Little Sleepy Birdies

Two of Australia's weirdest-looking siblings manage the impressive feat of also being excellent musicians.

Katy Steele fronts Aussie band Little Birdy while her brother Luke Steele fronts The Michael Janet Joe Luscious Sleepy Jackson. Both require some courage to look at.

Here is Katy looking a tad sullen. The look she is giving might be the "Blue Steele".



Now. That pale, sour pout brings to mind another famously well adjusted crooner. Could it be... Yes!



It's all making sense now.



But it's not all razor blades for Katy. Here she is looking a bit pleased with herself for winning an APRA award.



Katy is quite the chameleon! LOOK:



And here is Katy's brother Luke:



Now for completeness let's make a totally gratuitous comparison.



That is all.

Weekend At (Baxter) Birney's

I have just returned from another Meredith Music Festival, the annual celebration of the 80s' best sitcom matriarch.


"Sha na na na"

Well, quite.

Actually, the festival is not really about Meredith Baxter Birney, brilliant trashy 80s serial mom sucked into post-Family Ties actorly oblivion, now useful only for daily scragfights with similarly marooned Joanna Kerns about which mother was superior.


Formerly the luckiest dreamer

But the event is no less trashy. It is basically Derby Day over 3 days, replacing fashion with bogans, music and a temporary suspension of personal hygiene.

In a symbolic mirroring of regional weather conditions, my recollection of the festival's latter stages is best described as hazy.

However, I can confirm that Augie March, The New Pornographers and Dallas Crane were the highlights, together with the entirely incongruous but rather sublime inclusion of "I've Had The Time Of My Life" at the end of Datarock's set. It was an 80s throwback of which Meredith and Joanna would be proud.

The absolute lowlight was the excruciating contribution of Angry Anderson, who is surprisingly not dead but should be. Fronting his band Rose Tattoo, he managed to refer to the crowd as "brothers and sisters" approximately one million times, belting out tuneless, screeching dirges for almost an hour and causing many in the audience to silently wish for immediate death.

Presently, I feel like my own is imminent. Sleep calls. Alrighty then; buh-bye.

My Favourite Comedian

So last night the ABC continued its entertaining audit of Australian tastes with the hilarious telecast of My Favourite Album.



As with previous instalments My Favourite Film and My Favourite Book, the show was a triumph thanks to the contribution of Australia's greatest comic talent, Judith Lucy.



Jude understands comic timing down to the nanosecond and possesses perhaps the most imitated delivery on the circuit. Hamish Blake and serially unfunny Terry Psiakis are two of the most faithful adherents to the Lucy Intonation. Her comments last night won't have Rolling Stone or even Herald Sun's Hit magazine beating her door down but she was consistently both clever and entertaining.

Now speaking of serially unfunny: this man's contribution last night was the comic equivalent of fingernails down a blackboard.



Fingernails, down a blackboard, while chewing tin foil. Inexplicably popular.

But the night was obviously about Myf Warhurst's unexpectedly prominent funbags the Top 10 albums that "we" allegedly selected. This is how the Top 10 went down:



Such a poll will always be divisive, but Meat Loaf and Jeff Buckley were genuinely surprise entrants.

However, it was only when the full Top 100 was displayed alongside the credits that it became clear the poll was actually one enormous comedy segment. To wit:



Our favourite dwarf. Now that's comedy!

Actually, it wouldn't surprise me if Chas and the Chaser crew were responsible for attempting a "hilarious" coup. (That would have been genuinely entertaining, cf. Chas' actual participation.)