Tomorrow is my Dad's birthday. Each year around this time he gets together with his mates from high school (and their families) in the Blue Mountains.

I haven't got to go every year, actually I've only got to go a couple of times in recent years, but last year was Dad's 50th, so I tried to do something a bit special. What I did was to collect some stories, some great memories, mainly from these mates coming to the weekend away, also family and other friends as well.

The project really turned out so much better than I expected, with lots of help in the design from Francisca. If you have read any of the issues of Capital Eyes, you will notice my artistic pedigree is not very high.

It was great to find all these old pictures and scan some of them in when I was putting everything together. This is me, not sure what age, maybe about 3 or 4. I had those little trucks for so many years, but they had a mean rust on them after many years outside, but in this picture they look close to brand new.

Leaving home

In our last few weeks in Australia, we are upholding the pacer lifestyle. This term pacer comes back to a spelling error during the "Danpacers era". A while ago I went up to Queensland for work, and in the time I was away, turned by two bedroom apartment into a sort of mini hostel.

So you know, what comes around goes around, so we are relying on our friends to give us a roof over our heads. We have been staying with Viv and Bret for the first portion of our stay, which has been really good, we can just walk to work etc. We don't want to impose on them for the whole stay, so today we move over to Caroline's house, multiple times Australian Women's Footbag Champion...

We will stay there for about a week and then come back here, then finish off our time in Australia with a stint and Grandma and Grandpa's in Sydney. Not really long at all to go to takeoff.

Let me remember how I felt just before leaving to go away to Queensland:

It has been great to have our friends help us out, and it has been fun to stay with Viv and Bret. We share some jokes and I have been reading various books that have been picked up from garage sales, borders closing down sales etc. I polished off Danny Buderus' autobiography, now I reading about "Laurie and Clyde", two of my heroes growing up, who I got to see in action earlier this year in Hay. You know, as much as these may be embarrassing to have in your collection, I actually really like to read these sports books, brings back a lot of memories.

Koh Samui

Today, after quite a long trip down from Bangkok, we arrived in Koh Samui. I only got a couple of pictures on my phone a while after the sun had gone down (above x 2). I guess this island has a reputation as a pretty touristy place, but where we're staying, of course it is a tourist area, it's other western people, but it's not too crowded where we are staying at all. We are staying at the Southern end of Lamai beach. This isn't the main tourist hub, but you know, it's probably 50 metres from our room to the beach, and that's quite alright by me.

If the weather stays good tomorrow, I can strongly see us staying on another couple of nights. What an intriguing experience the old night bus was. Some things you read (eg Lonely Planet) are very much against taking these buses and suggest going to the government run buses, however I read they were more expensive and less comfortable.

The main thing for me was that they offered a hostel pickup. Of course I was surprised (though I should not have been) when a tuk tuk came to take us to the next stop. I had originally guessed that some kind of van would get us and take us to the bus station. Even though I went against the advice of the Lonely Planet, which TBQH hasn't provided a whole lot of helpful advice for us in the first place, I though that old mate in the hostel was too nice to sell us a dud deal. He seemed to want the best for everybody, and I didn't think he would be associated with any kind of scams and rackets, but I wasn't so sure once the tuk tuk dropped us just around the corner from Kao Sahn Road.

So we stayed there for a while and we didn't really know what was happening. I started talking to a couple of other people standing around, but they had this "too good for you" attitude so that conversation didn't get too far. After some time, it was quite a long time, maybe 45 minutes we were herded along to somewhere a little way up the road. A new bloke came and got all the receipts back off everyone. Of course every receipt would get a return visit with payment of their commission. We were waiting in this holding area for some more time, I got talking to a couple of blokes who lived in England. Most of the people we met in the course of the trip were English come to think of it.

Anyhow, one of these first guys was heading down to NZ for the World Cup (Rugby) after his travels in Thailand. I got talking to him about Union even though I don't really know very much, but I steered the conversation into the Manly/Melbourne fighting match, what a classic that was.

Another classic in their encounters was that 40-0 Grand Final scoreline. The Raiders won the under 20s that day, what promise that showed.....most of that side are in the firsts lineup now and have brought them precariously close to the wooden spoon. Results from tonight mean they will narrowly avoid that unwanted piece of kitchenware no matter what. That has nothing to do with our trip though, back on with the show.

We're talking to the blokes and a guy tells us the bus will be hear in five more minutes. Sure. Sure enough, five more minutes we're crossing over the road to get to the bus. One of these Rugby blokes had gone to the toilet so he had to make a mad dash to even get on the bus. On the bus we saw a couple of movies. First up was The Lincoln Lawyer which was ok, particularly for a movie shown on the bus, but then the next one Stuck, this was up there with the absolute worst movies I have ever seen. Even the fact that the main girl (Mena Savari??) bopped some other girl, who was at the time naked, with a frying pan, could not save this movie. I am currently looking on IMDB for a verdict of just how bad this movie is according to others, but the bus seemed to give it an all round score of about 1/10.

After the movies it seemed it was time for lights out. We weren't too tired yet and we had a game of chess on the mini chess set I have been carrying around, which hadn't been brought out yet. We had played some of the other games inside, particularly snakes and ladders, but no chess. Anyhow, it seemed we were the only people with our above light on, but all of a sudden all the lights came on, it was time to stop.

As per any long distance bus trip, we stopped in some crappy little down, it was no difference to stopping at the service station outside of Holbrook or outside of Bowen on the Greyhound in Australia. I hadn't eaten any dinner so I gladly gobbled down some veg noodles, mainly as something to go with my concoction of medicines. I think there are still quite a few days to go until the 10 days of taking all these medicines concludes, but I'll say now that the old overnight bus wasn't the best for the ankle. All seems ok now, but not just my ankle,but my right leg was quite swollen from the ride last night.

Anyhow, we got some eats, then game back to our match of chess when suddenly it was lights out. Just like in the movies in jail, the time comes for lights out, but no warning. I guess that meant time for sleep. I really barely slept at all. Some posts ago I talked about some albums of the past, and instead of sleeping I was thinking of an album to represent each year. Seeing as some of these were a long time ago, I'm not sure if the years are accurate, but I had something for each year...

1994- Midnight Oil- Blue Sky Mining

1995- Oasis- What's The Story Morning Glory

1996- Silverchair- Freak Show

1997- The Living End- The Living End

1998- Frenzal Rhomb- Meet The Family (including Mongrel live album)

1999- Slipknot- Slipknot

2000- 28 Days- Upstyle Down

2001- Superheist- The Prize Recruit

2002- Soilwork- Natural Born Chaos

2003- The Butterfly Effect- Begins Here

2004- Machine Head- Through The Ashes of Empires

2005- Parkway Drive- Killing With A Smile

2006- 4 Dead- Blood and Piss

2007- Daysend- The Warning

2008- Samsara- The Emptiness

2009- A Secret Death- A Secret Death

2010- Break Even- The Bright Side

2011- Miles Away- Endless Roads

That was the list that I came up with of the top of my head, or something along those lines. Funnily enough it's the more recent years where I'm listening to albums a year or two out of date. Of course anybody could do this exercise one day and then come up with a completely different answer a few days later, and maybe I will experiment with that in some days.

Maybe after I'm done resting at the beach.....

So back on the bus, we're sleeping. Well I barely slept at all, but we have to be trying to sleep because you can't even turn on your light. I listened to some music for a while, and I was kind of hoping to drop off doing that, but no such luck. In the whole journey I don't think I would have slept much more than an hour.

I must have got to sleep in the morning because suddenly there was a commotion, it seemed it was time to get off the bus and change to our transfer to the ferry. Of course that was not just waiting where we arrived, we had to wait some more time for that, then sit on the bus to the ferry.

Even though it's just 10pm, I'm feeling pretty tired. I may continue this one tomorrow. We met some really nice people here at the place we're staying, can fill more about that tomorrow. I think the first thing to do tomorrow will be to walk the length of the beach which is just a stone throw away. Of course I would love to do a run, but that's not really on the cards.

Where will we be in 10 (or 15) years...

So I was reading an article on Pitchfork magazine, not something that I usually do and a lot of this people I was reading about I either don't know or don't like, however, this article was a bit interesting just in the idea of it.

Most of them chose an album to represent 1996/2001/2006/2011

1996- Silverchair- Freak Show

Well, after a google search, turns out this came out in 1997, but this was my real introduction into the world of rock music, moreso of my choosing to immerse myself in rock music. It was particularly the film clip for Freak, I used to watch Rage every weekend and I had head Frogstomp already which I kind of liked, but this had me. I didn't actually own the album proper for ages, but I had a tape of the album being played on community radio (same station that I mentioned about my mum a couple of posts ago), on the weekly album show.

I was listening to that tape not long ago. The announcer says midway through, alrighty time to rattle a few more brain cells...Silverchair were really the band that got me into rock music, that's for sure.

2001- Superheist- The Prize Recruit

Now, I know it's not very cool or whatever to admit to liking nu-metal these days, but those who are about my age were right in the thick of it. Some people were a bit older and so they preferred Pantera etc but people now who are about 25-28, it was only really a few years, they were there for the rise.

Anyway, on to Superheist. I really loved this album, and the EP before that. Actually I managed to get the Chrome Matrix EP (Sanity Merimbula of all places) and I liked that a lot too. Superheist actually played in Bega as well. I remember being totally stoked about that, as they were my favourite band at the time. I only saw them with Joey Biro though, never with Berger.

My friends had this cover band in high school and one time their singer was away, so I got up and sang a cover of Bullet with them. I got stage fright in front of the few people that were there, and didn't know where to come in and forgot the words etc. A similar performance would be repeated about 5 years down the track with Templestowe, singing Slaughter of the Soul.

I saw Superheist a few times once I finished high school as well. I saw them at Homebake, but they were clashing with The Butterfly Effect, that was a weird lineup, because all the clashes were bands that were very similar in style....Another time I saw them was at the Granville Youth Centre, in an all ages show. I guess I had been living in Sydney for a couple of months, and I'm sure glad that show was in the day because I was a bit concerned for my safety heading out that way.

I did an interview with Fetah who played keyboards, about his new band Jerrico. I had been asking away some questions and then I said before we finish, I have one last question...will Superheist ever reform?

He said no.

2006- 4 Dead- Blood and Piss

I guess at this stage I'm going to have more of a variety to choose from, a stronger memory of what I was listening to, etc. This, the most recent offering from the Canberra stalwarts...that's 5 years now. The band has been going for a long long time now, and we haven't got too much to see for that.

Anyhow, this tries to put the intensity of a 4 Dead show on to your musical device of choice and it doesn't get close. However, it has its own form of intensity in itself. 4 Dead are now one of the bands I have been going to watch over a consistent period, they must be the longest (first viewing would be approx Oct 2004, most recent July 2011). This album, and its reflections on being a man in the world, in punk, in Canberra etc, I have listened to it so many times, seen the songs live so many times, and I can't really say that I'm sick of it.

2011- Miles Away- Endless Roads

I didn't mean for this list to be an all-aussie lineup, but that's the way it's panned out. I've always been a big fan of Australian bands, which is not to say they are better or worse than other bands, but moreso these particular years brought out some Australian bands in the memories.

And I mentioned the consistency of going to see 4 Dead, even though some years they'd only play a couple of shows in the year. I actually first saw Miles Away before I had seen 4 Dead. I was, to use that horrible term "a nu-jack", as they say. I went to Hardcore 04, and you know Miles Away were first up, followed by a newish band with a promising EP called Parkway Drive.

Anyway, each year I have probably gone to see Miles Away a couple of times, but you know I have never followed them too much. This album though has had a different feel, just for me personally. Yesterday when I fell down the stairs, I came back to the room with some ice and a fair bit of pain. I decided I wanted to listen to some music and I listened to Anywhere.

So there we have just 4 albums which can sum up my musical experiences. It's only a little bit to go on but it does tell a fair amount of the story. Maybe at a future date I will fill in the gaps for each year.

Old Tapes

So I got a car last week, I ended up inheriting a car, which is kind of cool, but anyway, it has a tape player, which is very low quality. Anyhow, I have been going through some old tapes which have been sitting gathering dust, which may be the reason the player seems so bad.

One my favourite tapes from my youth is taped live from Triple J, silverchair playing live at the first Homebake, in heavy rain in Byron Bay.

At a guess it's early 1996, but they never say a date on it.

Here's the setlist

Leave Me Out
Slave
Suicidal Dream
Tomorrow
New Race (Radio Birdman cover)
Faultline
Learn To Hate
Israel's Son

So almost all Frogstomp material, minimal talk, which is a big difference to current day silverchair. I used to listen to this tape so much as a kid.

"You guys look good out there, there's steam coming up from the crowd. You should light yourselves on fire, then there'd be smoke too, that'd look great".

"Thanks a lot and stick around for Tumbleweed"

Some of the other tapes I have in my small collection aren't such classics, but it's funny to look back at some, especially the mix tapes. Some intriguing selections on each tape...

So I just drove down to Bega today to visit Mum and Dad. Tonight I'm going to watch the State of Origin, I'm quite excited about it, I have a good feeling about the Blues tonight.

Machine Head Marathon

Today I bought a ticket to Machine Head. They are my favourite band, ever. So I'm kinda excited to see them. However, they are not headlining which is not quite as exciting. And they are playing with Slipknot, which means there will be a lot of total fucking dicks there.

However, to celebrate, I am having myself a bit of a machine head marathon.





The first time I heard about Machine Head was sometime in the afternoon when Robb Flynn was doing an interview on Triple J. I was really interested in the stuff he was talking about, and they played Five at the end of that. I didn't really pay that much attention to them for a while after that, but one day my friend Henry wanted me to burn this Fear Factory CD. I don't know if it was planned or anything, but underneath the Fear Factory CD was a burnt copy of "Burn My Eyes". It was scratched as all fuck, but I ripped it onto my computer, and listened to it pretty regularly.

Around this same time someone lent me a copy of The Burning Red. I had listened to it a few times at other people's places, but never had a copy for myself. At the time I was a real nu-metal fiend, so it was right up my alley! So this was late high school, a couple of years later the album Through The Ashes of Empires came out. I think is what really rekindled my interest in the band, at the same time I bought their live album Hellalive. It was one of those days where I had this real urge to buy a bunch of CDs, which I don't get that often, as I'm pretty poor most of the time.

So anyway, this was probably late 2003, early 2004, which is when I moved from Sydney to Canberra. I was listening to a bunch of stuff, but Machine Head was always a feature, in mid 2004 I found out Machine Head were touring and got a ticket straight away. Actually come to think of it, I didn't get it for a week or so, as I had to save up a bit of money to be able to afford it.

At the show I lined up for a few hours beforehand, I met some people that I'm friends with now. I remember Switchblade opened, and they were pretty sweet, then Contrive, Andrew Haug from Triple J's band played, they were really boring, everyone was just hanging out so much for Machine Head.

Their set that night is my favourite I have seen by any band, ever. No band I have seen has come anywhere near that level for me. The setlist was spread across all the albums. I knew every word to every song, was right up the front and everyone around me was just as siked as I was. They finished with "Block", which was a great way to finish up.

This is what Robb Flynn wrote on his diary on the Machine Head website

It was literally some of the craziest shows we’ve ever played. Every single person up in front knew every fuckin’ word, screaming their heads off, HUGE circle pits from hell, crazy fuckers just losing their minds, Machine Head chants between every single song, and got to meet tons of cool people. Frankly, we love Australia, and cannot wait to get back.

So during the show I was holding hands with this girl, and somehow after the show I managed to be in the backstage area, as this girl and another friend of mine are massive forum fanatics on the Machine Head site, so they are like e-pals with the band. Anyway, in there I felt so nervous. It is really funny to look back on, I was fully shaking, I had no idea what to do, I was so shy.

It was only really after the show that it really hit me just how much I like Machine Head, just how impressive their live performance was, and mostly, just how long I had been interested in the band.

After that show I was always comparing other big shows to seeing Machine Head, and nothing really came close. That feeling of knowing every single word of every single song is not actually something I regularly have. A lot of other shows I've been to have been really awesome, but they didn't leave me with the same feeling that night did.

Last year Machine Head put out a new album, The Blackening. Eventually I bought it, although a lot of the magazines were giving it rave reviews, for some reason I didn't think I was going to be that excited by it. Whilst it is a good album, it is just something I don't listen to all that much. At the end of the year Machine Head toured again, and I was pretty excited. So this was 2007, the first time I saw them was 2004 (Unfortunately when they toured with Slayer in 2001 I was some poor kid from the country, I remember thinking that would be something I would really like to go). So in three years I hadn't seen anything top their performance at the Roundhouse.

My night at Festival Hall in Melbourne was so different. Whilst for the Sydney show in 2004, I had got their really early, and was so eager for a front row position, this time around I didn't get there until after doors open, as I was too busy drinking up. While the supports were much more high profile (Archenemy and Trivium), I was still so excited for Machine Head that I didn't really care for them. It was Halloween that night, so everyone was dressed up in this ridiculous outfits, it was pretty funny. The set was made up of a fair few of the new songs, which are quite long, but still plenty of old stuff, like "Davidian" and "Take My Scars".

The show was at Festival Hall, which in all reality is a horrible venue. Melbourne really struggles when it comes to large, but not too large venues. It has nothing like the Hordern Pavillion. The fact that Festival Hall has the "dancefloor" area setup sideways doesn't make too much sense. Anyway, during the show instead of my previous effort of waiting at the front, I occupied my time by drinking a lot of beer. I nearly got in a fight with some dude, I can't really remember why, but he pushed me or something so I threw my beer at him and walked off. During the set, instead of having to have the best position, I just looked for a position where I could have a good view, and did a bunch of crowdsurfs throughout the set. Looking back at that show and the one in 2004, it really shows that a lot of my values have really changed a lot. But that happens.

After the show, with the same friend as in Sydney as 2004, I got to go backstage. Really just by pretending that I should be there, which I probably shouldn't have been. There is a photo with me and Phil Demmel. As per usual, in all photos, I look stupid. However in this photo I do have a giant beard, which is raging. The photo was taken on a camera phone, which explains the shit quality.

Anyway, I mention this girl that I was holding hands and whatever with at the Sydney show. She was there backstage as well at Melbourne. After the Sydney show I talked to her online and I think she thought I was really weird so she barred me. At the show she's all like "OH HI DAN" like it was some big deal, and I was just like "hey, how's it going". I think she thought I was going to have some kind of freakout or some shit, but I just didn't care. I felt really empowered in that moment.

Instead of sitting there quivering and not being able to say anything, I had this great conversation about At The Gates with Robb, and how I was planning to go to the European festivals this year. As good as the conversation was, I never went...there's always next year.

Anyway, I don't know really why I wrote all this. I guess I wanted something to do instead of folding clothes or sorting out the mess that is my house. And I also felt like writing something down about why Machine Head in particular are my favourite band.

So far I in my marathon I am up to Blood of The Zodiac, the last track on The More Things Change. That CD I picked up in Brisbane, sometime in 2004 while I was up there. It's something I should probably listen to more, it's a great album, but it does share a lot of similarities to Burn My Eyes, which would be my favourite album, ever. So I listen to that one more.