Sunday, February 9, 2014

The 10 Bands I Wish I'd Been in - Robert Forster

A nice parlour game produced an article from Robert Forster of The Go Betweens. Keep coming back to that band!

 
'I don't see myself as an actual member of these bands. I'm more of a spirit; being in them has a much to do with location, history and haircuts as it does with the music each band made. Being in them transports me to their time and magic, and looking at the list, I see it also as a path, stopping just before what would be the eleventh band I wish I'd been in: The Go Betweens.'
 
1. Elvis Presley / Scotty Moore / Bill Black 1954
 
 
'That puts me in at the beginning...Musically we are the eye of the hurricane. Good music is around us on every corner: Blues, gospel and Hank Williams / snow country. We're feeding on it but we've made the break. We have hooded eyes and big smiles.'
 
2. Buddy Holly & the Crickets 1957
 
 
'Buddy the suburban boy to Elvis's gloss-eyed southern belle. Songs as opposed to overt rhythm. Thirty hits in two years... The Beatles will follow as will the Velvets and The Modern Lovers, descendants of lonely strip, flat-running, suburban hiccupping garage-pop.'
 
3. Peter Paul & Mary 1962
 
 
'I play chess in the Village, outdoors while sipping high-octane espresso... Oh look there's John Sebastian. And Mama Cass. And Paul Simon - all in rags.'
 
4. ? & the Mysterians - 1965
 
 
'This is my favourite band name of all time. And it puts me in a mid-sixties garage band with one great song.'
 
5. The Great Society 1965
 
 
'It's San Franscisco before it all goes really weird and mad. It's the golden moment before the invasion, when everyone is still friends and there aren't any rock stars in the scene yet and no-one is touring - just playing in ballrooms and houses and jamming and songs and jewellery and Victorian clothes and pot and fog and big houses on the sides of hills that are cheap and filled with good discovery and books and long hair for the first time.'
 
6. The Band 1967
 
 
'The world around us is in flames. All we have is a pink house just outside of Woodstock. Albert got us up here. Said you've got to get out of New York so we did - just in time. No LSD, just a jug and what's in the garden and some very strong coffee. Dylan comes around.'
 
7. Gladys Knight & the Pips - 1969
 
 
'Big collars. The colours are brown, orange, purple and ripe yellow, the whacked colours of late 60s psychedelic television. I'm one of the Pips - off to the side of Gladys who is doing the performance and takes the pressure. The Pips are free, but drilled and slick. We spin, we turn, we break at the knees, we point, we bop and then we come to the microphone and sing some outrageous lyric at exactly the right moment and then we spin and bring the knee up, and do a little shimmy at the side with our hands that tells you about the story of the song. We can do 'rain' with our hands, we can do 'thunder' with our hips.'
 
8. David Bowie & the Hype
 
 
'I come down the stairs from my upstairs room and Bowie is sitting cross-legged playing 'Quicksand'. While I am brewing tea in the kitchen and having my first cigarette of the day I hear him at the piano singing 'Oh! You Pretty Things'. I run my fingers trough my soon to be shorn off long hair and think: God, life can't get any better than this.'
 
9. The Wailers
 
 
''It's big leaves and rich brown dirt, mountain tops with views down to the crystal-watered bays -my view of Jamacia. Bo B Marley and Peter Tosh, the Picasso and Braque of Reggae. Two guys always sitting together with guitars, inventing, testing, searching, as they put a sound and a set of songs together. Gathering strands - weaving. Around them are paradise and poverty, a strange place but the right moment for their music.'
 
10. Talking Heads 1975
 
 
'There is paranoia on the streets. New York is still a dangerous place. Photos of inside and outside CBGBs look gas-lit...his is before Jerry joins so we sound like Buddy Holly or Elvis but a logical development, 20 years later. It is us against the world like the start of every great group.' 


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