Music and Food Part 1

WARNING : This account has some bawdy colloquial language, but then so do most films and books of the past 20 years.

MUSIC AND FOOD PART 1

"Crawfish, crawfish

See I got 'em

See the size

Stripped and cleaned

Before your eyes

See how sweet they look

Fresh and ready to cook"

Crawfish, the great opening song from Elvis Presley's early film, King Creole.

A defining screen and musical moment for me was when King Creole opened with that number, a young cool Presley filmed in black and white leaning over the upper veranda of an old New Orleans house watching the black lady push her barrow of crawfish. Presley calls "Crawfish" over a slow funky rhythm and the woman responds. This was exotic and bluesy with a gospel call and response. And what's a crawfish? Wow. [ Lobster in Oz]. It was a confluence of music and epicurean mystery. It was one of the first records I bought, the King Creole EP.

Collecting records was a prerequisite for a hip teenager in the 60s, and you could say it reflects a personality. The type of person who was into electric "Highway 61" Dylan might also have collected "Bluesbreakers", "Beggars Banquet" ,"Disraeli Gears" and "Revolver", but perhaps not The Monkeys, Herman's Hermits, Gerry & The Pacemakers or The Cowsills, depending on the level of hipness you aspired to, or the circles you moved through.

Record collecting in the sixties was the best, the absolute best, and hopefully kids now will feel the same in 40 years' time. However very early 60s before we moved to Oz music was a drag, using mid sixties terminology, in fact there was little rock to be heard in the UK on the BBC. So I caught up with some superb 50s rock 'n roll, buying early Presley Sun material on RCA albums, "For LP Fans Only", "A Date With Elvis" (great titles back then!!), Buddy Holly EPs and singles, early Cliff and The Shadows, Everly Brothers; this stuff had immediacy, spontaneity, much more fire than the Brill factory teen pop gloss of Bobby Rydell, Bobby Vinton, Neil Sedaka etc. which, like matchbox toys for example, may now hold fascination for trivia collectors. Perhaps.

In 1962 I heard very odd harmonies coming out of Radio Luxembourg, the sound of "Love Me Do", the first Beatles single which reached 17 on the English charts. As a sonic comparison, it was like hearing ska/ reggae for the first time. Seems strange to say it now when it's all too familiar, but that's the nature of pop: hear today, deaf tomorrow, ho ho. The early Beatles were almost a negative of the polished pop which the establishment found safe. They were arty European in appearance, and street smart Scouse in person. The beat was unconventional, such vocal harmonies were unique and the instrumentation had a raw power.

I have a theory that the Beatles' music was more steeped in raw folk than has been noticed. Not the jug in hand bearded nasal fol de roi folkie of the "As I walked out one May mornin', one May mornin' in May" type, but the raw harmonics of Irish folk, the embellishments of solo Gaelic singing, intertwined, stemming from a race memory perhaps. Perhaps, mmmmm, well sounds a goer to me, and McCartney and Lennon are Irish names.

Ringo's beat was different, louder and more upfront than contemporary bands such as the Shadows - there wasn't much else on the BBC back then but The Stones when they came in almost 1 year later had more swing and raunch - now yer Charlie Watts the urbane Londoner was a jazz aficionado.

Then followed all those Liddypool bands with their bland Beatlesque harmonies, some odd beauties here and there but mostly blot who ended on the club circuit, balding unabashed and showbizzy. Yes, the Rolling Stones were a different kettle of unholy fish.

99.5% of British kids had not heard of Slim Harpo, Bo Diddley, Muddy Waters or rhythm and blues. Chuck Berry and his riff, later to become ubiquitous, was a treasured memory of the Teds, a different tribe, a sort of esoteric cultural perversion. What had filtered through was yer Brit rock 'n roll, once frantic teen beat now watered down by Cliff and the Shads to a sort of melodious McDonalds, Ricky Nelson goes Palladium. Some of Cliff's early rockers were good, such as "Move It" "Dynamite", "Apron Strings" "We Say Yeah", but once he hit "Summer Holiday" it was all pretty well downhill.

He became huge in England, aye, loved by mums and dads and gramps, up there lad in the pantheon with George Formby, Vera Lynne and Matt Munro, " 'ee were a great performer were Cliff aye, allus smiled, dressed well, with it like....our Dot loved 'im, pictures all over t' bedroom wall.........mind you she thought 'ee batted fer our side.....". The Shadows too had some exciting early hits "FBI", "Man of Mystery", "The Savage" but they lost it for me when "Wonderful Land" hit max on the blandometer. "Aye Glenn Miller would have done that well mother, that "Wonderful Land"..........do you think they'll ever find him?"

In April 1963 our family landed at Woolloomooloo, Sydney, New South Wales. We'd immigrated to Oz, ten quid tourists, with Pommy jokes flying thick and fast at school. My cousin Chris, an earlier émigré, sang with a local South Coast band - songs by Billy Thorpe and The Aztecs, who I thought were groovy, Beatles and Stones stuff plus surf instrumentals. Chris used to wear a black shirt together with a silver surfboard on a chain around his neck so that he'd be acceptable to both rockers and surfies, should he happen to be bailed up. Strategic thinker was Chris.

Radio in OZ was a banquet by comparison to the frozen dinner special of Brit wireless, ie. BBC and Luxembourg, and where we first found haven at Basin View, New South Wales, where herds of wild horses galloped through the main street at night, you could tune to Sydney or Melbourne. 3UZ was a favourite, with Stan Rofe at the helm, and 2SM in Sydney, with the "Good Guys", Ward "Pally" Austin, Bob Rogers, but Mad Mel being the favourite among my school chums. Chums? Gotta lose this Pommyspeak. Dinkum.

"Say "fair dinkum" Pommy. Say "fair bloody dinkum, ya wombat". "Hey Pommy, why's Errol Flynn like a wombat? Cos he eats roots and leaves. Ya know what a roodis Pommy? Give Black Marie a coupla bob an' she'll show ya". Racial discrimination was down the other end of the telescope, it didn't have a name back then, it was called status quo. "They're called abos or boongs, pommy. They mix metho and black boot polish and drink themselves stupid. They go walkabout. Some are ok but generally they're unreliable". I don't recollect the U.S. civil rights marches being discussed back then in sleepy Nowra, where even now they still call a Blackfish a nigger.

I do recall the story of Black Marie being taken out along the Albatross Road by two local cops late at night. Anyway while the cops were in the back of the paddy wagon investigating Marie, a couple of young sailors weaving their way back to base from a night out had padlocked the door on the probe, ridgy didge mate. The sergeant who eventually found the wagon the next morning was far less amused than the sailors had been six hours back........

I left Nowra High School during fourth year to earn money and my initial foray into employment lasted half of one day. While waiting for something more propitious to turn up I'd slotted into laundry delivery. The boss drove and I delivered. He was very quick to warn me against stealing. I was dismayed by the presumption. What do you steal out of a laundry van? I don't steal I told him. I'd forgotten I was prone to travel sickness. He offered to pay me ten shillings when he dropped me home white faced, queasy and embarrassed. I told him to keep it.

My second career move was working in a rubber company warehouse degreasing car water hoses which had been given the incorrect coating. My colleague Lindsay was an aboriginal bloke in his mid twenties with a reputation for walkabout. The company accommodated his walkabouts and kept the job open until his return. He and I stood all day before two vats filled with metho and we scrubbed hoses. He was a Ray Charles fan and we sang together, passing the time. My classmates walking by after school saw Lindsay and I scrubbing hoses, singing "I Can't Stop Loving You".

I first heard the Stones on 2CH of all stations, which ran a request show in the arvo. "Mona" with it's chugging Diddley beat and Jagger's maracas, then "Route 66", their (stronger) version of Chuck Berry's, who'd appropriated Nat Cole's cooler jazz trio version. Didn't know this at the time but.....

"I'm a King Bee, can buzz all night long

I can make honey baby, when your man has gone

Buuuzz zawhile"

My first introduction to the ole blues sexual metaphor. Mmmmm, intriguing, who wrote this? Slim Harpo, what a cool name, fair bloody dinks sport, beats Digger Revell fer fumigation's sake, and that song beats "I Wanna Hold Your Hand", maybe not "You Really Got a Hold On Me" though, tha's cool, man.

So, some mates and I formed a band, playing R 'n B, and we'd change our name for each gig. That way the punters would come thinking it was a Sydney band, and by the time they'd driven twelve miles out to Greenwell Point hall or Culburra Surf Club, well you might as well go in, if nothing else you might meet a randy Sydney shiela on holiday, they're always randy, or one from the Gong, bloody goers mate, or a nurse from the Gong, even better - couldn't go wrong with a nurse from the Gong, or that blonde who drives the black mini with the red roof, Rosey The Redback, some stories there, or that cute chick who knows your sister, well perhaps not, a bit young, but.........and if you didn't and went home early, well you would say you did anyway. Everyone's a winner.

Another food and music connection. Gus Thurgate's garage at Bomaderry was where Gus, who played lead guitar, and his band practised. We'd go over there to see how the opposition was progressing. They were good, a bit more poppy than us, and I remember their Easybeats' "She's So Fine" was indeed fine. We used to do "For My Woman" the first Easy's single, which to this day still sounds raw, primitive and powerful. Anyway after Gus's practice we'd drive down to the "Mainey", Kinghorn Street to see if we could find any sheilas. We were always looking for shielas. Gus's uncle owned a takeaway where the best burgers on Earth could be bought, replete with Gus's uncle's secret sauce. I can't remember details of the sauce except to say that the burger was absolutely magnificent, and compensated well for the inevitable dearth of skirt.

British R 'n B Groups such as The Yardbirds, Stones, Animals, Pretty Things, Kinks and the Irish band Them, were our heroes, the keepers of the flame, the "real" gutsy music of the Chicago blues bars and Louisianan swamp jook joints (so we read on LP covers), as opposed to the happy sing along mop toppering slew of Liverpool sound, the teeth capped foot tapping Riff Pilchard guitar reverb Palladium groups, or the blonde headed bronze stompy wompy U.S. surfie groups with the eunuch lead singer from the money dripping middle class beach suburbs of the West Coast - and what fine white braced teeth those chappies had - never seen a boot in them from a boozed up rocker who wants Eddie Cochrane when you're blowing Sonny Boy mean into the mike. Oh yeah we had our standards......well .. I guess you could say we were punkish, yeah but closer to ineptitude.

The first time I heard Van Morrison sing "Gloria" was when I was eating a pie at the little Culburra Take Away above the Main surf beach. The pie was with tomardo sauce, no other way to "eadid moite" [ eat it mate ]. It had been in the oven for several days at that point, it was dead and almost beyond redemption. Thus the sauce, which effectively disguised it's demise. I'd put in a deena to hear the "B" side cos the "A" side was cool, man.

The "A" side was "Baby Please Don't Go", an old blues number reincarnated thru Big Joe Williams and Muddy Waters to finally reach Van's Irish/Euro shout approximation of Jagger's [ Rolling Stones ] and Eric Burdon's [ The Animals ] approximation of Chicago blues. A musical pie of sorts. Replete with the spicy ole blues metaphor. "For I be your dawwwwg, make ya walk the log, baby please don't go".

The "B" side was more musical sauce with Van's sexual need being sated by the generous and altruistic Gloria who "comes around here at about midnight, makes me feel so goooood, makes me feel alright". "She comes to my house, then she comes to my room, she knocks upon my door, then she makes me feel alright". Raw, gutsy and basic."Hey, have a listen to this. This is good". An instant classic seeps through the greasy walls of the Culburra Beach Take Away and flashes out into youth consciousness.

We once supported the Throb at Nowra RSL. This was a moment of glory. They were a name band who'd had a hit in OZ with "Fortune Teller", the original Benny Spellman hit, although we knew it by the Stones, and probably they did too. Well, to be truthful the Throb had actually broken up and this was some remnant of the group, can't remember their name.....could've been The Droop eh bro? Still, they had a bloody great PA which of course we'd never even dreamed of. Singing through that instead of a guitar amp, well it was soooo good, sounded real, almost. One ex Throbber sprang onto the stage and yelled at John McGrath our drummer and coolest guy "Man, you killed 'em" "Yeah" replied John in his laconic way "Look at 'em...... dyin' all over the fuckin' place........."

Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs. 1965 at the...... Nowra School of Arts. They were superb. Thorpie's voice was so powerful and he sang the songs better than the records. The place went off, as they say now. I remember they all wore suits, in the show bizzy way of the day. We never did. We were Stones proteges. In fact our drummer John McGrath had longer hair than that bloke out of the Pretty Things - the longest hair on the south coast. Used to get bailed up by the Navy straights but he could handle himself pretty well. We supported one of those suited Shadows/surf bands down in the sports hall in Moruya. The audience had never seen anything like us, young and untidy, wild and very energetic, me leaping all over the stage yelling "Get Off My Cloud", "Mama Keep Your Big Mouth Shut", "Satisfaction" etc. Local lads went off and damaged the hall in their excitement. We were told we wouldn't be asked back........

Another food and music connection. I remember when we played at the Husky (Huskisson) Progress Hall. The place was chokers with holiday makers dancing their pants off when some lair emptied a bucket of live crabs onto the dance floor sending the shielas into screaming fits hitching skirts and leaping onto partners scattering everywhere trying to avoid the crabs which were crabbing at max speed trying to avoid being stomped on, mate the joint was mayhem, blokes laughing, shielas screaming, and we just kept on pumping it out, enjoying the spectacle.

Our peak was in the summer of 1967 at Narooma Skating rink, an outdoor venue, when it seemed half of Narooma's population plus holiday makers sat on the hill overlooking the rink while we played Yardbirds, Hendrix, Stones and Cream for two hours. The vocalist moi sat cross legged during long solos in reverence, jus' shakin' ma maracas, while the lead guitarist Ivan played extended lead breaks. The visiting Hells Angels outside the fence, despite the loud rock music, objected to our drummer's chest length hair and sartorial persuasion of the polka dot shirt. They goaded the John McGrath into attack, albeit with a mike stand behind his back as he strode to meet those taunting yobbos. They were of course the same birds, different plumage, and another meet the next day at pub opening time proved more convivial.

Some favourite mid 60s R 'n B singles, moving towards rock: "I'm Cryin' " and "Inside Looking Out" by the Animals, "Mystic Eyes", Bring 'Em On In" and "If You and I could be as Two" by Them, "Everlovin Man" and "Sad Dark Eyes" by The Loved Ones, "Midnight To Six" and "Can't Stand The Pain" by the Pretty Things, "Mister, You're A Better Man Than I" by Yardbirds, "Smokestack Lightnin' " by Manfred Mann, "I'm Not Like Everybody Else" by Kinks, "Undecided" and the flip "Wars or Hands of Time" by the Masters Apprentices, "For My Woman" and "Sorry" by the Easybeats, "Hey Joe", "Stone Free" and "Foxy Lady" by Hendrix, "I Can See For Miles" by the Who, "Paint It Black" by the Stones, "I'm A Man" and "Gimmie Some Lovin' " by Spencer Davis Group.

The incorporation of gospel with rhythm and blues brought on soul, which started in 1955 or so but we didn’t hear much of it in Oz until about 1966. Some of Ray Charles had filtered through - "What'd I Say", done by numerous bands, but Ray himself had moved into country and pop. His magnificent, stately "Drown in my own Tears", and "I Believe to my Soul", and Sam Cooke's epitaph "A Change is Gonna Come" were not well known, in fact they were your own private treasure when you discovered them in the seventies. Me, the musical McGollum. Gospel also as a genre was "my preciouses" and Baginses could stay ignorant as far as I was concerned.

So soul didn't really reach here until 1966/7, and even then it hardly made a scratch, sort of cult status in one or two Sydney discos. Something too raw. I remember seeing the Melbourne band The Groove at Wollongong who had hit with the Sam Cooke/ Sam and Dave song "Sooth Me" and they were great to our ears, doing that Stax material. A couple of years later Kiwi band Max Merritt and The Meteors with their jazzy drummer Stewie Spears brought it alive for us at The Scene in North Sydney, but back then Otis Redding and Sam and Dave were huge in England but didn't get much play here. You never heard James Brown apart from "It's A Man's World". Aretha had some success here, but she was huge in the US. Some ballads surfaced "When a Man Loves a Woman", "Dock On the Bay" "I Never Loved a Man" and the magisterial meisterworks by the Righteous Bros "Unchained Melody" and "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling". Remember "A Love Like Yours" by Tina Turner, with the Spector production, well over the top but a great ballad? I don't think it was released in Oz.

"Yonder comes your orphan, with his gun

Cryin like a fire in the sun

Look out

The Saints are coming through

It's All over now, Baby Blue"

Look out! Here's Dylan who makes you think as well as feel. His rough hewn music earthy and immediate, and his poetic lyrics could not be denied and set a new standard. His voice, an acquired taste for some, changed at least four times during the sixties as he adopted personas. Sometimes old and wise, world weary and satirical, scathing and sneering, warm and romantic etc His harp playing, often the subject of ridicule, was in fact quite accomplished. He mostly played in the key of the song like Woody Guthrey and folk players as opposed to blues harpers like Little Walter and Sonny Boy Williamson who played in the subdominant key. From the start "Freight Train Blues" on the first LP gives an extent of both his vocal and harp prowess - how long can you hold a note?

In the mid sixties Dylan was televised live in Perth WA with The Band backing him. I remember seeing bootleg LPs of this tour in the early seventies - it must have been in the same year as Live At the Royal Albert Hall - later identified as being in Manchester. He was interviewed for want of a better word here in Oz on the Don Lane Tonight show. Lane's show was pretty well the pits. Our family used to watch it because there was nothing else on, and just to see if it could get any worse. Never failed to disappoint. Dylan acted the part of the drugged rock star, dark glasses, non communicative. Lane was a straight Yid guy from the Bronx who couldn't resist a hammy impersonation following the interview. Cringe factor max. Two Yids, light years apart.

Lyrics now developed metaphor, allusion and narrative depth. This largely came through folk, blues and country music, Dylan through Woody Guthrie and Carter Family, Leadbelly, Blind Willie McTell, Blind Willie Johnson, Robert Johnson, Son House, Charlie Paton, Mississippi John Hurt and Brakeman Jimmie Rogers. Songsmiths honed their craft eg. Like A Rolling Stone, Norwegian Wood, In My Life, Paint It Black, Sounds of Silence, Sunny Afternoon, My Generation.

The downside of this was that musicians started taking themselves seriously and the simple power of rock epitomized by, for example, Little Richard's Lucille, Jerry Lee Lewis's Whole Lotta shakin', Bo Diddley's Bo Diddley or Elvis's Heartbreak Hotel dissipated with the incorporation of more sophisticated folk, classical and jazz, such as yer Simon and Garfunkel, yer Byrds and Moody Blues, Donovan the dippy hippy, Mamas and Papas and later James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, Cat Stevens, Crosby Stills & Nash. The best of this added light and shade, poetry and emotion. The worst provided the current sludge of "easy listening, hits and memories".

In 1968 I was living on the eighth floor of a block of flats in Bayswater Road, Kings Cross, Sydney with Stuart, my brother, and a couple of mates from Nowra, Graham Cruikshank and Mark Parrott. We were headed for Nimbin, or some similar hippy paradise. Not that we were hippies, no we were just jack of work and parental rule and judgement. So, traveling to Nimbin we had somehow locked ourselves into a lease in Bayswater Road, Kings Cross, and found jobs which required no credentials at Repetition Engineering in Alexandria. The place was well named. One can only take a few days of putting slots in screws. So, we used to take it in turns to go into work. It became so embarrassing having to explain your mates' absences that in the end we all found other jobs. But in the meantime we starved, literally. I remember being given 20 cents to get the bus home from Alexandria. I bought a pie and walked to the Cross. I can still taste it.

Things got worse and we became famished. We planned to go to a restaurant, order up big, and do the bolt. As a last resort I talked the telephone operator into reversing the charge from a public phone to the only person I knew in Sydney who could help with food; my old muso mate from Nowra, Gus Thurgate. Gus rode from over on his motor scooter from Kogarah with a cardboard box on the back. In the box were lifesaving provisions, fruit and veggies and I’m forever grateful to Gus for his charity, and I would shout him a meal, replete with wine if I knew where to find him.

Bill Moore was a stumpy bandy legged bloke in Amco, with a wooly black afro. Bill was inevitably in transit, moving from one condemned building to another around Milson's Point/North Sydney. You could guarantee that once Bill had shifted into your block of flats, Whelan The Wrecker would soon follow. So, uplift the boxes of records and Hi Fi once again. I met Bill in 1968 when we both worked at Randwick Naval stores. He was a great Hendrix, Cream, Brit blues and Led Zep fan, yer 'eavy rock was Bill. I remember he thought Led Zep 1 was so evil that he could not sleep with the LP in the same room, which was a problem because Bill only had one room. So he used to stick Led Zep 1 in the fridge, which presumably curdled the milk.

My culinary experience at Bill's was humble yet memorable. Firstly, on entering Bill's one room condemned flat one's nostrils immediately attuned to the wonderful aroma of coffee mingled with the smell of dust from the rubble next door. He was fastidious about coffee, in fact was always offering it. I usually brought beer. Besides, back then, the aroma was inevitably the best thing about it, but Bill's coffee was bang full of flavour, yes it was, thick and rich, like Howard Hughes, mate. Then, if you hadn't eaten, Bill would make one of his "blues" sandwiches. Mate......cheese, then vegemite, then Smith's chips, then tomardo sauce. Bill reckoned it complemented blues music, and with a gobfull of that between me and starvation, he was spot on. Bill would have been a lege in blues gastronomic circles. Couldn't find him on return to Oz in '76; I've often wondered what happened to him. "Bastards, ya can stick yer ball up yer arse, I'm not movin"......

Now, if you were learning guitar, as my mates and I were, most early rock could be handled in 3 chords, perhaps with a minor chord thrown in. Which brings it down to delivery. No prob, belt it out. Do your thamg. If you can do it without the modern accoutrements of punched in layered vocals and excessive production, if you and only you and your instrument can create beat, expression, albeit primitive, raw and uncultured, then you have something. And there is nothing better than to create spontaneous music, a ragged melding of voices and instruments on the porch with a few mates.

Alas, the harmonica along with the guitar, spoons, bones, the Salvation Army tambourine and the Irish drum, the bodrhain have been flogged to death by so many for so little, so often it leaves you cold. And spotty faced snooty little Herberts with big egos, little talent and cultivated attitude have flaunted themselves mercilessly in front of similar ilk in order to inflate their egos. And it has produced, particularly in the UK a rock press which believes and promotes it's own scatological pronouncements and has led to a culture of small value which winds in ever diminishing circles and ends up it's own arse. We can be proud........ But I digress.

Musical boundaries in the mid to late sixties were extended by light years, much of it being pretentious twaddle, and some working well on record. Extended themes firstly from white blues guitarists Clapton and Bloomfield in LPs Bluesbreakers and East West respectively, then followed by supergroup rock bands then fusion, arty and psychedelic units led to even longer diddling and doodling which mostly didn't work for a sober listener. Supergroup trio Cream for example were excellent musicians who could restrict themselves to the three to five minute hit of rock music on LP tracks, many of which were gems, but whose concerts attempted to emulate jazz improvisation in a rock format and failed overall, largely because of lack of light and shade, boredom of audience and perception of self indulgence (by the audience and critics and eventually themselves). That's not to discount the power this group was capable of, but Ginger Baker's drum solos were purely for aficionados of the thumped pigskin.

By contrast Jimi Hendrix Trio's concert tracks continue to emerge even now and many are well worth hearing. He was a musician of wonderful imagination and his guitar work varied on each performance. His studio work was surprisingly carefully constructed and layered and the final recordings for his intended double LP First Rays of The Rising Son were in various stages of completion. The Hendrix Family issue is as close as we'll get, and it is good, however I seem to recall a list of tracks intended for inclusion included "Hear My Train A-Coming" which could well have been the terrific live version which was issued on his "Blues" CD. This would have iced the cake considerably.

Bill Moore was a huge Jimi fan - he loved Jimi's sense of humour and that's one aspect of Hendrix which is often missed. Bill's favourite was "The Stars That Fell On Laughing Sam's Dice" an obscure flip side with a stella cacophony of intergalactic sounds. I remember Bill telling me one day about his trip to an advertised spiritualist - I think he was trying to overcome his Catholic guilt or some such thing - he hated going to Mass but went out of fear of eternal damnation, which was a popular theological prodder back then. "Where did the congregation go??? Bring back Hell and Damnation...." Anyway Bill said that he sat at the back of this mainly blue rinse gathering while the spiritualist tuned in around the room reading people's minds. "The person at the back.....er.....I can hear only very loud electronic sounds.....I am disabled". Bill chuckled and reckons she tuned into his never ending replay of "The Stars etc".

The Doors were another group which Bill liked. Back then the Doors were seen as the USA competitors to the Stones. Jim hadn't turned into Jimbo at that stage. He was a manic dark angel, less campy than Jagger's medieval devil, though just as theatrical. The Door's music was an acquired taste, particularly epochs "The End" and "When the Music's Over" which were morbidly fascinating on first hearing but then became distasteful. Still, an interesting unit who extended the boundaries, including taste, so far away from the spontaneity, teen urge and thrill of Little Richard, Buddy Holly and early Presley. I suspect that Morrison was also another Catholic trying to divest guilt, the fear of hell and death. Another good career move where the ongoing release of ancient material keeps the remaining members in gold lame suits and snakeskin boots.

As Chris and Barry Marks, previously Marks and Spencer, my cousin Chris McGloin and I played four nights each week at The Taverners in Rofe St Leichhardt, on Taverners Hill, where they hung convicts 130 years previously. Thankfully we weren't around back then. Our forte was anything we could hang a tune on. We were blues and folk based with a dash of music hall and Chris' songs thrown in. His songs were well written and popular with the audience, well if they weren't at first then Chris made them popular - "we've had a request to do this one again...." Familiarity breeds recognition.......

His voice.......described as something of a bellow at times, with his guitar style - initially anything but mellow - reflected his personality, which was bawdy brash barrelhouse boomer, youthful gauche laced with humour. He was fearless in his approach to music, his appropriation knew no bounds and he would cheerfully bludgeon any piece to fit his style. That said, he could write some soft melodic and sometimes vulnerable pieces, such as "Monkey":

"Let's hear it for Coco, the pantalooned buffoon

Who capers to the brass band, playing out of tune

He hides behind his greasepaint, it's all he seems to do

Cause he thinks you're too good for him, and

He's no good for you"

The Taverners attracted some good local musos - we hired guests such as Bob Hudson, John Francis, Peter Parkhill, also Doug Ashdown and Marion Henderson would drop in an play a song or two. The atmosphere was cosy wine bar, soft red glow, open fire, warm and intimate, with Chris bellowing, burping and bawdy.

A music and food connection just came to mind. Chris had a vision. It came to him one night, amongst other visions and said "What’s a Great White Hunter like yourself doing sitting in suburbanville? You should be out in the wilderness living from the fruits of the earth." And so it came to pass that he and I found ourselves in a shack, five miles from Majors Creek, which is 8 miles outside Braidwood, which was in the windblown wilderness between Gumpy Gumpy and the Coast. Somehow he'd talked Greg Keegan the Taverners owner's son into lending 4 guns and driving us to the property.

"Mate, drop us in the bush miles from nowhere and we'll live off Nature's providence."

"You're mad ya cunt."

"It's what we were designed to do. Hairy hunters mate. Track and kill. A bullet between you and starvation."

"So what's with the baked beans?"

"Just a coupla cans mate - until we become self sufficient."

Back then we didn't eat much. Perhaps a gourmet burger from the Parramatta Road takeaway for brunch, freshly ground veal and pork mince pattie, served atop a Turkish salad lightly drizzled with truffle oil accompanied by a chilled semillon chardonnay for lunch. Hardly. "Watsa yours maoite?" "Poye with sauce and a carke maoite." One lived simply, with an eye for diet. Usually a can of beans, or a poye moite.

We practiced our accuracy after the drop. Greg's grandfather had been a copper and we had a 303 which Chris admired. There were also a couple of 22s and a shotgun from a murder trial. The shottie was huge and recoiled you back into the past century. Too big, unwealdy and inaccurate at distance. I wondered at it's history, it's legacy. The 22 was fitting for the Great White Hunter's assistant, a Watson to Holmes, Garfunkel to Simon, Spencer to Marks, skidmark to jock. The GWH's chosen weapon was the 303, powerful, declamatory and decisive.

Chris, the Great White Hunter with the old murder weapon

and myself cradling my 22. I think this was taken on the return journey.

Rats. The shack was home to a family of bush rats. In fact there was a whole neighbourhood of rats living there and we had invaded their domain. The division of rooms and the ceiling was made from hessian sheets. When a rat scampers across a hessian sheet you can tell quite easily by the imprint and if you shoot it with a 22, it limps across and it's blood drips through.

The GWH, as GWH and the organizer of this unique experience, laid claim to the table for night's kip, after the beans and tea. I stretched myself between two chairs before the fire. Rats can climb table legs oh yes, and chair legs too, in fact they can be tenacious bastards even if you shoot a few. We took watches. "You're on first watch Barry" said GWH.

We spent a disturbed night with the creatures attacking from all sides, the GWH farting, belching, bellowing and blasting, but not giving up oh no. The dawn found us bleary eyed and out on the verandah, the rats running rampage, willy nilly unimpeded throughout the "homestead". Despite the onslaught the cool clean fresh dawn emerged like a revelation, a new world before us. The dew had become a slight frost, the air aromatic with our fire, for the billy, and the beans.

"Probably your farts that attracted 'em in the first place."

"Now now, don't get personal, better out than in heh heh. Hey Christine loves it when I let one rip and hold her head under the blanket......heh heh."

The GWH, after a breakfast of beans, attempting lift off, or sending an ultimatum to the rats.......

On the verandah of the rat ridden homestead. The remains of an old piano testify to now muted jollity.

Snatches of song whistle through the cracks of night.

The prey was elusive that morning. The Great White Hunter's trackability was suss to say the least.

"Roo mate, fresh turd, went this way...." noted the GWH.

"Mate, that's moo cow."

"Big roo mate, probably a red male, they're mammoth some of those, shit buckets, steaming too - we must be close."

Suddenly Chris sprang back and discharged the 303, silence scorched and bleeding.

"Brown snake - farrk ! Almost stepped on the bastard!!"

The snake slithered away. It was not amused and surfaced some metres back and reared. Shizen I thought, the devil's annoyed. Chris was right on the ball.

"The bastard's going to attack us, hit it!!"

I fired my 22, and missed. It wasn't fazed, in fact kept looking. I think he was trying to mesmerize us. Chris had chucked another bullet into his 303 and fired. The recoil nearly knocked him on his arse and the snake remained, fanned by the breeze, but very much intactus, indignant, pissed off with this disturbance of morning snooze on the path.

It slipped away.

"Oh fuck" said the GWH looking around "it's sneakin' up on us......they do that".

Well there seemed only one way out, run, and we started but the track ahead revealed a reared snake.

"We're in the middle of a fuckin' nest. Shit. Fire at will." said my mentor loading his weapon. He blasted. I lined the snake in my sight and fired. Both missed. The snake remained. Then it vanished. This didn't look good. We were surrounded. We bolted, exit stage left, for about half a mile, faster than Herb Elliot.

GWH had recovered after a smoke. "The bush........is full of the unknown. Nature's an unpredictable beast. She's a beauty too but changes in an instant. Never take it for granted. You might come across a hoary boar mate that sees you as a target. It's got up with a hangover, to put it in our terms mate, and it's fuckin' fumin' with the day and it's fuckin' lot in life. Want's to kill or fuck, whatever's first. Then you waltz into the frame. That mate, is why I have this here 303 fuckin' boar stopper."

We walked for miles that morning searching for the fruits of the land, of which there appeared to be a shortage, snoozed on the verandah - the GWH with one eye open - then decided to walk to Major's Creek for a beer. "A man is not a camel mate" said Chris, "we'll take the guitars in, they might feed us for a song". That's what I liked about Chris, he was bold and optimistic; fearless too. So in we tromped, gun slung under one arm and guitar slung under the other. A fair old walk, for a fair old thirst. Ned Kelly and Joe Byrne, bushrangers, troubadours, on the evening trail, the sun behind you, a beer and a song before you.

"Yeah it's of a wild colonial boy

Jack Duggan was his name

Of poor but honest parents

He was born in Castlemaine

He was his father's only hope

His mother's pride and joy

And dearly did his parents love

The wild colonial boy."

The locals loved us. There wasn't much to Majors Creek back then. Not much now in fact. I remember a pub and a hitching rail and trough for the horses. If someone wanted to contact a Major's Creeker they'd ring the pub. Then someone from the pub would yell out the door. Which they did and a fair old crowd turned up. They'd never seen and heard a musician play harmonica and guitar at the same time. They'd never heard us do it either. They enjoyed our harmonies, Chris' brashness, belching and bawdy humour, a young rough diamond with a swag of talent. The beers were coming faster than we could drink. Muddy Water's I Can't Be Satisfied, Sonny Boy's Fattening Frogs for Snakes, Van Ronk's Cocaine Blues, Fogerty's Traveling Band, Beatles Carry That Weight medley. Stones' Dear Doctor, Country Honk, Dylan's Subterranean Homesick blues, It Takes a Train to Cry, You Ain't Going Nowhere, Visions of Joanna, Chris' songs, Must Be Gone, I Is a Knight, Monkey. More beers.

Requests. Some Irish songs. Galway Races, Join The British Army, Seven Drunken Nights. Yet more beers. Swear there were a dozen schooners lined up awaiting a thirst. A man is not a camel. Nor a human beer tanker. Some music hall - Mothers Lament, Oh how I hate to Get Up in The Morning. Prophetic.

They gave us beds for the night and fed us a huge breakfast in the morning. Eggs and steak, which I think may have been roo - it was good eating anyway and mopped up the hangover, muffled the echoes. Back at the shack it took a couple of days for the beans to run out and the hunger to fine tune. Rat on a skewer was a thought, momentarily. We stalked the elusive fruits of the land with ever decreasing success....., some might say failure, but not Chris. Then a couple of young blokes turned up in a ute with their guns.

In half an hour they had bagged a roo. Chris remarked later that they had "local knowledge and transport, not like ourselves mate, thrown in cold at the pointy end of survival, just you, your legs and your instincts mate between starvation and sustenance..."

The blokes took what they wanted from the roo and left a skinned carcass. They suggested that we return early morning to shoot the scavenging fox, which we did. Well we took a number of shots at the fox, a big bugger in no hurry, who nonchalantly loped away. I couldn't believe it. It was like the snake. Somehow they knew they were safe........

We did actually kill a roo a couple of days later. Well Chris claimed the kill and to be honest I hoped it wasn't my bullet; I felt as though we had violated the bush. As they say in these euphemistic days I wasn't comfortable with it. Are you comfortable with that statement? Well no you LA tofu eating distilled water drinking wanker I'm not. Anyway, there we were at another starving interlude in our safari, so we cut off a couple of roo steaks and cooked them over the fire at the "homestead". Very strong flavour, very strong, but kept us alive and as the GWH put it "the tradition of our race mate, since the cavemen, hunting, tracking, killing, eating, drinking, rooting, surviving. Couldn't wish for more."

I recall that we asked the young blokes whether they'd seen Mick Jagger when he was in Braidwood acting the part of Ned Kelly for the film. Yes, they had a good laugh about Mick's horsemanship. According to them the most docile horse in the district was provided for Mick who mounted on one side and slid off the other, in the main street, which brought more than a few guffaws from the crowd of bystanders. Well Ned could ride bareback, lying down while the horse galloped flat out, and jump fences while kneeling on the horse. Ned could go 20 rounds barefist with the NE Victoria champ and beat him. Ned was a crack shot and made of iron; this mincing poseur was a mistake, an imposter, a bloody joke mate. Yet another indignity heaped on us by the Poms. Mate, Jagger's mum was an Aussie but. Yeah well.....maybe instead she should've played Ned.......

Earl came to pick us up in his battered old beast of a car. The cops pulled him over in Milton, nailed him for a stack of defects, carrying illegal weapons, being overloaded with passengers and not carrying his licence. Earl handled it well, "yesssir, nosir, and three unmarked brown paper bags sir" always deferential, humbler than Uriah Heep. He was no stranger to the vagaries, if not to say the vindictiveness of the motorised constabulary. "Those pricks'll stitch you up faster than Fletcher fuckin' Jones mate."

While swaggering around the vehicle, kicking tyres, the nice policemen woke up bro Stuart who was quietly sleeping in the back.

"What the fuck do you want?" demanded Stuart, none too politely. To which they took offence, and hauled him off to the paddy wagon and thence to the lock up. A worry. Stuart had some green tea on his person but ever so politely asked to use their loo, where he promptly divested himself of the substance. He was charged with abusive language and fined later, in absentia.

Part 2 to follow