Two contrasting torch carriers from down under..
A fantastic, Ramones like track from the Go-betweens- one of their earliest, from 1978. Robert Forster is in awe of a librarian... Karen.
Who isn't?
Graeme Downes of the Verlaines is aware of the hopelessness of his quest to get near the object of his desire, he knows he's only going to get lucky in his dreams..
Ursula Rucker honours her unsung sistas, while Syreeta loves every little thing about you.. although there's still one she'd place above you...
An object of boyhood admiration, the perfect example for you and me.. Joe 90.
Player removed.
5 comments:
Karen is very garage rock, isn't it? I'm not really au fait with the Go-Betweens, apart from the sublime Cattle and Cane. Any of theirs that I really should hear?
Karen was their very first B-side. For further listening it depends on your tastes.. that garage/punk influenced sound is more to the forefront in their early albums, which also have a folk influence. Later on they became more polished and poppy. "16 lovers lane" is a perfect acoustic pop statement to my mind, and "Tallulah" probably the most satisfying album for an indie fan.
If you want a good cross section, look into their singles compilation "The Go-betweens 1978-1990" http://rateyourmusic.com/release/comp/the_go_betweens/1978_1990/
They were a great singles band.
Wierdly, I own this on cassette and CD, and Karen was dropped from the CD, but it is available on some CD releases I've seen.
Toffeeboy rates their reunion phase (of which I am totally ignorant) and promised to do a post on it sometime.
Nilp: By this time you'd think that I'd have learned about the Spill Comments common practice of 'vanishing' text, I just wrote a longish piece and it disappeared before my eyes. What it was about was a comment that you made on the bass blog, you mentioned TONTO.
Back in the 70's I met Malcolm Cecil and consequently spent a fair bit of time with him and TONTO, I was very much interested in synthesisers back then and took every opportunity to get close to one. Malcolm was literally a genius, maybe the only real one I've ever met, he could build/do anything with electronics and he built TONTO singlehandedly. He told me a story once of when in the RAF in post WW2 he wired a series of oscillators to the keys of a portable typewriter thus creating the prototype synthesiser. TONTO was housed in a Santa Monica storefront right next to some retail shops, it comprised 9 Moogs and Arps all with keyboards and all wired together through a mixing board and into an Ampex 2" recorder. Stevie W and Gil Scott were clients so I met them there, we discussed making a documentary about TONTO which would have culminated with maybe 7-8 musicians jamming a piece written by Stevie for the occasion; we could never resolve the funding nor who would own what so consequently it never got made. If anyone else is wondering what we're blathering about TONTO is:
T.O.N.T.O. (The Original New Timbral Orchestra) and if you'd like to learn more go to: http://www.synthmuseum.com/tonto/index.html
I've still got TONTO's 2 original albums and quite a few pictures somewhere hereabouts.
@ nilpferd - hadn't forgotten - I was in Edinburgh last week and didn't have access to my music (apart from my iPod of course). Consider it on my list of things to do!
Very interesting about TONTO, GF. It's on the Syreeta track "I love every little thing about you" I posted above, I mentioned TONTO in relation to this track on RR this week.
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