[Powderworks] HowlSpace article
roger bonastre sirerol
rotsey@hotmail.com
Thu, 12 Dec 2002 22:32:10 +0000
http://www.howlspace.com.au/news/index.htm
MIDNIGHT OIL: GARRETT PUTS DOWN THAT WEAPON
Typically understated and dramatic, Midnight Oil have come to an end as a
living thing with a simple announcement on the band’s website that Peter
Garrett is quitting after “a great ride together” while the rest of the band
promise to keep making music together “in another guise at some point down
the track”. If it was going to happen, it was always going to happen
something like it has. On their own terms. Midnight Oil was always an
incredibly democratic band, all in or not at all. Sometimes decisions took
agonizingly long to make while that ethos was satisfied. That ‘thing’ they
had also made the Oils’ famous politics all the more powerful and difficult.
Obviously an issues motivated human being Peter Garrett didn’t ever make the
band his personal mouthpiece. What they said they said as one. It’s
interesting now to reflect on what has become the group’s final album,
‘Capricornia’ and what kind of record it was. With that album Midnight Oil
wrote, recorded and performed for the love of making music together, and the
views expressed were universal rather than specific. The images were
landscapes instead of life studies. Midnight Oil always said more than ‘US
Forces’ and ‘Beds Are Burning. This was that other dimension. It was the
closest of any Midnight Oil albums to Rob Hirst’s sideline group the
Ghostwriters. We can draw all manner of conclusions to Peter Garrett’s
decision.- no, in the end it would have been a group decision. Peter owes us
nothing. He has every right to get on with the rest of his life. Good luck
to him. We can only hope that the Oils didn’t decide to move on because we
weren’t listening any more. Worse, what if Peter Garrett has come to the
conclusion that given today’s music world he can speak louder another way?.
Thanks Midnight Oil for showing and proving what a powerful weapon music
could be. – Ed.Nimmervoll (December 3)
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