The Time Being | Steve Kilbey

http://www.ravemagazine.com.au/content/view/30845/82/

The Church
TUESDAY, 10 JANUARY 2012
Brisbane Powerhouse – Fri Dec 23

A rainy pre-Christmas Eve night can be made special in a variety of ways – in this lifer’s case, seeing The Church, who are bringing the three-album Future Past Perfect extravaganza to the Powerhouse.

Aided by a considerably-younger “utility man” Craig Wilson from Sydney dream/jangle-popsters Astreetlightsong, the Blurred Crusaders encounter an uneven mix during the opening Cobalt Blue, but have all instruments up to level by the time they launch into the menacing Deadman’s Hand. Over two-and-a-half years since its release, the band’s most recent LP Untitled #23 remains an impressive body of work, yet its second half – particularly Sunken Sun with its echoey, post-rock-hued outro and Lunar’s short-and-sweet, ‘space-rock’ trip – is a revelation live. Ever the master of the six-string, Peter Koppes takes us places with his David Gilmour-esque guitar solo during the melancholic On Angel Street, while Steve Kilbey signals the intermission following the gorgeous Operetta.

The album all Church fans tend to agree on, Priest=Aura isn’t so much a faithful reproduction as a mind-blowing live experience. Two decades post-conception, the album still sounds like nothing else recorded at the time or currently, Ripple and Feel brimming with immaculate guitar-pop power and the lovelorn Mistress allowing dynamo drummer Tim Powles to turn the intensity down a notch. However, the second set’s moment of truth arrives when Kilbey puts down his six-string bass and roams the stage during the cathartic Disillusionist, followed by nine brain-melting minutes of Chaos and the brief, haunting Film – the direct precursor of the ‘00s instrumental rock boom.

Following a brief pause, the four-piece roll out Starfish – the record that brought Kilbey and co. worldwide recognition – for the night’s final set. As expected, Destination zooms, Antenna (with Wilson on mandolin) chimes and Reptile bites; Marty Willson-Piper and Koppes take confident solo turns on Spark and A New Season and the former wrings every drop of emotion from Hotel Womb’s outro. Christmas can’t possibly get any better than this.

DENIS SEMCHENKO

http://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/11670118

Listen in to a great interview that aired on the 23rd Dec 2011 on the ABC Radio in Brisbane with Marty Willson-Piper.

Photo by Monica Pronk Photography

coatmans ball

you would not believe my life

it has spiralled out of controlling holding patterns

the rules have evaporated or become frozen and sharded

as i said it may look easy

i have to watch out for witches

i gotta lock out all the war locks

unbelievably i gotta fight for every shekel which is mine

i go and go just to be in the same spot

anyway forgetting all that i am

working on the score to an excellent and authentic film

which may or may not be secret but its being filmed in tas

its brutal its brilliant its bloody good

but its hard work trying to get the music right

i dont usually write 15 sec snippet of an instrumental

that goes through 3 emotions

so it requires discipline

now normally my discipline works thus

the discipline section in my left brain

commands my  right brain to do something

and it coerces it until it does then it stands aside

and it lets the right brain get on with it alone

but this process requires co-op

and this is the problem

my right brain is a savant

my left brain is an idiot

good for bullying the right

but no good for working out all the best ways of organizing it…..

im working on logic now..its a beautiful thing

soon soon you will hear i will create something profoundly nice

uh huh undiluted by any outside influence

i the prime mover

will take on all tasks

singer lyricist musician composer engineer producer

and i’ll probably do the artwork as well

this record will be a new beginning it will be glorious

oh i can feel it coming thru the ether

hands on kilbey in toto ad gloriam

no outside touch shall sully my masterpiece

it will have every detail attended to by me

the old grand idiot savant master

but logic is idiot proof

even my idiot left brain is getting it sorted

enough for my right to gaze in wonderment

ON ALL THESE POSSIBILITIES!

one can do anything one can think of

if it can be done to music …logic can do it

i got my bass i got my guitars i got my mike

i got my interfuckingface

i got my modus operandi

and gee i was recording music on my own in 1977

when most of these other cats

were still playing black sabbath in the garage

oh yes i got my modus and

some genius designed a program like this for me i guess

soon soon soon i shall unleash my beast of a solo album

meanwhile SKPers can look forward to the garageband album

and the art doco which will probably be next

it will be a big year for believers

i will make you feel like you backed a big winner

i will prevail

i will succeed

I WIL I WIL I WILL……..

(sound of crazy old geezer being carted away in white van)

lost for worlds

there is magic there is bullshit

there is a universe oblivious to us

people are animals

animals are people

yet we murder we kill

we kill ourselves to live

those with time try to kill it

those without time try to buy it

still we hurtle headlong

as we are in free fall

inaccessible mainly to ourselves

with trust comes betrayal

without trust comes emptiness

with faith comes disappointment

without faith comes hopelessness

well ive done it all

rich poor young old lucky unlucky

life got me baffled

what have i really learned

how am i doing so far

i am not a normal western man

i loathe all that meaty boozy smoky barbecue the fellas honey

the guys my buddies the boys the game the TV

fuck them theyre all philistines theyre all oafs

fuck your fucking basketball team you moron

the amazon jungle is all but gone

fuck the crusades fuck british/u.s. imperialism

fuck the war on drugs

fuck your hat n bark at the bastard moon

2012 yeah what about them sly old mayans

look i dont want my world to end damn that prediction

nothings easy thats for sure

for every genius there are ten thousand idiots ready to crucify him

for every one saved there are ten thousand more lost

i am incredulous at the incredulity of myself and all others

we are all in this separately together

we will all die and live and die we will remember nothing

fuck napoleon fuck columbus fuck genghis khan

keep on rockin’ in the free world

how did those old twin towers come tumblin’ down…?

gee uh something not right with that picture

but uh i guess i feel so much safer now mr b.laden is shot

uh hasnt he….i mean i saw a dead guy with uh a turban in a cave

i guess that was uh him …wasnt it….?

because if our govts lied to us there’d be anarchy …wouldnt there..?

i’m glad all those people got busted for drugs

i’m happy about the vietnam war cos we showed em, didnt we…?

i’m pretty pleased with WW1…that worked out well in the end…i thought…

i guess i’m mixed up

please some right wing macho straight type help me here

all those mines grenades bayonets torpedoes ….

and napalm….thats a great invention….i suppose…

wow that musta cooked their gooses …didnt it?

fuck the communists fuck the romans

fuck the house of lords

i’m over it

chapel perilous

life is elusive

the sun burns white

it is the burning soul

a long dead giant

he quenched his thirst with one thousand seas

the moon is so cold

it is the frozen flame of magic

it appears at theatres near you

beside a raggle taggle columbine

*

it is not a happy new year for me

alcohol still pulverises my family

i hate it i loathe it i detest it

greediness and stupidity abound

my career is going up n up

my morale is going down n down

my teeth are rotten again

i move in and out of conflict

i thrash around in obfuscation and emotional obstacles

i am super creative but time is hard to come by

i am behind in what i need to do

i lapse into non-action

people bust stuff i gotta pay for..oh woe is me…!

it may look easy but its hard …its hard baby its hard

sorry about the moaning

i’ll leave off with a happy thought

nah …on second thoughts

forget it….

http://www.tonedeaf.com.au/photos/galleries/114945/the-church-10.htm#1

Photos taken Friday 30th December at the Future Past Perfect show at The Forum Theatre, in Melbourne (AU).