Category: Non-fiction (page 6 of 9)

31 January 2007 / 11 Comments

Chris de Burgh and his lyrics: Far Beyond These Castle Walls (1974)

Chris de Burgh has never really received proper credit for his lyrics. While his reputation as a musician was cemented early on by such classic tracks as ‘Spanish Train’, ‘Crusader’ and ‘The Traveller’, his equally poignant use of the English language deserves attention.

Let us, however, not speak of ‘Lady in Red’.

If we pretend, for a moment, that each of Chris de Burgh’s albums is instead a collection of poems, the results are startling. Far from being merely a competent guitarist and composer with a talent for soaring and majestic melodies, Chris de Burgh is also a poet.

However, Far Beyond These Castle Walls . . . (1974), Chris de Burgh’s first collection of poetry, showcases a poet who, alas, does not yet know it.

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28 October 2004 / 0 Comments

On a Silver Platter: CD-ROMs and the Promises of a New Technology

During downtimes I often Google myself, usually finding nothing new or old worth writing home about.

Today, however, I came across a book review I wrote in 2003 for the Resource Centre for Cyberculture Studies (RCCS) at the University of Washington.

The book, called On a Silver Platter: CD-ROMs and the Promises of a New Technology (NYU Press, 1999) and edited by Greg M. Smith, perhaps unsurprisingly deals with the history of the CD-ROM.

I have absolutely no idea how I came across the book, or how I managed to convince the RCCS people that my review was worth publishing but there you have it.

2003 was, like, a different time, man. 

Here’s an extract from the review:

Speaking personally again for a moment, my first experience with the CD-ROM format was in the form of “Where in the World is Carmen San Diego” (actually bought for my young sister) and an absurdly addictive railroad game (whose name I cannot remember) with which my father, my brother, and I often spent lazy afternoons playing. The appeal of the former for me was that it offered a more realistic and visually stimulating version of the classic “Choose your own adventure” game (while still maintaining a visual tackiness unique to the 1980s), while the latter offered the entertaining option of attempting to build railway lines that crossed over a competing company’s tracks, or designing huge circular routes that displayed zero logic or understanding of railway systems (let alone systems theory). 

Most recently for me, I had the honor of having a poem of mine accepted for publication on a poetry CD-ROM, coming out of Brisbane, Australia, by the name of Papertiger. The only problem was, I’m a Mac user, and Papertiger is PC only. While not really explored in-depth in this collection, the politics of format conflict are almost deserving of a volume in their own right. 

Read the whole thing online.

17 June 2004 / 2 Comments

Thomas Pynchon: “Gravity’s Rainbow”

What better way to mark yesterday’s 100th anniversary of Bloomsday than to admit I have never read more than twenty pages of Ulysses, due in no small part to the Leavisite method of critical textual analysis introduced in my first days of undergraduate English. Don’t get me wrong: I respect the man, and having heard several sections of Finnegans Wake read aloud, can vouch for the fact that Joyce was a funny old bugger. Trouble is, the attraction of reading Ulysses has been sullied by the determination of various news outlets to strap onto the whole Bloomsday shenanigans every freaking year. Like clockwork. I propose an anti-Bloomsday as the antidote. Buggered if I know how that would work though.

Anyway, what better way to follow that paragraph than to admit that I recently finished all 758 pages of Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow, a book that someone once said (I’m paraphrasing) made most other books look a little simpleminded. Now, I know people say that Ulysses is, erm, difficult. Seems Pynchon got it into his head that he could go one better and, by the looks of it, the man has succeeded. Parts of Gravity’s Rainbow are truly unreadable. You know that phrase “Don’t go there”? Yeah well, Pynchon goes there. There’s no point trying to describe where he goes. You’ll have to read it yourself. But boy am I pleased with myself that I managed to get through it. I enjoyed most of it. There is some truly classic humour in this book. Then again, there’s some stuff that’s not for the squeamish. For this reason, I find it completely understandable that the book both won and lost the Pulitzer Prize (the panel’s decision to award the prize to Pynchon was overturned on the grounds of obscenity, meaning the Prize was not awarded that year).

The Internet seems the perfect place for discussion of Pynchon, and a variety of websites offer much in the way of explanation and helpful references. Not sure if the Simpsons episode featuring Pynchon has aired in Oz yet. But did I mention meeting Pynchon on a train in the US a couple of years ago? I talk about it here. A poem of mine, entitled “Thomas Pynchon and the Art of Anonymity Maintenence” was recently published in Meanjin. Finally, Thomas Pynchon’s new intro to “1984”. Okay so it’s not that new but I just found it. Wow.

22 March 2004 / 0 Comments

Pavement: “Naked, naked, foul!”

At last we come to a band who could be considered serious contenders for EP of the 20th century. I’m talking Pavement, I’m talking Watery, Domestic all over town. With a title that’s almost as cool as my brother’s “spartan, militaristic” tag, this EP is a ripper, clocking in at around ten minutes but boy do they go fast.

There’s no real point talking about the songs, except to note that the recent re-release of Slanted and Enchanted, Pavement’s fabled debut album, has highlighted the band’s applicability to the four song format. To explain, the re-release of this album features two Peel Sessions (each of four tracks’ duration), plus Watery, Domestic and a swag of other releases.

What’s interesting is the way the songs make sense in hindsight: there could have been no Watery, Domestic without “Sue Me Jack” and the delightfully-titled “So Stark (You’re a Skyscraper)” and yet if these songs had been included on the EP (instead of the “Trigger Cut” 7″ single) they would have brought the EP vibe down.

Same for the two Peel Sessions: they’re good and they showcase the band between albums but they do not an EP make. That’s why Watery … is so good: it’s effortless. When I first bought it, I probably listened to it ten times a day.

Mind you, like most other indie kids at the time, I was obsessed with Pavement. I ended up seeing them about five times live (in Australia) – each time they lost a little of the spark that made Slanted … (and Watery …) so utterly brilliant. Interestingly, talking of “between”, the first time I saw Pavement was at Max’s in Petersham (now a pokies venue) supported by Screamfeeder, Crow and indie youngsters Magic Dirt, who played on a stage the size of a handkerchief in the front bar. Wow, what a gig. I was so stoned that I was convinced a guy who was offering me a cheap ticket was about to rip me off.

I entered the venue only to be given a torn-out page from “Jaws” by Pavement’s original drummer Gary Young. I think it’s sad that he’s no longer in the band, because he was the one who created the trademark Pavement slacker drum sound which was later copied by the two replacement drummers (well, I think Bob Nastanovich was actually in the band at the time, acting as Gary Young’s metronome – anyway). But back to between: when Pavement played Oz (1992? 93?) for the first time they were roadtesting songs from what would become their most popular album, the name dropping all over the place Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain.

I heard “Cut Your Hair” and it sounded like sacrilege: lead singer SM stating up-front “Only a man can do a real falsetto” – fair enough but for me the song was a clanger. “Hit the Plane Down” was much more fun but if truth be told anything pre-Crooked Rain … rows my boat all day long. I don’t know, it all started to be just too cool for school after that.

They covered REM on the flipside to Cut Your Hair – another source of outrage for me, as they even changed the words of “Camera” to suit themselves. Mind you, I guess they were really tapping that IRS years REM vein, both in cover art and lyrical obliquity (word?). Their tribute to REM, “Unseen Power of the White Picket Fence” (I think it appeared on a compilation album) was pretty freaking good, even I have to admit: “And they’re marching through Georgia – G-G-G-G-Georgia”.

Despite this Watery …, for me, marks a high-water mark (arf) in the band’s history. Other EPs of theirs I bought include the slight rip-off Gold Soundz and the grand finale Major Leagues EP which featured covers of “The Killing Moon” and a Fall song, predictably. RIP Pavement and RIP the EP.

15 March 2004 / 0 Comments

The Undertones

Now here’s a blast from the past: the Undertones, “Derry’s finest” etc kicked some major label teenage butt in the late 70s, while Wire did the art rock collapse. 1978 saw the Undertones’ first EP, containing the just-not-so-subtly-alluded-to track, “Teenage Kicks”, a track that would see John Peel become their finest spokesperson. Fronted by the odd-looking Feargal Sharkey (yes, indeed, “a good heart these days *is* hard to find”), the Undertones released about four albums and a string of hits, none of which summed the band up better than “Teenage Kicks”, a cross between the Ramones and the Buzzcocks (the former in the straight ahead rock department, the latter in the lyrics’ endless obsession with “girls”). I have to admit a lot of the Undertones stuff does very little for me except inspire stomach aches. I can’t wear Ray Bans because they remind me of Feargal. When Feargal went Joe Cocker I was about thirteen, too young for punk to have meant anything to me. I’ll also admit that whatever “the critics” say, the Undertones were never punk. Despite the fact that on most of their tracks Feargal sounded like Jello Biafra (or was it the other way round?), there’s no two ways of reading songs like “Let’s Talk About Girls”, “Girls Don’t Like it”, “I Know a Girl” and so on and so on and such. On the liner notes to their best of, a band member claims they were onto something when they released “Smarter Than U” as a b-side – ie that they were somehow cool for using the letter “u”. They obviously weren’t listening to Wire at the time, whose “12XU” had been released the previous year (and which provides the ultimate retort – someone getting you down? 12XU). The Undertones’ saving grace was their break up: this left Feargal to wearing his white soul ray bans, while the O’Neill brothers formed That Petrol Emotion”, a band for whom the tag “incendiary” was obviously invented. Compare The Undertones’ last album with TPE’s debut Manic Pop Thrill and you’ll see what I mean. This stuff is pure mid-eighties punk, spiced up with some fairly serious references to Britain’s anti-terrorist legislation which was used at that time to imprison Irish political activists without trial. Songs like “Lifeblood”, “Lettuce” and the classic “It’s a Good Thing” proved that Feargal Sharkey was a two-bit poser in Ray Bans. Can you see what I’m feeling? He didn’t write any of the songs, I guess, which makes him less culpable. But the freaking sunnies. I ask you!

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This is [d/dn], the home of David Prater, a writer and editor currently living in the third person.

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