Oh miGod

This might not be Toy Story, but I've got a Woody

Theres something that scares me about the Catholic Church. No it's not the fact that select priests like to touch people, mainly children. No it's not the Popes giant hat. No it's not the fact that their leader used to be in the Hitler youth (what, me worry? I'm not even jewish!). Nor is it the people that come to our doorsteps from various denominations asking for us to listen and promptly having the door slammed in their face or being greeted by a naked person frustrated with door-to-door religion (it only happened once).

What scares me about the church is the fact that, unbeknown (or at least unacknowledged) to most, they are one of the richest institutions in the world with more accumulated wealth than most of us put together. What does the Catholic church do with this money? Save third world countries and abolish poverty? Not quite. Give back to the communities where faith is strong but hope is low? No. Help develop the cure for cancer? Why the hell would they do that? Maybe, just MAYBE the Pope wipes his arse with gold leaf (triple ply!). I mean, he's just gone on a world tour, he made millions of bloody immigrants bring over millions of flu strains and cause everyone in Sydney to at least get sick twice in the past few months, and he's not giving money away? Jesus! Instead the church invests in business, invests in the military and invests in the development of THEIR OWN POWER. When politicians use the name of God to justify a horrendous act, what they MEAN is that God's right hand man and his business have contributed significant funds to these causes. Still people donate money to the church every Sunday, no doubt hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars every week and what does it go to? You dont know, you're just trying to buy your way into grace.

I tend to forget about it most of the time, and given my inane ramblings its not hard to see why. All this was until I read the paper yesterday and found out that, of all groups - the Catholic Church is releasing THE BIBLE on ITUNES! Is it madness? Not really I guess. Its shrewd business, getting the most popular book in the world and turning it into audio. The market is absolutely huge and demand will be pretty much perpetual. How will it be done? Im not entirely sure. Does someone pay a dollar for a verse? Or a chapter instead? Or maybe even a whole testament! Are people really going to listen to it? Are you going to have to tell some fool on the train to turn down his iPod because you dont appreciate hearing Psalms on the way to work? What will be the most popular books? From Genesis to Revelations, all of the Lords Greatest Hits from the web to your ears with just the click of a button. As well as the iTunes release comes the idea of CD's, DVD's and other forms of digital media.

Once again the Catholic Church has latched onto a societal fad, long after the hype, and instilled themselves to make a quiet killing. Do they need more money? Hell no. Do we know where this money is going to go? Hell no. They call it 'spreading the word'. Some would call it attempted market domination. Theres a global economic crisis going on and the church is sitting there coming up with new ideas to add to its already prepostorous wealth? Would God let families go hungry while counting 20 zeros on the end of his bank statement? I highly doubt it.

Although I can't wait for the remixes to come out.

Into the Gallows

For any self respecting fan of local acts, I'm sure we all have those memories of the local bands that made our growing up years all the more worthwhile. Too young to hit the pub but too old to hit up a daytime weekend movie if it wouldn't lead to a bit of lovin'. These bands are the ones that kept us from a life of 96.1.

Personally, my younger years revolved around a band called Lucretia. Through the week they were merely school friends who I'd accompany to the tuck shop, but come the weekend, they annihilated their instruments too easily for individuals so young. Often I'd get tired of seeing them embarrass adult musicians who'd clearly spent too much time learning off Linkin Park tabs. The more they soared the heights, the more I road them all the way hoping that living through them would make my own lack of talent at anything a little less noticeable.

Needless to say their self imposed indefinite hiatus left me somewhat empty.

Flash forward several years, overseas trips, all kinds of music degrees and a fresh face and what you have is Geminine. Of course any fan meets a new incarnation of their once loved teenages Gods with skepticism but upon hearing their track "Gallows" it was clear the time pursuing other things has served them well.

Artists like Cog & Karnivool brought a greater respect to the need for a solid vocal (an element Lucretia also had) and in amongst the plethora of chunky riffs and piss poor singers, lies the wealth of talent that is Geminine. "Gallows" displays a great deal of musical maturity and where other artists tipping toward the heavier side of music focus on some 10 minutes affair in which they seem to forget they are not Metallica and people won't tolerate an 8 minute solo, Geminine seem to focus on combining all the elements of a powerful rock song without spending all their time letting us know just how fast they can be or how long they can stretch out a song.

Within Geminine there is clearly a balance to music which only comes with the ability to harness restraint. The track "Changes" still delivers the driving bass line and thick layered guitars however it also shows yet another demonstration of the need to embrace the subtle side of the genre. Think the ability to really ramp up a song from zero to sixty much like Full Scale but without the over exaggerated commercialism and a failed stint in the US.

No frills, no gimmicks, just a pulsating wall of sound.

21 Nov: Catch Geminine @ the Jolly Frog in Windsor

"Changes" is available for download @ Triple Unearthed
"Gallows" can be streamed @ their myspace.

Macs Vs PCs

Peace.

Aw Yeah

I have this love and hate relationship with The Grates.

Why?

Gosh I'm glad you asked! A good friend of mine is a huge movie buff and it seemed like after a while everyone he spoke to was absolutely in love with the movie 'Baseketball'. In very Anchorman / Talledega Nights fashion, entire weekends were devoted to the art of quoting lines from 'Basketball'. My good friend had not seen the movie yet and the insane amount of hype scarred him so much that to this day he has not seen the beautiful irrelevance that is Baseketball. Some may say he isn't missing much... those people stop reading now and shoot yourself or go to the library.

Anyways, so that was me with the Grates, everyone telling me the amazing sounds I was missing out on. When Ben Lee said at some festival I was drunk at "this is the year of the Grates" well then I just didn't want to know them. I fought it for a while but then I bit the bullet and yes science was truely golden!

So when the new album finally rolled around, I was in the same state of cynicism. I hate to say that I love how they raised the bar and fill clips like "Aw Yeah" on further impress me. It's such a filthy rock your socks type song infused with all those required Grates ingredients. As always the manner in which Patience struts around with her posse is more bad ass than anything Richard Ashcroft could muster.

Bonus points go to the not so choreographed dance toward the end of the clip.

Buy "Teeth Lost, Hearts Won" from Last.fm

Don't think we're ok just because i'm here.

What is it with this little blonde bonny lass? I can't help but find her absolutely enchanting. Yet it seems every one I speak to can only come up with the usual wanker comments like "shes too Norah Jones". If you ask me, that just means she's in good company. I adore her and her little hand actions. Quite frankly music hasn't looked this classy since the last Lindstrom remix.

Maybe instead of sitting there dormant in your chair listening to "Warwick Avenue" you should get up and try and get a nice subtle groove like Duffy and then I hope you'll be more swept away. Personally I love nothing more than imagining myself doing some Duffy kareokee with microphone held oh so daintily in my hand, eyes closed, dreaming of getting to Warwick Avenue.

Come on Australia, Don't be one of those that discards quality music and 90210 in the same week!