| Author | Message | ||
     Elizabeth Robinson Member Username: Liz_the_new_listener Post Number: 34 Registered: 10-2006 |
Please bear with me, I am still in the discovery stage when it comes to the Go-Betweens! I got 'Before Hollywood' a few days ago and find myself having been haunted all day by 'As Long as That'. It's <i>so<i> very effective to have RF and GMcL trading off verses, not to mention to have edgy and wistful passages so close together in the very same Go-B's song. | ||
| Andrew Kerr Member Username: Andrew_k Post Number: 170 Registered: 04-2005 |
'Bear with you' Elizabeth! God I am envious of you in a sense discovering the band for the first time. I can still recall coming home with 'Before Hollywood' and listening to it 3 times in a row (those days when music still had a central role in my life!). It is a wonderful recording and still my favourite album of theirs. As I have posted elsewhere it has such a 'coherent' feel...some records sound like a colection of songs stuck together, but never BH. | ||
| Elizabeth Robinson Member Username: Liz_the_new_listener Post Number: 35 Registered: 10-2006 |
Thank you, Andrew! Ah, but such a bittersweet discovery, 'known too late'. (Sigh) BH is so coherent lyrically, too, compared to a lot of recordings that came out that year. Comparing Robert Forster to anyone he might have sounded like in 1982, I find I can actually understand him. 'Ask' is brilliant, for example. And time forbids me to go on about how nice it must have been for those of you I wish I could have been among to hear Grant's pleasant voice for the first time as he trusted himself to carry his weight. | ||
| Kurt Stephan Member Username: Slothbert Post Number: 966 Registered: 04-2005 |
"I've got a feeling, sounds like a fact" is such a great line, isn't it? "As Long as That" is one of my dark horse Go-Betweens favorites. Like you, Elizabeth, I love how RF and GM traded off lines in the song--I wish they'd done that more. You could hear how their songs were more collaborative on BH than they were on later albums. I found BH a bit difficult to get into compared to the albums that came after, but to this day, it's probably my favorite of theirs, even though the songwriting and melodicism isn't on a par with any of the subsequent four '80s albums. And, I've said this too many times before, but BH is the best sounding album they ever made of them playing as a band (better sound than Libertty Belle, its closest competition). No programmed drums, no artificial production, just the classic RF/GM/LM trio plus a keyboardist, who adds a lot. | ||
| Andrew Kerr Member Username: Andrew_k Post Number: 171 Registered: 04-2005 |
"I've got a feeling, sounds like a fact": Even in those early days, there were some beautiful couplets and lyrical pearls. One of my all-time favourite Xmas (late 80s) presents was a calendar that a friend made me (thanks Heather); each month had an image that she had cut out from somewhere and a snippet of a Go-Between lyric. I never had any problem with getting into BH: I had bought the Postcard single when it came out(only because I bought everything on Postcard), but wasn't overwhelmed. It was after hearing 'Cattle and Cane' and reading Edwyn Collin's review that I went out and got the record. You are right too Kurt that it is the best 'sounding'...something of the Dylan 'thin mercury sound'? | ||
| andreas Member Username: Andreas Post Number: 342 Registered: 04-2006 |
hey mrs. robinson (o.k. bad joke, but it had to be), 'as long as that' is one you can sing a long the whole day. i had some phases too, but the one song which turns around in my head very often is 'eight pictures' (parts of) from 'send me a lullaby'. I shot you with my camera Caught you doing things with him I shot you with my camera Caught you doing things with him And you can't complain You can't cry 'cause cameras never lie an anthem. including a not very typical drum explosion. sounds spare. very early. | ||
| Little Keith Member Username: Manosludge Post Number: 1225 Registered: 03-2006 |
Agreed, Liz. Though it's not my favorite, BH is a great record and represents a real quantum leap for the GBs, in my view. It's as though they had a massive infusion of...I dunno, songwriting vitamins. It truly made them world-class players, artistically speaking... Robert Christgau has a great review of the record in which he cites the great "I've got a feeling" line as something emblematic of the attitude they brought with them... | ||
| Allen Belz Member Username: Abpositive Post Number: 111 Registered: 09-2006 |
Spent several days with that lovely circular guitar bit from "Too Much of One Thing" going round and round in my head. Started making up my own lyrics after awhile. | ||
| Michelle M Member Username: Michelle Post Number: 20 Registered: 09-2004 |
Of late it is 'Bow Down'. | ||
| Elizabeth Robinson Member Username: Liz_the_new_listener Post Number: 37 Registered: 10-2006 |
And this week it's 'By Chance'. It's so piquant in places, so honking clever... Just like GM can be so very lyrical, RF provides the perfect contrast in style - harmonically interesting. | ||
| Kurt Stephan Member Username: Slothbert Post Number: 1011 Registered: 04-2005 |
I listened to that song yesterday as well, Elizabeth, and concluded it might be the most energetic song in their catalog. It's coiled with many small burts of energy within an already fast-tempo song (take a bow, Lindy). Anyone who thought the Go-Betweens were always just a wimpy band of "jangly" folkies should listen to this song for proof they weren't. | ||
| Charles Coy Member Username: Coy Post Number: 17 Registered: 10-2006 |
....'Wrong Road'...'This Girl,Black Girl' and from GM's solo 'Horsebreaker Star' ..'Girl In a Beret'.. ..just seemed to have turned to that mix lately.. .It just finds me in another emotional twirl with 'sing in the shower' licks, displaying all the brilliance that I have long loved. | ||
| Elizabeth Robinson Member Username: Liz_the_new_listener Post Number: 47 Registered: 10-2006 |
Written originally for my other hangout on the Net: Every once in a while there is a song by some group or another that I can't get out of my head all day. The trouble with the Go-Betweens is that this happens a lot lately. Today the song was 'I Just Get Caught Out' off Tallulah. (Robert Forster is known for edgy guitar, and on that CD, it's described as 'Sonic Rhythm Guitar' in the credits.) It's full of power chords and barre chords I can't really play yet, especially not in time. Yesterday it was 'Cut it Out' off the same album. A few weeks ago it was 'As Long as That' from Before Hollywood, and before that it was 'Twin Layers of Lightning'. Grant McLennan's songs are more heartwarming or just plain heartbreaking, more subtle on the whole. But Forster's music is like that cup of coffee I gotta have in the morning in order to get jump started. (There - 'I need and love Grant's stuff like a kid needs hugs from parents and grandparents but I want and crave Robert's like chocolate and vodka tonics'. There's gotta be something to it.) My rule of thumb, though, with any music, is never to listen to music at work or when I am trying to sleep, lest I get too wrapped up in the music, too wound up to concentrate on anything else. I sometimes listen to jazz vocalists when writing my fiction, sometimes milder alternative rock. But not anything that my intellect loves for its cleverness, or that I end up wanting to play on my guitar. | ||
| jerry hann Member Username: Jerry_h Post Number: 360 Registered: 07-2005 |
Elizabeth you are exactly right about the difference between Grant and Robert.Having been a fan since Liberty Belle I've gone through phases of preferring one of them to the other,at college Grant was my hero (probably because of his lifestyle and the fact he could craft perfect pop songs)now I prefer Roberts edgy guitar. Listening to Josef K this morning Iwasstruck by how similar some of the early Josef K and the early GB's are with respect to that guitar sound. | ||
| Kurt Stephan Member Username: Slothbert Post Number: 1082 Registered: 04-2005 |
Interesting to hear you had that thought today too, Jerry. I was playing "It's Kinda Funny" and thinking it could easily have fit on SMAL. | ||
| Charles Coy Member Username: Coy Post Number: 23 Registered: 10-2006 |
...I heard or read somewhere Steve Kilbey (Jack Frost)does a version of 'Wrong Road'with 'The Church'...I'm seeing them 27th January 'at Day on the Green'Coldstream, Vic. I hope to hear it live again... I travel back to the 2000 opener 'Magic in Here' a lot lately...Happy & Prosperous New Year to you all... | ||
| raymond coyle Member Username: Dogbottomley Post Number: 1 Registered: 12-2006 |
josef k, now there's a band franz ferdinand owe plenty to!! | ||
| Michael Bachman Member Username: Michael_bachman Post Number: 354 Registered: 01-2005 |
Michelle, I am with you on Bow Down. | ||
| Elizabeth Robinson Member Username: Liz_the_new_listener Post Number: 50 Registered: 10-2006 |
Hi, Jerry - Grant IS a hero of mine - everything I have heard about him as well as his songs makes me draw the conclusion 'Ya gotta love his memory.' I have recently gotten copies of 'Horsebreaker Star' and 'In Your Bright Ray' - lovely, if rambling stuff on both CD's. Not quite as concise as his stuff for the Go-Betweens somehow, but it will grow on me. Perhaps, though, Robert's direct influence gave Grant's music an extra zing that made it instantly accessible in that context, which means the sentiments in 'Spirit' are very, very true. My Go-B's song of the day - 'The Mountains Near Delray.' Deep calls to deep in the underpinnings there. |