― m coleman (lovebug starski), Monday, 8 May 2006 12:35 (eighteen years ago) link
― Aaron W (Aaron W), Monday, 8 May 2006 12:42 (eighteen years ago) link
Here's Cattle & Cane from the 7th House.http://download.yousendit.com/2401DE992BD823E4
Mods - my understanding of the policy is that anything we have recorded ourselves is OK to post here. This is technically an ambient recording of an hour of my life, with some music going on in the background. If that's taboo, please remove the link & email me.
― dave's good arm (facsimile) (dave225.3), Monday, 8 May 2006 12:52 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 8 May 2006 13:03 (eighteen years ago) link
http://download.yousendit.com/DBC560E0147F6B36
(*that I have)
― dave's good arm (facsimile) (dave225.3), Monday, 8 May 2006 13:08 (eighteen years ago) link
As some of the readers here know I have been writing about The Go-Betweens for many years now in my work as a magazine editor and later as the music writer at The Courier-Mail in Brisbane.I've been privileged to know Grant and Robert and to be present on the Sunday after their last Tivoli show in Brisbane, asking the questions for the DVD documentary section of That Striped Sunlight Sound. One of the many Go-Betweens moments I will always cherish. Here is a personal piece I wrote for this morning's edition:
I can't remember the first time I met Grant McLennan.It might have been in about 1981 at the Basement recording studios in Roma St, Brisbane, where The Go-Betweens were recording.I will never forget the last time we met, on Wednesday, at a film screening I hosted for the new Neil Young concert film Heart of Gold.Introducing the film, I told my one paltry Neil anecdote: that I had interviewed him on the phone, found him sweet and kind, but on the afternoon of his Brisbane concert I actually walked past him in Edward St and, in shock, neglected my chance to introduce myself.Grant chipped in: ``You should have.''After the screening, I missed my chance to say to Grant what I had intended to: that after a year of listening I still stood by my five-star review of The Go-Betweens' Oceans Apart album, that it sounds to me as strong as any album I have heard in years.I should have.In numerous conversations and interviews I conducted with Grant, he was unfailingly enthusiastic about the arts, film, books, painting, music.In his student years he wrote perceptive film reviews.He was always mentioning that he had been to some exhibition or other, some book he had found, or would talk about two of his great loves; the music of Bob Dylan and the music of The Monkees.Loving Dylan and The Monkees was not a paradox in his world, and it said something of the kind of songwriter he became, with his love of precise yet poetic language and sharp, memorable melodies.If good reviews were dollars Grant McLennan would have been a millionaire. But his ability to write so many great songs, so many enduring songs, so many songs that cut so deep with so many people, is testament to his achievement, to the kind of life he admired and lived.An artist's life.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 8 May 2006 13:14 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 8 May 2006 13:17 (eighteen years ago) link
Reading back over the liner notes I posted above I paused at this one because it seems so similar to Grant's fate: Dusty in HereThis is a song about my father who died when I was four. -GM
A friend just passed this along, it's short but good --http://www.couriermail.news.com.au/story/0,20797,19061372-5003421,00.html
― TRG (TRG), Monday, 8 May 2006 13:19 (eighteen years ago) link
― TRG (TRG), Monday, 8 May 2006 13:20 (eighteen years ago) link
― dave's good arm (facsimile) (dave225.3), Monday, 8 May 2006 13:27 (eighteen years ago) link
Haha!
― dave's good arm (facsimile) (dave225.3), Monday, 8 May 2006 13:49 (eighteen years ago) link
― TRG (TRG), Monday, 8 May 2006 13:54 (eighteen years ago) link
A month ago this made me smile and laugh, now i want to cry.
― mr. jimmerson, Monday, 8 May 2006 14:05 (eighteen years ago) link
― Tyler W (tylerw), Monday, 8 May 2006 14:36 (eighteen years ago) link
― Chairman Doinel (Charles McCain), Monday, 8 May 2006 15:01 (eighteen years ago) link
― Jeff K (jeff k), Monday, 8 May 2006 15:15 (eighteen years ago) link
― Tyler W (tylerw), Monday, 8 May 2006 16:12 (eighteen years ago) link
― Aaron W (Aaron W), Monday, 8 May 2006 16:44 (eighteen years ago) link
Yeah, me too. The Jack Frost album is damn-near flawless, but even so, Providence is a stand-out. It conveys such a sense of deep melancholy, and yet isn't self-pitying in the slightest. It was also interesting and not at all surprising to learn after all these years that the sad, beautiful Civil War Lament was Grant's composition.
R.I.P.
― Palomino (Palomino), Monday, 8 May 2006 17:11 (eighteen years ago) link
― dave's good arm (facsimile) (dave225.3), Monday, 8 May 2006 17:15 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Monday, 8 May 2006 17:18 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alba (Alba), Monday, 8 May 2006 19:03 (eighteen years ago) link
Lindy Morrsion, the drummer of the first incarnation of the Go-Betweens is quoted here:
She says McLennan, 48, was getting ready for a housewarming party on Saturday when he fell ill.
"He'd moved in with Adele, the bass player in the second version of the Go-Betweens, and they were putting up decorations and he didn't feel well.
"And he went to lie down and everyone left him for an hour to sleep, then tried to wake him as people were coming, and he had gone."
Apparently it was a heart attack.
― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Monday, 8 May 2006 19:16 (eighteen years ago) link
What can you do? If he had no history of trouble he probably didn't think much of it himself. At least he was at rest, and I can only hope it was as quick and as apparently painless as Nikki Sudden's own passing.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 8 May 2006 19:19 (eighteen years ago) link
― TRG (TRG), Monday, 8 May 2006 19:51 (eighteen years ago) link
http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002464163
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Monday, 8 May 2006 20:00 (eighteen years ago) link
It would have been nice, though...just to have three more albums, even that. Six and six, as it were, a round dozen. Though I suppose with 78-79 and Very Quick on the Eye we had eleven already. Still not enough.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 8 May 2006 23:58 (eighteen years ago) link
― Jeff K (jeff k), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 00:42 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 01:01 (eighteen years ago) link
I went to see the Go-Betweens last year when they played at Hepburn Springs. We had booked both dinner and the show and my friends were running late so I made my way out to the bar to look for them and sneak a quick ciggie. Instead I saw Grant sitting at the corner of the bar, contently cupping a glass of frangelico with one hand while the other held a cigarette. I did a little bit of mental juggling about privacy and respect and intrusion but figured if he was sitting at a bar at his own gig he might not be too suprised if someone spoke to him. I approached him with my heart racing, aplogised for interrupting him and asked him if I could tell him a funny story. He smiled, asked my name, introduced himself(!) and said he'd love to hear a funnny story. I relayed a childhood adventure which, as I told him, was in fact more embarrassing than it was funny, and I could feel my cheeks burning hot with the rush of memory. I told him how over half my lifetime ago, when I was just fifteen years old and in love with the Go-Betweens music, my best friend and I had stayed at the same hotel as they had after one of their gigs. We were so in awe of them that we did not want to disturb them and spent the night in our hotel room, innocently enjoying the fact that it was enough to be close to them and we had managed to pull off a night away from home without our parents knowing! The next morning as they were leaving we rushed down the stairs and asked for their autographs. Robert was reading "On The Road" and did not want to be disturbed. Grant and Lindy chatted with us and signed a school book. I finshed my rather slighly stupid breathless account and was astonished to find that not only did Grant remember that day, he remembered the colour of our uniforms too. We then spoke of everything from politics, to boarding school, from surfing to the heat and light of Qld, about other languages we spoke and the places we had lived in. We smoked and drank till I was wobbly, I missed my dinner and my friends by by the time we had finished speaking my life was already changing.Thankyou Grant for your gentle humour, your emotional generosity and your grace. Thanks too for getting me to Qld, onto aboard and over my fear of sharks.x
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 01:03 (eighteen years ago) link
"Today I went to the website and read some of the magnificent tributes that have flown in for Grant. People for some days have been telling me of the beautiful things written there. And today I felt well enough and strong enough to go in and read. I thank you all. In time I shall read every one of them. I see familiar names scattered from our past. The vast majority I don't know. All of you Grant and I have met through our music. Your words and thoughts I find very, very moving. I sense the love and understanding for Grant and his music, and I take the support you send to me to my heart.
These last days I have Grant in my head. He talks to me in odd moments. I hear him... and I always will.
all my loveRobert Forster"
― Niall, Tuesday, 9 May 2006 10:17 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 11:47 (eighteen years ago) link
A lot of melancholia and loss here amongst Brisbanians for whom these globe-trotting gents were the poets of our corners.
― Graeme O, Tuesday, 9 May 2006 12:00 (eighteen years ago) link
A lot of melancholia and loss here, amongst Brisbanians for whom these globe-trotting gents were the poets of our corners.
Beggars have done a tribute putting "fingers" online: "http://www.beggars.com/news/fingers.mp3".
RIP Grant, you'll never be forgotten
― Japhy Ryder, Tuesday, 9 May 2006 22:40 (eighteen years ago) link
― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 23:00 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 23:23 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 23:49 (eighteen years ago) link
― Nag! Nag! Nag! (Nag! Nag! Nag!), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 00:28 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 04:47 (eighteen years ago) link
The news was stunning, somewhat bewildering. The man was only 50% older than me. It seems particularly sad, perhaps, in that he was part of a partnership, which must now end.
I have not always shared the view of the Go-Betweens held by many others (including, for instance, people on this thread). Curiously, though, my doubts about them have often led me to listen to them more extensively and even intensively than to lots of other artists. Through the struggle to hear the alleged greatness, I have become fond of them. Just recently I had dug out the tape that Cook made me and played it over and over - I had to write to Cook and tell him, and revive that conversation. I nearly revived the old GBs thread yet again, to express awe at some magnificent moment - of which there were, to borrow a phrase from Elvis Costello, more than one or two.
― the gofox (the pinefox), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 12:50 (eighteen years ago) link
― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 19:59 (eighteen years ago) link
"We encourage you to remember Grant at this time, wherever you are in the world. Thank you."
I plan on doing just that with a playing of "Dusty in Here" and a glass of red wine.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 11 May 2006 22:57 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 11 May 2006 23:01 (eighteen years ago) link
such a lot has happened to all of us since that night at the lyceum, hasn't it? i was reminded of how much time had passed when i last saw the go-betweens play, maybe a year ago, at the barbican. grant sang cattle and cane, and i had to swallow hard and blink a few times. i guess i always will when i hear it now.
this goes out with much love to everyone at planet go-between, especially robert. and grant, we always knew you didn't steal that line about his father's watch being left in the shower. it was just a joke...!
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 11 May 2006 23:21 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 11 May 2006 23:32 (eighteen years ago) link
Orange Juice, The Go-Betweens and the Marine Girls all one one bill.
If only I had a time machine.
― Jeff K (jeff k), Thursday, 11 May 2006 23:40 (eighteen years ago) link
http://blogs.smh.com.au/entertainment/archives/club_metro/004542.html
― m3ntal1st, Thursday, 11 May 2006 23:46 (eighteen years ago) link
I got the news from Bob on the rainy saturday afternoon in England.While driving home, I was trying not to think of the songs.
Keep away from Cattle and Cane. Keep the bloody beautiful song from creeping into my head.
I have to play a record. Keep away from the old records. Play it safe.Oceans Apart.Think of the time you and Grant went to Oceans Apart for a pint. I'll be fine.
No Reason To Cry and everything falls apart.Tears for Grant. Tears for Robert,Bob, Sharon, Bernard and all the Go-Betweens family.
Then tears for me. No more Grant songs.No more joyous happy shows with Robert.
I am priveliged and proud to have looked after and baby sat Grant's (and Robert's) songs for a quarter of a century.
Grant leaves behind an amazing and beautiful body of work that will be forever timeless.
Love Goes On !....
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 12 May 2006 00:05 (eighteen years ago) link
― anthony slaughter, Friday, 12 May 2006 02:56 (eighteen years ago) link