Writings from the past – The freak factor of Chris Gill

“I’ve looked like this for a long, long time. I’ve pimped this thing for a long time. The ripples in the pond go long.” 
Chris Gill cuts a distinctive figure. It’s mainly the hair – a big, wiry white man’s afro; but it’s also the big-collared shirt, the sideways smirk, the determinedly laidback everything about him.

Northside Records is an extension of Gill. He’s run the Fitzroy store for the past 12 years, and in that time, it’s become the hub of soul music in Melbourne. “When we started the store, soul music was not represented in Australia at all,” he says. “Of course, there’s always been an undercurrent, but opening the shop was about supporting it, giving it a voice and giving it a chance.” On the day of my visit, Gill is doing his thing in the store, rapping with customers (“Secondhand hip-hop is up the back, man”), flipping records on the store turntable beautifully, almost unconsciously, and explaining to me, a novice, about this soul music deal. “Essentially it’s a groove that allows you to relax yourself,” he says. “It’s about a good time, about feeling. There’s a syncopated drum rhythm that is shared by a lot of styles of music, which of course stems out of Africa. That’s the kind of music I push through the store, a lot of soul, Latin, dub, hip-hop, reggae type music. That’s the swimming pool we’re swimming in.”

Gill jumped into the metaphoric swimming pool as a kid, when he noticed that of all the Frank Sinatra songs his dad played, the tunes he gravitated to were produced by the same guy. “I looked at the back of the cassettes and saw that name – Quincy Jones. Then I saw all the Michael Jackson stuff and there he was again.” Once he’d gotten his toes wet, Gill paddled deeper and deeper, and essentially now bathes in the stuff 24-7. “Having the record store, it’s a joy watching people swim in the stuff and find their own way. Sometimes they ask for suggestions and you just nudge them in a direction.” He’s been DJing at parties since ’91, and on community radio for around the same amount of time. Currently, he hosts Get Down on RRR as well as a regular slot on ABC 774. Northside Records also has its own record label, which released The Soul of Melbourne compilation in 2012 featuring tracks from local acts and associates including The Cactus Channel and Chet Faker. Gill reads out the label’s brief hand written contract with Saskwatch, which is stuck on the wall behind him: “Three words: keep it real.”

Keeping it real seems to come naturally to Gill. “You wouldn’t get into this business if money was your driving force. I’ve been bad at business but my focus is more on longevity and integrity.” He tells me ‘the man’ comes knocking occasionally, but he isn’t really down for swapping a slice of his thing for corporate cash. “I don’t think integrity and branding work. It just becomes gross,” he says. “My unions are made through more like-minded stuff, like the Social Studio down the road or people who tour soul music.” On the day of my visit, Justin Timberlake’s band stopped by, and ended up playing a live set for his radio show. As far as Gill is concerned, the pay off is these confluences, which are less about business and more about enjoying the music he’s built his whole life around. “I’m a total fanboy,” he says. “Your place is in the crowd dancing. If you don’t love it any more, get out.” He tells me a story to illustrate the point: “This Sudanese kid Ror who’s doing his VCE just put an album out and it’s a-mazing. He did the launch and like, it was great. But the best bit was when after everyone had gone and Ror and his buddies were standing around the desk singing hip-hop songs, just owning it. Just seeing it for a second was like… oh shiiit. That’s the pay off.”

A couple of days after our meeting, I bump into Chris again, this time on Johnston Street, Collingwood. He’s on his way to pick up his car. “This is the new place to be, right?” he tells me. It’s not a question. “They’re even moving the Gertrude Street Gallery down here. That’s like the left ventricle of Gertrude Street.” I suggest to Chris that he might be the right ventricle, at which he scoffs. “Nah man, I’m more like the… the…,” he looks around, scanning the air for the next line. “I’m the left armpit of Gertrude Street, man. Kinda funky.”

An edited version of this story was published in Vault magazine Issue 8, November 2014

The incredible Marshall Allen

Around the end of last year, I was in New Zealand working on our house. Every morning I would write for a few hours and do emails, then for the rest of the day I would wash and paint walls, sand window frames and go on missions to hardware stores. It was quite the balanced life, with plenty of stimulation and satisfaction on all levels. I miss it! I took care of most of my interview commitments before I left Melbourne, but there was one very important one I had to do while I was over there: Marshall Allen, the 90 year old saxophonist and bandleader of the Sun Ra Arkestra.

I don’t claim to be an aficionado of Sun Ra and his Arkestra, but I have always been mighty impressed by how way-out and consistent they were/are. For the uninitiated, Sun Ra was an incredibly prolific jazz musician and bandleader who always maintained he was from Saturn. His band, the Arkestra, played seven days a week in Marshall Allen’s house in Philadelphia. Legend has it that Sun Ra would play music all day, every day, though sometimes he would drop off to sleep for a while. When he awoke, he would just pick up where he left off. The Arkestra always wore amazing cosmic costumes onstage, and though they became popular with hippies in the ‘60s, they were always just doing their own thing.

So it was a pretty big honour to be able to interview Marshall Allen, who had been a part of the Arkestra since the ‘50s and had became the bandleader after Sun Ra ‘ascended’ in 1993. I was quite nervous, and I was away from my trusty interviewing room where nothing ever goes wrong. The phone line was scratchy and muffled, and I had to listen to his answers several times to decode them sometimes, but Allen was a generous, funny and very sharp interviewee. Below is a slightly edited transcript of our conversation.

Do you still begin every performance with a space ritual?
Yeah, we love ritual you know? We go back to the ‘20s and stuff and come on up through every genre of music. We mix it all together and it forms a story.

Does the Arkestra still rehearse a lot?
I rehearse on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I’m not like Sun Ra; he liked to rehearse seven days a week. I can’t do that with these guys, not at my age. We got a lot of music that’s only been played in rehearsal. I found a lot of that music written in the (Sun Ra’s) book. So we’ve got that music, and now we can put it all back together again.

So all the Sun Ra music is quite structured, even though it sounds improvised?
Sun Ra wrote all these different keys – simple and complicated. We would put them together, rhythm against rhythm and melody against melody. That’s how his ideas worked; that’s how we got the music. You can play the world with that and see how small it is. You can create a better world. That’s what we do.

You’ve been doing it a long time now.
Yeah, since 1958. It’s a pretty good haul.

How did you meet Sun Ra?
I was in Europe and when I came back in the ‘50s I kept on hearing about this Sun Ra band. One day I went into a record store and a guy in there told me where they’d be practicing in a ballroom every day. So I went up there to see Sun Ra. He had me up all night talking about creation and The Bible, and he asked me to join the band. Then I started rehearsing seven days a week, we played so much music man. You should see how much music he wrote. He’d use parts of traditional music then we’d take it up to the space age. Space age music was chaos and everything else in there, you dig? We have a certain way of playing music.

Is it difficult to stay connected to outer space with Sun Ra ascended?
He said he was from another planet. He was always talking about outer space. He always said we were playing music for the twenty first century.

And here we are.
He was a great composer and music player, and he was a good teacher. He would show you how to play it with your own personality, with the style you have. The way you attack a note and syncopate it. It’s like all the big bands in the old days, they all had a certain style you could tell when you heard it. It’s the way they played the music, you dig?

What music do you listen to?
It’s the vibration of the day. Every day is different. I listen to everything. I play everything too. Do you still live in the Sun Ra house in Philadelphia? I still live there with a saxophone and a piano player. I have a nucleus around me so we can play the music whenever we like. Then the other players come and they can join in.

How many people will be in the Arkestra you bring to Australia?
I usually bring two trumpets, a trombone, maybe five saxophones, guitar, bass, a few on drums, a piano player and a singer. Sometimes I’ll have a dancer with me too.

Can you imagine any other life you could have had?
Well I guess this is it. Being around music, playing all styles of music. I couldn’t find no better band. We play everything, so there you go. We got it all in one.

How do you feel about having fans all over the world?
It was a little slow in the beginning for people to get used to new ideas. But we play all kinds of music so we can please most people. They’ll always find something in there they like.

And you guys still wear the outer space costumes?
It’s projecting the music with the image. Different coloured lights and costumes all project the music. When we first started doing it, not many other bands were doing it. We use electronic instruments and everything. But it’s all about connecting with the music. It’s about connecting with Sun Ra’s style of music: all of music. Creation is different every day. You can play the same tune but you play it different. It’s a new tune every day. You dig?

I can’t wait to hear and see it.
Well that’s good, but I’m playing the music for my wellbeing. If I play the music for my wellbeing and it pleases, then I can inform the people. That’s the purpose.

The Sun Ra Arkestra played at The Forum on January 19, 2014, as guests of the Melbourne Jazz Festival. The Six Burning Questions version of this interview was published in The Sunday Age on January 5, 2014. An online version can be found here.

The amazing Debashish Bhattacharya

Every week I write a short column that appears in the M lift-out in The Sunday Age newspaper. It's called Six Burning Questions and I love it. I love it because I get to interview all kinds of people who do interesting stuff from all over the world. Although the interviews are pretty short (I get about 20 minutes tops) and over the phone, we often get into some pretty interesting territory. The trickiest part is editing the interview down to a short, snappy piece within the word count – I often have to cut out some of the best stuff and it kills me.

So, with my editor’s blessing, I’m going to start publishing some longer versions of my Six Burning Questions here – sometimes to seven and beyond. The first is a quite recent one I did with Indian guitar maestro Debashish Bhattacharya, who I called in Kolkata before he made his first trip to Australia. Debashish is an extraordinarily accomplished musician, who, amongst other things, pioneered a new approach to Indian traditional music using a Hawaiian slide guitar, started his own school, and invented three guitars. He is also extremely fun to talk to and very inspiring. We went along to his concert last week and it was incredible. He performed with an amazing tabla player and his daughter, who is a fantastic singer. She is also a hilarious teenager and would respond sarcastically every time Debashish told a story, with something like, ‘here we go again,’ or, ‘no you didn’t’.

The music was great to hear live and he had even brought the three guitars he invented along. At one point he said he’d like to thank Singapore Airlines, and we all groaned, expecting to hear a story about lost luggage, but Debashish explained that not all news is bad news and that he had had a wonderful experience with Singapore Airlines and they had delivered all his instruments safely. He then asked for a round of applause for Singapore Airlines and his daughter rolled her eyes.

When did you first play a guitar?

At age three my mum and dad gave me a Hawaiian steel string slide guitar. It was an immense pleasure from the beginning to have the guitar on my lap. I played little mini concerts as a child and at the age of four I played for the first time on our national broadcaster, the All India Radio. 

Did you know straight away that this would be your life?

I did not know about the rest of my life but I still clearly remember how bright the energy of that first sound of the string of the guitar as I plucked it. I became so deeply involved with that little instrument. 

What do you love about the Hawaiian slide guitar? What is your connection to Hawaiian culture?

There is so much similarity between the music I heard in my childhood and Hawaiian traditional music. It gives me a very strong belief of remaining in the tradition. Music is not a sound only. When you hear Hawaiian and old Indian raga music, you understand that music is not only sound. 

Your music is both innovative and traditional. How do you walk that line?

I always felt that in music it is a huge responsibility for a performing artist to carry the tradition in one hand and keep it running so that the tradition has some wheels and a motor to run into the future. When I started playing the guitar, I heard Ravi Shankar and so many stars of our country. But my guitar didn’t sound like the soundscape of those traditional Indian instruments. To follow the tradition of an old Indian heritage of raga music I had no other option than making something new and different, so my slide guitar could accommodate more soundscapes of Indian origin.

You started the Universal School of Music in Kolkata. Is your hope that musicians continue to innovate traditional music?

My school is very interesting. Drummers, vocalists, saxophone players, jazz pianists, a bagpiper from Ireland and many other instruments come to our school. Every student learns differently, and stays for up to two months with us. We started in 2004 so this is the tenth year. We have worked with 80 musicians and apart from that we have also given our school facilities to another 150 students. In January 2015 we are staging an international guitar festival in Kolkata. 

What would you like to achieve next in your career?

First of all I want to play a little better every day. I want all my questions related to music to be answered. I want to create a group of the younger generation of guitar players who can play Indian classical slide guitar. I also want to do loads of recording which I could not do before because I was always busy with something else. Also to collaborate with different artists, including some African, some European. And to write some music for Philharmonic Orchestra. Those are the things I want to achieve in the next 10 years before I retire.

What do you like to do besides play music?

If I have time I watch and play football. I play cricket as well but I stopped playing badminton because it hurts my tennis elbow. I also watch action movies and cooking is also my passion. Also sometimes on a Saturday night if I don’t have any concerts, I bring some musicians to my home and we play together and eat together.

It sounds like a great life.

(Laughs) that is what you wanted to know! You did not want to know the sadder parts of my life, so I am not telling you.

Debashish Bhattacharya performed at Arts Centre Melbourne on July 16, 2014. The Six Burning Questions version of this interview was published in The Sunday Age on July 13, 2014. An online version can be found here.