In celebration of me coughing up the big bucks to see an overated hack my favourite muso – I present my top Pink Floyd albums (at the moment)

1. Animals
2. Wish You Were Here
3. Dark Side of the Moon
4. Piper at the Gates of Dawn
5. Obscured By Clouds

Last Sunday I took photos for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation at their annual
Walk to Cure Diabetes. It was held in Centennial Park which was a great spot to be in on a Sunday morning – although getting up before 8am on the weekend is a bit rough!

My job was to record the event which involved taking photos of all the sponsors, signage and anything “cute”. Luckily there were heaps of the latter – my favourite place to shoot on the day was the Mobile Taronga Zoo. I got some great shots of kids interacting with all types of Australian animals including baby crocodiles, echidnas and even stick insects.

Here’s a future handbag.

This little fella was just wandering around the crowd completely unfazed by all the attention.

You can find out more about the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation at http://www.jdrf.org.au/. There’s a few more pics from the day over on my flickr page.

OMG I MUST BUY TEH XBOX 360 AND PLAY THE PHANTASY STAR UNIVERSE. IT WILL REMIND ME WHEN I WAS UNEMPLOYED AND PLAYED DREAMCAST ALL DAY. ME AND MY MATE ADAM WOULD PLAY CRAZY TAXI AND THEN WE GOT BORED WE’D FIRE UP THE 33.6KB MODEM AND PLAY PSO WITH OUR EUROPEAN COUSINS THROUGH THE POWER OF THE INTERWEB. THEN ONE DAY AT ABOUT 3AM SOME GERMAN HAXOR WHO’S AVATAR LOOKED LIKE THE EVIL GUY IN THE CRAPPY NEW PRETEND STAR WARS TRILOGY WROTE NASTY STUFF AND STOLE ALL OUR RARES AND MY NiGHTS MAG USING SOME 3L33T HAx0r14G SKILLZ. WE GOT SCARED AND NEVER PLAYED AGAIN. BUT IT WAS COOL WHEN SONIC AND KNUCKLES APPEARED IN THE LOBBY.

I was watching rage last night and couldn’t believe the amount of mediocre, middle of the road, indie rubbish that is around at the moment. Female vocalists that all sound the same – singing about nothing in particular in that high pitch cutesy fashion. It’s so inoffensive it’s offensive – how the hell did I get stuck in an elevator in my own living room?

In order to cleanse myself I switched off the tv and pressed play on the CD player (how old skool am I?), sat back and listened to two of my favourite albums of the last few weeks – Amputechture by The Mars Volta and Blood Mountain by Mastodon. Both albums could be described as progressive (which I know is still a dirty word – although even Pitchfork is beginning to see the light) however both offer completely different listening experiences.

On Amputechture Omar Rodriguez-Lopez’s guitar work really reminds me of Jimmy Page in a ‘tight but loose’ sense however the soundscapes created owe more to Pink Floyd (Animals era), Santana (Woodstock era) and even Robert Wyatt (check out Rock Bottom – one of my all time favourite albums). Despite these influences The Mars Volta are one of the few current bands that have genuinely forged a signature sound – you can immediately tell that Amputechture is a Mars Volta record.

Mastodon are quickly gaining a reputation as the new saviours of metal. Their previous release Leviathan, a concept album based loosely on Moby Dick, was my favourite album last year. Such was the quality of that release that I approached Blood Mountain with some trepidation. I needn’t have worried – the album is brutal – within the first 10 seconds of listening I was grinning ear to ear. The musicianship is top-notch – the only real downer is that the lyrics can get a little too dungeons and dragons for my liking. I’d definitely recommend the album – they put on a great live show as well – so hopefully they make it to Australia soon.

Well that’s my recommendations for this week – you’ll have to excuse me now – I just discovered the Blood and Thunder tab on the Mastodon website. Time for guitar practise!

Last Saturday night I took photos of The Drones at the Gaelic Club – they were great. Here’s a nice pic of the drummer Mike Noga. More photos of the gig can be found on triple j and flickr.

Sunday was Parklife. I only stayed a few hours because I wanted to watch the Rugby League Grand Final.

Andy of the Midnight Juggernauts playing at Parklife. See a few more pics of bands and even more of the smashed punters here.

Monday night I took photos at a dinner for retired English football star Alan Shearer. Alan – as they say in the business – is a genuinely nice person. I don’t envy him though as it seems his entire days are now spent signing autographs and posing for photos.

As part of this job I coded a new flash gallery application as a way to easily distribute the photos taken on the night to the guests. It might be worth a look if you’re into that sort of thing (spot Les Murray!)

On a side note, each of the guests at the dinner received a copy of the new book “One Love” by photographer Levon Biss. It has many amazing football related photos taken across 6 continents. It’s also interspersed with some great football quotes from both literary luminaries and soccer legends including Albert Camus, Anthony Burgess, George Best and Pele. I think many Australians would agree with Pele’s statement that “A penalty is a cowardly way to score” after our controversial exit from this year’s World Cup!

And finally I also took photos of the Foo Fighters gig at the Sydney Opera house. Unfortunately because of those silly photo contracts I can’t post a pic here (go to triple j to see them) so instead here’s a pic I took on their last visit.