My True Social Club

It's been a while since I've been to a local live gig. Pre-minipeople I was a regular at the Annandale, the gaelic club, the Hopetoun and my local The Hollywood. I tried relaying my satisfaction tonight at being in a place that reminded me of the venues of old as I surveyed the surroundings and the felt-hatted clientele of the Newtown Social Club. My 20-something team members looked down at me (somehow I have hired two girls that are both over 6ft) blankly as I reminisced having not heard of any of the classic venues I mentioned. But there I was loving the black everywhere, the eclectic and fascinating crowd, the friendliness that you never find east of the city and I know that even though I'm not the young carefree single swaying into the eyes of the lead singer _ i am at home in beards, pink hair, tattoos, Fedoras and freaks. They are my people, their weirdness is their beauty, their open hearts irresistible, and their creativity their ticket to never a dull moment. Thank you #RollingStoneLiveLodge and gorgeous #Pandora girls for dragging me out of mummyland into the beautiful black filled with the music that is our lives...

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Lover you should have come over - dedicated to Jeff Buckley

18 years ago today I woke to find the only musician that still adorned my walls had died. Music transcends time and it seems like yesterday his flowing, blood-driven voice wrapped itself around my open heart.

I was a backpacker just settled into my first share house in London, my room not much larger than a walk-in robe, lit up with his beauty. At work that day I mourned in isolation, as the middle-class English girls had no clue who I was talking about. Luckily the music journos of the day did and every major newspaper in London had full page spreads set aside telling of the untimely loss of Jeff Buckley. 

Like so many that felt as though he had let them inside his soul, we cried at what we would no longer feel. Without him serenading us, understanding the depths of our heart, it would ache restlessly. We cried because we felt his pain, we knew he'd been abandoned by his father, Tim Buckley, who's own death at 28 meant they never knew each other and met only once for fifteen minutes. We knew his depth threatened to engulf him and fame overwhelm, but we never imagined that he would drown, we all thought he would float and keep singing. 

He will always be my dream brother, and the lines in my head will remain for him, from him.

"So I'll wait for you and I'll burn

Will I ever see your sweet return

Oh, will I ever learn?

Oh, lover, you should have come over

'Cause it's not too late"

Jeff Buckley
November 17, 1966 - May 29, 1997

 

Listen to him here pdora.co/JeffBuckley or to the live interview and performance below

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