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Wide Open Road 2014 Show 1 – Who listens to the radio? by Djringfinger on Mixcloud

Records I picked up in the US (Dec/Jan 2014)

You would think after all these years of travelling to the US that a) I would get over it and get a green card (I almost did, but that’s another story) and b) have mined pretty much everything there was to find in US shops. Well think again peeps. Here is a but a sample of the weird, wonderful and well pretty damn amazing Aussie oeuvre that I found on record shops in California (San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco) and then took back home in my carry on doing an impression of how 13kgs feels like 4kg, oh, and finally, how much this falls straight from the wonderful era of the 1980s. So, as a special treat show one will almost entirely be rooted in the eighties (or at least with a toe in the hangnail late 70s or early 90s, I am not that fussy)

Who listens to the radio? – The Sports
Suspicious Minds – The Sports
Strangers on a Train – The Sports



(God I love the internet, all three of these clips are stupidly rare and hard to find, but through the magic of YouTube, here they are preserved for ever)

The great Sports, featuring Stephen Cummings, AndreW Pendlebury and the mighty Martim Armiger (producer of so many great Australian songs of the 1980s and 1990s and TV/movie composer extraordinaire) were the Aussie version of the classic pub rock movement born and bred a few metres from here at the Hope and Anchor in Kentish Town (NW5). Formed in Melbourne in the late 1970s they were Countdown faves. The first two tracks come from their Stiff EP with an incredibly cool cover. I found this in a store on the Haight in SF and was attracted by the koala before I realised what it was and grabbed it. This came out in 1979 and was a hit in Australia and charted in the US and the UK. The next track was the lead single of the 1980 album ‘Suddenly’ and was found in the same SF store. This is off the US Arista release and was written by Martin Armiger.

Stomp the Tumbarumba – Hoodoo Gurus
Cajun Country – Hoodoo Gurus

These two tracks are b-sides off the singles from the Kinky and Magnum Cum Louder LPs, released as promo only radio EPs. These are mastered LOUD. The Gurus were quite the college radio success in the US in the late 80s and 90s. These EPs (found at Amoeba in Hollywood and Berkeley) are fine artifacts of the time. Stomp the Tumbarumba is a live fave (I saw them do it at their O-week show at UTS in 1989 or 1990) and was the b-side to Miss Freelove. Cajun Country is their CCR pastiche and was the b-side to ‘Come Anytime’.

Twisted – Lydia Lunch (with Clint Ruin)
Calamity Crush – Foetus-Art-Terrorism

Released on the Insipid Vinyl label in 1991 ‘Twisted’ features Lydia Lunch and the straight out weird Clint Ruin (Jim Thirwell of Foetus). Made up of spoken word and tape loops, this piece of strange musique concrete is tough to follow up, but hell, then there was Foetus. Off the Foetus-Art-Terrorism Ep from 1984, here is the Foetus masterpiece, Calamity Crush. Why this wasn’t a hit and Wham were, I will never know.

Power and the Passion (Special version) – Midnight Oil
Hey Little Girl (Dub version) – Icehouse
Black and White (Extended version) – INXS


Ah, the glorious 1980s when dub versions and dance versions filled up miles of black plastic with minor variations and accented drumlines. I blame Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Actually, they are very much to blame, check your history people. First up is an extended mix of Power and the Passion by Midnight Oil from the 122 which was specially remixed for the US market and features the classic remix tricks of echo enhanced vocals and whacky basslines. Funky. This track was on the 1982 classic 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1. Next up a dub version (ie: no vocals and some werid additional bits) of the Icehouse classic from Primitive Man ‘Hey Little Girl’ and we end with an extended version of the INXS classic ‘Black and White’ from Shabooh Shabbah, although extended version appeared on EP Dekadance, which in Australia was a cassingle with entirely different tracks and the surpirse radio hit single, a cover of Jackson featuring Jenny Morris. See what happens when you bury into US versions of this stuff, strange shit my friends. Strange shit.

Counting the Beat – The Swingers
Dirty Creature – Split Enz
How’m I Gonna Sleep – Tim Finn



Featuring the talents of Phil Judd (Split Enz) and Bones Hillman of Midnight Oil, Counting the Beat was a one hit in 1981 (many years before being a K-Mart commercial). This is the re-recording made for the release of the LP in 1982 of the same name in the US. It loses a bit of the sparseness and replaces it with more funky eighties guitar. This song brought the house down at my last DJ gig. Next up, after Phil Judd had left to form the Swingers and from the US issue of Time and Tide in 1982, we have a classic Split Enz riff ‘Dirty Creature’ which was the lead single off the record whose second single has kind of pushed this cool track a little into the background (that single was of course, ‘Six months in a leaky boat’). Finally, we have Tim Finn off his self-titled Capitol release in 1989 from a still sealed (well not anymore obviously!) copy and the lead single ‘How’m I Gonna Sleep’, produced by Mitchell Froom (producer of quite a few Crowded House records) this record did not do well in the US and was reasonably successful in Australia and NZ, hence my copy being in the $1 (plus tax) section of Amoeba in San Francisco. Unfairly maligned, it is another masterful piece of the Finn canon and is worthy of significant revisiting. It really benefits from a much less lush production than the over the top strings and synths of the previous record ‘Big Canoe’

Towtruck – Hunters and Collectors
The Slab – Hunters and Collectors


For those of you more familiar with the more bombastic and pop oriented tracks of the Hunna’s then its time to address some of their earlier work represented on these two tracks. The first is Towtruck from the Payload EP (1982) produced by ex-Gong player Mike Howlett. This EP was eventually combined with a bunch of other tracks to make thier first LP and shows their love affair with Krautrock. The second track is from the live LP and features the @jaws of Life’ classic, the Slab. Another Krautrock influenced masterpiece, this track was recorded live at the Venue in Melbourne in 1984

There you have it, the eighties (more or less). It is quite the spectrum. Welcome back to the show people! We have a treat of huge shows in store for you this year, as well as a couple of guest shows. There is so much amazing Australian music to re-discover and celebrate and we want to be there to make it happen.

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