A few days ago I was fortunate enough to meet my long time hero, Paul Keating, and overcame my fright sufficiently to gibber a few words of thanks before I ran away again. I mentioned to an old friend (who once made me a PJK t-shirt) that I had met the Great Man and she thought I was making it up, knowing what a hero he is of mine. She told me that she used to keep a pic of PJK in her wallet, and whilst living in Ireland a seamstress in Galway saw it and yelled,
“Oh I love Elvis as well!”.
PJK is our Elvis.
(I also gave him a copy of “Doomsday Piano” though he no doubt would have preferred Mahler.)
We are now road hardened and while generally everything is good a few cracks have appeared. Zoe seems tense and could rip into John at any time. I want to warn him but he is on auto as always.
The shows have been very good except for Murwilumbah which was a bit crap but it meant we got to stay at John’s grandparent’s house in the cane fields.
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Just back from the Victorian leg of the tour where it does seem ‘Doomsday Piano’ is being picked up and passed about with enthusiasm. John and Zoe are yet to have a proper fight and spirits are high. Highlights include our show at the Butter Factory in Drouin where we discovered an Aladdin’s cave of theater costumes during the support band’s set. Before long we had dressed up in what turned out to be the gear for a recent production of ‘Narnia’. I had a big bejeweled crown and a long flowing fur coat which dragged grandly behind me. The others looked regal too in suitably smaller crowns and cloaks (swords too). As we readied ourselves for a grand entrance to the stage a small lady apprehended us in a savage manner even drawing her hand across her neck to make her point clear and so our grand entrance was doused -Great show however. By contrast our show in Mornington turned out to be truly horrible. The venue had changed ownership since the show was booked. We basically provided background restaurant music to a disinterested room of diners. One fellow heading a large table of very noisy children, kindly gave us $50 on his way out “for ruining our night” which was thoughtful.
As usual we emerged stronger and bitterer than ever. Watch out QLD.
By far and away the most gratifying response to the “I Am Coming Back (In a Revenge Song)” clip thus far has been from a five year old child. I was informed via email that the little tyke was scared by the zombie in the clip. Well, I sat there complacently congratulating myself on having terrified an innocent child for a good thirty seconds or more. I then read further into the email, where I discovered that the child calls the Zombie a “Chuckle”.
I find this name so terrifying that now I have had to turn on all the lights, petrified that there may be a Chuckle or Chuckles lurking in some dark corner of my home.
Let this be a salutary reminder of the dangers of hubris.
“Doomsday Piano” is CD of the week on the Daily Planet on Radio National all this week. You can listen online, or on the wireless-phonomatagraph, 2:20 PM and repeated at 11:20 PM. We often hear contradictory and retarded reports from radio as to why they find it impossible to play the thing (weirdly, none are related to the extensive back-masking employed in the recording of the album) so it is nice to get some play.
The Melbourne launch is this Thursday August 17 at the East Brunswick Club. Tickets available here. A few more reviews: Beat Magazine sez the album flies “in the face of whatever fashion currently holds sway”. FasterLouder sez it’s “strikingly original and undeniably unique”. There’s an interview with Steve here, in which he likens Don Walker to Clint Eastwood and reveals a song he would have liked to have written solely fer the filthy lucre.
The first review of “Doomsday Piano” can be found here . We were all very pleased to discover that the album was enjoyed by the reviewer, as this prevented us from holding our breath until we went blue and beating our fists on the floor.
