INXS - journal 10/9/02
by james parsons

I’m listening to INXS. Loud. Michael Hutchence is dead five years now. Hung himself in his hotel room. But not on tour, not like the band all showed up at the arena for sound check and he wasn’t there. Where’s Michael? Then the announcement to the fans at the ticket window, or maybe they don’t even know until everyone’s inside and the stage manager or some designated flunky of the tour promoter walks out to the mic stand in the middle of the big stage and says that refunds will be available. Kids and college students all pissed off, until they hear the official announcement on the Perth, Australia, morning zoo crew, at which point it becomes a badge of honor. But that’s not how it went down. I think he was just in some city at some hotel and just kicked it. Up on a stool or a chair and kicked it out from under. How do you keep from rescuing yourself? On the gallows isn’t it the fall that breaks your neck and does the job? If you strangle don’t you struggle and kick and use your hands if you could and get yourself down? If not, that’s some will power. Some kind of determintation.

They were still big in Australia. Huge national heroes. The Stones of Down Under. Not in the U.S. so much. MTV had passed them by, gone through grunge and techno and approaching rock-rap and full bloom electronica and, of course, the return of the teeny bopper sex pots. They could still crank out an album, but no more hits without looking like followers instead of trendsetters. Hella big though in Australia. Huge. Rock star life, supermodel wife. Probably on tour he wouldn’t of done it, right? There’d be somewhere to go, something to score, something to keep you going. Momentum at least.

“Sometimes you kick. Sometimes you get kicked.”

And also, “Live, baby, live now that the day is over. There’s nothing better that we can do then live forever.”

Man, this album was massive. Every single song got airplay or a soundtrack or a commercial or a video or a hit or all of the above. Twelve tracks, no filler. Amazing. came out just after the Joshua Tree. U2 went through a swoon too, but they’re back. INXS. U2. Acronym puns. Accents. More exotic, more fun, more brains than Brit rock. And sexy as all hell. Hutchence was never a Bono, all political and spotlight manipulative. He just sang his ass off and swung the leather jacket arms and mop shag hair. If he lamented anything the answer was always dance, love, sex -- not revolution. Guns in the sky? You know what to do -- calling all nations, come to the party.

So he buys out, a couple years after Cobain. Less mess left behind. The bad grace to go out with a whimper instead of a shotgun bang, blood on the wall and Courtney Love on the cover of Rolling Stone for the rest of a decade. Left behind a body of work, but one you can sing along to -- a party of work. The world is up in arms; Saint Cobain’s beatification is immediate. What’s more honest? Kurt’s a lost soul who summed up a generation of degenerate suburban pot smokers and headbangers too churned up to let an arena rocker make them feel Better for christ’s sake, yeah. But, wouldn’t you rather have a lost soul who sheds the shroud and dances? Well, we ended up without either one, and frankly I miss the dancer more.