that teeth and tongue etc review

The most astonishing thing about that T&T review to me (I can't remember how long ago I set it to publish, on the 10th anniversary of the actual event) is that I absolutely do not, in any way, remember, at all, that event. I don't remember the venue, and to be absolutely candid if you'd asked me if I'd ever seen Teeth and Tongue live, I would have with great certainty said unfortunately no. 

For a little minute I wondered whether I did in fact write that review. But there are various aspects (i.e. annoying writerly quirks) to it that make me think well on balance yes it's almost certain I did. 

So ultimately am I pleased that writing was invented, because it means that I could write down things that happened and casually forget them until my writing reminded me of them, or am I displeased, because I don't like being reminded of how bad my memory can be of things that only happened 10 years ago? 

I don't fucking know! 

unpublished teeth & tongue review from November 2014

TEETH & TONGUE AT SHADOW ELECTRIC WITH KANGAROO SKULL, THE ANCIENTS + TIME FOR DREAMS + KEITH DEVERELL (projections) and FULL UGLY DJs

With an unprecedented rain presentation ongoing in the world outside there were clearly concerns amongst the Teeth and Tongue contingent particularly that no-one was going to show up however great the lineup at the Shadow Electric, a remarkable but in the scheme of things pretty out-of-the-way venue right on the edge of Abbotsford. After all, it was not a launch or a ‘special’ event, other than the exceptional fact than we were all alive at that moment and wished to commune in a listenable environment. Irregardless the place was already impressively populated when Time for Dreams took the stage early in the evening.

This two-piece spearhead the shoegaze renewal with that very 21^st century innovation of a looped and ‘generated’ backing (not sure what was bringing the rhythm but Tom Carlyon had at least ten pedals of various descriptions on offer). Of course this kind of set up means all songs have to have extended intros which are actually just getting the loops and shit in order. Amanda Roff was barefoot and her bass was at times booming and at others muddy but given the weather you couldn’t call that inappropriate. Things progressed well until the end of the set, with what Roff described as ‘our final thing’, and then it took off, and while it was uncertain whether she was singing about being ‘high on religion’, or a ‘high population’, or perhaps ‘hi, I’m an engine’ the main thrust came from a soaring 80s glam stadium rock exercise which managed to marry firstly a Neil Young ‘Everyone Knows…’ vibe with that weird ‘chinesey’ sound you used to get in keyboard-based bands of thirty years ago. That was a triumph.

The Ancients’ Jonathan Michell’s banter sprinkled throughout their set on this remarkable evening was possibly some of the least inspirational ever uttered aside from nothing, on the other hand, if you go looking for inspiration in band banter you were probably in trouble long beforehand. The group – one of the finest, hands down – presented a thick pastiche of subtly re-rendered takes on previously released songs and material presently being worked up for a new album. Two instrumentals emerged thus, one a pounding, esoteric and double-barrelled supercharged ‘Ride of the Valkyries’-styled sturm und drang powderkeg played as Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry might conduct an orchestra comprised of members of Can and Black Sabbath… until its second part, which comes closer to seventies Lou Reed’s full sonic potential as only dreamt by Tony Visconti after a surfeit of pina coladas with Amanda Lear. An extraordinarily glamorous band brimming with sex appeal, The Ancients have no problem uniting the sounds of the traditional church organ (very appropriate at that place of pain and shame that is the Abbotsford Convent) with a jig in the style of Big Country. They cannot be underestimated and their 2015 album is already one of next year’s best.

A moment to mention the Full Ugly DJs this evening. It is always advisable when DJing to play as much Prefab Sprout as one can. The lilting, wry observations of singer-songwriter Paddy MacAloon, facilitated into the near-mainstream as they were by a distinguished cohort such as Everything But the Girl and Aztec Camera, do not get enough dancefloor action in this day and age and should, in fact, be compulsory particularly the song ‘Appetite’, which was not played this evening but fuckin’ should have been. Nonetheless, excellent selections.

Kangaroo Skull evoked a woodpecker in a rifle range. No-one knew how to dance to this but thought they could anyway.

Teeth and Tongue owe nothing to anybody. The argument continues whether Jess Cornelius has a right to continually promote the group as a solo project that just happens to feature four other hard-working and talented musicians who have consolidated into a stunningly fine and fluid collective; it’s a solo project the same way you and I are solo projects, but we still need other people and even Margaret (‘there is no such thing as society’) Thatcher played with a team. Marc Reguiero-McKelvie, one of the world’s most inventive and eloquent guitar players, is an integral part not just of the T&T sound but also the dynamic core of each song; when he enters the fray it’s like taking your shades off in the art gallery. Listen to his work with his solo project Popolice and his other band New Estate if you haven’t. And if JC is going to continue to insist she is Teeth and Tongue, she should consider that (a) even if she is, Teeth and Tongue wouldn’t be half as good without the other players, Marc in particular and (b) giving Marc half the front cover of the Tambourine album suggests she knows this whether she knew it or not. None of this is germane to Teeth and Tongue’s show at Abbotsford, except it’s germane to Teeth and Tongue altogether. So T&T will close the set with a cover of ‘Total Control’, which JC will sing with deft passion alongside the utterly complimentary and beguiling second vocalist Jade McInally, and you know she has in no way lost that control, except then Marc comes in half way through and gives a whole new reading to the song’s possibilities.

The jungle vibe to so many of the Teeth and Tongue set at the moment is visceral and hard-leaning. There is a My Life in the Bush of Ghosts sense to the whole, with a kind of throbbing jitteriness that counters the goth sensibility of the layered, searing set (nods to the foul ‘Kokomo’ aside). Only last week the amazing Pauline Murray was doing a very, very, very, low, low key tour, and it’s Murray’s work with Martin Hannett as the Invisible Girls thirty years ago that provides one great touchstone for the current T&T sounds. I mean they probably haven’t heard it. Except it’s everywhere in the culture now.

In sum at the end of the day, a brilliant night of realised potential. Thank you all for coming. It worked. 

* note from late 2024: I have absolutely, utterly, no recollection whatsoever of this show - none. 

brisbane last week

We went to Brisbane last week, and it was hot. There was also a lot of crap going down about the hire car and I guess a kind of extortion.  Don't get me wrong I don't dislike Brisbane. The 50c public transport is quite something as well. But it was hot. The wifi at the hotel didn't work. It was also pretty hot overall, if I didn't mention that earlier. I may have more to say about it or perhaps just some pics. 

Below is the cafe where we got a takeaway coffee every morning, It is an early C20 house with what looks like a slightly newer shop building tacked on the front (but might be the same age). Interested me.

division 4 dates

My favourite thing when watching Crawfords shows is identifying places (unless it's enjoying the actors) but I also like figuring out dates. Unfortunately, the above Age point-of-sale poster from the Division 4 episode 'For Better, for Worse' (first screened 13 October 1970) gives me no information. Ysmael was somehow involved in racing but I don't get any of it. 

This one's easy though, mainly because it's an actual headline on the front page, not a point-of-sale poster. This scene from the 20 October 1970 episode 'The Recruit', featuring Vivean Gray and Gordon Glenwright, was shot on 17 July 1970. 

division 4 - a key to paradise

This episode of Division 4 was first screened on 11 August 1970. It's very, very loosely based on the Ronnie Biggs story (British train robber hotfoots it to Australia) but that's really only the jumping off point. One of the interesting things about it is that part of the episode takes place in the Ranelagh Estate in Mount Eliza. 

Ostensibly this house is in Mornington, and the street is Ozone street or something like that. But it's very clear where they are. 

The house number is 115, probably 115 Rutland Ave I suppose, although I checked google earth and that house isn't there. 

I have nothing else to say. 

division 4 - my mate death

This post is more like a note to self than anything. Interesting-ish in the Division 4 world. Although it is quite an intriguing episode in itself. It's about a smallpox scare with a criminal played by Peter Adams carrying smallpox around town with him as he plans a lucrative theft. It also has a weird gay subtext which may only seem like a gay subtext in the 2020s (the extreme hero worship that John Derum's character has for Adams') and a weird relationship between the character played by 'Judith' Morris and Adams' character which she facilitates on the advice of Derum's character's mother for reasons that just aren't clear to me. 

Here's the corner shop with the only newspaper on sale being Newsday. Poor old Newsday, by the time this episode came out on 9 June 1970 the newspaper had already gone under. It didn't die for want of Division 4 promotion. 

Ok but the real thrill here is that Hilda Scurr is the mother. Hilda Scurr!!!

Also, Peter Cummins, who sources tell me died earlier this year, also gets a very short and inexplicable look in for one brief scene. 

The other thing that is worth mentioning about this episode is that it's the first to feature a new, far more pumping, opening credit sequence.

As you know, I watched Homicide to the end earlier this year, so I perhaps became too used to more sophisticated, mid-70s Homicide, and that's why late 60s/early 70s Division 4 seems a bit amateurish, at best patchy. But also perhaps Crawford's were spreading themselves a bit thin, pushing the same writers (and actors) to do more work. That said, everyone has off days and this episode was a very fine one. It was shown in the UK the following year as well, at least on Yorkshire TV, as this from the Hull Daily Mail 11 September 1971 p. 6.

I don't know what Big Jack's Other World is but I have to say it seems likely to me that D4 was the best thing on that station that day. 

...and one more bit

This picture is from April this year, a bit of old 50s campus left lying around presumably with some ultimate destination in someone's mind. This is the western edge of the new student precinct which was the site of the Alice Hoy building - various decorative elements of that building got incorporated into the new one. 

Update: I note that a row of these have been installed outside the walkway around the building. I appreciate they are probably new but surely modelled on something much older.