The Go-Betweens, Leonard Cohen, U2 and Boston Celtics’ Reggie Lewis
A few words on The Go-Betweens, Leonard Cohen, U2 and Boston Celtics’ Reggie Lewis taking in: Leeside Music on Cork’s MacCurtain Street, price stickers, The Go-Betweens’ boxsets, J-1 visas, Leonard Cohen’s 1993 World Tour, U2’s Zoo TV tour, Boston Celtics’ legendary shooting guard Reggie Lewis, ‘Streets of Your Town’, Grant McLennan and my greatest vinyl find.
I didn’t stump up the cash for G Stands for Go-Betweens: The Go-Betweens Anthology Volume 3 but it was lovely seeing people post photographs throughout December of their boxsets. It was a real thrill seeing photographs of the books that some lucky punters received along with their sets. The books all came from Grant McLennan’s own personal library.
It encouraged me to play The Go-Betweens and pulling out some of their records reminded me of the day in the late-90s that I walked out of Leeside Music on Cork’s MacCurtain Street with three of their albums under my arm.
The fact that I manged to find Spring Hill Fair and Tallulah for £3.99 each, and that I only paid £4.99 for the 1990 double compilation LP 1978-1990 still amazes me.
The Go-Betweens: Spring Hill Fair (1984 - 925 179-1, Sire), 1978-1990 (1990 - BEGA104, Beggars Banquet) and Tallulah (1989 - BBL81, Beggars Banquet). Photograph by Paul McDermott.
It took hours of delicate maneuvering to remove Leeside’s green and white price stickers without damaging the sleeve, it took the gloss off the bargain find - and the gloss off most shiny sleeves. I managed to remove the Leeside sticker from my copy of Spring Hill Fair without defacing the sleeve but the LP is still scarred with the imprint of a biro-written price of £3.99. A visual reminder that vinyl scores like that don’t happen anymore. Without doubt, one of my greatest vinyl finds.
I love 1978-1990 for many reasons. It’s the first (and best) career-spanning Go-Betweens’ compilation and it’s also got Forster and McLennan’s brilliant sleevenotes. I wish more artists would be as self-reflective as GM and RF were on 1978-1990.
‘Cattle and Cane’: “Written in summer on a borrowed guitar in a Paddington bedroom, London. The other rooms were occupied by unconscious friends. The rhythm struck me as strange, the mood as beautiful and sad. The song came quickly, was recorded quickly and still haunts me.” GM
‘The House That Jack Kerouac Built’: “My Irish Phase. Unfortunately I’d been in London long enough to be on the edge of a truly appalling crowd of people. Bad bands, theft, sad energy and general devil-may-care attitudes that amount to nothing. I left them early and then in November 1987 we left London for Sydney.” RF
Grant McLennan and Robert Forster (taken from the sleevenotes to 1978-1990)
The other reason I love 1978-1990 is that it always reminds me of a sweltering summer I spent in Boston in 1993.
I associate three albums with that summer, the other two being The Fall’s The Infotainment Scan and Julian Cope’s Jehovahkill. These three albums were on repeat all summer in the small unfurnished cockroach-infested apartment that six of us shared on Haviland Street.
Tower Records and Newbury Comics on Newbury Street, were both just a few minutes away from our apartment. Berklee Performance Center on Massachusetts Avenue was just around the corner.
Playing 1978-1990 always reminds me of Leonard Cohen, because Cohen played a gig at the Berklee Performance Center on 16 July 1993. I can’t recall exactly how much the tickets were but I have a clear recollection of myself and my fellow J-1ers looking at a poster of Cohen outside the Center and that we baulked at the price. I do know that by today’s standards the gig tickets were for peanuts but we were poor students after all.
The Boston gig was part of The Future World tour in support of Cohen’s 1992 album The Future. It we had known then that Cohen would retreat to the Mount Baldy Zen Center near Los Angeles the following year and disappear for over five years maybe we’d have been more willing to part with the cash. But probably not.
I finally got to see Cohen when he played in the open air at IMMA in 2008. That was a special concert and Cohen was visibly moved by the affection shown by the crowd. In total he played three concerts at IMMA in 2008 and four more in 2012. Between his IMMA dates he played four concerts at what was then the O2 (now the 3Arena - though, always The Point to me) in 2009 and two concerts at Lissadell House (the childhood home of Countess Markievicz) in Sligo in 2010. He returned one final time to Ireland for two more concerts at the O2 in 2013. Cohen clearly loved playing in Ireland and Irish audiences absolutely loved him too. He was also clearly making up for both lost time and money.
1978-1990 - Inner Gatefold (1990 - BEGA104, Beggars Banquet). Photograph by Paul McDermott.
I spent the summer of 1993 working as a security guard and one of my gigs was an evening shift at Boston Garden, then home of the Celtics and the Bruins.
One of my fellow security guards was from Southie and had worked the previous year when U2 played the Garden as part of the indoor arena leg of their Zoo TV tour on 17 March. Whenever I worked with this guy all he talked about was U2 and how the gig at the Garden was the greatest gig that he had ever witnessed.
I would tell him that I had seen U2 twice before: on The Joshua Tree tour at Páirc Uí Chaoimh on 8 August 1987 and on the Zoo TV tour at Foxboro Stadium on 22 August 1992. He would just look at me and laugh.
“Whatevah,” he would exclaim in his Boston accent. “U2 last yeah at da Garden on Paddy’s night was the best gig evah.” He was probably right.
The other event that always springs to mind whenever I play 1978-1990 is the tragic death of the legendary basketball player Reggie Lewis. The Boston Celtics’ shooting guard dropped dead during an off season practice session at Brandeis University on 27 July 1993. Lewis suffered sudden cardiac death and died on the basketball court, he was only 27.
I was sitting in my little portakabin when news of Lewis’ passing broke. A dozen or more TV satellite vans pulled up to the Garden. Camera crews and reporters came running towards me looking for a press statement from the Celtics.
I didn’t know who Lewis was. Eye of the storm.
Lewis’ No. 35 jersey was retired by the Celtics following his death. The Garden, which had opened as the Boston Madison Square Garden in 1928, was demolished in 1998.
These are the memories that I associate with listening to a compilation album of songs by the Australian band The Go-Betweens. Music is funny!
The Go-Betweens - ‘Streets of Your Town’ (7”, Limited Boxed Edition BEG 218B). Photograph by Paul McDermott.
I’ve never been a completist when it comes to The Go-Betweens but I have picked up a few of their singles in record fairs over the years. The ‘Streets of Your Town’ 7” Boxed Edition is my favourite Go-Betweens’ release. ‘Streets of Your Town’ was taken from the band’s sixth album 16 Lovers Lane and released as a single in 1988. Beggars released the single in a number of different formats: 7”, 12”, CD Single and this 7” Boxed Edition. The label released a number of these 7” boxed editions for their artists at the time. I remember seeing one for The Fall’s ‘Jerusalem’ single and I assume that the reason behind the different formats was to ensure that fans bought multiple copies of the single to help it achieve a higher chart placing.
The different copies of ‘Streets of Your Town’ sold enough to give the band their highest charting single in the UK: it reached No. 80 on 8 August 1988. The Go-Betweens box housed the 7” single along with a band photograph, a street plan and a button badge. ‘Streets of Your Town’ would be re-released the following year but the second edition only charted at No. 82. This band was doomed.
Band Photograph from ‘Streets of Your Town’ 7” (Limited Boxed Edition)
‘Streets of Your Town’ remains one of my favourite Go-Betweens’ tracks. I always loved the juxtaposition between the beautiful upbeat tune, Amanda Brown’s poppy backing vocals and Grant’s dark melancholic lyric:
“Don’t the sun look good today?
But the rain is on it’s way
Watch the butcher shine his knives
And this town is full of battered wives.”
The street plan is of Sydney’s King Cross area with a note at the bottom: “Dear Banquet, we all, well most of us, live somewhere on this map. You guess where. Johnny”
I got to see Forster & McLennan play live in Dublin in on 3 June 1997 at the Mean Fiddler. After the gig Grant autographed my ticket stub: “To the boy”. My friend had her stub also signed by Grant: “To the girl”.
On 4 June 1999, two years and one day later the lads returned to Dublin for another amazing night, this time at Vicar Street. They’d play Dublin three more times: in October 2000 at the Olympia, April 2003 at the Ambassador and one final time in Vicar Street in June 2004. Grant McLennan passed away on 6 May 2006. He was 48.
Further reading…
“Martin Phillipps: An Appreciation” taking in: The Chills, ‘I Love My Leather Jacket’, ‘Heavenly Pop Hit’, music videos, American tourists, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Kelly’s of Portrush and Mount Errigal.