Politics: The End Of A Year.

I’ve spent most of this week hideously drunk on brandy and stuffed full of Christmas pudding, so I’m in no mood to write about anything topical or relevant. Instead, I’ll cop out and count down the top 4 – hey, space is limited - stories of 2004:

4. Chechens Take Russians Hostage, Spaniards Are Murdered.

The tyranny of distance that Australia lives with is also a favour. It means we’re removed from much of the madness of the world, where history has dictated that so many countries, regions and peoples must kill each other in the name of their faith, be it religious, ideological, or both. For all the hullabaloo made about it, we haven't had to worry about terrorism much. The one time it happened, it happened in overseas, in Bali.

Indeed. But every time we saw footage of those Russian schoolchildren, permanently scarred emotionally more than physically, or those Spanish trains disintegrated, we couldn’t help but wonder if one day we’ll have to deal with the madness of the world on our own turf.

3. The US Elections

No election has been more closely covered and scrutinised by the media than the John Kerry Vs. George W. Bush battle. In hindsight, it seems laughable to think Kerry ever had a chance. George W. Bush was a brutal, stupid, hyper-Christian thug – how many times was it written, said or sung? – but nothing was going to sway the American people. Despite the deaths of soldiers, the deaths of civilians, problems with intelligence, national lies and international deceit, Bush had it in the bag.

2. The Australian Election

When we cast our collective vote on October 9^th, we gave John Howard a handshake and a pat on the back. We told him that he can lie, cheat, steal and lie some more, as long as he beefs up our wallets now and then. We gave him permission to degrade our health system. We delivered him carte blanche to ensure thousands of Australians will never be able to afford to attend university. We spoke loudly, as a nation, and said that we were fine with the way things were, and nothing needs to change. And the Labor party sat idly by, twiddling their thumbs, humming delightful Benny Goodman tunes.

1. The Redfern Riots

No one should have been surprised when the streets of Redfern were filled with anger, frustration and terrible violence. The fires and madness of that warm February night came as a result of a boy killed in incredibly dubious circumstances. But it wasn’t just that. With every bottle hurled, The Block was raging against all the institutions responsible for fucking up the Aboriginal people for the last 200 years. Every vicious slur thrown at the Redfern police force represented an answer to the systematic abuse of Australia’s Indigenous community. When the train station began to burn, it was a response to decades of genuinely disgusting treatment of Aboriginal people by police and government, who continue to receive official sanction to murder black people and steal their children.

It wasn't that articulate, of course - pure anger and frustration rarely is.

The Redfern riots were a very bad thing. But they were also a wake up call to an Australia that still refuses to recognise just how ugly things really are, and how much uglier things are going to get.

(Originally published in The Brag in the Fear & Loathing column).

Album Review: U2 - How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb.

There’s something wrong with U2. It’s not Bono’s holier-than-thou wankery. It’s not The Edge’s laughably pretentious moniker. And it’s not the fact they’ve most recently appeared in iPod commercial.

No. The problem is that they always promise more than they deliver; they’re never honest with us; they always seem to come up a little short. They write songs called Sunday Bloody Sunday and albums entitled How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, but their music completely lacks the manic, genuine political passion of Rage Against The Machine , Billy Bragg or Bob Dylan. They release almost-epic numbers singles like Beautiful Day and then back them up with hackneyed populist embarrassments like Stuck In A Moment You Can’t Get Out Of. They sound a little like their early '80s counterparts Echo & The Bunnymen and New Order, but they have no edge – pardon the awful pun. They have Brian Eno – master producer, brilliant musician, possible genius – at the producer’s desk, but they don’t seem to do much with him.

That’s what frustrates me about U2. If they just came out and admitted that they’re a bloody brilliant singles band and not much more, I’d probably adore them. This is a band that has delivered genuinely triumphant pop-rock gems like Elevation, With Or Without You, The Sweetest Thing and One. They can write singles that deliver both accessibility and depth, a rare combination in the music world. But whenever I hear their albums, it feels like they should be doing more than they are.

In that way, How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb is a fairly typical U2 album. The sound is a little different – this is a straight-up rock and pop album, without any of the worldly frills of previous efforts – but the template remains much the same. And promises go unfulfilled.

First single and album opener Vertigo is splendid. It’s everything a single should be. Opening with four taps of Larry Mullen Jnr’s drumsticks, the track runs straight at you and punches you in the gut. It’s a visceral pop gem, with liberal serves of distortion and jam-packed with hooks. When Bono says ‘one, two, three, fourteen’ in awful Spanish – either a reference to which albums Steve Lillywhite has produced in, or Bono’s inability to count properly, depending on who you ask – it kicks off one of the more on-point releases of ‘04.

Unfortunately, none of the remaining songs come close to Vertigo. Which isn’t to say they’re bad. Miracle Drug sounds like With Or Without You with crappier lyrics, but it’s still a charmer. Crumbs From Your Table may be a pseudo-existential wank with gobbledegook lyrics, but the typically excellent fretwork from The Edge makes it all worthwhile. City Of Blinding Lights does what U2 do best: dynamics and sing-a-long choruses and almost-epic bridges. Love And Peace Or Else will no doubt be a single, and with good reason. No, the problem with the album isn’t what it is, but what it could have been.

It’s called How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb. The cover design – with fat red lines and a pitch black background – screams military. There’s a track on the album called Love And Peace Or Else. And yet the album is notably introspective. It’s about relationships and life at home. We live in a world full of madness, violence and war, and yet Bono seems completely unwilling to have a crack at a genuine political song. For a man who is supposedly so passionate about the plight of others – hey, he sang on Bob Geldof's Do They Even Know It’s Christmas? with Simon Le Bon, Beorge George, et al – his inability to deal with the big issues is notable. Love And Peace Or Else sounds like an excitingly oblique and vicious threat, but the song itself – with it’s refrain of, I kid you not, ‘where is the love?’ – comes off as a meek request by a man too afraid to go out on a limb that might alienate listeners.

Almost every song on the album is filled with references to ‘you.’ When an album is called How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, you’d think these references might be a little threatening or taunting or, well, interesting. No dice. When Bono says 'you,' he's referring to... well, it doesn't really matter. It just sounds nice.

But, hey, you deal. The album is still good. If you ignore the fact that U2 could clearly do more with their talents than they do, How To Dismantle… is a great effort. Few albums boast a single as strong as Vertigo, and the album doesn’t tire on repeat listens. As a stocking filler, it’s not half bad, and as a testament to the strength of a band who’ve been around longer than I’ve been alive, it’s impressive. But as a lyrically interesting or musically innovative album, it’s not going to set the world on fire.

(Originally published at fasterlouder.com.au).

(Photo: Bono and The Edge, a few minutes after setting the world for Most Bagels Eaten By Pseudonym-Using Rockstars In An Hour).

Classic Album: Karma County - Last Stop Heavenly Heights.

There is only one album that is inextricably tied to my memories. Last Stop Heavenly Heights is that album. Listening to it instantly takes me back to where I first heard it, years ago, in the luscious countryside of Northern NSW.

I’d seen Karma County on the sadly departed Recovery one Saturday morning. I was still in high school then, often spinning Frenzal Rhomb’s Not So Tough Now and TISM's Machiavelli & The Four Seasons, and moshing to whatever punk act happened to perform at underage shows. Karma County were an incredible breath of fresh air on Recovery, a show so focused on alterna-indie-rock-whatever bands. Karma County played Postcard – I think – and it was too fucking cool. Three guys in suits - I think - playing beautiful, pared-down, worldly pop.

I’d forgotten about their performance until a few months later when I was visiting Byron Bay. My parents and I were on a road trip to Kyogle, a beautiful part of northern New South Wales where the only noises that disturb you are the cows or the small streams that flow through the valleys.

I was flicking through albums in a Byron record store and I happened upon Last Stop. I remembered how impressed I was by their Recovery performance, and figured the album couldn’t be too bad for only $20. I bought it, glad that I had a new CD to listen to in the house – or more accurately, shack – my parents and I were staying in.

In an old four-wheel drive, we drove up to Kyogle, driving up a winding dirt road and trying to avoid hitting the cows who seemed to stand deliberately in our way. It was a long drive – the brakes on the old car weren’t the best, and as such the roads had to be tackled slowly and surely to prevent an unfortunate roll down a grassy hill.

Finally we stopped the four-wheeler nearby the shack, which was half-way up a hill, hidden away behind hundreds of trees. Getting up there meant crossing a stream and walking up through rough bush. My parents and I jumped over stones to avoid getting our feet wet in the stream, but of course are shoes became saturated.

The shack half-way up the hill was… interesting. Built by hand by a family friend, it was constructed with old wood, banged together with rusty nails. Bits of wall were missing, tarpaulin strung up to stop the wind and the rain getting in. There were benches for food preparation, an old gas stove and – thankfully – an old CD player.

We spent a week or so in that shack, rueing the justifiable lack of modern amenities but predictably mind-fucked by the beauty of the country. A short walk to the top of the hill let you see for miles: rolling hills and old trees swaying in the wind. Our nearest neighbour was an hours drive away.

It seemed to rain every night. Drops would start to fall on the tin roof a few hours after sunset, lulling you into the kind of divine relaxation that only a stay in the country can afford. After each big storm, you’d wake up to see all the plants rejuvenated, fresh with a glowing green hue. Under a grey sky I’d walk to the top of the hill that the shack was on and lie on the dirt and grass, looking up at the grey sky.

It was amazing. And all the while, Karma County’s Last Stop Heavenly Heights played. As soon as I heard the bass line on the opening track, I Took Your Name In Vain, I could tell I’d chosen the perfect album for this perfect place. Michael Galeazzi’s acoustic bass notes dropped their way down a scale, richly-textured, spreading through the track like a vine. When I’d listen to the album on dark nights, his perfect plucking would blend in with the rain, his double bass reverberating like the water on the roof.

Stuart Eadie’s drums had the same effect. His brushed cymbals – especially on the evocative The Water Moves - would mix with the water running its way down the hill, joining unknown streams and secret rivers. Brendan Gallagher's guitars, tuned to open D, seemed effortlessly slow-handed. They lulled and cooed, seeming to interact with the trees that swayed in the autumn winds. And his voice was so deep, especially on the title track, that he seemed to be the brother of the loud thunder which would strike, warning the valleys of the impending rains. He sang with the kind of sad sincerity you hear on old, fuzzy blues records from the '30s.

With every listen, the album seemed to be more and more natural, like it had always existed and it had just taken Gallagher, Eadie and Galeazzi to crystallise it. The sounds felt like they had lay dormant in the earth and were only now being brought to fruition by the heavy rains of Northern NSW. The album was slow and methodical, like the land I was living in. Sometimes it would explode like a crack of lightning – the bluesy solo in That Man Was A Knife for example – but then it would resume its previous existence, seemingly only enriched by the disturbance, like the wild grass that would grow stronger and thicker after a deluge.

Like the birds calling, the dew on the grass in the mornings, the stones covered in moss and the water in the streams pushing its way to…wherever, Last Stop Heavenly Heights became part of the landscape of Kyogle. Somehow it perfectly emulated the movements and sounds and smells and sights of the extraordinary Australian landscape.

Gallagher’s lyrics told of broken hearts and suburban dreams, but the music remained firmly planted in the countryside. When Gallagher sang ‘her dark hair is the sea / and I’m a failing ship / all faith goes overboard / as my heart runs aground’ his voice sounded like he was the only person who would or could ever walk on the musical landscape of East Meets South. The album just seemed right.

Surreally, the music became the landscape. The album transformed into the countryside around it. And every time I listen to the album – and I often do – I feel like I’m sitting in the rain at the top of a hill, looking down on a wet country side, the water dripping from my hair to the ground, little drops of water running down my face, my shirt dampening before I take it off to feel the dirt on my back as I lay.

Even the album’s title seemed to preternaturally understand how seamlessly its sounds would blend into this landscape… Kyogle was Last Stop Heavenly Heights. It was the end of the line, where everything is right and good and there’s no need to go on.

Every time I listen to it, I can see the grey skies above me, the axe propped up against the house and every river stone I walked on. I can hear the flapping of the tarpaulin as the wind screams and the birds singing as the sun rises over the damp valley. And I can smell the damp wood and the indefinable sweetness of the country. The album is everything you could hope for an album to be and more. It is life, death, birth, hope, sadness, love, betrayal. It’s Last Stop Heavenly Heights, my favourite album of all time.

(Originally published at fasterlouder.com.au).

Politics: Flies And Happy Ignorance: The Canberra Experience.

I flew down to Canberra this week. On a muggy Monday morning, I boarded the same Qantas flight as Greens senator Kerry Nettle, Liberal minister – and genuine enemy of education - Brendan Nelson and leftie nerd Labor MP Tanya Plibersek.

Of course, their collective presence was just a happy coincidence. It was far too ugly an early morning to really get into any political contemplation, so they were soon forgotten. Plus, I was reading a Rolling Stone article on Jenna Jameson, and gosh, she does have big boobs doesn’t she?

I digress. Canberra is a notoriously mediocre city, and with good reason. In the summers, hordes of angry, sticky flies come over the border with the sole intention – it seems – of sticking in your eyeballs and relaxing in your mouth. The sun beats down mercilessly, and respite can only be found in the malls that occasionally infiltrate the largely natural landscape.

I wasn’t there for pleasure, and I wasn’t there for politics. But the place is inextricably bound to the dirty game, and with good reason – there’s not much else to do but ruminate on political machinations.

And ruminate I did. In the backs of chauffeured cars and lying in my hotel, I had all the time in the world to think about the political landscape in Australia. And the more I thought about it, the more morose I become. How very predictable.

Things aren’t getting any better, and it pains me having to wait so impatiently for the time when people realise they’re getting screwed by their leaders. Why, I thought to myself while lying on my bed in the Country Comfort, can’t everyone in Australia have the same idealistic, quasi-naïve hopes, dreams and values that all my favourite people have? Why can’t we all just vote Labor? And why can’t Labor give us a reason to all vote Labor?

Canberra is a bad place to think, because once you start it’s tough to stop. That’s the curse of a boring town. That’s why many country folk are – often surprisingly – deeply introspective. They can spend days where it’s just them and this wide, brown country, thinking about where they’ve been and where they’re going.

I didn’t come up with any searing political insights while lying under the air conditioner in my boxers. No surprises there. I was, however, briefly overcome by an urge to storm parliament house, screaming my liberal politics – and strings of degrading obscenities - into a megaphone. Or maybe I could dye my hair grey, sport some fat sideburns and roll around the leafy grounds surrounding parliament chanting ‘crash through or crash’ like some idiot savant drunk on political rhetoric.

No. Instead I flicked over to the news and saw Afghanistan and Iraq now free – or some ludicrously propagandistic palaver - and everyone happy and good times rolling all night long. It was a happy news day; there was no one jumping from buildings or monks self-immolating or mothers drowning their babies or students being viciously beaten by police. At least, none of that was being reported, so things seemed okie dokie.

And in Canberra, things often do seem okie dokie. Despite being the practical centre of the Australian political world, the high mountains make you feel like you’re cut off from all the terrible ills of the world. Which is nice. So I switched the channel over and watched Buffy. Good.

(Originally published in The Brag in the Fear & Loathing column).

Politics: How To Sell Out: The Labor Lesson.

Labor is selling out, if indeed they have anything to sell. They’re backing the Liberal party’s move to ensure that workers at small businesses can be fired without a reason. They’re supporting Liberal moves to cut tariffs, ensuring that Australian businesses face even stiffer competition from slave labour overseas. They’re doing away with core election promises like Medicare Gold and job protection for Tasmanian loggers. They’re losing the private school ‘hit list.’

Of course, the party was due for some shake ups after their slaughter at the polls, but their policy changes are predictably directionless, in keeping with the tradition of a party in love with in-fighting and retarded squabbling.

If the Labor party is going to win the next election, it will do so by providing a legitimate alternative. They can just hope that the economic cycle deals the Liberals a vicious blow, forcing people to think with their hearts, not their wallets. And when that time comes – and it will – Labor should be there ready and willing with sound policies across the board. Appeasing cash-loving geeks who aspire to be fatcats does the party no favours.

Backing Liberal industrial relations and trade policies represents a huge ‘fuck you’ to the unions and working people that Labor occasionally pretends to represent. It’s just not cricket. The key to Labor’s success lies in the hearts and minds of working people everywhere – and the vast majority of Australians are indeed working-class, whether they like it or not. Why try to appeal to big-money conservatives? You’re never going to win them over, so give up. Make people realise that they need what the Labor party can offer them.

It’s not going to happen. Labor is intent on fighting by Liberal rules. That’s their number one problem. They seem resigned to the fact that every fight is going to be played in Howard’s arena. And then they’re surprised when they get their arses beaten like scrawny, malnourished dogs? C’mon!

The Labor party needs to go on the attack. It needs to set the media agenda. It needs to show the Australian people why they were wrong to vote for Howard, and show them why the Labor party is right.

The Tasmanian forest hubbub was a mistake, no doubt about that. It was a tokenistic concession to a Greens party justifiably fishing for whatever influence they can get. It made the Labor party look like a pack of spineless nerds who’ll bow to pressure at the drop of a hat.

But why drop Medicare Gold and the private school ‘hit list?’ There will come a time when the Australian people realise that they need adequate health care and decent education. And if the economic cycle is anything to go by, that time is coming soon. Interest rates will rise, and the aspirational middle-class who voted Howard in will realise their abhorrent mistake. And when that time comes, where will they turn? If the Labor party continues on as it is, they’ll see a pack of economic rationalist back-flippers who can’t focus on something for more than a month.

What the Labor party needs now is the brains to focus, and the balls to follow through.

(Originally published in The Brag in the Fear & Loathing column).