Special Comments

I just recently had my 65 year old father in law from Wales come and stay at our house in the middle of an insanely hot Australian summer. Every night when he'd go to bed he'd grab a cd off my shelf to listen to on his DiscMan (no shit he had one). The following morning I'd get his thoughts.

The Insect Trust-The Insect Trust
"Ha haha ha ha ha yeah they're great musicians though"

Master Of Reality-Black Sabbath
"I listened to a very weak Black Sabbath album last night. It was poor. It wasn't heavy enough."

Pacific Ocean Blue-Dennis Wilson
"It went on and on and every time I thought it was over another song started. There was one fantastic song in the middle though, ahead of its time."

Funhouse-The Stooges
"I listened to the first 3 songs."

UHF-Hacker Farm
"I listened to an instrumental group last night. Hahaha it was just muffled noises wasn't it?"

Gene Clark's No Other

The Best LA LP of The 70s?

What I've been tryin to get to for a while now is this: Gene Clark's No Other. Here's another record I don't really need to talk about as some of the greats have written about it here and here. Anyway this is a record that is still building its cult. It'll probably be 5 to 10 years before he gets to that stage that, I dunno, someone like Nick Drake ended up in 10 years ago. A sort of saturation point where you've gone from cult figure to everyone who's ever gonna know about you knowing about you. I guess Rodriguez is reaching this position now, sure a doco helps! As does an Academy Award for said doco. Anyway David Geffen apparently pumped a hundred grand into Clark's magnificent 1974 opus and upon receiving it in the flesh promptly chucked it in the bin in a hissy fit because it only had 8 songs. Geffen refused to promote the LP and it came and went in a flash. Clark's career never recovered and he allegedly became a tragic figure until he died in 1991 before the No Other cult had gained much momentum. This LP is up there with the best 70s West Coast records by Fleetwood Mac, Steely Dan, Sly Stone and Dennis Wilson and could possibly be the best of the lot. I reckon we definitely get our $100,000 worth. It's lush. It's sublime. This album is the perfect amalgamation of songs, performance and production. It does not get much better than this if indeed it does at all! There's something intangibly magic about this LP and framing it in Gram Parson's term 'Cosmic Americana' doesn't do it justice. This ain't no hippy hillbilly record. However there is a dichotomy at work here. Clark wrote this album during a deep spiritual time but then recorded it in the grips of out of control cocaine use/abuse. An interesting footnote to Australian readers is that Venetta Fields, yes she of John Farnham's band, sings backing vocals on the trax Life's Greatest Fool & Some Misunderstanding.

I is diggin those 1974 threads man.

Beards A reprise

Early Joy Division early beard

The Original beard king even before I got into Dennis Wilson was of course the legendary Peter Hook. Jim Morrison, The Beatles etc. all had them during trend times as did Dennis but it was Peter Hook in the coolest band of the late 70s and then another cool one throughout the 80s who stuck with it in the non trend times. It did stick out like a sore thumb. Of course now it seems normal. I think though in recent times he's even been shaving. He just seemed to not fit. He shoulda been drivin a truck or something. My brother and I used to find it hilarious. I dunno if we appreciated his contrariness or his out of time naffness. Anyway in tribute to the great man we made a fantastic collage of about 20 photographs all with beard in different phases of growth. It really was quite foreign particularly to have facial hair in the post-punk/indie/dance scenes. Clean shaven was the go and really only went indie in the 00s and has now gone corp/fashionista/sportsman/knob etc. In the late 70s & 80s it only belonged to science and geography teachers. A hipster wouldn't have been caught dead with a hair on his chinny chin chin! I wish I still had that collage, it used to take pride and place in our flat. Hooky Monster Respect!

This is his classic beard and hair look for most of the 80s in New Order.
Not that dissimilar to Dennis Wilson.

Transmission
Joy Division
Best bearded bassline ever!

Myf Warhurst & The Elephant & Beards & The 60s &..

Shhhh it's the ABC we can't acknowledge we live
in a capitalist society! It's not nice..

Don't get me wrong I love Myf (Australian TV peronality in her late 30s), she's a very nice unpretentious person and a self confessed dag. But the tv show Nice and Trendy last night had me perplexed. where was this show sitting? Somewhere between a Sunday magazine article, something a little more intellectually in depth or just a bit of nostalgic fluff where she got to meet some famous people. I was getting frustrated at the beating around the bush of why fashion is cyclical. She nearly got there by asking 'Aren't we going to proverbially eventually disappear up our own fashion arses? Meaning where is the new? how many times can the 20s, 60, 80s even 90s keep returning How the hell are they gonna rehash  the 00s? Anyway are people too scared to hear the truth? It's the ABC (Austaralia's Government owned Broadcastor ala BBC) for Christ's sake, nevertheless the real answer wasn't forthcoming. It was a bit like the Elephant in the room, but we're all too apathetic to acknowledge our own complicity so we just ignore it. People in fashion need to keep making money so predict, go random or rip off the hipster setting trends on the street and then convince a lot of us 'this is what's happening now'. It's an massive industry - the magazines, the models, the designers, the sweat shop owners, they're all in it together. If you have 6 pairs of skinny jeans how are they gonna make money from you next season? They need to tell you that the flared pant is fashion forward. We're not all blind Freddy though but most of us seem to just follow along.

Alistair O'Neill in his book London-After A Fashion said "the demand forever evolving newness forced a distraction from innovation & invention towards a plundering and interpretation of historical styles". So apparently retro/pastiche/postmodernism in fashion started in full around 1966/67. So is this when modernism died? apparently in 1966 A shop opened in London Called Granny Takes a Trip (what a fucking great name) that sold antique clothes as well as new clothes inspired by the past. There were other shops too Cobwebs, Past Caring, Biba, Antiquarius et al. They all sound like shops that could now be in Brunswick St, Gertrude St, Greville St, North Melbourne, Northcote, Brunswick and enter new hip new hip Melbourne suburb here___________. I love those names of the shops. Anyway it looks like we've been disappearing up our proverbial fashion arses since at least 1966.



There is a granny! She's probably more likely to be trippin' over
 than droppin' acid but you never know?



Interior of biba Art Deco met the 60s

Here's my theory - Think of the worst item in fashion (that's not been revived for at least 10 years) in living memory or the living memory of your Mum or Gran and it'll be back sooner than you think. It works with music as well. Many years ago I thought there was never gonna' be any redemption for Elton John then BANG Almost Famous came out as did the Scissor Sisters & other acts that were influenced by him.

He was not so bad after all.

 Here's a personal example around 1999/2000 I decided as a tribute to my idol Dennis Wilson circa 1970s to grow rough beard and sport grown out short hair. Let me tell you people thought that was weird people didn't know how to react to me. The only other beards at the time belonged to old men. A few years later some groups and singers started doin the same. Now bloody footy players are doin' it and people whose heroes don't even have that look.



Didn't go as far as the overalls though.

Another music example is house and techno. About two years ago I thought that was finished and never coming back. I said it to a friend I'll never listen to that stuff ever again. Now it's all the rage again. I'm even listening to a bit of myself admittedly mostly of the vintage variety but I like some of the new old stuff. This is ridiculous!