#but Glen's as close as he gets to a healthy relationship dynamic

[lisatelramor]

You Can Tie the Knot

So, my brain took a brief jaunt away from fanfic for half of October,  and while most of what came out of that is something that maybe 5 people would recognize characters to, I had my brain latch onto a Certain Image at work one day, came home, and wrote a OC  porn fic in one sitting for the first time in years. (considering how often my brain stalls on sex content and it’s rare to write ANY scene in one sitting, I was actually pretty happy about it). I’ve decided to post it here since technically I’ve posted with these characters before. This is in the same universe as my stories Still Love After and Getting On Your Nerve, but reading those  isn’t really necessary. This is literally PWP. 100% PWP. (Tho for anyone curious, Ayrien’s mentioned in Still Love After as the ‘yoga asshole,’ and has an... unhealthy relationship in Getting On Your Nerve with a different character than featured here. If anyone DID read GOYN and wondered why this fic exists, may I just say that Glen and Ayrien’s relationship is very much It’s Complicated in all aspects ^_^;;

PWP under the cut featuring shibari and BDSM themes.

Glen tied the last knot, smoothing a hand along Ayrien’s bare skin between the mesh of rope. Ayrien was trembling. He’d gotten hard before Glen was even halfway through, gone silent around when Glen got his arms tied back.

It was something Glen never thought he’d see, a quiet, compliant Ayrien, responsive to the slightest touch. He tested the give to key places, making sure nothing was too tight or loose and no blood flow would be restricted to the point of injury. Then he tugged lightly on Ayrien’s blindfold, the first thing he’d tied on his long-time friend. “How’re you doing? Still feel your fingers?”

Ayrien licked his lips, mouth opening but no sound coming out.

“Hmm, words, Ayrien. While you still can.”

Ayrien swallowed. “Good,” he said, sounding wrecked although, objectively speaking, they’d barely started yet.

“Good.” Glen pet his hair in reward, feeling his shiver. “Is it everything that you pictured so far? I’d hope it was worth learning how to tie so many knots.”

“Yes,” Ayrien said.

Glen could push for more words, but that was good enough for now. He’d spent the last half hour watching Ayrien fall into subspace and he was ready to play. “Time well spent then,” Glen said. “Just one last thing, if you’ll open up.”

Ayrien’s mouth fell open obediently. If only he listened on the average day as well as he did in the bedroom. Glen slip a ball gag into his mouth and heard Ayrien groan low around it. He tightened the strap and tested its give as he’d done with the ropes; Ayrien wouldn’t care if Glen hurt him, but the only pains Glen wanted to give were the intentional kind.

“Wonderful,” Glen said, sitting back to admire his work. For a first time trying his hand at shibari, it had come out very nicely, a pretty red lattice across Ayrien’s chest and binding his arms back before bracketing his ass and trailing down his legs, forcing him in a kneeling position. It was all the prettier a picture with a gray silk blindfold over Ayrien’s eyes and the red ball gag stopping up his mouth. Ayrien. Absolutely at his mercy. He’d had fantasies in high school like this. Well, sort of like this. Less silk rope and more kneeling at his feet.

Glen leaned on an elbow, tracing a finger down Ayrien’s side, enjoying how he twitched and moved, instinctively tugging against the rope. With that dirty-gold hair of his falling down along his collarbones it was almost unfair how good he looked. The bastard.

“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to gag you,” he said, hand trailing down Ayrien’s hip. “I’m pretty sure it wasn’t sexual in middle school.” He ran a hand feather-light up Ayrien’s inner thigh, enjoying the way he breathed harder. “It definitely was by the end of high school.”

Ayrien made a sound around the gag as Glen rubbed where his thigh met his pelvis. He was dripping already. Even his cock was pretty, red and rosy and sleek, only a slight upward curve to it. Hairless even to his balls because Ayrien was definitely vain enough to wax on occasion even if he pretended he wasn’t. He couldn’t use the excuse of crossdressing for casework all the time; it was definitely a preference.

“Hmm.” He dipped a finger along the bead of precum at the head of Ayrien’s cock, watched him jerk full-bodied at the touch. Because Glen was just as much of a bastard as Ayrien was, he didn’t touch him with more than a finger, fiddling with the head of his cock like it was a straw wrapped on a fast-food table, idle and seemingly thoughtless. “You know, I’m a bit of a sadist. And it’s entirely your fault. I internalized your sick sense of humor at some point.” He smiled as Ayrien squirmed. “I realized it around the time I punched you in the face of course. The biggest adrenaline rush—but of course I can’t just go around punching people in the face for fun. That just isn’t socially acceptable. I suppose neither is this to some people, but it works.” A thumb under the head, one finger tracing the other side, almost but not quite circling him.

Ayrien let out a whimper.

Glen bit his lip and adjusted his jeans. “I bet you want me to knock you around a bit now, don’t you. Make you hurt.” Ayrien was shivering, dick twitching in Glen’s hand. “I could.” Glen let go. And Ayrien swayed toward where his hand had been, another groan muffled by rubber between his lips. “But you know I’m not just that kind of sadist. You’re a social sadist. Like to watch people squirm, get angry or stressed."

Glen got to his feet, circled the pretty picture of a red faced, trembling Ayrien at his feet. “I’m not a social sadist,” he said conversationally, enjoying how Ayrien tried to tilt his head to pinpoint where Glen was. “But I do like a bit of hitting. Or course you’d like that. You like pain.” He gripped Ayrien’s hair without warning, close to his scalp and tugged upward until Ayrien was forced to strain against the ropes to relieve the strain on his neck. “And I can like how pretty a shade of red you’d turn if I spanked you. Another thing I’ve fantasized about, by the way.” Ayrien shuddered, breathing hard, body a pretty pretty line of tense muscles and bowed back and new-forming bruises as the ropes held him down. “But you know what would get me off more?”

Glen kept his grip tight, leaning down to speak in Ayrien’s ear. “Denying you.”

The desperate sound that brought was music to his ears, the tremble that much more intoxicating. He could do whatever he wanted, and oh, Ayrien would love it if he made him bleed. But people made Ayrien bleed all the time. People hurt and punched and threw Ayrien’s nastiness right back at him and Ayrien would go back for more. Glen could hurt him and he would sing beautifully with pained pleasure, but a gentle touch and the right words, he knew Ayrien would break. And Glen was always so good at taking things apart to put back together.

Glen kissed Ayrien’s cheek, jaw, down the side of his neck. One hand braced against Ayrien’s throat, just to let him know he could choke him but wouldn’t.

Glen spent so many years being the one cleaning up Ayrien’s social messes, smoothing over jagged, cruel words and playing bridge to societal sensibilities. Ayrien was an asshole and everyone thought Glen was the nice one. Perhaps at one point he was nice, or maybe he just hadn’t wanted to get in trouble with school or his parents or the police. Glen wasn’t nice. Glen watched Ayrien struggle to find middle ground as an adult and mercilessly called him out on every failure. He knew full well why Ayrien was a mess and didn’t give him any slack for it because he’d let him walk over him once, and he’d never let it happen again. He struck first and harder with words and could make Ayrien cry if he wanted to, and not in the fun way. He could blackmail him for eternity if he so chose.

He didn’t. But it wasn’t because he was nice or because they were friends. He just didn’t have any reason to do it.

Glen was just as much of a bastard as Ayrien was, so he kissed slow arcs along bruising flesh, let Ayrien try to twist and make the ropes turn actually painful. They wouldn’t be painful of course. Glen made sure of that. They’d bruise but they wouldn’t chafe. They wouldn’t leave his fingers red and aching.

“You’re beautiful like this,” Glen said. Because it was true and he only told Ayrien truths even if they cut deep. The hand not at Ayrien’s throat wandered his chest, dipping into each and every gap in the rope-work. “So pretty and perfect and having to sit and take whatever I’ll give. I thought about buying a ring gag, you know. Something to hold your mouth open so you’d have to take my cock down your throat.” Ayrien made a sound that could be a sob. His throat clenched in a swallow beneath Glen’s light grip. “Maybe sometime I’ll buy one and use it, your hands tied up so you couldn’t do anything.”

Glen licked his lips. He was so hard now, but that was part of what made this good. Of making Ayrien a mess and barely touching himself.

“Sometime I’d fuck you how you like it and make it hurt so good.” Just the hint of nails to Ayrien’s inner thigh, the scrape of teeth to the back of his neck, not biting, just enough to promise. “But not this time. Pain doesn’t make you break, Ayrien, and I want to see you broken.” Definitely a sob, and another jerk against the bonds.

Ayrien was powerless. Trapped in Glen’s hands and words and writhing under them, seeking any bit of ache he could and getting soft touch and kisses instead. His breath came in great shuddery gasps that made Glen’s own breathing pick up.

Glen touched him like he was soothing a deer, cautious and gentle. He placed kisses on Ayren’s neck and face. His beautiful collarbones where they were starting to bruise. His shuddering chest and twitching hip. His knee. His inner thigh. Right before his cock.

Glen stayed there a moment just breathing in Ayrien’s scent, and the sweat and precum and the wonderfully musky smell of an aroused man. He watched Ayrien’s cock twitch and his hips fail to get friction as Glen held him still. He watched Ayrien’s face contort beneath the blindfold and around the gag. He watched Ayrien break, tears leaking from beneath the blindfold.

He kept watching for a cruelly long time as Ayrien sobbed, just breathing against his cock.

The details were committed to memory. How many other people had seen Ayrien like this? How many had managed to make him cry? How many had done it from soft touches instead of sharp nails, or teeth or a quick fist?

Glen pushed himself up, using Ayrien’s hips as leverage to reach his face. He kissed the tear tracks gently, pressed his clothed body to Ayrien’s naked one and felt him press into the connection. “You’ve been so good,” he said. He brushed a thumb under the blindfold to chase tears away. “You listened so well for me. Now you get your reward.”

He unclipped the ball gag and it fell free from Ayrien’s gasps for breath and words spilled out. “Glen, please please god please I need you to do something touch me please please, god—” All shuddery and caught up in sobs and it was gorgeous. Glen loved and hated it all wrapped in one, bringing Ayrien to this point. It almost made him want to push him further, not just break, but shatter. That would be going too far though and Glen knew it.

He cut off Ayrien’s babble with a kiss, forcing him to accept it and Ayrien tried to kiss back, so sloppy it was almost pathetic. Glen felt like he’d finally won something over Ayrien for good. But Ayrien was still crying and Glen had promised a reward. One hand fisted in Ayrien’s hair, the other curled rough around his cock.

Ayrien keened into Glen’s mouth, head and back forced into an agonizing angle and his cock pumped too hard and fast for Glen’s personal taste. It was just the right amount of discomfort for Ayrien’s needs though because he came in less than thirty seconds of the treatment, whimpering against Glen’s lips as Glen kept touching him into overstimulation. When he finally let go, Ayrien swayed in place, breathing too hard and looking like he’d collapse if he wasn’t still tied up.

His mouth was red, his hair disheveled and sticking to his face where tears and spit made it wet. Bruises would be setting in with such a gorgeous pattern soon. And it was all at Glen’s hands. Glen let go of Ayrien’s cock to squeeze his own, not caring that he smeared cum along his pants. His other hand undid Ayrien’s blindfold.  

“Still okay?” Glen asked, rubbing away a new set of tears.

Ayrien’s eyes fluttered open, pale lashes damp and glittering. His pupils were still huge. He pressed his head into Glen’s touch like a big, affectionate cat. It was cute and ridiculous. Glen bit his lip.

“Words, Ayrien,” he reminded.

“Mm. Good,” Ayrien slurred. “…you?”

“Oh, I’m good.” He could have gotten off with a few strokes, but he’d rather wait a little longer. Maybe hold off entirely and jerk off to the memory of Ayrien sobbing. Glen shivered. Hmm, yeah, he was just as fucked up as Ayrien was, and it definitely was Ayrien’s fault. His mother always did warn him that Ayrien was a bad influence. Pity Glen never gave a fuck. “Gonna untie you now.”

Ayrien hummed, flopping forward as much as he was able, nose smooshed against Glen’s neck and shoulder. “You were mean,” he mumbled as Glen began the annoying process of un-tying all the knots he’d so carefully made.

“I’m a mean person,” Glen said. “You’re always saying it.”

“‘Killjoy’ is different than ‘mean,’” Ayrien said. He nuzzled closer and breathed Glen in. “Can’t believe you didn’t even take your clothes off.”

“Didn’t need to.” The power dynamic of being clothed while Ayrien wasn’t was also a turn on, so. Yeah. Glen was still hard, but it was cooling to a comfortable level of arousal rather than immediately needy. Which was good because Ayrien was probably still crawling back from subspace. He wasn’t usually clingy, but then they didn’t usually do anything sexual with each other.

Ayrien hummed again and let Glen maneuver him this way and that like a giant floppy ragdoll with lead weights in its extremities until he had his legs free. Ayrien whimpered when he got his legs stretched straight in front of him. His head lolled back against Glen’s shoulder as Glen went to work on his arms.

“Shit, they’re all pins and needles.”

“Well you were kneeling for ages,” Glen said. He paused to rub one leg helpfully. Ayrien’s breath caught when he thumbed over a bruise. “You also asked for it when you suggested shibari.”

“You need to tie me up again sometime,” Ayrien said. “And maybe not be so gentle.”

“Hmm, maybe,” Glen said. Truthfully, he kind of wanted to keep it to this sort of dynamic if they did this again. Let handcuffs be rough play; shibari was an art and demanded some delicacy.

It was only after Glen freed Ayrien’s arms and was halfway done with the last few knots at his chest and shoulders that Ayrien roused back to a semblance of his usual self. “Did you even come?” he asked, frowning down at Glen’s crotch where his erection had mostly subsided from the scene turning into cuddles.

“Later,” Glen said.

“But.”

Glen cut him off with a finger and a quick kiss. “Later. Later we can shower and you can suck me off. Or you can shower and I can get off in your bed and you can think of me while you’re washing.”

Ayrien actually blushed. It was hard to get him to blush, but he still didn’t expect to hear this sort of thing directed at him from Glen’s mouth. Glen would enjoy it for as long as that reaction lasted. “…more fun if I get to see you,” he said after a moment.

“Shower together it is,” Glen said.

Ayrien grinned. Glen knew he was back to normal when he gave a wink and said, “You just want to bruise my knees and shut me up. All those gag fantasies were about choking me with your cock, weren’t they?”

Glen had years of self-control not reacting to Ayrien, so he only raised an eyebrow. “Oh, some of them. Maybe someday I’ll show you some more. I might need a few more toys for some of them.”

Ayrien blinked a few times and groaned. “Ugh, why did I think you’d be different in bed than any other part of my life?”

“Wishful thinking?” Glen joked. “But you like it.” Ayrien liked Glen not taking his bullshit. He liked when Glen cut him down and made him honest. He even liked when Glen was cruel, most of the time. But Ayrien hated himself, so of course he liked it. Glen would have to do the work to find the right balance. To figure out where the spot was between harm and boundaries all over again. Tonight, he thought, was a step in that direction.

Ayrien rolled his eyes as the last coil of rope slid free.

Glen gave him a kiss and prodded him away, admiring the red lattice marks with every step toward the door.

[filzmonster]

song-of-amethyst replied to your post

“Top 5 Ships of my heart Rules: list 5 of your OTPs and tag 5 people. I...”

GilBreak is no crackship, they're totally valid! :D Do you see a lot of people say they are the other's left eye? <3 (also, I don't like to admit how much I relate to the tragic ships thing but here we are) On a more personal notes though I'm very interested in the PH crackships :p *has quite a lot of these too*

Oh look, I’m procrastinating again 

nladsfhalksfhasdf I feel so validated right now ?? :’) Honestly I feel like there are not that much people in the fandom that actively ship them and I’m just here ?? starving for content ?? xD 

(I mean. looking at the fandoms we’re in there’s not much of a choice we have but to let our hearts be broken by the same couple of idiots over and over again. It’s heaven for masochists.)

Oh boy. I show you mine if you show me yours I’ll put it under a read more since I can already see myself escalating with this. Also most of the crack ships basically boil down to Gilbert x Anyone Else b/c that’s just the kind of trash I am  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Gilbert x Reim

I fully blame that one special manga scene for this ship. The one in which they are having a tea party and Sharon tells Break that Gilbert learned how to cook because of him and then Gilbert spends two pages gushing about hOW AWESOME REIM IS and that just kinda did it for me (together with all the other little scenes these two get throughout the manga). Because when you think about it, they are very close age-wise, they probably spend a lot of time together and they both bond over what an asshole Break can be. THERE’S POTENTIAL THERE OKAY. Also they would have a very healthy, supportive relationship and it would just be the purest thing ever ?? So yeah. totally shipping them.

Gilbert x Lottie

I FULLY BLAME THE OTHER SPECIAL MANGA SCENE FOR THIS OKAY. The one in Last Dance ?? Where Lottie and Gilbert are bugging Reim b/c they found out he proposed to Sharon. IDK it just hit me how nice their dynamic seemed over those short couple of pages ?? Also I feel like they would really understand each other - they both have Master issues, they are both Baskervilles, they both lost people they cared about, they both had to do horrible things, they both got betrayed by Jack, they both had a special connection with Oswald/Glen, they are both kinda mother hens let’s be real. But they still did very different things with their common ground. Gilbert chose to sort of abandon Oswald/Glen because he couldn’t accept his decisions, while Lottie chose to stop him but still stayed by his side instead. They could talk about these things and it would be such an interesting conversation!! Aaaand someone in the fandom once said that since Lottie likes to cook too, she could help Gilbert learn how to cook with only one hand and just !! imagine !! the cuteness !!

Okay this is the part where it gets really crack-y okay pls don’t judge too hard

Leo x Gilbert

HEAR ME OUT. Bonding over Elliot’s death ?? Bonding over Oswald ?? Bonding over that whole Glen Baskerville thing in general ?? Bonding over Vincent being a self-sacrificing idiot ?? Bonding over Oz & Oz’ death ?? Just. Them being there for each other in ways no one else could be there for them. They are both servants. They are both kind of Glen B. (even though Gilbert isn’t anymore but like. he was supposed to be, he grew up being prepared to take over that role, something must have stuck) They both lost the same people. It probably wouldn’t be like. a very good (as in healthy and based on trust, true love) relationship, but it would be an interesting, darker one. It also probably wouldn’t last but that’s not the point of shipping anyway is it ?? 

Gilbert x The other Nightray siblings

Okay. This one is. Going to take a while to explain. I once read a pretty dark Gilbert x Vanessa fanfiction and that was when it just ?? occured to me that while we don’t get to see much of the other Nightray siblings (RIP I guess) except for Elliot (with whom I do not ship Gilbert with because they actually have a brother-brother bond in my eyes tbh) they still have potential to have interesting dynamics with Gilbert (and Vincent, too, so I guess I ship Vincent with them, too). Especially when you look at it from a ‘we are using each other for things’ point of view. Like them using Gilbert to try and get to Raven’s power or just using him for the Nightray’s dirty work in general. Gilbert using them for information he could pass on to Break. The Nightrays are already a pretty dysfunctional bunch so why not add that kind of dysfunctional relationship/dynamic, too ??

Gilbert x Sharon

I don’t have an excuse for this, they are just both really nice & caring characters and they would deserve each other okay. With that said:

Vincent x Sharon

If I remember correctly, Jun once stated that an arranged marriage between Vincent and Sharon was supposed to be a plot point in the manga so ?? I could see it work in a ‘we are both highly political and totally maybe not on the same side so we’ll just really use each other for our own gain and whups what do you mean we could also team up and be badass together ??’ way. Break would probably kill Vincent first though so 

Break x Rufus Barma

I once got a fanfiction promopt for them so. I blame the person who prompted me. I can’t un-see it, you know ?? B/c once I started to think about their potential dynamic in order to write the fanfic, tHE DYNAMIC WAS JUST THERE OKAY. IT WAS JUST THERE. and it would work ?? I mean. The relationship between these two would probably be based on them constantly trading secrets and informations with each other and trying to out-plot the other one, but they could still be a pretty good couple. Much like Vincent x Sharon: they would just team up and screw over everybode else together.

Oswald/Glen x that Nightray dude that warned him about Jack

b/c why not ?? We know next to nothing about that guy so why not make him someone who cared about Oswald and tried to give him some love because Oswald dESERVES IT OKAY.

Jack x Arthur Barma

Again: why not ? Arthur totally had a crush on him and it would make Jack betraying him so much more brutal and cold hearted (or Jack was actually also in love with him but his obsession with Lacie was still stronger).

Jack x Miranda Barma

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (honestly if I wouldn’t read Jack as kinda grey-ace / not interested in other people besides Oswald and Lacie, these two could just have some kind of. friends with benefits relationship without the being actual friends part.)

Ada x Vanessa

It would be like Romeo and Juliet but gay They could either be using each other to get information, or they could be actually in love and just. be tragically seperated by their family feud. 

Lottie x Sharon

The female power couple I deserve. They are both Queens. They both care a lot about the people important to them. They are both willing to make sacrifices and they are both very smart on an emotional level. Also they could totally bond about the dumb men in their lives.

Oz x Break

... I don’t even know why myself. They are just very similar to each other and it would be like one bunny bumping heads with another bunny.

Reim x Lottie

J U S T. do it for the aesthetic, if not for anything else ?? They are both really smart and - out of their respective groups - the ones who look like they have their life together the most but actually don’t

Elliot x Alice

No idea where that one is coming from tbh, they just seem like they would kinda. click. with each other. also imagine the look on Oz’ and Gilbert’s faces

Alice x Gilbert

In a world where the Tragedy Of Sablier never happened, these two grow up together and have a very ‘slow burn childhood friends to lovers’ trope going on. f i g h t     m e one day Gilbert is sad so Alice gives him a very cute stuffed rabbit (“this one always protects me when I’m sad I can lend him to you”) and from then on they just share the stuffed rabbit with each other as their protector 

I ... I think that’s it. I’m not even sure if you read until here tbh xD Like I said, please try not to judge too hard, a lot of these are very lowkey ships. aLSO FEEL FREE TO TELL ME YOURS PLEASE I AM CURIOUS TOO !!

[doomandgloomfromthetomb]

Robert Forster Interview — February 2003

Sunday Interview! Hey, I’m going to start re-posting some of these old interviews I did back in the day — many aren’t really readily available.Why the hell not! First up, there’s this one I did for Junkmedia with Robert Forster on the eve of Bright Yellow Bright Orange’s release. I remember that the connection between Boston and Australia was not particularly great, but the interview came out OK! Also, Go-Betweens bassist Robert Vickers was the publicist who hooked us up. That was cool. Also, I think I heavily overrated Bright Yellow Bright Orange. It’s good, but I think I’d rate it as the weakest of the Go-Betweens’ reunion records. 

Some things just get better with age. Take the Go-Betweens for example. The band's latest record, Bright Yellow Bright Orange (released last week on Jetset Records), reveals that songwriting prowess of Grant McLennan and Robert Forster remains undimmed, more than two decades after the band made its first tentative recordings. The new album doesn't even remotely sound like the work of a band in its twilight years; rather, it's a potent, ambitious collection of ten shimmering pop gems.

After their somewhat disappointing "reunion" record (2000's The Friends of Rachel Worth, recorded with members of Sleater Kinney and Quasi), the songwriters' collective muse has returned, and the result is some of their best songs in years. The original lineup of the Go-Betweens made some of the finest music of the '80s; on Bright Yellow Bright Orange, Forster and McLennan seem determined to top themselves. A hell of a challenge, to be sure, but they just might be up to it. Forster spoke with Junkmedia from his home in Australia on the eve of the album's release.

So if my calculations are correct, 2003 marks the 25th anniversary of the Go-Betweens. How does it feel to have made it this far?

God, I hadn't really thought of that, but 25 years — uh, good! It feels good. We're especially happy to still be making relevant music.

It being your anniversary and all, have you and Grant gotten each other gifts or anything? What's the 25th anniversary gift supposed to be — silver?

Well, I'm not expecting any gift. I hope Grant isn't! So, no, I don't think so.

How did the two of you meet?

We were studying at the same place, the same university. This would have been in the mid-'70s. We were sort of living off of "Queen and Country", living on campus. And we just became friends.

I'm curious to know what kind of records were making their way down under at that time.

Well that was just around the time when punk was starting up, so we were getting some of the early punk stuff. Also, Dylan's Desire album was a big one, and the first Jonathan Richman and The Modern Lovers record was issued — that sort of thing was making it down here. And we obviously listened to a lot of '60s stuff — the Velvet Underground, and so forth. A lot of the New York bands of that era were a big influence. Television's first album, the Ramones' first album, I remember quite well. All of that was what Grant and I were listening to in those days.

Was there any one record that really made you think "I want to make something like this!"?

Well, I guess it'd have to be Marquee Moon by Television. That was a real landmark there. It seems like you'd have to spend 20 years studying that to get to where they were on that record. And that record led us to a lot of things -- to the Velvets, to Dylan, to a whole different range of music, really.

How would you characterize your relationship with Grant, in terms of personal dynamics, in terms of songwriting?

Well, it's a friendship. A lot of times, people who work closely in bands aren't friends, but with us that's never been the case. So we've got that going for us. And you know, we're quite similar — a similar age, similar background and all of that. And even though our lives have sort of developed in different ways since we met, we always have a base from which to build off of. So we're similar, but different.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it always seems to me that — unlike other famous songwriting partnerships — yours is a partnership that's fueled more by mutual respect than by competition. Do you think that's accurate?

Yeah, that's a good point. I do think it's accurate. And the songwriting arrangement we had right at the start has really served us well. Since the second album, we've each had the same amount of songs on each album, and I think that eliminates a lot of problems that other duos might have. And so with that arrangement in place, we're both just trying to make the best records and songs possible. I mean, there is certainly competition to some degree — that's healthy. We're both trying to get the best out of each other, I think.

Listening to your records, however uncompromised they might be, it still sounds like you and Grant, unlike a lot of "cult" bands, were trying to write hit songs. Do you think that's true?

Yeah, I think what we're doing did have and does still have broad appeal. I think of a band like, say, Sonic Youth — they're not really going for any kind of broad appeal, even though a great number of people like them. They're sort of designed to have a cult kind of appeal. But we've always worked within the boundaries of the three-minute or five-minute pop song. A lot of what we do has the possibility of broad appeal. And also, you know, we love pop music. We were brought up on AM radio. We're both AM radio kids.

When the Go-Betweens are brought up in the music press, the adjective "influential" is always coming up. Do you find that to to be accurate — do you ever hear a new band and think, "That really sounds like us!"?

No, to be honest. Not really. I think if we were influential in any way, it was more the way we sort of carried ourselves, and the kind of people we are. And the strange twists and turns of our career might have been influential in some way as well. The music? Maybe a little bit, but I don't hear it in a big way. And I try as much as I can to keep up with the current music scene.

The two of you spent the '90s pursuing other projects — recording solo albums, playing with other bands, and writing with other collaborators. Was that time apart valuable to you as a songwriter?

Oh, enormously. Enormously. For the both of us. I think that's the reason things are happening right now with the Go-Betweens, why we're hungry. We had a break from each other, which was great — and we also got to work with other people. I learned to play the keyboards, which was something I didn't have time for the first time around. And I made a couple albums collaborating with different people. I made one with Edwyn Collins producing called Warm Nights and a covers record called New York Girlfriend. I learned a lot about studios, and all kinds of things, and that was all very valuable.

And that brings us a little more up to date, with Bright Yellow Bright Orange. Grant said in the press materials that this is his favorite Go-Betweens album. I thought that was a pretty bold claim to make at first, but, having listened to it quite a bit in the last few weeks, I'm almost inclined to agree. What do you think?

Well, it's hard to say, really. I like it, and it's getting a really good reaction so far, but, when you start talking about favorites, it's hard to single one out. There are some earlier records that I have great affection for. But Bright Yellow Bright Orange is up there, to be sure.

Is there any one Go-Betweens record that really sums it up for you, where you think you accomplished exactly what you set out to do with it?

Hmmm. Before Hollywood is good. But I still think we're sort of striving for that perfect record — I suppose if we had already made that perfect record, there'd be no reason to go on!

Tell me a little about the band you've got playing with you on Bright Yellow.

Well, we've got Adele Pickvance playing bass and Glen Thompson playing drums and keyboards. Glen played on my second solo album. I met him through some other people and he ended up playing on Warm Nights, and when I was touring behind that record I hooked up with Adele. But it took a while to get that combination together with Grant to do a real Go-Betweens record.

Where was it recorded?

Some of it was in Melbourne, a great studio down in Melbourne called Sing Sing, and some of it was done in Sydney, at Paradise Studios.

Does location play a big part in the "vibe" of an album?

Totally. Totally. Place has always been extremely important in all of our recordings. For us, it's like going on location for a film, really. You know, like if you were in Miami, you can't make a Western down there. And if you want to make, say, a sparkling situation comedy, you can't do that in the backwoods of Tennessee. So where we end up recording — it's all been thought through, we've discussed what the best environment would be for that particular record.

Now, in addition to this new material you've got coming out, Jetset and Circus Records put out your first three records, with bonus discs of unreleased and rare material. Were you involved in that? Was it fun for you to go back and listen to those records?

That was done by the record company, and they put the whole package together, and Grant and I for the most part gave our approval. We removed one or two things we weren't excited about. But I do enjoy listening to those records from time to time, although lately I've been getting back to some of my solo career. That stuff is starting to grow on me a bit.

Are there plans to give the remaining Go-Betweens records a similar treatment?

Yeah, there are plans. That'll probably happen next year. We'll do the rest with bonus material and all of that. There's even a record of early bonus material that didn't make it on to the first set of reissues that'll see the light of day sooner or later. It's kind of "the rarities of the rarities."

The Go-Betweens have always enjoyed a particularly fierce fan base. It might even be bigger now than it was in the '80s. Does it surprise that you after all these years you've still got fans all over the world following the band?

Well, honestly, not entirely. We made good music, and we're hopefully still making good music. And no matter how "popular" something is, if it's good, it's going to have a life, you know?