Column 28th Sept ’09

Watching latest Country Music videos and amazed at how many songs tick all the boxes my mate Geri reckons a modern country song requires. Lyrical content must include references to parents, god, the weather, and optionally, trains. These and an Eighties-rock guitar solo, slow-mo trudging through gold-tinted paddocks and emotion as expressed through twitching jaw-muscles seem to indicate an industry whose reference points began and ended with Tom Cruise’s acting methods circa Top Gun. At least it ain’t emo yet.
Meanwhile The Re-mains visited Angourie last weekend for a private bash that turned into a block party the likes of which probably hasn’t been seen since, well people stopped acknowledging their neighbours and building gated estates all over the Coast. Cowboy hats and boots were de rigeur and there was some particularly spirited hogslappin’ and chawspittin’ in play. Not that I really know what that is, but the flying straw and dust kinda puts you in mind of such downhome phrases when you’re cleaning the dust out of your guitar. And wishing you could have made a video from the ensuing shenanigans. All that was missing was god and a train.