Gay Your Life Must Be?

I've gotta apologise for my lack of blogging action...

Sorry...

It's because over the last two weeks I've been too busy avoiding swine flu and gangland murders... seriously, all the good shit happens 10 minutes north of Melbourne CBD.

Anyway, for todays blog you'll be treated to my unbiased award-winning journalistic expose on a court battle. Native birds of Australia take on a classic Australian song in a class action law suit.

Men At Work Vs Kookaburras of Australia

Exhibit A.


Remember this song?
How could you not? If you grew up in Australia, you sang it... we ALL sang it. Quintessential Ozzie nursery rhyme. A "seminal" song in all our lives.

Exhibit B.


Remember this song?

If you were a sailing fan in 1983 you would know that Australia II won the America's Cup. The fist time a non-american boat had won The Americas Cup in 6,000 years.

The boat had a SICK sound system.

After they won, they pumped "The Land Down Under at full volume across San Francisco Bay. It was an historic sporting moment and "Land Down Under" became the historic boat's official anthem.

That very day, Prime-minister Bob Hawke made it a public holiday and the whole country got wasted while listening to the song. Whistling the flute line stupidly with some serious national pride.

The song reached number one on Australia, US and UK charts... It made soooooooo much cash for it's songwriter Colin Hay and the rest of the boys in Men At Work...




BUT!!!!!!

There's a line of the flute theme is "allegedly" direct musical quote of the opening line of the Kookuburra laughs theme song. It enters the song about half a dozen times.

It's something that I've noticed for years but it's something that the publishers of the nursery rhyme only just noticed. Apparently after watching an episode of Spics and Specs. Now they're takin it to court.

It's quite possible that the publishers of the nursery rhyme will receive a payout of millions and millions of dollars...

So, since you're the jury.
Ask yourself these questions...

Does the flute line copy the nursery rhyme?
Is it obviously recognizable as a copy?
Does the flute line constitute a significant part of Men at Work's song?

If you ask me the answers are all... "f*ckin oath, yes"


But now it's your turn...
"TRIAL BY ILLEGETIMATE CHILDREN" requires you to leave a comment underneath this blog with the word GUILTY or INNOCENT.

If the answer is overwhlemingly "guilty" then I'll submit it to the supreme court of Australia and they'll tell Colin Hay (Men at work singer) to give a bunch of cash to every Kookaburra in Australia...

Don't be shy... if you get this blog via email, log into the site and leave a comment. Guilty or Innocent? Kookaburra or Colin? Patsy Bisco or Men at Work?

Product Placement: This Blog's less tight than ABC's RAGE

I'm not sure if you've realised, but Illegitimate Children (henderson's blog) is a hotbed of commenting activity.

It certainly has caught me be suprise. That's why it took me ages to see this comment. I want to thank 'anonymous' for this. This is what I want. Informed discussion about cool music, the state of the Australian music industry, interspersed with the odd swear word (like 'f*ck', 'sh*t' or 'Carnivorous rUNT').

Here's the comment... it was after Illegitimate Children's rant about ridiculous funding for Olympic sports compared to music and culture which gets sweet f*ck all.

hey while you're havin a bit of a bang on about the govt, something just came to my attention which freakin irks me to no end. the abc - now i'm a massive fan of aunty but bugger me they've gone a bit too far. i just heard that the new kram clip for 'silk suits' is not allowed to be aireed on the abc because they shot it at the rod laver arena (just to tie into your sporting theme here) and there are sponsorship ads in the background. what a load of fucking horse shit. have the abc lost the plot?? do they seriously think that their clips don't have brand endorsed product placement all the way through them? what about when the Hoods wear DC shoes or the Finger wear connies - do they thyink they just went out and bought them so they could look cool in their film clips? Get fucking real abc - nearly all of the bands yoiu play on triple jtv or rage have some kind of endorsement deal in place. perhaps they should stop any band playing who's drummer is sponsored by pearl or the guitarist has a gibson deal. dickheads

Wicked. Thanks anonymous! I wasn't aware of this. It's a great comment. And I reckon right on the money. Very perceptive. Great Insight. If I may... just a few comments on that comment.

1. "irk" = Great word... gotta use it more
2. Appreciated this bit "what a load of fucking horse shit"
3. Clearly this clip is filmed on one of the show courts at Melbourne Park... Not Rod Laver Arena... get it right.



It sounds like Kram always does, fun but not much depth... ZING. The redeeming feature is that it confirms my long held belief that (former WTA Ranked World Number 8 Alicia Molik - thanks wiki) was rather attractive. Underrated as a tennis player and underrated as a looker!

Also, check out the rally from 1:40 to 2:00. Krams cross court winner is freakin epic. LOVE IT!

So, how do feel about Garnier, KIA, The Herald Sun, Australia Post and Adidas and MOTORHEAD T-Shirts?
This blog whole-heartedly endorses all brands appearing a KRAM video clip...

If RAGE won't play it, I will. I don't have any code of practice or editorial policy. This is a niche for this blog.

ALSO HUGE HUGE UPS TO CONNOR BEAVS FOR HIS SICK PIGEON PHOTO... THANKS DUDE.

Australian Pride - Sport and Punk

How good is it that we have always PUNCHED ABOVE OUR WEIGHT as a sporting nation?

Australia Rocks at sport Man!
(except in one day international and 20 20 cricket... now)

I'm a sports mad goon. I love soccer and AFL, Cricket and the Tour De France... I've travelled overseas to watch the Socceroos at the world cup in Germany, I signed up for tickets to the next world cup in South Africa and I'm a member of the Melbourne Victory.

However, I feel like Australia has short man syndrome.

Maybe as a collective nation we feel culturally insignificant, or maybe we're not as tough or big or important as other countries so we have to smash weights at the gym, stick our chests out and beat everyone at sport then shout out loud about it.

image from the couch gymnast my new favorite blog

It really annoys me that our sense of national identity and pride is so reliant on our performances in the sporting arena.

Here's some stats from the BEIJING OLYMPICS (from http://simon.forsyth.net/olympicsGDP2008.html):

• Australia came 5th overall on the medals tally - impressive yeah?
  
• Australia came 6th overall in the 'medals per capita' - still pretty impressive hey?
  
• We came 18th overall on the medals per capita tally and 18th in the medals per GDP (Gross Domestic Product) - hmmm... not as impressive
  

But... here's something not very impressive at all.

Government funding for Australia's elite athletes in preparation for the Beijing Olympics was allocated at the ratio of 40 million dollars per Gold Medal

f*ckloads.
waaaaayyyy toooooo much

And now people are in tears because if we don't add another 100 million to our olympic funding, we'll win EVEN LESS MEDALS! http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/08/18/2339445.htm

I've got an idea.

Let's forgo one Olympic Gold Medal and spend 40 million dollars on independent music...

Let's forgo another gold medal which will fund a fully functioning Victorian College Of The Arts and will allow the Australian National Academy of Music (a selective school for Australia's most talented young classical musicians) to function finally without risking being shut down.

You get my drift.

Maybe we could educate some people that we have things to proud of besides victory

Here's a reason I'm Proud of being an Australian.

Eddy Current Suppression Ring paid $1500 to make Australia's best record of 2008.
It won the Australian Music Prize, was nominated for an ARIA and won an AIR Award.
What other country has a music public, a music media that can recognise and foster brilliant music like this? Values, character, attitude, energy and songwriting.
Can you imagine ECSR winning a mercury music prize in the UK or the Shortlist prize in the USA?
even dicko loves it


(thanks to Stu for showing me the ECSR videos)

Maybe we could spend some of the gold medal money educating people about where some of our greatest musicians fit in the pantheon of worldwide culture.
I'll give one example.

This is also something that everyone of us should be proud of... The Saints are recognised in Australia's National Film and Sound Archive.
They formed the same year as the Ramones and predated the sex pistols, the buzzcocks, the clash... I realise I may be preaching to the converted here. But every time I listen to The Saints I reckon it needs to be said again. and again.

This song isn't what they're most famous for... but it was their biggest hit. It got to number 34 in the UK in 1977. It's my favorite Saints song. I think it's as scintillatingly rad as music gets...