3. XO – Elliott Smith

In the last years of the 90s, those wonderful years when I was earning money but had no expenses, I went and bought just about anything recommended by to me by friends, magazines and record store clerks. So when a friend told me she was in love with this weird fellow, and when I read a little interview with him Drum Media, looking cute as an angry button on a couch with a beanie, I went out and bought the album.

I’ve never heard Miss Misery at this point, I wasn’t old enough for arthouse movies and never cared for the Academy awards. So it’s just Elliott and me, through these songs. And obviously, it’s so catchy, and so Beatle-esque, it hit.

Number 2 in a series of tributes to favourite albums

2. Sloan – Navy Blues

I first heard Sloan because someone wrote a review for both Sloan’s One Chord To Another and You Am I’s Hourly Daily in the one review. The next time I ever heard of Sloan was seeing a half page ad for a new album in Drum Media. The ad, like all the band’s artwork from this era, looked fantastic. It was their nod to Saul Bass (I didn’t even know who Saul Bass was at this point) and some new single with the awesome name Money City Maniacs.

A few years later I would find out why this happened. The team of fans, publicists, managers and labels that led to this record being released locally, and actually having funding for ads. But for now, back then, I was 17 and going through the biggest exploration of rock and roll I would ever take.

It was years before I really found out more about this band, and that story involves my first real crush, the West Coast of Australia and some badly photocopied articles. But until then In would listen to this album, this wonderful 70s sounding rock album, still one of THE best sounding albums ever, and look at the photos in the center spread and wonder who these guys were.

They seemed like big nerds, but cool as hell. Jay looking great as (I would later find out) Phil Spector in Easy Rider. Jay and Patrick standing at vintage microphones, with Andrew on Headphones. Chris, my early and eternal favourite, looking just dead cool. My imagination just dug so many holes about these people. In my mind they were this huge sounding Beatles-esque rock band, with a huge sound crew and lighting rig, but they crawled into the smallest of Indie rock vans to travel the yellow lines and lonely highways.

This record has so much detail, and this band had such a profound influence on me (both politically, philosphically and guitar wise), but it’s important I think to note I loved this album before I found out the lyrics of Iggy And Angus is made up by Stooges songs, that Jay was the one who played the Rhodes heavy Queen like numbers, or that the cool piano sound was a Rhodes at all.

Almost all my rock and roll fantasies are wrapped up in this album. Looking back I think it put a ceiling on my ambitions. but listen to the high harmonies! The studio trickery! The guitar wooshes. You could make records that sounded like million selling Kiss albums, on an indie label. To this day, more than any other band, I would love to be in Sloan.

I have often, often thought about the last hours of Ian Curtis.

Of him just sitting there and looking into the future

Of watching the TV alone as the world turned again

Of another day ahead of another day behind

Of not wanting to ever to do anything at all ever again

And how hard that is to actually do

And then actually doing it.

It’s road trip weather

There’s an Australia that I’ll never know
Of Lismore and Lindy
And a tradition all it’s own
Unfettered by the immigrant culture
That I’m afraid is never going to be
And when they update the Nostradamus Kid for the kids
The witness’s in the Bob Ellis sense
Will be wearing a Chicago Bulls singlet
Or Italian shoes.

Depreciation is not a word
This office is not a world

Dear lovely new person in my life who has a boyfriend and is happy and all that

Just wanted to send a message to the world that you are lovely and I love the way you laugh so much and get so much out of things and you laugh at my horrible jokes and you try and get me into great music I’ve never heard. I know you have a wonderful boyfriend who sounds like he’s just what you need and I don’t want any of your time or anything. I think it’s just been a long time since I met someone who reminds me the world is hidden with wonderful people. God you laugh so much how do you find time to breathe? I love your quirks and if I was a younger less bitter and hateful person I probably would have been madly in love with you. As it is, I think you’ve help me noticed something in me that maybe hasn’t been there for a bit. You got it all girl, and it’s awesome that I know you. It’s been a long time since I’ve looked forward to seeing someone, in hopes of finding out more about them.

Bill.

For Vina

Piss on the cliches
Your friends will bring around
as if it were ice cream and DVDs
like “It’s all for a reason”
and “it’s a learning experience”
or “I know how you feel”
Because they really don’t
No one does me included
You’ve just listened to too many
Bedroom acoustic poets
Who’ve put in such great words
The feeling of their own
That may run parrallel
But not in front or behind
But so easily wraps around you
And whatever it is you feel
But don’t take it to your broken heart
Cos in all the ways of history
This event has never happened before
And no rules exist on how you’re to deal with it
So do whatever you feel like
Take the pain like the brave girl you are
I’m sorry for your lost
I’m ears if you need me
But that Jeff Buckley record’s going to kill you
With a hurt that isn’t yours
And no cliches apply here
So you’ll learn whatever you’ll want to learn
And take your own path to OK

I’ve already been broken in two
So I can’t be loved

I don’t know what I want to do
So I can’t be loved