Today's "oh my god I've got to get my arse down to this" :

Marquis de Tren and Bonnie Prince Billy at the Corner Hotel, mid-December. (Also, The Church are doing an acoustic gig there on the 24th and 25th of November).

...and a recap of all the stuff I've already bought in the week since I returned from Singapore.

On the way to meeting a friend for lunch (before going and fixing her post-Optus-Cable-installation screwed PC) I found a new t-shirt shop ! Called "188D" or something similarly awkward, it's on Barkly St, St Kilda, just a few shops up towards Carlisle St from City Cafe (which is just across the crossing from Big Mouth. If this isn't enough for you to find the place, I can't help you). Go there and tell the guy that his word of mouth theory worked. Judging by the guy at this shop, and the one who appears to run SMC Evolve, I've got exactly the right physical build to consider opening a t-shirt shop. Maybe it's the only way to guarantee getting an extra-large in the designs you want...not that I do so badly, but there's always one, in every shop, that's the wrong size.

but anyway :

• Direct & Live, by various artists.

  Some live recordings from 2SER-FM - Kurt Wagner, Smog, June of '44, Tom Morgan (who ?), Robyn Hitchcock, Joe Pernice, Cat Power and Oren Ambarchi (who ?) - 2 tracks from each. Mostly fairly quiet. Nice, even if my favourites all sound pretty much like I'd expect them to, despite the booklet saying how they tried to get the artists to do a different take on their songs (and apparently they left Chan Marshall alone in the room to record her tracks, to help her get the necessary intimacy. Or something).

• Managing Good Looks, by Snout.

  Well, yeah. It sounds like a Snout CD, trademark pop sneer and all, and it's all very nice, I even managed to remember a couple of the songs from when he did that solo gig supporting Stephen Cummings (Shane O'Mara produced and recorded this, hence the link). Looking forward to their Evelyn gig on the 10th.

• Lets get killed, by David Holmes.

  (A bit of backtracking, catching up via second-hand shops, on stuff I really should've got ages ago.)

• 80-83 Strategies Against Architecture, by Einsturzende Neubauten.

  Likewise. And ok, I thought I was coping just fine for the first few tracks, but then I decided I needed to listen to something else. Just for a while, you understand.

• Melbourne, by the Models.

  As part of my current curiosity with early 80's guff, I picked up this recent compilation of early Models stuff. Apparently they're even going to do a couple of gigs for this, and in the "I like your old stuff better than your new stuff" tradition, they won't be playing their later top 40 hits...I haven't actually listened to this yet, apart from the bits I heard on the radio a month or two back.

• Timeless - the Hank Williams tribute.

  I'm surprised Chrissie Hynde isn't on this one - she showed up on the Gram Parsons and Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska tributes, and she's on the new Sun Records one too. But no. Anyway, it's not so bad - I quite like the Lucinda Williams track, she seems to do the voice just right. Anybody got opinions on Ryan Adams ? I think Tom Petty manages his yodelly bit better than Mr Adams...

• Burnside on Burnside, by R.L. Burnside.

  Live, and presumably sweaty, it's a good rockin' blues album (bucking the trend, as Burnside has done, of the quiet acoustic blues albums, reminding people of the almost lost power of electrified blues), but I must admit getting a bit tired of the "well well well"'s at the end of every song. But it's still a good album.

• Whatever you love, you are, by the Dirty Three.

  More humble backtracking. I shoulda already had this.