Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Last Contact

Well, it was very likely we would not see them again. We are getting older and they are getting older and sicker. We move on to new things and places and so contact slips away.

So, for a short while, last dry season in Darwin, we appreciated spending time with AJ and his wife for a brief time. While it was a happy reunion for us all, the underlying  events are quite sad.

AJ, is a big man with natural authority but his health is broken and he now walks with the aid of a stick. His wife and he are true lovers. They have suffered the taint of marrying  wrong. Their culture says their skin names cannot marry but their devotion to each other is touching. They seem happy in their own skins.

I remember the first time I saw AJ. This big fierce looking, dusty,long haired man looked as if he had just come in from the desert. You could not help notice his huge cracked feet as they tapped in  time with the music. He played a base guitar. He was part of the band Nomadic. Nomadic would practice in the Barkly Regional Arts office along with other local bands, several days a week. The noise was so loud almost all office work would cease and phone call were impossible.

It was a great band and while AJ was the rock like figure, responsible and stable, the bands genius lay in BM (Brian Murphy). BM's songs were  from the heart and sung from the heart. Nomadic was hugely popular in the area. (Their music is available at Winanjjikari Music Centre in Tennant Creek.)  There were others but AJ,BM and EK were the core. EK was a wonderful drummer but troubled. Over time, he spent  long periods in jail.

BM was also troubled. He was exceptionally sensitive and articulate and his music is world class. However, he was an unmanageable alcoholic and  his drinking and jail time kept him from the mainstream. We was said to be frequently violent when drunk but he never showed this side to us. He only cried on our shoulders often. While he never revealed his anger to us, there were times you suspected it was close by. A comment or a missed note would see change in his eyes and they would truly flash but nothing more. We found later that he had 'spent time' with a judge who took him to New Guinea as a child which may explain a lot.

AJ had come to Darwin to receive an award at the NT Music awards. The year before, our friends Lex and Joe from Tableland Drifters had also entered the 'Hall of Fame'. Sadly, this year it was  a posthumous 'Hall of Fame' award for BM.

Around the time we left Ali Curung BM left Tennant Creek and went to Adelaide to live. He successfully  busked  on the streets and made enough money to drink. There was a message passed around that BM was in hospital with organ failure and then some weeks later he died. AJ and his wife filled the gap left by his family and made all the arrangements to bring BM back to Tennant Creek for burial. This was the end of Nomadic.

In Darwin after the awards night,we all had a pleasant relaxed breakfast together in a restaurant  overlooking  overlooking Fannie Bay. How different it all was from those early days at Barkly Arts in Tennant Creek. We later took AJ and his wife to the bus terminal where we hugged good-bye and they boarded for the long haul back to Tennant Creek.

Currently we are in another community but not for too long this time. In the eight years we have been in the Territory and at the time of the official end of the 'intervention' it is difficult to see that it worked. Sure there is more hardware than ever; houses, school facilities, medical facilities,Toyotas and  planes coming and going. However, the real problems of community attitudes, health and education seem to have made little progress. What is clear though, is that the aboriginal industry is creating it's fair share of millionaires and ensuring continued population growth in areas of Australia where most people would normally fear to tread.