melbourne

Join the resistance

Like most community radio stations 3CR Community Radio relies heavily on subscribers and donations from it’s listeners to be able to stay on air. 3CR is a really important station in Melbourne as it gives a voice to many people who just aren’t heard in mainstream media, and certainly not on their own terms. It is also the station that hosts the Yarra BUG Radio Show. Val Nagle and I present this half-hour of radio every second Monday (our colleagues, Chris and Steve present on alternative Mondays) and it gives us thirty minutes to talk about issues important to riders in the inner-north of Melbourne and beyond. It might be about budgets, advocacy, politics, infrastructure, or mad rides, riders, fun on bikes and the people behind it all. 3CR-Radiothon14-POSTER-WEB3CR is Melbourne’s activist radio station and is the platform we use to actively inspire those who ride, or would like to ride in Melbourne. We need your support to stay on the air so it would be great if you could donate to the Radiothon, and mention Yarra BUG radio show in the appropriate box when doing so. In return, here’s a podcast from last week’s show where we were joined by City of Melbourne Cr Cathy Oke. We spent half an hour chatting about the next set of bike projects to be included in the draft budget for the city, the city’s Walking Plan and how it may or may not affect riders, Flemington Rd and Velo-city Global. Cathy generously donated to the Radiothon and in return, I’ll be sharing my riding-with-a-baby-on-the-bike  expertise so that she and her daughter can hit the bike paths!

Elvis

We ducked out the other night and saw Elvis Costello at the Palais here in Melbourne. As usual Elvis provided an amazing performance. (A review of which is here) Here too is a short film made by his support Shelley Harland who was herself pretty spectacular. Amazing voice and band and lots of great material they’d written themselves.

I have a strange relationship with Elvis. While I’ve always admired what he does I have never felt inspired enough to actually buy any of his CDs. Despite this, I’ve seen him at least five times over the years, each time in a different Elvis-incarnation, and have always been blown away by his performance.

The first time I saw Elvis was in 1985 at the Melbourne Concert Hall with the Attractions. At this stage I quite liked some of his music but he was a little too mainstream for me. A friend had been given a job as an usher at the Concert Hall and so I was able to see him for free, otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered. I was impressed with his and the band’s performance though.

I’ve also seen him perform at a very small Jazz festival in Rotterdam, unlisted, and hidden away in a wharehouse space that didn’t even feature on the Festival program or map. This performance was some seriously funky jazz and probably my favourite. My least favourite was with the Concertgebouworkest at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, more a big-band type of thing and while still very good, it lacked the passion of other performances I’ve seen him give. Mind you, as the Concertgebouw has the most Calvinist seats (ie: least comfortable) in the universe the venue itself may have contributed somewhat to my own lack of enthusiasm.

A very close contender for favourite performance was in Utrecht with the Imposters at the Vredenburg in 2005. Elvis had almost lost his voice and after giving us all the option to go home, delivered the kind of performance that is the stuff of legends. Its still talked about on the internets today! 😉

This week’s performance was a different Elvis again and as always, he proved himself a consummate performer. Maybe I should finally buy some of those CDs?

Good things about today

The blustery onset of autumn sees Melbournians donning their woolens with a joi-de-vie unique to them. Yesterday on  a quick scuttle down some bluestone laneways we were met by bright yellow scarves, tangerine beanies, and cherry red home knits. This morning cyclists  flaunted their woolens with beanies under their helmets, jumpers pulled to the extremities -both upwards and downwards- and sleeves and gloves clamped down over wrists and fingers.

Meanwhile our chickens are having a feast in the too-rarely rain-soaked back yard, digging for worms, earwigs, slugs and slaters.  The rain has also made it easy for me to get this year’s garlic planted, is giving the washing I just hung out an ‘extra’ rinse and best of all, my shockingly awful ‘bed-hair’ that wouldn’t respond to wax or serum has suddenly settled into ‘textured layers’ all by itself. Clever hair! 😉