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What's New? |
JANUARY 2003
NEWS FLASH (4 Feb 2003): PHIL SPECTOR CHARGED WITH FIRST DEGREE MURDER
- 2003: OFF TO A BAD START
- TOURS
- ELLEN McILWAINE RETURNS
- QUILL AND TOOLHURST RETURN
- VALE MAURICE GIBB
- VALE DESMOND TESTER
- LONG WAY TOUR COPS BAAD PRESS
- ON THE AIR
- BEATLES IN THE NEWS ((AGAIN)
RECENT RELEASES
ARIEL
RUSSELL MORRIS
TAMAM SHUD
Well, it’s a
new year, and a clean slate for our sadly neglected “What’s New” page. This
year I will be a lot more assiduous
about keeping it up to date and keeping you informed of what’s new on the site and
on the music scene at large – well, at least I’ll try!
It’s been a
strange and sometimes sad few months since we last updated this page; on the
down side, we’ve had the tragic and untimely deaths of music legends Joe
Strummer and Maurice Gibb, as well as former T-Rex member Mickey Finn, to name
just a few. On the up side, we had Long Way to the Top, which was a great
success, and above all, one of the greatest concert tours in living memory,
that of Brian Wilson and his magnificent band, who won rave reviews and wowed
audiences all over the country. We must also make mention of the good folks at
Michael Coppel who rescued the tour after the
original promoter was arrested after it was discovered that the tour was
bankrolled with money he allegedly embezzled from a Melbourne bank.
On a local
note, we’ve been making many changes on MILESAGO, the most important being the
ongoing effort to shift all our existing files form their old homes on various
free web spaces to our own private server space, with our very own shiny new
URL: http://www.milesago.com.
For this and many other services above and beyond the call of duty we are
eternally indebted to our friend
We’ll be
adding many new pages and many more features over the coming months, so keep
checking back and we will do our best to keep you up to date with changes on
the site.
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It’s been a
pretty dreadful start to the year in many respects, with many sad and tragic
events, and looming over everything is the threat of impending war between
the Throughout
January, Our sympathies
go out to those who have lost loved ones in these tragic events, and our
thoughts are also with all the families who have lost their homes and
possessions. We also salute the heroic efforts of the emergency services,
volunteer fire-fighters and ordinary residents who fought so valiantly, often
at great personal risk, to save many other properties. Regrettably,
one of the less visible casualties of the fires was the annual Thredbo Blues
Festival, which had to be cancelled when the resort was evacuated because of
the fire emergency. One bright note to emerge from this is that the
organisers of the Collex Australian Blues Festival at Goulburn
are generously offering a 50% discount to Thredbo Festival ticket holders: http://www.australianbluesfestival.com.au/browse.asp?cid=552&sid=63&caid=0&cpid=0
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As noted
above, 2002 was a great year for tours and as 2003 kicks off, music lovers
face further assaults on their already beleaguered wallets with – dare we say
it? – a veritable plethora of touring bands and artists
hitting our shores. Indeed, it is shaping up to be one of the fullest and
most exciting tour seasons in many years, with visitors including The Rolling
Stones, Bob Dylan, Ani Di Franco, Ray Charles,
Wilson Pickett, Santana, Tony Joe White, Deep Purple’s Jon Lord, Jackson
Browne, Kraftwerk, Ellen McIlwaine,
Wilco, Queens of the Stone Age, Foo Fighters, James
Taylor, Counting Crows, Marianne Faithfull, Johnny
Marr, Pearl Jam, Badly Drawn Boy, Beth Orton, Jane’s Addiction, John Mayall and “The Bens” -- a triple-header featuring the
great Ben Folds, Australia’s own Ben Lee and rising American indie star Ben Kweller. Many of
these acts, including Dylan and Ray Charles, are also performing at the
star-studded Melbourne Music & Blues Festival in
early February. Unfortunately, the only bad news so far is that Yes have been
forced to postpone their March tour due a back injury suffered by lead singer
Jon Anderson. The shows have been rescheduled to mid-September.
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One
upcoming tour that every serious Aussie music fan should see is the
long-overdue return of the legendary American singer-guitarist-pianist-songwriter
Ellen McIlwaine.
Ellen began her career in Ellen
wowed Aussie audiences on her first solo tour back in 1980, proving herself
to be exactly what many had claimed – i.e. the foremost female blues-rock
artiste in the world. Her incredible slide technique and her stunning voice
routinely make instant converts of all who hear her, but she is still sadly
underappreciated in this country. It’s been almost 20 years since her last
visit, when she earned the bittersweet honour of being the last artist to
perform at Ellen will
be touring solo in February, supported on most dates by friend and Aussie
legend Margret RoadKnight.
For full details of the tour and more, visit Ellen and Margret’s
sites at: and
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Another
must-see tour will feature the long-awaited return of two pioneers of Aussie
Seventies roots rock, Greg Quill and Kerryn
Tolhurst. Greg started out as a solo performer on the Sydney folk scene
in the late 60s before putting together his seminal band Country Radio
in 1970, recruiting Kerryn (ex Adderly
Smith Band, Sundown)) soon after. He also wrote regularly for Go-Set
magazine, Country Radio scored a big hit in 1971 with their classic Gypsy Queen and played at many famous
‘70s festivals including Sunbury. Kerryn left the
band just after their appearance at Sunbury ‘73 and formed The Dingoes a
couple of months later. Country Radio split in 1974 but Greg soldiered on
until 1975, recording an acclaimed solo LP The Outlaw’s Reply
along the way. He was among the first batch of local musos
to receive an Arts Council grant, enabling him to study and travel overseas,
and this eventually led him to settle permanently in Kerryn
of course enjoyed some commercial success and great critical acclaim with The Dingoes, and after their split he
continued his success as a writer and producer in the USA, with credits
including Pat Benatar’s international hit All Fired Up. Greg gave up performing
entirely after settling in
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London
Telegraph obituary:
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Desmond Tester, "British boy actor of the 30s” and a familiar face on Aussie TV
programs of the 50s and ‘60s, died in Sydney on December 31, 2002 at the age
of 83. Desmond joined Nine in the late Fifties and he oversaw Nine’s
children’s programming for many years. His credits include the panel show What's
My Line, and Nine’s The
Channel 9 Pins and the Cabbage Quiz and Channel Ten's Wilma The Witch Club. He is
probably best remembered for his role as “Slippery Sam” in Nine’s Kaper Cops, hosted by Penny Spence (aka Mrs Geoff Harvey). SMH
obituary by Doug Anderson:
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A small but vigorous media stoush
has erupted over the axing of several performers from the Long Way To The Top
regional tour. Former Easybeat Stevie Wright, veteran rocker Lonnie
Lee and ageless axe-meister Kevin Borich had signed up to appear
on the scaled-down tour, which kicked off in Hobart on January 31 and will
play regional centres over the next few months – and all three feature in the
tour’s advertising. But in mid-January they were abruptly dropped from the
tour by the promoters, Michael Chugg Entertainment, less than a week before
it was due to begin. According to Lonnie Lee’s website, the explanation given
to him was that the tour had to be scaled down because of poor ticket sales in
regional areas, due to the drought. On his website Kevin Borich was
reportedly given no explanation about why he was dropped. Kev’s concise website comment on the
event was as follows: “
This led to a contentious response by tour producer and
publicist Amanda Pelman, which was
included in a story about the sackings carried in the Daily Telegraph “Confidential” section. Pelman fingered herself
as the “bad guy” who sacked Kev, Lonnie and Steve,
and gave the same explanation as that given to Lonnie Lee -- that the tour
had to be scaled down for financial reasons. What she failed to explain was
why this had to be done, without notice, only five days before the tour was
scheduled to start. Ms Pelman has regrettably done herself (and the show) few favours
with her generally
abrasive and combative approach to the controversy arising from the sackings
-- ‘skills’ she no doubt picked up from her former boss, Michael Gudinski,
who is legendary for his ‘in-your-face’ behaviour
and attitude. Many people were offended by her back-hander description
of Kev as “one of our finest journeyman guitarists”
and were particularly incensed by her comment: "We've
kept the most significant acts, based on history and crowd response".
Considering both the history and the overwhelming crowd response accorded to Stevie Wright, for one, it’s not surprising that many
people took issue with this claim, as evidenced by the unanimously pro-Borich
feedback to the Daily Telegraph: http://www.dailytelegraph.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,5902172%255E12409,00.html Ms Pelman is no stranger to controversy, having last year
been the subject of industry gossip that she was “punched out” by
Renée Geyer during a heated argument before the Canberra LWTTT show. Renée
was scheduled to appear in Canberra (subbing for an indisposed Marcia Hines),
but according to her account, Pelman’s excessive
rudeness when insisting on the immediate delivery of archival video footage
led to Renée walking out before the show started. She later categorically
denied rumours that she decked Pelman during the argument, although she
pretty much admitted that she wished she had. There was also a minor stink raised (again in the Telegraph) by original Tamam Shud members Dannie Davidson and Zac
Zytnik, who complained of being overlooked in the
publicity about the band’s appearance. It was later reported that most of
Davidson’s unhappiness stemmed from the equally rude treatment he received
when he telephoned Pelman to discuss the billing of the band. Fans and friends have been especially peeved over the
axing of Kevin Borich and its handling by Pelman, and the Daily Telegraph
gossip column has become something of a battleground as Kev’s
supporters and Ms Pelman slog it out. The most recent instalment included a
‘nudge-nudge-wink-wink’ comment, suggesting that Pelman was now romantically
involved with Brian Cadd (who suffered a heart
attack just after the original LWWTT tour concluded). Further
bad press surrounding the tour appeared in early January when The Age reported that veteran
Melbourne promoter and manager Brian
De Courcy was suing Michael Chugg and Kevin Jacobsen, alleging that he was not given the promised billing as co-promoter and was not paid the agreed 2.5% share of the ticket and merchandising revenue.
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The Fab
Four never seem to be far from the headlines even though it’s over thirty
years since they split up. In
December Paul McCartney – who rarely seemed to be out of the news during 2002
-- made more headlines when he got into a media row with Yoko Ono over his
reversal of the “Lennon-McCartney” writing credit on Beatles songs he
recorded on his most recent live album, Back In The USA. Reports initially
suggested that Yoko Ono was considering suing Sir Paul (she wasn’t). However
she did refuse to allow him to reverse the credit on “Yesterday”, a move
which offended Paul, who felt that the reversal was entirely justified, since
he was the sole author of this and many other many songs in the Beatles
catalogue. McCartney said that he was “distressed” by Ono’s refusal and that
his decision had been spurred by his recent discovery of a piano songbook in
a Then in
early January came the news of a successful “sting” operation by British and
Dutch police, who nabbed a gang of bootleggers in possession of a treasure
trove of some 500 reels of tape recordings from the “Get Back” sessions. The
tapes were part of a large number of recordings, most of which were apparently
stolen from EMI in the early 70s. They were discovered in These
were not multi-track tapes made in the recording studio, but rather the ‘Nagra’ location sound tapes, recorded simultaneously by
the filmmakers while they filmed The Beatles at work during protracted sessions
at Twickenham Film Studios during 1969. They
include many complete songs, rehearsals, partial takes and musical fragments
which have never been officially released, as well as hours of banter, jokes,
studio chatter, insults, backbiting and sometimes bitter arguments between
the band members as the group gradually fell apart while they struggled through
the project. The sessions were instigated by McCartney, who was urging the
band to make a “back to basics” album which he hoped would save the group
from splitting and give them a new purpose and direction. It didn’t, of
course; the film captured the group in the last stages of its dissolution; they
split at the end of the year. The best of the recordings were then overhauled
by legendary American producer Phil Spector and released in 1970 as the soundtrack to the
film, Let It Be. In
related news, it was recently announced in Rolling Stone that EMI and Apple
will finally release the "de-Spectorised"
version of The Beatles’ last album, Let It Be in mid-2003. In an exclusive interview with
Rolling Stone magazine Ringo Starr spoke glowingly
of the new CD and said the late George Harrison was in on the initial
discussions and approved of the reissue. Producer Glyn Johns had originally been brought in to oversee the LP and he in
fact completed a full mix, but most of this work was never released. Lennon
was famously critical of the entire project – he once bagged the sessions as
“the biggest shit load of no-feeling shit” the group had ever recorded. Much
to McCartney’s chagrin, Lennon brought in Spector,
who took the tapes away and retooled many of the tracks, adding lush
orchestrations and choral backing to several tracks including The Long And Winding Road. Interviewed
about the forthcoming release of his long-lost production, Glyn Johns was scathing about Spector’s
involvement: "My version of 'Get Back'
actually was released fairly quickly as a single, and my version of 'Let it
Be' was also released, before Phil Spector puked
all over it -- and I hope you quote me on that. If you hear 'The Long and To coincide
wit the album, a remastered version of the movie
'Let It Be' will be released on DVD for the first time. During
January the Sydney Morning Herald
“Spike” column detailed the strange and amusing case of eccentric Aussie
collector Branko “Junior” Kuzmak,
who placed an ad in the Trading Post, offering for sale what he claims are
original session tapes of The White Album and Abbey
Road. The asking price? A very reasonable AU$5 million. Kuzmak’s brother subsequently denied that the tapes were
stolen, saying that the tapes must have made their way to Australia, and that
they had probably been purchased at a record fair or auction, since his
brother has never been to London. The Sun-Herald then reported that British
police are investigating whether Kuzmak’s tapes are
genuine and, if so, and how he came to be in
possession of them. Whatever the tapes are (they may possibly be manufacturing
sub-masters) it’s virtually impossible that they could be the genuine studio
tapes of these albums, since all the multitracks
and master tapes are known to be in the possession of EMI and are (presumably)
stored in the Finally,
the BBC recently reported that American poster companies have been getting
“politically correct” with a famous Beatles image -- much to the delight of
anti-smoking groups. Several US_based poster
manufacturers have reportedly been airbrushing out the cigarette in Paul
McCartney’s hand in poster versions of the famous |
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ST CLAIR STUDIOS --
OSSIE BYRNE NAT KIPNER & THE BEE GEES Bill Casey, the local studies librarian at Hurstville City Library in In 1966-67 Ossie owned and ran
the St Clair Studios in a
converted butcher’s shop in Hurstville. He was a
close friend and staunch supporter of The Bee Gees, and gave the trio
unlimited time in his studio over several months during 1966. The group had
almost been dropped by Festival after recording ten unsuccessful singles, but
they were rescued by the owner of the newly formed Spin label, producer and
songwriter Nat Kipner.
Although equipped with only the most rudimentary studio equipment, Byrne and Kipner made up for it with enthusiasm, energy and
inventiveness. They produced all the Australian Bee Gees recordings for the
Spin label -- including their breakthrough hit, Spicks and Specks -- as well as many other classic tracks by
Steve & The Board, Ronnie Burns, Chris Hall & The Torquays,
MPD Ltd, Jeff St John & The Id and The Twilights. http://www.hurstville.org/beegees/
K-TEL CLASSICS Original hits! Original Stars! Chances are most MILESAGO readers will have one of these
little monsters lurking in the collection, and if you ever owned a copy of 20 Chartstoppers Vol.1 or 20 Dynamic Hits, then
this website will do it right for yoooooou!
Capturing K-Tel in all its cut-priced glory, this site is a terrific resource
about an oft-overlooked facet of the industry. http://www.ktelclassics.com/rockpopframesetmaster.html DOUG PARKINSON Veteran soul stirrer and one of the great male voices of
Australian rock, Doug Parkinson now has his own web presence at: LONNIE LEE Veteran Oz Rocker Lonnie Lee also has a web site at: TAMAM
SHUD Coinciding with their acclaimed
performances on Long Way To The Top and the release of their two classic
albums on CD, Shud have established their own web
presence at : MORNING
OF THE EARTH This is an excellent new site devoted
to the genre-defining Alby Falzon
surf film of 1972, which produced a hugely successful soundtrack album that
features Shud, Brian Cadd
and many others.
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A Strange Fantastic Dream Seventies progressive rock legends Ariel (the successor to the equally venerated Spectrum) have finally
made it onto CD. In late 2002 Mike Rudd and Bill Putt released the
long-awaited CD versions of Ariel’s first two studio LPs, closely followed by
a third CD which includes the previously unreleased Jellabad
Mutant project, which was planned for their second LP but rejected by
EMI. A Strange Fantastic Dream (1973), a Top 20 album, was
recorded by the first lineup of Ariel, which featured former Tamam
Shud members Tim Gaze and Nigel Macara. Rock’n’Roll
Scars (1975) was cut at The three CDs also include bonus single tracks, since
(like Sectrum) it was Ariel’s habit to record songs
that either did not appear on LP or which were different versions from the
album track. ASFD includes the ultra-rare single version of Red Hot Momma (the b-side of Jamaican Farewell from 1973), RnRS includes the wonderful Yeah Tonight / I Am The Laughing Man (1974) and Mutant
includes I’ll Take You High / I Can’
Say What I Mean from Jan 1976. All three discs also illustrate the perilous state of preservation
for even quite recent recordings. The single tracks referred to above all had
to be sourced from vinyl, from the collection of MILESAGO’s
own
Another long-awaited LP which has recently re-emerged
(thanks in part to LWTTT) is Russell Morris’s superb 1971 solo album Bloodstone,
produced by Brian Cadd and featuring Caddie along with
many of the top local musicians of the day. Bloodstone has been
included in the new 2CD compilation The Real Thing, a long overdue
update on Russell’s career which includes his classic ‘60s tracks, the
complete Bloodstone album, and the best of his recordings from the
mid-70s and beyond.
Long considered one of the key Australian “underground”
bands, Tamam Shud have recently released their two
highly prized LPs Evolution (1969) and Goolutionites
and the Real People (1970), plus a bonus track from their ultra-rare Bali
Waters EP. Both LPs are among the rarest and most expensive
collectors items in Australian rock and currently fetch upwards of $1000 on
the collector market. They were bootlegged by a German company in 2001, which
has prompted the band to re-release the albums themselves and the CD came out
just in time for the band’s appearance on the Long Way To The Top concert.
For more information, visit the official Shud
website at:
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