Bill Callahan - The Factory, Enmore

Recently I joined a beta for a mixed tape web2.0 widget that allowed me to choose any music I wanted and add it to a mix for dissemination amongst almost every social network (see previous post). The first thing I did when I reached the add music section was to quickly type the word 'Smog'. The result? Donut.
What the hell? My first track add and I'd already stumped the entire start-up. There was no listing for the band/artist Smog, or Bill Callahan for that matter. I won't go into it in too much detail but I'd say old school music label distribution is alive and well in web2.0. If you're an independent you don't get much room anywhere, even on the tech frontier.
Anyway....
Bill Callahan toured recently and I missed the opportunity to see him when I got the chance. When he reappeared in Australia for the second time in 6 months I knew not to act similarly again.
My memories of this gig I hope to cling to for longer than I'm sure my brain will allow so I'll write this like a mash of recollections, if only to stave off the inevitable entropy between my ears.
I love this guy (yep, remember that bit...). I just haven't found someone so unique and refreshing since forever. I can't think of someone who's occupying his niche or doing it with such seemingly flagrant apathy. He plays like the world is ending but the sound of his deep-tube vocals are just rounding, warming, singular and sweet. Gravitas meets groundswell, the downer brings epiphany. Everything he does coos the audience into a bubble of the harder edges of his life, his tracks are so simple that artistic interpretation just isn't necessary. For a mid week 'no brainer' I was left dazed and confused. Some time passed, I enjoyed my time with friends and then it ended far too soon. It felt like I'd been robbed of something, maybe an hour or two of my time, maybe something far more important.
I do remember distinctly that upon leaving the venue I'd witnessed something approaching genius; a baritone with a three quarter guitar and a track list that drew me to gravel roads and fur tree forests. It was a reminder of rooms with simple furnishings leading to simple living, of days and nights being marked by nature, not devices and of an inevitable cadence flowing through us all. I think of Bill's track "Show me the Colts" and the line "Is there anything as still as sleeping horses?" and I realise that is exactly what the five hundred strong crowd had been treated to; music that left us all still and a little more quite as we filed out into Sydney's inner west. We'd been robbed of our busy lives, just for a few hours, and we were all the happier for it.