Even better than a packet of Timtams

Pleasingly, the new management at the Brunswick Hotel (140 Sydney Rd Brunswick) have asked us to play and we've found a slot in our busy schedule on Sunday the 19th of July. Come along and join the rock. Ships and Thieves are playing as well and that means two red-hot bands on the one stage on the one evening. For free. OMG.

Lean and Mean

We, here at the Squidquarters, are always up for a fight (if the comments in the last post are anything to go by we like a fight with each other most of all). And it may be worth thinking twice before taking us on. We are shedding appendages and delinquent organs like forward-thinking telecommunications organisations are dropping H.323 endpoints for SIP. To recap:

• Silky without appendix
• Crafty without teeth
• Paddy without braces
• UT still largely intact… perhaps reconstructed.

So look out on the Sydney tour for fancy smiles, easy chewing technique and tummies that don't hurt.

Classic Australian independent rock

I heard The Saints' (I'm) Stranded being played at a café near the office where I rock my day job and I was struck by the comparison between it and another classic Australian independent release, GOD's My Pal.

Both feature raw production, both feature unsophistocated musicianship and both mention homes (one describes a protagonist being far away from home and the other is inviting you over to the protagonists house. Charming)

The big difference is a 16-year-old Joel Silbersher trying to sound like Lemmy versus a 17-year-old Chris Bailey trying to sound like Bob Dylan. My Pal is charged with a potent hook and (I'm) Stranded is utterly unlistenable.

From Hugh to Eternity

Okay, let's be frank. People dig their own kids. And not for the first time I find myself standing right in the middle of the road as the everyman.

Despite my awesome song writing skill and flaming hot guitar work and lilting yet soaring vocal prowess, I am not a particularly gifted musician. What I have comes through graft and pretence. My son, the reincarnation of the Buddha known to you as Prince Hughie Siddharta, is 16 months old and completely wondered me by singing the first phrase of Bah Bah Blacksheep the other day and has barely stopped singing it since. The return phrase is now often appended. The lyrics are all "bah bah bah bah bah" but I am openly amazed. The first two intervals are spot on. Tonight we had a rousing Hot Cross Buns added to the already formidable set list. My son, the God King known to you as Prince Norodom Hughie, appears to be a musical genius on par with Mozart and Whitney Houston. 16 months! Well outside the first year of perfect pitch already covered on this blog.

Quiz

It's pleasing to note, from time to time, how thoroughly the Squid Ink way of life infiltrates modern society.

This week's example comes from page seven of the Good Weekend magazine which came free with today's copy of The Age.

Question four of the quiz asks “What marine creatures have three hearts and blue blood?” which is a lock-it-in, put-your-house-on-it gimme for any fan of the band.

And then, only inches away is question 15 of the quiz which asks “What type of animal is a hinny?”

What type of animal is a hinny? Is this the final proof that Squid Ink's radio-friendly smash hit is taking over the press or possibly that Ms MacDonald and Mr Schluter, who compiled this particular quiz, were at the gig at the Brunswick Hotel — hoping in vain to see a fellow Fairfax employee playing onstage — and thereafter had Squids and crossbreeds on their minds?

Food for thought.