http://streetpress.com.au/online_mags/TO/TO_1491/ – P35

Recorded over three years, stymied by a truly unfortunate, near-fatal encounter with a cow, Inland Sea is the latest offering from country-rockers The Re-mains, and just quietly, it’s a bit of a ripper. Fourteen tracks filled with banjos, harmonicas, horns, guitars and the whiskey-tinged vocals of singer Mick Daley. Inland Sea is the aural equivalent of a cocktail that’s been mixed with equal parts Cormac McCarthy and Mad Max, poured into a dirty boot and dragged across Australia before being drunk in the dilapidated lounge-room of an aging smack addict. It’s a bit dirty.

Each track is a narrative unto it’s own; it’s an album of short stories that cover scoring methadone and drinking tequila with the in-laws, the unfortunate demise of Nimbin drug-dealer Johnny D, and the story of one man’s gratitude to a rooster. Musically, The Re-mains twang, smack, growl and thigh-slap their way through the album, embracing the traditions of the genre but resisting the easy temptation to replace Australian motifs with those of their American counterparts.

Perhaps because of the length of time taken to record the album, Inland Sea is probably three or four tracks too long. There are songs – Copper City Motel amongst others –which are no doubt cracker live tracks, but which don’t translate as well on the record. It’s a pity, because their inclusion on the album risks detracting from some seriously good work. The dark and sprawling – and strangely Johnny Cash reminiscent – Things I Remember, Things I Forget is a standout, as is the snappy, horn-accompanied This Could Be Anywhere. There are some missteps, but the inclusion of the sublimely titled Praise Be To The Rooster and Darn Tootin’ in Saskatchewan more than make up for the tracks that probably should have been left in the studio or for the stage.

***1/2

By Helen Stringer

Winter has not been a feature of my life for some years, in fact almost since the inception of The Re-mains we’ve found cause to be largely absent from it, whether in the Northern Territory, far north Queensland or Canada. But this year, as the band takes a hiatus from touring and I’m at Uni, here we are. Freezing…..

We’ve launched the new album, Inland Sea in Maitland, Sydney, Yamba and Federal and next weekend, in Lennox Head and Nymboida. It’s selling well and getting radio play at various places…..

The band is an eclectic beast, as always. With Shaun in semi-retirement, Tom Jones wintering in Darwin, Al Fisk tinkering in Sydney, CP (Christian Pyle) reprising his role on guitar and Darren Bridge the new bassplayer, it’s all new sets and relocating the sound…..

Last weekend we played Lennox Head, Nymboida and a party near Alstonville. The band was in furious form and still recovering.

Saturday night I’m playing solo at the Tatts in Lismore, opening for a band called the Little Stevies who are apparently making waves in the folk scene.

In August I’m going south, to Goologong, where my mate Balfe aka Mush aka Craig Lawler (see his review of Inland Sea) and his beau, Josephine live, to rendezvous with the Lonely Horse Band for a week of songwriting on the ever contentious and lively issue of bushrangers, of which there are the ghosts and legacy of plenty in that region.

August sees The Thoughtful Hussars return into action on the 26th, charging like the Light Brigade into the Gollan Hotel, where, supported by Captain Freedom, we’ll be playing a few new tunes and anticipating Dylanfest with a few run-throughs.

On the 28th, The Re-Mains play in Brissie at The Old Museum, a venerable venue managed by the manager of Bang Bang Boss Kelly, a banjo-swinging mob from that part of the world who are launching an album of their own.

….

In September a long awaited return to Darwin looks likely, with the return of Leigh Ivin to the band. We’ve been in discussion for a while about the possibility of recording some of the vast back catalogue of unrecorded country rock and roll classics (well, they’re classic to us – Country Rock and Roll is Number One, Coalface Annie, Sharks, Return to Lizard County, Beef Week Queen, Same Road … the list is exhaustive), and playing some reunion shows, culminating in a short stint at Tamworth Country Music Festival next year. A Darwin/NT run will be the first of these – looks like an interesting time.

In October I’m playing Dylanfest at Coraki Hotel. Part of Darren Bridge’s growing musical empire, Dylanfest will be a celebration of the works of the great man (Dylan, not Bridge) by a variety of local and visiting outfits including Mick Hart, the man whose constant circumnavigations of the globe resemble those of Bob himself – and Hart did in fact support Dylan on one European leg of his never-ending tour a few years back…..

The band I’m putting together for this festival will be known as The Antiquarian Filibuster and will feature the aforesaid impresario Darren Bridge on bass guitar, and on loan from Invisible Friend, Brendan Drinkwater on drums and Michael ‘Whitey’ White on electric piano and organ. ….

I’m stoked to have this all-star lineup, as I’m really quite chuffed to be able to play a full set of Dylan songs at a proper festival. Dylan was personally responsible for lodging in my head the notion that I too, could write surreal and stream-of-consciousness narratives, whack a guitar and tootle on a harmonica and get paid for it and I’m returning the favour with renditions of Idiot Wind, Tangled Up in Blue, Jokerman, Sweetheart Like You, Just Like A Woman, I Want You, Lay Lady Lay, Mozambique, Oh Sister and possibly Series of Dreams…..

This will be part of a busy month in which I am also supposed to be completing my thesis for Honours in Media. At the start of the month I’m playing Gibbostock in Nundle, a celebration of another great and strange man, Gibbo. That’s on the 2nd. These events are usually recreations of Nymagee Outback Music Festival in miniature, only with freezing cold instead of blinding heat as the central theme…..

ON the 24th The Re-Mains, or a version of the band, will be playing Big Sunday at Tyalgum, in cahoots with Gleny Rae Virus and Den Hanrahan. These shows will also possibly feature the return of Leigh Ivin…..

In November we’re on the bill of a small festival in Nymboida, again at the Coaching Station, owned by one Russell Crowe. His Museum of Interesting Things, on the site of this venerable building, holds a number of interesting props from such movies as Gladiator, Romper Stomper and Robin Hood, not to mention some of Johnny Cash’s gold records…..

Later that month we’re also part of a bill at a big charity do at Lismore Turf Club at which The Hoodoo Gurus are allegedly also appearing.

Stay tuned for more CRnR action.

There’s a bit in Pumulwuy where the Re-mains stop channelling Hunters and Collectors for a moment and the weight drops – Silence. It’s like aspirin. Finally, the Re-Mains have discovered dynamics. Producer and guitar-slinger Christian Pyle evidently understands the power of both silence and cacophony.

Don’t get me wrong, I love this band, I’ve been to the coalface many times with them, Bourke, Gooloogong, Melbourne, Maitland, Moree – I’ve driven hundreds of ks on dirt roads just to see them live, we’ve got history. I used to share a house in Marrickville with Mick, I went to Uni with him in Canberra in the 80s, I knew him when he was a skinny Albury cracker listening to Chris Rea for fuck’s sake. I reckon, I’ve probably been to more Re-Mains gigs in more places than anyone bar Mick, Uncle Shaun or the Owl.  But I rarely listen to their records.

I remember the conversation Mick and I had before he headed to Europe for the last time, the gist of that conversation?: get back, commit to music full-time, form a country rock and roll band and tour, tour, tour until something is built. That’s ten years ago and he’s been good to his word but what has been built? A consistently cracking live band that channels Creedence, Bob Dylan, WPA and the Bad Livers, which makes people from Saskatoon to Coonamble dance and drink too much, endless and indefatigable touring and a serious casualty list of crippled champions, line-up changes and ruined vehicles.

On record though?  Too much emphasis on trying to capture the undeniable wallop of the live arena and less on allowing a full expression of the band’s talents.  Records were something you got together in between tours to sell on tour, for someone who saw them live so often they were kind of superfluous – until now. This record’s been four years in making, not that they’ve been louching around Nellcote jamming and having orgies (much as they’d like to), but they’ve taken their time about it and it shows.

As you might have heard, there’s been a few hurdles: in 2007 a steer walked out in front of their van in the NT (home of no speed limits and no fences), Various bones and the steering column snap, the van careers off the road coming to rest between  two huge boulders, Grant and Dave are still severely injured. Uncle Shaun got Cancer with a capital C but he’s back and firing. Mick and fellow Re-Mains founder steel-guitarist Leigh Ivin’s fractious relationship burst, as did that with Leigh’s replacement Mick Elliott. Two northern Summer tours of Canada saw new horizons conquered and a now collectible early draft version of this record, featuring Mick Elliott’s guitar work, released.

Through all of that, this record lurked, like the band, like Rutger Hauer in The Hitcher, It would not fucking die. IT LIVES.

Track by track:

2nd Century – Hola Beatriz. An ode to the end of the doomed relationship between an Albury boy and a great Galician beauty, Beatriz Villares de Cuba. Beti lived with us in Marrickville where we would infuriate her with incomprehensible conversations in deep strine which she could not ken despite being a professional translator of English: “You stupid farmer Mick, you cannot even speak English, what is this Mull Bowl?”

Your Reward – Setting the tone of measured yet mobile sonic adventure, this one floods into your loungeroom like sunlight through the a gap in the curtains, you can see the dust suspended. It swings, it floats, it’s ruffled by a breeze, it lands. Tom Jones deftly underpins it all with trademark swagger.

Copper City Motel – Doctor Pump once wrote me a letter about his first trip to Mount Isa (1982?) with his covers band The Avengers. It involved Medi-slims, Flagons and riding Mad-Max-style on the Bullbar of the truck hooting at passers-by (mostly cattle). Not much has changed in the Isa. Every band in Australia wishes they wrote this song: “we don’t play no Copperhead Road” indeed. This song also chronicles the meeting of the Re-Mains and last-man standing tent-boxing operator Fred Brophy. Talk about simpatico – beating the drum, dealing with rough-necks, keeping shit on the road, trying to entertain. Fred hits the outback demographic square on the chin, the Re-mains try and draw them into a clinch and sneak in a few crafty rabbit punches coupled with the occasional flashy bolo.

Things I Remember, Things I Forget – It’s a slow-building waltz and Daley eschews the literal and drops his generally taciturn emotional guard.  “I’m a stranger, stranger in my own country, I’m a witness to death, and to deceit, and I’m a patriot …” An equivocal yet clear-eyed constitutional pre-amble if I ever heard one.

Pumulwuy –  conjuring both Tony Joe White and Hunters and Collectors, this is a belter. The great Eora guerilla gets a righteous tribute with a thumping bassline and clarion horns treatment which should come up huge with the aid of the Kenny G Spot Horns Experience at some stage.

Praise be to the Rooster – The first time West Wyalong has been mentioned in a song since the Aunty Jack Show (Kev Kavanagh if I recall correctly).  A fractured loping banjo-fuelled ballad of something gone wrong – it happened out on the Bland.

Who Shot Johnny D? – recalling the Re-mains classics Ballad of a Wrong’un and My Friend the Bushranger, this slice of subterranean north coast action sums up the dichotomy that is Nimbin – it’s like a tie-dyed, stupid-hat-wearing version of The Wire. It broods, it skulks, then explodes. Must go down a treat at Mardi Grass time.

Tequila and Methadone – Gronk national anthem.

Othello’s P76 – when I first streamed this on the Re-Mains Myspace page a couple of years back I knew something was up. Sonic adventure, an elliptical lyric and the poison dwarf square in the sights. It was my favourite Re-mains recording to that point and remains so.

This could be Anywhere – from the Canadian Prairies to the dun-green wastes of New South Wales, globalisation and road-weariness expressed through the personal.

Darn Tootin’ in Saskatchewan – I wish I was there.  Things get shifty in Canada, a party favourite. I reckon it’s the first time Canadian breakfast TV has been treated to lyrics about “waiting for the acid to kick in.”

Left on King – “In the ruins of where we used to play” just about sums it up. Sydney used to be the joint, bands from Melbourne used to move there to get ahead (can you imagine that?). Is anyone still there? “Every time I go to Sydney I get the flu”. Daley, you’ve been reading my mail …

Woke Up Sad – Good fucking grief – vulnerability expressed by Michael Daley in a public forum? Wonders never cease. Deft and gloopy electric piano makes it positively sweet. It hit me somewhat like the shock of Bob Dylan’s “I want you”. Where’d this come from?  The old curmudgeon’s got a heart.

Golden Shoes –  This spectral outro keeps the freak on.

Anyway, it’s the Re-Mains best record. I’ve just listened to it three times in a row – you should too.

In cahoots with our producer and sometime guitar-slinger Christian ‘Scales are for Fish’ Pyle (aka C.P.), we’ve just mastered 13 tracks for the long-awaited, much-belated and very nearly evaporated new album, Inland Sea.

It’s been three years since Love’s Last Stand, also produced by CP, was released, and in the interim Leigh Ivin left the band, Dave Ramsey joined it and was promptly almost killed by an errant outback cow, Grant Bedford also retired, hurt, and a string of other great players had a crack at country rock and roll. We toured Canada twice, played over 200 shows in both countries and released an earlier, Canadian version of Inland Sea there. But here, finally, is a collection of songs, some old now, some written in Canada, Lismore and various other timeless states.

It’s got a different vibe to the other records, there are a lot of players’ signature sounds on it – from Phil Daniel’s keys and occasional banjo, Bryson Mullholland’s eerie throat and Hammond flourishes, Scotty Dog Bennett’s righteous drum pounding, CP’s menacing guitar lines, Grant Bedford’s pre-smash drumming and Tom Jones Junior’s post-Stax bass barrages to the unmistakeable imprint of original country rock and roll banjo pioneer Shaun ‘Uncle Burnin’ Love’ Butcher’s gittar and banjo ministrations.

Inland Sea refers to the mythical body of water deep in the interior to which our convict ancestors fled, convinced that there they’d find wealth, rum and happiness – not an entirely different set of delusions to the modern country rock and roll model.

As such the songs are mostly road narratives sweated out in semi-delerium – Othello’s P-76, a haunted dirge in the wake of John Howard’s ugly reign, or This Could Be Anywhere, a ballad for the lost, somewhere in the boundless depths of Canada, or is it Grafton, NSW? Pumulwuy is the story of Australia’s indigenous Che Guevara, concerning the black leader who successfully fought the British for 15 years before treachery and lesser men brought him down. 2^nd Century plots a trans-continental love affair while Left on King laments the glory days of inner-city rock. Praise Be to the Rooster follows the fallen into hallucinatory hell in a wintry rural desolation. Copper City Motel is a rock and roll explosion in the grand tradition of Gold Wig and Bye Bye Byron Bay. The dark underbelly of Nimbin rolls, bloated, to the surface in Who Shot Johnny D? and finally, we cheer up in Darn Tootin’ in Saskatchewan. There’s more riotous carry-on in Tequila and Methadone, Lismore’s white-trash anthem, and a cheery litany of country-style loss and regret in Woke Up Sad, while Your Reward stomps on iridescent adolescents and Things I Remember, Things I Forget toasts the joy of selective amnesia.

I love it. CP’s knack for unique sounds and textures has separated it from previous recordings but kept it unmistakeably in country rock and roll territory. There’s enough banjo and bare-knuckle guitar here to soothe the savage beast, but more space and time.

The prodigious procession of players created some confusion and chaos in their wake but ultimately, contributed to a fecund and edgy record. It’s dark and spooky but often sublime.

We’re releasing it at a number of venues across the country, in a more leisurely and protracted series of tours than the usual Re-Mains road onslaughts. CP is coming on the road with us for extra grunt and cynicism.

The first of these is on May 22^nd at The Grand Junction Hotel in Maitland, just about our favourite pub in Australia. Home to rock-pigs, cowgirls, bullshitters, serial twitters, ladies choirs, truckies, bikers and seldom-pikers, this is one of the last bastions of the old school, low maintenance, high fidelity country rock and roll lifestyle. Room 19 is a portal into another dimension and many have taken it.

Sunday May 23 we revisit a Sydney institution – the Botany View Hotel. Our shows here are always packed, stacked and never lacking incident.

June 18 is our North Coast launch at Federal Hall. A beautiful building across the road from my old house, this place was overflowing into the street and down the road last time we played here – mind you, Tex Perkins was also on the bill. CP’s band is playing with us, as well as Doug Lord with Till The Cops Come – probably a self-fulfilling prophecy.

On the 19^th we roll down to Yamba to play the footy club there. Our mate Dave always puts on an unholy bash.

Melbourne, Bourke, Cobar and Nymagee dates are in the offing, as well as a possible jaunt to Darwin, where we haven’t been since the Meat Tray incident of 2007.

Pretty soon Inland Sea is going to be available for order from the website or iTunes, just as soon as we get it set up. Meanwhile we hope you’ll turn up to shows and buy one offstage, where Tom Jones will be happy to sign it in exchange for beer.