To whom it may concern,
Today I needed to get to LaTrobe University by 5pm. To do so I would catch the 246 bus route. I arrived at the bus stop on the corner of Hoddle Street and Victoria Parade at 3.32pm. This would usually give me ample time to reach LaTrobe by 5pm, however not today.
I know it was exactly 3.32pm because I looked at my clock and then looked at the timetable. As the timetable indicates that there is a bus scheduled to arrive at Wellington Parade at 3.29pm I thought there was a good chance that this bus had yet to arrive at Victoria Parade. This bus is, of course, a Clifton Hill bus (the next LaTrobe bus wasn't until 3.53pm), however, I hoped that when the bus arrived at the Clifton Hill interchange, it wouldn't be too long before a 250 bus (which also goes to LaTrobe) would come along (I knew my hope of this was misguided, as I shall explain shortly, but I hoped anyway). At 3.41pm a bus arrived. I assumed that this was the 3.39pm bus. This bus arrived at the Clifton Hill interchange at 3.52pm.
For the next 42 minutes I stood, like a fool, at the Clifton Hill interchange waiting for either a 250 to turn up, or for the 246 LaTrobe bus (that should have been at the Wellington Parade stop at 3.53pm) to arrive. Unfortunately, neither did. Two 246 buses arrived, but terminated at Clifton Hill. Realising that even if a bus arrived that very second I would not be able to make my lecture, at 4.35pm I decided to walk, in a brisk and frustrated manner, to Clifton Hill station where got the train back to North Richmond and returned home.
The bus commuter and the bus company share an informal agreement. The commuter needs to give themselves ample time to reach their destination, whilst the bus company will do its best to provide transport to this destination in or around the times it states. Today I feel like I have kept up my end of the deal, but you have failed to. This is a formal complaint.
In a further note I would like to inform you that there is no bus timetables at the Clifton Hill interchange for either the 246, 250 or 251 northbound bus routes. If this could be rectified I would be most pleased.
Let me add to this by letting you know about why I thought my hope of getting a 250 from the Clifton Hill interchange to LaTrobe today was misguided:
I travel on the 246 most days. Sometimes I am lucky enough to get on one of the two buses an hour that run all the way to LaTrobe, other times I change at Clifton Hill. When changing at Clifton Hill I have become aware that both the 246 LaTrobe bus and the 250 bus (also going to LaTrobe) have a tendency to arrive at Clifton Hill at the same time. As the buses have identical routes from Clifton Hill to LaTrobe one bus tends to pick up all the passengers while the other follows redundantly behind it. Surely it would make much more sense for the 250 to arrive at a time between the two 246 LaTrobe buses? This would not only assist those people who live along the 246 bus route south of Clifton Hill, but also those along both the 246 and 250 bus routes north of Clifton Hill. It would also be a much more productive service for you not having to run a superfluous bus between Clifton Hill and LaTrobe.
I am hoping you will consider my suggestion carefully as well as taking my complaint seriously.
Thank you very much
Grant Wyeth
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Sunday, October 14, 2007
The Ballad Of A Ladyman - Sleater-Kinney
Now it might be somewhat hypocritical for me to label anyone an elitist, I mean, I refuse to even have sex because "everyone does it", but there's a group of old school Bust readers who feel that Sleater-Kinney "lost it" with the release of the album All Hands On The Bad One. Now I could be pissing on my own chips here because if I was to have sex it would have to be with a Bust reader, but these people are wrong wrong wrong.
Aside from "Youth Decay" being the fourth best song to do a hyper-exaggerated Corin Tucker impersonation to (after "Sympathy", "The Fox" and "Words and Guitar"), the album is far from poor, with "The Professional" being the only song subjected to my skipping finger (sorry Carrie). My favourite track, however, is the album's opening number "The Ballad Of A Ladyman". The year prior to the album's release saw Sleater-Kinney perform at the indie-world's most discerning festival, All Tomorrow's Parties, in Camber Sands, England. One morning the band awoke to find some goon had posted at sign on their chalet door stating "Ladymen". The Ballad Of The Ladyman is Corin's response.
They say that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, but sometimes it's a necessary tool to get a point across, especially when one needs to heavily deride the recipient.
"Freak that I am, live in Japan, let's rock with the tough girls in this part of the world. Take a photograph, portrait of a ladyman" sings Corin before asking in the chorus "Are we holding on to our pride a bit too long?"
Oh, but the fun doesn't stop there as she continues in her mock tone "They say I've gone too far with the image I've got and they know I'd make a mint with new plastic skin and a hit on the radio! Oh, temptations of a ladyman". There's a certain underlying bile with they way she enunciates each word, and it just gets better as she advances "I could be demure like girls who are soft for boys who are fearful of getting an earful." This, to me, is the killer line of the song. It's a huge kick in the balls to those who wrote the "ladyman" sign. The insinuation of the sign is that somehow Sleater-Kinney (and all girls) are less female by not conforming to standard feminine presentation. This line retorts that men who cannot handle any challenges to these standards can only deal with to being surrounded by girls who aren't any threat to their pathetic egos. Girls who stroke and don't provoke.
Corin concludes the song with a series of questions all designed to make the sign-writer feel as tiny and foolish as possible: "How many times will you decide? How many lives will you define? How much control should we give up of our lives? And the last laugh is undoubtedly hers.
The Ballad Of A Ladyman - Sleater-Kinney
Aside from "Youth Decay" being the fourth best song to do a hyper-exaggerated Corin Tucker impersonation to (after "Sympathy", "The Fox" and "Words and Guitar"), the album is far from poor, with "The Professional" being the only song subjected to my skipping finger (sorry Carrie). My favourite track, however, is the album's opening number "The Ballad Of A Ladyman". The year prior to the album's release saw Sleater-Kinney perform at the indie-world's most discerning festival, All Tomorrow's Parties, in Camber Sands, England. One morning the band awoke to find some goon had posted at sign on their chalet door stating "Ladymen". The Ballad Of The Ladyman is Corin's response.
They say that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, but sometimes it's a necessary tool to get a point across, especially when one needs to heavily deride the recipient.
"Freak that I am, live in Japan, let's rock with the tough girls in this part of the world. Take a photograph, portrait of a ladyman" sings Corin before asking in the chorus "Are we holding on to our pride a bit too long?"
Oh, but the fun doesn't stop there as she continues in her mock tone "They say I've gone too far with the image I've got and they know I'd make a mint with new plastic skin and a hit on the radio! Oh, temptations of a ladyman". There's a certain underlying bile with they way she enunciates each word, and it just gets better as she advances "I could be demure like girls who are soft for boys who are fearful of getting an earful." This, to me, is the killer line of the song. It's a huge kick in the balls to those who wrote the "ladyman" sign. The insinuation of the sign is that somehow Sleater-Kinney (and all girls) are less female by not conforming to standard feminine presentation. This line retorts that men who cannot handle any challenges to these standards can only deal with to being surrounded by girls who aren't any threat to their pathetic egos. Girls who stroke and don't provoke.
Corin concludes the song with a series of questions all designed to make the sign-writer feel as tiny and foolish as possible: "How many times will you decide? How many lives will you define? How much control should we give up of our lives? And the last laugh is undoubtedly hers.
The Ballad Of A Ladyman - Sleater-Kinney
Friday, October 12, 2007
Benton Harbour Blues - The Fiery Furnaces
When Matthew and Eleanor Friedberger, aka The Fiery Furnaces, get things right it is difficult to dispute they are brilliant beyond analogy. Whilst their music can often find them squeezing anything from prog to free jazz to electronic experimentation into extremely listenable pop songs, their lyrics can tread similarly obscurist territory, like fighting pirates on a ship transporting blueberries, getting abducted by fishermen in Spain, or documenting the songs of Finnish servant girls. Dull they are not. However, when they get it wrong they can be either bemusing (a concept album about the life of their grandmother, sung by their grandmother), or just plain frustrating (each and every one of their live performances). Geniuses they may be, but consistent they are not.
The band's fourth album, Bitter Tea, contains both this astonishing genius and their unfortunate inconsistency. I'd give up my 1980s Fitzroy Football Club drink coasters in defence of the futuristic doo-wop of "Waiting To Know You" or the tape-manipulated pop of "Nevers!", but I find impossible to sit patiently through the meandering backwards brain-spazz of "The Vietnamese Telephone Ministry" (no matter how awesome the title is), or the just plain boring "Black-Hearted Boy". Whilst the album may not reach awesome heights of their second album "Blueberry Boat", or their current masterpiece "Widow City" (third best album of the year, by the way), it does contain what I consider to be their best song, "Benton Harbour Blues" (referring to "Chief Inspector Blancheflower" as merely "a song" seems degrading. It exists on a higher plane).
What is initial most notable about "Benton Harbour Blues" is its emotional evocation. Whilst Eleanor's voice perfectly suits the absurdist adventures her and her brother usually find themselves in, "Benton Harbour Blues" proves that she's more than capable of giving the heart-strings a tug as well. Whilst Eleanor's vocals might be the obvious focal point of the song, it Matthew's muted organ, tick-tock drum-machine and delayed acoustic guitar that provide the canvass for her to work with. Not known for their subtle arrangements, "Benton Harbour Blues" is enhanced greatly by them exhibiting some restraint for once.
I must admit that I feel a significant affinity with this song. Most people who know me would testify that I've done, and do, very little with my life, and so it's not hard to nod my head in recognition with an opening line like: "As I try to fill all of my empty days, I stumble 'round on through my memory's maze". Staring at the walls, sifting "On through the past, only the sadness stays".
It wouldn't be a Fiery Furnaces song without some first-person active proclamation, and so Eleanor states matter-of-factly "I went moping down by the bridge. I rode a bike in the snow to the mini-mart", yet the weight of her sorrow can't be eroded with a king-sized pack of M&Ms as she solemnly sighs "I thought of the ways that I had broke my own heart". The key to this song is subtle depiction of sadness. A single tear running down a cheek has more of a melancholic impact than some hysterical outburst and this is an impression Eleanor notes perfectly with her closing lines "Well, it's not for me to fill the blue sea with tears. But when I think back on all of the wasted years, all the good cheer and all of the charm disappears".
Benton Harbour Blues - The Fiery Furnaces
The band's fourth album, Bitter Tea, contains both this astonishing genius and their unfortunate inconsistency. I'd give up my 1980s Fitzroy Football Club drink coasters in defence of the futuristic doo-wop of "Waiting To Know You" or the tape-manipulated pop of "Nevers!", but I find impossible to sit patiently through the meandering backwards brain-spazz of "The Vietnamese Telephone Ministry" (no matter how awesome the title is), or the just plain boring "Black-Hearted Boy". Whilst the album may not reach awesome heights of their second album "Blueberry Boat", or their current masterpiece "Widow City" (third best album of the year, by the way), it does contain what I consider to be their best song, "Benton Harbour Blues" (referring to "Chief Inspector Blancheflower" as merely "a song" seems degrading. It exists on a higher plane).
What is initial most notable about "Benton Harbour Blues" is its emotional evocation. Whilst Eleanor's voice perfectly suits the absurdist adventures her and her brother usually find themselves in, "Benton Harbour Blues" proves that she's more than capable of giving the heart-strings a tug as well. Whilst Eleanor's vocals might be the obvious focal point of the song, it Matthew's muted organ, tick-tock drum-machine and delayed acoustic guitar that provide the canvass for her to work with. Not known for their subtle arrangements, "Benton Harbour Blues" is enhanced greatly by them exhibiting some restraint for once.
I must admit that I feel a significant affinity with this song. Most people who know me would testify that I've done, and do, very little with my life, and so it's not hard to nod my head in recognition with an opening line like: "As I try to fill all of my empty days, I stumble 'round on through my memory's maze". Staring at the walls, sifting "On through the past, only the sadness stays".
It wouldn't be a Fiery Furnaces song without some first-person active proclamation, and so Eleanor states matter-of-factly "I went moping down by the bridge. I rode a bike in the snow to the mini-mart", yet the weight of her sorrow can't be eroded with a king-sized pack of M&Ms as she solemnly sighs "I thought of the ways that I had broke my own heart". The key to this song is subtle depiction of sadness. A single tear running down a cheek has more of a melancholic impact than some hysterical outburst and this is an impression Eleanor notes perfectly with her closing lines "Well, it's not for me to fill the blue sea with tears. But when I think back on all of the wasted years, all the good cheer and all of the charm disappears".
Benton Harbour Blues - The Fiery Furnaces
Thursday, October 04, 2007
The Sound Of Settling
Kevin Andrews. What an arsehole. Serously. When it comes to ministerial incompetence, Andrews not only takes the cake, but he swallows that motherfucker whole.
Andrews, the Australian Immigration minister, is cutting the percentage of Africans from Australia's refugee quota from 50% to 30%, having already cut it back from 70%. Initially he claimed this was because the conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan had improved. Anyone who knows even the slightest amount about the situation in Darfur knows that this is rubbish. Now he has quit with the spin and decided to be honest and inform the public that his decision is due to refugees from Africa "not settling into Australian life". Being the incompetent minister he is, he has failed to provide any evidence to demonstrate this claim, nor has he defined what constitutes "Australian life". This unfortunate stupidity soon turned into insane absurdity when Andrews used the bashing death of Sudanese refugee, Liep Gony, as evidence for his standard line that the Sudanese "don't seem to be settling and adjusting into the Australian life as quickly as we would hope". Now let's just get this straight. Most people who have at least a few brain cells would conclude, when hearing someone has been bashed to death, that the perpetrators were murderers and should be punished accordingly. Minister Andrews, however, concludes that it is evidence that the victim hasn't "settled" into "Australian life" (whatever that may be). So what is Kevin Andrews implying here, that people who aren't deemed to be "settling" into "Australian life" deserve to be beaten to death? Maybe the minister would like a state-sanctioned militia to go around beating to death people who don't seem "settled". Maybe the group could model themselves on, oh I don't know, the Janjaweed?
Andrews proved himself incompetent (or an pathetic joke) during his bumbling handling of the Mohammad Haneef affair and he has now taken that incompetence one step further. At least Phillip Ruddock, when he was immigration minister, had the verbal capacity to skillfully change the subject and twist the facts to avoid accountability for the government, Andrews can't even do this. He stumbles over his words, pathetically avoids questions and changes his story constantly. He lacks the ability to perform even basic public speaking, let alone have enough ability for someone who has one of the most important and sensitive portfolios in the government.
From what I can deduce, Andrews takes his policy advice from the Herald-Sun. The Scum has been running a scare campaign against African immigrants for several years now. They claim that they are forming gangs and cite the way the travel in groups of 5 or 6 and wear American basketball clothes as evidence for this. According to people who are actually informed about such things, it is a common cultural trait for East African men to walk around in groups of 5 or 6. They come from community-based societies and as a result do things as a community. As for implying that the wearing American basketball indicates one is in a violent gang, not only is this (offensively) stereotyping African-Americans as members of gangs, it also overlooks the most obvious conclusion that maybe they just like basketball? The NBA is dominated by people of African origin, of course young African kids are going to want to emulate them, they are a huge success. It's no different to someone wearing a cricket top or football jumper. Or maybe it is in the eyes of this government? Apparently Liep Gony was an excellent basketball player, maybe if he had been an excellent cricket player Kevin Andrews would have considered him "settled" enough not to deserve to be beaten to death.
Apart from the obvious absurdity of Andrews' comments, there's an underlying insensitivity that stems from a complete lack of basic understanding of refugees, let alone empathy. For people such as those from the Darfur region of Sudan, who come from a conflict where their government is completely complicit in their persecution, governments are institutions to fear. These people aren't of the mindset, as people who are brought up in Australia are, where you are able to tell the government to go fuck themselves if you think their policies are wrong. These people are going to be overtly sensitive to the pronouncements of the government. Having been given refuge here from their government (maybe you can get the dictionary out and look up the term "refuge", Mr Andrews) the last thing the last thing they need is to be demonised by ours.
Andrews, the Australian Immigration minister, is cutting the percentage of Africans from Australia's refugee quota from 50% to 30%, having already cut it back from 70%. Initially he claimed this was because the conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan had improved. Anyone who knows even the slightest amount about the situation in Darfur knows that this is rubbish. Now he has quit with the spin and decided to be honest and inform the public that his decision is due to refugees from Africa "not settling into Australian life". Being the incompetent minister he is, he has failed to provide any evidence to demonstrate this claim, nor has he defined what constitutes "Australian life". This unfortunate stupidity soon turned into insane absurdity when Andrews used the bashing death of Sudanese refugee, Liep Gony, as evidence for his standard line that the Sudanese "don't seem to be settling and adjusting into the Australian life as quickly as we would hope". Now let's just get this straight. Most people who have at least a few brain cells would conclude, when hearing someone has been bashed to death, that the perpetrators were murderers and should be punished accordingly. Minister Andrews, however, concludes that it is evidence that the victim hasn't "settled" into "Australian life" (whatever that may be). So what is Kevin Andrews implying here, that people who aren't deemed to be "settling" into "Australian life" deserve to be beaten to death? Maybe the minister would like a state-sanctioned militia to go around beating to death people who don't seem "settled". Maybe the group could model themselves on, oh I don't know, the Janjaweed?
Andrews proved himself incompetent (or an pathetic joke) during his bumbling handling of the Mohammad Haneef affair and he has now taken that incompetence one step further. At least Phillip Ruddock, when he was immigration minister, had the verbal capacity to skillfully change the subject and twist the facts to avoid accountability for the government, Andrews can't even do this. He stumbles over his words, pathetically avoids questions and changes his story constantly. He lacks the ability to perform even basic public speaking, let alone have enough ability for someone who has one of the most important and sensitive portfolios in the government.
From what I can deduce, Andrews takes his policy advice from the Herald-Sun. The Scum has been running a scare campaign against African immigrants for several years now. They claim that they are forming gangs and cite the way the travel in groups of 5 or 6 and wear American basketball clothes as evidence for this. According to people who are actually informed about such things, it is a common cultural trait for East African men to walk around in groups of 5 or 6. They come from community-based societies and as a result do things as a community. As for implying that the wearing American basketball indicates one is in a violent gang, not only is this (offensively) stereotyping African-Americans as members of gangs, it also overlooks the most obvious conclusion that maybe they just like basketball? The NBA is dominated by people of African origin, of course young African kids are going to want to emulate them, they are a huge success. It's no different to someone wearing a cricket top or football jumper. Or maybe it is in the eyes of this government? Apparently Liep Gony was an excellent basketball player, maybe if he had been an excellent cricket player Kevin Andrews would have considered him "settled" enough not to deserve to be beaten to death.
Apart from the obvious absurdity of Andrews' comments, there's an underlying insensitivity that stems from a complete lack of basic understanding of refugees, let alone empathy. For people such as those from the Darfur region of Sudan, who come from a conflict where their government is completely complicit in their persecution, governments are institutions to fear. These people aren't of the mindset, as people who are brought up in Australia are, where you are able to tell the government to go fuck themselves if you think their policies are wrong. These people are going to be overtly sensitive to the pronouncements of the government. Having been given refuge here from their government (maybe you can get the dictionary out and look up the term "refuge", Mr Andrews) the last thing the last thing they need is to be demonised by ours.
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Keep Sending Me Black Fireworks - Of Montreal
99% of love songs are rubbish. They're either too over-wrought rendering them creepy, or just a pile of clichéd tripe. Or both. Generally both. However, when Kevin Barnes writes a love song you know it's going to be awesome. He's the type of guy who can make a mundane task like cooking toast seem like the coolest thing in the world. Tucked away on the bonus disc that came with the Of Montreal album The Sunlandic Twins is a song called Keep Sending Me Black Fireworks. The most notable thing about the song initially is that it's sung by Barnes' wife, Nina Twin, effectively making it a love song he has written to himself. Which is fine by me, if I was Kevin Barnes I'd be doing likewise. Furthermore, the other striking thing about the song being sung by Nina Twin is that it also makes one wonder why she doesn't sing more often? She is not only fully up to the task inflecting the this-is-funny-but-it's-not-a-joke tone of Barnes' lyrics, but also exhibits a slight Norwegian tinge coupled with a Home Counties pronunciation that is frankly delightful. Musically the song is similar to pseudo-psychedelic upbeat indie-pop with electronic flourishes sound of the Satanic Panic In The Attic album and the first half of The Sunlandic Twins. Nothing exceptional, but something that Barnes does better than most (in fact, everyone) and perfectly suitable to to the content of the song.
"Look in my eyes,what do you see? I’m hanging upside down like a chimpanzee" It's a pretty good opening line, but nothing compared to the utterly charming lyric that follows: "When I'm with my friends riding somewhere on a crowded bus there is nothing that I want to discuss. I just sit and smile thinking about us". As a regular bus user, this sentiment has a huge appeal. If I'm sitting on a bus whilst listening to the song on my iPod I smile and pretend.
"What is this that sends black fireworks dancing around me? When we kiss the explosiveness is life’s sweet mystery." It's a gorgeous uplifting chorus, but it's the second verse that has the song's most beautiful (and amusing) moment. As the piano rollicks and electro-gizmos squelch behind her, Nina Twin coos "Ah my kitten, I am so glad you are the way you are, you're my favourite living human by far". Every time I hear this line I long to one day be in the position to send it via text message to a special someone of my own.
Never one to resist an opportunity to declare my adoration for Kevin Barnes, it says so much about what an awesome genius he is that he can throw away a song like Keep Sending Me Black Fireworks on a EP tacked on as a bonus disc to an album. Most modern indie song-writers would sell their mothers to write a song half as good. Barnes' knack for sing-a-long pop hooks and amusing lyrical expression is frankly unmatched.
Keep Sending Me Black Fireworks - Of Montreal
"Look in my eyes,what do you see? I’m hanging upside down like a chimpanzee" It's a pretty good opening line, but nothing compared to the utterly charming lyric that follows: "When I'm with my friends riding somewhere on a crowded bus there is nothing that I want to discuss. I just sit and smile thinking about us". As a regular bus user, this sentiment has a huge appeal. If I'm sitting on a bus whilst listening to the song on my iPod I smile and pretend.
"What is this that sends black fireworks dancing around me? When we kiss the explosiveness is life’s sweet mystery." It's a gorgeous uplifting chorus, but it's the second verse that has the song's most beautiful (and amusing) moment. As the piano rollicks and electro-gizmos squelch behind her, Nina Twin coos "Ah my kitten, I am so glad you are the way you are, you're my favourite living human by far". Every time I hear this line I long to one day be in the position to send it via text message to a special someone of my own.
Never one to resist an opportunity to declare my adoration for Kevin Barnes, it says so much about what an awesome genius he is that he can throw away a song like Keep Sending Me Black Fireworks on a EP tacked on as a bonus disc to an album. Most modern indie song-writers would sell their mothers to write a song half as good. Barnes' knack for sing-a-long pop hooks and amusing lyrical expression is frankly unmatched.
Keep Sending Me Black Fireworks - Of Montreal
Monday, October 01, 2007
The Triumph Of Our Tired Eyes - A Silver Mt. Zion
After years of avoiding saying anything to anyone as part of media-shy Montreal-based warehouse-dwelling doom-laden orchestral post-rock mystic-niks, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, on the second album of his side project, A Silver Mt. Zion, Efrim Menuck finally had something to say. And this was it: "Sisters and brothers, we have surely lost our way." Dang.
But that wasn't just it. There was more words of sage-like wisdom from our reclusive friend as he informed us that "There is beauty in this land, but I don't often see it. There's beauty in this land, but I don't often feel it" Yet before we resign to all hope being lost Efrim's plaintive squwark assures us "We will find our way", and we wipe our brow and give a collective sigh of relief.
There's a school of thought that suggests the music of A Silver Mt. Zion has suffered badly from Efrim's decision to add vocals, and at this point in the song that belief is carrying some serious weight.
But then he hits us. Right between the eyes, with the most brilliantly blunt and antagonistic statement: "Musicians are cowards!" Musicians are cowards? It's wide-eye'd and jaw-droppingly good. Yet there's no time to wallow in the jealousy of wishing you'd thought of it first, as the song continues: "Let's argue in the kitchen for hours and hours. Tomorrow is a travesty, tomorrow should be ours", and as violins swell triumphantly Efrim reiterates on repeat "Musicians are cowards! Musicians are cowards!..." each exclamation mark more emphatic than the next and the whole thing is so absolutely glorious and beautiful and fills you with such anarchist verve that you just want to go out join a protest march or punch a cop or sit in a hip café on the corner of St-Laurent and St-Viateur and act all mysterious.
Just when you think Efrim has become immersed in his pursuit against cowardly musicians and has forgotten the little people, he brings us back under the warmth of his counter-cultural wing by declaring "The soldiers with their specialists and the pigs with their guns cannot stop the lost ones and the desperate ones and the driven ones." And as the song winds down to just some plucked violins and reverb-laden guitar he urges us "Come on friends, to the barricades again" and one wouldn't dare not follow.
The Triumph Of Our Tired Eyes - A Silver Mt. Zion
But that wasn't just it. There was more words of sage-like wisdom from our reclusive friend as he informed us that "There is beauty in this land, but I don't often see it. There's beauty in this land, but I don't often feel it" Yet before we resign to all hope being lost Efrim's plaintive squwark assures us "We will find our way", and we wipe our brow and give a collective sigh of relief.
There's a school of thought that suggests the music of A Silver Mt. Zion has suffered badly from Efrim's decision to add vocals, and at this point in the song that belief is carrying some serious weight.
But then he hits us. Right between the eyes, with the most brilliantly blunt and antagonistic statement: "Musicians are cowards!" Musicians are cowards? It's wide-eye'd and jaw-droppingly good. Yet there's no time to wallow in the jealousy of wishing you'd thought of it first, as the song continues: "Let's argue in the kitchen for hours and hours. Tomorrow is a travesty, tomorrow should be ours", and as violins swell triumphantly Efrim reiterates on repeat "Musicians are cowards! Musicians are cowards!..." each exclamation mark more emphatic than the next and the whole thing is so absolutely glorious and beautiful and fills you with such anarchist verve that you just want to go out join a protest march or punch a cop or sit in a hip café on the corner of St-Laurent and St-Viateur and act all mysterious.
Just when you think Efrim has become immersed in his pursuit against cowardly musicians and has forgotten the little people, he brings us back under the warmth of his counter-cultural wing by declaring "The soldiers with their specialists and the pigs with their guns cannot stop the lost ones and the desperate ones and the driven ones." And as the song winds down to just some plucked violins and reverb-laden guitar he urges us "Come on friends, to the barricades again" and one wouldn't dare not follow.
The Triumph Of Our Tired Eyes - A Silver Mt. Zion
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