Tim Rogers

There was a performance by Tim Rogers of You Am I in Wagga a few weeks ago to support the Metta Generation. At an auction earlier in the year I'd bought a one-hour songwriting lesson with Tim for about $250.



The show was good, I hadn't heard much of his solo material. Actually, I don't know that much of You Am I's material either aside from when I've seen them play and they were all over Triple J for most of the '90s.

The songwriting lesson was more of an opportunity for me to ask Tim and the band a lot of questions. I probably should've warned them I wrote music journalism for a while. I don't remember many of the answers, except for Tim's parting comment that no one knows how to write a hit.

A couple of other tidbits were that Berlin Chair was written with more of an obvious My Bloody Valentine influence but the droning guitar parts didn't get recorded. And that he'd been advised by an American producer to drop every second word in his lyrics to make them more palatable for the US market.

It was interesting to walk into a pub with Tim Rogers and see the faces around the place look and stare.

Now I wonder if I should've got Tim's opinion on my own songwriting?