Will it be funny tomorrow, Billy? by Stephen Cummings

 Will it be funny tomorrow, Billy? by Stephen Cummings

Melbourne: Hardie Grant Books, 2009              ISBN 9781740666435

I've always been a Stephen Cummings fan. Whether its The Sports or his later solo work, not a month would go by in my household without listening to something he wrote or sang. Even my sixteen-year-old son has developed a liking for one of his songs (Perhaps). I knew he had written a couple of novels, but I'm not sure I knew he had written this memoir (or, "misadventures in music") so when I saw it for cheap in my local second-hand bookshop, I picked it up.

I'm glad I did - this is a no-punches-pulled dip into the life of someone who was (is?) neurotic, narcissistic, prideful, anxious, and also one of Australia's great pop stylists. It's a collection of stories in vaguely chronological order about things that happened to him on his journey through the Australian music industry. It is by turns cattish, wistful, bitter, funny, and accepting. The opening sentence gives a taste of what is to come - "At this stage in my life I don't need libel actions but what the hell."

What do we learn from Cummings' scribblings? That he had a fractious relationship with his family, that he was famously a moody perfectionist that was hard to get on with, and that he's had interactions with nearly everyone in Australian music in the 70s and 80s - from organising a party where Lobby Loyde vomited on Kym Bradshaw, to being groomed by the Chantoozies, driving a Tarago to Canberra with Jo Camilleri, having a stand-up fight with Steve Kilby during a recording session, having a long-running feud with Michael Gudinski, being chauffeured around LA and annoying Billy Joel (the title of the book is a reference to that), and sharing other not-so-nice pieces of gossip (although not about Renee Geyer, as he "had to live in Melbourne with her"...). It's also a paean to those long-lost Melbourne venues and restaurants that made the city a great place to be in the 1970s and 80s, even though we didn't realise it at the time.

This is a fascinating book, and well worth reading for people of a certain age who love their pop music.

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell

Book Review - Grant & I by Robert Forster

Grant & I : inside and outside the Go-Betweens by Robert Forster

*Hamish Hamilton, 2016                  ISBN 9780670078226

The recently released and highly regarded documentary Right Here by Kriv Stenders has brought me back to The Go-Betweens, and to this book. I've had an arms-length relationship to The Go-Betweens and their music. In fact I began listening to them in a back-to-front fashion, as I was fairly lukewarm about them until I was blown away by Grant McLennan's album Watershed, which led me back to re-evaluate The Go-Between's output, with a better understanding of how I reacted to their songs. Basically, I'm a Grant man, not so much a Robert fan.

It is the combination of Forster and McLennan, and arthouse and pop, which is the reason that The Go-Betweens never cracked it for the big time, but why their albums will stand the test of time. The duelling tendencies of art and pop meant that many Go-Betweens albums were a mish-mash, with a potential Top 40 hit followed by a sparse, obscure song about a Russian novelist. It was an approach that gave the songwriters their head, but didn't bring  the commercial success they needed.

There is a pleasing naivety in Forster's book about the rock star potential of the band. During both iterations of the band (1977-1989 and 2000-2006) he writes of how the next album would be the one that broke them properly. That it never happened was partly down to the quirkiness of the music, and partly due to the self-destructive tendencies of the band itself.

A portion of that destructiveness came down to the influence of Lindy Morrison. Drawn into the band after she became Forster's lover, she (inadvertently) cruelled their first stint at success in the UK because Forster couldn't bear to be away from her, so he returned to Australia just as they were beginning to make headway. Morrison's anarchic influence and anti-mainstream attitude also damaged the band's sound and presentation at times, veering them away from any opportunity for more mainstream success. Forster is quiet on a lot of this in the book, as he is on McLennan and Amanda Brown's time as a couple. He deals gently with all ex-bandmembers, perhaps more so than he should have.

Grant & I is more a journey through Forster's feelings, from the idealistic beginnings of The Go-Betweens through the drudgery of years on the road, to the excitement of the re-formation, through to the trauma of Grant's premature death. The book is a tender evocation of Grant. Ever the gentleman, a product of boarding school (Forster too attended a top private school, and both were very good schoolboy cricketers), he and Forster did not usually discuss emotions: in fact at times during the book Forster has to dig into McLennan's lyrics to glean his co-writer's feelings.

Little did either Forster or McLennan know what a dramatic effect on their lives their decision to terminate The Go-Betweens in 1989 would make. For Forster it brought on a time where his life changed for the better, with marriage, kids and sobriety bringing him a new happiness. For McLennan, the decision was a disaster, signalling the end to his relationship with Brown, which took him the best part of a decade to get over. Forster charts McLennan's descent into depression and drinking with the tenderness and helplessness that only a good friend could display.

The reformation of The Go-Betweens seemed to suggest a turn in the fortunes of their musical endeavours, at least, with the band now recognised as an important part of pop history, and a new phase in the Forster/McLennan songwriting partnership foreshadowing a new level of music. Grant's death took all that away.

Forster mentions a few times in the book that he likes reading biographies of artists and musicians to try and achieve an insight into what makes them tick - he is also unashamedly as much of a fanboy as the rest of us, with moving and funny descriptions of meeting people or going to places that are important to his artistic growth. When it comes to describing his own art, he shows us yet again not only how hard it is to describe a creative process, but how hard it can be to divorce oneself and judge critically. He shows us that the criticism of each others work was a vital part of the Forster/McLennan songwriting relationship (wouldn't it be fascinating to read McLennan's take on Forster's view of The Go-Betweens work, and indeed his solo oeuvre). There is much that I disagree with in Forster's description of his own, McLennan's Go-Between work, and indeed McLennan's solo albums, but his descriptions are a valuable record of how a creator feels about his work, both at the time and viewing from a distance.

McLennan appears through the pages of this book as a boy somewhat lost in the World; a boy with a great gift that he tries to use for good, but which crucially let him down at a key point in his life. Forster comes out as someone who for much of his life was trying to be someone else, before finding himself. Along the journey some truly great music was made and recorded. This book is not a warts-and-all uncovering of dirty laundry, it is rather a considered and distilled evocation of a friendship, a partnership, and a band.

Well worth reading.

Cheers for now, from
A View Over the Bell

* This is the first time ever, in a 25 year career to do with books, that I have come across a book with no place of publication printed anywhere. I hope it's not a precursor of things to come.

Affecting Albums - Come Home for Autumn by Anthony Atkinson

Come Home for Autumn by Anthony Atkinson

Candle Records   2003

(If you have a Spotify account, clicking on the links in the song titles will take you to that track)

Candle Records flickered out somewhere about 2007, and what a loss to Indie Pop it was. The Melbourne-based label was home to artists such as The Lucksmiths, Darren Hanlon,, The Mabels, The Guild League, The Small Knives, and the list goes on. Each of these acts were lyrically rich, and produced fantastic pop tunes that can rapidly become tunes to live your life by as you can't help humming them again and again.

One of the stalwarts of the label was Anthony Atkinson, both as a solo performer and with The Mabels. Come Home for Autumn was his first solo album, and what a great debut it was.

Ranging from very spare guitar to rock tinged with feedback, each song takes us on a journey into love, work, and life in the inner city in the early 2000s.

Atkinson's delivery is often laconic, and his at times ironic lyrics, merging sometimes into lament, are showcased on "City of Crime", with it's wonderful slightly drunken summer afternoon drum beat and strumming, finishing with guitar picking into the sunset.....

"Sidestep" is a wonderfully simple sung duo on the difficulties of communication between men and women, underlain again by guitar.

The highlight for me from this album though is the rock-out track "Rediscover Me", with its simple pounding rhythm and feedback inspired guitar and lyrical fantastic-ness -

"Don't stay in London
Come home for Autumn
Like the trees,
I promise to be at my best

And I'm a firm believer
That our team's the season's sleeper
And I wanna know
Are you comin home for the parade
I wanna know will you be standing with me?"

........................

"But still I wait
Until you're over overseas
And I wait
For you to re-discover me"

This record is a little gem, and yet again a lesson in the truism that simpler is often better when it comes to pop music.

Worth re-discovering!

Come Home for Autumn is available on iTunes, Spotify, and from Plastic Viking Helmet Records, who also stock many other ex-Candle Records artists.

Cheers for now, from
A View Over the Bell

Affecting albums - Submarine Bells - The Chills

(Click on the links in the song titles to be taken to Spotify for a listen)

The Chills were and are a band that never quite made it. With the only  constant in a constantly changing line-up being Martin Phillipps, the band struggled for traction, with stability being hard to come by with Phillipps' struggle with addiction and hepatitis adding to the strain of changes of personnel.

The output of the band in terms of recorded work has, therefore, been somewhat limited over the years - it took seven years for the band to release it's first LP,  and their output to date is limited to four albums, and about as many EPs.

The album under review here was the band's second, released in 1990, and reached No. 1 on the NZ charts, and did quite well in other markets, but wasn't the huge smash that I think was hoped for.

There are some absolute pop gems here - Heavenly Pop Hit being the prime example. A fantastic organ chime theme runs through the song, and the dream like lyrics culminate in the line "It's a Heavenly Pop Hit if anyone wants it". This insecurity of the worth of his work runs through Phillipps' songs on this album:  In Oncoming Day, he sings -

"I think of words to tell you
I find nothing fine enough to say.
Nothing worth anything,
Nothing worth nothing,
Nothing left in this lump of grey,
That even vaguely says I love you,
In a way that pleases me.
So I'll let the oncoming day say it for me"

This, in a song that is one of the most lyrically beautiful songs you might hear, says a lot about the state of mind of the writer. The music to this song fits the worlds very well - a driving insistent beat and rhythmic guitar driving the song, just as Phillipps is driving himself in the lyrics to beat the oncoming day and produce something worthwhile. Of course he doesn't need to worry - he has.

Many of Phillipps' songs are to do with the world, and his seeming belief that pop has the power to change it - Singing in my Sleep, with it's wonderful bouncing rhythm and bell-like riff, is one of those songs, and the fine ending lyric "Singing in my sleep songs of such beauty and sadness, Earth's emotions encaptured, but the songs fade away when I wake".

There are harder edged moments on this album - Familiarity Breed Contempt shows Phillipps in a darker mood, with the music to match - "Hard people make hard times far worse, not the reverse", with an almost shouted verse line and wall of sound building up to the biting final line "Familiarity breeds contempt - and I'm not exempt", a fine end to a pop jeremiad against cynics and idiots.

There are delicate gems on this album as well - Don't be - memory is a plaintive song about lost love, where really the title says it all - wonderful minor-key vocals, and a sparse chorus lending a sadness that lingers after the final chord.  There is some other beautiful vocal harmonic work on this album as well, I Soar being perhaps the best example - a song where simplicity creates beauty.

The final masterpiece is the song that gives the album it's name. Submarine Bells is another song about love, and is a wonderful, dreamy, evocation of the beauty of the moment.

I've surprised myself with how much I realise I love this album - every song is a winner, and it's a shame that The Chills didn't get wider airplay, and that they've released such a limited amount of material. I highly recommend this album.

Submarine Bells is available via iTunes, or Amazon.

Cheers for now, from
A View Over the Bell

Affecting albums - Of Skins and Heart - The Church

(Click on the links in the song titles to be taken to Spotify for a listen)

The Church would have to be one of Australia's longest lived bands. Formed in 1980, they are still going strong today, with a sold out tour going on as I write this post. As with any band that has lasted 30 years, they have had high points and low points, changes of line-up, and an impressive 19 album releases.

Not quite pop, not quite new-wave, the distinctive guitar sound, harmonies and cryptic lyrics have led to The Church being in a genre of their own.

Of Skins and Heart is perhaps not their best album (for this reviewer The Blurred Crusade and Starfish would be two immediate contenders), but as a first album it had an electric effect on the Australian music landscape, and certainly made The Church a band to watch.

Highlights on this disc are The Unguarded Moment, which would have to be one of the finest pop songs to come out of Australia, Chrome Injury (although I've got no idea what the lyrics are about!), Is this where you live, and She Never Said.

Of Skins and Heart also started a not-so-good tradition for The Church, which lasted for quite a while, where the last song on the album is a bit of a dog. If you never hear Don't Open the Door to Strangers, you won't be missing much.

The Church were the precursor to a wave of jangly guitar bands coming out of OZ in the 80s and 90s - their influence has been huge, and it all started here.

Of Skins and Heart is available via iTunes, or at Amazon.

Cheers for now, from
A View Over the Bell

Affecting albums - Calenture - The Triffids

(Click on the links in the song titles to be taken to Spotify for a listen)

The Triffids were one of the great Australian bands of the 80s. Like many bands from Down Under in that period, they almost, but not quite, made it to the big time. Again, like many of those bands, several songs they recorded have gone on to be Pop/Rock classics, but never hit the top of the charts at the time they were released. The tragic loss of lead singer David McComb at the early age of 37, ten years after the band's demise, means that we can no longer have a live experience of his magic as a singer and songwriter.

Calenture was The Triffid's fourth album in what was a prolific recording period for the band (three albums released in two years), and as it turned out was their penultimate recording. Somewhat of a departure from their previous sound, Calenture is full of lush orchestration, which suits not only the deep voice of McComb, but the sweeping lyrics of the tunes.

The two songs from the album that made an impact at the time are Bury me deep in love, which is a classic lush pop song, with strings and vocal harmonies lifting the chorus from the slightly plaintive verses. A real sing in the shower song, for mine. The other tune that made an impact was A trick of the light. While more lush than earlier work, this tune is much more like earlier Triffid's work such as Wide open road - sparse, evocative, with lyrics of lost love and what might have been. Again, the chorus is one you will whistle all day long.

The rest of the album is quite mixed musically - from the the simple bluesy Hometown farewell kiss, the stark and brooding Unmade love, and the just quirky Jerdacuttup man, a song about a body preserved in a peat bog for thousands of years.....

Calenture is one of those albums that you play on a spring Sunday afternoon and realise that the world is a beautiful place, even when sad things happen.

Calenture is available on iTunes, or Amazon.

Cheers for now, from
A View Over the Bell

Affecting Albums - Gossip - Paul Kelly and The Coloured Girls

(Click on the song titles to have a listen to them on Spotify)

Number 2 in the series of Affecting Albums falls to Paul Kelly and the Coloured Girls, and their album Gossip (1986).

This was the second album that Paul Kelly released, after 1985's acoustic effort Post. In fact, four songs from his first album made it onto Gossip, getting the "full band" treatment. The mid 80's was a golden age of live music in Melbourne, and Paul Kelly was an integral part of the scene that was then developing.

Gossip marks the true start of Kelly's recording career, in that it set his style as a singer/songwriter who is at his best telling stories through song, and who sings songs very redolent of place. Most songs on Gossip are straightforward pop, but their lack of cliche, and the way they spoke directly to audience's life experiences proved instantly popular, and since this album Kelly has never looked back, to become the Australian music icon he is today.

The album has many highlights - the quintessential Melbourne song Leaps and Bounds, with the classic opening verse -

I'm high on the hill
Looking over the bridge
To the M.C.G.
And way up on high
The clock on the silo
Says eleven degrees

I remember...

To Victorians of a certain age these lines bring back images that remain as vivid today as they did 25 years ago. Sydney was not forgotten either, with another classic song, Randwick Bells.

There was an early sign of Kelly's concern with Aboriginal affairs in Maralinga (Rainy Land) a haunting and effective evocation of Aboriginal suffering connected with the atomic tests in Australia in the 60s. This song is musically the most unusual, with a droning monotone effect that piles on the pressure until the final ironic verse -

they said do you speak English?
he said
I know that Jesus loves me I know
because the bible tells me so

While these three songs may be what I remember first off, it would be remiss not to mention Before too long, and Darling it Hurts, which became the hits from the album, and had wide radio play.

Another factor in the brilliance of this album was it's size - depending on the version purchased, you got 20 or 24 songs for the money, and not a bad one among them.

Gossip (the full 24 song version), is available on iTunes. Check it out.