Plugger plugging a plug

"Who took my pen.....?"

I don't often publicise things on this blog in direct posts, but today is different.

One of the joys of being a freelance writer, editor, tutor, web page opinion-offerer and anything else I can get away with claiming to be is that I often get to work with and for some very talented and creative people.  People who are braver than I am; setting up their own businesses, inspiring others, making a dream happen on their terms.

Wolfram and I met a year ago to discuss doing some serious work - his day job and mine.  This all occurred without a hitch and he went on with life his life and I mine.

What I'm finding now is that clients come back, but not always for the same kind of work.  This time, Wolf had a personal project he needed some of my freelance tomfoolery for an album he wrote himself and partly recorded with the help of Frank Zappa band members Ike Willis, Arthur Barrow, Tommy Mars and Ed Mann.

After all, why not track down these legendary dudes to help add some extra oomph to your first album?  Wolf travelled from Geneva to California sparing no expense as he lived, drove and wrote in a rented camper van before, during and after their recording sessions.

He's made the first mix of the album which is a funky mixture of rock, jazz, spoken word, humour and very melodic riffs.  I was lucky enough to hear it a few weeks ago and contribute to some of the lyrics and help set up the project page.  Let's just say that the songs touch on issues such as overuse of corporate crapulence (buzzwords) and the story of a man and his family doing whatever they can to cope with today's world. Funny and touching and a damn good listen at the same time.

Wolf is now on Indiegogo seeking helping with final funding to return to the US for a second recording session that will complete the album and make it available via digital download and in CD form. From as little as $5 you can be part of a unique album that features brand new music and deservedly revered musicians.

Otherwise, if you know anyone who admires Frank Zappa's musicians or likes the idea of supporting a man with a dream that deserves to come true, please forward them this link - http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/my-new-cd-with-frank-zappa-s-band-members-be-part-of-it/x/2247128

I'm really thrilled to be involved!

Pain you can sing to












John Cusack plays Rob Gordon in one of my favourite movies, High Fidelity, and as his girlfriend is packing up her things and leaving him, he says:

"What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?"

Blogger goddess Pandora has recently written about how she reckons she's had her heart broken four times in her life. Romantically, not myocardially that is. Each time there's been a song swirling through that still reminds her of the pain and resultant growth and knowledge. Reckless by Aussie Crawl; Nirvana's 'Smells like teen spirit.'

It got me thinking about my own experiences - then again, don't most good blog entries do that?

In terms of real, you're-dumped heartbreak, it was just the one time for me, but in terms of silent crushes that were conducted in total secret and from afar, there were more than I care to remember.

My father was a high school teacher and he once told me that he could tell the girls who were going to have boyfriends or fall pregnant before the year was out. "They're jiggling in their seats, heads swiveling to see what the boys sitting behind them are doing. They're prancing along the edge of the fence at lunchtimes, hoping that the nineteen year old bozos from the meatworks will drive by in their 25 year old bombs and try to pick up a fifteen year old whose ovaries are spinning."

That wasn't me. My role was partly automatically designated: teacher's daughter in the town's only secondary school with family friends who were also teachers meant that I was studious, well behaved and quiet. Boys (or 'guys') were loud, crude and sometimes a bit scary but were also attractive, cutely goofy and objects of longing. However, these yearnings were never acted upon until right at the very end of school.













Before then it was idly doodling their name on a scrap piece of paper at home - never on my pencil case, or diary or toilet door for peers to discover. Never shared or confessed to a friend and never, ever communicated even vaguely to the object of my affection by something as boldly direct as actual conversation, a noticeable glance their way or remotely discernible acknowledgement of their existence.

This paralysingly shy approach meant that I was not only safe from having to risk rejection but also suffered a bit of unintended heartache when I'd find out that the guy I'd sat behind in geography in term two hadn't shown what I'd hoped was a mix of intelligence and mystery but instead had:

• pashed the year nine nympho at a beer-keg party that I was not invited to (and would have been too afraid to attend if I had);
• carved another girl's name on his arm using his protractor and a bic pen in maths;
• set his family's caravan alight when he forgot to switch the electric blanket off;
• earned my older brother's scorn by being 'the worst soccer player in modern history' and unceremoniously kicked off the team;
• been rude to a teacher I particularly liked; or
• asked one of my friends out instead.

Songs of homework-heartbreak were often anything other than miserable: they were what was being played on 5MU as I sat at my desk picking at my nails and wondering how far I could rock my chair back in time to the song before over-balancing and thwacking painfully to the floor.

Even now, pushing 25-30 years later, the unrequited love songs that still resonate include 'This ole house' by Shakin' Stevens (year eight); 'Dirty Creature' by Split Enz (year nine); 'She blinded me with science' by Thomas Dolby (year ten); and 'Relax' by Frankie Goes to Hollywood in year eleven. Hardly songs to make a slow compilation tape (sorry, playlist) to.

However, as an adult, I only had one real dose of heartache in 1988. Four months of dating (several nights a week) and BW was due overseas for work for three months. We'd been out to dinner, the casino, sailing at North Haven, on his motorbike and even painting his just-purchased house (he was an older man ...... by five years!) and he always seemed pretty keen to see me.

The week before he was due to leave, we had dinner at my place and he said that he'd enjoyed our time together but wasn't looking for anything serious and didn't want to see me on his return. It had been fun, but he didn't want to worry about 'anything happening' whilst he was out of the country but wished me a happy Christmas and was sure that my uni results would be good ones.

I'd been expecting a declaration of long term commitment and maybe even an early silly season present and was bereft. Sad yes, but also a bit humiliated, in hindsight. My flatmates Jo and Fiona decided to take me out to dinner the following day to cheer me up but it ended up with me sobbing over a toasted asparagus doorstop sandwich at the Left Bank Cafe in full view of frankly over-curious shoppers and grannies.

And in keeping with the sad soundtrack of my school years, the stupid song that was on high rotation at the time.....?















Bloody KOKOMO by the Beach boys!

Heart strings











Sapphire has been playing viola since she was eight, an instrument she chose herself.

I'm not sure why: Love Chunks grew up learning the trumpet and the guitar and now plays the piano and I.... well, I struggled with piano for two years as a child and loathed it.

In year three, her class was the lucky one chosen by the SA Education Department to each receive a violin, viola or cello for the year along with lessons. Even their teacher was included and the couple of concerts they gave during year were pretty inspiring. After the project ended the kids wanted to continue, so every parent in the class chipped in to pay for a music teacher and rented or bought the instruments.

Sapphire was the only one who chose the viola and when we moved to Melbourne she remained the only kid in school with an overgrown violin. It's a tough one to learn because it is kinda sorta in harmony or backs up the main tune and can make for challenging listening when it is played on its own.

Signs have been emerging lately that the viola perhaps isn't the Be All and End All of eleven year old Sapphire's waking hours. There is a new 'to do' item on my list called 'Remind Sapphire to do her viola practice' and this request is inevitably answered with a sigh or an eye roll (or both, if it's been one of those days) and a tired, "Oh Mum, can I do it later?" refrain.
















Do I blame her - no. She's already lasted a year longer than I did and could do in a couple of weeks what I was unable to do in twenty four months - read music. This she's inherited from Love Chunks. Both can somehow naturally summon the mysterious magic of being able to see black dots with sticks growing out of them on thin lines, work out in their heads what note they are; convert that into a command to send to their fingers and play that note on the string (Sapph) or key (LC).

Despite all the Every Good Boy Deserves Fruit, FACE and Good Boys Deserve Fruit Always learning techniques, I could not read music. My stubborn brain just did not get it. Being unable to convert the black marks on paper to the inside of my brain and back out to my fingers and onto the keys was about as achievable as not whispering during Silent Reading. Instead, I would practice the piece over and over until it sounded right and was learned off by heart. The actual sheets of music might as well have wrapped up the kitchen scraps for the good they did sitting on the little flipdown stand above the yellowing ivory.

By age ten, I finally plucked up the courage to say to my mum that I didn't want to play the piano any more.

She was disappointed and said a sentence that is as fresh and as true as the day it was uttered thirty three years ago: "When you're older, you'll regret not being able to play a musical instrument." How right she was, but in 1978, I had a much more immediate stressor: telling Mrs Matthews.















Mrs Matthews was an old widow who lived several blocks away from us and attended the same church. Her kids were all grown up and left home but married well, had been 'good students' taught by my father (he taught pretty well half the town) and visited their mother often. I'd have my lesson there every Wednesday morning before school using the old but neat music book that my own mother had learned from three decades earlier.

Wearing her preferred outfit of floral dress, homy peds and a warm cardigan, Mrs Matthews was unfailingly patient and kind, so there are no horrible stories of rapped knuckles, being scolded or having to perform at humiliating recitals. She selected a piece of music - always something achievable and, more importantly, something that sounded pretty decent to me - and taught me how to play it.

But if I was going to quit, Mum insisted that I had to be the one to tell her. Wednesday morning came around far too soon. I didn't dare drag my feet or I'd be late for school and being told off for anything by the teacher would have been a fate worse than telling Mrs Matthews that I was quitting piano. My cheeks would go all red and blotchy and stay that way for hours as my insides shrivelled with embarrassment and shame. Being late would not do.

She opened the door. "Good Morning Katherine! Are you ready for your lesson today? How did you find the Moonlit Sonata?"

I don't remember exactly what I said, but it was mumbled out clearly enough for her to understand, pat my arm, say that she'd enjoyed teaching me and that I was welcome to start again any time. I never did of course and as I continued walking to school she didn't suddenly rush and and try chasing me along the gravel path to beg me to stick at it: clearly the world was not going to become a darker and gloomier place for the lack of my musical contribution.

It also didn't occur to me that Mrs Matthews supplemented her pension by teaching and perhaps having to be up and dressed ready for a reluctant and not-exactly-talented ten year old on a wintry Wednesday morning might not have been the life she'd dreamed of either. I'm so sorry, Mrs Matthews, and hope that another pupil or three turned up to replace me and stayed the distance.

Still, as I hear Sapphire scraping her strings in her bedroom up the passage I hope that she does stick at it. She has an 'ear' for music and can tell you what note is being played - surely that should be nurtured? It might not be the viola that she ends up with but I hope music features in her life for a longer while to come.

Not the piano though - too bloody heavy to carry on the bus or around a campfire.

Fabulous Fifteen



















Deep Kick Girl has been busy celebrating Rocktober by (thankfully) not selecting the usuals found on Fogey FM but those that are quirkier and edgier and have formed the soundtrack to key points in her life.

I don't have the strength to do a daily song list right now but have grabbed a Facebook version that only takes fifteen minutes. After you read (and no doubt scoff and snort at) mine, I invite you to compile your own with a link back to this post and a comment to let me know when you've done it. After all, I'm always looking for more songs to run/walk/cycle to and have got a few goodies already from Plastic Mancunian, Princess Pandora, Franzy and the afore-mentioned DK Girl.

Rules: Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen albums you've heard that will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes. When it's posted on your blog, tag fifteen other bloggers (including me).

Most of mine are from my childhood and are firmly linked to memories of family, travel, growing up and when I first realised that music could sum up a feeling, a specific occasion or a phase. Here goes, in no order of merit or chronology:

1. Abba Arrival - every song fantastic EXCEPT for the arrival instrumental crapfest at the end.

2. The River - Bruce Springsteen - Came out in 1980 but I wasn't aware of its existence until the end of 1985 and it's now linked with my first really serious relationship and a certain loss of something that makes the song 'Drive all night' still very poignant. Ahem, enough of that. The double album certainly sounds pretty dated these days but alternates between joyous and laidback and heartbreakingly sad.

As in we go from this:

'Your mamma's yappin' in the back seat
Tell her to push over and move them big feet
Every Monday morning I gotta drive her down to the unemployment agency
Well this morning I ain't fighting tell her I give up
Tell her she wins if she'll just shut up
But it's the last time that she's gonna be ridin' with me' from Sherry Darling,

to this:

'Last night I was out driving
Coming home at the end of the working day
I was riding alone through the drizzling rain
On a deserted stretch of a county two-lane
When I came upon a wreck on the highway

There was blood and glass all over
And there was nobody there but me
As the rain tumbled down hard and cold
I seen a young man lying by the side of the road
He cried Mister, won't you help me please

An ambulance finally came and took him to Riverside
I watched as they drove him away
And I thought of a girlfriend or a young wife
And a state trooper knocking in the middle of the night
To say your baby died in a wreck on the highway

Sometimes I sit up in the darkness
And I watch my baby as she sleeps
Then I climb in bed and I hold her tight
I just lay there awake in the middle of the night
Thinking 'bout the wreck on the highway....' in, quite literally, 'Wreck on the highway'.

3. Born in the USA - Brucey again - I cried when I first heard 'Downbound train' and had to explain to more than a few people that 'Born in the USA' wasn't a pro-Reagan song whatsoever; it's just that Reagan and his people were dumb enough to think that it was.

4. Dead Man's Party - Oingo Boingo - such a quirky eighties band with a highly musical side and a very, very dark side. It's no surprise that the lead singer and writer, Danny Elfmann has become huge in the film composing world and is one of Tim Burton's frequent flyers.

5. Hot August Night - Neil Diamond - the continuous soundtrack played on our brand new, start-of-the-art tape player in the car during our four month family trip to Queensland in 1979. We'd all sing along to Sweet Caroline, Porcupine Pie and Crunchy Granola Suite.




















6. Children's Favourites - sung by Jon Pertwee (my second-favourite Dr Who after Tom Baker) - we three kids nearly wore the needle off the radiogram listening to 'Froggy went a-courtin', 'My Grandfathers clock', 'Three little fishes' and 'I know an old lady.'

7. Robin Hood - dialogue and songs from the 1970 Disney cartoon movie with voices by Roger Miller (Alan O'Dale the minstrel), Terry Thomas (Sir Hisssss) and Peter Ustinov (Prince John)

8. Complete Madness - a cobbled together best-of-so-far bunch of songs by Madness that was the very first cassette purchased with my own money in 1982. It was played over and over again on my mono-tape/radio device - also bought with my own hard-earned babysitting money. All the classics were there but I particularly loved 'Bed and Breakfast man', 'The Return Of The Los Palmas 7' and 'Embarassment.'

9. Bryan Adams - Reckless. Look, it was 1985. I had a spiral perm, two pairs of panelled denim jeans and a skinny pink tie. He was NEW to most of us then, not on constant Fogey-FM replay. He saw me through many nights of year twelve studying and pining for Sean H, introducer to me of the joys of Springsteen and, um, other things.

10. Bryan Adams - Cuts like a knife - 1983. Loved him even earlier than Reckless. Became sick to death of him from around 1987 though.

11. Super Trouper - ABBA, 1980. Had an utterly miserable time for the first six months in Scotland and used to come home from school and play this over and over in my attic bedroom. Mum said she'd hear the 'thump thump thump' of the base coming through the ceiling and worry herself sick about what to do with a sad twelve year old who only wanted to make a friend and didn't seem to know how to do it in a land of weird accents, punks, mods, poseurs, rockers and other sub-groups she'd never been exposed to in country town South Australia.




















12. Phantasmagoria - The Damned, 1985/6. Bought the tape at the uni music shop on the strength of 'Eloise' but then discovered 'Grimly Fiendish' and that the 'ol punk band could play more chords than those on 'Smash it up' (a great song to run to) in the late 1970s

13. The dark at the end of the tunnel - Oingo Boingo, 1990. Every song was perfection and it formed my own personal soundtrack that year..... Big decisions about work, life, travel and men.

14. Stoneage Romeos - Hoodoo Gurus, 1984. Pure pop brilliance. 'My girl don't love me any more...' and, of course, 'Tojo', their catchy song about cyclone Tracy that we'd dance to when drunk a couple of years later at uni. 'Tojo never made it, Tojo never made it Darwin....'

15. Red Sails in the Sunset - Midnight Oil, 1985. My older brother got me into them and if it wasn't Bryan Adams it was this tape that gave me strength and fortitude during year twelve and let me onto to searching out older tapes of '10, 9 ....1' and 'Head Injuries' before seeing them in concert at Memorial Drive the day after my final exam was over.

Now it's over to you, blogger buddies - don't take more than fifteen minutes and don't worry about the dag factor - just share with us the ones that really stuck (and still stick) with you, even today. And link to me, will you?

Sleepover at Sam’s

Samantha Phillips was my best friend all through Primary School. From the second I clapped eyes on long white hair and wowser-yowser glasses-that-magically-changed-to-sun-glasses in the heady days of ‘reception’ in 1974, I fell into deep and abiding LIKE.

As the years progressed, Sam’s glasses turned into the cooler, silver-edged ones and her sensible uniform gave way to cork-soled sandals, three-tiered skirts and oodles of crushed velvet. Needless to say, for a kid whose mother made her wear the voluntary school uniform at least 95% of the time, Samantha was also my sartorial hero.

Where we did disagree was regarding who was going to be Agnetha during our ABBA lip synch events. I was the bossier one and tended to win, but Sam had the dead straight blonde hair and would have been a more obvious choice: Oh well, in our version Frida had clearly overdone the bleach and tinted contact lenses….

My fondest memories are of the sleepovers I had at her place. Whilst my family home was a monument to all that was fashionable when my parents got married (ie 1964 complete with black vinyl and green fabric lounge, lunar module legs on everything, a crystal cabinet and florally lurid axminster carpets), Samantha’s parents were fully committed to everything that was fashionable and fun about the 1970s.


















Their white, rectangular house looked unassuming from the outside, but as soon as you stepped into the cork-tiled hallway and got a glimpse of the pool room with ‘Abba in the Moog’ on the turntable and a beaten copper wall plaque, you knew you were in for a visual treat.

The kitchen was bright red and blue formica and glossy paint accessorised by a yellow semi-circle light that swung precariously over our heads as we worked the electric popcorn machine on the bench. The lounge was mostly brown, with a modular that was so soft and velvety that your butt cheeks eventually sank to the floor so that you were staring at the Rank Arena at a lower angle than even the cord bean bags alongside.

Going to the toilet there was always a bit of a drama for a shy petal like me because the loo was open and only divided by a bamboo screen that was a merely decorative nod to privacy and certainly not an effective one. With the ferns alongside it, I half expected to see Molly Meldrum in there conducting an interview with Jean Paul Young and the Countdown crew.

Samantha’s room wasn’t particularly restful; not that such an issue was important to two girls aiming to chat and giggle all night long. Plus, we could look through the window at the Murray Bridge Look Out next door and see cars pull up and young couples in there smooching. It was as entertaining and as enlightening as leafing through her mother's stash of Cleo magazines.

Sam's curtains were huge diagonal stripes of dark purple and sunburst yellow – a theme that also extended to her furniture, floor coverings and bed. My envy of the colour scheme was only eclipsed by the fact that Sam had her own record player and we played ‘Take a Chance on me’ ceaselessly.

















Or at least it must have seemed so to her brother Corey, whose adjoining bedroom was done with similar furnishings but in a retina-burning tomato red and riotous tree frog green scheme. I’m sure he saw the reverse colours against the back of his eyes when he finally closed them at night.

Corey was only a year younger than Samantha and even though I loved her dearly, she wasn’t the best when it came to a good sibling scrum. In fact, she was pathetically weak. So, when I came over to stay, he pounced on me, itching for a good wrestle from a tomboyish girl who had two brothers and therefore knew how to punch, give (or receive) a dead-leg, hen-peck or a stinging flick of the earlobe.

We were pretty evenly matched, but being unofficially scheduled as Corey’s physical entertainment used to wear very thin when I had double that amount available to me in my own home and was in fact looking forward to staying in another home for the weekend that had other, less strenuous and far less violent things to offer.

Things such as hearing and being part of what her parents did for a living. My Dad was a high school teacher and Mum was doing her matriculation via night classes and home duties during the day, but Samantha’s Dad was running a Music Bus and her mother was setting up a take-away shop in the main street called ‘The Hungry Bunyip.’ It was the first establishment in our riverside town to sell cappuccinos and I’d sometimes return home on a Sunday afternoon wondering just why I felt like bouncing on the back of Dad’s trailer sending the harvested dead corn cobs he'd stacked ready to take to the dump catapulting up and into the nearby incinerator on only an hour’s sleep and a stomach full of buttered and icing-sugar encrusted popcorn….

The Music Bus was a funky idea, but perhaps not a practical one. The thought of several children undertaking music lessons on a moving bus at the same time might have been a tad cacophonic rather than euphoric. I never found out personally because that was the year I decided that learning the piano was not for me.

Back to Corey. He leapt at me from behind just as I was placing ‘Abba the Album’ reverently on Samantha’s little record player. Sam had dressed their maltese terrier, Danny, in an old black leotard so that he resembled a fluffy liquorice allsort and we were about to take some photos of him ‘dancing’ on their Polaroid.

Corey’s impact sent the needle scratching over the entire music unit, Danny was cruelly squashed under the speaker and Sam nearly dropped her Dad’s new camera. I saw red and blindly reached for whatever weapon was handy.












Unfortunately for Corey it was a stray coat hanger. I hadn’t even turned around to sight my target (Corey’s shoulder, leg or arse would have been fine), but lashed out in fury. Judging from the ‘dangle, stretch and snap’ feel of the wire in my hands, I’d obviously succeeded in snagging something fairly soft and precious residing below his belly button that saw him scream in a pitch that out-howled their 12 breeding beagles outside, and slowly back out from the room, bent double in agony. I didn't see him again for the rest of the weekend.

Whatever: Sam and I had to work out just how the dog was going to dance to a song that now never moved beyond Bjorn and Benny's background bleats of "Take a chance, take a chance, take a ch-ch-ch-chance….”

Language Luddite

Mid-way through high school, I realised that unlike primary school, learning things and being a 'A-Grade Smarty Pants' required a fair bit more effort than neat writing and creative title pages.

English and the arts subjects (home economics being the glaring exception - I failed sewing class) were still easy and enjoyable for me, but maths and science were awful.

What was even more awfuller (if that isn't in the dictionary yet, it should be) was French. Notwithstanding I was introduced to the language of love and rude shop keepers halfway in Scotland. The class of year eight students were already two-thirds of a year ahead of me, and I was told to sit down and try to keep up.

Staring at badly drawn cartoons depicting the exciting life of Jean Paul and hearing "Merci Beacoup" being spoken by Mr Urquhart in a thick Aberdonian burr was a challenge my 12 year old mind decided to reject. Miraculously I earned a 'C' grade at the end of the year but most adamantly did not select it as a year nine subject when I returned back to South Australia.

Even as an adult, this total incapacity to grasp anything outside the realms of Australian English remains embarrassingly strong. In karate class a couple of years ago, for example, our then seven-year old Sapphire was able to count to ten in Japanese within five minutes, but it took me another three months later before I could confidently make it to three ('sun'). When they used basic Japanese to describe the next move, I had to quickly (but subtlely) rubberneck the rest of the class and copy what they were doing.

I am utterly useless at playing Scrabble. After enduring the inevitable, "But you like writing, so how come you're so crap at it?" by the thrilled victor, I usually reply by swiping the board angrily, letting the tiny squares scatter around the room before whining about my total lack of mathematical and lateral thinking capacities to place words that make the most of triple letter and double word scores.

Having Sapphire around to question everything from a nine year old's perspective highlights my struggles with my first language even more.

"Hey Mum why does the word sword have a 'W' in it?"

"How come I can't say 'it happened on accident' instead of 'by accident' when it doesn't sound right?"

"How come we say one sheep, two sheep, but we say one mouse, two mice?"

"Why is the worst person, the one you hate the most in the world, called an 'arch' enemy?"

And what's my profound answer to those queries? Normally a compliment ('Good to see that you're absorbing words that you're reading, love') and this: "Well Sapphire, I reckon that English is sort of like the floor sweepings from the scraps of all the other languages of the world - a bit of French, a wedge of Latin, a splash of Spanish, a kick of German, a smattering of Danish and far too much drunken Igpay and Esperanto for my liking. Then, chuck in a handful of words that some drunken or ignorant clowns have invented along the way plus a bit of bad or adventurous spelling and that equals the English language as we know it today. OK?"

She tends to give me her 'Mum's a weirdo but she's my Mum so I won't say it out loud or she'll tell me off for being disrespectful, so I'll go and ask Dad instead' kind of look and heads outside to the shed where Love Chunks is at his weights bench or thoughtfully clipping his fingernails directly onto the lawn.

However, the mysteries of mastering my mother tongue - let alone any others - pale into insignificance when I'm confronted with a completely different form of language via the musical stylings of Love Chunks and Sapphire. LC's been playing the guitar and trumpet since he was in primary school, so he was easily able to sight-read music and pick up the piano (figuratively, not literally, despite his efforts in our tiny gym out in the shed) and has been doing so extremely well for the past three years.

Sapphire started guitar and viola lessons last year and has continued her lessons at Flemington Primary School in 2009. In addition, she still plays her humble wooden recorder as the mood strikes. When she gets home from school, drops her bag, has a snack and cuddles the rabbit she then heads off to her bedroom - her sanctuary - and the strums, scrapings or pipings of an Abba song, Ride of the Valkyries or the Wallace and Gromit theme tune soon floats up the hallway. Like her father, she too can sight-read music and will idly pick out a song on the piano as she passes, just by glancing at whichever sheet music LC's left on the stand.

This astounds me, because I learned piano for nearly three years as a child and could never, ever 'get' how to read sheet music; I just learned whichever piece I'd been given by rote and by playing it over and over until it sounded right. Every Good Boy Deserves Fruit and FACE did nothing to help me.

The thought of clever folk being able to see the black dots on little thin lines and have the ability to translate them to letters; then convert those letters to musical notes; and redefine those notes as keys to tap, strum, block or brush in a particular order is a skill that seems a combination of genius and savant-like. In my non-musical mind, it seems like having to understand English, French, Latin and Mandarin in a millisecond and then producing a song in an instant.

And of course it had to happen - Sapphire asked me if I'd play Scrabble with her today....*sigh*....

She was all over me like a cheap suit..... *

My arts reviewing duties for the Independent Weekly are conducted with scientific precision. Yep, the right side of the brain is also at play here. What tends to happen is that I'm emailed a list of books, movies and CDs that need reviewing and asked to select which ones I'd be prepared to have a go at.

With the very best of intentions and despite having a mind chock full of useless pop culture information that also proves valuable during Quiz Nights, I often find myself selecting items for review based on their titles alone.

This is how the ‘Scars of Broadway’ CD ended up in my possession. I was only after reading the lyrics sheet that my heart started to sink. This was no brand new, cutting edge musical ready to sweep the rest of the Western World, or a witty compilation of hits from the past. Oh no.

Here’s a preview from one song, enticingly called ‘Chemicals’:
“I smacked your face

You fell in love when I said f**k your Mom
Come eat some chemicals with me"

It was then rounded off with: "I p**s on your face while you suck on my c**k." To be honest, I wasn't sure that such an act was physically possible, but what does an old fuddy duddy like me know? What I did know, was that I didn't want to read any more of the liner notes or place such a disc into my stereo system, let alone attempt to write a 200 word piece on it.

To cover my (not insignificantly-sized) arse, I asked the arts editor, the following:

Would you like me to attempt either:

1) a (hopefully ‘light hearted’) review on it from a daggy nearly-40-something perspective;

2) using it as a non-absorbent coffee cup doily; or

3) returning it back to you to refer on to someone who may ‘enjoy’ or know more (not hard) about this style of music than I?

Thankfully, she was more than happy for me to use it as a cup holder. I did for a short time before discovering that one of my karate sensei's sons was a big fan of 'System of a Down' who some of these Broadway Scars chaps were a short time ago. She was going to have a wee listen to the disc before deciding if she too, might use it as a petri dish cover at the lab she works at or hand it over to her fifteen year old.

It did, however, get me thinking about lyrics that I've enjoyed, sung along to and not really even questioned that lurk in my own collection. Most I've rediscovered since learning how to use my iPOD and select 'shuffle' during my treadmill sessions. Let's be clear here: these are all songs that I love and are (sorry Franzy) from my 'era' of the eighties, mostly.

Here are but a few:

Then, suddenly

Like a fly in a cup of tea

I'm stirred and no longer free

To fly away

('Is it a Dream', the Damned, 1985)

What you see is what you get

What the hell did you expect

Pretty red roses, wet puppy noses

Men with rubber hoses is more like it

('What you see', Oingo Boingo, 1981)

We learned more from a three minute record baby

than we ever learned in school

('No Surrender', Bruce Springsteen, 1984)

The steps of the stone church

are peppered with confetti hearts

Like a million little love affairs

Waiting to fall apart

('I won't take the blame', Del Amitri, 1991)

Get that Wasp off my sandwich!

('Hey Wrap, The Saw Doctors, 1992)

...... there are so many that the topic could really be a blog all of its own. Do you have any you care to contribute?

* (an eighties KISS song, long after the heady heights of their popularity and when they finally wiped the make up off and found that no-one, apart from my metal-head, accounting student boyfriend at the time of 1986, actually cared)