The Godlike Genius of Danny Kirwan, or a review of Hello There Big Boy!

Just about every band worth their weight in antipasto has at least one insane or eccentric member in their line-up at one point or another. Easy example - Keith Moon of the Who. Fleetwood Mac were lucky to boast three of them: Peter Green, Jeremy Spencer and Danny Kirwan. All of them played guitar. They sang songs. Loved Elmore James. They played in the band well before Buckingham-Nicks found their way out in front of Mick Fleetwood and John McVie and created an AOR monster.

Peter Green left Fleetwood Mac for many reasons. One of them was because the rest of the band didn't feel they should be donating their profits to the struggles in Biafra. Peter Green was wearing white robes around this time. As fitting as it looked for someone who's known as the Green God among guitar aficionado circles, Greeny drifted away from music for almost ten years before coming back into music in the 1980s to only drift away for a few more years to be found wearing silly hats.

Jeremy Spencer went for a stroll through downtown Los Angeles during one of Fleetwood Mac's American tours in the early 70s and was deemed a missing person for five days before the police found him safe and sound within the Children of God cult of which he's still a member of today. In a way, it puts you off from listening to too much Elmore James, really. If you end up seeking God after listening to his amazing slide guitar work, then it's not really worth donating 10% of your weekly income to. Spencer released some interesting records in the 70s and in more recent times, but that's another footnote for some other time.

When it comes to rock 'n' roll's acid casualties, we're often made note of Syd Barrett and to a lesser and just as significant extent, the great work of Roky Erickson. People like Danny Kirwan get swept under the carpet, even though his amazing guitar work on Fleetwood Mac's Kiln House still holds ground today.

Monterrey was a great event, as Eric Burdon and the new Animals attested to. Joni Mitchell via CSN&Y's Woodstock spoke of similarly exciting events. And then there's another little festival which could've been.

The Bavarian Woodstock which Rainer Langhans planned never did quite happen. This was in March 1970. The HighFish / Hai-Fisch / Stoned-Shark commune had made a rendezvous with Green and Kirwan at Munich airport in a (strange) attempt to get Jimi Hendrix and the Rolling Stones to play a festival with sauerkraut instead of mud. What became an innocent request to ask members of the penguin-loving Mac to request the services of these two artists to play at his little festival had turned and tuned into a giant LSD binge of which neither guitar-playing gents have managed to recover from.

Not too long after this event (okay, two years and a few months to be a little more exact), Kirwan threw his guitar against a wall in the dressing room and decided to stand in the audience and watch Fleetwood Mac attempt to play a set without him. Mick Fleetwood decided that it might be a good idea to fire him, and off he went.

Kirwan released Second Chapter in 1975 and followed it up a year later with Midnight in San Juan.

It's Kirwan's last album, 1979's Hello Big Boy! which is the focus of attention here. Peter Green at this point had just released his second album, In The Skies and Jeremy Spencer released Flee with fellow members of the Children of God cult. Of course, Fleetwood Mac released the sprawling double LP, Tusk - the commerical flop that had only sold a million-odd copies.

All three guitarists had seen 1979 as the year of AOR, and Kirwan's work is no exception to the fact. Kirwan's guitar work was rumoured to be faded out of the mix almost entirely, and the work of 70-odd musicians turned a mentally-fragile Kirwan recording session into something interesting - kind of like what Phil Spector did to the Beatles last album, one could say.

Today, Kirwan's rumoured to be living in a men's shelter in London, drinking away his Fleetwood Mac royalty cheques and refusing any interviews about his music career.

When you think about it, there's precious few bands from the 60s whose original members are still alive today. There's a few Bluesbreakers line-ups, Cream, the Kinks and Fleetwood Mac - the band who will go down in history for having more nutters on the six-string than any other.

And as much as Peter Green stands head and shoulders above Kirwan and Spencer in terms of adulation and respect, Danny Kirwan's light shines brightly for creating the best lost album of the late 1970s.

Hello There Big Boy! has the Jimmy Buffett sea-breeze, the Steely Dan tightness, the Paley Brothers harmonies, the sensiblity of Gerry Rafferty, and the catchy choruses of Christopher Cross. Naturally, Kirwan didn't like the idea of touring to promote this album - and in fact, the album was almost shelved due to the erratic behaviourisms of Danny's, so the album sank without a trace.

Have a listen, and tell me what you think.

http://rapidshare.com/files/150879120/Hello_There_Big_Boy.rar

The Verlaines Corporate Moronic

The small town of Dunedin plays host to a myriad of wonderful groups since the late 1970s, and the Clean seems to sit right at the top of that ladder. In fact, they've released a new record this year, and the Bats have done similarly. Strangely, too - the Verlaines have released a new album via a new independent label, Dunedin Music.

Once upon a time, the Verlaines released an album called Over the Moon through New Zealand's Sony branch. And at last count, about five people own this 1998 CD, and I know one of them. It was quite an interesting record - it kind of crossed the delicateness of 1991's Ready to Fly and the overcooked guitars of Way Out Where. You could feel the glue of tobacco paper seep into the microphone from Graeme Downes's lips during Writing On The Wall when he says, "don't say it's over."

Then the giant wait for Potboiler, released on the Flying Nun label nine years later. I have only played it once. Not feeling terribly game to play it again, it kind of left me stone cold. The ghastly cover doesn't help matters - but then again, Way Out Where has a rather shocking cover as well. Bob Dylan's 1981 LP Shot Of Love looks like Roy Lichtenstein's vomit but it's one cracker of a record. Judge, cover, et cetera.

On a recent trip to Christchurch, I walked into an independent record store to find the just released Verlaines album, Corporate Moronic. This worked out pretty famously as I had not planned to take any music along with me to listen to in the rent-a-car for the return trip to Dunedin. I played this album almost non-stop between both cities, pausing for small periods to listen to some classic AM rock on an FM station.

Every rock band I've grown up with in school have disappointed me in one way or another. Sonic Youth really lost the plot after Experimental, Jet-Set, Trash and No Star. Dinosaur Jr really into the ether after Where You Been? There's countless more examples to lay out, and the Verlaines sadly fall under this disappointment umbrella. I hope for each new Verlaines album to sound better than Bird Dog, and they never do. In hindsight, I guess it's that good after all.

After the departure of Robbie Yeats in 1989/90, and Jane Dodd in 1988, the Verlaines have lost a terrible amount of their poetry and zeal for complex arrangements. Some might just put it down to progress. The Velvets got more and more conventional as the years rolled on, so I guess this isn't anything too scandalous.

But in the case of the Verlaines, and Graeme Downes in particular - the band's leader, musical director, composer, lyricist, vocalist and occasional oboe player, it is as if the band of 2009 have forgotten what made them so beautiful - those countless references to cigarette smoking and pub-drinking is one major loss. And I don't think it's a good loss, either. Downes still finds room for doomed love songs, so not all is removed from the lyrical topics of yore.

Corporate Moronic completely removes itself from the Flying Nun era of 1982-1990, and all that's left is Graeme's voice. Thankfully, it's still in good form. So in today's terms it's Verlaines by name and not by nature.

Perhaps Graeme's moved on, and I haven't? He's already written Slow Sad Love Song, Just Mum, and Baud to Tears once - so why am I wanting another song along these similar lines? Selfishness more than likely.

In modern rock terms, I'd much rather listen to this album than the latest Kings Of Leon offering - so as much as this all seems like a giant whine, I should be grateful that the Verlaines exist at all.

Tony Bennett - The Beat Of My Heart

This 1957 record by Tony Bennett is an unlikely record to have inspired the Laughing Clowns and their quest for brilliance, but with its array of drummers - Art Blakey, 'Philly' Joe Jones, Chico Hamilton and Billy Exiner; it's little wonder that after a close listen, you begin to hear the influences. For my crooner dollar, it's hard to beat Sinatra's In The Wee Small Hours, though this baby comes pretty close.

This title was released on CD in 1997 as a part of Columbia's Best Value series and Bennett's own Master Series alike. Naturally, it's out of print on the convenient format.

Side one

1. "Let's Begin" (Otto Harbach, Jerome Kern) - 2:00
2. "Lullaby of Broadway" (Al Dubin, Harry Warren) - 2:24
3. "Let There Be Love" (Ian Grant, Lionel Rand) - 2:03
4. "Love for Sale" (Cole Porter) - 3:08
5. "Crazy Rhythm" (Irving Caesar, Roger Wolfe Kahn, Joseph Meyer) - 2:07
6. "The Beat of My Heart" (Johnny Burke, Harold Spina) - 2:24

Side two

7. "So Beats My Heart for You" (Pat Ballard, Charles Henderson, Tom Waring) - 2:49
8. "Blues in the Night" (Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer) - 2:50
9. "Lazy Afternoon" (John Latouche, Jerome Moross) - 2:21
10. "Let's Face the Music and Dance" (Irving Berlin) - 2:47
11. "Just One of Those Things" (Porter) - 2:03

I have chosen not to include the bonus tracks, as they wouldn't have been able to fit here

Was Everett true? Laughing Clowns 25 years later (...and greater)

To put things into perspective, this band formed in 1979 with former members of the Saints, a school chum with a horn and two cousins from Melbourne. Many line-up changes, record labels and a string of flawless records before the band imploded with little fanfare in December 1984.

Precious few books reference the band, while rock journalists ranging from Clinton Walker, Ian Macfarlane and Everett True (more on him later) have often elevated this band to Godlike status.

The ABC documentary on Australian rock 'n' roll Long Way To The Top acted like this band never existed. It was as if Ed Kuepper did nothing when the Saints split and decided to open a bookshop for six years and suddenly appeared out of the ether to release a dozen plus records under his own name?

Some people called this music jazz, others called it punk; while many called the Laughing Clowns jazz-punk. The Go-Betweens tried to copy their style on their first record. The Birthday Party took similar cues. The band wore suit jackets well before Nick Cave and his Bad Seeds applied them as their uniform of choice.

Having been lucky to see Louise Elliott play an epic fifteen minute blast of 'Eternally Yours' with Ed Kuepper and Jeffrey Wegener at Dingwalls in Camden two years back, I figured that a Clowns reunion wouldn't be too far off. After all, it was the friction between the two men that saw the band disintergrate (amongst other conspiracy theories).

Nick Cave curated this year's All Tomorrow's Parties for its Australian festival debut. It's well known that Cave is indeed a fan of the Saints, often stating that 'This Perfect Day' is one of his all-time favourite 45's. Yes, the original Saints did indeed appear at ATP and recieved mixed reviews, mainly from Chris Bailey's refusal to take things seriously. And that's another story entirely, and one not worth worrying about here.

It was little surpise that the Clowns were asked to play at ATP, given the fashion tips and overall musical and lyrical influence that appears in Cave's music since the late 70s.

With Louise Elliott living in London, Les 'Bif' Millar happily teaching the art of bass in Adelaide and Jeffrey Wegener residing in Sydney, a reunion of at least the 2nd line-up of the band wasn't going to be easy. With Peter Doyle awol, the line-up that appeared on the Everything That Flies 12" seemed like the line-up Kuepper was going to put together at Cave's invitation.

When a band's had so many line-up and sonic shifts in such a small period of time (five years, if anyone's counting), the thought of the band playing a carbon copy of a particular vintage seemed stupid. Thankfully, this never took place.



Having been a fan since the early 90s and having been a little too young to have experienced the band in their prime, I was expecting a great deal from whom I regard as my favourite Australian band.

Everything was there on stage: Kuepper's flattened fifths, Wegener's 16th note rolls, Elliott's borderline overblowing of the tenor, Millar's enthusiastic fretless runs, and so on. Sydney keyboardist Alistair Spence filled the empty spaces with his washes of synth and piano.

The bottom line is: the Clowns didn't make me feel embarassed for loving them in the same way the Velvet Underground did for me in 1993.

To this day, I still can't fathom how the Clowns would have been received in 1979 around the Sydney venues when they walked out from their season-long rehearsals and to the stage. But in 2009, there were more people at ATP witnessing the Clowns than the fashion-savvy Spiritualized, but who's really complaining here?

Their show at Brisbane's Gallery of Modern Art held a week after their ATP shows in Sydney drew a crowd of close to 800 people, with one known walk-out from Everett True - an English writer well known among rock music readers who recently published a rather interesting review of the said show for the Guardian.

True Tales: Why I walked out of a Laughing Clowns Gig

The salt 'n' pepper beards were there in the audience, true. The band are no longer a secret held by a precious few record collectors and rock writers, true too. The sound was fine from the middle of the room, coming out of the PA and the band alike.

He's right about the fact that they are "the greatest live rock'n'roll band in the world ever, full stop." Yet, he's wrong about everything else.

I'm glad I could witness this moment, and I look forward to the three shows that've been penciled in for the winters. The days will be dragging along until then.

Would the Real Johnny Greenwood Please Stand Up?

There is almost nothing on the internet about Johnny Greenwood, the Australian country artist. The man has a delicate, frail voice - almost in a Pip Proud sort of way. The only records I have managed to find thus far are The Singing Transport Man (RCA 1976) and Big Rigs & Truckstops (Colonial). Both records feature a great deal of his own compositions, many of which have appeared on various Slim Dusty Truckin' albums. Each time I go and play his music on last.fm it assumes I am listening to some guy from Radiohead, which to me is quite an insulting insinuation if I've ever seen one. I believe he used to host a Country Music program on Logan's 101FM once upon a time. These two albums are well worth looking out for if you're a fan of Trucking Country records.

What I did find was this little blurb on a site called Queensland Country Style, which had this to say about the great man.

Johnny was born in Brisbane 1939. He started singing and playing in 1955 and was one of the first country artists to appear on television. His first record was "Loving Arms" on W & G label - more records followed and encouraged by their popularity spent many months performing overseas in Great Britain, Europe, North Africa and New Zealand.

Johnny’s biggest recording success came signing to RCA records that included "The Goondiwindi Grey", "Tibrogargan" and "The Singing Transport Man" - he also recorded for "Astor & Colonial" labels having sold well over 100,000 records to date. At one point made the top 20 Parade, outselling Elvis Presley, David Bowie and The Sweet.

One of the highlights of his career was being the support act for the Marty Robbins Tour in 1967.
Other highlights has been appearing on TV Shows with the likes of Country Homestead, Conway Country, The Late Show, John Crook Show, Country Roads, That’s Australia and Must Be Country.

Inducted into the "Hands of Fame" in 1980 and is still performing today - all this mainly as part time performer.

The great Apartments of Sydney

I wrote this on my old Myspace blog earlier this year. Seeing I don't really want to bother with the past, I thought that I might place this piece here...

I've always found Sydney to be an unusual place. A place with the terrace houses, long lost musical scenes and quite simply, it's size can be a little daunting.

Nevertheless, I took the rare chance to venture down just the other day. I was there for a few hours in September, driving my newly acquired DS21 up from Melbourne and stopping slap/bang in the middle of Chinatown. A little lunch and for a quick dash around the shops on Pitt St was the extent of the last visit.

Looking up at the subject title and trying to get back to the point, I realised why I am writing this. I went down to see the Apartments - a band who have recently decided to start playing again.

A lot of people find their way into the world of the Apartments via The Go-Betweens and that's understandable. A casual Go-betweens fan may realise that the band's singer and songwriter, Peter Milton Walsh was in the band for all of five minutes in late 1978. Someone who's a little more than casual may know that both Forster and McLennan wrote songs about him, namely 'Don't Let Him Come Back and 'That Way'.

I've always been the type of person who studies record sleeves. It's a great pity that I can't get an honorary doctorate in record sleeves, but maybe I just haven't looked into it enough.

When I bought my first Laughing Clowns record, it was at a time in Brisbane where you just could not buy anything by them second hand, and the CDs weren't readily available. This was the early 90s. The first Clowns record I managed to procure was the 12" for Eternally Yours. How I got into the Clowns is another story altogether, so I'll cut that bit out and get to where I am meant to be heading here.

So there it was - the record. The Judi Dransfield artwork. The credits. Now I looked at the musicians who played on this 12" and saw Jeffrey Wegener (who I knew was working part-time at this hideous record store in Adelaide St), Louise Elliott, Chris Abrahams and Peter Walsh. Now it got me thinking: is this the producer Peter Walsh - the chap who produced that Church record I have? It couldn't be - it turned out it wasn't. It was Peter Milton Walsh. So I worked out he had this band called the Apartments. I remember flicking through some 7" singles in the same shop I bought this Clowns record from and seeing a title by this band called The Apartments.

The next day, I rushed back into the store and bought it. I played it. I played it again. And again. And again. It was really quirky pop music. The vocal was so strange, so detached from any other singer I had heard to that point. The piano on the record is so basic, yet it makes the b-side seem like it should be the a.

Quite simply, it blew me away - I'd never heard something like this before. The lyrics made you feel like if you hadn't been like the character in the songs before, then you will be at some point in your life. Maybe you hadn't even lived.

The single was All You Wanted, released by Hot in late 1984 - not long after Walsh had completed his 12 months in Laughing Clowns. A 12 months which saw the release of one record (Law of Nature) and two tours of both Europe and Australia. Law Of Nature was the first true lyrical record which Kuepper wrote on his own, and it's a record I play more than any other of the 40-odd records he's responsible for. I'm sidetracking again.

That one pivotal moment of my youth where I heard the Apartments for the first time led me along this path of wanting to see them perform. In time, I had managed to learn a little more about them and all I could find was a series of dead-ends that took me many years to work out. It continues to be an adventure, I guess. There's still a lot of unanswered questions and I don't really mind. I'm not into the gossip aspect of musician, but I do like to know how someone gets to where they are - just in case I may want to take that trip myself. I hope that made sense - it's hard for me to articulate what I am trying to say.

Peter Milton Walsh did play a show in Brisbane at one of the spring Livid festivals with Amanda Brown, but by the time I knew about it... well, it was a little too late.

Years roll by and I read an article about The Apartments and Walsh mentions a possible tour of Australia that will coincide with the local release of their 1995 record, A Life Full of Farewells. This tour never takes place. They did play a series of shows in France around that time and deservedly so - they're the only country whose music fans seem to understand. It makes that cliche of the French being romanticists seem more validated and less of a cliche.

So they play a show in Sydney - their first since forever and I am absolutely there.

I saw their soundcheck at Brisbane's Troubadour in June - from the moment all the levels were right, I was just blown away. I felt this great rush of adrenalin go through my body and when this happens, it's a yardstick to measure just how good a show I'm seeing is. This narcotic feeling rarely happens. When Ed Kuepper played 'Too Many Clues' at the Judith Wright a few weeks ago, it happened. And when Walsh started the opening chords to 'The Goodbye Train' on Thursday night it happened again.

Sitting on the mezzanine floor with my uncomfy chair and the speakers sitting just about level with me, it all sounded perfect. I love a good live mix and I am rarely treated to one, but such is showbiz.

I am not sure what makes their shows so amazing. I have seen them as many times as the band have performed publicly - be it in Brisbane or Melbourne and now Sydney. Admittedly, the set has featured the same songs and quite frankly, I couldn't give a fuck about it. The new arrangements to the bulk of the songs (particularly 'Thank You for Making Me Beg') provide a freshness. All the songs blend in - even if they were written in 1983 or 1993 - it's like the clocks never stopped.

I guess I am making up for lost time. When you know that there could be a time when one of your musical heroes could turn the taps on again, it's exciting. I don't mind waiting yet another ten years for a Scott Walker record to come out, because I know it'll be the record he wants to make and that it'll just make bands like Radiohead seem more and more idiotic and pointless.

I waited the best part of fifteen years to see the Apartments, so I am making the most of the situation and that's Walsh's brave decision to pick up the Telecaster and to play his songs again. I never thought it would happen. The more I would write letters to Peter, the more he would underline the fact that it was a vanished world.

And after seeing the various audiences who've presented themselves to the shows, there's one thing that's clear - I'm not the only person who enjoys the songs. It's some of my heroes, some of my friends and some of my enemies too.

But as for Sydney - it was a wonderful night - just being in the audience amongst the names I have seen all over the record sleeves I have in my collection was a little overwhelming. A drummer here, a producer over there, a photographer by the stairs, a guitarist keeping the bar from falling down, an artist cracking jokes outside the venue, a bassist that looked like a chicken, but who soared like an eagle.

A wonderful, unforgettable atmosphere which I was glad to occupy for one summer night in Sydney.

The music of Drenica, or an uncritical aesthetic study on the hill-country folk music vernacular of Western Kosovo part two: Turbo-Folk v Gangsta Folk

With the advent of Turbo-Folk music filtering through the Balkans in recent decades, true folk music of Drenica becomes more scarce as the years roll on. In case you're wondering, Turbo-Folk is when you put a dance beat over some traditional instruments to give it a more modern sheen. That's the most short-hand explanation of it, anyway.

If you've heard the original Borat theme from when it was on the Ali G show, then you'll know what I'm talking about. And yes, that's a Drenica-born and bred artist performing the theme song - not a Kazak.

I'm straying away from what I wanted to showcase, and that's what I call Gangsta-Folk. No eighties Mercedes Benzes with German plates doing drive-bys along rocky mountain ways, but plenty of gold teeth and gun-waving.

This video is from Vllezerit Qetaj (the Qetaj Brothers), who formed in the early sixties and are familiar faces on DVD and video collections of Kosovar folk groups. The best environment to hear Albanian music is much like this Youtube clip I happened to find. The title of the song is loosely-translated as Stop Serbia For I See Smoke says it all, and as will the guy you see at 1:29 letting a few bullets go out the window during the performance.

The players sit in a circle in the middle of a usually rectangular men's room. As you can see in the clip, there's a bit of goulash and caustic Russian tea doing the rounds so therefore I'd be safe in saying this was someone's wedding or a young boy's circumcision party.

The instrumentation is typical of a musical group of this area, with Cifelti (a two-stringed lute instrument tuned B-E), Sharki (its larger five stringed cousin), piano accordion and a def, a skinned tambourine.

This is the music of Drenica at its wildest and most unhinged.