The last time a poem of mine appeared in a journal was back in 2013. But in the intervening years, the dim flame of my poetic muse has been sustained by the appearance of some of my published poems in a number of anthologies.
Suddenly, these old poems have a new agency. They just “hit differently” the second (or sometimes even third!) time around. Sure, there’s only five of them, but that’s, like, one every two years. And in the absence of any other kind of engagement with the publishing space, I’ll take those odds.
Davey Dreamnation (1972–?) was an Australalian musician, vocalist, pirate and record-label owner who now lives “in the third person”. No, wait. That’s not what I meant to paste there. But then, where should I begin my Substack origin story?
Maybe I could start by explaining how I came up with my semi-fictitious alter-ego’s name, by fusing the title of Sonic Youth’s Daydream Nation album with one of my own diminutives. But then, who was I before this Davey came along?
After two years in Paris working for the International Transport Forum at the OECD, my family and I recently moved to a small village in the province of Fryslân in the Netherlands.
The contrast between one of the world’s biggest urban agglomerations and our tiny village of 200 is obvious.
But I wasn’t prepared for the difference in transport infrastructure, especially given that the Netherlands has put enormous efforts into making roads safer for cyclists, pedestrians and other vulnerable road users.
The older I get, the more sporadic these site updates become.
My single reader will be relieved to know that this time around I’m not announcing a brand new WordPress theme. Although I admit that I recently began looking at alternatives to WordPress, including GitHub, before concluding that such an exercise would constitute an even bigger time suck than WP is.
I was a massive fan of the band when they first started getting airplay in Australia in 1990 (and yes, I’m absolutely on a nostalgia bent right now: must be something about reaching a certain age).
The format of the podcast is intriguing, if daunting: an episode devoted to each song the band released, with special bonus episodes about individual albums (12 in total so far) and EPs. Meaning they’ll be at it for years to come.
Crucially, each episode starts with a full broadcast of the song in question, which for the early EPs the band recorded may well be their first ever digital release. Episodes also feature interviews with the band, producers, rock luminaries, snippets of onstage banter and quirky (but fascinating) analysis of the drum tracks.
Right now, they’re wrapping up a series of posts devoted to the first Fauves EP I bought, The Scissors Within (1992). I used to listen to these six songs constantly, wrote poems inspired by the lyrics and music, and still think it stands up today as a well-produced and atmospheric record.
Funnily enough, Jon Bampton, one of the guys who produce the podcast contacted me recently via this website (probably in response to this post about the band’s early EPs) and asked if I’d like to guest on an episode or two.
We’ve now completed hot takes of three songs the Fauves recorded for a compilation album, entitled Dress Ups (also released in 1992), which co-featured two other Melbourne-based bands: The Glory Box and Pray TV. I bought a copy of this EP when I was a student, possibly at Waterfront Records in Sydney, or else via the Fauves’ website.
Recording the three episodes was a pretty straightforward affair: Jon and I met up on Zoom; I used my own digital recorder so that we could isolate our respective audio tracks, and we spent around 20 minutes talking about the words, the music and my personal memories of seeing the band in the early 1990s.
It can be difficult to listen to one’s own voice, especially when you know a recording is going to be available to the general public. I had my fair share of cringeworthy moments in the late 1990s and early 2000s as a spoken word poet in Melbourne, so you could say I’m reasonably accustomed to the phenomenon.
The truth is, however, that I can’t even really bear to go back and listen to these episodes now. The cringe is just too much. So, I’m just going to embed the first episode here and anyone who’s interested in hearing the other two can just follow the Spotify links.
Anyway, check the podcast out if you’re into early-1990s OzRock nostalgia!
