Hi Powdies
http://www.couriermail.com.au/ipad/hirst-hitting-another-protest-note/story-fn6ck8la-1226104435450
(p.15
of the music supplement to Brisbane's "Courier-Mail", 30.7.2011)
ROB
Hirst knows his way around a protest song. The incendiary drummer co-wrote
many of Midnight Oil's agit-rock staples, including Beds Are Burning, Power
And The Passion and The Dead Heart.
As a drummer, Hirst was inspired
by the explosive power of The Who's Keith Moon. As a songwriter, the
tunesmiths who influenced him had a broader palette than rhyming moon with
June.
"Protest songs were the ones that moved me most," Hirst says of
his formative years. "I remember really early on listening to (Bob) Dylan,
John Lennon, John Fogerty and some of the blues musicians in southern parts
of the United States.
"I heard Elvis Presley's version of In The
Ghetto and realised that protest songs could take various forms. They could
just paint a picture of a situation and allow the listener to draw his or
her own conclusions, or they could be more in your face. They could be like
Barry McGuire's Eve Of Destruction or something that The Clash might
write.
"Even songs by people like the Supremes. I remember Love
Child, which was a kind of protest song about the poverty of Detroit, where
the Supremes grew up."
Lennon's Give Peace A Chance was sung by many
who called on Washington to put an end to the Vietnam War. Shane Howard's
Let The Franklin Flow put the cause of saving Tasmania's wilderness in the
eyes and ears of a generation of Australians. The list goes
on.
"Midnight Oil were responsible for writing a few over the
decades," Hirst says. "Jim (Moginie) and I spent a lot of time writing what
we hoped were really strong songs first, and then of course they were
delivered on stage by someone as powerful and charismatic as Peter Garrett
and with the prowess and experience of a band."
Topics ranged from
youth homelessness to protecting country, Hirst says.
"And by that I
mean protecting places of particular significance to the Aboriginal people
of Australia, right back to when Australia was really part of the so-called
Cold War standoff between the United States and the Soviets, during the late
'70s and '80s," he says.
Hirst has now mustered the songwriting guile
he used so effectively with Midnight Oil to come up with Joseph Roe, a song
designed to throw attention on West Australia's Kimberley region, now in the
crosshairs of big business.
Hirst isn't alone. John Butler, Missy
Higgins, the Pigram Brothers and Xavier Rudd are all putting words to music
in aid of the same cause.
"I saw Woodside's bulldozer moving in and
there was an urgency to do something to try to protect that pristine
wilderness. The song was written in this heated rush," he says. "It was all
thrown down within an hour and a half. The lyrics came really easily you've
really got to know your topic and have a little bit of luck."
The
Kimberleys are one of the world's last remaining pristine wilderness areas,
with no heavy industry in the region. Hirst describes it simply as one of
those remarkable places that, probably through the benefit of its remote
location, has avoided being corrupted.
Mining giant Woodside proposed
to put a liquid natural gas plant north of Broome at a place called James
Price Point, or Walmadan, as the local Goolarabooloo and Jabbir-Jabbir
people refer to it.
"We think this is ridiculous because there are
better, cheaper and less polluting alternatives now available to Woodside
and the other miners that have leases in an area known as the Browse Basin,"
Hirst says.
"The most significant recent development in the
processing of liquid natural gas is to do it on site. Three hundred
kilometres off that coast, Shell, who have a similar liquid natural gas site
there, are using what's known as a floating liquid natural gas process,
which is effectively a huge barge. The gas ships pull in directly to where
the gas comes to the surface. You don't need to pipe the gas any longer to
the coast at all."
It is more expensive though, and involves a lot of
dredging and building a jetty.
"In the case of this area north of
Broome, it involves native title issues, and where Woodside have planned
their gas plant it's right on a 300km song line, which has been identified
by folks over the years as being incredibly important to the Aboriginal
people of the area, and is the basis of their culture."
Joseph Roe is
performed in collaboration with Dom Turner from Hirst's other band, The
Backsliders.
Roe is the grandson of Paddy Roe, a man who received the
Order of Australia many years ago for trying to protect that exact same area
north of Broome and up through the Kimberley from development. He invested
responsibility for looking after that land after he passed away to
Joseph.
"Joseph Roe, against huge local opposition, is trying to hold
back the tide of industry and he's the focus of this song," Hirst says. "We
recorded it at Jim's Oceanic Studio. Sony have come to the party and they're
all forgoing any profits, and if there were any profits from the song which
is on iTunes, they will go to the fund that is helping to pay for legal
costs for the protesters who are trying to stop this madness up in
Broome."
Rob Hirst and Dom Turner's Joseph Roe is available on
iTunes.
Visit www.savethekimberley.com
[This message has been
brought to you by maybenewsltdwilllookmorelikethispostrupert.com]
