The latest edition of The Weekend Australian Magazine features the results of a poll conducted by the publication to determine the best Australian songs of the last two decades. The list includes “No Aphrodisiac” by The Whitlams, “The Ship Song” by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds and “The Special Two” by Missy Higgins. Topping the poll is The Church’s “Under the Milky Way”. Strangely, bands like Hunters & Collectors and Midnight Oil are absent from the list. Also missing are the Divinyls, a band renowned for having one of the most distinctive and exciting lead singers in the history of local rock music. Perhaps Chrissy Amphlett’s lack of Missy-like niceness doesn’t sit well with readers of The Australian (the results suggest that most Australian female singers don’t sit well with readers of The Australian). Anyway, the video below is a performance by the Divinyls of the extraordinary “Elsie”; a song which is a disturbing and sad insight into a woman’s dire circumstances and mental decline.
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Uncanny talent you have for getting at the salient, Darls. 1984. Too true. No naive King Crimson here, all the icing is gone, really at the arse-end of an era.
To be frank, Paul, I haven’t been well of late and haven’t been particularly interested in the “salient” at all.
And if The Australian thinks the best songs of the last two decades are important, well, who am I to disagree
I think the male-dominated nature of the list says something.
Actually that song by the Divinyls doesn’t even fit into the last two decades, but I just happened upon the video on YouTube and thought it kicked major league bottom. I think it was only recently uploaded.
Sad to read you have bee unwell still. Get well soon. That’s wild about “OZ”, just came from there. S’thing aboout “Green Self Hate”(what would you be if you were Jewish, also),they sure dumb down to gobsmacking extent. No one with an iq above single digit ever bothers any more.
How could Midnight Oil possibly miss out on this? Travesty.
FYI it is online:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24365642-5017898,00.html
The Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu vid, intro’d by Garrett is great. Have the CD and a ticket to see him at the Opera House.
I certainly hope they didn’t miss this one…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0K2yxzk_tmM
Darren Hanlon writes a nice melody
Jesus… who did crowded house have sex with?
Thanks, Paul. I’m getting there.
Dumbing dumb is the right way to look at it, Paul. It’s funny that the people who most accuse others of being self-hating (in a political sense) often seem quite hateful themselves.
I don’t know, CountArach. There are some good songs on the list (and I keep forgetting about the timeframe). The Triffid’s “Wide Open Road” comes into mind, but then I realise it’s from 1986. Thanks for the link, Amanda. Enjoy the show.
Never heard of Darren Hanlon before. He seems kind of cool, although he reminds me of this (see at “1.20″ in the video):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfJ4SDRNvy8
As a Brisbane person I was more upset with there being no nod to the Go-Betweens. Australia doesn’t really pay attention to great Brisbane bands.
There seem to be a lot of people out there who are reluctant to face up to the fact that 1987 was more than 20 years ago.
Strange person; Imre Saluszinsky.
Chrissie Amphlet thing featured has me in mind of someone who epitomises the opposition of the Aintoinette character in Wide Sargasso Sea to mad Bertha, in the parent novel Jane Eyre.
The person is just past fifty- change of life?- used to a cups belle at Spring carnivals but the years of drinking and bipolar have produced a complicated individual who changes from someone likeable and capable enough into a fearful Ms Hyde serial phone abuser and drunk driver avoided by all and sundry for days, even weeks at a time. Work has her on indefinite leave and the family have her in a metaphorical straightjacket entailling spare keys for the car and house and others in charge of finances because of the frenetic shoppingbenders when she’s elevated.
Has you almost in mind of “Frances”.
Self harm emerges with the hair-pulling, but the sheer self defeating nature of her adventures has me sadly contemplating a problematic future for her.
“There seem to be a lot of people out there who are reluctant to face up to the fact that 1987 was more than 20 years ago.”
I think this failure to face up to that fact might be associated with old age.
Do you mean “Frances”, the movie about the actress Frances Farmer?
Oh yes, the Go-Betweens were great. Sadly missed.
Darlene:
That list is as good a reason as any to avoid smoking non-tobacco substances when you are supposed to be concentrating.
Bloody unreal!
I do hope whoever compiled it has an opportunity to visit Planet Earth at some convenient time to explain themselves.
Dont worry in Perth 1987 is very modern,hell we want to live in 1957 thats why we have a liberal Govt here,to take us BaCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCk
Yes. I should have differentiated. Some people would have figured the talking mule.
And who says its NOT 1987, anyway?
All relative you know. Or just a wild California Sunshine from the early seventies that took a diversion.
Hmmm, now how do we get back…
I love Crowded House, but geez! Six songs out of the twenty? That’s assuming a dominance they never really had.
I had to google Gisele Scales, and I’m still none the wiser. Perhaps I have been living under a rock, but has anyone heard of this song before?
It should be noted that it was also covered by of all people Denis walters, the big voiced baritone of 3AW and Carols By Candlelight fame and surprisingly did a pretty good job of it, and it even got airplay on JJJ.
And yes, even Nick liked it.
http://www.nick-cave.net/interview.php?id=3
Short notice…
Not a single, but have to ask how do end up playing this on the Rugby Show?
Little Wonder.
Little Wonder
Well it’s my very little wonder and it’s one that I will keep,
But you can take it with you if it helps you when you’re trying to sleep…
and the men who are a cut above today are often not so very deep.
Young ladies of means will say “I am, I am, I am, I am, I am”,
Sitting on the edges of their seats on the light rail tram,
amongst the could-a-beens, the also-rans -
It’s very little wonder if you cry,
It’s very little wonder you don’t cry,
The birds were framed, the babies were framed, and so too the black sky.
You can’t hear the ready laughter in my song,
When I was laughing all day yesterday and all night long,
till we shook off the fears, and had us both in tears,
O brother don’t clean out your ears and you might be amazed
to find the secrets of the city in its alley ways,
In the bins behind the swill cafes,
amid the clean-picked chicken bones and cartilage a spirit groans,
a small heart beats and a red beak groans
“O pity, where’s my little body gone?”
You’ll know why, it’s very little wonder you don’t cry,
Don’t be ashamed of a guilty little rain, and don’t be ashamed,
it’s just the drink, it’s just the drink, it’s just the drink.
One marks a place, one makes a time,
One stops a’living, one goes about a’dying…
Somebody blew their brains out in this room,
I can feel it like it happened just this afternoon,
On the wall behind some furniture there’s a stain in the shape of Africa,
O fear walks tall, when it’s halfway up the hill with its friend alcohol.
I could hear the heavy footsteps in his hollow halls,
Little wonder that he soon devised to rid them all in one great gushing fall,
The billion tiny devil’s feet that nightly walked that bloody beat
- Hi ho, ho hum, Get yourself a gun,
Open up your heart and let the bleeders run,
Hi ho, ho hum, Move the thing along,
Open up your heart and let the bleeders run
Hi ho, ho hum, Get yourself a gun,
Open up your heart and let the bleeders run,
Hi ho, ho hum, Think about your mum,
Open up your heart and let the evening come darkly in.
Anyway, they’re probably about to implode.
Ok, lost one corrective post into the abyss…my previous post accidentally submitted before I finished writing!
Clip was link, first that came up on youtube…tv performance and session trumpet not awesome to my ears, but again how do you get to play that song on the rugby show? (sorry, the Fat, not the rugby show)
Another performance that hardly deserved ending up on youtube, nowhere near as visceral pop as Amphlett (who’s impossible to imagine not on that list, so I won’t bother visiting) but influenced a heap of 20 to 30 somethings to vote anti-Coalition last election…
This Train Is Taking No Passengers
We will adjust to this new condition of living like a man with his entrails now out him not in,
after certain techniques of torture accustoms himself to a new condition of living…train.
Thoughtful godless men find god in them at the age of twenty-five
but in a year death gains favor and they think themselves the more alive,
You’ll find them in the loose caboose where the pills are kept and the stupid juice,
This one has a sleeping wheel, this one has a willing noose
- Onward and on to the ends of love, pricked vanity, habit and ruse.
Onward and on to a premature silence where death finds too much use.
Fifteen year old whores in training, eyes a’batting, arms a’flailing, skin aflame, this fire-fanning express,
If you’re on board amazement follows fear and rounded by dismay
it takes the corner into the day after today which is a father’s sorrow
- Onward and on to the ends of meanness where kindness is the means of the earth.
Onward and on, awakening finds us too sensual beings from birth -
(”I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry lady, I am sorry, I’m sorry lady…I’m sorry”)…train.
Pods of wealthy blonde gobbets with red-rind eyes
getting pecked at by the heroin sparrows of the western skies,
It may be married to the tracks but this train flies and it’s taking no passengers.
“We’ll stand on his hand, that’s how you pin your man, we’ll smash him from Preston to Epworth!”
Onward and on to the ends of reason where malice is the means of the earth.
Onward and on, this strange-wrought bird, onwards and over the black coffee earth,
Onward and on, this laughing train to the ends of its low, low mirth…
Where the media make it with the media whores,
Lady Time minces man-meat with her contract claws
for a barbecue with the veterans of the talkback wars
In the outback palace…of one John Laws.
O we will adjust to this new condition of living
like a sailor with his hands tied behind his back
imprisoned after sailing into foreign waters, unawares,
accustoms himself to a new condition of living.
But a shadow falls between this hurtling intent and its realisation
for its government is rotten and therefore its civilisation
which is certainly taking no passengers…train…
(and the ‘implode’ remark was mine and not part of a song)
No Custard? No Regurgitator? No Thirty Odd Foot of Grunts?
OK, just kidding about TOFOG…
Darlene and All:
The Ozz article is called “Your Songs”. The “Your” seems to apply to a very narrow field …. and, of course, excludes rural bogans as well as all the other unworthy and undeserving.
Country-&-Western music has a powerful laxative and emetic effect on me …. but a lot of my fellow Australians, for reasons best known to themselves, do like it …. so where the hell was Slim Dusty on this precious List????
Neil Murray; Good Light In Broome..
“I love Crowded House, but geez! Six songs out of the twenty? That’s assuming a dominance they never really had.”
Agreed, they were a great pop band, but there were lots of other great bands. Never heard of Gisele either.
I love Nick Cave’s “oh please”. Fans can be sooooo pretentious.
Great Augie March tune as well. Thanks for that link. What an interesting voice the lead singer has.
“The Ozz article is called “Your Songs”. The “Your” seems to apply to a very narrow field …. and, of course, excludes rural bogans as well as all the other unworthy and undeserving.”
Good point, Graham. “Your” is very narrow when it comes to readers of The Australian.
Neil Murray can be great and he can be average. Still think “So Beautiful” was a great pop song.
Loving that Augie March more and more.
Hey Darlene, I was wondering where you was. Hope you’re all better! xx
Yes to Chrissie. ‘I Touch Myself’ was released in 1991. It should be the Oz’s theme song surely.
And I can’t believe this song isn’t on the list - obviously no one told ol’ Shamahan to vote - they should be paying royalties at the Oz.
The Honeymoon Is Over:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo-S_6-v6VU
(sunday boast: the 6 string gitar in the clip was my old gitar that I lugged around share houses for years before I finally handed it over for the good of all - hey, I could strum E real purdy like…)
Punxsie– is another killer Divinyls tune (1988)
I’ve been getting into the Clouds a bit lately
Cloud Factory (1990)
Outside the period of the poll but The Lighthouse Keepers’s Gargoyle is my fav all time oz tune. Followed by Crow’s Mirror’s Trouble.
For an alternate take on Australian song rankings,
Australian Independent Records held a top 50 Australian Independent LP poll recently. Here’s the top 20 -
1. The Triffids – Born Sandy Devotional
2. The Saints – (I’m) Stranded/No Time
3. Hoodoo Gurus – Stoneage Romeos
4. The Go Betweens – Liberty Belle and the Black Diamond Express
5. Midnight Oil – Midnight Oil
6. The Avalanches – Since I Left You
7. Ed Kuepper – Honey Steels Gold
8. Radio Birdman – Radios Appear
9. Sunnyboys - Sunnyboys
10. AC/DC – Back In Black
11. Died Pretty – Doughboy Hollow
12. The Go Betweens – Before Hollywood
13. INXS - INXS
14. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – The Boatman’s Call
15. Dirty Three – Horse Stories
16. AC/DC – Highway to Hell
17. The Drones – Wait Long By The River And The Bodies Of Your Enemies Will Float By
18. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – The Good Son
19. Silverchair - Diorama
20. The Whitlams – Eternal Nightcap
Hey Jo, I’m getting there. Thanks.
Tex Perkins….what can one say about Tex Perkins? Great song.
How cool that it’s your old guitar.
Great list, Ag, and quite diverse. Born Sandy Devotional, beautiful stuff. I love these lists because they make one recall songs from long ago.
How could Midnight Oil possibly miss out on this?
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It is the avowed policy of His Impressiveness Emperor Rupert the First and his realm (the)News(is)Limited to quash lefty ratbags if they attempt to do anything but sing. Please stop indulging in the Trotskyite claptrap one finds in the politics sections of Borders and tune in to The Daily Rupert for the Truth that Shall Set you free.
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Very good point Darlene: “Boys in Town” and many others I could mention. One should be there.
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I suspect that Rupert’s trying to turn the feminist revolution back too. Just speculation mind you.
Yes, Rupert’s truth is the only truth, so help me Rupert
I think Boys in Town came out earlier than the timeframe for the list, but doesn’t matter. Who needs to follow the rules? So we’ll include every song that has been mentioned on this thread.
Zorronsky [26]:
I’ll second your motion ….
Everyone:
Glad “Treaty” wasn’t excluded.
j-p-z and any overseas lurkers;
Don’t be shy. Just because this is mainly about Australian music [and cacophony too], that doesn’t mean you have to stay out of the discussion.
Yeah, its all wrong. I can’t think of a more authentically uncompromising Australian voice than The Oils - may the memory never grow stale - and the DiVinyls were as quintessentially Gen X as anything Antipodean.
Aside from the contrived timeline - I mean, how can you speak of an Australian popular music while bounding out The Easybeats and The Seekers, not to mention other gems strewn through the dross of time like Healing Force’s ‘Golden Miles’ - there’s way too much that is not in The Twenty. John Butler Trio? My Friend The Chocolate Cake? Archie Roach & Rubie Hunter? Not Drowning Waving?… I’m sure there’s more that deserves to be added to that list, but I haven’t been paying attention of late.
The survey results say more about the particular socio-economic demographic that reads the OO than they say about Young Persons’ Cultural Output in this country. In any case, the latter’s a topic on which Imre S is guaranteed clueless.
Everyone:
What? No Wiggles?
Aren’t they Australian, innovative and very very popular too?
What? No TISM?
What?! No…errr…ummm…well…oh, bugger it.
THUNDER! THUNDER!
The gender imbalance of the list is consistent with every other such poll of “best Australian songs” I can recall reading. Everything written by Suzie Higgie (Falling Joys) was recorded in the last two decades, as was much of Deborah Conway’s best output, as indeed was everything by The Waifs.
Whilst selecting songs for such a list invariably entails a large subjective element, I think one less subjective criterion would be to look at the number of times a song has been covered by artists who are perfectly capable of writing their own good material. “Throw Your Arms Around Me” by Hunters & Collectors has been covered variously (live or on record) by Crowded House, Paul Kelly, Pearl Jam, Ben Harper, Luka Bloom, Alison Crowe, Crash Test Dummies,
Rogue Traders… and Doug Anthony All Stars!But TYAAM was first recorded more than two decades ago, wasn’t it? or is my ageing and virus-addled brane letting me down again?
At least no-one’s mentioned “I Still Call Australia Home” which would necessitate the sick bucket as well as the Kleenex and lemon. In terms of being constantly in our faces and being covered by every Tom, Dick and Harriet, that would have to be one of the most infamous. Not sure if that’s less than 20 years old either, it certainly ages me 20 years every time I hear it.
Helen, strictly speaking you’re right about TYAAM first being recorded more than two decades ago. The version which many of us are most familiar with (the one which gets played on video jukeboxes in pubs) was recorded in 1990.
I think Boys in Town came out earlier than the timeframe for the list,
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True late ’70s. “Pleasure and Pain”?
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PS Except for their outstanding first single I think Hunters and Collectors are the most fully over-rated swill. There’s no tunes, no hooks, and the lyrics are strictly deep and meaningful bollocks by Grade 10 potheads. Well “Holy Grail” has a hook, but it’s still pretty ordinary. Corporate Rock tripe almost as bad as that ’song’ by John bloody Farnham.
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Just my opinion of course.
Well I just booted up the list and what can I say: uugggghhhhh!!!!! YUK!!
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Can I say it again just in case: UUUGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! This is the list that could fill a hundred buckets with something very unpleasant.
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Crowded House are a crime against humanity and evidence that there is no God, except “Don’t Dream It’s Over” which isn’t there. Noiseworks are an argument that some babies should be put to death at birth and also indicate perhaps that Frankenstein came true. “The Ship Song” is one of Nick Cave’s most ordinary and except for song #1 it’s all shite really.
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Of course it really should’ve been extended back 30 years if you wanted some class. You could’ve had The Models then. Or the Laughing Clowns. What about Honey Steel’s Gold.
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Australia. Where if a radio station isn’t 65% mindless chatter by braindead zombies who idea of culture is a black pair of Levis. If the Radio Triple Shite Classic Rock: Smooth and Bland played recordings of a drill 24/7 these morons’d vote for that. Aw grouse. It’s that grouse song y’know the one that goes Bzzzzzzz.
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Forget it. Taste. Arse.
Это здесь выдают зарплату? - Моя фамилия “Итого”.
Oh c’mon now people. The ultimate Australian pop song and, if I had my sleazy way with the body politic, our national anthem as well is this.
A brilliant power pop salute to our national ethos of skiving off, giving the finger to the boss and working to have a life and not vice versa. And composed and performed by first generation Australians from families that escaped from a gray old world into a land of sun, sea and opportunity.
Having said that, I don’t mind some of the suggestions mentioned above.
“Under The Milky Way” is one of those of once in a band’s lifetime songs that just rings all bells. However, there’s nothing specifically Australian about it.
Ed Kuepper has never quite written one song that really leaps out as the Australian pop song but he has developed an overall sound that I think is uniquely redolent of a hot, shuttered, sunblasted Sunday afternoon in Australia. And then the cool change and the rain comes. When friends visit from OS, I always recommend and/or join them in driving down the Great Ocean Road with Ed on the sound system.
Then there’s this. With classic self deprecating lyrics like “The block is awkward - it faces west, With long diagonals, sloping too.”
I also have a soft spot for this inimitable Australian blend of techno drugs and cosmic surfing culture.
And of course who can forget the classically dour ex-Irish Roman Catholic Australian lyrics of the Models’ “I Hear Motion”. “When it is Christmas for everyone else, I feel like I’ve missed an appointment.” Not to mention Freud’s lego assembled bass solo.
Plus heaps of honorable mentions for David Mason, Deborah Conway, Paul Kelly, Tex Perkins, the Sunnyboys and Mental As Anything, who couldn’t couldn’t flourish anywhere else in the world quite like they did in Aus.
And now I think about it the list goes on and on. Turn up your radio and come and see the Real Thing. One thing Australians do brilliantly at a global level is pop music, especially when we don’t care about it going global.
Damn I miss Countdown. The last TV program that truly brought the nation together. If only for an hour once a week to revile Molly and ogle cutting edge hairstyles.
Anyway vote 1 the Easybeats. The energy (and boots) will never date.
Oh buggerpants, fucked up the first link.
It should read
…and our national anthem as well, is this.
And with half a bottle of Aberlour 12 Year Old in me, I’m in a mind to share some rock and roll anecdotes with you younglings.
Speaking of Def FX, back sometime in the mid nineties we supported them at the Punters Club. In the band room, the blokes were affable but somewhat road weary. Then Fiona turned up, on crutches and full of painkillers ‘cos she’d broken her ankle. She was completely zonked to the point where I caught her talking to her drink at one point. No way could she perform. But then she went out there and performed brilliantly - more dynamic on her crutches than most frontfolks on their best two footed day. Afterwards she had to be carried out. A real bloody classic showbiz trouper.
I’ve never liked much of her post-Def FX work or her ill fated attempt at being a media personality. But I saw her pull herself together under very trying conditions to give the punters their money’s worth and more. Outstanding.
The complete opposite of Jeremy Oxley under similar circumstances.
And the nicest band I’ve ever shared a stage with? Shriekback. A very affable and down to earth bunch. Barry Andrews was in there with his Swiss Army knife and spare batteries helping us sort a tech problem minutes before we had to go on stage. To a full house at The Club in Smith St - which gave our new female vocalist a panic attack. So while Barry was helping us fix up a fucked up effects pedal, the two female singers in Shriekback were taking our singer to one side to show her calming breathing exercises.
Worst band I ever shared a stage with? Caligula. Aptly named. They were sorta OK with us but treated their road crew and venue staff like complete shit (”Pick up that pick”. We didn’t and so got an excellent mix and drinks well beyond rider limits all night.
There’s song in there somewhere.
Nabakov - yes, “Friday On My Mind” is a great song by many measures, but how do we reconcile it’s sentiments with “I’ll Make You Happy”, which is about fulfilling social obligations & expectations?
““Friday On My Mind” is a great song by many measures, but how do we reconcile it’s sentiments with “I’ll Make You Happy”, which is about fulfilling social obligations & expectations?”
You can’t fulfill, or indeed fill up, anything or anyone until you get paid at the end of the week.
For next week’s column, why not ask me why rainbows taste funny.
Is this the best Australian song ever?
Kylie's Arse
The Clip Clop Club
I'm a son, I love my mother.
Love my brother like a brother.
But for me there is another.
Funny how things come to pass.
I must make a confession.
It has grown into obession.
Even if it was clad in hessian.
I'd still love Kylie's arse.
Chorus:
Kylie's arse. Kylie's arse.
Kylie's arse. Kylie's arse.
Kylie's arse. Kylie's arse.
I'm in love with Kylie's arse.
He's in love with Kylie's arse.
In her video clip recently.
Kylie's arse was clad indecently.
I swear I saw it wink at me.
That cheeky Kylie's arse.
Her skin-tight short fluorecent.
Made her arse look pre-pubecent.
The view was so much more than pleasant.
When I'm viewing Kylie's arse.
Chorus
Jason Donovan, Michael Hutchence.
They have had it in their clutches.
The thought that they have groped that crutch is far too much for me to
bear. Paul Keating groped the Queen, but even since Scott groped
Charlene. I've dreamed of wrestling in baked beans with that georgeous
Kylie's arse.
Chorus
I'll fight anyone, I'm plucky.
Who said she's had a nip-and-tucky.
They should be so lucky-lucky to have an arse like Kylie's arse.
If she ever got the motion.
We could do the locomotion.
Fiona Horne might mix a potion.
To get me Kylie's arse.
Chorus
In the air I'm building castles.
About this gorgeously packaged parcel.
I'm quite sure it has no arsehole.
It's too perfect.
Kylie's Arse.
I love to watch her sing and dance.
It was love from my first glance.
And if she'd give me half a chance.
What?
Then I'd be Kylie's arsehole.
Nabs: You’ll probably derive some satisfaction from APRA’s Top 30 Australian songs of all time, compiled from 100 industry bods’ top ten lists: They concur with you, Friday On My Mind is #1, but not only that, they also bring in Dave Mason at #10 (Quasimodo’s Dream).
Here we go:
1: Friday on my Mind
2: Eagle Rock
3: Beds Are Burning
4: Down Under
5: Pub With No beer
6: The Loved One
7: Don’t dream it’s over
8: Khe Sanh
9: Long Way To the Top
10: Quasimodo’s Dream
The rest in chrono. order : The Real Thing, I’ll be Gone, Band Played W. M., I’m Stranded, Cool Change, Science Fiction, Power n Passion, Reckless, Cattle n Cane, Only 19, Throw Your arms, Wide Open Road, To her Door, My Island Home, Ship Song, Treaty, Even When I’m sleeping, Truly Madly deeply, the day you came.
And the road to Gundagai, published in 1922 by Allans Music Australia.
Adrien: “Hunters and Collector..outstanding first single”…that’d be the one with the disturbing clip where seymour does this bondage thing with rubber bands on his face?
I reckon it’s a good example of one of the defining strengths of Australia’s indie industry, their vids. That particuliar one was an early Lowenstein, who went on to the classic homage to life lived amongst australia’s 70’s punk scene, “Dogs In Space”, (for Nick fans, it has Boys Next Door doing “Shivers”, Hutchence played the central character,), “Felafel”, etc and get this, the 1990 election campaign ads for the Sandinista Government of Nicaragua. Now, for the time, that’s cred.
To close the circle between Darlene’s opening selection from Little Pattie’s ( to whom in significant part, with Bobby Limb and a bunch of other OzShowBiz types of the time, we all owe having Gough for a while ) cousin, and nabakov’s Easybeats: the B side of the afore mentioned Divinyls’ Science Fiction single was a terrific cover of “I’ll make you happy”.
I was raring to plug Friday On My Mind when I saw this thread too, thhen realised it’s only looking at the last 20 years.
Zarquon - have you been down under the George on a Saturday to see Clip Clop Club lately? I used to “mix” them there every week (and occasionally sing sneaky backing vox from behind the mixer behind the bar.
Truly an incredible experience - packed with drunkards of all ages, colours and creeds. Almost worth going to the wrong side of the Drain.
I’ve never seen the CCC, I just heard that on Biggsy on 3RRR.
Do yourself a favour &c
Bloody hell its been twenty years since I last heard this song.
Er . . thanks for that.
I guess A Short Note is a bit daggy for that list.
They’re all far too nice boys to be doing this kind of thing, besides which has someone yet said how they’re really a Kiwi band? No really, they are, they are, they are, so there!
How on earth did Hunters and Collectors miss out. Ever been in a pub when Throw Your Arms comes on? No, well, any pub in Newtown is guaranteed a sing-a-long.
There was an error in my comment at #38. “Throw your arms around me” by Rogue Traders is not a cover of the H&C classic but a different (and, need it be said, vastly inferior) song.
Adrien, did you diss the H & C? Adrien, did you diss Crowded House? Un-Australian, maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate
“Damn I miss Countdown. The last TV program that truly brought the nation together. If only for an hour once a week to revile Molly and ogle cutting edge hairstyles.”
I miss Countdown as well. What a way to spend a Saturday or Sunday afternoon.
“Here we go:
1: Friday on my Mind
2: Eagle Rock
3: Beds Are Burning
4: Down Under
5: Pub With No beer
6: The Loved One
7: Don’t dream it’s over
8: Khe Sanh
9: Long Way To the Top”
Crikey, the ultimate bogan list….it rocks…
“To close the circle between Darlene’s opening selection from Little Pattie’s ( to whom in significant part, with Bobby Limb and a bunch of other OzShowBiz types of the time, we all owe having Gough for a while ) cousin, and nabakov’s Easybeats: the B side of the afore mentioned Divinyls’ Science Fiction single was a terrific cover of “I’ll make you happy”.”
That’s a great version of that song. Kicks bottom. Chrissie rocks.
But good Kiwis are Australians in a way, but I’ll shut up before I get in trouble again.
Uz thus enother ploy by you Aussies to claim the cridut yit egin whin one of my kuds wuns the Milbourne Cup thus year?
We always claim the credit for the good ones, as for Russ Crowe and Rachel Hunter…meh.
Lest we forget, John Clarke. I’ll get out way now.
Nah, but gizz bick phar lupps hart aye.
I think he’s yours, love him though I do. He’s Fred Dagg to us, we miss him but.
There’s a moment in one of the early episodes of the Games where Clarke’s character’s wondering past a TV showing the Bledisloe. He asks what everyone’s watching and then clearly says, “Go Black”. I know where his heart is even if his person resides in Melbourne.
Oh and there’s a kiwi (or two) in Midnight Oil also… Bones Hillman