Vale Renee Geyer (11 September 1953 - 17 January 2023)

A DIFFICULT WOMAN’S HAD TO BE TOUGH ALL OF HER LIFE

By Ian McFarlane

This article was originally published in Rhythms magazine Issue #310 (March-April 2022)

SOUNDS OF THE CITY

The much loved Renée Geyer has long been recognised as Australia’s foremost R&B, funk and blue-eyed soul singer, and she’s still making her mark.

 By Ian McFarlane

 Thanks to Renée Geyer and Kathy Nolan

 By any criteria, Renée Geyer’s career has been phenomenal. From her earliest days with bands such as Sun, Nine Stage Horizon, Mother Earth, Sanctuary and the Renée Geyer Band she’s long been recognised as Australia’s foremost R&B / funk / blue-eyed soul singer. Best known for her rich, sultry and husky vocal delivery, she scored hits with ‘It’s A Man’s Man’s World’, ‘Heading In The Right Direction’, ‘Stares And Whispers’ and ‘Say I Love You’.

 She has recorded 20 albums as well as singing back-up vocals on numerous other sessions, ranging from the La De Das, Dragon and Men at Work to Richard Clapton, Paul Kelly and Jimmy Barnes. She lived and worked in the United States for many years, where she also earned accolades for her role as backing vocalist for international artists such as Sting, Joe Cocker and Chaka Khan.

 She is now set to take part in the 33st Byron Bay Bluesfest, alongside Midnight Oil, Paul Kelly, John Butler, Ian Moss, Kate Ceberano, The Waifs, The Black Sorrows, Russell Morris, The Church, Mark Seymour, Vika & Linda and so many more.

 “I can’t wait!” enthuses the singer when I catch up with her over the phone. “I think I was on the very first one, way back, so I know them really well. I’ve got a great band and I’ll be playing all the usual songs everyone knows, plus I always throw a few surprises into the set. We’re on the edge of our seats with the COVID situation but at the moment it’s full steam ahead.”

 Even before the advent of the original Bluesfest, Geyer had established a presence on the outdoor stage when she appeared at Sunbury 1975 with Sanctuary. Given that we’re currently celebrating the 50th anniversary of Sunbury ’72, it was a magical time for the young singer.

 “Oh, I just loved Sunbury. It was such a great celebration. We were all so happy and excited to be there. I remember I got a suit made for the concert. It was a beautifully tailored garment in lime green satin, a jacket and flared trousers and I also wore platform boots. When the light hit me I couldn’t wait for people to go ‘wow, Renée!’. Rather than just going on stage in jeans and a Miller shirt I made it a spectacle, and it ended up making me sound better too. In those days I’d always hang around too, to see the other bands.”

 In her memoir Confessions Of A Difficult Woman (2000) she described her early love for Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles, and then how guitarist Mark Punch (from Mother Earth) introduced her to the music of Donnie Hathaway, B.B. King, Freddie King, Albert King, John Lee Hooker, Bill Withers and Muddy Waters. With her love for black music entrenched she also embraced Gladys Knight, Merry Clayton and Thelma Houston. These inspirational singers have continued to inform her career to this day. Geyer marked her place alongside the great singers of the 1970s such as Wendy Saddington, Colleen Hewett, Marcia Hines and Kerrie Biddell.

 She also made no bones about the challenges she faced, such as drug addiction, throughout her career. She was never one to suffer fools gladly, a stance which might have worked against her on occasion, but her relentless drive and creative spirit have always seen her come through the tough times. It’s easy to admire this remarkable women, not only for her astonishing voice and sheer determination but also her grace and poise under pressure.

 Rather than take you on a standard tour of her history, my purpose here is to explore the Renée Geyer experience via a dozen songs.

Some Renée Classics and Deep Cuts

 ‘Them Changes’ – “Well, my mind is goin’ through them changes / I’m about to commit a crime / Every time you see me goin’ somewhere / I know I’m goin’ outta my mind” – Geyer recorded this stomping Buddy Miles song with Mother Earth, for her self-titled debut album (1973). It had originally appeared on the Jimi Hendrix Band Of Gypsys LP and Miles’ own self titled debut album (both 1970) so was a very unusual song for a white Jewish woman to be covering. Still, it suited her voice and she’s certainly having a wailing good time with it. The album was a set of covers anyway, from ‘Do Right Woman, Do Right Man’ and ‘Moondance’ to Gulliver Smith’s ‘Mascara Blue’ but ‘Them Changes’ showed Mother Earth to be right on the ‘one’ with Punch’s guitar work to the fore. Funk wasn’t an area generally covered by Australian bands at the time (one can think of the likes of Johnny Rocco Band, Skylight, Hot City Bump Band, Stylus and a few others) when good ol’ Aussie pub boogie and glam rock were in the ascendant.

 Geyer says, “Them Changes’ was a great song but I don’t remember it as being such an important song at the time, it was just part of our set list. The tempo was perfect for the timing in our live set. Mother Earth was a great band, very funky. Our manager Horst Leopold would always say, in his thick German accent, ‘oh Mother Earth, they’re grooving their asses off!’. Mark and I were together at the time, and we had Jim Kelly on guitar, Russell Dunlop on drums and Harry Brus on bass. It was a cool thing; other musicians were going ‘I hope I can get a gig in Mother Earth’.”

 ‘It’s A Man’s Man’s World’ – “This is a man’s world / This is a man’s world / But it wouldn’t... it wouldn’t be nothing / Nothing without a woman or a girl” – As one of James Brown’s greatest songs, it was a statement of intent. Geyer’s gorgeous rendition on her It’s A Man’s Man’s World LP really was the one that made people sit up and take notice of this remarkable young woman. Released as a single it reached the Top 30. Backing musicians on the album included Tweed Harris (keyboards), Phil Manning, Tim Gaze and Tony Naylor (guitars), Barry ‘Big Goose’ Sullivan (bass) and Geoff Cox (drums).

 “I recorded that in Melbourne with Tweed Harris producing. It was an incredible experience. I always loved that song. It was the time of Women’s Liberation and people thought I was making this grand statement about that. They thought I was being so smart to say that. I just ran with it but it was never planned that way. It was just my answer to the situation and in the end it was good for everybody. And on the album cover you can see the hand written name and title. I just wrote that out in gold lettering, in my fancy hand writing. It really looked good on the black background.”

 ‘Sweet Love’ – “I just want to populate but you just won’t cooperate / I don’t want to segregate because I just want to stimulate” – Having formed the Renée Geyer Band, with Punch, Sullivan, Mal Logan (keyboards) and Greg Tell (drums), in June 1975 this was one of the first songs they wrote together for their Ready To Deal album. I bought the single as an impressionable 15 year old because it was sexy as all get-out and just so funky, I’d never heard anything like it before. Then the single got banned because it was too much for the staid radio culture of the day; the wowzers thought it would corrupt our tiny little minds. Well, it had already done that to me so I was well and truly on the way to funk hell.

 “Oh my God, it was such a fuss, because people thought I was singing ‘copulate’. They thought I was trying to pull a fast one, it was ridiculous. I’m saying, ‘well, I wrote this song, don’t you think I know what I’m saying’. This whole thing blew up but I have to say the album ended up selling more copies than it might have because of this furore. People had to hear the album because everyone had an opinion about what I was singing. I was just sitting back laughing at it all. I loved that song because it had such a funky rhythm (she hums it). It was very revolutionary at the time, it was very new to most people in Australia because it was such an unusual groove. It was just really natural for us to do, we had a ball playing like that.”

 ‘Heading In The Right Direction’ – “Since I was a small girl / I’ve always been alone / I’m trying so hard to find someone / I could call my own” – The Ready To Deal album also had another ace up its sleeve is this slinky blue-eyed soul ballad, written by Punch with lyricist Garry Paige. It remains one of her finest performances and reached the Top 20 singles chart. Fired by the powerful combination of these two songs, plus a brace of other gems such as ‘If Loving You Is Wrong’ and ‘Love’s Got A Hold’, the album also hit the national Top 20. The band was in huge demand, not only for their own concert appearances but also as support act to such overseas visitors as Eric Clapton, Freddie King and Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee.

 “Mark had already been doing ‘Heading In The Right Direction’ with the Johnny Rocco Band; Leo De Castro sang it. It just happened to really take off when we did it. It’s such a great song. I always thought the words were pretty simplistic but I knew that people loved it because the melody was so strong. I enjoyed doing it.”

 ‘Shakey Ground’ – “Lady luck and a four leaf clover / Wanting this hurt I feel all over / My life was one special occasion / Till your leavin’ ended the situation / I’m standin’ on shakey ground, yeah / Ever since you put me down” – Legendary Motown act The Temptations had made this a hit in 1975 (co-written by producer Jeffrey Bowen and Funkadelic guitarist Eddie Hazel) and the Renée Geyer Band laid down a spellbinding rendition on their live album Really Really Love You (1976). When recorded at the Dallas Brooks Hall in April 1976, Punch had moved on by that stage with John Pugh taking his place. With the added spice of a three-piece horn section it was another validation of this band’s greatness.

 “I remember recording that, the band was so hot live. We did all those concert halls and all the pubs. On those hot nights you could hardly breathe. ‘Shakey Ground’ used to get everyone going. We loved doing that, it was basically just four on the floor but you’d dance to it like crazy.”

 ‘Moving Along’ – “With a life that’s sometimes so complicated / You’ve got to keep your spirits up to win the race” – This is a life affirming song that Geyer co-wrote with Logan, Sullivan and Judy Wieder. One of her aspirations had been to work in the US. She first got there in 1977 when she recorded this in Crystal Sound Recording, Hollywood, with Motown singer / songwriter / producer Frank Wilson and a host of American session players, including members of Rufus and Stevie Wonder’s band. She also insisted that Logan and Sullivan be on hand to play on the album as well. Wilson had worked with the likes of Brenda Holloway, Marvin Gaye, The Supremes, The Four Tops, The Temptations and Eddie Kendricks, so it’s safe to say he knew what he was doing in the studio. The sophisticated R&B ballad ‘Stares And Whispers’ was the big hit from Moving Along, but for mine the elegant title track is one of the best things she ever did.

 “Working with Frank Wilson was amazing. He was such an incredibly talented guy. I was right into black music, all my influences were from Rhythm & Blues and soul. He’d produced all my idols at Motown, I was in heaven.”

 In Confessions Of A Difficult Woman she wrote, “Frank Wilson was a Motown stalwart, a beautiful-looking black man, and from the moment he heard my voice he was confounded. ‘You’re going to have a really interesting life,’ he said. ‘Nobody who looks like you sounds like you’.”

 ‘Be There In The Morning’ (vers. #2) – “Your eyes flashing tells me that you are needing / Someone who will help you make it through the stormy night / Follow your heart and you’ll find that I won’t let those dark clouds gather round” – Another Geyer/Logan/Sullivan co-write on Moving Along, she’d already recorded a version as a B-side in Australia during 1976. Wilson worked his magic, adding a swooping string arrangement atop the funky rhythm and stabbing horns.

 “We re-recorded ‘Heading In The Right Direction’ and ‘Be There In The Morning’ for the album because Frank liked the songs but wanted to record better versions, in his eyes. We did them in the spirit of his vision as producer so it made it a better album.”

 ‘Bellhop Blues’ – “You keep me waiting / You keep me waiting / Just to sing my bellhop blues” – The combination of Renée Geyer and ace guitarist Kevin Borich for the Blues License album (1979) was a revelation at the time. This is spirited blues rock with a determined soul blues singer at the top of her game. Tracks on this tribute album included brilliant versions of the likes of B.B. King’s ‘The Thrill Is Gone’, T. Bone Walker’s ‘Stormy Monday’ and Elmore James’ ‘Dust My Blues’ yet this Borich penned tune, with its slow grinding blues shuffle, is very powerful on its own merits.

 “I don’t think Blues License is one of the best albums I’ve done but the spirit and the atmosphere is what I’m proud of. It was probably one of the first tribute to the blues albums. It was all the Kings, B.B., Albert, Freddie; I’m just doing my versions and paying tribute to them. I loved working with Kevin, he’s still one of my best friends. I love him, his kids and his grand kids. He has his own style of guitar playing. Recording that album was just the right time and the right sound.”

 ‘Hot Minutes’ – “Standing on the corner just-a waiting for you / The look on my face shows what I’m-a going through / Losers all around me saying you got somebody new / Wait and just you see what I’m-a gonna do” – Co-written with keyboardist / producer John Capek this one-off single (1980) saw Geyer temporarily reinvent herself as a tough, leather-clad, mane shaking rocker fronting a blue collar bar band. This song fairly rips it up over a pounding beat and slashing guitar riffs. On top of that, lyrically it’s a song of retribution, with a spurned lover just about to give her ex-beau his come-uppance. At the end Geyer spits out “Hot minutes, oo-OW oo-OW oo-OW” in her best wild cat snarl. Whoa, she’s hot indeed.

 “Oh, that was just a silly song I wrote. Well, I hate to say ‘wrote’ because when you say that you think of great people writing incredible songs. That’s not one of them but we just really went for it. It rocks for sure.”

 ‘I Can Feel The Fire’ – “I can feel the fire / I can feel the fire oh yeah / I can feel the fire burnin’ / I can see you by my side / Picture you here by my side” – Another song that lyrically is no great shakes but it doesn’t take much to home in on basic, raw human emotions and this Ron Wood song nails it pretty convincingly. It’s from her 1981 hit album So Lucky, co-produced by drummer Ricky Fataar (who had worked with The Flames, The Beach Boys, The Rutles) and Rob Fraboni (Bob Dylan, Joe Cocker, The Band, The Beach Boys, Bonnie Raitt etc). The standout track on a work that also includes her biggest hit, the infectious salsa-pop single ‘Say I Love You’, ‘Do You Know What I Mean’ and ‘Baby I’ve Been Missing You’. With former Faces keyboardist Ian McLagan and his Bump Band as the main studio group, there are also appearances from Rolling Stones saxophonist Bobby Keys and backing vocalists Blondie Chaplin, Bobby King, James Ingram and Venetta Fields.

 “I loved that Ronnie Wood song. I remember doing a gig in New York before I recorded the album and Ronnie was in the audience. He and his wife invited us back to their place. I was thinking ‘wow, I’m in Ronnie Woods’ house, I can’t believe it’. I had a migraine at the time but it was just so incredible to be there, I was so happy. I just kept saying to myself ‘just enjoy it, you’re in Ronnie Woods’ house’. And I loved working with Ian McLagan and the Bump Band. I loved the Faces too. Mac was so funny and endearing, he had these great stories and we got on so well.”

 ‘Difficult Woman’ – “A difficult woman / Sometimes hurts her friends when she don’t mean to / A difficult woman / Makes it hard for the ones she loves / It’s easy to do / She’s had to be tough all of her life” – Songwriter Paul Kelly knew what he was about when he produced Geyer’s 1994 album Difficult Woman. It featured a strong set of R&B, jazz and soul tunes including other Kelly-penned compositions, ‘Foggy Highway’, ‘Careless’ and ‘Sweet Guy’.

 “I still work with Paul Kelly, on and off things. I loved working with him on that album and I toured with him. We locked into a friendship and we’ve never lost that. I just had the best time with him. I love the way he approaches the songs. He’s a very curious person, he’s so observant and he notices things that most people don’t. He’d describe something and you go ‘oh, yeah’ but you don’t remember seeing that at the time. We actually came up with ‘Difficult Woman’ together. It was something he was mucking around with for some time. I remember talking to him on the phone about it and I’d go quiet, and he’d say ‘Renée, are you still there?’. I was thinking ‘I don’t know if I want to sing that song’. It wasn’t the lyrics so much, it was the chords. He doesn’t come from the blues, he uses major chords that are not blues influenced. That already puts them in a certain vein which was new to me. He brought me to that side of things and I’m sure with me being Rhythm & Blues oriented, he learnt things from me too. We did have a good time. ‘Foggy Highway’ is great to sing too, a very dark, moody song that worked.”

 In her memoir she wrote of Difficult Woman, “It was a joy to make. It was quite sparse, darkish and unadorned, and I sang in a softer, huskier voice than usual. It’s through that record that I developed a sweeter sound to my voice. People who had never heard of me before loved this record, but some people who loved me as a belter were a little uncomfortable with it. Overall, thought, it’s a record that’s won a lot of critical acclaim.”

 ‘Sexual Healing’ – “(Get up, get up, get up, get up / wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up) Ooh baby, now let’s get down tonight / Ooh baby, I’m hot just like an oven / I need some lovin’ / And baby, I can’t hold it much longer / It’s getting stronger and stronger / And when I get that feeling / Sexual healing” – This 1982 Marvin Gaye/Odell Brown classic is one of the horniest songs ever written. It found the one-time Motown titan re-energised for a new generation, like Rick James trying to outdo Prince. Of course, Geyer knew a thing or two about sexual healing (refer back to ‘Sweet Love’) and her version is full of understated, steamy appeal. From her classy 2003 album Tenderland.

 “Of course, I loved Marvin Gaye. We recorded that because it has that bubbling feel, that percolating rhythm. That’s what got me into the song. The lyrics are very ordinary, really, they are what they are. We loved that rhythm but we made it our own.”

Vale Ian 'Macca' McCausland

Vale Ian ‘Macca’ McCausland - Dedicated to the consummate graphic designer and illustrator (31 March 1944 - 9 August 2022)

By Ian McFarlane

This article was originally published in Rhythms magazine Issue #314 (November-December 2022)

SOUNDS OF THE CITY

Ian ‘the other Macca’ McFarlane pays tribute to Australia’s greatest rock’n’roll graphic designer, the late Ian ‘Macca’ McCausland.

With thanks to Dia Taylor, Otis McCausland, James Anfuso

Images courtesy of Ian McFarlane Collection and the McCausland Family

“Home is where the heart is / Closer all the while / Silver capsule in the night / Reeling in the miles / Heading back home, heading back home” (‘Heading Back Home’ by Ian McCausland, 1995)

 During one fraught week in August 2022, the Australian music community lost Judith Durham, Olivia Newton-John, Archie Roach and Ian ‘Macca’ McCausland. Anyone’s death is always sad news but this was quite extraordinary. There are more connections here than at first seems obvious but for now I want to pay tribute to my friend Macca.

 Ian ‘Macca’ McCausland was a graphic designer, illustrator (foremost in air brush art) and musician who gave more to the story of Australian rock music than can ever be repaid. I believe that he captured the essence, identity and framework of Aussie rock music more so than any other designer of the age. He can rightly be regarded as a national treasure.

 He began his career in the 1960s, was most prominent throughout the 1970s and continued to create amazing art up to the mid-2010s when his failing eye sight began to curtail his chosen pursuits.

 I first saw Macca’s artwork in the mid-1970s when, as a music obsessed teenager, I became enthralled with his numerous album covers. I first met him in the mid-1990s at the Continental in Prahran and got to know him better after the launch of Ed. Nimmervoll’s book Under The Covers: The Music Graphics Of Ian McCausland, Graeme Webber & Steve Malpass (1999).

I took to visiting him regularly and calling him on the phone just for a chat. He really was one of the most humble, friendly and loveliest blokes I’ve ever known. I’d ask him all sorts of questions about his career. He was never one to big-note himself or make out how important he was: he didn’t have to, he just was. He told me about his friendship with Gulliver Smith, photographer Graeme Webber and Mushroom Records founder Michael Gudinski; about hanging out with Keith Richards in Sydney when The Rolling Stones toured Australia in 1973 (Keith’s helpful piece of advice that day was “rub it on your gums...”); he told me about his love of music in general. I’d ask him if he kept much in the way of his original art work and he explained that most of what he created at Mushroom was eventually thrown out of the store room to make way for other stuff. He was genuine when he said that he’d moved on to other things. What an incredible archive that would be these days! His son Otis has told me that he’s kept some of the original art, so that was a relief to hear.

When he launched his art website (ianmccauslandart.com, I wrote the Introduction, so it seems relevant to reproduce my words here:

“The best graphic designers and illustrators present a unique and easily recognisable style. Melbourne-based illustrator Ian McCausland is one such individual. His illustrations and designs for albums by Little River Band, the Aztecs, Spectrum, Daddy Cool, Chain, Skyhooks, Company Caine, Matt Taylor and Carson plus his work as Art Director for the Mushroom label (in particular the triple LP gatefold release of The Great Australian Rock Festival Sunbury 1973) kept him at the forefront of the Australian rock music industry throughout the 1970s. In the days of the LP sleeve, essentially he was the designer of choice when you wanted a quality product.

 “Mushroom Records head Michael Gudinski is quoted in Under The Covers by Ed. Nimmervoll (Electronic Pictures, 1998) as saying, ‘Ian McCausland started Mushroom Art. He was Mushroom Art. He drew it, he looked it, he lived it. I thought he was peerless. There wasn’t anyone else near him, especially for the type of music Mushroom was about at the time. He was a master of airbrushing’.

 “It was that quality which the Rolling Stones were also able to tap into. Ian had been designing posters for local bands and gigs since the late 1960s, and when the Stones announced an Australian tour for early 1973, promoter Paul Dainty commissioned him to do the poster. The iconic image of a jet airplane winging its way into the open lips and massive tongue of the famous Rolling Stones logo over a stylised relief map of Australia captured the sense of the tour’s importance with absolute perfection. Dainty, the Stones’ manager Peter Rudge and their stage designer Chip Monck were impressed, immediately asking Ian to do one for the New Zealand leg of the tour. The Australian tour poster is Ian’s most important claim to international fame and original copies are among the most sought-after items by Stones fans and rock’n’roll memorabilia collectors alike.

 “Ian may have rubbed shoulders with rock’n’roll royalty, yet he remains one of life’s gentlemen and a true music fan. His career started in the early 1960s when he sang with Melbourne groups The Strangers and Little Gulliver & the Children (for whom he also played guitar). He was also a back-up vocalist and featured artist on Melbourne TV pop series The Go!! Show. All the same, design and illustration were his forte and he applied his music knowledge to his role as Art Director for seminal music paper Go-Set. He actually won a Who / Small Faces poster competition in order to get the gig. Subsequently, his work for early ’70s underground papers The Digger and Planet (in addition to his famous series of dope comix) led to his role as Art Director at Mushroom.

 “Ian is quoted in Under The Covers: ‘I was very influenced by San Francisco’s psychedelic Fillmore posters, Robert Crumb and Kelly of Mouse Studios’. His work retains that same timeless sense of rock history, of capturing the essence of the performer’s music in his imagery and style. This is Ian McCausland’s life’s pursuit – embrace it as part of Australia’s rock’n’roll heritage.”

 MACCA THE MUSICIAN

 That’s a basic introduction, so firstly I’ll delve deeper into his music career: as a teenager obsessed with rock’n’roll in the early 1960s, Macca formed The Lincolns with his high school mates. They did birthday parties and teenage dances around his suburb of Glenroy. The big Melbourne band of the day, The Strangers, caught his attention and he started singing a couple of sets a night with them around the thriving Melbourne suburban rock dance scene. This was the era when dances at Town Halls were the places to be on Friday and Saturday nights. You could see The Strangers, Colin Cook, Betty McQuade, Johnny Chester and The Chessmen, The Thunderbirds, The Premiers, The Bluejays etc.

 With the emergence of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and all the other British Beat bands of the day, the local scene was transformed irrevocably. Jazz musician Horrie Dargie saw the need for a dedicated teen music formatted TV show and subsequently, with the establishment of a new channel in Melbourne during 1964, ATV-O, he was able to launch The Go!! Show that August to great success. The Strangers were installed as the resident backing band, appearing on something like 130 episodes until 1967. The producers also launched the Go!! label. Just about every popular Australian solo artist and band signed to other labels appeared on the show: Ronnie Burns, Normie Rowe, Billy Thorpe, Marcie Jones, Lynne Randell, Olivia Newton-John, The Loved Ones, The Master’s Apprentices... you get the picture.

 Having been part of The Strangers vocal line-up, this also led to Macca’s role as a solo artist on the show, doing covers of Top 40 hits. As he explained to David Laing (I Like Your Old Stuff), “I only had four appearances on the show. First up I did Chuck Berry’s ‘Dear Dad’, followed by Billy Joe Royal’s ‘Down In The Boondocks’, Cliff Richard’s ‘Theme For A Dream’ (with Pat Carroll and Olivia Newton-John beside me) and Bob Dylan’s ‘Like A Rolling Stone’.”

 As vocalist with The Rondells, he toured Victoria with Bobby & Laurie and The Easybeats. His mate Gulliver Smith (who had also sung with The Strangers and The Thunderbirds) then formed an R&B band, installing Macca as rhythm guitarist, backing vocalist and harmonica player. Smith had been playing around with stage names with which to launch his solo career. Originally he was Little Otis (after Otis Redding) before settling on Little Gulliver. Thus the band was Little Gulliver and the Children. They issued one self-titled EP on W&G Records in 1966; Macca sang the bass parts on the track ‘I Was Bewitched’.

 They appeared at all the Melbourne discotheques of the day, such as the Thumpin’ Tum and The Biting Eye, but when the band folded at the end of 1966 Smith headed to Sydney. As 1967 dawned so did the psychedelic era. Naturally, being an eccentric character to begin with, Smith became involved in this burgeoning underground psychedelic scene. He invited Macca up to Sydney to join a psychedelic soul/R&B band he was forming, Dr Kandy’s Third Eye. As Macca explained to me, after a few rehearsals he felt out of his depth with this new sound and took his leave.

 Besides, as a 22-year-old he was already married with a young child. He had to support his young family and to make a living he turned his attention back to his art career.

 Macca reflected on his friendship with Gulliver when he told me:

 “I first met Gulliver in about 1964 and we became good friends. Gully and I were very in tune with each other. He already had a great record collection of all these black American blues and R&B singers. It was everything from Sleepy John Estes to James Brown. And that’s where Gully got his inspiration from initially.

 “Gully was like a white bluesman, even in the mid-’60s. He could do an impromptu blues song with this great rave and it would be completely off the cuff. Whether it made sense or not didn’t really matter. Later on we used to listen to Frank Zappa and The Mothers and that kind of avant-garde / rock / jazz sound was also an influence on him.

 “That first time I met Gully was interesting to say the least. I was singing a couple of sets with The Strangers at the Essendon Plaza. They were one of the best bands in Melbourne at the time and they had this regular Friday night gig. On this particular night, the Sharpies were causing trouble, there were fights breaking out everywhere with the mods.

 “So this big Sharpie called Charlie, who was the king of the Carlton Sharps said to the promoter, ‘Oi, if you don’t let our mate sing, the whole place will go up!’ And so his mate was Gulliver Smith. Gully was originally from Carlton and, reluctantly on his part, he’d been adopted by the local gang and they wanted him to sing. So Gully sang a few songs, like a Larry Williams song or two, and I thought ‘gee, he’s a pretty good singer’. And so I started talking to him and we forged a lifelong friendship out of that crazy night.

 “This was around the time that The Beatles and The Stones had started to take off and the whole local music scene was changing. Everyone wanted to sound like them, but Gully already had his own unique sound and style based around his love of the black blues guys. He decided to call himself Little Gulliver because he wanted his name to sound black, like Little Johnny Taylor or Little Richard. He thought it was a cool name.

 “Gully might have been ambitious but he wasn’t a driven person, he just loved his music. After Little Gulliver and The Children had split up Gully decided to move up to Sydney. This was in early 1967 and he rang me up and asked me to go up to Sydney to join this new band he’d formed, Dr. Kandy’s Third Eye. I only lasted a few weeks in the rehearsal stage; I had a young family to support and I eventually came back down to Melbourne when I was offered the job as Art Director for Go-Set.

 “Dr. Kandy’s Third Eye turned out to be a really great band. Gully had recruited sax players like Mal Capewell and Zane Hudson, who he called Zane Tootsville. So he had that kind of Frank Zappa / Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band vibe going on there.

 “Gully stayed in Sydney for a few years. He was such a great singer, so charismatic. By the time he joined Company Caine, he wasn’t that young kid anymore. He’d matured and changed, drugs had started to come into it. But I thought Company Caine was an important band, a real standout on the Melbourne scene. Musically they were fantastic, really adventurous. It suited Gully to have such a great band to sing with.”

 He left the music to the professionals until the 1990s when he formed country rock band Chicken DeVille. As he put it, “We played at country themed suburban pubs and rural Victorian venues (anywhere with a mechanical bull) for four years before we broke up.” As well as playing covers, Macca wrote a few songs for the band; at his funeral we heard his songs ‘So Far So Good’, ‘Can’t Stop My Heart’ and ‘Heading Back Home’.

 MACCA THE ARTIST

 After leaving high school, Macca worked as an illustrator and designer for Studio Services. His first notable rock’n’roll art work achievement was when he submitted a poster for a competition run by Go-Set magazine, advertising the upcoming Who / Small Faces / Paul Jones tour of Australia (January 1968). His poster won and he was later installed as Art Director for the magazine. At that time Go-Set was the country’s foremost pop paper and his role in presenting a commercial format for music fans was pivotal. He left Go-Set around 1970 when publisher Philip Fraser launched The Digger, a radical, politically motivated broadsheet that tackled subjects such as the Vietnam war, abortion and pornography.

 It reflected the rise of the counter-culture and the anti-Vietnam movement, in particular, when the Moratorium marches around the country combined student protest with rock music. As Art Director, Macca once again played a significant role in the look of the day. It was here that he created his series of dope comix, heavily influenced by the likes of Robert Crumb and Gilbert Shelton who had created The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers in 1968. Under the pen name of ‘McCosmic’ he created a comical representation of the stereotypical dope smoking hippie, Ace, and his pals on their never ending search for the perfect high and their hilarious efforts to avoid getting busted by the fuzz.

 He gave these strips titles such as: The Official Drug Addict Test; Highway Hi-Jinx; Down On Karmic Farm; A Quiet Day In The Country; Tee-Vee Jeebies; Strangers In The Night; School’s Out!; Country Capers; Outfoxing The Ferret; The Hungries; Guru To You Too; Just Cruisin’; Walkin’ Sideways; Footy Fever; Way Out West; and Porn Scorn.

 Around that time head shops had started to open up, stocking drug paraphernalia and so all this fed into the youth culture divide between the ‘heads’ and the ‘straights’. Macca had the idea of combining these dope cartoons in a book called Ace And His Adventures In The ’70s to sell in the head shops. He did a full colour illustration for the front cover but never got around to completing the project. Some of the strips were later compiled in the likes of The Wild & Woolley Comix Book (1977), Cobber Comix (1978) and Down Underground Comix (1983).

 Macca has always been honest about his personal inspirations in the art world. As well as Crumb and Shelton, mentioned about, he has also cited the likes of Alton Kelly, Stanley Mouse, Wes Wilson and others from the San Francisco psychedelic scene of the 1960s, Milton Glaser (Bob Dylan poster), Heinz Edelman (who drew The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine) and, closer to home, NZ artists Chris Grosz and Reg Mombasa with his art for Mental As Anything and Mambo.

 In 1971 two young music promoters, Michael Gudinski and Ray Evans, launched music paper Daily Planet (later Planet) with Macca as Art Director. Ostensibly set up as counter-cultural competition to Go-Set magazine, it was also a way for them to promote their bands and booking agency, the Australian Entertainment Exchange (AEC). They set up office in an old house in South Yarra and as he explained to David Laing, “It was very hippie, lots of marijuana and teenage runaways crashing there. I worked laying out the paper in the kitchen down the back where the electric stove provided heat as well as red-hot coils for spotting hash. I worked with some great people who enjoyed the fun times.” They included David ‘Dr. Pepper’ Pepperell, Jen Jewel Brown, photographer David Porter (Jacques L’Affrique), Lee Dillow and Terry Cleary.

 Macca had also continued creating poster artwork for various bands, and some of his early poster art included pieces for Gulliver Smith, Company Caine, Daddy Cool and Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs (‘Most People I Know Think That I’m Crazy’). He was also the go-to guy for the best album cover art of the day. In 1971 to 1972 alone he created iconic covers for The Aztecs’ The Hoax Is Over and Live! At Sunbury, Chain’s Toward The Blues and Live Again, Carson’s Blown, Company Caine’s A Product Of A Broken Reality and Spectrum’s Milesago. In addition he provided the cartoon Daddy Cool shown on the front cover of their debut Daddy Who? Daddy Cool!, the inner gatefold comic strip for their Sex, Dope, Rock ’n’ Roll: Teenage Heaven album and the intricate, fold out design for the D.C.E.P.

 Macca had the knack for treating each piece of artwork as individual projects, choosing an illustration style and technique that suited the piece. He’d use pencils, ink, airbrush, collage, scraperboard or sculpture to get the result he wanted. A Product Of A Broken Reality is a great example of setting up a diorama to created the final effect. Macca explained that he was disappointed with the original photo used because it was out of focus. He told me:

 “I liked the art for A Product of A Broken Reality. Instead of my normal mode of illustration, I did something different by constructing a scale model, or a sort of diorama. The inspiration came about because Gully had explored that technological aspect, it was the early computer age, and he liked my idea that Company Caine was an electronic machine pumping out this new age message, a brand new sound. So that was the little model with the big mouth and the musical note coming out. And the audience was the ping-pong balls bouncing around and whether they got the message or not, it didn’t matter.

 “When Company Caine got back together in 1975, Keith Glass and David Pepperell re-released the album under the banner Rock Masterworks. I re-did the cover because the photo for the original was slightly out of focus and I was always disappointed about that. For the new cover I used a different shot from the same session and made the image smaller so that it looked sharper and you could take the whole thing in with one glance.”

 By 1972 Planet had slid by and Gudinski and Evans set up Mushroom Records with Macca as Art Director. He was responsible for creating the look of Mushroom and he rose to the occasion with the first release, the expansive, triple LP The Great Australian Rock Festival Sunbury 1973. Modelled on the original Woodstock triple LP, it had never been attempted before in Australia so Macca had to work out how a tri-fold jacket with three inner sleeves and a poster could possibly work. It remains a stunning artefact.

 His many other covers for Mushroom are just as legendary: Matt Taylor’s Straight As A Die (1973) and Music (1974), The Dingoes’ The Dingoes (1974), Stars’ Land Of Fortune (1979), Skyhooks’ Straight In A Gay Gay World (1976), The Skyhooks Tapes (1977) and Guilty Until Proven Insane (1979), Ayers Rock’s Beyond (1976), Various Artists A-Reefer-Derci! (1976) and Jo Jo Zep and the Falcons’ Screaming Targets (1979). Throughout this time he also did freelance work for other companies, such as EMI (Little River Band’s After Hours, 1976, using the pseudonym Preston Foster) and Epic/Portrait (Dragon’s O Zambezi, 1978).

 For Music, which featured his rendering of a kookaburra, he took inspiration from nature. “Matt wanted a rural feel but basically left it up to me. I was living in Ferntree Gully with a lot of kookaburras around. Two of them had actually drowned in the swimming pool in the back yard so I buried them in the garden. Later on I was digging in the yard and unearthed their heads and beaks. I was just fascinated with the construction of them. I’ve always had an interest in birds. I’ve got hundreds of drawings of birds I’ve done for my own pleasure, not commissioned things. I welcomed the chance to use the kookaburra as the main image on Matt’s cover. I justified it by saying that was as Australian as you could get, a kookaburra singing an Australian song in the bush.”

 He also admired the art work coming out of the British design group Hipgnosis, so his late 1970s work reflected that. For example, Guilty Until Proven Insane was inspired by the robots on the cover of Black Sabbath’s 1976 album Technical Ecstasy, designed by George Hardie and illustrated by Colin Elgie.

 Macca was a master at creating logos, not only for the Mushroom label itself but also for Go-Set, The Digger, Chain, Madder Lake, Matt Taylor, Skyhooks, the Renée Geyer Band and most famously Little River Band. His LRB logo on velvet green background depicted an elegant platypus swimming through the letter V, and it has come to be recognised on the international stage. Later on he created logos for Wheatley Bros. Entertainment, the Frontier Touring Company and an internationally flavoured series for Dean Markley Guitar Strings.

 After a decade or so at the forefront of Mushroom, Macca moved on to the corporate world of advertising. One of my favourites of his advertising posters was for Levi Jeans, “We’re gonna scare the pants off ya!”, which depicted a cartoon Frankenstein monster in Levis, surrounded by the Werewolf, Dracula, the Wicked Witch and the Mad Scientist with assorted rats, spiders, lizards and frogs scuttling around a graveyard.

 So we’ve jumped ahead here but let’s not forget his iconic artwork for The Rolling Stones’ 1973 Australian tour. Macca didn’t create the Stones’ tongue logo for the Australian tour poster (as has sometimes been suggested) but his great skill was incorporating it into the overall design. The Stones and their fans loved it of course. Trying to get hold of an original poster now is next to impossible, but when they do come on to the market expect to pay top dollar. He also did the tour poster for the New Zealand leg, which this time depicted a kiwi bird poking its long beak at the tongue logo on the ground.

 The Australian tour poster was originally folded and stapled inside the concert programme. There are stories of multiple copies of said poster discarded after the Melbourne concert (at Kooyong Tennis centre) and filling up the gutters along Glenferrie Road. If you were lucky you got hold of an unfolded copy because a small number were reserved for local record shops; when you bought a Stones record you were given a copy of the unfolded tour poster. Just how many of these posters still exist is impossible to determine. Not that Macca paid it much mind, of course; rarity or collector value was never in his mind set.

 The Stones kept him in mind, because he was commissioned to do a concept rough for their next album, Goat’s Head Soup. As he explained in Under The Covers:

 “Charlie Watts was the one who had his finger on the pulse artistically. He had briefed me in Sydney after being impressed by my tour posters. They wanted me to do a cover for their next album, Goat’s Head Soup. They’d recorded it in Jamaica and wanted that sort of vibe for the cover, so I came up with this idea of a fighting cock with spurs. I thought it was a very nice visual package. I sent the rough off and never heard anything more about it. Then I was contacted by Paul Dainty’s office again to say that my cover had been lost, or was at the London office but no-one had ever seen it so no decision was ever made about it and they’d gone ahead with the David Bailey photographic cover. I don’t know what the real story was. Maybe it was just misplaced, since they contacted me again to submit a cover for Love You Live. Because of the design I did for Goat’s Head Soup I was thinking roosters already, but this time I went the other way and made it cuter. I didn’t have a lot of confidence in it. I know it was completely the wrong image. They ended up using Andy Warhol. Not a bad move really.”

 The intended Love You Live image is cute indeed: a strutting rooster Mick Jagger, wearing leather chaps, sings into a microphone, while rows of hens go wild in the chook house stalls.

 LATER WORK

 During the early 2000s, Macca retrained in the field of computer graphics and created a new series of rock posters. They included: Skyhooks, Jo Jo Zep and the Falcons, The Dingoes, Spectrum, Chain, Daddy Cool, Little River Band and Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs. Some were based around his earlier designs but The Dingoes one, in particular, had a distinctive twist. It showed an abandoned farm shed and you had to look very closely to realise that the various bits of wood, posts, corrugated iron and old tyres spelled out the letters of the band’s name.

 Macca’s hand was still in demand and he created artwork for commissions from Frontier Touring (The Rolling Stones at Hanging Rock, 2014), Warner Music (Boogie: Australian Blues R&B And Heavy Rock From The ’70s, Silver Roads: Australian Country Rock & Singer Songwriters of the ’70s, The Glory Days Of Aussie Pub Rock Vol. 1 and Vol 2); Spectrum (Breathing Space CD), Starman Books (Rockin Australia: 50 Years of Concert Posters 1957-2007, compiled by James Anfuso) and Renegade Films (RockWiz Salutes The Bowl, 2010, on which he collaborated with his friend and fellow artist Chris Grosz).

 There are probably many more stories to be told but I’ll leave it there. I’m honoured to have known Macca and to have been his friend. He certainly enriched my life. As his funeral notice stated: “Ian passed away peacefully at the Geelong Hospital 9 August 2022. Loved and loving husband of Melitta. Much loved father of Brigitte and Otis. Proud G.D. of Dia, Elke and Oscar. Father-in-law and friend to Shaun, Silvana and Jodie. Rest in Peace. Legend.”

Mushroom Records 1973

Frank Zappa In Australia

Frank Zappa In Australia

By Ian McFarlane

This article was originally published in Rhythms magazine Issue #313 (September-October 2022)

 SOUNDS OF THE CITY

Australia has a long-term connection with the music of Frank Zappa. Ian McFarlane investigates from ‘Trouble Every Day’ and Zappa Plays Zappa to ‘Inca Roads’ and AC/DC

FRANK ZAPPA IN AUSTRALIA

“And I’m watchin’ and I’m waitin’ / Hopin’ for the best / Even think I’ll go to prayin’ / Every time I hear ’em sayin’ / That there’s no way to delay that trouble comin’ every day” (‘Trouble Every Day’ by Frank Zappa)

Over recent years I’ve become increasingly obsessed with Frank Zappa and his music. He is one of rock’s more fascinating characters and his music presents boundless possibilities. The legendary moustachioed one has been cited as one of the most influential and challenging musicians of the rock era. He’s been called everything from “iconoclast” (which could either mean he’s a genius or just a very naughty boy) to “visionary” (which suggests that regular mortals such as us are yet to catch up with his achievements).

His music has encompassed everything from garage R&B, doo wop and jazz fusion to classical, avant garde and Musique concrète, and several points beyond. Words such as “non-conformity”, “improvisation”, “experimental”, “virtuosity” and “satire” have been used to characterise him and his work. And while improvisation was an important element of his live work, all of his compositions were just that: strictly composed and charted but allowing appropriate space for those all-important improvisational segments. For the 35 years of his career, his music had the capacity to captivate / bewilder, inspire / repel, amaze / outrage, intrigue / confound listeners; as it continues to do long after his death in 1993.

It’s not my purpose here to explain or evaluate his contribution to the annals of rock music, merely to delve into one aspect of his career: his connection with Australia or, more to the point, our connection with him. For further analysis of Zappa and his music I’d suggest that you explore some of the multiple articles and books written on the subject. I’ve read half a dozen books on the subject, which is only scratching the surface.

For starters, if you’re interested, try No Commercial Potential The Saga of Frank Zappa & The Mothers Of Invention (1972) by David Walley, Mother! Is The Story Of Frank Zappa (1985) by Michael Gray or The Real Frank Zappa Book (1989) by Frank Zappa with Peter Occhiogrosso. Then if you’re further inspired, go for Frank Zappa The Negative Dialectics Of Poodle Play (1993) by Ben Watson, which is 600 densely packed pages of dissertation on not only his music, but also philosophy, theology, classical music, politics, economics, censorship etcetera. I only made it to the end by sheer force of will.

So what do all those rambling introductory remarks mean? It’s Zappa’s music that endures.

Frank Vincent Zappa

Frank Vincent Zappa was born in 1940. As one of America’s pre-eminent musicians, composers, guitarists, singers, songwriters and bandleaders he produced something in the vicinity of 62 albums in his lifetime, with many more released following his death.

The first Zappa albums I can recall hearing were Just Another Band From L.A. (1972) and Apostrophe (’) (1974). In the pre-punk days of the mid-70s, when I was 15-16 years old seriously getting into music, a friend’s older brother had them and we’d play ’em when he wasn’t home. Said older brother also had records by Hawkwind, Nazareth, King Crimson and The Kinks, so unwittingly he had a hand in my musical education. I liked ‘Dog Breath’ from Just Another Band... and ‘Don’t Eat The Yellow Snow’ and ‘Cosmik Debris’ from Apostrophe (’).

After that, while I investigated all sorts of musical avenues, I lost my way a bit with Zappa. I just didn’t know which way to head when it came to buying his records. Tracks such as ‘Fifty-Fifty’ and ‘I’m The Slime’ from Over-Nite Sensation, ‘Inca Roads’ and ‘Po-Jama People’ from One Size Fits All and ‘Muffin Man’ from Bongo Fury were outstanding, but then there was his 1960s albums to contend with. Nevertheless, while Zappa’s music was full of complex twists and turns, his songs were always memorable and never short of melodic inventiveness. ‘Inca Roads’ remains my favourite Zappa track.

Next, Joe’s Garage I, II and III and Sheik Yerbouti were popular around my block. ‘Wet T-Shirt Nite’, ‘Joe’s Garage’, ‘Catholic Girls’, ‘A Token Of My Extreme’ and ‘Dancing Fool’ combined Zappa’s commercial acumen with some of his more controversial lyrical statements.

He scored the closest thing to a hit single here with the hilarious 1982 song ‘Valley Girl’, which featured his teenage daughter Moon Unit’s spot on parodic take on the “Valley Girl Speak” of her San Fernando Valley contemporaries. The 1984 album Them Or Us connected with me. Reviewing the album for Juke magazine at the time I wrote, “This album serves up a bevy of surreal anarchy, a diverse selection of styles and moods guaranteed to have fans lapping it up while others run a mile”.

Tracks such as ‘Stevie’s Spanking’, ‘Truck Driver Divorce’ and a version of the Allman Brothers’ classic ‘Whipping Post’ are very powerful. It was certainly one of his more straight forward rock albums with blistering guitar work from a young Steve Vai. Not that Zappa was a chump in the guitar stakes... he was a phenomenal player and many of his 70s and early 80s albums are chock full of his licks. I also mentioned the live ‘Dog Breath’ earlier which features one of the mightiest examples of his wah wah explorations in the rock mode.

In fact, the three volume Shut Up ’n Play Yer Guitar series (1981) and the multi-volume You Can’t Do That On Stage Anymore (from 1988 onwards) are strictly celebrations of his guitar prowess in the live arena.

When it came to accessing Zappa’s records in Australia, it was inevitably a bit of a mine field. He’d started out on Verve/MGM, switched to Warner Reprise, had his own Bizarre, Straight, DiscReet, Barking Pumpkin and Zappa imprints, been distributed by Phonogram, Warners, CBS, Festival, EMI ad nauseum, so one was hard pushed to follow the trail.

The very first Mothers Of Invention record released here was the 1966 single ‘How Could I Be Such A Fool’ on Verve. How anyone in the Astor organisation (which held the Verve distribution license in Australia at the time) thought it might have some commercial potential is staggering to imagine now. It’s reckoned that only 100 copies were pressed. (By the way, even more bizarre is the fact that Astor also issued the Velvet Underground’s ‘Sunday Morning’ as a Verve 45 here in 1967. Both singles are highly sought after collectors’ items these days.)

The debut Mothers Of Invention album Freak Out! (1966) was not issued here at the time. It eventually got an official release here on CD in 1995 when the Rykodisc label took over Zappa’s catalogue and commenced an extensive reissue programme. At least Freak Out! must have made its way to Australia on import because singer Ross ‘The Boss’ Wilson has cited it as one of his earliest musical influences. He would also have heard Absolutely Free (1967), We’re Only In It For The Money (1967) and Cruising With Ruben & The Jets (1968) which did get released locally. The Zappa influence was evident on Wilson’s live craft with The Sons Of The Vegetal Mother and the likes of Daddy Cool’s ‘Teen Love’ extravaganza and ‘Make Your Stash’ from Sex, Dope, Rock & Roll: Teenage Heaven (1972).

When it came to other local musicians influenced, or at least inspired by, Zappa I can mention Gulliver Smith, Russell Smith and Jeremy Noone (real name Jeremy Kellock), lead singer, guitarist and electric saxophonist respectfully with progressive psych band Company Caine. Gulliver was known for his be-bop monologues and freaky lyrics which had a Zappaesque slant to them. Also the band was known to play a version of ‘King Kong’ at various festivals and concert events, which is one of Zappa’s more challenging 60s compositions. Furthermore, if Company Caine’s astonishing ‘The Day Superman Got Busted’ (from the 1971 album A Product Of A Broken Reality) isn’t an unhinged exploration of Zappa proportions then I don’t know what is. (Note: Kellock also played on Sex, Dope, Rock & Roll: Teenage Heaven.)

Sydney band Duck, featuring guitarist John Robinson (ex-Blackfeather) and singers Bobbi Marcini and Jon English, covered ‘Dog Breath’ on their 1972 album Laid. I’d like to think that the master himself would have approved of Robinson’s exciting, spot on wah wah solo.

Heavy rock band Bakery were known to cover ‘Road Ladies’ (from Chunga’s Revenge, 1970) in concert. (More on this below...). Then there was Sydney pub band Big Swifty who derived their name from a track title on Waka/Jawaka (1972). It’s doubtful, however, the band ever actually covered said song, because it’s an epic, multi-part, 18 minute jazz fusion behemoth, among Zappa’s more eclectic compositions. By the way, Big Swifty morphed into pub rock faves The Radiators.

One thing to note here is that while Zappa was one of the original 60s freaks, he was never a hippie. In fact he abhorred the hippie lifestyle and all it stood for. So while Zappa was overlooked by the fashionable flower children of the era, the more progressive leaning musicians did have a thing for him. He was also prescient when it came to concocting genres having included the song ‘Flower Punk’ on We’re Only In It For The Money. Years later Melbourne psych band Sand Pebbles described their music as, you guessed it... “flower punk”.

Sydney jazz ensemble Petulant Frenzy were known for getting together on special occasions during the late 2000s to perform the music of Frank Zappa. Writing for the Sydney Herald Sun, Pat Sheil reviewed a concert at the Basement (December 2009): “Describing Petulant Frenzy as a ‘Frank Zappa covers band’ is akin to describing the Australian Chamber Orchestra as ‘a group that rehashes old Mozart hits’. But the back-handed compliment of being a ‘hot covers band’ was shrugged off by the Frenzy many moons ago, as a devoted audience of jazz musicians and rabid nostalgics realised they were not simply a note-for-note re-enactment.”

Wollongong stoner rockers Tumbleweed included a psychedelicised version of ‘Trouble Every Day’ (from the Freak Out! album) as a B-side on their 1993 single ‘Daddy Long Legs’. Most recently, Beasts Of Bourbon included ‘The Torture Never Stops’ on their 2019 album Still Here.

Then there was Australian pianist, composer and conductor Allan Zavod OAM whose career played out mostly in America. He toured as part of Zappa’s 1984 live band, appearing on the archival live albums Does Humour Belong In Music? (1986, recorded September-December 1984) and You Can’t Do That On Stage Anymore Vol 1 (1988).

Zappa’s first solo album, following the dissolution of the original Mothers band, Hot Rats (1969) was a seminal instalment in the evolution of jazz fusion and progressive rock. Zappa described it as “a movie for your ears”, and it remains his most revered album. It would have been likewise popular here at the time, as were 200 Motels (1971), Fillmore East June 1971 (1971) and The Grand Wazoo (1972). These are the kinds of countercultural touchstones that got an airing in the right places.

During that era, musician (and future Rhythms contributor) Keith Glass ran Archie ’n’ Jughead’s import record store, along with writer David ‘Dr. Pepper’ Pepperell. Glass recalls, “Frank’s albums were more popular in Melbourne than they seemed to be in the US. I love the first couple – Ross Wilson introduced them to me – but the biggest seller was the white cover Fillmore East album as Warners did not release it locally at the time. We sold the heck out of it for years – so I never need to hear it again!”

Photographer Brecon Walsh told me about some of his experiences attending the Much More Ballroom concerts at Cathedral Hall, Fitzroy, circa 1972. He said, “I remember one time talking with Rob Mackenzie, Jen Jewel Brown and Renée Geyer. We were standing in the hall and Peter Lillie was over to the left hanging there looking like a hippie aristocrat / early Roxy Music Eno. Renée was there with her first band, Sun, and she would have been 19, if that then. I recall that The Mothers’ Live at The Fillmore East was playing over the PA with Zappa’s ‘Latex Solar Beef’ or ‘The Mud Shark’ blasting out.”

Frank Zappa On Stage

Frank Zappa and the Mothers toured Australia twice: June-July 1973 (John Gunnell on behalf of Robert Stigwood with Tour Consultants Evans, Gudinski Associates P/L present Frank Zappa The Mothers of Invention) and January 1976. The 1973 tour took in 11 concerts, including four at Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion and three at Melbourne’s Festival Hall (a proposed fourth there was cancelled). Folkie Glenn Cardier and country rock band Albatross (featuring guitarist Lindsay Bjerre, ex-Tamam Shud) were supports in Sydney.

Jazz fusion masters MacKenzie Theory were due to provide support in Melbourne but, as guitarist Rob Mackenzie told me, Zappa cancelled their appearance. Mackenzie was unsure as to why Zappa did so but suggested that “our style of jazz rock fusion might have been too similar to his, or maybe he felt we might upstage him”.

That is possible but supposition only, because the 1973 tour featured one of Zappa’s best live bands: George Duke (keyboards, synthesizer, vocals), Tom Fowler (bass), Bruce Fowler (trombone), Ruth Underwood (marimba, vibraphone, percussion), Ian Underwood (woodwinds), Ralph Humphrey (drums), Sal Marquez (trumpet, vocals) and Jean Luc Ponty (violin). He often introduced them as “our rockin’ teenage combo”.

The repertoire encompassed the likes of ‘Dupree’s Paradise’, ‘Cosmik Debris’, ‘Montana’, ‘Big Swifty’ / ‘Eat That Question’, ‘Inca Roads’ and the ‘Yellow Snow Suite’. Many of the concerts were two hours long and recorded evidence (i.e. audience bootlegs) attests to the brilliance of this particular Mothers line-up. Anecdotal reports also indicate that the pungent smoke haze wafting above the audience was a show in itself.

Ben Watson wrote in The Negative Dialectics Of Poodle Play of a ruction at one of the Hordern shows. An overenthusiastic (or perhaps belligerent) audience member lit a firework. “Zappa very expertly paused mid-song, called on security to remove the culprit, no doubt not wishing to relive his memories of the fire at Geneva in 1971 (Ed note: when “some stupid with a flare gun” burnt down the Montreux Casino, an event immortalised by Deep Purple in the song ‘Smoke On The Water’), and then used the routine to vent his wrath with a verbal improvisation.”

On this tour, Zappa dropped into Chequers club in Sydney and caught a set by Bakery fronted by singer Barry Leef. He was suitably impressed by Leef’s vocals and invited him to sing with the band at one of their Festival Hall concerts. Leef sang guest vocals on a performance of a blues jam which incorporated ‘Road Ladies’. Zappa then asked Leef to move to Los Angeles and join the Mothers, but visa and work permit problems arose when it came time for Leef to head off and he reluctantly had to decline the offer. The prospects could have been interesting but Zappa always moved like a tiger on Vaseline and he had a new vocalist, Napoleon Murphy Brock, lined up in short order.

John Robinson interviewed Zappa for Soundblast magazine (August 1973). Robinson was a noted Zappa fan and based on the masters’ answers, the extensive interview was a great success. A couple of excerpts include:

JR: “One thing that amazed me on ‘It Must Be A Camel’ was the tremendous depth you got right at the end like a reflection of the theme restatement.”

FZ: “Amazing – you’re the first person to pick that out! Ian Underwood got that effect by playing a bass clarinet walking around the studio. He was being recorded with two mics, in different parts of the room.”

JR: “Do you see yourself as educating your audience as you go along?”

FZ: “We’re trying to correct the missing link between pop music and so-called serious music, and also record company executives who need to find out what they are selling. This is because they don’t really know just how important rock music is today.”

Zappa made appearances on TV shows while in Australia, including The Ernie Sigley Show in Adelaide and the ABC-TV arts/discussion programme Monday Conference, hosted by Robert Moore. The full Monday Conference appearance is available to view on YouTube. Zappa fielded questions posed by Moore, a number of specialist panel members (including future Double Jay presenter Chris Winter and a young journalist called J.J. Adams) and people in the audience about politics, sex, drugs, rock’n’roll, consumerism, advertising, media manipulation, censorship, groupies and radio. He proved to be very articulate, listening closely and answering every question with intelligence and wit.

Returning for the 1976 tour, the version of the Mothers was a smaller (but no less impressive) group: Zappa, Brock (vocals, sax), André Lewis (keyboards), Roy Estrada (bass, and who had been an original Mother in the 60s) and Terry Bozzio (drums). They were promoting the DiscReet LPs Bongo Fury, One Size Fits All, Apostrophe (’) and Roxy & Elsewhere. The seven-date itinerary took in concerts in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. Wendy Saddington supported in Melbourne and Split Enz in Perth. Graphic designer Chris Grosz created one of the iconic Zappa posters for this tour.

The repertoire incorporated ‘Filthy Habits’, ‘Black Napkins’, ‘The Illinois Enema Bandit’, ‘The Torture Never Stops’, ‘Muffin Man’, ‘Zoot Allures’ etc. This time, however, while the playing was again splendid Zappa tended to allow the jamming tendencies of this group to get out of hand so the end effect now sounds a bit overwrought.

A bootleg called Back On The Straight And Narrow (recorded in Adelaide, 24 January) had made its way on to the market at the time. Then in 2002 an official archival recording of one of the Hordern Pavilion shows (20 January) came out, FZ:OZ (pronounced “Eff Zee:Oh Zee”) which was a 27-track double CD. It’s a very good representation of the concert.

What is remarkable for us to hear is the guest appearance of Norman Gunston (aka actor Garry McDonald) playing harmonica on ‘The Torture Never Stops’. The Gunston-Zappa connection came about when – with the Zappa tour imminent – McDonald and his crew flew to Los Angeles and secured an interview for The Norman Gunston Show. The hilarious interview excerpt is viewable on YouTube.

Award winning crime novelist Shane Maloney later wrote a piece for The Monthly (August 2009), saying “Frank Zappa was no stranger to Australia and its wildlife. Inspired by a monotreme encountered during his 1973 tour, the avant-rock polymath composed a complex jazz-fusion instrumental entitled ‘Echidna’s Arf (Of You)’. Three years later, he came face-to-face with that even rarer antipodean creature, the little Aussie bleeder, Norman Gunston.”

Zappa was initially bemused by Gunston’s manic persona but caught on to his humour quickly. When Norman produced a harmonica and suggested they jam together, Frank played a blues shuffle on his acoustic guitar and the multimedia star blew up a brief storm, deftly incorporating the ABC-TV News theme into his outro. “The boy has got a promising career,” Gunston concluded, “and when he comes to Australia, give him a break. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Frank Zappa, Mother Superior of The Mothers of Invention.”

Zappa reciprocated by inviting Gunston to join him on stage in Sydney. Kicking into ‘The Torture Never Stops’, Zappa introduced his new friend as “Ladies and gentlemen, Norman ‘Blind Lemon’ Gunston The Little Aussie Bleeder”. Zappa and his band were later spotted at the much loved Bondi Lifesaver, partaking in après concert activities (possibly catching a set by AC/DC).

In fact, the seemingly enigmatic Zappa was omnipresent while in Australia. He went into the studios of the recently launched FM radio station Double Jay (2JJ) for an interview and to play tracks. Arnold Frolows was a music programmer at the time and remembers the event.

Frank Zappa poster 1976 by Chris Grosz

“Yes, Frank came in and I was there ‘producing’,” Frolows explained to me. “He was interviewed by the very nervous late Mac Cocker on what was the 2-6 pm drive time show but could have been 4-6 pm. Mac and I were the ultimate Zappa fans so you can imagine how overwhelmed and excited we felt. Frank couldn’t have been more affable in his usual Frank ‘I don’t suffer fools gladly’ way. I also got to meet my other all time hero the great Roy Estrada at a later gig... big times for a fan like me!”

And did you know that our illustrious editor of Rhythms, and long-time presenter of Off The Record on Triple R, Brian Wise is also a Zappa fan. He got his community radio start at PBS-FM and in the book 40 Years Of PBS Radio there’s a grainy black and white photo of Brian in the cramped studio circa 1980; you can only see his back but one of the albums just visible on the console is Frank Zappa’s Shut Up ’n Play Yer Guitar. He has interviewed George Duke for Off The Record.

Likewise, renowned radio presenter and regular Rhythms / Triple R contributor Billy Pinnell is also a major Zappa fanatic. He has been collecting his albums for many years, attended several of Zappa’s concerts and interviewed him in 1983. At the start of the interview, the ever fastidious Zappa gave Billy a polite lesson in R&B history:

BP: “Thanks for your time Frank. The title track of your new album, The Man From Utopia, is a medley with an old Ronnie Hawkins song ‘Mary Lou’. Is the song ‘The Man From Utopia’ from that era as well?”

FZ: “Yes, but you’re incorrect that it’s a Ronnie Hawkins song. So here’s some rock’n’roll history; ‘Mary Lou’ was originally written by Obie Jessie who recorded under the name of Young Jessie circa 1955. ‘The Man From Utopia’ was released around that time too, it was the B-side of a hit called ‘Death Of An Angel’ by Donald Woods and The Bel-Aires. When Ronnie Hawkins decided to record ‘Mary Lou’ he claimed the writing and publishing credit for himself and wound up getting sued by Obie Jessie and Obie won the case.”

With recent events in the US, Zappa would be turning in his grave now. Pinnell asked: “Were you surprised when ‘Valley Girl’ became such a big hit in America?” His pithy reply was, “Well it’s pretty hard to be surprised because as with anything in America, stupidity knows no bounds.” (Note: the full interview is available on Pinnell’s iTunes podcast Billy Pinnell The Music Show).

Zappa Plays Zappa

Frank Zappa died on 4 December 1993, a victim of prostate cancer. The aforementioned Allan Zavod (who passed away in 2016) wrote a tribute piece to Zappa in the February 1994 issue of Rolling Stone magazine. They had been neighbours in LA by the time he joined Zappa’s band in 1984.

He wrote: “Playing with Zappa was the greatest gig that any musician could wish for. He always challenged you, stretching your musical abilities beyond your wildest imagination. As a musician, he was never boring. Each night was a new experience. We did 250 shows in one year - each show unique in some way. The vast amount of musical material in itself was an enormous challenge to learn. Frank would pull out songs we hadn’t done for six months. On the first day of a three week rehearsal, Frank presented me with 200 tunes and asked if I could learn them in that space of time. I began to realise you could never learn all of Frank’s music - it was a continuous ongoing adventure. Sorry to kill the myth that he was weird and wild; his lyrics may have been, but the man was not. Zappa was a serious composer and one of the most professional musicians I’ve ever been associated with.”

By 1993, Frank’s son Dweezil was entrenched in his own career. Growing up, his guitar heroes had been Eddie Van Halen, Randy Rhoads and Jimi Hendrix. In fact, it was Van Halen who produced his debut single, ‘My Mother Is A Space Cadet’, when he was 12 years old (1982).

In the late 1980s, when Dweezil was working as a VJ for the MTV network, he befriended INXS while Jenny Morris was singing backing vocals with them. She then invited him to tour Australia as her guitarist. Still, he was never far from his father’s influence and in 2006 he elected to honour his music and legacy by touring as Zappa Plays Zappa. Since then he has toured Australia three times (2007, 2011, 2018) with his fourth, proposed tour curtailed by the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020.

Dweezil has managed to translate his father’s work from record to the live stage by balancing his father’s original intentions with his own approach to how he interprets the music. In some instances, such as with ‘Son Of Mr. Green Genes’ (from Hot Rats), he learned his father’s seven-minute guitar solo, note-for-note, because what he played originally was so pivotal and specific in that instance. For a glimpse of the music of Zappa Plays Zappa there’s YouTube footage of Australian trumpet player Kendal Cuneo delivering a gorgeous, Miles Davis styled solo on the otherwise salacious ‘The Illinois Enema Bandit’ (from the Forum, 1 April 2018).

In August 2017, Greg Phillips interviewed Dweezil for Musician magazine.

“The goal of this particular show is to present the audience with more of a chronological experience of my dad’s music,” Dweezil told him. “We go from Freak Out! to a bunch of Mothers Of Invention stuff. Then it gets into the early 70s and 200 Motels and jumps around within the 70s. There will be a host of things from different records and there are a few songs from the 80s. It’s usually almost a three hour show, two hours and 45 minutes on average but it can be longer. The real goal is to give the audience the chance to hear a variety of musical styles within my dad’s whole catalogue but from song to song there is a ton of variety too. We have added in a few things that we haven’t played before. The thing is … the music is hard. There is no way you can get around that. You can’t fake playing the music.”

Frank Zappa & AC/DC

To conclude, Dweezil Zappa once revealed that his father was an AC/DC fan. In a 2017 interview with Classic Rock magazine, he said that Frank even tried to sign them following his 1976 tour. They ended up signing to Atlantic Records for the US.

“He wanted them for his own label because he thought they were great. I think he saw what everybody saw. They could play, they had a ton of energy and they were authentic. It was blues-based and it had an attitude. The thing about AC/DC is they’ve carved a massive career out of playing one style that’s changed very, very little. That’s what people love, that consistency. They’re rock solid and they have a great sound. He (Frank) loved rhythm and blues. AC/DC is essentially a very heavy-duty, electrified rhythm and blues band. He actually had one of their records. When I was getting into music he played it for me. It was either Back In Black or Highway To Hell. He just thought they were great because they were really just a high volume version of the Blues.”

Dweezil also revealed that AC/DC guitarists Malcolm and Angus Young played on one of his tracks, recorded as a tribute to his father. Around 1994 they played on ‘What The Hell I Was Thinking’, a continuous, 65-minute piece of music that is yet to be completed. Eddie Van Halen, Brian May, Eric Johnson, Steve Morse, Joe Walsh and Yngwie Malmsteen also contributed parts. He said Angus played six or seven different takes for his solo and every single one was very well crafted.

Datura 4 - Neanderthal Jam

Datura 4 - Neanderthal Jam

DATURA 4 - Neanderthal Jam (Alive Records)

Review by Ian McFarlane

Originally published Rhythms magazine (Issue #313) September-October 2022

Let’s boogie! Neanderthal Jam is the fifth album from Perth-based band Datura 4. Led by seasoned singer / guitarist / songwriter Dom Mariani, there’s no guess work involved when it comes to these guys musically: full-tilt hard rock, boogie and blues in the classic forthright fashion with a liberal seasoning of heavy psych-soul. Very tasty indeed.

When it comes to Mariani himself, I wondered if he might have no little personality crisis going on musically. There’s been ’60s Garage Rock Dom (The Stems), Power Pop / Jangle Pop Dom (DM3, The Someloves), Surf Rock Dom (The Stone Fish, Majestic Kelp) and Boogie Rock Dom (Datura 4). Naturally, Datura 4 has been compared to just about every vintage hard rock / fuzz rock entity in existence – Cream, Blue Öyster Cult, Grand Funk Railroad, Blue Cheer, Groundhogs etc. with a nod to the Australian chapter of Carson, Master’s Apprentices, Chain, Billy Thorpe & The Aztecs and Perth locals Bakery. And I would throw in other American acts such as Cactus, Nitzinger, James Gang and Steppenwolf with a soulful West Coast rock vibe.

“I’ve always loved those kinds of bands,” Mariani confirms. “They were a major inspiration when I was growing up, I had a lot of the albums. It’s that primal rock sound, simple but heavy riffs, flavoured with great melodies. I’m also still connected to the Aussie Rock thing too, it’s very much still a part of the band’s sound. It was that impressionable age of 15-16 when you’re trying to find out who you are, trying to be cool. It was just what was happening musically, that blues rock, hard rock sound. I was watching GTK on the TV, seeing the bands at school socials. I remember seeing the Coloured Balls headlining the Freo Rock concert and that made a real impression on me.”

 The current band line-up of Mariani (guitar, vocals), Warren Hall (drums), Stu Loasby (bass), Bob Patient (keyboards) and Joe Grech (guitar, vocals) gets a boost with the addition of blues slide master Dave Hole as a guest player on the rip-roarin’ ‘Going Back To Hoonsville’. Hole has been tearing up the blues since the late 1960s, while Patient was a long-time member of his band, so it’s not hard to appreciate the combination.

 “Dave Hole is a real champion, such a great guy. I first met him when the booking agency Saturn Enterprises got my first band, Gypsy, a Monday night gig at the Sandgroper supporting the Dave Hole Band. I was fresh out of high school and it was a real eye opener. He was amazing, playing those great songs like Rory Gallagher’s ‘Bullfrog Blues’ and Eric Clapton’s ‘Motherless Children’. He had that whole unorthodox slide guitar technique of playing over the top of his fretboard and it was very exciting watching him. I’ve followed him ever since. Also, I first saw Bob in Fatty Lumpkin and later he worked on DM3 sessions. I wanted that Hammond organ sound on the albums.”

 As a long-time listener to the band’s music, the major revelation for me is the development in the song writing. Not that the early albums lacked substance but initially they comprised songs written by Mariani; by the third it was Hall/Loasby/Mariani and now it’s all songs by Datura 4, a more collaborative approach.

 “That’s been a natural evolution. In the early days I’d present songs I had written to the guys at rehearsals, ‘this is how I want it to go’ and away we went. We got over the first couple of albums and we realised we had more in us and it’s more the case now that I’ve got the germ of an idea, we have a jam and we all contribute. And Bob has really opened up the palette for the different songs we write now. I’m trying to broaden my songs, some bluesy, some West Coast psychedelia, hard rock; for me it’s always been about writing good songs.”

 ‘Open The Line’ is one of the key cuts, a superbly commercial slice of buoyant hard rock that would do any band proud. Guitarist Stevie Van Zandt aka Little Steven has been an unabashed fan of Mariani’s work for many years, and recently chose ‘Open The Line’ as “The Coolest Song in the World” on his popular radio show on SiriusXM, The Underground Garage.

 “Oh yeah, Little Steven has always been a great supporter of what I do. He got The Stems over to the US to play one of his concerts a few years ago. He just likes what I do and I’ve always been grateful for his support. He’s a very funny guy. We got to catch up when he came out here with The Disciples Of Soul.”

Photo courtesy of Datura 4 promotions

 Digging deeper and the likes of ‘Bad Times’, ‘Black Speakers’, ‘Worried Man’s Boogie’ and in particular the super-charged ‘Digging My Own Grave’ (whoa! those twin guitar lines) push the energy levels to overload. ‘Black Speakers’ for example features that classic Stratocaster guitar / Marshall amp combo. Yet it’s not all energy over substance; the most abiding elements tying these tunes together are the tight structures and melodic inventiveness.

 There’s a great deal of diversity here too, the range and variety of tonal colours being impressive. The instrumental title track brings the mood down with an acoustic guitar motif, cruising beat, funky keyboard lines, blues harp, subtle washes of wah wah and a suitably lysergic vibe. A very cool track. The mournful ‘Hold My Life’ likewise works the acoustic side of the band to perfection.

 The guys stretch out on the final track, the eight minute ‘Drive By Island’. Rather than being a superficial afterthought to fill up the record, there’s not an ounce of fat wasted on this gem. I’m calling it my favourite track, not least for the astonishingly grand melody, the shifting arrangement and the gorgeous rising harmonies but principally for the quality of the ensemble playing. It’s a Datura 4 classic of the highest order.

Sound As Ever

SOUND AS EVER – A celebration of the greatest decade in Australian music 1990-1999 (Melbourne Books)

By Jane Gazzo & Andrew P. Street

Book review by Ian McFarlane

Every generation of music fanatics has its own era. By that I mean they came of age at the time, they saw their favourite bands playing live for the first time, they formed their own bands, they bought the records, they lived the life. For broadcasters and journalists Jane Gazzo and Andrew P. Street it was the 1990s, which saw the explosion of Australian alternative rock. So Sound As Ever is essentially a celebration of the bands and events of the era.

 Gazzo got her start as a teenager presenting an indie show on 3RRR, and is best known for her work with the ABC’s Triple J and Recovery at the time, and subsequently as presenter of The Sound. She also fronted her own indie band circa 1994/95, Rubher, so is well placed to commentate on the era. Likewise, Street was a regular contributor to the street press and Rolling Stone, and in his own words is a “failed indie rock superstar”.

 Their book Sound As Ever grew out of the Facebook community page that Gazzo and Scott Thurling (of Popboomerang Records) set up in 2020. Of course, the title is taken from You Am I’s 1993 debut album. Nostalgia retains a pull on the emotions, and often it’s that 20 year cycle that ignites the memories. The FB page became so popular that it spawned CD collections of unreleased tracks from the era, as well as a series of Sound As Ever gigs. A book was the logical next step.

 If names such as You Am I, The Cruel Sea, Ratcat, Something For Kate, Tumbleweed, Sidewinder, Gaslight Radio, Spiderbait, Holocene etc, plus events such as Big Day Out, Meredith Music Festival and Push Over resonate then this book is perfect for you. Just don’t expect a full recounting of the era’s history and developments, as the book presents a snapshot via photographs, gig posters and flyers, reflections, lists, diary entries and other ephemera.

 I like rock ’n’ roll ephemera so have no issues with the content. Also, while I started out seeing pub gigs at 18 in 1978, I was still a regular gig goer and record buyer throughout the 1990s so I saw many of the bands addressed here. In fact, I have contributed to the book in a small way but I’m not beating my own drum because it’s Gazzo and Street’s deal.

 Gazzo says her abiding memory of that era is one of freedom and joy. “Freedom to run around pubs and clubs at night inhaling the local inner city sounds and the joy of discovering new bands and seeing old ones do what they do best - play music to appreciative audiences. There was also the joy of listening to community radio and hearing your mate’s bands on the air and that sense of community. It was strong and everyone seemed to help everyone. I felt it was a time of unlimited potential. I was young and felt that we could all conquer the world - and some of us did just that!”

 The design replicates a scrapbook approach to presenting the era, so it has an occasionally grainy, fanzine look which might be distracting for some eyes but really does represent the emergence of indie rock and grunge in the day. Still, one might be tempted to quip that it also reflects that generation’s short attention span. Okay, I just did that but like a lot of teenagers Gazzo made her own scrapbooks based around her favourite bands.

 “One of my favourite bands of the 1990s was and still is Magic Dirt. I think Adalita is one of our greatest songwriters and most of Magic Dirt’s music has stayed with me through the years. I also love early You Am I. My fave song? So many... but right now it’s Roland S. Howard’s ‘She Cried’ from his criminally ignored, 1999 album Teenage Snuff Film. I want to be buried with that record.”

 Did you know that the members of Sydney indie band with the unpronounceable name of SPDFGH derived it from their high school physics exams (SPDFGH corresponds to the orbitals of electrons within an atom)? And did you know that the night The Cruel Sea won five ARIA awards in 1993 one of the shiny objects was pinched from under their noses, only to turn up 27 years later in a skip in Darlinghurst then offered for sale on Facebook Marketplace? (You’ll have to read the book to find out how that story ended.)

 As for the subtitle, A celebration of the greatest decade in Australian music 1990-1999: what is it that makes the 1990s “the greatest decade in Australian music”?

 “It’s a bold statement isn’t it?!” Gazzo affirms. “And it is meant to be bold! It’s the greatest for so many reasons: the breadth and scope of artists - many of whom are still playing today; the amount of bands that were signed in the great commercial record label signings/swallow up of independent bands; the songs, the festivals, the charismatic personalities of our front men and women. I think the ’90s is the last decade of innocence in a way. It was a time without mobile phones and the internet was in its infancy. We relied on radio and TV to help us choose our anthems and the journo’s word in the street press or newspapers was gospel. I think the internet and mobile phones changed everything for Australian music. Some of it’s good of course, but some of it not so good, but as Screamfeeder’s Tim Steward said: ‘It wasn’t to last and why should it? The future was beckoning’.”

The First Australian Blues/Rock Festival, 1975

Originally published in Rhythms magazine, November/December 2019 (Issue #296)

Sounds of the City – The First Australian Blues/Rock Festival, 1975

By Ian McFarlane © 2019

Thanks to Sleepy Greg Lawrie, Adrian Anderson and Gerald McNamara

On the Australian rock music touring circuit, the international package tour has been a mainstay, and guaranteed crowd puller, since the advent of rock ’n’ roll in the 1950s.

You only have to consider the likes of the Lee Gordon Big Shows, where you’d get Little Richard, Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran (1957) or Buddy Holly and the Crickets, Jerry Lee Lewis and Paul Anka (1958), with local support from Johnny O’Keefe and the Dee Jays.

The 1960s was the era of Roy Orbison, The Walker Brothers and The Yardbirds (1967), and The Who, The Small Faces and Paul Jones (1968). In 1971 you could have gone to see Deep Purple, Free and Manfred Mann, or The Giants of Jazz – Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonius Monk, Sonny Stitt and Art Blakey. In 1973 it was Slade, Lindisfarne, Caravan and Status Quo. Moving on, there was the Legends of Rock (1989) with Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bo Diddley, The Everly Brothers and Lesley Gore. The 1990s saw the advent of the enormously successful Big Day Out travelling juggernaut, with just as many local acts as the big name international bands.

There are, no doubt, many more that you could remember but one lesser known event that has always intrigued me is the First Australian Blues/Rock Festival tour which took place in March 1975. The overseas contingent consisted of Freddie King and his Band, Alexis Korner, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Hound Dog Taylor and the HouseRockers and Duster Bennett with local supports Phil Manning, Renee Geyer and Sanctuary, Matt Taylor, Smokestack Lightning and Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band. The tour was sponsored by Levi’s jeans with the banner reading Levi’s Presents the Blues. Renowned graphic designer Ian McCausland created the art for the banner and the concert handbill.

The full tour took in Brisbane (1 March), Sydney (2 March), Wollongong (3 March), Canberra (4 March), Adelaide (5 March), Perth (6 March) and Melbourne (9 March) and was described as the “biggest airlift of international talent since the days of Lee Gordon”. For the princely sum of $4.50 you got six hours of hot blues and R&B, indeed “a feast of incredible electric blues”. In between the main concerts a number of the artists did side gigs at various university campuses and small clubs.

Promoted by Evans Gudinski and Associates, it was the first time there’d been so many blues artists on the one tour. Many local musicians at the time were blues fanatics and Michael Gudinski, as well as being a shrewd record company CEO and tour promoter, was also a fan (he’d already toured Muddy Waters and his band with Chain and Matt Taylor as supports). Other international blues and R&B artists who had toured Australia previously – not necessarily through Gudinski’s company – included John Mayall, Canned Heat, Willie Dixon and the Chicago Blues All Stars, Buddy Guy and Junior Wells, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry and B. B. King, while Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee had already been to Australian four times. I’ve even heard mention that Josh White made it to Australia in the 1950s.

For decades in the States, the blues had only been associated with rural and working-class African-American audiences. It was only when young, white rock musicians and fans became enamoured with the blues during the 1950s and 1960s that black musicians were able to start transcending the typical racial and social barriers of the time. This lead to the rediscovery of many blues artists who’d been largely forgotten over the years.

One of the better know blues guitar giants of the day Freddie King – “The Electrifying Texas Cannonball” – headlined the tour. Known for his deep Texas blues and funk, he’d already released such influential examples of modern blues as ‘Hide Away’, ‘I’m Tore Down’, ‘The Welfare (Turns Its Back on You)’ and the original rendition of Don Nix’s oft-covered ‘Going Down’ (from the 1971, Leon-Russell produced album Getting Ready...). He was promoting his 1974 album Burglar.

French-born guitarist Alexis Korner – “Mr. Blues! The man responsible for The Rolling Stones and Cream” – was one of the most inspirational figures in British blues music. He’d formed Blues Incorporated in 1961 with Cyril Davies (harmonica), with the shifting line-up over the years featuring the likes of Charlie Watts, Mick Jagger, Art Wood, Long John Baldry, Jack Bruce, Graham Bond, Ginger Baker and Paul Jones. His encouragement was crucial to a generation of aspiring musicians. In the early 1970s he formed the pop-based big band C.C.S. (Collective Consciousness Society), scoring notable hits with a version of ‘Whole Lotta Love’ and ‘The Band Played the Boogie’.

Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee – “The world’s finest ethnic blues team” – had forged a long-term partnership since the 1940s, one of the most enduring in the blues. They proved enormously popular, having taken their folk blues to vast audiences worldwide. Sonny had been blinded as a teenager after two accidents. He was known for his distinctive singing voice, punctuated by falsetto whoops, and harmonica playing. Brownie played acoustic guitar and had already worked with the likes of Leadbelly and Josh White, recorded his own albums and later contributed electric lead guitar to albums by Champion Jack Dupree. By all accounts the duo never really got on and finally parted ways at the end of 1975.

Hound Dog Taylor and the HouseRockers – “Chicago’s greatest boogie blues band” – was a three-piece powerhouse, comprising Taylor (slide guitar), Brewer Phillips (lead guitar) and Ted Harvey (drums). Theodore ‘Hound Dog’ Taylor had played with Elmore James in Mississippi, before heading to Chicago in 1942 where he regularly played at the Maxwell Street markets. By the early 1970s he and the HouseRockers had became known for high energy bottleneck guitar blues and rocking R&B. He’d push his cheap Kingston Japanese guitar through a Silvertone amp with cracked speakers which further drove the intense distortion. Blues aficionado Bruce Iglauer formed the famed Alligator Records specifically to produce and release the band’s self-titled, debut album (1971).

Duster Bennett – “The internationally acclaimed one man band” – was a relative newcomer to the scene. He’d signed to Mike Vernon’s Blue Horizon label in 1968 and recorded his debut album backed by Peter Green and John McVie of Fleetwood Mac. His fourth album, Fingertips, and single ‘Sweet Sympathy’ came out locally on the Toadstool label to coincide with the tour.

Gudinski had set up Toadstool as a Mushroom budget subsidiary imprint to issue various blues records, also including Hound Dog’s Hound Dog Taylor and the HouseRockers and Natural Boogie and Korner’s Get Off My Cloud, plus albums by Flo and Eddie. The most intriguing release on Toadstool was the Levi’s Blues EP, featuring three tracks recorded live at the Melbourne Showgrounds concert by Armstrongs’ engineer Ian McKenzie. Essentially issued as a promotional release, you got handed a copy of the EP when you bought a new pair of Levi’s jeans.

Hound Dog says “Thank you, honey! I’ve been thinking about something, I don’t know what it is, but this is how the blues is, what you say?” and launches into a slow blues, ‘Everything’s Alright’. Korner does ‘Baby Doll’ and Bennett ‘Bright Lights, Big City’ with the audience clapping and singing along enthusiastically. Presumably the whole show was recorded so one wonders whatever happened to the mastertapes? Levi’s Blues is a great little period piece, a genuine collectors’ item, so if you ever see a copy second-hand be sure to snap it up.

In the wake of the tour, sadly three of the main participants died within the next 18 months – Hound Dog in December 1975, Bennett in March 1976 and King that December. It truly was the end of an era. Korner passed away in January 1984, Sonny in March 1986 and McGhee in February 1996.

Sleepy Greg Lawrie (Musician)

“I was playing guitar with Matt Taylor for that tour, it was after Carson had broken up. I remember the Sydney gig, at the Hordern Pavilion. It was great to watch Freddie King and his band play. They were one of the best live bands I’ve ever seen, absolutely incredible. They were like Weather Report but playing Texas blues. They were all seasoned, professional session players in that band, unapproachable in many ways. I’ve got a feeling they were doing a world tour, they’d been to England and Alexis Korner had helped them out. That’s why they had him on the Australian tour.

“Then there was Hound Dog Taylor and the HouseRockers. Just two guitars and drums but what an incredible sound! They were one of the rock ’n’ rollinest bands ever; completely authentic, 100% raw blues, real rock ’n’ roll blues. Hound Dog tore the roof off every night with his slide guitar. He was a fantastic player, very basic but he hit what needed to be hit, no more, no less. He had Ted Harvey on drums, who’d been Elmore James’ drummer for years.

“So they combined the best elements of Elmore James, Robert Nighthawk and JB Hutto and the Hawks, just like they were playing in Maxwell Street, Chicago. As well as their own stuff, they played all Elmore’s big hits, ‘Dust My Broom’, ‘Shake Your Moneymaker’. Genuine rock ’n’ roll blues, straight out of the south side of Chicago, as raw as hell but played with great spirit and real heart and soul.

“Half way through his set he’d say, ‘We’re gonna have a break for five minutes, and I mean five minutes’. He was back on stage in three and a half minutes! Those guys really meant it. They weren’t just playing the blues for the fun of it, they were singing about their life. They really shed blood for their music, it came across in their playing and their singing. Young white guys like us might have thought we were playing the blues, but really we were barely learning how to crawl. It wasn’t just entertainment, they were singing about things like civil rights, impoverishment. That’s so rare now; it’s all about show business and making money, playing in big blues clubs. All those old blues guys lived hard lives, nobody comes close to those guys now. They were the real deal.

“When Hound Dog played at the Bondi Lifesaver, they played all night. I walked out just as the sun was coming up and I could still hear them roaring inside. Then Matt and I were doing a gig at Frenchs’ Tavern in Taylor Square and someone said that Hound Dog was listening outside. I went to see and sure enough there he was. He was pretty drunk but it seemed like he’d talk to anybody. He had this huge crucifix around his neck; something like the Pope would wear but Hound Dog’s crucifix was bigger than the Pope’s! I just said hello and he replied ‘Hiya, honey!’ and then went on his way. He was a real character.”

Adrian Anderson (Tour manager)

“That was some tour! I’ve still got the T-shirt. Because it was sponsored by Levi’s jeans, we had these huge banners with Levi’s Blues across them. When we went to Perth, we got fitted out with new Levi’s jeans, the whole crew. Matt Taylor and Phil Manning were on that tour, they still remember it.

“We had Eric Robinson from Jands looking after the stage set-up. Prior to the tour we’d been sending faxes to Freddie King’s manager, asking what speakers they wanted to use. They replied ‘we want Lansing Lansing speakers’ but we kept saying there’s no such thing, we can supply you with J.B.L. Lansing speakers. The tour started in New Zealand, so we’d just landed to meet the bands and the first thing Freddie’s tour manager did was he walked straight up to me, didn’t say ‘how you going?’, he just handed me this piece of paper and said ‘here’s the bill for the freight costs, we’ve brought our own speakers’. Everything was on a tight budget, but he hands me this bill for $350.00 or whatever it was in those days. So that wasn’t a great start.

“But Freddie King was just incredible. One of my favourite songs is ‘She’s a Burglar’, ‘She’s a burglar / she broke into my mind / she’s a burglar / she took ev’rything she could find’. I love that whole album, Burglar. See, all the great guitarists, whether it’s Eric Clapton or Jimi Hendrix, they all have a signature sound. It comes from their fingers, through their guitars, into the valves, out through the amps. They’re getting a sound that no one else can copy; everyone just tries to emulate it. Freddie King was like that. It was just the sound he got out of those speakers, these Lansing Lansing speakers they had. Mr Lansing had made these speakers just for Freddie, which is why they were so unique. That baffled Eric at first but he knew he could work with that set-up.

“Hound Dog was something else. He also had his signature guitar sound but just raw as anything. I remember when we were going through Customs, when he had to sign something he held the pen like a knife and signed with an X. He couldn’t write. I tried to keep clear of Hound Dog a bit, he was an outrageous character. He was having this disagreement with one of the other musicians. One night this guy had taken a girl up to his hotel room and Hound Dog sat on the steps outside the room and played his harmonica all night. There he was going ‘wha-wha-wha-wheeze-wha’, wailing away mournfully, at four o’clock in the bloody morning!

“In between the main concert dates, the tour broke up into three parts. Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Alexis Korner and Hound Dog all played dates at the Bondi Lifesaver in Sydney. Sonny and Brownie did RMIT and La Trobe uni (Agora Theatre) and Hound Dog played at a Caulfield Institute union night. We even got Freddie King on radio 3XY in Melbourne, for an interview on the Sunday night Album Show. “It was the Moomba long weekend, so the concert at the Melbourne showgrounds was on that Monday. That went from 6pm to midnight, while the Hordern Pavilion show in Sydney went from 1pm to 6pm. That same weekend I had to go and collect the guys from Tangerine Dream for the start of their Australian tour. Not long after that I was looking after Split Enz, they’d just made the move from New Zealand. It was all systems go in those days.”

Gerald McNamara (Punter)

“The First Australian Blues/Rock tour was a brilliant idea. I’d started at Caulfield Institute and they had a Friday Union night in the old union building, a federation style building that was adjacent to the main institute. Hound Dog Taylor played that night. There wasn’t even a stage, they just set up on the floor in the corner. I’d forgotten this but Pat Wilson reminded me a few years ago that her band, Rock Granite and the Profiles, were the support act that night.

“The whole thing was pretty spectacular. Hound Dog was a mischievous old bugger. He had this beaten up, old no-name guitar that had once been in tune many years ago; he didn’t worry about the intricacies of actually tuning his guitar. It was only two guitars and drums but it was fabulous stuff, just raucous, outrageous rock ’n’ roll. He only knew how to play slide guitar one way, that raw gut bucket sound just roaring away.

“After every song he’d say to the crowd, ‘thank you, mama!’. He was swigging away on this bottle of whisky and when he finished that he opened his guitar case and there was another bottle in there, ready to go. He was always well equipped for any eventuality.

“As well as having played all night at the Bondi Lifesaver, there’s the legendary anecdote about when he walked on the stage in Perth, he said to the crowd ‘Hello Paris!’. He’d been on tour for so long all he could remember was that he was overseas somewhere and the city started with the letter ‘P’. There’s also the famous story about him shooting one of his guitar players after they’d had an argument, this was back in the States.

“I also went to the concert at the Melbourne showgrounds on the Monday. It was great to see the whole show. Duster Bennett was a one-man band, just him, his guitar, harmonica on a rack and a bass drum. He walked a fine line between being a genuine blues artist and a circus act. Alexis Korner was a real professional, and Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee were relatively erudite in comparison to Hound Dog. Brownie would lead Sonny on stage, he was blind and could hardly walk but they made a great team. Apparently they used to argue all the time. Those old blues guys all came from the deep south so they’d lead hard lives. It was fabulous to have seen Freddie King, ’cause most people wouldn’t have even known he ever came out to Australia.”