Tuesday, 15 April 2014

That's Entertainment : Garbage


 Every day of the week, Zach asks me 'when is it garbage bin day?'.

And I explain to him that bin day is Tuesday.

On Tuesdays, he asks me why the garbage bins are out.

And so it goes.

But I got to thinking.  Really, every day should be Garbage day.  Ah, yes…Garbage!

Garbage are one of those fantastic electro, rock pop goth bands that mean something to all microcosms of niche music fan.  I won't even begin to decipher what it symbolises, but all I will say is, since 1995 when Garbage's self-titled album was released, I have been in love with this band.  I've lived through all the jokes too - 'oh, this sounds like Garbage'…'this band is Garbage'…scoff, scoff, titter, titter.

Anyway.  Back when alternative America and Britpop was blazing away, Garbage came on out with their music not quite sounding like anyone else.  The singer was a flame-haired Scottish goddess, the guitarists some nerdy, middle aged back room production blokes and the drummer was Butch Vig - only the producer of some of the 1990's most important albums like Nirvana's Nevermind and Smashing Pumpkins Siamese Dream.

And Garbage appealed to the fringes.  The down-trodden, the lost, the mixed up, the confused, the ones who just liked something different.  There's razzmatazz, sex appeal and raging feminism and they appeal to the mainstream too, with their slick, grimy fuzz pop rock.  Their fan base is loyal, ardent.  But for mine, it all has to do with the music.  And the singer Shirley Manson (who I absolutely adore).  For good reason, their debut is listed in the 1001 Albums You Should Listen To Before You Die.

They can blister, they can rock.  They can break your heart, they can make you swoon.  And often, all in the one song.  

Three bits of trivia: 

* Garbage started going places when Australia's own Michael Gudinski of Mushroom Records took a leap of faith and signed them for the world (except North America).

* They performed the James Bond theme The World Is Not Enough.  

* #1 Crush off the Romeo + Juliet soundtrack was the biggest number 1 in Australia never to have a single release.

Lee and I have seen them tour each time they've come out here.  In 2002, Lee had to decide between Garbage or New Order tickets.  She chose wisely (as much as I love New Order).  At one gig, the computers cut out and so they cursed and laughed it off with the crowd asking for song suggestions.  Some fan yelled out some obscure B-side, leading to a round of chortles as Shirley Manson suggested the fan probably new the chords and lyrics better than they did.  It ended up with them doing an impromptu version of Kylie Minogue's Can't Get You Out Of My Head before the show continued.  

By 2005, the pressure had taken it's toll; the cracks were showing, there was resignation, tiredness and farewells.  We didn't want to believe it, but they went on 'hiatus' which is as good as saying 'busted up'.  The best of Absolute Garbage followed a year after.  And that was that.  In 2011 though, they were back and doing things on their own terms.  The concert tour was a blast and we saw them at the Metro (Soundwave sideshow), all tucked in and rocking out with the mixed age, ardent fan crowd.  Everything was back, recapturing their mojo, what we were gifted was the fun, the smiles and the music.  Dispelling notions it was a 'come back' tour, Garbage and the fans knew that they really hadn't been away because a Garbage fan lurks in the periphery anyways.  

So the music.  Well, along with a few select bands, I recommend EVERYTHING.  

For me…it's still the aural majesty of the first track off the debut album.  Supervixen is a statement of intent…and it just blows me away every single time I hear it.  Even now…I've got it spinning and I have tingles up and down my spine.

However, to be fair, I'll give you a few more to check out.  Argh!  It's like picking your favourite child…but here it goes.

And Zach…from now, EACH and EVERY day is GARBAGE day.  




















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Plug It In : East


 https://www.triplejunearthed.com/artist/e-s-t

 Do yourselves a favour and check out East with her absolutely amazing track OLD AGE.

 Just brilliant!

 Def in my Top 10 single releases in 2014!
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Thursday, 10 April 2014

That's Entertainment : Silversun Pickups


One of the best rock bands of the past 10 or so years has got to be LA quartet the Silversun Pickups.

Sure you say.  Never heard of them…nothing to see here.  Move on…

Well, I'm not one for begging, but this is one band I reckon you should give your attention to.  They're slow burners performing dream-pop, with fuzzy guitars and that soft/shout vocal dynamic.  They're been compared to The Smashing Pumpkins amongst others and I can see why that link fits.  They have that ethereal pomp-rock sound that woos you and wows you.  They are breathtakingly creative and are at the same time familiar and distinctive.  

I first stumbled across the Silversun Pickups back in 2007 when I saw the video for their song Lazy Eye on the short-lived JTV program (hosted by Rosie Beaton).  We still didn't have the internet at home, it was pre-I-phone access to everything and thankfully JTV put the band and song names up at the beginning and end of the song.  Since I'd stopped Lee from going out just to finish hearing the song, as soon as it was done, we hopped in the car and I was off to JB Hi Fi to try and score the single/album, which I did.  And from there, I must have played it every single waking hour for the next three months.  I praised them and burnt copies for chums who all caught the Silversun Pickups bug.

Later that same year - Saturday 15th September 2007 to be exact -  we were lucky enough to nab tickets to see them play live at the Annandale Hotel and were absolutely blown away.  At the time, they only had the one album and the one EP, and at the end of the gig people were begging for more, and I seem to remember they played a couple of their songs twice just to sate the crowd.  At the time, I thought this was the band to takeover the world.

Unfortunately, it hasn't worked that way, which is good.  Instant success sucks so they are slowly but surely growing their audiences and hitting up the charts around the world.  They have an ardent, loyal fan base and just last month, they released their first compilation album with the new track Cannibal.  Clearing the decks for the second chapter of the band, it's something that you should download from I-tunes and listen to.  I still think the Silversun Pickups are going to be that band to take-over the world, and it's not a case of if, it's when.  Still…I could be biased.  







There's No Secrets This Year https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqZHIQp0ok0




Bloody Mary (Nerve Endings) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxSWj5bou9M





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Thursday, 3 April 2014

That's Entertainment : Simply Red


Now here's one out of left field, which isn't really when you think about it, but for a guy who was in to late 80's hair metal and early/mid 90's grunge…it is.

Simply Red.  

Yep.

Funny story: local venue is confused about band name RED and Mich Hucknall (singer) explains what the band's name is "Red. Simply Red."  So they rock up to the gig, with posters saying 'Simply Red'…and that's how they ended up being Simply Red.

I first encountered Simply Red in 1989 with If You Don't Know Me By Now.  It was one of those real slow ballad songs that Video Hits flogged to death.  It wasn't hard to learn word for word and a mate of mine and I used to take the mick out of it and sing it really badly.  But then, if you dislike something long enough, you come to love it.  I remember hearing the follow up single A New Flame…and that seriously is one of the GREAT karaoke soul songs to belt out.  It just has an amazing vocal line.

I was bowl-l-l-led out!
I was so-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-d down the river…
And her warm heart would turn me forever.

She's turned me round
A new flame has come
And nothing she can do, can do me wrong. 

Yep!

Towards the end, Mick Hucknall sings out with a soaring, soulful nothing she can do, can ever do me wrong…and it's fantastic to belt out.  Of course, I soon realised there were a couple of LPs in the canon and Holding Back The Years and Money's Too Tight To Mention were also Simply Red hits.  Money's Too Tight To Mention gets an airing once in a while if I want to do something and Lee says no, so I mock her with a rendition.  Of course there's also The Right Thing, another corker.  

Then of course in late 1991 / early 1992, Simply Red returned with Stars, the multi platinum 11 million selling album which contained Something Got Me Started and Stars (where would Mix 106.5 be without this song eh?).  Along with the follow up Life, which had the beautiful song Fairground on it, Simply Red were one of those upper-stratosphere bands of the 1990's.  After that, Mick Hucknell seemed to go out of fashion a bit until 2003's return to form with Home.  Sunrise (sampling/covering Hall & Oates' I Can't Go For That).

Simply Red released Stay in 2007 with the lovely So Not Over You and by 2010, he retired the band name and went solo, which is essentially what he had done since becoming the only real member in 1996.  These days, Mick Hucknall releases solo albums and tours playing soul standards.

However, if you look at the peak years of 1989 through to 1995, Simply Red released a trio of enviable records containing some magical tunes.

If you want to treat yourself and have $20 up your sleeve, buy the first 5 albums collected here.  You get all the best stuff.  But if money's a little too tight to mention…check out YouTube instead.




Money's Too Tight To Mention http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrUB0g8Vjgg

If You Don't Know Me By Now http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTcu7MCtuTs








!
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Thursday, 27 March 2014

That's Entertainment : Icehouse


At the moment, I have ideas for Book 5 floating around my head.  It mixes the A*Team with daring do, swaggering LA glamster types of hair metal, linked to a pyromaniac.  It's an exciting development phase where anything is possible.  And because I like to use music to get my creative juices flowing, Icehouse's Touch The Fire fuels thoughts and fantasies of how the story will go.   What I do know, is that one day it will be the song used on the opening and closing credits of the film and I will bow down to Iva Davis and thank him for the music!

My love for Icehouse began in 1989 when I purchased my first compact disc single.  I was 13, in year 7 and the song was Icehouse's Touch The Fire and it was a huge investment, having to pay $9.99 for it.  At this time, barely any singles were released on CD (and most were on the short-lived 3 inch CD single that could only be played on spindle CD players, not trays) and most singles came on 45 or cassette.  Anyway, it was a song I immediately fell in love with and my introduction to Icehouse.

After that, I was hooked on Icehouse and thankfully, CD singles became more prevalent by 1991 and became cheaper too, although they drifted between $5 and $8 (when full CD albums were still $25 to $30).  I long ago lost the CD single but have always kept the cassingle, with the lyrics clipped from Smash Hits tucked in the cover with the tape.

Today, Icehouse is an essential and pioneering Australian act.  They began life as Flowers and released their debut album Icehouse in 1980.  They pioneered synthesisers and sound production techniques and were a leader in the Australian synth-pop and pub-rock scenes of the 1980's.  By 1987, they had released their seminal LP Man of Colours which is still the highest selling Australian album by an Australian band.  It also spawned the monster hits (beloved by many still today) Crazy, Electric Blue, My Obsession and Man of Colours whilst also containing my firm favourites Heartbreak Kid and Girl In The Moon which I once spoofed in a Weird Al fashion for a Year 8 drama project.

Early on, they meshed the glam and dance aesthetics of T-Rex, Bowie and Roxy Music and created early 80's synth-heaven.  I remember watching a Countdown repeat on RAGE one night, and Molly Meldrum just gushed saying if their new single (at the time [off Icehouse/Flowers]) Sister wasn't a hit, he didn't know what was wrong with the Aussie music buying public).  Sister is an amazing track too, nestled in with early greats such as Can't Help Myself and We Can Get Together.  In fact, Sister is one of those songs that inspires things and maybe one day, this song too will be a soundtrack song too!  I like to think it might be the only song I could actually play on guitar as well!  :-) 

In 1982, they released Primitive Man with the defacto Australian national anthem Great Southern Land and Hey Little Girl as well as Street Cafe.  Their third LP, Sidewalk was a more subdued effort but contains the beautiful Don't Believe Anymore and shouty, jerky Taking The Town.  1986's Measure For Measure is a bottler too, with particular attention needing to be paid to Cross The Border and No Promises, as well as Too Late Now.  For mine, Measure For Measure sounds like it could have been the soundtrack to a John Hughes movie, and has that pop sheen that I identify with so well.

Then of course came the stratospheric Man of Colours.  It is an amazing album and deserves its place as one of Australia's icons.  Electric Blue (co-written with John Oates from Hall & Oates) was to be Icehouse's only Australian #1 single (such a crime!).  Quite literally, I can air guitar this album in my sleep; I can hit every beat and every vocal.  It's one of those albums seared in to my soul and is just the quintessential pop album deserving a place in your collection.

By 1990, there was a changing of the guard in the Australian music scene and Icehouse squeezed in one more hit album with Code Blue.  When they originally released the CD, the pilot's facade on the album cover was printed on the jewel case cover, which made it a bugger if you cracked the case!  Possessing the cassingles from this album, Big Fun hit first, followed by the oddly queer Miss Divine.  Anything Is Possible was released with a couple of live songs from 1980, celebrating the band's 10th anniversary.  Covering T-Rex's Think Zinc, I remember singing this song in commerce class and my teacher asking where I'd heard the song and telling him it was Icehouse.  I leant him the tape, and excitedly he told me he was a Flowers fan and heard them actually play the song live somewhere back in the day.

Then in 1993, after grunge had hit and the Australian musical landscape had changed completely, Icehouse still had one gem up their sleeve.  Re-discovering their glammy roots, the single Satellite was released.  This is another Icehouse song I adore and the resulting album Big Wheel is chock full of delights.  

Icehouse was always pretty much Iva Davies and by the mid 90's and 2000's, he had moved away from pop and in to remixes, re-releases, best-of's and soundtrack work for theatre and film.  For the band's 30th Anniversary in 2011, all remastered albums with live cuts and b-sides (not all of them, sigh) would be released, and White Heat, a comprehensive audio and visual best of was released.  Tours ensued and respect received from mainstream media types, confirming the contribution Iva and Icehouse have made to Australian music.  Always one to be innovative and experiment (some of their instrumental b-sides are divine slices of creation), Icehouse performed DUBHouse (reggae) versions of their hits and recently released this as an album.

When all is said in done, the band Molly Meldrum pleaded for Australians to take and cherish have come a long way.  It's always with particular fondness that I can comb through the hits and the albums and enjoy a diverse and exciting body of work.  Iva Davies is a wonderful interview too and deserves all the accolades that come his way.

So do yourself a favour, go buy White Heat, buy a new copy of Man of Colours and go exploring the Icehouse back catalogue.  Trust me, you won't be disappointed.  And with all that inspiration, anything is possible.

















Fark!  Look at the price of the CD single!!!


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Sunday, 12 January 2014

Plug It In: RAC feat. Kele & MNDR
Check this one out - RAC feat. Kele [Bloc Party] and MNDR with Let Go.





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Wednesday, 8 January 2014


That's Entertainment : A-Ha


Well, here we are...2014!!!  After a couple of weeks off for a quick trip to Melbourne for Xmas and NYE and Ashes cricket, I'm back.

One of the highlights of being in the culture capital of Australia (other than catching up with good friends and spank the Poms) was to hit the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) at Federation Square to take in Spectacle : The Music Video Exhibition.  Basically, the history of the video clip.  It was amazing just to sit and watch some all time classic vids and listen to some great tracks by a multitude of artists.

However, for me, the highlight had to be A-Ha with their 1985 #1 smash Take On Me.  I will go to my grave believing that both the song and video to Take On Me is the best (if John Peel could have moist eyed devotion to The Undertones' Teenage Kicks, then this is mine).  

And it's hard to believe it was THIRTY years ago (well, at the end of 1984) that the song first came out.  I was 9 in 1985 and this song/video just wowed every single person who saw/heard it and it truly is my fave song of the Eighties.  It still retains a freshness today that Channel 10's So You Think You Can Dance (Australia) has been using the riff for its ads all summer.  In fact, there doesn't ever seem to have been a time when I did not posses and listen to this song in some form.  

Norway's most successful act, A-Ha spent the best part of 25 years creating melodramatic, sumptuous synth pop that won them fans all over the world.  Considered a one hit wonder act in the USA, most of the rest of the world rightfully reveres them as masters of their craft.  Their first three albums - Hunting High And Low [1985] (one of the 1001 albums you should listen to before you die), Scoundrel Days [1986] and Stay On These Roads [1988] are classics.  Littered with pop gems, A-Ha took the easy, breezy lyrical charm of ABBA and meshed it with a touch of melancholia and adroit synthesised pop music to deliver a string of wonderful hits.  A-Ha were so popular in Britain, that they were hired to co-wrote and record the 1987 James Bond theme The Living Daylights.  Once the 'boy band' gloss wore off, A-Ha grew in to maturer pop writers with the next couple of albums - East of the Sun, West of the Moon [1990] and Memorial Beach [1993].  After a hiatus which began in 1994, A-Ha reunited in 1998 for a Nobel Peace Prize Concert and with the dawn of the internet, their stocks rose once more.  Delivering Minor Earth Major Sky [2000], Lifelines [2002] and Analogue [2005], A-Ha found a new lease of life, being able to successfully reconcile their poppier golden days with contemporary adult-orientated pop/rock.  Utilising internet multimedia and with an army of devoted fans, A-Ha became media darlings again, especially in the UK where we missed out on tickets to their triumphant 2002 Wembley Show.  After a number of best ofs, A-Ha released the amazing Foot of the Mountain [2009] and after the tour announced that 2010 would be their swan song, and after 25 years they would be calling it a day.  For weeks I tried to justify and coerce taking Lee and Alex to Oslo for A-Ha's last ever concert, but alas finances and timing would not allow it.   

However, actually sharing the Take On Me video clip with Alex and Zach at ACMI and being able to lovingly look at the animation stills (on the wall; background) and to stand with an original prop from my beloved film clip was amazing in itself.  

For anyone who wants to spend $20, JB Hi Fi sell their first 5 albums in a boxset  [  http://www.jbhifionline.com.au/music/pop-rock/original-album-series/651972  ]  or you can buy the remastered, super dooper 2 disc version of Hunting High And Low and Scoundrel Days.  

So there you have it.  I can't begin to reconcile where (almost) thirty years have gone, but in my musical collection, A-Ha is going no where.

Enjoy!



The Sun Always Shines On TV http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3ir9HC9vYg










For those who get to Melbourne before the end of February ...





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