I love New Zealand singer-songwriter Dave Dobbyn. He was big in the 80s with Th’Dudes and DD Smash, in New Zealand AND Australia, but I didn’t live in Australia until 1996 and I never heard of him until Neil Finnproduced his solo album Twist in 1994. What a great album it is, too! Its follow-up was 1998’s The Islander and it quickly became my favourite, and still is to this day. I don’t know why I’d never covered any of his songs until now, at least not in recorded form, but this is my son Samuel and me playing “Beside You” from The Islander.
I’m just on rhythm guitar and lead vocals and random harmonies. but Samuel provided lead guitar, bass, drums and the more regular backing vocals. And I always love his playing but I think its particularly delectable here, especially his bass.
Most people who know my music know that I adore Sam Phillips. Not the rock and roll producer known for his work with Elvis Presley (although he was good too!) but the fabulous singer/songwriter.
I’ve recorded a handful of her songs before, but this is the latest, “No Time Like Now”. Here is my son Samuel overdubbing some Behringer Neutron analogue synthesizer.
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Wow. With all the distractions of the last little while I missed the fact that my Melbourne friend Peter Farnan, brilliant singer-songwriter-musician, member of esteemed Aussie rock hitmakersBoom Crash Opera, and all-round nice guy, has released Pesky Bones Vol. 1, an album featuring other artists singing his songs.
And not just any artists, but the crème de la crème of hip Antipodean artistry. How about this four, for a start…
See below for the complete list but I want to get a song in without you having to scroll down.
Paul Kelly & Rebecca Barnard
To draw you in, here’s an empty-nest song that a lot of us can relate to, with Paul Kelly & Rebecca Barnard in a captivating duet, here harmonizing, there weaving carefully around each other:
Pete in his studio
Nice, eh? But I also want you to see this – Peter doing his own energetic, stripped-down version of “Intuition”. At one point he sings into his electric guitar. And his faithful vintage Casio keyboard gets a spin too.
And I like the fact that his studio doesn’t look like a studio, and it hasn’t got a big mixing desk or, really, any visible fancy studio gear. And there are loads of books. And he uses an all-in-one guitar effects unit, not a carefully curated selection of arcane, boutique devices strung together in a big wooden box.
While I was playing the guitar and downloading some stuff I read this article about the problem of multitasking. And… yes, I already know I have a real problem with multitasking. Like most of us, I do it too much instead of concentrating on doing one thing at a time.
It may be something that’s been exacerbated everywhere by mobile phones and other modern distractions, but I spent most of my life having to multitask, because it was absolutely essential in my old career of pathology lab science. I had to spin plates* hour after hour, day after day, year after year. Even before the ever-increasing modern curse and horror of downsizing staff and upsizing workload, I had to be able to do lots of things at once – things that were literally a matter of life and death. And I still have nightmares about it… always about not having enough time to do everything.
So even today, after being out pathology for four years, I still feel like I have to be doing several things at once, and at the same time thinking about half a dozen other things that need done!
And I’ll bet it’s the same in most jobs. What about yours?
I love it when I do actually let go and focus on something. It happens when I’m recording or playing music… but not all the time. I might still be checking emails and Facebook every five minutes, on a bad day. However, on those days when I really get into it I can focus for hours on end and those are the days when I achieve something.
Or reading a book – something I don’t allow myself enough time for any more – but that can absorb me enough to stop thinking about other things. The problem is that I expect the book to absorb me, rather than me absorbing the book – you know what I mean? If the book isn’t riveting enough I’m likely to put it down rather than put the effort into it. It shouldn’t be like that because that reduces the act of reading to mere entertainment.
See how quickly I can give my studio that lived-in look! Just over a couple of weeks ago this was a bare room.
Ready to actually play a note.
Soundproofing working nicely 🙂
Anyway, it’s interesting that this article came up in my emails today because, on the very day that my new studio here in Tasmania is finally up and running (yeah!) I had already been thinking that I now need to actually get down to making music again. My fingers can hardly even work the guitar! I’d better get them back up to speed before my new Dean Boca electric 12-string guitar arrives from DW Music in Canberra! 🙂
I’ve just ordered this from DW Music in Canberra.
Wings!
And also stylish out back.
* If you don’t know what plate spinning is, you’re too young to have watched old-fashioned variety shows on TV. Check out this clip from The Ed Sullivan Show.
on 26th April 2014: our cover of Larry Norman’s beautiful song “Goodbye Farewell”
Samuel is playing our Tanglewood TW15CE-B guitar and I’m on my old Mugen “the ’78”
Still from the video
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This is taken at a bit of a clip, I think! But you can hear the songs at a more stately pace in this old video of me performing it a few years ago:
LYRICS & CHORDS
(written by Larry Norman)
Goodbye, farewell, we’ll meet again (D, Bm, F#m,) Somewhere beyond the sky. (D, Bm, F#m, A7) I pray that you will stay with God (G, Em, D, Bm) Goodbye, my friends, goodbye. (D, A7, D-G, D-G)
The light grows dim but in this hour (D, Bm, F#m,) I have no tears to cry. (D, Bm, F#m, A7) My heart is full, my joy complete. (G, Em, D, Bm) Goodbye, my friends, goodbye. (D, A7, D-G, D-G)
I feel no loss of hope as I’ve grown older. (Bm, G, D) Only this world’s weight upon my shoulder. (Bm, E7, Em7, A7)
My heart beats to a slower song, (D, Bm, F#m,) So softly in my veins. (D, Bm, F#m, A7) The night is warm, but in my sleep (G, Em, D, Bm) I dream of heaven’s reign. (D, A7, D-G, D-G)
Everything I am I’ve tried to show you, (Bm, G, D) In this life I’ve been so blessed to know you. (Bm, E7, Em7, A7)
Goodbye, farewell, we’ll meet again (D, Bm, F#m,) Somewhere beyond the sky. (D, Bm, F#m, A7) I pray that you will walk with God (G, G#dim, F#m, Bm) Goodbye, my friends, goodbye. (Em, A7, Bm, E7) Goodbye, my friends, goodbye. (Em, A7, D)
Yesterday (8th Jan, 2014) a Facebook friend of mine, Bill Mallonee, posed the following question:
10 life changing records. (I know! It’s impossible!) Take a deep breath & list ’em in less than 3 minutes. Don’t over think it.
Well, you know what? I did over-think it. It’s pretty easy to reel off some of your favourite records, like I did here and here, but (being a pedantic git) I felt that if you’re going to describe something as life-changing it had better be something that really did have some particular concrete effect on your existence. So it took me longer than 3 minutes, but not much longer. Here’s a slightly edited and expanded version:
Ten Life Changing Records
Life changing? Life. Changing. Life changing. Records that really, really truly changed my life. Hmm. Not necessarily albums. Nor my favourite, nor the best, nor the coolest records.
1: Johnny Cash‘s first gospel LP (Hymns by Johnny Cash) – My parents had it it and it was probably the first record that felt blissful to me – that showed me how powerful music could be, even before I really became a “music fan”
2: Elton John‘s Crocodile Rock. For some strange reason hearing it on Top Of The Pops was a revelation to me that stupid, freakish, long-haired, ungodly, noisy rock’n’roll music was actually really great. [I know Crocodile Rock, while great, is not exactly the pinnacle of the form, but for me it was the key that unlocked the door.] It was the first record I ever bought and it instantly made me into a “music fan”.Ø
3-5: Larry Norman‘s three albums Upon This Rock, Only Visiting This Planet and Bootleg – My sister borrowed them and they taught me that rock’n’roll wasn’t evil and you could be funny, clever and talk about whatever you wanted [The Ku Klux Klan, Paul McCartney’s Hofner bass, venereal disease, Jesus]
6 – Neil Young‘s Zuma – I heard John Peel play the track Looking For A Love on the little transistor radio under my pillow one night in 1976. I’d never heard Neil Young before but I fell for the sound immediately. I went out and bought the album and it’s still, in my mind, the definitive “perfect electric guitar sound” that I basically strive for in my playing [much of the time, anyway].
7-9: Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers‘ Rock’n’Roll With The Modern Lovers, Patrik Fitzgerald‘s Safety Pin Stuck In My Heart E.P.* & Wild Man Fischer‘s Wildmania!§ – the fact that Marjorie owned these three records that I also loved was a major factor in bringing us together at school in 1977, and we’re still married.
10 – Crowded House‘s Woodface – I’d gradually grown fond of them on the radio (They played Better Be Home Soon, Don’t Dream It’s Over, Fall At Your Feet, Sister Madly quite often on CFMI) when we lived in Vancouver, and finally bought the CD. Marjorie and I felt it was immediately fell for the album in a very, very deep way, particularly the first half, which seemed to representative another kind of perfect sound which we felt we’d been looking for all our lives. Marjorie loved them so much that (to cut a long story
11 – Some other Johnny Cash record – I was listening to him one day at work in the lab about ten years ago [I can’t remember which song but I think it was from his Sun years]
NOTES
Ø I subsequently bought the Daniel and Goodbye Yellow Brick Road 45s and was settling in for a lifetime of brilliant Elton John releases, but I wasn’t so sure about Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting (it was OK, but I could think of better things to spend my 45p on) and never again bought another Elton John single, or, for that matter, a post-1973 album of his. This was my first lesson in pop disappointment.
* Patrik was the first “folk-punk” guy (to release a record) in the original UK punk scene of 1976-78. I’ve always thought that Marjorie and I don’t have an “our song” in the way that Americans talk about it, but I guess Patrik’s Safety Pin Stuck In My Heart was Our Song!
§ Wild Man’s first, and most famous album, was the double album An Evening With Wild Man Fischer, about eight years before Wildmania!. This was his “comeback album”. John Peel played a track every night and I taped the whole album. I used to go round school singing the songs from it (and to think I say I only became a singer about ten years ago!) and some of the songs became quite popular among my friends. (“My name is Larry, I have a canary”, “I went to a disco in San Francisco” – you can see why).
One day Marjorie told me she’d got the album. I actually thought she was only joking as it wasn’t the kind of thing you’d find in the records shops in Portadown. And I think she was disappointed but didn’t really impress the fact on me. But some time later, when we were closer friends, I found it in her record collection and nearly died! It turned out she’d ordered it from “overseas” (i.e. England) out of an ad in the NME.
I spent years wondering how I could get the first album and I eventually found it in a shop in London. But despite it being, by far, the most famous and well-regarded, it’s nowhere near as good as Wildmania!, which, in my opinion, is where his art all came together in its most cohesive and beautiful form; in short, his masterpiece.
There’s a brand new video for Marjorie‘s beautiful song “Hole In My Head!”
And she’s made the most gorgeous animation on her iPad to illustrate the song.
Some of you will know that the song was inspired by her experience last year of being diagnosed with a brain tumour. (Don’t worry – she’s fine now. The tumour was benign and even though she had very major brain surgery she has recovered very well.) She actually wrote most of the song while she was in the MRI machine getting her pre-op scan. We recorded it quickly right before her operation and I (almost) finished it off with some overdubs.
But I couldn’t figure out a good solo to put over the instrumental section. In the car one day, on the way to one of her appointments, I asked Marjorie for ideas. She said, “How about a euphonium?”
And, to our everlasting delight, one of our musical heroes, Don McGlashan(of legendary New Zealand band The Mutton Birds) agreed to play a sublime euphonium solo on it, as only he can do! (I think Marjorie secretly had this in mind.) He recorded the solo in the boatshed on the New Zealand coast that he uses to write his own songs, and sent it to us by email. It’s everything we hoped for and more.
If you enjoy it, please leave a comment underneath the video on Youtube (or here!) and PLEASE share with your friends on Facebook, Twitter etc. 🙂
Marjorie was a huge fan of George Harrison right from the beginning of his solo career (when she was a very little girl). Here’s a nice portrait she drew of George for her ‘O’ Level Art submission. I recall she left everything to the last minute and did a whole lot of drawings the night before she had to hand them in. We still have the sketch book and it largely consists of this picture of George, a quick self-portrait (also below) and various items around her, e.g. a cup, her hands, her glasses, her boot, a banana etc. They make quite a nice couple, don’t they?
George Harrison by Marjorie, 1977
This is how Marjorie did “selfies” in 1977!
She still has the singles/45’s/7 inches (or what you young hipsters sometimes call the “vinyls” – ugh) to prove that she was a fan when she was just a little girl! She was much more advanced musically than I was at the same age.
George smiles!
Some U.S. style centre holes!
“Apple Scru-uffs – how I love you!”
You can see the full size version of her George Harrison portrait on our Flickr site at http://www.flickr.com/photos/dc-cardwell/9381761109/. I wish I had a video or recording of Marjorie singing one of George’s songs, but in the meantime, here’s me doing a ukulele & vocal version “Here Comes The Sun”, one of his two tracks which were major highlights of the Beatles final, iconic “Abbey Road” album.
My friends at TLC (Truth & Liberation Concern) in Bayswater (Melbourne) are putting on a benefit concert for youth programs in Yuendumu, which is a town in the Northern Territory of Australia. I was asked to perform at this concert but unfortunately I have a prior engagement for that date. It’s for a very good cause and you won’t regret going along! Some of the performers are very good friends of mine with whom I’ve recorded and performed before, namely Victor Stranges & Andrea Kocevska ~ DC
The film was directed by David McGorlick, a young Melbourne film student. This is a very well-deserved recognition of his talent, especially considering it was his first serious film.
To further illustrate how remarkable this achievement was, at the Newport Beach festival the film was screened amongst a set of major videos from some particularly stellar artists, including The Black Keys/RZA, Sigur Rós, Alt-J, No Doubt and Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros!
In 2011, McGorlick, who was studying film at university, had asked his friend DC if he could use “I Am Still The Same” in a video for an assignment. DC was happy to allow the use of the song and expected the end result to be proficient but not particularly remarkable as it was the first “proper” film young David had ever made. McGorlick ran his broad ideas past the songwriter for approval, but apart from DC’s firm request that there should be “no overacting!” (he needn’t have worried), the entire creative side of the project was left on McGorlick’s shoulders.
David McGorlick & DC Cardwell
McGorlick shot the video on a borrowed Canon 7D digital SLR, noted for its ability to impart a “film look”. No extra equipment was used and friends were roped in as actors and crew.
The result was an incredibly profound, thought-provoking and even disturbing statement which took some of the ideas in DC’s award-winning song and cast new light on them.
“I think David is an exciting, emerging talent. I’ve worked with a lot of well known directors and can already see David’s aptitude for storytelling and strong visual sense. Definitely keep an eye on him.” – Michael Garcia, former Creative Vice-President of HBO (Sopranos, Six Feet Under, The Wire, Big Love, True Blood etc.
Marjorie & DC Cardwell's Website 