Tag: The Spooky Men

New Year rolling relentlessly along

My friend Joy sent one of Jacquie Lawson’s life-affirming animated cards for New Year, a positive message delivered as a calendar, pages flipping to the tune of Auld Lang Syne. It was a northern hemisphere theme, but the message was universal – the wonders of nature.

As for last week’s flippant item about fluffy news, the opening days of 2023 delivered anything but. At New Year drinks, assembled guests inevitably began talking about the bad news of preceding days and weeks. The Tara shooting is still (and probably always will be), bewilderingly pointless. There are Court cases to come involving a traffic accident in which three people died. There’s the home invasion which left a young mother dead and her husband injured. There were drownings, fatal car accidents and a helicopter crash that killed four people.

Where’s a cat up a tree story when you need one?

For my part, I’ve been quite busy as one of my pro bono jobs is editing the U3A Warwick newsletter, an 18-page publication (due today). I was chasing up sponsors who booked advertising space. I made up an ad in Publisher and sent it for approval, quietly invigorated by finding that I can be multi-skilled at my age.

Mind you, race walker Heather Lee (96), could teach me a thing or two. ABC Breakfast interviewed Heather (a lone, good news contribution). She was lamenting that she can no longer compete in her age group – because she’s the only one.

Watching Heather briskly walking, arms swinging, made me prise myself out of the recliner, stretch my hammies and vow to return to the gym. If you make New Year resolutions, that should be Number 1, really. If we’re not fit and active, chances are we’ll soon be on a wheelie walker or in a wheelchair.

Neither of these options appeal to me, but at 70+ with diagnosed brittle bones, I have made getting fitter than I am a priority.

It’s all about exercise, stretching, lunging, eating good food and drinking lots of water; it’s also about brisk walking, not quite the Heather Lee standard but not dog-walking pace either.

The realisation that I was not as fit as I have been came while trudging around the Woodford Folk Festival site, up hill and down, on roads which had been knocked about by rain. I had not been to Woodford for some years. It was always tiring, no matter how fit you were. One year at Woodford, realising that the tiredness comes from the endless walking from one venue to another, I took up residence at one venue and stayed there for the duration. It sure was better than catching the last song of John Butler’s set or not being able to get into the tent when you wanted to be in the front row.

Woodford, with its teeming thousands milling about, is a place where you might meet someone you know and then again, not. In previous years, it seemed as if our age group (the over-60s) was well represented. This year, it was like being at Splendour in the Grass. Most attendees seemed to be in the 18-29 age group and of course there were kids and babies everywhere.

I was one of the few men I spotted wearing jeans. Most were clad in shorts, long hippy pants or on occasions, sarongs. Hardly anyone wore a hat (Albo did), and I guess they will pay for it later.

We were there for the 9am tribute to the extraordinary folk singer, comedian and writer John Thompson, who died in February 2021, aged 56. His widow Nicole Murray put the show together with the help of friends Fred Smith and Ian Dearden. They covered a lot of territory in just 50 minutes; there were performances from singers who’d been in bands with John, a special Morris Dance to the tune of his song ‘Brisbane River’ and a spooky rendition of The Parting Glass by the Spooky Men’s Chorale. As director Stephen Taberner told the full-house crowd, John had at one point joined the Spookies for a tour of the UK. If you did not know of John, you might have seen him as the Songman in the stage production Warhorse, which toured Australia and New Zealand.

A cheerful highlight of the tribute was a rendition of John’s song ‘Bill and the Bear’, about a Maleny man who wrestled a bear at Wirth’s Circus, back in the day. A scratch orchestra led by brass player Mal Webb marched in from the back of the venue to play the extended instrumental.

It was an appropriately sombre, hilarious, cheerful and tearful event. John would have been incredulous that he could draw a full house at a 9am festival gig.

From there, I wandered off to catch Jem Casser-Daley at one of her first Woodford gigs. Jem played piano and was backed by a drummer and bass player. She’s young and her songs are mostly about feeling young and vulnerable, broken relationships or being stood up for a date. She’s confident, natural, has a beautiful voice and showed her musical pedigree by including two covers. First came Neil Young’s ‘Harvest Moon’, maybe inspired by A.J. Lee and maybe not, and then delving into her Dad’s record collection to come up with Carole King’s ‘It’s Too Late’, Baby. Jem Casser-Daley, star of the future.

I found my way back to the 9am venue in time for Eric Bogle’s sound check in which the pithy Scotsman sang ‘For nearly 60 years I’ve been a jockey’. Later, he sang the real song with great heart, as he always does. As a songwriter who is always asked to sing the same one or two songs at gigs, I felt for Eric once again working through ‘No Man’s Land’ (also known as ‘The Green Fields of France’), which was a huge hit for the Fureys and set Eric off on the life of a touring musician. At 77, he’s still in good voice, quipping away between songs and bantering with fellow musicians, Emma Luker (fiddle) and Pete Titchener (guitar and vocals). I feel tired just writing this, but Eric went from a tour of New Zealand in October to a 13-concert tour here in November and a few gigs in December before the tour bus rolled into Woodford. As the quote goes on his tour posters: ‘A mixture of loquacious Scottish humour and exceptionally heartfelt folk songs’. (The Irish Times).

Songwriters tend to become identified with a certain type of song – in Bogle’s case songs about World War I. He told his Woodford audience that he had published 230 songs, of which only 12 are about WWI. He also revealed he had registered ‘No Man’s Land’ under both titles!

Eric is one of three songwriters who wrote a tribute for John Thompson, ‘Catching the Wave’, which is on his latest album, Source of Light.

Fred Smith, better known for songs about the conflict in Afghanistan, penned the as-yet unreleased ‘Sweet Ever After’, watching John’s funeral on Zoom from his room in Kabul. Brisbane folk singer Ian Dearden, a long-time friend and associate, wrote ‘Song for John’ which can be found on Bandcamp.

I like to remember John Thompson as he was – a warm fellow with a brilliant mind, feverish sense of humour, a grand voice, clever writer, sometimes impatient but always with good intentions.

It’s so hard to refer to him in the past tense.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few words about Christchurch and global grief

christchurch-global-grief
Christchurch and global grief – artwork by Isaac Westerlund

Last Friday’s massacre in Christchurch by a lone gunman was, as numerous people opined on Twitter, the per capita equivalent of New Zealand’s 9/11. The 50 people killed represent 3,000 fatalities in a similar attack in the US. That does give perspective to the overwhelming feelings of sorrow and confusion many of us felt last Friday and the global grief we have felt every day since.

New Zealand rarely makes international headlines, unless it’s an earthquake, a volcanic eruption or the Wallabies beating the All Blacks. We mourn the irrevocable loss of innocence.

Like Ten’s social commentator Waleed Aly, I did not really want to talk about this today, but as he and others have said, I feel as if I need to say something. I grew up in a sleepy little town in the North Island, a place where nobody locked up and people left their keys in the ignition while they went across the road to the dairy for a bottle of milk.

I remember the shock that was shared around the country in 1963 (I was 15), when President John F Kennedy was assassinated. Things like that didn’t happen in New Zealand so we were shocked, dismayed and very sad. Then as with Christchurch, we shared in a global grief experience.

Songwriter Kath Tait, an expat Kiwi living in London, found out about the massacre at two Christchurch mosques when she got up on Saturday morning (Friday night over here).

She wrote on Facebook: “I’m totally gutted; it’s a big shock for us NZers because we still cling to the notion that NZ is a safe peaceful place and not really a part of the wider world out there. I guess we’re wrong about that.”

George Jackson, a fiddle player now based in Nashville but raised in NZ, encapsulated his feelings by re-learning a plaintive waltz written by his great-great grandfather George Dickson.

Song of the Tui

I spent the weekend at the Blue Mountains Music Festival where more than a few festival guests had something to say about the atrocity in Christchurch, which had only just happened. As we all now know, 50 people died of gunshot wounds inflicted by a lone attacker and many more suffered serious injuries. A male person has since been arrested, by two brave rural coppers in Christchurch for, of all things, an armed offenders’ training course.

He has been charged with one count of murder and remanded in custody until April 5. Like New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, I refuse to speak his name. And, despite a plethora of online and offline speculation about the alleged perpetrator’s background and likely motives, it remains for a court to decide upon his fate.

Irish songwriter Luka Bloom started his set at the festival in Katoomba saying that people who perpetrate such atrocities “Do not speak for me – “they never have and they never will.”

“They have no idea about the amount of love there is in this world,” he said.

And as Laurel Wilson recounts: “When New Zealand comedy duo, The Topp Twins, who hail from Christchurch, first heard about the atrocity that had occurred in their city, they asked each other, “How can we go on stage and be funny after that?”

“The Topp twins are two openly lesbian, feminist, politically active sisters who are also very, very entertaining – loved by a great diversity of fans in their native New Zealand but also in Australia and elsewhere. They have, no doubt, known prejudice themselves, but have not let it define or limit them. I believe this is the message that they wished to convey when they decided to go ahead with their show at the Blue Mountains Music Festival. And they lifted everyone’s spirits when they finished the show with an audience participation version of ‘Da Doo Ron Ron’, complete with choreography”.

Stephen Taberner, musical director of the Spooky Men’s Chorale, is also from Christchurch. He refrained from commentary about the events of that day, instead recalling an incident he once witnessed where a mother was remonstrating with one of her kids. The mother said to one of the other kids: “Don’t stir the pot”, which Taberner said meant, “Don’t make things worse.”

The Spooky Men then closed out the festival with a stirring rendition of Joni’s Mitchell’s The Fiddle and the Drum.

Taberner’s wisdom in choosing to bypass commentary or bare his feelings was the right choice, given the amount of pot-stirring that’s been going on over the past seven days on social media and in the conventional press.

The Urban Dictionary’s broader definition of ‘stir the pot’ might give us pause for thought about which media outlet we trust:

Pot-stirrer: Someone who loves to proliferate the tension and drama between two or more feuding people/groups in public…in hopes of starting a shitstorm of drama and uncomfortable conflict…”

The above could also aptly describe our accidental Senator, who has been in the public eye, grabbing headlines for all the wrong reasons. Boycott his press conferences, I say. He will still be free to say what he wants to say, just not on the front page.

New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern put the lid firmly back on the pot with an apolitical, compassionate approach that above all took the feelings and beliefs of the Muslim victims of the massacre into account. Within days, she and Muslim leaders were collaborating with police to fast-track the release of the victims’ bodies to their families. The Islamic faith requires that burial rituals happen as soon as possible. The fact the NZ PM understood this and promised that the country would also pay for the burials, built a few bridges at a time when all connection could have been lost.

Defining the nation’s role in this global grief, she wrote in a commemoration book: “On behalf of all New Zealanders we grieve, together we are one, they are us.”

These words have taken on a life of their own, as a hashtag on social media. In just three words she defined New Zealand’s inclusive attitude towards refugees and immigrants in general. Ms Ardern’s approach every day since has been consistent, compassionate and yet firm, as shown with the swift introduction of stricter gun laws.

The chief pot-stirrers, unfortunately, are the loosely-regulated chat sites and bulletin boards where people can post anonymously. Telcos including Telstra, Optus and Vodaphone are temporarily blocking websites which continue to broadcast the live GoPro video filmed by the assailant as he went about his bloody business. None of the Telcos will say which websites they are actively blocking, although they say the bans will be lifted once the video is removed.

Apart from George’s fiddle tune, the most moving thing I have seen about the Christchurch massacre is a black and white ink drawing by Isaac Westerlund of a Maori woman and a Muslim woman exchanging the Hongi. This is a traditional Maori greeting where two people briefly touch noses and foreheads, exchanging a symbolic breath of life.

Thanks to open-hearted people like Isaac Westerlund and George Jackson, the healing power of music and art help us overcome emotions we don’t quite understand and to make sense of the senseless.

#theyareus

*A Tui is a native bird with a distinctive tuft of white feathers at the throat and a beautiful call.