Getting Finked At The Royal Witherspoon

I don't know anything much about Melbourne wistful kids The Finks (except they aren't likely to be burly bikers with eccies and shotties - although it could still be the skinny hipster above). I was looking around the Milk! Records (Courtney Barnett, Jen Cloher) store the other day and stumbled across this EP, At The Royal Witherspoon, and it's been the salve to the wounds of a stress-heavy week. Why? The six songs on this cassette reverberates through my bones, the kind of jangly slow paced indie joys that Aussies pumped out with heady regularity some fifteen years ago. These humourous, verbose songs strike a chord, taking me back to those early 2000s where space, guitar and personal lyrics involved witticisms and personal letdowns as opposed to dilapidated house parties and missed Centrelink forms. Let it inform your weekend - these Finks may be sorry excuses, but as the battler entrenched in the barstool next to you down at your local, you couldn't wish for a nicer inebriated wingman. Especially when Sam Cooper tells his incredible narrative 'Alternate Histories'. Choc tops, serial killer projectionists, Benson & Hedges, smoking with matches - man, I love this EP. This is going to be a great weekend...

There's 8 copies of the cassette still available, so if I were you I'd get in now.

Courtney's Carving Up

I have a total crush on Courtney Barnett. She's a great guitarist, she doesn't hide her plaintive Aussie accent, her verbose lyricism is both affecting and amusing - and she knows how to write a good song. When I listen to 'Avant Gardener' I forget that there aren't many people out there that have innate melody in every pore of their being. Writing a song about having a panic attack whilst gardening shouldn't be a good song - yet 'Avant Gardener' is frontrunner for my favourite song of the year. Barnett is a revelation.