Dead celebrity endorsement.

I hope he'd approve. As ever, click to enlarge.

Must go- I am about read some Bukowski poetry at the Frolic Room, my new favorite bar in Hollywood.

International update #1

AND you can smoke in your motel room, too.

Things I will miss.

Things I will be missing in the near future include, but are not limited to:

The excellent Peep Tempel doing a free in-store at Missing Link on Friday.
And there's a fairly massive bill on at Ding Dong on Saturday:

I am hanging out to check out some of the Witch Hats new "Coldplay fanclub"-phase tunes live, by the way.
And then on Sunday, Dave Graney finishes up his august August residency at the Old Bar:

He has a new album "Supermodified", out this week and I'm guessing this show may well be a de facto launch show.
I will distract myself from all these lost opportunities by instead concentrating on enjoying my trip to this:

Updates from the road will follow.

LTH merch frenzy.

The Last Tram Home marketing team over at Heywood Industries have come up with some ace new LTH stickers:

Printed on the finest vinyl available, you can expect to see them on lamp posts, car bumpers and pub toilet walls all over the place in weeks to come. If you'd like a few, to help spread the word, either ask me for some or drop me an email.
Tshirts and coffee mugs are...not likely to ever happen, I'm afraid

**UPDATE- A few orders have come in and been sent off. Yes, these are free. There is a limited supply sitting on the counter at Off The Hip Records if you are quick**

Muff (SFW).

The eleventh Melbourne Underground Film Festival kicks off tonight. The big ticket item is a guerilla screening of Bruce LaBruce's "LA Zombie", recently pulled from the Melbourne International Film Festival. Details of when and where that's happening are still a secret.

But I like the look of the Mini MUFF- a series of six short film nights that's running at 1000 £ Bend in Little Lonsdale St.

Those three stills are from three different shorts. I think.

Vote for something.

I have better things to do on Saturday, so I already voted, at a little place I know- only in Melbourne can you find a polling booth down a laneway off the arse end of Bourke St. I just hope nothing too shocking emerges between now and then- on the form of this campaign so far, I shouldn't expect anything will.
Anyway, I'm more an MC5 guy than a Billy Bragg type when it comes to politics in music, so that's enough of that.
Although the theme is unavoidable this weekend. This looks like a good place to lose your shit over the ranga v. ratbag battle:

Though I can't find out what that costs, I'd guess $12 or $15 would cover YIS, Dynamo & Legends Of Motorsport.
Then a massive Off The Hip party at the Tote on Sunday, to drink away your hangover:

Australia's premier garage rock label and record store - Off The Hip Records - celebrates it's 100th release with a party Sunday 22nd August at the newly re-vamped, re-opened Tote Hotel Collingwood. All punters will receive a free 24 track Off The Hip Records label sampler when they join the festivities starts at 1pm!Featuring-
LOS CHICOS [Spain]
JOHNNY CASINO AND THE SECRETS
MIDNIGHT WOOLF
RUSSIAN ROULETTES
LITTLE MURDERS
THE CHEATS
MASS CULT SUICIDE
WRONG TURN
THE LIVING EYES
SOLE STICKERS
BURIED HORSES
And again, no price details to be found. Chance it anyway.

Housekeeping.

If you are a regular you may have noticed that my Twittering had died off a bit. I couldn't be arsed, really. I did briefly consider the option of giving someone else more interested the password, but in the end just stuck a blog feed link in there. So now you can read the same thing twice, on two different platforms, AT NO EXTRA COST.
Anyway, the place is due for a revamp soon. It may even happen in time for my forthcoming adventures- perhaps this weekend, while I am stuck without a lighthouse to look at.

Centralised.

There aren't many reasons to live in Collingwood, but if you are a/ a resident of Melbourne's black & white suburb, and b/ a music fan of similar tastes to me, you have a bit of a dilemma this Friday.
On the one hand, a fine line up of the Models is playing in the Gershwin Room at the Espy in St. Kilda, along with the Dames and the Minibikes.

Should you choose to go about the same distance north instead of south, however,the East Brunswick Club is hosting the Puta Madre Brothers farewell show before an overseas tour:

Supports there are the Ukeladies, the Red Brigade,and the Toot Toot Toots.
Tough call- the 246 bus or the 86 tram?