JTE, ILY.

Oh lord, oh lord, oh my word. 

I'm in love. 

This guy. 

THIS GUY. 

Son of Steve Earle, named for Townes Van Zandt. Looks a bit like Hank Williams with more tattoos. Sort of. My, oh my. Justin Townes Earle.

I'm not exaggerating in the slightest when I say I've had his tunes playing on repeat at work. Over and over and over again. Especially this one, one song that punches me right in the chest, "Nothing's Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now". The album of the same name was the feature record on the PBS breakfast show a couple weeks ago. It was during my morning slog through the traffic that my ears first sighed at the sound of his voice. What a stroke of luck then, that he was playing just as I disgustedly switched over from Triple J at the sound of The Hilltop Hoods. Thank you PBS, that's all I can say, thank you PBS and thank you JJJ. Indeed, I've found myself switching from Triple J to PBS with increasing frequency of late. Call it a a growing aversion to Australian hip hop and other similar brands of mediocrity. Similarly, the radio at work now very rarely sits on the JJJ dial. Unfortunate for the Js I guess, but they should have thought about that before they began to morph into some commercialised monstrosity. But I digress. My apologies. My disillusionment with Triple J is not the point of this post. 

The point of this post is to share exactly how amazing Justin Townes Earle is. Amazing talented, amazing and heart-breaking. And damn fine to look at too, in my opinion. If you ask me (and I know you do), this is what modern country should be. The right amount of twang, the right amount of badassery, of misery, of romance. Oh, boy. And. AND. Get this. What's completely torturous is that he's playing in St Kilda, tonight. TONIGHT. I could potentially make it there if I leave now. I COULD MAKE IT.

Unfortunately, I'm a little low as far as dosh is concerned. Parking fines, replacement Doc Martens (RIP), tickets to various things (before I realised how amazing JTE is). It all contributes to a poor Reb, and a sad one at that. So I'll just sit here and spend my time on Youtube. I'll make the clips full-screen and pretend I'm listening to them live.

Do yourself a favour and watch these: 

Another reason to add to the list of the myriad ways in which I fail.

Despite the looks of derision I get when I announce as much, I love me some country music.

Love it.

Love it.

I don't know what exactly it was that flicked in my brain, but at some point during my teenage years I stopped using the ol' reliable, "I LIKE EVERYTHING EXCEPT COUNTRY AND RAP" and changed my declaration of musical love to something more along the lines of "I FREAKING LOVE COUNTRY MUSIC, AND PUNK, AND 60S POP. WANNA FIGHT ABOUT IT?"

When tracing back the roots of my ever-growing, never-stopping love of country, folk, bluegrass and all things old-timey, much of the credit for that initial musical education must be given to The Byrds. The Byrds quickly led to The Flying Burrito Brothers, then to Gram Parsons, and then to all the things that led to the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers. Thus I delved deeper and deeper, to the daggy point of no return. It also led me to a deep, undying hatred of The Eagles, but that's an entirely different story.

I could wax lyrical for hours on end about my love of country, bluegrass, twang, but fortunately for you the point of this post is something entirely different. Even if you do think a love of Emmylou Harris is reason enough for me to fail. Frankly, all you need to know was the above; that I like me some daggy-ass shit. From the 70s and all years that preceded it. It fills my iPod, right alongside the metal, the electro, the indie pretensions.

So. I bought myself a ticket to see Chris Hillman and Herb Pederson play at the Corner. Chris Hillman being a founding member of The Byrds. For those of you playing at home, you may recognise The Byrds by their cover of "Mr Tambourine Man" (indeed, a cavalcade of Dylan covers), as well as songs like "Eight Miles High", and the seminal country-rock album Sweetheart of the Rodeo. The Byrds was the band that spawned the careers of Roger McGuinn, David Crosby and Gene Clark. Big-deal-band. You may also know (or not know) Chris Hillman from his work with The Flying Burrito Brothers. For the more tired and weary members of my readership at this moment, what I'm getting at is that seeing Chris Hillman in the flesh was going to be a VERY BIG DEAL. 

Big Deal.

I bought my ticket.

I prepared myself.

I got excited.

I listened to The Byrds, The Burritos, Hillman's solo stuff on repeat on Wednesday night.

I got to work on Thursday.

I went onto the interdweebs to find out what time the gig would start.


Then I realised the gig had been the night before.

My face when.

Believe me when I say I almost burst into tears. I think I made some sort of animal-dying choked noise, and I know I went bright red and started sweating. WAS THIS SOME SORT OF HORRID NIGHTMARE???? Apparently not. I stood up and paced around my desk, probably with steam shooting out of my ears. I then stormed into the producers office.

"YOU WOULDN'T BELIEVE WHAT I'VE DONE."

The ladies stared at me, horrified.

"Did you hurt your arm again?"
"What happened?"
"Are you okay???"

I'm sure that if I were laughing as I told them the story, they would have been sent into peals of laughter, but given the obviously distraught state I was in, they seemed to share (albeit in a decidedly more calm manner) my feeling of utter horror. HELL HATH NO FURY LIKE A NERD WHO MISSED A GIG.

I stomped into the kitchen and stood in front of the fridge, and began shoving chocolate into my mouth.  HEALTH KICK BE DAMNED, I MISSED OUT ON SEEING SOME MANDOLIN AND BANJO PICKING ACTION. I decided to make a coffee, but the fact that I was obviously still in shock meant that I got coffee all over the bench. I stared at the coffee and wondered how on earth I could FAIL SO HARD. Had I massacred a town full of kittens in a past life? Had I played a pivotal role in the formation of the Eagles in a past life? WHAT DID I DO TO DESERVE THIS? Surely it wasn't just my poor organisational skills. Surely not. Pfft. Don't be daft.

I can laugh about it now, but at the time I was about seven shades of pissed off/traumatised/deeply, deeply saddened. To think! While I was listening to The Flying Burrito Brothers, Chris Hillman and Herb Pederson were ONSTAGE. At a gig I HAD BOUGHT A TICKET TO. OH, THE HUMANITY. OH, THE INFINITE SORROW. 

Oh boy. I'm pretty sure I spent the rest of the day looking sullen. I sure as shit know I trudged over to Mike's place, looking very much like a dejected, depressed Peanuts character. I bought beer en route. I needed beer. OH BOY, DID I NEED A BEER. So I had a beer, and Mike cooked pad thai, and the pad thai was consumed in front of a couple of episodes of Awake (you know, it's actually Pretty Damn Good so far!) and everything seemed a little better.

Still ...

Yours truly, good at things.

Let that be a lesson to you, kids.

DOUBLE CHECK THE DATE ON YOUR TICKET. 

THERE'S A LOT TO BE SAID FOR AN ACCURATE GRASP OF WHAT DAY OF THE WEEK IS WHICH. 

Cowboys and Aliens

I've been excited about Cowboys and Aliens for a long while now. I saw the trailer for the first time almost immediately after it was released, and the many and varied elements of my nerdy personality all seemed to rejoice together.

My brain when.

Jon Favreau directing Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford as cowboys fending their land and people against aliens? What's that you say IMDB, it also stars Paul Dano, Keith Carradine and my beloved ever-dancing Sam Rockwell? Oh, pants happy joy and fuck me gently with a chainsaw, THAT is something I want to see.

Anyway, I happened to be in Santiago when the film was released. Obviously, I was determined to see it, as was my fellow-Melbournian Santiago partner-in-crime, Jesse. Unfortunately, my determination and love of Westerns was no match for the student protests that were happening all over Santiago that week. The area directly surrounding our hostel was almost entirely shut down, even the supermarket hesitant to open their doors to residents. O'Higgins, the main road near us, was completely deserted, with the popo milling around bearing riot shields, waiting for things to occur. I'm referring to my second-last day in Santiago in what I'm describing. By that stage we were fairly accustomed to the stench of tear gas, if that's any indication of the frequency of demonstrations.

Why I didn't see Cowboys and Aliens. 

But I digress. I'm in Australia now (sadly enough), and yesterday was father's day. As such I was quick to say yes when my dad and brother asked if I wanted to come see none other than Cowboys and Aliens with them. Well, shit yeah guys. Shit YEAH. 

Was it worth all the anticipation, the excitement though? Ehh...sorta. 

A little. 

A bit. 

...

Look, the fact is that Cowboys and Aliens could have been amazing. It should have been amazing. It should have been the best kind of popcorn blockbuster fun. It's cowboys fighting aliens, for poo's sake. With that cast, and with Jon Favreau at the helm, of course you couldn't be blamed for expecting big things. Things started promisingly enough too. Daniel Craig wakes up in the desert, alone and with a big metal thing on his wrist. He promptly sets about Getting It Done in the default state of Badass he occupies for the film's entirety. Kick ass, acquire boots, vest, horse and hat. He rides to the next town, that of Absolution. There, we meet the Doc-cum-barkeep (Sam Rockwell), the Sheriff (Keith Carradine), the town's preacher, and the spoilt, obnoxious son (Paul Dano) of Colonel Dollarhyde, the mean sunvabitch whose cattle keeps Absolution afloat. At least twice I hissed "Shiiieeeeeet!" to my dad and brother, signs of my wholehearted approval of Daniel Craig's various acts of badassery in the first ten minutes or so of the film. Like I said, promising enough of a start. 

Unfortunately, the warning lights began to flash early on. No less than five writers working on one film is never something that fills me with ease. The fruits (or lack thereof) of their combined efforts reared their ugly heads soon enough. The dialogue ranges from terrible to awful. None of those five writers were able to figure out how to script a conversation? How to make the HURRR Things Characters Say sound vaguely natural? Jon Favreau, you couldn't see the difference between these awkward, uncomfortable exchanges and what worked so well in Iron Man? To all of this, 'apparently not' is the answer. As we're introduced to Colonel Dollarhyde (Harrison Ford), I cringed. After the aliens attack for the first time, not even Sam Rockwell could make "WHAT IS THAT THING? IS MY WIFE IN THERE?" sound okay. 

As Cowboys and Aliens continues, Jake Lonergan (Craig) and Dollarhyde lead a band of Absolution's townfolk on a journey to reclaim their kin from the clutches of the aliens. Of note in the search party are the sheriff's grandson and Olivia Wilde as Ella, a mysterious woman who seems to know something about Lonergan's past. 

Cowboys and Aliens is full of opportunity for badassery, for riding through the Western countryside on horseback away from foes, towards battle. Daniel Craig exudes tortured hero cool, is exactly the kind of bad-guy turned good that carries a good Western. Helooks great in a vest and hat. Looks great without them too. Harrison Ford has some good moments, but for the most part seems to be in "old gruff tough guy" auto-pilot mode. The ingredients are there, but they're either underused, or not used at all. The problem is, I didn't really give a shit about any of the characters, or the goings on. Which is fucking unfortunate. I didn't really care about Dollarhyde finding his son, didn't care about the little kid grandson of the Sheriff, didn't care about the relationship between Lonergan and Ella. 

Getting it Done, but not quite enough.

Sure, there were some enjoyable action sequences. Yeah, of course there were. There were some good shoot outs. And hell, I'm not about to diss any scene where Daniel Craig is sans shirt. But I was let down. I was looking forward to seeing how a small Western town and its inhabitants would react to having these aliens, futuristic shiny space ships flying about, shooting up their lives. That would have been interesting. I wanted to know more about the Doc's story, a man who'd come to the town seeking a dream but had been let down. I wanted to know more about the Sheriff's family. I was hopeful when the local Indian crew turned up, but again was let down by how little the film delved into the tensions between Dollarhyde and the chief, as well as how that culture would have reacted to the presence of aliens. 

Maybe this is all a result of my love of Westerns. Maybe I wanted less alien and more cowboy. Maybe my expectations were too high. I was let down, sure, but I expect others will probably get a hell of a kick out of the goings-on. My dad loved it. It was a more than serviceable popcorn romp, but I wanted even more than that. Craig and Ford are almost perfectly cast, I just wish that they were rather more fleshed out. I wish the aliens were a little more interesting (They want gold? That's it?). Hell, I wish it had been more of a Western. But I guess the Western is a dying (if not already dead) genre, and maybe my thinking was a little more wishful. 

Bizarre Things I Like #1

Country Music.
It's true. So often, when people are asked "what kind of music do you like?", they respond with "everything except rap and country!" ...  and you know what? I used to be the same.

Somewhere, at some point during the last three or four years however, something changed. I can't give you a solid date, or a point of epiphany. But somehow, I became a lover of both kinds; country AND western.

Know what? I lied. There probably was a catalyst. In around 2007 my obsessive personality finally moved on from Star Wars (it's true) to none other than the pre-fab four themselves, The Monkees. The TV show, the albums (from the third album onwards, they DID play their own instruments, so you can shut up thank you), the merchandise. I know for a fact that I'm still puzzled what exactly began my obsession with Davy, Micky, Mike and Peter but I do know that this bizarre love led me to banjoes and Dolly Parton and Ray Price. Exploring the careers of each Monkee after the hype died, I made a discovery. Firstly, that there's not much to find in the way of post-Monkee gold. Secondly, that the gold that there is to be found belongs to Michael Nesmith. After the death of the Monkees, Texas-born Mike released a great number of AMAZING country albums. I bought them, not knowing what to expect. Certainly, I did not expect my mind to be blown. I bought that string of albums because of my love of ol' wool-hat, and I loved them, in spite of my so called hatred of country.

The unlikely catalyst for my love of country.

To the non-believers, hear this. They're really fucking good albums. Michael Nesmith and the First National Band ... Michael Nesmith on his own, with Red Rhodes. They're REALLY good. So began my love of country.

I devoured everything I could. From Ray Price to Dillard and Clark. The Louvin Brothers, Patsy Cline, fucking Porter Wagoner, Dolly Parton. The Statler Brothers, Ralph Stanley, Keith Whitley, The Carter Family, Earl Scruggs. Thanks to the wonders of the internet, and a lad that since has been named The Charming Man, my iTunes library became thoroughly hillbilly.

Ray Price. Hero, y'all.

So why on earth do I love country music so much?

Is it the gaudy nudie suits? Is it the redneck comments that go with each of the youtube videos I watch?

Notsomuch.

Gram Parsons, badass.

• Those harmonies are .... amazing. There's something about those country harmonies that just makes a part of me go to a happy place. I can't describe what exactly it is, but it's definitely true.
• That accent is pretty great, y'all. 
• You know what? I have a feeling that a large portion of the reason I love country, western, bluegrass, hillbilly shit so much is to do with the subject matter of a great deal of the songs. I'm not a particularly religious person, nor am I a citizen of the American South but I know that during times of woes and hardship, there's something really quite reassuring about listening to The Carter Family singing about keeping on the sunny side, or Ralph Stanley singing "Angel Band". Simple beliefs and earnest singing. 
• By that same token, country music just seems to capture broken-hearted woes absolutely precisely. Nothing like a bit of Ray Price to help you nurse a battered heart and ego. 
• I need to put a disclaimer here. I don't particularly like modern country music. To me, it's all about those old-timey sounds and harmonies. There's something about that old timey sound that is really ... I don't know. Comforting. As well as plain ol' entertaining and lovely to my ears. 
• Also, I really, really like banjos.

Feast your ears on this:
Firstly, Johnny Cash, the Carter Family, Carl Perkins and the Statler Brothers performing "Keep on the Sunny Side"

Now, Ralph Stanley, Keith Whitley, and the Clinch Mountain Boys .... damn embed code disabled. I can't be bothered doing it the long way via the scenic route.

AAAAAAAND. Lastly. Ray Price, with "Heartaches by the Number"



It's hard going trying to find like-minded, country-loving twenty-somethings ... but goshdarnit, am I ever going to try.