What is the 'Carlton Sound'?

This article was originally posted at addictedtonoise.com.au (October 2014). This Double CD collection is the perfect summation of a time and place, plus it's a magnificent listening experience - thanks to David Laing

(When the Sun Sets Over) Carlton - Melbourne's Countercultural Inner City Rock Scene of the '70s (Warner Music Australia, 2014)

Ian McFarlane

A SLICE OF MELBOURNE MUSIC HISTORY - WHAT IS THE 'CARLTON SOUND'?

“Night-time cold in seeming dark / Midnight savage in Primal Park” – ‘Primal Park’ (Ross Wilson / David Pepperell) by Mondo Rock

The time: the mid 1970s; the scene: inner-city Melbourne... night in the city... Melbourne comes alive after dark... Melbourne is a rock’n’roll town... the Melbourne music scene is pulsating, vibrant, writhing, on edge and seething with activity like a multi-headed serpent on the move.

You don’t have to be a musician to make the scene but you’ve come to watch your idols on stage. In a small, dark pub the air is thick with a pungent smoke haze, the stage lights are hot and bright, the amplifiers are set to overload, guitar riffs slice the hazy air like razors, the thudding bass hits you full in the chest, the singer prowls the stage... he could be dreaming he’s Mick Jagger up there, fulfilling your every desire.

Experiencing rock music in such an environment was a rite of passage for many. From the inner-city clubs, pubs and ballrooms to the vast expanses of numerous suburban beer barns, the Melbourne music scene certainly had plenty to offer.

But let’s focus on the inner-city and specifically Carlton. Inner-city Melbourne is a divided locale: north of the Yarra River you had the pubs and clubs situated in the CDB itself and next to that the pubs and ballrooms of Fitzroy, Collingwood, Richmond and most significantly Carlton. South of the Yarra you had Prahran, South Melbourne, Albert Park and St. Kilda each with its own rock’n’roll heartbeat.

It’s long been supposed, when discussing Melbourne music of the 1970s, that the true heart of the inner-city scene was centred on Carlton. Literally situated right next to the CBD, Carlton has always engendered a convergence of influences and artistic pursuits: music, theatre, film making, art, counter-culturalism, multi-culturalism. There were music venues in the area (Martini’s, Hearts), theatre venues (La Mama, the Pram Factory) and the hot-bed of radical thought that emanated from Melbourne University, all contributing to the social and cultural milieu of Carlton town. Helen Garner’s Monkey Grip and Bert Deling’s cult classic film Pure Shit were set on local streets and what’s more significantly both helped capture the voice of a generation.

On a political level, and parallel to such diverse cultural pursuits, it should be noted that this was the era of Gough Whitlam’s Labor government, in office from 1972 to 1975. The seeds of creative resurgence and social and political upheaval sown during the 1960s / early 1970s (anti-Vietnam War sentiment, Moratorium marches etc) had well and truly flowered by the mid 1970s. The Whitlam government instigated sweeping changes (the abolition of conscription for example) that had a tremendous impact on Australian society at the time. Carlton was ideally situated to absorb all such influences.

On a musical level, there has always been the notion of a mythical or idealistic ‘Carlton Scene’ in the history of Melbourne music. But what was the ‘Carlton Scene’? And what is the ‘Carlton Sound’? How do you encapsulate that sound, that ideal? And who are the prime movers who helped develop the scene? No-one’s really attempted to pull all the pieces together into a cohesive, cogent whole... until now.

It all comes together now: David Laing, Creative A&R manager at Warner Music Australia, has compiled (When the Sun Sets Over) Carlton: Melbourne’s Countercultural Inner City Rock Scene Of The ’70s, a sprawling, 44-track double CD that offers a convincing case there really was a Carlton Scene if not necessarily a particular Carlton Sound. By pulling together many disparate tracks from such notable Melbourne bands as Daddy Cool, Skyhooks, Jo Jo Zep and The Falcons, The Sports, The Bleeding Hearts, Stiletto, The Pelaco Bros, The Dots and Mondo Rock it paints a whole new picture of what the Carlton ideal was all about.

Not everyone agrees with the basic premise, however; music writer / scenester David ‘Dr. Pepper’ Pepperell (who wrote extensively about Melbourne music of the mid-’70s for Juke magazine) for one doesn’t see the Carlton Scene as being the epicentre of all things Melbourne rock. While he says there was probably a Carlton mentality, he sees Melbourne inner-city music as being more holistic with just as much gigging activity south of the Yarra and other northern locations such as Fitzroy and Richmond.

He does have a point but it’s also interesting to note that Pepperell wrote the lyrics to one of the key songs selected for this compilation: Mondo Rock’s ‘Primal Park’. The lyrics capture that gritty realism and sense of running wild through late night Melbourne, like some Bacchanalian feast for the soul. When asked what the lyrics mean, Pepperell explains that they came from a more deep-seated subjective space rather than attempting to explain the scene on an objective level.

“The lyrics to ‘Primal Park’ were an allegory of my crazy life in the late ’70s,” Pepperell explains. “Primal Park was Melbourne at night and the ‘midnight savage’ was me. I didn’t exactly know what it meant when I wrote it. The lyrics all bubbled up from my subconscious. It all makes sense now.”

In contrast, Ross Wilson – one of the key figures in Melbourne music – sees the Carlton Scene as a good umbrella term to explain the motivational forces in play at the time.

“It was a matter of all these bands gravitating to a central point where the audiences were,” he says. “I’d started out at places like the T.F. Much Ballroom and other venues such as Berties and Sebastians in the city, but then by the mid-’70s I was playing around Carlton with Mondo Rock. I’d also become immersed in the business side of things before then, I’d started a publishing company and was mentoring people who were writing their own songs, instead of just covering other people’s. Guys like Greg Macainsh, Wayne Burt, Peter Lillie. Macainsh and Lillie were sending things up but they quickly found their own stride. I was saying you can write your own songs, and the fact someone had said that to them meant they were able to move forward.

“Skyhooks were making socially relevant music but it was only when Shirley Strachan replaced Steve Hill as lead singer that the band found its focus. I produced those early Skyhooks albums and they were hugely successful. And the most important thing is that on the back of that massive success, Mushroom Records made enough money so that it allowed Michael Gudinski to sign and record all those other groups such as The Sports, Jo Jo Zep and The Falcons and the Models. Gudinski has gone on record as saying that I helped change the rules when it came to things like song publishing and record production. I’d signed Greg Macainsh to a 70/30 publishing deal which was unheard of at the time; 70% for the song writer, rather than 50/50.

“I think the Carlton scene did have its own distinct flavour. Of course there were all the other gigs in Fitzroy, Richmond, Prahran, St. Kilda and wherever but Carlton had that mix of music, arts, theatre, politics and everything else that seemed to draw it all together. Also, a lot of people on the scene came from a left-wing / Trade Union / socialist background which had an effect too. Steve Hill was a full-on socialist. Also, guys like Stephen Cummings and Joe Camilleri were influenced by the sounds they heard coming out of the UK and the records released by the Stiff label in particular. And the main thing about the Carlton scene is that most of the musicians were total misfits, they just didn’t fit into any pop star mould. Guys like Peter Lillie; I mean, there was no glamour involved. It was almost accidental that Stephen Cummings was good looking.”

“DO THE LYGON STREET LIMBO – HOW LOW CAN YOU GO-GO?”

Paul Kelly & The Dots

Ultimately, it all comes down to the music on offer. Just for the fact there are so many significant bands in the one package, I for one am convinced that there was indeed an identifiable Carlton Scene if not a specific Carlton Sound.

The music ranges all over the place, from riff-based boogie rock and R&B-laced pub rock to commercial pop and reggae-infused pop/rock. Much of the music bears a lightness of touch that flies in the face of the heavier sounds prevailing elsewhere on the Australian musical landscape (for example, bands such as The Aztecs, AC/DC, Coloured Balls, Rose Tattoo, The Angels and Cold Chisel). As is the case with any compilation of this nature, there are numerous tracks that stand head and shoulders above others that, while they might be essential and intriguing to the whole concept, don’t really cut it.

Predominantly the Carlton Scene was situated in a pre-punk environment (featuring bands such as Daddy Cool, Skyhooks, Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band, Company Caine and The Pelaco Bros) leading into a kind of proto-New Wave aesthetic (as epitomised by the likes of The Bleeding Hearts, The Sports, The Dots and Man & Machine).

The main Carlton venues of the day were Martini’s (Imperial Hotel) and Hearts (Polaris Inn) but other significant venues that featured heavily in the development of Melbourne music included the T.F. Much / Much More Ballroom (Fitzroy), the Reefer Cabaret (Ormond Hall, Prahran), Garrison (Windsor), Hard Rock Café (CBD), Dallas Brooks Hall (East Melbourne), Storey Hall (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, CBD), Bombay Rock (Brunswick), the Tiger Room (Royal Oak Hotel, Richmond), the Kingston Hotel (Richmond), the Station Hotel (Prahran) and many more.

THE KEY BANDS

Daddy Cool
Led by valiant singer, astute songwriter, indefatigable band leader and canny arbiter of the machinations of the music industry Ross Wilson, Daddy Cool can be seen as the progenitors of much of what was to follow on the Carlton Scene. Aided and abetted by Ross Hannaford (guitar), Wayne Duncan (bass) and Gary Young (drums), Wilson and DC captured the hearts of the nation with the sounds of the jubilant Australian dance classic and #1 hit ‘Eagle Rock’ (1971). Their albums, Daddy Who? Daddy Cool! and Sex, Dope, Rock & Roll: Teenage Heaven, are important works that still sound fresh and vibrant today. The band broke up originally in 1972 but reformed in 1974 which is when their presence on the Carlton Scene was in the ascendant.

Company Caine
Contemporaries of the original DC, legendary Melbourne band Company Caine played an eclectic blend of psychedelic-infused blues and avant-jazz that was certainly groundbreaking and out there in many ways. Their 1971 album A Product of a Broken Reality is a milestone of the early ’70s progressive scene. Led by delightfully eccentric singer / be-bop poet Gulliver Smith and guitarist Russell Smith, and much like DC the band originally broke up in 1972 only to reform in 1975 when Keith Glass and David Pepperell reissued their album on the Real label. The new line-up became a notable and influential fixture on the Carlton Scene for another year. They recorded enough new material (half live / half studio) to fill a second album, the excellent Dr. Chop, before calling it quits again.

Skyhooks
The brash, rebellious and charismatic Skyhooks were a pop phenomenon in the truest sense of the label. When they emerged from inner-city Melbourne in 1974, Skyhooks irrevocably altered the guidelines by which the local industry operated. They were the right band at the right time. Their first two albums for Mushroom Records, Living in the 70’s and Ego is Not a Dirty Word sold in unprecedented quantities. Bassist / songwriter Greg Macainsh’s biting, provocative songs made an enormous impact at the time. The band sang about buying dope in the inner-city – ‘Carlton (Lygon Street Limbo)’, sex in the suburbs – ‘Balwyn Calling’, the local gay scene – ‘Toorak Cowboy’. And in guitarist Redmond Symons they featured an archetypal Carltonian personality.

The Pelaco Bros
The Pelaco Bros were one of those seminal inner-city bands that never achieved commercial success but were assigned legendary status by virtue of the personnel who passed through their ranks. Formed in 1974 by singer Stephen Cummings and bass player Johnny Topper, the band comprised, at various times, a trio of exemplary guitarists in Peter Lillie, Chris Worrall and Ed Bates, as well as sax player Joe Camilleri. The band sang about truck drivers, roadhouse ladies and endless highways, playing a mix of rockabilly, R&B and Western Swing that forged a new musical aesthetic for the local scene. One of the bands featured on the 1978 Missing Link album The Autodrifters and the Relaxed Mechanics Meet the Fabulous Nudes and the Pelaco Bros.

The Bleeding Hearts

The Bleeding Hearts
One of the cornerstone bands of the Melbourne 1970s inner-city scene, an important breeding ground for musicians capable of helping to sustain the Australian music industry. Led by Martin Armiger (guitar, vocals; ex-Toads) and Eric Gradman (vocals, violin; ex-Sharks, Toads), the band was brimming with enormous potential which remained unfulfilled by the time they broke up in late 1977. Keith Glass described the band as a classic case of “right place, wrong time”, going on to say “the arty, mannered, intellectual but still rocking Bleeding Hearts set a new standard in the thriving inner city venues of mid 1970s Melbourne”. And fortunately, before they broke up, they’d recorded enough demo and live material to make up the classic album What Happened?, which Glass issued on his Missing Link label in 1978

The Sports
The Sports emerged in 1976 from the ashes of cult rockabilly outfit The Pelaco Bros (featuring lead singer Stephen Cummings and guitarist Ed Bates). With the members’ backgrounds in roots music so prevalent, The Sports swiftly earned a reputation as the hottest R&B / soul / rockabilly group on the inner-city circuit. Cummings’ breathy vocal style and nonchalant delivery certainly singled him out as a rare talent. The band issued one classic single after another on the Mushroom label and also caught the attention of Stiff Records in the UK. Another local legend, Martin Armiger (by then ex-Bleeding Hearts, High Rise Bombers) joined in 1978 and alongside Cummings helped push the band into a slicker, more commercial pop direction.

Jo Jo Zep and The Falcons
The original Jo Jo Zep and The Falcons was a funky, energetic R&B band based around guitarist / singer / song writer Wayne Burt (ex-Rock Granite) with Joe Camilleri lending his distinctive vocals and sax work to the band’s sound. The band had formed in late 1975 with members drawn from the breakups of Daddy Cool, Company Caine, Rock Granite and The Pelaco Bros. When Burt left in late 1977, Camilleri (also ex-King Bees, Lipp and the Double Decker Bros, Sharks) took the band on to bigger and better things (he’d named the group after all) and quickly became its leader and focal point. The Falcons’ rootsy blend of R&B, soul, pop and reggae found its greatest success with the brilliant 1979 album Screaming Targets on Mushroom.

Stiletto
Featuring a trio of female members – Jane Clifton (vocals; ex-Myriad, Lipp and the Double Decker Bros, Toads), Janie Conway (vocals, guitar; ex-Myriad) and Marnie Sheehan (bass; ex-Toads) – Stiletto earned a reputation as a strong feminist band. Guitarists Andrew Bell (also ex-Toads) and Chris Worrall (ex-Pelaco Bros, Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band, Bleeding Hearts) tied all the pieces together with their inspirational playing. The band only recorded one album, Licence to Rage, and a couple of singles before breaking up in 1979. Worrall and latter-day Stiletto guitarist Chris Dyson (also ex-High Rise Bombers) went on to join Paul Kelly and The Dots.

THE KEY PLAYERS

Ross Wilson
A towering presence on the Carlton Scene, Ross ‘The Boss’ Wilson has made the most significant contribution to the development of the institution of Australian rock music of anyone covered here. Wilson got his start as a teenager in Melbourne garage / R&B band The Pink Finks (1965), moving onto psych-pop bands The Party Machine and Procession and by 1970 was fronting esoteric, special occasion progressive group Sons of the Vegetal Mother. The Sons spawned the rockin’ Daddy Cool; Wilson then formed Mighty Kong and in 1976 Mondo Rock. As well as writing numerous hit singles for his groups, Wilson produced important recordings for Carlton bands Skyhooks, Company Caine, The Sports and Jo Jo Zep and The Falcons. He remains active to this day.

Martin Armiger
Originally from Adelaide, Martin Armiger got involved with the Pram Factory, one of the pivotal Carlton theatrical collectives of the day, writing music for plays. He formed The Toads, with remnants from his Adelaide band Toads Nitely plus various other musicians involved in the Pram Factory and hit the local pub scene. Film maker Bert Deling engaged Armiger to record the soundtrack for Pure Shit (1975), now acknowledged as one of the legendary Aussie cult movies. The raucous boogie track ‘I Love My Car’ ended up in the live repertoire of his next band The Bleeding Hearts. In 1978, Armiger joined The Sports, writing some of their classic pop songs (‘Suspicious Minds’, ‘Strangers on a Train’). Since leaving the band in 1981, Armiger has carved out a career as an acclaimed film and television composer.

Stephen Cummings
As singer for The Pelaco Bros and The Sports, Stephen Cummings was able to pull off the rare feat of bearing the hallmarks of the classic front man (good looks, distinctive voice, charismatic presence) without embracing all the trappings of fame that the role presented. In other words, and despite his public persona, he avoided being famous at all costs. His lyrics for Sports songs such as ‘Reckless’, ‘Who Listens to the Radio’ and ‘Black Stockings (For Chelsea)’ nevertheless, marked him out as a rare talent indeed. He has pursued a solo career of note since the early 1980s. His 1988 album Lovetown was full of subtle, narrative vignettes where the ironic title certainly referred to inner-city Melbourne.

Joe Camilleri
As one of the greatest showmen and most genuinely talented figures in all of Australian music, the magnetic Joe Camilleri (singer / songwriter / sax player / producer) has been involved in a succession of great bands: The King Bees, Lipp and the Double Decker Bros, Sharks, The Pelaco Bros, Jo Jo Zep and The Falcons, The Black Sorrows and The Revelators. Camilleri has always exuded his own tenacious persona but is also equal parts Otis Redding, Garland Jeffreys, Van Morrison in his delivery – equally adept at handling a wide range of roots-rock styles, from R&B, soul and reggae to salsa and zydeco, with pop smarts in abundance. His work with Jo Jo Zep and The Falcons (‘So Young’, ‘Hit and Run’, ‘Don’t Wanna Come Down’) in particular presents him as a key contributor to the development of the Carlton Scene.

Paul Kelly
From very early in his career, the multi-talented Paul Kelly was recognised as one of the most significant singer / songwriters in the country, Australian music’s own rock poet laureate. Inspired initially by the likes of Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, Hank Williams and Robert Johnson, Kelly’s effortless, narrative song writing style was infused with wry observations, bittersweet emotions and enormous appeal. Kelly got his start on the Carlton Scene with High Rise Bombers and The Dots. He later forged his greatest successes with The Messengers and as a prolific solo artist (he has written over 350 songs) which continues to this day. The recent documentary Stories of Me is a brilliant glimpse into the mind and heart of this most beloved performer.

Eric Gradman
Eric Gradman was an intense and restless singer who played electric violin and broke new musical ground with his band Sharks, reputed to be the most avant-garde group on the Carlton Scene. Gradman went on to front The Bleeding Hearts (alongside Martin Armiger) and, at the end of the decade, formed the highly regarded Man & Machine before heading off overseas. With his attention to soulful dynamics, Gradman was unlike any other singer around. He certainly imbued the likes of ‘Hit Single’ by The Bleeding Hearts and ‘Crime of Passion’ by Man & Machine with a great deal of emotional depth and musical gravitas.

Peter Lillie
Probably the great unsung musical hero mentioned here, in many ways Peter Lillie was the embodiment of the Carlton spirit if far from being its greatest success story. Nevertheless, Lillie’s impact on the scene was felt via his tenacious guitar picking with The Pelaco Bros, Autodrifters, Relaxed Mechanics and The Leisuremasters. He was well versed in numerous styles, from R&B and blues to rockabilly and Western Swing, yet he always injected a uniquely Australian sense of humour into his songs. His best songs celebrated the mundane albeit shot through with a great deal of sprightly wit: ‘Holiday House’, ‘Hangin’ Around the House’, ‘Samurai Star’ and ‘The Birth of the Ute’, an affectionate ode to the humble ‘utility’ pick up. Lillie was also known as the cartoonist behind the satirical After Dinner Moose comic strips in local rock papers.

Greg Macainsh
As band leader, bass player and main song writer for the enormously successful Skyhooks, Greg Macainsh was able to transplant the obsessions and frustrations of modern suburban living into the heady, frantic and intoxicating milieu of the inner-city. While his songs were not the first to address local themes, it was the effect they had on Australian social life that was so earth-shattering at the time. No one had heard the likes of ‘Living in the 70’s’, ‘Carlton (Lygon Street Limbo)’, ‘Horror Movie’, ‘You Just Like Me ‘Cos I’m Good in Bed’ or ‘This is My City’ before. In some ways it’s difficult now to convey the enormous impact Macainsh’s songs had, suffice to say that as a power-packed and socially aware group Skyhooks were the right band at the right time.

THE KEY SONGS

‘Hard Drugs (Are Bad for You)’ – MIGHTY KONG (1973)
Ross Wilson’s band in between stints with Daddy Cool. ‘Hard Drugs’ was the standout track on the Kong’s only album All I Wanna Do is Rock, a concise and direct anti-drugs song backed by a hard rocking vibe.

‘Carlton (Lygon Street Limbo)’ – SKYHOOKS (1974)
Captured the zeitgeist of the times in one neat, riff-packed vignette: “When the sun sets over Carlton and you’re out to make a deal / Check out who you’re talking to and make sure they are real”.

‘I Love My Car’ – MARTIN ARMIGER (1975)
Written by Armiger and featured on the soundtrack to the legendary exploitation / art house movie Pure Shit, ‘I Love My Car’ was a ripping slice of raunchy, hard boogie that matched the likes of Coloured Balls or AC/DC.

‘Hit Single’ – THE BLEEDING HEARTS (1977)
Featuring a combination of proto-punk riffs, a post-Roxy Music influence (minus the glam predilections) and a sense of uncompromising urgency this was music that reeked of inner-city grime and decay.

‘Boys! (What Did The Detective Say?)’ – THE SPORTS (1978) (Note: This one didn’t make the final CD cut)
Speedy, witty and punctuated by Stephen Cummins’ exhortations of “Boys!”, this was another snapshot of inner-city interaction but delivered with humour and minus the paranoia.

‘Lowdown’ – PAUL KELLY AND THE DOTS (1979)
Taken from The Dots’ self-released EP, one of the earliest songs written and recorded by Paul Kelly. Combined everything that was great about his song writing: melody, heart, soul and just a cracker of a tune.

‘Primal Park’ – MONDO ROCK (1979)
The quintessential song about Melbourne nightlife: dark, mysterious and hedonistic lyrics, yet enveloped by one of Ross Wilson’s characteristically vibrant, tuneful and enticing melodies.

‘Only The Lonely Hearted’ – JO JO ZEP AND THE FALCONS (1979)
From The Falcons’ breakthrough album Screaming Targets, this was the first Paul Kelly song recorded by another band. Falcons’ singer Joe Camilleri certainly knew the value of a good song writer.

THE KEY (INNER-CITY) VENUES

At this point we’ll examine some of the landmark inner-city rock venues that helped facilitate the development of the Melbourne music scene during the 1970s. From progressive rock through the Carlton Scene onto the rise of punk / New Wave, this is where it all unfolded. Not all these venues were centred on Carlton (and it’s certainly not possible to name every venue around town during the decade) but it’s worth looking at this from a wider perspective.

Gig advert for Much More Ballroom, October 1972

T.F. Much Ballroom / Much More Ballroom – Cathedral Hall, Brunswick Street, Fitzroy
In many ways, the T.F. (‘Too Fucking’) Much Ballroom was the Melbourne equivalent of the great San Francisco venues of the psychedelic era, such as the Avalon Ballroom and the Fillmore Auditorium. Presented by promoters John Pinder and Peter Andrew from the Let It Be booking agency, the original T.F. Much ran from August to December 1970 while their subsequent Much More ran from December 1971 to December 1972. A unique feature of the concerts was Hugh McSpedden’s liquid light shows.

The ballroom was spiritual home to legendary Melbourne acts such as Spectrum, Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band, King Harvest, Lipp and The Double Decker Bros, Sons of the Vegetal Mother, Daddy Cool, Company Caine, MacKenzie Theory, Wendy Saddington and the Tribe theatre group. Daddy Cool played their final performance (to that time) at the Much More Ballroom on 13 August 1972, the results of which came out as the live album Daddy Cool Live! The Last Drive-In Movie Show in 1973.

The Reefer Cabaret – Ormond Hall, Moubray Street, Prahran
Audacious promoter Mike ‘Fastbuck’ Roberts launched this infamous concert event in late 1974; patrons were encouraged to smoke joints openly which naturally tended to attract the attention of various authority groups. Among the many attractions was the screening of Reefer Madness, the notorious 1936 propaganda film about the wicked weed made by the American Federal Bureau of Narcotics. Writer David ‘Dr. Pepper’ Pepperell described the Reefer Cabaret as “The last bastion of the flower children, the obvious successor to the T.F. Much and Much More, it represents a large part of the communal Melbourne Consciousness”.

The art-deco styled Ormond Hall had actually been running as a pop venue since the mid-1960s, but this was the grown-up, subversive, anti-establishment flipside. All the big name Melbourne groups appeared there: Daddy Cool, Renée Geyer and Sanctuary, Ariel, Ayers Rock, Madder Lake, The Dingoes, Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band, Skyhooks, The Pelaco Bros etc. The live album A-Reefer-Derci documented the final Reefer Cabaret concert (December 1975). The venue was briefly revived as Stoned Again in 1976.

Martini’s – Imperial Hotel, Rathdown Street, Carlton
Run by promoter Adrian Barker, Martini’s was the premier Carlton rock venue for many years. The hotel itself had an Italianate past with heavy drape curtains around the venue, so consequently it was always dark inside. All the important Melbourne bands played there – The Dingoes, The Toads, Company Caine, Daddy Cool, The Pelaco Bros, The Bleeding Hearts, The Sports, Stiletto, Jo Jo Zep and The Falcons, High Rise Bombers – as did many interstate touring acts such as Sid Rumpo, Jeff St John, Kevin Borich Express and Cold Chisel. Martini’s was also one of the first Melbourne venues to add newer, punkier acts to the bill, such as Radio Birdman, Boys Next Door, JAB, Models and Flowers.

The other important Carlton venue was Hearts at the Polaris Inn which is where Company Caine played a long residency in 1975. And although it wasn’t held in a pub venue, how’s this for an archetypal Carlton Scene gig – “Xmas in Carltonia” (December 1976) featuring The Bleeding Hearts, The Sports, Millionaires, Stiletto and Ready Rubbed held in the Horticultural Hall of the old Trades Hall Building, Carlton.

The Tiger Room – Royal Oak Hotel, Bridge Road, Richmond
Billed as a Rock ‘n’ Roll Theatre Restaurant, and run by promoter Laurie Richards, the Tiger Room was launched in October 1976, playing host to the likes of Ross Wilson’s Mondo Rock, Millionaires, The Bleeding Hearts, Gulliver’s Travels (the new band that emerged out of the demise of Company Caine), Spare Change, Jo Jo Zep and The Falcons, The Angels and Living Legends (aka Keith Glass Band aka KGB). Glass was billing his band’s performances under the banner of ‘Mod Night’, having originally been a member of 1960s psych-pop band Cam-Pact.

Also significantly, the Tiger Room was the site of historic Melbourne performances by The Saints (April 1977, just before they went to the UK) and Radio Birdman (June 1977). The venue was re-named The Tiger Lounge in October 1977 and opened its doors to newer acts such as JAB, Babeez / News and Boys Next Door (later to evolve into the more artfully malevolent Birthday Party). Also gave rise to an infamous Bleeding Hearts bootleg album, Live at the Tiger Lounge.

The Station Hotel – Greville Street, Prahran
Affectionately known as ‘The Snake Pit’. Promoter Mark Barnes opened this venue to live music in 1971 and as such was one of the longest serving inner-city pub venues in Melbourne. During the late 1960s / early 1970s, Greville Street, Prahran, had a similar vibe to such overseas equivalents as Ladbroke Grove in London and Haight/Ashbury in San Francisco.

The venue was essentially just a stage in the front bar opening straight onto the street but as Martin Armiger has commented, “some serious connoisseurs of rock music hung out there”. It was always packed with a diverse range of people – in particular when the likes of The Dingoes, MacKenzie Theory, Skyhooks or Daddy Cool played. AC/DC also honed their stage chops at the Station; it was the site of some of Bon Scott’s earliest gigs with the band after he joined in September 1974. The album Live at the Station documented a series of hot nights recorded during March, 1976 and featured The Dingoes, Myriad, Saltbush and Wild Beaver Band.

Hard Rock Café – Spring Street, CBD
Previously known as the Victoria & Albert (aka ‘Berties’) discotheque during the mid to late 1960s when the likes of psych-pop bands Zoot, The Twilights, The Wild Cherries, Cam-Pact and Doug Parkinson In Focus held court. Berties also played host to the development of the early ’70s progressive scene – Spectrum, Jeff St John and The Copperwine, Billy Thorpe and The Aztecs, King Harvest, Daddy Cool, Blackfeather, Syrius, Chain etc.

Promoters Michael Browning and Rod de Gruchy re-opened the venue in 1974 as the Hard Rock Café, whereby Coloured Balls, Split Enz, AC/DC, Buster Brown, The Dingoes, Renée Geyer Band, Ariel, Madder Lake, Ayers Rock, Daddy Cool and The Pelaco Bros could play till all hours, while guitarist Lobby Loyde’s open Jam Nights were a weekend highlight. Browning went on to manage AC/DC.

Bombay Rock – Phoenix Street, Brunswick
Originally opened in the CBD during 1977 as the Bombay Bicycle Club, and relaunched for the 1978 Second Coming, the multi-level Bombay Rock was one of the most popular Melbourne venues for years. Literally every Australian band of note played the main room upstairs, while the downstairs lounge bar was the perfect location for the up-and-coming outfits keen to make an impact on their own terms. It was also an important developmental ground for the burgeoning Melbourne punk scene, with the likes of JAB, Negatives, Boys Next Door, Teenage Radio Stars and X-Ray-Z honing their chops as part of the Bombay Rock New Wave Extravaganza Nites (March-April 1978). Mondo Rock recorded the live portion of their classic album Primal Park here in May 1979.

Crystal Ballroom (aka Seaview Ballroom / The Ballroom) – George Hotel, Fitzroy Street, St Kilda
With its crumbling facade and magnificent marble staircase leading up to the main band room, the George Hotel originally dates back to the 1850s and was a popular destination for holiday makers and also European immigrants following the Second World War. What ended up being the band room with a stage erected at one end had actually been the main dining hall back in the day, although it also had a sprung floor for ballroom dancing. As the brave new world of late 1970s music in Melbourne was unfolding, the venue opened as the Wintergarden Room in August 1978 run by promoter Dolores San Miguel before it was relaunched as the Crystal Ballroom during February 1979 by Laurie Richards. San Miguel returned in March 1980 with the Paradise Lounge in the large downstairs room.

The Ballroom became known as the legendary Melbourne punk / New Wave venue, the place to be seen and the spiritual home to the likes of the Boys Next Door / Birthday Party, Models, Tch Tch Tch, Whirlywirld, International Exiles, Man & Machine, La Femme, The Editions, The Ears, Laughing Clowns, Essendon Airport etc. All the major bands played there as well, from The Angels, Rose Tattoo and Jo Jo Zep and The Falcons to Flowers (later Icehouse), Mental As Anything and Midnight Oil. And of course, performances by international visitors such as XTC, The Members, Wreckless Eric and Iggy Pop went down a treat.

John Dowler's Vanity Project - Splendid Isolation (Half a Cow)

John Dowler's Vanity Project - Splendid Isolation (Half a Cow)

Ian McFarlane

I wrote this originally for Sounds of the City (Issue #3) which is yet to be published.

Melbourne singer/songwriter John Dowler is a pop classicist in the mould of an Alex Chilton, a Gene Clark or a Brian Wilson. Obviously not as well known internationally – or even in Australia, for that matter – but his attention to song detail and presentation is such that the comparison stands.

Splendid Isolation is his latest statement and it’s a thing of genuine beauty. With his plaintive, sorrow-laden voice gliding effortlessly over an enticing run of songs he’s crafted an album brimming with jangle pop chime, folk rock melodies and rawer power pop moves.

Dowler may be the front man but it’s a band effort. The ironically named John Dowler’s Vanity Project comprises Dowler, guitarists Justin Bowd and Mark McCartney, bassist Julien Chick and drummer Michael Stranges. Dowler will be remembered for his time with two of the classic Aussie power pop bands, Young Modern and The Zimmermen. The other guys are younger players but they bring a refreshing maturity, strength of purpose and cleanness of playing to the whole deal.

Dowler contributes two songs (‘Off The Coast Of Me’, ‘My Face’) and four co-writes with ex-Zimmermen members, ‘I Blame You’ (with Chris Langman), ‘The Spoken Word’ (with Chris Malherbe) plus ‘Dark Is The Night’ and ‘Something Good’ (with Michael Holmes). Another Zimmermen alumni, the late Peter Tulloch, is present in spirit with ‘Sentimental’. In addition to that, Bowd proves himself with three engaging songs, ‘Unsolved Mystery’, ‘The Untouchable’ and ‘Oakleigh’. Lastly there are versions of Lowell George’s ‘I’ve Been The One’ and Terence Boylan’s ‘Don’t Blame It On Your Wife’.

And the songs are the key attraction here. Each can draw you in with a finely crafted arrangement, an alluring melody, a delicate mesh of guitar lines or a literate turn of phrase. It’s not all grace and tact, however; when the musicians get wound up they can really rock out and there’s the occasional lyric that reveals a darker side or delivers a slashing cut to the heart. It helps define the natural flow of this splendid album.

In conversation with John Dowler

Congratulations on the album John. How did you come up with such a great sounding record?
It was recorded by Roger Bergodez at Tender Trap Studios, Northcote. Mark McCartney knew Roger and he was terrific and gave us lots of time. He had a really good ear himself and knew what he was doing. We recorded it over a period of about two weeks with the band playing live, complete with the occasional mistake. We did a few overdubs, such as the vocals in an afternoon. We spent a couple of days mixing it and it was done. I’m pretty pleased with the result.

You’re a songwriter in your own right, not necessarily a prolific songwriter, but it seems that you’ve been very generous in sharing around the song credits. Did you consciously pick the tracks on that basis?
When we first started, I didn’t really have any new material so I looked back through various songs I’d written over the years. The ones with Mick Holmes are Zimmermen tracks that probably would have ended up on the third album, if we’d stayed together. And the same for the Peter Tulloch track. Unfortunately Peter died about 10 years ago but I’d always loved that song. I thought it was too good to waste so we started playing that live. Actually, all these songs we were playing live and it just seemed natural to include them. In a way for me it was sort of like a clearing house, I had all these various songs lying around that nothing had ever happened to. And Justin gave me a tape of demos he’d made and those three songs I just thought were great, you know.

You’ve included Lowell George’s ‘I’ve Been The One’; what is it about a band such as Little Feat that you like?
That’s from Little Feat’s first album which is my favourite. I just found that album fascinating. I bought it as an import when it first came out, it was a very idiosyncratic record. I’ve been wanting to do that song since... I came across a folder when I was clearing out the garage a while ago and I had a whole lot of these song lyrics typed up, from 1970, and that was one of the songs. So I’ve actually had it in mind to do that song for 45 years.

The cover art displays the track listing as if it were an LP record, divided into the two sides. What was your approach to that; do you still yearn for the LP record configuration in this digital age?
No, I’m not nostalgic for LP records at all. I’m bemused by the fact that they’ve become fetishistic again, that people have become crazy for vinyl again. I’ve never looked back, once I found CDs. Michael the drummer took care of the CD art and then I had a few ideas that I told him about and he designed that configuration and I thought, well that’s fine. And I’d put all the sort of hard rock, guitar solo songs on the second half and that’s just the way it turned out. I like the look of the package, and if you look closely at the front cover you can see all my CDs behind me anyway.

Do you have any particular favourite tracks on the album?
I think ‘Off The Coast Of Me’ came out really well. And that’s a reasonably old song that I updated a little and we jammed on it and I think it turned out really well. It’s a little bit unusual for me, it’s not the usual power pop or straightforward song. We stretched out on that, it’s quite long. I think a couple of Justin’s songs are really good. ‘Oakleigh’ is a great piece of social commentary; people north of the river talking about people south of the river, you know. ‘The Untouchable’ is good; it seems like it’s a stalking song.

Billy Green's Stone soundtrack

More from my Rear View Mirror column, originally posted at addictedtonoise.com (December 2013)

Billy Green - Stone (Original Film Soundtrack)

“One of the most unique Australian film soundtracks ever recorded”

Ian McFarlane

I think I might have a bit of a theme going on with this column at the moment: last month I took a look at the original movie soundtrack to Aussie surf movie Band on the Run; this month it’s the soundtrack to the Aussie biker film Stone.

Written and directed by Sandy Harbutt and originally screened in 1974, Stone was savaged by the critics at the time but was whole heartedly embraced by movie fanatics who liked their exploitation movies to be fast paced, edgy, visceral and anti-establishment. Unlike a lot of exploitation movie making as such, Stone didn’t cater to the lowest common denominator; Harbutt actually cared about his subject matter and knew that like-minded individuals would be able to embrace the concept and empathise with the characters. On a commercial level it was left in a kind of no-man’s land, caught between the new art house hits such as Picnic at Hanging Rock and the ocker comedy capers of Alvin Purple and The Adventures of Barry McKenzie.

Over time Stone became a cult classic (dare I say a seminal example of the genre) and by the 1990s was being embraced by a whole new generation of movie fanatics. In 2008 Mark Hartley featured it prominently in his terrific documentary Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation! in which Quentin Tarantino gave his seal of approval (“...Oh my God! What a movie!”). All of a sudden Stone was the biker movie to see, not only in Australia but also on an international level. It’s probably not up there with the likes of Easy Rider as a counter-cultural exemplar, but it sure beats the hell out of American B-grade biker potboilers such as The Wild Angels, The Cycle Savages, The Glory Stompers, She-Devils on Wheels, Hell’s Belles, Hells Angels on Wheels, Chrome and Hot Leather or The Hard Ride. (To say nothing of Werewolves on Wheels!)

The plotline, such as it is, focuses on the Grave Diggers Motorcycle Club, the members of which are being knocked off one by one in some bizarre politically motivated vendetta. Somebody wants them dead and somebody needs to find out why! So undercover cop Stone (played by Ken Shorter) gets sent in but sidles up a little too close to the gang members for their comfort. When they find out his real purpose, the drama reaches a climax and they beat him to a bloody pulp. There’s that great line Stone mumbles through smashed teeth at the end of the film, “No cops! No cops, man!”.

The Australian one-sheet film poster is a classic of the genre, and also boasts one of the great taglines of all time: “Take the Trip!” (Much later on, the tagline was modified to become “Before Mad Max there was Stone”; there’s even a supporting character in Stone called Bad Max.) Another prominent feature of the poster and the movie masthead was the futuristic looking, air-brushed title of Stone itself (designed by comic artist Peter Ledger and rendered by Errol Black), depicted as a snaking chrome exhaust-pipe – iconic movie imagery.

So what of the music? American biker movies tended to feature incidental soundtrack scores by the like of Mike Curb or Davie Allen & the Arrows; also Easy Rider was one of the first movies of the day to feature a soundtrack comprised of contemporary songs by prominent rock bands (including Steppenwolf, The Byrds, Jimi Hendrix Experience and The Band). Harbutt wanted something different for Stone, engaging journeyman guitarist Billy Green to compose and produce a dedicated movie score that directly referenced the scenes and characters shown in the movie.

Green was one of the most inventive and distinctive players of the day, having given his talents to Doug Parkinson In Focus, King Harvest, Jerry & the Joy Band and Friends. He set up in TCS Studios, Melbourne with engineer John French and assembled a crack session crew including jazz players Peter Jones (electric piano), Graham Morgan (drums) and Col Loughnan (sax) and rock players such as Barry Sullivan (bass) and Andy Cowan (keyboards). Green also scored a bit part in the movie as a Grave Digger, known as 69, seen several times playing his Yamaha acoustic guitar.

Using all his compositional and instrumental skills Green gave the music cues – ‘Septic’, ‘Undertaker’, ‘Race’, ‘Klaud Kool and the Kats’, ‘The Death of Doctor Death’, ‘Pigs’ etc – great gravitas and a direct connection to the unfolding drama. It’s a composer’s device that serves both to announce various characters and to help put the viewer “in the picture” (known in the trade as mise-en-scène).

With several characters assigned their own musical theme, it reminds me of the way Ennio Morricone created signature themes for characters in the Sergio Leone movies (such as Harmonica in Once Upon a Time in the West or Tuco in The Good, The Bad and the Ugly).

‘Undertaker’ is a laconic bluesy shuffle with electric piano runs set beside Green’s delicate wash of wah-wah guitar lines (similar in feel to the Jimi Hendrix tune ‘Belly Button Window’). ‘Toad’ starts out all driving and electric before evolving into a haunting French horn motif struggling to be heard above Green’s piercing lead guitar drone. ‘The Death of Doctor Death’ starts with a tumble of piano notes then makes use of an eerie electric harpsichord, but rather than being played in the traditional method of fingers on the keys it sounds like someone running a rat’s tail file across the strings.

The minor key ‘Amanda’ features stunning viola and violin soloing over a lurching rhythm. ‘Septic’ utilises a jaunty combination of acoustic guitar, banjo and harp, like some weird Appalachian Mountain hoe-down. Likewise ‘Klaud Kool and the Kats’ is a different kind of country hoe-down utilising crazy rockabilly licks and honky tonk piano; it sure sounds like a diabolical recipe but it’s hugely entertaining into the bargain.

‘Race’, ‘Grave Diggers’ and ‘Stone’ develop into aggressive jazz-fusion instrumentals replete with Green’s coruscating, acid-drenched lead guitar (very much in the Al Di Meola vein), wailing saxes and driving break beats. Drummer Graham Morgan was able to handle the demanding 7/4 rhythm of ‘Stone’ for example with considerable aplomb. Elsewhere the soundtrack features electronic sounds, droning didgeridoo lines melded with woozy Moog synthesizer effects (‘Toadstrip’), ethereal strings and swampy funk-rock rhythms. And who can forget the 44-second grunting / percussive mind-fuck that signifies the ‘Pigs’?

The two actual “songs” (sung by Doug Parkinson) are incredibly powerful with lashings of Green’s flashy guitar work well to the fore. ‘Cosmic Flash’ is certainly progressive with an intriguing coda that features beautiful Spanish-tinged acoustic guitar. Harbutt wrote the lyrics to ‘Cosmic Flash’ by taking inspiration from Sly and the Family Stone but Green rendered it with more of a classic rock vibe. Green and Parkinson had previously been performing ‘Do Not Go Gentle’ (lyrics derived from the Dylan Thomas poem ‘Do Not Go Gentle Into that Good Night’) with In Focus. Across the soundtrack everything’s impeccably played – all up a cosmic, psychedelic head trip of the highest order and one of the most unique Australian soundtrack albums ever recorded.

The original Australian LP (on the Warner Bros label) is a great artefact in its own right. The front cover features the Stone insignia on a black background while the back cover displays the Grave Diggers embroided logo of a death’s head skull with slouch hat. Open the gatefold sleeve and there’s the full parade of hundreds of bikers astride Kawasaki 900s, which was taken from the funeral scene shot on the north Sydney freeway.

In 1978 the film was released in Japan and Polydor issued the album for the Japanese market with a different cover (the inner gatefold shot). In 2009, UK specialist reissues label Finders Keepers issued the soundtrack on CD, complete with several additional tracks from the film not found on the original vinyl. A fine addition was a previously unheard version of ‘Do Not Go Gentle (Rage)’ with recitation and vocals by Jeannie Lewis that’s absolutely stunning in its intensity.

Stone (Japanese pressing, 1978)

I can only recommend this soundtrack very highly – get hold of the original vinyl LP (if you can find a copy) or the CD reissue and “Get with Stone!”

Original LP release
Stone – Original Film Soundtrack (Warner Bros. 600,002) 1974
Composed and Produced by Billy Green
Side 1
1. Cosmic Flash (Lyrics: Sandy Harbutt / Music: Billy Green)
2. Septic
3. Undertaker
4. Race
5. Amanda
6. Klaud Kool And The Kats
Side 2
1. Toadstrip
2. Grave Diggers
3. The Death Of Doctor Death
4. Toad
5. Pigs
6. Stone
7. Do Not Go Gentle (Poem: Dylan Thomas/Music: Billy Green)
(All tracks written by Billy Green, except where indicated)

A Hedon Production
Recorded at TCS Studios, Melbourne, April/May 1974
Sound Engineer: John French

BILLY GREEN – Guitars
PETER JONES – Pianos
BARRY SULLIVAN – Bass
GRAHAM MORGAN – Drums
ISABEL MORSE – Violas
ROMANO CRIVICI – Violin
GEOFFREY HALES – Percussion
COL LOUGHNAN – Saxes
JOHN MATTHEWS – Didgeridoo
ANDY COWAN – Moog
JIM CONWAY – Harp
ALEX GRIEVE – French horn
CHARLIE GAULD – Banjo
DOUG PARKINSON – Vocals
Strings for ‘Cosmic Flash’ arranged and conducted by Peter Jones

CD reissue – Finders Keepers FKR031CD (2009)

1. Eco Blue * / Toadstrip
2. Race
3. Head Off *
4. Pigs
5. Cosmic Funeral *
6. Amanda
7. Septic
8. Smoke *
9. Stone
10. Undertaker
11. Grave Diggers
12. Swim *
13. Klaud Kool And The Kats
14. Toad
15. The Death Of Doctor Death
Scene from Stone
16. Hips Rap *
The Songs of Stone
17. Cosmic Flash Song Vocals by Doug Parkinson
18. Do Not Go Gentle (Rage) Vocals by Doug Parkinson
19. Do Not Go Gentle (Rage) * Vocals by Jeannie Lewis
20. Stone Is A Trip – Original Stone Theatrical Trailer *
* Exclusive tracks from the film soundtrack – not available on the original 1974 LP

Flying Circus

More from my Rear View Mirror column, originally posted at addictedtonoise.com (October 2015)

Flying Circus - Gypsy Road (1973)

Ian McFarlane

Flying Circus - Gypsy Road LP (Australian pressing, 1973)

I had read recently about the death of singer / song writer Doug Rowe (June 2015) and it occurred to me that he was a very under-appreciated talent in Australia. Between 1968 and 1974 his band Flying Circus issued a series of finely crafted albums that mixed elements of folk rock, country rock and mainstream rock into a very listenable whole. As well as the jangly guitars and country textures, the band’s wonderful harmonies added the extra texture that helped to distinguish the music from the sounds so prevalent here at the time: progressive rock, boogie rock, heavy blues and glam rock. The New Zealand born Rowe always had other musical genres on his mind.

Locally, other groups such as Country Radio, Axiom, The Dingoes, Albatross and Third Union Band explored similar territory. (You could check out Warner Music’s excellent 2014 compilation Silver Roads for more of the same.) Overseas reference points would be The Byrds, The Flying Burrito Bros, The Dillards, Poco, Bob Dylan and Gram Parsons.

Here in Australia, the band’s albums never charted. That seems to be down to the fact the Flying Circus was seen as a hit singles band. ‘Hayride’, ‘La La’ and ‘Run, Run, Run’ were out-and-out bubblegum pop hits. Fellow NZ guitarist Red McKelvie joined for a time in 1970 and his clean picking technique moved the band in a more purist country direction. By the time Flying Circus issued their more musically advanced albums, listeners were simply confused. Consequently, what hope did such brilliant country rock singles as ‘Turn Away’, ‘Finding My Way’ and ‘Old Enough’ have of chart success?

In order to further their career, Flying Circus relocated to Canada (in 1971) where the music was better appreciated and audiences more receptive. With such obvious international influences and intentions, you could say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery... however, it’s important to remember Flying Circus music never lost that inimitable Australian tang which is hard to define but you know it when you hear it.

With the albums having never been reissued on CD and all but forgotten by the general listening public, it’s time to examine their best work, Gypsy Road (1973).

With Flying Circus established in Canada via constant touring, they started to attract record company attention. EMI Capitol signed the group for a reported $1 million dollar / 10 album deal – which may well be one of those music industry myths because it sounds so implausible; it was certainly unheard of at the time for an untried Australian band on the international stage. I’d like to think it was true but whatever the reality, big things were expected. The record company put them into Toronto’s Thunder Sound Studios with producers Paul Hoffert and Bruce Bell and the result, Gypsy Road, delivered everything the past years had promised.

Warner Bros issued the album in Australia with little fanfare, lifting one single ‘Old Enough’ b/w ‘Train Ride’ to test the waters. The group returned to Australia for a brief tour, which included a spot on stage at Sunbury 1973 but the lukewarm reception did little to bolster their regard for local audiences. Back in Canada, it was a different story. The Canadian release of Gypsy Road was greeted positively and it sold well, with ‘Old Enough (To Break My Heart)’ becoming a Top 10 hit. EMI Capitol also issued the album in the US, with the single ‘Maple Lady’ making the lower reaches of the Billboard Top 100.

The Australian pressing came in a flimsy single sleeve, with an illustration displaying the band’s name on the front cover as white, billowing sky-writing letters set against a blue sky. It was such a cheap affair, however, the printing process had cut off the right hand edge of the illustration which featured the just perceptible image of the skywriter plane as it trailed off from the final letter ‘s’ of Circus, so the effect was probably just more confusion on the part of the customer. Furthermore, the back cover was a straight reprint of the US pressing featuring a particular track sequence (with an additional track) which then didn’t match the revised running order of the local pressing.

The US copy of the album had the sky writer plane present on the front cover illustration but it was still only a single sleeve. The Canadian pressing, however, was an entirely different proposition. As befits the quality of the music, the Canadian cover presented a magnificent, textured gatefold in heavy card, with a colour photo of the band members looking moody and mean as they stared out through yellow / orange flames in the foreground.

Flying Circus - Gypsy Road (Canadian pressing, 1973)

The first thing you notice about the record itself is the wonderfully warm and resonant sonic qualities which allows the music to shine like stars. With song writing chores divided almost evenly between Doug Rowe, Greg Grace and Terry Wilkins the songs are, nevertheless, all vibrant and positive with strong melodies and a consistently commercial potential in place. It’s such a shame this album didn’t reach a wider audience.

‘Old Enough’, ‘Green Patch’ and ‘Train Ride’ are all catchy country rock numbers while ‘Maple Lady’ features a more rollicking, bar band feel. ‘Summer Song’ adds pensive reflection to the country rock mode. ‘Another Winter’s Day’ and ‘Me And You’ are pretty acoustic ballads with the added touches of vibes and cello. The standouts are ‘Thousand Years’, a fantastic country-psych song that wouldn’t have been out of place on The Byrds’ The Notorious Byrd Brothers album, and the glorious ‘Gypsy Road’. Here the Flying Circus take everything that’s great about country and folk rock – jangly guitar lines, close harmony vocals, acoustic rhythm, violin and bond them to a captivating melody and up the rock ante with an amazing fuzz guitar solo. And for the record, the additional song on the US pressing was a throwaway cover of the rock ’n’ roll standard ‘Shake, Rattle & Roll’, which was no great loss when it was left off the local pressing.

Flying Circus managed to issue one more album, Last Laugh, but with six years of hard work bringing relatively meagre rewards and glory, they called it a day. A sad but inevitable end with so much potential left unfulfilled. The various members scattered while Rowe stayed in Toronto to concentrate on his song writing while also setting up a recording studio. No doubt he crossed paths with that other great Australian expatriate song writer, Greg Quill of Country Radio fame.

In the late 1970s, Rowe returned to Australia and joined country rockers Grand Junction for a couple of years. He did some session work during the 1980s and while he continued to play around Bathurst, NSW, most recently with Pig Iron Bob, he inevitably flew under the commercial radar. Maybe that was his choice but he certainly wasn’t idle on the recording front, having issued four solo albums and three with The Woodpickers. I’ve no idea where you’d source these albums but it may well be worth the hunt. And while we’re at it, let’s hope that one day the Flying Circus albums will soar again, in particular the evocative and enticing Gypsy Road.

FLYING CIRCUS

Doug Rowe (Vocals, electric and acoustic guitars, banjo, kazoo)
Greg Grace (Vocals, electric guitar, tambourine, kazoo)
Terry Wilkins (Vocals, bass, mandolin, harmonica, kazoo)
Colin Walker (Drums)

Gypsy Road (Warner Bros. WS-20010) 1973

1. Thousand Years (Greg Grace)
2. Green Patch (Greg Grace)
3. Maple Lady (Greg Grace/Doug Rowe)
4. Summer Song (Doug Rowe)
5. Old Enough (Doug Rowe)
6. Gypsy Road (Terry Wilkins)
7. Train Ride (Terry Wilkins)
8. Another Winter’s Day (Doug Rowe)
9. Me And You (Greg Grace)

The T.F. Much Ballroom/Much More Ballroom 1970-1972

This article was originally published in Sounds of the City (Spring 2016/Issue No.2)

A Rock'n'Roll Freak Show - The Story of the T.F. Much Ballroom/Much More Ballroom 1970-1972

By Ian McFarlane

With thanks to Mike Rudd, Rob Mackenzie, Mic Conway and Brecon Walsh

Above: Cathedral Hall, 2016. Pic by Ian McFarlane

Above: Inside Cathedral Hall, 2016. Pic by Ian McFarlane

Above: Inside Cathedral Hall, 1971. Pic by David Porter

Melbourne is a rock’n’roll town. The environment of the rock gig is where musicians and audiences connect over a common goal: entertainment. If one were to attempt to add up or investigate the sheer number of gigs available in Melbourne over the years – discotheques, clubs, cafes, pubs, bars, concert halls, outdoor arenas – the result would be staggering indeed.

One of the iconic gigs of the early 1970s was the infamous T.F. Much Ballroom. The concert event was staged at Cathedral Hall, 20 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy, a major bastion of inner-city Melbourne’s burgeoning progressive rock scene. It was started by John Pinder, Peter Andrew and Roxie from the Let It Be booking agency, with the involvement of artist Warren Knight, Bani McSpedden and lighting guru Hugh McSpedden.

To put you in the picture, some of the other popular Melbourne venues circa 1970/71 included the inner-city discos Berties, Sebastians and Mother (aka Thumpin’) Tum, the Q Club (Kew Civic Centre), the Regent Theatre (South Yarra) and all the various Town Hall dances (Melbourne, Box Hill, Camberwell, Beaumaris, St. Kilda, Coburg etc). In addition the pub scene had just opened up with suburban beer barns such as the Southside 6 (Moorabbin), Village Green (Mulgrave), Whitehorse (Nunawading) etc putting on bands almost every night.

Cathedral Hall was a beautiful old ballroom built in 1903. It had a generous floor space, large proscenium style stage, heavy draw curtains, substantial domed windows, ornate ceiling and chandeliers and a dress circle on three sides facing the stage. It would have been used for church functions, also maybe ballroom dancing, classical concerts, theatre events etc. before a new, younger clientele claimed it as their own. The event title of T.F. Much was initialisation for ‘Too Fucking’ Much... a vernacular phrase rooted in the late ’60s/early ’70s hippie movement. The hall itself was owned by the Catholic Church, so when the administrators caught on to the outrageous title the promoters had to come up with an alternative, the Much More Ballroom.

Due to the available floor space as many as 1,500 patrons would attend. You could either sit comfortably cross-legged on the floor and let the music waft over you like great clouds of marijuana smoke or dance wildly up the front with little inhibition. The very first T.F. Much Ballroom event took place on Saturday 8 August 1970. The bill featured Spectrum, Jeff Crozier’s Indian Medicine Magik Show, Lipp Arthur, Adderley Smith Blues Band, Sons of the Vegetal Mother, Gerry Humphreys and the Joy Band, Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band, Margret RoadKnight, Flash Light Show and the Tribe Theatre. In addition there was a space set aside for a flea market where stall holders sold macrobiotic food and hippie clothing.

Above: Advert for the first T.F. Much Ballroom concert (8 August 1970)

The second concert, in early September, featured Spectrum, Sons of the Vegetal Mother, Lotus, Lipp Arthur and Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band, followed in late October with Spectrum, Chain, King Harvest, Sons of the Vegetal Mother, Lipp Arthur and Ross Wilson’s new band Daddy Cool playing a benefit for Melbourne drug rehabilitation clinic Buoyancy Foundation.

In between was the 1970 Cultural Fair and Freak Show (Show Day, Thursday 24 September) with the all day festivities featuring Spectrum, Lipp Arthur, Carson, Bulldog and Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band. The gig flyer also boasted “Magicians! Strong Man! Clowns! Freaks! Brass Band! Sideshows! Stalls! Novelty Acts! Art, Photography Displays! Stunts! Happenings! Everything! Bring the Kids!”.

In other words it was a total environmental happening, bringing together music, art, light shows, circus and vaudeville acts and the like into an immersive setting. Audience members were encouraged to feel a part of the entertainment rather than shunted aside or being treated as apart from the action.

Perhaps inspired by the psychedelic San Francisco Ballrooms of the late 1960s – the Matrix, the Avalon, the Fillmore etc – or even such English events as the 14 Hour Technicolour Dream, the T. F. Much Ballroom, along with the Vietnam War moratorium concerts (which Spectrum also played) and the various rock festivals of the day, was a clear statement of the emergent counterculture.

The T.F. Much Ballroom had run its course by December 1970. John Pinder at Let It Be was organising the Launching Place festival, to be held on New Year’s Eve. Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs, Spectrum, Daddy Cool, Healing Force, Wendy Saddington, King Harvest and Jeff Crozier had been booked to appear but the event was a disaster. Only a couple of thousand people showed up and it rained most of the time. Spectrum’s Mike Rudd remembers spending the night sitting in a car as the rain pelted down. (The same disaster had struck the original Launching Place festival, The Miracle, held over the Easter weekend March 1970.)

As something of a consolation for the New Year’s Eve disaster, Pinder staged a unique concert, on 6 February 1971, under the Big Top at Burnley Oval for the T.F. Much Rock Circus. Spectrum, Daddy Cool, King Harvest, Jeff Crozier and Lipp Arthur played, with Ashton’s Circus clowns and high flying acts appearing between the rock bands. It was possibly the first of its type in the world. T.F. Much Rock Circus #2 followed on 29 May (McCallum Park) with Spectrum, Daddy Cool, Superman and SSARB.

Towards the end of 1971 Pinder and Bani McSpedden revived the Cathedral Hall concerts as the Much More Ballroom. The first concert under the banner of Much More Ballroom (Misère, Thursday 18 November) featured Spectrum launching their double album, Milesago, supported by Indelible Murtceps and Tribe Theatre with Edison Lights.

Pinder then booked the hall for the next year and the Much More Ballroom proper got underway (4 December 1971 – “Only $1.00 to get in!”) with Chain, Gerry and the Joy Band, Carson, Lipp and the Double Decker Brothers, Indelible Murtceps, Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band and MacKenzie Theory. The last Much More Ballroom (9 December 1972) featured Spectrum, Murtceps, Captain Matchbox, Miss Universe and Gary Young and Hot Dog

Above: Advert for the first Much More Ballroom concert, 4 December 1971

Every Much More Ballroom concert was presented via a theme. For example:
•    5 February 1972 - Company Caine presenting A Stone Of Class Distinction with Lipp and the Double Decker Brothers, MacKenzie Theory
•    11 March - Bizarre Bazaar with Friends, MacKenzie Theory, Captain Matchbox, Sundown, John Graham
•    1 April - April Fool’s Night with Indelible Murtceps, Lipp and the Double Decker Brothers, The First National Jug Orchestra (featuring Mic Conway and the After Dinner Moose aka Peter Lillie), MacKenzie Theory, Captain Matchbox
•    29 April - Rock & Roll Revue with Friends, Gerry and the Joy Band, Country Radio, It Flew Away
•    27 May - 1/2 Birthday Party with Carson, Company Caine, MacKenzie Theory, Captain Matchbox
•    10 June - Folk with Captain Matchbox, Margret RoadKnight, Graham Lowndes, John Graham, Paul Brand, Carrl & Janie Myriad
•    24 June - 23" Box Show with Daddy Cool, MacKenzie Theory, Lipp and the Double Decker Brothers, Country Radio
•    8 July - “Blue Movies Made Me Cry” with Spectrum, Indelible Murtceps
•    22 July - Sydney Live on Stage with Tamam Shud, Friends, Sun, Lizard, Graham Lowndes
•    13 August - The Last Drive-In Movie Show featuring Daddy Cool playing their final concert (recorded for the album Daddy Cool Live! The Last Drive-In Movie Show), MacKenzie Theory, Rock Granite and the Profiles, Graham Lowndes
•    16 September - The Amazing Horse Opera with Indelible Murtceps, Captain Matchbox, Miss Universe, Langford Lever
•    14 October - Mad Hatter’s Tea Party with Company Caine, MacKenzie Theory, Battersea Heroes, John Graham and Blackspur
•    11 November - Bathroom Show with Carson, Madder Lake, Indelible (listed as Insoluble) Murtceps, Pirana
•    25 November - Ballot Box with Country Radio, La De Das, MacKenzie Theory, Battersea Heroes

Writer Jenny Brown reviewed the 24 June gig for Planet magazine, reporting that:

“Even David N. Pepperell had a bonza time at the Much More 23" Box Show last Saturday night. Oh how we danced to Daddy Cool until our legs almost collapsed at the knees. The Planet gang was all there; together we got excited, bored, paranoid, exhilarated, exhausted. We drank the orange juice, made fools of ourselves, ignored the macro food, said hello to all our pals and savoured the music.

“Even David N. Pepperell cottoned on to MacKenzie Theory (which is far out – he only likes about eight bands in the world). They were ultraviolet as usual – the kind of sound you’d hear when listening to the internal organs of the moon – changing rhythms, expanding fluids, living machinery.”

The Much More Ballroom as a concert event was over by December 1972. Further concerts were held at Cathedral Hall into 1973 under different guises – MacKenzie Theory headlined in July, launching the album Out of the Blue, supported by The Dingoes, Burton McGuire Kennedy and Alta Mira – but it was the end of an era.

Among other locations (Carlton for example) the Melbourne counterculture epicentre eventually moved over to Ormond Hall, Prahran, where promoter Mike ‘Fastbuck’ Roberts staged his Reefer Cabaret concerts from late 1974 and throughout 1975. The Reefer Cabaret hosted the next generation of Melbourne bands, Renée Geyer and Sanctuary, Ariel, Madder Lake, The Dingoes, Skyhooks, Ayers Rock, Pantha, The Pelaco Bros and Toads, as well as old troopers Daddy Cool and Captain Matchbox. But that’s another story...

Above: Advert for the last Much More Ballroom concert, 9 December 1972

The band names that loom largest in the story of the T.F. Much/Much More Ballroom are Spectrum, MacKenzie Theory and the Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band.

Mic Conway of Captain Matchbox recalls their involvement:

“We played jug band music and had started out on the folk scene. So then because the music was jazz related we started getting gigs in the jazz scene, which was quite strong in Melbourne at that time as well. Then somehow we came to the attention of John Pinder and Peter Andrew, they’d formed the Let It Be booking agency and had started the T. F. Much Ballroom. So they asked us to play on the floor between the ‘real bands’, hah, you know I say that in inverted comas, meaning the rock bands.

“We were acoustic, so they said ‘oh come and play on the floor’ which was when the curtain was drawn across the stage and they were setting up amps and drums for the next rock band to play. So the audiences used to go berserk over us and then after that Pinder put us up on the main stage, as a ‘legitimate rock act’. We never looked back after that but we weren’t rock at all. We were sort of folk jazz, I suppose... Look it’s hard to tell what we were, it was really like some perverse joke but audiences went with us. We just couldn’t believe that we were playing on the rock scene. We were art students just having a great time.”

Mike Rudd of Spectrum has some strong memories.

“I have a fairly romantic memory of the first T.F. Much Ballroom concert. The Let It Be agency, which booked us, was a melding of a rock and roll agency and artistic agents, or people who represented the artist community. That’s where Warren Knight’s involvement came into it. So they wanted to create this gig that was a mix of music and community things as well as artistic things. For the first concert they set up a plastic, inflatable vulva through the door so you had to be re-birthed on the way in, which I thought was great. Then John Pinder had invited Mr Ball Bearing and some of his cohorts, on their choppers, to ride into the hall and then do moshpit diving before it was even a concept.

“But of course, the rest of the people, the flower children that were in the hall, were terrified by this whole thing and the artistic implications were lost. It did get a bit out of hand and Mr Ball Bearing had to intervene and curtail some his more enthusiastic guys who were jumping off the stage onto broken glass. That was getting a wee bit too grotesque for the flower children cowering in the centre of the room. So the artistic motif was the original spirit of the T.F. Much gigs, but that gave way to the more music-centric gigs of the Much More Ballroom concerts.

“It was a very well run venue. The acoustics in the hall weren’t that great, as I recall, but at the volume we were playing in those days it wasn’t too much of a problem. Spectrum actually put on our own gigs there as well. The Misère concert was ours and I guess we would have been supported by Indelible Murtceps. So that was very thematic, we had big playing cards hanging from the walls to keep up with the Misère theme. We had the comedian Max Gillies reading out a bizarre poem that I’d written, dressed as I required him to be in an evening suit but minus the trousers. So he had spotty underwear with suspenders on and so forth, and he read this poem.

“Hugh McSpedden’s light show, the Giant Edison Screw, was a show in itself. Just setting up took an inordinate amount of time. The Edison Screw was very Edison like, it had projectors and wheels, all sorts of things. There would be light projections on the stage and all around the stage as well, static projections, moving oil projections, liquid lights. You could actually stick your finger on the cells and create patterns. He had it all. It was a big part of the show.

“I’m not sure they were trying to replicate the San Francisco ballrooms but I think it probably had the same result with the light show and the loud music, definitely a very hippie feel about it. And Roxie was American anyway, and John Pinder may have been exploring that side of it, I’m not really sure. But the smell of patchouli oil, I cannot forget that. Patchouli oil drowned out everything. It was all pervasive!”

Above: Rob Mackenzie and Cleis Pearce of MacKenzie Theory, 1972. Pic courtesy of Brecon Walsh

MacKenzie Theory played their debut gig at the Much More Ballroom in December 1971. They went on to be the biggest drawing band, even though they were never the headliners. Bani McSpedden was quoted at the time as saying that “the only time the concerts sold out was when MacKenzie Theory were on the bill”.

Rob Mackenzie of MacKenzie Theory recalls that it was the best run venue in the day.

“We loved playing there, we’d get psyched up backstage before we played. We’d get together and look at the crowd and we’d feel the vibe about what they wanted to hear, not meaning ‘oh they want to hear the latest Archies song, let’s play that’, I don’t mean that, but something on a deeper musical level.

“One of the most important things was that the stage had a curtain and they used it. When a band finished playing they’d close the curtain and it had a little area at the front of the stage which was plenty of room for someone to come out and tell jokes, or a solo artist would come out and sing, or the Leaping McSpeddens could do their crazy, wacky stuff. So between every band the audience never had to watch the roadies change over the stage, it all happened behind the curtains. The curtains closed just in front of the amps so that when they opened you walked out in front and you had the whole stage to yourself, you weren’t way back and it was just beautifully done. It was beautifully stage managed, they really knew how to run a great venue.

“Hugh McSpedden was the best lighting guy in Melbourne, he did the lights for all the Much More shows. He even did the light show for our record, he brought his gear down to T.C.S. and set up when we recorded our one-day album, Out of the Blue.

“I don’t know that they were necessarily trying to copy places like the Fillmore. If they were copying it they probably succeeded very well, and I reckon they probably did a better job. Besides, the Much More Ballroom was a bigger venue, it held twice as many people as the Fillmore which was only 600 or 800 capacity. The Much More Ballroom was a fabulously run venue, the vibe in the place was so good, there were so many cool things happening all the time. The Ballroom was very influential and after it closed other people tried to copy it.”

Photographer Brecon Walsh remembers the camaraderie and sheer bliss of the concert environment.

“I remember one time talking with Rob Mackenzie, Jen Jewel Brown and Renée Geyer. We were standing in the hall and Peter Lillie was over to the left hanging there looking like a hippie aristocrat/early Roxy Music Eno. Renée was there with her first band, Sun, and she would have been 19, if that then. I recall that The Mothers Live at The Fillmore East was playing over the PA with Zappa’s ‘Latex Solar Beef’ or ‘The Mud Shark’ blasting out.”

It seems that the only film footage of the Ballroom was captured by director Peter Weir in his 1972, 10-minute short 3 Directions in Australian Pop-Music. It was filmed at the Much More Ballroom as part of the Commonwealth Film Unit’s Australian Colour Diary series (#43).

Captain Matchbox perform a breakneck rendition of ‘Who Walks in When I Walk Out’, much to the audience’s delight. Interestingly, Mic Conway is playing his bespoke Captain Matchbox washboard which was an integral part of his stage persona. Indelible Murtceps perform ‘Play a Song that I Know’ which was one of their more danceable numbers.

Wendy Saddington performs a gorgeous rendition of cult US folk singer Sixto Rodriguez’s ‘I Think of You’. Her visual appearance is striking, with introspective, theatrical clown make-up, cropped hair and black/white costume. She’s accompanied by performance artist Morris Spinetti (aka Teardrop) and a 3-piece backing band, comprising ex-Copperwine guys Ross East (guitar) and Peter Figures (drums) with Tim Partridge on bass.

3 Directions in Australian Pop-Music was issued on DVD as part of the Peter Weir Short Film Collection in 2005.

Some Lonesome Picker - Greg Quill Tribute

Originally published in Sounds of the City (Spring 2016/Issue No. 2)

Some Lonesome Picker - Greg Quill Tribute

Ian McFarlane

“The time I learned that being friends was knowing that a promise ends, when fancy takes to her wings again” (‘Observations’ by Greg Quill)

The elegiac sense of belonging and knowing in that simple lyric line may hold a deeper meaning. The true value of good friendship can be in transcending flights of fancy. Guitarist, songwriter, producer KERRYN TOLHURST knows the value of good friendship and he’s now made his friend and musical companion GREG QUILL the subject of a lovingly assembled tribute album Some Lonesome Picker.

Quill and Tolhurst first worked together in Country Radio back in 1972, scoring hits with ‘Gypsy Queen’ and ‘Wintersong’ two of the most enduring songs of the era. Although they had many musical adventures apart they next recorded together as Quill Tolhurst, issuing the album So Rudely Interrupted in 2003. Over a period of 40 years Tolhurst has pursued his own successful career, after Country Radio with The Dingoes in the 1970s, setting up his Locomo studios in Tucson, Arizona, producing artists such as Jeff Lang, Cyndi Boste and Chris Wilson and now back in Melbourne with his Holy Mackerel Band at the Albert Park Angling Club.

When Greg Quill died suddenly back in May 2013, Tolhurst knew he had to honour his friend. He started with the songs and a wish list of artists.

“After Greg died I went back through his catalogue of songs,” he explained recently. “I chose the songs I thought represented him the best as a package. Then I made a wish list of those people who I thought might like to sing those songs. I matched up the songs with the artist who I figured would be suitable and contacted them and lo and behold they all agreed. (Laughs) I thought that might be the biggest obstacle, fighting over which song they wanted. They were gentlemen about it.”

With singers the calibre of Paul Kelly, Ross Wilson, Shane Howard, Joe Camilleri, Richard Clapton, Doug Parkinson, Russell Morris and Broderick Smith on board the process of recording was underway. Paul Kelly and The Pigram Brothers’ version of ‘Gypsy Queen’ is clearly a touchstone, a much sparser and natural retelling of the original, highly produced Country Radio hit.

“I’d asked Paul to do ‘Gypsy Queen’ which he was very happy about. He’d gone on a trip up to Broome and I got a recording sent to me from Alan Pigram. They’d been sitting around the back porch at Alan’s place and they’d come up with this version and I thought ‘wow, what a great approach, that’s fantastic’. A few months later The Pigram Brothers were down here for the Melbourne Cup, doing a concert, and Paul was here at the same time and so I hooked them up in the studio and we just did it live like they did on the back porch, so that’s what we got. We’d even had strings on the original Country Radio version so it just shows how songs travel over time.”

One of the great skills of being a producer is knowing how to treat the songs and what works best for the performance. For example, Tolhurst embellished ‘Terry’s Tune’ (Shane Howard), ‘Last Time Around’ (Russell Morris) and ‘Observations’ (Kevin Bennett) with fiddle, while on ‘Wintersong’ (Joe Camilleri) and ‘Almost Freedom’ (Richard Clapton) he used pedal steel and on ‘Fleetwood Plain’ (Broderick Smith) it was accordion.

“I like to treat each of the songs individually and give them their own character. I guess that’s where I come from when I produce a record, I don’t like wallpaper production where every song sounds the same, that sounds lazy to me. Because it was different artists as well I wanted something that fitted the character of those artists as well as the songs. And I took a bit of liberty with the arrangement for ‘Observations’. I’d always loved that song and it just occurred to me to do it in an uptempo way rather than the plodding, kind of ponderous ballad that it was. It just seemed to fit together just nicely. And Greg Field, the fiddle player, really made that come alive.”

On the surface Ross Wilson might not seem a natural choice for the lead off track, ‘Just Goodbye’, but he helms this magnificent song in fine style. It sees the backing band in full country rock mode, à la The Byrds or The Band. And once again it just highlights the qualities of a good song.

“Yes, that’s one of Greg’s earliest songs, from his first album. And Country Radio used to do gigs with Daddy Cool back then. I remember a memorable one at Monash University, that was chaos. Anyway, so that song came from the first album and it had 12-string and Greg always loved Roger McGuinn and The Byrds and I wanted to give it that vibe. Ross was into that and he’d also been a Byrds fan as well. We talked about it and came up with that arrangement. Also that song features Ross Hannaford on guitar which was definitely his last recording with Ross Wilson.

“Greg and I had bonded together over songs, I think we came to the same point at the same time. When I met Greg we were both hugely influenced by The Band, The Byrds, and the whole singer songwriter thing coming out of America at the time. John Stewart was one of Greg’s biggest influences. I think Greg was the first to emerge here, from the folk scene, and to start writing songs on that level, on introspection and observation. He was definitely a pioneer in this country. And that’s why I wanted to included guys like Glenn Cardier and Mike McClellan. They were contemporaries of Greg’s from the same scene, so it seemed appropriate to have them on it.”

I wondered if he had considered asking someone like Kasey Chambers?

“Yes, some people have mentioned that there are no women on the album, making it a bit of a boys club, but there were no women around doing that stuff at the time. That didn’t happen until a generation later, when our daughters started doing that, the late 1980s, early 90s. There are lots of them now. And I did ask both Kasey and Renée Geyer – and Renée had been a dear friend of Greg’s at the time – but both felt the music wasn’t part of who they were.”

For this writer, the best song is saved for last, Broderick Smith doing an astonishing version of ‘Fleetwood Plain’. If you didn’t know it was a Greg Quill song you might have said it was a folk song from the 19th century.

“Right, well I picked that because it was the title of his first album, one of the first songs he ever wrote and it certainly has that strange, mythical quality about it that’s timeless.”

Jeff Duff

Originally published in Sounds of the City (Winter 2016/Issue No. 1)

Jeff Duff - This will explain everything (Melbourne Books, 2016)

Review by Ian McFarlane

It’s 1975 and renowned Melbourne jazz rock combo Kush are performing at a fancy dress ball for students of Ballarat Art College in rural Victoria. In honour of the outrageous decadence that the art ball promises, flamboyant, androgynous front man JEFF DUFF unveils an even more outrageous costume: a one-piece leotard with added rubber bosoms and a sex doll’s face strategically placed over his crotch. Ever the prankster, Duff has also concealed a 10-inch, flesh-coloured rubber hose in the doll’s open mouth which he whips out at the climax of ‘I’m Your Football Kick Me, I’m Your Ice Cream Lick Me’. It was all in the name of theatrical expressiveness, right?

Unfortunately, not everyone got the joke. Several young ladies were so offended by the real or imagined body part that they called the police who promptly hauled the bemused Duff off-stage. Duff was summoned to Ballarat Civic Courthouse in front of Judge Nolan, where he pleaded “but your Honour, it wasn’t my penis...”. Following the rather comical court case replete with Keystone Cops styled testimony, the packed gallery applauding and chanting “Duffo! Duffo!”, the singer yelling “Not guilty!”, the judge pounding the desk with his gavel, “Order, order in the court!”, Jeff Duff was charged with offensive behaviour, fined $60 and ordered to perform a charity concert (sans offending rubber hose, one assumes).

This is just the hysterical opening chapter to Jeff Duff’s wonderful new memoir, This will explain everything. It sets the reader up for a stimulating reading experience. In Duff’s inimitable fashion and words he brings all the highs and lows, the pain and excitement to the story of his extraordinary life.

Following a successful career fronting Kush, Duff relocated to London in 1978 where he developed the waif-like, alter-ego persona Duffo, cladding himself in cling-wrap and attaching large rubber ears to his head. He sang his songs, such as ‘Gimme Me Back Me Brain’ and ‘Tower of Madness’, in a pronounced strine accent which only served to heighten the satirical nature of his presentation. Duffo fitted in with the weirder end of the New Wave scale, a crazy mixture of Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band silliness, The Tubes over the top theatricality, Pythonesque humour and Bowie glam rock gone bonkers. Some of the British music public and media got the joke (such as Anne Nightingale, presenter of BBC TV’s The Old Grey Whistle Test) but most didn’t. At least the British were willing to embrace Duffo’s eccentricities for what they were – just a unique performer expressing himself in a truly individual manner.

I consider the charismatic and ever stylish Jeff Duff to be one of Australian music’s great treasures. He’s an exhibitionist of the highest order, no doubt about that, but he backs it up with one of the finest voices in the country. A classically trained baritone voice with rich tenor leanings and a natural vibrato, the guy can sing anything and everything. Kush’s 1974 recording of Jimmy Webb’s epic, and vocally challenging ‘MacArthur Park’ is the best rendition ever recorded (check it out) even outstripping Richard Harris’ original 1968 hit. Duff has nominated his favourite singers as David Bowie, Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles and, most importantly, the great Scott Walker, so you get an idea of how far the man himself has been willing to push his gift. It’s worth mentioning that Duff has issued 25 albums and numerous singles, either solo or with a range of bands from Kush and the Jeff Duff Orchestra to Jeff Duff and the Prophets and the Alien Sex Gods.

This will explain everything doesn’t just focus on his successes; Duff is willing to describe the downs as well as the ups of his life. Although he is assuredly heterosexual, throughout his life Duff has had to contend with people’s perception of his sexuality – is he or isn’t he? For example, he tells of being threatened at knife-point by a burly wharfie type wanting to have his wicked way with him in a toilet cubical in a gay club in Paris. In the late 1980s, he was severely beaten by a gang of gay-bashing thugs in Kings Cross. He had to have surgery to re-attach his badly dislocated shoulder. There’s a heart wrenching chapter where he describes his despair and attempted suicide following the collapse of the relationship with the love of his life, Tawny.

Duff’s writing style is fast paced, generally well measured and easy to read, making for a page-turner of a book. It’s not all ideal, however, because amid all the light-hearted prose he can tend to get overly profuse and long winded in certain passages which detracts slightly from the value of the story. Likewise, his sense of chronological time is somewhat fluid and in some sections he tends to jump around in an illogical fashion. He probably could have done with a diligent editor who was willing to rein in his occasional excessive delivery. (Apparently, two of the more explicit chapters were excised from the final book and are accessible to read at the publisher’s web site.)

Of course, that’s just nit-picking isn’t it... because overall this a fabulous encounter. And as an artifact in itself, the book is a thing of beauty. The attractive hardback cover is presented in gold foil with pink end-papers, while the pages are of high quality white paper stock. Congratulations to Melbourne Books for willing to go the extra distance with the production costs. And to cite the 1980 Andy Warhol quote displayed on the back cover, “Sinatra, Presley, Jagger, Popeye and now Duffo”.

Daevid Allen

Originally posted at addictedtonoise.com (March 2015)

Vale Daevid Allen (13 January 1938-13 March 2015)

Ian McFarlane

DAEVID ALLEN – Now Is The Happiest Time Of Your Life (1977)

DAEVID ALLEN – Australia Aquaria / She (1990)

Australian poet, guitarist, singer and composer DAEVID ALLEN (born Christopher David Allen, in Melbourne) has died at the age of 77. As well as having adopted his stage name of Daevid Allen by the early 1960s, he often utilised a range of alias such as Bert Camembert, Dingo Virgin, Divided Alien, Dingbat Alien, Daffyd Allen etc. One might say he was a mischievous musical wizard with a wildly eccentric yet charismatic disposition.

Certainly during the 1960s and 1970s, Allen was one of the most respected rock/avant-garde/jazz musicians working on the UK and European scene. His work with the original Soft Machine and Gong is still highly regarded by aficionados, yet in Australia he remains a relatively unknown cult figure.

Beatnik poet and musician Allen left Australia in 1960 to travel around Europe. You could put him in the same category as the likes of Barry Humphries, Germaine Greer, Martin Sharp, Richard Neville, Clive James, larger than life personalities who ventured into the wider world because Australia was unable to nurture their talents. While in Paris he came into contact with the likes of poets Allen Ginsberg and Robert Graves, plus novelist William S. Burroughs. He provided the music for a theatrical dramatisation of Burroughs’ The Ticket That Exploded.

By 1963 Allen was living in the UK where he started playing with a group of Canterbury musicians which eventually led to the formation of The Soft Machine in 1966. Being an experimentalist of some note already, Allen brought the influence of Terry Riley (free-form improvisation and tape-loops) into the band. The Soft Machine was named after the Burroughs’ novel (part of The Nova Trilogy) and Allen is credited with contacting the author to obtain permission for its use. The band was at the forefront of the British psychedelic movement alongside Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd, The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown, Tomorrow and Dantalion’s Chariot.

Allen recorded only one single with The Soft Machine, ‘Love Makes Sweet Music’ b/w ‘Feelin’ Reelin’ Squeelin’’ (February 1967). Demos recorded around this time, for impresario Giorgio Gomelsky, eventually appeared in the 1970s under a ridiculous variety of titles in different territories: Faces and Places Vol. 7, Jet-Propelled Photographs, At The Beginning, Memories, Soft Machine 1967 Demos and simply Soft Machine.

Following the band’s temporary move to France in late 1967, Allen was refused re-entry into England (due to an expired visa and appearance deficiencies apparently!) and Soft Machine continued as a three piece unit. In Paris, Allen set up a community of musicians that included his partner Gilli Smyth and by 1969 had formed Gong and started recording albums for the French label BYG.

Gong’s music mixed space rock and psychedelia with avant-experimentation and hippie philosophy. In England, Gong became popular on the festival circuit (alongside Hawkwind, Pink Fairies, Skin Alley, Mighty Baby, Global Village Trucking Company etc.) and recorded the landmark Radio Gnome Invisible album trilogy for Virgin Records (The Flying Teapot, Angels Egg and You). The trilogy was full of eccentric detail, goofy interludes and sonic space jams, revolving around Allen’s tale of Zero the Hero and The Pot Headed Pixies from the Planet Gong. Very trippy stuff!!

Allen left Gong in 1974 and recorded a series of well-received solo albums. He returned to Australia in 1984 and teamed up with David Tolley (ex-Tolley and Dara) as The Ex. That collaboration resulted in the Don’t Stop mini-album.

While in Australia, Allen also continued his pursuit of esoteric wisdom by working on Drones, training as a ‘Conscious Connected Breath’ therapist and organising Healing Festivals to put his various themes of self-advancement into communal practice. In January 1988 he returned to the UK, re-formed Gong, initially as Gongmaison, touring and recording a series of new albums.

Trying to unravel the details of Allen’s discography post-Soft Machine is a bewildering task. Essentially, the early Gong recorded six studio albums (1970-1974) followed by another four studio albums (1992, then 2003-2014), to say nothing of the multiple live / archival releases and compilation albums. Then there are all the various albums issued by Gong offshoot bands he was involved with: Planet Gong, New York Gong, Gongmaison, Mother Gong and Acid Mothers Gong.

On top of that he issued something in the vicinity of 30 solo or collaborative albums, and again numerous live / archival releases and compilations have appeared. Even the likes of The History And Mystery Of Gong (2000) and The Man From Gong: The Best Of Daevid Allen (2006) really only scratch the surface of his enveloping career.

Likewise, this barely touches the depths of his work but here are two of his solo albums with which I’m most familiar.

Now Is The Happiest Time Of Your Life (1977)

Following the crazy electric space rock of Gong, Allen went acoustic for his next couple of solo albums. Utilising the services of Majorcan band Euterpe, Good Morning! (1976) was a pleasant mix of contemplation and whimsy. Now Is The Happiest Time Of Your Life is where this combination works best, with world music, psych folk and ambient elements allied to Allen’s thought provoking, occasionally bitter lyrics. Mostly recorded on TEAC 4-track at Allen’s Bananamoon Observatory, Deià, Majorca, Spain, it all provides an intimate setting.

Allen reprises the story of Zero the Hero here and while his nasally vocals don’t always hit the mark in such a setting, it’s the instrumental backing that holds the key. As well as Allen’s acoustic guitar there’s flamenco guitar (Juan Biblioni and Pepsi Milan from Euterpe), violin (Xavier Riba, Ramón Farran, Vera Violin), tabla (Sam Gopal), mellow synth (Victor Peraino) and stringed harp (Marianne Oberascher de Soller). Of the songs, the highlights include the heartbreaking, minor key ‘Why Do We Treat Ourselves Like We Do?’, the 11-minute soundscape ‘I Am’ – in which Allen’s glissando guitar weaves in and around de Soller’s exquisite harp like a gentle breeze on a summer’s day – and the gloriously uplifting ‘Deya Goddess’.

The angry, spoken word discourse ‘Poet For Sale’ is Allen almost at his wit’s end but fortunately he has the good sense not to dwell on the consequences. Nevertheless, he thought enough of the piece to issue it as the B-side to the 1978 Planet Gong single ‘Opium For The People’. Perhaps the oddest moment is ‘Tally & Orlando Meet The Cockpot Pixie’, in which Allen relates the Radio Gnome Invisible trilogy as a fairytale to his two children, Taliesin and Orlando.

Australia Aquaria / She (1990)

Thirteen years on and Australia Aquaria / She was a vastly different proposition. The first thing you notice is that astonishing collage (by Lindsay Buckland) on the front cover: a Cyclopean aboriginal man with an intense stare in that one menacing eye. In contrast, the music on the album is richly melodic, focusing on mood and texture, sometimes ethereal, sometimes vigorous, often majestic. Recorded at Foel Studios, Powys, Wales, August-October 1989, it’s mostly keyboard dominated, as played by producer Harry Williamson, although additional instrumentation is essential to the musical flow. And Allen is in particularly fine voice here.

It’s an album of two halves: the first three tracks – ‘Gaia’, ‘Peaceful Warrior’ and ‘Australia Aquaria’ – are Allen’s ode to his birth country. He sings the lyrics in a pronounced strine accent which adds to the intent of the work. The gentle ‘Gaia’ (“Gaia, Gaia, great Mother of mountain and valley”) is particularly poignant. The final lines are: “Just as earth goes as birth, so like birds we could fly / She will make us immortal by taking us back when we die”.

‘Peaceful Warrior’ is actually more forceful than the title might suggest; Allen breaks out the electric guitar and builds the mood from quiet beginning to rousing finale backed by Rob George’s pounding drums.

The epic ‘Australia Aquaria’ is a significant work, a very tasty dish indeed. “I love Australia, land of our dreams, I see her there / The Dreamtime legends tell how many millions of years ago, when the Planet Earth was forming / Australia was the birthplace of the very first race of men”. Allen goes on to posit that a “brother from another planet” comes down to see this Garden of Eden before we lost our way. Keyboards, acoustic guitar, various percussion (Rob George and Marcus Ozric) and backing vocals (Jacki Dankworth, Jenni Rodger, Julie Wareing) help intensify the flavour while Bart Willoughby (from No Fixed Address) provides another key ingredient in didgeridoo.

‘She’ is a gentle love song, based around acoustic guitar, Graham Clark’s violin and Dankworth’s backing vocals. ‘Slave Queen’ is probably the most unusual track here, with a funky rhythm section – Conrad Henderson on popping bass – and Rob Calvert’s soaring tenor sax. Then it’s back to ambient textures with the 10-minute ‘Voice of OM’. It’s a shame this album was overlooked on its release because it’s Daevid Allen’s most Australian work in tone and content.

DAEVID ALLEN – Now Is The Happiest Time Of Your Life (1977)
1. Flamenco Zero 1:46
2. Why Do We Treat Ourselves Like We Do? 6:51
3. Tally & Orlando Meet The Cockpot Pixie 3:15
4. See You On The Moontower 5:41
5. Poet For Sale 3:28
6. Crocodile Nonsense Poem (aka Nonsense Rap) 0:59
7. Only Make Love If You Want To (aka Lady Dear Lady) 5:37
8. I Am 11:10
9. Deya Goddess 6:45
All tracks written by Daevid Allen, except Flamenco Zero by Juan Biblioni

DAEVID ALLEN – Australia Aquaria / She (1990)
1. Gaia (D. Allen/H. Williamson) 4:43
2. Peaceful Warrior (D. Allen) 5:34
3. Australia Aquaria (D. Allen/H. Williamson) 14:42
4. She (D. Allen/G. Clarke/H. Williamson) 7:26
5. Slave Queen (D. Allen) 8:06
6. Voice of OM (E. Romain/J. Saraswati) 9:55

Tim Gaze Band

Originally posted at addictedtonoise.com (October 2013)

The Tim Gaze Band - Band on the Run: Music from the Soundtrack of the Film

Ian McFarlane

By the time he was 21 years old, guitarist TIM GAZE had played on four of the most feted of all Australian progressive albums from the early 1970s – Tamam Shud’s Goolutionites and the Real People (1970), Kahvas Jute’s Wide Open (1971), the Morning of the Earth soundtrack (1972) and Ariel’s A Strange Fantastic Dream (1973). A guitar prodigy of exacting technique and energy, he was also a capable songwriter and contributed a number of quality songs to the albums.

Following his departure from Ariel in April 1974, he played on Renee Geyer’s It’s a Man’s Man’s World (1974) and toured with Stevie Wright and the All Stars for six months. He then spent a couple of years trying to get a number of different bands off the ground – Dayride, Tim Gaze Rock Ensemble – finally getting his dream outfit, the Tim Gaze Band, together in 1977. The line-up comprised Gaze, Peter Bolton (keyboards), Harry Curtis (bass) and Robbie France-Shaw (drums), a very proficient and skilled combo capable of playing in a variety of rock styles. Later on he added Suzanne Petersen (vocals, guitars, flute, piano) and Annette Henery (vocals, percussion) to the line-up.

In 1979, film-maker Harry Hodge approached Gaze with the idea of composing the soundtrack to his latest surfing documentary, Band on the Run. The film followed champion surfers Paul Neilsen, Wayne “Rabbit” Bartholomew, Bruce Raymond and Brian Cregan as they went in search of the “perfect wave”. Indeed, the tagline for the film was “The world was their stage, the ocean their playground”. The water photography was by the acclaimed Dick Hoole / Jack McCoy team who had made their own films such as Tubular Swells (1976).

Surfing and rock music made a powerful and enticing combination that had proliferated since the early 1960s, and in Australia we’d already seen the likes of The Hot Generation (1967), Evolution (1969), Sea of Joy (1971), Morning of the Earth (1972), Crystal Voyager (1973), Drouyn (1974) and Highway One (1976) feature tremendous soundtracks of Aussie rock music. Possibly because of his contribution to Morning of the Earth, Gaze seemed like the logical candidate for the job.

The band worked quickly, laying down a dozen demos (known by the band as the “first wave”) in order to get approval for the “real” recording process (the “second wave”). Of the final ten songs recorded, eight were earmarked for the Band on the Run soundtrack album: ‘Give Me Life’, ‘Oceans’, ‘Beautiful Lady’, ‘Lazy Day Fever’, ‘Brothers and Sisters’, ‘Paradise’, ‘Looking for Answers’ and ‘End Theme’.

By 1980, things were well advanced but it was at this point that things also started to get complicated. Apparently, roots rock singer / guitarist J.J. Cale and his producer Audie Ashworth expressed an interest in contributing to the soundtrack album with a tie-in to issue the record in the US on Cale’s label Shelter Records (distributed by Festival in Australia). So three tracks from Cale’s Troubadour album (‘Travelin’ Light’, ‘Cocaine’ and ‘I’m a Gypsy Man’) plus two new songs (‘Nowhere to Run’ and ‘Bringing it Back’) were added.

Inevitably that delayed the project so it wasn’t until 1982 that Festival had prepared the Band on the Run soundtrack album for release on the Infinity label. The covers were printed and the vinyl pressed (most likely in a run of say 3,000-5,000 copies) but at the eleventh hour someone realised that there was a SNAFU with the licensing for the J.J. Cale tracks and the release was cancelled.

The irony was that a shipment of promo-only copies had already been dispatched to the media and sales reps and this is where the rarity factor of this record comes into play. The promotional allocation would probably have been something like 50 copies (or certainly no more than 100) and the very few copies of the album that have ever turned up since feature the large Festival red and white bullet promo sticker on the label. (Update: I have subsequently heard that a small number of stock copies did make it on to the market, but we can only assume that the rest of the vinyl and covers were destroyed.)

So in terms of collectability the Band on the Run soundtrack album is one of the great rarities of Aussie rock. Yet beyond that, and the inclusion of the Cale tracks, it’s a great pity it didn’t receive its due because it really is a tremendous recording. The Tim Gaze Band tracks are highly competent and beautifully played, featuring a bright, melodic, harmony rich West Coast sound mixed with elements of reggae and symphonic touches courtesy of the interplay between Gaze’s soaring lead guitar and Bolton’s Hammond organ. Perhaps the only other Aussie performer with a similar style was Richard Clapton.

Gaze takes lead vocals on the tracks he wrote (or co-wrote with Harry Hodge) but Suzanne Petersen’s gorgeous vocals on her own ‘Lazy Day Fever’ are like pure sunshine on a rainy day. Other highlights include ‘Brothers and Sisters’, ‘Looking for Answers’, ‘Give Me Life’ and two dazzling instrumentals in the funky, samba-styled ‘Paradise’ and the Pink Floyd-like ‘End Theme’.

Of course, this music was too good to let languish in obscurity and Tim Gaze eventually transferred the original master tapes to digital and issued a double CD in 2004 as The Tim Gaze Band – Music from the Soundtrack of the Film “Band on the Run”. Gaze simply bypassed any licensing issues by dispensing with the J.J. Cale tracks and just concentrating on the Tim Gaze Band recordings. Disc One (Second Wave) features the original eight songs from the LP, with ‘Paradise’ renamed ‘Mauritius’ and ‘End Theme’ renamed ‘Bermuda’. Also included are the previously unheard ‘This is a Place’ and the rollicking boogie-rock number ‘Goin’ Down’.

Disc Two (First Wave) comprises the original demos which are a real surprise in their own right. Mostly instrumental, with even more towering guitar work from Gaze, they feature an organic feel and a brightness which is probably lacking in the more polished Second Wave tracks. There are only three vocal takes, ‘Lazy Day Fever’, ‘Beautiful Lady’ and ‘Paradise 2’. You may still be able to source the CD (try Tim Gaze’s website) but good luck finding an original vinyl pressing of the LP!

So to wrap up this profile, Gaze has continued to perform tirelessly on the Australian music scene. He has never really attained commercial success but his talent and acceptance as a guitarist’s guitarist has never been in doubt. Following the break-up of the Tim Gaze Band in 1984 he worked with the likes of Rose Tattoo, Brothers of the Bell, Gyan, the Peter Wells Band, the reformed Tamam Shud, the Bushwackers, Blue Sierra, the Blues Doctors and the Hoochie Coochie Men.

Original LP release
Music from the Soundtrack of the Film “Band on the Run” (Promo copies only Festival/Infinity L-37842) 1982
1. J.J. CALE – Travelin' Light (J.J. Cale)
2. TIM GAZE BAND – Give Me Life (Tim Gaze)
3. TIM GAZE BAND – Oceans (Tim Gaze)
4. J.J. CALE – Cocaine (J.J. Cale)
5. J.J. CALE – Gypsy Man (J.J. Cale)
6. TIM GAZE BAND – Beautiful Lady (Tim Gaze/Harry Hodge)
7. J.J. CALE – Nowhere To Run (J.J. Cale)
8. J.J. CALE – Bringing It Back (J.J. Cale)
9. TIM GAZE BAND – Lazy Day Fever (Suzanne Petersen)
10. TIM GAZE BAND – Brothers And Sisters (Tim Gaze)
11. TIM GAZE BAND – Paradise (Tim Gaze)
12. TIM GAZE BAND – Looking For Answers (Tim Gaze)
13. TIM GAZE BAND – End Theme (Tim Gaze)
Tim Gaze Band tracks produced by Tim Gaze and Peter Bolton

CD reissue
THE TIM GAZE BAND – Music from the Soundtrack of the Film “Band on the Run” (Tim Gaze Music) 2004
CD 1 – Second Wave: Songs from the Soundtrack
1. Lazy Day Fever (Suzanne Petersen)
2. Brothers And Sisters (Tim Gaze)
3. Looking For Answers (Tim Gaze/Harry Hodge)
4. Bermuda (Tim Gaze/Peter Bolton)
5. This Is A Place (Tim Gaze)
6. Give Me Life (Tim Gaze)
7. Oceans (Tim Gaze)
8. Beautiful Lady (Tim Gaze/Harry Hodge)
9. Mauritius (Tim Gaze)
10. Goin' Down (Tim Gaze)
CD 2 – First Wave: Demos
1. The End (Tim Gaze)
2. Brazilian Millions (Tim Gaze)
3. Hawaii (Tim Gaze)
4. LA Theme (Tim Gaze)
5. London (Tim Gaze)
6. Paradise (Tim Gaze)
7. Looking For Answers (Tim Gaze/Harry Hodge)
8. This Is A Place (Tim Gaze)
9. Day Tripper (Suzanne Petersen)
10. Lazy Day Fever (Suzanne Petersen)
11. Paradise 2 w/vocals (Tim Gaze)
12. Beautiful Lady (Tim Gaze/Harry Hodge)

THE TIM GAZE BAND
Tim Gaze – Guitars, vocals
Peter Bolton – Keyboards
Harry Curtis – Bass
Robbie France-Shaw – Drums, percussion
Annette Henery – Vocals, percussion
Suzanne Petersen – Vocals, guitars, flute, piano

Vale Stevie Wright

Originally posted at addictedtonoise.com 31 December 2015

VALE STEVIE WRIGHT

Born 20 December, 1947 (Leeds, West Yorkshire, UK)
Died 27 December, 2015 (Moruya, NSW, Australia)

By Ian McFarlane

Who was the greatest frontman in the sphere of Australian pop during the 1960s? Billy Thorpe? Normie Rowe? Gerry Humphrys? Jim Keays? Jeff St. John? Russell Morris? Of course, they were all incredible but the honour really belongs to the extraordinary Stevie Wright. The Easybeats wouldn’t have been The Easybeats without his presence.

He had the charisma, he had the passion, he had the drive, he was a dynamic performer and you could tell that he enjoyed his position in the spotlight immensely. And the kids loved him. He was godlike youth personified. It’s amazing, even now, to consider that Wright was only 16-years-old when The Easybeats formed, 17 when their first single came out, 18 when they recorded their greatest moment and still only 21 when they broke up.

The Easybeats story is multi-layered and expansive, a glorious rush of highs and lows, so it’s not our purposes here to restate the legend. A couple of things you need to know: The Easybeats were masters of the killer mod / beat pop single; and Wright co-wrote – with guitarist George Young – all their unforgettable early hits. ‘For My Woman’, ‘She’s So Fine’, ‘Women (Make You Feel Alright)’, ‘Come And See Her’, ‘Sorry’ (as well as its fabulous flip side ‘Funny Feelin’’), ‘Wedding Ring’ and ‘Sad And Lonely And Blue’ were all Wright/Young compositions.

It could be suggested that Stevie Wright’s career trajectory faltered the moment Harry Vanda took over as George Young’s song writing partner. The event in question was the writing and recording of ‘Friday On My Mind’, a classic single and still one of the most magnificent artefacts in all of Australian rock history. From then on, The Easybeats were the Vanda and Young show with Wright relegated to the sidelines. Did it set off his slide into prolonged drug and alcohol abuse? There are so many questions left unanswered but it might have been a contributing factor.

Fast forward to 1973 and Vanda and Young are ensconced as house producers in the Sydney studios of Albert Productions. There’s unfinished business to be resolved and the pair set about reviving the career of their former band mate. Wright is up for the challenge, in fine voice and on his best behaviour. The resultant album, Hard Road, is a punchy rock album bursting with quality songs and powerful studio backing. It reaches #5 on the national chart (#1 in Melbourne) and produces the legendary, 11-minute, #1 hit ‘Evie (Parts 1, 2 & 3)’. Mission accomplished: Wright is a star again.

The singer contributed six songs to the album, ranging from the memorable pop rock of ‘Life Gets Better’ and ‘Commando Line’ to the bluesy, ironic ‘Movin’ On Up’, the funky, horn-driven ‘The Other Side’ and the passable boogie of ‘I Got You Good’.

The real pulse of the album, however, comes with the three Vanda/Young contributions, the title track, ‘Didn’t I Take You Higher’ and ‘Evie’.

‘Hard Road’ exhibits a swaggering self-assurance, a howling monster of rock’n’roll as pure release. Stevie’s got everything he owns on his back (“I carry such a heavy load”), he’s got his dog and his radio (“living on rock’n’roll”) and he’s hit that southbound highway for a better life. It’s not going to be easy – “it’s a hard, hard road that I travel down the line” – but he’s “digging what I’m doing and I’m doing it as fast as I can” and “nobody’s hanging things around my neck, put me in a pigeon hole”. Wright sings with such sheer conviction and gravelly force that it’s a wonder he didn’t burst a lung in the studio. Rod Stewart covered the song on his album Smiler, but somehow his customary vocal firepower seemed lame by comparison.

‘Didn’t I Take You Higher’ is another driving rocker with a glammy vibe, a powerful fuzzed guitar riff, cheesy synthesizer punctuations, a killer vocal hook and a cruising percussion / chicken scratch guitar breakdown. Form over content maybe but pure enjoyment nonetheless.

Of course, the album’s centrepiece is ‘Evie’, a work of emotional grandeur that remains Wright’s commercial highpoint and possibly Vanda and Young’s artistic zenith. Over three distinct sections (‘Let Your Hair Hang Down’, ‘Evie’ and ‘I’m Losing You’) and across 11 exceptional minutes, it explores the ups and downs of a romantic relationship, from lust to family life to tragic heartbreak. When issued as a single, ‘Evie (Part 1)’ sat as the 3:55 A-side while ‘Evie (Part 2)’ and ‘Evie (Part 3)’ made up the 7-minute flipside. Fortunately, radio programmers had the sense to play the song in its entirety and for that we can be eternally grateful. Aside from being nudged by the likes of the 6-and-a-half-minute ‘The Real Thing’, no other Australian hit has attained such a magnitude of both form and content.

By the time he came to record his second Vanda and Young produced album, in late 1974, Wright had slipped back in to serious heroin addiction. While Vanda and Young presided over the recording in their usual fastidious and attentive manner, overall Wright sounds less committed to the vocal task at hand. Black Eyed Bruiser is a mixed bag of hard blues rock, funky soul and country-tinged material which is less supercharged and lacks the cohesiveness of Hard Road.

Still, there’s some decent material here. The title track comes charging out of the gate with an archetypal, kick-ass riff and attitude to burn: “If you see me walking down the street / You better get out my way / I’m a real king hitter / Always have my say”. Rose Tattoo later recorded a version that sticks close to the arrangement here which suggests there was no way of improving it. ‘The Loser’ and ‘You’ bring things down until ‘My Kind Of Music’ and ‘Guitar Band’ come back in with the riff rock.

Alongside ‘Black Eyed Bruiser’, ‘Guitar Band’ is the album’s highpoint. It was a Top 10 hit single but probably didn’t have enough pulling power to help haul the album into the charts. Nevertheless, it features a funky beat and a killer guitar riff and at least Wright sounds like he’s having fun with the lyric. There’s a great film clip (from February 1975) of Wright prowling around the Countdown studios singing ‘Guitar Band’. With a cheeky grin plastered across his face, he’s resplendent in stack-heeled black boots, extravagant black leather belt and red jump suit emblazoned with a lightning flash and a silver ‘S’ symbol across his chest. Stevie as electrified Superhero no less!

Vanda and Young had previously recorded ‘The People And The Power’ as part of their Marcus Hook Roll Band album Tales Of Old Grand-Daddy, and here it gets a laid back, funky treatment. ‘Help, Help’ is bland but at least ‘Twenty Dollar Bill’ is a fun country rocker that is reminiscent of Leo Sayer’s ‘Long Tall Glasses’. Wright ends the album with another strong moment in the self-penned ‘I’ve Got The Power’. It’s his attempt at affirmative action – “I’m getting stronger every day” – but while musically it stands tall one gets the feeling that lyrically it’s hollow grandstanding.

And that was pretty much it for Stevie Wright’s solo career. While he continued to pop up for the occasional moment in the sun – performing ‘Evie’ at the Concert Of The Decade, on the steps of the Opera House in front of 100,000 people, November 1979; the 1986 Easybeats reformation; as part of the 2002 arena rock spectacular Long Way To The Top – his light slowly dimmed. Farewell Stevie.

Hard Road
(Albert Productions APLP-005) 1974

1. Hard Road (Vanda/Young)
2. Life Gets Better (Stevie Wright)
3. The Other Side (Stevie Wright)
4. I Got You Good (Stevie Wright)
5. Dancing In The Limelight (Stevie Wright)
6. Didn’t I Take You Higher (Vanda/Young)
7. Evie (Vanda/Young) – Part 1 (Let Your Hair Hang Down), Part 2 (Evie), Part 3 (I’m Losing You)
8. Movin’ On Up (Stevie Wright)
9. Commando Line (Stevie Wright)
Produced by Stevie Wright, Harry Vanda and George Young

Black Eyed Bruiser
(Albert Productions APLPA-012) 1975

1. Black Eyed Bruiser (Vanda/Young)
2. The Loser (Vanda/Young)
3. You (Vanda/Young)
4. My Kind Of Music (Vanda/Young)
5. Guitar Band (Vanda/Young)
6. The People And The Power (Vanda/Young)
7. Help, Help (Vanda/Young)
8. Twenty Dollar Bill (Stevie Wright)
9. I’ve Got The Power (Stevie Wright)
Produced by Vanda and Young