Get on that ship and sail back to me

You remember my buddy Bonnie "Prince" Tyler? The guy who looks a lot like me except he has a gigantic Rick Ross-esque beard? He's written a story about Dick Cheney and Radiohead's OK Computer, and it's published at The Passion of the Weiss. The Prince would appreciate it if you took a look.

Little Birdy ft. Paul Kelly - Brother

It's Australia Day, so today's post shall not be very detailed. In lieu of cogent musical analysis, I shall offer you an MP3. See, if you have any kind of music blog at all, it is a guarantee that publicists will hunt you down and try to make you listen to all kinds of bands you don't give a shit about. And they'll attach truly terrible copy. And the one time I do find something interesting, and push my luck by asking for a promo, though find out I live in Australia and then act like I don't exist.

So I got kind of excited when a publicist based in Australia sent me an MP3 of an Australian band that I actually kind of like. Little Birdy are fronted by West Australian Katy Steele. You might have heard of her brother, Luke Steele, the one in the Sleepy Jackson and Empire of the Sun.

Little Birdy are a quite nice pop rock band who are good except for the times they appear to believe that singing and writing your own pop rock songs excuses you from the obligation to sing and write enjoyable pop rock songs. Fortunately, "Brother" is an enjoyable song.

It veers more to the country-folk side of things than my previous favorite Little Birdy songs, like the 2003 single "Baby Blue." The sparse acoustic guitar and Steele's stark vocal are a little reminiscent of fellow sandgropers The Waifs. Things start getting exciting when half way through Steele lets out a brief whoop, introducing a bracing, clattering percussion track, scoring the tune in half. A soothing harmonica, played by Paul Kelly eases away that painful rupture, and Kelly, whom I've blogged about before, adds his distinctive voice to Steele's final chorus. It's quite an impressive tune, and I've broken my rule about ignoring publicists to post it, so you should check it out. Apparently it's off a forthcoming album, but I don't know what it will be called or when it will be out. Sorry.

And hey, since it's Australia Day, why don't we look again at that flag I put up for last year's celebrations? Isn't it rather satisfying? Hope y'all had a good holiday.