RECORD REVIEWS

Smoke
Paul Kelly and Uncle Bill
Through EMI

Professor Ratbaggy
Paul Kelly
Through EMI

In this era of corporate downsizing, dogshit-eat-dog and economic cleansing, it’s encouraging to see a major label indulge an artist, because, well, they’re an artist.
So a big bravo to Paul Kelly and his new label EMI for the concurrent release of two pet projects from Australia’s greatest living poet – Smoke, a bluegrass album with backing buddies Uncle Bill, and a transfunkation into Professor Ratbaggy with some of the more usual suspects.
We at The Bug fervently believe in never getting off our collective arses to contact the talent when a press release can speak so eloquently on their behalf.
Paul writes of Smoke: “It begins with an outlaw song, includes weddings, break-ups and murder ballads and (as is traditional) ends with a gospel number.’’
So do most Bug karaoke evenings but we manage to confine ourselves to the corner pub and a company-sponsored bar tab.
But Smoke has that same warm glow we Buggers get after a song and a few jars (though we tend to stick to the green grass) and despite the tragedies unfolding in the lyrics, a happy little vibe.
Many of the familiar songs, covers of Kelly tracks, lend themselves to the gentle, rollicking feel of Uncle Bill and Brother Paul, particularly I Don’t Remember a Thing, Taught By Experts and I Can’t Believe We Were Married.
One or two (Stories of Me) brought to mind Rolf Harris’s treatment of Led Zeppelin.
Then there’s Gathering Storm, a beautiful moment, so relevant in this shithouse bloody weather that has stopped the bloody cricket when I finally had a bloody day off to watch it.
But they queued in numbers not seen since Expo 88, to buy Jimmy Little’s Messenger, so who’s to say?
Okay versions of great songs have been all the go for years now and a bloke I was having a ciggie with the other day told me Smoke is already No. 1 on the country charts (there’s that Bug research ethic again).
Professor Ratbaggy I just don’t get, but there are many things I don’t understand and it’s good clean fun nonetheless.
Sources close to Kelly (the press release) say he’s told EMI of another ``normal’’ album in the wings. These two are a nice diversion, but Paul, get cracking!

Bug rating out of five: 3.5 for each

- Gern Blanston

Wonderful
Madness
Through EMI

Remember Madness?
Suggsy, Mugsy, Chugsy and that wacky gang of North Londoners who charmed the baggy trousers off the known world all those years ago?
Yep, well like everyone else, they’re back and it’s not for the bugs. How dare you even think that. But my how times have changed.
“Fuck art, let’s dance” was the Nutty Boys’ gleeful catchcry during that golden era when they belted out hit after slapstick ska hit before going the way of Bondy, Laurie Connell and those other ’80s touchstones.
It Must Be Love lives to this day through some sooky TV ad for nappies or something (subs: have a cadet look that up), but the ska tissue has pretty well faded from the collective consciousness.
Aah, but there’s no mistaking it’s Madness from the first seconds of their new studio effort, modestly titled Wonderful and produced by the lesser known third Langer brother, Clive.
It’s like slipping into that old Armani suit you haven’t worn since the caviar incident with Rose Hancock in the broom closet at Chris and Pixie’s bash all those eons ago.
But, time marches on and young men turn old. One can’t be nutty forever (okay, except maybe Joh and Rona Joyner) and the lads have moved on to a more melancholic, reflective phase of their lives. And who hasn’t?
The years have certainly made me less inclined to spontaneous chirpiness so I got straight into the groove of the more reflective songs on Wonderful like Saturday Night, Sunday Morning and No Money.
There’s still plenty to get you bopping, though and Drip Fed Fred, a silly little chant, has leapt straight on to the coveted Bug High Rotation Index. Ditto Johnny the Horse. 4am is unintentionally silly – why do you think she’s not calling at that time, knobhead?
Maybe a lyric sheet could explain this but Wonderful ain’t got one and I suspect that’s just as well.
Best of all, Madness have eschewed the technological frippery of the age to record what they call “the music of seven people in a room”.
With the summer beer drinking season now firmly upon us, you’ll find Wonderful a better barbecue companion than even a Phippsy cookbook. No, that’s cruel – it’s really very good.

Bug rating out of five: 3

- Gern Blanston