Descent Into The Maelstrom by Radio Birdman
Earl O'Neill Beverly Hills 2209, 1982I had a direct line into the rare chances that rock and roll might gift me. Radio Birdman to The Clovers, Kinks, MC5, to the best friends I’ve ever known.
Tin Soldier by The Small Faces
Brutas Mudcake Hume Highway, Victoria, Easter 1989Is there a better place to listen to old music than outside in the dark with a fire going, beer in hand, a cassette tape blaring out of a car stereo?
Goin’ Down by Joe Perry. Story by Dawn Corrigan
Dawn Corrigan Salt Lake City, Utah, October 22, 2003Kelly’s job was playing hostess to those Aerosmith fans who paid $600 for The Velvet Rope Experience. “You know how some people have always wanted to go to Paris? This is their Paris.”
Down Down by Status Quo. A Black Saturday story by Stephen Andrew.
Stephen Andrew St Andrews, Victoria, March 2009Windows open, I ramp up the volume and feel an intensity in the band’s playing that suddenly seems new to me. This opening of my senses is one of the unexpected gifts of the bushfires.
ALIVE BY PEARL JAM Story by Jeff Dowsing
Jeff Dowsing Fairfield and other Melbourne locations, 1998The meaning of the song was lost on me until that moment, when it belted me in the face before the chorus punched me in the guts.
Solid Rock by Goanna. Story by Vin M
Vin Maskell Eureka Hotel, Geelong. Late 1981Can a fan be a journalist? Can a journalist be a fan? I found out I was just a groupie, with a notepad and a pen.
All My Friends by LCD Soundsystem
Brutas Mudcake Pounding the pavement, northern suburbs, Melbourne 2009The hypnotic opening quickly sucks you in like the hypnotic left, right, left, right of runners hitting the footpath. And sometimes it’s only on a long run that you can make sense of life’s many conundrums.
This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody) by Talking Heads. Story by Chris Johnston
Chris Johnston Christchurch , New Zealand, 1983Last weekend, my older brother handed me a letter I had written to him in 1983 when I was 17. It was strange and lonely to read it; handwritten, large lettering, blue biro, a schoolboy.
Houndog by Cold Chisel (Stereo Stories Live at Newport) Story by Stephen Andrew
Stephen Andrew Somewhere along the Hume Highway, summer of 1982I catch myself staring too long at the sunlight on her hair, or laughing too loud at one of her jokes, and feel the sharp pierce of an unbridgeable distance.
Dancing On The Jetty by INXS. Story by Brutus Mudake.
Brutas Mudcake Rye foreshore, summer of 1988/89Seven years old, and I’d entered the orbit of popular culture and had an entrée to what was as the epitome of cool, teenager-dom.