Usually I have my trusty iRiver to take me from West Bubblefuck to wherever it is that I need to go. But there was a drastic recharging error (ie I put it on to charge and for some reason I didn't make sure all the connections were connected) and the mp3 player ran out of battery with only half an hour of driving left.
And there is a 4 hour drive to look forward to tomorrow with all my worldly possessions (ie a bed, some cooking utensils, an ikea mirror and 2 bean bags) on the back of a ute. The fear of making said drive in the stoney silence of no radio reception filled my belly. So I went shopping.
I knew there was a CD that I had heard discussed on the radio, and as I stood there in Sanity, I had my very own moment of insanity. I couldn't for the life of me remember who it was who made the CD that I had wanted to buy. There were leading questions from helpful friends and shop assistants alike. But to no avail.
Have I publically praised Target on this blog before? If not, a public worship of the house of Target is well overdue. I stood there in the sterile isles, and there he was, like a beacon of musical talent in the dark night of the musically beige and boring.
Paul Dempsey's solo album Everything is true.
(I also purchased Duffy's Rockferry based pretty much entirely on how much I heard Warwick Avenue when I was in the UK precisely a year ago and Coldplay's Viva La Viva based on the fact that I really love the title track. Turns out both albums are mostly beige filler, except for the singles)
I know some Die Hard Something For Kate Fans. One is responsible for the naming of the Mechanical Sharks tour (based on the fact that she threw a wind up shark on stage early in their tour that was promoting the Beautiful Sharks tour and they liked it a lot). One has a number of multiple copies of different versions of the same album in order to own all the versions of the cover art (including several of the same EP with the band hand drawn covers). I love Aussie music and I love 90s rock. But I have never really been a huge card carrying fan of Something For Kate. I don't own any albums, I have only ever seen them at festivals that I have been to, not one of their own gigs.
And then I heard "Ramona Was A Waitress" on the Js over the last few weeks. And I heard Paul Dempsey (The Man Some Of My Friends Call God) on the radio saying that he doesn't really know where the sound for this new album came from, and how it is different to everything else that he has done before. Yes, that would be the radio interview where I couldn't remember the subject of the interview. Me and my stupid brain...
Anyway, the album. Best I have bought all day – but as I said the other two are pretty much filler. Best album I have bought for a long time, really. Dempsey is right, it doesn't sound like S4K very much at all. It is simultaneously more country and less depressing. I realise the paradox of that statement. S4K, while producing some brilliant stuff, does tend to have the whiff of the emo to it. Does tend to smack vaguely of Woe Is Me and Isn't The World A Bit Fucked. This album doesn't really have that. Hell, there is a track called "The Great Optimist" to be my entire case in point. And when I say it is a little bit country, it is more about the riff and the down and up beats than it is about someone stealing his truck and his dog and his woman, and leaving him only with a bottle of booze. This is an album that I could stick on high rotation and leave there, and I haven't heard one of them for ages.
Plus the album art is just gorgeous. If your purchasing opinion is ever swayed by random blogposts, buy this album. Don't just procure it illegally, burn it or download it. Buy the disc, with the beautiful liner notes (Hell, get it on LP if you can, the artwork should be bigger). Give the money to the Aussie artists, and wrap yourself in this album like a lovingly stitched quilt.
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