i remember waiting waiting waiting
in swedish graveyards
and in the cracks of the city
buying time
while i worked on the lyrics for kings
how white it looked on the black piano
how dark it looked against the stainless steel
marty said watch out!
as i swerved
the snowflakes were fluttering down in the headlights
i was hypnotized behind the wheel
driving all over the road and thru the dales and dells
in my room alone finally
it turned transparent and then swirling red
and then gone gone gone
up into heart and into my brains
a pleasant sickly swipe sideways
the phone rings
someone says something
the music is so loud
i dont hear anything
knock at the door
but this room doesnt have a door
i check my biography for the details
producing a record for some ingratiate
i pull a gun out of its box and overdub some shots
some woman sings something
but i'm already drifting away
grant comes over and gets out his guitar
the velvet in the case is plush and crimson
grant lights a cigarette and grimaces as he pulls in
he blows it out the side of his mouth
oh steven he says
a lift creaks and the doors swing open
sometimes its up to the rooftop pool
sometimes its room # 23
where jason n rhonda live
jason died so long ago
rhonda went so mad
she wrote down her name cos she couldnt remember it
rhonda goes upstairs to weigh up my half
jason sits downstairs smoking n watching tv
whats she fucking doing up there...i ask
take it easy mate ...he says....
we arrive at the gig
ive pawned my guitar so i just sing with my hands and voice
my voice coughs out elastic sentences
and my hands arrange it for music
theres hardly anyone here anyway
i clutch my little bag in my change pocket
it reassures me in a voice like snow
some people hear it and ask for more
i let my little snow voiced friend out
and we sing a croaky olde song together
someone applauds as a laugh
and i bow down while my friend curtseys
grant sits by the window sipping a red wine
i join him
the traffic drives up bourke street
i nibble at the peanuts
marty packs up his guitar and chats to the punters
in the desert its still snowing
we park by the sea
and the girls say
we want to have a walk
when they get out
i undo my package and i taste it with my eyes tongue
i apply it liberally to my aching muscles and troubled mind
the radio comes on of its own accord
and the years slip by like a night thru butter
im looking in my swedish dictionary for a word
keep your eye on the road says a voice in another room
i swerve narrowly avoiding a wide berth
i count the money i have left
i convert it into anxious kronor
marty says go on...here take this
he hands me the wheel and the deal
i'm working on the words for feel
i get locked in my apt so i cant get out
some spanish guy slings something thru the window
i push the kronor under the door
i'm standing there looking in the mirror
why this self obsession i ask myself
i watch as my flowers fade and my pupils shrink
i lie in the bath and twitch restlessly
my erstwhile friend ben the famous actor comes over
got anything? he asks
no...but come in... i say
he wrinkles up his nose
no thanks ...he says
the tv comes back on
i watch a space opera while i wait wait wait
anxiety sits down next to me
changing the channels rapidly
i see 2 guys driving along on a dark night
flying thru the outer suburbs of some northern town
one guy jumps out
and the other drives down to T -centralen
at the station i see a face i know
the face grins and nods at me
the face opens its mouth
and for a split second it reveals many small capsules
all wrapped in plastic
i push a thousand kronor into the faces hand
and it grins and spits 2 of the capsules into my glove
it must be narnia cos its always winter
i stagger down to the train
my apt is still dark when i get in
a slender figure is lying on the sofa
it gets up and turns on the light
a young swedish guy looking pale and miserable
did you find anything?
he smiles wanly as he chops out a line
with his rikesbanken card
he snorts it up his nose
and moistens his finger and dabs up the rest
putting it on his tongue
martin stuffs some snuff into his mouth
do you want to hear biosphere? he asks
i lie back in my phony euphoria
who can tell what the time is in all this darkness
in australia in surry hills its christmas day and its hot
a sorry bunch assembles to play cards and take smack
i stumble down the hot street to buy a pastry
my bank account is starving hungry
i shovel in a decent cheque
but the lemur on my shoulder is eating it all up
i go back to albion street
i look at the lights all twinkling in my studio
i see the dull gleam of my guitars
i listen to a playback of the same old song
people drop in
people go out
i remain stuck
stuck thru the heart on a sharp string
i call jason n rhonda
yeah mate...says jason...you wanna come on over?
down to their place just behind crown street
a sandstone terrace painted a nauseating light green
its a hot day
jason opens the door shirtless
the inevitable smoke in his mouth
their place is covered in cobwebs
all this old junk in the darkness of this old terrace
covered in cobwebs
jason sits in his big old chair watching tv in the darkness
what are ya after mate...he asks sleepily
as some old recoloured movie from the 40s plays
american kids in canoes with lanterns
a long way from surry hills 1993 or 94 or 91 or when was it..
i feel so lonely
everyones gone away in the end
i chuck six khaki 50s at him
jason yells out to the ceiling
hey rhon can you get a g for steve...?
i stare at the cobwebs and old pictures of rhonda
a long time ago in another life she went to school
she was an athlete and she had a mum n dad
the gear has changed her
a gear shift
methadone the great leveller
downers for the gaps
sweet food
stay inside
cant remember anything
not even my name
oh look i wrote it down on some paper
its.....nevets yeblik
Monday, April 27, 2009
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24 comments:
Hi SK , just stopping by to say hello, can't wait to see you guys here again in Cleveland on June26 ( dont forget ) I'm seriously excited to see you since its been all of three years since you've been here. all the best, Nick FIction
oh god so sad so dad sk. so happy for you now
Some of the most harrowing and psychologically frighful prose that I've ever read. Right in the aftermath of fixing some vexing computer problems that have been driving me from angst to despair. On a related matter Remindlessness is the most unsettling but simultaneously compelling CDs that I've ever heard. Same blogger, same vocalist and same musician and lyricist. Same unstable commentor.
oh dear
what a jumbled
sad
mixed up
curious mess....xx
UN23 more impressions: accessible but unrevealed, effortlessness and honesty, deep within every note, every lyric, filling me with some great pride and privilege of knowing, loving, belonging somehow to this unorthodox body..
Hi Steve,
I heard Stephen Cummings interviewed on ABC radio last night...he was drunk and exasperating. Fortunately you weren't a topic of the conversation.
Glen
so sad, so harrowing, so dark, so close, so familiar. your prose/story is uncomfortable for me to read. it opens a window into which i see my own struggle, something is very disconcerting for me to look back on. while my particular issue was more of a pharmaceutical nature, the struggle and the horror of wasted years and the unbelievable amount of things i lost (while at the time not giving a shit) i recognize my old self thru your words.
i have been fighting and winning my daily battles with my past for close to two years now and i do not intend to slip but knowing i could is always in my mind. a song, a place or a face, maybe a show, they all have triggered something in me that takes me right back into that hell which funnily enough while i'm there feels nothing like hell. that's the scariest part of it. that years down the road that shit can still fuck with you. while nestled in it's false sense of warmth, like a baby wrapped in blankets up against his momma's bosom, i can actually recall thinking to myself that i didn't need anything else in life except my stuff and i would be as happy as i could possibly be. so sick i was. some days, i find it hard to believe that it was really me that lived it, tho' all i have to do is look around at my life today to know that it was real. i so know that pain but at the same time yearning and warm feeling. i know it will always be a bitch as i'm sure you do too. i sincerely hope that you are winning your daily battles too.
didn't mean to go off on a tangent, todays blog struck a highly sensitive nerve.
the highest praise that i can give 23 is that the false warm feeling those chemicals used to induce in me are experienced when i put on a set of headphones and turn down the lights. the difference is that it's a real feeling now, something that the music sparks from within me. it really can and does transcend. that is the highest compliment that i think i could give it. such a rare feat, you should be proud.
bg
Bloody stark Killer!
A cold wind blows thru' those Kings lyrics, it all makes sense & yet there's this hope in the faraway distance. Just think, you wrote that instead of say The Ballad of Jason & Rhonda
xxxx
flashback...
Jonny
Evocative, unsettling and almost surreal. You lived a nightmare, Steve. No wonder Priest = Aura is so dark. If anything good came out of those years surely it's that masterpiece.
I wonder if any of these Swedish drug addict friends of yours are still alive today? Did any of them make it? If some of them did, it must be very strange for them to finally fully comprehend that they were doing drugs with Steve Kilbey of The Church.
oh....shit!
a package addressed to that very person has probably just arrived at yer p.o. box......
The milk moon for may is waxing now
I could chant a little spell I know I could chant a little spell I know I could chant a little spell I know
And the Great God in me would burst forth
Arms outstretched and the horns of a stag
Like a butterfly from its carapace
What's up, Cernnunos?I smile at the jostling forest in spring
This great seething, fucking forest
This man I know...of
I've heard his voice
The Illyrian keens
He thought he could
But he can't
Could you...?Cernnunos grins his grin
And spanish moss falls from his beard
He reaches out, vectors compress
The curvature of the earth
The oceans themselves
Contract, mean nothing to Him
He breathes seconds and hours
In and out In and out In and out In and out In and out In
Seen it all before
This is his realm too, you know
And your pain is so tiny
So thin that it slips in with the ease
Of a needle through skin
A rush of wind through the crown of an oak
So simple, so slight
Seen it all before
He takes your tiny head in his massive arms
And cradles it
His own child
It's going to be alright
It's going to be alright
It's going to be alright
It's going to be alright
It's going to be alright
It's going to be alright
It's going to be alright
a dissolute and somber piece of writing today, steve....god, a husk lurching his way through some kind of existence......
love always....
we notice some of barry's comments are slipping thru again.
davem, B.Bon, Gareth, Notts & gen x.
on a lighter note i've been on a depeche mode 'thing' for the last 48 hours....put on one of their cd's yesterday and i've been giving them heavy rotation....c'mon, ok, ok, i know some of you out there are going to poke shit at me but that's ok, i can give as good as i get, buster.....
i feeeeel yooouuu.....
wow.. check :"the temper trap"
Hmmm, VERY IMPRESSED KILLER!!
GO FIND EM!
VERY CHURCHIE...
Hope you and MWP had an awesome night!
Matt D
life lived Glad your here now, beyond that time. Really got the effect; the scatteredness, the remoteness the yearning for connection but lost in the entrails of our miserable existance of the time. Great fodder for future revelations; just be free of the lemur.
ML,
don joe
Anon 8.42pm
What the? Am I missing something?
B.Bon
Reading about these times, I get a cold sort of sense of dread and it's confusing that p=a came outta this.
i go back to albion street
i look at the lights all twinkling in my studio
i see the dull gleam of my guitars
i listen to a playback of the same old song
regreso a la calle Albion
miro a las luces brillando en mi estudio
veo el brillo apagado de mis guitarras
escucho la pista de la misma vieja cancion
a bleak sense of dislocation from today's blog. dislocated in time, senses randomly firing through desloate landscapes absent of feeling, apart perhaps from disconnection. is it difficult to look back on those times from the warm life of now?
many swedish scenes cropping up in today's blog. i'm headed there on wednesday (but only for the weekend). it's such a beautiful place on a sunny spring day. but in winter, i can't help seeing the lonely images you've painted.
I'm so glad you're out on the other side.
Some of the vocals on #23 are your best yet.
Just listening to Deadman's Hand for about the 5th time today - brilliant track, stunning delivery.
I think it's actually a really accessible album.
It's my Birthday on Wednesday so I'll be ensuring all assembled are exposed to the wonder of U#23!!
Apologies for 2nd post.
I know it's your blog SK but I'd be grateful if you didn't approve anon posters pretending to be me. Me? I mean get a life you sad person.....:) It's just ridiculous!!
Good morning Steve,
Ever heard of that documentary/trilogy
made by Stefan Jarl, "Dom kallar oss mods" bout the "underworld" of Sthlm?
Thought I saw you there somewhere
As if in a cameo ...
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