Project 1001: Calenture by The Triffids
If you cannot run, then crawl / If you can leave, then leave it all / If you don't get caught. then steal it all
I heavily consumed music at the time of this album’s release. The Triffids, unfortunately, were not part of that consumption. I’ve never heard of the band until today and this is another reason I’m grateful for this project. This is an excellent record and I’m not sure why it wasn’t on all of our radars back in the day. This album has everything necessary to have been a commercial success. My guess is their label (Island) didn’t believe in them and failed to promote it or they had incompetent management. Good management is so critically important for a recording artist to break through. Good management can make a mediocre talent a superstar while bad management can condemn a brilliant artist to obscurity.
Even though they do not seem to have been much a commercial hit in their native Australia (or anywhere for that matter), The Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) inducted the band into its Hall of Fame in 2008.1
The standout for me is “Save What You Can”. A beautifully sung ballad lamenting the ravages of time and expressing disillusionment that the beautiful parts of a life fade with the passing of time. But this fading, is it something that happens to us or something we let happen? The song urges us to save what we can of our humanity, our friendships, our loves; all that we value in life. Do anything you must to save every bit possible, steal if you have to, before it’s too late.
If you’re wondering, calenture is a reference to the delirium suffered by sailors after long periods away from land.2
My Rating:
Australian singer-songwriter Alex Cameron wrote about The Triffids in Rolling Stone Australia, which ranked The Triffids at 43 on their list of 50 Greatest Australian Artists of All Time. He wrote, “McComb and the Triffids were a comet that burned bright but brief across the milky way; uniquely imperfect and perfectly timeless. They won’t be repeated.”3
Davie Fricke reviewed Calenture in 1988 for Rolling Stone: “And while McComb's songs may seem overburdened with bristling rage and oppressive sorrow, he is always careful to shine a little light of hope down into the black pits of despair…the trick in McComb's songs is to figure out where the hallucinations end and the real hope begins…Calenture may be an album about bad dreams, but the effect it has is all too real.”4
In 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, Gareth Thompson wrote:
“If ever a category for ‘gospel-indie’ needed to be established, then (singer and primary songwriter David) McComb set about it with fervor. His richly sorrowful voice bears the zeal of an outback preacher. Lyrically, his poetry (for it surely is) fuels songs that burn with loss and longing.”5
Here is a Triffids concert from 1986
Charts
• Peak on Billboard 200 album chart: n/a
• Singles on Billboard Hot 100 chart: n/a
• RIAA certification: n/a
Released on November 1, 1987. Here’s what else was happening:
Pop Culture
• Number one song: “Bad” by Michael Jackson6
• Number one album: Bad by Michael Jackson7
• Number one movie: Fatal Attraction by Adrian Lynne8
• Most watched TV programs: The Cosby Show, A Different World, Cheers9
• NYT bestseller, fiction: Kaleidescope by Danielle Steele10
• NYT bestseller, non-fiction: Veil by Bob Woodward11
Other albums released that month
• Back for the attack by Dokken
• Bête Noire by Bryan Ferry
• Cloud Nine by George Harrison
• Don't Let's Start by They Might Be Giants
• How Ya Like Me Now by Kool Moe Dee
• Master-Dik by Sonic Youth
• Rhyme Pays by Ice-T
• Characters by Stevie Wonder
• Cher by Cher
• Whenever You Need Somebody by Rick Astley
• Make It Last Forever by Keith Sweat
• The Eternal Idol by Black Sabbath
• Calm Before the Storm by Venom12
Sport
• Oct 25 Baseball World Series: Minnesota Twins beat St Louis Cardinals, 4-2 at HHH Metrodome for 4-3 series win and franchise first in Minneapolis; MVP: Twins pitcher Frank Viola.
• Oct 29 Thomas Hearns wins unprecedented 4th different weight boxing title.
• Oct 31 American jockey Chris Antley becomes first rider to win 9 races in a day (4 at Aqueduct / 5 at The Meadowlands).
• Nov 1 Brazilian Williams driver Nelson Piquet finishes 15th in the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka but clinches his 3rd Formula 1 World Drivers Championship.
• Nov 3 New York Rangers' center Marcel Dionne becomes just the 2nd NHL player to register 1,700 career points.
• Nov 3 Oakland A's first baseman Mark McGwire wins American League Rookie of the Year with 49 home runs, 118 RBI; second to win AL award unanimously; first Carlton Fisk 1972.
• Nov 4 Benito Santiago, Padres catcher, wins NL Rookie of Year.
• Nov 4 NBA announces 4 new franchises; Charlotte & Miami for 1988 & Minneapolis & Orlando for 1989.
• Nov 11 Boston Red Sox starter Roger Clemens wins back-to-back AL Cy Young Awards; Philadelphia Phillies starter Steve Bedrosian takes NL Award.13
Notable Births
• Nov 3 Colin Kaepernick, American NFL quarterback (SF 49ers), born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
• Nov 5 Kevin Jonas, American guitarist (The Jonas Brothers), born in Teaneck, New Jersey.
• Nov 6 Ana Ivanovich, Serbian tennis player (French Open 2008; world #1 08), born in Belgrade, Serbia.
• Nov 8 Erica Mena, American TV personality (Love & Hip Hop: New York), born in New York City.
• Nov 8 Sam Bradford, American football quarterback (Heisman Trophy 2008, U of Oklahoma; NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year 2010, St. Louis Rams), born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
• Nov 12 Jason Day, Australian golfer (PGA Championship 2015, World Number #1 2015-16, 51 weeks), born in Beaudesert, Australia.14
Historical Events
• Oct 26 Dow Jones down 156.83 points, second biggest one-day loss ever after previous week’s Black Monday.
• Oct 26 Head of Salvadoran Human Rights Comm assassinated by death squads.
• Oct 27 South Korean voters overwhelmingly approved a new constitution.
• Nov 3 Gordon Gould issued US patent US4704583 for the laser, ending his 30-year battle to be credited as the inventor of the laser.
• Nov 5 Iceberg twice size of Rhode Island sighted in Antarctic.
• Nov 5 US Supreme Court nominee Douglas H. Ginsburg admits using marijuana, later withdraws from consideration.
• Nov 8 Eleven are killed in an IRA bomb attack in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland.
• Nov 11 Judge Anthony Kennedy nominated to US Supreme Court by President Ronald Reagan.15
Notable Deaths
• Oct 25 Gerald Pearson, American physicist and inventor of the solar cell, dies at 82.
• Oct 29 Woody Herman, American jazz clarinetist and composer (Thundering Herd), dies at 74.
• Nov 5 Georges Franju, French film director (Judex; Les Yeux sans visage - Eyes Without A Face), dies at 75.
• Nov 6 Ross R. Barnett, American lawyer and politician, (Gov-D-Miss), dies at 89.16
Enjoy and listen without prejudice. Cheers!
On Prime: 134. Calenture by The Triffids
All the videos: You're Welcome 134; Calenture by The Triffids
Thomson, Gareth; 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die; ed. by Robert Dimery, p. 579.
Thompson.
Ibid.