“… we all have those feelings of hurt, alienation, pain, that blister up when love goes sour. Billie Reid gets this better than most, and delivers heartfelt and caustic reminders that “things will never be the same again”. Simple words, big truth, and the line as it’s sung carries a charge that we can all recognise if we’ve ever opened our heart to another and had them snack on it …“
“Billie Reid’s gaze is steady. Throughout the songs on his album, his grasp on his own feelings and failings is sure, strong. And that conviction comes out too in his voice, a clear whisky tone that I want to hear in a live setting some day soon”
The thing is, you don’t see it coming. You think it’s all fine between you, and then … WHAM!! Out of nowhere, you’re left dazed by an unexpected revelation. The difference between the person you thought you were dealing with, and the one she turns out to be. It’s been the stuff of wistful songwriting since whoever it was first realised that the way they felt worked better put to music than it did grouching to a stranger in bar. That those sentiments shared would be ones that an audience would relate to. Because we all have those feelings of hurt, alienation, pain, that blister up when love goes sour. Billie Reid gets this. Gets it better than most, and delivers heartfelt and caustic reminders that “things will never be the same again”. Simple words, big truth, and the line as it’s sung carries a charge that we can all recognise if we’ve ever opened our heart to another and had them snack on it.
The line that sticks with me right now is “You played me like I was a steel guitar”, from ‘Gilded Lily’. Whether or not it’s true in any objective sense, it certainly feels real, and is all we have to go on given that we never reach that point of objectivity but stagger instead through a hall or mirrors presenting distorted surfaces at every turn. Billie’s just as astute when he points the lens at himself, acknowledging that all he can offer the woman who already has a lover is “a house on Demon Street”. It’s good to recognise that in yourself, however painful it is for you, and those you attempt to entice.
Honesty is the writer’s watchword. Without it, the writer has no compass, can produce only words, becomes a spindoctor for his or her own campaigns. That can be shiny, sophisticated, but sooner or later it loses its appeal. All that’s left is a surface that the writer either sees themselves in, or averts their eyes from. Billie Reid’s gaze is steady. Throughout the songs on his album ‘Ode To The Dudes’, his grasp on his own feelings and failings is sure, strong. And that conviction comes out too in his voice, a clear whisky tone that I want to hear in a live setting some day soon.
I remember a bar in Melbourne, a boho place where a gypsy band played one night with wooden box percussion and a candy-floss-haired cellist. Just the right feel for Billie to step onto the stage after they’ve played and follow their renditions of European folk tunes with his bittersweet concoctions, drinking deep from the well of Americana. A few hours ago I received one of those unexpected blows that I mentioned at the start. A talk with a savvy ex helped me realise where this new woman was coming from. That she was operating from a place of fear, which is why she lashed out at me in the way she did. Fear makes you do crazy things. One of the better choices it’s helped me with is to listen to Billie Reid while I reflect what’s going on with me and her. Thanks Billie.
Charlie Reynolds
“Tombstones and a cheating heart … a dark reading on a timeless theme” | Demon Street | Billie Reid
Modern technology gives us a chance to explore Billie Reid’s “alt” version of ‘Demon Street’. Sneering ‘Clash’ inspired chords, college-art backing, and snarling lyrics that bite. Tombstones and a cheating heart … “I ain’t got no time for lies” … this isn’t trendy art but a dark reading on a timeless theme. There’s darkness and a sense of desperation that pulls you in. ‘Demon Street’, don’t go there, but if you do, I wish you luck because this song has no room for sensitive types. It’s a bitter tirade lamenting loss, yet there’s no sense of introspection or poignant reflection from the safety of distance. Self pity isn’t in Billie’s emotional vocabulary. ‘Demon Street’ is hard edged, razor-sharp, and word perfect. Perhaps only those who have been hurt will connect.
‘Demon Street’ captures Australian axeman Phil Bradley at his fiery best, locked in a brutal Strummer-esque guitar-attack with the track’s stomping percussion, whilst Reid relays a tale of love and loss with the bile and poetic fervour of a punk troubadour. He presents the listener with the fiery sound of defiance .… “I’m not about to waste my life on someone else’s whim” …. mixing up a bitter brew of betrayal, torment and regret, whipped up into song form. Anger, he reminds us, is an energy after all. When your world falls down, it’s better to feel something rather than nothing at all.
‘Demon Street’ is sure to provide an ideal swig of Dutch courage for anyone undergoing a painful, messy breakup. Why mope around when you could, like Billie Reid, count your losses and continue to kick ass! Liam Allen.
“Poet, songwriter, Billie Reid eschews the road of rock’n’roll excess and fake outrage”
Some people sell out, they get worn down or just become plain desperate for a payoff or hunger fame, but for others their music and words are non-negotiable. They never do the record company thing and can’t sway from their chosen path, always true to their roots it’s in the DNA of their lyrics and tunes. That’s Billie Reid. Perhaps he knew he would never fit in. Honest and unpretentious with an almost indifferent disregard to what was fashionable and in the charts. He couldn’t and wouldn’t play the music biz game.
But Billie isn’t desperate for fame, he won’t play that game. Reclusive and flying under the radar he eschews the road of rock’n’roll excess and fake outrage, and in his own way his game plan has made him the underdog. It’s a dangerous fickle game that can lead to nowhere, but with this territory comes credibility and I guess this is priceless, and Billie has it by the bucket load.
His songs are here. Give them time and they will slowly seep into your life. All that matters is the moment and the emotion. Simple words, honest musicianship.
“… put more simply, Billie Reid is a poet and he **** **** knows it!”
“… this street walkin’ cheetah, with a heart full of napalm, has a lot to say about love, loss, and the state of the world. Put more simply, Billie Reid is a poet and he **** **** knows it!”
… the unfurling lyrical attack of Reid as he aims straight for the jugular, singing “they won’t let us live on the beaches, they won’t let us live in the trees, the bastards just lock us in stables, and sell one another the keys”. The lyrics appear to be born out of a particular brand of anti-capitalistic fervour aroused by the Occupy protests, with a call for an alternative beyond the current dire political outlook of partisan politics and limiting left/right perspectives.
Reid’s uncompromising spirit shines through the course of this album. This is a man whose footsteps aim to re-find the path set down by the luminaries of the independent music scene. While the machine-gun delivery of his words recalls the lyrical fire and brimstone of Bob Dylan, as well as the acerbic energy of Johnny Cash, the quick-fire musical vignettes that fill this LP bring to mind punk stalwarts the Wire. Resultantly, Billie Reid’s music is a volatile hybrid, combining the purebred folk compulsions of bluegrass and rockabilly, infused with Reid’s own punk-influenced approach to songwriting. This street walkin’ cheetah, with a heart full of napalm, has a lot to say about love, loss, and the state of the world. Put more simply, Billie Reid is a poet and he **** **** knows it!
* Nikola Tesla had a knack of being able to draw printed circuitry in his mind that worked, my forte is being able to totally rehabilitate this entire Planet, every last detail in my mind, all perfectly workable, TRULY Green, revivifying the deserts of the Planet as oasis after oasis producing more food than ten times the current population could use, more water than 100 times the current population could use, non-polluting power production, removal of current pollution and constructive recycling thereof, a Planet where your kids won’t be required to live in rabbit hutches. Billie Reid.
Billie Reid | ‘self, muso, poet, regenerationist extrordinaire, polymathic re-planetarizationist’
i began wandering around Australia, mostly on foot working farms, building sites, gold claims etc, from the south west through the gold fields and northern gold fields, out to the Kimberleys for walks through boab “forests”, into the northern territory (probably my favourite part of any good walk, that 1st glimpse each time of the rocks and “cliffs” before Victoria River as you 1st walk in from west oz) because you know Katherine ain’t “far”, all the while checking out the different facets of the Natural eco-system, how it’s changed since my last walk there in a different season etc, checking out the man-made catchments and dams stretching out around northern wa, etc, etc, et ***, cetera, my goal, to put all of this knowledge, hard won, into developing a plan to put PEOPLES in the “driving seat” of Australia again, which i proceeded to do, and to give y’all these perfectly workable ideas, designed to benefit y’all and your Kids and their Kids ad infinitum … njoi!billie
Billie Reid | Single Tachyon Extrapolation of Existence | Ode To The Dudes | Youtube
“…. this is the lightspeed and below universe of our physical senses, the single-particle-theory tachyon soup created as the single tachyon intersects with itself in different places at the same time, and the same place at different times; this may be metaphorically considered as the consciousness of creation, the mind ….“
Just as the cosmos in its physical sense is a totally inter-related manifestation of its component attributes of gravitational and electromagnetic coincidence, so the events/consciousness’s within that cosmos may be seen to be dependent on/connected to everything else that occurs within that same instant (i.e, synchronicity). Accepting this, and being that we can have no real concept of (or existence in) an instantaneous universe, we may extrapolate that for all our intents and purposes a combined continuity of time and space is a prerequisite of our conscious awareness of the reality that we appear to occupy and that therefore, all events throughout time and space are influenced by and influencing all other events within that continuum in a coherent and instantaneous manner regardless of temporal and/or spatial remoteness. This is the lightspeed and below universe of our physical senses, the single-particle-theory tachyon soup created as the single “tachyon” (4want’v betr word, i.e, instantaneous particle/wave “pixel/bit/packet” … no mass, no volume, “just” infinite velocity) intersects with itself in different places at the same time, and the same place at different times; this may be metaphorically considered as the consciousness of creation, the mind. The faster than light realm of the uninterrupted tachyon may be thought of as the subconscious mind of Eternity (as above, so below etc). We have the potential (in our role as an interface between rational/instinctive/emotional consciousness, between physical/spiritual, matter and energy) to challenge the apparent boundaries of our existence, to examine the walls of our cell for loose stones, to grab a can of spray paint and try to tag the invisible as it moves amongst us. Some try…. this is their Lounge … Welcome to the Dawn … “The game is afoot” … Eternity Beware, Oblivion is at hand. LOL.
