The Big Issue and Stereo Stories
The seeds of Stereo Stories can partly be traced to a story I pitched to The Big Issue in 2009, four years before I began this website.
DRIFT AWAY by DOBIE GRAY Story by Glen Williams
Most teenagers don’t want to be seen dead with their parents, let alone dance with them, but for some reason, I knew magic was being created in this little Dee Why record shop.
SING ANOTHER SONG, BOYS by LEONARD COHEN Story by Alan Attwood
It’s a raucous, shambolic, ranting wreck of a song, which ends with a well-oiled Leonard chanting.
I’M IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE by BRYAN FERRY Text by Thuy On
It’s a song about the frisson of sexual and romantic connection and what’s so piquant and poignant about it is that the film is about dashed opportunities for such possibilities.
SOMETHING CHANGED by PULP. Text by Thuy On
With the murmurings of chatter from other tables around us, our own conversation flowed smoothly, a stream without pebbles to impede the course.
EVERYDAY FORMULA by REGURGITATOR Text by Thuy On
As I pulled up to the Astor cinema and circled around for a park the band’s Everyday Formula reverberated through the tinny stereo system: My whole world's cheap and phony/ Dear hearts get lost and lonely/ I'll get what's coming to me soon.
DEPRESTON by COURTNEY BARNETT Story by Thomas Robinson
For once, people in Los Angeles and London and New York might be sitting around listening to a song about where I lived, rather than my sitting around listening to songs about all the places that they live.
I’VE GOT A PLAN by MY FRIEND THE CHOCOLATE CAKE Story by Vin M
Save for the weeds, not much grows in our front yard. The soil is rubbish, almost literally. “What’s the plan?” my neighbour says cheerily, as I'm weeding.
RACING IN THE STREET by BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN Story by Richard Castles
As a teenage boy in a dark suburban room, I was a long way from the turnpikes of New Jersey. I didn't have a job, a car or a girl, just an Apollo 10-speed bicycle and a dungeon I called my own. What on earth was I connecting with here?
Ain’t No Cure For Love by Leonard Cohen (Jennifer Warnes version)
Vin Maskell Palliative care hospital ward, Melbourne, 2014 The 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.