Courtney Barnett Newcastle University 31st March 2015

 Lester Bangs in a famous interview, (posted above), discussed the malaise in Rock Music in the Mid-Seventies. He said something along the lines that something came along every ten years Frank Sinatra, Elvis, The Beatles and then... He claimed nothing. Punk turned up just a little later.

The same thing has pretty much worked for me too, since I became actively engaged and committed to music about six or seven years after he made these comments. First R.E.M. in the Eighties when they first arrived in the UK, though it could easily have been The Smiths. Nirvana in the Nineties, The Strokes ten years later and now, for me at least, Courtney.I'm not suggesting these artists are the most significant artists in their decades by any means. They're just the ones I paid most attention to. They're all essentially quite straightforward, back to basics beat bands with clever lyricists. But if I drew a personal parallel with Bang's comments for myself those would be the ones I'd pick

I'm also not making inflated claims for Courtney Barnett and her band's significance. They're not going to be headlining Glastonbury at any point soon. Neither are they going to change the world. Nor would I imagine would they want to do either. Or even that I would want them to. But she and they've got something that very little else around have now.

Personality might have something to do with it. Courtney Barnett in her small, modest way has it in spades.We're living in an age which almost actively discourages individuality. She's a throwback. There's plenty of great music out there, Day in day out I'm discovering it and posting stuff on this blog. But there's very little strong personality leaping out at you as was the norm in the Sixties and Seventies and which seemed to wither and die on the vine through the Eighties and Nineties as Counterculture Anti-Establishment Rock Stars became a thing of the past and those who persevered became grist to the industry mill and eaten up within the machine. We ended up with plenty of good music but very few people actually saying anything much. At least in the mainstream. Most of this stuff seems to have been chased to the margins now. As a consequence we also ended up with U2, Oasis and Coldplay s the big 'important' acts rather than Creedence, The Clash and Nirvana. Very little rage against the machine. Or inside the machine for that matter.

There are exceptions to this still of course. P J Harvey leaps to mind. Nick Cave I guess. But neither of these have shows on Saturday Night Television the way that somebody like Johnny Cash did. Generally in the same way as we've become more passive, more content, less politically engaged in the West, or else locked out of the whole thing as the increasing disenfranchised poor in our societies have been, so we've been satisfied with processed music just as much as processed meals . Music that's either nonsense Reality Show bilge or music, (as good as it might be), as lifestyle choice to distract us from real life in its most important sense rather than engage us with it.

Courtney Barnett and her band are not going to change any of this. They're merely the new thing that have excited me most recently. They won't be to everyone's taste. I sent a circular round to like-minded colleagues at work and no-one wanted to come along so I went on my own. More fool those people! But the band are doing their small, smart thing and I'm grateful, as I've said on here before. I also spoke to them very briefly when I saw them in the bar before they played. I went over and told them excitedly that my brother-in-law had made the promotional chair that they were using in photos for the tour. The whole band nodded enthusiastically and said things along the lines of 'Yeah, really great chair'. My sister when I told her about it later said 'Well what were they supposed to say?' but that's family for you! Really Alison they're just nice people and it really is a great chair. Anyway I shuffled off, not wanting to bother them. I'm Forty Nine years old and shouldn't feel like I'm Fifteen just to be in the presence of people who I admire and whose work I respect. But I did.

Of course they were great later on that evening. Playing in a much bigger venue than they did last time they were in Newcastle, a fact Courtney commented on. This time an utterly soulless, corporate university room but they filled it with personality. They're gradually moving on from that early sound which was still evident in the older songs here, of a three piece trio building on the melody, energy, wit and power of those great Nirvana records to a broader, slightly but only slightly more commercial sound. Augmented by Stephen Luscome from The Drones on their new record though not on this tour it's made them sound more realised and ambitious without losing what made them special in the first place. A difficult act to pull off. I look forward to the next time they play here though I don't imagine it'll be for a while and possibly in a bigger venue still. In the meantime, here's another picture of that chair and the band appreciating it. As we all agreed, a really great chair!

I'll dedicate this to my friend Rod, supporter of this blog, (I imagine you'll read this), and fellow traveler musically. Go see them if you get another chance!