The Time Being | Steve Kilbey

carving up the known world like the duke of york and napoleon

the story thus far:

upon my return to australia in 2002

my brother john played me a band called all india radio

it was instrumental music

and i absolutely loved it

i could detect something vaguely connected with me

i could also detect brian eno

well it turned out martin kennedy did like what i do after all

because he sends john a track and we do the “your songs in the mail” routine

our first album was called

steve kilbey and martin kennedy present :

unseen music unheard words

martin kennedys music is simple music poignant music subtle music

ambient sometimes

our first album contains some real breakthroughs for me

his music forces to me to respond to it thus

his music is the prime mover in this relationship

there could be no collaboration without martins music

if you like smooth subtle spiritual simple songs

but songs laden with tiny implications

that will keep you busy forever

then this album will delight you

its late night music

its sexy music

its music for people who want more from their songs than just blah!

its music made with love for people who love music

you can hear johns excellent backing vocals all over this record

you can hear minna singing on the lovely song maybe soon

i’m listening to it right now

these songs are so gentle so full of tranquility

nothing is harsh

nothing is in your face

i seem to effortlessly come up with my semi spiritual lyrics

thats how martins music affects me

there is a bit of my old cynical negativity

but i know you all like that sometimes

and i like it too

but i like it when i hit the pure uncynical spiritual stuff

i dont always know it my self

i dont realise what i have just sung

it comes from somewhere i just write it down

listening to it today

there is some lovely words here

surely given to rough old me by the muses themselves

sad and happy reaffirmations of spirit

in all is one

i rope christ n buddha in together

in my song i cast them as the same guy

the message is

duality does not exist

strangely enough martin and i have returned to this idea

our new album  is to be called

you are everything

it is worth considering all the implications of this statement

as i believe martin is shortly about to announce details of some crowd funding

he has assessed that he needs about x $ to get this album finished

in the style that it deserves

anyway thats his trip not mine

he is the prime mover in this duo

im just the voice and lyrics

but i tell you if you all want to help as you all said

(which made me very grateful to read i can tell you!)

then this will be your chance….

knowing that martin k will use the money wisely

of that i have no doubt

he is above all suspicion so by financing this project

you will be directly helping me so i urge you to get involved

hes got lots of little deals worked out to for different levels too

different rewards for the more generous subscriber…i like it…!

anyway martin n i did 3 songs at my gig in melbourne

my gig talking about myths n gods n stuff

we did

all is one +broken sea +transformation

the latter being a song our own davey percevale commished

and yes davey i sang your slight changes and i thought of you

you would have approved

the people there lapped up the mk songs

and we filmed our rehearsal for possible bonus bits

our second album was called  white magic

the songs were a little darker

there was more twangy guitar lines

the lyrics were reflecting the troubled times on my horizon

listen and you may understand

there is a lot weirdness brewing

there are some really good melodies too

the ambience and optimism has receded a little though

and a menace prowls behind almost all these songs

save for mountain 

which is more like the first record

the second album is a worthy follow up to the first

it is excellently executed

although martin n i would both concede it gained no new ground on the first one

i think we got away with that though

because number one had much area left to explore

and because  most of these songs have an intrinsic excellence

lots of word-play

lots of nice little musical touches

lots of lovely wide open spaces too like in most of martins stuff

in music as in painting there are wild intuitive people n careful thinking people

martin has carefully

using his thinking

figured out a way to knock out these little universes of music

that seem deceptively simple

but try n do one yourself!

our third album however is a different thing

something has changed

these new songs are suddenly so different to all that has gone before

i am baffled to explain this

everything i have heard so far is just amazing

we have made a quantum leap out into unexpected territory

its not ambient pop anymore although still containing bits of that

a new urgency a new honesty

the bright bits are brighter

the dark bits are darker

there is lots of elation

i dont know

he needs the dough to get it mixed mastered n stuff

meanwhile i have here

a very ltd amount of first n second kil/ken cds

i will do you  both of em for thirty bucks n throw in an original postcard size painting

both signed by me n him

or buy em separately for 20 bucks each unsigned

either way i really recommend em

if you dont already have em…theyre good! ( in spades!)

sk

lime n limpet green

wander thru jasmine

wander thru honeysuckle

facade of doors that dont lead anywhere

cabins on a set with no inside or out

i imagine the rain that falls on the graveyard

i imagine the sunlight upon merman pools

i contain the rain and the sunlight

i contain nothing just a furtive imagination

the inside of the car is quiet

we watch the rain and silently know day

my how my arm is handed along shouldering fingered thumb

you see my mind took it all apart

my soul watches on

i stop outside a picture on a theatre

a man starts talking like he knew my life

i walk the wrong way if i wanna get to the future

i should be out there in pergolas across our lovely land

a fondue of blonde fondness fusses over me

my guitar is a lawnmower

my voice is a hammer

my tight pants on a letter box

my father said steven youre a bit daft

i was there for the long hall dad i say but my dad is gone

in newtown i walk through an endless weird shop

black skulls open up like clams

living flowers torturous clawing stem

oh my another winged genius rampant and resistant

a forest of clothes i fight my way through aisle after isle

stuffed faux animals with sad black eyes

why invoke this feeling of doom?

death intermingled with life

i mean c’mon

they are opposites arent they

i’m not so sure anymore

in empty frames i catch glimpses of  paintings of god

when i look through glass i see trees bending over brooks

on a wooden pencil case a scene from a 1950s childrens party

oh i jump in that scene and i stay there forever

yes thats me on that green lawn thats me waving so “gaily”

we used to say

once upon a time now today i forget when

i buy a five headed elephant and a saraswati grooving with a swan

i put my goddess up on her pedestal

i hang my self on your own petard

i look in amazement at bulletproof jacket and alligator leather

then time is gone

a wave of traffic disgorges me home

stumble out with packages from a wardrobe

i fall through the ceiling in a dream

when we’re approaching true south

afternoon says he’s sad

these shabby grey damp clouds have ruined my sky

and then the blew wind persists like thanatos

a magistrate appears

we take a dim view of this darkness …he begins

why thats preposterous ! screams a voice in my head

are we still in newtown ?asks someone else

the fronds ripple in the air in the sea

the feathers of fish insinuating fins

the eel movement rag out rock monster half time

the crazy world  within a tiny whole of water

goodbyed

a floral doom

gentian violet

you come here like a shot

arranged in sky and what-not

i am master of all i purvey

i am a cellar of dream

i am merchant of feeling

i peddle tricks to ward off catastrophe of minor matter

today i have so many todays

yesterdays are all taken now

too bad we had something you might have liked

through the looking gliss 

spring herself is upon the earth

persephone in rags down by the shore

dolphin rider , fawn of the sea

the myriad glimmers in farther eye

the hawk and the comet bearing down upon us

all groan under prophecy destiny and fate

what can the future ever bring but surely death

but spring rides a white dear ……

in salons by the shore

let therefore celebration begin

coloured lights bright in night along away down

this is our spring to be held unto summer

summer waiting in these swan wings

summer all azure and at first maybe unsure

but spring is everything

at least….or so i sing …..

read this following document carefully

heres what happens to nearly EVERYONE ive ever known in the biz

the whole record company mechanism is prone to this kind of thing

we are all being diddled!

http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2012/120919jamestaylor

i been in the moosic biz for 32 years now

and people keep telling me that i dont understand it

usually i find the people telling me that are the people who are withholding my dough

i have the bizness acumen of a wet sponge

i admit it

but lemme toss around a few ideas here

first of all

the music biz is one of the only if not the only bizzes in the world

where the guys at the very centre of it are the guys making the least

most nights at a gig

you can be sure everyone there is earning more than the players

i aint talking about pink floyd or brooce springsteen either

im talking about the other 98 per cent (incl myself)

the first bit o money i ever made was in 1980 when i signed a fifty/fifty publishing deal

for 500 bucks

the company i signed with are still hanging on to me

but in 2015 i will be able to slip out

after 35 years of them dipping into me

all because of that one stupid day in 1980 when i needed the 500 bucks

izzat fair?

eventually a manager got it changed to a 75 25 deal

ie i get 75 cents of each dollar i make n they get 25

wow thats a lotta money they collected for me over the years

and they did alright from their measly advance so long ago

at the same-ish time the church signed a deal

and we were off making albums that never recouped their cost

ie the album cost say 150 grand to make plus a few 100 grand vids

so you can never sell enough to get any money

thats been pretty standard for almost all albums

i have had 4 or 5 record companies go bust and take all my/our royalties with em too

including carrere in england

stunn in NZ

thirsty ear in america(boy i’d like to catch up with that c**t in a dark alley)

and another mob who bought 20 thousand MATS from me n marty

then distributed em n got the dough n then went bust!

in 1984 i signed a pub deal with my then manager

when we quit with him

he sold the catalog on

and i was acquired and disposed of a few times

in the middle of the nineties a big pub firm did this to me

they sent my money round n round the world

each branch in each country would apply a handling fee

until they whittled a cheque that had been about 10 grand a six month period

down to $250 a six month period

this was perfectly legal

in fact it was a STANDARD PRACTICE until a few years back….

the said manager commissioned us at 20 per cent of the gross

which meant that in 1988   when we were earning around 100, 000 gross a week

he was getting 20, 000 grand a week while the band was on  800 bucks a week

which is still what the church pays itself

800 bucks a week (when we are on the road)

off the road=nothing

(in fairness we do occasionally divvy up small mounts if a tour does well)

so theres some real non -indexation of wages for ya

1988 800 bucks a week, 2012 800 bucks a week

when we left the guy in 1990

he jumped up n down and got even more money out of us

he claimed were unpaid commissions

but he never ever presided over a tour that made money

they all lost money a small fortune (he made while we lost!)

but arista records picked up the loss

and tacked it onto a minus position we could never escape from

i remember ringing up the slimy philistine hopeless manager and saying

“how come you get 20 grand a week n i get 800?’

he said

YOU DONT UNDERSTAND SHOWBIZNESS!

ha ha ha

so i still aint never been paid for any of those albums…only my songwriting royalties

(and then only if i was lucky!)

yeah guys

all those records you bought

very little if any at all came down the line to me

it still isnt

if this happened in any other business there would be an outcry

but we musicians are not very good at anything other than music

now

imagine this scenario if you will

(this is all imaginary from here on in)

some old veteran band eventually bumps into a very generous patron

now the patron doesnt wanna just hand out money to the band

that would be hopeless

but what he wants is for them to finally get some financial relief

some of the members were living below the official poverty line at the time

ie 35,000 grand a year in aust

so a couple of members of imaginary band go looking for a way to do it

they find some much younger guy who is a fan of this imaginary band

hes got a little label going and theyre impressed he aint some evil suit like in the old days

the kind and generous sponsor dips his hand in pocket a provides a “shitload” of money

for younger guy with his little penis..er sorry..i mean label to buy back said imaginary bands catalog

and put it on his honest john label called mom n pop records

wow at last n finally our heroes will get some $!! YAY!!

but guess what?

oh damn i bet you guessed

mr mom n pop still aint paying the old boys

hes a fan yep

he dont wear a suit, nope

but the boys still aint getting nothing

even tho quite a bit is coming in

i bet in this imaginary world and imaginary band too

that you would not expect mr younger mom n pop guy would also take 50 per cent

whoah! no way…i mean that would mean hes earning 3 times more dough

than stevie mainman who is the geeza WHO DREAMED THIS WHOLE FUCKIN TRIP UP!

(in this imaginary example natch)

hes pocketing dough from records

hes pocketing dough from kind imaginary patron

but he aint paying the guys properly (read ;AT ALL!)for records they made 25 years ago

when he was  just a little snotty nose kid

jesus…the irony!

stevie mainman does a quick knee jerk calculation n figgers out

AT THIS RATE HE WONT SEE ANY DOUGH UNTIL HES IN HIS EIGHTIES!!!!

boy no wonder the imaginary anger

so he decides to take the law into his own hands

he decides fuck copyright fuck libel and fuck everybody else

its time he finally made some frickin money outta his own music himself

(luckily he had taught himself to sculpt in the meantime or he woulda been broke!!)

this mainman guy realises he has some powerful allies

allies that grew up listening to his sweet music and are not impressed

and allies that maybe are anxious to see things put right at all costs

well mainman got nothing to lose (literally by now)

also hes released a few solo records and sold a few hundred copies

and hes AMAZED to see how much money a few records can make!

and when he thinks of mr mom n pop he gets real real angry n bitter

and confused

he blurts out this

he blurts out that

he leaves his band who are wonderful musicians n friends

but who seem to labouring under some delusion that they know what they are doing

after all

in our imaginary world they got mainmans band hitched to mr mom n pop

who now

as per usual

aint giving our tired old veterans their just desserts after all this time

mr mom n pop seems to be taking from both sides

(or thats how it seems to our hotheaded imaj. hero)

anyway

i hope you enjoyed my theoretical example of how your whole lifes work can go wrong

besides do musicians even need to be paid when they obviously are having such a good time anyway?

who cares if agents, managers, publishers and record company guys are getting all the cream?

(despite the fact they cant sing, write or play a note!!)

alright

well there you go

judge for yerselves!

ps

and watch this

the turtles (who sang on most of marc bolans hits explain the biz….)

an open letter to stephen judge

Stephen

i do not recant

i am furious with your insulting royalty statements

i intend to put your royalty statements online for the whole world to see

with annotations by an american record biz auditor

and as i wrote to you personally

if you dont sort this out i have some very interesting new allies

who are prepared to help me get to the bottom of this once and for all

i am so fucking sick of being ripped off and underpaid

you are the final straw that broke this camels back

let me make this plain

i am leaving the church because of you

and also because i am unhappy with the bands internal business attitude

but definitely its mainly you and now your ludicrous response

so if i dont receive my adequate share of the pie

i mean regardless of what you say stephen

you made about 30 or 40 grand for that period

and we got a hundred dollars each

(300 extra for my solo albums)

keep denying that if you like but the statements will be here ,on facebook and anywhere else very soon

IF YOU DONT DECIDE TO DO THE RIGHT THING
AND PASS SOME OF THE MONEY YOU COLLECTED ON TO THE PEOPLE WHO MADE THIS MUSIC!

20 or 30 years ago when you were just a little kid

we made these records!

and i still aint never been sorted out properly

stephen, im as mad as hell and i aint gonna take it!

re; sydney morning herald

i was flustered

i was trying to ameliorate a bad situation

i shouldnt have backtracked

i will not again

i will not back down

i am going to have satisfaction or my day in court

steve kilbey, in canberra , on tour

time does not standstill

i had a great exhibition

thank you sam

thank you rajini and scott at futura

thank you always to my art steering committee which is holly, eek and kiabgoa

ok whats next…?

still on the agenda

in various states of completion are

jack frost dvd

church 1990 tour dvd

compleat lyric book

an album in the works with hu dost…

a new kilbey/kennedy record called YOU ARE EVERYTHING

boy this is our best believe me our best so far

martin kennedy has the market cornered on this kinda thing

i think you guys gonna enjoy this record

i am very very happy with how this is turning out

i can only imagine how good it will be when simon polinski has done his thing….

i have rediscovered  the painkiller 2 tapes and i am working on them

i guess i’ll stick vocals n stuff on it and edit it down a bit

its pretty psychedelic …..

i will be appearing in melbourne 13 october talking about gods myths n my music

this will also feature a guest appearance by martin kennedy

i will playing in canberra solo this friday night

dunno what my set will be….gonna have to dust off my 12 string n figger it out

anyway

thatll keep ya going for a while i hope

love

sk

no saviours crucified in the making of this T

narcissist heaven : me on me

 

ok ok

we here at the timebeing have been balloon away with your responts

and our tireless workers are now down in the where? house

handling packing shipping and anything else ..oh my word….yes   !

i must say the t-shirts arrived jus’ th’other day and they are tres fab

seriously the most comfy t-shirt i have ever worn

gone are those coarse cotton Ts from yesteryear like a calico barrel on ya

these new super ethical t shirts are gossamer against yer skinny skin skin

let it be known i am very proud of them

thanks for your patience ladies and gence

they are being sent thence

did that make any sense

anyway

getting a lotta response from people out there on addenda 1 n 2

frank quitely i am ‘umbled  by your kind words and admonitions

yeah

has anyone noticed on that first track

where me and my dad and uncle dennis all are trying to get the microphone

and see after a brief scuffle see who emerges triumphant !

still prattling on

you can see here that the adults used to have a lotta fun with me

teaching me poems and getting me to recite em

and then theyre having a laugh at me too

uncle dennis calls me blubberguts

what you laughing at ..? you hear me ask already paranoid

and dig the pre-punk vocal inflections on the mouse poem…!

i had anticipated anarchy in the uk by 16 years in 1960

listen to the way i say gooseberry wi-i-ine!!

sigh

then we have baby grande

look a lotta this material has been available for a listen before

i dunno if you could dunnload it

but a lotta stuff on these records you mighta heard

on the other hand a lotta peeple aint heard a lotta it either

ive fuckin’ lost track of it all

ok baby grande

baby grande was a band i was in from about 74 -77

i was the songwriter and singer

strangely enough i didnt play bass

peter koppes was in version one and i just sang

he left in about 75

and i started playing rhythm guitar i suppose you’d say

baby grande had a loada songs

some good some bad some awful

a couple of real beauties too

i guess bel-air escaped baby grande

and pete remembered it when the church came about

there were some other good ones too

unfortunately its none of the ones on here

i have included these songs so you can hear where i started from

and because as i get older i guess i’m not so secretive about everything

theres baby grande in all its youth club amateur hour glam rock youthful blah

you dont have to go to some obscure site to hear this no more

there are other tapes floating about…….

we did a bit of recording

unfortunately my songs were a bit….stupid…

plus the other geezers did not dig your humble hero one bit

not perceiving my imminent genius hood

i was just a loud mouthed tyrant

making em play songs that werent very good

we all had boring day jobs

i was a nasty naive judgemental little prick

eventually the peasants revolted and kicked me out

and then they tried to keep the PA i was paying off myself!

until i tracked em down onenight at a high school

in their incarnation as a power trio (!)

and i demanded 30 bucks or something as hire…!

baby grande was never quite  right however

you could just feel it

it was never going anywhere although it sometimes felt like it might

then came of course the teac 4 track years

approx 1977 to 1980

in these years i truly turned into myself

that idiot writing those baby grande songs

i dont relate to him

but these songs that showed up on bootlegs

these songs from statue garden to youre my idea

thats where i really come to life

you see

before that

i wrote on a guitar or bass and showed the song to the band

so many things went wrong with that for me

i didnt want to have to write that kind of song…

when i first heard what mike oldfield did on tubular bells

i wanted to make music on my own

and still the music i make on my own

is not as proficient as when other people play

still there is something raw and idiosyncratic

something i think is quite cool

so here is some stuff from that very fruitful period

from here on in i was knocking out music ferociously

in a townhouse in canberra in the suburb of rivett

in a bedroom with no furniture

just fawn carpet in a white room

in one corner a teac 4 track and a little teac mixer

a cheap bass a cheap guitar a cheap ac guitar

a synthesiser my dad gave me

when he found it no fun to play it like a piano

well it was monophonic for a start

thats a bit limiting for a guy whose fingers danced over the ivories

anyway i knocked out plenty of very very good songs

most would have been lost to us forever if it had not been for these boots

i was trying to get this film made

the one i filmed of the church concerts in 1990

i am gonna finish it one day!

and beware its twenny two years ago

i’m gonna let whats ever on there out….right?!

fuck yes i am!

anyway i asked for donations and some people actually donated

i had the footage and i had started weeding thru a bit of it

but i needed money to continue

anyway to cup a long storeys shorts

i spent the fucking money on heroin and yon film was never made

so one guy said

why dont you open your vaults up to the guys who donated you money

yes that was a good solution…!

so i put together a couple of cassettes (dubbed from my cassettes)

already distorted and hissy

and i guess the geezer (armed with a list of peoples names n addys)

he sends these two cassettes of songs out to about 40 people

i guess they dubbed more off the same cassettes and so on

statue garden which is the best sounding one

it must be closer to the source

i do not have any of this stuff in its original form!

(i got all this back years later from a fan)

during a clean-up one day while i was on tour

a girlfriend of mine who shall remain name less

well she chucked an old shoebox of cassettes down into the basement

where they got moldy and fucked up

unfortunately that shoebox was my library of 150 or so songs

all the songs i had recorded up until then

all “mastered” onto cassette tapes

then i would re-record over the original 4 track tape a brand new song

tape was expensive

i just stuck it all on cassette

thats why it sounds like this folks

but only a couple of those tracks are quite noisy

its amazing considering i reckon it sounds as good as it does

of course

you may or may not have noticed that there is another album called artifacts

its there on my bandcamp

thats all songs from the teac period

and freaky conclusions too

i was making records on my own before the dawn of time

so yeah

its a real mixed bag

its a real all over the place journey

im very interested to hear all opinions

please keep your thoughts coming in!

heres a track from addenda one