A Change in Attitude?

I’ve been staying off Facebook more and more these days. Even more so at the moment, for as much as I appreciate the “Taormina Team” all being excited and ridiculously enthusiastic about being over there for those final shows, it will be all I’ll see if I open up Facebook and dare step in. I just don’t need it. I’m not begrudging anyone’s pleasure, I just prefer not to be swamped by “Tao this and Tao that.” Rather them than me sweltering in the high thirties Celsius for a miserly sixteen-song set. It’s never been my “holy grail” and never will be. Honestly, you’d think it was the lost island of Atlantis the way they go on about it. 

I digress!

Last night I stumbled onto watching some uploads from a YouTube channel I’m subscribed to called Tassie TV. This content uploader has several old Countdown episodes there, including that one from July 1982 where Molly is in Berlin interviewing Jim (he’ll always be ‘Jim’ at that point in time for me – otherwise he’s just ‘Kerr’). 

They’d just uploaded some new content. Some old VHS footage from January 1st, 2000. Seemingly through the night Channel 7 played the 100 greatest Australian songs as videos. Some obviously had no music video to play, so they just listed these at the end of a block of ones they could show.

One of the videos played was a song by Kids in the Kitchen called ‘Change in Mood.’ It was HUGE at the time. I kinda liked it at the time but I wasn’t overly gone on it. I guess I found it a bit…mid. Also, I just couldn’t get a handle on the lyrics. I misheard so much with that song! Lol. It wasn’t until many years later could I actually clearly decipher what vocalist Scott Carne was singing. 

As it played I was thinking “You know what? This is REALLY very good. Why did I feel at the time it was released that it was so…meh? Why couldn’t I hear how fabulous it actually is?” Watching Carne’s moves in the video as well, and looking at his clothes, he really came across as a blend of early 80s Jim Kerr meets Simon Le Bon. The moves and clothes were Kerr but the looks (and more the voice too) were Le Bon. I could appreciate why he was just EVERYWHERE in the music press at the time. Girls went apeshit over him and I just didn’t get it at the time, I was too transfixed on Bono at that point. Lol. Hmmm…who had the better taste in hindsight, hey girls? 

I think the only thing that really let bands like Kids in the Kitchen, Real Life and Pseudo Echo down was the time they arrived. The whole synth-pop/new wave thing had largely been and gone in the UK by the time these guys came along in Oz, thus stamping that feeling of Australia in some respects being a musical backwater. Although it definitely had its positives with its live scene being second to none. Every band could play their asses off live – I’m sure that as such synth-pop beauties as Kids in the Kitchen were aesthetically, you bet your bottom dollar they would have sounded great live. I mean, they even had Sterling Campbell playing for them for a brief spell! 

And so, I found myself caught up in the nostalgia of watching and listening to the music I grew up with at the arse end of the world. Other observations that came to me last night while watching the first two parts of the seven parts that Tassie TV has this thing broken up into: 

I wish I could see Crowded House again (they played ‘Don’t Dream it’s Over’). They were so fantastic at the Hydro in 2022. I’d love to see them again. How tragic it was that we lost Paul Hester so long ago. And just what an amazing musician and songwriter Neil Finn is. 

What a banging tune Christine Anu’s ‘Party’ is. 

The Cruel Sea were just a banging band. So bluesy and just…I don’t know…fabulous. I would love watching Tex Perkins perform. I loved seeing those guys live. So accomplished! Having their song ‘Black Stick’ as my alarm song when I was going to work before moving to the UK. Seeing Tex with new eyes, coming across as a blend of Jim Morrison and Iggy Pop but also quintessentially Tex. Remembering all the words to ‘The Honeymoon is Over’ even though I probably haven’t heard it for a good decade or more, and then probably a decade before that. 

Hearing ‘Who Listens to the Radio’ by The Sports and being stunned that I’d never really taken in how much Stephen Cummings sounded like/parodied Elvis Costello and then wondering who actually came first on the music scene – Cummings or Costello? It transpires they were very much contemporaries. The Sports even released a song called ‘Boys! (What Did the Detective Say?)’ which sounds like it lends its title directly from ‘Watching the Detectives,’ right?

How I was dismissive when the Wedding, Parties, Anything song ‘Father’s Day’ started, but how much I had U-turned on my feelings by the end of the video/song. I could see why it was so huge at the time. Such an anthem for any estranged father. I think I always had such mixed feelings about the song but it always seemed to manage to win me round every time. 

I look forward to see what else will be played in the sections to come. It was a great way to while away some time. It was a wonderful distraction. 

Alas…the latest Simple Minds tour ends today. It seems to have been a success. I still can’t help but think a lot of smoke and mirrors was involved in making the North American tour seem more successful than it actually was. Not to mention a lot of bargain sale tickets. Anyway…whatever. Congrats to them on their success. 

“Whether you travelled one mile or one thousand,” Kerr said when thanking the fans on a post a couple of days back. From Pacific Quay to the far entrance on Paisley Road West for Bellahouston Park, I walked around 4 miles there and back. I lost my left big toenail as a result. Was it worth it? I still keep asking myself that question – so the fact I keep asking it might just be the answer…

Also the fact that in the past I would be absolutely itching to see them again straight after a show. Or more to the fact, would be getting maudlin about halfway through, dreading its impending end. This time that didn’t happen. Thinking about it, I don’t think that happened after the two Hydro shows last year. It certainly didn’t happen this year. The only change I’ve seen in recent times that has made me feel a wee bit jealous is FINALLY (at fucking last!) the dropping of Sannfy from the setlist. Looooooong overdue in my opinion but far too late for me to enjoy it. Damn!

Also, there is absolutely no PGD (Post Gig Depression) to speak of in relation to Simple Minds at all. And the only pangs of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) I’ve had was on Friday night, knowing that the ticket I bought to see Ist Ist in Huddersfield was now going to waste because I had decided not to travel to the gig several weeks back. I deemed it too much of an expense knowing that I will get to see them here in Glasgow in November. 

As for the immediate future? Currently I am working on some… cosmetic re-edits (great band name!) to the book that the publishers want sorting before heading off for publication. 

I’m also counting the days until my next Hamish Hawk encounter at North Berwick in just under two weeks time. I’m also organising a trip to Newcastle to see Warm Digits in the second weekend of October. I’ll consider it an early birthday present. Cannae wait for that one!

And still, I keep pondering what to do with this website! No real answers are forthcoming. And now the latest tour has all but ended, things will go quiet. I guess maybe we’ll have three months of drip-fed snippets from ‘Our Questionable Memories Are the Same’ to look forward to? Who knows? We’ll see.

Answers on a ‘with Compliments’ slip.