ryan 'pipeline' (part 1)

I'm going to come back to this ep of Ryan because it has an amazing North Melbourne car chase, but first I want to honour Margaret Cruickshank in this episode and also ask: do you think she was ever denied a part because of her super long name? (And did Joe James get that part?) Also, do you think that characters had their names changed so they could fit on a line with 'Margaret Cruickshank'? I think there's basically 29 characters available on the Ryan credits screen. 'Mrs. Hall' just makes it in against MC. 

Anyway, here's Mrs. Hall who is a sympathetic character, ordinary really, nothing much to discuss. She just wonders what happened to her husband, who has disappeared. 

Could Pamela Stephenson feel less like wallpaper or a human version of a filing cabinet in this scene (really, this show)? 

I wish that when I had known James Cruickshank, which I sort of did in the late 1980s, I had asked him more about Margaret and her career. But you don't know what you don't know (iydkydk). 

That's the sort of profundity that would keep Ryan himself going for a week. Oh, by the way, here's some total madness:

Now Street? WTAF!!! Alright, I admit I looked it up, I mean I didn't think there was a Now Street in Kew (I guess Crawfords had someone to check those kinds of things in the Melways to make sure people didn't show up at real addresses looking for pretend people) but I thought maybe somewhere someone had the bright idea of a Now Street (for now people, of course). Well, no, there isn't. But I guess in a city with a Y street, anything is possible. 

Anyway that's a Y for yes I am going to get back to you* on that car chase business. 

*Y is also for you
 

gobs anthology 3

So possibly to my shame I did fork out the megabux (slightly less mega of bux than was originally mooted) on the GoBs Anthology vol 3. Did I do the right thing, or did I do a thing purely because I already have #1 and #2? Now, those two are unquestionably worthwhile and good. They have all the crucial material. What does #3 have?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

I haven't listened to the three reformation LPs lately: my memory is the first one was so-so, the second was pretty great, the third was excellent - in sound and style. But so far I've only listened to the CDs of 'rarities' (don't know why I put that in inverted commas, because that's definitely what they are) and I am not entranced. It strikes me that this version of the GoBs is not hungry, or seeking to prove anything, or anything like that. It is two men who realised that they're taken more seriously and enjoyed more and (I'm sure this was less of a consideration for them than it would be for many, but still...) could command a higher fee under the old band name, and yet, there's no grand myth making here. This GoBs could never do a 'Twin Layers of Lightning' or an 'Old Way Out', those kinds of songs that just shock everyone (or even really a 'Streets of Your Town' or 'Clouds', much less a 'Cattle and Cane' or 'Your Turn My Turn'). It was different times, for sure. 

Robert and even more so Grant were awkward and provocative songwriters in the early 80s who did the things they did not because they didn't know what they were doing, but because they wanted to provoke and delight. By the early 21st century, Grant in particular was occasionally coming up with great material but more often coming up with lazy silly rhymes and songs like 'Ham off the bone' or whatever it's called that, to be honest, I had to get up and turn off. Perversely this collection gives us the wrong impression of the GoBs dynamic (if we're not paying attention) because Grant is overrepresented - he had a huge output compared to Robert's and of course that would mean that, in the process of recording a new album, he'd choose five out of his 50, and Robert would have five out of his five. Well, here Grant has his fifty and not many of them are honed. 

OK so I am not writing a review, I haven't listened to the whole of this and there must be at least six or seven hours of it, I've probably listened to about 15-20%. Some of it is really good but most of it from my current perspective is a bit legacy-tarnishing. But I think we'll all live whether I like this box or not, ha ha. Indeed this is just my preliminary feel and I am likely to change my attitude at some point.  

ryan and more hilda scurr

The last episodes of Crawfords shows are particularly good because they get a bit ramshackle when (I assume) everyone's thinking about their next show and how to keep it going for more than a year, etc. This is episode 33 of Ryan, a ridiculously convoluted plot I only understand enough to know it's dependent on a host of crazy conspiracies. It does have Vince Martin in it as a threatening heavy.

It also has more unconvincing tension between Ryan and Julie where she seems to pine for him in some way and he is unwilling to, I don't know, marry her? It's not subtle, it's just weird. 

But the best thing is it has Hilda Scurr! As a matron who unknowingly keeps a man in a coma at the direction of a doctor who has created a conspiracy whereby a racing car driver has been 'set up' with a fake will leaving his money to a woman who doesn't exist and etc etc etc etc 

 

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. 

 

more campus art

Yep so Farrago in the late 1950s was thrilled by the new art being commissioned by university administration and never missed an opportunity to show its excitement. Here's an example. 

Farrago 24 March 1959 p.4. There were probably other responses. But how ho-hum is this now. And then there's...

Annoyingly, I failed to record the date/page on the above. I'm pretty sure it's 17 Mar 1959 p. 1. Sorry. Anyway, this statue was clearly a major thrill to everyone on campus in '59. 

This is Farrago 17 March 1959 p. 2. Below cartoon is from 12 May 1959 p. 6. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. 

Don't even start me on Tom Bass' mural for Wilson Hall. They really laid into that. 

what a relief

 From Farrago 21 March 1958 p. 3. A few weeks later (11 April) Farrago reported that the bas-relief was removed ('and smashed in the process'!) and a version of the drawing above, sans caption, substituted in its place. People were so weird back then. 

way to drops!

I do believe I have bored you stupid (are you stupid yet?) with details on my attempts to at very least get my foot in the door with the Finnish language via apps, duolingo until a few months ago and now Drops. I am now on the very babyishly simple topic of Finnish words for other countries and for the people who live in those countries (something I covered very extensively in duolingo so it's even less of a stretch). Right now I am on a couple of gripes. One is the use of what I always (following the lead of Spike Milligan I think, putting me in a minority) call 'talks balloons' but most people call speech bubbles. 

So Drops is all about little pictograms which I suspect is the reason it can go in far greater depth with a super-minority language like Finnish - the pictograms are the same for every language course, but the answers are different depending on what language you're studying. Here, the answer is 'portugalilainen' i.e. a person from Portugal. In most instances, the pictogram for 'a person from...' is just a standard white (I guess) man wearing a t-shirt with that country's flag on it. But in this case, this is a cliche/icon of Portugal, with a talks balloon coming out of it with the flag in it. Why? 

Here are more examples. The pictograms for Italy; Spain (this time, a talks balloon coming out of Spain!); Brazil and Belgium.  

But the pictogram for Belgian person is a talking glass of beer, presumably saying 'I am Belgian'. 

Whereas the pictogram for Italian person is below - and most of the others are the same. Well, it's confusing! 

This is the first glitch of this nature I've encountered, by the way. The answer is 'italialainen'. I started to trace the word out and realised it was going to get me in a corner I couldn't get out of, but persisted because I thought well maybe - for the first time - it would let me reuse the 'i' on the second row. But it didn't, and I couldn't go forward (or back, but what would be the point). The lessons are typically 5 minutes long, and as you can see I was on 4:19 at this point. All I could do was wait it out. 

 Ridiculous! Hope this doesn't happen again or, you know, I'll never get to speak fluent Finnish :-P