The Ron Rude Renaissance Blog - July 14, 2009
Prophet of St Kilda Returns With a Desert Island Disc
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I've heard him referred to as a Goth Guitar God, and a Giant of Noise. Last year, an Australian Guitar Magazine Issue 53 referred to him as the 'Prophet of St Kilda'. Bit premature, I thought. He wasn't promoting an album at the time. But that's how it is with latter day Rowland S. Howard. The epithets and accolades are pouring in. And those of us biased toward his camp will say that's only just and fair. But now there is a new album. Can this survivor of the street, this deified misfit who has had more health problems than you've had hot dinners, possibly live up to such impossibly high expectations?....
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There's an added handicap here. I'm not easily pleased. I'm a fussy old bastard, critical, and unmerciful. I've listened to a fair swag of music, and of the small percentage that I don't hate with a vengeance, I still easily find fault. Recently you may have read a glowing review I wrote here, of the new Dylan album. Don't presume that's the norm. Glowing reviews from me are like Halley's comet. They don't come around often. ....
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The other night I was sitting in at Birdland Studios and the High Priest of this sonic temple, Lindsay Gravina, he of the platinum arse, put on a master for me, complete with control room light show, out of the big Daniel Desiree A-Room monitors. I'm quite au fait with those monitors – I've heard some recorded output on them, so don't accuse me any undue bias due to the high fidelity listening experience. I won't accept it, Motherfucker. All my bias is due bias. ....
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I wasn't prepared for this listening experience. During the recording last summer, I was living down the road, and I think I popped in once or twice while Lindsay and his main man, Rob, were co-ordinating post production gadgetry. At the time, it seemed that the brief glimpse I was getting was not unlike Rowland's first solo outing, Teenage Snuff Film, and Lindsay was of the view that it would be a sister disc, to bookend that album nicely. ....
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Things look a little different now that this one's in the canister. Very different. ....
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Lindsay's accounts present him as "L. Gravina" but people all spell it "El Gravina", less because he looks like a Mexican bandito, and more because he's behaved like one in his relationship with the industry, breaking artists in lightning raids that steal the thunder of the bigger players and walk away with a bag of platinum. They also call him the Gravy Train, because his production work broke the Living End, Magic Dirt, and Spiderbait to name but a few from a big list. Normally it's routine for Lindsay. He can produce with ear plugs in while watching Bugs Bunny, and I'm not kidding – I've seen him do it. He's somehow like Beethoven - he doesn't seem to need to hear it – or see it. But when something special comes along, the old Gravy Train goes into a different gear. It becomes less a Lego building exercise, and more an intuitive process, where he starts at the ceiling and waits to see what floats down. It's hard to explain this business. These geniuses are like kookaburras sitting on a fencepost. You can watch them, but you can't really know for sure what's going on in their heads. ....
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Let's check the roll and see which birds are sitting on the post. Once again, the Master's Mastermind, the incomparable Mick Harvey on drums and keyboards. More contradictions than a Zen koan, this guy is subtle yet rich, organic, yet precise, Magic Mick transcends his own impossibly high standards to make a stunning contribution to this record. Around the traps, I noticed a lot of young people heartbroken and grief stricken when Mick quit the Bad Seeds. You can all stop crying now. He's still around, and Harv' is hitting it!....
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Bass guitar duties were shared here. Reprieved by fate after a fall and once again sure footed, the world's coolest bassist, Brian Hooper (Beasts of Bourbon) returns to play bass on two of the tracks, (Wayward Man and Golden Age of Bloodshed) but touring commitments prevented him from any further availability. Bigger and ballsier than ever, Hooper rocks and rumbles hard enough to give you an intestinal disorder. ....
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Fortunately the mantle is filled admirably, firstly by Sean Stewart from Hate Rock Trio playing bass on the opening number, (I Know a Girl Called Johnny) whilst the remaining five numbers are etched into the ether by the great J.P. Shilo, of Hungry Ghosts fame. Shilo is by every measure the titan that Hooper is, on bass, but has the added skills of being able to provide ambient sounds and noises, in cahoots with El Gravina's other worldly ear. ....
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When you put a bunch of geniuses together in the one room, they might either try to destroy each other, or produce a masterpiece. So what actually happened up there in the centre of the universe next door to Misty's Diner on the High Street? These guys trusted each other. They collaborated. Birdland? Masterpiece land. ....
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The opening flag bearer brings in the talents of some of the Howard acolytes from the Hate Rock Trio. The songs titled "I Know a Girl Called Johnny", featuring Jonine Standish on vocal. One can presume that the song is about Jonine, perhaps as a due reimbursement for her years of cap doffing toward the RSH brand. It's a corker, and you become aware during the first few moments that Rowland's big day in the sun has finally arrived. He's singing 'turning all the girls into boys' and you wonder whether he is ushering in the 'Birl' generation. Even when he's being flippant, you have to watch him. This guy has been starting global trends from within the underground, since 1978. ....
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'Shut Me Down' is an outtake from Rowland's first solo outing, Teenage Snuff Film in 1999. Reworked here with a baritone so deep that it makes Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits look like they're in the schoolboy choir, and Shilo's omnipotent bass thundering like a Sherman tank, the record just about stands on this cut alone. I was sitting there, thinking "Fuck me dead! Now we've all got to rethink everything. .. again!"....
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Rowland is often criticized for doing cover versions. For example, there are those who question the integrity of covering a Billy Idol song on the previous album. Among purists, even the very mention of Billy Idol is not permissible. Yet Rowland executed that cover with dignity and aplomb, bringing personal and universal resonance to the very powerful notion of renewal and reaffirmation of faded love. Now, in the third track of the new opus, Rowland takes Talk Talk's classic, "Life's What You Make It", and again brings potent but simple truths to the table. "Yesterday's faded – nothing can change it – life's what you make it". The Prophet wants us all to learn from his mistakes and face the future bravely without the baggage of our personal tragedies. This is not a cover version. This is life coaching. Take heed, or abandon all hope, and lose yourself in the guitar lines. Bursts of guitar noise. Solo noise. Graceful notes fall from the sky like swirling cascades of golden, shimmering colour in a Gustav Klimpt painting. The full Rowland S. Howard guitar vision has been ramped up to its loftiest realization to date. ....
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We're three songs in, and surely everything's been said that needs to be said. But then, the title track, "Pop Crimes" arrives. Lyrics smash in your face like broken glass:....
"A wasteland of adversity . . . an open heart surgery kiss"!....
Guitars are at play like little demons bouncing on the trampoline or sliding down the slide in a playground in hell. You might not make it back. ....
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'Nothin' is a Townes van Zandt cover, that again speaks personal and absolute truths about the sense of fatality that a wise man chooses to embrace when a relationship ends. ....
"Hey Mama, when you leave
Don't leave a thing behind
I don't want nothin'
I can't use nothin'"....
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Brian Hooper is back on Wayward Man to remind us that he might well have invented the bass guitar. A rockin' gem with some weird effects by noiseniks Shilo and Gravina, swapping gizmos from their respective bag of tricks to produce a strange unholy thing at the end that sounds like a bear on roller skates with a dying cat ringing you up on a bad cellphone connection.
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Ave Maria is a wedding song, presumably autobiographical. A stand out, pretty track with rich lyrical depth and feeling. I believe that Rowland holds the view that a good writer need not necessarily write in an autobiographical way, but that's not to say that he can't. Here, I think he does, Set in the heartland, the Prophet again imbues his own experience with the universality that allows us all to connect.
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When you think that there couldn't be any more variety, any more surprises – surely the train has run out of steam? Strap yourself in for 'The Golden Age of Bloodshed'. A thundering, rockin' gut pumper that makes the Stooges current album sound one dimensional and flaccid by comparison. This is the motherlode – the mountaintop of rock and roll!....
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The head-honcho down at the record company – that'd be one Michael Gudinski, is really enjoying this album. He's got it on high rotation at the mahogany desk – not the kind of music he grew up with, but he's coming over to it. It's like switching from scotch to top shelf absinth. It's different, but it's stronger, smoother, and you can't help but like it. Gudinski's having trouble getting through the album, though, because the phone keeps ringing with people desperate to know when he's gonna ship it. "When you fuck off long enough for me to listen to it all the way through!" is his standard reply. ....
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No Australian record has ever gone to the centre like this one. Set in a kind of aural cinemascope, the placement of the instruments has a 3D feel that would make Daniel Lanois sit up and take notice. Pre-order this one. If you have to kill someone to get it, well...don't make too much of a mess. You're gonna be waiting a couple of months for this. Suffer in silence. The time for noise will be the day it arrives. You'll still be listening to it in thirty years. If you live that long. Don't just buy a hand signed compact disc version. Buy a new high end hi-fi system. Oh, and frisbee the rest of your CDs off the balcony! You won't need them anymore. It's 'game over', now.....
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It's been a long journey full of flat tires and breakdowns to get this far, but roll out the red carpet. The guitarist's guitar god has moved up to the mantle of songwriter's songwriter. The humble 'Boy Next Door' turns out to be one of rock's ultimate masters. The Prophet is taking the next class. Get back to your desk and start taking notes!....
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Six ghosties (out of a possible five)
The Emperor of the Esplanade returns to turn the girls into boys and then nail everyone's balls to the wall with shards of heavy duty noise
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- Ron Rude