Mel From Melbourne - Music & Words

  Kev Carmody, MONA FOMA January 2017, MONA, Tasmania, Australia. Live Review by Malachi Doyle.   I’ve been moved by the crying of the newborn The honey sweetness of the air in spring I’ve watched the moonlight flood Across them sleepy hills and valleys Heard the sadness in her requiem   I can think of no better living songwriter, Australian or otherwise, than Kev Carmody. I feel it’s important to get this on record while Kev is still with us (and I apologise if Kev, you take this as an pre-emptive epitaph, I hope you take it with humour and my deep respect), appreciating with my limited cultural knowledge, the law prohibiting the naming or showing of images of the deceased for Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders. Anyway, enough about such things, Kev is with us and at 71 remains a powerful solo performer, as witnessed by my first Carmody gig at MONA FOMA back in January 2017. I was completely knocked out and totally sober on the occasion (which I ...

  Yes   The word YES spoken is different to the word written or even read aloud.   I haven’t written about how much Aboriginal people, culture, philosophy, the whole shebang means to me.   It has radically altered my personal perspective.   It has radically challenged the pencil thin perspective of my English Grammar School education.   It has radically challenged my understanding of the English Language.   It has changed me.   I had the honour, and trust me I don’t really use that word. It’s perhaps the first time in my life I’ve meant it enough to use it. I had the honour of a chat with one of my biggest heroes, the Aboriginal Songman Kev Carmody.   I don’t know what to say In this written context.   He showed me the power of the oral poet, when for years I’d belittled it, as my tertiary education and class/sub-class does.   I believe now In the power of the oral. It’s become my main...

  JOK (Johnny O’Keefe) I’m a wanderer too     JOK (Johnny O’Keefe) I’m a wanderer too.   “If you’re a performer, That’s the level you’ve gotta give” -Rob Hirst (Midnight Oil Drummer-Vocalist) on Johnny O’Keefe.   I never saw JOK perform, but I’ve felt him tap me on the shoulder, when on stage, surrounded, as an 18 year old, by old man hecklers & rough boy c87nts. Me, who as a boy soprano soloist from a 1000 boy Boys’ Grammar School with compulsory Military Training and udder thuggery had the fortune (mis? Fortune!!!!!) to be born with a 12 year old’s boy-angel’s voice and walked with a target on my back til I faked an injury & became a French Horn player (still pitch perfect bitch!).   Anyway, my adult singing voice was never as good as my child’s voice. Lacked the strength and integrity. But you know us Australians can’t reconcile the masculine with beauty.   Ah well, What’s done is done.   Anyway...

  2 people on a day in 2023   2 people. A homeless Aboriginal lady (maybe not so homeless? Maybe just checkin out the scene from the ground) Smiled at me on the street. We talked We shared a story we’d both seen 5 minutes apart, And parted with a giggle of joy. A young Asian-Aussie girl in a shop Gave me her time and labour For no extra charge To help me design something I’d been unable to. We also parted with a happy giggle. Human kindnesses took me unaware. There are a lot of such people Such actions. They go under the radar.   © Malachi Doyle 2023.

Ok, Ian Svenonius+ So maybe   The class divide? Is it really a whole class? True I don’t really get certain segments I share my life with Due to my upbringing perhaps? But we're not talking POOR PEOPLE* This is something else He'll say  I'm splitting hairs On what is a STRUCTURAL thing   Artists in the country Often share my problem.   And those segments  We struggle with Don’t really get us Either.   Some might say that its ok to rev your engines at the lights  & make a lotta hullaballoo with your modified engines and exhausts All night Really it’s just competing interests.   Some people like to break the law a lot Speeding and driving dangerously high on something and cruising for fights. For some people it’s FRESH AIR.   The cops sure don’t seem to care. The boys are out every night outside my window Speeding past. Ah, Dandenong Road! They never seem to get caught. So why stress? ...

  What kind of poetry will be written here? (Oakleigh)   What kind of poetry will be written here? Watching a doco about Laurel County in the 60s And the bucolic spirit That fed that paradisical music   & here am I next to a freeway Pejorative ‘ heroes’ revving their V8 turbos And modified Harleys & my soul in the next room Or the very same room   Back in the 3 rd World of NOISE How good is my imagination?   A moment’s silence at 1am Recollected without tranquility As the respite is shattered 15 seconds later by the lights changing & the engines accelerate violently   But the mountains are there The forests If you’re patient you can hear them through the cock-made maelstrom   There, a few birds stir from their slumbers & utter a night song – a few notes   The breeze caresses the leaves The stars are bright tonight   It’s a clear night The moon is half way roun...

Bobby Sands as I met him Bobby Sands as I met him   Fuck who am I. Bobby Sands. The violence at home. Bobby Sands. Not really understanding. Bobby Sands. Until I was older. Bobby Sands. As I realized what a sacrifice. Bobby Sands. & what a victory. Bobby Sands. Turned public opinion. Bobby Sands. That was against the Irish. For the Irish. Bobby Sands. Bobby Sands. AABB in one verse Bobby Sands. ABAB in most. Bobby Sands. Hunger strike. Bobby Sands. People asked themselves why. Bobby Sands. Was willing to die. Bobby Sands. Things must have been unjust for. Bobby Sands. & our people. Bobby Sands. Even in Australia. Bobby Sands. At an English Grammar School. Thanks to. Bobby Sands. People started to smile at me. Bobby Sands. And want to share a Guinness with me. Bobby Sands. Later. Bobby Sands. When I went to Connemara. Bobby Sands. 25 Years later. Bobby Sands. The ballad sang. I ...

  The best musician I’ve ever played with was from Rotuma Red marker on the map shows Rotuma, you can’t actually see the Island & Islets, it’s so small – at least in area, definitely not in spirit, where my old bass player George Atu was from. He was a freak. Probably the best musician I’ve ever played with. And I've played with many so called 'famous' players. Always joking Really stupid hilarious jokes   Like when the lead singer needed neck surgery & Geoge joked “too much sperm.” Ha. You need guys like that in the band where blokes’ competing egos can quickly get toxic. George always took the tension out of the room. Rotuma. Ever heard of it? Literally in the middle of nowhere . Separate but linked to Fiji administerially. There’s probably only 2000 Rotumans in the World. But if only you could’ve heard this guy play bass!!!! Think Bootsy Collins – a bit more around the beat, less metronomic, funnier and smoother xx Perfect sense o...

Ham Sandwich of Hate   It’s really tedious having to explain the bleeding obvious. This Ham Sandwich Hate guy the teenage boys are all into. I don’t want to. I really can’t be arsed pointing out the bleeding obvious. It’s not the job of poetry. There are beautiful things to talk about. Human dignity. People helping their fellow kind & the planet. I’m sick of having waste my breathe on fuckwits.   Basically, The new ‘Cambridge Analyticas’ fake news sent to kids via fixed algorithms & paid ads, All financed by Right Wing Think Tanks Paid for by Criminal Billionaires, with the politicians in their pockets.   (No offence, but no one gets that rich without killing & raping a lot of people, peoples & land. Just the facts.) The point being to divide us all along race, class, gender etc. Divide & Rule – like the British in India.   Are people that thick that they think the internet is organic? Fuck, I’m gobsmacked at ...

 Ok I’ll stop. I wanna get a book out. It was actually my Mauritian parents in law’s idea. They like me talking. They don’t think me some horrible upstart. They like my poetry. I like the poetry of their stories and conversations. Marie is an astonishing cook, who’s cooked for the masses all over the place since a young child at the end of a brutal day. Marc is the smartest guy I’ve ever met. They would like this: It’s really for people of the 3rd World I write this book. And I don’t mean that in an exclusive way. There are plenty in so called 1st World countries. Those who’ve been around the block. Like my mother I wrote a note about to the wonderful female cabaret performer Geraldine Quinn today: Dear Geraldine, I don’t know whether you’re interested and whether you know the cabaret artist Meow Meow? But my mother (my hero) was her drama teacher/director at Firbank Grammar in Brighton. Melissa used to come to dinner at our house, back in the day when it was legal for students to ...

 The problem with writing and my eyes is bloody typos! xx

  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1937419/ At the exact moment they talk of Deptford & Lewisham (2006-2008) I was living there. I could see the radical racist right pumping its chicken tits out and then I hopped on a plane to Melbourne. I had mates getting beaten up with pipes, one killed, the place was going mental. They'd built fences around 'common (area)'s' in Blackheath (the rich basically 'whites only' pocket up the road), where I played Summer football with young ethnically diverse people from my neighbourhood. I even brought a 20 litre bottle of water, coz I know poor, desperate people don't often think of their health (it's arguable that they don't WANT to live to an old age? Who would? A good old proper Cockney guy, who let me sleep in his bed, was found dead a week later in his council flat, a few months after I’d left town). In flight, back to Melbourne, I had a psychotic breakdown. Long story short: the stewards weren't listening to...

  I was going to bang on about something...   I was going to bang on about something the Chinese laundry women at the Casino many years told me: “Don’t be so up & down. Better less high, less low”. I’m paraphrasing. They definitely had a point. I don’t really know much about the Chinese way. But that kind of middle path the Buddha talked about might be the key to wisdom?   I’ve read Lao Tzu maybe 35 times, still going…, Li Po, Tu Fu, Ai Wei Wei, a little Confucius, Chuang Tzu, the guy who came to Australia and wrote better poetry than native speakers Ouyang Yu, but not too many. I’ve watched some Western and Chinese documentaries, I’ve watch a lot of videos about Chinese Ink Brush Painting (which I love), I’ve had a couple of chats with people over the years and have really connected with each, but really I don’t know jack shit. Never been there. Never married one. Never lived with one. No idea. All I do know is that there’s something great there. Al...