Bodies Without Organs "Prototype" Review

We promised a review of this after a more thorough listening, so here it is.

And boy have we listened. BWO has been ROCKING the streets of Canberra. "Rocking the boat" on Lake Burley Griffin if one wanted to be witty,



and "burning the tarmac at Canberra International Airport."



Kicking off the album is Sixteen Tons of Hardware. The best bit is obviously the ABBA reference and the acapella(ish) bit near the end that sounds bloody powerful. This song is about sex.



Conquering America is next. Probably the best song of 2004, it references Kylie Minogue, and American men who chew gum and smoke cigarettes, IN FRENCH! Perfection.

Next track is Son of a Gun. This is bloody awesome track. The best line is of course "And he fights like a son of a gun/son of a gun/aah aah/oh oh oh oh oh oh/son of a gun". Pure brilliance. The "aah aah" is orgasmic. I have no idea what a "son of a gun" is, but whenever I think someone is great, that they can walk the walk, then I tell them they are a "son of a gun." Even if they are a girl.

Open Door is next. It's grown on me. And what a great video!

But I've just got to get to Walking the Night. Who else but Alexander Bard would put in a lyric like "Planting my seed under street lights/cause passion is the root to my groove." That incidentally is one of the best bits of the song too.

Voodoo Magic is genius, especially "oh ooooh" and "You must have been the angel/who lost the grace of God/cos I can't stop repeating/your sweet hymn on my iPod."

Sunshine in the Rain is ridiculously catchy, particularly the terribly chirpy "When I'm in Berlin you're off to London/When I'm in New York you're doing Rome."

Riding Through the Night is my current FAVE. It's so DRAMATIC. "Rain! Thunder rolls! Pain! The night is cold!" And they name check themselves! Perfection!



Say I Love You is almost too dramatic. If Swedish Glamour was an Official Religion, then this track, and Alcazar's Dance with the DJ are its principal hymns.


Rhythm Divine - skip. Sounds like Ace of Base had diarrohea.

European Psycho - brilliant lyrics, crap song.

Living in a Fantasy - it references brilliant sunken liners, astrology, frosty weather and the important issue of global warming! Gotta love it!

Gone! What a load of dog's bottoms! It's still Bodies Without Organs though isn't it!

Liner notes - brilliant.

Choice of DVDs in the Big Brother Reward Room

Do the producers of Big Brother, as well as the contestants themselves, have some kind of movie choice impediment? Because Kate and Michelle just went in to the Rewards room and have been inspecting their choice of DVDs to watch. The titles she reels off as she flicks through the cases reads like a who's who of awful movies...."Oh look at all the DVDs! BRAVEHEART! Electra! Daredevil! Alien vs Predator! Dodgeball! [admittedly that is quite a funny one] That awful disaster movie whose name I can't remember [that's me who can't remember]" and get this, Kate then goes "BRILLIANT BRILLIANT BRILLIANT BRILLIANT BRILLIANT." Ever heard of a decent movie, like Muriel's Wedding? Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amelie Poulain? Dancer in the Dark? Love Actually? American Beauty? Debbie Does Dallas?


They're just movies OK? Now get into that rose petal filled bath!

Cafe Review: Cafe Essen

When I arrived in Canberra, everyone seemed to say "let's go to Cafe Essen, it's really cool." And it's in a rather busy little cafe area, and always seemed to have loads of people, so I've given it a bit of a chance. But what a heap of crap! Seriously.

Experience 1

Invited by a friend, we were sitting outside. From my memory:
- The water they gave us had little floatie bits in it
- Scruffy looking boy smoked in my face
- Uncomfortable metal chairs



Experience 2

This time we were sitting inside, but by the window. It was rather busy. The water had not floatie bits in it. A plus! Then the downsides:

- Hoping for loads of beautiful people at this place is a mistake. The place is fully of scruffy leftie types, like young Tims off Big Brother 5. Why can't the lefties there be good looking, clean ones, like Fop?
- They were all smoking. The worse one was a table full of them. Gawd they were ugly. I think they were Star Wars fans as they all looked very disparate but similar. They had some kind of box with a Darth Vader reference on it. There was a guy, I didn't see his face, but I assumed he was ugly, because he had icky black hair, with red at the front and looked pasty and was smoking clouds of disgustingness over the whole place. Other patrons were getting pissed off. I just coughed very loudly to draw attention to the issue. My coffee companion was suitably embarassed :)




- I spotted a couple of things on the menu that I liked the look of, namely the New York Cheesecake and the Cherry Ripe Tart. When I asked about them the waitress acted like she hadn't heard of them and as though I was an idiot for suggesting they would ever have such things at Cafe Essen, despite the fact they're on the menu. She then went on some kind of rant to the other staff members "why does Chris put those on there bla bla bla" Yes, blame this faceless "Chris"!



Anyway we had the Blueberry and Ricotta Cheesecake, and admittedly, it was very good.

My dining companion made a very pertinent comment as we were leaving. "You would think that these "alternative" people who "care" so much about humanity etc wouldn't smoke, wouldn't you."

The trip to Civic was topped off by the usual bus trip, pleasant up to the point where the usual "Canberra bus traveller" gets on and stinks like fucking awfulness. I mean for fucks sake, they all smell the same. Like cigarette smoke, mixed with unwashedness, unwashed clothes, unwashed hair, and general stinkiness. It's very difficult to describe, other than that it's smoky and it's stifling. Get a peg if you want to travel on a bus. The older buses have no ventilation, and if you attempt to open a window, some cool dude will shut it. Excuse the rant.

Remembering: AlleyCat

I used to love this game so much when I was 6 years old. I particularly loved the bit where the cat has to swim around in the bowl with the electric eels. I never understood how to eat the food from the dog bowls until many years later. The dogs ALWAYS attacked me, the noise from the tiny speaker in my IBM compatible computer armed with MS DOS always scared the SHIT out of me!

Party Review: Cops and Robbers

A few weeks ago PopGoesCanberra attended a Cops and Robbers party.



Because PopGoesCanberra was too lazy-arsed to go to any trouble to get all dressed up for the party, we wrote a badge for ourselves saying that we were a "male prostitute working an illegal brothel on a boat on Lake Burley Griffin." This is an extremely witty reference to mid-90s soapie, Pacific Drive. The lowly people at the party didn't really notice it. They missed out.



Then night proceeded in a hot and sweaty fashion. Lots of people in a small space, an extreme lack of food and music, but plenty of drink, which I don't feel like drinking. Didn't feel like getting red wine tipped all over me by a silly TART either, so I left. The end.