41. Black Stick – The Cruel Sea

They had so many great moments, The Cruel Sea: that slide solo in Honeymoon is Over and the ma ma ma mas following, the swagger of This Is Not The Way Home, the guitar crunch and the ocifer said of Better Get A Lawyer. But it’s got to be Black Stick, just for the sheer grind of it.

I remember going to see Tex, Don and Charlie at the North Bondi Surf Club with Scott, who lived around the corner from there back in the day: I was staring out of those enormous windows watching the ebb and flow of the tide when Tex walked through the crowd, or more accurately the crowd parted like the sea to allow him, 6’3” and all hair and shoulders with (of course) an impossibly beautiful girlfriend in tow, and he wandered through as though it was the most natural thing in the world. And if you’re Tex Perkins, that probably is just how the world is for you.

And fair enough too: I can’t recall him making anything that was less than great, despite turning his hand and voice to so many different things over the years. And he still looks exactly as he did those 25 (or whatever) years ago. The bastard.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnoceT5zErs