well i do always say i lead a weird old life

and i truly fucking do

last wednesday i fly down to hobart

where i am doing a cameo role in macbeth 1040

(no sunshine , that aint his postcode!)

i stay with actor gerard w alias dr spork

dr spork bends spoons and forks into jewellery

hes also playing macduff in macbeth

he also has some very fast ancient sports car

and because we’re sitting low to the ground

it feels like we are doing a thousand miles an hour

as we rocket round hobart smoking some primo sporkish mixture

me saying “slow the fuck down Spork!”

well the next day there is mild mannered genius director Brian Dimmick

he is so deep into the film

he is almost oblivious to whatever is going on outside his concentration

his dedication and belief and faith are fucking awe inspiring

with almost no budget

with everyone working on deferred payment

that is if it ever makes any money then they (we) will be paid

quite frankly brian dimmick is a guy i would work for for nothing

his vision

his insistence on historical accuracy

his perseverance and resilience

almost without any outside financial help

and now this film is all wrapped up

i simply cannot wait to start doing the music again

(i have already done first 20 minute)

so i got dressed up as the green man

and i crowned macbeth in his nightmare

we filmed in a cold sunlit glade with smoke and steam wisping about

when the cameras rolled there was a palpable feeling of…something eerie

this is one hell of a movie and i cant wait for you all to see it

the next day i visited brian at his house

cluttered and full of spears and shields and decapitated heads

we do a little greenscreen work with my antlers back on

the next day i visited the fabled MONA museum

museum of old and new art

an eccentric billionaire who made his money gambling

has built this gigantic multi floored museum in a picturesque spot

on paper i was gonna love the place

everyone told me i would

but i’m sorry

and not trying to be iconoclastic either

and disagreeing with all the many people who think MONA is amazing

to me it felt like

an eccentric billionaire had built a museum and filled it with random strange stuff

now that should be good in kilbeys world , right?

i would have thought so too

now i will use a phrase that i actually hate

MONA had absolutely no emotional resonance with me whatsoever

that is no criticism of MONA

but i was baffled with myself because i just didnt like it there at all

it was kind of nightmarish to me

just loads of weird sometimes powerful objects in huge rooms

rooms you could play a game of footy and still have room

there was apparently a room dedicated to human excretia

which i somehow mercifully missed

there was a “starbucks” coffee shop that wasnt actually a starbucks

but it was a good counterfeit of one

i dont know but the premise of that escaped me

although the soy latte was good

in the end i preferred to sit outside looking at the view

trying to decide whats wrong with me because i didnt like MONA

it fact i couldnt fucking stand it with all its overlapping musics and sounds

and all the lights going on and off

and its fucking interactive doodah…who wants to fuck around with that?

whats wrong with me? ungrateful sod!

is it i who is the philistine ?

or is MONA simply a huge concrete museum full of weird stuff

provided by an eccentric billionaire

i mean good on him for doing it but…

it just aint that easy..

on the other hand i guess it is

because 99 per cent of folks rave about it

and crabby grumpy old kilbey just couldnt dig it!

i think the eccentric billionaire should hire me actually

i could be at least one of the aesthetic advisers i think he needs

at least to appeal to some jumped up self styled cognoscenti ponce like myself

so MONA gets a big question ? from me

then my third strange experience

back at sporks having a smoke

he puts on a doco about Sunbury from 1974(?)

one of australias first ever big outdoor festivals a la woodstock

what a fucking dismal awful carry on

hot and dry and dusty

we have the obligatory nude swimming

but because this is australia we dont actually see many naughty bits

eg the bosom shots are tastefully side on so we dont see the nips

so all these fucking people came to see a bunch of australias top bands

one band piranha is just like santana complete with drum solo

only mike shrieve this drummer aint!

the wild cherries plod through some 12 bar sludge

then the big moment

a guy called billy thorpe who was huge at the time

its 1974 and theres bowie and roxy and all this stuff out there

but here in australia we got thorpie doing be bop a lula

and oop poop a dooh

or however the fuck that old warhorse is spelt

the crowd who must be on some serious bad acid and cheap booze

are going nuts over these hoary old 12 bar 1950s stodge standards

it is truly excruciatingly awful as thorpie takes solo after solo

while the band plod away

look i love my aussie music and i aint no cultural cringer

but this 40 year old document of australian rock is dismal

max merrit is pretty good in his own ragged kind of way

but the music is so old fashioned

so stuck in some boogie woogie past

skyhooks and a load of other bands were just around the corner

but this sunbury video is strange and weird and yes almost nightmarish

i’m confused

is it just me?

there is so much stuff out there that people seem to love

which i seem to hate

and vice versa

meanwhile i am becoming more obsessed with glide

and trying to learn their strange weird but good songs

i think about william out there somewhere

i was obviously a bit of an influence on him

its there not so disguised in some lyrics

other influences too

but the fucking man was a contender

the first bar of the first song we are doing

has more originality and beauty than all of sunbury put together

i dunno william is like shelley or byron if they were rockers

in another universe glide would have been massive

in a universe populated by steve kilbeys

who demand the kind of fucking music that glide deliver

the juxtaposition of noise and beauty

the juxtaposition of good and evil

songs that make you sit up and go wow!

the band has lost none of its power at rehearsal

the basslines are fucking awesome

the guitars were intricate and driving

the only question is

can kilbey cut the mustard and do these songs the justice they deserve

william i know youre out there

give us a fucking hand son

these songs are tricky to sing

but i know

if i can get it right

it will be one of the best things you have ever seen me do

see you thursday night then

kilbey

back in rainy bondi

as the creditors close inexorably in!