The Church - "Priest = Aura"/the internet

I must express thanks to Palomino for the Tantalized lyric. That song comes on like a storm for me and I immediately see the video in my mind. I've never bothered to try to look up Church lyrics because the fact is when I was in my obsessive Church phase years, I didn't have the aid of an internet to try to look these things up. I did belong to a Church mailing list when Magician came out, though, but it was unix - no pictures, not much out there on the web.

I have this thing where I keep wondering just what it was that was being sung at the end of the Disillusionist - the only lyric I could ever make out was "his poverty runs so deep" but the rest of that little chorus/break is lost on me. Yet I don't want to break the spell. I'm not sure I'm really ready to know just what was being sung there. The album is perfect.

"They say that he is famous from the waist down
But the top half of his body is a corpse
His goal ...(something)... is sleep
His poverty runs so deep
In winter he cracks his summer re(?) ("rewoarse"?) "

"His gulver-blind sleep
His poverty runs so deep
In winter, he cracks his summery...'warse'"

But I was thinking about it really hard last night and I wondered if that last word might be remorse. Actually this is really going to bother me now if I don't attempt to look it up.

"His gold won't buy him sleep
His poverty runs so deep
In winter he cracks, in summer he warps"

Seek: the excellent b-sides "Nightmare" and "Fog" which fit so well with the record
Destroy: the remixes of "Feel" (Techno Dub?! Ragga Mix?!)

a see
now im working for ya
i respond so much quicker to yer ree-quests n dee-mands
and a very pithy commenter yesterday
was saying c'mon kilbey stop complainin'
you were in it for the money n fame etc
and yes my perceptive friend
thats a given
i still am, if it comes my way
but that dont mean working with idiots aint painful
in fact
does it have anything to do with it at all?
kinda.....
i guess
i confess
i thought you all knew
i want(ed) to make beautiful music AND lotsa money
after all at what i do im one of the crem de la crems
a crem de menthy
i see no real contradiction
one does not cancel out the other
im a master craftsman of songs in the melancholy school
of course i wanted reasonable remuneration (a fortune!)
and pear group recognition (divine fame!)
baybee who can ever realy say what their motifs are
i wanted the glory the money the lurks n perks
n whatever else they was givin' out
but that never cancelled out my desire for lovely music
can ya understand this important distinction?
i hoped for the cash
but i never delivered you trash
(beginning of sk rap?)
i bet michaelangelo gotta fortune for the cistine chapple
he should have
just like me baybee
i did score big
for the greatest melancholy album ever made
by anyone anywhere
thats right
p=a
i got 125 grand publishing advance on that one
my one big kahoona ever
1991
wow
the xyz conglomerate
coughed up a hundred n twenny five gees for my next batch o songs
and they got their moneys worth too
these are great songs especially for the times
everything i'd ever wanted to do
i finally did on this record
the fucking widescreen cinematic wraparound
the walls of noise
the snaky bass lines
the infinite varieties of guitar sounds
i loved gavin mckillop
a producers producer
a funny clever shrewd warm hearted scotsman
he n i made a great team
we both wanted to make the same record
marty n peter both firing in top form
jay dees excellent n inventive drumming
+ his calmness and voice of reason
unfortunately i was in the "honeymoon" stage of opiate addiction
it was like ye olde devil sittin' there waiting
till i finally cashed in a little
and he calls in the demon handling my case
an' he says
ok now break out the heroin
i also was smoking eating drinking opium
anyhow anyway
you can hear it on this record
the ponderous slowness n depth
the warmth n sickly sweetnesses
the disconnected voice
turning dark words
its a masterpiece
rolling stone said at time its rotten
rolling stone in new encyclo says its brilliant
masterpieces arent easy to swallow
fucking hell!
some people buying a cd arent even looking for a masta-peece
they just want that tune they heard on telly
and maybe some more like that
they dont neskaserrily want the rise n fall of western civ.
as described by a rocknroll band
we wrote it easy
i was indeed connected into some opium universe
its like a mousetrap
i mean
a mousetrap kills the mouse
but it DOES have some cheese, right?
so for a very very few months
the opium n smack filled my head with ideas
new ideas
ideas i cant articulate or i woulda actualized 'em
sammy tailor collaridge type ideas
grandiose vistas
whole lifetimes in one opium dream
most is gone upon awakening
but the poet can struggle to recount
a tiny reflection of the vision
this then
was
p=a
what more is there to say?
i wrote the lyrics in feverish trancelike states?
yes i did
i snorted white powder off a black piano
and i wrote n wrote n wrote
i was like a receiver of messages from somewhere else
it all came whole
i didnt write it
i dreampt it up
the six string bass lines
the keyboard lines
dripped from my fingers like i been playing em forever
the other guys all brilliant too
they were high by osmosis
they were picking up
on this thing we were stumbling into
i smoked joints full of opium
a new way to get high
i saw the pot as the treble
the opium as the bass
the opium was playing my white six string bass those sessions
now my mother will say
why oh why sun all the drugtalk?
because thats the thing about this particular record
i paid a terrible horrible price
i still am
no one gets off scot-free from the gear, the scag, the stuff
but nonetheless
jesus
its an english tradition
poet + opium = good(for a short time)
sorry
thats how i saw it
i dont now nessacelery
its half true
please keep yer indignant antidrug comments to yerself
i aint glorifying it
or am i?
i cant tell
you'll have to be an adult n decide for yourself
if you think im being foolish
thats ok
im just an olde olde rocker
spinning a yarn about some stuff
that happened a long time ago
some of the other people involved
occaisionally indulged
others like jay dee
were dismayed when o.p 8
reared its very ugly heads
but thats the biz
drugs booze women plane crashes greek mythology
i wrote swan lake for my new twins e n a
it got some good reviews
someone wrote in mm or nme or sounds
that the record would have all the shoegazers
running to their mummies to ask for new fx pedals..
ha ha
i liked that
p=a is an effected record
its cavernous reverbs
its pre-echoes that suck up to your earline
backwards things swoosh by
fizzy percussive zit zit zit tshhh!
the guitars!
mayhem n delicacy
these guys finally emerge as themselves n no others
pk paints huge backdrops n delicious melodic neo-classical
mwp screaming hovering howling pretty
jay dee bang bom boom boom boom
bass goes throb a throb a throb
can you hear the whammy bass?
thats the six string bass high up on beginning of olde flam
i felt sure we'd made a marstabiece
it seems
however
the world in 1992
did not want
an opiated pre-raphaelite swooning album/poem
but it wanted pearl jamb and
i oh i oh oh im still alive
and stone temp-hill pykelets
and wait till the dogzza found her...
so boy we copped some bad reviews
and boy
did that confuse me
i'd gone n done it!
we'd gone n done it!
me embarking on junkiedom n hard times
mwp embarking on all about eve
pk embarking on solodom
jaydee embarking back to other gigs
g mc k embarking on to other gigs
i still reckon its brilliant
its my berlin
its our #3 record
its our diamond dogs
our systems of romance
the fact that it flopped enhances its appeal
you gotta love it more cos no one else did or could
it deserves your love
its a nice record
its cool
dig it
if
you
can

HIRE ONE EDITOR

YOUR FRIEND THAT IS ME
NED

You're welcome! I'll post the Starfish one here too...

From the Kilbey post entitled "sel-fish"

it was nearly twenny yeers ago
the cherch made that record in l.a.
that one with that song
that song about the whatsisname
the song that got used in that tv show
yeah ya know the one i mean
1987
out of nowhere
after being dropped by warmer brothers
and capitol punishment
we were signed up by a-wrister records n tapes
who insisted that we come to l.a.
so they could keep an eye on us
they say why dontcha work with waddsy wok-tell
and grog lady-ani
we thought
ok
why not?
that sounds ridiculous
so we turn up in la
and we get put in the oakwood apts on sepulveda, west la
ploog n i in one apt
mwp n pk in another
swimming pool
barbeque
underground carpark
locked gates
the whole deal
first time i heard rap music
i lying in bed the 1st morning
i hear this 'orrible 'orrible loud noise coming up the street
i thought it was the end of the world
a car pumping out rap at a mighty volume
a revoltin' way to wake up
we go down the studio to meet our pro-ducers
grog is a rude talentless macho buffoon
he owns the complex
the studio we're recording in
he thinks we're small fish
and he dont bother hiding his contempt
hes "worked" on jackson browned
and dong hen-lee
so boy hes a big-headed turkey
waddsy is a lot nicer n friendlier
they both snorting cokey-dokey like fiends, fiendss
all the time
it dont seem to affect ww too much
hes pretty affable
he can see we aint too bad
grog on the other hand is a mess
when hes just hadda snort
hes clammy n enthusiastic ...for about 5 minutes
he wants to listen to everything at top volume
thru these huge speakers
i cant even bear to be in control room
its louder than a gig!
so anyway we go to this soundstage
in santa monica
where we rehearse all the life outta the songs
for 4 tedious weeks
they start wearing down ploogys confidence immediately
they try to start picking on me bout my voice
but im untouchable in my self-confidence
but they hurt pks n ploogs feelings all the time
grog especially treats us like second rate time-wasters
"look at this" he screams out to ww one day
"that fucking blah blah got a gig doing springsteen.."
"and youre stuck here with these useless australian nobodies"
i said....
grog looked at me searchingly and he cracked an ugly smirk
"thats right.....thats fucking right...!"
grog n waddsy didnae think much of u.t.m.w. neither
it was a kind of addendum to the rest of the album
i did most of it on my own
in a little programming studio
ploogy didnt play on it
they didnt wanna waste their time putting real drums on it
waddsy even tried to dissuade me from putting it second on the record
"you want em to hear some good ones before they get to that one!"
he said...
meanwhile we all had our own cars
and were getting into our own adventures
particularly ploogy who brought a constant stream
of hippies, druggies, ratbags n rastas round our apt.
we ate mexican food a lot
and roamed venice beach
grog sent me n pk for singing lessons in hollywood
we hadda crazy singing teacher
a guy whod played hercules n sampson in some b-grade flicks
he talked about sex non stop between singing instructions
hey steve do the girls in australia like to give head?
he would ask every week between la la la la las
hey steve i had a girl in here last week
she said " im the queen of head jobs"
i said get down on yer knees and win the title
etc etc etc
in the middle of a c scale
he'd interrupt to tell me
of his latest conquest
and then straight back to the lesson as if nothin' had happened
i didnt learn nothin'
but grog insisted the lessons were helping my hopeless voice
he hated pks voice even worse than mine
and made him feel real bad about it
one day waddsy stumbled on a huge cache of very very cheap cocaine
the boys bought a small mountain of it and started sniffin'
i had one line of that stuff n i felt sick for 3 days
grog made a pig of himself with it the first day
and stayed home for a (blessed) week
when he finally reappeared his skin was grey
and he lay on the couch softly moanin'
but not saying much
gee i didnt have a lotta sympathy for the olde wanker
waddsy on the other hand just piled in harder
he seemed fucking indestructible
with his diet of coke, winston ciggies, hamburgers, n sodapop
he was always alert n on the ball
3 months we were there
spending so much money that we'd never recoup
(we still probably havent)
day in day out of insults n abuse from these 2
driving round la scoring pot n getting into trouble
ploogy screaming out at the merry barbequers at our apts
"i dont dig your fucking altar!"
arista pouring money into the record
hey its sold almost a million in u.s. alone
but we'll never see any money
cos it cost so much to make
days n days wasted buggering about
moving all over l.a. to other money eating studios
our stupid manager dont care
hes already commissioned the huge recording advance
now he dont care or know ...
if you listen to the record
its actually flat lifeless n sterile
great songs, sure
but the performance, the sounds are ordinary
we coulda got that in australia in a week or 2
for a 20th of the money we spent
but what did we know
these were the ex-spurts
big shot american hard-assed turkeys
they knew best!
anyway
the rest is history
utmw accidentally became a hit
and everyone said
"whatta great record!"
is it really?
it aint a patch on heyday or priest
it was successful despite of grog n waddsy
not because of....
so there ya go
dont expect me to be all excited about sel-fish
it was purgatory having to cope with grog
waddsy i gotta bit of a soft spot for
he does know a bit about music i guess
not the kinda music i like, mind ya..
you dont hear much about grog these days
i mean i dont think his "producing" career went much further
he turned up at a gig after utmw wassa bit of a hit
trying half-heartedly to ameliorate it with me
but i just fucking smiled at him like
are you fucking serious... i fucking hate ya!
waddsy we worked with again
that was gaf
ha ha
lets all sing it now
"i shoulda known better!"
anyway
theres the short sordid history about our big one
too much money...tho none for us
too much cocaine
too much argy-bargy
just too much
can ya believe it was almost 20 years ago?
seems like only last century...
more tails tomorrow!
sk

There's not too many albums where I can immediately recall the time/place/emotional memories of my first listen. I picked up P=A the day it was released in March 1992 even though my CD player was dead-in-the-water. It's a long album and didn't fit on one side of a 90min tape (I did a lot of listening in the car) and my usual sloth and final-year-of-college ennui prevented me from buying a proper length tape and getting a new CD player until April. The upshot was that even though I had the album for over a month, I didn't listen to it completely until April 29, 1992... The day of the LA Riots.

My city is burning to the ground, here why don't I finally listen to the new Church album to take my mind off of things. OOPS! BIG MISTAKE!

These lines in "Chaos" I thought were especially prescient:

"Bang the gavel, it's lawlessness
I can't unravel the knot
Half this wretched town is starving
While the other half are bloated
Everybody hates the bastards in power"

Back to travellin'

evidently

"His gold won't buy him sleep
His poverty runs so deep
In winter he cracks, in summer he warps"

ADRENALIN IS NOT MY MISTRESS

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

^^^ A+++

I just busted this album out yesterday! One of my last acquisitions from episodes of 120 Minutes that I had on tape 20 years ago and never quite got around to buying.

Released 23 years ago today!

The cool thing on this set of material by the Church is that they really lay back on the tempos and drive giving the music alot of space. It's harder to play slow and keep the music interesting and moving, even the old jazz guys will tell you that. That space allows the music to breathe and gives it dynamics, perhaps best illustrated on the title track. I love Koppes solo with the big delay on that tune.

New album is wonderful. Hearkens back to their early '80s run with lots of beautiful gothy synths in the background. Really great.

Had to miss the tour stop here, sadly, but definitely need to catch up to the album.

I picked up P = A from the Salvation Army a few weeks ago and have been pleasantly surprised. I mean, I knew it was a fan favourite but it was where I fell off the wagon as a yoof. (Along with Wish, from the same year, the drowsy jams with long running times I heard via radio were pleasant enough but not something I felt any need to invest in.)

But yeah, it's quite good. Though I would have dropped the opening/title track to get the total running time under an hour. It doesn't do much musically, thereby drawing too much attention to some rather dopey lyrics IMHO.