The Time Being | Steve Kilbey

i enter the great caravan park in disguise

i lay before you ladies and gentlemen

iridescent summer in iridescent pastel

the tents of yesteryears crammed full of memory

my australian idyllic place where i hide

there is no such place

it was once before me

it is now clearly behind me

the sea meets the carnival nights

all those kids coming out with their mums and dads

i saw a kid called vickers in a red shirt and long white pants

i was shocked at how grown up he looked

the carousel throbbing in my head

i kissed a girl from a catholic school

i swam in the sea pool alone in the night under a lonely light

this was my summer to claim or to blame

i owned that summer in the city by the sea smile

it was my summer everyone could have probably seen that

i was speeding in my fathers white cars

speeding through the naked streets behind the towns

speeding in the long lanes of shadow thrown by the sea towers

i was crashing in darkness in cinemas on stuffy airless nights

we fidgeted through god save the queen

but i digress it was a long time ago

now that i wander in summer my self

my new self my good self somewhat improved

the smell of that old suntan lotion in the distance i grant you

the sky is brighter though and more overbearing

its blueness threatens to burst in the sky

then afternoons move into fog and latitudes of softest warmest rain

as sweet as scarlets murmured kisses she says daddy i love you

or maybe it was the windows catching in the wind

but there is no wind

the summer night is still

pregnant perhaps with tomorrow

a summer day complete with the losers n champs

the beer will flow the children will wait

the mowing of a lawn

the hammer far away

theres a pool in that backyard darling

just on your tiptoes there can you see it

yes i see it oh its beautiful

summer is my thing look i can sell it back to you

my summer is in word and paint and song

my summer last all year long

my summer of  strange colour

my summer of sand in the bed

my summer of drama my summer of pine trees

my forest of summer at the back of the yard

the mosquito bites are starting to itch

my freckly skin gone a bit pink in the sun

this rockpool  has a clue for me

its indecipherable but still its a clue

in the backstreets of another bondi arm in arm

the summer people evaporate at my whim

i cast a storm upon the busy streets

but still the rain is soft

softer than anything else in this world

summer isnt fun when everyone you knew is gone

hang around in the market

i buy a shirt i never wear

the guy seemed so nice and i couldnt say no

he told me so much about the shirt

it would have been churlish not to buy it

it hangs in the wardrobe accusingly i sometimes think

i wonder if i should wear it

i try it on and it looks stupid

but in my summer of summers where all the boardshorts fit perfectly

the lights have changed and the baby rain has slowed to a mild fuzz

i’m having a milkshake in a cafe somewhere there

chatting up a couple of girls staying just over the bridge

and one of ems nice and one of ems not

the nice one says something nice

the not nice one saying something not nice

in bewilderment i turn on her quickly and rude

i say something quite nasty and stupid

and both of you stand of up and get ready to leave

you really are as bad as my friend makes you out

i sit in my summer alone but its nice

i mean my heart is wounded so it listens to songs on the jukebox

songs about guys with broken hearts just like mine

and i find a sense of sweetness and purpose

and a sense of necessity in all of those songs

those songs that some guy wrote for some woman

and she goes and leaves him or dies from OD

those songs about the loneliness of empty rooms

an empty old bed as the summer sun waves goodnight

in my summer of love love is elusive

in my summer of youth i imagined them up

summer of mercy

summer of mornings

summer of evenings ripped from a film

summer of heat summer of pain

summer of upheaval summer of null

crystallised summer in packets of lollies

i bid you all now sweet summer dreams

my head is so heavy

the night is forgiving

let it go on forever

forever and ever

amen

the picture is gone

let these words exist in darkness

let these words explode in some strangers head

someone i aint ever met

i dont write truth i dont write lies

i have everything yet nothing to tell you

a story as common as any old yarn if you please

why the author is already bored with retelling it

the usual conflicts the usual resolutions

the confused pawns moved by a distant hand

the sun and moon have exchanged positions again

the tide goes in and out

i come to grips with slipperiness

i contain the idea that detachment can be achieved violently

fresh treachery in every gesture

could one really be a hero in this novel no ones reading

the players are not fixed they drift in and out of mind

it seems no one knows why anything happens

it seems ive woken from a dream

but the other dreamers scream out

go back to sleep

there is no reason for all this thrashing around

the pointlessness of it all needs not be pointed out

we’re all just children no more helpless

we dont think to think

i am coming up against spirit

i am coming up against power

if you proceed against spirit and power you will fail

one leads to the other

deep foundations in some other eternity

intelligence alone is baffling bewildering

every genius an idiot but never vice versa i assure you

none of the best stuff comes from just us

with the invisible source gone from the equation

the figures can never reconcile themselves

overlooking the obvious well it happens all the time

ive found bad luck rubs off on whole planets

ive seen a jinx last ten thousand years

they dont have time to empty the traps

before we’re filling em up with our bodies again

here comes a guillotine here comes a plague

here comes a genetically modified germ

now i have the cure it will cost you 10 k

now i have a chip we should all wear in our heads

we can track each others movements thru lives

i have a screen all the children should watch

and once theyre hooked they will never slip off

i have a way of protecting you all

but first you must tell me your pins and your codes

i have a rock by the side of this ocean

i sit and i think of the fucknuckle idiots

the ones who keep on ruining my lives

just when i was sorting it out

another clown goes and another arrives

like a merciful king i send them all into exile

then one day i awake on my throne all alone

the night has receded like a black soothing sea

leaving me here just thrashing around

warm glow increases fractious display

i the telegraphic son of whom it is said : nothing

in sides the war-locked city spire

worked with water  lathed by puma clawed antelope wing

i am bounced between juxtaposed states

strange envelopes something hopes me to enter

off centre the squares line up against my stars

i perish in some menagerie gored by memphis horns

the wildnesses where i must interpret small hints

printed in elvish the passports of leaves

sometimes the great artist forgets a stray flourish

sometimes a spider may release a fly

sometimes the king can sing of these things

often the earth often the sky

but sometimes the lonely eye

then summon the women bearing the liquors

and bring on the girls all fruitful and kind

and send up a litre of yer finest nepenthe

perhaps i need to get right out of this mined

turk coys

music came into being

we stood in the garden

a vast sunset at dawn

we listened as she sang

black as raven voice of comet

milk of kindness

web of doubt

i knew then i had to sing that song forever

my fingers grew into keys which unlocked the notes

the notes were louder than silk yet softer than sun

the moon seemed all flute

i moved her one bar to the east

darling piano i tramp on your pedals

you resonate on and unto the aether

what song did our mother sing on that morning ?

what song did our sister welcome the night ?

what song did our daughter ask to be born ?

what song did all people enter the grave ?

then i stepped up to play

but my voice was all distant

like somebody else from so long ago

its never the same no matter how often it happens

so get on that stage and on with the show

PLEASE NOTE – 27/1/12 – tickets are now only available from the zoo from 3pm tomorrow  (the day of the concert)

TWILIGHT AT TARONGA – Last chance to see the church in concert in Sydney for a while. Plenty of tix are still available for this gig at the Zoo. Date: Sat Jan 28th. Time 7.30pm. Beautiful view, music and atmosphere. Don’t miss out. Click on the link above to get your tickets!

the author ache

i am compelled to believe in a god and i thank him

my life is a real baroque maze

it is a bizarre riddle

still i have had my health and i have eked out a living

playing not working

all extremes combined into one i have stumbled through life

certain wearinesses appear reminding me of my approaching winter

and my long rest

too hard to be soft

too soft to be hard

music words art have become easy for me

but life is getting harder

i tell you again

with all my words yet i cannot seem to reason with many

my anger and self-doubt trip me up

my pre-occupation with art consumes me

i work on things in my head

i can’t keep track of all this on the outside

i have my own taboos and formulae and rituals

given isolation in a music studio and an art enclave

oh i would certainly produce something very good

the outside world intrudes of course

i don’t get enough done

i need to create

I’ve gotta get cracking

every day or 2 a new thing crops up

good things bad things neutral things

eats up yer time and inclination to do something

my world drives me mad

it is one conundrum on top of one more conundrum

writing a song?

no worries

sorting all the rest out?

weariness descends

i am at the centre yet have frittered away authority

old myths linger

the new me is perceived only dimly

as i get freer i get more entangled

then suddenly even tomorrow

it may all suddenly stop

and all the manoeuvring will be as nothing

just more bullshit contributing to ones demise

storm element

driving down the old highway

the car against the road is the low hum of the strings

the cars rushing past are cymbals and tambourines

the winds blowing in my windows are flutes and piccolos

the rattles in the car are the snares and castanets

the cicadas in the trees are the white noise of one million stratocasters

the cars blow their horns

the tyres drum on the bitumen

in my head the music goes round

the busted a.c. is a leslie cabinet

the australian sun is a spotlight

the blue sky a vast curtain

the miles are my songs

the years are my band

the long long years

it is australia any year

summer this is my 57th summer

the bell birds are xylophones and glocks

suddenly my extended metaphor tires me

my golden the falcon sings so smoothly though

my heart a bass drum bump bomp

my cough is reedy and percussive

my pulse is in 4/4 time

four on the flaw

i accelerate through space

i move constantly through time

i groove on my train of thought

some weird station has a weird show on weird music

such and such a composer exploring dissonance

dissonance is that a latinate word for racket?

i’m working on the  film score in my head

i start to question my values on music

some pieces on the weird show are a racket

and some of them are actually much more than that

but i can’t understand the appeal of the racket anymore

tho i once told my self i was across a decent racket

maybe i was fooling whoever i dreamed i was

i am nothing fixed

although i drift towards a purer position

with music i mean

simplicity melody

the recombination of a thousand tiny tricks

i follow hunches

i listen to instinct

the very first thing you think of is often the best *

all the time

my lazy easy way of doing things

if you try you’ve already lost

it just has to come easy

easy come and easy go

like life itself

never grasp at it too hard

i made that mistake

i wanted everything at once

it was unobtainable to me at 16

i wanted it all and i tried n i tried

playing the bass was the easiest bit

i was up and running in no time

i mean you don’t have to mozart to go bang bong bong on a bass

so what… i was another contender making a row in a garage

i met some truly gifted players like dave scotland and dave young

young brilliant guitarists who could have gone all the way imhfo

of course peter koppes of whom it is hard to imagine

a time when he was not accomplished on a load of instruments

his understanding of music is that of an absolute master

his playing is filled with restrained power and melodic grace

his sound is vast and distant

sometimes its hard to understand what he is actually doing

to his apollo is martys dionysus

more abrasive more metallic more inflaming

thus they interweave both being ying and yang at anyone time

well that is today for you

the girls and i  received some very nice gifts too

and i’m eating a bit of a gift now

but not looking gift horses in their mouths

i am grateful

australia is a nice nice place

i like my car i really do

it seems to purr

i drive on and out of sight

roll credits

* conditions apply

ganymede flash

the women sang in babylon

the song they sang in babylonian slang

they sang of the one god ammons song

they sway through afternoons of palm and silk

eating chocolate locusts and baboon milk

inside the circle where a priestess knelt

she had the tattoo of Set the coiled one

she had the mark of the moon on her skin like drum

she had a scar upon her cheetah

her fur had blurred to numb

the snow had come to hyperborea

but in the south an everlasting summer held sway in the streets

the pyramids amid the continental drift

the glacial crystals embedded in one nostril

in the other sky you both hold Wrath

and the music you cannot stop

but you can never remember it either

neither beat nor sound around the treble cliffs

i hear like a bat i see like a dog

i growl like an eagle i charge like a speeding arrow

ioh  ioh ioh ioh

the sumerian league a million feet hence

a furlong in ireland a chain in odense

i marvel at miracles i clamber defence

its early for me its late for the rents

i see that everything here

makes perfect sense

Marty’s dream guitar – a 1965 Model 1993 Rickenbacker Rose Morris 12 string was stolen from a New York office back in the 80’s. Marty would dearly love to get this guitar back. These guitars were exported to Europe and Australia from the US and have a traditional ‘f-hole’ instead of the normal Rickenbacker ‘cat-eye’ sound hole. SERIAL NO EB157.

This beautiful guitar can be seen played by Marty in the church video for  A Different Man and is on the cover of his Rhyme album.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ox3npPy2tWs

Stolen 1965 Model 1993 Rose Morris Rickenbacker Serial No EB157 - please return if found

Also stolen on the same day was the Shergold Modulator 12 string SERIAL NO 4010 that features in the video for Electric Lash and on the cover of the church’s Hindsight album and a custom made Rickenbacker.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9IRwVyQAc0

Hindsight 1980-1987

If by some miracle someone out there knows of the whereabouts of these guitars or comes across it, we would dearly love it returned to Marty, especially his dearly loved ’65 model 1993 Rose Morris Rickenbacker!

column blind

just a short note

i am working hard on the soundtrack

this logic program is a lotta fun for a composer

getting the hang of it a bit

meanwhile the wars rage on

my war on everything else i suppose

gonna go down fighting never gently

all the people i fight depend on me but never vice versa

i am insane in a different way

i am realistically insane

i am insane yet quite reliable

i mean i turn up don’t i?

a lot of people kinda depending on me

in all kinda different ways

the pressure is subtle yet its continuity is crushing

tears threats mumbles harsh voices

i ask for so little back….from anyone….

just friendship i guess just be reasonable

i guess my idea of reasonable is unreasonable

i want a quiet life i want to create

it is a waste of my time doing anything else

i have so much yet to create and probably not so much time

everything else is a drain

the world spins harder faster more wildly

more great successes more devastating failures

strangers veneration and the familiars avoid

i am loving and hating being me

i am not steve kilbey

he is an actor he is a mask

he is a temporary aberration

a ripple on a stillness that is eternal

yet all this music all these words all these ideas

the universe has widened my bite and shortened my leash

other peoples madness is driving me crazy

at least i realise i am one tune  short of an album

I’ve turned my nuttiness into songs for fun and prophet

i have turned into something rare right before our eyes

believe me all the stuff now comes to me effortlessly

as if by magic

it kills me to know i will have to die

abdicating from my brain so packed full of good ideas

and start all over again

struggling just to get back to where i am now

a true master (baiter)

your humble fool

kilbey

bondi beach with ocean glimpses

yeah bikinis and sunburn

thats the place