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