Sinister: Quiet Heart

[dan at xxx.uk]

What a lovely tribute. Thank you for sharing it.

Dan.

--------------------------
Indiepop Radio
www.indiepopradio.co.uk


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Lawrence Mikkelsen" <lawrencemikkelsen at xxx.com>
To: <sinister at missprint.org>
Sent: Tuesday, May 09, 2006 2:21 AM
Subject: Sinister: Quiet Heart


>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
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> +-+  "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001   +-+
> +-+               Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa                 +-+
> +-+               Snipp snapp snut, sa var sagan slut!                +-+
> +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
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>
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+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
        +---+  Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list  +---+
     To send to the list mail sinister at missprint.org. To unsubscribe
     send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to
     majordomo at missprint.org.  WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister
 +-+       "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper           +-+
 +-+  "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+
 +-+    "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000     +-+
 +-+  "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000  +-+
 +-+  "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001   +-+
 +-+               Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa                 +-+
 +-+               Snipp snapp snut, sa var sagan slut!                +-+
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+