Tag Archives: Peter Lucky Luscombe

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Harvest Rock: Beck’s Chicken Curry and the Celebrated Drumsticks of Christmas

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Smiling, Alex returned to the secure fence of the Vines Stage. He’d been backstage meeting one of his adored bands, Bryon Bay’s own, Babe Rainbow. In the mosh-less pit, we’d stood right up the front for their mid-afternoon set and fittingly, the sun had spilled across the parklands for their summery psychedelia.

Inspired by Tame Impala, I loved their songs too and was pleased the bright, swirling music appealed to Alex. His day was already complete although we still had hours ahead of us. And here he was with his shirt signed and photos freshly pinged to his girlfriend Harriet, grinning like a shot fox.

*

An Auslan interpreter, my wife Claire’s working at Harvest Rock, and thanks to her around my neck I had a backstage pass. Walking from the car to the artists’ village I note each portable change room has a name on it by the plain door. Julia Jacklin, Baker Boy, Vera Blue.

I then pass a hunched, shuffling fellow wearing a beige jacket. He nods and I nod back. In the car preparing for the festival, I’d been playing his seminal album Odelay. On CD, of course. How else to return to the glorious, Gen X 90’s? A music icon and perhaps the ultimate Californian. Beck.

Later, I glimpse him alone at a table with a plate of chicken curry.

*

Across the brimming crowd I see Claire on the Auslan stage. American folk rock act The Lemon Twigs is finishing with melodies soaring and guitars blazing. Squeezing through the throng, two girls are pointing at Claire. She’s in black and signing in that remarkable language, expressing lyrics, melody and meaning. One girl says, ‘Isn’t she great?’ Her friend says, ‘Yeah, I love her.’ I smile; an anonymous figure with an undersized Greg Chappell hat atop his oversized head.

*

I’m back in the artist’s village and a big fella paces by. Built like a boxer, he’s familiar and I know his face. In the gathering twilight he gazes at his feet and then I remember him. Rockwiz. It’s Peter ‘Lucky’ Luscombe who drums in Paul Kelly’s band. He’s clenching the drumsticks that will usher in the second verse of Australia’s favourite seasonal song, ‘How to Make Gravy.’ We’ll all sing along to

I guess the brothers are driving down from Queensland

And Stella’s flying in from the coast

I love how the introduction of Luscombe’s drums and their magnificent energy echoes the family travelling home for Christmas. It also foreshadows the pending drama of their tale. I glance over again at his drumsticks, and these are enchanted. He disappears.

*

I’m up the back of the Harvest Stage. I peer up. Encircling us like ancient guardians, gum trees stretch and wave while above is the cityscape, newly impressive now, and emblematic of Adelaide finally being softly buoyant and sure of itself. Between sets, ‘Ego is Not a Dirty Word’ by Skyhooks surges over the blue sky, continuing the day’s uplifting nostalgia. It’s a Sunday BBQ song and my immersion into the world of the festival has arrived.

*

With the dark having risen up from the trampled grass there’s an earthy thrum. On the Vines Stage, Tash Sultana is coaxing all of her instruments to sultry life: guitar, drums, bass, saxophone, keyboard, flute. It all loops about and entangles us with aural warmth. Over on the Auslan stage and all in black among these compelling atmospherics, Claire is now backlit and silhouetted, still providing insight and accessibility.

I have yet another moment.

*

I’m at the back for Paul Kelly’s set and with my eldest son right by the front our generational handover resumes. Alex’s fifteen is more kaleidoscopic and whole-hearted than my fifteen was and this gladdens me. Heading home, I ask his thoughts on Australia’s most treasured minstrel, and he replies, ‘He was excellent.’ Steering down Anzac Highway I beam.

Massive in its fragility, ‘Deeper Water’ is an immaculate distillation of life. Hearing Paul Kelly’s finest composition always forces hot tears, and this festive lawn hosts the latest episode in my story of this song.

Already the unrelenting enthusiast, Alex pushes against the stage in this blue evening’s swiftly chilling air, and at this very moment our lives unfurl together in soaring splendor, and I hope all those optimistic signs I see in him are perfect predictors, and with this isolated, joyful city as a witness, my time tonight has again come too early and too, too late.

On a crowded beach in a distant time

At the height of summer, see a boy of five

At the water’s edge, so nimble and free

Jumping over the ripples, looking way out to sea

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Paul Kelly’s “How to Make Gravy” and me

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songs from the south

My favourite Christmas song is twenty-two. But it seems as though it’s been around forever. Like Love Actually, which premiered in 2003, they’re both part of the festive furniture, and signal the season’s arrival.

It’s the 21st of December and our protagonist Joe, freshly imprisoned and hotly anxious, reaches out to his brother. But is “How to Make Gravy” a letter or a phone call? Initially, the form seems spoken- “Hello Dan, it’s Joe here,” but then moves to a written mode- “I hope you’re keeping well.” Which is it? I don’t know.

Over four and a half minutes, this mystery of the medium continues while we meet the brothers; Angus; parents Frank and Dolly; Joe’s wife Rita; his kids; sisters Stella and Mary; Mary’s former boyfriend, the olfactorily-offensive one (just a little too much cologne) and, of course, the almost missable Roger.

Although most are only mentioned once they’re Australia’s first family of Christmas song. We feel like we know them. Despite these skeletal sketches, they’re writ large. Dolly’s the uncrossable matriarch. I can imagine having a beer with Angus, and if he were alive surely Bill Hunter would play Frank in the film version, all gruff wisdom and barbeque tongs.

‘How to Make Gravy’ begins with opening chords similar to Thunderclap Newman’s ‘Something in the Air’ but its guitar riff by the recently-departed Spencer P. Jones almost nods in homage to the British band’s late-sixties hit song. This might be partly why Kelly’s tour de force seems like it’s been around longer than 1996. It’s deep in our musical tectonics.

Across the top and also underneath is that doleful slide guitar, foreshadowing the anguish to come. Exhilarating, it’s suggestive of outback space and tropical heat and melancholic veranda conversations.

The next surge is when Peter “Lucky” Luscombe’s drums kick in with an electrifying jolt at, “I guess the brothers are driving down from Queensland and Stella’s flying in from the coast”.  I was drawn to the song upon its release, and taught it (and Radiohead’s “Karma Police”) to year 10 classes.

I’d only considered it as a stand-alone song until I read this from the singer: “I’m sort of aware where certain songs are written a few years apart from each other – ‘To Her Door,’ then ‘Love Never Runs on Time’ and ‘How to Make Gravy’ – I’ve got a feeling it’s the same guy. He keeps coming back.”

Here Kelly’s created a fictional universe, or at least some intertextuality, especially as the line, “Tell ’em all I’m sorry, I screwed up this time” indicates a wider backstory, an extended narrative, featuring our central character and his wife Rita.

And what of that famous recipe for gravy?

“It’s a real recipe of my first father in law, which he used and which I still use. When I make gravy for my family, that’s the recipe that I use, and now they always make me, make the gravy. It’s my job now (laughs). When I made up the song it wasn’t my job but it is now. Sometimes art influences life or the other way around.”

I love how the song’s acknowledged with today, December 21, declared national Gravy Day. There’s even a hashtag- #GravyDay.

A portrait of timeless Australia, it’s as evocative as the timber pylons of the Port Willunga jetty; a backyard cricket match; the ribbon of road unrolling across the Hay Plains.

As the boys splash about in the twinkling pool on Christmas morning, and I sneak my first piece of ham I anticipate that plaintive strumming and forlorn slide guitar and hearing, yet again, Joe’s confessional.