Music — THE CONVICT STREAK COACHING ACADEMY

HEADLINERS

ABC IVIEW

Last night we watched the thrilling final episode of this wonderful series where Elly-May Barnes, Tim Rogers, and Ella Hooper spend seven weeks preparing two bands for the Mundi Mundi music festival Bash.

Elly May Barnes' mission of inclusion of people with disabilities in the music scene was an astonishing success. We have physical disabilities of an extreme nature and a whole range of neurodiversity on display here, including our favourite, the drummer with Tourettes who keeps yelling "bitch!".

The two bands were superb, as were the very supportive crowd.

It is the case that many stages are simply not physically accessible to people with physical disabilities. Same with buses and touring. This is something we need to work on in Australia, a country that does generally help people with disabilities in many other areas of life.

When we watched these two bands successfully pull off two astonishing songs each (Don't Dream It's Over / Hit Me with Your Best Shot and Divinyl's Boys in Town / Russell Morris's The Real Thing produced by Molly Meldrum back in the day) in front of 15,000 people, we were just as excited and thrilled as everyone else involved.

Brilliant stuff.

You want to check out the two lead guitarists in these bands.

This would be a gig to get to and put on the bucket list but you may need a Winnebago / ute / four wheel truck to get out to Broken Hill.

https://mundimundibash.com.au/home/

HEADLINERS

Cold Chisel

Elly-May Barnes leads the quest to create two bands made up entirely of musicians living with a disability. Judge Tim Rogers, whose content of his album "Hourly Daily" had a large influence in producing our novel "Ridgestone" when we were studying creative writintg at QUT in the late nineties. A suburban struggle. Main character a female who has just left school and is working in a 7-Eleven.

Then there's our golden girlfriend heartthrob Ella Hooper who is so lovely also as a judge.

The girl from Violet Town is, as they say in "Crazy, Stupid, Love", the perfect combination of sexy and cute.

You can find Ridgestone on Amazon, together with our novels "Symphony" (also at Xlibris) and "The Defence Strategy". We are currently working our way through our fourth novel.

In the first episode, Elly-May, who has cerebral palsy, goes down with a whole bunch of pain and spasms and calls a "stand-in" while she recuperates. Her stand in turns out to be this bloke called Jimmy Barnes, her father. They are all hanging out at the Camelot Lounge at Marrickvile.

We are totally heartbroken that we did not get to go see Cold Chisel at Ballarat due to being ill with back spasms, followed by a second case of the dreaded diverticulitis, which we are holed up with again and fighting again now. We would have done anything to see Jimmy with his arm around Mossy again as Mossy rips into a solo but it was not to be. They pulled a 25,000 crowd.

Do yaself a big favour.

You can watch this on ABC iView.

COLD CHISEL 50TH TOUR

G'day music lovers, as Richard Clapton would say.

The pub rock scene which people of our age experienced was the Golden Age of Aussie rock. We were also lucky enough to have people like Molly Meldrum and Michael Gudinski who were of the opinion that it wasn't fair that teenagers who really loved music couldn't get into pubs to see these great bands like Chisel, the Angels, Australian Crawl, Split Enz (Neil and Tim Finn) etc.

So they hooked up with Melbourne radio station 3XY, the Triple M of its time (in fact just before EON FM commenced operations in Melbourne in the late 70s, early 80s). And what they organised for us were 'UNDER 18 CONCERTS' at Festival Hall in the city. We'd get the train up to the city and see all these incredible bands. That was the first time I saw Paul Kelly and the Dots. I had already seen Suzi Quatro at Festival Hall twice, attending my first concert at the age of 10, which was 'Sweet' (Ballroom Blitz, Fox on the Run, Action). One of the greatest concerts I have ever experienced was 'Cheap Trick'. Rick Nielsen just an amazing magician.

We were talking about those epic last songs on Cold Chisel albums. We have more to say about that. On the first album, it didn't contain an epic last song but a beautiful slow bluesy number. On the last album (before the 1998 re-union) 'Twentieth Century', there is the song "Temptation" and the great thing about this song is that, since this was the last Chisel album before Jimmy Barnes went solo, it is very fitting that what happens in that song is the music just stops. Very fitting.

More recently, in 2012, there was the 'No Plans' album. We hit Festival Hall in Melbourne to see Chisel again. Don Walker provides a beautiful number called 'The Horizon', a song about gambling addiction, the second last song. However, this was the time when the great songwriter and drummer, Steve Prestwich, became ill and died. On 'No Plans' the last song is an incredibly heartfelt song written by Steve about dying. The song is called "I've got things to do Today". But of course that's not going to happen because he's about to die. Jimmy sings this song.

Then there's 'The Perfect Crime', another great album (2015). The last song is "Lost", a thoughtful song about how in the middle of the night, in the wee small hours, sometimes we really do feel lost. The incredible Walker song on this album is 'Alone for You' but this is a truly great Chisel album, as good as any.

'Blood Moon' we didn't think was that great.

So many of these 50th birthday shows are sold out. However, we've managed to get a ticket to one of the shows, so that's real grouse.

Thank you Molly Meldrum and Michael Gudinski for everything you did for us.

LAST STAND - COLD CHISEL

Tonight on the SBS series "Australia's Greatest Concerts", the Last Stand by Chisel was featured.

It came out at the cinema back in the day. We have it on video!

Anyway, this 2024 doco set to coincide with the upcoming concerts in Oz has Barnesy and Mossy interviewed by Diesel, with contributions from the Living End's Chris Cheney and a very brief appearance from Richard Clapton.

Back in the day, we were in tears at the end of this movie coz that was it for Chisel. Well, how bloody great was the late 90s "Last Wave of Summer" gigs and that album.

Don Walker always provides a huge epic song at the end of an album. For example, Breakfast at Sweethearts: The Door, East: Tomorrow, Circus Animals: the absolutely epic song Letter to Alan, and then on the Last Wave of Summer: the also epic song The Last Wave of Summer.

We have seen them so many times since the age of 15 and are still considering the Red Hot Summer gig.

For the fans, maybe you can watch this on SBS On Demand.

We will be pulling out the "Swingshift" double LP tonight for a good vinyl listen.

Do yaself a favour.

RICHARD CLATPON VIDEOS

It does’t get more Aussie than this.

Countdown: production was second to none.

We have just watched KISSTORY Parts 1 and 2. This one is in honour of this great band’s las tour. The people’s band and the band we grew up listening to.

BRISBANE BAND. THE GO BETWEENS.

I feel sometimes as if I am biologically related to Robert Forster or Grant McLellan.

Noel is definitely back to his absolute best with this beautiful song but not necessarily with this video.

PAUL KELLY

TIM ROGERS

DAY 1

Welcome to the Sporting Capital of the World

We would like to welcome the great sporting legends John McEnroe and Jim Courier back to Melbourne. It wouldn’t be the same without you both.

Play on the Sunday was grouse as.

DAY 2

In the Long Run, the Greeks don’t want no freaks.

The Sporting Capital of the Egalitarian World

For only the second day of a Grand Slam, that was a remarkable day, full of interest.

The Greeks.

Tsitsipas was bundled out.

Nick Kyrgios made his first appearance in two years due to a wrist injury and, very early on, was suffering from an abdominal injury. No doubt, this was due to lack of match fitness. Here, we agree with the commentary team and Todd that it would have been smarter to get a handful of lead up matches under his belt before returning at the highest level there is in sport. Half a dozen tour matches to kick off his return would have been a smarter move in order to get his body going again. His British opponent was a very match hardened competitor, which on its own, makes for a brick wall at this level. However, it’s on the mental side where Nick is going to need to work hard. It’s also going to take Nick quite a while to get his head back in the game. As is always the case, he needs to concentrate on what is going on on the court, rather than everywhere else, stay focused on the tennis court, and also, most importantly, keep his mouth shut.

On the other hand, Kokkinakis displayed huge determination and grit fighting injury to win through. He’s already injured coming in. He fought off 7 break points and a medical time out to win through. This is what this tournament and life is all about. Brilliant stuff. This Greek fella is wearing Greek Warrior of Old shorts. We love it.

We watched most of the Thompson match today and it was a great fight.

There was yet another smashing of crowd records today in Melbourne after the massive smashing of crowd records at the Boxing Day Test v India where we had 80,000 + attend the first three days of the Test match. Yesterday the crowd attendance was a record high at Melbourne Park.

The Aussies are doing well at this stage but it remains to be seen, as usual, how far anyone will go into the tournament apart from De Minaur and Popyrin. Hopefully Thompson will keep going. The Aussie girls are going well.

Can we pass an observation that there really is nothing in the world like the People’s Court crowds on John Cain Arena and 1576 or whatever it’s called in world tennis. It’s the case that on John Cain Arena you can gain access to the court on a ground pass. This means that you can see world class tennis for about $50, which is very much an Australian thing and something that would not occur anywhere else in the world of Grand Slam tennis. Especially in the strawberries and creams and Pimms sipping elitist Britain. It’s egalitarianism at its finest here and we are proud to provide in Melbourne the best and most passionate sporting crowds in the world, which we always do, being the sporting capital of the world.

We were heading out there on Friday but something’s come up. So, it will probably be on the weegend for us.

We are hoping that for the very first time in about 7 years, we can get a train to the tennis since, due to the ALP’s “Big Build” under Miss Danielle Andrews, former CFMEU piece of Australian criminal garbage, there have been no proper access to our train lines for years, especially during a grand slam world event. This is due to the unions lining their own pockets corruptly in the Socialist Utopia of Viktoriaztan’s “level crossing removals”. What else would you expect from the stupid brainwashed f&cken morons in the Labor Party whose brains only contain one thought born down in their ovaries: “climate change”. They are, to put it as succinctly as possible, the destroyers of Western Civilisation.

So, let’s enjoy this party to the fullest extent during the cost of living crisis they have created and imposed on us all due their failed narcissistic policies before they are all bundled out, as has been the case in Europe where the braindead dominoes have fallen one by one, and where the woke vacuous filth have been just been bundled out in the USA and now Canada. We hope that the truckies who were vilified by Trudeau during Covid are now given the opportunity to give that woke pussy the good bashing she deserves.

What we say to these “climate change” obsessed idiots, the likes of which in terms of stupidity the Western World has never before seen, is get ready to be crucified.

DAY 3

Emerson Jones

We watched this young girl last year at the Open. We sat there for a few hours watching the juniors and were very impressed with Emerson.

She went on to be in the Junior’s final last year and was defeated.

We also watched a great game between a German and a Spaniard in the boys and some doubles and had the best fun ever.

Lleyton Hewitt’s son was also part of that particular juniors’ 24 tournament.

There is always something great to watch at the Open on a ground pass.

Anyway, this will be great experience for Emerson playing Rybakina.

The Fonzie Show

Last year we watched Rublev beat Di Minaur on the big screen at Melbourne Park. A bit of a different story for Rublev this year who has just been demolished by the steamroller that is the 18 year old Fonseca, otherwise known by Australians as Fonzie. And tonight Di MInaur had a solid win. As did our new Aussie chic Katie Boulter. Top sheila that Katie.

We are really looking forward to tomorrow’s Aussie action re Thompson, Tjomlanovic. and Kokkinakis on the People’s court.

Is Jim Courier here? We haven’t heard or sighted him. We did see him at the Sydney tournament.

DAY 4

Chinese Zheng was bundled out in a poor display. It’s probably a good idea for her not to return to China where she will be facing at least six months of solitary confinement, removal of toenails, and other important lessons in not embarrassing the Chinese government. She was defeated by the experienced German whose approach was to be as aggressive as possible. The US and Australian governments could learn a lot from this kind of aggressive and bullying approach by the German girl in their relations with the bullying, aggressive Chinese in and around the South China Sea and the Pacific where both the US and Australia need to start standing up to Chinese communist behaviour, which, of course, is always based in the use of FEAR. About ten aircraft carriers and frigates loaded up with nuclear weapons would do the trick every time China engages in their aggressive and outrageous fear based communist behaviour in this area of the world. It’s time to stand up to these deadshits now, which is something that may actually happen under Trump. Banning the Chinese from studying in Australia would also be a step in the right direction, since the whole idea is to spy on us. So long as there are enough Chinks to keep feeding us their great food.

When it comes to communism’s, Marxism’s, and the same use of fear and intimidation used by Australia’s braindead onion movement, they all have a big problem, including China. Once their use of fear and intimidation is ignored and indeed negatived, and instead, you ignore the use of intimidation and fear and just let them play with their leggo building playthings, then, they have nothing else to offer except the dried cement inside their heads. So, as the German woman Siegemund did to Zheng, the time has come to stand up to China since their current military build up is equivalent to what the Nazis did in the 1930s.

Thompson bundled out easily by Borges who will now play Alcaraz who won incredibly easily.

Sabalenka had a few problems but is through.

Jess Fox is in the house.

DAY 5

We did not see any tennis today except for Alex Di Minaur’s very solid win.

We still need to check what happened to Medvedev and after that brilliant comeback in his last match.

DAY 6

Welcome back Jim Courier. We hope that your absence did not have anything adverse to do with the L.A. wildfires.

Sabalenka has won the first set against the attractive Dane Ms Tauson and is serving very well and looks extremely motivated today. It would be very difficult for anyone to defeat Sabalenka when she is playing like this but the Dane is keeping her honest.

Vukic v Draper

Last night we went out to dinner and returned in time to see the final 3 sets of this match.

What we witnessed was an epic contest, an epic performance by both of these athletes to the extent that we reckon this was the best match of the tournament so far and one of the greatest matches for a long time.

Both of these young men have just played two 5 set matches and this was their third 5th setter in a row. So we were watching a marathon. And it went right down to 10-8 in the fifth set tiebreak. A match where it was unfair to have a winner / loser considering both these guys won. They also won over the crowd who stayed around at 1AM to listen to the winner, Englishman Draper, who is really developing into a great contender. His most serious interest chatting with Jim Courier was not Alcarez but recovery.

Vukic is just so fit and athletic and his legs are like tree trunks.

That was a ripper.

DAY 7

Watching De Minaur v Cerundolo. Considering our trip out to the AO now. It all depends on our knee… We buggered our knee during the week walking down a ridiculous path newly built in a kids’ park down the road, tripped over a speed bump in the path, one of three huge humps in the path and fell. We are going to write to the Council about this since it is an incredibly dangerous situation for especially say grandparents taking their grandkids to this new park. Our knee is just bending again after serious icing for two days and nights. So, we have to say, we feel like an AO player in that respect.

DAY 8

Djokovic

It was a day of brutal Melbourne heat. We agree that Coco Gough was mis-scheduled and should not be playing in the middle of the day in that brutal Aussie sun and heat. She has earned the right to play in the cooler temperatures after the sun goes down. If you want to know about inhabitable nuclear heat, then go to Brisbane this week where it will be 26-36 over a few days with stinking hot humidity. I would not allow my dog or cat to live in that kind of heat but they don’t call Lang Park the Cauldron for nothing.

We had a good look at Djokovic. What is truly amazing with this guy is the way he still gets around the court in his late 30s, the way he moves to slide to reach shots that other lesser players cannot. And his touch is still next level. We are seeing some great drop shots from great players in this tournament. He is still a force to be reckoned with, although some are saying that Sinner is the man to beat.

We spent the day icing our buggered knee, which is slowly coming good.

Draper retired hurt against Alcaraz. Fair enough. For Godsake, give the great athletes and players a bit of slack when it comes to the serve clock, which we think should be removed from the game anyway, in this heat. They need extra time for their towels and concentration and should not be rushed by big fat puddings from the chair. Fuck them. Carlos is well within his rights to give them a serve, so to speak. I would be telling these morons… how about you come down here and serve for me, you fuckwit.

THE BUZZINESS END

DAY 9

De Minaur

It’s another very hot day of dry heat, typical January weather in Melbourne. We notice that in New York, where we were going to visit last year in October, it’s going down to -12C. It’s currently -3 and snowing. So, take your pick of the weather you prefer. We hate this Australian vicious heat with an equally vicious intensity. We cancelled that trip due to my ongoing struggles with guts and back issues. We are facing the prospect of surgery now in relation to the former. In Quillan in the south of France where we also visit, hopefully on a more regular basis over the years, the south of France being a magical place of immense, mindboggling beauty, but without leprechauns, it is currently 1*C. As tennis players and sportsmen and women know, sometimes you have to face surgery in order to be able to do the things you need to do in the future.

Sinner is currently in an arm wrestle with Rune. So, as we mooch about in the heat, reading and writing, we will keep a good eye on that. We have decided to tackle some hard to read classics and are currently working our way through Moby Dick. We also have Tristram Shandy on our list, thanks to Paul Auster, and we intend finishing The Count of Monte Christo, another 1000+ page hard read, the Hunchback of Notre Dame (since we visited there on New Year’s Eve 2012-13 with a few cans of Heineken swilled down on the Champs de l’lyse on the way, and intend returning to view the new rebuild there. Also completing David Copperfield finally, who has just started his Articles of Clerkship with a law firm. All these are on our bucket list for the coming months.

We are very much looking forward to Alex tonight.

We are learning all about the importance of getting your first serve in in this tournament.

Keep an eye on Zverev, we reckon. He’s primed to let rip.

What the bloody hail is Medvedev doing destroying the net camera? A big fine is not enough because that kind of rubbish deserves a suspension.

Back to the trailer for Ms D. Collins.

We are fans of Badosa. What a spunk.

Mr Sinner has just broken the net. The centre plug has been destroyed. We were wondering if anyone in the crowd has some Blue Tac?

DAY 10

AO TAKE A BOW

We have to say that today was one of the most epic days of tennis we have ever witnessed.

Starting with our fav Badosa, who has shown incredible guts, fortitude, perseverance, discipline, and patience in overcoming stress fractures of the back in order to achieve what she achieved today against Coco. This Spanish lassie appears so humble, so grateful to be where she is, as is often (not always) the case after going through the wringer of life. You see, this is what we should be teaching our children (gratitude and positivity), together with teaching it to the union movement in Australia. Rather than whinging and whining about everything in life. Rather than the absolute rubbish, that is all based in the lies and exceptional negativity and catastrophe of “climate change”, gender theory (all lies based in witchcraft), and the let’s put everyone in a tiny little separate box divorced from all of general humanity, which is the theory of “racism”, the shit we have had shoved down our gobs and up our arses in the pissweak West since the 1970s.

Well, last night we stayed up till 4.30am watching the Trump inauguration and we have to say that that was a breath of fresh air regarding the total obliteration of wokeness and the total obliteration of Marxist / Feminist lies and Green lies.

We watched half of Sasha Zverev’s win.

Then there was the part triumph of Pavlova-chenka, in almost bringing Sabalenka to her knees. Aryna simply blasted her way out of losing, changing the momentum of the game through sheer force of power and will.

Wisdom d. Youth

It’s always a great thing for humanity when you witness the wily wisdom of experience gained through experience of life, of the ups and downs of the journey , and how to proceed therefrom while under immense pressure in order to secure victory over the moronic ineptitude of youth.

Yes, it is true that youth is wasted on the young.

Djokovic overcame injury and completely changed his game in order to win tonight in one of his greatest wins ever.

He managed to ramp up the pressure on his returns to upset Carlos. That is, instead of returning normally and then using the shot after the return to kill. It’s a huge change to his usual game. That’s experience and the use of the experiential brain through the accumulation of wisdom through the process of failure and victory. Exactly the same thing apples in life, right.

We could also see that on the mental side of his game, especially late in the fourth set when he was under pressure of losing the plot to Alcaraz hitting power, Novak pulled his mind back to where it should be. Alcaraz was attempting to do what Sabalenka did to Pavlochenkova. Carlos was throwing everything at Novak. There were incredible rallies that went for 23 and 33 shots which Carlos won.. And you could see, even though Novak was exhausted, you could literally see him just go into that meditative mental state where he bounces the ball many times on his serve. It is here where he regroups his mind, calms down, and proceeds to concentrate on THIS point to the absolute exclusion of what has occurred before. All the greatest champions of the world in this game of tennis have shown us this ability, this incredible human quality. Laver, Newcombe, Connors, Navratilova, B.J. King, Evert, Court, Bjorg, Wilander, McEnroe (to a slightly lesser extent!), Sampras, Nadal, Federer. It is this mental clarity of purpose which can deliver win after win and therefore championships after championships when these wins should never happen.

It’s a case of mind over matter.

We believe we have delivered this kind of mental state ourselves in order to survive this life also.

So, what a day that was.

We are more than pleased to say that we have healed our bad knee over the last six days, so we are ready to enjoy some of the end of tournament atmosphere of this incredible party and of this incredible spectacle of human endeavour, resilience, and achievement in the remaining days at the venue.

DAY 11

WELCOME TO MELBOURNE

THE AUSTRALIAN OPEN 2025

THE BUZZINESS END

Convict Streak