they say there's a sun in the sky

"They say there's a sun in the sky
But me, I can't imagine why
There might have been one
Before you were gone
But now all I see is the night"

I found the cutest thing in the world, a blog called "69 Love Songs, Illustrated" - as you can probably imagine, it's quite the Magnetic Fields homage.

The little "about us" blurb tells me that they are a "loose collection of mostly London-based comic-artists, illustrators and writers, who have grown up listening to the Magnetic Fields and got together over a mutual love of the songs. One day, on Twitter, a couple of us decided that illustrating – or writing a comic – or a short story – inspired by all 69 songs was a worthwhile and exciting pursuit."

The illustration to "They Say There's a Sun In The Sky" is heartbreakingly adorable. I'm still to locate the one for "I Don't Want To Get Over You", but I can *almost* imagine.

69 Love Songs, Illustrated




PS. At the last minute in 2009, I just successfully made my first link to another website in a blog-post (disclaimer, well I THINK I did, ha, you may be witnessing otherwise). 2010 is going to be a good year, I just know it.

Fall of Efrafra

Yesterday I was schlepping about North Melbourne Station waiting for my train connection, when the Ipod Shuffle deities decided to deliver me a little blessing by way of "Republic of Heaven" by Fall of Efafra. So effing good.

Then last night I discovered that Simulacrum by Fall of Efrafra is perfect companion-listening with Mono (which my friend Luke had only JUST recommended, and then I found out they played in Melbourne/Australia just the other week).

heartwarming shit

on the way to work, driving through Maribyrnong towards Sunshine, I saw the cutest thing I may have ever seen in my short life...all traffic screeching to a halt to make way for mother duck crossing the busy road, with little ducklings following behind. it was touch-and-go for a few anxious minutes, but they slowly, eventually waddled all the way to the other side of the intersection, and safely made it on to the footpath and then into the sanctuary of the nearest park.

it looked a little something like this, but in real life the ducklings formed more of an orderly queue and looked to be on more of a mission

I thought that she wanted me. But she was thinking something else

I miss you when you're gone.Please don't stay gone too long



The conditions outside my bedroom are awfully blustery right now, so I'm occupied with reading through (and listening, too) a list of the 25 saddest songs in the whole world. I'm up to Iron and Wine, coming in at a respectable #13. Also I love that Roy Orbison is described as "the master of pop-opera misery".

Can someone check on me later and see if I'm okay, or if I've been reduced to a blubbering mess in a crumbling heap floating in a river of salty tears on my bedroom floor

It's at www.spinner.com

UPDATE: I've become quite a fan of Sunday afternoons in pubs seeing sad-country bands, and oh dear, number 6 is killing me "He Stopped Loving Her Today" by George Jones.

No no wait. I've now worked my way through to #2 which is Billie Holiday and "Gloomy Sunday"...I've got it on repeat, please save me from myself

I don't know what I'll do

"Eisler on the Go" is one of my favourite songs to listen to on Sunday morning..breakfast and this song on repeat, and suddenly things don't look so bleak. I couldn't find a good live version of this song, so I like that this one is "presented by Anarcho Grow: Pure Vida in Costa Rica. This Press Kills Fascists"

Coco Rosie

I forgot! How much I love this song. Also a random person gave me a rose on the street in Brunswick today. That's all.

the fever

And this summer, you'll call-maybe

waking up next to nothing after dreaming of you and me

Taking your own life with boredom. I'm taking my own life with wine
It helps you to rule out the sorrow. It helps me to empty my mind
Making the most of a bad time. I'm smoking the brains from my head



plugged in.and ready to fall.

put your hand on your heart and tell me that we're through

They like to talk about forever. But most people never get the chance

sunset tree

"Personal Daily Horoscope of Saturday, 5 December 2009

Deeper understanding: This quality of time will help you to develop a deeper understanding of those psychological areas that are connected with the experience of pain, suffering and rejection.

This influence is especially well suited to so deepening the understanding of these interrelations that the first inklings of how to carry out a healing can be perceived.

During this phase it is important to talk to other people who are interested in this theme.

This time is well suited to penetrating the complicated connections and dependencies between human behavior, the psyche and early injuries - to differentiate between cause and effect -, whether for yourself or for someone who has confided in you.

The interpretation above is for your transit selected for today:
Mercury Trine Chiron, , exact at 15:54
activity period from 4 December 2009 to 6 December 2009
[turn off]Show the love horoscope for this transit (L)"

Lonely? Maybe

Or maybe not. It all depends

And I never thought this life was possible

You're the yellow bird that I've been waiting for

I'm looking for salt in a snow globe

I just want back in your head

some hope, some despair

Beyond all reason, I am attached to the idea of true love and the idea that there is someone in the world that you are meant to be with. You know, “the one”. Maybe you already know that person, or maybe you have a connection waiting to be discovered, whatever, that person is somewhere in this world.

It's a kinda crazy and overwhelming prospect. What are the chances that while you're going about your daily life and normal routine, you will find someone who totally gives you THAT feeling?

It's not something that just happens all the time, so when it does, it totally sets your world on fire and makes your heart feel alive. All of a sudden, it's hard to imagine a life worth living without that person in it. You feel absolutely convinced that those feelings will never die, in fact, they will keep growing deeper and deeper with time.

But. What happens when you think you've found that person, but the timing and circumstances are all wrong?

Like, for starters, what are the chances you that the other person will immediately get the same feeling from you? And that you, or they, won't have just ended some messy relationship and be all fucked-up and heartbroken? And that you, or they, despite your best intentions, won't be all hurt and bitter from general past heartbreaks?

And that neither of you will be just about to leave town or move away? And that you, and they, actually feel ready for some sort of “all-consuming thing”?

What if the circumstances simply don't allow for you to be together? What if the timing is just all wrong?

Do you accept the idea that there may never be a chance to ever be together? Do you just keep moving forward, with a heart that has some bitter regrets about missed opportunities and stupid timing?

Even if that other person finds someone else, do you let it go?

Or do you remain ever hopeful and eternally delusional? In love with the idea that everything will work out and be perfect in the end. I mean, you don't want to settle for your second choice, right?

I always kinda wrote off the Descendents as being a bunch of adolescent suburban punk boys, teeming with juvenile sentiments and, I suspected, probably renowned for charmingly dumb teenage antics.

But in the last few years, Chris has almost always played them on the 4ZZZ Punk Show, and finally, I get it. I get them. And shit, I gotta give some play to a band that is considered to be somewhat pioneering in the pop punk genre. And if I was to put them in a further sub-genre it would be “eternally-heartsick-but-forever-hopeful-if-not-somewhat-naive-about-matters-of-the-heart pop-punk”.

I mean, that song “I'm The One”...woah. Who doesn't wish that they wrote that? And of course, “Hope”. Which is the reason why we're here today:

My day will come/
I know someday/
I'll be the only one


PS. Do you like how I tried to make this sound all objective and generalised and universal? I mean, you don't -heaven forfend- think I'm talking about ME and my own experiences, do you?

Why I was the one worth leaving

Frank Turner covering "The District Sleeps Alone" and breaking my heart over-and-over again.

I texted my best-friend Lucy to tell her I'd just listened to this song on repeat *at least 10 times* and she instructed me to stop it immediately. She is one of the people who understands how I subject myself to melancholy heartbreaking music like this and potentially wallow in it forever. I almost make myself feel worse, but it also makes me feel so much better too. So I might just sneak in one more listen today.

There's something about Frank Turner that is an affirmation for me. Even if he doesn't always explicitly spell-it-out lyrically, his songs give me this feeling that is hard to describe, but important for me to try and understand. Something about unfinished lives still in progress, people that haven't got it all sorted out yet and are still fucking-up and starting from scratch and trying again and again and again. Like you could let your painful failures and heartbreaks crush you, but you can also remember that the world is full of people starting over their lives from scratch every day.

I'm in good company (or at least, lots of it) even when I think I'm struggling alone with all this stuff.

Also, aforementioned best-friend Lucy is responsible for this sentiment, some words that I thoroughly endorse:

"I don't believe in staying in touch, it's for boring people who are dead inside. for people like us we just fall right back into things when we see each other."

And I'll add to that a few more things, like that I don't care about romanticising the old-days or school-days as the best time of my life, and I don't want to "catch up" or look back and reminisce, I really am more interested in moving on and more interested in now.

Royal Headache

Tonight it would appear to be the case that every single person in Melbourne has gone to see Melt Banana, but I'm home alone, working on my zine and updating my blog and eating Tofutti Cuties. Which has its own charm, I guess. And listening to Royal Headache, which definitely has a whole bunch of charm about it.

They are pretty awesome. My friend Dave recommended them to me and said he was sure I would love them. Which is totally the case. I can't believe they played in Melbourne not long ago and I didn't even go see them. Fail. But I will fix this sad state-of-affairs, and hopefully see them somewhere soon.

This band!

Confused (to shift the focus)

Age is a band that is totally significant and special for me and it reminds me of a lot of different things, starting in the summer of 1999 and up to 2003 when I was in Berlin.

(In the summer of 1999) While I was on the train going across town from my hostel near Warsauer Strasse to a sorta ex-squatted art venue called Tacheles I was intriguedly (is that a word?) looking at the guy opposite me reading a zine, who was wearing a Muff Potter shirt and had a Spitboy tattoo on his leg. We kept exchanging glances but I felt too shy to talk and that was without the whole language barrier inhibition thing.

That night I met up with my one internet punk contact in Berlin, Thomas, out the front of the Converge show at Tommy Weisbecker Haus. He said I couldn’t stay at his place cos it was tiny and he had someone else staying, but he’d arranged for me to stay with some friends of his and said he’d introduce me to...to the guy from the subway! Whose name was Phillipe!!!

The next couple of weeks involved staying at Phillipe’s house with a constant soundtrack of Ivich, Jasemine, Vanilla, Age, Muff Potter, all that dreamy euro emo stuff. And that slightly-famous-in-an-underground-way anarchist pop band from Luxembourg that Phillipe’s other houseguest was the "manager" for, but I cannot ever remember their name.

I always meant to get an Age record, but never actually did, apart from having some songs on a tape (with other bands like Headache and Zorn) from my pal Donat in Berlin.

Cut to early 2003 in Brisbane when my friend Sanne's boyfriend in Germany sent a mixtape with Age on it, so I finally got to hear them again. A couple of months later, I was leaving to go to Europe and I made a mixtape for my travels that included my favourite Age song of all time “Confused (to shift the focus)” as well as “Wolf” and maybe one other song of theirs, and a bunch of Billy Bragg and Hot Water Music and Le Tigre and Epoxies and Rumbleseat and whatever.

Skip to July 2003, me and Sophie hitching just before nightfall on the edge of Dresden holding a sign to get to the Czech Republic. We'd gotten dropped off there by a nice guy who had just finished working on a film-set, he was one of those great “down for the count” kinda people and I was totally enjoying talking to him and felt a little sad when we had to get out of the car.

But on the upside, he assured us he was dropping us at an amazing hitching spot. As cars whizzed by and nightfall started approaching, I started to have some doubts though, and was getting panicked visions of sleeping in the nearby bushes or an abandoned haunted church or something.

Finally a car stopped and as we ran up to it, I noticed there was a "Dance Tonight, Revolution Tomorrow” sticker on the back window. It was two guys, Tristan and Ramon, who said hi and checked where we were going and then we fell into separate conversations cos it was kinda hard to hear from the backseat, and well also sometimes it's just a little awkward when you get into a stranger's car, not to mention the language barrier.

Then Tristan asked if there we had any music we wanted to play, so I passed over what I’d just been listening to in my walkman and the track-listings. He put on the music and then read the track-listings and said incredulously “you know Age?!?!?!?!” In complete disbelief. Because the guy driving the car was the bassplayer in Age.

They were laughing because they said that me and Sophie didn’t look like punks (I think we were looking particularly clean-cut and normal to help our hitching efforts nicely along), so they didn’t expect us to be on a similar page at all.

In fact, they thought we were going to a rave because we had said we were going to a festival, which amused us no end. It turned out we were all going to the same emo/hardcore/punk/straightedge/indie fest starting in Plzen (yep, I bet you know the one).

Holy shit, I almost can’t comprehend the random individual situations across hemispheres and years that lead to this particular moment. Of all the cars that could stop by the side of the road, it was that one. With those people! Who asked me that question at that moment and we discovered that connection. Makes me smile at how sometimes life can be like that, and it reminds me that there are secret beautiful coincidental worlds still hidden within this mundane boring routine one.



http://www.myspace.com/ageuberalles

Dance Song 97

Whenever I listen to Sleater Kinney “Dance Song 97” I am instantly transported back to London in 1999. Me and Tex, inseparable and intertwined partners-in-crime forever or until we are separated by forces external to us.

It’s breakfast and we’re dancing on the table in the kitchen and we’re ecstatic because this is our song and it is the soundtrack for our life (which hasn’t really been an easy one lately), cos we can never imagine what it would be like not to know each other and it feels like we have always known each other anyway.

But actually we've only known each other for a couple of months, it just was a case of accelerated friendship time. And it’s also special because it’s just about the only music we both like and can share with each other

Now I hear "Dance Song" and I look back on that time as one of those rare moments where I was totally in the present and totally appreciated it, and could look back on it so fondly after Tex died a couple of months later. We used to share a room and fall asleep almost every night listening to Portishead (I still can't really listen to anything by them because it makes my heart ache too much)

At the start of 2009, I started getting rid of old letters and bits-and-pieces and ditching the artefacts of my past ready to move from Brisbane to Melbourne. I found all my old Tex letters and reading over them made me miss having someone in my life who I adored and looked up to and admired so much.

Admired, as in, I respected the shit out of the way he lived his everyday life, his ability to transform a room within seconds, the way he could totally change and uplift the mood, his total loving kindness in everyday moments. The kind of person I would always want to have by my side in life

The total honour it was for me to be sharing daily life with someone like him, not to mention someone with a true I-don’t-give-a-fuck-what-people-think attitude, seeing him sob and weep and laugh and live his life out in full plain view of anyone who was around.

I never knew anyone like him before. It was also the first time I remember having a friend who loved me so fiercely and intensely and constantly told me so. This is a reminder for when all those letters are thrown away and gone forever

Republic of Heaven

can't write too much as I'm VERY busy researching vegan desserts at the moment. I am committed to making vegan white chocolate mousse for my dear pal Fiyona's birthday on Friday, but am still searching for the perfect recipe.

so this is a whirlwind post to say that you should listen to Fall of Efafra, Hank Williams, Dead Moon, Pierced Arrows, Chamberlain, Heartless Bastards, Battle of Wolf 359...

...and of course Melbourne/Ireland's crustlord-superstar band THE MOOR (they played a couple of awesome shows, they recorded, and then Eric -of Easpa Measa fame- left Melbourne and went back to Ireland so they are kaput/finito/over/etc. but yeah, they did definitely record and will have a release pretty quicksmart, according to my sources).

but my greatest love is SEDATIVES. SEDATIVES SEDATIVES SEDATIVES, why are you so good? and how did I not discover you until very recently?

I don't even have any of their records yet (yeah I'm a poser like that), all I can do is go to their myspace page and play "Slip Away", "Cannot Calm Down" or "Same Mistakes" over-and-over again, and dream that I was seeing them at a houseshow somewhere in Canada. also in the dream, it would be summer. just saying.

I heard there's gonna be a new Mission of Burma album, so I'm excited but in that slightly nervous way, I'm crossing my fingers that they haven't, you know, jumped the shark.

And Samiam are touring here in September, so I have an impending revolution summer to look forward to. Actually scratch that, more like teenage melodramatic melodic pop-punk summer to look forward to. Glory days hopefully await.

PS. you should listen to these bands while eating Soyatoo vegan whipped creme from the Radical Grocery in Brunswick and $3 Vietnamese tofu sandwiches purchased in Melbourne's western suburbs eg. Sunshine or St Albans or Footscray.

PSS. Vegan Brunch is now at the top of my vegan cookbook must-get list. And it's an Isa book, so you know it's gonna be good. Word on the street (or the vegan blog-world, more accurately), however, is that the Babycakes cookbook comes not so recommended.

PSS. Watch this youtube video and weep about the fact that you weren't raised in Portland by parents who were probably in the Wipers or Poison Idea, and aunties and uncles who were probably in Tragedy or Red Dons or Harum Scarum or something equally punkrock cool

trash talk

A little int with Sam Bosson from Trash Talk. Gavin from Dead Nation Records is putting on their Australian tour and it's about to start any day now...I don't want to alarm you, but if the idea of seeing Trash Talk aaaand Extortion isn't appealing, yr probs close to death. If you're not close to death, read on.

Well um actually if you're like me, you probably don't get excited about much in the realm of "hardcore", but if you do like stuff like Ceremony and Have Heart (I can see some record-store dude hand-writing it on the recommendation label on their CD now "if you like Ceremony and Have Heart, give Trash Talk a listen").

Oh yeah and all the up-to-date tour details are at the Dead Nation myspace: www.myspace.com/deadnationrecords, check it

also take a peek at: www.trashtalkhc.com

Only The Sad Songs: Who are the members of Trash Talk? For those people in Australia who haven't heard you yet, how would you describe your sound (you know, some useful buzzwords)?

Sam: Hey there. My name is Sam Bosson and I play drums, Garrett Stevenson plays guitar. Lee Spielman yells and Spencer Pollard plays bass and also yells. I guess I could describe Trash Talk as a hardcore punk band that has some powerviolence and grind influences. We just like to play really hard and really fast I guess. hah.


Only The Sad Songs: From what I can tell, Trash Talk seems to self-release a lot of records and be out on a pretty endless tour. Would you say that at this point, Trash Talk is "what you do"? I mean, I'm guessing there's not much room for day-jobs and other kinds of everyday things like apartments/houses?

Sam: You pretty much hit the nail on the head. We have all pretty much dropped our previous lives and made Trash Talk our life, but we wouldnt have it any other way. We feel like if we are going to do this, we have to do it 100%. Trash Talk is definately all we do. Some of us hold down side jobs when we are home for whatever amount of time, but none of us have "real" jobs. Trash Talk is our job.

Only The Sad Songs: So you guys are out on tour with The Bronx right now, yeah? What are some of the highlights of the tour so far? I'm also interested in what are the little things that are the "highlights" for you right now? Like, little daily routines that you have while you're on tour that give you some structure and keep you kinda sane?

Sam: There are a few things that have happened on this tour that I'm not sure I should be repeating here, but I will tell you that The Bronx are the best dudes and we are so siked to be spending this time with them. Especially since they kill it every night.

There are some things I personally like to do while I'm on the road.. like, I have gotten into the habit of obsessively washing my hands on this tour. I don't know why, I'm definitely not the world's cleanest guy but I've turned into a real germ freak on this tour.

I also like to make sure my Ipod is charged for whatever drive we are doing, listening to music allows me to just close my eyes and escape the van for a little bit. It's very important to have your personal space.

Only The Sad Songs: You're about to head to Australia on tour...Are you in the loop with many current bands from Australia and/or are you familiar with any Australian bands from the semi-recent hardcore/punkrock past?

Sam: Personally I am beyond stoked to be heading out with Extortion. That band is fucking amazing. Hopefully I run into some of my friends in Miles Away and Carpathian while I'm there!


Only The Sad Songs: Whether it is the individualised self-liberation approach with a focus on straight-edge, veganism and other personal choices.. Or whether it's just a general awareness of what's wrong with the world..hardcore is a pretty angry and "political" kind of music, usually for a good reason. In terms of the "political" side of hardcore, what personally have you taken the most influence from?

Sam: I guess punk music has for sure shaped my political view of the world. I am vegan and I identify with the politics of bands like Crass, Flux of Pink Indians, Infest and Napalm Death. So I guess its safe to say that punk has definitely shaped my view of the world and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Only The Sad Songs: Lastly can I get a Top 5 music list from you - it could be top 5 heartbreak songs, top 5 roadtrip songs, top 5 songs of today, top 5 classic hardcore songs, top 5 non-hardcore-related songs...totally up to you!

Sam: Here's five random songs that come up when I put my Itunes on shuffle:

1. The Lurker - Yaphet Kotto
2. Poison Corporations - Aus Rotten
3. Fool - Swans
4. Fight To Live - Blitz
5. Circus Man - Daniel Johnston

Thanks! See you soon. Sam


TRASH TALK AUSTRALIA/NEW ZEALAND TOUR 2009

April 27th - Nightlife, Gold Coast (All-ages)
W/Ghost Town, Die Go Die

April 30th - The Bald Faced Stag, Sydney (Lic.All-ages)
W/Extortion, A.V.O, Homewrecker

May 1st - Majura Community Centre, Canberra (All-ages)
W/Extortion, Slowburn, Eye Gouge & Silverback

May 2nd - The Arthouse, Melbourne (18+)
W/Extortion, Cut Sick, Ire & Rort

May 3rd - The Crib, Melbourne (All-ages)
W/Extortion, Iron Mind & Collapsed

May 5th - The Transmission Room, Auckland (Lic.All-ages)
W/Brick Vs. Face, Bad Medicine, Entrails, Buzzkill

May 7th - Enigma Bar, Adelaide (18+)
W/Craterface, Infection, Thrush

May 8th - Hyde Park Hotel, Perth (18+)
W/Extortion, Battletruk, Blkout, Suffer, No Shelter

May 9th - YMCA HQ, Perth (All-ages)
W/Extortion, Miles Away, Blkout, Bridge the Gap

(Tickets for all shows avaliable on the door)

WWCJD?

What Would CJ Do? That is the question I often ask myself...and here's a wee little interview with my favourite vegan punkrock dreamboat from 4ZZZ FM (Brisbane's community radio station) to find out. And of course to tell us about the CD compilation of punk bands he is helping to put together as a benefit for the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

Kylie: CJ could you tell us a little bit yourself and your involvement with 4ZZZ. Also can you give us a run-down on the Sea Shepherd punkrock benefit compilation CD you're involved with...how did this project come to be?

CJ: I have been involved at 4ZZZ for a while. I rule Saturdays (a show called "Kids With Class Kicking Ass") with my sister Danika and bro Chris Converse from 10am to midday and I'm currently serving a stretch of the late-night edition of the Punk Show with my other bro Chris Hunter.

To listen, you can stream it here: www.4zzzfm.org.au (click on the link at the top of the page that says "streaming radio")

As for the Sea Shepherd compilation... I was sort of asked to put one together and went hell for (fake)leather at it. It took around 2 weeks in total to put together, including originally getting a massive company to throw a lot of cash it!

Needless to say, that company were employed just to look after the "green interests" of other shitty companies... they represented businesses that owned sweatshops, palm oil factories and one company even implemented an illegal shark-fin fishing operation.

The artwork was put together by a dude from Melbourne named PHilsy/PHilfy/PH...


(the 2008 streetpress polls are in...yep CJ's radio show is officially the 2nd best radio show in the world, or at least in Australia..whatever, beat that posers! click on the image to read the poll results in non-microscopic format. taken from: Time Off magazine)

Kylie: While reading through the biographies of the crew on the Sea Shepherd, I was surprised and delighted to notice more than a few references to punk culture.

Again, while reading the website for the SHAC 7 (Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty) case, I noticed a lot of the defendants made references to the punk community and the straight-edge hardcore scene.

And in the case of Peter Young (imprisoned animal rights activist), a lot of punk/hardcore bands donated their songs to a benefit CD for the defence of his case.

And obviously, there's also PETA 2, which from my understanding, is basically an off-shoot of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals which targets an “emo/hardcore"(!) kinda audience.

In your opinion, does "punk" play a vital role as an inspiration for (young?) people to care about animal rights? Was it punk that led you on a path towards veganism?

CJ: I think so! I don't I would ever of even heard of veganism without Propagandhi or some band like that...I would imagine that punk bands would be responsible for more social concern than they would ever get credit for.

Amy Winehouse doesn't have vegan stalls in the smack pit for people check out before they rack lines up in the toilet...


(Wheat Paste Poets playing at the Sea Shepherd benefit show in the 4ZZZ carpark. photo: Chris Converse)

Kylie: It seems that the Sea Shepherd is pretty much *the* only organisation to be doing marine-based radical direct action on a large scale (as I guess Greenpeace are more of a mainstream organisation at this point) - and they've gotten a hell of a lot of media coverage and exposure in the last few years..

So how did you first become aware of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society?

CJ: I forget! I remember I applied to go on the ship when I was about 19 and couldn't go cause I couldn't get a U.S. visa! Maybe I found out through an old dood I knew who went on the ship and came back and told stories of sea-sickness, pipebombs and Paul Watson...


(Protest! playing at the Sea Shepherd benefit show in the 4ZZZ Radio Station carpark - April 2009. photo: Chris Converse)

Kylie: Okay now it's time to give me your top 5 lists:

Top 5 vegan punk bands (or songs)?
Top 5 vegan food places in Brisbane?
Top 5 “accidentally vegan” products?

CJ: Top 5 vegan punk bands (or songs)? Propagandhi, Bad Day Down, Protest!, Damn the Empire and Against Me! I guess (it is really late and at a pinch).

Top 5 vegan food places in Brisbane? Loving Hut, The Forest, Kuan Yin, My Heart Garden, Alibi Room pizza and Tian Ran(on the Gold Coast).

Top 5 “accidentally vegan” products? Vegemite, tabouleh, bananas, chocolate crackles, other vegan people!


(anonymous vegan dreamboat myspace photo haha. aka he'll probably kill me for using this)

Kylie: How can someone buy a copy of the CD?

CJ: If you would like to pre-order a CD, here's how: go to www.paypal.com.au and send money to brisbane@seashepherd.org. $13 + include $3 for postage.

As CJ mentioned, they need money to press the CD, because they were originally offered money from a company who turned out to be a shitty faux-eco company involved in all sorts of nasty stuff.

The 4ZZZ Punk Show recently held a benefit show in the radio station carpark (you can see the photos of Wheat Paste Poets and Protest! playing at it above) to help raise funds.

You can pre-order a copy via Paypal, and you will soon find the CD in all the lovely usual-suspect places

(Rockinghorse Records & Kill The Music in Brisbane, Missing Link Records & Poison City Records in Melbourne, Resist Records & Paint It Black in Sydney, and of course directly via the Sea Shepherd website etc).

Oh BTW the CD includes tracks from: Mutiny, Damn The Empire, Wheat Paste Poets, Lungs, Dick Nasty, Ringpull, Protest!, A Death In the Family, Army of Champions, Yidcore, Kill Whitey, Bad Day Down, Dead Like Geneva, Roshambo, Tyre Swans, The Black Market, Daysworth Fighting, The Gifthorse, and One Shot Salute.

Keep yr eyes peeled on the Sea Shepherd website for updates and details:

http://www.seashepherd.org/

you look like you've been losing sleep (said a stranger on a train)

Living in a new city is magical and wonderful for the most part, but it also means attending a lot more shows on my own, which is a not so magical experience, but it kinda rules in a strange way. I really don't have that many friends who like the exact same sub-genres of punk and indie music as me, and being as obsessed with music as I am, I can't bear to miss shows just cos I have to attend by myself. It's not even that I have to attend myself, it's that when I'm there, I'll literally not even run into anyone I vaguely know, like I would in Brisbane

So I go alone, but the last few shows I've attended solo/alone/"just the one" style in Melbourne have made me realise that attending shows in such a way is, for the most part, pretty "unfun"(always like to make a Jawbreaker reference where I can). Like, when you're literally JUST there for the music, it's musically good and amazing, but socially, it's completely unfun and there's no-one to share your observations and excitement with. But it is also pretty "character-building" and kinda nothing beats the feeling of having to stand alone like a dork and pretend to text someone between bands. Etcetera.

But I did go to see Dave Roche...and I *even* had a friend to go with haha. There were actually 3 different Dave Roche zinester spoken-word events in Melbourne and I had determined my preference for which particular event I would attend based on how delicious the vegan food selection sounded. Not just a pretty face, I know. There was Dave Roche + Food Not Bombs at Loophole, Dave Roche + vegan pizza at some warehouse, and Dave Roche + vegan muffins at the Sticky zineshop in the Flinders Street Station subway.

Dave Roche + vegan pizza was my first choice, but due to being supercrazy over-worked
(back in the hazy "working 7 days/nights a week on the internal union campaign of late February/early March 09" days. yes I am a walking Bruce Springsteen song), I actually could only attend the Loophole reading.

But it was good cos Fiyona and I went together and she lent me a bike from her house stash (my first bikeride since being in Melbourne, being new-in-town and bikeless and all) and we rode to Loophole which I think is in Thornbury, but most of the time I don't have a clue where I am unless it's Brunswick or Fitzroy haha

We arrived a little late (late enough to miss the "opening act", what a bunch of jerks. and what a typical "reviewer" cliche: "apologies to the first band" etc!! and it was Luke who does the letter to "You" zines and I've never seen him read before, and obviously I still haven't, sucks to be me).

We were talking about how we always fear walking in late to any kind of "performance", in case the room is set up so that you actually need to walk in BEHIND the performer with the entire audience being able to witness yr entrance. Luckily, the Dave Roche event was NOT set up that way and we could just sneak into the back and all we had to do was try to keep Fiyona's hound quiet for the duration of the reading.

Dave Roche....well if you're not familiar with him, I guess you could say that he just reads straight out of his zines in a kind of unassuming down-to-earth way and he talks about working as a special education teacher and he also talks a lot about having Crohn's disease, and there's a liberal dash of general punkrockness thrown into the mix.

As you can imagine talking about Crohn's disease necessitated a certain amount of regaling us with tales of shit/piss/vomit, thus somewhat disrupting the earnest bikes/crushes/coffee zinester cliche. Which is of course a very welcome disruption, and a pretty hilarious one too...I found myself laughing like a crazy person for most of the time.

So I had a great time, but oh we totally missed the food, so made a mish to get Indian food + all the fixings for what is known as the "pmt special" in some circles (an elaborate ice-cream/chocolate/cherry combination used to boost spirits when days are dark and/or to be administered when otherwise required), so all was not lost. We also bitched generally about the hierarchy of zinesters (and this is NOT about Dave Roche btw!!), where if yr from America and make a zine about bikes/crushes/coffee and/or any kind of specialised niche topic, you'll probably soon leave the cut-and-pasted photocopied format behind and get a book published through Microcosm etc.

Though I did marvel that in my opinion, only an American zinester would even contemplate doing a spokenword/zine tour in another country. Does that sound bitter, cos it's not supposed to. Like it's just that I would never even dream of, or even consider, going to some other country/hemisphere and think I could also turn it into some kind of zine tour. And I'm guessing that most other zinesters I know (here in Australia) wouldn't think so either.

Though I guess if you want to visit another town/country/etc anyway, you may as well make it a tour of sorts, it's actually a really nice idea, and there SHOULD be more zine events in my humble opinion. Maybe I'm just jealous cos I'll probably never get to go on a zine tour in another country or have a zinebook on Microcosm:)

apart from that, I've been working at a union and teaching English (yes I have effectively replicated my Brisbane life), and walking my dog on all these blueskied sunshiney autumn days, marvelling at all the rosegardens in my neighbourhood, listening to my Ipod and singing out loud as I wander the streets. one of my new favourite things to do in Melbourne?

and what else? well, today I've been listening to "All Aboard: A Tribute to Johnny Cash" that has Chuck Ragan ("Wreck of the Old 97"), the Gaslight Anthem, Ben Nichols (Lucero!Lucero!Lucero!), you know everyone "good" on it. I'm not shitting you, EVERYONE good is on here, in my subjective opinion that is. actually there's also some really terrible bands, but you can just ignore those ones, cos the good stuff is REALLY good.

also listening to: the Ergs!, Loved Ones, Arcade Fire, Swervedriver, the Dicks, At The Drive In (I forgot! "Pattern Against User" great great song), Sinking Ships, A Hawk and a Hacksaw, Broccoli, Year of No Light, Malcolm Middleton (thanks to Kara for getting me onto him), Shook Ones, Samiam "Regret" (oh so dreamy and almost shoegaze-ish, really)

I also have a feeling I'm gonna be spending all my spare time here: http://goodnoisycore.blogspot.com/

Or watching Freaks and Geeks on youtube

ps. the zine is still in progress, but I'm hoping I'll finish it soon (moving cities really did slow things down), and oh no I'm using that favourite zinester cliche of giving false timelines for the finished product!!!!

the best thing that happened today

i love the idea of recording the best thing that happened to you each day so i'm totally stealing this idea from (you guessed it) "the best thing that happened today" blog.

my favourite music-related moment of today was that I got a tram to my job at the union while listening to Millencolin. put me in the best mood.

and on my way home I listened to "Hate and Jealousy" by Lucero on repeat. beat that!

and despite my good intentions, I didn't go to see Monarch play tonight, maybe on the weekend....doomy sludgey blackmetal from France, according to semi-reliable sources

38 year old men dressed like 14 year olds

they played it, they played it, oh my god they played it! they played "Bringer Of Greater Things", so now I can die happy, or at least I can say I fell asleep happy last night.

the foolish crowd antics were still an hilarious romp, but the Melbourne version had a slightly different feel to the Brisbane version. How shall I put it? Let's see if this captures it just a little: "crowd heckling duties taken care of by vaguely-libertarian drunkenly-moronic shirtless pop-punk yobbos".

exhibit A: people hooting and hollering when the singer of Propagandhi (well I think it was the singer) mentioned it was Charles Darwin's birthday soon

exhibit B: old-mate beside me yelling out "marijuana is awesome!" when a Prop member member regaled the audience with a pot-related ancedote

but some things never change, despite standing to the side of the stage, I still got caught in a mosh (ha), got beer poured over me and got punched hard in the stomach by someone trying to start a circle pit. and I still thought it was an awesome show!

Punkrock Record Stores part ii: Poison City Records

Can you tell I'm no longer procrastinating about packing up my worldly possessions in preparation for moving to Melbourne? Now that I'm actually here (or there, depending on how you look at it), I'm procrastinating about all manner of practical things. I could go look for a bed and some furniture, but instead I go looking for vegan breakfast delights, go see Values Here at Next and spend some QT with my laptop haha.

Only 2 more sleeps til Propagandhi! I saw them in Brisbane and I get to see them again on Sunday! seriously, SUCH a good band, apart from the fact that they are quite the munter-magnet. As my friend Alex put it in a text message from the Sydney show "Sydney show is approximately 60% sports munters. Etiquette seems to be if you like the band, throw your beercan. And if you don't, throw two."

Yep pretty much sums it up better than I could put it. But that said, I had SUCH a great time watching them in Brisbane, surrounded by my good pals watching Prop totally kill it, and having an hilarious time watching foolish crowd antics.

I am praying and hoping and crossing my fingers (whatever it takes) that they play "Bringer of Greater Things" from Potemkin City Limits on Sunday night. In a way, I hope they play "Ska Sucks" just cos it would be so hilarious.

So now I bring you Part II from the little series we did on the 4ZZZ Punk Show featuring interviews with people who run punkrock record stores in Australia. The first interview was with Graham who runs Resist Records in Sydney. This one is with Andy who runs Poison City Records in Melbourne.

So like c+p this link into yr browser and then put it in yr ipod and listen to it on yr headphones when yr stuck on a bus/train/tram sometime. Listen carefully, you may even hear your favourite A Death In The Family song

http://onlythesadsongs.podbean.com/2009/02/20/interview-with-andy-from-poison-city-records-melbourne/

um like totally / go to hell 2008

3 days in a row? Heck yes! So I was thinking that I should, like totally, post the playlist from our radioshow from 30 December. The reason being of course that it was the night that we did our Top 5's of 2008.

We usually invite *the punks* into the studio to be guest presenters for our Top 5 segment, so on this particular show, it was our turn to present our top 5 shows/bands/records/songs/punkrock happenings of this year.

[naturally, no-one ever sticks to 5 though, all the cool people sneak in all manner of "honourable mentions" and sub-sub-lists. as did we, like the good punkrock geeks that we are]

"This week's 4ZZZ Punk Show was the last show for 2008, so we (Christian Danger, CJ, Kylie) thought it would be the perfect time to bring you our ultimate 2008 Top 5 lists:

First we played:

BLACK FLAG: My War
HYMIES: Corpse Grinder
INSURGENTS: Firing Squad
JFA: Skateboard
JAWBREAKER: Do You Still Hate Me? (tonight there was a breakthrough with Jawbreaker appreciation...Christian Danger is FINALLY learning to love this Jawbreaker song for more than just its lyrics, ha)
JAWS: Elitist Uptight Asshole

CJ's TOP 5 of 2008:

1. DAMN THE EMPIRE: Riot, Reset, Riot
2. THE HERD: Toorali
3. STREET DOGS: Into the Valley
4. TIM BARRY: Trash Inspiration
5. ME FIRST AND THE GIMME GIMMES: Only The Good Die Young
6. BLACK MARKET: All is Gold

KYLIE's TOP 5 of 2008 + HONOURABLE MENTIONS!!

My top 5 was in no particular hierarchical order, but it was pretty fitting that first up was the Gaslight Anthem, a much-loved/much-played band on the Punk Show and by me in general

GASLIGHT ANTHEM: Wooderson

(from Sink or Swim, not technically released in 2008 but that's when I discovered them, plus live at Rosies in July...best show of the year for reals, also I've JUST started listening to their newer release 'the 59 Sounds', which also rules)

THE SPITZ: Tell Me Something True

(the Spitz are, or should I say WERE, a Sydney band who are by no means from 2008, but they did play a reunion show at Maggotville in Sydney in January with The Thaw, Fear Like Us & Defiance Ohio...such an amazing show, and such a special, beautiful beyond-punk band)

THE DIAMOND SEA: Restless

(from the 'Slow Signal' ep, and live at LIVE AND LET DIY FEST in February, and house-show at the Petrie Terrace house in August)

THE GIFTHORSE: Cold Turkey Isn't as Delicious as it Sounds

(again, not technically from 2008 cos it's from a CD marked 'Demo 07', but I only got it in January so it's in MY 2008 list)...although they have since put out an actual album, I love this song a whole lot)

BRIDGE AND TUNNEL: Call to the Comptroller's Office

(soundtrack to my posi days of spring/summer 2008)

Kylie's honourable mentions (who could easily be snuck into the top 5 list):

FEAR LIKE US (live at the Brisbane show on the Defiance Ohio tour - ahem that I put on, but who cares, it ruled! and the CD, of course)

A DEATH IN THE FAMILY (Brisbane shows and all recorded stuff)

CEREMONY (live at the Princess Theatre in Brisbane and Byron Bay High School in...Byron Bay!...it's not that often I get stoked on 'hardcore')

WALRORA at Live and Let DIY Fest

and 'Mother' by DANZIG (reminds me of sweet times driving at night to the radio station with my Punk Show co-hosts/pals singing along like dorks)

LIKE...ALASKA show at Fat Louies the other week (and getting drunk with Dale afterwards!!)

DEXTER Series 1 and 2 ha!

then we snuck in a little top 3 'the 4ZZZ PUNK SHOW COLLECTIVE TOP 3 SONGS FOR DRIVING TO THE RADIO STATION AND SINGING ALONG LIKE DORKS'.

these are dedicated to Bridget:

DANZIG: Mother
A DEATH IN THE FAMILY: My Pal (God cover)
ONE INCH PUNCH: Down Syndrome

CHRISTIAN DANGER'S TOP 5 and HONOURABLE MENTIONS LIST of 2008:

CEREMONY: Dead Moon California (Midnight in Solitude) / The Difference Between Looking and Seeing

(Amazing show and amazing album 'Still Nothing Moves You'. Saw them in Brisbane and it inspired us to drive to Byron to see them again a few days later.)

THE GASLIGHT ANTHEM: Meet Me By the River's Edge

(Awesome feel-good show at Rosie's and great album, 'The '59 Sound'. Awesome songs about girls and driving around listening to the radio and smoking cigarettes, etc. i.e. LIFE.)

EXTORTION: Medication

(...from the concept album, 'SICK', which rules and so did their INTENSE show upstairs at Rosie's earlier this year.)

JAY REATARD: See/Saw

(This is from the 'Matador '08 Singles' compilation LP that came out this year, although it was the 'Blood Visions' album and the show at Rosie's that blew me away. It was one of those shows that had me grinning like a fool from start to finish.)

THE GIFTHORSE: Passed The Break

(a total killer of a song from this Brisbane band's debut and self-titled album. The launch was also one of the best shows I saw this year (and ever).)

Christian Danger's Honourable mentions for 2008...

A DEATH IN THE FAMILY

(shows and releases, especially that they covered My Pal by GOD)

LIVE AND LET D.I.Y. FEST

(awesome weekend of bands and workshops, and something that brought people from all over Australia in the name of DIY and punk rock)

JET SET READY

(as a band and as dudes)

FEAR LIKE US

(so punk rock, even with acoustic guitars!)

LIKE...ALASKA

(awesome show at Fat Louie's about a month ago)

...and a dishonorable mention to SPITFIRE LIAR, for being a disgrace... ha ha!

(Mouldy phoned up and said that although he couldn't configure his Jack Daniel's addled brain cells to form a top 5, the Bronx show was definitely a highlight of 2008)

Word on the streets is that The Bronx and Gorilla Biscuits rate a mention as awesome shows in 2008 as well!

PERTH TOP 2 NEW BANDS OF 2008
(thanks to Ben of Perth band Project Mayhem for sending this to Chris)

THE CRAW: Kings Park After Dark
BATTLETRUK: 6am

That was it for 2008! Thanks for listening!
over and out,
love,
The 4ZZZ Punk Show
xx

Punkrock Record Stores Part i: Resist Records

Wow, 2 updates in less than 24 hours. Can you tell I'm procrastinating about packing up my worldly possessions in preparation for moving to Melbourne? Lots of big questions to consider: should I take the owl salt-and-pepper shakers? My collection of vintage guardian angel wall pictures? My records even though I don't own a record player? oh my!

So well, luckily I am now distracted from such dilemmas by having podcasts to upload.

On the Punk Show on 4ZZZ FM, we did a little series featuring interviews with people who run punkrock record stores in Australia. The first interview was with Graham who runs Resist Records in Sydney.

Question: What do you get if you cross Resist Records with Mission of Burma ("What We Really Were")?

Answer: This podcast!

http://onlythesadsongs.podbean.com/2009/02/07/interview-with-graham-nixon-from-resist-records-sydney

hmmmm blogger isn't being very kind to me with posting that link, fix it later!

alone in a crowd

I just dug up something from my personal punkrock archives that I'd totally forgotten even existed!!!

But first! Let me explain a little. So, I'm moving to Melbourne in approximately one week (last minute regrets ahoy) and I'm living at my parents house while I'm in that "in-between" stage. Hilariously, my mum ordered me out into the garage to *finally* sort through some boxes of stuff I've had stored there for at least a few years now.

But it was ultimately a good thing, cos I found a transcript of an interview I did with Tibor from Kafe Kult in Munich, Germany. holy shit!! oh yeah, in case you've never heard of it, Kafe Kult is a really cool independent music venue, run by the coolest kids in Bavaria.

Sometime in early 2004, I was in Europe with a dictaphone and a half-baked (haha) idea to do a series of interviews with people about how they overcome social awkwardness at punkrock shows.

I was travelling with some of my best pals during the summer, but then suddenly all my fellow wanderers went in different directions, and I found myself alone and very much not liking it.

Well, kinda liking it in the "ultimate character-building" sense, but definitely not liking it in the immediate sense and especially in terms of how UNFUN shows in strange cities had suddenly become.

My idea was to do a bunch of interviews with people about how they deal with being alone in a crowd, or how they get/got past feelings of social ineptitude in punkrock settings.

Then I would collate all the interviews in a zine and leave them at show venues, so that other socially-awkward people sitting in the corner on their own between bands could read it and feel less alone. Or something like that.

Cos at least in my case, whenever I've been travelling and find myself alone at show, I always end up reading every single flyer/poster/zine/etc in the venue to pass the time between bands!!!!!

I only ever did one interview and it was with Tibor. Well it's not so much an interview as a "chat" really...I'm pretty sure we were hanging out in the Kafe Kult "office" late at night, after a Tragedy show, and I hit the "record" button.

If you've ever been in a DIY/punkrock band that's toured Europe, then you've pretty certainly met Tibor on the Munich stop of your tour. Here's a photo of him spazzing in his old band Schickeria Dropouts at a houseshow in Glasgow in 2004 (the night before the Tragedy club show).

PS. I don't know if Tibor is still involved in Kafe Kult, I haven't been in touch with him probably since that show in Glasgow, so Tibor, if you're reading this, hope it's still okay to use the interview after all this time!!xx



Kylie: Hey, what’s your name and what do you do?

Tibor: My name’s Tibor Kantor, I’m 26 years old. I’m setting up shows at Kafe Kult, singing in a band called Schickeria Dropouts, I have a small distro with no name yet. I’m planning to release my first zine maybe at the end of the year. And I smoke way too much weed..

Kylie: Oh yeah I heard something about you breaking the edge after one year…

Tibor: I just stopped drinking alcohol for one year and I’ve wanted to take a pause, to get rid of it for one year and I’ve wanted to see if I can make it. I made it pretty easily at the end, so I’m more confident about drinking again right now.

Kylie: This is something I’m really interested in asking you about…like, a lot of times when you first start going to shows, or when you travel to new cities and go to shows where you don’t know anybody there, you’re like basically standing in the corner like a dork.

My question is a pretty simple one: what do you DO when you go to a show on your own, when you don’t know anybody there?

In your case, even if you went to a show on your own in Munich, you would basically know everyone there, because you’ve been involved in the scene here for a long time. But say you went to a show in another town, what would you do then?

Tibor: So, speaking of hardcore shows or punk shows?

Kylie: Yeah

Tibor: Probably the easiest approach is to talk about bands and stuff like that, maybe talking about patches or shirts that other people are wearing. I try to approach people who are selling zines, not just like a merchandise stall, but single persons who are just selling one zine, their own zine. I try to approach these people because I think, as they creating some form of expression, they are more likely to communicate with me.

Because if this person is doing a zine, I suppose that this person will communicate with other people. But that doesn’t happen at every show, so I also just ask people stupid questions about bands or so, or maybe ask if anyone knows some cool places around town, stuff like that. And you see pretty quick if the person is interested in communicating or not.

Kylie: And if they just give you a basic answer, well that’s cool, and you just know that you’re not really gonna connect any further with them. But if there’s more, well that’s cool too, there is the possiblility to have a bigger connection.

So, did you ever go to shows in Munich, maybe before you knew many people, where you felt awkward or alienated or socially inept or kinda like sitting in the corner reading a zine and smoking too many cigarettes?

Tibor: (laughing)…Yeah there was a time…I don’t know, I’m doing shows now for 6 or 7 years, so it’s hard to remember the time when I didn’t know anybody. But there was a lot of shows before that time, where I tried to connect with people maybe from the club itself. And then I tried to reach other people when I saw they were regularly going to the same shows as me. So it was just a question of time until I started to ask “hey, how’s your night?”

Kylie: Staring to recognise people and seem them round and make some kinda connection…

Tibor: Yeah, in the beginning I felt too “young” to approach some people or so, but after several times, you see that the same people are basically always at the same shows. So why not just ask them about their name and what they do. And then finally my special experience now of doing shows at Kafe Kult where you know everybody!

Kylie: Yeah I guess now you’re at this stage where you’re pretty involved with shows in Munich, and the whole scene around Kafe Kult, that maybe the situation can be “the other way round” now.

As in, I’m guessing that sometimes you would see people that are maybe 15 or 16 and you recognise that they are really awkward and make an effort to at least say hi and make them feel welcome at Kafe Kult. Like, in a way, I guess you have a special responsibility to do that…

Tibor: Yeah totally. I totally try to approach those people and ask…it’s always kinda stupid questions at first like “How did you find out about the show?” or “How did you get here?”, stuff like that. And today, 3 people like that are here at this show. 3 really young kinds from the suburbs who are around 16. They were really shy at their first two shows or so, and then we approached them and it came out that because they are from the suburbs, they can’t stay til the end of the shows…

Kylie: oh right, because they can’t get the last bus or whatever?

Tibor: Yeah, so we arranged that they can sleep here and go back home the next day. So ever since, they come to shows and sleep here. It’s something that I still try to care about, to not keep people alienated.

Kylie: So like these kids that you helped out with a place to stay, were they quite new to punk and quite amazed that someone offered them a place to stay…you know, that would never happen to you at a bigger rock show, right?

Tibor: Well the kinda amazing thing was they were already here at shows with “Doom” patches all over their clothes, so they were totally into “it”, but they probably just knew it from some zines and from some local bands at their local youth centres maybe. So now they’ve reached the age where they can go to shows by themselves and well we feel it’s kinda like a duty for us…

Kylie: yeah totally

Tibor: Because we have the space to do what we wanna do, or to set up something that we want to do, and we want to show others what is possible. It’s not like it’s our space, it’s everybody’s space, we just try to “watch over it” to make sure new kids know it’s their space as much as ours.

So if we can sleep here, why can’t they sleep here? As long as they don’t break anything. This sort of situation is a special thing because it’s really something that comes from the DIY punk culture.

At Kafe Kult there is not only DIY punk shows, there’s also like more “poppy” shows, where the audience has almost nothing to do with DIY. But even then, we try to approach people and try to show them we’re just a bunch of kids like them, who happen to help run a concert venue..

Kylie: like showing by example, that anyone can put on a show, that anyone can make things happen in the DIY punk scene, that you don’t have to be extra-special or magical or a “professional” or an “entrepreneur” or anything gross like that…

Tibor: it’s like if you want to talk to the bands, go talk to the bands, they’re just normal people. A lot of people, especially in Munich, because it’s such a coke-sniffing yuppie city, are totally unfamiliar with this kind of “privacy”, ie. the band is hanging out with the audience at the bar and so on.

Kylie: Right, exactly, people aren’t familiar with the bands being normal people..

Tibor: A lot of people feel alienated and think that the bands are a total clique that they cannot belong to. We try to show those people, it’s not like we are some kind of cigar club and you’re not allowed to come in here. It’s like, we can make a really big cigar club if you want, just join us, or start your own cigar club or whatever.

[and I pressed "stop" right after that. here's a photo of Kafe Kult to warm your heart. also *some* people say that on the super-sanitised streets of Munich, this is probably the only graffiti you'll see in that town, so this picture is doubly-awesome]