a Golden Rule for Powderfinger

''If you had your time over again, would you do it all the same, down
through all the twists and bends...'' - Powderfinger: 'Sail the Wildest Stretch' from the new album Golden Rule

Powderfinger have been at my side since around 1998. Initially it was involuntarily that their music was on my radar. Internationalist came out that year, but I wouldn't discover the entire album until 2003. The Day You Come was a favourite with the then ubiquitous Triple J albums.

But what's not to love about these Aussie rockers? Named after Neil Young's famous tune Powderfinger. Poignant lyricists. Modern rock'n'rollers. They are unfailingly passionate about music and dedicated patriots of Australia. Policitical when politics needs a shake up, dedicated to causes that support humanity: "musicians have a guilty conscience in general about their lives being quite good and tend to be aware of social issues" (Bernard Fanning, Nov. 07).

These blokes have integrity. Having been at the centre of a few racial outbursts (the Black Tears we hear on Dream Days at The Hotel Existence is not the Black Tears that Fanning et al penned for original studio sessions...apparently a bit too political for the record label), from what I have read and heard over last decade, Powderfinger tend to be fairly level headed when it comes to defending their stance on politics, and in particular indigenous issues in Australia. But that's for another post...

I suppose what I adore about Powderfinger really does come back to the music. They clutch onto the blues, (particularly with Since You've Been Gone which Fanning wrote for his brother) singing with a voice that captures heartwarming and heartbreaking moments. There is conviction in songs like Who Really Cares (featuring The Sound of Insanity), Love Your Way and Up and Down and Back Again. Waiting for the Sun, the opening track to the album Odyssey Number Five (2005) and Vulture Street's 2003 single On My Mind make rock'n'roll accessible to those who enter the realm with caution. Powderfinger, when I first 'discovered' them, was almost too 'heavy' for me. This was clearly before I stopped listening to the radio and ventured into the depth of grunge and dabbled in the tastes of my older cousins and friends back home.

When it was announced the lads were playing at the Big Day Out, I a) presumed an album was about to be released ('shib!' I screeched) and b) made the call to attend my first (and no doubt last) Big Day Out in 2010.

Golden Rule is...interesting. The opening track El Camino De La Muerta reminds me not of Powderfinger but of Ray La Montagne's Meg White before turning into some sort of instrumental 30 seconds of Tourism Australia music. At 42 seconds we are then launched into classic Powderfinger- Bernard coming in a few bars after that distinct sound the lads have developed with basic electric guitar and brassy drums. They have these rather confronting lyrics that still have room for compassion. A Fight About Money at the moment disappoints me. It's reminiscent of late model Snow Patrol and that hideous Save the City blah blah blah rubbish. Sail the Wildest Stretch though returns to the ballad-that-builds-to-a-peak that the guys do so well, while closing title track Golden Rule seems to have drawn inspiration from Pink Floyd. Bernard maintains a slight monotone in parts that reminds me of the Time's 'quiet desperation is the English way', and Poison in Your Mind harks back to the hiatus driven solo album of Fanning's (Tea and Sympathy)...a really pretty sub 3 minute track that you can't help but repeat 3 times over easily! Think it Over has a feature in music that sucks me in every time- a choir of sorts coming in half through the track. There is nothing so uplifting as a chorus of voices to lead you in to a little guitar solo. In this case there's a cute little marching drum beat as well, and the whole end of the song is quite an experience!

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All in all, I guess Golden Rule is well timed for summer with its release. I'm not sure it's the best effort from the best band of our time, but blind partiality is probably a vice of mine at times, and Odyssey Number 5 changed my life, as did Tea & Sympathy. Well, that's an outrageous claim, but it is these two albums that are dearest to my heart.

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I'll let you guys discover the rest of the album in peace!

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Until next time,

L.

Woodstock: an American music odyssey

40 years ago in mid August, the world's biggest festival took place in upstate New York on a farm belonging to dairy farmer Max Yasgur. 500,000 people (approximately) attended Woodstock from August 15th-18th, 1969.

Woodstock, as we all do and/or should know was the festival that flower children attended and, in short, did whatever they wanted for three days while some of the generation's most important acts played. Free love, drugs and rolling around in mud seemed to be the three headlining actions.

Cocker, Joplin, Baez, CCR, Hendrix, The Who, Ten Years After, The Band (I always thought Bob Dylan was in The Band as WELL as Travelling Wilburys later on: wrong, he just did some gigs with them), Jefferson Airplane, CSNY (and these are merely the artists I love/know well)- despite some bands/musicians not playing who you'd think would have (Dylan, Joni Mitchell, The Doors, The Byrds), Woodstock remains almost a household name even in today's society, such is the impact it has had. It's an excellent example of entrepeneurial skills, depsite the chaotic financial implications it had for the organisers, the town of Bethel, Yasgur and the musicians. According to the trusty Wikipedia article, Creedence frontman John Fogerty agreed to play for $10,000, however they declined to be filmed for the Woodstock film/documentary.

Foresight. Or lack of. What was Fogso up to?! Having created a new genre of rock that adopted blues and roots as part of its make up ('swamp rock'), and having just hit the big time, no doubt the record label was whispering in his ear and telling him that Woodstock was merely a token appearance, one of many that they had made that year.

I don't think it helped that despite being a 'headline act', they were scheduled to play at 3am. Rough.

"We were ready to rock out and we waited and waited and finally it was our turn... ...there were a half million people asleep. These people were out. It was sort of like a painting of a Dante scene, just bodies from hell, all intertwined and asleep, covered with mud. And this is the moment I will never forget as long as I live: a quarter mile away in the darkness, on the other edge of this bowl, there was some guy flicking his Bic*, and in the night I hear, "Don't worry about it John. We're with you." I played the rest of the show for that guy."

Clearly a poignant yet scintillating moment for Fogerty.

*By the way, the dude's 'Bic' was nothing dodgy, nor a ball point pen, but a lighter.

Just, imagine paying $12 for, I don't know, Glastonbury, Falls Festival (as an aside, Melburnians, your lineup for Falls this year is not too shabby, albeit more 'alty' than usual), or the Big Day Out. Hell, even Parachutes or the now defunct Sweetwaters (imagine bringing that bad boy of an NZ festival back. Brilliant). Apparently, and this is according to a music lover slash economist, that now equates to (still only) around US$105 which takes into consideration 'adjusting for purchasing power', and 'US$75 after adjusting for inflation'

.............................................................Original Swamp rockers Creedence Clearwater Revival

The Inimitable Janis Joplin

It was still early days in terms of radicalism for many folk in the Bethel/Woodstock area, and Yasgur was not liked for condoning the hippie behaviour via permission to rent his farm. It's hilarious considering the stereotype of Jewish people that he was quickly renowned for being hippie-ish himself by allowing 'free water' and giving away a plethora of supplies to those who flocked to the festival: "I hear you are considering changing the zoning law to prevent the festival. I hear you don't like the look of the kids who are working at the site. I hear you don't like their lifestyle. I hear you don't like they are against the war and that they say so very loudly. . . I don't particularly like the looks of some of those kids either. I don't particularly like their lifestyle, especially the drugs and free love."

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After this point Yasgur gets a tad cheesy American, so forgive me for taking liberty and axing all the God Bless America blah. I am excited though about Ang Lee's gumption with making the film Taking Woodstock, starring Emile Hirsch (Into The Wild) and Demetri Martin (see his website here)...

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I think half the things that people, my age, back in the sixties stood for are either irrelevant today or taken for granted. Dress, speech, music, relationships, art, education.

I mentioned to someone the other day that I was always disappointed I never partook in a march to protest something, anything apart from "No Fee Increase for Students" at university.

Timothy Leary I reckon nails on the head what the Hippy movement meant to him, and indeed many who were hippies or lived alongside them:

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"Hippies started the ecology movement. They combated racism. They liberated sexual stereotypes, encouraged change, individual pride, and self-confidence. They questioned robot materialism. In four years they managed to stop the Vietnam War. They got marijuana decriminalized in fourteen states during the Carter Administration."

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Peace.

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L.

PS. Some hilarious Woodstock yarns can be read here