The pokey terrace in Abbotsford didn't seem so dark when I played the Rickie Lee Jones albums; the trains not so loud, the Hoddle St traffic not so near, the ghostly factory not so empty.
It’s not a mistake to transpose your own experiences onto a song (or a poem or a novel or a painting…). It’s inevitable. It’s part of art. But it can be a trap if you’re not careful.
Vin Maskell Wellington St, St Kilda, 1982Five songs in and I was wrung out. No light, no shade on this album. Black rivers. Serial killers.
Vin Maskell Moggs Creek, Australia, 1983 to 2013A three-part Stereo Story about family, a beach house, and its records. Part 1: from Glen Miller's Chattanooga Choo Choo to Roxy Music's Love Is The Drug.
Vin Maskell Melbourne, Midnight, November 29, 1982On a piece of foolscap paper, at my desk in my single-bed bedroom or maybe at the small table in the little kitchen at the end of the long hallway, I wrote a little poem. Nothing special.
Vin Maskell Family room, Melbourne, June 2012You don’t have to own every song you like. You don’t have to possess all the music you love.
Vin Maskell Point Lonsdale, New Year’s Eve party, 1976There must have been music. It was New Year’s Eve.
Vin Maskell Palliative care hospital ward, Melbourne, 2014The yellow line takes you to the Multiple Sclerosis ward. Green for Motor Neurone Disease. Blue for Parkinson’s Disease. You keep an eye on the yellow line as you side-step trolleys and wheelchairs, patients and nurses, volunteers and other visitors.
Vin Maskell Geelong, 1971, Melbourne 1974My eldest brother didn’t own many records.If my memory serves me well, the albums he listened to were by The Beatles, a rebel country songwriter, some Dylan and Clapton, a little art rock, and some English pop by a red-headed protégé of Elton John.
Vin Maskell Record store, Melbourne, 2011All of us are revealing a little of our non-work selves, latching onto something invisible — a riff, a chord, a chorus; holding onto something intangible — a melody, a key change, a lyric.