Sounds In Isolation

Does isolation breed creativity? Two recent documentaries on the Perth music scene – 'Something in the Water' and 'Three Hams in a Can' – probe this question in contrasting fashions: one subtly, the other not. MATT GILES reports.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] Something in the Water is a documentary about Perth music that proceeds from this basic premise: Perth bands in the early- to mid-’90s were not famous. There weren’t any on the radio, on TV or on the Big Day Out line-up. Now, there are loads of famous Perth bands. It asks, what has happened over the past 15 years to create such a stark difference?

OK. I can deal with that. But that’s not its only premise, and that’s not all it asks.

About 90 seconds into the film, before it even begins to explore answers to that question, my face begins to twitch. In these early moments the narrator – director Aidan O’Bryan – subtly suggests that the increased fame of Perth bands has coincided with an increase in the originality and sheer volume of local music. As the film develops, it says one thing I agree with and another that I don’t. It says that the discovery and success of Jebediah on a national stage started an industry snowball that eventually picked up Eskimo Joe, John Butler, Downsyde, the Sleepy Jackson, Little Birdy, Karnivool, End of Fashion and Birds of Tokyo. That’s fine, that sounds good to me. It also hypothesises that there are unique cultural and geographical conditions in Perth that have gestated the current crop of songwriters.

This is a little harder for me to swallow. Of course it’s true, but it’s true of every music scene. It’s nothing special. It’s not something to dwell on. But people in Perth think it is. I’m not from Perth, I grew up in rural WA, but quite soon after I moved here it became apparent that people in Perth cannot forget the fact that they are really far away from everywhere else. I’ve heard the word “isolated” so much in the past eight years that hearing it now, in any context, literally makes me angry. Perth is like the bitter outcast in high school that wants the most popular kids in school to like him, whereas the more integrated but still dorky kids (Brisbane, Adelaide) know enough to know that the popular kids (Sydney, Melbourne) aren’t the be-all-end-all of existence. I might be wrong about that, but it’s still ridiculous for people in Perth to think that if the city wasn’t so isolated our dreams would come true. They think the secret to a vibrant artistic community is cafes in laneways, daylight savings and shops that stay open late. It’s pretty fucked that you can’t get a decent loaf of bread, a pair of socks or a kettle after 6pm in Perth, but does that have anything substantial to do with music?

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]

Back to the documentary, Jebediah’s bassist Vanessa Thornton says it best: “If we had been living in the most exciting place in the world where there’s so much culture and so much going on, would we have been inspired to spend the weekends and jamming and making music with each other, or would we have been out getting involved in other things? Maybe we wouldn’t even be a band.”

This soundbite is one of a few that rebut O'Bryan's suggestion that the recent crop of successful Perth artists may have grown up in a nurturing creative environment. Compared to the other responses in the documentary – Snowman’s Joe McKee, originally from the UK, states that he found Perth “mindnumbingly bor(ing)” as a kid, while Stephen Malkmus makes a brief (and odd) appearance, saying that Perth is famous for being overly managed – Thornton’s is the most measured, ambiguous and, therefore, the best response to a question about so nebulous a notion as “creativity”. What is creativity? What is its substance? What are the conditions of creativity? Does that have anything to do with the popular music industry in Australia?

“Perth is like the bitter outcast in high school that wants the most popular kids in school to like him, whereas the more integrated but still dorky kids (Brisbane, Adelaide) know enough to know that the popular kids (Sydney, Melbourne) aren’t the be-all-end-all of existence.”

I’ll probably get accused of trying to score cool points, or of being elitist, or of simply being a dickhead for saying the following, but anyway, I’m not a fan of most of the bands featured in Something in the Water. I’m interested in their stories, they seem like good, smart people, but aside from a few exceptions I’m not compelled to listen to their records or see their shows. Even if I was, it would still be true that creativity has had less to do with their success than the fact they are managed by people with good resources and strong east-coast ties. A small number of managers, promoters and publicists are responsible for giving many of the bands featured in the documentary their big break. It’s the expertise and experience of these individuals that enables tight bands who write catchy songs to obtain a national profile. It’s true there are a remarkable number of good bands going around Perth at the moment, but they sprang up while the film was in production and they operate on too small a scale to fit the film’s parameters of highlighting nationally successful bands. Again, I’m not seeking cred, but much more exciting to me is the number of DIY bands and labels that are popping up at the moment and totally ignoring the Perth music establishment that formed in the wake of Jebediah’s success.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] It might sound like I’m writing Something in the Water off totally, but I’m not. It makes good points about the role of the WA government in helping the careers of Perth bands. It balances saccharine sentiments about Perth music being one big family with frank disagreement from Panics singer Jae Laffer. And it goes to great efforts to unearth Perth’s lesser known ’70s and ’80s musical heritage. O’Bryan conducts frank, genuinely interesting interviews with figures like Dave Faulkner, Kim Salmon, James Baker and Dom Mariani about playing in bands like Scientists, the Victims, the Manikins and the Stems. A lot of time is spent dwelling on the Triffids, INXS, the Baby Animals, even Johnny Young and Rolf Harris, and the DVD release of the film is especially worth looking at for its bonus, extended interviews with most of its subjects. Here, information that didn’t fit with the film’s isolation-as-artistic-stimulus theory comes out, such as the development of Perth’s punk community into a haven for violent, potentially white supremacist skinheads and Kevin Mitchell’s boyhood desire to be both a dancer and a football player. But ultimately it indulges Perth’s narcissistic and unsolvable self-image problems too often, and spends too much time unproductively weighing the pros and cons of the city’s isolation and cultural idiocy, with no genuine conclusions or outcomes.

A Perth music documentary of a completely different nature was released this year, Three Hams in a Can. Unlike Something in the Water, it has no message, it has no narration, it endeavours to answer no questions, and it features no familiar faces, unless you’re a fan of west-coast avant-garde soloists.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]

It follows Chris Cobilis, also known as the frontman of the Tigers, Predrag Delibasich, also a member of Bamodi, and Stina Thomas, who plays in Fall Electric as well as on her own, as they conduct a short tour of Japan. Filmed and directed by Kenta McGrath, who plays with Delibasich in Bamodi and was born in Japan, it’s a slow, subtle and quiet meditation on a kind of Perth musician that is completely absent from Something in the Water. Delibasich, Thomas and Cobilis have no hope of being picked up by one of Perth’s influential managers, and it’s similarly unlikely that they will have the kind of rotation on triple j that will allow them to focus on touring and recording in a semi-professional way. Yet they are able to overcome Perth’s geographical disadvantages and conduct (admittedly modest) international tours to small, appreciative crowds of strangers, simply by going on holiday together.

Although it’s harder to watch as a film – there are long, lingering verite sequences of the trio making their way through an airport or standing around outside a shop, and they almost never speak – it’s a far more relevant vision of practicing music in Perth: doing it outside of the music industry. Such a vision opens up possibilities for bands who, for whatever reason, won’t benefit from Perth’s current wave of commercial viability, and will hopefully encourage them to continue making music, no matter where they live.

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