The column's title is not a phrase that scans too easily, I admit. However, it seems obvious from where I sit that 'rock'n'roll' has well and truly been eclipsed by a similarly oikish pack of breadheads. 

Certainly, the famous phrase that Ian Dury popularised has resonated down the years. However, back when Dury wrote the song, “sex'n'drugs'n'rock'n'roll” was once a way of life for millions, whether they be journos, execs, stars, musicians, musos, and grubby proles.

What's different today? Market forces, basically. In 1977, one person could still buy a house, car and put a kid through school on one wage. Today that's a laughable concept. People have less spare time and cash, for one thing; and when they do have the cash, they have other life-distractions.

When is a cover band not a cover band?

“Doing The Fall songs can often feel a bit like driving a juggernaut with no brakes, or falling down some stairs, pissed...” according to Ben Toft - one of the singers in The Fall tribute band,  The Look Back Bores.

So, no. It's not as easy as you think.

The Animals(and Friends) have just finished an encore tour of Australia with 83-year-old John Steel behind the kit and a well-seasoned group of younger English musicians, all steeped in r'n'b, boogie and so on. The band provides high quality entertainment, doing justice to a time and place that the participants can only remember but hazily.

Catipalism: Where cats become dissatisfied with its lot they are unable to rise up in revolt clutching scythes, axes and burning brands (for all sorts of reasons) and decapitate their 'owner', so whenever able, they head to nearby houses in search of better pats, better food and some peace and quiet.

This happened with my first cat Doody who, after shimmying through the side door, zipped off and simply never came back. A street crowded with houses with small yards, and a main road nearby ... I was desolate, until a few weeks later I spotted the little bugger on a wall nearby. He knew me, sniffed my hand, turned his bumhole on me and sodded off.

I'd fed the little bugger for 18 months and helped him whereever I could. Of course, I'd also had him desexed, for which he might not have forgiven me. And he managed to burn his whiskers once, before I could get to him. So, gratitude might not have been high on his list of priorities.

 
_{Sonic Garage.}  

When I first was approached to vote in Australian elections, the government agency sent me a letter, with a form. I recall the form beginning something like, “I wish to enrol as a voter...”

But I didn't wish to enrol. At all. All I could see were wankers playing at some artificial game of one-up-manship, kids in a schoolyard, without a great deal of integrity or affection for their constituents and no moderating teacher in sight. 

Perhaps, 40-what years ago, I was being unfair.

Anyway, I read the instructions, which - bizarrely - insisted I complete the form in black pen.

So, not really knowing how to deal with this - I thought I'd get into shit if I didn't complete the form - I did complete the form, but in blue pen, and sent it off.

Fake is Forever - The Wreckery (Golden Robot)

Yes, I've heard the Beatles’ new old song. 

No, I didn't know what to expect, and as it turned out I enjoyed it. Loved the piano and John's voice. Naturally, not their best work, and tinged with (insert emotion here) the loss of two of the band's four corners.

Yes, the Internettery is awash with characters pissing on it, for the most part dissing it for not being a light cheery pop song, or not like “the Stones” - whoever they are.

Strange how one expectation can trigger a predictable response, isn't it? “The Beatles song” is certainly aimed more-or-less in the direction the band would have taken, I think, had not that cowardly spit Mark Chapman decided he so much resembled Holden Caulfield that he could get attention LIKE THIS. Disappointed with real life - as so many of us are - Mark Chapman was a weasel who seemed to have been looking for a hook on which to hang his identity/ notoriety hat. I suspect he enjoys being known for that one dreadful, stupid thing.

Alright. Where I live, the formal lockdown measures ended in early 2022.

Personally, I think one reason the employment rate is so low right now is because a whole pile of people around retirement age, or quite a few reluctant to retire, realised that hanging about the house wasn't such a bad thing after all. 

In fact, life itself wasn't meant to be spent piss-farting about in a drab office trying not to grimace at the forced jollities, the strict dweebness and the sheer bloody pointlessness of necessary screenwork. Sure, some things need to be done. But we seemed to get by without a hell of a lot of it during lockdown.

And don't get me started on the poor bastards who worked through the pandemic, the nurses and doctors who (as far as I'm concerned) all deserve a 10 percent wage rise (and, for those who actually worked with the Covid patients, an Order of Australia each).