Hard News by Russell Brown

Back in 1990, just after SJF released Melt, Radio Massey played a three hour show dedicated to the band and its antecedents. The ones that really hit home that night (and on subsequent listenings, oh the joy of taping stuff off the radio) were I Don't Get It (that bass line!), I Don't Wanna See You Again (I have never managed to decipher the lyric) and Randolf's Going Home (what a drummer Jeffries is).

Anyway, a year or so later, after I'd lost the tape, I was looking around for the Getting Older comp cos I knew it had Randolf on it, but I came across this weird other CD called Xpressway Pile=Up. To paraphrase the Simpsons, I recognised some of the names on the back, but they just didn't make any sense. I ended up buying the Xpressway CD and it was a revelation. Big Fat Elvis, I Don't Wanna See You Again, but also Death & Weirdness in the Surfing Zone, On An Unknown Beach, The Mekong Delta Blues. That CD literally changed my life, and it was down to Elsey & Carter on that Radio show. A few years later I found the Xpressway ep How Much Time Left, Please and that is back on my portable record player scaring the kids and the neighbours.

I was saddened to read about Wayne's death in Roy Colbert's liner notes (and in Stranded in Paradise) and it's hardly a comfort to his friends & family that he left such great music behind for the rest of us. The page at the back of that Real Groove with brief obits for Wayne, David D'ath, Johnny Pierce etc is particularly moving. How young they all were.

Cool! Yeah I discovered Double Happys on Pile=Up too, and Nocturnal Projections - its'a great, great compilation. Love the Stephen Kilroy track on it. And 'Unknown Beach' is the best thing Peter Jeffries has done solo I reckon - for me almost an alternative national anthem, I don't know how it got missed off those "Nature's Best" CDs - administrative oversight surely ; )

And - lets not forget - how great The Stones (apart from anything else, one of the bestest, cheekiest band names ever) were, and how deserving of a reissue - FMR please please.

Wayne: Okay, it's getting late ... what do you want?

Shayne: "Happiness. That's what I want."

Wayne: "You mean you're not happy now?"

Shayne: "Yeah, but if I was twice as happy, I'd be ... twice as happy."

John: "Can I say something really cosmic?"

Go ahead!

John"I'd like to be godlike but not immortal. How's that?"

Patricia: What is your greatest ambition in life?
Parvulesco: To become immortal... and then die.

À bout de souffle (1960)

Just found this story by accident, rather good.