Lament For The Numb: 30th Anniversary Vinyl Edition!
Friday is fun because it's always about music. So there's always links. And playlists. Music for your weekend!
Sir Dave Dobbyn shared some pretty special news this week. He’s (finally) putting his masterpiece out on vinyl. One thing I know about Sir Dave - we all know something about him, he’s New Zealand music royalty - is that he LOVES vinyl. And yet, you can’t get many of his albums on the format. Not new copies. And I would say (until now) you can’t get his very best albums on vinyl.
I’m lucky to have records by Th’ Dudes and DD Smash which I have asked Sir David of the Dobbyn to autograph. They are treasures. I wrote about him in my book, On Song, and took albums up for him to sign when I was interviewing him - because I assumed the conversation was going to go okay, because I assumed I already knew him having listened to his music for so long. When I visited him several years on, to record one of my favourite podcast episodes, I flew up with another wee stash of album covers seeking signatures. I have been listening to his music my whole life really. As far as connections to music go, the only one that runs deeper for me, really, is The Beatles.
When I was a kid, my folks took me to a DD Smash concert. I’ve told the story before, but basically they were too tight to pay and we all took cushions and sat on the concrete outside the Soundshell over at Napier’s Marine Parade. We weren’t alone. There were more people outside for the open-air gig than inside, quite possibly. And it was a thrill to be there. The gig went a tiny bit pear-shaped, and to stop it getting really messy, they opened the doors and let everyone from outside in for a peek. That was a key early musical moment for me. My first gig. And a Dave Dobbyn fan for life. I was besotted with Footrot Flats, so when he scored the film-version it was perfect casting as far as I was concerned. (That might be the first soundtrack album I ever listened to, now I think about it. And you lot know what a soundtrack-nerd I am!)
All of those early albums that Dave helped to create - whether by Th’ Dudes, or DD Smash, and of course the mighty Loyal, the Footrot soundtrack too, they are all still great. All so good. But I really feel like the moment when he arrived - fully - as a songwriter, as the well-rounded, world-class songwriter was his 1993 album, Lament For The Numb. I even told him that too. And seemingly got away with it. He almost agreed with me. The refinements that were made after Lament resulted in Twist and The Islander; pretty much all three are tied for me, and have been since I first heard The Islander. (Okay, I gushed and raved about that album - and it’s probably trashy to say this, but that’s one of the best things I ever wrote, one of my favourite pieces about music - and its impact. That album pretty much saved me at that time).
I’ve still got the setlist fromThe Islander tour on my wall, by my desk, one of just a few setlists I’ve kept; I cherish. That gig was electric, and he played Maybe The Rain and Belle of The Ball and the title track off Lament For The Numb. And they were some of my favourite songs that night.
A few years ago, when I was still contributing to RNZ on the regular, I got to gush about Lament/Twist/Islander as the great trilogy - it was an essay I always meant to write, but it was super fun to chat about it live on air and play some of the gems.
Dave hasn’t released a new album since 2016, but he is still touring - and I really must see him play this summer. It’s been a while. The last time I saw him play it was the first gig back after Covid’s lockdowns and restrictions. He and band went around the country taking his magical music as a healing balm, a lightning rod. And it was as good as ever. Maybe better, given we’d all been missing the live-gig experience.
So, yeah, I was so chuffed to hear that the 30th Anniversary of Lament will be marked by a vinyl issue of the album.
In 1992, Dobbyn landed in L.A. keen to make a record, desperate to make a record in fact. He was trying to make it work in Aussie, he was trying to make it where wherever he could. He ended up making this masterpiece. And of course the record company people hated it. Shelved it. Told him they couldn’t hear a single. Told him they couldn’t even release it. So it sat in the can for a year. Never mind that the rhythm section - billed as The Stone People - was actually Elvis Costello’s Attractions. The album’s producer, and keyboard contributor, was the great Mitchell Froom. He’d made records with Crowded House and Los Lobos and would go on to help Suzanne Vega reinvent her sound.
In this configuration, Dobbyn was able to access his inner Randy Newman (Don’t Hold Your Breath), there was Costello-like songwriting punch too (Love Over All), but the album’s most mercurial moments still haunt while managing, also, to shine. Belltower. What the fuck is that? Where does a song like that come from? Anyone should be so lucky as to summon something close to that. And Palace. It’s just over two minutes, and feels more like a British Kitchen Sink short film than a song. It’s a head-scratchingly brilliant prose-poem of music.
To this day, when I hear Don’t Hold Your Breath - its Neil Young-ish guitar intro and it’s Randy Newman (Christmas in Capetown) energy - the hairs on my arms bristle and a shiver dances down my spine. What an album-closer!
Lament For The Numb is one side of a C-90 cassette tape. That’s how I first heard it. And remember it. So much so, that even after owning it on CD, and then losing it, picking it back up via streaming platforms, I stumbled onto a cassette-tape copy of it a couple of years ago and held it like a talisman. (I’m not joking. I’d take it with me places. In my pocket. No Walkman. No tapedeck. No chance to ever hear it. But just to hold it was enough).
And now, next week, I’ll get to drop the needle on it. We all will. Dave Dobbyn’s Bandcamp page is where you go to pre-order. I bought my copy. And then sat listening to the digital version right through.
And then I wrote this.
xx
Hey, so it’s Friday. And if you wanted more than just Dave Dobbyn for your weekend I have a bonus playlist. Well, I always have a bonus playlist. So make it two this time. First up, I found the notes from when I was a guest DJ on a Sydney radio show in 2018, so I swept up all the songs we played and made this playlist which is like a bonus “A Little Something For The Weekend”.
And then of course, there’s also A Little Something For The Weekend, Vol. 141
So enjoy both of those. And enjoy your weekend. Thanks for reading! And for listening!
