Tracks Of My Tears

What can there be to blog about when nobody blogs anymore and nobody rocks anymore...good question.
I have sent P-Cat a copy of Guitar Tracks Pro and the plan is that we will now collaborate seperately. There is a fair chance that not a single file, let alone musical nugget, will change hands but at least it won't be because we don't have the means.
I like this approach as it matches the current "separate limos" phase the band is going through. So much so that Silky has changed country. The creative tension is something else.
Despite the annoyance of paying twice as much for rehearsal at Midian the other night becuase of a previous cancellation I am pleased we squared the ledger. Many have laid claim to the sought "5th Squid" sobriquet but a front runner must ceratinly be Mr Midian. It seems right that we have liquid papered ourselves out of his quaintly titled "shit list"




This week's feeble attempt at a cryptic clue:

defunct auteur in two blocks (7)

Christchurch to the Max

On a day when Keith Humble took his six hundredth wicket the Squids are left spread-eagled like the Danger Bird.

The exciting mock-up of the CD by the indolent printmaker turned out to have a prophetic symbolism. The image on the front shows a giant squid grappling with the skyline of a city...and so too the tallest squid grapples with a new city, Christchurch. Life imitates art in the cruelest way for the band. It was an obvious choice as, being the sister city of Adelaide, it will no doubt afford plenty of options for al fresco dining.

While not trying to create an award-nominated, expertly-intricate connections post it is worth noting that after Crafty's bitterly, howlingly, plaintively beautiful Slippin' Away (complete with trademark daring reharmonisation...the dominant providing a FAR more satisfying, though perhaps predictable, release than the dribble back from supertonic to tonic) at rehearsal on Monday night, that the redoubtable and recently deceased Max Merritt hails from Christchurch.

Laika Rolling Stone

Once more I have been found misleading my bandmates. Laika didn't make it back. Laika didn't even come close to making it back. For years they pretended she had lived for a few days but one of the main scientists involved disclosed in 2002 that she had lived for only 7 hours in space as the thermal control system in the cabin had malfunctioned. You can get the whole sorry tale here. I find the image of this local furry squid stading alertly and happily to attention in her smart space harness quite affecting next to the story.

Poor old Bars and Lisichka didn't even last seven hours as their rocket exploded 28.5 seconds after launch. At least they had each other. I could only find one photo that might have been of one of them.

Finally Belka and Strelka made it back alive! They travelled with a grey rabbit, 42 mice, 2 rats, flies and a number of plants and fungi. What a gay time they must have had during their day in space. Interestingly Belka and Strelka, pictured below, get the guernsey of first earth bound animals in space to return happily and not the rabbit or one of the anonymous 42 mice.
By contrast to Laika, Belka looks suitably concerened about the mission (perhaps someone had told her about the first two attempts?). She doesn't, to me, look panicked, despite the wide eyes, so much as resigned and melancholic. Strelka on the other hand looks stoicly resolute about carrying out the task, not unlike Animal Farm's Boxer.



For more on Russian space dogs (for there are many) look here and here.

Ham the chimp, our first American entrant, made it back! And can be seen here giving the handshake upon return...although knowing the Americans penchant for faking moon landings this may not be Ham and they just pretended and used another chimp.

This is band blog worthy as hopefully the working titled song, Words from Ham, will be produced shortly.

Squid Din-Dins: A Second Helping

To yarraville, to yarraville, to eat a band dinner.


Silky-d and the ever-commenting Lady Silk hosted the finest of barbeques and not for them the lazy out of a few sausages and veggie burgers. The stage for Yarraville's famous "Wild West" festival transmogrified into an outdoor decking for the evening as we patiently awaited the cool change upon the spotted gum.

I would like to take this most public of forums to say what a splendid evening it was and what a welcome addition Fluffy made to the shindig.

It looks like no gigs will be possible before the New Zealand interlude due to being-unable-to-get-gigs-at-any-other-time-so-why-should-now-be-any-different and Today Tonight apparently having a constant tail on at least two of the band members just waiting for a story and a gig would be all the juice they need.

Missed Opportunity

5 years in a foreign land fair sickened me of certain perennial christmas hits (Slade's Merry Christmas Everybody, The Pogues's Fairydrivvel of New York and Wizzard's I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday stand out) that troubled your every waking moment and intruded every snoozing moment in a Stalinist Beckettlike Kafkaesque cliche of torment and turpitude.

These are replaced by one song here...Mariah's All I Want For Christmas Is You...and it is unwelcome (that said no one could argue with the importance of this opus in Mariah's lengthy canon, coming as it does during the death throws of her well documented relationship with that tyrnat Tommy Mottola. We can see in the flirtatious lyrics Mariah's nascent sexuality that would soon blossom into her empowering posture as bikini-clad bitch and ho to any passing R'n'B or hip hop dude perhaps finding its culmination in her pulsating dance/pop crossover Fuck Me Sideways feat Tha Dawg Killa).

But the christmas single used to be an institution to which many bands added their bricks to build. The pinacle for me was Mental As Anything's Apocalypso but does that get played...does it dicky. We missed our chance...maybe next year.



P.S. Special mention goes to Destiny's Child's 8 Days of Christmas which I beleive was lifted from an entire christmas album released post Survivor. A sample of the lyrics below exposes Hinny for the whacky, zany nonsense that my brother so keenly detected. Narcisism, vanity and banal commercialism reduced to two pithy lines...I cannot compete.

On the 8th day of Christmas my baby gave to me a pair of chloe shades & a diamond belly ring