The Go-Betweens - poets from down under, or so bad they make me chunder? Discuss.

I've been listening to Spring Hill Fair extensively for the first time in around 15 years and it's better than I remembered. Is SHF well-like amonst GB's fans? I seem to remember that it was seen as a disappointment at the time...or am i wrong? Bachelor Kisses is rather magnificent, if a little polished. Five Words unfortunately sums up all that is bad about them - a self conscious cleverness and a sort of lumbering repetition rather than a flow. Best track on the first half of the recd is You've Never Lived, which must be RF's best work - some genuine power here, for once the music and the words pull in the same direction and the guitar break is unexpectedly fierce. Slow Slow Music is on verge of something quite special, but never quite gets there and Draining The Pool and Man O'Sand are..... good.

The real surprises are in the bonus tracks - Emperor's Courtesan, Rare Breed, Newton Told Me, Just Right For Him, Attraction and Sweet Tasting Hours are all fantastic and would have great on the album proper. On Emperor's Courtesan GM actually lets rip with a short vocal bridge that, by virtue of a simple melody and a straight backbeat, lifts the song sky high. Just Right For Him and Attraction have a more convincing Talking Heads-ish syncopation than they've done elsewhere - Lindy using the hi-hat more fluidly - and while melodically spare they're straight to the point enough to hit home. Good stuff. On Sweet Tasting Hours Lindy's voice is a good thing and should be used more often.

I haven't spent as much time with Before Hollywood, mainly because I know it better - it was the GBs album that I kept the longest when I had them originally. I reckon they really benefit from Bernie Clarke's organ throughout - filling in the holes and pushing the songs around. He sounds great on As Long As That and That Way in particular. These are both excellent songs.

I've got the Send Me A Lullabye 2CD edition on the way to me. I always liked this one the best - on stuff like Ride they really let the melodies go and on e.g Arrow from a Bow - they chop it back to a nice percussive off-beatiness. Both work. I think they've tried to combine the two extremes later on and ended up somewhere awkward and unsatisfactory in the middle e.g The Old Way Out.

I think I'll get Tallulah when the next wave of reissues comes out (Anyone know when that is?) From what I remember this had a few great songs on it (Bye Bye Pride, Tell Me, I Just Get Caught Out) and a few failed experiments. I know that Liberty Belle is the one that everyones goes for, but I want to hear the flaws too.

Doc, I like your post. But it's an oddly mized bag, the way you start with heavy criticism then dispense lots of praise.

I don't think of their LPs as LPs, with titles etc. I mean, I don't own them that way.

Good point re. lack of harmonies: maybe that makes a big difference.

Downloading music cds onto my new computer, I've been listening to old (and new stuff). I think the first album I put on was Before Hollywood, and it still sounds pretty great. I'd forgotten how much I loved 'Ask'.

For a limited time, the Barbican show from last week is posted here:
http://www.sharingthegroove.org/msgboard/showthread.php?s=&threadid=78043

(You need to install Bit Torrent and convert from FLAC.)

Update from Robert Vickers himself:

"the expanded Liberty Belle, Talullah and 16LL will be released on Jetset in the US Nov 5th"

Not because I didn't like it. I probably recorded upthread that it snagged in my tape player, about 5 months ago. I always vaguely thought I would ravel it back together. But today I realized there was no point. I threw it away.

Playing now.

The solo is the worst thing in it!

The words were not written by Forster or McLennnan, but by an Irish girl Robert took a shine to called 'Marian Stout'. She is now a published novelist, apparently, under a different name. But perhaps you are talking about the music.

the next reissue on my list is send me a lullabye. did you finally get it? i'd like to know what you think of it. i remember it as quite untypical for them. with a hint of guitar noise. slightly experimental in a way. it was their first album. where they where still searching for their sound.

you forgot to mention part company from shf which is a very lovely addictive pop tune. with great harmonies.

Oh that's right. Because that song was by the dBs.

Silly me.

How do folks like the new album #3 of the re-formed G-Bs?

oceans apart is pretty nice. sentimental, full of pop hooks, occasionally with the odd rhythm like born to a family. they do their own thing, that's what i like about them. and they are faithful to themselves, they never sell out. they just keep on making their unspectacular guitar songwriter music. one of the most loveable bands in the world.

The US label/version has not been replaced. It hasn't really bothered me yet though...

Not sure where to place this, but this is a superb recent interview/reminiscence, published last week.

Very good stuff. (Though there seems to be a strange editing goof at the start?)

Or maybe it's the reporter's attempt to get Didion-esque?

Poignant:

McLennan didn't drive, so, as always, Forster drove to Highgate Hill to work through new songs on their acoustic guitars on a deck at the back of the house. It was a fun, four-hour session with lots of breaks for gossip and frivolous chat. In the afternoon, Forster left to pick Louis up from school.

"Grant was on his verandah waving goodbye," says Forster. "His mailbox was at the end of this concrete driveway. I could see he had The New York Review of Books sent to him. I said, 'I didn't know you were getting this'. He said, 'Yeah, I've got tonnes of copies here. You can borrow them anytime you want. I said, 'Great, I'll do that. Thanks'."

The sky was blue, the sun was shining on the front stairs of the house. McLennan waved and Forster hopped in the Volvo and drove away smiling, wondering how many rock stars in the world subscribed to The New York Review of Books.

nice article, thanks for linking to it. anyone out there going to these retrospective shows? they sound like a good time -- wonder if there are plans to release it on CD or DVD?

I bought Tallulah in 1986, and finally "got" the Go-Betweens in 2006, so I think I can say something that might be helpful to those who don't get it but think they might like it if they got it. (If you don't get it and don't care, then why are you reading this thread?)

Several things make the Go-Betweens real rock and roll weirdos. They had the spirit of 40-year olds when they were 20, the reverse of what rock and roll attitude is supposed to be. Unlike most boho bands -- and they were bohos -- they never crack jokes. They aren't really in it for fun ("German Farmhouse," on "The Friends of Rachel Worth," is their idea of fun) and -- this is the real kicker for those of us who came up on punk -- they aren't angry, even though they sound like they could/should be.

Their real theme, expressed as much in the moderation and sustenance of the music as in the lyrics, is surviving alienation with calm and grace and without doing (too much) damage to the people around you. Ironically enough, given that children have nothing to do with it in the Go-Betweens' world, all this started to really make sense to me only after the birth of my daughter. As a graduate student and then a political organizer, I wanted something more intense, not just from my political music but from my soul music (the Go-Betweens are as far from Otis Redding as they are from the Clash). They just sounded too relaxed, like an Australian Steely Dan but without the cynicism. Now I'm delighted that they are so uncynical, that what once sounded like lack of follow-through now sounds like compassion.

My iTunes tells me I've listened to them more then any other band in the last 18 months (when I got the iPod) except Sleater-Kinney, who more directly represent my overall tastes, and who also split up during this period, leading me to mourn them. I never thought of myself as a particularly "youthful" person, but I guess I've finally gotten as old as McLellan and Forster were when they were 25.

Eric Weisbard once remarked that one's Go-Betweens love truly becomes obsessive when you hit a certain age, and he's right. "Uncynical" is a good adjective. And honesty! So many bands are revered for this, but in all their best songs the Go-Be's have that quality of having passed through the fire, transforming experience through thought and imagination. What makes them so endearing is that their instrumental chops and voices often didn't match their sophisticated songs (which, of course, takes them far, far away from Becker-Fagenland).

Erm, didn't Robert write that reminiscence about a year ago?

I too bought their records as a teenager, as they were released, but love them far more now, when approaching middle age. They are one of the very few bands for whom I thank my younger self for his taste and perception.

Go-betweens Bridge opening from last summer!
http://a7.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/247460_10150267952906138_684931137_9459662_2834590_n.jpg

Check out Vickers' swinging London 'do!