Just announced… Former Triffids members, Graham Lee and Rob McComb will be playing with The Blackeyed Susans at the Love in Bright Landscapes fundraising gig. And, for the first time since it’s release 20 years ago, they will play the song Blackeyed Susan - never before played live by either The Triffids or Blackeyed Susans. This gig is going to be an absolute ripper.
Emails. Easy to read. Harder to read into. Some make your heart leap, others make them sink. And, happily, some make you think. They’re the best ones. Off to Sydney this weekend to visit one Sally Collins, former Triffids manager. Stay tuned for reports…
Mick Thomas Added to Love in Bright Landscapes Benefit Bill
Fresh the triumphant reunion tour of the legendary Weddings, Parties Anything, MICK THOMAS confirms his appearance at The Corner Hotel June 22!
And…. the ‘voice’ of Triple R”s Sunday afternoons, the man for whom thematic wrangling and tangling is second nature:
Mr Jonnie Von Goes.
LOVE IN BRIGHT LANDSCAPES
A BENEFIT FOR A FILM ABOUT DAVE MCCOMB
CORNER HOTEL, 57 SWAN ST RICHMOND
SUNDAY JUNE 22 DOORS OPEN 6PM
MC: JON VON GOF TRIPLE R’S JVG RADIO RADIO METHOD
COME AND HEAR….
Mr. Charles Jenkins!
Diving Bell
The Mime Set, featuring Mr Sean Whelan who will read a Dave poem to music!
Mr. Mick Thomas
and…. The Blackeyed Susans Trio
We will be auctioning off LOTS OF GREAT STUFF YOU WILL LOVE….. on the day, to raise money to make the film.
SO: come and drink, see the bands, catch up with you fellow friends/fans, enjoy a superb afternoon evening and help us
MAKE OUR FILM.
News Flash!
DAVE MCCOMB FILM BENEFIT
CORNER HOTEL, 57 SWAN ST RICHMOND
SUNDAY JUNE 22
DOORS OPEN 6PM
COME AND HEAR...
Mr. Charles Jenkins
The Diving Bell
The Mime Set, featuring Mr Sean Whelan who will read a Dave poem to music!
The Blackeyed Susans Trio
and MORE TO BE ANNOUNCED SOON!
We will be auctioning off LOTS OF GREAT STUFF YOU WILL LOVE….. on the day, to raise money to make the film.
SO: come and drink, see the bands, catch up with you fellow friends/fans, enjoy a superb afternoon evening and help us MAKE OUR FILM.
MORE NEWS AS IT COMES TO HAND!
Reissues
Because I work for a magazine during the day (www.musicaustraliaguide.com) I have been sent the latest series of Triffids re-issues. Now, I’d admit a certain bias given my all encompassing thirst for all things Dave related… but they are exceptional. They look, sound and feel superb…. As many of you will have read, Treeless Plain has been re-created from its original 8 track (8!) masters by the person who created them in the first place, Nick Mainsbridge (who also produced Dave’s Love of Will). I love the powerful , melodic simplicity of the songs, remembering that TP contains bona fide Dave classics in the form of Red Pony and Hell of a Summer. It also contains the glorious My Baby Thinks She’s A Train (with early ’80s Aus music’s coolest guitar hook; open to hearing a slinkier, tighter, cooler one; nice work R McComb) , a song Lynden Barber was enthused about in Sydney back in January. Beautiful Waste should be bought because it contains one of David’s greatest lyrics combined with one of The Triffids’ finest. most fiery performances in the form of Field of Glass. And it’s never been issued on CD before. Amazing in 2008! BW also contains the Lawson Square Infirmary EP with notes on the story of its recording by James Paterson. G Lee has seen fit – happily – to include some of Dave’s scrawls on inspirational films, songs he wanted to flag for reference when they were recording, etc. So, BW sounds like what it is; a note from the past that tells us something about the time and place from whence it came. Also… that big radio station in Sydney… what ’s it called? 
Back in the day they recorded a live Triffids set (before G Lee joined the band, right on the eve of recording Treeless Plain) containing Old Ghost Rider, My Baby ,Hell of a Summer and more. The opening interview/introduction is a cack. The tongue tied and rather ra ra announcer bounces in with ‘we could call you a Sydney band now couldn’t we?’ , fresh as a daisy. Dave responds by saying “Er…No. We can’t quite grant that honour just yet. But, we are IN Sydney. That’s for sure”
His droll refusal to go along with the schtick goes right over the announcer’s head. Gold. The Black Swan is so deep, messy sprawling and downright interesting I will have to post on this super record another time. It won’t take two months this time. Promise
So; wondering where we’d been? Busy little bees. Bees who should have had more time to blog, but busy none the less. In the wake of Sydney , we re-thought a great deal of the film. Now, we’ve completed a 13,000 word documentary treatment on Love in Bright Landscapes, that we’re going to circulate to key people in David’s life this week for their thoughts. I personally will be quite worried if they all say ‘it’s fine’. But I don’t feel they will somehow….! While the treatment has meant several late night sessions up late accompanied by cheap red and endlessly reinvented Dave/Triffids playlists, it’s been so immersive, so intensive that it’s made me think about every frame of every scene. We’re off to visit The Triffids’ former manager Sally Collins very soon before she jets off OS, and we’ll pop in on James Paterson while we’re in Sydney. Just a little note to tell you we’re alive and that the film is alive and well.
This week a small treasure trove arrived: original pictures of The Triffids from the early ’80s, a copy of Son of Dungeon Tape, original fliers, old press clippings and even gig runsheets from old venues with The Triffids and other bands of the era included on them, featuring special requests such as this gem.
“James Baker is not to be paralytic before 8.30 pm” Johnny Topper , The Pelaco Brothers.
All this came courtesy of Neil Rogers from Triple R’s ‘Australian Mood’ programme. Click on link above to see Neil’s page on the RRR website. I think the fliers could maybe work together as floating montage that are assembled onscreen together like a slowly forming jigsaw puzzle over voiceover/similar.
Jan 17 2008
And onto the second Blackeyed Susan of the day , Mr Phil Kakulas ; possibly the coolest double bassist ever. Today though, we’re starting with Phil’s role as a first and last Triffid – he was in a very early lineup of the band, and then played on a few tracks of their final studio album. Phil was part of the original triumvirate of trouble: comprising himself, Alsy and Dave; Phil brings this sense of history into perspective by casually dropping into conversation that he had photos of David at his 7th birthday party – in 1968. The year of The White Album, Beggars Banquet, the Paris Riots, the Tet Offensive …sorry, I have no idea who won the premiership that year. Four decades ago. The band went for ten years and Dave’s music career 15 or thereabouts. His life ; though far shorter than it should have been, spans so much frantic , energised sheer… TIME. Phil remains a great interview: he’s always been very considered, slyly funny, and rather astute. Take 1 is abandoned due to noise in the venue, so we decamp, at Phil’s suggestion, to PK Towers, floor 55 just around the corner; overcast Sydney stretches around us. Phil – a music teacher – relates a wonderful thought when considering his reaction to hearing the Dalsy tapes for the first time in 30 years , the previous evening, wondering aloud if “anyone should ever have music lessons” because the tapes are so ‘free”. We get more on the story of Dave’s involvement with The Susans and particularly the superb and highly under-rated All Souls Alive (get it if you don’t already own it) ; and some discussion on co-writing takes us only into the fundamentals before time is called and Phil has to report for soundcheck duties. We decide a second interview is in order to delve further into this specific subject. On the way down in the lift I remember my fave Dave show with BES, outside Flowers Vasette in Fitzroy; Dave sort of mooched around during songs he didn’t play on snapping pics of the band. He seemed so breezy and laconic that day. But that’s just a memory. And they are always selective.
Today is dress rehearsal day for the Triffids and friends. Sydney is itself. Indifferent, busy and still captivating to look at the odd moment you have spare to raise your head. I’ve been here so often now over the last decade it’s just like …. urban furniture. Sydney is a place people come to I suppose; they move here from other places to try and reach its people, penetrate their strange superficial ether. The Triffids did – somewhat inevitably – before they decamped to London. It’s wonderful watching this band feel one another out a little bit musically again, hitting their straps as they do it… ; its rehearsal; some notes aren’t hit, some notes are fluffed – ironing these things out are is what rehearsals are FOR. The moments come when a song is tired again a while later and those notes are hit, the solos are nailed, the melodies sing. For all the absence of Dave hanging over the band – that they must surely be feeling somewhat – the brilliance of his songs is driven home run through after run through. In this way, Dave will live longer than a lot of us. Cold comfort to those who’d just rather have him back around no doubt.
So…. to today’s interviews. Rob Snarski. Someone I’ve interviewed a lot over the years. A truly, wonderful singer; it is no exaggeration at all to say that Rob is geuinely gifted; the guy just sings like an angel. Rob knew David in Perth when was in a band called Chad’s Tree and Dave was in The Triffids, and eventually they made records together in The Blackeyed Susans. Rob has forewarned me that he is prepared to speak to us about Dave, but is not keen to answer questions connected specifically to music. This will make this one a little harder, but not impossible. My feeling as we roll is that Rob wants to do a good interview for the film, to perhaps play his part in ensuring an accurate and fair account is given of Dave to the audience. We’re not long in and we break for Rob to have a minute – one we’re perfectly prepared to give him. 9 years on from David’s passing and the emotions float to the surface like that. We must be ever mindful of this with our subjects. I am thankfuk to Rob for his honesty; it’s helping the film already; and it’s a good reality check for us; these people are here because Dave’s not, playing his music. A celebration of him and songs? Certainly; but absence tinges it all with an inevitable sadness. So all we can do now is create a captivating hour and a half that depicts why he was special, unique, timeless and brilliant. And that, is what Danielle and I are going to do.
Recollections from The Shows Part 1 - Jan 16 2008
Today I walked into the Metro Theatre in George St Sydney, and there playing onstage, were The Triffids. Or more accurately, the remaining Triffids, but it was a moment; of course intellectually I had known – and been very excited – by the prospect of hearing those mighty songs in their natural, fully heated and explosive life. Equally I had known that David had died in 1999. But knowing something in your mind is nothing to feeling something intangible and unexpected. Walking in , hearing the bassline for Hell of a Summer, lyrics in the care of Australia’s finest vocalist Rob Snarski (if you think I’m exaggerating, listen to a Blackeyed Susans album, then tell me your argument) , caught me at an unguarded moment. I’ve been listening to Dave sing in my head for two years every day as I ran over his life and this film in my mind ;and I felt his absence very keenly. Not as his fellow musicians would have done, of course; but I had just had to sit for a minute and take it in, and to be quite honest it more difficult than I expected. Oh well poor me; ha – I’m just the guy trying to make the film , Dave wasn’t in MY band for over a decade, it’s these fellas (of both genders) who’ll really be feeling it. If things were different he’d still have stone classic songs falling out of his head and writing his superbly entertaining tour diaries, keeping his bandmates up at night watching late night movies on their hotel rooms’ ‘brocked up colour viewers’ . and all manner of other things. But I feel we must tread carefully.
Two things occur to me at odd moments. 1) Dave might have enjoyed blogging; he was nut for lists, diaries, and screeds of correspondence. 2) He would have loved the tv show Black Books.
5pm
Soundcheck continues. They’re all rolling out of the speakers. Red Pony, Save What You Can, Bury Me Deep in Love … it’s all moderately surreal. Rob McComb – Dave’s brother and the Triffids’ guitarist – has begun to express a cautious interest. After politely and gently drilling me on why I was interested and who Danielle and I have spoken to, he’s being very supportive, introducing us to people to whom he thinks we should speak. G Lee is as enigmatic as ever, directing operations behind his pedal steel , he’s solely focused on the show, as you’d expect. I think if you look up the word ‘inscrutable’ in the dictionary you see a picture of Graham. David used to call him Ted, as in Teddy Bear. His other more widely known nickname is ‘evil’, because he’s not. Evil Teddy Bear. I feel a DVD extra coming on already.
My old radio friends The Blackeyed Susans arrive. Not we’ve ever done radio shows together, more that I’ve had them on to talk about their records and shows more than any other band over 14 years with Triple R (Melbourne’s independent broadcaster - http://www.rrr.org.au) ; Phil Kakulas and Rob Snarski formed the BES with Dave as a kind of holiday band in the late ’80s and despite Dave leaving in 1994 , the band have powered on with a series of acclaimed records. One of my fave Australian acts of all time (s!)
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