Gidday Mate.

Just thought I would jump on the band wagon and say hello.

As someone said earlier, this is gonna sound very fookin familiar, perhaps spooky (@ Kitlope).

My name is Johno, I am a refractory bricklayer living in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia. I work at the nickel smelter here for BHP and I run the brick shed.

My first music memories are listening to AC/DC and The Skyhooks on a little transistor that I bought from K-Mart for a few dollars. Then I moved to the 'states and I discovered cassette tapes! I still have the Star Wars and the Saturday Night Fever soundtracks that I bought while I was there. Bloody hell, I'm showing my age huh?

I got into the scene back in the bad old days of dial up at a site called WarezSlutz. After that, being a fly in/fly out worker, I didn't have a lot of time for the scene, especially with all the bickering and crying namby pambies I encountered through my contacts and contacts of contacts as a Slut. Shit, you know how it goes? Now I have settled down and have discovered broadband I have also discovered the beauty of lossless compression and all the fascinatingly curious stuff that goes along with it musically, eg various editions and pressings of records. Now that may sound bloody strange when I tell you I am rather deaf but "I can tell good music and I know what I like"!!! hehe. Now I have discovered mono recordings I am in heaven. (I am totally deaf in one ear, slightly in the other). So anyway, I discovered Demonoid by chance and now thanks to a recommendation from Kitlope, here I am.

I have been using EAC for a very long time to back up CD's so consider myself a bit better than a rusty old fart. I am not sure how much I can contribute as we have 6 kids (we had no TV until a few years ago!) and I am flat out like a lizard drinking chasing the little rug rats about, but if there is anything I can do to help out I will put my back into it and shake it around a bit.

Anyway, enough about me, time for a bloody lager.

Cheers and Beers
Oz

Cheers Oz! Very nice intro.

Welcome onboards!
Here's to you!

Thanks for stopping by OzBrickie! You know, when I sent you the pm over at Demonoid I thought to myself "just watch, with a name like that he has to be a bricklayer", and sure shit you are. Hilarious. And refractory too! Even better. Sounds like your stationary working for the plant whereas I run around the province doing shut-downs during the on season which is typically April - November here while its not -20C out. We don't have too many mines here in Alberta except for some Coal but a couple years ago went to Flin Flon, Manitoba where there is Hudsons Bay Mining & Smelting and we did some work in the anode. 15" long magnesium bricks if I remember correctly and was a lot different than what we do here in Alberta as we work with Ceramic Fiber a lot. A lot of plastic too. Bricks are usually done in Kilns and for the tunnel walls in the furnaces - lots of furnaces, especially up north in Fort McMurray for the Oil Sands. But yeah, a lot of the time I'm not actually working with bricks as a lot of walls is gunite as well.

You a member of Steve Hoffman forums? Some great reading over there about true remasters and pressings. In the last 4 years that I have been lurking I have learnt an incredible amount about music sonics, quality and all that. It can sometimes get a little dry (oh noes - not another Beatles thread) but hey - thanks to that site I'm in the process of picking up a turntable and have slowly been putting a record collection together. As a matter of fact, on Saturday night I was at a business social party in the "trendy" part of town and was thumbing through the records and stumbled on Midnight Oil - Diesel & Dust. I ran downstairs to Dylan, the owner of the shop, and insisted he sell it to me. He glances over the vinyl, says "You know, this is a great album" and I'm like "yeah dude, I have it on cassette from 1988, got in on CD and just a few months ago picked up Bob Ludwigs remastered version. Now all I need is the record! He laughs, hands it over and says don't worry about it.

Growing up as a teen I was always fascinated with Australia and the history, probably stemmed from me getting into Inxs when they released Kick in late 87. Then got into Midnight Oil, Hunters & Collectors and 1927. Read "The Fatal Shore" by Robert Hughes when I was 17. Yeah... became a history fanatic after that.

Anyhoo, this is your intro so I don't wanna go on about me. Sucks hard that you can't hear in one ear, too much on the saw cutting dry without earplugs? Damn, I never wore them either for years when I was a kid and didn't know any better. Now I'll get kicked off the job without them. Funny how times change huh?

Good to meet you Johno, be sure to kick up a seat and chill out here when you can.

Oh yeah, if you ever run across a copy of both versions of Inxs - Dekadance EP be sure to up them! I only have them in mp3...been looking for them in lossless for years


Mike