Charles Jenkins
When I Was On The Moon
Silver StampOne 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.
