Peter Bibby: Drama King
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An Australian singer-songwriter with the mouth of a sailor, Peter Bibby has emerged from his recent past with pen in hand and Tame Impala’s management in tow, to tell some interesting stories.
Only the names have been changed to protect the guilty. MK Bennett eavesdrops.
These are hard days for the troubadour, maybe they always were. But in a vastly over-inflated modern marketplace, where every pretty young thing with a double-barreled name and an open D chord is crowding for a spot on Spotify’s latest playlist, times are hard indeed. If you have driven off the trauma highway to find your own, less fashionable road, it will be quieter, for good and bad.
Peter Bibby is to be fair, Dylan goes electric and then discovers The Saints more than he is James Taylor, unless Taylor has some unreleased material that rhymes Front with Cunt and has recorded songs from the viewpoint of a wheelie bin. It is funny and deeply, beautifully misanthropic like Richard Pryor on the Sunset Strip, blacker than a Spinal Tap album cover. Regardless of age, some have lived many times over, and Peter is among those, these lyrics are hard-won stories of learned failure. Like many ex-addicts, he can see a wry smile through the horror, in the hopes that the stories remain but the left behind life will not.
Starting with the magnificent and self-explanatory The Arsehole, a real stall setter, which opens at some pace, a big expansive sound of Americana, Springsteenesque musically, but specific lyrically, another lost relationship where it’s easier to blame yourself than your choices. It’s a blindingly good opener. The fella who sat on his own in a bar and observed. Fun Guy has that old-school Rock and Roll high rhythm often used by bands in the 80s, another upbeat but messier, punkier song but with a brief vocoder and a synth bass line, a litany of things you used to be, and you still miss a little.
Bin Boy is both a metaphor for being too far gone and a wonderful literal tale of a bin, pure singer-songwriter goodness, perfect for an encore at The Grand Ol’ Opry, swirling Hammonds and pedal steel, while “ Well I’ve gotta be out on Sunday Night, yeah I’ve gotta be out before the Monday sun ..“ Sublime countrifying. The One would ordinarily be a love song in the hands of lesser men, and in its way, it could still be, though it comes across as about someone who has no boundaries, only that needs him to be around, a difficult task for the touring musician. Worth it for the drum break alone, it is a classic, epic rock track.
Bruno is short, sweet and visceral, worthy of a place on any of The Replacements’ records and could be about a beloved animal or himself as a beloved animal, the fantastic melody makes the words almost immaterial. Almost. Baby Squid, is a little more atmospheric and roomy, with space for the instruments and the vocal to breathe., another party that went astray. Blink and it has gone but not easily forgotten, both tapeworm and earworm, it will dig down deep into your guts and still leave you singing sweetly.
As with any right-thinking Aussi bloke, Bibby is careful to mask his feelings with the darkest humour but it is never at the expense of the meaning or the song. There are words here so beautifully written, so evocative for anybody who has by accident or design, royally fucked themselves, that it should connect by the millions. Excellent and sympathetic production by Dan Luscombe, and with new management and recent sobriety on his side, it must be his time as the New Whatever. The musical touchstones are all genii in their own right, The Saints, The Replacements, The Wallflowers, the late Byrds, Tim Minchin, and The Only Ones, plus a healthy compilation of 70s Country hits, a double LP with a horse or Stetson on the front. And Randy Newman.
Terracotta Brick goes immediately under the skin, Gram Parsons as he enters Joshua Tree, a wreck of melancholia and sad strings, a lyric that seems to be about early morning heroin runs but only really reveals itself in its last two heartbreaking lines. Turtle In The Sand is the defacto love song, though love after it is gone and you are alone with the truth and bitter facts that it could have been different. Very Dylan ’74 meets Dylan ’66, and every bit as good as that sounds.
Feels is an Australian Warren Zevon, a fabulous song about writers’ block, like late 90s Neil Young, sharp and cutting, a fine testament to Post-Modernism, where the guitars thrash and harmonize at will. The Pricks is a vicious thing reported from the frontlines of something that got out of hand, a first-hand account of the plot in Hollywood movies when the leading man hates himself so much he walks into a bar and deliberately annoys the first person he sees. Musically upbeat, The Waterboys meets 50s pop, there is no letup in the brilliance of this grief and guilt, this expensive confession.
Old DC gives us a memorable chorus and a David Crosby turn, another magnificent bout of pedal steel, country played by brawlers and bouncers, drunks and delinquents. A tale of giving in to your worst self, another fistfight, another broken morning, and blooded hands. The embarrassment of failure. Companion Pony is another perfect metaphor, part memoir, part cry for love, part plea. The horse rebels against his treatment and is put out to pasture, untrusted and without use. Broadly a companion piece to McGuinn’s Chestnut Mare, it becomes akin to The Velvet Underground as it races to its conclusion, freedom in his eyes, backing vocals to the fore as you root for this imaginary animal, this imperfect man, redemption in reach as the last chords feedback to end
Drama King, named because he felt the drama queens were getting an unfair deal and a handy summation of its contents, is dazzling. The consistent mix and flow of the tracks is seamless, production perfect, a time capsule of twenty-first-century songwriting with its beautiful and broken souls fading into the history of its narrative.
Let this sink into your bones and live there.
Peter’s Instagram | Facebook | Website
All words by MK Bennett, you can find his author’s archive here plus his Twitter and Instagram
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