Mott The Hoople - Groups I Never Understood Part 1

I can just see the attraction to this one as it's a classic Bowie penned tune. Bowie apparently loved Mott The Hoople so he gave them this gift of a song so they didn't break up. Did he realise it was one his greatest tunes? He must have been a really nice bloke. The following Mott tunes though I just didn't get and a few years ago I really gave them a good go to try and see what all the fuss was about. Don't get me wrong I love me Glam in particular Bowie, T-Rex, Suzi Quatro, Sweet and Gary Glitter. 

Perhaps doing this post is giving me a very late understanding of Mott The Hoople who I always saw as a 2nd rate tired Bowie, like his older brothers riding his coat tails or something like that. People love em though! This above tune is now growing on me.

Still dunno about this one? Then again if you listen back to those early 70s Bowie LPs there is a fair amount of a Rolling Stones influence on those. It's not that so much as the little bit of musical theatre in this one and hey I didn't like it when Bowie played this card either. I dunno Mott The Hoople just didn't have that instant Wham Bam! impact of an early Suzi, Gary Glitter or Sweet tune or the that insidiously glamorous androgyny of Marc Bolan. 

How about that for an outfit! They don't wear em like that anymore. I guess this tune kick-started it all.

More classic outfits and tunes. A really excellent short and snappy history of UK Glam resides here. Where they called this one The Glam Theme Song. I'm not gonna disagree with that.

A late bewdy for The Sweet just before glam's demise but then came the beginning of pub and punk rock in the UK.

Honorary Australian citizen Suzi Quatro. A Chinnichap classic! I did a bit on her here a while back. 

One of the few tunes by Skyhooks I actually liked. Kinda late 'got it wrong glam' but in a very good way. Sonic Youth's Dirty Boots always reminded me of this, probably just me. Of course not the only Aussie connection to Glam, Mike Chapman of Chinnichap fame was from Queensland and co-wrote and produced half of Glam's greatest hits along with his UK partner in crime Nicky Chinn. Chapman was also responsible for er... Smokie, Racey and Toni Basil. Don't hold that against him though he also used his powers for good ie. Suzi Quatro, Sweet and Mud. Actually come to think of it Mud were a band I never quite understood either until recently. Mud do have that instant Wham Bam! Glam Thrill.

No it's definitely there. Sort of half of the riff is very Horror Movie. Anyone agree?

Fridge Trax Plus - General Magic & Pita

What's On The Hi-Fi Part 41

FRIDGE TRAX PLUS- GENERAL MAGIC & PITA

Never had this one back in the day. I saw Pita live once that was odd and I had that General Magic album Frantz. So this 2015 reissue features both the original Fridge Trax (95) EP plus the Live & Final Fridge (96) cd. These sounds originate from microphones in fridges. It really compliments my recent Conrad Schnitzler and Ekoplekz listening. My own fridge sometimes sounds like it has got a groaning man inside and on other occasions it sounds like there's a party going on in there. Maybe I should record it as a tribute to these Mego guys. Anyway they fucked with the fridge source recordings and made two classics of 90s electronica (for want of a better term). 90s electronic abstract goodness. Delve deep into the ambient, rhythmic, almost funky and strange droning netherworld of fridges. This is pretty awesome stuff.

FRANTZ - GENERAL MAGIC

All this of course has led me back the aforementioned debut cd from General Magic, Frantz. I even found an old Farmers Manual cd I'd pretty much forgotten about, FSCK. On this mission I also came across more old cds made by Germans in the 90s like Oval, Lithops, Pluramon. Wabi Sabi, Hecker, Microstoria and Mouse On Mars, but i haven't listened to those yet except one. Anyway Frantz is surprisingly a great listen today. I can't stand the use of the word abstract in music writing. Sometime in the 90s its usage became overused and lost its meaning in the process. In the 90s Frantz and Fridge Trax would both have had this term applied to them ad nauseum by the critics of the day. Anyway General Magic are coming from abstract 70s Schnitzler zones whether they were aware of him or not. This is low key electronic ambient soft noise with added randomness. 90s technoid vibes mix with historical electronic music flavas here. General Magic play with these soundz to a microscopic degree giving it a peculiar scientific almost muzak vibe 90s stylee. This cd is hard not to like, in fact I think it has risen in my estimation since 1997. Frantz has gone from forgotten little gem to a classic of 90s electronic zones.

IT ISO 16191975 - HECKER

This is the other 90s German thing I did give a little listen to. Florian Hecker, who I also saw live once and I vaguely recall it being a pretty good show with lots of visual glitchy super 8 film sort of stuff. The visual element really added to the soundz. Listening to IT ISO 16191975 today without any visual accompaniment is a strange experience. I can't really recall what I made of this cd at the time but I guess that glitch aesthetic was all the rage back then before it got totally overdone a couple of years later. I was left a little flummoxed by it all yesterday, I must say. Hey that's probably a compliment if art is still doing that 17 or so years after its creation. It starts out with +1 which is 7 minutes of barely audible hums and drones. +2 is slightly louder with its minute drones, miniature oscillator feedback and subtle short wave sounds that are manipulated glitch stylee. +4 could be rain or static for the first two minutes then a dub glitch vibe ensues with sound sources untraceable. Maybe there's a note from a keyboard in amongst the rumbling silence. Pop music this sure ain't. This is difficult listening that could also be ignored unless you really pump up the volume high on your sound system. Get flummox reward points here.

ELEMENTS OF CHANCE - IAN BODDY

Jonny over at Die Or DIY? (see right hand side Other Stuff) alerted me to this classic tape from 1981 by Ian Boddy. Boddy was a UK analogue synth chap doing Kosmische electronics past their use by date, some classic early drum machine action plus a bit of minimalism too. Elements Of chance takes in new age type vibes and dark ambient noises as well. You could slap a Panabrite label on here and I would be none the wiser. I mean that in the best possible sense for everyone mentioned! This is very good stuff. There is another Boddy tape posted over there as well, looking forward to listening to that.

O.M.M.I.O.2 - RJ
DRILLUMINATI 3 - KING LOUIE
INTROVERSION - STARLITO

I don't know what has happened to my appetite for rap? I thought this one might get me back into the swing of things from the mean streets of the USA but I'm not fully diggin II but it certainly has many a fine moment. It opens on a particularly high note with Blue Face Hinnids where the sounds of Mustard, HBK Gang & Larry Jay are becoming so intertwined I don't even know who's on the beat here, it could be someone else entirely? It's probably not RJ's fault that my vibe has migrated away from these zones. II sounded like a fuckin masterpiece (well it's kinda 3/4 of one really anyway) next to King Louie's new one Drilluminati 3 and he's been one of my favourite rappers of the last few years. I was a fan of Drilluminati (1) so it's hard to believe I immediately deleted this but that's what happened. Free stuff eh? See maybe if Drilluminati 3 wasn't free I'd probably have bought it and then spent more time with it due to the financial investment. This may not have improved the actual contents but it may have given it time to grow on me. Having said that I've just had one quick listen to Starlito's new Introversion and it sounds alright. Two out of Three ain't bad so maybe I'm not done just yet with the rap game.

Lobby Loyde Part 3 or 4 or 5

My Lobby Loyde posts have been a bit all over the shop. They've featured his stints in 60s bands The Purple Hearts and The Wild Cherries and his short stints with The Aztecs at the end of the 60s and Rose Tattoo at the end of 79 into 80. I've covered The Coloured Balls Ball Power a couple of times and his great production jobs for X and The Sunnyboys. The above tune, Devil's Disciple, I saw on Rage once and thought what the fuck is that? It later turned up on the Ball Power deluxe reissue from Aztec Music. It turns out that it was a B-side to their inferior version of Mess Of The Blues the 7" A-side that originally came out in 1973. Devil's Disciple is a Lobby original and, let's face it, a blueprint for his successors AC/DC. Lobby was on the (coloured) ball and saw them coming and left them a gift. Funnily enough AC/DC had supported the Coloured Balls a few times. Before joining AC/DC Bon Scott would sometimes get up and jam with Coloured Balls when they played in Adelaide as he was a friend of Lobby's from the old days. Bon Scott had been in Perth mod/bubblegum unit The Valentines in the late 60s and Adelaide's Fraternity in the early 70s before joining AC/DC in 1974. Devil's Disciple, along with a handful of other 7"s, was a bridge between the first and second Coloured Balls LPs.

Heavy Metal Kid their 2nd album was released in October of 1974 and just isn't held in the same esteem as Ball Power. It isn't a bad LP by any means. Heavy Metal Kid just isn't as singular as its predecessor. Still it has classic tunes like the opening title track and the existential Just Because that's like a counterpart to Ball Power's Human Being. Other tunes look back to Rock'n'Roll roots like Do It and Leiber & Stoller's Baby I Don't Care. Private Eye is the band at its most pop with a glammed up Peter Gunn riff and lyrics about being a spy. If it was released as a 7" it would surely have been a hit. EMI didn't see the potential for Private Eye to be hit worthy, huh!? The record company didn't release any singles off Heavy Metal Kid and subsequently failed to promote it much as they saw it as commercially unviable.

See What I Mean is a Trevor Young (drums, vocals & keys) composition which takes them into 70s power ballad territory complete with synths sounding like strings before just deciding to sound like synths along with absurd drum fills but it stays on the good side of such zones. Dance To The Music is a strange one where you think its gonna be all good time Rock'n'Roll but turns out to be a muted melancholy tune, like they couldn't actually be bothered getting off the couch to do what they're singing about. Yes and No 's 50 seconds of psych noodling is followed by Back To You, a classic guitar driven Coloured Balls tune with reverbed to the max vocals and keyboards that give it a strange edge. The best bits though are when Lobby gets going and does a little shredding before ending up in space/stadium/lighters in the air rock territory. Need Your Love is almost comic like a Ringo Starr throwback. Sitting Bull is a bit wrong with its faux Native American chants and a little bit awesome because it sounds soo good with its 70s west coast vibe. This tune is reminiscent of similar themed tunes by Silver Apples and JD Loudermilk. The vocals are then over with and the last four tunes are a panoply of instrumentals starting with the boogie Custer's Last Stand then Metal Feathers which is a mellow acoustic and keyboard jam ending with ticking and gonging clock, nice. Space rock enters the fray again on Tin Tango with what could be an early computer game soundtrack which gets all plinky plonky early electronics stylee at the end. The LP closes with 27 seconds of musique concrete. These last four tracks give an indication of where Loyde was to go a couple of years later with his concept cosmic rock sci-fi concept record Beyond Morgia.

I've never really analysed Heavy Metal Kid before as I just took at face value, it is what it is. Now thinking about it it's quite a bizarre LP. Maybe they were trying to shed some of their fans here. Who knows? How a spelling era got through on the cover is totally mystifying too. Anyway this eccentric little journey is pretty good though. The Coloured Balls were ahead of their time with their atemporality.

Oh we're missing a u.

*Next Time: The final Part Of My Lobby Loyde Obsession including Beyond Morgia, Obsecration, Hall Of Fame, Retromania Concerts and whatever else.

**Special thanks to Ian McFarlane (Legendary Oz Rock Historian) whose Heavy Metal Kid liner notes I only just read after writing this (new spex), so I added on those AC/DC connections. 

More On Sharpies & Bogans

I've seen footage of Sharpies so many times in my life, it never occurred to me it might actually be of interest to anyone outside of Melbourne or the state of Victoria. The national broadcaster the ABC has trodden these images out ad nauseam throughout my life so now it's uniqueness is totally lost on me. The music part of it remains of interest but the sharpies kinda attached themselves to those bands. I'm sure those bands wanted an audience and I guess beggars can't be choosers but the bands probably didn't want the ugly controversy & media campaigns that came with it. The Coloured Balls, Australia's finest rock band of the time broke up because of the trouble surrounding the band, not any kind of musical differences or anything. This of course left a huge opening in the pre-punk era for someone to come in and fill that spot. AC/DC were that band and hey they didn't just fill that spot, they filled every nook and cranny throughout the world with their minimal driving guitar rock.

*Simon Reynolds points out similarities to sharpie dancing and the shoulder dance performed here by Mud here

At Coloured Balls shows towards the end of their existence there was just too much violence between Sharpie gangs and a new element that had entered the fray Skinhead Boot Boys. Previous to that the Sharpies had been a cool subculture to play to according to Loyde. The media got themselves an angle and the band were accused of inciting the violence, even participating in it themselves. A writ was even issued to one newspaper for their preposterous lies. I think we can all guess which gutter press paper that was er...there was only one.  So Lobby got fed up, as the shows became a pleasureless experience for the band, and walked away.

I guess the natural progression from the Sharpie was the Bogan. This was more of a loose generic term for a subculture like indie or something like that and it wasn't a gang thing. The hairdo turned to your more traditional mullet ie. shortish on the top and sides (longer than a Sharpie) with much much more business at the back. AC/DC, Cold Chisel, The Tatts and The Angels were the bands that were followed by this lot.

I guess ex-Sharpies who had the gang mentality deeply ingrained in their souls would have later joined some of those skinhead gangs or biker gangs once they were old enough. Gang culture usually leads to some kind of life of crime. A fine example of this would be that Australia's most loved and successful criminal Mark 'Chopper' Read who claimed to have been a Sharpie and is perhaps glimpsed in the above short film. Other international subcultures would have attracted some of the other ex-Sharpies like punk, anarcho-punk, hardcore etc. Then I suppose the rest of the ex-Sharpies would have just grown up, got jobs and started families. But on occasion after a bit of booze on a Saturday Night some sharpie dancing would have ensued, like that scene in the film Mallboy (2001), which I can't seem to find on youtube. The ephemerality of it all (Sharpie culture) is a bit of a mystery though. As far as I know there haven't been any younger generations taking up the lifestyle as a revival. That could be ripe for the picking now! There have been comedy sketches on Sharpies on television's D-Generation, Fast Forward and the like.

Sharpie culture was very white, as white as you could get so it definitely fits parallels with Gabber, Skinheads etc. Although I have read that other ethnicities apart from those from the British Isles were also included in some Sharpie gangs. It was predominantly white though. This could be a reason why it hasn't been revived as Australia became way more multicultural from the 80s onward. Take a very popular underground band from the 80s like The Hard Ons. They were a punk/thrash/pop band that had no members with their roots in Anglo-Saxon culture. The original three piece had backgrounds from Sri Lanka, Yugoslavia and Korea, I think. This was the face of 80s youth culture.

Lobby Loyde, Buffalo, Ian Rilen, Rose Tattoo....

Weird alignment of the planets or what? Here's something I wrote a couple of weeks ago and here's a post from several hours ago at Hardly Baked one of Simon Reynolds other blogs. See my comment at the bottom of his post.

Buster Brown were often the support band at Coloured Balls shows. To fit that slot you had to be a fucking tough band! Lobby Loyde actually produced Buster Brown's one and only LP Something To Say in 1974. It was Loyde's first production job actually. Their LP is surprisingly pretty good. It's basically rock about chicks and rock and roll. At stages it is meta-rock of which they were probably blissfully unaware. At one point it even gets a bit poignant when Angry sings about his estranged dad. Mainly though it's about rockin good times just like old school jump blues. Non Aussies take note: A Spunk is a term used for someone you fancy or think is really good looking ie. my wife would say "Fuck Matthew McConaughey is such a spunk!". So it can apply to both genders. Something To Say got the fabulous deluxe reissue treatment in the 00s from Aztec Music as did real Australian 70s classics from The Coloured Balls, Lobby Loyde, Billy Thorpe, Buffalo, Band Of Light and X. Right there are a lot of connections between those 7 acts. Many of which I mentioned in that previous post. I'll try and enlighten you on some of the other connections.

Apart from Loyde producing the Buster Brown LP there is another Coloured Balls connection there apart from Sharpie followings. That is ex-Coloured Balls drummer Trevor Young joined Buster Brown for a little while as original Buster Brown Drummer Phil Rudd went on to join an aspiring little rock group by the name of AC/DC. After Buster Brown split singer Angry Anderson had plans for a group including Loyde on guitar but nothing came of it.

Ian Rilen of future legends X was the bass player with Band Of Light and their one and only LP Total Union was recorded and released in 1973. It was on the boogie/12 bar blues tip. Total Union was overflowing with wah wah and slide guitar. At times it's ultra funky but there's plenty of classic chugging boogie too. Fuck Ian Rilen is an awesome bass player man. The rest of the band are smokin as well. Total Union is an underrated minor classic. Their single Destiny Song (above) was a chart hit. Wicked slide guitarist Norm Roue left to join Buffalo but by that stage Buffalo had already reached their peak. Buffalo's first 3 releases were classic psych-metal LPs not too far removed from their Vertigo label mates Black Sabbath but way more greasy, exhaust fuelled, grubby, less doomed, and at times even inspirational. Those LPs had a great Australian flavour and are well respected to this day. Rilen also left Band Of Light and went on to conceive the concept for the quintessential Aussie hard rock band Rose Tattoo with ex-Buffalo bass player Pete Wells who'd moved onto slide guitar and of course they were joined by ex-Buster Brown vocalist Angry Anderson. By the time Rose Tattoo released one of the great debut singles of all time, Bad Boy For Love in 1977, Ian Rilen had already quit but he did write that tune despite not playing on it. It only reached #13 on the chart! Can you believe that?

Lobby Loyde even joined The Tatts for a year (79/80) just playing bass live but there may be lost tapes sitting in some LA record company's vaults containing an entire LP with Lobby featured on the recordings. Is this mythical though? Because surely it would have shown up by now, in at least some kind of bootleg form. Really though would you just get him to play bass? Fuck he must have been a humble guy. Not taking anything away from Pete Wells, who is darn fine, but you had the best guitarist in the land in your band and he was playing bass? It was like the Master and Apprentice role reversed. 

I know I've posted this before but what a classic eh? Freedom is exemplary tripped out hard psych blues from Buffalo's 2nd and best LP Volcanic Rock 1973. Volcanic Rock would have to be in my top 5 Australian rock LPs of the 70s. I should write more about them one day but I think that's enough for now...

*Track this down though.... Boogie! Australian Blues, R&B And Heavy Rock From The 70s. This is a double cd that was released a couple of years back and contains everyone mentioned here and in Simon's post. Plenty of good Bogan Boogie and some really dodgy shit too.

Hang on! One more. This was the sound of mid 70s Australia when I was a whipper snapper. These were the kind of people (all the above bands and their fans as well) my dad would refer to as creeps. The kind of people who had panel vans, wore thongs (Non Aussies take note again: Thongs = flip flops. Footwear not underwear) with ultra tight testicle or camel toe showing jeans (before that fashion became de rigueur in the late 90s/early 00s). I guess my dad's creeps were what we later knew as bogans. I guess that term is probably redundant now. I think it was very time and place specific, connected to demographics of suburbs at a particular time. The Western and Eastern Suburbs of Melbourne are now completely different to what they were in the mid 70s. Particularly in regard to socio-economic groups, lifestyles, ethnicities and property prices. The term bogan was coined sometime in the late 70s/early80s. The word Bogan originated from Melbourne which is the capital of the state Victoria. Bogan was a reference to people in the outer Northern, Western and Eastern suburbs of Melbourne. When I moved to Northern NSW (taht's like 1000 kms away from Melbourne) in 1989 and was still in high school the kids didn't understand what I was taking about when I used this term. When I described bogan characteristics they said 'Oh you mean a 'Westie.' A Westie refers to to people from the outer Western Suburbs of Sydney. Sydney is of course the capital of NSW. Westie, I think probably, predates bogan by a few years. These terms were very regional and kinda parochial, I guess, until they were fully integrated into the wider Australian culture many years later. People now in Northern NSW would know the term bogan. There have been books written on the subject and the term has been used in tv shows and even a few tv show titles. One wonders if the term Westie ever gets used these days? I nearly wrote it in that post about The Lime Spiders a while back ie. they were a cool garage band from Sydney's West but by the time of Volatile in the late 80s they were probably over with being cool as that's a fairly adolescent obsession. So their Westie roots were showing through probably because they were growing older and realised there was nothing wrong with their Westie upbringing. Instead of being ashamed they were probably realising a lot of Western Suburbs culture was good. Particularly the music ie. all the slimy boogie, Alberts Productions (AC/DC, Rose Tattoo maybe even The Angels), the hair, the cars, footy etc. I mean I'm sure they probably still loved their 13th Floor Elevators, Ugly Things, Nuggets and whatever else too.

Anyway that was a tangent! Let's get back to Jump In My Car which was like a number 1 hit forever in the summer of 75/76. This was the commercial face of Aussie Boogie and yet it's been accused of being a rape song ever since. Fun fact: The Hoff did a cover of this a few years back that was so bad it was good but not good enough for me to post here right now. His abject persona would have fitted into the creep category for sure.

I could go on and on and.....maybe later......

90s Classic Rock Radio

* RE: Classic 90s Rock Radio at Retromania. When I first heard this tune I was confused by the fact that it was obviously metal but it had incredibly melodic bits which reminded me of REM backing vocals. Anyway they ended up being one of the few Seattle bands I liked in the end. Over the years they grew in my estimation and are now seen by me as the premier 90s Seattle band as opposed to Mudhoney who funnily enough I can't stand anymore but were one of the few Seattle groups I liked at the time. Let's face it Ratcat were way better than those drab old geezers plus we already had The Cosmic Psychos, The Hard Ons, The New Christs, feedtime, Kim Salmon, King Snake Roost, Lubricated Goat etc. in Australia. We also had a great bunch of Detroit influenced rock bands in the 70s and 80s. What good were a z-grade Stooges to anyone here. We didn't need it! Our scuzz was better than their scuzz. I suppose I would probably still quite like Screaming Trees but haven't listened to them in a very long time. Two Christmases back we (me, my wife & her mum) watched Nirvana Unplugged and Alice In Chains Unplugged back to back and it was no contest, Alice In Chains won hands down. Nirvana were alright but what struck me most, apart from Cobain's youthful good looks, was that they were one of the least unique rock bands in history. I guess this shouldn't have surprised me because when I first heard them pre-Nevermind I thought they were pointlessly generic. After the outlandish excitement of Husker Du, The Replacements, The Meat Puppets, Dinosaur Jr., Butthole Surfers, Sonic Youth, The Pixies et al. Nirvana seemed a bit clueless and a little dull like a second rate Buffalo Tom. I thought time may have been kinder to them but no they were way more record collection rock than say Primal Scream. Don't get me wrong either I don't hate Primal Scream at all, I love Screamadelica, gee I've just realised what a great LP title that is. Good record collection rock = Pavement's Slanted & Enchanted (may have to give it another listen just to make sure) and She Hangs Brightly by Mazzy Star. Bad record collection rock = Blur, Nirvana, Oasis, You Am I, and so so many I can't remember.

Can't believe how good this still sounds. Momentous early 90s dance/rock masterpiece.

Revival Analysis Spiral

"where the past, present, and future are all taking place simultaneously."

A quote from some joker over at Simon's Retromania site. Here's a fine example of a term I created 'THE REVIVAL ANALYSIS SPIRAL' after another article at Retromania. I'm trying to find an example of where I used that same sentence a few years ago and I'm sure I'm not the only one to put those sentiments into a sentence. I know my sentence was followed  with a question about Australian Aboriginals and if this was how they're concept of time worked? Anyway I can't bloody find it! Oh.... also I might have failed to mention to CardrossManiac2 readers that I have a bit of secret life in the comments pages of Retromania. There's a lot of great ideas and discourse on retro obviously but all things connected too like nostalgia, revivals, Curationism, going backwards, old stuff, the lack of new ideas in current culture, archiving, reissues, ennui etc.

'The Revival Spiral' is a term Lauren Cochrane came up with recently to describe something Simon Reynolds, myself and others have been talking about for years and that's revivals of revivals, revivals of revivals of revivals and so on. So I was inspired by her term to come up with 'The Revival Analysis Spiral'. This was coined because now people are repeating the same ideas, thoughts and theories about revivals and revival spirals. Commentary on nostalgia is being repeated, plundered, imitated and now watered down just like the the ongoing revivals themselves. I always thought Simon Reynolds could write a trilogy of books on the subject but now perhaps we're reaching examination exhaustion. It's all becoming a bit second hand clothes. That last sentence may just have been an excuse to play this tune by Moonshake.

Actually some musicians could use the sentiments in this song as a manifesto to try and break through 2015's retromaniacal musical stalemate ie. "I won't be seen dead in 2nd hand clothes!" Then again you might just be seen alive in a new classic Armani suit that could have been designed in 1962. But surely you understand what I'm trying to say.

Rowland S Howard Lane

How fucking cool is This?

Yep that's right legendary guitarist of the Birthday Party and later fabulous solo singer/songwriter and guitarist is getting a Laneway named in his honour in St Kilda, Melbourne. St Kilda is of course where The Birthday Party played and lived before moving to the UK. It's the only suburb where I ever saw him. He was in the supermarket in Acland St with potato salad in hand looking gaunt and ill as he always did but cool at the same time. My old town of 25 years Melbourne also had an AC/DC Lane which I always thought was pretty cool. Moving to the Desert City on the Murray I had plans myself to try and get a street or maybe just my back lane named after the fabulous Mildinga band The Creatures. The Creatures are famous for the song Ugly Thing which the US garage rock magazine Ugly Things was named after. A fabulous chapter on the groop can be found in Wild About You: The 60s Beat Explosion In Australia & New Zealand written by Ian & Iain. Raven Records also released 4 volumes in a series of compilations called Ugly Things in the 80s. The first and best volume contains the tune in question. My plans are back on the drawing board after this inspiring precedent for Rowland's lane. Funnily enough RSH probably used to shoot up heroin in that lane or at least one nearby.

Tim's Ultra Rough Guide To Rock Part 2

ROWLAND S HOWARD - POP CRIMES

Rowland’s final album, issued in 2009 just two months prior to his untimely death. He was only 50. His career was experiencing a resurgence and Pop Crimes was a brilliant album that was critically acclaimed. He continued his great reinterpretations of other people’s songs here which include a phenomenal brooding version of Talk Talk’s Life What You Make It and Townes Van Zandt’s Nothin. The opening tune I Know A Girl Called Jonny is a remarkable duet with Jonnine Standish (HTRK) that contains possibly the best line in pop ever - ‘Pashing with the devil at the bus stop’. Pop Crimes is gloomy pop trash at its finest, quite possibly Howard’s finest hour.

ROWLAND S HOWARD - TEENAGE SNUFF FILM
The best Australian rock album of the 90s hands down. Rowland makes an incredible comeback. He gets Mick Harvey to play drums (so economical) and Brian Hooper to play bass (some of the coolest bass playing ever). Trashy pop tunes, hatefully cathartic dirges, doomed love songs and a Billy Idol cover version all add up to one hell of resurgence. Chuck in some great string arrangements, Rowland's best ever vocal performances as well as his blistering guitar work and hey you got a masterpiece on your hands.

*The original Teenage Snuff Film Glaring Omissions article and another bit.

**These two blurb reviews on Howard will be appearing at the HC website soon.

Ekoplekz - Reflekzionz

Loving that artwork and the music contained within

A new month must have ticked over because hello we've got a new Ekoplekz release. I couldn't sleep, went on the interweb, saw Reflekzionz was coming out. By chance I checked i-tunes and they had it available a week or so early. I couldn't wait for the physical copy, being the instant gratification era and all, several clicks later walla! the album was sitting in my i-tunes and my earphones were sitting in my ears. How was I meant to get back to sleep after that? My excitement levels were high and 3 hours later Refekzionz was still swirling around in my brain. Thank god it wasn't a work night. Then I started hearing chooks. I had to give it a rest. These 12 trax at 54 minutes will be released on Planet Mu as a double LP. Something had to interrupt my Conrad Schnitzler obsession. Of course this recording led me back to current music in a very smooth manner as Nick Edwards aka Ekoplekz would probably be a big fan of Schnitzler's. While I mentioned in my article on solo 70s Schnitzler that he had an immense spatiality in his music, as large as King Tubby's, on the 1978 classic Con, that didn't mean Conrad was informed by or using similar techniques to Mr Osbourne Ruddock aka King Tubby. Mr 'Ekoplekz' Edwards however does come from from a dub lineage that was probably picked up from the likes of 70s Cabaret Voltaire who probably were into King Tubby and dub in general. I guess the feel here is more like post punk stylee dub filtered through German 90s dub-tech like the Pole/Basic Channel/Chain Reaction milieu. I guess they're interesting parallels caused by my own recent listening habits but funnily enough it's all fairly closely related in a coincidental manner to Ekoplekz and his new LP.

Opening tune A Caustic Romance continues Ekoplekz's foray into melodic idylltronic zones albeit over a gritty but almost cute clipped industrial-lite beat. Quakers Road Skank is awesome robotic electronics. Seduktion is radiophonica funk that sounds like it was recorded in the emptiest place in the universe giving it an uncanny hollowness. Repeater (How did it feel?) is as fucking good as classic ambient dub tech gets. Downtone is wintry technoid dub with amazing bass tones bringing the foggy darkness in close and those rudimentary beatz feel like their trying to warm up but their coal's running low and there's no 50 P's for the meter. The classic British isolationism, with extra synth squelches, of Midnight Cliffs is next and it couldn't have a more perfect title.

Tremulant is a slice of ye olde Ekoplekz with its alien warfare dub splatter but as has been recently noted Edwards now has his once outta control machines in line and almost compliant to his every command. Dubnium 268 is a dark techno ditty but kind of playful at the same time. On this tune and at several other stages during Reflekzionz I'm taken back to my Cologne days in the 90s. In an unusual moment of zeitgeist there has been an article over at FACT, I noticed, on the likes of some of my 90s Cologne faves ie. Mouse On Mars, FX Randomiz etc. Maybe Ekoplekz is trendy now. Canon's Marsh is is a marvellous piece of technoid minimalism with curious reverbed drones that leave you slightly mystified as to what that felling you've been left with is. That's quite a remarkable artistic achievement. Ominous transmissions create an insidious intensity on Black Calkz. The machines here sound as though they could run out of power any second as a power surge is imminent and the circuits feel like they're about to burst. Saturation (Full Rinse) is an Ekoplekz banger! Nick Edward's has been heading towards this zone for a while and perhaps he's finally achieved this goal ie. a tune that could get played out. Just as you're thinking that though his erratic machines, who have been acquiescent throughout the entire LP, seem to have a sinister plot to sabotage his plan, by being contrary and slowing the bpms right down toward the end. Day In May is glowing sunshine one minute and pastoralism gone awry the next which brings Reflektionz to a close.

Halfway through like the 2nd listen I was beginning to wonder if this was perhaps a concept album or some kind of tribute/homage to the 90s. Even in this review I've used the word classic several times. The thing is with Ekoplekz is he could never pull off a homage record, like say Urge Overkill's Saturation where they recorded brilliantly perfect facsimiles of some of their favorite 70s stadium rockers like Kiss, Cheap Trick etc., because with Ekoplekz it will always be Ekoplekz. You may have been able to detect Cluster or Cabaret Voltaire influences previously (probably still can) but it's never a straight copy because he's always reshaping sounds and experimenting. He uses their ideas as much if not more than their actual sonic artillery. That's probably not a good way to make millions of bucks but his idiosyncrasies will always endear him to original music fans. When I think of Ekoplekz I don't usually think of the 90s much, I mean sure a bit of techno but to me that's like 15% of his shtick. A reactivation of several 70s approaches to music but with a here and now experimental feel is how I have him pegged in my brain. Experimenting, moving along, not giving a fuck about fashion and well just making cool dub inflected electronic music is what Ekoplekz are all about. The first song A Caustic Romance could be a dead giveaway ie. Is this referring to his love for Aphex Twin's alias Caustic Window? I mean I'm sure he listened to some of the same gear we all did in the 90s like rock, house, bleep, hardcore, ambient dub, techno, jungle, trip hop, darkside, electronica, isolationism, gabber, trance, tech-step, speed garage, post-rock, pop and whatever else I can't think of right now. It just hasn't seeped through so much until this LP. Maybe next month we'll have a bizarre take on music from the 00s by Ekoplekz. Not sure he'll have much to work with there. Perhaps he could go back further to say the 60s. Anyway he's on quite a roll isn't he? This is his 3rd fine double LP in 12 months then there have been mini albums, EPs...

*On Twitter I got a reply from the man himself. See below.

LOBBY LOYDE

Does a photo exist of LL sans ciggy?

Lobby Loyde is a legend! His guitar style is yet to be topped in Australia or probably the world despite the best efforts from the likes of Angus Young, Billy Thorpe, Deniz Tek, Ed Kuepper etc. You've also gotta love a guitarist who has a name for his guitar. Loyde's was called 'George' which is pretty funny, I reckon. He wasn't just an Australian legend though American hardcore bands such as Black Flag cited him as an influence, grunge act Nirvana acknowledged him as did Steve Malkmus of 90s indie darlings Pavement. UK's Stiff Records even wanted a Coloured Balls album in the Ball Power style but by the late 70s Loyde had moved on and wasn't interested.

After writing that article on the Sunnyboys release of the original tapes of their second LP Individuals, I realised I'd never posted any tunes off the best Australian rock record ever. That is Ball Power by Coloured Balls which was Lobby Loyde's early 70s rockin band's debut LP. As noted Lobby Loyde produced the first two Sunnyboys albums. Lobby Loyde at that stage was an older statesman of Australian Rock. He was a singer, songwriter and guitarist extraordinaire for many years before becoming a noteworthy producer. In the 60s he had been in hit groups The Purple Hearts who had a top 40 smash with Early in the Morning in 1966. The above clip Of Hopes & Dreams & Tombstones is from 66 as well and is soo good, I couldn't resist. Fun fact it was written by Joy Byers who mainly wrote tunes for Elvis. Anyway Lobby then joined Wild Cherries writing two of their classics Krome Plated Yabby (previously posted here) and their 1968 top 40 hit That's Life which became a hit after he'd left the groop. He briefly joined Billy Thorpe & The Aztecs and had quite an impact on the band's future development as one hell of a heavy blues inflected boogie band. Loyde played on The Aztecs1970 LP The Hoax Is Over. He soon left. I think even before that record came out. Lobby revived the Wild Cherries moniker briefly. They performed at the 1972 Sunbury Festival and subsequently broke up.

That brings us to Coloured Balls. The line up on Ball Power was LL on lead guitar & vocals, Bobsy Millar on guitar & vocals, John Miglans on bass and vocals and Trevor Young on drums & vocals. Ball Power was released in December 1973 on EMI. I haven't even mentioned Sharpies, violence, Box Hill or police harassment. You could write a book on that stuff. I'm tryin to stick to the music here not necessarily the bollocks that goes along with it.

Surely one of the greatest pop/rock songs of all time. This was released as a single but didn't even crack the top 40. Go figure that one.

OMG how good is this? Nothing was this good in 1973 rock I'm fairly certain of that. Challenge me on that and you lose.

Ten minute epic to end Ball power. I can't recall if i ever ended up doing that best last tunes on LPs list but hey this would have been in like the top one.

Now this is fucking astounding. 16 minutes of all manner of guitar goodness. The band would sometimes turn this into 30+ minutes of transcendental rock at their live shows. Actually I haven't come across a studio version of G.O.D.(Guitar Overdose). I guess they never captured the magic that you can hear and feel here. Sonic Youth wish they were this innovative. They couldn't have been though because all their future noisy guitar fuckery was right here at least 10 years before they had the ability to try to challenge Loyde's greatness but you could only ever come out second best.

Alright this was meant to be a short little trip but now it's turning into a Lobby fan site. Along with his Sunnyboys production triumphs are his other two production triumphs, the first two LPs by perennial outsiders X. X were originally a Sydney band and just didn't fit anywhere. Were they hard rock, garage, metal, punk, post punk, hardcore or none of these? When you don't care for fashion and just wanna rock as hard and raw as you can, categories are fucking meaningless. X didn't give a fuck just as long as they were awesome and they certainly were here on Delinquent Cars and the rest of their 1979 debut LP X-Aspirations.

Hey I could post the entire album really, it's that fucking good. Here's another bewdy from X-Aspirations. Funny song too.

One last one here from X. This time it's from their 2nd classic Loyde produced album At Home With You from 1985. This was when they had become a Melbourne Band with ace new drummer Kathy Green. Original crack drummer Steve Cafiero refused to go to Melbourne. He died a few years later in a bizarre medical accident. This wasn't the first time tragedy had struck the band. Ian Krahe their original guitarist when they were a Sydney four piece in the late 70s died of a heroin overdose before they made a record. From then on they would always be a 3 piece except when they were occasionally joined by a horn section like on this here classic TV Glue. 

*This youtube picture has nothing to with X. I couldn't imagine a more incongruous image. Youtube eh?

**RIP Ian Rilen 1947-2006. The best bass player I ever saw live.