(Freemantle Press)

www.freemantlepress.com.au

BY FRED MILLS

Having been fortunate enough to see Australia's Triffids in concert in the late ‘80s, I can offer first-hand testimony to the band's musical prowess, and to frontman David McComb's charisma, beyond just my appreciation for their albums (recently given the full expanded/remastered treatment by Domino, incidentally - 1986's Born Sandy Devotional remains a must-own to any serious fan of music, Oz-spawned or otherwise). McComb died unexpectedly in 1999, a number of years after the demise of the Triffids, so to finally get to read a book about him and his band is, for a fan, a much-needed means of assuaging the grief. A belated wake, if you will, attended by those who loved the man, including those of us who perhaps never knew him personally but still cared deeply.

To have, for the first time aside from album lyric sheets, a collection of his poems is more than just icing on the cake; it's receiving the keys to the whole damn bakery.

With the 384-page Vagabond Holes, editors Coughran and Lucy make it clear upfront that this is no narrative, chronological bio. Rather, it's a compendium of remembrances and appreciations, some in sketch form, others more analytical, and as both McComb's lyrics and the Triffids' music was never presented in what one might call "linear rock fashion" - imagine a mashup of Dylan and Townes Van Zandt, Doors and Velvet Underground, late ‘70s NYC punk and old-time country-gospel groups - the format serves the subject nicely. (Worth noting: the book sprinkles in assorted McComb poems, and it's additionally adorned with numerous images, from never-before-seen photos of the band and McComb to the odd gig poster and piece of artwork.)

There's a reasonably satisfying celebrity-cameo quotient here, for those of you inclined to rubberneck. The Church's Steve Kilbey actually turns up twice, with a poetic, stream of consciousness series of diary-like entries entitled "Whack! Whack!"; and the more straightforward "Precious Spirit Escapes," phrased like a long poem or song lyric that will leave a lump in your throat when you get to the part about Kilbey and the Go-Betweens' Grant McLennan watching (or is he imagining they are watching?) their old friend McComb onstage in Sydney:

"they're playing wide open road at this moment

unbeknownst to them

this will be last gig in Sydney for a long long lifetime"

Speaking of the Go-Betweens, Robert Forster relates, with great tenderness, a series of memorable encounters he had with McComb, and recalls the time when, living in Germany, he got the news: "In 1999, in the middle of the five years I will spend there, I hear that David has died. It is distant news but brought into sharp relief through encounters and times with him. I weigh this encounter trying to find a ledger in my heart and mind of what he gave to me and what I gave in return. You do this when people die. And I find myself in debt to David."

Bad Seeds Nick Cave and Mick Harvey also turn up - respectively, getting drunk with McComb and singing their favorite Beatles, Elvis and Klaatu (?!?) songs together, and seeing McComb perform with some of his post-Triffids groups.

Journalists, friends and Triffids members weigh in with varying measures of emotion-soaked reflection and scholarly reserve in order to express what McComb and the band meant to them, or what they think McComb and the band meant. Two of the best chapters are penned by British writer David Cavanagh (a wonderful account of falling under the spell of the Triffids in the mid ‘80s and subsequently following them around London like a smitten puppy until they befriend him) and Blurt contributor Wilson Neate (a sprawling 20-page dissection - make that dissertation - of McComb and his influences, his cultural background and his songwriting, along with some exceedingly insightful probings of how the public and the critics perceived McComb's words and music, aptly titled "McComb's Ambivalent Romanticism").

Throughout, even in those entries that ostensibly focus upon the Triffids, each respondent's deep love and abiding respect for McComb comes through the clearest. Which is as it should be; though fortunate enough to work alongside gifted musicians with whom he was, not incidentally, very close, McComb was the Triffids.

The concurrently published Beautiful Waste is an elegantly designed 112-page volume featuring a raised cover image designed by the Triffids' Martyn Casey, a lengthy intro by Australian poet and novelist John Kinsella that probes and analyzes McComb's poetry, and a selection of over 50 unpublished poems that the two editors became privy to during the course of assembling their book of essays. They ordered the material into five general sections "around loosely shared themes or objects: body parts, loss, love, nature [and] unmarked tracks." As I'm not necessarily the best judge of poetry or even versed (no pun intended) in the poetic tradition, I'll defer to Kinsella's authority, who writes in his intro, "It is almost bizarre that David McComb is not yet known as a significant Australian poet." With the publication of this book, perhaps the first steps have finally been taking towards establishing McComb as just that.

I'm drawn, however, to these lines, as they seem, uncannily, to capture something I was feeling recently when I made a return trip to my hometown. If the mark of a true poet is to capture the essence of something simultaneously personal and universal, then surely this is richness. From "The Mistake of Returning":

"I went back to the neighbourhood

I knew when I was young.

I waited until midnight

and then retraced my steps...

I was haunted by certain embedded voices."

Ultimately, in both Vagabond Holes and Beautiful Waste, both band and man live again. To paraphrase Robert Forster, we all find ourself in debut to David.

Both books distributed in America through Independent Publishers Group, www.ipgbook.com.

[Ed. note: Britain's Helter Skelter Books has announced it is publishing a Triffids book entitled Save What You Can: The Day of The Triffids and The Long Night of David McComb, by Australian journalist Bleddyn Butcher (who also contributes to Vagabond Holes. The date keeps getting moved around, but as things stand right now it's slated for publication next August.]