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Watch and Listen to John Cale's Keynote Online
On February 15 underground rock royalty and founding member of the Velvet Underground, John Cale, cut the red ribbon for Modular and Sydney Festival's Circa 1979: Signal to Noise with a Keynote speech at the Seymour Centre.
Hipsters rubbed shoulders with electronic pioneers in a packed out York Theatre as Cale showed off a few snaps and described working with the likes of Lou Reed, Patti Smith, Happy Mondays, The Stooges and LCD Soundsystem before capping things off with a mind blowing rendition of "Heart Break Hotel."
If you missed the speech or want to listen/watch it again, ABC's Big Ideas are streaming it online.
January 28, 2010 at 10:23am in circa 1979: signal to noise
The Prelude opens in 2007 at The Hollywood Bowl where Rufus Wainwright is performing his Judy Garland show to 13,000 people, then the focus turns to 1968 and The Village Gaslight a legendary folk bar in Greenwich Village where Bob Dylan sang in his early days.
The brush strokes in this portrait are immediately broad and significant. As with most biographies this one devotes some time to the parents of the subject; where they were at and what was going on in their lives. The father had been having tea parties with Liza Minnelli as a seven year old and eventually in 1968 he was an aspiring Dylan wannabe, he once described the woman he’d marry as a wild and crazy swingin rock chick’.
As a singer songwriter he shares quirky ironic songs about his life; that’s his act. When their first child, a son, is born he writes a song called Be Careful There’s A Baby in the House.
When I was a kid I consciously noticed Judy Garland in a mid-day movie I’d seen during the school holidays. It was the film A Star is Born (George Cukor, 1954) and her rending of the song The Man That Got Away that snapped me up into the throngs of people world wide who are fans of hers. As long as I can remember I loved the blending of those words and her voice in that song.
Imagine for a moment your favorite song. How does it reach you? If you are anything like me, you will have more than one song that’s a favorite, for a range of different reasons. One song is a favorite because of the time and way you learnt it; another one you really related to after a bad experience. Songs, once inside you can stay there for ever laying dormant for years and then suddenly resounding. The lyric or tune or both flood in from memory and for a moment you are washed with the spirit of whatever song it is, and probably residue of the emotional baggage or memories you’ve attached to it.
What are the impacts of someone writing a song for you; about you, over a childhood say? The teenage years and then young adulthood and beyond; how would the existence of a song meddle with who you are discovering yourself to be in your life? Songs are very strong magic. They can get inside you just the same as they can get inside the next person. Anyone can sing a song or hum a few lines. If a song was a weapon surely it would have to be considered a potential weapon of mass influence if not distribution. Songs can spread like wildfire and could be just as destructive.
Interesting then that Rufus Wainwright was born into a world that quickly included a song that reflected upon his very existence, written by his singer songwriter father. A father who would split from his mother after the second child Martha was born. It does sound a little like the makings of a modern Greek tragedy doesn’t it?
Thankfully Kirk Lake’s biography of Rufus Wainwright, There will be Rainbows, isn’t a scandalous expose of a Meth-sucking ribald queer desperately returning from Crack City soaked in shiny slick Queer as Folk afterbirth. Although part of the type of journey Rufus Wainwright took received quite a good shakedown in the US Queer as Folk series: The character Theodore (Ted/Teddy) Schmidt slipped down the slide to lose himself in debauched sexual acts under the influence of drugs. Eventually druggie Teddy ended up in a twelve step program. Squinting, I could easily imagine Rufus in the role of druggie Teddy but only in a most generalized sense. In the way any television series’ weave issues into their ongoing dramatic trajectory. Doesn’t this character journey get used as a storyline because the drugged out character journey to hell and back is a common morals story we can all relate to? You either die or you survive.
What’s so great about the variation on the theme with the trajectory of singer songwriter Rufus Wainwright is the evolution of his persona as he returns from his particular hell. He’s a self aware kind of guy, and he sings gorgeously.
I was impressed when I saw Rufus in the concert Came so far for Beauty at the Sydney Opera House during the Sydney Festival. I wasn’t really there to see Rufus; I was looking forward to catching Nick Cave back in Sydney, singing something different. I had previously reviewed Poses by Rufus Wainwright; released in Australia by Universal Music. I liked the album. I remember being taken by Rufus’ voice and the lyrics.
Rufus’ Poses struck me as more your Andy Warhol Pop Art than soundtrack to Queer as Folk club music. It had a refined constraint about it and a resonance connected to living the Queer as Folk lifestyle in a grittier downtown Drella kind of way, more real than the newly ingested stereotypes provided by the US series. Curious it was to me, that here was an out gay artist in the days of out gay television soap, and there wasn’t an inordinate deal of hype around about either of them in the mainstream press here in Australia.
It made sense to me when I read newspaper articles saying Rufus was an out gay artist and the son of performing parents but I had no great detail of exactly who these parents were exactly, or what tradition he’d come from. Lake’s biography traces the career shifts and turns of both folks, keeping a reasonably detailed account of their post-divorce couplings.
When Rufus was in Sydney in 2004 a young law student who was producing a regular segment on one of my community radio programs at the time, he was gay, but usually quite straight-laced. Quite mild mannered in fact relatively conservative; and most interestingly this young fellow was smitten with Rufus. He relished telling me the bittersweet story he’d heard of a young intern at ABC Radio who had been taken out to supper and invited back to Rufus’ hotel room; I thought it was cute to see this very serious student of law so irrepressibly whipped up about Rufus’ exploits in Sydney.
It was so great to see he was really into Rufus. Great because he could express himself that way, I couldn’t have gotten away with it so unselfconsciously when I was his age, in my early twenties. It was empowering; two gay guys talking about a gay artist. It’s also curious to see what punters find attractive about him. I know what I think. Rufus is quite handsome and sings really well.
For me, it was definitely Rufus’ track that stood out of the soundtrack of Moulin Rouge (Baz Luhrmann, 2001). Rufus sang Complainte De La Butte the lyric by Jean Renoir, it is very simple and beautiful. I had no notion of who he was at the time, but I loved the song.
I had never really heard of the McGarrigle Sisters but I knew of Loudon Wainwright way back when I was a kid myself. Along with classics like Rolf Harris’ Jake the Peg, John Williams’ The Ball-bearing Bird and Red-back on the toilet seat, Loudon Wainwright penned and sang Dead skunk in the middle of the road. It had quite a lot of air play at some point in my 1970’s youth. Loudon Wainwright is of course the father of Rufus and he sang the dead skunk song.
Many years before my face to face interview with Rufus I had met Liza Minnelli in 1978 when I was seventeen. I purchased tickets to the Liza Minnelli concert at the Adelaide Festival Centre as a gift for my mum, but mum had a migraine on the date of the concert so I ended up attending with a manic depressive friend of mine who could drive us to the concert and back afterward. I was enthralled by splashy show business at this particular time. During the concert Liza was fabulous at her prime doing numbers from Cabaret (Bob Fosse, 1972), New York New York (Martin Scorsese, 1977) and her television special Liza with a Z (Bob Fosse, 1971),all of which I’d seen.
In the days leading up to me going to the concert one particular song had been going around and around in my head for no evident reason, not a Liza Minnelli song as far as I was aware. It was from the musical Gypsy (Mervyn LeRoy, 1962) with lyrics by Jule Styne and music by Stephen Sondheim. For some reason I thought to myself, if Liza were to sing this song it would be a sign that I was going to somehow meet her.
Meeting Liza was a simple task. After all it was Adelaide, the Festival Theatre. She had to leave by the stage door and I knew where that was. My friend and I would just go and stand there, so we did. We waited by her big white limo until she came out.
We waited so long for my friend had bid me leave my gift for Liza with the limo driver. She was ready to call it a night. She was my driver so I left my gift, a hand knitted two foot long multicoloured stripy Wee Willy Winky hat, with Liza’s driver. Just as we were about to leave, Liza emerged. I was flabbergasted.
Coming face to face with such a great talent, noticing how tiny a person she was. Realizing how enormous she had just been on stage. I was thrilled. I shook her hand and said something like You were in Judy’s womb, Liza said Yes I was. The whole sixty seconds was really terrific.
Days later I received a very poorly typed letter on Liza Minnelli letterhead thanking me for the terrific hat (my address was on a note I left inside the hat). Liza was such a forceful star and such a great sport.
My reaction to Rufus singing in the Came so far for Beauty concert was similar to my reaction to hearing Liza in concert and Judy on records. Rufus has a truly beautiful voice and his relationship with the audience is very clean, I would call it transparent, glowing, and shining.
I had been excited to see Nick Cave in this concert, I knew more of Martha than Rufus Wainwright because she had the saucy Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole around on radio - I’d played it several times as well as other songs from her self titled debut album. Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole was about her father; but once you start to digest the life long song writing habits of Loudon and Kate, it’s their family tradition; Martha’s song has great appeal.
The parents divorced after the birth of Martha, the kids went to live with mum while dad pretty much went on the long tour to peddle his work. Along the way Loudon wrote songs about his relationship, his kids and his philandering.
It was only a matter of time before the daughter grew up and wrote a few songs of her own and Martha’s letter to daddy was a ripper.
Combine my press release readings related to Martha and my gay law students girly demeanor when gossiping about the dreamy Rufus, I was picking up the vibe that I was missing out on something.
Sat listening to Rufus singing at the Sydney Opera House I realized I had been missing out. He was excellent. So I requested an interview with him. I wanted to get a better sense of who this guy was.
Just prior this time I had seen a preview of the film The Aviator (Martin Scorsese, 2004), a big epic movie with Rufus playing a club act in the recreated Coconut Grove replica the production had built in Montreal. I thought he was great; there was a quality that reminded me of Barbra Streisand dancing in Hello Dolly (Gene Kelly, 1969), untrained. This is not to be mean or criticize. I find the physicality of the comedic untrained dancer vastly superior to watch at times than the trained dancers’ slick precision.
Rufus busts a couple of moves that are pretty hilarious in The Aviator. I felt there was a generalized essence he had; hard to not lack subtlety when performing live in such a massive scene, but he certainly works it through his number and it entertains. To me it resembles Al Jolson or a Persian Sufi, someone very skilled at pure expression.
Rufus and I met in the coffee shop area of the hotel where he was staying in Sydney. I’ve deliberately left the greater part of his um’s and ah’s in this transcript because they are very him, but I have trimmed some of them out. Virtually anywhere there is an um or an ah you can imagine another two or three. His mercurial thinking on the fly seems very honest as he answers questions; to me this was a nice interview even though I showed myself up a little by being a bit flirtatious. I actually pulled back a little too far, out of embarrassment, made the decision not to flirt any more but think I ended up sounding a little straighter than I’d hoped to sound by the end.
Rufus had a cup of tea on a saucer; he was unshaven with a white shirt unbuttoned around the chest and jeans. He cuts a dashing young figure. We made our greetings, sat down at a table and I started recording. His laugh is something bright, like a Parrot; gawkily devilishly geekish, very unselfconscious.
David: It’s been said that great art is something that arises from great suffering and you’ve been pretty open in the press about having some periods in your life where maybe you’ve described it as being a little bit lost in um-
Rufus: Hedonistic behaviour…? (Laughs)
David: Yeah, hedonistic behaviour; so do you think a lot of your work is informed by some of those hard times?
Rufus: Ah well, I mean, uh, I don’t, in any way, consider my, you know, my dark days to be um, truly dark; I mean compared to you know, what a huge- a vast majority of the world goes through you know, if you don’t live in a first world country. You know, I do think that I as an artist, you know, I was definitely drawn to you know, the romantic and to the sort of ephemeral and I kind of went there you know mostly because I was just attracted to it and loved it really; and so I think, and in the end it did become you know very painful and, kind of um, really like an illusion, you know, empty, so, so.. but I got all that I could out of it, you know so, and I still respect it tremendously like that whole you know, bohemian lifestyle and I still, you know, love those movies and stuff and who knows? But in the last while I just figured I hit a point where you know I just had… I just needed to… I just needed some basic things that all humans need you know, just like care and love and positive outlooks on life and had to you know and I had to sort of switch gears a little. So I think it was necessary just as an artist to go there but I think it was necessary as a better artist to like return and continue.
David: Is there a point then in your development as a performer when you’ve gone from being the kid of someone or some ones who sing on to an artist in his own right?
Rufus: I don’t know I mean I play both sides really. I very much take advantage of my unique relationship with my parents; we do shows together, Martha’s been in my band and I definitely am seen often with them, so, so I feel that um, I don’t know. I really do feel like both Kate (my Mother) and Anna (my Aunt) McGarrigle, Loudon Wainwright (my Dad) and Martha Wainwright (my sister) we’re all very very different musicians and really incomparable in a certain way, um, I did feel like, you know, I didn’t necessarily always feel this way you know after all this time since I made my first record. I think I needed about three records probably to really be confidant in my own sort of position and so now I’ve made my fourth um,
David: Do you mean be confidant in your own position in the family sort of thing?
Rufus: Well just my own position, not so much in the family but my own position in the music world as compared with my family members, I mean I really think that um, I mean when you see the family show, which we do sometimes; we just did it here (Sydney) I think one is initially kind of shocked by sort of the level of quality of ah, of each performer, uh like me and my sister we were talking about it the other day, like my sister comes out and it’s like this nuclear bomb goes off-
David: It sure is.
Rufus: I’m just sort of like grasping at the piano trying to survive it you know and then my mother and my aunt you know there like these two sort of elves from Lord of the Rings who like, cast these magical spells, so I gotta get up there and do my little thing, and so I think it’s kind of. I don’t know. I think that’s how I feel about it, I think we’re all at the same level in a certain way.
David: You’re very comfortable and relaxed in your own skin on stage, I mean, is that because you’ve been working with them on stage a good deal of your life?
Rufus: I’ve been on the stage since I was at least twelve.
David: And you’re like what twenty-five, twenty-six now?
Rufus: No I’m thirty-one (laughs) Thank you that’s very sweet of you-
David: You?
Rufus: Yeah.
David: You really are?
Rufus: Yeah (long laugh)
David: Okay.
Rufus: Can’t you tell I got a beard and everything?
David: Yeah I just thought you were wearing the butch look today.
Rufus: Oh well that’s sweet, that’s very sweet of you; that made my day.
David: Okay.
Rufus: It’s a good thing you said that. Yeah but no, I’ve been doing; been on the stage for years and I watched you know, both my parents perform and I also was very much as a young child um, drawn to classic um, stagecraft, you know, movies from the forties and thirties and old Judy Garland musicals; just that whole idea of being able to tap dance and sing and-
David: Do you tap dance?
Rufus: No. I took tap dancing lessons once-
David: I would have thought that in The Aviator in your featured role there you would’ve sprung into a bit of tap dancing if you did tap dance.
Rufus: Ah yeah if I did I would’ve. But I ah, I just, I don’t know I’m lazy (laughs)
David: Can we talk about The Aviator? You perform in an extraordinarily huge scene-
Rufus: Yeah.
David: It’s comparable to the opening scene of New York New York that other Scorsese film
Rufus: Yuh
David: Um, how long did it take? What did you do to prepare? And, did you have a ball because it looked like you did.
Rufus: Oh well I had a great time I mean I was, very much, it’s funny because it didn’t take that long to do, it took about three days for that scene to be done and um I arrived the most amazing thing about it; or well, one of the most amazing things about it was that it was actually filmed in Montreal which is my home town, they’d rebuilt the Coconut Grove up there. I went up there to do it and it was my thirtieth birthday on the day of filming and I was quite exhausted just from you know, touring and running around so I was asleep a lot in the trailer in fact my mother came and brought a cake and brought it out on the set and I wasn’t there because I was asleep but then we went out and started filming and um, and I was very comfortable in that environment. I guess ‘because I’d made videos in the past that I just regarded you know, Leonardo DiCaprio was just sort of like another extra -
David: Well why not!
Rufus: (Laughs excitedly) A very you know, defined looking one, and then, and then, but you know, and then, we did it and I don’t know, it was really, I mean I had a ball doing it, but it was also, I don’t know, it was, it was I don’t know, it’s funny because I had another experience not too later, not much later which was, you know, later on, which was actually where I acted in a movie with Glen Close, I have a scene in this movie called Heights a couple of scenes where I actually had to act and that was much more daunting and sort of frightening-
David: Is that the first formal acting you’ve done?
Rufus: That was the first sort of formal on screen acting that I’ve done um-
David: But you’ve acted on stage?
Rufus: Yeah I used to do a lot of plays and stuff as a kid, you know in high school and stuff obviously-
David: Do you think doing that sort of stuff has fed into your ability to be a creative genius?
Rufus: (Laughs big and embarrassed)
David: For want of a better word.
Rufus: Well I don’t know, I definitely… As I said before just, I was sold on the whole idea that you know, great performers have to be really well rounded artistically you know? You got to know how to read an audience, you got to know how to move in a certain way and you got to know how to; you know you gotta really sort of ah, compare yourself to the greats who came before you and I think that’s; that in doing that you have to learn from them some how; so, so I do, I don’t know, I just feel like that’s where I’ve, that’s how I’ve chosen to survive by trying to you know- Even if it’s not popular today even if it’s not, you know, current or anything, just to sort of emulate what’s really great and undeniably so. I’ve tried to add it in my set somehow. So I dunno (laughs)
David: Well you sang Over the Rainbow the other night at The Enmore
Rufus: Yeah.
David: And it kind of got me thinking that here you are, you’re a first generation kid of a pretty famous coupling maybe you’re kind of like the Liza Minnelli of the new century (he laughs) What do you think about that?
Rufus: Ah well, ah, don’t tell my mother that. She’d have a heart attack. I don’t think I’m remotely like her.
David: You’re much taller. (he laughs)
Rufus: I would say that I; I mean that I wouldn’t mind being sort of the male Judy Garland in a certain way. Um, I mean I’ve always been a un, um, unabashed kind of um, unforgiving kind of fan of her work. Um, I know that it’s... And that’s a pretty daunting and daring thing to say-
David: It is
Rufus: for a homosexual-
David: It is.
Rufus: of my age.
David: Well especially one who sings-
Rufus: Yeah yeah-
David: and writes-
Rufus: Yeah. Cause there’s such a, you know, one is really pegged when they become you know a fan of hers, but we’re all, you know, every time I sort of return to her singing and her kind of phrasing and her really emotional way of carrying a song, it is like Wagnerian to me and it is this kind of this amazing; I’m still always constantly fascinated by it and ah, and moved so, so I don’t know. I do base a lot of my ideas of stagecraft on the Garland ethic but without the pills I guess (laughs)
David: Yeah which is you know; and that’s a good thing. On Want Too you’re, you’re kind of- that’s you there on the cover isn’t it?
Rufus: Yeah that is-
David: -and rather beautiful in some sort of almost err, renaissance or is it-
Rufus: It’s supposed to be Pre-Raphaelite
David: Pre-Raphaelite?
Rufus: Yeah.
David: Okay so, so what inspired that sort of behaviour? Is that a kick back to the kind of Judy Garlandesque sort of thing as well?
Rufus: No I think that’s more, I mean, that is more a kind of, when I said Wagnerian before it’s maybe a little more you know nineteenth century ah, romanticism which is really, takes a lot of; the pre-Raphaelites has always interested me as an art movement mainly because their paintings are just so beautiful and also their poetry and they really tried to make this sort of rich mixture of poetry and life and painting and theatre and you know mix it in with a little Oscar Wilde and a little you know, Beardsley, it’s very you know, unabashedly beautiful art form, and it’s funny because only recently after completing these two covers Want One and Want Too where I’m dressed as a Knight and then as The Lady of Shallot I realise that in fact my music is very pre-Raphaelite like I’m sort of operating on the same tenants like bringing past music to the future
David: Yeah.
Rufus: and sort of romanticising it almost like giving it steroids
David: Well it’s interesting you say that because I mean you described one of them I think the art teacher as a song that you wrote from the perspective of a young girl at school who is having an art class and then reminiscing when she is married to a wealthy man
Rufus: Yeah
David: yada yada which was a you know, nice little joke in there that you make but at the same time the song is deadly beautiful it’s incredible you pay homage to so many extraordinary artists in that song it’s kind of like ‘now where does that come from?’ is that from, is that just from you or what?
Rufus: I was I was a very solitary young person, I mean I was your typical kind of, or atypical I don’t know, wandering teenager who didn’t.. I mean I had a, had a few friends but I pretty much felt somewhat disconnected to the world and I would go to the opera alone at thirteen or fourteen or I would go to the Metropolitan Museum and kind of really relate more to the pictures on the wall that the you know, the people in the room and um, and I was kind of, you know I did fancy myself a kind of dandy, a misunderstood dandy and uh,
David: Is there any other kind?
Rufus: (laughs) and ah, and so I was, you know, that’s sort of the character that I’m hankering back to sort of my; who I don’t think you ever lose really I mean like even now like for instance I even go, like yesterday I even went to the gym here in Sydney and then we went to like, Manly Beach you know I just felt like that twelve year old again. I don’t know, whatever I still feel like that sort of gawky person. Even though I’m ravishingly beautiful. (laughs)
David: I wont make any comment because I don’t want to offend you. I mean you’ve got this sort of internalized beauty that is extraordinary and you’ve got to be able to acknowledge that and forget about your external
Rufus: Yeah I guess so but it is hard to kind of um, it’s very difficult to eh, lets just say it’s a job to do that for every gay man I think in our society
David: That’s exactly what I was going to ask; do you think there’s more pressure placed on you, you’re out in the industry and in the media as a gay man so obviously you’re; every gay guy that I know is madly in love with you the rumours of you picking up interns are everywhere you go, (he laughs) are stronger and stronger as we get around the place sort of thing (at this point Martha made an appearance) is this your sister yaeh?
Rufus: Yeah there’s my sister; are you off? You got your bag or are you going?
Martha: Great to see you.
Rufus: Yeah you too.
Martha: I’ll talk to you very soon.
David: Great concert the other night, you rock.
Martha: Thankyou. Have a good one tonight.
Rufus: Okay bye Pounie.
David: You’ve got one tonight?
Rufus: Yeah the Cabaret Voltaire. It’s a little secret show or something.
David: Oh okay, where Anthony performed the other night?
Rufus: I think he was at The Vanguard wasn’t he?
David: Oh you’re doing the Voltaire. Have you ever been there?
Rufus: No, is it nice?
David: Ah it’s the tiniest bit flea bitten sort of, maybe we’d call it a shit hole but it depends always on the
Rufus: Yeah yeah yeah.
David: On the performance.
Rufus: I have no idea I just show up and perform.
David: Oh well that’s really cool. Gosh you’re really doing a lot because you are doing The Basement as well.
Rufus: Yeah I’m doing two nights at The Basement as well.
David: Wow you’re doing a lot while you are here which is great for us. But is that what your tours are usually like, so jam packed?
Rufus: Well I mean I’m, I’m kind of, you know, I’m in my prime at the moment.
David: Yep yep.
Rufus: If there’s any time to rest it’s not now.
David: Okay.
Rufus: and I very much, I don’t know, I think because, ah, and I don’t say this in a complaining way but I would state that ah, I kind of have to work a little harder than certain acts um, mainly because ahh, I don’t quite, I mean I get a lot of support from my record company um and I do get; I am on a major label and you know, and that compared to people who are on like indy labels and who get nothing mmm and tour in vans you know? It is.. I shouldn’t complain but when you kind of go over this other border where you know people in my own sort of position. I don’t quite get as much promotion in a certain way like, or money put behind me as Iike big acts, you know, like I don’t get to make videos anymore I don’t really get a huge amount of; you know they don’t buy ads a lot, it’s like the radio thing isn’t totally jammed down the radio you know, and I mean I know a lot of the very famous, you know like The Strokes and the Nelly Furtado’s and all those people like that you know and I would consider them you know, for better for worse my contemporaries, but I don’t get that same sort of push, so.. but I still have this sort of big
David: Following
Rufus: Following yeah, but I have to constantly
David: Feed the animal
Rufus: Feed it, feed it and which means I got to work all the time which in the end I think it means does make a sort of better performer and a better kind of (pose voce) celebrity (embarrassed, breathing in) but ah, but, cause, cause I find there’s so many of those people now that are just so sort of um injected with fame you know and sort of that they become sort of bloated idiots and they can’t really, they don’t have anything interesting to say cause they have no real experiences they’re just like all of a sudden they’re famous like Ashley Simpson or that whole thing and they’ don’t really know, there’s nothing there to really warrant it, so when I do become famous it will be completely warranted (laughs).
David: I think by the time you become famous you will have earned it well and truly and that’s what you’re saying isn’t it?
Rufus: Yeah that’s what I’m trying to say.
David: Cause you’ve worked your butt off.
Rufus: So I think it’s worth t in the end but it is a lot of work. It is a lot of work and it’s also, you know, it’s I do think that I’m at a kind of a point where I could handle more of a little more of a push just in terms of you know just getting on certain shows and stuff.
David: Get it while the beauty is intact before you-
Rufus: Yeah yeah there’s this documentary coming out, soon in England on me, on Channel Four which is an hour long thing, I think it will be really great and I watched it
last night and you know, I’m great right now I was very beautiful when I was young like when I was twenty three and starting in my first album and a lot of those tracks like April Fools and California and like Poses I mean they were great songs those albums should’ve done better than they did. You know?
David: Yeah.
Rufus: Yeah, and they could’ve really been like, it was like amazing at that point and I was watching the documentary last night but it was a little sad you know when you see it and it wasn’t um, pushed as much as it could’ve but in the end there were other reasons why that was better for me. I don’t think I could’ve handled that kind of success at that point in my life.
David: You might have gone through such a bender when you, ‘cause I mean it was after that was it not?
Rufus: Yeah it was after Poses
David: Yeah, so I mean; and there’s a lot of the self awareness in ‘Poses’ that kind of says okay look out world here I come
Rufus: Yeah yeah yeah yeah
David: And obviously you had a bit of a party there for a while
Rufus: No it was great (laughs)
David: which You know, look, I think all gay guys have go through at some time otherwise we end up kind of getting to a point where we’re regretting that we never you know?
Rufus: And it’s also I think, it’s important to kind of dispel the myth that that’s where you know being gay is
David: Centred?
Rufus: Is centred so, you go there and yo see it and you’re like well maybe this isn’t all there is in the world
David: No, but I mean you’ve got to go there to discover that
Rufus: Yeah, you gotta go there
David: So do you think it’s been more difficult for you because you’ve been out about your sexuality
Rufus: Well I don’t think it’s more difficult for me
David: You say that because you’re good looking.
Rufus: I think it’s easier for me. Well, no I mean a-
David: And now he’s buttoning up his shirt
Rufus: (laughs) I’m fairly, I’m confidant in my looks and everything I do think that it’s easier on me in an emotional sense to not lie about it
David: Yep
Rufus: And to er.. you know it’s good for my head and I do think it’s important to have at least some variety in show business and have different types of people so
David: Sure
Rufus: So I think that I do think that I’ve been penalized for it though at times.
David: Well okay so how do you suppose that may have happened?
Rufus: Ah you know..
David: Like penalized as in..?
Rufus: Ah just as in you know just very subtlety and you know as I said before like I said with videos and being placed on the radio and like for instance like you know I’ve done Letterman and Conan O’Brien
David: Yeah yeah
Rufus: And all the kind of big talk-shows; I’m never interviewed
David: Just singing? Just?
Rufus: I just sing
David: They don’t come over
Rufus: They don’t come over and talk to me at all
David: So what do you think that’s some kind of internalized homophobia from
Rufus: I don’t know, I don’t think that it’s necessarily something planned. I don’t think it’s something that’s stated necessarily it could be
David: Do you think they’re frightened a little bit maybe?
Rufus: Well I think that they’re very much um, they just don’t um, it’s just not a safe bet. You know I mean,
David: Okay.
Rufus: It’s just not a safe bet so they’re not going to make it
David: They can’t ask the same questions that they’ll ask
Rufus: Yeah, and that’s the most depressing part of the whole situation with the music business in general is that their not willing to take those chances anymore on certain artists who may be out left of centre they just go with what’s sort of bonfide at this point and it’s kind of ruining music really. What I’m trying to say is my being gay is one thing, but I think I probably relate to other artists who might be a little crazy or black or folk singers you know what I mean? You know other people who aren’t necessarily arian and stacked.
David: Thanks again so much for talking with us; thank you so much. You were great.
And so he was. Thoughtful and brave and quite cheerfully divulging a true person at me, even though I was arguably a little mean once or twice.
So back to There will be Rainbows: A biography of Rufus Wainwright by Kirk Lake. So much detail is relative in the Wainwright clan. Mum did this, dad did that etc. It’s a little like the kitchen sink drama version of The Sound of Music but it’s not because the problem of Maria is never solved. I was continually impressed with the way the book balanced what was worth knowing about Loudon and Kate and left out what was not all that interesting like detailed negative hypothesis. I like the step back it maintains when it comes to throwing stones at any of the main characters in the family. It doesn’t read like anyone’s ultimately damned or held accountable.
What I did get was a notion of the amount of work Rufus really does have to do, and has had to do in order to build and maintain his market. Interestingly if you looked at it from a particular perspective it’s like a defense mechanism of evolution and genetics for performers to have a gay son because that way he’s already kind of wired to put the greatest effort into his work or art or what have you, rather than to spend all his vigor on a wife and family.
If you don’t know all that much about Rufus; and I couldn’t claim to know a great deal about him before reading this book, apart from impressions meeting and talking with him, reflecting on what he said is all I had. Mainly I had read press releases for his albums, concerts, the bio in the program for Came so far for Beauty and a couple of newspaper articles prior to meeting him. I hope I’ve explained that awakened in me a desire to know more about him when I heard him sing; particularly Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah; There will be Rainbows provides some well researched and footnoted insights and references that bring to light all the more detail and depth of his journey along the way from gawky teenager to well honed adult performer, or dare I say creative genius.
The book is fascinating the way it reveals enormously significant details of Rufus’ life without necessarily lancing any boils. Significantly Rufus was sexually assaulted as a young teenager; so was I. Something like this is a difficult experience to grow after. It creates a very complicated situation, particularly for a same sex attracted individual; just the way that coming out to your parents does. Even dealing with divorced parents is a difficult thing as a teenager. As aspects of your own personality start to emerge as similar traits to those you have identified in your parents, you can start to understand how these traits in your own behavior may press buttons in your parents.
Loudon and Kate sent Rufus off to boarding school against his wishes, but it seems the sojourn away was the ultimate tonic for his recovery at the time. Loudon introduced his young son to Penny Arcade, a performance artist famous for interactive experimental theatre shows where she invited the audience to check out her vagina as part of the program. Great work, and under the circumstances, Arcade was probably a great person to hook Rufus up with. Lake manages to sensibly contextualize all of this within the era. This is the terrifying era of AIDS. There was justifiable fear around concerning the spread of HIV, so a hip and pro-active individual such as Penny Arcade would have brought a lot of good learning to the table.
Rufus is honestly the geek, the galloping gawky guy; drop dead gorgeous and handsome on a multitude of levels, superficially and less superficially. That Lake has been able to comprehensively put everything together for Wainwrights fans is great, it’s neither a gushing fan book that says everything’s swell about Rufus or a tabloid dressing down.
In some of my favorite sections the book descriptively references the details behind the images on the Want album covers; it channels the course of touring and the playing in clubs like musicians must. It speaks to the truth of action more so than the myth creation of a series of press releases.
In some ways it seems Lake is suggesting that it will be Martha Wainwright who will have the greater music career proving ultimately that it’s the youngest member of the clan who will grab the biggest brass ring; yet there are others, half siblings. Loudon’s other singer songwriter offspring Lucy. Lucy is yet to emerge on the international scene, and I don’t see any books about her waiting to be released at this point in time.
Not that it’s a competition as such. As Rufus so rightly points out they each have their own merits and are quite a musically diverse bunch.
By now I have also seen Martha perform a few times, and she is great, there is that family trait of seeming a little unrehearsed, seems disinterested in maintaining the crowds interest for long. Her performances on screen for Rufus as part of his Judy Judy Judy Concert is astonishingly good, and her moments in I’m Your Man (Lian Lunson, 2005) are fabulous; I do very much like her, but I’m more fond of Rufus.
I did speak with Martha on the phone about her self titled debut album after they’d all left Australia. This interview was for my national music program broadcast on the Community Radio Satellite - Welcome Release.
David: So what sort of stuff is going on in your life that’s exciting for you right at the moment?
Martha: Well I’m about to cook a rack of lamb which is very exciting to me (both laugh), cause I’ve been on the road for so long I’m very excited about putting something in the oven and then putting it in my mouth.
David: Excellent.
Martha: And um, and I’m very excited to go to England in a couple of weeks with my band; because it will be fun to be able to go over there with them.
David: Now it’s not that long ago that you were here in Sydney, and Australia in general, did you enjoy yourself while you were here?
Martha: I did. Unfortunately we didn’t get a chance to do much out door stuff which I think you know, is something that your country really has to offer.
David: How about the relationship with the audiences here did you feel really comfortable with them?
Martha: I found them to be incredibly warm and receptive you know they seem to be quite avid music lovers at least the ones who came to the family shows.
David: What kind of reaction have you had for your CD so far where it’s been released around the place?
Martha: Well I’ve only heard good things but you know maybe my friends are not telling me about the bad things. But I think that because, the nature of the record is that it’s a very emotional and revealing album and I think that sometimes you cannot deny those raw and true feelings and I think people are touched by them and I’m very happy for that.
David: Certainly they’re very touching. You introduced Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole as a song you’d like to dedicate to your father and that was a really revealing moment I guess, but then what teenage or young girl-
Martha: Exactly-
David: hasn’t felt that about her father?
Martha: Absolutely I think that song is about everyone’s father and it’s also about me more than it is probably about my dad. Anyway I’m sorry I cut you off-
David: I really love your song, the lyrics to your song TV Show. I wonder if you’ve ever been on Oprah yet?
Martha: No unfortunately, and you know it’s very funny I had to change the title of that song because the record company was afraid of going to court with Oprah understandably because that was always called the Oprah Song and I’ve always thought about having the opportunity to sing it on her show some day.
David: Surely she’d be flattered not litigious.
Martha: Absolutely I think it’s totally positive. You know we can all be victims of the trappings of daytime television. I found myself quite literally at four in the afternoon, you know, crying watching the Oprah Winfrey Show and she’s telling me to love myself; you know, I’m a sucker for humanity as much as the next person and she goes for it and it’s okay.
David: Tell me about Factory because it’s such a beautiful lyric and the characters, do you see it as a character telling a story or do you see it more autobiographically?
Martha: Well it is autobiographical as all of these songs are although I see that I have the images of someone running you know, along the beach from factory to factory and trying to get the hell out of a place and away from the types of people that she doesn’t like. That song is about a place in southern California which is a place that you know, no one should ever have to live. It’s right on the beach and the beach is covered with factories and loads of Mexican migrant workers that have been shipped in from some other town. You know it’s just an American nightmare. Maybe I shouldn’t be so strong about it because I’m sure there are people who live there that are very happy to live there. I just didn’t have a good feeling from it and I was also surrounded by music company people music label people who are you know sometimes can be… ahhh, you know.
David: One of the songs particularly that I find really quite huge; a big emotional engagement is This Life. Can you tell me a little bit about where you were at when you were writing This Life?
Martha: I’ll try to remember. You know I think that this song it sounds like someone who has a lot of time on their hands isn’t it? I think that where I was at is that I was very depressed and didn’t know really what to do with myself and that song is sort of saying instead of killing yourself you know, there is music and that’s just about really realizing the power of music and when I say there’s a little country song in my head I think that’s about me going and listening to music and just being so moved by it which sometimes happens where you can be so sad and have tears running down your face and it’s such a relief when you hear someone else singing the sad song that you’re not alone at all and that that’s a very powerful thing that music can do and very helpful I think to a lot of people you know.
David: You were born into a musical and very creative family weren’t you.
Martha: (laughs) I don’t know I wasn’t there. No. (Both laugh) Yes I was born into a very creative and musical family and that’s probably why I’m able to recognize the power of art and music and get a lot from it. I’m very happy for my um.. for where I come from.
David: Do you see it as something you want to do now with the, for the rest of your life or do you see it as something maybe you’ll want to do for a little while but there are other things that you really want to get on to and achieve as well?
Martha: No I think that it’s taken me this long to really come out with the debut album and come out as a singer songwriter and an artist and I think that I want to keep doing that I think I know for sure now that this is what I want to do and I think that you know, music will always, I’ll always do music, I don’t know if it’ll be in attempts to sell as many units as I can it might not be, you know,
David: Well that’s fair enough
Martha: But I think I’ll always sing.
David: Well it seems there’s a deeper passion in you that goes beyond just wanting to sell units as such. There seems to be a real person in there that wants to express themself through song.
Martha: Yeah. I think I have enough to say. Some of these songs are eight years old. It’s really the story of a woman through her twenties, namely me, and ah, I didn’t sign a record deal with people and I always stay one foot in and one foot out of a career in music and I think that I did that because I felt the need to have a relationship with music myself rather than have anything be handed to me which I could’ve taken more advantage of being from the family that I am.
David: I imagine coming from a family with creative parents who are performing and living their life in that sort of magical realm of entertainment it (Martha laughs)
Martha: Although it’s all; I mean the funny thing with entertainment, it’s so great that you use that word because entertainment is just the fact that it’s two dimensional plastic you know sort of thing. It’s kind of great, I love it, I love that, it’s behind… you know, people’s faces are painted and they’re all on a stage in a scene made out of cardboard you know, I mean I think - anyway sorry…
David: That’s kind of where I was going, it’s sort of a magical world from the outside but being inside of it as a young person, you can be kind of engulfed by it but at the same time you see that there’s a dichotomy there that isn’t real-
Martha: Yeah absolutely-
David: And I guess that that would by some degree mean you could respond to that by saying ‘Oh I don’t want to get sucked in to what is here I want to find my own way through it kind of thing and deal with it myself.
Martha: Absolutely I mean I think I really needed to make sure that this is what I want to do because I know that, you know, it’s a crappy business and it’s filled with a lot of bull shit artists, I don’t know, I’m sorry but you know there’s a lot of falsity in it and I think that most young people would be very very content to sign a record deal and I think it was something that I wasn’t particularly impressed with because I’m jaded as all hell because of my upbringing-
David: And fair enough too, but at least you’re not Liza Minnelli hey.
Martha: Yeah at least I’m not Liza Minnelli, good.
David: There’s way more tragedy that surrounds her sort of life coming from a showbiz background.
Martha: Absolutely.
David: That’s what I’m getting at there.
After thanking Martha and wrapping up the interview, and now listening to reinscribe it after a few years I think of how her work fit in among other songs we were playing on the radio at the time. Martha does have a more commercial sound than Rufus, but there are potential problems with her overall sound becoming a little too repetitive; things start to sound the same at the live gigs I’ve attended in most recent times 2008 at the Governor Hindmarsh in Adelaide she was only okay compared to being brilliant at the Enmore in Sydney four years ago.
The bottom line is after reading this biography I’ve become much more interested in the whole family, particularly the beautiful, brash singing son who wouldn’t mind being thought of as the male Judy Garland; and whom I’d thought sounds similar to her any way, so, I guess he is perfecting his abilities around her work. The complete evolution of Rufus has yet to transpire, I’m sure there will be more to come, and I fully agree with Lake, there will be rainbows. I’d even go so far as to say I think the young Mister Wainwright will some day make a perfectly dazzling effort with something quite spectacular, and it will be he playing the pot of gold at the end of this colorful family rainbow. Jingling and sparkling like bountiful exuberance, golden Rufus triumphant; great read!
David Jobling
Note: this item is due in-store late June 2009 Paperback, 352 Pages, Published 2009
all rights reserved
Copyright 2009
Chinese Gardens
Chamber Music Festival 2010
Musica Viva is pleased to support the Chinese Garden Chamber Music Festival
Following on from the success of the first ever Chinese music festival in Australia in February 2009, the 2010 Chinese Garden Chamber Music Festival will be held:
February 4th to 6th in Sydney’s Chinese Garden of Friendship (Download Brochure)
We are proud to announce that 2010 will feature three of China’s masters of the erhu, pipa and guqin, Xing Lu, Tong Ying and Jin Wei. These extraordinary, virtuosic musicians will join prominent Australian artists in performing Chinese and Australian works, both ancient and modern. You will hear some of the world’s best chamber musicians from both countries in the intimate and magical environment of the Chinese Garden including the Orava String Quartet, Chinese Australian Music Ensemble, cellist Patrick Murphy, percussionists Claire Edwards, Kevin Man and Timothy Constable and The Sydney Chinese Music Ensemble.
There will be six concerts over the three days – three ‘yum cha’ concerts, all beginning at 11.30am, and three evening concerts at 7pm each night. Tickets will also include stimulating pre-talks before evening concerts and an excellent Chinese meal. Wine will be available.
Only 147 tickets are available for each concert and bookings can be made through the Musica Viva box office on 1800 688 482
More information about the festival HERE
John Huie
Artistic Director
"John Huie is an Australian musician and arranger that has spent some considerable time in Hong Kong and China researching various world music styles, including film soundtracks for Golden Harvest and also a commemorative piece for the 1997 handover. Now based in Shanghai, he has put together a crack band of local musicians to recreate many of the 1930’s jazz songs that were the soundtrack to the city in its pre-war heyday. “Shanghai Jazz – Musical Seductions From China’s Age of Decadence” is the sublime result."
"After moving to Shanghai in 2002, he spent three years researching and reproducing the authentic songs and musical style of Shanghai in the 1930s. The albums Shanghai Jazz 1 and Shanghai Jazz 2, were released by EMI. Huie then continued to write for small ensembles using a combination of traditional European and Chinese instruments, which resulted in the release of New Shanghai, also with EMI.During this time he wrote a number of film scores including The White Countess by legendary New York based film duo Merchant Ivory." SOUNDPET
Read the review for last years festival by Peter McGill below
Venue: Chinese Gardens, Darling Harbour, Sydney
Dates: 5, 6, 7, & 8th February, 2009
Producers: Chinese Chamber Music Company | Musica Viva | Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority
February in Sydney is the perfect time to be sitting in the magical setting of the Chinese Gardens, Darling Harbour, and listening to chamber music. This was the inaugural festival which means that we will be treated to this event, hopefully, for many years to come. The music began just before dusk and on a gorgeous summer evening the Chinese Gardens couldn’t have looked more beautiful.
The proceedings began with a ‘Greeting to Country’ and the Festival was opened by the Governor of NSW Professor Marie Bashir AC. The Artistic Director of the Festival was John Z. Huie who is a graduate of the Sydney Conservatorium High School and has studied under Carl Vine. He lived for 15 years in Hong Kong, from 1991, studying the art of Chinese Chamber music. He was commissioned by the Hong Kong government to compose a piece, which he called “The Honourable Retreat”, for the handover from British rule back to China on 30th June, 1997. In 2002 he moved to Shanghai to research the complexities of that city's authentic songs of the 1930’s, later composing an album Shanghai Jazz, produced by EMI, and for which a tribute concert was held recently to honour his contributions. He has also written film scores, choral works, and produced, composed, and performed in various music ensembles.
Chinese instrumentalists performing with traditional instruments were a delightful highlight to the festival and the opening piece was Fang Yu on the ‘guqin’ which is one of the worlds oldest instruments.
The Shanghai Chinese Music Ensemble played a traditional Chinese folk song “Chun Jiang Hua Yue Ye”, (English translation “Night Along The River”) with other traditional instruments and Lulu Liu played a ‘pipa’ solo called “Ospreys Sporting with Water”. In the second half of evening The Chinese Australian Chamber Ensemble with guest artists Professor Wang Zheng Ting (sheng)and Tony Wheeler (zhong ruan) played a traditional Chinese New Year piece. To round out the evening Australian pianist Michael Kierin Harvey performed “Goldfish” by Debussy and “Mephisto Waltz No.1” by Liszt.
Not all the music on offer was instrumental. We were treated to the pentatonic sounds of ‘pingtan’, a traditional Suzhou (Chinese) Opera, which has harmonies in pentatonic scales that align with the ancient instruments of China. Sung in Chinese and a little foreign to the western ear it was accessible because of its use of the pentatonic scale, quite an experience.
The music in this festival is out of the ordinary and the opportunity to experience the worlds’ pre-eminent practitioners playing instruments thousands of years old in their design is exciting and new to Australia. If you missed the Inaugural Chinese Chamber Music Festival put it in your diary for next year. I doubt you will be disappointed.
Peter McGill.
Fifty years to the day that Buddy Holly died in an airplane crash, 3rd February, Buddy - The Buddy Holly Story opened at the Star City Casino in the Lyric Theatre. Holly was born Charles Hardin Holley on 7th September, 1936, in Lubbock, Texas, U.S.A. His nickname came from his mother who said she called him Buddy because Charles Hardin was too long a name for such a little boy. As a child he learned to play the piano, violin, and guitar. When he was 13 years old he teamed up with school mate Bob Montgomery and they performed bluegrass locally as Buddy and Bob. Holly's break came when the duo performed as support artists for Bill Haley and his Comets resulting in Holly being contracted by Decca Records as a solo artist. His solo career was uneventful so he formed his band The Crickets and begun recording at Norman Petty's studios in Clovis, New Mexico where they recorded their early hit That’ll Be The Day, the phrase taken from the film The Searchers, a repeated phrase of John Wayne's.
Petty had a strong belief in Holly and contacted people he knew at Coral Records to sign him. Coral was a subsidiary of Decca and this put Holly in the unusual position of having two recording contracts at the same time. It was in one of these early contracts that Holley became known as Holly due to a spelling mistake and he stuck with it.
Buddy Holly was progressive for his time in that he used unusual instrumentations - e.g. the celesta on “Everyday”, vocal techniques - his use of “uh” in the middle of words, and he crossed the racial divide when mistakenly booked to play the Apollo Theatre, New York which was an all-black venue and successfully wooed the audience. His influence on popular music was integral to its’ development, he also instigated a higher level of engineering in the studio by layering his recordings with multiple vocal and instrumental lines before overdubbing became the norm. Examples of this can be heard on “Words of Love” and “Listen To Me”.
Buddy has been seen here in Sydney before and has been playing somewhere in the world for nineteen years, had over 16,000 performances and been seen by an estimated 20 million viewers.
In Australia the title role is played by Scott Cameron who does an amazing job of re-creating the Buddy Holly persona. He not only sings the songs with the characteristics that are synonymous with Holly he also plays the guitar riffs with blinding accuracy.
It is well known that Buddy Holly died in a plane crash with two other music luminaries of the day namely The Big Bopper, Jiles Perry Richardson Jnr, and Ritchie Valens, Richard Steven Valenzuela. The Big Bopper (known to friends as ‘Jape’) was a DJ who carved a career out of speaking most of his lyrics and had a hit with Chantilly Lace. Ritchie Valens was the first Hispanic, American born rock and roll star with hits “Donna” and “La Bamba”.
Luke Tonkin plays The Big Bopper with panache. Ritchie Valens is played by Sydney actor Flip Simmons, he sings superbly and moves around the stage deftly with all the gyrations that Valens was renowned for.
The show not only brings back all the wonderful well known hits but gives an insight into the journey that Buddy Holly and the Crickets went on. How they began playing country music, then rockabilly, and the development of their own distinctive style. The creative team of Director Craig Ilott, Musical Director Peter Laughton, Set Designer Christopher Smith, Lighting Designer Kevin Cawley, and Sound Designer John Taylor, have created an excellent evening of rock ‘n’ roll entertainment.
Peter McGill.
Performance Times
Tuesday 8pm
Wednesday 1pm & 8pm
Thursday 8pm
Friday 8pm
Saturday 2pm & 8pm
Sunday 5pm
Address:
Star City Pty Limited
80 Pyrmont Street,
Pyrmont NSW 2009
Telephone Enquiries:
General enquiries and Administration: (02) 9777 9000
International callers: 61 2 9777 9000
Way back in 1923 brothers Harry, Albert, Sam and Jack L. Warner incorporated their new motion picture company which continues to this day to produce major films.
Warner Brothers
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NEIL YOUNG AT THE BIG DAY OUT
It's difficult to find words for the emotional impact this concert took on me. What a fantastic musician, singer and personality Neil Young is. Why was I emotionally staggered seeing/hearing him? The simple answer is - he has been a constant all my life. In fact we used (my older sister) to have a green vinyl bootleg of a concert he gave in 1978 or thereabouts. It had his classics of the day on it, a good deal of rambling philosophy leaning towards preserving the natural world of the time... Mother Nature featured big then, and although she still does, it was his intense rocking soul that cracked through the generations
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