Prelude.

A small series of 26 songs that give the middle finger to mindfulness, meditation and stillness. Rock music is here to save your soul and your life. Horns Up!

Why rock’n roll is the only true salvation.

In times of quiet despair, do you trawl self help aisles of the local book store looking for something to soothe your raw emotions? Skim through endless response pages to the internet query “how do I go on?”. Seek out friends and family member to provide guidance and comfort to what riles you up? Crowdsource the answers to life’s biggest questions through your Uber driver taking you to get your haircut?

As the great philosophers of our time The Verve wisely observed ‘The airwaves are clean and there’s no one singing to me now”. There is SHEDLOAD of advice out there to help you navigate life’s thorniest dilemmas. But most advice is fucking rubbish.

Having an anxiety attack while driving on a freeway clocking 100kms per hour? Visualizing calm blue oceans ain’t going to help with that freak out.

Finding out a loved one has mere months to live after receiving a grim cancer diagnosis? Try getting in the downward dog position and let me know how that goes.

Finally acknowledging past sexual abuse you endured when a child? I say a big “FUCK OFF” to essential oils as if that was going to bring you any sort of peace.

All these softly / softly types of therapy has their place….I guess. MAYBE but more likely DON’T FUCKING THINK SO. If you’ve done the forgiveness, the journaling, the mirror work, the self love, the green juice and you’re left in a hot ball or rage and sadness…friends I have good news. Rock’n roll can provide salvation and comfort where other therapies and self care have left you cold and alone.

The good news caravan continues on lovers! Rock’n roll can draw you closer to its comforting bosom because:

* Unlike engaged phone lines / idiot friends who only text rather than talk – rock is here for you. Always. And especially at 2.37am when it’s the witching hour, you’re watching the minutes creep by on the clock and you’re alone with your wretched thoughts.

* It’s largely free. Sure, knock yourself out with a Spotify subscription, otherwise treat yourself with a trip down the tight black t-shirt lane of the YouTube highway.

* You’re amongst like minded misfits. While so many others have secreted themselves away in their homes refusing to live life and held captive by social media on their shitty pleather lounges, you can go out and see kicking live music any night of the week. Yes, bit harder to do in regional areas. But I’ll bet there is a friend of your cousin Dave who’s trying to learn the cords of “Smoke on the Water” in his bedroom. Ferret him out and invite yourself round to bear witness to the next generation of hard rockers teaching themselves to rock out.

* It’s not illegal or fattening or will get you busted by the cops*. (*Unless the cops are busting you for disturbing the peace with music loud enough to make your ears bleed and if that’s the case..well played my hard rocker friend!)

* It keeps you perpetually young. You have those friends right, that used to be really cool and go and see live music and make mix tapes and would bang on for hours about the new Alice In Chains CD and be really up with the happenings of the music industry and would be interested in life and be in the know about artistic collaborations within the Seattle Grunge scene and now all they want to talk about is interest rates and the fucking new extension they’re doing to the garage with an added pergola?!?! Don’t be that dickhead. Stay vital. Stay interesting. Stay rock.

* There’s always more where that came from. While some shit-for-brains would have you believe that the last good music was in the 1990’s and probably from Extreme…..I present you with Exhibit A that blew my tiny mind and it was only released this year: Janelle Monae’s Dirty Computer. It was hot, sexy, defiant, sly, subversive and brilliant and funky and so epic in its awesomeness…it’s still revealing all it’s secrets to me some 7 months on. There’s always more water to be drawn from the lifespring well of Rock’n roll. Don’t stay stuck in the past where Dio and Quiet Riot reside.

* It was minimalist before minimalist became a righteous-as-shit hashtag. You want to rock? Good. Pull on some strides that fitted you 3 decades ago and extract that black t-shirt from the back of the wardrobe you last wore when Halley’s Comet was a non-event. And that’s it. Sure, if you going somewhere fancy like an Asian fusion restaurant before you hit the clubs you can pull on some volley’s but otherwise, you’re good to go my hard rocking friend! No yoga bolsters made of panda endorsed bamboo, no PBA free water bottles that set you back a week’s wage, no activated nuts, no altar, no affirmation cards, no fucking LSD ceremony put on by some sketchy dude wearing a kaftan with no underwear and a dubious AF rats tail. Rock has a very low barrier to entry. It’s 3 cords and the truth (waving to Bono!).

* Rock knows..it’s going to be OK even when it’s not OK right now. No lie – shit is scary right now. We have a racist, pussy grabbing, shitbag occupying the White House. China are building their own islands in the South China Sea so they can control those water ways. Putin is being…well, he’s in clover right now when his operative Trump is the president of the USA and he can wrestle bears in his spare time sans shirt. And Aretha died last year so there’s THAT. And yet, despite all this fuckery, rock endures and thrives. This is a message for our times. No matter how bleak things are and will become even more so…You Am I are here for it. This is a very comforting thought indeed.

So my rock loving misfits and mavens, grab and empty packet of Winfield Blues you found lying on the Uni bar (kids…don’t smoke. No because they will kill you – fuck, most things will these days. But because the 45 bucks it costs to buy a pack of ciggies these days would be better spent on 2.5 albums of rock music. Truth!), stick those Winnie Blues under your too-tight black T-shirt sleeves and have your hair blown back by these following 26 tunes that will save your life. And piss off your neighbour who persists in hosing their driveway during times of drought rather than crack a sweat and use a broom to clean that shit.

Fucking idiot.