Grant McLennan - RIP

(god-damn! The git solo in The House That Jack Kerouac Built ... That's what I always loved about the go-betweens - those 'one-note-ish' plinkety plink solos.)

The terrific instrumental break near the end of 'Cattle & Cane' is the best I can think of.

Raggett, could you post here what Lloyd said?

I can only speak for my wife and I, but this is terrible news. Robert and Grant were rejuvenated by the Rachel Worth record which is my favourite 'come back' record by anyone, ever, and serves as great encouragement for notsoyoung folk trying to make music.
I'm toasting Grant, alone in a Lisbon hotel lobby.

we got francis macdonald to do an appreciation too, but for some reason it didn't go on the website. i'll try and swipe it from the library and post it here if anyone wants; i don't think francis will mind.

ROBERT Forster's songwriting partnership with Grant McLennan was forged 30 years ago over Earl Grey tea and scones, and he toasted his departure from this world in the same way.

At yesterday's memorial service for the other half of the songwriting partnership for cult band the Go-Betweens, Forster recalled how last Sunday - the day after McLennan's death - he had gone to St John's Anglican Cathedral in Brisbane.

At the end of the morning service, when the parade of high church pageantry walked out the door, Forster felt his songwriting partner go with them.

"Then this nice Anglican lady asked me if I wanted a cup of tea, and I had a scone with it," he said. "It was the same in 1978 at a house around (Brisbane suburb) Toowong where Grant and I had learned to drink Earl Grey tea, and that really constituted the beginnings of the Go-Betweens."

Among the 500 mourners at yesterday's memorial service for McLennan were fellow respected Australian musicians Paul Kelly and Ed Kuepper.

But significantly, the service was also attended by members of the next generation of Brisbane bands after the Go-Betweens, such as Powderfinger, George and Regurgitator. McLennan had played with them all during the 1990s.

Forster and McLennan started the Go-Betweens when they were students at the University of Queensland. They achieved success with songs such as Cattle and Cane and Streets of Your Town, which U2 singer Bono regards as one of his top three favourite songs.

They were described in some quarters as Australia's Lennon and McCartney, but they were never stars of the charts, despite attracting a cult following in Europe, especially Britain and Germany. The Times of London this week carried an obituary of McLennan.

Yet they always came home to Brisbane. Even at age 48, McLennan still lived in one of Brisbane's best-known share houses in the inner suburb of Highgate Hill.

The Go-Betweens had several changes in line-up over the years and band break-ups were often acrimonious, but other band members Lindy Morrison, Amanda Brown and John Willsteed forgave and forgot enough to attend yesterday's service.

Ian Haug, from Powderfinger, and current Go-Betweens bass player Adele Pickvance read Psalm 23, and McLennan's sister Sally started her eulogy yesterday by saying, "I really do recall a schoolboy coming home through fields of cane to a house of tin and timber", the opening lines of Cattle and Cane, which has been voted among Australia's 10 best songs.

Forster described not only the Earl Grey and scones but also McLennan's sense of spirituality and his "warm, open and generous" nature.

Then the casket containing his body was taken out the door of into the bright Brisbane sunlight, loaded into the hearse, and, for the last time, Grant McLennan travelled through the streets of his town.

They played "I'm a Believer" as people filed out, which seems perfect.

http://www.popmatters.com/music/features/060512-grantmclennan.shtml

My Aussie relatives have never shown any interest in home-grown talent. Maybe for his birthday I'll buy my brother in law Simon "16LL."

My narcissistic reaction to the news (still sinking in) was that, as long as my own health holds up, every single musician I love and respect will pass in my lifetime. It's a sad, scary thought, incentive alone, I suppose, to find new bands and musicians to love and respect. Though few I imagine will be on par with what the music Grant made meant to me.

The Senate—

(a) notes:

(i) the loss suffered by the Australian music community and music lovers with the death on 6 May 2006, of Queensland born and bred songwriter and musician, Mr Grant McLennan,

(ii) the contribution made to music by Mr McLennan as a songwriter and performer over nearly three decades, which is highly respected and widely recognised as very influential,

(iii) that the song ‘Cattle and Cane’, written by Mr McLennan and performed by the Go-Betweens was named by the Australian Performing Rights Association as one of the ten greatest Australian songs, and

(iv) the significant inspiration that Mr McLennan and the Go-Betweens provided to musicians from Brisbane and beyond over many years; and

(b) conveys its sympathies to his mother, immediate family and past and present band members.

the service was ok
a few too many messages from our sponsor, maybe
but it was ok

...

i had one of grants fave drinks a long island tea
which seemed to have 5 different white spirits in it
and certainly knocked me around
i met the moody and enigmatic ed kuepper
(and i hugged him!!)
what a gentlemen

http://hemlocktavern.com/prog_guide.php?

I asked him to talk about Grant which he was more than happy to oblige. He talked about working with him and what type of person he was. It was really nice to talk to someone who worked and knew him. Steve is very poetic and speaks with bravado at times. He lightened up the conversation saying, "Why did Grant have to go? He was such a gentleman. Why couldn't it have been Liam Gallagher?"

* Tribute show in Brisbane on Nov. 30

* First Jack Frost album has been remastered/reissued with extra tracks

And now, four years.

Damn. I've currently no Go-Between or McLennan songs on my iPod.

One of my favorite ILM threads, this. Lots of good writing, fond memories.

I've currently no Go-Between or McLennan songs on my iPod.
Wha???

Peter Milton Walsh (he of The Apartments) posted a rather stirring tribute to Grant today:
http://rileyrecords.blogspot.com/2010/05/may-6th-grant-mclennan.html

His observations on The Go-Betweens are equally fascinating:
What I liked most about them and the world of their songs, was its immaculate innocence. A childlike world, radiant with hope. Huge, huge hope. Daydream believers. In the howling chaos that seemed to be my life at the time, there was nobody like that. I’m not sure there ever had been.

That's crazy, I broke out Before Hollywood on Thursday, and then the rest of the catalogue, first time I'd listened to them in ages. Was thinking about how sad it was to lose that talent, and I didn't even notice the significance of the date. His River of Money gets me more and more every time.