All posts tagged icons

  • December 13, 2010

    Mess+Noise ‘icons’ interview: ‘Lawrence English + ROOM40’, December 2010

    An interview for the Mess+Noise ‘icons’ series. Excerpt below.

    Lawrence English and ROOM40

    In an age of disconnect, Lawrence English still believes in the life-affirming power of new sounds. It’s what’s kept his label ROOM40 going for 10 years, writes ANDREW MCMILLEN.

    If you’re an experimental sound artist looking to distribute your music internationally, no matter where you’re based, the name Lawrence English is bound to crop up in your research. English [pictured right – kind of] has operated the label ROOM40 out of his home in Brisbane since 2000, or, in his own words, he’s delivered “sound parcels from the antipodes since the turn of the century”. Such is the man’s reputation for courteous professionalism, kindness and amiability among the world’s non-mainstream music community that he could well front a Tourism Queensland campaign for international relations.

    “The six degrees separation thing in this particular field, I think, is much less than six. Even your top level guys, your Brian Enos, the degrees of separation, are like two or three at the most,” English says. “One of my very good friends, Ben Frost, is Eno’s current mentee. We put out Ben’s first album. There’s this great flow-on effect. I think the really good thing about this particular area is it is really like an extended family, in the best way possible, not in the kind of squabbling way.”

    English’s greatest passion appears to be sharing interesting sounds with others. As far as I can gauge, this is why ROOM40 exists. Every release is a labour of love, carefully choreographed with a selection of artists hand-picked from around the globe. ROOM40’s Australian releases over the years include John Chantler, Chris Abrahams (of The Necks) and Rod Cooper.

    “I’m a big believer in that generally in music, there’s enough room for everyone to do their thing and to find an audience. The kind of competitive, closed spaces that sometimes happen with more contemporary music – I just don’t believe in that because I think there’s plenty of room for Big Day Out, for Soundwave, for all these major festivals. I believe in open systems. The cycle of the fringes to the centre and back around again; that’s what keeps it interesting.”

    As 2010 marks ROOM40’s 10th anniversary, I dropped into English’s home in Kelvin Grove, a suburb of Brisbane, to discuss its past, present and future.

    I’ve read that you consider ROOM40 not just as a label, but a multi-arts organisation, which encompasses the label, distribution, promoting shows – what else?

    Festivals, art curation, and art installation. It started as an umbrella so it was like the label publishing editions and all that kind of stuff; the opportunity to bring people to Australia and send Australia overseas, like a kind of cycle thing … We’ve had some great international artists. Christian Marclay was here a few years ago in Melbourne at ACMI [Australian Centre for the Moving Image]. But we are yet to see that celebration of contemporary sound culture or a kind of connective thing – this thing is, for most Australian musicians in this area, their profile is overseas. Someone like Oren Ambarchi, for example, that guy’s touring in every other country. He plays in Australia maybe three times a year or something. He might play 50 shows. The same for me: I played two shows this year and by the end of the year I’ll have played like 30 or 40 something. Ninety percent of them will not be in Australia. It’s just because the opportunities are elsewhere and Australia is just one of a number of countries that you can go to.

    For the full interview, visit Mess+Noise. Thanks for being one of the most interesting people I know, Lawrence. For more info on ROOM40, visit their website.

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  • December 2, 2010

    Mess+Noise ‘icons’ interview: Mick Turner of Dirty Three, December 2010

    A two-part interview for the Mess+Noise ‘icons’ series. Excerpt below.

    Mick Turner: ‘Icons’ interview

    In the first installment of a two-part interview, ANDREW MCMILLEN talks to Mick Turner about his early days with the Moodists and Venom P Stinger, his distinctive style of playing and how his life changed when he joined the Dirty Three.

    Mick Turner’s shadow looms large over the Australian musical landscape, not just due to his considerable height but also through his distinctive six-string contributions over the past 30-odd years to acts as diverse as Dirty Three, Venom P. Stinger, The Moodists and The Sick Things, not to mention the material released under his own name. Besides his music, Turner’s distinctive painting style has appeared on Dirty Three album covers and, more recently, hung on walls in public exhibitions.

    I caught up with Mick the day after a rare solo show at the Lofly Hangar in Brisbane in June, alongside collaborators Jeffrey Wegener and Ian Wadley. When I join him at Ric’s in the Fortitude Valley, he’s digging into spicy beef noodle salad and orange juice. I’m early, so while he eats, we discuss last night’s show, Australian politics (Julia Gillard had just become prime minister overnight, to national surprise) and sport (neither of us give much of a shit) before relocating next door to Kaliber, a quieter spot with a courtyard. Mick’s sinuses are playing up, but he stays and talks for an hour-and-a-half. Much like his guitar parts in the Dirty Three, however, it takes a while for him to warm up.

    A loose kind of style

    How do you feel about music this year, Mick? Are you still as excited about it as you were when you started?
    I am. I suppose it’s a constantly evolving kind of thing as an artist. My inspiration hasn’t stopped. I’m still trying to make that great record that I’ll probably never make.

    When did you first become interested in music? Did you play as a child?
    I inherited my brothers’ and sisters’ record collections. They were quite a bit older than me; when I was seven or eight-years-old, and I just became a very avid music fan very early on. I started teaching myself to play guitar when I was 13.

    Was there a point where you just decided to throw yourself into a career in music?
    I’ve had a couple of periods where music is all I’ve done for a living. One was early on with The Moodists. We went to live in England in 1983. That just happened because the offer was there. They asked me join at the time they were just about to go. I think I was on the dole. We scraped by for two years over there nearly starving but it was a lot of fun. I left The Moodists, after we returned to Australia in 1985. I kept playing music, but had started doing day jobs, of course. Then in 1993 Dirty Three started making more money than I was earning in my job – I had been working in the CSIRO library for quite a few years. I made an active decision to quit that work and just do music.

    You’ve been playing with Jim White for over 20 years. I’m interested to know what you see when you look across the kit at him while you’re playing music together.
    Jim’s a great player, he’s totally unique. I don’t know anyone who plays like him. He’s kept working at it determinedly for so long and he’s very on top of it now, and he’s got a very singular vision of where he’s going with his music. He’s very serious about it, but it’s great. I have a lot of admiration for Jim. He’s bit of a celebrity in NYC where he lives now, known as one of the world’s great drummers.

    For the full interview, visit Mess+Noise: part one, part two. Thanks to Mick for being a thoughtful and engaging interview subject.

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  • May 27, 2010

    Mess+Noise ‘Icons’ interview feature: Robert Forster, May 2010

    My first feature for the Mess+Noise ‘Icons’ series, wherein Australian musicians of cultural significance are profiled at length. In this case, it’s a three-part story that consists of two hours in conversation with Robert Forster.

    Brisbane-based singer, songwriter and journalist Robert ForsterIcons: Robert Forster

    In the first of a three-part interview with Robert Forster – spanning his years in The Go-Betweens, his solo career and his new life as a producer and rock critic – ANDREW MCMILLEN chats to the Brisbane icon about his early years in The Gap, the Bjelke-Peterson regime and meeting longtime collaborator Grant McLennan.

    A group called The Go-Betweens emerged from Brisbane in the late 1970s. One half of its songwriting core was an arts student at the University Of Queensland named Robert Forster. With a head full of ambition, a desire for glamour and a hard-earned talent for writing pop songs, Forster would – alongside his best friend, Grant McLennan – eventually lead the band to cultivate a significant, yet disparate following across the world. While there was a decade-long gap in the band’s history during the 1990s, when both songwriters pursued solo careers, critical applause was loudest following the release of what would become The Go-Betweens’ ninth and final album, 2005’s Oceans Apart. A year later, McLennan passed away in his sleep, aged 48. Forster knew immediately that the band’s career was over.

    Since The Go-Betweens’ demise, Forster has occupied himself with an ongoing solo career – 2008’sThe Evangelist, his first solo effort in 12 years, was widely noted as among his best work – and an unexpected entrance into music journalism via an invite from The Monthly. That regular album review column led to the publication of his first book The Ten Rules Of Rock And Roll (2009, Black Inc Publications), a collection of his best reviews, and some additional prose, both fiction and non-fiction.

    On a rainy morning in May, I meet with Forster at a bakery nearby his home in The Gap, a suburb to the west of Brisbane. He had been briefed by his manager that I intended to discuss his career at length for this piece, and he more than played his part, proving an amicable conversationalist and answering my many questions thoughtfully and at length. Midway through our conversation, he pauses the interview and asks about the reliability of my digital voice recorder, as he’s looking to purchase one for future journalistic endeavours.

    As we talk, I come to realise that – although he denies as much during our interview – Forster’s exaggerated, livewire stage manner is very near to the off-stage persona he presents. Both sides of the man are informed by a relentless undercurrent of dry humour, deeply rooted in a sense of irony. He often responds in triplets – “Yeah yeah yeah”, or “No no no” – before confirming or clarifying my research. We speak for more than 90 minutes at the bakery, before he realises he’s late for a meeting. Three days later, Forster again slips into interview mode over the telephone with the ease of a man who has spent the majority of his adult life in the public eye.

    Full interview at Mess+Noise in three parts: part one here, part two here, part three here.

    Researching, conducting and editing this interview is the highlight of my journalistic career thus far, as I alluded to in my interview with Plus One. Speaking with Robert was a true pleasure.

    [Further reading: Forster in conversation with John Willsteed at Brisbane bookstore Avid Reader in November 2009.]

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