M A N D Y N O LA N ’S
SOAPBOX
W W W . E C H O . N E T. A U /
LIVE MUSIC
S O A P - B OX
GUNS BEFORE KIDS I can’t understand why America love guns so much.
At this point in history it would appear that those in power love their guns more than they love their kids because they’d rather protect their right to bear arms than create safe spaces for children. Children have a right to safety. A child should not expect to be shot dead at school. But it seems that expectation is unrealistic. American children can realistically fear being murdered by someone with a gun during a regular school day. If that doesn’t give you anxiety I don’t know what will. In the US there are almost as many guns as people, which means that when you consider that America also consists of reasonable peace-loving people who don’t own a gun then the average guntoting household has an astonishing eight guns! America represents 4.5 per cent of the world’s population, yet owns nearly half of the world’s privately owned guns. Why? Why does a privileged first-world country so proud of its shiny democracy need guns? For Freedom. America won’t let go of this thing they call ‘freedom’: to own a gun and of course shoot a gun. When I think about freedom I don’t think of guns. I don’t think about protecting my freedom with a gun. I don’t feel limitation to my freedom because I don’t have a gun. In fact, living without a gun makes me feel pretty bloody free. If my country were so incapable of keeping me safe that I needed to arm myself then I wouldn’t have much faith in my country, no matter how shiny the democracy. America’s definition of freedom is not one I’d want to emulate here in Australia. I can send my kids to school without ever worrying they are going to get shot. I have never once kissed the soft foreheads of my children as I usher them through the school gate harbouring a nagging worry that they could be killed. That this could be the last time I hold them. That my sweet baby gone off to learn to read and write could be shot by a gun in the hands of some deranged schoolmate or rampaging adult with a score to settle. I don’t know how American mums and dads send their kids to school – how they manage that nagging anxiety that their kid might not come home. I have spoken to Scarlett Lewis. Her 6-year-old son died in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. Her son was one of 20 little children aged 6–7 who were murdered by a gunman who later shot himself in the head. It was one of the most harrowing conversations I have had with a person. As Scarlett unpacked what happened on that day, I couldn’t believe the enormity of the tragedy. I couldn’t get my head around how so many little kids could be killed like that, on any ordinary day, in an ordinary town. Kids who belonged to ordinary parents like you or me.
HEADLIGHTS AND GOODBYES
DON’T BE SCARED OF SPIDERS…
Headlights and Goodbyes is the title single from the new album of north coast folk rocker Cheynne Murphy, and is due for release at the end of 2018. Headlights and Goodbyes explores the notion of moving forward with the simultaneous feelings of nostalgia and a yearning for what is being left behind. Cheynne is joining forces with longtime collaborator Mark Heazlett to showcase the new material at the Bangalow Market this Sunday, 10am onwards.
The narrative of the Spiderbait story is so fantastical it could only be based in truth: three friends from a small Australian country town taking on the Australian music scene on their own terms and emerging triumphant 25 years later, the friendships unscathed but their band one of the biggest and best on the national scene.
THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT HARRY Harry James Angus, the explosive trumpet-playing singer from The Cat Empire, is known for his deeply original live performances, in which the highest standards of musical craftsmanship are thrown into chaos, uncertainty, and ultimately transcendence. Featuring some of Australia’s finest jazz soloists, complete with horns, vocal chorus and Angus’s soaring trumpet, Struggle with Glory is a new project that explores the archetypal stories of ancient Greek mythology – the savage and beautiful world of the Olympian gods, of Achilles and Odysseus, of sea nymphs and of the Minotaur, re-imagined through the swoop and holler of traditional gospel music. The call-and-response, emotionally charged tropes of American gospel bring these ancient stories to life. Like a church for pagans, Struggle With Glory is by turns celebratory and mournful, completed by trad-jazz improvisations that will have even the strictest of pundits idol-worshipping in the aisles. Mullumbimby Civic Hall | Friday 1 June | 8pm | www.redsquaremusic.com.au
WALRUS & CARPENTER & DINGLE To celebrate the release of their new single Walrus and the Carpenter will be performing at the Court House Hotel in Mullumbimby. Singer/songwriter Matthew Engerer will be accompanied by Dave Biggin on guitar, Vincent Bashford on drums and Ben Brennan on bass. The mood for the night will be set by up-and-coming localgrown talent Maisy Taylor. The night will also include the debut screening of the music video for the new single Home (Waiting for the News), filmed and edited by Sinem Saban. As usual Walrus and the Carpenter have made it affordable for all with tickets just $10 on the door. 7.30pm Saturday.
As brash and confident as they are strange and uncompromising, the three founding members of Spiderbait – Janet, Whitt and Kram – started humbly in the rural NSW township of Finley, the fervent music lovers taking inspiration from everything from Slayer to The Bangles and meshing into one intoxicating and unique brew. Spiderbait have racked up pretty much every accolade there is to achieve on the Australian scene, having taken home numerous ARIA awards, chalked up a number-one single (their 2004 cover of Leadbelly’s Black Betty) and even topped the prestigious Triple J Hottest 100 (for Buy Me a Pony, 1996). They’ve also become one of the most reliable propositions and biggest drawcards in the live realms, having criss-crossed the country immeasurable times on headlining tours as well as playing show-stopping sets at every festival from Splendour in the Grass and Big Day Out to Meredith, Falls Festival and A Day on the Green (as well as countless others). But there’s no resting on their laurels for the hard-working three-piece, and there are plenty more chapters to write in the Spiderbait story – it’s impossible to know what exactly will happen next, but you know it will be achieved by three great mates and soundtracked by music that’s catchy and uncompromising. They play the Tap House in Kingscliff on 29 June. tickets.oztix.com.au/?Event=86308
MUNGA MADNESS Get along to Munga Madness this Saturday at the Billinudgel Hotel from 2pm and catch a stellar lineup of blues and rock acts banding together to help out their mate. There’ll also be be auctions and raffles with some great prizes so do yourselves a favour and feel good about it. $10 entry or gold coin donation. Kids U/16 free.
CONTINUED P32
I published this interview some time ago and then was anonymously contacted by a person telling me that they had information that the Sandy Hook shooting was a hoax. If it’s not cruel enough to lose your children in a horrendous act of violence, then you have this enduring legacy of the progun lobby spreading vile conspiracy theories that the victims fabricated the story. Wow, that’s some freedom they’re got over there. If I lived in America I wouldn’t send my kids to school. It’s too dangerous. This is American school life in the last few months: A 25-year-old girl was shot in a Texan school cafeteria on January 22 this year by a 16-year-old classmate. The next day in Kentucky two students were shot dead when a classmate opened fire with a hand gun; a boy and girl, both 15 years old, died. On 1 February four students were injured in an LA classroom when a gun went off in a classroom with a 12-year-old boy being shot in the head. Valentines Day saw 17 people die at Marjory Stonemason Douglas High School; 7 March another kid got shot at Huffman High School; 20 March a 16-year-old girl died when she was shot in the head… and it goes on until right now when 10 people were killed at Santa Fe High School. When does it stop? When does a country that cares so much about ‘freedom’ start caring about their children? Maybe those pro-lifers, who care so much about saving what they call unborn lives, should stop hassling women and start hassling the NRA about the born lives being murdered every day. Oh, hang on, that’s right. The NRA are pro-life. Just embryos though. Not actual children.
WHAT’S ON THIS WEEK Y WEDNESDA
OPEN MIC NIGHT WITH
FRIDAY
HARRY NICHOLS
CASTLECOMER WITH
JOSH CASHMAN
WHITE BLANKS
SATURDAY
WITH CONCRETE SURFERS + BLEACH GIRLS BAND ROOM
BRAZILLIAN PARTY ZAMBABEM
BEER GARDEN
1 SKINNERS SHOOT RD, BYRON BAY FOR MORE DETAILS VISIT WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/BYRONBAYBREWERY
North Coast news daily: www.echonetdaily.net.au
The Byron Shire Echo May 23, 2018 31