The Go-Betweens - what's it all about?

On how many GBs tracks was Lindy replaced by a drum machine? "Bachelor Kisses"?

That early?

And what other pop star has written as well as Forster? Caetano Veloso? Scott Miller?

Johnny Mercer

xpost Do you mean prose?

In that case, Chico Buarque.

And what's-his-name, our own Chachi Loves Aerosmith, apparently, although I personally have not read yet

Prose, yeah. I haven't read Buarque...

Chuck Berry
Dean Wareham

Keen to get the book, curious if the second and third box sets are still happening/progressing.

anyone seen the film?

https://vimeo.com/243460646

I liked it a lot.
A genuinely odd cast of characters they were. Not odd like Klaus Nomi or GG Allin, but subtly off. That def comes across.
Lots of genuine warmth (particularly in the direction of GM from RF) and a real awareness of what they actually were.

I found it kinda beautiful.

i wish it was twice as long.

the Forster book is among the best rock memoirs I've read.

Been reading some of Robert's stuff in The 10 Rules of Rock and Roll and finding it pretty well written so based on that and positive reviews by the likes of Alfie and a writer in the Grauniad I think I am going to have to buy it.

Second “it” meaning the memoir

Don't call me Alfie, please.

So sorry. I thought I saw someone else do it, but perhaps they were referring to another poster who actually went by that name.

Might also have been subconscious effect of watching Jeopardy! with the Redd family and seeing a question about Maurice Micklewhite.

it's all good!

Was wondering if albums had even been polled and found that this was the relevant thread Best Go-Betweens Album, which contains as a bonus a link to your piece about Spring Hill Fair

Thanks! And here's yet another good Go-Bets thread. For instance, you might (and well you might) scroll down to May 2015, where the links that I posted back then and just now checked still work, though haven't yet tried 'em all; quite a few are on that doomandgloomfromthetomb page I started with (thanks for those, tyler):
The Go-Betweens - POX or CDR

Thanks. Been randomly listening to the catalog today, both group and solo. Right now totally digging The Evangelist.

What is weird electro-noise which arrives with first chorus of Part Company that sounds like a cross between a theremin and a hissing radiator?

That's the instrumental element which most haunted me; it sounded like a tea kettle.

And RF doesn’t give the secret away in Grant & I?

He gives away too many secrets about McLennan.

What is weird electro-noise which arrives with first chorus of Part Company that sounds like a cross between a theremin and a hissing radiator?

I think that's Jacques Loussier on a Prophet 5.

Has anyone heard anything as to whether the second box set is still happening?

the door is open wide!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBDe9BGNBnM

Best use of oboe in pop music?

Yep! I've said so.

only Roxy comes close ("Out of the Blue," "Nightingale").

but what about "Crazy For You"!???
(just kidding, "bye bye pride" is the best use of oboe in pop music)

Nightswimming is pretty great but this makes me want to dance in the street with strangers.

amanda brown guested with R.E.M. a couple times right? Maybe she was playing violin there ...

does the cor anglais in "life in a northern town" count as as an oboe? judges?

what a song

On this video of “Head Full of Steam” looks like Amanda is playing a violin through an effect to make it sound like an oboe or something:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuuqJGLgjXw

The official video for “Head Full of Steam” is, um, interesting.

Enjoyed recently discovering the cover of “Bachelor Kisses” by The Radio Dept.

Okay, got the book and have been reading over the weekend and have to say Alfred, as is the case more often than not, is right: it is one of the better rock memoirs. It hits the sweet spot of telling you stuff you wanted to know along with things you didn't think to ask about and seems to avoid, as far as I can tell as far as I have read, some of the obvious traps- score settling, evasion, meaningless digression or page-filling, embarrassing defensiveness, reinterpretation or misinterpretation regarding the author's own work. He is careful and cagey in describing Grant, playing one card at a time, interested to see what will be revealed as I get further along in the story.

Yes, Forster is a writer: he doesn't insist on proving a thesis. What he has to share about his best friend he will do in a leisurely manner after he has limned scenarios.

He seems to be one of the few people besides myself who likes the Bryan Ferry record Dylanesque. I will have to reread his piece on that and reflect.

Read through to end this weekend. Did not disappoint

second box set is definitely happening -Robert mentioned it at a London book launch/concert thing late last year

Thanks Jamie!

I'd been meaning to read the book for a while, so I just bought it. No library in our multi-library system had a copy!

Listening to Oceans Apart a lot, and to the '78-'90 comp. "Born to a Family" and "Second Hand Furniture." Oceans, with all its interesting feints and digressions, is the realization of their super-MOR Glen Campbell- John Phillips-Jimmy Webb concept. Only comparable fairly recent album I can think of is Freedy Johnston's similarly Webb-ian Neon Repairman.

Hmm, never really thought of that album as particular MOR in style. Anyway, "Finding You" is a beaut. That and "The Clock" are total late-era Grant keepers, though all three comeback albums are strong in their own ways, with the former two charmingly tentative (in a sense) and the last one totally assertive in its swing-for-the-fences confidence.