When everything changed

 By Henry Lipput

Robert Forster had three years’ worth of songs  for a new album before his wife and musical partner Karin Baumler was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.

And then everything changed.

While Baumler underwent chemotherapy, Forster set out to quickly record songs at the Alchemix studio in Brisbane where they had lived for a number of years. Their son Louis joined the music sessions as did Adele Pickvance, a long-time friend, bass player on the last three Go-Betweens albums and Forster’s great The Evangelist album, and currently the Adele of Adele and the Chandeliers.

Not knowing how much time they had (when her health allowed, Baumler contributed violin and backing vocals to the songs as she had for Forster’s two previous albums), the goal was to create a recording they would always have of the experience whether it became an album worth releasing or not. But after listening to two of the completed songs, which were made without headphones and overdubs and with everyone in the studio together playing eye-to-eye, they wondered whether an entire album could be produced the same way. The result is the literate and heartfelt The Candle and the Flame (Tapete Records).

Forster wrote “She’s A Fighter” after Baumler’s diagnosis and as she rested from treatment he come up with a basic riff. The sound owes more than a little to skiffle (but with electric guitar and xylophone) and the simple, repeated lyrics of support (“She’s a fighter/Fighting for good”) became a mantra, a way of building up both their spirits.

A few of the songs on The Candle and the Flame deal with the passage of time. In “I Don’t Do Drugs I Do Time” Forster triggers a time loop of memories of both before and after he met Baumler. She provides lovely backing vocals as Forster plays an acoustic guitar. “I remember when we first met/Where you sat/What you said/What was running/Through my head” circles back to earlier times: “I’m walking to school in ‘69/The next day I’m 35.”

“Always” sounds like an early Go-Betweens track with its Tom Verlaine-inspired guitar. Although Forster sings “time moves in one direction” he continues with what I hear as a metaphor about how the brain processes memories: “And there’s a breakdown at the intersection of Highway 5/There’s going to have to be a detour” and your thoughts head off in another direction.

 “When I Was a Young Man” is a story song in which Forster writes about his early musical efforts and his major influences. “Elder brothers/I had a few/One was named David/The other was Lou” he sings, half name-checking Bowie and Reed. As time went other influences were felt: “Elder brothers/They came along/There was a new David/And there was Tom/They bewitched me in wardrobe and song” with this time referring to Johansen and Verlaine.

With “Tender Years” Forster conflates both time and storytelling. He says “She’s a book/A thousand pages” before letting us know “Images of her are vivid/Her body has not withered/From her entrance in Chapter One.” “I’m in a story with her” he sings “I know I can’t life without her/I can’t imagine one.”

They’ve been together for 32 years and their third meeting (the third time’s the charm, right?) during the German leg of the R.E.M/Go-Betweens European tour is referenced: “Time is important/Timing is more important/Without it a story can end/Heidelberg is a German city/By the river very pretty/I was there/The timing was our friend.” “Tender Years” has a groove to the arrangement and there’s also a wonderful “Losing My Religion”-like mandolin along with one of the few band workouts on the album.

Take the quiz: are you the Groovy Uncle?

By Henry Lipput

Wouldn’t you like to be the groovy uncle? Wouldn’t you like to be the kind of uncle who shows up at a family gathering knowing about all the coolest new music and movies and knows who that was hosting last weekend’s Saturday Night Live? (For the record, that’s not me.)

Well, you can’t be the groovy uncle because Glenn Pragnell is already.  Glenn has been recording under the name Groovy Uncle since 2011 and No Man’s An Island (Trouserphonic Records) is his 10^th and latest release. Last year he was part of the musical partnership The Vague Ideas and their Lennon-inspired New York Letters album.

On New York Letters (one of my 2022 favorites) Pragnell channeled Lennon’s vocal and musical stylings and some of this bleeds on to a few of the songs on the new album. It’s a fun thing to hear since most of the music I listen to is inspired by McCartney.

The opening and title track on the album, “No Man’s An Island,” is one of those songs. It’s a groovy, tuneful song like “Nobody Told Me” from Milk and Honey. The press notes describe the album as dealing with “feelings of isolation, bewilderment, loss, and frustration but ultimately forward looking, optimistic, and uplifting.”

The lyrics for “No Man’s An Island” are all about the bewilderment and frustration of modern life: “Every day you hide away/You need a break/Just because the world requires/You give, they take.” So what’s the answer? “No man’s an island/Set yourself free/You’re been too long by yourself/But like the sun/You keep on shining.”

“Beneath” sounds like a missing early Kinks song sung by Dave Davies with lyrics that could have been on his song “Rats:” “Beneath an existential sun/Dividing each and everyone/Reaching for a helping hand/They’ll crush you down into the sand.”  The solution is not to take it personally because you’re not the problem (“It’s not you”) but you might actually have the answer if you look hard enough: “There’s much ado and much to see/Beneath our blind reality.”

“When I Get Back on My Feet Again” is Pragnell’s prescription on how to put yourself back together: “It won’t be easy, ain’t gonna lie” he sings. The best way is to not cut yourself to others who mean something in your life: “Another rain check from me to you/Let’s say hello and not goodbye.”

If I had assembled the track listing for No Man’s An Island I would have ended with the album with the sad and beautiful “We Had Holidays” (the Lennon influence is here too). Yes, it’s about a relationship that has ended but it was a positive experience: “Once or twice or maybe more/I recalled the ways/You were there to reassure/We had holidays. “

 

Peter Hall and the meaning of awe

By Henry Lipput

Recently I read an article in the New York Times with the headline “How a Bit of Awe Can Improve Your Health.” In the article writer Hope Reese explains “While many of us associate awe with dynamic, life-changing events, the truth is that awe can be a part of everyday life.”

I know what she’s talking about. Each morning I stop on my walk to work to look at the sunrise and, even with clouds, it's a sight that leaves me awestruck. And I stopped and listened with awe to “Waiting for Nothing” on Peter Hall’s brilliant new mini-album/extended EP About Last Night (Subjangle).

I don’t remember why or how I got to this song, the fifth track on the album, perhaps I didn’t start at the beginning. But I was immediately struck by its gorgeous sound, how the vocal, lyrics, and soaring arrangement came together and how it affected me.

“Waiting for Nothing” is just one of the wonderful songs on About Last Night. For example, “In Plain Sight” was released as a single last September. I wrote about it in this blog at the time and also included it as one of my favorite singles of last year calling it “pop of the highest quality.”

Peter Hall has been releasing music as a solo artist since his There’s Something Wrong with Everyone EP in 2020 and his Light the Stars album was the top of my list in my 2021 year-end review. Each collection is a musical step forward and About Last Night is just another amazing and yes, awesome, gift for us.