Monday, November 16, 2009

Don't Judge Me

I've recently written another new song called "Don't Judge Me", which I practiced for the first time yesterday with my band Laissez-Fayre. This is one of my most personal songs that I've written in a long time which deals with the hardships and offences I've faced when coming out to others that I am a nudist, and the problems that nudists face from some areas of society where having beaches closed down and being dumped on by self-righteous religious nutcases is concerned.

The most ironic thing about this song is that it is written in a style of music that I don't usually listen to, which is country & western. However it sounds more like an old-school C&W number rather than something that Billy Ray Cyrus, Taylor Swift, Keith Urban or Garth Brooks would write. I mainly wrote it in this vein because the majority of nudists (at least in Australia and America anyway) are C&W fans and in their 40's - 60's and grew up with that type of music.

For people who judge nudists, I usually think that a lot of things they say about them is unfounded. To write us all off as being swingers, child molesters, or into incest is very off-the-mark. Yes, there are some nudists who are like that but please - the majority of nudists want nothing to do with them. We've become a culture where a person is judged due to 'guilty by association'. The same thing happened to Jesus when he kept company with the societal rejects rather than the elitist leaders like the Sadduccees and the Pharisees.

Regretfully, the picture has not changed. Even in today's so-called age of enlightenment, people (especially teens and young adults) are still very judgemental and will actively vilify or ridicule what they do not understand. Being a nudist is one of those things. I find it hypocritical that those same people would not dare speak out against gay and lesbian people, or dark skinned people, so what does it have to say about our human nature? Then again, I also think that nudists need to share the blame when they closet themselves and refuse to tell and educate other people about their lifestyle.

You can read the lyrics to the song on the hyperlink at the beginning of this article. Your feedback would be most appreciated. :)

Monday, November 9, 2009

Satan's Ten Commandments

1) You can worship any god you want.
2) Better to worship a false god than no God at all. Make idols out of power, money, fame, and sex and enjoy them unfetterdly.
3) Thou shalt put your hand up a trusted girl's dress or steal money from a church and say "God told me to do that".
4) Work 24/7 even on the Sabbath. Capitalism has made godliness unnecessary.
5) Hate and disrespect your parents, they are boring old authoritarian windbags and full of shit.
6) Kill anyone whom you don't like, or whom enrages you.
7) Take whatever you want from others and from the earth without putting anything back.
8) Go behind your partner's back and have affairs whenever you want. Stolen water tastes sweeter.
9) You can have whatever your neighbour has, just take it.
10) Lie, gossip about and talk about other people behind their backs whom you don't particularly like. The sooner they are out of the picture the better.

Thursday, July 2, 2009

The Veronicas - "Hook Me Up" (album)

The Veronicas are twin sisters Lisa and Jessica Origliasso. Formerly from Albany Creek on Brisbane's northside, they now reside in L.A. The band first hit in 1995 with "4ever" a cross between bubblegum, power pop and punk which reached No.2 on the charts, and since then have been favourites with Top 40 audiences in Australia, America, Europe and more recently the UK. "Hook Me Up" is their second album for Sire Records, and explores a more darker and introspective side to the band as well as veering more to the combination of electro rock in a similar style to Gary Numan and Regurgitator.

Label: Sire Records
Distributor: Warner Music Group
Release Year: 2007
Catalogue Number: 9362-499154-2 (CD)
Producers: Toby Gad, Greg Wells, John Feldmann, Josh Alexander and Billy Steinberg
Purchase album here: http://www.amazon.com/Hook-Me-Up-Veronicas/dp/B001E1DJ7U/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1246541300&sr=8-3

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3zdkh_the-veronicas-untouched_music

1) UNTOUCHED - Opening up with some gorgeous strings, it quickly goes into an electro thrash track. It tears along at breakneck speed like a Japanese express train. Jess and Lisa half-talk their way through this song and it has a great rousing chorus. A good choice for their second single, and the video is just as excellent. The song is also their debut hit in the UK, having peaked at No.6 in the charts with a different video.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6cwsf_the-veronicas-hook-me-up-clip_shortfilms

2) HOOK ME UP - The title track is The Veronicas first official No.1 Australian single, and I hope that it will not be their last. It's a pleasant dance pop track about wanting to just get away from the pressures of mainstream society. Relies a lot on electronic effects, but it has some fine piano playing.


3) THIS IS HOW IT FEELS - The intro for this song reminds me of Kim Wilde's 80's classic "Kids In America". The song is basically their frustration over fair weather friends who only call them when it suits them, but when needed the most they are nowhere to be seen. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people out there like that.

4) THIS LOVE - It's an album track, but for some reason the lyrics for this song (and quite a few others) aren't included on the album's cover.

5) I CAN'T STAY AWAY - Written by Josh Alexander and well known pop songwriter Billy Steinberg, it isn't a bad song but it just didn't make any impact on me.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8gjki_the-veronicas-take-me-on-the-floor_music

6) TAKE ME ON THE FLOOR - The bloopy keyboards on this track remind a lot of ex-pat Brisbane band Regurgitator, and I think that's a good thing because they are one of my fave Australian bands of all time. I like that croaky scream towards the end of the track!

7) I DON'T WANNA WAIT - This is a more softer track with some dramatic strings and nice percussion and acoustic guitar, but it has a tough side to it. The girls attack this song really well, and if you listen closely to the end, Lisa messes the lyrics up a bit and you can hear her giggle at her mistake.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9oehs_popular_videogames

8) POPULAR - Basically a rant over hangers-on and groupies who freeload off celebrities because of their financial situation. I like this song a lot, and they sing it well. This was released as the fourth single in Australia, but it did not chart.

9) REVENGE IS SWEETER (THAN YOU EVER WERE) - Wow! This is quite possibly the most angriest and abrasive track on the album. The backing track is pleasant, and is quite listenable. It should contend with "In Another Life" to be released as the third single from the album. This is the Veronicas dark side at its best in my honest opinion.

10) SOMEONE WAKE ME UP - Again, the lyrics for this song are not included on the album (maybe they should put out a sheet music compilation of their songs for those who want to learn them). Not a bad song, but it's not my personal fave.

11) ALL I HAVE - It's all about struggling with a partner who will stick by you no matter what. Good track, and I like the piano playing at the end.

12) IN ANOTHER LIFE - Regardless of what some other fans think, I think that this should definitely be released as the next single, especially for people who think that the Veronicas songs are just throwaway pop. It drives home the sad truth that childhood relationships aren't always built to last forever and there comes a time in your life when you have to give up and let go of them. It's a very organic, honest and heartfelt track that you just feel like wanting to give them a big hug.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Lester Finchberry

I don't know who originally wrote this story, but I studied it during an RE (Religious Education) lesson in Year 11 back in 1986. Says a lot about all of us in one way or another.

LESTER FINCHBERRY

Lester Finchberry was born in New York in 1930 to an average mother and father, and weighed in at 7 pounds. He grew up in an average household to a supportive family, and as a child got into the average amount of fights, got average grades in primary school, and then became a grade “A” student. When he turned 13 years old, he started to realise that there were differences between boys and girls, and how they related to each other. Somehow that was fun, but he never found out why. He had friends, but was quite stingy with money. “Miser Lester” the others used to tease him as being, though they finally laid off him in Year 12 as it was no longer cool or fun to do so.
By the time he graduated from school, he had already decided his future: he would attend university and study commerce, become an advertising executive, get married and have two children. So he enrolled in an economics degree and set about to plan for his future. During this time, a beautiful young arts student fell madly in love with him and they started dating. However, Lester seemed to be amiable towards her but never making the first move. One night when they were at home cuddled up on the couch, she finally proposed to him. “I love you, I want to marry you” she said. Lester replied “I cant, I’m not ready yet. I’ve got my studies to finish first.” He kept on putting off her offers in the ensuing months. Finally, the girl got impatient and dropped him and married someone else within in a month of dating him. This puzzled Lester, so he studied female psyche.
He finally completed his economics degree, and attended the graduation. On his way home, he slipped and broke his ankle and had to go to hospital. “Now what could I have done to prevent this from happening again?” he wondered whilst in recovery. So he studied medicine. When he graduated four years later, on his way home a car that was coming out of the car park ran over his toe. Lester was very angry and took the driver to court, but the driver won on the grounds that Lester shouldn’t have been in the parking lot at the time. So he studied law.
He didn’t have time to finish the course, as his family got sick of supporting him and decided it was time for him to move out of home. Lester found himself a new place, and started his own business running a second hand bookshop. During this time he started reading books about future wars, revolutions, and natural disasters like hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, tidal waves, and solar flares. He thought of making money to build a hideaway by playing the stock market but decided that was too risky, so he invested in gold. Over the next five years he amassed enough money to retire to the wilderness to build himself a fortress. He stayed out there for the next twenty years waiting, and then was disappointed when the disasters never happened.
Disillusioned, he decided to return to his hometown. By now things had changed. Most of his friends and acquaintances from university were long since dead or retired. The woman who had proposed to him as a young man had since been divorced three times, had five children, and had become a lesbian who was now working in a woman’s outreach centre and talked to him for about half an hour whilst on her lunchbreak when he visited her one day after looking her name up on the Internet, before politely saying that she did not wish for him to try and contact her again for anything. His parents were dead as well, and his brother since had two children who didn’t even know about him until he returned home. His sister on the other hand decided to let him live with her, and always remembered him as a good, well-behaved, but shy brother. Lester found himself another job working as a cleaner in the local shopping mall, even though he was now an old man and most workplaces that he had sent in his credentials to were only really interested in hiring younger staff. The city was virtually polluted, and there was smog in the air. “The air in the city is foul” he told a workmate. “You can’t expect to live long with black lungs”.
Three years later he began to cough, and was diagnosed by the doctor as having terminal emphysema from his cigarette smoking which was his only vice. He was told that he only had two more years to live, so he had better make the most of it. Something was missing in his life, but he could not put his finger on it. He went back to the library again to search for answers, and then he found it. “It’s religion” he realised. “You can’t leave the world without religion”. So he studied the Bible, the Koran, the Bhagavad-Gita, the Talmud, as well as Dianetics, and other New Age books on self-improvement but was disappointed when he found that his eyesight was failing him and besides that he could not understand anything that was written in them.
Finally, a few days later he got the feeling that his life was going to end. So he went back to bed and stayed there. He got a Rabbi, a Buddhist priest, a born again Christian preacher, and a Tibetan monk all standing by his bedside to pray for him as his life slowly slipped away. His last words were: “Now, what have I missed?”

Ten Things To Do As A Musician When You Have No Talent

1) Strip on a music show like "Top Of The Pops"
2) Get Stock/Aitken/Waterman to write you a song
3) Get Dave Stewart to produce you
4) Tell everybody that you're going to be bigger than The Beatles
5) Cover a Beatles song like "With A Little Help From My Friends" or "Yesterday"
6) Send an unsolicited demo tape or CD to a major record label and spend the next 6 months waiting by the phone or the Internet for a reply
7) Slag off other artists with infinitely more popularity and/or credibility than you in the press
8) Jump on every music bandwagon going in order to be 'hip'
9) Give up drugs and smoke banana peel, or drink coca-cola with aspirin to give you some creative buzzes
10) Sample a vocal line by an unphotogenic black female singer in her 60's and make a video with a photogenic black female model who can't sing a note for peanuts