Tame Impala

Also floating my boat at the moment, and gathering the attention of many switched on radio announcers, is a new band from Perth called Tame Impala. I put them on my recent podcast and they have been added to the bill of the now sold-out Meredith Music Festival in December. They are also spreading their scuzzy 60s psychadelic witchery around the land with Oz rock-royalty You Am I for their album tour, as well as international supports in October for Yeasayer and The Futureheads. Groovy!

Catch You Am I and Tame Impala for the "Lets Be Dreadful" tour here:

Thursday October 16th – Settlers Tavern, Margaret River
Friday October 17th – Fly By Night, Fremantle
Saturday October 18th – Fly By Night, Fremantle
Wednesday October 22nd – Metro Theatre, Sydney
Thursday October 23rd – Coolangatta Hotel, Coolangatta
Friday October 24th – The Zoo, Brisbane
Saturday October 25th – Sands Tavern, Maroochydore
Saturday November 1st – The Govenor HIndmarsh, Adelaide
Sunday November 2nd – Prince Of Wales, Melbourne
Monday November 3rd – Prince Of Wales, Melbourne
Thursday November 6th – Theatre Royal, Castlemaine
Friday November 7th – Karova Lounge, Ballarat
Saturday November 8th -San Remo, Philip Island
Sunday November 9th – Barwon Heads Hotel, Barwon Heads
Thursday November 13th – ANU Bar, Canberra
Friday November 14th – Wollongong Uni
Saturday November 15th – Cambridge Tavern, Newcastle

Blow your little mind at Tame Impala's myspace! Freak Out! Or check this great remix by Canyons of their tune "Skeleton Tiger"...

Best Australian Albums Ever

The results are in from a poll on Mess And Noise to find the Top 50 Australian albums of all time. The top ten ended up being:

01 The Saints - I'm Stranded
02 You Am I - Hourly Daily
03 You Am I - Hi-Fi Way
04 Triffids - Born Sandy Devotional
05 Radio Birdman - Radios Appear
06 Avalanches - Since I Left You
07 The Saints - Eternally Yours
08 Augie March - Sunset Studies
09 The Birthday Party - Junkyard
10 The Dirty Three - Ocean Songs

The full 50 and subsequent discussion is here. The poll came as a comment on the list compiled by The Age newspaper which asked music industry types to pitch their oz top ten. The results for their poll is here, with Midnight Oil's 10-1 leading the list. The full article in The Age is also online.

But my own votes for the Mess and Noise poll were thus:

01 Dirty Three - Ocean Songs
02 You Am I - Hi Fi Way
03 ACDC - TNT
04 The Avalanches - Since I Left You
05 Golden Rough - This Sad Paradise
06 Grand Salvo - 1642-1727
07 Gaslight Radio - hitch on the leaves
08 INXS - Kick
09 Drones - Wait Long By The River...
10 New Buffalo - The Last Beautiful Day

I think the top three are basically interchangeable, and even for someone who presented an Australian music program for 8 years on radio it was tough to pick my ten favourites of "all time".

On You Am I's "Hi Fi Way" which features toward the top of all the final lists, music journalist Ed Nimmervoll has this to say:

It’s still hard to believe how much You Am I accomplished with their epochal second album. Vibrant, even thrilling, in sound, but imbued with melancholic childhood memories and a sense of coming of age that was idiosyncratically Australian, Hi Fi Way set a benchmark that hasn’t been matched since.

True.

I've included INXS on my top 10 because it rules, and it was the first album I ever bought with my own pocketmoney. Also true.