Randomly surfed by the Byron site just to see. Lucinda Williams is listed there!

And some other people but WHATEVER.

LUCINDA!

Apologies to people who can't watch these videos (KRuddy should be working on that instead of this molto drongo filtering business) but ...

... if you say MP3s and the whole digital thing is the most siginifcant thing to happen to the music industry in the last little while, YouTube has got to be second? Or something?

Excuse my French but holygoddamanfriggingmotherfuckingchrist there is some jaw dropping gold on there. Thanks, random people.

I was surfing it after the last post and also looking for material for a Guy Clark Please Tour Australia Don't Force Me To Come To You post. This can't wait! Guy, Jerry Jeff Walker, Steve Earle, Rodney Crowell, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Nanci Griffith, Eric Taylor on Desperados ... Flop Eared Mule as an idea exists for this shit.

Iris DeMent was my entree into Tom Russell. I loved her and her first three albums. This is was the late 90s. I then read she was featured on this album "The Man From God Knows Where" by Tom Russell, so I bought that, never having heard of him. Iris toured Australia in 1998, I was living on the empty fumes of Austudy but I went and saw her live at the Basement, but to do so I had to skip Steve Earle that same week. To even afford to see her I lived on the $1.90 hot dog and slurpee deal at the servo on Alison Rd in Randwick for weeks and walked to Bondi and back to pay my rent to my slumlord landlady who lived in a mansion on Edgecliff Rd, because I couldn't afford the $5 bus fare. A second $50 gig was out of the question, sorry Steve.

One amusing moment in the US campaign (and oh my, how many of them have there been?) happened when MY GUY Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr took on some Freeper drongo who has a gig on Florida telly. She asked, "hey, "from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs" is that proto-Islamofascist Marx right? So, B. Hussein Obama is a Marxist, right?" And Joey responded, "You are Ashton Kutcher in drag and this is a Punk'd skit, right?" (paraphrase) That was pretty funny. The better answer was, "Actually that was first used by Louis Blanc and merely, literally, popularised by Marx in reference to a specific phase of economic development bearing not even theoretical relevance to the USA in 2008 but, hey folks, gawd love ya, easy mistake, sweetheart."

My point is this. After America becomes a Socialistic utopia a la GASP Sweden on November 5th (6th AEDST), I do hope to see the immediate creation of The Department of Homeland Musical Redistribution, with, say, Doctor John as its first Secretary.

America has the ability. Australia has the need.

Give me your tired singer-songwriters, your poor troubadours,
Your honky tonk angels yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your brief major label deals.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
And vow to bring five of my friends to your gig in Sydney.

Once upon a time I had a wee mental list of the five singers I most wanted/needed to see live. Dylan, Springsteen, Cash, Cohen and ... Um, it might have actually been Billy Bragg in truth. Tremendous back catalogue, still know all the words to St Swithin's Day and Between the Wars, but compared to the way I felt at 21 the attraction has not really worn well. Can I blame Wilco? Sure, why not. Anyway, I've seen him (the night of the hail storm, for Sydneysider nostalgia) so either way he gets crossed off. Obviously there were many more I was thrilled with the prospect of seeing live, but those were the Big Tickets.

Done Dylan, in double figures for his gigs now. Bruce, not yet but he'll swing back here again sometime so I'm not worried about that. Cash, alas to the power of infinity, no and no chance now. Leonard Cohen, at the time I had the list I honestly thought I would never get to see. He wasn't touring, wasn't recording, was still doing the Buddhist biznitz. But, I've got those tickets now so that's an unexpected strikethrough on the list. Someone said to me the other night, we should be grateful his manager ripped him off and he needed to go back on the road. Ha.

Anyway, that list has been overtaken by time.

Being philosophical about the prices of the Cohen tickets I said the other day it's tax on not living in the USA or the UK. You just have to cop it sweet Oi Oi Oi -- or move.

But anyway, all the names on that list are crossed-off one way or the other, finally or provisionally so I need a new list. Behold the new Category at left: The New List, of folks I have not seen but must. Astute readers will note it's mostly an excuse to feature some wonderful music via YouTube. Later today, I kick it off with Tom Russell.