two things that occurred to me after I just drank a bottle of cheap riesling.

1) there's a suburb near Woolongong called Douglas Park. The above house is for sale there. The pitch is: "position, profit, potential." Apropriate or no?
2) idea for stadium rock tour gag: when we "introduce the band" and get to "modern Doug Park" we break into David Bowie's Modern Love, with the words wittily changed to "Modern Doug"

Hinny, the song.

What follows is are the chords for a fine song that three people in the world were lucky enough to have emailed to them.

The only interesting chord is the AMaj7 which is played with just the A string open and the D string on the 6th fret.

Verse:
F Dm repeated over and over

Chorus:
AMaj7 A# F C F C x2

Bridge:
G A F C x 2

And the bit halfway through is a G.

Bootlegs

I cannot tell you how much bootlegs excite me. Just listening to a Queen one from the Sheer Heart Attack tour, this mourning listened to the MC5 Motor City is Burning bootleg and this evening it was Animal Instincts from the Pink Floyd Animals tour. All pure gold. I just find them so exciting. I think I am going to go listen to one of my Thin Lizzy ones then an Uncle Tupelo one. I sincerely hope that someone somewhere one day will bootleg us. Should aim for the first gig then all the rest will fall in to place I suppose.

The Mystery of the Missing Guitar

Sorry I missed you Sunday, squiddly winks
I flew into Sydney last night and stood forlornly as the last of the luggage was claimed from the airport carousel.
where, oh where, was the Danelectro?
yep, that's right. QANTAS HAD LOST MY FREAKIN' GUITAR

Managed to get it back today, much to my relief. moral of the story?

never trust your flying V to the flying kangaroo…
they don't give a flying f-ck

Songs of Praise

Still keen to bash out some Songs of Praise on Sunday arvo?

I have to fly to Sydney in the evening, where I will be all week, covering the inquest into what happened to Private Jake Kovco.

as someone once said:
only takes one itchy trigger
one more widow, one less white nigger

I'm gunna take my guitar up there with me so I can stay on the pace but when I get back I'll be away for a couple of weeks overseas. Apologies for the disruption.
I'll be a rock solid attendee after that.

The meaning of Sibella

Well not really BUT RT is very rarely drawn on the meaning of songs and this is the most forthcoming I have seen him. The page is here but I copy the relevent selection for your reading pleasure (first the observant fan's question and then the big man's reponse)

Fan: I was watching the British classic "Kind Hearts and Coronets" over the weekend and was struck with the characteristics of the woman Sibella. This figure, in the film, is more or less the protagonist's "sweetheart" (though something of a perverse one) who eventually betrays him (multiple times) by first marrying a mutual friend and then by aptly framing the protagonist for a heinous crime of which he is unquestionably innocent. I must dissuade those who haven't seen the film from feeling too much sympathy for this slighted character, however -- he is responsible for a flurry of other felonies, whether he is blamed for them or not. Regardless...there aren't too many fictional entities bearing the moniker "Sibella"...other than, of course, the one from your brilliant tune. And so I wondered if perhaps the lyrics were a deft allusion to this great film -- a sort of modernization of the relationship between Louis (the twisted protagonist) and his deservedly cruel soulmate.

I'll refrain from a depthy cross-analysis of the lyrics against the film's themes so as to not reveal key plot points and spoil the cinematic gem for others. However, other than the intense longing in the chorus, I felt this line in particular was relevant...



"Life is just as deadly as it looks



But fiction is more forgiving"



Is it, now? I suppose the question is (if we view the line from the trajectory of "Kind Hearts"), to whom?



RT: I love Kind Hearts And Coronets. It is in my top 5 favourite films. I do get slightly weak at the knees at the sight of Joan Greenwood in period costume (see also The Importance Of Being Earnest), and having written a song called Cybele, it seemed only fitting to re-spell it in honour of J.G.’s performance. Aside from that, no parallels were intended with the film, but if you start the song and the film at the same time, smoke a few of those strange herbal cigarettes, and just keep looping the song over and over, it really plays with your head, man….

nb PBorg Please note the new HTML I have uncovered!

The Tranquility of Solitude

In all this humour and ribaldry we neglected to note that Syd Barrett passed away on Friday. Poor nutty Syd. Hopefully this will be a happy deliverence from halfwits hassling him all the time.

Guitar Gulag

V1.

Mark Knopfler is peeling kipflers

Ritchie Blackmore's in with Hitler

Slowhand is in solitude

for his Enoch Powell attitude



Chorus

For crimes against the strings

For crimes against the picks

You're goung down for a stretch

Longer than the neck

On a Fender Six



V.2

Tony Iommi's in the dock

Pete Townshend's breaking rocks

Angus Young's got what it takes

to make a Jailbreak

Are we rockin' tonight?

Crafty is busy being Crafty Smurf so that leaves 3. I am keen and I suggest Paddy's house. All those with me....say AYE!!!!

A busy weekend

The squids went nuts on the weekend. New houses and restumping, a dirty night in a hotel and a fine wedding attended by the other two. I feel humbled to be part of such acheivement.

Honorary Squid Inker Hijacks Oz Political History

Ever seen that Woody Allen movie Zelig, about the innocuous bum who somehow keeps managing to be in the background when famous world events take place?

As of this arvo, The Federal leadership rumble is on and Squid Ink was there to record it for posterity.

Stoner rock… for kids!

In case you were wondering, this is currently my favourite song ever since ever.

Tablature

In a further attempt to assist Norman D in learning the new tracks I throw myself on the mercy of this blog's tablature fascist bully boy and ask him to overlook that there are no rhythmic indicators, slides or hammers in my work. But I shall weather his withering wit and cruel put-downs for Norm's benefit!

Here is the riff from Turbine:

------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------
--------------------7-7-7----------------------
--------------7-6-----------------5-6----------
-7-7-7-7-9----------------------------------
-0-0-0---------------------5-5--------------   x 3

----------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------
---------------------7-7-7--------------------------
--------------7-6-------------------------5-5--5-9-7-7--
-7-7-7-7-9------------------5-4-----------5-5--5-9-7-7--
-0-0-0----------------------------5-------3-3--3-6-5-5--

The Norman Invasion

A massive shockwave rippled through the Squid Ink blog this afternoon when, a little distracted and not quite focusing on his exciting day-job, Silky-D/ The Silk Root googled his pseudonym to see what he might find.

Turns out, wait for it kids, there's another superstar of rock trading under the name Silky-D. Here he is at: http://www.stikmen.com/norman.htm

All of this raises immediate questions as to who is cooler, who should back the f_ck down and find a new name, and who should hold their nerve and keep delivering to the people the touch of silk they need and deserve.

To my mind he looks kinda goofy. He's wearing a cardigan for one and his real name IS Norman. That's two definite strikes.

However on the plus side he was taught guitar by Muddy Waters and his bio describes him "a cross between Doctor John and Delbert McClinton" which is at least half cool (I presume you'll sense which half).

If I knew how (or had more confidence in obtaining the right result) I'd run an online poll to see who gets to keep the name. Game on, Norman.

There is a thumping great chasm between chords and tabs, sunshine.

Those of you who have been avidly following the Great What Is Max Playing? Debate here over the last day or two will probably have googled this page.

This mad loon—who, while kindly offering his efforts to the world for nothing on the internet, has done so under a pseudonym—is making two serious mistakes. The first is that he has invented G chords and has distributed them willy-nilly throughout the song, seemingly at random. The second, and even greater, crime is that this deluded chap imagines that he has tabbed the song. Tabbed! Prat.

A Haiku

finally I'm in
though I find there is nothing
at all to say. Nill

Stop the press

Thanks to the Silk Route's fine work in digging up www.maxmerritt.com.au I have realised that we have inadvertantly re-arranged Slipping Away. Unless, as it is a live version on the Max Tracks link, Max himself has re-arranged. My submission for the dominant has led me to include an E in the verses like so:

A

Baby I've been watching you

Bm

Watching everything you do

E

And I just can't help the feeling

E

Someone else is stealing you away

A

from me



And I believe, after listening to it just now, that Max plays



A

Baby I've been watching you

Bm

Watching everything you do

Bm

And I just can't help the feeling

Bm

Someone else is stealing you away

A

from me



No dominant to be seen! So too with the bit Crafty makes his own, i.e. Max plays (what we play in brackets)



Bm

And its breaking me in two

Bm(E)

Watching you

Bm(E)

Slipping

A

Away