Various Artists
Write Your Adventures Down
14 Track, Compilation (2007, Red Label)
Play All Tracks In New Window
Related: The Go-Betweens.
What made the Go-Betweens great (among so many things) was that Grant McLennan and Robert Forster were such distinctive and unusual personalities. Although I liked to think I favoured Forster’s flamboyance, McLennan would sidle up with some devastating lyrical truth or melody from heaven, and I’d be confused as to who was my real fav after all. They were a knockout combination. This tribute perhaps unfairly shows up how undistinguished a lot of Australian male performers are these days. Dan Kelly, Youth Group, Bob Evans, Darren Hanlon, Josh Pyke – I’m talking to you. Adequate is not enough.
It’s the ladies that have all the character here. Patience Hodgson exudes exactly the kind of reckless, raw energy needed for ‘Lee Remick’. Sarah Blasko… perhaps she is the true heir to McLennan. Her ‘Bye Bye Pride’ is painfully brilliant, and she renders Hanlon irrelevant on ‘Hold Your Horses’ by sheer weight of her emotional intelligence, and that voice of hers. New Buffalo is the only performer to actually interpret the song, a light through raindrops glimmery, echoey gem. And unexpectedly, Glenn Thompson’s ‘Dive For Your Memory’, tender and full of passion, is in fact the most fitting tribute here.
by Lauren Zoric
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what about dave?