"Crafted music negates genuine emotion..." I flip through my notebook to see who said this. John Lydon of the Sex Pistols. Ah.

It reminds me of an interaction that happened in 1977, down the road at Wessex Sound Studios in Islington. Queen were recording News of the World when the Sex Pistols' bassist, Sid Vicious stumbled in and said, "So, you bringing ballet to the masses then, Fred?", to which Freddie replied, "Ah Simon Ferocious! We're trying our best, dear..."  

It's a story that's been told so many times that the tone of the encounter varies from the playful to the menacing. Sometimes Simon Ferocious is Stanley Ferocious, sometimes Freddie mocks the safety pins on Sid's jacket. In some versions, Sid steps up: "So what you gonna do about it?". Freddie then grabs him by the collar and throws him out of the control room.

Queen may have been the less authentic group, according to John Lydon's exacting standards, but Freddie, the delicate underdog, had won this time... 

It would appear that they're two groups in musical opposition, both in class and in style, but it's more complicated than that. Queen delve into different musical genres and place unsuspecting songs side by side, even exploring punk at one stage. Their efforts never felt cod or inauthentic, Brian breaks a guitar string from all the thrashing, live in Paris 1979. Freddie even knocks over a speaker stack.

"Genuine emotion" doesn't mean much when you look at Queen's lyrics and see how the emotional and the analytical sit side by side. I don't think anyone has really analysed that in Queen's lyrics before, how they describe what you should feel (pietas) compared to what you do you feel (furor). They're good at those contrasts, how for every heavy song, there is a frothy and frivolous romp. The meaningless sits alongside the meaningful. It makes for interesting listening, but it's hard to convey to mansplainers.

Those contrasts and contradictions are a part of me, somehow. They play into my humour and sensibility, my desire for high culture to mix with the low. It all reminds me of a story from when I approached a group of punks hanging out by the play equipment in Burnham Park. I was five at the time, but I was compelled to ask them, "Do you like ballet?", they were bemused and gushed back at me, "Oh yeah, we love ballet!"

I was thrilled. Finally, I had found some kindred spirits.

My guess is I'm in for a cloudy and overcast

Cassettes & Chocolate Milk: 1980s Australian Podcast #67
Boom Crash Opera - Great Wall
Australian Crawl - White Limbo
INXS - Black and White (Extended Mix)
The Models - I Hear Motion
Midnight Oil - Sleep
James Reyne - Fall of Rome
Darryl Braithwaite - One Summer
Split Enz - Doctor Love

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Explore C&CM Podcasts 1-66 here

I've always struggled with the concept of artistic fulfilment, I could never figure out what it was or how to get it. You could imagine that I was surprised when I came across a recipe for how to attain creative satisfaction from one of the panellists of Melvyn Bragg's In Our Time. The ingredients are really quite simple: all you need is creative control, remuneration and recognition. It's a nice thought but there are so many questions that follow this premise, all the questions involving quantity, ego and expectation. It reminds me of those local musicians who never managed to "cross over" and "make it" in other cities or countries.

To be honest with you, I have a real fascination with those musicians who were never promoted here. I am in love with those songs that I was never meant to hear. My friend Dimitri offers me this insight into what it was like to be a French child of the 1980s. He shares rare music videos, songs that many French people cannot even recall. He accompanies each song with this extraordinary understanding of its social context and critical reception. At the same time, he manages to describe the personal legacy of these songs: every song has an association.

 Muriel Moreno of Niagara

In exchange, I offer up my Australian childhood songs, awkwardly conscious of the fact that my exposure to local musical culture peaked when I was a child. I developed a liking for Ratcat, The Screaming Jets, Southern Sons and Diesel from watching Video Smash Hits. However, my exposure to local music ultimately ended when I quickly fell in love with English pop music. Throughout my twenties, there has been enormous pressure to support local music and as the pressure has intensified, my curiosity has dwindled and died out. I now live with this thought that I have purposefully ignored so much of what has been happening around me, just to indulge in this dream of living in another place, in another time.

I recall one of our last conversations, it was a cold night on Lygon Street and we were sipping these extravagant iced mochas. You were telling me of the intimate going's-on of Melbourne's 2002 Garage Rock movement. It was akin to my appreciation of London in 1977, Bristol in 1981, Milan in 1983 or Leningrad in 1984. There's this core group of tirelessly cool musicians who manage to create a community, unified by this distinctive sound and attitude. With the right sources, you can daydream about what it must have been like to be in that club, what it meant to be among the few people who understood the significance of actually being present.

"That's a good quality to have." I said, in between sips. "To be able to deconstruct an emerging scene, to recognise and define the consequence of the present. I think that's pretty special..."

Perhaps, it's not about the breadth of the acclaim, it's not about whether you're huge in Melbourne, Milan or even Mexico. When it comes to the recognition component of that artistic fulfilment recipe, I think it's about creating some kind of legacy. Whether that's in the form of a personal or cultural legacy, I think every artist has that desire to have their work placed within some sort of a context. Maybe it's up to us to create those histories, not only for our own understanding of how it all went down, but for the artist, too. We should let them know that we care, we should let them know that we've committed them to memory...

Cassettes & Chocolate Milk: French Pop Podcast #57
April March - Brainwash Part II
BB Brunes - Houna
Mai Lan - Schumacher
Exsonvaldes - L'aérotrain
Aline - Elle m'oubliera
Les Calamités - Vélomoteur
Yelle - A Cause Des Garçons
Corynne Charby - Boule de Flipper
Images - Love Emotion
Soko - I'll Kill Her

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If ever there was a pithy demonstration of what it is to be musically devoted, then surely waiting for hours in a non-moving queue would be just that. I'm well-acquainted with the pointlessness of such a venture, for only 24 hours ago, I stood outside St Kilda's Esplanade Hotel for an hour and a half in the hopes of seeing Icehouse perform live. The bouncer shouted at the queue, stretching back towards Victoria Street: "There's no chance any of you will be getting in tonight! It's full! The band are just about to start! Go home!" But in spite of his warnings, few punters relented. Andrew smirked at me, "I don't believe a thing that guy says."

The truth of it is that I can hardly claim the title of the world's most ardent Icehouse fan. My enthusiasm for their music derives from an attachment I have to a mythical 1980s Australia that only seems to exist on the old VHS tapes stored in our downstairs room. Icehouse also remind me of the brother(s) who influenced me immeasurably, who duly culled the Triple M canon and introduced me to Australian Crawl, Hunters & Collectors, Crowded House and INXS. I was grateful to Andrew for that reason and so I was prepared to stand for as long as he was prepared to stand.

I knew that my passion (and indeed, my knowledge) for the group would be tested by the devoted few who stood around us, shivering. Queue-mate Simon boasted that he managed to see Boom Crash Opera and Icehouse at the Venue, only a few metres down the street, some twenty-five years before. I offered a non-descript anecdote about how Hey Little Girl was recorded in fragments and was largely constructed in post-production. Andrew, however, managed to serve up an in-depth account of Icehouse's then-synthesizer of choice, the Prophet-5. His account impressed the queue-mates surrounding us and as a result, it managed to secure our rightful place within the queue, among the cold and fanatical.

There would be moments, in between the boasting and complaints where we would look at the Victorian bay window above us. We could only see blue and pink lights flicker across a roomful of silhouettes. Occasionally a member of the audience would turn to survey the queue below. It was hard to tell whether he was curious or sympathetic, we could not sustain his interest long.

We would all listen closely, "Hey, isn't that Walls?", one of us would say. We would bow our heads in concentration, tentatively singing along with the band and with each other. These moments would not last long though, the noise band in the bandroom downstairs would start up again just as we were getting into it. We weren't angry or upset or even that frustrated, really. We were actually kind of elated to be standing together in such a way. I don't ever wish to forget a queue-mate's story of how, in spite of her enthusiasm for Icehouse, she accidentally kept on singing Mental As Anything songs as she primed herself for the evening.

Approaching the front of the queue was perhaps the most irritating part of the whole venture. I stood there as quietly and patiently as I could manage it. I was forced to survey a steady stream of people walk out that venue, down those steps and out onto the street. There was no semblance of a "one-in, one-out" policy, indeed the bouncer seemed intent upon completely ignoring me. I looked back at the queue earnestly and I then realised that their entry became dependent upon my entry. Perhaps if I exploited something, a charm or a physical attribute, I could get in, we could all get in. Perhaps then, I could save my left hand from frost bite.

It was at 12.30am when the bouncer finally gave up. Still refusing to meet my gaze, he requested my driver's licence. Once permitted, we bound up the steps to hear the last half of Nothing Too Serious, their last song. You had to stand on tippy-toes to make out Iva Davies against a backdrop of LED lights. As the crowd bellowed for the band's return to the stage, our queue-mates chortled, "At least we got in!". Icehouse did come back to the stage, to play tight covers of the Easybeats' Sorry and David Bowie's Jean Genie.

During the encore, queue-mate Simon insisted Icehouse would play Don't Believe Anymore. With drunken enthusiasm, he said this over and over again, each time scrambling the name of the song. His mistakes triggered something within me, a part of me which demands that recollection of names, dates and releases be perfect and accurate. For a hasty and ironic moment, I quietly questioned his devotion to the band.

When the lights came up, we said goodbye to our new queue-mates. We laughed and exchanged cards and nudged our way towards the door. As we poured out of the venue, down those steps, past the smokers and belligerent bouncers, I thought about that question of devotion and the tests and meanings which fans construct. I wondered whether the queue could ever accurately display devotion, knowledge or enthusiasm. After all, we can all stand in line.


Cassettes & Chocolate Milk: Mod Podcast #32
Neon Hearts - Venus Eccentric!
Graham Parker & the Rumour - Stick to Me
The Donkeys - Don't Go
The Fans - You Don't Live Here
The Spectors - In Your Room
The Red Squares - All Over Town
The VIPs - Boys of the City
The Namelosers - Do-Ao
Sound Sandwich - Apothecary Dream
The Ramones - Do You Wanna Dance?

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Don't be shocked, seriously, don't be. C&CM is not so Anglocentric that there can't be the odd podcast devoted to Australian music once in a while. But that doesn't mean that C&CM particularly endorses music just because it is local. We're not into tokenistic endorsement around here. It's just not our bag.

These songs are all too reminiscent of an Australian childhood. Front yard cricket, endless games of table tennis in the family room (while listening to The Swing on vinyl), It's a Knockout, Big M commercials, playing with the parachute, the Comedy Company, Whammies, Young Einstein, Triple M and that translucent blue Blue Sky Mining cassette. It was all pretty damn fun.

So, please share your memories of fun times in 1980s Australia and perhaps, their tenuous musical links. Thankies.

Cassettes & Chocolate Milk: 80s Australian Podcast #7
Boom Crash Opera - Dancing in the Storm
Hunters and Collectors - When the River Runs Dry (Live)
Midnight Oil - Forgotten Years
INXS - Dancing on the Jetty
The Stems - At First Sight
The Church - Constant in Opal
The Sunnyboys - Alone with You
Icehouse - Hey Little Girl

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