where were you...

...when you heard Alvin Stardust was dead? 

The emergence of Baz Luhrmann's Elvis set me thinking, self-obsessedly, about my experience of celebrities particularly in regards to their deaths. Actually, first of all it set me thinking about Lou Reed's song 'The Day John Kennedy Died', which is on his album The Blue Mask, from 1982. My initial memory was that it was the first time I'd ever heard a Lou Reed song, and that my thought was, 'This is that guy that everyone goes on about?' but geez, I was 17 in 1982 and of course if nothing else I'd heard 'Walk on the Wild Side' which came out a decade earlier though I am surprised to see, on doing a li'l research, that it wasn't a hit (at least not nationally, perhaps it was a hit in Victoria). So I listened to Lou Reed's John Kennedy song and it is a terrible song, but it's not terrible in the way I remember it. I remember it much more rambling, made up on the spot, with bad rhymes. It does have reasonably bad rhymes but it's a lot more 'folk' than I recalled, maybe everything was more 'folk' then so it didn't stick out. It's certainly something the world could have done without. 

In any case, my point is that of course I wasn't anywhere when JFK was shot, but I do remember where I was when I heard the JFK song, or at least I am pretty sure I do, I was in the backyard of our house in Scott St, Hawthorn and I was listening to it on a portable radio, I think someone was actually playing a few songs from The Blue Mask; I definitely remember the song 'Women' as well from that time, and thinking 'fuck, that's horrible'. Also, 'that's a really, really, horrible song'. And, 'Christ that is terrible'. Additionally, 'what the hell was he thinking writing that song let alone singing it.' It was a sunny day. I wonder what made me persist? With listening to the radio I mean. I don't care that Lou Reed made a terrible album, or at least, not enough to question my own existence, just its. 

I remember where I was when Elvis died, or when I heard about it, roughly speaking. At least I remember seeing the headlines outside the milkbar in Riversdale Road near Robinson Road, and in my recollection the headline actually didn't say 'Elvis is dead' but something like 'top pop star dies', indicative of the fact that Elvis was at that time seen as so much of a washed up oldie that his name wouldn't sell papers, but the mention of a top pop star, which he undeniably once had been, would.* That was August 1977 so I was 12 and I'm going to go with this memory, even though you'd imagine that with my interest in pop culture and the world I'd have a little more comprehension but to be fair to me, (1) before 16 August 1977 (actually, 17 August in Australia) Elvis was on the level of let's say Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly or Johnny Cash - old, long ago music from before I was born (2) the name Elvis is weird, yes, but the name Alvin also has L, V and I in the middle of it: I was confused between 'Elvis Presley' and 'Alvin Stardust'.** I didn't entirely know the difference between the two of them. I do recall the first time I became aware of Elvis Presley as an entity was from a riddle in a joke book: 'What lives at the bottom of the garden and sings? Elvis Parsley'. This is almost funnier when you don't know there is someone called Elvis Presley but it also meant that for years I had to work backwards from 'Parsley' to 'Presley' to remember Elvis Presley's name. (I note that Elvis Costello released his first album a month before EP died; I am pretty sure I had no knowledge of him). 

A la Michael Jackson, once Elvis died, he was instantly a legend and undeniably perfect to many, and little kids who weren't really aware of any singer much, were suddenly besotted with him. I don't know what that's about but it's a thing.

I have probably already told you about how I found out about Princess Diana's death. It was when I was living in Hartwell and Mia and I were crossing the railway tracks there and a man came up to us out of the blue and said 'Princess Diana's been in a car accident. But she's going to be OK'. Hmm, so now I look at it I suppose that wasn't really finding out about her death, but it was finding out that something that happened to her was going to be enough of a phenomenon that strangers would talk to other strangers about it. Incidentally that's part of Lou Reed's song about JFK - that at first, he only knew that Kennedy had been shot, then he found out he was actually dead. 

I have other memories of celebrity death but that'll do for now OK. 

* This is the cover of the Age announcing Elvis' death; it was front page news, but not the biggest news of the day. By the way, what I was discussing above re: 'top pop star' was a point of sale poster, not a headline on a newspaper, but I don't think it was the Age's point of sale, probably the Sun. Presumably those things never get kept anyway. 

*Alvin Stardust by the way has been dead for almost eight years, and I have to say I was only dimly aware of that. Or, to be honest, I just wasn't sure. 

hello this is joannie

Paul Evans’ single Hello this is joannie is a sensational double novelty record, as well as being a very catchy tune, which is probably the most important thing about it. It has the novelty effect of, firstly, celebrating the advent/ availability of the telephone answering machine; secondly, being a grisly death song utterly belied by the jauntiness of the sub-disco pop of the tune (the bass in the opening verse - sweaty!) and production (perhaps that’s the fourth impressive thing about it – it’s jaunty yet gruesome/ morbid). I remember having the song explained to me by a friend, before I’d actually heard it (funny how often this happens, still). The explanation had to start with a rundown of the concept that some people now had these devices that answered the telephone for you if you were out (later another friend lent me a tape of a Bob Dylan bootleg, including a song he put on his answering machine; so the first answering machine message I ever heard apart from Joannie's was Bob Dylan's). What I didn’t realise was that such devices had existed in some form since the 1920s, when messages would be recorded onto a wax disc; certainly it wasn’t a piece of technology that particularly excited me in itself. The explanation then went on to describe the song as being about a man whose girlfriend dies in a car accident and he calls her number to keep on listening to her voice. It is sick. ‘Hello this is Joannie’ begins with a strummed guitar, a ring tone and then the answering machine message itself – it’s the chorus, and it’s the only time that it’s not included as part of the narrative; while its inclusion at that early point is strategic and clever, it does disrupt the flow. The first chorus is Evans’ character telling us that he and Joannie spent some time (‘last night’) at his house. He (not she, apparently) got drunk (‘I drank a little too much red’) and they fought. When she left in anger, Evans’ song persona was left bereft (‘I felt so damn bad’). He calls her the following morning and receives the answering machine message – the chorus again. He leaves a message for her: ‘Joannie I’m sorry and I’m feeling oh so small’; later, he calls again – chorus two (well, three really) during which Evans ‘oohs’ anxiously. We are then treated to a short middle 8 guitar solo, indicating a fraught waiting period, and then the music takes a step back as Evans lets us know that when the phone finally rings it’s not Joannie, as he hopes, but ‘a friend’ who tells him Joannie has been killed in a car accident. It was, apparently, due to angry driving: I never should have let her drive home angry from my place I’ll never hold her again and kiss that funny face A lightbulb, however, goes off above his head. He realises he can still hear her talking if calls her answering machine, another chorus, during which he riffs ‘I’m so sorry Joannie’, the most poignant part of the whole. Like some of the very best pop music, the whole record explores a deeply tragic (what the Victorians would have called ‘pathetic’) story with absolute flippancy. There is a hint of Hitchcockian obsession about the tale, though of course the events conveyed, including the final calling of the answering machine, take place in a very short space of time (under 24 hours, almost certainly). What is most confronting in ‘Hello this is Joannie’, however, is the absolute bouncingness of the tune, which might almost be called saccharine but for the tuff rubbery bass which provides bountiful structure and support from the outset (but particularly in the opening 30 seconds).. I have never seen a video clip for the song, or a video of a live performance – should check YouTube – but I can only imagine that it couldn’t go down very well; Evans already sounds too joyous on the record, without visual confirmation. I can only imagine the way that the song could be interpreted visually is in some total subversion of the story; for instance, with Joannie still alive and gaily singing to Evans over the phone while her many glamorous friends silently try not to cack themselves in the background. Any other interpretation would require the people who made that long Renaldo and the Loaf video. I must say I feel the song does Joannie a disservice. Sure, road rage is an issue, but the distinct impression one gets is that her anger was Evans’ narrator’s fault, not Joannie’s, and it was the compliant way she tacitly allowed Evans to upset her so completely that her anger distracted her from proper road behaviour. I know what you’re saying – perhaps I’m doing Joannie a disservice; we’ll probably never know. Evans is on record as saying there was no Joannie in real life, which does her a further disservice if you ask me. The song made no. 10 in Australia in 1979; Evans had already had two hits in this country, twenty (!) years earlier, in 1959 and 1960. He also wrote songs for Elvis, including the b-side of 'Are you lonesome tonight', which is something to mention. http://www.paulevans.com/