circle jerks

"He was a cocked pistol." -Robert Williams.

Mad Marc Rude grew up in ‘60s New York, the son of an abuser cop and negligent mom, who frequently expelled both him and his sister from the family home. He attended Woodstock the year I was busy being born. 

I think I first became aware of him as a teenager, when I read an article about the Hollywood punk underground in the pages of Rolling Stone. I already published a shitty fanzine and was the rowdy front man for a defiantly outcast Midwestern garage band that performed covers of Dead Boys, Misfits, Cramps, and Gun Club songs, as well as some sucky Dead Kennedys influenced originals with cartoonishly banal titles like, "Victims Of The System". 

_{Colin Blum photo}

1. Craig McRae
I’ll get to music in a second, but I need to give kudos to the Human Fly, Craig McRae, for his amazing job as first year coach of Collingwood. From second last to one point off a grand final appearance. I don’t want to overhype him and I’m aware he’s only just started the role, but I think it’s safe to say McRae is on track to be Munster’s person of the decade.

2. TISM- The Croxton and Prince of Wales Bandroom
After nearly two decades of nothing, it was wonderful to see the return of the band that put Melbourne’s South East on the map. Two brilliant warm up shows (missed the third), I was amazed that after all these years, the band, now approaching retirement age, put on a no holds barred show that included crowd surfing and the full contact dancing that you only see at a TISMshow. The crowd was mixed of people that came back to relive the glory days, and plenty of young people seeing TISM for the first time. The songs are still brilliant, and hearing two new Ron Hitler Barassi diatribes proved that TISM are just as relevant now as they were in there 90s heyday. And these secret shows were a godsend, meaning I could keep well far from that odd festival they were on at.