It’s 2026 here in Oz now. So here’s to new beginnings. Wishing you all a healthy and prosperous new year.

I’m a man of simple tastes: Britney in the Oops song. Back when pop ruled. This video had me glued to Rage every Saturday morning. Rage of course being the Australian music video show which is the longest running program of its type in the world.

Countless happy moments of my life are comprised of fleeting chance human interactions or “lost in my thoughts” occasions; the locked gaze, the head nod, the knowing smile. I despair at how these moments are being robbed by mobile tech and people’s general inability to put away their phone.

Speaking of song downloads, I am now at 64 for the year, plus one album. If you go by the rules that one single download equals 150 streams and one album download equals 1250 streams, then for about $150 I’ve streamed nearly 9900 songs since about June. And my playlist is 💋. Fuck streaming.

I never realised how hard the Psychdelic Furs’ Love My Way hits. Instant download.

These are what I’ll be driving in my next job 😍

I’ve got until tomorrow to decide to accept this new job offer. One click to decide to stay on a comfortable trajectory, or to choose a change that will improve our life immensely, albeit a change that will be slightly less family-friendly. The gravity.

Wired headphone user here. So I couldn’t agree more with this post.

Fascinating.

Shirley last night ❤️ it only took me 30 years but I finally got to see @garbage.com live, and they still put on an epic show!

I guess I’m dying on the “no beach balls at outdoor music festivals” hill.

Can’t wait to show that I didn’t stream anything on Spotify this year. Again. Just like I didn’t on any other platform.

Just listening to this song got me pregnant.

Tool playing Stinkfist to end their second Adelaide show last night. We loved their first show so much we went back for night two!

Even if they aren’t your jam (like me), @toolmusic.bsky.social are spectacular to watch - one of those rare bands that are even better live. And they’re meant to be watched live - a modern-day Pink Floyd, the show an audio-visual journey. Last night their’s was the most rock concert I’ve been to.

I’m meant to be listening to Tool as wifey sent me a possible set list for their show that we’re going to on Friday. But so far it’s been a Junior Walker kind of week. Sorry, Maynard.

The monologue from his apartment as Mickey walked down the stairs, probably my favourite group of lines of all time.

Just bought the VIP package for the Adelaide leg of the @garbage.com Australian tour eek! This will be a life highlight for me ❤️

I can’t take “Black Friday” sales seriously when it’s not actually a Black Friday, in the same way I can’t take “hoverboards” seriously when they don’t actually hover.

I’m still not sure that I’ll ever adequately be able to explain to our kids - at any age - that when we all used to use landlines that if one of the talkers hung up and the other didn’t, the person who hung up wouldn’t be able to use their phone again until the other hung up at their end.

Tom Waits is a legend.

The eldest wanted to watch a movie on tv, which of course was only available through one of the platforms. But to sign up was so convoluted it didn’t end up happening. All it did was remind me to go out this week and buy the dvd player/tv converter. Fuck subscriptions.

In other news, I’m off to see my favourite band ever, @garbage.com! Got fingers crossed there’ll be extra packages available. PS the AUD119.00 for GA is a bargain; thanks for coming to little ol’ Adelaide.

As soon as I heard Danger Zone as the backing track to Trump’s poo video I said to the wife I bet he didn’t pay to use that song. And guess what? He didn’t. What is it with the right and just stealing other people’s work?

Meanwhile over at Music Gaga things are ticking along; 7K followers in seven weeks. People are really responding to the birthday/death-day nostalgia. Although there’s a definite pattern to which era gets the better interactions. Most posts about bands like Rush, Who, Deep Purple, and Canned Heat…

A taste of today’s housework playlist.

My soul journey began today with the downloading of The Closer I Get to You, a first for my music collection from this genre. Today (Oct 1) is Donny Hathaway’s Heavenly Birthday, and this song is pure ear pleasure 🔥

Step aside Flowers, the new Miley Cyrus song Secrets with Lindsey Buckingham and Mick Fleetwood is an absolute banger.

How seriously stupid is our world rn.

31 song downloads and one album so far, since April 💪

Imagine if this many people canceled their subscriptions over the deplorable deal music artists get.

This letter to the @thetiser.bsky.social is spot on. A Member of Parliament here in South Australia tabled “evidence” to a committee, and it turns out the links were AI-generated.

One property of Vegemite that is under-reported is its use in killing pimples on your tongue. It stings like fk initially but it does the job!

Hit 1 million views on my Facebook music page today, after less than three months of active posting. While it’s a page celebrating all genres, so far all the reels with over 100K views are 70s groups (Canned Heat, Deep Purple, Rolling Stones).

I seem to have struck a chord with my “new” (started posting in June) Insta/Facebook account The Music Gaga; I’ll be hitting a million views of my Reels over the past 28 days, in the next two days.

I might just rethink my opinion of Netflix.

I’ve decided the red light/green light on the toastie maker is irrelevant. I’ll put the bread in when I want and take it out when I want.

Reading up on Dinah Washington as today would have been her birthday. This passage made me chuckle; a reminder that songs past could be just as wicked as those of today. Perhaps even more so, given societal standards back in the 40s and 50s.

Here’s my download list of songs from the iTunes store since April this year. My goal has been at least one download per week, but averaging more. It’s been helped by discovering new music 🕺 do you download many songs?

The second someone says they are a sovereign citizen they should be shipped off to the middle of nowhere with no possessions and left there. Let’s see how sovereign they are then.

Here’s some fascinating trivia (well, fascinating for some of us…): Plastic surgeon Terry DuBrow had an older brother Kevin, who co-founded heavy metal band Quiet Riot with Randy Rhoads. He died of a drug overdose in 2007.

This is my dream, to open a DVD rental store again, no matter the cost.

So I’ve been continuing to compile my list of artist birthdays and death dates (almost at 2000 names, come check me out on Insta the_music_gaga). I still have about 12 blank days of the year to fill, and I figured the hardest to find would be someone born on Feb 29. Apparently not. Ja Rule.

If you weren’t aware of the size of the fallout from Janet and Justin’s “Nipplegate” in 2004, you need to read the Wiki entry. The depth and range of the “canceling” that followed was gob-smacking.

Unbelievable that this is still relevant.

This is why I have dusted off my old tape deck and Walkman, and added a VHS/DVD player and discman to my collection. Tbf when I first read about this “new” concept of “renting” (ie subscription) music in the early 2000s my instant gut feel was “that’s ridiculous.” Now beginning to feel vindicated.

If I have to explain to you why it's a bad idea to use a machine that makes shit up 15-80% of the time AND destroys the environment AND contributes to rising fascism and genocide AND puts brilliant skillful creatives out of work by stealing their work, then we're already speaking different languages

My song downloads so far this year. A few ahead of the eight that I downloaded for all of 2024!

The whole YouTube ban for under 16s in Australia debate seems to be easily fixed if YT created a separate “Educational YT” space, free from other content. Although given that even within YT “Kids” you can still access adult-themed content there’s still lots of work to be done.

After a friend gave me their discman (still in the box) the other day, I now own a working: discman, Sony Sports Walkman, twin-deck (high speed dubbing if you don’t mind) cassette player, VHS/DVD player, and film camera. Just need a record player to complete my regression.