Barclay-palooza
The festival of lost songs…with Michael & Cal Barclay live at the MCT
(pic of Michael and Cal Barclay at the Greendale Hotel way-back-when by Mark Hopper).
I joked on stage Michael Barclay only agreed to do the MCT show if we got to play the James Reyne/Australian Crawl song Man Crazy - and in a way this was correct. It was a song he put me onto in the first place, constantly pushing for the Weddings to record it. But when I finally did get around to it for the Liberation Blue acoustic series Michael was out of the picture - and the recording was unfortunately sans drums. So it was great to play the song with him in such a receptive setting - and doubly fitting and rewarding that we had his son Cal Barclay sitting in with us on lead guitar.
After the show Cal was very recognisant of the fact that he had grown up in a particular heyday of music with his father Michael being the well known harmony singing drummer for Paul Kelly and the Messengers and then later on for the Weddings and the Sure Thing. As a budding guitarist he had been made well aware of the work of Steve Connolly, Paul Thomas and Craig Pilkington as they had all taken their turns at working their guitar magic bringing light and shade, melody and angst to our various repertoires. A pretty decent bunch of guitar role models, you’d have to say.
It was hardly planned but I think Michael being the last person scheduled to sit in with me for this series of retrospective shows was somehow fitting and appropriate. He was a really instructive person for me to have spent so much time playing with through the years and his overriding respect for ‘the song’ as an all-encompassing, free standing art form is unwavering. Any of us in the Weddings could remember him in various hotel rooms with ratty boom boxes saying ‘listen to this - you have to listen this’. Or him playing Fleetwood Mac’s Albatross ad infinitum in the hire van or some Brian Wilson outtake over the PA at soundcheck. Watching him somehow pass this sense of what he felt was important to his son as we rehearsed and arranged the half a dozen songs we played at the MCT as an ensemble was somehow touching and significant.
Our email exchanges before the show had threatened for the set to blow out into weird and wonderful areas and the time constraint of the Sunday night night spot was possibly a good thing as it brought us both back to reality and what we felt would work best. The Year She Spent in England was certainly one of these and I think it was one that Cal relished playing and so nice to have a decent recording of it here. Again, a song he had always pushed for inclusion. Here’s another one Michael had always been a big fan of. He always wrote it on the setlist as ‘Loz’.
(Lawrence Durrell (‘Loz’) Video by Graham Stockfeld)
The fact I have chosen to reconnect with a bunch of older associates means these songs can resurface but it is not lost on me there is an attitude some musicians possess that makes this entirely possible. Jen Anderson (re)joining the Roving Commission a couple of years back was incredibly important in that she has been staunch and unwavering in her commitment to not letting old songs fall by the wayside. Doing this solo tour and these MCT shows has certainly reignited my love for a whole bunch of tunes and it has been so gratifying to see which songs people hold dear. But more than anything it has fuelled my desire to get back to work and make some newies. I thank you all - and especially Michael and Cal Barclay.
So, this is what these songs sound like - Father and Son rocking out together. What? You can’t hear it? You haven’t subscribed - that’s why you can’t hear it. C’mon surely it’s worth a couple of bucks?
Man Crazy - with Michael and Cal Barclay live at the MCT
The Year She Spent in England - with Michael and Cal Barclay live at the MCT
