Found this in my drafts, completely forgotten. I only found it again when one of these bits–Walking About–wound up on a tee shirt in Australia. Seems I had once spent a late evening on YouTube digging up old tunes from my past life and writing about them. They’re not for the jazzbos, most of ’em, they’re a little harsh….

Venom P. Stinger – Flourish Wish
“At times life seemed so narrow down/simply consisting of a wish to die and a relentless feeling of non-being/laying on the bed unable to sleep….” One of the great tunes of those times, and almost completely forgotten, if it was ever really known in the first place. The extended jam towards the end, harsh and beautiful both, still sends me, and in it you can hear the seeds of the Dirty Three. Extraordinary Australian band, Venom P Stinger, and I was thrilled to be able to see them more than once on their US tour so long ago now….

Venom P. Stinger – Walking About
There was quite a stretch there, back in the 80’s, where I listened to this song every day. Put it on when I got up in the morning, loud, and had it going through my head all day long at work. Then I’d play it again when I got home, even louder. Al told me what it was about, how back in Melbourne a guy stole his keys and he was stuck at home all weekend till the locksmith got there, trapped indoors, while out there someone walked about with the keys to everything Al held dear. His car, his stuff, his gear, his sanity. It seethed in him, drove him mad and boiled out into this song, and eventually onto this little seven inch, perhaps the greatest punk rock record nobody ever heard of. I love the crowd at the Aussie party, too, they look just like the freaks we hung over here on our side of the Pacific Ocean. Freaks is freaks, I guess, and Venom P Stinger attracted them. What a great band. They crashed on our floor here in L.A. I don’t know how many times.

God – My Pal
If I had to pick one and only one song Australian song, this would be it. So simple, so urgent–almost frantic even–and so disturbing. The chorus hangs with you.  Not an ideal tune to end the night on. You’re my only friend, and you don’t even like me…..

Steaming Coils – Carne del sol
There’s a planet somewhere, and it’s my planet, and on that planet this is one of the biggest hits ever, and you would have heard this song so many times by now you’d be sick to death of it, that’s how popular a tune it is on my planet. Here, on this planet, only a few have ever heard it, but they know what I’m talking about. Dig the drums, too.

In jazz they call it telling a story, that is when a soloist seems to turn his instrumental break into a narrative. Clifford Brown could really tell a story. So could Louis Armstrong. Even on What a Wonderful World he’s telling a story. You don’t really hear that kind of story telling much in rock’n’roll, certainly not on a guitar solo. So what happens here? Steve Diggle–I assume it’s Diggle–weaves us a remarkable little tale, completely with mood changes. Amazing. One of my favorite guitar passages of all time. I wore out my original copy–picked up in ’78, I think–but I still get a thrill following the story told on that guitar.  Brilliant band. Saw them twice in ’79. Long time ago…..

Tower of Power – You’re Still a Young Man
Rick Stevens–finally out of prison again, thankfully, and in full voice–had the most amazing ability to slip from speech into song and back again, that if you stop to think about it, it is almost surreal. I mean listen to him here, talking, singing, talking, singing, back and forth, with exquisite timing and pacing and dropping in notes and words like Monk dropped big fat chords into the empty spaces in a melody, just perfect. Language is music and music language, in our heads they blend, and it’s a shame we insist on thinking them entirely different things.

Kris Kristofferson – Sunday Morning Coming Down
We’ve all been here. Of course, some people are here a lot more than usual. Me, I usually have coffee for breakfast, even on a Sunday. But then I don’t write anything as good as this. Kris used to dash them off like it was nothing. Too bad he found Jesus. He was a much better writer hungover.

Then I turned off the computer and went to bed, apparently.

Venom P Stinger, off the sleeve of the Walking About single on Aberrant Records, late 1980’s.