344. Wicked World by Osaka Popstar 2006

Love this song. I don't remember where I first heard it but I do know it's a compilation CD that I play in my car usually when I'm off to play a gig. It's a great kick start to the night. Doesn't matter what kind of car I'm in. I think the scrolled handwriting just says Car Songs. Mind you I've got a quiet one too but that's seldom used because even when I'm driving home after a gig I feel like keeping the windows open and blasting out music. Probably because the sound on stage as completely zapped my hearing so I can't hear a thing until about 2 pm the next day. I wake up to muffled voices. Which when there's a bit of screaming in the house I don't mind.
This is the only Osaka Popstar record I have. They're a kind of American punk rock superstar just for fun type band. I don't want to spoil the glory of this song by finding out their other stuff is not as good. Or maybe I just didn't get round to it. I like the cover too. Really, this song is made for vinyl.

343. Stop Your Sobbing by The Pretenders 1979

Arriving in the UK in late 1979 the first Top of The Pops show I saw had this song on it. Firstly it was an old Kinks song so that was great. It was produced by Nick Lowe who was already a hero of mine. And thirdly it was a brilliant piece of power pop by a terrific looking band with the ultra cool Chrissie Hynde out front. All wrapped up in the spirit of punk meets the sixties. I couldn't believe my luck. 1979. Tickets to the Clash in my pocket. I'd released my first record and here I was in England. If anything 79 seemed to be a better year for pop than the punk explosion of a few years back. So many great records came out.
After the Clash though the gig dried up. There wasn't many bands playing in the cold of winter. I just went and saw the venues really. Like the Marquee to see minor bands. Or the Nashville where I saw the Dolly Mixtures supported by U2 who were playing their first gigs in London and no one was taking much notice. I remember thinking them a little boring on the night and throwing a lot of rock star poses. Of course I didn't know who they were gonna be later. I only found out or realized  I saw them after reading an article 30 years later which talked about that gig and how they got their name wrong on the poster.
A friend of mine saw the Pretenders a few months back . Told me she was still great. Missed again!

342. Happy Xmas (War is Over) by John Lennon 1971

In 1971 the biggest thing in my life musically was John Lennon. A big Beatles fan but right about then John Lennon was just it. I was buying all his records. Had his poster on the wall and had my John Lennon scrapbooks. Paul McCartney I didn't rate until much later. At the time I was buying NME religiously so I was very excited when i saw that John had a big hit in the UK with Happy Xmas. And I was waiting to hear the song on the radio. But it never happened. I had to wait another year before the record was released in Australia. By that time he had released some rubbish and effectively been taken over in my heart by Glam rock. Firstly T.Rex and then Bowie and Slade.
Being an English music mag reader it was incredibly frustrating to read about big hits over there and never get to hear them. Yet all the American hits you could hear on Casey Case's American Top 40. I once wrote to one of the radio stations demanding an UK Top 40 and had friends sign the letter. I remembered the songs and in some cases it took me many years to track them down. some of course were rubbish but others were totally brilliant. Why were they never pushed here?
I loved the John Lennon Xmas song. Even if I did get it late. I was sitting outside the post office in Box Hill when it came on the radio.  sounded a bit out of place with the summer sunshine beating down on me. But still magic.

341. Untitled 4 by Sigur Ros 1999

I picked up the soundtrack for Vanilla Sky when it was going cheap at JB Hi Fi. It looked like an interesting bunch of songs and it was on sale so why not. It turned out to be a regular play around the house in John Street Elwood.
 I'd heard about the film. How it was an inferior remake of a Spanish film called in English "Open Your Eyes" and so I went and rented that version out. Under the impression that the original is always the greatest. And it was great. But then I thought I would check out what Cameron Crowe had done with it because I like his work and he had these big stars in it plus the beautiful Penelope Cruz. Watching it I found it a bit dull compared to the original. However it had this really brilliant scene at the end. And it was sound tracked by a band I'd never heard of. But as Tom Cruise throws himself off a building Sigur Ros creates such an emotional backdrop to the images that flash before his eyes including images of popular culture, including The Who, the effect is just devastating.
I went and bought more Sigur Ros and they create this music you just live inside. No words you can recognise. Just sound. You can see they had an effect on Radiohead. I love the ending and thanks to what maybe the greatest creation of all time, YouTube, I often go back and relive it.

340. Private Idaho by B-52s 1980

In the mid-eighties I was working as a DJ at a club called Barbarellas in Smith Street Collingwood. Ronny and Michael started the club as another part of their little empire. Previously they had tried a Wednesday night with GLAM but the world, apart from Paul Stewart at the Herald Sun, wasn't ready. So they gave Saturday a go. And it went through the roof. Then again by this time I was involved in the creation of the concept and coming up with the poster ideas. But they didn't cut me in so eventually I would go and start my own club a bit later. But I digress.
I had a box of fantastic 7 inch singles that I would play religiously every Saturday night. One night I turned up and put the box at the front door while I took a box of 12 inch records down to the booth. There were doormen there so I thought it would be alright. When I came back they were gone. I was gutted.
A few weeks later I did an interview on DJs in the Herald Sun. At the time Private Idaho was my big play. So the title of the interview was something along the lines of he's lost his Private Idaho but he's still rocking the decks or something like that. Actually it didn't take me long to get the records again. Though it did take a bit of cash. And some 7 inches were replaced by me just bringing in the albums. Still feel crap about that box.
One of favourite B-52 songs. One where I can actually put up with the lead singer's voice. I love the guitar, the changes and the girls vocals. Great pop song.

339. Ready Steady Go by Generation X 1978

Though I was reading all these negative things about Generation X in the music mags from the UK..and they really gave them a hard time..I really liked some of their ideas before I even heard them. For a start they were embracing the sixties in their designs and their lyrics. Pop art, Cathy McGowan, the Beatles these were the things I loved. This song was a homage to the late great TV pop show Ready Steady Go..I tried to chase the videos down for years finally finding them in a video shop in St. Kilda. Brilliant stuff.
These were the same references I was looking to in my songwriting and still do at times. A song like Roxy off our 'Dig For Plenty' album still makes reference to Kings Road Chelsea and pop art.
Picked up the album from Brashes of course. Not a brilliant album but some great singles on there. And it's lasted a lot better than many of the others from that time. And Billy Idol is the singer which does something for the record but I don't know what. Because  I liked Generation X I never got over what Billy Idol became in the Eighties. Horrible! just horrible (looking back now it was quite funny plus some good singles) 1978 was when a lot of the punk bands went what some called Pop Punk. And I guess that's where the Fiction, my original band, were heading too.

338. Going Underground by The Jam 1980

So I get back from the UK after a brief holiday where I got to see the Clash live and lived in a country where the Jam were huge. God I missed it. But I came back with a load of ideas for Little Murders and our new directions. I was moving into the Mod thing before I left but now I was going to try and get the scene going in Melbourne. It seemed all my friends at the time were going through the same thing and within months we had a Mod magazine and Little Murders started having mod DJs support us at gigs. In particular a place called the Market Hotel. Eventually they started they their own club called Kommotion in Church street Richmond at a pub called The Prince Albert. It had a courtyard out the back that would fill with scooters. Some nights when the Murders weren't playing I'd go down and DJ. It was a fantastic time.
When Going Underground hit the number one spot in the UK straight in, it seemed like the Mods were taking over. Of course it didn't even dent the charts here.
The Jam were a catalyst for the whole Mod movement along with the Quadrophenia movie that hit here in 1980. And I guess The Kids Are Alright Who documentary. Going Underground was an anthem.

337. Top of The Pops by The Rezillos 1978

Another song from one of the most exciting times in rock music. Punk rock going all types of new places and there were lots of incredible new bands popping up all the time. A particular favourite of mine were the Rezillos from Scotland. I picked up the album second had and when I got home and put it on the turntable I was totally knocked out by the sound that came out of the speakers. Fast, tuneful, fun and totally rocking I played it until I almost wore out the vinyl. As soon as a song would stop another one would come on almost immediately. Bang bang bang. By this time I was living in a share house with a bunch of hippies that had no interest in my records whatsoever. They were heavily into Tim Buckley who at the time I just didn't get at all. That would come later. Half the time I would listen to this on headphones in my bedroom.
It all seemed so shiny and new and made a lot of other stuff sound dated and slow.
Like a lot of these bands their moment of glory was short and so by the time I got to the UK in late 79 they were all gone. Top of The Pops was a show on English TV that I wished they'd show on Australian TV.
We got the lamentable Countdown which we'd watch religiously waiting for a good band to come on. Rezillos never did!.

336. Love My Way by Psychedelic Furs 1982

In 1982 I was crazy about the Psychedelic Furs. It was there second album that did it. Plus there was an obvious appeal in the Johnny Rotten meets David Bowie persona of Richard Butler the singer. I really dug that voice. Another band where I went back and picked up all the singles so I could hear the B-sides.
After Pretty in Pink this would probably be my next favourite song of theirs. What comes to mind when I hear it though is something quite different to the places I used to hear it. Being a teacher once a year we take kids away on school camps. One of the first ones I went on was up somewhere near Monbulk. My previous experience was a few years before living in a caravan while working over the summer for Monbulk Jams. It was hell. Too much heat, trees and birds.
5 years later I'm playing in a band at night teaching everywhere day and I seemed to live with a constant noise. There was a moment at the end of the camp. I'd driven my car so I didn't have to get on the bus. I had a gig someplace. The bus had gone. I stood at the top of the drive away and the country looked fantastic. It had been raining for the previous few days and had been miserable but for the last few hours the sun had come out. Now the sun bounced off the scenery. I got in my car. when I turned on the ignition "Love My Way" came on. I got back out and leaned on the car and listened to the song. Watching the world. Great moment.

335.Blister In The Sun by The Violent Femmes 1983

Violent Femmes records always went down big time at the clubs I DJed at. The first time I started playing their songs was at a club in Smith Street  Collingwood called Barbarellas. After that every placed I played would have had a Femmes song in the set. And if their was only one then it was a Blister in The Sun. Not at first mind you. I started off pushing Gone Daddy Gone which was the big single when the album came out. Gradually however Blister seems to have taken over that spot. Put that song on the turntable anywhere and the crowd explodes. It was kind of the alternative song that everyone would dance to.

After the first year of Lizard Lounge when the place was just packed. Due to the fantastic idea of offering cheap drinks from 9 until 11 am which I think made the club in the beginning. Happy hour indeed! We seemed to have a special group of songs that came on around 11:30pm that would get the crowd mental for the next two hours. It was kind of a best of that Jason and I built up. The pace was unrelenting. DJ sets were 30 minutes long so we could always get to the bar. It meant we were always competing to rev up the crowd. And if you weren't listening to what the other was doing you could easily play a song they had just played. Which was embarrassing! So we kind of claimed songs. Records that only Jason and I would play. Blister was always one of mine.