M-O-T-O-R-H-E-A-D ??

Here's a tip for my fellow Melbourne souls:

Vegetable pakoras, $5; Madhumoti, 95 Irving Street, Footscray.

Most often the pakoras I find in Melbourne - especially at the cheaper end of the spectrum that Bennie and I favour - are variously greasy, too spicy and tough as old boots.

Not these.

No.

These are heavenly

For your five bucks you get four good-sized patties deep fried just right, non-greasy but crunchy and full of juicy veges, with sweet onion to the fore. Yummo!

I'm still finding my way through the longish menu for the other good hits at this newish, clean friendly, cheap eatery that is on the corner oppositie the Dancing Dog Cafe.

OK - a question for my fellow Melbournites: Anyone you can tip as playing around Melbourne these days who does GD-type thing?

For the past couple of years, after three decades of incessant gig-going, I've been laying pretty low and doing other stuff. And the decade before that was mostly jazz at Bennetts Lane and elsewhere, so I'm singularly ill-informed.

The Paul Williamson Hammond Combo plays every Monday night (free) at the Rainbow Hotel in Fitzroy and are fantastic. Straighahead jazz/blues/R&B in their own fashion, but they groove as hard as anybody. And every week they have sit-in guest which always makes it interesting.

I think the clearest GD trip I've ever experienced regularly came froma now defunct outfit called Diana Kiss, which - like the Hammond Combo - had a long-running residency at the Espy. Lineup: Ross Hannaford (gtr), Peter Jones (dms), Jex Saarelaht (keys), Russell Smith (keys/tpt), Stu Speed (bass). Monster grooves all 'round and a Dead-like way with cover versions, same as with the Hammond Combo. And I reckon it could even be said that Hannaford is Australia's version of J Garcia.

Then there's a band called Checkerboard Blues Lounge - i suspect they, too, inhabit a jammy world, although they don't play too often.

Any suggestions?

BTW, I reckon a Monday night at the Rainbow would be a great time/place for a first-up Melbourne Deadhead gathering. Any Monday, all Mondays!

greetings fellow deadheads from down under been on the bus for 40 very odd years and ain't
getting off till the end.
cheers from oz!

"didn't work too well" is probably overstating the case for the sceptics. From the report on the experiments in the Fortean Times:

The Dream Laboratory’s report on the experiment noted: “The average evaluation of the two judges was computed for each pair of dream transcripts and target pictures. If coincidence, rather than ESP, had been operating, the judges’ evaluation of the correct transcript/target pairs would have been higher than all other pairs one time out of six. For Miss Parise, one correct pair obtained the highest rating. In the case of Mr Bessent, the judges gave the highest score to the correct pairs four times out of six… Thus, for Mr Bessent, the ESP hypothesis is supported. Further, some support is given to the position that the agents must know who the target is to be transmitted to and where he is located for telepathy to occur.”

See more at:

http://www.forteantimes.com/features/articles/169/the_grateful_deads_acid_test_for_esp.html

Happy Trails