Everett True is not a rock journalist. He is Everett True. -- Not Everett True

Hugs and Kisses?

The Relocated Outbursts of Everett True

This Week: How Everett spent his day

It's raining.

I have watched a clip of Penny Rimbaud (Crass) meeting John Lennon on Ready Steady Go and fired off several emails to various Australian editors, all accompanied by a resume. "Highly interesting CV," remarked one. No work offered. I have haunted These New Puritans' MySpace page, noted their passing resemblance to Prinzhorn Dance School (it is only passing, mark you: and nowhere near as minimal--or post-punk as their name would imply) and wished that I too should have grown up in a climate where boundaries between music did not exist. Or maybe I don't? Tribalism is one of youth’s great pleasures. I have heard the theme tune to Thomas The Tank Engine too often. I have mused upon writing this week's entire column around a snatched listen of Duffy's debut single several months back, and resented anyone who has ever called me a "rock journalist." I am not a fucking rock journalist. I am Everett True.

I have toyed with the idea of reviewing a Brisbane compilation album, but soon realised such a concept would lose me the handful of friends I have tentatively made. I did wonder if I could get away with talking up track seven, Dick Desert & The Country Club's excellent necrophilia-baiting, cow-punk toting "George Bus's Chicken" – the nearest thing I've heard to Jon Wayne's second since, um, Jon Wayne's first. But then someone looked at me askance, muttered stuff about "burlesque ladies" like I should really be worried, and indicated they'd split. I mean, Butcher Birds are really like a way grungier Breeders with a hint of malice aforethought: Warm Guns hand-jive and skitter around like kids who never got over seeing their first skinny tie Eighties outfit: Butterfingers remind me of my London homeboys Milk Kan (uh, with way more money in the studio) and that ain't no bad thing (as do The Whats): Black Mustang revere Suzi Quatro's "Devil Gate Drive"--and who doesn't?: Vegas Kings sneer (and certainly sound) even better than The Strokes, and kick fuzzy-ass bottom like it's 1978 again and folk appreciated The Go-Betweens not the hell-spawn of Ozzy. But at least 1,235 of the other songs I do not appreciate at all, being well known for my apathy towards anything "adult" or "mal" or indeed "rock"...

I Heart Hiroshima, however, have absolutely stolen my heart with their "Punks" contribution, which is like all the good bits of Good Shoes, Blood Red Shoes, The Shoes and The Sneakers tossed together...um, you can see where I'm going with this...and have the innate good sense to name-check Several Close Personal Friends Of Everett True (© 2008: Everett True) as influences, such as Electrelane, Sleater-Kinney and Slumber Party, even if I sure can't hear them anywhere, but certainly can The One And Only One Good Cure Album Ever Made (© 2001: everyone), Three Imaginary Boys, and have tautness and tension and great female/male interplay and…wait…are they playing soon?

I think I'm going to be sticking around a little longer: tropical rain and male rock or no tropical rain and male rock. Yeah, baby.