Remembering singer/songwriter Grant McLennan on his birthday

Raising a glass to Grant McLennan on his birthday with a few Go-Betweens faves played with longtime pal Robert Forster. 

Robert Forster returns with new solo album "Strawberries"

Someone ate the entire bowl of strawberries that were meant to be shared and Robert Forster wrote a song about it. 

Robert Forster – Strawberries

Picture one of our greatest living singer-songwriters in a kitchen. He is on holidays, he's just had a swim. His wife is out on the beach, and he finds himself faced with a bowl of irresistible strawberries. They're meant to be shared, of course, but their taste is “out of the ordinary”, so he just can't help himself. Minutes later all of the delicious fruit are gone, but there's the germ of a song as the phrase “Someone ate all the strawberries” has just popped into Robert Forster's mind, sounding “so weird, but normal.” Thankfully, he has taken his guitar with him.

As the story goes, his wife Karin Bäumler not only forgave her husband, she actually joined him on a duet of what was to become the title song to his ninth solo album. “What can ordinary be?” is its wistful question, befitting the life's work of Robert Forster who has perfected the art of being outré in a least ostentatious way, from his time in the Go-Betweens to his solo career, now spanning almost three decades, interrupted only by the old band's reformation in 2000 which ended with his songwriting partner Grant McLennan's untimely death in 2006.

As that traumatic blow struck almost two decades ago, let's bring you up to speed: Since then, Robert Forster has maintained a solid career on his own terms through tireless touring, writing (the books Grant & I and The Ten Rules of Rock'n'Roll, a forthcoming novel) and recording. The Strawberries album – out Friday, May 23 via Tapete Records – follows a recent spate of deluxe reissues of four of his older solo albums as well as the 3rd and final volume of the career-spanning series of G Stands For Go-Betweens boxsets with a much awaited helping of new material. Next to admittedly bigger names such as Bob Dylan or Nick Cave, Robert Forster is the rare case of an artist with a celebrated past whose current work evokes genuine interest among a faithful fan base.

But back to our scene in the kitchen, to Robert, Karin, a guitar and an empty bowl: As a straight-up personal song, “Strawberries” is a bit of a red herring in the context of this new album that, unusually for Forster, deals almost exclusively in observational character studies or, as the author would have it, “story songs.”

“The last album was very personaI,” says Robert, “I didn't write anything for about a year after I'd finished 'She's a Fighter' for the last album. And then I just started to write songs that were something a little bit else. They just came naturally. I didn't really have a theme, it was just sort of lighter, a situation a little bit outside of myself. And I thought that was good. That was a place I could go to.

”The first song to point in this new direction was “All of the Time”, starting with the ominous couplet “There's propaganda and there's truth / And there's a feeling that I get when I'm with you”. We never quite learn what sinister plot lurks in the background, but these words combined with the subtle suggestion of a glam boogie groove imply a certain clandestine sexiness not usually associated with the Forster canon. “It was just this sort of language that I normally didn't use,” says the man himself, “It meant I wasn't going into my present situation. It just pushed me out there and made it less confessional. A lot more playful and and a lot more story-orientated as well.”

As it turns out, this storyteller who sees the world through the eyes of a film director, has a way with romantic fiction that is as emotionally involving as it is economical and free of all sentimentality, as showcased on “Breakfast on the Train”, the obvious centrepiece of the album. At almost eight minutes length, it tells the story of a not-so casual romance between the two odd ones out in a bar full of rugby fans who end up spending the night in a hotel, laconically retold with possibly the most perfectly timed use of the word “fuck” ever encountered in a pop song.

Inspired by an actual train journey through Scotland touring the previous album The Candle and the Flame with his musician son Louis, this epic is an indisputable addition to the pantheon of Robert Forster's best ever songs while “Foolish I Know”, a tender tale of unrequited same-sex attraction, has to rank amongst his bravest and most beautiful. Louis Forster, by the way, also makes an impressive appearance on lyrical lead guitar in “Such a Shame”, the moving story of an exhausted young rock star ending on the beautiful line “No one I've met has seen me yet at my best / No”.

As on most of the album, the narrator clearly isn't Forster himself, just as he's not the English teacher meeting a French woman in the album's bouncy opener “Tell it Back to Me”. “Your world so different to mine”, Forster sings, “I was corporate, you were folk.” Clearly, this relationship was never going to last, but then again, as Robert observes in the next song, it's “good to cry”. As his slapback echo vocals tuck into the rockabilly vibe of the song, you can hear Forster enjoying the company of his Swedish backing band: Producer Peter Morén (of Peter, Björn and John fame) on guitar, Jonas Thorell on bass and Magnus Olsson on drums, crucially augmented by Lina Langendorf on various woodwind instruments and Anna Åhman on keys.

The idea, writes Forster in his liner notes, was “to arrive in a town with a clutch of songs, to rehearse, record and mix an album with local musicians over a number of weeks, and then leave with the record done.” In this spirit, almost all of Strawberries was rehearsed and arranged to be tracked live, with very few overdubs, at Stockholm's INGRID studios. Forster and Morén, a long-time fan from the times of the Go-Betweens, had met and bonded at an Australian festival they both played in 2016. They had toured together with the core of the Strawberries band (Olsson and Thorell) the year after that, so their musical common ground was well explored years before recordings began.

“It's great working with someone who is truly an auteur,” says Peter Morén, looking back on the intense, focussed four week period working on the album in September/October 2024, “That sense of direction that 'This is what I do, and this is who I am as I perceive it.' He does what he does in the only way he can and changes and evolves in that sphere, but never loses sight of his own personality and strengths.” “I wanted to explode the sound of my records to an extent”, is Robert Forster's somewhat different assessment of the collaboration, “I wanted to just bring in new colours.”

Nowhere is this more evident than on the album's monumental closing track “Diamonds”, which starts off as a cross between Lou Reed and Buffalo Springfield, then takes off via Astral Weeks into an (almost) Albert Ayler direction, with Lina Langendorf given free rein on the tenor sax and Forster himself relinquishing his trademark understatement for some unexpected outbursts of falsetto. It might just be a challenge for the more conservative end of Robert Forster's fan community, and that, he says, is “a good thing. I really love it. It's the last song. And you think you know the album, and you think you know Robert Forster. And then this last song comes in that's not like anything I've done, you know, sonically and musically.”

It all sounds much like the musical equivalent of a 67-year-old man standing in front of a bowl of strawberries that taste out of the ordinary who can't help himself but gobble them all up. After all, what can ordinary be?

Get a copy of Robert Forster's "Strawberries" album via Bandcamp right here. Visit Robert Forster's site for information about upcoming shows, his writing and more. Watch videos for the album's title track "Strawberries" and "All Of The Time" along with two performance clips below. 

90s Nostalgia: Grant McLennan & Robert Forster @ Other Music, 1999

Remember in-store performances? Here's Robert Forster & Grant McLennan reprising a Go-Betweens classic at Other Music. 

"Spring Grain" – the official breakfast cereal of the Go-Betweens?

Word is that Robert Forster's Spring Grain muesli is very nutty and far from sweet. Can't wait for the "Dusty In Here" floor mop.

Here's the scoop from Robert Forster...

Greetings from London.

Here it is. It’s happened. After years of preparation and final months of manufacture, Spring Grain, the organic signature Robert Forster Muesli is now on the market.

It is in 500 gram bespoke boxes designed by long time collaborator Matt Cooper. Three boxes of the muesli were given to me last night when I was being interviewed on Soho Radio by Pete Paphides. Pete, who runs the excellent Needle Mythology record label, who have re-released Danger In The Past and Calling From A Country Phone on vinyl, has created a new company Breakast Mythology - Spring Grain being the first line.

Pete handed me three boxes last night and I was instantly reminded of when dear friend Damian Nelson of the Able Label first handed me a copy of the Lee Remick/Karen single all those years ago. It is that significant. I couldn’t believe I was holding something I had a hand in creating. A dream had come true.

So this morning at my inner city London hotel I had to sneak down a cup of my OWN muesli to the breakfast room, hoping I would be undetected. I pored it into a bowl, added milk and sliced banana, and ate in secret bliss. It’s my own mix, and if you have seen the Tender Years video, the jars I am reaching for hold the blend of ingredients that are in Spring Grain.

I shall write more very soon. More work on Boxset 3 to do now after a very successful start yesterday. Thought I would write. I hope my excitement is not annoying. But this is a big moment. I will explain where it can be ordered. And needless to say there is an entire Philosophy behind my wish to make a muesli.

Must go.

Fond Regards

Robert

Here's Robert performing the Go-Betweens classic "Spring Rain"

A postcard from a rock 'n' roll friend, Robert Forster

Recently, The Go-Betweens' Robert Forster visited Abbey Road Studios and shared his thoughts about it.

Greetings from the Day A Dream Fulfilled.

I’m back at my London hotel having spent the day at Abbey Road. In the studios and in the canteen.

Yesterday I arrived back from Oxford. Tomorrow is my London.show. So Sunday was free in my schedule, and the remastering of two of my Ninities albums, to be reissued by the wonderful Needle Mythology label was suddenly slotted in today - the remastering to be done at Abbey Road. My first ever visit to the studio.

It began at 9. 08am when I got into the cab and said to the driver,‘ Abbey Road please.’ He said yes knowing exactly where I wanted to go. The early Sunday morning swing through the empty streets of Regents Park to the studio.

A miracle, or something rare, I was told. Studios 1, 2 and 3, were empty - Did I want a tour before we went to the mastering suite on the top floor? 

Yes please.

Of course the absolute highlight was studio 2. The glass-windowed control room high above the studio. To walk down the stairs JohnPaulGeorgeRingo walked down all through the Sixties. To stand in the room and just know what happened here. The Cathedral of Rock And Roll. The piano lid on the famed ‘Mrs Mills’ piano lifted, where Paul pounded out Lady Madonna and others, and yes I managed a few chords on the old brown stained keys. I’d reached the Source.

I must add I am not a Beatles nut. My admiration for them growing through the years. And I prefer their early work - I Saw Her Standing There, Love Me Do and I Want To Hold Your Hand. But standing in that room was very moving.

Then upstairs to master my albums. The cloak of magic on me the whole time.

So I sit in my hotel room a little stunned and energised, recounting my day thus far.

Fond Regards

Robert

Happy Birthday Grant McLennan!

Remembering Go-Betweens singer/songwriter Grant McLennan with a few performances and a lovely tribute from Norman & Joe.

Listen to The Go-Betweens & The Irish Writers

Check out documentary maker Ken Sweeney's excellent 50-minute podcast on The Go-Betweens below. 

Here's the scoop...

Australian group The Go-Betweens founding members Robert Forster and bandmate, the late Grant McLennan have been hailed as ‘the Lennon & McCartney of indie’

Their music inspiring bands from Franz Ferdinand to Teenage Fanclub and a favourite of music journalists.

But what has never been discussed before- is how Irish writers like James Joyce – whose work Grant and Robert studied in Queensland University – inspired The Go-Betweens to write about their own country, Australia in classic songs like Cattle and Cane.

Life long Go-Betweens fan and documentary maker Ken Sweeney, (RTE radio docs ‘REM Out Of Athens’ and ‘In Search Of The Blue Nile’) asked Robert Forster to join him at Beacon Studios in Dublin to tell their story and play some of the Go-Betweens classic songs on acoustic guitar. But the 50 minute special also features, an unreleased interview Ken did with Grant McLennan in August 2000, prior to his death in May 2006. Listen via Mixcloud right here or alternately, via Soundcloud right here.

Robert Forster talks about The Go-Betweens after Spring Hill Fair

Robert Forster gets into what was going on behind-the-scenes during the second phase of the Go-Betweens, 1985-1989. 

 

Robert Forster @ The Drake Hotel, Tuesday

Don't miss the Go-Betweens' Robert Forster performing songs from his great new album Inferno in the intimate setting of the Drake Hotel on Tuesday.  

Second volume of G Stands for Go-Betweens box set spotlights their golden era

Five years after the first volume, Domino is releasing G Stands For Go-Betweens Vol. 2 – including 5 vinyl LPs, 5 CDs and 112-page book – on Dec. 6

Here's what you get...

• 5 x LPs - Three studio albums from the group’s peak period on Beggars Banquet plus a previously unreleased double live album recorded at London's Town & Country Club on May 10th, 1987.
• 5 x CDs - Rare, hard-to-find and unreleased demos, recordings, radio sessions including a collection of 28 songs intended for what was supposed to be the follow-up to 16 Lovers Lane.
• 112 page book - A trove of archival photos and extensive historical liner notes from founding member Robert Forster - plus additional pieces from guest essayists, fans & contemporaries.
• The Liberty Belle And The Black Diamond Express songbook. Prepared at the time of release by their publisher, this is the first ever printing, containing hand-transcribed sheet music of all ten songs from the aforementioned album.
• Reproduction of the promotional poster for a contemporaneous Melbourne show.

Please note that the initial copies including a book from Grant McLennan’s personal literary collection have now sold out.

G Stands For Go-Betweens, Volume Two extensively documents the band’s creative output in the latter half of the 80s in an ambitious box containing four albums over five LPs, five compact discs and an extensive 112 page book, featuring a trove of archival photos and extensive historical liner notes from founding member Robert Forster (who'll be playing solo at Toronto's Drake Hotel on November 12th – get tickets here) , along with additional pieces from guest essayists, fans and contemporaries. Check out the complete tracklisting below. You can pre-order a copy directly from Domino Records for $180 U.S. right here.

G STANDS FOR GO-BETWEENS Volume 2 

LP 1: Liberty Belle And The Black Diamond Express
side A:
Spring Rain
The Ghost And The Black Hat
The Wrong Road
To Reach Me
Twin Layers Of Lightning
side B:
In The Core Of The Flame
Head Full Of Steam
Bow Down
Palm Sunday (On Board the SS Within)
Apology Accepted



LP 2: Tallulah
side A:
Right Here
You Tell Me
Someone Else’s Wife
I Just Get Caught Out
Cut It Out
side B:
The House That Jack Kerouac Built
Bye Bye Pride
Spirit Of A Vampyre
The Clarke Sisters
Hope Then Strife



LP 3: 16 Lovers Lane
side A:
Side One:
Love Goes On!
Quiet Heart
Love Is A Sign
You Can’t Say No Forever The Devil’s Eye
side B:
Streets Of Your Town
Clouds
Was There Anything I Could Do?
I’m Allright
Dive For Your Memory



LP 4: Fountains Of Youth: Town & Country Club 10/5/87
side A:
Bye Bye Pride
Unkind And Unwise
Part Company
The House That Jack Kerouac Built
side B:
The Clarke Sisters
This Girl, Black Girl
Don’t Call Me Gone
When People Are Dead
Your Turn My Turn
side C:
Cut It Out
You Tell Me
Head Full Of Steam
Right Here
Man O’ Sand To Girl O’ Sea
side D:
Apology Accepted
Spring Rain
Karen
Eight Picture

CD 1: The Devil Is In Your Dress
1. In The Core Of A Flame
2. Living The Life At Hand
3. To Reach Me
4. Grandfather Slow
5. Spring Rain
6. Head Full Of Steam
7. Wrong Road Round
8. Don’t Let Him Come Back
9. Reunion Dinner
10. Little Joe
11. The Life At Hand
12. Casanova’s Last Words
13. I Work In A Health Spa

CD 2: Run From Him
1. I Know What I Like
2. You Tell Me
3. Do It Like The Devil Did
4. Together At Last
5. Cut It Out
6. Easier Said Than Done
7. The House That Jack Kerouac Built
8. Right Here
9. Someone Else’s Wife
10. The Clarke Sisters
11. Bye Bye Pride
12. I Just Get Caught Out
13. A Little Romance
14. When People Are Dead
15. Don’t Call Me Gone
16. Time In The Desert
17. Doo Wop in ‘A’ (Bam Boom)



CD 3: Trying To Be A Strong Person
1. Wait Until June
2. The Devil’s Eye
3. I’m Allright
4. Was There Anything I Could Do?
5. You Won’t Find It Again
6. Love Is A Sign
7. Love Goes On!
8. Dive For Your Memory
9. Apples In Bed
10. Clouds
11. Head Over Heels
12. Casanova’s Last Words
13. You Can’t So No Forever
14. Quiet Heart
15. Wait Until June
16. Casanova’s Last Words
17. Rock and Roll Friend
18. Mexican Postcard
19. Rock and Roll Friend
20. Dive For Your Memory
21. Quiet Heart
22. Clouds
23. Love Goes On



CD 4: Loving Shocks: Demos for 7th album
1. Dear Black Dream
2. Danger in The Past
3. Easy Come Easy Go
4. Broadway Bride
5. I Love You Still
6. What You Call Change
7. Open Invitation
8. You Can Dream About Tomorrow
9. I’ve Been Looking For Somebody
10. Outlaw #1
11. Haunted House
12. Sally’s Revolution Blues

CD 5: Loving Shocks: Demos for 7th album
1. Just Get That Straight
2. The Days My Eyes Came Back
3. Running The Risk Of Ever Losing You
4. It Had To Me
5. Signs Of Life
6. How I Wish This War Was Over
7. Art Cinema
8. Nowhere By Any Other Name
9. No Peace In The Palace
10. Here They Come
11. Child Of God
12. The Man Who Died Of Rapture
13. House of Snakes
14. All The Time
15. Send Him Back Home
16. What Goes Up Must Come Down

Robert Forster plays a Dodo Beach in-store in Berlin

Robert Forster recently launched his new Inferno album with a delightful acoustic set at a popular Berlin record shop.

Robert Forster releases Inferno – his best solo album yet

Robert Forster has returned to the studio after a four year hiatus which resulted in his poignant account of his Go-Betweens' years, Grant & I.

Inferno is acclaimed Australian singer-songwriter and author Robert Forster’s first solo album in four years – only his second over the last eleven years. Forster only makes records when he feels he has the songs - on Inferno, he has nine he totally believes in. He apparently recorded 10 (see clip below).

They range from the exhilarating title track "Inferno (Brisbane In Summer)," the beach shack groove of ‘Life Has Turned A Page’, via ‘Remain’s 1977 New York strut, to finish in a way that this concise, brilliant, drama and wit filled album only can - on the big build epic ‘One Bird In The Sky’.

Inferno was made in Berlin in 2018, during the hottest German summer in decades. Noted producer/engineer Victor Van Vugt (Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, The Moodists, The Walkabouts), recorded the album; the first time he and Forster had worked together since Van Vugt engineered Forster’s debut solo album classic ‘Danger In The Past’ in Berlin way back in 1990.

Inferno in its making is a perfect mix of the familiar and the new. Also working with Forster again, are Brisbane based multi-instrumentalists Scott Bromley and Karin Bãumler from ‘Songs To Play’ (2015), while new recruits are drummer Earl Havin (Tindersticks) and Fender Rhodes keyboardist Michael Muhlhaus (Blumfeld, Kante). Four musicians from the corners of the world, who, with Van Vugt’s bold and beautiful production, sound like a band of the ages. In front of them, Forster delivers some of the best vocal performances of his career.

Over the last four years Forster has been busy. He curated the acclaimed Go-Betweens retrospective Anthology Volume 1 1978-1984 for Domino Records. His engrossing memoir Grant & I was, appropriately enough, Mojo and Uncut’s Book Of The Year. He continues to publish music journalism, play concerts, and he never stops writing beautiful songs. Watch the video for "Inferno (Brisbane In Summer)" after the entertaining promo clip.

Robert Forster's Inferno album is out now on Tapete Records and you can get it right here.

Robert Forster sings the Go-Betweens at the Copenhagen Jazzhouse

Here's Robert Forster and company performing a few old Go-Betweens faves in Denmark recently.

Watch the trailer for the new Go-Betweens doc Right Here

Kriv Stenders' 95-minute film about Brisbane's finest premieres at the Sydney Film Fest on June 15. See the trailer below.

Robert Forster live in London 2015

Here are a few memorable tunes the Go-Betweens co-founder performed solo at Bush Hall last December. 

Happy Birthday Lindy Morrison!

Here's a clip of the Go Betweens performing Cattle & Cane featuring Lindy's powerful drumming. 

Go-Betweens' Robert Forster releases new solo album "Songs To Play" September 18

Seven years since The Evangelist album, Songs To Play is Forster's first truly post-Grant McLennan project.

Read what Robert Forster has to say about Songs To Play right  here.  

Robert Forster vs. Grant Hart

The title of Grant Hart's song 2541 comes from the address of Nicolett Studio, now a Mexican restaurant. 

Go-Betweens' Apology Accepted (alternate take)

The Go-Betweens' 1984 Peel Session