Webcuts Music

Listening to Gram, it seems unfair to rest the blame entirely on “Hell Hoping’s” shoulders, but when searching through the track-listing for possible singles, you realise it’s a record largely weighted with mid-paced alternative rock songs coupled with the odd ballad (Messenger‘s “Death Bag” perhaps being the oddest). If you were to play the singles game “All Or Nothing” would‘ve been first cab off the rank, being the obvious choice with the same energy of Spare‘s “Landspeed”. Despite “Hell Hoping” making the lower reaches of the Australian charts, it failed to galvanise the support behind the band and the follow-up single “Play Me” failed to do as the title instructed. Of the tracks on Gram, “Play Me” is the one that stands tallest with Messenger’s ability to coax out a melodic tune and pair it with a clever lyric. Were this London and not Sydney it would have got single of the week in the NME hands down.

“Play Me” plays to the bands strength and Messenger’s buoyant cynicism. The ambiguous title is open to interpretation, the most literal, a failing relationship, being (I would later find out), the least correct, as Messenger would later explain via email “the idea came from a joke I included in the liner notes for one of our earlier singles. Imagine I’m singing it to a radio DJ and all will be revealed. The less-than-subtle double meaning was perhaps one of the reasons it was seen as an inappropriate first single”. With an opening lyric like “you should hear yourself/I’d like to but in but you don’t give me a choice/won’t listen to no-one else/so in love with the sound of your own voice” it should‘ve been obvious. Of course, you could apply the same meaning to being in a band with three songwriters too, but that might be asking for trouble. The video clip takes the metaphor to its ultimate conclusion, with the band miming the song on a bowling green while friends and fans take aim around them.

I try to recall when the jokes became sour or the songs lost their sparkle. In my mind, Gram wasn’t the album I was expecting, but through fresh ears I can‘t recall what my problem could‘ve been. I remember travelling out to Kogarah Mall on a Thursday night to see them do an instore for the release of “Play Me”, and it seemed to the dozen or so in attendance like one of those Spinal Tap/the record company made us do it moments. Gram hadn’t sold what the record company expected and neither party were happy about it, especially the four guys cracking wise and trying to sound upbeat in some suburban shopping mall. It did seem in my eyes that the competent school of rock, where lyrics and hooks and sounding like an intelligent pop band was falling quickly on the out. Bands like the Clouds, the Falling Joys, Ratcat, The Hummingbirds etc, bands who had been staples of the music scene in Sydney were all suddenly finding it hard going.

I can’t remember the last time I saw the Welcome Mat live. It would’ve probably been shortly after the release of Gram, but after that they became the support band for overseas acts and medium-sized Australian bands that I didn’t see eye-to-eye with or care for. A four track Ep entitled Headset was released a year later which was my final throw of the dice on the Welcome Mat front. The collective consciousness on the Australian music scene appeared to want something new and those heady days when the record stores and their various labels (Waterfront/Half-a-Cow/Red Eye) ruled the roosts was over. A final album, the appropriately titled Lap of Honour was released in 1996 and it was all over a year later. Having been to many a band’s leaving do over the years for some reason I failed to attend theirs. I’ve got this vague feeling I was double-booked. I wonder who I sold them out for…

Nevertheless, by fate and good fortune, Webcuts managed to get hold of both Cory Messenger and Wayne Connolly who were more than happy to don rose-coloured glasses and hold our hands as they guided us down Welcome Mat memory lane, pausing to occasionally admire the view and point out the veritable potholes along the way. From what you can see below, it was a very long walk, but worth every second.

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