It was one of the more daunting tasks. Meet Tex Perkins at the Espy to do an interview, late on a Friday afternoon. Shit. The last interview I did with the biggest, coolest bastard of Oz rock went a treat. He phoned my house, called himself Gregory and told some pretty sordid stories about his days in The Beasts Of Bourbon. But for this interview I had little to go by: only an imminent new album; and a recent collaboration with You Am I on the Dirty Deeds soundtrack. I had to wing it and I was nervous. What do I ask him? What do I do? What do I wear? Too many questions.
Get to the Espy, see Tex in a full booth with band mates, Joel Silbersher and Charlie Owen, not yet finished an interview with The Age’s head music writer, Patrick Donovan. Nightmare. I wasn’t prepared for any of this.
Introduce myself to everyone and join the group. It seems that Donovan’s interview had only started. I had only one choice. Tag along. Wing it. Turn the tape recorder on and away we go.
To settle in, I let Patrick Donovan continue with his questions. I was cool with that. I know his stuff. He knows his stuff. Shouldn’t be a problem. Let The Age guy ask all the essential questions and then swoop in with the money shot question. The perfect plan. Easy.
Already Tex, Joel and Charlie were well into talking about the almost finished new album and had finished telling Donovan about a ‘country folk’ version of Bob Marley’s Concrete Jungle they had recently recorded with local dance diva, Amiel (you remember, the girl who sung on Josh Abrahams’ Addicted to Bass).
Then Donovan asks Tex what goes on, lyrically on the new record and gets the reply, “Everything and nothing.” The Age journo digs in with the hard nosed, newsy bloke question, “Break-ups from years ago?” He’s good, this Donovan. I would never have had the testiculi to ask that one…
“No, definitely not,” says Perkins. “I was thinking about their break-ups. Intentionally, I avoided all that. I’m quite happy with all my situations. This time I was very much conscious not to do it and keep the concept very broad. Elemental. The songs are a little more obscure.”
Silbersher chips in, “Sexy, romantic and late night fun.”
It’s time for me to ask one. Have we found out yet, musically what the new record sounds like?
Tex: “Yes, we said it’s like the Dark Horses album, the last one but with a little more rock in approach. It doesn’t rock so much but it has a rock approach. More crashy bashy with a new drummer.”
Donovan, “So tell us, what’s the drummer situation?” It’s almost like we’re working as a team. Tex answers, “I love Jim Elliot but I’m in another band with him and we wanted a drummer who was prepared to crash and bash a bit more. “
Charlie Owen elaborates: “The first one had a lot of folk elements, the second more constructed and practically electronic in approach, and this one we decided to approach it more like a band would.”
And then Silbersher, “Also the way playing with a drummer you change the way you play to the way he plays and it sounds different because of that. It’s not more aggression or more rock or anything like that it’s…”
“In a different suburb.” I’ve just finished Joel Silbersher’s sentence. Yes, the cheeky, funny bastard behind one of my fave ever, local albums Hoss’s Do You Leave Here Often, is saying some important stuff and I finish his sentence. Excellent.
Charlie and Joel elaborate and I’m getting some of it when, in the background, Tex’s voice booms, “You’ve got to show your shit.” Don’t know what he was talking about when he said this to Donovan, but it was a good quote. Way too good to leave out of this story. Then Tex joins our conversation, further describing the Dark Horses’ new drummer, Skritch, “He’s a Dave Grohl sort of drummer with a dub sensibility.
Joel loves Skritch. “He mixes a lot of bands and is a real rocking sort of drummer. He can play any instrument, is very musical and doesn’t drink which is fantastic.”
Joel’s drink rider quip helps to degenerate the conversation into 10 minutes of drink and drugs related rabble. All very funny at the time but on tape or on the page, it’s just shithouse, incoherent rabble. Amongst the mess, Tex came up with this little treat, “You have to share drugs as a band. You boys have heard the stories where half the band is taking heroin, the other half is drinking beer and two weeks later they split up. The band must all take the same drugs.” Sure, it was enjoyable but I was losing control of the interview. The journo pro, Patrick Donovan makes a save. He asks about Tex’s acting career and we find out about his role doing voices in the animated Canadian/Australian television show, Quads. “I played an alcoholic, has been, rock star.”
Silbersher, the smart arse, “You must have spent a lot of time researching that…”
Perkins, “I just spent and afternoon with Ian Rilen and I was there. It was great fun.” How do you you get that sort of work? “You just be an alcoholic rock star. They put out the call for people and I had to audition. The main character was sponsoring my character in AA.”
Another of Perkins’ roles was that of a dog with Noah Taylor in the short film, Down Rusty Down. “You never saw that? That’s my finest work. It’s kind of got the aesthetic of a cartoon and we are all guys dressed in dog costumes. I was talking to Noah recently and he was saying it was his most known piece of work because it was sold to a cable station and whenever there is a ten minute break in programming, they slot in Down Rusty Down. There are some people in the United States who’ve seen it over 100 times.”
The Age journalist leaves to get a jug and tell Perkins that Tim Rogers claimed him and Tim Hemmensley are the two best singers in the country. Tex is chuffed, “Well, that’s very generous of him. He’s very generous with his praise, Tim. Since I did the Dirty Deeds thing with Tim, I’ve been spending a bit of time with him. We’ve actually been going out for a kick on a regular basis.”
What, a Thursday night kick to kick?
Tex: “Bring a ball, find a paddock, go for a kick…”
No torps?
Tex: “It’s all there. I got him to show me how to do a banana kick the other day. It’s still a mystery to me. He’s a very skilled footballer. He probably could have easily considered a career.”
Does Tim Rogers kick with both feet?
Tex: “His left is better than my left. We’re both right footers.”
I take a deep breath and say, that I saw him Roy and HG and thought he looked a bit daunted. “I looked daunted? I was in my element,” Perkins protests. “It was my greatest moment on television. I was very comfortable. I was not daunted at all. Did I look daunted?”
Alright, what I’m getting at is that while you won’t get any interesting questions asked of you today, you sure won’t get any asked from you on TV.
Tex: “Of course not. It’s just a matter of banter. Doing the TV talk/chat thing is an art in itself. You’ve got to be a little bit pissed. It’s a matter of finding a bit of quick wit.”
He won’t let it lie. “Personally I thought I did quite well on Roy & HG.”
The best bit was when you read the news…
Tex: “Well, I’ve got a good newsreader tone. I think when I get into my 50’s I will get into news reading, voice-overs and that sort of thing with my authoritive voice (Speaking so low, my pot glass smashes), don’t you think?”
From that moment, the afternoon degenerated. We talked a bit about how the new album has mostly been recorded in the Perkins household and that they need to write a couple more songs to complete it. All fascinating stuff but the most interesting Tex Perkins tidbit learnt was that like myself, he has a torn Anterior Cruciate Ligament (shithouse knee). Alright the way we fucked up our knees is slightly different. Two events stuffed Tex’s knee. The ligament first ripped when he was restrained during the infamous post ARIAs brawl a few years ago. Weeks later, flying business class to Paris, Perkins waltzed down the aisle with a couple of champagnes in hand. Doesn’t see a step, falls over and then spends the next few days in a Paris hospital getting water pumped out of his knee. I did my knee at the Bayswater Indoor Soccer Centre. Brilliant.
Monday, August 19, 2002
Wednesday, August 14, 2002
Fauves Interview
The Fauves have a new album out called Footage Missing and true to form, it’s brilliant. I spoke to the band's singer bloke, Andrew Cox....
A Fauves album is usually a journey to far off places. And in Footage Missing you’ve left our shores to Frankfurt, The West Bank, Nairobi, Los Angeles…
“Yeah, this is probably our ex-patriot album even though we are certainly rooted here in Australia. I guess our last few albums have been full of Australian references. I don’t think there was a great plan or anything but it is true that there’s a lot of references to a lot of overseas references on this one.”
There’s a song by Big Star about going to India, drinking “gin and tonic and playing grand piano.” I liked how obviously the band didn’t seem to know where India was. I was reminded of the song with your line, “Jodhpurs clinging to the skin so tight. Quinine, gin and a head so light…”
“There is a bit of that. My existence wouldn’t be the most exciting life going around. It’s a way to take you somewhere more glamorous, mysterious or exotic. I’ve used song writing to do that all my life. It’s the most interesting part of my life. As soon as I put down the guitar, there’s a pile of dishes to do or I have to go out and walk the dog. So yes, I guess it’s a way of living out fantasies.”
On The Fauves website (www.thefauves.com.au) you refer to Collerige’s Byzantium, a poem which speaks of the grand, far off world.
“Yeah, it does indeed. You’ve made a nice little link there. The article’s writing itself.”
You were asked to write a press release, which never made it past the censors for Our First Day on the Run. I was lucky enough to read your obscene piece before it was shredded. Are you going to write anything to herald the new album?
“I have to tone it down. It’s a bit of a vexed issue, the band bio thing. On one level it’s not great to have to talk about yourself but on another level you really want to find somebody you can totally trust to present you the way you want to be presented. I end up writing a lot of that shit but its not a good idea. I couldn’t sit down and write that we are the most important band in the western world, which is what people expect from band bios but I can’t do it, even jokingly. I wish we could only record the album and put it out.”
Doing this interview is daunting because I know you could write this article better than myself or any other of the hacks you are going to speak to in the next few weeks. I remember there was a review in one of the streetpapers that you didn’t agree with so you wrote a review of the reviewer. I got to read that too and it was brilliant.
“Yeah, I remember that. But what was the question?”
What does the album title, Footage Missing come from?
“It’s probably more relevant to us because as you get older someone may be relating a story from the past and suddenly there’s a blank. That happens a lot with us when we are crapping on. Footage Missing refers to that blank spot in your memory. I don’t know where it went.”
And it’s not like they are going to release a DVD of your life and put in all that missing footage.
“(laughs) No. They certainly won’t. You would probably want Andy Warhol making one of those movies like Sleep, putting a camera on someone sleeping in bed for 12 hours. That would be as exciting as a movie of my life could get.”
You’re so self-effacing…
“No, I think I’m great but I’ve just had a boring life.”
I like how Yo Yo Craze talks about the trampolines, Hula Hoops, Rubiks Cubes, and footy cards of growing up in Melbourne in the ‘70s and ‘80s.
“It’s a recurring theme in my lyrics. You have to write about something that feels real to you. There are songs in this record that get away from that like we spoke about before but Yo Yo Craze is about something I can relate to.”
The Fauves have been topical in the past but the Doctor has pulled off a move of genius in Right Wing Fag by putting the Liberal Party and One Nation into a love song.
“He is one of the country’s great undiscovered genius’s. What can I say?”
Right Wing Fag is such a fantastic song.
“I love it. We put it last in the album. You know these days how people put their best songs up front. You have no faith that people will get to the end of a record and we’ve always tried to put a song that closed the record out well, not the worse song, at the end. You get hurt a bit by that. I think we have some great last songs on our records. Whenever people call out for them at gigs you know that 90% of the people didn’t get that far into the record. It’s kind of like a bittersweet thing.”
We grew up with vinyl and its two sides….
“That’s right. You get that break. I don’t think its any way passing aspersions on the listener but it is tough to get through 45-50 minutes of music especially on the first listen. With a record you play one side and it might be half an hour before you get around to flipping it over. You come back to it fresh again. I think it really has dictated the way albums are structured now. Now albums are structured in a lot more boring fashion. If the Beatles put out Seargent Peppers now they would have to open it with A Day In The Life because you couldn’t have it last because nobody would have got that far. It’s a shame.”
Yo Yo Craze also contains one of the greatest lines you’ve ever written, “Oh, the rusty springs are laughing.”
“(cacks himself) I’ve never pulled that line out of context but on its own, you’re right it sounds Shakespearean or something. You can see some bearded guy on a balcony bellowing it out to the stalls. (gets himself together) It’s a very un-rock’n’roll line, that one.”
I’ve heard some touching duets in my time but tell me about your duet in One Of The Girls.
“Ah, the one with me and Terry. That call and answer thing is out of Beverley Hills Cop. Eddie is in the strip club with the two straight policemen and they see two guys casing the joint. Eddie makes a pre-emptive strike and pretends to be a pissed dude, trying to put the guys off guard. That’s what it’s from. I thought it would be good to sample it from the movie but I thought there would be some legal problems. So I convinced Terry to play Axel Foley and I decided to play the uneasy criminal. Terry took a lot of coaxing to get into character but when he did, he really embraced it.”
I thought the album’s title, Footage Missing came from you guys annoying your record company with unfeasible ‘I’m on a mountain’ video clip ideas.
“That’s a more interesting interpretation of the title than I gave so I might use for interviews from now on. A lot of our ideas have bitten the dust. We usually have to scale our ambitions down. When we were on Polydor we found after awhile the bigger the concept, the more chance you have of getting them up. In Sunbury 97 we chartered a helicopter to Sunbury. We just threw the concept at them as a joke and the next thing we know we’re at Essendon Airport getting into this chopper. The next clip for Surf City Limits we joked about it being shot on Rene Rifkin’s yacht on the harbour and the next thing you know, we are! It’s so much about bluff.”
The line, “Royal Lanciers, pidgeon fanciers, pants men, croupiers, walking cancers,” scares me.
“I feel good that that line has never been used in the history of popular song. To me that’s an achievement. You have to take the victories when you get them. I wanted it to be a bit abrasive. There’s enough sensitive songs in the Fauves’ catalogue to set everyone right. It was time for something to ruffle a few feathers. I wanted to be a bit obnoxious. Once again, I was just wanting to be something that I’m not. That’s what music’s about for me.’
A Fauves album is usually a journey to far off places. And in Footage Missing you’ve left our shores to Frankfurt, The West Bank, Nairobi, Los Angeles…
“Yeah, this is probably our ex-patriot album even though we are certainly rooted here in Australia. I guess our last few albums have been full of Australian references. I don’t think there was a great plan or anything but it is true that there’s a lot of references to a lot of overseas references on this one.”
There’s a song by Big Star about going to India, drinking “gin and tonic and playing grand piano.” I liked how obviously the band didn’t seem to know where India was. I was reminded of the song with your line, “Jodhpurs clinging to the skin so tight. Quinine, gin and a head so light…”
“There is a bit of that. My existence wouldn’t be the most exciting life going around. It’s a way to take you somewhere more glamorous, mysterious or exotic. I’ve used song writing to do that all my life. It’s the most interesting part of my life. As soon as I put down the guitar, there’s a pile of dishes to do or I have to go out and walk the dog. So yes, I guess it’s a way of living out fantasies.”
On The Fauves website (www.thefauves.com.au) you refer to Collerige’s Byzantium, a poem which speaks of the grand, far off world.
“Yeah, it does indeed. You’ve made a nice little link there. The article’s writing itself.”
You were asked to write a press release, which never made it past the censors for Our First Day on the Run. I was lucky enough to read your obscene piece before it was shredded. Are you going to write anything to herald the new album?
“I have to tone it down. It’s a bit of a vexed issue, the band bio thing. On one level it’s not great to have to talk about yourself but on another level you really want to find somebody you can totally trust to present you the way you want to be presented. I end up writing a lot of that shit but its not a good idea. I couldn’t sit down and write that we are the most important band in the western world, which is what people expect from band bios but I can’t do it, even jokingly. I wish we could only record the album and put it out.”
Doing this interview is daunting because I know you could write this article better than myself or any other of the hacks you are going to speak to in the next few weeks. I remember there was a review in one of the streetpapers that you didn’t agree with so you wrote a review of the reviewer. I got to read that too and it was brilliant.
“Yeah, I remember that. But what was the question?”
What does the album title, Footage Missing come from?
“It’s probably more relevant to us because as you get older someone may be relating a story from the past and suddenly there’s a blank. That happens a lot with us when we are crapping on. Footage Missing refers to that blank spot in your memory. I don’t know where it went.”
And it’s not like they are going to release a DVD of your life and put in all that missing footage.
“(laughs) No. They certainly won’t. You would probably want Andy Warhol making one of those movies like Sleep, putting a camera on someone sleeping in bed for 12 hours. That would be as exciting as a movie of my life could get.”
You’re so self-effacing…
“No, I think I’m great but I’ve just had a boring life.”
I like how Yo Yo Craze talks about the trampolines, Hula Hoops, Rubiks Cubes, and footy cards of growing up in Melbourne in the ‘70s and ‘80s.
“It’s a recurring theme in my lyrics. You have to write about something that feels real to you. There are songs in this record that get away from that like we spoke about before but Yo Yo Craze is about something I can relate to.”
The Fauves have been topical in the past but the Doctor has pulled off a move of genius in Right Wing Fag by putting the Liberal Party and One Nation into a love song.
“He is one of the country’s great undiscovered genius’s. What can I say?”
Right Wing Fag is such a fantastic song.
“I love it. We put it last in the album. You know these days how people put their best songs up front. You have no faith that people will get to the end of a record and we’ve always tried to put a song that closed the record out well, not the worse song, at the end. You get hurt a bit by that. I think we have some great last songs on our records. Whenever people call out for them at gigs you know that 90% of the people didn’t get that far into the record. It’s kind of like a bittersweet thing.”
We grew up with vinyl and its two sides….
“That’s right. You get that break. I don’t think its any way passing aspersions on the listener but it is tough to get through 45-50 minutes of music especially on the first listen. With a record you play one side and it might be half an hour before you get around to flipping it over. You come back to it fresh again. I think it really has dictated the way albums are structured now. Now albums are structured in a lot more boring fashion. If the Beatles put out Seargent Peppers now they would have to open it with A Day In The Life because you couldn’t have it last because nobody would have got that far. It’s a shame.”
Yo Yo Craze also contains one of the greatest lines you’ve ever written, “Oh, the rusty springs are laughing.”
“(cacks himself) I’ve never pulled that line out of context but on its own, you’re right it sounds Shakespearean or something. You can see some bearded guy on a balcony bellowing it out to the stalls. (gets himself together) It’s a very un-rock’n’roll line, that one.”
I’ve heard some touching duets in my time but tell me about your duet in One Of The Girls.
“Ah, the one with me and Terry. That call and answer thing is out of Beverley Hills Cop. Eddie is in the strip club with the two straight policemen and they see two guys casing the joint. Eddie makes a pre-emptive strike and pretends to be a pissed dude, trying to put the guys off guard. That’s what it’s from. I thought it would be good to sample it from the movie but I thought there would be some legal problems. So I convinced Terry to play Axel Foley and I decided to play the uneasy criminal. Terry took a lot of coaxing to get into character but when he did, he really embraced it.”
I thought the album’s title, Footage Missing came from you guys annoying your record company with unfeasible ‘I’m on a mountain’ video clip ideas.
“That’s a more interesting interpretation of the title than I gave so I might use for interviews from now on. A lot of our ideas have bitten the dust. We usually have to scale our ambitions down. When we were on Polydor we found after awhile the bigger the concept, the more chance you have of getting them up. In Sunbury 97 we chartered a helicopter to Sunbury. We just threw the concept at them as a joke and the next thing we know we’re at Essendon Airport getting into this chopper. The next clip for Surf City Limits we joked about it being shot on Rene Rifkin’s yacht on the harbour and the next thing you know, we are! It’s so much about bluff.”
The line, “Royal Lanciers, pidgeon fanciers, pants men, croupiers, walking cancers,” scares me.
“I feel good that that line has never been used in the history of popular song. To me that’s an achievement. You have to take the victories when you get them. I wanted it to be a bit abrasive. There’s enough sensitive songs in the Fauves’ catalogue to set everyone right. It was time for something to ruffle a few feathers. I wanted to be a bit obnoxious. Once again, I was just wanting to be something that I’m not. That’s what music’s about for me.’
Wednesday, July 17, 2002
C.W. Rapp and George Rapp were the architects who designed the wonderful Melbourne venue, The Forum. With its imitation of night sky ceiling and ornate reproductions of Homer, Aesop and many other Greek poofs, The Forum really brings out the best in the performer. I've seen incredible sets by The Dirty Three, Beck, Primal Scream, Ryan Adams and The Dandy Warhols at the Forum and boy, do I love the place.
The Rapp brothers also designed many theatres in the US. The Riveria in Chicago is said to be an exact replica of The Forum. Anyway George Rapp saw theatre design in a totally different way to the dunderheads responsible for the multiplexes we have to endure today.
Here's George's idea of the perfect venue from the Ringling Brothers website.
"Watch the eyes of a child as it enters the portals of our great theatres and treads the pathway into fairyland. Watch the bright light in the eyes of the tired shopgirl who hurries noiselessly over carpets and sighs with satisfaction as she walks amid furnishings that once delighted the hearts of queens. See the toil-worn father whose dreams have never come true, and look inside his heart as he finds strength and rest within the theatre. There you have the answer to why motion picture theatres are so palatial. Here is a shrine to democracy where there are no privileged patrons. The wealthy rub elbows with the poor -- and are better for this contact. Do not wonder, then, at the touches of Italian Renaissance, executed in glazed polychrome terra cotta, or at the lobbies and foyers adorned with replicas of precious masterpieces of another world. or at the imported marble wainscoting or the richly ornamented ceilings with motifs copied from master touches of Germany, France, and Italy, or at the carved niches, the cloisetered arcades, the depthless mirrors, and the great sweeping staircases. These are not impractical attempts at showing off. These are part of a celestial city -- cavern of many-colored jewels, where iridescent lights and luxurious fittings heighten the expectations of pleasure. It is richness unabashed, but richness with a reason."
Here here!
The Rapp brothers also designed many theatres in the US. The Riveria in Chicago is said to be an exact replica of The Forum. Anyway George Rapp saw theatre design in a totally different way to the dunderheads responsible for the multiplexes we have to endure today.
Here's George's idea of the perfect venue from the Ringling Brothers website.
"Watch the eyes of a child as it enters the portals of our great theatres and treads the pathway into fairyland. Watch the bright light in the eyes of the tired shopgirl who hurries noiselessly over carpets and sighs with satisfaction as she walks amid furnishings that once delighted the hearts of queens. See the toil-worn father whose dreams have never come true, and look inside his heart as he finds strength and rest within the theatre. There you have the answer to why motion picture theatres are so palatial. Here is a shrine to democracy where there are no privileged patrons. The wealthy rub elbows with the poor -- and are better for this contact. Do not wonder, then, at the touches of Italian Renaissance, executed in glazed polychrome terra cotta, or at the lobbies and foyers adorned with replicas of precious masterpieces of another world. or at the imported marble wainscoting or the richly ornamented ceilings with motifs copied from master touches of Germany, France, and Italy, or at the carved niches, the cloisetered arcades, the depthless mirrors, and the great sweeping staircases. These are not impractical attempts at showing off. These are part of a celestial city -- cavern of many-colored jewels, where iridescent lights and luxurious fittings heighten the expectations of pleasure. It is richness unabashed, but richness with a reason."
Here here!
Thursday, July 04, 2002
Friday, June 28, 2002
Grumpy old bastard and one of the greatest bass players of alltime, The Who's John Entwhistle died today. Bummer.
Monday, June 24, 2002
I Was Maimed By Rock’n’Roll
My record collecting career highlights.
Yeah, sure I have thousands of records, tapes and CDs. There’s nothing to unusual, interesting or scintillating about my life long record collecting habit. But it’s the way that a few purchases, innocent at the time, have over years become defining moments of my own pop folklore. Okay, I’m nobody of any note just one of Beat’s many writers over the years, a bloke who accidentally surrendered himself to the stupid world of music. A world, which you can only reasonably expect a few sublime moments. Here’s a few of mine.
I think it was in 1981 when the rot really set in. The Grade 3 teacher proclaims a bring in your favourite record day. Everybody brings in Kiss, Kiss and more Kiss albums to accompany their Scanlens Kiss cards. Everybody, except me. I bring in With The Beatles. I couldn’t understand why I’m laughed at from all corners of the room. What’s wrong with Mr Postman? I love that song! “Glennis Peters is a der Fred! Glennis likes the Beatles! Glennis likes the Beatles!” Heathens. Years later I’m lucky enough to tell the story to none other than the God Of Thunder himself, Gene Simmons. He loved the sad tale and told me that at the same age, he too, was with obsessed with the very same album. Touché.
In 1982 I was given the choice of two albums, ACDC’s For Those About To Rock or Joan Jett and The Blackhearts’ Album. I take the Joan Jett record. I know what you’re thinking. Why freakin’ Joan Jett? Cos’ she’s a spunk, that’s why and who didn’t love I Love Rock’n’Roll? 20 years later and kids all over the world are making the exact same mistake with Britney Spears’ version of the Joan Jett classic.
You wouldn’t believe it but in Year 11 I wanted to be a radiologist. With the fast cars, inner city apartments and access to deadly radioactive waves, who wouldn’t? I did work experience at the local X-Ray place. I was set. That was until I found out that I was shithouse at maths. Then English Literature (I was the only boy in the class), and Tom Waits’ Frank Wild Years took over. From then on I was a thinker, philosopher and beat poet. More importantly, I was part of a tiny group of people at Glen Waverley High School who were scorned on as people who were into alternative music. Alternative to what? Bon Jovi, Whitesnake, Poison and Def Leppard, that’s what. Sheesh!
The moment I was told I would have to repeat Year 11 I was looking down. Not down in sorrow, no I was looking down on the two amazing records I had bought earlier that day, Sonic Youth’s Daydream Nation and The Cramps’ Smell Of Female. I was still in record shop afterglow. I thought for a few seconds and metered this reaction, “That’s crap. You can’t do that. I passed everything. This isn’t Scotch College. I’ll do well next year. I couldn’t stand an extra year in this dump.” The reply? “Okay, let’s see you try. I bet you won’t make it.” I did.
Partly because I wanted to get a job at Rolling Stone, NME or even Beat (how ambitious) I went to Deakin in Geelong to do an Arts Degree in Journalism. That’s the official line. The deal breaker to go down to Geelong was the legendary Mudhoney shows at The Barwon Club a year previous. Geelong sounded cool as buggery. It almost was. One afternoon I bought My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless (on tape!) at Geelong’s Brash’s. I looked at the local importer’s tag on the tape and thought, what a cool logo. I’d love to work there one day! Years later I did work at that record company but bless you all who I worked with in those couple of years but working at a record company is not what I thought it would be. While most your workmates have hundreds of records at home, to find a music obsessive is rare. Sure, you’ll find lots of people passionate about their job but not about the actual music they’re selling. Now it’s time to reassess my maligned career path.
I was once told in a job interview for a music industry position that the obsessed record collector usually goes nowhere on the music ladder, usually destined to a Wednesday night graveyard shift at the local public radio station, not out there signing the acts and breaking the deals. If only they taught that in Grade 3….
My record collecting career highlights.
Yeah, sure I have thousands of records, tapes and CDs. There’s nothing to unusual, interesting or scintillating about my life long record collecting habit. But it’s the way that a few purchases, innocent at the time, have over years become defining moments of my own pop folklore. Okay, I’m nobody of any note just one of Beat’s many writers over the years, a bloke who accidentally surrendered himself to the stupid world of music. A world, which you can only reasonably expect a few sublime moments. Here’s a few of mine.
I think it was in 1981 when the rot really set in. The Grade 3 teacher proclaims a bring in your favourite record day. Everybody brings in Kiss, Kiss and more Kiss albums to accompany their Scanlens Kiss cards. Everybody, except me. I bring in With The Beatles. I couldn’t understand why I’m laughed at from all corners of the room. What’s wrong with Mr Postman? I love that song! “Glennis Peters is a der Fred! Glennis likes the Beatles! Glennis likes the Beatles!” Heathens. Years later I’m lucky enough to tell the story to none other than the God Of Thunder himself, Gene Simmons. He loved the sad tale and told me that at the same age, he too, was with obsessed with the very same album. Touché.
In 1982 I was given the choice of two albums, ACDC’s For Those About To Rock or Joan Jett and The Blackhearts’ Album. I take the Joan Jett record. I know what you’re thinking. Why freakin’ Joan Jett? Cos’ she’s a spunk, that’s why and who didn’t love I Love Rock’n’Roll? 20 years later and kids all over the world are making the exact same mistake with Britney Spears’ version of the Joan Jett classic.
You wouldn’t believe it but in Year 11 I wanted to be a radiologist. With the fast cars, inner city apartments and access to deadly radioactive waves, who wouldn’t? I did work experience at the local X-Ray place. I was set. That was until I found out that I was shithouse at maths. Then English Literature (I was the only boy in the class), and Tom Waits’ Frank Wild Years took over. From then on I was a thinker, philosopher and beat poet. More importantly, I was part of a tiny group of people at Glen Waverley High School who were scorned on as people who were into alternative music. Alternative to what? Bon Jovi, Whitesnake, Poison and Def Leppard, that’s what. Sheesh!
The moment I was told I would have to repeat Year 11 I was looking down. Not down in sorrow, no I was looking down on the two amazing records I had bought earlier that day, Sonic Youth’s Daydream Nation and The Cramps’ Smell Of Female. I was still in record shop afterglow. I thought for a few seconds and metered this reaction, “That’s crap. You can’t do that. I passed everything. This isn’t Scotch College. I’ll do well next year. I couldn’t stand an extra year in this dump.” The reply? “Okay, let’s see you try. I bet you won’t make it.” I did.
Partly because I wanted to get a job at Rolling Stone, NME or even Beat (how ambitious) I went to Deakin in Geelong to do an Arts Degree in Journalism. That’s the official line. The deal breaker to go down to Geelong was the legendary Mudhoney shows at The Barwon Club a year previous. Geelong sounded cool as buggery. It almost was. One afternoon I bought My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless (on tape!) at Geelong’s Brash’s. I looked at the local importer’s tag on the tape and thought, what a cool logo. I’d love to work there one day! Years later I did work at that record company but bless you all who I worked with in those couple of years but working at a record company is not what I thought it would be. While most your workmates have hundreds of records at home, to find a music obsessive is rare. Sure, you’ll find lots of people passionate about their job but not about the actual music they’re selling. Now it’s time to reassess my maligned career path.
I was once told in a job interview for a music industry position that the obsessed record collector usually goes nowhere on the music ladder, usually destined to a Wednesday night graveyard shift at the local public radio station, not out there signing the acts and breaking the deals. If only they taught that in Grade 3….
Monday, June 17, 2002
Wouldn't believe it but someone came to this site through a google search of "best comb over". Why would you do such a search? If you are that person, please src="http://www.quicktopic.com/14/ue4FxsnrVDtBN.js">
leave a message!
By the way, on the weekend I heard a great new way to describe the comb over. Call it a Robin Hood. A haircut that steals from the rich and gives to the poor. I'll get me coat...
leave a message!
By the way, on the weekend I heard a great new way to describe the comb over. Call it a Robin Hood. A haircut that steals from the rich and gives to the poor. I'll get me coat...
Wednesday, June 05, 2002
Monday, June 03, 2002
"1:04 -- Jacqueline from New York enjoys Irish dancing, basketball and swimming ... but she doesn't enjoy the word "casein" (the principal protein of cheese), which she just spelled wrong. Fifty years from now, somebody will say something to her like, "This cheese doesn't taste like it has enough casein," and she'll snap and kill everyone in the room.
1:25 -- Abhijith Eswarappa. That's not a word, that's a competitor. "He's also a strong mathmetician," Chris tells us, as Katie adds that Abhijith is already being recruited by colleges at age 14 (including Duke University). Sounds a little suspicious. Sadly, he couldn't get "beignet" (a fritter)."
ESPN Highlights from the 2002 US National Spelling Bee!
1:25 -- Abhijith Eswarappa. That's not a word, that's a competitor. "He's also a strong mathmetician," Chris tells us, as Katie adds that Abhijith is already being recruited by colleges at age 14 (including Duke University). Sounds a little suspicious. Sadly, he couldn't get "beignet" (a fritter)."
ESPN Highlights from the 2002 US National Spelling Bee!
Thursday, May 16, 2002
From The New York Times...
Hugh Hicks, Prodigious Collector of Light Bulbs, Dies at 79
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
r. Hugh Francis Hicks, a dentist whose fascination with light bulbs is said to have begun when his mother tossed one into his crib and culminated in his owning 60,000 bulbs, died on May 7 in Baltimore. He was 79.
He had a heart attack, his daughter Frances Hicks Apollony, said.
Dr. Hicks showed off his collection in a museum in the basement under his periodontics office. He named it the Mount Vernon Museum of Incandescent Lighting, charged no admission and gave visitors, about 6,000 a year, cookies.
Not infrequently, patients had to wait as he welcomed people interested in seeing what he identified as the biggest and smallest light bulbs in the world — to say nothing of the floodlights used in an Elvis Presley movie or the headlamps from Hitler's Mercedes-Benz.
"Sometimes he left a patient sitting in the chair with the peroxide bubbling up in his mouth," his daughter said.
Harold D. Wallace, a specialist in the electricity collections of the National Museum of American History of the Smithsonian Institution, said Dr. Hicks had one of the three most important light bulb collections in the United States. The others are at the Smithsonian and the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich.
Dr. Hicks's specimens include an Edison bulb from the demolished Vanderbilt mansion in Manhattan; a dashboard light from the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima; and a 15-watt fluorescent bulb that illuminated the table on which the Japanese signed the surrender agreement that ended World War II.
There are bulbs shaped like Dick Tracy, Betty Boop and Disney characters; a sailing ship inside a bulb; and men's ties with bulbs embedded in them. There are also a 50,000-watt bulb from the La Guardia Airport control tower and a light used in wiring spacecraft that can be seen only through a microscope.
There is a complete history of Christmas lighting, and there are 15 or 20 bulbs that Thomas A. Edison probably held in his hands 122 years ago.
Mr. Wallace said Dr. Hicks's impossible goal was to have one of every kind of bulb. "He was the kind of guy who never met a light bulb he didn't like," he said.
Hugh Francis Hicks was born on April 26, 1923, in Baltimore. His mother told Mrs. Apollony that he was bored with the toys in his crib, so she gave him an old bulb. Family legend has it that he was entranced, even if endangered.
As a boy, he liked school projects that involved electricity, and he began collecting bulbs.
He graduated from Columbia University and the University of Maryland Dental School, where he, like his father, specialized in periodontics, dealing with diseases of the bone and tissue supporting the teeth.
His passion intensified. He received donations from the University of Maryland physics department and cultivated other bulb enthusiasts with whom he could trade. On a vacation in the Bahamas, he saw some old Nassau street lights being removed and asked for one.
He was not above what might be termed stealing, and he proudly displayed stolen bulbs in a group he called 10 Hot Types. In the Paris Metro in 1964, he noticed a series of 1920's-era tungsten bulbs along the wall. He did not know that the bulbs were wired so that if one was removed, all would go out.
He surreptitiously removed a bulb, and the tunnel was suddenly pitch dark. With people screaming, he scrambled to replace the bulb.
"But I couldn't get it back," Dr. Hicks said in an interview in The Baltimore Sun. "So, you know me, I grabbed two more and took off."
In addition to his daughter Frances, who lives in Baltimore, surviving are another daughter, Louise Hicks Smith of Winchester, Va.; a sister, Lois Hicks Burkley of Baltimore; and four grandchildren. Mrs. Apollony said the family hoped to keep the collection intact and in Baltimore.
Dr. Hicks liked to tell the story of psychiatric researchers from the Johns Hopkins University who visited him in the mid-1980's as part of a study on why collectors collect. He told them that the greatest bulb collector of all time was William J. Hammer, who worked as an engineer for Edison and collected 130,000 electric bulbs before 1900. Each was different.
"Mr. Hammer died the month that I was born," Dr. Hicks told the psychiatrists. "Do you believe in reincarnation?"
The interview ended immediately.
Hugh Hicks, Prodigious Collector of Light Bulbs, Dies at 79
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
r. Hugh Francis Hicks, a dentist whose fascination with light bulbs is said to have begun when his mother tossed one into his crib and culminated in his owning 60,000 bulbs, died on May 7 in Baltimore. He was 79.
He had a heart attack, his daughter Frances Hicks Apollony, said.
Dr. Hicks showed off his collection in a museum in the basement under his periodontics office. He named it the Mount Vernon Museum of Incandescent Lighting, charged no admission and gave visitors, about 6,000 a year, cookies.
Not infrequently, patients had to wait as he welcomed people interested in seeing what he identified as the biggest and smallest light bulbs in the world — to say nothing of the floodlights used in an Elvis Presley movie or the headlamps from Hitler's Mercedes-Benz.
"Sometimes he left a patient sitting in the chair with the peroxide bubbling up in his mouth," his daughter said.
Harold D. Wallace, a specialist in the electricity collections of the National Museum of American History of the Smithsonian Institution, said Dr. Hicks had one of the three most important light bulb collections in the United States. The others are at the Smithsonian and the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich.
Dr. Hicks's specimens include an Edison bulb from the demolished Vanderbilt mansion in Manhattan; a dashboard light from the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima; and a 15-watt fluorescent bulb that illuminated the table on which the Japanese signed the surrender agreement that ended World War II.
There are bulbs shaped like Dick Tracy, Betty Boop and Disney characters; a sailing ship inside a bulb; and men's ties with bulbs embedded in them. There are also a 50,000-watt bulb from the La Guardia Airport control tower and a light used in wiring spacecraft that can be seen only through a microscope.
There is a complete history of Christmas lighting, and there are 15 or 20 bulbs that Thomas A. Edison probably held in his hands 122 years ago.
Mr. Wallace said Dr. Hicks's impossible goal was to have one of every kind of bulb. "He was the kind of guy who never met a light bulb he didn't like," he said.
Hugh Francis Hicks was born on April 26, 1923, in Baltimore. His mother told Mrs. Apollony that he was bored with the toys in his crib, so she gave him an old bulb. Family legend has it that he was entranced, even if endangered.
As a boy, he liked school projects that involved electricity, and he began collecting bulbs.
He graduated from Columbia University and the University of Maryland Dental School, where he, like his father, specialized in periodontics, dealing with diseases of the bone and tissue supporting the teeth.
His passion intensified. He received donations from the University of Maryland physics department and cultivated other bulb enthusiasts with whom he could trade. On a vacation in the Bahamas, he saw some old Nassau street lights being removed and asked for one.
He was not above what might be termed stealing, and he proudly displayed stolen bulbs in a group he called 10 Hot Types. In the Paris Metro in 1964, he noticed a series of 1920's-era tungsten bulbs along the wall. He did not know that the bulbs were wired so that if one was removed, all would go out.
He surreptitiously removed a bulb, and the tunnel was suddenly pitch dark. With people screaming, he scrambled to replace the bulb.
"But I couldn't get it back," Dr. Hicks said in an interview in The Baltimore Sun. "So, you know me, I grabbed two more and took off."
In addition to his daughter Frances, who lives in Baltimore, surviving are another daughter, Louise Hicks Smith of Winchester, Va.; a sister, Lois Hicks Burkley of Baltimore; and four grandchildren. Mrs. Apollony said the family hoped to keep the collection intact and in Baltimore.
Dr. Hicks liked to tell the story of psychiatric researchers from the Johns Hopkins University who visited him in the mid-1980's as part of a study on why collectors collect. He told them that the greatest bulb collector of all time was William J. Hammer, who worked as an engineer for Edison and collected 130,000 electric bulbs before 1900. Each was different.
"Mr. Hammer died the month that I was born," Dr. Hicks told the psychiatrists. "Do you believe in reincarnation?"
The interview ended immediately.
Thursday, May 09, 2002
From The Daily Southdown...
Strange cargo found in forest
Stumped officials try to find out who dropped off 55 gallons of goat semen in Cook County preserve
Wednesday, May 1, 2002
By Jennifer Martikean
Staff writer
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It wasn't nearly as much fun as a barrel full of monkeys, but the barrel firefighters found was just as weird.
It was full of goat semen.
Or maybe it was pig semen.
"We're still in disbelief," said a firefighter who did not want to be identified. "I have never heard of anything like this ever happening. We have no idea who did this."
The mysterious barrel was discovered Monday night by a passerby at the Arie Crown Woods near Countryside, Cook County Forest Preserve Lt. Michael Albrecht said.
When the police came out to take a look, they found a white, 55-gallon container with a black plug on top and hazardous materials markings on the outside.
They called in the hazardous materials team from Pleasantview Fire Protection District.
"The firefighters came, they saw the barrel, and the cleared out the area," Albrecht said.
Firefighters spent some time trying to figure out what kind of substance they were dealing with. All they knew was the barrel had some liquid in it.
After a careful inspection, firefighters found a phone number on one of the stickers. They radioed the number to dispatchers, who traced it to an Iowa company called Swine Genetics.
The company ships pig and boar semen in canisters, which in turn are placed in large drums filled with liquid nitrogen. The liquid nitrogen keeps the semen at the optimal temperature so it can be shipped long distances and used for artificial insemination.
No one has any idea how the semen ended up at the forest preserve.
"We get calls about illegal dumping all the time, but never anything like this," Albrecht said.
The police department "properly disposed" of the semen, but declined to say how.
There was some conflicting information about what kind of semen was in the canister. Albrecht said police believe it was goat semen, but Swine Genetics only deals in pig semen. A worker at the company said the barrels are expensive, costing as much as $1,100, and they are often reused by farmers to ship other types of semen.
Pleasantview firefighters were a little embarrassed about the big fuss. They were still laughing about it Tuesday and could hardly comment.
"It is just so bizarre that that would be out there," a firefighter said. "We've had all kinds of guesses at the station all day. But I'm not going to tell you what they were."
A worker at Swine Genetics said the company hasn't had any reports of missing semen, and police said no one has reported anything like it missing.
The company ships internationally out of O'Hare International Airport, so it is possible one of the barrels could have come from the airport, he said.
Strange cargo found in forest
Stumped officials try to find out who dropped off 55 gallons of goat semen in Cook County preserve
Wednesday, May 1, 2002
By Jennifer Martikean
Staff writer
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It wasn't nearly as much fun as a barrel full of monkeys, but the barrel firefighters found was just as weird.
It was full of goat semen.
Or maybe it was pig semen.
"We're still in disbelief," said a firefighter who did not want to be identified. "I have never heard of anything like this ever happening. We have no idea who did this."
The mysterious barrel was discovered Monday night by a passerby at the Arie Crown Woods near Countryside, Cook County Forest Preserve Lt. Michael Albrecht said.
When the police came out to take a look, they found a white, 55-gallon container with a black plug on top and hazardous materials markings on the outside.
They called in the hazardous materials team from Pleasantview Fire Protection District.
"The firefighters came, they saw the barrel, and the cleared out the area," Albrecht said.
Firefighters spent some time trying to figure out what kind of substance they were dealing with. All they knew was the barrel had some liquid in it.
After a careful inspection, firefighters found a phone number on one of the stickers. They radioed the number to dispatchers, who traced it to an Iowa company called Swine Genetics.
The company ships pig and boar semen in canisters, which in turn are placed in large drums filled with liquid nitrogen. The liquid nitrogen keeps the semen at the optimal temperature so it can be shipped long distances and used for artificial insemination.
No one has any idea how the semen ended up at the forest preserve.
"We get calls about illegal dumping all the time, but never anything like this," Albrecht said.
The police department "properly disposed" of the semen, but declined to say how.
There was some conflicting information about what kind of semen was in the canister. Albrecht said police believe it was goat semen, but Swine Genetics only deals in pig semen. A worker at the company said the barrels are expensive, costing as much as $1,100, and they are often reused by farmers to ship other types of semen.
Pleasantview firefighters were a little embarrassed about the big fuss. They were still laughing about it Tuesday and could hardly comment.
"It is just so bizarre that that would be out there," a firefighter said. "We've had all kinds of guesses at the station all day. But I'm not going to tell you what they were."
A worker at Swine Genetics said the company hasn't had any reports of missing semen, and police said no one has reported anything like it missing.
The company ships internationally out of O'Hare International Airport, so it is possible one of the barrels could have come from the airport, he said.
Saturday, May 04, 2002
Tuesday, April 30, 2002
Saturday, April 27, 2002
Tuesday, April 23, 2002
Monday, April 22, 2002
From Timothy McSweeney's Unreserved Embrace
Rapper Or Toiletry Product?
1. Suave
2. Nice & Smooth
3. Soft & Gentle
4. Shyne
5. All Fresh
6. All Natural
7. Remedy
8. D-Flame
9. Cream Silk
10. Volume 10
11. Dimension
12. Cool Breeze
13. Smooth Appeal
14. Q-Tip
Toiletry: 1, 3, 5, 9, 11, and 13.
Rapper: 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, and 12.
Both toiletry and rapper: 14.
Rapper Or Toiletry Product?
1. Suave
2. Nice & Smooth
3. Soft & Gentle
4. Shyne
5. All Fresh
6. All Natural
7. Remedy
8. D-Flame
9. Cream Silk
10. Volume 10
11. Dimension
12. Cool Breeze
13. Smooth Appeal
14. Q-Tip
Toiletry: 1, 3, 5, 9, 11, and 13.
Rapper: 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, and 12.
Both toiletry and rapper: 14.
Friday, April 19, 2002
I need to stay at the Madonna Inn. A hotel with 109 individually themed rooms.
The Safari Room is great "if you like Tigers, Leopards, Zebras and Elephants, you will love this room! Decor in the bathroom also carries out the bold “Safari” theme, with rock waterfall shower. Room is equipped with two king-sized beds."
Make sure you visit the Madonna Suite, "decorated by incorporating the color schemes, furnishings, and basic ideas favored through the years by Alex and Phyllis Madonna. The huge rock fireplace, unique rock waterfall sink and shower in the bathroom, tones of reds and pinks, and the use of crystal all play a part in making this fanciful hideaway a favorite."
My personal favorite is the All American Suite which is a "tastefully decorated in early American furniture, it offers two king-sized beds, a 7-foot bathtub and double sinks. The focal point is a colossal fireplace of natural white stone. Easy chairs of red, white and blue leather add to the comfort and luxury of this patriotic paradise."
The Safari Room is great "if you like Tigers, Leopards, Zebras and Elephants, you will love this room! Decor in the bathroom also carries out the bold “Safari” theme, with rock waterfall shower. Room is equipped with two king-sized beds."
Make sure you visit the Madonna Suite, "decorated by incorporating the color schemes, furnishings, and basic ideas favored through the years by Alex and Phyllis Madonna. The huge rock fireplace, unique rock waterfall sink and shower in the bathroom, tones of reds and pinks, and the use of crystal all play a part in making this fanciful hideaway a favorite."
My personal favorite is the All American Suite which is a "tastefully decorated in early American furniture, it offers two king-sized beds, a 7-foot bathtub and double sinks. The focal point is a colossal fireplace of natural white stone. Easy chairs of red, white and blue leather add to the comfort and luxury of this patriotic paradise."
Saturday, April 13, 2002
A list of Net 50 recipes....
George’s Angels On Horseback oysters, wrapped in bacon
Marilyn Manson’s Devils On Horseback prunes wrapped in bacon
Gomez’s antipasto platter eclectic mix of cold meats, olives and cheeses
Faithless’s Crazy English Summer Salad Haddock and iceberg lettuce with generous pinch of rocksalt and rocket
Mr Oysterhead prefers his oysters with nothing a generous squeeze of lemon
Alex Lloyd’s Green Bananna Curry
Daft Punk’s Savory Cheese Tarlets
Thom Yorke’s Special Goat Vindaloo
George’s Angels On Horseback oysters, wrapped in bacon
Marilyn Manson’s Devils On Horseback prunes wrapped in bacon
Gomez’s antipasto platter eclectic mix of cold meats, olives and cheeses
Faithless’s Crazy English Summer Salad Haddock and iceberg lettuce with generous pinch of rocksalt and rocket
Mr Oysterhead prefers his oysters with nothing a generous squeeze of lemon
Alex Lloyd’s Green Bananna Curry
Daft Punk’s Savory Cheese Tarlets
Thom Yorke’s Special Goat Vindaloo
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