Hugs and Kisses 58: Comet Gain

Posted at 10:00 AM, September 4, 2008

Another week, another episode of Hugs and Kisses from Mr. Everett True, Plan B editor at large, Friend of Kurt, cantankerous chap who's recently relocated to Brisbane. David Feck can reach him at everett@planbmag.com — Not David Feck

Hugs and Kisses

The Relocated Outbursts of Everett True

This week: Comet Gain

Comet Gain, "Why I Try To Look So Bad" (MP3)

Part One

In another life, maybe I could have been David Feck.


I would have understood that Dexys Midnight Runners―"Plan B," "Until I Believe In My Soul," "This Is What She's Like"―are special beyond reason. I would have grown up tormented by a diet of early Orange Juice albums and Marine Girls outtakes. I would've known that the debut Orange Juice album (You Can't Hide Your Love Forever) was so special, special beyond reason, I would have named one of my band's songs after it. I would've been able to parade my broken soul, my insouciant pride with my south London band Comet Gain over years of turbulent concert after turbulent concert, impassioned album after impassioned album.

I'd have grown up feting TV Personalities and the raw-as charm of Sixties garage bands, and realising that though I'd never achieve the fame of all those sucker DJs and made-for-TV straight-tied indie bands, I'd eternally be cooler than them. I'd be best friends with Ian Svenonius and Huggy Bear's Jon Slade and rest content in the knowledge that Riot Grrrls argued over my merits in darkened corners, wherever TVs are turned down low. I'd be whining soulfully like Swell Maps. I would never rest content.

Round about a decade on from my band's formation, I'd be looking to release a collection of the forgotten music (B-sides, outtakes, half-realised ideas) and call it something like Broken Record Prayers because I always did love the imagery of early Wah!, the self-deprecating, arrogant swagger of Kevin Rowland. I'd know I was better than everyone else, because I'd been to Scandinavia and Internet bloggers were always dropping my name.

I wouldn't be content–but at least I'd be David Feck.

Part Two

I've only started up two record labels.

The first (Calculus) was with my friend and band-mate Jamie, in the Eighties. We wanted to release an EP ("Bored, Angry And Jealous") by Australian band The Cannanes in the UK―but got distracted momentarily by the sheer vigour and brilliance of nascent Scots band Dog-Faced Hermans. Then some mates of our mates Shop Assistants―The Fizzbombs―announced they wanted to release a beach party 12-inch with us. How could we resist? Then our distributors went bust―owing us a ton of money, because the records had all sold just fine―and we were unable to release The Cannanes.

About three years ago I recorded a version of one of those songs from the Cannanes EP―"Untitled"―with my bandmate Danya and former housemate Jon Slade, for a Cannanes tribute album. It never came out.

The second label (Mei Mei) was with my friends Darren and Alison, in the mid-nineties (shortly after I was laid off from IPC Magazines). We formed after we saw a particularly inspirational show from London band Comet Gain―the centerpiece of which was a semi-spoken song/declaration of intent, "Jack Nance Hair." I burned with desire to let other people hear it. We released it as a seven-inch, and put out a CD or so from Mogwai's Scots friends, the fiery Motor Life Co. The records didn't sell too well, I moved to Seattle briefly, and the label ceased.

"Jack Nance Hair" is the opening song on Broken Record Prayers. It still sends shivers down my spine.

Hugs And Kisses Top 5
This is what is (randomly) happening on my iTunes today

1. "I Feel Like The Mother Of The World," Smog (from Rock Bottom Riser). Ah, Mr Callahan. We meet once more.

2. "Noêlle A Hawai," Naf Nat (from Fantasia De Navidad: A Siesta Christmas Collection). I honestly have no idea what over half of my iTunes collection is―this, on the other hand, is from a totally suave Continental label's collection of holiday exotica and lounge music.

3. "You Turned My Bitter Into Sweet," Mary Love (from For Dancers Forever). Absolutely storming slice of Sixties Northern Soul, lifted from one of those immaculate Eighties Kent compilations of same and rendered only marginally unlistenable by iTunes' insistence upon turning everything into MP3s.

4. "Song For William S Harvey," Felt (from Absolute Classic Masterpieces Vol. 2). Felt singer Lawrence was the John Darnielle, the Momus of his day―sadly for him, a fraction too early to achieve the worldwide cult-hood the Internet would've bestowed upon his consummately crafted Sixties-style Eighties English pop. He is long overdue a revival. Incidentally, this is an instrumental.

5a. "Mary Long," Deep Purple (from The Platinum Collection). Every now and then, I like to add what I fondly think of as ‘shit' music to my collection just to remind myself what I'm missing.

5b. "UR Grace UR," Slow Down Tallahassee (from The Beautiful Light). My Sheffield sweethearts appear, with a heartrending slice of shambling country-pop, to remind me of why I so love fucking music in the first place.

Hugs and Kisses 57: Stereo Total and the Brisbane Live Scene

Posted at 12:00 PM, August 28, 2008

Another week, another episode of Hugs and Kisses from Mr. Everett True, Plan B editor at large, White Stripes book author, all-around bearded dude who's recently relocated to Brisbane. Harass him about liking the Spice Girls at everett@planbmag.com — SOTC's Home Spice

Stereo Total photo by Cabine

Hugs and Kisses

The Relocated Outbursts of Everett True

This week: Stereo Total and the live scene in Brisbane

Stereo Total, "Carte Postale" (MP3)
Stereo Total, "Party Anticonformiste" (MP3)

Folk dance like it's the Eighties here—all uncoordinated arms flailing at their sides, feet moving on tiny imaginary bike pedals, heads shaken furiously from side-to-side. The girls all dress in pleated skirts and Olympia tops: the boys, straggly and occasionally bearded, struggle to keep up (as always). There's a semi-pogo happening in spots—or at least the energy of one: a fair amount of grabbing another dancer and swinging round for three seconds or so, raising the occasional arm in the air. No hair-slides sadly, but a few badges pinned to lapels—dude, this is Brisbane, after all. The crowd at the front is resolutely mid-twenties. Behind, the age shoots up by several years. It's making me very happy, watching this bustle and giggle of enthusiasm being exerted stage-front: it's making me feel far more at home than anything this side of our local ice cream vendor; it's making me begin to think that I've definitely chosen the right city to stop in, that there's no way Sydney or Melbourne would support this sort of unabashed support—too cool. And you know what? The band on stage is as un-cool as I've seen for many a long year.

And they're glorious! Recently, I've been having mainstream Australian TV folk poking fun at my taste because I admit to a fondness for The Spice Girls. But, but, but, they're entertainment! They have great pop songs, and harmonies, and voices you can recognise in a darkened lift. And these folk are mainstream…Jesus, they probably think Bono is cool! Are The Spice Girls un-cool? Is Stereo Total? Should there be any sort of differentiation simply 'cos the last time I saw one was at the front of an Italian stadium packed with 20,000 screaming pubescent girls and the other one was at the front of Brisbane's Gallery of Modern Art packed with a couple of hundred of reasonably excited arty and lesbian and hipster sorts? Both are great. Both dress ridiculously, in clothes that just can't exist outside of punk designer hovels. And both are top-class entertainment.

Stereo Total were nothing like I expected—I thought there would be about eight of them, for a start, racing around the stage and being all cutsie and energetic and YOUNG, kinda like Los Campesinos!, only with balls (and pussy). No no no: two members—the dude all lanky and supremely awkward in PVC trousers like an ex-member of great deconstructionist German punk band Die Toten Hosen, forever whipping the crowd up into a fever of expectation, doing absurdist dance moves and stopping only to swear good-naturedly at his effects pedal. And the lady was rockin' the school librarian look—only for real, with her hunched shuffle and stern glare and reams upon reams of lyric books that she'd fluster over. It was all very fine and Continental and something you just couldn't appreciate in a big city like New York or London without having a great big neon sign flashing IRONY in six-foot letters above their heads…and that wouldn't have worked either, cos the one thing this amalgam of punk and disco and splatter and pop and chanson and glitch and more disco and punk wasn't, was ironic.

It was simply great, fucking great pop music—and man, I can't ever get enough of that.

Hugs And Kisses Top 5
I have 74,749 songs on my iTunes—even allowing for duplicates, that's still a solid five months of non-stop listening. Which ones will play today?

1. "Party Anticonformiste," Stereo Total (from Party Anticonformiste) [MP3 here]
Wow, that's some coincidence! Oh wait, I've had my iTunes set to play only Stereo Total for a week now.
DOWNLOAD: Stereo Total, "Party Anticonformiste"

2. "El Paraiso," Causa Sui (from Causa Sui)
It's heavy, it's relentless, it's brutal…and it's 12 minutes 40 fucking seconds long and nowhere near heavy enough. Where's that search function gone?

3. "You Know You're Right," Nirvana (from Nirvana)
Wait, is this that new song placed on a ‘greatest hits' to bamboozle diehard fans into forking out money once more? Oh right. I prefer ‘Free As A Bird.'

4. "Contreras 2am," Kama Aina (from Music Activist)
This is what's termed ‘easy listening' on iTunes. What – because it isn't noisy? I'm thinking Walter Wanderley. And you…?

5. "No Generation Gap," The Wipers (from Over The Edge)
People in Brisbane have this mistaken belief that I'm a fan of ‘grunge.' Uh-huh. Unless you mean this sort of edgy, paranoid, tightly-wound rock music from one of Portland's finest.

Hugs and Kisses 56: Robert Forster, formerly of the Go-Betweens

Posted by Everett True at 1:15 PM, August 21, 2008

Another week, another episode of Hugs and Kisses from British journal keeper Mr. Everett True, Plan B editor at large who's recently relocated to Australia and, as we told you last week, already managed to piss off all the locals so furiously that it made the news. Send him your impassioned defenses of the Vines to everett@planbmag.com — The SOTC proctor

Hugs and Kisses

The Relocated Outbursts of Everett True

This week: Robert Forster

Mostly, I sat entranced, lost in a reverie. I was appreciating the restraint being exercised in front of me on stage. I was appreciating the dry humour. I was appreciating the solid, good sound. I was remembering watching Elvis Costello perform at Brighton's Dome when my wife Charlotte was pregnant with our son Isaac, and appreciating the good, solid sound then. I was watching the shadows—a deep, lustrous red and welcoming, lighting up the wall of Brisbane’s Powerhouse space the way the sun hits the deck in the evening. My mind was flickering through the years, I was 19 or 20 again and not quite sure what to make of that awkward, downbeat Australian trio The Go-Betweens when all around was fire and clamour: they sang of dust and shadows and street lights in the rain. And it touched upon a time a few years thence, and how angry I was that I amended my best lyric—my best damn lyric, “Like the middle-eight from a Go-Betweens song”—in its recorded version, because I figured it was too specific. Of course, when I was 23, 24 I didn’t even begin to register why people who read Dostoevsky look like Dostoevsky, and I had no way of knowing how central Go-Betweens would become to my life.

So I looked at the shadows. And I listened to the performer, former Go-Betweens singer Robert Forster, recount a story about going down to the Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park to see Patti Smith play a live show, and how all these famous journalists from across Europe turned up and he was stuck outside with his partner. And I was thinking, I could have been one of those famous journalists he was referring to, it was the right year, but I wasn’t. I wasn’t into classic rock then.

Now, I am. In fact, now I so am I’d be prepared to listen to Bob Dylan—something I’ve never been prepared to do my entire life. Now I am, have been ever since The Go-Betweens returned several years back with an album, The Friends Of Rachel Worth which I swear remains my favourite, and not just because Janet Weiss drums on it, but because it features a glut of Forster songs—“German Farmhouse,” “Surfing Magazines,” “He Lives My Life”—that kill me. He performs them all tonight while I’m gazing at the swirling shadows, and it’s my world. Right now, it’s my world. We both live in Brisbane now and it seems less than coincidence, more like predetermination. Man. That’s some heritage right there, former rotten totalitarian state government or not.

And I’m enjoying the classic rock, kept under wraps. (That one solitary harmony on “He Lives My Life” is the most perfect solitary harmony this side of Joey Ramone.) Robert’s a great band, augmented by that kid from Flamingo Crash. The lady drummer from I Heart Hiroshima (acolyte of Weiss) is two seats across and she’s consumed with envy. She’s great too, but has way too much personality to be down there on stage. My mind is a hive. I think of former Cannanes drummer David Nichols and his book of The Go-Betweens which I’ll never read, and the way he coaxed me back into making music. I think of my UK band’s failed attempts to record a song for the Grant McLennan tribute album, mainly cos we kept picking on Forster songs by accident, but also because…well, you’ve got to realise. I don’t want to be Robert Forster (to paraphrase an Aussie pop star).

Before “Born To A Family,” Forster announces that “this is the story of my life, in three minute, eight seconds pop song” and then the microphone breaks, and he adds “this really is the story of my life” and then no one comes on to fix the mic and he has to switch with his guitarist, and the guitarist and that wonderful former Go-Betweens bassist make like “George and Paul” on the one remaining mic, even bobbing their heads and grinning inanely like they’re on Ed Sullivan… and there are many moments like this, moments like the terrifyingly resonant “121” (second encore) which I mistook for “From Ghost Town” with its full-on rocking and references to “tombstones/cobblestones/those old bones that lie beneath this city," moments where Forster does a soft-shuffle like Nick Cave with his arms above his head, moments like the opening acoustic set where the band is introduced on stage one by one, or third encore “People Say,” which remains a favourite Eighties moment… it’s weird how often Forster references the weather when you consider how little Brisbane’s weather changes from day to day.

The following evening, driving down Settlement Road, we witnessed the most glorious sunset, a cascade of fiery reds and ambers and inclement purple. It was the sort of sunset that could change a life.

Hugs And Kisses Top 5
Everett True has 74,748 songs on his iTunes. Which ones will play today?

1. “Jesus On My Side,” Teen Angels (from Daddy).
All-female Seattle punk band featuring Kelly Canary, ex-Dickless—not as reckless or spontaneous as her previous, but still featuring one of the rawest, blood-choking screams of the Pacific Northwest.

2. “Princess Leia,” Ništa Nije Ništa (from 4 Wolves Attack).
Seriously fine pan-European all-female experimental outfit—a little bit Faust, a little bit Lindsay Cooper, and a whole lot of imagination. Not sure what the Star Wars fetish is all about, though.

3. “Grumbling,” Ike & Tina Turner (from The Soul Anthology).
In polite company I would never admit to having Tina Turner on my iTunes. But this is an upbeat—albeit entirely pointless—instrumental funk workout. So, whatever.

4. “I Was A Stranger,” Smog (from Red Apple Falls).
Ah, Bill Callahan. We meet again.

5. “The Married Men,” The Roches (from The Roches).
Oh my God. I love the Robert Fripp-produced debut album from this quirky, disharmonious, folksy female trio so much. This wouldn’t necessarily be my first pick—go to “The Train”, “Hammond Song” or “Mr Sellack” for that—but hell. I’m glad it’s come up. It’s been several days since I last heard it.

PREVIOUSLY
Robert Christgau on the Go-Betweens

Hugs and Kisses 55: Jeremy Jay

Posted by Everett True at 9:26 AM, August 14, 2008

Hugs and Kisses

The Relocated Outbursts of Everett True

According to his K Records profile, Jeremy Jay is blonde and handsome and wants a cat for his apartment. He lives in Angel Town, next to Larchmont—and likes to drive around with the moon roof open. He sings like he’s stuck within the Art Deco-era storybook romance of French New Wave cinema, and has a Fifties Rock’n’Roll sensibility. He likes Buddy Holly and Richie Valens.

I don’t know about that.

I do know that he likes to layer his voice in reams of echo. I do know he reminds me—above all else—of great forgotten early Eighties British singer Ziro Baby (of cult teen sensations The Tronics). I do know he likes fuzz and romance and the odd touch of percussion. I do know he sings like a man stuck within a dream of a past that never existed, not even in the storybooks. I do know that if he rode a motorcycle he would ride it like Marianne Faithfull. I do know that, some of the time, he sounds locked within a lonely room some of the time, A Man Apart. That he reminds me of my main London crush Mathew Sawyer, and that he quite possibly favours tequila alongside the wicker baskets and speed buggies at picnics. That he sings winsome and inquisitive and welcoming like Jonathan Richman about to be mowed down in There’s Something About Mary. That to hear his voice and surf guitar and echo-laden resonance on his debut album A Place Where We Could Go is like a breath of fresh air in this weird Queensland town where the locals seem to get upset over the slightest thing.

His MySpace page shows someone who looks a little like Brian Jones, when Brian Jones looked like someone. I don’t know about that, but I do know that his song “Where The City Sleeps” snaps its fingers and struts like an early torpid Go-Betweens number, and references street lights and old apartment buildings, and throws in the odd shred of noise to keep us on our toes. And I do know that Jeremy Jay is someone I would’ve loved to have discover, no matter what age I was, but that to discover him now feels particularly sweet—now we have ice cream vans still chiming their wares down our forest cul de sac, now when the winter sunshine never ends, now when the memory of The Easybeats still keeps the newer breed of chart Aussie acts at bay.

The man sings about rooftops and street lights over the odd roll of cardboard box drums and Fifties guitar croon, and looks like the sort of fellow you’d cross over the street just to congratulate for being alive. The man sings about summer waltzes and soliloquises in the shadows.

Hugs And Kisses Top 5
I have 74,748 songs on my iTunes. Which ones will play today?

1. “Funk Gripsta,” Ice-T (from Home Invasion)

I could never take him seriously after that whole metal farrago. But this sounds pure Beastie Boys.

2. “Tell Me,” The Termites (from Girls In The Garage Vol 1)

Wonderfully, the crackles and hiss are still audible on this prime slice of post-Shangri-La’s Sixties femme pop. You’re still probably better off skipping a few songs to The Whyte Boots’ timeless “Nightmare”, though.

3. “Within You Without You”/“Tomorrow Never Knows,” The Beatles (from Love)

What a major disappointment this ‘new’ Beatles mix album turned out to be, right kids? Not exactly groundbreaking.

4. “José,” Lee Hazelwood (from Lee Hazelwood And Friends)

This Spaghetti Western-esque slice of sub Johnny Cash country would be absolute rubbish except…it’s Lee. Oh Lee. I still miss you.

5. “The Greed,” Schwaß (from The Schwaß Family System)

I’m thinking No Age, The Go! Team…but nothing like.

Hugs and Kisses 53: The Breeders

Posted by Everett True at 12:55 PM, August 7, 2008

Another week, another episode of Hugs and Kisses from Mr. Everett True, author of Nirvana: The Biography (da Capo Press)—one more fucking book about one of the most overrated bands of the Nineties. He has been doing this for us over a year, which is something like a decade in blog years. Send him belated birthday wishes at everett@planbmag.com

photo from McCarren Pool by Sam Horine; more here

Hugs and Kisses

The Relocated Outbursts of Everett True

This week: out on the town

I was watching The Breeders last night.

Here's what I was thinking. First up, there are some performers where it's almost impossible to have an off-night: the force of their personalities shines through, whatever happens. Not that I want to be implying The Breeders had an off-night last night (far from it), but for the first 10 or so songs – especially the opening trio, because Kim Deal had quite deliberately chosen to open the set with some new songs, one of which seemed to be all about how she didn't like to travel – while the set was warming up, I was beginning to think that way. My wife (looking quite beautiful in her leather skirt and tie: and if I'm honest then I was certainly thinking about that) remarked that all The Breeders song seemed quite short,and she was right. But that, as I commented back, is simply because not only does Kim Deal eschew unnecessary instrumentation but she also can't abide unnecessary noise. Whereas most other bands would've kept each song going for another two or three minutes, repeating the same idea over and over, Breeders songs are often truncated (sometimes brutally, it feels), to keep them fresh.

So yeah, I was thinking about my wife's beauty and the sparseness of the sound.

And then I noticed how ordinary Kim and Kelley Deal are—and this ordinariness is some of what is most charming about them. Sometimes, it can be a little irritating: all the on-off stage banter between the sisters and the technicians is presumably quite fun for the travelling players but a little exclusionary as far as the wide-eyed go. But there again, it's the charm. Kim treats everyone equally: Jeremy from Florida working the decks, some kid yelling out for ancient favourites, the beery couple behind us talking loudly through all the more poignant moments ("Here No More," "Regalame Esta Noche"), her sister…I mean, I know it's standard for bands to tell us that INSERT CITY is the best INSERT CITY they've ever been in, but when Kelley Deal lets on that if she was to ever move to the Southern Hemisphere she'd choose Brisbane—and then Kim throws in a comment that Brisbane reminds her of a few cities close to her native Dayton, Ohio—you kind of believe her.

So I was thinking about the ordinariness and the amount of laughter that was coming from the Deal sisters on stage, and how this of course supplies the contradiction that is at the heart of their appeal: the fact that folk so ordinary can create music so magical, so harmonious, so full of lasting grace, that folk in Brisbane show up wearing grunge-era shirts such as Soundgarden and Citizen Dick and "Death to the Pixies" (of course) and clearly think The Breeders are some sort of decayed rock gods on a par with the ones who actually try to be someone special.

And then I thought about how striking my wife is, and how weird we must look together – and resolved to shave my entire beard off, first chance I get.

And then I was thinking about leaving London and Brighton behind, and moving to Brisbane, and how Kim and Kelley were supposed to show up at my leaving party, but didn't (they had some show or other to play —some excuse!), and about the previous night's show with Tricky, and how much I missed such casual genius as Tricky and the Deal sisters, being stuck out here, halfway to paradise…

And of course, while all these thought processes were going on, I was bobbing and swaying and shaking my head back and forth, and "Divine Hammer" and "Cannonball" and "It's The Love" and "Happiness Is A Warm Gun" and all those other signifiers of my adult life were flashing past, and I was realising, How Sweet It Is To Be Here.

Hugs And Kisses Top 5
Five Breeders songs that hold special memories

1. "Drivin' On 9" (from Last Splash)
This is as good a road song as anything from Daydream Nation.

2. "Istanbul" (from Mountain Battles)
Where we going? To the city! Man, I wish I could wake every morning in Istanbul and shout that!

3. "Divine Hammer" (from Last Splash)
No Breeders list could count itself a Breeders list unless it listed "Divine Hammer."

4. "Doe" (from Pod)
It's the one about oral sex.

5. "Here No More" (from Mountain Battles)
Among the jollity and passion, it's easy to forget quite how plaintive, how poignant the Deal sisters can sound.

Hugs and Kisses 52: Mick Turner

Posted by Everett True at 11:18 AM, July 31, 2008

Another week, another episode of Hugs and Kisses from Mr. Everett True, author of Nirvana: The Biography (da Capo Press)—one more fucking book about one of the most overrated bands of the Nineties. He has been doing this for us over a year, which is something like a decade in blog years. Send him belated birthday wishes at everett@planbmag.com

Mick Turner

Hugs and Kisses

The Relocated Outbursts of Everett True

This week: music in confined spaces

There’s a great Australian film from the Eighties called The Year My Voice Broke. It’s set in 1962, in a rural backwater, where a shy, nervous schoolboy called Danny (Noah Taylor) plays out an unrequited love for childhood friend Freya (Leone Carmen). There are some memorable, deeply affecting performances from the youthful cast, capturing adolescent yearning well, but that isn’t the film’s main attraction for me. Director John Duigan lovingly lingers on New South Wales’ open spaces, weaving among the slowly developing action a great sense of time and silence and heat. It left a lasting impression upon me – and clearly upon the Australian public too, as it was nominated for nine awards by the Australian Film Institute, winning six – so much so that, two decades on, I find myself living in the verges of overgrown Aussie country town Brisbane. The main theme for the film is a piece by English composer Robert Vaughan Williams, The Lark Ascending. The mournful, haunting violins and clarinets seem to perfectly capture both Danny’s solemn and earnest primary fumbles and the countryside that surrounds him.

I was reminded of it again last night in Brisbane’s Gallery Of Modern Art, as I sat looking at a series of paintings from Pablo Picasso’s personal collection (Cézanne, Picasso himself, Salvador Dali, a disturbing Miró self-portrait) while vertiginous instrumental music wafted down the corridor. Outside, neon skyscrapers and city ferries plied dazzling reflections upon the river. Inside, Dirty Three (and ex-Moodists) guitarist Mick Turner dazzled with his unassuming adventuring upon guitar and melodica – a sliver of bow across the strings here, a looped dub beat there – while behind him, images flashed across a screen: home road movies of scrubland and trees, illustrations of colour-saturated, distorted child-animals and washes of waves subtly changing tint and orientation. The mood was inclement yet peaceful, as if hinting at a looming storm that never quite burst, filled with the promise of Australia’s great untamed wilderness and the water-filled streets of St Kilda, yet somehow contained wonderfully by the clean, spacious lines of GoMA.

He was wielding magic – nature’s magic, earth’s magic – with his lanky fingers and bow and mouth, but that wasn’t all. No, not at all. For behind Mick, sat teasing and crashing and flurrying and chiding his drum kit, was a man I (and others with too-long memories) had once venerated as near-god – and that I (and others like me) had long given up for dead, Mr Jeffrey Wegener. It was weird, near surreal. The last time I saw Jeffrey on stage was over two decades ago – as one of the two vital components in BEST FUCKING ROCK’N’ROLL LIVE BAND EVER, FULL STOP (Brisbane’s Laughing Clowns). And just by happenstance I encounter him again…?

The first couple of numbers it seemed like the pair was playing different songs – on different planes altogether. Maybe it was Jeffrey’s nerves, maybe we all needed to settle. But then, not even gradually just then, but just you blinked and checked out the Miró painting, noticed the more you looked the weirder it got, the pair coalesced and the sun was in its heavens, the rain was in the clouds, Danny was finally coming back to stay and his love this time would never leave him, would never betray such a fragile, blossoming heart.

Yes, it mattered.

Hugs And Kisses Top 5<

Five Brisbane Records I Enjoyed Last Friday

1. I ♥ Hiroshima – Punks (Valve)

It’s whiplash smart, and full of energy: the (new) new wave as Williamsburg bequeathed to us a few years hence: and as sassy as even These Dancing Days.

2. Lullatone – The Bedtime Beat (Room 40)

Not strictly from Brisbane, but on a Brisbane label – some Japanese noise adventurers once again proving that when it comes to gentle, sweetly spooky, nursery electronics they have no peer.

3. Flamingo Crash – Triangle Island (Side Kick)

Their drummer is the new Clem Burke, honest to Jeffrey. And their sound is post-disco (early Eighties) with a few sneering pouts thrown in.

4 Vegas Kings – Dead Money (Mere Noise)

Forget The Strokes (what do you mean, you already have?). This is outright demented, as only bands raised on Australian’s finest punk band period, The Saints, can be.

5. Do The Robot – Amp On Fire (Valve)

Scots band Life Without Buildings were undeservedly obscure – scattergun, stream-of-consciousness female vocals over searing guitar. They split, after (oddly) completing one low-key Australian tour. Here is one band that obviously managed to see them (more than I ever did). Good on them!

Hugs and Kisses 51: The Gin Club and Everett's Couch

Posted by Everett True at 2:52 PM, July 17, 2008

Another week, another episode of Hugs and Kisses from Mr. Everett True, author of Nirvana: The Biography (da Capo Press)—one more fucking book about one of the most overrated bands of the Nineties. We once let him survey the contents of his desk. Two weeks in a row. Now he's moved onto his couch. Maybe one week, we'll get the contents of his fridge?

Hugs and Kisses

The Relocated Outbursts of Everett True

This week: the contents of Everett's sofa

There isn't much.

To my left lies a CD by local wastrels and heroes The Gin Club. Its cover reminds me of an early Tindersticks album, it’s a double and I mention it now because I’m listening to it now because I saw them play a few days thence in front of a crowd of mullets and bare legs, leather jackets, pool tables and ‘winter’ scarves. I’d resolved not to mention them because the song they contribute to Brisbane Sounds 2000 reminded me of the more ponderous aspects of Nilsson and Oasis—beardy and swaddled with emotion sure, but not my scene at all. And I didn’t want to mention this because virtually every person we know in Brisbane has some sort of connection—be it label, musician, partner, fan, band-member…but I held out hopes for their live show, been informed how they keep switching between singers, have a somewhat drunken approach to performing that verges on an art form, that it quickly turns into a parlour party. And on their latest album Junk, a double, sprawling set comprising 26 songs and any number of hybrid country rock style veering from Flying Burrito Brothers to Gram Parsons to…oh, hold on…there’s more than enough to tap into memories…

Last night I dreamt my teenage friend and mentor, visual artist Ian Wieczorek—the man who introduced me to post-punk at the time of post-punk—had taken over the role as editor of Melody Maker, had approached the role with his customary irreverence and good humour, and was absolutely baffled by the publishing company’s insistence on only putting Bob Dylan and Dave Grohl on the cover. (It was sort of an Almost Famous scenario, played out with bands no one wanted to sell to the masses.) We had to huddle in church aisles while I explained the avarice of sales teams.

And then I wake, and discover The Gin Club CD waiting to be reviewed, and it makes me smile. Ian would never have appreciated this. Well, maybe he’d like the parts that sound like Portland magician M. Ward, and damn straight he’d have dug the Go-Betweens standard guitar motif on the resonant “Already Gone,” and the way the piano comes spiralling lazily in elsewhere, and…wait up. I seem to recall in real life, Mr Wieczorek didn’t appreciate the classicism of Forster and McLennan, leaned much more towards the avant and abstract and energetic…but he couldn’t have failed to be swayed by Gin Club live, because overwhelming—up and over and above any merited Big Star leanings (and of course there shouldn’t be anything wrong with that, but there is, simply tarnished by association with a decade of British acolytes who borrowed everything but the spirit)—they reminded me of the full-on inebriated shambolic gung-ho approach of early Eighties Mekons (before they turned full-on country rock, oddly) and of course there ain’t nothing wrong with that, no sirree, nothing at all. It’s music made for waltzing to and crying crazy whiskey tears to (see the plain beautiful “Something Rotten”), and hoping and wishing and lamenting, and stuff like that just doesn’t translate to the cold, sofa fix of digitally enhanced stereo, it ALWAYS needs to be experienced in the company of strangers.

And Ian certainly liked all that.

So, back to my sofa—and there’s a pair of dirty grey iPod headphones, here to cut out the sound of Isaac playing the harmonica (pretty well, got to be said); and there to make my laptop sound halfway palatable. And there’s a scrawled-over, typewritten diary informing me that Dirty Three/ex-Moodists guitarist Mick Turner is playing shortly, and damn I need to see that, and that there’s a Dr. Seuss exhibition playing way out of town till July 20, and damn I’d like to see that. And that’s about it.

Someone was kind enough to send me the new Seconds album. Maybe in the next post they can send me a record-player…?

Hugs And Kisses Top 5
What Everett True wishes he could be listening to right now

1. Los Campesinos!
They bounce and they reference Calvin Johnson, and they’ve listened to Bis, and they’re scenesters (where’s the insult?) but until I find a way of ridding my computer of Skype, there sure ain’t no way I’m hearing this.

2. Wild Beasts.
Heady theatrical pop that recalls the heyday of The Associates but…see above.

3. The Bug.
Ragga, street dub, industrial dread and bass-lines to get the arterials pumping but…

4. Times New Viking
At this rate I may even admit to liking shoegaze but…not yet.

5. Tricky
I really have not even the vaguest idea what this sounds like….

Hugs and Kisses 50: Conor Oberst and More

Posted by Camille Dodero at 10:05 AM, July 9, 2008

Everett True is the "roving ambassador" of Plan B Magazine, an author of more rock books than we have spots on our Amazon Wish List, a Wikipedia entry, a Sound of the City columnist, an Australian transplant. His son Isaac likes to run away with his things, most notably the tape of a rather important Kate Nash interview.

Hugs and Kisses

The Relocated Outbursts of Everett True

This week: Future suicides and past crushes

My son has run away with my Wire CD.

I don’t know. It’s raining and I was looking forward to discussing the new Conor Oberst album. I have a soft spot for Mr Oberst. He used to seem tormented with the agonies of youth, smart beyond his age, imaginative and able to absorb influences (Daniel Johnston, David Bowie) with an ease that charmed in its insouciance. His shoulders rounded like a future suicide. Every word he sung, he sung like it would be his last. He cared. I didn’t take his histrionics as camp or cabaret although if I had done, I’d probably be enjoying his new ‘solo’ venture Conor with the same vigour I save for Dresden Dolls. But I’m not. Conor has swapped his anguish for the trappings of adulthood, but he’s too in thrall to the classic songwriter mould…and I don’t do ‘adult’ anyway.

And if I did do ‘adult’ I’d be listening to Neil Young.

Mark Arm said a wise thing when I interviewed him for the Sub Pop 20 shenanigans at the start of the year: “In the early Nineties when that whole ‘Unplugged’ thing started happening I was like, ‘This is bullshit’. ‘Touch Me I’m Sick’ unplugged? That would be stupid sounding. And people would say, ‘Oh you strip it down to this acoustic thing and then you get the essence of the song’. I totally disagree with that. The guitar sound is of maximum importance. You could do a really bad version of a great song.”
Conor sounds to me like Bright Eyes Unplugged. Can I leave it there? I still have a soft spot for Mr Oberst and I’m supposed to be interviewing him tomorrow. But I really don’t do alt. country.

So I thought I could write about the new Wire album Object 47 instead. I have a soft spot for Wire singer Colin Newman, too. He came round my house once, ate tea and biscuits and smouldered in his forty-something anguish. (He didn’t disappoint. He still kicks.) And I thought that by writing about the new Wire album (think 154 for context) I’d have an excuse to slap my headphones on and avoid my son running round screaming about not eating kiwi (the fruit) and demanding to access his Letterland game on this screen. But now he’s gone and stolen the damn CD. Isaac...!

Dude, time has not withered them. I think we’re on the fourth cycle of Wire by now, still reinvigorated by Britpop’s wholesale stealing of their finer riffs in the mid-Nineties (it was cycle two I never appreciated, wherein they invented Tortoise, the bastards). This new album is great fun – abrasive and abstract and autonomous and astringent in equal amounts – although it does have the weird quality of continuously reminding me of a less chipper Blur. There are tape loops, subverted to the passage of the song. There’s a feedback storm on “All Fours”, making whoopee like Spectrum. There’s mystery and malignancy and misanthropy. It’s an album that challenges, that couldn’t exist without technology but isn’t ruled by technology; that switches between soundscape and songscapes with impunity. I fall out with Wire when they become too studio-obsessed, but technology has always been at the heart of their sound. So I go for the old school, drawn-out, spoken “Patient Flees” over the glitchy “Hard Currency” every time; and do wonder if even this most forward-looking of bands are able to escape their past fully (listen to the pure 1978 futurism of “Are You Ready?”) but then…none of us ever do.

None of us ever do.

Hugs And Kisses Top 5
Everett True’s main squeezes this week

1. Xylaroo, “Set Me On Fire And Send Me To Canada” (www.myspace.com/xylaroo).
“They’re a bit Tegan And Sara, aren’t they?” remarks an expert. Really? Must check them out. I was thinking The Concretes, actually.

2. These Dancing Days, “Run Run (Radio Mix)” (www.myspace.com/thosedancingdays)( HYPERLINK "http://www.myspace.com/thosedancingdays" ).
Anyone who reminds me of forgotten British powerpop (1979) group The Photos is fine in my book. Oh, and The Sundays of course.

3. Nagisa Ni Te, “Midsummer Overhead” (from the Jagjaguwar album Yosuga).
Trickling down: gentle, teasing, trembling – pretty much the exact opposite of the relentless rainstorm outside our front door right now.

4. Wet Dog, “Alibi” (www.myspace.com/wetdogthebest).
The august British music journal Q has described my main London ladies’ forthcoming debut album as sounding like, “incompetent primary music school lessons”. This frankly is a fucking major accolade, bearing in mind the source. (Yeah, and John Coltrane played funny too.)

5. Slumber Party, “Love Will Tear Us Apart” ( HYPERLINK "http://www.myspace.com/slumberpartyband" www.myspace.com/slumberpartyband).
So Aliccia doesn’t send me her music anymore. I still love them. And this Joy Division cover by this sweetest of Detroit bands oddly ends up sounding like Electrelane – a plus, obviously.

Hugs and Kisses 49.5: Tenniscoats' Totemo Aimasho

Posted by Everett True at 12:33 PM, July 2, 2008

Hugs and Kisses

The Relocated Outbursts of Everett True

This week: The problem with music

“You basically hate all music, don’t you?” remarked our friendly local Brisbane hipster —the one in the all-girl Breeders soundalike band, the one who thinks music shouldn’t have been allowed to continue past 1996 (ie: ‘indie grunge’)—after we’d singularly failed to be impressed by our absent host’s record collection (a lot of Butthole Surfers and Birthday Party, plus Bongwater, Gang Of Four, Flipper…even a little Ut). “Well, no. It’s because I know I already own every good record from that stack already,” I shot back. Well, no. But it’s kind of hard to put on some dirty, scuzzy rock’n’roll (as beloved in the Brisbane rock clubs) when you have a three-year-old running round naked, shouting “KILL KILL” and imitating Zurg from Toy Story 2. You really don’t need the competition.

“This sounds nice,” remarks Charlotte as I attempt to listen to Tenniscoats’ gently seismic Totemo Aimasho. (Blam! That was Isaac running into my coffee cup, and spilling it over his socks.) “It sounds like the sort of music you hear at massage places—meditative, soothing…it even has the wave noises.” She isn’t trying to be sarcastic.

In the silence between the cries, this music is something special indeed: reflective, harmonising, full of subtle intricacies and gentle, lapping sounds. (Blam! That’s Isaac running over, sticking his tongue full out and screeching full-on.) When the softened female voice appears, it seems to be in a competition with the distant brass and washes of (“I’m going to wipe the other alien off! I’m going to wipe the other alien out! I wiped it out!”) synthesiser and flute to be as gentle, caressing as possible. You kinda don’t want to be exposed to the outside world at all while listening to this beautifully expressive, poignantly frail Japanese outfit: everything quiet is amplified to such a degree it feels like being stuck in a finely tuned acid loop, the sensations are so heightened. (“Where’s D? Where’s D? I just found D. Let me look for Y.”) The slightest chord change becomes momentous—and sometimes— the soundscape merges into the everyday, refracting and reflecting off the hubbub to create kaleidoscopic new textures. And when—as on the closer “To Do First”— Tenniscoats burst into effortless song, the feeling becomes euphoric, the listener is near-overwhelmed by the beauty of life’s minor moments. The vocals tremble, whisper to infinity, the mood lifts, lowers, remains. Drums brush, experimentally. Bassoon (or something) blows cool (“I DON’T WANT MY SHOES ON!”)…

…but sometimes silence can be preferable.

Y’know?

The Return of Hugs And Kisses Top 5

1. Tenniscoats, “Cacoy” (from the Room 40 album Totemo Aimasho). Meanders and cradles soft emotion: feedback doesn’t need to be a tool of aggression.

2. Teenage Jesus And The Jerks, “Freud In Flop” (from the forthcoming Cherry Red album Shut Up And Bleed). The track that invented Sonic Youth.

3. The Young Liberals, untitled (from the CD-r Dick Wolf).
Brisbane scuzz rockers match Detroit punk (Dirtbombs, specifically) to British bloody-mindedness (Billy Childish, especially). Recorded in a ditch in under a day. Or something.

4. Tenniscoats, “Donna Donna” (from the Room 40 album Totemo Aimasho). A garage anthem played with unfamiliar-to-rock instruments, to match Maher Shalal Hash Baz’s “Unknown Happiness,” Clive Pig’s sojourn in Brighton and The Pastels’ “Firebell Ringing”. Don’t get the impression this is anything less than magical.

5. Zuzu’s Petals, “Dork Magnet” (from the Rhino album Kicking Our Own Asses). Let’s give my Minneapolis ladies another shout, to celebrate the release of singer Laurie Lindeen’s moving rock biog Petal Pusher in paperback.

Hugs and Kisses 49: Brisbane Label Room 40

Posted by Everett True at 11:08 AM, June 25, 2008

Hugs and Kisses?

The Relocated Outbursts of Everett True

This Week: Room 40

I feel spaced out. Hold up, I’m going to make some more coffee.

Met a feller, name of Lawrence English, the other day at Brisbane's Powerhouse (a big converted space where all the city-funded artistries seem to take place). Outside, it was sunny and we discussed the impracticalities of trying to make a living from self-financed projects. (Lawrence runs a fine avant-garde label called Room 40 that releases CDs full of gentle magic and tape loops). Meanwhile inside a whole bunch of music business types ate city-funded canapés and drank city-funded alcohol while listening to ideas designed to help promote Brisbane as a "city of music" on an International Scale, something along the lines of, um, Seattle in the Nineties. The ironies seemed mutable. Perhaps they should enlist someone who helped turn Seattle into a city of…nah. Who'd bother coming all the way out here?

None of Room 40’s releases come in jewel cases—at least, not the ones Lawrence passed along to me. Now, excuse me while I’ll take a tangent, but I want to share with you a couple of primary impressions of Brisbane rock folk: 1) everyone loves Smashing Pumpkins, 2) everyone loves Brian Jonestown Massacre and 3) no one seems embarrassed by either fact. On one level, I find myself warming to my new friends’ lack of cool. It’s refreshing after so many years of being held in thrall to the zeitgeist in Brighton, England. On another level, it shocks me to my core: what demons lurk at the heart of loveliness? Gathered at a swarm of twenty-something female musicians roasting marshmallows over an open fire, I was deliberately exposed to a Smashing Pumpkins song (I’ve never consciously listened to the band before). “Ah, is this what Smashing Pumpkins sound like? Well then, that explains it,” I stated blandly. “Explains what?” my companion asked. “Why so much music is shit. After all, this band was enormously popular in its time.”

On another occasion, I was asked whether I preferred songs or soundscapes. Good question: the former, of course, otherwise I might be a Smashing Pumpkins fan, cos Corgan sure as shit can’t write songs. My (popular) musical education happened in a time and place (1977-8, England) when pop music was punk and punk was pop. It was all about the voice, the sound and the song—all equally as important, not one ripped asunder from the other.

Mr English passed along several of his CDs to me: much appreciated. I welcome anything that ISN’T ROCK, that DOESN’T WHINE AT THE TOP OF ITS VOICE. But here’s the weird contradiction at the heart of Everett True: much as I rail against rock music and cliché and form, that’s still what I appreciate most. Room 40 deals in soundscapes and landscapes and seascapes and escapes, and through the minimalism of loop and laptop and 4-track artists, such as Steinbrüchel [artwork for Basis above] and Qua and Leighton Craig, demands active participation on the part of the listener—yes, even though you believe this music is designed to immerse, foliate, soothe; and here’s the rub. Same way film is a crap art-form because 1) it’s dictated to by money and 2) it corrodes the need for imagination, I sometimes wonder whether my ears have been dulled by too many years of listening to FUCKING OBVIOUS verse-chorus-verse (however splendid the sound) and thus are unable to appreciate the micro-delights of Lawrence English’s own For Varying Degrees Of Winter album, because the changes of pace and texture are too small, too detailed. Month in, month out I read descriptions of this very music in the pages of Plan B and wonder: do I really need the visuals? Do I really need THE VOICE to appreciate texture?

But wait: my argument doesn’t hold. Because Lawrence’s music does everything for me—in its crackles and slight crescendos and silences and seagull-in-flight beautiful audio and miniscule frailties and oscillating synthesizers—that I’d hoped for, but not found, in the other Room 40 releases. It trips solicitude and unbidden memory and imagined other worlds, the same way The Residents’ Eskimo once overwhelmed my senses, but without the sense of mocking laughter in the background. It’s so nearly not there, it’s mesmerising. It feels like I’m at an installation, without the irritating video screens. It has entirely calmed me down.

I was going to talk about Tenniscoats—another Room 40 artist, who make me delighted the same way that Brisbane verandas and Melody Dog make me delighted—but that will have to wait now. I have the remainder of Mr English’s gentle rhapsody to listen to.

Hugs and Kisses #48: I Heart Hiroshima, Dick Desert & The Country Club and More

Posted by Everett True at 3:51 PM, June 19, 2008

Everett True is not a rock journalist. He is Everett True. -- Not Everett True

Hugs and Kisses?

The Relocated Outbursts of Everett True

This Week: How Everett spent his day

It's raining.

I have watched a clip of Penny Rimbaud (Crass) meeting John Lennon on Ready Steady Go and fired off several emails to various Australian editors, all accompanied by a resume. "Highly interesting CV," remarked one. No work offered. I have haunted These New Puritans' MySpace page, noted their passing resemblance to Prinzhorn Dance School (it is only passing, mark you: and nowhere near as minimal--or post-punk as their name would imply) and wished that I too should have grown up in a climate where boundaries between music did not exist. Or maybe I don't? Tribalism is one of youth’s great pleasures. I have heard the theme tune to Thomas The Tank Engine too often. I have mused upon writing this week's entire column around a snatched listen of Duffy's debut single several months back, and resented anyone who has ever called me a "rock journalist." I am not a fucking rock journalist. I am Everett True.

I have toyed with the idea of reviewing a Brisbane compilation album, but soon realised such a concept would lose me the handful of friends I have tentatively made. I did wonder if I could get away with talking up track seven, Dick Desert & The Country Club's excellent necrophilia-baiting, cow-punk toting "George Bus's Chicken" – the nearest thing I've heard to Jon Wayne's second since, um, Jon Wayne's first. But then someone looked at me askance, muttered stuff about "burlesque ladies" like I should really be worried, and indicated they'd split. I mean, Butcher Birds are really like a way grungier Breeders with a hint of malice aforethought: Warm Guns hand-jive and skitter around like kids who never got over seeing their first skinny tie Eighties outfit: Butterfingers remind me of my London homeboys Milk Kan (uh, with way more money in the studio) and that ain't no bad thing (as do The Whats): Black Mustang revere Suzi Quatro's "Devil Gate Drive"--and who doesn't?: Vegas Kings sneer (and certainly sound) even better than The Strokes, and kick fuzzy-ass bottom like it's 1978 again and folk appreciated The Go-Betweens not the hell-spawn of Ozzy. But at least 1,235 of the other songs I do not appreciate at all, being well known for my apathy towards anything "adult" or "mal" or indeed "rock"...

I Heart Hiroshima, however, have absolutely stolen my heart with their "Punks" contribution, which is like all the good bits of Good Shoes, Blood Red Shoes, The Shoes and The Sneakers tossed together...um, you can see where I'm going with this...and have the innate good sense to name-check Several Close Personal Friends Of Everett True (© 2008: Everett True) as influences, such as Electrelane, Sleater-Kinney and Slumber Party, even if I sure can't hear them anywhere, but certainly can The One And Only One Good Cure Album Ever Made (© 2001: everyone), Three Imaginary Boys, and have tautness and tension and great female/male interplay and…wait…are they playing soon?

I think I'm going to be sticking around a little longer: tropical rain and male rock or no tropical rain and male rock. Yeah, baby.

Hugs and Kisses #47: Amy Winehouse, Australia, Rehab, Etc

Posted by Everett True at 12:15 PM, June 11, 2008

Everett True is the "roving ambassador" of Plan B Magazine, an author of more rock books than we have spots on our Amazon Wish List, a Wikipedia entry, a Sound of the City columnist, an Australian transplant. Plus, he belongs to an elite membership of people who're both Not One of Those Who Has a Job and Not One of Those Who Has a Home. Infuriate him with terribly banal shrimp on the barbie jokes at everett@planbmag.com. — The SOC bad joker

Tired of her yet? Even Everett is.

Hugs and Kisses


The Displaced Outbursts of Everett True

This Week: basking in tropical Brisbane

I don’t like listening to Amy Winehouse in Australia, not here where it stays 28C and gets dark at 5.30pm.

It’s a shocking discovery, if not entirely unexpected. In my old life, Ms Winehouse signified late night sophistication, the allure of cheap neon, the allure of being part of the now, warmth, familiarity, integrity in a world hardly based on same, nostalgia for the shakes, slippers carelessly discarded on bedroom stairs with cassette tapes lying shattered all around, revelry with no desire for illumination, the usual. Now, she sounds hasty, not bawdy exactly, but tarnished by association. What use do I have for intimacy when surrounded by so much open green, refreshed by tropical rain? I can still delight in her voice, appreciate the thrill of her chase as she momentarily gives herself over to The Song but now I find myself turned off by the outmoded clutter of production, the reference to the Present Day (whatever that signifies). The horns on “Rehab” still sound kittenish and coquettish but…y’know…rehab? Despite my announcement to bemused Aussies that I can’t be handling alcohol right now because I may have handled alcohol too much in the past, I don’t make a song and dance about it. Or do I? Is it simple jealousy that makes me unable to appreciate Ms Winehouse right now?

I don’t know (shrugs).

One reason I appreciated Ms Winehouse so much when I first heard her (roundabouts last Christmas, 30 years after everyone else) was because I usually feel so alienated by the zeitgeist—all those tawdry talent contests on TV, all that midriff flesh hanging loose—it felt so comforting to be in the muesli-bar aisles and grooving to the same sounds as The Herd. Now, I get that feeling from Kate Nash (only yesterday in Woolworth’s) but not Ms Winehouse. She’s too worldly. Plus, I never could stand the coffeehouse gentrification of Nina Simone. Now, when I hear those beautiful muted horns on Frank’s “Help Yourself,” I just yearn for a rerun of Sharon Jones And The Dap-Kings’ triumphant rerun of Marva Whitney’s times and voices.

I’m reading Jonathan Coe. He came free with an airport copy of The Times. He greatly depresses me. Partly because his tales of “prog rock, punk rock, bad poetry, first love (etc)” remind me of John Braine (who always greatly depressed me), and partly because he reminds me of Amy Winehouse—cutting edge culture commodified for Those With Jobs, Those With Homes.

I think I need some Ivor Cutler. And fast.

And I still have no idea who Slick Rick is.

Hugs and Kisses #46: Rude Mechanicals and Serpentone

Posted by Everett True at 10:30 AM, June 4, 2008

Everett True is the "roving ambassador" of Plan B Magazine, an author of a bunch of rock books, a Wikipedia entry, a Sound of the City columnist, and a brand-new (again) resident of Australia. Ask him to send you a piece of the Great Barrier Reef at everett@planbmag.com. — The SOC towel girl

Hugs and Kisses


The Relocated Outbursts of Everett True

THIS WEEK: Portland, Oregon shenanigans

Wait a minute.

I want to write this week’s column about SERPENTONE. The cover to this Portland trio’s album Spiraling (why don’t Americans learn to spell properly?) features a woman playing guitar, hair flailing, head covered. I was intrigued when it showed up yesterday, mainly cos it’s now the only CD in my house and partly because it was sent by a lady who still bothers with handwritten letters. The music is an engaging, slightly naïve, take on the raw anger of Poison Girls, Babes In Toyland and yr nightmare Sixth Form anti-frat band: all vaguely obvious lyrics about vampire-ish, leeching boyfriends, Minivan Moms and S&M relationships, yellow belt level. I say it feels oddly naïve, especially as it looks to be dealing with the darker side of human relationships—but maybe that’s cos you can understand the words. (Hey, tip for all those looking to draw from Kat Bjelland’s still rigorously compelling exorcism: you can’t fucking understand the words. That’s the whole point.) That’s all to the good, though. The music is dirty, old school grunge, bluesy. Their MySpace page claims the band has been described as “Willie Nelson meets Nirvana” and “Neil Young meets the Dead Boys,” but frankly whomever described it as such is most-ways deaf. It is nothing of the sort. It is Portland OR rock music circa 1991, make no mistake. And yet Erika Meyer’s voice is quite something else: she often reminds me of the raw-throated polemic of Vi Subversa—especially in the lyrical structure—and sometimes, when she really reaches into herself, as on the blistering “Folding,” the unmatchable Thalia Zedek.

And then I noticed that all their photos had been taken by Rozz Rezabek, and I’m like, “Whoa dude, serendipity” or something, cos Rozz and I share quite a big something in our past, despite having never met (and never being likely to), and it seems that our musical preferences still collide a little in the present day…cos I’m really growing quite fond of this CD, even if it does sometimes come across as a little too obvious and a little too ‘amateur’ (whatever the hell that word means, and it sure don’t mean to me what it means to you) because that was always part of the appeal of The Poison Girls and, um, that former captivating rock band front-person turned infamous widow turned Z-list film star whose name escapes me right now, even if it does touch on the same damn chords being used in the dives and bars of NYC in 1975, and…hell, I don’t know what I’m trying to say, except…

Have you any idea how unusual it is for me to enjoy an unsolicited CD these days? And to want to hear it again? And then, as I type these words, another one appears—the Zappa/Beefheart theatrics of the free-moving RUDE MECHANICALS’ album Glass Eye (loads of drums played like percussionist is doing the washing up, and off-mic oboe, and the feeling that these folk surely have to be the same age as me because they love Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, Here And Now, Lindsay Cooper, Make Up and Skill 7 Stamina 12 just like me, surely?)…and you know how unusual THAT IS???

Very.

Hugs and Kisses #45: Slow Down Tallahassee

Posted by Everett True at 10:27 AM, May 28, 2008

Everett True is moving back to Australia. So enclosed with this week's column, the venerable music mensch writes, "Everything's gone from our house, pretty much, bar this computer—and our internet provider cut us off last week, against our instructions. Borrowing a neighbour's right now." So for once, give thanks for what you take for granted: a weekly column from Mr. Everett True, "roving ambassador" of Plan B Magazine, a title dedicated to writing about music (and media) with barely a nod towards demographics, a man who writes about music even when he has none. Or something. — The SOC mint-pillowing maid

Slow Down Tallahassee: name sponsored by assisted living.

Hugs and Kisses


The Confused Outbursts of Everett True

THIS WEEK: Power-pop’s not dead

Remember, a couple of weeks ago I promised to write about a variety of exotic artists —ranging from the latest Bedroom Community practitioner to bedroom music from Tasmania so something I’m not sure I even listened to (Paper Bird)? Well, guess what? I diligently put aside all the relevant information and music, only for it to disappear in the madness of shipping. Damn. It’s cold here without our bookcases, and with but a Hoover to wield.

So wait. So what? I still have the memory of the sweet, churning, Costello-style Sixties pop of Slow Down Tallahassee’s debut album The Beautiful Light to sustain me through these bleak hours of no man’s time: the way the three female voices congeal in controlled harmonious splendour, the poignancy of their songs railing against rain ruining hairdos amid Spector-esque drumbeats…

For a brief, forgotten moment back in 1978, there was this wonderful sound called power-pop, quickly overwhelmed by punk’s vociferousness – slightly edgy bands schooled in the post-Beatles chug of Nick Lowe and (early) Cheap Trick. Yes, I’m talking The Records, The Freshies, The Boys…or if you want it more obvious, what followed later: Dolly Mixture, The Tourists (whom, despite the presence of the horrendously overstated Annie Lennox, were really alright), The Photos, The Mo-dettes.

Slow Down Tallahassee—my radio sweethearts from Sheffield, England, remember?— have at least three songs the standard of their own first demo “So Much For Love”, and that’s three songs way more than most bands possess, but if you feel the need for more parallels then, at a pinch…Seattle’s bounce-laden Visqueen, Edinburgh mid-Eighties band The Fizzbombs (without the fuzz pedals), The Judds (without the twang), The Go-Go’s (of course), Jesse Garon & The Desperados (a name I try to throw in at least once a month), Clive Pig…um. I miss power-pop, always have done, always will do—“Starry Eyes” anyone, for the most underrated song of the Seventies?—but Slow Down Tallahassee help to ease the pain.

Every chord is minor, every trauma is epic and teenage, every heart is heavenly, every walk is rain-splattered, every street is paved with heartache. (Power-pop wasn’t all chirpy-chirpy-cheapness, you know.) And that’s the way I like it.

And wait! I’ve just remembered. What have I been doing the past three months if not turning my entire CD collection into MP3s? 76,878 songs and counting…Quick, where’s the iTunes?

Ah, here it is. I can happily report that on Cryptozoology, Paper Bird happily imitates tumbling Japanese waterfalls and plaintive childish games utilising rudimentary electronic, a soft acoustic and wood-blocks: and charms, quite unnecessarily. Her voice reminds me a little of Jane Siberry (but there again, everything reminds me a little of Jane Siberry, especially if I owned a dog), and every note lingers. We’re talking typewriters and recorders, and pianos recorded on 4-track. And that’s the way I like it, uh-huh.

What I cannot do, however—because my bastard Internet suppliers Tiscali cut me off two weeks early—is to report on the country of origin, or indeed nationality of the winsome, wastrel Paper Bird. I’d say Swedish at a push, but I’m probably wrong.
I usually am.

Hugs and Kisses #44: Everett True's Moving, Plus the Twits

Posted by Everett True at 3:31 PM, May 22, 2008

Middle guy looks like the organ player from the Hold Steady, no?

Hugs and Kisses


The Continued Outbursts of Everett True

THIS WEEK: dreaming of a better life

I think I’m having a relapse.

In about 10 days time, my wife, son and I are upping roots and heading for Australia—Brisbane, initially, home of The Saints and The Go-Betweens (we’ve been warned by a Sydney sort that it’s like heading for Hull, or Madison in US terms, I guess). We’re excited, stressed—the stress not helped by the fact I’m trying to rip my entire CD collection to MP3, and iTunes keeps slowing down. That’ll be 67,550 songs and counting, and still with my Tom Waits, Timi Yuro and Rough Trade CDs to transfer. There’s been plenty of reminisces, but—bearing in mind our imminent change—one has really stuck with me.

I’m kind of embarrassed about it. I mean, it’s not like this group has many redeeming qualities. Most of their CD is unmitigated sub-Blink 182 rubbish: crap lyrics, wank fantasies to Posh Spice, transvestites and Mums You Wanna Fuck, with a Viz-style cartoon cover of four cheeky Neanderthals crossing a road, plenty of songs about drinking and chucking up too, all set to the most obvious three chords in the punk songbook. The guitar is Johnny Ramone buzz-saw drone. The lyrics are borderline football crowd quality. There’s a totally crap Buzzcocks cover thrown in somewhere (“Ever Fallen In Love”). But I guess there’ll always be a part of me that’ll be a wannabe crap Ramones tribute band member—because I can’t help myself. I fucking love (entirely obscure, and probably rightfully forgotten) Melbourne punk band THE TWITS.

I can’t explain it. But I can’t control myself. I was sent their original Albert Road 13-track demo while I was working at Melbourne broadsheet The Age in 1999, and two songs from the collection went straight onto our punk/soul driving tapes when we were visiting New Zealand over the Millennium – the classic loser/stalker song “Chelsea Heights,” a song dedicated to a girl with a “lot of love bites” who “works at the Safeways at Mentone”… “I’ve been there 15 times for nothin’/I’ve got four cupboards full of muffins/Why don’t you ask her out you gutless little shit?!/I guess I’m just a dopey Pommie git.” (The second verse where the singer eulogises the joys of being able to being able to look straight through the Desired One’s shirt at her “tits” is pure dumb genius.)

And then there’s the brilliant, prime Sham 69 (That’s Life, for anyone paying attention), autobiographical “Another Shit Saturday Night”, a song that could easily have soundtracked (um, part of) my teenage years. “Was at the disco-tech where you first caught my eye/You came towards me, and I just stood there starin at your thighs/You asked me what my name was, I told you 10.44…” Me and Charlotte have many happy memories of singing lustily along to those two songs as the gorgeous, verdant scenery of NZ’s North Island rolled by. (I think the appeal probably dimmed for Charlotte somewhere round the 21st listen.) For these songs—and these songs alone (trust me)—I’m willing to overlook Melbourne’s appallingly bonhomie-laden pub rock scene and once more embrace Australian rock to my bosom—um, Wolfmother aside, of course.

A quick Google later, and I discover that not only are The Twits still going, but they’re now managed by Tim Rogers—who, in Australia (and in some parts of Seattle too), is a Very Famous Rock Musician Indeed. Oh shit. If any of them get to read this, it probably means I’m going to be inundated by a million offers of crap punk shows…
It’s not too late to turn back