Writing On Trees

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).

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).

Yeah, maybe that’s just me. This morning. After having been teetotal for a little too long, I thought it high time to get a little bit retarded, and so, on a balmy Thursday night, my mates and I went out and drank cheap long island ice teas in a pseudo-classy Newtown pub. And that’s why, at 11am, I woke up needing a tetanus shot.

Indeed, that’s what you get when you get a little bit buckwild. I lay on my mate’s couch with an arm over my face, blocking out the sun. Then I got stumbled up, found a collection of Seinfeld scripts and read them. Later, post-coffee, my mate walked in and we talked about Bob Dylan, as you do.

‘Some people say he’s done more with words than anyone since Shakespeare,’ he said, dropping to the couch. ‘Yeah,’ I said, more than a little sceptical, ‘you’d say that.’ Dylan’s good, I thought, but he’s no Shakespeare.

But later, eating a disconcertingly delicious chicken salad, it occurred to me that maybe Bob Dylan has done more with words than anyone since Shakespeare. Maybe you can compare ‘the ghosts of electricity howl in the bones of her face’ to ‘Death lies on her, like an ultimately frost upon the sweetest flower of all the field.’ Maybe, when we tally the literary greats, Bob will be up the top of the list. Voltaire, Heller, Hunter S. Thompson, Hemingway, Dylan. Yeah, I thought, that works.

But what is it about Dylan? What makes him so incredibly special, so desperately vital? It’s not just that he basically invented profound lyrical honesty. It’s not just that he combines a keen understanding of the power of words with a preternatural ability to use them. No, it’s that he captures everything. Everything.

Like an impressionist painter, he can get it all in one stroke. Frustration (Maggie’s Farm), loss (Sara), hope (The Times They Are A-Changin’), longing (I Want You). His music is the micro and the macro; the big picture and the little details; mass tragedy and personal loss; the cyclone and those in its path. Hurricane, from the spectacular Desire album, is the tale of one man wronged by the system, and simultaneously the tale of far too many like him. Without saying it, Dylan’s lyrics capture waking up at 11am, still a little drunk; his words understand how good a delicious chicken salad really is. And they know how bad it can be to lose what you love. If he hasn’t been there himself, his words have. And they’ll take you along. Nothing is left out.

The fact that he manages to combine such extraordinary literary talents with such a genuinely fine ear for music is awe-inspiring. Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright doesn’t just have great lyrics – it’s also a bloody good tune.

But no matter how good the music that frames his lyrics is, it’s always the words that are going to get the attention. It’s his words that have inspired devotion in a massive legion of obsessive, geeky fans who will discuss the relative merits of Blood On The Tracks, as opposed to Blonde On Blonde, for hours. And hours. And hours.

I’m not one of those geeks – not quite. Which is why I’m happy to call The Essential Bob Dylan a classic album, despite it being a compilation. Sure, ‘greatest hits’ packages take away the artistry of a complete album, and most of Dylans albums – well, most of the early ones and a couple of the later ones – are absolutely deserving of inclusion here on Replay/Rewind. But Dylan is one of the few artists who genuinely deserve such a ‘top hits’ compilation. Owning The Essential Bob Dylan is, uh, essential.

It will show you, in two discs, just how incredible Dylan is. It dishes up a lot of tracks – 36 all up – and almost every one of them is awesome. Sure, the epic, profoundly sad Sara – probably one of Dylan’s best tracks ever – isn’t here. But when you’ve got It Ain’t Me, Babe, Subterranean Homesick Blues, Tangled Up In Blue,, All Along The Watchtower, Just Like A Woman collected here, it’s hard to be too offended by one little oversight.

Go and buy Blood On The Tracks, Blonde On Blonde, Desire and all those Dylan albums you’re supposed to own. They’re all amazing. But buy The Essential.. . as well. And next time you’re still a bit drunk at 11am, put it on and listen to Dylan for a couple of hours. Just lie back and let the words wash over you like the brutal sun. An, like me, after thinking about it for a while – maybe over a delicious chicken salad – you’ll too realise that Dylan is one of the most important writers in our history.

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

Me, Now: Dude, seriously, wait until you hear Nebraska. If you’re me a year ago, then I suppose you’ll hear it soon enough. You’ll hear Atlantic City played in a pub, and it’s chorus – ‘everything dies baby that’s a fact / maybe everything that dies some day comes back’ – will haunt you for hours. No, days. Weeks.

Me, A Year Ago: That’s actually not going to happen. I will never willingly listen to a Bruce Springsteen song, because he’s a total knobhead. I’m not sure of that many things in life – fuck, I’m tossing up between journalism, politics and astronomy – but I’m sure of The Boss being a toss.

Me, Now: Firstly, you never wanted to get into astronomy, like, ever. Remember that I am you, just one year in the future. So I know that you’re not interested in astrononomy. And secondly, you will hear Atlantic City and it’ll make you want to openly weep into your beer. And a few days after hearing it in that inner-city pub, you’ll buy Nebraska. You’ll see it in a shop and be instantly desperate to be it, your interested piqued by the enigmatic black, white and red cover showing a desolate landscape in the American Midwest.

Me, A Year Ago: No, it’s not true. I’ll be happy listening to Chris Isaak, Rage Against The Machine and Portishead. And no Bruce Springsteen.

Me, Now: Don’t worry. You still like those bands. Especially Chris Isaak – he really is great isn’t he? But you just need to accept that you will very soon adore Nebraska like you should. Like everyone should. You’ll be amazed that it’s a passionate, intense record with all the hallmarks of a lo-fi emo record before lo-fi emo records existed. It’s like a Bright Eyes record without the affectations and self-consciousness. It’s just Bruce Springsteen, his slightly-mistuned acoustic guitar, a harmonica, and a four-track. It’s Bruce singing about death and destruction and love and family and everything that means something.

Me, A Year Ago: Seriously?

Me, Now: Completely. Your blood will run cold when listening to the chilling title track, with its stark portrayal of innocence and murder. It’s opening line – ‘I saw her standing on the front lawn / just twirlin’ her baton’ – a beautiful thematic non-sequitur on an album filled with hate, greed, menace and murder. Your heart will sink listening to Highway Patrolman; the story of a policeman caught between his duty to the world around him and his duty to his brother. You’ll be strangled by the surging menace of State Trooper, with its simple acoustic guitar riff lulling you into a world where you might die on a wet highway, your family shattered, just because you did your job. My Father’s House will strike you as one of the most moving evocations of hope and loss ever recorded; the tale of a man searching for himself in a forest full of ugly secrets. You’ll be stunned every time you hear Atlantic City, a stunning portrait of a man trying to deal with a world full of death and terrible madness.

And you’ll realise, after listening to the album just once, that it’s one of the best albums of all time – a stunning testament to an artist who is too often caricatured as nothing more than a token musical concession to the aspirations of the American working class. An artist who, with Nebraska, surprised everyone, and showed us how powerful one man with a guitar can be.

Me, A Year Ago: Dude. I’m kind of looking forward to hearing Atlantic City in that pub now. Can you, like, tell me which pub it is?

Me, Now: Dude, no. That’ll fuck with the space / time continuum or something, and I’ll end up as a rabbi or a pony or something, and my parents will never meet, and Harold Holt won’t go missing and people will drink bathwater just for fun. Haven’t you seen any of the Back To The Future movies? Anyway, you’ll hear it soon enough. And when you do, you’ll be blown away.

Me, A Year Ago: You know I’ve seen all three and love them.

Me, Now: Oh yeah, right.

A road trip to Melbourne is illuminating in some ways. It's not the realisation that there seems to be a Subway in every single town. It's not the fact that finding internet access out of urban areas is really annoying. It's not that every Chinese restaurant out of the city seems to only serve sweet and sour pork and dim sims.

No, it's just how terribly urban-centric most of my views are. I'm a predictably educated, liberal, anti-lots-of-things nerd, who detests how many people are forced into homelessness in the city, and loathes how many live in poverty in the suburbs. I'm unsurprisingly against the perpetuation of ugly urban sprawl, in which cash is thrown like candy to rich bitch bureaucrats with hearts of ice to spend on gross grey buildings. But for all my left-wing wankery, I rarely think about how different things are out of Sydney proper.

Spending time in regional centres like Goulburn, Albury, Wodonga, Dandenong, and elsewhere is a necessary reminder that the issues across Australia are vastly different. Speaking to 'average Aussie battlers' - to join A Current Affair in condescendingly labelling them as such - who work at drought-affected farms or for underpaying industry tells you that most people don't have the time - nevermind the means - to fight battles that aren't their's.

Decrying Australia's vastly spread out population for electing an abomination like John Howard again and again is easy, and probably totally justified. But people vote Dickhead for a reason: they have no choice but to focus on supposed 'economic management' and side with the party aligned with the 'regional representatives,' the Nationals.

When you live in a politically and socially insular place, the exposure to 'big problems' that face Australia and indeed the world just isn't there. For the most part, there just isn't a culture in the vast majority of Australia conducive to looking at the macro instead of the micro, the greater good instead of the personal advantage. Because - shock horror! - most people aren't middle-class, uppity uni students with the time nor inclination to 'fight the good fight.'

Sure, all this is terribly obvious, and pointing it out inevitably produces a sub-text that says 'hey! Farmers and regional people! You suck for voting in Howard! Go to university you bitches! Vote Greens and eat tofu!' Indeed. That's inevitable considering I am an uppity educated, Greens-or-Labor-if-I'm-drunk voting nerd. And I love tofu.

But however obvious it may be, before venturing out on a road trip down the Hume and through shitloads of small towns - with giant sheep and big submarines and all that - I'd forgotten just how ludicrously huge Australia really is. It's massive. And people are everywhere. And they - shock horror! again - generally have very different personal priorities when compared to urban-dwellers. And whilst those who live in the country may be a lot more tolerant and informed than they're usually given credit for, most of them are still going to vote for the Nationals or the Liberals. Again and again. Because they think they have to. Because there's an underlying sense that they're the forgotten people of Australia, doomed to be represented only by Akubra-wearing knobheads in Telstra commercials.

So what? Well, it made me feel a bit better about the Liberal win October. Now, almost, I can see why people would vote in Howard. Almost.

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