Monday, August 01, 2005

Music Feature: Hell City Glamours: Should They Shag?

Being in a band is a lot like being in a relationship: you have to take phone calls even if you’re really drunk and just can’t be bothered talking, you spend a lot of time arguing about insignificant things, you have to discuss ‘where things are going’ all the time and if you break up you’ll probably be total dickheads to each other for years to come.

And just like relationships, it’s often hard to tell whether you’re truly compatible with those you’re in a band with. Thank the lord then that the Brag Love Match Band Compatibility Test is here to help. It will tell you, without a doubt, whether you should shag members of your band. Well, not really, but that sounds more exciting.

Oscar McBlack and Mo Mayhem from the Hell City Glamours - fresh from recording the Broken Glass And Beatless HeartscEP, and ready to headline a tour around Australia – took the Test. Were they destined to be together? Should they abandon their heterosexuality and give birth to manbabies together? The answer to both questions– especially the fairly creepy latter one - is ‘no,’ but read on anyway:

Question one: Which band member gets the most action off stage?

Mo: I used to be the biggest slut, but Oscar definitely gets the most female attention now. Why not – he’s a good lookin’ lad.

Oscar: I've never heard anyone complaining.

No compatibility points there. Question two: Describe the average Hell City Glamours groupie.

Mo: I don’t know about groupies. Groupies seem to be, like, ‘servicing the band’ or, like, the band dominating them. With us, it’s all about the mutual satisfaction!

Oscar: I don’t know how I feel about this question. If a girl pays attention to a band member after a gig she gets branded as a groupie, which really isn’t fair. It paints the picture that she is only interested in said person for shallow reasons. Sure, we pick up sometimes after shows but the word ‘groupie’ is a dated term in my eyes. If a girl wants to be with a guy because she became attracted to him while he was playing, she shouldn’t be called a groupie just for that. Most guys become sexually attracted to a woman within a second of seeing her across a crowded room – which one’s worse?

With that kind of political correctness, that’s a Band Love Match! Question three: Why do the Hell City Glamours play music?

Mo: Is there anything else? Love!

Oscar: Because we love it, pure and simple.

So compatible. Question four: Which band should never be compared to the Hell City Glamours?

Mo: Poison, Mötley Crüe, etc. I am sick to death of reading these pseudo-intellectual wankers writing a review or story about us, using four paragraphs to talk about Mötley Crüe, LA in the 1980s and our hair. Why bother sending a CD out to these people? They ain’t gonna’ listen – might as well just send a picture of us that emphasises our hairstyles.

Oscar: Mötley fucking Crüe, for the simple fact that we sound absolutely nothing fucking like them. The comparison is always to do with the way we look, not how we sound – and I don’t see any obvious connections there either. We’ve been called out as being shallow for our look in paragraphs that compare us to Mötley Crüe, which in my eyes is a shallow cop-out of a comparison. Is that irony, or should I read more?

Match points ahoy! Last question: What would the band be doing if they weren’t together?

Mo: Same thing we’re doing now: playing guitars, working stupid fucking 9 to 5s, drinking too much and getting paid less.

Oscar: What? No rock ‘n’ roll. Guess it’s just sex and drugs then…

I think that counts as a match.

With a score of 4/5 on the Brag Love Match Band Compatibility Test, it’s official: Mo Mayhem and Oscar McBlack are meant to be in a band together. They are almost totally in sync and they have an obviously synergistic relationship to rock ‘n’ fuckin’ roll.

(Originally printed in The Brag).

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Friday, July 22, 2005

Live Gig Review: Expatriate, The Spark, The Valentinos.

Spectrum, 34 Oxford St., Darlinghurst, 16/07/05.

Let’s be honest, hipsters. You’re not like everybody else. And it’s not those homemade badges stuck on the collar of your blazer that set you apart. It’s your perverse sexual predilections. I’ve spoken to members of your ranks, and I’m now convinced that none of you get hot over conventional pornography. Oh no, it’s not tits and arse or well-hung black men for you. Cute Japanese girls do nothing for your libido. Who cares about the Suicide Girls? You get most excited about advertised line-ups like this: Expatriate, The Valentinos and The Spark.

And Christ, I can’t blame you. As far as bizarre sexual kinks go, getting a little too excited about indie rock extravaganzas is a pretty good one. I mean, the gigs are pretty cheap (tonight was $10), it’s fully legal and no one would ever suspect that your tight Valensi jeans are actually there to restrain a grossly inappropriate music boner.

Foreplay tonight came in the form of The Valentinos, an energetic amalgamation of on point Gang Of Four rhythms and slightly off point Ian Curtis vocals (minus that man’s beautiful moroseness). The band are at their best within the first 20 seconds of any given song, with tightly-wound, foot-stomping, bass-heavy intros that make you put down your beer so you can really enjoy dancing awkwardly. The audience are asked to Dance Or Die, and almost all of them gleefully choose the former.

The Dead Dead Girls popped up next, a surprise mini-set from this charmingly esoteric pop-electro-weirdness trio. Think Spod meets Chicks On Speed meets Play School and you’re just about there. (Journalistic integrity time: one member of The Dead Dead Girls edits this very paper).

Pre-gig, I asked a representative of the indie rock brigade what I should expect from The Spark. ‘They’re fucking incredible,’ he said, his cheeks flushing red. He then excused himself to the bathroom. And he was right: these guys are absolutely spectacularly fucking good. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had pride of place in the spank banks of hipsters everywhere. They have all the ingredients necessary to be the band du jour.

Awesome, melodic, surging music that sounds like so many other awesome bands, but in a good way? Check! Brilliant James-Mercer-meets-Isaac-Brock vocals? Check! Genuine stage presence? Check! A drummer who seems to be half-machine? Check! If you could find anyone in Spectrum who wasn’t going absolutely buckwild for The Spark, you probably found the only fun-hating fundamentalist Christian in the joint.

After another quick dance-a-thon led by the Dead Dead Girls, headliners Expatriate took to the stage, and don’t the kids go crazy for these guys? From woe to go, the men were bouncing their Albert Hammond, Jnr. bouffant hair, and the women were moving their Karen O arses. Another Saturday night at Spectrum, another night of indie rock hotness. Who needs well hung black men and Japanese schoolgirls?

(Originally published in The Brag).

(Image taken from the photographically endowed Daniel Boud's blog).

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Monday, February 21, 2005

Album Review: Mercury Rev - The Secret Migration.

It’s time for some critical honesty: I’d never heard a Mercury Rev album before listening to The Secret Migration. Sure, they’d occasionally popped up as minor blips on my cultural radar, making seemingly ubiquitous appearances on chill-out mixes, but none of their records had ever been slipped into my CD player.

Which, it seems, was a mistake. As opening track, Secret For A Song, began building in my headphones, like the little, less esoteric brother of Kid A, I realised why this old band from Buffalo, New York were so often lauded by punters and critics alike. On a cloudy Monday morning, with dew on the windows and birds chirping, this was exactly what I wanted to hear.

Snaking, climbing, falling, New Order basslines. Nigh-bombastic drums reverberating in the middle of my head. High, searching vocals. The music rising and building, and then crashing down suddenly. Floating and swimming and lying on the grass on an Autumn day. This is headphone music that seems happy to slide into your ears, languidly stumbling on to a bed in the middle of your brain, curling up and singing to the ceiling.

Indeed. The Secret Migration is simultaneously relaxing and moving. You can see why the Rev have made their way on to the Sunday morning playlists of drug pig clubbers coming down from nasty coke and dubious E, but they offer more than the downbeat, chilled-out predictability of the usual Café Del Mar pap.

Contemporary touchstones abound: the technoblips of The Notwist, the heavy piano of a relaxed Soulwax, a little of the drama of Radiohead, the pomp of Muse. Mercury Rev aren’t as interesting or surprising as these European Sensations, but their predictability, oddly, works for them. They instantly lull you into a comfort zone, but they never stumble into the mindless, tossed-off formulas of Coldplay.

In The Wilderness shows them at their best, pumping and surging, the drums sporadically thumped, pushing their way towards the end of the track. The track builds, and falls, and suddenly stops for the vocals – ‘how can the woman I love be so strong?’ – and it all starts again.

The album won’t set the world on fire, and nor does it want to. It offers nothing more than a place to be at dawn and dusk, and a mood to feel when you don’t know where you are. It’s lovely and sweet. Album closer Down Poured The Heavens is suitably divine, a lullaby in the tradition of The Smiths’ Asleep. And, on a cloudy Monday morning, it’s exactly what you’ll want to hear.

(Originally published at fasterlouder.com.au).
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Tuesday, February 01, 2005

Politics: Throwing In The Towel.

I’m totally giving up.

Yes, it’s time for the obligatory left-wing whinge where I claim I’m going to be totally apathetic about politics. Indeed, it’s time to toss in my ideological towel and spend my days just making cash money, downing schooners, discussing how hot chicks are and occasionally buying Ikea furniture.

Wouldn’t that be good? I’d like it. I’d adore nothing more than not giving too shits about underprivileged children, or people dying in under-funded hospitals, or fucking Somalians dying of hunger and Rwandans being massacred. Then I could just concentrate on relaxing in a magical middle-class world where fairies of industry provide economic incentive to li’l worker gremlins to work harder and faster, and unicorns made of low interest rates gallop across the beautiful plains of wealth and prosperity.

I could secretly support George W. Bush, and I’d never have to waste my time going to a rallies organised by do-gooder, politically correct, inoffensive geeks like Resistance. I could support the war on terror, anxiously waiting for the USA to spread liberty and peace to North Korea, Iran and hey, maybe that Lebanese family that lives down the road from me. If I’d given up on being a left-wing geek a while ago, I could’ve giggled with delight when Saddam was captured. I could’ve demanded vicious, cruel retribution – right now! - when the twin towers collapsed.

How much easier do conservatives have it? Abortions are gross… let’s ban them! Drugs make people look gross… let’s ban them! Poor kids probably smell like poo… let’s ban them from universities and cut off their parents’ welfare payments too!

I’m getting tired of all this reading, this philosophy, this intellectualism, this yearning for equality, justice and all those other tired clichés. I’m never going to pay to see a Michael Moore film again.

Indeed. It’s all a bit of a wank, this left-wing game. It’s full of uppity self-righteousness, unnecessary political correctness and terrible liberal guilt. It requires going to demonstrations and discussing things at length and – most taxing of all – genuinely wanting the world to be a better place.

So I’m out of it. I’m never reading Marx again. I’m going to start slagging off Gough Whitlam. I’m going to start voting for the Liberal party. I’m developing a healthy disrespect for immigrants and people from other cultures. Oh, it really will be something. I’ll be living the fucking life.

Until a couple of days pass, and Labor elects a new leader, and I get all excited about the prospects of an Australia that isn’t so completely embarrassing. And then, predictably, I’ll be back here, writing yet another column where I slag off the Liberal party – and most of those who vote for them – as vicious little deviants hellbent on the destruction of our nation. Of course.

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

(Photo: Republican mastermind Karl Rove, renowned kitten-hater).
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Friday, January 28, 2005

Live Gig Review: The Story Of The Beastie Boys, Live At The Hordern Pavilion.


Chapter One:

On a balmy summer afternoon, the sun sets over Moore Park as hordes of passionate Beastie Boys fans make their way towards the Hordern Pavilion. Excited kids with trucker hats on surreptitiously down longnecks of VB under trees, occasionally screaming ‘Beastie Boys! Fuck yeah!’ to the cute girls that walk by. Rogue scalpers mingle with the crowd gathered outside the Hordern Pavilion, trying to offload overpriced tickets to this sold-out show.

Some of the punters are looking suitably ghettofabulous. Others have decked themselves out in old-school threads, sporting big chains and bright tracksuits, their tongues firmly planted in cheek. Most of the crowd, however, look exceptional only in that they’re so excited, all of them totally pumped to see one of the most consistent and talented bands in the world.

Chapter Two:

The doors are opened, and people head in after being patted down by security. Some make their way to the bar, looking to booze up quickly. Many stake out a position near the stage. Many mingle in the Hordern forecourt, sucking down cigarettes or discussing whether Paul’s Boutique or Ill Communication is the better album.

Those who’ve turned up on time are treated to Scribe, the New Zealand rapper who’s been getting scoring some attention of late, both commercial and critical. Personally selected by the Beastie Boys, Scribe delivers like most expected he would, and those in the Pavilion have a suitably good time.

Chapter Three:

Post-Scribe, the punters push into the Hordern. Anxiously waiting, they sporadically move forward, hoping to get a better view of the Boys when they come out. Before they bound out though, a short film is shown in which Mix Master Mike excavates a mummy in Darwin. The mummy, of course, would like to join Mike up in the DJ booth, just to prove that mummy’s can get down like everyone else. Mike is accommodating, and the mummy joins him high above the crowd. He – Mike, not the mummy - proves why he’s been dubbed the best DJ in the world by scratching and mixing like a man possessed. And then, after being treated to a technical showcase on the decks, it’s time for the Beastie Boys to come out…

And it’s spectacular. Decked out in bright orange tracksuits, Adrock, MCA and Mike D start spouting out Egg Man, a Curtis Mayfield-sampling classic from Paul’s Boutique. The crowd love it. They can’t get enough of it. Strangers look to each other, beaming, their eyes lit up.

And the hits don’t stop. Old-school favourite Brass Monkey comes up next, Root Down is dropped and Pass The Mic is delivered. Then, a drum fill spurts out the speakers, and the crowd knows it’s officially on like fucking Donkey Kong, as Adrock raps ‘now, I rock a house party at the drop of a hat / And I beat a biter down with an aluminum bat’ and, yes, it’s Shake Your Rump. Released in ’89, it sounds fresher than ever.

Then the orange tracksuits disappear, along with the guys wearing them. And MixMaster shows us some more of his tricks, mixing and twisting and matching and scratching and generally showing all the aspiring DJ nerds in the crowd how it’s done.

Chapter Four:

Now, what’s this? The curtain is raised, and there’s keyboardist Money Mark in a suit. And there’s the rest of the boys. And an afro-sporting bongo player named Alfonso. And they’re playing the funky instrumental Sabrosa. And then Lighten Up. And then – oh, my lord! – Something’s Got To Give. It’s a chilled-out, slowed-down instrumental extravaganza, with the Beasties showing they don’t need mics to their mouths to get down.

Those who came here to see hit after hit look a little perturbed and, maybe, a little bored. But those who’ve spent nights drinking while The Inside From Way Out! spins are loving every second of it. They’re loving seeing the boys show how truly versatile they are.

Chapter Five:

Then it’s time for some more rap. Want classics? The Beastie Boys deliver: So Whatcha’ Want, Three MCs And One DJ, Time To Get Ill, and the fantastic An Open Letter To NYC from their sadly underappreciated latest album, To The Five Boroughs. The crowd is going buckwild again. Every single person. They adore it. They can’t get enough of it. And the Beastie Boys can’t either. They head off stage after rocking the fuck out, and before you know it, it’s time for the encore.

Chapter Six:

Intergalactic is being performed, but where are the Beastie Boys? Oh, right. They’ve travelled to the back of the Hordern and they’re rapping from the sound desk. So the entire crowd – all couple of thousand of them – turns away from the stage to see the lads delivering their rhymes from in the crowd. Oh lord! It’s almost too good. But, ludicrously, it gets even better.

Chapter Seven:

Guitars have been plugged in, and the drum set has been brought out again. There are distortion pedals on the floor. They’re going to do it… they’re definitely going to do it. But not just yet…

First, they need to play Gratitude, and what a highlight it is. A spectacularly awesome song, delivered with spectacular passion by spectacularly awesome guys. Do I even need to say the crowd loves it? The song ends, and Adrock gives us the bad news: the next song will be their last. ‘I think it’s best if we end things on a high,’ he says. The crowd loudly disagrees, demanding more Beastie Boys action. No one wants this gig to end, and they’ll be as loud as possible to make sure it doesn’t.

But then – yes! They do it! Finally! – they play Sabotage and it’s the best end to a concert the crowd has ever seen. It’s been dedicated to George W. Bush, and all the universal passionate hatred of the man is magically transformed into a universal passionate love of Sabotage. Heads are shaking and hips are moving and people are singing along. And it’s amazing.

And the concert ends. And people go home. But not before looking to each other in shocked disbelief, wondering whether that could be the best concert they’ve ever seen in their lives. Ever.

(Originally published at inthemix.com.au and fasterlouder.com.au).
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Friday, January 21, 2005

Film: Kinsey.

The biographical drama tends to be a good thing. When there’s obvious passion for the subject, a brilliant lead, and a genuine desire to get things right, biopics can be spectacular. Think of Michael Mann’s Ali, with an electrified, completely on point Will Smith. Think of Milos Forman’s The People Versus Larry Flynt, with an appropriately rude and crude Woody Harrelson. Think of the classic Raging Bull, one of Scorcese’s best, with a beefed-up Robert De Niro as the pathetic, misogynist Jake LaMotta. Think of X, Spike Lee’s epic – although occasionally flawed – documentary of Malcolm X’s life, with a ludicrously good Denzel Washington in the lead part.

Indeed, the biopic can be stunning, profound and powerful. And Kinsey is all three. It’s a genuinely spectacular film, drawing its power from subtlety, cinematic finesse, and a cast that delivers at every turn.

Directed by Bill Condon – responsible for 1998’s fantastic Gods And Monsters – Kinsey tells the tale of Alfred Kinsey, the author of the groundbreaking 1948 publication entitled Sexual Behavior In The Human Male. Its release shattered puritan assumptions about how little men masturbate, how rarely they engage in homosexual play and how faithful men are. It confirmed what many had thought, but had lacked the confidence and research to say: the vast majority of men are hypersexual beings, and they do a lot of peculiar things a lot of the time.

Liam Neeson, as Kinsey, is everything you could hope for. Sometimes angry, sometimes confused, but always passionately, intensely focused on his studies, often to the detriment of his personal relations. He’s a man who knows there are unspoken truths out there, and he’s willing to put his career on the line in the pursuit of those truths. Neeson is heart-wrenching, and clearly deserves a date with Oscar.

Laura Linney, as Kinsey’s occasionally suffering but always supportive wife, is superb, Peter Saarsgard – who stole much of the show in 2003’s Shattered Glass – is dynamic, mixing frank eroticism with stunning humanity (an impressive effort considering how often Hollywood serves up erotic figures as nothing more than hypersexual caricatures). John Lithgow, as Kinsey’s uptight, domineering father, delivers one of the best performances of his career.

But despite the stupendously good cast, the real star of the show is us, and our attitudes towards sex. The film consistently engages the audience, testing our limits, pushing our buttons, and demanding that we take a look at how far we’ve come in our sexual thinking. And, a little dishearteningly, Kinsey shows us it isn’t far.

Yes, we’re a lot more aware of sexuality, and indeed a lot more accepting. But why are we still shocked by the image of an erect penis on screen – an image that Kinsey displays during one of his lectures at a university, eliciting shocked cries from his students, and us, the audience? How can homophobia still exist today, when it’s so obvious just how fluid human sexuality is, and just how many people are attracted to members of their own sex? Why does sex supposedly offend our sensibilities so much more than violence? Why is pornography so stigmatised when so many people obviously use it?

Kinsey asks these questions and more, but it never stoops to making them explicit. It never forces the issue, it just explores it so well that you’ll soon find yourself carefully examining your attitudes towards sexuality. It’s a film about one man’s struggle for truth, but it’s also about society’s struggle with sex.

The film isn’t quite perfect. It could have dedicated a little more time to establishing just how backward and repressed society was at the time. It could’ve focused more on how sickening the McCarthyist witch hunts of supposed ‘communists’ – Kinsey amongst them – really was.

But these are minor flaws in a film that is spectacularly powerful, and no doubt one of the must-sees of 2005.

(Originally published at inthemix.com.au).
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Thursday, January 20, 2005

Music Feature: Asking Sarah Blasko.

After being assigned the enviable task of interviewing Sarah Blasko, I asked a mate at Sydney radio station FBi how his interview with her went. ‘You’ll develop a crush,’ he said. ‘After she left the station, my producer, assistant and I all had one.’

And it’s hard to argue with him. She’s totally likeable, intelligent and funny. Oh yeah, and she’s also released a really good album entitled The Overture & The Underscore. Think David Gray’s White Ladder fronted by Bjork without an accent and Massive Attack doing the programming. Or something similarly awesome.

I sat down with her at Universal Records’ well-designed headquarters in Sydney, overlooking the harbour, and discussed literature, religion and daggy Paul McCartney records.

Your lyrics are pretty literary. Do you have literary idols or books that you really like?

I studied English literature at uni, and I did heaps of old-style classics. I don’t know if any of them were really an influence, but I did a whole session on Shakespeare and a whole session on Jane Austen.

You lyrics have got that kind of Emily Bronte thing going.

She wrote Wuthering Heights, didn’t she?

I think so.

Yeah, I’m pretty sure she did. Yeah, that’s certainly an amazing work of fiction. I think there is a bit of a melancholic, dark tone to some of the stuff that I write. I’ve got a lot of religious guilt under – or over – tones… I guess it’s just an outpouring of the things that I think about, and the problems that I have.

Do you suffer from the infamous Catholic guilt?

Well, no. I didn’t have a Catholic upbringing. [I have] Protestant guilt.

So there’s a branch of Protestant guilt?

(Laughs) Perhaps. I think that, like a lot of people who grew up with a Christian upbringing, I have quite an unbalanced view on life. Deep down, I guess, there’s always this pervading sense that things are either really, really good or really, really bad. There’s not much in-between. I think that tends to come through in my music.

Do you think where we are, at the beginning of 2005, that things are good?

No, I think they’re really shit (laughs). I think there’s a lot of really bad stuff going on. I don’t know – I don’t really like to get into too many debates or deep philosophical arguments, because I find that I just dig myself into a hole.

I actually feel sort of optimistic about my life at the moment. I don’t really know…

(Originally published at fasterlouder.com.au. Click here for the full interview transcript).

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Wednesday, January 19, 2005

Politics: Oh Labor, What Has Become Of Thee?

Labor, oh Labor, what has become of thee?

Things are rarely this ugly in the Labor camp. Sure, there's alway in-fighting, bitching and back-stabbing, but it's not often that things are this bad. And, really, Labor only has itself to blame.

Of course, Latham deserves to have the fingers pointed at him. He should have been honest, the pundits and punters will say. If he was sick, he should have told us he was sick. If he was on holiday, he should have told us he was on holiday. Blah blah. It's all true - Latham, since the election, has been his own worst enemy, burning out instead of keeping the flames of Labor's opposition bright and burning.

I have a theory - and it's not the most mind-blowing leap - that the vast majority of Australians want to vote for a Labor government; they just need a reason. They need Labor to show them that education and health are important. They need Labor to remind them that the heart is more important than the wallet. And they need Labor to play by their own rules, dictating their own policies.

Instead, the Australian public is handed a Labor party willing to play the Liberals at their own ugly game, in which economic management is all-important and kids-maybe-thrown-overboard can decide an election. Instead of fighting with all the scrappy, working-class heart the party is supposed to have, they turn up at election time, get a bit dazed and confused, and get owned like the disorganised mongs that they are.

Who will lead the party now? Kevin Rudd clearly has the acumen and the personality of a leader but he looks like a bit too much like a munchkin (although looking like a furry garden gnome hasn't halted Howard's career, so perhaps Rudd could still be in with a chance). There's Stephen Smith, who is apparently a very clever man, but who is completely creepy in interviews, staring at the interviewer with his cold, beady eyes that seem to say 'I want to lick your eyeballs.' There's Julia Gillard, who is almost universally praised in the party for her intelligence and political maturity... but she's a woman. And, pathetically, Australia just isn't ready to make such a leap.

The best bet is Beazley. Sure, he won't win the next election, but he'll give it a shot. And if Rudd has a crack now, he's at great risk of suffering the same fate as Latham, burning out before he was ever given a chance.

Whoever leads, I beg of you Labor, change! Give Australia the reason it needs!

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

(Photo: Labor man Stephen Smith, renowned pastry cook).
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Saturday, January 15, 2005

Classic Album: Tim Buckley - Greetings From LA.

What’s white and twelve inches? Nothing.

Zing! Indeed, most scientific surveys of the international state of the male member seem to indicate that white folk aren’t quite packing heat downstairs. Sure, most scientific surveys of penis size will have dubious results because men are terrible liars, and convincing heaps of them to take off their pants for science is fairly difficult.

It’s studies like this that contribute to the reputation white guys have – perhaps not so unfairly – for being doofuses who can’t jump, dance, or make red hot passionate love. And this view permeates music; if you’re aiming to get down and messy, you’re a little more likely to put on Marvin Gaye’s brilliant Let’s Get It On than Phil Collins’ brilliant-for-different reasons No Jacket Required. (Although if the sound of sexy Phil singing Sussudio makes your chest flush red and your breath get heavy, all power to you).

But there’s one frizzy-haired honky who could definitely pull his weight when it comes to music written between the sheets. With the high cheek bones and refined good looks that would later be seen in his son Jeff, Tim Buckley was that honky. He was totally white – both physically, and for much of his career, culturally – but he could get as hot as Gaye and as wild as Hendrix. He showed the music world that black or white, we all bleed red, and that red blood pumps down to where it counts in the same way for everyone.

With Greetings From LA, Tim is pure sex – cheating and slutting and thrusting his way through seven soul rock numbers. And, at the time, it was a shock. Before Greetings... Tim was a folkie through and through. Sure, he was a little more attractively esoteric, and he was far more willing to mix up his influences than others. But listening to his debut self-titled album – on which he sings sad, innocent, wide-eyed, restrained folk-pop numbers – it’s difficult to imagine he would come out with an album like Greetings….

But we’re all the better for it because he did. While his early albums are extremely attractive thanks to his beautiful, nigh-operatic, earnest vocals, it’s when he gets his groove on that the brilliance of Buckley comes through.

On the opening track, Move With Me, you know it’s on. It’s really fucking on. It’s funked-up, it’s hot, it’s sweaty, it’s a little bit ugly, it’s dirty. And it’s spectacular. When Tim sings the opening lines 'I went down to the meat rack tavern / And found myself a big ol’ healthy girl / Now she was drinkin’ alone / Aw, what a waste of sin' he pumps the words out with a confidence and lusty zeal that no one had heard from him before. It was a revelation. And more than 30 years after it was released, it still is.

Things don’t stop there. The album just gets better. On Sweet Surrender, he explains his predilection for infidelity with notably sleazy self-satisfaction 'Now you wanna’ know the reason / Why I cheated on you / Well, I had to be the hunter again / This little man had to try / To make love feel new again.' It’s less an explanation than a proclamation. He’s going to get his, and he doesn’t care who it hurts. It’s brutal, but he’s putting it out there, and his libido evidently won’t be restrained.

By the time he gets to the album closer, Make It Right, he’s embraced his desires with a relish rarely seen in music. ‘Come on and beat me, whip me, spank me,’ he begs, ‘mama, make it right again.’ Yeah, it’s still on. And it's not going to stop 'til Tim gets off.

Only Nighthawkin’ steers away from sex, but the music doesn’t seem to have noticed the thematic adjustment. It’s still hot, and it’s still heavy, and those guitars are still pumping and the horns are still blowing. Tim talks about a drunk holding a knife to his throat, and for a second, you can see hormones are still on his mind, as he sings as if the rush of near-violence isn’t any different to the rush to orgasm.

Every track is a winner, but it’s Get On Top where Tim really shows us how it’s going to go down. With a killer riff kicking things off, the funk gets so heavy it almost hurts. Imagine the shock when Tim’s folkie fans – used to romantic ballads and tales of broken hearts – listened to a man in the throes of musical ecstasy, reciting a chorus of ‘Get on top of me woman’ – a breath – ‘I just wanna’ see what you learned.’

There it is, right there. Not too slow and not too fast. And it almost hurts because it’s so good. That’s Greetings From LA, and that’s the best album the brilliant Tim Buckley ever produced.

(Originally published at fasterlouder.com.au in the Replay/Rewind section).

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Friday, January 14, 2005

Album Review: Rolling Stones - Live Licks.

They look like the Rolling Stones, ignoring the wrinkles here and there. They move like the Rolling Stones, with the Jagger swagger still in tact and the physical rambling of Keith still in full force. You can see Charlie behind the drumkit. And that's definitely Ronnie on the left, isn't it? This is the band that's written (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, Sympathy For The Devil, She Smiled Sweetly, Street Fightin' Man, Paint It fuckin' Black! Isn't it?

Yes and no. They're not the Rolling Stones as you want to know them. They're not the rogue British bluesmen who produced Exile On Main Street. They're not the Rolling Stones who frightened the establishment, fucked with the man, excited the young. They're not the Rolling Stones who'd write confronting lines like 'Who killed the Kennedys / When after all It was you and me.'

No, they're not the Rolling Stones of old. The cover of Live Licks may have a topless girl on it, but that's about as interesting and confronting as the Stones get nowadays.

They're the Rolling Stones of the 21st Century. And time may not have wearied them, but it has worn away the harsh edges and dirty soul. They're a covers band, and they do what they do well, but the passion isn't quite there.

Of course, they'll tell you they still have it. They'll tell you the blues fires still burn brightly within them. They'll tell you that the love will always be there, and that they just want to share that love with the world. Which is fine, for them. For us - sitting fifty seven rows back, or at home with a cup of coffee - things aren't quite the same.

But I'm not the first to say that, am I? Critics and know-all wankers have been speaking of the death of the Stones for decades, trying to pinpoint the exact moment when the real dinosaurs of rock died out, frozen and lonely after years of meteoric new-rock have punished their early-'60s landscape.

Those punters - and I - will never be able to pinpoint that moment. Because the Stones never died. They just got old. And for a bunch of old codgers, they're doing alright for themselves. On Live Licks, a two-CD collection of live tracks from their recent world tour, you're exposed to a band that still has the chops - Ronnie, Charlie and Keith especially - but knows all too acutely that their mere existence is entertainment enough for most. They can just turn up, and most punters will rock-swoon.

Jagger, especially, seems content to turn up, spastically jump around a bit, and then hobble off to the next city. He's running by rote. On some tracks he's off-key and delivering the vocals by like a man possessed by demons of mediocrity. The extraordinary perfection of Paint It, Black is musically all there, but Jagger may as well resort to muttering 'I see a red door...blah blah, you know the rest kids! Try the veal!'

There's the sense they're just going through the motions. There's no fire, and there's no ice, and there's no edge. They've gone a little middle-of-the-road. I mean, christ, Sheryl bloody Crow turns up to sing on Honky Tonk Woman.

But hey, it's the Rolling Stones. Like pizza, sex, and zombie movies, even when they're bad they're still pretty good. They may have lost it, but most bands have never even found it. This compilation isn't going to inspire the lusty adoration of a new generation, but it's an acceptable reminder that the Stones have been together as long as my parents have been alive, and they're still going.

So, hey, kudos to them, right? When Mick screams All right! All right! and that famous (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction riff fires up, you can't help but develop a soft spot for the Stones of the 21st Century. Even if they really would do well to retire and live out their lives on yachts, drinking Moet for breakfast and occasionally impregnating hot South American models.

(Originally published at fasterlouder.com.au).

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