pessimism and electronica — MONGREL MATTER

Asked to contribute to this month's Mongrel Matter Almanac, the first thought that came to mind was this Kinks song, and then I was hit with an uneasy sense that I’d already written about it… I’d allowed myself the privilege of obliterating quite a few memories from this time, so it was with some degree of pleasure that I revisited the work, screened out the most bleak passages and refined it to cover the theme more appropriately.

Spring's youthful vitality flowers into summer's indulgence, vanity and decadence, and declines, the browning of leaves and the days darkening, the withdrawal of Autumn, the preparation for the somber isolation of Winter.

I wrote this under the spell of Autumn's decline and in love with late night walks around the neighbourhood, dodging the jacks curfew, kicking piles of damp leaves, dreaming of the end of the lockdown and the spring to come. Now, I am more young than I was then. I am more handsome and vital. I am happier and have an appetite for excess. I write this in tribute to everyone that shuffled through those dark lockdown years and hope that this resonates with you somehow. DX

The Kinks

‘Autumn Almanac’

From the dew-soaked hedge creeps a crawly caterpillar
When the dawn begins to crack
It's all part of my autumn almanac

Breeze blows leaves of a musty-coloured yellow
So I sweep them in my sack
Yes, yes, yes, it's my autumn almanac

Friday evenings, people get together
Hiding from the weather
Tea and toasted, buttered currant buns
Can't compensate for lack of sun
Because the summer's all gone

La-la-la la la la-la la-la la-la la-la
Oh, my poor rheumatic back
Yes, yes, yes, it's my autumn almanac
La-la-la la-la la-la la-la la-la
Oh, my autumn almanac
Yes, yes, yes, it's my autumn almanac

I like my football on a Saturday
Roast beef on Sundays, all right
I go to Blackpool for my holidays
Sit in the open sunlight

This is my street and I'm never gonna leave it
And I'm always gonna to stay here
If I live to be ninety-nine
'Cause all the people I meet
Seem to come from my street
And I can't get away
Because it's calling me (Come on home)
Hear it calling me (Come on home)

‘Autumn Almanac’ was released in 1967 between the albums Something Else and Village Green Preservation Society. Ray Davies was inspired to write ‘Autumn Almanac’ when he saw an old gardener working with a crooked back. The song opens with a vision of dawn, a bug and the leaves of a hedge. The vision is from the perspective of the gardener, contemplating his labour, reflecting on the struggle and the streets. He is in pain, his joints ache, he is past the autumn years of his life, he likes football on a Saturday and roast beef on Sunday.

What compels someone to sweep leaves into a sack at the crack of dawn?

Roast beef on Sundays, alright.

Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding slathered with gravy is not lit. The English culinary tradition of Sunday roast does not have much influence in this age of wellness nerds and Ottolenghi porn.

When you look at our culture of podcast addicts who strive to live forever and imagine the prospect of listening to rich people boast about healthy bacteria for an eternity, you can’t help but hear the HELL in HEALTH.

The future is Marvel celebrities and silicon valley tycoons living in a sanitary Byron Bay wellness biohacker fortress.

Poor people are not welcome in the wellness fortress of the future. Poor people do not live for an eternity.

The future is cyborg wellness on a Saturday and biodynamic Buddah Bowls on a Sunday.

I like my football on a Saturday and roast beef on Sundays.

***

I first felt the impact of my deranged obsession with The Kinks during the final week of a Total Control tour across the US and Europe. I was on a train through the countryside outside Paris on the way to London, nursing an accumulation of hangovers and sleep deprivation. The carriage was quiet, my bandmates asleep or enjoying a precious moment of privacy. I was listening to Village Green Preservation Society, I stared at the fields thinking of war after war, elevated by a fine Bordeaux and an exceptional soft cheese that smelled like rotting cauliflower. The train launched into the darkness of a tunnel with a violent shudder and the comforting sight of verdant fields gave way to a reflection of the interior of the carriage, my beautiful friends, my bottle of wine, my idiotic face wet with tears.

I started a journal that became the first issue of a magazine called Life Stinks I Like The Kinks.

When I started writing about The Kinks I could have channelled any number of obsessions that had directed my derangement over that year. I was reading every book I could find by Jean Genet and Yukio Mishima and Chris Kraus and George Bataille. I was enamoured with coffee and cigarettes and vodka and other unprintable excesses. I was thinking a lot about waste. Obsessed with death.

The Kinks were essentially an empty vessel to pour my reflections on these other obsessions into. They were a band with a broad catalogue of songs with strong narratives and distinct characters. The Kinks were both insiders (one of the biggest bands in the world) and outsiders (their confused attempts to live up to early success pushed Ray Davies into madness).

Most importantly, Ray Davies anticipated the retrogressive stupefaction of nostalgia that defines modern pop culture.

It was 2016, the year of Brexit and Trump, and The Kinks were a good band to write through. I have always wanted to write through The Kinks against the modern world but not for the past, against the make ------- great again golden age culture of sentimental nerds.

The Kinks single before ‘Autumn Almanac’ was ‘Sunny Afternoon,’ the anthem of the summer of ’66 in England, the year the English team won the world cup at home.

In between the World Cup and Beatlemania, the Stones and all that, much English piss was spilt in 1966.

In the aftermath of English Glory, the 70’s were a deep trough.

Stands collapsed from rot.

Bored fans abandoned the terraces and sought violence in pubs and punk music.

The imminence of Thatcher.

The rise of the individual.

The rise of the punk.

Life Stinks has been a venture of rabid proclamations. From #5: Their image was so ill-considered. They did not look like a band in many photos, as their chemistry in photographs is not convincing. Their leers are grimaces. Their hair sits awry. Their outfits are often incompatible. They clearly prefer to be naked than clothed. They clearly prefer to be alone than together.

The Top of the Pops 1967 performance of ‘Autumn Almanac’ is a good example of this. Their ill-matching outfits scream pageantry and excess, but aside from the amphetamine glare in Dave Davies’ eyes and Ray Davies’ unbreaking grimace, the band looks sedate and awkward. Ray Davies’ attempt to engage the audience with Wiggles-esque hand gestures is farcical. There is a joy in being contrived, over the top, pretentious, excessive, decadent, obscene. There is a joy in playing the fool.

***

I am listening to ‘Autumn Almanac’ in Tasmania. I have not been on a plane since returning from the Total Control Vietnam / Japan tour in 2019. I didn’t see my family in 2020. I have missed them, terribly. I’m thinking about what home means to me. I have known people who have never left their country, their state, their town, even a particular region of their town. I’ve neither envied their stasis or begrudged them for it. It took my parents most of their lives before they decided to settle in one place. Their parents were refugees, migrants and compulsive travellers, unable or unwilling to settle. My family moved between five different states in Australia before I finished high school. The opportunity to become a parochial, insular, rheumatoid afflicted gardener was blown for me at an early age.

Friday evenings, people get together
Hiding from the weather

I woke to hailstones hitting the window with the ferocity of home invasion. The wind was violent, the wind was howling, the world was caving in. I am haunted by experiences of strangers trying to get into my house, so waking to the sound of home invasion is not my favourite start to the day.

I lay there trying to calm down from the adrenaline rush of looking for a weapon in the dark and meditated on my first great storm, three years old, Darwin, 1985: it is the middle of the night, I am with my baby brother, lying on a bed of towels in a bathtub, and the sound of cataclysm and destruction is overpowering. A cyclone is tearing the city apart. A banana tree dropped on our house, and the windows burst under the pressure.

Harsh reality interrupted my reverie. I have an alarm that tells me to get out of bed and go to work.

This song opens at the break of dawn, with the vision of a blanket of hailstones over the road, a fallen light post across two lanes, a safety officer in hi-vis waving traffic into the empty lane. The vision is from the perspective of two men in the cab of a truck. The cab smells of milk, coffee and cigarette smoke. The two men are listening to AM radio. The truck is driving through the slush towards your house.

What compels someone to carry your furniture at the crack of dawn?

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