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
i've mostly lived around Balaclava and East St Kilda - West St Kilda is a 'new' experience - such incredibly wide streets, beautiful grand mansions, stunning architecture...
i'm surrounded by wealth, but also by extreme poverty... i'm definitely not wealthy, nor am i extremely poor - i own nothing, i have no savings, i have debts, i work 4 days per week and earn around $25 per hour - some weeks i can afford to buy 'extras', some weeks i live frugally, depends on what bills need to be paid and whether they can be juggled (have i had the 'red' one yet?) - but i never cease to be amazed by what some possess, and saddened by what others lack.
the Gatwick is just around the corner from me... it's a magnificent old building, built in 1938, with walls that no doubt resonate with energy from bygone days - from the affluent and extravagant residents, to the desperately impoverished...
The Gatwick Private Hotel was constructed by 1938. It replaced a nineteenth century house known as 'Lockings’ that was occupied by members of the O’Donnell family in the early decades of the twentieth century. The O’Donnells owned both this property and the adjoining lot to the south-west.
In May of 1936 the subject property was sold to Margaret Carter who later that month transferred the property to ‘Maribeale Pty Ltd’ of 34 Fitzroy Street, St Kilda (Land Victoria 1). Sands & McDougall Directories show that in 1936 the house on this site was still listed as being occupied by the ‘Misses O’Donnell’.
In 1937 the notation is ‘Flats being built’ and by 1938 the Gatwick Private Hotel is listed at 34 Fitzroy Street along with Mrs L.M. Beale who presumably was the manager.As noted above, the Gatwick Private Hotel was one of the last of the substantial private hotels erected in St Kilda during the inter-war period that catered for a more up-market clientele.
During World War Two it provided accommodation for the U.S. armed forces when officers from Base Section Four headquarters at Port Melbourne, under the command of Colonel Galloway were billeted at the Prince of Wales Hotel (where an officer’s club was established), and at the Gatwick Hotel, which were both owned or managed at that stage by Edwin Jewell. According to Longmire (1989:122) both hotels were ‘highly regarded for the facilities they provided’. The Gatwick Hotel lacked a dining room so officers and their ‘female friends’ dined at the Prince of Wales where ‘the freezer was stacked with ice-cream and the pantry full of unprocurable goods’.
After WWII, standards at the Gatwick Private Hotel and other guest houses declined."
the Gatwick's popularity flourished and fluctuated along with the fortunes of the era and tenants - from private hotel ("highly regarded for the facilities they provided") to guest house, to boarding-house, which it still is, populated by vulnerable people with limited resources these days.
i see such desperation and sadness when i walk past on my way to and from work - it's a confronting, depressing way to start or finish the day... and in an area renowned for it's restaurants and eateries, inequity is glaringly obvious on a Wednesday night when you can find the St Kilda Food Van outside handing out much needed and appreciated sustenance...
such extremes... so many people with nowhere to go... such sadness... such desperation...
so many alcohol and drug affected people - such easy access to both - i was saddened to watch a young man sniffing glue the other day while i was waiting for a tram - the police arrived and spoke to him, then threw his bag and crap away, and when they left he just went and got it out of the rubbish bin and started all over again...
and then there's the very palpable violent undercurrent that inhabits the streets around here - some days the street 'vibe' is really threatening - it can be a frightening place...
i don't get that welcoming, 'homey' feel here - i feel vulnerable, unsafe, uncomfortable, and i don't want to live like that... will anywhere ever feel like home again...oooh, i'm possibly a bit melancholic at the moment... got an email from Brann friday, saw Louie saturday - trying to keep painful memories at bay... my life feels fragmented - my family is fragmented...
and here's another alison krauss and robert plant song...
