| Author | Message | ||
     pups |
Cattle and Cane has made it into the Mojo list of the 100 most miserable songs of all time (it's in the new edition, with Morrissey on the cover). I think there is a lot of sadness to that song, but it is not miserable is it? | ||
| Mark Ilsley |
Do they mean unhappy or inferior? | ||
| pups |
They mean unhappy. | ||
| Mark Ilsley |
Well then, maybe I'll forgive them. Which JD song made #1?  | ||
| Pete Azzopardi |
Fucking Mojo and their bloody lists and their bloody Beatles specials. It's such lazy journalism. The very idea that you can rate a song for its miserable appeal is stupid and pointless. It's like Dolly (popular Australian teen girl magazine) running a poll on "who's your favourite hunk", which is fine for something as low brow as Dolly but Mojo pretends to be so much more. Occassionally, they are responsible for some of the best music writing around. Still, I guess it's nice of the Go-Bs to get a mention. As past readers may have noticed, I have a love-hate relationship with the magazine. What was that last poll in the Brian Wilson issue - something about 60 lost albums you should own? What qualifies as a lost album? 90 percent of the titles on the list were available as reissues, if not you could download them somewhere. | ||
| Pete Azzopardi |
Sorry about my above diatribe: I was just out of bed and hadn't had my breakfast yet. Mojo's good enough. | ||
| James |
Pete, I agree Mojo can appear lazy, but it lords it over Q. I can't think of an easier job in music journalism that sitting at Q deciding which pointless list of 100 Best/Worst songs/albums etc should grace the magazine's cover each month. Not only that but they devote 50 words max to each entry which leaves no room for any insight of originality. I'd put money on there being a '100 Best Q Polls, Readers Poll' on its way to a newsagent near you very soon. Argh. | ||
| Randy Adams |
I do not get lists at all. They are only interesting if they are of things that people need to discover--really obscure things. Whose top 10 or top 100 stays the same anyway? Doesn't it depend upon how much you just drank? I think I could get into a list of records that we all thought were brilliant that haven't aged very well. That would be interesting. I've never seen Q and have only glanced at Mojo a few times. Do either of them ever do that type of list? | ||
| jerry |
They do these top 100's to sell more mags. Not only is it lazy journalism but also makes for lazy reading.You don't feel compelled to read a list from start to finish, rather just pick and choose what's of interest to you. A magazine with 3 or 4 main features on 3 or 4 bands doesn't appeal to as many potential buyers as a top 100. | ||
| Padraig Collins |
Jerry, they all do what they do to sell magazines. That's their business. Even Uncut, which is by far the best of these magazines, revolves around a core of Beatles/ Stones / Who covers. That trio accounts for at least seven of their 12 covers every year. They account for 10 of Q and Mojo's covers most years though. I get annoyed when I start reading a story and think "I've read most of this in the same publication two years ago". I sometimes wonder what current groups will they revolve on their covers in 20 years time, or will they still be in thrall to the 60s? I don't think I'd buy Uncut if it didn't have the CD with it each month. I never buy Mojo unless it has a free CD and I never buy Q even with a free CD as the magazine is crap and the music on their CDs always reflects the boring dad rock (Stereophonics, Travis, Ocean Colour Scene etc) that their boring dad readers love. There. I feel better now! Annoyed yet with my phallucratic (male) orthodoxy, hsf? | ||
| Randy Adams |
What's "dad rock?" | ||
| Padraig Collins |
I knew you would ask that! It is music that purports to be some sort of 'alternative', but in reality is the kind of MOR rubbish you could imagine your dad listening to. | ||
| Mark Ilsley |
Dad rock ..lol, I love it. My only problem is that my father is entirely to old for rock. In my case Dad rock would be: Smokey Robinson, Fats Waller, Nat King Cole, Lawrence Welk, Robert Goulet, Englebert Humperdink, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Roger Miller, Glen Campbell, Jim Nabors, Andy Williams and Colin Millington (even my Dad was embarrased when I found this one). Hey, ..I just realised that the Old Fart really didn't have bad taste in music after all. I enjoy listening to most of it. Especially The Bob Cats a pre-war swing unit within the Bob Crosby Orchestra. Anyone else care to take a look into their Dad's record collection an tell us what they really find? | ||
| Pete Azzopardi |
Hey Mark, your dad is pretty cool. I don't think this will be a very popular thread but here goes: My old man used to listen to quite a bit of Motown when I was a kid. We often had The Four Tops or the Temptations blaring, two utterly fantastic groups I've become reaquainted with in the last couple of years. Other times we often had the Beach Boys "Party" album. The "Tour of Duty Vol 2" soundtrack was a big one in our family too, as we were big fans of the show (that and "China Beach": my dad was in 'Nam, man - don't ask). I was born in the eighties when cassettes seemed to be the big thing and the only LPs I remember lying around were stuff like Jimmy Barnes' live "Barnestorming" album which must be in about every op-shop in Australia, a Gloria Estefan 12" he won from a local radio station, the Beatles Ballads compilation and the Fleetwood Mac album before "Rumours". In our household, and probably everybody elses here I'm guessing, music was a very minor part of our lives (work and sports being much more important): to be listened to when we did housework or when we entertained friends of the family. When my dad bought a new tape it was a big event: "such a frivolous thing to spend his hard earned money on, it must be good!" I just realised I wrote a fairly big assumption: "...our household, and probably everybody elses here I'm guessing..." I'm assuming, perhaps outrageously, that most Go-Bs fans come from largely white, working/middle class backgrounds where music and art wasn't a big priority. It's pop, so it is not high or elitist art (but it is high art in the pop stakes). It's not musically rich so you're not from an inherently musical family. It's obscure, so you probably took pride in being different from the norm at school and perhaps in your family. Am I talking too much shit to handle here? This could be fatal. | ||
| John |
The only thing I can remember about Dad's record collection is that he owned a few Kamahl records, apparently because, solely in a polite effort to be conversational, he once made a comment to his mother-in-law about liking Kamahl and she subsequently gave him a Kamahl record every Christmas and birthday. Pete, I know what you mean about the "67 lost albums" list in Mojo. I had a rant on another board about how, to get to the magic 67 (as in 1967, when the Beach Boys "Smile" was intended for release), they included many albums with very dubious claims to being "lost". I saw at the newsagent today an issue of Q that advertised "the 100 best ever gigs". Comments, James? | ||
| Padraig Collins |
My father had a great record player, one of those huge old ones that looked like a coffin on stilts. It had inbuilt speakers and space for about 30 albums in it. He had a lot of old 78s, which I'm would have been cool to hear them, but me and my brothers and sister used to smash them off the wall in the attic. That old-style shellac smashes beautifully! I'm apalled that I ever did that. He did not have a very good taste in music though, going on the albums I did hear. Well, more to the point, he just was not too interested. I don't know where my music love/obsession came from. Down through the years though I have occasionally made him some mix tapes and CDs and he always seems to like them. I put a Husker Du track on one tape and he even liked that! OK, it was a quiet, introspective Husker Du track, but still! Yes, that Mojo list was entirely bogus. I have several of those albums, so how lost can they be? | ||
| James |
My earliest memory of my Dad and music is of him buying an expensive Pioneer stereo in 1976. This unprecedented act of decadence prompted the purchasing of records by Gerry Rafferty, Dionne Warwick, Rod Stewart, Abba, Neil Sedaka, and four albums called 'Classic Rock' which featured the LSO performing Rock Classics such as 'Layla', and 'Stairway To Heaven' in the mock classical style (they were great). After the great vinyl avalanche of '76-78 he never bought anymore music until much to me and my sister's surprise he returned from work one day in 1983 with Thriller. I still can't figure out his random patterns but I guess its a spur of the moment thing and there's an underlying adherence to 'Rock' principles. This has been underlined recently by the influx of CDs by The Stones, Dylan, and Sheryl Crow. If I had more time i'd buy a bottle of Irish Whisky and for a repeat of the night we listened to Pet Sounds and Hunky Dory and ranted on for hours about how great they are. | ||
| Mark Ilsley |
Hey Paddy, we got one of those sitting on the back veranda. It's a PYE 3-in-1. Valve everything. TV, record player and radio all built into the one beautifully crafted rosewood unit, about 6 feet long. The TV no longer works but the radio and amp. still do. The record player probably would work if we had a stylus for it. I'm going to fix it one day. No danger of losing it as my father loves it as much as I do. It was his mothers. | ||
| Randy Adams |
I was born in 1956, so my dad's music came from a totally different era,like Mark's dad. Except that my dad didn't have very interesting tastes. I remember Ronnie Aldrich with his two pianos. It was a gimmicky thing to demonstrate stereo. Too bad he didn't have Joe Meek's "I Hear a New World" instead. He also listened to bad classical music, like the 1812 Overture. On Sundays, he used to decree that we (his kids) could not listen to music so that he could put his FM on the "beautiful music" station all day long. We got the hell out of the house, so I guess he really knew what he was up to. Like Padraig's dad, he had this huge console. It was very swanky with a cherrywood french provincial cabinet and a Garrard record changer and a two track Ampex reel to reel. The amps were all tubes of course. I think my dad was into the gadget aspect of things. My mom was more into music, the crooners of course, like Sinatra, Robert Goulet and some guy named John Gary who she really liked a lot. They had those christmas anthology records that one of the automotive tire companies used to give away. I remember a great version of "Holy Holy Holy" by Mahalia Jackson--there's a voice. And I remember something treacly by the New Christy Minstrels probably while they had Gene Clark in their lineup. My big musical influence was my seven-years older brother. He was exactly the right age to catch the original British Invasion in the U.S.. He since moved on to country but the British Invasion and everything that flowed from it is where I went which is how I get to the GoBs. I think I get the "dad rock" idea. I think that's the slot I usually shove folks like Bruce Springsteen into. | ||
| jerry |
Thanks Padraig I was aware of that. My point was these lists are created for a more slack-jawed less-discerning reader. The morons have always been the masses and they always will be. Anyway I'm a dad does that make my collection dad rock. | ||
| Anonymous |
Not sure about the Mojo misery top 100, but it doesn't matter what Grant is singing about, a school boy coming home, the song belongs in the top 100 songs which sound like the piece of earth they were written about. This is Queensland, out on the patio we sit, listening to cattle and Cane. Well some of us do, most people listen to Bruce or Cold Play or Barnsey while the cane is burning. "Out on the patio we sit" is from a song by Mark Callahan from Gangajang which also sounds like cane toads and christmas beatles and burning cane. | ||
| Padraig Collins |
Randy, I love Bruce! Don't diss the Boss! Jerry, I'm a dad too, but that does not make any of my 5000+ albums dad rock. You won't find any Travis/Stereophonics/Ocean Colour Scene/etc in there. At the risk of beginning a new tangent and annoying hsf even more (a very good reason to do it then!), my two-and-a-half year old daughter loves music, particularly on vinyl! Her absolute favourite is a garage-punk-psyechedelic 7" by an Athens, Georgia band called Daisy. It's called 'It Gives Me The Creeps Baby (Oh Yeah)' and came out in 1993. She just calls it 'Creeps Baby'. She also adores the 12" version of Teenage Fanclub's 'Star Sign', which she calls 'Hey' because that's the first word they sing after a long instrumental intro. On an unrelated point, I was surprised to find that a guy I used to know in Dublin is mentioned in the last two chapters of David's book because of a Go-Betweens interview he did in 2002. | ||
| John |
Yeah, Bruce gets an unfair rap, probably because the success of his mid-'80s rawk anthems overshadows his more subtle material. Any two-and-a-half-year-old who likes Teenage Fanclub's "Star Sign" is going to turn out OK. | ||
| jerry |
Can I nominate some others in the dad rock category. UB40, Sting and Phil collins who is surely the daddy of dad rock. | ||
| david nichols |
Phil Collins is a unique case. There are two (well, three I suppose) major artists who I can see absolutely no redeeming features in, from beginning to end. One is Meat Loaf. The other two are Phil Collins and Genesis. I suppose early Genesis might have something offer me but I can't stand trying. My experience of Phil Collins fans has always been they can only be categorised as people who have no real interest in music but think they ought to like something, because everyone else has a 'favourite' musical act. I have met quite a few girls/women who like PC, presumably because they are tone deaf or just foolish. Interestingly (?) John Howard, the present Australian prime minister and undoubtedly the worst PM this country has ever had, is a big Phil Collins fan (I'm not just deriding him - I read it in The Age a few years ago, when Beazley was opposition leader and claiming to like the Easybeats and the Loved Ones, which shows great taste though it was possibly just something someone on his staff told Beazley to say). Mark Latham, the present opposition leader, is a full-on devotee of Meat Loaf: in fact, when he was deciding whether to challenge for leader he got in the car and drove around with Bat out of Hell full boar. Ugh. Our last PM, Paul Keating, claimed to be a fan of Paul McCartney because his work was the most commercial. As far as I'm concerned that's the right Beatle for the wrong reasons, but that's just me. I will never forget the tiny furore when Bob Carr, as opposition leader in NSW eons ago, claimed in a radio interview that his favourite singer was Manfred Mann. Of course Mann didn't sing in his bands (and the 60s band Manfred Mann had two singers in two distinct eras). Senator Natasha Stott-Despoja's favourite band is the Go-Betweens. Reputedly Qld premier Peter Beattie also feels this way. | ||
| Pete Azzopardi |
So Howard loves Collins and Latham loves Meatloaf. As far as I can see, which ever way the vote goes our country loses. | ||
| david nichols |
Well, fortunately we're not voting for their record collections. A vote for Howard is, in any case, a vote for Peter Costello as Howard has already all but said he'd step down in favour of Costello at some point if re-elected. I wonder what music Costello likes. He looks like a kind of Pink Floyd (Dave Gilmour era) guy. Although I can't stand Meatloaf at least that first album was produced by Todd Rundgren, who is one of the greats of the 20th century in my book. Oh, and Latham will be about a million times better a leader than Howard, not that that is saying too much, or indeed anything. | ||
| Pete Azzopardi |
Re: Qld premier Peter Beattie loving the Go-Betweens. I remember reading somewhere that recently he was giving away copies of "Bright Yellow, Bright Orange" to special international visitors to the state. I wonder how Robert and Grant feel about this. | ||
| david nichols |
If he's buying it from them first, I am sure they'd be pretty pleased. | ||
| Steve Bracks |
Peter Costello loves Elvis Costello. Bob Carr loves The Cars. Bob Brown loves R.E.M.'s Green album. Trish Draper loves The Cowboy Junkets. | ||
| michael |
Joh Bjelke-Petersen has been listening to Ramstein. Back in the 70s he was into the Police and then the Sting or Sting or someone like that. Sorry old Brisbane angst. | ||
| Mark Ilsley |
Lol, Ramstein would kill Joh. Didn't he have his own band, Joh and the Gerrymander? The Police where only his support act. | ||
| Mark Ilsley |
Probably just my over active imagination again. ..but Steve Bracks seems to know rather a lot about politicians?? Pollies just don't do this, do they? | ||
| michael |
I was wondering whether to say Joh has been or was still listening to Ramstein, hoping not to get a reply saying he'd dropped off the perch. That would have been the end of that, however.. The Joh and the Gerrymanders (aka Terry and the Johmakers) line up varied a lot but THE BEST LINE UP INCLUDED Russ Hinze on sonic guitar, Terry Lewis on de bass(ment), Flo played the scones (close enough to skins) and Joh did the talking of course. They had a good roadie for a while - jack Herbert I think | ||
| Steve Bracks |
Their best song was The Ballad Of Joh And Flo. A real tear-jerker. Of course there may have been some payola connected to its chart position. Mark, of course I know a lot about politicians... | ||
| Randy Adams |
I can't weigh in on Australian politicos. I wonder what dad rock things I might have. I do have one Travis CD. I played it a few times. I remember them veering around from ersatz Beatles (surprise!) to ersatz U2 (the surprises keep coming, don't they). I even saw them on stage. The highlight was something called "I'm So Happy That You're So Happy." It had a GREAT trashy Bay City Rollers/Easybeats bubblegum feel to it. It made the evening. If that was the sort of thing they normally did, I'd have lots of Travis. Do Turin Brakes qualify as dad rock? I have a friend who swears they are great. I can listen to them, but . . . . I continue to listen to Cathal Coughlin. My quickie description of him to a friend of mine (not the Turin Brakes friend) was a blend of Nick Cave and the later uncommercial Scott Walker. And then it turns out that Coughlin contributed notes to the new Scott Walker box set! I'm not too sure about Microdisney, though. They sound like a smarter Spandau Ballet--in my book that's not a good thing. | ||
| Padraig Collins |
Randy, it's Coughlan. It's misspelt on the amazon site. Not on your CDs though! Later Scott Walker is a good description. Fatima Mansions (Coughlan's post-Microdisney band) did a great cover on Nite Flight on their last album. Microdisney's sound, but not lyrical venom, was driven by Sean O'Hagan (subsequently of The High Llamas and an excellent music writer for The Observer newspaper in the UK). Sean's taste was always far more poppy than Cathal's. I disagree that Microdisney sounds anything like Spansau Ballet though - but perhaps there's no point in arguing with a man who owns a Travis record. Anytime I heard their heinous "Why does is always rain on me" song on the radio I used to roar back "Beacause you're a c#*t". I did not really say c#*t, but you can fill in the missing letters yourself. | ||
| Mark Ilsley |
That's right, Joh is dead. Good job Ramstein. Russ Hinze, now that brings back some big fat memories. Who was Terry Lewis and Jack Herbert? Steve: My, this place is getting political isn't it. I assume the name must be an incredible coincidence, or are you actually claiming to be the Victorian PM? | ||
| John |
There were reports a couple of months ago that Joh had only days to live, but I think he's still alive. Terry Lewis was the Queensland police commissioner from the mid 1970s (when Joh's government promoted him from a relatively junior inspector all the way to the top) until the late 1980s when the whole thing came falling apart. He was found guilty of corruption-related offences. Jack Herbert was the bagman who actually delivered the bribes. | ||
| michael |
Terry was the bass player in Johs band, he was also Police Commisioner who went to jail after Jack Herbert, the "bagman" as he became known, grassed him up. Not sure about the actual corruption and debasement he was into, but it probably involved illegal gaming, prostitution and bribes I suspect. Not really a political person, but finding this site takes me back to my early days in Brisbane. I first saw the Go-Bs at Queensland Uni in about 1986 at the first (i think) Livid Festival. Robert was wearing a red jump suit. Chris Bailey played on his own and Died Pretty played as well, the FItzgerald Enquiry (sounds like a good name for a band) was going on in those days and Joh's tenure was nearing its end. | ||
| Steve Bracks |
Yes, I just happen to share a name with the Victorian Premier (or a pseudonym at least). | ||
| Randy Adams |
Oh, I forgot about "Why Does It Always Rain on Me." I share your sentiment on that. Like I said, I listened to that CD a few times. Hmm, maybe I should put it on the swap pile. | ||
| jerry |
Travis are shit! That isn't in doubt, what is amusing is that they are named after Travis Bickle, which should make them dangerous and unpredictable but it seemed to have the opposite effect. The twat Healy did sport a half-assed mohican at one stage though. On a political note, former British tyrant Margaret Thatcher's favourite song was "Two little boys". | ||
| michael |
I bet the Iron lady would've liked the Clarke Sisters. | ||
| Randy Adams |
I thought her favorite was "Telstar." She described it as "full of life." | ||
| michael |
Telstar I must have missed that one Randy. What's that all about? | ||
| Randy Adams |
"Telstar" was an instrumental from late 1962 by a group called the Tornados. It was a huge hit around the western world--the first song by a British group to top the U.S. charts, for example. The lead instrument was a primitive electronic keyboard called a clavioline--you could only play one note at a time on it. The record was largely the brainchild of the producer Joe Meek, who ran a recording studio out of his rented flat in north London. Less than five years later he would blow his landlady away with a shotgun and then blow his own head off with the same instrument. "Telstar" was essentially the last hurrah of the pre-Beatles music scene. Thatcher was distinctly pre-Beatles culturally--a person at war with the 1960s. | ||
| jerry |
He blew his head off with his keyboard? | ||
| Padraig Collins |
There used to be a Glasgow band called Telstar Ponies... And The Go-Betweens used to live in Glasgow... It all connects | ||
| Michael |
I've just come from the pixies site. Going to see them at the Brixton Academy in June, can't wait. My it is a lot more hi-bran over here. Basically grumbling on about the same things however. Randy when I hear instrumental and 1962, I think about some sort of song like Apache. I was born 5 years later, but I will listen out for Telstar. Also about the untimely death/suicide....sounds like something Kaos would use - a keyboard rifle. Max would've used a picolo and missed himself of course. Here's one discussion http://www.pixiesmusic.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=1091&hl=smells+like+teen+spirit | ||
| Mark Ilsley |
Sure you could. Those Claviolines where a real weapon (in 1947!) | ||
| C Gull |
Michael Don't s'pose you've got a spare for Pixies at Brixton - tried very hard but can't get a ticket other than ebay touts. | ||
| Randy Adams |
Ok, I shouldn't have used the word "instrument." It was the f'g gun. | ||
| michael |
C Gull. I think the tickets for the Pixies will cost about 60-70 at present. Ebay might be a bit more expensive?? Depends how much you want to see em. I think the Brixton gigs will be a great opportunity as opposed to the festivals where the set will be shorter. TRy gumtree.com and wield a deal. |