Gee muses

Donna Simpson is tired, very tired. The guitarist and vocalist with West Australian folk rockers, The Waifs, has just played three nights in a row in Melbourne, and there have been friends, lots of friends, in attendance. And then there have been after show drinks, maybe a bite to eat, perhaps a few more drinks.

“I’m older now, I can’t party like I used to,” she says. “I could say I’ve really been exerting myself on stage that would sound better. You know, Leonard Cohen is 75 and his shows have been going three hours and 50 minutes. He does have short intermissions though. Our show has been about two-and-a-half hours. It was last night, so it’s pretty long.

“We’ve been playing lots of old stuff by request and there is so much material to choose from …”

It has been 17 years.

“Seventeen fucking years,” Donna exclaims.” You get less for murder.” And laughs. She also says that none of it – the whole rise and rise of the Waifs – was ever planned. It all just kind of happened and they just added the detail.

Born and bred in Albany, WA, the Simpson sisters, Donna and Vikki (now Vikki Thorn), were touring as a duo called Colours when they met guitarist Josh Cunningham while playing in Broome. Everybody got along and a year later, in 1992, the band changed its name to The Waifs a year later and began fulfilling their ambition of touring Australia-wide.
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Nick Cave

It was dubbed the festival for people who hate festivals. It was much more. All Tomorrows Parties, curated by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, brought to Australia a laidback, devilishly cool, trippy day out in an almost perfect venue with extraordinarily good sound on all four stages and an exquisite line-up. Not a snotty little faux rapper, pop teen or kiddy punk in sight, this was really music for adults only - and it was celebrated with such flair and brilliance. There were no bad acts at All Tomorrows Parties, only good, gooder and goodest. The latter two words, of course, don’t exist but I’m saving the superlatives.

To the bands then: Young duo (augmented to a four-piece) Hunter Dienna opened proceedings. They need to relax. All earnest sombreness. It’s okay to smile guys. Their dark music is a little predictable but they are young and growing.

The Stabs are a knockout. The Melbourne garage fuzz quartet rocked hard and offered a keen sense of humour. Easy to see why Detroit likes them.

Sydney mostly girl quintet, Bridezilla, were a revelations. Still not out of their teens, this little lot are so obscenely talented it’s scary. They even got legendary actor Jack Thompson to play harp on one song. Their music is a beautiful cascade of equal parts folk, jazz, and edgy pop driven by a sax/violin frontline. They jam, they groove, the vocals are sublime. They are Kate Bush in the fifth dimension.

The five women who make up Melbourne’s Beaches are well into their 30s (I think) and their roots show. L7 meets The Dandy Warhols and Sonic Youth. Fun.

Joel Silbersher’s hard rocking Melbourne outfit, Hoss, delivered good old-fashioned Australian pub rock. And got an A+ for crowd banter.

Dead Meadow, the LA-based Washington trio, were one of the bands of the day. A stunning mix of 60s psychedelia and boogie and ’90s grunge. Awesome. Could have been San Francisco circa ‘68/’69. Ground control to …
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Australian rock’n'roll is 50 - and I am proud to have been part of it for well on 35 years now as a writer, broadcaster (on public radio and online), TV identity (minimal exposure, thankfully), occasional promoter, scriptwriter for the ARIA Awards, and more. And if sounds like I’m pushing my own barrow - there’s a reason. It’s not sour grapes - I’m simply justifying why I can make the following comments. The Age has decided to put together a panel of judges and get them to deliver their 50 Top Australian albums of all time - you can find it at http://www.theage.com.au/multimedia/top50/list.html and sadly it’s rather blinkered. There’s a big difference between ‘favourite’ records and ‘best’ records. There have been a lot of lists of best albums over the years but this one falls far short of the mark. Many of my favourite Australian albums are on The Age’s list but I wouldn’t consider some of them amongst the best Australian albums of all time.

The judges seem largely to be in their 30s-early 40s and, frankly, reliving their own frantic youth - inner Sydney and Melbourne 1980-1995 … extraordinarily more than 30 of their nominations come from 1980 or later … even more extraordinary is only six of the albums come from the period from 1958-1973 - arguably the richest period in Australian music history and certainly the period identified worldwide by collectors as containing the many of Australia’s most significant and collectible records.

Incredibly not one woman gets a guernsey and even more incredibly only two women - Lindy Morrison and Amanda Brown, both of The Go-Betweens - are actually band members.

This is a list driven by what appears to be blatant ignorance - how else could you possibly explain Skyhooks’ Living In The ’70s at #2 - I love the band, the record, the whole ‘Hooks thing and I was in Melbourne when they were huge - but the second best Australian album ever - no way! And what about the inclusion of Victorian cult band Even’s Less Is More - honestly, only a diehard Melburnian could possibly even consider Even - good they may be but Top 50 material! In your dreams. The same can be said of Flowers’ Icehouse, Stephen Cummings’ Lovetown, regurgitator’s Tu-Plang, Jet’s Get Born (give us a break - token 2000s record, no more, wouldn’t make the top 200 of all-time), even The Church’s Starfish - and I’m a massive Church fan who believes Steve Kilbey is some kind of lesser God - is off the beam. And The Gurus at #4 - again, love ‘em, but Stoneage Romeos is a top 30 to 50 at best album.

Hell this list even includes The Easybeats’ Absolute Anthology - a compilation album … you have to be kidding.

So, you’re thinking, ‘okay big mouth, your making a lot of noise but what have they missed - put out or shut up’. In no particular order other than that in which they appear in my head, the following records should all have a place in the Top 50 Australian Records Of All-Time.

1. Extradition - Hush, 1971 - revered by collectors of folk and folk psych as one of the most extraordinary records ever released in that genre. Copies change hands for up to $1200. The lead singer, Shayna Karlin, has an astonishing voice.
2. Kahvas Jute - Wide Open, 1971 - extraordinary blues/prog rock album that also fetches massive prices and is revered by a worldwide audience as up there with anything in this genre ever released.
3. Tamam Shud - Goolutionites And The Real People, 1970 - masterful concept suite based on a song cycle bedded in acid rock. Good copies sell for $700+ - regularly makes world top 100s!
4. Jackie Orszaczky - Morning in Beramiada, 1975 - jazz rock/fusion album made with John Robinson of Blackfeather (At The Mountains Of Madness - yet another contender here). Absolutely superb.
5. Dave Miller/Leith Corbett - Reflections Of A Pioneer, 1970 - cross-genre, psych to country, album that regularly makes world top 100s. Again, a real collector’s item.
6. Madden & Harris - Fool’s Paradise, 1974 - one of the most collectible folk, acid folk records in the world. Issued on a private label, it brings to mind Nick Drake, the UK’s Mellow Candle and the like. In the $800-$1000 region.
7. Company Caine - A Product Of A Broken Reality, 1971 - many good judges believe this is Australia’s finest progressive record and arguably its best ever record. It is certainly mind-blowingly good.
8. Wendy Saddington - Looking Through A Window, 1972 - Australia’s greatest female blues soul singer on her only album which is actually a reissue of Wendy Saddington And The Copperwine Live (1971) with the title track, produced for her by Billy Thorpe and written by Aztec Warren ‘the Pig’ Morgan, added on.
9. Billy Thorpe & The Aztecs - Aztecs Live! At Sunbury, 1972 - Arguably, the greatest homegrown heavy rock album of all-time. A legendary set at the legendary rock festival. For studio Thorpie look no further than More Arse Than Class (1974) - which could easily be included here.
10. Coloured Balls - Ball Power, 1973 - A classic Oz Rock guitar album that recognises the late, great Lobby Loyde, formerly of two other seminal acts the Purple Hearts and Wild Cherries (with Dave Miller). Also check out Lobby’s remarkable solo set, Plays With George Guitar (1971), another classic.
11. Missing Links - Missing Links, 1966 - The definitive Australian garage/r’n'b album. As wild as it gets, this masterpiece of aggression sells for well over $1000 in good condition. Again, recognised worldwide as a true gem of its kind.
12. Pirana - Pirana and Pirana II, 1971/1972 - take your pick which is better. This was Australia’s Santana (think Soul Sacrifice era), capable of mixing jazz, blues, Latin and prog and blowing free. Very collectible and critically adored.
13. Bakery - Momento, 1972 - Perth-based heavy progressive rock outfit who even gained Frank Zappa’s attention. Has been rated one of the best records of its kind in the world.
14. Baby Animals - Self-Titled, 1991 - their debut was, for a time, the biggest selling Australian debut record ever and indeed one of the biggest sellers ever. A definitive hard rock record that has rarely been bettered. Lead singer Suze DeMarchi had a voice to die for.
15. Thought Criminals - Speed., Madness.. Flying Saucers …, 1980 - Primitive, raw, brilliant Australian punk album that’s up there with The Saints’ definitive (I’m) Stranded.
16. TISM - Great Truckin Songs of the Rennaissance, 1988 - It’s doubtful if there ever has been a greater electro funk/rock/pop Australian album. The most savagely satirical band in Australian history.

And that is just the beginning, ladies and gentlemen. Now, before you chuck up the old elitism and ‘most-people-never-heard-these-records’ (with a few exceptions) argument, let me say they have all - except for the Thought Criminals (the excellent compilation Chrono Logical is available though) - been issued on CD in the past few years and are easily available from any good record shop or online. And I’ve deliberately picked a bunch from the early 1970s to show what’s been missed from one period alone. There are many other records that have claim to making this list. Just think … Spectrum, Jeff St John, Levi Smith’s Clefs, McPhee, Not Drowning, Waving, Buffalo, The Cleves, The Scientists, Tully, Fraternity, Mike Furber, Galadriel, SPK, Makers Of The Dead Travel Fast, Severed Heads, Scattered Order, Sun, Madder Lake, X, La De Das, My Friend The Chocolate Cake, Yothu Yindi, and there is still more.

The Age list is a collection of favourite albums - not necessarily the best Australian albums ever. Check out the music above and see for yourself.

Also, and I won’t say anymore than this, question why Fairfax publishers of The Age and Sydney Morning Herald put this together in the first place. Now what was it you can win?

Australian music is rich and diverse and has enjoyed 50 great years but it is far more, unfortunately, than The Age effort gives it credit for.

Hollywood beckons the Frames‘ singer/songwriter Glen Hansard. In one of the more fitting Oscar nominations in recent years, Hansard and Marketa Irglova, his co-star in the wonderful low-budget, big hit, musical will perform on the 80th Annual Academy Awards telecast on February 24.

Hansard and Irglova will perform Falling Slowly, their signature duet from the film, which is nominated for an Oscar in the Best Original Song category. How good is that!

Though this is the first Oscar nomination for Hansard and Irglova, the soundtrack album has garnered several accolades. In January, Falling Slowly was named Best Song at the Critics’ Choice Awards, and in December the soundtrack (Canvasback/Columbia Records/Sony Music Soundtrax) was voted Best Music from a Film by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.

The album also received two Grammy nominations this year. In 2007, the film won the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival.

Incidentally, Dylanophiles like Geemuses will have picked up on Hansard and Irglova’s version of the great man’s You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere, one of the highlights of the I’m Not There soundtrack album.

Anyway, everybody - all two of us - at Geemuses think this is the best Oscar nomination in years.

BROAD has set a standard for, well, not just broads, but contemporary music as a whole. The idea of taking five women of oft disparate sound and skill - with the common thread that they are all profoundly talented singer-songwriters - and putting them all on a stage together and seeing what happens is not just exciting entertainment, it’s also quite mysterious. Stories are told, foibles and fabs are laid bare, love is released - the good and bad, and the audience and entertainers interact. Helmed by near legendary ‘rock chick’, Deborah Conway, whose own body of work is as impressive as it is, dare I say, broad, the festival enters its third year with yet another stellar line-up joining Conway: Jade Macrae, Anne McCue, Sally Seltman (new Buffalo) and Abbe May. As always with BROAD, Conway does her interviews by email so here’s the transcript of the electronic conversation.

1. The first BROADs have set a very high standard – what do you think this mix of women will bring to the table?
Deborah Conway (DC): I‘m really excited about this year, possibly the best year yet. The potential in the combinations is particularly delicious, the voices are all so different and so beautiful in their own spheres. Sally’s subtle and delicate songs that flower into glorious multi-layered pieces of contemporary pop; Jade’s urban R&B grooves and incredible vocals; Anne who writes songs like Tom Petty and plays guitar like Jimi Hendrix and Abbe who sounds like KD Lang just swallowed a pint of Jim Bean and picked up a ukelele with a fuzz box – who wouldn’t be excited!

2. How do you go about selecting the women to appear in BROAD? Do you have along shortlist? What are you looking for in the performers?
DC: I’m looking for the differences in the whole group, voices that contrast and complement each other. I start with one person and if they say yes, that suggests the next kind of voice I could find and so on. I do have a long and getting longer short list, so much great talent out there.

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Sydney Entertainment Centre
August 15, 2007
Some 2000 shows and nine years into the now infamous The Never Ending Tour, Bob Dylan swings like the coolest dude in the bar-room. Perhaps, a tiny shade less impressive than at his outstanding outdoor bash in Centennial Park a few years back, Dylan was still the chameleon, reinventing his classics to a more modern, but no less imperious, perspective.

The Times They Are A-Changin’ is no longer a folk standard - this version had Dylan half-rapping, half spitting out the lyrics to a waltz tempo; a brilliantly twisted Tangled Up In Blue toyed with the main melody and messed up the rhythm; Masters Of War was a breathtaking blues monster; Watching The River Flow boogied and swung like there was no tomorrow; Workingman’s Blues #2 was a highlight, slow and moving; and Highway 61 Revisited – well, it was breathless, paint-stripping stuff, a roaring wind of a song.

Driving all this was the band Dylan describes as the best he’s ever played with. Stu Kimball (guitar), Donnie Herron (pedal steel guitar, lap steel guitar, electric mandolin, banjo, fiddle), Denny Freeman (guitar, slide guitar), Tony Garnier (bass, standup bass) and George Receli (drums) are simply outstanding – one of the best bands ever to grace the Entertainment Centre.

With Dylan now well immersed in 1950s swing, boogie, Southern blues and country-tinged rock, this black-suited, variously-hatted quintet never missed a beat and showed a level of musicianship that’s rarely heard these days. And Bob? Well he played guitar for the first five songs, then stood behind his keys for the remaining 12. He growled, snarled, poured the words out in gushes, then swallowed them whole. He ranged from unintelligible to perfectly enunciated and ended with a take on All Along The Watchtower that again redefined the song.

By then, the shoulders on the old master were jerking, the left knee twisting and he even allowed himself a wry smile from time to time. And why not? It doesn’t get much better than this and he knows it. Bob Dylan is very comfortable and very vital in these modern times.

THE AUDREYS ARIA WIN FOR BEST ROOTS AND BLUES ALBUM WAS WELL-DESERVED; LEAD SINGER TAASHA COATES IS AN ABSOLUTE GEM.
Interview: August 2006

Taasha Coates is a real charmer. Utterley likeable and disarmingly funny, she fits perfectly the aura that surrounds her group, The Audreys, where she is accompanied by dapper-suited men in a musical cross-genre potpourri that stubbornly refuses tagging. Oh yes, there is lots to like here.

Taasha is in the foyer of the ABC building in Ultimo, Sydney, having consumed breakfast in the “decidedly unglorious” cafe. She’s a real sparkler and bubbles over with nervous energy. “The last time I was here I saw Margaret [Pomerantz] and David [Stratton],” she says. “They are they coolest people. I thought I might chase them down then I thought that would be a dorky thing to do.”

Four weeks into a national tour that stretches over two months and sees the band sliding around the country playing everything from country towns to tiny bars and large festivals as they roll along in the slipstream of their well-received alt country debut album, Between Last Night And Us. Last week WA, this week NSW, next week Bulli one day, Launceston five days later.

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