While in the short and concise habit, happy new year everybody! If everything goes to plan I’ll be at Falls Festival again this year, starting today (29/11) and running until about 4am New Years Day. Looking forward to Kings of Leon playing the midnight slot – should be amazing.

Anyway I hope 2007 was as good for you all as it was for me. See you next year!

Pete

Merry Christmas, you nerds.

Pete

I haven’t yammered on about music in these pages for quite some time, which to be honest is surprising considering it absorbs a substantial portion of my income, time and love.

It wasn’t actually all that many posts ago, but in August I was extolling the virtues of Daft Punk and how excited I was to be going to see them. In an effort to not sound like an obsessive house junkie I will refrain from writing up a blow-by-blow account of the night, but will indulge in a little bit of a review. Although I have heard plenty of people whining about the lack of decent support acts, I personally thought Cut Copy and the Presets were amazing. I’ve seen Muscles before but missed him this time, and although it took me a good ten minutes to realise that Sebastian & Kavinsky were actually playing their set, what they did play was a great mix of music, topped off quite nicely with a electro-fied version of RATM’s ‘Killing in the Name of’. Then, at quarter to nine just after the sun had properly set over the city the black curtains pulled away and there was the world famous pyramid. The show was utterly incredible, even though the music was almost a 1:1 copy of the Alive ’07 CD released a month or two ago. In fact, I’m still not entirely convinced Daft Punk actually played – if I were them I would have pocketed the $2 million call-out fee, then paid a couple of bums $100 to put on robot suits and press play of a CD player infront of 13,000 people. Surely that is pretty much the perfect crime…

Anyway even with my doubts the night was incredible, as the crowd was amazing, and the light show was out of this world. I have a feeling that this is pretty much the end of their tour, but if anyone has even the slightest taste for epic house anthems, and has a chance to see this show I strongly, STRONGLY recommend you go see it.

And for you electro nay-sayers out there, wondering what exactly you missed out on, I have a present for you – a track from Alive ’07, and therefore from the show. This is from about half way through the set, and is a mashup of Discovery’s ‘Face To Face’, ‘Short Circuit’, and (uncredited) ‘Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger’. In my mind a standout, but you really should buy or download the CD if you have any desire to listen properly, as the entire 80 minutes really does melt together expertly – songs can’t really be listened to by themselves. Anyway the track is playable in grannytunes right now, and can also be downloaded here. although at a lower bitrate.

Pete

Motivation is a funny thing. I’ve had weeks in the last few years where I’d be busting to write for this blog daily, or at the very least several times a week. Yet in the last month, I could have quite happily not posted at all. It’s not that nothing is happening in life – there is a plethora of interesting crap going on that would be worthy of sitting down and writing about for ten minutes or so. It’s just… the motivation isn’t there. Maybe its that now with holidays upon me, and free time in abundance I simply don’t want to waste time blogging.

Anyway I’ll try and fix it, but I can’t make any promises. After all I am not exactly great at keeping my word when it comes to these online things.

Pete

I’ve been a fan of Monty Python almost as long as I can remember. I remember Dad watching the Life of Brian with me when I was only 5 or 6, and have many fond memories of driving to camps throughout my childhood with the Pythons’ ‘Contractual Obligation Album‘ blaring, and then smacking Tom fairly hard after ten minutes of ‘I LIKE TRAFFIC LIGHTS’ being sung ad nauseum while we were all trying to get to sleep.

Anyway although I always preferred Life of Brian, Monty Python & The Holy Grail remained dear to my heart, so when I read, five years ago or so that they were turning the film into a Broadway musical, I was a little concerned that it would be nothing but blasphemous and a bit shit.

However, a hugely successful Broadway run, a touring US production, a popular West End version and an Australian production which opened this month quelled my fears enough to buy tickets. And the outcome? Although I wasn’t so keen on some of the minutiae such as characters like Dennis the Peasant and the ‘Bring out Your Dead’ guy actually becoming Galahad and Lancelot respectively, as well as the eyebrows of the moistened bint lobbing scimitars at people. I also couldn’t help but believe Tim Currie could do a much better King Arthur, but all in all the show was wickedly funny and the production values were top notch. I particularly enjoyed the various fourth wall breakages – which usually come across tacky and ruin shows – as well as the simple but stunning sets. Some of the more hectic scenes of the film, such as the livestock catapulting by the French soldiers was half-arsedly whacked together using pythonesque animation, and I didn’t like the Americanised ending with the grail actually being found, but such is show business, and I have to admit not liking the end of the film at all when I first saw it.

Anyway for you Melbournians tossing up whether to see it or not, I heartily recommend Spamalot, especially if you are a prior fan of Monty Python idiocy. If you aren’t, its apparently still a good show (according to Ms Mitchell, who hates musical theatre and has never seen Holy Grail, but still enjoyed the show), and if you live in Sydney? Go suck a lemon – we got Wicked too!

Pete

NB: For those with keen eyes – you’ll have noticed the subtle but classy annual Christmas decorations have gone up on ol’ PETEblog. Classy indeed.

Considering I finished uni for the year a couple of weeks ago, right about the same time that my youngest brother finished year 12, we decided to go halves on a Nintendo Wii, in order to waste the crappier bits of summer away with increased efficiency and joy (and lets face it, Christmas is all about efficiency and joy). I admit I has hesitant about the relatively crappy graphics (especially when the 8 year old boy I babysit has a bloody PS3!), the gimmick value of the Wiimote and the boring, child-friendly image Nintendo seems to be persuing, but I needn’t have worried on any of those counts.

Firstly, the graphics are not so hideous after all. Sure the crispness of the 360 or PS3 isn’t present, something that is painfully obvious when playing any two versions of a cross console game like FIFA 08, but I told myself that graphics weren’t everything, and I was right.

Then there’s the Wii remote, or wiimote. We bought Guitar Hero III and Mario Party 8 with the system, neither of which are particularly fun for extended periods of time, and so for an immersive experience while Richard was away at schoolies, I borrowed Zelda from Claire. It was supposed to be for a weekend, but I was hooked instantly, in much the same way as Ocarina of Time on the 64 hooked me and so that weekend actually turned into ten days, during which I finished the bloody thing. I don’t want to publish my playtime (which the Wii unashamedly tells you every time you save) but let’s just say it was bordering on excessive.

Anyway my point is that the wiimote is brilliant. The IR functions (pointing at the screen) are a little dodgy past about 2 metres, which gets annoying, but the accelerometer inside the wiimote is brilliant, and with the exception of FIFA, every game I’ve played uses the functionality brilliantly. The swordplay in Zelda was particularly awesome, and best of all it didn’t get gimmicky or repetitive.

So, although I haven’t turned the machine on for a couple of days now, I’m very pleased with my $350 investment. What makes it better is that Richard bought Super Mario Galaxy last week, which according to a couple of blokes that came into triple J yesterday afternoon, is one of their best games of the year along with Portal and Call of Duty 4. As I’ve already played and loved Portal, I guess this just means I need to find a day or two to play Call of Duty. Ahhhh summer.

Pete