The Cannanes - A pearler of an afternoon around a Witchetty Pole at an Arty Barbecue discussing the Short Poppy Syndrome
Sometimes it is not about being complicated. Or about looking good. Sometimes the most simplistic is easily overlooked; rarely overrated.
Sound can be synonymous with place and time. The Cannanes take me back to my lounge room in that neglected Deco apartment, on the corner of Stanley and Yurong, where I spent my early twenties. Or watching them night after night at the Lansdowne and the venues they played in a spikey radius around Sydney's inner city.
The Cannanes won't appeal to you with spiel or spin. They leave the detail where it matters most. Their simplicity and seeming naivety bely rich, wry and even poignant lyrics championing themes from the unfortunate ends of innocent animals, to political satires and irony. It's easy to underestimate them from the music alone. But anyone spending more than a few moments listening to their work would be a fool to do so. If you look a little deeper, you start to see the difference between a Cheerio serial and something you need to chew back on. It's been a while for me, and from when The Cannanes played regularly around those haunts. Maybe your lifetime, maybe your adulthood. Time is relevant, and not.
Last week I was reminded again of how outside their time The Cannanes were, by what was chrystalised in a pearler of a song. Usually, on this blog, I break down a whole album for you, and even then neither of us can be satisfied by the nuance in great albums that doesn't get its time. Albums like Short Poppy Syndrome won't satisfy such disclosure and disclaimer.
The Cannanes put in plain sight what we should have noticed, but what is often overlooked. So much of what they recorded remains timeless in the Australian urban context, but there are some things you are going to have to look up to fully understand the context. That's not such a bad thing; a little research can go a long way to expanding your bandwidth in anything that is intrinsically important to you. If you are looking for the foundation of what has made Australian music respected and innovative, then you should look up Chad's Tree or The Skolars from "Ode to Tim"; or the Falling Joys* from "You're Gorgeous". Listen to the reflection undone for your vicarious perversion that still stays on this side of PC in "Cricket Club Porn Night", and for a wake-up call that remains timeless despite 25 years, listen to "Pearl". How far we have yet to go.
Ironically, if you think that contemporary Melbourne music is anywhere near innovative, you have to look a little broader and delve a little deeper. So much of what is going down now would have been droned out of the Nice and Easy radio stations when The Cannanes were making a difference. It was, to some extent, overlooked here. But large markets give space to small innovations, and their work did not go unnoticed by the US Feel Good All Over (run by John Henderson who was instrumental in bring bands such as The Cannanes, Ashtray Boy [featuring Randall Lee], Crabstick [including David Nichols, his brother Michael and James Currin] and Nice [featuring Randall and Francesca Bussey] to America), Ajax (who released recordings for Ashtray Boy and David Kilgour of The Clean) and K labels (who released some of the first recordings of Beck, Built to Spill, Chain and the Gang, Melvins and Modest Mouse).
It's easy to write off anything before your birthday or your foray into nascent adulthood as passé, but if you've weathered a backyard barbecue in a sun-washed summer listening to beer-soaked anecdotes, take some time with The Cannanes. In Australia, we don't suffer tall poppies. Don't take yourself so seriously. Cut some slack.
Listen to a few of their albums here:
Short Poppy Syndrome
Witchetty Pole
Arty Barbecue
You can find their complete discography here:
http://cannanes.com/disc.html
Follow them here:
https://www.facebook.com/Cannanes/
https://www.cannanes.com/
Look for a piece of your own action here:
https://www.discogs.com/artist/67449-The-Cannanes
https://www.discogs.com/label/153733-Not-On-Label-The-Cannanes-Self-Released
https://www.discogs.com/label/58017-Ajax-Records-2
https://www.discogs.com/label/886-K
* Personal anecdote: The Falling Joys were once miss-billed as 'Famous' at the Petersham Inn. What was the Petersham Inn? It was an innovative, responsive venue that hosted everything from mixing-desk workshops for women, to nights of total nudity. Read Tex by Tex Perkins and get a first-hand insight of how one side of the Sydney music scene worked, and a perspective of how far "the Music Capital" of Melbourne has to go. Find a slice of Tex here.
Sound can be synonymous with place and time. The Cannanes take me back to my lounge room in that neglected Deco apartment, on the corner of Stanley and Yurong, where I spent my early twenties. Or watching them night after night at the Lansdowne and the venues they played in a spikey radius around Sydney's inner city.
The Cannanes won't appeal to you with spiel or spin. They leave the detail where it matters most. Their simplicity and seeming naivety bely rich, wry and even poignant lyrics championing themes from the unfortunate ends of innocent animals, to political satires and irony. It's easy to underestimate them from the music alone. But anyone spending more than a few moments listening to their work would be a fool to do so. If you look a little deeper, you start to see the difference between a Cheerio serial and something you need to chew back on. It's been a while for me, and from when The Cannanes played regularly around those haunts. Maybe your lifetime, maybe your adulthood. Time is relevant, and not.
Last week I was reminded again of how outside their time The Cannanes were, by what was chrystalised in a pearler of a song. Usually, on this blog, I break down a whole album for you, and even then neither of us can be satisfied by the nuance in great albums that doesn't get its time. Albums like Short Poppy Syndrome won't satisfy such disclosure and disclaimer.
The Cannanes put in plain sight what we should have noticed, but what is often overlooked. So much of what they recorded remains timeless in the Australian urban context, but there are some things you are going to have to look up to fully understand the context. That's not such a bad thing; a little research can go a long way to expanding your bandwidth in anything that is intrinsically important to you. If you are looking for the foundation of what has made Australian music respected and innovative, then you should look up Chad's Tree or The Skolars from "Ode to Tim"; or the Falling Joys* from "You're Gorgeous". Listen to the reflection undone for your vicarious perversion that still stays on this side of PC in "Cricket Club Porn Night", and for a wake-up call that remains timeless despite 25 years, listen to "Pearl". How far we have yet to go.
Ironically, if you think that contemporary Melbourne music is anywhere near innovative, you have to look a little broader and delve a little deeper. So much of what is going down now would have been droned out of the Nice and Easy radio stations when The Cannanes were making a difference. It was, to some extent, overlooked here. But large markets give space to small innovations, and their work did not go unnoticed by the US Feel Good All Over (run by John Henderson who was instrumental in bring bands such as The Cannanes, Ashtray Boy [featuring Randall Lee], Crabstick [including David Nichols, his brother Michael and James Currin] and Nice [featuring Randall and Francesca Bussey] to America), Ajax (who released recordings for Ashtray Boy and David Kilgour of The Clean) and K labels (who released some of the first recordings of Beck, Built to Spill, Chain and the Gang, Melvins and Modest Mouse).
It's easy to write off anything before your birthday or your foray into nascent adulthood as passé, but if you've weathered a backyard barbecue in a sun-washed summer listening to beer-soaked anecdotes, take some time with The Cannanes. In Australia, we don't suffer tall poppies. Don't take yourself so seriously. Cut some slack.
Listen to a few of their albums here:
Short Poppy Syndrome
Witchetty Pole
Arty Barbecue
You can find their complete discography here:
http://cannanes.com/disc.html
Follow them here:
https://www.facebook.com/Cannanes/
https://www.cannanes.com/
Look for a piece of your own action here:
https://www.discogs.com/artist/67449-The-Cannanes
https://www.discogs.com/label/153733-Not-On-Label-The-Cannanes-Self-Released
https://www.discogs.com/label/58017-Ajax-Records-2
https://www.discogs.com/label/886-K
* Personal anecdote: The Falling Joys were once miss-billed as 'Famous' at the Petersham Inn. What was the Petersham Inn? It was an innovative, responsive venue that hosted everything from mixing-desk workshops for women, to nights of total nudity. Read Tex by Tex Perkins and get a first-hand insight of how one side of the Sydney music scene worked, and a perspective of how far "the Music Capital" of Melbourne has to go. Find a slice of Tex here.
Comments
Post a Comment