The Nilpferd A listers- the rock and pop bands.

Sepia tones suit the mood of The Go-betweens' streets of your town. I grew up across the Tasman from Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne but these townscapes are still very familiar.

The Church - Ripple
The Chills - Ghosts
Ruby Suns - Tane Mahuta
Go-betweens - Streets of your town
U2 - With or without you

Nearly all from down under- and for the sake of completeness I'm tempted to claim U2 as an antipodean band, given the NZ associations of The Joshua Tree- the album was dedicated to kiwi roadie Greg Caroll, who died in an accident shortly before the album was recorded.

Ripple's ringing guitars, married with Steve Kilby's languidly sneering character assassination, perfectly capture the ideal Australasian indie sound, while Martin Phillip's Ghosts has a surprisingly folky tinge on its way to spiritual bliss, conjuring up abandoned settlements and the spectres of shattered families.
Streets of your town combines nostalgia with neglect, the rosy tint of memory blighted by a sinister undertone of violence and decay.
I owe a nod to Blimpy for bringing the Ruby Suns to my attention- Tane Mahuta certainly conjured up the eponymous god for us on our way through his dazzling back yard a year ago- and With or without you is for me the one true moment of genius by the much maligned Dubliners, a structurally perfect song.

Unfinished Business

This post is dedicated to the memory of one of my all time musical heroes, the late, great Grant McLennan. Together with Robert Forster, Grant founded The Go-Betweens in Brisbane in 1977 and over the next 28 years they recorded nine of the best albums you'd ever hope to hear. I had the great pleasure of seeing The Go-Betweens live in the mid-80s - standing right at the front of the audience in a small venue looking up at Robert Forster singing 'Part Company' is one of the greatest experiences I have ever ... err ... experienced at a live gig - the moment will stay with me forever.

The particular reason for posting this now (other than the tenuous hero link) is a comment made by nilpferd a couple of weeks ago in which he referred to 1988's 16 Lovers Lane as the last Go-Betweens album. Which, of course it was - until they reformed in 2000. They then went on to record three more albums (including some of their best work) before Grant's tragic death (as a result of a heart attack) in May 2006.

So nilpferd, this is for you - the rest of you are allowed to listen in of course. A small selection of tracks from the final three albums - three from each but in no particular order - which I hope will convince you to take the plunge and invest in the recordings themselves.

If any of you don't feel up to listening to all nine tracks, please at least listen to Crooked Lines, The Statue and Unfinished Business - the latter, considering what happened soon after he recorded this beautiful song, has to be one of Grant's most poignant lyrics.

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