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the second cover we have ever recorded.
probably worth noting that this isn’t a serious recording. it was a spur of the moment thing. hence lack of structure and forgetting the words. we get browny points for trying though, right?
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Photographs by Madeline Snow.
aidan mcdonald is, surprise surprise, aidan mac. perhaps a clever alter ego, or perhaps he should spend more time creating interesting pseudonyms and less time pointing out every damn pun he can.
i kid, i kid. you’re alright aidan. you’re alright.
i thought it would be good to point out the ‘other projects’ that members of the bands find themselves in. so to start, we have aidan mac. if you were to venture to the right of your screen, sooner or later you’d find a hyperlink that says ‘aidan mac’. if you click it, which you will, you’ll be taken to a myspace page filled with a myriad (or close to) of media. not only are there nine photos of aidan (one of which features a rather impressive mo’),but there is music.
what kind of music does a drummer boy make, you may be asking yourself? well have a listen. you’ll find music from past projects such as The Psychedelic Rainbows’ classic midnight walk, which featured matthew fazio (riff-rocker of screaming pigeons fame turned multimedia genius). you will also find some songs that were brought to the thod table but sadly just weren’t… working out, i.e. slave to the night.
there are also demos of aidan’s other band MFM and the MD’s or Funky Banana Squadron (depending on how cheeky luke diffey gets). which features luke diffey on bass, alastair matcott on drums, aidan on guitar/vocals, matthew fazio on lead guitar, and a young chap by the name of hamish mitchell on organ/vocals. hopefully they’ll start gigging soon.
however, the piéce de résistance is perhaps the balls to the wall rocker ‘won’t go away’ which he recorded entirely by himself through this thing:
named after the fat kid no one likes in lord of the flies.
peace.
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Since the band is recording an album I will talk about why we’re making an album and what I hope it will give to you, our listener, whether you love us or hate us or are just indifferent and would rather be jumping around like a lunatic on drugs and you’re so fucked that you can’t even jump around in time so you look like a spastic but nobody cares cause they’re fucked too.
I think one of my favourite things about music is that every song you listen to has the potential to be a little container for your mind. That song you partied to when you finished high school and all your mates were jumping around a living room having the time of your life, regardless of how shit you might think that song is now on a technical or creative level, because of those memories your opinion on the song is only going to improve over time. There’s probably been those songs that were a lovely cathartic outlet for you when you found love and lost love, those songs that you listened to while staying up really late doing the most epic homework of your life, when you hear these songs at a later date you will always be taken back to those special moments.
This is why, to a certain extent, I think people’s music tastes wildly differ so much. And yet there’s a few bands out there that have managed to touch a lot of people with wildly varying life experience. I couldn’t say right now how to do that, I don’t really know whether the memories or the song come first. But off the top of my head right now, I think I can say that music made with intense passion can definitely inspire passion in the listener, and thus the listener will be more open to share his or her or its mind with the song and therefore forge a connection so strong that you’ll be happy to lock your precious memories in that song.
That is one of the things I really hope will happen for this album, that the band’s passion will be communicated to you, and then you’ll open your mind to us, and even though we don’t know each other, we will be communicating on a very personal level. (You probably don’t want to know me on a very personal level (and if you do, you haven’t met me yet)).
There’s such a level of diversity going on in the songs on this new album, that I’m sure you’ll find a couple of songs that you’re happy to dump those fucked up feelings about blah blah blah or those happy memories of that time you got a BJ on Lorne beach with spermicide dripping off your member like kransky grease. Whatever fucked up shit you do, I probably don’t want to really to know about it, but the songs do.
More to come on “From the pen of Sam Batty”. Probs gonna be about indie. Hipsters beware
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dan mcdonald/carraway has been published in the herald sun again. this time he’s questioning Australia’s voting system and the merits of informal voting.
read the full article below, or click here to access the herald sun’s website.
also, it is probably worth noting that we do not endorse mark latham’s “protest voting” idea. he is a knob.
AS one of this year’s newest mudslingers flashed up on screen, I looked over at a good mate of mine.
“OK,” I said. “Who are you voting for?”
“I’ve still got no idea,” he told me, shaking his head. “I wish they had a ‘None of the above’ option.”
I laughed. “Me too. But I can’t see either party campaigning for it.”
“Yeah,” said my mate. “But that’s because it’d probably win.”
Around the world, voting is tricky business. The 2005 Iraq election was marred by voter suppression and threats of violence. Dictatorships throughout history have used intimidation, fraud and deceit to retain their majority vote.
In the 2008 US presidential election, despite its high profile, only 63 per cent of Americans made it to the booth.
In Australia, we’ve got it pretty good. Election day here is not marred by violence. Votes and voters are not suppressed. Compulsory attendance at a polling station ensures a 95 per cent voter turnout.
It’s hard to understand why more nations aren’t following our lead. Compulsory attendance on election day has a number of obvious benefits.
First and foremost, it means that more of us vote. Those of us who are too busy or too lazy cannot simply stay home. Despite our objections and our gripes, we know it’s for the best. Forcing us down to the closest primary school is an act of tough love.
Second, compulsory attendance motivates more of us to take an interest in the issues most pertinent to our nation’s health.
Third, it means that our political parties attempt to represent the widest possible cross-section of Australians, rather than simply pandering to those most likely to attend an optional vote.
On top of these reasons, there’s the added bonus that taxpayers’ money doesn’t have to be wasted on campaigns urging citizens to attend the polling station.
Our system is one of the best in the world. Most of us are more than happy to cast a vote. Yet it still must be noted that compulsory voting has one major drawback: it means that our election result is marred by the votes of a substantial number of people who would have rather stayed home.
Donkey voting (numbering the candidates on the ballot paper in the order they appear), as well as the practice of numbering the candidates at random, are dangerous consequences of our compulsory voting process.
These votes are cast by people who feel politically uninformed, indifferent or disenfranchised. Despite a complete lack of thought or reasoning, such votes hold just as much power as the most conscientious voter’s choice.
These votes undermine our voting process and can potentially skew the outcome of an election.
We can surely all agree that our system would be improved if such votes didn’t exist. Yet steps are not being taken to combat the problem.
My mate may have been on to something, after all. The “None of the above” option may just be the answer. I did a bit of research: Greece, Spain, Ukraine and France already use it.
Having a “None of the above” option would encourage would-be donkey voters to tick “None of the above”.
This would stop our elections from being contaminated by thoughtless votes. Since fewer votes would be cast, every informed vote would be made a little bit more powerful. This would lead to an election with more integrity and merit than we’ve had before.
In the long term, perhaps the best solution would be to attempt to increase the political awareness of the everyday Australian. Our nation could only stand to benefit from becoming more informed and passionate about our political system.
But in the short term, this isn’t viable. We all have friends who tell us that they “just don’t care”, or that they just aren’t “a political kind of person”. Many Australians simply don’t feel capable of casting a sound, considered vote.
For those people, it’s important to understand and remember that we all have the right not to vote. It’s not against the law to vote “informally”: we can leave our ballot paper unmarked and drop it in the box without committing any legal or moral offence.
For many of us, it could well be the right thing to do.
Dan McDonald is a student at Melbourne University and plays a mean tambourine.
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sifting through the thod archives. recordings three to four years old. stumbled upon the classic ‘Girl You Ain’t Gettin’ Our Goon (reprise)’, a reprise of the title track of one of our first seven albums – Girl You Ain’t Gettin’ Our Goon.
this was a period (2006 – 2007) where we would put a single microphone in the middle of the room and anyone could play whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. it was a party. sometimes there’d be 15 people causing mayhem.
‘Girl You Ain’t Gettin’ Our Goon (reprise)’ is the last track off the album of the same name. it’s about the troubles one encounters when faced with two girls and a guy asking if they can have some of your fruity lexia goon at a campsite at port fairy folk festival in 2006. they can’t. they just can’t. they could’ve had the red, though… how times have changed.
anyway, here’s the track. enjoy it. or hate it. you’ll probably hate it.
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alastair matcott (or ‘alastair’ as printed on the poster) is performing an acoustic solo set with the kremlin succession on wednesday the 11th of august at the birmingham hotel. he’ll be playing a bunch of covers and a bunch of originals and a bunch of original covers. so you should definitely get down because he has the voice of a terradactyl… a really cool terradactyl that can sing really well.
doors open at 8:30pm. $5 entry. alastair’s gonna be kicking off the night.
if you can’t make it down, then you should definitely try and make it to one of the other nights. they be a mixture of revels, messengers, frowning clouds, alcorettes, white boys, polites and scott pendlebury experience. so they’re awesome. also keep in mind the last night – august 25th with the revels and buried feather. both bands are killer.
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