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.