Dumb Earth
Peter Fenton
Golden Rough
@ The Hopetoun Hotel, Surry Hills, Sydney
Thursday, November 22, 2001
A short while ago I was lamenting the decreasing diversity of the Sydney scene - by which I meant of course the diversity of good music, not the diversity of rap and techo and the like, which I cannot abide (as you probably are already aware). Peter Fenton (pictured left) is one artist who certainly could never be accused of such conformity. He is someone who proves that it is still possible to fall well outside every category imaginable and yet still find a niche... Perhaps there is some hope after all.
Throughout the '90s, Fenton led Crow - a band I was only dimly aware of, not catching up with them until their last ever Sydney performance (not only was it billed as such, but I heard someone standing behind me in the crowd remark to his mate, "Geez, even Peter's mum is here, they must really be calling it quits"). Even then, my attendance at that show was due mainly to an interest in Fenton himself, which sprang from a chance encounter with his side project, "Peter Fenton's Slinky Moonlight Review", having stumbled upon them playing a support spot at the Annandale one night. I found the music and the performance itself so arresting that I actively sought out further gigs when they played, generally at minimal or no cover charge, at the Lansdowne or the Rose Of Australia and I subsequently discovered a little more about the combo's eponymous leader.
The "Review" itself was a disheveled and variable conglomeration of Fenton's friends and musical acquaintances, sometimes sounding fairly rocky, sometimes sounding more like a disorganised country & western-cum-Las Vegas tribute night at the Rooty Hill RSL, but always entertaining - either musically or in a voyeuristic, slow motion car accident kind of way; a heartwarming display of reckless bravado in the face of disorganisation and mounting disaster. Over the period that I followed it, the ensemble also shed members regularly like some hapless police vehicle in an old Keystone Cops movie, ejecting the Mack Sennett regulars one by one as it bounces down the side of a hill...
Fenton stopped appearing around the traps for a while, turning up instead as one of the lead actors in the acclaimed film "Praise", followed by a regular role in the ABC drama series "Love is a Four Letter Word". There he played Angus O'Neil, the disorganized, bewildered and besieged part owner of an inner city pub, fighting off a rising tide of poker machines, greedy developers, noise complaints and angry local residents while simultaneously dealing with a girlfriend infatuated with her sister's undertaker, an assistant barman with a severe gambling problem and the fact that he was the father of the child being carried by his father's pregnant new wife... High drama indeed!
After a promising start, the writers of the series lost their way and it was not renewed after the end of the first season, leaving Fenton free to return to live performing. I actively avoided the first few return performances, expecting that his greatly increased public profile would lead to the shows being packed out, but finally I could bear to stay away no longer, especially as the Dumb Earth were making a rare journey up from Melbourne.
This gig turned out to be a solo show and though well attended for a Thursday night, it wasn't nearly as packed out as I had feared it might be. When I had mentioned to a friend that I was going to see Fenton, he asked, "Does he tell jokes or just compere?", seemingly unaware of Fenton's lengthy musical resume, which may indicate that television celebrity does not translate as directly into musical renown or extra punters through a pub door as one might expect.
First act of the evening was the poppy four piece Golden Rough. Since they found themselves playing to a very sparse crowd, they used the opportunity to present a collection of mostly new and unrecorded songs that they are currently working on for a new album. Overall the new material was catchy, melodic in a manner sometimes suggestive of UK Squeeze and far less countrified than I remember them being in the past.
By the time it was time for Mr Fenton to take the stage, resplendent in green velvet jacket, the crowd had increased considerably. Settling himself down at the electric piano at the side of the stage, he started by adjusting the position of his chair, much to the horror of the members of Golden Rough now seated at a table just in front of the stage, as they could see that Fenton had the back legs of the chair less than an inch from the edge of the stage. One more slight adjustment to the placement of the chair and it was likely to be "Goodbye Peter"!
A later problem with his guitar strap only served to reinforce the precarious nature of the performance, always seeming to be just one slip of the foot either way between triumph and catastrophe, like someone walking a tightrope above a volcano. Through it all though, the music continued almost entirely unaffected, adversity and mortal danger being just two colours in a palette that easily encompasses anguish, affliction, loss and torment... and occasionally a little joy. A decent helping of angst and suffering to be sure, but I have never fully understood the comparisons which are sometimes made to the Birthday Party.
Tonight the setlist included quite a few songs I didn't recognise, plus one or two old favourites from the Crow catalogue, including "Mollusc", which was one of the highlights for me of that last Crow show and now turns out surprisingly to be a cover of a Ween song. Where Crow's music at its best often sounded like it was destined to be played outdoors during a violent thunderstorm, the solo material sounds more like the soundtrack of a film about castaways stranded after a shipwreck (but you'd still use Crow for the actual shipwreck scene).
The Dumb Earth were up in Sydney to promote their new album, "Blessings In Disguise", which apparently was almost two years in the making. Though technically the band has been together for over eight years, this is only their second full length album. The six piece line up of the band includes two former Lizard Train members, David Creese and Chris Willard, but there any similarity ends abruptly. Not surprisingly, several years ago the band relocated from Adelaide to Melbourne, where they have found the scene far more nurturing of their horn based free jazz (with the vocals being handled by drummer David Creese).
Any time I hear jazz with a semi-spoken monologue over the top, I find it extremely hard not to think of the Bonzo Dog Band's comical "Big Shot", which consequently makes it hard to take seriously music employing the same form, no matter how seriously intended. However, when I was able to put such thoughts out of my mind, the music was very beguiling, fluctuating between sounding like Leonard Cohen fronting Hunters and Collectors and what a Tex Perkins solo album might sound like if Tex was actually Louis Tillett.
Footnote: The Peter Fenton mentioned above should not be confused with the author of "Sport the Way I Speak It", sometimes known as the rugby world's "Unofficial Poet Laureate", nor the motion picture sound mixer nor the authority on Tibetan and holistic healing for that matter.- John McPharlin
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