Paul Kelly discusses, of all things, seasonal fashion in my favourite tune of his.

Going through the usual suspects of my musical favourites isn’t that difficult.
Harder, nigh impossible, task is if you ask me to find a favourite song from just about any of them.

Wilco, Bruce, The You Am I’s, Triffids – I’ll give you half-a-dozen tunes from each, but probably no one standout.
Exception proving rule - particularly when the temperature hits single figures and the wind hits doubles – Mr Kelly’s ode to op-shop bargaining and tactile memory.
It’s something in the bittersweet remembrances and the little details he conjures. And probably that I’ve just shrugged off my equivalent item of outerwear, which has its own slightly labyrinthine back story – which might be another reason the song resonates.
Anyway, related anecdote: There was a FCUK factory shop near where then-girlfriend and I lived. I tended to listlessly look through the men’s racks while she more enthusiastically investigated the women’s clothing section. But this day I found the three-quarter length black pea-jacket style overcoat. Warm. Black. Stylish. Actually fitted well. Just my size, just like PK says in the song. Partner enthused: “You’ve got to have that!”. “Yeah, but not for 169.95…”. And that was on special. She even wanted to pay. Still just couldn’t justify or accept. We shrugged, and left.
A few months later, same factory outlet. Surprisingly, coat still there. “Now you really have to…”, she pressed, particularly noting it was now marked down further to $109.95. Still somehow couldn’t quite justify.
This pattern actually repeated a couple more times, as the tag was again texta’ed down via 89.95 to 59.95. Nearly got me that day. But no.
We were probably heading into the next winter when we next strolled through Birkenhead Point. We darkly joked how it’d have to be gone by now. But there it was. $39.95. On a “50% off all items” day. I recall she actually wordlessly grabbed it out of my hands and went to the check out.
Closing on 20 years on, she’s gone - but my still stylish, still fits, $18.97 winter coat is slung over this chair after taking me to the Springsteen tribute show last night.
Memories, and/or a timelessly tailored woollen jacket can keep you warm. Sort of.

Coat, Winter.

 

 

Jack Ladder, still kicking goals with Blue Poles.

Jack Ladder & The Dreamlanders

Blue Poles

Barely Dressed/Remote Control

It a little odd that a couple of Jack Ladder’s backing Dreamlanders seem to have a higher profile than the man himself. Odder still when those are the ironic lounge lizardry of Donny Benet and the sometimes divisive performance art of Kirin Callinan. For as he again proves here, Jack The Lad is making some glorious neon-and-noir pop built around his rich croon.

In parts Blue Poles feels a little less studied, perhaps a bit looser, than some of his earlier work - but conversely perhaps a little more melodic and approachable. With himself now in the producer’s chair as well, the backing is there to serve that voice and these songs. Some things are a little more windswept than the grimy-but-shiny city streets and alleys you might expect, although Dates does nods toward Berlin-era Bowie & Iggy in its insistent rattle.

But the emotions are often still dark – or at least darkly humoured. Susan is another of those lost girls, with Jack left literally “…Upping the dose” in his casualty ward bed to keep some vision of her. But somehow, that comes with a bit of a knowing smirk. Ditto the sweeping highlight White Flag, where its original duet design is subverted by its delivery by one voice – just who is the one realising they’re trapped?

Blue Mirror is half-spoken memories over a shimmer of keyboards – think mid-period Roxy Music, or maybe David Sylvian’s Japan.  And the final Merciful Reply full of romantic anticipation and doubt – and somehow you know she’ll just be the next one to break his heart. Again.

Mr Ladder has made another album suitable for moody brooding. This he does very well.

Greater love hath no reviewer than to actually buy the record...

 

Sir Charles Jenkins, avec one guitar and one microphone. An album thereof.

Charles Jenkins

When I Was On The Moon

Silver Stamp

One of the odd sidebars of what I’ve done for many years is the ongoing opportunity or curse to test the old adage of ‘…You should never meet your idols’.

For the most part, the heroes who have made me laugh, cry, think, tap my foot, or just dance like a mad thing around the kitchen haven’t disappointed, and perhaps reflected their art. Jeff Tweedy is mid-western dry with occasional outbreaks of smirk. Billy Bragg wants to know what you’re thinking - to agree or try and convince you otherwise. Tim Rogers is a walking anecdote, with discussion of records from thirty years ago that if you hadn’t heard you probably should have. Neil Finn all New Zealand reserve: telling you as much as he wants to tell you, then thinking he may have given a little too much away anyway. Jason Isbell is one of those “…southern men who tell better jokes”, and don’t waste a word in doing so. Deborah Conway tests you before deciding if she trusts enough to open up. Steve Kilbey is continually challenging and calling your bluff on anything you say about his band. And Mark Seymour? Well, let’s say that old moose riddle appears pretty accurate.

And somewhere in there I fell over Icecream Hands. The finest of the classicist pop bands. Guitars ringing, and guitar wringing. Songs of lust, love, jealousy, loss, cars & girls, and even the custody dispute over who gets that Picture Disc From The Benelux. Yeah, been there.

Don’t actually recall my first chat with Sir Charles Jenkins, or even whether it an interview proper or casual post-gig, three-drinks-in, introduction before after a show at the old Sando or Hoey. Just seem to have always known he was the utterly affable nicer bloke you wouldn’t meet in a day’s march. The affable chats that have followed were previewed in those songs. Sometimes clever, always sincere (mostly), smart, witful, thoughtful. Add descriptors of choice.

His solo career has always retained all that, and his ineffable pop sense. But each record has come at it from slightly different, sometimes surprising, tangents: A big polished pop one, a kinda alt-country one, a quieter one, a louder one, the one built around a 20-piece string section.

Which brings us to here. When I Was On The Moon surprisingly doesn’t come from a lunar distance. This is distilled Jenkins. One man and one guitar, but feeling more like the continuation of the chat you’ve had over Thai home delivery dinner, and the requisite couple of serviceable shirazes. He’s just reached over the back of his chair, picked up the instrument and started strumming - probably before you wander off to one of those Monday Nights At The Retreat Hotel where various ‘…clean folk-singers’ wish they could make it look this effortless.

As you meander through it, typical and untypical subject matter drifts by. Do Not Disturb is rightly not wanting to impose on the magic and mysteries of love. Hastings, the bucolic spirit of place where you might let that happen before you head out on the fishing boat.

Most artists operating in this mode are going to find a Dylan touchstone in it somewhere. There’s a bit of Zimmerman in the tumble of words and that girl with a ‘…tempest of curly hair’ who inevitably steals his drink and a maybe little of his heart, even as he tries to deny it with a half-hearted snarky aside as our narrator ends up peering at out a window, trapped in Fairfield In The (pissing) Rain. Tubby Spiderman is backpacker snapshots – ok, for our younger viewers that’d be Instagram posts, I suppose – of those oddities you see while wandering Spain, with some vintage Van Morrison in your headphones.

But there’s also a bit of space for a bit of wry social commentary. Gates Of Heaven mixes a surreal collision of the hereafter and Canberra - where even St Peter is caught up in the politics of jobs-for-the-boys connections – and allowing a rightful sneer at other ‘…Old men who fly on the public purse’.

Like just about all of his almost inevitably good work, …Moon has lot going on, even if it comes with this record’s somewhat more minimal approach. But whether in a crowded bar, or waiting for the last tram or bus home after, Mr Jenkins remains the engaging conversationalist. Have a listen.

Do Re Mi so far...

Do Re Mi, Dog Trumpet
Marrickville Bowling Club
1/3/19

Any much-loved band’s reunion gig/tour after ten, twenty – godsake, it can’t really be thirty years could it? – is often a fraught thing. Music can date, passion or talent may dim, the personalities involved may no longer gel for any number of personal or professional reasons.

This enthusiastically accepted Do Re Mi go-round has got around a number of those conditions in various ways. Thing is, the original lineup was a such a mix of individual players: the clattering drums of Dorland Bray, Stephen Philip’s often jagged guitar chop, Helen Carter’s fluid bass, and of course bitch goddess Deborah Conway – the presence, the attitude, the voice. As much as there was occasional chart success almost in spite of themselves, and they could fill the classic ‘80s beer barns – and I still can’t quite recall if the last time I saw them was at the Sydney Cove Tavern or the gloriously named Pickled Parrot – they were never quite wholly ’Strayan in music or manner. Always a bit more Gang Of Four than slab of VB.

Fast forward to this century, and Bray’s settled in New Zealand, but more importantly he and Conway have apparently had the classic full-tilt, friendship-ending, falling-out – so he’s a non-starter. And Philip steps away to make what seems an absolutely natural 21^st century move: Do Re Mi 2019 is all-female band. Of course it is. Bridie O’Brien is a solo artist in her own right, and adds some blues in the guitar noise to the staccato. Julia Day finds her way around those Rototom drums that still seem most surreally futuristic, and yet so oddly old-fashioned now.  Add sometime RocKwiz Orchestra keyboardist, the luminous Clio Renner – with her modern technology adding depth and those little flourishes like Parsons' brass being so “…pealing, appealing…”, as the song would have it. Carter’s bass retains its confident strut. And Conway? She just is. Her creative life hasn’t stopped, through that delightfully perverse solo career to the rich storytelling she now does with life and music partner Willy Zygier. And there remains so very few who can shift gears so seamlessly from seductive to “Oh look, could you just fuck off…” like she can.

And so, the faithful gather – and not entirely the correctly inner-west hiply chic Boomers and Gen-X’ers some might have expected. Yes, you – young fellow with the asymmetric haircut! Are you some musician’s offspring, or an adolescent out of his time? And get off the damn lawn.

And if you want to talk timeless - yet utterly identifiable – noises, even if you never heard of Dog Trumpet that idiosyncratic part-Hawaiian, part-psychedelic, part-high plains twang could only be Reg Mombassa’s guitar. Then there’s songs that could just about soundtrack the sometimes askance visuals of his or bandmate and brother Peter O’Doherty’s paintings. Throw in Marrickville local national treasure Bernie Hayes’ rich bass playing and third part of the harmony and it’s a sometimes deceptively alluring tuneful racket. Slipping in a final Beserk Warriors from ye olde Mental As Anything canon and everyone’s most comfortable beneath the perfectly ’70s-era copper-roof.

And on to more of everything old is new again. On what’s planned to be the last performance of this resurrection, Do Re Mi settle into their work. Maybe even a little smoother and assured than remembered. But then, just to throw most of us off-balance, the words of ‘pubic hair’ and ‘anal humour’ are recognisable - but that’s not quite the song we know. The real trainspotters identify it as the early original punk-rather-than-funk take of Man Overboard - Conway delivering it with suitable mischief. Surely they're not going to be as deliberately perverse and iconoclastic to not do their most eternal song as the crowd wants it? Puzzlement ensues. For a while.

But other things come as advertised on the tin. Politics, personal and international: Theme From Jungle Jim, King Of Moomba, Idiot Grin. Muscular and wiry. Between songs, Conway is typically imperious and nervously garrulous. Subjects covered including being the sound but not the vision of ‘80s youf TV gem Sweet & Sour, her own dancing ability or lack thereof, pashing Mike Willesee (yes, really…), pushing the merchandise sales of tour souvenir t-shirts and tea towels, pondering a crowd-funding campaign to get the original band’s lost third album released (Yes please!), and a sincere delight as the crowd knew where to sing along with Warnings Moving Clockwise.

So, by about three-quarters of the way through we would left satisfied, if not thrilled, with the nostalgia. But then it all kicks up. Man Overboard comes in its more familiar guise, and the voices raised at the title refrain comes with a thousand years of gender roles pushing it. And bugger me, that is still a helluva bassline.
So to the towering, rich longing of Adultery. Beside that fact it invariably puts something in my eye, this really should have been the song that made them. It’s a glory. Smart and thoughtful and provocative all at once. And still stands up better than something dating from 1987 has any right to.

And it could only finish with the even more plaintive memories of romance that is The Happiest Place In Town. Other eyes nearby get something in them, as above. There’s clapping, cheering, bows are taken, hugs are exchanged, and post-mortems of music, relationships, and other bands you loved then and now start at the bar almost immediately thereafter.              

You Am I Tapping in...

You Am I Present The Majesty Of Tap
Factory Theatre
7/4/2018

Eleven. Hello Cleveland. None more black. Sexist, not sexy. Stonehenge…

As in-jokes that have seeped into the mainstream consciousness, quotes from This Is Spinal Tap are probably up there with old Monty Python gags and Simpsons’ references.

A lot of bands have probably thought about honouring the Tap musically – likely after ingesting a few beverages, or perhaps less commercially available substances. But kudos to You Am I, for they would be one of the very few who’d remember the conversation the next day - and what’s more, actually follow through. But they’re in a fairly freewheelin’ mood at the moment: a couple of winery picnic gigs with the Gurus here, playing backing band to ‘60s icon PP Arnold there.

A couple of wheezes from the smoke machines, and they were amongst us. “Hello, er…Sydney!” Tonight We’re Gonna Rock You Tonight a natural overture. And later reappeared to close the night – these are the traditions, people. The whole conceit would have probably worn off far quicker if the songs of the Tap catalogue weren’t so terrifically constructed bits of music - as pastiche or homage to a bunch of styles. As Tim Rogers put it as they went through a couple of songs that very obviously ‘honoured’ The Kinks of the mid-1960s: “Ray Davies probably should have sued them as quickly as (Tap co-creator) Harry Shearer is gonna sue us...”

Thing is, The You Am I’s tribute came with affection, and they fit the roles maybe a little too well - right down to the eye makeup. Rogers’ big gesture theatricality has more than a dollop of St Hubbins’ sprawling ego. Davey Lane really is a music geek who finds something to love in just about any era of the rock music. There’s probably a Nigel Tufnel amplifier than goes to 11 in his lounge-room next to that mandolin and very fetching leopard skin vest/shirt that he’s sporting. As “…the lukewarm water between the fire and ice”, Andy Kent’s taciturn nature channels Derek Smalls neatly. And perched behind a perfectly grandiose drum kit - disappointingly lacking double kick-drums, but with Chinese gong I don’t recall actually being used – Rusty Hopkinson was all those skinsmen The Tap used up, right down to suffering an obligatory ‘bizarre lighting accident’ toward the end.

Yes, this truly is The Majesty Of Rock. Kind of. There are bits of comic by-play as they ‘restore’ the reputation of the band. “That band - not this band,” Rogers clarified, repeatedly. This band in fact managing to go from the near-skiffle of Gimme Some Money, through the cod-metal of Rock And Roll Nightmare, Rock And Roll Creation, and Heavy Duty Rock And Roll (sensing a theme, customers?), to “The perfect mix of making love…and agriculture” Sex Farm, and obvious crowd favourite, Big Bottom. That our boys manage these stylistic shifts straight up and live is actually just a bit impressive. Although you’re probably too busy cackling as a ‘correctly’ proportioned nine-inch Stonehenge was lowered to the stage, with suitable reverence.       

So, was the joke stretched out too long? Yeah, probably. But everyone’s gone home laughing, so you can’t really begrudge it. The patron saint of quality footwear would have blessed this gathering. Or, as Timmy closed the evening: “You’ve been great, good night Adelaide!”.
Of course he did.

 

Spencer P. Jones: The heart, and soul (and liver), of The Beast.

His own musical history, whether under his own name, in bands such as The Johnnys and Hell To Pay, or as sometime sideman to the likes of Paul Kelly and Chris Bailey all make Spencer P. Jones a name to be respected.

He’s also one of only two – the other being the inimitable Tex Perkins – to make it through the 30 years and three distinct lineups of ragged glory that is The Beasts Of Bourbon. This also means he gets to do the triple shift as the band run through their checkered history and personnel over consecutive nights, but he’s typically laconic and matter-of-fact about making it this far.“Of course you never thought that far ahead. But I don’t see why we can’t keep doing it - as long as we’re all still alive, and sort of well,” Mr Jones deadpans down the line. Thing is, the ‘still alive’ element might only be half joking. The Beasts have always gone in hard, and there’s been some burn outs and lineup implosions through their history.

When presented with the facts, the guitarist lets out a coughing laugh: “Yeah, it is a fucking miracle really, isn’t it?,” before getting a bit of perspective:  “There is a lot of bullshit about this band. Gossip, rumour - and somewhere along the line that becomes fact."

Spencer illustration courtesy Paul Rebec.

“But OK, there’s a bit of notoriety, maybe rightly. And sure, one of our members has spent some time in jail, but that’s his issue. And I reckon we’re not the only band where that’s the case.” There’s a knowing chuckle. “But looking back, The Beasts is probably one of the few things in most of our lives that’s turned out pretty much effortless, and we can just keep coming back to it. It’s the old hot rod thing - it’s in the garage, we take it out for a run every few years. Maybe take some things off or bolt on some new ones, give it a bit of a polish, and off we go. You just turn over the V8 every so often.”

The flipside of the entanglements is that things sometimes just crumble into place for this band. Performances of the various eras of Beasts have come together lately through a mixture of accident and design. The most unlikely revival - that of the original 1983 ensemble featuring Kim Salmon, fellow then-Scientist Boris Sujdovic, and a man of many myths and stories in his own right, James Baker on drums – put back together for The Drones-curated All Tomorrow Parties event.

By coincidence, Jones and Baker were putting together what would become The Nothing Butts record with Gareth Liddiard and Fiona Kitschin, but weren’t the first to know about it. “Gareth never said anything to me or James about that idea. The ATP people went to Kim first before anybody else - and offered him a very princely sum which made him happy,” Jones explains with a smirk. “It was like a focus from a whole different side, and it worked out. Possibly the only person who might have been offended was (later Beast) Charlie (Owen), but he was cool about it – I think he quite liked the idea of seeing that version too.”

“That was meant to be a one-off - and then we got offered the Iggy Pop tour, and Charlie couldn’t do one of the shows – he was off with Jimmy Barnes opening for Bruce Springsteen, as you do. Not the sort of gig you can knock back,” he adds drily. “So we asked Charlie if it was OK to get Kim in for that. He was OK with it – well, relieved he was off the hook.”

 

Jones continues to conclusion: “These shows, we’ve just decided to be a bit more organised. It’s not like Tex and I got together and fiendishly conjured something up. It's all been too complicated to be a plan.” But it does come down to Spencer and Perkins doing triple duty, covering the whole Beasts catalogue of sodden blues with occasional outbreaks of romance, drug smuggling, and blood. “Ah, you gotta pay the troll if you want to rock and roll,” he philosophises. And admits there’s a different dynamic for him in each of the band’s formations. “Oh yeah, each ‘band’ does feel a little different – whether that’s me just playing slide on some songs some nights, or some things in the way Charlie and I work, which is different to the way I play off Kim and the way he does things – and even they’ve changed a bit over the years.”    

He discusses and corrects with himself: “Have I got a favourite child among the lineups? I don’t think so. Wait, maybe – sometimes. I’ve played on a lot of records over the years,” he understates.  “I still think (Beasts’ debut) The Axeman’s Jazz is a great record, The Low Road is a great record. And I think Gone and Little Animals are pretty good records – the last one could have been a bit longer. But I’m just second guessing,” he admits.

Even after 30 years, there’s still something that keeps them coming back: “Absolutely – we can still find something in these songs. Maybe because it’s always been that part-time, ‘other thing’ most of us do, sometimes.”

Mr Jones’ has more in the diary once this Beasts excursion is done. There’s a solo record done where he plays just about everything on it, as well as producing “a real pop record” for Ally Spazzy that “just needs a couple more songs”, and…“I’m doing another Escape Committee record – that’s really my main band now. But some of them are a bit upset that Western Australian couple (Liddiard and Kitschin) horned in and took some the songs they never got the chance to record. I might have to do some peacemaking.”

 

(Bob) Mouldings of Copper & Silver.

As he sets about celebrating two career highlights from two decades apart, Bob Mould is musing on a couple of years which have raised his already respected standing to new levels. “It has got kind of crazy,” he admits, before getting a little more philosophical. “Just the fact I've survived might be a big part of it – and the book certainly galvanised people to delve back into what's gone before.”

Said book, See A Little Light, has become almost as revered as his musical history, as it unblinkingly covers not only Mould's music and the messy and drug-wracked implosion of Hüsker Dü, but also his struggle and eventual acceptance of his sexuality, among other things.

Did the book set out to be as candid and revealing? The answer is quick and emphatic: “No!”
Then elaborates: “I absolutely did not expect it to go that way. I thought 'Yeah, biography – tell some funny stories, look back, rewrite the bad times a little bit to make yourself look good'. But [co-writer] Michael Azerrad was a great coach, great editor. He saw a different picture, and encouraged and dragged a whole other perspective out of me.” Azerrad, the author also responsible for the definitive Nirvana book, Come As You Are, gave Mould a layer of trust.

The honesty of the book saw it reach beyond his musical audience, and reignited a wider interest through his latest album, Silver Age (an album now often compared with Sugar's classic Copper Blue of the early '90s; itself name-checked by both grunge and rock enthusiasts). These two albums centred his then-current touring. “I love playing those records – they're fun, easy to play.” He adds a kicker, “Then we go deeper into the back catalogue – and it will be loud.”

Mould's answer is less definite and more self-effacing when questioned on whether he recognises his own standing and reputation: “Umm, yeah. Okay, maybe. I'm still a big music fan – so I know that bands like Japandroids and The Men mention me,” he says, sounding genuinely pleased that they know who he is. “But I only really think about it when I have to talk about it. I don't often sit in my yard and look up at my place among the stars,” he chuckles.

“I'm grateful, surprised. A level of recognition always amazes me. Maybe even more that I can be sitting in my neighbourhood having a coffee, someone walks by, does a double take, then comes up to show me they have 20 or 30 of my songs in their iPod. Like, how that does happen? You have to love that – unless you're Morrissey, of course.”

Some other friends were happy to back Bob up when Los Angeles' Disney Concert Hall organised a tribute to the man and his music. He even downplays that a bit. “I'd played a handful of tribute shows at [legendary New York venue] Carnegie Hall – Dylan, REM, The Who. I think the Disney wants to be that for the West Coast. It's a Frank Gehry-designed, perfectly tuned orchestral venue. They gave me gravity, I gave them some credibility. Maybe.”

“They asked, and I just like getting people together to play. Okay, it got a bit bigger than I thought.” Among those at the 'get-together': Dave Grohl, Ryan Adams, and Craig Finn of The Hold Steady. Mr Mould is matter-of-fact: “Well, Dave I've known forever, way back to last century. Craig and I share a guitar teacher. Ryan? We've just run into each other. It probably just comes down to being around long enough to have met about everybody.” May he meet quite a few more.

Neil Finn reveals some secrets, but probably keeps a lot more...

The familiar fringe that flops down over his eyes has some flecks of grey now. Those eyes might have a few more laugh-lines, but still have a sparkle - even when in the midst of one of those conveyor belt days of interviews trying to convince the audience to accept your latest musical tangent.

Neil Finn has been doing this for over 40 years. And still can find the wonder in it. “I’m as fascinated by music as much, maybe more, than I’ve ever been,” he states, but then reality checks “But that doesn’t mean there aren’t dark days where you can’t quite find what you’re trying to achieve.”

Many would name him a master of the craft, the art, the mystery of songwriting. He offers some of the formula: “There’s inspiration, creativity – and some bluff. And maybe a bit of skulduggery,” he adds conspiratorially.It’s probably up to the listener to work out just what proportion of those ingredients are present across Dizzy Heights, the new album under his own name rather than the Crowded House or Pajama Club band guises of his late. Although it’s very much a family affair: wife Sharon, and sons Liam and Elroy centring a band that trooped off to Flaming Lips’ producer Dave Fridmann’s studio in upstate New York. Finn clarifies: “We’d actually did a couple of ‘family band’ gigs at the end of Pajama Club tour. This maybe a step to one day doing an album where we can all write the songs, then play it all together. New Zealand’s Von Trapps? Maybe not,” he muses. “There’s not many truly memorable family groups. OK, maybe The Partridge Family,” he jokes.

The thoughts dovetail: “It’s about finding a balance. Music is the most important thing in the whole world, beside my family. But then you recognise the cosmic significance of a few songs is fairly small. You’ve got to keep both of those thoughts in your head, otherwise you’ll disappear up your own arse. But make it too frivolous, and it’s all too much just a game of getting famous.”

But Neil Finn does have the fame, and a canon of songs that truly affect people. There’s a pride in the work, perhaps tempered with a bit of a self-effacing New Zealand reserve. “I don’t really sit around and think about the ‘legacy’ aspect of it. But I do know I’ve written things that mean a lot to a lot of people”, he admits. “I appreciate that exchange - that’s profound, I’m lucky to be part of that.”

However, a competitive element seems absurd to him. “Comparing and connecting my work to the work of others, it makes no sense. To be honest, I’m bored by the idea of all those lists that seem to be the fashion – particularly when I’m not on one of them. And I just hate being asked ‘So, what’s the favourite song you’ve written?’ – that’s ridiculous to me, an impossible question. I can maybe pick 20 that I’m really happy with, but don’t ask me for three or five.”

He again ponders the mystery, and the tricks of the trade. “Maybe one of the secrets of a successful song is it sounds like your revealing yourself – even when you’re really not. What might start from some personal point would get bogged if you kept just trying to diarise your life – although that does seems to work for Taylor Swift,” he chuckles. “That’s where the skulduggery comes in – to open up doors to possibilities, so people can imagine their own scenarios.”

So, it seem we think we know Neil Finn, but probably don’t. We presume he’s the character in his songs. He then demystifies one of greatest of these supposed confessional moments: “Maybe I’m being disingenuous, but Into Temptation is really from two experiences – neither of which was me having it off with a stranger in a hotel, as much as people might want it to be.”

“Basically, there was a rugby team and a netball team staying at the hotel I was in, I heard what I thought was someone knocking on my door, stuck my head out to find that next door along one of the netball girls was, er, ‘calling on’ one of the rugby boys. It was actually very comical - he saw her, then saw me looking, much embarrassment all round, and I just quickly went back in the room and scribbled down ‘Opened up the door, I couldn’t believe my luck’….” So, now you know.

“And the ‘Knowing full well the earth will rebel…’ is from after one of big earthquakes in LA, one of those hellfire preachers saying that was God’s punishment for America’s sins. But there’s not a person who doesn’t understand the theme - but sometimes banal circumstances can make for a great song.”
What makes Neil Finn different from we mere mortals is not many of us could find that kind of emotion in the banal.

The Triffids: You remind me very much of someone that I used to know...

A Secret In The Shape Of A Song – The Triffids and Friends

The Metro, Sydney

17/01/08

Twenty years ago I sat in London’s Dominion Theatre as a lanky, slightly frayed young man folded himself into a rickety bentwood chair and sang from deep inside himself. It made me want to come home.

This night – to paraphrase one of David McComb’s lyrics – despite a patent lack of him, the band and those songs were still present and often utterly moving. Secret… became a mix of reunion, celebration, tribute, and maybe the wake The Triffids themselves never got to have.

To find the band’s tour manager/wardrobe director, the spindly Handsome Steve Miller, a tuxedo’ed mix of greeter and theatre usher made things surreal enough. He then provided a suitably declamatory introduction for the band to appear. I told myself I’d be dispassionate and critical. That lasted until about the third bar of Too Hot To Move.

Graham Lee’s pedal steel drew tears. Alsy MacDonald and Martyn Casey provided a rich and melodic rhythm section. Robert McComb’s cross-currenting guitar was an underrated sound. And there was Jill Birt’s keyboards, and those lead vocals that mixed awkwardness and petulance, and contrast to David’s deeper murmurings of the heart.

The guests of the evening tried to fill out the band’s sound as well as that void where David’s voice should be. Lee pitied the people who’d never heard Chris Abrahams play piano. His rippling solo opening made Mark Snarski’s towering Bury Me Deep In Love even more heartbreaking. Unexpected was an appearance from Abrahams’ musical partner, Melanie Oxley. Her longing Conquer You was a highlight.

Casey’s fellow Bad Seed Mick Harvey is a man who should step forward more often. His desolate run at The Seabirds had all the exhausted agony of the relationship at its core.

Mark Dawson’s drums were a martial counterpoint to MacDonald’s lighter touch. He shone as The Blackeyed Susans celebrated their time as David’s vehicle. The Rob Snarski crooning of Ocean Of You showed McComb’s grasp of the pop traditions.

Having seen Steve Kilbey sleepwalk through some Church gigs lately, I was worried as the opening inhalation of drums announced the majestic need of Wide Open Road. But with the grin of a true fan, he was passionate and aching and better than ever imagined. He maybe even topped that with a visceral howl of Lonely Stretch.

Conversely, Youth Group’s Toby Martin’s sweeter tones were right for the melancholy of Trick Of The Light. The hit that never was, but always should have been.

Such contrasts went through the encores: a scything, almost psychedelic, Field Of Glass  – with Julian Wu’s and Brian Jonestown’s Ricky Maymi meaning five guitars were spiralling over each other – followed by the evening’s perfect full stop of Birt’s gentle questioning Tender Is The Night. That song has a central query of ‘Don’t you want to forget someone too?’ On this night, the answer was a resounding no.

Mike Noga: A quiet Saturday night in a quiet bar in Darlinghurst.

Mike Noga

Golden Age Bar

With a couple of exceptions, Sydney is still working out the ‘small bar’ thing. That’s partly due to the ongoing cage match between a council trying to keep some culture in the inner-city and a state government intent on selling off not only any building with human activity, but the park opposite as well, and even the bus that got you there.

And some blame could be sheeted to the bars themselves, where the musical entertainment provided is often just to be background music to deciding which single-origin spiced pilsener you want with your artisan cheese platter. But sometimes you want more than old mate yowling Dylan covers, or noodling like George Benson. Someone to entertain and engage. Someone like Mike Noga.

The random nature of a Saturday night means there’s a crowd where some know all the words from his genuinely terrific solo work, a proportion having to be told he used to be the drummer in The Drones, and a few who might need explaining that “See, there’s a band called The Drones…”. But armed with only the guitar his dad bought him, a $5 harmonica (“Yeah, really should have got the $30 one…”), and a tambo on the floor to add occasional percussion, Noga is chatty from the little mirrored box with a mirror ball that is The Golden Age stage. He offers samples of his often downbeat muse: the mortal regret of I Will Have Nothing silences the chatterers, chunks from his churning latest album King like the sadly jaunty All My Friends Are Alcoholics – always striking as an interesting choice to play in licensed premises – and “Irish murder ballad by a guy from Tasmania…”, Eileen.

There’s also the danger and delight of such intimate venues: the punter at one of those almost-on-the-stage tables having the hiccup attack right in the quiet bit of M’Belle. Noga stops, laughs with her, soldiers on. Or the lady further back who asked for something a bit more upbeat, and is rewarded with the swing of Down Like JFK as the 35^th president considers taking the convertible may not have been the best of ideas.

He finishes with King’s closer, the human need and longing of This Is For You, and most everybody – even those likely who had no idea of who or what was on offer – probably considered this a good way to spend a Saturday night.

 

You Am I: And thereafter, you put the needle to the (Live) record...

You Am I

All Onboard

The You Am I Set Pty Ltd

 

In which the finest guitar band in Christendom attempts to deal with two of Australia’s great rock and roll orthodoxies: “Yeah, they were always better live…” and the ever-popular “We like your old stuff better than your new stuff…”.
  
Thing is, on their night – which is actually now more often than not than it once may have been – You Am I are an absolutely supreme rock and roll band. And there are points across these two slabs coloured vinyl (naturally…) where there is a glorious gasping and grasping energy to them.

Tim Rogers’ and Davey Lane’s guitars dogfight around over Andy Kent’s bedrock bass and Russell Hopkinson’s still superlative drumming to make something that can move an audience or pin it to the wall as necessary. Timmy will probably always half-jokingly despair about his voice, but even he seems more aware of how to hold it together - or when that crack in the note and grab for the next breath is all part of the drama of what they now are.

The second part of the conundrum is a little more problematic. Many in the crowds seeing them on the 2017 regional tour from where these performances are accumulated probably haven’t even listened to much of the band’s 21^st century output, but things like Convicts’ It Ain’t Funny How We Don’t Talk Anymore and Friends Like You can hold their heads high besides the Mr Milks and Jewels And Bullets of the catalogue.

Of course no live album is ever going to truly give a gig’s smell of sweet sweat and beer, but some of the personality of The Australian You Am I Tribute Show does come through - the drumrolls of Rusty’s intro to the towering Trike have a wander through Land Of 1000 Dances, then heads for some chicken tenders at the Colonel’s before it all rips in, or as Rogers puzzles some of the younger souls in the audience by reciting one of Live At Budokan broken English preambles as they cover Cheap Trick’s I Want You To Want Me with the grinning care of true fans.

Apart from all that, All Onboard also has most all of what even the casual observer would require from their peerless back catalogue: Get Up, Good Mornin’, Rumble, that one about a piece of German seating furniture. Get as a souvenir of many nights well spent - by both you and them.

Hits and (occasionally hazy) memories. Not the first, and not the last, live appreciation of The You Am I’s.

YOU AM I

Enmore Theatre

Roughly, I’ve probably seen 10,000 bands. A hundred good ones. A dozen great ones.

And one You Am I.

And this night, a sense of occasion - as your favourite band play the two records that mean so much too so many. Most present having such an investment in Hourly Daily and/or Hi Fi Way Tim Rogers probably didn’t need to sing at all - we knew the words anyway.

Some quibbled these recitals occurring in reverse order – discussions of the albums’ relative merits went on endlessly at nearby bars before and after the show. But Hourly Daily is an arc, an entity. Coloured with brass, cello, and video backdrops of the inner-west Sydney it is so much of, there’s even greater resonance merely because you’re there. “This song was written about 12 minutes’ walk from here…,” as Rogers reflected at one point. There’s a hundred couples in the audience who were those puzzled lovers of If We Can’t Get It Together. How many of them here are still together another question entirely. We’ll avoid those now-ex’s in the interval, as the band dispense with the scarves and checkered pants look for the second act.

For Hi Fi Way is a rock and roll record, played by a magnificent rock and roll band, in increasingly sweat-soaked t-shirts. A shudder of volume went through the place as Jewels And Bullets roared. If not entirely lost in the moment, marvel at just how good Russell Hopkinson is as the cymbals shimmer and splash, while Andy Kent’s bass strolls and heartbeats. Davey Lane is a young rooster strutting. Purple Sneakers is still every inner-west girl you’ve ever kissed. And How Much Is Enough? the perfect fullstop.

Encore? Sure. A divebombing Sound As Ever, a sprawling (literally and figuratively) Young Man Blues, Berlin Chair’s sparkle and shatter. Plus thanks, and advice from that guy with the guitar and the blue crushed-velvet trousers: “Take risks. Get out of your comfort zone. Fuck yourself up…” And “Be excellent to each other…”. In turn Rogers promises this band “Will keep making mistakes for you”. Long may they do so.