Bunyip Voodoo

Simone across the desert

2012-02-07T21:41:00.000-08:00

Despite being someone who believes the apogee of life to be a lengthy train trip in a sleeper compartment overnight across some continent or other, I have only ever been on three such adventures. This is due to the constraints of time and money as well as, on one gravely disappointing occasion, striking public transport workers in France when the trip was to be Zurich to Barcelona.

When I was about seven I took a night train from Sydney to Melbourne, before going on to Phillip Island. Then 12 years later I was one wretch among many in lower class during a rather warped re-enactment of 'Marrakesh Express' on a 10-hour journey between Tangier and Marrakesh. Then in 2011 I went from Prague to Budapest. And that's all.

Most can surely relate to the cosy satisfaction that comes with such journeys, what with the rhythmic movements of the carriage to go to sleep by and the forced inertia acting as a holiday from any acts of doing. But upon reading Simone de Beauvoir's fascinating America Day By Day, her account of a four-month journey across the USA in 1947, I have discovered what must be the most succinct and beautiful description of why such an experience is so childish and exciting that was ever committed to print.

She writes of riding from Chicago to Los Angeles:

I pull the rough green curtains, fix them in place, hang my dress in the closet, and arrange my things in the mesh bags. The window is covered with a blind, and I switch on the little light above my head. On the other side of the thin partition, people come and go in the corridor; yet no room with thick walls has ever given me this feeling of relaxation and calm. This sleeping berth I'm stretched out on is more than a bed; it's a whole dwelling reduced to the dimensions of a bed. There are childhood memories associated with this pleasure. I remember a weeping willow in which I made a house, a large canopied country bed with heavy curtains, and that dark compartment where I loved to hide under my father's desk. Psychoanalysts see in that a desire to return to the maternal womb, but this language is too symbolic and doesn't clarify anything. My berth is not the recollection of lost happiness; it gives me a satisfaction sufficient unto itself: it is refuge, solitude separation. The tension and fatigue entailed in every existence originate in other, larger forms of existence; in these berths stacked on either side of the corridor, like tombs in the galleries of the Catacombs, each person achieves an absolute solitude. This nocturnal dwelling evokes the peace of the funeral chambers at Mycenae and Cerveteri; no appeal from the outside world can penetrate here. My life is now longer pulled in different directions or tied to anyone or anything; it has closed in on itself in the silence of death. I turn off the light and shut my eyes. I feel the rhythmic movement of the train as it rolls into the unknown; this movement also brings me peace - the peace of an alibi. Not only am I separated from everything, but I am not situated at any particular spot in the universe: I'm just passing through. I have no more ties to the earth, no more desire or curiosity. The sleep that pulls me from this world is in in harmony with the rolling of the train, which minute by minute denies me any unique place in it. That's probably why my sleep is always so refreshing on trains.

All The Colours: 2011's Best Albums

2011-12-14T08:23:00.002-08:00

1. D - White Denim
Downtown / Cooperative

White Denim's previous two albums saw this gifted and spirited three-piece innovating with limited equipment and whimsically meandering through classic and garage rock. It was brilliant at times, patchy at others. But it turns out everything the Austin band had been doing was leading to this, a most extraordinary, near-flawless LP. When restrained songwriting is called for ('Street Joy' and 'Keys'), they are experts. When ebullient, melodic jamming was the go ('Back At The Farm') they were astonishing. And as ever, their take on the concept of the 'riff' was wonderfully askew and varied. Having employed an extra guitarist to complement James Petralli they have somehow lost none of their primitivism, yet are notably more advanced as musicians and composers. If a better band exists right now they must be performing for the gods, as there is none better down here.

2. Gentle Stream - The Amazing
Subliminal Sounds

Overly accomplished musicians are generally a drag. But The Amazing (two things to remember: don't call them a Dungen side project and don't say anything so nauseating as "with a name like that they'd better back it up" as too many reviews did) have a restraint, taste and lightness of touch that makes their technical prowess more palatable. Gentle Stream is a pastoral, melodic, textured and deeply spiritual second album based around Christopher Gunrup's Romantic perceptions as both singer and songwriter. This is music aiming seriously high, and indeed minute by minute reaches loftier plains.

3. Ashes & Fire - Ryan Adams
Columbia

Housewives dropped their pots and pans and stood still. Men ceased chopping the wood and listened to the air. Obama asked "can I have the room?" when he heard the news: the first Ryan Adams album in three years was on the way. Ashes & Fire is his best since 29 (2005) and similar to that album sees him assuming the role of trembling romantic. As heavily pointed out in reviews, this was a throwback to a different period of his life before he started those endless jams with the Cardinals, therefore the emphasis is on the strange poetry of his lyrics as well as some typically beautiful songwriting - case in points being 'Kindness' and 'Rocks'. Time has mellowed him, but not blunted him.

4. WIT'S END - Cass McCombs
Domino

The best song from Cass McCombs in 2011 came on his second album of the year (see below) but as a rounded, comprehensive statement, WIT'S END was the superior effort. His theme since 2008 has been defiant misery, with doses of terrifying urban imagery thrown in too, and on here it really was often a case of the rather overused term 'beautiful pain'. Opener 'County Line', 'Memory's Stain' and 'A Knock Upon The Door' revealed his growing awareness of the power of different instrumentation to add to the gravity of his sound, while his lyrical narratives about those depraved characters remain as stark as ever.

5. Humor Risk - Cass McCombs
Domino

When a measure of light returned to McCombs' music in November it was a little confusing. The varying degrees of energy and excitement on this album led to some accusing it of being somewhat disjointed and inconsistent, but say what you will, this contains some fascinating songs. None more so than 'The Same Thing' of course, but multiple listens to the strange 'Robin Egg Blue' reveal another brilliantly constructed example of his art and increased the mystery surrounding the man himself. The two albums taken together are, to coin a phrase from 'The Same Thing', 'cut from different sides of the same cloth'.

6. Don't Act Like You Don't Care - Luke Temple
Western Vinyl

Temple, whose Here We Go Magic material never quite hit the heights, referred to this as his 'country' album as it was being recorded. Given that it is not country at all suggests the departure it is from his usual aforementioned band. These are all old songs of his given a new interpretation, with the results being startling. Accessible but slightly odd, Temple reveals depths as a songwriter he has only hinted at before. This is somewhat reminiscent of Phosphorescent's Here's To Taking It Easy (2010), and pleasantly echoes that mix of humor and pathos.

7. Tripper - Fruit Bats
Sub Pop

It's debatable whether Tripper is the best thing Eric D. Johnson has ever done, but it is certainly his most eclectic. Using his familiar folk-rock template as merely a launch pad he explores such things as glam, synth-pop and his really very attractive sense of humour from start to finish. There are many touches of sentimentality amid the grit and glitz, but never does anything obscure the fact that Johnson is at least the creative equal of his pals and collaborators James Mercer of the Shins and Andy Cabic of Vetiver.

8. Smother - Wild Beasts
Domino

I am one of the few who believes Wild Beasts' first album, Limbo, Panto, to be their masterpiece. That record was full of the joys of bounding young men finding their musical feet and was an audible testament to their friendship. Smother is the logical next step from Two Dancers in establishing them as bona fide artists, demanding they be taken very seriously, and taken seriously they must be. This is their first slow-burning album that will take a few listens to sink in, yet it will eventually reveal itself to any listener to be triumphant. Since they started out, there is not much more they could have done to achieve perfection.

9. Sun & Shade - Woods
Woodsist

When a band is as marvelously consistent as Woods it is sometimes difficult to examine an album in isolation and assess it on its own merits. But Sun & Shade genuinely is probably a class above the rest of Jeremy Earl's output, forcing together all of his influences - from Fairport-like folk-rock to the drone of the Velvets to their most obvious debt this time around, early Neil Young and Buffalo Springfield. Earl is a beautiful, if derivative, songwriter whose maturity never gets in the way of playfulness. Woods may not have released their Sgt Pepper yet, but this may be their best album to date. And give me them over Fleet Foxes any day.

10. Konkylie - When Saints Go Machine
!K7

When Saints Go Machine have equal reverence for sugary house, out-and-out pop, hip hop, trip hop and by the sounds of Konkylie, lush orchestral music. This is not an album to listen to in the background, because every note and nuance from the Danes must be heard and its puzzle worked out. The title track sounds like a strange medieval piece played out on synths, while other tracks, such a 'Kelly' are superbly crafted pop tunes. There's Scott Walker in here, as there is The Human League, Grace Jones and Beck. It's that confused, and that good.

11. The Errant Charm - Vetiver
Sub Pop

Of course, The Errant Charm is not even close to being as good as To Find Me Gone (2006), but Andy Cabic deserves credit for allowing Vetiver to recover from the really very boring Tight Knit (2009). Granted, there are several hangovers here from that album that prove he is not quite over his 50s rock and roll fetish quite yet, but there are enough gems on here to suggest that something incendiary still lurks inside the San Franciscan. Opener 'It's Beyond Me' and 'Can't You Tell' are among his most interesting tracks - he is has not succumbed to the pitfalls of being too nice just yet, then.

12. No Witch - The Cave Singers
Jagjaguwar

In the four years since they formed, The Cave Singers' profile has remained surprisingly stagnant, mainly, despite the fact they have released three excellent albums of passionate, sometimes nearly hysterical, devil's music. Like many on this list, the trio have made repetition and sparseness the source of their emotional energy, with the voice of Pete Quirk consistently astonishing in its nasal beauty. This was slightly better that Welcome Joy (2009) and is deserving of considerably more attention than it got. One of the year's understated folk gems.

13. Zeroes QC - Suuns
Secretly Canadian

To many, this is the standout album of the year, and it is certainly one of the most original. Like When Saints Go Machine, they have taken all the most accessible and infectious elements of several other painfully modern styles (in Suuns' case, more on the side of industrial, indie, drone and dance) and constructed a mesmerising tribute to their own tastes. This is nothing less than a triumph of studio production and craft, and that it trumps even the latest Battles album suggest just how excellent Suuns' debut truly is.

14. Pajama Club - Pajama Club
Lester

It's true that Neil Finn's devotion to having his wife so closely involved may be on the verge of stretching too far, and it's also true that there are some uncharacteristic lyrical disasters here, but there was a lot to love about this idiosyncratic little morsel from the great man. 'Can't Put It Down Until It Ends' is everything that is good about weird Neil (hear below), while 'Go Kart' felt like a regression back to his pre-Split Enz teenage attempts at songwriting, and is all the better for it. And when the inevitable sentiment comes ('Diamonds In Her Eyes', 'Golden Child), it's not out of place. A super trick.

15. The People's Key - Bright Eyes
Saddle Creek

The emotion surrounding the fact this may well be the last Bright Eyes album should not get in the way of the fact that on its own merits, this latest instalment was certainly worthy of Conor Oberst and his band, and indeed is probably the best album he's done of any kind since 2005. The easy route would have been to tone down the ideology, but if anything he has ramped it up a notch, with his familiar cryptic take on it still adding a mystique to his darkly-lit folk rock that none can match. The enigma and charisma of the (still) young man ensures this is a fitting farewell, if farewell it must be.

16. Who's Breathing? - Ryan Driver
Fire Records

The Silt's 2009 debut Cat's Peak was a wonderfully interesting thing - equally indebted to the rough folk of Will Oldham or Iron and Wine as well as the meandering soul of Marvin Gaye or a host of other Motown artists. Ryan Driver's voice rose above the sophisticated arrangements of this uncategorisable group to take centre-stage then, and his second solo album is even more imaginative. Anything rustic has been binned as Driver seeks out a musical domain somewhere between exemplary singer-songwriter (Ron Sexsmith, Tom Brosseau) and indeed a distinct jazz-club, after-hours sense of romance.

17. Bachelorette - Bachelorette
Drag City

Annabel Alpers did not find a huge number of friends among reviewers when she released this, but it is nevertheless an extremely satisfying, indulgent and syrupy work of electronica that genuinely does explore its own themes and ideas. It's not hard work, this, but it is instantly gratifying - a tricky thing to pull of. Alpers' vocals tie the thing together, those tremulous tones a stark and beautiful assertion of humanity amid all the artificial noise. She has made better songs in the past, without everything coming together as nicely as this.

18. Country Ways - Carlton Melton
Agitated

Perhaps for the first time, Carlton Melton settled down in 2010 and put their minds to making an album, rather than a slew of unfocused jams that they released without a whole lot of thought. The result of that new-found structure is an album of pounding psychedelic, improvised rock and roll that was both a fascinating headphone listen as well as a good example of their legendary live show. This was also better mixed, arranged and produced than their previous material. That said, their fearless pursuit of the loud and messy remains their most attractive feature. Their ultimate statement.

19. Starry Mind - P.G Six
Drag City

If only for that sumptuous opener, 'January' (below). For all the talk of the 60s folk-rock-revival revival, there are few who have been able to capture the essence of Fairport Convention, The Youngbloods and perhaps snatches of Neil Young quite as brilliantly as this. Of course, P.G Six, an exceptional guitarist, has been around for ages so this is no blistering opening statement, but it is the latest in a career that has plodded along with no fanfare but with a great deal of soul. Derivative as hell (add the Jayhawks and some Britpop in there too), he truly tapped into the spirit of the Paisley Underground, and a whole lot more besides.

20. Violent Hearts - Shimmering Stars
Hardly Art

It's never a very good idea to name your band after the way you sound, but these Canadians can be excused, I suppose. 'Shimmering' or 'glimmering' describes their shameless take on the Everly Brothers, with their deliberately shabby recordings ensuring we are in no doubt as to who they are aping. That is going to infuriate many, but the trio do seem very sincere and frankly obsessed with the Phil Spector approach - plus the songs are excellent. Another pretty disposable listen but one that is as warm and emotive as anything else this year.

Highly Commended

Two-Way Mirror - Crystal Antlers
The Whole Love - Wilco
Napa Asylum - Sic Alps

Reissues Of The Year

1. Time Capsule - Lone Pigeon
2. Love Has Made Me Stronger - Carol Kleyn
3. Smile - The Beach Boys
4. Tomorrow The Green Grass - The Jayhawks
5. The Sophtware Slump - Grandaddy

Interview: A Letter From Cass McCombs

2011-07-02T05:54:00.000-07:00

To many, Cass McCombs went to his darkest place yet on new album WIT’S END. Here was a collection of morose and rather archaic-sounding ballads that told helpless tales of lost love, grief and existential angst. One almost wondered what demons had befall Cass in the two years since his distinctly more witty and varied previous LP, Catacombs, such was the elastic emotional range on show on WIT’S END.

The thing to remember with this artist though, is that ever since his first album A, his songs have always been ‘story’ songs. The ‘Lionkiller’ of Dropping The Writ is not him, Catacombs’ ‘The Executioner’s Song’ is not his personal paean to job satisfaction and the miserable figure at the centre of WIT’S END’s epic closing track, ‘A Knock Upon The Door’, is not him either. It all begs the question of how he is able to call upon these reserves of apparent despair… maybe it’s the mood he finds in the American air these days (because if there is one artist peculiarly obsessed with being American, it is McCombs).

As an artist and songwriter, McCombs wants to feel everything and be everything – to tell the tales of kings and of paupers alike from the inside. And perhaps this is why he is so reticent with media coverage and interviews to the point that his ostensible reclusiveness is as well known as his music. To talk about his songs is to reduce them to one thing, to frame them when they should be allowed to sprawl and expand, both in the minds of listeners and more importantly, himself. So he simply doesn’t talk about them, or at least, is incredibly careful of whom he communicates with, how he communicates and the language he uses.

When his third album Dropping The Writ was released in 2007, he was still willing to do the odd telephone interview, albeit providing many one-word answers and leaving endless journalists enduring his trademark excruciating silence. Then when Catacombs came out, it was email questionnaires only, so he could pick and choose which questions he answered and to what extent of detail. Replies were invariably pretty laconic, to say the least.

Then finally, when it came to doing press for WIT’S END, McCombs chose to communicate with the media by post. Journalists were expected to write a letter of questions to his manager in Los Angeles, who would forward them on. As well as embracing the romance of epistolary communication, McCombs was ensuring he only heard from those who cared enough to go through this unusual rigmarole.

I sent him 15 handwritten questions, never for a second expecting he would answer each one in turn, or even one directly. Naturally, I received a straightforward one-page letter in return… typed out using Word, by the looks of it – so much for the romance of us men of letters.

However, the questions that took his fancy, that he seemed to be addressing in the letter, were:

1. What has your life entailed over the last year?

2. WIT’S END is a beautiful record. How did you approach the songwriting and recording process as distinct to Catacombs?

3. WIT’S END and Catacombs seem less directly autobiographical than Dropping The Writ. Is that the case from your point of view also?

4. What is your relationship with the idea of ‘tradition’, do you see yourself as part of one?

And that was about it. Here’s the letter:

“Barnaby,

Thank you for taking the time to write to me. I’ll try and answer your questions best I can.

This past year… after spending a lifetime of trying not to get my hopes up, I’m not concerned bout convincing anything to anyone, it’ll just be taken the wrong way. There’s no different approach to any of my records, I just write and record continuously and release the songs that seem the most complete. I have a sketchbook approach to making records, they’re drafts for a better version somewhere down the line, maybe a better live version, or maybe someone who can really sing will find my songs. Recordings give a general layout of songs so you can see what’s possible. The greatest possibilities are non-recordable, they are transient. I’m after a pure feeling through music, which anything could trigger if you’re open to it, mainly I’m talking about the feeling that comes across through performance, the feeling that is passed back and forth from the audience to the stage, the most thrilling and surprising feeling, pure spirit.

In my old age I’m interested in songs with a good story, with characters that carry my imagination. I think through storytelling the true spirit of the songwriter comes through far more than if they were writing in the first person, spilling their guts out. I’ve learned this the hard way. Nobody wants to hear your feelings or your opinions. Nobody can relate to your innermost thoughts, the best we can do is trade stories, speak in parables, and be good listeners.

I’m sure we’re all part of a tradition, though beats me where it’s taking us. Perhaps under the Vatican is hidden a scroll that explains the sacred bloodline of songwriters, right next to the family tree of the first person who mated with a ghost, causing the bloodline of the white race, a half-breed race of half-human and half-ghost. I don’t know and don’t care about tradition except to carry the old time songs into the future. It’s bad news that so few people care about the old songs, but what can you do. I’m talking about the really, really old songs. The kind that return us to our primordial essence.

My music has nothing to do with my factual life, it never has. The songs are told through characters that are totems for feelings that I get from friends and people I meet. Songs are masks.

I saw a snake yesterday.

I hope this finds you well.

Rest in peace, live in love.

CM”

The Channelling: The Erudition Of Television

2011-06-30T21:11:00.000-07:00

Last week I became part of a novel little concept as part of the National Young Writers' Month, specifically the Write Across Sydney day of talks, lectures and delightful things at the New Youth Wales Writers' Centre on June 23.

The idea was that a set of youthful Sydney residents would meet for the first time and form an alliance that would lead to the production of an online literary magazine inside one week (although I had no idea this was the thing when I walked into the room... I thought it was merely a talk on setting up a journal, so it was a welcome surprise).

The theme was television, the ringleader was Mr Sam Twyford-Moore, and the result is now available to be seen here.

Wings Of Desire

2011-06-25T02:35:00.000-07:00

Live Review: Pajama Club @ Oxford Art Factory, 13/6/11

2011-06-23T05:09:00.000-07:00

When Neil Finn reformed Crowded House in 2007 it put a firm stop to the interesting things the 53-year-old was doing on his own. While it would be a stretch to call his solo work experimental, 2001’s One Nil, as well as his dalliances with film soundtracks and the like, saw him embracing synthesisers, reverb, effects pedals and other strange noises of the future.

The Pajama Club, where Finn is joined by his wife and erstwhile wallflower Sharon along with New Zealand ‘music personality’ Sean Donnelly and Brisbane indie jewel Alana Skyring, allow this side of him to be fully indulged. It’s been rather too long since the world saw Finn’s freak flag fly.

Playing their fourth show ever tonight, they made the promotional push of playing their forthcoming album in its entirety, a record that from tonight’s showing promises to be full of dramatic space-rock flourishes, touches of Talking Heads-style keyboard from Donnelly and a meandering ‘jam’ quality as to call to mind the work of Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks. There is even enough of a sprite within Finn on this project to take one back to 1980 and Split Enz’s suitably eccentric True Colours album.

The only song available to be heard by fans prior to the show was ‘From A Friend To A Friend’ (released online), actually far from being the strongest song in their set, that honour falling to their propulsive (and unknown) opener, Sharon maintaining a one-note bassline for its entirety while her husband brought the track to a shuddering climax on his good old red Gretsch Firebird.

That richness was heard again on ‘Diamonds In Her Eyes’, while some more familiar melancholic chord changes could be found on the comparatively sedate ‘TNT For Two’. Mention must also go to a strangely awful duet between the married couple about carnal etiquette featuring Neil on drums, and a quite spectacular mid-set medley that saw ‘Suffer Never’ (from the first Finn Brothers album) mutate into Tubeway Army’s ‘Are ‘Friends’ Electric?’ That was the only nod to Finn’s past all night, ensuring that this project has a special energy of its own.

Track-By-Track Review: WIT'S END by Cass McCombs

2011-04-04T21:55:00.000-07:00

The new album comes out April 11 in the UK and April 26 in the US. It's Cass's fifth record and sees him as reclusive as ever, and continuing the rather browbeaten poetic melancholy of his previous LP, Catacombs. While on first dozen or so listens this does not seem like his best album, each song is a universe on its own, making WIT"S END deserving of a piece-by-piece breakdown. Because what else is there do to.

'County Line'

With soft organ, slow tempo and shivery guitar lines, this opener immediately signifies WIT'S END as carrying on where Catacombs left off. This one was shunted around the internet as a pre-release taster of the new stuff, for good reason. Melodically this is probably the most satisfying song on the record, complete with a nifty refrain reminiscent of Pink Floyd's 'Echoes' and, by association, Phantom Of The Opera. The overall impression, however, is of a cross between 10cc and The Band. Have you ever considered the vague vocal similarities between Cass and Richard Manuel?

'The Lonely Doll'

For all his originality, Cass McCombs has a few songs in his back catalogue where, probably not deliberately, he has sounded exactly like another artist. Look at 'Full Moon Or Infinity' (Elliott Smith) or 'Subtraction' (Morrissey). This is Cass doing early Leonard Cohen. It's all there, the slow ups and downs of the vocal line, the absurd repetition of the title line and the cutesy xylophone. Cass's touch is to throw in some swelling Hammond organ, and to do his usual trick of coming up with a short and tuneful vocal refrain, and repeating it throughout the song without aberration. Magical.

'Buried Alive'

Backing vocals make their debut on WIT's END on this one, even if they are fleeting. Soon we meet the most mysteriously arresting line of the album in 'If I'm alive or dead I don't really care/Just as long as my soul's intact', and indeed in this one it seems that unlike the previous two songs, he is making a point of articulating the words. Of course, they offer expressive little vignettes rather than a coherent message. The organ/harpsichord line in this one is very lovely, with that same Baroque quality as the Beatles' 'In My Life'. The song peaks with a delicious mantra of 'Maybe I'm wrong/Maybe I'm waking for the dead'.

'Saturday Song'

This piano-led number is probably the bleakest song on the album. At no point does it snap out of its state of ominousness, with McCombs unusually exploring the lower end of his vocal range, and indeed after a couple of albums steering clear of the Morrissey influence, this sees him paying his respects once more. A little over-long maybe, 'Saturday Song' will not be the one most listeners skip to.

'Memory's Stain'

Much better. The 'verse' melody is in his typical high croon, but unlike so many of his songs, this one has distinct sections - perhaps four. Even a chorus. Its diverse nature is further proven by the ups and downs of his voice, and there are the familiar phonetically impressive lines as 'I have a confession/In the form of a question'. Dare I say this has a certain air of Sufjan Stevens to it? Again, he ends the song on a startling note, with a beautiful meandering section that sees the most wonderful use of bass clarinet this side of Rufus Wainwright. A real highlight.

'Hermit's Cave'

In some ways, you could say that WIT'S END and Catacombs come as one project, with the former being the sequel to the latter. This is another sparse one, driven by a riff reminiscent of Bryter Layter, which is interesting given that for all McCombs' singer-songwriterly credentials, Nick Drake is not an obvious influence. Interesting here is this song's emotional energy.'Hermit's Cave' begins with a kind of buoyant youthful expressiveness before it comes to an existential crash in its chorus. The juxtaposition is depressing, and beautiful.

'Pleasant Shadow Song'

The penultimate track has the least accessible melody, but also some of the most attractive chord changes and instrumental arrangements. Unlike the rest of the album, this one will take a few listens to grasp. A previous song along these lines must be Catacombs' 'The Executioner's Song'. A full album of this looser style of songwriting might be too much, but this proves McCombs as capable of expressing more than one melodic idea in a song.

'A Knock Upon The Door'

The return of the bass clarinet, and a banjo and even a saxophone for this final slog. This is a perfect encapsulation of Cass McCombs' songwriting style. A single phrase is composed and then repeated for nine minutes, yet the song passes through countless landscapes due to its changing instrumentation and arrangements and the different vocal intonations allowed by the words. Cass doesn't repeat himself once, apart from always returning to the title line. The essence of this song, and indeed a large part of his art, is this: to see how far he can get from his point of departure before returning again. It's often not very far, but he certainly makes the journey worthwhile.

Ted Lucas

2011-03-21T00:38:00.000-07:00

One mailing list I hope never to be unsubscribed from is that of the Drag City label. The latest missive from them brought tales of the new album from Six Organs of Admittance and single from Bonnie 'Prince' Billy and the Cairo Gang. Let's not forget also that it is this imprint that supports many Alasdair Roberts' releases.

But it is their reissues that have been causing me the most frissons of excitement. Of course, it was Drag City (and indirectly, Six Organs Of Admittance) who allowed the world to hear Gary Higgins' Red Hash, when they oversaw its re-release in 2005. That album's dazzling magnificence has seen it become relevant to the constant inner dialogue that is the tumultuous and fatuous debate over the best album I have ever heard. Red Hash is up there.

Anyway, the latest Drag City email contained details not of one of their own reissues, but pointed in the direction of the Sebastian Speaks label (run by former Silver Jews guitarist William Tyler). They have put out a curious thing from 1975 by Ted Lucas. Lucas was a meandering soul who drifted between a few nondescript bands in the 60s to become quite a big deal as a sessioner in the 70s, according to a his tribute website, working with Frank Zappa, Yes, Ravi Shankar and a few others. Here, for starters, is a song:

His 1975 eponymous album, apparently known as The OM Album among many, is a delightful thing. Sebastian Speaks put out the album earlier this year, and it hits a vaguely similar spot to Higgins, if a little less spacey and textured. The LP is full of short examples of woozy songwriting by a man for whom life must have been one long stretch of calm, with quite a lot of weed thrown in too. On that note, Lucas even managed the difficult trick of coming up with a song extolling drug use that isn't wretched:

Some other interesting reissues in recent times from Drag City include that from Vernon Wray:

along with that from good old Mickey Newbury:

and a wonderful load of nonsense from Ed Askew, the prototype for Daniel Johnstone:

Live Review: De La Soul, Enmore Theatre, Feb 10

2011-02-22T20:22:00.000-08:00

I've been to some concerts recently. And even had a good time at a couple, proving there is still life in the old dog yet. Writing about them, however, is another matter, but I did have to ease out the following as a favour to someone.

When De La Soul Is Dead was released in 1991, it was a strident deconstruction of everything that had defined the trio three years earlier on their debut 3 Feet High and Rising. That album saw them at the forefront of a strange new age for hip hop, one that involved fluorescent colours, advocated peace and compassion and had a surreal sense of humour. The daisy age phenomenon allowed De La Soul commercial success, yet some in the rap community deemed them lightweight, hippies, or worst of all, hip hop for white people.

De La Soul Is Dead was a cutting, ironic and relatively dark riposte to all that. It distanced them from the acts who followed their lead and returned them to the less exuberant, more profound territory of the pre-daisy years, with a sound more like Eric B & Rakim than the Jungle Brothers. Twenty years later, they are playing Enmore to pay tribute to this landmark release. The enthusiasm and the heart are all there, but they failed to honour De La Soul Is Dead, preferring instead to tread their well-worn path of dance-happy party music.

These days, De La Soul cruise around the world like the Harlem Globetrotters, performing shows that are more exhibitions of hip hop than anything original. Naturally, there is nothing wrong with that, aside from them being a little one-dimensional in their hell-bent desire to entertain, negating the changes of pace and overlapping samples that make their music so extraordinary. This was one of those typical shows, apart from the absence of Maseo, whose flight was cancelled from the US. Long-time producer Prince Paul filled in on decks.

True, they did play a number of De La Soul Is Dead’s best tracks, with Trugoy and Posdnous careering through ‘A Roller-Skating Jam Named ‘Saturday’’ and ‘Ring Ring Ring’, while 3 Feet High was honoured with ‘Potholes In My Lawn’ and ‘Buddy’. It was a good show, but anyone who came expecting something in the spirit of their fine second album would have seen its message swamped by the deafening sound of a good time.

Goodbye Pen Pusher

2011-02-14T00:56:00.001-08:00

Around this time of year about five years ago I was still in the middle of what is increasingly turning out to have been a fruitless waste of time and money. In other words, my Masters in Journalism from London College of Communication. In the midst of this, I was offered the chance to contribute to a new London-based literary journal that had been set up by a pair of bright-eyed and pro-active young women working in publishing. The journal's title was Pen Pusher and back in 2006 its design was only a few cuts above your average campus lit-journal. Almost a chapbook (although it managed to achieve some degree of notoriety on the back of its front design being straight from the imagination of one Ricky Wilson of indie morons Kaiser Chiefs).

I contributed a few things to them in their early days. All of it the ignorant dribblings of a half-ambitious, sycophantic idealist enthralled by the premise of this new magazine. So the poor editors got lightweight and ill-informed opinion pieces on both Norman Mailer and JD Salinger, and then a little something on PJ O'Rourke. That was Pen Pusher's first year, and they have come a long way since then as you can see from their website.

Anyway, the other day they announced they were packing it in. Here is the email:

Pen Pusher was hoping to take the magazine kicking and screaming into the digital age as we informed you all last year... But sadly finance – our continuing lack of a grant or funding of any kind – and an ill-advised lack of interest in the digital world means we have taken the very difficult decision to cease publication.

We're older, no wiser, but yet feel it is time to move on to other projects.

Many thanks to everyone and anyone who has ever submitted, been selected as a contributor, been interviewed by us, supported, read, or even bought the magazine since we began as a free and modest wee thirty-two-page saddle stitch number we gave to our friends in 2006.

Apologies to anyone who has sent a submission – if you have provided postage we will return your work – otherwise there will not be a response; and apologies to those of you with subscriptions – we are unable to refund any remaining monies or provide old issues in lieu of those you were expecting to receive. Hate us for this if you like… or don't!

Once again many, many thanks to all who have been involved or supported us in any way. Best of luck to all aspiring writers and poets, and very best wishes,

Pen Pusher.

This is obviously a real shame, as Pen Pusher filled a vital hole on the literary landscape, in its own small way. This was a publication accessible to both readers and possible contributors, worlds away from the stuffiness of the established journals and more inclusive than those that exist entirely within academia. It managed to be credible, approachable and it looked good, eventually. The other thing was that it actually managed to get read: its list of stockists was impressive and the launch nights of each issue were always well-attended. Over five years it built up a firm identity and a loyal readership.

This all begs the question of why exactly they could never get funding. It's not as if their profile wasn't high enough (more than once I read about Pen Pusher in national newspapers, and one time it was even featured on Radio 4, with the editors interviewed) or that the quality was inferior. Of course, anyone seeking arts funding might expect to be disappointed what with the economic panic of the last two years, but even before then Pen Pusher failed to secure funding. The Arts Council will have its reasons but the message it sends out to anyone wishing to launch a similar enterprise is stark: even if you support it yourself for five years and achieve a success you never envisaged when you started, we still won't help you out. Pen Pusher was not the sort of magazine that could have been bought by a publisher and, say, had a marketing team installed and gone for free distribution. So Arts Council funding was really its only chance.

It must be said that such brutal disregard doesn't seem to be the case here in Australia. Here I find half a dozen or so journals doing pretty well, such as Overland, Southerly, Meanjin, Mascara and others, and they get funding. It's true there's an awful lot less competition for arts funding over here, but I'd rather be in a landscape where you can breathe and look around than one that as so crowded as to be stifling.

A Final Word On The Year That Was...

2011-01-13T16:19:00.002-08:00

I have a friend who is a list maniac. He loves to make lists. His lists are his children. He recently made a list of the top live shows from 2010, and given that 2010 was a year that saw me visiting many countries in the name of music, I thought I would do the same. Such an exercise seems to be more worthwhile than the humdrum live review, as this can act as a pointer towards who is good, rather than account of something that has already happened. So...

1. Nils Bech - Slottsfjell Festival, Norway
Disco-opera boy prancing in tight denim as the sun sets.

2. Rufus Wainwright - Kaufleuten, Zurich
'Song-cycle' show, in beautiful theatre, complete with belly-ups during 'The Dream'.

3. John Grant - Green Man Festival
Included an acappella version of 'Chicken Bones', in the rain.

4.The Brian Jonestown Massacre - Abart, Zurich
They didn't seem like they could care less, which made them just too attractive.

5. Yeasayer - Exil, Zurich
The first time I saw the new album live, and was happy.

6. Pavement, Primavera Festival
Finally saw a comeback show, splendid it was.

7. Mayer Hawthorne, Abart, Zurich
He said he had eaten the best meal of his life at Abart.

8.The Black Angels, The Borderline
Too hot to breathe, soulful nonetheless.

9. Field Music, Great Scott, Allston, Mass
Tiny audience but the Brewis brothers on special form.

10. Sleepy Sun, Green Man Festival
One of the last shows before Rachel left.

11.Tame Impala, Enmore Theatre, Sydney
Biggest ever show in Sydney. They slowed everything down, still sounded okay.

12. Crowded House, New Theatre, Oxford
Blissful, including cover of Bowie's 'Moonage Daydream'

13. Built To Spill, Dynamo, Zurich
Second on the bill to Dinosaur Jr, which seemed unholy.

14. The Besnard Lakes, Green Man Festival
One of the best sets of this year's Green Man

15. Scout Niblett, Primavera
Utterly flabbergasted to find I like her.

16. Little Feat, Cropredy Festival
Dayglo t-shirts and all.

17. The Dixie Bee Liners - Cropredy Festival
Very pleasant surprise on a miserable day, with a largely miserable line-up.

18. MV + EE, La Case a Chocs, Neuchatel
Perfect tiny space for the woozed-out couple.

19. Dr Dog, Primavera
New material is good, but it was the Fate stuff that did the job.

20. Monotonix, Primavera
It's Monotonix, which should offer an explanation of this set.

Repairs to the Mothership

2011-01-12T20:34:00.000-08:00

I have finally managed to give my website a thorough updating, adding a number of features and reviews I managed to do over the last 12 months for the likes of The Stool Pigeon, The Quietus and R2.

Among these morsels are interviews with songwriter fellows John Grant and Kevin Barker, fantastic Canadians The Besnard Lakes, dirge-psych band Carlton Melton, and rather more leftfield artisans Surf City and Giana Factory.

I can offer reviews of albums by The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger, Phosphorescent, Faun Fables, The Black Angels, Alasdair Roberts and two from Elliott Smith - the Introduction To... and the reissue of Roman Candle.

And finally, flying in the face of the ongoing pointlessness of live reviews, a write-up of two festivals - Green Man 2010 and Slottsfjell 2010, and The Black Angels' Borderline show last year.

Interview: The Black Angels

2010-09-01T07:32:00.000-07:00

In the forthcoming September issue of the Stool Pigeon, there will be a short Q&A with The Black Angels about their new record Phosphene Dream. By me. This is possibly the best album so far this year that isn't by a hirsute, troubled homosexual from the mid-west. Their third LP is looser, less drone-based, with more harmonies and with, believe it or not, a sense of humour and positivity. The first track to appear online was 'Telephone', available for free download. Such a song is a genuine change of direction for this most soulful of psychedelic bands, proving them admirers of the lighter side of 60s rock like The Byrds, The Yardbirds, early Rolling Stones, and as they mention below, The Zombies. The darkness and thud is still there mind, they've just complemented it with some attractive dashes of colour and zeal.

The interview took place backstage at London's Borderline before they played a devastating set that night, prompting one wide-eyed, awed punter to observe, loudly, "man this is fucking brilliant" to the band's two directors of noise, singer Alex Maas and guitarist Christian Bland. It was those two who sat down with me, and below is the more or less verbatim transcription of what followed. We covered those stylistic changes, mismatched tour buddies, death and God among other things...

The new album is certainly more melodic and maybe mellower than before. Is that what you were going for?

Alex Maas: It’s definitely more melodic, and we wanted to use more vocals. Everyone can sing in the band so we wanted everyone to have their chance. As far as being more mellow, I hadn’t really thought of that but I can see the songs you’re thinking of.

Christian Bland: It’s not as freaky.

AM: And because its not as freaky I think more people can understand it, but without us losing any artistic integrity and keeping it in the psychedelic realm.

So do you think it's more accessible?

CB: I think so. It’s a way of getting some people intrigued who might not have heard us before, so they delve further in, and then on the next album we just freak them out [makes buzzzzzz noise].

What made you go and record this one in LA rather than Austin?

AM: Dave Sardy [producer] was interested in recording us. He said he wanted to make the most psychedelic record of the new millennium, and we took the bait. Once we got out there he had really good tact in how he spoke to us and was really good at motivating us and pushing our sound. He pushed us to try different things and took us out of our element to open our minds. We have new ways of looking at music now as far as writing songs goes.

CB: The new album is a lot more thought out. The second album was the band in the practice room jamming, and if something sounded good we’d be "sounds cool, that’s a song," but this one had more thinking it out – but not over-thinking, that’s horrible.

AM: There's something happening all the time.

Does Mr Sardy think he succeeded in making the best psychedelic album of the new millennium?

AM: Yeah, he really likes it. He’s really excited. I remember getting text messages at two o’clock in the morning saying "dude, I’m still listening to this record," and then at three in the morning, "man, I really like this record." We believe in it too, it’s a whole new direction.

CB: The last one was an hour and this is only thirty-five minutes. It’s unexpected... so it’s better.

The album seems less directly political in its lyrics, is it maybe more abstract in that way?

AM: Yeah, there is a political aspect to it, but not an overtly obvious one. We don’t have a song like ‘The First Vietnamese War’ on here but there are definitely elements of that like ‘River Of Blood’ and ‘Phosphene Dream’.

CB: I think each song is a metaphor for something. A song like ‘Telephone’ in a literal interpretation is about calling someone in this physical world, but it may be something more than that, like trying to pray to God and not getting answers. Something like that.

Speaking of God, spirituality has always seemed important to The Black Angels, is that still the case?

AM: Definitely. We were just saying before actually that a song has to move you first before anything else. Spirituality is huge in music, it’s where everything comes from, this ethereal, weird place in our mind or our bodies.

CB: I think music is our way to commune with the unknown, the unexplained.

How far do the new songs date back?

CB: A couple of them were actually written before Directions To See A Ghost came out, and they could have been on there, but they weren’t developed enough. In 2007-09 those other eight songs were in development, then when we laid those down we felt the other two were ready to be let loose.

AM: We brought Dave 16 or 17 songs and asked him what songs appealed to him, and he helped us narrow it down to what he felt were the strongest. We have seven extra songs we have been playing forever, including this one called ‘Ronettes’ that could have been on Passover and then on Directions To See A Ghost. We’ll release it at some point.

I guess the two songs on Phosphene Dream that date back farthest could have ended up a lot different if they had been recorded back then.

CB: Yeah, there’s actually versions of them recorded with the guy who recorded our first two albums [Erik Wofford], and they sound different to what they are on Phosphene Dream. There was a song called ‘Raindance Song’ that became 'Entrance Song' on Phosphene Dream. When we listened to it in our old studio in Austin it was so slow, but the new one has more power behind it, more energy.

AM: Which is probably good for us, because we might not have done that on our own [without Sardy]. It’s always good to see a band have variety of sound. We see songwriting in a different way now, we think of elements we didn’t think of before.

Were you listening to anything in particular between albums that changed your approach?

CB: We’d been listening to a lot of the same stuff as ever, but maybe the Zombies. I was listening to Odessey And Oracle a lot when we were in LA. To me 'Yellow Elevator' has that feel. I was listening to a lot of the earlier Zombies stuff too.

AM: A lot of Clinic.

CB: And Love.

AM: A lot of modern bands too, like A Place To Bury Strangers, Wooden Shjips, we still listen to The Warlocks all the time. There’s so much music, man.

This is the first album without Jennifer Raines on organ. Does that make any difference to how the band sounds?

CB: She wasn't actually in the band when Directions To See A Ghost was released. She was just on the liner notes because she happened to be in the studio when we were recording it in 2007. The whole story with her is that I knew her before The Black Angels ever existed. We got along because we liked the same movies and the same music, so we used to get together and have fun. Early on in the band’s career we had just four people in the band, and I thought it could be cool to have an organ added, and I had one so why not just tell Jennifer what to play and she could memorize it. So that’s how she started out in the band, us just telling her how to play.

And that’s what also led us to parting ways with her, because on three separate occasions extending from 2005 to 2007, we asked her to go and get some lessons and learn how to play, and she was like “we’ll see… my hands are too small”. We asked her a third time and six months later she still hadn’t. We had signed to Suretone by then, which was a bigger label and we were starting to get serious, moving on. All of us had stepped up our musicianship and she hadn’t, so we parted ways.

On record, it definitely made no difference. Live, it might have made a little difference because some songs have six parts, and we only have five people. But we figured out five parts that are most crucial to the core of the songs, and moved on.

I saw you guys play in Zurich earlier this year when you were supporting Wolfmother. How do you think that tour went?

AM: If ten people liked us at those shows, just ten, then we’re happy. To be honest, we were never huge Wolfmother fans and we don’t have any of their albums. But it was a good opportunity to get new fans, so we took it. As a band you don’t want to turn down those situations.

CB: It was good to play in front of a lot of people, that’s the positive side of it. But looking back, I don’t know about that tour.

AM: We haven’t been back [to Europe] yet to see how many fans we’ve got. But it’s gonna be good for us no matter what.

CB: But it was a mismatch.

AM: Oh for sure.

CB: We had a setlist that we were playing for the first three nights in England, and people in the crowd were standing around, folding their arms, talking to their friends.

AM: 16-year-old kids.

CB: So we changed out setlist to more energetic tunes and people got more into it. We had to cater to the Wolfmother crowd a little bit.

AM: It was the smart thing to do. We’re not there to lose fans, we're there to gain fans. So if we have to do a couple of things to change, then fine. But it definitely wasn’t our ideal tour. Now we know the guy [Andrew Stockdale of Wolfmother] pretty much fired his entire band and got new people to play that tour – it’s kind of shitty to not go with the people who got you to that situation. We don’t know what went on though, and its none of my business, and its up to him, but still.

If we could have gained a couple of younger fans this time around then great. I remember when we first started playing and it would just be 50- or 60-year old men - all these old record collectors would show up. All these guys from the sixties. They were our first fans. Indie record store owners. But getting a new audience is a great thing, we need to convert their minds.

So will Phosphene Dream appeal to, for example, Wolfmother fans?

AM: I think it will be more accessible to more people. Not necessarily Wolfmother fans, but it will be more accessible to people in general

CB: Anyone who has a love for 60s music should be into this.

AM: There’s still a few who won’t like it. Like huge AC/DC fans.

CB: Yeah heavy riff fans might not dig it. But jangle-rockers might.

Is there a difference in how you are received between Europe and the USA?

AM: Yeah, and between Europe and the UK. Europe is bigger.

CB: In Germany and France, they just freak out. They love it.

AM: And you come to the UK and people don’t really know how to react to your music.

CB: Although when we play these smaller shows in England, they’re always awesome. 200 or 300 come out and they are just into it. But we’re not at a level in the UK to play for more than 500. We’re still working on things in the UK.

You two have known each other since you were 12. How has your creative relationship changed over the years?

AM: I think recently we’ve probably been writing more on our own. I think that’s something that had to happen at some point, to move in different directions, then come back and bring certain ideas to the table. I think our communication has got way better than three, four, even two years ago.

CB: There are still magic moments. Sometimes if Alex is at the house when I’m at the house and he hears me playing something, he’ll come in and we’ll be inspired by the spirit and we’ll develop a whole song. That’s what happened with ‘Haunting At 1300 McKinley’, I was playing a riff and he came in and was like ‘dude!’. He started playing the drums and singing, and boom we had a song. On rare occasions that happens and the spirit leads us.

AM: You never want to force anything.

CB: We’ve never been ‘okay, we gotta write a song’.

AM: But if we had to, we’d fucking do it.

On the sleeve to Passover (2006), you quoted Edvard Munch ("Illness, insanity, and death are the black angels that kept watch over my cradle and accompanied me all my life."). Is death still a preoccupation for you guys?

CB: Yeah, it’s the only pure truth.

AM: That nothing lasts forever is the ultimate truth. It’s all about what you do now while you’re alive, what you do with the power you have. Death is always behind you, and its intriguing to us that you’re always being chased by that. It’s not morbid – it’s what makes life a beautiful thing.

Reviews: PVT / BARB

2010-08-25T08:36:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple of reviews that won't see the light of day otherwise. The bright and the iffy of Antipodean music, so it is.

PVT
***
Church With No Magic

Rugged Sydney synth merchants back with a third album and a new name.

Pivot, or PVT as they are now known after a legal challenge from an American band with the same name, have always dwelt in an ominous, more hip and subterranean realm than the likes of comparable Australian acts like Cut Copy or Midnight Juggernauts. This is largely down to the fact they are signed to Warp Records, who are so credible it hurts, what with the giant figure of Aphex Twin still an influence on all their releases. Church With No Magic tentatively moves away from the consistent electro bang and clatter of 2008’s O Soundtrack My Heart and instead features pounding crescendos and peaks and troughs of experimental – almost industrial – noise, best evidenced on the imperious 'Light Up Bright Fires'. Preventing the record from being too abrasive are the mellow pop vocals of singer Richard Pike, which take a much more central role than ever before. Church With No Magic is an impressive evolution, though one senses PVT’s true potential is still to be realised.

Key Tracks: 'Light Up Bright Fires', 'Window', 'Timeless'

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

BARB
**
BARB

Young luminaries pool resources for first album together.

Whenever a so-called generation of artists emerges from a certain part of the world, those involved are usually quick to disassociate themselves from such a thing, eager to be seen as individuals and not the result of a ‘vibrant scene’. The current golden generation of young Antipodean songwriters, however, have always seemed eager to celebrate themselves, and so it is that BARB has emerged, a veritable supergroup featuring Liam Finn, James Milne (a.k.a Lawrence Arabia), EJ Barnes, Connan Mockasin, and Seamus Ebbs.

The warmth between this lot is admirable, but unfortunately the project falls down simply because of a lack of personality. It seems all these talents are deferring to each other with none injecting their full selves into the songs, and thus the album is a rather gutless, ill-disciplined mess; BARB lacks the wit and charm of Milne or the soul and passion of Finn. Songs such as 'Lot To Learn' and 'Characterful' feel like the result of half-hearted jamming, waiting for something to happen that clearly never did. ‘A Time To Contemplate’, sung by Finn, marks the only occasion any kind of firm direction is found, a spooky, frenzied track marked by Finn’s familiar electronic experimentation. But it’s not enough, considering the undoubted flair of the artists involved.

Key Tracks: 'A Time To Contemplate', 'Beatman Hasn’t Eaten', 'Counting Sheep'

Base Over Apex

2010-04-13T06:53:00.000-07:00

"I am large. I contain multitudes."
- Walt Whitman

Some have expressed bewilderment at the fact I publish interviews such as the previous one with Carolyn Cassady, and before that the aesthetic and existential quandaries faced by Sufjan Stevens, alongside what I hope are fairly lucid musings on both rugby union and rugby league. As if I'm a reckless hooligan in my secret life. A closet moron.

I can't help it. It is a combination of indulgent Proustian nostalgia (following league as a youth, playing rugby union as a youth and adult) and a genuine fascination with the brutal ebb and flow of these strange and bitter contests, particularly rugby league. To watch a game in the NRL is to essentially witness a series of mathematical - even philosophical - equations being worked out, alongside the familiar extreme rough and tumble.

One reason rugby league in Australia is so irresistible is that that it has always thrown up its own peculiar breed of heroes, even today. We have the noble, community-minded, wise old statesman in Parramatta's Nathan Hindmarsh; the aging, battle-hardened leader in Darren Lockyer; the troubled intellectuals like Jamie Lyon and poor old Cory Paterson; the old nag that just refuses to be taken up to the back paddock and shot, Steve Price; and the countless enfant terrible sorts from Todd Carney to Brett Stewart to Willie Mason. We can even cast the distinctly unlovable ex-player Matthew Johns as a kind of Caligula-like figure if we really want to push this thing further.

So to love rugby league is really to love all the caverns of life, as well as the perfect symmetry of the game when some deft attacking move, instigated by Jarryd Hayne or Johnathan Thurston, fulfils itself. It just so happens that the NRL is the most exciting it has been for some years; no less than ten teams have squads worthy of being called elite, and every other game, it seems, features a miraculous recovery from the jaws of defeat or some feat of extraordinary athleticism as to verge upon the yogic, the latest being the Panthers' Lachlan Coote.

And so it is at this time of year the speculation mounts as to State of Origin selection. Here is a suggested NSW squad for Origin 1.

1. Jarryd Hayne (Eels)
2. Josh Morris (Bulldogs)
3. Jamie Lyon (Sea Eagles)
4. Michael Jennings (Panthers)
5. Brett Morris (Dragons)
6. Jamie Soward (Dragons)
7. Brett Kimmorley (Bulldogs)
8. Brett White (Storm)
9. Michael Ennis (Bulldogs)
10. Michael Weyman (Dragons)
11. Ben Creagh (Dragons)
12. Anthony Watmough (Sea Eagles)
13. Glenn Stewart (Sea Eagles)

14.Trent Waterhouse (Panthers)
15. Josh Perry (Sea Eagles)
16. Kurt Gidley (Knights)
17. Greg Bird (Titans)

The biggest problem is that there is not a single right wing in the whole of NSW really making a claim. So some positional manoeuvring, regarding Michael Jennings and Josh Morris, is required.

Next post is an interview with Fritz Senn, one of the world's foremost James Joyce scholars.

Three songs: 'Canada' by High Places, 'Motorbike' by Luther Russell and 'Heart Thief' by Giana Factory.

Last One Standing: Carolyn Cassady Interviewed

2010-02-24T05:20:00.000-08:00

Once every so often something genuinely worthwhile graces these pages, and this is one of them.

Around two-and-a-half years ago I was sent a press release by publishers Black Spring Press, announcing that Carolyn Cassady was re-surfacing from rural Berkshire to promote the new edition of her memoirs, Off The Road: Twenty Years With Cassady, Kerouac and Ginsberg. I asked for an interview, got it, then could find no publications willing to take the feature, for lots of different reasons. In my chaotic life back then I subsequently seemed to lose the confounded interview transcript, only for it to turn up again recently. Here below, therefore, is an edited presentation of the interview.

Neal Cassady, of course, enjoyed a deeply profound friendship with Jack Kerouac, the latter basing the character of Dean Moriarty on him in On The Road. Carolyn married Neal in 1948 and the book is her account of their life together, up until 1963 when she filed for divorce, sick of his gallivanting, philandering, drug-taking and general self-destruction.

Subjective though it might be, Off The Road is arguably the truest glimpse of the intimate lives of Kerouac and Cassady yet to be published. Cassady writes candidly of her own long-term affair with Kerouac (one approved of by Neal), and the extra-marital activities of her husband, such as walking in on him and Allen Ginsberg in, shall we say, a state or pre-coital exploration in the marital bedroom. Still adhering at least in part to her traditional upbringing, Carolyn promptly kicked Ginsberg out of their house.

Carolyn was fictionalised herself, as 'Camille' in On The Road, though she refused to read the book out of fear of what she might discover about her husband's insatiable mores.

She was encouraged to write Off The Road in the early seventies by publishers keen to cash in on the recent death of Kerouac, yet the book wasn't published until 1990. Tell the story of the beats it certainly does, but Cassady also devotes much of the book to her and Neal's experimenting with spirituality, leading to her eventually being a founding member of the Academy of Parapsychology and Medicine in the seventies. At times, her passion for advocating her 'answer to life' philosophy unbalances the book, but Cassady is never one to shirk from speaking her mind. For decades she has been a critic of the way Kerouac's estate and legacy has been mishandled, along with, if you'll forgive the pun, the misguided near-beatification of the trio of writers who are the subject of her book.

In turn, modern feminists have taken aim at Cassady, accusing her of perpetuating the myth of 'masculine artistic hero' and fulfilling stereotypical domestic roles. Her apparent kowtowing is perhaps made more unsettling when one considers that Carolyn was arguably the intellectual superior to both Jack and Neal.

Cassady refutes all this though, as we can see. She ended up staying in touch with the other women in Neal's life, and at the age of 86, lives near Bracknell having moved to the UK when she was 60.

She is a woman with a lot of stories to tell.

Was the book originally something to set the record straight about these men, who had become more mythical than human?
Yes, it was from the request by the editor at Doubleday that I wrote my memories, since when Kerouac died [in 1969] the media didn’t seem to know him. Just assumptions and myths.

What was you and Neal's initial reaction to the exalted character of his alter-ego, Dean Moriarty?
We thought the character of Dean Moriarty was too limited a portrait of Neal. He disliked having the side of him promoted he was trying to overcome.

The duality of Kerouac's nature is well known, but in your experience which side of him dominated, the sentimental romantic or the testosterone-driven braggart?
Well, both. His self-portraits are pretty true: there is a lot that is typical Kerouac;. I do flinch when I can tell when he’s being bombastic, playing to the gallery or just plain silly.

The photograph on the cover to your book is striking. What were the circumstances surrounding it?
I tell about the photos in my book. It was the day after they brought home the prostitute, and because I didn’t throw them out as before, Jack was so happy he said we had to go outside and take pictures. I used a whole role of film in my Brownie box camera.

How did you feel about the way Jack depicted you in On The Road and other books?
What little Jack wrote about me was fine. He didn’t tell of the times we were together in Denver, and he didn’t write about our affair. In the early books, written in the late forties and early fifties it 'wasn't done' to write about fancying your best friend’s fiance and later having an affair with his wife. But come the sixties, in Big Sur he was quite comfortable telling how Evelyn had two husbands at the same time.

Watching him at close quarters, how did Neal deal with his frustrated literary ambitions?
Neal was extremely restless.Then he said he had so many words bombard his brain, to choose le mot juste was agonising. He was aware this was to be 'literature'. He wrote hundreds of letters, however, without those problems.

How sympathetic were you to the political and social agenda of the sixties counter-culture, for whom Neal was such a hero?
I suppose the counter-culture is a cyclical thing. When societies become so smug, so hypocritical, so static, something comes along to shake it all up and bring in new ideas. I haven’t liked very many of them so far, but I hope the pendulum will swing again.

What about The Grateful Dead [who Cassady famously drove around in Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters' tour bus] ?
I liked the men in The Grateful Dead, I just don’t like amplified music nor that without a structure I understand.

How do you think Jack would feel about his fame and legacy as it stands today?
In some ways Jack would be gratified, in others not with everyone wanting to get in on his act for personal gain. He would be pleased he is now considered a great writer, but he would be bitter it came too late for him to benefit himself. And what the Sampas family have done would appall him [the family of Kerouac's third wife Stella, for information see here], beginning with the funeral and the grave. The memorial monument he would love.

All these characters are often depicted in fiction as wild-living libertines on the fringes of society, yet your book suggests a part of them all yearned for the structure of the conventional family at one stage or another.
Yes, Jack, Neal and even Allen all aspired to a traditional family life. I think that’s why they liked our home. In Jack’s case it was lack of sufficient income from his writing. Neal had it for 10 years, but he craved adventure and challenges as well, so it wasn’t enough for his nature. He never wanted to leave it as long as he had some freedom, too. I made the mistake of divorcing him, in the erroneous thinking he would prefer his other life. He wanted both, alas.

Has the rise of the Dean Moriarty/Neal Cassady myth and brand been something you've watched with bitterness?
No one gave Neal any more adoration than I did. I was always glad if anyone admired or respected him for the right reasons. Unfortunately, that is seldom the case.

What made you leave America and come and live in Britain at the age of 60?
I became thoroughly disgusted with the establishment and corruption I witnessed. I was raised with the ideas that those institutions could do no wrong. My father even told me banks never make mistakes. I don’t see how anyone could have been more naïve and un-streetwise than I. I left that country.

Do you keep up with what's going on back in the States?
I don’t get involved in politics. I don’t believe any politician’s words. I am pleased with Obama’s victory - so far. I hope he can achieve his desires, like a decent health system and so on.

You deal with all of Neal's transgressions with other women and with Allen with admirable restraint. Do you ever regret your passivity?
Neal taught me a great many valuable lessons. One of them was jealousy is counterproductive. I am still close friends with his first wife and long-time mistress. We do have him in common. I knew nothing about homosexuality until much later. Now I would not have asked Allen to leave.

The Beat Generation writers are often criticised for their lack of respect towards the women in the lives, especially their creative endeavours. Was that something you experienced?
In my experience the men I knew respected women. They were always perfect gentlemen with me and in mixed company. They were very appreciative of me. I gather women who tried to compete in writing were overlooked, but I had no personal experience with that phenomenon. All my art and theatre work was successful and praised.

What do you say to feminists who criticise the beats' treatment of women?
I don’t agree with feminists; I don’t think they understand male and female functions. Yang and Yin. The Yin is far more powerful when not in active roles. Well... deep subject not appropriate here. I have written about it in Van Gogh’s Ear.

To what extent is it true, as hinted at in your book, that Neal was not the sexual superman he is often remembered as, but a little clumsy and awkward?
Neal was interested in any woman sexually, but he didn’t 'make love' or understand a woman’s needs, except highly sexually sensitive ones. I had been abused by both my elder brothers as a child, so I needed a different sort of approach than Neal’s. Jack’s was better, but I was handicapped. One of my deep regrets is that in those days we couldn’t talk about sex. I’m sure Neal would have understood and been compassionate, but I never told him.

Have you held to the spiritual teachings you detail in your book since then?
I still live by the spiritual principals I learned from studying so much metaphysics and ancient scriptures, because I think they are true and make sense - and they work. I test new ideas.

Did Jack's not accepting your new beliefs hinder your relationship with him?
Of course, we were disappointed that our best friend couldn’t understand what we felt to be the answer to life. But as time went on, we could appreciate the other’s beliefs. We felt his Buddhism was a step toward our faith in Jesus; we had studied it deeply. Still, we also understood we had logical minds and Jack did not. He was far more of a visionary, a dreamer, impressionable and so on. It didn’t harm our friendship with one another.

How do you feel about reports of a film version of On The Road, directed by Walter Salles and produced by Francis Ford Coppola?
So far any films that weren’t careful documentaries in regard to us were all dreadful. I have been consulting with Walter Salles often on the On The Road film. Also in the past, Francis Coppola consulted me and gave me copies of all the screenplays so far written. His son, Roman, and I wrote one together at his request which I still like. Every word in it is Jack’s. I’ve not seen the new script... Walter says he never follows the script exactly, or he enhances it as he goes along, so the written word is not what the film will be. I think if Walter had been allowed by financiers to follow his and Coppola’s original ideas, this film would be very good. Alas, for some reason they insist on Hollywood stars, Technicolor, all the usual stuff. No insights. No vision, no understanding this film will make millions whether it is good, bad or indifferent. So why not let him do it right?

And you didn't actually read On The Road until this time?
I didn’t want to know what Neal was doing on his road trip with Jack and LuAnne. I didn’t read the book thoroughly and objectively until working with Roman Coppola.

What makes up your life today?
Now I just read, watch DVDs and TV and listen to classical music. I have arranged my funeral and try not to be impatient. I get to see great friends from time to time - I have made so many from knowing these men in the past. I have occasional visitors from afar and answer a lot of emails.

Too Hot to Heave

2010-02-12T06:36:00.000-08:00

And so it is that the Super 14 is suddenly upon us. In February, when cricketers are still gasping in the hot and humid air. Rugby weather it is not (he says, looking at the foot of snow outside and a game of rugger coming up in a few weeks).

I remember when I was a young boy, and the Super 14 was the Super Six and included Fiji. Fiji! In those heady days Queensland were actually a good side, winning the tournament when it was Super 10 in 1994 and 1995. I read in a book once (I think by Greg Crowden) that when Queensland are good, Australia are good. This is interesting; when Australia won the World Cup in 1991 the balance between NSW and Queensland players in the national side was pretty much even, though I do own that in 1999, the core of the team - and by that I mean Tim Horan and John Eales - were from the Sunshine State.

I have a hunch that this year the Waratahs and Brumbies might both makes the semi-finals, as I am continuing to believe the next two years will be great ones for Australian rugby generally. And with Crowden's (or whoever it was) comments in mind, let us wish Queensland well too, if only for the fact that in Will Genia they have one of the most charismatic and articulate players to come out of Australia in quite some time. He will supply Quade Cooper with ball, a contrast in brains if ever there was one... Genia is Arthur Miller to Cooper's Marilyn Monroe.

Here is my best Waratahs team from since the Super tournament concept began, back in 1992.

15. Matt Burke
14. Peter Hewat
13. Nathan Grey
12. Scott Staniforth
11.Lote Tuqiri
10.Berrick Barnes
9. Chris Whitaker
8. Wycliff Palu
7. Phil Waugh
6. Michael Brial
5. Dan Vickerman
4. Tom Bowman
3. Ewan McKenzie
2.Phil Kearns
1. Benn Robinson

The Nashing of Teeth

2010-01-19T12:36:00.000-08:00

This appeared on the letters page in the October issue of R2 (Rock N Reel) magazine. I won't garnish it with any unnecessary commentary, suffice to say that letters of complaint are of course the Holy Grail for most critics. I've had a few in the past, and I very much enjoyed this one even if it is a bit too easily shot down for me to bask in it properly. The offending article can be found here.

Dear Sean,

I am a big fan of R2/Rock N Reel and have been for some time. I especially enjoy the reviews of new album releases, which I find to be both informative and interesting. What I like is the fact that the majority of reviews are written by critics who either like the music of the artist and are therefore aware of their history, or in the case of new artists, by critics who enjoy that particular genre of music.

It is because of the above that I felt compelled to write and express my disappointment with regard to the review of the Crosby, Stills and Nash album Demos, as written by Barnaby Smith. For a start Barnaby Smith does not like the music of CSN, or at least a third of their music, as he refers to the 'monstrous compositions' of Graham Nash that 'forever blight' their legacy - a bit harsh!

The review starts with a rather negative tone when Barnaby compares the band's latest tour to a 'depressing monolith', which 'chugs' across the world. Whilst I can see that the individual members may 'chug' around on stage, they are hardly depressing. I watched the clips of the band on BBC2 from Glastonbury and felt that, like most acts, they did not come across on TV as they do live on stage. I was fortunate to see them at Manchester MEN and they were excellent - including Graham Nash, whose 'monstrous compositions' have the audience singing along.

I carefully searched the review section of R2 for another contribution from Barnaby - I could only find one, the album by Emma Tricca. I followed this up by listening to some of her songs on MySpace and as a result I felt that the review was a fair one. Maybe Barnaby prefers new artists rather than old ones?

I am aware that music is subjective and one person's music is another person's noise; further, I note that David Crosby is a big David Crosby fan - although I would have loved to have read his review of Thousand Roads, with its synthesisers and contributions from Phil Collins. However, I do hope that this is not a trend for future reviews. I would encourage you to invite critics who like a band or genre to review new material.

If I want to read reviews that give vent to personal dislikes then I could always return to reading a magazine I used to buy - no names but its title was one letter!

David Jones, St Helens

PS The album Demos contains exactly what it says on the tine - DEMOS!

I have considered posting my response to this here, but I won't. It is good to know that at least somewhere Web 2.0 hasn't conquered all. Life is too short for the menial back and forths that many critics have to go through now on blogs and forums. So I will leave the final word to Mr Jones.

Three songs: 'Mingus and Pike' by The Ruby Suns, 'Things Fall Apart' by Built To Spill and 'In The Morning' by Wolfmother.

That Pioneer Spirit

2010-01-10T10:59:00.000-08:00

I have just finished David N.Meyer's biography of Gram Parsons, a passionate, freakishly well researched thesis on he who was born Ingram Cecil Connor III, even if at times Mr Meyer's tone is just that: very thesis-like (repeat that holy formula: argument-quote-conclusion) . He is also guilty of some clunky philosophising and even offers his own psychological take on Gram's inner demons and musical evolution. Meyer is very keen indeed to interpret Gram in certain way and ensures his research fits into his own boxes. Nevertheless, a fine read.

He comes to some odd conclusions though, does Meyer. Writing of the continuing gossip and melodrama surrounding whether Gram and Emmylou Harris had any sort of affair while they were recording and touring in 1972-3, Meyer writes with marked cynicism that "the great-love-but-never-lovers trope is a cornerstone of the Emmylou Harris brand."

Is it really? Maybe in America, but sheesh, I think her brand is more to do with the fact she has made three or four genuinely superb albums, and to many remains the silver-haired goddess of country. For no one (neither the goddess herself or any witnesses) to confirm an affair, Meyer reckons, is to both preserve Emmylou's dignity (and retain that necessary mystery, of course) and avoid the humiliation of Gram's then-wife, Gretchen. "Gram and Emmylou remaining chaste serves both Gretchen and Emmylou's agenda," he writes. The evidence points to a them having a platonic time of it.

Anyway, in tribute to Meyer's effort, here are some interesting things about Gram Parsons I have learnt from his book:

* Gram wrote the song 'Drug Store Truck Drivin' Man' while he was in The Byrds in response to a horrible redneck DJ they ran into while in Nashville. Now, of course, a pregnant Joan Baez picked up this song and performed it at Woodstock as a heartfelt protest song, with her backing musician Jeffrey Shurtleff dedicating it to Ronald Reagan, then Governor of California, while Baez herself invoked the plight of her husband, in jail for draft dodging.

This is interesting, what with Gram being famously apathetic towards causes and anything remotely political (his refusal to tour South Africa with The Byrds being notoriously due to a wish to get baked with Keith Richards than genuine moral zeal). That his song is now recognisable as a protest tune because of Baez marks it as an anomaly in his body of work. Baez also played Gram's 'Hickory Wind' at Woodstock.

* Gram Parsons and Neil Young crossed paths in a taxi in Houston in 1973, an incident I first read about in Jimmy McDonough's biography of Young, Shakey. Producer Jack Nitzsche was with Young and was shocked by Parsons' drug-addled squalor. "You look like Danny... and Danny's dead," he portentously said, referring to Young's friend and bandmate Danny Whitten (enigmatic singer and guitarist with Crazy Horse) who had overdosed on heroin the previous year.

* Roger McGuinn. According to Meyer, not such a nice bloke.

* Gram's authenticity. Despite the wealth and privilege, the Harvard, the trust fund and his general sickening affluence, Meyer makes it clear that the sound he arrived at was the result of a childhood and adolescence of more or less constant, self-motivated music scholarship, from early rock 'n' roll to Greenwich village folk to Bakersfield and Nashville country. He was not a tourist riding the coattails of any fad, or trying to use country music as some kind of Hollywood fashion accessory to grab attention in the rock world. He came to the form as a true trouper with the appropriate background and sensibilities to pull off what he did. Let's not forget either, how deeply uncool it was to be country in the mid-sixties.

In short, he achieved what he did not because of his riches, but in spite of them. Even though his family's millions might ostensibly have made his musical dabblings the mere toy of a spoilt kid, he somehow achieved authenticity in the face of it.

* Just how rich his mother's family, the Snivelys, were. Gram's grandfather made the fortune that Gram was born into from Florida citrus groves, but even before him the Snivelys were old money, stretching way back. Apparently ancestors loaned George Washington $450,000 to help finance the war against the English. The debt still stands and descendents are trying to recoup the money to this day. With interest they are owed over a billion dollars.

* Gram met William S. Burroughs whilst hanging with the Stones in London.

* It was odd that Parsons and his wider circle of friends and hangers-on didn't come across Tim Buckley at all (at least as far as I know). In the late 60s/early 70s Buckley was recording in Los Angeles just when Parsons was with The Byrds, The Flying Burritos and afterwards. Meyer paints this time in LA as extremely incestuous, with a wide circle of musicians collaborating and working together. Buckley, with his more avant garde tendencies, probably kept well away from what was a hipster scene. The closest Gram ever came to avant garde was when Frank Zappa threw him out of session he was producing.

* Gram's family's curse is comparable with the Kennedys. He was an orphan by 18 after his father shot himself and his mother died of alcoholism (allegedly her new husband, Bob Parsons, giving her her last drink). Then Gram himself died in 1973, of course, followed by his stepfather a couple of years later, also from alcoholism. Gram's little sister Avis and her daughter were killed in a boat accident in 1991. Last one standing seems to be Polly Parsons, his daughter, who went through her own addiction hell in her youth.

* Finally, Gram Parsons avidly loathed The Eagles. Impressively, he called them a 'plastic dry-fuck'. This was because of, as Meyer puts it, a music that was "soulless, over-rehearsed, antiseptic, schematic, insincere and sentimental", going on to proclaim them "the most consistently contemptible stadium band in rock." Amen.

Three songs: 'Dear Undecided' by Captain Nemo and The Sundowners, 'Lights Up' by Field Music and 'Amber' by Kevin Barker'.

Another joyless list that is definitely worthwhile

2009-12-07T09:39:00.000-08:00

Some weeks ago, NME published its carefully considered and logically thought-out best 50 albums from the past decade. The roll of honour can be found here.

It goes without saying that it got ripped to pieces, which is both the function and the fate of any list like this. But it must be remembered when directing any extreme, rage-filled criticism at the much-maligned, continuingly failing publication, that NME is a populist magazine aimed at people consuming music through a relatively blinkered lens, choosing to whittle their experience down to limited styles from a specific point in time and a often a specific place. And that’s fine: the magazine is still relevant in catering to that.

That however, doesn’t excuse this list of apparent 'innovators' set to pave the way for the future, published in May 2009. There is so much, so wrong, most of which is covered in the comments beneath.

Anyway, that most recent NME list put me in mind of an interesting exercise the Guardian undertook in 1999. They decided to put together the best 100 albums of the millennium, but deliberately discounted a whole bunch of ‘classic’ albums that always get wheeled out when such debates emerge.

Studying best album lists from a host of publications, they named 150 albums that could not be considered by the critics who arranged this new list. So it was that half a dozen albums each by The Beatles, The Stones, Zeppelin, Dylan and others were rendered ineligible, along with Radiohead, The Smiths, Joy Division, Oasis and more.

Nick Drake’s Bryter Layter came top (an album that if a similar list paying tribute to less celebrated artists was made today, would surely warrant exclusion), and the full list can be perused here.

Taking a cue from the Guardian, here is an alternative list of the best 50 albums from the past decade. An NME enemy list, if you will. The only conditions were that no album from the NME list could be included, and there could be no more than three albums by one artist. Albums from the NME list that might have earned a place in this one include those by Wilco, Brendan Benson, PJ Harvey, Bright Eyes, Sufjan Stevens, LCD Soundsystem, Grandaddy and The Shins.

Here we have 10 albums from 2008, eight from 2004, seven from 2007, six from 2006, six from 2005, four from 2009, three from 2001, three from 2000, two from 2003 and one from 2002.

There are 30 American artists involved, four from the UK, three from Canada (counting the Wainwrights as Canadians), three from Australia and New Zealand (Neil Finn and Crowded House not being regarded as separate artists) and one from France.

I make no claims of originality.

1. From A Basement On A Hill – Elliott Smith (2004)

2. Poses – Rufus Wainwright (2001)

3. To Find Me Gone – Vetiver (2006)

4. Cold Roses – Ryan Adams (2005)

5. A Ghost Is Born – Wilco (2004)

6. Dropping The Writ – Cass McCombs (2008)

7. Want One – Rufus Wainwright (2003)

8. 29 – Ryan Adams (2005)

9. Digital Ash In A Digital Urn – Bright Eyes (2005)

10. One Nil – Neil Finn (2001)

11. Ash Wednesday – Elvis Perkins (2007)

12. Figure 8 – Elliott Smith (2000)

13. Abbattoir Blues / Lyre of Orpheus – Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds (2004)

14. Heartbreaker – Ryan Adams (2000)

15. Want Two – Rufus Wainwright (2004)

16. Oh, Inverted World – The Shins (2001)

17. Time On Earth – Crowded House (2007)

18. Directions To See A Ghost – The Black Angels (2008)

19. Merriweather Post Pavilion – Animal Collective (2009)

20. Personality… One Was A Spider, One Was A Bird – The Sleepy Jackson (2006)

21. Food & Liquor – Lupe Fiasco (2006)

22. Fly Or Die – N.E.R.D (2004)

23. II – Espers (2007)

24. Andorra – Caribou (2007)

25. Dos – Wooden Shjips (2009)

26. The Trials of Van Occupanther – Midlake (2006)

27. Fort Nightly – White Rabbits (2007)

28. Spoils – Alasdair Roberts (2009)

29. Ys – Joanna Newsom (2006)

30. Phrenology – The Roots (2002)

31. Smile – Brian Wilson (2004)

32. The Letting Go – Bonnie Prince Billy (2006)

33. De Stijl – The White Stripes (2000)

34. I Need You To Hold On While The Sky Is Falling – Kelley Polar (2008)

35. Old Growth – Dead Meadow (2008)

36. Consolers Of The Lonely – The Raconteurs (2008)

37. Satanic Panic In The Attic – Of Montreal (2004)

38. Martha Wainwright – Martha Wainwright (2005)

39. The Week That Was – The Week That Was (2008)

40. Lookaftering – Vashti Bunyan (2005)

41. Motion To Rejoin – Brightblack Morning Light (2008)

42. Cassadaga – Bright Eyes (2007)

43. Sky Blue Sky – Wilco (2007)

44. Saturdays = Youth – M83 (2008)

45. Waiting For The Sunrise – David Vandervelde (2008)

46. Limbo, Panto – Wild Beasts (2008)

47. Fits – White Denim (2009)

48. Z – My Morning Jacket (2005)

49. Strays – Jane’s Addiction (2003)

50. Confessions – Usher (2004)

Three songs: 'Rolling Home' by John Martyn, 'Step Away From The Cliff' by Blue Eyed Son and the fantastic 'Intergalactic Solitude' by Bachelorette.

The Law of Abstraction: Sufjan Stevens' Urban Legend

2009-11-16T03:36:00.000-08:00

Just as my fingers on these keys
Make music, so the self-same sounds
On my spirit make a music, too.

Music is feeling, then, not sound;
And thus it is that what I feel,
Here in this room, desiring you,

Wallace Stevens - 'Peter Quince at the Clavier'

I recently had what turned out to be the strange and insightful pleasure of interviewing Sufjan Stevens. The interview was for a feature in a major UK music paper, for whom I had to take a certain angle due to readability and word-count. This meant that about three-quarters of the interview had to be discarded. Because a lot of what he said was surely very interesting indeed, I offer an edited transcript of the interview, below.

He has three new albums out. Starting with the least good, there is Music For Insomniacs, a record he made with his step-father that is deliberate in its deathly boringness, as it is designed as a sleeping aid. For real. He also has out Run Rabbit Run, a re-imagining of his 2001 electronica record Enjoy Your Rabbit as performed by the New York string quartet Osso under the guidance of he who had the original idea for the new interpretation, The National's Bryce Dessner. That is a pretty interesting listen, but best of all is The BQE, his epic celebration of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in New York that is also a film and a 40-page comic book. He mixes conceptual, often abstruse soundscapes with his usual method of using simple melodic themes to run through an entire album, with quite wonderful results. It is one of the best things he has ever done and he appears to be very proud of it, but there is other baggage weighing upon Sufjan right now.

That stuff can be outlined briefly here. It's not that big a deal, and he seems to have gotten over it, but it nevertheless exposes an issue facing genuinely important artists like him. It is most likely that by talking about his apparent 'existential crisis' in so many interviews he isn't really purging himself of his inner torment (he is far too measured for that), but rather trying to start a debate about distinguishing the substantial from the worthless in the crowded chaos that is recorded music nowadays. He is as focussed as ever, and has even come to terms with the rather silly 50 states project. A polymath and an intellectual he remains...

How do you feel about the fact these new releases are regarded by many as not ‘proper’ follow-ups to Illinois?

What do you mean ‘proper’? Because it doesn’t have songs? I feel like it’s a pretty orthodox sequence of events to go from epic song cycles or conceptual song cycles to conceptual film. It doesn’t seem like such a stretch. It was definitely a self-conscious decision to divest myself of the 'song' itself so I could just focus on music and arrangement and other forms like visuals. I think that it’s still working with the same principles as some of my previous records, though.

What did you do in the way of research for the project? Did you look for artistic precedent or spend a lot of time on the expressway itself?

Most of my time was spent on the actual expressway, it was an experience of retrieving information through observation and developing a visceral response to the expressway, due in part to the amount of time we had to spend filming, which was a lot. I didn’t do that much research, I read a few books, like the biography of Robert Moses, which is mostly about urban planning in New York in the fifties, and I read Jane Jacobs’ book which is a rebuttal of the modernist urban renewal movement. But that seemed meandering and heavy and didn’t relate to what I was doing. I wanted to relinquish anything too literal or historical and to invest myself in the sheer pleasure of experience through the senses. It’s extremely visceral, there’s no narrative and it’s completely impersonal, which I like. It’s kind of satisfying because I often try to render my self in a song and try and impose my own autobiography. That can be kind of exhausting - it can be a release to eliminate myself from the creative process. At least that was my intention, I’m not sure if that’s really what happened.

So The BQE is about feeling rather than, say, stories.

I think so, yeah. I think it’s about collecting information. It’s basically a film and a series of photographs. It’s very concrete in a way; photographs of this physical monument, this short expressway, but it’s assembled in a way that makes it abstract as well. It’s just colours, shapes and designs, movements and sounds. To me it’s very physical, in the way that experience is physical. You see and you taste and you touch. I kind of like that it’s reduced to primitive, sensory experience.

For a non-New Yorker, what is the significance of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway?

The expressway itself is really an anomaly as it is imposed on a pre-existing city, Brooklyn being a weird network of disparate neighbourhoods that grew together. In the forties and fifties when the government was funnelling money into rebuilding the infrastructure they conceived of this plan to join all the boroughs with bridges and highways, and demolish slums and eliminate bad neighbourhoods, to restore and revitalise the Great American City through the automobile. That was the trend in most cities around the country in the fifties. The BQE is just one small, inconsequential example of that. But it doesn’t work on such a ridiculous level, it’s such a failed attempt at arterial traffic movement. It seems absurd and illogical now. And it's become something else: an eyesore and an object of scorn, but at the same time this strange and endearing monument that’s fussed about in the papers every week. But it’s really only 12 miles long and very small compared with other highways.

Were you ever tempted to address those shortcomings of the expressway in any way?

Not intentionally, but it was the elephant in the room. They were the obvious issues that reside in a project about the BQE. It was about slum removal, which is a euphemism for eliminating lower social class people and immigrants. There’s all this manipulative politics that explains the direction of the highway - there were certain neighbourhoods that were cut off and neighbourhoods that were saved because of money and power. Those are all obvious issues, but the piece itself is not really about that. It’s a celebration of colour and shape and form. Just a painting in a way.

What was your first reaction when the Run Rabbit Run project was floated?

Bryce Dessner came to me with the original idea and I thought it could definitely work, even though I hadn’t thought of that material in so many years. I think it sounds better than the original record – it feels more human, and it's definitely more musical and the fact it was translated through several other arrangers apart from me and my own perspective makes it that much more interesting. I like it a lot.

Was there ever any temptation when it was being produced to step and say ‘don’t do it like that, do it like this’?

Oh yeah, I was pretty heavy handed. Over the course of a year they were workshopping and arranging, and I sat in on a few reheasals and had pretty strong opinions about things. The final outcome of the pieces are drastically different from the original arrangements, but all this was hopefully understood from the outset so I didn’t offend too many people. The quartet themselves also played a large part in shaping the pieces. It was definitely a co-operative, communal process. I think we were all extremely satisfied with the outcomes. There were details that I would make clear weren’t the best idea, but it wasn’t about who was right or wrong, it was a collaborative workshop.

What kinds of music have you been exposing yourself to since Illinois?

I’ve been doing a lot more programming and sequencing and working with beats, trying to get away from some of the tools of folk song like acoustic instruments, and working with synthesised sounds. I bought a really expensive analogue synthesiser, and have just been messing around and creating sounds. I have a fetish for these alien sounds, these otherworldy sounds that don’t seem to have any context. You can shape them or manipulate them with different oscillators, and it feels kind of weird, some of it is very amusing more than anything else. I really like synthesised music.

Is that a direction that a new album might take?

I'm kind of all over the place. Because I haven’t released a record of songs in so long I’ve been writing for a couple of years and amassed so much material. It kind of goes in all directions, and I need to step back and figure out how to organise it and find out what’s possible and feasible to shape into a record.

Your songs have always evoked a very literary America to me, something emphasised by your educational background [Sufjan did a Creative Writing MA and some of his stories can be found here]. Are you conscious of being part of any tradition in that way? There are certain moods and ideas that maybe hark back to the transcendentalists or Melville, for example.

That’s pretty dense American literature. Those people were philosophers and scholars, I’m just a songwriter. I have more of a pop sensibility and I don’t think I dig that deep. I wouldn’t take myself that seriously.

Is ‘classic’ American literature an influence though?

Hmm, only in so much that it’s required reading at high school and university. Everyone reads Thoreau and Walden and all that stuff, Emerson and the transcendentalists. But it seems like such an archaic philosophy. I’m not sure how much it influenced me, I definitely have an awe for the natural world that is overwhelming and I think that’s communicated in a lot of my music - almost a fear at the wonders of the natural world. But at the same time I’m very civic-minded and very urban and prefer to live in communities and society. I know there’s a bit of tension with the transcendentalists, because Whitman was a naturalist and a romantic but he was also very urban and lived in Brooklyn and felt an affinity to the city.

It’s a pretty common kind of tension in America, this urban-versus-rural combat that’s going on all the time, whether it’s in politics or in aesthetics or in a way of life, and it’s becoming more and more extreme now as people are moving back to the city with all the urban renewal, and the suburbs are considered this odd, problematic, purgatorial thing that is completely outdated now. There’s a conviction now to either move to the country or move to the city. It’s not happening on a massive scale but it’s definitely in our consciousness.

David Byrne once described your music as ‘transcendental nostalgia’. I know you dislike being labelled nostalgic, but what’s your reply when people describe you in that way?

I do feel that my music doesn’t feel very contemporary. There is something very Romantic and old world about it in the sound and shape of it. Even in the aesthetics and packaging of the records, there’s something mid-century about it. I don’t mind that, but I don’t have much respect for nostalgia or sentimentality. I like to look forward and I like the idea of existing in the here and the now. I like present tense philosophy. I think my music is a compression of nostalgia and modernism and this kind of neo-futuristic, apocalyptic religious sense.

What is your stance these days on whether music can be or is a necessary expression of faith, or can you divorce the two?

I think music is mystical, in that it’s invisible and it’s physical. It’s not seen by the eye but felt by the body and spirit. That’s an indication of its spiritual value. It’s an ecstatic form. It’s spiritual and religious but it’s also more pointedly mystical and mysterious and I think that’s what makes it infinitely accessible and interesting, and that’s what makes it so relevant. Even in a very concrete, physical, material world, we still feel these spiritual impulses from music, art and poetry.

Is that belief a product of your upbringing and childhood or is it something anyone can experience?

I think it’s just in me. I don’t think it has anything to do with my conditioning or upbringing or any kind of personal religious experience. I think it’s just inherent in the human psyche. We’re socialised and we’re educated, and over time there’s a philosophy of logic that has shaped the way we see the world, and that’s integral and physical. It’s experienced and it's learned. I believe you can socialise a man but he will always be a spiritual being. As long as we’re finite, as long as there’s an expiration date… man is wholly spiritual.

Would you call yourself a patriot, in any way?

No, not at all. I hate that term because it’s just so dogmatic. I loathe this mindless allegiance to the principles of a nation, whether it’s a doctrine or a flag or government. I don’t believe in any of that.

But is it possible for the definition of patriotism to be manipulated to not mean the jingoism you hint at, and celebrate other aspects of America?

Yeah. Man, we’d have to come up with a new term. Patriotism and nationalism are just too loaded. I’d rather just say I’m an American and have an unavoidable allegiance to that identity. It’s not a decision one makes, it’s just a matter of fact, of place.

I’m so preoccupied with identity, like most human beings are, especially as an American because we lack a concrete history. My obsession with identity leads to a discursive inquiry into the subject of Americanism and patriotism, but I don’t think that I necessarily am bound by an allegiance to this country at all. I can take it or leave it. But at the same time, it’s just a matter of fact. It’s who I am and it’s where I live.

Have far have you become disillusioned at how convoluted music has become thanks to technology and the so-called democratisation of music-making? You referred once to the futility of ‘contributing to the white noise’. Are you able to overcome that?

There is an excess that’s seems unending and impervious to understanding, because of the availability of music through the internet. It can be overwhelming, but it’s important for people like me to not get anguished for too long on the cosmic, greater process. I tend to despair sometimes over meaning. What’s the meaning of a song? Of an album? What does it mean that I’m on stage in front of people? What is this dynamic? What is this relationship? I tend to question all these things and I don't go into them thoughtlessly. Sometimes I need to just relax and get over it. Generally I like that there are so many resources available for musicians, and that the major market music industry has been collapsing for the past decade is really extroadinary because it opens up so many possibilities for creative inquiry, because making music is accessible and affordable now. It’s nice to have restrictions though, I think that in the previous decade it was more challenging to make a record and release it. Now everything is possible, but not everything is permissible or plausible.

Are you still unreservedly motivated to share your music with the world?

Well I just did a tour for three weeks and shared my music with the unsuspecting public, and a lot of it was new material. You always have to wrestle with the motivation behind motivation. Am I creating for myself? For a public? For God? For nothing? Is there just a void? Are all the sounds we create consumed by a vacuum? These are probably juvenile existential qualms, but I can’t help it.

Three songs: 'You Muses Assist' by Alasdair Roberts, 'Ned Ludd's Rant' by Alasdair Roberts, and 'Hazel Forks' by Alasdair Roberts. Spoils is a great great great great great album.

Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach, teach gym. And those who can't teach gym, become rock writers.

2009-11-01T08:56:00.001-08:00

It is my opinion that music criticism is a dead art. Or at least several bits of it are. Note I refer to ‘criticism’ rather than ‘journalism’ there, as it is the practice of judging the artistic credentials of albums, gigs and so forth that has become redundant, not actual reportage or story-telling. The editor of one publication I contribute to recently said to me “I just want a good story, that’s all” and another has eschewed completely that ultimate obsolete form, the live review, preferring to only write up an account of a gig if, again, there is a ‘story’ to tell from it, rather than the directionless fripperies and cliches of some half-baked critic.

The live review and to a lesser extent the album review are on the way out as the medium comes full circle and concentrates on facts and narratives rather than opinions. This is a good thing, because otherwise you end up with such annoying things as the unseemly and petty kafuffle below this, and an astonishingly awful live review I recently wrote that I had to rescind, retract and generally undergo a chastening soul-search to discover what the hell I was thinking when I invoked subjective nonsense and irrelevant anecdote. Even I’m not interested in my own opinions anymore. Hopefully it was just a full moon on the night I wrote it.

Music writing is most interesting these days when analysis of music is supporting some other wider social theme. Kind of like using music as a lens to observe something else, to the extent that it is almost a peripheral presence. For example, this excellent article came up during research for a recent feature. Obviously not being a music magazine, The Believer doesn’t fall into horrible and hackneyed music critic tropes, because its priority is not to describe or exhort, but to take an issue in the proper world and assess how it is treated in the realm of pop (by someone with expertise in that alternative field), which despite everything, remains articulate and profound in the right places.

In short, the article is looking in at music from outside it, and therefore has enough perspective for it not to be nauseatingly descriptive or a vanity-induced failed attempt at charismatic, personality-heavy nonsense. The best thing Judy Berman can do is not to even contemplate writing about music ever again, lest she be ensnared in its miserable, passé clutches (guilty).

When music is written about without the music itself being the point of departure is when music writing is most relevant I think is what I’m so clumsily pointing out. Andrew Mueller’s book is kind of along these lines. I look forward to National Geographic’s next spread on the Strawberry Alarm Clock.

But don’t get me started on travel writing. The unbelievable vapidness of what appears here, a paper I read daily, is sad.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

The Wallabies arrive in Europe this week for a Grand Slam tour. They do, of course, have no chance and they will most likely crumble like little girls at Twickenham this weekend. It wasn’t so long ago we could at least get close to the All Blacks, but a 4-0 series whitewash in 2009 is a new low. It is painful to admit, but it simply looks like the Wallabies don’t care. In fact, complacency has been a theme of Australian sport recently, what with the ridiculous Ashes loss and sloppy performances from the rugby league team that go back to the miserable World Cup final last October.

The last Grand Slam tour, in 1984, sowed the seeds for Australian rugby’s first modern renaissance in the early nineties, which was really the last time international rugby was satisfactory. To mark the fact here is the best Wallabies team from over the years that I have been following their plight, that is, since that golden era. Bias aside, there are three players here that are genuinely the best in their position who have ever taken to the paddock.

15. Chris Latham - Impossible to ignore Matt Burke, but Latham always had the task of inspiring a lesser team than World Cup-winning Burke. A responsibility Latham stepped up to.

14. Joe Roff – One of the great wingers of the nineties and a blueprint for the modern professional player.

13. Stirling Mortlock – Best centre of 2003 World Cup, another who carried a relatively limited team.

12. Tim Horan – The best centre three-quarter ever. No doubt.

11. David Campese – The best winger ever. No doubt.

10. Michael Lynagh – Dead heat with Stephen Larkham, but while Larkham was the superior runner and passer, Lynagh was once the world’s record point scorer in tests and, also, wasn’t injured every five minutes.

9. George Gregan – Faded in his later career, but in the 1998-2001 period, his quickdraw distribution fired the Australian backline in a way that can only be dreamed of nowadays.

8. Toutai Kefu – Tricky, because Tim Gavin had a good innings too. But Toutai Kefu was a hugely dynamic ball carrier. Also, unlike Gavin, he has a Wikipedia entry, so he must be more important.

7. David Wilson – The foundation of the brilliant 1998-2001 teams. A true Wallaby great.

6. George Smith – It seems sacrilege to name current players, because they are mostly a shocking team. But George Smith would probably walk into any other international team of the past decade.

5. Nathan Sharpe – Not a strong position for Australia over the years (apart from the obvious, at No.4), Sharpe edges it over David Giffin and Rod McCall.

4. John Eales – The best second-rower ever. No doubt.

3. Ewen Mackenzie – Australia have never really had a world-beating front row. So it’s the best of a mediocre bunch.

2. Phil Kearns – Won two World Cups, supreme all-round forward.

1. Richard Harry – Perfectly functional prop. Benn Robinson may be in his place in a year or two though.

Reserves: Matt Giteau, Matt Burke, Tim Gavin, Michael Foley, Andrew Blades

Three songs: ‘Seer’ by Witch, ‘Cold Rain’ by MV & EE and ‘Light Of Day’ by Daniel Johnstone (surprisingly excellent).

Don't Do As Roman Do

2009-10-06T11:08:00.000-07:00

I’ve been attending the Zurich Film Festival, unfortunately dominated by Roman Polanski getting arrested as he came to town to accept some lifetime achievement award or something. There were some marvelous films too (like Austria’s Small Fish, Israel’s Lost Islands, Australia’s Samson and Delilah and the bizarre P-Star Rising). I got to share the same air space as Morgan Freeman, Michael Keaton, Peter Fonda and Terry Gilliam. This definitely makes me a better person. Definitely. Better than you.

I was hugely impressed by the press facilities here, which like everything else in this sheltered little country was organized with military precision; chocolates in the welcome bag helped, as did free travel on the public transport here.

I was going to put together a Spotify playlist in tribute to Polanski’s plight, but Spotify doesn’t work in Switzerland (unable to commit to anything, these Swiss folk). So here are some songs on YouTube thematically appropriate to the old dog.

That last one is the original of that quite fantastic song. For those of you who prefer gurning white-boy blues from Nottingham there is this:

I don’t know what to think about him (Polanski). On one hand you’ve got behind him Woody Allen, Pedro Almodovar, Penelope Cruz, Martin Scorsese and about a hundred others whose usual cheerleading for ‘liberal’ causes lures in naïve sycophants like me with ease (Jan Kounen, director of Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky, actually withdrew his film from the festival here in protest at Polanski’s incarceration). On the other though, there is the fact that it really was rather a bad thing to do, what he did to that young girl. Insert obvious joke about Woody Allen here.

The argument seems to be that he has already paid for his crime when the girl in question, Samantha Geimer, sued his sorry ass for $500,000 in the eighties. There have apparently been rumours, also, that Switzerland owed the USA a favour over some financial help that went the other way. I don’t know. Either way, I would imagine it’s the first time in RP’s life he would gladly trade places with Letterman.

I rediscovered Imani Coppola recently. Her last album The Black and White Album wasn’t very good. But this song, from 1997, is mighty fine. And her most recent work as part of the duo Little Jackie with Adam Pallin, has been okay too, I guess.

Three songs: ‘Diana’ by Alexander Spence, ‘This Is Africa’ by K’Naan (because of its video) and ‘Love Etc’ by The Pet Shop Boys (also because of its video).

Like Clockwork

2009-09-22T06:12:00.000-07:00

I am in Switzerland for the time being. The German bit. I didn't think there would be any sort of culture shock - Zurich being the financial zenith/Hades (delete as is one's bent) of Europe, but a few things are a little odd to one weaned on an axis of English and Australian quirks. It would be churlish, presumptuous and perhaps wrong to say that a certain part of Swiss society is made up of uptight, emotionally stunted, unimaginative bureaucrats with hearts of cold, solid steel. So I won't, but I think maybe I've been hanging around the wrong parts thus far. I have press access to the quite fancy Zurich Film Festival, which might see more fun amid the glum.

One bright spot, mind you, has been seeing White Denim at Rote Fabrik. I don't think I have really banged on about them as much as I should have in the past - I interviewed them recently, here, but for some odd reason didn't pay much attention to the kafuffle that was made of them last year when Workout Holiday came out. It was probably because of the kafuffle that was made of them last year when Workout Holiday came out. Great band though, and live they are "everything I ever dreamed of", even if Zurich provided a staid audience that barely half-filled the venue. To be within spitting distance of the front of stage at a White Denim gig in London is an unheard of flight of fancy that would get you laughed out of Hoxton Bar and Grill with many a fist shaken at you. Here, you almost felt sorry for the Austin trio as they received no reaction whatsoever from a crowd who, in their defence, didn't have a clue who they were. White Denim always seem to be lost in their own little world when they play anyway, so they seemed happy. And I had a quick chat with their drummer Josh Block afterwards, who is vying with Alex Maas of The Black Angels for the title of Nicest Man In A Band in Austin, Texas. Tremendous chap. I shook his hand FIVE times.

Apart from that White Denim piece, there are a few other new things on my site, including interviews with Brendan Benson and Snowman, live reviews of Yoko Ono, Seven Worlds Collide, Cropredy Festival and The Welcome Wagon and record reviews of The Cave Singers and The Witch and The Robot.

Three songs: 'She Gets Remote' by Hello Fire, '(Ballad Of) The Hip Death Goddess' by Ultimate Spinach and 'Lay Down (Candles In The Rain)' by Melanie.

Knight Demons

2009-09-08T08:09:00.000-07:00

Last week I adventured to the continuing transport black hole that is Stoke Newington in order to do some in-house editorial work at The Stool Pigeon. On one day I missed the correct bus stop and ended up in Tottenham, then on another I was traipsing Hackney's streets on foot utterly clueless in this maze of high-rise flats and, for some reason, honest cockney-jon, old-style bakeries. I had me a bagel.

Anyway, this work I would go as far as to say has reenergised me for this strange art of music journalism. Not only is the quarters of this very special publication an extremely fun place to be (literally half of one day was spent poring over this), but it was a timely glimpse and a vital reaffirmation of what it is to actually work for a proper music publication that is managed professionally, is completely independent and finally, shows respect for the writing - and therefore the people who do the writing - over all else. It also helps that everyone involved has a knowledge of music, across all styles, that borders on the terrifying at times.

There is no chaotic, mono-maniacial 'management' from ham-fisted bullies whose ignorance is only matched by their malice (like a certain publication I have previously had dealings with...in case that wasn't obvious), just a calm enthusiasm both for music and journalism. While the practice of writing about music still seems fatuous on a theoretical level, something I'll go into another time, at least some of the bitterness I previously held towards it has been removed by this realisation that it can still be done in a way that is truly critical, not hindered by cliche and without toadying to external influences (labels, PRs and the like). This revitalisation will probably last about three days, but nevermind; may The Stool Pigeon continue to prosper.

Elsewhere, 'in other news', Penrith Panthers got an unholy 35-0 twatting by Newcastle Knights, meaning that we finish 11th, firmly outside of the top eight. I hear Matthew Elliott is stewing on this, but to be fifth little more six weeks ago and then to finish eleventh, below Souths for Christ's sake, is shocking. Penrith have just had four players named in the train-on Australia squad for the four nations and have a bunch of young players the equal of most of other teams in the NRL, so it's a case of underachievement rather than 11th being their rightful place. The loss of Petero Civoniceva is the obvious main reason for this embarrassment, and no one foresaw the rampant rise from Parramatta. But still, 35-0 to Newcastle in a final game where everything was to play for... even the wooden spoon year of 2001 didn't sink that low. So Penrith's season, coupled with NSW's loss in Origin, equals a general disgruntlement with my league teams that stretches back to October when Australia dropped the World Cup. Miserable times. I'm now gonna go for Dragons in the finals series, or maybe Manly. Or Eels.

Three songs: 'When I'm Sleepy' by Wild Beasts, 'Just Ain't Gonna Work Out' by Mayer Hawthorne and 'Next Season' by Port O'Brien

The Horror

2009-08-30T06:41:00.000-07:00

I was at the Green Man Festival in Wales for the entire duration of The Oval test match, which was probably a good thing. There were enough cricket fans amid the ponchos and bubble swords to keep me informed of what was going on, what with their diabolical whooping and hollering.

I was distracted by a hangover and a quite unbelievable closing Sunday set from Wilco and by the time I got home I had reconciled myself to the horrors of losing the Ashes - so long as I didn't read the newspaper, turn on the television or go online. Then I discover Australia had lost by one point to a last ditch Dan Carter penalty in Sydney. That was a little too much. The only redeeming fact is that Melbourne's Warren Ellis was far, far cooler than anything at the Green Man Festival, and from the same city Pivot played a nice little half an hour too. I am content with this.

Three songs: 'You Never Know' by Wilco/Seven Worlds Collide, 'Blood Money' by Spiral Stairs and 'Closure' by Apse.

North Country Boys

2009-08-17T13:39:00.000-07:00

When I was at Primavera Sound in Barcelona earlier this year I was most swept up with Neil Young, as pretty much everyone else was. I even made a friend amid the madness, a short hairy little Spanish gentleman who used my shoulder as a support for his ecstatic jumping up and down. Also spectacular were Wooden Shjips and Dead Meadow, but by far the most emotional set, for me and many others, was from The Jayhawks on the Saturday. That evening they played pretty much every song you would have wanted from 'Sister Cry' to 'Ain't No End'. Now comes the release of a best-of, which I was generously sent.

Now, while Olson and Louris will probably make more music and it may even be good, this album, entitled Music From The North Country, acts as a an opportunity to mark these beautiful songs and the two disparate characters who made them. One of the top three bands from the 90s, no doubt.

Those songs from their 1985 inception to when Olson left in 1995 are selected perfectly, even though if space allowed pretty much half of every album made in that period could have been included. Unfortunately, 'Sister Cry' doesn't make it, but 'I'd Run Away', 'Two Angels', 'Martin's Song' and 'Settled Down Like Rain' do, alongside the obvious stuff like 'Blue' and 'Waiting For The Sun'. The second half of this collection is all about The Jayhawks minus Olson, and while many (with good reason) reckon they weren't The Jayhawks without Olson, there are some gems from that latter period too. 'Trouble' is a succinct encapsulation of all of Louris's gifts, for example.

The Jayhawks are one of those songwriting partnerships where the indulgences of each member are reined in by the other to achieve an exact, amazing equilibrium between their talents. Louris was the more sentimental one, prone to writing songs with lines about having his "little baby boy". This was kept in check by the odder Dylan-esque lyrical tendencies of Olson, whose curious, biting irony was magnified by that nasal croon of his. Without Louris there to soften him up The Jayhawks might have gone to places too dark to achieve the (moderate) critical and commercial following they did.

Three songs that are good: 'Won't Change My Mind' by Liam Finn, 'Two' by Lisa O Piu and 'Rust' by Telekinesis.

The Sun Shines On

2009-08-04T09:21:00.000-07:00

Until the last couple of weeks, I have received a distinct dearth of interesting things to listen to through the letterbox. Lately, records by Wilco, Wild Beasts and The Cave Singers have arrived, making up for months of mediocrity. I also have the new Brendan Benson album, and I'm interviewing him tomorrow. I love Brendan Benson. To the extent that I would like to bring him a present, maybe ("fellatio?" suggests a friend... No, not fellatio...). I have only once taken CDs to an interview to be signed, although I know it goes against all journalistic integrity to do it... But all critics are essentially fans anyway. Did you know that Brendan Benson is apparently 39?!

Anyway, to counter this miserable lack of music, I took to the blogs on a voyage of discovery. Amid this tricky landscape I came across this, possibly the best and most terrifying thing I've heard this summer. This is such an easy sound to achieve - it is essentially effects-laden heavy blues with a very, very dirty bassline - but only a few select Americans seem to be able to pull it off with any sort of success. I was not surprised to learn that The Entrance Band's singer and guitarist Guy Blakeslee is a collaborator with David Vandervelde, though somewhat amused at the fact that their bassist Paz Lenchantin was in Billy Corgan's execrable Zwan. They release an album in the US in September called Prayer Of Death. I don't know anything about a UK release, as yet.

Last week an acquaintance of mine died. His name was Gary Nelmes. He secured my admiration when I first met him in 2006, but in the past couple of years I only had a passing affinity with this fine man who died coming down Mont Blanc on Friday 24 July. His blog is here, which shows pretty much exactly the beautifully weird sort of gentleman he was. I, for one, raise a glass to him.

Three songs that are good: "Sun Shines On" by Oliver Mann, "I Can't Take It Anymore" by Monotonix and "Bombs Bomb Away" by Elephant Stone.

A Point of Origin

2009-07-29T08:50:00.000-07:00

I was away on holiday recently for ten days, during which time I missed three things.

The first was the premiere of Rufus Wainwright's opera Prima Donna at the Manchester Festival. Although I had only heard snippets of the music on TV and radio, I can say that it sounded characteristically florid, and something of a fey departure from the two operas I had most recently seen: The Marriage of Figaro and Cosi Fan Tutte. But sarcasm aside, I really like the new beard, even if he, with all his Dorian Gray-like devotion to staying young and hedonistic, can't be too impressed with the shades of grey that are appearing. What's more, he now looks exactly like his dad on the cover of the latter's excellent 1975 album Unrequited. Rufus will need to put on a few pounds before completing the 'bear' look, mind you.

The second was the Lords test match, which on my return from Italy/Corsica I was too tired to give the indignation it deserved or discover what went wrong. Suffice to say, Mitchell Johnson was flayed around to the extent that he resembled Wile E. Coyote on one of his most soul-destroying days of failure with Roadrunner, and now I hear he is going to start at Edgbaston. Something that many, such as Kevin Mitchell here, have noted would be verging on the sadistic.

The third was the final State of Origin game at Suncorp Stadium. NSW won the dead rubber relatively comfortably, alongside some amusing old-style-Origin fisticuffs that resulted in the astonishingly pathetic Queensland actions of putting up a bomb with the last play of the game in order to simply pummel the hapless NSW taker (Kurt Gidley) with all their raging forwards.

This has largely been a disappointing Origin series. Queensland's dominance and NSW's staggering ineptitude in the first two games ensured that the competitive edge of the series has been dented. At the start, I had such high hopes. I drew parallels with 2001, when NSW had a side packed with superstars and proven elite in the NRL, while Wayne Bennett's Queensland side included ten debutants. Queensland crushed NSW in the first game 34-16 thanks to the maniacal Queensland spirit of these fledglings - I remember one try by Carl Webb being particularly galling for NSW, as the current North Queensland Cowboy flung off various more seasoned players like flies to score.

I hoped the reverse might be the case this year, but no. This is only partly down to the NSW players themselves, mind, because of the unforgivable errors made by NSW selectors. This hurts me to say, as Laurie Daley, a childhood hero, is one of them alongside Bob Fulton, one of Australia's most successful ever national coaches. But they really did make a mess of things in three out of the four key positions. Peter Wallace at halfback should have been dropped after the first game, while Terry Campese at five-eighth should not have been picked, but then shouldn't have been dropped so indiscriminately after failing, especially for the largely ineffective Trent Barrett. Robbie Farah might have seemed the answer at hooker based on the City-Country game but anyone paying attention to the NRL would have seen that Michael Ennis was outperforming pretty much every hooker he came up against. Getting rid of Wallace (whose inclusion in the second game was about as mean as, oh, say, Mitchell Johnson playing in the 3rd test) for Brett Kimmorley and Farah for Ennis for Origin 3 was exactly right, if about a month too late. And is it just me, or is it absurd that Matt Orford has never played a single Origin game?

The other mistake was picking Jamie Lyon. The guy doesn't want to play rep footy, so don't make him. There are plenty of alternatives in the Morris brothers, Matt Cooper and others. One could also make a case for getting Jamie Soward involved at the expense of Barrett, especially for the dead rubber, despite the fact that pundits everywhere were spouting he was too young and green for Origin.

On the plus side, I would suggest that Jarryd Hayne is probably the best player in the world at the moment, while the Panthers' very own Michael Jennings should become an Origin regular. Anthony Watmough remains a beastly presence, too. There is talk of getting rid of Craig Bellamy as coach, but as I say, it is with the selectors, not the coach, where the problem lies. One more year. The alternative, they are saying, is Wayne Bennett. But having a Queenslander coach NSW would be an ignominy rivalled only by having a Kiwi coach Australia's rugby union team. Oh wait...

Three songs that are good: 'Going Down' by Blitzen Trapper (who are really good all of a sudden), 'Rapture Of The Deep' by The Witch and the Robot and 'Gandalf' by The Phoenix Foundation.

The Baggy Green

2009-07-12T05:05:00.000-07:00

The BBC has recently been showing a series entitled Empire of Cricket, chronicling the history of the grand old game in all the major test-playing nations. Obviously, I've become tenacious in supporting Australia in the current Ashes series so it was with some intense interest - not to mention a wistful nostalgia - that I watched the programme dedicated to the game back home. Obviously a lot of the show was in awe of Bradman et al, but it also offered a reappraisal of the decade and a half of Australian test dominance at the end of the 20th century. It convinced me that Steve Waugh is surely the greatest Australian test captain of all time. It is easy to say that his success was mostly down to the fact he had some of the greatest ever players in his team (Warne, McGrath, Hayden, Gilchrist and so on), but they still had to be motivated into performing coherently as a whole. Waugh's capacities as captain can be proven by a comparison with Ponting's captaincy when it was in it infancy.

Steve Waugh would not have lost the Ashes in 2005. While that team still had every superstar in it, the fact was that they and indeed Ponting still needed to be uplifted, motivated and injected with the spirit required to win the Ashes that no other Australian has exemplified as well as Waugh. Complacency lost that series and the wretchedly immovable Waugh would not have allowed it to infect any of his teams.

It is easy to criticise Ponting for that series, but I believe his legacy will be made in this Ashes series and in the next few years. The Australian team for the first three years of Ponting's captaincy was still Waugh's team - both a blessing and a curse for Ponting. The team currently competing is the first XI that has been assembled and developed under Ponting's watch, and thus there is a case to be made for the fact his motivation is stronger, as he has watched his young bucks emerge in his image rather than Waugh's. They are firmly his and if his sense of history is as acute as it should be he will see an opportunity to establish a new formidable generation of Australian cricketers. Therefore it is important he sticks around as captain for the next three or so years to see this through.

Empire of Cricket had some fascinating footage of those 90s/00s teams, and I was of course moved to put together a best Australian XI for the time that I have been following the Australian game, which is since around 1990. Batting order manipulated a little to ease selection.

1. Matthew Hayden
2. Mark Taylor
3. David Boon
4. Ricky Ponting
5. Steve Waugh
6. Allan Border
7. Adam Gilchrist
8. Shane Warne
9.Brett Lee
10. Craig McDermott
11. Glenn McGrath

It was difficult to leave out Dean Jones, Michael Slater and Justin Langer (without whom we'd be without the Telemachus Brown song '(I Was Wrong About) Justin Langer), and I'm still unsure of picking Brett Lee in place of Merv Hughes. Apart from anything else, you have to include the blonde-haired shark from Wollongong for this.

Cass McCombs

2009-07-08T08:37:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year I was asked by Domino Records to provide the press blurb for their artist Cass McCombs, who was releasing a new album in Catacombs in July. In early 2008 I was totally absorbed by his previous record, Dropping The Writ and on the back of that mild obsession with his songs managed to do an interview with the American, something he usually distinctly reluctant to do. Domino then asked me to adapt the resulting article with the emphasis on Catacombs, jazz it up into a more promotional piece and suddenly it's a press release.

Well now the album is out and I've been keeping a keen eye on reviews. As someone who is on the end of countless press releases it was an interesting exercise to discover the varying extents to which reviewers lift from the release itself - as well as gauging response to an album that is very lovely indeed, if not quite on a par with Dropping The Writ. The review in the current issue of Uncut (which I can't find online) hits the nail pretty neatly on the head, while this one I thought was a little harsh. Dusted Magazine's review is not too thrilled with the album but constructs its criticism well, if calling McCombs a '90s sitcom dad' is a little much.

These were two of four negative reviews of the album on the first page of a Google search results page. The BBC's review, here, is slightly more positive and takes more of a cue from the promotional drivel I wrote, while not directly quoting it. But then we are back to ambivalence with The Fly. These lukewarm receptions are a little surprising to me, given that even the record's weakest moments are more interesting than say, the new Peter Doherty CD that came in the post this morning, or of course, the new Moby album. I also have never been able to understand the often-made comparison between McCombs and Morrissey. Oh well.

That press release can be found here.

Three songs that are good: 'Orange Cymbals' by Nurses, 'My Unusual Friend' by Fruit Bats and 'Yahoo' by Slumberwood.

Website Up

2009-07-04T09:20:00.000-07:00

I am moderately happy, I guess, to write that the uploading of articles has finished to barnaby-smith.co.uk, a site that I have created to lure potential employers in as well as act as an archive of my more passable pieces. I owe a large thanks to a friend of mine for designing and developing the thing.

The process of getting the site to this point was a deeply painful one. Not only did it take months to do, but it required going through up to three years worth of writing in order to identify works worthy of uploading. This was humbling to the point of giving it all up and seeing out my days on the sofa in front of the NRL with the homebrew, as has been a common scene recently (or even worse, do a PGCE), as there are some truly awful, cringe-worthy excuses for journalism and criticism in my back catalogue. I am moved to admit I have been lazy, derivative, cliched and downright ignorant in various things I have written. Thankfully, the majority of these faux pas were those articles from a long time ago, and at least I am now in a position to REALISE these deficiencies. Which surely makes me better today and tomorrow.

That said, while I was selective indeed with what articles went up, there are still a few things there that are not top-draw - to my tastes and opinion anyway - on there. As well as showing quality of writing, the site is meant to demonstrate breadth of musical knowledge, which accounts for the presence of things that are merely 7/10 rather than 10/10, in terms of how well they are written. Then again, I have on a number of occasions been complimented by vaguely important people on pieces that I have thought were dreadful, so I am probably not the best judge after all.

But there we are. The crux is it is up and it was embarrassing to confront past failings.

One might have guessed from this I am currently reading The Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In other news I recommend a visit here to download a strange, long thing from David Vandervelde and a few friends. Vandervelde released a beautiful album last year in Waiting For The Sunrise, one of 2008's best. That was all lovely soft-rock Americana but this is stubbornly fierce psychedelia, even a bit Hawkwindy at times. I suggest an album of that stuff, David. I thought of him when Jay Bennett died, as I know they had worked together in the past.

And here are three songs I have been liking: 'O Grace' by Magnolia Electric Company, 'I'm A Decent Man, I Kept Repeating' by Mike Bones and 'Sleepy Son' by Sleepy Sun.