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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Thursday, 19 December 2013


That's Entertainment : Hall & Oates 1980-1985


So here we are: it's almost Xmas, 2013 is nearly up and Festivus is here.  For those of you who partake in the Christmas traditions, I shall wish you the merriest of merries.  For those who don't or chose not to celebrate, carry on ;-)  Me? The Festivus stick is up and the Ashes have been won 3-zip thus far...so I'm a happy chappy.  Another year is over and 2014 is the year I get published, or at least get a bloody book deal!!!

Now, to the important stuff. 
In the early to mid-1980's, when MTV was new and pop was dominated by lashings of synth pop, New Wave leanings and hyper colours, one duo rode high on the back of a quarter of highly successful LPs.  That duo was Hall & Oates.

Now you can say all you want about them being naff, and ever so Eighties...but come on...check out the tash!

Or better still, chuck on this whirlpool of their greatest hits...not a dud there.

After starting in the early 1970's and writing successful songs for other acts as well, Hall & Oates hit the zeitgeist with their Voices (1980), Private Eyes (1981), H2O (1982) and Big Bad Boom (1984) LPs.  Releasing a string of hits that blazed to the tops of the charts around the world, so a five year period, Hall & Oates owned video and radio spots for their infectious, R&B flecked, synth pop.  Their success began when they included more electronic sounds and urban beats as well as being adopted by MTV as a video staple.  In fact by the time Big Bad Boom was being released, they were using the Synclavier II - one of the first computerised synth set-ups).  They had their singles remixed by cutting edge DJs for their 12 inch mixes for the clubs, and even today, Hall & Oates are still radio giants AND sampled and covered in large numbers by newer acts.  They even did a stint on American Idol.  

But for mine, it's the cheesy, sugary Kiss On My List that wins me.  The vocal is exquisite and is a fab little ditty to belt out in the shower.  

All these songs are essential on your Ipod.  Hall & Oates are a little time capsule of that early-mid 80's period of my youth, a guilty pleasure and someone in the genre I reckon had the magic to make wonderful pop music.  

Anyway, I hope you enjoy.  No matter how crap things are, a little bit of Hall & Oates is the tonic.

And that folks, winds up 2013.  I'm going to have a couple of weeks off from the column, but if you feel so inclined, check out the blog and read up on some of the ones you may have missed here :  http://giveitaspin76.blogspot.com.au/

Thanks for reading, and once again, if you want to opt out of this email, please let me know.  If not, I'll pester you forever.



You Make My Dreams      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sz2W3QfXnHc


I Can't Go For That (No Can Do)     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccenFp_3kq8










Mighty Boosh use of I Can't Go For That






And a Queen vs Hall & Oates mash-up - classic!

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Thursday, 12 December 2013


That's Entertainment : One Hit Wonders 1991-2001


This week, leading in to the Xmas parties and late nights trying to catch a late night taxi, I've compiled a list of artists who only ever once troubled the compilers of the ARIA Chart [actually - upon a further inspection, ONE artist listed here actually hit #40 with their 2nd single...so really, I should have cut them, but hey.].  DOUBLE POINTS IF YOU CAN GUESS WHO.

Imagine.  You slog you guts out for probably years.  You refine your sound, practice your chops and most of the time, out of nowhere, you suddenly get gifted a song that hits the pointy end of a lot of countries' Top 50s.  For those fifteen minutes, you're on all the music programs, you do all the interviews, you take all the photos for Smash Hits and the like.  

So that magic moment passes you by, your left to rue missed opportunities or the like.  And then suddenly, you never repeat that success.  You're naff, you're forgotten...except by drunken screechers like me warbling at a party or bleating on and on and on about how unfair it was that you're a sad one hit wonder.

But fear not, for clods like us love nothing better than to sip a few lemonades and go to Xmas parties where DJs trot out songs from this list.  Most of them are party anthems.  I had to cut it down, so I arbitrarily chose 1991-2001.  There are soooooo many more songs that could be included but there isn't time or space.

I've chucked in a few other little one hit wonders - not your classic 'novelty' type songs that the Brits seem to love and cherish and send hurtling to the #1 spot on their charts.  Like Stiltskin - a band that had their song used for a Levi's ad in the mid-1990's before the singer went on to a short lived stint as vocalist for Genesis when Phil Collins moved on.  And Linda Perry (singer of 4 Non Blondes) actually is a hit factory for Pink [Let's Get The Party Started], Gwen Stefani [What You Waiting For?] and Christina Aguilera [Candyman].   And did you know that Shannon Hoon [singer from Blind Melon] provided backing vocals for Guns N Roses on their song Don't Cry from their Use Your Illusion sets?  And the Electric Hippies?  Well they were 2 of the other blokes from Noiseworks.  And did you also know, there's a song on here that I use to annoy the crap out of my wife?  Yep...the very simple chorus repeated over and over drives her insane.

Anyway, all these singles are either annoyingly catchy ear candy or great little pop hits from almost 20 years ago.

And I'm sure you'll be out there during this Xmas Party season, commandeering the Karaoke microphones and ensuring that all these fine artists score their 2 and 1/2 cents per spin and have that 15 minutes of fame stretch out for another three and half minutes.

Oh, by the way, did you guess the band with the 2nd minor hit?  It was the Crash Test Dummies who hit #40 with their follow up single Afternoons and Coffeespoons.



Londonbeat : I've Been Thinking About You   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGw3w_njQ4g

EMF : Unbelievable  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waacof2saZw

KWS : Please Don't Go  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3w1TzLR2tYc

Blind Melon : No Rain   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmVn6b7DdpA

4 Non Blondes : What's Up?   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NXnxTNIWkc

Crash Test Dummies : Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIbcqgXh5-4

Stiltskin : Inside   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuTVKO0RScI

Francis Dunnery : American Life In The Summer Time   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML8fJKUgB7M

Electric Hippies : Greedy People  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAkbxSfcI08

Deep Blue Something : Breakfast At Tiffany's   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ClCpfeIELw

Babylon Zoo : Spaceman   http://vimeo.com/68450506

OMC : How Bizarre  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2cMG33mWVY

White Town : Your Woman http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIQWt3oMids

Los Del Rio : Macarena  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiBYM6g8Tck

Blue Boy : Remember Me    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2Eah_EGiDc

Chumbawamba : Tubthumpin'   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kS-zK1S5Dws

Cornershop : Brimful of Asha    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LBnMRWeV-E

Lou Bega : Mambo No 5  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unlc89KvLt4

Len : Steal My Sunshine   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1fzJ_AYajA

Bomb Funk MCs : Freestyler    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymNFyxvIdaM

Baha Men : Who Let The Dogs Out?   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qkuu0Lwb5EM
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Thursday, 5 December 2013


That's Entertainment : Spin-offs


This week, I'm looking for something breezy to mull over and present to you.

So, I thought I'd take a look at spin off groups - basically, bands that were created when members in a current band were either bored, jaded or needed so creativity on the side OR were created when band members left or were kicked out of their respective bands and started their new one almost right away.  Some times bands die or go on hiatus, and a number of members splinter off in to other groups - for example Blink 182 begat Angels & Airwaves AND +44; Duran Duran splintered in to Arcadia and The Power Station; Oasis dissolved and 4/5 of the band became Beady Eye whilst Noel Gallagher started the High Flying Birds.

The greatest spin off I can think of is the Foo Fighters.  When Kurt Cobain suicided, Dave Grohl was left doodling his demos which ultimately would become the self-titled debut album and a popular legacy that matches Nirvana's (IMO).   Pearl Jam are the ultimate spin off - gaining members from Mother Love Bone (whose singer Andrew Wood died of a heroin overdose - and was a band that took members from Malfunkshun AND Green River and begat some of them to both Mudhoney and Pearl Jam) and Temple of the Dog (a tribute album to Andrew Wood) and these days also contains Soundgarden's in and out drummer.  Keeping up?  Similarly, Joy Division's singer Ian Curtis committed suicide and the remaining members regrouped as New Order (roping in the drummer's girlfriend and future wife) to take on where Joy Division left off but in a more electronic vibe.

Mick Jones was kicked out of The Clash, so eventually ended up fronting various incarnations of Big Audio Dynamite, with B.A.D. II being the biggest in 1991 with Rush and The Globe.   Tina Weymouth (bass) and Chris Frantz (drums) were the in Talking Heads and husband & wife.  They started the Tom Tom Club to groove on the side.    The Sex Pistols imploded and snot nose singer Johnny Rotten / John Lydon created Public Image Ltd.  The Jam and The Smashing Pumpkins would up and the singers' started new bands in the Style Council and Zwan.  Kim Deal who thought she was getting a raw deal in The Pixies started her own band in The Breeders.  Miffed with their own bands, Robert Smith of The Cure and Steve Severin of Siouxsie and the Banshees collaborated for The Glove - a weird, arty, psychedelic concept album.

Of course there's Electronic.  A creation of Bernard Sumner (vocalist and guitarist of New Order) and Johnny Marr who was now bandless after the breakup of The Smiths recorded their debut album together.  The song most remembered is Getting Away With It, which also featured the Pet Shop Boys' Neil Tennant and in turn created a classic.

Then of course there's Queens of the Stone Age (Kyuss AND ), Them Crooked Vultures (Foo Fighters' Dave Grohl, Queens of the Stone Age's Josh Homme and John Paul Jones [formerly of Led Zeppelin], Velvet Revolver [Stone Temple Pilot's singer and members of Guns N Roses] and Audioslave [Soundgarden's singer Chris Cornell and Rage Against The Machine's musos].  1960's trippers Jefferson Airplane finally became 1980's corporate pop Starship, before eventually melding the two in to Jefferson Starship.

Finally, there's the Travelling Wilburys.  The classic spin off AND supergroup which produced two wonderful albums.  George Harrison was riding high in the late 1980's with his Cloud 9 .  He mentioned he wanted to do an album with his mates and when he was called to record a B-side for the single of This Is Love, he and his 'mates' and produced Handle With Care.  Jeff Lynne - one of the mates, producer of Cloud 9 AND the vocalist mastermind of ELO - Electric Light Orchestra and Roy Orbison [legend] had had a meal and decided to do something together and here was their chance.  The decamped to Bob Dylan's home studio to record and Tom Petty got involved by fluke as George had left a guitar at Tom's place, went to fetch it and Tom Petty returned with George.  Anyway, Handle With Care was created.  The record company scoffed, suggesting this was no throwaway B-side...and could they do 9 more songs and release an album.

Sure enough.  It all came together and one of the classiest, greatest supergroup spin off albums of all times hit the airwaves.  Eric Idle wrote the album liner notes.  From there, they all basically worked on each others next records which were all hits.  Sadly, Roy Orbison died and the remaining four released the second album wryly titled by George Harrison Vol 3.  

So there you go.  Sometimes alls well that ends bad.  Go and enjoy!




Travelling Wilburys - Handle With Care  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8s9dmuAKvU

Tom Tom Club - Who Feelin' It  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EIwOXhHnNU

Arcadia - Election Day   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3Yy6c0Tlvk

The Power Station - Some Like It Hot  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgYqIvnPvqQ

Big Audio Dynamite II - The Globe  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPrPNpzLHIk

Foo Fighters - This Is A Call  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imxAeQZjBeI

Pearl Jam - Alive  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qM0zINtulhM

New Order -  Ceremony  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pr6SxJb-Dw

Starship - We Built This City   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_EdzOSSDV0

Public Image Ltd -  Public Image   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cifo77azntk

The Breeders - Cannonball   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxvkI9MTQw4

Style Council - Shout To The Top  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m94ip38UKs

Zwan - Honestly  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLPgz9K4D20

Electronic - Getting Away With It   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46z4K-tV_Io

The Glove - Mr Alphabet Says  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yylfV1SaWSY
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Thursday, 28 November 2013


That's Entertainment : Skyhooks AND John Farnham



 Today was hot.  I heckled a ute driver with a LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT bumper sticker, asking him if I only 'liked it most of the time, could I stay and take overseas holidays every once in a while?'  I cooked snags smothered in tomato sauce; I wiped my mouth on an Australian flag tea-towel.  I've sunk a couple of VB stubbies.  Aus Music month should be over, but I just realised there were 5 columns due in November and well, I exhausted my loot.  There's soooo many acts I forgot too...

So feeling the becalming affects of said VBs, I've thought stuff it.  After watching England thumped by Australia at the Gabba in the Ashes, I'm loud, proud and an emboldened Aussie - whatever that may be.  I loved sticking it to the stiff upper lip types.  I'm proud to be one of the sons of beaches; to be a convict.  Am thinking of getting a Southern Cross tat but I don't like needles.  

Instead, I'll give you TWO for the price of one.  Yep true, blue Aussie icons.

Who? you may ask.

Well.

Here's the first.

He was a teen idol.  His biggest hit was Sadie The Cleaning Lady.  He ended up in Little River Band.  When I was a kid, he was no Johnny come lately...he was simply The Voice.

Yep.  John Farnham.

When I was a kid, no one carried off the mullet and trench coat quite like our John Farnham.  Jeez...just thinking now, from 1986 on, John Farnham owned the ARIA charts.  His 'comeback' album Whispering Jack is still the biggest selling Australian album of all time.  When it came out, I told my mum I wanted this 'new' thing...she laughed.  It was all new to me; she remembered him as a teen idol.  

You're The Voice was the sound of Australia growing up and taking on the world in the 1980's.  It was the song of the Bicentennial year in 1988.  Pressure Down, A Touch of Paradise, Reasons...all massive hits.

In 1988 he released Age of Reason and smashed it all again with Age of Reason and Two Strong Hearts.  In 1990, Chain Reaction carried on the chart domination with Chain Reaction, That's Freedom, and Burn For You.   He continued on in the 1990's, having more 'Farewell' tours than we've all had hot dinners.  Still, naff as some may think him, he has a special place in my heart.  John Farnham always came across as a but of a dopey bloke who had just had extraordinary luck and a decent set of pipes.  But that's part of the charm.  He was one of us.  Just a bloke, who sang songs, but could be your mate, suck down a Tooheys or two and watch the cricket with you and your mates.

You're The Voice  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbkOZTSvrHs

Pressure Down  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Emutat3_IP0

Reasons http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OX6eMwAQ83Q

Two Strong Hearts  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWNb8UeXnZo

Chain Reaction  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDWIVl1Fejk

Burn For You http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDJMgANjLwk



Next up, I give you Skyhooks.

See, when I was a kid, Red Symons was just the bespectacled, suit wearing ba$tard judge on Red Faces on Hey, Hey It's Saturday.  And Shirl was the co-host of the home makeover program Our House on Channel 9 and earlier in the 80's, Shirl's Neighbourhood. 

But late in 1990, they released Jukebox In Siberia.  Being an impressionable 14 year old with absolutely no idea, I loved it.  

Little did I know, and only after I told my mum it was a new band she had no idea about and was laughed at, that Skyhooks is probably on of the quintessential and most influential Aussie rock bands of the 1970's.  Their debut album Living In The 70's was #1 for 16 weeks and contained the hits Living In The 70's, Horror Movie and You Just Like Me Cause I'm Good In Bed.   They touched on drug culture with Carlton and sex - Balwyn Calling and Smut, and the gay scene - Toorak Cowboy.

A 'glam' band because of their flamboyance, colour, make-up and costumes, Skyhooks had six albums off the ten track album banned for radio play.  In defiance, Double-J's first spin when they went to air in 1975 was You Just Like Me Cause I'm Good In Bed.   

The follow up album, Ego Is Not A Dirty Word contained the hits Ego Is Not A Dirty Word and All My Friends Are Getting Married.

Skyhooks released a couple more albums.  They were fan favourites and irritated the establishment.  It's all harmless - now - but at the time, certainly was something right out there...something that would lead to the decay of Australian civilisation as we knew it.   And after years of a fabricated 'war' with the teeny bop pop band Sherbet (the singer was Daryl Braithwaite) to sell magazines and records, they petered out.  So it was in 1990, in time for their greatest hits album did Skyhooks pen and release Jukebox in Siberia.  

Their songs still get heaps of airplay and deservedly so.  They still sound as fresh now as I'm guessing they were in the early/mid 1970's.  There's a certain naughtiness, a certain frisson of excitement when I hear their tracks.  There's that up-yours puerile Australian with a wicked sense of humour laughing at the insanity; the hey guys and gals in this great red land...we count too.  And who else uses Twisties in their lyrics?

I guess, when all is said and done, it's with a degree of sadness I listen to Skyhooks too, as Shirl was the guy I knew on Our House and from Shirl's Neighbourhood kids TV, that distinctive voice and enthusiasm.  He died in a helicopter crash on August 29th 2001.  To see Red Symons, the hard man ba$tard of countless Red Faces panels tear up for his old mate and lead singer, well, it makes me shed a tear too.  

Horror Movie  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7l8rlnMpCI

Living In The 70's  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLUtKKoMetM

You Just Like Me Cause I'm Good In Bed  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfLNjDSfkcY

Ego Is Not A Dirty Word  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UduuxKdPt9Q

Why Don't You All Get  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0lfCcbQPyk

Anyway - what's the irony of all this.  Despite hammering the poms in the cricket...I hold a British passport through my immigrant dad.  John Farnham was 10 when his family shifted from the UK to Australia and Red Symons immigrated to Australia from the UK in 1958 at the age of 9 (on the same boat as the Bee Gees Gibb brothers).  See...Aussies all come from somewhere.  I still don't like the English cricket team though.  Carn Australia...let's win those Ashes.  Now after me...you're the voice try and understand it...  And if you don't like it, why don't you all get...  :-)



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