andygordon.com.au
The official Andy Gordon homepage. ©

This page details some of the music I have been listening to and other exciting cultural inputs.

Music - June 2010:

Laura Marling - I Speak Because I Can

Sia Furner - Some People Have Real Problems

Songbirds - A Compilation of Shoalhaven singer/songwriters

Leonard Cohen - Live in London

Broken Bells - Broken Bells

Books - June 2010:

Kate Llewellyn - Sofala.

Peter Guralnick - Last Train To Memphis: The Rise Of Elvis Presley

Les Murray - Subhuman Redneck Peoms.

Roger McDonald - Airship.

Jackie Wullschlager - Chagall: Love and Exile.

Thoughts - 27 June 2010:

Life has really got in the way since I last popped anything here. I have a couple of interesting things coming up including two shows with Paul Greene. The Entertainment Centre in Nowra are being very lovely and offering me a support for Ian Moss in July so that will be great. I guess mostly I am looking forward to writing like crazy. I have so many ideas which have been quietly, patiently brewing inside my skull. Bursting to be released and made into something.

Thoughts - 18 July 2009:

This month and last have really been all about the tour with Rosalind Chia and the band. We have The Tea Club in Nowra, The Mittagong Playhouse and The Richmond School Of Arts. We rehearsed in Sydney yesterday and the songs are coming together really well. It is such a treat to be playing with everyone again so I'm really looking forward to the shows. I hope you can come and have a look and a listen, it'll be pretty swish.

Thoughts - 10 March 2009:

I have been busy since I last wrote, playing some really nice shows and re-connecting with some great musicians like Jason Walker, Karl Broadie and Leroy Lee. I have written a couple of new songs which I am really excited about. I am booking a tour with Roz Chia and a full band for July this year. We have The Tea Club in Nowra locked in and are negotiating for Milton Theatre, The Oxford Tavern, Wollongong and The Hopetoun in Sydney. I am planning to record in August and then, I hope, do another similar tour in October or November, hopefully with a new album. I have been turned on to poet Robert Gray, an Australian and I am soaking up a collection of his work from 1963-1983. I am also presently getting my motor bike licence. I think it is best if I cut down my petrol bills for the sake of the planet and my wallet. Love and light to all and I hope to chat with you whenever we meet again. PS, the wine I mentioned below was fantastic and surpassed all expectations.

Thoughts - 23 November 2008:

It's raining and cold here today and I am back from 3 days in Sydney. We have a fire going, it's 4 pm and I thought it would be nice to open a bottle of red. Thing is, that has caused me to ponder the fact that we rarely get the corkscrew out these days. Stelvin caps have definitely become the most common closure and I actually cannot remember the last time I used the corkscrew. Our corkscrew is from a winery in The Hunter Valley and has served us well for many years. It is just a variation on the classic "waiter's friend" but with some advertising attached. Sadly it broke at the end a few years back; it had a foil cutter attachment and I got a little excited one night cutting foil and broke it clean off. Nonetheless it continues to function, more or less as it should, broken as it is. So I got it out and opened the bottle, it's a good one too. Let you know how I feel about it later when it has breathed a little more. Til then, cheers

Thoughts: 18 May 2008

On Monday 28 April my good friend and (along with our Jerry) long time musical collaborator died peacefully. I scratched this out in the days leading up to and after his death.

Hey Matty,
You have to go now
I understand, but I see you love.
Forget for a second
the music we played together.
Forget you helped us build our house.
You know parts of it no one has seen.
Shouldn't ever need to, we did it right.
I smile and remember you and I
under the house pulling electrical cables
and laughing, all the while laughing.
We always had such great
talks about life over dinner.
We were on a similar path Matty,
I won't forget.

There were other T-Shirts before it, sure
but Lovin' Life, that's the one,
that could have spawned a revolution.
Made people laugh a little,
You gave away a little gift of yourself.
Could have been a movie Matty,
you said so yourself.

November and you came down to see us
with your new song
and I knew then things weren't totally ok.
I've Got Something In My Head.
"whataya think of that?" you asked
and what could I say.
But we talked pretty seriously
around the subject.

Then it was New Year and a time we all think of you.
You came down with Sophie and the kids
and between Mia and other things our time together
was otherwise occupied.

January, and Frank came, and John and we
rode mountain bikes down a mountain
and you didn't have any brakes.
And you said to me whilst I tried to fix them for you,
"Ah Andy, that's what I like to see,
a man after my own heart. Struggling
with the wrong tool to do the job."
And I didn't get it fixed but you and Frank did
and we carried on.

"I'm not as fit as I used to be", you said to anyone who would listen.
None of us were!
But you had a double dose of chemo
Coursing through you that we didn't.

Clovelly for your 40th birthday party
If ever I have witnessed your gift for giving
on a grander scale I cannot recall when.
But you were like the post-it portrait,
a pixilation of yourself, you weren't clear,
you weren't yourself.

March, before you went to hospital
I caught you for an hour with San Pellegrino.
Not wine
...And what the Italians don't know about water
I don't want to know.
Sophie was a rock and you in prison blue
clinging with such love between you both.
I waved goodbye to you.

May and you holed up in St.Vincents
like a Yogi in a cave and friends and family
visit and stand silent sentinel to your suffering.
Talking in hushed tone
learning the whole time from you
and wondering if we could be so calm.
You lasted five and a half years
with something in your head.
And it never really showed.
Until now.

"Sometimes he takes the best ones
because they have already lived a good life"
Bullshit.

Where to from here I don't know for sure.
I already miss you
and imagine that will get worse.
But I can see you forever in my mind,
or I will remember you as the mist rises
up from the valley, through the trees.
I'll close my eyes
and just see you and your smile,
maybe a laugh, most likely a decent Sav,
and settle down face to face for a chat.
You never bullshitted to me.

You fought till the end
and you were a fine friend, my friend.
Some people will wish you immortality,
you were better than that, I wish you peace.

Love and light,

Andy

 

Photo by: JLK.