It was an uncomfortable night with the promise of a 41
degree day. I think Lady senses this too
as she seems especially anxious for her 6 am walk. I’m slow to rise at the best of times and my
mind thought is to find something to shake me awake and ideally cover the
walk. I drag out my iPod, scroll through
and find something that fits the bill.
Sonic Youth – Dirty Boots EP
I never play the single edit of Dirty Boots from this which
originally appeared on Goo. The rest of
the EP is 25 minutes of the band at their absolute live best. Recorded in November 1990, only Dirty Boots
gets a look in from the then current album. Epic versions of White Kross,
Eric’s Trip and Cinderella’s Big Score precede it and the aural assault culminates
with a terrific instrumental called The Bedroom.
As I walk, I muse about the upcoming day. Authorities are warning that the weather
conditions have the potential to ignite mass bushfires on a scale similar or greater
than on Black Friday, 7 February 2009. My mind casts back to then and I remember a
number of things that I choose to suppress apart from one thing. It was a Neil Young gig at the Myer Music
Bowl, 10 days prior to that, unquestionably the hottest, most uncomfortable gig
I’d ever attended. I remember that from
practically the moment I entered the grounds my main, or to be precise only, consideration
was to remain hydrated. Like us, My
Morning Jacket struggled in the heat but at least Neil had the advantage of going
on around sunset. Even so, I persist
through Neil’s wonderful performance. By
the time he’s hit the xylophone, marking the end of his audacious cover of the
Beatles A Day In The Life, as well as the gig, my personal sense of relief is
surpassed only by fellow band member Pegi [aka Mrs Neil] Young’s. They walk off together showing mutual concern,
tenderness and defiance. Only the 2011
Big Day Out at Flemington Racecourse comes close. The early hours required ingenuity to get through
but the organisers had plenty of compensatory shade and water on hand. In any case, a relieving cool change emerges
just in time for The Stooges, Rammstein and Tool.
To further keep my mind off the weather as I walk I try to
think of sweaty indoor gigs. I remember
Soundgarden’s monumental January 1994 gig at the sweatbox that was the now
demolished Palace nightclub in St Kilda
at which I resorted to sitting on the counter of a closed bar in order to catch
the freeze blasts of the beer store
behind as staff opened it to retrieve supplies.
Then there was a Church gig at the HiFi Bar, of all things, an underground
venue, where the oppressive heat resulted in the only time I walked out of one
of the gigs prematurely. Finally and
ironically my mind goes back to The Cowboy Junkies only appearance in Melbourne
in February 1999 at The Palais Theatre.
I wonder whether the Timmins’ equate Melbourne with extreme heat from
their snowbound homes in Canada and smile.
By this stage its time to get back home for more napping and
movies. I also find time to catch up on
more listening.
BOB DYLAN – The Witmark Demos: 1962-1964 (The Bootleg Series
Vol. 9)
On the face of it, you’d think that this is one for the
Dylanologists only. This double disc
contains the first known demos of Dylan’s work, made solely for publishing
purposes. (Given Bob’s preference to record most of his
material in just a handful of takes, these could possibly constitute the only
known Dylan demos.) A lot of the
material is well known to anyone familiar to early Dylan. Almost
every track is Dylan armed with just a guitar with colour coming solely from a
harmonica and, occasionally, Dylan’s explanations of words or phrases that
should be included with the song to be published. The only difference is on the final two
tracks, Mr. Tambourine Man and I’ll Keep It With Mine which are played on
piano. These are worth the price of
admission alone but the overall package functions well in providing an overview
of Dylan, the “folk singer”. Sit back,
let the music flow and be amazed at how a then almost totally unknown artist
could have built up such a formidable arsenal.
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