December 28, 2003
Summertime in Australia
The modern day therapy:
Bruce Petty
Whilst at the seaside I went looking for Greil Marcus's Lipstick Traces (1989)-- a history of punk?--- but I couldn't find it in the second hand stores. I had Greil Marcus' Mystery Train in my back pocket. I showed them that, but they looked at me anxiously when I mentioned Lester Bang's Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung. Maybe it was the title.
We came back to the city from the endless summer at the beach on Friday I searched for an image of Australia, as I sensed that my world is drifting into the past. An image, such as Lipstick Traces or Mystery Train, but a whole better than Strange Fruit It was an image because I'd long given up the romantic notion that rock and roll offered a fairly clear and consistent critique of Western capitalist society, and so continued the negation of the 20th Century avant garde art from dada to the situationists. It is more about myth making than situationist critique.
Were the images of Australia to be found in the deserted streets walked by people from boarding houses looking for an early morning coffee.
Australia is no longer in the bush other than as myth. Perhaps in the open spaces of the landscape? Maybe it is to be found on the roads that pass through our modern nation.
I thought that I might find some clues as to what Australia stood for in the summer sales, shopping and a consumer culture. After all this is what Australians are supposed to do once Xmas Day with the family is out of the way.
I searched amongst the CD's in strange music stores filled with red and black rock and roll imagery; fragmented gothic conversations about the brass tacks of life being about birth, sex and death, and guys with love and hate tattooed on their knuckles and needle marks on their arms.
I was looking for the expression of my hopes, dreams, and doubts about the good life in the music. But I did not know much about Australian music even though most of what I'd heard had little to do with being true to your school. Most of it seemed to be young guys with screaming guitars playing the same riff whilst singers yelling into a microphone. Or snarling aging punk rockers. I did not know where to begin to look for Australian music that expressed the magic feel of our history and my yearning for a place I could called home.
I ended up buying some CD's of US music (the Velvet Underground with Nico & The Band) and UK music (Richard and Linda Thompson.) Says a lot doesn't it.
Maybe the music is the wrong place to look for the Australian images of sexual and romantic tragedy. Maybe it is film that searches for the way to be Australian? So I got a whole bunch of DVD's to explore.
I need some arresting images to help me find my way through Australian popular culture. Something better than carburetor sex.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at December 28, 2003 07:04 AM | TrackBack