Basia....and BEYOND!
9:47 AM, 3/9/2006
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The link: http://rapidshare.de/files/31684592/basiaAndBeyond1.zip.htmlCountdown was a fine thing as far as it went, but we grew up a bit and Countdown just plain didn't. In fact, it regressed. As we got further into the 80s, a vibrant new live scene emerged that was all but ignored by the degenerate empire that was championing such bland synth-pop acts as Wa Wa Nee, Pseudo Echo and Kids in The Kitchen. Constant exposure to this bilge made a lot of us feel betrayed and removed from the music scene as it was was being shown to us and as everyone knows, a large number of stupid, angry, disaffected adolescents is the surest recipe that there is for ROCK!. But what kind of rock? I think all we knew was that we didn't want to listen to Flock Of Seagull and Duran Duran wannabes. Consequently on any given night at St Kilda's Prince of Wales (particularly the notorious, quality control-free Thursdays), you could hear any combination of next generation punk (I Spit On Your Gravy), possibly with metal connections (Exploding White Mice), or newer, nastier edges (Orchestra Of Skin And Bone). There was '60s revivalism aplenty whether paisley push pop (Huxton Creepers), Hashbury psych (Sunset Strip) or there was the great rediscovery of the day, 60s garage (Died Pretty). The goth scene was coming out in force (Box The Jesuit were far and away the greatest on the scene according to the Captain's log) and there was blissful power-pop all over the shop (the charge led capably by the Hard Ons). There was rockabilly running into punk and morphing into psychobilly (The Fireballs) while country was leaving the country and making inroads into the cities (The Johnnies, The Slaughtermen). Once we discovered all this (and in Melbourne before the free street presses really fired up, for us suburbanites it was almost always due to enlightened community radio station 3RRR), like any kids set loose in a lolly shop, we turned into monsters. We would glut ourselves on the loudest music we could find on any given night (hello Cosmic Psychos), sit up 'til dawn nurturing our own musical dreams with warped pawn-shop guitars, and file back to the pub in the daylight to listen to some healing beer-garden act. Don't ask me how, because I certainly don't remember there being any money to do this stuff with. Here's the track list. I'll write up some notes and put up some photos later, but just to get things on the road, the link is up the top there. 01 - Painters And Dockers - Basia  The Song Mighty ode to the exotic vixen of international pop presentation, Basia Bonkowski. For those under the age of Idon'twannathinkaboutit, Basia was the host of Rock Around The World, SBS's answer to Countdown. Or Nightmoves. Or something. I think Basia went out with Brad Shepherd (Hoodoo Gurus guitarist) for a while and I think she's now in the children's book racket. Lobby Loyde produced this album (Love Planet) and provides guest vocals as the Groovy Guru on Get Smart track Kill Kill Kill. Many great tracks on it but this is the only one that mentions Basia for some reason. The Band Deranged and exhausting, brass-driven power-punk-pop act that were great favourites on the pub scene but who suffered the fate of becoming too popular. They were one of the first acts that I had come across who crossed over into mainstream success with hits Die Yuppie Die and Nude School and I found that rather than occupying a cosy spot on the moral high ground ("See, I TOLD you they were good") I found instead that (a) they didn't play at places I went to any more and (b) if I did go and see them somewhere, the place would be full of hulking yobs in their "going out" floral shirts, spending the entire evening calling for the two songs mentioned above as opposed to the proper ones (which is to say the ones I liked). I have never wished success on a band I liked since. 02 - Toys Went Berserk - Audrina   The Song Hey kids, let's get morbid! When I was a young feller, the punk, goth and skinhead scenes weren't quite large enough to sustain themselves independently so there was a weird sort of interdependency between them. Any party at a punk household you went to, there would always be a contingent of the other two sets. Likewise a goth household, though those guys tended to be more adaptable to living with other types. Dunno about skin households. As far as I could tell, most of those guys claimed to squat which usually meant they lived with their parents and occasionally camped out in abandoned buildings. Anyway, this led to often bizarre musical clashes with Husker Du and PIL devotees struggling against attempts to play whatever Oi music was in the house over and over again, while some smudgey, cobwebby creature would be putting forth a case for the Cocteau Twins or Kate Bush. Very often it would result in an established pattern of punk dominance in the loungeroom, goth in someone's bedroom, and skinheads hanging around in the back yard trying to pick fights. That was a peculiar phenomenon in itself. I never saw a skinhead who was any damn good at fighting, weedy little ferrets that they were. Maybe it was just the effete company that I was keeping but skinheads relied on mob mentality for a reason. They were individually crap. Anyway, at some point in the evening this one would always appear prompting a mass, swaying, mooning response from every goth girl in the place. The band Sydney band whose greatest success was in sounding just like Siouxsie and the Banshees who eventually broke up because they were tired of being compared to Siouxsie and the Banshees. Had a recent reformation gig. 03 - Huxton Creepers - I Will Persuade You   The song One of their rockier offerings, this one went down well even with those who were just there for the jangle and the Pretty Flamingo-type covers, largely thanks to it's audience response-friendly call and response structure, I suspect. The Band "Y'see son, in them days boy bands wuz so poor they had to play their own instruments!" Well, that might be a little unfair but there's no denying that an annoying amount of space in front of the stage was taken up with moist young things swooning over singer Rob Crawe's flowing golden locks. They were very good fun, albeit a little lightweight for my tastes at the time and the songs bear up better than a lot of their contemporaries trading on the "paisley push" '60s revivalism going on at the time. Ultimately they fell apart due to problems with booze (they were carting around a shocking reputation for turning up pissed at one stage), stereotyping and male pattern baldness. 04 - Curious (Yellow) - Tinsel Heart (In Chain Mail)   The Song It's dreary time again! Can't say I'm a great fan of this act but I think Karin Jansson's vocals work pretty well on this number in a stentorian, flat, Nico-ish sort of way and for once the guitar seems to have somewhere to go. The Band I suspect parentheses-crazed band Curious (Yellow) were thrown together purely as a showcase for the singer/sonwriter, who happened to be the girlfriend of Church lead moaner Steve Kilbey. While Curious (Yellow) never really cracked it, Karin Jansson did okay for herself by co-writing The Church's gargantuan hit Under The Milky Way. 05 - Psychotic Turnbuckles - Albuquerque   The song Psychotic Turnbuckles' anthem and love-song to their spiritual home, Albuquerque. The band The eighties were not only a time of (mostly covert) rock revival. We also saw the re-emergence of wrestling! For pure, dumb showbiz, there is probably nothing more closely aligned than rock and wrestling but few had made the connection until the Hulk Hogan era. The Psychotic Turnbuckles did. Also the power of very bad wigs. For more details on this bizarre act, you can check out their website www.psychoticturnbuckles.com. I had no idea this resource was available when I was preparing this post but apparently there are those keeping the flame burning. 06 - Headless Chickens - Do The Headless Chicken  The Song Fairly representative of the album and its consistently bleak outlook, this track demonstrates an important musical maxim. Great guitar riffs are not generally invented by great guitar players. The band The Headless Chickens were a New Zealand act who threw together this unusually good album with the proceeds of a Battle Of The Bands competition. This was followed by a single (Gaskrankenstation) that brought them more widespread attention and then they spoiled it all by bringing in a girl singer and going in a more dance-pop direction. That they became even more successful is beside the point. The point is I didn't like it, although I thought their cover of Abba's Supertrooper was quite funny. 07 - X - I Don't Want To Go Out   The Song Covers pretty much the gamut of Punk subject matter (boredom, anger and smack) but with that one quality fatal to a true punk band, a sense of humour. Features the quintessential Ian Rilen bass riff and Steve Lucas demonstrates the art of The Chord With No name, which is the one you get when you don't put any fingers on the fretboard. The band X were and occasionally still are Steve Lucas, Ian Rilen and a range of beaten and broken drummers. They muscled their way on to the punk scene in the late 70s with a Lobby Loyde-produced album and a certain amount of publicity resulting from Ian Rilen having quit Rose Tattoo 'cos they weren't hard enough. After that, well they just kept going really. On and off. This track is an early one but I ripped it from side B of a cover of Roy Orbison's Dream Baby that had an accompanying video clip that got a fair amount of play on Rage. This spike in popularity led to what was not X's first last show but what was the first in what became a tradition of X's last show. The only thing X did almost as much as go on and on (on and off) was have last shows. I've known them to have last shows in the very venue where they start a residency the next week. I hope they have another one soon. I haven't seen them for ages. Ian Rilen is widely known for being in a ridiculous number of the most important Australian bands. He popped up in Blackfeather (but who didn't?), Band Of Light and Rose Tattoo before founding X. A true rock and roll beast, he recently dragged himself out of a hospital bed (he has pancreatic cancer) to appear at the Lobby Loyde benefit with current band The Love Addicts. I just found that he has a website www.ianrilen.com Steve Lucas was known as one of the best screams in the business and benefited at one time from a rumour that he was actually Bon Scott or Bon Scott's half-brother or some such twaddle. Mind you, I've heard him do Jailbreak with Whore and it was pretty convincing. Myself, I think he got good at screaming as a result of all the horrible injuries he inflicts on himself. I personally have seen him break an ankle falling off stage, turn up to a gig with a broken hand (as a result of hitting Ian), burst an eardrum by putting his head against an amp to see if it was working, and suffer portification as a result of swapping a rider from beer to port because his doctor told him to avoid cold liquids. Actually, I may have been the one who suffered from portification (a state of mortification that can be achieved only through excessive consumption of fortified wine). I have a horrible recollection of this taking place in the Gershwin Room of the Espy where the two of us were supporting the Painters and Dockers. The last thing I had to do was walk over to the side of the stage, put down my guitar, pick up my mandolin, walk back to my seat and play the last song. I got part of it right. I walked to the side of the stage, put down my guitar, walked back to my seat and sat down. Then I got back up, walked to the side of the stage, picked up my mandolin walked back to my seat and sat down again. While all this was going on, very little else was. Steve was waiting for me to get back and the audience was waiting too (mostly for us to rack off altogether). When we finished to scattered applause (and a few kind words from the Dockers afterwards) I slunk into the shadows. Steve changed into a mummy costume and did a set in the front bar with Bigger Than Jesus. Click here for a great interview with Steve www.i94bar.com/ints/x.html 08 - Died Pretty - Mirror Blues  The song Consumer alert! This track goes for at least 10 minutes but it's the only thing I have that will give you an idea of what these guys were like live. Produced by Radio Birdman/New Christs singer Rob Younger The band Epic 60s garage inspired act powered by a grinding, swirling organ and the howling vocals of mad goblin Ron Peno. Died Pretty had critical acclaim coming out of the wazoo, particularly after their album Doughboy Hollow but somehow the big break eluded them despite their slugging away at it for fifteen years. I suspect a vast international conspiracy to annoy music critics is responsible. A worthy goal to be sure, but it's just a shame that Died Pretty had to suffer for it. You can check out the Died Pretty legacy at www.diedpretty.com. Ron Peno bounced back in recent times with the entirely unexpected, fragile and sensitive country act The Darling Downs with Kim Salmon (ex Scientists, Surrealists, Beasts Of Bourbon etc). Details here www.carrottoprecords.com/artists/darlingdowns/index.html Leave a Comment { Last Page } { Page 11 of 22 } { Next Page } |
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