Frank Gutch Jr: On the Road With The Lisa Parade and Maxine Dunn (Plus Them All-Important Notes)

I took a drive yesterday.  I had been sitting in front of the computer screen too long and accomplishing little of anything at all and I needed a break.  Usually when I hit the road I take music I need to hear for writing reasons but this time I needed time to myself.  I grabbed one I had the urge to review by Town Mountain which when I pulled open the CD cover discovered was minus the disc.  I had left it in my computer player at home.  I have lost more than one disc that way.  The other two were there though and I had heard neither all the way through for over a year:  Lisa Parade‘s Finding Flora and Maxi Dunn‘s Edmund & Leo.  I couldn’t wait.

Frank Gutch Jr: Down Under Down Under: Band Picks By My Favorite Aussie Musicians

God, but I love Australia.  I love the openness and the freedom and the idealism.  I love their uniqueness— I mean, what other continents have such cool animals as the duck-billed platypus and kangaroo and koala.  What other continent has the history, much of it forgotten outside that country’s boundaries— the penal colonies (Did you know that England sent their undesirables to the soon-to-be United States before diverting them to Australia? Colonies were colonies to those inbred bastards back then, eh?), the rabbit roundups (The newsreel clips are pure science fiction! Check out the little video I found on Youtube which highlights the problems of invasive species down under), the flying doctors, the centralization of schools.  The Outback.  Uluru (Ayers Rock to those outside Australia), The Great Barrier Reef.