Lyrics Book Launch was a party

 Thank you to everybody who came to the One Star Gallery and Lounge to the launch of my lyrics book.
The book was self published and I got the design together with the help of Simon Strong.

The launch was set up with a casual suggestion to Katy Beale and Mick Harvey. Its a great, flexible space that perfectly suited this kind of affair.

 

Doors opened at 6pm and I stood around as people started to fill the place. There was no hiding out in a backstage room (though there was one available) as this was to be a very casual soiree.

I hadn't really prepared anything to read out as its a lyrics book (though with many annotations and notes in regard to song chords and structures and production) and I just thought I'd wait and see who turned up - if anybody! I had my Crate acoustic amp with both my guitar and mic plugged into it, ready to make show.

 

People arrived on a very wintry Thursday evening, coming from work and home. By car and tram and foot. Wine and beer were served and chairs were lined up  for an attentive audience. 

The place was full with about 70 people so I started at 7pm. I thanked everybody and told them what the book was and about the design and that it was lyrics from 1980-2023 with no images, only text and was 374 pages in total. Book design is based on a classic French Éditions Gallimard NRF form of paperback.

I mentioned that I'd written about how I got my tone of voice in my 2011 book 1001 Australian Nights and mentioned my blue collar and regional town background. I was explaining how I found it difficult to howl songs starting with "I" like my heroes did so easily. How "I" as an unreliable narrator of my own story or self but felt the pressure of the particular moment of the music scene I was immersed within to write my own words and to fashion them from my own environment. I had found this difficult also because all the sounds and images we liked were from the UK or USA.

Then I read out the words to How I Wrote Elastic Man by The Fall as if to illustrate the way that Mark E Smith - in his post punk META stance - opened up so many new ways of expression for me - and I'm sure for others as well. It didn't have to be all "I - I - I" it could be also a kind of meta eye view of your own situation (even as you were doing it). A kind of pulp reportage. 

I'm eternally grateful
To my past influences
But they will not free me
I am not diseased
All the people ask me
How I wrote "Elastic Man"

Life should be full of strangeness
Like a rich painting
But it gets worse day by day
I'm a potential DJ
A creeping wreck
A mental wretch
Everybody asks me
How I wrote "Elastic Man"

His soul hurts though it's well filled up
The praise received is mentally sent back
Or taken apart
The Observer magazine just about sums him up
E.g. self-satisfied, smug

I'm living a fake
People say, "You are entitled to and great."
But I haven't wrote for 90 days
I'll get a good deal and I'll go away
Away from the empty brains that ask
How I wrote "Elastic Man"

His last work was "Space Mystery" in the Daily Mail,
An article in Leather Thighs
The only thing real is waking and rubbing your eyes
So I'm resigned to bed
I keep bottles and comics stuffed by its head
Fuck it, let the beard grow
I'm too tired,
I'll do it tomorrow
The fridge is sparse
But in the town
They'll stop me in the shops
Verily they'll track me down
Touch my shoulder and ignore my dumb mission
And sick red faced smile
And they will ask me
And they will ask me
How I wrote "Elastic Man"

 

 I mentioned how crude the music was but how great and Marks voice so harsh and sometimes unintelligible but also great.

I then picked up my guitar and went through the chords and the lyics of some of my songs.

 I got into Death By A Thousand Sucks from 2000's Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye and the title track of Heroic Blues from 2001. 

 

"death by a thousand sucks
you know what I'm talkin about
you know mate, that guy would give a dogs arse heartburn "

 

I went through the chords of Heroic Blues but should have explained how we recorded it on a digital Zoom hand held device at a soundcheck in Tarwin Lower. A big, empty room we could improvise into while the sound of women washing dishes in the kitchen added a melancholy, empty ambience to the space. I meant to explain how this was a kind of production and presentation that was integral to the song as much as the chords and the improvisation. It was an improvised field recording. 

"I'm standin in a bar
singin my songs
theres six people hangin around
they've got nowhere else to go
I'm a hero, thats what I do"

 

 I played parts of Lt Colonel Cavalry from THE DAVE GRANEY SHOW album (1999).

"I was a free man
like a highland prince
a fur trapper gazin into the distance
nobody bothered me with trifling details
my mind wandered the earth and the cosmos
rightin wrongs and cuttin fools down where they stood"

 Talked about the chords and how the chorus has a drone note going through four changing chords underneath, holding it at the treble end while the emotion shifts underneath.

I said that I had never had much feedback for my work as in the moribund, straight rock scene of Australia I sensed I was seen as mostly an annoying ironic presence who was not serious. Serious rock music being unreservedly grim.  

I didn't mean that I wanted to be taken seriously, I meant that I didn't take any of that seriously, only my work. My songs.

 I also played The Old Swagger and ended with Where Are You In The Underworld. Both from my most recent album, IN A MISTLY.

It was a very enjoyable night and I thank everybody who came along. You really made my night. And day.

THERE HE GOES WITH HIS EYE OUT IS AVAILABLE VIA BANDCAMP.

 

Simon Grounds and Clare Moore

 

Maxine, Katy Beale, Will Hindmarsh and Kim Salmon 

 

Miles Brown in the back chugging on a beer. 

Mick Harvey checking the football scores

Friday 28 July – The Street Theatre, Canberra ACT
Tickets

Saturday 29 July – Blue Mountains Theatre, Springwood NSW
Tickets

Thursday 3 August – The Factory Theatre, Marrickville NSW
Tickets

Friday 4 August - The Imperial, Eumundi QLD
Tickets

Saturday 5 August – The Old Museum, Brisbane QLD
Tickets

Sunday 6 August – HOTA, Surfers Paradise QLD
Tickets

Friday 11 August – The Royal Oak, Launceston TAS
Tickets

Saturday 12 August – Gnomon Room, Ulverstone TAS
Tickets

Sunday 13 August – The Palais Theatre, Franklin TAS
Tickets

****NEW MELBOURNE SHOW ADDED****
Thursday 17 August - The Gershwin Room , Esplanade Hotel, St Kilda.
Tickets

Friday 18 August – The Corner, Richmond VIC
******SOLD OUT****

Saturday 19 August - The Gov, Adelaide SA
Tickets

Friday 25 August – The Heritage, Bulli NSW
Tickets

Saturday 26 August – Drifter’s Wharf, Gosford NSW
Tickets