This video, this guy and the songs he has written.
At 3:14, during the “Cutting me loose from old rules” part, there’s this little moment where he throws his head back and like, the way he’s looking at the microphone and the look on his face and everything just fucking punches me right in the chest, hey.
HWM4EVA.
Between the 7th of February and the 14th of February these are the bands I listened to most when in my room.
Milestones
NoFx
Trash Talk
Fear Like Us
Propagandhi
LastFm told me so.
They say things are gonna get better.
All I know is they fuckin’ better.
Between February 1st and February 7th, these are the bands I listened to the most when in my room.
Modern Life Is War
The National
La Quiete
A Wilhelm Scream
Hot Water Music
LastFm told me so.
Today fucking sucked. Melissa Anogianakis was the one good part and the fact that I’m beating Jackson Oberle in Words With Friends atm is alright.
Between January 24th and January 31st. These are the bands I listened to the most when in my room.
Tigers Jaw
Modern Life Is War
Arrows
Braid
New Found Glory
LastFm told me so.
On Australia Day a friend of mine who lives in Melbourne put together a show at The Tote to help benefit The Refugee Council of Australia. The night before, he also had a bloody fun little house show/party. I have a lot of dear friends in Melbourne, and other great friends from Canberra, Brisbane, Sydney and Hobart were in attendance so it was a perfect little 48 hours. Too perfect.
On the Wednesday, there was some acoustic stuff in the beer garden. The day peaked for me right here when four people who are involved in some of my all time favourite Australian music joined eachother for a song about one of my favourite venues in the country. I was watching this with some of my favourite people around me, an excellent tasting beer and a cute girl standing next to me.
On January 30th, 2006 I grabbed my sony, my tv, clothes, cds, the few books I had and $4 and myself and two of my best mates moved to the big city with 3 other friends of mine doing the same thing in the two weeks before, and the two weeks after.
I had spent the previous 7 years falling in love with punk/hardcore bands and poppier bands loosely related to those genres. I didn’t have the internet at home, but my friends did. I mainly relied on magazines and stuff to get me by, seeing as our town didn’t have any sort of store that catered for anything too “alternative”, so I feel like I had a pretty romanticised and naive view of how all these “scenes” that this bands came from worked. Where I was, it was me and maybe 5-10 of my mates going to council funded “Battle of the bands” and shit like that, but that’s all we knew and we had a blast. I just figured elsewhere it was all perfect and amazing and how couldn’t it be with all these photos of bands singing to heaps of people and everyone’s losing their mind? It seemed like a world away to me then.
I think moving to Brisbane changed that. I soon saw how people who had that priviledge of constant live music around them really took it for granted, and there’s a lot of bullshit. Give me five years and I’m the same fucking person, and it sucks because I’m still young and don’t know shit. Since I moved away, I’ve been to and played countless shows in Brisbane and around the country, and seen more shitty bands than I can remember, and I’ve seen some fucking amazing bands as well. But I don’t think I ever had that feeling I thought I would feel put on on me as much as I thought I would, there was always some bullshit. One band was always an exception to all this…
I wish the grey hoodie I’m wearing in that photo really fit me as good as I thought it did when I wore it every day in 2009.
The Gifthorse are my favourite Australian band ever. They’re the only band where that feeling that I thought every kid I saw in every photo singing along to all my favourite bands in all those magazines I purchased actually became a reality. There was absolutely no fault in any of it at those shows, I couldn’t convince myself not to be stoked, and that’s a pretty special thing, considering I can’t get into 8/10 bands I watch these days and I can find any reason to not like something/someone. I don’t think people outside of Brisbane really understand just how much we loved them here. That whole performer/crowd bullshit was thrown right out the door every show. A lot of bands like to claim that they maintain that kinda vibe, but a lot of bands are fucking liars who are full of shit. For a while after moving to Brisbane and a few failed friendships and bands ending, I always had this little bit of doubt about whether I made the right choice about leaving where I grew up, which didn’t make sense to me. The Gifthorse played a pretty big part in helping me forget about that and see that at the time, I was a part of something that was pretty fucking awesome.
I don’t even feel awkward about writing something like this about a band of dudes that I’m essentially mates with. If I did, that’d kind of be missing the point of this whole big awesome thing that’s helped me get through everything.
One day they played a show in my loungeroom and I sang a Hot Water Music cover with them. It was pretty alright, hey.
Feelsgoodman.
23 days again 2010 ended.
In 2010 I….
- Finally got into Crime In Stereo. That album was amazing.
- I had the band i was in for the majority of the year feature in Blunt’s “Upcoming bands” and “25 bands to watch in 2011″ sections. There was also a song off the EP i recorded with them on Blunt’s last CD sampler for the year. Long time high school dreams crossed off the list. Classic.
- I made a lot of new friends that don’t live in Brisbane. I lost a few friends that live in Brisbane.
- I realised that I love spending time back in Rockhampton now. The jaded bullshit finally became a fond nostalgia. There’s old friends I love seeing, and newer friends who go to all the shows and play in all the sick bands and I already feel so close to them and like I would do anything for them. Rocky boiz etc.
- I saw Hot Water Music. Twice.
- I made an effort to free someone from the stupid emotional stranglehold I had on them. That person seems really happy now. It’s great.
- I played songs with just my voice and a guitar in front of people for the first time.
- I drank more than I have in my whole adult life. I also had way more shitty upset nights.
- I hurt my thumb heaps on Australia Day. Got punched in the head three times by a girl that night as well. Oooffff
- I put on weight.
- The sight in my left eye is still getting worse. Hello eyepatch.
- The Sunday night at Poison City Weekender was the single worst night of my year. I got into a fight somewhere on the streets of Melbourne and I don’t remember it. If I could go back and do that whole night again, I would.
- For the first time in fourteen years I travelled back to Frankston. Bad idea.
- The Deftones got good again.
- I met someone who lives somewhere else really briefly at a show, and I’ve since spoken a lot to that person. That person is good.
- I got to play a show with Dangers.
- 2010 fucking sucked overall. 2011 is my year.
Imagine living with these guys.
