The Time Being | Steve Kilbey

perch-prism

the hammer of the gods

the whip of the moon

the electric lash of the trees in the studio

one of these days im gonna slide down that rainbow way

im outside your house i see everything you cant find

a ship of the silverest metal

i’m not your 20th century man, oh no

i dont want to feel like a machine

youre not the only one who wants to feel the in between

i want to be a machine

dont believe what you heard faithfuls not a bad word

love the one youre with love the one youre with

darling darling do we part like the seas…?

you got off light  lying there in your own world tonight

keep on playing them mind games

i’m stiff on my legend

my death waits there in the double bed

the sails of oblivion at my head

forget that i’m fifty cos you just got paid

all you sweet girls with your sweet talk

you can all go take a fucking walk

it was a delicate crime

inside the car sat a sulky blonde

on her lap the road went on and on

its the last ride our little game is over

i remember riding riding in your car

i see the city’s ripped backsides

if you wanna be the passenger

you cant afford the ticket

i got 2 loves i got 2 loves

and they go tweet tweet tweet tweet tweet like little birds

theyre my true loves

yonder shes walking long black hair

there she goes there she goes again

in winter when the fog rolls in upon the briny deep

the apartments are half empty and the big talk is cheap

the sweetest pearl in the shell

why even jesus christ was betrayed by a kiss

its coming on again life speeds up dont you know

i love you like the stars above you

gather round all you clowns let me hear you say

heyday

as i go along my way i say hey hey

good morning steve well you wont believe me today

aurora what you doing here?

an old man here says that he knew you in another life

this life reserved for a friend

is this the end beautiful friend

of our elaborate plans the end

we drive into the east

look at the map add up the cost

dont let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy

so tired of running from my own heat

as we ride down the highway 101

hiding in the backstreets

always something there to remind me

only 24 hours from tulsa

25 or 6 to 4

1 for the money

2 for the show

3 to get ready

7 times i cursed these 7 tears

but ive been dirt but i dont care

on saturday night i saw a light shine from a window

driving home from the show i saw your lights

i knew youd been with her

my abstract model

my favourita

is this where you live

you only live twice

(there was a lot more to this blog

but an error caused me to lose the other half

i am to0 weary to try to reproduce it so

i will let this fragment remain)

http://www.undercover.fm/news/15111-the-church-revert-to-the-refo-mation-for-one-special-show

The Church Revert To The Refo:mation For One Special Show
By Paul Cashmere
Yesterday at 4:51pm (Thu, 16 Jun 2011 16:51:06 +1000)

“When Steve Kilbey, Peter Koppes and Tim Powles perform for ‘Universe Within: an Autism Awareness and Benefit Gig’ next week, it will be a reformation of The Refo:mation.

The charity event will be a very special one-off event. For the three members of The Church performing songs live from their late 1990’s period under the name The Refo:mation is extremely rare.

The Church used the name at a time when Marty Willson-Piper was unavailable for the band. Instead of treating the album ‘Pharmako/Distance-Crunching Honchos With Echo Units’ a Church album, they used The Refo:mation as a name.

“We have never played it live”, The Church drummer Tim Powles tells Undercover.fm. “Marty can’t be here so we will do a rare show”.

The show in Sydney will raise money for Autism Spectrum Australia. Autism affects 1 in 160 people in Australia.

The show will also feature a presentation of the film ‘Rainman Goes To Rockwiz’, directed by Steve Kilbey’s brother Russell.

The second half of the show will then feature a full set of songs from The Church with Ricky Maymi from the Brian Jonestown Massacre filling in for Wllson-Piper. Guests for the set will include Tom Moore from the Mercy Arms, Suzy Connelly from Butterfly G, Brendan Gallagher and Phil Hall from the Lime Spiders.

The show was put together very quickly. ‘Three weeks ago today we went we need to do it,” Tim said.

Universe Within is on at Red Rattler, Marrickville on June 23.”
* Please note that Ricky Maymi (Brian Jonestown Massacre) is not filling in for Marty, he will be one of our special guest artists.

Update 18/6/11

UNIVERSE WITHIN

Autism Awareness and Benefit Gig
with members of the church

Steve Kilbey, Peter Koppes and Tim Powles  (also  appearing at this one-time only
as The Refo:mation)

and special  guests (in no particular order) including

Phil Hall (Lime Spiders)
Stan Holroyd
Craig Wilson (astreetlightsong)
Jak Housden (The Whitlams)
Thom Moore (Mercy Arms)
Ricky Maymi (Brian Jonestown Massacre)
Jimmy Hilbun (San Franciscan Lover)
Brendan Gallagher  (karma county)
Suzi Connolly (Butterfly 9)
Russell Kilbey (songs from the Crystal Set)
Nick Kennedy (Knievel)
Sandi Chick
Daniel Darling
Mark Moldre (Hitchcock’s Regret)
David Skeet

Intermission : showing of Russell Kilbey and Amy Scully’s award winning doco Rainman Goes to Rockwiz’

MC – Jamie Holt (The Camels)

Thursday June 23. Red Rattler. 6 Faversham Street, Marrickville.

Doors Open at 8pm

Entry via recommended $60  donation to Aspect being collected at the door.
Exclusive items for silent auction on the night.

the light still pours out of me

the need to experience everything

the most sacred place the most dirty place

the place that is no place at all

the emptiest place where the soul stripped bare of skins

and  hardly recognisable  to that naked  i

they have sold you a lie brothers and sisters

and the rock and the roll is a path to that lies heart

ladies and gentlemen is it not best that we rock and rock on?

i strap on my plank with wires but its a stradivarius of a plank

boom boom boom my amplified notes that have busted my ears

i am an old soldier still fighting in his legion

my sword is my music

my arrows are my words

my integrity is my shield

my failures and mistakes scar me but i fight on

such a grandiose metaphor  such is rocknroll

you can be high n mighty

you can be down and low

you can be gay or junkie or christian or  fool

you can be lovely or ugly or rich or poor

self taught or conservatory it doesnt matter

rock put the power back in all our hands

now we the people can select our heroes

and we choose em from rocknroll because its all we got

you cant trust actors n politicians speaking someone elses lines

you cant trust rocknroll singers either …what the hell do we know?

but rock aint asking for your trust

rock aint asking for your vote

but it is asking for your money

and in return it gives you something

so sublime there is no word to describe it

some revelation some bliss some divine insight

some release of the feeling of love

some excitement some hope some pride some joy

only a few can ever invoke such things and that music we treasure

it brings the holy to even the most heathen of hearts

it sets the scene for an epiphany

it guides you towards a splendid feeling of being in the know

it creates a world for you

each record by the beatles built on and expanded from the last world

the initial solid modern construction would begin to sprout strange new wings

consider “the end” by the doors

who has ever conjured this mood before except maybe arthur rimbaud?

a journey within decadence and failure and random images of dissolution

when its all over you feel like you experienced something, eh?

oh that jimbo quite a poet and those lovely instruments

hear them embellishing and weaving the threads of the story

hear that voice leading you all over the place

through time and nightmare

its a play its a poem its a story its a vision

in this we somehow get glimpses of  the supernatural world

the world inhabited by spirit by the dead by the drugged by the insane

a wild world oh baby baby

there is magic in this world and 3 short cuts

are sex drugs and rocknroll

all three together taken in regular large doses will open up your chakras

or something

the profound shift in any direction away from this dismal reality of here

when i was 16 i worked on a building site as a labourer

for 6 weeks of school holiday one year

at work it was brutal and hard and so male it was disgusting to me

everything was coarse and vulgar and loud and brutal

i got home and my antidote was to enter the world of “a beard of stars”

yeah marc bolan was the opposite of the guys on the site

here was romance and tragedy and strange strange magic

a middle earth set to some mixture of the weirdest rock

these songs seemed dragged from another continuum

where eric claptonesque forms are laid over baroque tapestries

where fey means faery and miracles are materialising

and the love oh my goodness

the love the love the love

bolan is in love with his babe

he is donovan playing romeo playing legolas playing caspian

away from the concrete dust and the muddy carpark and blokes

bolans world opened upon the first note of the record

it was not a world like a book to be explored once maybe twice

it was a world expanding open in breathtaking jumps

the more you listened the more you heard and ditto in reverse

this was not the hamfisted thump of your zeps and purples

nor the grammar school feel of yer yesses n genesises

nor the rebellious strut of the stones

not even the beatles

in all their trailblazing wanderings had hit upon this world

not even druggy not even deliberately weird

bolan had taken rocknroll instruments and techniques

and used them to outpour babylon and greece and narnia and druid

like half remembered books from childhood

with the witches and black cats and its elders and m m m magical moons

and against this backdrop bolan invokes youth and love and an ideal idyll

fuck its not everyones cup of tea

but the marvel is nonetheless that he pulled it off

and it gave me a chance to see the possibility

of reconciling all my favourite things into song

and somehow locking them there to be taken out when needed

i take bolans blueprint and i sometimes reassemble it in my own materials

thats alright thats what its all about

thats the business thats the way it s’posed to be

you take the best stuff and recombine it

thats what we do

thats what you like

temporary magic 7

i fucking love rocknroll

love its myths and characters

love its ups n downs

love its snakes and its ladders

love its ritual love its symbolism

love its tradition love its innovation

love its winners love more its losers

i love to fucking rock and lemme tell ya its a loada fun

man you can just say whatever you want

man you can just play whatever you want

every song should have everything in it

not much you cant put in a rock song

except mundanity and tepidness

then you got pop i guess

you can be rock and still pop

but you cant be pop and then rock

is it love that makes us rock ?sang marco boleyn

a deeply profound and deceptively simple question

because what the fuck does make us rock after all if it is not love?

love of your baby

love of your friend

love of your brother and sister

love of this earth

love of anything even if its bad i suppose

rock is so subtle and so obvious

rock to describe feelings no other artform can or even tries to

a wild hedonistic pagan spirituality steeped in its own icon and iconoclast

a collision between black rhythm indian drone white melody

if he were alive homer would be rocking and william shakespeare too

gilgamesh was a rocker so was lucifer the naughty one

jesus could do lovely ambient stuff and beautiful folk

but once in the temple with the money changers he really rocked

he blew em away with a blast of proto rock rapping

had the phucking pharisees bopping in their kaftans baby

oh yes jesus could write lyrics too …are you kidding me?

ask nicky cave for example…..

throw in a bit of jesus into a bit of the old murder malarkey

and you got some new profound trip happening before you can say amen

oh yeah napoleon rocked too

he fucking brought the house down

charisma in spades a proto beatles hairdo and sgt peppers get up

hand in his jacket as a gimmick

a french salon groupie slut for a wife

hes like the artist formerly known as prince in whatever century that was

fuckin’ hannibal barca …i mean how rocking was this freakin’ druid?

he fuckin’ well rocked rome and that was a hard city to crack

buddha was a brian eno type but nevertheless rock

krishna is like a hindu ziggy stardust complete with tragic ending

but whilst burning bright he was androgynous and beautifully weird

just like ziggy!

houdini was a rocker n he rocked in spades

he was dazzling and he left em gasping

rasputin was alice cooper and percy shelly was peter frampton

guy fawkes was the clash

caligula was marilyn manson

nero was courtney taylor taylor

king henry the eighth was elvis

robespierre was rage against the machine

dr john dee was john lennon

isaac newton was paul mccartney

gandhi was george harrison

doubting thomas was ringo starr

archduke ferdinand was pete best

louis pasteur was george martin

fuck i dunno

liszt was rog adultery

dante was um….me…according to a secret doctrine adhered to by certain people

panthers rock

cheetahs rock

wolves rock like a heavy metal band

eagles rock

falcons rock

bears dont rock

squirrels dont rock

sharks rock but its vicious cold rock like the velvets

dolphins are easy listening rock

swans are jeff buckley

kittens are richard from the underground lovers

pandas are kiss

fire is rock sometimes air rocks too

water rarely rocks and earth never

male is rock female is rock

but in the right ratio

too much male and you got a building site

too much female and you got a bridal boutique

too much young you got a cartoon

too much old you got a game of fucking cricket

rock is also wore and piece

too much war you got yer johnny rotten

too much peace you got the friggin’ thompson twins

too much thought you got rick wakeman

too little thought you got robbie williams

blah blah blah

go and rock on then

in the free and freer worlds

in the far distant past and future to the birthday present day

rock is the answer

the question

the equation

the spell

the need

the reason

we rock because we love

the panther in winter (figurative and literal)

oh lioness do not forget your pride

he whispered the words to a song he knew into the vast grey sky

the day was leaden

the sun a dim white blur off somewhere

all his thoughts were brilliant but fleeting

bewilderness years indeed

an inbuilt sense of morality had failed

time was constantly running out as it had in its timeless way

a wise man in love is a fool down inside

his mind presented him vague axioms

a way to live his life

by the time he would discover the golden rule

the game would be in time-on then

the things he excelled at became better n better

the flaws n faults got worse and worse

the way the years had altered him surprised him

the good things held him together

the bad things pulled him apart

as they were in equal measure he remained therein

in the cancelling out of each other he had achieved a lift off

he perceived the paradox in everything

he lecherously coveted chastity

he did not hesitate to dither

an anxiety-less state made him really worry

in the midst of his turmoil he was calm

he often hated love and loved to hate

he couldnt wait so he started waiting

the concrete facts of our normal world warped in his head

he could see the bizarre in everything normal

it seemed normal to him to be bizarre

he had eavesdropped on citizens who had been intriguing him

he had committed a crime to discover a worse one within

as he read and interpreted the information

never intended for him to see

shocked by what he had uncovered

guilty as an interloper

he was fascinated and repulsed at the data encoded here

the 2 most deadly sins anger and lust

metamorphed in angry lust and lustful anger

marvel of treachery and bravado and stupidity

oh here was something important to solving the equation

how little he had known of these citizens of his

how surprising people can really be in their predictable fashion

man into pig woman into turkey

people getting their fucking lines from le jerry springer show

people getting their numbers from a puddle

people getting their nightmares tattooed in black n white

people plotting an attack on themselves

ha the enemy was always the same looming omnipresent threat

the threat of more threats…was that a paradox or just dopiness…?

some of it made no perfect sense

was that a mixed metaphor or some key unlocking satori…?

he tried to digest what he was seeing

his eyes were like a stomach then

and his brain seethed in its own bile and spleen

the nazarene the grooviest of all had opined

evil thought was much worse than poisonous food

now his head was filled with these others not even his

the lurid banality of every fucking thing

the sheer drop into a bitter negation of  soul

the fury invoked at elemental levels

the brutes and tramps that live within us half-bidden

the traitor in the skin of a friend

idiot within genius within idiot ad nausea infinitum

the fascination of deep repulsion was a truth to conquer

the magnetism of disgust

the way the wrong thing inexorably always goes the wrong way

the citizens were selling each other and themselves down a black river

it was so obvious that nothing good comes from anything bad

that no one not he could  see it

this most confidential information my friends thus rendered useless

obtained by deceit to expose deceit

trespass upon traitor to intrude upon a wide open door

inside you find what you wished to have known

but once you will know you will wish to forget

but forgetting is not the easiest thing

and everybody has their own price

and whether you pay in flesh or in gold

and whether you play by any rules at all

i mean why not just do anything…?

when your inner sense of good and evil

is not directed by the satellite of love and mercy

every where the plotters are adoring you

and their ceilings are flooring you

when you understand only half of the story

every now and then the protagonists and antagonists

falling out of character they reveal dismal disappointing emptiness

and your ardent enjoyment suddenly withers as you read the pages

the clarity

it has brought more murkiness …yes it has!

the insight leaves you blind

the sudden gush of discovery gives way to the long labour of regret

the sky becoming darker darker

the sound of the oceans white thunder fades

and its time for you to again enter the next stage

Marty will be performing as a guest at a Weeping Willows gig at the Orion Theatre, Stockholm Sweden tonight Saturday the 11th of June. The show starts at 8pm.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weeping_Willows

http://www.orionteatern.se/sida.asp?visa=12

a high and lonely destiny

the dull ache of music the throb of desire

i stand by myself in the dark and conspire

i stand with my trespass and the Hesperus is in

but nobody knows just where to begin

but  talking snake who was living in eden

his envy was black his jealousy bleedin’

his malice towards the innocent eve

has gotten us here if thats what you believe

i myself once saw a nymph in a glade

she begged me come hither and started to fade

interpret this thing uh how you see fit

hammer on then after hit after hit

hammer off youre caught in a swamp

at the sky box office  without any comp

have a word to your friends up uh at the top

just ask them where they think it will all stop

prince william-frogge from alsace -lorraine

conquered the heart of a girl from far maine

and five asian boys who carried his spear

and a sad swedish lad  that bring up the rear

i memorised the clouds from 2 skies before

i recorded the sound of the shadows on the floor

i bolted my mouth and smiled with my door

it was then that i realised where we’d met before

on some sunny riverbank drowsing at noon

i was dressed all in houndstooth and phrygian moon

you… wore your  favourite of all womansuit

made from fine weather and the leather of newt

i divine the fine line between the mine and the thine

on sunset and vine in edenic  sunshine

on the corner of queen street i was just one more jack

with my angles gone wrong n there not coming back

with my forget me not who and my blind envelope

dismissive despair cos i cant bear no hope

the conditions i appear upon i fear not complied

i take my guitar and sulk round outside

and the abbot of funkytown was le cardinale hippe

his drum of a brain with the stick on the lip

i uh never could see his trip with jehovah

but when kingdom dot com he’ll be rolling in clover

yeah my heart is a temple with its moneychangers

and my mind is a maze full of lost strangers

and my face carved by ancient and my beard chinese white

and my wonder whatever i did with the night

i just wanted to say well thats all about it

i come to the end uh n i better uh quit

i wish you good luck in all you entail

be careful i hear  they put the moon up for sale…..

inflammation of spirit

greetings from nowhere my cadillacs gone

the moon is a slut and she fucks with the sun

hey can you see me with my dessert boots on

hey can you hear me with my  polaroid song

i spent all my money on dawn and on candy

i went into sea and i came out all sandy

i went into city n i saw you with randy

hes a good little boy and his stuff comes in handy

hey can you read me i’m off of the track

i love it when you run your land down my back

my fucking dagger that just stands there in black

or my nepalese kiss that commands every  stack

oh the holiest snatch of profane waning song

oh the feeling of catch when the trap is set wrong

its not a patch on the macho along

its gotta hatch before your billabong

oh you went to a restaurant with your newly friend

i dont doubt you’ll come to a real sticky end

love make believe if you have to pretend

pretend that your bending your borrow to lend

the soup was a green clammy chowder with fizz

the salad undressing you with its dead kiss

the main course and the sauce tasted like piss

a lovely drink after (the laughter was his)

the night was a zoo the house was a cage

oh honey youve entered but on the wrong stage

oh baby so vacant so strongly engaged

oh child this consensual world is your age

oh idiot mind oh simian fix

oh horrible name oh animal licks

oh brute full of skull oh toms harrys dicks

oh hideous house full of pricks in the styx

the winter was cold the snow lay around

youre getting warmer and warmer virginia found

back in the ring for just one more round

back in the middle for just one more pound

a nasty dumb note then arrived in my box

pig latin with the charisma of socks

a boring boar roared at the fox

a gorilla no killer no thriller an ox

did you really then brag about this disgrace

and butt your head on the awfullest place

and swing your thing and erasing your face

you readied n steadied into inhuman race

well the morning was puke and the scenery was ill

and i wake up asleep and i dream of it still

jack and jill went up the last hill

jack broke his knacks n jill broke her thrill

sudden revelation of elevation

anger is fire

anger all consuming rising up in the gorge

anger screaming demanding burning

anger pierces me in the side

anger dressed in flames races through me leaves me ash

see me go up like a forest in summer

fight anger with anger

pour on more anger

fight fire with fire

the indignant the proud the cruel the furious fury

revenge and hatred and  ire and loathing

yes let them be unleashed

pull down violence and pain

anger must be appeased

it is too big to be extinguished

too in to be put out

anger is red anger is male anger is singular

anger is not an energy it is an explosion of energy

anger oh you know you will regret it but who can resist?

not me

i aint no gentleman jim

i aint no saint

i aint no turn the other fucking cheek

anger is within me waiting its turn opportunistically

volcano of white hot lava see me blow my top

a certain pathetic ratbag

who infested my house uninvited gets mentioned

and baby i am at fever fucking pitch before the second syllable …

that the universe could produce these individuals

so devoid of any moral compass

capable of any treachery or perjury or trespass

hyaenas would shake their heads

jackals would cross the street to avoid them

tyrants would suck in their breath

any image of ratbag

any mention of ratbag

any attempt at any amelioration of ratbag

fucking incenses one  to some high blood pressure hell

this anathema to decency

this collision with uselessness

this constant forced exposure to sheer misery personified

oh steven i stand back and fear for your health when i see you like this

i know my muse but the elemental is feeding off this

it wont let  me alone

and i cant let it go

whenever of think of this wretch

the elemental in waiting appears in my brain

before i know it i am a crazy man

riding a crazy horse

and i cant get off until the ride is all over

my mouth fills with the vilest words

and my heart pumps with boiling blood

my spleen and bile

the great winter of my discontent

the discordant notes in my music

the throb of pain in my head

the elemental is fed

the anger subsides

it leaves me empty handed gasping for breath

my mind is a scorched earth

my heart is cold and turgid

my perspective gone

my day shattered

my composure decomposed

my stitch unravelling

my valves bouncing

my engine warped

my train of thought derailed

and the elemental sleeps and waits

until there is something again for it to eat

insouciance and latitude in spades

well i dont know how many were sent to this world

a hundred  a thousand maybe ten maybe less

sometimes i wonder where are those i arrived with

because creatures like us seem too few to begin

these words flying in and then out of my head

these numbers for me that cant mean anything

this avarice jungle  this gossiping swamplife

with its idiot sport and its pampered great sons

with its heros recast as handsome police man

with its heroines only as good and bad wives

with its insatiable hunger  its dying for diets

with its hideous thirst for the first hardest drink

with its stupidest rascals all chatting you up

with its most brutish bullies all holding you down

with its war and its whore and its bore and its gore

o my muse we need none of these things

i wonder at moments if their  hearts ever ache

for the cynosure of all eyes within

in interior chambers we whisper a secret

and it reverberates out to anterior space

o muse tell me why some prayers are unanswered

maybe they are but you just never see

people like you my friend always asking for miracles

when the immanent god has blessed you in spades…

its then that i realise i’m talking to no one

an eerie silence in an empty white skull

maybe one day my muse will desert me

maybe one day the axe will just fall

maybe i wander all severed asunder

jumping at thunder and deflecting the light

battling ogres who live in the zeitgeist

and the pyrrhic victory will be all mine

as he grasp at the offcuts of philistine fancy

a slave to new money and the old la-de-da

same swings n roundabouts but children are changed

same old rat race but its gotten past faster

when someone decided it was good to be bad

my distant reward points to a heavenly home

my ghost souvenirs from the turbulent nights

in arabicia on isle d’ capri

in solomons mines in mountain kings hall

in a discotheque called the black shangri-la

maybe i’m rambling  i should just let it all go

the kitten is purring but the clocks seem to stopped

and the sunshine is like some drug in itself

an afternoon to be gone with the mind

i imagine you reading those words with your eyes

and then even that thought is slipping away