recollections from the show part 3

Thursday January 17
Yesterday we had a bright idea. We know we're going to get several Australia voices and perspectives on Dave in our film. It's a given. But given Europe's apparent infatuation with the Triffids/Dave we're going to need plenty of those persectives too. We're asking Fergus Linehan from Sydney Fest, but the guy's just opened his event; he's going to be just a tad busy. Then I remember a name: Lynden Barber. I knew Lynden for several years because I used to plug DVDs for a living, and he reviewed them in The Australian newspaper. I kept him well stocked in Hong Kong cinema among other things. Lynden was the director of the Sydney Film Festival for a time, but in a previous life, was a journalist on the Melody Maker and the N.M.E.
Yes: he was agent for the scurrilious agents of villiainy that fuel the UK MUSIC PRESS. But, we forgive him this ; he was one of the first scribes to recognise the sheer greatness of Dave's songs, and as he put it, the 'vim' of the The Triffids. Out of the blue we rang Lynden, and asked if we could pop around and chat to him about his recollections of speaking to the band at their dilapdated London flat in about 1984. I was rather delighted when he said yes.
So, here I am in a back st of Paddington, one of my favourite parts of Sydney. But, they grow VERY big mosquitoes here. Mutant ones. They've been to the Lucas Heights reactor for drinks and bloated to the size of winged tennis balls , and now they're biting me. Anymore of this and I'll be in what Dave used to call Club Sickup. I hate these bastards. Don't react well to them. After a minor heart attack caused by a non existent cab Ms Dan arrives camera on back to capture the thoughts of Barber on Dave. LB invites us in ; he''s got his Born Sandy Devotional vinyl out. I tell him the re-master is well worth his time. (get it if you haven't already). Outside in Lynden's back garden we mike him up. And suddenly a little moment arrives. The very first shots of our film on Dave McComb. Oooh. This is... a time to take a wee breath and get on with it. Important people are waiting! Lynden does have some genuinely riveting insights into Dave's manner; and particularly the advancement of the band's stagecraft between their 1982 selves and their brocked up 1984 UK press darling rock star selves. Well, they moved a bit more and had better shirts. Lynden also unwittingly provides a superb DVD extra/outtake by telling us about being on a plane with a journalist who was flying back from Elizabeth Taylor's funeral. I momentarily considered pedantically telling him Liz is still with us (at least in body), but knew it would ruin a moment; this proved correct as he twigged a minute later, realising the funeral must have been for one of Elizabeth's numerous husbands. Lynden had some quite unique comparisons to make: Echo and the Bunnymen I was expecting. But Julian Cope and the Teardrop explodes? Interesting one... He also made it clear; in no uncertain terms, that the Triffs, Gobies and Cave and his Birthday Circus truly DID create a real wave of interest and inspiration to the moribund UK music scene in the early '80s. All I had to do by way of thanks was help Lynden move his ancient old telly out into the street. And with that, the first interview for Love and Bright Landscapes, is in the can.