Live at The Marrickville Bowl. - John Kennedy and the New Originals (I-94 Bar Records)
Lately, I have been thinking about the Australian movie “Death in Brunswick”, a bona fide classic and a brilliant black comedy. It features a kitchen from hell in a decrepit nightclub, populated by the dodgiest of characters. The smell of rat poison and mouse shit, and there’s a cockroach invasion that resembles an army removing food scraps.
Now, I once worked one night as a kitchen hand at the notorious Kardomah Café (aka "The Dark Coma") when I was living in Kings Cross. The kitchen was not as horrifying as the one as in the movie, but I did feel like the Sam Neil character, channeling Dostoyevsky as I chopped onions, prepared soggy fries and tried to cut over-ripe tomatoes to sit forlornly atop nondescript cheeseburgers.
The kicker was the sound of used syringes making crunching sounds underfoot as I took the garbage to the bin in the back alley. What a way to pay the rent.
You may ask what has this got to do with John Kennedy? Well, everything.
That night John and his band were my live soundtrack. I listened to John’s songs through the kitchen door, got into a groove and washed the dishes to the beat of his band.
It certainly made a tough night bearable - and listening to the John Kennedy and New Originals “Live At The Marrickville Bowl” album is like the wildest flashback to that cash-in-hand gig.
Back then, The Cross, Darlinghurst, and Surry Hills were the hub of Sydney’s live music, It’s moved to the Inner-west and now sits in Newtown and Marrickville.
To the live album and “Miracle in Marrickville” is a fitting song for a transplanted audience. As John croons, Murray Cook and Matt Galvin deliver the must tasteful, countrified guitar licks - direct from Sun Studios with a Memphis vibe. They make a sublime twin guitar duo. The CD’s price of admission is worth it just to hear these players in action onstage.
Bob Dylan once said: “I don’t trust anyone who does not like gospel music” and I agree with Bob. I would certainly trust John Kennedy and might even lend him my rare collection of first edition Bukowski books.
His own debt to classic American southern gospel music is clear on “Better Days”. It’s one of the album highlights and takes the listener to that old wooden church in Alabama with wonderful vocals by all concerned here, It’s simply brilliant.
“King Street” was always going to be a highlight. This song never loses its appeal and has long been a staple and John’s breakthrough song. It captures the spirit of Newtown - the old Newtown of The Jets footy club, working class boxing gyms, factories, migrants and lowest cost housing in Sydney. A reminder that King Street itself was once a strip of delis, migrant homes and student rentals.
The song is a sentimental favourite and will always be a classic of inner city writing. The live version on this album nails it.
“Misogynist Blues Again” showcases that John’s band was on fire on the May 2023 night when this was recorded. Phil Hall’s killer bass runs and Peter Timmerman’s drums give it a raw, loose tightness. Matt and Murray are shredding as much they can. The song evolves into an early 1970s glam rock sing-a-long with a great audience vibe.
“Hand of Law” is borrowed from Radio Birdman and it’s an interesting version, almost taking on a lounge vibe. The CDs ends with “Music is Everything”; it’s a warm finish to a great set that captures what was thought to be John Kennedy’s last show in Australia before moving to Spain. (A visit to see family and friends over our summer has, of course, yielded this CD and live dates.)
This recording has a wonderful bootleg feel to it and captures a real band at work with no overdubs, warts and all. Richard Ball’s punchy desk recording has been mastered and is now an amazing document of one of the voices of Sydney’s inner-city music scene,
In summary, it has great playing, cutting social observations, a sense of romanticism and stories about real characters from before the Inner-west became gentrified and was much less beige.
John Kennedy and The New Originals play Smiths Alternative in Canberra on Friday, January 187and Marrickville Bowling Club in Sydney on Saturday, January 18 with Pete Ross and The Sapphire and Banana Farm.
