Ross McLennan Faves

Ross McLennan's Favourite Things

Image courtesy of tasteinmusic.com

Melbourne musician Ross McLennan has released numerous albums since his 1990s retro pop band Snout disbanded, amongst them the AMP-shortlisted Sympathy For The New World (2008), and The Night's Deeds Are Vapour (2013).

Known for insightful lyrics which frequently cast a critical eye over modern society, Ross' music also delivers serious pop hooks often with a delightful wonky twist, making him one of Melbourne's most inventive and engaging songwriters.

Following the release of Ross' new single "General Singh", he shared 5 of his favourite music-related things with us.

Op shop records...

I love op shop records. They make up the bulk of my vinyl collection. And the rhyme and reason behind my purchases is elusive. Sometimes I grab them ‘cause I see potential for chopping up and twisting into new works and sometimes it’s just that the covers just make me laugh.

Like all modern consumable items, albums are their own point of sale display. The images they project and the material within tally up to varying degrees. I myself love the records that fall short of their promise. One of my favourites is Moog Plays The Beatles. The liner notes go to great lengths to convince the potential purchaser of the restraint and good taste exercised within. Wrong! But hilariously so. And all the better for it.

Something happens when I put on vinyl; those little grooves and bumps carrying information from another dimension. The techniques and technology used create a distinct imprint of their time and place. Leo Fender’s workshop is there in every reverbed twang. Joe Meek; there on the mixing console. A choir of people that are long gone. It’s a cry for continuity and meaning, sent out into space. This feeling can be even more powerful if the music is not really my thing; an amateur school production where you can hear the town hall in the sound. It’s very moving.

The attraction of these records is their richness, historical weight and somehow their surprise; mortality and possibility, and the fun of it all. It’s a gamble but an affordable one. Though many is the time I’ve put back a potential masterpiece for being more than two dollars.

Flawed early works of famous musicians....

I love those flawed early works of famous musicians; the odd little bits and pieces that end up getting more or less ignored. Logically enough great artists become defined by the zeitgeist they pilot, but I find I can get overwhelmed by history’s finality; the popular story of music. And it’s to the detriment of the music. It’s in the lesser known, possibly lesser works, I find my own little quiet.

I really don’t know that much about 70’s Bowie, yet I consider myself a huge fan on the basis of a compilation of 60’s Bowie. Many of the songs on this album would be considered qualified successes at best. But there is drama, humour and vulnerability there; to a degree I just don’t see in his later, greater work.

Witness "There is a Happy Land". He couldn’t have been much older than Holden Caulfield when themes of lost childhood became so big; mid sixties. In his take on this idea there is more low level self loathing and conflict than in something like The Beatles' "Strawberry Fields". He really seems stuck in that place between child and adult. And even early on, the arrangements were adventurous. From what I once gleaned from a bio I half read on tour, he had a hand in all that.

Maybe some of these early works are a bit overblown. I’m sure not saying they’re better than the later stuff. But 60’s Bowie feels like a friend. A slightly embarrassing friend. And I’ll be damned if I’ll let my friends grow and change!

Guitars...

One pure and simple thing I’ve managed to hold on to from my youth is my love of guitars. Rickenbacker, Hofner, Hopf, Maton, Vox, Teisco….should I go on? Their names, associations, their fit and finish, their curves. It all meant so much beyond my understanding. Seeing and touching them triggered brand new chemicals in my brain that I can still sometimes feel.

Guitars represented a kind of identity makeover too. If you had a Rickenbacker and the right sunglasses you could pretend to be The Beatles or The Jam. If you had a Vox or a Framus you could be the Stones. And though they don’t hold the talismanic quality for me that they once did, something in their combination of form and function still appeals to the latent industrialist in me.

I have a friend who makes bespoke guitars. Anthony Paine from Harvester Guitars makes instruments that are a synthesis of the good, the bad, the bold and the beautiful of the twentieth century design. He has the multitude of skills it takes to build them and the artistic eye to bring it all together in a way that makes sense and is somehow recognisably him. I love his shop and when I get the time I like to visit him and hear about what he’s up to.

I was telling my partner about my last visit when she interjected, “you’re that guy now” “what do you mean?” “you’re that strange guy that every guitar shop has just hanging around” “you’re right! I’m the guy with no apparent function.”

Having Anthony’s shop there keeps a long thread of my life intact. If a teenage me had stumbled upon Harvester Guitars on a spring day they’d have been more than a little excited. Though possibly a little concerned about that guy just hanging around.

Chance in pop music...

I love chance in pop music; the happy accident that changed the course of everything. It’s the mythical clichéd stuff of dinosaur rock biographies but I can’t help it. It’s those magical stories that really inspired me when I started recording from tape to tape as a teen.

But it’s more than just the big stories. It’s about openness to fate; the willingness to dive on a good thing when it comes your way. It could be the stream of seemingly unrelated words that somehow creates an overarching meaning, or the disjointed bits flown in off turntable or reversed tape, that makes you feel like a recording is plumbing some disused part of your cerebrum. In really golden moments there is a balance between the songcraft of the artist and their ability to embrace what comes their way.

My favourite example of this is Long Long Long from The Beatles’ “White Album”. You may already know what a beautiful song and lovely warm headphone experience it is, but its richness is tripled by the unplanned ending. From what I can remember of my obsessive Beatle bio days there was a wine bottle sitting on an amp that got set kind of spinning and rocking by the “last note” of the song. Inspired by the sound of this, someone unfurls a suspended chord on a mellotron or similar and all this in turn sets off a fast press roll on the snare from Ringo. A falsetto wailing ensues and it all finishes with a guitar-slashing sound and collapses into a great thump. It gives the song something else; a cinematic context. The main body of the song becomes a few beautiful, lost minutes of drifting thought before sharply pulling back to a view of the broader, more primal canvas of the outro. Like, maybe a cell door has been opened and suddenly you are awake to your earthly fate.

I reckon I know how they felt at the end of that take. And it’s a great feeling. I’m not sure I understand why it’s such a profound feeling. Perhaps this relationship between intention and acceptance is just our lot, and the loose organisation of musical and lyrical events is the hair of the dog. A bit like gambling, I suppose.

The representation of the elemental in songs...

I really love getting stuck in a heavy summer downpour. It's really energising and kind of connects you to others and to prehistory.

Last time it happened I was tearing along on my bike down Sydney Rd and people were just so happy. There is a solidarity that is evident during that brief window. During another downpour I took cover in a loading bay, as did a Labrador. We just kind of stood there watching the rain in a language free moment. I felt as if we were reduced to something common. It was a real highlight.

I love the representation of the elemental in songs. That ability to conjure something so physical and familiar from words, musical phrasing and texture. One of my favourite examples of this is The Go Betweens' "Spring Rain".

I saw this on Saturday morning television in the eighties, loved the groove and the falling counterpoint vocals, and related to the words. It was this Beatle obsessive's first inkling that being an Australian artist could be a positive somehow.

I'm guessing that for most of us it would be illogical to deliberately step out into a storm but I'm glad that the disorganised shape of my life allows for the odd surprise baptism.