| Author | Message | ||
     Alfred Unregistered guest |
Can anyone tell me how good Christgau's liner notes are? He was one of the band's earliest supporters, and the only critic (aside from yours truly) who believes Tallulah is the band's best album. | ||
| Cassiel Unregistered guest |
His album notes are good. Yet in comparison to Andrews Mueller and Male's more personal, witty accounts of Liberty Belle and 16 LL respectively, his pales (though he has a co-author named as Carola Dibbell.)It could be that the two Andrews description of how they came to love and live with these albums chimes with mine, and that's why I believe the notes are the weakest. I'm also English and, as he sort of acknowledges, the Americans came to the band from a different angle, at perhaps a different time in their development. Which is why, perhaps, he was chosen to write it. It is not badly written, though a few phrases clunk (as 'edgy as cognition' anyone) Just different; which is no bad thing. Here we go, I seem to have argued that his notes actually are good.He is right to point up the impact of Amanda Brown; but wrong not to mention, as David Nichols does in the book, the tension, constructive or neigh, created by the lure of commercial success, and the introduction of Craig Leon as a producer,a move that screamed 'desperation.' And sounded a bit like it too. While I don't think it is their best album Alfred (I'm a Liberty Belle man), the reissues, astonishing as they are, have revealed this album to far better than Go-Betweens legend has it. It is sprawling, flawed and confused and no worse for it. Had they managed to get 'When People are Dead' on the final cut instead of 'Spirit of a Vampyre'; and a less glossy, more gritty version of Cut it Out, like the one they had down live, then it could definitely be challenging 16ll and Liberty Belle. The alternative versions of I Just Get Caught Out, Right Here and Bye Bye Pride are fascinating too. And I have developed a soft spot for Doo Wop in 'A'(Bam Boom): Lindy and Amanda singing a Spectoresque girl-group pastiche, which made me smile. Had they gone on into the 90s, could the Gob's have done the type of genre songs the TRiffids attempted? | ||
| Peter Azzopardi Member Username: Pete Post Number: 5 Registered: 09-2004 |
Cassiel wrote: "Had they gone on into the 90s, could the Gob's have done the type of genre songs the TRiffids attempted?" I don't think so, as Robert and Grant always seem to write in a truer style that at least appears natural. Sure, Grant would go on to make albums that seemed intentionally stylised and eclectic, but Robert never seems to waver from his idiosyncratic musical vision. I guess this is why he writes fewer songs. It's interesting in David Nichols' book when he writes that they were ambivalent about David McComb's songs for their genre-hopping (sorry, couldn't find the exact quote). I'd like to know the source of this information and the context in which it was said for I always thought it to be a strange thing to expose to a journalist - a very sour kind of professional jealousy. I don't see how you could begrudge a person for not writing with his heart on his sleeve (though McComb wrote so many heart-breaking songs). I recall an interview with McComb in one of Melbourne's street presses in the late ninties in which he said he detested people that write about themselves, which seems equally ludicrous. | ||
| Alfred Unregistered guest |
That's a terrible phrase of Christgau's (or Dibbell's, who's his wife, by the way) you quoted. He usually eschews vagueness of any kind. We'll have to respectfully disagree regarding "Spirit of a Vampyre," a wonderful album track no one much likes, in particular for its wonderful trebly guitar solo (Robert? Grant?). "Someone Else's Wife" and "Bye Bye Pride" might be Grant's last gasps at mature, intricate writing during the Go-Be's Mach I, while "You Tell Me" might be Robert's best throwaway. Yes, Tallulah is their most uneven album, but that's exactly why I love it: it captures the band at a point at which the songwriters' conflicting ambitions were threatening to tear the band asunder and yet produced some stunning music - as well as crap. | ||
| Peter Unregistered guest |
In Tallulah's liner notes' recording information, for 'Right Here' and 'Cut it Out', it has 'Craig Leon: Craig Leon'. Is this a dig at Craig Leon or just a typo ? Cassiel, I also thought of the Triffids when I heard 'Doo wop..' - why didn't RF and GMcL give AB and Lindy a song on the album as Jill Birt would get ? I don't remember this getting discussed in DN's book (or was it?) | ||
| david nichols Member Username: David Post Number: 12 Registered: 09-2004 |
I don't think I mentioned it at all. But in the case of the Triffids, Jill wrote some of the songs she sang. And I think any Triffid who wanted to could contribute songs - Alsy had some good ones early on. And there were set pieces where different members sang. There seems to have been far fewer rules in the Triffids. Or if there were rules they were more complicated. | ||
| Cassiel Unregistered guest |
David, you mention, as Peter A says above, that Robert and Grant might have been ambivalent about the 'kind of genre songs' David McComb was writing at the time. There is no discussion of why Amanda, Lindy or whoever never got to sing an album track. I can't see Grant and Robert taking kindly to it. Now that really would have made them the Indie Fleetwood Mac, having Lindy singing about Robert's failings in a Nicksian kind of way. 'Now here you go again/ you say you want my hairspray.' | ||
| david nichols Member Username: David Post Number: 17 Registered: 09-2004 |
Sorry, I was unclear. I meant I didn't think I mentioned 'Doo Wop...' at all. Amanda said one of the first things G&R told her when she joined was that there were only two songwriters in the band, which I guess you could extrapolate into them saying THEY were the frontpeople and that was it, except for the odd lighthearted b-side. Lindy you may recall sang on one of the demos following Before Hollywood - which almost qualifies as a duet with RF (it's on the Spring Hill Fair reissue and is very good). But Lindy was very much 'about' being a drummer not a singer and I think she regretted her vocal work for that reason. I think the bottom line is that GM & RF aren't that into sharing the spotlight, for reasons arguably both admirable and selfish. | ||
| Alfred Unregistered guest |
Does anyone else have opinions about Christgau's essay and the remarks therein? | ||
| Maxwell's Guy Unregistered guest |
I haven't read Chirstgau's essay - 'Tallulah' is the one reissue I haven't purchased - but I want to say that he was NOT an early supporter of the band. In fact, he wrote a very interesting "Open Apology to The Go-Betweens" piece in the Village Voice when the first CD reissues came out in the mid-90's, bemoaning the modest support he'd given the band in their time. I don't think the band even got a Voice Choice when they headlined The Ritz with the dB's on the bill (around the time of Tallulah). I don't know the man, but his wife asked me to DJ at his "leave of absence" party some twenty years ago when he was putting together the first hard cover volume of his Consumer Guide. She knew he liked my taste in music from the times they'd been at Maxwell's. The party was at CBGB's and he was nice, thanked me for coming. It was a social/coctail party scene and I was keeping tabs on his reactions to the records I was spinning (the man has keen ears and I was very flattered to have been asked). I remember playing 'Cattle & Cane' and it went right by him. | ||
| jeff Unregistered guest |
Hi Maxwell's Guy Your story is unfortunately completely untrue. Robert Christgau supported the band throughout their career and extremely diligently. After a very positive review for the import Before Hollywood he put every subsequent Go-Betweens release in his best albums of the year list. By 1987 he was frequently saying they were one of the greatest songwriting teams in the world. The Open Apology to the Go-Betweens was actually a line from the review of the '98 reissue of Spring Hill Fair which was never released in the USA originally. In the review he apologises on behalf of America for not affording this great album a USA release when it came out and thus neglecting a great band. Far from what your letter incorrectly surmises, Robert Christgau has done more than any single person I can think of to champion the group in the USA since 1983. I suggest you go to his website where you can read his writings on the band over the last 20 years for yourself. If you had bought Tallulah his notes would have clarified this for you. Tallulah and Rachel Worth are his favourite GBS LPs. Regards. Jeff | ||
| Guy Ewald Member Username: Guy_ewald Post Number: 1 Registered: 02-2005 |
I've read virtually all his work in the Village Voice since moving to NYC in 1976 and he is one of my favorite critics. I believe he "upgraded" one or more of his Consumer Guide letter marks on The Go-Betweens albums in his hard cover CG [Grade: A (Original Grade: A-)]. OK, I probably overstated it. He did give them positive reviews. But I don't believe they were ever given a Pick Hit in one of his monthly Consumer Guides or a Voice Choice for one of their NY concerts back in the 80's - a time when his seal of approval carried real weight here in the city. To say that he "championed" the band in the 1980's is an exageration. They were one of hundreds of bands to whom he would give positive (and typically insightful) reviews. His posthumous/Mk.II support has been far more vocal and more power to him. |