If we do end up making our own for whatever reason, I'll be using the links that people kindly put in the comments. Thank you!

I'm not suggesting that any charitable event is a sham, but if you can get a few press mentions for your upcoming album while helping to feed some starving Africans, the attitude seems to be: bring it on.

By their own admission, the To Write Love On Her Arms organisation (TWLOHA) is "not a 24-hour helpline", as the organisation's official MySpace profile states:

We are not trained professionals. TWLOHA hopes to serve as a bridge to help.

The issue that TWLOHA has dedicated itself to is the tragedy of youth suicide and self-harm. Certainly a worthy and deserving cause—and of course I absolutely support anyone doing anything to help prevent suicide, youth or otherwise—but my problem is with the way in which they go about it.

If you go to the TWLOHA website—if, say, you were a young person possibly suffering from depression and looking for help—what do you think would be the first thing you see? A hotline number? A list of links to helpful organisations?

Actually, the first thing you see is a splash page advertising pre-orders for a book.

The second thing you see, if you're like me and miss the microscopic "continue to twloha.com" link under the fold, is a shopfront where you can buy TWLOHA-branded merchandise at severely inflated prices. The shopfront is, of course, brought to you by Zambooie^®.

On the shopfront's sidebar is a navigation menu with links to make a donation to TWLOHA, visit the organisation's MySpace page, join the street team (powered by FanCorps^®) and add a TWLOHA badge to your website or MySpace profile (powered by SocialVibe^®).

Above these sponsorship links is the site's internal navigation menu, in which the "Find Help" link is the third item, underneath a link to a calendar of TWLOHA-sponsored concerts and events.

The MySpace profile is just as bad: a long-winded and self-indulgent history section full of name-drops and photos of celebrity musicians wearing TWLOHA merch, interspersed with links and advertisements to buy T-shirts and other TWLOHA-branded items.

The single paragraph which directs troubled young people to help is squeezed between an award the profile won from MySpace, and instructions on how to promote TWLOHA with flyers and banners.

I'm not sure who they think their audience is: people at risk of depression and suicide themselves, or kids who like to feel warm and fuzzy inside thinking they're doing something to help by buying a $40 T-shirt, but are at no risk themselves.

Surely that $40 would be better spent by donating it directly to Kids Help Line, an organisation that can have a direct, practical positive effect on depression and self-harm among young people.

Fist2Face was recently the venue for a TWLOHA-hosted concert with some local rock bands and speeches by the organisation's two founders, who had flown half-way across the world to spread the word about TWLOHA. I didn't go, but if a troubled young person had come to get some advice or find help, they would have been in trouble: there was no information packs, no flyers, nothing.

The founders got up and spoke, but it was less about suicide prevention and more about the musicians they've met backstage at concerts.

beyondblue and Kids Help Line would love to have the kind of exposure an event like that would generate, but they were nowhere to be seen.

TWLOHA has got exactly the right idea by positioning themselves within the music scene that kids are passionate about, but they completely fail the people they are trying to help by concentrating more on self-promotion and less on suicide prevention.

The organisation is making a push into Australia this year, and Fist2Face is one of the outlets that will be selling TWLOHA merch. Originally I refused to have any part of it, but after talking it over with my boss we decided that a better approach would be to look into local depression and suicide prevention organisations and try to get some kind of information card to give away with each shirt.

Maybe then it won't be a complete waste of kids' hard-earned money.

Personally I believe strongly in Kids Help Line, where my second cousin worked for a number of years, but if anyone knows of any other similar organisations based in Australia please let me know so I can get in touch with them.

UPDATE: I've posted a short update with the response I got from Kids Help Line.

And you can read it from motW's point of view on their MySpace blog.

What an incredible story.

Why the fuck would she want to release a pop single? Even worse, a pop single full of auto-tuned, layered vocals (to mask her real voice), lyrics that sound like they were written by a 50 year old record label executive, and a video that has Hayden skanking it up for the cameras.

She used to have some cred, but now she's Paris Hilton without the sex tape.

I don't advise you watch it, but the video for it can be found on YouTube here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=6okDq7_rawk. (It's purely coincidence - and quite ironic - that the URL contains the word "rawk". This song does not, in fact, rawk, nor does it rawl.)

On the other hand, Lisa Mitchell's new song is lovely. Like a less abrasive, more chillaxed Kimya Dawson.

Mistake number two: placing all of that list's email addresses in the message's To field, not the BCC field, thereby making every address visible to everyone who receives the email.

Mistake number three: attempting to recall the message twice, sending everyone who received it an email with notification that you tried to recall it.

I would not want to be that person right now.

But crowd interaction aside, Cloud City keep it simple: they've got their sound and style worked out, and they don't try too hard to be anything they're not.

Martin's effortlessly powerful voice soars above the grungey hard rock foundation layed by her straightforward, understated guitar playing, and a highly melodic rhythm section - featuring the impressive Ross Koger on bass - gives the music its depth. I don't want to say the music would be dull if it weren't for the bass and drums, but the rhythm section is clearly what makes them shine.

Perhaps they would be more fairly judged after hearing a recording, but I found that too many of their songs languished in similar tempos and identical structures.

Interstate visitors Nucleus took what seemed like an hour to organise their rather gargantuan stage set-up: one and a half drum kits, three microphones, two candelabras and countless stomp-boxes and effects units were among the equipment they used through their set, and as I found out, none of it went to waste.

Guitarist Dylan Mitrovich took his place on the left with a guitar, a vocal microphone, a dozen or more guitar effects, and even a mini drum kit; Mark Tyson's drums were augmented by an electronic kit and sampler; and to the right, bassist Ayden Mitrovich carved out a space for himself surrounded by an arsenal of basses and effects. In the middle was lead vocalist and guitarist Matt Quayle, flanked by two ornate six-foot candelabras.

Having heard both of Nucleus' EPs in the past, I thought I knew what to expect from their live show. Turns out I had no fucking idea. Ayden Mitrovich kicked things off by screaming "good evening Revolver" at the top of his lungs, unaided by a microphone, and for the next 40 minutes I forgot where I was.

A brooding atmospheric soundscape introduced their first song as all three guitarists flowed back and forth, their backs to the audience, like warriors psyching themselves up for battle. As they exploded into their first song, brimming with energy, it was clear this was not going to be an ordinary rock show.

I can't even compare them to another band in terms of movement and energy on stage, because I don't think I've ever seen another band quite like them.

Musically they are reminiscent of Tool in their heavier songs, but they compliment this side with a more atmospheric, almost post-rock sound, which makes them difficult to categorise.

Three-part vocals and layered guitars give their heavier songs incredible mass, which is only increased when Dylan Mitrovich plays the part of a second drummer.

By contrast, their melodic post-rock side seems just as well developed, and forms an integral part of their sound as a whole. Their brilliance as a band has most definitely not translated well onto their EPs, and that's not to say the EPs are anything less than stellar, they were just so great live.

Clearly, Alaska Ratio had their work cut out for them trying to follow such a band.

Compared to Nucleus' mountains of equipment, Alaska Ratio went on stage naked: just three guys, one guitar, one bass guitar, and one drum kit. Their music was therefore much less complicated and more focused, sitting somewhere between alternative rock and metal, with a slight Pelican-esque post-rock influence thrown in.

This influence was most evident in the fact that they would build a song around a single drum beat or bass line, gradually progressing from meek beginnings to a climactic end. Their lack of a really powerful or distinctive vocalist was a problem, perhaps due to the fact that the three other bands playing that night each had strong singers, but musically I was very impressed, especially by the frantic, acrobatic drumming.

The headliners of the night, A State of Flux, were launching the single "Surface Tension", which you can hear right now on the band's MySpace profile. It's been a good couple of years since I last saw A State of Flux live, and they have clearly matured as a band in that time. They ooze confidence in themselves and the appeal of their music, which blends heavy guitar-based modern progressive rock with the soulful, occasionally operatic vocal work of Roni Shewan, who possesses a genuinely remarkable voice.

As much as I have trouble coming up with a band to compare with Nucleus, A State of Flux are truly unique. They don't sound like anyone else in Melbourne, or anywhere else, at the moment; they span heavy metal, art rock, middle-Eastern music and big band jazz, and have a theatrical, cinematic influence on their live shows that would make other art rock bands envious. Their concerts are not gigs in the traditional sense, they are sensory experiences.

In my Q&A with guitarist Red Black he said that they focus a lot more on the recorded aspect of the band as opposed to the live aspect, but if you see them live you'd never be able to tell. They're one of Melbourne's best-kept musical secrets, but with an interstate tour coming up, they may not be exclusively ours for much longer.

The beautifully shot videos bond together end-to-end to form a single story involving a damsel in distress, a lumbering giant of a man, and the California desert.

Genius.

But apart from that, the album's packaging is absolutely gorgeous. The cartoonish, disproportionate ship emblazoned on the cover reminds me of an obscure PlayStation game demo I played once or twice around five years ago, which I've long since forgotten. The gameplay involved a God's-eye view of a small cartoon warship skooting around large bodies of water, shooting cannons at other ships. If anyone remembers what it is, you know what you must do.

As a music store, Fist2Face is one of the more in-demand work experience venues in the area, so there is never a shortage of willing young bodies. $5 a day (62.5 cents per hour) gets me all the cheap child labour I need to complete all the mundane, time-consuming tasks that normally distract me from more important persuits, and the kids actually enjoy it!

My favourites tasks for the slaves include:

• Finding the cheapest price they can on rolls of tape, checking every store at Eastland that sells tape, and even some that don't (to keep them on their toes) ¹
• Meticulously alphabetizing and organising the hundreds of CDs and T-shirts we have in the store, to appease my OCD
• Posting MySpace comments and messages advertising OzProg events and promotions - on Fist2Face's dollar 62.5 cents

My favourite single task was the week that one kid - Keiran - was tasked with covering an entire 6-foot-plus cupboard with The Statics stickers. It took him three days.

Currently we are using slave labour to print, burn and package 5000 copies of The Statics' demo CD. By the time they're done, The Statics would have benefitted from countless manhours of cheap, delicious labour.

Work experience: business' best friend.

1. This is also useful for Sharpies. I use fine point Sharpies hundreds of times a day, and replace them as soon as the tip becomes too blunt. Work experience kids save me sometimes up to 10c at a time by checking all of the stores in Eastland that sell stationery. ↩