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industry built on cliches and easy stereotypes it just couldnt be pigeonholed.New boots and pantijrt^ncedcd publicity in exactly the same way that Never mind the bollocks didnt. Yet, in spite of Dury’s malignant shout of “Arseholes, bastards, fucking cunts and pricks” at the beginning of a song called Plaistow Patricia — an extraordinary’ indictment of workingclass drug addiction — the “fuck” passed unnoticed by Fleet street who by this time were totally obsessed with the Pistols.A similar, if more amusing, fate awaited Ultravox’s second album, ha! ha! ha! Officially deemed a punk cum new wave band, Ultravox echo and reecho the nihilism of the early Roxy Music. While lead singer John Foxx lacks some of the Bryan Ferry elan, the group more than make up for this omission with lots of lyrical and musical muscle. So strong is the Ultravox-Roxy Music similarity that a single, Rockwrock, received something like a dozen playings from the BBC before some DJ realised that the oft repeated chorus was not a mumble but a plea to the listener to Fuck like a dog/Bite like a shark. With considerable embarrassment aunty hastily shelved the song.Final example occurred with a group called Wire. After their debacle with the Sex Pistols, EMI cautiously reboarded tl\e punk floating opera only to find they had signed a group which in a song titled Mr Suit, mentioned “fuck” no less than six times. In order to avoid embarrassment and show at least a modicum of liberalism the EMI entertainment giant decided the lyrics could be printed as follows: You can take your fxxxxxg -money, and'shove it up your arse, ’cos you think you understand, well it's a fxxxxxg farce, I’m tired of fxxxxxg phonies, that’s right I’m tired oj you.Irony of ironies, and a fitting summation to the whole issue of “fuck” on record, the besuited clown who insisted on asterisking his way to infamy obviously didnt listen to the record. Mr Suit is sung at such breakneck speed that not even the keenest ears could have worked out what the group was singing about. Moralists always expose themselves.Under the red lightJohn DaviesPACT FOLKChapter house, St Andrews cathedral (finishes Saturday)ABOVE US was a shadowy gothic interior hung with portraits of long forgotten clergymen. A fine atmospheric setting for a folk concert. During Terry Dowling’s performance of The collector a figure dressed as Death, scythe and all, strolled among the audience saying, “I’ll catch up with you later.”Later, one giant red eye looked on as performers led the audience in a jubilant hand clapping chorus of Wayne Harris’ Sure fire, f you want it you can get it if you need it then dont regret itThese are two of the highlights in a two and a half hour feast of mostly original songs performed by Pact Folk as their contribution toGeorge Mannix — testing deathk •the Festival of Sydney. For only two dollars admission, plus a free cup of coffee, it's w.orth looking into.optimism and decency and maybe all us abused swinging voters and chippocrats will get interested again.KEVIN McELHONE, Savage river, Tas.Mellow yellow fellowsWHILE THE Vietnamese ex boat people flock here, thanks to the australian airlift (having informed immigration officials that “they would enter Australia in illegal boats if not given proper refugee status” — the Age, 29 december) 500 homeless - unemployed Melbourne men sleep nightly in the streets and parks because the shelters arc full.Meanwhile the Vietnamese are housed in hostels, fed, given english lessons pronto, and interviewed immediately for jobs,, though one at least had the honesty to admit he is simply a trained killer, adding: “Many other Vietnamese are like me. We have no profession except war.” (The Age of the same date.)Let Australia send these Vietnamese on to their american allies who deserted them in the hour of their total defeat. And I would suggest a careful reading by all australians of Giai phong! by Ter-ziano Terziani, to get some idea of the new Vietnam being constructed after 100 years of french, japanese and american invasion and occupation, plus 15 years of the most hideous and brutal war of history. Vietnam is, incidentally, a country of full cm-ployment, although, there, as everywhere, everyone does not necessarily have the job he wants.Meanwhile the Vietnamese guards who were drugged; ovfefc oowered and chained to their bunks by our nice new migrants, so that they could seize a boat belonging to the Vietnamese government, remain in Darwin, despite their pleas to return home. We are adept however at sending some “illegal” immigrants home, like Hushamyud-din Rais, who faced imprisonment and torture if he returned toMalaysia, and the severalChileans who were returned, and promptly disappeared into Pinochet's concentration camps.From p«g« 2 !Debutantes Ball, mid 60s, Berkeley. Dylan: “Protest was the only thing happening in New York”, too.Lasch (NR, ,29 december) speaks of “social warfare” implying “dog cat dog”, but speaks not of class warfare. He says, though, “The poor have always had to live for the present, but now a desperate concern for personal survival, sometimes disguised as hedonism, engulfs the middle class as well.” The petit bourgeois is being proletarised. Endowed with a bourgeois ideology (“the middle class as well”) befitting his aspirations newly vanished (world depression 77-78), he wishes to disguise brutalisation which the new rcalpolitik bespeaks, as consciousness-raising, etc. Thus the declining second world seeks out the most reactionary aspects of the third (religion, quietism, theMany Sydneysiders will remember Pact Folk from the years 1966-70 when people like Doug Ashdown and Jeannie Lewis were its pioneers.. When the folk scene drifted awayfrom Pact to other venues under other$auspices, it soldiered on producing mainly pantomimes and experimental theatre “pieces”. In 1976 director George Mannix had an itch to revive the concerts. He tested a form using theatrical elements (eg. Death) andpoetry selections to cue in the songs. Audience reaction was enthusiastic and having found his perfect form, Mannix has stuck to it. There were two concerts last year and the current concert marks the official rebirth of the Folk in Pact.To anyone who saw the concerts last year, particularly Fast colors at the Australian Music Centre, the Mannix formula will be familiar. Plastic sheets are hung as veils, defining the space and giving a hint of the seraglio. The audience sits scattered on the floor in shifting pools of light. Performers move freely among them closing the gap between performer and audience, so that both share each other’s experience of the music. It’s simple but effective.Of course the main strength of a Pact concert is in its two singer-songwriters, Terry Dowling and Wayne Harris.Dowling is a cerebral songwriter more deliberately involved in the creation of mythologies, which he feels are necessary for a healthy musical tradition. There is a sea shanty narrative flavor to many of his songs w.hich goes well with his warm, cheerful style. He is certainly the more developed in his disposition of subject matter, ranging from the pirate captain meets whore narrative of Blue marlin whore, the menacing excitement of Sea change or Minotaur, and the dark whimsy of The superswifts.totalitarianism of the One), while glutting itself (wholly, partially or piecemeal) on the symbols of the decay of the first (vanity, war on all fronts, Rome burning). Fatalism — we’ll all flow together at Armageddon.Not all of the petite bourgeoisie is engrossed in the evaporating self. Like teachers unions learning to strike despite their professionalism myth, more of this class can only find that their interests resemble those of “blue collar” workers. Mahatma Gandhi put down peasant revolts in the name of hindu communism. Who’s fighting who?TONY RONALDSON.Enmore. NSVVThey should be committedTHE TROUBLE witK'ihe Labor r party at the moment is one of its main sources of support isnt committed. The intellectuals and pseudo intellectuals who support it are preoccupied, getting pissed on reds and whites and barbecuing pork chops, (whilst acting like them).they loll about, playing the role of political commentators, but in fact contributing nothing in real terms. Surely, if these mental giants applied their intellectual superiority to the practicalities of politics, then the Crazy Grazier’s power, base, the cretins of the middle class, could be turned around.Alas, this is not the case. The wife of the host in Don‘s parry summed up accurately: “They’re just a bunch of shirts.”ANDY TROUSDALE,Armadale, Vic.Doug Ashdown has already recorded some of Dowling’s songs as a demo tape. These should be worth hearing if they are ever incorporated on an Ashdown album because among them is Gantry Jack, superbly lyrical and one of Dowling’s best.Wayne Harris is more elusive in his subject matter. He can beguile you with a nostalgia trip in his Bitter sweet baby or rock along in Sweet O/S blues, and then stop you cold with torment “stretched fine as glass” in a song like Horses. There is a grandeur in his more spectacular songs (Sure fire), which provides ideal high points for each concert and his skill as a performer is riveting, especially when he’s into one of his torment numbers.With a duo like this fronting his productions George Mannix is hard pressed to find strong female support vocals, but he found the right combination last year with Michele Thompson and Camille Gardner.Ms Thompson, a tall blonde who could make an archbishop kick a hole in a stained glass window, is still with the group and singing better than ever. Ms Gardner is missing from the current concert, having moved on to sing in the revival of Godspell.That’s the way it is with Pact. It proved it-' self as a nurturing ground in the 60s with Doug Ashdown et al. Now that Pact Folk is officially reborn, get along to see Dowling, Harris et al while they're still good and cheap. You’ll have to pay more than two dollars to see them when this lot move on to other venues under other auspices.Whosenews?I REFER to the contribution from your “media spy” entitled ALP asset stripping (NR, 22 december).Neither the Labor party nor Labor Enterprises Pty Ltd holds, or has ever held, shares in the North Queensland Newspaper Company Limited, proprietors and publishers of the Townsville x daily bulletin.The facts regarding the shareholding in ^Telccasters NQ Ltd are also 'at variance with statements made in your article. Reference to that company’s published balance sheet at 30 june 1977 shows in accordance with the provisions of the companies act, that North Queensland Newspapers held 161,564 shares at the date.Similarly the accounts of Mackay Television Ltd show only one substantial shareholder, ie. owning in excess of ten percent of the issued capital. This was the estate of the late 7ohn Taylor with 79,196 shares, or 12.37 percent.We should be glad if you would publish the true facts in’ your next issue,. . .. J. G. R. MANION,company secretary, North Queensland Newspaper Co.. S.• Townsville, QldOur media spy writes:Mr Manion correctly points out that Labor Enterprises does not hold shares in the Townsville daily bulletin as stated in the article. Mr Mankm is also correct in saying that the North Queensland Newspaper Company, publisher of the Townsville daily bulletin, does not have a 25 percent interest in Mackay television. Latest information suggests a five percent interest. ,12 - january 1978 NATION REVIEW . 21The thrust of the original story, however, remains valid: theQueensland branch of ^tbe ALP had stripped ^ Its share portfolio in Telecasters North Queensland, (operator of TNQ 7, Townsvilleand FNQ 10, Cairns) to the tone of $336,000 to cover campaign costs.The facts regarding the virtual monopoly of north Queensland media by the group, its subsidiaries, related companies and interlocking directorates are shown by the Mankm letter to be even n^ore worrying than our soprce, the last report of the Australian Broadcasting Control Board,1 suggests.In a single year the newspaper interest — publisher o! the region’s only daily (apart from the small Cairns post) — expanded its shareholding in- the region’s only commercial TV operation • from 66,762 shares (eight percent) to161,564 shares (20 percent). Anything over 15 percent is regarded by the broadcasting and televisioti act as a controlling interest.Stuff you allYOUR CORRESPONDENT D. R. Wiltshire (NR. 15 december) should at least try and disguise his rhetoric and do a little soul searching before his bloody australian holier-than-thou attitude takes flight into full blown australian national socialism. What sort of my-gang-and-your-gan$ crap is this ” Labor is a gut feeling” anyway?And the sooner MacCallum, Hurst, Ellis and the rest of your intellectual have nots take a good laxative and spend half a day on the dunny and at least try and rid themselves of all that post election we-lost-fuck-the-pcoplc shit that seems to be backed up to their bleeding eyeballs the sooner they might get to grips with the political world as it is now.I arrived here from England (which makes me english not a pommy bastard so fuck you Wiltshire) in 1970 and every crisis since then, every economic twist and turn and all the catch phrases have been dead ringers for the early Harold Wilson days. A straight deja vu feeling for the same heady days of the arrival ofthe new populist, socialist. * never to be heard of again.technocratic . revolution that was going to happen but never did because politicians are politicians and live in a world of their own creation and the game’s about profits and who pays and the happiness of the people at least some of the time really docsnt matter until election time and then it’s just another phrase to stir the loyalists.I was vaguely sorry that all you Australian Labor Party people lost, you really tried, but when I read the cheap, vindictive, puerile shit that so many of your correspondents sprayed out on to these pages then thank Christ you bastards never made it.It’s not as though the ALP any more than the british Labour party has all that much to do with socialism anyway. Neither Labor grouping really cares a rat’s arse about people as individuals; we’re just a mob of sheep to be led to the hustings to put the Labor people or others in power and whoever is in it’s still people like me and the people I work with in this mine that are going to get shafted by inflation or unemployment.Well stuff that, and stuff all you academic Labor party people. Fraser may be the obvious class enemy, but at least he’s the genuine article, a fine bone headed bastion »of the australian ruling class doing it pretty much his way and not giving much of a fuck for what anyone thinks.And you know what? I think ye average aussie loves it because he can identify it and in many ways wants to be every bit as big a shit as he thinks Fraser is. And that is so especially true of ALP union heavies (Hawke possibly excepted) because basically they want to hold the same power and shaft the people using different word games.So many of the ALP faithful have become in their own personalities precisely the bloody-minded, vindictive, power hungry, jackbooted enemy of the. people that maybe, just maybe, they started out opposing.Finally on a personal level the pure hatred of the enemy —: the Liberals, — and the openly expressed contempt for the people, is fouling this paper to such an extent that I’m beginning to won-’der what the hell it’-s doing to my emotional-political commitment.So, Mungo. Ellis, Hurst et al. take a break, get drunk, go swimming, go find a friendly woman to fuck with, catch a fish, but for Christ’s sake relax. I’ve no hope it will happen because maybe you want to keep your wounds open so you can bleed before the world but maybe you could get off Fraser as a target of hate (his own hubris will fix him eventually) and get on to helping build another blueprint for a society ofChilean and Uruguayan refugees attempting to escape from two of Latin America’s worst dictatorships must wait at least nine months for a visa IF their trade happens to be one required in Australia, and IF they have the right qualifications in that trade — regulations which apparently do not apply to Vietnamese military officers. The latin amcricans can’t very well cross the Pacific in boats, nor do they arrogantly inform the australian government that they intend to stay, legally or illegally. A BBC documentary shown on ABC on 10 december gave a vivid account of the horrors of life for the vast majority of Chileans today.So it seems that all migrants are equal, but somehow the Vietnamese are very much more equal than others.EMILY MACLEOD.Melbourne. Vic.Save Aunty . again .CAN YOU imagine life without AM. PM. TDT, The science show and orchestral concerts? It is only a few weeks away unless listeners and viewers of the ABC are willing to fight, yet again, for the continuation of the ABC as an independent. viable broadcasting system.The ABC is again short of money, caused not by overspending. but by inflation and the smallness of their budget allocation.They have not lowered their staff numbers to the ceiling set by the government.This poses an interesting point — the ABC is said to be an independent statutory authority, if this is so what right has the government to tell it how many people it may, or may not, employ?The ABC is said to have several options open to it. it can sack staff, cut transmission hours, cut programs or disband orchestras.A year ago the ABC was in the same position. A large public outcry forced the government into granting an extra 55 million.Ir is time to- protest again. To write to the prime minister, the minister for post and telecommunications and to your own parliamentary representative stating how important you believe it is to have a healthy ABC, able to bring us without fear of interference, informative, entertaining and educational programs and high standard orchestral concerts.MEG PA UL, hon. sec..Aunty's Nieces and Nephews,Camberwell, Vic.I Andrew Nichofis on the ABC,
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Cremorne Junction Nation Review
Cremorne Junction, New South Wales, AU
Thu, Jan 12, 1978
Page 21
Full Page
Clipped by
Boyd C.
KY, USA 09 Sep 2018
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