Roadrunner 5(1) February 1982

ROADRUNNER dtifu now h t the fufute

Vol. 5 No.1

MAGICAL MUSH­ ROOM MOMENTS

February 1982

$1.00

Subscription Offer: The Human League’s ‘Dare’ and ‘Reggae Now’

FIRST AUSTRAUAN INTERVIEW

A fu lU rep cn t on th e M ush roo m E v o lu tio n

The Punk and the Godfather — Paut Kelly and Joe Camilleri at the Myer Music Bowl. (pic. Nick Geranopolous)

Inside: The Birthday Party Littie Heroes Soft Ceii Fiaming Hands Creedence Clearwater - A Hiitory Ultravdx Altered Images Dance Craze

Q: You talk about a lot of political things, what do you think are the important polit­ ical goals?. . .

A: What do I think is an important political goal? I’ll tell ya. Anti-imperialism, right? From Russia and America, right? All they do is gibber o u t . . . paranoia, right? Americans say, ‘Anthing is better than Communism’ right? Even chopping people’s hands off with an axe is better than Communism. Russians right? People wanna get a bit of freedom — bang, dead. Screw all that. I’m gonna kill Mickey Mouse and Ivan the Dwarf.

THE / /

SINGLE

H A R D E N M Y

H E A R T

/ /

Quarterflash, their debut offering on Geffen Records, is an album as distinctly original as it is accessible-nine songs of American contemporary rock and roll.

Quarterflash derive from the Australian folk-saying "A quarter flash and three parts foolish."

But listen to "Harden M y Heart" and the album and you'll find this band to be neither flash nor foolish.

G EFFEN

RECORDS

2 ROAPRUNNER,

Quarterflash simply sounds like a natural hit.

US LP Charts # 5

US SP Charts #5.

GEF 49824 Cass. GHSC 49824

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Dear Ed, When will AM stations learn to play promising Australian bands, instead of giving them a hard time? We’ve all seen it happen here in Melbourne innumerable times, and it looks like “ Little Heroes” have been trapped in this predicament. A fabulous follow­ ing, a top quality debut album and exposure across the land on a major tour as support doesn’t seem to be enough for them to join the AM play lists. Four consecu­ tive singles totally ignored is the result. All I can say is ‘something’s gonna happen’ and the true po­ tential of this band and many others will finally be realised. I ‘Just Can’t Wait’ for that ‘One Per­ fect D ay’ when Little Heroes ‘Sound & Vision’ is deeply ex­ posed and supported. They’re one of many bands who really de­ serve it.

It’s a real ’Mean Job’.

Love, The X-College Girls And let’s hear some more from The Little Heroes fan club . . .

Dear Roadrunner, Imagine living on a ‘Desert Is­ land’. No Roadrunnersto read, no Little Heroes music to listen to, you’d end up ‘Running Round in Circles’. Your ‘Sound and Vision’ would become lazy, and you’d ache for someone to ‘Talk to Me’.

You ‘Just Can’t Wait’ for the day ‘Something’s Gonna Happen’, (like a frogman appear with a year’s supply of Roadrunner is­ sues). Your ‘Bleeding H eart’ would prefer to be anywhere, be it poverty stricken ‘ India’, or amongst the pinball wizardry of ‘Zorbas’. You’d dream of ‘Coming Home’, even if it meant to a ‘Mean Job’, or ‘Melbourne, Just Not New York’. What a life, your ‘Last Number One’ choice.

While the ‘Boys in the Park’ back home are playing ‘Games’, and ‘Young Hearts’ try to ‘Stay away from Sarah’, but still wish ‘To Be Her Cat’, your ‘Perfect Day’ would by fulfilled by a Pirate ship, someone coming to ‘Catch Me’ at last. Yes, ‘That’s Me’, the ‘Pretty Shadow’ you were looking for.

‘That Girl’, the one ‘She Says’ buys every edition of Roadrunner.

At last, back to the circuits of Mel­ bourne, catching Little Heroes performing in their normal brilliant manner, watching the excitement on the crowds faces, and observ­ ing the unbelievability of such a talented, yet under-rated band.

College Girls still support a band, especially when they’re off interstate. Great to see you back where you belong . . .

Love, a ‘Fisherman’s Friend’, formerly from ‘Dusseldorf.

Don’t take this ‘So Seriously’.

Dear RR Fuckin’ Hell. Their fourth single has been totally ignored by AM radio stations, as have their pre­ vious three. Their debut album was barely given a mention, though it was a far better compila­ tion than most other 40 minute frisbees flogged to death on TV and radio. At least the crowds have their brains in the right place, as they seem more appreciative towards the band by the week.

And that’s a lot bloody better than the media, who walk around blindly with ear muffs. At least Roadrunners recognised the band’s existence, while everyone else seems too busy covering Adam and the Ants instead of giv­ ing any mention to the support bamd on the tour, (who undoub­ tedly overshadowed the whole night with their brilliant music). “ Little Heroes” of course, you naive person.

Love a ‘Young Heart’ More! More!

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Dear Roadrunner, I’ve just finished reading The Roadrunner Readers Poll 1981 and I thought I’d write in and tell you all what I thought of it.

Not bad. Well everything that m entioned either the name Icehouse, or Iva Davies, Keith Welsh, Anthony Smith and John Lloyd was bloody terrific. Though I have to say that Iva is not my hero, Anthony is. I’m sorry Iva my boy.

Back to the Poll. Some other bits were very disappointing. Like for instance ‘songwriter’. Why didn't Iva get mentioned. He’s a bloody good songwriter ya know.

In fact the best in the world. Mov­ ing on ‘Producer’ Cameron Allen not mentioned. ‘Filmclip’ Love in motion, a bloody ripper and not mentioned. I love it (the filmclip that is).

Moving on to the international scene now. This bit was a bit out of hand. Group’ Duran Duran were not mentioned. I can’t believe it.

My buddies weren't mentioned.

What's the matter with you people. Thank God Adam and the Ants weren't mentioned. I can't stand the wankers. Were's the Baygon? Back to Duran Duran.

‘Single' Planet Earth not men­ tioned. ‘Album' their self titled album wasn't mentioned. I don't believe it. Duran Duran are the best looking international band and the 2nd best looking band in the world (Icehouse are the best looking) and they don’t even get a mention. How sick you people must be. I’d advise you all to go to the doctor and have a check up, he’s bound to find something wrong with you.

Anyway, thanx for the article on the guys. It’s nice to know they are alive and well. I can’t wait to see them when they descend on our country. Especially Perth.

Must go now as I have a letter to send .. .this one!

Yours faithfully Icehouse and Duran Duran wor­ shipper P.S. As Adam Ant says; ‘Life be­ comes more exciting when you make the right choices'. That's why I hate him.

Choke - such devotion.

Dear Naughty Bands that tour Australia but not Perth.

Why do you always tour Aus­ tralia, but not Perth? Take, for example, the highly publicised Echo and the Bunnymen tour clodhopping Mac and his mates didn’t twitch their noses in our di­ rection, did they? And Ultravox seem to have forgotten the exis­ tence of the Western half as well!

The ultimate insult came when my favourite fantasy material, the Cure, cancelled Perth due to lack of response or some other gar­ bage like that. At least that’s what I’m told - I wasn’t in Perth at the time so I’m not sure if they played or not, but I’d lay my wordly pos­ sessions on a bet. And what about Simple Minds, and the Clash, and even Icehouse! Sure, it may cost money to lug their stuff millions of miles across the Nullarbor but in the long run it’s worth it. And it’s not as if the bands were planning holidays or whatever - for chrissakes, they’re WORKING! Well, I’m off to Britain now, maybe I’ll have a better chance of seeing music in action over there, even if I do miss the Duran Duran concert (ten out of ten for the Fluffy Five!) whenever. My advice to all Western Australians - do the same. As far as tour organisers are concerned, we do not exist.

An irate Kat, from the hideous WA bush Hmmm - looks like one for the WA Tourist Bureau chaps.

Dear Roadrunner, In regard to issue 11/12 con­ cerning one particular article about Perth bands written by C. C. Mitchell, r would just like to say if this Mitchell person is going to rave about little minor Perth bands why don't you at least write about ones that are worth writing about e.g. ‘Hooker’ alias ‘FUNWORLD’.

Well, they may well do a lot of cover versions but in Perth, bands like this make their money that way as they do now, and heaps W ‘Hooker’ lover Fairfield, Vic

Dear Roadrunner, Referring to C. C. Mitchell’s ar­ ticle on Perth (Roadrunner December/January issue).

Mr. Mitchell says of Ketch “ if you're good looking and most im­ portant, rich, you’ll love it” .

He seems to have misinter­ preted who it is they cater fpr.

Ketch caters for many young people from different backgrounds - not all ‘trendies'.

Many of these young people iden­ tify with subcultures in England.

There is no other retail outlet which provides these kids with access to the type of clothing with which they want to express them­ selves. A lot of time and ideas are essential to dressing from opshops. Ketch provides an easy al­ ternative for people who want stimulating, non-stereo type clo­ thing. Mitchell should be more concerned with chain stores like the Katies' and 'Oggi's' who cater for people to look the same. In this state there is so much repression and intolerance, why knock the few small areas that are trying to break out of it?

Mitchell says let's forget about the person beneath shall we?

What people wear are some kind of statement about themselves whatever it is'.

As for the statement fuck fash­ ion anyway, just be comfortable', what do you mean by comfort­ able? Most people are comforta­ ble within the image they are try­ ing to present.

Mitchell's criticism is a personal attack on something which is try­ ing to be positive. Constructive criticism would be of more value.

Kerry “ Beware of critics like me . . . ” C. C. Mitchell, RR Dec-Jan.

To whomever reads this.

Hi, it’s such fun reading letter pages nowadays, ’cause every­ one is disgusted with everything (mayby it will lead to a world war III, hopefully). For a change I am triply disgusted. Why? (etc.).

Reasons: A. Because the price of every­ thing is going up and the standard is going down. (e.g. hint, hint, one RAM magazine).

B. Because 1 had to wade through a pile of stinking, revolt­ ing, rotting etc., rubbish to find the newsagent.

And C. Because no one (except Juke, and since when has Juke counted?) has reviewed the Boys album. In the Nov. 15th of Road­ runner was a letter by a guy in love with Australian bands. I too love Oz bands — e.g. Split Enz, Matt Finish, Sunnyboys, Australian Crawl, Radiators, The Church, Little Heroes, Mental as Anything, Men at Work, etc., etc. Apart from all of these we also own a group called The Boys. So what if they do come from Perth (where?), so did the Dugites (who?), and they broke through (sort of).

So far The Boys have released three singles, and what shits me is that apart from being shown on Countdown and Sounds, no one has even heard of The Boys’ latest single “Weoh Weoh Weoh” (OK, so it’s a dumb title, but the song’s good) and although ads for the album have appeared in Road­ runner the former has not even reviewed the album. So why not get off your fucking lazy fat arses and do something about it?

From.... an angry Frog (Sydney) PS — Betcha a buck ya don’t print this bloody letter. If you don’t I’ll write again. And that’s a threat and a promise.

PPS — My spelling is ratshit.

Dear Roadrunner, Okay you guys, what, went wrong? C. C. Mitchell (Dec/Jan issue) and his pretty good? Nah, okay? Nah, terrible write up on Perth, 1981 of course!

It seems he was so busy chit­ chatting about the shadier characters, venues and clothes shops associated with his appa­ rently non-existent mods, skinheads and new romantics that he must have totally forgotten what the hell he was raving on about.

After spending so much time informing us Sydney siders of Perth’s unknowns, busted-up ex-bands, the lack of new roman­ tics and their own answer to Molly Meldrum, he totally omitted any talent in the whole report (even his own attempt at playing rock critic).

What happened to the Boys?

Their talent is mature, original rock’n’roll, the album “ B oys” great. {RAM had a rave review on it recently, placing them next to the Church in talent), their recent single “ Weoh, weoh, weoh’’ and flipside ’’One Way” unreal, and of course, that hit single “ When you’re lonely” won’t be soon for­ gotten.

So come on, Roadrunner, get rid of so-called critics such as C. C. Mitchell and print a decent item on the best talent to come out of Perth in a long while, the boys, real soon.

Yours, Lisa Bayo, BOYS lover critic hater Carringbah, Sydney Dear Roadrunner, We would like to thank God for bringing forth Doc Neeson, Iva Davies, Steve Kilbey onto this wonderful earth of ours.

Last weekend we had a party thrown in our honour. We would like to thank the three mentioned above for the fancy dress party.

For publicity reasons our names shall be concealed: we shall be known as Miss A, K And M. The party started at approxi­ mately 8.00 o’clock and at 9.32 and 29 seconds. Miss M arrived with Chaperone Iva. Davies wearing his skin tight, crutch hug­ ging black leather trousers, bared chest with thick curly wig resem­ bled Marc Bolan. Miss M. dressed in David Bowie type clothes and make-up an all.

Close to 9.43, Miss K. arrived arm in arm with Doc Neeson, who had a bit of trouble getting here as the fan belt broke on the Volksy.

Doc dressed in Tuxedo and my­ self (Miss K.) dressed in a stun­ ning, jaw dropper glowmesh dress, complete with glowmesh shoes and bag, cigarette holder, purse, car key holder etc.).

A few moments after we arrived so did the sound of a thundering mini, then in marched Lawrence of Arabia complete with concubine chained to his wrist. To our utter shock it was Steve Kilbey and Miss A! The Party wasn’t really groov­ ing until Simon Binks arrived in a stunning curly wig and an adora­ ble dress complete with Mink, bearing a rem arkable re­ semblance to Barbra Streisand.

The Highlight of the Night had to be (we thought Joylene Hairmouth, but was in actual fact) James Reyne. At about 2.02 am everyone went their own way. My­ self (Miss K.) and Doc went back to his Pad for the night (mmm which I was hoping would be a long Night). Iva and Miss M. went back to the Icehouse to warm up.

Miss A. and Steve of Arabia went back to their tent.

Hope you’ll come to our next Party!

The Future Miss K. Neeson Miss M. Davies (Oh isn’t it common) Miss A. Kilbey Adelaide.

18 year old Future Mrs. Worlds

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CLASH SHOCK SYDNEY PRESS CONFERENCE Q: Do you make much money when you tour the US? A: Well we haven’t toured there in two years.

We did eighteen gigs at Bond’s (a New York club). We are making a film but we’re having to get backing for it.

Q: Do you want to make a lot of money?

A: We wanna make money so we can keep going. I mean, who doesn’t want a house to live in? And not one of us has got that yet.

One day I’ll get back to London.

Q; Don’t your albums make money?

A: The Sandanista thing — we’ll never do that again. We haven’t made nothing on that.

Q: Do you support the Rock against Rascism Movement in Britain?

A: It’s posing y’know? They get all their lovely badges and T-shirts but they really don’t do any damn thing. Maybe if people just opened up to each other it’d do a hell of a lot more.

Q: Are you happy with the music coming out of England at the moment?

A: Not at all. It stinks.

Q: Why? A: It’s too posey.

Q: Where does it come from?

A: The Cavaliers. It comes from 500 years ago. I think they’re coming here already.

Spandau Ballet, Duran Duran. Every three years you can pose about like that.

Q: What wili you do when you go back in three weeks?

A: Well that’s a good question because we already know there’s no use for us here, like there is a use for us in England.

Q: Why not here?

A: I’ve been told no one gives two fucks about politics. People want to go down Bondi Beach and look at girls without bikini tops.

Who gives a fuck about unions and inflation and all that? I’d just like to say that we’re not a boring university lecture. We play great music and we’re exciting. This ain’t no Gang of Four. We jump about and wiggle our bums.

We’re not afraid to do that. If you can’t take it — too bad. There’s no need for our message here. Because if the youth wanna go down Bondi Beach then why not — the sun is shin­ ing. I’ve never seen sunshine like this. I can’t believe it! You should go to Tokyo! We’ll get by here because we give it stick and jump about and try hard. And maybe the message will get through.

Q: What is your use in Engiand?

A: We’re no use to the critics in England but you’d be surprised, I was surprised, the kids are stili with us.

Q: But you’re not in Engiand any more.

A: Yeah but we were there before we . . . we went from England to America, Japan, right, Australia, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Leicester, Newcastle, geddit?

Q: Where do you call home?

A: That’s a fucking hard question.

Q: Why did you cail your record San­ danista? What was the reason?

A: None at all. We could have called it ‘Furry Underpants’. We wanted to draw attention to the fact. Really I’d like to call the next one ‘El Salvador’ but I won’t because we got left in the back of the shelf, right? You call your record ‘Sandanista’ and they take your re­ cord in America and they find the back of the shelf and they put them in the back of the shelf. We made a record in New York City right now and the tape operator came to me and said, “Joe, will you please give me a copy of ‘Sandanista’.” Now I mean. New York City, right, centre of the western world, capital of Babylon. Not Bombay, Addis Ababa, right? And you can’t even buy a copy of ‘Sandanista’. And CBS is the Black Rock down on Seventh Avenue right, 54 storeys high with posters of Bob Dylan and Elvis Costello, right? And you can’t buy a copy of ‘Sandanista’ unless you go down the rare record shop with the Hoagy Carmichael, Cole Porter and you pay over the top for it which is not what we meant. Sandanista was cassette technology. Cassette technology.

You didn’t like a bit, you left it behind. You taped the bits you liked and went dancing in the park, right? Nobody got the idea — it’s all

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‘a pretentious load of arseholes’.

Applause.

Q: Do you hate your record company?

A: Not at all. I tell ya, I just been in Japan right, and met this really tasty geezer. He looked like one of the band, didn’t he? And this guy worked for Epic/Sony and he showed me his New Year cards. You know they send New Year cards out. And he has his five year old kid dressed up . . . like he had a London Cal­ ling one from a few years ago and a San­ danista one, like he was dead fanatic. So sometimes I think . . . I hate the top floor of the record company. Not the people who are trying to pay the rent on their condominium.

Q: What can you tell us about the new album?

A: It’s R.O.C.K. It’s not a load of bananas, like a red banana, a green banana, it’s trying to be all the same banana without being boring.

We’re trying to boil it down. We’re not trying to like shuffle through the pack, we’re trying to discover one card from the pack, y’know.

Q: When did you finish it?

A: I think we’re going to finish it here. Next week. A rush job, right?

Q: What about all those romantic songs you wrote for Ellen Foley’s album? How come you never write any of those sort of things for your own albums?

A: Well, I dunno, we tried things like Lovers Rock, Spanish Bombs, which were pretty romantic. Like you’re waiting for a woman, O.K.? you’re thinking of her when you write the song. When you write for somebody else . . . we felt we had the freedom to write other things. Like that song ‘Death Of The Psychoanalyst of Salvador Dali’. I mean I’d be willing to try that on a Clash record now, but at the time we were too strung up to be that free. And like everyone was putting us down in England for that.

Q: Was that why the sound on the album was a little lighter as well?

A: No, that was an uncontrollable accident.

Q: Do you think you’ll do any more pro­ ducing? Did you like it?

A: I dunno. It rolls along by itself.

Q: You talk about a lot of political things, what do you think are the important polit­ ical goals?. . .

A; What do I think is an important political goal? I’ll tell ya. Anti-imperialism, right? From Russia and America, right? All they do is gibber o u t.. . paranoia, right? Americans say, ‘Anthing is better than Communism’ right? Even chopping people’s hands off with an axe is better than Communism. Russians right? People wanna get a bit of freedom — band, dead. Screw all that. I’m gonna kill Mickey Mouse and Ivan the Dwarf.

Q: Is that why you picked up on the Cent­ ral American theme?

A: Well that was happening at the time. We did ‘Sandanista’. That’s what I was saying.

I’d call this one ‘Ei Salvador’ but that’s just preaching to the converted and that’s just wanking, masturbation. We’re going to call it Rat Control From Fort Bragg. Something that the suckers in Black Rock aren’t going to suss what Fort Bragg is. And they’re going to serve it up along with Boston and Foreigner.

We gotta get out there and fight for it. It’s no use being . . . like Jesus went to the brothel and all the journalist said, ‘You shouldn’t go the the brothel mate’. He went to meet God, right?

Q: How do you define revolution?

A: Revolution can only come from necessity.

And I define revolution as when students and real workers respect each other. Then you have a potentially revolutionary situation. At the moment the students all over the world are only interested in beer, women, each other, m en,.. .

Q: Why not?

A: Why not? Because it’s too late for that!

Q: What’s wrong with being interested in beer?

A: Nothing, if that’s all you’re interested in and everyone’s taking the same line then let’s all get fucked up the arse and no com­ plaints.

Q: What can you do to change. . .

A: Well you can stop fucking concentrating on beer and start thinking about your life.

Babble of voices Yeah, yeah, let’s get the video, let’s go have a party. All well and good, why shouldn’t people enjoy them selves. . . Why enjoy yourself when the place is burning down.

Q: But the place isn’t burning down A: Not here, not here, that’s why I said you don’t need our message here. I don’t know what we’re doing here (Laughter) I tell you the sunshine makes it worth it though.

Q: Tell us why you’ve come to Australia Joe? A: I’ve got no idea. Ian Drury just been here.

They all said it was great. Bob Dylan came here in 1966. The Rolling Stones always come here. We ain’t making money on this.

To make money in rock’n’roll there’s one thing you gotta do. This is a business lecture.

You play a large auditorium. Expenses right?

You get one night’s roadies wages, one night’s hire of the place, one night’s crew wages, one night’s group wages, all one night right? But you get 30,000 punters shel­ ling out the dough. Whereas we play seven nights in small halls cos we believe that the R.O.C.K. has got to be so close that you can see my face and see if I mean it or whether I’m just jiving you along. And that means seven night’s hotel bills, seven night’s P.A. with 3,000 punters a night.

1 Maggie Bell and B. A. Robertson seem to have really started something with their cover of the old P. J. Proby hit, ‘Hold Me.' Latest duo off the rank with an exhumed chestnut are Joey Ramone and Holly Vincent (of Holly and the Italians) with a cover of Sonny and Cher’s 7 Got You Babe'. And rumoured to be com­ ing up — a duet by Kim Wilde and Human League’s Phil Oakey.

Wonder what they’ll do?

And sticking with duets for the moment, Birthday Party’s Nick Cave and ex-Bad Poet lead singer Jade D’Adrenz closed the Party’s Saturday night show at Adelaide’s Stagedoor with an, er, unusual rendition of Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood’s 1967 smash, ‘Jackson’. ‘We got married in a fever’ they screeched, whilst rol­ ling entwined on the floor of the stage, apparently consumating their brief relationship. A similar finale was enacted, with Lydia Lunch instead of Jade, at one of the Party’s final UK shows last year. A live album featuring Birth­ day Party and Lydia Lunch will be released by Missing Link this month.

Tangerine Dream, set to tour this country for the first time since 1975, are a possibility to play a large outdoor anti-nuclear festival in London this Spring. This follows their performance at a similar event late last year in Berlin.

Double album from XTC ex­ pected fairly shortly.

Human League, racing up the charts here with ‘Dare’, due to tour in April (when the cheap return flights from England take effect.)

Have the Models broken up?

Have Sean Kelly and Andrew Duffield joined the Reels? Is truth stranger than fiction?

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Serious Young Insects will have their debut album released on Native Tongue through CBS early this year. The Insects recom­ mence live work this month after a festive season lay-off.

The Go-Betweens album has been picked up by Rough Trade in London for British release.

Tony Cohen, who produced ‘Prayers On Fire’, has been sac­ ked from producing the Birthday Party’s follow up, tentatively enti­ tled ‘Junkyard’, according to Mis­ sing Link’s Keith Glass. Glass will be accompanying the Party on a whirlwind American tour during which the Birthday Party will sup­ port the Dead Kennedys in their home town of San Francisco.

M Squared, Sydney’s small but insidious ‘underground’ label/ studio/organisation, mount a na­ tional offensive this month via that most over ground of mediums — a

All Birthday Party photos this issue by Peter Seifert.

package tour. Dates and venues are 13th February — Melbourne, Seaview Ballroom (Dead Travel Fast, Scattered Order, The Same, Ya Ya Choral): 20th Feb. — Sydney, Trade Union Club (The Same, Ya Ya Choral, Dead Travel Fast, Scattered Order); 25th Feb. — Canberra, Civic Hotel (Scat­ tered Order, The Same, Dead Travel Fast) and 28th Feb. — Brisbane, New York Hotel (Dead Travel Fast, Laughing Clowns, The Same, Xero, Scattered Or­ der). The tour is designed to escape the ‘insularity of the inner Sydney scene’, and also to prom­ ote the labels latest releases, EPs from the Systematics {‘My Life In The Field Of Cows’), Dead Travel Fast {‘Why Won’t We Wake’) and the Same {‘The Same’).

The new line-up of Paul Kelly and the Dots includes Huk Treloar (ex-Little Heroes, Bleeding Hearts) on drums, and guitarist Maurice Frawley (ex Japanese Comix). The new Kelly single will be “ Clean This House’’ from the “ Manila” album.

Eric Gradman has completed a mini-album at Richmond Recor­ ders, produced by Gradman and Nick Rischbieth, and will be play­ ing live with the New Machine, which includes old Man and Macbine-men Graeme Perry and Bob Kretchmar.

Pete Best’s Beatles have changed their image from cabaret to neo-psychedelic, and their name to the North to Alaskans.

Spencer Jones, on leave from Beats Working, will be playing guitar. Repertoire will include lots of Cliff Richard classics, the long version of “ Crimson And Clover” and bassist John Topper singing the Worst Record in the history of Australian pop, Issy Dye’s “ in­ cense.”

ATTENTION SPUDS] To celebrate the DEVO tour of Australia ROADRUNNER has a DEVO PACK to give away.

The pack consists of the albums ’Are We Not Men?’, ’Duty Now For The Future’, ’Freedom Of Choice’ and ’New Tradition­ alists’ plus the mini-album, ’DEVO Live’ and a very rare picture single of ’Beautiful World’. Also A DEVO T-Shirt, DEVO poster and DEVO badges.

To win this fabulous prize just write in and tell us how many people are in DEVO. Send your answers to ROADRUNNER/ DEVO, 2 College Rd. Kent Town, S,A<, 5067o Competition closes at the end of the month and the winner will be announced in our next issue.

£ £ a n ic o lle c to S

Adelaide Royalty Theatre, Angas Street, March 7 -9 ,1 1 -1 4 , 16-20 - 9 pm March 1 2 ,1 3 .1 9 , 2 0 - 1 1 pm Prices $9.90 Students, Pensioners.

Unemployed S6.90 Bookings at all BASS outlets.

Melbourne Last Laugh Theatre Restaurant, 64 Smith Street.

Collingwood March 22-April 3 Dinner 7 .30 pm Show Time 9.30 pm Prices; Dinner & Show from $19.50 Show only (Reserved) $9.50 Students etc. Door sales $6.50 Bookings Phone (0 3 )4 1 9 8 6 0 0 (0 3 )4 1 9 6 2 2 6

Sydney Seymour Centre, Cleveland Street, April 5-17 Prices $12.90 $9.90 Pensioners/ students Bookings: Seymour Centre, Mitchells BASS

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Even the delighted Soft Cell duo themselves will admit to their surprise at having had 1981’s best-selling English single with ‘Tainted Love’, a record which went on to enjoy major chart success worldwide.

It’s been a major victory for singer Marc Almond and syn­ thesizer player Dave Ball, a pair of art school lads from Leeds in the North of England.

Prior to this huge hit and the subsequent gold disc for their ‘Non-stop Erotic C abaret’ album, they had been dismis­ sed by the British media as being little more than subS uicide-like dregs of New Romantic electro-pop.

They still live up in Yorkshire in Leeds, a Victorian industrial city of a million inhabitants, to which each moved to acquire degrees in Fine Art at the beginning of the 70s. Marc and Dave each had been brought up in separate sea­ side resort towns on the Lan­ cashire coast, some hundred miles to the west. “ I came to Leeds art college because it was a very free place,” remembers Marc, as he sits with Dave Ball in the luxuriously kitsch coffee lounge of an incongruously modern new hotel near the city centre. The degree course they each took was completely un­ structured, he says. Instead, it was concerned with bringing out the students’ self-motivation: to this end it provided extensive facilities for artistic endeavour, whether in painting, photography, film or sound. “ But in my first year at college,” explains Marc, “ I became very disillusioned with painting and drawing. I’d originally wanted to act or be involved in the theatre.

But I wasn’t particularly interested in being taught someone else’s methods. So I used the art school facilities for doing performances, writing songs and making films. “ One day I heard a lot of noises coming from the sound room. I checked it out and found Dave working away in there. He wanted a vocal side to what he was doing. “ So basically our Fine Art de­ gree courses consisted of forming Soft Cell.”

A permanent stench of chemi­ cal effluence hovers about grimy, damp Leeds. This smell serves to remind that the city was estab­ lished in the Industrial Revolution as little more than a setting for vast profits to be screwed out of exploited labour forces. According to popular local mythology, its setting bang in the centre of the British Isles had Leeds marked out by Adolf Hitler to house his seat of government in the UK should his World War II invasion plans have succeeded. Accord­ ingly, it contains many particularly vicious members of the neo-Nazi National Front and the similarly fascist British Movement. Such extremity requires an equally bi­ goted opposite force to counter­ act it, which explains the nature of the hard left in Leeds.

It also explains the nature of the quasi-political groups thrown up by the city’s large student popula­ tion — Gang Of Four, Mekons, Delta 5. “ We were hated,” says Marc, “ because we didn’t want to be in that clique and that crowd. “ I felt that the bands that were being political were being very hypocritical, because they all came from very n/ce backgrounds with nice houses and often very rich parents. The song, ‘Chips On My Shoulder’, on the album was written about those people.

“They’d come up to us and say, ‘Your music sounds as if you’re having such a good time, and m usic shouldn’t be fun. You should be more serious musicians and more serious minded, and be writing about the terrible situations we’re all in.’ “ I’d reply, ‘But you’re not in terrible situations at all. If you’re ever broke you know you can ask your mum to lend you a few pounds. You’re being very con­ descending.’ I really felt they had a big chip on their shoulder about something.

“So I insist on only singing about things that have an actual effect in my life, or that I feel an affinity towards, or that I have a

right to sing about — whether it’s something as bland as love or about having a good time or a bad time. “ Personally, I think the reason the Leeds scene didn’t go very far was because it was so hypocritical and moaning.”

Soft Cell firs t presented onstage their electro-pop in November, 1979, as a bottomof-the -b ill act at the Leeds Polytechnic Christmas Dance.

Much of their sound is rooted in Northern Soul. This dance crazy movement sprang in the late 60s out of the dying embers of Mod. Though its musical catchment area eventually became bizarrely broad. Northern Soul initially was based around dance marathons to the sound of esoteric soul records. Its temple was the re­ cently closed Wigan Casino, be­ tween Manchester and Liverpool.

It was there that Dave Ball heard for the first time the late 60s original of ‘Tainted Love’ by Gloria Jones, who went on to become Mrs Marc Bolan and was tragically at the wheel of the car that killed her husband.

Marc Almond was himself a DJ for much of the latter half of the 70’s at the Leeds Warehouse, one of the first clubs outside of London which started playing American disco music. In late 1978 the Warehouse began to play an increasing amount of electronic music — that of Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder, for example.

The synthesizer music of Dave Ball himself was most influenced

by Brian Eno: “ Somehow going to art college and listening to Eno went hand-in-hand for a lot of people.”

A paradox about much of the new music coming out of England is that so much of it is made on synthesizers, an instrument so insistently rejected in 1977 that it became something like a punk equivalent of a smashing of The Golden Calf.

Dave Ball is aware how re­ actionary only a short time ago his choice of instrument would have seemed. “ I think,” he says in his lugubrious Lancashire accent, “that was because of the way synthesizers had been used up until then. People like Rick Wakeman gave them a bad name.

There’s no need for the instrument to sound like a mediaeval or­ chestra. It was so out-of-reach for the ordinary kid, who just couldn’t afford a massive console with about twenty moogs. But now you can buy one for the same price as a guitar. “ I hated synthesizers before punk. But the early New Syn­ thesizer groups like early Human League and C abaret Voltaire were really like electronic punk groups. I think that now the synthesizer has become as ac­ cepted as the guitar.” “ Even ‘Tainted Love’ was a bit consciously electronic in some ways,” adds Marc. “ But when we got to working on numbers like ‘Bedsitter’ on the album we didn’t use a sequencer or anything like that. We were just using the synthesizer as an instrument, as a means to sounds. We didn’t think it had to sound consciously elec­ tronic, or consciously robot-like. “ The disco in our imagination was a much more low rent, sleazy place than the chrome High-Tech, gloss-white painted disco. Ours was more the sort of jazz cellar.”

There is much black humour in the dark lyrics of Marc Almond and the music of Dave Ball. The insistently garrulous Marc, whose slight stammer seems due more to his tripping over the clumps of words he throws your way than to any nervousness, sees the univ­ ersally applicable absurdity of life all around him. His slight, mincing persona gives him the appear­ ance of being a camp Stanley Laurel to bulky Dave’s Oliver Hardy.

Yet both musicians are aware that the huge success of a non­ original song provoked doubts amongst those unfamiliar with their stage-work or previous re­ cord output like the ‘Memorabilia’ 45 as to their abilities to follow up ‘Tainted Love’. But with both the self-composed ‘Bedsitter’ single and ‘Nonstop Erotic Cabaret’ LP also becoming large sellers Soft Cell no longer needed to justify themselves to their detractors. “ Personally,” says Marc, “ I

SOFT CELL The Laurel and of

thought ‘Tainted Love’ would just be a successful cult record and maybe scrape into the Top 75. We did take the song and give it our own style and make it our own. It’s nothing like the original, which is very stompy. “ So I felt pretty confident that if people liked ‘Tainted Love’ then they’d like our other stuff as well.

“Actually, the song ‘Entertain Me’ on the album is about the attitude of the people who say they’ve seen it all before and done it all before, and just want to write you off before they’ve even heard or seen you. We always said we didn’t want to try and impress. We just did what we wanted and felt like doing. There were a lot of people sneering at us as a group who’d missed the boat. But we’ve deliberately always been out on our own, never linking ourselves to a trend and trying to cash in on a fashion. Which is an idea that’s particularly nauseating. laughed and laughed “ So when we strolled )fle .......... in with a number one record and a successful album.”

In fact, it was Soft Cell’s un­ fashionableness amongst Lon­ don’s hip elite that led to the duo being taken under the wing of one Stevo. Stevo, now nineteen years old and a former bricklayer, went along one day a couple of years ago to the Blitz club, the birthplace of the New Romantics in London’s

Covent Garden. But they wouldn’t let him in — because he was too fat, claims Marc.

Stevo’s revenge was to set about organizing a series of oc­ casional clubs in London as an alternative to those habituated by the super-elite. “ Stevo reckoned there was a lot of electronic music around that was just as good as they were playing, but not as hip,” says Marc. “ He started providing places to play for groups like Fad Gadget, Cabaret Voltaire and Depeche Mode at venues like the Chelsea Drugstore and Billy’s in Soho. It was an almost deliberate attempt to be unhip and put on bands that were being ignored. It was electronic music without the posers. “ T he n,” he adds, “ he was asked by Sounds magazine to do a chart of the most popular elec­ tronic music, which they termed the Futurist chart. Which is where the term came from.”

Marc and Dave first met up with Stevo when they played the vast 1980 Futurama Festival in a con­ verted Leeds tram shed only a few hundred yards from the hotel in which we are sitting. They signed to his Some Bizarre Label, licensed through Phonogram, and were included on the Some Bizarre compilation LP put out early last year that also included Depeche Mode.

The rest is history!

Soft Cell’s sudden transforma­ tion from very minor cult figures

into pop heroes has so far left them surprisingly unaffected.

Fearful that their music could become diluted by the too many desparate influences they find in London, they intend to remain living in Leeds.

Marc also insists that rather than increasing his sense of ego, their large success has made him feel only more insecure. “ People who I wouldn’t have met if I hadn’t have had some success now come up to me with the attitude that because I’m somebody then Pm wonderful. I find that really quite horrible. I just look in people’s eyes and realize that all this love they’re pouring my way is a totally superficial thing.

“A lot of the people telling you how much they adore you are record companies and promoters.

Really they couldn’t give a shit if you were run over by a bus as long as you made them some money. I feel a real resentment to those people when they try to run your life. It seems such a colossal nerve that record com panies should try and tell you what songs you should be doing and how to organize your life. They annoy me so much that sometimes I shout and scream at them and then they say, ‘Oh, there he goes, trying to do his pop star bit.’ “ In fact, it’s exactly the oppo­ site. The reason you’re aggres­ sive with them is because you’re trying to hold on to what is you. “ It’s all very frustrating.”

ROADRUNNER

7

ULTRAVOX — WHITE WALLS AND NIETZSCHE IN THE BOOKCASE

music has developed as a form.

It’s a lot more precise, it’s a lot more attractive, it’s not so silly.

People have realised you can’t get away with any old thing. . .

Bucks Fizz don’t seem to have done too badly though.

Chis (Laughs): Well I think the Eurovision song contest is defi­ nitely on another planet. Definitely a little world of its own.

What do you see as the main difference between Uitravox with John Foxx and Uitravox with Midge Ure?

AN INTERVIEW WITH CHRIS CROSS

BY DONALD ROBERTSON

One of the interesting things about Uitravox is that you’re aii from fairly different environ­ ments — Warren (Cann) from Canada, Midge (Ure) from Glasgow, Billy (Currie) from Huddersfield and yourself from London.

Chris: It’s a strange band really because everyone is completely different. The music that we all like is different — yet there’s obviously something running through it that we all tie together on. It’s bizarre you never really know what any­ one else is thinking. It certainly makes it more interesting for us.

How long have you and Billy and Warren been together now?

Chris: Five years now. And I think the reason we’ve stayed together this long is because we are so different. t read a quote from Warren in an interview where he said, ‘we have a common vision and aspiration’.

Chris: I think we all like changing all the time — we just see it as a continuing thing. It’s funny — we start out with a really broad outlook on one point and we all gradually converge on the one path.

It has been said that your live performance is spectacular, even extravagant. Would you agree with that?

Chris: We find it quite . . . normal, y’know. But people do seem to think it’s quite spectacular. I wouldn’t myself. It’s interesting — very atmospheric.

How important is that creation of atmosphere?

Chris: We’ve never been able, to afford a set before, so when we were planning a tour of Europe we designed one ourselves. It’s basi­ cally easy to maintain it’s logical, yet you can do a lot of atmos­ pheres with it.

Another interesting facet of Ui­ travox is that Midge and Billy were/are in Visage. Which im­ plies a flexibility in the band.

Chris: Oh yeah. I mean I’m sure everyone’s going to do some sort of solo project. But the good thing with us now is that we don’t have to rush and do things. We got to the understanding where people know what we’re going to do — even if they don’t like it. It’s all

-

going to be of a high quality. It’s like video — me and Midge are directing video now.

Did you do the ‘Vienna’ one and ‘The Voice’ one?

Chris: We came up for the basic ideas for the stories and the atmospheres and we got in touch with Russell Mulcahy. We know basically what we want and Rus­ sell knows all the practicalities of filming it. We were one of the first

people to come away from the three minute advert. It’s like we were making three minute films instead. We just find it a lot more interesting — we can live out loads of fantasies and be film stars for a couple of days.

One thing that seems to have come to the fore in British rock in the last 2 years is the impor­ tance of having an image. You aimost have to create your own fashion to be a success.

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Chris: There are certain areas where you need a fashion. Like at the moment you’ve got all these semi-Forties revivals. Basically that music is like today’s version of the Monkees. It’s like pop music of today. And whereas The Monkees had their little woolly hats and those shirts, now people have started something else up. Like Spandau Ballet and all their clothes. It just hasn’t changed very much. All it’s done is . . . pop

Chris: I think we’ve become a bit more concise. We all think along the same lines. The main differ­ ence between John Foxx and Midge is . . . John Foxx took all, the slaggings we ever got, every bit of criticism, incredibly person­ ally. He never saw it as someone knocking the band. Every bad remark was people knocking him.

He just couldn’t take it any more.

And when you get put in that position the only thing you can do is turn to yourself. If you get knocked for it then — you’ve got no excuse.

I’m sure if we’d have carried on as we were we’d have become as successful as we are now.

Really? You think that’s true?

Chris: I’m sure it would’ve turned round in the end. It’s a classic case of the media didn’t want it to happen. The press we used to get in England was unbelievably bad.

In the end I just never even bothered to read it. If you believe in what you’re doing then that’s all there is to it.

Do you feel the band is trying to impart any kind of message with your music?

Chris: We’re certainly not a soap­ box band. No, I think what we do is observe situations or different aspects of people.

Is it important that people actu­ ally understand your lyrics?

Chris: No, I don’t think they have to actually understand them as long as they get a feeling off of them. What tends to happen is that they think they understand the words and in fact they’ve got the wrong words completely.

Would you say then that your music is more emotional than intellectual?

Chris: Yeah, definitely. It’s atmos­ pheres we’re playing around with.

We find the darker side of life a lot more interesting. Psychological things.

The review of ‘Rage In Eden’ in ROADRUNNER said it ‘should best be listened to in a room with white walls and copies of Nietzsche in the bookcase.’

Chris: (laughs): I can imagine that.

T ha t’d be great . . . although thinking about it, it’d probably drive you up the wall. Though the idea of a white room is always attractive.

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-

D o n a ld R o b e rts o n

THE FLAMING HANDS BELONG TO NOBODY — BUT THEY’RE NOT WORRIED

About the only section of the 1981 Roadrunner Reader’s Poll that I agreed with entirely was Julie Mostyn’s win in the female vocalist department. Julie is the singer with the Flaming Hands, and for a band that isn’t yet signed to a major label, the win is a pretty astounding feat.

It certainly says a hell of a lot about Julie’s singing ability. On the other hand, it is a sad reflection on just how blind (maybe deaf is a better word) some of the A & R people in this country are.

I first came into contact with the wonderful voice of Julie Mostyn upstairs at the Balmain Town Hall in July 1978. She was a rather frail looking girl that sang with a band called the Kamikaze Kids. On that chilly winter evening the Kamikazies were playing on the same billing as X and the infantile Mental As Anything. The Mentals had a residency at the Civic Hotel on Thursdays and the Kamikazies were also a regular draw-card on the corner of Pitt and Goldburn Streets. Fond memories.

Like so many young bands, the Kamikaze Kids didn’t make it. There were many disappointed fans when news of the split became known. I was. Fortunately, Julie Mostyn survived to tell the story, and now we have the Flaming Hands. They’re fabulous.

Something I found immensely intriguing about the Flaming Hands when they first started was the non-original material (a.k.a. covers) they would play. Although the set has since become at least 80% original, there was a time when covers were the main attraction. The funny thing was that the covers sounded so like originals, (their sped up version of Soul Incorporated’s “I Belong to Nobody" is simply stunning) that unless you collected obscure pop, soul and even psychedelic records from the sixties, you had little if any means of discerning what was original and what wasn’t. And no one’s about to tell you either!

Julie Mostyn: “ When we first started playing we didn’t think we’d do any more than one or two gigs. We were just doing it totally for fun. Jeff (guitarist, Jeff Sullivan) and I, Stevo (Steve Harris, keyboard player with the ‘old’ Flaming Hands, who incidentally helps out on a few tracks on the Sunnyboys debut album) and three other guys. We just learnt a whole lot of covers really quickly, in a couple of practices, and started playing.

People liked it so we kept playing . . . ’’ When the original line-up disbanded shortly after recording their second single "Wake Up Screaming” c/w "Sweet Re­ venge" (Phantom-8), Julie and Jeff Sullivan disappeared from the scene only to reemerge a short time later with a new and rejuvenated incarnation of the Flaming Hands. Slowly but surely, it is this, now

I

stable, crew of six that has built up a steady following in their home town (Sydney) over the last year. But it has only been recent months which have seen more and more original material sneak into the Flaming Hands’ set. And no one is disappointed.

Julie: “ Jeff writes most of it. Grant (the bass player) has written a couple of songs.

Also we’re all starting to write more now, and we’re all getting to know each other’s styles, so we know we can write for each other rather than just forourselves.’’

But it’s still Jeff Sullivan’s songs that really shine out. He has a fine ear for melody that I’m sure has something to do with the way he plays the guitar. Predominantly a rhythm player, he is like a cross between Keith Richards and Mick Taylor, a reckless vir­ tuoso with a distinct feel for composing.

Furthermore, his songs never seem out of context when sung by Julie. Sullivan has had a great deal of experience writing songs for girl singers, (he was the principal songwriter in the long gone but not forgotten Sydney group, the Passengers, a group fronted by the equally talented Angie Pepper) and his strength in this area is undeniable. “ I write a lot of songs” he says, “ and I just pick the ones that I think will suit a girl sing er. . . people don’t expect a girl to be singing ‘Get your fucking arse into here’ or something like Rose Tattoo ‘I want to lick your honey-box, baby!’. They don’t expect a girl to be singing that, so you have to tailor what you’re trying to get across as though it’s coming from a girl” .

But the other members of the band have some equally perceptive thoughts to profer on this curious topic . ..

Grant: “ On the other hand, emotions are things that people experience, and emotions that I feel are probably similar to what Julie feels.”

And Alan: “ If you look at any really good pop song, if your just change the gender it can apply to both sexes . . . ” The Flaming Hands’ music is highly emotional and this probably explains why no two performances are ever the same. It must not be forgotten that while the Flaming Hands play some splendid rock and roll, their music is deep rooted in soul. It’s there in everything they play, and in particular the musicians that play it.

The rhythm section of the Flaming Hands can be frightening in its intensity. The show at the Playroom on the Gold Coast in mid January was unqualified testimony to this. I honestly haven’t seen any thing to match this pair before. (Although come to think of it, the age old combination of Bruce Anthon and Jim Dixon, (now with U.K. surf band, the Bar­ racudas), was pretty damn good in its day).

Just as integral to the Flaming Hands’ charisma is the sax and keyboard playing.

The sax is pure rock and roll in the Bobby

Keys tradition circa 1970. It’s played with a feeling and style that never fails to confirm the band’s soul based influences. For me the keyboard playing is one of the Flaming Hands strongest assets. Often it’s under­ stated, but I’m sure that you’d really miss it if it wasn’t there. It is on one of the bands most appealing originals entitled "Love Execu­ tion", that the keyboards really shine out. I often wondered what they reminded me of, then one night it came to me in a flash. Roy Bittan from Stringsteen’s E-Street band uses a similar baby grand piano, and the sound the Flaming Hands get isn’t altogether removed from that.

The remaining two members of the band, Julie and Jeff, are the icing on the cake. What more needs to be said about Julie’s voice?

It’s emotive, compelling, seductive and at least ten other colourful adjectives that won’t come to me right now. There’s a delightful brashness about her, never pretentious or contrived and her onstage demeanour is a sight to behold. She dances well and as a singer you can’t help but fall for her.

As a performer, Jeff Sullivan is one of the best in the business. So many young players, most noticeably Richard Burgman from the Sunnyboys, have taken a leaf from his book.

But it is not only his playing that warrants mention. From watching Jeff on stage it’s apparent that he is enjoying himself. It’s something Mental As Anything has always clung to as a means of preserving sanity in the rock and roll world. It’s all in the attitude, and the Flaming Hands are very much aware of that. Even though they want to succeed, they won’t allow their ambition to,become a routine that ends up stagnating. “ We’re playing about three times a week in Sydney” says Jeff, “the band, to me, is never going to be a full seven day a week proposition. There’s no way I’d let the band run my life (even though that’s almost what it’s been doing for the last year because it’s such a hard grind trying to get it all to­ gether). It’s definitely not a be all and end all. It’s somethihg to have fun with, but as soon as you start going on the road, play­ ing every night, you drive yourself and your music Into the ground.”

The Flaming Hands have just completed their third single. The A-side "It’s Just That I Miss You", Sullivan composition, is a slow to medium paced ballad, and the flip side, co­ written by Jeff and Julie, is a song entitled "Girls Stay” .

"Wake Up Screaming” the second, was produced by veteran Australian musician Lobby Loyde, currently riding on the crest of a wave with credits for the Sunnyboys and Machinations. Now with “ It’s Just That I Miss You” the band has reverted to their old stamping grounds of Palm Studios under the watchful eye of Alisdair MacFarlane, the en­ gineer on Flaming Hands’ debut single "I

Belong To Nobody” c/w "The Stranger" (Phantom - 3). Julie explains, “ We produced it ourselves at Palm Studios, it’s a comfortable little studio. With ‘Wake Up Screaming’, it was done at a time when the whole band was feeling tense . . . hence the sound of the record.

We went in to do it at E.M.I., but there they just treat you like sausages, so we went to Trafalgar. That was O.K. but Palm Studios is somewhere we feel at home, and I think that’s important.”

Adds Alan, ” . . . the guy that runs it (Mac­ Farlane) is a musician, and he’s very sym­ pathetic and really easy to work with.”

The Flaming Hands aren’t overly con­ cerned with making it big quickly. It’s a tricky business w.ith people everywhere trying to make a quick buck at the expense of those who really count, the musicians. The Flaming Hands realise this, but at the same time rec­ ognise the need for good management.

When Lobby Loyde was establishing the re­ latively new SCAM Management, it was his idea to have the Sunnyboys and Flaming Hands as its star attractions. At the time, the Flaming Hands were only in their infancy, and as Jeff points out, signing with SCAM could have only proved destructive .. . “ We weren’t ready at that stage to do anything of that nature. We would have only got fucked around if we were forced to go on the road with only a handful of originals. We would never have been able to get them out. That’s for sure.”

Presently, the Flaming Hands run the whole show themselves, and although they might be in a Catch 22 situation (you can’t get to the top without a good manager, but good managers aren’t willing to take you on until you get to the top .. .), they have the under­ lying drive to get there.

Julie: “At the moment we have to put every­ thing we earn back in to . . . doing posters. . . roadies have to be paid decent money, and P.A.s cost a lo t. . . and we’ve just done the record. There’s just so many hidden costs.”

Alan: “We just love the music, and just work hard and hope that one day we’ll be able to laugh at it. And enjoy doing it in the mean­ time.”

They’ve got their own views on how they want to do it, and the major label that eventu­ ally snaps them up will be taking the Flaming Hands on their own terms. Being'indepen­ dent for the time being suits them adequately so it’s just a matter of time. Phantom Re­ cords, under the direction of that man with a big heart. Dare Jennings, will release "It’s Just That I Miss You" shortly, and the band have already begun working on a film clip to promote it. Although Countdown probably won’t touch it (for reasons too bureaucratic to go into), hopefully Sounds will run it. As they say, the ball’s in someone else’s court now.

DAVID PESTORIUS ROADRUNNER

9

ITS THE PRETENDERS

It is cold. This week, North America recorded its lowest temperatures this century. On one night alone only four­ teen of the nation’s fifty-odd states had temperatures above freezing. That’s zero degrees Celsius!

Everything becomes electric. When you touch something metal, a doorknob for example, you get a nasty little shock. The water in the air, in everything, freezes.

Dried-out photos curl up into cylinders, lips constantly and painfully peel and clothes become so “static” they crackle.

No, not the most inviting weather for going out, even if all you have to do is dash from door to cab and cab to venue. So actuaNy making it to the Ritz for the recent Preten­ ders’ gig attained almost heroic proportions.

The Pretenders were here to do the shows they had to cancel last October when drummer Martin Chambers accidentally put his hand through a window. These two shows at the Ritz had been instant sell-outs, and ticket-holders had been advised to keep their precious pieces of cardboard until the dates were rescheduled. Three months later, the Pretenders had returned.

It being the middle of the week, and the weather much as I have described it above (only worse), I had hoped that the crowd would have pruned itself down to a manage­ able size (when the clubs here book a hot band, they get over-excited and sell more tickets than they should). No such luck! It was possibly the largest mass of humanity ever gathered in that venue, and most of them seemed to be forever just in front of me, whether at the coatcheck or the bar.

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When the group came onstage, I was presented with an unattractive choice — either stand behind a collection of the Tallest Men On Earth, or mix it with a small group of short, but extremely muscular, not to mention drunk, rowdies, who seemed intent on dancing vigorously all over each other and those around them. I chose the latter, and it was a tribute to the quartet on the stage that (apart from the odd bruise here and there) I found this To be one of the best shows I had seen for a while.

Mind you, I went with pretty low expecta­ tions. Before this gig, although I LOVED all the Pretenders singles from the very first, for me, Hynde had always equalled hype. I had also read many disparaging reviews of their live work, which made me think the Preten­ ders’ magic might all be done with mirrors in the studio. Not so!

While it is true that there is an amateurish edge to the performance, there is none of the awkwardness or reticence you would expect from a band that was intimidated by a real live audience. Possibly, early bad reports v</ere a result of the fact that the Pretenders were thrust into the public eye far too quickly. The instant success of Stop Your Bobbin’ put the hype-machine into top gear and Hynde, who reportedly was shy about singing (those often revealing lyrics) even in front of the rest of the band, has obviously had to overcome her fears literally in front of an audience.

Whatever those initial trials, the Pretenders, now with two highly successful albums under their belt and a large audience eating out of their hands, can certainly turn in a confident performance.

Chrissie Hynde is, of course, the cen­ trepiece of the whole thing, and during the excesses of emotion induced by having the equivalent of drunk elephants watusi on me, the thought did cross my mind that she just might be the single most important person working in rock today. While the subject of women and rock is one which probably does not stand up to extended analysis, merely reflecting the bias and misogyny of the wider world, it is true that most women working in pop music tend to be singers who tend to sing songs that someone else has written for them. The exciting thing about Chrissie Hynde is that she uses both her lyrics and her stage presence to communicate something personal as well as something more general — an image of women that transcends the usual cliches. Sure, her songs are about love and sex, the dominant themes of popular music, but the woman who sings them is obviously a woman in charge of her own life, no mere object of others’ fantasies, but someone who is proud of who she is and willing to assert her desires.

Apart from all that conceptual stuff, she also has a great voice, not big (there was a ton of echo on the mike), but, in the real sense of the word, unique. There is no-one who sings/has sung like Chrissie Hynde, although, of course, she does not own the rights to emotional singing.

On stage, her style does hark back to the terrific singers of the sixties, like Sandie Shaw and Cilia Black. Her hair, cut with heavy bangs in true sixties fashion, frames one of those small pale faces you could easily have seen in the pages of Fabulous

aiiu Have (two popular magazines for girls).

Although you can tell that James Honeyman-Scott really loves music from this era too (it is his guitar sound that gives their records that real sixties feel), the bottom end, Pete Farndon (bass) and Martin Chambers, is all 1982. It’s a great sound!

Once we get through the ultra-pompous opening theme, rather like Land Of Hope and Glory, only more so (why do bands insist on doing this?), and into The Wait, the band really flies, although it’s not until Stop Your Sobbin’ (written by Ray Davies), that they start to steam. For this song, Chrissie seems to relax and give the dramatic reading the lyrics require. Their set comprises most of the best — Talk of the Town, Kid, Message of Love, and Private Life. Unfortunately, all the numbers, except the other Ray Davies’ song, / Go to isieep, tend to maintain the same rhythm, which does become a bit dull. Also rather tiring are the lengthy instrumental breaks in some of the album cuts they do. If you, like me, favour the perfect economy of the Pretenders’ three and four minute sing­ les, you might find the guitar pyrotechnics a bit much. Also slightly disconcerting are the back-up vocals, handled here by all three guys, but more often than not by Martin Chambers. None of them would win any prizes for their vocal chords and they often sound comic, especially when compared with the winning combination of Hynde singing with Hynde on disc.

These are small quibbles, though, and if you have a chance to see this band, as rumour has it you will in the forthcoming months, investment in a ticket is strongly advised.

THE NEW JIMI HENDRIX?

symbols and blacks see the rights they struggled for being taken from them as the country swings right behind Ronald Reagan.

Mention of hype, guitar pyrotechnics and sex brings to mind a hot little number currently being touted over here as the “ new Jimi Hendrix” . Well, Prince cer­ tainly is black, he certainly can play the guitar, and he certainly has a firm handle on rock and roll, but whether he man­ ages to pass the final test, that is to win over a large following of both black and white fans, remains to be seen.

JONATHAN RICHMAN & THE MODERN LOVERS — STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS

Prince is a determined and difficult young man. Last year I attempted to interview him. I met him in his hotel room, tape recorder in hand. When I produced a microphone which I (shock! horror!) actually asked him to speak into, he murmured menacingly that “talking into one of those makes me very angry” . Not wishing to make him angry, I put the mike away, sort of behind my back. When I listened to the tape later, just ever so faintly in the background, I could hear our strained and uninformative conversation. So much for that!

Prince’s record company must know he’s pretty difficult, too. Through sheer will-power he has forced the company to allow him to write, arrange and produce each of his four albums, playing all the instruments himself.

Not bad for some twenty-one year old punk from M inneapolis. The topics he has explored in his songs (incest, fellatio) have produced, not surprisingly a blanket of radio silence.

In spite of these little handicaps, Prince has made his mark on the charts, especially with his last two LPs, Dirty Mind and Controversy. With the success of the records and subsequent record company pressure, he has put together a band to go on the road.

There are six in the band. The bass player and rhythm guitarist are friends of Prince’s from his Minneapolis days. There are two white keyboard players and a drummer. The live show is WILD. I’ve seen Prince three times now, twice while he was pushing the Dirty Mind material (when he wore what he wears on the album cover — a trenchcoat which he discarded part-way through the show to reveal black leg-warmers, black underpants and a scarf) and more recently in support of Controversy.

The first time I saw him, I was impressed by his up-front sexuality, which although very cocky, was still ambiguous, avoiding ordi­ nary old heterosexual cliches. Next time around it was a bit less subtle, and by the last show it was the full frontal hetero-machoman (even though he had covered up the bare acreage of flesh) — simulating sex with his guitar and belabouring us with endless ego-indulging guitar solos. Guitar equals penis equals power. More rock and less rhythm. Tons of smoke, flashing lights (he’d obviously seen Gazza Numan’s show). A petulant and pompous putative dictator. And the crowd LOVED it. That week Prince’s brooding visage was all over the press, everyone’s darling. To one writer. Prince was “ perhaps the most important funk star since Sly Stone” , while another wrote that his records suggest the presenfee of several gifted instrumentalists and that he would have been a talent to reckon with even if he had confined himself to playing guitar and drums on other people’s records.

If you find his political and sexual mes­ sages silly or even mystifying, you will still be impressed by his remarkable fusion of black and white pop styles. He also has one of the best falsettos since Marvin Gaye and Smokey Robinson. Or was it Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson? His voice is truly sublime. Check it out on Gotta Broken Heart Again on Dirty Mind. A black guitar hero for whites could not have come along at a better time. As Americans turn on each other instead of the real causes of economic hardship, inter-racial tension is increasing.

Jewish synagogues are defaced by Nazi

Speaking of sexy guitar heroes (much more fun than B-grade presidents), brings to mind possibly the least sexy guitarist ever to grace a stage — Jonathan Richman — who has done several nights at the Bottom Line over the last couple of months. Everything I’d ever read had led me to believe that Richman was dippy, decidedly crazy, and the whimsical, bizarre songs on his many records tended to support that theory. However, new dimensions are added to the Richman persona once he gets on a stage. Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers are a simply wonder­ ful experience, funny yet uplifting.

TIN DRUM

Scorning the usual overly large sound system, the' Modern Lovers put out a comfortable volume of noise, reminding me of Mental As Anything before they could afford nasty big P.A.’s Those were the days!

Richman himself, his white shirt slashed to the waist to reveal his monstrously hirsute chest, gets up and gets down in an utterly charming way. Although I have a strong suspicion that there is an element of calcula­ tion and distance between the real Jonathan Richman and the lovable creature we see on the stage, he disarms cynicism with the amount of assurance and astuteness with which he presents his guileless innocence.

He has two wholesome girl singers — the Rockin’ Robins — and a three-piece band who comfortably accommodate the whimsy with which Richman chooses afresh each night the way the songs will be done. And they don’t seem a bit disconcerted when he sings without band or microphone. A brave man indeed! Richman’s character, if indeed it is a character, is warm and amusing and he creates a strong but unforced rapport with the audience. Yet there is nothing sloppy or out of control. He knows exactly what he is doing and the framework of his show is, you feel, provided by the real values by which he lives his life. At the end of the night he said; “ Some people think I’m being satirical. That’s not true. I really do believe what I’m singing.”

I believe him — sort of.

CRAMPS UNCOVERED Wonder no more (if you ever did) about the real names of Cramps Ivy Rorschach, Lux Interior and Knox. They are currently in­ volved in some very ugly-sounding courl; action, trying to squeeze over a million greenbacks out of Miles Copeland, head of the raft of publishing and recording com­ panies to which the Cramps were signed The complaints seem endless, but centre on the idea that Copeland done ’em wrong and ruined their career. In a story on the litigation, Billboard, the American record industry publication, heartlessly reveals Ivy to be plain old Kristy Wallace, Lux to be cuddly Erick Lee Purkhiser and Knox to be simple Nicholas George Stephanoff. No wonder they changed!

THE SINGLE

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Little Heroes — building on a firm foundation by Roger Hart, David Crosbie, Alan Robertson, John Taylor, (pic — Eric Algra)

Of Hart and Heroes 36°, Sunday afternoon, no petrol and a Little Hero.

Unsuccessful attempt at hitching, curious glances from other bus passengers. Suburban crawl through anonymous Adelaide. Flat level living means never changing perspective, the same hometown with the same views, until one day you climb the roof to adjust the TV antenna. I’d hate to live here. Melbourne’s probably a better place to live than New York, but everyone wants to say they know the worm at the core of the apple. Just a million pretty cities all in a ro w ...

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What’s speed. Mom? Sometimes it’s all too painful, painful because it’s too close. Can’t listen to Berlin, Darkness on the Edge of Town or Lennon anymore. Continually hum Exodus, don’t know why, talk of Roman costumes and the fascism that appealed to the child.

Microphone bound in plastic to a Findon balcony.

Lumpy coffee, anaemic tea, gargles of glycerine and inter-gig vagueness. Roger Hart wrestles with a potted jade tree . .. well, urn, what do ya wanna know?

The Little Heroes are emerging from a period of “ limbo” . “ All went quiet” after the initial promotion of their debut album, but “we kept touring because there was nothing else for us to d o . . . Every so often they’d (CBS/Giant) spurt out another single .. . and at the end of the year we looked back and thought, well, we haven’t really made that much headway.”

“The cycle of playing was all wrong . . . you end up getting bored with everything . . . I hate feeling jaded because all of the performances run into one another and it’s ridiculous, but that’s what we got to.” “ Pre-hysteria vibe” made dealings with CBS at times “ embarrassing” , says Hart, “ I felt it didn’t suit the personality of the band . . . They don’tsay it’s a good song, they say it’s a Hit, it’s a SMASH HIT! . . . it’s really nerveracking.”

For A Bleeding Heart, The Last Number One and India l/l/as Calling Me weren’t smash hits. Obligatory Countdown appearances, AM play, FM interest and Nightmoves’ interviews keep the pretence of industry wheels turning.

Touring with Adam .and the Ants thrilled 14 year olds nationally and mention of it produces smug grins, inaudible mumbles and a seemingly vaudeville routine from the band. While some critics found salvation in the release of the album “ Little Heroes” , Roger Hart believes the whole affair was a complete misfortune.

“There’s so many excuses for the album but when it comes down to it it was the songs. It was the skeletons of all the songs and gave no ideas what they could be. . . The production wasn’t sparkling, the playing wasn’t great. Peter Dawkins was under a lot of pressure at that time — I think he was a little bit out of his depth for once in his life . . . But what I think doesn’t matter. I wouldn’t really know because I’m too close to it all anyway. People come up to me and say they LOVE the album and I think, oh no! Then OK, right, why not? They SHOULD love it. Yeah, good, fine. They

may love it for different reasons I don’t know about.”

Talking with the band as a whole rapidly turns into a juggling match with four very different individuals. Bio’s drone out details of birth place, discarded music tutors and fleeting interests. But let’s be basic. The Little Heroes are Roger Hart, guitar, John Taylor, bass, David Crosbie, keyboards and Alan Robertson (of Famed Clutch Enter­ prises), drums.

The Watch Out For In 1982 Department relays information of The Little Heroes recent signing to EMI, logos and legalities of the definite article. The talents of Dave Marret, producer/engineer on Ward 13’s, “ Flash as a Rat” , will be used for the band’s February single sessions and a second album will follow. From March it’s back on the road for sporadic supports with Split Enz, country gigs and perform ances in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide. Someone suggests that future albums should not feature their photos to save embarrassment when placing their product at the front of the pile in record shops. If success could be measured alone in terms of warmth, humour and honesty, then The Little Heroes have made it.

Despite the threatening phone calls, rumours of promot­ ers finding horses heads and bombings, the Highway Inn’s Disco Inferno rages every Saturday night. Precise rules and dress regulations here, same as Sunday night’s gig at the Reepham. No one really gives a fuck about who’s playing. It’s all the regulars, looking for something to make the weekend memorable. Dazed youths wander aimlessly, precariously balancing soggy paper plates loaded with mushy gunge infiltrated by rice. Fine citizens who’d never dance barefoot, a sign screams IT WILL NOT BE TOLERATED. Underaged suntanned suburban beauties slither to “ Gimme Head” — “ you’d make a dead man cum” . . . Puberty Blues retrospective. Pecking orders. I wonder where the nerds dance. Stilettoes gorge out carpet, the shyer slip on the polished boards, the determined hold fort front of stage.

Musical Chairs in reverse. Shit! Quick! Sitdown! The band’s gunna play! A quick round of Spot The Spunk. You can touch me. India lost out some ten years ago but Sarah scores again. Recognition flickers at Zorba’s, the mention of space invaders advancing and all this is not as alien as it first seems. “ When you’re playing every night, your dymanics — nah, what dynamics?— they don’t exist. You just plough straight through. It affects your conscience after a while, you don’t want to cheat an audience. That’s why we stopped. It’s a

by Jenny Eather Illustrations: Roger Hart 12

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really strange game with an audience because they have no responsibility whatsoever to do anything. You’re THE PERFORMERS and you’ve got \o do it all for them . . . They just sit there and don’t give until eventually three of them might say something and bang! — the spark’s there. You take that spark and keep it there, nurture it and then build upon it.” “ My theory is that audiences are becoming too used to being passively entertained. ” Mark out number one enemy — Television. “ People are drawing back into their brains and forgetting that they have to move, they have to do something. ” Video clips, according to Hart, are just down the line cash-ins. “ Rock isn’t video, it doesn’t SOUND good on TV . . . I hate television because I’m addicted to it, it’s horrible. You don’t need it, you’ve seen it all before anyway, you’re lying to yourself. It’s weird. It’s the ultimate distraction.”

There’s freshness, developing intensity and diversity to The Little Heroes’ material. The “ more pointed songs” have gone from the set, “you get sick of them but you never realise how popular they are until you throw them out” . She Says*, “ a song off our recently deceased album” pays heed to the lost Secret Police era and Hart’s first song. Games, remains. “ I hate people telling me to be natural, take it easy man — cruise. What a bore! What would life be without little games here and there, it’s fun. Everywhere you go some idiot is going to come and tell you you’re playing games when that’s really a game in itself.” .

The Little Heroes’ songs balance a myriad of feelings so they latch on, relate to and believe in factors are always changing for their audience. The band plan “ a quiet one” for release as the next single which, at this stage, is a track with a title coined from Ira Levin’s, “ One Perfect Day” .

It’s a song about “ love far away. The perfection that was there if you really loved someone. They go away and they don’t send you anymore letters and it’s sort of like you’ve been cheated . . . so you romanticize about life. Gee, I wonder what she’s doing. She’s in England, the weather’s terrible, I wonder what she did last night — all these things.

The song comes about from thinking of a person and they’re just a memory — a wistful sort of memory.” “ I could give you a totally different story about the song tomorrow, depending how I feel. A song comes in words and sentiments but it may be the combination of a thousand different events in your life . . . it just sort of pours out. Most songs that songwriters love are inspired but they don’t really know where they come from, they just appear.

They’ve got sentiment and an emotion but they don’t actually point at anything, they’re very discursive. They skirt around it all, always around this one feeling and you get an emotion from it. Dusseldorf is the same type of song — that’s another inspired song. It’s got a mood but the words don’t add up . . . and it’s the mood that’s the important thing. ” The mood on Sunday afternoon at The Black Lion was relaxed, to say the least. The term suspended animation could be applied here, save the rude interruptions of some eight year old’s inflatable beach ball and the predictable thud of yet another boozed and bethonged heatwave victim falling off a chair. The Little Heroes win out visual precedence over the gum tree in front of the stage. But you can’t hide anything out here and the audience is just as exposed as the band. If the impact’s going to come it won’t be with the help of lighting and excessive on-stage activity looms to the proportion of hyperactive clowning. A perfect day? A lonely guitar strap hangs over Roger Hart’s shoulder, hand lurches over a vacant mike stand, faces are scanned for a reaction, an impression. How much is given away?

“The range of expressions is amazing. You can have a mouth that is smiling but still is sad . . . A person can have a blank expression but he moves his mouth a fraction . . . I tried to write a song about it, but it got too involved — he lifted his mouth a quarter of a millimetre — try and sing that!”

But when it can’t be sung, it can be drawn. “ I went to RMIT as an art student. It’s really disillusioning because in Art History you go through all the different phases and each phase is a rejection of what art previously was . . . Even though it’s ail beautiful art it was always a rejection, never an adding of anything.” From objectivism and its non-ego to impressionism, through the incessant tearing away until only the artist remains. “Then Mn Germany you got mutilation where the artists started to chop off parts of their body in front of audiences. For an art student that’s really bewildering — fuck the history of art — it intimidates yo u . . . I had to do just what I wanted to do and cartoons were the most natural thing.” “ It’s the craftsman thing of cartooning which is the most satisfying part. Apparently, in New York, everyone’s gotten back to the making of really well crafted objects — the whole scene was in the dumps but now it’s starting to flourish again. It’s very old fashioned, the craftsman side of art, but I don’t really think much of art anyway. I just like well crafted objects — a well crafted song — anything. . . it’s got a serenity about it.” “ My drawings are of a silent little world I imagine. It’s about harmless little men and harmless little women who spend their whole lives in a state of wonder. They look at a hole in the ground — they’re just looking at it, contemplating . . . It’s the sort of world I’d like to live in.” “ Little scenes from little people’s lives — it’s a mood, it’s wistful. But it’s not sad, it’s q u ie t. . . I get quite a laugh off them, but most people look at them and say, what does this mean?” “ Yeah, I want an exhibition, definitely — my aim is 200 cartoons — it’ll probably take two years. I’d like to put a book out too. But the band comes firs t.. . When you draw you’re on your own, it’s really dull, whereas in a band . . .” “ Every so often you have a little silent moment where you sit down in a strange town and think, gee, yeah, this IS good, even though I’m really tired and I haven’t washed fordays. I’d rather be doing this than anything e lse . . . At least something’s happening — something’s always got to happen. I’d hate to live out here in these houses and just watch TV every night.”

A Boeing passes low overhead, last minute panic packing, someone’s yelling something about being late, trundle into the bus AGAIN. Bedroom lights on in a hundred veneer homes. Lipstick applied for the ninetieth time, shoes laced to pass the venue entrance exam. Two sets, six police cars, new hearts won. Midnight falafels in Hindley Street and it’s a long, featureless drive east back home to Melbourne.

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13

THE BIRTHDAY PARTY THE WRATH OF fip n

by CRAIG N. PEARCE A n A tte m p t

Can you imagine being fucked by the Birthday Party? I mean, really fucked. No cause to imagine; the Party are raping the traditional mores of audiences’ expectations and translating them into their own nursery-rhyme Jarryesque hieroglyphics - suitably sound stimulating for the dopes and happily expressionistic enough for the discerning.

Come away Come away Or be burnt by the fire And fucked by the fear Otherwise: listen in .. .

Nick: “ The things we employ to get our ideas across are just the standard rock cliches. Noisy guitars, the same old riffs, sexy trousers, whips and yelps, and we wiggle our bodies around. All of which we’re very happy to do’’.

Rowland: “ Yes, but we use them all for our own means.”

The swaddling is shot but the essence is clear; this is no sound of horror or weird ejaculation, this is education - not so much immoral (though that’s their image) as amoral. It is not something to scoff at but something to welcome. Of course, no prissy sense of decorum will allow you much insight, nor will you reap much benefit if your conscience pulls you up before the centre of the learning because of some archaic moral leanings you may have, and nor will you learn if it’s habits you rely upon.

No time for the timid. No room for the lazy. To enlarge your perception of the world merely leave yourself open to the effect, the affection of The Birthday Party. They’re done with old standards and by expressing themselves in their minor regality they can tempt you to do the same.

Be innocent, old chums. Enter the fray without your emperor’s clothes.

Your music seems to be trying to negate cultural and historical themes and relieve, both for yourselves and the audience, pres­ sures that have been placed on people by the evolution of society and musical sys­ tems.

“I see”, laughed Nick. “You’re not beating around the bush are you?” “. . . you can just say we said that”.

A S e c o n d A tte m p t

If you had a chance to say something plainly, without having to go through the language and jargon of your music what would it be?

“FUCK OFF!” Tracy growled.

Uh huh. Next please.

A n a lte re d A tta c k

Swept away in the safe warm swaddling of a sound not so alien, not even alienating to me, I ponder the possibilities of having my heart shocked, my soul stripped and my mind laid to waste.

The plains of reasoning, the wilds of sensory perception, the horrors of the unknown: all ignored and razed to the level of (and even beyond) the realms of the conscious, Have no expectations, for there is no place for them here.

Simplify your theories, or leave them unadorned if that be their state, for they’ll only be torn to shreds (with lightning pace and a deft turn of the vocal chords). And for God’s sake don’t bother to change your attire - for the eye of The Birthday Party is all seeing and cares only for your heart, your innocence and . . . your money.

Don’t be offended! I was only joking. They don’t want your money. They w an t. . . your blood . . . your bones . . . your very life source.

That is their inspiration. That is the food on which they endlessly and ruthlessly gorge themselves. No sidetrack­ ing (no entrees) and there are no preliminaries with which the Party concern themselves. And when they happen across that life source - it is not something easy to find nor recognize - they exploit it to the fullest.

Like maggots through meat, they leave only the stench to remind us of their past occupation. Oh . . . and the echo of their laughter. The laughter of jackals. The essence of the image buzzards present to us. You know the feeling.

Horror? Yeah yeah yeah you’ve read it all before, I know, I know.

Now others may work upon this source, but they be mere pimps in comparison to our anaemic prostitutes from St. Kilda. I mean, when, either in performance or on vinyl, that source is sighted and the chord struck there is nothing in this world that exalts, that conquers, that ROARS in the cutesy-wutesy obscene fashion that these boys do.

Because all the most perfect Party sound comes from this life source, and because it bears the incorrigible translation scars of our five perfectly normal young gentlemen who are, if I may be so bold to say, not at all inhibited and rather resplendent in their collective under­ world analysis of reality, the sound emitted by them is the purest blasphemy and of the holiest scent.

It is original. It is of the moment.

Not past or future - and it is even so much of the moment that it betrays the term ‘modern’.^ Party delve beneath the lacquer of reality as the eye sees it, as the traditions and scriptures, and religions and proverbs of this world bely it. What the Party utilize is subjective, intelligent intuition then throw it to the wind via electric crackle, human excretion and occasionally acous­ tic dabblings. The Party have a religion of their own.

It’s a perverted little number, consisting of what we know of as being mere rumblings in our nightmares, troubles in our mundanities, quirks in our run of the mill existences. On levels ragged and repressed, dark and rich, supreme and knowledgeable. Not really so perverse, just new and unimagined in the pop rituals they operate within.

YEAH, POP! Face it! They’re just as involved, just as wrapped up in this system as the next band and there’s no use in denying it. Accepting the trappings but reversing the relics and the realms of dated facts that constitute the animal.

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A n O p p o rtu n ity (to E x p re s s )

Ravaged and juiced dry, the old behemoth rock has been given a new body within the same old skin; the same old Catholic skin in this case.

Being a religious force alludes that the band is hard in its definitions, scrupulously rigid in its deliniation between good and bad and vital and spurious. Well, not so. This religion continually vents its spleen upon those who take it for granted where it’s suitable to wander and where it’s sacrilegious to go. As Nick says, referring to the fact that the band is sometimes put in the position where it represents an unassailable religious dichotomy, “ It’s treated in that way but I don’t think it is. I don’t like to impress upon the audiences that’s the only thing there is to life. It is (the music) taken far too seriously.

“The images are only drawn from religion simply because I like them and find them strong and visual. And I like that kind of bible bashing technique of getting a message or atmosphere across’’.

Every time a Partysong has its desired effect it nullifies all that has gone before it, discovering and redefining past vistas of sonambulistic visions by way of soul purging, blood vessel bursting and intellectual implosion. A Partysong at its best is when its immediate - in translation and effect. All that exists before that perfect moment of ravenous fragility counts for nothing.

All is here.

Birthday Party manifest the unknown realms of life and its reasonings into furiously spun webs of sound. Catching then sucking its victims dry; we are but wastrels in their company. They are the flies on the walls of hell.

The Birthday Party don’t alienate, they stimulate, exhort and exhilarate. By playing with themes delicate to the western mind and rude to its conscience they strip and magnificently expose all the nonsense - screaming out for musical realization beneath the facade of self degradation and untamed body flaunting.

Absurd.

Erratic.

Epochal.

Displaying slim, but obvious, chances for one to go through a motion and come out freer, less culturally shaped, and more able to be their own person and not one of a socially structured history. The Birthday Party are battling against all the rigmarole and routine that has made music what it is. By imbibing freely on the cheap wine as well as heady liqueurs of life their vision is a clearer one, one which has been impressed upon by a wider range of situations and propositions.

And by taking all these particles from life’s and music’s mores they have come up with an art that is revolutionary as music and is tangible as a philosophy with which to approach life. This a provocation of action with freedom as the goal.

Nick: “ As far as a musical sense is concerned I consider us as being, like all good bands, just an oddity that will be there for a little while and be remembered that way. I don’t think we’re making the history of music progress or helping it along its way.”

The modesty! The reality? “ We hope to excite audience’s imaginations but not put forward any specific point of view or answer any questions.

Rather, our music could be used as a catalyst to liberate their own senses. (Now that got a good laugh from everyone.) But as far as where they put that energy I don’t care.”

It’s number one a freeing for ourselves and that’s the reason why we’re doing it, not for the audience. If it works on the audience then that’s all very well. It’s for our own benefit we go onstage, not the audience’s. Though it’s probably becoming more and more for the audience’s benefit because it’s getting harder and harder to go onstage.”

Rowland: “ We’ve got this reputation which people expect us to live up to and it’s impossible to do it every time.

And the last thing we want to do is what’s expected of us.”

Nick: “ It’s like being a prostitute night after night. At the moment it’s very hard to get a perspective on things because we’ve been overworked live. It’s getting to the point where we’re going onstage to put on a ‘show’.”

Quite possibly it’s rather well known that The Birthday Party’s live act is not what you’d call a sedated affair. Often the band is put in the position where it’s them that is the centre of attraction and not the music - not that that worries them overtly. If you’re stupid enough . . . Still, their onstage demeanour does cause problems not because of what it is, but because of what people want and expect it to be.

Nick: “ Generally, for the gigs that work an effort needs to be made initially and after a song or two you lose yourself.

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Sometimes for the entire set I’m incredibly conscious of myself. Actually it’s a bit worrying because it doesn’t seem to make much difference to the audience.” “ But it matters to us” .

Are the audiences tending to become a bit pavlovian?

Nick: “ I think they always have been.”

Rowland: “ Although since our rise to ‘mini-stardom’ the audience seems to have become diluted as opposed to anything else. With the greater number of people there are less that understand what we’re trying to do.” “ Gee, life’s tough at the top.” grumbles Tracy sardoni­ cally.

Nick: “ Our personalities are such that the more offensive we’re going to be to people the more we play up to it. If anything we go too far and I wake up the next morning thinking, ‘Fuck, did I do that on stage last night?’ Which happened on our last gig in London where I was beating this masochist over the head with a microphone - which he enjoyed immensely!”

Beware? Enjoy! “ It gets more like world championship wrestling in England than a musical show. People climb out of the audience onto your back and give you deadlocks - it was just ridiculous and you’re trying to sing an intelligent little number. In Cologne, in West Germany, Tracy was grinding away and he turned around and he found some fan urinating on his leg!”

It’s obvious that The Birthday Party are one of the few punk bands that began with the main objective of revolting against the staid and stagnant scene of 76/77 who have remained true to the cause of upsetting the applecart. Yet they still do it with originality and honesty. Whereas once the three or so riffs used in punk were an affront to the technical trickery going on at the time similarly to use those same three riffs no longer holds the key to creating acceptably artistically viable and stimulating sounds.

Alternatives must be sought out if the ideals still remain strong - as they do in The Birthday Party, though they are one of the few left with the conviction that they started with.

New languages must be found and shaped to suit if the music is not to become a mockery of the ideals.

The Birthday Party have found their syntax and are in the process of pushing it to its most complete realization. It seems to the band that the new album which is being recorded at present, and going under the working title of ‘Junkyard’, will summarize their vision and its reasonings at its most effective so far. For the first time this recording will not be the giant leap forward that has followed each of their previous releases from ‘Door Door” to ‘Hee Haw’ to ‘Prayers on Fire’ to ‘Release The Bats’, but it will be an extension , a more (un)refined statement of what ‘Prayers on Fire’ was meant to be. After this record though, if it is all the Party hope to achieve . . .

Nick: “ Our recording career is a continual series of blunders that we’ve had to patch up with each next record.

And hopefully this album will be the one.” “ I’d like our group to be extreme enough for people not to like a whole lot of other groups if they’re going to like us.”

Tracy: “ Yes. Praise be to The Birthday Party.”

Indeed. Are they coming on too strong for you? It’s too late to get out of here now.

Rowland: “ The jargon of our material is equally as important as the song.”

Nick: “ I can’t see it going much further any way. We’re sort of painting ourselves into a corner. Which will be alright if we make a record which will be a concise statement then we can onto different things, either separately or whatever. “ I’d just like to make an album that is as obtrusive as some of my favourites, which I don’t think we’ve done. But this record is sounding pretty vile. I mean, I wouldn’t play it in my home. But to make an album like ‘Funhouse’ which is, to me, so absolutely disgusting, and still manages to annoy people. “ I’d like it to be offensive to people in the new wave way of thinking - I mean it’s easy to upset your Mother.”

Tracy: “ Yeah, those people who think they have the ‘right’ idea about music.”

Nick: “The reason why we go in a certain direction isn’t because of what we’ve heard from other people but what we’ve done previously and thought, after six months, it was terrible . . . ” Rowland: “ And have felt we had to rectify the matter.”

Exactly I The message, to be completely truthful, must be apparent in the medium as well as the objective. The intent must be fully manifested in the whole form of the communication to be made totally successful.

The Birthday Party are often a fine example of the paradoxes in this media/visual dominated world. They express their images in a manner that gives rein to a violent collage of visual fireworks. Both dark and light, full and half-formed, flowing and fidgety. The Party fuck the underworld of our mind with a wanton glee and a lacka daisical ambition.

Nick agrees with me that there has probably been as many literary influences on the band as any other. As far as he’s concerned this means the Russian authors and, originally, highly visual playwrights such as Alfred Jarry.

Atmospheres and ideas affect the Party more than specific songs or bands - primarily I would say in the mould of expressionism; that is, art ttnat affects one by the totality of it, and not the bones that contribute to its substance.

Though, of course . . .

Rowland: “ You can’t put it down to one thing. You just absorb an attitude from things.”

Which is precisely one of the reasons why The Birthday Party are a much more important and original artistic force than most. They create from thoughts and aspire to manufacture those thoughts in the sound not, as most rock bands do, aspire to create specific sounds in their music.

This leads them (the others) to mediocrity via a mundane and hand-me-down set of rock symbols; whereas it leaves the Party huge expanses in front, and, essentially, behind them, where nothing is too concrete and the decisions that are made become ones that reflect their unique position, rare isolation, and the newly discovered virgin ground that surrounds them.

One wonders whether the band had something about their formative years which led them to question and redefine their social standings, but no; all very much a private school set of fellows.

Nick: “ We were continually abused for coming from that sort of environment. You know - how dare we play that sort of music!”

Tracy: “ We all had very pleasant upbringings. No traumas or repression. Unfortunately, I was never raped.”

Why punk then? “ Well can you imagine anybody from a deprived background emerging with such a studied decadence?

And having the time to do things like be in a rock group?”

Nick: “The reason why we were in a punk rock group was because it was a really easy way to offend and just enjoy ourselves.”

And has it changed much? “ Well no. It’s still the most enjoyable thing.”

Often I read of Nick slagging off Australia (the media . . . mainly) for the lack of recognition that deserving bands get.

Rowland: “ It’s just that for years in Australia we were the most popular group of our genre or whatever and were totally ignored by everybody. It was just ludicrous. It’s not until we’ve been to London twice they felt they had to take any notice of us.”

Nick: “ But the real insult is the sudden recognition that you get. I mean our music has changed and got better and probably deserves more praise but it does require the British and Americans to say you’re good before you’re even considered here.”

Tracy: “ Most of the conventional Australian press are hypocrites who ignored us but now we’ve been given the seal of approval by NME they’re falling over each other to pat us on the back for putting ‘Ozzy’ on the map, which is one thing we weren’t trying to do.”

Nick: “The press and record companies in England seem to be interested in finding original new groups as opposed to here where they’re interested in finding those Tracy: “ . . . that comply with a tried and true format. The English record companies are still basically in it for the money but they’ve been forced to look at any scabby little thing that comes along.”

Because people and the press look at and examine new things over there. They are generally more investigative and adventurous. They’re hungry for some answers. In Australia all music fans seem to be hungry for is self assurance and a sick approval of their base and plump lifestyle. They want their illusions exalted.

And the music press here is no better. It never ceases to amaze me how our ‘shabby little pop papers’ continually

bitch and bemoan how our ‘talented’ local groups that venture over to England receive a seemingly never ending of hostility and mockery. They just can’t figure out why English critics don’t break out in cold sweats over such astounding bands as Icehouse, Cold Chisel and Rose Tattoo. It’s quite simple really, as any average Australian cretin should know. Those bands are plain and simple fuckin’ awful whereas The Birthday Party aren’t half bad at all. The Party deserved the praise they received overseas, just as the others deserved their burials. The 20,000 plus world wide sales ot ‘Prayers on Fire’ offer little, compara­ tively speaking, proof of this but since when has public patronage decided whether a band is good or not.

THAT, my friends, was a rhetorical question.

Nick: “ We’re still as happy as we were to have an audience dislike us.”

Mick, Tracy, Rowland and Nick in unison: “ HAPPIER!” “That’s what was so enlightening about those New York gigs (where they were thrown offstage twice). Where we found out we were still able to disgust people.” “ What was so enlightening about those gigs?” Tracy rebukes. “That was just by accident.” After which an argument ensued about whether the Party did or did not disgust the native New York clubites. The fact is someone was disgusted or offended seeing as how they got thrown off stage twice, and even that minority was enough for Nick to be happy.

It wasn’t so much a minority in April last year however, when, after screeing the ‘Nick the Stripper’ video, Nightmoves received a record number of complaints about its ‘offensiveness’. Even Donny Sutherland complimented it by calling it the worst film clip he’d ever seen.

Among other things their stays in England have taught The Birthday Party is not to like English music, how to shoplift and cheat on the tube, how to be bored for eight months out of twelve and that the only thing it’s cool for an English groupie to do is ignore the band and drink their beer - and even then they’re all male. Now what sort of situation is that for five lusty young youths to be in?

Another thing it taught them was how people were slow to catch onto one of the main themes criss-crossing throughout ‘Prayers on Fire’ - that of humour. A theme which tends to become more pronounced from recording to recording - culminating in the recent ‘Release the Bats’, a hilarious single where subtlety was thrown out the window.

Rowland: “ When we released the album in England so few people actually understood it at all, understood there was any sort of humour in it at all we just had to hit people over the head with it.”

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Often the whole rock ritual stifles worthy artists or exposes them to the public before they’ve had a chance to develop to the stage where they’re able to make a worthwhile statement. The Birthday Party have to this point in time, made four seminal rock recordings. That of the 12 inch EP ‘Hee Haw’, the singles ‘Release the Bats’ and ‘Friend Catcher’, and the album we all know and love to hate (but not enough for it to be complete, they say) ‘Prayers on Fire’. The, quite possibly, most seminal recording is soon to come.

What, I wonder, is it that art should encapsulate for it to be the perfect realization of its intention.

Nick: “ The personality of the person who created it is so incredibly strong that you can’t buy it without being really conscious of that person who’s actually done it. Not just the art but the person themself.”

That’s the purpose. Invest the strength, the person(s) of The Birthday Party’s art into life and it will, as well as enriching it, help free it from the puerile structures and petty dilemmas that most often concern it.

The Birthday Party print newspapers. Blank newspap­ ers. The slate is wiped clean for you to do the writing - and the shaping.

P.S. Did you know that Nick Cave is a singer, Rowland Howard a guitar player, Tracy Pew a bassist, Mick Harvey a guitar and piano player and Phil Calvert a drummer? If not why not! If so - who told you? Not me!

Craig Pearce ROADRUNNER

15

Well folks, it was a pretty wild weekend.

The Big M/3XY/Mushroom Evolu­ tion Two Day Concert at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl was an event of truly Awesome Proportions. Lots of bands, lots of music, lots of people, lots of beer, lots of fun (sometimes).

As a birthday party for Mushroom Records it certainly worked. The element of celebration appropriate for the gathering was everywhere in abundance.

Frankie ■ Hnimn and Wilbur W U ^

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A jumble of images tumble from the memory. Paul Kelly and Joe Camilleri arms round each others shoulders, sing­ ing ‘Billy Baxter’ and looking for all the world like father and son, or The Punk and The Godfather. Wilbur Wilde hoisting Frankie J. Holden onto his shoulders for a moving duet at the end of the Fives Set. Bongo Starkie and Red Symons playing the same guitar at the same time at the end of concert jam. Sean Kelly and James Freud dashing from ride to ride at Luna Park. And most vivid of all. Angry Ander­ son (looking impossibly small next to Wilbur Wilde) belting out a version of ‘Johnny B. Goode’ in front of 47 lead gu itarists, ten drum m ers, five bass players a brass section of thousands.

Five times Wilbur tried to cue the end of the song but the momentum was too great. King Canute would have ap­ preciated his problem. Magical and mar­ vellous.

It was to be expected perhaps, that most of the highlights of the concert would be nostalgia laden. Although the Skyhooks reunion didn’t occur. Chain conjured up visions of the blues drenched early seventies, particularly with a spirited and convincing rendition of the classic ‘Black and Blue’.

Despite the rain, it was still great to hear Mike Rudd’s ‘I’ll Be Gone’ again (even though, if one wants to get picky, it originally came out on EMI’s Harvest label, before Mushroom was conceived.)

With a few exceptions (Swingers, Mod­ els, MEO 245, Sunnyboys) the emphasis over the two days was on the roots of Melbourne music, roots that, because of its overwhelming dominance of the Mel­ bourne music scene in the past ten years, are also the roots of Mushroom Records.

The driving blues rock characteristic of the early part of the seventies (when Melbourne was without doubt the rock capital of the country) which was swept aside in most other parts of the country by the new wave and new wave derived music of the late seventies, continues to flourish in Melbourne. And one of the reasons has to be that a goodly number of the leading lights of that bygone ear are still plying their craft today.

One of the oft remarked upon charac­ teristics of the Melbourne scene is the frequency with which musicians will ‘jam’ together. The prerequisites for this, a common musical base, a pool of experi­ enced musicians and a nebulous sense of community, are much stronger in Mel­ bourne than anywhere else. The strong current of traditional rock and familiar faces that ran not only through the Mushroom Evolution concerts, but runs through the whole of Melbourne music (Men At Work being a classic case in point) is a pointed indication of how strong those roots are.

Of course if all that Mushroom Records and its guiding light, Michael Gudinski, did was dwell on the past they would have one out of business long ago. Since kyhooks gave the company the solid financial security it needed. Mushroom has been on top of most of the musical trends that have come along. With Sports and Jo Jo Zep and the Falcons it virtually had the Australian R’n’B pub rock move­ ment under control, with Split Enz, even

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Donald Robertson goe Mushroom’s Birthday I All photos; Nick Gerar though it took a long time, the cream of New Zealand (since added to by others, notably the Swingers), with the Boys Next Door (one album) and the Models, the seminal Melbourne post punk outfits and now with Hunters and Collectors, the kingpin of Australian neo-funk.

No other record company in Australia could have put on an event of the scale of the Mushroom Evolution concerts. No other company has that many bands for a start. But also no other company has the back-up of the largest booking agency in the country. From a staging point of view the whole two days were a superb achievement — no long delays between bands and good sound for alm ost everyone. And if you missed it, there will be a Channel 10 TV Special and live albums in a few months.

O.K. The bands and their music. Well, I didn’t see them all (nearly eighteen hours of live rock in two days was more than my ears and brain could handle I’m afraid) so if you want to know what Dave and the Derros, Mick Pealing and the Ideals, Russell Morris and the Rubes, Wendy and the Rocketts, the Rock Doctors, Madder Lake and the Sports were like I can’t tell you (although everyone I spoke to said The Sports were excellent).

A crowd of between 20 and 30 thousand was in attendance when i arrived on the Sunday, midway through MEO 245. It was a bit eariy in the day for serious stuff, and the sound wasn’t ail it could have been so the MEO’s were a bit of a blur and the crowd response was pretty ho-hum.

Mike Rudd and the Heaters went over much better, despite the Melbourne skies opening three quarters of the way through his set (it was overcast for most of the day.) ‘I ’ll Be Gone’ was a predictable favourite, although some of the younger members of the audience looked a bit puzzled (and let me tell you the crowd was young).

The Sw ingers, with new singer/ keyboard/percussionist Andrew McLen­ nan late of NZ Pop, only clicked with the crowd on their biggie, ‘Counting The Beat’. Although McLennan adds some much-needed visual impact to the Swin­

gers, his voice is ver Judd’s and if you closi difference between the band is almost non-exi; Swingers set consisted furious noice through wl snatches of melody woi interesting approach i doesn’t quite work in r melody was emphasise and Judy ’, ‘Demon Man Let Go’ the songs worke the Swingers sounded i The Kevin Borich Expr What I expected to turn heaven turned out to be When Borich married me blues base, particularly the results were extrem course there were the wanks, but not nearly as duration as I’d dreadee beat certainly got feet ta nodding. It was way toe wise not unpleasant at i bit too much for the yo who handed out Big M s the set, but a chap in played along with a demolishing a cigar siz seemed very content.

Then, the first real afternoon — Jo Jo Zep Joe looked very snazzy shirt, white braces and started off with some vei the shape of ‘Lie down g up, push it up)’, an easy, ‘Sh iherry’ was lilting and v ‘Tighten Up’ was definit prancing around the st£ lamb and the Falcons v\ sounding like the first i afternoon. After a versic Michael Jackson would I of, the first special c Looking like an emacia Kelly did two songs, a Dylan sounding one an( version of ‘Billy Baxter’ tl a great number of faces, f band itself.

The Falcons finished \ playing spirited renditio that got them ‘second h« ‘Hit and Run’ and ‘Shape the stage to tumultuous

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The Sunday Scene

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y similar to Phil ed your eyes the old and the new stent. Most of the of a maelstrom of hich occasionally uid surface — an theory which eality. When the id, as in Punch ’ and Don’t Ever d. When it wasn’t ) mess. ess were next on. into headbanger a minor surprise. }lody to his tough on ‘So Excited’, lely palatable. Of obligatory guitar i many or of such 1 The pounding ipping and heads ) loud, but otherall. It all looked a )ung Big M girls, iun visors during the row in front harmonica after :ed spliff and he triumph of the and the Falcons, in a salmon pink a grey suit and ry rude reggae in iri (let me push it swinging sound, ery pleasant and ely hot. Joe was ige like a spring /ere looking and real band of the in of ‘Sweef’ that have been proud |uest appeared, ited Jesus, Paul new slow, very i then a rousing lat put smiles on lot excluding the vith a real bang, ns of the songs and Monaros’ — a I ’m In ’ and left applause.

The Sunnyboys played at Sweetwaters in New Zealand the previous night and after a nine hour plane flight it was understandable that they started off a little shakily. But once they warmed up they just kept getting better and better, fitiishing with storming versions of ‘Alone With You’ and ‘The Seeker’ and then returning for ‘Happy M an’ and a very appropriate version of the Beatles’ ‘Birth­ day’.

By this time it was starting to get dark and the wind chill factor was thinning out the crowd, but those that were left gave a hearty boo to Molly Meldrum as he came on to announce the Models. On they bounced for perhaps their last perfor­ mance with their present line-up (it seems James Freud is to replace Mark Ferrie on bass in the near future) looking very psychedelic in matching tie-dye T-shirts.

They sounded great too, but the cold and the hardness of the seats won out and I left half way through the set, to the sound of Mark Ferrie’s ‘Unhappy’.

The word had gone around the media tent in the late afternoon that the last performance of Steve Cummings’ Ring Of Truth was going to have a few special guests at Macy’s that night, so most of the media contingent (gluttons for punish­ ment all) headed down Toorak Road for a look. It was a wise move. The band that hit the stage included Martin Arminger and Rob Glover of the Sports, the irrepressi­ ble Wilbur Wilde, a slightly(?) drunk Joe Camilleri, and on second guitar, Peter Laffey. And they were quite wonderfully entertaining. The highpoint was probably Marvin Gaye’s ‘Let’s Get It On!’ The fact that Ring of Truth did a few Sports songs (‘Perhaps’ being particularly memorable) and did them full justice, tempered my disappointment at missing them on the Monday. I can only blame Martin Ar­ minger, who after the gig gave me an erroneous starting time.

But never mind. Monday was warm and sunny, and if anything the crowd was even larger than the previous day. The band after Sports was Chain, and Michael Gudinski, in an obvious state of excite­

ment, came on himself to introduce them as ‘the band who gave me my first number one record.’ It was the four piece line-up, Phil Manning looking like a respectable j l g i y Oxley Of ihf, schoolteacher. Matt Taylor, looking fit and fleshy, ‘Big Goose’ (Barry Sullivan) on bass, and Little Goose on drums. They heaved straight into the 01’ Oz Blues and with Taylor’s harp a’wailing and Manning running off some fluid and firey guitar it was everything that it should have been.

The crowd, which today began more and more to resemble the ghost of Sunbury’s past, lapped it up and brought Chain back for an encore.

Then another surprise. The Fives, in­ cluding Frankie J. Holden, Jimmy Manzie, Wilbur Wilde, ‘Rock Pile’, and Gunther Gorman, came on with a show that was exciting, polished, professional, lunatic and for sheer good time fund was one of the highlights of the whole affair. They dressed to kill, and that’s exactly what they did. Old chestnuts like ‘On The Prowl’, ‘Schoolgirl’, ‘Roll Over Beet­ hoven’ and a truly moving ‘Looking for an Echo’ were executed with wit, style, flash and panache. They even got Dave Warner on for a version of ‘Suburban Boy’, prefaced by a bit of football byplay (the singing of the Carlton song and then the Collingwood song.) The musical stand out was the vocal harmonies, which were nothing short of sublime, but the music too was tighter than a pair of rocker’s drainies. An unqualified triumph, and what’s more I think the band had as much fun as the audience did.

Renee Geyer and Friends were next up and Australia’s first lady of soul was in superb voice and had a band that matched. Looking quite stunning in a blue and white flamenco styled dress, Renee gave it everything she had, and despite the crowd’s attention being diverted by a couple of young ladies who took their tops off and displayed themselves on the shoulders of willing friends, got a rousing reception.

And so it was down now to the Mushroom Jam ’. A battery of lead Sean Kelly of the Models guitarists (Borich, Manning, Bongo Starkie and Mai Eastick), two drummers, two keyboards, bass (Big Goose again) Wil­ bur Wilde, back Up singers etc etc trooped on and Mick Pealing and Renee did ‘Mighty Rock’, which was sorta O.K. Then Broderick Smith in sensible parka did a stirring version of ‘Stand By Me’ and as a finale. Angry Anderson, with even more musicians arriving by the minute, wrap­ ped the whole thing up with a blistering and aggressive version of Johnny B. Goode — duetting with Matt Taylor. Three million guitar and piano solos later, after Co-ordinator Mr. Wilbur Wilde had almost given up trying to bring things to a stop, it was all over.

But not quite. Mushroom had hired Luna Park in St. Kilda for the night and about a thousand invited guests headed down to drink, take the rides, listen to Sunnyboys and then a Borich/Anderson fronted jamming band, and generally party the night away. Spiitz Enz were there in the crowd, Tim Finn limping after a rock climbing incident (‘I was showing o ff he said), Jimmy Niven took over the horse rides, bets were laid and challenges made, and despite the constant activity of the weekend there was a general moan of disappointment when the whole thing was wound up around 2 a.m.

Then it was back to the Travelodge and more carousing till dawn. I distinctly remember myself and Stuart Cope being interviewed by Stuart Matchett for 2JJJ-FM sometime as the sun was com­ ing up but God knows what he asked or what we replied.

But it d oesn’t m atter. The whole weekend was a triumph for Mushroom, for Melbourne and for music. And if you missed out this time, make sure you get there for 1992!

Angry Anderson belts it out ROADRUNNER

17

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The big trouble with being a dull rock’n’roll genius is that no one remem­ bers you when you go. In America, the pantheon of pre-1965 pop heroes was established long ago, the membership qualifications agreed upon; Preslek Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Dylan, Brian Wilson are all secure in their mythical status, all of them sharing the attributes of craziness, poses of rebell­ ion and defeat that can be painted in f8 . ROADRUNNER

lurid colours.

Compare the fate of Buddy Holly; a man as talented as all the aforementioned and whose efforts in redefining the nexus of rock and pop influenced those musics for two de­ cades to come. But Buddy was never in the race when it came to myth-construction; he just wasn’t evil, spaced-out or threatening enough to enter the folk-memory of his coun­ try, where he resides (despite his reputation among critics and fans in such outlands as Britain and Australia) as just another radio

ghost. His story is salutary reminder of the pitfalls of attempting to build an image from a pair of horn-rimmed glasses and a clutch of brilliant songs.

The parallels between Buddy Holly’s fate and that of John Fogerty are almost tritely obvious. Through half a decade he had a career whose statistics were as staggering as his music was excellent, and his reward was to be nothing more than a cypher in beat music history.

A strange story in its way, and one worth

examining, particularly now as Fogerty is on the verge of releasing his first album since 1974 and a look at the relevant statistics is as good a place as any to begin. From 1969 to 1972, Creedence Clearwater notched a run of nine successive top ten singles in Ameri­ ca. Seven of them went top five in a row, all of them double-sided hits. Only the Beatles at the height of their fame managed such a grip on the charts and the radio.

Six albums released in the same period sold by the million throughout the world; in

Australia alone, Creedence achieved a mar­ ket penetration equalled only by Presley among American rockers. These are the mathematics of overwhelming pop domi­ nance, and they were achieved without those supposed indispensables of hype, rumour and visual stimulus. Creedence Clearwater made it on their music and very little else; and they rose to the top with their integrity intact when American music as a mass appeal artform, was already sinking into the trough where it lies to this day. In the relevant time span (1968-73) only Sly Stone was able to provide such a consistent, innovative series of car-radio gems.

Like Sly and the Family Stone, Fogerty and his band came from San Francisco, though both outfits were considered total outsiders to the Bay Area hippie ethos. The minor mus­ ical revolution that had occurred in the city during the mid-sixties had been achieved by

Nixon grimacing on the TV, America sinking ever deeper into the Vietnam morass, and the “youth revolution” of the sixties stalled by its own impotence. In songs like Sinister Purpose, Tombstone Shadow and Run Through The Jungle, Creedence took the well-honed images of a thousand doom­ laden delta blues and applied them to a world where there was enough psychic darkness on the loose to give them more than enough relevance.

It was the distinctiveness of the Creedence attack that gave it its power. Fogerty was never bashful about his influences; he usu­ ally listed them as Booker T. And The MGs and the Beatles, but the real soul of the mat­ ter lay further away. Fogerty went back fif­ teen years to the murky sound of sex and violence brewed up in the studios of Chicago and Memphis in the mid-fifties. It was the ambience rather than the Presley-pose, the

rarely surfaces in American notions of “ politi­ cal” art, but Fogerty never pulled his punches on the question in such anthems as Fortu­ nate Son and Don't Look Now. Not that he was ever hung up on sloganising; a mordant fatalism was always an attractive alternative for him. It’s an attitude expressed to perfec­ tion on Who’ll Stop The Rain, which must rank close to Creedence's finest moment.

The cascading guitars and the chorus, even if you never bother to listen to the succinct images of despair in the lyrics.

Who’ll Stop The Rain was the centrepiece of “ Cosmo’s Factory” , Creedence’s most complete and polished album. There was the standard quota of classic single tracks, a tension-and-release epic in Ramble Tamble and with Lookin' Out My Back Door, a song which marked the last ever recapturing of the Kinks’ and the Lovin’ Spoonful’s 60s guitar vaudeville.

R T jm n N G

TH R O U G H TH E JU H G LE OBEEDXNCE CLISASWAIER AND JOHN FOaEUTy b y A D R IA N R IC A N

a clutch of incestuous middle-class dropouts, most with folkie backgrounds, but Cree­ dence came from another side of the tracks, all four of them growing up in the nowhere suburb of El Cerrito. The Fogerty brothers Tom and John and rhythm section Stu Cook and Doug Clifford had been playing for years in acne-rock bands, cutting a string of deriva­ tive singles that weren’t awful enough to rank as punk classics. When John took over frontman duties, they found a style that was powerful enough to make it on the decaying San Francisco underground circuit, and by 1968 they had an album deal with the obscure jazz label Fantasy.

Their debut album was no blockbuster, merely good enough to rank with “ Beggar’s Banquet” and “ White Light/White Heat” as the most forthright release of the year, laced with savage blues energy and carrying inti­ mations on songs like “ Walking On The Wa­ ter’’ (later covered by Richard Hell) and “ Por­ terville’’ that John Fogerty was a potentially great songwriter. It was a promise that was sealed with the band’s next single.

Proud Mary exploited all available Huckleberry Finn imagery, the main reason, perhaps, why it’s considered an “ American classic” . (Fogerty was always a literary lyri­ cist, though relying on a more severe tradi­ tion than the belated Modernism introduced to top forty by Bob Dylan.) It was a predicta­ ble chart-topper, the first instalment of a career which would establish Fogerty in Brian Wilson’s vacated throne.

Bad Moon Rising was the next single; with a diamond hard backbeat subverting the threat of the lyrics, it created a new sound under the sun. There were hints of country, of late fifties Elvis and classic soul, but the style of the synthesis was extraordinary. As with numerous songs on the first two albums (“ Bayou Country” and “ Green River” ) Bad Moon Rising was redolent of the whole “ swamp sound” aural landscape Fogerty had summoned up as a marketing aid for his band, a ploy convincing enough to give rise to the misconception that Creedence hailed from deepest Louisiana, even if the band’s attack had no identifiable deep south roots.

It’s a tribute to Fogerty’s canny talent that all those hound dogs, riverboats and voodoo references that populate his early lyrics con­ jure up a such convincingly Faulkneresque aural landscape.

Just as importantly, all that dark imagery was suitable grist for Fogerty’s pessimistic world view. Everywhere he looked, he saw shadows in the graveyard, storms rising, rain and vengeance falling. Given the times, it was an understandable attitude, what with

Buddy Guy guitar heroics he chose to re­ create; the echoing power, the big beat, the way the vocals slithered around the rhythm on the classic Sun and Chess blues and roc­ kabilly records. Revivalism of this kind is al­ ways a chancy business; only the Cramps, venturing into a different part of the swamp, have had the same kind of panache in recent times. But for Fogerty, the sound worked to perfection and on songs like Commotion and Green River Creedence generated a wired, deceptive energy that made them true heirs of the fifties greats.

Creedence did have their deficiencies as explorers of a black based sound. They al­ ways found it hard to swing, and Fogerty, great vocal stylist though he was, was more of a blue-eyed screamer than a soul singer.

When the band stretched out on album-filling boogie epics they were usually tedious, but given something shorter they rode all the way home.

And meanwhile, the hits just kept on com­ ing. It was obvious that Creedence were catching some powerful cultural currents.

After all, America had been hanging out for a long time for some hard, home-grown, right­ sounding rock’n’roll. After the Beatles had totally demoralised the entire American music industry back in ’64, a slow mid-sixties recovery lead by the Byrds and the San Francisco bands had been wiped out by the second British Invasion, wilder and louder than ever, to clean up on stages and in charts across the land. The only American band to make a mass connection were the Doors, who just like Creedence owed their break­ through to an ability to write a moody hook line.

Especially after Jimbo Morrison and his cohorts burnt out, Creedence, American as violence and cherry pie but still propagating codes of rebellion, were home free. 1969 saw the fourth album, “ Willy And The Poor Boys” (they were churning out two a year) on which the bayou trappings were retired and not missed. The standard was higher than ever; the two best Leadbelly covers ever, Down On The Corner, Fortunate Son, and the best ever Chuck Berry pastiche. It Came Out Of The Sky, written with a wit that would have done the old master proud and com­ plete with jibes at Spiro Agnew and the Vati­ can.

Fortunate Son was the killer, the most jolt­ ing blast of directly political rock’n'roll prior to the year of anarchy. It’s a superbly crafted, screaming diatribe against all manner of militarists and fat patriots that still sounds righteously relevant.

The whole notion of class is something that

By this time Creedence were unassailable, but strangely enough, weren't taking the ad­ vantage to erect any kind of colourful image.

Fogerty remained affable but remote, off stage and on, where Creedence (as their two live albums testify) offered a show where they recreated their albums with flawless power but offered nothing in the way of out­ law swagger. Saving his energy for the music, his ego for the studio (where he exer­ cised a ruthless control over proceedings that would soon have other band members chafing), CCR's dictator remained an enigma.

There's probably never been a songwriter who disdained the confessional mode more than John Fogerty. It wasn’t till late in Cree­ dence’s career that he began to offer songs that offered glimpses of something beyond that steely exterior; it was almost as if the whole rigorously controlled situation he had built up would have to start falling apart be­ fore he could afford to give himself away. “ Pendulum” was the album which marked the beginning of the Creedence decline. Only one of the tracks made in the old style. Hey Tonight, a brilliant connection with peak-era

Cnr. Frome St & Bundle St Adelaide

Byrds and Beatles, could be ranked with the classics. Otherwise stiffness and stylisation abounded, but there were some innovations in the Fogerty scheme of things; an electron­ ically based instrumental, and two wrench­ ing, soul-styled ballads. Hideaway and Tts Just A Thought, revelations of what seemed to be a rather sad interior landscape.

In 1971, Tom Fogerty left the band, mutter­ ing about his young brother’s musical tyranny. Creedence carried on (replacing him with taped rhythm guitar for live perfor­ mances, including their 1972 Australian tour) but John was forced to make some conces­ sions to democracy. He gave the other members enough rope to hang themselves.

For the last album, “ Mardi Gras” , they pro­ vided a clutch of unremarkable tunes.

One of them was the last big hit. Sweet Hitch-Hiker, a desperate thresher which proved that Creedence were still the best hard-rock band in the land, and another may just have been the finest song Fogerty ever wrote, and ironically, the first of the band’s singles in four years not to make the top ten.

It’s a moody song about families and dreams falling apart, a theme Springsteen has since worked over often enough, but never with this kind of power, the chorus of Someday Never Comes, sung with a desperate edge, hovers over melancholy organ and guitar, and it’s easy enough to read into it a requiem for one of America’s greatest rock bands.

John Fogerty retired on his hard-earned millions, and his first solo album (“ The Blue Ridge Rangers” ) was a typically eccentric piece of superstar indulgence, a collection of country and rockabilly chestnuts that occa­ sionally hit the mark during its faster mo­ ments. The self-titled solo set from 1974 was proof however that Fogerty was hardly a burnt-out victim. It was a loosely packaged collection of influences and preoccupations with all imstruments played by the man him­ self; a trenchant contrast to the slick vacuity of 70s American rock. Two years before the beat music revolution of 1976, Fogerty was showing that amateurism was no barrier to expression.

The result, over the years, has slowly found itself being awarded “ classic” status.

On “John Fogerty” ramshackle covers of disparate material from Jackie Wilson and Huey “ Piano” Smith set up against resonant originals. There were some soft centres here on the country rockers, but Rockin All Over The World is the anthem it sets out to be, and The Wall — almost a premonition of the Cramps — sees the old, paranoiac rockabilly attack made even more claustrophobic by the primitive playing. And on just one song.

Almost Saturday Night, there’s a magical summation of everything Foqerty’s music stood for.

From the noisy opening riff that’s pure mid-period Lennon through to the bluegrass harmonies on the chorus it’s a compressed masterpice of nostalgia and forward motion.

In just one line, “ when you hear that locomotion/get ready to ro ll. . . ” Fogerty brillantly connects memories of Little Eva’s New York pop and half a century of train songs, and it takes some kind of genius to make that leap.

Almost Saturday Night, was to all intents, Fogerty’s farewell. In 1975, there was an un­ remarkable, disco-ish single {You Got The Magic) and then, silence. The absence could be construed as lethargy, or a desire not to inflict his audience with what he sees as a declining talent; meanwhile John Fogerty’s songs live an underground life of their own, not only in the innumerable MOR cover ver­ sions, but also in such forthright and diverse places as the repertoires of everyone from Bruce Springsteen to Lydia Lunch. And Fo­ gerty’s music remains timeless on record, unaged by the years, proof of its combination of polish and primal energy. When that voice and those ringing guitars return again to the radio, the wait should have been worth it.

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19

There’s a guy drinks down the Newtown swears he’s EMs Mark Cornwall runs into Coupe de VIlie and discovers inner Sydney greaser rock alive and w e l l . . .

It’s hot and humid today in Sydney. The central and northern beaches are brim­ ming with raw sewage (read shit) and in King St., Newtown, it’s business as usual. Outside the butcher’s shop the wierdest looking Santa Claus in the history of Christianity bids us all “ Merri Chrissamas” and tries to sell flesh. He’s Italian, about five-four and weighs in at about 8 stone. I’d say. In about four hours Coupe de Ville hit stage (carpet, actually) at the Newtown Hotel, one of Sydney’s more recently opened inner-city venues.

There’s quite a little scene developing lately in Newtown, and particularly at this pub. Like the Union Hotel in Adelaide or the Exford in Melbourne, the room is totally inappropriate for live rock ’n’ roll, but that doesn’t stop a lot of good bands from ripping it up here with pleasing regularity. ExAdelaide Grosero’s The Units play here about orice every 3 weeks, as do king-hell rockabilly boys, Black Slacks. Most likely though, the casual visitor to the Newtown will catch a glimpse of Coupe de Ville, who hold an unofficial resi­ dency here on most Friday and

Saturday nights. Mean R ’N’ B and rockabilly is their game, and they play to win.

There’s a guy drinks down the Newtown swears he’s Elvis. Brett Stevenson is a 24-hour rockabilly guy with one of the best rock ’n’ roll record collections around. He’s lead singer for the Coupes, and basically the fellow who got them together in the first place.

Most of the guys have an impressive lineage in the inner city Sydney scene. Brett, bassist Phil Somerville and guitarist Bruce Tindale played together in the Miss B. Haven, which probably doesn’t mean anything to the non-Sydney reader. However, I’m informed by reliable sources that they enjoyed a sizeable following during their short history, includ­ ing several rather beer-sdaked gigs with the then newly-reformed Saints at the Rock Garden. Un­ fortunately said venue was gutted by persons (un)known. The Saints split for Paris in the spring, and Miss B. Haven disintegrated in a haze of stolen bourbon and mis­ sed opportunities. Bassist Phil went on to join one of the many lie-ups of The Hitmen, but gradu­ ally became disillusioned with that band’s recurring bad luck. He enjoys an excellent reputation as one of Sydney’s most powerful

rock n’ roll bassists, although he rejects most work offers as this would interfere with his ambition for a career in computing sci­ ences.

Guitarist Bruce helped form the equally short-lived Professores, who among other things, played with Adelaide’s U-Bombs on that band’s first Sydney tour. Brett formed the Teddies with saxophonist Ted Pepper, most renowned for his work with the Saints. Teddy was a part of the line-up which played Chris Bailey’s 23rd birthday party at A d ela ide ’s Arkaba. Demos featuring that line-up were re­ corded but later scrapped. The Teddies eventually went the way of most rock n' roll flesh, and by and by Coupe de Ville came into being.

Drummer Paul Richelli is the newest de Ville. He’s younger and less experienced than the rest, but beats hell out of any drum-kit unfortunate enough to fall prey to his flailing sticks. Let’s just say he's an uncompromising percus­ sionist in the Sydney tradition.

The de Ville's boast a formida­ ble array of obscure 50’s greaser tunes, plus a penchant for white R n' B in the early Fleetwood Mac vein. If Robert Gordon got himself into a fight with Joe Camilleri and

Dave Edmunds, you have a vague approximation of their live sound.

Onstage, Brett leaps and kicks like Gene V in cen t’s sm arter brother, resplendent in blazing red drape jacket, drainies and various tasteless teddy boy shirts. He also regularly visits a Newtown barber who gives the best flat-top in Sydney (apart from a fairly un­ compromising hairdresser I know in Bourke St., Surry Hills).

Guitarist Bruce hunches over his machine, in search of the killer riff.

Teddy on the Saxophone looks unblinkingly over the crowd, cigarette jammed in a notch at the base of his tenor. Some of his solos bring sweat to the brow of the most laid-back punter. He cooks. Phil rips at the bass guitar, counting the beat with a bobbing neck, pouting in concentration.

Paul hammers his kit into the floor, almost falling off his stool as he thunders his way into rockabilly heaven. I know that’s a pile of cliches, but it’s also fucking good medicine.

Half the fun of a Coupe de Ville gig is the crowd they attract, especially on their own Newtown turf. A phalanx of motorcycles flanks the side footpath. “ Dr.” Ernie Rossi and his riding col­ leagues hold court at various parts of the bar, and unofficially police

the venue for would-be troub­ lemakers. They rarely find any.

One night during a Unit’s set. Dr. Rossi rode his Triumph into the bar and parked it in front of the band, using his headlight as il­ lumination for the group. A finer tribute was never bestowed on a starving musician! In the left-hand corner, an Aboriginal instructs several Maoris in didgeridoo playing. He’s brought his instru­ ment with him, and isn’t half bad.

There’s a smattering of Dario punks, and a lot of local musos.

Some of whom will probably get up for a short set during the course of the evening.

The de Villes are gathering momentum in Sydney, although they don’t really wish to perform in any of the suburban beer farms. At present, they’re negotiating a short, inner-city Adelaide tour for early 1982, and are also estab­ lishing a few contacts in Mel­ bourne. They are in the process of recording their first single, with Brett at the producer’s helm (he’s trained as a studio engineer).

Watch this space for the greasy truth. Pub rock survives and th­ rives amidst the ocean of bland­ ness that has become the Sydney scene of late.

Pub rock? These guys wrote the book!

he Noise

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20 ROADRUNNER

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Blue Rondo A La Turk: ‘Me and Mr Sanchez’ (Virgin 12" Club Mix) Snappy samba from the latest UK club heroes — full of snazz, pizazz, Rio rhumba, verve, vim, excitement, happiness. Very little in the way of lyrics, just 6 minutes, 42 seconds of infectious percussion, show-off saxophone, clattering maraccas and all those other sounds that made Brazil bear­ able for Ronnie Biggs. If you thought Latin was a language spoken by dead Romans — think again!

Fun Boy Three: ‘The Lunatics (Have Taken Over The Asylum)’ (Chrysalis) Prophecies of doom from ex-Specials Golding, Hall and Staples. In the vein of ‘Ghost Town’, without the eerie brass, but message stated bluntly again this time over a slow chunking rhythm — a bit like what the old Romans used to bash out to get their slave rowers going on the high seas.

Sombring.

Naughty Rhythms: ‘Look Like Me’ (Green) Great brass saves this ska-rehash from drifting effortlessly beyond the bounds of memory, but it’s close, it’s close. Shame how trends get done to death, isn’t it?

Inner City Unit: ‘Bones of Elvis’ (Avatar) Sort o f . .. excruciatingly hilarious? Not so much a ‘tribute’ as a complete character assassination of the late ‘King’ with some priceless pisstakes. Thoroughly recom­ mended.

Hugo Klang: ‘Grand Life For Fools And Idiots’ (Prince Melon) A logical extension of fractured primitivism — whereas the Birthday Party tackle this sort of virgin ground with a rhythm section disguised as>a battalion of Panzers, Hugo Klang toddle along on foot, a procession of modern mutant minstrels. You can’t dance to it, but it does grow on you a bit.

Four Gods; ‘Enchanted House’ (Able) Grossly amateur and serious to boot. This doesn’t engage my sensibilities at all.

Adam and the Ants: ‘Antrap’ (CBS) A load of rubbish.

The Cure: ‘Charlotte/Sometimes’ (Fiction) Moody and broody in true Cure style, with impressive edifice constructed by syndrum and other effects by Robert Smith sounding suitably desperate and depressed. About what one would expect.

Metro: ‘America In My Head’ (Original) Starts off a bit like Matt Finish, but develops definite poppy tendencies around the chorus. Lyrics are a bit throwaway but dynamic in all the right places and could

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generate a bit of FM air play.

DD Smash: ‘Repetition’ (Mushroom) Happy-go-lucky auctioneers-chant from across the Tasman is the first offering from Mushroom’s Auckland base. Muddy mix mars the overall effect slightly but it rollicks along uncaringly and could turn enough pairs of ears to become a chart contender.

Haircut 100: ‘Favourite Shirts’ (Arista) Phew! Pace -y! Dig that dynamic disco drumming, needle sharp brass, hot congas, speeding geetars! Style personified! The sorta thing that you should only listen to with creases in your trousers. Move it!

The Coolies: ‘ Do You A gree?’ (M Squared) Great, forceful, warped funky monster! M Squared’s first release from an o/s band (New York), and by jingo! It’s a corker. Big bold and,brassful, this would have the most comatose of loungeroom creepers hopping and bopping and bouncing off the walls. Not, repeat, not a single to be trifled with!

The Aliens: ‘I Don’t Care’ (Planet) Geoffrey Stapleton is the only survivor from the days when it seemed as though the Aliens were about to snatch Skyhook’s bopper crown. And age, has unfortunately mellowed the prickly pop kid. This cutesy slab of candy dross falls flat on its face.

Stray Cats: ‘You Don’t Believe Me’ (Arista) Authentic like blues, y’know! Setzer & Co.’ll warm the cockles of every purist’s heart with this nifty rendition of, surprise, surprise, one of their own chunes. Funny, could’ve sworn it was an 01’ Johnny Burnette chestnut. Is that a case of art imitating life? Or is it the other way round?

Bauhaus: ‘The Passion of Lovers (Beggars Banquet) From the sound of this the only thing Bauhaus know about passion is what they’ve read in books. Pompous and overblown. (But secretly I quite like it.)

Billy Idol: EP (Chryslis) Ex-Gen-X, Billy’s now managed by Bill Aucoin, the man who makes the money for Kiss. And the dose of high US gloss hasn’t hurt the face of 78 at all. ‘Mony Mony’, the old Tommy James and the Shondells fave, is given a flashy update, ‘Baby Talk’ finds Billy at the mike and the band in the toilet down the hall (like mixed back?), ‘Untouchables’ tries a laughable stab at Southside Johnny territory while the superb ‘Dancing With Myself’ has its guts neatly excised for increased mass palatability. NB. If you really wanna make it just have a listen. Mr. Aucoin’s address is on the back cover.

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Probably, yes.

Alternatively, that of jugular slicing and sexy mental provocation to that of half formed fears and irrational quotient of flatulence. Some odd feelings, a handful of truths — more than most nights. A good show — an active displaying of ideals and displacement of priorities. (By which I mean the promotion ran true to the form that promotion normally runs — insufficient toilets, a hall with dubious acoustics and minimal healthy viewing space, and a bar with one bottle opener for over a thousand people once the cans of beer were deleted and bottles had to be used.)

A Night of Funk?

The Birthday Party Hunters ancf Coiiectors Pei Mei Sydney University

Beyond the bar and into the ‘venue’ where the sounds were distinctly bottom ended all night long.

Emphasis was on the groove of things, and beyond that the thought of what goes on behind the groove of things. Both the Party and Hunters and Collectors have thoughts that are alive and healthy, vigorous and humorous, one minute sharp the next blown over.

Pel Mel on the other hand, like the music that goes with them, have imported their lyrics wholesale from another environment and plunder their pet paranoias with a ruthlessness only a tried and true Oxford Street masochist would attempt. If Pet Mel let their heavy handed and self pronounced intellect loosen up a bit, relax, take in the view and move around the dance floor a little bit more than they do then I’m sure everyone would be happier — and they might even offer us a smile. At the moment they look like sullen kids that have been tormented by playground bullies all their lives.

On occasions Pel Mel hit on some quite vital profundities, more often than not when they used some imagination of their own and not some localised factory fodder. The thing that gets me is — it they’re in pain why get up there in the first place? But if I’m being hard it’s because I believe Pel Mel are quite talented and refuse to do some thinking of their own. They have the ability — and manifest it occasionally — to rip out the guts of a feeling or occasion and invest it into their music. Then, by putting us through a process of self abnegation and slow self realisation whilst all the time making us twist and jerk to their lusty-dusty slag heaps of funk, we come out cleansed and more aware and educated about the state of experiences we go through.

Next on the list and just as convoluted for half of their performance were the back arching soul boys from middle class Melbourne (cue the fanfare) Hunters and Collectors, that daring to the Jump Club but boring to The Birthday Party bunch of egomaniacs (but all round good guys) who put the funk back in to dancing and the girls back in their beds.

Anyone who hasn’t seen Hunters and Collectors yet is obviously either; a. very stupid; b. can’t read reviews; c. lives in Wagga Wagga; d. has no sense of fashion; e. isn’t very stupid. To enlighten the unin­ itiated and titillate the dependent, Hunters and Col­ lectors weren’t very good on this night. As a matter of fact, for the first half of the show, right up to their trump card of the evening ‘Skin of Our Teeth’, they were positively vacuous, shithouse, and sounded like a lot of gagged men groping and moaning inside a wet cardboard box.

They did improve though, once the sound got a little bit more organised and proceeded to make those who had the space to jump and jiggle their tiny little arses around for a few brief moments of sweat expending and coolness induction. Hunters and Collectors’ fans are getting a bit conditioned these days I noticed — a bit hyped up by the hype. Believe any^ing they wouid.

Was positive I saw a girl start dancing to the sound of Mark Seymour sticking his jack into her (oops . . . I mean his) amplifier.

Nick Cave said, the previous day, that Hunters and Collectors would probably blow them offstage — jest or no jest it couldn’t be further from the truth. Pel Mel and Hunters and Collectors combined are babies’ farts in comparison to the hurricane of sick, fetid odour that the Birthday Party emit. Crazed and godless, they turned blank air into material surging with life and screaming revenge at those that dared awaken it from its scientific slumber. When the Party played the hall was transported to an area beyond that of Sydney to a venue much seamier — I’d equate it to a Soho brothel with strict macho tendencies or a hellish bazaar offering angel dust and fifteen inch long, six inch thick (at the base) diidos made of cast iron with a serated edge (dipped in honey to make the medicine go down).

The Birthday Party were created from the venereal sperm Jesus flushed out of his system whilst masturbating over the Holy Ribald — a monthly publication soon destined for serialization in Roadrunner. This was proven by ‘Trash’;, a Party song performed in a truly gospel vein which would do nicely for a punk Nuptial Mass. It, along with new songs ‘Junkyard’ plus many others for which the titles eluded me, contains the new force of the band. Over the top and rarely containing subtleties, the band is now displaying a conviction and audacity only equalled by the less intelligent bands that play heavy metal — a genre of music not totally removed from The Birthday Party themselves.

This sound bulldozes its way through the mind, razing all life and pre-gig substances to the ground leaving only enough sense for the audience to respond in the manner that they are meant to. It’s like feeding time at the zoo. Exceptihe audience is behind the bars here, not the animals. People left the gig with glazed eyes and mouths and minds agape. The Birthday Party left the gig laughing lecherousiy.

Ali in all this was a night of handsome provocation and unseemly gratification. My mind is still scrambled and my pen erect. Perhaps the Party’s new album will set me straight, give me an answer to their prayers, define the state of rock as we know it. Perhaps not. The point of Partyart is that no answers lie in their music, only the reasoning; the answer lies in its effect on you and me and their pubiicist and the rest of the ‘civilised’ world.

Craig N. Pearce

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I LIVE: Birthday Party Xero Birds of Tin New York Hotel, Brisbane You really had to be there.

The cultural event of the year.

Maybe the decade. No doubt about it. The Birthday Party, home for summer holidays once again, deliver a perfor­ mance that will surely remain vivid in memory for many years to come. Last year’s shows were majestic almost to the point of revelation. I had never contemplated, much less seen, a group of roughly similar ideals.

Accordingly, it wasn’t surprising to see such a large number of people forsake the Sunday night movies for the decadent purple decor of the New York Hotel.

Judging by the number of un­ familiar faces there was more than the odd curiosity seeker inside. It was literally packed.

I arrived a little late but man­

aged to catch the last few songs

by Birds of Tin. From what I saw and heard I’m sorry I didn’t arrive on time. They look like an in­ teresting proposition. A little Talking Headish, but with a defi­ nite touch of originality about them that I couldn’t put my finger on. I must see them again. , Xero. Zero. Xiro. All of the above. When the members of the group change so does its spelling.

As simple as that I’m afraid.

Tonight a new member was added to take those present to four. Tony Childs from the short lived Perfect Strangers comes in on bass. It leaves John Zero free to frolic with guitar and keyboards.

Their perform ance was once again im pressive. The new member has added something vital to the sound. It’s a lot fuller which is to be expected, and I think it suits them. It allows each instrument to take a more subtle approach to the material. It may be a way for some bands to hide weak points, but for Xero it only highlights their strengths. Tony

Childs rem inds me of Barry Adamson in his approach to play­ ing, and more than one person I spoke to after they finished thought the Xero performance bore some resem blance to Magazine. I’m not inclined to agree entirely. They certainly played well.

The New York Hotel is a far cry from the standard dive that doubles as rock venue. Bell-boy style attendants adorn the facade of the building. The interior is flashly renovated (19th century style) with furniture that is by no means cheap. Up three floors in an old elevator (similarly reno­ vated so as to preserve tradition) finds a much more modern room.

There is a band playing. You are immediately confronted by the lighting. It’s purple, and it’s plastic.

Not a very conducive atmosphere, but anything is better than nothing in Brisbane. The stage is raised a good’ ten to twelve feet from the floor with a mezzanine floor ad­ joining the stage. To get the prime vantage positions the tables on

These are the ^NIGHTS OF REBELLION’

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Feb 13 Feb 19 Mar 5 Mar 6

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the mezzanine floor are good, but you have to be early. For reasons I’ll go into later I knew that anyone who sat at these tables during the Birthday Party’s set was making a BIG mistake.

A thoroughly inebriated Nick Cave took to the stage shortly after 11 p.m. In leather trousers and T-shirt he seems to have ditched the respectability that went with the suit and tie of yesteryear. Seems the Jim Morri­ son in him has won over. No longer is he the wolf in sheeps’ clothing. Even his hair is longer.

This is more like it.

Rowland Howard stands to the side of the stage cigarette, ^ s always, dangling from his mouth.

Mick Harvey positions himself behind the drums. What’s wrong with Phillip Calvert everyone is asking them selves?

H e’s nowhere to be seen. Also notice­ ably absent is bass player Tracy Pew. This really is strange. Cave enquires “ Where’s Tracy?’’ Sud­ denly he appears, ostensibly from below the stage. Tracy Pew is not exactly your 98 pound weakling, and the ten gallon hat (probably a souvenir from the band’s US tour) he wears on stage, only makes him look bigger.

The Birthday Party minus Phillip C alvert open the show (and there’s no other word for it; with an impromptu, albeit sloppy, com­ position that made no bones about showing off Mick Harvey’s drumming ability. He certainly is no slouch in that department. It was obviously improvisation, but it gave the apprehensive audience a taste of the new look Nick Cave for the first time. As always, he is best summed up by three words.

OVER THE TOP. It may be a cliche, but it fits.

The sedate audience is im­ mediately caught like a fly in a web spun by the hyperactive Cave. In ‘King Ink’ he appeals to the hundreds of mystified onlookers to ‘express yourself. The people on the mezzanine floor are being constantly harassed by the overly provocative singer. He wants everyone to join in his celebration of dance and song. Rowland Howard adds to the confusion by constantly moving back and forth from his amplifier as if he was shooting an M-60 from the hip.

The bold sounds he extracts from his guitar are his bullets. The crowd is hesitant to react. Nick Cave’s prowling is causing near mayhem, and he knows it.

Almost as if the Birthday Party sensed that it was rushing the clim ax the proceedings were slowed by a new song that I could only describe as a quasi ballad.

Cave almost sings in an orthodox fashion (w hatever that may mean), and throughout appears to be acting out a story. Reminded me a little of Sir Lawrence Olivier reciting the soliloquies in Hamlet.

Again Jim Morrison comes to mind.

But just as things seem to have quietened, the superb riff that haunts ‘Nick the Stripper’ bellows around the room. Cave exalts in his self portrait. You weren’t safe no matter what position you oc­ cupied. Cave’s mike lead seemed endless, and even the roadies looked noticeably perplexed by his rantings and ravings.

Something that struck me after only a few songs was that the Birthday Party rhythm section (Calvert made his appearance in the second song) w asn’t dominating the arrangements as much as it used to. Maybe they had a bad night, but that’s how it seemed to me. Nevertheless, they held everything together amic­ ably, and the others were still free to improvise over the top of the pounding rhythms.

The hour had gone all too quickly. The group had left the stage, and to my utter surprise, the people that Nick Cave had just terrorised intermittently for sixty m inutes were clam ouring for MORE. Reluctantly the exhausted Birthday Party marshalled their forces for another onslaught. It was to be ablistering version of the Stooges’ 'Loose’. As with so much of the Birthday Party’s material the bass riff was the giveaway.

People were dancing everywhere.

Nick Cave must have felt at least a little gratified. The audience was finally expressing itself.

David Pestorius 24 ROADRUNNER

Tidal Wave The Jam Factory, Can­ berra A few years ago the Jam factory was operating in simi­ larly squalid conditions as it is now but the name of the venue was then Floyds. It was here I received what was probably my rock ’n’ roll baptism (Urgh!) where, to sidewinder’s rhythm and blues based violin sliced chunks of thunder and lightn­ ing, I danced and drank with furious adolescent abandon.

This time, a little older but still stoned, I’m cajoled into seeing what some locals tout as the best available and most dynamic rock band in Canberra. Well, if I’m to believe that then there’s not too much to be said for Canberra’s contribution to ‘good’ music. As far as contributing something to Oz rock music — well, then they fare a little better.

Ignoring the various tunes and arrangements ripped off from the likes of Midnight Oil, The Jam, and other punk and heavy metal iconoclast song constructors (done with a fair quotient of self-depracating humour) what we are left with is a band that plays what seems to be all original (by title) songs that are executed with pronounced enthusiasm, an un­ contained vigour, and . . . disap­ pointing ignorance.

Not ignorance of what has gone before them, but of why it has. If this present Tidal Wave sound is a basis of what is to come; if this music is merely three boys feeling out their options in preparation for some worthwhile contribution to music, then I’ll let it pass. But only momentarily, for at present this band’s sound is unoriginal in content, facile in feature and hopeless in ambition.

And even if they are ‘just’ feeling things out then the bravery with which they’re doing it is a pretty poor indication of their spirit. If a lack of confidence in presenting something new and viable is the problem then I suggest they stay in the garage until they’ve come up with something that they do feel secure with.

Still, in the context of Canberra, Tidal Wave are, oddly enough, presenting an alternative. An al­ ternative to a multitude of solo guitar entertained wine bars, an alternative to various discos that play a generally hackneyed selection of proven MOR favour­ ites, and an alternative to watch­ ing television or surveying tbe prominent architectural features of Australia’s capital, and very nearly musically culture-less, city.

Their songs preach a disgust with the ‘typical’ public servant way of life in Canberra. It is a variously g uitar/punk based sound with occasional unhealthy leanings towards heavy metal and, of course, features a budding pop awareness. One thing, though, if Tidal Wave sing out of boredom, routine and angst; why not mirror those ideals in the music and not, in a gorging hypocritical manner, rely on tired rock rhythms and rewritten youth anthems?

A contradiction in terms?

Break it down. Tear it up. Get Vicious.

Pop Group did it. Tactics do it.

It’s there for the taking.

Craig N. Pearce

The Cavemen The Sunburnt Pharohs Precious Little The Pierre Betweens Piano Piano M issing Link Party — Tiger Lounge Melbourne What is this thing called ‘mutant disco’? Missing Link and friends seemed eager to demonstrate some of Aus­ tralia’s newest exponents of

the genre. What resulted was a truly unhinged evening of merciless lambast and injoking. Egyptian soul and simply super bossa-nova. A night of steamy mayhem seething with contradictions where the Mel­ bourne ‘art cult’ came to celeb­ rate the ‘cult with no music’.

That isn’t to say that the night was without some deserving players, the Sunburnt Pharohs fronted some twenty or so

Arabian beatniks all who ap­ peared to have served their time perfecting their licks in some Moroccan casbah.

‘Piano Piano’ were just odd and not very convincing at that.

As usual, the new beatniks turned out resplendent in all man­ ner of archaic apparel sporting the now perfunctory pompadour and polka dot perversity. The Lounge was a crush with the party spilling out onto the street; rock around

the block. Plenty of broken glass and speaking of Glass, Keith was conspicuous by his absence.

‘Precious Little’ did a rather precious rendition of the Punters and Trifectors {‘World of Sport’) suitably dressed in construction site helm ets/telephone m ic­ rophones accompanied by taped noised and other mutant ac­ coutrements. They continued with a diabolical jibe at the laughing saxophones A.K.A. ‘The morbid intellectuals’ complete with a mutant industrial rubber hose kazoo horn section, displaying its horrible suction and marginal value. They reached new heights of tastlessness with a tongue in cheek rendition of ‘Release the F ro g s’ whereupon Andrew Davies, the man with guitar hurled scores of chocolate frogs into the throng. As a finale he was then upraised by the other on stage oddballs to squirm and writhe a la Mr. Cave, I suspect. All in good fun I presume, as Andrew Davies joined The Cavemen on guitar later.

For myself the evening’s actual highpoint had to be the astound­ ing and manifold talents of Sun­ burnt Pharohs adorned in all manner of Egyptological apparel.

Most memorable of their snappy tunes were splendiferous rendi­ tions of Jonathan Richm an’s ‘Egyptian Reggae’ and Peggy Lee’s ‘Fever’. This big combo played well considering that they had up to twenty or so members on the tiny stage. Bruce Milne and Andrew Davies led the band along with their diminutive lead singer

MODELS TACTICS SILHOUETTES (Tivoli Theatre, Sydney)

The Reels The Girlfriends Harbord Diggers Club, Sydney The Harbord Diggers Club stands vast and unchallenged on a Northern Suburbs head­ land, its massive walls of plate glass facing the Pacific Ocean.

A monument, not only to ap­ palling taste in interior decor, but to — lest we forget— those valiant fallen diggers. The only place they were falling tonight, though, was down the front steps.

Inside— pastthe critical eyes of the bow-tied and cummerbunded gentleman checking that I am correctly attired. He’s being re­ placed next week with a machine that you can just walk straight through. It can make sure your ideology is as acceptable as your dress. No commies, bludgers or poofters, thank you. This is a decent establishment where hon­ est hard-working normal people can come and get pissed to the eyeballs. Speaking of which, I headed straight for the bar.

There’s a sense of delicious irony in the air tonight. It’s so strong you can almost smell it.

The club is a perfect example of everything that makes those raised in dull and soulless modern suburbia dislike it so intensely and criticise it so vehemently. And here it is innocently inviting within its portals, the Reels, a band that are merciless satirists of all it represents.

The Reels are apt to cruelly parody anyone that comes vag­ uely close enough, but they save the most vicious of their decep­ tively pretty little attacks, for the ideals of consumerism/safety/ apathy and self proclaimed nor­ malcy that the sprawling mass of homo-suburbia so embrace.

The Girlfriends, who I’ve never seen before, play to a mostly empty hail, 3 girls, 3 guys, a sax player and keyboards dominant, sporting a conservatively modern look and a ska/pop sound. The

only thing that strikes me is the way they play a cover of “ I Heard It Through The Grapevine” . It’s just like the version done by The Slits right down to the smallest vocal inflection, which either says something about their lack of originality or my age. Could it be possible they’ve never heard of Marvin Gaye or Credence? Is anyone so young — so utterly moderne? Who cares, but I al­ ways liked Credence’s version a whole lot better anyway. (Long haired American hippies in lum­ berjack shirts they may be — but a great band with wonderful songs.

John Fogerty, where are you?)

And so, to David Mason and his 3 remaining Reels. Without Karen Ansell, it’s an all-male revue, dressed fashionably in the non­ fashion style of shorts, daggy shirts and bare feet. Not to men­ tion the worst collection of skinny legs I’ve seen since my lounge room on a hot afternoon. Long trousers modestly cover David Mason’s legs — the token sophis­ ticate — and surprise, surprise, he seems fairly good natured tonight.

I’ll declare my bias, early. The Reels are probably my favourite Australian band over the last couple of years. For a lot of reasons — their originality, hon­ esty, conviction and intelligence, their rejection of banal showbizzy rituals and all that sickening music biz crap. But especially for the sheer talent that produces songs both memorable and moving.

Songs that still sound great under the worst circumstances — in­ duced by human or technical faults. Songs so good, because of an artistry that can create a beautiful melody and then snugly fit words of precision and pas­ sionate imagination.

And tonight they’re very good.

The sound crisp and clear, the band friendly and they play nearly all the songs I want to hear. Best of all is a beautiful “ Pre-Fab Hearts” ,

the first verse and chorus sung very slow, bringing out the full power of the melody and an overwhelm ing atm osphere of sullen and wistful melancholy.

Similarly, the other slow songs are very effective. “ Q uasim odo’s Dream” and “ Kitchen Man” are lovely, with David Mason wrap­ ping his voice perfectly around some geriuinely touching lyrics.

Most of the moderate sized crowd seem to have a mixed reaction. They dance joyously to the conventional pop songs, especially the medley of old. ones like “ Love Will Find A Way” and “ Baby’s In The Know” , but seem bored and rather confused by some of the Reels more perverse numbers. I guess I feel much the same way and often think I like them for all the wrong reasons. I mean, I even liked “According To My Heart” though the band ap­ parently despise it and only re­ corded it as some kind of kitsch joke. David Mason’s between songs patter is usually smug, bordering on the obnoxious, and always arrogant, even on a good night, like tonight!

And surely no one can enjoy the rather tiresome and adolescent social comment of “ Dubbo augo-go” with its dirge-like non­ music and the inevitable cast of gullible bozos fighting each other for the privilege of being made fools of.

I take an unscheduled intermis­ sion for a couple of lesser num­ bers, grab a beer, am quickly fleeced by a one-armed bandit and return for a good “After The News” and “ For All We Know” .

The Reels disappear with an abrupt “goodnight and see ya next tim e ’’, leaving the uninitiated standing in the dimly lit hall waiting for the encore, as the voice of Jim Reeves floods the room with that immortal country classic.

David Miller

The setting: one of Sydney’s newest (in terms of rock music) up standard venues, all quiet grey carpet - the perfect home for tired cigarette butts, they burrow so neatly . . .; plenty of seats, tables and room to move. The sound, though, was the outstanding feature of this pleasantly sur­ prising discovery; intimately close, crisp and clean (even when the music wasn’t).

Ah hah, so the question is . . . d id the music rise to meet the magnificent occasion of the surroundings? Well the Tivoli isn’t quite world class. . . yet.

The main function of the Silhouettes appeared to be testing out the general acoustics of the place, because the audience sure wasn’t interested. I thought they tried hard, played hard, and proved to be a much earthier ver­ sion of the transparent Sunnyboys. Detroit slamming rock, interspersed with catchy, all Oz power pop. Sax - when heard lifted the atmosphere and tone beyond the predictable. Yeah, they made plenty of embarrassing mistakes. . . “As we go stumbling and falling through the n ig ht. . .” , but nothing that won’t be rectified with perseverance and a grad­ ually acquired knowledge. An en­ joyable set, a band with direction pointed in all the right places.

So was anybody gonna dance for Tactics? Sure enough, there appeared to be a few stray feet moving, noticeably an elite minor­ ity. And Dave Studdert asked so n ic e ly . . .

Anyway, Tactics stayed for an hour that passed like a blissful 10 minutes, and pulsated a fiery force and manic determination that flew around the stage with the energy of Superman on a mission of mercy.

Studdert and Douglas on guitars played a superb, wire-taut combination of racing, thrashing, and steaming hot sounds. Move­ ment became essentially psycho­ tic; furiously writhing a second later and the mood is gliding ever so gently . . .

Highlight of the set, a gaunt yet brilliantly shaded version of My Line, with Studdert punching out every syllable, the band pushing out a vibrancy of rhythm and power that catapulted the feeling from one of laid back apathy to a

into some spirited Egyptian disco, singing odes to King Tut Tut Tut (!$?). An unusual sight to behold, especially the mummy on lead guitar.

The Pierre Betweens followed with a limp and wimp allusion to the go betweens. A lot of languid bi-lingual stuff. Striped surf tops are the go this summer so it seems. Things started to explode and shatter forth as the Cavemen (The Boys from the Exit door)?

(The Birthday Party and guests) started up their legendary and near cacophonous diatribe ably assisted by Equal Locals Bryce Perrin and Phillip Jackson on trumpets. Wild and dangerous to be sure but tempered with a more jazz-like quality almost recalling some of Ornette Coleman’s roc­ kier moments and more recently somebody like James Blood Ulmer. At least that’s what 1 got.

I’ve not witnessed the Birthday Party on too many occasions but it is obvious that their vitriolic and visceral attributes have not di­ minished at all. Nick Cave’s per­ sona continues to display the in­ famous cacodemon performing some private ritual in public they are genuine and jejune but cer­ tainly not a bunch of young charla­ tans. A fun time was had by all down at funky and feral Tiger Lounge.

BRECON WALSH Errata.

‘Cacodemon’, n. (Gr. Kakodaimon; kakos, bad, evil, and daimon, spirit).

Websters New Twentieth Century Dictionary Unab­ ridged 2nd Edition 1958.

raw edged excitement.

Ingrid’s piano was sorely mis­ sed, but the gaps were more than adequately filled in with haunting, sensitive sax ahd horns. Lace trimmings that weren’t at all in­ congruous.

Tactics left the stage in a blaze of spirited strength . . . unfor­ tunately, little remained for the Models to draw from.

Sadly, this oft erratic, oft brilliant outfit were disappointing in their ordinariness. They aroused little passion (except amongst themseves - if looks could k ill. ..), and were seemingly indifferent, all evening, to both their instruments and an audience trying its hardest to muster some decent en­ thusiasm. Takes two to tango, though.

Andrew Duffield, whose keyboards are an essentially intri­ cate piece of the Model’s machin­ ery, looked extremely shitted off for the entirety of the set. If one was looking for clues, it’d have to be in the painfully poor quality of the mix. End result being no sep­ aration or distinction in the wash of guitars, and the total wipeout of Andrew ’s m ulti-faceted key­ boards. I wouldn’t be too happy, either.

One small thread leads to an eventual hole, and it was the monolithic drone of the guitars as they clashed that dragged down the threatened lightness of most of their repertoire into a chaotic mess. Salvation bobbed up hopefully every now and then (re bouncy, gloriously fun renditions of “ Happy Birthday IB M " and “Atlantic Romantic” , but just as quickly disintegrated into teeth gritting frustration.

Graeme Scott, latter day drummer, happily lacks nothing in approach. He’s energetic, tight, and very competent. The same could be said about John Rowel.

However, the need for an extra guitar remains unproven. One down might just see a return of the distinctive Models that had so much to o ffe r. . . and then again . . . The half hearted attempts to inspire passion fell rather flat, and a lack of noticeable melody left little scope for free flowing imagi­ nation.

So where are the Models heading? Anywhere?? The ans­ wer, of course, lies with the “ crucial three” , Kelly, Duffield and Ferrie, and who knows what they’re prone to come up with.

All I know is, that after three en­ cores (ever hopeful), the mood was one of quiet disappointment, tempered with just the slightest trade of lingering tension to fuel the fire of doubt: What next?

Linda Campbell ROADRUNNER

25

26 ROADRUNNER

A

B U M

S

David Byrne “ The Catherine Wheel”

The Human League Dare (Virgin) Towards the end of the sixties and the beginning of the seventies the synth­ esiser began to edge its way into the rock music field. Bands such as E.L.P. and Yes served as prototypes in defining a different approach to rock, vyhere the newly discovered electronic hardware enabled the traditional rock medium to be transcended. Unfortunately the music created by such bands had its roots more in classical music than in rock and it often sounded very pompous and boring. That type of quasi-classical music required concentration on behalf of the listener, which was fine at first, but the technological brilliance of those bands soon became passe, leaving one craving for a more real, less pretentious music.

1975 saw the demise of those technically expert bands. 1975 was the year of the punk.

The punk bands were a reaction to, amongst other things, the pomposity of the non rock and roll rock bands. Punk music was purist.

Although they apparently despised them, punk music was closely related to the music of such “ dinosaurs” as The Stones and The Who. The relationship existed in the fact that all these bands were playing a type of music that was relatively unaffected by technical discoveries in the realm of electronic musical hardware i.e. synthesisers.

Simultaneously, over in America the disco boom was beginning. In Europe electronic bands such as Kraftwerk were experiment­ ing with synthesisers. Donna Summer, with the aid of Giorgio Moroder made “I Feel Love”. That song successfully combined the European Synthesiser sound and disco beat creating a record that went part of the way in

making disco music a serious musical form.

Post punk music was labelled new wave, the music scene became interesting again.

The political polemics disappeared from lyrics, music became fun again. The youth were fed up with their grey existence, dressing up was in again.

The Human League were not afraid of the synthesiser. They were brave enough to use the synthesiser when it was hardly in favour.

Their first two albums. Reproduction (1979) and Travelogue (1980) were both good albums marred only by poor production and mixing which made the albums a little heavy at times. Nontheless those two albums serve as fine examples of moody, surreal synth­ esiser music."Singer Philip Oakey’s voice provides a warmth that is rarely heard in music of this genre.

Towards the end of 1980, due to interna! hassles. The League split. Two of the four members, Ian Marsh and Martyn Ware, left to go on to form Heaven Seventeen whose electronic funk music is popular in the U.K. at present. The remaining two members, Philip Oakey and slide and film man Philip Adrian Wright, were left as a nucleus of a band with no musicians. At this point not many people would have given The League much hope of survival.

With the addition of Jo Callis and Ian Burden on synthesisers and Joanne Catherall and Susanne Sulley on vocals and dancing. The Human League were reborn.

Dare is the first album by the revamped League.

With Dare the synthesis of disco and electronics is taken to new heights. There are ho overt political statements on Dare. The songs on the album are pop songs. If anything they are escapist in nature. The fact that Dare has sold hundreds of thousands in the U.K. serves to reinforce the notion that fun has replaced politics as a source of

inspiration to the record buying public. The themes of the songs are the ubiquitous themes of pop; money, love and fun. The music is entirely synthesised, only the voice is humanly created. Despite the fact that the album is dominated by synthesisers it is an incredibly warm record, the synthetic sounds are not harsh or mechanical and as usual Philip’s voice is great. The Music is essen­ tially dance music with virtually all the tracks being propelled by synthetic percussion which makes resistance to dancing near impossible. This is music to get fit by.

As mentioned before, this is escapist music but this does not mean that the lyrical content is fatuous. All the songs have a humanistically optimistic feel and appear to be based on real events experienced by the lyricist. For example on ‘‘Don’t You Want Me?” Philip sings about his side of a collapsing relationship and Joanne sings the womans point of view. Philip’s marriage has recently broken up. Viewing the song in that light makes the lyrics sound reasonably honest.

Martin Rushent produced the record and has done an excellent job. Every sound is crystal clear, everything can be heard with absolutely no effort on behalf of the listener.

Here lies both the strength and weakness of Dare. The music is immediately likeable because of its melodic and rhythmic struc­ ture, but because it makes no demands on the listener, it does not wear well on repeated listening. But such is pop. It is never made to last and that immediacy is particularly relevant today when tomorrow comes as a surprise.

Dare is a good album. It enables the listener to escape the grim realities of the growth of facism and the decline of the west.

It is music that you can dance to as you watch the world burn.

David Greene

David Byrne’s contribution to the cur­ rent batch of solo albums from the ranks of Talking Heads is not a solo album in the usual sense, but an album of music and songs commissioned by the Twyla Tharp Dance Foundation for the Broad­ way production of ‘The Catherine Wheel’.

Unless you happened to be there you do not have access to the impact of the music as dance accompaniment, and no way of actu­ ally gauging what it is all about — there are several shots of the impressive stage setting on the cover, and a list of the cast (?), but no explanation of the ballet itself or what either Twyla Tharp or David Byrne set out to achieve. Byrnes lyrics give no assistance.

You are therefore reduced to listening to this album on a different level than was intended.

One of the best features of Byrne’s work with Talking Heads is his ability to startle or surprise, to do the unexpected or change direction in mid-air. The gap between each album seemed enormous at the time. Alas, the contents of Catherine Wheel are sadly familiar in style. The half dozen songs are reminiscent of the style of ‘Remain In Light’, and in one or two cases don’t work as well. In addition there are five instrumental pieces one written with Eno (Two Soldiers’) which possibly owes more to Eno’s previous work than Byrne’s, one performed with Eno which recalls the Bush of Ghosts album (The Red House’) ‘Cloud Chamber’ featuring Byrne, Tharp, and Jerry Harrison all on percussion only in a slight departure, and is perhaps the only track on the album to which you can actually close your eyes and imagine the dance movements. But overall it somehow seems that Byrne missed an opportunity to scamper away from territory already covered.

This is not to suggest that this album is not worth a listen - in fact it’s far more accessible and a far better album than the Bush of Ghosts effort. Indeed if everyone accused of repeating themselves gave the game away there’dbe precious few left. It’s just that up to now David Byrne has been one of them.

Judgement will be deferred until next album as to whether he remains one.

Adrian Miller

Igniters EP (Green) In these weary days in the history of ‘rock’, I find myself only drawn to a few bands: ones doing, if not something new, at least something with a bit of ‘verve and panache’ bands like the ever popular Birthday Party, The Laughing Clowns, and so on, do just that, despite oft leanings to tedium. Narrow within their niche they may be, but at least they made that niche. All of those require­ ments, however, just don’t relate to this band. . .

From what I can gather, this group are really a mixture of the Allnighters and INXS. These elements have combined to produce 4 dub ska tracks. D u Id, for me, is organised, and often treated, improvisation, over a long track, designed to get people to dance through an insistent, repeated idea and/or a persevering rhythm. Well that’s my guess, and this stuff fills those requirements.

However, this looks tepid alongside, say.

I ne beats dub version of Twist and Crawl”, but that’s the price of trying to imitate an initially British style (taken that ska was a British derivation of Jamaican reggae).

Against the achievements of the Specials and Madness — admittedly not dub ska, though that’s no excuse — this is naive, pre­ dictable and primitively constructed.

Maybe the excuse is that this was a rush job, quickly put together for 2JJJ, but any writer worth his salt, should have come up with something better, or nothing at all. At least the arrangements could have show a bit more imagination, but they sound as hastily put together as the rest of the EP. Perhaps good for “washing up ’ too, or playing at the height of some sweaty party, but there are, for both, a few thousand more suitable choices.

I don’t mind INXS and ska, as British bands have proved, can be evocative if its social background and imaginative, but this is purely a waste of vinyl. All those supposed cockney skinhead fans of the Allnighters, would be advised to turn to their homeland for the real thing.

Earl Grey

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ROADRUNNER

27

The Cuban Heels Work Our Way to Heaven (Cuba Libre/Virgin)

Stray Cats: ‘Gonna Ball!”

(Arista) More hep, get down music from the Stray Cats, eh? This band have got all the hooks of blues and rockabilly sewn up, and that about says it all. They don’t particularly have anything new to relate to the areas they work in, though I don’t suppose any of their fans Will be comp­ laining about that.

Songs like ‘Cryin’ Shame’ and ‘Little Miss Prissy’, show the band ever hedging on to­ wards a raunchier, bluesier vein, with only one or two numbers being really reminiscent of the first album (though they seem to have latched onto those wild, jungle screams at the end of songs with quite an admirable tenacity). After watching their live perfor­ mance, I’m also of the opinion that their on­ stage energy and enthusiasm doesn’t really come off on record. To be honest, I guess it’s good foot-tapping stuff if you’re in the mood, but boring on the whole, the only refuge being the a la 50’s sweetie ‘Lonely Summer Nights’, “ a real croon to make you swoon” , as they say.

All done very well, but I think rockabilly and other related departments, need more than a revivalist breath, they need a facelift — and this isn’t it.

Earl Grey

The Cure ‘‘Three Imaginary Boys” (CBS) I guess this re-release is just to reinforce suspicions that the Cure Boys have been getting slick/slack as all hell of late. The rut they’ve dug for themselves this side of “ Seventeen Seconds” is a shame to see in the light of the first albums. You wouldn’t have heard them projecting with this much real depth and wit on their last tour. So if you came into the Cure with “ Faith” , backtrack a bit to this earlier album and you’ll understand a little of what you missed out on.

Tyrone Flex

Madness 7 (Stiff) I’ve lost count of how many albums Madness have released — it seems a lot. Likewise with singles, none of which have done stunningly well over here.

This is surprising considering Madness are responsible for some of the snap­ piest, intrinsic tunes you or I are likely to hear.

I won’t mince words though — I do find Sugg’s vocals indicative of someone either incapable, or lost for any melodic ideas (especially plain, as the music has so much inherent possibilities in that direction). How­ ever, Sugg’s paces his lines excellently — those lyrics, laid on paper, would look threateningly impossible to phrase, but somehow he manages it with an admirable articulateness. The sounds behind and around the vocals, are melodic and, more so than any other band I can think of, com­ plementary to each other, all jiggling into place like parts in a cute but complex jigsaw.

It’s all so thought out, and so foot-tapping, you’ve just got to admire it whether you like it or not. But, as a matter of fact, I do like it, though there are a few occasions where it wears a bit thin. Still, it is very hard to disap­ prove or dislike anything that’s so affable, immediately infectious and ‘non-grating’ .. .

Full of humour and cheek. Madness have taken all the root elements of ska and created something worthy of interest and a hell of a lot of fun, besides.

Earl Grey

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ROADRUNNER

The Cuban Heels are a Scottish band on a Scottish label (which also produces the Shaking Pyramids) distributed by Virgin.

The record suffers from a bad mix, and much of the colourful side of their music is lost in a blur of sound. If not for this, the record would be easier to appreciate than it is. With a better mix, they would be an effective band.

As it stands some of their power comes through. While no tracks emerge as particu­ larly gripping, a consistent spirit and clear energy surge through all of them.

If the appalling quality of their mixing does not force them into obscurity, the Cuban Heels could be a promising band.

Span

Mi-Sex ‘‘Shanghaied” (CBS) What were all those enthusiastic slabs of drivel bandied about late last year?

Mi-Sex ‘return’ to simple street — credible R’n’R — a load of garbo-striking rubbish. I don’t care whose delicate noses are put out of joint, this album is a slickly-produced waste of listening space.

It almost makes me yearn for the ‘good old days’ — Pseudo theatrics and a set of crafted derivative pop songs, conceptually linked and at times almost topical. “Shanghaied” is not only aimless and lyrically zilchville but the production efforts are also pretty pedestrian even when compared with other MOR of the past six months. The only positive glimmer I could find in this flop is the silly paradox that the title track is a halfway decent song — pick up the single if its still about.

Tyrone Flex

Various Artists A Selection (M-Squared) For record listeners with a taste for the experim ental and the independent comes Sydney’s ‘M-Squared’ label’s re­ lease of ‘A Selection’, which features one contribution each from a variety of local acts - some performing, some not - ranging from some quite interesting tracks doen to the rankishly amateurish and even to the just plain terrible.

In the first category are some fine tracks

by Systematics (‘Die For My House’), Pel Mel (Click Click) and The Limp (‘Pony Club’).

Wild West open side one with a track that is eventually quite interesting, but the first half is blurred by some indistinguishable vocals.

The Dead Travel Fast present the trivial ‘Urchin’, and the Slugfuckers with their little reggae number ‘Dolphins h Fish’ sound like any other amateur band at their first practice, and it would seen that their ventures onto vinyl (they have an album apparently) are a little premature.

Some tracks are unashamedly original bedroom quality, indeed this is part of their charm, but in some cases - such as the Severed Heads with their ‘Eat Roland’ - what some people do in the privacy of their bed­ room should go no further.

More interesting are some predominantly experimental tracks from Negative Reaction, Tame O’Mearas, Splendid Mess, Scattered Order, and Solipsik, which fill out the album and give it a distinctly non-commercial flavour.

The album closes with a deliberate (I hope) attempt to present the worst song on vinyl.

Aural Indifference with their woeful version of the Supreme’s woeful ‘Baby Love’ - truly, if every a song deserved to be paid out in this fashion it is this one. The only problem is that even if you can stand to hear the song ail the way through once, you are never likely to listen to it again, unless it is to inflict the joke on someone else.

Compilation albums such as this one are invaluable for presenting a cross-section of ‘alternative’ music not generally available elsewhere, but they do face difficulties in maintaining a standard cf quality - often, as in this case, because quality of performance/recording does not appear to be a criteria for inclusion.

Adrian Miller

U2 October (Island) I was surprised to find at least one reviewer questioning the seriousness of this LP. The beliefs of anyone are sincerely felt, especially if that belief is one condoned by a mass, placed under the name of religion — a banner whereby belief often turns to fervour and a passionate defending — and set in the Irish context.

U2 are Irish Catholics, brought up in that country where religion is a dividing political point, and bound up with freedom. This album reflects that.

Obviously there are times when religious or political writings are a bit hard to stomach due to ridiculous sloganising, or overt ‘genuineness’, but I don’t think that that’s the case here. ‘Gloria’ is lyrically unvarnished, its Only claim to pretentiousness perhaps being the Latin in the chorus, though that seems to be more a touching addition that gives some idea of the Catholic context and tradition. The basic message is really quite simple: “ Oh Lord, if I had anything, anything at all. I’d give it to you” .

The passion and execution of Christ, the romance and adventure of the later religious Crusades, and various other items, such as Blake’s popular hymn, has led Jerusalem to be firmly fixed in the British Christian mind.

‘With a Shout (Jerusalem)’, is a part of that tradition, celebrating the Holy City, and expressing the Christian longing to be spiritually a part of it: “ . . . in sight of a hill, blood was spilt, we were filled with love” .

Bono Vox, U2’s lead singer, called their previous album Boy’, lyrically one of ‘soulsearching’, whilst this was the more mature effort. However, both albums take into account the observations of youth in Ireland — Boy’ explores the change from boyhood to manhood with all the expectations in­ volved, ‘October’ sees the man trying to come to terms with the situation. ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’, for instance, has Bono as a tourist writing a letter, after a perplexing encounter with a hardened, yet scared British soldier in Ireland, ‘Tomorrow’, has a mother asking her spirited son whether he’ll be ‘back tomorrow’.

‘October’s music, like the lyrics, is emotive and foreboding. Never mind the fact that they are given to a few rock cliches (vocal shouts strategically placed, the quiet middle bit), because these cliches work well for them.

Also U2 undercut and subvert these struc­ tures with an imaginative use of guitar.and structural dynamics — that is the songs swell and wane to a precise pattern of arrange­ ments, not too clinical to allow for enthusiasm and a raw edge.

This album demands our respect for a lot of reasons. Though I’m not a believer, U2’s sincerity shines clear, alongside which many other social/political-minded lyricists — most of whom write that way out of compliance to expectations rather than any heartfelt convic­ tion — turn pale by comparison. What’s more, U2 have the sensibility which is totally alien to the schmaltz of so many patently Christian singers, perhaps because their country is steeped in a real religious tradition, whilst the majority stem from American Christianity, which has near debased into a mass, consumer sell-out. Whatever, U2 stand as a rock’n’roll band with portents of greatness, a light, as it were, amongst so much trash that goes under that genre.

‘October’ may not be stunningly innovative, yet they show the new possibilities of their musical oeuvre, and remain open to more, and they state their ideas, musically and otherwise, without too much decoration. A very, very good album.

Earl Grey

The Cars Shake It Up (Elektra) The Cars have always been a com­ mercially conscious band, writing their songs with an eye on singles material, producing it all with as many hooks as possible.

There’s something about the Cars that I like, although superficially they sound like the sort of thing I can’t stand when other people do it. Maybe its the hooks.

This album, like previous albums, shows them mellowing even further. Mellowing, applied to a rock band, usually means a maturing of musical competence and pro­ duction techniques without accompanying maturity of inspiration. Shake It Up fulfils this hastily assembled definition yet at the same time manages to be somehow likeable.

Certainly, I prefer it to their last album.

Panorama, where nothing seemed to fit together and the sound was somehow always “ wrong” .

Half the tracks don’t stand out in any special way, but the lyrics which filter through manage to impress me. I get the feeling that they are writing about real things, even though the style and format of the music suggests contrivedness. In that sense the Cars remind me of 10cc in the old days, without the symphonies and on a much lighter level of expression.

Tracks which really pace along are Cruiser, on side one, and A Dream Away and This Could Be Love on side two. But the overall feeling of Shake It Up is vivid and interesting.

Maybe it’s the swing. Maybe someone did something to me as a child. I don’t know. My rational self tells me I shouldn’t even find this record bearable. Oddly, I find myself liking it.

Span

The Sound From the Lion’s Mouth (WEA) My first impressions of this album were that the band was very promising and would be worth watching.

Subsequent listening has unravelled more of the sound and exposed the roaring heart.

Using only the standard tools of the hypothet­ ical Basic Band the Sound produce a coherent, almost symphonic effect, with a steady, driving, adrenaline beat. The overall feeling is reminiscent of the Cure or the Associates, in that it is convincing and compulsive, but the Sound have their own unique Sound as well.

Adrian Borland’s lyrics document in a lucid and honest manner the stages of an indi­ vidual coming to grips with the problems of living, the human problems rather than the Standard Issues (nuclear war, outer space, ecological breakdown), while his guitar, simple but articulate, paces through the changes with the fearful grace of a big cat.

Graham Green’s bass and Mike Dudley’s percussion provide the animal’s heartbeat and m etabolism , while Max M ayers’ keyboards, restrained and never overbear­ ing, establish the open savannahs over which the beast prowls, hungry and alert, confident and nervy, watching, waiting, trying, winning . .. sometimes.

I find myself wanting to play this album over and over again. I find myself copying out occasional lyric lines which fire meaning into my head, heart and soul. Every track is an anthem of some description.

Contact the Fact, Winning and Posses­ sion stand out as particularly good tracks, but in general there is not a weak cut or any padding on the album. The lion has not gone to fat and its claws are still sharp. The sound from its mouth carries everywhere.

(One thing leaves me confused: the cover concept is attributed to one Howard Hughes.)

Span

Bow Wow Wow See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang Yeah, City All Over! Go Apecrazy!

(R.C.A.) I dreaded the hour when I would have to listen to this recording, a task I took upon myself so I could sell the damn thing later. Mr. McLaren would surely be sympathetic to one in such a predica­ ment, he’s also good at selling but I don’t think he knows about the process of buying. That’s how your morals soon get broken in the pop music industry. You come to expect everything gratis.

Bow Wow Wow are a lavish marketing strategy that will undoubtedly corner a section of the market sooner or later, depending on which theory you harbour about the band. That, dear fellows, is the beauty of Bow Wow Wow. You do all the talking and creating of ideas for them. Why, this band have no substance at all except for the talking and focal point created in the young Annabella Lu-Win. I’m doing quite well filling this page with absolute bullshit, but that’s entertainment.

The Greeks have a perfect name for this album, Malaka. A set of songs that defeat any B-Grade movie scenario for the som­ nambulist dollar, propped up against a ceaseless battery of drums that sound like a thousand clapperboards going off at once.

All ugh-ugh and the great American Indian spoof has been created. A chuckle but never a laugh. As subversive as an animal without clothes on.

A rock ’n’ roll pantomine; advertising jingles for the great American buffalo and Estee Lauder set.

Toby Cluecbaz

Jerry Harrison The Red and the Black (Sire) I’m getting used to disappointments.

All the bands I’ve revered and admired over the years have either demised or run their gaunt as far as interest goes.

The all too scared Birthday Party bored me silly, when I saw them recently. Oh, they looked and sound wonderfully impressive (echoed and monstrous, aren’t they?), and the initial ideas are still good, but they’ve evolved into such a narrow little niche, as to be trapped within the context of the ideas therein, (that’s putting it simply). The only sur­ prise for me, eventually became whether the next song was fast or slow, whilst those blues bass lines led me to half expect Nick Cave to whip out a mouthorgan. “ But they’re so vital, we need them’’. I’m told. Yeah, well I guess there’s that, and I grant that in a few songs, they do have their moments.

Most of those other hip and wonderful bands, may still be hip but, for me, are certainly no longer wonderful . . . For in­ stance, this quarter of Talking Heads effort does not particularly inspire hope in that band.

Up to, and including, ‘Fear of M usic’, Talking Heads sounded like they thought for themselves, and could come up with music and ideas, all worth a venture into, and mostly indicative of an interest in rhythm. But, commencing with ‘Remain in Light’, the insipid ghost of a type of pseudo-African funk set in like rigor mortis. It seemed they’d taken the most obvious, but least admirable av­ enue insofar as rhythmic expression went.

‘Remain in Light’ could manage an admir­ able stint on the turntable before one realised that the album had as much depth in ideas as the hole in the middle.

All the following solo efforts have been in the same mould. The Tom Tom Club’s a bit lighter, David Byrne’s very serious, and Jerry Harrison’s caught midway. Somebody else mentioned 10/8 timing in Harrison’s ‘No Warning, No Alarm’ — in the mire of supposed (but well hidden) experimentation on this album, that little touch of obvious trickery nearly stands out as a new idea . . .

Lyrically abysmal, musically appalling, this album — and all the others — are not intellectually stimulating, as perhaps they purport to be, but immediately disposable.

Reviews I’ve read of other Talking Heads solo shots have made points referring to the ‘typical Heads funk’. I find the Heads ‘funk’ boring and needless — and, in that respect, this is typical of it.

Earl Grey

The Tom-Tom Glub Tom Tom Club (WEA) I first listened to this album while eating a meal, and an excellent meal it was, everything I’d been wanting to eat for ages — a mound of wholemeal spaghetti covered with grated Mainland cheese, and over that, curried vege­ tables: peas, homegrown zucchinis and cabbage (not my home), spuds, pumpkin, onion, garlic, chillis . . .

I put the record on, sat down with my plate, and enthusiastically dug in a beetrootstained fork. Every so often I would find myself standing by the front door or (more accurately) descending to the floor in that general vicinity. I would cross the living room, panting for breath, sit down again before the plate I could not remember leaving, and shovel a bit more into my mouth. This happened a number of times. Don’t try to eat when you’re listening to this record!

I had a vision, somewhere among the carrots and zucchini, of David Byrne in Old Testament prophet garb, speaking thusly: “ Lo, we have been together for 4 years, and have produced as many albums. I pronounce ye ready, so go ye therefore into the world and get thyself recorded.’’

This album has more in it than my meal did.

Weymouth, Frantz, and the other club members are possessed of resources beyond my refrigerator. The result is steady and dependable, intoxicating and irresistible.

It is as colourful, many varied and composite as the cover (which made it hard to tell at first glance who was involved).

Any attempt to discuss the tracks would be superfluous to their intent. Any attempt to compare the Tom-Tom Club to T. Heads or other personage would be boorish and pointless. I don’t understand why it makes me move around but I reckon it must be good music or something like that.

At no time was my plate overturned, another point in its favour.

Span

Crackajacks: Little Heart Attacks (Missing Link).

A sewing machine becomes acquainted with an umbrella on the operating table, a Melbourne band called The Crac­ kajacks play an album’s worth of rocka­ billy in a pure and ingenuous manner.

Life, once more made bearable by chance and incongruity. Australians have shown a real knack for re-creating period pieces over the last ten years or so. The Crackajacks not only uphold this fine tradition of reproduction they bring a vigour of new life to this brand of 1950’s music they choose to work with.

The twelve songs that go to make Littie Heart Attacks have reverently been treated with good humour and immaculate playing, a genuine work of love has been enacted. But for what purpose does such a work exist? For the sake of pure entertainment, is the mildly convincing answer. Certainly the songs are devoid of anything approaching a message, except of course for the unhibiting messages the brain transmits to the arms and feet. The Crackajacks do manage successfully to capture the force and unbridled joy in this direct but throwaway music, although the feeling can never be more than transient. . . always busting for love.

I could never see myself sitting down and listening to this record for any great or lesser period of time. You have to act on it, you have to drive to it. For that reason Littie Heart Attacks should belong on the turntable at

parties and other moments of brief frivolity.

It’s guaranteed in the first instance to bring red cheeks back into vogue.

Toby Cluechaz.

Devo Be Stiff (Stiff) Echo and the Bunnymen Shine So Hard.

(WEA) On the eve of Devo’s tour, two slices of vinyl have been released — the ‘New Traditionalists’ and this, their mini-album ‘Be Stiff, respectively the most recent and most earliest Devo material.

For these times, for this day and the days to follow we have ‘Red Mecca’ — a picture of truth, of inverted subversion and collected reasoning. Our minds will swell, our eyes alight, our souls cry out. ‘Red M ecca’ is a centre of observation, which declines to rise above those and that which it observes. A human sound; day to day sounds; structured finely but felt magnificently. This record is fragile like the ecosystem. And nearly as notable.

Impressed; repressed; Cabaret Voltaire are earthmen, earth touched and shaped but not afraid to seek out for an answer. The distraught may be their inspiration, even their inclination, but never their destination.

Sounds here serve to make things stand in true perspective. Cabaret Voltaire have struggled and are struggling. In this process they have found and manufactured insights for all to comprehend, for all to feel (free).

It is a sound metallic (often brutal) and provoking (often sensuous) — of visual exclamation and easy approachability. It is hard but supple. This music runs behind you, grasps you around the hips and head and viciously forces you to waltz along with it.

Dance and think . . . to the very brink.

Destined for nothing more than recognition of influence by artists in years to come, one feels sorry for the Cabs; but then on hearing their music again one feels happy. Not for the fact that this is a manufactured pop LP but because we know that if there are any simple truths in this world then the Cabs have found some of them and seem to be better off for it.

I know we certainly are.

In earlier days, before any music of theirs had actually been released here, reports filtered through of weird happenings in Akron, Ohio, which indicated that state suddenly turning backward, and raising a crop of odd potatoes. Later, de-evolution and spuds turned out to be other things, and the early Stiff singles became something of milestones in the emergence of garage band experiments.

This, then, is a collection of those singles in their original, raw state, complete with the hiss and the excitement of a new, ridiculous theory put to music, that made it infectious then, and compulsive now.

Since that time, instead of progressing, Devo have rounded off all those rough edges and made them selves acceptable-de- ___________________Craig N. Pearce evolved, in fact — and, in the light of this Eikichi Yazawa well-recommended record, that is very sad.

Echo and the Bunnymen’s ‘Shine So Hard' Yazawa mini-album is disappointing. ‘Crocodiies’ (WEA) was a poppy, sometimes samey, debut which still managed to serve as a tantalising hors d’oeuvre as to what might follow. Yet it’s From some nebulous nightclub in the successor ‘Heaven Up Here’, suffered too sky drifts this curious fragm ent of greatly under the overbearing presence of Nippo-Americarr soul disco.

Ian McCulloch’s vocals, even, though the Yazawa has composed enough music to musical progression was obvious, and, on at back eight tracks, while Bobby Lakind & Paul least two or three tracks, some essence of Barrere (whoever they may be) have greatness loomed out. supplied him with lyrics to sing and com­ It’s hard to review this in lieu of 'Heaven Up posed a ninth track completely on their own Here’s production and economy of statement auspices. Assembling the usual army of and, having seen them live. On stage, the session musicians, Yazawa (with producers songs were dragged out too long past the Lakind & Barrere) have seen fit to record initial idea, and the live sound figured too them all. As the copyright is attributed to the heavily on the drums to drive them forward.

Tokyo branch of the Warner-Pioneer Corpo­ Thus all the songs sounded the same — a ration, perhaps this is an attempted filtering fact not aided by nearly all the ‘tunes’ being in through of contemporary Japanese talent. the same key, and constructed around the Yazawa’s English is good. I wouldn’t have swelling and the waning of the drums. (Itself known his nationality if not for his name and allowing for long, psychedelic vocal meanphotographs, so credibly does he resemble derings by McCulloch’s often hesitant, and, run-of-the-mill modern Californian music. His since he attempted moments of supposed singing is competent, and the session wild abandonment, unsuitable voice.) musos, as always, make sure to play every Yet ‘Shine So Hard’ is an encapsulment of note in exactly the right place. all that Echo and the Bunnymen do live — The album is technically unfaultable, but from the slow, beauteous ‘Zimbo’ (nee ‘AH there remains something banal and trivial My Coiours’), to the lengthy ‘Crdcodiies’, about it which fails to excite me. Yazawa with its classic psychedelic statement; ‘The seems to be not so much a musician as a world is a prettier place, when you got product. something to take’.

Don’t approach this album thinking about The Bunnymen are a potentially great Stomu Yamash’ta or the Yellow Magic group, who get too easily enticed by their own Orchestra. power musically, whereas they should rather ______ ________________ Span be inclined to physicaily let go, whilst economising their songs — thus, perhaps, ohnny Warman concentrating their power. However, dare I say it, ‘Shine So Hard’, despite the preten­ Walking Into Mirrors sions of the film it comes from, the music and (Rocket/Polygram) the band, is probably worth a listen or two, if nothing else.

1

Earl Grey

Cabaret Voltaire ‘Red Mecca’ (Rough Trade Import) In cryptic times we look to art for enlightenment. Through a parallel of the world’s distortion we hope to find a measure of substance that we can enjoy, yet that gives us back just as much as we put in. Therefore receiving encouragement. If not an answer, then a suitable push in the right direction for us to find that answer (which, to my mind, is a more valid thing for art to do anyway).

The picture of a landscape, not escapist or didactic, but merely a mapping out of a position so we can see where we stand.

Warman hasn’t so much walked into a mirror but a poster of David Bowie, circa Ziggy Stardust or Hunky Dory. Even Gary Numan would have considered that dated.

All right/ let’s consider Warman’s antiqua­ rian habits to be a matter of pure romanti­ cism, and listen to the music without comparisons. Well, that’s hard. Songs like Martian Summer, Radio Active and Scream­ ing Jets insist on comparisons. Little here is original in either the music or the extremely banal words.

3 Minutes manages to sound like a very thin remake of Bowie’s 5 Years. “ Excuse me,’’ Warman sings, “ if I’m notquite real. . .’’

With Peter Gabriel producing the track Screaming Jets, and longtime synthesizer craftsman Larry Fast backing half the tracks, still there is not enough good listening and original material to dredge this highly deriva­ tive album from the morass of mediocrity.

Span

is no longer a record company!

ROADRUNNER

29

ARCHITECTURE

& MORALITY

An Album by Ska-ndaious!

This noisy, uitimately m onotonous showcase for the Two Tone movement falls into the category of the unadorned perfor­ mance film, but it’s no classic of the genre.

It’s also as much an obituary as a documentary. Three of the bands involved (Specials, Bodysnatchers, Selecter) have now disappeared leaving behind hand­ fuls of viable vinyl, and memories of what may seem in years to come to be the most in­ explicable of all Anglo-pop crazes.

"Dance Craze’’ sets out to provide entertainment, not eniightenment, but in the end boredom triumphs, despite the tac­ tic of constantiy jumping between performances of these six purveyors of the frantic off-beat. Eventuaiiy the whoie exercise becomes a biur of porkpie hats, waving arms, biack and white faces, and unimaginative iighting. T here’s a mockintermission comprised of ciips from fifties British newsreels on such teen­ age subjects as dance crazes which provides some comic relief, and also inspires reflection on just how comply ridiculous film of a Two Tone audience may seem in a decade’s time.

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There are thankfully, variations in the perfor­ mance level. To start with the worst; Bad Manners are a one-joke, one riff bore, bass heavy and lurching as any B-grade boogie band. The gap be­ tween them and the equally primitive Bodysnatchers is musically in­ significant, but at least the latter inject some col­ our into their tinny covers of rock steady classics by Desmond Dekker and Dandy Livingstone. This ail-female outfit and their more potent successor band, the Belie Stars, are an intriguing pop confec­ tion, but there’s a missing vital element somewhere, an absence of real drive among the colour.

The same could be said for Madness.

Here, they’re predictable in that they can ’t match their vinyl or their videos, scrappy playing and ten­ tative posing diluting their impact.

The Beat, the Creedence of the movement, play brilliantly in front of an American audience, weaving those complex, stuttering rhythms with tons of elan but still dis­ playing that certain cold­ ness which stops them just short of being a great pop band. Selecter, the other band on show who flirted most closely with newer Jamaican rhythms, are bland in comparison.

Orchestral

They had only one near-classic moment with On My Radio, but com­ pensation for their onelevel attack comes in the shape of their singer Pauline Black, severe and tantalising at the same time, a star without any­ thing to deliver.

But if "Dance Craze’’ has any real stars, it’s the Specials. They’re caught here well before their peak of 1981 with the wondrous Ghost Town, but this film supplies some of the best of their jagged interaction with their audience. The film’s only moment of genuine atmosphere comes in its final moments as a coldeyed Terry Hail Is gradu­ ally submerged by the audience as the band grind through an omin­ ous rendition of ‘‘Nite K lub” ; it’s a moment where musician and lis­ tener merge, and delivers a hint of what could have been an absorbing inves­ tigation of the ska revival, a populist last stand when the rest of the new wave was selling out in every possible direction.

See “ Dance Craze’’ If you think Specials’ albums would sound good on a desert island, if you like dancing in movie theatres; otherwise it’s hardly essential.

Adrian Ryan.

Manoeuvres In The D ark

Includes the Single

SOUVENIR

DINDISC

DI D 12 Cass D l D l 2

RCA is no longer a Record Company

The next time you see this label, it will have our first hit, which is our first signing with our first recording on the new RCA Australian Label.

nu(E/iD ROADRUNNER

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