Man @ Work

When I eighteen years old, I was mad — mad, I tell you — for Men at Work, the Australian band that brought us "Who Can It Be Now?" and "Down Under." I played that CD until I managed to scratch the living hell out of it — on, I think, the last camping trip I've been on to date, during which my wallet fell into the Youghiogheny River at Ohiopyle, PA, and squirrells ran up and down the length of my tent roof for three nights straight. It was a glorious trip.

And you wonder why I want to hike the Appalachian Trail.

Anyway. As all things, Men at Work finally died away and its members went their own ways. What I didn't know was that the band's front man, Colin Hay, who was a bit of a clown in those videos, had stayed in the U.S. and has been recording albums all along. Go figure.

I really dig the new and improved Colin Hay.

My latest obsession — way too many years after a certain someone actually introduced me to the idea — is emusic.com. It's a subscription-based music download site. I just got 25 free downloads for doing a trial subscription, and now I'll get 40 downloads a month for $9.99. Totally diggable.

So Colin Hay's album Going Somewhere is one of my first purchases, and I'm loving it. You can get a taste of it here, but in doing so, I have to insist that you go out and buy it. It's important that you support artists I like.

It's all about me, after all.