A New Rhyme?

As a teenager growing up in Adelaide, my favourite Australian band was a relatively obscure Melbourne outfit called Gentle Persuasion. Their second EP was called A New Rhyme. GP gigged at the Prince Pat hotel in Collingwood, where my brother saw their farewell gig some time in the late 1990s, I think. Was I out of town, or had I already forsaken rock music for the rave scene? For whatever reason, I missed the show.

A New Rhyme hints at my main concerns in this blog. The first is music, although I rarely listen to music with lyrics. What excites me most of all is precisely the invention of new sounds, new rhythms, new approaches - and the alchemy which melds this invention into new music. As a music junkie, what drives me is the thirst for an unimagined aural experience. I want to to treat my ears and my brain to something new.

I do have my preferences, however, the most obvious being for electronic music. I imagine the bulk of my writing will essentially be criticism of albums and tracks, concerts and gigs, parties and festivals - as well as general musings on the state of the scenes.

A New Rhyme also points in a political direction. I co-ordinate the not-for-profit New International Bookshop in Melbourne, and am a former member of the Marxist organisation Socialist Alternative. My politics are clearly on the Left, but like many I sense the need for new forms of political analysis, organisation and action. This is especially so at a time when climate change, war and financial crisis leave global capitalism open to critique - and attack - which the traditional Left seems unable to spearhead.

Hopefully this blog will be a useful forum for me to sharpen my political ideas, as well as spark and engage in debate.

At Rainbow Serpent festival this year, I met a crusty old pirate who looked me up and down and said "You're from the Shishies". After an awkward back and forth I thought I had his meaning. "You're right", I said, "I am one of those sissies. I'm a big sissy!" "No", he insisted, "the Shishies!" Eventually, after considering bringing in as translators my friends who speak fluent SSHhhh, I worked out he thought I was from the Sixties.

And maybe he had me pegged. Like the revolutionaries of the Sixties, I want it both ways: utopia right now, the dream of ravers and modern ferals, AND a social movement of movements which can effect the replacement of capitalism with a classless system (call it communism, socialism, anarchism or just real democracy).

So for now, that's where you'll find me: somewhere between the apolitical hippies and the straight-laced activists. And, from time to time no doubt, somewhere else entirely.