The Spoken Word in Bush Poetry

[Gary Harding]

POPULAR MUSIC

Australian Music is a vital aspect of Australian Culture and (as previously posted) bush/folk music is very well covered.
Australian Popular music is also presented...

I believe that the Golden Era of pop music was late 50's through into the melodic and creative 60's and on into the 70's. It was a time of innocence and darn good music. An age of electric guitars and young kids forming garage bands. Just pure music and excitement.

Supporting this important musical exhibit is my selective and diverse collection of vinyl records, amassed over a lifetime.
It was always a solid "cultural" asset. However at a garage sale I fortunately heard about the collection of a DJ who had gone overseas and who wanted to sell it all. So I negotiated the purchase of the Lot which was a big and costly move. The records that I did not really want, I managed to swap/trade some with a mate and fellow vinyl collector. ("Swapping" is always the thing rather than have money change hands.)

PICTURED below

1. The indexed S to Z section of the BIG and selective vinyl collection. Hobby boxes are the perfect size. Some LP's are still around in various boxes as space is at a premium.

2. Also pictured is the unit I designed to house the records that I like to play occasionally. It has two drawers for records... plus an open record bin next to the player.

EXPERIENCE

If one is going to present a cultural aspect, I suggest that it is far better to have had personal experience.

As a youth, I played in a pop band which we formed in high school. I built my own amp from a magazine and made a primitive speaker-box too. Parents could not afford to pay for the real thing. More enthusiasm than talent perhaps? but who knows or cares... it was an important musical learning thing where there was much to practice... and the terrifying experience of going "on stage" in front of a big audience.

Anyway....this Pop Music aspect of Australian Culture is enormously important. Great FUN!!!!

It will be beautifully presented.

[Catherine Lee]

Wow, look at that collection - amazing! Love the cabinet you designed too, Gary, it's perfect. This will be a popular exhibit! (Totally agree with you on the music of those times too, by the way!)

[Gary Harding]

Yes Catherine!.. certainly if the Australian Popular Music section is presented in an exciting and professional way it should really grab people! There was wonderful music in that era, wasn't there.

A few NZ bands crossed the Tasman too then to try and make a go of it. Ray Columbus and The Invaders come to mind.. The La De Da's..and Max Merritt from Christchurch..... and at The Australian Cultural Centre we aim to showcase and preserve much material that is famous, but also credit forgotten or fading popular artists (The Groop, The Groove, Purple Hearts, Peter Doyle, Ray Brown etc) - just like we uniquely have already done for many lesser-known but nevertheless talented Bush Poets. Higher profile artists like The Easybeats, Normie Rowe, Billy Thorpe etc need to be enshrined as well.

The Seekers will have their own section and material has been gathered on them over the years.

Australian Music (Part 1)

One can go into any big electronics shop and find record players for sale near the front counter!! Younger people are rediscovering the "old" music because it had melody and quality.

LP's are coming into their own and being collected more than ever..and sometimes re-issued.I have a quantity of good 45's but prefer albums.

I have a few record players including the ones that will transfer onto a usb stick... or where it will also transfer from cassette to usb... making music more portable
You feel you have something when you hold an old 12" vinyl recording and cover ..rather than a high-tech plastic CD. The cover Art was also admirable. CH 839 on Foxtel plays really good material and this helps I'm sure.

Pictured below are a couple of electric guitars I have had for 20 years, now saved for The Centre's use.
There is also an excellent Big mixer-amp and a couple of speaker boxes. The amp has a notice on it "Do not put glasses on this amplifier" so I presume it must have had some history with a pub band.

Spread around here are a good selection of instruments.

Acoustic guitar, several fiddles of different sizes, a flute in a case (why I got this I have no idea!), mike and stand, penny whistles, recorders, tambourines, maracas. There is the pianola too.
I would like to eventually get a banjo of any type and mandolin/mandola but they are costly, even secondhand. Lots of bush band instruments too including rare gumnut castanets, a slightly damaged bodhran and of course a genuine used lagerphone.

Australia had its own talented bands of the old rock and dance era. But like all things that represent Australian Culture, they are fading or being destroyed. Nobody seems to truly care at all .. but WE CARE... and are doing something about it.

MUSIC is fantastic, isn't it!!

The idea is for visitors to have the opportunity to PLAY instruments..get involved!!!....feel Australian...participation...but then, all that is another story..

[Catherine Lee]

Brilliant, Gary. Yes, all such things should indeed be saved, and used too, as you say, whenever possible. Gosh, you've thrown up some artist/band names from the past here that really take me back! It's encouraging to hear that younger people are rediscovering music with quality and melody, because this, along with good lyrics, is what makes it so special and meaningful. I agree with you that music certainly is fantastic, a gift to us all, and I think we'd all be quite lost without it!

[Gary Harding]

Australian Music (Part 2)

Yes Catherine, music is certainly a vital cultural aspect.. and very enjoyable as you doubtless know from your own experience with the piano!

The Australian Cultural Centre has the task of finding and presenting top Australian music.

If one presumes to talk about an aspect of Australian Culture (like Bush Poetry) then I suggest that it is best to have been there and done it.

I might share here my own musical experience from my youth, partly to show that I was actually involved in that scene ...and partly for fun and memories.
An enduring outcome was to acquire a solid knowledge of the top popular groups of that era.

Anyway....

Bands were all the rage when I was at high school.

Some of us in final year formed a band and along with academic studies, I tried to learn guitar a bit, starting with a dreadful, cheap acoustic that I must have found on a rubbish-heap. I ended up playing bass guitar - four strings being easier to play than six, plus it was a lot more forgiving! For equipment we had to both save our money.. and improvise too.

I recall the school talent quest where we debuted. We set up on the assembly-hall stage worrying if all the basic gear would work and everyone was plugged in. The adrenaline was flowing. We started playing as the curtain parted and the school of nearly 1000 kids just erupted in a roar of loud cheering. After that I don't think it mattered how we played and sang.. it was just bedlam. The barely adequate Playmaster 40 amplifier I made seemed to miraculously see us through. Looking back it was likely that this was the first time many kids had seen a live band, albeit a bunch of amateur school kids. So it was an exciting experience all round.

We had time to play at a local dance in a church hall before we all went our separate ways to further study... and priorities.
**One of the band went on to play a stint in Daddy Cool (?) I believe.

Anyway, after that brief episode I was hooked on bands... and the great popular music of that time too.

The Bush Band and folk aspect came later on. It evolved from my bush-walking club experiences and the campfire singing of more folksy type songs and the good fellowship there.

Pics(3) below were taken at a band practice.. kids just having fun.

[Gary Harding]

Arthur Albert Bayldon (1865 - 1958) was a bush poet.. among many other occupations.

His book "The Western Track and Other Verses" is popular and still reprinted.. and I have a lovely old 1905 edition (shown)

Arthur had the habit of inscribing books in a broad handwriting style across the diagonal (pictured). I am very pleased to have a nice matching pair of these book-inscriptions that include verse that may or may not have been spontaneously created? I have not searched but I hope it is unique, in which case this would be the only record of these touching rhymes. (pictured below)

Old Age's Memory Of Youth

"Oh! The wild rapture of impassioned Youth,
Where dreams romantic are the realms of Truth -
How memory soothes though bedded in desire,
Like the still music in an opal's fire."

(Sydney, 23rd August, 1937)

AND a recent addition :

"Not what you are but what you strive to be,
Is your true value to humanity"

(To Arthur C. Kennedy, Wishing him health and happiness! Sydney, 5th May 1932)

An interesting bush poet was Arthur Bayldon. Quite a character and I would love to have met him.

Also pictured below are some items taken from our larger display relating to Arthur.

There are stunning displays (Literature Section) showcasing around thirty-six Australian bush poets whom we considered to be of great merit and appeal. The time period in which they lived did not play a part in their selection, such that there was no exclusion of any balladist of today.

But they had to be exceptional. I mean really, really spot on in technique with no errors, no rough stuff, no silliness and each line required a capital letter at the start. As I recall there was nothing past the 1950's ... with perhaps Louis Clark (of Clunes) being the latest (and I think a bit borderline in quality).

Some displays are necessarily small while others are immense like those of Paterson, Lawson and Dennis. If we succeed in gaining a Partner of both Means and Patriotism then we will demonstrate to the world how great Australia is. These bush balladists will then live forever as they deserve to do. Otherwise they will be totally forgotten... consigned to the dustbin. This is the one and only opportunity. One go at it. Nobody else can or will do it.

Will the erasure of these wonderful bush poets (and Australia in general) be allowed to happen?? Yes, it is up us.. but it is up to YOU too, if you are interested enough to be reading this post..

[Gary Harding]

Some time ago, I wrote a post here which noted the purchase at a local garage sale for $50 of a weather-worn, heavy railway-sleeper which was mounted on a base block of wood and given a light varnish.

It was apparently bought by the owner at a craft market at Eumundi.

I speculated then as to whether it would prove to be expensive junk or useful?

Anyway I am very pleased to say that it has found a perfect application, mounting the framed print of Jan Scheltema's Bullock Team in Canungra Forest painting. We framed this ourselves.

So, happily it is now a very important part of the Bullocky Section (as shown in the photo below) and a few of the display items are set out at home here for visitors, including the historic yoke.

The display also includes six large and impressive boards with classic bullocky ballads, beautifully featured. Many of the old bush balladists had something to say about those characters.

Bullockies were an exciting cultural aspect and we will have great pleasure in bringing them to life for Visitors with our combined static and surround-sound Audio-Visual presentation at The Australian Cultural Centre.

As much as possible you will feel that you are actually out in the bush with the Bullocky and his Team.

[Shelley Hansen]

This is certainly building to be an outstanding collection, Gary!

[Gary Harding]

Yes Shelley... and I am always finding stuff in boxes that I forgot about. It is worse when you end up buying the same thing twice by mistake!

Being a specialist accumulator of things is fine. There are people today of great financial means (i.e. wealthy) who have amassed incredible collections... cars etc.. all sorts of things
However, a major step up the status ladder is to undertake to share what one has with one's fellow Australians.

That means saying goodbye to yet more scarce funds and time in order to present important material for the enjoyment and education of current and future generations. That is a statement about yourself... that you are unselfish, generous, benevolent and have a passion for your country.

It especially proves that you are grateful for the wonderful life that Australia has enabled you to have.. so that from a Sense of Gratitude, you are taking the opportunity to nobly put something back.. instead of constantly taking, taking.

A Presenter is thus far superior to a Collector.

Here from Banjo's section and also for your interest is a 1904 edition of Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses by Banjo Paterson. It is an English First Edition as can be seen from the title page. Plum Warner's (English Cricketer) copy which we have is also a 1904 First. Clearly it is happily in excellent condition. You might note how the page-edges are deckled (ragged) rather than cut. It is a matter of taste whether one likes that antiquarian-look finish on the paper. cheers, Gary

[Catherine Lee]

Gary, I'm always fascinated by your wonderful posts and pictures and astonished by such an incredible collection - just brilliant!... Thank you also for bringing Arthur Bayldon to my attention (and I love the pics of your band too!)