Sunday, 10 November 2013



That's Entertainment : Aus-Music Month - The Eighties 


I thought I would try something different this month.

November is Aus-Music month, and quite often, I don't think due respect is given to our local industry.

So for the next four weeks, I'll break it down to the 80's, 90's, 00's and now.

Shall we begin with the 1980's?

The 80's will always be the decade of my youth.  I have fond memories, even though people say it was a stunted decade that time should forget - from the fashions, the films, the music...blah blah.  I happen to love the decade.  Call it rose-tinted glassed, I say whatever!

In the era where the A-Team, Knightrider, V, Magnum PI, ALF and Punky Brewster were all TV staples, cheesy American sitcoms were de rigeur and Esme Watson was snopping, Pat the Rat was shocking and Neighbours and Home and Away had their 'early' years, I was living a charmed life of sunnyboys, whizz fizz, Scanlens bubblegum and Star Wars action figures.

And as a kid, the top of the pops stuff was the music I mostly heard.  

It's only later, as I grow older, when I speak to teens and twentysomethings of the 80's do I realise how good the era was.  Pubs all had bands, fighting for your ears.  No pokies, $5 entry and entertaining bands sweating it out with the punters on every corner.  

I've also started digging deeper - thanks to people like Con and Rob, amongst others - to find little one off pop nuggets that when heard, are pure gold...just forgotten.  I'm forever trawling Ebay and YouTube for bands.  In fact, I only recently bought the best of Nick Cave and The Triffids to digest their works and 'discovered' Matt Finnish (and by way of that band, their singer-guitarist Matt Moffitt) who crafted some mighty fine tunes.

And in Australia, we've been spoilt for choice.  There was pub-rock, straight pop and the moody alternatives.  There's the obvious clones and trend setters.  Bands like Midnight Oil struck out with a political message, copping flak but winning respect, long before it became trendy to do so.  Some of our bands blazed a trail overseas for today's pop/rock groups.  Others had that moment of burn and fade, or a couple of sustained hits or 7 inch singles scrapping in to the Top 100 or Top 50, and their video got a couple of whirls on the music video shows of the time.

By no means is this an exhaustive list.

But I think you will agree the BIG bands of the era sustain themselves, and are nice to listen to every once in a while.  Nostalgia or not, there's some HUGE hits amongst them.  Others like The Church should have had multiple hits around the globe.  The Severed Heads pioneered electronica as did Icehouse in its own way, being one of the first bands to embrace the Fairlight synthesiser.   INXS swaggered around the world, Guns N Roses covered Rose Tattoo and Nick Cave was a goth troubadour.  Each, in their own way, brought us something exciting, something to sing along to, something to cherish.

In this digital age, you can cherry pick the best.  And most bands have excellent best of sets.  Delve a little deeper...there are so many gems.  

As for me, I'm always listening, always learning, always liking.  At the moment it's a live cut of Fade Away recorded by Matt Finish in 1981.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLE7Y2yJ7Vs  To think I've only just found this song makes me sad to think they aren't all over the radio still today.  That said, Triple M's hottest 500 of all time had them rank quite high, so maybe there's fans out there still.

Next week, the 1990's.  What's not to like about Ratcat, Savage Garden, the Screaming Jets and You Am I. 


INXS : Shine Like It Does: The Anthology (1979-1997)  OR The Very Best (2 Disc)
(includes: Need You Tonight, Original Sin, Kiss The Dirt, New Sensation, Devil Inside, Don't Change, Need You Tonight, Mediate, Never Tear Us Apart, Mystify, Kick)
Essential: Kick


The Divinyls : Greatest Hits
(Includes: Science Fiction, Pleasure and Pain, I Touch Myself, Back to the Wall)


Midnight Oil : Essential Oils (2 CD) 
(Includes: Beds Are Burning, Put Down That Weapon, Dreamworld, Kosciusko, Short Memory, Power and the Passion)



Icehouse : White Heat 30 Hits  
(includes: Electric Blue, Crazy, Man of Colours,  We Can Get Together, Great Southern Land, Don't Believe Anymore, Touch The Fire, )
Essential - Man of Colours



The Angels: Wasted Sleepless Nights - The Definitive Greatest Hits
(includes: Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again?, Take A Long Line, Marseilles, No Secrets, Let The Night Roll On, Dogs Are Talking)




Hunters & Collectors: Natural Selection
(includes: Talking To A Stranger, Throw Your Arms Around Me, When The River Runs Dry, Holy Grail)




Hoodoo Gurus: Ampology
(includes: What's My Scene, I Want You Back, Like Wow - Wipeout!, Come Anytime)




Australian Crawl: More Wharf: Greatest Hits
(includes: The Boys Light Up, Beautiful People, Errol, Reckless, Downhearted, Oh No Not You Again)




Mental As Anything: Best Of
(hits include: The Nips Are Getting Bigger, If You Leave Me Can I Come Too?, Live It Up, Too Many Times)



Men At Work: Business As Usual
(includes: Who Can It Be Now?, Down Under, Down By The Sea, Helpless Automation)



Paul Kelly : Songs From The South Greatest Hits Volumes 1 & 2
(includes: From St Kilda To King's Cross, Dumb Things, To Her Door, From Little Things Big Things Grow)




The Church : Deep In The Shallows - The Classic Singles Collection
(includes: Under The Milky Way, Unguarded Moment, Reptile, Metropolis)




Boom Crash Opera: The Best Things
(includes: Onion Skin, Great Wall, Get Out Of The House, The Best Thing, Bettadaze, In The Morning, Gimme)
Essential : These Here Are Crazy Times



Mi-Sex : The Essential 
(includes: Computer Games, But You Don't Care, Space Race, Falling In And Out, Missing Person, Shanghaied!)  
Essential : Graffiti Crimes




The Sunnyboys:  This Is Real (Singles / Live / Rare )
(includes: Alone With You, This Is Real, You Need A Friend)


The Radiators :  Radiology
(includes: Coming Home, Gimme Head, No Tragedy )




Rose Tattoo : The Essential 
(includes: Bad Boy For Love, We Can't Be Beaten, Rock n Roll Outlaw)  



Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds : The Best of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
(includes: Where The Wild Roses Grow, Stranger Than Kindness, The Mercy Seat, Into My Arms, Red Right Hand, Do You Love Me?)


Severed Heads : ComMerz
(includes: Dead Eyes Open, Petrol, Bless This House, Harold & Cindy Hospital)



The Go-Betweens : Quiet Heart - The Best of the Go-Betweens
(includes: Cattle & Cane, Streets of Your Town, Love Goes On, Bachelor Kisses)



1927: The Very Best Of
(includes: That's When I Think Of You, You'll Never Know, If I Could, Tell Me A Story, Don't Forget Me, The Other Side)


Pseudo Echo : The Essential
(includes: Funky Town, Listening, A Beat For You, Stranger In Me, Love An Adventure)





Crate digging 'honourable mention' [so go check 'em out] : 
Real Life, Spy Vs Spy, Matt Finish, The Triffids, Deckchairs Overboard, The Reels, The Models, Wa Wa Nee.

FYI : Sony Essential Series is a fairly good start for some bands.  Fairly comprehensive, occasionally a 'hit' or two might be left off for a random album track or b-side.  But overall, the 'hits' are contained within.  

Posted by at No comments:

Sunday, 30 June 2013


That's Entertainment : Pseudo Echo


Back in the day, much like now, Australian bands liked to ape what was happening overseas.

For instance, in the late 80's when hairbands like Poison dominated the charts, Australia had Roxus.  Then in the early 90's the world was gifted Nirvana and grunge, so we got Nirvana In Pyjamas, ahem, silverchair.  When Nu-Metal hit in the late 90's/early 2000's, there was Limp Bizkit, so we had 28 Days.   And so on.  It's no shameful thing that influential bands at their peak influence bands who like to mimic the sound, image, etc.

Anyway, in the early 1980's, when Futurist New Romance was at it's peak with bands like Duran Duran, Simple Minds and Ultravox, a little Aussie band sprung up copying the sound and image of these dandy pop stars.  Now, depending on who you listen to, they were either one of the worst Aussie bands ever or one of the best Aussie bands ever.  If the prevailing scene of pub rock is to be believed, this sinful, wicked band full of poofs and ponces that had no cred.  On the other hand, they were equally adored and had mass chart success, no doubt helped by numerous appearances on Countdown.

The band I refer to, is Pseudo Echo.

Now Pseudo Echo are a funny band.  Their first album was as I said, very Ultravox / Duran Duran with keytars, awash with synth squelches and electronic African/Asian drums.  By the time they released their second album, they'd moved in to the mid-80s prevailing pop sound and my 1989, they'd gone sort of hair-band pop-rock.  When they returned in 2000, Pseudo Echo had arrived at the future they had seen some 20 years earlier, but with edgier synth and technological leanings of cool electro.

That aside, they did record one of the biggest selling and best covers of all time in Funky Town.

For mine, A Beat For You is one of the greatest New Romantic tunes, and often finds it's way on to mix tapes of the era.      

I'm pretty sure the girls loved Pseudo Echo.  If they were around today, think Reece Mastin.   Pseudo Echo played their own instruments, wrote their own songs, performed live (though not on Countdown).  But like a Reece Mastin, Pseudo Echo were probably burdened by the teen girl image, bad posing, and even when they tried to move away from the poncey side of things in their early days, there was a lingering doubt that they were just a fad band.  Which is not fair for Pseudo Echo.  Reece is burdened by the fact he was a reality TV show winner.

And dredging through all the singles and video clips, I am quite surprised by just how many hit singles (Top 40) Pseudo Echo had.  And today, they're pretty much ignored in the pop history landscape.  (Another parallel to TV show winners, where is Lee Harding, Cosima or Paulini now?  Hell, where is Atilyan Childs?).  Pseudo Echo slip in to a period where Aussie men were still men, but there were Aussie blokes who were blokes who liked girls and therefore went to many of the gigs with their girlfriends and won't admit in public they ever tapped a toe to Pseudo Echo, let alone sang along, bought a 7" single or watched Countdown or Sweet & Sour.

And I think we can safely say Pseudo Echo fall in to that sad Aussie music trap of a massive first album, a decent follow up and the forgotten third album that came out just before the record company sat them down and gave them a chat about finding a job at Franklins...a la 1927 and Thirsty Merc.

So at the end of the day, I will freely admit to not minding Pseudo Echo.  And when it all boils down, at least Funky Town kicks some major ar$3.  

And now, while I pull some electric boogaloo moves in the privacy of my lounge room, I'm going to whack on some Pseudo Echo, and go ape with the kids.  Just hope DOCS don't come a knocking!

Listening


A Beat For You


Stranger In Me


Dancing Until Midnight


Don't Go


Love An Adventure


Living In A Dream


Try


Funky Town


Fooled Again


Take On The World


Over Tomorrow


Eye Of The Storm


Don't You Forget


2000

Lessons In Love # 1


2012

Suddenly Silently


Fighting The Tide

Posted by at No comments:

That's Entertainment : John, Paul, George and Ringo


Friction is what keeps things interesting...  

I live in a split home.  You see, when Lee and my fathers were growing up, it was either The Beatles or The Rolling Stones.  Lee grew up in a Rolling Stones home; I grew up in a Beatles home.  

Put on the Beatles Red or Blue best ofs, and I'm pretty sure I could sing most of them.  From the mop top I Wanna Hold Your Hand to the psychedllia of Sgt Pepper's...to the dsyfunctional disintegration of  Abbey Road.   They are a blue print of my musical life.  Alice Cooper says that modern bands forget to listen to the Beatles - for mine, respect to the DNA of pop music must be paid to the Beatles.  Anyway...we're not here to talk about The Beatles as a band. 

So aside from the Beatles / Stones divide, and not that I knew it at the time, there was an even greater divide: a McCartney home, or a Lennon home.

My home, was smack bang in the Lennon camp.  Don't know why.  It's not something I've ever asked.  Maybe I will sit my dad down on Sunday and ask him why he preferred Lennon.  It's not like we didn't listen to the Beatles...it's just he didn't have any McCartney tapes.  

I grew up with a cassette tape of his Lennon's greatest hits.  And there were quite a few of them.  Genuine, bona fide classics.

So here are my fave John Lennon solo tracks, each a breath of fresh air every time I listen.

Imagine  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLgYAHHkPFs   [ close to, if not, the greatest song of all time to many ]

Just Like Starting Over  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWWbu_RSh7Q



Nobody Loves You When You're Down And Out  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G82q8Yds0hA


Oh Yoko  





But then I rebelled, because in the 1980's, Paul McCartney was still alive, he was still a massive pop act and he had heaps of songs, which now are considered way naff.  I worked my way backwards too to his time as a solo artist and in his highly successful band Wings.  It's sad today because I think more people think of Paul McCartney being a pot head vegan whose 2nd wife went batty and unfairly say that John is the better artist because he died.   People in the music press like to get all misty eyed and revisionist, forgetting Paul McCartney was a massive, MASSIVE act in the 1980's and still in to the 1990's and probably still today in the markets outside of the US and UK.

Personally, I don't buy in to it.  Press is a silly pop song with silly lyrics but is a sugar hit I need from time to time, as is the unabashed cheesiness of No More Lonely Nights.  

So now, with so many people listening in, here's my fave Paul McCartney songs:


Band on the Run  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7D65IomNYY   [ quite possibly one of the greatest songs of all time ]


Silly Little Love Songs  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_9QooYDYtU




Say Say Say [with Michael Jackson]  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLEhh_XpJ-0






But you know what...there's a third house down the street.  

And in 1987/88, a man by the name of George Harrison released a solo album that was mucho mega big.  I didn't know until then he was also a Beatle.  These days, the revisionist set say he's better than both Paul and John.  Maybe.  I won't buy in to it.  I'm ignorant to much of his work, and I'm working on listening to more of his gear but I have read a lot about him and he seems like the wickedly dry, humourous kind of bloke I could have a laugh with.  





Shanghai Surprise [with Vicki Brown (George Harrison produced this Madonna and Sean Penn film of the same name ] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPU2eQ4AT4A



Handle Me With Care (with Travelling Wilburys)  [originally to be a B-side; the record company refused to throw it away as a B-side and the rest is history ]   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8s9dmuAKvU

And of course there is what some might disparagingly call 'the outhouse'... Ringo Starr.  I love him.  I think he is cool.  Most people think he's a crap drummer.  I just think he is cool.  And a good drummer.  He has a distinctive playing and singing sound, and he influenced the way drums are set up and played, including his grip.  Ringo Starr is not to be flippantly disregarded.  And he's released some pretty cool little pop tracks too.  So I'll go all revisionist and say that Ringo is actually the best solo Beatle of them all.  Choke on that NME and MOJO.  LOL.







It's All Down To Goodnight Vienna  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcv7_QCJzkw

 
Posted by at No comments:

Plug It In:  The Occupants


If you haven't already, check out THE OCCUPANTS (features former members of COG).

Am really liking their track I'VE BEEN THINKING.  Has a hint of Genesis to it.

Album out soon.! 


Posted by at No comments:

Plug It In:  Cold Mailman


If you haven't already, check out COLD MAILMAN.

Am really liking their track MY RECURRING DREAM.

Album HEAVY HEARTS out NOW! 



Official Website : http://www.coldmailman.com/

Posted by at No comments:

Plug It In:  Group Love


If you haven't already, check out GROUP LOVE.

Am really liking their track WAYS TO GO.

Album out Sept 2013.



Posted by at No comments:

That's Entertainment : Tears For Fears


1985 was a fairly significant year for me.  I got my first Sony Walkman and it liberated me from my parents stereo hi fi in the lounge room.  No more would I be told to 'turn it down' or 'turn it off' or 'don't rewind that again!'.  I could sit in my bedroom playing Donkey Kong Jr on a Game & Watch, practicing dumb magic tricks, surrounded by Rocky IV and Rambo II posters and listen to whatever I damn well pleased.  I was also blessed as a nine year old to be living a privileged life in a country that had $1 cassette tapes and a complete and utter disregard to piracy laws.  Yep, my youthful years were very unlike today's wasted youth who hole themselves up in their bedrooms playing Nintendo DX and listening to illegally downloaded MP3's on their Ipod.  

One band that were massive in 1985 were Tears For Fears.  They had TWO #1s in the US of A with Shout and Everybody Wants To Rule The World.  Come on...you have to know Shout.

Shout...Shout...write it all out...

Wait...write it all out???  Their 'shouting', so why would they write it all out?  Anyway...until the mid-2000's, I thought that was the lyric.  Seriously.  Don't ask me why.  Just another in a long line of Lady Mondegrem's that have littered my musical life.

Anyway, the album they came from was their 2nd LP, called Songs From The Big Chair.  You should buy it off I-tunes, or, rifle through LP bins at the market and buy it for a dollar.  From start to finish, it is a big, BIG album full of themes and fantastic pop music.  It's serious without being pretentious and something you should listen to at least once.  The other single that should have been a #1 hit is Head Over Heels.  It was used to great effect in the film Donnie Darko.  The movie also borrowed Mad World, which was covered, softened and in the race for the UK Xmas #1 single in 2002.   Not only that, check out The Big Chair, an instrumental-eqsue piece and the chugging urgency of Broken with it's obligatory 80's guitar sound.    

Back to the beginning, The Hurting, and you'll find their original synth pop debut littered with gems aplenty, the two best being Mad World and Change, as well as Pale Shelter.  Lead by dual vocalists and multi-instrumentalists Kurt Smith and Roland Orzabel, Tears For Fears wrote smart pop.  And they were very much marching to their own beat.  When pestered by Bob Geldof to perform at 1985's Live Aid (aka The Global Jukebox) and they politely declined, much to his chagrin.  They did, however, re-release Everybody Wants To Run The World as a charity single, on their own terms, making a motza for charity.  

However, by the time touring The Big Chair wound up, Roland Orzabel wanted to release an epic album and spent the next 3-4 years perfecting Beatlesque sounds and psychedelic ideals to pop, raising concerns Roland had gone mad.  The album The Seeds of Love delivered Sowing The Seeds of Love, an epic the vein of Bohemian Rhapsody, Stairway To Heaven and November Rain for sheer pop eccentricity.  Yet lead in song Woman In Chains has to be one of the grandest pro-women / anti-domestic violence songs ever produced.  Their is a degree of pompousness to this album, but the production is exquisite.  It is totally at odds with the prevailing trends and stands out like a sore thumb amongst your New Kids on the Block and Martika hits.

The album, having taken so long to produce, it debuted directly at #1 on the UK chart and was a huge hit around the world.  Key men Orzabel and Smith fell out in 1991 and so by the time 1993's Elemental arrived, Tears For Fears was basically a solo project for Roland Orzabel.  But since I think he's the ants pants, the better vocalist and a wonderful wordsmith, it didn't matter to me.  Elemental continued with the poptastic sounds of previous albums and contained the minor hit Break It Down Again, yet another smashing tune with a riveting beat and striking vocal delivery.  Alternately, check out the acoustic version - pure bliss.  By 1996, 99% of 80's bands had disappeared (except U2) and Raoul and the Kings of Spain caused barely a ripple.  However, this album is sumptuous, rich, divine.  It's full of hopes and regrets, of broken dreams and fractured heart and swirling tunes and driving thumps.  It's an album of contrasts.  Sorry is a slap in the face; I Choose You a sweet confection. 

Things went quiet then.  Roland was happy to be his own person.  He doesn't have email, a website, myspace, twitter, facebook.  He doesn't believe in any of the cult of personality around pop stars, or former pop stars.  Doesn't want to live in the past.  Then in 2004 word came out that Kurt Smith and Roland had buried the hatchet and settled their differences.  With the oh so ironic title Everybody Loves A Happy Ending, Tears For Fears took every great element of their back catalogue and fused it in to something fresh, new, exciting and rewarding.  Noting it was a sort of 'thank you' to the fans, an album of redemption and rediscovery, Everybody Loves A Happy Ending was criminally over-looked in Australia and a minor hit in Europe and the US where it was labelled an 80's comeback.  For me, Call Me Mellow is one of the GREATEST songs of the Noughties and should be compulsorily downloaded to every single I-pod in the world.  It's harmony and sugary pop is just brilliant.   I'm gushing and it's just one of the songs I can sing word for word and puts a smile on my face.

Even though I missed them on the Spandau Ballet reunion tour, they still perform on and off.  Fact checking on Wikipedia tonight, apparently Orzabel and Smith are back writing for a new album.  This news alone excites me no end.  

So now, to escape the hurly-burly, I can hide in my bedroom with my I-pod on, playing Angry Birds or reading a book, and smile to my heart's content as the same band that I discovered almost 30 years ago can so thoroughly entertain me still today.  Tears For Fears back catalogue is like a box of magic...do yourself a favour and check it out.





Mad World

Pale Shelter

The Way You Are

Change

Shout

Everybody Wants To Rule The World

Head Over Heels

Sowing The Seeds Of Love

Woman In Chains

Break It Down Again


Raoul and the Kings of Spain

Sorry

Call Me Mellow
Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)