Music

Molly: the mini-series

Music / / 5 minutes of reading

How to sum up the life and times of Ian “Molly” Meldrum? If you think four hours is an extraordinary chunk of airtime to devote to a television biopic on the cat in the hat, you probably didn’t grow up in the 1970s and ’80s. If you did, you almost certainly grew up on Countdown, the weekly music program that, over 13 years and 563 episodes, made Molly the unlikeliest of entertainment icons.

Molly, which premiered on Channel Seven last night in the first of a two-part mini-series, tells his story ingeniously and, perhaps, with a touch of sly irony: via a series of flashbacks, following Meldrum’s terrible accident at home in 2011, which left him with severe injuries. (At the time of the show’s airing, Meldrum is recovering after a second fall in Thailand).

It allows for an unashamedly nostalgic, but also unexpectedly affecting look back at an era that was both more innocent and less straight-laced. As a gormless young suburban boy, I mostly took even Countdown’s most anarchic moments at face value. Even so, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t just the infamous 100th episode when its host – not to mention its guest stars – turned up on set considerably the worse for wear.… Read more..

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“He was like a god”: Australian musicians mourn David Bowie

Music / / 4 minutes of reading

As the Australian music community absorbs the news of the passing of David Bowie at the age of 69 yesterday, musicians and songwriters – especially those who came of age in the 1970s and early ’80s, when the songwriter was at his peak – have spoken of his profound influence on both their work and their lives.

Melbourne soloist Jen Cloher expressed commonly recurring theme of disbelief. “I turned to Courtney [Barnett, Cloher’s partner] last night and said, you just never thought that David Bowie would die. Which is ludicrous, but that’s how it feels … He was like a god.”

Cloher also spoke of Bowie’s indirect impact on her as a queer artist. “The ’70s in so many ways were far more dangerous, far more edgy, far more open to a broad idea of gender than today. It would have rubbed off. You grow up around that, and it infiltrates in ways that you don’t even think about at the time.”

Robert Forster, co-founder of the Go-Betweens, has often written and spoken of his admiration for Bowie. “Bowie was obviously the most important white musical figure of the ’70s. He bestrode the decade like no one else.

“Bowie was beautiful, which was confrontational for a 14, 15-year-old boy.… Read more..

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Kevin “Bloody” Carmody releases archive avalanche

Music, Qld Politics / / 5 minutes of reading

South-east of Stanthorpe, in the granite belt that straddles the border of the apple-growing country of Queensland and New South Wales, there’s a small property, once part of a much larger orchard, with a classically rustic farmhouse and a huge insulated shed where the produce used to be stored.

The shed is now a musical Aladdin’s Cave. Rare gig posters from the 1980s and ’90s festoon the walls. There’s a drum kit set up for occasional gigs in a room that could comfortably fit 200; another in a smaller studio anteroom, and practically everything else inside – from butter knives to oil drums – is an instrument waiting to be played.

This is where Kev Carmody – most famous for his iconic song co-written with Paul Kelly, From Little Things Big Things Grow – recorded his first music in a decade. This is how he describes it: “It’s a good little bloody space. Crikey, better than those bloody sterile bloody huge bloody studios they have in bloody major cities!”

A conversation with Carmody is invariably long and liberally peppered with such vernacular. Born in 1946 to an Aboriginal mother and Irish father, he grew up droving on the Darling Downs, and remained illiterate until finding his way into university in 1978.… Read more..

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Stevie Wright: the prototype Australian rock frontman

Music / / 3 minutes of reading

The news that Stevie Wright – solo artist, singer for the Easybeats and, thanks to that band’s immortal single Friday On My Mind, arguably Australia’s first international pop star – has died at the age of 68 will not be a surprise to anyone familiar with his sad story. That does not make his loss any less devastating.

The tiny Wright, who was billed as Little Stevie in his early years, was Australia’s prototype rock & roll frontman. Some of his moves, not to mention his leering grin, were lovingly copped by AC/DC’s Bon Scott. They also found an echo in Chrissy Amphlett, whose band the Divinyls covered the Easybeats’ I’ll Make You Happy.

Wright, along with his bandmates, was part of the first wave of migrants to jump-start Australian rock and pop. Born in Leeds in 1947, his family emigrated to Australia when he was nine, settling in Villawood. There he met Dutch-born Harry Vanda and Scot George Young (older brother of AC/DC’s Malcolm and Angus), both of whom were staying at the local migrant hostel.

Wright wrote lyrics for many of the Easybeats’ early hits, including She’s So Fine, Wedding Ring and fan favourite Sorry – a number one hit in Australia in 1966, and as tough a record as anything released to that point by the early Kinks, Rolling Stones or the Small Faces.… Read more..

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Regurgitator: The J-Files

Music / / 6 minutes of reading

Potty-mouthed. Wilfully contrary. Ironically self-aware. Genre-hopping. These are all some of the obvious things that come to mind when thinking about Regurgitator. Describing the music, though, is harder: after more than 20 years, the Brisbane band formed by Quan Yeomans, Ben Ely and Martin Lee in 1993 defy categorisation more than ever.

The thick layer of irony that surrounds Regurgitator can make them more of a head trip than a band to take to your heart. But that doesn’t mean they’re not serious: there’s a genuine moral centre to everything they do; it’s just more likely to be expressed with humour, rather than slogans – and you can almost always dance to it. It all makes Regurgitator one of the most original and subversive bands Australia has ever produced.

1: The Concept

Tu-Plang, the title of Regurgitator’s first album (which was recorded in Bangkok) is the Thai word for jukebox. And that’s exactly what Regurgitator are: a machine that absorbs popular music in all its dizzying permutations, then spews it back out. This technicolour approach means that, like American genre-hoppers Ween or New Zealand’s Flight Of The Conchords, Regurgitator are free to play whatever they want – as long as it’s delivered with a nod and a wink.… Read more..

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You Am I: Porridge & Hotsauce

Music / / 3 minutes of reading

Every artist needs a few demons to get by, right? You Am I’s Tim Rogers knows he’s got ’em; he just doesn’t call them out by name: “They’re just some pushy friends, they’re on my couch, they’re on my knee.” He’s learned to live with them over the years. “If I don’t let ’em in, some other fool will / If I don’t let ’em in, maybe they won’t come back again.”

Daemons (as Rogers calls them) sits squarely in the middle of You Am I’s 10th album, Porridge & Hotsauce, and it wants you to know he’s OK. If this ballad – just acoustic guitar and strings – could almost seem too self-aware for its own good, it’s nonetheless reassuring. Rogers, who has been open about his struggles with anxiety and depression in recent times, is at ease with himself.

It’s also reassuring that the remainder of Porridge & Hotsauce is hot rock & roll, many of its 13 songs coming in well under the three-minute mark. Tearing out of the blocks with Good Advices, which dismisses the well-intentioned opinions of others with a flourish, it’s an enjoyable ride, with Rogers in fine voice and his band’s capabilities shown off to full effect.… Read more..

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