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!!!!