My Favourite Album Cover: The Kinks' 'Muswell Hillbillies'

I'm a bit of a sucker for album cover art. I like everything from Tiki gods spewing forth fire and destruction on old Hawaiian albums to dystopian future landscapes depicted by unsmiling synth-wielding minimalists. My favourite album cover, however, is firmly rooted in the year 1971 and the city of London. It's the Kinks' slightly schizophrenic ode to Americana and condemnation of urban renewal entitled 'Muswell Hillbillies.'

The cover is a photo of a typical london pub (presumably in Muswell Hill) which is sparsely occupied in the afternoon by what appears to be 'the regulars.' There's some besuited businessmen in the background, an old man in the foreground and a hard-to-define casually dressed man staring disdainfully to his right sporting a moustache and an orange jumper. He looks like the sort of stereotype that Steve Coogan based his Paul Calf character on: Unemployed, student-hating, extra-strong lager-drinking man's-man. You might argue that his jumper looks slightly effeminate, but the orange colour is all the better for disguising blood stains when he head-butts you in the face after daring to make such a comment.

The full glory of the cover can only be appreciated by opening the gatefold sleeve. The second half of the photo features the members of The Kinks in all their bell-bottom wearing, tie-dyed, long hair and bearded 1970s glory. They look relaxed and oblivious to the fact that Mr Orange Jumper looks ready to take them on single-handedly and give them a right bollocking. Presumably The Kinks' celebrity status and regular custom at the pub makes them tolerated by the staff and there appears to be a reluctant truce in effect.

Besides being an hilarious image, it also makes me nostalgic for my own youth. Half way 'round the world in Brisbane, Australia, I myself was able to illicit similar disgust in people for doing so very little. I was born the year this album was released, but by the early 1990's this 'hippy' look seemed to have come around again and I was an enthusiastic adopter. I felt like I was doing something right when my friends and I would walk into a pub with long hair flowing, ironic t-shirts, pirate earrings and beads and watch as all conversation seemed to suddenly cease. If it was the old west, then I would imagine the guy playing honky-tonk piano in the corner would suddenly stop also. As it was the 90s, maybe the CD in the jukebox just skipped.

Of course this shock effect can't last forever. Over time we seemed to bridge the divide between The Kinks and Mr Orange Jumper. Gradually we went from being 'the outsiders' to being 'the regulars.' Both have their good and bad points, but I always tried not to roll my eyes at the latest cocky young upstarts that came through the door.

* * * * * 

In 1994 I visited London. I was curious to talk with my uncle who managed pubs in Muswell Hill in the early 1970s and enthusiastically asked if he had any good stories about The Kinks. He seemed to be rather dismissive in the way Mr Orange Jumper might be, but it also might have to do with a big city trend of seeming casual and dismissive of people that add cultural relevance to the place where you live. My theory is the bigger the city, the more dismissive people are.

When I lived in Brisbane, I was always delighted to see local heroes Grant or Robert from The Go-Betweens walking down the street, or Ed Kuepper from the Saints. Now that I live in Melbourne, however, it seems like nobody bats an eye if Cate Blanchett is sitting at the table next to them. My small-city mind in 1994 could not grasp the fact that there was no annual Kinks holiday in Muswell Hill, or at least a monument in the town square!

That trip to London also reminded me how different pub culture was in England. Pubs used to be packed at lunch time with people downing pints in thick smoke-filled environments before reluctantly returning to work. Australians certainly didn't seem to smoke as much as the English, and it is one vice I have never really succumbed to. I remember almost getting into a fight with someone at a pub in London because I told him I didn't smoke. It seemed like an unfathomable concept.

I have to admit there are things I miss about smoke-filled pubs. The lighting was less harsh and made you feel like you were in some sort of film-noire with the light carefully dissipated and lending an unearthly aura to everything. Today the light is a lot more harsh and smells besides the heavy aroma of tobacco are all-to-easy to detect. Also, it's hard these days to know what clothes you wore out the previous evening without being physically repelled by how much they stank of cigarette smoke.

I haven't returned to London since 1994 and I find it hard to fathom how much it must have changed, with new anti-smoking laws and a general greater emphasis on healthy living. I'm reminded of one of the themes from 'Muswell Hillbillies' - urban renewal. It seems in my absence London has had another shift besides a physical transformation to a cultural one.

I can imagine if this album was made today the cover would be very different. The Kinks and Mr Orange Jumper would be leaning against the bar sharing a pint together and laughing at the people seated near the window. The air is smoke-free and pure. The people near the window are sipping green tea. They are not looking back, however and are oblivious to the fact that the other customers are laughing at them. They're too busy looking at their iPhones.

Hmmm, I might join Ray and the boys for a pint.

Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Collection Blu Ray

I usually like to indulge myself and buy a Blu Ray box-set to watch over the Christmas holidays. This year I purchased 'Alfred Hitchcock: The Ultimate Collection' to watch at my parents' house in Brisbane during our two week stay. My thinking was, at the very least, it would be a couple of hours of uninterrupted 'zone out' time to avoid awkward family conversations, nurse hangovers, or avoid the Queensland heat. It turned out to be quite engaging for everybody - It was a Christmas miracle!

My favourite memory of Christmas this year was sitting down as a family and watching 'Psycho' - even my five year-old daughter enjoyed it! I contemplated how shocking the film must have been in the sixties when it was released and how matter-of-fact the idea of a psychopathic killer with a multiple personality disorder is now. How times change.  I think the best way to enjoy these movies is to remember the historical context of the time and that ideas which seem outdated now were actually quite progressive back then. We need to remember it wasn't that long ago that people were shocked because 'the butler did it' or creepy little kids 'saw dead people.'

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the earliest film in the collection is actually one of the best - 'Shadow of a Doubt.' According to the booklet accompanying the Blu Ray, it was also Hitchcock's favourite. It's theme of evil bubbling under the surface of suburban middle-America is reminiscent of David Lynch's 'Blue Velvet'. Joseph Cotten's simmering 'Uncle Charlie' is almost as creepy as Dennis Hopper's character in Blue Velvet, although not as wildly camp and over-the-top.

Similarly, 'Saboteur' seems to serve as a template for a lot of chase films to come and even for Hitchcock's own 'North by Northwest' (which isn't included here). The film that seems to borrow most from 'Saboteur', however, is 'The Fugitive', with obvious themes of a man on the run from the law attempting to prove his innocence by catching the man who is actually responsible.

'Rope' in my opinion, is one of Hitchcock's best because it is set in one room, has only a few characters and is a relatively straightforward story. These types of films give Hitchcock the chance to work within his limitations and be a bit more experimental. In this film the camera really is another character and my favourite shot is one that lingers on a chest in which a dead body is concealed, while the main characters talk off-screen, oblivious to the fact that the maid is clearing away some books and about to reveal their crime.

The successful collaborations with Jimmy Stewart are also featured. Watching 'The Man Who Knew too Much' made me for the first time realise that I was watching Blu Ray and not a fuzzy cathode-ray image, like I had seen when I was a child. I find watching a Blu Ray isn't always a good thing and can often take you out of the story.

In 'The Man Who Knew Too Much' I was constantly distracted by the amount of blue screen shots that Hitchcock used, mainly because they obviously were on location in the Marrakech, but then suddenly it would revert to a studio recreation. I checked on the special features and found that Hitchcock was notorious for hating to film on location, but also on this occasion their filming schedule was interrupted by Islamic holiday of Ramadan and they were forced to pick up some shots in the studio.

Similarly, I realised for the first time what a beautiful and intricately constructed set 'Rear Window' was filmed on. It's great that Blu Ray allows you to see details you normally wouldn't, but it takes a bit of training to teach yourself not to focus on these and stick with the story.

'Vertigo' is the film that everybody talks about these days. British Film Institute judges bumped perennial favourite 'Citizen Kane' in favour of 'Vertigo' as the 'best film ever made' last year, which, to some, has been a controversial decision. There are certainly some innovations which are now standard such as the 'dolly zoom' effect and animation to depict his character Scottie Fergusson's mental state. These effects can appear quite laughable to a modern audience, but again, you need have to watch them from the point of view of the audience of the time.

The thing that still resonates with Vertigo, for me, is the theme of obsession and identity. Fergusson, wracked with guilt after failing to save a woman he loved from falling to her death, is obsessed with  changing a woman who is a dead ringer, into the woman he lost. Cleverly, Hitchcock informs the audience through a phone conversation that it actually is the same woman and she was playing a character all along as part of a murder plot. It makes the transformation all the more excruciating to watch. Who exactly did Fergusson fall in love with?

To modern eyes, a lot of Hitchcock's films - including Vertigo - seem to have pacing issues. Vertigo ends in the sudden death of Kim Novak's character. Modern audiences expect some sort of epilogue, but in this instance it just cuts to the credits. If Hitchcock had made 'Alien' - which certainly is indebted to his masterful use of suspense - then the film would have ended when the 'Nostromo' exploded and there would have been no final act where the alien was actually aboard the escape craft.

'The Birds' also has an abrupt ending where the survivors simply just 'leave' in a car. It seems a little anti-climactic after the first half of the film is involved in intricate character development. Big concept horror films to come, sadly, seem not to be concerned with the 'character' element of the story at all.

The one script that I believe still resonates with modern audiences is 'Psycho'. Mainly because it wilfully subverts audience expectations at almost every step of the way. It starts off as a simple story of a femme fatale stealing some money from her boss and fleeing across country, only to suddenly become a murder-mysery in the second act when the heroine is famously dispatched by kindly motel proprietor Norman Bates (or was it his mother?)

The policeman investigating the case is also unexpectedly dispatched before finally the femme fatale's concerned sister discovers the grisly truth. There are so many red herrings and unanswered questions, but I wonder what actually did happen to all that money that was rolled-up in newspaper and hidden in the night-stand next to the bed?

Curiously, The only unnecessary element of Psycho is the epilogue where the police chief explains the nature of Norman Bates' mental illness... Please - even my five year-old daughter knows what a psychopath is!

The last four or five films are not among Hitchcock's most celebrated, but there is still a lot there to love. 'Marnie' is probably among the most famous, but for me 'Frenzy' is the most successful because Hitchcock filmed it in England where he obviously felt comfortable. Times had changed, however, and Hitchcock's attempts to appear 'edgy' (was this the only Hitchcock film to feature nudity?) felt a little bit forced in an environment where the Hollywood studio system was collapsing and films such as 'Apocalypse Now' and 'Easy Rider' were now leading the way as part of the New Hollywood.

To me the Leon Uris-penned cold war thriller 'Topaz' is the least successful of these later films. It's too sprawling and epic for Hitchcock's sensibilities. It's understandable that he would try and appeal to modern audiences who had become hooked on James Bond and international spy thrillers but, to me, it is the intimate stories and discrete locations that allow Hitchcock to weave his magic.

Hitchcock's final film 'Family Plot' does a lot to rectify these excesses and is quite an enjoyable and lighthearted film. What could have been a heavy kidnapping plot is subverted by a wonderfully goofy performance by Bruce Dern and even the villan William Devane is so over-the-top camp that it is hard to hate him. It's not Hitchcock's best film, but it is a fun note to go out on.

Having come to the end of this blog, it suddenly occurs to me that maybe Hitchcock was right - some stories don't need an Epilogue - the content speaks for itself! If there's one thing I can take away from watching all these films is that style and fashions change over the years but wit and insight are perennial. Therefore let me simply say:

The End

What was the question, again?

At work this week we had to complete an online test regarding harassment. It described morally dubious scenarios followed by a set of multiple choice questions. I consider these tests simple to pass if you possess a modicum of common sense, some social skills and no sociopathic tendencies.

It wasn't as easy as I expected.

Maybe I'm a sociopath!

Anyway, I approached this test in the same manner as any number of standardising procedures I've encountered since my school days. I went in feeling confident of my knowledge and what answers they  were looking for, but found the questions to be framed in a way that it made me reconsider my answers and end up choosing the wrong ones. I call the syndrome 'snatching defeat from the jaws of victory'. I passed the test - luckily - but it made me despair that I even got one answer wrong.

An example of this kind of self-destructive thinking could be best illustrated by considering a question I was asked in a test I sat for a university entrance exam. On the surface it was a simple mathematical question where I was asked to calculate the weight of a fish given certain information. Later in the question they referred to the fish as a shark. This threw a spanner in the works.

"Is a shark a fish?" I thought to myself.

"Surely, they have cartilage instead of bones?"

"Does that put them into some other aquatic animal category?"

"If so, which one?"

Before I knew it, I had wasted ten minutes on one question. I decided (correctly) that they were looking for a purely mathematical answer instead of 'A shark is not a fish' - which would have been wrong, anyway (I looked it up).

I don't know what this sort of thinking says about me. Is it good that I look for deeper significance in what was designed to be a straightforward question?

Am I paranoid that the world is trying to trick me?

Am I genius who sees connections others don't?

... maybe I'm just dyslexic?

Ultimately, I think that I'm no different to anyone else and I sometimes put too much significance on the wrong things. Since the test, I've become more aware of examples in society where others have looked for an answer and ended up getting the question wrong. The constant barrage of advertising over the Christmas period made me come to a conclusion about our current capitalist society: 'People these days seem to be interested in products more than their content.'

I came to this conclusion as a result of my post-Christmas capitalism malaise, where I really didn't get as excited as I wanted to about big ticket items released in the second half of last year.

My suspicions were aroused by the new Apple iPhone. Surely releasing a device in several new colours, with the only new security upgrade being fingerprint recognition to meet some arbitrary product release deadline, is the equivalent of The Simpsons releasing a Malibu Stacy doll with a new hat just to draw the attention away from other competitors?

I desperately wanted to giddily wait in line to get a new iPhone like an excited little girl and claw at someone's face rather than not be the first to possess one, but some stray Marxist DNA must have prevented me from falling for this capitalist con.

Being able to access the internet on a smart phone is great, but to me, no phone company has thought of anything as revolutionary as texting. The joy of telling someone something without having to actually speak to them was very liberating. The ability to ignore people is equally as liberating. It's hard to think of some feature a phone could possess nowadays that could be as revolutionary. Instead, Apple seems to be focussing on marketing rather than thinking of useful features.

Similarly, I was less-than moved by the new X-Box One. It's clunky design left me wondering where to shove the coal in to make it run; but moreso I was wondering what possible features it could have that would make it superior to any other product on the market. Despite the obvious advances in graphic capabilities and internet connectivity, there have really been no advances in first-person shooter games like 'Doom' that have been around since the 1990s.

At this stage, for me, the best feature of a game console would be some sort of cerebral implant that left me not feeling guilty for the hours I invariably would waste playing a game. I would also need some way to extend the brief seconds of euphoric victory I get when completing a game before the inevitable hollow remorse felt when I realise the victory has no real-world implications.

These are both examples of people fetishising the product when what they really are craving is better content.

Even companies like Spotify who actually provide content seem to have the question wrong. They boast that they provide millions of songs for your listening pleasure, but what's the point in that? I would argue that anyone who enjoys listening to that many songs and feels equally moved by all of them is at best a robot and at worst a sociopath (see first paragraph).

Companies spend so much on research and development that they need to be sure they have a big hit when they release a product. This results in content being dumbed-down to such an extent that nobody really gets the maximum enjoyment out of products such as computer games and Hollywood movies. In the search for a 'hit' they are ensuring that nobody really enjoys the product. That's why TV is faring a lot better these days because cable stations can afford to appeal to niche markets.

We live in a post-modern world and maybe this lack of focus on content is simply a symptom of all the classical storylines having played themselves out. The ancient Greeks said there were only seven stories anyway, so I guess we had a pretty good run for a few thousand years.

Even if this is true, I consider myself a pretty eclectic dude, so I like the idea of being able mix and match ideas from the rich wealth of culture we have accumulated over the millenia...  surely there is an infinite number of permutations of ideas and we're not at the point where we have recycled so many that we have reached some sort of cultural end game? I'm not a purist, and I can see no problem with incorporating ideas from the past to make something new, just as long as we don't insult consumers' intelligence and end up with something like Baz Luhrmann's 'Romeo and Juliet' (or any Baz Luhrmann film).

The possibilities are endless. All we have to do is remember what Kevin Costner said quoting Lewis Carrol in a movie about JFK by Oliver Stone:

"We're through the looking glass here, people!"

Straight Outta Compton!

It was in the mid 2000s that me and the wife went to the US for a holiday. We started in San Francisco, traversed the country for a few weeks and ended our trip with a couple of days in Las Angeles. On the second-last day before we flew back to Australia, I was desperate to do something that I didn't consider to be on the standard itinerary of an LA tourist.

I remembered a TV show I had seen a few years earlier - 'Journeys into the Outside', which was presented by one of my favourite British pop stars - Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker. In the show, Cocker travelled America looking at 'outsider' artworks, which were often of dubious quality, yet always accompanied by interesting stories and colourful, often desperate-sounding characters who created the works.

One of the artists I knew quite well - Reverend Howard Finster - who designed Talking Heads' 'Little Creatures' album cover, but the rest of the artists depicted in this documentary as part of the 'folk-art' scene were new to me.

Someone who stood out from the pack was Simon Rodia, an Italian immigrant construction worker who built an impressive interconnecting system of towers (some of which are almost 100 feet high!) in his back yard in the LA suburb of Watts, over a 33 year period. They have henceforth become known as the Watts Towers. Rodia apparently signed his land over to a neighbour and disappeared once the towers were completed and was never seen again. This story sounded intriguing to me and a visit to the towers seemed like a perfect way to spend our last day in LA.

There was a Watts Towers Tourist Centre listed in the phone book which I rang. I explained to the friendly lady on the other end that we were currently staying in Beverly Hills, had no car and were wondering how to get to Watts. She said there was a bus that went directly to the towers but it was not operating that day and the best way to go was by car. She said I could also go via the 'Blue Line' train and get off at Watts Station before ominously adding that this was  not advisable.

The fact that LA apparently had a public transport system was news to me and I felt encouraged by this revelation. Some trepidation tempered my enthusiasm when I looked at the 'Blue Line' train route and noted that Watts Station was only two stations away from the infamous suburb of 'Compton'.

My middle-class white, suburban mind automatically conjured-up sounds and images from the classic NWA gangsta-rap album 'Straight out of Compton' and their stirring call-to-arms anthem 'Fuck the Po-lice'. The media had led me to believe that South Central Los Angeles was the home of indiscriminate drive-by shootings, prostitution and drug deals. Surely, the media wouldn't lie to me?

Further investigation of the town of Watts also revealed that it was the centre of race riots in the 1960s which basically flattened the town to the ground. I noted that the one landmark that wasn't touched during the mayhem was the Watts Towers. An image of an angry African American about to throw a molotov cocktail at one of the towers entered my mind. I could picture his expression softening as he gazed in wonder at the towers, before instantly deciding to spare the artwork and simply torch a nearby car instead.

Surely a town of art lovers couldn't be as bad as we were led to believe? We decided to head to Watts and investigate for ourselves.

The train station seemed clean and well presented like a giant public lavatory. We excitedly stepped on to a train carriage that could have been in any major city in America, but rather incongruously was in LA. It was quite a long journey and the train became full as we got nearer to our destination. I realised as we left the metropolitan centre that my wife Edwina and I were now the only white faces in the carriage amidst a sea of Latinos and African Americans.

We had been to Disneyland the day before and Edwina decided to wear her crisp-new 'Thumper' t-shirt,  as depicted in the movie 'Bambi'. The juxtaposition of this look against the 'Boys in the Hood' Gangsta chic which the rest of the carriage seemed to have adopted made me want to burst out laughing, but I knew I wasn't in any position to risk losing even an ounce of street-cred. Our journey continued without incident except for one of those deaf-mute beggars who seem to exist the world-over that offer you a card instead of the usual elaborate cover story to disguise their alcohol, drug or gambling dependency. I like those stories! Is the card simply a form of laziness, or is it legit?

We eventually made it to Watts Station. I was relieved to see the towers rising majestically from the landscape. They wouldn't be difficult to find amidst the vast blocks of single story housing that seemed to comprise the majority of Watts. After the train crowds dispersed, I was surprised by how desolate the town seemed. My first thought was that everybody was at work, possibly even taking care of the carefully manicured lawns we had just left behind in Beverly Hills.

We walked towards the towers. The town didn't feel any more threatening than some of the tougher areas of Logan City near Brisbane where I grew up. It seemed to suffer from the same lack of infrastructure that left older folks stuck in their homes and bored kids wandering the streets with nothing to do. The only noticeable difference in Watts was a smashed television set in the middle of one street and more security; with bars on the windows and multiple locks on doors. Hardly welcoming!

The road opened up into a park area where the towers were located. On the ground there was a timeline depicting the history of the civil rights movement in the area, which seemed to be presided over by the adjacent towers that stood like wise-old sentinels.

An iron fence surrounded the towers and a few other stray visitors circled the area. Presumably, there would be guided tours of the structures - but not this day. I was thankful for this - after weeks of having tour guides explain on what level we should be appreciating certain landmarks, I was happy to develop my own impressions of the towers. I didn't need any explanation to appreciate the towers - their mad glory and beauty amidst a sea of unremarkable housing was self-evident.

It occurred to me that the towers could only have been made in the time and place they had been. Tight planning regulations these days would certainly prevent any similar unsanctioned displays of creativity. It seemed like the towers were a much needed focal-point for the town, in the same way that a town square might have been in some idealised 1950's America. I'm sure Watts residents have come to appreciate the towers, but direct neighbours presumably must have lived in fear of the spires snapping off and impaling them while they slept. Luckily Rodia seemed to be confident of his abilities even though he built the towers without any plans.

Although Rodia was an Italian immigrant, the towers, to me, seemed to be similar to the work of Spanish architect Antonio Gaudi, even down to the intricate mosaics, which in this case consisted of broken bits of pottery and even 7up bottle caps. I could imagine him picking up stray bottle tops and bits of ceramics on the way to work, while spending his days planning the next extension to his masterpiece. For all their unique majesty, ultimately the towers seemed to be simply a way for Rodia to make more interesting use of his spare time.

I had been to England and Europe a few years prior to this American trip and had surprised my friends and relatives with some less-than-insightful comments in my postcards. One comment especially stuck in my mind. I described Big Ben as being 'not that big'. Some iconic images are so saturated by media coverage, tourist pamphlets and endless documentaries that their real-life presence can never live up to the weight of the cultural baggage they carry with them.

Our trip to Disneyland was a classic example of this phenomenon. The iconic 'Magic Castle' structure which appears on every Disney product in real life seemed tiny, faded and made out of cheap plywood... There wasn't even a magical flying fairy circling the castle and sprinkling pixie-dust like on all those DVD intros I have watched over the years. One can't help but feel a little disappointed!

The Watts Towers are increasingly being recognised in popular culture and have even appeared on an episode of The Simpson and in the 'Grand Theft Auto' video game series. Like Disneyland, the towers are also presented as 'one man's vision', but to me, the major difference is that Disneyland represents capitalism and the rise of consumer culture to please the masses, whereas The Watts Towers exist for no monetary gain and simply to remind people that there is still a bit of magic left in the world. Let's hope that their growing prominence in pop culture does not result in any of this wonder being diluted for the casual observer.

On my last day in America it felt enormously gratifying that something like The Watts Towers could still exist in modern America and even be appreciated and preserved. After all, isn't the myth of America supposed to be at least partly about the individual having a voice and being able to triumph through ingenuity and hard work? Surely, the Watts Towers are a prime example of this?

Thinking about the towers now - almost ten years later - they tend to mean something different to me. During the last decade I have moved from Brisbane to Melbourne and now feel like I understand the immigrant mindset somewhat. My move was not as dramatic as Simon Rodia's move from Italy to Las Angeles, but I do feel that if you move to a different town later in life you can never feel fully accepted by a native community and escape the culture that defined you during your formative years.

The best you can hope for is to insert some of your own culture into the place that you have moved to - Simon Rodia did this spectacularly with the Watts Towers.

I suppose the towers are 'outsider' art purely by this definition, but to me they are just 'art' and like all good art their meaning changes as the viewer grows older.

I wonder what the towers will mean to me in another ten years' time?

   

The Atlantics: 'Bombora!'

I've been an avid op-shopper since I was a teenager. Some people think I visit op-shops because I'm a cheapskate.

Maybe I am.

I believe, however, that there are other motivations behind my passion to paw through other people's garbage.

As a fan of popular culture, I can't resist the allure of marvelling at outdated trends and fashions and wondering what will be considered a fad in future and what will have lasting cultural relevance.

There always seems to be a plethora of troll dolls, Rubik's cubes and suits with wide lapels on display at most op shops; sentinels of a bygone era reminding shoppers of the impermanence of existence. Once they were icons of style and modernity, but now they're relegated to ironic party and fancy dress status.

Some major trends surprisingly don't even make an appearance as second-hand attire. Where are all the 'Choose Life' and 'Go-Go' shirts from the eighties? I've never seen one in an op shop in all my years of perusal. I assume they are simply being cherished by ageing 'Wham!' fans.

I  have never seen a second-hand 'Hypercolour' t-shirt. Whoever came up with the idea of making a shirt that changes colour when you sweat was obviously a fool, but his genius was convincing a manufacturer that this was a good idea. I can only assume that the chemical reaction from the sweat caused the material to disintegrate.

The golden age of buying second-hand vinyl records from op-shops also seems to have passed. Surely, most vinyl would have been dumped in the mid-eighties when CD's became the dominant audio format?  The unexpected resurgence of vinyl-listening in the past decade has decimated the supply of the few great rock records that remained in op shops and unfortunately now all we seem to be left with are copies of 'Mrs Mills' House Party' and old Rogers and Hammerstein musicals.

It's still possible to still find the occasional unexpected classic.

I purchased the album 'Bombora' by The Atlantics in the late 90's from an op-shop. I think I paid a dollar for it. I didn't know who the group were at the time, but the simplicity of the artwork really spoke to me. The cover features a lone surfer on top of an enormous wave. It's a black-and white shot washed out in aqua with the band and album title in italics and the names of the songs featured prominently on the left-hand side. The record seemed international, but the song title 'Surfers Paradise' gave the record away as being uniquely Australian.

I instantly loved the back-cover glossary of surfing terms such as 'hang ten' and 'waxing up' and the individual description of every song on the album. In my mind they seemed to be the words of some middle-aged, cigar-chomping, plaid-suited company-man who was saddled with the task of describing something he didn't understand to kids that weren't into surfing.

The record itself came in a paper sleeve - always a sign of quality - and was made from the type of vinyl that was thick but brittle - If you bent it far enough it would snap.

The music has an endearing primitiveness to it. The whole album is completely instrumental and has an unquantifiable youthful exuberance and optimism. As you would expect from a 'surf' band, the guitars drip with reverb and the playing, whilst flashy, is not too over-the-top, with a wonderful naivety to the songs and arrangements - they even do a cover of 'Green Sleeves', which brings back pleasant childhood memories of waiting for the ice-cream man.

Drummer Peter Hood is credited as adding electronic 'gimmicks' to the album. While these are rather subtle, they do add an air of 'exotica' to proceedings. Bosco Bosonac's bass is quite prominent for an album from the early '60s and has that unmistakable 60s tone. How did they get that tone? Is it played through a guitar amp?

I didn't know it at the time, but the producer of the album, Sven Libaek went on to produce soundtrack music for underwater filmmakers Ron and Valerie Taylor, which was also used to great effect in the Wes Anderson film 'The Life Aquatic'. The Atlantics would be a perfect group for a future Anderson project. Here's hoping.

One thing that sets The Atlantics apart from other surf bands is a folky 'Greek'  flavour to their music. The guitarist, Theo Penglis is presumably of Greek descent and certainly must be responsible (at least subliminally) for this aspect of their music. My friends and I used to wonder if 'Theo Penglis' from The Atlantics was the same 'Theo Penglis' who starred in the soap opera 'Days of our Lives' in the 1980s. In the internet age, this would be an easy thing to find out, but, you know what? - I don't want to know! (I want to believe that it is)

The Atlantics are now such a part of my internal musical landscape that I don't want to know any hard-cold facts about them. I don't need to know whether they got on or not, or if they made any money. I don't need to know if the rumours are true that one member lives in Coburg (where I live) and I don't need to know how their reunion shows supporting Chris Isaak went.

When I listen to The Atlantics I'm reminded of the back cover of the Jonathan Richman album 'Having a Party With Jonathan Richman' in which producer Brennan Totten describes Richman's music as 'making him nostalgic for a time that never existed.'

The Atlantics make me feel this way! Almost everything I know about them has been produced in my own imagination and almost certainly has no connection to what things were like at the time the album was recorded - fifty years ago!

I haven't seen a copy of 'Bombora' around for years. I hope this is because people are holding on to it and cherishing it in the same way a Wham! fan might hold on to a 'Choose Life' t-shirt and not because they have all disintegrated like all those Hypercolour t-shirts.

Those Wham! fans might not fit into their 'Choose Life' t-shirts anymore, but I still listen to my 'Bombora' album.

Long live The Atlantics!

 

 

What Happens on Tour - Stays on Tour (Part II)

There were a couple of years in the mid 2000s where I was in a bit of demand to play in wedding bands. All-up I probably played at about half-a-dozen weddings in various permutations with musical partners-in-crime that I had met over the years. We mostly played at weddings where people knew us and what to expect. This usually involved some hastily learned covers, a couple of our more sensitive and romantically inclined originals and a fair amount of good-natured ribbing of the bride and groom.

One wedding we played was an exception to this rule and involved a band I played bass in at the time called 'Gentle Ben and His Sensitive Side.' Because we had something of a country slant, an acquaintance of lead-singer Ben's thought it might be a good idea for us to play at a relative's wedding in rural Goondiwindi. They were wrong... so very wrong.

Probably the major problem for us being an acceptable wedding band was the type of material we played. We knew half a dozen covers that would be good for weddings, but our original material certainly seemed inappropriate. For a start, where most bands I had previously played in involved songs about 'boy meets girl, boy loses girl and secretly pines for her in his bedroom,' Gentle Ben and His Sensitive Side had songs about 'boy meets girl, boy loses girl and then wreaks swift and bloody revenge on the parties involved.' This, in my opinion, does not bode well for a young couple planning on starting a new life together.

It was a case of Deja-vu as we once again set off in a HiAce van for a doomed musical mission. The band Gentle Ben and His Sensitive Side consisted of three members from Biro - Dylan, Nick and myself, plus Ben Corbett from local insane garage punksters Sixfthick. Ben had a great stage presence, which the rest of us lacked and thankfully was less myopic and prone to sleepiness than previous Biro singer John. It was a combination that shouldn't have worked - yet somehow did - like bacon and maple syrup!

Accompanying us on this musical mission was a sound guy, who, for the sake of protecting the guilty, I shall simply call 'Mr McGuffin'. The journey to Goondiwindi was pleasantly uneventful. Drummer Nick had valiantly tried out a new catch-phrase 'Can we stop for a piss and a pie?' but unfortunately it had not been as successful as the classic 'I'm dying back here!' from the Biro days and has since been relegated to the mists of time. I mention it here simply for historical reasons, but also in the hope that it may one day be resurrected.

The reception was at The Royal Hotel and we arrived just in time to set up. Mr McGuffin optimistically ordered a bottle of red wine presumably to share with the rest of us, but unfortunately we were all sticking to beer. This left McGuffin to finish the bottle by himself. Little did we know that this was the nexus point of the evening and our fates had now been sealed.

We were hired to play two sets for the night and the first set initially went rather well, mainly because we played our half-a-dozen covers first up, which left the last half of the set comprised of original material, which we played to increasingly diminishing returns. The dance floor cleared and everybody slunk over to the bar - except for McGuffin, who was visibly and disturbingly animated behind the mixing desk after presumably finishing off the bottle of red wine by himself.

During the intermission, we were approached by the matronly mother of the bride who insisted that we played material in the second set that was more similar to our meager collection of covers. She adopted a threatening tone and said 'After all, I'm the one paying you!'

I've never responded well to threats, so I didn't mind so much when McGuffin stumbled over and tried to dance with the bride's mother. She was visibly repulsed by his advances and told him to 'go away'. I was secretly pleased with this unexpected turn of events.

We played our second set and failed to generate any spark of interest from the wedding guests - except this time we didn't even have McGuffin to spur us along. He was now slumped in a semi conscious state in a chair at the front of the stage with his arms hanging limply by his side. We finished the set and quickly retired to the public bar to avoid any eye contact with the bride's mother.

The public bar felt like a time warp and I imagined myself to be at my old, crappy local pub The Mansfield Tavern in about 1989. The rusty penny dropped for me at this point and I realised that young people in the country really don't care about country music and would much rather ape perceived trends in the big city such as Metal, Hip Hop and Techno. I told myself that this is at least partially the reason why we didn't go down well that night.

Some 15 year-old hood-rat approached me at this point and slurred something about drugs. I think he was trying to buy some off me. I certainly would have had qualms about selling drugs to a 15 year-old, but even moreso, if I did have any drugs, I would have taken the lot myself at this point to escape this nightmare scenario.

Of course things just got worse from this point. Someone from the wedding party informed us that McGuffin was having an altercation with another member of the wedding party and that they had some sort of personal history together. This seemed highly implausible to me. We were in the middle of nowhere! It was as if Stanley had discovered Dr Livingstone in the middle of an African savannah and then decided to get in a drunken pub brawl with him.



Unfortunately, Ben was sharing a room with McGuffin, so we left it up to him to sort out the problem. I was sharing a room with Dylan and we hastily retreated back there with a couple of drinks to calm our nerves. Once inside the room, we would have happily boarded ourselves inside, if we only had wooden planks and nails at our disposal. The feeling of antagonism from the wedding party, whether real or simply perceived, felt similar to a rampaging zombie horde. If either myself or Dylan were religious people we certainly would have prayed for Ben that night - it was either that or actually try and help the guy out - and we certainly weren't doing that!

We woke early and went to check on Ben and his unruly charge. Ben looked like he had spent a month detained in Guantanamo Bay. He wearily explained that he had managed to get McGuffin back to the room but then McGuffin had decided to redecorate by projectile vomiting on the bed and various parts of the room. Ben said he had done his best to clean it up and dispose of the sheets, but we all decided it was best if we got going as soon as possible.

As if to confirm the fact that we were in hell, the news advised us that today was the hottest temperature recorded in 60 years. This was not the best time to be in Outback Queensland.

We ate a quick breakfast and hurriedly tried to settle our account with the wedding party. We were racing to finish the transaction before the maid got to Ben's room and discovered McGuffin's atrocities. I had never seen Ben write up an invoice so quickly. He really should have been an accountant! The invoice was handed over and the wedding party decided to settle in cash. Time was running out as they counted out the money into our shaking palms. In the corner we could hear the clock ticking. Could it be that we would get away with this scott-free?

The last $50 note was about to be placed in Ben's hand when our luck ran out. Suddenly a blood curdling scream emanated from upstairs. Ben and I looked at each other. Without uttering a word we knew we had been discovered. The maid burst into the room and described the crime scene she had uncovered with an accusatory tone which I personally found offensive. After all, an establishment which acknowledges that 80 per cent of it's alcohol sales consist of Bundaberg Rum must be used to this kind of thing, right?

Ben sheepishly handed over $50 for cleaning expenses and we dishearteningly packed up our gear and prepared to leave town.

Thankfully the air conditioning worked in the van and the drive home was relatively spirit-lifting. Even McGuffin didn't look too worse for wear.

To help us forget the horrors of the last twenty-four hours we had AM radio to comfort us. 4KQ was playing the 'Sounds of the 70s Saturday' and we all took turns doing bad Mick Jagger impersonations. As this story took place in the year 2004, none of us had smart phones, so we also entertained ourselves by indulging in some obscure rock trivia. None of us could remember who sang the song 'Shouldn't We Talk it Over in Bed?' which plagued my mind for the entire journey.

I eventually got dropped off at my house in Lutwyche. It was so hot that I had to sit under the house to cool off. I sat there drinking a warm beer while watching my dog panting and drooling on the concrete with half-closed eyes...

Suddenly, it occurred to me...

I hurriedly sent a text to Dylan...

'Grayson Hugh!'

What Happens on Tour - Stays on Tour

I wish I could say I've had a lot of requests to write about my years as part of the Brisbane music scene in the 90s and 00s - but I haven't had a single one. This is probably lucky, because I really don't remember much. It used to surprise me how much someone like Keith Richards from the Rolling Stones remembered about his career when he seemed to spend most of it in a drug-addled coma - but then I realised that journalists and the public did a lot of the work for him, when they carefully documented the rise and continued success of one of the most important bands of the twentieth century - Keith just had to fill in the blanks!

Most bands I've been in have been almost completely unheralded, so it's a lot harder for me to remember the details, even though I have remained a lot more sentient than Keith for most of my career. Whenever a book comes out about the Brisbane music scene, I always go to the index to see if I rate a mention. Alas, to this date, I have discovered nothing. I don't feel too bad about this, because briefly skimming these tomes in the bookshop has revealed a lot of the stories are basically historical revisionism dressed up as fact. To the victors go the spoils, I guess.

I sometimes wonder why bands I was a part of were never as successful as some of our contemporaries. Then I remember the answer is pretty clear. Brisbane in the late 80s and early 90s really did have something of an inferiority complex after years of being mocked by the rest of the country for being a 'banana republic' under the conservative reign of Joh Bjelke-Petersen. No bands really expected to be successful without moving to Sydney or Melbourne and even those that did often found it difficult to get attention outside of the Brisbane 'goldfish bowl'. Those that succeeded managed to either rise above their inferiority complex or use it to their advantage.

The good news is this marginalisation left Brisbane musicians free to do whatever they liked and not adhere to any pre-conceived template for success. To my mind, Brisbane, to the rest of Australia was like Canada is to the US. There is a self-knowingness and maybe a self-consciousness that could not be manufactured in any of the 'major' music centres. The Saints and Go-Betweens could only have come from Brisbane in the same way that Neil Young and Leonard Cohen could only have come from Canada.

I was in a band called Biro in about 1995 that had enough of a local following to warrant recording an EP which caught the attention of the Mushroom indie-offshoot MDS. In our typical suspicious and self-destructive manner we greeted their offer to press and distribute our EP with shrugs and puzzled inquiries as to why they would want to do that.

I think MDS were still riding the popularity of the 'grunge' movement at the time and we loosely fitted into their definition of what an 'indie' band should be. In our minds (and especially lead-singer John's mind) we were trying to create classic AM radio rock, but our musical inability and cheap lo-fi recordings were misinterpreted by MDS as an artistic statement rather than sheer incompetence.

To give us a bit of credit, though, The A&R guy from MDS, whose name was Karl, was not particularly encouraging. It felt like he considered us something of a long shot and whenever we would meet, he would always tell us how good Gold Coast band Pollen were. We were not familiar with Pollen at the time and were much more eager for Karl to start kissing our asses rather than theirs. I even remember going to a Mushroom A&R night where we saw all our mates who worked at Rockinghorse Records being plied with fine ales and free CDs, while Karl begrudgingly gave us a six-pack to drink in the corner. Surely we were supposed to be the artists making the product that these people were going to sell?

Anyway, eventually we got offered a tour of Melbourne and an opportunity to play the MDS Christmas Party. We grudgingly decided to do it, but by this time we were on the verge of breaking up, mainly because lead-singer John was disappointed that the rest of the band couldn't play his bubblegum pop as well as the 1910 Fruit Gum Company. John never did find those musicians to work with and the lesson I took from this, friends, is to learn to appreciate what you've got rather than what you don't have.


We hired a van for the journey to Melbourne. We had never travelled interstate before. Instead of hiring the standard 'rock' van of the day - a Toyota Tarago, we opted for a cheaper option which I think might have been an old Toyota HiAce. We wanted to give the impression of a cool rock band on our first interstate tour, but instead we evoked the spirit of a bus full of special education children heading out on a day trip. It didn't help our pride to have the name of the rental company spelled out in large red letters on the back of the van.


Only myself and John were capable of driving and the fact that John was severely myopic meant that we had to ask a friend Kristy to come along and help with driving duties. I believe Kristy was something of a fan of the band before heading out on tour with us, but I bet afterwards, if her fandom had not waned, then at least her respect for us as functioning human beings would have certainly diminished.

We travelled the inland route along the Newell Highway which is apparently the shortest way. John Drove until dusk until the constant squinting and adjusting of his glasses caused us to unanimously decide that someone else should take over driving duties. Kristy took over the next section of the trip and I managed to get some sleep until my shift.

I groggily awoke in the kind of sick and disoriented haze you feel after napping in the middle of the day. By this time it was about midnight and I took over driving duties with all the enthusiasm of a trucker who has been awake for days, realises he is out of meth-amphetamines and still has 500 miles left to go.

It was a couple of hours into my shift before we realised we had made a wrong turn. I still don't know how it happened, but in the pre-GPS era and with a dodgy service station map in a dimly-lit van, I suppose it could happen easily enough. We realised we were heading through the town of Hay in rural Victoria. This certainly was off the beaten track, but it was a mistake that was correctable. What was more concerning were the thousands  of eyes staring at us from the darkness and no sign of any civilisation in sight.

To this day I still have not seen that many kangaroos - and they were absolutely entranced by the headlights of our van. I learned another lesson that night - even if the road signs suggest that you travel at 80 kilometres an hour, it is probably not advisable to do this in what amounts to a large juggernaut travelling through a herd of some of the largest and fastest kangaroos I have ever seen.

Of course, I eventually hit one. An incredibly large specimen bounded from the side of the road and landed squarely on the front of the van on the driver's side. I can still recall his eye mere centimetres away from mine as we hit. It looked startled, apologetic and maybe even a little embarrassed. We ground to a halt, caught our breaths momentarily and went out to assess the damage. Amazingly, the kangaroo got up and bounded away into the darkness. I suspect  he didn't make it very far, but none of us were game to check.

I felt bad that the first thing I considered was the state of the van and the $700 excess we would have to pay, rather than the wellbeing of the kangaroo and it made me wonder if maybe I was some sort of sociopath. The looks on everybody else's faces reassured me I was not the only one more concerned with the van. John, meanwhile pretended to be asleep for the whole incident, which made me consider that maybe he was the sociopath!

The driver's side of the van was pretty beaten up and the headlight was dangling above the road like an eye that had been plucked out of it's socket. We all wondered if we could continue with one working headlight. Luckily, upon inspection I found that the light could easily just be clipped back in to position. This lifted our spirits considerably and we limped along in the darkness towards Melbourne. This time very slowly.

We were all shattered by the time we reached Melbourne from hours of fretful vigilance. Nick, the drummer, had been asleep for several hours stretched along the back seat of the van, snoring intermittently. He stirred as we entered the CBD and immediately exclaimed in an earnest voice 'I'm dying back here!!.' It was as if he had been the only one suffering on the entire journey. We all burst out laughing. Nick, as he is prone to do, had accidentally lightened the mood once again. 'I'm dying back here' is now one of Nick's catch-phrases. One of many, I might add.

Our first stop was Port Melbourne, where I think the MDS offices were at the time. We took great delight in showing Karl the damage we had done to the van. Karl, must have been considering the possibility that we were hopeless cases. This is probably the point where his fears were confirmed.

It's funny, but the thing I remember least from this tour was the shows we played. I think the night we got there was the MDS Christmas Party and as far as I can remember we played well. I remember Mushroom boss Michael Gudinski being there and looking happy enough. Someone said Kylie Minogue's manager bought a copy of our CD, which was impressive, but I would have preferred if Kylie bought one herself. We also saw Pollen play for the first time. They had a slightly better position on the bill and were certainly more professional than us. I remember liking them but being annoyed during their set when Karl leaned over and said something like 'That's my boys!' I felt jilted and wondered 'When are Biro going to be your boys, Karl?'

Later in the evening, after a few beers, someone from Pollen came over to advise that our guitarist Dylan was about to get into a fight with drummer Nick. 'Just let 'em go' I wearily advised him. I thought it might be good to sort out any lingering issues from the trip down. I still don't know who won - if anybody.

Another thing we had failed to organise in our naivety was accommodation. Again, we relied on the increasingly put-upon Karl to sort this out for us. The day after the Christmas party I awoke in what looked like a converted church with sunlight shining through the stained glass window onto my weary, bloodshot and hungover eyes. I had spent the night on the couch and had no idea how I got there. Furthermore, I didn't remember any of the people who were gathered around the breakfast table. They eyed me suspiciously. Hopefully I was polite enough to them, but I fear it may have been the start of my decade-long career as a bad house guest/occasional musician.

I often tell people that we supported The Fauves the next night, but thinking about it now, I don't think we did. I know we definitely went along to the gig which was at The Public bar and was for the launch of their 'Everybody's Getting a Three Piece Together' single. I don't think The Public Bar is a venue anymore, but I went there about a year ago and was shocked at how small the room is. At the time it seemed like The MCG.

That night, our more worldly friend David McCormack from Custard, who was our guitarist Dylan's brother, arranged for us to stay at his friend Mish's house. Someone else had bailed us out once again! I think Mish worked at The Public Bar at the time and I distinctly remember all of us huddled in our broken van outside her house waiting for her to finish her shift. We were so soft back then that we couldn't even stay 'til closing time. The piteous look on her face as she ushered us inside is etched on my brain forever.

We all went to sleep almost straight away. Mish and some of her friends stayed up until dawn partying. I was slightly annoyed by this at the time, but beggars can't be choosers. Luckily, I managed to get Mish back a few years later on a tour with a different band, by dancing in her loungeroom and playing the bongos at 3am whilst continuously slamming the front door in an attempt to fix the broken lock. I told you I was a bad house-guest!

Maybe we only played one show during our entire visit? I certainly remember having a lot of down-time and thinking what a lovely and cosmopolitan city Melbourne was. Now that I actually live in Melbourne, I hardly see as much of it as I did when I was just a tourist. That's what happens when you live somewhere - you take it for granted.

Anyway we headed back to Brisbane without incident. The faces of the rental car people were distorted in anguish as we pulled into the driveway. I've damaged rental cars since then and I don't remember any of them being as mad as these guys were. It was very unprofessional conduct on their part. Apparently, the van had been rolled somewhere near Sydney by the last people who hired it and now it had been trashed again on it's phoenix-like rise from the ashes.

For some reason I actually had $700 to pay the excess, but now the band owed me. We decided the best course of action would be to play a final gig as Biro and pull out all stops. We booked a show at Babble-On which was a popular venue in the city at the time and invited all our close friends and contemporaries to play with us. This included Custard, Cow and Robert Forster from The Go-Betweens who graciously sang a couple of our songs with us. The room was packed and it was an incredibly fun night.

I remember looking into the crowd and wondering 'Why are we breaking up again?'

Then it dawned on me 'Oh yeah - that trip to Melbourne!'