EARS OF JOY

Our cup runneth over with lush listening options this week. A fine place to start supping is this emotionally resonant mix - made for the second of Scarborough Wine Company's Quarantine Care packages.

As usual I started at an apt point amongst current culture, then gradually morphed backwards in time via more well-known fare. Unusually I knew where I wanted to end, amongst the devastating beauty of one of my favourite songs of all time.

Knowing that was where we were headed made for a pretty intense trajectory. Kinda broke my own heart - but it will also lift yr spirits and hemlines, promise!

Friday May the 15th ~

Questions Of Law - the happy hour quiz for law buffs, possibly in the buff - hosted by Julian Morrow from The Chaser, transmits via Zoom at the slightly later time of 5.30PM this week.
I was frankly stunned to see my myriad music cues receiving such sincere credit from our participants on the chat last week. It's lovely to have yr dedication to invention recognised even in isolation.
Suss it out if yr curious, regardless of whether yr a lawyer (or Judge), it's pretty hilarious.

Saturday May the 16th ~

The freakiest synchronicity went down recently. 17 years after Ian Rilen (Rose Tattoo, X Sardine V et al) visited me with bandmates (and other mates) in the early AM at 2SER, after an earlier gig at The Excelsior, performing one of the most sensitive and sozzled sets of live songs imaginable, the National Film and Sound Archive returned the digitised recording they'd made off my tape to me.

I'd had a request for X's iconic I Don't Wanna Go Out on Jack Off that week so I decided to throw this wild old interaction on air after it, leading to immediate listener entreaties to open the archives more often. Then, only an hour or so after I listened back to a recording of that show, I received a message from Pterodactyl Man linking me to a Youtube video of the exact same moment.
I had thought this key Sydney cultural artefact was possibly lost for all time til the NSFA unearthed it in my collection of hard copies - but what are the fucken chances of another (mate) happening to bung a tape in at 3AM on a Sunday night and then publishing it 17 years later, from the exact same start point, in the same week?!
My mind boggles at what might still be out there. Certainly the spirit of the gentleman that was/is Ian Rilen. Hopefully he is enjoying a Jack and Coke or three with the profoundly patient and passionate woman who facilitated this visit, booker extaordinaire Sue Telfer, who died last year - 13 years after Ian left this mortal coil. I'm surprised and grateful that you now have three means of listening to this previously lost and lovely lark.
This week, between 3 and 5PM on FBi Radio, we go further than ever before - breaking a rule of two decades standing (that every guest must appear live in the studio and perform in some way) - so as to bend with the breeze and transcend isolation.

What a way to begin reaching out beyond time and space - spending almost an hour with Hamilton Leithauser (of The Walkmen), out back of his folks' farm in Virginia, as he and his family shelter from the abysmal viral apocalypse afflicting America.

Our conversation envelopes matters familial, political and interpersonal and was, for me at least, the sweetest way to finally meet a man whose songs have marked micro and macro time throughout my adult life. I genuinely hope you can tune in to hear both what he says and his stunning live tune too.