definitely not in the mood

Laura's book is now officially out, and she sold a bunch of them at a comics fair in South Melbourne today - very impressive. More about this anon. In the meantime I went to (amongst other errands and Perry walks) a record fair being held at Northcote Theatre. 

Firstly, it was basically a secret record fair. I don't know how I found about it (facebook advertising I think) but there was absolutely no signage in the street or even once inside the doors - I just followed the sound of people prognosticating about surface wear and making jokes about Michael Jackson. Once inside, I just didn't feel it, one bit. Everything was highly priced (of course in some instances this is essentially justified - I don't mean in terms of 'collectability' but just in terms of - good records should cost more) aside from the David Dundas album I bought which was a sensible $5 and in the scheme of things not a bad purchase though it is a bit scratchy, but I can't be angry about that. 

I guess ultimately I'm just pissed off that there is a collector world.

You know, about five years ago I sold off a large swathe of my record collection to make money to record a record with my friend Art Rush and to be clear I have precisely no regrets about that. I am so glad I did it, because Art is no longer with us (if you don't know the story, well, it's a long story, but he didn't die) and we captured his real genius right at the appropriate moment. The point is, making art/music is more important - to the degree that it's about a thousand times more important, even if it's bad art which this wasn't - than fucking collecting. I mean it's nice to curate, and it's nice to own books and records and even art and there's no shame in it, but collecting with a view to acquiring something monetarily valuable, should be a crime. Maybe I should simmer down a bit because there's obviously something I'm not remembering about the real world. 

PS I bought: David Dundas Jeans On; Slapp Happy and Henry Cow; ELP; The Ritz A Diamond as Big as the Ritz; a Bikini Kill album as I am reading Kathleen Hanna's book; a Bryan Ferry solo album I can't remember which one and I'm too lazy to get up and check, sorry, but who cares really? and a compilation of Mouse and the Traps.  I really wanted to find some Captain Beefheart albums or Supremes records but yeah nah. 

rock n roll friends

I have been reading Dean Wareham's book Black Postcards, a very readable piece of musical biography with no strong female characters. Thanks Shane for lending it to me on NYE.
I enjoyed Rage on Saturday night, with an episode of Rock Arena from late 1984, an episode of Countdown from I think 1988 or thereabouts (?) and inbetween an overlong documentary about Countdown from 1979. This was particularly interesting because it started with the Marc Hunterless Dragon doing ‘Love’s not Enough’ in the studio and later, a discussion of the updated group’s appeal (or lack of) by members of the Countdown Committee. Fabulous.
The Rock Arena was amazing for a number of things, all going to remind me of how much fun 1984 was. About half of the show was the Machinations live from the Chevron. I am 99.9% positive that I saw my old rock ’n’ roll (and otherwise) friend Sue Grigg in the audience. I am pretty damn sure it was her. She was wearing blue. Not atypical. That she liked the Machinations is not in any doubt: I have a few of her Machinations singles, which she was going to throw out and which I rescued, with her name written on them, in her handwriting no less. And anyway she wouldn’t deny it. It was a thrill to see her on TV. Within two years she was playing in Chad’s Tree.
The Countdown was OK, ‘Take On Me’ by A-ha (or is it a-Ha?) is still one of the greats, and the Kids in the Kitchen song was so hilariously awful it made me love them again, but when it came down to it I think the Machinations show took the cake. They actually had some really good songs, and that first album is very adventurous. When they became overly funky and shit, they got shit. There is no way to say this nicely but I feel the need to say it for some reason, that Fred Lonergan was an extremely unlikely looking frontperson. I wonder if his unlikely-lookingness (oh. I have found a way to say it nicely) cost them fame and fortune? As it transpired, he had a serious accident where he broke his neck or something and they band sold all their equipment and started up computer shops (the story goes). Someone should do a sociological, and anthropological, study of the bands from various private school catchment cohorts. Machinations were all north shore, erm, St Ignatius or something? Not an Iggy reference. Cockroaches/Wiggles, where were they from? More working class catholic boys I think. Now we’re talking about it, poor Rowland S Howard, the only member of the Birthday Party/BND who wasn’t from Caulfield Grammar, but I guess he got lumped in with that shit. That’s the other thing Rage did on Saturday night – played a massive amount of Birthday Party in honour of RSH. A lot of BP but insufficient Crime and the City Solution or RSH solo, and maybe there just wasn’t that much video of that stuff though really I would have so much preferred C&CS to that hoary old BP guff which was awfully exciting in 1980 and I still love Junkyard and the subsequent EPs but shit, RSH was much more than a Nick Cave adjunct – he was, well, better by far. A charming and interesting man, too, in my experience of him.
My one RSH reminiscence, which has little to do with RSH himself but perhaps says something about the ambient myth: at one of the final Birthday Party shows (when the band came back to Aust without Mick Harvey and Des Hefner filled in) I was in the foyer with my friend Michael and we were talking and then he said, sh, here comes the most beautiful man in rock ‘n’ roll. It was RSH of course.
Pip Proud is recording some vocals to music by Kes Band next Sunday. Pip has a song called 'Slimy Fighters' to which he wants a dance piece performed probably best described by the song’s title. Pip is doing alright, all things considered (throat cancer for which the tumours have apparently stabilised; stroke; alcoholism). You could argue these things were if not caused by each in succession (in reverse order to which I have listed them) then they aided and abetted. He is on a lot of drugs and his radio won’t tune properly but he can get a distant, fuzzy News Radio which he loves and for which I say, thanks ABC.
Music myself I am still greatly enjoying the Dacios album (probably along with royalchord my pick for 2009, though I may have forgotten a few others) and continuing to love Emerson Lake and Palmer, not least for my discovery that shows my own innate dumbness and slowness to catch on and willingness to believe whatever stupid flip assessment was put before me by others, that ELP are yet another prog rock band who are decidedly unpofaced, all things considered, and often fairly witty or at least amusing. I enjoy that. Actually, my dismissal of ELP did not come just from my willingness to accept punkers’ evaluation of them; I did unwittingly see their Pictures at an Exhibition film about thirty years ago at the Valhalla and it kind of sort of made me think, there has to be more to rock music than this pretentious bollocks. I don’t know if I missed something then, or what. I like the self-titled album and of course Tarkus. Actually I love Tarkus. Tarkus is hott.
Who has memories of the Chevron? Is there a facebook group?







The other thing that was on Rock Arena was, excitingly, not one but two videos feat. Noah Taylor - I'm Talking's 'Trust Me' and Beargarden's 'Finer Things'. If I remember rightly these were Noah's first two filmic experiences, yes, even preceding Doggo Goes to Jail.

record fair today II

Well I spent around sixty, which still isn't bad (imagine, if I'd bought the two copies of Spectrum's Milesago I saw I would have spent $210). I've said this before, and I think it's relatively true, I don't buy records for their collectable status. I just buy things I'm interested in and need for research (don't laugh). (Or laugh if you like, and be happy, but it's still true). So I bought: The Moir Sisters Lost - somewhere beyond harmony Jeannie Lewis Tears of Steel and the Clowning Calavera Emerson Lake and Palmer Emerson Lake and Palmer Sweet and Sour OST Dynamic Hepnotics Cool Jaromir Cermak, Karel Saisek, Kamil Bednol Praho, Na Shledanou The Aliens Translator The Radiators Scream of the Real John Paul Young One foot in front Mike McClellan Ask any dancer TRB TRB Two Ray Burton Dreamers and nightflyers Mark Gillespie Sweet Nothing Mike McClellan Until the Song is done Fox Fox Captain Rock Buried Treasure Doctor Buzzard's Original Savannah Band Doctor Buzzard's Original Savannah Band At least half of these cost under $3. Not much else to report. These events seem to be getting worse for rudeness and stupidity, but it's surely just me getting politer and smarter. Two snatches of conversation: 'The new Apple computers have significantly more features than the older models'. and 'I dated Brian Henderson's illegitimate daughter a few times.' Anyway, after the event I felt quite soiled and spent, as one would. Luckily in the car park there was the answer to my troubles.