It was a restless, fitful time. At one or two or three in the morning I’d carefully ease out of bed and head for the loungeroom, well away from the sleeping family.
I’d drive all night with my brother if I could. It would be escapism of a sort but also a rare chance to spend time, a long time, together. We’d pack sandwiches and snacks and drinks. Chocolate. A football. Some of Peter’s surfboards.
All I could think of , as she stood just a metre or two away, unflustered by betting deadlines, was her voice, her laugh, her brown eyes, her cascading hair, her full figure. And the inexperience of my heart (plus anoher vital organ).
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.