grant w mclennan: 1958-2006
it's surreal, sitting in an ikebukuro aparto not noticeably bigger than a coffin, listening to grant mclennan's songs. he died yesterday, you know. grant's songs, and the go-betweens in general, are quite possibly the antithesis of tokyo. there's a lack of artifice, and at the same time a deep awareness of it, that is completely missing from every japanese indie band, and every japanese cultural artifact, that i've ever heard or seen. maybe it's something deeply australian, deeply queensland circa 1982, maybe it's just deeply grant. cheap sake, no small glasses to put in the microwave so it tastes like shit, but god damn i need it: a last kampai to the go-between i always unconditionally and guiltily loved. robert, intellectually, sure...i knew he was the one i was supposed to like: he's clever, you see. with all due respect: robert is oblique, ironic. grant was just real. real is pretty embarrassing. and that's hard. there's powerful cultural and peer pressure against real: it's uncool, you know. and that hideous strength grant displayed in showing it (because he *knew*) is so salutary. words fail me. kampai, grant.
and then the railroad/the railroad takes him home/through fields of cattle/through fields of cane. RIP grant w mclennan, 1958-2006.