Oh, what a year that was
A musical year in review.
It’s that time of year where we’re all doing the “looking back on the past 12 months” thing. While this post does inherently serve that function, it’s also a bit of a mish-mash of topics I wanted to write about at some point during 2023, but never got around to it or didn’t figure out a way to translate it into a written article. Part listicle, part personal blogging, part music journalism - I hope you enjoy my musical discoveries and (mis)adventures from this year.
ARTIST DISCOVERY #1 - They Might Be Giants
Now, let me be clear - I already knew who They Might Be Giants were long before 2023. My modern history teacher enjoyed playing their cover of ‘Istanbul (Not Constantinople)’ to us in class, and as a kid I must have been aware of them on some subconscious level since they composed the theme song for Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.
But earlier this year I found myself going down the TMBG rabbit hole and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t latched onto them sooner. I stumbled across a ‘guide’ playlist of sorts to their discography, and after hearing the upbeat stop-start guitars of ‘Don’t Let’s Start’, I was a goner. So much so that they were in my top 5 artists in my Spotify Wrapped, and both ‘Don’t Let’s Start’ and ‘Ana Ng’ were in my top 5 most listened to songs of 2023. Many more tracks made the top 100 playlist.
TMBG’s weirdness has been covered to no end - I am loath to use the word ‘quirky’, but they are the quintessential nerd band, if you can call a two guy act a band. John Linnell and John Flansburgh look like the sorts of people I would’ve had a crush on in my early adolescence, with their bespectacled geeky look and floppy dark hair. Yet their slightly awkward demeanour and unfashionable image has always been something a lot of my favourite musical artists have in common: the lack of pretence is disarming.
Having finally delved into their music this year, it felt especially fortuitous that they announced a concert for October. It was very saddening when I found out TMBG had postponed it due to health reasons. Nevertheless, it’s given me something to look forward to in 2024, and I can’t wait to hear 1990’s Flood performed in its entirety.
The Spirit of Radio
I’ve already written a little bit about what it was like to sit in on a live radio broadcast (which you can read here), but since then I’ve done some guest programming a couple of times as well. Returning to The Outpost, I tried my best to pick songs that suited the show’s theme. On my first run, I selected ‘1970 In Aspic’ by Robyn Hitchcock, ‘No One Knows Nothing Anymore’ by Billy Bragg, and ‘Black And White’ by The dB’s (specifically the acoustic version performed by Chris Stamey and Peter Holsapple a couple of years back). On my second appearance, I picked out ‘Country Feedback’ by R.E.M., ‘Over Everything’ by Courtney Barnett and Kurt Vile, and 10,000 Maniacs’ cover of ‘Sally Ann’. It’s quite difficult to pick out songs, especially when you have a specific box to fit into and your music cred is hanging on the line. At least that’s how I perceived it. Yet at the same time, it was also incredibly fun toiling over my selections and painstakingly curating three songs that I felt were a good, well rounded batch of favourites.
When it came to talking about my selections on air, I can honestly say I winged 95% of it despite sounding quite natural (according to my faithful listeners, that is). I’d given myself a couple of dot points for each song, but I improvised for the most part and even forgot my pointers half the time. I chalk my lack of stumbling and flailing about up to the fact I can ramble about music all day and my improv theatre background. Nevertheless, it’s still easier said than done. I’m currently reading Paul Gorman’s book chronicling the history of the music press, Totally Wired, and if there’s something I’ve realised, it’s that half the people in the music business are winging it anyway. Vinny, The Outpost’s host, would occasionally make the odd error or run into some hiccup beyond his control, but he always dealt with it so calmly on air that you’d never guess that something had gone wrong in the first place. If I’m being honest, I’m not sure if I have a head cool enough for the job.
ARTIST DISCOVERY #2 - The Decemberists
Listening to the Decemberists has made me wonder how many artists are out there who would fit perfectly with your tastes, but you’ll just never come across them in your lifetime. Were it not for my boyfriend including the track ‘Leslie Anne Levine’ on a birthday mixtape he made for me, the Decemberists could have very well been consigned to that fate. Sure, the name vaguely rang a bell - maybe because I had some memory of seeing an album in my dad’s music library, but not much more than that. Probably because the majority of my tastes consist of acts from the pre or post 2010s, and Picaresque, the album of theirs that captured my heart (and ears) was released in 2005, only two years after I was born.
It makes sense that I would like the Decemberists after glancing at their influences. R.E.M. (obviously), XTC, The Waterboys (and specifically, Fisherman’s Blues) - what’s not to love? I have yet to really delve into the rest of their discography, much to the chagrin of my boyfriend, who constantly sings the praises of their 2009 rock opera The Hazards of Love. Beyond Picaresque, I have a fairly scattered knowledge of Decemberists tracks, but it makes sense that I would gravitate towards them: melancholic, folky music with a heavy storytelling element, driven by guitars and atmosphere.
Since becoming a tentative fan of the Decemberists this year, I’ve started reading Colin Meloy’s Substack. I really love the way he strings words and stories together, both in song and in prose. What’s even more interesting to me is that he authored the 33 ⅓ book on The Replacements’ Let It Be, something that I’ve been meaning to read since I was 14, yet never connected the dots between the text and the musical background of the author who wrote it. I guess I know what I’m reading next.
Musical Postcards from the Central Coast
If there were a tourist guide for places like Gosford, the top rated activity to do there would most likely be “leave”. It’s very easy to dunk on bogan territory, which is why I often get looks from people when I tell them that I went to see a gig in Gosford at the start of this year. But in January, when my friend Jono asked me if I wanted a free ticket to accompany him and his friend Liam to this show, I thought there was no harm in tagging along for the hour long drive up to good old Gozzy.
Entitled Never Had So Much Fun, the gig featured a multi-artist lineup, headlined by the Sydney-based Lazy Eyes, who were the only group I’d heard of. By the time we made it to Drifters Wharf in Gosford we had missed the first act, State Ripley. But according to Liam, we didn’t need to lose sleep over it. He told Jono and I that he’d listened to a few of the artists on the lineup earlier in the morning, and his view on State Ripley was that they sounded like a support act, which is almost worse than just saying they sounded bad.
We had however arrived just in time to see Bad Witch take the stage. They sounded and looked like a quintessential indie band - that is to say, they should’ve had a Doc Martens sponsorship - and the three vocalists’ voices blended together to form these beautiful unique harmonies. But they didn’t really make much of an impression beyond that.
Standing there in the venue, with its unvarnished floorboards and sparsely populated audience, I had the impression I was at a school disco. I don’t mean that in an unkind way at all - everything felt very homegrown and earnest, a local scene at its most local. Then again, there’s not much else to do in Gosford, really. I imagine forming a band would be a good escape.
Up next were Shacked - a group of teenage tradies dressed in fluorescent yellow and sporting mullets to match. The epitome of bogancore, they quickly launched into an electrifying set of punk originals that wove melodies in with funky rhythms and a surprising level of technical proficiency. I really took to Shacked’s energy and their penchant for hypnotising, guitar based instrumentals. It’s really no surprise that they ended up being the only artist I actively sought out on Spotify and social media after we went home.
My enthusiasm dimmed almost as quickly as it arrived when Soda Simulator took the stage. They berated us with some extremely colourful language, which might work in a mosh pit of some punk venue, but as I said, this gig wasn’t far off from a school disco in terms of its atmosphere. Not to mention the fact that it was a Sunday afternoon and there were many small children in the audience. And secondly, it’s Gosford, mate. Get off your high horse. The three of us agreed that it was pretty obnoxious and sat outside for their set.
“If you want us to actually dance, play some better music,” grumbled Liam.
The penultimate act, Deadshowws, felt extremely average and predictable too - they did a Deftones cover and none of us were particularly surprised since they looked like the sort of people that listened to Deftones. In their defence, the muddy sound mixing wasn’t their fault, and they had a friendly stage presence that alleviated the animosity of Soda Simulator.
By this time the hall had actually begun to fill up, and when the Lazy Eyes came onstage, the audience showed its first signs of real enthusiasm. Unsurprisingly, they were the tightest, most proficient band to grace Gosford’s ears that evening. I hadn’t actually listened to their music before. I just knew who they were because a girl in one of my tutorials last year had sported a shirt with their name and logo on it.
In my notes for this gig, I wrote that “they sounded like a band who had discovered guitar pedals and never looked back”. But I also appreciated their ‘60s-inspired sound, particularly on the song ‘Imaginary Girl’, which I promptly added to one of my playlists. Usually I hate any sort of flanger effect, but they made me warm up to it. In addition to playing originals, the Lazy Eyes did a flanged-up, slightly psychedelic cover of ‘More Than A Woman’, which they’d also done earlier on Triple J’s Like A Version. Overall, I enjoyed them a lot, but I can’t say exactly what stopped me from diving into their music further.
My other notes from Never Had So Much Fun read as follows: “I feel like as someone who bangs on and on about indie scenes and indie artists this felt like the first time I was really doing anything to support them. Like I was right in the middle of it and engaging with it. A few times whilst standing in that almost school-hall like venue I wondered if this was what it was like to be a part of the Dunedin scene back in the eighties. There was also very much a sense of support between each of the bands, giving shout outs to each other on stage and you’d often see the members of bands in the audience (when they weren’t playing) singing along to the other bands’ songs and cheering/clapping/moshing etc. You could even see some bands’ family members (and even kids) who had come along to support them.”
As much as it might be unappealing to go to Gosford of all places, I had never really witnessed a local scene like this before. In some ways, it felt like I was a proper music journalist, getting into the throng of the action and observing tomorrow’s news just before it hits. It’s one thing to write about the people that have already made it, but to see what’s brewing in your own backyard, well, that’s a different story.
ARTIST DISCOVERY #3 - Labi Siffre
There could not be a more uninteresting way of getting into an artist than saying Spotify recommended it to you, but that is how I discovered Labi Siffre this year. Sorely underrated, it would appear that Siffre’s work is more recognised through cover versions than his originals, which saddens me. Yet I’d never heard Madness’s rendition of ‘It Must Be Love’, or Kanye West’s sampling of ‘My Song’. When I initially heard the infamous sampled part of ‘I Got The…’, my first thought was not that Eminem had borrowed it for ‘My Name Is’, but that Horrible Histories had used it in their Eminem parody ‘Charles II (King of Bling)’. That tells you all you need to know about me, really.
What I love about Labi Siffre is the tenderness that permeates each and every one of his songs. They’re gentle and romantic, complete with this distinct ‘70s production that makes me feel oddly nostalgic. My dad told me once that my nana owned an album or two of Siffre’s, which given her tastes, makes sense. I adore the soft folk of songs like ‘Cannock Chase’ and ‘Crying, Laughing, Loving, Lying’, and the sentimental overtones of ‘Bless The Telephone’ or ‘Till Forever’. It feels even more poignant and moving when you consider Siffre, a Black gay man in the ‘70s, writing about his experiences in a time when POC and queer people were expected to conform to a specific image. It is perhaps this honest, genuine emotion that distinguishes him above all else.
And your musical guest for tonight…
I was 12 years old when I played my first musical gig in front of an audience. The venue was my primary school hall, and my audience was a large group of children aged between 9-12. Somehow I’d steeled myself to give an instrumental and abridged rendition of Rush’s ‘Rivendell’ on my Taylor GS Mini (a song choice that could not more perfectly summarise who I was at that age) for that year’s talent quest. I remember practically shitting myself as I went onstage, palms sweating as I started the first few notes. Yet amazingly, I didn’t mess up once while subjecting a bunch of Australian primary school kids to some ‘70s Canadian prog, and soon enough it felt like it had finished before I’d started.
While it was a pretty painless affair, I hadn’t performed live since, even if I considered it a couple of times in high school. But this year I joined a band, and, armed with two things I didn’t have at 12 - unfaltering bravado and alcohol - I decided to take the stage again.
Surprisingly, I didn’t feel very nervous at all. We played in a small venue, which probably helped, along with the alcohol. You’d think that only having had two and a half rehearsals before performing live would terrify you, but for whatever reason I just took it all in my stride. I displayed a similar attitude when I was asked to learn how to play ‘Something Else’ by the Sex Pistols in lieu of an original song merely the night before the gig. To me, it was all a bit of fun. It wasn’t like there were representatives from EMI and Island sitting in the audience. The venue barely fit in my boyfriend and bandmates’ friends as it was.
Immediately I noticed (and you’ll have to pardon my French here) just how fucking loud it was on stage. My bandmate Freddie had bought me some earplugs, but it was still a doozy. I could barely hear him or myself. As a result, our first number, an original called ‘Gin and Tonic’, had a bit of a shaky start, but came together fairly soon after that. In some ways I felt like I was 12 again, desperately hoping that I wouldn’t play any wrong notes. Fortunately, with our second song, another original named ‘Wake Up Little Susie’, we did a fantastic run through. Since it was a slow one, the three of us agreed it was the one we couldn’t afford to mess up as any mistake would immediately become obvious to the audience. Whether it was because we’d rehearsed this one the most or the fact that my guitar drives the song (and therefore I didn’t need to rely on cues I would’ve struggled to hear anyway), it went well despite my backing vocals not being picked up by the mic.
However, our closing cover of ‘Something Else’ could be described as ‘rough and ready’ at best and shambolic at worst. I hadn’t heard the song until the day before, which, added to the song’s stop-start nature, made it slightly tricky to play even though the chords and structure are logistically very easy. Throw in some murky sound mixing and tipsy musicians and you’ve got a very interesting performance.
While ‘Something Else’ was indeed, er, something else, I was pleased overall with how my first gig in eight years had gone. I’ve been on the stage doing acting and comedy for the last couple of years, but it’s a different ballpark. Keeping time and making sure you’re following song structures takes a lot more effort than remembering lines. Many’s the time that I’ve zoned out while playing something repetitive, only to forget when I was coming into a chorus or verse. I must admit I was a bit critical of myself after the show, but Freddie was pleased and reassured me that the combination of a poor mixing job and lack of rehearsals accounted for any hiccups I blamed on myself.
Being in a band is fun if you don’t take yourself too seriously. It’s probably not going to look like the Monkees, where you all share a huge Californian bungalow and swanky car despite not getting any work. (Or accidentally getting tangled up in spy plots and visiting haunted mansions for that matter, either.) But it gets very exciting when it all comes together. I always wanted to experience being in a band when I was in high school, and now I can finally tick off that box at university. Even though I don’t know where playing music will factor into my future, I’d like to see where rehearsing and gigging takes us next year, because as much as I adore writing about music, it’s fascinating to be on the other side of the stage.
Such a fun post and I love the decemberists too!!