Does anyone actually give a shit about the Go Betweens at ALL?
 

I mean honestly.:rolleyes:

no,,,,,,,,,,,:fuckyou:

Aussiephobe

I like all of which I've heard. I tried asking around for some Go Betweens vinyl but everyone seemed to think that it was a silly question.

Was that because you meant you wanted vinyl specifically?

I was in a secondhand store that specialises in vinyl.

i've got one of their albums and it has some nice songs on it, i ought to look into their other records really

It's just weird that they're almost famous for being unknown, but I thought they'd had some kind of indian summer of success, or something. But now they seem even less popular than ever. Truly one of the great musical mysteries of our time.

In what country do you live, demonrail?

Iceland. It's all fucking Bjork and Sigur Ros around here.

and whale killers!!!

Racist

its all greenpeace talk about when they mention iceland in their news letters

Ecophile

I actually found Bellavista Terrace: The Best of the Go-Betweens, today.

Fine band.

What's their reputation like in Australia? In Europe they have this massive (almost obsessive) cult following that can never quite understand how they never really made it bigger. I don't think they have much of a following at all in the States.

They don't have much of a following here. I'm sure alot of people into music in the 80s would all know of the Go-Betweens, but as a whole these days, I never hear about them from people. Although a bunch of musicians here all got together and put on a Go-Betweens tribute gig which was pretty fuckin' cool which was aired nationally.

That's sort of what I meant when I said they used to famously obscure. Now they're just obscure.

In the cover of this album Robert Forster says something similar. I could quote it but my cat's laying on the case so I won't disturb him.

no why?

I don't

Really? I thought you would.

My point exactly.

Cattle and Cane is the best song. Ever.

never heard of them

I like a few songs, but I'm not really fan.

I've listened to odd tracks and thought they were pretty decent, i'ts just that ive never really cared enough to buy an album or anything. Maybe i should now though...

Hard to disagree with that.

"The Streets Of Your Town" is perfect summer listening.

From the New Yorker:



Critic's Notebook

The Great Between

by Sasha Frere-Jones May 29, 2006



On May 6, Grant McLennan, one of two songwriters in the Australian band the Go-Betweens, died of a heart attack at his home in Brisbane, at the age of forty-eight. Though they formed the band in 1978, in the punk era, McLennan and his writing partner, Robert Forster, created an aesthetic that had little to do with volume, speed, or noise. They wrote plainspoken, serious, and intentionally literate pop songs that rarely cracked wise or hollered out loud. McLennan’s gorgeous song “Cattle and Cane,” from 1983, was voted by the Australasian Performing Right Association as one of the greatest modern Australian songs. The song is neither loud nor soft. It maintains a tension that it decides never to release. A simple but oddly timed motif is played in unison by guitar, bass, and kick drum. McLennan pauses between words, flickering between melancholy and a sense of wonder that we can remember things to be melancholy about: “I recall a boy in bigger pants / Like everyone just waiting for a chance / His father’s watch, he left it in the showers / From time to time / The waste, memory wastes.”