On the face of it, this NSW Government announcement seems pretty positive. It says new laws (proposed - it’s a private member’s bill at present) will allow small bars to serve alcohol without food, with licence fees cut from about $15,000 to as little as $500 for a small bar and $2000 for a hotel.

The devil’s in the detail, as Clover Moore said this morning; but, if it’s all in order, it’ll be interesting to see whether this inspires a spate of new venues and live spaces.

The Sydney Festival’s been getting better every year, and, with this year’s program now available, it looks like they’ve upped the ante again. For most of January, Sydney will teem with amazing musicians, artists, actors and the rest of us.

One of last year’s highlights, Jazz in the Domain, looks like getting on the nuyorican tip this year - sure to be killer. Radical Son, Moodymann and Amp Fiddler (surely a natural fit, though playing separate gigs), Andy Weatherall, a Kev Carmody tribute, Fourplay, Joanna Newsom, Tunng, the Clogs. And that’s just a taste of the music.

Dating back to the 1890s, a radge is someone who is mad, violently excited, furious, wild, obstreperous - in the current parlance, to radge is to get real mad. Shouting, kicking and/or hitting inanimate objects.

This new mix from the boy, Radge, is a little more subtle. No tourette’s action, little to no violence, just lots of delicious 80s pop and disco, old school house and techno, hip-hop and other stuff. Nice.

A little too nice, really.

After interminable speculation, the music geeks’ music fest, All Tomorrow’s Parties, is finally doing something in Australia. For now it’s just the offshoot Don’t Look Back series - one off gigs featuring a band doing a classic album whole (past shows have seen Gang of Four doing Entertainment and Dinosaur Jr on You’re Living All Over Me) - but who knows what else might be in store.

It’s exciting, the thought of an election!

My brother’s obsessed with sport, so are lots of my friends, but I’ve never been able to muster up quite the same passion. Teams lining up for games and big cheques doesn’t get me. The election, on the other hand, and especially this one, is a desperate battle of wills. However similar their policies, everything’s riding, for both teams, on the outcome of this every now and again marathon.

That’s why this short doco is worth watching.

According to Crikey, this new footage of events that led to the Port Hedland detention centre riots, 2001, was released because:

producers of the US reality television program Most Shocking sought it from the Australian Migrant Resource Centre this year. The producers of the program, which airs on Channel Seven, eventually rejected the Port Hedland tape on the grounds that it wasn’t “pro government forces”.

It was filmed by the government contractor, Australasian Correctional Management, to be circulated in the Department of Immigration.

This competition isn’t just about betting on the outcome at the TAB; it’s going to profoundly affect many many lives. Both sides have similar policies, but things have changed dramatically under the current watch.

Stuck for something to do on the Saturday after the one after next?

It’s a party at the Sly Fox in Enmore (Sydney). Free entry and cheapish drinks. Diverse music - take a look at that list, from Paradise Lost’s Silvio Mangels (disco and old school house) to live music maker The Sculpter - and my first time DJing anywhere for absolutely ages, how could you miss it.

Contributors were emailed yesterday to say the recently published 15th issue would be Melbourne music mag, M+N’s last as a print publication. The email, from editors/proprietors Danny Bos and Craig Mathieson, said they plan to carry on online.

The site’s forum immediately moved to outpouring of grief mode, but Bos said it might be premature:

We are indeed looking at new directions for Mess+Noise, we’re certainly not struggling at all, albeit my hair isn’t blowing out the window of my soft-top but that was never the plan (hang on let me turn down my many plasma tvs). There’s plenty more awesomeness on the horizon for us here, whether it’s in paper, online, cloth or smoke signals. We’ll have a full run-down of the direction we’re keen on for 2008 in the next week.

The mag was a gutsy, ambitious move from the moment it was first touted - 10,000 copies of perfect bound, gloss paper with exciting, personal and passionate music writing. The format was expensive, but as as a statement of intent it was pretty impressive. I’ll be looking forward to what comes next.

My ears are still ringing.

I’ve been looking forward to Ed Kuepper’s gig at the Basement for ages. And what we could hear through the noise sounded like it was probably good, but the sound was so loud. So loud. All I could hear around me was glass shatter treble splashing, reverberation and people complaining about the sound. I assume the Basement would hire a sound guy, but there was no evidence to support that tonight.

It started well. I arrived at about 7 to interview Ed for my radio show. We caught the last bit of sound check, including the band’s gorgeous Go Betweens cover, ‘Finding You’. I chatted with Ed over a beer for half an hour (it’ll air on my show in a couple of weeks), then went back to the bar as the tables filled up.

Married 50-somethings - a fair few looked like fading rock stars themselves - took up most of the dining area. Bottles of red wine, steaks and plenty of gesticulation. The band took the stage with little fanfare, horn section, keys/double bass, former Saint/Laughing Clown Jeffrey Wegener’s handlebar moustache and Sunnyboys bassist Peter Oxley.

It was LOUD from the first moment they touched instruments. Bogong moths careered down towards Ed’s mic as though their kamikaze manoeuvres could stop the frightening, ear quiveringly dense sound. No luck.

A shame because at points it was transcendent in a way few music makers can manage. Those 50-somethings had their fancy phones recording video and pictures, and instrumental space jazz jams gave way to bluesy riffs, the fantastic sax player blasted squealing vocalisations, and it was just magical.

Too bad we had to leave before the second set.

The most reductive thing local record shops - though not the ones I visit - stick on their section heads has always been ‘world music’. It means nothing - it basically says the sum of music from Brasil, Serbia, Japan, South Africa and (maybe?) France and Germany is no more than a single western genre, say, indie rock.

Time for a new definition. And as usual, a travel-lagged Jace slash Rupture has the goods.

world music is music with truly global reach. Think U2, Beyonce. So, 50 Cent is one of my favorite world music artists right now.

With all those guys squashed in the world section, maybe there’ll be space to let the Australian indigenous cats out of the bag.