From Paul Kelly’s bittersweet sequel to Megadeth’s farewell, Alex Lloyd’s return and Spinal Tap’s encore, this week’s music is all about endings, echoes and fresh starts. IA's resident rhythm wrangler, David Kowalski, brings you the latest.
Paul Kelly – Rita Wrote a Letter
You may have heard recently about a notice published in The Age in Melbourne, a death notice about someone named Joe, that curiously mentions all the names of the characters that just so happened to feature in the Paul Kelly song, ‘How to Make Gravy’.
It turns out it was a cheeky nod to the fact that Kelly is indeed releasing a new song. It is an answer song, or at least a continuation of the story of Joe after his incarceration and the love of his life Rita, in the aforementioned ‘Gravy’.
‘Rita Wrote a Letter’ is a sort of autobiography from beyond the grave. Joe has passed away and this is his reflection on a letter he received from Rita, from the other side, as it were. The letter was in the classic “Dear John” style, one that broke his heart and signalled Rita’s move to greener pastures in life and love.
The track is unusually buoyant for what the subject matter is. I am not sure it will go down into the canon of Australian classics like its predecessor did, but I hope I am wrong. This is clever writing and the video, featuring Justine Clarke, is cleverly shot with a heartwarming glow.
Megadeth announce retirement
One would think that intense heavy metal bands would burn out rather than fade away. Not so with Megadeth, who have faded away quite a bit in recent years. However, they have announced one final tour and a final album for 2026, with lead guitarist Dave Mustaine releasing a memoir next year as well.
Megadeth are a pioneering heavy metal band who were regarded as one of the “Big Four” along with Metallica, Anthrax and Slayer, all purveyors of a faster and more aggressive style of music known as thrash metal.
Megadeth have always struggled to get out of the shadow of one other band — Metallica. This has been because Metallica was the band from which guitarist Dave Mustaine was fired. He formed Megadeth as a revenge act, to be louder and heavier than his former band.
I had already thought Mustaine had put the band to bed years ago. It turns out that they are still a going concern, despite there being only two new albums released in the last ten years, largely due to his ill health. He has battled nerve pain that hampers his guitar playing and, in 2019, underwent surgery for throat cancer. This makes this final tour one for Mustaine to say goodbye to the fans on his terms while he still can.
I wish him every success with the gigs.
Alex Lloyd: Australian Story and new music
Once ubiquitous singer-songwriter Alex Lloyd was featured on Australian Story on the ABC on Monday night. It pulled back the covers on a career that burned brightly and then... derailed spectacularly. The scale of which it derailed was something I was unaware of.
I met Alex a couple of times in the late '90s at various in-store appearances and gigs, especially around the time of his Black The Sun album, and I was taken by how humble and down-to-Earth he was. I was also impressed at how that vulnerable and angelic voice could cut through a full live band on stage and still punch the listener in their emotional solar plexus.
Without giving away spoilers, a lot of the unravelling happened around a lawsuit for plagiarism he endured in the mid-2000s. He learned the hard way how the maxim “where there’s a hit, there’s a writ” rings true. He was sued by a former school friend alleging that he wrote the lyrics to his 2001 hit ‘Amazing’ with Alex just after Lloyd’s mother died. The lawsuit was found to be spurious, but it took a painful emotional toll that unlocked some serious childhood trauma.
The program shows the plumbing depths that he reached and how he has managed to claw his way back. There is new music on the horizon. The first fruits of which are ‘Echoes of Home’, a darkly orchestrated piece that aches with sincerity. That unique and passionate voice of his is still intact.
It’s good to have you back, Alex. The Australian Story episode is available on ABC iView.
Spinal Tap II: The End Continues
The end is getting closer. The long awaited sequel to the 1984 classic mock documentary, the if you will, “rockumentary” about a fictitious and disaster-prone heavy metal band, This Is Spinal Tap, is releasing in September and if the trailers are to be believed, it will be a star-studded event.
The band have been reminded that they owe a promoter one last show as part of a deal that went unfulfilled decades earlier, so they reform to fulfil the obligation. Paul McCartney and Elton John make appearances in the new film. The long-running gag of the drummer who meets a bizarre yet horrible fate continues, where they announce they have lost 11 drummers in total. They apparently ask Questlove, the drummer of Jimmy Fallon’s house band, The Roots, to join the band for their final contractual-obligation gig, but he retorts, “No thanks, I don’t want to die”.
By all accounts, this is a really well planned out film that looks to be a rare beast in the history of film — a worthy sequel. I can’t wait to see it.
New music: Crystal Robins
Crystal Robins is a Darwin-based country singer-songwriter who has just dropped a new single entitled ‘Gravity’. The track links back to Paul Kelly in serendipitous ways. Kelly, in his memoir, How To Make Gravy, talks about his imposter syndrome, and Robin’s song takes inspiration from Kelly’s struggle and tackles the same issue from her own unique perspective.
It is rare that a song in this genre uses time signatures in such an endearing way. I believe it is a deliberate device to highlight the unsettling nature of imposter syndrome, which most creatives suffer at some point in their lives. The deep anxiety that the audience can see through a facade is extremely off-putting, and this is cleverly and beautifully articulated not just in the lyrics but also in the groove of the song, shifting from three to four beats per bar with economy, but with a frequency that keeps the listener compelled to hang on to every note.
This is definitely a keeper. Crystal Robins’ latest album, Moonflower, is available now.
Until next time…
LISTEN TO THIS WEEK'S SPECIALLY CURATED PLAYLIST BELOW:
David Kowalski is a writer, musician, educator, sound engineer and podcaster. His podcasts 'The Sound and the Fury Podcast' and 'Audio Cumulus' can be heard exclusively HERE. You can follow David on Twitter/X @sound_fury_pod.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
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