trevor horn adventures in modern recording

 

OK another music book as an audiobook and once again it's an interesting story not particularly well told (but read OK, by the author). Trevor Horn has worked with some great, great people (Dollar, ABC) and some less great ones (Malcolm McLaren, I mean, really...) and made some great records. I enjoy the industry context and so on, and the weirdness between for instance him making a shit-hot pop dance record for Yes of all people (I'm talking 'Owner of a Lonely Heart' though tbh not one of my favourite records by a long chalk). This memoir contains the immortal line 'the year 1982 gave way to the year 1983'. Anyway I'm up to the bit where he's done Propaganda and he's about to do the Art of Noise (I assume) and it's still pretty interesting. But hell... why don't people write these things properly? Maybe there's actually no such thing as a proper way to do it. 

Update 30/8: It gets worse towards the end. The worst worst bit is the bit in 1989 where TH works on some stupid Tom Waits cover* with Rod Stewart of all the fools, and there's an extended section (with bad gruff American accent no less) where Lester Bangs calls TH because he's writing sleeve notes for the Best Of that the track is supposed to be on. Lester Bangs had been dead for seven years by this time so I am going to say... that some books need a bit more judicious editing and fact checking. 

* The song is 'Downtown Train'. I couldn't recall it when reading about it but the way it was discussed in the text made it sound really interesting structurally however when I started watching the video I realised that I did know the song, and it was not for me, and I couldn't in fact bear to watch or listen beyond the first 40 seconds or so. 

addressing the people on the things that matter

I’ve been interviewed by ABC journalists/radio presenters three times in the last three days, and it’s been really interesting, sometimes awkward, occasionally frustrating.  

The first was on my birthday when I was at the dog park with Perry and I was contacted by an ABC journalist in far north Queensland who wanted to talk about community halls. He’d somehow found me because I had co-written a chapter in a book (which I also co-edited) about a particular, successful, valued community hall in NSW, about ten years ago. He hadn’t read the chapter (I wouldn’t have expected him to, necessarily) but he’d read the abstract of it. I am not entirely sure why he contacted me and not any of my co-authors but I suppose I didn’t need to know that either. This was for an online piece, not for radio, and it was as far as I was concerned a good chat. When I saw the final article, I didn’t feel misrepresented at all, but the article was essentially about how community halls were on the way out as a phenomenon and people these days had, I suppose, broader horizons than what happened in their little corner of the universe.

 

Six days later I got contacted by the ABC in Sydney to talk on the radio with Josh Szeps (son of occasional Homicide actor Henri) about the demise of community halls. It was weird mainly because I was never setting myself up to discuss why community halls were dying, but rather hold the opinion that, if communities can only find ways to maintain and retain their halls/community centres/neighbourhood houses, they do have value and they can be made to work – in my opinion. Well, in this case apparently I was there to talk about why community halls were on the way out. I understand radio producers are very stressed and overworked and just have to pump content into the system, so I resent no-one in this regard – I’m fine with it. But I do kind of think that maybe the final product would be a bit better if there weren’t these assumptions that were not revealed to interviewees until the very last minute. Josh Szeps told his listenership that I was interested in the demise of the community hall. But the opposite is true (or at least, I am interested in ways to revive and retain them). On top of that, when I say ‘I am interested’… it’s not something I have thought about for a long, long time, notwithstanding the fact that I was coopted into the Save Kendenup Hall facebook chat last week, or that I posted the Cockatoo Hall picture last week from Homicide, and also posted the same picture in a Cockatoo neighbourhood group on Facebook and got so many responses I had to turn off notifications (yes, I brought that one on myself). 

 

So yesterday the ABC in Sydney called me again, this time to talk about pub rock. I told them I’d been on only a few days before to talk about community halls and the prepping producer I spoke to seemed a little baffled but ultimately unphased by this – though weirdly, there are crossovers of which much could be made, except that of course radio like everything is bang-bang-bang ideas of which there can only be one perspective at a time, which I suppose is either ‘oh, no, a terrible thing is happening’ or ‘yay, remember a wonderful thing?’ 

 

So I was surprised to be introduced by the ABC announcer this morning as someone who loves pub rock, which I absolutely do not, and if I had been asked yesterday to go on the radio and talk about why I loved it, I’d have to say – I can’t, because I don’t. I’m a historian though and I’m interested in it. But I’m not here to celebrate it (let alone celebrate it because it’s Jimmy Barnes’ 76^th birthday ffs). I would note also that the announcer gave me the wrong title (that’s not really important but I did wonder where she had got her information from) and the right faculty but then said she didn’t know what my position/faculty etc had to do with pub rock to which the only answer (I wasn’t asked) is: that’s on you really. I was talking with Laura about this particular appearance last night and mentioned that the person who originally contacted me about this seemed a bit confused about it all and I joked that the thing you probably need to say in that instance is ‘don’t you know who I am?’ – the joke being I’m nobody, but at the same time, nobody wants to be misrepresented even in a little bit of pissant radio. Also, it is of greater value to them if they know why I’m there, which apparently they didn’t. 

 

Anyway, very predictably, and true to its demographic, the segment I was on was just people calling/texting to say that the early 1980s were the best years of their lives etc, and being dazzled by the groups they saw or could see on any given night in Sydney in (say) 1981, with the obvious response being – yeah that’s amazing to you because you’re the age you are and etc etc. But whatever I suppose you can pull anything apart and leave it a husk can’t you. 

 

So let people have their fun I guess. I do hate (most) pub rock though.*

*I was mildly gleeful though that I got them to play a bit of the Celibate Rifles' version of 'Hot Stuff'. I am not entirely sure why but let me have my fun too thanks. 

a year ago today: publicity for the bogan delusion

I am writing on an aeroplane and watching Limitless at the same time, for my sins and guess what, I paid for it. Today I was in Brisbane to do a half-hour interview with Richard Fidler for his Conversation. I am pretty impressed with how I managed to find the ABC studios in Toowong, in a hire car, using nothing more than the gps in my phone and a very rough idea of directions in Brisbane which of the state capitals is probably the one I know least well. I got there with ten minutes to spare and then waited around for ¾ of an hour. But that was ok. I felt a bit frazzled anyway as I hadn’t slept well and the 2 hour flight + the rather fraught drive had made me more messy. Then we went and did the interview – it was originally slated to be live, but then for some reason it was recorded instead (while an interview RF had previously done was put to air) and will be played tomorrow.

I was pretty happy. I think I have the schtick down. Previously I’d done interviews so rarely, I felt I always wanted to be agreeable with things people said even if I didn’t technically believe them – or rather I would try and find common ground. Now, for whatever reason I am happy to contradict interviewers. I imagine once I go back to never being interviewed (which, honestly, is fine) I will return to my former state.

After the interview I had a few hours to fill so I went to Springfield, ostensibly a new town between Brisbane and Ipswich. I was just feeling my way around. I went to Springfield Central, which was just a shopping centre with a wavey street through the middle with cars parked either side of the main street, and I had some crappy coffee and arancini balls at a café there, and then I bought another coffee at a book shop there, and then I was really annoyed by both those coffees, so I went to Springfield Lakes which seems to be the most developed part of the area, very new nonetheless, and drove around a bit, and took some pictures and went to some display homes where a guy was very suspicious particularly after I stepped out and took two pictures from the verandah – he said, ‘You’ve been taking a lot of photographs’, which was a gross exaggeration. Then I started to worry that being so tired I was getting a bit reckless with getting my flight back, considering I had no idea how to get to the airport, so I started driving, and eschewed – foolishly, I now realise – the freeway to the airport because it was a toll road. Then I noticed there was a transponder in the car so that was cool.

So I got to the airport really too early and of course the plane was late to leave but at least I was on it and now I’m watching Limitless.*

I have a couple more radio interviews to do now, but nothing too special (sorry 6RTR and 3CR; I’m sure you’re very special; but you don’t reach millions like the Fidler interview; yes, this is what I’ve become).

* It still arrived ten minutes early, or so the pilot said.