Song of the day – 598: Dogtower
You and me sister, we share a dirty little secret.
This is how we like our music. Belligerent and hidden and with smiles to the fore. Lights on in a full-on glare. We watched The Blair Witch Project in a village hall in the middle of Tasmania once. It was pouring down with rain so hard outside, you could barely hear the film. There’s nothing worse than fireworks, at all. We drove back to our shack behind some weird-ass road-cleaning vehicle which had its lights in the back, and so we travelled at 5 mph the whole way. We get to our shack, middle of fucking nowhere, touch the door handle – and immediately every light for miles around goes out. Bangs fuck, but we would’a jumped out of our skins if someone had knocked on our window that night.
You and me sister, we share a dirty little secret.
This is how we like our music. Female and pulsating with emotion. Harmony-laden but not those harmonies you thinking of, brother. Full of false starts and even falser endings. Gaps that bridge gaps that aren’t there. Menacing and severely intimate, humorous and brilliantly alive. If you don’t tell anyone else, I won’t either. I formed a band in 1981. I say a ‘band’. I use the term loosely. It was a guitar and two voices. I wasn’t able to give vent the way I saw females giving vent, and hence despised myself. One line ran, “See that boy/Huddled in a sleeping bag/Got to keep out the cold”. It was based on real life – sorta. I didn’t have the money for a sleeping bag. Another line ran, “See that boy spend his whole life dreaming/Got to do as he is told”. It was directed at everyone I know, especially my future 51-year-old self. The one living in The Gap, listening to the ladies using gaps to bridge gaps that aren’t there.
The two greatest songs on the Dogtower album that my former sparring partner Julian Teakle linked me to yesterday, rudely – and yes, there are plenty of greatest songs on the Dogtower album that my former sparring partner Julian Teakle linked me to yesterday, rudely – are called ‘Fireworks’ and ‘Dogtower’, and exhibit traits hinted at in the lengthier paragraphs above. But please. Don’t tell anyone. Bangs forbid we would want folk to start thinking for themselves. Particularly awesome is the tangential aside, and stopping of the song to accommodate same, on ‘Dogtower’. ‘Pub’ lifts an opening from a nursery rhyme but it is nothing like The Rutles. If I was a glib bastard (and fuck knows sometimes I am, it must be my calling), I would call this Sleater-Kinney with a sense of humour but no loss of girl-girl power. Hey, that’s really crass! Let’s see how it looks in multicolour red.
Sleater-Kinney with a sense of humour but no loss of girl-girl power
Hmm. Just as crass.
Here’s how they put it themselves:
a joke accidental mess pop theatre punk riot grrl tasmanian riot and boy band what are you? Hobart
…which, as ever, is way more eloquent than anything I have managed here.
You can download the whole she-bang (see what I did there?) for whatever price you prefer over here. I WOULD TOTALLY FUCKING RECOMMEND YOU DO SO. Smart lyrics and laughter and noise and simulated drinking. “You mix your people like you mix your drinks!” Yes! YES! How wonderful a place must Hobart be, that bands like Dogtower can exist there?
FUCK!!! THIS IS SO GREAT!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!
!!!!!
!!!!!
Quite possibly the greatest album released in 2012 that I’ve only just got round to hearing in 2013. I am going to garrotte Mr Teakle if I discover Dogtower have played Brisbane in the last three weeks.
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by Everett True
My name is Everett True. I am a music critic. This is what I do. I criticise music. The clue is in my job description – music critic. I do not consider myself a journalist, as I do not research or report hard news. I do not consider myself a commentator as I believe that everyone should be a participant. I criticise people and in return I am not surprised if other people criticise me. It is part of the whole deal of being in the public arena. I am Everett True. Believe in me and I have power like a God. Quit believing in me and I no longer exist.