Do you have a spare 13 minutes? At the end of it, you'll either have a new favourite band, or... you'll just be 13 minutes older (sorry!!)

Quite a week, this one... Not so much for me, but the world has been busy, in mostly unpleasant ways

Certainly not a good week to be a Bass player - we lost 2 great ones John Giblin who, like David Lindley who passed earlier this year, was one of those musicians you've never heard of, but have certainly heard... on music by Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins, Kate Bush, Simple Minds, Brand X, Eric Clapton, Paul McCartney (you'd have to be a good bass player to be on a McCartney album!!), Al Green, Annie Lennox, Joan Armatrading... et infinitus cetera... We also lost Andy Rourke most famously of The Smiths, whose style was entirely his own...

It was also a normal week for Elon Musk, who can always be relied on to spout some batshit-crazy, out-of-touch, billion-dollar-baby, right-wing bullshit almost on demand... & even if you don't demand it. This week, he's still banging on about working from home & how it mostly hurts his feelings, as it certainly hasn't been proved to hurt productivity. These are obviously the words of a man with too much money invested in soon-to-be-obsolete office buildings

Meanwhile, here in Australia, we've been indulging in some not-so-casual racism because a well-respected journalist, writer & Aboriginal person had the nerve to talk openly about the atrocities inflicted on his people in the name of British Kings & Queens over the last 200 years or so... & he had the nerve to do so during a telecast of the coronation of Charles III. So of course, social media has lit up like... well. like burning crosses actually, leading to Stan Grant's decision to walk away from his job & career indefinitely, due to both the abuse directed at him & his family, but also the lack of support from his employer - the Australian Broadcasting Commission, who, you'd think, really should know better... What will it take to eradicate this kind of outdated, parochial hatred from not just Australia, but the rest of the world. Every time we breathe a sigh of relief that some old white racist son of a bitch has died, it seems their poison has infected dozens, if not hundreds of impressionable young people to carry on... & carry out this unending legacy of fear-based abuse & violence

To finish the week on a lighter note - unless any of your ancestry were on the Titanic, a picture has been doing the rounds on the 'net of a modern-day cruise ship & the Titanic, showing the truly mind-boggling size difference 100 years or so has made to nautical luxury... As someone commented - "the modern ship would simply haul the iceberg on board to supply the cocktail bar"

Some John Giblin bass-playing, on a song you may know...



& Andy Rourke, making the Smiths sound amazing... that's him on the left



Next!!!