Get Your People to Talk With My People

Look Who’s Toxic now has a manager… not an experienced one, but it is someone who believes in what we do and will hopefully be able to sell us better than we can sell ourselves.

Saturday Story

It was an overcast summer’s day in the inner suburbs of Melbourne. I’d just pulled myself out of bed and was about to cycle to Rob’s house. At the last minute, I decided to take my camera along to take some happy snaps of the guys while we did some mixing, and maybe take some shots of anything interesting I found along the way. My camera and Nintendo DS were already in my backpack, so I strapped it on and set off.

Initially, I was glad I took my camera. There had been a car accident on Errol Street, where a car had ended up on the footpath and took out the verandah* in front of Burger Republic and the Chinese place next door — it looked pretty spectacular. I locked up the bike and took some photos of the carnage, thinking they’d look nice on my Flickr page (it would’ve been a good way to push those silly South Park characters off the front page, too). There was a little spitting of rain, but I didn’t mind and didn’t think anything of it.

After taking the photos, I got back on my bike and was on my way for real. The rain was getting very annoying on my glasses. I got some respite from the rain when I reached the leafy bike path that runs alongside Melbourne University, but by the time I reached VicRoads on the corner of Cementary Road and Lygon Street, I was getting seriously wet. VicRoads was closed, so I rode up to the undercover walkway and waited for the rain to pass, taking silly photos of nearby puddles and learner drivers struggling with the rain to pass the time.

Eventually, the rain looked like it was settling down, so I set off again, only to get to Foodies on Nicholson Street before the rain started getting a bit too heavy again. I waited it out, taking more silly photos.

Once the rain had come to a complete stop, I set off again, through the streets of Fitzroy North when the rain started belting down, far worse than before. I’d made it up St. Georges Road, almost as far as the Merri Creek Bridge and was contemplating what to do next. The rain was retarded, I was soaked through, but I was probably closer to Rob’s than I was to home. I decided to wait for another break in the rain and then get to Rob’s a quickly as possible. I took more photos, and eventually got back on my bike.

It was wet and dangerous, but eventually I made it to Thornbury. I was soaked and freezing, much to Neil and Rob’s amusment. Rob gave me a warm shower, a pair of shorts, a T-shirt that didn’t fit and a horrible windcheater with a unicorn on the front I think he was given as a joke.

After showering and getting dressed, I started telling Rob and Neil stories of my bike ride. Neil, being something of a gourmet around North Melbourne, wasn’t happy to hear of the accident out the front of Burger Republic, so I got my camera out to show him the photos I took. I tried to turn the camera on, but no luck — water gushed out from underneath the button, but the camera wouldn’t work. I opened it up as best I could and left it out to dry, but no luck. The Nintendo DS isn’t in a good way either. The top screen works, but the touch screen is intermittent. Hopefully I can get that fixed, but I’m not holding out much hope for the camera.

Birthday Wish List:

• a camera
• a waterproof bag

* — I know it’s not actually a verandah, but I couldn’t remember what you call the roof over a footpath out the front of a shop.

iTrip

My new iTrip came in the mail today. An iTrip is a little add-on for your iPod that broadcasts a low-powered FM signal from your iPod so you can listen to it through any radio, such as the one in your car.

I was pretty disappointed in it when I tried it out in the car this morning. It took me five minutes to get the hang of how to use it, and then any frequency I tried produced pretty poor results… mind you, I only tried one or two, so I’m not passing judgement quite yet. A quick search of the ‘net gives me people recommending 89.3 MHz 91.3 MHz, 96.0 MHz, 99.9 MHz and 104.8 MHz for different areas around Melbourne, so I’ll have to give them a go and see which works best for me. It seems that 91.5 MHz was the best option for everyone until Vega FM started broadcasting on that frequency.

112.5 Kilograms

This morning I weighed 112.5 kilograms. I don’t feel hideously obese anymore, which is nice.

I’ve been riding my bike a lot lately. On Monday, I rode home from work via the bike track along the Yarra River, which took much, much longer than I’d expected. I think my legs are finally starting to get over it.

Kathryn (Western Bulldogs v. Adelaide, Second Preliminary Final, 1997)

Kathryn was beautiful, funny, mysterious, and all I ever thought about. In fact, after making a date to see a movie on Saturday, it took me a few hours to realise that it conflicted with the Preliminary Final — the game that could see the Dogs make the grand final for the first time in 36 years.

But I didn’t care. I was going out with Kathryn (something that was all too rare, thanks to her over-protective father), and the Dogs were heavily backed favourites. In my mind, they’d already won, and I was too busy being excited about the Grand Final to worry about silly preliminary games.

I picked up Kathryn (and our chaperon Wendy — Kathryn’s Dad insisted we take a chaperon, and Wendy needed cheering up after being dumped) and drove into town, parking somewhere along Exhibition Street.

After the movie, we were heading down the hill at the end of Exhibition Street, getting ready to turn right into Flinders Street, when I saw a swarm of Adelaide fans.

Draped in yellow, red and black, they were waving thier flags, tooting their horns and dancing in the streets. Every smile, every silly little thing they yelled out, it all made me feel nauseous. I can’t remember what I said. I know I felt like crying. I probably pounded the steering wheel within an inch of snapping it off. I’ve got no idea how I managed to drive through it all. The only thing I do remember is turning to Kathryn, looking for comfort, and getting nothing but her saying “ha ha”.

Her voice was so cold, so devoid of emotion, so lacking any kind of empathy. It went right through my heart and broke it in two.

I drove her home in silence, and broke up with her the next time I saw her.

Sorrowball

A friend and I have been talking about writing a book: a collection of tales of football-related heartbreak tenatively titled Sorrowball. As I get around to it, I’ll add stories to the Sorrowball category I’ve just created.

If you have your own story, please add it to the comments here.

What’s been going on with Look Who’s Toxic?

We’ve been kinda focused on recording recently, which I’m actually enjoying a little more nowadays (read: “my dread of the recording process had changed to a toleration of the recording process”). This week I laid down the vocals to Neil Moog (Neil would like me to spell this as “Neil Moooog”, but I think he should change the spelling of his name to “Neil Mogue”) and the more I think about them, the more awesome I think they are — not much on blowing my own trumpet, am I?

Other than that, we played at the Town Hall last weekend which was pretty awesome. Most of the show was recieved really well. The only exceptions were Keith Urban (I’m giving up singing that song as I just can’t do it justice, and Neil needs a song to sing) and Elves In Space (Rob ran out of in-tune guitars with a full compliment of strings, so it sounded like a early, drunken Pavement jam — the idea of which sounds much cooler than the music).

I’m closing my old LiveJournal in favour of http://craiga.wordpress.com/tag/music/look-whos-toxic/. Fans of LiveJournal’s Friends page should get themselves a feed aggregator and move into a new era of time wasting.

Shinola (Vol. 1)

I finally got my copy of Ween’s Shinola (Vol. 1) yesterday. As a Ween record, it sits somewhere in the lesser half of their work (it is a collection of rejects, after all), but it’s still a damn sight better than the regular records of most bands out there.

Gabrielle is worth the price of the record alone. It’s Thin Lizzy done better than Thin Lizzy ever did. Throw in Monique The Freak (old-school Prince with Daft Punk voiceboxes), Big Fat Fuck (perfect for a self-deprecating dieter such as myself, with big fat bass that seems to resonate in my belly) and bizzarre little ditties such as Boys Club and Israel, it’s definitely something that all Ween fans should have.

One thing I did notice while listening to it (and I know it’s not strictly true as both Big Fat Fuck (track 4) and Monique The Freak (track 11) were on Craters of the Sac) is that the songs seem to be in close to chronological order — Tastes Good On Th’ Bun (track 1) sounds very much like something from The Pod, and the later songs sound like they could’ve come from some of Ween’s later records.

A final word of warning though — this is definitely not the place to get started with Ween. If you’re starting out, go pick up copies of The Mollusk and Chocolate and Cheese followed by Pure Guava before you try this. I’m sure if I showed this to the uninitiated, they may well be scared off Ween for life.

MacBook

You’d better believe I want one. Now it’s just a matter of figuring out a way to pay for it.

For Sale

1 × 1992 Ford Falcon EBII S. Registration No. PRL 198. Four speed automatic transmission, 4.0 litre engine, 242,400 kilometers, CD player, air conditioning, power steering, central locking, six months registration. Very reliable, excellent mechanical condition, and a huge hit with the ladies. $2000.

There’s a Flickr set of photos of the car if you’re interested.