electronically yours, special squad, kuolleet lehdet

This week I listened to the audible version of Martyn Ware's Electronically Yours, Vol. 1. As you know, Ware was the prime mover in the Human League in its first incarnation and then went on to be a central force in Heaven 17. The second Human League album, in particular, is one of my favourite records ever, it's called Travelogue and I agree with Ware's own assessment of it - that it sounded like nothing else when it came out and it still doesn't sound dated. It's a remarkable record. 

I was most interested in the early stuff here - particularly the HL material - though I was also disappointed by a lot of the approach. I couldn't help feeling that Ware really needed an editor, which I'm pretty sure he didn't have (someone to elicit more detail on some things and less blah on others). Ware was there, so he doesn't seem to appreciate what we would want to know. For instance, he goes into great detail about 'Marianne' which is, you know, an ok song, but says completely nothing at all about 'The Black Hit of Space', which is, of course, an amazing work of genius. He barely touches on 'Empire State Human' which is extraordinary, remarkable, and immense (actually, he might not even mention it, I can't remember). The rise of the HL is unbelievably fast and things like the release of their first record is practically an afterthought. I'm pretty sure, too, that he gets important things wrong - like John Lydon's review of 'Being Boiled' in the NME which I'm 1000% sure was two words: 'trendy hippies' but Ware says it was 'fucking hippies', in fact, he says it twice. 

Update 10 July: It also occurred to me how extremely little Ware says about '(We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang' which was a revelation and an amazing statement of intent for Heaven 17 - it was their first single. The bass playing of John Wilson (inc. a hell of a solo) was a remarkable feature of this single and how Ware, Marsh and Gregory came across Wilson is entirely avoided, I am not even sure he's discussed at all. That's all pretty weird, right? It took a lot of gumption to launch H17 the way they did, and a lot was made of Wilson, in particular, at that point. Wilson appears in group photos etc (I'd never seen him before but I gather he's here second from right) and yet, not a mention. 

Of course it could be that I stopped listening/paying attention for a while and/or that I accidentally skipped a bit (I definitely skipped one section about football, so maybe he segued into discussing John Wilson then as well) so who knows?

Ware is a very dedicated socialist, which I approve of, and a football fan, which is a bore. He really likes art and values creativity and adventurousness which I admire. His book is full of the usual crapola about hot women and drinking too much which is a drag but apparently necessary in books like this. Simultaneously to H17 he became an extraordinarily successful record producer though he gives us precisely no information about what a record producer does or is (I suppose I'm fine with that). OK I think I've about said all there is to say about this. By the way it's hard to be sure whether he's providing his own interjections reading this book for audible or whether the interjections are in the original book, I guess I'll never know. 

Meanwhile I've been watching a lot of another Crawfords show made in Melbourne in 1984-5, called Special Squad. It's a peculiar production which apparently sought a certain measure of gritty realism. In one sense it might as well be Homicide '84; it's three men in an elite section of the police force, always in car chases, each episode a neat solving of crime with a lot of the usual moralistic elements (no crim ever gets away). One odd aspect is that the first episode absolutely does not even slightly bother to introduce you to the police characters - you are just thrown in at the deep end. I'm still confused about who these three men are. 

What else does it have? A lot of interesting actors. Red Symons as a terrorist (I'm not even sure he has a speaking role, but it's him) and Frankie J. Holden as an undercover cop, for instance. Norman Coburn is a corrupt cop in another episode (see below). The storylines are, on the whole, not magnificent* and if it wasn't for the intriguing mid-80s technology (phones and computers in cars!) the above mentioned actors and the locations I wouldn't really be bothering, I suspect. Oh, but every episode does end with someone making a lame joke** and the frame freezing, which is pretty amazing to see in the wild. 

Last night my mother and I went to see Kuolleet Lehdet, a low-key Finnish film which surprised me no end by including Maustetytöt in one scene. 

Oddly enough I knew they were in a film because I saw this poster a few weeks ago on the Maustetytöt fan club facebook group but I didn't realise that this was the same film I had already bought tickets to. Just 'cause I'm dumb. 

They don't have lines or anything just a crucial moment in the action, where they convince one of the main characters to stop drinking by dint of their extremely depressing song. It's pretty cool. 

Overall the film is probably worth it. I am still thinking about it. 

* to be fair, I haven't been paying 100% attention

** or just a pointed comment. 

80s

I remember reading about one of the Futurama festivals, possibly the first, which I think had the Human League and Soft Cell at it, breaking out as it were. It might have been assumed by the Futurama organisers that the brand was the main thing and that the acts they presented would go on naturally to be the next new, um, wave. My lame comment on the above post by, I gather, the person who used to edit, run or own the magazine Flexipop was that I'd only want to see Dislocation Dance and the Icicle Works and then I'd be home by late evening (never miss a chance to give a backhander to New Order, etc)* although I would also be interested to see the Stockholm Monsters the next day. But when it comes down to it - my main thought here as always is - this is not about 'things were great then' but 'I was young then'. I see it all the time, people on fb (obviously I choose to be in these groups) lauding music of 30+  years ago when all they're really saying is, 'I was just out of short pants and what a time that is to be alive', whether it's 1210BC or 1983. 

I thought about this because I was playing the Summer Flake album that came out last year and thinking how not one track on it misses the mark. I saw Summer Flake, or at least Stephanie solo, last year and it was amazing. I wouldn't swap that for any of this bullshit. 

Incidentally I'm surprised that the Futurama festival doesn't have a wikipedia entry because it was quite a thing in its day but maybe it's better this way. 

* I have integrity on this, kind of. I saw New Order when they came to Australia for their first tour in 1983 or whenever. When they played G-Mex in 1986 for that 10 years of punk festival I left before they came on. 

I don't know what my problem is with New Order actually and it's petty because they had some pretty great songs, and were really innovative in lots of ways, and I admire many things about them, but I just can't. I guess I feel that deep in my heart they feel the same. It could have been so much better. 

at least you can say you've seen it

I actually did not see this show. I have seen Barry Humphries live at least once though, possibly twice, but in the 90s, not June 1974. 

'The other week, in the Spectator, Mr Harold Nicolson was consoling himself as best he could for having reached the age of sixty. As he perceived, the only positive satisfaction in growing older is that after a certain point you can begin boasting of having seen things that no one will ever have the chance to see again.' So wrote George Orwell in a column published in the Tribune on 24 January 1947. He goes on to talk about some celebrities he saw in his life: Marie Lloyd, Little Tich, and 'a string of crowned heads and other celebrities from Edward VII onwards'. He then focuses on two important moments: seeing Pétain at Foch's funeral in 1929 and a decade before Queen Mary at Windsor Castle, although at that time he says he was more entranced by one of her grooms, a 'strange archaic figure... immobile as a waxwork.'*

I have to put aside the weirdness I feel at someone consoling themselves at reaching 60 as though it were some kind of grand old seniority, although since the way stats are headed in Victoria it seems likely I will die from coronavirus sometime next week, I guess I will never really know what 60 feels like. But of course like almost anyone who's read that column or reprints of it in the last 73 years, I have been moved to wonder about the things I've seen, that no-one will ever have the chance to see again. Like Orwell, I initially think less of things and more of people, that is, people who in many instances stayed alive long enough for me to have seen them living, and I feel like I have quite a few strings to my bow there, although I also am reminded of the show title At Least You Can Say You've Seen It, a Barry Humphries joke that I still think is funny every time I think of it. 

OK, so if existing in the same place/time as someone is valuable or important, which it isn't, except if a bomb hit that place and time everyone would remember the famous person dying and occasionally there'd be a completist list somewhere of the other people who died and my name would be on it, I have:

Met Ernie Bourne at a party or some kind of social function where I was too young to distinguish fact from fiction

Seen Uncle Norman and Joffa Boy

Had a coin taken out of my ear by Norman Hunter

Shaken hands with Roald Dahl

Seen the Aunty Jack show at Dallas Brookes Hall

Shaken hands with Daryl Somers 

Saw Prince Charles at Robert Menzies' funeral procession down Collins St, 1978

Those are pretty good, aren't they, although really all except Uncle Norman and Joffa Boy were currently active and famous when I saw them. Then in adult life, I've:

Seen Snakefinger's legendary show the night he had his legendary heart attack.

Look at all the man bands, May 1981. I don't regret my choice.

Seen The Human League (three times, but most importantly the legendarily terrible 1983 era when they were barely knew their own songs, let alone how to play them); The Birthday Party; The Gun Club; New Order in their legendarily terrible etc etc see above description of the Human League; Camper Van Beethoven; Beat Happening; The Smiths; The Fall four or five times between 1982-1990 and of course met and spoke with Mark E Smith in 1982 and had a brief correspondence with him; Jesus and Mary Chain, apparently, though I don't remember that at all (I reviewed it for a British music magazine, and I'd remember if I faked it). I saw PiL after they started to go downhill (1986 maybe?). I saw, you know, Australian Crawl. Obviously I was an active participant in the 'scene' including the Go-Betweens, Triffids, Laughing Clowns, three groups I see as so radically distinct from each other I can barely put them in one sentence but time-wise it's doable. This list devolves into people I met when I worked for Smash Hits so it starts to get meaningless - I've 'met' Kylie Minogue, twice, but that's day job stuff that means little, ditto the weirdness of being part of a 'group interview' with Mel Gibson in, of all places, a hotel in Albury. To be honest, and sorry George, most of the above doesn't mean that much to me but as mentioned, I was participating in the culture, not observing relics. On the other hand I'd much rather have seen Little Tich, d. 1928. 

I have also had an argument with Barry Humphries about the rarity value of one of his early LPs (at a book signing), and I have held momentary eye contact with Germane Greer, I don't know why that happened, perhaps more excitingly it was at the Russell Cinemas, now sadly gone but very important in my memory. I did see Gough Whitlam, launching one of his late period books at the Atheneum, and come to think of it he's probably the only PM I've seen in person, unless you count Robert Menzies in his coffin (where he belongs). Relatedly, though, I once saw Nico stuffing corn chips in her mouth in the foyer of the Bondi Cosmopolitan. 

I think this post has to be an active repository. Things will come to me that qualify as 'things that no one will ever have the chance to see again'. Here's one that just occurred to me: people smoking in restaurants, cinemas and on aeroplanes. I don't think I'll see that again. But in the main such things are probably less likely to be people (even people now dead) and more likely to be places, but at present I can only think of the three houses I grew up in, all long since demolished. Oh, I have been on a Ballarat tram, so that means before 1971: my father took me to Ballarat specially to travel on one, as they were weeks away from being decommissioned. I think we went around Lake Wendouree, but that might be a false memory, but it's also fairly likely. 

*George Orwell (ed. Ian Angus and Sonia Orwell) The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell Volume 4: In Front of Your Nose Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1970 p. 317

human league are coming to town

I have seen the Human League twice - once in 1982 or 3 just after Dare became a monster success, and once about three or four years ago when they were part of an 80s package. Both times they were gloriously naff. They're coming again. I still reckon Travelogue is the best album but that's me. Hope to see them this time. When I was in the final year of high school someone of my cohort* wrote 'Phil Oakey has pierced nipples' on the wall of the 'common room' and the whole year level was berated for what a teacher took to be a slight on some acquaintance rather than a statement of fact about a cool alternative new wave pop singer from Sheffield.

*It could have been me but it's hard to imagine I would even know what this meant at the time.