Longing for the day ...

Go Broncos!

Wanna see the boys get up on Sunday.For the club's sake as well as Shane Webke's.

Webby's a champion and deserves to go out a winner, but it would be great to see the club come good after a few years of underperformance.

It's also great to see that Melbourne are their opponents - the first completely out-of-Sydney GF. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Cockraoches ...

Klancie? You're kidding!

Once again I am reminded that Australian Idol is not a singing contest. To have the bottom three we had last night after the performances of Sunday night was ridiculous. Dean Geyer's fans have only themselves to blame - we saw fan complacency claim several great performers in previous series.

I'm starting to get a feel for the fans bases of these performers. It seems that some of these are ethnically based (Lavina), some are genre-based (Ricky), and some are lifestyle-based (Lisa). It seems the ratio of the sizes of each of these, coupled with the performers' ability to capture the small proportion of swinging voters will determine the winners. Uncomfortably, I suspect that Lisa has captured the same 16-year-old girly underdog thing that Casey Donovan captured, and it took her all the way to the top of the contest over far better performers. It will be interesting to see whether that base will outnumber the similar faction that will support Jessica Mauboy. At least Casey could sing the big notes with gusto ...

I also wanted to say that I agree totally with Mark about Mutto. I was a huge fan (I even voted for him - the only time I've ever voted) but he's turning out totally wet and one-dimensional. I wanna see Mutto let rip with a full-on ball-tearing ROCK thing. No more slow, intense, touchy-feely arrangements of great tunes. Hit the heights!

I'm wondering whether Bobby Flynn was stoned on Sunday night. He's always been that kind of performer but there was something else going on there ... even in the post-show intereview. Or perhaps he's just realised that the conflict between who he is a performer and what he's trying to do to win Idol is too great to reconcile. I don't have a problem with that - kudos to him for who he is and what he can do. He doesn't have to be an Idol, he can be a genuinely interesting performer and songwriter.

Well done, ladies!

Excellent work, the Opals! World Basketball Champs after a couple of thirds is a superb effort and you should all be proud of yourselves.

Even better, they had to beat the Yanks, who've been the basketball benchmark for years, to get there. Will American basketball ever recover??

Of course, a heap of the Opals girls have been playing basketball in the WNBA in America for a fair while, so they've get plenty of experience and development. Lauren Jackson is the shining star in that regard but there others who are just as important.

Onya girls! What's next?? Defending the title? That's gonna be harder ...

How to play guitar

Just found this guitar-playing resource. How cool! Has everything you could possibly need to learn to play guitar and then some.

Even better, it has links to more advanced things and a store that sells instrumnts, amps, strings, and so on - delivered to your door!

Excellent idea and great service! (and the guy's an Aussie!)

The competition is that weak??

Interesting to read about the field for honours at the "American Music Awards" this year. I can't believe there was so little high-quality music this year that so many of the usual suspects were nominated multimple times. I can think of several releases that have't gotten a look-in and it's not because they aren't good ...

Can they really expect the buying public to believe that this limited number of acts produced all of the outstanding songs and performances this year or is this just another way for the dominant interests in the industry to hide behind "objective" measures like "record sales" to justify their stranglehold on themarket??

BTW - since when were The Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Pearl Jam and Nickleback "alternative"? Alternative to what? Lesser-known artists? They're played on Triple M - about as midlle-of-the-road as it gets!

What a joke!

Lavina fan club

What a voice! She was one of only two Idols to really rock it up on the "rock" show last night - is there anything she can't do?? That was, as Kyle said, disappointing - especially Mutto. (Coldplay on a rock night?? And rock was always going to be his strength!) I'm losing faith in Mutto rapidly. He's not delivering the real deal.

Loved Lavina - she put everything into that performance - you could see how drained she was afterwards - and I think it even surprised her. I think that was a better vocalisation of that song than the original ... had a bit of Anastacia about it. Some real balls. You go, girl!

But apart from that, the only other performer to really rock it up was Dean ... and even he has a bit of the plastic about him. He produced the only real scream of the evening (pity it was a bit flat, but who cares when it's rock 'n' roll?). The rest was - predictably - rock lite, with credible RSL performances from Chris, Jessica (doesn't she just love being there!) and Klancie (and possibly Ricky - I missed his effort but it sounded good on the replay).

The Genre Benders are born

Well, after a long time discussing, planning and figuring stuff out, The Genre Benders had their first rehearsal/bash in a live setting two nights ago. Of course, various members have been writing and recording bits and pieces for a while, but Wednesday was the first time the stuff had been played by real people in real time ...

The lineup was me: drums and vocals; Matt Mikkelsen, electric and lap steel guitars; Peter Baker, keyboards, sax and backing vocals; and Peter Retchford, bass and backing vocals. We started out with a five-minute Blues Jam and then had a look at Sammy Hagar's "There's Only One Way to Rock" before getting stuck into an extended jam on "Dancing With the Stones", then "Mighty Fine Day", "Heart's With You" and finally, "The Liar", which is a great song the origins of which I know nothing about.

The purpose of this jam was to try to pull together a 45-minute set for the Q-Music Big Sound Artist Showcase 2006, for which we've applied but have not yet been accepted. It's a good excuse to play something real for a bit, whether or not we get the gig this year. We'll need to move quickly to pull it together if we get the gig.

The Genre Benders also have their own MySpace site with artwork, and I'm working on a website at http://www.genrebenders.com, though this is not up yet. I'm slowly working my way through everything we need, with next priority being a drummer ... Volunteers?

This space left deliberately blank ...

For this victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks -- the thousands who died in the attacks and the thousands who have since died because of them.

Onya Mutto!

Good to see my boy got up! Now, next time you sing a song that seriously rocks, LET IT ROCK!

I agree completely with Kyle and Mark about that last effort: it didn't make it - and also with Marcia that it was a seriously intense arrangement. Had he started seriously intense and then let it rock, he'd have hit both marks!!

Bring on the rock!

Mutto Fan club

Last time I didn't start fan clubs for Idol entrants until they's been voted off, but this time I'm getting in early with support for Mutto. I'd love to see a raw rocker get in there and spark up the otherwise bland pop format. So far this season is shaping up to be quite polished, though many of the really interesting performers have been weeded out. No Chanels or Courtney Murphy's this time.

As always, the band just cooks, though I think their production is sounding a little rougher this time - not quite as well prepared and mixed. Pity.

Looking forward to hearing what the singers can produce now that we're down to the important part of the show.