| Author | Message | ||
     admin Board Administrator Username: Admin Post Number: 65 Registered: 08-2004 |
16th October 2022 Greetings from Brisbane Dear friends, pull up chairs, this is a difficult and lengthy post. It is tough news that I wish to share with you and not for you to pick up second hand on the internet over the next months. In early July last year, Karin Bäumler, my wife and musical companion for thirty-two years, was diagnosed with a confronting case of ovarian cancer. It was a time of shock and grief, and that same month, she embarked on a regime of chemotherapy treatment. Ever since we met, Karin and I have sung and played music together in our home, and in these dark days we turned to music once again. I had a batch of new songs I’d written over the last years, and we started playing them together. Our son Louis often dropped in for a meal and a chat and soon he began joining us on guitar. One night, when sitting cross-legged on the couch, after we had played a song, Karin looked up from her xylophone and said, ‘When we play music, is the only time I forget I have cancer.’ That was a big moment. In the meantime some of our very kind Brisbane friends had formed a cooking roster, leaving meals at our front door to support us through this time. One of them was Adele Pickvance, former Go-Betweens and Warm Nights bass player. On one of her meal delivery trips, I asked her to bring her bass and an amp along. She pulled up a chair in our lounge room and fell right in on the new songs. In October, Karin was scheduled for surgery. We booked a studio, and on September 27th, the four of us sitting in a circle, recorded 10 songs live in 7 hours. Whatever would happen in the future, we would always have the tape. Over the next months, when Karin was strong enough and Covid numbers were low, we booked odd days in the studio. Sometimes our daughter, Loretta, would come along and join us and we brought in friends to help us, too. Karin was driving the album and listening to what we’d done on each session, gave us weeks of enjoyment and a place we could retreat to, away from hospital visits and scans and blood tests. In early March, with her chemotherapy course just finished, we did our last day in the studio. The songs we recorded formed an album that will come out early next year, and this Wednesday, the 19th, we will release a single. But we wanted you to know the story of the creation of the record first. Why it exists. Why these musicians are playing on it. Why there isn’t layers of production, instead a live, catch a moment feel to the sound. Two of the songs on the album are from that September 27 recording. We didn’t know we’d started an album but we had, in the shadow of Karin’s hospital visits. With a challenging year behind her, Karin is feeling strong and positive now and she can’t wait for our music to go out of our house and into the world. It may seem strange making an album in these circumstances and looking back, we really don’t know how we did it, but we do know that it helped us just so much as a family. It was done in drops and gave us this other reality we could live in. Something that music is great in giving. In the slow process of the album’s recording, we didn’t inform a wide range of family and friends of what we were doing, and we ask for their understanding in the delivery of this news. The album is called “The Candle And The Flame”. We hope you will enjoy it! Fondest Regards from Karin and myself, Robert | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 4784 Registered: 03-2005 |
Whew! Harrowing news, Robert, but glad to hear that it's turned out as it has. Looking forward to the album. There's a very great deal to recommend an album without layers of production. | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 2137 Registered: 10-2006 |
Great to hear that Karin is doing well, and good to know that you have all come together to make something positive out of these punishing circumstances. Nothing wrong with lo-fi live recordings, I’ve often gone back with immense enjoyment to your at-home-with-the-Forsters German radio broadcast. Candle & flame will be a heartening gift. | ||
| Andrew Kerr Member Username: Andrew_k Post Number: 1484 Registered: 04-2005 |
New release listed as pre-order with Rough Trade. https://roughtrade.com/gb/product/robert -forster/the-candle-and-the-flame | ||
| TROU Member Username: Trou Post Number: 550 Registered: 05-2005 |
And Tapete for the continent : https://shop.tapeterecords.com/robert-fo rster-the-candle-and-the-flame-3688 | ||
| Andrew Kerr Member Username: Andrew_k Post Number: 1485 Registered: 04-2005 |
First song..."SHe'a A Fighter" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfYYdH3B rqQ | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 10278 Registered: 05-2005 |
What a brilliant song and video. I wish Karin, Robert and their family good health. | ||
| Ric Member Username: Ric Post Number: 16 Registered: 05-2019 |
this article has some tour dates at the foot https://www.brooklynvegan.com/robert-for ster-the-go-betweens-announces-new-lp-li sten-to-shes-a-fighter/ | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 2140 Registered: 10-2006 |
First up, Strathaven! There you go, Hugh! | ||
| fsh Member Username: Fsh Post Number: 390 Registered: 05-2005 |
Don't let him come back. | ||
| Hugh Nimmo Member Username: Hugh_nimmo Post Number: 1453 Registered: 03-2007 |
Stuart, Tickets for the FretsConcerts gig at the Strathaven Hotel go on sale at 0900 hours on Friday 21st October, 2022. It is a very small capacity venue and it remains to be seen if I am lucky or unlucky in sourcing two. | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 2142 Registered: 10-2006 |
Good luck, there, Hugh! The nearest gig to me looks like Landsberg in Bavaria, a pretty little town, it seems, but a bit of a hike. Would a Milan date be so difficult to organise? I imagine he'd pull just as many people in one of its smaller theatres as in a German hamlet. | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 2144 Registered: 10-2006 |
From Mr Petridis: "This week Alexis listened to Robert Forster – She’s a Fighter: Former Go-Between convenes family band – including son Louis, from the Goon Sax – during wife’s cancer treatment: fabulously taut, drumless angularity ensues." Fabulously taut is good. | ||
| Andrew Kerr Member Username: Andrew_k Post Number: 1497 Registered: 04-2005 |
A very interesting (and moving) read ! An interview with Robert in the Brisbane Times https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/culture /music/for-the-go-betweens-robert-forste r-the-beat-goes-on-despite-the-situation -20221205-p5c3r4.html | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 2162 Registered: 10-2006 |
Thanks Andrew! Very moving indeed. | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 2164 Registered: 10-2006 |
And the Guardian... https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/f eb/02/robert-forster-the-candle-and-the- flame-review-intimate-and-life-affirming ?CMP=share_btn_fb&fbclid=IwAR3XNF4rASZh2 o66o2acJm65yaaY6iKr9R56_zuI_A3kaqzHFrpVh hbf08Y | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 10279 Registered: 05-2005 |
This is a nice interview with Robert. https://themusic.com.au/features/robert- forster-the-candle-and-the-flame-album-i nterview/7w3r4-Ll5Oc/03-02-23 | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 10280 Registered: 05-2005 |
This one is worth reading too, but also infuriating - it spells Robert’s wife’s name wrong nine times and right twice. I despair at the lack of respect for sub-editing in journalism over the last decade. https://www.pastemagazine.com/music/robe rt-forster/robert-forster-go-betweens-in terview-the-candle-an/ | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 2165 Registered: 10-2006 |
An articulate and sympathetic review from Pitchfork. https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/rob ert-forster-the-candle-and-the-flame/ | ||
| Rob Brookman Member Username: Rob_b Post Number: 2049 Registered: 08-2006 |
Stuart, the author of that Pitchfork review used to visit these parts back in the day and he's a participant in a Facebook group I'm in. Really good writer. I'm glad P-fork assigned him the review because he nailed it. | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 2169 Registered: 10-2006 |
I might have pushed the rating up to 8.0, Rob, but apart from that, yes, fine assessment. | ||
| Simon Withers Member Username: Sfwithers Post Number: 718 Registered: 08-2005 |
My copy has turned up but I haven't had time to listen to it yet - I want to do it justice and I have family stuff going on at the moment (an 88-year-old dad and 93-year-old mother-in-law can prove stressful!). I also managed not to get tickets for the Oxford gig for the same reason, so I'm going to try to make Brighton. On the plus side, my two-day-a-week job (probably my last 'proper' job given my age) as a sub-editor on a cycling website is great, and I'm happier with work than I've been in years. Hope everything's good with you all. | ||
| James Member Username: James Post Number: 43 Registered: 05-2005 |
Hi - does anyone happen to have 2 spare tickets for Robert's York show? | ||
| Simon Withers Member Username: Sfwithers Post Number: 719 Registered: 08-2005 |
Following on from James, does anybody have two tickets for Oxford?! | ||
| Ric Member Username: Ric Post Number: 17 Registered: 05-2019 |
James - I've had someone drop out, so 1 spare for York if you want it. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 10304 Registered: 05-2005 |
Robert is playing Belfast for the first time and has been interviewed by a paper there. https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/enter tainment/music/co-founder-of-the-go-betw eens-robert-forster-shares-his-excitemen t-for-first-ever-gig-in-belfast/10567746 89.html |