lizalake
lizalake
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Haunting memories

Posted almost 5 years ago
Rain?!? WTF?!? I was just about to start mogging when I heard the somewhat familiar "tink, tink, tink" on my storage shed and thought that sounds like rain but it's not in the forcast! Then it poured down for about 10 min and now the cloud is gone. So much for our technology for forecasting... I should always trust my wireless connection. It's far better than doppler. It never works properly when a storm is approaching and it has been down for the last two hours.Have you ever heard a song that just made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up? The one that does to me is a combination of the song and the story behind it. I had met Michael Hutchence just a few months before he died. INXS was on tour and promoting "Elegantly Wasted." I didn't have the CD yet and don't recall the details of meeting him. I was working for three radio stations at the same time and not sleeping much those days. I was really shocked when the bulletin came out on the AP wire that he'd died. The rumours of the cause being autoerotic asphyxiation started up pretty quickly. To each their own... Sometime in the following week I found a single I'd been given for "Beautiful Girl" and I put it in the CD player in my car on the way home from work one night. His vocals were so haunting in that particular song. Michael's voice quickly filled up my small car and it sounded like he was whispering it right there in my ear. It gave me chills. I just found that song tonight, I hadn't listened to it in the nearly 10 years since and it still has that effect.I watched INXS Rock Star last year and was happy to see it wasn't another American Idol deal. There were some very talented musicians on there. I was happy for the ones who didn't win because I would hope they'd have something better in their futures than being known as the one who tried to replace Michael Hutchence. Just can't be done.
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Comments (3)

  1. ciphermedia
    ciphermedia says I used to go and see INXS at Macquarie University in Sydney when I was about 17 - there were only about 150 people in the audience, but you could just tell they (and MH) had superstars written all over them - not so much from a musical perspective but from the raw ambition. I ended up working in the film industry and many years after those first gigs I worked on a couple of their music videos when I was working as a camera assistant. A few months before Michael Hutchence died I was asked to shoot a small industry only performance by INXS at ABC-TV (that's the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, a govt. owned station) in a rehearsal studio prior to the release of Elegantly Wasted. By this stage I was working as a Cinematographer and had been shooting a low budget feature film. I used the camera from the film shoot, got some film stock and went in there and shot it. The band seemed very constrained by the low ceiling and small rehearsal space, but performed well in the tight circumstances I guess. I didn't really think about it much afterwards. Got the film processed. Band went on tour. Didn't hear back from them. Michael Hutchence dies. Film gets forgotten. Didn't get paid. Film still in my hands. No-one (except me) has ever seen it. So my memories of them are not so much haunting but are really about the weird cycle of Nobodies-to-Celebrities-to-Death. Jonathan
    Permalink posted 03/07/2007
  2. lizalake
    lizalake says That's a really great story! That's pretty cool that you've kept that film, and to yourself for so many years. They definitely had that "it" factor from the beginning. I hear you on the cycle "Nobodies-to-Celebrities-to-Death." He certainly was in the end of his life the definition of his last album title. I've met a lot of people over the years, some bigger stars than others. It's sad when I'm surprised by how nice someone is because their are so many who let this business get to their egos. Now when I see a new star in the making I wonder how long it will take them to become an ass. To be fair, I also know how the leeches in the business can turn a person that way. Being a rock star isn't as glamourous as everyone would like to believe.
    Permalink posted 03/07/2007
  3. Mike the Knife
    Mike the Knife says Always got off on INXS. Wish they'd just let it (and Hutchence) lie, and started a new band with a new name. Alas...
    Permalink posted 03/08/2007

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