Welcome to the 8th show of our 2012 season of Aussie Music, and welcome to new listeners who have found this show through blogs or scoop it. Hope you enjoy it. Back to some sense of normalcy with this show as we get back to our core mission, connections between and through the wonderful landscape of Australian indie music. Let’s get right to it, shall we?

We start with tracks off first EPs by female led bands. ‘Cloud Factory’ by the Clouds is a great example of the harmonies that made them so great. Another set of beautiful harmonies comes from North Sydney’s own Club Hoy with ‘Water my Toes’ from their debut EP on the seminal Waterfront label. Finally we have some under-rated pop from Twelve24, also from Sydney, from their debut EP ‘All in Focus’ and the track ‘Idol for you’.

Next we celebrate the wider Radio Birdman family. Recently I was watching a BBC doco on punk in the UK and was minded to think about the influence that Radio Birdman has had on the Australian music scene. It is always their example that I hark back to when I worry about the future of the Australian scene…is there the same seminal linking of influences in the modern band? Or is it simply replicating the sounds of the latest hit from the US or the UK (which has a place, no doubt in music, Sir Douglas Quintet anyone? 😉 So, back to Birdman. We start with the amazing Angie Pepper and the Passengers with ‘Face with no name’, followed by the pre-birdman TV Jones with ‘Monday Morning Gunk’ which was of course remade by Birdman, followed by the super-group that was New Race (featuring Tek, Gilbert and Younger, plus Dennis Thompson from MC5 and the late Ron Asheston from the Stooges) doing the old MC5 classic ‘Looking at You’ , we then trek across to the Tek post Birdman outfit, the Visitors featuring Pip Hoyle and Minister for Information Mark Sisto doing ‘Haunted Road’ (also covered by New Race on that tour) and finally we end with Radio Birdman doing New Race live in 1976. Phew! The family is much bigger than we can sample here, so in the next few shows we will start to expand the Birdman family tree out. It is time for us to celebrate the history of Australian Music. It was a great moment when Silverchair covered New Race a few years back. Let’s appreciate and respect the traditions of what went before us. Let’s use it to inspire us to make the next generation of music as good as, if not better than the last.

Onto the Rooart Youngblood series, a set of samplers that charts the rise and fall of the rooArt label, set up by Chris Murphy, ex-manager of INXS. This label flared so brightly with number one hits, critical acclaim and great records, then it all kind of went pear shaped. We have taken a track from each of Youngblood compiles. From 1, we have a re-recorded version of the Hummingbirds single ‘Hindsight’. There are three versions out there of this song, I really like this one (the other is the original Phantom single, plus there is a promo single with a third version). From 2, we have the mighty, under-rated Mark of Cain with their towering ‘Battlesick’. Mark of Cain is from Adelaide and were very much influenced by the US hard-core scene, and a fave of Rollins. This is an amazing track, and is the first time we have featured them on the show, to my embarrassment. I hope this rectifies the error. From 3 we have Underground Lovers with the track ‘Ripe’, a great song that I am not sure is featured in this form anywhere else. And finally we have from 4 a band that should have been much bigger, the Dream Poppies from Brisbane. I first heard this all girl indie band on an odd compile called ‘Spark’ and loved the sound, the harmonies are very Australian me thinks. This track is so breezy and has a great vibe,. I saw them once live supporting Fur in Brisbane back in 1994 maybe. They kicked it as well then. Fur of course left my ears bleeding, but that another story (Fin d out what you like and let it kill you!).

Next we move to some tracks for one of my dear absent friends, Xiola Blue who has been screaming at me, swearing at me and generally cajoling me into playing some Kelpies. Well, here is some fucking Kelpies! So, we start with Positive Hatred who eventually became the Happy hate me Nots with the great punk song ‘In tune with living’. Released on the ‘Flowers in the Dustbin’ compile of music released by the incomparable Aberrant label run by Bruce Griffiths, this track is an amazing piece of Aussie punk from 1983. We then get to the Kelpies, what can we say about this band? One the great post punk bands from the early 80s along with Suicide Squad, Hard-ons, Positive Hatred etc they put out an album and a few killer singles including this masterpiece ‘Television’. For much more information, here’s an interview with their drummer prior to a 2011 reformation (http://www.sludgefactory.com.au/kelpies-some-kind-punk-rock-monster) . We then take a track from the Aberrant complie EP ‘Trousers in Action’ with the wonderful Toys went Berserk, from Sydney, were formed in 1985 from various members of bands like Box of Fish and Happy Hate me Nots. They put out a few EPs and a few LPs, this track is a great example of their style.

Finally, we end with two pieces of music that are highly descriptive of the Australian environment, Australian culture and the conflicts and tensions inherent in them both. Goanna from 1982 with their number 2 hit ‘Solid Rock’, an amazing piece of rock that was both political and propulsive. A tag that can also be applied to ‘Dreamworld’ by Midnight Oil from their gargantuan Diesel and Dust set, with lyrics about the decline of the Australian way of life.

So, that’s it for another show. Hope you enjoy it, and if so, tell others and spread the word. Our community is growing and the more people we get involved, the more this music lives on.

Cloud Factory – The Clouds
Water my Toes – Club Hoy
Idol for you – Twelve24
Face with no name – Passengers
Monday Morning Gunk – TV Jones
Looking at you – New Race
Haunted Road – Visitors
New Race (Live) – Radio Birdman
Hindsight – Hummingbirds
Battlesick – Mark of Cain
Ripe – Underground Lovers
Mucking Around – Dream Poppies
In tune with Living – Positive Hatred
Television – The Kelpies
One day my head is gonna explode – Toys went beserk
Solid Rock (Sacred Ground) – Goanna
Dreamworld – Midnight Oil

This is a stunningly rare clip. I LOVE YouTube