Music

 

Music

 

It’s raining hard when we get to Warrnambool. I cut the family loose and get on with helping the Monaros make a film clip in the cattle yards, involving a throaty old F100, me in a wrestling suit and copious beer, and suddenly, it’s 1am and I’m at the drummer’s place.

 

Jack and I are talking about his band, it’s 23 years of pub rock and punk, 6 albums, with seventh on the way. Their relentless, if not iconic, punk and pub rock. The fact no great success never once stopped them. Then we trade live music stories, then simply talk about music, while bleeding his mighty vinyl collection dry.

 

We meet each band eye-to-eye, equals to anyone. The Stones, Beatles, Dylan, White Stripes, Black Keys, both Buckleys, all the edgeless troupes, not a mention. Cosmic Psychos, Patti Smith, meh. Great bands, old news, phases. We are the judge, the jury, we hone it down. This band, overrated, that, too much like the other. Grindhouse? Hell, that’s the guts!

 

All his records, a lifetime’s music obsession, we mine for rarities, take journeys through obscurity. If it’s there, we play it.

 

Soon, though, slab down, we focus.

 

“I loved Amyl and the Sniffers, but now they’re too smooth. I’ll play some early shit.”

 

“Why? I’ve heard it. Come on, throw me.”

 

To which Jack smiles wryly.

 

“Have you listened to Nomeansno before?”

 

We explore, while fish-drinking sweet, poison, using bourbon as oil to our motor, as we take music with us, not the other way around.

 

We own, lord over it. Snake under it.

 

“Crack Cloud?” I ask, to change the direction.

 

“Never heard of them,” Jack says, eyebrows raised.

 

We give them a play, then Billy Nomates, just because.

 

From new, we go old. Bunker Hill and Link Wray, 1962. A deep South preacher who could wail, teaming up with a junkie native American guitarist from Heaven who only had one lung. Billygoat, to this day, as good a song as I’ve ever heard.

 

We trade stories about gigs we missed, regrets.

 

I was on track to go on a three-day bender with Jesse Hughes from the Eagles of Death Metal but let myself get distracted by a woman who was three-quarters tattoos, 4 quarters love.

 

Jack travelled half the country to look at a vinyl collection, but stopped for a shit first, only to see a man buying the lot for peanuts, create after create, old and new classics, rarities, sample pressings.

 

I waited a lifetime to see Link Wray tour Australia. A fucking lifetime! Drove to the city, happy, horny, delirious, only to be told I got my days wrong, he played yesterday. Then the bastard died a month later!

 

I know better than to play him any raw 60s black female soul singers, or Medicine Head, or any of my poke around the edges of country, and he doesn’t bore me with yet more Swedish metal like the Hellacopters. Yet there’s still an endless road of the familiar and unknown we have in common.

 

It must be around 3am when we progress to instruments, starting with drums, via YouTube. In “I Know I’m Losing You” Davie Jones from the Faces is handy, better than Jack, but no rocket, and we’re aiming to find a fucking moon.

 

Ian Paice from Deep Purple let’s loose a drum-solo every time the lead singer starts a verse.

 

“It’s too much,” Jack says.

 

“No great fan,” I agree, but wanted another drummer’s opinion. I love the way Paice’s perpetually saying; Up yours, I’m the goddamn lead, to the rest of the band, even if less so the result.

 

Which triggers some other dumb music story.

 

All of it, the night, reminding me of years ago, after a music festival the Monaros played, on a 1am porch, trading story after story with Jack, about anything, everything, until we realised there was a circle of 50 people listening. Random kids, stopping one-by-one, on their way to after parties. Older crew heading home. Other bands, footballers. Curious neighbours.

 

The two of us, yarn-for-yarn, give good get good. Short and punchy. Ali and Fraser. Not a word said by others.

 

As a storyteller, my finest hour.

 

Soon, we’re not even playing full songs, just the best bits, sampling riffs, lyrics, the gist, giving up comfort to explore. We talk about musicians that we know, that we don’t , Gods, villains, putting them in tales that define them, for better, for worse. Not one story a repeat told anyways.

 

We drink the fridge to bloody, cold death, knowing life speeds up, that it will be months or years before we do this again as if tonight was only yesterday.
Or the previous hour.

 

“Fuck it, fart sack,” Jack says, some time near nowhere.

 

His music room is a cave, a temple. A place of worship and thanks. Having used it to make time stop countless times, it’s now time to go.

 

We finish with a flurry. Playing everything at once, holding our thumbs up, down and sideways.

 

Thank you Jack, for, in a world of music, my most favourite band of all time.

 

For the Monaros.

 

 

More from Matt Zurbo HERE.

 

 

Read more stories from Almanac Music  HERE

 

If you would like to receive the Almanac Music and Poetry newsletter we will add you to the list. Please email us: [email protected]

 

To return to the www.footyalmanac.com.au  home page click HERE

 

Our writers are independent contributors. The opinions expressed in their articles are their own. They are not the views, nor do they reflect the views, of Malarkey Publications.

 

Do you enjoy the Almanac concept?
And want to ensure it continues in its current form, and better? To help keep things ticking over please consider making your own contribution.

 

Become an Almanac (annual) member – CLICK HERE
One-off financial contribution – CLICK HERE
Regular financial contribution (monthly EFT) – CLICK HERE