GILLIAN WELCH AND DAVID RAWLINGS State Theatre, Sydney, February 17   TIME IS, AS GILLIAN WELCH and David Rawlings told us, a revelator. It tells us about what has come (that maybe we missed in the tumult), what that has done to us (if we look closely enough), and what may yet be (if we can discern the patterns and take heed). And it shows on us all in ways that seem obvious but at the same time, well, revelatory. Take this duo, this couple, this two-as-one, a pairing where t

LA vs Newtown? "I like how in Australia it feels real.” This Friday sees the release of Sally Seltmann’s latest album, called Art School Reverie and already preceded by both the sartorial Shirt With Pussy Bow  and the historical Do I Want Fame?,  as singles and tasters for the reminiscence-laced set of new songs. You’ll be able to read exactly what that’s about on this site soon when Ms Seltmann sits down for a chat. But in the meantime, Wind Back Wednesday goes into its own

On the right side of history. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN Find more playlists for all wings at Spotify. They answer to my name.

JILL SCOTT To Whom This May Concern (The Orchard)   THE SCOURGE OF MODERN AUSTRALIA, John Howard, once said during his years in the political garbage bin that “the times will suit me” as he waited for selfishness, xenophobia and greed to come back in style. We didn’t need him, we didn’t really deserve him – well, not all of us – but we got him, that cultural dose of salts, and the stains have not been washed away yet. At the other end of the cosmic righteous spectrum, as the

The wind cried Richard Clapton. Photograph by Stuart Spence Here we have the next instalment in What Comes To Mind, an alternative series in the Wind Back Wednesday space, based on the work of the brilliant photographer Stuart Spence. Each time, he will dig out a photo from his archives going back almost 50 years and challenge me to respond with what comes to mind when I look at that image. It might be serious or ridiculous, personal or historical. It might be short and bruta

Genre arguments? Putting them behind me says Maren Morris at the Enmore Theatre. Photo by Josh Groom MAREN MORRIS Enmore Theatre, February 7   DONNA SUMMER’S Love To Love You Baby  as the play-on music for a multiple Country Music Association-winner with three number one singles on the country chart? Why the hell not. Not least because apart from Arlington-raised Maren Morris’s all-glitter-all-shimmer-disco-in-Enmore dress fitting the bill, that Giorgio Moroder classic has a

They were meant to be together. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN Find more combinations in playlists like this by searching for me on Spotify.

SAM SHINAZZI On A Highway Somewhere (Stanley Records)   BEFORE WE GET TO THE GOOD or bad, let’s establish the lay of the land, because your propensity for or resistance to a certain style, certain motifs, certain, shall we say, familiar routes, will play a big part in whether On A Highway Somewhere  is a keeper or a loser. The first clue is in that title and the cover image of a desolate road fringed with power poles and weeds. Off the main byways, caught between towns whose

Like the idiots who declare there’s been no good music released since whenever it was that they were 20 – essentially revealing they haven’t listened to music outside their collection/classic hits radio/prejudices – the tut-tutters and bemoaners, the “where are all the protest songs” crowd, have been out in force again in the past weeks. Events in Minneapolis, Palestine, an Invasion Day march in Perth and the death of Midnight Oil’s Rob Hirst have inspired them to wonder and