Is it dangerous?
No ma’am, just bothersome…
What does it do?
You will feel eternally tired

I sort of have this recurring dream/premonition before i go to concerts of bands that i like. It doesn’t happen before every concert just some of them. I know Silk has had a similar dream so i’m probably not alone here. The dream is that something happens where i am called upon to finish off one of the band’s songs or the rest of their set or something like that. The closest i got to it becoming true was – believe it or not – at a Greenday concert…now this was before the eye make-up and generational, anthemic, politics-for-dummy’s dribble they are releasing now…but pretty fucking close to it all the same.

Anyways i’d taken this girl who i was silly enough to have a crush on for 10 years and her friend and we had gotten split up at some point after the first few minutes. Midway through the gig a crowdsurfer landed on my head from behind. I must have been mid-way through singing about the myth of Masturbation sending you blind my mouth slammed shut and bit through my tongue. Two teeth on either side went completely through my tongue and touched in the middle. The next two teeth went in top and bottom and almost touched, and then the next one’s just went in at the top i think. Needless to say my mouth completely filled with blood. But stuck in a moshpit there was naff-all that i could really do. Except swallow. So i kept swallowing.

Anyway i decided that i didn’t really fancy the show that much that i wanted to keep getting hit so i started making my way back far enough that i could watch in peace. Two song’s later they have one of those break down moments when the drummer and bassist just keep playing some melody and the guitarist/frontman felates his own ego. I think this one even included a sing-along with refrain and some joke about an Ozzy Osbourne song leading into a rant about all rock song’s being just G, C and D chords. Anyway at the end of said rant a powerdrunk Billie Joe asked the audience if anyone out there played guitar?

Of course we do dipshit…doesn’t everyone?

Alarm bells were ringing though so i began making my way forward, sensing this could be my time. Then he said the immortal words ‘well, we’re looking for someone to come up and finish off this next song for us!’ And that was it…the push was on. I flung women and children out of the way. Knocked down cripples…they didn’t put up much of a fight. I was maybe 20 metres from stage which is a fair amount in a crowd by the time he pulled up Sally or Kate or whatever this bint’s name was. The aforementioned bint gets on stage and they go through the motions of introductions. Anyway bint has allegedly played guitar for 5 years. So he tells her the chords as he drapes his BJ Fender Squier or whatever it is over her shoulder. The tension mounts as she drops the ball on a G-Chord. Seriously it’s like the first one you learn! To a chorus of boos she is unceremoniously ejected from the stage.

I think i realised a second or two before everyone else which helped me get the drop on the masses as i had gained another 5 meters or so when he said ‘ok we’ll give this one more go’… This time i was just scything people down to get closer to the stage. Enter Shayno from the central coast. Now everyone knows an area near where they lived which is just full of deadshits. Well the Central Coast is Sydney’s version. So Shayno gets up and makes some ridiculous hand gesture as he proudly states his place of origin before Billie again drapes the guitar over him. Crushingly, Shayno knows the required 3 or 4 power chords to finish the song. Billie sends him stage-diving off into Andy Warhol super-stardom…

Why that could have been me!

Anyway i guess the overriding theme to take from that story is that people have dreams of one day fulfilling the roles of the people they go to see performances of…would be the main jist of that story to take home with you.

Do you think then, that people who attend bullfights in Spain are thinking…you know what…i’d really like to get up there and give it a go…you know if that matador guy gets injured and they need someone to finish the show…i reckon i could do it?

Now’s your chance Pedro..

Full credit to the guy who was holding on to his tail though. Respect.

That was quite a build up wasn’t it. I give it a 7.

I will never pay attention to any girl or woman who says that all men suck or are crap or any variation on the theme. Not that i agree or disagree with them, just that they are the root cause of what men are. You made your bed, fucking lie in it. If you think we’re all shit it’s your fault. This conclusion stems from the most annoying phrase ever uttered by a human being – and when i say ‘ever’ i clearly mean anything that i can think of at this present point in time pertinent to the point i am trying to make – and that is “Yeah, girls do like the bad guys.” Have you ever heard of Darwin? Origin of the Species? Are you familiar with the theory of evolution? Genetics? Any of these things ring a bell? If chicks dig the bad guy, it pretty much means the bad guy is the only one getting ‘any’ – hence the only one likely to be able to reproduce and shoot off some sort of evil offspring capable of carrying on his father’s legacy, should said bad-guy choose to stay around the aforementioned woman long enough to model him in his own image. So what the fuck do you expect? Nice guys apparently only become a viable option once the woman has been shat on like 400 times and decides it’s time for her to ‘settle down’ at which point said nice guy is probably shooting blanks therefore confirming the hypotheses that nice guys do in fact finish last, and sometimes not at all. You only have yourselves to blame. Reap it.

Turns out i have a vast reservoir of hatred to rely on when needed…

The other day i Googled my acoustic to see if i could find a picture of it to show a colleague. Curiosity got the better of me so i decided to see what else i could find out about it. I remember putting the serial number into the Fender website and coming up with nada a few years ago so i wasn’t expecting to find much. Turns out there isn’t a whole lot of information out there, and quite a few people are looking for it. Anyway, in the three pages of Google that i looked at, this is what i came up with:

From the Fender website: Unfortunately, our records are not complete enough to provide precise dating information for many early Fender acoustic guitars. Although the tables below are as accurate as possible, serial numbers of these acoustic guitars have never been archived and are of no assistance when attempting to date the instruments.

Fender Catalina

CALIFORNIA SERIES (ACOUSTIC GUITARS IMPORTED FROM JAPAN FROM ABOUT 1982 TO 1985, THEN IMPORTED FROM KOREA FROM ABOUT 1985 TO 1992) – Mine was made in Korea which dates it between 85-92.

Originally sold for $295 to $370 (presumably USD)

Spruce top, mahogany back and sides, Rosewood Fingerboard.

The guitar carries the neck and headstock of early Strats so has the feel of an acoustic Strat. A slightly high action makes it tricky to play at first, although it has fantastic sound.

I got my Catalina from a second hand guitar store in Coogee in Sydney Australia. I forget the name of the store but it was great, they used to do great mods and refurbs etc. I paid $200 AUD for it with slight body damage.

Top 5 Band names ever (see previous definition of ‘ever’). Please note i do not necessarily endorse the music of the following acts:

1. And you will know us by the trail of the dead
2. Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly.
3. Jack Off Jill
4. My Baby wants to eat your pussy
5. Machine Gun Fellatio

Special mention must go to Anno Domini High Definition. ok so it’s not a band name but ADHD for a prog rock album name is just class.

Did you ever get the feeling Frank Sinatra really wasn’t trying all of the time? He is kind of like the music equivalent of someone speaking with a heavy French accent. They could say something disgustingly vile and it will sound sexy. “I trimmed ze crud from my matted pubic hair with your nasal hair trimmer“. Now if you did the right accent when reading that, it’s pretty much guaranteed the women around you are slightly aroused. In the same manner, Ol Blue Eyes sang some absolutely rubbish songs, but because of the voice you tend not to notice. I recently ‘acquired’ The complete Capitol Singles collection thinking it might be like a best of compilation or so. Sure there are classics like ‘Young at Heart’ etc but he’s got songs on there about mowing the lawn and crap…musical facebook statuses if you will. Fair enough i don’t think he wrote any of the songs he sang but jaysus, have some respect man!