The sun rises on 2012

It is 6:54am on New Year’s Day, 2012.  I saw in the new year alone, I don’t drink, I even went to bed early, but alas, sleep once again evaded me.  I watched the sun rise over Willans Hill for the first time in this new year through my study window, interrupting the stream of ‘shredding’ videos I’d been entertaining myself with (the drunk Taylor Swift one was quite funny too).

2011 was a pretty monumental year for me in some respects, but all in all a pretty forgettable one.

I published my first book in January.  Receiving the letters of receipt from the State & National Libraries was pretty special, even more so was the very touching review that was given to the work by someone who I still haven’t met, but certainly owe a very large coffee to before I leave Wagga.

My intention was never to sell many copies of the book, & I can proudly say that in this I have succeeded indeed.

Work commenced on a second book shortly before the first one came out.  I can’t even remember which computer my half a page of over edited manuscript is saved on.  It is a similar story for my other project – recreating about 7000 pages of a 19th century poetry collection.

Speaking of work, as I mentioned in a previous post, I got a job – for three weeks.  I’d always entertained the thought of being a journalist, but maybe I’m just more Narrandera Argus than Eastern Riverina Chronicle.  Anyway, that didn’t work out either.

I think the nicest thing that was said about my writing by my editor during my time there was “It’s a bit boring”.  And my photos were unpublishable.  Well, the new girl has lasted il the end of the year – I will say nothing of her quality except that she must have very thick skin, or be very short of money.

And of photography?  Well, apart from being unpublishable, they’re rubbish.  I’m not grumpy because I didn’t win, but I got beaten for second by a photo of a black spider which was out of focus & white courtesy of the flash.  Seriously, my photos aren’t that bad!?  So I won’t be wasting my money or time to enter the Narrandera Show in the future – just to see my photos hung from string with bulldog clips.

No, not bitter at all.

I did, though, discover Tom Waits in 2011.  That was a good thing.

OK, I got an idea for YouTubing from trawling through the Wikipedia article of the Travelling Wilburys & seeing a reference to ‘Ayrton Wilbury’, apparently a pseudonym for George Harrison’s son Dhani to honour F1 driver Ayrton Senna, a friend of George.

Although I confess to not being part of the Wilburys, I will take this opportunity to mark my respects to another great race driver, Jason Richards who died last week of cancer.

Anyway, one of my favourite songs, Travelling Wilburys – Handle With Care:

I can’t listen to that without listening to this.  There is tragedy here too, with Roy Orbison passing before the video clip was made.  I think his fellow band members off a fitting tribute in End of the Line:

Growing up it was certainly uncool to like people like Roy Orbison.  I always knew who he was, but like the Beatles, he was old & a wore funny glasses.  Heck, he even has a mullet & pony tail in this clip.   I must have been the ripe old age of 17 or 18 when I realised how amazing his voice was.

This clip was filmed in late 1988, shortly before he died, although the song wasn’t released until 1989.  He was due to fly to London to shoot Wilbury clips a few days after his death.

You Got It – Roy.

Sorry about the stupid ad, but that’s YouTube isn’t it.

The Travelling Wilburys was like the second coming of Roy Orbison.  A few years later, thanks to the American Recordings series, Johnny Cash also a sort of re-birth musically.  In the late 50s, they became famous together.

Here is Johnny with Ghostriders in the Sky.  Again, apologies for the ad.

I think this one came up because they were both recorded at Montreux.

BB King was my key to discovering the blues.  Yes, I watched (& loved) Rattle & Hum, so I knew who he was (“I don’t do chords”), but again, I must have been 17 before I actually listened.

I always think it’s funny when the song title contradicts the song, but The Thrill is Gone is a perfect example.  Almost 15 years after I first heard it, the thrill is not gone:

Not much to say about this, but from BB King to Mark Knoffler & Eric Clapton, stick in Nels Cline & David Gilmour, & I’m pretty happy with that line up of guitarists I’m not as talented as.  Dire Straits – Money for Nothing:

I saw this, & I wanted to bag it out.  This was the song I used to listen to psyche myself up for under 12s cricket.  20 years later, I hear how poignant  the song actually is.  I wonder if the winds died down after the Iron Curtain & the Berlin Wall came down…  Plus this is a bizarre version, with yet more ads.  I think I’m prepared to say that it is a great song – Scorpions – Wind of Change:

I guess for me, the last two years have been a bit of a failure.  I came down here with the intention of taking six months off, do some writing, reconnect with people, get my head in a better place & then get a nice stress free job.

I don’t think I have achieved any of those things.  I finally landed myself a job in September, writing for a small weekly newspaper.  I had been out of the workforce for 14 months, I had never done any journalism (they were advertising for people with community writing experience).  It was too much.  With very little support, & the expectation to write an entire paper from week one, I was never going to cut it.

I lasted two weeks before I quit.  It was a soul & confidence destroying experience, but I found it interesting and enjoyable.

Apart from my stint as a journalist, the most writing I have done is here, on this blog.  The casual observer will note that output has not been prolific.  Yes, I released a book in January.  That was a good experience.  I’ve had a few very positive responses to it, from strangers even.  But I’ve had stoney silence from others, some of the people I expected it to touch the most.  Perhaps I made myself too vulnerable at times.

I’ve got two literary projects on the go.  Neither of them have been touched in months.

And now we move on to another new beginning, still not knowing what life will hold for me.  I can’t help but think that things can’t be any worse than they have been around here lately.  Hey, that’s got to be something…doesn’t it?

For now, I think I’ll stick my head back into some sacred poetry in between packing boxes and dispersing of unneeded…junk.  Perhaps that is the cleansing I need.

Wish me luck.  Please.

Maybe I’m just cynical (I was told I was unnecessarily cynical a few months back – I took it as a compliment), maybe I’m just getting old, but each year as we enter September, I get that ‘build up’ feeling back in my bones – and I hate it.

First, the supermarkets start with the candy canes and those gaudy cookie tins.  Then the department stores line the main aisles with Christmas trees (green ones, white ones, black ones, ones with lights instead of pine needles) and decorations.  Then they start on the Christmas carols over the in-store PA, the ads start on TV.  All the ads.  Buy this for Christmas, buy that for Christmas.

Then there is the planning for family Christmas celebrations.  The negotiations for how much to spend on each person, the wondering about which fringe family you need to buy for and who you can get away without.  My biggest problem Christmas shopping is looking at each potential present and working out all the ways the gift could possibly offend the recipient.  I then wonder whether that was subconsciously the reason I thought of the item and decide for that reason I should buy it.  Then I usually put it back on the shelf and mind-numbingly continue the search.

I’m proud to say that I’ve avoided resorting to gift-cards this year.  No doubt my carefully considered presents will be so far off the mark it isn’t funny and apart from Dad, no one will give them a second look.  I’ve always entertained the thought of giving my nephew a ‘goat for an African community’ card just to see if I get the same blank, somewhat disappointed response.

As I sit here now, I wonder what the Christmas Day arguments are going to be – police brutality, gay marriage, the pokie tax, some other tax, my mental health (or lack there of).  Will we play the traditional game of cricket or will we all be to old/fat/lazy/tired or all of the above.

Sitting on the shelf opposite me is a model train carriage I got for Christmas, I think, in 1986.  Perhaps I’d still enjoy Christmas if people gave me trains still…

Well, I pre-ordered the album months ago, the deluxe CD, vinyl single and album etc etc.  The email I got on Saturday morning said it had been sent, and the last I heard was that my package was in Miami.  The anticipation grows as fast as my patience subsides (yes, alright, I downloaded a copy that someone recorded when they streamed the album on their website, and yes I have been listening to it non stop for the last week…).

I just want to listen with the crackle of vinyl, playing with the Wilco rubber slip mat on the record player I recently stole from my parents (without their classic collection of 1960s & 70s Christian music collection).

The album sounds amazing, and thanks to the wonders of the interwebs, I’ve already had the thrill of hearing many of the songs played live in concert through the hour long set on  ‘Live on Letterman’, the performance of ‘Born Alone’ on the Late Show and then yesterday, a two-and-a-bit hour concert streamed live on public radio in the US & around the world on the web.

I’ll post a review thing of the album once I have listened to it ‘properly’.  It will be positive.

The funny thing is, watching the band play on Letterman was one of the happiest experiences of my recent existence.  Watching six outrageously talented blokes, six blokes I’m immensely jealous of, six blokes who I’d give almost anything to be half, even a quarter, as cool as, made me sit there smiling like an idiot for an hour…twice, well, two and a half times.  I’ve found my ‘happy place’, well until CBS take the video down.

It would surely be seen as unfair for me to say that, on the whole, there hasn’t been a great deal of iconic music created in the last 15 years or so.  I’m obviously very wrong and even more out touch looking at the very recent Triple J ‘Hottest 100 Australian Albums of All-Time’, which was packed with albums, perhaps as much as 50%, being produced in the last 10 years.In support of my argument, I offer James Dixon Barnes, lead singer of the recently re-formed Cold Chisel.  Flame Trees was featured on their 1984 album ‘Twentieth Century’.  My favourite version of the song is the album version.  It is subtle, gentle, vulnerable, something remarkable from such a powerful voice like Barnes.  It is a huge karaoke hit, perhaps the second favourite Chisel song behind Khe Sanh.  This is Jimmy Barnes doing a karaoke version of Cold Chisel’s ‘Flame Trees’ in 2007.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I love Barnsey as much as any other red-blooded Aussie bloke.  Maybe a little more after I heard the following 30 second clip.

Now, I am about to break the rules.  The next clip is from Vimeo not YouTube, but to let the story flow a little more, I’m inserting it here.  So we had Jimmy Barnes then Jimmy Barnes covering Split Enz, now we have Wilco covering Split Enz.  A YouTube music session isn’t complete for me without some Wilco, so here is Wilco & Neil Finn with “I Got You”.

I profess to be a jack of many trades, but a master of none.  One trade I’ve never really been anything in is animation.  Maybe in another life.  The next song is a favourite of mine from Wilco, with a pretty cool home-made clip “Hummingbird”.

I’ve run out of segues, so here is a clip from Countdown in 1981, the other great Australian band I mentioned earlier, Australian Crawl, with ‘Oh No, Not You Again’.

Cold Chisel had a two-pronged vocal assault.  Jimmy Barnes sang most of the hits, but the other singer was the equally talented singer/songwriter, Ian Moss.  Here he teams up with ex-Noiseworks & some-time-INXS singer Jon Stevens & Southern Sons supremo Jack Jones with a Beatles classic, Come Together.

Jack Jones was serious business in the early 1990s.  He was John Farnham’s backup singer & rhythm guitarist and this led into the formation of Southern Sons (with Farnham’s guitarist Phil Buckle).  The Son’s first & biggest hit was off their 1990 Album, Southern Sons.  The song was ‘Heart in Danger’.  Some time between 1995 and 2005 when he released a solo album, Jack Jones reverted to his birth name of Irwin Thomas.  I thought I saw a Irwin Thomas acoustic version of Heart in Danger, but I can’t find it now, just a couple of short grabs.  There is a version from 2010, which is the Southern Sons rock/pop version, with ‘Jack Jones’.  I guess if I had two names, I’d go by either, as long as I was getting paid.

Anyway, I’m getting sidetracked.  Here is another Beatles song, She’s Leaving Home, by Irwin Thomas.  I honestly didn’t recognise him, but looking at his videos, he seems to be enjoying what he is doing at the moment, and I am genuinely happy for him.  I like it when people find a place where they are happy.

Well that ends the journey, an evening of YouTubing when the rest of the world sleeps.  Hopefully there won’t be a second edition of these videos coming up in the near future.

Paul Kelly was my first live gig. 1997 at the Wagga Wagga Music Bowl.  Front row, on the dirt, as my brother said, ‘close enough to smell his farts’.  We didn’t.  14 years on, & I now live a stones throw from this very venue (can’t wait for the Carols by candlelight).  I saw this on a DVD a while back.  Very funny stuff.  I like Paul, I like Dan too.  At least watch the first 1:18 of this clip.  This is Paul Kelly with Careless off the Live Apples DVD.

Now you’ve been introduced to Dan Kelly.  Dan is Paul’s nephew and has recorded with PK on his last two studio albums along with Stardust 5, The Ukuladies, Dan Kelly & the Alpha Males and Dan Kelly & His Band.  I think Dan is pretty cool.  He has rock star looks, rock star hair & isn’t bad with the guitar or behind the microphone.  Dan has also been known to commission swimming caps and tea-towels as merchandise.  As evidenced by the last video, Dan doesn’t take himself too seriously.  Actually, the first four videos in this collection show his relaxed attitude and willingness to take risks in making music.  This is Dan Kelly busking.

Here’s another one he wrote this morning.  Give most male musicians a ukulele and ask them to sing a Sinead O’Connor song and they would sound like they were taking the piss.  Not here.

“It’s not appropriate to share our beds
although humankind’s hanging by a thread”

Dan is so laid back & Bindi seems so manic, I’m not sure it’d work out anyway.  So sing along if you see his “hand do a thing”.  Bindi Irwin’s Apocalypse Jam.

I always thought that Paul Kelly was a fairly sensible, friendly, good-humoured but serious sort of character.  Yes, the film clip of “Before Too Long” is a classic piece of Australian comedy (not the album Comedy, it was on Gossip), but Kelly was the serious character that made it funnier.  Dumb Things has a funny clip too, but there is an at times awkward bloke behind the mike.  Even seeing him live, there was no real flair in his presentation.

I first saw the lighter side of Paul Kelly with the next clip.  I’m having some synch issues, but you’ll get the idea.  The action starts at 2:50 and continues to the end.  These are the clips for “Won’t You Come Around” & “Sure Got Me” by Paul Kelly & the Boon Companions.

Little did I realise that 22 years before I discovered this other side of PK, he gave us this classic.  From what I’ve read on the interwebs dear PK has done everything humanly possible to wipe the work of Paul Kelly & the Dots off the face of the earth.  Well here is a gem, “Alive & Well” from 1982.

A few years after “Alive & Well” (long enough for me to be old enough to remember things), a man with a plastic lego man hair piece/style called Ray Martin hosted a show called Midday.  This was in the twilight of decent Australian TV.  Television was the place to promote music, and there were so many places to do it.  ‘Live’ music was performed (and often it was actually performed, not just mimed to a backing track) on shows like ‘Hey Hey! It’s Saturday!’, ‘Recovery’, ‘Steve Vizard Show’, ‘Bert Newton Show’, breakfast shows and of course, Midday with Ray Martin.

Often the significantly sized Midday house band, led by Geoff Harvey (who, according to the gold writing on the side, played the white grand piano at the Narrandera Ex-Servicemen’s Club), would help out & orchestrate for a solo performer.  They did it here for Paul Kelly, with another of my favourite songs, “Most Wanted Man in the World”.

That is it for part 3.  We’ll be back tomorrow with some Barnsey, Ian Moss, James Reyne, Jeff Tweedy, Wilco & to end the adventure, some Irwin Thomas.

I don’t remember how I got from Kelly to this guy but I got to a cheesy bloke singing songs by The Beatles (She’s Leaving Home) & Johnny Cash (I can’t remember, something early) but I can’t find him either.  He had lots of videos and seemed quite popular.  Sometimes he even held (didn’t play) a guitar & took requests.

Now, I’m not a country music fan, but Cash’s music has managed to have a massive influence on almost every genre of music since the 50s.  Then I came across a truly great Johnny Cash cover.  Shortly after his death in 2003, a concert was held as a tribute to him.  There are many great clips from that night (and some less great ones too), but Kris Kristofferson & Norah Jones played “I Guess Things Happen That Way”, and I guess they do.

Johnny Cash’s songs have been sung by many musicians (and me), but he also enjoyed singing other people’s songs.  Bob Dylan, U2, Tom Waits, Vera Lynn (well Ross Parker & Hughie Charles) and Nine Inch Nails amongst others.  He also liked to play songs by Kris Kristofferson, who famously stalked Cash to the point of landing on his property in a National Guard helicopter to get him to listen to his tapes.  My favourite song that Cash played of Kristofferson’s was Sunday Morning Coming Down.

I’ve got a soft spot for Kris Kristofferson (& here is his third appearance).  He is one of those people I’d like to meet, just shake his hand and thank him for making a difference for people.  I like “Me & Bobby McGee”, ‘Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose’.  Think about it.  This is Kris’ cover version of his own song (just so it fits with this collection).

Now after a bit of ‘here & there’, I came across Mark Seymour & Felicity Urquart singing Bobby McGee on Rockwiz.  It isn’t great (Mark Seymour is), & sort of feels like they are singing it because it is about as mainstream as Felicity Urquart gets.  Then another Rockwiz duet, Tex Perkins & Debra Conway singing ‘Love Hurts’.  From there I saw something bizarre.  Another tribute show with Norah Jones, for Gram Parsons, with Keith Richards doing ‘Love Hurts’.

Backing back to Rockwiz I found one of my all-time favourite artists a) trying to brain Katy Steel & b) sing a rather nice duet with Katy Steel.  Paul Kelly & Katy Steel with ‘The Mess We’re In’ (it works better than their ‘Taught By Experts’ duet).

That is it for this second installment.  Coming up next, we have some new Australian musical talent, some old Australian musical talent, and later, some old Australian musical talent, although he has a different name, so I guess he is kind of new too.

A few nights ago, I took a musical journey through the wonderous archives of YouTube.  Give or take, here is a rough outline of my journey in a number of parts.  Please feel free to watch none or all of the clips or somewhere in between,  feel free to leave your own classics in the comments.

I started with a faithful friend, possibly my favourite song at the moment.  The elder Finn, Tim, with Persuasion, live on the Steve Vizard Show, guest hosted by Nick Giannopoulos.

My wife & I recently celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary.  Way back when we were travelling down to an engagement party in the Riverina town of Narrandera, we picked up a copy of a Crowded House B-Sides & rarities CD, ‘Afterglow’.  One song stuck with us, ‘I Love You Dawn’, written by the younger Finn, Neil, for his wife.  I was searching for a copy of the song to post on Facebook, and this is what I came up with – the mercurial Pepo’s Band.

Don’t get me wrong, there is actually something I like deep down about Pepo’s Band.  There was also something there to prompt me type into the search bar “Worst cover versions”.  This next was the number one, two & three result.  There is very little that can be redeemed from this, although the drummer certainly stands well above his colleagues (can’t believe I just said that).  This is an unnamed band with what I think is a version of The Final Countdown.’

I just found this, and I can’t resist… Sorry, I need to take a moment to recover.  They do Eric Clapton, some more Floyd & other stuff, find it, please.  They are called HUSH.  Please do.  David Gilmour would be proud.  There is very little to be redeemed here, except, the lead guitarist ripping his lead out and taking his guitar off when he should be launching into a phenominal, earth-shattering solo.  It’s worth getting to the end just for that.

From The Final Countdown, I found a video of a girl playing Bohemian Rhapsody for a competition of some sort.  Playing from sheet music, she played pretty much all of them, with little emotion.  With 8 days worth of content being uploaded daily, I can handle that I can’t find the poor girl’s video (I’ll let you know if I do).  Her Queen cover led me to another, which I have found, a young lady playing guitar solos over the top of CDs.  She wasn’t at all bad, although the whole *smile at the camera* is a bit much. (*nods confidently like I’m really enjoying this*)  Here she is, Kelly, with her take on Bohemian Rhapsody (she also plays piano & drums, see her YouTube page).

A last-minute call up to the journey is I only found (rembered existed) as I was writing, but screamed out for inclusion here.  Once upon a time, the Riverina’s greatest covers band, The Plague of Clowns graced the live music venues of Narrandera and Leeton.  They did a great boy/boy duet of Iggy Pop’s ‘Candy’, some Belinda Carlisle & a better version of Comfortably Numb than is featured above.  The one in the middle, on vocals/guitar, may or may not be my brother.

To end Part 1 of this musical journey, I offer to you, the band that earlier brought you (I think) Comfortably Numb.  This is an interview, with the now internationally famous rock band, Hush.

Coming up in future instalments: Johnny Cash, Paul Kelly, Keith Richards, Jimmy Barnes & Irwin Thomas.

I think cars have a bad rep, especially racing, but it has its good sides, like advancing technology for fuel and fuel efficiency that flows through to our everyday cars.  Yes, there is also the un-environmental ways of evenly distributing rubber across various road surfaces…

If you would like to share the story of a special or first car, or want to contribute anything motoring-y, please get in touch!