For all of my life I have riled against it labeled as the Californian Dream. For two years I lived the life of an English git (and failed) and for a short period even tried to be Italian (and failed) I accepted that I was West Australian after all. But living the Californian Dream?
Last year I decided to do a Californian road trip and actually find out what was the Californian Dream.
I packed an essential Californian dream catcher kit containing a paperback copy of Joan Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem, three true crime podcasts about Malibu called Lost Hills, a Spotify playlist including The Thrills So Much for the City and fragmented memories of high school readings of John Steinbeck. At the last moment I threw in a map of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the Californian volcano belt that my teacher Mr Harvey had drawn for Leaving Geography.
Day one in LA is underwhelming. The beaches are cold and dirty and shrouded in the Marine Layer. A lifeguard told me the surf had been skunked for six months.
While Venice Beach shivers, the homeless and their faeces bake into the pavements of Sunset Boulevard. But on review, it had been one of the best days of my life.
And so it went every day for five weeks as I drove on interstate freeways and backroads. Atop a 800-foot cliff in Big Sur, I looked out at Dennis Wilson’s Pacific Ocean Blue with tears streaming down my face. Could it get any better?
And it did despite the dream showing signs of major fracturing. A fatal or near fatal accident most days. Psychosis roaming the streets. Cities stretching to the edge of nowhere. Millions of people with eye bulging stress.
As my journey continued, imperceptibly Jessica Pratt crept into my playlist shuffle. By the time I reached the town of Weed under the shadow of the mystical Mt Shasta, Jessica Pratt had taken over my playlist.
Her sound is pure Californian Dream but her lyrics hint at something lost and sometimes even darker. A timeless musical exploration of the themes of Joan Didion?
I knew nothing about her, I couldn’t tell if she came from the 60s, the 70s or was contemporary. I rued that I had never seen her live.
Enter the first night of the Arrival Festival in Walyalup/ Fremantle at The Naval Store and Jessica Pratt is headlining.
• Jessica Pratt at the Old Naval Store Fremantle. Photo by Les Everett.
From her first 1,2,3,4 counting in World On A String the Old Naval Store is transformed into a cathedral of dream. The sound is pin drop perfect. Her backing band is exquisitely understated. No more so than Riley Fleck, whose drum pauses speak volumes like the silent replies of a psychoanalyst. Matt McDermott plays a retro Korg with flourishes like a dancing hep cat. Nico Liebman on bass, Diego Herrera on sax and Jessica Pratt are heard but not seen. They remain shrouded in a stage mist of Californian marine layer proportions. Hiding imperfections that don’t exist. The harmonising between Jessica and Nico is truly amazing. While Jessica’s words are at times mumbling or muted her scat vocabulary of Oh, oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh or Ba-la-la-lum-la-la-la-la-la, is of another world and another time. There can be no stand-out song. Every song is sooo good. Together they create a neuroleptic fugue state. The last song Life Is breaks the fugue with a naval drum roll and bass bombast.
For the encore only Jessica and Nico return for On Your Own Love Again. No longer shrouded by mist they are exposed like a conjoined organ-sharing twin, Jessica with the brain and Nico with the beating heart. OYOLA comes in at 90 seconds on the album of the same name, but here live the coda is extended into an acoustic masterpiece.
The band return and Jessica disappears into the mist of the marine layer one last time on Fare Thee Well. It’s a heartbreaking goodbye. A few last La-da-dum-da-da-da-dums and she is gone.
Jessica is not a musical time traveler from the 60s. Rather she is a purler. She knits fragments of time together with nylon strings.
And me? I am the rat slouching towards the Californian dream.
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