Kim Salmon performs at the Wave Rock Weekender in Hyden on Saturday September 28, and Mojos on Sunday September 29, (supported by The Chemist, The Floors and DJ Razor Jack). We asked the man himself to pen a few thoughts about a year that has brought forth things both new and nostalgic.
What kind of an idiot plans to record three separate musical projects in one year and release four separate recording projects the next?
Not this idiot that’s for sure!
I did three recordings last year and will have released four by the end of this year but I certainly did not plan it that way. How could I let this happen?
Well…
If you have a look at my Facebook page(s) you’ll find that a whole lot of what I do is tied up in my past. The Scientists, The Beasts of Bourbon, The Surrealists. This is great, but I still like to make new stuff. I’ve kept my sanity over the years by doing new stuff and waiting for it to become old enough to be revived. Crazy!
It’s worked though. The Surrealists had their first revival in Spain in 2006 for a ludicrously large amount of money and officially became ‘old’. And that wasn’t even the original line-up.
Last year Spencer P. Jones and I played a residency in a Fitzroy venue called the Old Bar. It generated so much interest that it seemed like a good idea to record our collaboration. A studio was interested and went three ways in the project. The Runaways album is the result of that. Sort of a new take on an old combination.
Ron Peno and I had a similar experience and decided that the time was right to make another Darling Downs record.
I’d been playing Scientists repertoire with one-time Scientist drummer Leanne Cowie and it seemed like a good idea for us to record some fresh material. It all just happened last year. This year the original Beasts Of Bourbon were made a very good offer to reform. And then The Low Road line-up of the Beasts. Live recordings were made. Another album!
That’s how it all just happened. It’s all a kind of combination of old and new. Next year I’m only doing new stuff!
I’ve barely got time for all of the above, plus I’ve got a day job teaching music and a few other musical entities to be involved with. Some bright spark thought it would be a good idea for me to write 500 words about how it feels to have so much to do. The irony is I didn’t have the time for that but here is the piece anyway!
Often, along the frighteningly long line that constitutes the years of my music career, certain opportunities have arisen that have not been of my making.
They haven’t always been what I have been ready for at the time or even necessarily what I’ve wanted to do.
Before you, the reader, gets on your horse about artistic integrity or principals, let me say something. Some of the opportunities I have accepted, I have done so for less than noble reasons (i.e. fiscal reasons). The end products of these have been some of the very things that my patrons hold most dear.
Most of my noble peers from back in the day have their day jobs to keep their mortgages paid and their families fed. They have their memories from the day intact and the integrity remains untarnished.
I on the other hand, have on occasion, taken the dollar, or multiples thereof as my incentive.
Has it made my name a household one throughout the known universe?
NO, there are some Kims who are well ahead of me in those stakes. However, and a big, however, I have derived my income from music since 1976.
It has been a kind of evolution. I’ve had to learn to adapt. It is how I’ve survived on playing music.
This evolution has taken me to some terrible and wonderful places. Fortunately, the places are mostly wonderful.
