Melbourne I Love You, But Your a Bit Too Hip- Top 8 Hip Melbourne Terms.

Whether it's a term on endearment, a payout to an edgy "over the river" decked out scallywag, or as a point of reference that suggests the measurable coolness of long lost era; The Cheech and Chongs or the wannabe Jim Morrisons and the stream of deralict salmon that only flow up happening street are all "Hip" in their own way. Times they are a changin' but the term hip is still around. And so I bring to you the Melbourne guide to "Hip".
1. Hip-hop. The term hip-hop; a slanting groove to one hip, and then an interchange to the other, refers of course originally to the Afro-American genre synonomous with MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing. But Melbourne, we are not Americans are we?  No we had to imagine a new kind of hip-hop to  be understood on drovers terms. Sure we have an array of homegrown graffiti, we bump the odd end and everyone is a fucking DJ, but it appears we cannot rap. Oh we can rhyme yesseri, but Bpay with Ebay? Socks and sloshed? Trumpety chorus's and obnoxiously monotone lyrics about deep & meaningfuls, summertime and Falls Festival. Have you ever listened to real hip-hop? Or am I missing the point? Whatever I'm missing, it is not your music that's for sure.
2. The Hip-hopping jukebox. I swear if you bring him to any party I am leaving. The hip-hopping jukebox or the HHJ is my mortal enemy. I've mentioned the HHJ's over-the-top "I feel this music so much" flailing before. You feel it that much? Really? You are feeling the music so much that you throw your limbs in random directions out of time to the music completely unaware of everyone else. How can a person be so unaware that everyone in the room is watching them and thinking what a fucking douche-bag they are? The band is the centre of attention, not you! I will pay you to stop your incessent body pangs and leave before you poke my friend in the eye, again.
3. Hippies. Look, I like you for the most part. But please understand this: I don't buy vegan beer. So next time you ask me if the beer at my house is Vegan, and then you drink my Melbourne's anyway, please just think, that maybe you should bring the beer.
4. Hipsters. Does anyone actually know what this term means anymore? Everyone is a fucking Hipster. Everyone rides a fucking bike. Everyone drinks fucking coffee! Everyone is trying to be hipper than the Hipsters. The Hipsters are trailing and chasing. They are on the backbone chewing the scraps of your extra-vegan organic super postulating anti-oxident enriched meal. Hipsters are like hairdressers: always a couple of years behind and trying a little too hard to be unusual. Atleast the phase of standing against brick-walls looking dreary and wistful is over.
5. Hipstamatic. For the most part people don't even know what this word means anymore; replaced by Instagram, Hipstamatic still paved the way for aggressive vintage filters on the most mundane of photographs. My kids having an asthma attack, quick which vintage filter should I use? #cantbreathe
6. Hip-hop hurray ho. Hopefully you're the kind of person that avoids the kind of places I'm about to talk about, but, if your anything like me and have been forced to work late nights is shitty bars on brunswick street or you're still in touch with your high school friends, you'll of heard Hip-Hop-Hooray-Ho-Hay-Ho far too many times. Somehow this chorus always draws an onslaught of white man wolf-whistling and out of time clap alongs; whether its the Provincial on Brunswick street or nowadays the Retreat; be sure to keep your hands to yourself as the lights come on and the giraffe necks come looking to take you home and cop some.
7. Hip to be Square. Boy is it hip to be mutha fuckin' square. Somewhere between clear-ray bans and sharp do's makin a comeback, we also decided to shove the footy asshole jocks aside and make way for science. That's right, science is back baby; whether your a quantam man or a virusy kinda girl, you bout to become the king of the cool square, square! And don't let it stop there, if science ain't your bag baby, how about literature, history, or social science; basically the bigger your capacity to stimulate my senses; the more likely the feeling will be err reciprocated.
8. Hippopotamous. A wet fat animal that eats more people per year than most biggest loser contestants; not to be confused with half of the population of Melbourne.

What we are really going to lose this election.

I went to see an international cover band last night at the Corner Hotel to write a review for a local street press. What I couldn't divulge in the accompanying text was my realisation that crowds really do match the music they are attracted to; in this case essentially cheesy and uninteresting, wanting to have a good time but for the most part disconnected. And it's true about all types of music if you really think about it, there is a strong correlation between yes, dress sense and music, but beyond the simplicity of 'dress', the entire existence of these people can in a sense be generalised; what are we searching for, yearning for, standing up for, standing up against? And in that sense music can create a vacuum into which people uniformly are sucked into a life of okayness; which I promise you they are not happy about, they just don't know any better. It's like a loss of their essentiality, and this leaves them lost and tired. 
What are we looking for then? In all honesty what we are truly looking for is the essence of our nature, our tribal ways and kinship; and it is the kinds of music that can more accurately provide these that produce the kinds of humans that are more "in touch" and more radiant in the spotlight of life. People criticise hippies for their dreadlocks and dirty clothes, but admire and photograph the eclectic-ness of tribal peoples elsewhere in an arrogant exchange of money for dignity. Hippies are merely attempting to connect to the tribal roots of Western Civilisation; more closely replicating what theirs and our ancestors would have looked like thousands of years ago. The Western world has aggressively ripped this connection between our soul and roots and we see more and more every day examples of this disconnect creating further distance from freedoms and the earth. 
The music of expression, whether it is Psy-Trance, Psych, Punk, Rock'n'Roll, Garage, Roots just to name but a few, that causes us to look within, explore, challenge, rescue, rebuild, identify, embrace, defy, and create is the future of Western Civilisation. If only we would look more closely and see the true loss of soul in the manifestation of compromising beings in powerful places; we could work to reconnect the soul with the skin and prevent an inevitable decline in the soul and skin of this planet.