Reasons To Be Cheerful Part Seven
GARLAND JEFFREYS - MODERN LOVERS
From the album Escape Artist, this was a mainstay of 81/82 for me when I was coming into
adulthood, 18/19 years old, in “lurve” for the first time, well the first real
serious relationship, the first time I actually thought I meant it when I said
it and every weekend I’d be driving around 100 kilometres(round trip) to see
that girl so I was buying a lot of tapes to play in the car (or cars since I
managed to go through a few back then, none costing more’n $300) and I knew who
Jeffreys was cos of that killer song ‘Wild In The Streets’ hell I had the 45,
bought cheap from the whitegoods/ record store at one of their 45 rpm purges
where they’d throw out singles for 5c and 10c and I’d be there with a handful
of change just taking chances, taking names, labels and hoping for something
good.
Garland Jeffreys was good and so a
few years down the track, with pubic hair bustin’ out, cassettes piling up on
the floor, records spinnin’ all the time, trying to keep ahead, trying to find
songs, reasons, voices, I found this album.
I musta heard ‘Modern Lovers’ or something on the radio though I can’t
imagine where down there in early 80s AM radioland, maybe one of those late
nights when I’d tune in the radio to stations all over the fucking country that
would be faintly playing and cross hatching on the big old radiogram that mum
and dad had… it musta popped up one night between the hits and memories, the
footy scores and rural weather alerts but I heard it and it was enough to make
me want the album, while I had money and all that driving and time and space so
anyway I bought it (on cassette of course) and I flogged that baby to death –
like Jeffreys himself it was a mulatto mix of styles and cultures and pop and
reggae and bluesy jazz licks and even though I was a dumb country hick I could
dig the world he was travelling in (or at least wished I could).
Late nights
driving that long trip home, headlights dipping and wavering, watching out for
rabbits and foxes and kangaroos, fog descending, blueballed and hopeful, Escape
Artist cranked up and distorting in the tinny speakers on the backdash or early
on thru the portable cassetter player on the front seat ‘cos I just didn’t have
the money or wherewithal to get a tape player set up yet, Garland was there for
me, it made for some sweet driving, I’d almost be disappointed when I’d see the
street lights again as I came over the hill and back down past the pine
plantations, turning the volume down just a little so the neighbours wouldn’t
have too much to complain about as I tried to sneak in, always failing, always
late but at least alive, another trip down, another weekend gone. Escape never
sounded so good.
This album is one
of the few I now own on cassette, record, CD and download cos you never know
when and where you might wanna play it and its still as good as I remember,
even if I’m no longer cruising the backroads with it turned up loud, blueballed
and stinky fingered…