How do I know all these songs?
So, I used to go and see a lot of bands in the 80's and 90's.
I'd just arrived in Melbourne, still wet behind the ears, coming from the country where the radio station (the only one!) played
both kinds of music
Finding 3XY was amazing, but then finding 3RRR and 3PBS was life changing!
Did you know that in the 70's/80's heyday of 3XY it was owned by the Liberal Party as a fundraising machine?
This was the same time that 2JJ and 4ZZ were running in Sydney and Brisbane. It was a good time for Aussie independent music.
I'll give a big shout out here to the late, great Stephen Walker and the still great Karen Leng, both formerly on 3RRR, for expanding my musical horizons.
Anyway, I fell willingly into the alternate/punk scene in Melbourne, but that was not the limit of my musical tastes.
It's fair to say that I always liked my music to be fast and loud, The Cosmic Psychos, The Meanies, The Painters and Dockers, TISM, but I had already heard The Cocteau Twins, and then one day I heard Portishead.
Portishead, Massive Attack and the other trip hop bands out of Bristol were a revelation. I knew of nothing like it in Melbourne, but this was the early 90's and the internet was still a pipe dream.
I was a frequent attendee at electronic and industrial music gigs, pretty much anything with Ollie Olsen involved, but to hear such heavy beats in a laid back choon... watcha smokin man?
It was only ever a half step away to the English dub revolution and the On U Sound recordings of Adrian Sherwood.
While all this was happening I starting work, and traveling for work.
I remember being in Netherlands in 1992, seeing posters for The Cosmic Psychos, always for the day before I arrived in town, for three days running. I was pissed off to the max!
The same happened with Massive Attack in New Zealand. I was never a lucky traveler, apart from rarely losing my luggage (I was going to say never, but then I remembered the USA)
I had tickets for Nirvana in '92. My brother got to see a lot of good gigs at my expense.
Traveling almost non stop for 15 years from 2001 meant that I missed out on a few things.
LCD Soundsystem for one. Sigur Rós for another.
So, what's your excuse?