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La Mascara reviews Live in Hell!
This is about as good a representation/review of Live in Hell as you
could get...
"The few fortunate enough to see one of Dave Graney's "Live
in Hell" shows at the Butterfly club came away both entertained and
enlightened.[I certainly overcame an ennui caused by the sea of banality
that we currently swim in.] Neither just a pop hits package nor a lecture
from a lectern, the performances were carried by Graney's eloquence and
humour, not to mention the considerable contributions by his musical comrades
:- the two Stu's (Perera and Thomas) on guitar strings, and the multitalented
Moore on glockenspiel,cymbals,snare,melodica,and road case!
A continuation of his earlier cabaret "Point Blank" wherein
Graney delved into the nature of performing, "Live in Hell"
is purgatory from a performer's perspective. Graney begins by clearing
up delusions about deities with a track from his recent album "We
Wuz Curious" . "Let's Kill God Again" is not so much an
irreligious rant as an appeal to reason. And though the Blues, Rock'n'Roll,
and even Jazz have long been labelled "the Devil's music", Graney
rejects the very notion of Satan. He chooses Roxy Music's "Bogus
Man" to denounce the Devil as just another God-Man construct to frighten
us. Later he brings Hell back to the surface with another cover -this
time the Fall's "New Face in Hell". The point being that our
Hell is here and now not some fanciful fire and brimstone netherworld.
He goes on to argue the Devil we fear is other people -using a twisted
cover of the Presley hit "One Night with You" which becomes
"One Night of sin".
Finally Graney draws on one of his confessed favourite performers- Jim
Morrison - reading the Lizard King's "Lament". Though I'm not
a fan of this pseudo shaman, Graney uses him to perfectly illustrate a
point.ie. By name and nature Rock'n'Roll is about fucking, so Morrison's
paean to his penis and the death thereof, expresses the performer's Hell.
even Morrison's detractors like his former manager Danny Fields who denounce
his poetry as "sophomoric bullshit babble" recognized that pound
for pound Jimbo had more cockmeat than most. "He was sexier than
his poetry" conceding "he had a big dick". And Morrison's
penchant for flopping it out onstage left nothing to the imagination.
But to be effective it requires more
than just a willingness to wave your wiener. As evidenced by the success
of some eg. Iggy and Lux, and the failure of others eg. GG and Fred -
the latter just look pathetic. Morrison combined his cock with a look
copped from whip-dancing Warhol/VU sidekick Gerard Malanga to create a
wet dream for his hippie fans. So maybe in a flash of peyote-induced clarity,
Morrison imagined his own impotence [performance anxiety?] and saw his
own Hell ? When it became a reality for the fat and flaccid Door-man,
it wasn't long before his corpulent corpse was found bobbing in the bathtub.
For a Rock'n'Roll performer onanism isn't an option - though many succumb.
Pop music is a veritable magnet for masturbators. Dave Graney knows this
and paints his Hell as a sea of wasted "guz" [which we're told
is a combination of jiz and diz]. But he needn't worry - his potent performance
tonight proves it! "
La Mascara
we wuz curious- curiosities- things you could know
We Wuz Curious is credited to the Lurid yellow Mist who
are the musicians we have been playing with for many years. However, on
the lyrical side, it is the most autobiographical set of songs 'I' has
ever put together with five out of 12 songs starting with the word I.
Influences on the lyrical side of writng would be Yankee crime writers
of the 40s from whom I got my hardboiled delivery and cadence and the
French writers and artists of the late 18th and early 19th century . I
have been obsessed and entranced with them for the last four years or
so.
Musically ,
The impetus was to make an upbeat r&b record. We love contemporary
r&b and pop music as well as jazz and Brazilian / latin music. We
are also often to be seen out in the live music scene of melbourne.In
the small clubs watching young Melbourne bands. Mad old swingers in the
room.!
The album was recorded at Sing Sing South in a day ( after drilling the
music for two months in rehearsal at the Yarraville Mouth Organ Band Hall)
and then mixed over a month at the Ponderosa by us. Each member of the
band was asked to provide music for a song.
In the mixing I like to put the drums and the vocals at the centre and
then attend to everything else. The guitars are trebley and panned wide
as in classic r&b sounds. I mixed the voice up as loud and upfront
as I like it, taking as a reference, the classic country sides of the
60s by George Jones and Jerry Lee Lewis. I prefer to mix and produce my
own music but I like pro engineers with great rooms and mics to record
it.
We had so many great mics on the drums and the guitar amps they didn't
really need much eq'ing. I used the room mics and added the touch of weirdness
from mics that Adam Rhodes had placed in odd areas.
I like the sound of the drums all together in the room from different
areas. Each drum affecting the sound of the other, rather than the 80s
style of isolating everything and then putting it back together.
I've always been a one take kind of singer and did most of teh lead vocals
on the one day that we recorded eight of the songs. the other four songs
were done at our studio, the Ponderosa.
On the vocals I like to use some slap delay because I'm mad for that country
/ rockabilly presence you get on those records. For some reason, reverb
went out of style about ten years ago. I never stopped using it. Same
way dumb guys with beards sniff at electric pianos because 'they're not
real'. Screw you guys!
Stuart Perera plays a a left handed Rickenbacker and loves Slash and that
Grant Green Wes Montgomery octaving style. He plays through a small Laney
valve amp. I play an Ibanez Talman (made in China) which has a semi hollow
body and I love the clean sound of r&b and jazz players. I play it
through a Roland GC408 amp which is solid state and super clean. Both
my amp and guitar are 90s models which were only available briefly and
have been discontinued, as am I.
All the keyboard sounds that Mark Fitzgibbon plays are not on different
tracks, Its him switching the sounds inreal time on his electric keyboard.
In 'lets kill God again' he switches fro piano to organ to a sound with
choir voices and strings. Its all o the one track. I only had to look
at riding the volume for the different sounds.
Stu Thomas played a Fender precision through a super pre amp and Adam
caught a great sound.
Clare records with a black Gretsch kit that she bought in London in 1983.Its
been on every record we've ever made. She has a sentimental idea that
its an old one of Charlie Watts' as she always loved his style and he
played the same brand. It records brilliantly. Adam knows you dont have
to do much with it. It has oomph and slam and bounce. It has an internal
ambience that is pre industrial and especially pre digital.
Clare has endured younger and dumber engineers fucking about with it but
has let them have their way and then nothing changes anyway. (Guys who
have read too many books about Neil Young and the Beatles in the studio).
Live she uses her Tama kit as its built to travel.
On the other four tracks. 'punk dies', 'I needed someone to find me',
' crime and underwear' and 'Junk time'. everything was played by myself
and Clare, save for some bass in a verse of 'punk dies' by Stu Thomas.
I love to play bass although I'm pretty simple in my time and spatial
abilities. Real bass players are time (and space) lords. I have a bass
which is red and which I have great faith in because it has two names,
both of which are very macho. It is a 'La Grange' brand and a 'bronco'
model. I play it onto the tracks via a classic sansamp.
I also overdubbed some 12 string and six string acoustic guitars.
I also used a casio keyboard and I warmed up the sounds with a Joe Meek
preamp / compressor and a Blues Driver or sansamp pedal. In the studio,
on guitar, I love to use wah wah and octave effects. (Live , I dont use
any pedals, only a channel switcher between a clean and slightly dirty
sound. )
Clare built up her track for 'Junk time' using her Ensoniq MR61 keyboard
for all the organ , string and tuned percussion sounds/She also played
synth bass through the keys . We got in Elizabeth McCarthy and Jane Dust
to add some backing vocals.
We also used another organ we have which is more of a bit of ungainly
furniture but has a great distorted sound. Then there is the xylophone
and the vibes and the bass vibes.
The chourds I favour are all suspensions. Unresolved and tense 6ths and
9ths and inversions thereof. I dont use many major chords, major and minor
sevenths mainly.
Some of the songs have musical puzzles built into them. 'You had to be
drunk' , for instance, is not a regular eight bar figure. It is six and
so has a feeling of continually rising so although the musical chords
repeat, they keep repeating in different and unexpected spaces. They are
all suspended chords too. Its all suspense !
social rounds-May 07
Time with the gear stowed down below and the van sitting in the driveway
has been spent in the studio and with the face in between manuals. After
using software and hardware crudely and blindly there comes a time to
read the manual. I have been also using a measuring tape and looking for
second hand windows. Interesting.
The Sand pebbles have been doing a track or two at our studio and it is
always enjoyable to see the inner dynamics of other creative outfits.
Ben wrote the tracks and other members have been coming out to add their
voices and guitars. Tor laid down some bell like vocals and acoustic and
electric guitars to a brual two chord slalom ride which suddenly bloomed
into a psych folk gem. I didn't have much faith in the piece at the beginning
of the day but with a bit of toil from my part and much natural gifts
and energy from them produced a some magic. I just had to get out of the
way and let them though.
We also did asession with penny Ikinger, following on from our two songs
we cut with her last year at our place. I'm on bass and Clare is on drums
and Penny playes the loud electric guitar. She is great to work with and
is open to input from us . We have to be sensitive to her as she has definite
ideas but takes a while to decide to leap into action. Its worth the wait
though. Her chords are major and minor and she is looking for a pop, upbeat
push from our direction. After rolling a few ideas around for a day we
ended up wit two great tracks. Brilliant vocals and very fast tempos .
This is turning into a great project.
Clare has been continuing the recording project with Crystal Thomas over
at Matt Walkers studio which seems to be slowly coming to a kind of finished
state. They are using actual recording tape which is a cute idea but a
bit of a luxury in my world. I'm sure it will end up in a unique sound
anyway. They'e all digging it but I would go mad with the painstaking
nature of tape again. It does sound great though. (I'm sure you could
just bring it in at the end, I mean finish it and then run it over some
tape to get the saturation).
On Thursday we went to the Red Stitch theatre which is across from the
Astor cinema in St Kilda. We've been going to a few of their plays. (Subscriptions
are inespensive from their site). They have little funding and are run
on a shoe string. They do plays by overseas writers. In general I prefer
Australian writers as the plays are so alive and epehemeral ( rarely does
an Australian play get a second production). The previous one was called
"Rabbit Hole" , an American play which I'm told has just won
a Pulitzer prize. It was set in Brooklyn. It had great actors but was
like the Honeymooners without the laughs or Jackie Gleason. Like a soap
or being at a family argument for an hour.
I like theatre experiences to be abstract and to be dealing with huge
ideas. This weeks play was more like that. "After Miss Julie"
by Patrick Marber from a play by August Strindberg. This was just threee
actors in a room which was downstairs in an aristicrats house in England
after WW2. The drunken , skittish and beautiful Lord of the Manors daughter
is coming on to the chauffer in the kitchen. The boundaries of their roles
and their worlds are negotiated and all the consequences are imagined
and experienced. It was so intense. An amazing scene with the drunken
woman in a white ballgown with blood smeared across her crotch with her
hands down the mans zipper , yanking him off as he gasps in pleasure/horror
and she tells him just how hopeless he is. The actors were incredible,
as was the direction. (There were long moments of suspenseful darkness
as things happened off stage and lights gradually shifted in the room
and a woman walked around and through the room, noticing things. We sat,
as an audience, filling in this enermous blank, fed on only sounds from
another room and small head movements in the shadows).
Also been going to a lo of shows by our sometime piano comrade Mark Fitzgibbon
. He has been performing with an old friend from New York, George Coleman
Jnr on drums.The band also has Dale Barlow on sax and Sam Manning on bass.
Its Georges show. He sits behind a tiny jazz kit and drops bombs all night.
Incredibly good players. Dale barlow has such self possession on the sax
and holds the attention with ease . Last night he did a showy solo with
all this circular breathing, blowing for a spectacularly long time while
he used his cheeks to keep the note going as he took a breath from his
nose. He is equally great on the flute. Mark is a master on the piano
, his left hand is always shifting and pushing as his right flies down
from the otehr direction) and I am always amazed by the bass players (Sam
is the only one I have seen do more than one show, there have been three
or four others who have parachuted in to do a set, with no rehearsal and
just the fly shit to follow) . George is quite an inspiration with his
power and the world he comes from. His father played with Miles Davis
and Herbie Hancock and Booker Little. (He introduced a song from John
Coltrane called Aunt Mary, mentioning off hand that he knew Mary and hs
mom used to hang out with her. Family friends. He is from a land of Giants!)
They played in Melbourne at the Paris Cat, Bennets lane, the Blue Diamond
Club and the Belgian Beer Cafe which is about the limits of the known
Jazz world. they also played at the Wine Banq in Sydney and at the Zoo
in Brisbane.
Time has also been spent in the loungeroom listening to our own recent
records at high volume which is a rare experience . I loved Hashish and
Liquor.
Doing this is a way to begin thinking of a further leap into the void,
the abyss. I am slowly working up to something but, like that theatre
experience, I want it to be big and abstract. I am also aware that, for
me, Hashish was all that. I put a lot into that and I loved the arranging
, the recording and the mixing and all the players involved in it. It
fired me up so much that it extended into the live shows and the accompanying
cd "Keepin it Unreal". It was fired off into the void and.........thats
what I was thinking about....my sense of where the enemy positions, if
any, were at this moment, how stretched my supply lines were , what useless
piece of ground I was asking my men to die for, what men and women I could
use for this final offensive and what my exit strategy was.....
I have some themes and songs that I've been kicking around for a few years
now. I need a moment to start to pull it together. I need a break in the
weather. I don't like to dawdle around things. I like to do it quickly.
I'm also working on a compilation of recordings of mine for the hell of
it. Unreleased versions of songs from over the years. A bit like Keepin
it Unreal but all electric and played by the Lurid Yellow Mist. All the
songs that have gone over with people. Songs that had legs. (Also songs
that are no longer available anywhere, even on itunes but are kept locked
up by different recording companies.) The tracks sound great, full of
fire and blood, better or at least, very different from the original recordings.
I want it to be like the Doors "an American prayer".
In May we will be mixing more of the Sand Pebbles as well as Penny Ikinger
as well as recording the next Darling Downs album.
Now we look forward to getting back in the van for our show at the East
Brunswick on the 19th (With Conway savage and the Stu Thomas Paradox)
and then SALMONS launch at the Northcote Social Club on the 23rd May and
then our week at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival in June and then our week
in Brisbane in July for Mick Harveys Melbourne Mafia Festival.
Anzac day...what is that all about then?
Current mood: awake
I thought it was all over and now its back. Like some horrible semi religeous
festival for death trippers.
Its a Wednesday today. Like Darwin before the big wet there is the slow
build up to todays national emotional purging and mythic football playing
. All for the diggers, who have been pulled down into the trenches again.
A newspaper last Sunday had a review page for 7 new books about gallipolli.
There are tv shows about the annual pilgrimage to Anzac cove and all the
politicians jockey for the right position to take at the services. All
this is difficult because the current soldiers are away on questionable
errands for the powers that be but with the mystic, holy qualities Australia
bestows on its diggers, they must never be criticized. They could be on
their way to hell but we are always told that we must support them. These
Anzac services are always linked with the current adventures and any protesting
voices, as ever, are howled down.
Anyway, i was heartened to hear some voices let through to question the
whole over the top festival it has become so I thought I would add my
voice.
When I was a boy I saw a few marches. My father was in WW2 but never marched.
A lot of guys never did. I probably saw a lot of first world war guys
marching, or in wheelchairs rolling down Commercial street Mt gambier.
it got smaller and smaller.
All us boys grew up reading war comics , American and English. And we
watched countless war movies and tv shows. It was overkill but it was
still close to living memory and still raw and we still saw through it
all. It was too much. Shit, there was even a scene in A Hard days Night
when the Beatles expressed their fatigue with it all. ( An old guy say
he fought the war for them as he looks at the Beatles and John says "bet
you're sorry now!")
There was a popular play n the 60s and 70s called the One Day of the Year
which was full of all the generational tension about thewars. It was taught
in schools, thats how hip those days were. (It would be banned as being
politically correct and too left wing now) The WW1 guys gave it to the
WW2 guys and the Viet vets got it in their turn and were not allowed in
to the RSL for years. The whole show seemed to be on the way out. The
pubs are shut today until after the march. this is because, when there
were lots of soldiers, they would all meet up and just stay in the pubs
and forget to march. As they should have.
Now its back and its portayed as a folk revival but I can't buy it. I
know that kids from schools are bussed there and I hear and see the relentless
propaganda.
In the first World War, miilions died for the royal families of Europe,
who were all related and were in conflict with each other. The French
threw tens of thousands of their Vietnamese colonial troops in to the
front lines and the British did so with the Australians. Unimaginable
numbers were slaughtered. For nothing.
A bright shining idea came from the Bolsheviks in Russia who said they
would immediately stop fighting because they would not kill their fellow
man for the benefit of the industrialists and the nobility.
Millions more were slaughtered a generation later. Mostly civilians. Millions
displaced. Carnage. Horror. Death in industrial precision. The Russians
won it by grinding it out with the Germans.
Later the French attacked the sons of the Vietnamese who had died for
them and then so did the Yanks and the Australians.
Now we are providing a fig leaf for the Americans in Iraq.
Here are some words by Guillaume Apollinaire. He was a poet who signed
up joyfully for the army in 1914 and wrote about the marvels of bombs
and machines. He died of influenza on Armistice day in 1918.
"so many universes forgotten
yet where are the truly great forgetters
and whoever will teach us to forget this or that corner of the world
and where is the Christopher Columbus to forget entire continents
to lose
really to lose
to make room for the windfall
to lose
life to victory"
Who would I have in the trenches with me?
Often , during the Anzac day football match , ( and during the rest of
the season) television performers will put on their most gruffest, blokiest
voice to say about a player that he is the kind of bloke they would want
to be in the trenches with. It is a high honour to bestow on a man. That
other man has no choice in it . He is dragged into the trench to sit with
the cowardly television anchorman. To hold his hand I guess, and roll
some smokes and to generally stand in front of him.
I would do my best to avoid ever being in a trench. I have taken note
of events in the past and have seen what happens once you get into that
trench . And it doesn't matter a bit who you have next to you. You are
pretty well cactus. Goodbye soldier. next!
No, I would walk in some other direction and point out the said trench
to anyone I came across and advise them to alter their travel plans. if
i was driving, i would flash my lights in the traditional, courteous warning
sign understood by all.



Night PM
Wyndham Lewis, the 1920's writer and painter ( much admired by Captain
Beefheart) wrote a book called "the art of being ruled". I have
never read it as its hard to get like all his works but I understand it
is just what the title says. A book that tells you how to live in a society
that's not a democracy. I don't think he was a middle ground guy and he
occasionally hit the wall at the furtherest edges of the then known world
of what was considered hard left and hard right. Its one of those things
I look forward to finding one day and reading.
He was writng in England between the wars. A time of great hope and just
as great despair. I wonder what a guy like him, with expectations of some
sort of dramatic change- some sort of future world- would have made of
Australia under its rulers in 2007 , Queen Elizabeth and John Howard?
The ABC replayed a speech by Paul Keating from 1993 in a park in Redfern
where he was talking about the year of indigenous peoples in the world
and the Mabo decision and Australian history in general. It was a speech
about the past and the present and the future and it touched on Australia
and its place in the world and the failure of peoples imagination in the
past and the present to see themselves in the place of aboriginal people
and they way they had been,and continued to be,treated. It was pretty
bold but those were different times.(It can be listened to at the Radio
National website)
And then there was John Howard. And then a lot more. I doubt that anybody
really likes John Howard. He has been voted in four times in a country
where voting is compulsory. That's pretty telling.
I consider him a little man who has diminished everything around him.
In the first election , against Keating, he pointed at a map of Australia
, on national television, and stated that the aboriginal people wanted
to take all of the land back and that was what he was against. (Native
title was a recognition of ownership predating the invasion. Any freehold
title since that time extinguished that claim to ownership. In the areas
in question, in far north Qld and west NSW and WA and SA, there were enormous
pastoral leases for cattle. The black population had worked on all of
these for years until 1967 when they were recognized as citizens and given
the vote and so, expected to be paid. They were then all kicked off their
lands. Native title was to give them rights to access, to walk across,
these huge tracts of land which were leased. In short , to have the same
freedom as the cattle.Howard portayed this as an attack on small farmers
when the big lease holders were Rupert Murdoch and the Sultan of Brunei
and other large concerns. Howard made a bogus 10 point plan to stop any
more rights being easily given away and , basically , giving the land
to any concern who had "improved" it.)Without fail, whenever
he has been in trouble, he has kicked the black fellers, and united the
rest of the community, including the poorest, in downward envy that others
are getting more for nothing than them. Of course, he has had no opposition
and the media has given him a green light for whatever he wants to do.
In the future people will look at this little suburban squib and wonder
what took a hold of peoples minds to elect him so many times as their
leader. At times you feel so helpless against the mad spin that comes
from all the media outlets. He is constantly painted as a genius and a
man with his finger on the pulse of the community. What a shockin' period
the last decade has been? The parade of crooks like Reith and the grey
ghost Ruddock. The dribbling tool that was the affable national party
leader, Tim Fischer (who promised "bucketloads of extinguishment"
against the demands of the black population).There was the election with
the Tampa and the lies of the children thrown overboard. I always hoped
some of the poor people he trampled on would be the catalyst for his downfall
but in the end, it will probably be the very quality which the media has
somehow portrayed as his "magic" (with which he has cast his
spell) which will drag him off the screens and out of our minds. Yes,
his dullness and plodding , snaggletoothed "oh I wouldn't know about
that!" goofiness which will do him in. Not the elites ,who have seemingly
haunted him and who you wish really existed, just to challenge him and
his gang of chairborne cheerleaders.
Have you ever seen the man of the people , via the tv of course, engage
with the general public? It is so awful you have to hide your eyes and
get behind a chair. Worse than seeing "the Office" for the first
time. He'll always say the wrong thing and any approach leads to a dead
end. He'll have his special "country" hat on for any trip out
of the city. He'll walk into a factory and go up to a young guy and shake
his hand and ask him how he is and then how long he's been here and the
kid will say, "just got here" or something hopeless like that.
Harold Pinter could not write the dialogue he has with Joe Public. Howard
has no common touch. All he ever wanted was to be in power. He had these
things he was interested in like a tax and he hated unions and he wanted
to sell big government concerns. All unpopular things which he drove home
by constantly dividing the populace with envy for those poorer than them.
Envy that those losers were getting shit for free! Is that sort of duplicity
to be admired and applauded. For the last decade, yes.
It helped that everybody got in debt up to their eyeballs as well. They
put the noose around their own necks and jumped.
Of course, we live in a two party tyranny. Today I read in the paper that
the leader of the Labour Party was driven back to the House from CHURCH
by the treasurer. Isn't that cute?
Just lately some world of real events and uncontrollable , unknowable
unknowns seems to have come over us all though. Including our leader,
Fearless Fly. Climate change, the disaster that is the Iraq war and the
Australian David Hicks who has been in a cage in Cuba for five years.
In the end I guess, we'll all have to look at each other and answer questions
like
"how did we live under that prick and his crazy gang of grey kooks
for so long?" .
"How did anybody take him seriously?"
"That funny walk of his every morning, he looked like he about to
fall over every step!"
"Costello and Abbott, what a couple of squares! And they carry on
like the hippest guys in the room! And what about when they tried to be
funny?"
"Barnaby Joyce was the opposition?"
"Phillp Ruddock,!When they cheered him into the party room after
Tampa!"
" There were anthrax powder incidents all over the country!"
"ASIO started being listened to like they were not paranoid dills"
" if you didn't support the war in Iraq you were pissing on our soldiers
who were in Iraq!"
" and you were also pissing on the Americans!"
" America said not to use the word rebel as it was too romantic so
everybody dutifully learned the word insurgent!"
" the stolen generations had to be referred to as the alleged stolen
generations!"
" Climate change was unproven scare-mongering!"
"he was the minister of health and then he took a job with a medical
technology company!"
" the government wheat board was the main bankroller of the country
they were at war with at the time but nobody knew anything!"
" then the directors of that company got paid off with more millions
after it was all proved to be boring enough to forget about!"
"Peter Reith trained private security in Dubai to break the waterside
unions!"
"Tony Abbot the mad monk and his anti women/ anti stem cell Catholic
suffering !"
"free market ideolgy driven anti tariff policy for all industries
except for private health as that is so unpopular it needs to be bankrolled
by the very government which hopes to dismantle Medicare!"
"weapons of mass destruction!"
"nuclear energy is the greenest!"
"he liked Bob Dylans music but not the words!"
"he got involved when a sex shoppe on Bradman Drive in Adelaide used
its address in its name. He made a law that you couldn't take the Dons
name in vain!"
"He refused to move to Canberra because of his kids! (They were all
in their 20s!)"
To be continued
..

pic Dave Western- Brixton 2008
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melbourne to gundagai
so this will be a list of prosaic small town australian name dropping.
Pulled out of melbourne at 3pm and drove to the picturesque town of gundagai,
noted in a famed old folk song about a dog dropping a turd in his masters
lunch. Though the cleaned up version says the dog "sat" in the
tuckerbox as opposed to having "shat" in it.
Got to the motel at about 9, hoping to catch the last show of "Dollhouse"
on cable but the motel had no Fox 8.
Gundagai has a lovely old theatre which is now an arts and crafty joint.
Many pictures inside of past community beheadings of tourists.
As I jogged back to the motel, I noted that it had obviously been recently
gutted by a fire in the main part of the building and our room was the
only part unscathed. How odd.
Country towns in general used to have more young people in them. Now its
all Coffin dodgers. Alright, oxygen thieves .
Tomorrow its Lismore. Come along anywhere. We need some friends!
Drove to Taree and had some fish in a posh joint then into a motel in
Port Macquarrie. We begged that w e ha d a van full of gear and got the
presidential suite.
The next day we drove to Coffs Harbour and opicked Stu up at the airport,
just past teh 4 stoorey windmill restaurant.
Played a show in Woolgoolga, a town made very cute by many Taj Mahal -
esque building put there by Sihks who must have gotten terribly lost.
The show was good. Some of the people were truly crappy. I will cast that
old bitch from my mind an dremember Billy the blues harp player in the
Hound Dog Taylor cap and our old friend Louis Tillet who was always great
to run into. I sit typing this in a motel in Burleigh Heads. The Gold
Coast. Gold help us all. This part of the world runs on drunken teens
fucking in the bushes and throwing up at the same time.
They'll be booking their tickets now. Its impossible not to sound like
a snob, so I wont try.......
Turned out that it was the best experience we ever had on that Golden
coast. The venue was great. Previously all the rooms had 12 tv screens
blaring rugby on every side of the stage. This one was lovely. Cool crowd
of people. Great sound, had a ball.
The young guy running the PA played the Mothers "freakout" after
we had finished!
Drove to Lismore, stopping off at "tropical fruit world to load up
on star fruit and custard apple fruits. The tropics!
Lismore was a show in a theatre to the true believers. Another swell night.
We are actually DRIVING to all these joints. The first show was roughly
1300 k's away from home base. thats keen.
Tonight in Byron we played two one hour sets. the audience the usual funny
mix of mad locals and millionaire blow ins. I love the locals.
A samoan girl called me "brother" many times. I was honoured.
Staying here for an extra days swimming and r&r. Then on to Sydney
ps, in the Gold Coast I went to the supermarket. An old man , trailing
his wife in t he aisle, was glumly saying " I think I can handle
an egg slide!" A younger couple came around the corner. The woman
said " You always get stressed when we shop! " and then walked
off at a fast pace. the man, looking pathetc and harassed but with an
annoyingly knowing smirk said , "Darl! Tissues! " to the wind.
I can't stop saying this. "Darl! Tissues!"
byron and down to sydney
Byron Bay was windy and almost cold. We watched a Jim Carrey flick, walked
along the beach, checked out the town and caught up with our valued comrade
James Cruikshank.
Drove Stu to the airport and then carried on to Sydney.Back through Newcastle
and a few seachange type towns.
We are playing in Sydney this coming Friday at the Sandringham hotel in
Newtown. Then oin Saturday, Clare Moore and myself will be joined by some
Sydney pals to do a semi acoustic set at the Clarendon in Katoomba. We'll
be taking a similar approach at El Roccos in Kings Cross on Thursday 17th
SEptember.
Look out for our "Live in Hell" narrative show at the Butterfly
Club in Melboune in October. Saturday, September 12, 2009
sandringham hotel
We blasted out two sets at this venue in King street Newtown last night.
Stu Perera was blazing on the guitar. Stu Thomas is a stellar bass player
and singer and Clare Moore is an amazing drummer and performer.
We had a great bunch of people come along who were right into our music
and my songs . they just go with us. What more could you ask?
Sydney is so different to Melbourne, you could fire a rifle down King
street after midnight and not be in any danger of hitting anybody. And
thats supposed to be a happening road.
The Sydney Morning Herald had two pages of music coverage this morning.
Two pages of esoteric lame brained yankee roots and indie people. I get
this shit at RRR and I throw it in the bin! The writers are so lazy. As
bad as the radio people. They must feel dirty if they ever have to handle
anything Australian.
I digress, we had a great time.
A young fellow who has been coming to our shows since he was in high school
in the mid 90s told me how he went to a second hand store back then and
the Vietnamese proprieter, who served while laying on a bed, asked him
loudly, "you want sex?" Our young friend thought it was a proposition
and ran away. he said he went back three years later ,when he was more
confident, and the same thing happened. he waited a beat and the old man
opened a curtain to a stack of porno dvds and stroke mags. His summation?
"I got "wet Latinas #14"! It was amazing!"
Gold!!!!We are playing a semi acoustic show at the Clarendon in Katoomba
tonight and also at El Roccos in the Cross on Thursday 17th September..
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Katoomba- semi acoustic show
This was me on acoustic 12 string and electric guitar, Clare Moore on
drums ( minimal setup) and old friend from Sydney Greg Thorsby on electric
guitar. A Maton Ibis in fact.
Greg used to be in a band called the Atlas Strings which is where we met
him. Also the Tenants after that and makes "stings" for TV1.
I was gonna do these shows as a solo set but I find that a bit boring
to do and my songs always have a few counterpoint type rhythmic or melodic
things. Or maybe I like the other textures. Anyway, I find it much less
enjoyable to play and to travel by myself. Seeing as we were in Sydney
for a week or two we thought we'd do them with Greg.Young Greg.
The music sounded great. More of a vocal and lyrical type sound as you
get all those low notes coming through with your voice.
A small crowd at this lovely small theatre type cabaret room. The hospitality
was generous as usual.
The walls are covered with posters of the 'roots " type music. I
hate that shit, there are no songs, only forms and types and grooves.
Its all too "real" for me. Humble fake troubadors and guitar
slingers. If they dont have the cojones to walk into the middle of the
stage and declare something by themselves they should not be in the room!
That dick who juggles 3 didgeridoos was nowhere on the wall. he plays
to theatres and rock palaces now. God help us all. I blame scientology.
We played two sets. Many different tunes than we have been doing. We'll
be doing a similar approach at El Roccos on Thursday 17th. This Thursday.
Sydney is delightfully warm and there is a soft breeze blowing.
the kuchar brothers films at mumeson archives
So we've been enjoying a few days in Sydney - civilian style,. No rushing
in and out of town and friends lives with shows to do and then "goodbye".
Catching up with some people for the first time in a long while. Aimless
drives around inner western sydney.
Visited Fuse yesterday, our distributor on top of their amazing "title"
store in Crown street. Box sets of Chaplin and Keaton and Harold Lloyd
films. Box sets of Charlie Parker cds."The Many Moods of Murry Wilson"
on cd. Too much stuff in one place!
We went to a few junk shops today. I got a pair of blue velvet dacks and
some suede boots and a Charles Atlas spring muscle developer thing. You
put the stirrup end under your foot and do arm curls.I never thought I
needed one of those but for $2.00 I found myself walking away with it.
Also got a video with the incredible pairing of my fave movie oddball
singer Eddie Cantor with Ethel Merman. Those two would have had enough
energy to power a trip to Saturn.
Tonight we went to the Mumeson archives which is a film night/ archive
run by Jamie Leonardev and Aspasier in their compound just up from the
Annandale. Nothing official about this operation. they set uip the screen
and the chairs and you get a glass of wine and some soup at half time.
Its all completely underground. I mean underworld. WE watched all these
rough independent movies by George and Michael Kuchar. The movie critics
would hate them. The longest was the last one, "sins of the fleshapoids"
which ran for 45 minutes. An inspiring night.
We are doing our show at El Roccos tomorrow. 154 Brougham street, Kings
Cross. Friday, September 18, 2009
The Cross. Home!
It was cool to be pulling up to a gig in Kings Cross, famed bohemian area
of Sydney. Nobody knows where this place which is more a state of mind
than a suburb begins and ends. Well this gig was right underneath the
giant Coke sign at the top of Victoria street. An old jazz cellar. In
the basement. Under the ground IN HELL! Cool. I felt at home there. Away
from the seachange/suburban joints. Another lost world.I was told Sinatra
played here. Place might hold 60 people at a pinch. Sounded great. All
the wailing has sealed the walls over the years.
The venue operator asked us what time the people were arriving. We said
it was his club. A problem of communication. People came anyway. Hipsters
flipping us their lobes. Old friends who only come to cool places like
Dave Wray and Matt Sigley.
Clare Moore, Greg Thorsby and myself did two sets.
Had a cool time. I felt odd walking around the Cross all dressed in leather.Perhaps
I was from a lost world.
Today it is warm and sunny in western Sydney. We have driven miles and
done a longish run of shows.
We are watching the football with friends tonight.St Kilda Vs Footscray.For
a chance to play in the Grand Final. The Sts last won in 1966, their only
flag. The Bulldogs in 1954, their only flag.
Thanks to everybody who came to the shows .... Friday, October 09, 2009
recent activty- stuff- you know
Well the trip up the coast was quite exhausting. Got back to melbourne
and fell in a heap. Clare Moore has been doing some recording. i have
been doing some writing. Playing guitar and sorting out a few gigs. been
very much enjoying reading Tony Martins new book, " a nest of occasionals".
Its great. His second book, a follow up to "Lolly Scramble".
kind of a memoir but so much more too. Very , very funny.
Been doing the Tuesday show on RRR. "Banana Lounge Broadcasting"
with Elizabeth McCarthy. Shes been writing the playlists up on teh BLB
Myspace. We interviewed mark Seymour and Johnette Napolitano recently.
the latter was a very clasy person. Very generous.
Writing some songs, thinking of what sort of recording to do next. i think
something arty and slow is gonna take shape. 12 string guitar. On the
otehr hand, really been digging the late period Animals recordings by
Eric Burdon. "Sky Pilot" and "Monterey". I need to
get people to hear my goddam music though.
Reading more Patrick White. the man was , really, a genius. Australia
hasn't had many!
On tv, my fave show is "the big bang theory". Those guys are
funny.
THE AB BOX - 2009
Last time we played in Adelaide, that is myself and Clare Moore and the
Lurid Yellow Mist, we were in a tent down by the river. Im into
Chris Farley but I don't think many other people are so I kept this thought
to myself, until now! The character the late Chris Farley played was a
life coach who proudly proclaimed he LIVED IN A VAN DOWN BY THE
RIVER! to everybody he was trying to help up out oif the gutter.
The fact he was still living IN A VAN DOWN BY THE RIVER never dampened
his enthusiasm. If ever I see an old clip of him it cracks me up when
he explodes with that routine. Chris died in a hotel room where hed been
partying for several days until his body gave up. It blasted through his
mind and was found there, like an old balloon one day by the irrelevant
authorities. We know better now, we have Dr Phil.
I ran into an old friend from the punk rock wars in Coffs Harbour last
year. He's a Sydney cat but we pass each other now and again over the
years. Its a light thing, low maintenance, that's how I like it with friends.
Anyway, he came out of the swamp, literally, to a gig in the middle of
winter in that grim retirement camp of a town. (The streets are full of
tiny investment motels in which you can see the owners, sad retired fellows
staring at a flat monitor in the evening gloom). Yes, my friend turned
up at the Wednesday night show and we shared many easy laughs after hours.
Especially the news that he was living in a van down by the river in an
area called the gallows.
I stowed my gear away and go off with my fiend and his girlfriend to a
nearby house where we eat burritos and drink tea . They also had a couple
of skinny joints.We talk of Arthur Lee and Roky Erikson and friends with
liver damage.And madness, drugs and booze.
While I was at the gig the sound man had been playing Howlin Wolf. It
sounded great but it was the London Howlin Wolf sessions where he is backed
by all the Limey blues rock royalty and Eric Clapton tells him how to
play 'little red rooster'. My friend had commented that it sounded too
slick but you could still hear the madness in the Wolfs voice. I was so
happy to be gifted with such a sophisticated and easy opinion. Someone
in the room knew stuff, they had drank deeply of real dark and tonal music,
the brandy of the damned. Bathtub stuff! And I knew what they were talking
about. We laughed like friends.
I digress, last time I was in Adelaide I myself was in a tent down by
the river. There were lots of circus type people about. Not dodgy, rootless
and toothless strongmen and the like, more your modern educated variety.
Bright young things with degrees in unicycle tricks. I wanted a taste
of the other side of Adelaide. The washed out blue collar side of town.
I had heard of a place where they sold a dish called an AB Box
and I wanted one. I had been told it was originally called an abortion
but the political correctness had , once again, gone mad.
We got to the joint and parked Miles Davis style, illegally, but right
out front. A guy was asleep in his chair with his arse hanging out into
the traffic. I mean his arse too. He was probably dreaming of being on
the can.
There was pack of kids all around their giant AB, all sticking forks into
it. They were all in skinny jeans but the giant box of Yiros meat covered
in chilli sauce and yoghurt on top of a vast bed of chips was going somewhere.
The hollow legs of youth I guess. We ordered our food in the brightly
lit room and enjoyed the carnival that was in front of us. A really drunk
man carrying a Central districts football holdall bag was sitting and
eating in giant gulps. Swaying all the while. Suddenly we were all ordered
out as a fire started. The Centrals player saved the day when he wandered
around and put his drunken two cents worth in. Whatever he did or said,
it galvanized the crew of cooks into the proper action and normal service
was soon resumed. We eventually got our food and sat down to eat. It was
a mess o food right there! Elvis would have loved this place. Moby
would have been revolted .
We were happy to be rollin with E and Miles. As we drove off we saw the
Centrals payer slumped in his chair on the footpath next to the man with
his arse to the world. Shittin on the world! Another man was throwing
up. Another table of young boys and girls were tucking into a giant AB.
With the demise of the floater I suggest the AB for that late night evil
mess o Adelaide grub.
My indie dream team - 2009
The Community Cup gets off to a bad start next week when its sinks to
the organisers heads that I , who have been listed as chairman of selectors,
will not actually be there. Luckily, I had foresaw this eventuating and
had gotten a team together and sent them towards the field of play before
I left. A friend had told me that a certain bike gang would, for a fee,
collect any bad debts you had lying around and do a job for you. Its the
new black economy , only its kind of red, blood red. I had a ton of bad
debts around the town and got in touch with them via Ben Cousins and Alan
Didak. They took the black holes out of my wallet and I traded them for
the task of press ganging a team together for the cup. The players I had
in mind would not be volunteering for the job. In fact, the football match
or the charity it was supposed to be helping would not be on their radars.
Not because they are not generous people, more that they are consumed
in a titanic inner city group mind meld of such intricate sensitivities
and tensions that they could not just leave off and stray outside the
city walls. The city of indie rock that they had if not built, at least
had redrawn the boundaries of . Once it had been only Fitzroy, now it
stretched all the way to Fawkner.
This community cup was problematic too, in that it had links to the other
ancient bohemian city state that had existed south of the river. No one
ever went there any more. It was a known mafia stronghold and people went
missing there. It was like a little bit of Sydney down by the beach. It
was evil.
So I sent my brothers out to the dens of Indie world to get a team together
and take them to the Elsternwick Oval. (Elsternwick! What devil had chosen
this hell hole for the game? Known only for the most famous brothel in
Melbourne, the Daily Planet , and the ABC studios where Countdown
had once been filmed and Spicks and Specks was shot now. Both shows being
foreign countries to indie rock, one being a lost world of actual pop
stars from pop radio and the other being some sort of adult parlour game
for drunken straights). There they were to corral the mob into a change
room, lock the door and by the time the game arrived, we would have a
team.
Knowing I was going to be away, I left a strong game plan which I recorded
onto a cassette tape , to be played on a constant repeat to the team as
they were held in the dressing rooms until the day of the game. Basically
this was to go and and kick long droppies and to take long runs along
the wing, bouncing the ball and mocking the opposition and showing off
merrrily to the assembled gallery at every opportunity. Also, to kick
lots of goals and so , defeat the opposition. Sounds simple, but true
and thats what it is. Hopefully the players would come out of the game
and take the same approach their music careers. i.e. just write some short
pop songs and get them on the radio.
Here are the players I picked for my ultra indie dream team,
First, I wanted some South Australian skills in the line up. A peace gesture
across the border and also we needed some football smarts. So I got Matt
Banham from the rock band No Through Road. A name like that
would make a killer full back. He can also talk underwater and has an
encyclopediac knowledge of awful 80s movies to broaden our teams inner
cultural reserves. Remember, there was to be no coach, just a big leadership
group. We needed an extensive reserve of clichés and moves and
references to bring the team together at crucial points . Matt could just
yell, OK! Its like that time in Lethal Weapons 4! and everybody
would be on the same page. From the West, I needed Joe McKee from Snowman,
he was tall and mean looking and surely could kick the pill along a little
bit. Lots of gas in the tank. I would have to fly him back from London
in a helicopter, perhaps to arrive at half time , the team being hopelessly
smashed, the sprigs of his boots glinting in the afternoon sun and him
saying , deadpan like, I hear there's a game goin on!.
The indie team would then grow a few feet and tear the opposition a new
one.
Also, as Joe was talking, Sara from Batrider would sneak off the helicopter
and onto the field. For the rest off the game she would walk around, as
a floating player , screaming in peoples faces with those incredible pipes
of hers.
Back pocket, we would have Jon Michell from the Ancients and Mum Smokes
to beat up the resting rovers. Stand on their feet and pinch them. Hopefully
they being a girl but Im sure Jon would like a scrap
anyway.
On the other defensive pocket we would have Ian Wadley, just keeping him
out of the action as he's a bit unco-orfdnated. Tall though, so he could
mind the other resting ruckman. Running half back flank would be Michael
Stranges from Salmon. Soccer skills coming in handy. Centre half back
wed have Chris Hollow, former St Kilda and Port Melbourne player.
And bass player for the Sand Pebbles. Hopefully the ball wouldnt
get past him at all so the back line could just lay around and do drawings
and stuff most of the day. On the other flank wed have Ben Cousins
just for a stir.
Centre wing, Si the Philanthropist from the Wagons. For rolling joints
and his height of course. Centre, Plutonic, a man of few words but a steely
gaze. He could talk some beats with Si and bamboozle the opposition. They
dont know what beats are. Centre wing, Zoe from LuLuc. Shes
very Nordic which always catches the umpires eyes so she ll get
free kicks all day. Also very intelligent and will add to the teams inner
culture by educating them at the changes. In the ruck we have Henry Wagons.
Not really that tall but solid and again, good with the talk. Hell
either annoy his opponent off his game or into punching him, or both.
Either way, good for the team. Ruck Rover, Matt Walker. He cant kick or
mark but is a great guy and just loves to run. Well give him a go.
Rover, Jeff Lang, he has the worst temper in all of music. Its like having
the Tasmanian Devil on the ball. Ashley Davies would like to play and
is just as ferocious but hes an Eagles fan and would be distracted
by the proximity of Ben Cousins. He cant let go. I think well
draft him to the other team. Hell just stare at Ben.
Half forward, Dom from the Wayfaring Strangers. Such a great mover. Quick
and unpredictable. Centre Half Forward, Tony Martin the genius comic writer,
performer and director. Hes got the height and the glasses so hell
see the ball before anybody else. Also has never played before so hell
be thinking unlike anyone ever in the history of the game and will be
very inventive and creative. That looks great on paper, at least . On
the other flank we have Jane Dust. She has just started being interested
in the game two weeks ago so again, we will be leagues in front of the
other team who will be hopelessly stuck in the old paradigms. the fools!
We would also have Zayd Thring from Pets with Pets, standing in the middle
of the field with the sleeves of his already torn guernsey over his fisted
hands, occasionally wiping his nose.
At Full foward we have Guy Blackman. he has the height and again, the
glasses and is blonde. So, as I have said, he will be able to see the
ball first and will get free kicks constantly (the umpires being traditionally
dazzled by blonde hair- see Jason Akermanis) . He is also west Australian
and will bring some of those mysterious sandgroping skills with him. they
learn shit in the cradle out there. Winners!
On the foward pocket we have Oliver Mann, who has a very loud and clear
voice which is imperative on the field , and his brother Grand Salvo on
the other pocket. He sings very softly. You need balance in all areas
of life I find.
On the interchange bench we have Beaches. They count as one player , they
are such a unit. I will leave instructions for them to be part of a midfield
rotation which will leave our opponents in the dust. Also, Rowland S Howard
and his brother Harry will be there, should we need some height , cigarette
smoke and imperious stare if Tony martin falls over. Team management is
a science. Our secret weapon will be Mark Barrage Barrage
who has a very big pair of glasses and also works for ASIO so he will
be able to bring along some taser guns and capsicum sprays and neat shit
like that. He will be a shady presence on the field. Is he a player or
a runner or a trainer? Those other idiots will be consulting the rule
books as we slot goal after goal after goal.
Daina Fanning , once of the Emergency, should be in a band and had a brother
who was ruck for Collingwood so she must have learned something at Xmas
time. She is interchange as well.
Just by the interchange bench we would have Lewis Boyes from St Helens
in full kit ready to run onto the field. he will not be in the team though.
he will not be told this. We need to see his tall athletic frame ready
to launch onto the filed at any moment. He will be chewing up the dugout,
ready to play. He is there to give the opposition the heebs and also to
give those in the crowd something to moan about. They can talk to each
other about how the game would have taken a different course if only Lewis
had been thrown on earlier. People need dreams. Especially impossible,
thwarted , stillborn ones.
There is no opposition who could stand up to this team.
The one I imagine to be there would be a couple of managers who had dreams
of one day going to South by South West with their mobiles on hold at
the switchboard of a commercial radio station , waiting to ask someone
what they should do, the players dutifully hanging on for the next word.
Of course they could also be a mob of those hard drinking , tattooed ,dangerous
types . They would all be gathered around our mates from the debt collecting
biker gang like a BUNCH OF GIRLS!
I now leave town, knowing I have done my bit for charity, football and
rock music of the futu re.
Rock 'n' roll movies - 2008
If youve ever seen the movie the girl cant help it
you would know how great and kooky rocknroll can look on screen.
Director Frank Tashlin came from Bugs Bunny cartoons to movies and brought
all that slapstick, broad comedy with him. The opening scenes see the
impossibly pneumatic Jayne Mansfield walk down the street , creating mayhem
wherever she goes. A man delivering ice leaves hiss gloved hands on a
large block as he ogles her and we see the ice melt comically as she glides
by. A milkman has all the bottle tops in the crate he is holding pop at
the sight of her.
There is a slim story to the movie but it basically allows us to the some
of the great rock n roll acts of that era perform in studio lit situations,
filmed in fully saturated wide screen Technicolor. Gene Vincent and the
Blue Caps, Little Richard and the Upsetters,the Platters, Eddie Cochrane
and teh genre trancending Julie London. Its one of the rare instances
when Hollywood and popular music gelled and got it all right. It had the
poise and the energy and the smarts and the dumbness. The flash. They
complimented each other. There havent been many other such felicitous
meetings. For the most part, in the era of rock n roll modernity, Hollywood
was hopelessly behind the times. Well, music was actually moving along
at quite a pace and a giant mob audience was going with the flow as well.
Since the waves broke on the shore and the island dwellers have gathered
on the beach , looking wistfully back to the day there have
been a few great movies like dazed and confused where they
got the tone right, but hindsight can always be perfect. Ever since that
its been the art directors field and it gets awful boring to see things
done so correctly. At least in dazed and confused they got
the haicuts of 1976 right. That is to say, no young males actually had
haircuts. it was all grown out in whatever awkward way the hair went .
Kind of short and kind of long and all kinky and daft. The soundtrack
to dazed and confused was perfect too. Am radio Hits and album
tracks of the time. Impossibly right stuff like Foghat and Gary Wrights
dreamweaver. A film that right about that era will never be
made again. From now on, whoever has an idea to visit that p[lanet will
be studying That 70s show it it will be all Ashtom Kutchered.
My other favourite music films would be Hustle and Flow from
2005 , Ray , Spinal Tap Wattstax and
the hilarious walk hard - the Dewey Cox story which is really
a spoof on music bio pictures.
beatle free zone
First off, I must state that there is altogether too much remembering
about music. . Whats used to be a swift creek has been slowed down by
all sorts of sentimental sludge. Rock'n'roll is like a young accident
victim who has been shoved into an old folks / geriatric home because
that's the only place that is equipped to keep the kid doped up and quiet.
The old inmates aren't particularly happy either. The music is piped in
around the clock and at an appropriate volume and everybody is said to
be content. Only you really have to be on heavy sedation so as not to
go mad.
Have you ever tried to spend a day without coming across either the music
of, or talk of that British phenomenon of forty years ago, the Beatles?
Its impossible. I'll quote Mark E. Smith here, (terrible I know to mention
somebody who has never troubled commercial radio in Australia
.the
inmates might get confused! Or at the very least, disturbed!) "four
wacky proletariat idiots, enroute to candy mountain.". He wasn't
talking about the Lads of course, just a bunch of other sad pricks who
followed the same trail years later. Anyway, while you're sitting around
in the sun room, after tea and pills, try it. Have a Beatle free moment
or two. Good luck!
Inspirational show. Rock music lives!
It was a cold Sunday night and we dragged ourselves out of our compound
to go to our local rock club to see an act we'd been promising ourselves
we wouldn't miss. I locked the front door and left the cat in charge of
defences and then instituted the codes for the electric fence and then
the door to the Keep opened and the drawbridge came down and the fake
bushes flew up and our motorbikes blazed out of what , to outsiders, seemed
to be the side of the local football club.
Yes.
The club is in Belgrave which is 40 kilometres outside of the city of
melbourne. This makes it one of the very few venues outside of the city
entertainment prcincts. Its one of the best experiences to see an act
here. They think they're in the country and in some ways , they are playing
to a different audience than is found in the city. For one thing, people
get ferociously wasted out here on the perimeter. They is stoned. Not
immaculate though. Just shitfaced.Blootered.
Not tonight though. Its a small and young crowd who are here for a musical
experience.
The first band on are Batrider. I see them sitiing a couple of feet away
from me. They look small and indie. They then amble to the stage and put
on their instruments. I saw them briefly a couple of years ago. They are
from NZ . I also see their name at a rehearsal room we use. They are always
there and I am impressed by that. The singer is a tall girl with a Louise
Brooks bob haircut that shades here eyes in a brutally severe fringe.
Her hair is clean and shiny and jet black. She wears a light, loose dress
and black tights She plays a pink Stratocaster with gold hardware (the
bridge anyway) through an enormous fender Bassman amp. The other guitarist
is in a severe charcoal long sleeved top, skirt and trousers and has her
brown hair swept back from her face. She plays what looks like a Danelectro
Yin Yang guitar through a smaller combo. A girl sits behind the kit and
the bass player looks like a young Dean Stockwell. i.e. not at all masculine
. They all look very clean and intelligent. Their skin is very white.
They start to pay and are immediately superb. Every song starts out in
an off kilter way and then a beat kicks in from a totally unexpected direction.
The guitars lock in with all kinds of dissonant notes. The sounds are
very powerful and clean though. The singer also knows when to sit out
and just play. The two guitars have such a great dynamic. They know what
they're doing and everything is emphatic. The girls vioce is amazingly
strong . Her presence is huge. No one really sweats or grinds it out but
it has such power . The first words I catch are " she can't have
you if I can't have you" Elsewhere I hear "I hope you falter"
and " Is this where I should be? Where have I ever been?" I
am totally impressed. Batrider. They can hold your attention . Hell they
demand your attention and theres is so much ahppening you are spellbound.
The next act is the one we have come to see. Snowman are from Perth. Joe
the guitarist played a set opening for us in Fremantle a few months ago.
He is stage left . Well over 6 feet tall with a Fender tele and a Fender
twin amp. No effects just the Reverb and that totally clean and reverberant
Fender sound. Joe curls his long body around in and S shape. Like the
son from that cartoon "the Triplets of belleville". Then there
is a drummer who looks a bit like Joe. then there is the other singer
who looks and acts like Jackie Chan. Half the height of Joe, he plays
a Gold top Gibson les Paul and, occasonally a violin. He is a total crackerjack
and spends the whole performance dealing with an electric charge running
though his body. Then there is a blond girl on bass. She is totally Nordic
in demeanour and stance. i mean she is ice cool.
They begin with a spooky reverbed out ballad and the sound is all around
you straight away. The vocals nag at the edge of your ear and the whole
assault is pretty sudden. they deal in orchestrated crescendoes that happen
before you know it. It is so complex and involved but the twin attack
of the two singers and guitarists and the absolute unity of the attack
of the band pulls it all together. In a way, they never stop , like a
normal band. It is like a long horror movie soundtrack. They love falsetto
voices and stuttering guitar lines. They end the set with the smaller
singer playing bongoes and Joe playing shakers and the bass player playinga
cowbell and the drummer setting up a Surf instrumental rhythm while they
make jungle and bird noises. Then the guitars appear as the percussion
is tossed aside and we are into a total garage/ Cramps groove. Somehow,
the bass player is now playing a sax for 8 bars too. it all happens naturally
and quickly. Unbelievably good.
I thought rock music was a dumping ground . A waste land of alt country
/ alt rock / ac/dc soundalikes and indie children who do everything half
way. This gig was a total inspiration. Both acts could not help but be
huge within a year.
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Mark Fitzgibbon and Dave Graney
30 Sep 2007
POINT BLANK- first week
We started the shows on Thusday night. Being a prt of the Fringe festival
its a bit of a scrap to get any awareness out there of the event happening.
The first night is me gesticulating and frothing at the mouth ( well thats
the way it must have seemed) and grabbing my crotch and talking to a small
statuette of myself to a handul of ladies who of course, are the kind
of daring and up for it people who keep theatre going. Clare heard one
saying 'well that was differrent!" on the way out. Thats a high compliment.
Friday got better and Saturday (even though it was Grand Final night)
was a full house. Two people got up and walked out and I took that as
a sign that I still had it as well. (the delusions of performers have
neither beginnings or end) .
We set up again tonight and then again from next Thursday to Sunday. The
show is really humming and has gotten bigger and sharper. This will be
the last time we do it in Melbourne. We are looking for a venue in Sydney
and maybe Newcastle as well for December.
Following is a story that appeared in the Age on Friday.....................
Officer of musical truth
The Melbourne Fringe festival kicked off on Wednesday and this year's
program hits a number of musical high notes. Dave Graney's acclaimed Point
Blank show, playing at the Butterfly Club, features Clare Moore on vibraphones
and bongos and Mark Fitzgibbon on piano.
The performance is part-music, part spoken word - Graney strips back autobiographical
songs such as No Pockets in a Jumpsuit, I Held the Cool Breeze and Lt
Colonel,Cavalry to their essence, singing them unamplified and filling
in the gaps with tales of his upbringing in Mount Gambier and his reign
as the King of Pop before going it alone as an independent artist.
He explains that Lt Colonel,Cavalry was inspired by an article written
by British rock journalist Nik Cohn that described lounge singers across
the US as the infantry holding up the sagging front lines of the entertainment
war. Graney continues the theme on I'm a Commander by urging musicians
to die for his song.
"Music and entertainment is a war," he tells Sticky. "At
a certain level, road crews are like pirate gangs, coming into port, attacking
and securing a situation and holding it to their advantage, press ganging
local layabouts into their crew for a day and then leaving the scene by
darkness as if they'd never been there. There are songwriters and musicians,
camp followers, infantry and the officer class."
He also likens fleeting pop stars to soldiers - "they are told to
go over the top and fight for a certain bit of land and, unbeknownst to
them, to DIE", while the officer class are behind the scenes, summoning
up the pieces of land and devising the battle plans.
"Officers for me are Hank Williams and Jim Morrison. I check with
them," says Graney. "All the people who play with me are officers.
Everybody else, we pretty much consider infantry, especially the ones
on the covers of magazines and on the radio. Michael Jackson was an officer
who had a great officer in Quincy Jones on his staff. Prince is a five-star
general."
Graney says the local twist to this paradigm is that Australians have
always been told that they are roughnecks and larrikins who do not take
kindly to officers. "It takes real officers to command and prevail
in this particular theatre of action. It's a civil war here, I guess."
Intrigued?
Dave Graney and Clare Moore sitting in with the Sand Pebbles 2006. Esplanade.

The Lurid Yellow Mist
INDIE ROCK -HOW TO......
Its an indie indie, indie ,indie, indie world. Well from my couch it
seems to be . Everythings gone indie. The banks tv adverts are all indie.
Croaky faux americana folk music and young people bending and folding
computers. McDonalds runs an indie line, to compliment its historically
untrue heritage line where old people remember the days when they met
and ate apple pies under the Golden Arches. The time is ripe for an indie
Hitler I think. people go for anything as long as it seems right.
The aesthetic indie was invented by the Manson family in Death
Valley in 1967 or 68. It was a slow, organic process. Strange that such
a do it yourself kind of aesthetic was born right next to the Hollywood
dream factory which was still, but only just, under the control of the
studio bosses. Manson and Hopper kicked the doors down and made the world
safe for George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and the Hollywood blockbusting
teen pics we have a choice of today.
Dialectical I presume. they were butting up against their opposites. All
the slick hustling of Hollywood led to the Manson Family getting their
own precious thing together. They always said they got messages from the
Beatles who had gone all indie themselves and locked themselves away from
the filthy general public and issued records at a steady rate from their
studios in London. Must have seemed very exotic and other worldly to the
family as they sped around the sand dunes on their buggies, practicing
manoeuvres for the coming race war. They must have also looked to the
Monkees who were a nearby, dream factory merging of the Beatles and Hollywood.
The times were so kinetic, The Monkee model actors had ideas of their
own and connections to the real world of murky underground ambitions .
This gave the show a bit of a low spark. A weak charge .Charlie even auditioned
to be a member of the Monkees. Still, their band in a house as a show
style had a kooky correlation to the Family down on the ranch. The Monkees
also had a lot in common with the plays of Eugene Ionesco. People were
in a room, permanently, there was no time, and occasionally other people
walked in. The rules were set and they had to remember them over and over
and act accordingly. Very indie.
The basic thing about indie is to be piss weak. I dont mean this
in a judgemental way. I mean in a qualitative, forceful way. I mean conviction.
Its a desultory boot of a tin can along the ground with your hands in
your pockets, thinking of what you didnt have for breakfast. This
is as opposed to putting on some boots, warming up with a few laps and
giving a football a decent roost towards the goals. To be lacking in energy,
or any sense of power, is very indie. Bloodless, no show of emotion. To
never approach anything from a head on direction. Shrugging everything
off. Its a bit like the ideal state of women in upper class Victorian
England. They had to be sickly and weak. It can be scary, in a creepy
kind of way. Rarely is though. Strangely contrasting with this detachment
is the insistence on trusting intuition and the truth of first reactions.
Almost Bruce Lee like in attitude. Dont think! Feel!
Rehearsing is bad as it leads to phoniness. Oh, and play only to your
friends. Outsiders are to be mistrusted. Waco! The best part of the indie
state of mind and body is the constant spinning of the wheels. Going over
and over the same constructions and arrangements. Such a thin pool of
ideas allows anybody to come in and get on the bike straight away. Such
a passing parade occasionally lets new , weird blood in and then mistakes
are made. These mistakes are the great leaps forward of indie-dom. Well,
piss weak leaps up in the air with an accompanying, thin and weak woo
Hoo! . After that brief break for freedom its all back down, ankle
deep in the puddle again. To make an indie song or sound , make sure the
drummer does not play the snare or the cymbals. Hi Hats are okay. In stiff
double time . Indeed, the drummer should be so stiff as to be in constant
danger of rocking right off the stool, such is the perpetual , petrified
motion that is engaged. The bass player should have a large amp, an odd
looking and weak sounding guitar and an antique white, curled guitar lead.
They must always play the 3rd note in the chord, this gives a sad, piss
weak melodic quality to the playing and keeps it away from the drums.
The guitar is thin and trebley and one foot is pointed in a funny way
to show the inner anguish inside an otherwise static performer.
Lyrics are so personal as to be unknowable by anyone but very close family.
They are delivered mostly off mic and very uncompressed. Real!
I gues the indie field suffers because it has lost its otherness. The
big blocking out the sun style mainstream has been obliterated by technology
and the indie led rush to the margins.
Indie is adrift. On its own. Its own piss weak turf. There is nothing
in the middle. Just a thousand mainstreams. And they are all flying apart
too.
Personally I like some indie things. Ginger beer , liquorice, and....er
well , the fact that you never hear AC/DC or bluezak at any of the shows.
It is a scene with quite a vast and wild inner life. It actually contains
some roots, strangely enough. Trace elements of real heroic stuff. Yes,
I much prefer that to the parts of the cene that profess roots but use
that as an excuse to wail so emotionally off the dial that they float
off the earth itself. Too unreal for me, all that pain. Jeff Buckley,
goddam your fruity pipes!
MY GEAR - 2007
MY gear by Dave Graney..........
I play an Ibanez Talman TM71 semi hollow body electric guitar. I bought
it from EBay for $300 and picked it up from a guy in Essendon. I wanted
a hollow body because I want a clean jazzbox kind of sound. Stuart Perera,
who plays guitar in my band, the Lurid yellow Mist, plays a left handed
solid body Rickenbacker and he does all the blazing sustained notes. i
wanted clean notes that didnt sustain.
I also wanted a guitar that looked like something from the inner gatefold
sleeve of the first Roxy Music album cover.There is a picture across the
entire inner sleeve of the whole band posing with guitars. Bryan Ferry
and Eno and Phil Manzanera and the sax player Andy Mackay and even the
drummer Paul Thompson are all holding these incredibly glamourous guitars.
they must be Hagstroms or something. They are all brightly coloured and
textured. Mother of pearl inlays and the sorts of tricked up and boldly
flecked colours you only ever saw on total hotrods.
So I bid for this guitar and no one else did and I picked it up. Also,
I am a musician so I dont have a lot of money and if I did I wouldnt
spend it on a guitar.
I looked up the particular model on the magic box and saw that it was
only available for a few years in the late 90s and was discontinued. That
made it even better . It is an odd shape, like a Fender Jazzmaster crossed
with a Gibson 335, so its hard to get a case for it.
I got my amp the same way. I wanted a solid state amp as I aint
no electrician and valves would outfox me. I wanted a loud and clean sound.
Ideally it would be a Polytone Teenybrute as all my favourite sounds are
by jazz and black r&b players but I couldnt find one. I found
this model of a Roland called a GC408. On Ebay for $300. Its about 80
watts and has 4 8 speakers. It is perfect for me and I love to play
through it. It was also a strange hybrid model that was available in the
90s and then discontinued.
You can also get a separate cabinet for it but they are proving hard to
find.
I listen to a lot of r&b and jazz and country music and the guitar
sounds are all trebly and clean and sit in a place in the sound of the
recordings that I find to be the sweetest. I dont like music where the
guitar is right at the centre and everything else has to fight to be heard.
I like the sound to be fitting around the drums and the vocals.
I dont use any pedals playing live. I find singing and playing to
be enough to work out on and the singing is the most important. (Though
playing guiar helps me sing better in some ways). I played music for years
as a stand up lead singer and only started fooling with a guitar in the
late 90s. When my amp and guitar were calling out to me I guess.
I still like to take the pendant off and bust a move as nobody else can
do that like me.
I also have a Canora Flying V vcopy that I got at a hock shop. I wanted
a Flying V as that was the only guitar that Miles Davis ever thought was
cool.
I played it a few times. Its loud so it comes out for SALMON gigs. (SALMON
is a six guitar, two drummer hard rock art instrumental outfit I play
in led by Kim Salmon).
Oh, and theres my KYair 12 string acoustic which i have played a lot over
teh last few years in semii acoustic shows. I love teh sound of a 12 string.
It took me a while to get a handle on it. With my picking and dampening
and fingering. I also needed a Sonic Maximize/Big Bottom to get the right
tone for me. I dont use any funny tunings. I just play it. And I carry
it around in an alligator skin guitar case.
Our new album has my guitar all over it though I mixed the record and
I put the guitar where a person who is used to hard rock probably couldnt
hear it. Its a total upbeat r&b album called we wuz curious.
Its the 21st album weve made. Scoreboard.
My favourite guitarists are Kim Salmon, Danny Rumour, Mike Rudd (from
Spectrum/Ariel), Hubert Sumlin, Hound Dog taylor, Ike Turner, George Benson,
Matt Walker, Grant Green, John Schofield, James Williamson, Rowland S
Howard, Greg Walker ( fro Machine Translations) and many other like Curtis
Mayfield and Ernest Ranglin.
My favourite guitar bands are Queens of the Stone Age, the Birthday Party,
the Blue Oyster Cult, the Byrds, the Allman Brothers, the Grateful Dead
and the Quicksilver Messenger Service.
Young Modern, How insensitive (Croxton records)
Young Modern is the name of a band that played every Friday and Saturday
night in Adelaide during the years 1978 and 1979 and then left town for
Sydney where they were lured by promises of bigger and prettier smelling
action. They rejected the pub rock world as harshly as it rejected them
and left one album , which was re released last year, the ironically titled
play faster. Their music was light and jangly and pop. Harmonies
and tambourines and light trebley guitars. No distortion. There were a
few people around the world trying for the same feel but this was a case,
like the Saints in Brisbane in 1973, where an Australian band got somethiing
rolling all by themselves. They were innovative and totally in on the
zeitgeist. It didnt play in the beer barns or in the tiny, corporate
offices through which strutted dudes who knew best what the people wanted.
And they didnt want this weird shit!
Well its 2007 and there are even more dudes who know what people want
in the music business and Young Modern are back with their second album.
30 years between drinks and the same line up is back with a fresh load
of pop tunes. Lead singer John Dowler got to places before many other
people. Years later there have been a couple of generations of bands who
are hip to the Byrds and Love and Big Star but Young Modern had taken
off from those launchpads and made their own flight plans way back in
1978! Its a record by a band who made that original sound up. Original
gangsters! Made guys from Adelaide!
The new album is great. Its called How insensitive , which
is such a Young Modern title, sparking off of an easy listening catchphrase
and also saying the truth all at once. How insensitive for them to come
back again! And to be so good! the album starts with Do you Care!
and never lets up. A beautiful light sounds that thousands have tried
for but these guys tune into and let fly so easily. They dont have
to sell their soul, Its already in them!
what I'm hearing - 2006
Bought a lot of vinyl classical lps over the years. I live in an area
which has been mainly settled by European immigrants over that last 40
years. The second hand shops are full of classical vinyl. I started buying
them for the great covers. Russian mainly. I have decided to play it over
the last week. I feel elevated. Prokoviev, Shostakovitch , Stravinsky
and the Hungarians Bartok and Kadoly. ( I think I must've spelled all
those wrong.) Stravinsky impresses but thats partly the cover and mainly
that I saw his name dropped so many times by Charlie Parker and Miles
Davis. I was impressed that they were impressed. So I was ready to be
impressed. I was pre emptively impressed. Anyway, its high falutin and
thats what I wanted. I am up to page 410 of a book called "conspirators".
About the Vienna of the pre first world war. Radical Jewish prophets,
the crumbling Habsburg dynasty and the coming war. I really wanted to
dive into it but the writing has failed to pull me in. I am skimming over
the surface. I looked up a review and it said the same and that "nothing
happens for the first 350 pages". !!!!!! I will persevere as someone
has put a lot into it. It has moments that stop me.
On a brighter note I watched a dvd of a 1977 Australian film called "the
picture show man". Amazing performance by the great John Mellion.
I must get all of his films out.His pauses rival Christopher Walkens for
their strangeness and weird effect. Such an Australian face and such a
high BBC accent.
Red velvet suit- 2006
back in 85 I asked my mother to make me a suit and gave her a picture
of Marvin Gaye in the mid sixties and a couple of metres of red velvet.
She knocked up this box jacket with little lord fauntleroy big gold buttons
and stovepipe trousers. I wore it all over Europe. I wrote a song called
" a million dollars in red velvet suit". Back in Australia I
left it in the wardobe and then , after a while, found I couldn't make
it into it very comfortably. In 1997, I was in a moment of heat in the
business and was surprised to be asked for some item of clothing by the
Performing arts museum. I thought it was a naff idea but was in the mode
of saying yes to everything. ( I was so surprised to be in tha moment
of heat I thought I should just go along and see how far the ride went).
I gave them the red velvet suit. Over the last decade I started a lot
of physical training and dropped my weight to the same as it was when
I was a kid leaving home. I thought about all the clothes I'd thrown out
and that red suit really bugged me. I called up the museum and they ,
reluctantly, said I could come in and talk about it. I thought I would
walk out with my baddest threads. A young woman met me at the door and
took me down to the vaults. There were all these cases of Kylie Minogue
gear from her recent exhibition and these enormous Dame Edna Everage costumes.
She pulled back this large metal wall of clothes and ushered me in. I
asked if I should just first try on the trousers. I was most disappointed
to find that I could not get them on any better than before. All that
goddam exercise had given me some muscles in my legs.! I sadly put them
back on the rack and put the covering linen smock over the suit. I put
it back on the rack where it sits now, until whenever the hell it will
be wheeled out. It stays there in the temperature controlled room, next
to a leather jacket from Bon Scott and beneath a row of stage outfits
from Split Enz.
a political circuit breaker--Hawaiian styled!
I read the morning paper and flicked through the tedious posturing and
vogueing gestures of the two political groupings in record time and then
sat down to watch Hawaii Five -Oh. (A Saturday morning pleasure). I then
had an idea for the future of our country. Hawaii was being threatened
by a Tsumani (very current) and Steve McGarret was being flown about in
the Five -Oh chopper (looking worried and concerned, scanning the sea
for the oncoming wave and consulting the seismographic readings through
his binoculars for good measure) and I was amazed how great his hair looked
and how it never moved. We got many great shots of Hawaii from the air
as it was deserted for the safety of the hills by its obedient and fearful
inhabitants. We wanted to live there, as long as they kept those stupid
people out.
Anyway, I thought to myself. That invisible mullett (shaved head) is not
working for the shadow environment minister and latent rock singer Peter
Garrett any more. What he needs to do is to got to Memphis and visit the
Carl Perkins Hair Unit Emporium and get himself a decent rug with a dramatic
, breaking wave of a quiff. And then he could change his name to Peter
McGarrett (or better still, just McGarrett) and barnstorm the country
in a helicopter, punching out sqaures and chasing bums out of town all
the way . He needs a flunky like Danno and a couple of hapless ethnic
types like Chin Ho and Kono to throw his heroic shape into relief. To
reaffirm his natural leadership qualities for us all. Get Radio Birdman
to write a theme tune for the campaign and ....Bingo! El Presidente de
l'Australie! Fuck off Yankee soldiers and planes! I meant it first time
around! Liberal / National party creeps, get thee to a barbecue and talk
shit for decades! Relax everybody! Sit back and watch a fellow kick some
ass ! Step aside and let a bloke do the popcorn!
Just an idea.
Canberra and Brisbane- hard bop school in town!-2009
It is a little unnerving flying away from home base with the state around
us in flames but we had some gigs booked and we are pros.
So we flew to the nations capital and did a set in a tent in the middle
of Civic on a Wednesday night. We played tonight with Robin Casinader
on keys who played with us for 10 years in the Coral Snakes. No rehearsal.
He lives in Canberra now and just turned up. He knew the Coral Snakes
era tunes we were playing and also joined in on everything else. He also,
is a pro!
It was great to have his quiet and assured and confident presence around
and hopefully we'll hook up again.
The set was blisteringly good. I am having a significant birthday today
and am feeling that I should say what I really think from now on. I hope
this feeling lasts as I sometimes get the vibe I have been too easy with
people. Especially in the music scene. Its full of fucking idiots and
you have to tread lightly as they move three years behind you (me) most
of the time. Generally, you are only understood if you have private school
tantrums every five minutes and keep peoples attention in a childlike
, shitting your nappy way. I have always been a bit hard boiled and away
from the mainstream concerns and have drifted into most scenes with a
congenial tone in effect. I generally enjoy playing music too. I have
read that Apollinaire had this congenial vibe. You dont have to be mewling
and puking at all times really do ya?
Anyway. Lux Interior and Ivy shunned the straight rock world and so do
we. Its strictly for dopes. Straight dopes.
Where was I? Oh , we were great. It was Canberra and part of a Fringe
festival and their expectations (of rock music as it could be in 2009)
were low and there were a lot of burlesque/circus type "vibe perfoermers"
wandering annoyingly about the room. We cut through that jive and delivered
some rock music that I would compare to Hard Bop ( if we were talking
in a jazz vernacular). (Hard bop followeed on from BeBop. Being a pefrect
and thrillingly poised pitch of the form) It was just precision formation
chords and shapes, done to a tee and spun on a dime. Playing "bring
me myliar" is always a highlight for me. Having Robin on board was
great.
We then travelled to Brisbane where I write this. We are here for a SALMON
show.
Those poor simple minded square headed Brisney landified dim fools!
I was in Canberra
and then Brisbane and then Adelaide. Then Mt Gambier. Whilst in the
latter town I heard of a fire near my homebase so I drove all night to
get there and save a few things. Five hours later I was in my driveway
and the fire had been contained. 100 hectares burned . Too close for me!
The SALMON gig at the Troubador went very well. Prior to the gig Clare
and I had a few days r and r at an old friends pad deep in the Canasta
Belt of the Brisney suburbs. It rained for the whole time we were there
so we had to eat and watch tv. Tough.
SALMON for this gig was like the old crew getting back together. Penny
Ikinger, Mike Stranges, Anton Ruddick, Matt Walker, Kim Salmon and us
two. And also Stu Thomas for his debut hitout.
All te other gigs we'd done Kim had used a sampler for his vocals, with
"C'mon" and "alright" and "whooh!" all being
there at the touch of a key and him miming/ mouthing the yelps and words
and cries. For this trip we left the sampler at home and we all had to
"sing". This made the gig a bit special and a bit of a trip.
there is nothing else like SALMON. Its a one off. Every member has their
own scene but joins in the collective of SALMON totally. We love it. Each
gig takes at least three rehearsals. Its complex. there is no jamming.
Every note is created and directed by KIM. We all follow orders and we
all wear his black t shirts with the evil fish with horns symbol on it.
Also, when you walk on stage with SALMON, you are ON! There is no mooching
about, its all drilled and the execution has to be ON. Some songs are
only a minute long. Parts of songs are played as segues and beginnings
for others. Its all got to FLOW.
This night at the Troubador it did just that. A great night out. For us
and THEM!
After a quick trip back to Melbourne Clare and I met up in Mt Gambier
where I was visiting family and drove to Adelaide. We played two nights
at a tent in the park called Cascadeur. The tent is called that. the park
is called somethin' else. It sounds embarassing playing in a tent but
people are suckers for this shit! There are four tents in the park. Spiegeltents
under other names. Like I said, people love this jive so we have to go
and play where people like to go. We were surrounded by pork pie hat wearing
Circus trained darlings at every turn so we were determined to put on
a ROCK show. Which we did. We killed it. I was in black leather from tip
to toe and we tore it up. Twice.
I love being in Adelaide. the post colonial vibe is great. The size of
the city is perfect for Festivals, which is nice as they have one there
every week!
Clare then went on to Sydney where she is doing a show as part of the
rhythm section ( with Adele Pickvance on bass) for a New York Cabaret
artiste called Jusitin Bond. Its a Carpenters Show. They are on for a
couple of nights at the Opera House and also at te Powerhouse in Brisbane.
I went back to Mt Gambier and then had to dash back to Melbourne as there
were reports of a major fire near our place. There was.
I am continuing to work on the album, "Knock yourself out".
Its almost done. The next gig we are doing will be at the Corner Hotel
on the 8th March with Magic Dirt and You Am I. After that we get to our
next narrative show at the Butterfly Club. Its the sequel to POINT Blank
and is called "LIVE IN HELL!"
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Cocos in the tent by the lagoon

Clare e-kit

Stu Perera and Stu D
11 Sep 2007
recording session
We had been rehearsing new material for the last few months in the Yarraville
Mouth Organ Band Hall (which is an experience in itself) and had also
been playing a few tracks live. We went into Sing Sing South studios last
Saturday (sept 7th) to lay down the song with Adam Rhodes. Adam has worked
with us on many discs such as "the first Dave Graney Show cd, Kiss
tomorrow goodbye, Bad Eggs , the Brother Who Lived and Heroic Blues. He
is a great "can do" guy and a good friend. He also has all the
old school recording skills to do with mic placement etc as well as the
new world digital know how.
We had last been in a big studio to do a session about nine years ago,
to do the first Dave Graney Show cd which came out , kind of, on Festival
records. (Since then, we have been at our own place, the Poderosa or recording
, setting up a computer in different spaces we liked) This studio had
been very spruced up and vogueuish then. In a late 90s techno style. The
place had been the stomping ground of a svengali type producer who had
a teen rock act coming out just then called Killing Heidi. The place still
had his touches on it with one wall of the control room being covered
in faux bunny rabbit tail furry things. Something you'd giggle at if you
were stoned I guess. Otherwise it was still a great room to record in.
Before him it had been a top shelf working studio called Platinum and
had a history going back to the 50s.
We had also done the Devil Drives album, which was recorded in 1996, in
here and a session with the Dirty three to murder a Burt Bacharach tune
around the same time.
This time was a bit different. Different world outside. Music was under
different pressures to exist at all. The only people who give a fuck are
us.
We set up the drums and the keyboards in the big room and put the guitar
amps in smaller rooms where they could be closed off. the bass guitar
went straight into a preamp ( no amplifier box) and I stood iin the control
room with Adam and played my semi acoustic guitar and sang a guide vocal.
( So everybody can follow the arrangements)
We started running through the songs at about 1 pm and had seven in the
can by six pm. Three were pretty modal slow burning funk grooves and three
were pretty tightly arranged pop songs. We broke for a meal and Mark ,
our keyboard player, wrote out the charts for a piece of his music. (Everybody
else had written the music for a song which I then put some lyrics to)
. This took a bit of rehearsing but it turned out great, like a classic
Roxy Music song and I started to do the vocals. By ten pm we had all the
backing vocals and lead vocals done and we were packing up.
Recording sessions have never been more productive or sweeter. I don't
know why they've been so daunting in the past. The music we're playing
is pushing the boundaries in all the areas a lot more. The arrangements
and playing and keys and tempos are all different. (As well as more varied)
Must be that we're all on the same page somehow. All that rehearsing and
nutting out arrangements in the GIMP Hall.
We recorded "lets kill god again", "I'm in the future now",
"I like to be haunted", "I was a country boy", "
I come from the clouds", "bring me my liar" , you had to
be drunk" and " whores of the orient".
We have a few more songs to record, such as "crime and underwear".
We plan to put a single out ( via itunes) in November and release an album
in 2008.
Gertrudes show Friday nite
Friday night saw us arriving at Gertrudes in Fitzroy to open for Batrider.
A small joint, Batrider arrived with their gear and left to go and do
something else, saying anybody was free to use their stuff and they would
see us later. They are a very relaxed and cool unit.
We soundchecked with their drums and bass amp. The pa was strictly for
vocals and we were set up on the floor.
It was myself, Stuart Perera, Stu Thomas and Clare Moore. Drums, bass
two guitars.
We left and had some fine Indian food and then arrived back at the venue.
Pets with pets were doing the opening set. A young fellow with a hoody
on drums facing sideways on the right and another young fellow on Casio
and guitar facing sideways on the left . They were fast and willing. Zayd
( the guitarist) stood over the Casio , wearing a black duffle coat with
black jeans and sneakers , manipulating some pedals and playing these
mean and low arpeggios in minor modes with his black fringe hanging down
like Jerry Lee Lewis. His voice was untrained ( in a military/gun barrel
sense) and uncompressed and sprayed out like a cat. He also picked up
his white Strat and played hard and true chords wih great precision. I
was conscious we were playing to a group of people who would never come
to see us but may have heard of my name and may associate me with somethin'
vaguely stoopid so I was looking forward to doing a highly compressed
set . (So this is how I presented what I thought was our best sounds and
moves to this crowd of aliens)
We came on and played Feelin Kinda Sporty with two guitars blazing , then
we did lets kill god again which is a groove and Stu thinks is like a
Prince song , I put down the guitar for my schtick weighs a ton which
has some tongues and drama in the setup and delivery. A man on the make
is a groove with a syncopated lyric and story, Stu sings his classic what
if she comes? Biker in business class has its Coltrane like beakdown and
rock groove, Clare sets up and goals with alphonus will get you, we switch
to Miles Davis modal style with bring me my liar , go into a classic groove
with I'm gonna release your soul. We then present I'm in the future now
which is a new song with music by Stu D and lyrics by me an finish with
youre just too hip,baby where I tell the people I'm going to show them
some old school dance moves. For historical interest.
It was great fun playing to a new crowd and people really got into it.
They took it for what it was. It worked on a simple level of flash and
fire. Coming out of the clouds!
Batrider then come on and do a blisteringly great set. I have never seen
them do a bad show and they can set up anywhere and wail. They are great
and they will be doing one more show in melbourne before leaving for the
UK. They will be in Brisbane at the Troubador this weekend
musical trips
So we got into playing Miles Davis "in a silent way" at the
Blue Diamond which was a big step for us into some big shoes. People were
dancing to it which was a blast!
The next day we started to think about recording a track for the "I'd
rather Jack" show which is on at midnight on Wednesdays on RRR. They
wanted guests to come in to do cover versions or , as it was late, to
pre record one. I said we'd prepare one at home. We'd been talking for
ages about doing a version of "hard times" from the first album
by Dr Buzzards Original Savannah Band, an album which came out in 1976
and which is a classic of writing and playing and producing. (The band
featured August Darnell and Coati Mundi who went on to form Kid Creole
and the Coconuts). Listening to the song we realized it had quite a sophisticated
chord structure so I asked a fellow on Myspace called the Chameleon who
I noted was a Buzzard afficionado and he suggested contacting Coati Mundi
who played vibes in the band. I did just that and woke the next morning
to see a reply from Coati ( aka Andy "sugar coated" Hernandez)
where he kindly gave me the chord roughs. We spent a couple of days working
on the track and then burned a copy. It was too late to post it so we
dropped it in to the studio at midnight after a rehearsal. RRR is in the
middle of a radiothon/ subscriber drive so the studio, which would usually
have been quiet, was buzzing with a roomfull of volunteer phone operators
and different musicians hanging around. RRR is an amazing institution
in Melbourne and drives so much of the creativity in the scene. Its is
alive with interested parties and people pay for the privelege of having
it every year. Amazing.
The girls, Clem and Jess had me on as first guest and made me read a poem
about Shane Warne out of a recently published book by Victoria Coverdale
called "Come Shane". I chose one called "cream for Shanes
groin" because it promised some smut and thats always good for late
night radio.
The next stop after Miles and Dr Buzzard was Elvis presley. We had been
asked to play a set at an exhibition at the RMIT in Melbourne called "Living
Elvis" . The very next night after the RRR visit. It was a very ,
well , arty to do with speeches by august cultural commentators and many
art pieces in different materials. Paintings and video installations and
textiles and some of Elvis's costumes. Elvis does not need the art comunity
to interpret him of course. As they said at the time, "50,000,000
Elvis fans can't be wrong". The artists had a lot to play with anyway.
His presence is exhaustive. After the speeches we went to a corner of
the white walled gallery, beneath a couple of huge coloured interpretations
of Andy Warhols interpretations of Elvis and ripped through the following
songs
Good Rockin Tonight
Mystery Train
Suspicion
Crawfish
Return to Sender
One night of Sin
Thats alright mama
I'm a stranger in my own home town
the Blue Diamond experience
We did the last two Saturdays at the Blue Diamond which is a club on the
15th floor of the RACV building in Queen st Melbourne. We set up at 5pm
, went out and ate in the city and did our first set at 11pm, arriving
back at the home compound at 4:30 am.
Queen street is a riot of 20 something partying all night. The streets
are covered in spew and girls and boys running and falling around freezing
their arses off in t shirts and lingerie in the winter night. This is
what we got up to over the last couple of weeks.
Stu Thomas , bass guitar , vocals and trumpet
Stu Perera , vocals and guitar
me on electric and acoustic guitar and lead vocals
Clare Moore on drums and vocals
Mark Fitzgibbon, electric piano
It was quite relaxing playing three sets to such a late night crowd. People
coming and going over along period of time. Didn't have to do so much
talking and try to knit a narrative together. it was all about keeping
a pulse going and building up some moments.We played on a rectangular
stage and all around the room was the city with its towers and lights
putting on another show through the windows....
have you heard about the melbourne mafia?
don't mess with the blood
ooh child (stairsteps)
A man on the make
what if she comes? (stu Thomas)
he was only passin through (unrecorded)
sometimes you can see yourself
goin down south (instrumental arranged by Mark Fitzgibbon)
I'm in the future now (unrecorded)
I wanna get lost again
parchman farm
death by a 1000 sux
mr wicks (instrumental from Bad Eggs)
feelin kinda sporty
mr bad luck
out of where
in a silent way (MILES DAVIS)
boogie oogie oogie (a taste of honey)
alphonsus will get you
lt colonel, cavalry
real big spender (stu thomas)
all our friends were stars
apollo 69
the brother who lived
I'm a stranger in my own home town (Percy Mayfield)
You're just too hip,baby
my schtick weighs a ton
lets live properly
a lot to drink about
bring me my liar (unrecorded)
Biker in business class
crime and underwear (unrecorded)
lets kill god again (unrecorded)
I'm gonna release your soul
I will have always been here before
feel like makin love (Roberta Flack)
I'll be around (Kim Samon)
the bogus man (Roxy Music)
sorrow (Daid Bowie)
Billy Thorpe
I was listening to Sports radio this morning when I heard of Billy Thorpe
dying this morning. Not many Australian musicians cut through the fog
of Sport to rate a mention!
I never met him and would really have liked to have done so. Interviews
with him were rare and I liked the way he seemed to intimidate everybody.
The last thing I read about him he was bagging an act who were big in
the 70s and asking where they were now. He said to the interviewer something
like "I'm so fast , you can only see where I've been!". I love
that sort of hyped up shit!
The closest I ever got to him was when he played in Mount Gambier in the
70s. At the South Gambier football club. I couldn't go as I was looking
after my brother and sister as both my parents worked nights to get everybody
through school. My pals went and they got the courage to speak to Thorpey
after the show. They reported to me that he said, "got any sisters?"
They said "no" so he said "well fuck off then!" Being
country boys, they thought this to be bad form and they stole a mic on
their way out. They tossed it to me the next day. ( I don't know why,
I was no musician!) I had that mic, a Shure 58 for years, and it came
in handy when I did become a musician. Scuzzing about in London in the
80s, I thought it was funny to have a totem from such a time in my life
and from such an anachronistic ( it seemed at the time) performer. In
those Mt Gambier days I had heard some of his music and had really liked
the album he did with the keyboard player Warren Morgan (Thumping' Pig
an' Puffin' Billy). I still always look for his soft soul/ disco album
which he did before he left Australia at the end of the 70s, "Million
Dollar Bill". This had a great single called "It's almost summer".
I didn't much go for the bombast of his "ooh poo pa doo" period.
( I heard the original of that song later on and was amazed by its lightness
and its weird mantra like lyric which basically said "I won't stop
tryin' till I create a disturbance in your mind")
(I guess I also came close to Thorpey in the early 80s when the Moodists
recorded with Tony Cohen. The only musicians Tony held in awe were, of
course, the ones he'd met when he was a teenage tea making assistant.
Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs all walked into Armstrongs studios in 1973
with a case of beer on each shoulder to make their album "more arse
than class". He was amazed, at the time, at how they could stay up
for days and just wheeled each engineer they reduced to rubble out and
got a fresh one in. He held them to be Gods! So too did, we , briefly,
in our own haze of smoke and booze and speed and all night sessions and
the safety of the future) .
Back in Australia in the 90s was another different time. Thorpey re appeared
on the horizon and made noises of settling in Australia again. He had
made a fortune in some sort of Space Rock/ computer design scam / business
in the USA and was bored. . He did a return gig at the Myer Music Bowl
in the heart of Melbourne. I was thinking today of how much ballsitude
that took, to arrive back in Australia with no label or anything and to
book a gig at one of the biggest venues in Melbourne, which he had filled
to capacity in 1972! The return gig was in 1994 and Clare and I went along.
We were amazed by the crowd who were that original audience, more than
twenty years later, the toughest birds we had seen anywhere. Mean and
grizzled and wiry people. This guy walked towards us out of the mob with
a t shirt saying "toe cutter". We loved it. It was an Australia
we thought dead or heavily disguised. Thorpey came on and was riveting
for about 15 minutes. I didn't have the nostalgic investment to love any
of the loud soloing or festival of yore bombast. He had real impact though.
For his next career move he proceeded to release an autobiography called
"most people I know think I'm crazy" .This was a hilarious,
bragging tale of a knock 'em dead winner from Brisbane who takes on the
pop scene and wins. Along the way he shags the best looking stripper in
the Cross, and then her girlfriend hops in with them as well and he also
helps solve a serial killer mystery with the aid of the lowlife contacts
he has made and also his friends the coppers. Brilliant.
Where he stood in the Australian scene seemed to be a little like Sinatra
in the US I guess. He seemed to be feared and to be able to get things
done. He knew how to handle a show and a career. He kept things at a certain
level and valued professionalism and craft. He knew people at the centre
of things and they seemed to feel good that they knew him. He had form.
He had pretty much taken rock music from the cute dances at town halls
into pubs where the music was played deep within a masculine pisshead
subculture. It was new territory and the space he carved out pulled in
acts like AC/DC and Rose Tattoo to fill the vacuum that he left in his
wake. I have heard some musicians say that nothing was louder than the
drums until he started a fetish for louder and louder amps which demanded
bigger foldback and pas. For good or bad, he had an effect on things.
He was also intensely loyal to old friends and knew what the Australian
scene was like before rock music hit it. He knew how tough it was to get
through to Australian people. It's not because they were so sophisticated
or knew any better than anybody else. Its just that they couldn't believe
in anything that was so close to them. I guess that made him turn up and
up, to get through to people!
I would have loved to have talked to him about this scene.
|
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six strings.apply for the licence here. do not pass go
Kim Salmon once idly ran up the idea that anybody wishing to play
the guitar should really have to apply for a licence. A licence to rock.
( Now, strangely, a song that is performed by his instrumental hard rock
behemoth, SALMON.)
As I flicked past a rock video channel, unable to be held by the vision
of another group of four lovable moptops flouncing around with electric
guitars, I couldn't help but agree. I am of the immoveable opinion that
most new rock is the worst of the old rock recorded and compressed in
the modern style and thrown out with little abandon and a repulsive neediness
that turns guys like me away. They want " in" so bad that its
embarrassing. It reminds me of Silverchair playing "new race "
at the 1994 or 5 ARIA awards and smashing their instruments and the collective
record company barons of the day all leading the standing ovation. Oh
it was rank in that theatre that night!
Anyway, I concur with Kim, just for the hell of it. Something needs to
be done to stem the tide of this algaeic bloom that is modern rock. Its
too easy! Surely a few disappointments may even prove to be creative to
some people, in their hard and heroic travails! Get rid of some fuckin
chaff 'ey!
I loved the way Rowland S Howard played the guitar in the Birthday Party.
He and Mick Harvey were quite a team. Not a blues solo within hearing.
Rowland also invented a few new moves too. The guitar dangling from the
neck and the back bent and leaning over and swaying. Him and Wilco Johnson
from Dr Feelgood had the most singular and personalized moves. Rowlands
solo on "the hairshirt" is a doozy. He just takes off. Stomps
on that MXR blue box octaver and flies. What guitar did he have in 1980?
A Firebird? Later it was some sort of Jazz master. The post punk guitarists
tool of choicer was always something budget. Fender Squires all round
for the Subway Sect. Ed Kuepper made his own rules up and played, always,
with a Gibson SG.
I also loved the guitarist in the Contortions. That must be the blueprint
for the sound when people who write about music casually drop the term
"New York No Wave". Its a sound and approach that was unique.
The rooms dont exist anymore! The time has gone!There is no way to reconstruct
it! If the bird is re captured and flies through the room again it will
only fall with a thud in front of the bored onlookers!
When the Moodists reformed to play a gig in 2003 the mixer was a New Rock
type who ordered Steve Miller to " notch some midrange into the amp".
It was Steves amp from 20 years before. And his guitar from under the
bed. It was HIS SOUND. I told the young fellow that we had no dreams ,ever,
of sounding proper, like Aerosmith or Bon Jovi and he would have to deal
with it.
Rod Hayward was a great guitar player in the Coral Snakes and the White
Buffaloes. He had a Stratocaster and a great sound , fully informed with
whammy bar and delay and a Marshall amp. He was right there, like Steve
Cropper. We always played with a keyboard and , couple with Gordy Blairs
amazingly fleet fingered and tuneful bass playing , the guitar was always
finding sweet spots in the rhythm and the melody.
WE played with Malcolm Ross in the early Coral Snakes. Malcolm was in
Josef K who I really dug before I ever met him. He had that total , original
, speedy , trebly , fast chording Fender sound that is copied by the Strokes
now. And Franz Ferdinand and everybody else. He is a great player.
I love to hear Danny Rumour play. And Kim Salmon. Penny Ikinger is out
on her own as far as influences go. She is like Link Wray. Matt Walker
is also endlessly inventive when it comes to the guitar. He started out
playing acoustic and slide and lap steel. For his third album he took
on a Les Paul Gold Top and had a rock trio. His audience couldnt follow
him. I hope he gets back on that gold horse.
In our group of players that has been the Show and the Royal Show and
now the Lurid Yellow Mist, Bill Miller is a Strat master who always looks
for the place to fit his "rubber band chords" as he calls those
upswept , light as a feather rhythmic chords you hear on any 60s soul
record. Bill has no blues in him. He is pop. A brilliant singer and arranger,
hes always thinking of the whole thing. Stuart Perera plays a solid body
Rickenbacker. Hes right into funk and plays very quietly. (We have had
to tell him to turn up). He gets into the heavy riffing and loves to octave
those solos and uses a few effects. I love his clean sound and the sweet
tone he gets. Endlessly inventive. Out of the Jerry Garcia mould in the
tone he gets. In the beginning, I just asked him to solo all the way through.
I always liked the Dead.
Oustide my own experience I must say I always stop to listen to Jimmy
Page and George Benson when theyre playing. Jeff Beck is always worth
a listen too. I always look for Ike Turner records. They are hard to find.
I read a hilarious interview with him in a guitar magazine. ( I bought
it because he was on the cover). He refused to hold a guitar for the photo.
He just wanted to shoot the breeze and guitars were just a tool to him.
He talked about having Jimi Hendrix in his band and how he sacked him
because he was always looking for a pedal to step on for his solo and
took too long. Ike really rated a guy called Clarence "Gatemouth"
Brown. I found an album By Gatemouth called "San Antonio Ballbuster".
Ike said he was the most violent player he had ever heard or seen. Ive
had this album for a few years and have been playing it recently and its
true. It sounds like hs busting the guitar every time he blazes away.
And its not loud metal distortion. This is a light and impossibly trebley
sound in the middle of a jump blues track. He is shocking! Actually, it
seems to be a thing for all thos e 50s black players to make it extremely
trebly. Muddy Waters has an amazingly piercing tone when he deigns to
rip out 8 bars on slide. Wow! He takes your head off. In that vein, I
am quite partial to Hound dog Taylor and Howlin Wolfs guitarist, Hubert
Sumlin. Ike is also a king. I must confess I disagree with him about Hendrix.
He was just out on his own. I used to have one of his posthumous releases
when I was a kid., a live disc called "Hendrix in the West".
I found it a bit of a crud sound. Recently I have been listening to his
first three albums. The problem is that he was so great in so many areas.
As a guitar player, few could follow him . But he was also a songwriter
and performer in areas that only Sly and Prince would stray into at other
times. He was also a studio cat with a great bent for experimentation
and technique,. He was a total package!
(He is the yard stick that Kim thought should be put there when anybody
applied for their guitar licence.. He was the one that people should aspire
to approach. The top end. To get their beginners licence they had to be
at least as , I forget, but someone much better than me)Yes and I must
shout out to Duane Allman and Johnny Thunders and Robbie Krieger and Willie
Nelson and Steve Jones and Bo Diddley and Chris Spedding. All possessed
of licences to drive any type of guitar. Large, small, acoustic or electric.
proximity
The British writer, Nik Cohn, (who wrote "awopbopaloobopalopbamboom",
an early reappraisal of pop music, as well as the story which inspired
Saturday Night Fever" and more recently a book on Broadway as well
as much great writing on New Orleans hip hop) used to, hilariously , bag
Bob Dylan, because he saw him as a fake and a ham. He must have been able
to see who Bob Dylan was channelling . The originals must have been fresh
in his mind. Now those original figures, ( who Bob Dylan always attempts
to draw people s attention to) are all but invisible and Bob Dylan is
seen in splendid isolation, it is hard to see what Nik was getting at.
The last time anybody cared to ask him as to whether he had changed his
mind, Nik said something along the lines that he though Bob Dylan was
hokey but he hadn't seen Bruce Springsteen coming. That's funny.
It.'s the same with a lot of popular music though. Things come and go
and disappear like fuckin.. snow. I saw that character Devendra Banhard,
,whose initial pr encapsulated everything that I thought bogus and dim
about indie music, on tv and was shocked at the outageous hamminess of
his act. I'd heard his songs and the only thing I could detect of interest
in his music was that little warble in his voice that was pure Marc Bolan.If
you didn't know Marc Bolan you would be charmed, I am sure. If you did
know Marc Bolan and T Rex, you would , of course, know where Marc took
that great vocal effect and how he dressed it up in glam clothes and traded
his acoustic for a Les Paul and spent years listening to nothing but Ricky
Nelson records with that great LA rockabilly sound and all those cool
James Burton licks. You would know that. That was in the future, in a
funny way. You would also know it was , hopelessly, in the past.
Anyway, I'd heard the songs and had some hilariously hyped emails from
his Australian promoter. Talking of this tramps genius and how he recorded
his albums like a cat ,coughing up furballs in his sleep - and how none
of it was tainted by artistry or craft, just unconscious luck and shit..
It was "ultra whatever,,,acoustic.." I'd even emailed back to
the agent, saying , "this prick sounds like Forrest fuckin.. Gump!"
( In my world, an indictment of a recent modern scene but in reality,
an affirmation of the innocence of idiots, loved by dolts the world over).
And then I caught him on Jools Hollands show "later". He was
sittng cross legged , with candles all around him , dressed in some sort
of wizards cap and cloak, playing an acoustic guitar. Of course, all I
could see was Marc Bolan in his pre electric Tyrannosaurus Rex days. I
thought it was cute. It was a show a couple of years out of date. I remember
that time. The national youth boadcaster radio network, had 9 songs of
Devendra Banhards on their very tight and rare NATIONAL playlist at the
time.
I guess its proximity. I was at high school when Queen actually had that
horrible single out, "bohemian Rhapsody". The only kids who
were into Queen were ones that would grow up to be Alan Partridge type
characters. Guys who would wear driving gloves and play golf and actually
BE swinging voters. That is where my mind has stayed with them.
AC/DC were funny. Now they are blown up hugely and what matter was there
in the beginning just can't take the strain of so much interest. And they
used to be a place for outcasts to go to and find like minded bedraggled
headbanging types and be far from the trendified shit that was out there
in the world. Now everybodys in on it! Leave AC/DC alone!
There is an act from Melbourne who make a music that is informed by the
sounds of 1975. No punk rock and no mucking around. ( well there are lots
of young acts like this, reactionary types). Anyway, they have been so
enormously successful that its not worth talking about. They are in their
early twenties and the singer was talking of his battles with Cocaine
and writing their second album. Now , really, that is so scripted and
lame that you would be ashamed to say it. Cocaine, the businessmans drug.
What problem could you have? I am old school, you should only talk about
drugs and problems, to the press, as you are COMING OUT OF GAOL AFTER
BEING BUSTED!". Wouldn't it be boring to follow a script so closely?
Why bother continuing? We have all seen Spinal Tap. Theres some girlfriends
and some managers and some touring and a break up.
Speaking of Spinal Tap. We went to see it when it came out in London at
a cinema in Notting Hill. 1984.I was wearing a leather coat ( brand new,
like the Black Panthers) and leather pants and leather boots. Clare was
dressed up like Annie Oakley in fine Western shirt and dress. There was
hardly anybody there and it was so true to any musicians experience that
we sat in a foetal position for the entire time. We tried to sneak out,
feeling ashamed to be so overtly prarding our Rockitudeness. I read somewhere
of the singer of Silverchair talking of watching it with his dance nusic
buddy and how they "cacked themselves". I was not surprsied
to hear this . To us it was no laughing matter! We had the same experience
watching "the Mighty Wind" People, who were not musicians, had
told us how fun it was. This was even sadder than Spinal Tap. We knew
people like that! It was very affecting. Again, it..s the proximity. This
tinted drama into slapstick, the further away you got.
the proximity effect two
I guess I'm writing about that feeling of being , and of things, being
neither here nor there. Everything is here on MySpace for instance. You
can experience the digital presence of long dead musicians and artists
and adorn yourself with them and be seen in proximity to them.
Of course, I know that D. Banhard plays music that is enjoyed by many
people and seeing and hearing his music via a tv show is very much neither
here nor there. I try to be more generous with people than I have been
in younger days. You don't want to be a lonely mope do ya! Anyway, I also
know that if you get a gig on television, its almost better to annoy people
than to play it straight. It's a cameo appearance. So you got to play
the fool . Play things up a bit. Play it big.Good luck to him. He's probably
even an excellent performer. Its just that modern phenomenon that when
a new thing happens, it happens everywhere at once! Here in melbourne
a new sad Yank appears every week with their anti promise of an anti performance
of their particular anti music and so only anti types should apply for
admssion. And then they are forgotten. Old school balance of nature etc.
Fire! Birds!
We live in the hills. We moved here ten years ago and there was a massive
fire when summer came through. We were in Sydney and watched a news report
of our area " in flames!" We caught a flight back and listened
to the car radio list all the streets that were "gone" and followed
the flames through a street directory as we took the hour and thirty minute
long drive from the airport. We rounded the corner at the foot of the
hills to see a roadblock and and a helicopter bombing the trees with water.
We got to our street and packed some stuff in the car. And then sat and
had a beer. The danger soon passed and the neighbours gathered to talk.
More than we had before and more than we ever have since.
The drought and the promise of a new El Nino and a sudden cosideration
of the reality of climate change has got the war drums going again in
regard to a new season of fire.
To that end I have been down in the back block gathering a haystack sized
mound of leaves and debris. I am moving it away from the house. The main
weed is called Wandering Jew and you can roll it down the hill with a
rake like a big carpet. It..s a bit like jungle combat out there. A nice
result is that Kookaburras come to land very close by on tree branches
and swoop on all the worms and bugs that I am disturbing. One kookaburra
is following me like an old friend. They are such cute and wise looking
birds. And they are not at all timid.
I sometimes take a walk in the city and miss the opportunity to be lost
in big crowds of strangers. I think it would be cool to live in a walk
up apartment in some old stone building. Then I think that I am tripping
out on some urban scene from europe that probably doesn..t exist anymore.
One or two nights a year we are disturbed by the soft cooing of a Tawny
Frogmouth which is a kind of owl. Mythic birds . Wise and rare. The sound
is very human and soft. You have to go and take a look and most often,
you find that , when you shine the torch into a tree, they are much.,
much closer than the sound is telling you they are. You shock each other
for a moment but the bird rarely flies away. You go back to bed and listen
to the soft voice take you to sleep.
While I have been working, as well as the kookaburra, a Twny Frogmouth
has been voicing his contentmey, in the daylight soemwhere nearby.
Suddenly, I was looking at the pile of leaves and weeds and it now looked
quite combustible. Flammable. I reluctantly started to burn it off. And
I found it to be a very pleasant experience. Fire is quite cleansing in
its way. I have been a demon for fire for a week now. It..s a combination
of creativity and destruction all at once. Like editing text or a piece
of music. You cut and burn stuff and it isolates and reveals things in
a new aspect.
Nice...
And then Matt came around with his chainsaw..Gabba Gabba Hey! We accept
you! One of us! At last I am a member of the community....
writers clamber up to take in what they can...
Recent writings on our activities. Some good some bad. Just to see whats
happening outside the room. Blind dudes feeling parts of an elephant and
describing what their fingers tell them , what?
21.07.07: Brisbane Powerhouse
The confines of the new Turbine Hall at the Powerhouse find the evening
open up with Rosie Westbrook's bowed double-bass instrumentals, as Mick
Harvey's After Dark shows offer up a rare solo set from his touring bassist.
Shadowing the instrumental depths of Sigur Ros and The Dirty Three, the
Melbourneite (complemented by electric piano, guitar and drums) provides
a rather interesting take on stand-up bass playing that's difficult to
pigeon-hole, yet simple to find irresistible.
Mt Gambier's favourite son Dave Graney is tonight in exceptional form.
And with his pared down band and 12-string acoustic strapped up high like
an Easybeat, his consummate showmanship and charisma help colour Graney's
command of the English language. A South Australian Serge Gainsbourg in
op-shop clothes, he's a man born for the lights and the stage -
resonating a bygone polyester-clad sexuality complete with witty
wordplay. Guiding the audience through stripped-back versions of songs
from his Coral Snakes-era of the early 90s right through to today, the
hits and coulda-been-hits neatly sidle around the set's early highlight,
Graney's romantic reading of Suicide's 'Diamonds, Furcoat, Champagne.'
With his long-time partner Clare Moore on vibes and shakers and Stu D
on a Burns 6-string electric bass making up the Lurid Yellow Mist, the
'95 hit 'I'm Gonna Release Your Soul' is stripped of its Vegas-like bombast,
revealing a newly acquired sense of intimacy. Recalling her stint in a
Catholic school, Clare Moore's tender reminiscence about a nun's disciplinary
cane named 'Alphonsus' almost steal's the show, Graney indulging
in some rather risqué stage moves as he's freed from vocal duties,
as Moore dips into selections from her Liquor album.
When people go to Dave Graney shows, they come from all walks of life
- the teenager, the elderly gent with the salt-and-pepper
beard, and the dapper chap with the English accent in the seat behind
reminiscing about a Moodists' show he saw at Dingwalls with his friend
are all here to be entertained. And as far as entertainment is concerned,
Graney proves that it doesn't have to be throwaway - or too
deep and alienating - in order to be understood and appreciated.
Australia's 'King of Pop' may have since been dethroned and been replaced
by mediocrity - yet his relevance remains not only intact,
but endlessly endearing upon each new experience.
DONAT TAHIRAJ
Talent: Dave Graney and Clare Moore and the Lurid Yellow Mist
Clare Moore towers over her vibraphone to the left of stage while, to
the right, a very dapper Stuart Thomas checks his bass. Centre stage,
Dave Graney swaggers a little. Together, they open their set with a song
called Vengeance Is On Its Way. This is a pared-back version of Dave Graney's
band - the Lurid Yellow Mist. But, the guts of what's being executed are
present, and I'm loving the sound.
It's not often you get to hear a vibraphone live in action, and Clare
makes it chime perfectly in accompaniment. There's something about Stu
and Clare's unison backing vocals and that vibraphone which casts a Californian,
gameshow-like quality to tonight's sound. I can't quite describe what
it, but it's unlike any other treatment of downbeat rock-pop I've heard.
Dave himself is an odd bloke, like an uncle that invites himself into
an outdoor spa with leopard-print swimwear, a cigar and scotch, while
his nephew and mates are trying to avoid the old folks. His shtick is
unashamed (if it is indeed mock), and that's part of his charm. He's that
crooner you'd prefer wouldn't croon in your direction, but does so anyway.
And, somehow it's a joy.
I've never seen Dave Graney before, so I was looking forward to seeing
him and his creative partner Clare Moore at the Turbine Hall as part of
the After Dark series that Bad Seed Mick Harvey has curated. All I knew
of Dave was that he was awarded an ARIA in 1996 for Best Male Vocalist.
And I recall images of him on television talk shows, striking an odd point
of difference in Australia's music scene.
Since then, Dave and Clare have chosen to continue making music in a do-it-yourself
fashion, and they've been touring with the Lurid Yellow Mist since releasing
Keepin' It Unreal in 2006 (a retrospective album of sorts - 15 songs from
throughout their career). Consequently, the rapport between these three
is obvious. Clare rolls her eyes at Dave's self-depreciative jokes and
Stu seems to really enjoy the bass/lead guitar interplay with Dave. For
a few numbers, Dave concentrates on lead guitar, as Clare and Stuart perform
their own songs about big spenders and nuns with canes. Though, two of
the best songs of the night are Dave's - You Put a Spell On Me (a play
on Nina Simone's I Put a Spell On You), and the energetic Let's Live Properly
(Like We're Stoned). Overall, the three of them are great to watch and
are incredibly open with the audience, with Dave talking quite freely
between songs.
There's no other songwriter or character quite like Dave Graney, and there
is certainly something very 'Australian' about him. Whatever that quality
is, though, I'm not sure this particular setting is the right fit. The
Turbine Hall has become an odd space at the Powerhouse, trying to accommodate
small-to-medium scale performances.
Friends who've seen Dave and his band at music festivals say that's the
perfect environment to see him, so maybe that's it. Either way, something's
not quite right about tonight. Perhaps it's the bar's proximity. Dave
seems like he'd benefit from being within view of liquor. I don't know.
As they say, I want it again, with feeling!
- Scott Spark Young Fogey, Brisbane.
Thomas Wydler & Friends
Brisbane Powerhouse - Thursday July 19
It's from a group of his friends that Mick Harvey has selected to curate
four nights of live music in the Powerhouse's airy but warm Turbine Platform
as part of the Queensland Music Festival, with a very matey feel enveloping
the performances. Best known for his work alongside Nick Cave in The Bad
Seeds (and earlier), some of Harvey's friends are peers whose careers
also stretch back decades into the Australian underground (Dave Graney,
Clare Moore, fellow Bad Seeds), while others are younger contemporaries
with sympathetic tastes (Melbourne independent instrumentalists Silver
Ray). Regardless, an almost subconscious theme of music of the '60s seems
to abound, whether in the shape of old-time country, cinematic jazz, or
avant-pop. The second and fourth nights of the program are examined here.
Supports each night feature members of other bands on the bill performing
solo. The third member of Graney and Moore's trio, Stu Thomas opens Thursday
with a set of old Americana country, from a time when 'if the sun and
scorpions didn't get you, a bullet would'. Death, old testament God and
dark romantic obsession are referenced so often that songs about people
outside the law by Johnny Cash and Peggy Lee are almost an uplift in tone.
Using his guitar alternately for both melody and rhythm, Thomas most notably
uses space in his songs, further fleshing out the lonely feeling of an
open plain where a note can carry for miles.
Cam Butler of Silver Ray provides two vastly different support slots.
Thursday's begins with just Butler and his guitar, but via a self-operated
sampler, he builds a band behind him, recording and adding sounds at the
press of a pedal. The effect is relatively hypnotic, falling into a widening
20-minute groove that uses harmonica, feedback, tapping his guitar and
even sliding his finger up the strings to experiment with new noises.
His second instrumental support is backed by The Shadows Of Love Orchestra,
whose use of double bass, violin and cello as well as drums and Butler's
guitar on largely unnamed tracks ranges from the echoing mournful to the
rollicking manic. Also, Butler's handlebar moustache is captivating.
Mick Harvey & Friends
Brisbane Powerhouse - Sat July 21
Morphosa Harmonia has only been performed publicly twice before, so little
is known of the eight-piece led by the composer and Bad Seeds drummer
Thomas Wydler. Comprising drums, strings, guitars, keys, a laptop and
a vibraphone staffed by Harvey, Moore and the festival's other participants,
dirty bar grooves, gradually structuring atmospherics, and urgent detective
noir soundtracks are included in the fifteen lyric-free songs. However,
the standout performance is from a masked Graney, whose role from a stool
up the back of stage, is to introduce each song with a spontaneously lurid
story, and sit in the spotlight while it's played, adding a ridiculous
element to a fantastic show.
salmon east brunswick thursday 2nd August
Overseas, SALMON's debut album, "Rock Formations" is garnering
the kind of praise befitting such an extreme and complex outfit of six
guitars and two drummers. On the one hand Denmark's Low Cut are saying,
"If you have heart troubles, avoid listening to this record .. a
vicious aggressive kick in the nuts
if you dig Slayer, Hawkwind
and Sabbath, you'll love this four stars". In the UK Stewart
Lee of Sunday Times London says, "
a clever cubist critique
.. an act of genius four stars!"
The Spanish press are even more slavish saying " Blues, heavy metal,
rock n roll, even pop are extrapolated into symphonic movements like a
rain of steel from this squadron of Junkers bombers." Ruta 66
It's not just overseas that they've been garnering high praise.
Here in Melbourne, "Rarely has the line between genius and madness
been so obscured four stars" Jeff Glorfeld, The Age,
and it's "the soundtrack for a journey through the suburbs in a hotted
up Monaro" Patrick Emery, Beat Magazine.
If, you're still not sure
SALMON play the East Brunswick Club on Thursday August 2nd.
Cover charge is a puny $12.
Support is Batrider.
There will be copies of 'Rock Formations' in cd or double gatefold vinyl
for you to buy so that you can own an 'act of the genius' too. Currently
listening :
Era Vulgaris
By Queens of the Stone Age
Release date: 12 June, 2007
12:27 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove
25 Jul 2007
social rounds 2007
Well there was the night at the Hat Society dinner where I had been wrangled
in to be a judge. Sitting with a Samoan woman (who actually makes hats
in a factory) and her construction worker husband. Across the way there
was a man with a fez which had a stuffed bid on top of it and all around
, women with outlandish creations dangling over and beside and around
their faces. The Samoans had tried to get out of the dinner as they don't
fit in this society scheme but they had to come as she was, like me, for
some reason, a judge. Her husband ate all the bread he could get and drank
the wine and was singing softly to himself, with his eyes closed, before
the main course arrived. As he opened his eyes we were surrounded by skinny
models in bikinis modelling hats , walking in a circuit through the room.
Ending on a raised podium just above his head.
There was a competition which had a prize of $3000 given by a rich Perth
financier and his film maker wife who were sitting opposite. A lovely
couple , they told me they look for things to support with money every
year. I wish I had some cash to lose. Just for a stir.
At the end there was an incongruously cute raffle which had about 16 prizes.
these included jars of buttons and boxes of "stiff cataplans".
(Probably spelt this wrong, something you need to make a block for a hat).
Before that there was the radio show I did with Elizabeth McCarthy on
RRR. For three hours, there'll be another one on August 7th from 9am to
midday. I try to play contemporary music and some stuff from my vinyl
collection. (Last time it was "Don Adams, the roving reporter".
This time it was some of Steve Martins "comedy is not pretty"
album and "the piano teacher" from Dudley moore and Peter Cook.)
Elizabeth plays her music of choice as well and works the panel. Theres
so much music released its hard to find a way into it. We decided to play
track 8 from every CD as she says thats always the best. Next time it
will be my fave track, 6.
Then there was my nephews engagement party which was held in Springvale
and was a traditional Cambodian affair. A totally new housing area, we
all stood in the cold but brilliant sunshine and walked down the street,
carrying plates of fruit and rice cakes , walking in file two by two and
stopping as the master of ceremonies asked that we be admitted to the
girls house. After we were let in there was a lengthy discussion as the
parents on both sides were bowed to and given respect. then there was
a barbecue out the back. The Cambodian men all standing around the barbie
cooking an enormous amount of meat. there was an older crowd and a younger
crowd. Some of their life stories are incredible wth boats over the ocean
and time in refugee camps and being kids in a foreign land and not speaking
english. I spoke some halting French with afellow around the barbie. We
both wished we had atrip to Paris soon. Inside, the giant plasma screen
played the Collingwood game to a roaring crowd.
We've also been recording the new Darling Downs album with Kim Salmon.
Ron is coming out soon to put his vocals down. Penny Ikinger has been
recording as well and also the sand pebbles. Clare is also recording and
playing with Crystal Thomas.
The Darling Downs did a show at the Tote organized by Crystal and I did
a dj set. Probably the first time that Snoop Dogg, Tupac, Ghostface Killer,
the Sugar Hill Gang, Notorious BIG , Slick Rick etc have been played in
that joint!
Then we left for Brisbane where we were part of a week long series of
shows organised by Mick harvey. On the first night I was standing around,
checking out the race, when Ed Kuepper came into the room. We were chatting
away and then Chris Bailey loomed into view! My brain could not compute
the two of them being in the same place! Amazing.I would have loved to
have seen the Saints who had played the previous week.
On the first night Rosie Westbrook played with a band including Josie
Jason on guitar and Clare Moore on drums and vibes. then Silver Ray did
a set. On the second night it was a brillant solo set by Stu Thomas (
standing at the back of the stage with his baritone guitar/bass and a
radio headset mic, singing all songs about the devil and gaol and satan
and death row) and then Cam Butler doing a solo set and then Thomas Wydler
playing with the Morphosa harmonia ensemble. This has Thomas on drums
at the centre and front with Julitha Ryan on piano. James Johnson on guitar,
Rosie Westbrook on bass, Mick Harvey on guitar and Clare More on vibes.
I was asked to mc the show which I did from the back of the stage, wearing
a Zorro mask.
On the Friday night Rosie Westbrook did another set. this time with Brett
from Silver Ray on drums.
I then did a set with Clare Moore on vibes and Stu D on bass. We rocked.
On the last night it was Mick Harvey closing the season with Julitha Ryan,
James Johnson, Thomas Wydler and Rosie Westbrook. the opening set was
by Cam Butler with his string section.
Then there was an all night party in Brett's room.
The first night back in Melbourne we were rehearsing with Stu Thomas and
Stu perera for new material and the upcoming shows in Melbourne.
Jim said it was all over , as a ritual, back in '69!
I am compelled to register my tiny opinion on the two large concerts that
I allowed to enter my compound via the television monitor, however briefly,
over the last week or so. I must begin by asserting that I am terribly
biased by my own experience and aesthetics and coupled with that, I am
a bad critic. Deal with it.
The concert organized by the two princes who are, unfortunately, not in
the tower ( where in a perfect world they would have been put by their
evil father Charles, who coveted the throne and was , so , forced to have
their heads propelled towards the chopping block in order to achieve that
aim) , William and Harry. (The latters father was obviously the cad and
bounder drunken louche with the red hair, another thing that fucks with
Charles as he looks for the executioners number on his mobile). This concert
could only have been worse had it been organized by their dead mother!
Then it would have been Chris De Burgh , Chris Rea, Phil Collins , Duran
Duran and Level 42. ( Charles would have wanted the Three Degrees and
Shirley Bassey. Another thing that fucks him off). The boys opened the
gig with some bad public speaking. the bastard son of the polo playboy
sent a bad tempered cheerio to the lads in his squad in Iraq, saying that
he wasn't alllowed to go.Diddums. This moment was the actual rebellious
part of the day. I watched Elton and thought of nothing and then Duran
came on and eventually I went out for a walk. It seemed to be really the
end of the road as far as rock concerts go. A senseless crowd coralled
into a football stadium to wave their hands in the air for a few hours.
My only hope is that there was a new JG Ballard somewhere in the crowd,
or watching it on tv, thinking of something less pragmatic and real than
this voided mob. In the seats above them the two princes "partied"
with their strumpets and their minders. Neither of them spilled wine from
their goblets as they tore a chunk from the side of a leg of lamb with
their rotten teeth and then fell from the balcony as they tried to rip
the bodice from their wenches dress so they could cop a nice English handful
of their comely bristols. No lone assassin rose up from the crowd and
threw a round black bomb with a burning fuse in their direction. Being
a crude and bored televisual customer, this is what I wanted in my 21
st century cocoon and, being denied it, I did that most rare thing, I
turned off the machine and ventured outdoors.
I was gone for days, lost in a social world of playing music and engagement
with human beings. I came back to my pad and flipped the life support
system on to find another gargantuan entertainment offering on show. This
was Live Earth. A global event.
Now, music in these giant stadiums succeeds only in making music smaller
And the fact that it is global and everything distorts the performers
minds and bodies and they run around like chooks without heads trying
to entertain the planet. They look angry and puny.
I said I am a bad critic and I say here that I have only ever been to
one concert in a football stadium in my life and even though the band
was good (the Rolling Stones in 1995) , the whole ambient experience was
really quite poor. Its really not meant to be that way. It sounds bad
and it looks bad. And giant tvs are only good in the cinema.
Anyway, the planet kicked off with the Australian show. Paul Kelly dragged
Kev Carmody onto tv and that was great. He had Ashley Naylor playing with
him too. A star and a friend and a fellow member of SALMON. After that
it was the best of Australian music 2007 style . In a stadium, playing
to the world. On their best behaviour as someone important , (from the
world!) might be watching. Here are some names. Missy Higgins, Wolfmother,
John Butler, Eskimo Joe and Crowded House.blank .......space......
I went out with some rubber boots on and dug some wet clay out for a
retaining wall . In the rain.
I switched the plastic box with the curved glass window on again and saw
Shakira playing a blue strat and doing some rock music. It was awful.
then Duran popped up again.
I went and read a book about Bohemians in Paris in the early 20th century.
I made a vegetable and lentil soup and went for a walk.I went out with
Clare Moore and watched her playing with Crystal Thomas. The club was
dirty and the whole audience consisted of musicians. In thrall to rock
music from 1972.
I looked at the machine again and Madonna was performing "ray of
light" with a les paul guitar and a troupe of dancers dressed in
black shirts and trousers with white ties who were dancing in formation
in front of her. She went to her Vox amp to get some feedback happening
and a kindly fellow twiddled her gain knobs to facilitate said squall
of noise as she gyrated in a sexually suggestive manner against the speakers.
The crowd was still impressed by this shit!
I thought Madonna was holding some ground of her own high above the pack.
It was sad to see her acting so squarely. She'd been brought down to earth.
My expectations were low of course, so nobody really got hurt on the day.
The Live Earth concert had a message behind it of course but you would
have to be a reall dill not to have heard that message from outside of
that event. You would have to live in a goddamned cave with no tv and
no computer not to have gotten that call by July 2007.
Thusly , for better or worse, I have felt the need to opine and have done
just so.
Die! Rock festivals and Large Concerts!
Jim was right.
the apartments-pals etc
Fridays show at the Northcote was very very sweet. Many old friends and
new friends all in the room. We got to play with drums and amps for the
first time in many months and the feeling was powerful. Clare slamming
into the drums and Stu Perera whomping that trick of a guitar. Stu Thomas
is , of course, a genius bass player and singer and Mark Fitzgibbon dropped
by unexpectedly so we got him to play some keys. I clued him on the notes
as we stood on the stage , ready to rake off and there we went.
I took the opportunity to play some music to set the scene and removed
the sad, indie Neil Youngismic dirge that was stuck in a droopy loop on
the machine and banged up the vibe with Lil Kim . A complaint came from
higher up so I switched it to the Sugar Hill Gang with Rappers Delight.
We payed an hours set and pulled out three unrecorded unplayed ever before
numbers as I have become addicted to the feeling of playing music that
exists only in the room where we are gathered. We did "lets kill
god again", "bring me my liar" and "crime and underwear".
It was such a thrill to be new again. In the flow of creation .
I was playing my golden gizmo brand new ebay chinese made hollow body
guitar and the whole band was cookin'. I put the guitar down for the last
song as I wanted to give the people a lesson in dancin'. I busted every
move out that I would usually pace over a whole hour set. The stage was
in danger of catchin' fire. We trooped off at the end and said to Milton
Walsh , "follow that cobber!"
Of course, he followed it very well , playing the first set of his songs
for 15 years to an audience who were here to be takensomewhere by a guy
they'd heard of, somwhow. I knew all of the material and I was diggin'
it. the first song was the first track from 'drift". A dark and driving
track called "the goobye train". Sounded magnificent.
"where are you now? my dark obsession
I walk through every crummy room
through smoke and rain to get to you
your bitterness your disillusion
I thought I'd die of loneliness
whoever loved you you just left
you tore your dress
you tore your stockings....' Or something like that and the chords drifted
between a minor and then a major seventh ( I mustv'e nicked that chord
from him) and then another and then the mood dives down a key with a crashing
major chord chorus. Masterful and dramatic powers were there when he wrote
the stuff and here it was all again when he took the songs out again.
they all flew.
It was never going to be anight of nostalgia as his presence on the scene
had been so fleeting over the years. (Like the Moodists return shows in
Melbourne) It was going to a new thing for everybody. he told me he'd
never had much of the feeling of playing to an audience who were there
to hear his music. After our show with the Fauves we have been lucky to
be doing shows which have a slender thread of personal community to them.
Soon we will be in Brisbane playing as part of a week of shows put together
by Mick harvey from the Bad Seeds. We are all doing our own shows as well
as playing dates with other artists. Clare Moore is playing vibes with
Bad Seed drummer Thomas Wydler , (I am mc for that gig too) who is playing
with Mick and Rosie Westbrook and the band also features Julitha Ryan
who will be doing a set with Silver Ray whose Cam Butler will be doing
a solo set as will Stu Thomas from the Lurid Yellow Mist. After that we
are talking to our favourite band of outsiders , Batrider, about doing
a show with them in August,as they get to release their album and then
head off to the UK. Yes , please. Its cool to be connected.
|
|

Playing it cool

2500 ks past Perth into the Ocean, on top of a dormant volcano , 10 feet
above sea level with a five kilometre drop to Davey Jones Locker. Givin'
it heaps.

The kids know what I'm goin' on about!

Yeaahhhh!
the sheriff of hell
Here is a clip from a great psychedelic movie called "Zachariah".
Its a psychedelic western which has appearances by Country Joe and the
Fish and the James Gang ( Joe Walshs first band). Its stars a very young
and androgynous Don Johnson. I met the film producer once which was something
I never expected to happen. (His only other film had involved George Harrisons
Wonderwall and he was in London looking for Oasis)
Anyway, this film is a Western and it has a BAD sheriff, played by the
great jazz drummer Elvin Jones who kills people and then does celebratory
drum solos. This is what I was hopped up on when I did "the sheriff
of hell" on our album "the Devil Drives. The song went,
"theres an evil night club across the main street
the devil plays the drums
anythin' goes in this heat he just plays with the tempo
dresses in black leather
an' wishes that fool across the street was real
hes the sheriff of hell
theres not a lot he can really do
sittin on the boardwalk
hat over his eyes
boots up on the rail
hands down hs pants"
makin the scene / killin the Dean....
On Youtoob there is a clip from the Sand pebbles at the Meredith
festival earlier this year. They were the opening act so they wanted to
make a bit of a splash as the audience unpacked all their bongs and toilet
rolls and plastic ponchos and put their ipod headphones in their ears
so they could listen to rad stuff like "exile on main street"
all weekend.
Here they run through a track from their last album "atlantis regrets
nothing" called "futureproof". Their usual drummer, Piet
Collins was off on a long tour he'd already committed to and , as they
keep their public appearances so rare and they had experienced this situation
before (he has to put some eggs on his plate!), they asked Clare Moore
to play the traps for them. They seem to think rehearsing is "bullshit"
so Clare just gets a whisper from Chris Hollow on bass just before the
gig as to what is going to happen. He thinks this is a big surprise but
its always the same jive, "VU! All the way!". Clare acts like
this is something rad and does the gig appropriately and kicks the gig
home with a strong backbeat.
They have two brilliant guitarist / singers at opposite sides of the stage
, Tor and Andrew. They also have Ben on a more Eno-esque type of wildcard
yet rhythmical / wall of sound role further out to the left. His guitar
is in some open tuning and he has a Star Trek/Hotwheels type arrangement
of effects he stares at and manipulates during the show.
Here they have enlisted a Sean Simmons from the Spoils to play another
pedal called a tambour which gives a sitar like sound which can not be
turned off! They are tall and imposing bullies so they made him accentuate
his ethnic appearance by putting a turban on top of his head and telling
him to sit cross legged. In the percussion section you will note Crystal
Thomas in a starring role in a bright red dress and Mahalia Tanner in
the Elizabeth Taylor role. Tim McCormack who plays with Crystal and also
in fast rising woodchuck act the Downhills Home can be seen playing a
stick with bottle tops nailed into it in a most accomplished fashion (
as far as I can tell, being no expert on the lagerphone) . Speaking of
lager, at some point a distant relative of the fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld
wandered onto the stage from a passing van of ravers who had been dancing
in the nearby forest for a decade. (I looked in his eyes and saw a vast
eternal darkness that promised both moss and glitter! It was all I could
do to pull myself back from that terrible drop into NOTHINGNESS ITSELF!)
I was there to sing a verse in a song that I wrote the lyrics for called
Natalie. I was going for an Italian film director type look. I can be
seen staring angrily at the lurid yellow security wristband which is fucking
with my facade. The audience was busy lining up at the coloniacal enemation
and aurazmic reading tent , attaching the wheels to their oxygen cylinders
and telling each other how much they loved Neil Young.
After the gig we left the Pebbles sitting in lazy boys backstage , working
their way through a slab. Tim was off on a real journey of self negation
and Crystal sailed through hell with poise. Elizabeth taylor remarried
Richard Burton and Clare and I got out of there before the sun went down.
We like the city. Unfortunately someone had changed all the signs in the
surrounding area and we kept driving in a loop and passed the festival
site three times , screaming louder every turn, over the next couple of
hours. We stopped and robbed the nearest Quik E Mart and when the young
Filth arrived to help us we requested we be locked up in a city watch
house.
NB. I should state here that the sand pebbles are good friends of mine
and are a great band full of strangeness and charm. And character. They
all dive in completely and have their own parts to play. I say they don't
like to rehearse but this probably isn't really true. They love spontaneity
above all. their records have all been real surprises but , much like
the Doors, their live shows are rough while their recorded sounds are
smooth. They have a new one coming out soon.
Salmon/Batrider show 2nd August
If you don't go out to see music much i would recommend the East Brunswick
Club as the stage is high and well lit and the sound is fantastic.
Batrider opened this show. In the near future some smart writer will be
telling everybody how great they are and people will all agree. Some writer
from the UK or the States perhaps. They will be right. I'll try and tell
you what type of band they are. They have two guitarists, a bass player
and a drummer. Sarah, the singer plays a pink Strat and leans down into
her mic with a fringe and some side bangs of gleaming black hair completely
framing and covering her face so you rarely see her eyes. She is loose
physically and dances and plays easily and LOUDLY through her Mesa Bogie
amp. Her voice is loose and poweful as well. Very powerful. A force of
nature. She can let out a squall unheard of ever before yet it is not
some deranged display of madness, its all attenuated and freed up dynamic
gusto. Julia plays a brown strat and a Silvertone through a Fender Bassman.
She has such a direct and unflinching gaze and unfazed coolness as she
weaves great waves of arpeggiated chords through the drums and the bass.
She has poise. Tara plays the drums and you just never know where shes
going to put the accents. When she does she is unerring and strong. She
slams it. Sam plays the bass and tonight he is loud and present. The rhythm
section is open and strong.
They have such a sense of dynamics. Suddenly Sarah wil stop playing and
just move around and then slam both guitar and towering voice down onto
the huddled masses, wild! Other times she just puts the guitar down and
plays a tambourine and then blows a big toy harmonica. What sort of band
are they? They don't use guitar stands and just lay them down on the floor
or beside their amp.
They are about to put their new album , "Tara" out and we will
be playing as opening act for them at Gertrudes in Fitzroy on the 17th
August. ( "We" will be myself and Clare Moore and the Lurid
Yellow Mist. Bas, drums, two guitars and maybe a piano. There will also
be a band called Pets with pets).
Sgt Ashley Naylor being away playing with Paul kelly, the SALMON army
must go over the top tonight and follow Batrider minus a guitar. Matt
walker steps up and takes on the shredding, harmonic role as well as general
artillery battery service and we are off. Tonight, Kim introduces a new
piece for the world. "KFS". "Kentucky Fried Salmon".
This sits alongside "ACO" (Alien Chord Ostinato), "SMR"
(speed metal rocker) and our cover version of the Blue Oyster Cults' "ETI"
(Extra Terrestrial intelligence). We also play "prog suites 1 and
2" as well as "axes of evil", "punk fatwah" ,
"guitarmony suite" , "Cheap and nasty" , "pearls
before swine" ( the only song with vocals) and "get off!".
All these songs are written, arranged and conceived by Kim. Tonight he
arrives wearing a black shirt and trousers and tie. He stands in the centre
and mans a sampler which contains his voice yelling and screaming and
saying things like "Balthazar!" and he mouths the words. he
also plays the guitar. A telecater. Every guitarist has a small amp. Practice
amps. There are two drums and (usually) six guitars. No bass. What sort
of band are salmon? A European review commented that our album is "one
of the best things running on fossil fuels". A Batrider told me it
was unarguable and dealt with absolutely nothing that was topical and
was both brilliant and daft all at once. I think that what Kim had in
mind.
SALMON - at the ROCK FACE!
This is a link to a new Melbourne based online radio station that recorded
the gig that SALMON did last Wednesday 23rd May. New Found Fequency. And
you can listen to it here. Isn't technology amazing!
http://www.newfoundfrequency.com/concert/2007-05-23/Salmon/
Below, you can be amused by several writers climbing the steep and insurmountable
edifice that is the sheer rock face that is SALMON. They clamber up to
take a part of it in and then spill their puny impressions onto the page
!
Salmon
Rock Formations
(Bang!)
A friend of mine once described Wolfmother as Dead Zeppelin or
was it Led Purple and professed nothing but spit and bile for the
band's well worn (but celebrated) collection of neo-70s riffs, screeching
vocals and iconic rock theatrics. The same objection can be (and is frequently)
hurled at Airbourne, and a host of other rock revivalist bands that have
achieved local to significant success in the last few years. Sometimes
it's simply a matter of irony you either see it, or you don't.
In a post-modern world, objective truth is waste of time and money.
Kim Salmon's six guitar, two drum rock 'n' roll hydra Salmon is a grab
bag of neo-70s riffs, screeching vocals (albeit computer generated) and
iconic rock theatrics. But, unlike his artistic juniors or pale imitators,
Salmon has actually thought long and hard about this particular celebration
of the power of rock. Rock Formations released on the Melbourne-ophile
Basque label Bang! captures the beast in two different settings.
The first part of Rock Formations is recorded in the captivity of a relatively
sterile studio environment. It's a survey of rock through the ages: Punk
Fatwa is the perfect punk rock call to arms, a melting pot of manic drum
beats, grinding guitars and patented Salmon screams. Prog Suite II, by
way of immediate (and chronologically ironic) contrast, is a bruising
slog through the quagmire of 70s progressive rock. It Wears A Kilt is
glam rock in a glittering jar, and Licensed to Rock is the soundtrack
for a journey through the suburbs in a hotted up Monaro. Speed Metal Rocker
is where most teenagers find themselves after a skinful of cheap vodka
and an armful of Black Sabbath records, and Alien Chord Ostinato is mood
music for the metal generation. Cheap and Nasty (based on a song written
originally by Salmon and Dave Faulkner in their Perth punk days) is a
fist-waving primitive punk ode, and The Axes of Evil might be labelled
pretentious if it didn't come armed with a big stick of hard rock riffage
that'd scare the bejeezus out of the most hardened long-haired bogan.
The second part of the album sees Salmon unleased in its natural live
rock 'n' roll environment, with a show recorded at Sydney's Metro theatre
in early 2006. As well as the tunes on the recorded part of the album,
there's some other live favourites, including Blue Oyster Cult's ETI (Extra-Terrestrial
Intelligence), the grinding and gyrating 13th Bar Blues, two minutes of
free form guitar self-indulgence in 2 Minute Noodle and the uplifting
prog rock love of Guitarmony Suite. To cap it off there's a throbbing
rendition of the Surrealists' Non-Stop Action Groove, complete with Kim's
distorted electronic introduction of the band members. Save for the occasional
technical and sonic glitches, this is the Salmon beast in its most appropriate
and comfortable state.
The contradiction that lies at heart of Salmon a barrage of macho
rock riffs as tightly choreographed as an Albert Hall orchestral performance
is also Salmon's intrinsic attraction. In fact, it's arguable that
on this album Salmon has achieved with appropriate levels of irony what
many of his contemporaries continue to strive for without acknowledging
their tongues should be in their cheeks.
PATRICK EMERY. C/O i94bar online magazine.
A must-have music for lovers of heavy rock. There's no denying the
hypnotic, thundering grooves.
The salmon spends much of its life swimming upstream against the current,
driven by some inscrutable biological imperative to battle against prevailing
natural forces.
Likewise in his many musical guises Kim Salmon has never done things the
easy way, and his music has always benefited from his willingness to take
a risk. Rarely though has the line between madness and genius been so
obscured as with his latest release.
In 2004 he assembled a band comprising himself and five other guitarists
and two drummers. The nine tracks here from those sessions are astonishing.
Even if he meant it as a monumental pisstake (Six guitars? Pwah!) there's
no denying the hypnotic, thundering grooves.
The drumming by Clare Moore and Mike Stranges is of the most basic yet
effective variety, and what passes for vocals are mostly sampled shouts
and chants. The album is rounded out by 13 tracks recorded live last year
at the Sydney Metro, which are good but lack the emotional clarity of
the original nine.
This is must-have music for lovers of heavy rock.From the AGE EG
ROCK FORMATIONS Salmon (Bang! Records/Fuse Music)
I remember the sniggers when this project was first made public. A six
guitar band with two drummers? All crowding onto the Tote stage? To
be "conducted" by Kim Salmon? And with Dave Graney playing (whisper
it) rock music??
Well, yes, yes, yes and decisively yes. This is definitely not a joke.
It's a crack team of Melbourne based musicians kicking it out, letting
it out of their systems, with an air of abandonment and glee permeating
each and every track.
Most of the personnel present are of a certain age, and so have an involvement
or at the very least an interest in music which pre-dates punk- and that
deep grained love for the Led Zep, Pink Floyd & AC DC they were listening
to in their teenage years before the Ramones et al hove into view is blatantly
obvious.
Heavy boogie riffs, falsetto vocals, thumping glam beats, "TNT"-style
chants of "hey!"- they are all on plain view here.
You get nine studio tracks, plus a further 13 live numbers recorded at
Sydney's Metro, including a take on Blue Oyster Cult's "ETI (Extra
Terrestrial Intelligence)" and version of "Cheap and Nasty",
a chestnut that Salmon co-wrote with Dave Faulkner way back when.
With the band's own tunes carrying titles like "Prog Suite 1 &
2" and "Licensed 2 Rock" there is obviously a sense of
humour at work here, but there is no irony to be heard. This is serious
as it wants to be, and as heavy as fuck in the main. There are tunes here
that would easily give the likes of Voivod and Slayer a good run for their
money.
There are minimal vocals from Kim, mainly confined to some vintage style
yelps and roars, screams of "All right!" and such. But it really
is an instrumental album at heart, with all those guitars combining in
huge overdriven harmonic riffs to give the tunes their body. That said,
at times it feels slightly hamstrung by not going the whole hog and giving
the songs the sort of lyrical treatment they deserve, and could certainly
carry. Short song length is another issue- some of these could have easily
been stretched out to true metal opus length of eight minutes or so.
Not sure of the lifespan of this project- due to other ongoing commitments
on the part of all involved the band may well never re-coalesce, which
would be a shame. The upshot is that this collection may well remain a
curious footnote, a solo oddity, in the annals of Australian pre AND post
punk rock. Hmm, but I bet Kim could write a cracker of a song called "Solo
Oddity" for the follow up though. - TJ Honeysucklec/o the i94bar
the fauves graney moore show east brunswick june 8th
The Fauves are playing their 1000th show at the East Brunswick on the
8th of June and they asked us to be involved as part of the bill. The
Fauves and us are kind of fellow travellers having both been involved
with Universal records in the 90s and knowing the touring scene in the
golden days of Ansett airways.
I have seen them play more recently than I did in the old days as their
music has gotten more and more toward something I can tune into. ( No
fault of theirs, more of a glitch in my reception). I saw them play at
Rubys in Belgrave when their most recent album , "Nervous flashlights",
came out and also at the Troubador in Brisbane. They are a very impressive
unit in the way that the Triffids were in the old days. Very self contained
and light hearted. They make their own kind of sense and deliver it with
real conviction. Their last single from the album . I'll work when I'm
dead had a great Byrdsian vocal sound and light , cruising delivery. The
lyrical sentiment of the tune is to be applauded loudly and the heroic
bludger is one Australian icon that needs to be lauded more often !
Their gigs see them revisiting songs that got away onto the youth broadcaster
and others that didn't make sense to anybody but they love doing them
anyway. they take no prisoners. they have had their experiments in 80s
disco and pub rock and electro and they give it all a bash. All the way
through, Andrew Cox gives everybody the high hat with the most acidic
put-on of a professional performer he can manage as they throw more and
more pearls to the swine they see all around. And people love it. Because
he is inexhaustible. You think he will run out of juice at some point
and start crying or screaming with despair at the ridiculousness of fate
and timing and the stoopidity of the world they find themselves in. But
no, he stays on his feet and deals deft blow after deft blow at all comers
he sees coming at him from the darkness of the void beyond the lip of
whatever scuzzy stage he finds himself on. He will talk of the acts they
have given breaks to who have then unceremoniously vaulted over his band
as they are rewarded by the great public for being tighter, smarter, stoopider,
uglier than them and he will never fail to communicate his disgust and
surprise. If you like Tony Hancock or Larry David, you could easliy see
either of them writing or appearing in the Fauves.
Of course there is also Phil "the doctor" Leonard on guitar
, Adam Newey on drums and Tim/ Terry/Ted Cleaver on bass. They aspire
to Oz rock which is odd. Am I communicating their weirdness enough? they
put out a Sydney Olympic themed tune in 2000 called "Celebrate the
failure".
On a musical note, I was very impressed when they programmed Rage when
the Doctor played a song by the late "Aaliyah". When she was
still alive and just on the rise. That was awesome.
The Fauves think 1000 shows is a lot. We must have done about twice that
easily but we are saying nothing.
We will be doing our Keepin it Unreal vibes ,bass , percussion , 4 voices
and 12 string set and they will be bringing their particularly odd and
scratchy sound to the East Brunswick Club on Friday 8th June. This is
one of the best sounding room in melbourne.
Lie if you have to!
People ask to be my Myspace friend. I also ask to be others friends. They
are generally involved in music. I look at their influences or whatever
they like. Sometimes, my name even appears. This is momentarily cheering.
I respect that this how they are presenting themselves to everybody. This
is their ideal self. For the most part I see words like " Bob Dylan,
Neil Young, Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits, Jeff Buckley..." Blah blah
blah.. I mean 95 % of people say this ! Is this the best front they can
muster? The best background they can work up? My heart sinks. Really.
( I mean, these dudes are undeniably okay, but so much else has happened...like
the entire history and galaxy of rap music for a start)
Why no Michael Jackson ? Check out any of his music, everybody in the
world has heard it . He sold 100 million of one album. He made records
under such pressure and expectation that nobody else has ever had to deal
with. And he came through for the most part. Why no Led Zeppelin? They
also played everything bigger and louder and more preposterously than
anybody else, and produced pieces of music that inspired whole genres.
Why no Hank William? Merle Haggard? Dwight Yoakam? Dwight Twilley? Antonio
Carlos Jobim? Duke Ellington? Grant Green? Linton Kwesi Johnson? Burning
Spear? Everybody! Smarten up! Check out some pumping R&B! Make out
you..ve thought of perhaps doing something interesting! Fuck 3/4 time
and accordeons off. Slow music sucks! The world is going up in flames
you sad , tight bastards .
Moodists play the Birthday party
So last night at the Prince of Wales in melbourne we did a spot at the
AGE EG 21st Birthday Party. I'd been asked to mc the night and volunteered
the idea that we would do a few Birthday party songs to, in my view ,
represent some Melbourne weirdness in the evenings entertainment.. I was
going to ask Mick Harvey and Rowland Howard to play and also myself and
Clare Moore and Chris Walsh from the Moodists. it turned aout that Rowland
couldn't or wouldn't make it so Steve Miller from the Moodists kindly
stepped in. Steve and Chris have that sound from back in the eighties.
In their hands. No one can dial it in from a pedal or an amp. They have
it. We were to do "the friend catcher", "mr clarinet"
and "happy birthday". I chose the songs . All were recorded
before the birthday party left Melbourne all those years ago. It was when
they were young and arty. I love that stuff. We had a rehearsal the day
after Mick returned from An overseas trip. By Friday he was badly jetlagged
and threatened to go
home and fall asleep for a day or two. The show was incredibly late and
there was a lot of free grog. I thought it wouldn't happen. The show went
on. Ron Peno did a great version of "come on Spring": by Kim
Salmon. Kim did a brutal led Zeppelin-ized version of my song Night of
the wolverine. there were raffles and auctions and awards. Dan Kelly did
a version of the Go Betweens "draining the pool for you", Renee
Geyer did the Church's "under the milky way", Stephen Cummings
did a great version of the Easy Beats " wedding ring". Paul
Kelly threatened not to turn up and then did. TISM won an award. Then
, preposterously, Bonnie Tyler did "total eclipse of the heart".
The crowd went nuts! Lighters in the air and all singing along. Then the
kit was changed from left to right handed for Clare, it took 20 minutes,
and then we were on. It was amazing to resurrect that sound and blast
it out. Mick Harvey plays TOTALLY. He is like his personality. Its all
apparent. He looks you square in the face and plays loud. So did we all.
Half the crowd went nuts ( young goths and old st kilda types) and the
other half looked on open mouthed and stuck their fingers in their ears.
It was an incredible challenge to play the songs right, knowing some people
would have lived with every note for years. It was a total blast.
PARTY SET 2
Played at a private party on the weekend. I always like to do that. We
prepared some party tunes but they wanted to hear our music the most.
Especially the most obscure, post radio airplay era stuff which we were
delighted to play. Had a ball. At the end a woman asked me to sign her
inner thigh and another asked me to sign her ample breast. I didn't enjoy
this as much I would have a couple of decades ago, but then my hand would
have been shaking and I would have fallen over after the first two letters.
In 2009 I wrote in an expansive cursive script and let the "y"
of "graney" end with a long flourish leading to the gates of
wisdom.
Everybody was in fancy dress. Not us. But we fit in dont you worry. It
was a kind of 70s look in attendance. I quite liked being in a room full
of bewigged women looking like cool country singers. Loretta Lynn and
Jeannie C Riley and Bobbie Gentry. There were a few Elviii around the
room. I like to spend a few moments talking to Elvis as well.
A guy dressed as a sharpie with braces was watching me work on the long
blondes inner thigh . He asked me, jokingly, to sign his prick. I was
about to utter that Truman Capote line about initialing it but didn't
want to push things. People were really inhabiting their costumes by that
time.
Anyway, we had a great night and drove back the next day through the town
of Kilmore. The recent firestorm started there but the area was quite
unscathed. It moved away and did all its damage elsewhere. Its still known
as the Kilmore fire. Its a quiet, wide spot in the road. I think Ben Lee
should move there.
Early 2009
last saturday we did a set at a suburban town hall. Not an old school
Victorian hall as you see in Sth Melbourne or St Kilda. This was in a
more affluent area and so a more modern theatrette. Great to see suburban
councils putting on some performances on Saturday nights.
We did the show with two guitars and drus and were mindfull of taking
the opportunity to play some slower , more dramatic tunes and also that
you didn't have to play so loud in this dead sounding room. It was great
to hear sounds coming out of dead silence and you could really use that
pure event as songs could build and swell. We played songs like "the
devil drives" and "my only regret (I opened my mouth)"
from the same album.
The guitars sounded so sweet and clear and our voices were all so acoustically
right. We had soundchecked of course, and asked the mixer to let the drums
play without the aid of the PA and we'd keep the music at that level.
So much modern music is ruined by volume and engineers coming out of schools
having studied how to make an OZ ROCK band crank. Making bass drum hit
you in the chest and keeping any keyboards to a minimum etc.
We will be making a real effort to get things right in this area. Anybody
whose a musician would know that they have opinions in every area of the
music business that are considered superfluous at best and ephemeral in
reality. While we're here we should get the sound right for US.
Speaking of guitar sounds. I love that late 60s sound you hear on the
Jefferson Airplane and Big Brother Holding Company albums. I realized
its the large rooms tat the guitars were recorded in. At least they did
not have mics close up to the speakers. You could hear the room.
On the way home from the Glen Eira Town hall gig we listened to some classic
Jerry Lee Lewis Sun Sessions stuff. Drums, piano and guitar. Absolute
fired up genius on every track. Jerry Lee is the king! He makes that old
track "Goodnight Irene" sound so mean and demonic, and he was
only in his early 20s. Again it was mics in a room recording the players.
You could hear the room.
The next morning i was still buzzing and turned on the tv and watched
"the Doors live in Europe". What an amazing band. guitar, organ
and drums. All so in tune with each other. Such great sounds. Robbie Krieger
with that Gibson SG. Apparently he loved to have strings as old and dead
as possible.
His touch was unerring. John Densmore on the drums had all those great
latin feels that must have come from being a musician and a person in
LA.
Ray Manzerek on the organ with his left and doing all the bass runs on
a keyboard and his right playing the chords and melodic lines. Then theres
Jim. the great dramatic poses he makes. I saw Mark Stewart play with the
MAFFIA in the 80s in London and he had the same non performing type of
style. It made a brilliant performance. No mugging for the audiences attention
at all, Mark walked around drinking out of a can of Fosters and occasionally
yelled about government attacks on his psyche while the bass player played
with his teeth . it was great.
Jim did a lot of standing still. And then when he moved it was a major
move. He was like a brilliant actor and singer . One of the greatest!
In the meanwhile , after a heavy and fast start to the year I have been
getting stoned and watching dvds.I have now watched "Walk Hard- the
Dewey Cox story" 4 tines, including the hilarious commentary"
"Matador" with Greg Kinnear and Pierce Brosnan is very kinky
and excitingly odd in the way that "the Limey" or "sexy
Beast" was. Its great.
I also caught the incredibly gory "apocolypto" which was directed
by Mel Gibson. In a similar violent jungle vein I enjoyed Werner Herzogs
"Rescue Dawn". I was disappointed by "how to lose friends
and alienate people" because I loved all other Simon pegg movies
so much.
The HBO series "Madmen" was incredible and I must tell any modern
woman to catch it just to see why feminism was so inevitable and needed!
Also saw "Black Snake Moan" as I loved "hustle and flow"
so much. It wasn't as good but was still pretty rooted in a music experience
and a Memphis one as well.
Musically I highly reccomend the new album by Boz Scaggs. "Speak
Low". Its a great collection of classics and jazz brilliance. A small
band and a great singer. Like thse ones Rod Stewart does but absolutely
classy and not at all easy listening. Quite inspiring.
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the party set
Okay, we played at our good friend Tony Mahonys party. Tony has done all
our record covers and videos. ( Except for the Moodists, White Buffaloes
and I was the Hunter which Dave Western did).
Tony lives in what would be a classic enormous artist warehouse joint
above a car detrailing plant in a still deserted semi industrial area
right on the very tip of the inner city of Melbourne. How long such an
area can stay like that is anybodys guess, but its pretty cool right now.
So it was a big vat of punch and dress for the occasion and much bottled
beer and a few bowls of olives and nuts.
People there included rock..n..roll artist/guru Philippa Berry, Steve
Miller (from the Moodists and now a bar owner and operator) and Helen
Enright, (a university lecturer), Melanie Ostell, (a book editor and commissioner),
Helen sister and her architect husband, Maurice from GB3 and Underground
lovers and the world of animation fame, Tony Wyzenbeek, (tv producer and
film maker), Bruce Kane, (ABC producer of Spicks and Specks), Quinsey
Mclean (of Blue Ruin and co owner of Bakehouse studios), Helen Marcou,
(the other co-owner), writer Sean Condon, musicians Penny Ikinger, Leroy
(from the Renovators) and Malcom Hill, Clothes maker and importer and
exporter Lynette Clucas, art critic and libertine Robert Sorelli, film
editor Robin Plunkett, film lecturer Nicolette, film cameraman Boffa,
Tonys artist brother Kieran Mahony, dj cleancut, actor Angus Sampson and
film maker Spike Jonez and attendant entourage. Probbaly about 80 people
all up. The Ukelele ladies did a totally acoustic set of hawaiin flavoured
songs, sitting on a large crate with leis around their necks and flowers
behind their ears.
Clare Moore, Stu D, Stuart Perera and myself then did the following songs
to keep the party flowing. We started out on acoustics and vibes with
"am I wearing something of yours","diamonds fur coat champagne"
and then the Perry Como/ Hugo Montenegro hit "seattle". Clare
then got behind the kit and Stuart got the electric out for the following,
Sorrow (David Bowie)
It never rains in california ( albert hammond)
Eight miles high (the byrds)
Biker in business class ( us)
Big Spender ( stu D)
I..m a stranger in my own home town ( percy mayfield/ elvis)
The crystal ship (the doors)
Ooh child (stair steps)
1-2-3 (the Len Barry combo)
boogie oogie oogie ( a taste of honey)
whos that lady? (the Isley brothers)
shame shame shame ( shirley and company)
coz I luv you (slade)
We then packed up and let the disco dancers flow. The punch proved to
be very strong and many people got smashed on booze. Blood was seen to
flow from a fellows bonce as a result of him attempting to open a door
which was unfortunately just leaning against a wall, an unfinished project.
The dancers were great to watch as they busted their moves with great
flair. They seemed to be the younger set and perhaps they were aided by
substances other than booze as they kept it up until 4 am.
I noted that the best moves came when the hip hop and new orleans funk
was playing. Someone put on the Modern Lovers "roadrunner",
which was great to hear really loudly but it was very on the beat, like
a marching band song, and the dancers were foiled into jumping up and
down a la the pogo of old. Angus Sampson put on the soundtrack to Deliverance
and the room was cleared as the banjos squared off. A top night out on
the very edge of the inner city of Melbourne.
hustle and flow
TV is so bad I've been reading a lot of books and watching some dvds.
I must say I laughed from start to finish of "the 40 year old virgin"
and also was completely held by the German film, "Downfall"
ahich is about Hitler in the last months in the bunker. That film was
heavy. Theway he was humanized made it more compelling and real that he
was voted in and cheered along by so many people.
To keep the 40s vibe going I watched "things to come" , the
1936 sci fi film starring Raymond Massey. The screen play was written
by HG Wells. This was great. Why have we not experienced this type of
a sleek future? Where is my rocket back pack?
I also watched "Head of State" which has Chris Rock going for
President and "Kings Ransom" which has Anthony Anderson as a
black tycoon having himself kidnapped. It was stoopid.But funny.
Anthony Anderson also popped up in "Hustle and Flow" which I
missed when it came out. It was cool watching an actor in a slapstick
comedy and then get to grips with a heavy part in this amazing film about
a pimp who wants to be a rapper. Got to be one of the best music films
ever made. (Not hard I know as there have only been a handful of greats).
The music itself is amazing and then there is the drama and the pathos
of the main character, DJay (played by Terrence Howard) and his three
prostitutes and the two friends who are helping him get his tracks together.
This is a great film. I cried and cheered and fell off my sofa.
I was really amazed at how good the music was and it also had a real sense
of place . I then watched the extras on the dvd and it had a short film
called "Crunk time" which had the director and the music composer
talking about the city, Memphis and its effect on the film. they were
all from memphis and they were totally into the cultural flow that they
were a part of . The writer and director, Craig Brewer is a young white
guy and he just loves the city and dedicates the film to Sam Phillips
from Sun studios. He talks about the music thats come from the city from
Ike Turner to the Crunk hip hop scene. They are all alight with fervour.
They then have Isaac hayes ( who plays a small role) talk about the music
and then they show the actual players in a small Memphis studio. They
are all the guys ho did the "Shaft" soundtrack with Hayes back
in the 70s! The drummer spits out that hi hat shuffle and the guitarist
shifts into his wah wah licks in the most head splittingly shrill treble
register you could get. It is so great to see guys like that playing.
All through the film you hear snatches of the greatest blues and funk
grooves as well as the filthiest dirrty south hip hop joints. It is busting
out with great sounds.
The film features a theme song/ rap that they pull together in a small
studio. the director tells the story of a totally subterrranean underground
rapper called Al Kapone( who is selling his music out the back of his
car at a drive in at the time ) who gets in touch with him saying he has
music if he needs some memphis beats. The director tells him a bit of
the story behind the main character and he gets the song together in one
night and it is so great it directly affects the story of the film!
This is like a Hollywood army coming to town that is actually listening
to the feel of the street and word actually gets through from that street
. Thats why the film is so good. Its alive with a feel for the characters
and the place.
Look out for us playing with the Apartments this Friday 29th June at the
Northcote Social Club. We're getting the drums and guitars out for the
first time this year. ps
the other great music films are:
"the Girl Can't help it" by Frank Tashlin. Glorious technicolour
with Jayne Mansfield and Gene Vincent and Little Richard. Probably the
greatest ever made. You can stop here!
Withnail and I.
Spinal Tap.
The Mighty Wind ( neither of these are wholly comedies -to a musician.
they are real!)
The filth and the fury
Ray
John and Yoko, a love story ( its funny!)
Round Midnight
Miles Davis at the Isle of Wight Festival
the Led Zeppelin two disc , five hour live dvd
Elvis Presley, the 68 Comeback. (Well pretty much any Elvis performance
film is worth watching)
Dazed and Confused. ( the feature film set on the last day of high school
in 1976. The art direction is spot on and the soundtrack is perfect)
CoalMiners daughter
the Buddy Holly Story (Gary Busey!)
Who'll stop the rain (Nick Nolte in a post Vietnam "old time weirdness"
epic)
Big Wednesday. The John Milius surf epic.
Anything with Tupac in it.
Any of the "Friday " comedies with Ice Cube.
Two lane Black Top.
The HBO tv series , "the Wire".
Zabriskie Point.
Zachariah-the psychedelic western.

SALMON
Mark Fitzgibbon and dave Graney
DESERT ISLAND STUFF
These are discs that have never stopped giving for me. I have tons of
records. On vinyl and cd , but these mentioned below are records that
I have played recently and that always sound fresh and new to me. Stuff
that..s not nostalgic or anything, just great music.that I can pull out
any time and be so amazed I have to sit down and marvel at the artistry
and the lost world it conjures up. Failsafe music.
"Quiet" by John Schofield. The only album I have by this jazz
guitar player and the only one he has ever made with an acoustic guitar.
Apparently Miles Davis heard him playing an acoustic and told him that
it was his instrument. So, John did what Miles told him to do. This must
have come out in 1997 or so. It has great arrangements. In particular
the horns. The opening track is most beguiling. A swinging feel with drums
and bass and guitar and then the horns. Very arranged French horns and
trumpets. Like a fanfare type of thing, incredibly arresting. I first
heard this on a plane and it came through those crappy speakers and the
surrounding interior plane noise like a bell.
"new orleans suite". 1975. One of Duke Elllingtons concept albums.
This is to the city and its music and musicians. The last album that his
great sax player Johnny Hodges plays on. Every track is a standout.
"The Best of Grin". Grin was the first band that featured Nils
Lofgren, who has his own solo career and who sometimes plays guitar with
the E Street band. Used to listen to this with friends back in 76/77 ,
when it was already an artefact and re issue by a "lost " band.
( at the beginning of rocks backward gazing) . The sound is so fresh and
his composing and guitar playing and desperate singing voice just carve
up the room.. Standout tracks being "see what a love can do"
and " moontears".
"Dr Buzzards original savannah band". The first album, which
features "cherchez la femme" ("Tommy Mottola lives on the
road/ he lost his lady three months ago.."). This is adult seventies
disco in a distilled, purified form. Lyrics by August Darnell and music
by his brother (?) Stoney Bowder Jr. Conceptual and flowing , like a club
sound . Very 1930s/40s chic in the art deco lettering and Vargas style
illustrations. I love the track "hard times" and plan to cover
it some day.
Urge Overkill, "Saturation". The best rock album of the 90s.
The singing , the songs, the general presentation and the genius stroke
of having it produced by a couple of guys from the rap scene. You must
know most of the greats on here. "Sister Havana", "Positive
bleeding" being just two.
"All eyez on me" by Tupac. The production, the drama around
the making of it, the rapping, the arrangements, the different talents
involved. A double cd that you never get to the end of. Its too big to
take in all at once. Always sounds fresh. Genius. I particularly love
"how do you want it?" and "picture me rollin". Then
there is the genius single , "Cailfornia love".
"Ready to die" by the Notorious BIG. Just to balance up the
twin towers of rap that were on the airwaves back in 95/96. Until they
WERE BOTH KILLED AT SUCH YOUNG AGES! Never fails to stun me how good this
is and how crappy all the people that stole the aura and personae of these
two guys are. This was a great cd, his first.
"Wu Tang Forever". Their second cd. Totally brilliant in the
production and the cast of characters. There is no end to their mystery.
While I..m at it I must mention all their first solo albums. ( I..m still
learning from them - I know they..ve put out more) Ghostface Killah (Ironman)
, GZA (Liquid Swords) , RZA (Bobby Digital) and of course, the mad bl;ack
genius that is "Nigga Please" by Ol.. Dirty Bastard. I know
I have to get three or four more Wu albums. I know.
"Lowrider volume 9". This is a compilation of latino rap that
I scored in Sydney in the 90s. there was a whole stack of them and I should
have bought the lot. Must be the best compilation I have. Great cover
with a girl with enormous breasts standing in front of a long , low and
jumping hotrod. This features guys rapping over a Santana groove and another
taking on Nirvanas "come as you are".
Dr Doom , "first come , first served". This is a character who
mostly appears billed as Dr Octagon. I can never get past the first track
where he disses the entire world of rap with such cold precision that
it cracks me up.
Pulp, "This is hardcore". I am embarassed to say I only got
into this recently. Amazing songs and general claustrophobic vibe. Intimidating
and steely in its unrelenting examination of some kind of deadly life..
In cinemascope.
Steely Dan "Everything must go". Their 2004 album. The production
, of course , and the songs. Lyrically, they are masters and this music
is so rare for people in their 50s to be so witty and to still have such
a spark and to have the chops and the fire. Most of all to still have
the music business power to get music as rich as this out to the world.
No one writes sings like "Pixeleen" which approaches the world
of the distracted , animal male gaze and the cold availability of internet
porn ..no one else could. Its middle aged and that..s not only paunchy
and tired. Its fear and anguish and bitterness full of bleak gallows humour
and you just get a whiff of it here. Superb.
Burning Spear, "man in the hills".Mystic brilliance. I loved
this back in 76 and it never fails me now. The chanting and the singing.
The themes of slavery and simple village life. And blackness. I would
have to say that "Marcus Garvey" is equally as rewarding.
"Linton Kwesi Johnson, "Bass Culture". Another reggae album.,
. This one from 78 or 79. Also, from the experience of a black man in
London. Very miitant. Great production by Dennis Bovell who also did the
Pop Group and , later, Edwyn Collins. You listen to the steady rolling
menace of "street 66" and puch the air at the end when the dreads
take a last toke and invite the coppers in to "tek some righteous
licks".
Scott Walker."Boychild". This is a 90s compilation of all the
songs he wrote himself during his first four album solo career. (He did
a lot of other peoples material) It is amazing in its reach for the stars
orchestration and vocalizing. I love the title track and "the old
mans back again". (The last one just for the bass playing).
...to be continued
My Film My Australia Jan 07
A friend was talking over the kitchen table in regard to Sydney film
maker Baz Lurhmann new project. It is to star Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman.
Its is to be set in the 1930s and is to be called "Australia",.
My friend was offering a bet that it would have to be a four hour epic
story that went across the intermission in the cinemas, (Do they have
an intermission?) a la Bertoluccis "1900".
He was also positing that the southern hemispherical auteur had been immersed
in such lengthy and heavy tomes as Xavier Herberts "poor fellow,
my country" and many others. He also reckoned it would have to be
a positive story.
I said that would actually be hard to do about this country. I put on
Ed Kueppers "Smile Pacific" cd which has a great song on it
called "I still call this failure home".
If I made such an epic story, that song would have to have to have a major
part of the soundtrack.
I would open 10 minutes of flies buzzing , crows crying and wind blowing
and then have some black fellers walk across the screen and then slowly
away from us , all the way to the horizon. I would then have them stop,
urinate and have a look around , turn and come back. Burke and Wills walk
across the screen in the other direction and disappear in a puff of smoke.
The back fellers laugh.
This would take us to the 20 minute mark. Id then have some convicts
and sailors parked on some beach in Tahiti, singing rude songs around
a camp fire with a bunch of happy tahitians. One sailor draws a picture
in the sand. He is elected king by the Tahitians and we then have a15
minute scene where he makes love to several women and is given the biggest
hut in the village and the sailors leave him to his new kingdom. My song,
"the birds and the goats" would be on the soundtrack.
I would then cut to an ugly, muddy village by the harbour in Sydney with
a lot of drunken redcoats and hard working convicts. No women. There would
be a lot of gratuitous gay sex in the streets and bushes. In a nod to
commercialism I would have a song by Hazel Dean in here, perhaps, "lets
hear it for the boy!"
We would see a filthy convict draw some grafitti on a wall. A big cock
and balls. A shadow comes across him, a redcoat hands hima revolver and
he blows his brains out.
I would then have a few goldrush images and some political talk. In every
scene I would have a black feller walking across the camera view.
And an artist on the beach with an easel and his suitcase beside him as
if he was waiting for a boat as well as painting.
Then there would be some posters demanding soldiers for the Great war.
I would then cut to Turkey with a lot of fellows getting mowed down on
the beach. The French soldiers would be represented by their Vietnamese
troops who were thrown in at the front line.
A painter would set up on the beach. Both sides mow him down, in slow
motion, for five minutes.
I would then have some swaggies and starving lines of sacked workers on
the docks at the depression and then we would see Nicole and Hugh. He
would be an artist who meets Henry Lawson . Henry is drunk and tells Hugh
to go catch a boat for Europe or, failing that, to go down to the beach
and blow his brains out. Nicole is at home, battling a snake in the house
with ten kids crawling about the dirt floor of their mud slab hut. They
all get bitten and all but two die.
Hugh doesnt do anything rash and settles for a job with the PMG.
We next see one of their kids in Changi prison, getting flyblown flesh
scooped out of his shin by Weary Dunlop. We see him back at the family
farm later on. He joins the communist party and goes underground, forever.
Nicole runs an sp bookmakers ring to put bread on the table , is discovered
and tried and thrown into gaol. Hugh had dobbed her in. For the good of
the country. Hugh then gets a job walking around a mushroom cloud at the
British atomic tests in Maralinga. We cut to the commie son. He has a
girlfirend and lives in the small town of Nimbin. They have twin boys.
One grows up and is conscripted to fight in Vietnam. The other goes underground
again, a family tradition, and goes away to Albania. We cut briefly to
an Albanian art gallery. It is full of pictures. Heroic commie pictures!
Of guys on the beach blowing their brains out for their country!
Nicole comes out of gaol, a hardened crim. Her grandkids come home from
the war , and Albania, also hardened by their experience. They settle
in Nimbin and start a tantric yoga school.
They have a tip that it will be big. They also run a buddha stick importation
business on the side. Hugh is against it but can longer talk, from the
radiation poisoning. He is also shrinking and is now 6 inches high. He
has nightmares of being stepped on by a filthy , clodhopping foreigner.
We leave them as the giant family applaud Hugh as he speaks, through a
strange device at the side of his throat and an enormous microphone, at
a political rally. We see the same scene on the screen of a tv set and
they have made Hugh seem a handsome, normal sized leading man type of
politician. His voice is like that of Prson Welles. He is elected leader
of Australia. A black feller walks across the screen. An artist is seen
in his bedroom, putting on his bathers, applying zinc c ream to his lips
and nose, taking his gun and walking down to the beach. The end. Cue Ed
Kuepper song.
takin all the slack back-feeling for real worlds - mid 2009
Putting out a cd is a leap into the void that gets tougher and tougher.
Eventually artists get shy of it and stay home with their mouths shut.
They get to a point and cain't go no further.
I have been quite impatient with "Knock yourself out" I always
want more than is possible. I think thats the only approach you should
take, the most impossible one. The Australian music scene is rather like
the country itself. A closed, gated community, fearful and home alone,
looking offshore to the real world. Where real things come from. Critics,
programmers, HANDICAPPERS!They think they own the track. Conjurers ! Mediocrity
from Gold!
I try to keep my mouth shut and smile and wave. You get tired of the saps
though and have to lash out occasionally. Was lucky to do a spot on radio
with a large audience. Adult. Talk. They played "Martha and the Vandellas
" before talking to me. Impossible to air my stuff of course. . I
had to fashion an acoustic version of a track from my very very studio
constructed set of songs. I pulled it off. I said I come from a "post
punk" background. So funny after all these years to be still explaining
myself. The interrogator , who had a default mocking attitude to all music
and artistic pursuits, gasped and said "you weren't a punk!"
It was useless to argue. I did my best though. He let his angst out totally
on the next guest who was a young guy whod written a book about graffitti.
He copped it. I thought he was gonna vault the desk and snap the dj as
hed threatened to do earlier, off air. That wouldve been a first.
I sucked it in and continued my rounds. A writer mockingly responded to
us lamenting that we didn't sound like Bon Iver. I asked who the fuck
that was. Sad pricks everywhere.
Bearded yanks in demand still.
Saw Jay Z on tv with "DOA" (the death of autotune) Jeez, thats
the real world!
Found myself in a radio studio waiting room again. A show about "songs
that changed your life". Some jiveass shit that civilians moan about,
who gives a fuck? A young girl was sitting, stroking her iphone. I made
conversation as I read a paper. She asked what kind of music I made. I
said I'd made 22 albums and left lt it at that. I asked her about her
work. She said she'd studied jazz and had a jazz band with a very well
known jazz impressario/composer and also an indie pop band. I was filled
with inertia. How could you balance these two? One is an application of
technique and skills and the other hangs around waiting for an accident
to happen. I asked what her life changing song was. She said "rufus
Wainright". I was tired and couldn't help myself. I said, "I
can't stand him, or his sister or his father." She looked up briefly
and inquired could I really not like the fathers work, I said "Motel
Blues" is alright but only if Alex Chilton is singing it.
She indied away to the studio . An extremely bright and prettty girl sat
down. I asked her where she'd come from. She said she was in a production
of "wicked " and had been doing 8 shows a week for a year in
the city and had moved from Perth to Melbourne to do so. Her smile beamed.
This was another real world to me.
She left and the indie jazz girl came out and said, as she consulted her
iphone, "have a great day". Not very convincingly. I nodded.
She was identifiably an artist. She had studied . In a school, and exhibited
a self absorption that was total. I've met those types before. They got
no stamina. They end up in hick towns like New York.
Eventually I went on air, full of gas and energy from all this swirling
miasma I had been diving through. It was the rough surf I had come in
on. The two hosts were pinned against the wall as I threw bomb after bomb
and took as much of the airwaves as I could. My fave song was "down
on the killing floor" by Howling Wolf. A song from Chicago, the abatoirs
of Chicago where all the black workers got actual jobs as they took trains
from the Southern states of the USA to the Northern industrial and transport
hubs that needed tough bodies to toss all that meat around.A song from
the real world, in fact.
I qualified it by talking of the time I heard it. I was a teenager and
rock music, like it must feel to young people today, was dead. Deader
than the papal penis as Nick Tosches would have it. I tried to explain
how depressing it was to endure a tv show like "Happy Days".
The inane Fonzy and the mediocrity of all the dames in that show. Horrible
melancholy music like Neil Young and Gallagher and Lyle. Ridiculously
anachronistic acts like AC/DC! I talked of hearing the Rolling Stones
, (with Brian Jones already dead!) playing their version of "Little
red rooster" and how they always credited their influences and how
I looked up some Howlin Wolf and got to meet the monster! His gargantuan
voice and presence and the brilliant guitar sound of Hubert Sumlin.
Sad people kept texting their melancholy ideas about music in and it was
all duly reported.
I only care what artists think, its so hard to hear them nowadays, the
goddam audience is yammering so much!
This kind of stuff I'm writing about. It isn't cynicism or bitterness,
its a reaction to life. People can be so goddam soft nowadays, an opinion
is ascribed to darkness and bruised , pained injury when its just an opinion.
Give it some air!
qld trip - mid 2009
Took a trip last weekend to play in brisbane, at the gallery of modern
art. I travelled with a silver case which contains a pre amp and an acoustic
exciter pedal and my 12 string in its faux crocodile skin case. People
still stare at it.I drop my guitar off at the special baggage counter
along with the winner of Australian Idol.
I went up the night before as I had to do a radio interview the next morning.
Took a train to Spencer street and then a cab. The cab driver was Indian.
I noticed a lot of cab drivers are Indian. We talked a bit during the
ride. I asked where the best curry joints were. he said King street in
Melbourne.
Got to the hotel which is across the road from the gallery, by the river
in Brisbane. its t shirt weather all of a sudden.
I take a walk into the mall in Brisbane. I hear so many foreign languages.
South American, German, French, African, Indian. I visit a record store
and a book shop.
I go back to the hotel and go to the gym, practice some guitar and eat
dinner.
The next day I go for a run and then visit the local ABC and ZZZ radio
stations.
The gig , which has me playing from 7:30 and then Kim Salmon doing a solo
set from 8:30, has drawn a large crowd. 650 people have bought tickets.My
usual visits to Brisbane do not do this.
We are to play in the middle of a water feature in a vast art gallery
chamber. A walking bridge leads to a square in the middle of the pond
where we are to set up. there is water on all sides and the people gather
around three sides. We go with the flow. I head out first. It takes a
moment to tune into the reverberant nature of the chamber. Slower songs
would be best. I try and look at people on all three sides as I'm playing.
The week before I had done a solo acoustic show at the Forum in Melbourne
and had enjoyed sitting down and playing. This needed me to stand up.
Damn! I liked that sitting down approach.
I play these songs,
"while you dream, I live"
"mogambo"
"out there in the night of time"
"bodysnatcher blues"
"I need my guitar"
"sellout"
"Oakleigh Bowie Blues"
"crime and underwear"
"alone again or" (LOVE)
"the crystal ship" (THE DOORS)
"Live and let live" (LOVE)
I leave the gladiatorial arena and Kim poceeds to slay them with his brilliant
solo electric guitar and dictaphone set.
I stand around and talk to people and sell some cds. It is a very enjoyable
night.
meantime- listening and writing mid 2009
We are off to play some dates in NSW and Qld next week. Coffs (Woolgoolga),Gold
Coast (Currumbin), Lismore and Byron and then Sydney.
The music from Knock Yourself Out is sounding great live. The band is
bringing it some extra bounce. Its got some juice.
The Melbourne launch was in a theatre situation, we did a long set of
new music to people who were seeing us for the first time or who hadn't
seen us for a decade or more. People are generally surprised, I think,
by the high energy nature of our show and how different it is to the act
that is skewered occasionally in the mainstream and rock'n'roll press.
Thats the "self proclaimed king of pop, laid back, ironic lounge
act". Actually that sounds pretty good as I write it, no wonder they
like it!
Been spending time in Melbourne doing Banan Lounge Broadcasting (RRR Tuesdays
12-2pm). last weeks guest was Mike Rudd from Spectrum who has been playing
music in Australia since he came here with the Chants in 1966. Look up
his website...
http://www.mikeruddbillputt.com/
A brilliant guitar player and singer.
Otherwise been trying to do some writing. I find playing music helps me
get in the mode. Though I still have to make 30 laps of the table before
I sit down and try to get it going. Been playing a lot of vinyl I have
had for years but never listened to much. I have to say the second side
of the first Split Enz album, "Mental Notes" is absolutely superb
and singularly strange prog pop. Thats the band before Neil Finn joined.
It is so ambitious and so successful artistically as well.
Margaret Roadknight is a tall Australian woman who unbelievably ha d a
radio hit with the amazingly sad "girls in our town" in the
mid 70s. A cold and chilling song, it stops me in my tracks. As direct
as Hank Williams . "no one better at 17 to hold , then they get married
and then they get old. ...."Well it sounds better than those lines
written down , you can hear a bit here...
http://members.iinet.net.au/~margretr/intro.htm
Also listened tp Spirit , with their reunion album, "farher along".
This sounds like something I'd aspire to. It is as good as Loves "Forever
Changes". Also listened to a mid west USA prog ( a fave genre of
mine) . Crack the Sky with their brilliant second album "animal notes".
1976 northern state band. There is also "Pampered menial" by
Pavlovs Dog which had the great single "Julia". 1975 or so again.
Produced by Sandy Pearlman and Murray Krugman who were responsible for
the Blue Oyster Cult.
Some UK prog by Family. "Its only a movie" and "music from
a dolls house".
"801 live" which was a one off album by Eno and Phil Manzanera
and some progly types from the UK scene in 1976.
Also the first Blood , sweat and tears album which was driven by Al Kooper.
Very good, as good as Spirit. They them got rid of him for the second
album and had David Clayton Thomas singing. Contained the hits "spinning
wheel", "you make me so very happy" and "when I die".
Another fave is Pentangles "basket of light" and Steve Winwoods
first solo album from 1976. That guy is funky. And he is a winner.
|
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comedy festival- makin the scene
Went to see Mick Molloy, Geoff Stilson and Glenn Robbins on Monday night.
They are doing a show at the Northcote Social Club, every night until
Sunday. they start at 8pm and finish at 9pm. (Just by the by, why can't
rock music shows be at that hour? Just for a bit of variation).
It was the first night and so they were feeling their way into it. It
was absolutely sold out from Monday to Thursday. Three guys and one microphone,
I'm jealous.
Glenn , to me, is a comic actor and so his set was really dependent on
his jokes. Geoff had a sly style and , being American, He had all the
cultural goofs as experienced by a real outsider to draw on.
Then Mick came on and showed the benefit and power of having an actual
larger than life persona. He just walked out and basically stared at people,
smiling. Everybody cracked up.
He has this "touch" with people and they go with him. Its all
like its a life experience from an actual guy they know. Thats a hard
trick to pull off and he is a master.
Mick came on our radio show, Banana Lounge Broadcasting" the next
day and we had a great time talking shit on air. He is also a brilliant
broadcaster and the energy level was really hyped up. he raised the speed
and the tempo.
Last year we had Tony Martin on the show and Tony is the same. Great skills
for delivering ideas with payloads. Of course, we've also had John Clarke
and Rod Quantock as well as many writers and musicians.
Last night we went to see Steve Coogan at the Forum theatre. This pace
holds abot 1800 people and he has sold it out for a couple of weeks. I
am jealous.
He is also, absolutely brilliant. This is a one man show with more of
a theatre production than a simple club set.Video projections, powerpoint
moments and musical backing for his songs as ell as voices coming from
offstage for him to talk to.
All his characters were in effect, most of which have never been on Australian
tv so Paul and Pauline Calf were very new to people. Tony Ferrino could
play anywhere and Alan partridge was the whole second half. The audience
seemed to be about 50% British people anyway.
It was a superb show, right to the very end where the "real"
Steve Coogan comes out. Amazing.
Parnassian vibe
Category: Jobs, Work, Careers
Upon reflection, after watching football downstairs whilst reading some
stories aboiut the late comic genius Peter Cook, (By the by, there were
several moments during the game which could have given the commentators
the opportunity to portray the events on the field in an Anzac-iacal light.
These opportunities being left begging , I must question the patriotic
fervour and spirit of said sporting pundits. they are not putting in!
Was all that useless slaughter for nothing?) I have come to the conclusion
that my vibe, my general thing, is Parnassian. But perhaps that early
and late Parnassian the crossed over into Symbolism. Thus allowing the
great respect for formal arrangements that characterized the Parnassian
as well as the striving for the opaque objectivism and repulsion for their
precursors, the Romantics, wallowing in emotion and feeling and free verse.
The crossing over into Symbolism could explain the demands and tension
my very expressionistic and determinedly individual mythologising places
on the classic forms and structures I like to inhabit. I like to hang
loose and play wide within a set of boundaries I know and range like the
back of my hand. I like to lair and I am a lair and I inhabit a lair.
The 2009 Worlds Lair!
Everybody else ? Stuck in a Romantic phase, or is that a neo classical
loop? Hopelessly generic for the most part. Rooted in alkaline, sterile
water. Hydroponically suspended in a bowl. Smooth between the legs. Stoppered
with dried plaster. With no memory of being able to move.
Francis Albert Sinatra and Antonio Carlos Jobim
I was playing this record today.I've had it for years but sometimes it
seems you are in the right moment to truly "hear" something.
This is a transcendant album of songs. Sinatra invented the idea of an
album being a collection of songs around a theme. He is a titan among
stellar names and brands. He made so many records that its hard to figure
where to dive in. I would recommend this one. Francis Albert Sinatra and
Antonio Carlos Jobim. They only made this one and its a perfect meeting
of great artists in their ascendant powers. Theere is a dvd you can get
with Sinatra appearing on tv with Jobim , playing some of these song .
it is also incredible. Just the two of them, Jobim hunched over his nylon
string guitar with his lank fringe over his head and Frank in his tux,
smoking a cigarette and singing so perfectly.
This album has a great cover shot and brilliant liner notes. They apparently
recorded
a few more songs and they've al been collected on a cd. I'm talking about
the original stand alone recording on Franks label , Reprise.
Like many people, I always had the feeling that the music scene was jumping
some time before I got onto the scene and its all a bit of a wasteland
now. I guess its easy when you approach an artefact like this when its
out of context. Its all so untidy and suspended when youre in the midst
of events. At the time I guess Bossa Nova was the new thing and Dizzy
Gillespie had brought a lot of latin feels into the jazz scene and then
it filtered through to guys like Sinatra. This is till something to be
marvelled at though. The artistry and the ambition is incredible. The
adult nature of the lyrics and the sophistication of the chords and the
arrangements. the overall lightness of touch is just so beguiling. Did
you know Frank used to walk through public places like the floor in Vegas
and if someone was good to him he would have folded his large notes into
easliy slipped packages and would , as he would say , "duke 'em".
Class.
This album is Sinatra the artist. Not Frank the violent character of infamy
and gangsterism.
These are some of the words he gets to sing, a song called Meditation,written
by Jobim....
In my loneliness
When you're gone and I'm all by myself and I need your carress
I just think of you
And the thought of you holding me near
Makes my loneliness soon disappear
Though you're far away
I have only to close my eyes and you are back to stay
I just close my eyes
And the sadness that missing you brings
Soon is gone and this heart of mine sings
Yes I love you so
And that for me is all I need to know
I will wait for you till the sun falls from out of the sky
For what else can I do
I will wait for you
Meditating how sweet life will be when you come back to me
SALMON - ROCK FORMATIONS
Below is how SALMON is described by Bang Records on their site. I'm not
here to argue with them. Perhaps if you were to read the legend first
then you could come back here to see it from where I stand.
Bang is the Spanish label that releases a certain kind of Australian music
in Europe. Basically hard rock. SALMON must be the most modernist type
thing they've ever bitten off. They should be applauded for their madness
and interest and the energy they bring to the scene they are translating
for Europe.
Anyway, Kim is held in some regard by people who love that certain Australian
sound of hard rock. But he is a restless artist among a bunch of beer
drinkers and that crew do their best to ignore stuff he has done in the
two decades since the Scientists such as the brilliant Surrealists (both
line-ups) and the astounding song writing and playing master class that
was "the Business". At that same time he also teamed up with
Dave Faulkner of the Hoodoo Gurus for the stylistic playfulness that was
"Antennae". (This album contained the brilliant "Come on
Spring"). He has also done his "roots" / solo acoustic
album which he called "E(a)rnest". Since then he has taken time
to tour and reissue and re record albums by the Scientists as well as
do an album with Ron Peno as a duo called "the Darling Downs".
Somewhere in the middle of this, as he heard the constant calls for him
to get back to his hard rock 'roots" he came up with the idea of
SALMON. SALMON would be 6 electric guitars and two drummers. the guitars
all do different tasks as part of an orchestrated heavy metal and the
drummers play in unison. there was to be no jamming, every note was written
by Kim.
WE started rehearsing in 2005. Rehearsals have far outstripped the number
of gigs we have done. Kim set the agenda. Every member of SALMON has their
own thing or career happening. In that thing of our own we call the shots.
In SALMON, we do as we are told. The guitarists all play small amps and
we all dress in black. Ashley Naylor and Anton Ruddick stand in the centre
and do the shredding, technical demanding stuff. Penny Ikinger and I stand
to the side and do the rhythmic, weird noisy parts and the pick burns.
Matt Walker joined when I couldn't make a show and has never left. he
can do both the shredding and the weirdness. Clare Moore and Michael Stranges
sit at their kits, faithfully reproducing the rhythms that Kim had originally
written on his archaic little drum machine.
Kim stands on the other side playing guitar and sending off all these
little cries and yelps and screams from his sampler.(There is no actual
singing as such and so the stage is never cluttered with mics or foldback
speakers).
Each song is like a hard rock universe in miniature. I would compare
SALMON to one of those "projects" that those jazzers would get
together in the 50s and sixties. Like Miles Davis's nine piece horn section
that he got together when he first went solo. SALMON is arty and crude.
The SALMON album has appeared. Really, we didn't go into a studio and
get it together painstakingly separating everything to then put it back
together. The album appeared and Kim told us it was from the protools
recordings of the rehearsals we did and a live show in Sydney. Its all
going to his crazy plan!
Here is the track listing:
Punk Fatwa
Prog suite 2
It wears a kilt
licensed to rock
speed metal rocker (SMR)
Alien Chord Ostinato (ACO)
Cheap'n'nasty
the axes of evil
prog suite
13th bar blues
2 minute noodle
guitarmony suite
ETI (a cover of the Blue Oyster Cult song)
Tha album flows wit many segues and reprises of each song, as does the
live show. Like some fascist heavy metal orchestra. Here is the view from
Spain.....
We are launching the album at the Northcote Social Club on May 23rd.
KIM SALMON. What else do we need to say? Just naming the Master of swamp
sound is more than enough to guarantee total quality.
Mr. Salmon flies free in this new project. His wish seems to be developing
the maximum brutality. A band of evil instrumental songs with 6 guitars
(Kim Salmon and Penny Ikinger among them) and 2 drum sets, all of them
perfectly sincronized by pairs.
Kim Salmon manufactures this project wich reminds us of a cross between
the most primitive sounds of Seattle grunge (begining of MELVINS or GREEN
RIVER), as well as Ozzy Osborne´s BLACK SABBATH, all of it mixed
with the original touch of Kim Salmon´s SCIENTISTS or SURREALISTS.
THE DRONES, as well as everybody who has been able to see them live, melt
in good words about this amazing new project from Maestro Salmon.
In order to increase the widness of this album, Mr. Salmon does the first
half in studio, and ends it with a live concert. Released by BANG! Rcds.
on CD with triple cigipack cover, as well as limited double LP deluxe
edition (embossed cover, thick vinyl 500 copies, gatefold...) For extreme
sounds lovers only.
"If you have heart problems, avoid to listen to it", Penny Ikinger.SALMON
is looming.
What is Salmon?
SALMON is five guitarists
generating scrap-yards full of metal for
two drummers to belligerently pound, slam and flam their way through!
SALMON is 8 individuals of iconic stature wildly shape-throwing and shredding
their way through the biggest barrage of demonic power-chords known to
human kind.
SALMON does it tough!
In SALMON nothing gets in the way of what counts.
In SALMON what counts are the RIFF and the BEAT
. played heavy.
What about songs you ask?
SALMON doesn't need your puny songs!
Songs are for propping up weak riffs and lame beats that can't stand on
their own.
SALMON has scientists working round the clock to come up with riffs so
hard they stand up on their own.
SALMON has carefully selected its crew from the finest available to drive
its stellar machinery. This crew comprises
Matt walker, Ash Naylor,
Clare Moore, Anton Ruddick, Mike Stranges, Penny Ikinger and Dave Graney
and Kim Salmon. These brave folk are indeed the right stuff for the mission.
These brave folk have put themselves under the all seeing, all hearing
scrutiny of SALMON .
Other bands hustle record deals, then plan and record albums.
SALMON does nothing! A SALMON record album comes into existence like the
force of nature that it is! Like the 'Big Bang!' Indeed Bang! records
came to SALMON and the Album 'Rock Formations' came into existence!
'Rock Formations' is the onslaught of SALMON made actual! In CD or double
gatefold vinyl album form! Now you can have the six axes of evil and the
twin drums of doom wreaking havoc in your own home!
Pretenders shall bow down before SALMON as it lays the rock and roll world
to waste. You may try to hide from the inevitability of SALMON but be
warned.
Resistance is useless!
Beastie Boys Sabotage
So I went to Mt Gambier at Xmas and had a chance to duck into some old
time op shops. I came out of one with a hardback book by Lawrence Durrell
called "Tunc""and a VHS full length video by the Beastie
Boys called "Sabotage". After being back in the Ponderosa compound
for a week or two I had a moment to check out the Beastie Boys. This is
a full length exposition of their live show and rehearsal room and general
tooling around lifestyle at the time when their arura and mystique was
most potent. Just after "Pauls Boutique" and at the time of
making "Check your head" , "Ill communication" and
that instrumental cd "the in sound from way out". The latter
was only available, seemingly, from insiders and was a hand to hand release,
later commercially available. Until Eminem, there was no other white act
so close to the action as far as hip hop tastes ran.
They had their own thing rolling with the brilliant magazine "Grand
Royal", (in which they pretty much invented the concept of the "Mullett"
as a recognized hairdont. They were plugged in and were jolting.They
even make skateboarding look good!
This video is a classic and has the great Spike Jonze clip for "Sabotage"
where they mimick and mock and revel in disguise as 70s donut eating,
car bonnet rolling, villain tossing cops. Its fantastic. (Here are the
characters as they are credited, Sir Stewart Wallace as himself (played
by MCA), Nathan Wind as Cochese (also played by MCA) , Vic Colfari as
Bobby, "The Rookie" (played by Adrock), Alasondro Alegré
as "The Chief" (played by Mike D), Fred Kelly as Bunny (played
by DJ Hurricane.)
It also has them playing some punk rock at some earlier gigs and also
goofing off live as Triphammer, their heavy metal outfit at a live gig.
They also appear on some cable shows in their sabotage cop outfits.
I saw them around this time at the Livid festival in Brisbane. It was
inside a big tent. I was out front waiting for them to come on. You could
see through to the backstage area through an opening. They had their dj
come on and then this bright light kept playing through that opening in
the tent and you could catch glimpses of them. It took an age as they
ambled to the stage with somebody holding a light above them. Like a tv
crew would do, if a boxer was walking to the ring. The crowd was going
nuts as they could see them and they were building it up so slowly. One
of the best entrances in music Ive seen.
Anyway, I opened the vhs and inside the box with the video was an empty
plastic bag with a few dope seeds in it. Do you reckon they released it
like that ?
talking of my kinda art the other night
We were asked to perform at the NGVA , which is in the Ian Potter centre.
Not the national gallery which is just over the other side of the river
but the national gallery of Victoria. Its at Federation Square across
from the Forum theatre. Part of the performance was for me to give an
"art chat". All this was to happen at 6pm .
I started my talk by saying I was pretty much educated by tv. Old films
and tv series. Sounds bad but I got exposed to the greatest of early Hollywood
films from the silents to film noir to all kinds of B movies and comic
events like "F Troop" and "Get Smart" . Also "The
Invaders" and the Australian scifi aboriginal series, "Wandjina".
Lots of crap too but I watched it all and saw things by accident that
you would have to get a degree to know of their existence nowadays. Everything
might be available now but you have to know about something to look for
it, in a way, and the chances of being exposed to all that cultural swamp,
by accident, are very slim now. Only in some kind of "festival"
would you get to see a movie like "Robinson Crusoe on Mars"
or "amateur night at the Dixie Bar and Grill".I added that I
never went to higher education so I really was schooled by popular culture
and it was pretty good.
I talked about my love of mythology and especially self mythology and
read a poem I'd written many years ago about my favourite mythic rock
band, the Charlatans from San Francisco. The poem is called "the
Charlatans playing silver city 1965". They were pretty much the frst
of the SF freak bands and played their first gigs ina wild west replica
saloon in Silver City.
I read from the fake "Benny Goodmans tour diaries" from teh
fake GI music mag "Nuts to you". I read the first page of Ricahard
Starks' "Point Blank" (Richard Stark was really Donald E Westlake)
and talked of my love for 30s pulp writers like Paul Cain. ( he wrote
the great "fast one" and one other collection of stories "seven
slayers")
I read from Iceberg Slims "pimp" and talked of how you had to
go into the erotic paperback section section of a secondhand bookshop
in Kings Cross to find a book ilike that as it was not recognized by respectable
book shops.
I read the first two words from Mayakovskys "my discovery of America.
Written in 1925 by this young recolutionary poet and playwrite, the first
two words are , "TWO WORDS!".I like his declamatory style and
droll humour. And I discovered America again, reading him.
I also read some James M Cain. i was going to read a poem by Guillaume
Appollinaire called "the pretty redhead" but I had left it home.
I really love that poem and identify with lines very strongly.
I ended the talk with a reading of "lament" by Jim Morrison
from the classic posthumous Doors album "an American Prayer".
The area we were playing in was a foyer just outside the John Bracks exhibition
at the gallery. People were walking in and out. We were joined bya great
turnout of people who I had never seen at any club gigs before. It was
a fantatsic experience. Playing at such an early evening hour is sensational.
Why dont more venue do this?
Basically I was trying to say that I found my kind of art by accident
and , in that peculiar australian way, it took me a long time to consider
myself an artist, to don the cloak, without smirking.
We began our set with "the birds and the goats and ended with "crime
and underwear" and "lets kill god again".
rrr live to air last week
WE played a set in the new performance space at RRR last Wednesday night.
It was the first time we'd played all the materia from "Knock Yourself
Out" . Either Clare Moore had built and played all the tracks on
the album or I had. We had to pull it all apart over the last couple of
months at our Yarraville rehearsal place and play it as a band. We'd never
had to do that before. It was like doing cover versions of my songs. They
are sounding full of bounce and grit. Its another kind of energy and level
of intensity in the dynamics.
Thanks to everybody for coming along, it was a great night. It went out
live from 6:30 to 7:00 on Richard Moffatts "incoming" show.
Afterwards we went across to the Lomond pub for a drink, well I had a
lemonade. There was a duo playing, two fellows , one on drums and another
on electric guitar. They play every Wednesday night and are called "Stackfull".
The drummer had a real, old jazz kit with a big bass drum which had the
front skin still on. He kept talking to us and telling us who they were.
Their poster, he told us, was designed by Ian McCausland. This fellow
has a lot of work out there. Have a look...
http://www.ianmccausland.com.au/
I looked up the drummer , Harold Frith ,on the magic box and he is now
73 and has been playing since that mythic time cefore the Beatles screwed
the whole scene up, in a Melbourne band called the Thunderbirds.
http://www.thethunderbirds.com.au/pictures.html
The guitarist, les Stackpool, had played in many bands from the late 60s
on. Including Levi Smiths Clefs and Doug Parkinson In Focus.
I always love to see players keeping on playing.
The next day I flew to Sydney to catch up with the people at Fuse and
tehn to sing some songs at an event that wa s a part of Brian Enos "Luminous
" festival. A very distant part I guess. Heres what the Creative
Sydney people said....
"Hear the likes of Old Man River, Spod, Sui Zhen, Loene Carmen and
members of Dappled Cities, Bridezilla, RedSunBand, Tom Ugly along with
special guests Simon Day (Ratcat) and Dave Graney reinterpreting old-school
hits and indie classics, all backed by a supergroup of a house band featuring
Lindsay McDougall (Triple J, Frenzal Rhomb), Cec Condon (The Mess Hall),
Sam Worrad (The Holy Soul) and Cameron Bruce (Waikiki, The Beautiful Girls).
The night will open with a set by three generations of Sydney performers
all from the one family - Holiday Sidewinder (Bridezilla), her mother
Loene Carmen and grandfather Peter Head - performing some of Peters
classic songs about Sydney such as King of the Cross (about
Abe Saffron) and William St Blues.
It was a very warm event to be invited to be a part of. i was the only
Melbourne person. An accident I think. I really enjoyed seeing Loene carmen
pefroming with her father and her daughter , all of them taking the mic
to sing a couple of songs in turn. Simon Day always makes me wonder why
he isn't more active musically. One of teh dappled City fellows did Eric
Bogles "the band played waltzing matilda" to this hall full
of up for it 20 somethings. I thought he was mad. they quite liked it,
but I always misjudge the current generations sentimentality about WW1.
They've been brought up with it as a semi religuous holiday every year.
I got up eventually and did "hindu gods of love " by the Lipstick
Killers and "smith and wesson blues" by rado Birdman. Two iconic
Sydney acts. I also did "bodysnatcher blues" as its a one note
boogie and I thought the band might dig it.
I went back to my hotel room, which had a view of the lights and vido
art being thrown all over the Sydney Opera House. I turned th tv on and
watched the entire game of St Kilda vs Carlton. It was a very exciting
match.
WE played a set in the new performance space at RRR last Wednesday night.
It was the first time we'd played all the materia from "Knock Yourself
Out" . Either Clare Moore had built and played all the tracks on
the album or I had. We had to pull it all apart over the last couple of
months at our Yarraville rehearsal place and play it as a band. We'd never
had to do that before. It was like doing cover versions of my songs. They
are sounding full of bounce and grit. Its another kind of energy and level
of intensity in the dynamics.
Thanks to everybody for coming along, it was a great night. It went out
live from 6:30 to 7:00 on Richard Moffatts "incoming" show.
Afterwards we went across to the Lomond pub for a drink, well I had a
lemonade. There was a duo playing, two fellows , one on drums and another
on electric guitar. They play every Wednesday night and are called "Stackfull".
The drummer had a real, old jazz kit with a big bass drum which had the
front skin still on. He kept talking to us and telling us who they were.
Their poster, he told us, was designed by Ian McCausland. This fellow
has a lot of work out there. Have a look...
http://www.ianmccausland.com.au/
I looked up the drummer , Harold Frith ,on the magic box and he is now
73 and has been playing since that mythic time cefore the Beatles screwed
the whole scene up, in a Melbourne band called the Thunderbirds.
http://www.thethunderbirds.com.au/pictures.html
The guitarist, les Stackpool, had played in many bands from the late 60s
on. Including Levi Smiths Clefs and Doug Parkinson In Focus.
I always love to see players keeping on playing.
The next day I flew to Sydney to catch up with the people at Fuse and
tehn to sing some songs at an event that wa s a part of Brian Enos "Luminous
" festival. A very distant part I guess. Heres what the Creative
Sydney people said....
"Hear the likes of Old Man River, Spod, Sui Zhen, Loene Carmen and
members of Dappled Cities, Bridezilla, RedSunBand, Tom Ugly along with
special guests Simon Day (Ratcat) and Dave Graney reinterpreting old-school
hits and indie classics, all backed by a supergroup of a house band featuring
Lindsay McDougall (Triple J, Frenzal Rhomb), Cec Condon (The Mess Hall),
Sam Worrad (The Holy Soul) and Cameron Bruce (Waikiki, The Beautiful Girls).
The night will open with a set by three generations of Sydney performers
all from the one family - Holiday Sidewinder (Bridezilla), her mother
Loene Carmen and grandfather Peter Head - performing some of Peters
classic songs about Sydney such as King of the Cross (about
Abe Saffron) and William St Blues.
It was a very warm event to be invited to be a part of. i was the only
Melbourne person. An accident I think. I really enjoyed seeing Loene carmen
pefroming with her father and her daughter , all of them taking the mic
to sing a couple of songs in turn. Simon Day always makes me wonder why
he isn't more active musically. One of teh dappled City fellows did Eric
Bogles "the band played waltzing matilda" to this hall full
of up for it 20 somethings. I thought he was mad. they quite liked it,
but I always misjudge the current generations sentimentality about WW1.
They've been brought up with it as a semi religuous holiday every year.
I got up eventually and did "hindu gods of love " by the Lipstick
Killers and "smith and wesson blues" by rado Birdman. Two iconic
Sydney acts. I also did "bodysnatcher blues" as its a one note
boogie and I thought the band might dig it.
I went back to my hotel room, which had a view of the lights and vido
art being thrown all over the Sydney Opera House. I turned th tv on and
watched the entire game of St Kilda vs Carlton. It was a very exciting
match.
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