mental as anything, more about

Still suffering from the deceptively minor time difference between NZ and Australia, I went to sleep too early last night and then woke up for an hour or so and baked bread and watched Mental as Anything videos on youtube. I recalled that, while I had never owned a lot of MaA albums 'in the day', I did invest (I seem to recall in tandem with my siblings) a commercially released VHS of their videos. As mentioned, they embraced their art student side in many ways and you can really establish a thread through for instance Garry Shead's Pip Proud film into some of the aspects of these videos (some members of MaA exhibited at Watters Gallery in the late 70s I think so there's that connection too). 

My favourite MaA clip is definitely the one(s) for 'He's Just No Good for You' which you may recall were done in real time in a street in either Sans Souci or Monterey, depending on how much you care to check on google maps for the truth of it. The story is that the whole street were involved in playing parts in the video(s) (they did umpteen takes and chose three for release, so you never knew which one you were going to see on tv). The one that's on youtube right now has them spending quite a bit of time at the end outside the milk bar, I think others spent more time on the actual street. Anyway it's a huge amount of fun, and it also celebrates the mundanity and beauty of the suburban street, in a very beautiful fashion. They never miss a chance to include the dogs. 

The other thing that I think is really important and interesting about MaA is that even though they were, as mentioned yesterday, incredibly male, their songs were also often about male fragility. I have them running on a loop right now and 'Date With Destiny' came up, a song I normally wouldn't spend too much time on, but I noted the way that Greedy's songs are so often about inadequacy; he's singing about going on a date and he just throws in the line, 'Hope I'm good enough'. 

Martin's singles are generally more often about domestic friction from a regretful point of view. I have a huge amount of respect for 'Brain Brain'. But I was mentioning yesterday how I don't mind the one MaA album I have, and it has 'Come Around' on it, which is not about friction but more an attempt to be seductive in a very cool way with an underlying fear, which is nicely done indeed. A bit in the 10CC 'I'm Not In Love' field but less obvious. 

All in all, while the overall body of work is uneven,* as almost any would be, particularly over forty-something years, the highs are very high and I think they're a classic case of a group whose impact on the culture has been so strong that it's hard now to see how huge it was. 

* obviously I'm not au fait with every bit of it but I know enough to know this is true. 

Image is from the Sydney Sun Herald 2 August 1987 p. 105