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Inbetween Days

Andrew Collins — New Musical Express, June 1989

"It doesn’t matter how far you’ve come/You’ve always got further to go"
Quiet Heart

Measure this six-album, five-member band from Australia by the Top 40 yardstick, and they don’t even figure; in mainstream terms, the Go-Betweens don’t exist. But all over the world there exist pockets of Go-Betweens fans who’d soon stick a flower in the barrel of your critical rifle if you suggested that this was just a cult band. In enough circles to defy coincidence, the Go-Betweens are the best band in the world.

The Go-Betweens have just flown into Glasgow from Germany. Tomorrow they leave for Spain. Tonight they play Govan Town Hall, and they’re ‘based’ in Sydney. In effect, this band are all ‘Go’ and very little in-between.

Their most recent album, 16 Lovers Lane, is almost a year old now. The ‘new’ single, Streets Of Your Town, has already been released once before. Yet The Go-Betweens’ current live set showcases the album like it’s still two weeks warm. Don’t they feel sort of in-between?

"Not really," explains quite tall drummer Lindy Morrison, "because we’ve been touring since the album came out, and all the time we’re coming to new countries."

So we shift through the single and the album anyway. Hell, this is music with a shelf life to shame tinned soup. Five compositions apiece by founder members Robert Forster and Grant McLennan that reflect upon the affairs of a quiet heart in such a thorough and evocative way, anyone would think love is all you need.

Except the ‘new’ single, oddly enough, isn’t about love, but tarmac.

Robert describes Streets as "light and crisp," as good as a song as any to be going along with.

"It’s far too natural for the charts," states Lindy, proudly.

Does that bother you, the prospect of yet another miscarriage of musical justice?

"Not after this amount of time!"

Travel, as they say, broadens the mind. Airport departure lounges, however, batter it and shrink it until your head rattles. Are The Go-B’s good fliers?

"I am," boasts Lindy, "but Robert’s dreadful."

"Especially on small internal flights where I can count the number of people on the plane," confirms Robert. "Our manager’s advice when you go on a flight like that is to imagine it’s the last day of your life – which isn’t very good advice."

Even if you died, there’s probably a departure lounge before you get to Heaven or Hell.

"At least everyone’s going somewhere," says Lindy, optimistically. "A least everyone’s got a motivation in that place. That’s what I like."

The Go-Betweens’ name suggests movement, transit, and in truth they are a band of travelling minstrels. Govan Town Hall is their destination tonight.

A piece of architecture south of The River Clyde, Govan Town Hall becomes The McEwans Lager Music Centre for its part in Glasgow’s ‘Who Needs Edinburgh’ Mayfest 89 celebrations. It’s the kind of user hostile venue where you can’t take your plastic glass from the bar to the auditorium, where the dressing rooms are haunted by the smallpond impasse of bygone committee meetings, and the word gig’ sounds rather frivolous and modern, but Govan Town Hall is breathing tonight, its inappropriate wood panelled interior is resounding with love songs, thanks to a band of Australians. And I must admit, I didn’t think they could pull it off. The Go-Betweens are, on yet another occasion, in yet another foreign place the best band in the world.

A warm reception? You could boil an egg. The venue itself might not deserve the sweet heartstring violin of Amanda Brown, Forster and McLennan’s guitar frenzy, or choruses as uplifting and plaintive as Right Here – but the kids certainly do.

In the Mayfest programme, this is ‘The Go-Betweens (Australia)’. Like it or not, and pitched against such cosmo variants as ZvukiMu (USSR), Yolocalmba I-Ta (El Salvador) and Pop Will Eat Itself (England), they’re representing their country. Are they patriotic?

"Not in the least," replies Lindy. I think Nationalism’s quite dangerous."

Is there a fundamental difference between an Australian and, say, an Englishman?

"Totally different. Amazingly different!" says Robert.

Is it the climate?

"I think it’s passed down from generation to generation," suggests Lindy. "I can’t imagine the rampant chauvinism displayed by Australian males is genetic. I hope not anyway! They probably learn it in the first year.

"The exertion of the will as a discipline has not been one that’s been encouraged in the 20th Century. I won’t go into it, because Robert’s heard this for 10 years – he’ll go crazy if I go into it but I’m taking an antipsychology approach. That’s all.

Is love truly universal?

"If you’re not starving or cold," Lindy says. "If you’re not trying to survive in countries where one can lead a more luxuriant life, love is universal."

So is love a bourgeois commodity, then?

"No, no, no, no, no," she answers, aware of a blunder.

"Isn’t it just a matter of meeting someone?" offers Robert, wisely. "Our albums have always dealt with love. The love song is a very good vehicle by which to bring in many other things It’s like someone who writes war novels, or someone who goes out and makes a Western – you can put anything outside of the West into a Western. Because we called this album 16 Lovers Lane it’s brought attention to this fact that Grant and I are love song writers."

This is true, but while earlier Go-Betweens material has taken a sideways swipe at Love, 16 Lovers Lane is virtually a concept album in comparison; lyrically, it’s so unified and focused and instrumentally so fluffy.

"Fluffy?" Robert enquires, curious rather than mortally wounded.

Alright, fluffy with thorns. Your love songs are liberally peppered with doubts, fears, ironies and stains the usual clauses.

"It’s just being realistic. These details a lot of other people avoid them, but to me, small things, small misunderstandings, surprises these minor points, are what a relationship is based on. We’re realistic writers."

"Gradually all the innercities while the black and the poor people live have been taken over by the council, if Brisbane was partly taken over – the government was moving out all the poor and redeveloping those areas for business Consequently, when people are uprooted, there’s a lot of domestic violence."

So what are the streets of Brisbane paved with ?

"Literally, they’re paved with melting tar. It’s so hot the bitumen is always melting and it’s black and sticky and if you walk on the roads it sticks to your shoes."

Phew! It’s like a greenhouse in here. The sun has always symbolised hope, sweetness, light and warmth. But recently, with ecoparanoia running riot, folk are getting increasingly scared of sunshine. Sunbathing can damage your health.

"One in three people gets skin cancer in Queensland – that’s an interesting figure," points out Lindy, "I’ll tell you what though, the sun does enliven you. It does. You are less depressed in a sunny climate!

"The sun isn’t a problem in Australia any more," adds Robert, enlivened, because they’ve developed these creams ranging from one to 15. So with 15 it’s virtually paint and if keeps out the sun. Now if someone like the Egyptians had had this cream, the pyramids might not have been built. Perhaps if they’d had this stuff they’d have looked like Swedish people!"

Just as airport lounges are neutral ground between A and B, 16 Lovers Lane is not an end in itself. True, it’s a celebration of how far the Go-Betweens have come, but it’s not the answer.

I ask Robert if my opening quote might sum up the Go-Betweens.

"I think it’s a good line, but I think there are more conclusions."

But surely life is only worth living because it s never complete the gaps and the open ends drive us on.

"That’s almost existentialism," says Lindy. How embarrassing. Robert is still musing over the line (Grant wrote it).

"It’s the sort of thing where you trek up half of Tibet, searching for the man with all the answers. You sit down and ask him the meaning of life, and he says ‘It doesn’t matter how far you we come, you’ve always got further to go.’ I would say, ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ I’d probably slap him around a little bit, go to a nearby bar, have a drink."

The Go-Betweens are a largely unironed and unresolved proposition. The day they complete the equation – that glorious, intricate, abstract calculation which has filled pockets and poured hearts out for a good 12 years now – will be a crap day indeed.