Senator Andrew Bartlett
Saturday, April 16, 2005
 
Office work and some musical musings

I spent most of Friday in my office in Brisbane, catching up on emails and a few larger tasks I’ve fallen behind on, as well as organising some meetings for next week. The planned visit by the Migration Committee to Christmas Island (mentioned here) has been cancelled, which is very disappointing. The Committee is still visiting Baxter detention centre on Tuesday, but the Government plane that was to take us on to Christmas Island has become unavailable.

One of the things I’m behind schedule on is finalising my paper for the BlogTalk Down Under conference, which I mentioned in this post. It should be a good conference, and seeing I’ve encouraged people to register for it, I best not embarrass myself by getting kicked off the speaker’s list.

One of the positive side-effects of driving from Townsville to Cairns was that I got to listen to a lot of music whilst motoring along the highway, which I haven’t really been able to do as much as I would like of late. This reminded me of an album I’d been wanting to buy, so I took the chance today to drop into one of Brisbane’s better record stores, Rocking Horse Records, who have been a source of good alternative music in Brisbane for close to 30 years.

As tends to happen to me on these occasions, I couldn’t find the record I wanted, but I bought some other ones I found while I was looking, including Sarah Blasko and Arcade Fire. I also took the chance to grab the new Nick Cave release - a triple-CD of assorted B-sides and outtakes. This is great value and has some good songs, although there are a few throw aways as well. I’m one of those suckers who bought Nick Cave singles for years just so I could get the B-sides, so I had most of these songs already. I could have saved my money for the last 20 years and got all the songs now, but that does sort of take the fun out of it.

Anyway, the main disc I wanted to get was by Antony and the Johnsons. The small number of regular readers of this site may recall my extended review of the Leonard Cohen tribute concert in Sydney early this year. At the time, I raved about this singer I’d never heard of called Antony and I’ve been meaning to get something by him ever since. This album, I Am a Bird Now, is definitely worth getting. Beautiful vocals and good arrangements. It was sold out at Rocking Horse, which I guess is a sign of how good it is, so I went round to one of the other reliable Brisbane music outlets, Skinny’s, and found it there.

Whilst I’m shamelessly plugging people, I should mention that Nick Cave is touring again next month. His Brisbane show is on the night of the federal Budget, so I’ll be stuck in Canberra listening to Peter Costello. This will be the third time I’ve missed a Nick Cave show because of Senate sittings. I had tickets to his Brisbane show in 2002, but the Senate sat late so the Government could force through its Regional Forest Agreements Bill. Not only did I miss the show, I had to helplessly watch a bad piece of legislation pass instead! I voiced my frustration at missing the concert in the Senate at the time. The Liberal’s Ian Campbell was a bit sympathetic, but sadly not enough to postpone the legislation.

I also missed the only full show Nick played while in Australia at the end of 2003. That night, the Senate was sitting late so legislation could get through to dramatically increase university fees. Unlike the Forests legislation, I didn’t have a role with the university legislation and had finished all my other Bills. I was again helplessly watching more terrible laws pass while missing a Nick concert, so I drowned my sorrows at the Liberal Party’s end of year function being held in an outside area between the Senate chamber and my office. That was also the night when I had an argument with Senator Jeannie Ferris which subsequently got portrayed to the media as the scandal of the year. The people at the Liberal’s function who witnessed it didn’t seem to think anything of it, as I was invited to keep chatting and drinking with them through the rest of the night while the legislation passed and Nick did his thing in Sydney. Ironically, I can remember talking to Ian Campbell for quite a while near the end of that night too, with him commiserating at my missing another Nick Cave show. From memory, he spoke of a dilemma he once had with having to miss a Neil Young concert he really wanted to see. We also shared the difficulties of being away from home so much when we both have young children – it would be worse for him as he lives in Perth, especially now that he is a Cabinet Minister. Another reminder that work and family issues affect men just as much as women, albeit in different ways.

Anyway, Nick is also playing in some other cities (although not Canberra this time), so I will see if I can get to one of his other gigs.

P.S. In keeping with my musical theme, I’ll say happy 52nd birthday to Peter Garrett for today (Saturday). For those interested in such coincidences, I just noticed that Nick Minchin was born one day before Mr Garrett, so a happy 52nd to him too for yesterday.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Saturday, April 16, 2005 Permalink
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