Yay! The dry season’s here; cool nights and crisp, windy mornings. After a few months of sauna-like Darwin weather you tend to forget how pleasant it is not to be always bathed in sweat.
Friday was officially the last day of the wet season and, as if to commemorate its passing, the evening was warm, still and balmy. “B” and I strolled into “The Groove” at Nightcliff to have a leisurely dinner and listen to American self-styled “virtuoso musician and slide guitarist” Bob Brozman. The night got off to a less than auspicious start, however, when we were both ostentatiously snubbed by a Queenly Presence with adoring new boyfriend in tow. I can’t help feeling that we’re all getting way too old to play characters in a Sex and the City-style soap opera gone troppo.
The music was a tad disappointing too. Brozman is certainly a technical virtuoso, but most of his playing has all the feeling and soul of a karaoke tape. And it wasn’t improved for this armadillo by his continual and inane anti-Bush diatribe between songs. Cracker barrel philosophy for ageing brain-damaged lefties: “If you want to know what’s really happening, just follow the money.” Deep! What sort of obtuse narcissism makes some performers think their audience gives a rat’s arse about their political opinions?
I’m really looking forward to hearing John Butler Trio though. They’re performing on the lawns at Mindil Beach Casino in a couple of weeks. That’s the other thing about the dry season: you actually begin getting some good live entertainment after months of wet season hibernation. But you can’t escape the leftie bullshit with Butler either. The ads for their concert announce that $1.00 from the price of every ticket will be donated to the Refugee Action Coalition. If I didn’t love their music so much, I’d be tempted to freeload and sit on the beach and listen to avoid having my money donated to a bunch of wankers I wouldn’t give the time of day.
But you can’t escape the leftie bullshit with Butler either.
He’s a young boy with dreds, a sweet wife and little child! He’s idealistic and wonderful and most of the energy that you and me love about his music comes from just that. He is not a virtuoso he is a young man with lots of heart and a belief in the possibility of goodness you cynical, blinkered, self – destructive indiscriminate box labelling, self satisfied old fart who thinks that everyone who is a little bit extreme is interesting but nuts without having a look at the contribution they are making by causing an upheaval in your linear logic fucking diagnostic mind. Part of you is so old, that it just happily writes off anything off the wall as lunatic fringe and essentially useless – oh and me as some lovable, fuckable, incoherent lunatic.
You sound disgustingly settled into your grumpy old man mode Ken. Provided you can de-grump sufficiently, and note that it will only have to be temporarily, I’m sure you’ll enjoy Butler et al. He, solo and with trio, was just splendifourous at Byron over Easter.
the evening was warm, still and balmy. “B” and I strolled into “The Groove” at Nightcliff to have a leisurely dinner and listen to American self-styled “virtuoso musician and slide guitarist” Bob Brozman
I can almost smell the frangipanis in the tropical evening air. Ken, please indulge we poor sods decending into the wintry gloom in the southernmost most states, and give us a little taste of ‘Darwin in the Dry’ from time to time.
cs
thankyou for reminding me they also play music.
-I went last time they played here, outdoor concert, Gardens Amphitheatre. They grow those melodies right out of their instruments – same in recordings -skill, talent and soul. Hope they sound just as good on the Casino Lawns.
cs,
Yes, I’m getting increasingly comfortable with the grumpy old man persona. I’ve warned “B” that my long-term ambition is to take over from a delightful old bloke named Neville Quigley. Neville is running a one-man campaign to rid Casuarina beach of rubbish deposited by late-night shaggers and groups of indigenous itinerants. He thinks the best way of doing this is to completely close and barricade the beach from dawn to dusk.
I also quite like the idea of having comment box domestics. We might even spawn a new blogging genre. Mind you, arguably Gianna and her ex-lover got there before us.
Different sort of domestics, I think…
oops! I meant dusk to dawn. I may be getting the Nevilles already.
Oh, Ken! I’d just taken “dawn to dusk” as a sardonic (and rather funny) comment on the logical thought processes (or lack thereof) of this fascinating man…
“I also quite like the idea of having comment box domestics. We might even spawn a new blogging genre.”
Gee! I sincerely hope not. It’s a genre that’s potentially about as engaging as sticking a Webcam in your toilet. Or being stuck in a car on a long journey with a couple bickering……let “Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf” bear testament.
What is the etiquette about participating om comment box domestics?
Steering well clear of the particular I would like to say B raises an interesting point.
He’s a young boy with dreds, a sweet wife and little child! He’s idealistic and wonderful and most of the energy that you and me love about his music comes from just that……
This is true of many an artist. I expect I share political views with about 2 percent of the artists whose work enriches my life in ways that makes it worth living. Why do we in acknowledging that fact feel obliged that we must bestow some special right on the artists to dictate our consciences? Passionate sweet hearted people may make good art (sometimes)but they make shit policy. That is the end of the fucking story – if it takes being old to figure that out then let’s adjust the fanchise accordingly.
Grump, grump, grump, grump … but James provokes an interesting question (he says, sensing a tremendous advantage), i.e. why can’t brain-damaged cracker barrel right-wing philosophers make credible music? How many … and I rule out transient ‘pop’ stars … credible right-wing musos can anyone name? I think Frank Zappa was on the right, at least for a while, and Merle Haggard was completly away with the ratbags, but let’s also rule out both country and western … and then there is … well, bugger me dead, the field seems quite vacant.
James
no-one can dictate your conscience. And in a democracy – a participatory democracy – well we have to vote – I am happy for an artist or anyone to publicise their point of view and demand support for it. The extent to which the ’cause’ is useful is irrelevant unless it actually does harm. In that case I would not buy a ticket at all, but to the extent that it keeps the refugee dilemma in the public mind – what’s to gripe about? – unless of course you have become so old that your own mind has begun to calcify.
Hi Chris, I think Keith (and other Stones members)may be right of left, he is certainly pro-Iraqi intervention though as I type I realise I am assuming that positions on this matter are partisan based and this is not correct.
I ponder this question often as I am a RWDB in the performing arts industry. My musings are incomplete but I think a creative artist works in the conceptual world, a world of ideals if you will. They dream it and then they make it, they apply their politics accordingly believing in using ideas to inform reality rather than the other way round.
Please James! You? A RWDB? You’re way too reasonable for that sobriquet….
I take that reference to the Keith as outrageous bait James, which I will store up for a later reply. But as for Mick, I actually blogged his Iraq position here at Troppo. Not quite your Bushy-tailed approver our Mick.
Thanks B
For an artist to publicise their point of view and demand support for it I find alienating because I so rarely agree with it. I don’t feel alienated with disagreement as a rule I might add but it does kill my relationship with the art itself as the message becomes so entwined with it.
ps My brain calcified on the refugee issue years beore there was a refugee issue, about the same time it calcified on the easter bunny.
no-one can dictate your conscience
Unless, of course, you allow them to.
I am a RWDB in the performing arts industry
You mean such things exist? Wow…
Mick’s comments on Iraq were highly cyncical and not very peaceniky per se. Mick may have behaved like a wanker in his love life but I am very grateful that he has said very very little that would indicate that he is a wanker politically.
Keith on the War Against Terror was unequivocal but as I said one should be wary of extrapolating on this issue. I remember him being interviewed on Triple J in 94 he said in response to some social idealistic type question from the awestruck dee jay something along the lines of “I don’t know, it has been such a long time since I was poor…”
Geoff and James R, I call myself a RWDB though perhaps I might not be a very good one, though I’m trying.
Well James, I don’t know anyone – left or right – who’s pro-AQ-terrorism: the differences turn much more around means not ends. Re the politics of the Stones more generally, like you, I’m wary of extrapolating too far in terms of placing them in neat boxes … yet I note that the only free concert they’ve given in recent years was in aid of anti-globalwarming, where they were introduced by Bill Clinton, and the Keith is far from a cardboard conservative … as his repeated attacks on Mick for taking his gong illustrate. It’s a rich topic, but I hate to reduce the wonder and joy of the music that’s dear to me to the banality of mere politics.
It’s a rich topic, but I hate to reduce the wonder and joy of the music that’s dear to me to the banality of mere politics
Well said Chris, some artists could do worse than heed this too.
James
In matters of ‘calcification’ I am referring only to Parish. I have been too well brought up to accuse virtual strangers of such a disability. Apologies.
I’ve generally found that when someone assures you what a fine honest person they are, it’s a good idea to check they haven’t stolen your wallet. I wonder whether a similar principle applies to someone who assures us she’s “well brought up”?. Will the ongoing cyberspace domestic squabble provoke a renewed bout of peevish irritation from Geoff Honnor? Watch this space.
“Will the ongoing cyberspace domestic squabble provoke a renewed bout of peevish irritation from Geoff Honnor?”
Nice try, but you’re on your own with this one :)
Actually I’ve been reconsidering this cyberspace domestic squabble business. I have to admit it’s self-indulgent and maybe even anti-social. Other readers don’t get anywhere near as much fun out of it as “B” and I do; in fact some may not even be able to work out whether and to what extent we’re arguing in earnest. Even if they DO work out that it’s all in jest, they can’t know the rules and can never be sure whether they might inadvetently say something that will escalate the squabble into serious, hurtful territory.
The same is true of the protagonists. If the game goes on long enough, one of us is likely to go too far, or the other will take something in a way that wasn’t intended (which is probably a different way of saying the same thing). It’s probably a game better played by private email exchange rather than via a public medium like a blog.
Accordingly, having decisively seized and fortified the high moral ground, and deprived “B” of even the possibility of a points victory let alone a knockout, I hereby unilaterally declare a permanent ceasefire.
Aw gee – & just as I was getting into it….
Hello Wendy.