Category f) Tens [2010 – ]
SOMETHING’S OUT TO GET YOU
Confessional songwriters have never been a particular favourite round these parts. I have a tendency to snap, “Speak for yourself!” followed by the chastened acknowledgment, “Oh, you are.” Yet for a while I’ve been yearning for an artist to tackle the themes we citizens of a certain age are confronting. Not global warming or China’s emergence […]
PLEASURE SPLINTERS
When an artist wears their influences on their sleeve, your response is likely to depend on what side of the shirt you are looking at. If it is front on: fresh new patterns and design, then delight will erupt and you won’t give a rat’s arse about what went before. Contrariwise, in the view from behind […]
FLYING FAST ENOUGH
Neil Finn has been part of the landscape of popular music for a very long time. This being a public sort of life, fans get to go along for the ride; turning the pages of the album from the cheeky faced Split Enz teenager to the handsomely greying solo veteran. And there was that band […]
OFF THE WATER, BACK TO LAND
There are a number of interesting things about San Francisco’s Wooden Shjips, not least their idiosyncratic approach to spelling. Here are a few others: They were formed in 2003 by Ripley Johnson with the express purpose of creating innovative music and not being famous. Following a Captain Beefheart tradition, they explored playing instruments with which […]
A BRAND NEW DANCE
Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) was released in the second week of September 1980. Preceded by the hugely successful single ‘Ashes to Ashes’, Scary Monsters hit #1 on the UK album charts on 27th September. It also made #1 in Australia and peaked just outside the Top 10 in the US. Bowie’s fourteenth studio album […]
BACK LIVE
Having already offered two pieces on the joys of ‘live’ albums*, it would probably be sensible to leave that topic alone for a while. But I re-acquainted myself with so many terrific recordings while writing those posts that I just had to bring out those that didn’t quite make the first two ‘Live In Your […]
TURNTABLE TRAVELS
As far as travelling was concerned, I was a late starter. Most of the people I knew had been somewhere outside of Australia, even if it was just a package trip to Bali (cue song, Redgum, 1984). Many had done the Europe thing and had come back somehow wiser, more knowing, more confident… more something. […]
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