Stomping Ground - Dion

MUSICIAN BEST OF

FAVE 2021 BOOK

I tried James Joyce’s Ulysses three times and chucked it away around page 400 every attempt. I guess it would be Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. It’s like a road trip through 1948 USA. Of course, the narrator is a disgusting paedophile and his voice is right up there in your face as well. I also read two books by Rose Macaulay – They Were Defeated and The Towers of Trebizond and look forward to discovering many more. Unique. I tried more Nabokov but couldn’t get into them. I read some short stories and a novel by Doris Lessing, who is one of my favourite authors, and another by my absolute favourite, John Cowper Powys.

FILM

Can’t say I kept up with much. There was a great 1980 film called Nijinsky on YouTube. Starring Alan Bates as the impresario from the Ballets Russes. Great film.

TV SHOW Survivors

A 1975 BBC TV series about a pandemic that wipes out most of human life. There are three series of it on YouTube.

REDISCOVERY

My Maton Alver acoustic guitar. It’s been an ornament in the corner for decades. I had it fixed a while ago and started to fool around on it with different tunings and had a pickup put into it. It sounds lovely.

HIGHLIGHT

I quite enjoyed the whole lockdown experience. I still hope that it changed people’s perspectives in a permanent way. It’s awful when people talk of life “snapping back” to what it was, because that was hardly perfect. I hope people have seen through the Liberal National Corruption for what they are. Getting our album Everything Was Funny together. Recording and releasing it. On Compact Disc.

PLANS FOR 2022

We are going to record the album we had ready to drop with our band the mistLY, which is an up-tempo rock set of songs. Also planning for Clare Moore to continue work on a solo album and I am halfway through an album of weirdness songs. I also did an album with UK electronic artist Scanner which may come out at some point and there is also the album I have been working on for a few years with Will Hindmarsh as WAM AND DAZ which should also be coming out in some form. Clare Moore and I have also been working on a track with Catherine McQuade which we are doing a clip for very soon.

JACK HOWARD

ALBUM Sympathy For Life - Parquet Courts Under These Streets - Emma Donovan & The Putbacks

Scratchcard Lanyard -

Dry Cleaning SONG ‘The Metrologist’ - Liz Stringer BOOK The Rain Heron - Robbie Arnott On The Plain Of Snakes – Paul Theroux The Bass Rock - Evie Wyld FILM The Dig, I Called Him Morgan, Shang-Chi TV SHOW

Mr Inbetween, Money Heist, McCartney 3,2,1

REDISCOVERY

The trumpeter Lee Morgan after watching the film I Called Him Morgan – the warmest and most beautiful trumpet tone ever.

HIGHLIGHT

A brilliant month of gigs in Feb/ March before it all went to Covid shit again. Losing 13 kgs!

PLANS FOR 2022

The release of a new record, Lightheavyweight 2, in May; H&C doing the Red Hot Summer Tour; watching Carlton make the finals!

ALBUM From Dreams to Dust - The Felice Brothers SONG ‘We All Need to Know There’s Someone Out There In The Night’ – The Aerial Maps BOOK Cherry - Nico Walker (published in 2018) FILM The Many Saints of Newark TV SHOW NRL Preliminary Final - South Sydney V Manly Warringah REDISCOVERY

The Commodores’ Machine Gun from 1974.

HIGHLIGHT OF 2021

Died Pretty live at The Factory in Sydney.

PLANS FOR 2022

Finishing an album or two. Maybe a show at some point.

ASHLEY NAYLOR

ALBUM Do Androids Dream Of Electric Beatles - Bagful of Beez SONG ‘Please Walk Away’ - Bagful of Beez BOOK The Beatles: Get Back - The Beatles FILM

The Beatles: Get Back

TV SHOW

Antiques Roadshow repeats

REDISCOVERY

‘Do You Feel Like We Do’ – Peter Frampton

HIGHLIGHT OF 2021

Releasing my first ever double album with Even, Reverse Light Years, and seeing it chart. Exciting times. Oh, and Mason Cox signing a new contract with Collingwood.

PLANS FOR 2022

Play shows with Even, PK, The Church, Vika & Linda, release new music with The Ronson Hangup, Monterey Honey and more instrumental releases.

SHANE O’MARA

ALBUMS Wonderful Oblivion - Charm of Finches First Time Really Feeling - Liz Stringer Outside Child - Alison Russell SONG Victoria - Liz Stringer True Love’s Face - Erin Rae BOOK Beeswing - Richard Thompson Unstrung - Marc Ribot FILM 1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything The Velvet Underground Get Back REDISCOVERY

Blue - Joni Mitchel Talking Book, Innervisions - Stevie Wonder Magical Mystery Tour

HIGHLIGHT

Listening to Off The Record RRR Saturday morning 9-12 : essential listening Performing ‘Murder Most Foul’ with Tim Rogers with me band ‘The Luminaries’ for the annual Dylan celebration - Tim was simply extraordinary.

HOPES/PLANS FOR 2022

A change of Federal Government …. FFS !

HELEN SHANAHAN

ALBUM Simulation Ride - Merpire

I was drawn in by the thoughtful lyrics and memorable melodies. I love Rhiannon’s voice; she draws the listener in to every word she sings. ‘Easy’ was a real standout – a gorgeous stripped-back intimate moment.

SONG ‘Those Stories’ - Brandon Poletti

Brandon Poletti is a brilliant WA singer/songwriter. His countrytinged folk-rock style is so endearing, and this song has a chorus that is etched in my brain!

BOOK The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo -Taylor Jenkins Reid

This book took me by surprise! I had no idea what to expect – but then it played out like a Hollywood film. The characters were so complex, and the world she created was so detailed. There were so many twists and turns, but ultimately it was a story about love – and the lengths you’ll go to keep it when you’re in the spotlight.

FILM Girl Like You

This is hard, as I am a new mother, and I don’t think I sat down once to watch an entire film! I just watched an insightful documentary called Girl Like You on the ABC, which I highly recommend. A deep (and at times heart-wrenching) insight into changing genders and navigating relationships because of it.

TV SHOW Ted Lasso

I have just jumped on the Ted Lasso bandwagon – it is wonderful. There’s so much I love about the protagonist’s positivity and infectious humour, paired with his troubled past.

REDISCOVERY

Powderfinger. When I was driving the other day, ‘Love Your Way’ came on the radio. It made me listen to their album Vulture Street on repeat, and I fell in love with it again.

HIGHLIGHT OF 2021

Getting to sing backing vocals for Tim Minchin, then supporting my biggest inspiration, Missy Higgins! It didn’t get much better for me than that.

PLANS FOR 2022

I am excited to release my sophomore album, Canvas, in March 2022. I recorded it remotely with producer Brad Jones in Nashville. I have also started a monthly night called ‘The Songwriters Café’ in Perth – emulating the Nashville “in the round” format. I’m excited to have quality WA acts play and hopefully some touring acts (thinking positively for 2022!).

ALBUMS

No-No Boy - 1975: a record that grew from a project inspired by the classic American novel No-No Boy. Beautiful songs exploring a whole heap of issues to do with Asian/ American identity. Lovely to hear a project record that is still compelling and basically musical. Full Power Happy Hour (self titled): Jangly indi countrified pop music out of Brisbane (of course). Great songs and a really joyous delivery. Can’t wait to see them play.

SONG

Dan Tuffy - Eternity (from the Letters of Gold album). Somehow writing from his long-time home in central Holland Dan has been able to hone in on Australian subject matter in a way that is incredibly potent. Love the way he sings the opening line - My old mumma, my old poppa, all my sisters and all my brothers were alcoholic wrecks.....

BOOK Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell.

A beautiful imagining of the life and inspiration behind one of literature’s most enduring pieces of work (Hamlet). There’s so much in this novel for anyone who sets out to write or perform from a position of emotional honesty. Or for anyone who has found themselves involved with the arts on any level.

FILM

The Mystery of Henri Pick - a partial farce that explores the vagaries of publishing and posthumous fame. Entertaining, amusing and weirdly thought provoking.

REDISCOVERY The Broken Road - Patrick Leigh Fermor.

This is the third book in the trilogy that began with A Time of Gifts. Far from being the inferior piece of work many judge it to be (it was cobbled together from his notebooks after he died) I increasingly find it instructive as a treatise on memory itself. The first two books of the series were written from extensive notebooks years after the journey that is their subject matter had taken place. They are crafted, detailed and considered - the timeline of them is logical and linear. This third book jumps forward and back with the author eventually questioning his own recollections and methodology and the general youthful world view of his former self. It is the uncertainty of it that I find so compelling. I intend to re-read it (along with the two companion books) a few more times before my journey ends.

HIGHLIGHT

Managing to get a second album in two years - City’s Calling Me - released somehow and then the couple of full band shows we played at the end of July were special but bittersweet. We got to play Kangaroo Island and do a few on a riverboat on the Murray early in the year which were great - but we lost a lot more than we ended playing and I can’t believe how frustrating it has been. It’s drawn some blood.

HOPES/PLANS FOR 2022

On the eighth of March 2020 we ran into Tim Rogers and Steve Cummings in the Virgin Lounge in Brisbane. A couple of days later it all went belly-up. Since then there’s been so much extraneous stuff to deal with and I’d just like to run into either of those fellas and not talk about fucking pandemics or vaccination. Preferably in the Brisbane Virgin Lounge.

Mick Thomas & The Roving Commission’s latest album is City’s Calling Me. MATT WALKER

ALBUM Bittersweet Demons - The Murlocs

Game changing album for these lovable lads. They’ve hoisted their familiar jangle aloft, to find their new stomp in a more poetic world of thought that leaves one feeling an instant nostalgia perceived from an unknown future. ”Live out of love, not reward, you’re the angel I adored Lionized through the eyes of the ones left behind” From the title track ‘Bittersweet Demons’.

SONG Dangerous - Liz Stringer

Why Liz is not a worldwide superstar is a mystery to me. Perhaps the feeling is mutual, and I am a mystery to the world. Yeah, that must be it.

BOOK Unstrung - Marc Ribot

Very entertaining book from one of my all time favourite artists. I would’ve been devastated if it was crap, but of course I knew it wouldn’t be.

FILM

I don’t think I watched a movie made in 2021....so I’m gonna say The video clip for Catching Smoke - King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, by Danny Cohen.

REDISCOVERY Undercurrent - Bill Evans and Jim Hall (1962)

Unconventional in the jazz tradition, this album of piano and guitar duets was a 2021 revelation to me. The ascending guitar melody at the 4:53 mark of the piece titled Romain harnessed so much emotion I almost couldn’t cope, over and over again. Thanks to my friend Jimmy Dowling for turning me on to this album in 2021.

HIGHLIGHT

It’s complicated.

HOPES/PLANS FOR 2022

I don’t plan that far ahead.

MUSICIAN BEST OF

ANDY WHITE

ALBUM Collapsed in Sunbeams - Arlo Parks SONG ‘Zu Asche, Zu Staub’ - Severija BOOK Frankenstein - Mary Shelley FILM

Gomorra (the TV series)

REDISCOVERY

Plastic Ono Band - yes!!!

HIGHLIGHT OF 2021

St Patrick’s Day Show, March 17. The only gig I played Dec 31 2019–Dec 12 2021 unbelievable!!!

HOPES/PLANS FOR 2022

This garden is only temporary.

MARK GILLESPIE R.I.P.

Australian singer-songwriter Mark Gillespie passed away on Thursday November 11 in hospital in Dhaka, Bangladesh, the country in which he had lived for many years.

Gillespie’s death was confirmed by a relative and also by musician Joe Creighton who worked on Gillespie’s early albums. A friend of Gillespie’s, who was working for British Airways when he met him in the early ’80s, recalled that Gillespie was working as a volunteer in a children’s home in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and helped build and run a new home in the village of Sreepur. “Mark played a vital part in establishing what became a safe and secure refuge for hundreds of vulnerable women and children,” he recalls. He added that Gillespie “later married a local woman and lived in a typical rural village close by with none of the trappings of western life.” In recent years Gillespie’s health declined, which he reported to Rhythms, while late last year his wife died. Gillespie’s first recordings appeared on a various artist’s compilation called ‘The Debutantes’, released by the Oz label. The compilation featured two of his tracks, ‘I’m A Kite (Won’t You Be My Hurricane)’ and ‘The Joke’s On You’. Around the same time Gillespie published a collection of prose and poetry through the small publishing company Outback Press. In 1978 Mark Gillespie and the Victims released ‘Savonarola’, his first single. The Victims included Mick ‘The Reverend’ O’Connor on keyboards, Peter Reed on drums, and Bruno DeStanisio on bass. Gillespie released four studio albums in all plus the compilation Small Mercies. Three albums were released between 1980 and 1983 with Only Human, generally acclaimed as one of the great Australian debut albums. Gillespie played guitars, synthesisers, keyboards, piano and mandolin on the album. The album also featured Ross Hannaford (Daddy Cool), Joe Creighton (Black Sorrows, Tim Finn) and Mark Meyer (Stylus, Richard Clapton). He also made his first visit to Bangladesh around this time. The followup Sweet Nothing was released in 1982. (The first two albums were re-released with bonus tracks in recent years by Aztec Records). A third album, self-titled but known as Ring of Truth was released in 1983. Gillespie’s final album, Flame came out in 1992 when he had returned to Melbourne for a few years. As well as his recordings, Gillespie also toured Australia supporting Tom Waits, Maria Muldaur and Rodriguez and did a number of notable residencies. After his final album he also did some gigs at The Continental Cafe with the band The Casuals during which they performed an epic version of Dylan’s ‘Masters of War.’ Mark kindly donated that version of the song to the iTunes version of the Woodstock Sessions album. In 2020, Gillespie also allowed Rhythms magazine – which put him on the cover back in 1993 - to showcase some of his archived recordings in conjunction with a major feature on his career. In fact, Mark made videos for many of these recordings and you can find them online. “Mark Gillespie created a remarkable body of work in a short space of time but he was a reluctant rock star in many ways,” wrote one critic. “His recorded legacy should not be overlooked. He was a heartfelt singer / songwriter and Only Human is a classic debut album.” Joe Creighton also added of Gillespie that: “Going to Bangladesh was a bit of a spiritual quest for him, he just wanted to do something completely different. He was a reluctant rock star. That whole thing of rock ’n’ roll, management and the press, he was anti all that. I don’t want to speculate too much, but this is what it seemed like to me: he just wanted a break from it all. And then he would come back, record a bit more and then he went again and just didn’t come back.” Perhaps the best description of Gillespie came from Creighton who has said that Gillespie, “came across as a tortured soul with an air of mystery about him.”

MARK GILLESPIE DISCOGRAPHY

Only Human, 1980 Sweet Nothing, 1982 Ring of Truth, 1983 Flame, 1982

Plus:

Debutantes (two tracks), 1977 Black Tape (cassette), 1978

Peter Noble

INTERNATIONAL ACTS ARE ON THEIR WAY!

Things were looking good for Bluesfest last year – until they weren’t. Cancellation at the last hour devastated everyone: the festival staff, musicians, stall holders and local businesses that rely on the influx of music fans. It also affected Rhythms because we still have 6000 copies of our special March/ April Bluesfest edition sitting up there on site! “We were set up the day before the event, ready to open,” recalls Bluesfest Director Peter Noble. “There was one case of COVID about a 40-minute drive away from our site. It wasn’t a ticket buyer and, even though all sporting events in the state happened and the Royal Easter Show with 60,000 a day - people jostling shoulder to shoulder - occurred, our all-seated event wasn’t given an opportunity to proceed. The simple decision should have been, Hey, let’s wait a day. See if it spreads in the community and if it doesn’t, which it didn’t, off you go.” Noble was remarkably diplomatic at the time of the cancellation – which probably helped maintain his relationship with the State government – but he is definite about the detrimental effects of the lockdown. “What that did to our industry was tell everybody, ‘Don’t invest in the music industry. You won’t be treated with respect. You will be shut down on the whiff of something wrong, even if it’s hard to connect it to your event.’ That is the truth. That’s what happened. The fact that I’m still here is a Testament to my staff and the fact that we said, ‘We’re going to get through this. We’re coming back’.” We are the most cancelled event of any event. That’s just the way it is, and we can all cry in our beers, but the bottom line is we do shows and we’re doing shows, moving ahead proudly about it.”

Moving ahead for 2022 now involves bringing in international acts – for the first time since 2019! “Those artists have been rescheduling since the original Blues Fest was the first cancellation in 2020,” notes Noble, “and some we’ve kept the tickets on sale, some we haven’t. Of course, there are tours around all those shows too. But we are just trying to get back to what we do, which is we promote shows and put on festivals that when the Australian border opens. I just went, ‘Shit, I’ve gone and booked the best bloody Aussie festival ever and now the internationals can come’.” It will be the first time Noble has toured George Benson but he has worked with some of the forthcoming international acts before and The Wailers are one of his alltime favourites. “The Wailers are in a very interesting part of their career now,” he explains. “Members of the band are getting older. Whilst there still remains original members that were in Bob Marley and The Wailers, now we’re seeing the sons of Wailers being in the band. But it’s always been about keeping the music of Bob Marley alive. I will support that as long as I’m in this business because Bob Marley’s music is too important not to be heard live by the people that created it or taught other people to play it in the right way. There is only one Wailers. There are other bands that go out there and call themselves original Wailers or whatever who are not Wailers. “There is only one band, the band led by Aston ‘Family Man’ Barrett. That is The Wailers. He was Bob Marley’s producer, he was his band leader, he wrote songs with Bob and he continued to keep his promise to Bob on his deathbed: ‘I will play your music as long as I can.’ Now that Family Man’s getting older, he still comes to the shows but he can’t get up and perform anymore. But you’ll still see him there because he keeps his promise. They are on a mission and that mission will be that the music of Bob Marley will never stop being played live by them. No matter how many generations there needs to be of people who are dedicated to do that. So, that’s why I love it. “One lesson I learned a few years ago, I put them in a stage that held about 3000 people and you couldn’t get near the place. I learned that they can play four times at Blues Fest, which they will, on bigger stages and then they can focus on albums and you’ll hear the whole album get played one night and then a different album the next and it’s so special. And it’s real. This is not a tribute band. It’s just incredible. It gets me every time. I’m lucky enough to be working with him now for 30 years and I just can never wait until next tour. It’s that’s special”. “He’s never played Blues Fest,” says Noble of guitarist George Benson, ‘and he is just another one that just has taken the time, since the original cancellation last year, to say, ‘Just count me in. I want to come to back. I’m coming back.’ I can’t wait to work with professionals like that. And the last album I heard from him, that Live in London, he cut at Ronnie Scotts. I mean, that’s incredible. The one before that, Walking to New Orleans, amazing. Here’s a man in his seventies still doing music, in my opinion, as good as he’s ever done. He’s a master.”

The new album from Texan Superstar Duo Available on LP, CD & all streaming platforms from Jan 14 THE NEW ALBUM FROM TENNESSEE’S ERIN RAE

AVAILABLE ON LP, CD & ALL STREAMING PLATFORMS FROM FEB 4

BY ANNE MCCUE

A Song Being Born Every Moment

Karen Dalton’s song comes out of the dark night of experience, singular and alone and very human and speaks directly to our souls. We hear every emotion, not a performance, just a song being born every moment. The song of authentic experience. If only we could hear more voices like this. If so, perhaps humanity might slow down and take more of a reckoning of the truths of existence - the heart, the soul, the implications of one life upon another life. If only we could hear more voices like this. But how can we? Everywhere we go we hear the sound of shallow. The supermarket, the gas station, even the garden beds at the Nashville Malls spew the ugly sounds of bro country at our victimized ears. The sound of so-called popular music attacks us everywhere. Shallowness rises to the top and clangs like an ugly bell, “Look at me, look at me!” Empty vessels making the most sound and rising to the top of those playlists clanging in our ears, “Look at me, look at me!” Not truly popular, but actually enforced. Karen Dalton’s voice. If only we could make the space for more voices like this. Real voices, true voices, women’s real voices. The voices of humanity, not music business. A music business that historically has told women to put down their instruments and just sing… and dance and wear brightly coloured clothing. And to sing “perfectly,” not like true perfection, but like wonder bread, which dissolves in an instant because it is hardly there. A business that celebrates copies rather than originals. Karen Dalton’s voice, not separated from her instrument - guitar or banjo - but the same one sound, the same one song. Not one apart from the other but interwoven, threading and plaiting. At age 32 her voice is a kind of ancient. She sounds like a woman who has a thousand years of experience singing a song of all ages. If we could hear more voices like this with the silence in between. Imagine if humans were comfortable with the truth and with the silence. But the vacuous clang clang clang of contemporary existence fills our ears so that we forget what a song is meant to be - that human being aliveness. Imagine if people only made records when they had something to say and something to sing? That is, real people living genuine lives and every now and then making a record. Not dressed by stylists, tuned by engineers and photoshopped by graphic artistes. Imagine if the goal wasn’t fame and fortune? Heroin, hard drugs, amphetamines. There but for the grace of the goddess go many of us who thought we were immortal when we were young, or who didn’t care whether we lived or died, who were on that quest for an interesting life, who would try who knows what to feel that next experience. And while upper class opioid addicts called their doctors for a prescription, artists like Karen Dalton and Kurt Cobain grubbed around the streets only to find black gunk to shoot into their veins. Imagine if they could have just got good quality drugs and continued with the rest of their lives? The soft voices are there. It’s just a matter of dulling out that clang clang clang of the mainstream and listening, really listening. Searching out and finding that new music from the past. The reluctant performers play best around a backyard fire when hardly anyone is there. Reluctant performers shy away from the light and seek the darkness. They do not crave the spotlight and all the attention, they do not crave the praise of shallow star fuckers… Karen Dalton is the kind of artist who was drowned out by loud people with big elbows. But her beauty is infinite and now we can hear it.

Saw a friend the other day He was sorry I’d gone astray… My sin was the sweetest love ~ Karen Dalton

All that shines is not truth All that glitters does not shine Real beauty rarely glitters So refined Real beauty rarely glitters So I find ~ Karen Dalton

The film Karen Dalton - In My Own Time is out now.