Top band to play live show on internet

AT THE very least it's unconventional. Yet Powderfinger, Australia's most locally successful rock band of the past 20 years, appears unafraid to break with tradition.

It's time to re-light the Powder

AFTER 20 years together, 17 of them with the current line-up, Powderfinger have been struggling to keep it fresh. At times they've felt less like one of Australia's biggest rock bands than a tribute act.

Citigroup Takes Vulture Alternative

UAE has gone where US and Euro banks declined to tread, writes David Hirst.

Sydney Festival 2007

From musical balloons to Samuel Beckett, there's more than enough to satisfy even the most hungry culture vulture.

Private Equity Binge Smacks Of '80s Excess

"WE HAVE the amazing spectacle of huge migratory balances of liquid purchasing power, swooping like vulture from capital to capital to fatten where they may. Not inaptly have the results been termed 'an anarchy of purchasing power'." (Roland Wilson, 1934, who was later to become Commonwealth statistician, economic adviser to the Commonwealth secretary to the Treasury, 1949-1965.)

Fly-by Art Attack Does Not Stack Up

YOU have to hand it to the ABC. The broadcaster's latest attempt at a magazine-style arts show manages to both dumb down arts coverage and sneer patronisingly at viewers. If you were hoping to further alienate those who believe the arts are not for them and who suspect that those in the arts are a bunch of insular wankers, you couldn't do much better than the new Tuesday night program Vulture.

Culture Vulture's Artful Solution To City's Woes

CONSIDER this scenario:

Men, The Intrepid Explorers, Set Foot In Their Final Terra Incognita - The Domestic Kitchen

IT'S a fine line between stereotype and genius in comedy. All humour hangs on some kind of shared experience (like being in a relationship, going on a plane trip, or hating John Howard), so some topics are picked as clean as a carcass at a vulture's dinner party.

A Culture Channel? Strewth Mate, No Worries

IT IS hard to imagine John Singleton, advertising and talk radio boss, gambler and quintessential Aussie, as a culture vulture. But not only is he serious about bidding for a fourth commercial TV licence if a Labor government, if elected, sticks to its word and puts one up for grabs in 2006, he also wants the fourth network to show only Australian programming, with a heavy - but not total - emphasis on "culture".

Vulture Cashes In On Minara Resources

US vulture fund MatlinPatterson has scooped a windfall profit of between $200 million and $300 million after offloading its 36 per cent stake in nickel miner Minara Resources formerly Anaconda Nickel just 12 months after making the investment.

Tops In 2003

ALBUMS 1 Innocent Eyes - Delta Goodrem 2 Come Away With Me - Norah Jones 3 Let Go - Avril Lavigne 4 Vulture Street - Powderfinger 5 Just As I Am - Guy Sebastian 6 The Eminem Show - Eminem 7 8 Mile - Soundtrack 8 More Than You

A Long Hard Road Leads To A Guitar-led Triumph On Vulture Street

POWDERFINGER Entertainment Centre December 12

The Week's Top 10 Albums

1(1) Vulture Street Powderfinger (UMA) 2(2) Innocent Eyes Delta Goodrem (EPI/SONY) 3(8) Fallen - Evanescence (EPI/SONY) 4(7) A Rush Of Blood To The Head Coldplay (CAP/EMI) 5(3) Come Away With Me Norah Jones (EMI) 6(15) More Than You Think You Are Matchbox 20 (EW/WAR) 7(4) Char

Powderfinger Powers

RIDING high on the success of their weekend performance at Byron Bay's Splendour In The Grass music festival, Powderfinger hold on to the top spot in the national albums chart with Vulture Street.

Finger-lickin' Good

BERNARD ZUEL gives Powderfinger's much-anticipated album the thumbs up. POWDERFINGER Vulture Street (Universal) ****

Vulture Street

Music review: Vulture Street Powderfinger (Universal) ***

Us Vulture Funds Circle Loy Yang

Doubts about the future of Victoria's largest power station, Loy Yang A, have grown with the emergence of a possible new player in the stymied sale process, a consortium of two US private investment houses, Hellman & Friedman and Newbridge Capital.

Forrest Cart Before The Allied Ore Horse

Andrew Forrest, the Perth entrepreneur best known for his controversial time at the helm of Anaconda Nickel, yesterday confirmed he has his sights set on the iron ore of Western Australia's Pilbara region. Tiny WA outfit Allied Mining & Processing has reached a memorandum of understanding with Mr Forrest's Metal Holdings, the private company which recently offloaded a sizeable Anaconda stake during a failed takeover bid from US vulture fund MatlinPatterson Global.

Anaconda Ruling

US vulture fund, MatlinPatterson Global Opportunities Partners, faces an uphill battle in its proposed takeover of Anaconda Nickel Ltd after the Takeovers Panel yesterday ruled on all outstanding applications regarding the unsolicited offer.

Anaconda Refuses To Swallow Us Bid

Anaconda Nickel has rejected US vulture fund MatlinPatterson's $450 million bid for control, arguing that shareholders have insufficient time to consider the "highly conditional" offer.