It’s a great time to be alive, people. There is a .com or .net site for absolutely any topic you can imagine.

• iamaconsumerwhore.net
• insomisbetterthanjames.com
• thereisnowebsiteatthisaddress.com

Verisign, blow this new money-grabbing, brain-amputated DNS service right out your arse.

Big Heavy Stuff — Size of the Ocean (2001). A critically acclaimed band with a fan base small enough (however devoted) to keep the band in their respective day jobs. An album recorded and gathering dust for about three years while it waited for a distributor willing to put it in stores. Given this album’s Rasputin-like unwillingness to die, it’s no wonder the disc keeps finding its way into my CD player. Possibly my favourite Australian album to date.

Something For Kate — The Official Fiction (2003). Each successive SFK album has a habit of alienating fans and making many more new ones. But this album is so different even from its predecessor, Echolalia (2001), that it takes a few listens just to figure out what the band is up to. I’ve learned to trust that Paul Dempsey knows what he’s doing, and sure enough, after a few listens, this disc proved to be a grower. Currently selling like hot cakes.

Iron On — The Understudy (2003). I’ve only seen these guys/girls once, supporting Sealifepark at the Healer. Behind the incomprehensible liner notes and self-conscious onstage banter, Iron On have developed a sound that is both worthwhile and uniquely theirs, distilling all the best bits from indie bands that have gone before them. Any band that cites Magic Dirt and Death Cab For Cutie as influences is, in my opinion, worth at least looking at.

Silverchair — Freak Show (1996). After this disc came out, anyone who was still whinging about Silverchair being Nirvana in pyjamas was made quiet. A thirteen-part opus, almost entirely dedicated to being an outcast, Freak Show may have seemed dangerously close to a ‘concept’ album—but it was varied enough in songwriting style to get away with it.