Fred Smith wins ‘CityNews’ Artist of the Year

by Helen Musa

Fred Smith… “I’m a product of this city. I was born in the old Canberra Hospital.
I first started performing in the bars of this city.” Photo: Andrew Campbell

A CANBERRA diplomat, musician, philosopher, poet and raconteur was named 2023 “Canberra CityNews” Artist of the Year at the 33rd annual ACT Arts Awards, held in the ANU Drill Hall Gallery on Tuesday evening. 

“CityNews” editor Ian Meikle presented Fred Smith with a certificate and a $1000 cheque and craft reviewer Meredith Hinchliffe gave him a fine ceramic bowl by artist Jeff Mincham.

It’s almost impossible to keep up with Smith, who has been spending most of his time on an Australia-wide tour of his concert, “The Sparrows of Kabul”. 

The songs in the album formed the basis of an unprecedented (for a local artist) sellout concert at the 2023 National Folk Festival. This toured NSW, Queensland, SA, Tasmania, Victoria and WA over the past year, giving Australians, one critic said, “an understanding of the horrors of war and the beauty of peace”.

His book of the same name, released this year, recounts Australia’s airlift from Kabul in 2021 and his own part in it as an officer for DFAT, moving around Kabul airport with a makeshift table as part of the Australian team processing former Australian government staff and thousands of others through the human logjams at the airport’s gates. 

On receiving the award Smith said: “I’m a product of this city. I was born in the old Canberra Hospital. I first started performing in the bars of this city – the Phoenix, the Wig and Pen, Tilley’s and the Gypsy Bar. 

“And much of my recent output describes the work Canberrans do in difficult places offshore. Artists need encouragement, and a lot of people in Canberra have been kind to me. More than that, Canberrans seem to get my jokes.”

Smith has combined diplomacy and music for a long time and had already made his name as a musician years before for his original albums related to our peacekeeping missions in Bougainville and the Solomon Islands. 

The first Australian diplomat to be sent to work alongside Australian troops in Uruzgan province and the last to leave, he released the influential suite of songs “Dust of Uruzgan” in 2011 followed by a book of the same name. 

“His songs reverberate with the prophetic voice of humanity,” one Canberra Critics Circle member said, while another praised his “quiet, compassionate attentiveness, a bird’s-eye view of world affairs, a wicked sense of humour that coincidentally meets Afghani humour.”

He returned to Afghanistan in March 2021 to work at the embassy in Kabul and ended up working on makeshift tables from Kabul airport. Smith recounts his experiences in his 2023 book, “The Sparrows of Kabul”, praised by a reviewer as “a rare bird; viscerally honest, packed with self-doubt, suffering and grace”. 

With an easy Aussie everyman persona, Smith has become something of a national folk hero, travelling the country to sing songs of ordinary life and stepping into the shoes of our servicemen and women, sharing their pain through the driving lyrics of his songs.

Although his real first name is Iain, he likes to quip that “with a name like Fred Smith, you can only go so far”. You’d have to say he’s already gone a long way. 

Earlier in the evening at the annual ACT Arts Awards, the Helen Tsongas Award for Excellence in Acting was presented by Canberra Theatre director, Alex Budd, to Jim Adamik.

The awards evening, hosted by the Canberra Critics Circle at the ANU Drill Hall Gallery, also featured the circle’s own awards, which went to: photographer Wouter Van de Voorde; visual artists, Tom Rowney, Hannah Glason, Linda Dening, Kim Mahood, Sally Simpson, Wendy Teakel and Peter Maloney; musical artists Phillipa Candy, Edward Neeman, Larry Sitsky, Liam Budge, Fred Smith and Apeiron Baroque; writers Frank Bongiorno, Fred Smith and Zoya Patel; poets KA Nelson and Sandra Renew; dance artists Ruth Osborne, Natsuko Yonezawa, Itazura Co, Australian Dance Party, Gretel Burgess and Caitlin Schilg; theatre artists Jordan Best, Jim Adamik, Natasha Vickery, Andrea Close and Mill Theatre; musical theatre artists David Cannell, Canberra Philharmonic Society, Dramatic Productions and Heartstrings Productions; and screen producers Wildbear Entertainment.

First published at Canberra City News, November 14, 2023

Actor Jim Adamik wins his friend’s special award

by Helen Musa

Actor Jim Adamik in “God Of Carnage”… “Being recognised with the Helen Tsongas Award is very significant for me. She was my friend.”

A THEATRE artist who cut his teeth doing “crazy shows” in Canberra was presented with the Helen Tsongas Award for excellence in acting at the ACT Arts Awards on Tuesday night. 

Jim Adamik was singled out by the Canberra Critics Circle for an exceptional year of acting. 

He has long been identified in these pages as the funniest man in Canberra, but with a great love of the works of Anton Chekhov, he believes you can only understand tragedy if you can laugh, and prefers to be taken seriously. This has definitely been his year in that respect. 

Early in the judging year Adamik played a modern-day repellent, self-centred and aggressive sadist in Yasmina Reza’s play “God Of Carnage” at The Q, then this year he landed the plum role of envious musician Antonio Salieri in Peter Shaffer’s “Amadeus” at Canberra Rep, combining an impressive stillness with thunderous outpourings of emotion, one critic said.

The late Helen Tsongas.

Salieri is just one of many roles he has played as he meticulously developed his craft over a long time. He is certainly unique among Canberra actors in having once won a Canberra Critics’ Circle award for playing Daddy Bear in “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”. 

Born in Sydney, he came here as a toddler, so considers himself a Canberra boy, through and through. 

It was when he went to Narrabundah College that he discovered his love for theatre, under drama teachers Ernie Glass and Peter Wilkins and did “crazy shows” there, including “The Rocky Horror Ubu Show”. 

He soon headed for a degree in drama at the ANU with Geoff Borny and Tony Turner, and also acted in Pirandello’s “Six Characters in Search of an Author”, directed by Carol Woodrow for Rep and “The Duchess of Malfi”, with the late David Branson.

Early in his time on stage he met and acted with the late Helen Tsongas, who advised him to apply for a job at ArtsACT, where she worked. He bought his first ever suit for the occasion, got the job and stayed for a few years before transferring to the Federal Department of Communications and the Arts, where he works as a policy officer. 

“Being recognised with the Helen Tsongas award is very significant for me,” Adamik says, “She was my friend. We were both in production week for Moliere’s ‘The Imaginary Invalid’ when she and Pete were taken from us.” 

The late Helen Tsongas, who would have been 45 in November this year, was a dramatic actor memorable for tragic roles who was greatly admired for her finely-tuned roles in comedy. She worked at ArtsACT for many years and then moved to the then Commonwealth Office for the Arts.

She died with her husband in a motorcycle accident shortly after their marriage 12 years ago and her family established this annual award in her memory. It takes the form of a $1000 cheque and a certificate going to the Canberra actor of the year, with no restrictions on age or gender, as judged by the theatre panel of the Canberra Critics Circle.

First published at Canberra City News, November 14, 2023

Nicobar pigeon's mysterious appearance on Green Island baffles bird experts

 

by Kristy Sexton-McGrath

The Nicobar pigeon is usually found in island forest on the Nicobar Islands.
(Creative Commons: Tomfriedel)

The closest living relative of the extinct dodo has been found on a tropical island in Far North Queensland, baffling bird experts and cocktail-sipping tourists. 

The Nicobar pigeon is a large, near-threatened bird, normally found on islands in South-East Asia.

But one has mysteriously appeared on Green Island, off the coast of Cairns.

Green Island resort general manager Sue O'Donnell said the spectacular ground-dwelling pigeon had been named Emerald by resort staff, after being discovered by an employee.

"We have absolutely no idea where [it] came from, we had never seen it before last week," Ms O'Donnell said.

"There was great excitement because the bird is so friendly and the guests are just fascinated.

A Nicobar pigeon is closely related to the extinct dodo.(Supplied: Whitney Zelenitsky)

"[The bird] pops into the rooms while the staff are doing housekeeping and … loves to hang around at sunset drinks on the island."

Ms O'Donnell said the resort's environmental manager had made contact with authorities and there were no plans to relocate the pigeon to a zoo or anywhere else.

"Green Island is probably the perfect location … [it's] living on a safe, tropical island," she said.

Ms O'Donnell said the bird would be living its "best life".

Bird experts all aflutter

Golo Maurer from BirdLife Australia heads up the organisation's Citizen Science Program and said the species was found in similar mysterious circumstances in Western Australia several years ago.

Green Island, off the coast of Cairns, is a popular tourist destination.
(Supplied: Green Island Resort)

He said news of the pigeon's appearance on Green Island had become the subject of much speculation in the bird world. 

"It is very unusual to see one in Australia," Dr Maurer said.

"It is a hotly contested topic amongst the bird watchers — if the bird made the journey from its next breeding grounds, which are 1500 kilometres away, or if it's someone's pet and cut a lucky break."

Bird experts say the Nicobar pigeon may have been a pet.(Supplied: Whitney Zelenitsky)

He said the birds were "quite shy" in their natural environment and that Emerald was well suited to its new home.

"It likes forested islands and the ability to find food on the ground, so it's a lovely spot for a Nicobar pigeon," he said.

"There are many native birds there and it's a stopover for migratory shorebirds, so he's really just adding to the experience of bird life on a tropical island."

First published by ABC Far North, November 10, 2023

New Beatles’ song hailed a ‘qualified success’

The Beatles’ “final” song “Now And Then” has been released and the reviews are positive. (AP PHOTO)

By Hannah Roberts in London

THE “last” ever song by all four members of The Beatles has been branded a “qualified success”.

“Now And Then”, written and sung by John Lennon and later developed by the other band members, including George Harrison, was finished by Sir Paul McCartney and Sir Ringo Starr decades after the original recording was made.

The remastered track, which was released on Friday by Apple, Capitol and Universal Music Enterprises (UMe), is sourced from a Lennon demo and uses technology to extricate and isolate his voice.

The song has been issued as a double A-side single with the band’s 1962 debut Love Me Do and there is cover art by US artist Ed Ruscha.

In his review, “The Guardian” music critic Alexis Petridis awarded the song four stars out of five and called it a “qualified success”.

“Advances in technology have solved the problems with Lennon’s vocals,” he wrote.

“The other potential vocal problem – at 80, McCartney’s voice has aged considerably since the remaining Beatles last reconvened – is solved by keeping him low in the mix: you feel his presence rather than notice it directly.”

Music critic for “The Telegraph”, Neil McCormick had a different take.

Offering the song three out of five stars, the critic said that “the McCartney-led chorus arrives as an anticlimactic plod,” adding that “the chords aren’t interesting and harmonies pasted in from old Beatle recordings”.

Despite this, McCormick said he is “glad it (the song) exists” and described it as a “toast to days gone by”.

A 12-minute documentary, written and directed by Oliver Murray, known for “My Life As A Rolling Stone”, and with commentary from Sir Ringo and Sir Paul, has also been released with the new song.

Lennon recorded the demo in the late 1970s at his home in New York’s Dakota Building.

After his death in 1980 aged 40, Lennon’s wife Yoko Ono gave the recording to the remaining Beatles in 1994 along with “Free As A Bird” and “Real Love”, which were released by the band in the same decade.

During this period, George Harrison, Sir Paul and Sir Ringo recorded new parts and completed a rough mix for “Now And Then” with producer and musician Jeff Lynne.

However, the band did not release the song and cited issues to do with extracting Lennon’s vocals and piano due to limited technology at the time.

Peter Jackson’s 2021 documentary “The Beatles: Get Back” used audio restoration technology that allowed for vocals, music and conversations by the band to be isolated.

This allowed for a new mix of the “Revolver” album, sourced directly from the four-track master tapes, in 2022, and Jackson and his sound team, led by Emile de la Rey, have now done this for “Now And Then”, which helped separate the vocal from the piano.

Recorded at Capitol Studios in Los Angeles, Sir Paul oversaw the track as more backing vocals were added from the original recordings of “Here, There And Everywhere”, “Eleanor Rigby” and “Because”.

Sean Ono Lennon, son of Lennon and Ono, said of the track: “It was incredibly touching to hear them working together after all the years that dad had been gone.

“It’s the last song my dad, Paul, George and Ringo got to make together. It’s like a time capsule and all feels very meant to be.”

On November 10, two compilation albums – 1962-1966, The Red Album, and 1967-1970, The Blue Album – will be re-released featuring 21 newly added tracks.

Jackson’s music video for the song will debut on Friday.

The recording is available to listen to via streaming platforms that include Spotify and Apple Music.

First published at Canberra City News, via AAP, November 3, 2023

What we learned from The Beatles' new "Now and Then" documentary

Double J / by Dan Condon

The Beatles during a photo session in Twickenham, 9 April 1969(Supplied)

On Friday morning Australian time, The Beatles will release "Now And Then" — their final song ever.

It started as a demo recorded by John Lennon in his New York apartment before his death and has now come together with new contributions from Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and the late George Harrison.

Before its release, the band have released a 12-minute documentary explaining how the song came about and debunking a few myths while they're at it. 

The film features some brilliant archival footage of the band, some from their 1960s glory days, and more from the mid-90s session when they completed the first two songs unearthed from Lennon's demo.

While hardcore Beatles might not get the astounding new revelations they want, the film will clarify plenty about both the intent and the practicalities behind the song.

Here's what we learned.

Lennon's 'quiet years' weren't so quiet

Lennon stepped away from the music industry between the release of his 1975 covers album Rock 'n' Roll and his 1980 collaboration with Yoko Ono Double Fantasy. During this time, Lennon's sole focus was caring for he and Yoko Ono's new son, Sean Ono Lennon.

"There's this impression that my dad stopped doing music for a while to raise me, which I think is partially true in terms of him not touring and not fulfilling any major record label obligations," Ono Lennon says in the documentary.

"But he was always playing music around the house. He was always making demos and I do remember him making demos into these tape cassette recorders."

While the existence of these songs has been common knowledge for almost 30 years, the extent of his musical activity in those so-called fallow years will come as a surprise to many.

Peter Jackson's technology pried John Lennon's voice and piano apart

A John Lennon demo tape titled For Paul emerged in 1994, and the remaining Beatles worked with producer Jeff Lynne (Electric Light Orchestra) to bring the songs Free As A Bird and Real Love to life.

In the documentary, McCartney confirms that they did commence working on Now and Then at the time, but that the technology available to them was not sufficient to make it work.

"Every time we wanted a little more of John's voice, this piano came through and clouded the picture," he says.

"I think we kinda ran out of steam a bit and time."

After Peter Jackson employed his MAL (machine audio learning) software for the 2021 documentary Get Back, McCartney asked him to try and separate Lennon's vocal and piano. It was a success.

"It's like John's there, you know?" Ringo Starr says of the isolated vocal. "Far out."

McCartney got the ball rolling, George Harrison was the final piece

After Peter Jackson was able to isolate Lennon's vocals, McCartney started the song's new life by laying down a bassline. Given the creative relationship the two men shared during The Beatles' time together, this seems a significant if unsurprising sequence of events.

After McCartney laid down a bass track, he sent the files to Ringo who added drums over the top. Next came strings (we'll get to that in a minute) and, finally, the guitars.

"We had kept George's guitar parts from '95," McCartney says, before adding that there was one more embellishment he felt it needed.

"I thought, 'What I'd like to do is do a slide guitar solo in George's style'. It was really a tribute to George."

The weeping solo is reminiscent of the playing Harrison adopted in The Beatles' final years and that carried through to his most recognisable solo work, like 1970 single My Sweet Lord.

The string players didn't know they were on a Beatles song

Now And Then features a string section, recorded at Los Angeles' famed Capitol Records and arranged by Giles Martin, son of The Beatles’ mainstay producer George Martin.

They couldn't risk word getting out that there would be new music from the most recognisable band in history, so fed their musicians a little white lie.

"We had to put the music out on the stands for the musicians, but we couldn't tell them it was a new Beatles song," McCartney says. "It was all a bit hush hush. We pretended it was just something of mine."

Hopefully the news that they are appearing on a song by The Beatles is reason enough for those musicians to forgive such dishonesty.

'John would have loved it'

We weren't exactly expecting the remaining Beatles to say John Lennon would have turned his nose up at the idea of a posthumous release. McCartney and Ringo offer some interesting justification for the song's release.

"Is this something we shouldn't do?" McCartney remembers thinking back in the mid-1990s when the band first worked on the demo tapes Lennon had left, resulting in Free As A Bird and Real Love.

"Every time I thought like that I thought, 'Wait a minute. Let's say I had a chance to ask John, 'Would you like us to finish this last song of yours?'. I'm telling you, the answer would have been 'Yeah!'.' He would have loved that."

They offer a compelling reason why: The Beatles were always ahead of the curve when it came to employing new technology in their music, so why would that be any different today?

"My dad would have loved that," Lennon's son Sean Ono Lennon says of working with AI. "Because he was never shy to experiment with recording technology. I think it's really beautiful."

McCartney concurs.

"We're messing around with state-of-the-art technology, which is something The Beatles would have been very interested in."

It's all about connection

The documentary starts with McCartney marvelling at the chemistry The Beatles shared.

"Making good music in a band is all about chemistry," he says. "The way our four very different personalities combined in The Beatles was something very special."

It ends with him looking back in admiration of the connection he shared with his three friends.

"All those memories come flooding back," he says. "My God, how lucky was I to have those men in my life? And to work with those men so intimately and come up with such a body of music.

"To still be working on Beatles music in 2023… wow.

"We all played on it, so it is a genuine Beatle recording."

No matter what you think of the song when it's released tomorrow, its existence serves as a powerful way to remember this formidable musical and pop culture force: for the fans, for the band, and for their families.

"Now And Then" will be released at 1am AEDT Friday 3 November.

First published at ABC News, November 2, 2023