Three More Reasons Why I'm Cooler Than You.

Another very short list.
1. I'm going to be supporting Vivian Girls at the Step Inn in Brisbane on October 2. I will have Brisbane's finest - The Deadnotes - providing musical accompaniment to my slightly deranged tales of monsters, mice and carnal desire. I will doubtless be silently cursing my slightly dodgy right knee and still be attempting to bounce up and down on it when the Vivian Girls take the stage to regale us with the sweetest fuzz, the sweetest distortion. I will not be hiding behind pillars. I will not be wearing thongs. I will not be performing blowing down an E-flat horn while my female guitarist parades around in just a pair of knickers, unless The Deadnotes have something planned that I am not aware of. I cannot deny that I am probably one of the distinct few who's actually a fan of the Vivian Girls in QLD and thus securing a support slot was not quite as a) difficult or b) cool as it sounds to those reading this back in Brooklyn and Brighton, but cut me some slack, OK? I am that cool, I reviewed Vivian Girls' new album a solid four months before it's due out - and had even forgotten that I'd done same when I penned another review of it for The Vine a few days back. (Don't bother looking for it. It's not up yet.) I am so cool that somewhere there's a video of me performing 'Fight For Your Right (To Party)' with Shop Assistants in 1986 in mainland Europe - a video, that to this day, remains unseen. And, um, probably recorded over, now I think about it.

2. Last Friday, I saw Robert Forster perform. He was standing on an island in the middle of some water, in Queensland's Art Gallery. He was accompanied by a former Go-Between on stand-up bass, and his wife on violin. Both sang occasional harmony. He sang 'Darlinghurst Nights' from the final Go-Betweens album. He sang a Grant McLennan B-side. He sang 'That Way'. He gave us a flurried intro to his Patti Smith tribute song but too flurried: I missed his vision of the Serpentine ringed by hipsters. He performed with his usual generous charm and slightly flustered countenance, and even threw in a couple of scantily-clad new songs to remind us that he still shops in The Gap. He absolutely ripped the hall apart with a lengthy version of 'The House That Jack Kerouac Built'. He has the entire hall singing along on the slightly saucy 'Surfin' Magazines'. All well and good, you're thinking - sounds like a fine night out, the kind of show you might well move to Brisbane one random morning just on the off-chance you can catch it again, but hardly a reason for Everett to go bragging about his imagined cool quotient. Well, get this, youngsters...I am so cool that I and my wife were on Robert's personal guest-list for the evening, and didn't even need to use our places. (Um. Please don't be reading this, Robert.)

3. I now have two advance copies of Daniel Johnston's new album.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

One reason why I am still not cooler than you.

1. I still think anyone cares about any of this shit.

(Robert Forster live photo by Justin Edwards)