Tag: 90s

If nothing else, free the Left Hand!

Independence can be a way of life too.

(last updated: 4 July 2025)

[Summer – Rainbow beach]

After starting drums in 1991 with teacher Andrew Smith, right after quitting many years of piano lessons, I played in the awesome Wesley Big Band from mid-1994 until early 1996 when I left due to time pressures. Big Band people also had to play in the Concert Band as a rule.

Also, in 1994, my mum bought a:

  • Yamaha Vinnie Colaiuta 14×4.5″ signature snare
  • Paiste 15″ signature fast crash
  • Paiste 13″ signature sound edge hi-hats
  • Zildjian 17″ K dark medium-thin crash

from Manny’s Music in NYC that were all shipped back to Melbourne. Bar Mitzvah money put to good use.  Yet I ended up selling them all except the snare which I play to this day (2025.)

src

The Paiste crash was incredible but the hats were awful. It was a punt – the gear was selected from reading magazines. Even my Pearl Masters kit in 1995 was selected by magazines.

I ended up with two tom-toms of the same depth and only a 2″ difference in diameter just like Vinnie’s:

[ src – purchased: red ]

Yet, I think this was a great result as the 10″ power tom sounds reasonably different to the 12″ standard tom and the difference is easy on the ear. Both the guy at the shop and my drum teacher were unnerved with the sizings – was the 16″ x 20″ bass drum really too large for jazz and too small for a rock show?

[ 27 May 2022 ]

Surely, it can be tuned up or down? Yet, decades later, the 14″ floor tom and bass drum have ended up complimenting the 2015 stand-mounted Jinbao bass-drum.

[drums switcheroo + first play] Dirty Diana (1987 + 2020)

I also had a Sabian 20″ HH medium-thin ride (below left) carried over from a few years earlier which was eventually replaced by a 20″ K Heavy.

So I used this gear in the school band competition and we won equal-first (below-left.)

src

In November 2018 I remember going into a drum store and trying out the cymbals and realizing within a couple of strokes whether I liked the sound or not, but back then I didn’t really know what I wanted or what I liked.

Get to Sticks (1992 + 2018)

It’s the same with fashion – one look and it’s either on or it’s not – although it was never like that growing up.

In Big Band, Simon played drums before me and set a really “nasty” precedent for me to follow after himself and a number of members left after the band’s Montreux performance in mid-1994. I also saw him play at a Battle of the Bands at the Lauriston Fair and he would’ve been best off playing under Maurice White than anyone else.

I played in the 1997 BotB and ended up dropping a stick after cramping up, and it was a shameful moment for me… wow, that had never happened before. We’d rehearsed at my house too and I was doing a lot of the schlepping and all the carrying of amps took its toll. It was for first-time rockstar vocalist Hezza and in front of a lot of girls.

I am pretty sure Simon was playing drums that day in his band Polyester.


[same school, Out Loud in 2014]

It was such a failure on my part, I think I ended up playing with one cramped forearm for two songs (the other arm was incapacitated.) I barely even knew what a cramp was. It’s like “What the fuck is wrong with my arms!?” For Hezza, this was at a time when being on stage with a rock band was the equivalent of having a new IG account with thousands of new followers.

I really should’ve yelled out to the other band members for timeout. “Sorry peeps, the drummer can’t play anymore. Well he never really could to begin with either. Did you hear about the drummer who finished high school? Me neither.”

Hezza had such high hopes and it all ended up a train wreck of emotion. I saw him years later in the city at night with his friend and things weren’t the same. We were once such jovial pals.

src

Trumpeter Ollie T along with Ben, James and Zoe (all above) were playing with me in Ska band Skaface at the time (1996.) Bas and Eden also played in it and there should be a recording from Bakehouse studios floating around somewhere.

I left Big Band in Yr 12, because it was taking too much time – really it was the setting up and packing away of the drums at rehearsals twice weekly which was the deal-breaker. I may have also had fatigue issues regardless because I quit Karate in 1996 too. Jewish Big Band drummer Buddy Rich also did Karate from 48 onward, but looking at his hunch, I think he would’ve been better off with Yoga. And with Big Band a thing of the past, so was Concert Band and I must’ve freed up about 8 hours of my week.

If I am to look back with complete honesty, I suspect my health took a hit from vxccines taken for an 89/90 trip to India – Hep A, Hep B (x 3) and Meningitis.

[ above right – all shot-up with Mr Patel in Ahmedabad at his quarry that he repopulated with wildlife after its end-of-life. In that social group, I talked science with someone. 7 years later, high school physics was my best result. Magic. ]

[ A year or two later: Mr Patel again with Satyajeet (with dogs) (Darbar Shri Satyajeet kumar Shivraj khachar of Jasdan) for his royal arranged marriage. ]

I think Patel was an engineer and I met Satyajeet very, very briefly. My grandfather Oskar knew Shivraj – Satyajeet’s father.

And today new borns are given Hepatitis B shots – all ready for a trip to India!?

So that toxicity was seemingly rectified about 12 years later due to an “energetic-cleansing” type experience.

Also, I had received 4 very large mercury/amalgam fillings from a young age and those off-gassing could’ve also caused problems. Another problem could have been the fluorescent desk lamp (near Hendrix poster, pic further down.) I’ve heard someone say that the lamps dislodge mercury in the body, and of course contain a small amount of it too.

So it’s worth noting that Pranic healing deals with healing on the subtle level before it manifests in the physical hence the expression “real-eyes realize real-lies.” Autobiography of a Yogi spoke about this.

I am not so won over by vxccines because:

  • Weren’t these nasty diseases on their way out anyway due to advances in hygiene? (the Big Kahuna question)
  • Do they actually work?
  • Are they really needed?
  • Why don’t all unvaccinated children drop dead before age 30?
  • Who’s funding the studies?
  • Are there liability exemptions?
  • Is there a profit-motive somewhere?
  • What’s the track record of governments working against the governed?
  • Are they part of binary weapons systems, eg cell-phone towers, body scanners, smart meters?
  • Are there other alterior motives?
  • Have they been mis-named (just like Israel)?
  • Is there full transparency in the production process?
  • On a purely physical level, aren’t nanometals and synthetic biology the enemies of health? Do vaccines add to that?
  • With heavy metals, one can expect parasites to co-exist with them, right? And with that comes biofilms, sludge and brain fog.

Vxccines are no substitute to raising the vibration and that can come through relaxation and flow-states. That’s fine, but what if it takes monthly colon hydrotherapy, lymphatic drainage and ozone sessions to get to that point? Medical students don’t even write a single essay in 5/6 years of study. Only short-answers. After that, they’re worked to the ground so they don’t or can’t think critically. The overwork/underpayment culture is done purposely to remove undesirable mindsets from the system. What am I missing? Probabaly a lot.

Was the late Susan Wojcicki targetted due to c19/vxccine censorship?

src

If so, it’s strange to see a “bottom-up” hit – usually it’s done to the small guy for going against the prevailing winds of the industry associations and their consensus before they get traction. As Buddy Rich said:

“I used to think of myself as a tough guy. Looking back now, I wonder what’s so great about being a tough guy.” – src

So I may well have gotten fatigue, but at least I wasn’t paralyzed. I think the fatigue started to happen when more cell phone towers went up later into the 90’s and my learning ability was also hampered – but I had so much to spare, it wasn’t really noticeable from the exterior. But it may have had something to do with my amalgam fillings.

It may be worth noting that at about 6 years old in primary school, myself and all my classmates had to provide cheek swabs for some woman that came through the school. I didn’t mind – I was thrilled that she wasn’t giving us all injections.

We were also IQ-tested a year or two later, and then tested again for the propensity to disassociate as mentioned here.

Sports day was so much more straightforward, even in black shoes.

[ mid-80s, KDS, original Kooyong Rd campus | 2022 ]

Looking back, perhaps having my DNA stored somewhere unbeknownst to me was/is just as dangerous as being turned over to a possible mind-control/transgendering process to serve the beast system. Or is there a clone of me somewhere from whom I can extract something later in life?

So a human clone planet is mentioned in Ormus King 2:

and intergalactic assasinations and human replacements in Ormus King 7 whereby “humans are controlled and dominated from a far-off planet for their eventual replacement by a reptilian alien cult that hijack Earth’s technology systems.”

[March, 2021]

Anyway, there was another recording with myself, Zev, Eden and Matho done at Metropolis that I wish I still had from 1996. We got free recording time and Zev and Eden came up with a track on the spot that day. I think it was called Debowana …give me some water… It sounded a lot like Big Mistake from 1997.

Natalie Imbruglia - Big Mistake Live on Channel 5 UK

We also did a cover of Fire. I ended up giving the caseette tape to Matho at a house party one night. I should’ve given it to a venue – that really was a big mistake yet he would’ve been out of the country for the next year or two anyway so that would’ve been of no consequence. Matho wasn’t even a trained singer but sounded great. I don’t think his heart was in it.

The whole session was done to help audio engineering students and my brother put me onto “Goldsmith” who was looking for a band.

It took 3 phone calls to initially reach Matho, and that would be my 2nd last. Matho knew deep down that he wouldn’t see past his 27th birthday if anything came of the band and just wanted to dodge a bullet. Well I highly, highly doubt that… maybe me though?

So I did vaguely know one fellow Harry who died at 27 who has IG embeds on this blog.

[alike]

He may well have been following this blog leading up to his death, not sure, and none of those names above are on my FB or YT followers lists – are they super-fans or beast-system-leeches? It’s God or the devil, baby!

ANTIBOY - Devil (Official Video)

Harry had some really good insights to share, and it was/is so sad to see him leave so soon although I recently read an interesting quote: “Death is but a horizon, and a horizon is just a limitation of our view.”

He passed away at dwelling purposely setup by his family for detoxing, which is sad but I don’t know the finer details. In any case, still a great loss. His last tweet was so positive.

So back to Metropolis, not sure how happy Eden was playing bass, and Zev might’ve been wanting to sing too. Goldsmith loved the music. The biggest “close but no cigar ” moment ever.

I couldn’t think of a name for the band. Spartacus came up with “Interstellar Overdrive” for another band that had Eden in it. A year later and things may have worked out as long as we owned our masters and I would’ve been able to get a website (with MP3s) and email list going pretty quickly – even in 1997. I probably would’ve ended up hiring a drummer and played percussion or done drum programming. Maybe Zev and Eden wanted to be writing for their own groups.

So back at school, I got along well with the conductor, the late Mr Lee (not everyone did) and he was also the music school head.

[ src ]

Lee sold musical instruments to students so that was pretty shrewd of him to leverage his position like that.

He played alto sax and I once lent him my Sinatra at the Sands CD that I purchased from Greville Records but I never saw it again – perhaps it flew away! In fact, the shop was up the road from my school and in uniform, I asked the shopkeeper (owner too?) what the best big band CD was and he gave me that one. I also asked for a funk tip and he gave me Curtis.

Curtis Mayfield - Curtis -1970 -FULL ALBUM

He was impressed – so was I!

Then ~10 years later I was back there with Mr Petrie asking him if he wanted to sign up to Moshtix. He was more nervous than anything, but I wasn’t! He was like “come back to me last.” He wasn’t in the ticketing business, it was a complimentary good (like the Moshcard) and it brought new people into the store.

[ src ]

Petrie was really excited about this swipe card for venue entry – he envisaged it becoming a discount and customizable card for the younger generation – many of whom didn’t even have credit cards. People could’ve been sent MP3s after buying a ticket or had a collection of music attached to it.

Facebook turned down their initial acquisition offer from Yahoo in 2006, and I think Moshtix could’ve pushed off News Corp too. That’s easy to say looking back, and I wasn’t in contact with Petrie in 2008, but the word “Mosh” limited the ticketing scope to music, right? I know there was a cinema using the site at the time.

Wherever there is power, money easily follows, and the power is at the enabling interface between disparate groups or systems that need/use each other. So much money at the interface between yarn and skin. If I owned a newspaper, I’d look at buying a timber plantation, paper plant and a recycling business – keiretsu. If American companies merged with each other, they wouldn’t need such high tariffs, right? I have no idea.

I am not sure if Greville Records were one of Moshtix’s early retail sign-ons where people could buy a ticket and add it to their Moshcard. By mid-2005 Moshtix hadn’t listed their Melbourne outlets online:

src

Greville Records were with OzTix by 2008, though:

src

But I remember seeing GR on Moshtix at one point. Or did I? Weird. Maybe they switched over to OzTix after the 2007 Moshtix acquisition and didn’t want to associate with Big Business. Perhaps Greville Records gave the ticketer a “cool factor” that lead to greater success in Melbourne, after Sydney, and leading to the rest of Australia as a result. I have no idea.

[ Note Hendrix poster bottom left – from Greville Records ]

By mid-2005, three Melbourne venues already signed-on to use Moshtix were Bennetts Lane, The Corner and The Metro. We met those on-site and a bunch more including HiFi Bar where I came face-to-face again with Kiran (not Haslam) who I hadn’t seen since the school Big Band where he had sung. Petrie was in the dark about Melbourne’s music scene. How much did he like music? Did it really matter anyway? Kiran ended up building out HiFi’s own ticketing system but I’d have to double-check on it.
Getting Metro on board was a big win after Mr Petrie and I initially met Alistair and Anna at the venue in early 2004.

src | 2

@dannysrants Do you remember Metro Nightclub? #nightclubs #nightclub #melbourne #nightlife #clubbing #promoter #security #clubs #metro #nostalgic #throwback #rememberwhen ♬ original sound – DannyRants

Alistair, at the opposite end of a large table was like: “who’s liable if the system breaks down on the night.”
Hamish was like: “it’s never failed yet.”
Alistair: “well what happens if it does?”
Hamish: “uhmm, yes…. well…”

[ 2003 ]

It was a raw meeting as we ran through the contract and no one had even yet been short-changed. Anna in the side-office was like: “if you really want to sell a lot of tickets you either need a great act or the cool-crowd present.” Nailed it. They might’ve thought we were uncool. But when I was 13 in the early 90’s, a bunch of us had free entry into TIME underage on Saturdays there at Metro. Someone thought we were cool.

The music could be really upfront, as social media was absent and people were wanting to get accelerated attraction with “randoms.” Little by way of cyber-checkin’.

Well, that’s one theory I read anyway. Also, is it just me or did people actually look physically different back then, like DNA was of a different quality? Less autism too. My brother had a Q-Bar medallion around a decade later… so roll up anytime and then straight in.

[ 2001? ] [ src ]

But Bennetts Lane was the first sign-on, and they got on board pretty soon after the first meeting using their new “tickets direct” page and the chap told us the frequent ticket queues stretching down the lane were a real problem and that’s why he wanted to sign up so badly.

src

Who said jazz heads were stuck in the past? More like stuck in a lane!

src

In the end, friendships, commission, equity or a wage, nothing really eventuated from Moshtix. Yet due to my newly acquired hearing issues, I think it would’ve been a nightmare getting into the live music scene during 2004 and beyond. Imagine troubleshooting a swipe reader or being invited to late-night drinks and wanting to leave after 1 minute. Free the legs. At least all my Groovetip work paid off… for others! I’d have to settle with karma points and a good story! The whole “kiss up, kick down” mentality and vying to become an apex predator ultimately never works in a co-operative universe.

Mr Petrie went on to build Taxi-app ingogo, but from my understanding was ejected by the investors 7.5 years in, and the app has since shut down without an exit. We had some good conversations and he was talking about taxis and standing desks even back in Sydney.

Real Life - Send Me An Angel '89

Anyway, Sonny Payne – killer drummer. “He was Frank Sinatra’s personal drummer for all of the singer’s live appearances with Count Basie and his big band in 1964 and 1965 and 1966; in fact, whenever Sinatra sang with Basie in the 1960s, Payne was the drummer.” – src

A band is never better than its drummer and Frank knew it.

Frank Sinatra - Luck Be A Lady

The Chairman of the Board backed-up by the drummer. Interestingly, Andrew left me a heap of jazz records and I still have them to this day.

But reading the Mile Davis autobiography during that time – great read – really helped me put Jazz into perspective.

Following on from this, it wasn’t really that cool to be in a Big Band and the drumming is quite challenging – anticipating all the band lines. And in the Big Band, I never really dialled into the importance of “double-stroke roll triplets” until many years later – crucial for jazz playing. It’s a type of poly-rhythm that can really empower a drummer to put all their rudiments into a triplet feel. And that’s what life is all about – seeing the normal things through new lenses!

Also, the “Rock and Roll” style is about switching from straight-ahead grooves to these triplet fills. Going from rock to roll. Think Bonham.

I play a triplet at 45 secs:

[switcheroo drums] Bon Jovi - Blaze of Glory (1990 + 2020)

School uniforms aside, Angus Young has said he even likes the beats slightly swung, not just the fills.

So around 1996 I saw Julian Joseph at The Continental Cafe in Greville Street with Charlie (see below.) After the show, the drummer Mark told me that to be a good funk player it really helps to be a good jazz player in order to free up the left hand.

Mark Mondesir Drum Lessons: You only need 7 Rudiments!! - Heavy Groovin! #drummerworld

My goal is to have it to the point where it almost needs to be attached with a leash!

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

related:

Fretless bass player Charlie on the right:

pics
palette.fm
www.vinniecolaiuta.com/Interviews/ModernDrummer1993
✓ 2 months ago

Menageri – 18 And Over (1994)

Menageri - 18 And Over

pics
pixabay.com/illustrations/man-run-sporty-young-teenager-3107164/
pixabay.com/illustrations/girl-teenager-skateboard-pretty-3176791/
pixabay.com/photos/police-police-officers-police-check-2672130/
✓ 5 years ago

Social Proof, not Social Goof!

It’s about balancing the goofiness with precision … but don’t fail, though.

last update: 28 February 2025

I heard Lenny Kravitz for the first time with Let Love Rule on the car radio, probably around 1990 on PBS. I think my brother was sitting next to me and my dad was driving. Our car was passing a cemetery.

Lenny Kravitz - Let Love Rule (Official Music Video)

Really, I think LK should put acoustic guitar to bass/drums/organ more often, if I may suggest.

I was thrilled no one changed the station during the song and thought it was one of the coolest tracks I’d ever heard. Then I recognised the music again at a friend’s place a number of months later and it all clicked and I bought the album.

In 1992 (above left) I owned the Digipak edition of LK’s 2nd album (middle) and in 1993 I owned the Digipak of album 3 (right.)

My dad’s first reaction was to his name – okay so he must be Jewish!

However, one of my cherished Kravitz CDs ended up severely scratched after I lent it to Tim in 1993.

[ Note, LK Digipak in bedside table under Branford Marsalis CD. ]

I think it was Let Love Rule because Sitting on Top of the World never played past the second bar without getting stuck in a loop.

He later said that the CD was passed around in the unit without him knowing and he mentioned some other people. It ended up on the wood floor somehow. Accidents happen. But people return favours in different ways. A few people told me to clean it with tooth-paste. Why not?

At least Stain remained …unstained.

[April?, 1993]

Blize (2014 + 1993)

Later that year the whole year group helped clean up after a flood – really puts things into perspective seeing people dealing with their whole material lives being washed away. I think it was Seymour.

Helped us see-more.

That said, speaking of messups, I took the woodshed 2 steps forward and 1 step back (or was it vice-versa because people couldn’t leap up onto the roof anymore) by making it bigger and higher in the rear but with a little less overhang in the front so it was more work to stack it out of the way from the rain. I think it was an improvement, but not by much.

[ the original boiler woodshed ]

Later, the unit master suggested I should’ve done more planning and there was nothing wrong with the original shed but he wasn’t around while the work was done. That was done towards the end of the year and no one really complained.

With Jun by my side, a bunch of guys stood around as I drove in nails – it wasn’t like I did it without any sort of tacit approval either, or formality.

Anyway, during this time LK wasn’t really hard, manly or grungy enough to be universally accepted, at least at my school. It could have been the falsetto, who knows? I just liked his music. Image was secondary to me, if not completely irrelevant.

Anyway, on 12 Feb 1994 I saw LK in concert and I even bought a long-sleeved t-shirt – but that’s over now.

At school, it was strange because I think a bunch of girls liked me (as they liked Lenny) but I didn’t really know that – female competition and jealousy was probably a deterrence.

At a house party, I took a skateboard taken that I had carefully constructed in 1994 during woodwork (in the Deaf School) and many years later it appeared at someone’s place with serious mileage on it. A chap I knew quite well, Rikka, (Mark) mentioned some other names that gave it to him and they were my buddies anyway. Strange situation, we were both stressed, and I let him keep it as it was so banged up and possession is 9/10 of the law. Did I have a choice though? I didn’t think about the police at the time.

Also, I thought deep down that having the board disappear meant it might well have saved me from having an accident on it. I was more into skiing and blading and designed a pair of skis that were built in late 2012 for carving (but very strangely ended up great in powder too.)

2013 (Zermatt)

They were never stolen, but I haven’t seen them in years though. I hope they’re still around.

So I found these skis to be extremely safe – I only took one fall in ~20 days of skiing and that’s because I was testing their limits. So these Heartcarve skis are for endorphins, not adrenaline. And due to the lack of pain and fear, skiing becomes a much more social experience and I ended up talking to many more people on the chairlift and simply overall. The biggest challenge was finding a pair of boots that fit well, because so much g-force is taken by the tongue.

Note, like downhill mountain-biking, my upper body is facing in the same direction as my skis.

Back in 2008, on off-the-shelf slalom skis after having worked on Heartcarving since 2002:

Carving Blackcomb 2008

(also vid 2007 – Tirol)

1 2 3

2007 – Little Buller Spur | 2007 – Summit Slide  | ’08 + ’08 (Whistler)

Today, I think the style could be comparable to an e-unicycle.

INMOTION V13 (Full Send Street Riding) Technical Fast Electric Unicycling

The whole “always keep upper body facing downhill” thing is a paradigm to me that causes tension and pain in the body. Even today’s modern carvers still do it to a large extent.

I suppose no matter what the skis or technique, one can always numb it all down later apres-ski. I’m centred in my heart… isn’t that goofy?

So all boots have a pain point when fitting in the shop and that has to be on the front of the shin because after a few days of skiing, the front of the shin develops a muscle to counteract that force. For me that was the Garmont G2 – a miracle find because it was for bony, narrow feet.

Anyway, back to the skateboard, in one way I was happy for Rikka because he was a really good skater and I hold no grudges. In the news, there are so many stories about small disputes escalating into serious offences, it’s important to keep things in perspective and this is why condemnation as a mental device (also mentioned here and here) is problematic as it leads to disproportional, emotive responses. I should have kept a closer watch on the board at the party instead of long hair and smiling faces. But it also shows I made a good deck because he said a number of people had used it.

It was a Magnusson deck (~1988) that I cut down.

I used full-size large wheels from another board I owned, tightened the trucks, loosened the wheel nuts – like one of today’s cruiser boards, perhaps. Ollies were hard, yet it was fast and stable.

No wonder it disappeared. And I thought people would think I was a weirdo.

It’s worth noting that that board had nose-to-tail, hell concave and I initially bought the whole thing second-hand at Huntingfield Road for about $25 from a friend of a brother of a friend.

He didn’t like the concave, and it was still in pretty good condition. It was my first “professional” board.

The board I had prior to that was an el-cheapo and it was slow and unwieldly but got me tinkering around with it to try to make it better.

And I’d already been building Lego for years prior to that.

So on the Magnusson, I removed the rail and tail sliders it came with, and would stop by rolling onto sidewalk grass or s-bending on the road.

Like my skiing, I didn’t care about tricks and wasn’t too good at them either, I just wanted to cover distance in style – as with life.

To this day, I think it was a great design because my feet could stay over the trucks and this kept the board parallel to the ground rather than bending as with a longboard.

[ src ]

Perhaps I should see it as me having “lost” it rather than having had it “stolen.” I just forgot about it long-term because it was so new to me and I was so focused on school work.  Thus, the whole time it had a “borrowed” status among some of my school friends. But I never did tell anyone “here, that’s yours now to keep.”

On the other hand, maybe it was straight up stolen or taken as “ownerless” one night at the party – maybe it was dumped and picked up. And Rikka was most probably right, I did last see someone using the board at full pelt up and down the street at that party. Or was that a different deck?

It was on that night that I turned to a couple at one point and said “love is a beautiful thing” and they both laughed.

I could’ve said it to the skater. Finders, keepers, right?

A lot of people ended up there that night, in Toorak in late ’94 or early ’95. Eden was there. And that’s probably it right there with Mark:

… or not.

So at least it got good use! The whole thing has a sexual connotation too.

Anyhow, I really wanted to go to my school formal with someone I had met at a party that had been at my house, P, whereby Luke met her randomly shortly before it (with her friend S also coming to the party.) Luke thought they were hot and I chatted with both of them in the back garden with Mike around where Desmond is below.

So then in 1996 out of the blue P appeared outside South Yarra train station as if waiting to speak to me, and I spoke to her for a bit, but being into my walkman and schoolwork, my mind was too linear for me to pop the question. Well spoken, she had been on an ABC television show that year too. Frustrating.

Some months later I saw her at schoolies in Noosa (Rolling Rock) and we spoke again by chance at nearby Funkies, funnily enough where Tim’s good friend Sarah worked who I also knew quite well from school, and later that pair wound up in the back of the Nissan at some point as we went clubbing in early 1997. Just needed to find a Kravitz concert to complete the night.

So to P, I said “there’s no sign I’m not compatible with” (Prince – Kiss) and she said “bull.” She was with a friend and that was the end. I should’ve just said, “hey, let’s all meet at Silvers tonight” as it was in the same building, and come to think of it, I did see P once at Silvers in I think early 1997 but we never spoke. She either ignored me or I ignored her, who really knows in those chaotic places? So a few weeks or months later Lucy (and Noah,) who Luke knew, would’ve been over with her upright bass.

Right about that time I started delivering pizzas for Giardino which became Vintage Cellars and was a few doors up from Fuji where Toby was dognapped.

src | 2 | 3

Michael Todd of the Australian Ballet (1978) (above-right, bare legs) was a waiter and said he felt I had a shielded or guarded personality and should loosen up … something like that anyway. I didn’t really agree with him – but he may have had a point – I don’t know – I was serious a lot of the time. Perhaps I should’ve popped on a clown suit. Good guy though, and we had some interesting discussions. He looked at my hair, touched a few strands and said in a professional tone that I should cut it really short, which I eventually did (but only years later) or else grow it long.  Dreadlocks would’ve been ideal.

He was at the tail-end of his career and had trouble finding work in ballet in his late 30’s – he had to move into choreography at that point. It must’ve been tough for him to transition from an acclaimed dancer into someone who some people would treat condescendingly at a restaurant. Every job has its downsides and my car was starting to smell like the restaurant.

One rare regret I have from the years 1997-2001 is the lack of photos I took of my fashion choices of the day.  All my clothes were thrown away from that time too. So my biggest tip while doing deliveries was a $20 bill for a $13 pizza and to “keep the change.” That was from Brian Blythe (1939 – 2022) of Spotless at the doorstep of Coonac, Melbourne’s most expensive home.

I wasn’t just grateful, but also in awe. But how would deliveries get me there permanently? I did take some shots outside Coonac in 2020.

Photo deliveries?

Anyway, I did some additional delivery runs for a pizza shop in the Balwyn area in place for Zoltak.

Interestingly, during my time at uni, but I’m not sure when – most likely 2001 – I had the idea to run a meditation class. But it wasn’t really a meditation class. It was just about getting a whole heap of people in the same room.

The idea never moved beyond the image above, I had no qualifications, and people could get the same feeling at a cinema just as the lights dimmed. Maybe it’s something people will do in 2050 …for whoever remains. A meetup in its purest form. I still think it has potential: expect nothing, receive the universe, charge anything.

Maybe a group-sleep could work like in kindergarten but for adults in a retreat setting.

src

Wait don’t people do that on aeroplanes? Maybe in hyperbaric chambers or sensory deprivation tanks? Too Goofy?

So in early ’97 at uni I momentarily met P’s younger sister P2 (and her friend E) on the tram who later brushed passed me after she saw me laughing out loud in front of the commerce building – during my conversation with Robbie about clubbing. Kind of gnarly to think about it all now. It must be quite common, a person is friends or even an item with someone, and really they should be hanging out with the sibling.

So Robbie lived around the corner from me and Jun met him one night and Robbie said Jun was a “top bloke.” Jun, Robbie, myself and I think Peck were in a taxi going to Crown Casino, and we passed the Arcadia Hotel and I saw a homeless/derelict person outside and I said “Can I have a dollar?” to him and we all cracked up laughing. I highly doubt the guy heard over all the background noise, and I said it facetiously to take the piss out of us all – not him. Anyway, if he gave me a dollar, I could’ve tried to turn it into 10 for him at Crown minus the carried interest!

These days I’d have to wonder who are the real parasites – the super poor or the super rich? Speaking of which:

Gary nails it—this rentier economy has turned ownership and hard work into relics of the past. Like Yanis Varoufakis points out, this isn’t capitalism in its original sense; it’s a parasitic system designed to extract wealth rather than create it. The middle class is being squeezed, not because they’re lazy, but because the rules of the game have changed. We’re forced to rent everything—homes, jobs, even our futures—while the owner class rakes in profits from systems they didn’t build, exploiting our labor and resources. And then they preach about ‘hard work,’ as if it means anything in a rigged game. This isn’t progress—it’s neo-feudalism, and it’s dismantling the social contract piece by piece.

Gary’s Economics | top comment | 6 Jan 2025

I’ve seen the behaviour up close personally with the leeches of the fashion industry as mentioned here. And the same in Hollywood, from my experience. What’s theirs is theirs and what’s mine is theirs. It’s the international money mafia, baby!

Yet from my understanding, Hollywood A-listers don’t have full control of their money, and they can only spend on certain things. That was according to one internet personality (now inactive with many videos offline for many years.)

If so, then Steven Spielberg can buy a superyacht for himself, but couldn’t buy one for me, even if he wanted to. That personality also spoke of R Kelly being innocent, with his convictions being drummed or even fabricated so he could be used as a sexual misconduct scapegoat, and also as part of some type of revenge thing – although that was for a case in the 2010’s so just a continuation of that?

[drums switcheroo] R Kelly - Flirt (2007 + 2016)

Speaking  of A-listers, why is Harrison Ford still working? Is it a clone? Why is Lenny Kravitz back on tour in 2025, is he on a hamster wheel? How does he hear anything anymore? Why did R Kelly, Lenny Kravitz, Bruno Mars and Kanye West all lose their mothers early on in their careers? The rules in the beast-system are different and clandestine. But once you’re on the “freedom train,” there’s no turning back.

Lenny Kravitz - Freedom Train/Always On The Run - live 1994

Gary from Gary’s Economics was on the finance trading floor for 5 years before retiring a multi-millionaire with great resistance. How many Hollywood A-listers or pop stars have even been able to retire at all, let alone after 5 years?

It’s like there’s a centralized ledger of who has what amount of money, and people have to request for a voucher any time they want to buy or sell something of any value. Actually, I have no idea if there is a system like that in place, but it wouldn’t suprise me. I think Dave Chappelle said to be careful of being paid too much – something like that. The last thing I’d want is to be more valuable dead than alive with the value of a song catalog rising as a result, the negation of royalty payments, the avoidance of fading glory and the freeing up of fans and fame for new acts. Same with film. And there’s also the risk of failing mind-control and the slipping of “secrets.”

So maybe the fashion heads want to reciprocate… but can’t! No one wants to be “deactivated” and thrown off the train.

src

Also, status is bestowed to those who inspire the next and that should go to someone important like an heir.

Not a goofy outsider.

[ 23 Apr 2018 | 10 July 2018 | 7 Aug 2018 ]

Yet at the same time, according to Primal Status Elevated, one challenge “new money” has is maintaining and monopolizing primal status within their sphere of influence and greater society. As with Hollywood fame, companies (and families) can also seek their own type of fame to create inter-generational wealth (“old money.”) This is outlined in this video. I don’t think Marta Ortega has a very good fashion sense myself – how is she going to uphold a fashion dynasty for decades to come? But does it matter? People can gravitate toward their strengths anyway.

If I publicly had over $100 Billion, I would look at aiming to hide the bulk of the money from the public anyway, like the Wallenberg family (apparently) over the course of decades.

[11 July 2018]

It depends on the context of course – in France I could pitch myself as the second coming of Napoleon but I still might need a private army and prison.  In North Korea, it’s either life as a serf or a soldier… is that what the West has to look forward to? If the super-rich are squeezing out the middle class today, then won’t the ultra/invisible rich eventually squeeze those out tomorrow?

So it may be an interesting strategy to create the appearance of being a billionaire to elevate status, and the nepo babies need help – and so do their parents if they want to turn their surnames into long-standing brands. Who do they let into their inner-circle?

Anyway, Peter Thiel recently alluded to the notion that to lift billions out of poverty would require whole new energy sources. Interestingly, that may end up lowering birth rates. Also, perhaps those futuristic energy devices exist but are purposely hidden through a lack of love.

The Lost Century: And How to Reclaim It

It’s interesting to note how restrained Thiel is in pushing the envelope. That said, according to one theory, JFK wanted to use his platform to rein in the Federal Reserve and look what happened to him. No one wants to be first to invest in anything too disruptive. Anything too good is siphoned away into a breakaway civilization for the chosen few, right?

So I read about a very wealthy guy that started to buy up radio stations in the USA and he was “put to sleep” as well. But at some point you’ve gotta fight the good fight, but if you hit people in the wallet they tend to swing back. Prince sung “What’s the use of money if you ain’t gonna break the mould? … All that glitters ain’t gold.”

prince 'Gold' RARE Extended Alternate Music Video 1995

So another girl at school told me I looked like Joaquin Phoenix or Daniel Day-Lewis.

Anyhow, in Newcastle, Daniel Johns was bashed because he wasn’t masculine enough, and his music was already pretty heavy.

Silverchiar- Daniel Johns Interview pt. 2 (of 3)

They were the cool guys, we were just the others guys that were in a band that wasn’t as masculine. (1:00)

So back to Kravitz, in May 2018, I took this photo in Atlit, Israel and by September Lenny had his album cover on the shelves:

Fast forward to October 2023, LK’s newly announced album Blue Electric Light seems to have followed from my April 2019 pics from Innot Hot Springs.

src

And I read an interview in the 90’s about Lenny re-recording Tony Breit’s basslines from jam session tapes and not giving him songwriting credits and that caused a lot of tension. Unfortunately, I don’t have the exact quote on hand. This was from 1993, however:

src | screenshot

[ IG ]

So I do remember going to my CD at the time and looking at the album art perplexed.

src

Breit’s only listed playing on 4 tracks. Chad Smith got writing credits on Blood Sugar Sex Magik and he was “just” the drummer. But they’re a “band” so it’s different, right?

Has Breit written anything with Lenny? He plays guitar too. Maybe I’m over-reaching but I lost some of my innocence at the time.

Best of luck to them anyway and maybe what was written was garbage.

Or not. I think it was Me’shell Ndegéocello that said she wouldn’t even step into the same studio with someone with her instrument unless there was a contract in place. And re-recording parts is nothing new. On Guns ‘n Roses’ 2008 Chinese Democracy:

"According to Ferrer, he is the only drummer on the title track; the rest of the album features drums by Brain and Ferrer, using Freese's arrangements. Bassist Tommy Stinson stated he had to rerecord his bass parts with each change in drummer." - src
Brain said Freese played on 30 songs before he split with the band. While Axl Rose admired Brain's feel, he was set on the patterns that Freese had played, so he had Brain replicate Freese's parts note for note. - src

This made it the most expensive rock album ever produced – $13 million.

Brain on Chinese Democracy

And Coco Chanel said that creativity is the art of concealing your sources, non? But it shouldn’t have to be this way and what goes around comes around.

In the 80’s, I remember listening to Genesis on the radio and turning up the volume dial only on the 2 and 4 and muting the rest – I realized I could do that on any song.

The rest is just filler anyway, right? It was so easy to record stuff as well onto tape.

When it comes to my playing, I could see how someone would want it optimized, as there is a sloppiness and unpredictability to it but also taste and groove. My timekeeping, at times can be discernibly off. Yet one could also use quantizing – Grohl’s bass drum on Nevermind was quantized, well that’s what someone told me when it came out.

Chess Bloom (1991 + 2015) [full]

However, I’ve got excellent hearing when it comes to placing notes in relation to a pulse – that happens looking at a screen, not at tom-toms.

For example, with my drumming “switcheroo” (enabled by AI track separation) of It Ain’t Over Til It’s Over, Kravitz may have liked it, but recognized the imperfections, and then re-did it to his liking.

Playlist: drums switcheroo

Well, I highly doubt it, but it’s worth understanding the temptation in these situations. It’s about balancing the goofiness with precision. Or in more opportunistic settings, being able to conceal the sources. It’d also be possible to take the best bars and loop them.

Anyway, at the start of this clip, I am keeping time on the hats and laying out a fill at the end of the section.

Funktion View (1997 + 2015)

Same with Krav.

Lenny Kravitz - How Long Have You Been Blind (Harry Belafonte Tribute)

Very generic stuff, but I think RaveDJ quantized my drums and was able get the drum overlap right, and, Krav put out his track about a month after I first released mine (30 March 2023). RaveDJ have since made my mashups unavailable on that site.

Also, following on from the Phoenix/Kidman film from 1995 (mentioned above) is a new Kidman/Dickinson film almost 30 years later.

OK, so back to 2020, and today a rainbow literally appeared in front of me through the trees as I started playing this on drums, and it dissipated by the end.

It’s in my squint at 0:29 … It Ain’t Over Til It’s Over… yeah… tell that to the Social Goofs who stare at the rainbows that no one else are yet to see!

pics
www.etsy.com/nz/listing/590425852/vintage-90s-1993-lenny-kravitz-universal
sg.carousell.com/p/arthcd-lenny-kravitz-are-you-gonna-go-my-way-limited-edition-digipak-cd-poster-147322884/

✓ 6 months ago