Dear the Internet,

As the Game of Thrones-level drama plays out around the teetering towers of Turnbull Manse, I’m working on book #2 – and it’s all about… um, the last 40-odd years of Australian music.

If you’ve come to me because of View from the Street and/or The Short and Excruciatingly Embarrassing Reign of Captain Abbott (and if so: thank you! Welcome!) this may well come as a surprise.

This album, friends, is so much better than literally everything happening in politics.

That’s partially because most political commentators don’t spend the first 18-odd years of their careers as (mainly) music journalists, and partially because almost all of the work done during that era was either for street press and is now slowly-degrading 90s-era landfill, or was for sites that largely don’t exist any more (or whose old content is buried beneath several levels of web platforms thanks to the steady geology of tech…).

Anyway: the plan is to do a bit more in terms of talking about the book as we go, not least because it’s a glorious relief to obsess over favourite Australian band and much-missed venues from around the country. I’m also going to start recovering some of the lost articles and giving them a new and hopefully more permanent home somewhere in here.

And, to kick off, here’s one of the greatest pop songs by one of the greatest pop bands: the Hummingbirds. It would be wise to turn your speakers up loud before dancing goofily around your study to this. I speak from recent experience.

(oh, and if you’re desperate for ranty political stuff instead of twee indie pop: here’s today’s V from the S about how Malcolm Turnbull is doomed, even if he wins).

Yours ever,

APS