Can late night gigs and early morning training runs co-exist without killing a girl? Probably not. But as a certain long-perm-haired "rocker", for I use the term loosely, once said: "I'll sleep when I'm dead" ... or at least when I'm at work ... or on public transport, because you should never be too precious to sleep-dribble on someone else's shoulder.
Those adorable little rapscallions, Jinja Safari have finally brought out a clip to show us all the true meaning of ugly dancing. As a long-time promoter and, one might say, connoisseur of the ugly-dance, I find this to be an exceptionally glorious thing.
Also if you haven't yet seen these boys perform live* then you really need to start reassessing your life's goals. I mean really. I don't even know what to say to you anymore.
FACT #1: The Grates have a new song out called Turn Me On.
FACT #2: The Grates have a brand new clip for the song. Coincidentally, it's also called Turn Me On.
FACT #3: Patience Hodgson looks babeingly babesome in the clip for Turn Me On and will, more than likely, turn you on.
FACT #4: I make no secret of the fact that I have the world's biggest super girl crush on Patience. I ask though, can you blame me?
FACT #5: The first time I ever saw Patience was at Homebake when Ben Lee brought her out on stage to sing a duet and, in introducing her, said The Grates were going to be huge. He made a very good point.
FACT #6: The Grates are playing Oxford Arts Factory on June 24. I'm going. If you're going and you see someone dancing like they just caught the crazy then ... well actually that would be Patience, but if you see someone else dancing like they caught the crazy then that would be me. Say hi won't you?
FACT #7: One of the most hilariously fun gigs at which I ever had the pleasure of melting was the Annandale Christmas Party that had, amongst many others, Bluejuice and The Grates on the line-up. Some douchbag of the highest order - let's call him Senior Lord Douchebaggery Gropinghands - seemed to think he was in with a fair chance with me because I was giving off all the right signals such as standing, breathing and standing. I tried, and tried and tried, to explain to his royal asshattedness that EVERYONE was crushed together and I was, indeed, NOT leaning against him because I wanted to haz his mad babiez, but as The Grates finished and Patience crowd surfed her way to the back of the room, Senior Lord asked me if I wanted to go back to his house because "it's like right next door". After I politely declined six or seven times he finally swayed around a bit and said "alright ... well I'm going to go have a crack at Patience then. She's hot." Excellent.
You know how sometimes you get a song stuck in your head for a day or maybe two days and you sing it and you sing it and then forget all about it?
Brendan Maclean's Cold and Happy isn't one of those songs.
It stays in your head for weeks, months even. It pops out at awkward moments like when say, oooh I dunno, maybe you walk into your local supermarket and you go "oh hey! there's a line about a local supermarket in that there Cold and Happy song!" and then you sing it, out loud, in your local supermarket and people move away from you because you may or may not have become the crazy lady who sings to figs.*
And then maybe, just maybe, it pops into your head when you're walking down the street and happen to overhear someone mention the cold and so naturally, maybe, you start singing again about being cold and happy only this time with handclaps. Fucking handclaps!
And do you know why you can't get it out of your head? Do you?
BECAUSE IT'S THE PERFECT GODDAM POP SONG.
And the clip has a jelly fight.
And it makes you do mad smiles.
Brendan Maclean is playing his first headline show at The Basement on June 7, complete with his most excellent band. If you miss out you will be full of misery and sad puppies. Tickets here kiddies!
* By the way, how nice and cheap are figs at the moment? How irrelevant is the price of figs to the rest of this post??
Look I don't want to alarm anyone, and I know it's a little early on in the piece for such outlandish proclamations, but I think I've found my new song husband.
Fergus Brown's Nerds in Love may actually be the sweetest little thing to pop up on my 'puter in about forever.
Jinja Safari. Pretty much my favourite act in Australia right now. Why? Well thanks for asking. My reasons are threefold:
1. They are amazing live. I feel compelled to make a fool of myself each and every time I see them. For chrissake they had a dance-off when they closed out this year's Surry Hills Festival. A dance-off!
2. They are excellent. They sound like 4am, forests and fairy bread. They make you want to stretch your arms above your head and spin.
3. Look at them. Look at those faces! Adorable little fellas they be.
Did you not see Moldova? Did you not see the hats? Did you somehow blind your ears and mishear the lyrical genius of the slightly aggressive yet ravishing garden gnomes. Look at those fucking hats! Just look at them Europe!
I have watched you, diligently and respectfully, for many a year now Eurovision. Most people refer to ABBA-winning-with-glorious-blue-satin-camel-toe in 1974 as your finest moment, but we know, really, that it was Bucks Fizz and those damn fantastic removable skirts in 1981. RIGHT. UP. UNTIL. MOLFREAKINGDOVA. For the love of lycra there was an angel on a fucking unicycle Europe! What were you thinking? Is the GFC really that bad? Have the austerity measures restricted your ability to vote for what was arguably the finest product to come out of your continent since those fucking gigantic Toblerone bars?
I weep for you Europe, I really do. I weep for Moldova too. And mostly, Europe, mostly I weep for myself, because I still don't know where the fuck Moldova is, and now I probably never will.
Okay. It's starting to make me go freaky in the brains. I have song stalkers. Not people stalkers, SONG stalkers. There are two songs that keep following me. One is new, one is old. I don't know if they're in cahoots. The first follows me almost every day. I turn on the radio and BAM it's the first or second song that gets played. I asked a friend for some music recommendations and BAM, he sends this one. I walk into a cafe, BAM, song stalker number one. What is it you're trying to say to me Vaccines? What iiiis iiiit??
And then this little song mans keeps following me when I have a hangover. Brutal hangover a few weeks ago, woke up in bed (I like to stipulate "in bed" lest you think it was in the gutter) singing, actually physically OUT LOUD singing Enjoy The Silence. Sleep singing, who knew that was a thing? Another day, another hangover, iPod shuffled its little naughty way across to same song. Then last Saturday, hangover verging on coma. Switch on tv, this song is on Rage and I DON"T EVEN KNOW WHY. It was released in 21 years ago. Why it follow me now please??
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