Paul Kelly 2006I asked Richard if it would be better if I resigned and he got someone else, someone who could orchestrate properly.
Brian Nankervis Driving To North Balwyn, July 2002I'm staring at strangers, wondering if their dads are alive. How often do they see them? Do they find their dads wise, embarrassing, or supportive? Reverie and envy turn to alarm when I realise the horn from the white ute behind is directed at me.
Matthew Mastricova Lake George, New York, July 2012After spending most of my first two years in college constantly reviewing music, I thought I would never truly feel music again.
Vin Maskell Eureka Hotel, Geelong. Late 1981Can a fan be a journalist? Can a journalist be a fan? I found out I was just a groupie, with a notepad and a pen.
Mattski No through road on the Surf Coast, Victoria, January 2008 Mildura, inland, a dusty spring, 2008I had hit my mid 20s and was on another no through road. Out of desperation I had picked up an acoustic guitar and tried to teach myself to extract a tone from the gravel and dust of it all.
Brutas Mudcake Fairfield train station, 2007Walking home from Fairfield station not long after Penny called it quits, Josh Pyke’s Private Education came on my iPod.
Vin Maskell Gertrude St, Geelong West, Victoria. 1976Sometimes Bill’s quiet voice would quicken with enthusiasm as he suggested we listen to a particular song. And we’d sit there and not interrupt the song. I wouldn’t even reach for another shortbread, there on the spotless glass coffee table.
I am sitting in a blue Laser sedan under a streetlight in a back-street in Brunswick. A Yorkshire rapper is in the passenger seat fiddling with a cassette and the car’s tape player.
Kath Presdee The Hume Highway, NSW, various Sunday nights, 1997 - 1998My tape version will always stick in my memory. It was incomplete, with Paul Kelly rudely cut off mid-phrase. No swelling final lines, no plaintive recollections. Just a whirr.
John Harms Murtoa, winter, 2014A huge cold front is whipping through and the sideways rain is hitting the windows and the roof. It’s the night they’ve turned the new ground lights on.