Number 8 - On the home stretch now!

Weddings Parties Anything – For A Short Time (1997)

When a song makes you cry the first time you hear it then there is a good chance that it will take a special place in your heart. I don’t know if this is Mick Thomas’ best song but I cannot ignore it for the emotional impact it has every time I hear it. I first heard it at the Metro in Sydney and it must have been ’97 because the album was just being released.

Thomas is a storyteller in his songs and, almost as importantly, in his introductions. He sets the scene for each of his new songs. He lays out the bones of the story so that the listeners can build their own understanding of the lyrics. This has always appealed to my forensic nature. I am not one to ponder hidden meanings.

The story he told on that night affected many because we could see ourselves in it. The band had met an Aussie girl while they were touring in Canada. They had spent a drunken evening together and as they were all heading to Holland had organised to catch up there. The girl had not shown up and they had just assumed she had made other plans. They returned to Australia and on a subsequent tour had played in Newcastle, the girl’s hometown, where they were handed a letter. It was from the girl’s family. She had been killed not long after meeting them and her last communication with her family was all about how she had met the Weddoes and how excited she was.

Which of us couldn’t imagine ourselves playing pool with Mick and Wally in Halifax or Calgary and then ringing our mates and family back home to tell of the tale? Maybe, for us in the audience, it was some sort of notice that despite the feelings of invincibility that you have in your 20s fate could play a hand? A decade on and now my emotions are driven by thoughts of what her family must have gone through. Mick’s lyrics:

Tell me how long is a short time, is it longer than two hours,
Or a bit less than a weekend. Is it shorter than a year?
Is it the time it takes to not complete your business with a person,
With a friend you make in transit,
To a daughter held so dear.

I knew I would struggle to fully express how this song affects me. Somehow it touches a bit of my soul that I don’t have the abilities to describe. Perhaps to fully understand you would have to be standing there beside me at one of Mick’s gigs. A part of the choir of Weddoes tragics. I’d even teach you the extra chorus that’s not on the original recording. I’ll be the big bloke with a tear in my eye.

Number 7 - Anybody reading these things?

Painters and Dockers - Nude School (1988)

Oh dear. I’ve just spent 15 minutes Googling the subject “nude school” and now I am expecting a knock on the door from a nice man from the Federal Police. But what will he charge me with? Will it be a suspicion of searching for inappropriate images of kiddies or liking the music of a bunch of pretentious art school types from the 80s? Guilty as charged your honour, on the second count that is.

As I perused RAM, that’s Rock Australia Magazine for you uncool or young people out there, during the mid to late 80s there were two bands who always caught my attention: TISM and Painters and Dockers. I had never heard a single song from either of them but something in their attitudes always appealed. I too wanted to be in a band full of patronising art school smart arses that produced pop songs laden with in-jokes that only other art school smart arses would understand. How I dreamed… and then one day I did get to hear a Painters and Dockers song and it was very witty and a bit punk and it had a horn section. A bloody horn section! I’ve love brass! And then I saw the clip and it was fantastic. And then I bought the album and it was very average, but that doesn’t matter because I got one song out of them.

I’ll let you in on a little secret. I am a horrible daydreamer. Ok, that is probably not a secret for some of you but one of my favourite daydreams is about being invited on stage by my best mates (insert appropriate band here) who are headlining Homebake. They want me to do the final song of the night. You now the type I mean, the cover that will send the crowd absolutely berko. The one where members of every other band that has played end up onstage as well and that shit hot guitarist from Band A plays on the same song as that great drummer from Band B. And I do the singing and I stage dive and I am adored. 9 times out of 10 that song is Nude School and I rock the joint. I love that daydream. Might go there right now.

Thank you and goodnight!

PS – for the info of Penthe it was the ‘Rockin’ The Rails’ initiative that saw them play at Ringwood station. I can’t believe you didn’t love them. You big city kids were so spoiled.

Are we up to 6 yet?

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Deanna (1988)

What a gloriously shambolic few minutes of sonic pleasure this is. I romanticise its production in my head. It is very late at night in the studio. The last of the horse has been jacked up. Nick suggests they give that new tune a shot. Harvey is together enough to play drums and bass and acoustic, perhaps not a once. Not even he is that good. Blixa sits in the corner and does what Blixa does best – just makes up cool noises. Kid Congo whacks out some riffs and Cave weaves in some great organ sounds and makes up the lyrics as he goes along. They have a big sing-a-long, often out of key, and get it done in three takes. Cave collapses unconscious into the drum kit and sleeps there. A classic is born.

I’m sure there is probably a more accurate account of proceedings out there somewhere but I like my version. The H must have played some part. How else can you explain a line like “I cum a deaths head in your frock”? WTF??? Somebody might be able to point out my ignorance by showing that it is a homage to an obscure French poet from the 19th century but again I like my rock’n’roll version.

For me Deanna marks the beginning of my favourite period of Cave’s work - his angry preacher period. To see him prowl the stage proselytising made you understand the power of the revivalists. He converted me every time. I lit his cigarette one night and for the second I looked into the eyes of the man I was a part of it all. And then he turned away and I think I giggled like a schoolgirl. And so it goes…

Number 5 in this series (but number 1 in my heart)

Billy Bragg – Waiting For The Great Leap Forwards (1988)

The yellow of the cassette’s cover made it stand out on top of the pile. I picked it up to have a look. “Billy Bragg. Yeah, I’ve heard of that bloke. Worker’s Playtime. Any good?” It was Brisbane, 1990, and I was finally beginning to broaden my musical tastes away from the standard MMM Oz rock fare. JJJ was still a few months from starting and I had never really connected with ZZZ, so the street press and the recommendations of friends drove my musical explorations. The aforementioned pile of cassettes was in the home of a girl I worked with and had a crush on. As she was deeply smitten with someone else the love remained unrequited but she did lend me that tape. I remember it was a Friday night and as I got on the train for the trip back to Ipswich I popped it in my Walkman and pressed play. For a lovelorn young fella being given a tape that contains songs such as She’s Got A New Spell and Must I Paint You A Picture by a girl on whom you have a crush, well, it can lead to some moments of fantasy. “Maybe she does have feelings for me after all and this is her way of showing it.” I was driven to writing some bad poetry there and then. I still have it somewhere.

Somewhere towards the end of the train trip, and the end of the tape, an electric guitar starts up, that unmistakable Bragg sound, and is soon joined by piano. Billy’s lyrics are almost spoken as he starts discussing life, love and politics (again). Eventually a beat is added when someone starts tapping a drumstick on the edge of a snare. The playing steadily builds in volume and then what had seemed to be an introspective manifesto becomes a joyous celebration of the possibilities of life. The band, the backing singers, Billy shouting at us “that in a perfect world we’d all sing in tune but this is reality so give me some room!” I must have listened to Waiting For The Great Leap Forwards three or four times in a row before I got off the train that night and hundreds of times since. It never fails to make me smile. That girl never did fall in love with me but she is one of my best friends 20 years later and I wouldn't change that for the world. And she gave me Billy. “Baby I’m struttin’!”

#4

The Cure – Boys Don’t Cry (1979)

I felt so sorry for my brother-in-law. He’s an ex-bikie with the requisite tatts and has spent his life working in railway workshops and abattoirs. For him to attempt to have a D and M with his then teenage brother-in-law about how it was ok for men to show their feelings must have been one of the most embarrassing moments in his life and shows how scared he was of my mother.

It was early 1987 and her name was Noreen. My first ever girlfriend. We had met at McDonalds and our love had burnt bright, at least I had thought so, for a month or so but then she dumped me. I was inconsolable. My only refuge was 2 minutes and 34 seconds of Robert Smith genius. I remember that the tape had been stolen from a party. Not by me but by an associate, a metal head, not unusual for an Ipswich teenage boy at the time, who had discarded it in disgust as being for poofs. Being reasonably secure in my sexuality I had taken it home and fallen in love with the melancholy of it all. So when my heart was broken I had my soundtrack already prepared.

I lay on my bed with my ghetto blaster on my chest and played Boys Don’t Cry over and over again. Being in the pre-CD days I had to rewind it each time. I became so proficient that I could judge it to perfection so that when I pressed play that first chord would ring out true every time. I even transcribed the words into a letter that I sent her presenting my case about why we should get back together. It is heartening to think that I was a true teenager.

This melancholic state must have worried my mother who obviously missed a couple of the finer points in the lyrics. She, and most likely my sister, must have badgered my brother-in-law to say something to me about it. I remember him gingerly offering up something along the lines of “You know it’s ok for blokes to cry don’t ya?”

“Um yeah.”

“Right then. Ok. Um…”

Cue me retreating to my bedroom and pressing play. And 20 years later we have never spoken of it again.

Song 3 of the you know what

Elvis Costello and The Attractions – (What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding (1979)

I think it’s the drums that initially got me. Pete Thomas seems to be having a manic episode. I’m not very good with picking production techniques but surely there are a couple of drum tracks in there. Can one man hit that many things that quickly? They start driving from the opening bar and I always feel as if my heart has taken on the same rhythm. My spirits rise and I want to man the humanist barricades and fight the good fight. I can never stop myself playing air drums like a loon. Nor can I stop myself theatrically, and untunefully, singing along to “And where is that harmony? Sweet harmony?” Generally at an embarrassingly loud volume.

I credit Hank Five for the introduction. It was in a car somewhere, sometime, on a compilation tape. He understood the genius of Mr MacManus well before myself. Of course the irony is that it’s a cover. I only got around to hearing the beautiful original version by Nick Lowe earlier this year. I love it almost as much but for different reasons. I now understand that Bill Murray was channelling Lowe and not Costello in Lost In Translation.

Check out this clip from Elvis’ TV show. Zooey, M Ward, Jenny Lewis, the master Pete Thomas dueling on the skins with his daughter Tennessee (and how cute is she with that fringe?), Elvis, even Dylan Jr wasn’t too bad. I would have totally lost my shit if I had been there.

Song 2 in my Top 10.

The Go-Betweens – Lee Remick (1978)

Why Lee Remick? Why not Head Full Of Steam or People Say or Cattle and Cane or any of the other masterpieces that Robert and Grant produced? It’s a very simple reason really. Because it is SO simple - I could have written it. For one afternoon in 1978 Robert Forster was about as musically talented as I am. It has a piss easy chord structure that even I can play on the guitar and lyrics so basic that when stuck for a word to rhyme with gem he came up with, um, gem. And lots of ba ba ba ba bananananas to fill in the time. I swear if Hank Five and myself had persisted with our band aspirations we could have written something as good but probably only the one. Please don’t think I am comparing myself to Robert, I realise that I am certainly not worthy. If you were to own that first Abel Label single, and how I would love to (hint there for 40th birthday present shoppers), you would turn it over and find that by the time he had written Karen his genius was already shining through. So put it on, press play and jump around for 2 minutes and 31 seconds and enjoy its pure unadulterated naiveté.
“She comes from Ireland, she’s very beautiful. I come from Brisbane and I’m quite plain.” How very true.

My Top 10 songs of all time: A 10 part series (who woulda thunk it)

With JJJ running its Top 100 Of All Time I have agonised over a selection of songs to make up my Top 10 of all time. Of course this list is only how I feel today and may well change by the week after next. I thought I might take the time to explain what each of the songs means to me. They are listed in chronological order of release. I'll post one a day.

Bruce Springsteen – Born To Run. (1975)

One reason I want to someday be a contestant on Rockwiz is so that Julia gets to asks me what my first ever gig was. I will nonchalantly answer that it was The Boss at QE II Stadium in 1985 on The Born In The USA tour. Much respect from the audience will ensue, I am sure. I still have the t-shirt and it fits Girl O’Sea a treat. She looks very rock and roll. I assume that it was that night, standing in the upper reaches of that stadium, that I first heard Born To Run. My memories of the evening have been dimmed with the passing of time but I do know that my adoration of Springsteen began then. What was there not to love? He was singing about growing up in a working class town, being bored and wanting to fall in love. For a 14 year old from Ipswich it was all I could do to stop myself yelling, “You are singing about me Bruce!” And Born To Run is the ultimate expression of that. The Boss wants to get away from the town which “is a death trap” with his girl Wendy and find out ”if love is wild, … if love is real.” From the opening drum roll you understand the passion and the drama. The song ebbs and flows like life but by the end, baby, you are Born To Run! Or at least ready for Mum to come and pick you up.

If you have no musical talent then become a reviewer.

“Six String Suicide” by Pete Ross and the Paesanos.

The greatest joy of owning an old car, let’s say a 1970 HG Kingswood station wagon, is cruising on an open highway, elbow in the breeze and some fine country tunes playing on the stereo. Yes, it is a clichéd image, I’ll grant you that, but oh so much fun. So when I heard the first few bars of Kiss Goodnight, the opening track on Pete Ross and the Paesanos debut album “Six String Suicide”, I was already imagining Girl O’Sea and myself driving off into the sunset.

The songs seemed to have everything that I look for in driving tunes. A strong vocal delivery? No problems there as Ross is blessed with a voice that wouldn’t be out of place in the Snarski family. Some gun players perhaps? The Paesanos are tight and versatile and include Monique Boggia’s wonderful work on the Hammond organ. Added to them are guest appearances by some of Melbourne’s finest including Matt Walker, Liz Stringer and Jen Anderson. All good so far.

We’ve already had our visual cliché so let’s have some lyrical ones as well because they are as important to good country as boots and a big hat. The second track is called Man In The Long Black Coat. Ah, the infamous “Man In Black” cliché that is taught day one in songwriter’s school. Later we have My Baby’s Gone in which we learn that the protagonist’s baby is, in fact, gone but he is intending too drive all night to get her back. Although no mention is made of the whereabouts of his dog I am still prepared to give this a big tick.

Ok, so we are progressing well, ticking all the boxes, and I’m checking the oil and water but then Mr Ross decides to do something a bit different, with good effect. A Thousand Miles Away starts off with acoustic guitar but is then joined by a new voice, singing in Italian. What progresses is a very Cave-esque duet between this new voice and Ross, singing in English. Duets are not uncommon in country music but usually not between men singing in different languages. It turns out that the new voice belongs to Ross’ father, Peter Ciani, who was something of an Italian pop star during the 1950s. Ciani co-produced the album with Ross and co-wrote a number of songs.

Ross also sings in Italian on two tracks and one of these, Sciuri Sciuri, provides a highlight. Apparently it is a traditional Sicilian folk song and its groove is so infectious that all you want to do is wrap one arm around Nonna, the other around big Uncle Joe and dance the night away.

For the most part I really enjoyed “Six String Suicide”. My only grumbles would be that in a couple of spots Ross didn’t seem to play to his strengths in his vocal delivery and the orchestration was a bit busy in places but I can see how that would happen, given all of those gun players he had in the studio.

That said, it still made me very happy and I look forward to having it on the stereo next time I’ve got my elbow in the breeze.

A tale of how two pink lines can change your life.

So it all came down to a couple of pink lines. One pink line and life would continue but with a touch of disappointment and a growing sense of frustration. Two pink lines and, well, I am not sure what they will ultimately mean but undoubtedly our lives changed last night. After only a few months of trying Girl O'Sea is pregnant! 5 weeks we believe.

I know the consensus is that this type of news should be kept quiet until 12 weeks and the first ultrasound but I think that would defeat the purposes of this blog. I want to document every part of this little journey we are embarking on. I have intentionally not told any of our family members about the blog as I had hoped I would soon get this opportunity. We won't be informing them until the 12 weeks and I know that I can trust my friends who do read this to keep it under their hats till then.

The news is still sinking in. Girl O'Sea had been suspicious for a week and certain for a couple of days and then the good old "Discover One Step" confirmed it last night with its two pink lines. The due date will be sometime late February which seems such a long time away but we have so much to do. Well obviously Girl O'Sea has THE most to do but I have started worrying about things like getting a job.

I had always suspected that this next semester would be the last where we could afford to indulge my full-time study. It's now time for me to start focusing on how I am going to get a full-time journo gig next year. In a perfect world I'd land a traineeship at the ABC or The Age and stay in Melbourne but the chances of that happening are very slim. Something in Sydney would also be good but it is more likely we will need to head bush. That is a prospect that does hold some appeal for us. Girl O'Sea grew up in the country and I like the idea of the multi-tasking that seems to be the norm in small organizations. I wouldn't want to be there forever but it would be great training. I've checked out ads for jobs at papers in Young and Blayney today and had a bit of a daydream.

I'm not sure what this will mean for uni. If I get a gig in Melbourne I'll try and finish it part time through La Trobe but if we need to move then I'll try and transfer. Plenty of time to sort that out later. The focus must be on getting some stuff published. Busy times ahead.