Many of you are staring at the clock right now as tomorrow is a Public Holiday here in Oz and for Australia Day no less. A day which finds us sinking our body weights in tinnies, eating anything that walks and listening to the top 100 songs we wish we’d never hear again in a communal setting.
Well fuck that last part! We had Sydney DJ and Heaps Decent head honcho Levins(as featured in our latest issue on AUSTRALIA, I love a good tie in) put together a mix of Aussie indie classics that hark back to a time when banjos, ‘quirky’ breathy female vocals and corny, watered down hip-hop with guitar riffs didn’t dominate the airwaves. We talking the days Recovery, Regurgitator and when Daniel Johns didn’t make dance music and talk funny. Behold….
Download: Levins: Spray Water On The Stereo
Here’s a few words from the man himself, as well as a full track listing:
Happy Australia Day! I’ve been feeling fairly un-patriotic ever since my final laser session removed all traces of the Southern Cross tattoos on my neck, lower back and left buttock so I thought I’d put something super Oztrayan together to re-pledge my allegiance. Something that really puts the third ‘Aussie’ in ‘Aussie Aussie Aussie’ and the second ‘Oi’ in ‘Oi Oi Oi’. I needed to take a little trip back though, to a time where almost all the music I listened to was local produce, and boy oh boy did I fuckin’ love that shit. I’m talking about high school, which for me was 1997 – 2002. Instead of studying for 4 Unit English or hitting on girls you could catch me spending all my time listening to triple j on my ghettoblaster, my fingers patiently hovering over the red record button, ready to capture my new favourite songs from The Jebs, The ‘Spoon or The ‘Gurge so I could learn all the words before I saw them play at the all ages festival at St Ives skate park that weekend, where I’d be pretending that the 10 dexies my friend had stolen from his brother with ADD and shoved down my throat had really got me fucked up (they hadn’t).
This mix is a tribute to those days. If you went back in time and stole all my cassettes out of that walkman I won from the MS Read-A-Thon, they would probably sound exactly like this mix, except luckily bloody Tunny isn’t yammering over the top of all the tracks in my mix. I tried to include as many of my favourite songs from that era, all of them Australian. There are some glaring omissions but hey this was super fun to do so I’ll probably put together another volume for the next patriotic public holiday (Easter? Jesus was a digger right?).
Spray some water on your stereo and turn it up loud. Sing along to the songs you know and pray that Quan and Janet get back together one day. Explain to a younger cousin what Recovery was and pretend you never saw Garage Days. Happy Australia day mates. PS thanks heaps to @bobbygelato for drawing that amazing artwork on his computer machine!
Tracklist:
1. ESKIMO JOE sweater
2. AMMONIA drugs
3. CUSTARD nice bird
4. REGURGITATOR i sucked a lot of cock to get where i am
5. THE FAUVES dogs are the best people
6. SCREAMFEEDER dart
7. NOT FROM THERE sich offnen
8. ROCKET SCIENCE being followed
9. TISM greg! the stop sign!!
10. HOT ROLLERS wickerman’s shoes
11. SOMETHING FOR KATE working against me
12. TURNSTYLE spray water on the stereo
13. TUMBLEWEED silver lizard
14. SIDEWINDER god
15. THE VINES get free
16. JEBEDIAH military strongmen
17. POLLEN not rocket science
18. GERLING death to the apple gerls
19. MOLER infatuation
20. HAPPYLAND don’t you know who i am?
21. SPIDERBAIT buy me a pony
22. FRENZAL RHOMB you are not my friend
23. FRONT END LOADER summer hits
24. MACHINE GUN FELLATIO unsent letter
25. SILVERCHAIR tomorrow
26. YOU AM I purple sneakers
Enjoy! Preferably whilst flipping through the Oz issue of ACCLAIM which you should purchase in honour of the day.