22 Dreams

I just finished reading Christos Tsiolkas’ Dead Europe which I loved.  As a second generation Australian I found the novel confronting and difficult to read at times with its haunting depictions of past-generational traumas.  This book acts as a conduit toward my coming to some better understanding of what my parents went through as individuals in 1930s-40s Calabria, Italy.  Anna Maria Dell’oso’s Songs of a Suitcase did similarly, however that book is more impressionistic in tone, something of an Italian-Australian Anais Nin minus the erotica.  Tsiolkas by contrast is harsher, he is direct and unflinching in his expressions of violence, bigotry and bloodlust.  The author conveyed Europe as a continent of insurmountable burden, of which every player, every person, had to bear some or much of that leaden psychic load.  This is the Europe that my parents, and their parents, knew, or more precisely, the god-fearing, superstitious ultra-catholic and xen...

(for gav's little songy mag)            I’d seen Tex Don & Charlie perform a few times prior to their Factory Theatre gig in Marrickville last week; twice in 1993 when they’d just formed, and again to a packed house at the Hopetoun in Surry Hills in 2003.  Fourteen years later, the group had sold out the larger Factory Theatre over three consecutive nights, confirming their enduring popularity and appeal as they tour Australia for the first time in over a decade. Something of a mini-super group, the band comprises of Tex Perkins (Cruel Sea, Beasts of Bourbon), Charlie Owen (Divinyls, Beasts of Bourbon), and Don Walker (Cold Chisel, Catfish), with extra musicians guesting on double bass, drums, and at this recent gig a pedal steel guitar.  Tex Don & Charlie weren’t particularly popular to begin with.  Being a huge Don Walker fan I didn’t miss the opportunity to see them live as soon as they started gigging to...

enjoying a bevvy Awakening to the ‘good’ in our lives and to the fulfilling sense of gratitude which follows often comes to us via the most simple and sometimes indirect means.  I’ve found myself catalysing these freeing thoughts and sensations by attending Al-Anon meetings, which is a worldwide support group for friends and relatives of alcoholics.  Al-Anon delivers a platform for attendees to listen and to speak with candour and honesty in a confidential setting with like-minded persons. I’ve been to three Al-Anon meetings thus far over three consecutive weeknights.  There’s a church up at Randwick that hosts both AA (alcoholics anonymous) and Al-Anon meetings on Thursday nights.  My partner is in both AA and A-Anon.  We figured that I might give Al-Anon a go – given I’m a blue ribbon qualifier - while she can choose between attending either AA or Al-Anon depending on her own needs at the time.  She came with me to my first two Al-Anon m...

I graduated from high-school 30 years ago.  The boys are on for a major reunion, so out come the Facebook groups, comments, photo uploads.  S uddenly I'm drawn into this yesteryear world of peering over schoolboy headshots appearing on Facebook and attempting to recall all those long-forgotten faces.  My immersion into this group has been an odd experience, a surreal journey where I find myself flipping between 1987 and the present and sometimes capturing the essence again of being that exact person I was when I was 17 years old and left wondering if anything in my life has actually moved on since then.  Songs or feelings I had in 1987 suddenly flash in my memory and consciousness, vivid and alive.  Suzanne Vega's Solitude Standing album.  The innocence of living quietly and studying.  But that sense of life coming full-circle is somewhat unsettling.  I may have left school, though I haven't really left university.  I work there, and b...

Our illustrious editor and SSA stalwart Gavin Fitzgerald has come out with ‘ Another ’.   Another what?   Another album, named, ‘Another’!   ‘Another’ follows on from his debut solo album ‘ Just ’ of 2008, the album that broke away from many years of playing and recording with his band, Velvet Road. ‘Just’ and ‘Another’ are in many ways a complementary pair of albums, not unlike the two Syd Barrett solo albums recorded after Barrett’s absconsion from Pink Floyd in the late 1960s.   Compared to ‘Just’, ‘Another’ is stylistically more varied, and introduces to the mix a wider variety of guest musicians.   On ‘Another’, James Englund makes a special guest star appearance on saxophone for a couple of tracks.    Ross plays bass on most of the 16 tracks, with Marc Mittag playing bass on four songs and Gav on one.   Backing vocals were shared by Megan Albany and Ross, who also adds some ukulele to one track.   Peter Thompson adds djemb...