The Time Being | Steve Kilbey

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in 1972
at a somewhat late stage of the game
i bought my first pink floyd record
it was their latest “obscured by clouds”
i bought it cos i liked the title so much
i had somehow avoided the floyd up until then
it wasnt hard pre dark side of the moon
the floyd werent on any charts
they werent very visible at all
anyway in some void between marc bolan and david bowie
i bought all the moody blues records
and i was always looking for a new band to get “into”
i had been “into”
chicago
joe cockers mad dogs n englishmen
king crimson
rod stewart n (small) faces
the stones
simon n garfucknuckle
hawkwind
and i guess i finally got around to the floyd
one sunny afternoon i took a bus into civic
and i bloody well bought obscured by clouds
i had read some reviews of it which intrigued me
no one quite knew what to make of the floyd in those days
before dark side of the moon
but anyway my dad had a stereo in the garage
up the back of the 2 car garage was a bar and a stereo
other kids were amazed at all the booze there
no one in my family drank…not my dad or mum or me
so it all just sat there
like a medium well stocked nightclub
there was all these weird liquors n oh god
almost any weird drink you could think of…
why did my dad have all that…?
he just decided he wanted a bar in the garage so he went for it
anyway i sat there in the sunshining in
through the back window
and i chucked the floyd on
and pretty much fell in love
with this easy to like record
it was quite….ordinary…in a way
it was soundtrack to a film “la vallee”
an ok film
(i saw it at the cinema in canberra)
i liked the lush instrumentation n whispery singers
at this stage rog waters hadnt overpowered the others
and the record was kinda breezy
some of it was downright rocknroll
some of it was lush n exquisite
i remember lying there listening to it
and thinking great!
i’m gonna buy all their records now
i started next with umma gumma
a half live half solo studio record
the live stuff was amazing
i imagined whole space journeys in my head
the lyrics intrigued me
set the controls for the heart of the sun…yeah!
i loved it!
the studio stuff i rarely played
i only liked waters grantchester meadows really
the others were too oblique or something
next i got the soundtrack to the film “more”
containing one of my fave floyd pieces ever “cirrus minor”
which starts out pastoral and then reaches out into glittering space
i loved “more’ and i loved all the weird quirky instrumentals n stuff
after that i got meddle
wow
dont the fucking floyd look totally cool in the middle spread
rog in his black t shirt eternally
rick wright looks tanned n handsome
gilmour looks cool n even nick mason too
fuck i loved meddle
i loved the songs on side one
i loved the piece that took up side 2 “echoes”
i loved the way the 3 singers melded their voices together
in that whispery way
what a great mysterious record it was to me
ditto atom heart mother
the same kind of thing
very lush very english
i was definitely “into” the floyd
then came saucerful of secrets which was a bit superfluous
except for the truly groovy “let there be more light”
i got piper at the gates of dawn eventually
but having got into the floyd backwards
i was never that enamoured with it
i didnt really like syd barret all that much (heresy!)
tho i liked him better on the madcap laughs
which i listened to a lot
when marty was in all about eve
dave gilmour did a guitar solo on a song
gilmour said he had seen the churches first show in london
and was immediately struck by the resemblance
between syd and your humble scribe
(wow!)
anyway i got all the odds n ends
including relics which had some great stuff not on anything else
and rogs music from the body
(which had another song called “breathe” on it)
and a floyd bootleg called omayyad
which had “the embryo” on it
as well as a rick wright organ piece called “oenone”
(which i wrongly thought was the name of a gas!?)
(and which i later nicked for myself!)
i had zabriskie point where the floyd changed an old song
into another new one {careful with that axe eugene}…
then it happened
dark side of the moon i mean
i drove 500 miles to melbourne n i bought it on import
the other records i bought on import in melbourne
at archie n jugheads import record shop were
in deep by argent
lord of the rings by bo hansson
badger by badger
flash and the second flash album by flash (pete banks ex yes)
colosseums daughter of time
and a few others i can no longer remember (thats sad)
i got home
and well i liked it
i loved it
this was before all the hype had hit
it was just another floyd record to me
but then that thing happened
it became this n that
and everyone was talking about the floyd
after that i dunno why
i started to lose interest
rog took over too much n i missed the others balance
wish you were here was good tho
but i was no longer “into” em
animals i bought but i never enjoyed
it was kinda bitter or something
i liked the old floyd
the whispery stuff
now there was too much rog completely
then the wall
i like one track comfortably numb
i hate all that we dont need no education tripe
i hated the movie
final cut was bleak
too much
i switched off
gilmours first solo album superb
rogs were hopeless rubbish
i liked bits of ricks wet dream …(mr humphries indeed)
all the rest no longer interested me
all the rog-less floyd had no raison d’etre
rog without the floyd was awful
so when people say to me
do you like pink floyd
i never know what to answer…
uh yes
uh kinda
not really
it depends
i like the middle period
post syd pre dark side
yeah

i have to laugh again
at the things bandied around on these pages
the things i write n do
and some of my dear precious commenters stuff
i love to make music
i love to write songs
why songs fly into my mind almost unbidden
music is like in my blood in my genes in my jeans in my fingers
life has shaped me thus
no carpenter
no doctor
no candlestick maker
was i
or can i ever be
i must create
even if no one listens
i did before
i will again
so be it!
i have stood before you all
in all honesty
my blog has turned into a circus
where i try to tame myself
and i let the clowns n villains run free
being partially both of these things myself
yes i am a clown
a clown …did he make you scared
these songs i throw down on here…..
small gifts for you
simple things a master tosses off
(mr humphries!)
easy happy songs
short and sweet
no great shakes
except
oooh i know theyre good
theyre catchy and jesus
now marc bolans gone
who else is gonna write these songs
take em or fuckin’ leave em
theyre there for free
if you like em a real lot you can show your ‘preciation
…thats getting paid for what i do…thats not begging by the way
when you donate money
you subscribe to this journal n my life
and you all subsidize the long hours i put into it
the songs n vids took hours n hours n hours
i’m just exploring i-movie n garage band
and i offer you a chance to view my modest experiments
ive done big budget
ive done small budget
ive done the opening of the games
to being ignored in some empty dive in wollongong
ive given you mystery
ive given you glamour
ive given you all that noir stuff in spades
now at the ripe old age of 55 years
i sit at home n tinker with stuff
the church are beginning up soon
i have some respite now
i spend time with my little familiar s k
shes in on stuff i do
asking questions
she becomes part of the scene
imagine this
i am an old geezer
relaxing at home …a well earned rest
but i burn up with ideas
and i paint n compose n i write stuff n i make up jokes
and i love the new technology that allows me instant gratification
i hate explaining my creative plans to people
this way i just knock it out direct from the source
i am 55
beyond your map of cool n uncool
i wear my shorts cos i live at the beach
i am an eccentric 55 year old beachcomber
who happens to also be a good songwriter
n pretty good at a few other things
ive done my time in the frontline wherever that was
now if you dig what i do
i have many outlets
ranging from the church which aims at being professional i guess
down to my blog
which is my sketchbook if you will
if you want mystery here it is
aint it a mystery to you how i can continue to do it all..?
well
i got this fuckin’ fire burning on n urging me to keep going
you might see me in a tux singing dark cabaret
you might see me wielding my bass with my band
you might see me poncing about on my little vids…is he having a laugh?
is he having a laugh?
and now i’m so old
i’m five years off sixty
i’m old
I’M OLD!
dont you see….
the compensation of being old is
i reckon
i can do what i like
i just got five barrel loads of kudos for u#23
i had an exhibition in pittsburgh n i sold six paintings
i collaborated with him n him n them
and i did this n that
wineries
festivals
guest singing
blah blah blah
it is hilarious to me
to see people pontificating
if i should get a real job
a real job
worrying themselves on my behalf
and my financial stability (none!)
but i’m still here
and i aint retiring cos some small bunch of unnamed punters
rudely and stupidly start discussing this idea
no…i aint gonna stop
no…i aint gonna listen
no…..i am complete n completely mad
and i lay my songs on my fans out of love
as always
these songs can only be written by someone in love with music like me
understanding my terrain
i successfully negotiate minefields of resistance to bring you my offerings
naysayers n tiredness n deafness n blindness n oldness get me down
i create because i create because i create
a true journeyman
a man for all seasons ive shown you ice
now heres warmth
i showed you black….now heres white…
…whatever….

i cant be bound to any old bodys idea of who i am
otherwise i never wooda got started in the 1st place
it is not in my nature to “grow up”
i will twirl if i want to
(hope you can twirl at 55 too ha ha)
(i bet you cant!)
i cant get a job
and i cant go to school
the carping ninnies say
the killers a fool…
i have eight hundred readers a day
you can check the stats yerselves
count to eight hundred in yer head slowly
each time imagining a person somewhere in the world
reading or watching my blog
coming back day after day
because
i dunno
maybe i dunno what i’m doing
it doesnt matter
run off to your frosty idol
the years went past left me stranded here
old n having squandered many opportunities
still i have an unbridled passion for creating things
that only i can create
oh i wood love mainstream success
oh i would love money
oh i would love to live forever as well
however
i do what i like n unparadoxically
i like what i do
no one else can do it
youre seeing the intersection of age n experience
crossed with the raw brutal energy
with which i have attacked all art
against the zeigeist
against the times
against the odds
against the “straights”
against the man in the street
dig it you must
you must dig what i do or switch off
i get it wrong
but my wrong is most peoples right
your right to switch off
i dont ask any to stay if they had enough
enough is enough is enuff, right?
who needs more than enough?
if this is where our ways part
good luck
thanks for everything
so long amigo see you soon huh
to hang about now is churlish
surely
the snipers in the very act of sniping
have deemed themselves cowards
jealous envious bored cowards
sniping in the void
trying to wound me
i say it again
i suffer you in all humility
like i suffer thorns or i suffer from my deafness
things cant be all dancing on clouds
and i understand life needs its obstacles and hurdles
its pests n inconveniences
hence n thus
you have been delivered unto me
pretending to be friends
pretending to be strangers
pretending to be pretending
you are but shadows of mockery
no one will remember you
you arent moving any mountains
you are not seeing any visions
just an aphorism for every occasion
meanwhile
i master the english language and shape it to myself
i write a sentence n you can tell its me
i strum a chord
i pluck a bass
you hear my voice
i chuck on some paint
i write down the words
i edit up the film
i inject myself into it all
i push n push n push
can you even understand
how my idiot/savant-hood wracks me
on its ever burning churning fountain of raw ideas
it cannot be turned off until i die
and oh i will regret losing all this experience
the way only i can handle sound n colour n words
the last fucking renaissance man standing: go on have a laugh
will the real steve kilbey please contact me?
no
i will continue
i will improve
i will confuse myself with my genius and my idiot
i cant get em apart……can you?

i was standing in a guitar shop in queanbeyan with my dad
he said do you see anything you like here, slim
i looked around and the guy brought over this huge red guitar
its a rhythm guitar he said rather foolishly
no dad i said
i want a bass i said
we walked outside n dad was gone
i get on board a bus that drives through the pleasant evenings
down some stairs i go
a whole bunch of guys standing round smoking cigarettes
long hair and impatience
blasting loud guitars
cymbals crashing like white lightning
i light up a peter stuyvo
i drink my chocolate milk
i scream into a mike
i blister my fingers on the bass thats never loud enough
i drive up to sydney n stay at the squire inn in bondi junction
i do a residency at some now defunct joint that now does massages
we carry the gear in
we plug in all the leads
we argue
we smoke
we meet some stupid bigshot whos checking us out
i reckon he wont like us so i’m super-rude
we play awfully
things feedback
someones angry at me
i walk out into a cold morning back in canberra
stripped of band n everything
i fiddle with a tape recorder in a bedroom in rivett
i sit crosslegged on the floor
i got my bass n my e guitar n my a guitar
i got my drum machine n my synthesizer
i got my flange pedal n my distortion pedal
i got my little mixing desk
i got my stack of coloured leads
i got my mike n my stand
i got my exercise books full of words n poems n notes
and i begin
4 years later
i wake up in sydney rozelle
i got this terrace house with black walls n red carpets
i got a load of people hanging around
russell sits at a table eating cornflakes
the music is pounding
people smoking hash bongs n spilling stuff on my carpet
i go off on a tour
everything goes hazy at the edges
we tour the gold coast in summer listening to pet sounds
we get on a plane n fly to england
we stay in a crazy place with a spiral staircase to the roof
we play a gig in london n 2000 people show up
we play pretty awfully but they love it
ploog n i cruise the streets buying clothes n records n dope
we eat hash n go for goofy walks in hyde park
trying to relive a scene out of some beatles movie
we play before duran durank
and i quit
i mean
it was a serious joke
we come home
eventually
achieving little
and we go round n round aust for 4 years
round the mull-berry bush
we check in we check out
we sound check
we have fights with each other
we write songs n we forget chords
we bicker n squabble n wobble n snicker
we bitch n we moan n we goof off
we play great shows n we balls up others
we think we’re pretty good
n we dont like the provinces
we go in recording studios
n we argue n work n whisper n get out
i fight with everyone ALL the time
no one sees it my way ever
and i have to convince em somehow
sometimes i lose heart n go with the path of least resistance
the years fall off the calendar
i wake up in some american town n jump on a bus
we play every night we drive everyday
i feel the world closing in on me
i cant remember who i was
i lose the plot
suddenly i dont care
i let go of the rains
i buy a you-beaut sampler n make “remindlessness”
its clunky n awkward but its where i’m at
i do it my way n i dont have to argue
next thin i know
i gotta studio n a habit n a house in surry hills
n i’m falling asleep on the couch again
or arguing with someone on the phone
or slipping upstairs for a production meeting
or i’m playing my piano behind the glass
boy hanging out for the gear is not conducive for music
grant comes over
we walk around strumming guitars for days
i eat n smoke dope
grant drinks red wine n smokes cigs
we write songs that are so great we immediately forget em
next thing i know
grants moved to qld
and im on tour with marty strumming a guild 12
n then petes back n tim walks in
and i move away
i live in some apartment where its so cosy
but i’m cold inside and i’m frightened to thaw out
i do some ragged gigs on my own
marty n i play sometimes
then i’m in delaware making dabble
n the monkeys jumped off my back
and then i’m in bondi
and we do a song called sealine
and we do a song called block
and we do a tour somewhere
i and i get a blog
and i do a painting
and i sit here
on a warm spring night
listening to the birds n the children
lucky i guess
a song in spades
yes
thats for sure

k/k came n played at the toff in melb
it was very good gig indeed
we were helped out by graham lee on pedal steel
n
michael evans-barker on percussion
it was dreamy singing the songs
i sang em a bit like a stranger
a drifter
a singer who sings in smoky clubs from the fifties
a riverboat gambler
a german engineer from the future
some cabaret star from the czech republic
an eccentric genius
a broken down fool
champagne and novocaine
waiting in some bar on some rainy morning
a holiday in a hotel you’ll never have the time back again
singer tries to impose will on time
that sweet sad distant music
the pedal steel coming up the line
like flesh the songs take on thicker ghosts
the pedal steel renders all slightly melancholy
down to earth sadness
like going broke or getting sick
or getting your poor babys heart broken
for almost the very very first time
k/k miss the train
and sit and the empty cafe
whiling the lazy silent days away
the piano drifts in and out of consciousness
phantom trumpets blow me down in a club in another zip
them old shuffling drums brushes the paint on the sound
the whirrs of tiny machineries
the click of the high hat tick tick tick tock tick
i sink into the couch in a foreign motel
i sip a martini n watch the tv in some strange tongue
eyes appear on the curtains
k/k cruise along a midnight moonlight higher inway
down in cannes or cairns or in the cans
you can hear that lonesome whistle
blowing cross the trestle oooeee
wow under the tuxedo moon
i was steve bennett at last
(and well i could have been)
steve bennett is an aging lounge lizard singer
who used to be a spy or a pop star
(once upon a time)
now he lives in a parallel universe or 2 or 3
where the cellos are slightly drunk
and the woodwinds are all breezy and cheeky
and french girl singers with berets n everything
and there is no other time but the wee small hours
they go on n on forever
in this middle aged hell
of the aching lothario
his catalogue of weariness and disappointments
still the martinis come
still the jazz cigarettes
still all commissions he pays to terence silk
k/k push the buttons and the a/c comes on
in a metallic droney chord
the female vox coo somewhere
the circling flurries of bird noises
i pick up my mike
oh god so sad
so weary
but i manage to smile
past my cigarette
past my going on time
past my las vegas bris vegas new melbourne carry on
i still look alright in a suit (from a distance)
my voice is a bit gruff and outta tune
hey philistines thats called life i remind meself
and i sing my songs
cabaret apocalyptique says the sign
my friend k doesnt say much
hes the sensible one driving down the autobahn
wired on heat tablets and extracts of angelfruit
he zooms past rustic villages
he echoes down halls of telegraph lyres
he accelerates in the sonic patterns of his screen
his dash is illuminated
we watch his eyes as he adjusts the mixtures
he calculates a trajectory
he has never met the singer
until now
as the singer starts his song
and the radio plays on
and oh my melancholy baby
lying by the fireside weeping into the night
the snow on the ground
the sand at the beach
the neon in town
the rain across the windscreen
the sad old bass
the simple shapes
the blurs the slurs the slides the stops
k/k in melb
oh yes that
that
was most enjoyable

adam jam the president of music
summoned a brand new bag
oh those cool be-bop cats playing on
the melodiotron
laying down some deep groove
high in the small hours
in some basement kingdom
all lit up with little LEDs
twang twang twang goes old bass moan
rumble rumble bang bang
the drummed wires half in time
slipping in some strange stuff
takes me back to mixolotyl
and the ancient electric prophesy
and the ripped up strings that were coiled down
and we listened so much we wore silver strips off the sound
and adam jam compressed all the sugary singer
for in truth
the lambless jam was who i am
and we plucked our fluted liars
and god helped the triers
with hoods n friars
we blew up the horn
we called upon the yet unborn
adam jam unto himself
speaks to you now:
the samples of myself
i freely give away for a price
i sing this song
unmastered as it is
the machines are there
the possibility doth exist
drag summer into your head
your guitar gently sleeps
yet you wake upon some treble cliff
strung out between the pearl inlaid necks
looking for a bridge looking for a newline
the moon is singing something
every song that ever was
every dream you ever really dreamed
every sweet n kind dream soft as theme
oh its a wonderful wild music week
and the how the beat has turned on me
and how the key eludes me in spades
yeah adam jam
president of sound
island bound
howl like a hell hound
looping round n round
let all notes be free
let the pianos feed upon the raw audience
let the violins rule the mob
let the bloody trumpet shriek in victory
ah men