This is an album I made when I was eighteen and my nickname was Phonze! I’ve reimagined / remixed it with never released tracks and field recordings from the era.
Kurt Cobain, Shane Warne, stoners and skaters – girlfriends and god references – it’s a rough and tumble time capsule from the late 90s by a dude right into Beck and Radiohead exploring his own internal cosmos while honouring friends and Volkswagens with whatever means necessary. Brought to you by Sony Walkmans, Washburn guitars & Windows 95.
Perhaps, the main problem is the glut of media being consumed via the super television we carry around for breakfast. Therefore, there is less opportunity for deep thought or reflection or gazing into space – byproducts humans have subscribed to for thousands of years. These pastimes are almost certainly a strategy to monitor and manage the jet trail of our fleet-footed psyches. An adaptable, amorphous cauldron of old-world ideals…
…bombarded by the artificial new-world.
Humans need a certain amount of s p a c e to digest their own emotional discord. There’s a war raging for our attentions. Brains are not combat weapons. (They are squishy, really.) There is an intelligent jellyfish of neural pathways in your gut, bottling tiny lightning to power your dreams and juggle subconscious patterns into the wax-poetry blood-hologram of a serviceable, manageable human being.
Itās epic. There is still a lot scientists donāt understand about what goes into the ecosystem of a conscience. It’s sophisticated.
Light the newspaper on fire.
Run amok at high speed.
* Look at us!
Self-care is a smug joke for those rich enough to indulge in mystical cures for an existence that can feel cruel above all else for folks scrounging around the third drawer of opportunities for .Success .Based .Happiness sold to them as religion by the Wizards of Id editing out the grimmer elements of Grimms fairytales.
.ti od ot srehto eripsni nac uoy taht flesruoy erahs dna maerd a eveileb dna hguone drah kroW
For some reason lately, the hard work I notice is that of people mastering walking and scrolling.
āThat looks like hard work,ā I think. I am being polite.
Iām sure theyāre fine.
I imagine being fifteen again and having to carry a computer around. It would be cumbersome. I doubt it would fit in my backpack along with the walkie-talkie and fax to dial internet. š»
The human attention span is like the villain in Terminator 2. It consists of liquid mental that is self-aware and from a time and space so complex and perfect that our mammalian / reptilian primitiveness can be forgiven for lacking the capacity and discipline to reconcile and respect what god-grade technology we have at our disposal.
Who needs a clairvoyant when your aura is the colour that wakes you in the morning?
The liquid mental melts, pools and reforms into the shape of us. Lately, it has been exposed to starbursts of electro-magnetic carcinogenic compounds which cause it to freeze, distort and fracture. In this sunken state it is shot with bites of information from specially designed media canons. Aura piercing bullets. Sense shrapnel.
Drawn to alarm like insects to a bulb, the attention span shatters.
It is as if an electric witch had distilled the muscle-memories of a thousand life-threatening surges and distilled the slick into a smart-paint pantomime – a sizzling, radioactive shadow to accompany the new human on their segue into behavioural drone in the settled technotropolis – their fears steered and imaginations quelled by a humanoid menagerie of inflated instincts and masticated conversation.
Rather than reform, the isles seem to have factionalised lately. They pool together in smaller groups, perhaps adapting to the volume of information ammunition. In this defence, they can swiftly reform, albeit into smaller versions of their former selves.
I was about to do anything within my power to stop myself from writing this article as I figured it would be career self-harm to advertise potentially stigma-laden, conversationally icky, street-cred sapping factoids such as the inconvenient truth about my present emotional state ā but then I remembered Iāve already released the song ā Iām So Lonely ā as The Bedroom Philosopher. Well, when I say released I mean left a CD sitting on a bus shelter in Canberra and slowly tip-toed away with fingers crossed behind my back assuming there would be some miraculous, inevitable groundswell in exponential interest for my niche style of pseudo-earnest comedic folk-rock after some local ANU tastemaker pocketed the diffident second album and rushed home to burn copies for her mates.
In any event, the song pertains to themes of loneliness and doesnāt shy away from naming names and kicking concepts into high gears of truth and revelation ā as much as any largely pun-based alt-country song not played to a click-track can.
I think it does an okay job. A fan once wrote it was her favourite as it had āclever lyrics.ā Itās true. It does.
The other memory from the release of this 2008 era song is an unfortunate incident in my sharehouse kitchen. My best mate was crouched down, looking for some plastic bottles for the homebrew ginger beer we were ensconced with. I nudged upon the subject of some of my edgier new material for the forthcoming album Brown & Orange. He did something he was prone to doing every now and then. He ācalled me outā on my more self-indulgent artistic tendencies. He told it how it was, eye of the tiger / final countdown style, ensuring all terms would be free from any skerrick of uncertainty for the remainder of our days.
āNo one cares that youāre lonely.ā
To be fair, to my friendās credit, Iāll now muster every ounce of generosity that my twelve-odd years of distance can afford and extrapolate some context to give you an idea of what he meant by that. I’m compelled to include a sudden thought that he may have actually worded it as “we don’t care that you’re lonely” which isn’t exactly any less harsh.
To him, like several other serious kinda snooty male art friends ā The Bedroom Philosopher project was executed by a comedian who happened to play music. To me, it was the other way around. I was a songwriter who took advantage of the fact I could be lyrically amusing, to compensate for any shortcomings in skill while drawing as much attention towards my craft and arming myself with a tractor beam of charisma to win over live audiences in slumped universities and dodgy bar situations.
Please note that when I receorded this song I was still making endearingly naive syntax errors. For example, I actually thought it was ‘euphanism’ for some reason, and committed the error to tape. (If you want to really drill down, I was also corrected for using ‘excrete’ instead of ‘secrete’ on Swan Song when referring to ‘mothers milk’ – in this case the lifegiving fluid my dream partner was producing to nourish our newly sprung swan offspring. as you do. (as you were)
To me, Iām So Lonely was a perfectly good song that did have a bunch of jokes in it already (especially compared to What About Me.) I suppose what threw those closest to me was the eroding line between my in-song persona being serious and (wink-wink) funny. Jeepers, from certain angles a dude could construe I might be l i t e r a l l y trying to convey something quite heavy to the audience ā or worse, revealing something deep and personal, trudging along the broken cobbles of thousands of troubadours before me. In this instance it seems I could be interpreted as being in some kind of genuine emotional (*vom*) anguish ā the kind that couldnāt possibly be expressed, except via the economical goldrush of three-chords-and-the-troof.
How insipid.
Thing is, it was true. I was doing this. I was writing a song no other musical comedian would go near. Because, well, I wasnāt like any other musical comedians. I wasnāt (in this instance) parodying earnest folk musicians crying woebegotten tales (that would have made more sense and been a bit more above the belt) ā no ā I was ā (for some reason) ā genuinely delivering a serious statement, albeit wrapped up in more glib, darkly comic wordplays than I knew what to do with.
The results were, well, at best commendable, on average, confusing and at worstā¦.according to my best friend and comedy partner in crime since weād bonded at universityā¦.kind ofā¦(as far as my interpretation of what his vibe was at the time)…pitiful. Srsly chocoblock with PIT.
Jusā, Mate. What are ya doing?
āNo one cares that youāre lonely.ā
By that Iām quite certain he meant: āPeople only like The Bedroom Philosopher because heās funny and we come to listen to the jokes and that is what you need to give the people and while it seems that you are trying to circumvent this transactional relationship with an offering of deeply personal, authentic sentiment, the unfortunate fact of the matter is that as a currency it doesnāt really have any value whatsoever compared to the skyrocketing arrow of your predetermined hilarity.ā
Gee thanks. I could have gotten that advice from my Nan. How surreal when it comes from those closest to you; fellow edge-meisters and taste balloons with your favourite face drawn on.
The face that sent the stripey shirted indie nerd babes wild in 2007 – the same couldn’t be said for my best mate matt who was all like ‘why so serious?’ As an aside I hung out with Sarah Blasko in 2007 after she sidled up to me at Purple Sneakers – (this was in response to me scuttling up to her and giving her a copy of my album ‘In Bed With my Doona’ backstage at Falls Festival Marion Bay – she was on her way out but was gracious on all fronts. We ended up having a drink and a chat for half an hour and then she went off. I’m glad I didn’t go on about the column I’d written about the big crush I had on her which was published in street press, to which her PR team at the time wrote to say ‘we don’t normally encourage stalking, but we think you’re pretty funny.‘
This wasnāt the first time we had softly butted heads over my creative philosophy. When my promo photo came out the year before featuring me in a cardigan, western shirt and tie doing a smouldering pout to camera (which I dubbed āmy best Sarah Blasko impressionā) my friend was quietly appalled. āHow are people going to know youāre a comedy act?ā
You might say my friend was in a conservative place when it came to what my act was. It was funny or it was nothing.
Meanwhile, I was in a psychedelic, experimental, warcraft of wildness, trying to make art that was nothing like my last offering. I wanted my next album to be an over-the-top magical mystery tour. Lots of emotions ā angst ā self-reflection ā trumpets and, well, you know…sitar.
Mattās ( ā oh yeah ā thereās his name ā and chill out everyone concerned heās not even the only problematic friend called Matt I had at the time) comment was presented as a piece of constructive criticism about my art. The problem was that as an only child who took most things deeply personally ā he had (surely, purposefully, on a subconscious level if not conscious) managed to assemble a verbal fuselage that made it impossible for me to localise it purely as feedback on my songwriting and/or relationship with my audience and not as a general attack on my personality at a most fundamental level that would almost certainly reverberate through several semesters of forthcoming counsellor subroutines.
A shrapnel bomb, delivered like a packed lunch.
There were the ego injuries sustained at the initial point of impact, but, more insidious, was the cryptic, below the radar spread of nano-damage as the loaded sentence slashed its way through the protective shell of my cocoon and nestled its needles amongst the membrane of my supple, unformed wings.
You have the right to remain informed. Any action you choose to make in future of this message shall only reflect directly upon your ability to interpret its core structure as a warning. You present yourself as someone at risk of committing serious damage to your social rapport within the community. Should you continue down this course of wantonly self-aggrandizing, emotionally manipulative time-wasting we will no longer be able to offer you the protection that our goodwill currently affords. There are very few people who can generate and sustain as much humour as you. To cannibalise this for garden-variety navel-gazing, even if it is presented in a self-knowing or light-hearted way, strikes us as a flagrant violation of the social codes for which much of our affirmation and support for your career is conducted (in the good faith you will abide). How else can we trust that as a performer you have our best interests at heart? How else can we spare you from the wrath of our pass-angst as we try you for the greatest of all Australian blue collar crimes – self pity.
A message from the universal Australian populous to one sole citizen Justin Marcus H
Well, I did what anyone else would in that situation. I took it to heart and quietly stewed for ten years.
Iām kidding ā as if for a hyper second I could entertain the notion that any element of this is even remotely transferable. Gadzooks, it seems I had shimmied, crab-walked, tip-toed and side-swiped my way into an absolute evolutionary cross-roads for the artistic and personal development of myself as a whole.
Again.
I was 28. I was Saturn returns.
I was 20 years overdue counselling. I was heavily in debt.
I was unstable. I was growing darker by the month. I was drifting as an artist. I was wobbling as a boyfriend. Crucially, most emasculatingly, it appeared that in the petty court of sharehouse kitchens, I was now tanking as a bloke. Alienating my fellow Aussie larrikins with my sheer-bloody-minded outlook, deference and resolve.
I went on to record Iām So Lonely. (Part of the I’m So quadrilogy: post modern, over girls & hungover). Look it up. Borrow it from Blockbuster on laser disc.
I’m So Lonely gained positive comment among some serious music journalists. It felt like a comforting addition to my newfound repositioning from comedy rooms to music venues. But how the song was received by industry isnāt really the point, is it reader?
I know loneliness. I feel it in the ashes of my past lives.
I can be lonely in a crowd ā I can by lonely on my own.
I can be lonely in a relationship.
Now I sound like a cancelled Dr Seuss.
Loneliness doesnāt discriminate based on how well you are doing or how talented you are. Amazingly, neither is it particularly concerned with how many people you have around. (Or is that melancholy? I get them mixed up.)
Itās just, well, there. Along with oxygen and water and sun and reality tv and biscuits and time-stretched songs on youtube. Loneliness isnāt a special occasion. Itās not a pamphlet in the doctors waiting room. It isnāt a capital āL.ā word. It isnāt any word. Not one in our language. Loneliness doesnāt get said aloud. It isnāt part of conversation. Loneliness is a secret. One you donāt even know youāre keeping
youāve been keeping it so long.
So whateth the deal?
Iām lo*ely. So wha? ( l o v e l y )
I was lonely then. Iām lovely now. Most of the time itās comfortable, enough. An itch you scratch with a kind, furious thought. A beautiful familiar longing, as your child self gazes out to sea – transmitting a conversation with the clouds only an ocean can answer.
Is there a crime being committed? Have I trespassed upon any of your personal freedoms? Will my frank admission contribute to shortcomings in your day?
Have I enormously fucked everything up by not only experiencing this foible but also having the deranged audacity to share it with my social peers? Surely I am not already aware that such unsavoury, ungainly, corrupt and corrupting truth-sabre-rattling should be done only under the close supervision of professionals in a secluded setting.
I n c o n c l u s i o n
Loneliness isnāt a world that gets shared often (enough).
Itās a fantastic, desolate, magical mixed bag of thought coma and silent dance.
Itās not a house built with a door. Only an escape slide and a half-roof to park the occasional rocket ship. But itās there and itās real and itās yours to warm your spine on if you wish to nestle for a second in the curvature of my beanbag.
Thereās a loneliness epidemic, you know. Itās interesting to see it on the public agenda along with depression and anxiety. Itās like watching your favourite punk bands sign with major labels and have chart-topping hits. Iām not sure if itās liberating or alienating. Isnāt it ironic? ZOMBIE ZOMBIE ZOMBIE
Whaddaya get if you cross my favourite childhood duo with my most revered pair from adulthood? A friendly ghost mash of Hey Hey and Boards Of Canada, naturally. This was whipped up live in Triple R studios a decade or so ago at five in the mornin.’ DJ dickie knee pluckin the vinyl and mixing up a melodrama.
Yeesh, not long to go now till the super dupe Get Up Mum show at Theatre Royal Hobart. There’s a piece in TasWeekend in the Mercury today. As well as an interview situation on ABC HOBART i guess.
Check out the ad below. Disclosure: I am a brand ambassador for Ansett and received a promotional trip to 1992.
Forgotten what it’s like to be twelve? Hey hey it’s a-ok – Heazy’s remembered for ya. Itās not back to the future but we can fast forward the past. Climb aboard the cassette space machine as it rewinds an ocean of time. It’s 1992 and Mum’s up and down like a yoyo. The problem is ” Justabout ” can’t do tricks and his getaway skateboard’s caught in the gutter. Oh well, guess it’s spag bol & Beyond 2000 in the beanbag while patting Blossum.
A one of a kind, twice in a lifetime, triple-threat theatre show is watersliding to a dreampool near you. Premiering in Hobart in March. Based on the acclaimed memoir and radio series. This is the show and tell extravaganza where a never ending story finally gets the beginning it deserves.
Get set š„ it’s gonna be GOLD !!!
Stay tuned for updates via the fuzzy logic gazette.
“It’s not a bad sort’ve day.” Pop
“Donāt put your cards out in the wet, thatās what ruins a pack.ā Nan
Get Up Mum – Brought to you by Microfreeze Thickshakes.
I first heard Aimee Mannās Iām With Stupid in grade ten. The year was 1996, the town: Burnie; the shop: Soundwaves Record Bar. I had just started my first job as a death-cook for KFC, earning my own money ā albeit $4.70 an hour. I think two hours of slave labour may have covered the heavily discounted double fluro price tags on this particular Cee-Dee. (One cannot underestimate the victory of actually finding something you liked on special, given that the average album price was $31.50 – todayās equivalent of paying for six months of Spotify to hear the same ten Pearl Jam songs, one of them skipping.)
Iād only just gotten my first CD player, characteristically late to the go-go-gadget party. While other kids were playing NBA Jam on Mega Drive I had a second-hand Amstrad green screen with Bombjack loading on tape. On our modest pensioner budget I was the Piping Hot polar fleece to my best friend Billyās Billabong jacket. Musically enforcing my insider/outsider status; while other boys were ensconced in Gunners and Green Day – I was investing in techno cassingles like Hereās Johnny and/or discounted quirky songstresses from LA.
Another plot-point in the meeting of the Mannās was that it was only the previous year that the North-West coast of Tasmania had started receiving Triple J. (Pair this with the fact Burnie got MacDonalds in 1993 and you can begin to appreciate the colossal injection of excitement for a teenager in the back-sticks. If Tassie had scored its own AFL team maybe Iādāve gotten the cultural trifecta.) Triple J had upgraded my stereo to that of ham radio. Via its social subscription I was a two-way team member of my generation, doors opening to reveal Jane Gazzo pied-pipering us through a bandwidth banner as my imagination ran onto the hallowed mainland astroturf of alternative anthems by King Missile, Faith No More and Cake. Romantically, I was single, yet my relationship with this cool cosmos community was a fascinating defacto funfest.
(I rang Calamity Jane up a few times, determined to tell her how I was going to break the schoolās 50m freestyle record, that my nickname was Phonze and could she please play āBentleyās gonna sort you out.ā)
Justin (FRONT) probably only giving the thumbs up to air off some recent third-degree burn from the chicken vats or industrial ovens
Meanwhile, āLong Shotā by Aimee Mann was on medium rotation. I can confirm this as I have a tape of it being back announced by Michael Tunn (admonishing the previous caller for ringing up from their mobile phone while on a domestic flight. āThey say you shouldnāt ever do thatā). Thereās also an interview with Gibby from Butthole Surfers and a segment where callers phone in with the flaws theyād spotted in Independence Day. The whole thing couldnāt be more 1996 if Fran Drescher was covering Lump by Presidents sponsored by Stussy.
If anyone asks you if thereās a newfound nostalgia for CDs ā the format we long swore weād never feel anything but bemused, obligated indifference towards once the shiny holographic promise of their āunbreakableā marketing gave way to the snake-oil-charlatan reality of two years wear resulting in every second song getting a remix by Fatboy Slim – backed with the retina-stretching liability of deciphering liner notes in 7-pt; the answer is a resounding, mid-life, bellowed into a pillow: āyes.ā
Yes, I played Long Shot, nay, BLARED IT in Surround Soundā¢ which my Sharp 3 CD changer afforded me, noting the spatial clarity compared to the head-under-the-bed compression of the Taped Off The Radio sound. Oh, to be sixteen again, plonked on the edge of your single mattress, pouring over the dynamic fridge magnet artwork and hazy artist portraits (all lyrics from Iām With Stupid are broken down into individual words and listed alphabetically)!
Hormones coursed through my gangly system like a technicolour forest of beauty and woe ā crystallising my mood inside the lonesome wilderness of adolescence. Sparkly, intimate signals emanated from the padded black grills of the speaker box ā entertainment as art absorbed in a halo of intelligence, curiosity and satisfaction. Beneath the alternative ambience of an after-school afternoon I afforded myself a double-value victory lap as my mechanical friend lurched the album around its carriage and back to the loading position. Helped by the odour of a Peter Jackson Super Mild smuggled out the window. I was revived and thriving, anything but alone in my teenage control room.
I was pleased to have a new inclusion in my modest CD collection, (comprising of RATMās Evil Empire, Guru Joshās Infinity, Spacehogās Resident Alien, Butthole Surferās āPepperā single and Bruce Springsteenās āStreets of Philadelphiaā.) Aimee was my first musical girl. I knew nothing about her at all. I didnāt mind in the slightest. I was her prince silly, rescuing her from the discount bin in a small town that for multiple reasons hadnāt connected with her blend of Alternative pop-rock and whimsical lyrics about heartbreak and selfless relationships with damaged people ā a theme it would take me another few years to fathom and two decades to perfect.
Justin’s very decked out room on residence at University of Canberra, 1999. You can make out the Sharp 3 CD changer and CD collection. I don’t know about you but I can also clock the timeless spines of Pearl Jam’s No Code, Beck’s Mellow Gold and George’s Holiday EP – err how did that get in there. Fair dues Holiday by George always has me tearing up. Is that tearing up, as in the healthy emotional response or tearing up as in tearing up my paper mache chain mail as I walk slowly backwards through IKEA? Much like what the chap says at the end of Radiohead’s Just, it’s best we never know.
In my first year at University in Canberra, my emotional world was blossoming outwards and inwards, not dissimilar to the flower motif depicted in Magnolia. Paul Thomas Andersonās masterwork was a timely injection of Aimee Mann wonderment which sent the cultural value of Iām With Stupid climbing the rungs of my CD tower ahead of recent hotshots Garbage, Ben Folds Five and my failed experiment with Counting Crows. Released in 1999, Magnolia was the first real arthouse film to connect with my generation (that wasnāt Romeo & Juliet or Young Einstein.) Indeed, it was so good that it was actually hurting my new best friend Matt, literally depressed that heād never make anything that good in his lifetime.
Aimee Mannās song āDeathlyā single-handedly inspired the entire movie. If thereās a higher honour that has been paid a songwriter in recent times Iād be interested to hear about it. In the liner notes to the soundtrack Paul Thomas Anderson writes: āShe is the great articulator of the biggest things we think about: āHow can anyone love me?ā āWhy the hell would anyone love me?ā and the old favourite āWhy would I love anyone when all it means is torture?āā
It would make sense that a director would be drawn to Mannās songs as they play like lyrical storyboards. There is a sense of narrative, of place. The language is visual and immediate. As PTA goes on to say āAimee is a brilliant writerā and these are āstory songsā ā which is perhaps a quality that could be dismissed as being a little, dare I say it, daggy. By that I mean to say that Aimee Mannās compositions are disarmingly, wholesomely forthright when compared to contemporaries such as PJ Harvey or Tori Amos ā fuelled by an edgier riot-grrl poetic abstraction.
That isnāt to say Aimeeās lyrics or compositions arenāt edgy. Any cabaret-esque over-spelling is under-written with smarm, juxtaposition and wit. S**t yes, Aimee Mann is witty! A rare quality in female artists that donāt toe-dip in pseudo-novelty such as Jill Sobuleās āI Kissed a Girlā or Diana Anaidās āI Go Off.ā Aimeeās an off-kilter, off-broadway eccentric, like Rufus Wainright or Suzanne Vega ā or, more closely to my discographic heart; fellow LA misfit troubadour Eels.
Eels is also a bit ‘daggyā in the indie-cool scheme of things, (Well, maybe Iām speaking out of school and drawing too much attention to my own internal crisis of confidence about what is relevant ā but Pitchfork have slagged off most of his releases for being musically two-bit and lyrically hokey, which is code for āthe kids arenāt comfortable with artists, (especially men) wearing their mentally ill minds on their sleeve and being intentionally vulnerable unless itās done āauthenticallyā by a mentally unstable artist such as Daniel Johnston. Read: āIf youāre going to be troubled, either strip it right back by singing your breakdown on a warbly acoustic, or, have the courtesy to dress naked lyrical honesty with full-tilt production al la Nine Inch Nails – self-pity is way too unpalatable to be presented as musically laid-back and self-aware as Eels does. Anyway, I disagress. (Disagreeing with my own digression.))
And, didnāt rage play Eels surprise new single only last week? (Oh good he’s going back to his Souljacker days.)
Pitchfork gave Aimee Mannās complicated 2000 album (which she released independently after record labels were bamboozled by its lack of singles ā who is she taking career advice from, Fiona Apple?) 9/10, so what would I know. Answer: heaps. Buy me a milo.
I’m told the case is now closed
So I can come to my senses
But when the question is posed
I’ll have this meagre defence
Aimeeās songs are riddled with metaphor. Everything’s a set up. Love as a heist, relationships as a court case, boyfriend as a fallen superhero. There are twists on words. Plays on devices. Ducking and weaving and jabbing and hooking ā Mann is the lyrical shadow boxer ā floating like a butterfly tattoo and stinging like a worker bee.
As Paul Thomas Anderson pontificates: āShe writes lines that are so simple and direct, you are convinced that you have either A) heard it before B) said it before, or even C) thought of it before (and just never wrote it down).ā
I was hoping youād know better / I was hoping but youāre an amateur
Songs are mostly about breakups. Odes to the calamity men whoāve wooed and screwed her every which way to dinnertime. I read that she had battled depression ā there is a defiant dramatic tension that offsets any long stays on glib island.
Iām a superball / If you bounce me once Iāll ricochet / Around the room
So row, row, row your boat gently down the stream / I hope you drown and never come back
Anger marinated in eccentricity basted with irony. This recipe sets Mann apart from her contemporaries such as Sheryl Crow or Alanis “irony” Morissette. The lyrics are immediate, conversational and visual. Mouthfeel of the mind with heart aftertaste. They never drift or waft, rather announce and elucidate stakes of the highest order from a dulcet energy palate.
I’m so relentless / And you’re defenceless
Oh, and she rhymes her socks off. š§¦ Ms Mannās like Dr Seuss meets Karen Carpenter.
You may wonder what the catch is / As we batten down the hatches
A double syllable rhyme worthy of Kim Carnes’ precocious / pro-blush.
But of course, the central thread that carries me from creation to memory and back is the voice. Aimee Mann owns my devotion through the gorgeous timbers of that velvet chamber.
And I don’t even know you / I don’t even know you anymore
She can hit the high-notes that fall you to the floor. She can glean the low-tone that floats your nose to the ozone. She whispers friendly and dangerous ā truths disarmed in confident softness. Mann has approximately the best voice in history. Like none other in the canon. A god-standard Chrissie Hynde / Harry Nilsson masterclass in originality.
Hers is the vocal equivalent of a fresh pressed ruby velvet jacket. Sinking deep into a shady orange corduroy lounge, sipping an expensive bottle of French-Canadian merlot, reaching for a soft pack of Stuyvesants.
An Aimee Mann album feels like a special occasion. No, I donāt listen to her regularly. (Perhaps the richness of her voice means that one becomes fuller, sooner.)
But when I return I am always uplifted, reminded, surprised.
Iām With Stupid was one of the last holdouts on Spotify ā outlasting Bill Callahan and Beyonce. (Mysterious, as the rest of her catalogue was there.) I lost my original CD and recently purchased a new second-hand copy, for approximately the same amount I paid in ’96 – in some satisfying twist of capitalist consistency. I was mesmerised by how much more alive the songs sounded. My ears used more muscles; heard extra instruments. As my friend Conrad once said āCDs sound better than streaming, even burnt ones. Itās something about the preamps in stereos.ā
That said, in my current station; no longer the new sensation and far from the legacy veteran, it would not be in my best interests to bore you with rhetorical implorations to go out and buy your first CD in like, 15 years. All Iāll say ROCK FANS, is that thereās never been a better time to revisit this obscure slice of mid 90s Alternative and find a comforting voice in these abrasive times.
Dig?
I saw Aimee play live in 2009. Iād heard she was notoriously shy and awkward, especially about banter between songs. So much so that sheād hired a comedian to act as MC at her US concerts. Over-compensating for this by a long-shot ā she proceeded to jabber nervously for up to ten minutes while taking photos of the audience before playing a single note. I am churlishly in awe of my idols when it becomes obvious they are consistent in their vulnerability.
At the end of the set she was taking requests. I was too insular to yell but I would have requested Long Shot. It is still one of my favourite songs of the nineties ā conspicuously absent from any themed playlist.
Whatever.
A. Mann
And the award for best swearing in the opening line of an album:
You fucked it up / You jumped the gun / I swore you off / but You climbed back on.
Aimee Mann does this bright/melancholy, sweet hook, minor chord-twist dark pop thing that just fucking kills me. In a good way. It’s weirdly too rare in rock music. Any band that can do this as good as Aimee Mann, you’ll make me emotionally crumble and feel like life’s beauty is indisputable.
Adam Gropman (via youtube)
Aimee Mann – I’m With Stupid (1995, Geffen)
Key tracks ā Superball, Long Shot, Sugarcoated, Choice In The Matter.
Fun Fact: Aimee dipped her toe into acting by playing one of the German nihilists in The Big Lebowski. (Continuing her love affair with indie-darling directors).
Gigs: Aimee is touring Australia in 2021/22 with appropriate folk oddball Ben Lee!
Know something I donāt?
Keep it to yourself.
Justin’s CD inventory as catalogued by then girlfriend Tammy at their sharehouse ‘The TAJ’ (named after occupants Tammy, Adam and Justin) in Totterdell Street, Canberra, 2001.
A very 2001 looking, CD orientated sharehouse wall. Note the square metal CD holder display which I bought from a mail order catalogue in grade 12. BTW that is the Beatles poster I mention in Megan the Vegan. (CD display features Waikiki, Skunkhour, Supergrass, New Buffalo, Sleepy Jackson, Dandy Warhols, Divine Comedy, a fairly rare single from Radiohead’s Amnesiac and Starsailor!) I guess you could say I have an intimate knowledge of indie releases from 2001 because of my job at the Uni magazine Curio. We were getting sent lots of review CDs and it kept me across awesome female singer-songwriter sneaker singles such as Airport ’99 by Phillippa Nihill of Underground Lovers and Like A Feather by Nikka Costa (one of Mark Ronson’s first hits as producer). Not to mention a promo copy of Aimee’s Bachelor No. 2 or, the Last Remains of the Dodo – now THAT’S how you title an album.
T H E E E N D E
READER SERVING SUGGESTION
Justin, hello, itās reader here. I enjoyed your column about Aimee Mann.
Thanks!
You write in a very original, thoughtful manner. I remember my first CD by a female that I bought in my country town and thereās a great story about it. Shall I share it with you?
Please.
Where can I read more of your writing like this, in this style or whatever.
Oh, thereās the āMUSICā tab under āColumnsā which has a few similar proto-pretentious fine-arts deep-drives. Or just keep scrolling down the page as Iāve recently gone on about the film Love Serenade and my love of synthesizers.
Okay, thanks Justin, I really appreciate you sharing your writing here on your website.
Thanks! I appreciate the feedback, even though there is no comments field because WWPD (what would Pitchfork do)?
A new study by James Cook University has found about half of cat owners reported feeling their cats were "put out" by their increased presence during the height of COVID-19 lockdowns.
The study surveyed nearly 400 people living alone during lockdown and looked into how pet ownership interacted with reported levels of mindfulness, depression and anxiety.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-08/study-cats-felt-owners-were-invading-their-space-during-lockdown/100275392
j u s t i n h e a z l e w o o d ' s fuzzy logic 