How can anyone stay in a bad mood after this song comes on the radio? It’s just so relentlessly cheerful that resistance is impossible. I remember they played in Sydney when I was a little kid, and I really wanted to go but I was way too young, and my parents wouldn’t have wanted to go, and even though I knew it was impossible I still wanted to see them because I loved loads of their songs, and because I heard that they used lasers in their shows, which seemed incredibly cool.
On the night of their show we were at my grandparents’ house in Rydalmere, closer into town than our place but still out in the western suburbs, and I went out into the frangipani tree in their front yard, a tree that I still miss for its beauty and fragrance and from which I used to watch the movies at the drive in up the hill and wonder what was being said, but I saw a strange glow from towards the city and went out on the lawn, the tough buffalo grass spiking my bare feet as I walked over to see the lasers slicing through the sky to the low, heavy clouds: I thought of this song, and pretended that I was there. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQUlA8Hcv4s
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They’re from the Mornington Peninsula, not Mount Gambier as I’d always assumed for some reason, and although it means they’re not from quite as secluded a place as I’d thought, they’re still from somewhere plenty weird enough in its own right. I went there once for a wedding, and before that I’d only really known about the place because of the song Mordialoc Road Duplicator by TISM, from the gloriously named Great Trucking Songs of the Renaissance (and which I only knew about because of the groom, who loved them and enjoyed the fact that they wrote a song about a construction project - “if you’re interested in roadworks/see me later”).
But the whole place is covered in tea trees, which hide all the houses behind them: you drive around on endless roads but see no one, like it’s a ghost suburb. It’s easy to see how you’d grow up a little odd there. And this is a great song, like a swamp for your ears, and although they never really became that well known I love the fact that they’re still playing, middle-aged men pretending to be teenagers for their entire lives, and that they clearly know it’s never going to get better but they don’t care, because if they’d become well known they’d have probably had to have split up by now. Kind of like the wedding couple, who’d lived together for 8 years before getting married in the grand event of the season, went on honeymoon around the world for 6 months before coming back and breaking up, before they even got the photos back. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQ-fvr2qLc0 Grace Jones might actually be the coolest person on the planet. I doubt she’s ever looked less than stunning, even holding an accordion. Which has, over the last couple of years, struck me an instrument that well overdue a comeback.
Despite her almost alien good looks it’s hard to remember that she started off as a model given how astonishingly good her back catalogue of music is, and while unarguably she’s been great at picking people to work with (particularly Sly and Robbie, but also Trevor Horn on the epic Slave to the Rhythm, as well as a cast of photographers and film makers) there’s no doubt that her catalogue wouldn’t work for anyone else (including the covers she’s taken on and made her own). Wandering the streets of Paris wouldn’t be the same without her on the soundtrack: she’s had a love affair with the city that is almost unmatched by any other arriviste (because who can love a place as much as someone from elsewhere who has chosen to live there, rather than being born there and failing to leave?). For me it goes back to the movie Frantic, with Roman Polanski wisely picking a collection of her songs for the soundtrack, including some of the most memorable moments of a great film. You know how when you see a really good movie that it feels likes you’re right there? I remember thinking wow, this makes me feel like I’m in Paris until the end of the film: I walked out of the cinema on the Champs-Elysées and remembered oh, I am. I saw her play 2 years ago at OnBlackheath, and she was amazing: she must be mid-sixties at least, but she had the entire crowd in the palm of her hand as she changed outfit for every song, had a setlist to kill for and an entertaining story for every song, she never missed a note and culminated with Slave (of course), singing her heart out while spinning two hula hoops around herself. As you do. Screw Mick Jagger, Grace is the epitome of growing old disgracefully (along with Iggy Pop), and long may she continue to be. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIN3IE3DHqc I used to think it would be great to learn piano, just so I could play this song in a lobby somewhere, smile enigmatically, and then wander off into the night. Because it’s such a lovely thing, so simple yet so beautiful, that I can’t imagine anyone hearing it, even for the first time, and not being moved by it.
Although I might have to bring a horn section with me. And a bass player. And a drum machine. And a guitarist. That might be what stopped the plan from ever happening, although I’m prepared to bet voice plus solo piano would be worth hearing, even now. Guess I’d better pick up a piano. From The Flat Earth, a sumptuous album that was probably overwhelmed by having Hyperactive, his big hit that lived up to its name, tacked on the end by the record company despite it standing out like a sore thumb, in a case of an album which would be better without the hit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyPPVDX-tVA 7/7/2017 0 Comments 43. Mrs Robinson – LemonheadsGlebe. How do you explain that? For a small parcel of time, it just seemed to be the coolest place in the world, although to look at it now, as a fancy inner city, middle class neighbourhood, it’s just baffling. It circled around Half a Cow records (and the Valhalla, which was easily the coolest cinema in Sydney for years, and maybe Gleebooks), whose owner joined the Lemonheads on bass just as Evan Dando became the indie world’s official heart throb, and boom.
I wasn’t a big fan of them (well, of him really), although I had a soft spot for Bit Part in Your Life, and I’ve got to admit this just rattles along, justifying some of the hype. And it still holds up, which is nice. And I do like that Nick went back to running his shop and label, giving so many local bands the chance to make a record (most notably Smudge, who had possibly the greatest album name ever: You, Me, Carpark, Now), and probably just have a great life. I remember going in to the shop once and feeling such a geek, because all those cool record shops used to trade on making you feel unworthy: he was actually behind the counter, looked up and said “hey, let me know if you want any help” and went back to chatting with his mate. I bought a bunch of records and comics and took them over, and as he flicked through them to add it up he said “nice choices: I love this one” and I floated out the door and all the way home. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvMFm5nKeUc 7/6/2017 0 Comments 42. Pace It – Magic DirtI remember talking to Mark at some race somewhere about Magic Dirt, and how they were just a perfect band for a sub-group of people who were looking for a strong female front person with a soaring vocal dropping bombs from on high over huge, huge guitars, bass and drums. Mostly because we were both in that sub-group of people.
Adalita was (and probably still is) an amazing singer, and just commanded a band that could have fought their corner against anyone but chose to follow her into war instead. And what an amazing racket they made, until their bass player Dean died so suddenly and they decided they couldn’t continue without him. I remember You Am I, one of my favourite bands in the world, doing a Live at the Wireless on Triple J with a bunch of mates, and they got Adalita in to sing Berlin Chair, their greatest hit (“how about it Adalita? Here’s your chance at stardom”) and she owned it. I can’t find that version anywhere, but she comes on halfway through this to own them once again. But back with her own band, I just flipped a coin to come up with a track to represent them, and you could do worse than this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXaySubvFc4 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 I loved the Scrittis back in the eighties, mostly for that beautifully pure falsetto Green used (and which is about the only recognisable element in this track) and the lush orchestration underpinning everything. Which is strange for a bunch of ex-communist punks on Rough Trade, but this song is even stranger.
How do you go from Wood Beez and Absolute to getting in Mos Def and friends to take over the song, relegating yourself to the background of a rap track, as beautiful as it was? I guess if you can if create something as perfect as this, you don’t really care about where you slot in, as long it’s for the greater good. You can’t take the socialism out of old socialists after all. I saw them play in Brixton a while ago, supporting someone else (I think it was Placebo? There’s a sort of symmetry to that, if it was) and they were great, but as a support no one was really paying any attention to them. But it was gratifying that someone still remembered them enough to bring them back into the public realm, particularly as they didn’t really tour when they were famous, because of Green’s crippling stage fright. Mos Def didn’t make an appearance though, sadly enough: I hope because he was busy making Be Kind, Rewind 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7fnyFOlCmI I know it’s got something to do with the footy at home, but since I haven’t lived there for 20 years it hasn’t touched me, leaving me with pure memories of shouting this out in pubs when life was simpler.
Dave Faulkner was a classicist among songwriters, even if they wanted to grungy alternative rockers (Le Hoodoos, indeed), and it’s not really a surprise that they became as big as they did: Bittersweet, My Girl, 1000 Miles Away, Like Wow Wipeout, all genre classics, but this one was on Blow Your Cool, and hearing this in Mickey’s place back in LA gave me my first twinge of homesickness among the excitement of travelling the world for myself for the first time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugA5bLqivkY 7/2/2017 0 Comments 38. Nemesis – ShriekbackWho doesn’t like a song that includes the word parthenogenesis in the chorus? Because nothing is sexier than reptilian reproduction, obviously. I loved this band, and in particular their album Oil and Gold, because it was just so ambitious: they’d all been in bands before and clearly thought there should be more to music than four on the floor and a guitar solo.
They’re also one of the bands I regret not seeing live (apparently they just reformed for a tour and I never heard about it. Bummer), although Eyman saw them without me (I can’t remember why) in Seven Hills of all places: the contradiction between them and there is just delicious. The way he tells it he had a beer with the singer before the show and finished on stage singing this with them: I’ve got no way of knowing, but just the thought of it makes me smile. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bMM61Y5CEU 7/1/2017 0 Comments 37. Anthem – CloudsI just love Clouds, they were such a perfect encapsulation of a period of time in Australia that was is probably my default memory of the place. Two girl harmonies, loud guitars and chugging songs: what’s not to like? My only regret is that I never got to see them live, preferably at the Enmore: that would have been bliss, if you’ll pardon the pun.
They had so many brilliant songs that it’s hard to pick just one: I always love the blink and you’ll miss it joy of Say It and the wind up robot-ness of Souleater, but I’m going to stick with Anthem because of the opening line (“I want something to think about / nothing fancy, just you”) and the amusement of the video, with the Australian flag being knocked over by a radio controlled car. Plus, I’ve always wanted a beach buggy. Who wouldn’t? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=op6ROs1l6us |