Tomorrow it starts, I suppose

[Tim and Jean]

It was my last day of work today. It may be lame to admit, but I keen (almost anxious) to launder my uniform, just so I can officially ziplock it away for the next year.

I fly out on May 28th and won't be putting my nose back to grindstone until March 2012. That is if I find a job.

But I will be keeping busy with my freelance writing. In fact I'll be reviewing these native Perth boys tomorrow night and I'm pretty damn excited as I feel like dancing. I do, I do.

The Grates are great

The Grates are back!! I am positively tickled pink, as it’s been two years since their last release; finally they have a brand-spanking-new album coming out.

Though they are minus their adorable drummer (who has enrolled in a culinary school in NYC), their first single oozes with a sound synonymous with The Grates [Translation: Solid high hats, loose guitar and sweaty, manic, animalistic good times].

[Cake for goodness sake]

They haven't released any of the music online, but they are keeping a delightfully zany blog - Hate Creep.

Now I'm going to sink into their back catalogue and relive some memories of their live shows, cue montage of thrones, animal costumes, hula hoops, rhythmic gymnastics.

Maths run

This blog is a document to how much I adore music, with strong inclinations towards indie music. I also love running. I love doing it, reading about it, plotting routes, highlighting training plans, talking about it, listening to other people talk about it, day dreaming about it, buying running apparel.

Yup, I’m in deep.

[image via: Tuesdayaffairs]

I wasn’t too shabby at maths at school, but I’ve certainly lost what the limited skills I had. However this is a simple equation features on indie running soup:

Indie music + Running = Happiness

Square the resultant and times by 86, then you come to close to describing how music and running make me feel.

Thanks to Indie running soup I'm positively besides myself for my run tomorrow. I've picked the 2010 year in the review mix:

Philadelphia Grand Jury - "The Good News"


The Fast Romantics - "Moneymouth"


Hellogoodbye - "You Sleep Alone"


Fanfarlo - "Sand & Ice"


Sam Isaac - "Come Back Home Tonight"


The Budos Band - "Unbroken, Unshaven"


Rodrigo y Gabriela - "Buster Voodoo"


Robbers On High Street - "Electric Eye"


Hot Chip - "Thieves in the Night"


Scissor Sisters - "Sex and Violence"


Phantogram - "As Far As I Can See"


Oberhofer - "I Could Go"


Sleigh Bells - "Tell 'Em"


Hungry Kids of Hungary - "The Vacationer"

They also offer the delightfully entitled podcasts - rotten toenails, heart attack mix, junk run mix, intervals with the indies, shin splint mix. Bliss.

Slam!

It's the one year anniversary of SLAM day (Save Live Australian Music "a non-politically aligned, independent entity made up of musicians and music-lovers") a gathering of 22,000+ people on the streets of Melbourne to protest against changes to the Liquor Licensing Victoria (LLV) to curb street violence.

Of course alcohol fuelled violence is bad news but these changes to licensing had unintentionally negative repercussions on the local live music scene.

It would be another 8 months after the rally for the licensing to be changed to acknowledge that there is no link between live music and alcohol fuelled violence.

So what would any music loving group do to commemorate an anniversary? Throw a kick arse gig.

It's times like these I wish I had a jet pack, as Melbourne is the place to be tonight.

Trifectar dance off

For ten bucks you can see sit on the couch with a family sized block of chocolate and a tub of ice cream OR you can dance! dance! dance!

Yup I'm lacing up my dancing shoes and catching the tail end of the triple rainbow tour - it's going to be sweeter than that tub of neapolitan ice cream.