The Joiner's Arms
By Home Rule
Reviewed by Peter Hicks
Like many others, my first introduction to Home Rule was this bawdy bunch of folks sifting round a pub belting out a rousing version of the Henry Lawson classic, "Sergeant Small". There was Bob Campbell with his raucous, larrikin-laced voice and Sharon Frost playing, of all things, the dreaded concertina.
I was taken aback. Here were the instruments and musical style I, a rock music aficionado, had grown up despising, and yet in this context they sounded great. They led to my conversion, if not to a folky, to an understanding and exploration of others who come from this great tradition of music which predates corporate capital's domination of the industry and which continues in efforts like The Joiner's Arms, the latest CD from Home Rule.
In my opinion, rock music has never quite been able to capture the spark of anti-authoritarian, anti-establishment spirit in the way that folk-style or acoustic arrangements can do — especially when played well and sung by people with determination and soul in their voice.
That's what you do get on The Joiner's Arms. From its opening beats — a distant, echoing drum roll — you immediately have the feeling that you are in for a haunting musical experience, one of the best folk albums you are likely to hear produced from anywhere.
Reflective moments abound in the lyrics and arrangements on this album, but they are balanced by an important sense of anger in the choice of songs and in lyrics like "They're knocking them down, the old pubs" and "I beat that fucking salesman to the floor".
What Bob (who is also a committed trade union activist) and the band are telling us is that it is still OK — in fact, essential — to be angry about the state of the world under the thumb of materialistic greed. Maybe this gets a little sentimentally overly parochial in its flavour at times, but why not sing about what you know and Home Rule know about working-class Australian people and their trials and anxieties under capital?
And don't forget that streak of humour coming though with the inclusion of some John Dengate material like "The Skin Cancer Blues", a popular favourite when John plays the Resistance Centre. Great to hear John's stuff sung on albums.
The themes, however, are modern. For example, in his tribute to the environment, an adaptation of an old folky favourite "Little Fishes", Bob sings, "Oh the gulls overhead don't know which way to fly, since they've poisoned the air with the smoke in the sky, It's for industry's progress that they're doing this harm, while the money rolls in they sit back and stay calm."
Finally, this review couldn't pass without a remark on the exceptional musicianship and production abilities of the newer members of the Home Rule team, Rob Long and Matt Gaudry. The album was recorded in their studio in Gulgong; they bring to the album a sense of the possibilities of modern sounds and superb playing.
The album is out on Larrikin, so if it's not in your record shop order a copy in. In Sydney, don't miss the launch at Cultural Dissent, in the Resistance Centre on June 19, 7.30pm.