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Human Frailty Pty Ltd |
FINDING HUNTERS
Information: True Believers webmaster Stuart Fenech reflects on becoming addicted to Hunters and Collectors. Author: Stuart Fenech. Date: 21 July 2005. Original URL: [Here!]
Through the eyes of friends, I am obsessed with the Australian rock band Hunters and Collectors. This is a claim hard to dispute when I own a frightful amount of material, have Mark Seymour posters in my room and am behind the True Believers Internet site (www.humanfrailty.com). Occasionally I am asked how or why I came to be such a devoted fan, to which I give any number of different answers. This is the story of how I found Hunters and Collectors... I was born in 1981, which was the year the Hunters and Collectors formed in Melbourne, Australia. Growing up in Brisbane, I was familiar with a number of songs but know the band that played these songs. "Say Goodbye", "Throw Your Arms Around Me", "Do You See What I See?", "When The River Runs Dry", "Blind Eye", "Where Do You Go?", "True Tears Of Joy" and "Holy Grail" were and still are rock radio favourites. I remember enjoying "Holy Grail" on my walkman when first released and also recall "Imaginary Girl" being occasionally played on the radio. 1994 was the year that I took a decent interest in music, although I was a stereotypical teenybopper enjoying Ace Of Base at the time. Watching the Rage Top 50 early on a Saturday morning (a pastime long lost to enjoying sleeping in), I caught "Easy", Hunters and Collectors single at the time. I was unimpressed and disappointed with the Hunters, because I did not think the song was very good. I continued to enjoy older Hunters, without knowing anything about the band. In 1998 I enjoyed my last year of high school, Grade 12 at Windaroo Valley High School. I had a great girlfriend, did unexpectedly well academically, got my drivers licence, broke my leg playing mugby (rugby with more violence) and was a massive R.E.M. fan. I was a slightly eccentric, slightly rebellious, intense, heavy thinking 17 year old not sure of my place in the sun. 1998 was also the year that Hunters and Collectors finished up, releasing the "Juggernaut" album and embarking on the "Say Goodbye" tour. I caught their final single "Suit Your Style" on the radio, which I liked and did well in my personal Top 40 chart (this chart finished in April 2002). Towards the end of 1998, on crutches, I bought the live Hunters and Collectors album, "Under One Roof". There were so many fantastic songs that I decided I had to get studio material fast. Within a few days, I limped the entire Logan Hyperdome to pick up "Collected Works" and "Cut". These first Hunters and Collectors purchases were around Christmas 1998. Friend Ben found "The Fireman's Curse" and gave it to me as a Christmas present, but I would not understand that album for a couple of years yet. So by the time 1999 came about I had four Hunters and Collectors albums and was infatuated with "Cut". Early January 1999 involved perhaps my most extreme act of infatuation with the opposite sex. I went to a week long religious conference on the north side of Brisbane with my girlfriend Leanne's church. A not so subtle idea of this gathering was to pair off people inside the church. Being an outsider dating an insider, going to this conference was a leap from the frying pan straight into the fire. I made a number of life long good friends during that one week at the conference, but the sinister side got me down. Many of the older people at the conference were talking behind my back about Leanne and I being "too close". One older man was decidedly rude and obnoxious to my face. I snuck in my mate Tom's Discman with Hunters "Cut" album in it. "No need to worry, there's no information Listening to "Hear No Evil" in the pitch black of the night encouraged many intense emotions. You rarely heard any evil at the conference, most was confined to closed discussions behind your back. I felt a detached sense of time and distance, looking from afar at the banal games of the religious little kings. Trapped in a hostile environment with a certain number of people who's righteous appearance masked their rotten core, I found inspiration and consolation in the lyrics. The games of the bigots were nothing at all that I could not handle. "Come on confess with confusion... spread it around The "Cut" album became a soundtrack to a time in my life. I regarded "True Tears Of Joy" and "Edge Of Nowhere" are two of the most beautiful songs in the world. I saw "We The People" as a call to action for the politically apathetic, years before I got active in politics. "Holy Grail" was the popular rock anthem of a life struggle. My interpretations often varied from the original intentions, but that is often the skill of a well written song. Over the next two years, I picked up every Hunters and Collectors and Mark Seymour solo album. My enjoyment of Hunters and Collectors increased as I developed an appreciation for the subtleties of the music and lyrics. I found a level of identity with lead singer Mark Seymour's intense personality and anxiety. I found the dark textures of John Archer's bass, Doug Falconer's drumming and the 'horns of contempt' brass blended perfectly to appear to convey complex sentiments and emotions. "And my town, it is a teacher During 1999 and 2000, I drove every week to Gatton and back, as Leanne was going to the Gatton Campus of the University of Queensland. Gatton is a small country town 100 kilometers west of Brisbane. There are few things more satisfying than listening to the Hunters "The Jaws Of Life" while driving through country area's back from Gatton around 5am, as the sun is rising. Jaws is an album of the road, one that I still want to hear every time I set off on a road trip outside of Australia's major cities. "I'd cry - cry for the future I began to appreciate songs that I previously saw as mere pop hits. "When The River Runs Dry" subtly mocks and challenges the listener, part of the 'wink' that Mark Seymour includes brilliantly in many of his lyrics. There is a depth to Hunters and Collectors that is well beyond the immediately accessible appeal that brought many thousands of people to watch the men in Australian pubs. With help from a few people, particularly Caelie in Canada, I created the Internet site True Believers in 2001. My life has changed a lot through this time, with this humble Internet site playing a part. The Internet site can now be found on the back of certain Hunters and Collectors CD's and DVD's. Liberation Records have taken fan views seriously in new releases. I have found myself having a drink or three with Mark, Rob and Jack from the old band. These experiences have been eye opening and a lot of fun. At a recent ceremony, Midnight Oil's Peter Garrett commented that Hunters and Collectors redefined what it means to be an Australian male. I wish they had that sort of impact, because the complex and brutally honest picture of the Australian male portrayed in songs from "Everything's On Fire" to "Betrayer" to "I Couldn't Give It To You" to "Around The Flame" beats what any of the usual clichéd interpretations. The Hunters were unmistakably male in nature and sentiment, but managed to moved beyond the vernacular. The band broke up more than seven years ago and the True Believers Internet site is now four years old. I still live in hope that the Hunters will get back together for a handful of gigs, but do not push the issue with the band. Liberation Records recently released many remasters, which have made the early albums take on a whole new life. While the band may not get back together, the Hunters music lives on through their impressive back catalogue of uniquely Australian music.
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