“Rereading our messages I’m sorry I was cold / Pull myself away from you ‘cause that’s just what I know / Water me darling love is a garden / It hasn’t rained I don’t want you to go.”
Life is a journey, and the paths we choose to take find us accumulating many memories along the way. Of course, for us music junkies here at Team GDW, while the songs we encounter are often plentiful, each of us have our own variety of presets – of music and genres that once discovered, remain with us as we progress on our journeys.
You only need skim a random handful of my own personal contributions to GDW over the years to identify the genres that continue to rock my world – let’s be honest, if you’ve not seen me make a reference to the golden era of indie-rock and alt-pop at some point, you really have not being paying attention. Discovering Brit poppers such as Suede and The LA’s, and American alt-artists like The Breeders and Mazzy Star, the implosion of indie music in the early 1990s opened my eyes to a genre that remains with me to this very day.
While popular bands from both the USA (Cage The Elephant / The Head and the Heart / Weyes Blood) and Canada (Alvvays / Metric / July Talk) lead the charge on this continent here in the present day, I am always keen to discover similar bands from both my British homeland and beyond. And that’s exactly how we arrived at this Commonwealth Connections feature today – an amazing new single from Australia’s current hottest homegrown indie-rock band, Spacey Jane.
If a song were to have a DNA tag, “How to Kill Houseplants” would likely demonstrate lineage back to the heyday of fellow Aussie power-pop big hitters INXS and Crowded House – and just like their contemporaries, Spacey Jane touch on the timeless themes of love, trauma, and the aftermath of a relationship gone wrong with this release – wrapped uniquely in a houseplant metaphor.
For lead vocalist Caleb Harper, the song is about the inner conflict of being unable to repair a relationship yet fighting the urge to simply walk away. “I feel awful, and I want to save this thing, and I don’t know how to do it,” he confesses, adding wryly of the houseplant metaphor, “I should know how to do this by now, but I don’t: I’ve killed 35 creeping ivies.” Cue the appropriate guitar rings that follow the first chorus, and dominant melodic keys and tight bass/percussion lines – this is a band that clearly loves and respects the DNA of the indie pop-rock genre.
“Water me darling love is a garden / It hasn’t rained and it’s starting to show / Water me darling love is a garden / It hasn’t rained and it’s starting to snow.”
Photo Credit: Michael Tartaglia
The British guy that crossed the ocean and crash landed in central Pennsylvania (to quote Greg Keelor, “And I wonder what am I doing here?”). As the youngest of four siblings, exposure to music from a very early age nurtured my passion and appreciation for many musical genres. Continuing to discover some amazingly diverse and talented musicians based in Canada, I gravitate to live music experiences and remain devoted to spreading the word about such a vibrant music scene.
