Justification: This isn’t the first time that the Muppets have featured in here, and it’s unlikely to be the last.

Leaving aside that it’s a brilliant pastiche of Bruce Springsteen (and that this comes to mind more readily than ‘Born to Run’, especially the magnificent line “and we scream into that bitter night – hey, three plus one is four!”), this has sentimental value for me as well: Adelaide folkers the Bedridden – the band that featured the late, great Baterz – used to do a spirited cover of it.

Admit it: that’s a brilliant cover.

Sesame Street had some great in-house songwriters, most notably Joe “Bein’ Green”Raposo, but this was written by Christopher Cerf (who wrote a lot of the more rockin’numbers – he’s all over the parent album, and I believe that’s him doing the vocal) and the fact that the music was so damn good was one of the reasons I kept watching Sesame Street when I was older, generally with my youngest sister. Which was, after all, the idea: Sesame Street’s whole model was to have something for parents so they’d watch with their kids rather than plonk them in front of the TV. Of their Springsteen parodies, I think this works rather better than ‘Barn in the USA’.

The album’s just been re-released, which has brought me more joy than just about any new album in recent times. It’s also got ‘The Ten Commandments of Health’ on it, which is hilarious.

Also, note the use of “policepersons”. Adorable.

SONG YOU SHOULD HAVE REDISCOVERED THIS TIME IN 2011: The Only Ones’ magnificent contribution to the culture ‘Another Girl Another Planet’.

SONG YOU SHOULD HAVE REDISCOVERED THIS TIME IN 2012: Wow, time flies: a year since a very grim time in my life, and hence Sparklehorses’ ‘Happy Man’.

AND HERE’S THE LAST FIVE…

524. Flight of the Conchords: Carol Brown (8 Feb)

525. The Cure: A Night Like This (1 Mar)

526. The Pogues: If I Should Fall from Grace with God (15 Mar)

527. Hefner: The Day that Thatcher Dies (9 Apr)

528. Black: Wonderful Life (16 Apr)

It’s a mini-update, really, because there’s been minimal stuff published this week. A lot of actual writing, mind, as will become clear in future issues of Time Out, Blunt and Rolling Stone, but in terms of things you can click on right now… it looks pretty pathetic. But: there’s my column at Time Out this week is How to stage a successful music festival. And, of course, there’s a bunch of 10 Things at the Vine, such as…

 Paul McCartney attacked by, duets with giant swarm of Brazilian grasshoppers – 10 Things

 Girls Gone Wild founder heading for jail after Girls Gone To Police – 10 Things

 Giant boozed-up monster attacks Ghostbuster and Stormtrooper – 10 Things

 China’s official newspaper moves into state-of-the-art Penisdome – 10 Things

I think there should be a Spring Breakers film review somewhere around too. Hmm. I should hunt it down.

Yours ever,

APS

So, what’s been happening in the bit of the world that’s made entirely of things I wrote over the last couple of weeks? Not enough, obviously, but a fair whack.

There’s some good things, like this piece on Why it’s okay to shame OkCreeps, and  7 reasons why ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ makes no sense, both for the Vine.

My Time Out columns have been explaining Why should we bother with ANZAC Day and Why Fred Nile wants a referendum on marriage equality, so expect things to get a lot more pop-culturey in the coming weeks. There’ve also been some music things, like my interviews with Deftones and the Sunnyboys and a review of the two Sydney They Might Be Giants shows. Oh, and my one sentence album reviews - and I wrote an obituary for Chrissy Amphlett at Mess+Noise. The New Blunt has quite a lot of CD reviews of mine as well.

And, of course, my Vine news – which looks like this:

 You can’t name your baby Anal in New Zealand for some reason – 10 Things

 Roaming gangs of sherpas terrorise Everest – 10 Things

 Puny humans lose legal challenge from mighty bee overlords – 10 Things

 Breathalysers: they’re not just for drunk drivers anymore! – 10 Things

 Curiosity Rover draws mighty space wang on Mars – 10 Things

 Hipster Jesus campaign totes going to make Catholicism cool and popular – 10 Things

…and At least it’s the Earth itself trying to kill us instead of some nut with a bomb, right?  - 10 Things, and Nation’s pro-humping agenda produces 23 millionth Australian – 10 Things.

So yeah, stuff. There’s been stuff. Hopefully there’ll be even more by the next update.

Yours ever,

APS

It’s Friday, so about time to assess my worth as a human being by counting up the amount of words I wrote that got published.

And it’s low.

That’s at least partially because a lot of said words are for magazines that are yet to be published, or (in the case of Cosmos and, next week, Time Out Melbourne) published but not yet online), but even so: it’s a fairly pathetic haul.

That said: here’s my Daily Life piece In Defence of Marriage, about marriage being a thing that people should be able to do. Also, here’s a wildly positive review of the new Underground Lovers album Weekend, which is fantastic, at mess+noise. And this week’s column for Time Out in Sydney and Melbourne, Should Alan Jones Just Shut The Hell Up? (spoiler: yes. Yes, he should).

And four days of news for the Vine, which was rather like this:

 My my, doesn’t NZ look more progressive than certain other Australasian countries? – 10 Things

 Nun heading to sainthood via holy miracle of poo – 10 Things

 Heroin, 2013 could be your greatest year yet! – 10 Things

 Hugh Jackman remains safely unpubed by stalker – 10 Things

…and that’s pretty much it. Will next week be the week I feel like I’ve achieved a damn thing in what I laughingly refer to as my career? Let’s find out, gang!

(spoiler alert: no.)

Yours in desperate gratitude,

APS

Justification: I remember when I was first learning music theory that the difference between a major and a minor key was explained to me as the difference between happy and sad. That semitone change in the third made all the difference (well, also the 7th, but that isn’t nearly so important).

Hey, let’s spin this platter – looks like toe-tapping good times!

It’s what makes ‘Wonderful Life’ so marvellously effective, with its at-first-glance upbeat lyrics about sunshine and wind in the hair and self-reliance, undercut by the melancholy melody and minor key (E minor, to be specific. Incidentally, if you’re the sort of person who ever wonders what instrument someone writes on, the key of the song is a good clue: despite the fact that it’s almost entirely played on keyboards, I’m betting Colin Vearncombe wrote ‘Wonderful Life’ on guitar). The grainy black and white video hammers the discrepancy between the lyrics and the meaning of the song home pretty relentlessly, just in case anyone missed it. That said, there have been several inexplicably upbeat club anthem covers of this which seem to miss the point somewhat. It’s found a recent second life as an anthem for refugee advocacy, though, which is perfect.

I loved this song madly at the time (though the rest of the album’s a bit patchy: his subsequent album Comedy is far better) but Vearncombe’s been off my radar for a long time – however, he’s still making music as Black and under his own name, which I should probably do something about hunting down.

And that chorus is going to be in your head for the rest of the day. Just accept it.

SONG YOU SHOULD HAVE REDISCOVERED THIS TIME IN 2012: Cracker were showing that Dave Lowery had a life beyond Camper Van Beethoven with ‘Teen Angst (What The World Needs Now)’. 

AND HERE’S THE LAST FIVE…

523. Space and Cerys Matthews: The Ballad of Tom Jones (30 Jan)

524. Flight of the Conchords: Carol Brown (8 Feb)

525. The Cure: A Night Like This (1 Mar)

526. The Pogues: If I Should Fall from Grace with God (15 Mar)

527. Hefner: The Day that Thatcher Dies (9 Apr)

I’ve been scribbling away frantically on a lot of magazine stuff for Time Out, Blunt and Australian Guitar, plus some big awesome pieces that I’ll boast about later, but there’s a couple of columns for Time Out – my In Defence of Hipsters piece is in Sydney this week, while Melbourne’s gotten a big ol’ rant about The Gentle Art of Heckling (complete with an old photo of me sans beard. It looks weird and wrong). Oh, and I did a thing about Daft Punk’s Wee Waa listening event for Time Out in which I got snarky about upcoming albums, and also did a Fasterlouder piece on Margaret Thatcher’s Five Greatest Contributions to Pop.

And of course I’m up at an ungody hour Monday-Thursday to tell you all about what’s happening in the world. For example:

 Life becomes bad cartoon as man ties puppy to railway tracks – 10 Things

Why do Girl Guides oppose the sexy, sexy operation of the free press? – 10 Things

 Fatal stroke suspected of left wing bias – 10 Things

 Naked man wins whiskey from crocodiles – 10 Things

I think I’ve a Daily Life piece appearing today too. Still, seems a bit thin. So, let’s do a bunch more next week, huh?

Yours ever,

APS

Justification: If you’ve read this site for more than a couple of minuntes, you know what my politics. I’m a big ol’ lefty, and I will happily go on record as saying that Margaret Thatcher destroyed Conservative politics. There was a strain of small-c conservatism that was all about being economically cautious and socially responsible, but the Reagan/Thatcher double-hit killed that notion stone dead, leading to the adherence to free market dogma, economics-as-religion, the abdication of community responsibility in favour of some nebulous idea of the individual being entirely responsible for their lot in life, and so on. It’s evil, it’s venal, and it’s demonstrably dangerous. And the world is the better for her absence.

Thwack! Take THAT, right-wing politics!

There’s a myth that the Thatcher years inspired great music, mainly by people that don’t realise that the punk explosion of 1976-79 occured during the ineffectual Labour government of James Callaghan. And sure, there were some great tunes, but frankly this is the best one: the closing track of We Love The City is a brass-driven stomper, a celebration of mean-spirited hatred ending with a children’s choir singing  ”ding dong, the witch is dead”. And if there’s a better mixing the political and the personal than “she wrapped an ankle chain ’round my left-wing heart”, I can’t think of it at the moment.

Genius.

SONG YOU SHOULD HAVE REDISCOVERED THIS TIME IN 2010: Flowers – or Icehouse – were being awesome with ‘We Can Get Together’.

AND HERE’S THE LAST FIVE…

522. Gene: Be My Light, Be My Guide (25 Jan)

523. Space and Cerys Matthews: The Ballad of Tom Jones (30 Jan)

524. Flight of the Conchords: Carol Brown (8 Feb)

525. The Cure: A Night Like This (1 Mar)

526. The Pogues: If I Should Fall from Grace with God (15 Mar)

I wrote a lot of stuff lately. Seriously. A lot.

Here’s one of the best things: an interview with David Lee Roth for Time Out. The man is freakin’ nuts. And here’s a PVT for Fasterlouder.

I wrote a review of The Host for the Sunday Telegraph, and various other Sunday News papers, and look: let’s just say it’s a big ol’ stinker. On the other hand, Ross McLennan’s album The Night’s Deeds are Vapour is pretty damn good, as I point out at mess+noise. Oh, and I did  Time Out piece on Sharetapes, which is a pretty decent thing.

Have I also written a bunch of Time Out columns, you ask? Why, yes: here’s my Open Letter to Sydney Public Transport, my exhortation about Getting Back to the True Meaning(s) of Easter, and my powerful, moving screed In Defence of Hipsters, which has a reasonably solid masturbation joke in it.

And of course we have the news at TheVine for the last couple o’ weeks. There at least a dozen decent jokes in these eight pieces – see if you can spot them all!

 Sorry, we have a NEW winner for dumbest April Fools Day prank – 10 Things

 We may have a winner for dumbest international April Fools prank – 10 Things

 Will the forthcoming Korean War II: Son of Korean War match the original? – 10 Things

 Princess Diana’s drag king past – revealed! – 10 Things

 Don’t mess with the furious fists of Raging Biebs – 10 Things

 Windbag vs Wind: Trump pledges to save Scotland from electricity – 10 Things

 New Pope addresses the vital issue of Batman – 10 Things

 Spice reality show to discover new skinny, sulky-looking clotheshorse? – 10 Things

And there’s probably some more, but damned if I can remember them right now. Load of Australian Guitar stuff, certainly, and some Blunt stuff, and there’s got to be more Time Out wordage that I’m overlooking.

So tired. So very, very tired.

Cheers,

APS

So, in the interests of mad self-aggrandisement, let’s have a look over the last week and a bit and assess whether I’ve done anything much that’s useful.

The new issue of Time Out is out in Melbourne, while Sydney’s out on Wednesday, with a slew of my words in ‘em. Among the stuff there are interviews with They Might Be Giants, Ben Lee and Margaret Cho, and my columns for the last two weeks are hopefully entertaining enough: Why All Albums Should Be Ten Tracks Or Less, and Ten Things the New Star Wars Films Will Require (Going By Recent Trends).

My John Lydon interview at Fasterlouder is probably the best interview I’ve had in a while (entirely because of him, I should make clear).

But my favourite thing that’s up this week is my rant at the Vine: How To Not Be Called A Rapist. I write quickly when I’m furious.

And of course, here’s a round up of all the Vine news for the last little bit:  Finally, we’re getting Star Wars hologram tech – 10 Things

 Gandalf to marry Captain Picard – 10 Things

 Well, maybe Satan actually DOES look like Obama, ever think of that? – 10 Things

 Gillard declares she’s staying put so let’s all speculate about her leaving some more – 10 Things

 Yeah, maybe DON’T let your toddler take hits from your bong – 10 Things

 Jerk shark gets man fired for saving children – 10 Things

 Nuanced political debate in the Rudd Australian press about Rudd politics Rudd – 10 Things

Next week: David Lee Roth interview, a bunch of things from Time Out will be live, and hopefully a screed or two. Still feel like there could be so, so much more being done…

Yours ever,

APS

Justification: Happy nearly St Patrick’s Day!

My, don’t they look smart!

The Pogues have a very special place in my heart not because I like a drink or because I have any particular fondness for Celtic folkery, but because they were about the only band that my cousins and I could agree on. The tastes of the Adelaide- and Sydney-based Streets were very different but we all found common ground with the London-based Irish punk-folkers, and I was absolutely going to see the band at the Hordern with my cousins last year but it clashed with something else I went to instead. Damned if I can remember what, mind. 

This is also the first album without bassist Cait O’Riordan, who had quit to work with her new husband Elvis Costello (who she’d met when he was producing the Pogues’ 1985 album Rum, Sodomy & the Lash).

She’s missed, but the band regrouped and expanded for what is probably their masterpiece – bringing in a bunch of new worldish musicish influences to their standard frenetic folk. However, the title track is heartland Poguery and proves that there’s more to them than the (admittedly brilliant) perennial number-one-song-in-heaven that is ‘Fairytale of New York’, which was also on this disc. And while you’re here, click through to this song by the late, great Kirsty MacColl, who was the duettist on that track.

And then when you get maudlin, come back to this – a truly rollicking celebration of damnation.

SONG YOU SHOULD HAVE REDISCOVERED THIS TIME IN 2010: The most underrated Pixies song ever: ‘Dig for Fire’.

SONG YOU SHOULD HAVE REDISCOVERED THIS TIME IN 2011: The Hold Steady’s jubilant ode to problem gambling: ‘Chips Ahoy!’.

AND HERE’S THE LAST FIVE…

521. The Stone Roses: Elephant Stone (7 Dec)

522. Gene: Be My Light, Be My Guide (25 Jan)

523. Space and Cerys Matthews: The Ballad of Tom Jones (30 Jan)

524. Flight of the Conchords: Carol Brown (8 Feb)

525. The Cure: A Night Like This (1 Mar)