Monday, February 21, 2005

Did You Want Fries With That?

I really believe that working in a CD shop is killing my love of music.
But you’re surrounded by music, you get to play what you want, you get to meet bands, get tickets to gigs… how can that be bad?, you say. Okay, I’m not surrounded by music for a start, I’m surrounded by product. And every week there’s more product, be it big releases or a crap cdr by some gimp you’ll never hear of again – it’s all product, very little love (okay, maybe the gimps do put love into it – I’ll get back to them). It’s just marketing, label pushing, free t-shirt with the first hundred, get your poster, tour edition, special dvd copy etc etc ad nauseam. And as for the bands – there just people in my way, they come in, do a signing, play a few songs, pose for the purty pictures, drink our beer, and then go – they ain’t that exciting as people, they’re just more work.
Of course if we had some decent bands doing in stores I might be happier but the likes of Gerling, Michael Franti, Tea Party, Missy Higgins etc do fuck all for me. Like I said, it’s just more work. I’ve been around too long I guess, seen too many bands, heard too many bands, and the new stuff does nothing for me – I can pick the influences, I can hear the songs they’ve ripped off, I don’t care how much triple j plays them, I think they’re all talentless gimps.

And as for the ‘alternative’ set, the people in the ‘know’ who don’t follow ‘trends’ - this week it’s soul, last week it was electronica, next week it’ll be jazz… sheep leading sheep getting fucked by wolves. The only interesting music is the stuff falling between the cracks, the stuff you have to look for – and these days it seems nobody wants to look too hard anyway. And I’m probably just as guilty sometimes as everyone else is. I get lazy, I ask others for their opinion – but I also look for things, I listen to things, and occasionally I luck into things whether it’s kindling label or black oak arkansas or erini… it’s out there, you just have to find it – unfortunately it’s rarely in the cd shops or the magazines or the street press. No all you’ll find in there is product – it ain’t burgers but it’s getting closer all the time.
Just look at the Big Day Out this year – as lame and bland a line up as they’ve ever managed to put together and yet it sold out Australia wide! Why? Because mediocrity rules, because bland is so non-threatening, so safe that everyone can go and not feel threatened by their own lack of musical knowledge, or their own lack of ability. Now they can imagine themselves on stage. After all if powderfinger and dallas crane can do it why can’t we? There’s no chance of anything exciting or interesting happening, no surprises, nothing that could make them think a bit or break them out of that nice piss-warm cocoon they’ve all settled into. We don’t think we just buy. Now, did you want fries with that album?

Oh yeah, I said I’d get back to the gimps with their self released cdr’s. Well, see the problem as I see it is that with the new technology anybody can have an album out now- there is no stopping you.*
It used to be that the best rose to the top and the others released a bad demo tape and disappeared, waiting to be collected years later by obscure European labels. But now, every fucker with a computer thinks he’s a star – and maybe he is, this is the age of Aussie Idol and Popstars after all. There’s just no quality control at all now and it’s getting to be hardwork sorting through the dross to look for the gems.
* (Just like anybody can have a blog I guess – we’re all gimps)

Wednesday, February 09, 2005

SONGS OF FAITH AND DEVOTION - The Yearlings

The Yearlings (Chris Parkinson & Robyn Chalklen) have long been a favourite in the funhouse shed. Of course we hold them dear to our hearts ‘cos we first unleashed them onto the world – or at least to the 100 odd folk who purchased funhouse #2 for the cdr (Now I Wanna Be Your Stooge - A Stooges Tribute) that came with it. You see The Yearlings, then in the clever guise of "Chris & Bob", recorded a rousing bluegrass version of Raw Power for this tribute to the stooges that blew damn near everyone who heard it away. I knew Chris through work and knowing he was a muso, suggested he might want to record something for the tribute. What I didn’t expect was for him to completely rearrange Raw Power and play it with such beauty and passion that they managed to claim the song as their own. That recording was The Yearlings first outing. After that I made it my duty to see them play live as often as I could and to tell everyone who would (or wouldn’t) listen they should be seeing them too. Many friends were dragged to the pub to see this band who I could only describe as "acoustic, not country, not bluegrass, something else…" In the end I settled for "pure". It was the only word I could think of to express how I felt about them. Because they aren’t country (Tamworth rejected them), they aren’t strictly bluegrass, (too middle class for that!), they’re an amalgam of styles, of the picking of early folk, of country when it told stories and didn’t need tight pants or hokey videos, of songs on the front porch, of friendships… It’s two people (a couple) on a stage surrounded by acoustic guitars, playing songs, telling stories and letting you into their world for an hour or so. Because even if we weren’t there you just get the feeling these two would be doing this anyway, in fact I know they would. This is what they live to do, play and sing and enjoy the day. They share simple stories, tiny moments of the day to day, old folk songs, porch tunes and friendly banter and we just happen to be there to hear them as well. Hell, I even had them play my fortieth birthday. At which they ripped through a set of seventies covers in their own Yearlings style, with Chris once again rearranging everything from Skyhooks to Black Sabbath to make them their own. (And I don’t mean in that hokey Hayseed Dixie style, I mean so you wouldn’t recognise them instantly as someone else’s song but instead think that they were their own)
Now with the release of their second album Wind Already Blown (Thru Shock) you can hear the purity of The Yearlings as well. Already contender for album of the year, the beauty of their songs loses nothing in the studio, I still can’t get over how good they are, how pure it all remains – two guitars, two voices, harmonies and the feeling you’ve dropped into a private conversation but it’s all okay, they forgive you anyway. Over the last couple of years I’ve noticed Robyn become a lot more confident in herself and her ability on stage and off and that’s reflected here in her playing and in her lyrics. Chris has always been seen I guess as the main force in this duo because of his great playing. He is a guy who loves his guitar – hell, any stringed instrument – if it’s got strings he can play it but Rob is definitely not playing second fiddle (ha ha). This is the album I think that will make people realise that – she always was the better singer anyway but now the strength of her songwriting abilities, her own work on guitar have grown considerably and this album shows it. There are lines in Fallen Star, Trouble Some More, Dirty Wings that I wish I had written – hell, I might just pinch them one day anyway.
But what is their style? I know I still haven’t really said it – I don’t know that I can. It is definitely based in country but it’s old country music with some early american folk, bluegrass, maybe even a touch of acoustic blues thrown in – it comes back to that word – PURE. It is what it is, nothing more. They play because it’s what they do and we are blessed that we are allowed to witness it.
Look I’m a cynic, an athiest, a drunk, a womaniser and a basic prick but these guys never fail to lift me up, to make me believe in something, even if it’s only temporary. But the power of friendships, love, of enjoying life – when I listen to The Yearlings I can briefly believe and imagine that it is all possible. If they can do that for me imagine what they can do for you.