Australia Day/Invasion Day Part 1

MY WIFE'S EXPERIENCE

Australia Day is usually my excuse to post great Australian music usually rock from over 25 years ago but we'll get to that later........My Mrs who gets a bit of mention here & there on me blog immigrated to Australia in 1987 when she was 13. She was from a lil' ole town in North Wales called Colwyn Bay which according to my vintage poster is the gateway to the Welsh Rockies. I didn't know they had a 'Rockies', neither did Emma, but there you go. Anyway on the plane on the way over she first encountered Johnny Farnham (Above) on one of those headset channels. The LP Whispering Jack apparently had its own station. She played the album several times on the long flight. It was a pretty big foretaste of what was to come because he ruled the airwaves and charts for the rest of the 80s. Whispering Jack sold a lot of units it's probably the biggest selling Aussie LP of all time. I did work experience in a record shop in 1987 and it outsold everything 50 to 1 and I think it had already been out for a year. Anyway I think even Coldplay did a cover of You're The Voice. I've heard this song so many times I don't know if I like it or hate it.

This was her next experience of liking Australian rock. Crowded House were a Melbourne band believe it or not. They lived, formed and played in Melbourne. At the start they went by the name The Mullanes. Emma got really into their 2nd and best LP Temple Of Low Men. Her favorite tune was Into Temptation. Funnily enough it was mine too and on a good night I can do a great version (well back in my drinking days). Yeah sometimes I'm a dag!



Now one of my wife's faves is Kasey Chambers who's an accomplished and popular country/pop singer/songwriter in Australia. This song Guilty I believe is a cover though but I don't know who by. It reminds me a little of INXS at their most rockin. Kasey is at her best when the guitars are really heavy. I think it's her dad who plays the axe on this one and he is a hell of a guitarist. I like a lot.

Ooga Boogas - Ooga Boogas

I was gonna write a review of Ooga Boogas by Ooga Boogas. But who cares about reviews anymore especially when they're writen about rock albums right? How passe!

Circle Of Trust starts off the LP in an uncharacteristically Wire-esque fashion but the drummer in Wire was never this fuckin good. This is the best Melbourne rhythm section since The Birthday Party and you know what they're probably better! Who cares right? rock is dead.

Archie & Me is next and well it's kinda close to my heart with lyrics like "We'll be pretty sore by the time we hit Red Cliffs. So we'll get Big Lizzie rollin again." Mentions of red sunsets and swaggys. Then there's "When we get downtime, When we get downsized, When we get out." Having lived just outside Red Cliffs as a child and planning a move back to the Sunraysia area I was shocked to hear those words. It was like did they just say what I think they said? Fuck yeah they know where its at. This song was speaking directly to me and urging me to use it as a manifesto or at least a theme tune for the big move from the big smoke, that doesn't want us, to the land of red sunsets where property prices aren't so offensive. I know this song is a fantasy and a pretty silly one at that but for me and the Mrs it's where we hang our hat, song or no song.

That drummer is fuckin cookin. This is real rock drumming like fuckin better than John Bonham. How does he get that sound like like he's a caveman bangin on the earth the most primordial beat ever. This beat is cavernous, it's gigantic. You gotta turn this right up and let your inner caveman/cavewoman out. And I've just realised they're called Ooga Boogas a very unPC nod to old ideas and visions native primitives. The funny thing is at the same time Ooga Boogas personify the urbane, the suburban, the hipster, the loser and the castrated.

FYI's next and this is some swingin noirish urban tale from the underworld with talk of coming back to the real world. Then Leon goes into this "fa fa fa for your information.." in a mock cockney tone and why wouldn't he? It's another nod to Wire but at the same time so Australian considering the cadence of the previous line.

Oogie Boogie is precisely what it purports to be. It's a fucking glam stomp with beats like axes to heads and filthy guitar licks that are loose and taut at the same time.

Mind Reader is a tale of male/female relationships and Stackpole is bringin the comedy in a voice occasionally reminiscent of Rob Forster of The GoBetweens. It's an urban, male & Australian voice and it concerns his condition. He's pissin off his woman obviously but he's not willing to see the clear as day reasons for this and snaps arguing back defensively "I can't read your fucking mind!" But this was a song about ice-creams right? That's what you thought!

It's a sign is a giddy love song about when everything's going good and you're happy and you're lovin it and you're proud you're not fucking up and your confidence is breakin through and it's about sex and your Mrs actually liking you and she's not puttin her knickers back on for a while and it's halcyon days and it's salad days and it's days of wine and fucking roses!

Sex In The Chill Zone is a creepy strut through what could be a dream or some kind of suburban spa party or just maybe being drug fucked and fucked at the same time. It's so damn hazy it's unclear.

Studio Of My Mind....and we're in Chrome territory or is it like a tribute to Whirlyworld or Primitive Calculators. I'm put in a very Melbourne soundworld but it could be San Francisco or Sheffield in 1979 or Iggy in Berlin. Then I'm thinkin this is definitely a nod to Ollie Olsen and a tune he did with NO, a forgotten late 80s Melbourne electronic rock band. They had a song about feeling "like a walking TV camera." Parallelling this tunes depersonalisation experience of being "locked in the studio of my mind." It's cold, scary and disturbing.

Ecstasy.... and then there's a country twang and your thinkin its The Captain by Kasey Chambers. Then you think that's fucked up having Chrome and Chambers conjured in your mind within the same minute on the same record and in this same sentence. The tune continues on with its strung out Sticky Fingers. It's a love song or a lament, probably for the drug and you're feeling the waste which is palpable in Stackpole's voice.

A Night To Remember....and it's a relief, it's good times. It's dancing into the void and spitting in the face of of it all with a laugh and a smile. The joy is put back into the meaninglessness and... it's a rock record!