last weekend turned out to be quite a pleasant one... i caught up with Larry the librarian on friday evening - we just got 'takeaways' from fitzroy street and came back to my place and ate, chatted and 'choofed' until it was time for him to pick up his partner - a nice couple of hours 'whiled away'...
saturday, well - i just watched st kilda lose the grand final - but there's always next year!
sunday was a miserable day outside so it was just the day to curl up and watch a few episodes of 'weeds' - i'm midway through season 4 at the moment...
irene, louie and the country cuzzin clan came down on monday - it was irene's 55th birthday (she's 6 months older than me) so we went to tien tien in fitzroy street for dinner... it is soooo nice eating with another vegetarian - you get to share different dishes without having to check which dish you're 'tucking into' - and you don't have to watch animal being devoured in front of you!!!
irene and i met in the 70s - she was going out with my brother then - well, they even ended up marrying after a short time (it was one of those 'rebellious' things - they were getting married regardless of what anyone said!!!) it was either late '71 or early '72 and i would have been 16 going on 17 (and the engagement to james was obviously no more because he wasn't at the wedding!!!) - but, like my engagement, the marriage didn't last long (unlike our friendship!!!)
here's a photo of the wedding - check out darrell's coiffured hair and velvet suit - such a 'sign of the times'!!! and i'm wearing hotpants!!!
ahh, the 70s - so much style - colour anyway!!!! pity the photo doesn't show the shoes too - i was wearing really high cork platforms - what's old is new - what's new is old!!!!
reading Curvy Kitty's "a cautionary tale" about the 'art' of hair styling the other night took me back to the implements of torture young girls were subjected to in the 50s and early 60s...
mothers australia-wide (worldwide too probably) seemed to have this need for their daughters to look like shirley temple (who, incidentally, is a year older than my mother so i suspect it's a handed-down desire from my grandmother's generation)...
Shirley & friend (1940 perhaps)...
& me (1959 - so shy)...
but to get my straight locks looking like that it took lots of persuasion...
from the ancient heat-on-naked-flame curling iron (and it was very, very scary seeing that coming towards you - and my mother wasn't the most patient person so there was a lot of catching hair in tongs, and a lot of burning head, hair, ears and forehead!!!) ...
to tightly wrapped rags (and that was a process and a half - a lot of hair pulling - a lot of trepidation when you saw an old sheet being torn up!!!)...
with the torturous 'night-time curler agony' to come as i got older...
imagine sleeping with these things in your head... they were plastic, with little spiky ridges all along and around them - not pleasant at all!!!
The Palais Theatre - such a grand old building, an icon of St Kilda. i used to spend a lot of time there when i was young and saw some incredible shows - i guess it helped that me mum was the head cashier when i was growing up!!
Originally starting life as Palais Pictures in 1927, it was hailed as "one of the largest theaters in the southern hemisphere" and was one of the "first suburban cinemas to screen talkies on 3 July 1929, five months after their first Australian exhibition at the Athenaeum. Until the fifties, it was the place to go to the movies. You saw two full-length films, preceded by Harry Jacobs and his Band with 30 minutes of singers, music, dancers or other variety performers." ... you can read more here if you're interested in 'its-story'.
amazing that here it is, still surviving in the 21st century as a venue for home-grown and international performers, providing luxurious - although somewhat shabbier than I remember from my childhood - surroundings for the comfort of appreciative audiences.
I went to a Jimmy Barnes concert at the Palais on friday night with my brother and we had a great time, although it had the potential to be disastrous with the mixing quality being appalling for the first few songs. Elly-May, youngest of the 'Barnsie clan' was suppporting her father, but the sound was so bad - it seemed like there'd been no 'front of house' sound check (either that or the sound engineer hadn't turned up!!) - everything was distorted - you had to feel sorry for her because she was just getting no audience appreciation - Darrell and i were starting to wonder if we'd be better off out in the foyer - or just going home!!!
Luckily, by the time she got to the song "Gone, gone, gone" that Alison Krauss & Robert Plant have recently released (and one of my favourite from their Raising Sand album) you realised she did have a good voice - she could sing, and do it well... obviously the 'soundie' had either turned up or finally worked out there were problems!!! ... and then the lead guitarist could have toned it down a bit - her voice isn't as raw and powerful as Jimmy's (although she can do the "Barnsie screech" - you could really tell she was her father's daughter when she hit some notes!!) - she needs a less 'blasting' band where she doesn't have to compete with the loudness i think...
of course, Barnsie was grouse!!!! although i could have lived without hearing 'working class man' (twice!!! never has been a favourite song - he started and finished with it!!!!)
He did perform one of my favourites - Flame trees - and it was one of the best versions i've heard... he's playing around with different music styles and had incorporated the Mexican "mariachi harp" - also known as the jelisco harp - ooooh, there appears to be a lot of variations and names - played by Victor Valdes - the performance was stunning - it added such a different quality to the song... beautiful...
he's not doing too bad for an 'old man' of my era... he's still 'making a living' out of his music and his new album "the rhythm and the blues" has gone into the aria charts at #1 - he did a few tracks and he does the style really well... have to say though that after all these years he still can't boogie!!!!
it was an enjoyable evening... after a couple of hours of Barnsie we got pizza on the walk home and sat, smoked, talked and laughed about 'the old days' until around 5 am ... it was a pity i had to work the next day though - luckily i was able to swap my first half and only had to start at 1 pm - it was busy though and today i feel exhausted - everything aches...
the ABC website has a really interesting interview of Jimmy by Fran Kelly - you can either listen to it or watch it... it's about his influences for this album - and he does encourage everyone to listen to the original versions of all of the songs if possible - he does some wonderful covers (tributes) of great rhythm, blues and gospel artists and talks about the evolution of the music...
and of course i couldn't do a post about Barnsie without adding some of his music...
Thursday, September 10, 2009
I haven't been able to get this out of my head since i heard it earlier this evening... so i thought i'd share it... (good luck getting it out of yours!!!)
Sandie Shaw
(There's) Always Something There To Remind Me
I walk along those city streets you used to walk along with me And every step I take recalls how much in love we used to be
Oh how can I forget you When there is always something there to remind me? Always something there to remind me I was born to love you And I will never be free You'll always be a part of me Whoa-ooo-ohhh-oh
If you should find you miss the sweet and tender love we used to share Just go back to the places where we used to go And I'll be there
How can I forget you When there is always something there to remind me? Always something there to remind me I was born to love you
And I will never be free You'll always be a part of me Whoa-ooo-ohhh-oh Whoa-oh-ooo-ohhh
If you should find you miss the sweet and tender love we used to share Just come back to the places where we used to go And I'll be there
How can I forget you When there is always something there to remind me? Always something there to remind me I was born to love you And I will never be free When there is When there is When, there, is Always something there to remind me Always something there to remind me Always something there to remind me
