I bought my first Go-Betweens album eight years ago. It must have been around this time of year, as I remember it was a chilly autumn Sunday afternoon. I'd just met my friend David Poppelwell for the first time at a cafe called Alleluya on K' Road in Auckland, where'd we'd awkwardly talked about Belle & Sebastian, Hal Hartley films, and skirted around the issue of whether meeting people on band chatrooms was really a good basis for a lasting friendship. (As it turns out, it was.) Afterwards I wandered down to the old Record Exchange where I picked up a tatty copy of the "1978 – 1990" compilation. I'd read an interview with Stuart Murdoch, where he'd extolled the virtues of The Go-Betweens and, despite my reservations (I assumed John Wilsteed to be the lead singer, based on his position in the main photo – you know – that one where they're all in a doorway – and, with his bleached hair and granny glasses, I was a little worried) Anyway, I paid the requisite $15 and took it home. On first listen the music was maddeningly stange. There were these slick, almost MOR pop songs like "Streets of your Town" and "Bachelor Kisses", but interspersed between them were these weird, angular songs like "Hammer The Hammer" and "The Clarke Sisters". It took a bit of perseverance to really get into that album, but over the next few months it became a regular companion on my bus rides into the city on those chilly mornings, and something of an obsession. "Streets of your Town", which usually arrived as the bus was climbing the Harbour Bridge, sounded perfect on those mornings where the air temperature is sharp with chill, and yet the sun shines down on near-cloudless water so it looks like you're suspended above a sea of diamonds. When that little Spanish guitar solo kicked in, I'd feel like getting out of my seat and dancing, like that final scene in "The Last Days of Disco". A few months later I found cheap second-hand CDs of "16 Lovers Lane" and "Liberty Belle & The Black Diamond Express" at Real Groovy Records. Hearing some of those already much-loved songs in the context of their parent albums made them sound even richer, and I started to get a feel for the differences in Robert and Grant's songwriting. Generally Roberts were the weird, odd ones, and Grant's were the more melodic, poppy and poetic ones. I guess Robert's image and style always appealed a little more to me, but Grant's songs were the ones I found myself singing along to. I quickly bought up the rest of the bands' 80s catalogue, and traded and begged to get my hands on as many rarites and b-sides as I could. The Go-Betweens were one of those bands with a small but perfectly formed back catalogue. A band who traded on the quality of their songs, not on any notions of hipster cool or indie cred. A band with a core duo of two men who looked like secondary school teachers, but who could melt your heart with a chord change or a casually tossed lyric like 'his father's watch, he left it in the shower'. A band that few of my friends cared that much about. A band I could clutch tightly to my chest and keep to myself for those times when no one else mattered. Since then, of course, there have been three new Go-Betweens albums. Unlike most reformations, each one has been worthy of the name and the legacy. There have been few moments or memories since 1998 that which haven't been soundtracked to a Go-Betweens song. And, of course, there was that unforgettable night at the St. James in 2002. I feel so fortunate to have seen Grant and Robert play live, and to have met and talked to Robert afterwards. I only wish I'd met Grant that night too, if only to tell him that "Love Goes On" is the greatest album opener of all time. Now there will be no more Go-Betweens albums, because Grant McLennan died in his sleep three days ago. I remember what I was doing and where I was the day Kurt Cobain died and the day Elliott Smith died. But those two men were troubled souls whose time on earth was always going to be cut. Nothing compares to this. Honestly, I still can't really believe it. Grant wrote some of my favourite lyrics of all time. "Dusty In Here", "Magic In Here", "Cattle and Cane", "Bye Bye Pride"… He wrote about Australia, and being Austrailian, in a way very few have ever matched. Farewell Grant McLennan. Lawrence +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. 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