Review: The Cast, by Michael Waugh

Michael Waugh - “The Cast”  

Michael Waugh has released his new record entitled “The Cast”. I’ve reviewed his previous albums before, and I've said in the past his albums are pretty much a trademark of quality. They’re all beautifully produced and accompanied by Shane Nicholson. The songs are interesting and heart-wrenching. This fourth album is no different. 

This isn’t trying to sound dismissive. Quite the opposite, in fact. However, it would make for a boring review if that was all you could say about the record. The fact is, with each new release, Michael is in fact becoming braver as a storyteller. Each subsequent album has taken bigger and bolder steps in directions other country performers, nay ANY modern performers, fear to tread. 

 What makes “The Cast” so compelling is that this is, quite simply, “dangerous” music. Dangerous to every bloke, simply because it dares to challenge and question the very core of masculinity we all grew up with. The core beliefs that boys from the 1980s and older all carry with them (I know, because I’m one of them). It dares to point out that all the crap we grew up believing we had to be, in order to be a “real man” is exactly that - crap. These are songs that dare to shoot holes in the facade that we’re all guilty of wearing. 

 And what’s more, songs like “He Taught Me” and “The Cast” also are textbook examples of something that us “real men” are terrified of: being vulnerable. Real men can’t be vulnerable. Boys don’t cry, or some shit. Being vulnerable is when the hunter becomes the hunted. It’s where you become less than you hold yourself to be. 

Michael Waugh’s music reminds me that this model of masculinity needs to change - for the good of men everywhere, our partners, our kids, and for society at large. These songs remind me that I have feelings too - as much as I don’t want to admit that I do. And bloody hell, they don't half hit me deeply. 

Speaking of dangerous, the album opener “Swollen” dares to call us fellas all out for being - complacent at best, ignorant at worst, about our battles with food, the struggle to stay healthy as we age, the battle to lose weight and stupid backhanded jokes we throw at each other when we plump up a bit. “You look like you’ve been in a good paddock, mate”. 

While we’re at it, “Dark” looks at alcohol-fueled blokes and the danger they can be for unsuspecting women on a night out. A big topic to be discussed, and one we try hard to avoid, and one we cannot escape now. 

During the writing and recording process of this album, two of Michael’s biggest influences - his mum and dad - both passed away. There are beautiful tributes to them in the form of “He Taught Me” and “Hold On To The Ones You Love”. “Too Many Drawers”, in honour of his late mother, is made all the more poignant because it features Felicity Urquhart, herself a legend in Australian Country circles, and an artist that was a favourite of Michael’s mum. 

This is an album of music with its heart on its sleeve, and blood and guts on its boots. It’s a rare artist who finds new ways to move me to tears with each new album. It’s almost as if he has looked into my soul at my deepest and darkest memories and fears, grabbed half a dozen of them and turned them into songs powerful enough to tear down the rugged macho shell I’ve spent my entire life building around myself. Come album number 5 in a couple of years time, no doubt he’ll do it all again. But for now, “The Cast” has given me cause to stop, pause and reflect on who I am and what needs to change. If a few more of us can do that as a result of listening to this album, Michael will have changed the world. If only a little bit.

The Sound and the Fury Podcast Season Three

 The Sound and the Fury Podcast

Season Three

What is the Sound and the Fury Podcast?
It’s a series of short programs about music. This is my story, of a socially awkward kid, growing up in rural parts of the NSW Hunter Valley, trying to find a culture in a place of blandness and mediocrity. Trying to find something meaningful to hang on to, in a place where heroes are hard to find. Fortunately there was music to fill the void, and i found it in unlikely places and from unlikely sources.

Season Three looks at some of the music that is near and dear to me, and the often obscure places I found it.

Using Safari on an iPhone or iPad and can't see any media players below? Click here for how to show them.

The Sound and the Fury Podcast Season Two

The Sound and the Fury Podcast

Season Two 

What is the Sound and the Fury Podcast?
It’s a series of short programs about music. This is my story, of a socially awkward kid, growing up in rural parts of the NSW Hunter Valley, trying to find a culture in a place of blandness and mediocrity. Trying to find something meaningful to hang on to, in a place where heroes are hard to find. Fortunately there was music to fill the void, and i found it in unlikely places and from unlikely sources.

Season Two looks at my earliest musical development, from my first steps at learning an instrument, to navigating my way through music education and then onto pub stages in my home town as a fan, roadie and band member.   

Using Safari on an iPhone or iPad and can't see any media players below? Click here for how to show them.

Episode 13

The Sound and the Fury Podcast Season One

The Sound and the Fury Podcast

Season One

What is the Sound and the Fury Podcast?
It’s a series of short programs about music. This is my story, of a socially awkward kid, growing up in rural parts of the NSW Hunter Valley, trying to find a culture in a place of blandness and mediocrity. Trying to find something meaningful to hang on to, in a place where heroes are hard to find. Fortunately there was music to fill the void, and i found it in unlikely places and from unlikely sources.

Season One looks at my earliest recollections of the music that had a major impact on me. 

Using Safari on an iPhone or iPad and can't see any media players below? Click here for how to show them.

The Sound and the Fury Podcast Returns...

 The Sound and the Fury Podcast returns...

...with an actual podcast!

This podcast has been in the works for a while now and it makes sense to post the shows here instead of the mess that is my Mixcloud page. I'm still at a loss as to whether this is good enough to be uploaded to Spotify yet, and as such I have kept it purely to Mixcloud. 

The Sound and the Fury Podcast, the show, is an autobiographical show that tells a little bit about me but also explains how my life has been shaped by the biggest love of my life: music. It looks into the cultural aspects of New South Wales in the 1980s where I grew up, in particular around the Newcastle area, and it tries to make sense of where I've come from. 

It is available here on Mixcloud

Metallica’s "Load" at 25

This year, June 4 marks 25 years of the release of Metallica’s controversial album “Load”. Although it was a huge seller at the time, it drove an ideological wedge through the band’s fanbase, and even between band members. The story is a rich and complex one, and one that really needs to ask questions of both band and their fans. 

Metal fans are an unforgiving bunch. They know what they want from their favourite band, or so they think. They want the same thing but better than last time. This goes a long way to explaining why a Status Quo record from 2010 sounds a lot like one from 1972. Yet for creative types, musicians especially, it can get tiring retreading the same formula over and over again. The problem is that fans are always the first to tell their heroes “I've followed you from the very beginning, but what you’re doing now is a travesty, man”. 

It reminds me of that scene in the Simpsons where Bart and Lisa are persuaded to participate in the focus group about cartoon show Itchy and Scratchy, and their responses lead creator Roger Meyers Jr to snap at them “you kids don’t know what you like!” 

Herein lies the problem. How can Metallica, one of the most influential metal bands of the late 20th century, a band who were one of the defining acts of a new genre called “Thrash Metal”, diversify and try something new, still keep their muse intact, and yet keep their fans happy? If they go one way, they’ll be hammered for doing the same thing as they’ve always done and this time it sounds boring. If they move too far away from their “signature sound”, they’ll be criticised for sounding nothing like they used to. Metallica fans had already been asked to relax their standards to accept the new glistening and streamlined sound on the band’s 1991 self titled album, after the band explained that the complex arrangements of the songs on their 1988 album “...And Justice for All” were too complex to pull off successfully on stage. 

As music fans, we don’t know what we want, really. 

And let’s face it. We didn’t know we needed Metallica, or Nirvana or the Beatles or ANYONE of any of the millions of artists and musicians in our lives until we heard them for the first time, right? So how do we know if any new record by any band is worth listening to? 

And is “Load” any good, after all this time and listening to it again with fresh ears? 

Well it depends on what your metric for evaluation of it is. 

                Does it stand up against the band’s classic works that came before? 

                And does it hang together as a body of songs unto itself? 

On both fronts, “Load” is found wanting. 

“Load” was never going to hold a candle to “Master of Puppets” or “Ride the Lightning”.  Nor could it - as musicians and as people, the members of Metallica had changed. They were never going to write those sorts of songs again. Change is inevitable, but rarely is it accepted by metal fans who just want loud and heavy. As a work that explores new horizons, it is admirable and brave, but it misses all the aspects of Metallica that make them unique. Instead of incorporating new directions into their sound, they spend too much time trying to sound like other bands. Bands like Clutch, Kyuss and Gov’t Mule, who were likely influenced by Metallica originally, and bands who do this kind of groove-heavy sound better. 

As a body of songs? Well...the band have put all their stock in the riffs and forgotten to write melodies to most of these songs. And the riffs themselves aren’t terribly interesting. Standard blues rock fare that has been done a million times before, with a leaden backbeat that doesn’t know how to swing. 

Knowing what Metallica’s fanbase is like, it takes some balls to put out a song like “Mama Said”, with its loose country twang and lap steel guitars on it. It also takes some guts to put out “Until It Sleeps” which was so clearly influenced by grunge that it sounds like an outtake from a Smashing Pumpkins album. They get credit for being daring in the face of audience expectations, but it doesn’t make them highlights. 

If there is a jewel anywhere in this rusty crown of a record, it is “Hero of the Day”, which has a gorgeous heartbroken melody and good use of swelling dynamics. A highlight on an overlong album with very few of them. At 79 minutes long, the album has a lot of noise but is short on clever configurations of it. I should be thankful that it’s not a longer album. The final track “The Outlaw Torn” had to be trimmed of 50 seconds in order for the album to fit on one CD. 

Most, if not all of the hair metal bands who survived the grunge explosion of 1991 were given a bit of a kick up the butt from the younger upstarts of the new scene, leading many to evolve and change their look and sound. Metallica did the same, cutting their hair (Shock! Horror!) and trying to move in new directions. The first fruits of these changes are on “Load” and despite spending 12 months recording it, Metallica still came up with something that is less than the sum of its parts. 

In a strange way, the harbinger for the disastrous few years to come after the release of this album was when singer James Hetfield and bassist Jason Newstead made a trip to Australia in person to appear on Triple J’s Request Fest in May 1996 to premiere the album’s lead single “Until it Sleeps”. They played the song twice and Hetfield and Newstead took talkback from the fans, who largely panned it. This led to many callers getting a serve from Newstead, being told they weren’t real fans because they couldn’t understand where they were coming from. “Load” then only sold about a quarter of what their previous self-titled album sold. And then the Napster thing happened. Then things turned into a full blown crisis when it came to record what eventually became the “St Anger” album, with the band hiring a “personal enhancement coach” to counsel the band and to sort out their personal issues before a record could be made, as seen in the film “Some Kind of Monster”. 

To the credit of the band, they have managed to stave off the heat of criticism by keeping a steady stream of fan club only releases of live sets from the “golden” era, keeping fans happy while trying out new things on their albums, including a highly controversial duet project with Lou Reed, but that’s for another time…

Guns n' Roses' Use Your Illusion at 30

September 17, 2021 marks 30 years since Guns ‘N’ Roses made the most audacious step of their career up to that point, and released two new albums of all new material on the same day - Use Your Illusion 1 and Use Your Illusion 2.

Guns and Roses sprung up out of the LA hard rock and metal scene, lumped in with bands like Motley Crue and Poison, with their long hair and leather clothes. However, GnR were far more street-wise and dirty. Their image was less about being made up and coiffured; theirs was “lived in” - from the squalor and grime of the city’s seedy underbelly. This made them far more threatening to the parents of suburban middle American teens, and it meant that their records sold by the truckload. Their debut album “Appetite for Destruction” was a slow burner upon release in 1987, but when the now-iconic ballad “Sweet Child O’Mine” was released after the record was in stores for almost a year, the band’s success took off like a rocket.

In Australia, Guns n Roses were the preserve of the metalhead community. At the time, the cool surfie kids at my high school didn’t listen to that sort of music - they were all into Midnight Oil and INXS. Only the socially awkward types who wore black jeans and flannelette shirts listened to heavy metal. “Appetite for Destruction” was the album I played at low volume or in headphones, lest my mum heard the swearing in it, and confiscated the tape.

Something happened between the release of “Appetite...” and “Use Your Illusion..” though. There seemed to be a cross pollination of the tastes of each of the sub-groups at school and all of a sudden the surfies are now listening to Metallica. This meant that expectation for a new GnR album, which felt like forever since their last album, was at fever pitch.

When the Use Your Illusion albums were released in 1991, it seemed like an over-correction of sorts. The band essentially copped out on a proper followup to “Appetite for Destruction” with what really amounts to little more than a double EP - a reissue of their debut “Live *?@! Like a Suicide” on side 1 with 4 new acoustic songs on side 2, a record called “G’n’R Lies”.

What we were treated to, after nearly three years of hype, rumour and scuttlebutt, was 150 minutes of new music, which also included a couple of songs that were drip fed to the public as part of film soundtracks (“Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” was in Days of Thunder, while “You Could Be Mine” was the signature tune attached to Terminator 2: Judgement Day). They were never intended as a double album, however their titles and artwork almost beg you to treat them as one complete piece.

Collectively, the two albums run the gamut of styles, from pounding punk rock, to country, blues, sneering vitriol, multi-part epics, heartfelt ballads, and an ill-advised attempt at rap music. No fewer than six tracks clock in at over 7 minutes long, the longest being “Coma” at over 10 minutes long, which comes complete with a defibrillator solo.

Most record stores were offering deals and discounts to customers to buy both records together, as my local store did and therefore, upon release, both albums hit the top of the ARIA album charts at the same time. Although, there is only room for one title at the #1 spot, and so UYI 2 scored that spot, with UYI 1 at number 2. For the next 18 months, both albums were rarely out of the Australian top 50 album charts, although Use Your Illusion 1 seemed to hang around longer.

Thirty years on, with the band about to tour Australia again in November (pandemic permitting), have the albums stood the test of time?

History shows us that being self indulgent enough to release two very long albums in one go at that point was a bad idea - with grunge just around the corner, waiting to consign the pomposity of hair metal into the past. That said, what we’re left with is a collection of songs that, when taken together, are as wild and as careering an experience as any of the classic double albums like The Beatles’ “The White Album” or Fleetwood Mac’s “Tusk”. In its own way, like those albums, some songs deserve to be removed, some edited.

There is still no forgiving vocalist Axl Rose’s rant against rock journalists, abusing them by name in “Get In The Ring”. There was no need for the alternate lyric version of “Don’t Cry” on UYI 2 when the original version is perfectly decent. The subtle beauty of Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” didn’t need to be bludgeoned to death with Axl’s heavy handed arrangement of it, and times have changed now such that the misogyny of “Back off Bitch” really doesn’t belong here anymore.

The risks the band takes are, more often than not, rewarding. The sprawling, multipart suites of “November Rain” and “Estranged” are still beautiful; the 10 minute total-recall-nightmare of a drug overdose “Coma” is still chilling; and “Civil War” is still poignant. They still sound most at home on the pounding rockers, like “Right Next Door To Hell”, “Shotgun Blues”, “Double Talkin’ Jive”, “Pretty Tied Up”, “Locomotive”, “You Could Be Mine”. Axl’s breathless savagery on “Garden of Eden” is every bit as bracing now as it was then.

Most surprising however, is how comfortable they sound being bluesy and occasionally vulnerable. When Axl relaxes the reins a bit, and lets Izzy Stradlin and Duff McKagan a bit of room to play, you get outstanding tracks like “Dust and Bones” and “14 Years”. When Rose lets his guard down we get songs like “Dead Horse” and “Yesterdays” which show a gift for melody which he is rarely given credit for.

If one is to take the two albums as a unified whole, across 8 sides of vinyl as my copy is, the whole thing runs out of steam on UYI 2, where it feels like things like the overlong country rock experiment “Breakdown” were just thrown in just to make up the numbers. Was a cover of Paul McCartney’s “Live and Let Die” truly necessary? What was the point of the 86-second closing track “My World” where Axl tries on his best Ice T impression and comes off sounding like sour milk?

It is revisionist of me to try and edit these albums down to a single album. There’s more wheat than chaff on this record. However it's up to each listener to determine that. We have Spotify and Apple Music now, we can all make our own playlist of the highlights and make our own perfect version of the album. As it stands, its a perfect example of the decadence and excess of the time, just before it all came crashing down.

Oh well, whatever, nevermind…