Shadings and more. Chrissy Amphlett by Stuart Spence. WHAT COMES TO MIND …CHRISSY AMPHLETT THROUGH GLASSES DARKLY Here we have the next instalment in What Comes To Mind, an alternative series in the Wind Back Wednesday space, based on the work of the brilliant photographer Stuart Spence. Each time, he will dig out a photo from his archives going back almost 50 years and challenge me to respond with what comes to mind when I look at that image. It might be serious or ridiculou

Nearly the full squad, waiting for epiphany. IT’S OLD STYLE VALUES at play here. The good ones. Proper ones, of respect, dignity, communal responsibility, bloody good shows, reparations, forgiveness, and ideas you remember no matter how much, or how little, you’ve drunk because they’re worth it and no one either on or in front of the stage needs to pretend. Not about questioning Australia and the myths we tell, masculinity and the bullshit we cover it with, or rock with pop h

There is no rush, there is only the satisfaction of music done well. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN Find musical creatures of all sorts in hundreds of playlists from me, at the musical zoo that is Spotify.

The ultimate package deal, Julieanne and William Crighton. Photo by Jess Bowditch HYPOCRISY IS A CURRENCY and some people spend freely. Consider the faecal righteousness of each party in the fight between the obnoxious radio bully who cried foul when sacked this week and the equally odious network that protected and paid him obscenely while making millions from him, and only found disgust when profits squealed. Not everyone has, or wants, the readies to play this game though,

What should a man do but be merry? For look you how cheerfully my mother looks." Bernard Butler and Jessie Buckley, Having absolutely dominated the film awards in recent months, up to and including Sunday’s Oscars, Jessie Buckley has been everywhere, doing everything, seemingly all at once because everyone wants her. If you’ve seen Hamnet you’d know why, and agree. But wait, there’s more, as those who have caught the video of her singing Nothing Compares 2 U at the Sinead

Hmm, not with those shoes my son ... Trixies' doormen, Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook. Photo by Dean Chalkley. IT’S A RIDICULOUS, highly unlikely story. The kind of story that if you turned it into even a preposterous rock opera and then tried to sell it, would be laughed out of a producer’s office. But, spoiler – it’s ridiculously true. Act one : two teenage boys in London in the early ‘70s with little to no experience of life outside the songs they’d heard and the books t

Sometimes you need to be both things to all people. There's a song for that. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN Sneak in some brainy, some brawny and some just brilliant playlists like this by looking for me on Spotify.

HARRY STYLES Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally (Sony)   TIME HAS TELESCOPED, it is true. It once took a century or two to get through the plague, social destruction as an empire collapsed on itself, and religious mysticism turning into fanaticism and futile but destructive wars, while these days we just call it the presidential cycle. So I guess it is to be expected that what in 2022 looked like a golden age for boys doing pop has come and gone in the wink of an eye, a w

Caught on his Australian tour. From X-Press Magazine JALEN NGONDA Enmore Theatre, March 10   SHUT UP AND feel it grandpa. No one should try snootily telling the mostly (but not exclusively) twentysomethings audience loving Jalen Ngonda something rotten in a packed Enmore Theatre that what he’s doing is old school. Not because they won’t know this – there is nothing about his songs, his performance, or his sound that could be confused with the 21 st -century – but because it d