| Author | Message | ||
     Chris Bartley Unregistered guest |
I'd just like Lindy or Robert Vickers, because they're occasional visitors to the site, let me know what they think of 'Tallulah'. It seems as though 'Liberty Belle' and 'Lovers Lane' get all the critical praise yet I think it is a little neglected classic. 'Right Here', 'The house that Jack Kerouac Built', 'Clarke sisters', 'Bye Bye Pride'............they're all classic GB songs and the extra disc has some great tunes too. 'When People are dead' is one of my fave songs. Could Lindy and Robert shed any light on the lyricist of the aforementioned song. The only song that I was never too keen on was 'Cut it out'. It seemed like GB's attempt to be loose limbed and funky......I dunno it just seems unconvincing. I also love 'Doo wop in 'A' bam boom'.......I think Lindy/Amanda performed it live at Astoria in 1988.........should've been on 'American Graffiti' or something. Can I also say hello to Lindy. I had a lenghty chat with you at an Edwyn Collins concert in 1989 and you were really sweet, even though I think you were on a rare night out. Good luck with all your political aspirations, Lindy. Knock em' dead (metaphorically speaking of course........I don't want you killing a shed load of Australian politicians..... | ||
| lindy morrison Member Username: Lindymorrison Post Number: 66 Registered: 09-2004 |
No you couldn't have met me. No one has ever called me sweet. Tallulah is exceptional because of the interplay between drums, bass and violin, the spainish guitar, Richard Preston, Simon Fisher Turner and ok brilliant songs. Gee, thanks for thinking I was sweet but probably you met AB, people sometimes confuse us. In 1995 Time Out, the intellectually stimulating music mag in that intellectually stimulating cultural town (I remember Cloudland) Brisbane, my home town, published a story about me and put a photo of AB in as me. Not that I care, no really I don't Noel, I don't ever think about it. | ||
| lindy morrison Member Username: Lindymorrison Post Number: 67 Registered: 09-2004 |
Actually it was 1993. The Time Out article, that I have forgotten about. Cut it Out, I think was crappy as well, your perception of intent is accurate. The lyricist was Irish, a poet, who befriended Robert, She was exceptional - eccentric,and carried that sadness that so many Irish people carry. I wonder how many Irish the church has hurt, so many Irish people with guilt they carry because of what can only be described as voodoo. And doo wop was just fun and we did perform it once at the Astoria. I wrote the appalling second verse about Simon Fischer Turner. He always took the bloody bike everywhere. Amanda wrote the first verse which is far better lyrically. The chorus was a combination of our life stories. Amanda writes beautiful songs now and I never improved in that department. | ||
| Capsicum Spray Unregistered guest |
Are you referring to Noel Mengel? I went to his house once and he had the rejection letters from all the record companies he'd sent his horrible single to taped to the wall. Horribly conservative and not a little bitter, he is the main music writer in the miserable rag we have as our daily newspaper up here. I remember Cloudland too. 20 years on, Brisbane is Brisbane and Noel Mengel is a prick. | ||
| Peter S Unregistered guest |
"Cut It Out" is awful but the rest of the album is insanely great. I think "Bye Bye Pride" might be my favourite GB song. | ||
| Kuba Unregistered guest |
Is there any possible connection between the lyrics of Robert's "The House Jack Kerouac Built" ("you're reading me poetry, that's irish and so black") and the person you're talking about Lindy? | ||
| Cichli Suite Member Username: Cichli_suite Post Number: 34 Registered: 08-2004 |
Kuba, there was a funny discussion here on that topic some time back. I'm still blushing at my flights of fancy on that one: Marion Stout | ||
| Pat Boland Unregistered guest |
Lindy, Could you expand on "that sadness that so many Irish people carry"? As an Irishman who has never lived abroad for more than a year I find it an interesting viewpoint. With regard to the church; I'm not entirely sure where the legacy of the so-called Industrial-Schools and Laundrys begins or ends but I certainly don't believe it has registered on the collective Irish psyche to the extent that you seem to be hinting at. Certainly, many people have been abused at the hands of the church and the lack of recognition (let alone regret, sorrow or guilt) shown by the powers that be within the church has been downright unchristian to say the least. Lives have been destroyed. Families have been destroyed. The very fabric of Irish society has all but been destroyed. To be brutally honest, I don't think we will ever know to what extent these abuses took place. Or to what extent it was known within the church that it was taking place. Not that inflicting such abuse is purely restricted to members of the clergy (many, many of whom are true men of the cloth who, unfortunately, have been stigmatised by the sins of their 'colleagues') as there are plenty of examples of child abuse (in all it's forms) among the laity. It seems to me that the church would have been a suitable 'vehicle' for those with a pre-disposition for such vile opportunism. As for the voodoo, now that is a horse of an entirely different colour. | ||
| Kuba Unregistered guest |
Thank you! Unfortunately, I missed that thread earlier. | ||
| Donat Member Username: Donat Post Number: 21 Registered: 11-2004 |
Noel Mengel was in a band called Curiosity Shop. Their single is quite cheesy, but I like it musically- it's bouncy/poppy. On the other hand the lyrics are quite dreadful and no guesses as to who wrote them. I'm not a huge fan of his writing in the Courier Mail either, Capsicum Spray. As for Tallulah, I still can't get over the production sound, it gets to me... in the same was as the Triffids 'Calenture' record is annoying for the same reason. The songs are fantastic (of course) and the arrangements are quite striking. The drums and pizzicato violin interplay in 'The Clarke Sisters' is my favourite. Cut it Out is my least favourite song on that record and an odd single choice too! Nice cover though. Cut it Out sounded pretty good live on that Rock Arena concert. Perhaps the production didn't do the song justice? | ||
| Robert Vickers Unregistered guest |
I still like Tallulah. Not as much as Liberty Belle but I think it's a very strong album. The production is a mish mash because Right Here and Cut it out were recorded with a different producer in a more expensive studio and even some of the the tracks we recorded with Richard Preston were remixed before release. I like it because it always suprises me. There are quite a few different kind of songs there and the arrangements are full of drama and angst. Much of which reflected what was going on in the rehearsal room. Cut it Out is a bit of a problem. I don't think we were wrong to try what we did with the song. We had done funky things before (Slow Slow Music comes to mind) so it wasn't entirely out of leftfield. But I do wish we had recorded some back up songs to use on the album and made Cut it Out a non-LP single when it was clear it didn't fit on the album. Not that it did any good as a single but it was worth a try. Anyway there's so much great stuff on the that album that you have to forgive one lapse. | ||
| Michael Bachman Member Username: Michael_bachman Post Number: 2 Registered: 01-2005 |
I really like the remastering job on the double disc Tallulah. It sounds great and layers that I never heard before are now crystal clear. | ||
| chris bartley Unregistered guest |
Thanks for your responses, Lindy and Robert. And I definitely did meet you Lindy......Mean fiddler, Harlesden, July 1989......Malcolm Ross was there too....I think Edwyn had just released his first solo album, 'Hope and Despair'...........I think as my parting shot, I made you insist that the band would never ever split up (so I'm sorry if I inadvertently put a curse on the band)..... | ||
| jack Unregistered guest |
Any album with "Right Here" and "Bye Bye Pride" would have been remarkable; the fact that the GB's came up with four or five other amazing songs is what makes Tallulah not only their best, but one of the best ever...I don't think Cut It Out is the worst track (Jack Kerouac and Someone Else's Wife are both a bit overwrought); I don't think there's a bad track on the record. | ||
| Tim Forslund Member Username: Tfslund Post Number: 3 Registered: 01-2005 |
A side question: My cd has tracks 6-10 at the start , and then tracks 1-5. There is a sticker commenting on the mistake on the back picture. Is this common? Was it a U.S. release thing? any thoughts? | ||
| lindy morrison Member Username: Lindymorrison Post Number: 70 Registered: 09-2004 |
Pat, Religion seems to have had such a detrimental affect on the Irish, as people they are so superstitious and the church has lead them to this, and in my opinion religion is just voodoo. Is that clearer now, or have I just lost another group of friends. All of this is so controversial in Oz now with the Christian right in the Liberal party getting a hold. | ||
| Peter Collins Unregistered guest |
Some interesting things happening here in Blighty too. A recent TV version of Jerry Springer - the Opera got a record number of complaints, which were organised by some right-wing religious group. The same group has now (successfully) put pressure on some charitable organisations not to receive money specifically raised by the opera. In case you didn't know, in the UK the role of Jerry is played by David Soul of Starsky and Hutch fame. | ||
| Catherine Unregistered guest |
The Church's strangle-hold on the Irish people, and Government has gradually loosened, but it's influence has not fully disappeared. But we always figured ways around it! Back in the bad old days, the contraceptive pill was only available to women who had "gynae problems" such as irregular/unusually heavy or painful periods. What a coincidence that at that time, the rate per capita of women with "Gynaecological problems" was one of the highest in Europe!!!! | ||
| Badseed Unregistered guest |
This is slightly off-topic (very actually), but some right-wing turd from Oz has flushed up on our shores in the UK and is advising our very crap Tory party. Name of Lynton Crosby. All of a sudden the Tories are full of zeal about asylum seekers/immigrants (the right like to lump them all in together, the brown ones mainly, not the white ones from eastern europe, apparently they're all right) and any number of issues where they have previously lost the argument. Now they seem to be trying to scare people shitless, using our hideous press, as always. An article I read recently blamed this galumph Crosby. Can our Australian pals enlighten me as to a) who the fuck he is, and b) how fucking scared should i be. | ||
| Cichli Suite Member Username: Cichli_suite Post Number: 42 Registered: 08-2004 |
The Guardian had an article on him last month: Lynton Crosby | ||
| Pádraig Collins Unregistered guest |
Crosby is a Liberal Party hack in Australia. The Liberals here are like your Tories, not like your Liberals. In fact many people just call the Liberals here Tories. The Australian Tories make electoral hay from scare campaigns. In the 2001 election it was refugees on the Tampa. In the 2004 election it was mortgage rates. They said the rates would not go up under them... They went up yesterday. Hope all the halfwits who voted for them for this reason now realise they have the IQ of a box of rocks. Lindy, your views on Ireland and religion are very dated. Ireland has changed immensely with the prosperity of the last decade. I would go further than Catherine and say that religion has no influence whatsoever anymore. Far less than it does in Australia anyway. The Australian Tories, Treasurer Peter Costello in particular, shamelessly courted the happy clappy Hillsong church voters in south west Sydney and they delivered in spades, helping to turn over a previously safe Labor seat. | ||
| Rob Member Username: Rob Post Number: 1 Registered: 12-2004 |
Badseed, Lynton Crosby is a political fixer from the right wing of Aussie politics; he was born in the steel town of Whyalla, in my home state of South Australia, where ships were once built and thousands of British migrants helped build them. Any Scots or Northern Irish or Yorkshire people on this board with rellos in Australia who emigrated in the 1960s... Whyalla was one of the clean and healthy, but culturally sterile, places they were sent. A few Dutch, Germans, Italians and Greeks, but in the main Anglo Celtic Australians smacked down on the edge of a desert. A remarkable number of big wheels in Australian politics spent time in Whyalla. In part this is because the industrial politics of the town allowed many young people to cut their political teeth in the struggle for (either) better conditions for the unionised workforce (or) keeping the costs down and the profits up. Also it meant that you might be able to one day use your contacts to get out of town. As Lynton has done. Anyway Lynton joined the Liberals, the business party of Australian politics. It has some ties to the English Conservatives, but really to call them Tories as Padraig has is misleading. The Libs' sense of themselves is tied very tightly to the "employer organisation" role within the Australian industrial relations system. I'll rave on to you all about that some other time, but in a nutshell this system is court-based, and over the last 100 years wages and conditions in different industries have been regulated by means of disputes within a wages tribunal system. The employers and the unions ave been the two parties appearing in these tribunals. Former union and employer advocates are appointed as judges to hear the cases. The entire thing is known by some as "the industrial relations club"; it is hugely significant for the economy and I would argue, the culture of Australia, but very few people know much about the system. So Lynton sees things through the lens of a corporate, and anti-union, advocate. Stuff like the EU and the House of Lords reform are irrelevant to his kind. He sees interest rates, law and order, low taxes, private enterprise running whatever can make a buck, and generally speaking not much else. (Sounds like Alistair Campbell to me.) There is a lot of posturing and mudslinging in his manner because that is what happens in these Australian industrial tribunals. The decisions usually get made behind the scenes where turkey is taked (so to speak); the posturing occurs in court in front of the media, the better to please the relevant audiences. Padraig, how's that for an assessment? I think Michael Howard won't win with Crosby, but he might match Labour in the campaign, and that may be enough to save his skin after the loss. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Unregistered guest |
Rob, I am not being misleading in calling the Libs Tories. That is a very accurate comparison as a shorthand explanation of their policies to non-Australian residents. They are nothing like the UK Liberals and everything like the UK Tories, hence Lynton switching seamlessly from the Australian Tories to the UK Tories and the very reason that we are talking about this here. Lynton will have no material affect on the outcome of the UK election, where the Tories will once again be humiliated. I've said this before, but you don't get this level of discourse on any other band site that I am aware of. Thanks again for the KitKat by the way Rob! | ||
| Rob Member Username: Rob Post Number: 4 Registered: 12-2004 |
You're welcome Padraig (sorry, this keyboard is frustrating my attempts to spell your name correctly); the Barbican show by the way is marvellous, very good for calming one down after wrestling with a sleep deprived baby. And eh, i must disagree; there's a whole swag of cultural and class stuff connected to Conservative politics in England that can't correspond to the Australian Liberal Party. Not that class isn't a factor in Aussie politics and life - it sure is - but the Tories in England carry with them a kind of imperial dust, a scent of Rupert Brooke, which the relentlessly money-driven Liberals (and their coalition partners the rural populist National Party) don't have and couldn't hold. This country has grown up as farm/factory/mine, and the Liberals (and many in the Australia Labor Party too) still look at it that way. They don't get too misty eyed about it. It's a utilitarian society! Which is why the GoBs are so precious. Now in Ireland, you trip over poets, painters and bards just going to the shop for a Kit Kat? Don't you Padraig? (wink) | ||
| Randy Adams Unregistered guest |
Misery loves company. I take some sick comfort from the fact that folks are being threatened by the flat-earth Christian right in other countries besides here in the U.S. where they now seem to control the whole show. I just finished reading a scary article in U.S. mag Mother Jones about the new mega-churches that have grown up in every significant suburban U.S. area. These places are like shopping malls for canned morality where younger middle class types go to get their fill of ersatz community. Apparently they are aimed specifically at straight white men, as they are the demographic most resistant to the appeal of the more traditional churches, not to mention the one with the bucks. The congregations of each of these mega-churches literally number in the multi-thousands. Is there anything comparable developing in Oz or the U.K.? It seems like a perfect fascist breeding ground. I don't know about poets, but it sure seems like the utilitarian Australia has a lot more than its fair share of great music people. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Unregistered guest |
Randy, the happy clappy Hillsong church I referred to up above is exactly that kind of super-mall church. It holds 12,000, which is even bigger than the Catholic cathedral in the city. Au contraire Rob, I think the Liberal party in Australia are very much a class driven organisation. I know they get votes and seats in vast swathes of Australia's working and lower middle class suburbs too, but so did the English Tories under Thatcher. You can't win an election in Australia (or the UK) without winning those votes. | ||
| Badseed Unregistered guest |
To be honest, Rob, Mrs Thatch swept away alot of the patrician, class-based Toryism. Padraig's right, she won and held power by pandering to, hoodwinking and bribing the working-class who traditionally voted Labour, as well as the Tory base. Now the Tory party is run by lawyers, spivs and failed estate agents on the make for them and their pals. They wrap themselves in the flag in order to win votes. They won't win power for ages; she won them power for two decades, but the upshot is they are so hated and loathed that they won't win again for two decades. The Uk Liberal Democrats are probably the most left-wing party over here at the moment: anti-war, pro-tax rises, cutting stamp duty, but then power is not an option for them. From what i know of Aussie politics, I think the Tories are modelling themselves on John Howard's lot, which is why Crosby is here. They are certainly borrowing a few ideas on immigration: I wait with dread fake stories about immigrants threatening to throw their children into their sea (though one of our right-wing rags did fabricate a piece about asylum seekers eating swans: 'Swan Bake' they called it. It was made-up, but the damage was done . The apology was printed on page 57; the original story was the splash). But anyway, I want to know what Amanda Brown thinks of Tallulah... | ||
| Rob Member Username: Rob Post Number: 7 Registered: 12-2004 |
Not Amanda, Badseed, but I love Tallulah too. Best. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Unregistered guest |
Thanks for the props Badseed! | ||
| Rob Member Username: Rob Post Number: 12 Registered: 12-2004 |
Badseed, having watched English politics from West Yorkshire over the past three years, I would venture the opinion that like the right and left parties in Australian politics, and maybe in western politics generally, the Tories and Labour are basically standing on the same side of the stage these days. University fees, foundation hospitals, US-led wars, the demonising of asylum seekers, ID cards... these policies no longer have a badge on them proclaiming Labour or Conservative. And Labour has been pushing them, with success. When the current boom ends, as of course it will, there will be a shakeout... this may well mean that one or other party might disappear in its current form, or it might mean that Labour will shift left. But clearly it will be a Labour victory in May. I don't think Lynton Crosby can do anything about that. | ||
| Rob Member Username: Rob Post Number: 13 Registered: 12-2004 |
Badseed, having watched English politics from West Yorkshire over the past three years, I would venture the opinion that like the right and left parties in Australian politics, and maybe in western politics generally, the Tories and Labour are basically standing on the same side of the stage these days. University fees, foundation hospitals, US-led wars, the demonising of asylum seekers, ID cards... these policies no longer have a badge on them proclaiming Labour or Conservative. And Labour has been pushing them, with success. When the current boom ends, as of course it will, there will be a shakeout... this may well mean that one or other party might disappear in its current form, or it might mean that Labour will shift left. But clearly it will be a Labour victory in May. I don't think Lynton Crosby can do anything about that. | ||
| lindy morrison Member Username: Lindymorrison Post Number: 72 Registered: 09-2004 |
Padraig, Catherine, of course you are right. I haven't been to Ireland since the eighties. So I am dated. Accept my apologies. I am so concerned about the anti choice/choice debate on terminations in this country existing now, the proponents of anti choice, say things like it was your generation that allowed terminations to be legal. But no one talks about the fact that more and more single women are those who are having the babies, they only talk about how those women should carry to term and adopt them out. They keep the single mothers benefit so low no one can live on it. They now want them to work as soon as the kids go to school and the only work available is casual.Casual sucks big time. It goes on and on. Why that ties up with the Irish I don't know right now but always thought Irish laws were the worst until I saw what is happening here. In despair. | ||
| Peter Collins Unregistered guest |
The Lib Dems in the UK do a fair bit of left-wing posturing when it suits them, but I don't think their record in local government suggests they'd keep to it. And there is a fair bit of fundamental debate in that party about whether they should be 'liberal' in the slightly left of centre modern meaning, or Liberal in the old-fashioned pro-capital meaning. | ||
| cameron Unregistered guest |
I live in a Lib Dem stronghold ( Bristol) .. They are basically Tories but they have a kind of protestant egalatarian streak towards the poor and social non conformists and have Tolerance zones for prositution and drug dealing .Weed has been decrim here in the blind eye sense for over 20 years . We have pubs that operate like dutch coffeeshops in the inner city . Its a good place for pot smokers , who want their civil rights but dont want to have to learn dutch or danish . I vote LIb Dem .:-) | ||
| lindy morrison Member Username: Lindymorrison Post Number: 75 Registered: 09-2004 |
Serious discussion. ok I know nothing about the Liberal Democrats in the UK, I was making the point that there is now a strong anti abortion lobby existing in Australia. Obviously the party I belong to is pro choice. This is a debate I feel very strongly about. We fought hard in the seventies to win that right in QLD, to have safe legal abortions. It concerns me that right wing religious groups are trying to take that right away in Australia. This will become a major issue once the Senate is controlled by the Coalition in July. We will then rely on conservative women to keep the men in their conservative parties in check. We will rely on the women in the Liberal/National parties. Hopefully they all have teen age daughters and recognize the problems. Will they expect all their daughters to be virgins until they marry. Or perhaps they will expect their daughters to go through with a pregnancy and then adopt the child out like Tony Abbott had his girlfriend do. Perhaps they will expect their sons to marry the girl once she is accidently impregnated. Perhaps they think contraception works. Perhaps they think the pill is still not an experiment and the coil doesn't cause pain and infection. Perhaps they think every boys uses a condom. | ||
| Rob Member Username: Rob Post Number: 14 Registered: 12-2004 |
Lindy, fair enough being worried about the Liberal/National anti-abortion lobby but I do not think this is an issue with traction where Howard need to win and keep winning... the outer suburbs of the big cities. Australians I believe are not as prone to self-delusion as you might think. There are a lot of women in this country, now in their 40s and 50s, who gratefully used our public hospital system when an unplanned pregnancy happened. They are conservative voters too, not just Labor ones! Churchgoers, businesswomen, farmers' wives included. I don't think they will vote to destroy a right that they used to keep their lives (and indeed those of their partners and other children!!) under control. There are just a lot of Lib/Nat guys (note gender) beating their chests very loudly at present due to the rather unexpected Senate numbers from the last election. Some of them want a flat income tax system too. They may want many things, they ain't gonna get 'em all. | ||
| Randy Adams Unregistered guest |
I cannot get over my amazement at how many of the issues in Oz are the same as those here in the states. Concerning abortion, my observation over the years is that "conservative" has evolved into a synonym for "hypocrite." I'll give one great example which is only typical: one of our Supreme Court justices, Clarence Thomas, is a black man whose votes on the Court and public pronouncements are consistently opposed to the measures intalled in this country to try to overcome or offset the consequences of many generations of discrimination and oppression of black people. He, himself, was a direct beneficiary of these programs enabling him to get into the best universities. Conservatives seem to forget their own pasts very easily. In the U.S., I'm afraid that the populace is going to have to learn the reason for this country's historic separation between church and state the hard way. Some very regressive social measures will be instituted and then folks will start to wake up. Perhaps Australia is headed down the same turnpike. It's interesting that the flat tax is being pushed in Oz. With its enormous physical size and comparatively small population, I must assume that Oz already requires a much larger per-capita expenditure on infrastructure than do the more populous of the developed countries. If a flat tax is instituted, this enormous cost will have to be borne by the folks who cannot and Australia's economic and social mobility will crash. What a dreadful idea. | ||
| catfiggs Unregistered guest |
ooh, talullah is a great album isn't it. Grant was really onto something with someone else's wife and hope then strife. someone else's wife in particular i think is just great. sort seems to be a bit of a cousin to newton told me and five words and especialyl second hand furniture, seems to skip right over what was going on in liberty belle. nice song that seemed to fit into the barren drought of a town that was/is brisbane, or come out of it. or something. robert wrote some crackers for that album too. some of them , like you tell them, feel like really quickly tossed off little things but they're great things, like short stories. set in st lucia or something. the clarke sisters always seems all majestic to me. oddly i originally heard it as 'clock' sisters and thought it was some sort of nick cave weeping song metaphor thing. i actually prefer it as the clarke sisters though. straight out of tirra lirra by the river. best part: 'midnight world/the crystal ball down the wooden hall...' take that noel mengel and your endless much too favourable pete murray articles. | ||
| Brook Crowley Member Username: 1_fan Post Number: 20 Registered: 02-2005 |
"Tallulah" is certainly one of my favourite Go-Betweens albums. I love "Right Here", "Cut it Out!" and "I Just Get Caught Out" with harmonies from Grant, Amanda and Robert Vickers (one of only a handful of songs, if not the only, song featuring him singing; if I'm wrong, I apologise). Oh, and "Bye Bye Pride" kinda makes me cry, especially sound of the oboe, that's a pretty sad instrument. By the way, if anyone lives in Canada, do you have a Canadian pressing of the album on the prestigious Vertigo label? I saw a copy of that very same album of that very same pressing on that very same label many, many years ago. Please say so if you have it, or at least heard of it. |