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(The Vines - nice combination of Psych and Alt from Oz)

The Vines have been around since 1994. In 2002 they made the cover of Rolling Stone with the banner heading "Rock Is Back". They've been likened to an Australian version of Nirvana. They've gone double Platinum in Australia. They are virtually unknown here.

I couldn't explain why. The music business is in such a state of chaos and turmoil that it's a wonder any bands are getting any sort of notoriety these days anywhere in the world. The field is crowded but worse, the mainstream is getting more narrow; anything sounding the slightest bit different from whatever is selling the most just isn't getting any exposure. The sentiment that Pop music never goes anywhere is more true now than ever. The end of the tunnel has to be somewhere - or maybe there isn't. Maybe it's just one big yawn until it all dies of boredom.

In any case, tonight I'm playing a cut off the Vines 2008 album Melodia (which was released by a small indie label in the states), and the track True As The Night.

Makes it all the more apparent what we're missing

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(Benazir Bhutto - Assassination was only seconds away)

Only two years ago, but could be another century. This Year-End wrap up comes from 2007, about to dive knee-deep into the 2008 elections and the continuing saga of Pakistan. The return of Benazir Bhutto and the subsequent assassination, turning an already shaky country into a state of chaos. And indications our economy was about to cascade into the abyss - but there was that denial thing.

Two years ago.

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(Jean Shepherd - Occupation: Cheerful Chaos Merchant)

Living on the West Coast, I didn't have the opportunity of experiencing Jean Shepherd as so many in New York did. I got it by way of rumor, his album on Elektra and his syndicated radio show that periodically ran on KPFK. I heard he was good friends with a lot of the Beat Generation poets, and growing up with a well-thumbed copy of "A Coney Island Of The Mind" in my high school notebook, anyone who was anywhere near that scene had to be a hero of mine.

Years later, I ran across a collection of tapes which featured his live shows and a bunch of his studio shows from the early 60's, which this is one.

Shepherd is pretty much known today as the guy who wrote "A Christmas Story". And even though it's achieved a kind of "classic Americana" status - it doesn't really explain who Shepherd was and why he was so loved by everyone who heard him. His was a skewed vision of the world, often darkly humorous and completely iconoclastic.

To a 16 year old mind, he was just what the doctor ordered.

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(Gann and Jarvis - the boys you can thank your IOU for today)

With California circling the economic drain, it's interesting to consider where this chaos all started. A little populist movement called "Prop 13" that captured the anger of California in 1978 and plunged us into the stone age as the result. It all centered around property taxes, placing a cap of 1% of the property's value as taxable. The anger centered around tax revenues being redistributed to other communities, rather than the community where the tax was being levied, not to mention tax rates increasing for everyone, not just new home buyers. The fear card was played that older home owners would be forced to sell their homes because tax rates would increase to the point of bankruptcy for most, and certainly this became the rallying cry.

The effect was almost instant, with a $5 billion dollar surplus evaporating in a short time with services and education funds slashed to practically nonexistent. Since it has been written into it's constitution, California has slid into depression almost continuously since then.

And Prop 13 has become the infamous "third rail" by which no one dares question - challenges to the laws validity have been struck down by the State Supreme Court and politicians caught even breathing Prop 13 revision have been hounded out of office, or threatened with it. The lobby surrounding the Prop 13 movement has a vice grip on the state legislature. So any thought of revision or modification is ignored.

But on June 9, 1978 the news was pretty much like it is now. Only now we have 31 years of failure to look at.

And we're left scratching our heads.