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.

1pm and hasn’t even made it to 10deg yet 🥶

Paranoid will always be one of the best road trip songs 🤘

Chester knew who the good people were, and who the bad people were. We all need to be like Chester. Remembering him on the anniversary of his passing today.

Another classic newspaper headline, in today’s Sunday Mail. Could someone at @thetiser.bsky.social please pass on my thumbs up 😆

Going through a bit of a Silver Springs deep dive today and it just makes me lament even more the lack of interest in bands anymore. The onstage chemistry (good and bad) between group members can make songs say so much more.

I swear they know I’m trying my hardest to not like them.

I’m now up to more than 1100 musician birthdates that I have recorded into a database. And I feel like I’ve only just scratched the surface. But it’s sure triggering some great memories when I’m composing musician birthday posts on my Instagram music channel.

Another great piece by Angela Mollard on how we as humans are flexing our “social interaction” muscle less and less. Unfortunately the world now is geared towards having a “personal” experience. Anything can be done online. But nothing can replicate a genuine human interaction.

Transvision Vamp touring Australia in 2026, and I’m going. 27 years since they were last here, I’m not missing this 🤘

As I’m reading these musician autobiographies it’s abundantly clear that to be a really big rock star you have to both be really talented and also really selfish.

In my collating of musician birth and death dates I have across more than a dozen that were born on the same day. But yesterday for the first time I discovered two artists that DIED on the same day: Lemmy, and Guru Josh, on December 28 2015. Now that would be some heavenly jam session.

The kitten trying to annoy tf out of the older “street” cat (he was rescued from the street by the rescue agency that we ended up adopting him through).

Fun fact: Cracker bandmates and co-founders David Lowery and Johnny Hickman share the same birthday, exactly one year apart.

I never imagined that the camera I loved and used as a child I would one day use to take photos of my own children. Life, hey?

My parents have been running a wholesale/retail floral business for a number of years. Through drought and freezing temps (welcome to south east Queensland) they have persevered. And this is the product quality and quantity they are now coming up with. Inspirational. Check out hoksteadplantation.com

Anyone know of any well-known musician (or musician of a well-known band) that was born or died on Feb 29?

This week’s song downloads: All The Things She Said - t.A.T.u. Hold The Line - Toto 10 years ago today we lost Toto bassist & the group’s longest serving member Chris Squire. Chris was recognised as one of the dominant bass players of the English prog rock movement. For your listening enjoyment.

James Morrow in today’s @thetiser.bsky.social suggesting that the (illegal and unjustified) US bombing of Iran is going to slow or stop the oppression of women and political foes in that country would be laughable it wasn’t so dangerously disingenuous.

I second this; I’ll be the one lining up behind Paul @thetiser.bsky.social

Walking out of our boys’ school yesterday after dropping them off, and a spider fell onto my shoulder from a tree above. Just another day in ‘Straya mate.

The biggest reason yet as to why we should embrace being “woke.”

So how long before Ashton Hurn takes over as leader of the SA Liberal Party?

Brilliant.

It’s a bit disappointing to see @thetiser.bsky.social downplay the protest numbers. And not even by a little bit. Even if the 11 million is grossly exaggerated, this is gross under-reporting. You only have to watch a fraction of the hundreds of protest videos available to see this.

Perfect.

Of the 221 birth dates of musicians that I am currently cataloguing, only one pair so far (aside from the Madden twins) were born on the same day: Adam Schlesinger and Vanilla Ice, who were both born on October 31 1967.