New Music Thursday: Big Scary's Gladiator

I really enjoyed watching Melbourne duo Big Scary tonight in their support slot for Liam Finn (son of Kiwi music royalty Neil Finn. His backing band also includes two other members who are children of ANZAC music royalty: his brother Elroy on drums, and playing various percussion instruments and providing backing vocals is Eliza-Jane Barnes, daughter of none other than Jimmy Barnes. But I digress...)

At the start of Big Scary's set I was reminded of another man-woman duo from California named Mates of State, however these guys quickly proved me wrong by stamping their on unique style on the evening. While Mates of State make fairly bright pop music, Big Scary seek every opportunity to rock out, despite having only two on stage. A lot of their songs contained enough dynamic and tempo changes to give you a blood nose, however they also played some that were more beautifully brooding, such as the one I'm sharing with you today.

'Gladiator' has just been released as a single for their upcoming album 'Vacation', which is due to be released early October.

Enjoy.

Gladiator by bigscary

Late night blogging

Well this week has been a week of inspirations. At the beginning of the week I began reading "It's Not About the Bike", the book Lance Armstrong wrote on his battle with cancer. Knowing people who have had or still have cancer, it cut straight to my heart. And on Tuesday I went for a run for the first time in almost a month. And then again on Wednesday. And Thursday. And Saturday.

Here's a map of Saturday's run, my first run over 10km in probably over four months. It also marks the beginning of my training for the Canberra Fun Run, a 10km deal which is in a few weeks.

It probably would have been a slightly more impressive time had I remembered to hit "pause" when I bumped into some friends and chatted to them for about 10 mins around the 6km stage. Oh well. That particular run was more about making the 10km mark, rather than the time it took.

On Saturday's run, for some reason I had a pretty interesting thought. This is unusual for me - usually when I'm running I'm like Dory from Finding Nemo: "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming." My mental energy is most often just focussing on not stopping. But not this time.

The thought that popped into my head was this: that some things that cause us pain or discomfort can end up being good for us down the track, while other things that are pleasurable or comfortable will have a negative effect. For example, running (or really any intense exercise) can hurt while you're doing it, but actually makes you healthier. On the flip side, eating lots of cookies and lounging on the couch can cause you to be unhealthy if you do it too much.

Obviously this isn't a very concrete rule. A solid session of head-butting the wall probably won't benefit you later in life. But I thought it was pretty cool anyways.

Well. It's getting late. Good night guys.

P.S. The fact that I wrote this blog in the midnight hour is testament to another thing that's inspired me this week. But I'm not going to talk about it because I've already professed my love for it in a previous post, and I don't want to seem obsessive (even though I am).

New Music Thursday: Gotye's Making Mirrors

Ever since I saw Gotye live at Groovin' the Moo earlier this year, I have been pretty excited about the release of his third album. And this week particularly so, because tomorrow is when it is released. I honestly can't remember being this excited about an album release, ever. So to share my excitement (and give myself another chance to be self-indulgent in listening to his music), Gotye once again is the feature of New Music Thursday.

The video I'm sharing with you today is a preview of the album that Gotye released a few months ago. It gives you snippets of the songs (and hints about some potentially cool upcoming music videos) from the album. My favourite so far is a song called "State of the Art" which I had a pretty fun boogie to when he played it at Groovin' the Moo (it's the song in which he refers to the "Genie Bass" and "Diapason").

If you wanted to listen to the album now, or if you're just too cheap to buy the album, Triple J are streaming the album in full at the moment here.

Rest assured that tomorrow I'm gonna be heading to my local music store as soon as my lunch break starts.

Enjoy.

Making Mirrors - album preview from Gotye on Vimeo.

New Music Thursday: Grouplove's Tongue-Tied

OK, I'm back! I'm sorry to anyone who actually follows my blog enough to know I'm supposed to write a new post every Thursday. Alas, the last two weeks I haven't. The first week I was up in Queensland for Splendour in the Grass, and then last week I was battling an illness I probably picked up at Splendour. In fact I'm still not quite over it. Nasty stuff.

But sickness aside, Splendour in the Grass was incredible. I saw over 30 bands in three days, so I might share a song with y'all from one of those bands. Grouplove are a group of Americans who actually met in Crete of all places. Geography aside, they make some pretty cool music together.

The video I'm sharing with you is from their upcoming debut album "Never Trust a Happy Song" which is due to come out next month.

This video reminded me of the video for Coldplay's The Scientist, but with more men wearing suits and wrestling masks.

Enjoy!