Well, let me tell you a story. Sobek, dear beloved Father, has been trying in vain to get me into heavy metal for years. It’s never been my thing, or so I thought, so I figured He’d stopped pestering me about it because He had accepted He’d never win me over.

Apparently not. -_-

Now, this story requires some past history, so bear with me. I have this weird instinct where I just *know* if I’ll like a certain band or artist, usually just from hearing a few songs. This instinct has rarely been wrong, so I tend to listen to it when it calls.

Enter silverchair and The Prodigy. I first fell in love with these bands when I was a wee teenager. It was that instinct again, see? But mother was not a fan of this sort of music, and I’m a nice sort of kid, so I didn’t rock the boat. My time would come. And when I did begin buying their albums years later in my 20s? Lo, I did fall in love with them. My instinct was right.

Now, enter Black Sabbath. This requires a little more explanation. I’ve had a flirtation with this band for years. YEARS, people. Now, maybe it was my Christian upbringing, maybe it was because mother would not have approved at all, but I always kept Sabbath at a distance. That instinct of mine was there, but I always said no. Even though Ozzy Osbourne is fucking adorable, I still said no. I think part of me was slightly afraid at how much I would like it, as if it was my ‘dark side’ or something.

Now, enter rage and The Chaser guest progamming for NYE 2007. What did I get out of that epic experience? I fell in love with ELO, of course. And Pink Floyd to a certain extent. It aged my music collection certainly. (In an unrelated note, I also fell in love with of Montreal and The Decemberists, but that’s another story.)

ELO are actually a terrible enabler. The effect they’ve had on my music collection is rather significant, and there are some people I would never have bothered listening to otherwise. Also, Roy Wood? Fucking nuts, and also fucking awesome. <3 …It’s an ‘epic hair’ and a ‘boys in make-up’ thing. XD

(Also, the impact ELO has had on my writing is rather extraordinary and should be discussed at length elsewhere.)

Now, enter rage again their ‘rage gets hairy’ special. Now, I like a bloke with long hair, as I’ve mentioned, bonus points for leather and/or chest pr0n. So, naturally, it’s quite a good special. Twisted Sister come onto my radar and I like what I see and hear. Twisted Sister, of course, have come onto my radar in the past from my love of No Doubt.

I have also recently fallen in love with Led Zeppelin, and not just because of Go! and other assorted coincidences.

I feel there are more than three coincidences here and I ought to have twigged this was leading to some sort of clue-by four. But, of course, I’m somewhat dense to these sorts of things, so naturally, I was left slightly without warning.

Now, when I happened across a charming blog that offered bootlegs recently, and happened to offer ELO bootlegs to boot, well, I couldn’t resist, so I downloaded them. I was not looking for said bootlegs, but I found them. Now, I happened to scroll down to see what other bands they had, and lo, there was Led Zep and Black Sabbath.

How does ELO link to Black Sabbath? Well, quite easily. You see, I remembered from reading Bev Bevan’s blog that he had toured with Black Sabbath in 1983 (which I will point out is the year I was born? XD). (Listening to his radio show for months has also been awesomefuntimes and has kinda made me fall in love with other artists, but that’s another story.) This piece of knowledge had always intrigued me because going from ELO to Black Sabbath sounds so… weirdly awesome, so I checked to see if there were any Sabbath bootlegs from that particular tour. There were. I downloaded them both. I discovered my instinct had been right. Again. XD

Now, the ABC has been showing this ‘Seven Ages of Rock’ series of late. Well done, it’s an awesome series. Cue tonight’s show. Topic? Heavy metal.

So they start with Sabbath, of course, move to Judas Priest and Motley Crue and in between all this I’m hit across the head with a combination of epic hair, leather, and fucking awesome guitar. The whole Birmingham thing doesn’t help either. Cue my instinct popping up and suggesting I might rather like Sabbath and Judas Priest and Motley Crue, if I bothered to listen to them properly.

Now, earlier in the afternoon, I had written a rather pr0ny piece of fiction involving an anthropomorphised Foxtel seducing the fuck out of Charles Firth in a rather kinky and awesome fashion.

After watching ‘Seven Ages of Rock’ tonight, I feel pretty much like Charles did after Foxtel was done with him: like I’d been seduced by a rather enchanting Dom in leather who had left me rather exhausted and desperate for more by the time he was done with me.

Cue Sobek, that smarmy croc God of mine, smirking contentedly. Yes, crocodiles have an infinite amount of patience. He was just waiting for the right moment. I believe He has won this round fair and square.

Okay, I surrender, already, happy now?

As much as I adore music, it’s written in a totally different language and my brain can’t interpret it or understand it. Now, music with lyrics, on the other hand, because there are words, written words, I can cling to them and understand them as if they’re a translation of the music. This is why instrumental music is often boring to me. There’s nothing to hold my interest and nothing to tell me what’s going on.

So while for some, music with lyrics is distracting because the lyrics distrupt their writing, for me it’s the opposite. Music with lyrics I find far easier to write to than instrumental music because it’s music I can understand. It’s like the difference between me watching a film in Cantonese (which I don’t speak), without subtitles, to watching the same film with subtitles. One I can understand, the other I can’t. Visuals aren’t enough for me to interpret what’s going on; I need the words to translate those visuals into something I can understand.
I always have a frustratingly awesome time writing musicians though, because in some ways, I can understand them and their relationship to music, but in other ways it’s an utterly foreign way of thinking and being. I am not a musician, I am a writer. I live, breathe and think in words. Not music, not pictures, not poetry. Straight prose. Words. Wordswordswords. That is how I understand the world. It’s difficult for me to grasp how a non-writer experiences the world. All I have to draw on are my own experiences, and that isn’t always helpful.

I often wonder if other creative people are like this too, that they can’t quite ‘get’ other ways of thinking/creating and in some way require a translator.

Apologies if I’m not being clear. I’m doing my best to explain something that’s not easy to explain. It’s like… writing, words, the urge to write, it’s instinctive, like breathing, living, everything. .It’s in every fibre of my being. I can’t comprehend not writing, or not being able to write. I’m somewhat more scared of losing my ability to write than of dying. Everyone dies. But if I lost the ability to write… It scares me. I need to be able to write. I think I would die if I didn’t or couldn’t write. It’s not something I can just switch on and off, some sort of hobby. It’s an impulsive urge that is difficult to ignore. When the muses strike, nothing else matters, just getting the stor down before the muses go away again.

Okay. I would like to admit to a little clandestine drawing on the side, which I indulge in occasionally. I don’t see myself as an artist, and most of the art I do is to complement my own writing. I do my own fanart, basically. XD So there are some areas of visual art I understand, and I’m good with abstract symbols, but it’s mostly an art form I do not understand and tend to have little interest in.

But I think I’ve written enough for the moment. I appear to have hit a dead end. I’ll probably write more on this later when I get a chance to think on it some more. I’m all out of thoughts now.

1) It is impossible to listen to The Idle Race and be unhappy as a result.
I didn’t think it would be possible to like a band after only hearing one song, but, well, I’m shallow. And ‘Days Of The Broken Arrows’ is EPIC. Srsly.

It’s partly the music. It’s just so… freakishly awesome. And happy! Yay for psychedelic rock. XD But yes. Also, /random fangirl moment/ Jeff Lynne’s voice is sosososo prettiful! /sanity restored. …I might be slightly in love with his falsetto at the moment. >.>

Though I still adore them post-Jeff as well. Very prettiful music, considering it’s ~40 years old. <3 *watches music collection age a decade* XD ‘By The Sun’ is epic and prettyful and I luffs it so. <3
2) People are morons.
I know, I know, I knew this already, but seriously. People are too easily offended. And if you go looking to be offended and find yourself offended, then it’s no one’s fault but your own.

Seriously. When did we become so up ourselves as a nation? When did we lose the ability to laugh at ourselves?

*sighs*

I don’t know. I suppose I’ve reached the point at which any outrage about The Chaser is one too many. Then again, this is the same country who were obsessed with Utegate for over a week.

3) You can never stop playing Tetris.
No, really, you can’t. No matter how hard you try, once it’s sucked you in, you’ll never be free of it. I’m beginning to believe it’s unbeatable just to keep you playing for eternity. D:

…Did you guess I’ve been playing a lot of NES!Tetris lately? XD

I have been playing Tetris on various formats/consoles for *thinks* 14 years? I started on my brother’s old black and white GameBoy. I was away on holiday, playing it, and I almost beat it. Since then, I have wanted to beat it, just once, so I can put this addiction to rest. Alas, I have no conquered level nine yet. D:

One day, people! One day! D:!

4) Stephen McDonell is my new hero
*swoons*

The Eyebrow Man is ABC’s China Correspondent, and really quite kickarsedly awesome. I’ve always had a lot of respect for foreign correspondents, Sally Sara being a particular favourite. I don’t envy the job they do, even as it needs to be done.

But why is Stephen so awesome? Well, I do love that he speaks mandarin, and you really can tell he has a great respect for the culture in which he’s working, and a passion for his job. I might tease him for his errant eyebrows and his awesome wardrobe, but really, he’s completely awesome.

I remember seeing a doco series on foreign correspondents and how they cope with what they see and experience. Sally Sara was on that and oh, man, I may have kinda fell for her. >.> *seems to have a thing for ABC journos*

5) It helps to actually have five things to write in here before beginning.
I thought I had five, and then I kinda forgot the rest. Should I do this again (due to lack of other ideas), I’ll remember to plan it out before hand.

Perhaps I’ll do them every week anyway, in case I fail at thinking of some deep and meaningful topic to bitch about for 600 odd words.

And on that note, since I am tired and in need of sleep (when I finish listening to moar Idle Race), I might finish this semi-successful attempt at blog content. Huzzah! XD

I don’t know, when I look back at my life, so much of it has been shaped by the presence of music. As much as I like my quiet time, I think I would go spare without music.

At the moment, triple j are counting down their Hottest 100 Of All Time (which I dutifully voted in). And, you know what? Save from Jeff Buckley, Kings of Leon, and Coldplay, I actually don’t mind most of what’s been chosen. I’m rather enjoying it, actually. Probably would’ve voted for some of them, if I’d thought of them at the time.

(As an aside, sure, I’m not a Michael Jackson fan, but I will admit to being somewhat partial to Thriller and Bad, and Thriller got in, so awesome. )
I suppose part of it is because triple j and rage have been part of my life for nearly a decade, and the kind of music they play has morphed and inspired the sort of music I like. They’ve shaped my music taste in a way nothing else has. A lot of these songs I remember from rage guest programmers. Others I remember from my teen years.

A list like this is always going to be subjective, people will always disagree, because music taste is a very personal thing. I think what it reflects most is the triple j audience themselves. And sure, just cos I like a lot of old music, I don’t necessarily think age makes a song better or more brilliant than a younger one. Not all old rock was brilliant. There was plenty of shit then, just as there’s plenty of shit now, and I think this will always be the case while the music industry still mostly cares about making money than decent quality music.

And while it might be noble to say the whole illegal music downloading shit is Gen Y being radical and hardcore and sticking it to the man, I don’t think that’s even a thought Gen Y considers when ripping songs off youtube, downloading leaked albums and discographies and other things. I think, at the heart of it, for a generation weaned on the internet, that they merely like getting shit for free, like every other human being on the planet, and if any technology is capable of feeding their habit, it’s the internet.

I’m one of those people who’s not really Gen X or Y. My parents were babyboomers, barely, so technically I’m Gen X, but I also share a lot of characteristics with Gen Y, and I’ve grown up a digital native. I would also challenge the notion that all of Gen Y are computer/internet savvy. I don’t think this is a fair generalisation. Those who are interested in computers and the net enough will be computer literate digital natives. Merely being born in that generation doesn’t mean you’re an instant digital native; you have to actually interact with the technology, grow up with it and use it for that to happen.

But I digress. (An expedition to wiki informs me I’m part of the MTV generation. In spite of never watching MTV evar. XD Then again, depending on which definition you use, I’m either Gen X or Y, so… XD)

I had a thought earlier in the week. How many of the groups around now will still be performing and touring thirty years from now? Forty years from now? Do Gen Y have a different attitude to music? Is it not so much a career thing? Or is that more to do with the increased fickleness of the industry and actually making it? That it’s actually much harder to sustain success now than it used to be?

I suppose any list documenting notable bands worthy of eternal praise and devotion is going to be different for everyone. Because at the end of the day, music is a very personal thing, and what I love and adore and has shaped my life is not the same as someone else’s. Just because I don’t get how apparently brilliant Jeff Buckley was doesn’t mean I am somehow deficient in being able to pick good music. Then again, I adore trashy 80s music and obscure 70s rock, so who am I to complain?