This week I’ve been hanging out in Melbourne. It is said that Tokyo has the most record shops in the world but surely on a per capita basis, that title would go to Melbourne, as much as I tried, I only got to visit a fraction of the store down here, so I think it means I’ll have to be back again soon to do an in depth Record Stores Of The World feature! I did get out to Vicious Sloth for the first time and it was incredible, I even got to be customer of the day (see below). I got to revisit some other favourites such as Liquorice Pie that was incredibly well stocked with used vinyl, Oh Jean which has amazing curation, with a strong New Zealand and Japanese focus, and Greville which as usual has everything.
The reason I was in Melbourne is because I’m part of the Australian Music Prize judging panel and we met on Thursday to discuss the shortlist and award the winner. Congratulations to Ninajirachi who took out this year’s prize. Pictured below with Tim from Sound Merch and our judging panel hype man Mikey.
I also got to relive some nineties favourites live by seeing The Meanies and Budd play a show together at The Tote. I remember being a kid in the nineties, obsessed with The Meanies and would always see them billed at The Tote. Although I’ve seen The Meanies many times and been to The Tote many times over the years, I’d never seen The Meanies at The Tote. It feels like their spiritual home so it was great to see them there, and they were in fine form with a solid mix of old and new. The bonus was seeing Budd for the first time in many years, probably since the early 2000’s, they were also sounding as great as ever.
Afteernoon Delight for November kicks off today with Harkold, and for the Novmber Friday’s beyond that we have enlisted som very special guests. 96 Tears (aka Jess and Bodie) are playing a rare set, they played a lot of early Music Farmers events and were actually the two people that got me into vinyl DJing. We then have a back-to-back from Mad Monz and Rahzel who will kick out some dub, reggae and similar sounds, followed by Sorry Charlie (aka Lucas) to round out the month. I’ve known Lucas for a couple of decades now, he has always had amazing music taste, when he played in bands, they were always great and interesting, so I look forward to hearing what he serves up on vinyl.
