FILL is a man not a band. Yes, the jig, for what it’s worth, is up. I’ve decided to end this façade of a charade of a scheme of a fraud of a joke and to out myself as a solo artist, indeed, as a singer-songwriter.
I always wanted to be in a band and I’ve been in many: singer for Raw Nerves, singer/guitarist for LOOT and W.A.S.T.E. (that was before Radiohead stole my idea to steal Thomas Pynchon’s idea), drummer for Black Ruxton, Bikini Atoll, The Hound Dog Orchestra (don’t ask – I also did a bit of guitar and one gig on bass for that wonderful combo), Intensity and a plethora of one-night stands, jam sessions and other ad-hoc situations that defy memory and categorisation.
Now, I just want to play whenever I get the chance, which ain’t often. My time-scarce existence means corralling other musicians would be an oppressive and unproductive process.
So here I am, on my own, on myspace. The stuff on this site and my just-completed album, Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms, is all performed, produced and engineered by me and it’s all written by me except for Dead Sinister which is an old Raw Nerves track.
There’s another 30-odd songs to finish from my back catalogue and I’m “refusing†to get anyone else to play on them, if only because I’ve got the arrangements in my head and it’s too hard to impart them in the little snatches of time I get in the studio. Most of these tracks are started and a fair number finished so it shouldn’t be too long. But I also have to emphasise that this is the “old†stuff – I love It but it was written in difficult circumstances and never got the treatment it deserved primarily due to my half-arsed approach to being in a band, working with other musicians and, most significantly, working with a music industry that makes no sense to me whatsoever but seems to have some kind of high-function commercial logic to it. This logic extends from the desks of Clive Davis and the late Ahmet Ertegun to the band booker at the Tote or the editors of Local Anaesthetic (G-town fanzine).
The recording’s been a wonderful, if solitary experience, but the mixing has been a difficult learning experience – learning to be a recording engineer is a bit like learning to be a chopper pilot. It’s especially difficult when so many songs are saturated with anti-social-rock racket. It should get easier from here on – ATF has been the “pilot†project so it should be quicker, easier and less mental-illness inducing from now on.
The recording started at the beginning of 2006 so it’s taken 2 years to finish the first LP however this includes recording most of the parts for the other two LPS. It’ll probably end up as being about one LP per annum, not a bad rate given the day-job and pre-school kids on the premises.
I’m still gonna trade as FILL – it’s my name and I want to continue the idea that it’s all a bit beyond the standard solo-artist shtick. And if I can ever put a band together, I wanna be out front like Iggy and Mick Jagger (not Iggy and Mick solo, mind, but with the Stooges and the Stones - their solo stuff is shit except for Iggy’s Bowie/Berlin stuff).
As for the future – the remainder of the old stuff is just as good, if not better, than ATF and I’m sure you’ll dig it. It’s similar in mixture – about 70% hard to nasty rock, the remainder being a mix of various digressions. The second LP, to be titled Glorious Five Year plan, is a little Tennessee Valley (but not Dollywood) in its digressions and there’s at least one reggae song in there, maybe for the third LP. The third LP will be titled either First Bomb of the Weekend or John Pitura Glut - don't ask.
Beyond this, I wanna get writing again but any “rock†will probably be more sticky fingers than bollocks, although this is mainly a matter of choosing the right distortion pedal and closing the hi-hat every now and then but there'll be less of it, one way or the other. There will be more weirdness and pastoral pleasure and other musos, voices, generations and genders. The lyrics will be less FILL-o-centric and will have, as an abiding theme, the magic and wonder of the English language.
As for the REAL story...
There's a place on the road between Point Impossible and Nha Trang where the surf will kill ya if you don't kill it first. FILL can usually be found hitch-hikin' in the vicinity, bummin’ a lift with his 9’ blade and seeking a bigger, cleaner swell in a better world. FILL’s played every flea-pit garage, bar and intervention between Fitzroy and Barooga and never really knew any better. Now, FILL makes records and will hit the stage if the promoter offers a vision of exquisite peace and a six-pack of Mountain Goat India Pale Ale. Having stolen Blixa Bargeld’s vodka, Kram’s VB and Humphrey B Bear’s backstage rider, FILL’s on the run from the Melbourne music scene of the 90s (hence the surfside locale) and is determined to do it his way but he loves an audience and smell of love, ocean and sticky carpet in the morning.
