A box set from one of the most beloved and influential Australian groups of all-time, The Go-Betweens has just been released. G Stands For Go-Betweens Volume One extensively documents the band’s origins in an ambitious box containing four vinyl albums, four compact discs and an extensive 112-page book, featuring a trove of archival photos and extensive historical liner notes from founding member Robert Forster, along with additional pieces from guest essayists, fans and contemporaries.

The box set captures the band’s output from 1978 through 1984 and includes the first vinyl re-pressings of their first three studio albums in over thirty years (Send Me A Lullaby, Before Hollywood & Spring Hill Fair), all re-mastered from the original analog tapes. G Stands For Go-Betweens also brings together their early classic and collectible singles together on a fourth vinyl LP entitled The First Five Singles, featuring new artwork from its creators. Additionally, the set comes with four compact discs of rare, hard-to-find and unreleased demos, recordings, radio sessions and a complete live concert radio broadcast from 1982. If that’s not enough, the set comes with a silkscreen of their first promotional poster for their debut single, “Lee Remick”, as well as a reproduction of their very first press release from their own Able Label.

To mark the occasion we had a look through the Time Off archive and found this story that we featured in the book Off The Record (UQP). The story is from a little later in the band’s career: but it offers a unique snapshot into the band’s creative life.

At the beginning of 1989, the Go-Betweens were preparing to release the album (16 Lovers Lane) that would ultimately make good on their potential to cross over to commercial success without compromising their artistic credentials. At the time of David Burchill’s interview with Robert Forster, such success was anything but a given.

Burchill, however maintains his faith and, in the process, proves his clairvoyant skills in the final paragraph of this article: Wayne Goss indeed occupied the position of Queensland’s crony-in-chief later that year, Queensland finally took out the elusive Shield six years later, and today the Go-Betweens not only have taken their place as an essential Australian band, they have been officially embraced by the city they once abandoned. After all, how many bands have a bridge named after them?

After ten years slogging it out at the music industry, any band could be excused for losing their inspiration or giving up in despair. Not so the Go-Betweens. Their most recent vinyl offering, 16 Lovers Lane, has been hailed by many to be among their best work ever. And slowly but surely the mainstream side of the industry appears to be accepting them into the fold and, more importantly, rewarding them with the airplay they have so justly deserved for so long. In talking to him, it becomes easy to forget Robert Forster is an industry veteran; such is his almost childlike enthusiasm for the band.

“I’m very happy with it. The record seems to be known and accepted. We’re very happy our singles are being played on the radio. We like the idea of walking down the street and hearing our song blaring out of newsagents or chemist shops.”

This album is the band’s slickest to date, production-wise.

“Yes, that’s because the studio we recorded in here in Sydney was the best we’ve ever had to work with. I think it’s a happier record in a way and (producer) Mark Wallace is very good at getting clear, bright sounds. The songs were very good and the band played extremely well. Also what’s to be realised about this album is that we did play every instrument on it. We didn’t have tons of session musicians; there are no thick layers of touchy gossamer keyboards on it. It’s very much just the band, recorded very well.”

In a recent interview, it was revealed that Amanda Brown and particularly Lindy Morrison were more than a trifle miffed about being left out of the pre-production sessions, effectively reducing their input towards the overall arrangements. Robert is decidedly cagey and defensive when I ask how they have learned to live with it.

“Um…I think they’re living with it okay,” he replies, though not convincingly. “The pre-production to every album can’t always be the same. That’s just the way it was this time. We had a producer we hadn’t used before and we were recording in Australia for the first time in six years. There were a lot of new things being done around this album. You can’t keep doing the same things over and over.”

Alright, we believe you.

It was interesting to learn that many of Robert’s contributions to the album were penned here in Brisbane.

“When we moved back to Australia, I went up to Brisbane for six weeks before Christmas and stayed at my parents, which is something that I haven’t done since 1978. I moved into my old bedroom. It was good, especially after London. We’d just done a tour of America so to fly back and be at the Gap with my parents going off to work and me just in my bedroom or sitting on the verandah with an acoustic guitar was quite a novelty. It was inspirational. I had no interruptions, I had a clear head, and I could just get to work.”

Forster’s love/hate relationship with his home town has presented itself in various quotes and touched on in some of his songs over the years. How does he feel suddenly living back here after so long?

“Well I live out at the Gap, which is where I grew up. I didn’t spend much time in town mainly because I don’t know it well and I just don’t like the look of it. I know of no of any other city in the world that has changed so drastically over the last few years. I remember Sydney in 1978 and in Melbourne in 1980. When I go and visit them now, they look roughly the same. Brisbane seems to be completely and utterly remodelled. I can imagine someone at the age of sixty finding that completely demoralising. People who’ve lived in a city for more than fifty years of their life, they know all the certain haunts to go to and where everything is and then in ten years the Gold Coast Real Estate crowd and the mob in the Queensland parliament decide to completely destroy the city. I miss turning a corner and seeing something familiar. I’m not anti-change or anti-progress, which is what’s hurled at someone who tries to stand in front of a building about to be pulled down, but I’d hate to think what would happen if the people responsible for pulling down all the buildings in Brisbane were elected into power in Venice. Imagine, they’d floor the place in two years!”

Love it or hate it, Brisbane is the place where four out of five members of the band came from, and the city is something of a recurring connection when you consider the most recent recruitment of John Willsteed on bass.

“That was a strange twist of fate. After we’d been overseas for so long, we came back to Sydney minus one bass player. And who should move in just down the street, but our old friend, John! It’s the stuff that movies are made of.”

Despite the originally temporary nature of his position in the band, Willsteed has not only slotted into the job perfectly, but has also firmly established himself as the vital additional musician, particularly in the studio sessions. The Go-Betweens are more akin to being more like a family than the typical rock group. They have always been an exceptionally close-knit and self-contained unit to the point of incest.

“We’ve very much done things our own way. It’s unconventional and yet somehow it’s all turned out well. When you make the decision to join the Go-Betweens, it means taking up your entire life. Robert Vickers was the one reflective and introverted member of the band, but now with John its all gung-ho. John played most of the guitar on the album. He’s a very creative person.”

One gets the impression that one area of Willsteed’s creativity considered unnecessary for the band is songwriting.

“We’re encouraging John to be creative in the arrangement of the songs and the artwork of the sleeves, but there’s already two established writers in the band and I think a third one could cause havoc. But you never know; John’s full of surprises.”

A scribe from the NME once described the Go-Betweens as ‘geniuses with the arse hanging out of their trousers’, a reference of course their dire financial position while living in London. Was it mainly financial purposes that prompted the band to base themselves in Australia again?

“Yes, it’s much better over here. London was just manic poverty. You just don’t seem to be able to escape that over there. So many people are living in very trying conditions. It’s good to have left all of that behind us now.”

With dollars in their pockets and a welcome new addition to the family, it surely won’t be too much longer before the Go-Betweens become not just local legends but universally recognised as one of the eighties’ more important and intelligent pop groups.

Then again, having wrung out that tired but optimistic prediction, I may as well go all out and back Queensland to win the Sheffield Shield and Wayne Goss as Premier just to make the treble.

January 1989. Original text: David Burchill.

For a complete Box Set tracklist and in-depth information on this release, please visit the following:http://dominorecordco.com/gobetweens/