As a teenage boy in a dark suburban room, I was a long way from the turnpikes of New Jersey. I didn't have a job, a car or a girl, just an Apollo 10-speed bicycle and a dungeon I called my own. What on earth was I connecting with here?
Nathan Johnson Edinburgh, Scotland; September 1997 Chumbawamba was in my face. Far from being a pop band that sang only about pissing the night away, they were, above all else, anarchists with a deep suspicion of government, politicians, the Church, landlords, bosses, union leaders and other forms and figures of authority. While I didn’t share all of their extreme views, their music and lyrics awakened something inside of me.
A medley of romantic stories to mark Valentine's Day: The Eels, Vince Jones, Bon Iver, The Church, The Beatles.
Jesse Maskell Montana, June 2015 A race across the country skipping everything I want to see, farmland from a car window always hungry to go into them, down those roads, further in, fleetingly small towns not even, I'm strapped in with Chris a rideshare stranger on this wild ride...
Vin Maskell Wellington St, St Kilda, 1982 Five songs in and I was wrung out. No light, no shade on this album. Black rivers. Serial killers.
Vin Maskell Moggs Creek, Australia, 1983 to 2013 A three-part Stereo Story about family, a beach house, and its records. Part 1: from Glen Miller's Chattanooga Choo Choo to Roxy Music's Love Is The Drug.
21 Swan Crescent, Pakuranga 1974 Under all the fairy floss, trouble is lurking. There are wrong turns, regrets, situations that are easier to run from than face. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road is about escape and it wasn’t lost on me that the first place I heard it was my favourite place to escape to
Chris Mangan Maternity ward, Melbourne 1964 It would be hard not to think of The Beatles upon hearing the perfect chord that introduces the song A Hard Day’s Night, the perfect chord to symbolise a worldwide phenomenon, and the perfect fanfare for a newborn life in Melbourne 1964.
Anson Cameron Basement Discs, Melbourne, 2012 Rare times, a hole opens in a life and a song appears from nowhere to fill it, explain it, exploit it… a fluky medicine - the voice you needed to hear at the moment you needed to hear it. Sometimes you blunder onto a song that fits the need.
Carl Dickens Footscray, Melbourne, 2015 Annika sulked in her room; she figured someone had run Wolfgang over in the street and just chucked him in a bin. She blared Elvis Presley songs from her stereo and told of how she and Wolfgang used to sit outside together and listen to The King.