Finally Alone, Introverted Gen X Farmer Can Finally Stop Pretending To Like Country Music And Listen To What He Wants

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact

A local grazier says a weather front moving in from the west this week has given him a valid reason to miss the weekly gathering at the Rural Fire Brigade shed and he is not upset about it.

Darren Cootes, of the Eucaronage Cootes' out via Windorah, said he has been racing to get two paddocks of barley sown ahead of the rain and simply cannot make it this Friday.

"Yeah look, can't be helped," said Cootes.

"Won't sow themselves, will they."

Mr Cootes said he has nothing against the other members, but admits the music at the shed has become a sticking point.

"It's all that new country stuff. American. Blokes with their hats on sideways singing about their truck and getting on the gear," he said.

"I don't mind a beer and a catch up but by about the third one someone puts that on and I'm just sitting there."

He said he has raised the issue once, indirectly.

"I put on some Van Morrison once. My neighbour called it 'pump me in the arse' music and laughed."

With the shed night out of the picture, Mr Cootes says he'll spend tonight in the tractor cab sowing through until morning.

He will be listening to a burned Maxell CD-R with "Aphex Twin 'The' Ambient Collection" written on it in black texta. He made it himself. He could not recall exactly when.

"Sometime in the early 2000s probably. Still plays fine."

The disc lives in his CD wallet in the grab hole above the radio, until this interview, he had not mentioned it to anyone.

Asked what Aphex Twin sounds like, Cootes took a moment.

"Hard to explain. Electronic. There's no singing. It's got a lot going on but it's also quiet somehow," he said

"It suits being out at night. You don't really have to do anything with it, it just goes."

He said he has other CDs in the tractor but the Aphex Twin is the only one he made himself.

"The others are just stuff the kids burned me. Tame Impala and that. They're alright. I liked Deadbeat, I think if you didn't like it, you're a fuckwit."

Rain is forecast to arrive Sunday morning. Cootes said he expects to have the paddocks finished by then.

"Hope it's soft rain, if it does rain."

He said he'll probably make it to the shed next week.

More to come.