Rock

When Barack Obama met the Australian Cabinet on Thursday morning, Julia Gillard introduced Peter Garrett as “a former rock star”.

The president, who had obviously never heard of Midnight Oil or its bald front man, broke into a big grin.

“Most of us end up in politics because we fail to become rock stars,” he said

Continue reading "When Barack ‘Rockstar’ Obama came to town" »

Disappointed by 80s rockers charging you a fortune to go through the motions on their greatest hits in echoing stadiums? I certainly was at Motley Crue’s awful affair at the Entertainment Centre recently.

But have you been itching for a real concert of ear-blasting power with real stagecraft and non-stop drama?

Who else are you going to call - but a clean-living, happily-married Christian in his sixties who plays golf six days a week, and owns a sports bar and grill with award winning Guy Chipotle Chicken Pasta?

Continue reading "Age is no excuse for making bad music" »

So Slash is playing one of the hits – it might have been Rocket Queen, the anthemic final track from Appetite for Destruction. The crowd up the front has the devil horns going. We’re a couple of dozen rows back, just standing around. I get a tap on the shoulder.

“Excuse me,” says a guy who looks like he’s just come the trading floor, “but I can’t see a thing.” Pfft. Where are we? The Louvre?

But it’s to be expected of fans at modern rock concerts, attended as they are by middle-class tossers pretending they’re still as rebellious as when they first listened to an album by the ageing millionaire and recovering drug addict with the guitar on stage. I know this because I am one of those middle-class tossers.

Continue reading "Rock gigs are no place for middle-class tossers like me" »

He hasn’t exactly reached for his pipe and slippers but some of the background to Saul “Slash” Hudson’s first solo album is decidedly befitting a man in his mid-40s. The stories behind the collaborations with a laundry list of rock ‘n’ roll legends aren’t littered with trashed penthouse suites, but as another ageing genre pioneer - Billy Joel - might say, it’s still rock and roll to me.

According to Music Radar Slash had sent a tape to Iggy Pop, hoping he would sing on it. Iggy rang Slash and, when he got the answering machine, proceeded to leave a message of him singing the track down the phone with the tape playing on the stereo in the background. “We’re all gonna die,” rings the chorus, “So let’s get high.” Old school, right?

Until you get to the next line. “We’re all gonna die, so let’s be nice.” All together: Naawww. (Note: not all the lyrics are this mainstream. Parental advisory applies, as in do not play in front of parents, especially the mother-in-law.)

Continue reading "Slash the album: a guitar hero’s return to form" »

Let’s call this a pre-emptive strike, or in the least a kind of Kanye West moment: “Yo Penbo, I’m gonna let you finish but your list is unsatisfactory”. Having not contributed to The Punch’s best albums of the decade I’m going to beat you dear readers to the first critique of the list.

Needless to say the 30 album list chosen by Punch editor David Penberthy, resident critic Dennis Atkins and contributor Alison Piotrowski is full of great and deserved music.

Atkins’ list is limited only to the best albums of 2009.

Thankfully there’s not a lot of cross-over, although both The Strokes and M.I.A get on two lists so maybe they have to be considered artists of the decade.

But as always is the case with these lists it’s the omissions that we seem to look out for more than the choices themselves.

Hip hop’s pretty underrepresented in Penbo and Alison’s decade lists, (no Eminem or Kanye) and whether you like them or not Radiohead probably deserved to make it somewhere - if only for the devout following they’ve inspired amongst so many.

The best indy rock album of the decade (in my opinion) was left off the list entirely: The New Pornographers Electric Version . No Elliot Smith either for you introspective types. 

But probably the best band of the second half of the decade was also left off completely: The Killers. Specifically their second album Sam’s Town which could’ve taken out the title but in the least deserved a mention. I was heartened to learn that the readers of Rolling Stone also thought Sam’s Town ripped-off in the magazine’s list of the decade.

Without further complaining (by me anyway) we give you The Punch’s best albums of the decade.

Continue reading "The best albums of 09 and the decade" »

Hit the play button. Enjoy.