Gignami Watchlist - Sunday 5th May 2013

Gignami's 'catchiest tune of the week' is undoubtedly Daft Punk's Get Lucky, the first single of their much anticipated forthcoming album Random Access Memories. Just makes you want to move, and is described by random iTunes reviewer jjalsop as "so good that I went out and made positive life choices after hearing it". Should come with an overplay warning though, the likelihood that this track will reach saturation point is high.

In other news, Bon Jovi is set on proving he's a good bloke by announcing an Australian tour, with thousands of $35 tickets to be made available. He'll be appearing at Etihad Stadium on December the 7th, tickets go on sale at midday on Monday 20th May from ticketmaster, and are sure to be snapped up. Hours of Bon Jovi karaoke led by the great man himself for 35 bucks? Ummm, YES PLEASE MOTHERFUCKER.

Other gigs that are on the watch-list:

• Bob Evans (with Tigertown), Corner, Fri 17th May, $27.50
• Pez, Sat 18th May, Northcote Social Club, $20
• Birds of Tokyo (with Asta), Wed 22nd May, Hi Fi, $60
• Money For Rope, Fri 24th May, Northcote Social Club, $15
• Emma Louise, Corner, Tues 4th June, $20
• Owl Eyes, Corner, Sat 1st June, $25
• Gold Fields, Sat 13th July, $17.50
• Alt-J, Festival Hall, July 30 (couldn't find a price - could be sold out)

On the 'to check out list', English duo Rudimental have recently released their debut album Home. If the rest of the tracks are anything like Not Giving In then it should be a good one. The lads also have a knack for good music video's, the clip for Waiting All Night is based on a true story and definitely worth watching.

[Gig Review] - The Temper Trap

The Temper Trap, Festival Hall, Wed 24th Apr 2013.

After a multi year stint in London, the Temper Trap have finally returned to their home base for an Australian tour. The crowd was definitely pumped to welcome the boys back to their hometown, with the first song of the night (Love Lost) setting the scene for a great night. The playlist throughout was a good mix of songs from both Conditions and The Temper Trap, with the added bonus of one new unreleased song from the album that they have been working on thrown in. I didn't quite catch the name of it, but it sounded good. Stating the obvious here but the lead singers' (Dougy Mandagi) voice is amazing, extremely high range but powerful enough to still hold on to masculine undertones.
What made it for me, along with the tunes and the vibe of the crowd, were the visuals. The lights and coloured smoke created some pretty decent silhouettes, especially when he was banging his drums up the front of the stage for Drum Song. The girls were also quite taken with his dance moves - or should I say dance motioning - really giving meaning to the saying "It's all in the hips"... And despite its inherent sketchiness, Festival Hall is ok if you're on the floor, up the front with a decent view of the stage. 
They finished with Sweet Disposition, and forgive me for sounding like one of the fashion-retarded douche-bag coaches off The Voice, but it was a moment. The crowd went nuts, great way to end the night by having the Temper Trap and the entirety of the Festival Hall crowd belt it out together.

Photo Acknowledgement: Marnie

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[Gig Review] - Paul Kelly and Neil Finn

Paul Kelly and Neil Finn, Palais Theatre, Sat 16th Feb 2013.

The PCE (pre-concert excitement) levels were approaching maximum prior to this event. Ever since I saw footage of Crowded House's farewell gig at the Opera House in front of a hundred thousand people in '96, I've wanted to be involved in something as monumental. With the added (massive) bonus of Paul Kelly thrown into the mix, this was a chance to perhaps re-create a little of that excitement. Lisa Mitchell opened, and crunched out a solid performance. My personal favourite was her tune 'Walk With Me'. 
The main act didn't disappoint - Paul Kelly and Neil Finn are a lethal combination. Kelly's voice is just amazing, and the performances of his Australian-heartland-describing classics were bang on. Neil Finn was incredible as well - and from their on-stage banter you can tell the two of them are obviously very comfortable with each other, on a personal level, as well as musically. The only detractor was the stiffness of the crowd - even after being invited by Finn to sing along to 'Better Be Home Soon', most of the lame fucks pretty much sat there, which was a bit disappointing.
All the crowd favourites were belted out, including 'Fall At Your Feet', 'Don't Dream It's Over', 'Dumb Things', 'How to Make Gravy' and 'To Her Door'. Hard to choose from so many available, but my personal highlights were Finn performing Kelly's 'You Can Put Your Shoes Under My Bed' (with Kelly on the harp), Finn singing 'Private Universe' (having Kelly on backing vocals just took it to another dimension), and also just experiencing the character seeping through Kelly's vocals and soulful harmonica solo's. Sensational night (best night eeeva?), would be very keen to see them in a more relaxed atmosphere, where the keenest amongst the crowd can surge to the front and belt out the classics in full voice. Here's hoping they play at the Cox Plate this year. With Syme, Fi and Sarah.

What I Listened To In 2012

Recently voted for my fave tunes for the hottest 100. This is what I was listening to in 2012:

• Thundamentals - Brother {Like A Version}
• Ball Park Music - Coming Down
• Macklemore & Ryan Lewis - Same Love {ft. Mary Lambert}
• Chet Faker - I'm Into You
• Cub Scouts - Told You So
• Haim - Forever
• Gossling - Wild Love
• Of Monsters And Men - Mountain Sound
• New Gods - On Your Side
• Skrillex - Bangarang {ft. Sirah}

Article Of The Week: Money Can't Buy Happiness

http://www.webmd.com/balance/news/20060630/study-money-wont-make-you-happy

Book Review: Freedom [Jonathan Franzen]

Pretty intese book, mapping the politics and dysfunctions of a midwestern American family during the noughties. I found the writing style pretty heavy, although the book did hook me, as I found it hard to put down. Themes were quite interesting, in that Franzen examines in detail the relationships between a family unit, friendship and fidelity, using them to also explore American politics with a focus on environmental issues during the period from just before 9/11 to mid Iraqi war. I guess I would say it was a bit of sad story but gets points for depth and uniqueness. A quick google search seems to imply that this book has been heavily lauded, I give it three and a half out of five.

The Arm

Walking home, came up to the last intersection before my house and there were the blue police lights everywhere. They had cordoned off part off the street. Had to cross over to the other side to get to my house, and I looked across to see what was going on. Lying on the road with a black plastic cover draped over it was a shape - it remained a shape, until I noticed the arm poking out. Rough. Someone isn't going home tonight. Someone won't get a chance to be happy, ever, ever again. I think that's the first dead body I've ever seen. Unless I've been to funerals and seen open caskets, but don't think so.

Article on The Regrets Of The Dying

Pretty decent article, which outlines the key messages a palliative care nurse has gleamed from taking care of those about to die.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/01/top-five-regrets-of-the-dying

"Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity."

Today's quote of the day: "Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity."
- Horace Mann

Einstein's Views on Religion and Ethics

Continuing on the religious theme, came across an interesting write up on Wikipedia today, about Einstein's views on atheism and agnosticism. Old Alby labelled himself an agnostic, saying that "the problem involved is too vast for our limited minds". He firmly believed in ethics, saying "The most important human endeavour is the striving for morality in our actions...Only morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to life...A man's ethical behaviour should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary." Apparently he didn't rate atheists: "I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth". Interesting!
I've been thinking lately that atheism, as the opposite of belief in God, is an act of belief in and of itself, believing in the non-existence of God. In the same way that an atheist would reject christianity's certainty that God exists, how can the atheist be certain that God does not exist? So where does that leave me? As an agnostic - I guess.

Book Review: The Life Of Pi

Book: The Life of Pi, Yann Martin.
Rating: Average. Won the Booker Prize in 2002 but I can't see what the fuss is about.
Review (Spoiler Alert): So this is the story of a religiously included Indian kid that gets lost at sea. It has a pretty religious bent, which maybe is why I didn't dig it. Upon reflection, one of the reasons I didn't really like it that much is one of the themes of the book. I just didn't quite buy it. The protagonist, Pi, might say well that's your choice, much the same way that you can choose whether or not to believe in God and the stories of the major religions. His choice to believe in God(s) and religion is based on the fact that viewing the world through the religious lens is a "better story" and makes life more pleasant, for Pi.  He makes the distinction between believing in the Bible/Qu'ran/Hindi texts literally, but rather chooses to believe in the moral themes and lessons they teach. 
Strangely relevant - if I'd been a little less cynical when reading this book, I probably would've enjoyed it more. Can the same be said about God and life? 
As far as the story goes it definitely wasn't a book that I couldn't put down, but I guess I have to give it points for being thought provoking. Big props for Sparknotes for breaking the themes down, I enjoyed reading the analysis after I finished - although I guess this is cheating in a way...

Goal Tracking - Oct '11 Status Report

Another belated entry, but better late than never...
Here's the wrap up from October:

• Writing: 24 Blog Entries - Amber. Couple of entries posted in Oct, bringing the grand total to 19. Admittedly they have been quite short and pretty lame, but points for trying.
• Reading: 24 Books - Red. Finished 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez in October, so the running tally is now 7, a long way short of the yearly target. The book was pretty interesting in that it was the first one I've read that uses the style magical realism. I didn't love it, but it did have an interesting ending.
• Listening: 15 Gigs - Green. Pretty good month for music. Saw Bill and the Jerks, The Russ Walker Duo and the Feremones, bringing the total up to 11. Only 4 to go!
• Save: $$$ - Amber. Doing ok. Can do better though by setting myself a budget/and or giving myself an allowance, and saving the rest.
• Contribute: Red. Done NOTHING.
• Health and Fitness: Amber. October was pretty good, fair bit of running and yoga. 
• Work-Life Balance: Work Less - Amber. Did pretty well on the meditation, also only a few nights spent working late in the office. Headed up to Byron at the end of the month which did wonders for the mental fitness. 

So the exec summary: massively underperforming on the reading and contributing, however other areas are pretty good. Socially it was a good month, went to the Cox Plate with Foles and Syme which was a great day out. JD came home and caught up with him on a Saturday night which was cool, ended up back at mine with JD, Grundy and Foles just talking rubbish and reminiscing about old times. Good fun.

Gig Review: Byron Gigs

So went up to Byron for a bit over a week earlier this month. Had an awesome time, so much so that it was pretty depressing coming home. Headed up with Syme, and a few days in Chaz and Ash came up as well. On the first day we wrote a list of things to do, and going to see a few gigs made the cut. Being on holidays we pretty much went out every night, and the live music scene in Byron is pretty healthy, so managed to wrack up a few gigs during the week by just being out and about.
First up was the Russ Walker Duo at the Beach Hotel. Got a texty from Syme after my yoga class to head down to the Beach, he was there, three schooners in (despite it being only ten to five in the afternoon) and chilling out listening to a couple of dudes beatbox, sing and play acoustic guitar. Didn't know their name at the time, but when he started singing I thought the lead singer sounded like that kiwi dude that won australian idol. Didn't mention it, cos I thought it would sound too cliched. Anyway, just looked him up on google, turns out it's Stan Walkers brother. No fucking wonder they sounded similar. So me and Syme hung out for a few hours and watched them play, they were pretty good. Song selection wasn't fantastic, but it did win points for being a little unusual, they did a pretty cool mashup at the end. Would see them again.
A few days later on the Sunday, there was another gig at the Beach Hotel, this time it was The Pheromones. No idea what they were going to be like going into it, we got there and realised they were a bunch of ageing rockers. They played covers of classic 60's and 70's hits, music was pretty good, plus it was entertaining watching the old girls smash up the dance floor. They loved it. Didn't hang around too long.
Lastly on the Thursday night, after hitting various pubs, we stumbled across Kikuyu (http://kikuyu.bandcamp.com/) at The Rails. She does some really cool stuff with looping background beats that she seems to make up on the spot, using an italian combo organ, then sings along. Cool voice, cool sound. Would see her again for sure, and seeing that she's from Melbourne, will have to keep an eye out.
So we posted some solid numbers in Byron, adding another 3 gigs to the tally. Only 3 more to go!

Gig Review: Bill and the Jerks

Friend of a friends band was playing on Smith St last night, and given that I've got to clock up another 7 or so gigs before the end of the year, thought why not head down and check it out. Venue was The Blue Tile Lounge (95 Smith St Collingwood), a pretty grungy bar with similarly grungy crowd. Felt a bit out of place not having tats and a checkered shirt but was prepared to overlook that (and the smell of stale beer from the bar) considering that $2 pots and free live music were on offer.

1st act up was the hastily put together Robot Mugabe - I think they formed the night before. Cool name, not much talent. Next was Jame Forbes who put his spin on a few classic covers, my favourite being an acoustic hip hop version of Regulate by Warren G and Nate Dog, which was pretty awesome. The next act was the friend of a friends band, Bill and the Jerks. Describing themselves as pshychedelic funk rock, they definitely had a broad range of styles - apparently they have a few people write their songs, which could explain it. First few songs were well-rehearsed and pretty good, however the rest were a bit 'meh'.

All in all though, good night out - close to home, cheap and easy. Cross another gig off the list, so only 6 more to go.

Goal Tracking - Sep '11 Status Report

So it's been about three months since the last status report. I'll put the absence of posts down to being busy combined with a mild case of winter depression, resulting in a lack of a clear focus on what is important.
So what's been happening lately? The key event of the last couple of months has been the purchase of a motorbike. Getting my L's again has been on the list for a while, and when a couple of my mates at work let me know that they were going to go for the test, and asked if I wanted to come, I jumped at the chance. Took a day off work and headed out to a training centre at Sandown, 6 hrs later BOOM, I'm street legal. Me and Dave pledged to buy bikes before our proper license arrived in the mail (which usually takes about 6 weeks), and we actually managed to do it. Since I bought the bike about a month and a half ago, I've gone out riding pretty much everyweekend, weather permitting. It's pretty awesome, can definitely start to understand the term 'the joy of riding' now. As a few of us ride from work, I usually head out with a little crew. Still got a lot to learn and need to keep practising to get my skills up, but a few of the rides have been fantastic. Haven't had the bike long but already done over 1000km's on it. Here's a couple of shots of the bike and crew.

Can't wait until the weather gets even better, plan to cover a lot more ground, see more of Victoria. Favourite ride so far has been out to St Andrews, up towards Kinglake.

Other than that I've just been chippin' away. Work's going along ok, too much to do as usual, and the challenge as always is managing customer expectations. Trying to hire some more staff to lighten the load a little, but it's also proving difficult to find good people.

So coming into the last quarter, decided it was time to re-visit my goals and see what can be achieved before 2011 runs its course. Aim is to outline the gap between my original goals and what's been done so far.

• Writing: 24 Blog Entries - Amber. Think I'm doing ok here. Including this post I'll have published 17 blog entries to date, so only need to punch out 7 more to hit the target. Admittedly some of the entries are pretty lame (short meditation ones etc), but hey, I'll take what I can get.
• Reading: 24 Books - Red. I've read 6. That sucks. Kinda got stuck on Dostoyevsky's 'The Brothers Karamazov' a few months ago and haven't picked up anything since. 18 more needed in 3 months, that's 6 a month hmmm going to be very difficult to achieve. May need to ban TV or something, or start reading my nieces Mister Men collection.
• Listening: 15 Gigs - Amber. So far this year I've seen Sia, Paper Kites, Avalanche City, Horrow Show, Architecture in Helsinki, Bliss n Eso, Birds of Tokyo and Drapht, totalling 8. 7 to go to close this one out.
• Save: $$$ - Amber. Doing ok. Problem with not writing down the target back in January was that I've now forgotten it, so hard to define success on this goal.
• Contribute: Red. Have pretty much clocked up zero hours of helping out society this year. Easy to make excuses (such as I don't want to give up time/flexibility from my precious weekends) but at the end of the day, that's all they are - excuses. Need to do something pretty significant in this area if I am to have any hope of passing.
• Health and Fitness: Amber. A little hard to define what a pass mark is, however I've been doing 10 minutes of Yoga everyday for the last two weeks, plus occasionally running to work. Daylight savings kicked in this weekend which should make going for a run etc after work a much more viable option. I haven't really been going to the gym to lift weights at all, however I'm generally making it to proper Yoga classes twice a week. I think if I stick to my 50% AFD rule, get in a bit more running and keep up the Yoga for the next 3 months I can give myself a tick.
• Work-Life Balance: Work Less - Amber. Have been making some grounds the past month by booking time in my Outlook Calendar for personal appointments, such as my Tuesday 5.30pm Yoga class. Makes it a lot easier to form a habit, and give me a reason to leave the office. Need to keep this up. Also going up to Byron bay for a bit over a week at the end of the month which should be AWESOME. Morning meditation sessions for the last week have reduced the stress/anxiety a fair bit, just need to keep these up.

Washup - it's going to need to be a big 3 months. Not much 'green' in the list above so need to get cracking.

Meditation Challenge: Days 7-14

Been keeping up with the whole meditation quite well, having an unbroken run from when we started 2 weeks ago, until today. Upon reflection, I'm finding that I'm less stressed, sleeping a bit better and less tired during the day. Sure, could be a little confirmation bias creeping in, but either way I think it's positive, and it costs me nothing, so it's a win.  Aim to keep it going for a month or so, see how I feel after that. I've done it a few times hungover, gotta admit that it's pretty useless, can't 'quiten my mind' at all when I'm feeling dusty. Guess the solution to that is to not be hungover.