| Author | Message | ||
     Megan Yarrow Member Username: Megan Post Number: 5 Registered: 06-2005 |
Hi, The Courier-Mail newspaper is a Rupert Murdoch monopoly based in Brisbane. After many years as a 'broadsheet', from tomorrow The Courier Mail is being released in tabloid format. This afternoon, my heart sank when I accidentally saw the Courier-Mail ad on the Packer television network - the theme was 'Streets of Your Town'. Has anybody else seen the ad? or care to make a comment? I'm writing an article for our struggling local independent paper about it. Regards, Megan Yarrow bad_cat_co@hotmail.com ps Any ideas on how I can contact any the band members for their comments would also be appreciated. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 195 Registered: 05-2005 |
Megan, did they just use the music or was it the words as well? I'm disappointed. Very disappointed. Try contacting them through EMI in Sydney. | ||
| Megan Yarrow Member Username: Megan Post Number: 6 Registered: 06-2005 |
Hi Padraig, Yep the music and the words with a montage of feelgood happy families reading their courier - I'm utterly devastated. Thanks for the tip about EMI! Megan | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 203 Registered: 03-2005 |
But that's perfect! They missed the point of the song just the way a Murdoch company should! | ||
| Peter Collins Member Username: Tyroneshoelaces Post Number: 87 Registered: 05-2005 |
That's true, Randy, but just the thought of the GBs in any way supporting Murdoch is hard to stomach. | ||
| Andrew Kerr Member Username: Andrew_k Post Number: 50 Registered: 04-2005 |
Not wanting to stir up a hornet's nest here, but...anyone have any idea of Grant's politics? I was sure that I had read somewhere that they were right-ish?. Where is Lindy in all this? Does she have any rights over the song being used in such as way? | ||
| Megan Yarrow Member Username: Megan Post Number: 7 Registered: 06-2005 |
Hey Andrew, Lindy has made a comment for my article. Robert, Grant (EMI) and Amanda, have not responded yet. I've also had a response from the editor of The Courier-Mail. My article comes out next Wednesday (22nd). Megan | ||
| Cichli Suite Member Username: Cichli_suite Post Number: 81 Registered: 08-2004 |
Hi Megan, could post a link to your article here when it comes out? I can't stand the idea of Go-Betweens song promoting a Murdoch title. It would ruin the song were I to hear that advertisement. On the subject of Grant's (or Robert's) politics or any artist for that matter- it's interesting how there is an assumption (at least by me) that they will be left of centre. It's a naive view as I can't see why there should be a correlation between creativity and how you vote. Although, I suppose, arts funding generally is higher under a left leaning government. | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 208 Registered: 03-2005 |
How can you be creative if you don't believe in change or progress, if your chief motivating force is fear? I think it's not naive to expect most creative folks to be left of center. | ||
| Jerry Clark Member Username: Jerry Post Number: 190 Registered: 08-2004 |
Johnny Ramone was a right-winger & Ramones songs regularly appear on What's New Scooby Doo with alarming regularity. Is this as bad as the Rupert Murdoch thing. | ||
| Cichli Suite Member Username: Cichli_suite Post Number: 82 Registered: 08-2004 |
There's a whole brigade of writers and artists from the 20th century who held extreme right wing views at one time or another. Yeats and Ezra Pound come to mind. In the early 1960's people were dismayed by Bob Dylan walking away from the civil rights movement. Indeed, in the mid eighties - judging from his lyrics on Infidels at least, Dylan took what might be called a politically conservative, right wing position. Actually, these simple right wing-left wing labels often obscure much more complex positions. I've voted 'left' all my life, but I still maintain that you cannot assume that an artist must be vaguely leftist before he/she has anything worthwhile to say. If we do we are just painting them into a corner. And real artists are not keen to be painted into corners! Sorry for mixing my metaphors! | ||
| gareth w Member Username: Gareth Post Number: 44 Registered: 05-2005 |
Is it right to judge an artist in this way though? Isn't it the work that matters, not the views? I have friends who have some more centre-right views than I but they're still good friends. We just agree to differ. | ||
| Cichli Suite Member Username: Cichli_suite Post Number: 83 Registered: 08-2004 |
I'm with you on that, Gareth. | ||
| Megan Yarrow Member Username: Megan Post Number: 8 Registered: 06-2005 |
Not sure if I'll be able to post a link to the article, but I'll get it to you somehow! | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 214 Registered: 05-2005 |
I'd like to see the article too Megan. As for Grant's politics... It was mentioned here before the last Australian Federal Election that Grant was a supporter of the National Party (right wing, rural / agricultural base, been in power as the minor coalition party for 10 years). The person who wrote that was me, using a pseudonym (you did not have to properly sign up to post back then). Sorry. I was just kidding. I just wanted to foster some political discussion on the board. I have no idea of what his politics might be. I do know, though, that he and Robert and thousands of others were glad to leave the oppressive state that Queensland was under the long, corrupt reign of the National Party under Joh Bjelke Petersen. | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 209 Registered: 03-2005 |
Padraig, remember those famous words of another Oz emigrant: "I started a joke, which started the whold world crying . . . ." I don't remember the Ramones ever changing or progressing. Cichli, how dare you blow my argument out of the water using facts! For shame. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 215 Registered: 05-2005 |
Bee Gees don't get round these parts often enough Randy. Well done on sneaking them in under the radar. | ||
| Cichli Suite Member Username: Cichli_suite Post Number: 85 Registered: 08-2004 |
Randy, the truth is I'm disappointed when an artist I like takes what appears to be mean-spirited political position. I would hate to know how Bob Dylan voted in the last US election, whatever his reasons. I've invested too much in him! And I've manged to postpone buying that Frasier boxset after I read an interview with Kelsey Grammer, who's a gung-ho Bush lover. As for the politics of the Go-Betweens, I was very fortunate to be in Brisbane a few years ago when they organised a benefit gig at small hotel to protest at the deplorable conditions in which refugees are forced to live by the Howard administration in Australia. It was great gig and a noble cause and confirmed them for me as big-hearted people. As for the Courier Mail thing - I don't like it, but I guess the temptation for a relatively small band to get such exposure must be very strong. | ||
| Megan Yarrow Member Username: Megan Post Number: 9 Registered: 06-2005 |
Hi guys! Send me an email if you want a copy of the article and I'll scan it and send it to you. I'll also try to put it on my own website and shall post the link here. Megan | ||
| Hardin Smith Member Username: Manosludge Post Number: 30 Registered: 03-2006 |
Yeah, I don't know anything about the politics of Brit or Aussie artists, but I was trying to think of American artists worth a crap who were conservative....hmmm, Bruce Willis, Kelsey Grammer, the Gatlin Brothers, and oh yeah, that moron Vincent Gallo...well, um...nevermind, there ain't any... I did think of one artistically viable Brit with some pretty dodgy political leanings: the astonishingly great poet, Philip Larkin. Supposedly, in his letters he revealed himself to be a bit of a racist... | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 211 Registered: 03-2005 |
I've long wondered if it might ruin it for me to know the political views of Mark E. Smith. | ||
| abigail law Member Username: Abigail Post Number: 49 Registered: 06-2005 |
one exception the rule would be ian curtis, who voted tory in 1979 i believe. philip larkin was a tory loving shit but his poetry remains sublime. how people vote doesn't affect my love of their music or work but selling out to anyone - let alone murdoch - does stick in my throat. i like the nick cave/morrissey approach to this - they understand their music is special to people and would never cheapen it by letting it be used in such a way. (goes home and hears i know it's over used to advertise loo roll) | ||
| Paul Wright Member Username: Wallaby Post Number: 26 Registered: 05-2005 |
Might help if you don't think if it as them supporting Murdoch, but taking money away from him. It's not as if they actually wrote it at his request. Might even get a few people to listen who don't know them. It's easy for rich groups to refuse adverts, but when you are struggling to get by then its easy money. The Fall are used to advertise Vauxhall Corsas in the UK (and behind the football results on BBC). Most musicians/artistic types are vaguely left of centre - until it comes to their royalties, concert fees etc when they are fascists, as I think Bernie Rhodes said about the Clash. Stew Copeland of the Police (father ex-CIA) and Metallica are both rather right wing I think. Neil Young supported Reagan, and mid west farmers. Oh, and there are the usual Fascist nutters (Skrewdriver?) Should point out Billy Bragg as a great exception to the money thing - he gave the staff at Go-Discs records half his shares in the company - about half a million quid apparently. The Go-betweens always struck me as people persons, and therefore soft left. Don't think I ever thought about their economic policies. Do they have any? Does Draining the Pool count? | ||
| Megan Yarrow Member Username: Megan Post Number: 10 Registered: 06-2005 |
Mainstream Brisbane rejected the GB's for so long, and now one of their songs (a pointed criticism of the place, which, if you open your eyes, is just as bad now with Beattie, than with Joh) is being used to advertise a paper, whose editor (and wife - now a journo on the CM who also presents a morning show on ABC radio) essentially rule Queensland. They've disregarded the meaning of the song, and I really can't bear it. I feel it's kind of the last straw about this place for me. | ||
| mingus Member Username: Mingus Post Number: 19 Registered: 06-2005 |
You're blaming "the place" because a Murdoch-paper advertisement uses a GBs song ?! This has nothing to do with Brisbane per-se or any other place where an advertising company uses a song in a way you don't like. (I'm not sure mainstream Brisbane (whatever that is?) was/is even aware of the GBs and so is in no position to reject them.) Hmmm, did someone say Sex Pistols? | ||
| mingus Member Username: Mingus Post Number: 20 Registered: 06-2005 |
that is to say...why not blame the band? | ||
| Jerry Clark Member Username: Jerry Post Number: 192 Registered: 08-2004 |
Is it definitely the Go-B's, or one of those sound-a-like legal loopholes? Sometime ago Lindy Morrison commented on the publishing not returning any monies for LB, Tallulah or 16LL, because the advance payments hadn't been recouped thus far. I'm as ignorant as the next man with regard to the legalities of publishing & songwriting rights. It could be possible that the decision to use the song, was not one that GM or RF were allowed to influence. | ||
| Megan Yarrow Member Username: Megan Post Number: 11 Registered: 06-2005 |
Well it certainly sounds like the GBs. And whatever the commercial arrangements may have been, the song doesn't go with the product being advertised - even though the ad will be a resounding success. Soon we'll see prada wearing 'yummy mummies' tapping their steering wheels as they dash around town in their prados singing, "and this town is full of battered wives." FABULOUS! | ||
| Jerry Clark Member Username: Jerry Post Number: 193 Registered: 08-2004 |
I can understand your displeasure at the (mis)use of the song, it affects you & represents your town & you have to hear/see it. Would you feel the same though, if the song had been a hit or if The Go-B's had signed to Warners or Geffen & been successful in the '80's. I recall posters of The Freewheeling Bob Dylan cover photo being used in my area to advertise Sony. At the time I thought he's sold out, but in reality it's just a picture of a couple. The average person isn't interested in music or Sony or Dylan in particular, chances are, only people who are Dylan fans will know it's him, which in the great scheme of things is a relatively small amount of people. It actually made me smile in the end. To be reminded of 1 of my many favourite albums while waiting for a bus in the rain, doesn't make the wait pass any quicker, nor does it encourage me to buy Sony products. | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 217 Registered: 03-2005 |
Megan, you have great passion on this point. I salute you. | ||
| kevin Member Username: Kevin Post Number: 162 Registered: 05-2005 |
wasnt paul weller a well known supporter of thatcher and the tories in the late 70s? also that well known genius mark e smith holds some dodgy views on black people which suggest he could be right wing. in saying that, absolutely everything else about him suggests left wing tendancies. | ||
| Megan Yarrow Member Username: Megan Post Number: 12 Registered: 06-2005 |
Politics aside, I think Nick Cave sums it up perfectly (quoted in Gerard Wright's SMH article of 4/3/06, 'Look what they've done to my song') Cave was asked by the Gap clothing company to appear in a television ad in the late '90s: "Cave wrote back: "Dear Gap. I might put on a pair of your jeans if you were to pay me $1 billion, but even then I would have serious reservations. Signed Nick Cave." Again, it was the service of fans, memory and reputation that was cited. "I get letters from people telling me they got married to 'The Ship Song'," Cave told an interviewer in London several years ago, "or that they buried their best friend to 'Into My Arms', and I don't want them to look at the TV and see that they buried their friend to a Cornetto ad or something. I feel some sense of responsibility about that, even though they wave enormous sums of money at you. That's where my muse puts her foot down." " | ||
| Geoff Holmes Member Username: Geoff Post Number: 71 Registered: 05-2005 |
Paul Weller supporting the Tories!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He HATED Thatcher,Kevin, but was appointed some youth representative by her when "Our Favourite shop" came out, I think in a bid to shut him up!! I think he might have done a Red Wedge tour at about the same time which was in supprot of the Miners(?) strike.No doubt our U.K. writers could give more details...... | ||
| Todd Slater Member Username: Todd_slater Post Number: 36 Registered: 01-2005 |
Go Megan, I'm one of those people that wrote to Nick Cave seeking permission to use a song (not the Ship Song)of his and also a lyric, a few years ago now when I got married. He wrote back as well. One of the reasons I did this was because of the said 'Gap jeans' episode. If you look across the media landscape in Australia it is littered with mediocre groups prostituting themselves for a quick buck. One only has to think of Alex Lloyd and the NRMA commercial he did for a start. Thank god for people like Nick Cave, although he did admit, I think in the same interview that he had been offered money by a New Zealand tampon company to use 'Red Right Hand' in a tv commercial (and was sorely tempted !) I really admire you for taking this stand and it alarms me that the band would do this. I mean wasn't Beattie out there recently basically saying to Fairfax 'get your arse up here we need another paper' As someone who grew up in Brisbane reading three newspapers a day (70's & early/mid 80's)it saddens me to think that Murdoch continues to dumb down Queenslander's as a whole with the tabloid toilet paper. | ||
| Megan Yarrow Member Username: Megan Post Number: 13 Registered: 06-2005 |
Yep, recently Beattie called for diversity in the media, and wouldn't it be good if there was some Fairfax in this town. The same guy who, when the first issue of 'The Independent (the struggling small inner-city rag that I write for) came out about 4 years ago, he was quoted as saying everybody should support the indie, it's a great alternative). Now the Queensland Government refuse to advertise with the indie, preferring instead, blanket advertising worth hundreds of thousands of dollars with the Quest Network of 17 papers and the Australian and the Courier-Mail. In other words, the print media monopoly in South East Queensland. Another interesting thing I heard today, was that apparently our old mayor told someone at one of the Queensland Writers Festivals that Murdoch would always try to squash any competition (all the while he was writing a weekly column for the Courier Mail after he had retired), what a hypocrite! | ||
| kevin Member Username: Kevin Post Number: 168 Registered: 05-2005 |
Geoff sorry to disappoint you but a quick search on the internet comes up with the following "Paul Weller interviewed in 'Sniffin Glue' and quotes - 'Next time round we will be voting Conservative.' A remark that has come back to haunt him many times since" "Oh, and Paul Weller backed Thatcher in the 1979 election in the same interview as when he said "the Queen is the hardest working woman in england". "I lost all faith in what Weller said, when he advised us all to vote Tory in 1979. After that, I ignored him." Geri Halliwell once said that Margaret Thatcher was the original Spice Girl. In his Jam days, Paul Weller urged fans to “vote Tory”. | ||
| david pestorius Member Username: David_pestorius Post Number: 41 Registered: 08-2005 |
It's all very well to take the high moral ground and accuse people of getting into bed with Murdoch, his agenda and his power. But at the end of the day, one has to pay the rent like everyone else. Some people are better equipped financially to do that, and can, like Nick Cave perhaps, afford to thumb their noses at the corporate world and its perceived abuses. Others are perhaps not so well equipped and are perhaps motivated by other factors which are rather more pragmatic and real. That's not to say one necessarily feels totally at ease or content with one's decisions on such matters, but I don't think it's wise to judge the situation without knowing all the facts and based on spurious parallels with what Nick Cave - and, my god, what a lame joke he has become — may have done in the past. I rarely look at the Courier Mail. It's a total rag for the most part and the new format, which the television commercial advertises, only confirms that. But I do avail myself of the CM's services, when I can, as a source of publicity for my projects. The CM is read by a lot of people in Brisbane and anyone who lives and works in the arts industries here knows that it is the best way to get the word out to the local audience. Also, the CM does have the odd redeeming 'feature', something which so far has not been mentioned in all of this. For example, the level of art criticism can often be quite good, with Rex Butler often given quite some latitude with speculative pieces rarely witnessed in more high-brow newspapers. While the CM's arts editor Rosemary Sorensen is probably more interested in literature than anything else, she is a bit of a wild-card and a fairly independent mind who calls things as she sees them. I don't always agree with her approach or take on things, but I don't think you can rightly call her a Murdoch 'yes man'. She has regularly in the past commissioned interesting and important articles. For instance, in 2001 the well-known Brisbane painter Anne Wallace did a series of paintings known as 'The Go-Betweens Paintings', which were initially exhibited in Brisbane and Sydney, and have since been exhibited and reproduced quite widely. Back when they were first exhibited the CM published a lengthy and illuminating story by Sandra McLean, which at the time, I think, intervened critically in the history of the Go-Betweens. In the face of this, Wallace's paintings were not embraced by the institutionalised world of art (eg. in early 2002 they were rejected by the famous Archibald Prize exhibition for portraiture — the most prestigious context for portraiture in Australia), largely because they could not then be understood within the broader trajectory of her work. Time will, I think, be kind to them, revealing eventually their complexity. But to return to the point I was making: the CM was one of the few places to critically address these works and Go-Betweens history. And lastly, but by no means least, The CM's senior rock critic, Noel Mengel, has for many years championed the Go-Betweens and he was the one who was asking the questions for the interview component of the recent G0-Betweens DVD. I wouldn't be surprised if some of these facts just mentioned came into play when the Go-Betweens decided to licence 'Streets of Your Town' for use by the CM in promoting its new tabloid format. | ||
| mingus Member Username: Mingus Post Number: 21 Registered: 06-2005 |
So, the Courier Mail is well read, its (irrelevant to most except those with vested interests) visual arts coverage is OK, its rock critic likes the GBs.... the blurring of the high and low ends of the cultural divide is indeed continuing.... | ||
| Megan Yarrow Member Username: Megan Post Number: 15 Registered: 06-2005 |
I agree that the CM is indeed very powerful. It's the only daily newspaper in town (has been for ages) and everyone clamours to appear in it when they want publicity. And you can count on the the CM for publicity - if you pay - don't count on it if your interest group is in conflict with their advertisers - eg the people protesting against the transapex tunnels. Last year I wrote a story for the indie about the demise of the Shingle Inn. The lady from the BRISSI group(Brisbane Residents in Support of the Shingle Inn) had been trying, without much luck, to arouse the CM's interest in the loss of this Brisbane icon. Briefly, the Queens Plaza development on the corner of Edward and Queen Streets resulted in the 'heritage de-listing' of the Shingle Inn and its fitout being disassembled. When the indie ran an article, the CM followed suit and the lady from BRISSI was over the moon - actually admitting to me how fantastic it was that the CM had finally seen the light. Shortly after, she followed up with the CM reporter, to see if he'd made any inroads into the story (where the Shingle Inn fitout was) and he said he was stumped. Couldn't have been because when the Queens Plaza opened, all the advertising was in the CM and the Quest could it????? I recently wrote an article for the indie about Priscilla Bracks' exhibition at Raw Gallery, 'Making the Empire Cross' which, because of its anti-war themes, I doubt the CM would touch with a ten foot pole. But back to 'Streets of Your Town', the intended meaning of the song (and isn't that what art is all about?) has been lost through its inclusion in the ad, and I can't help feeling sad about that. | ||
| david pestorius Member Username: David_pestorius Post Number: 42 Registered: 08-2005 |
Megan, with respect, surely the intended meaning of 'Streets of Your Town' is something that Grant McLennan, as it's author, considered when he licenced the song for use by the CM. And even if the lyrics of the song do not seem to coincide with, or perhaps even appear antithetical to, the thrust of CM television commercial, isn't that, finally, a matter for him. He may not agree that meaning is lost in the process. Maybe meaning can somehow be gained there ? As for the CM, I'm sure you're broadly correct about the interests of advertisers being privileged over others. I know it's sometimes hard to be philosophical about that, and to just walk away thinking it's just business and that's the business we've chosen. It's even more difficult and problematic when quasi-governmental arts institutions, such as the Queensland Art Gallery, do less than transparent deals with the CM, where it effectively becomes a major publicist, and the distortion of cultural reportage that this necessarily leads to. Which reminds me, ironically, of when Joh Bjelke-Petersen withdrew the massive State government advertising from the CM in the 1980s because he didn't like how things were being reported, and the newspaper nearly went under, I suspect that experience was not quickly forgotten! | ||
| Todd Slater Member Username: Todd_slater Post Number: 37 Registered: 01-2005 |
David I'm a big Anne Wallace fan. I have a postcard on my office wall of the two GB's paintings which I think may even be an installation at Sweeney/Pestorius house. I have seen a her last couple of exhibitions here in Sydney which have been great and would dearly love a painting of hers one day. As for the Courier Mail, it saddens me to think it has gone tabloid and the band has got on board with Streets of Your Town. But I will agree with you David insofar that no I don't know all the facts surrounding the whole thing. Maybe Megan you could title your article 'Was there Anything I Could Do' ! | ||
| david pestorius Member Username: David_pestorius Post Number: 43 Registered: 08-2005 |
By the way Todd, I was not intending to imply that I know all the facts here or how some decision was arrived at. I was merely wanting to speculate about what perhaps might have motivated such a decision: considerations which people beyond Brisbane might not be so aware of, like the CM's historical support for the group, etc. Having said that, when I first saw the commercial I smiled and thought to myself "I hope they were paid well for this". Re: Anne Wallace's Go-Betweens paintings, I know the postcard you're refering to and you're right about the location. There are, however, 4 paintings all together in this group known as 'The Go-Betweens paintings — the postcard only shows 2 of them. There is also a very large joint portrait of RF and Grant, while the fourth and final painting is the most 'conceptual': an enigmatic image of an old and new stereo system and a stack of vinyl albums with the first Go-Betweens album at the front (the one with the small canvasboard portraits, including one of Lindy Morrison, by Jenny Watson), but with the words 'the Go-Betweens' seemingly erased from the cover. | ||
| Megan Yarrow Member Username: Megan Post Number: 16 Registered: 06-2005 |
I would love to have Grant's comment for my story, but haven't been able to get in touch with him, or get a response from EMI (perhaps the ed will have better luck!). In any case, we may never know how Grant feels if a confidentiality clause has been included. After Joh turned off the money tap the CM started getting 'down and dirty' reporting on things that we all knew were going on (my husband arrived in Brisbane in late 1988, already a huge GB's fan thanks to 2JJ, and found it hilarious that the only people in town unaware of brothels/illegal gambling/corruption appeared to be working in the media). | ||
| david pestorius Member Username: David_pestorius Post Number: 44 Registered: 08-2005 |
I don't think the 'blind eye' was still being turned late 1988. In fact, by early 1987 the CM had, finally, begun to blow the whistle on it all, and this led firstly to the infamous Four Corners documentary 'The Moonlight State' in May 1987, which in turn led to the Fitzgerald Inquiry. By December 1987 Joh had resigned and the rest is history. The whole story, including the CM involvement, is quite well documented in Andrew Stafford's book 'Pig City'. While Stafford's book is full of holes when it comes to accounting for the indy music scene during the critical period between 1978—1983, it does capture the dynamics of the political situation during the Joh years reasonably well. | ||
| Mark Murphy Member Username: Murph Post Number: 5 Registered: 05-2005 |
I know nothing of Brisbane politics or media, but I do sympathise with Megan's point of view. I'm sure we would all like our musical "heroes" to remain totally uncompromised by anything but artistic ideals . . . Incidently, I know of a number of "ordinary" people who have turned down work on grounds of principle, despite not being financially able to do so. | ||
| david pestorius Member Username: David_pestorius Post Number: 45 Registered: 08-2005 |
I wouldn't disagree with your broad point Mark. I guess the question is whether there has, in fact, been a compromise here of any consequence or at all. That's all I was trying to get at when I mentioned a range of facts, which in addition to a hefty fee, might both explain and justify the co-operation here. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 227 Registered: 05-2005 |
Well said Mark. | ||
| mingus Member Username: Mingus Post Number: 22 Registered: 06-2005 |
As with most business deals of this type, it's not ultimately saved by some sort of ex post facto rationalisation re the degree of consequence or the (flimsy albeit maybe valid) justifications for the actions; in the end all you are left with is the one fact that they OK'ed the use of their song in an advertisement, good bad or otherwise, for News Corporation. It's all in the perception. Also, as David points out, Megan's comments about broad attitudes in Brisbane in 1988 is incorrect. It could be argued that the meaning contained in any artwork is not (necessarily) lost through a specific contextualisation of that work. Maybe? | ||
| Michelle M Member Username: Michelle Post Number: 9 Registered: 09-2004 |
I can remember "Streets of Your Town" was used as a theme for an ABC radio programme that used to be aired in Qld. sometime in maybe the mid to late 1990s. Unfortunately I can't remember the name of the programme which was a short segment aired during the afternoon programming probably once a week. It had something to do with the history of buildings etc. in Brisbane and it may have had a question answer format. At the time I thought that the song was apt. Now I even have a (probably false) memory of hearing the words: they shut it down they closed it down they shut it down they pulled it down. I saw the Courier Mail ad again on Sunday night. It is filled with sunny, happy people and the extract from the song fits well as they use the following words: Round and round, up and down Through the streets of your town And don't the sun look good today? (Shine) But the rain is on its way (Shine) Round and round, up and down Through the streets of your town Everyday I make my way Through the streets of your town. Like Megan, I was most surprised that they would use that song given that the sunny streets are filled with battered wives. But then Prime TV wasn't worried about the image either when they used it for their promo. | ||
| Megan Yarrow Member Username: Megan Post Number: 17 Registered: 06-2005 |
My husband assures me that as late as 1990, he was still being assured by many locals that everything was squeaky clean, but every single cabbie knew where all the brothels and nightclubs were - eg Tony's, Wall Street. | ||
| mingus Member Username: Mingus Post Number: 23 Registered: 06-2005 |
You'll still find people this very morning who will tell you that! | ||
| Megan Yarrow Member Username: Megan Post Number: 18 Registered: 06-2005 |
True! I guess the next thing we'll see is the Saints 'stranded' promoting Queensland Rail! | ||
| mingus Member Username: Mingus Post Number: 24 Registered: 06-2005 |
Well indeed, given that Ed confesses to having written on the train between Auchenflower and Oxley, that is very apt....I wouldn't hold my breath! | ||
| mingus Member Username: Mingus Post Number: 25 Registered: 06-2005 |
"The seeds of (I'm) Stranded were written on the train", Kuepper recalls, "somewhere on the western suburbs line". (The Courier Mail) | ||
| david pestorius Member Username: David_pestorius Post Number: 46 Registered: 08-2005 |
Just to go back to this Brisbane as 'sweaky clean city' theme, I think any relatively big city will have it's fair share of brothels and any cab-driver will know where they are to be found. But there is both a quantitative and qualitative difference in what was going on here before the Fitzgerald Inquiry and in its aftermath. Anyone who thinks that the nature and extent of official corruption since Fitzgerald — nearly 20 years ago now — is anything like what went on beforehand is living in a total fantasyland, and it is really quite wrong and irresponsible to suggest it has been 'business as usual' since 1987. While Fitzgerald did not really touch the drug trade, he did reveal an successfully prosecute official corruption going all the way to the top, with Joh extremely lucky not to have found himself behind bars. | ||
| Megan Yarrow Member Username: Megan Post Number: 19 Registered: 06-2005 |
We may disagree that "luck" came into it, part of my point. I'll guess we won't know much about any corruption until someone starts up a newspaper for this town with some real journalistic bite. There are no shortage of stories, just demanding readers. | ||
| Todd Slater Member Username: Todd_slater Post Number: 38 Registered: 01-2005 |
Bring back 'The Cane Toad Times' I say. On another trip Fairfax just recently spent something in the vicinty of a couple of hundred million buying an online portal in New Zealand where they could probably gone some way to starting up a new broadsheet in Queensland. Fairfax now having an ex all black captain as it's ceo probably goes some way to explaining that purchase. Still it makes you wonder. On the other mentioned point about the media not knowing anything during the Joh era was hilarious. The Murdoch offices were located in the Sunday Sun building in Brunswick St, right in the heart of it. Someone should really make a movie of Andrew McGahan's book 'Last Drinks' which is a rollicking read and trip through memory lane of seedy Brisbane. | ||
| Megan Yarrow Member Username: Megan Post Number: 20 Registered: 06-2005 |
I'd love to see a movie of 'Last Drinks' - if it ever eventuates, lets hope it's true to the book and filmed in Brisbane! | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 232 Registered: 05-2005 |
A lot of the book is not set in Brisbane Megan. It's set in some northern NSW mountain town, just over the border. Can't remember the name or it is a real town or based on a real town. | ||
| Megan Yarrow Member Username: Megan Post Number: 21 Registered: 06-2005 |
Well the book is not entirely set in Brisbane, part of the story takes place in a fictional town called called Highvale (in the border ranges), but I hope the bits that are set in Brisbane (like in the Valley and out at The Gap) are filmed in Brisbane  | ||
| Megan Yarrow Member Username: Megan Post Number: 22 Registered: 06-2005 |
sorry, the place is called 'Highwood'. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 234 Registered: 05-2005 |
The Gap sounds very interesting. I must remember to visit there whenever I get back to Brisbane. Maybe for a Sydney FC away game later in the year. | ||
| mingus Member Username: Mingus Post Number: 26 Registered: 06-2005 |
It's Twin Peaks meets American Beauty. | ||
| Mark Tuffield Member Username: Mark_t Post Number: 26 Registered: 05-2005 |
Well worth a visit Pádraig, I even lived there once (which explains a lot), not that I remember doing so… Any chance that the “Mayne Inheritance” might be made as a film? | ||
| Todd Slater Member Username: Todd_slater Post Number: 39 Registered: 01-2005 |
I think 'Highwood' is basically a fictionalised version of Stanthorpe or somewhere else down on the border ranges. I think it was Margate/Redcliffe that was mentioned in the book, on the banks of Moreton Bay. Saying that though I think Brisbane is running out of locations to film the movie as everytime I visit it seems another part of that time has been bulldozed to make way for the 'new Brisbane' It kind of reminds me of the infamous Deen Brothers (who demolished the beautiful Bellevue Hotel & the mighty Cloudland Ballroom;both at midnight)whose business card which reads 'We only leave the memories !' The Gap is interesting insofar as that Robert Forster has mentioned it as place that changed his outlook on a few things whilst growing up there. It has other music connections as well with the Sheperd brothers Murray & Brad hailing from there as well. Brad of course when onto The Hoodoo Gurus & The Monarchs while Murray was a guitarist in Brisbane bands The Fun Things & The Screaming Tribesman. I have to agree with Mingus though above in that comparison. Very Twin Peaks. Parts of Brisbane still seem like a surreal movie to me and I haven't lived there since 1989. I loved American Beauty though as a film and Lester (Spacey's character) is all time. I think there may be a couple of loose Lester's out there at the Gap Mingus, as well as a couple of the other more unsavoury characters in the film. | ||
| mingus Member Username: Mingus Post Number: 27 Registered: 06-2005 |
Though to be fair to Brisbane, most Australian cities seem to have their own "Twin Peaks-ish" pockets! |