The Masters Apprentices

Writing about them the other day made me dig out the reissue (on Aztec Music) of their debut album and what a bewdy! You can always edit albums these days, so there is no need to listen to the filler covers. I like their version of I Feel Fine and Dancing Girl though. Anyway it's all about Undecided, War or Hands of Time, Buried and Dead, But One Day, Hot Gully Wind, Theme For a Social Climber and She's My Girl - Classics! They really had a good thing goin' with the dual guitars, Jim's snarling vox and the raw production. Then there's the singles Livin' In a Child's Dream/Tired of Just Wandering and Elevator Driver - Also classics!. Can't say I dig Brigette but the b side is ok, Four Years After Five. It's around this time (before the recording of Elevator Driver) that their main songwriter MJ Bower lost the plot and retired from the Masters. Which ended the raw psychedelic tinged R&B phase of the group (ie. pre Glenn Wheatley). Mick Bower went into nursing I think. In 1968 Mick Bower released a further single under the name The Bucket which featured members of The Others & Blues, Rags n Hollers, I can't help thinking of you was released on Festival and then that was it. Bower's recording career was over. What could have been?? Does he have a SMILE hidden away somewhere?

Buried and Dead

Masters Apprentices

1967

How cool is the drummer?

Aztec music

R.I.P. AZTEC MUSIC

What a great reissue label with fabulous packaging and liner notes on each release. I'd never heard a lot of those records. I'd heard tracks by Buffalo, Kahvas Jute, Spectrum, Tamam Shud, Madder Lake etc. from the fantastic Golden Miles Comp on Raven Records.

But it took Aztec to reissue the full LPs. It made it cheap to hear Coloured Balls (I wasn't gonna fork out $100s of dollars for these 2nd hand). Buffalo's 2nd and 3rd LPs are particular faves Volcanic Rock and Only Want You For Your Body. I couldn't believe that every 2nd suburban household didn't have copies of these.

Buffalo: The original hipsters.

The cultural cringe is still in full effect in Australia. Aztec helped redress the balance a little. The X and Died Pretty reissues were great. Great stuff from the 60s as well, The Masters Apprentices and The Twilights. The 70s was their thing though and I guess the biggest revelations for me were the reissues of Tamam Shud's Goolutionites and The Real People and Kahvas Jute's Wide Open. Clinton Walker in The Next Thing pretty much wrote off everything Australia produced including AC/DC until punk arrived, how wrong he was! (didn't he end up writing a book about Bon Scott?! Fuckin twat). I was amazed at these 2 incredibly unique rock statements from early 70s Sydney, Australia. So it's a shame that Aztec has died. I thought I still had much to learn from them.


Gold

apocalyptic gold