Roadrunner 3(9) October 1980 by UOW Library

I I

EDfTCm & W iB U S H E R : Donald Robertson ADVERTISING MANAGER: Lyn Saimders (0 8 ) 71 8329

^ p4 —— ^

SYDNEY EO rrO R: Stuart Coupe (0 2 ) 569 8964

By the time you read this, this year’s election will have been decided. At the time I am writing this— the morning of Wednesday the 15th of October— the election is three days ; ^ i n the future. The headline in this morning’s Adelaide Advertiser says, T w o polls give Labor a big lead’. I hope that > 1 Labor maintain that lAorl onrl that v a/Kah V//M a H thic lead and when youI TA read this. R Billi l l ......................... Hayden is Australia’s Prime Minister.

4 :

I remember the night of the 1977 election well. I threw a party at my house. ‘Don’s Party’, I called it jokingly, after the movie about election night in 1969. By nine o’clock the result was beyond doubt. Fraser was to lead the country for T d another three years. I commenced to get very out of it. I n _|. don’t like Malcolm Fraser. I don’t like his arrogance. I don’t like his patronising manner. I don’t like the fact that under ^ his government the rich people in this country have gotten ; ; ; - L J , •r richer and the poor people have gotten poorer. I abhor the , !— ^ J way in which he has cynically broken his ‘election promises’. ^ r~ I don’t like the fact that a lot of my friends are on the dole ± and have to scrimp and scramble to exist on just over $50 a .4 i ■. _ week.

MELBOURNE ED ITO R : Adrian Ryan (0 3 ) 347 3991 ,

-d L-. ■.

PERTH: Kim W illiams LONDON: Keith Shadwick, Chris Willis^ Chris Safevtncz

DESIGN & PRODUCTION: AND Productions (R ichard T u rn er) (0 8 ) 2 2 3 4 2 0 6

-4

-I-

TYPESETTING: Neighborhood Typesetting (C live Dorm an) (0 8 ) 42 3716

PRINTER: Bridge Press, Seventh S t, M urray Briciie, S^A. 5203. Ph. (0 8 5 ) 3 2 1 7 4 4 ^ Recommended reU ^ price cente.

T r -

HEAD OFFICE: 15 Porter St, Parkside BA. 506B Ph. (0 8 ) n 83 2 9

ROADRUNNER 2

The reason I liked the Sex Pistols so much was that they made political music. They were protesting. They felt hard done by and made a bloody noise about it, and before the gutter press and record bizniz stepped in and made punki_f rock a ‘fashion’, there was something very important happening — the youth were having their say.

It’s no coincidence that in Australia today rock music has a political edge. Once again the youth are angry and T frustrated: they feel hard done by, ignored, by the system . that is supposed to be in control. Bands such as Midnight p ” " : ■: : Oil, Redgum, Cold Chisel, No Fixed Address and many others are giving some kind of focus to society’s problems. I’m not trying to say that there is a big political rock m ovem ent happening because of Malcolm Fraser and the . / Liberal Party. But ih e sheer number of youth that seek release In the noise, crush and mayhem of a rock gig [because of the helplessness of their ordinary lives Is a barometer of the problem. Of course, it’s better to have the sort of controlled release that a rock gig provides than / mindless acts of aggression on the streets. 4-

4 ROADRUNNER is registered for p<^dng as a publicaiic^ Category

POSTAL: P.O. Box 9 0 , Eastwood S A S()63.

Unemployment can be a soul-destroying experience. I’ve

had a tastp nf th e dole nueue sn I’m n nt <;neakinc' frnm

•

■Fr+

-h r

■: ■: ■: , 4

DISTRIBUTIO N: Ck)rdon & Qotch (A /A s ia ) for A p ^ a lia and N ew Zealand

.-T 4 -'

The day after that 1977 election I made my first, modest, 4-,-+-J-4 foray into publishing. It was a punk fanzine (remember -T4U , L them?) called Street Fever. It was put together by Stuart f 4 - 4 Coupe (who now writes for the Sydney Sun-Herald and ^ -I f TAGG), myself, Lloyd (now in Adelaide band Spanish' 4 Holiday), David and Andy (who were in the legendary -i pJ Accountants and now are in a band called the Art Vandals), 4 Nick Hope (also in the Accountants and now in Desperate 4 4 h r ' Measures), Chuckie Suicide (who became the Accountants’ -1 -F -t- _ i - 4 - + 4 - '- ’ roadie), Tracy, Alex and Dave Crowe ( I don’t know what any 1-1 4 r r M- 4 of them are doing now). Anyway, we were all heavily into - I L 't ■ punk rock at the time, and it had been stated that the Sex -: j 4 r -■ ■ 4 4 Pistols were going to come to Australia early in 1978, so the 4 ^ 4 ^ ___^ 4 4 . front cover had a picture of grinning Mai with these words - -f 4 L : slashed across his face — ‘Will this man let The Sex Pistols Into Australia?’ r t-

U Y O U T : Kate Monger

-4

-h

CONTRIBUTORS: Law'ry Buttrose, Stan Coulter, Toby Creswell, Goose, Tyrone Flex, Span Hanna, David Langsam, Elly McDonald, Richard M cGregor, Adrian M iller, Peter Nelson, Peter Page, Suzie W alton, Sue Wylie.

-h

NEW 2 E A U N D : ien n y Rankine

•1

d BRISBANE: Eff Sharp

r. a

1 n

4•"T 4 ■4

US SINGLES

another

S S

UK SINGLES

AUST TOP 20 SINGLES UPSIDE DOWN

S o R E tfA N lC A N S A Y Leo Sayer FAME Irene Cara „ ftcuF<« a s h e s TO ASH tb David Bowie BABOOSHKA Kate Bush

10. Martha & the M ullins ,

11.

MOSCOW S S I ? ' A B O U T YOU

II.

13.

Romantics f a l l in in l o v e

10.

Rocky

LO V t

a ll o u t of

■11

14. 15.

16.

12, S S ,13.

t IONAL

| &

RESCUE

17.

“ s60TI»EEARN 18.

Swdtobehumbu

19.

■15.

S?Je « N

NIGHT

20.

lie.

ONE BITES THE OUST

eo o w n

Diana Ross Vi/OMAN IN LOVE Barbra LOOKIN’ FOR LOVE

DON’T STAND SO CLOSE TO ME Police MASTERBUSTER Stevie Wonder D.I.S.C.O. Ottowan MY OLD PIANO Diana Ross BAGGY TROUSERS Madness ONE DAY I’LL FLY AWAY Randy Crawford AMIGO Blake Slate ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST Queen SEARCHING Change CASANOVA Onffoo THREE LITTLE BIRDS Bob Marley I OWE YOU ONE Shalamar YOU’RE LYING Linx KILLER ON THE LOOSE Thin Lizzy IT’S ONLY LOVE/BEYOND THE REEF Elvis Presley I GOT YOU Split Enz FEELS LIKE I’M IN LOVE Kelly Marie LOVE X LOVE George Benson TROUBLE Gillan IF YOU’RE LOOKIN’ FOR A WAY OUT Odyssey

& « E f f E S W A Y

S f^oS -'o^E O V E S l'f f iG H T lT E . m . lN - '

Caddyshack)

l^ S E i* H lN . G H T George Benson

r e a l lo ve

10.

The Doobie Brothers FAME

12 .

S 'sH Y

S t o n 'the^ veming

13. S

14 15.

o te °r" t h e

W 0R L0

BOZ Scaggs JESSE

16.

^S e^ wanoerer

17.

S S w KiTETtOVE LIKE THIS BEFORE

Stephanie Mil's ho t r o d hear ts

19.

Robbie Dupree DREAMIN’ Cliff Richard

20.

.17 S me around S ntal AS Anythmg

18.

US ALBUMS

m o d e r n g ir l

•19. - 20.

the game

S f E A T THE OUTCAST

Queen XANADU Original Soundtrack DIANA Diana Ross URBAN COWBOY Original Soundtrack EMOTIONAL RESCUE Rolling Stones

Skatt Bros.

H O H S 'W *

.AUST

top

20 ALBUMS

ho ld o ut

S ^a r y m o n s t e r s David Bowie BACK (N BLACK A C /D C ^ EAST Cold Chisel

, 3 f

^ , S E R f S ts ' b e g in

WE MAY NOW jy Crawfot*^ "S U o H E R O

fame

Soundtrack

Benson

.10-

f y j ' G N A L RESCUE Bo^ng Stones

12,

m id d l e

’’ ONE

drama

Skids

Yes ALIVE Kenny Loggins FAME . Originsl Soundtrack GLASS HOUSES Billy Joel

20.

18. ^5 fL ittle f''^8 ® ’^"

MAN

°02 Scaggs

17. 18.

17. s™ “

16.

■16

19.

UNMASKED

Kiss

Jl5.

b a c k in b l a c k

CHRISTOPHER CROSS Cristopher Cross

16.

Original Soundtrack^ GIVE ME THE NIGHT George Benson ONE TRICK PONY Paul Simon

•15.

.17

15.

14.

PAR'S

14.

'13.

g lass

B H e S ’ieonnor^^ Ha?® , nW MAGIC otnlLOW M ^« "' B a rtU f^ E N lG H Y GIVE Wt g^son .13 George

stardust

h o n e y s u c k l e rose

12.

11 .

^ il'ie Nelson W ^^P U N E T

ONE STEP CLOSER Doobie B ro th e r

':; '." « & E C IA L S

fO Y S LIGHT UP Australian Crawl GU SS HOUSES Billy Joel

411

10.

' H S l UTELE

g iv e m e t h e n ig h t

10.

panorama

CW RirE’ OFF L t, s ig n in g

XANADU Soundtrack

Jackson Browne GUILTY Barbra Streisand CRIMES OF PASSION Pat Benatar

19.

ho ld o ut

20 .

Jackson Browne me,

MYSELF, I

U.K. Suhs

J M n Armatrading

-19.

l o s t in l o v e

SAD

Supp/y

20.

SWING OF Delig h t

MOSCOW Genghis Khan TWO FACES HAVE I

Darios Santana

4BK

01’ 55 more

THAN I CAN SAY

ifp°sSrDOWN S S S sH K A Kate 8 ^5 " M singing in Monitors

’ 2UW dow n

UPSIDE Diana ROSS S e

T«t

80 s

fame

Irene Cara

eyhan

^“

the

1 CAN SAT

to beh u

TO ble

lear n

SOMETIME ® ® & u ffin s

S o B E A ^ « K ln s

S S ? J

Martha & i"®

m m ^ r ^ r jL .A rn m

10.

IT’S HARD TO BE HUMBLE Mac Davis UPSIDE DOWN Diana Ross ' YOU’LL ALWAYS FIND ME IN THE KITCHEN AT PARTIES Jona Lewie BABOOSHKA Kate Bush EMOTIONAL RESCUE Rolling Stones WHAT I LIKE ABOUT YOU The Romantics THE WINNER TAKES IT ALL ABBA NO DOUBT ABOUT IT Hot Chocolate

ash 8S

David Bowie

g F ^ ,E O U T -O U

do w nhearted

A^ralia'^crawl Radio Stars "6PM 10. 3YY

q OWN U P S 'O ^ S5

CAN SA'f lUTPO^^

a ll

OUT OF

Air SUPP'^

^ ^ '^ ^ B o w ie

k ES

* ,L

the

& ® & T h % ^ '''''"

Martha &

10 .

10.

WHEN YOU’RE LONELY Boys MORE THAN I CAN SAY Lgo Sayar FALLIN’ IN LOVE (Bein’ Friends) Rocky Burnette FAME Irene Cara XANADU Olivia Newton-John UPSIDE DOWN Diana Ross THE WINNER TAKES IT ALL Abba MOSCOW Genghis Khan YOU’LL ALWAYS FIND ME IN THE KITCHEN AT PARTIES Jona Lewie ASHES TO ASHES David Bowie

Olivia

ROADRUNNER 3

the Romantks 9 The Romantics are from Detroit, U.SA, the home of Motown Records (the name Motown comes from Detroit’s nickname, the ‘motor city’), the motor city madman himself, Ted Nugent, the MC5, Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, and, of course, the guiding light behind Sydney’s blitzkreig hoppers, Deniz Tek. Have I forgetten anyone? Oh yeah. Iggy Pop (or Iggy Stooge as he was called then) also hails from the general area. So how come' I ask Wally Palmar, guitarist with the Romantics, you guys sound like you’ve been up in the woods for the last fifteen years? Now, don’t get me wrong readers. I’m not trying to cast aspersions on the fact that the Romantics album sounds like it was recorded in Shepherd’s Bush around 1 96 5.1 like that sound! It’s just I’d like an explanation for this time warp. “Weeell,” answers Wally, who is situated some where on the shores of Lake S t Clair, Michigan, ‘‘you see, when we were all growing up all you could listen to in those days, the mid sixties, was AM radio. All that Detroit radio was playing back then was like Motown and the British bands like the Dave Clark Rve, the Beatles, the Stones, the Who, the •Easybeats (Whoopee! Take a bow George & Harry!). That’s a ll we heard. Like, "Who Listens ToThe Radio’ — that’s us!” What’s this? The guitarist from the Romantics dropping obscure references to recent Australian singes? You better believe i t You see Wally and the rest of the boys (Jimmy Marinos, drums; Rich Cole (bass; and Mike Skill, guitar) are more than aware of the Australian music makers because their firs t and soon to be released second album were both produced by honorary Aussie Peter Solley, who

twiddled the knobs on the Sports’ “ Don’t Throw Stones” , and Jo Jo Zep’s “ Screaming Targets” and “ Hats Off Step Lively” . In facL according to Wally, “ Mr. Jo jJO dropped by the studio where we were recording our album, when he was in New York. He’s a great guy.” The other meeting the band had with down under rockers was perhaps not so enjoyable. Playing with the Angels in Denver on the Angels’ first Stateside sojourn, there was an equipment problem, “ caused by the promoter” , according to drummer Jimmy Marinos. “ We asked if we could use some of the Angels equipment and there was an argum ent But these things happen in rock’ n’ roll.” The Romantics have been playing in various bands around the Detroit area since 1968, according to Wally. So you would have seen the great names of Detroit Heavy Rock? I ask. The MC5, the Amboy Dukes? “ Ohyeah. I would have seen the MC5 about five or six times. Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, all those people.” So when you started out, what sort of stuff were you playing? “ Well, the situation at that time in Detroit, and right through the early seventies was that you ooukJn’t get a gig unless you were playing top forty. So we were all playing in different top forty bands, until we were sick ^ i t We’d seen each other around you know and figured we could get something of our own going” Acoording to drummer Marinos, the band started off doing a lot of Kinks oovers (John Swenson’s review of the band’s debut album in Rolling Stone opened like this, “The Romantics have pulled off the uncanny trick of virtually duplicating the sound of the firs t two Kinks albums.” ) and neatly circumvent ed the problem of getting live work by pooling their resources and cutting an independent single, “ Little White Lies” / “ I Can’t Tell You Anything” . The sir^le, one of the earliest Detroit ‘new wave’ (remember new wave anyone?) singles, landed them a gig supporting Mink de Ville and then a fluke opening spot in front of 80,000 people at Detroit’s Pontiac Radium, supporting Peter Frampton and the J. Geils Band.

But despite those breaks, the band still found it hard p ickir^ up work in their hometown. Sq Marinos again, ..we got out and played any place that would take us, small punk clubs in Boston, Toronto, Philadelphia.” Again luck crossed the Romantics’ path, this time in the shape of one Greg Shaw, editor of America’s top fanzine BOMP, and also the man who has been championing the cause of powerpop throughout the seventies; a lone voice in the wilderness until lately. Shaw saw the band in Toronto, Canada, and of fered to finance a s ir^le on his small but prestigious BOMP label. The single duly came out, ‘T ell It To Carrie” / ‘ ‘First In Line” , and a copy even reached the ROADRUNNER mail box. I remark to Wally P alm erthatl personally prefer that version of “ Tell It To Carrie” to the one that appears on the band’s album He sighs, and lowers his voice. “ EVERYBODY I talk to says that.” I ask if the band considered themselves part of the powerpop movement of that time. “ We definitely considered ourselves part of the new wave. There was a whole wave of new, unsigned bands. They were coming from everywhere, L.A., New YorK Boston. We used to buy each other’s singles, and if ever we were in th e ir tcwn, or they in ours, we’d go along and see each other.” I comment that very few of those bands, w ith the exception of the KnacK have gone on to any kind of major success. “ Yeah,” Palmer agrees, sadness in his voice. "Most of them only released one album. When the album died, they died too. Or if the band didn’t die they’d get kicked off the label fo r not selling enough records. Most of them had pretty bad record deals. And no other company is going to even look at you if you’ve just been kicked off another one.” Why do you think the major record companies in America were so suspicious of that whole wave of bands, the home grown American bands? “ I don’t know,” Palmer sighs. “ Like, the Knack opened all the doors. When the Knack went No. 1, all hell broke loose. All the companies went out looking for new wave bands, and a whole lot of bands got signed really quickly. But none of them got any kind of support from the companies. They signed ’em but

t h ^ didn’t give them any push. All their money went behind, their established artists. They’re stupid.” (Byway of interest Palmer cites the Sports and Jo Jo Zep as two bands who didn’t get the ‘push’ required.) In May 1979, at the peak of record company Knacksteria, the Romantics signed w ith the small New York label Nemperor (who also snapped up Steve Forbert at around the same time). The Romantics went to producer Peter Solley, who had seen them live and was enthusiastic about working with them, with 20 songs. He chose the eleven they’d do. “ I’m not going to say anything bad about Peter SoIIq ?,” says Palmer. “ But he chose songs th a t were in a certain mould. There is another side to the band and I think it’s going to be much nwre evident in this second album, which we’ve just finished recording. There’s a definite growth in the playing and writing. The firs t one was a good s ta rt” American critics have commented that the album lacks the punch of the band’s live performances, and when I ask Wally if the band play loud, he laughs and says, “ Yeah, we like to let the crowd hear the rpusic and FEEL it as w ell!” Wally tells me that the band have been rehearsing seven nights a week to prepare themselves for the Australian tour. Because of the recording of the second album, which will probably be released here hot on the heels of the tour, they haven’t been playing much over the American summer. “ But we’re going to be in tip-top shape before we come over there,” Palmer promises. Like the Motels (also due to tour here later this year) Australia is the one place in the world that has taken the Romantics to its h eart And although we’ve had a horde of new British bands through the pubs dl Australia of late, it’s been a while since an American outfit of comparable standing has been here And one that wears red leather too! All aboard fo r funtimes, eh kids? Wally Fulmer sends a warning. “We’re not gonna put up with any nonsense from the audiences over there. They’re gonna ENJOY themselves.” I love America n s;/they’ re so BRASH. — DONALD ROBERTSON

ROADRUNNER 5

Adelaide;ban Y.M.C.A. « s s o /e ,4 y a p / ^

^ ^ L o e n e B e h o u '

iS IL S fe v e K e b u g h )

^p\c-.Ste''e

BtOC

A tasteful, pleasant, safe little city is Adelaide, an Athens of the South, a centre for tjne Arts, tolerant and con ducive to those with a creative whim, liberal despite the new Government. Everyone knows absolutely everyone here, and surprises don’t come easy. What’s there to react against? Charming, no doubt, but in such a climate adventurous rock bands (stop; most rock bands) generally piss into the wind, or someone else’s pockets, playing to small audiences, irregularly, until their sets become familiar and crowds dwindle away. Or compromise themselves ridi culously to exist in term in ab ly on borrowed time. Almost without exception they ta lk of the big trip East, of record contracts and regular gigging. In the past some have made it — the Angels (a jug band), Cold Chisel, the Aliens and bits of LRB. But th e re ’s nothing much the rest of Australia would know about from the past couple of years (sorry, Redgum). Young Modern's impressive powerpop gained limited exposure before the band split. Terminal Twist produced a brilliant, 4-track EP and could have made an impact nationally if self-destructive im pulses had not set in — such as sacking its singer on the eve of departure East. Which about dries up my list. Bands have blamed lack, and quality, of venues, interstate bands who sneak off with top dollar each \weekend, punters who don’t show, discos, radio stations and promoters. Justifiably. Yet, if the truth be known, few bands were good enough to attract one into a smokey, pokey and pricey pub fo r an even ing. One could see these “ few " too many times. Suddenly things have picked up. Off hand, I could list a dozen bands who stand the test of several

b y Stephen Hunter viewings. All play mostly (or all) original sets, record whenever possible, and receive good airplay on new progressive FM station 5MMM-FM (which is pro bably the key to the whole resurgence). While work remains at a premium for bands and it ’s generally only the traditional inner-city faithful who attend, lately there have been n i^ t s when 300 to 400 person venues are packed with excited people along to see local bands. Mid-week, too. It’s a definitely discernable vibe. And at the fore front is the handful of groups who will be known fo r the purpose of this article as “ the new Adelaide bands". oooooooo

NUVOBLOC Since everybody likes a beginning, let’s pretend this revival took root early this year, when word got around about Nuvo Bloc, a band in its formative stages featuring that sacked Terminal Twist vocalist, Peter Tesla, and other local not ables. A demo recording of Peter’s “Fun Times” — breezily described by one local rock writer as a song “whose distinctive sax and vocals paint delightful swirling color on a canvas the eye never tires of beholding” — gained the band instant notoriety.

5 Australia's greasiest pop band, The Dagoes are one of the longest lived bands in A d ^ id e (as shown by the family tree which came with their single). In the last two and a half years they have gone through some eleven line-up changes, three breakups, and a couple of 2-3 month breaks. Yet despite all this apparent instability there is a strong sense of unity and cohesiveness about the band. Throughout all the changes there has remained the constant nucleus of Tony Rome, Johnny Tomato, Frankie Thomas and (since late 1978) Dick Dago. Together these four have worked to shape a quite unique brand of music: Dagoism; between Tony Rome's songs and Dick Dago's singing (plus the ac complished backing of the rest of the band) they have established a precedent f

ROADRUNNER 6

for music of a particularly high quality. However, this trend has only recently started showing through — for a long time they had a reputation for being very "loose” (as opposed to tight). fb e story of the band goes back to the very end of 1977.Tony Rome and Johnny Tomato were running a record shop called Modern Love Songs (now defunct — there's hasn’t been one as good in Adelaide since) and decided to get a band together. To complete the line-up several other record shop o w n e rs/w o rke rs were dragged in, and Daryl Breakaway and The Niggers was born. The initial sound was the sham bolic one-chord wonder noise which was very much in vogue at the time (unlike some other bands, the Dagoes didn’t have much choice in this — they just were bad). However Daryl Breakaway and The Niggers were so abysmal that they hever got around to doing any gigs. Then along came a new singer, and t h ^ emerged from the cellars to start performing; the result can be heard on the (in)fam ous “ Live At The M arryatville” cassette. The new singer didn’t last long and was replaced in October by one Richard

Put down just a week after the final member joined, the song charted on Triple Em for about three months. It demonstrated that Peter was more willing than ever to experiment w ith his voice as an instru ment as well as a narrator, and that Nik Filips, \who hadn’t been in a real band before, was an advent urous saxophonist, a thinker, an improviser always capable of flavoring a song w ith a bare minimum of notes. Vonnie Rollan, vocals, percussion and synthesiser, Ted Thornberry, vocals and guitar, Michael Liferaft, vocals, drums and synthesiser, and Nigel “ Auto” Function, vocals and bass, completed a group gener ally older, more experienced and wiser than most young bands. Few groups anywhere could boast six individuals of their talent. They function, apparently smoothly, as a collective, w ith no spokesperson, no one out front. Certainly, Peter and Vonnie, who sing more songs and stand th e ir keyboards back-to-back, tend to be focal points. They stand front-m iddle stage and are rather more theatrical, both physically and vocally, but Michael, Nigel and Ted all sing lead too, while Nik dresses and plays colorfully enough to ensure his share of the limelight. The sound? Well, with five singers, six songwriters from musical backgrounds ranging from jazz to punk, and a mass of instrumental resources and ideas on how to use them, things are bound to defy classific ation. Shades of Bowie, Roxy Music and particularly Eno creep in, but so do rhythms of Africa, free-form jazz and the sounds of a circus. Collectively, Nuvo Bloc sees itself as “ experimenting in electronic and rhythmical instrumentation, bending the rules of existing rock formats.” Nik says, for instance, th a t he

can foresee an all-percussion song, with all members contributing (the rhythm machine too, presumably). Snce drawing 480 to its firs t gig, Nuvo Bloc has maintained a big following here. Next im portant step comes this month with the release of a firs t single, “ Atomic Fiction” , written by Vonnie and highlighting her finely-stretched modern voice supported by pur posefully unclustered musical backing. At firs t listening it suggests over-reliance on subtleties, but after that gains stature until thumbs point most definitely upwards. Two live tracks on the B-side recpjired almost no studio polishing, indicating Nuvo Bloc’s technical efficiency in performance. Plans are for another single, followed by an Eastern states tour, possibly an album, then a permanent move East when the time seems right. oooooooo

SYSTEMS GO “ 1 never think of where we are,” says Arnode Luca (aka the mysterious Arnold Strahls) of Systems Go. “These ideas of going to Sydney and Melbourne seem stupid. 1 can write good songs here.” While Nuvo Bloc could be the firs t “ new” Adelaide band to impress the national (and perhaps British) scene. Systems Go may prove no more than a brief, but d e lghtful, Adelaide experience. Unless, of course, some cannily creative person with clout eventuates from the kingdom of dreamlike sugardaddies to foster and finance quality alternative

Harry Butler finds Dagoes

Dago, a vocalist w ith talents unsurpassed by anyone else in Adelaide. Two weeks later they recorded another live tape “ An Evening W ith The Dagoes” , which followed in the wake of “ L.A.M.” by going straight to the top of the alternative charts and staying there. Early in 1979 they recorded an album “ Kings Of Continental Swing” , which has never been released due to its poor quality, and shortly after the band split for two months. They r e fo r m ^ in May w ith a new bass player, two back-up singers and a new name — The Tony Rome Band. Over the next few months a b it of shuffling occurred amongst the various guitarists in the band, before finally settling down in October w ith the line-up which later recorded th e single ( “ We Sell Soul” / “ Blackie” / “ Let’s Liquidate” — on Greasy Pop Records). Around this time a fanzine called DNA appeared (and has been going strong ever since) which was devoted to the band. This more than made up fo r the lack of coverage the band had received in the more normal forms of the media. W ith a solid line-up at last the band was able to work solidly on their songs, and just p rior to th e ir final split in December they were really starting to get their “ act”

together — but it d idn’t last. Subsequent to the breakup the various members went th e ir own ways and tried to get new bands together, w ith little success (apart from Dick who joined a band called the Namedroppers, which became quite highly ac claimed in Adelaide). ^ They got back together again in February for one night to record the single — an evening fraught with nervous breakdowns, etc. However the overall feeling generated then was so good that it became patently obvious to the band that they had to reform. So it came to pass th a t shortly a fte r a reformation occurred, and the Dagoes came back together with the line-up of: Dick Dago (vocals), T ory Rome (guitar), Frankie Thomas (guitar), Lou Ouji (bass), Johnny Tomato (keyboards), T urk Nancarrow (dr«MRs and Lilly F^intless (back-up vocals). One change has occurred since then w ith Lou Ouji being replaced by Willy Carrioli. The Dagoes are one of the few bands in Adelaide playing what is basically an American style of rock’n’roll: most other modern rock bands play various English styles. The band has p ro g re s s ^ a long way from the M arryatville days, and now plays a smooth but dynamic brand of music. The band has

^ S a v .B k .

recordings. Because I firm ly believe that here lies one group the public really needs knowing about. ()ne w ith songs and the means of expression which could turn out a great album, one day soon. After only a handful of gigs and recording sessions, Systems Go already has a repertoire of positively manic-offbeat yet consistently pleasing originals. Songs like “ Blue Nudes", “ P ^ fe c t Day” , “ Mother Got D ro w n ed ", “ System s G o ", A n tic ip a tio n ", “ Banana Moon” and “ Red Light” can evoke images and feelings as carnal as they are romantic, as sini ster as they are blatant, as cute as they are lofty. Sleeze through misty streets at dawn, these can.. roll on love sofas, sip cool drinks under palm trees, or yell ‘ahh’’ right into rhythm. Htebazile Backwards,, vibraphone, drums, organ, trash and vocals, Ava Guess, guitar, bass, drums, organ, trash and vocals, Chad Rissole, drums, bass, guitar, organ, trash and vocals, and Loene Behold, bass, percussion and “ rare” organ join Arno, on guitar and vocals, in the silly-names game. Their strange on-stage behavior is accentuated by regular charging of instruments and roles between mem bers. “We all have been looking collectively at diff erent ways of playing things,” says Chad. “ Taking basically rock’n’roll songs, for instance, pulling them apart and reassembling in completely different forms.” VtAiich might, to take a more specific example, come out as two basses, two voices and bells, all sounding excellent. According to the respective writers, Arno’s lyrics are “ about relationships” (a bit modest, don’t you think, Arno?), Chad's are so banal it doesn’t really m a tte r.. .‘you make me sick’, Htebazile’s “ en courage kleptomaniacs to shoplift;” and Ava’s are “ about wanting something to d o ...n e ve r about

IS ,B A N K

relationships.” Always fun, occasionally bleak, usually cryptic, and rarely obvious, except when appealing to other senses such as in the beautiful “ ^ 1ticipation” . Stylistically it’s evasive. Even individ-: ual members will argue whether one song is jazz, ballad, rock’n ’roll or disco. “ If you can’t include in your songs things like going to the shop to buy three crates of milk, or fixing your car, you’re lost,” explains Arno. But don’t think you will learn to fix a flat in one of Arno’s songs. The ecstatically received Systems Go is an event in creative rock history, although whether that be only in the texts of the lucky Adelaide few o r .. well, such questions so often get negative answers. Where dat clever sugardaddy?

THE LOUNGE In an amusingly incestuous Adelaide rock community, the Lounge was a curiously unknown quantity when it took the stage to support Nuvo Bloc at Triple Em’s Thursday gig at the inner-city Tivoli Hotel several months ago. Response was immediate and unrestrained — the crowd up and stomping, insisting on encores which the band had no spare songs to fill. It repeated its “instant standards” like “ Lost in Deep Space” to convert the dance floor into a hellish

place for the timid. Their songs were diff erent, clever, but above all, fun. “ Telephone book is a very large book / With a very large c a s t/B u t not much p lo t” , announces one of their songs. Michael Ladd explains in his diary of the band th a t; “ Our lyrics reveal a banal, bizarre world. The lounge suite is the background against yi/hich move romantics, automatic carpet cleaners, intrud ers, TV heroes and the dying We can make the mundane interesting, and maybe make it desperately interesting.” Without instruments to hinder them, dual vocalists Michael Ladd and Mark Senior work hard and imaginatively on first class material, both creating a different look and providing significant vocal depth. Classically trained violinist, Sarah Baldacchino, soars and swoops in and out of the songs, bouncing them along a merry tightrope, immensely enjoying the freedom rock gives for imT)rovisation. Jamie West, guitar and th ird singer, Mark Roberts, percussion, and Lachlan Colquhoun, bass, play deceptively simply, a calculated base for the Lounge’s “ livingroom sound” . More than anyone, it’s the quietly intent Jamie who directs things musically. As well as being ideas-man, he’s a stylish, distinctive guitarist. In just a few months together, with gigs limited to avoid overkill, the Lounge has advanced in leaps and bounds to a point where it now takes an audience by the throat within the first few bars, shaking it glee fully round and round towards a breathless end. A couple of weeks ago. Systems Go and the Lounge shared the Tiv on a Thursday. Now I’ve seen that place crowded w ith bands like the Angels and Jo Jo Zep, but this night they had to shut the doors extra early, leaving the disappointed to queue outside in the hope of getting in when someone left. Inside, it

was one of the best night’s music I’ve experienced in years, and that includes concerts fron overseas acts.

00000000

DESPERATE MEASURES Almost as exciting live is a band still a little new to say much about at this stage — Desperate Measures. Six members (including a saxophonist), five of whom sing, again supply tremendous variation from within. The band has been influenced by modern British music, like that of the Cure, and occasionally resorts to straight ska (one member’s speciality). It’s slightly more derivative than the previous three bands, but not overpoweringly so. There’s a definite Desperate Measures sound together w ith stunning songs like “ Stark White” that would have all the import record buffs and NME readers going wild if down on English vinyl. In performance, there’s a fresh zest that, when word gets around, should generate as much of a vibe around this band’s gigs as happens with the Lounge.

All this and more has lifted Adelaide rock out of the doldrums this year. Things have happened very quickly and even at this moment somewhere in town another group is climbing out from under the floor boards. Keep an ear to progressive radio and hope they will make your local pub before too long. One or two just might.

under rock picked up a whole new following recently, mainly on the strength of the single. For those who haven’t yet seen them, listen closely to the single — it gives a fairlyaccuratepictutfe of what they are like musically. The three songs on it are examples of particular styles of Dagoism: out-and-out pop songs ( “ Let’s Liquidate” ), rockier pop pieces ( “ Blackie” ) and long majestic, melodic pieces ( “ We Sell Soul” ). Throughout it all there has always been a strong element of humour in the Dagoes’ material, from the inverted self-abuse of “ This F*erfect Band” (first played back in the days when they had a reputation for being the sloppiest band in town) to the 20 minute version of “ Knocking On Heaven’s Door” which they sometimes play (this one always brings all the old hippies out of the crowd). In years gone by nearly all the originals were w ritten by Tony Rome, but lately other band members have put their hands to composing. Frankie Thomas in particular has assembled some excellent songs, w ith “ Kid’s Got Style” destined to become a classic. Some of the songs do leave a bit to be desired lyrically, but if you don’t like the words you can always get off on the music. So ignore all the slaggings that have appeared in Ram, and go see them when you get the chance.

THE DAGOES (I to r ) : Tony Rome, Lily Pointless, Dick Dago, Frankie Thomas, Johnny Tomato

(pic: Steve Keough) R Q A pf^U ,N N E «S .5L‘

FREUD RETURNS A NEW MAN Up until half way through this year the youthful, debonair James Freud was just another hardw orking left-over from Melbourne’s 1977 “ punk explosion”, chasing a dream of fame through the unreceptive pub venues of Melbourne with his ever changing band, the Radio Stars. That was until that unlikliest of rock’n’roll creatures, a fairy god-brother in the shape of Gary Numan appeared, and w ith all the startling sudden ness of a Kiss firebomb offered James his services as producer-cum-mentor and even a support spot on the Made-Up One’s epic 1980 world tour. And. so off flew James to England and into the studios with Numan where they began work on an album that was to feature the inimitable Numan style syn-clone sound applied to a clutch of Freud compos itions. All is seemingly going w e ll: James and his band played a well received gig at the Marquee, Numan signs on the Radio Stars’ synth player for his own band and tour preparations are underway when Freud's record company announces that James is coming home before the Numan-produced album is even completed. So what happened, James? Did a massive dogfight erupt over the console, or was the prospect of spending a couple of months listening to your er stwhile patron’s robotoid rhythms night after night on tour just too overpowering? “ Therewas nothing really personal involved,” says

Freud. “ It was just that the recording wasn’t turning out as I hoped it would. I really admire Gary’s ap proach but I think what he was doing to my music was just too cold and clinical. . . " In fact, vet7 little seems to have been salvaged from the sessions. "There’s about three tracks which I think will be used on the next album, including one which I and the keyboard player did by ourselves one night. The whole experience was very valuable, though." Meanwhile, some consolation for the loss of the Numan tour support role (which was fairly tenuous in any case, given th a t Freud as yet has no overseas record deal) is provided by the rapid ascent of “ Modern G irl” , Freud’s new single, up the national charts. “ Modern G irl” s success has been well deserved: it's probably the sharpest and most irresistable Australian pop single of the year. It’s also the most cohesive track on Freud’s debut album "Breaking Silence” , which is otherwise laden down with an almost unlistenable surfeit of the kind of turgid synth-rock that presumably attracted Gary Numan to Freud when the latter supported him on his Australian tour earlier this year. Freud will be releasing a follow-up single shortly, which may or may not be “ Automatic Crazy", a track he recorded with Numan in Australia. In the meantimeheand his band will be back on the road in Australia, th istim e trading under the name of James Freud and Berlin. — ADRIAN RYAN

By Kim Williams Let’s meet the Teeny Weenies! On vocals we have Jill Yates (a.k.a. Jay Jay Fate, we must pretend), on guitar there’s Lindsay, on bass we have none other than C h risto p h er Anderson, on keyboards Peter Simpson, and on drums a big round of applause for Bobby Pin (really!?!) Like many bands of today, the Teeny Weenies serve as a paradox. They can appear pretentious and contrived and yet can be down to earth and natural. They are capable of causing frustration just as they can be thoroughly exhil arating. Like so many bands of today, the Teeny Weenies are unique. The singularity of the band has been established through the vivid vocal presence of Jill Yates, and the new characteristic lurching rock steady beat, described bythe singer as "medium pop pace". The speed of the songs may appeal as a drop slot tem perate ack-ack which is perfect to dance to, or on the other hand may seem like a listless elephant’s drag step. Either way, the absence of variance in musical velocity makes me afraid that people will tire of them before their time. Yet the Teeny Weenies are a confident bunch. The band, who have only been together for a compar atively short time, have all given up their day jobs and headed from home town Perth to the hint of fame and fortune in Sydney. While it is questionable whether the band have even realised their full potential in their own piece of Australia, the move has been inspired by the possibility of wider acclaim and a recording contract in a big city. The Teeny Weenies have courageously resisted the complacent certainty of playing to the same Perth audiences at the same venues fo r another six to twelve months. The band’s first big step will at least provide its members with a thinking ground on which to base further manoeuvres.

"All I want is to be an artist in some form or another." — Jill Yates. ROADRUNNER 8

On stage, the Teeny Weenies pump out a mix of words and music, both modern and decadent. Guitarist Lindsay has welcomed the archetypal Hendrix (Strat through 1(X) w att Marshall amp) sound to his art. This provides sharp contrast with the deep demand of Jill Yates’ vocals, the functional rhythm section, and the fashionable organ presence. The Teeny Weenies consist of fashion designers and hairdressers and it shows on stage But the music that they play contradicts th e ir appearance. It approaches the unfashionable because it neither revives ska or heavy metal, nor ressurects the melodies of the sixties. Rather, the band’s preoccupation with rhythms recalls Mike Rudd’s Spectrum circa “ Milesago” . The rhythmic structural basis is given a generous sprinkling of sixties-eighties kitsch, causing an oc casional sneeze in the lyric department. And strangely, blending the fresh and the forgotten generally works for the Teeny Weenies, especially in such fine songs as “ Astro Man” , “ Sno W hite” , “ Child Of The Nineties” , and “ Quokka Go Go” . As with comparable trash art rock act. The B52s, many songs of the Teeny Weenies are exceptionally good without the context of a set, but heard one after another, the tunes suffer through similarity. Peter Simpson and Lindsay w rite most of the band's songs and seem content to deal thematically with “ girls and spacial relations” (thanks J ill!) In making mention of the Teeny Weenies, Jill Yates’ stage presence cannot be overstated. She is petite and spices live performances with melodram atic facial expressions and exaggerated gestures of mild self-mockery. Her apparel is never less than eccentric and entertainment embraces her like a lost second cousin. Jillhasexplicit appeal but she doesn't agree, saying “ People would get bored if they came to look at me.” As a dance band, the Teeny Weenies fulfil the function of feet, and while that is what accounts for the popularity of hotel oriented bands in this country, the band have the potential to rise above mere dance music and become a fully-fledged ocular spectacle and aural treat. For now, time keeps that secret. So theTeeny Weenies are up for eastside adoption. They are a strange mutation that should be a protected species.

Sm'-

In the lounge of the Kensington Hilton Grace Jones sprawls supinely in a wicker airmchair and with , her fingers digs under the leaves of lettuce in her salad bowl searching for any rem aining shrimps. Her olive shirt and black, red-edged pants are beautifully cut though utterly unostentatious. Her subdued presence is far removed from the wild, brooding siren suggested by the surly magnif icence she offers in photographs of her self.© Only her thick clump of hair, distanced from the rest of her highcheekboned, almond-eyed face by a razored back and sides and sitting on top of her five foot eijght inch wiry frame like a black pillbox hat, draws to her the attention of the other dixupants of the lounge. Grace Jones has a dark brown, unpretentious voice that dances naturally between uptown Manhattan intonations and inflexions that come from the Jamaica this preacher’s daughter left for the States when she was thirteen. The sound of her speech reflects the smiles that dash about her face, again contrary to her man-eating photographic image. “ Listen, I’m two people. Otherwise,’’ she giggles, ‘T d beinsane! I’m insane enough when I go onstage: if I was like that all the time I’d be completely nuts. When I go onstage it’s a definite act. It’s very intense and very real for th a t moment, and I really feel it. But it’s something that I psyche myself up fo r . .. I hope you’re not disappointed,’’ she chuckles again, more throatily this time. “ I just like," she continues,’'to get my blood circulation going and get a bit warmed up. I mean, everyone gets a bit perverted in some ways, but you can’t be pervertedall the time. I like topjay at things. “ But my basic personality stays the same.” It seems likely, though, that Grace Jones’ low profile this afternoon is directly linked to her not having got to bed until seven this morning. She’s in England from her home in mid-town Manhattan on a five-day visit to promote on Kenny Everett’s TV show and Top Of The Pops the hit that has become her near-Disco Rap ra id itio n of Chrissie Hynde’s ‘Private Life’. Following a taping of the BBC programme, Grace, along w ith Ultravox who’d also been on the show, had hotfooted it down fo r an evening’s posing at Heaven, the gay disco behind Charing Cross railway station. She’s mischievously miffed that she got so out of it that she lost the others and missed the intended trip back to Midge

Lire’s place to wind up the nigh watching porno graphic rrwvies. - ^ ^ Of course, w ith her new album, ‘Warm Leatherette’, Grace Jones The Image has become Jones The Voice. The LP includes the Hyhde song and Ro)y Music’s ‘Love Is The Drug’, w hilst the title track comes fro n rth e B-side of a ’78 single by The Normal, TVOD’. Also, the 45 of ‘Private Life’ is backed by a stunning version of Joy Division’s ‘She’s Lost Control’ : “ Actape of th a t song came into the studio at the last moment, and we cut it really just to wind up the session.’’ It is not just the material, though, that separates this very definitely Post-Disco record from the three previous Grace Jones Island LPs th a t commenced in 1977 with ‘Portfolio’. Dispensing with producer Tom Moulton and the uptown Manhattan session musicians with whom she works, Grace instead cut ‘Warm Leatherette’ at Island boss'Chris Blackwell’s Compass Pointstudio in Nassau. Whilst Blackwell co produced the album with Alex Sadkin, whose credits range from K.C. and The Sunshine Band to Bob Marley, Grace was backed by the cream of Kingston’s session musicians — drummer Sly Dunbar, bassist Robbie Shakespeare, guitarist Mao Chung, per cussionist Sticky Thompson. r» “ I’m one for change,’’ comments Grace on this significant shift in musical style. “ I can feel it coming and I just let it happen naturally. The tim ing was rig h t.a n d it all communicated and connected. I definitely wanted to search and experiment for a sound that was specifically Grace Jones rather than that of any producer. Of course. Disco did always tend to emphasise the producer and not the a rtist.” One wonders, though, to how great an extent the change in sound is due to Grace, and how much to her production team. From what she says, it is ap parent that the idea of which songs to cut obviously came more from Chris Blackwell than from the singer herself. Also, she knows Sly and Robbie have “a very good reputation” but is surprised to hear how vital a role they occupy in JAmusic. Moving in 1974 from New York to Paris Grace established herself as one of Europe’s top fashion models. Notwithstanding the fact that she frequently appeared on covers of Vogue magazine, Grace still came up against that innate snobbery that is so uniquely Parisian: ‘‘The French are pretty racist, and what’s worse is th a t.th e y’re not open about it — they’re really sneaky. And it’s bizarre because they also really get into exotic-looking black women.” How different did she find the world of music and that of modelling? “The music world” , as occurs at frequent intervals throughout our talk Grace’s conversation is broken by a machine-gunlike burst of schoolgirlism giggles, “ is a lot more confusing. There’s a lot more responsibility — every record is like having a baby. But they’re both quite similar in that luck plays a large part in both.

“ Modelling is bitchy, but th a t’s okay because I can beyery bitchy, too. And I can understand bitchiness. And the music world is bitchy as well, also. .But I try to concentrate more on what I’m doing than on the political games th a t’re happening. I can’t totally pretend that those numbers don’t exist because I have to work within it, and I like to maintain control in everything I do — though they constantly try and take that away. “ And they do that in iriodelling, too. Although I found it was much freer in Europe: in the States they totally brainwash you and those big modelling agencies are just the same as big record companies. Which is how 1 learnt I must never ever go w ith a big record company. “ If you’re with one of those agencies in New York you can’t even cut your hair w ithout permission. In fact,” she considers, sipping from her glass of white wine and Perrier, " if you can come in w ith control in the firs t place, there’s far more artistic freedom in the music business. It just depends upon yourself. “ In European modelling,” she continues, "they were a lot more into individual personalities than into making everyone Icwk like they were out of the same mould. In America you definitely have to have this certain look, and they go for girls who all literally look alike. It’s so fickle the way they dictate those looks. And” , she sighs histrionically, " it ’s so killing for the ^ 0. “ I think I was the only black girl working, though. I always thought there was room for rather more than just one, actually.” Grace Jones’ initial foray into music-making came about when her fashion model existence simply mutated into her f i r ^ musical fling. She’s a soul fan, who now speaks of James Brown as always having been “ the ultimate disco a rtis t” , and the twin brother with whom Grace shared a New York apartment was a club DJ: “ He really understood DJing as an art form. We always had the best records and the best system of anyone around.” “ Basically,” she giggles again, “ I got started in music because someone saw a chance of making some money. It was while I was still living in Paris. These people knew I was already successful modelling and there’s this assumption that all black Americans have great voices. ‘So, c’mon Grace, let’s go cut a record’ !” For her demos, Grace recorded John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ and The Three Degrees’ ‘D irty Old Man’ — “ One slow one and one fast one” . She was sent to singng lessons: "I was very undisciplined about that, and they threatened to tear up my contract. But I thought it was ridiculous people trying to teach me hew to breathe. I learnt how to breathe when I was bom!” Grace Jones ended up on Island Recads after that company had distributed the music she made fo r a small New York independent connected with the people from Paris who’d sent her into the studio: ^‘l

really had nothing to do w ith the signing w ith Island. I didn’t even know which record companies were around— I just came from a totally different world.” Despite her naturally having gravitated to Heaven when she went on the town w ith Ultravox, Grace claims the extent of her involvement with the gay scene has been considerably over-emphasised. It was not gays, she insists, who were the firs t to pick up on her. Her initial audience, she says, sprang out of the self-consciously elite New York world of artists, fashion designers and w riters that make up the Soho art scene. “ I was an a rt groupie,” she laughs, “fo r a long time. All my boyfriends were artists. I found that scene very.^interesting, although it was probably more superficial than I realised at the tim e. A lot of those people get off on being unhappy — they find that struggling a rtist image very romantic, which is a bit screwed up, really. “ I was totally involved in that scene — very at tracted to it. Maybe it ’s the mother in me — there’s a lot of heterosexual cissies in it: the sort of guys who aren’t uptight around gays but whose sexual preference is female. “ I think, in fact, that a large part of my attraction for gay guys is that I do serve as some M rt of mother figure to them. But basically,” she splutters yet again with laughter, “ If you do a song like ‘I Need A M an'... Well, I had no idea it w a sg o ir^ to be looked upon as a gay national anthem. And th a t’s how they saw it. It went to number one on the disco charts within about three weeks. Which is because most of the discos started as gay underground discos. That was the beginning of the scene that eventually they ended up making Saturday Night Fever about. But it wasn’t all that at all: the real, rootsy scene in New York was started in gay private clubs with great music and the best, most fabulous DJs. Though w hat’s happened to it now is very typical of the way of life in New York — that’s capitalism: it just destroys th in g s/’ She concedes that much of the current New York o b li^ tio n to feel sexually confused is mere roleplaying: “ This is just the tim e when it’s hip to be gay — even though the current gay look is really very macho, very muscley. “ I must say, though, that gay people tend to be a lot more sensitive and have a lot more style. I always used to think that outside of Britain the style that went with the music business was really horrible — especially in America. • “The people from this country, though, really do combine music w ith style, and without being frivolous about it either.” Grace Jones empties her wine-glass with o n e . swallow and springs to her feet. She has an ap pointment in half an hour’s time to have shaved off the stubble th a t’s beginning to appear on the sides and back of her head. — CHRIS SALEWICZ

ROADRUNNER 9

V .*

Redgum are unique. Playing their own brand of predominantly acoustic music (is it rock? Is it folk?) Is it even folk rock??), they have risen from humble beginnings at F linders U niversity, Adelaide (whose halls of learning also spawned one Bernard ‘Doc’ Neeson of the Angels), to cut a swathe through the normally conservative rock industry and are now among the top ten drawing live bands In the land and have just signed a distribution and promotion deal with Epic, a label owned by the C.B.S. Records group. The improbabilities in reaching such a situation are enormous. To start with, all the band members have day jobs (John Schuman, guitar, is a schoolteacher; Verity Truman, flute, a public servant; Chris Timms, fiddle, works for an a lte rn a tiv e th e a tre com pany; and Michael Atkinson, g u ita r /m a n d o lin , works at Adelaide’s Festival Theatre) and all live in Adelaide. Yet, despite this, they recently did a two-week national tour which covered every state of Australia except the Northern Territory (yes, they even went to W .A and Tasmania, the two ‘forgotten’ states), and even more remarkably considering the cost of flying eight people (the band, a bass player and drummer plus two roadcrew) and their equipment around the country, they still managed to make a profit on the whole thing. This without the benefit of AM radio airplay, TV rock show appearances or record company support. Truly, a strange phenomenon is Redgum. Redgum are a political band. And therein is another improbability. Rock and politics are uneasy bedfellows, particularly rock and le ft wing politics, which from two seconds’ thought you should be able to deduce is a direction that Redgum’s lean. Someone one said that rock was the last bastion of

ROADRUNNER 10

laissez-faire capitalism (which, loosely translated, show and its fabulously inept compere. “ Just means anything goes as long as it makes a buck). another star struck band w ith our pants down" is the Rock music is a multi-m illion dollar industry con key lin e It’s a hilarious, and typically Australian, trolled by multi-national corporations, whose basic hatchet job. In Redgum’s hands, humour can be a reason fo r existence (the same as any business) it to deadly weapon, and they seldom miss the mark. make th a t buck. But rock music can be ( it frequently Redgum’s firs t album, If You Don’t Fight You Lose isn't) nrare than a consumer commodity. It can, as was released by the small Sydney based ‘folk’ label Michael Atkinson puts it, ‘plant a seed in people’s Larrikin early last year. It’s subsequent success minds’ : it can be a catalyst for change surprised everyone, band and label included. Most rock music concerns itself w ith interpersonal Larrikin’s inability to cope w ith the magnitude of the relationships, predominantly of the male-female demand understandably caused a degree of dissatis variety. Music th a t concerns itself w ith the injustices faction on the part of Redgum ( “ People would come of societies, the oppression of workers, fr e ^ o m of up to us at gigs and tell us they’d heard a tape of a speech, has, particularly in this country, usually been tape of a tape that someone had brought back from of the fo lk /a c o u s tic kind. The folk music of Australia, Melbourne,” Schuman tells me, “ but they couldn’t and any country for th a t matter, can be seen as a sort get hold of the album fo r love o r money.’’ ) and also, of musical alternative history book, recalling the even more understandly, attracted the interest of struggles of its people against colonialism, exploit the major record companies. ation and injustice. Those things are w ith us as much “ We’d been hunting for a better arrangement for today as they ever were, and it is bands such as about six months before going w ith Epic," says Redgum who are continuing and developing the Michael Atkinson. “ And it’s an unfortunate fact that reaction, in music and song, against them. none of the Australian independent labels have the Redgum w rite and perform songs about living in resources or the capital to match the multi-national Australia today. I cannot think of a (w hite) band who record companies.” are more unwaveringly Australian in direction. Their “ I think it’s fair to say that we didn’t arrive at the increasing popularity is a sign th a t they are getting agreement (w ith Epic) lightly,” Schuman points out. their message across — that people do want to hear “We were extremely conscious of what it means to songs that relate to declining economic conditions, have dealir^s w ith a multi-national company." uranium ming, the treatm ent of Aborigines, and the “ Our main concern was distribution," Atkinson history of this country. John Schuman relates a story adds. ‘W e believe what we are doing to be important, about the tim e the band played a t the Royal Antler, so it ’s important to us th a t as many people as Narabeen, on Sydney’s northern beaches. possible have the chance to hear what we are ‘T h a t’s Midnight Oil territory. And some people saying." had come to see us, while others were ju st there The deal w ith Epic is actually a tape-lease arrangebecause it was th e ir pub. And there were these four ^m ent whereby Redgum deliver master tapes and or five guys, ail about 18 or 19, who came backstage cover artwork to C.BS. who make the record and between sets and said (lowers his voice), ‘That’sjour covers and get them into the shops. Although Epic lives you’re singing about’ ; and they came back to will be marketingand promoting the album, the band our late gig a t the Governor’s Pleasure and just retain the right of veto on any promotion that they started following us around. They ended up helping don’t agree with. “ You won’t see our photo in the us to unload our gear from our truck. Things like that centre pages of T.V. Week and we certainly won’t be are really heartening" doing Countdown,” says Schuman. “The fact that we get up and sing about what It’s a very unusual deal fo ra major record company people do,” adds Michael Atkinson, ‘‘means that we to agree t q but C.B.S. Managirg Director, Paul articulate a lot of illdefined anger and frustration. A Russell, was prepared to go to almost any le n ^ h s to lot of our targets are very easy ones, like Fraser. I sign the band. “ He was the only person we talked to don’t know how much of the other stuff is being who seemed to have any understanding of what the picked up by the audience. When we go on the road band was and what it was trying to do,” says and play next year we’re really goir® to have to try Schuman. “ The firs t tim e became to see us, he’d just and get the audiences in tune with everything we’re got clf a plane from America, and came straight down saying." to the gig. He was that enthusiastic.” Not all of Redgum’s repertoire takes a hard The second Redgum album (the firs t on Epic) is political line. One of the band’s most popular songs is called Virgin Grourxi and is due fo r release on Countdown, which to the tune of Dragon’s April Sun November 1st. It was recorded a t Richmond In Cuba mercilessly ridicules Australia’s top pop Recorders in Melbourne, which meant that the band,

after putting in their w c ^ in j Adelaide to Melbourne oft Fri help offset the cost in v o l^ d , i then catch the last plane ba( may look 55,” observes&:hui I’m only 27." The album contains tw k r a be familiar to anyone who ha: the last six months. Virf^n Gr based on the attempts b^Jane a ‘New Australia’ in Paragua introducing the song o n \ ^ g the reason the project failed teetotaller, while mostc^t;he | scheme, people from ‘thfrshe down the mines’, were drinkir Lane encountered Henry Lav before the ship was due,to se to join them. “ Not m e,/ an alcohol-induced slur. “ I’hr go Nuclear Cop, perhaps ’t he r LP is pretty o b v io u s ^ an Schuman’s The Money^v N< unemployed. Verity T r u ^ n ’s attacks those who th r^ g h c have lived in ease on theJabo Periodicity sharply poin j^b u t for a woman. It Doesn’t l^ r t t e i all right. Jack’ m id d le -d a ^ o Maria and Stewie are alf i^ov That leaves The Long Run, a s a sea of woes. i >** It’s a strong h a r d - h i^ ^ a lyrical thrust of If You Obh’t I produced and better execu drawn by George Aldridg% is album. It shows a man w ft^ hi an outback setting with'.^whe base in the background;

From January n e ^ y be a full-time oper^fibn of the group. A l t h ^ h concept of ‘full-timi^ rs is usually meant by th rock biz. r^“We won't be c i ^ t i say Jo Jo Zep or th Atkinson. “I find t t ^ n o totally artificial s i& t ic

I we^V would fly from day nights, do a gig to "ecord all weekend and :k on Sunday night. “ I TTariiJ^ly, "b u t in fact

cks, ;BSbst of which will 5 seen the band live in ouncf^the title tracK is WiUi^im Lane to found y in ; ^ e 1890s. When e, J q l^ Schuman says was lh a t Lane was a Deopleattrached to the ids a ^ the docks and ig p ^ l & It’s said that vson the dock just til anc^nvited the poet swenra Lawson in an ing i o stay and fight." o ckfi^l number on the I a n tf^ra n iu m song; ) is about the Dorhination Quickstep x jt Australia’s history urs p o th e rs , while her w h ^ 3 drag a period is 'T o li^ a tta c k s th e T m omp^itency while Ted, «n g :^rso n al portraits. ongM'ibptimism amidst Ibum.vlt continues the

■ight3 . but it’s better ted. The cover, again als6r:^Tnilar to the firs t s in his hands, in It Iboks like a military

'e^,yRedgum will foi:: the members oncd again their perfiaps not what lat .phrase in the f-

■

3n[t^ touring like le g ^ g e ls ,” says ti§h:horrific. It’s a >ny^

The band also intend to base themselves in Adelaide. While most Adelaide bands dream of greener pastures of the Eastern States and the seventh heaven of overseas, John Schuman is perfectly happy liv ir^ where he is. “ Our friends are here We all live here,’’ he says. "Look at Terminal Twist. They went to Sydney. Got chewed up and spat out. Same w ith Young Modern. Sydney’s so cutthroat. It’s also to do with the quality of life in Adelaide. It’s clean, quiet, small — you can get a comfortable house, a b it of a backyard, a b it of a frontyard, a b it of a tree (laughs). Wherever you are you’re only 15 minutes from the city, ten minutes from the beach, fifteen minutes from the bush. I mean who wants to spend precious hours of your life stuck on Sydney Harbour Bridge in a traffic jam dying for a piss!” “We’ve got our feet on the ground here,” offers Michael Atkinson. “ We’ve got tim e to sit down and read the papers, meet people outside of rock’n’roll and find out what’s going on. Then what we’re w riting about has some degree of relevance.” “ I want to walk down the same street every morning to get the m ilk ” says the domestic John Schuman. “ I want to sleep in my bed at night.” “ Even though we’re going to be relying on Redgum to support us next year,” Atkinson again, “ we don’t want to make our whole lives rock’n’roll. It’s very important that at no stage we end up living in each others’ pockets or that we reach the stage where we have to go on doing it. We’d end up hating each other. We need to live our separate lives, get in volved in other projects. Just to keep it sane and in proportion.” And as for overseas? Schuman is not exactly straining at the leash. “ Paul Russell (C.B.S.) said he thought the band would do well iix Canada and Germany. We’ve already had t a ^ s played on German radio and obviously Canada is fairly similar to Australia in that it was a British colony and is now heavily Americanised. If the album did well there, yeah. But I don’t see Redgum joining the international jetset! One place I would like to go is New Zealand. I reckon that the issues that Redgum sing about would be right up front there.” I ask the two if they ever feel as if they are operating in a vacuum. Schuman replies, “ Yes, in a sense, but things are beginnirg to change. Because we, I don’t like using the word success, but because we’ve made p rc^ess, other people have started to look a t the way that we do things. It’s actually very exciting to be a voice in the wilderness." Atkinson; “ Very few people have managed to desaibe anything that is a uniquely Australian ex

perience in an intelligent fashion, in music. Patrick White has done it in literature and the visual arts people have done it — but not in musical terms. All we are doing is taking elements of things we’re living and thrcwing them in people’s faces.” What sort of effect, what sort of changes, can an entertainment unit like Redgum hope to have on people then? “ All we can hope to do,” answers Atkinson, “ is to plant the germ in people’s minds which might grew if theirexperiencestallyw ithw hatw e’re saying. I don’t think that anyone in the entertainment fie ld .. “Can get people out in the street erecting barricades,” butts in Schuman. “ We are working in loose co n ju n ction w ith o th e r g ro u p s and organisations and individuals who are also dissatis fied about certain things in this country.” For example? “ Well, the nuclear issue is extremely importanL” replies Atkinson. “ It’s a real focus fo r dissent. Arid that will probably flower into other things.” Do you think that, as has happened in the U.K., that bands here will lend th e ir drawing power to political causes, like Rock Against Racism, the Anti-Nuclear Movement? “ It could happen. Even politically naive bands are starting to do anti-nuclear songs. It’s becoming a style." Radical chic? “ Yes, it is.” “We still play benefits,” says Schuman. “ And we’re keen to do them — provided that they’re going to be effective and we can identify with the cause. You can imagine with a band like Redgum we get every Tom, Dick and Harry ringing us up, saying ‘Can you do a benefit to liberate gay dogs from massage parlours’ and you know that if you do it, it’s going to be a howling disaster. Whereas if someone like M AU.M. (Movement Against Uranium M in ir^ ) asks us to play at a rally or benefit, we know that it’s going to be done properly." Atkinson: “ If we did every benefit we were offered we’d be playing three times a week. It’s important to play to peole who are like-minded — the feeling of solidarity at a well staged benefit is just fabulous and really heartening for everyone. But you are preaching to the converted. Redgum will have more constructive effect in the wasteland.” Schuman: “ Places like the Western Suburbs of Sydney, Largs and Semaphore here in Adelaide.” Obviously you now have to deal w ith the rock in dustry on a fairly constant basis. What’s your at titude to it? “ It’s a game. A great game,” Schuman laughs. “Actually we should probably mention Chris Gunn,

our manager here. He plays it very well. He has had va rious deal i ngs wi th the i ndustry through wor ki ng at the A.B.C. here in Adelaide. He loves nothing better than sitting in an office with a phone in each ear and all this money flying around. He loves it. I mean you play properly, with grim determination but when the deal’s done you ju s t go away and laugh. There’s so much hype and bullshit — the industry totally revolves around image and glamour, and if you take it seriously you’re lost, you’re fucked,” Atkinson concludes. O.K., one more improbability before we go. How about the Redgum P.A? The one they use wherever they gq whether it be the Collingwood Town Hall o r . .. Atkinson: “ So there we were at the Bondi Lifesaver (before it closed down) — a real rock’n’roll pit. Blood and vomit on the flo o r.. . ’’ “ Teeth marks on the w a ll. . . ” chips in Schuman w ith a grin. “The headlining band, who shall remain nameless, set up this monstrous P.A, a huge thing that spits fire and belches smoke. Then we come along and set ours up in front. Ours looks I ike two cardboard boxes. We came on first. Before we started there was this stuff churning out of the house P A at a million decibels, no-one could hear themselves breathe. And there was this jerk of a compere who would be screaming out, ‘TURN TO THE CHICK NEXT TO YOU AND FEELHERTIT! HAW HAW H AW ., . ” “ Really wholesome s tu ff.. . ” “ Sowe came on, w ith our P A , set at half, and after everyone’s hearing started to come back, they started to listen and some people sat on the floor and some people started dancing. And this compere’s mouth was just wide open. He couldn’t believe it." “ The management were astounded too. Usually there are people out of th e ir brains, bumping into each other, bumping into the walls. Our crowd were very polite, they didn’t smash up the to ile ts . . .” “Thirty minutes after we finished playing we had the P A in the car, all the instruments packed away, and most of the crowd had left.” “ We got an encore too. That just doesn’t happen at the Lifesaver mate. You’ve gotta be Chisel or the Argels to get an encore there.” Atkinson muses on the roadies who set up the fire breathing P.A ‘W e’ve never had any ugly incidents at our g^s. Good job too!” “ Redgum: the flyweight brigade,” jokes Schuman. We laugh. “ Ah well, that should just about do it,” I say. Michael Atkinson turns to me and says, “ You don’t \want any heavy stuff about ideology do you?” . “ No,” I say. “ I’ll just listen to the album." — DONALD ROBERTSON

ROADRUNNER 11

OUTUNE The 80s band: fast, theatrical, highly polished and often quite unempathetic Devo and Gary Numan out of Eno and Ultravox — it's a sophisticated, futuristic era and among the bands of this future stands Outline. Although this current lineup has only been together seven months they've generated enough in dustry interest to be signed (on the recommendation of Mi-Sex and the Angels to CBS, scoring what they proudly point out to be exactly the same deal as Mi-Sex have. They even get to have Peter Dawkins produce their records, and there the resemblance to Mi-Sex does not end. The members of Outline are motivated and ambitious, hardworking, and in so far as they place high priority on a very professional show in a similar visual and musical mode they seem to be much in the position those platinum-plated Kiwis were a year ago. Unlike Mi-Sex, Outline have progressed to this point over a long period of development. They began about two years ago as a jazz-oriented band w ith a female singer, but neither the female n o r. her drummer boyfriend were as committed to making it as the other core members, according to guitarist and alternative vocalist John Sammers. John was aware that to be commercial the band's direction would have to train in on rock'n'roll, and as the main songwrjter he steered the early Outline away from the clubs and jazz towards the pubs and accessible, disciplined rock. Phil Rigger took over the vocals while retaining his trumphet, which adds surpri singly effective musical accents. Over this period the band went through fourteen lineup changes, at one stage performing as an eight piece before eventually rea u itin g Alex Wakajan for the obligatory key boards/synthesiser and then in November adding Jeff Barrett on bass and Dole ‘Doc (No-relation-toDoc-Angel)' Ryan on drums. Apart from the bonus in Jeff's songwriting ability, this rhythm section is one of the band's strongest assets. Particularly impress ive are the bold basslines which push the music along at a healthy pace. Visually the image is all technoflash. Phil wears a red and black chequerboard shirt and occasionally rims his eyes with kohl to enhance the wide-eyed staring effect he utilises under the lights; John has tear-shaped patches of reflective material clustered on one shoulder of his red t-shirt. Likewise, Jeff wears red-dot sprinkled yellow and Alan a black fish net singlet. The style is familiar. Fortunately, they're a young band and retain a great deal of spontaniety. While Phil's stage movements and expressions are highly stylised they hardly look choreographed, and both John and Jeff beam w ith enthusiasm as they bend and bounce over the instruments. The lightshcw is creative — it's a tribute to the faith in the band everyone associated w ith it shews that the a e w paid for half of the lighting system themselves. Particularly eyecatching is a birdcage effect of rotating white beams which circle around Phil. The set is diverse within a range of modern musical styles, sometimes suggesting Ultravox, more often the Cars whose song “ Bye Bye Love" is one of the few covers. The originals are frequently con cerned w ith subjects that seem somewhat offbeat — titles like “ The Cicada That Ate Five Dock", "Fire In The Ghost Train" (about Sydney's fatal Luna Park blaze), “ Prostitute" and “ Sex Aids" give some in dication. In some suburbs Outline have built up considerable followings; on the last night of their residency at a Gladesville hotel the band declared it a ‘Sex Aids' night, and I’m assured the audience fancy dress was more than b iz a rre ... The future looks very bright fo r Outline. You may miss the v^ywardness of a Dragon, but if a band CAN combine the flash cf a Mi-Sex with the guts of a Mid night Oil, the verve of a Radiators and the taste of a Cars, who’s toargue that the end result doesn’t have enormous commercial appeal? A fter all, entertain ment value is what the average punter wants in a night out. Outline are entertaining, and they’re making a strong impression though they adm it they have yet to forge a musical identity of th e ir own. “ I’m not sure that we want one” , says John. “ When people compare us^to a band like Mi-Sex I think it’s because that kind of band have all th e ir songs worked out in a certain way, so they've got an indentifiable form at and if we do a song a.lso following that format they think ‘Yeah, a Mi-Sex type song, the band’s like M i- ^ x ’. But w e doa lot of different styles covering a range of formats, and that's the way want to keep i t We don’t want to confine ourselves in any way". ' — ELLY MCDONALD

OUTUNE ROADRUNNER 12

Well, what would you do if the man said he had a real live dinosaur ready and eager to chat with you? Okay, you say, sure. I'll talk to him. Then you forget about it. But there are a few questions you want to ask the dinosaur about the past 30 million years, or seven years subjective time, so you agree to do an interview. What’s that? Oh, alright, it’s not really a dinosaur. It’s rock’n’roll’s answer toTim-Brooke Taylor — Rob Halford, lead singer of heavy metal band Judas Priest. Left high and dry by the new wave of the late 70s, Priest, and other HM relics are new making a comeback. HM, once as fashionable as leprosy, is back in the charts, as loud, sexist and irrelevant as ever. For the metal afficionado, nothing has changed. Halford, speaking from his home town of Walsall, Staffordshire, says punk had “ absolutely no effect” on Priest. “ I think the only band out of the whole lot that did appeal to me, and I went to see in concert werc/the Sex Pistols, because they had a raw element of what I would call HM rock’n’roll," he said. “ In their early days, in th e ir very early singles, th ^ r were as good as any rock’n’roll band. That was before they started to absolutely bizarre, ridiculous things. They were really tremendous musicians, they could really belt it out live. I did go to see other bands. I ju st came out feeling: ‘Could I have my money back?’ " Those were the days, he recalls, when clubs were turning away HM bands and booking punks. “ Now,” he noted gleefully, “ it’s come full circle again.” Priest started noticing a younger generation of fan in the audience on the last British tour, in April. Halford welcomes the competition of “ new” British HM groups like Iron Maiden, Def Leppard, Saxon, Tygers of Pantang. He explains HM’s magnetism thus; “ It’s down to the quality — without getting too deep — that HM music has to offer, Going beyond that, it has general qualities, such as lyrical content and aggression. I’m not suggesting it creates violence, but it has an element of aggression which people genuinely can see is true and isn’t a constructed, fashionable thing. It’s very real, which a lot of music isn’t. Unless you are really involved and committed to i t " he con cedes, “ it’s hard to latch onto these qualities.” ^ all standards, heavy metal should have been stamped into extinction three, four years ago. Old dinosaurs like Rod Stew art the Stones, and Yes were viciously reviled. It was taken for granted that HM fossils like Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Rainbow and Judas Priest would have no place in the new order.

I suppose many people, like myselt saw certain aspects of HM being incorporated into 80s music, but the rest being discarded as outdated, irrelevant, anachronistic. Whoever would have thought four years on, that HM would be a living force. Not only are the old stagers back on to p ; a “ new wave” of the genre is storming the bastions of public and critical opinion. It’s an unhealthy situation. I was naive enough to hope that the slate had been wiped clean in 1979, and rock could sta rt afresh. There wouldn’t be any need to dig back into the early 70s, the 60s, 50s and beyond. But punk had only scorched the tops of these noxious weeds. Boring old tarts paid lip service to the new order whenever they could get a journalist or radio announcer to listen. They cut th e ir hair and sold th e ir flares. Some even changed their music to bend w ith the prevailing winds of change. But it appears HM’s roots — the fans — survived. They waited, while punk became new wave, then crossed the Atlantic, to be scrubbed squeaky clean, repackaged and shipped home quieter, safer, more traditional. As the wave receded, factions nxjved in to stake out their territory and the various revivals began. The new metal bands didn’t preach doom and dole queues to their audiences. They didn’t add much to the old formulae, but the music they played probably seemed new to kids numbed by punk, bored with disco and scornful of the new pop. Concerts provided a tribal atmosphere, w ith acres of denim, custom-made cardboard guitars and the implicit promise of a penis as large as your Gibson. To insiders, HM isa commodity, a blanket against the cruel world. To outsiders it looks ridiculous. In case you are thinking this is the typical out sider’s view, Rob Halford agrees w ith much of it, although obviously he sees things from a different angle Halford, while gladly accepting theH M tag, realises the music’s built-in anomalies. For ail its noise and posturing HM is a placid, reactionary beast; an opiate for the unkempt masses in their be-badged jackets and denim laute-couture But he defends HM vigorously against some of the more vitriolic ac cusations levelled against i t “ Since its birth in the early 70s it’s been classed as a mindless, senseless music, which I think is quite insulting. It’s not that at all. People don’t pay five quid fo r a mindless, senseless record. I think the musicianship and a rtistry that HM represents is of a type of music which demands some sort of respect” Halford said. “ We are classed as a HM band and we are proud to be called th a t” Halford uses words like “ quality” , “ profession alism” and “ m aturity” when he should be saying originality, enthusiasm, challenge, change. Well, Rob?

"I think It’s im portant to maintain an attitude of advancement in both — songwriting and produc tion,” he ventured. “ The quality of (our) musicianship and production has improved tremendously. (But) in terms of musical change, I don’t really think we will steer away from what we are doing now. We all havea love of HM and as longas we keep this line up I believe we w ill be very strong. So I can’t see any dramatic changes.” Halford readily agrees HM is disgustingly sexist. However, as chief lyricist for Priest, he denies any sexism in his own songs. “ I have never been that way,” he said. “ I have never yet exploited females in that respect simply because I’ve fe lt it is a pretty repetitive formula. I don’t know how many ways there are to sing about women. But I take that point. Yes, I agree a lot of bands do do that and there are extreme examples who do it all the time. “ Of course, there’s a market fo r that sort of th in g as much as there’s a market for Judas Priest. I would be the last person to put anyone down in this business, who has made it, simply because it’s so bloody hard. If David (Lee Roth) wants to w rite those things, let him. “ It’s a very male dominated regime, but then again, it isn’t a feminine type of music. I would say the majority of our fans are from a working class background. It certainly has its roots in that sort of people and reflects their own attitudes and views, to a great extent. “ You go to a concert and see the bloke w ith all the UFO patches. Van Halen, Judas Priest, Whitesnake, Ian G illen., .there’s a tremendous choice for that individual. If all he wants to hear is lyrics about women, let him listen to Van Halen.” On the subject of G uitar as Phallus; “ Yes, exac tly!” he laughed. “ I suppose if you want to become Freudian on the subject, th a t’s one of the psychological attractions of this type of m usic" And that HM concert as fa n ta s y / escape? “ That’s a very interesting observation and to a certain extent that’s true, but I think it is the same w ith other music as well." Well, I don’t have the desire to go away and listen to every Priest album since 1974, searching for sexist lyrics to throw back in Halford’s face. But his own words are more effective than anything I could say; his reason fo r not w ritin g songs that depict women as slabs of meat disappointing: “ It’s a repetitive fornxila.” Then again, it’s only recently that Priest has had to contend w ith questions which highlight HM’s reactionary, sexist tribal attitudes and influences. Rcb Halford seems a likeable bloke, the rest of the band probably is too. The upsetting thing isn’t that they are getting rich making this type of m usic The upsetting thing is that millions of people are buying it.

3RRR BENEFIT CONCERT Union Building, Melb. University.

The prospect was daunting. The Union building at Melbourne University — five different stages operating — the first music programmed to start at 6pm (it did) and with an aim of finishing around lam . I went with the intention of at least catching a little of each act. With five stages and over twenty bands there was

Mentals’ Martin — high spirited.

much clashing of performances. At the final count I saw thirteen diff erent bands. But in trying to present an overall picture I didn’t see the entire per formance of any one act. So what follows is a summary of at least two songs from those acts mentioned. The evening began with the rock-a-billy band The Crackajacks. They faced the fresh 6pm audience. But soon t h ^ had a few dancing country and western style in front of the stage. As well as sounding good the band look good w ith the lead singer adorned in a white suit with musical annotation stitched all over it.

Then downstairs for Melbourne band The In stigators. For those who like putting music into categories, The Instigators tread that fine line between NewWave and Heavy Metal (and putting bands into categories is probably as good a way as any of coping with a 13-band gig review). The Instig ators feature a standard four-piece line-up — vocals, bass, guitar and drums. The band play hard and fast and have a great sound — t h ^ even had a small coll ection of punks dressed in black yelling obscenities at the stage. The Kevins were next. ThQ^ were playing in the rather small mixed lounge. Unfortunately the PA was turned uptooloudand I could not hear much of their music. Of the little I did hear it did not seem very

(pic: EricAlgra)

impressive — as my companion put it, ‘‘they’re shithouse” . But I would give them another hearing under more favorable conditions before writing them off. On toThe Benders. I firs t saw this band supporting The Angels down at the terrible Southside Six Hotel (and as luck would have it, on a night when a new house record for attendance was set). I was not impressed w ith them then, and that impression remained unchanged a ftr the couple of songs I saw performed this evening. Mark Gillespie came next. He was backed by Ross Hannaford’s L u cl^ Dog (who did a solo set after Gillespie). This was one of the evening’s better per formances. Gillespie played tracks off his new album and was ably backed by Lucky Dog. After Gillespie left the stage the band remained the same except for the addition of Lucky Dog’s female vocalist. MEO 245 were another of the evening’s delights. They are getting something of a cult following around Melbourne — I was even standing next to a person wearing a MEO 245 T shirt. The Dynamic Hepnotics have an EP out on Mambo Records. On the sleeve they are described as “Sydney’s boss soul and r ’n’b combo” . Not much to argue w/ith there after seeing a couple of numbers. The band play well and feature a great sax player. Paul Kelly and The Dots are making a name for themselves around town after the release of their Pete Solley produced single “ Seeing Is Believing” . As well as Kelly on vocals and guitar, the band is made up of Chris Worrell (guitar), Alan Brooker (bass), Tony Thornton (drum s) and Chris Dyson (guitar). The Dots seemed to get the best crowd reaction of the evening with a rousing call for an encore coming from the crowd. But RRR DJ Greg Pickhaver ( “ Dot the I’sand Eye The Dots” ) explained because of the large number of bands appearing, encores were out of the question. Next up were unquestionably the evening’s head liners — Australian Crawl. They were given a fine introduction by Red Symons — “ Who thought that these boys from a Mt. Eliza public school would over night become a punk sensation.” It will be interesting to see if Australian Crawl can keep th e ir record buying public happy for long. While I find their music enjoyable, I hardly find myself moved to buy their records. I^w ever, they played well this evening and James Reyne worked up a good sweat belting out some of their popular numbers — and a few lesser known tunes. Back downstairs I find The Jetsonnes playing. Who, if my memory serves me well, also feature a member who went to the same posh school that taught most of Australian Crawl. The person in question being bassist John Archer. On stage one’s attention is focused on lead singer Margot O’Neill who is decked out in a bright green vinyl coat. If The Jetsonnes are to be categorised then they could probably be called a “ pop” band. But as the evening wears on I seem to want something to wake me up. The Jetsonnes are just OK, and on this night of many bands it is just not enough. In another room a band I have never heard of before,The Cruisers, are playing to a virtually empty room, save for a few people lazing in chairs at the back and two zombie types attempting to dance in front of the stage. The band do a few good coverversions, amongst them an Easybeats’ number. But they seem to have some problems with th e ir drum set. The drummer is up and walking about the stage swearing because he has broken his bass drum pedal. Australian Crawl have finished their set upstairs and after the crowd file out, the huge buffet area of the Union is virtually empty. Here I find probably the most attractive roadie I have ever seen (it was a female — most male roadies are ugly!) setting up M att Finish’s gear. The band are apparently eager to play the 3RRR benefit as the station has had a demo tape of theirs, “ God Zone” , on its single playlist for many weeks. The band, led by Matt Moffit on guitar, also feature Rick Grossman (bass), Jeff Clayton (guitar) and John Prior (drums). They have a very distinctive sound and play tight “ melodic” rock. I had to drag myself away from Matt Finish to head downstairs for the night’s last performance; that of the evening’s other major attraction Mental As Anything. They hit the stage shortly after midnight and played a good high-spirited set which the capacity crowd obviously enjoyed. But it was all getting too much for me. I headed home halfway through the set, not because I tired of Mental As Anything, but I had reached saturation point after so many bands. If I go to next year’s, I shall concentrate on one stage only, perhaps, and enjoy three or four per formances instead of cramming in 13. The stand outs of the night for me were MEO 245 and The In stigators. And 3RRR earned some more money to keep Melbourne’s best radio station on the air. — JAMES MANNING

ROADRUNNER 13

THE V IC T IM S Adrian's Nightclub, Perth

Saturday the 27th of September, 1980, will be remembered in Perth for a number of reasons. It was the day that the W.AF.L. Grand Final went to South Fremantle after the Swan Districts team had been on top all year. It was the day that The West Australian, Perth’s up to the minute newspaper, told us that John Bonham of Led Zeppelin had died a couple of days ago. It was the day that The Victims (who, since their split have enjoyed legendary status in Perth) played a one-off last gig. Just like ‘Macbeth’ it was as if the natural order had been upset. The motives for such a temporary reformation and performance remain dubious. But the move seemed, among other things, a decadent attempt to re-create the past. Yes, the natural order was upset. One (of many) unfortunate aspects of the gig was that there was no support band. Most people arrived early (9pm ) and by the time The Victims started, the oafish element had been drinking fo r three solid hours. I could feel the tension build and spjent most of the waiting time gritting my teeth. Three morons (I use the term generously) sitting behind me worked hard at breaking glass and bottles and left the fragments on the floor. Ironically, the DJ played Tbe Damned’s Smash It Up. For me, that song will never be the same. After a fearful eternity. The Victims took the stage but instead of relieving tension, the band’s jagged accelerating rhythms tightened the air. Dave Faulkner was r i ^ t When he predicted how good the band would be. The rehearsals certainly paid off. Indeed, this was the most powerful rock’n’roll gig I’ve seen since the Ramones a few months ago. The high lights of the band’s twenty five minute firs t set were an awe-inspiring version of Television Addict, More Go-Go Less Pogo, the,melodic I’m Looking For You, and The Heartbreakers’ Chinese Rocks.

The band played with the precision of a machine. Faulkner’s guitar work was incredibly fast, and the perfect coupling of the mysterious Rudolph’s bass and James Baker’s drums provided taut, compelling rhythms. It is ironic that the band split at a tim e when wholesale acceptance seemed out of the question in the sense that punk has now been heartily welcomed to the mainstream, and the music of The Victims, for all its ferocious liveliness, now sounds dated. I started to think it was a pity that the band disinte grated because they had a great deal to offer but a took around the room made me realise that this was not music for the oppressed, the frustrated, or the justifiably angry; this was music for a spoilt sick society as bloated as the band’s reputation since their demise. This was music for ‘human’ dregs looking for kicks and punches, and fo r the nouveau punkefashionable set, in attendance because it’s the thing to do this week. The more it went on, the less I liked it. And how ironic that Faulkner was wearing a ‘Sid Vicious Is Dead’ T-shirt. In the break between the firs t set and the second, a fight broke out. Kicks, punches, space created, and some hasty retreats. I went to the toilet shortly thereafter but was too scared to piss. The second set began with the mellow and melodic I Understand. Other gems which stood out through the blur were Outta My Head, New Society and I’m A Young Executive which was written by Dave Faulkner when he was a civil servant. During the second set, the leather-jacketed, bootheeled, clip-headed moron contingent staged a putsch through a section of the precariously placed crowd. Fortunately, nobody was hurt by the on slaught but (oh, joy) they managed to overturn a table and break some more glass. A couple more songs and the second set con cluded. I went to the quietest corner I could find. Another twenty minutes and another rumpus and I thought to leave.Then another melee and drummer James Baker came on stage and threatened to call off the gig if ‘the arseholes’ didn’t behave. Then somebody else came on cursing and abusing the violent minority to the applause of the crowd but, of course, it had all come too late. I’d had enough. I went downstairs to the door which was now only barely hanging by one hinge. Through the opening I could see a police car and an ambulance out the front. James^ Baker walked around the door and met me halfway up the stairs. “ Aren’t you playing another set?” “ No, th a t’s it. See you later.” The sober seriousness of the policeman outside confirmed the situation. And while on the street, I heard Baker explain to the crowd still inside that thanks to ‘the arseholes’ the gig was to be aban doned. An ironical cheer went up. I t w ^ as much as I could do to stop myself running to the car. I was disgusted, frightened, sick to the guts. I want to retire from the human race. — KIM WILLIAMS

Sean Kelly (Models)

MODELS, WRECKED JETS Hearts, Carlton. After the explosion, the fallout. Melb ourne was about the only city in the land that never spawned a committed new wave; in place of angry explosions (Saints, Birdmen, Victims) there was only another layer of fashion, plenty of innovation, and now the survivors scrambling for a place in the commercial sun. Hearts this night is crowded with observers and dancers, checking two bands with nothing in common except that they’re on the way up, but both offering enough elusive space for reflect ing upon. First up, the Wrecked Jets, w ith their wall of guitar thunder that owes little to trad, pynk, a lot more to heavy metal and pub rock. They hit hard — sweaty rhythm guitarist Mick McGinley is a ball of nerves and energy, shouting hoarsely with his songs about getting drunk and scared while his co frontman on lead guitar p l^ s barbed wire solos and sings some great hooklines in a Keith Richard drawl. The Wrecked Jets seem to be on a reality jag — there are lots of four-letter lyrics and a song called "W hat’s All This Mystery About Love” ( “ It’s something you see on Young Doctors” ). Some of it’s boring and sloppy, some of it ’s great, jagged dance music. The Jets do one encor^ ignore shouts f a another and do nothing to harm their reputation as a band who’ll be doing major things someday, if they manage to juggle th e ir variety of

styles into a straight line. And then come the Models, all dressed up and with a destination firm ly in mind. For two years they’ve been polishing their sometimes contrived, some times unique electronic dan ce/p o p . Now the pressure is on — w ith Countdown stardom looming fast, they can’t afford to alienate audiences by being too innovative. And The Models have changed since the days when they were struggling out of the post-punk morass. The charging Kraut-rock feels of standards like Early Morning Brain and Atlantic Romantic have been replaced by light-footed pop melodies with lots of sweet keyboard icing from Andrew Duffield, a player who occasionally steps out and tries to be futuristic (he used to play in those overrated critics’ faves, Whirleywirld, after a ll) but who seems happier cruising along on light relief like a cover of the Tornadoes’Telstar. The Models do still have a hard rock’n’roll filling under the surface, though. Johnny Crash hits like a precise demon on drums, Sean Kelly twists his thin voice and despite their occasional monotony, this band has enough of an energy charge to capture even those who might be put off by the careful pretty-boy posing. This was hardly a classic Models gig— maybe the night was too long, but still the band were called back fo r an e n ca e of the chanted Golden Arches. Myself, I have doubts w hether the Modpls will become su p e r^a rs outside th e ir hometown. The style, the invention is there, but if the Reels can’t set radios alight, then the Models may have not m a e chance. Still, th e ir firs t album w ill soon be available for discovery, and if you live in Melbourne and feel a burning need to be part of a well-dressed phenom enon, join the rush. TEVE BUCKLE

THIRTY THREES THIRTY THREES THIRTY the ‘old s tu ff fans seems so doggedly fond of. Such aoss-pollenation should delight both young and old, but it seems that Bowie is either too close to the bone or too distant to be drawn to for most. Me, I think it’s just gross slackness on our end in general. As the needle slides into track one, the aural focus is on the voice of Michi Hirota speaking the lyric, “ in such a way as to give the lie to the whole very sexist idea of how Japanese girls are so very prim. She’s like a samurai the way she hammers it out." (NME, Sept. 13) Bowie’s voice intones the English version and the effect, if not the direct content, glues well to the memory. The track is It’s No Game and a more obvious version closes the album w ith an unsettling ambivalence between resignation and hope. A related thread runs thru Up The Hill Backwards, but the more obvious feeling is of grim desperation and dilemma, even tho the music is open and bouncy. S A ^ ^ S t4 J ? U 4 ^

DAVID BOWIE “SCARY MONSTERS” (RCA) Within the precious ‘Rock Journo’ circles, David Bowie is treated as a perpetual bone of contention and Scary Monsters has presented no exception. A re-mention of Major Tom, from such an early song, brought cries of ‘resting on past glory’ from the British Press, but as usual, such initial pen-in-mouth com ments seem to have been squashed by the relative sales success of Ashes to Ashes as a single. If the album sells well, not being standard pop-market stuff, the company moguls may suffer yet another blow to their parameters of potential success. As with all later albums, Scary Monsters is a complex synthesis of all past products and present preoccupations. You’ll detect references to much of

FLOWERS V

"The vacuum created by the arrival of freedom And the possibilities it seems to offer.” Later in the song the ol’ “ I’m OK — you’re so-so" line surfaces. This may be annoying smugness to some, but it sounds more like the state-of-the-nation. After all, there a re “ more idols than realities.” Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) is one of those Breaking Glass creatures — short statements and strike-home lines. Like: “ She asked me to stay and I stole her room She asked for my love and I gave her a dangerous mind.” with great descending ‘oom-oom-oom’ noise motif and solid reverb rhythm — puts you in that knowwhat-you-mean, wry state of mind. As other reviewers have pointed out, this like Lodger, is not an overtly ‘electronic’ album. Gold ol’ Robert F. throws in classic Frippertronics here and there, but balances well with Pete Townsend’s brashness and Carlos Alomar’s funky clarity. Guitar sounds melt into electronic atmospherics while synthesiser bleeps cross with soul rhythms, but the whole tapestry of exotica gels like only a Bowie in spiration can. Enough has been written about Ashes to Ashes — suffice to say it’s a bubbling strange single with a rivetting film clip. With side one spiralling toward the central shaft, dance-floor trends and other such flotsam come in for a quick slap around the gills. Fashion lurches in

on off-beat synthesiser burps with observations on the current excessive desperation for post-Travolta gDod-times. A fe w pointed lines about “ people from bad homes” , dancing it and “ people from good homes” talking it stick out like sore motives. High marks go to the man in the leafy clown-suit forTeenage Wildlife — the best beat-ballad since the faded th rills of old Springsteen efforts. The man is looking at you looking at him, telling you he doesn’t know about any hallways or reporters, and you not really know ir^ what to believe, being shot down like the rest. There’s the others on the line pronouncing redundancy upon those they think they’re passing, but it all seems to come down to “ just another teenage wildlife” , followed by a bracing surge of stead-stream guitar. The following tracks feed off this pipeline of judgementsand consequences. Sam inScreamUkea Baby falls victim to a bit of social violence ( “ coming down on the faggots” ), bCit the scene is tensely personal not neatly divorced — “ I remember Sam ’cause he was like me.” Bowie’s keyboard work bounces along welding slabs of arrangement together while hitting your ear like the chocolate on the capuccino. Kingdom Come is a greater stylistic divergence with a well set Tamla Motown feel, even tho the chorus hookline is missing until just before the fadeout. Could this indeed be a hint of great cosmic sig nificance? (Probably just mislaid a vocal track in the mix). Mr Townsend makes more of his presence felt in Because You’re Young, a hymn to fresh-faced ambitionists with a few digs but surprisingly few hard feelings. I catch a hint that this ‘aged & experienced’ point of view (in Teenage Wildlife also) could be a deception in itself, enabling the a rtist to put his ideas in a perspective his audience finds believable. On the other hand, it’s just a song about lovers falling apart in front of him. Any pedant could find weaknesses in this album, tones and gaps that grate on expectations, but that’s only human and being human is what Bowie is carefully unveilling. You’ll sit around a bit and ponder, take the headphones off and leave to catch the bus home as usual. But you’ll come back next lunchtime for another listen. Hearing a one-time super-image sing and w rite from the heart is an unnerving experience so don’t be caught out cradling the old reflection for too long. — TYRONE FLEX

GARY NUMAN “TELEKON” (WEA) Gary Numan has some kind of talent. Unfortunately he keeps coming across as some precocious, obnoxious kid. Some times it seems he's got a warped child’s idea of what a rock star should be. If so, he’s very stupid. Teiekon contains throughout elements of brilliant construction. Numan’s instrument is the syn thesiser, and his mawkish vocals and almost clever words tend to overshadow that fact. This does not reduce him to a technician, because he has a wellrounded, if restricted imagination, and feeling for translating that into sound. His music on this album, as on Replicas, has the taste and odour of sf, that of Philip Dick’s in particular. Numan seems to want to go for the younger market. They certainly buy a lot but t h ^ wear out their toys quickly. His album album The Pleasure Principle, was a wasteful indulgence of his abilities, apart from a very patronising one. That quality also persists with the new one. Apart from all this, be defining so ruthlessly the area of his w riting obsessions, Numan makes his albums a bit tedious by the time you’re into the second side. A basic formula has b ^ n spread too thinly over ten tracks, so the final three sound and feel like a weary, nostalgic look back at the rest of it. If I picked any three tracks out of the album and played them together, it would sound good. But it involves too much physical exercise in the vicinity of. the stereo. Bowie remains, as ever, Numan’s hero. It seems a waste of time. Besides, even though he’s following Bowie's footsteps faithfully, Numan’s following them backwards. He started off, with Tubeway Army, doing interesting minimaloid music, and now he’s doing his Zggy Stardust bit. Somebody please wake him up. — SPAN

JAMES FREUD “BREAKING SILENCE” (Mushroom)

FLOWERS “ICEHOUSE” (Regular) Iva Davies doesn’t believe in leaving things to chance. In fact, for him, chance simply doesn’t exist. Maybe that’s why the eleven tracks which com prise Flowers’ debut album are all so stunning. Truly this is an album of epic proportions, a major tour-de-force that will em phatically catapult Flowers into the top ranks of musica Australis. All the songs are Iva Davies’ (although ex drummer Don Brown gets co-credited on a couple of the early ones) and Davies also shares production credit w ith the ubiquitous Cameron Allen. This is Iva Davies’ statement. All his cards have been laid on the table. It’s a winning hand. The album opens w ith the haunting and brooding Icehouse. Drums and synth. fade in and Davies in tones the opening lines, “ It’s always cold inside the Icehouse Though the rivers never freeze There’s a girl outside the Icehouse I can see her clearly through the trees.” It’s a powerful and evocative track, quite different to anything else on the album. John Lloyd’s drum ming is hypnotic and intense while the synthesiser creates a chilling atmosphere of ethereal, un focussed despair. Icehouse is a song about hope and despair, “ She’s still dreaming through the summer And she’s hoping through the spring She says she’s got no time fo r w inter nights Doesn’t notice as the days grow darker She can’t remember getting any older There’s no love inside the Icehouse.” It’s immediately apparent that the song arrange ments and production are of the highest standard, alm ostunbelievably high for a band’s debut album. A lot of thought and care has obviously been expended — everything is just sa

The current single We Can Get Together is next up. It should be blasting out of a tranny near you soon. A staccato synth & drum pattern provides the bones of the other side of Davies’ talents — the ability to combine classic pop sensibility with decidedly modern overtones. The message verges on desperation, “ ...m ust be something we can talk about” , and it almost sounds as if Davies is trying to convince himself as well as the person to whom the song is directed. Loneliness is a cruel affliction and on this. Can't Help Myself and Not My Kind, the three most personal songs on Icehouse. Davies grabs hold of that feeling and throws it back in the listener’s face. We are alone — but th a t’s not all there is. The first of the old favourites, Fatman is next. Flowers phreaks w ill not be disappointed (then again I can’t see ANYONE feeling that way) — all the originals you’ve grown to love in the last two years are here. However, the recorded form of most of them is slightly different to what you’d be familiar with. Davies has engaged in some last minute pre studio revisions, most noticeably in the keyboards area, which add depth and colour to the rhythms and hooklines that have impressed themselves on audiences throughout the nation. Keyboards feature strongly on Fatman as well as the ever-present rockhard rhythm section of Lloyd and Keith Welsh on bass. Fatnan, along w ith Sons is a scenario song, in this case a ‘kept’ woman facing the gun held by her husband / lover, “ St. Valentines Day blows away Leaves the Fatman by the window looking right along the barrell." A. dynamic and insistent track. Which brings us to Sister, another stage fave, but on record the hysteria has been slightly toned down, so th a t what was once an absolute rave up becomes a more considered offering. The bass pumps, keyboards tw irl and everything except the drums fade out in the middle, from where the song builds again to a satisfying climax. And to round off a classy opening side. Walls, with its menacing syn th /o rg a n and heightened sense of the dramatic. “ L is te n /If you lis te n /y o u will h e a r/a reckless h e a rtb e a t/o n the in sid e /th ro u g h the walls the sound is craw lin g /d o w n the corridors and h a lls /it cracks the ce ilin g / the windows and the doors / well the rest won’t listen / the walls have ears / but they never really look / they just stand and s ta re /th e y ’re all sta n d in g /sta rin g at the walls.” Written pre-Pink Floyd, Walls is almost abstract in (lyrical) conception, but as we humans do spend a lot of tim e staring at the things, it does not lack relevance Again a superbly constructed and executed song, familiar from live performance but a delight to hear in recorded form. End of side one. Verdict? Fantastic! Debut single Can't Help Myself opens side two. A

rerecorded version this, with a different, bouncy, keyboard motif swingingalong over the basicrhythm. A fuller sound, the starkness of the single rounded out fo r increased stereo enjoyment. Perhaps it’s the subject matter, but Iva Davies sounds as if he’s fighting to stop slipping over the edge into the blind morass of emotion, “ Can’t put the brakes o n /1 can’t help m yself/w hen I feel this way I wanna be someone e ls e .. “ Action, action, action” is the message in Skin, which I think is a drug song (the vocals are slightly submerged on this up-beat rocker). Keyboards are again to the fore with some nice counterpoint guitar in the middle break. Short, sharp and another winner. Sons slews the pace slightly, appropriately enough for a post-nuclear scenario, and features some mournful / moving saxophone and piano that for some reason reminds me of Tchiakovsky — you know, wind sw irlin’ over the Russian ste p p e s ...It has an irrepressably captivating a ir of resignation — theafter-the-event inevitability of a Post World War III planet, “ We don’t know this place This wasted stretch of land and these steaming horizons It’s locked in our past It’s strangely so familiar No sign of the ancient hero Who left us this one last hour.” Boulevard opens with the most piercingly sweet guitar line on the whole album. If I had to pick a favorite’ song on this record it’d go damn close A song about prostitution, “ God only k n o w s /it never pays/ they all die young on the boulevard” , it scores high lyrically too. Two newies complete the album. Nothing To Do is classic Lou Reed style modern-city blues. Davies has that NewYork drawl down to a T — I don’t know if his tongue is slightly in his cheek or what but it’s a superb parody and a convincing paen to ennui, to boot. Imagine Gary Numan meets Brian Ferry. That’s the closest I can get to describing the last song. Not My Kind." It’s the most personal song on Icehouse, a condensed journey of a romantic through the modern world. “ Darkness is a friend to me Davies shouts above a post industrial robotic backdrop, “ Race along the subway / There’s a cold hand on your shoulder / He’s got a plan to get you nowhere." That’s the Numan speaking. Then the romantic (Ferry). “ I remember every now and then / Some of the places we used to g o /T o n ig h t I’m drunk and I don’t care.” It’s the search, the eternal search for love and life. “ Just another g ir l/J u s t another b o y /a n d they’re not my kind.” But there’s still hope Blind faith told me icehouse was going to be good. It couldn’t tell me how good. It didn’t prepare me for a masterpiece. — DONALD ROBERTSON

James Freud has attempted, quite nobly I suppose, to create a very moderne synthesised English / European sound ever since the Teenage Radio Stars became relegated to support band status. Breaking Silence succeeds in that first aim, the album really doesn’t sound typically Australian at all. But in the long run it fails to beat or even equal the type of music Freud has used for a basis or influence. Breaking Silence is all too ob viously a transitional album, chronologising Freud’s timely change from guitarbased power pop to electronics a la his ex-major mentor and newly lost world tour supplier Gary “ I Am A Machine” Numan. OK, I’ll resist the urge to constantly compare the two but on a track like The Saviours the similarity musically is all too evident. Combine this with fu tu r istic doomy lyrics in a similar vein to Bowie circa Diamond Dogs: “We walk alike Wesm ilealike In this place where wrong is right See machines Watch them gleam In this age of no redeem Because we are the saviours.” The Saviours and Butane Babies are probably the only two tracks where the e le ctro n ic/p o w e r pop fushion is mildly successful. Throughout the rest of Breakir^ Silence the songs sound too much like guitar based pop revamped with as much synth esiser as ppssible to make them so-very-1980s. The long spacey intro to Star to Star is incredibly out of place, and tracks like Enemy Lines and Mean Modulator demonstrate Freud’s inability to come to terms with the two stylistic concepts. I think Freud (perhapsadm irably) is attempting to add a more human dimension to the recent assail of steely cold electronics in the shape of people such as Human League and Numan etc. Either that or he just hasn’t degenerated that far yet. Whatever, Breaking Slence does little more than give me reason to shelve James Freud along w ith the several other Bowie impersonators saturating the market recently. His phraseology and nasaly vocal tone is a little too close to Ziggy period Bewie, even more so than previous cbne number one — the cuddly and ever popular Numanoid. When Freud sticks to the field he seems more comfortable with, straight pop, he is far more successful (e.g. the single Modern G irl). But when it comes to electronics or even a merger between that and more sim plistic rock and roll, James Freud is way off the mark. -G O O S E

ROADRUNNER 15

THIRTY THREES THIRTY THREES THIRTY

YAN MORRISON "COMMON ONE” (Mercut7) Before I say anything let me admit that I am not fully conversant with a lot of Van Morrison’s work and, to a large extent, am reviewing this Nth album of his on face value. Well, firstly, he gives us fifty five minutes of con sistently high class, emotive music here (which is a rarity in itself) and I sincerely hope that it makes other artists sit up and take notice that we will not tolerate forever the pathetic th irty five m inute (and sometimes less) efforts that some of them manage to churn out. I expected the lyrics to contain the old Morrison favourites, i.e. ^n erica n place names, ships, boats and radios, but there is no mention of them here (except for two ‘New York’s on Satisfied, sorry!). Instead references to religion, walking in the country (note the cover) and spiritual happiness abound. The music is a mixture of jazz, blues and gospel and conveys the feeling that this man has found inner peace through the love of something or somebody. He may even have done a ‘Bob Dylan’ but if that is so he is infinitely more subtle than Dylan’s overt proclamations of, finding God, etc. Two of the six tracks Summertime in England and When Heart is Open are each of fifteen minutes duration, something that I believe Morrison has not tried before. Both work magnificently well to the extent that the needle registered a profound nought on my scale of boredom. Summertime in England has several changes in pace employing the use of string and brass sections to great effect (in fact, the brass on the whole album is extremely well arranged, never dominating the singing whilst adding colour and character) and has Morrison imploring his ‘Common One’ to walk with him in the country so that he can show that ‘it ain’t why / it just is’. It’s a tribute to this artist that he can su ^a in interest in this phrase even though it is repeated at length throughout the song. Haunts of Ancient Peace is a gospel-flavoured song manifesting Morrison’s thoughts on attaining peace. Satisfied, the funkiest track, is his statement that he is exactly just that. Wild H on^ and Spirit are both more blues influenced songs, the former being a love song and the latter a plea to the sp irit that it should never die. I have left When Heart Is Open until last because 1 think it is the standout track of the album. It’s a very slow,tranquil piece that opens \with theflugelhorn (I hope) sounding so much like the b ^ in n in g of 2001: A ^ c e Odyssey that I half expected a bone to come flying through my window at any moment. The flute then softly takes over and a hint of lead guitar can be heard mixed into the background. While Morrison sings enxjtively of the coming of love to those who open their hearts the music begins to paint pictures of pure serenity, conjuring up vivid images to me of country cottages, flickering log fires, lovers on the hearth, misty meadows undulating toward the setting sun, deer grazing lazily and swirling insects moving ceaselessly nowhere in the still air — aaaahhh, wonderful stuff (rom anticfool I may be, but it really does work like that, try it! You will find much th a t’s up-tempo on Common One but you will find musical work that will gently, but surely touch the emotions and provide the calming uplift that most of us need a lot of the time. W iether you’re a compulsive Morrison freak or just an occasional listener. I th in k you’ll treasure this one. — ANDY NICHOLSON

HAWKWIND “LIVE” (Festival) Hawkwind have never really put out a bad album. Nor have they ever put out anything remarkable or groundbreaking. Like the vast tracts of time and space along whose sonic highways they convey us, Hawkwind simply exists. Whether as Hawkwind or Hawklords, whether pro ducing semi-political rock, or anticipated starship muzak, they have always sounded the same. Fast, heavy, acid, frothy and semiunintelligible, nonmemorable but highly entertaining. They have scraped the epidermis from current trends over the years — the Ferrylike vocal style of Amazing Stories (or whatever it was called), the neopunk of Quark,

ROADRUNNER 16

Strangeness and Charm, to name a couple — but beneath it they remain ill-attired hippies, grinding out the People’s Band music which initially boosted their fame, always inviting feedback from their customers and (so it is said) attempting to follow their lead. The band no longer exists. Maybe no one cares any more.The material on this short record is apparently drawn from a comeback-swansong to u r they did last year, reforming specifically for the purpose. Acoupleof old numbers — Brainstorm and Master of the Universe — a handful of later works — Motorway City, Lighthouse, Spirit of the Age and from the characteristic opening spaceway paranoid Shot Down in the Night to the closing 53-second version of Silver Machine you know exactly where you are. Great on a cassette on a long drive, tight and rocky in the old style of Everybody, no cheap tricks or fdse images, the old welltrusted chewie formula, sound you can get your teeth into. As ever, this album will make no new converts to the Haw/kwind fold. Not that it would seem to matter. They’re bound to turn up again. Ah well, it ’s good to have some space music around the house again. — SPAN

type o r^ n , supertast Howe guitar runs, and is held together by Chris Squire’s excellent basswork. These Yes trademarks are most apparent on Into The Lens TANGERINE DREAM andTempus Fugit “TANGRAM” It will not escape the attention of the most casual (Virgin) listener that Trevor Horn sounds an awful lot like Jon Anderson on Drama. He sings in the same high On the move again, after some consid register as Anderson, and the phrasing of the lyrics, indeed, the lyrics themselves ( “ . ..transform into erable wide-field reconnaissance of basic energy.. ” , “ .. .time will blind y o u . . “ .. .fast to symphonies, the band tends to return to the m orning.. ” etc) all contribute to the Yes sound. tire source. Tangerine Dream have done Squire and Howe still provide back up vocals which their “Pastoral”. Founders Edgar Froese further enhances this impression. There is a definite Buggies influence as well, noticeably on Run Through and Chris Franke, with one Johannes The Light, but this is not an album of Top Ten Hits. Schmoelling playing rhythm keyboards, Drama is not blatantly commercial as, for instance, are trying their hand again near where Tormato (with its Don’t Kill The Whale and Arriving their 1975 Rubicon album left off. UFO) was, or as the Buggies have been with their I don’t know anything about tangram, except it’s singles, so the album does require attention and several listenings before it makes an impression. It’s an Oriental game of some kind, and a word game. The first achievement the band makes on this album is worth it though. 6 ld starship troopers never d ie ... — BREN ATKINS the training of very simple elements into complex musical happenings. It's a very simple idea to begin with and it works very well. As such, it also contains one other element of Oriental art forms in general which occasionally plague my mind at least. Sometimes the tangram game adapts so well to its surroundings you can barely find it. Last night, it did, for example, but today it seems to have new things I’ve never heard before. Everything seems to depend on where you start listening to story. The first tim e I heard was on Automatic Function’s program on 5MMM. He played most of one side and then brilliantly phased in a group of women singing an unaccompanied spiritual. It seemed to fit in. Tangerine Dream have always been successful at the a rt of aural massage, and now they seem able to develop it into a healing art. What they will actually do is up to the future. Didn’t Pink Floyd mutate into a sort of jazz band? What’s this? Side Two? An excellent bonus. — SPAN

RICHARD CLAPTON “DARK SPACES” (Infinity) A glance at the stark artwork and the enigmatic song titles on Richard Clap ton’s latest album might give the im pression that this is one of those records where an established singer-songwriter takes a long look at himself and decides that a new decade demands a major Change of Style; but sadly enough. Dark Spaces marks no major turning point in the patchy career of this likeable JOHN FARNHAM troubador. (“ UNCOVERED” Clapton’s career has always been a matter of the (Wheatley Bros.) occasional flash of startling colour among a lot of pleasant aural dimness, but this time around the inspired moments are rendered less exhilirating than they should be the general air of indecision and b st chances that hangs over the album. VWiich is not to say that Dark Spaces is not a pleasant enough record. Clapton has assembled a collection of competent Sydney session musos who provide the requisite m ild-fire as they work through LA-styled funk and pop cliches, but the sense of cohesion that Mark Gillespie extracted from a stripped-down band on his Only Human album (the most impressive local singer-songwriter outing in several years) is nowhere to be found. Cleis Pearce, veteran of Clapton’s Goodbye Tiger band, provides some atmospheric viola on the ex tended Metropolis, but all too often Clapton’s singing, assured as it is, demands but doesn’t get a more jagged, energetic backing than it receives here. But to be fair to the players, they don’t have much to be inspired by. Clapton has always been a limited writer of melodies, but Dark Spaces sees him at the lowest ebb of his inventiveness. Only the bluesy Workir^ Class Life and the sinuous Shadows demand much more than a second hearing. As for Clapton’s lyrics, usually his strong point, they suffer from a bad case of confused viewpoints on this album. Commendably enough, he’s tried to get to grips with a few relevant malaises of modern Australia, but his insights on such songs as High Society, I Just Can't Make It and Le Club Des Fools never amount to more than heartfelt cliches. Don yfelker does this kind of thing with infinitely more bite and subtlety. Clapton’s always been at his best when engaged in less generalised observation or sentimental soul-searching, and it’s only on Shadows and the title track (an edgey, ambiguous song about Sylvia R ath) that he approaches such past glories as Prussian Blue, Deep Water or Passing Trains. All too often, he subverts interesting verses w ith dull choruses, a mannerism he’s been prone to for many years: maybe the subconscious desire to grab commercial airplay that dogs nearly every songvfl-iter working in the limited environment of Australian commercial rock is at last proving his undoing. If th a t’s the case, it’s a regrettable state of affairs. Maybe the introduction of FM radio and the en couragement it offers to artists who don’t necessarily want to be chained to the three minute diche will allow Clapton to be more adventurous in the future. Fle’s a talented, distinctive a rtist of the kind Australian rock has always been in need of, and it would be depressing to find that he had burned himself out long before he reached his full potential. — ADRIAN RYAN

YES “DRAMA” (Atlantic) It’s stale news that Anderson and Wakeman were replaced by the Buggies in Yes. This album was released remarkably quickly after the split — sound corporate tactics from the lads. Surprisingly, this album shows a return to an earlier Yes style — Eddie Offord helped with production and Roger Dean designed the cover. The music is laced with old Yes riffs, powerful Hammond-

TOLLEY & DARA “CUTHEART” (Mirage)

Whenever I listen to John Farnham I get visions of vocal chords bursting with David Tolley plays a synthesiser, clay pressure and neck muscles popping out flute, whistles and occasionally says like railway sleepers. It constantly things or sings. Dure Dara plays gongs, amazes th a t his th ro a t doesn’t cymbals, bells and chimes, percussion, haemorrhage. slide guitar, kalimba and piano-harps. In Then I see him perform and it all looks quite easy a piece called Chicken Shit, live at the — no apoplexy as he hits those top notes — no pain for the octave jumps as his voice swoops on to the Universal Theatre in Fitzroy last Sep next impossible note. But it takes a couple of listens tember, she also fondled, tore apart, cut, to relax with this new record. I can’t help waiting for prepared and cooked a chicken while the crack; the break or even a slightly flat note. After Tolley played synthesiser. At the end of listening all through I realise it just isn’t going to the performance it was fed to the happen and I go back to enjoy it. John Farnham has possibly the finest voice in audience. Australian pop music today. He is also blessed with a magnetic stage personality that comes across the small screen equally as well as the footlights. He proves the point that it takes more than staying power — he’s been around a long time but so have heaps of others — it takes talent to make it. And the boy undoubtedly has talent. His problems seem to have centred around how long to stay a boy. The tousled hair and lopsided grin were great ten years ago but unless you’re Cliff Richard they don’t last. W th Uncovered Farnham has made both musical and image changes. On the album cover, the grin is replaced by a laconic stare, a lady’s hands, resplendent with blood red nails, half cover his face; his hands grip her wrists. Sounds like a gothic romance, looks reminiscent of a Scaggs cover. Strike one for a new identity. Strike tw o comes on the musical line up. Tommy Emmanuel, Mai Logan, Barry Sullivan, Peter Jones, David Briggs, Derek Pellici; produced by Graham Goble, and most songs, with the exception of the obligatory Lennon and Mc Cartney, w ritten and / or arranged by Goble. And if you think you see a pattern emerging — manage ment is by Glenn Wheatley, Wheatley Brothers Entertainment. As one acquaintance was heard to rem ark— it’s Goble’s answer to Briggs’ involvement with Australian Crawl. The album? Well, like I said, it takes a couple of listens to relax with. It’s a magnificent production piece with all the right ingredients — plenty of bottom end, string arrangements, neat vocal backings and the odd musical tw ist to keep up your interest. Magic solos (especially She’s Everywhere) and if you th in k I’m stalling — you’re right. Quite honestly, only three tracks jump out and bite you — She Says To Me (Goble), Tilly’s Song (Farnham /G oble) and Rease Don't Ask Me (Goble) which leaves eight over-produced tracks full of vocal gymnastics that are eminently forgettable. Dolly Parton does a better version of Help and on the B rady/G oble composition Infatuation, Farnham sounds more like Doug Parkinson. Uncovered is a great jumping off point. And by all accounts that’s what it was intended as. If I hear correctly, John Farnham will soon be following the LRB trail. And good luck to him. The album lacks an overall magic, that refreshing boyish spark perhaps, but after all, in the search for a new identity, there must be sacrifices. Or must there? — SUE WYLIE

On first sight, this record looked like an Australian imitation of the UK’s Throbbing Gristle. In a record shop I probably wouldn’t have noticed the unre markable cover. Its picture of someone being poked in the eye, along with the album’s title, only support the idea that here are tw o more people obsessed with puerile, unrealistic images of violence. Further, the Soft Muscle Productions information sheet contained a page full of all the artm usik cliches that people like Brian Eno used to use. But their music isn’t like th a t at all. Even the firs t track. Cut The Heart Out, forsakes the engineered sense of menace native to G.P. Orridge and his offsiders in favour of humour at that very foolishness. Tolley & Dara share with Throbbing Gristle a curiously innate, organic sort of sound, but whereas TG are shock artists, T&D refine and make music, rather than a mere display of interesting “ chall enging” noise. The eight tracks on this album are taken from three live weekend performances in September last year. Inside notes say that four extended David Tolley solos will be released on a double album called Per-Form in mid 1980. Also, Dure’s performance on Chicken Shit among other numbers is included in a video package called Listen Be-Fore Spitting. Any information about these could probably be had from Muscle Music, P.O. Box 170, Carlton, Vic. 3053. Unlike most practitioners of controlled chaos, Tolley & Dara don’t play on th e ir audience. Tolley is a widerangirg musician and Dara an imaginative accompanist. In Broken Blood, for example, one of the strongest tracks on the album, Tolley’s improvis ations play with echoes of Zappa and the Soft Machine, after beginning the track in a conventional freeflowing melody. Dara closes the piece with a metal storm built around the hollow landscape of Tolley’s final synthesiser pattern. Tolley has an ac complished jazztype style but never becomes lost beyond intelligible rh^^hm. The album is rarely without a consistent and colourful beat on any of its eight tracks, but avoids becoming repetitious or mechanical. This is the most imaginative, natural, and confid ently produced music I have heard from Australians. Tolley & Dara are the sort who prefer to live just outside the wire fences of the record industry, treating music as a spontaneous celebration instead of a massproduced foodstuff. Cutheart is a collec to r’s item. — SPAN

THIRTY THREES THIRTY THREES THIRTY JACK NITZSCHE "HEARTBEAT” Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Capitol Import) At ar time when movie soundtrack albums appear to be a determined at tempt to package the best of the comm ercial new wave, with words and music totally unrelated to the movie, and the role of musical director being under mined to token significance, this record is a real breath of fresh air. And of course, so it should be, with the impeccably tasteful Jack Nitzsche at the helm. The man whose contemporaries seem to consist only in those of equivalent ingenuity and good taste (Neil Young and Phil Spector, to name but tw o) and who brought you such full-bodied orchestrated classics as The Lonely Surfer and Dance To The Hits Of The Beatles nearly two decades ago, has perpetuated and affirmed his idiosyncratic legend w ith the advent of the Heart Beat soundtrack. Like the soundtrack to Blue Collar, many of the titles on this LP are linked by a recurring motif. However, while the m otif on the former record was an uninspired, well-worn lick which eventually engendered the same effect on the listener as finger nails across a blackboard, the effect throughout Heart Beat is canny and pleasant to the ear. The motif's sad adagio begins On The Road, the opening track which then explodes into refined jazz (I'm talking about real Be-Bop here, Daddio) with cruising sax from A rt Pepper (strangely the only musician credited on the cover). And when the m otif recurs, Nitzsche never allows it to offend the listener through tedious repetition. He continually and subtly applies variation such as the lilting sax in Three Americans, the implementation of woodwinds to underline the melody in Jack’s Theme, or in the different pace of the title track. Carolyn’s Theme allowed the composer to demon strate his brilliance at orchestral arrangements. The sweet strings make for a neo-classical effect; like Mantovani, except w ith soul. Adadio For Strings sears w ith emotion and will slowly tear your heart out if you let it. Play it loud and be swept away. While Nitzsche seems most fulfilled when allowed to exploit his talents w ith an entire orchestra, there are two tracks on th is soundtrack which feature vocalists and various additional musicians. The World Is Waiting For The Sunrise, the only track here which is not composed by Nitzsche, is a crazy ragtime affair w ith genuine old-timey singing. How come no one sings like this anymore? The electric guitar work featured on th is cut defies des cription but most nearly sounds as if the player’s fingers are on a tap-dancing tour of the fretboard. The first song on Side Two is an electric sweet soul ballad with te rrific chord changes and an arrange ment to bring tears to your eyes. The uncredited vocalist sounds like a m ature Brenton Wood or Smokey Robinson. There is more jazz on Side Two. Jam is at once a scat sax blitzkrieg which allows the musicians freedom while remaining a ta u t and disciplined piece. Despite the heights reached on th is record, I fear that people will overlook it in their droves. Every thing goes against it. The record is not available in this country, nor has the film been released here yet. And when the movie does, make it to Australia, Kerouac/Cassidy purists will probably come away offended and overlook the soundtrack too. Not having seen the film but being a student of Kerouac, I would have liked to,see Jack Nicholson play the king of the beats in the movie. Surely he is the only actor in Hollywood w ith the fire fo r the job. That aside, the soundtrack to Heart Beat contains nothing but magnificent music. Have strength and demand to hear it today. Nitzsche, Kerouac, Nicholson: the three Jacks. The Holy Trinity! — KiM WILLIAMS

via sheer aggression search out all the sounds vocal chords can create. From a whisper to a scream the voice always seems to be in control of the band’s sound. Not even the band’s strongest rhythms can overtake the hypnosis the voice has the listener trapped in. Be it noise or words the voice as an in strument is captured at its best on this album. Overall the band comes across as a more violent unpredictable Gang Of Four. Politicallyj the vocals reach out for a more abstract, suburban street conscious level than the Gang Of Four. The songs come as attem pts to piece together confused emotions over certain subjects. For instance the first song. Trap is about life and parallels it to a cage or trap.They say, “ cage; only death with release you"; “ death; why don’t you contemplate” ; “ burn my books one by one” ; “ cut my skin w ith paper edge” . Eventually the story mounts to a level of desperation with the fatigue of life. Life is a cage that only death can free us from and books, the symbols of tra d it ional structures merely cut our skin and bleed us to death. The guitar in the song chases the vocal thrust with an anguish only peaked by the human instru ment. Thief of Fire follows in a more withdrawn, inwardly pained tone. A psychedelic collection of sounds gathered together highlighted by the guitar which spasmodically pops out of the rhythm to paint garish motifs on the canvas. This is contrasted by the soft rim taps of the drumming and the bass beats which shift moodily behind the trebly cover of the other instruments. ,, Genius or Lunatic has live applause leading into disco drum intro broken by a soft guitar that soon passes into abrasion. The voice shuns the audience ancFcreates its own world of isolation tempered by the stable melody which holds its direction and doesn’t peak to cacophony like the other songs. Asection of crying babies is followed by an acoustic tinged guitar and a soft b a s s /d ru m beat in Colour Blind that is relentlessly shattered by staccato guitar that smooths to a flowing line. Instruments keep meeting in crashing confrontations in typical Pop Group fashion. Spanish Inquisition comes across like a midnight horror show, mysterios and foreboding. Murmured stretches of sound seem to be hiding knowing answers and not displaying them. Disco rhythm runs beneath a collection of anguished vocals in Kiss The Book. The melody line is helpless as the vocals fractured it during peaks, with ten inch throat screams. Amnesty and Springet follow with a series of obscure, anonymous sounds. Unintelligible vocals burst out of sound collages that murmur at times then spin into peaks of sweat. Even on studio tracks the live feel is captured. Sense of Purpose’s burping piano hiccups into another uneasy vocal assault backed amusingly by mundane vocal la-las. The vocals come into their own here as they whisper unnervingly like a suppressed scream. The title track was recorded live and reeks of flailing bodies high on, the basic perceptions of life that The Pop Group make. The lyric reads, "I, You, We are Time.” By doing so they state that existence is shaped by the individual and controlled by that person. The Pop Group have created an unnerving gem in We Are Time. They have utilised both mediums of a rock band to th e ir limit. When they play, you dance and you listen. Perceptive band demands perceptive listening. — CRAIG M. PEARCE

We Are Time is not a record that allows itself to be used as background music. Guitars and voice mesh together in the songs starting on a rudimentary scratching level and often reaching a rough harmon ising curve. Drums smash awkwardly throughout the record,occasionally breaking through a stable rhythm and dementedly upstaging the rest of the band. The band has a basic lineup that somehow manages to create aural chaos w ith a minimum of fuss. Judging from the live songs on the album, it seems like the band is no stranger to improvisation. The Pop Group’s most distinct characteristic is the vocals. They continually bemoan th e ir lim itations and

COLOSSAL YOUTH

YOUNG MARBLE GIANTS “COLOSSAL YOUTH” (Rough Trade Import) The Young Marble Giants are the Moxham brothers on guitar, organ and bass, with Allison Statton singing. Colossal Youth is their firs t album. It makes no excuses for itself. It is simple, concise, open and in its own unpretentious fashion, attractive. If any fool critic cries ‘petulant minimalism’ or somesuch hype tag, it will be a gross inaccuracy and injustice. Given the self-limitations, there is a good range of treatments and subjects, w ith a soft sure sense of hope and humour, essential ingredients for a healthy organism. To buy this album at the import price is ridiculous.A$5.% ‘special’ would be more sense, not demean the product, but to make the means suit the end. — TYRONE FLEX

JOY DIVISION “CLOSER” (Factory Import) ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN “CROCODILES” (Korova Import) This is a quickie. A double whack quickie at that. But these little flat back things alternating on my record revoler are neither superficial or insignificant. Both are prime examples of the latest in ‘post-New-Wave’ attire. Skilful webs of reverb jangly edges next to warm hearts and a refreshingly complete set of state ments (for the time being at least).

HAZEL O ’CONNOR “ BREAKING GLASS” (A&M)

THE POP GROUP “WE ARE TIM E” (Rough Trade Import) The Pop Group belong to a growing clique of English bands that have spurned the commercially oriented way of the music business to structure their promotional and recording procedures around their political beliefs. They record for England’s most prominent independ ent label. Rough Trade, and at the moment this album is only available on import and will probably remain so.

■ O IA N T /

DUFFO ‘T H E DISAPPEARING BOY” (PVK Records)

Nick Lowe once sang ‘I love the sound of Breaking Glass’, but I’m not nearly as convinced about this soundtrack from the film of the same name. Unknown, Hazel O’Connor stars as an up-andcoming English punk singer in the, as yet, unreleased film and is credited with having written all the music and lyrics on this album; a somewhat dubious ac complishment in my opinion. Paramount Pictures have reportedly invested a cool $3 million in this enterprise, which speaks for itself regarding the amount of hype we are likely to receive on Ms O’Connor. The film is supposedly the successor to that fairly popular TV series ‘Rock Follies’ which co-starred Julie Covington and featured music composed by Andy MacKay of Roxy Music fame.

Oh Duffo! You crazy wonderful misbe I can’t decide from listening to the album as to gotten creature. whether the film is intended to be a parody of the I've always admired, been inspired by your oblique heart, a true misfit, a desperate star. But for God’s sake, cloak yourself with fellow bent creatures, not this pseudo-straightness, go the whole hog. There are only two songs on this whole effort that hang OK, the rest suffer gross content / treatm ent mismatch. I’d personally give you any amount of second chances, but I’m not so sure about your public or your record company. Out of the disco-cabaret and onto the streets, kiddo. — TYRONE FLEX

theme of ‘Big Brother’ a la 1984 jibing safely at the usual u n im a g in a tive ta rg e ts of b ureaucrats, politicians and computers. Tony Visconti, long time musical pal of David Bowie and co-producer of his latest offering Scary Monsters, is producer, arranger, co-engineer and contributor of keyboards and vocals on this album, but even his years of experience can’t pull this lot out of the musical mire. O’Connor’s voice has no particular redeeming characteristics and the music, although competent, is performed in a mostly, pedestrian fashion. Writing On The Wall is the track most likely to have a chance of success as a single. It has a catchy chorus line and after repeated playing does manage to worm its way into the head. Will You is a slower paced song with a sax break reiminiscent of Gerry Rafferty’s Baker Street and Calls The Tune is pleasant enough with an acceptably cute guitar break, but the less than boring moments on these 12 tracks are few and far between and I cannot recommend the album. I might add that the record has been very successful in the U.K., reaching No. 4 so far, which indicates that the film may give the music more relevance and / or popularity. — ANDY NICHOLSON

punk movement of a serious look at the change of direction that music took in the mid to late seventies. Either way the music is lacklustre and shallow. The lyricsappear more comfortable when seen as parody rather than reflecting the serious, sometimes naive attitudes of punk. As an example the chorus of Big Brother goes: “ B-B-Big Brother’s g-g-got no heart. If I get my chance I’m gonna kick him in the Ass A-A-AA” . Four years ago they would have kicked him in the balls and been done with it. At least five other tracks are centred around the

Going against the usual ‘anti-tag’ hyperbolae, Joy Division conjure up steamy dreams of the legendary Doors (the singer’s dead too — takes the parallel a bit over the to p ) and sombre echoes of the bent-edge Welshman, John Gale. With these credentials, if you get no closer to Qoser than this review, you’ll deserve the existential excommunication you’ll be in line for. Like th is is cosmic stuff, kids. It may be an obscure import now, but w ith a little p re ssu re ... Two things that more than impress me about Closer are the razor blocks of sound, irrespective of instrument of origin, and the bizarre naturalness of lyrics speaking of personal “ passover” , medieval “ atrocity exhibition” and allusions to a vein of hope we rarely mine these days. Can you imagine walking into your local pub and being hit by such an amal gamation — Jim Morrison meets the angelic host in a train tunnel. If you didn’t happen to be in England last year for the event in the flesh, or weren’t up with things enough to have ordered the Love Will Tear Us Apart single on NME inspired curiosity, you should at least give yourself a bit of exposure to what could have been this year’s messiah. Echo and the Bunnymen’s neat debut treat Croco diles inspires admiration without being a lofty monolith. It even has a sneaky attempt at lyric ex p o s u re -c lu s te rs of lines from each song bunched together on the inner sleeve — minimal but effective. Sound associations run more along lines of the Modern Lovers or Richard Hell and the Voidoids, much more R’n’R guitarwise, but w ith an experi mental divergence. These Bunnies seem reasonably sincere even tho they apparently use a bit of the ol’ fog machine when bunnying live. With lines lik e ... “ i can see you’ve got the blues in your alligator shoes m e i’m all smiles i’ve got my crocodiles” within two inches o f . ., “ now you spit out the sky because it’s empty and hollow and all your dreams are hanging out to dry” .. you either believe or laugh — similar reactions in the end. I can imagine our very own Birthday Party slipping into this scene of odd humour and sharp musical divergence — a healthy state of affairs. All in all, good import stuff if you can afford the expense or the wait for a local release. — TYRONE FLEX

ROADRUNNER 17

THIRTY THREES THrRTY THREES THIRTY swayed by my confusion, rush out and buy it and make your own decision. Hope you like it. — FJ.W.

LEO SAYER "LIVING IN A FANTASY (Chrysalis) It was rumoured that Sayer was in tending to revert to the sound of his earlier albums but, unfortunately, that is not evident here. He has chosen instead to be Tarneyed’ with the same brush as Cliff Richard, who is currently riding high on the British charts with an Alan Tarney composition. Trevor Spencer the other half of, believe it or not, the TarneySpencer Band is drummer on the album while Tarney produces, arranges, pens three tracks and collaborates with Sayer on another six. Both of these boys are CARLENE CARTER South Australian ex-pats and are to be “MUSICAL SHAPES” (WEA) congratulated on their success. The clean, resonant production owes a lot to the style associated with Cliff Richard. In fact, I can almost ‘hear’ him on all of these songs except for the excellent sir^le More Than I Can Say which doesn't necessarily detract from either artist, but does create a degree of sameness about it all. It may irk Sayer that the single, which is the best track here, is the only non-original composition (dating back to the days of Bobby Vee), but it is a great ambassador for the album and, on its strength alone, will sell a lot of IP ’s. The rest of the tracks are all bright and bouncy and terribly catchy, but I feel a frustration for Sayer in the way that his earlier, gruffer singing style is not given the chance to develop and overcome the naggingly smooth production. Most of the lyrics are about boy-girl relationships and are only there to serve as a vehicle for the attractive melodies. In fact they’ve given me the courage to shake the dust from some of my youthful poetic scribblings without laughing. What could be worse than these lines from You Win—I Lose: "You win — I lose That’s how it always goes I came into this thing with my heart in a spin I went out w ith a broken nose." In short, an album of finely crafted, harmless pop songs that will not lose Sayer any fans (he may even steal a few from Cliff Richard), but one which takes him further into cabaret land and onto SDN’s playlist for evermore. — ANDY NICHOLSON

Too Drunk (To Remember) on side two of Carlene Carter’s Musical Shapes CHARLIE DANIELS BAND stands out like the proverbial “dog’s ears “FULL MOON” in the moonlight”. (Epic) It’s a great little song with lyrics most of us can identify with. Also I love the As an album reviewer, I just keep white boots on the cover. I guess that waiting for the next Charlie Daniels Band sounds flippant but I’m not sure what release. I have yet to be disappointed. else to say. The Charlie Daniels Band just don’t Someone said in p rint quite recently that Carlene’s sister Rosanne was about to put the “ cunt back into make bad albums. To the uninitiated all country’’, fairly strong words from anyone’s point of CDB albums may tend to sound the view. same, but on closer evaluation, this is not I guess with a sister like that, a daddy like Johnny necessarily true — similar maybe, but not Cash, a mommy like June Carter and a husband cum the same. Their sound is so tight it’s record producer like Nick Lowe we can all expect big thingsfrom Carlene. I don’t think she has quite made water tight. it th is time though. Just about but not quite. Musical Shapes certainly has its moments but even with Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds helping out, it doesn’t quite measure up to expectations. Carlene does a tricked up version of Dad’s Ring Of Rre which is good, and the duet with Dave Edmunds also works well. I don’t know, the more I w rite the more confused I become. I don’t dislike the album, it has a sort of rock-a-billy feel about it which is enjoyable. Like I said: some good songs, good backings, the lady has a good voice, lots of things going for it, so don’t be

The latest effort Full Moon carries on the CDB tradition. Dedicated to long tim e friend Tommy Cald well, (Marshall Tucker member killed in an auto accident recently), the album moves easily through the whole range of CDB styles. This album, like other CDB albums, probably won’t receive much airplay on commercial radio as it is too hard to push into a slot that most DJs could relate to. Charlie Daniels refuses to categorise his music and it does seem almost impossible.The band transcends most modern styles (excluding disco) from down home country, through blues, jazz rock, southern

boogie or dixie rock with the odd ballad thrown in just to confuse the issue even more. The musicianship on this album is (as is par for the course with CDB) excellent. Each track is different and all stand alone. Full Moon is an album worth listening to, once you’ve heard it you’ll want to hear it again and again etc. The only track I’m unsure of is In Ahierica and you’ll know what 1 mean when you hear the lyrics. Could be Okie from Muskogee all over again, in America anyway, they probably need something like this right about now. Seems these cowboys really are just good ol ’ boys when you get right down to it. ■ Once again though. In America aside; excellent band, excel lent a Ibum. — W iLUE NAPOLEON

MIKEY DREAD “WORLD WAR THREE” (Dread at the Controls — UK import) This is Michael (Campbell’s (aka Mikey Dread’s) third album. World War III is in a way representative of a whole new style of reggae music that never sees the light of day in Australia. There is a lot of r ^ a e in London these days and it’s a crying shame that we only get glimpses of it such as this record. Mikey Dread originally rose to fame as a fairly wild DJ on Jamaican radio who eventually got fired (possibly fo r complex musicopolitical reasons). He then started to work on his own and turned up in England. Still working heavily in the DJ style rather than trying to sing th is album uses some classic Jamaican session musicians to produce some very bass-heavy tunes that sometimes lapse into a dub drone, but at all times heaving inter esting remixing gimmicks to sustain the interest. A vague political concern runs through rnany of the lyrics but it’s d ifficult to pick out a clear line on anything in particular. All in all this album is repres entative of new style English reggae — not too much in the way of vocals but saved by some drastically cool production to make it worth listening to. — JAHVEGEMITE

^Et

umb/elki mu/ic

V a tG IN G R O U N D . It’syouts, plus a year’s subscription to ROADRUNNER, for a mere $15. Send c h e q u e / money order to: ROADRUNNER Subscriptions, P.O. Box 90 , Eastwood, S.A. 5063. NAME............................................................................................................................................................... ADDRESS........................................................................................................................................................

Upstairs, Cnr.

F ro m e

and B undle Sts.,

C ity . A D E L A ID E 'S S E C O N D H A N D RECORD STORE.

We buy your unwanted records and tapes. See us

.POSTCODE.

now fo r the best price in tow n .

□ I require one year's subscription at $15. □ I require back copies of the following issues at $1 each;

Enclosed is a cheque/m oney order for $ ....................................

ROADRUNNER 18

LARGE STOCK OF INDEPENDENT SINGLES AVAILABLE When in Perth, shop secondhand at ATLAST Records, 2nd Floor, Royal Arcade, City.

S liP E .R T R A M P

SCHOOL A IN 'T N O B O D Y B U T M E T H E L O G IC A L S O N G B L O O D Y W E L L R IG H T B R E A K F A S T IN A M E R IC A Y O U S T A R T E D L A U G H IN G H ID E IN Y O U R S H E L L FR O M NOW ON

JPH

A LIVE 2 RECORD SET Recorded on November 2 9 ,1 9 7 9 at the Pavillion in Paris. Includes the single, ''D R E A M E R "

DREAMER RUDY A SOAP B O X O PER A ASYLUM TA K E T H E LO NG W A Y H O M E FOOLS O V E R T U R E T W O O F US C R IM E O F T H E C E N T U R Y

A V A IL A B L E ON RECORD A N D TAPE 7 0 1 6 7 /8

ROADRUNNER 19

■: . ■V '

FLOWERS ICEHOUSE \

/With

c a n ’t/ h elp m yself

WE CAN GET TOGETHER \ i

\ ^ '

.'5^v

\l'-i "

0 I ,« t P'■ ' ’■

ROADRUNNER 20