Raw Power by Iggy Pop 1973

 There was a pub in Daylesford called the Royal Hotel that would put The Fiction and Little Murders on regularly on a Saturday night. At one stage the owner of the pub told us the two biggest bands in Daylesford were Little Murders and Men at Work. Same thing at the Market Hotel in Prahran.

When we played there the band would get rooms upstairs. We would arrive late in the afternoon and I would start on the brandy and dry straight away. That was my drink of choice before gigs. We played a lot in winter so it would be a few drinks while setting up then a pub meal followed by the first of three sets. The room we played in had a bucket with mirrors glued to it hanging off the ceiling. DIY mirrorball. The punters danced underneath and I often envisaged mayhem if it ever fell down with the ragged shards of glass penetrating skin and muscle.

On our first gig in 1978  a girl flying too close to the wind and breathing scotch and coke into my face came up real close and said "Play "Search and Destroy" She kept doing this all night to my face. In between sets. 

Search and destroy is of course the opening song to "Raw Power' my favourite of the Stooges albums. Maybe it was because it was produced by Bowie. Maybe because some of the songs were just so raw and majestic. After picking up the album I quickly put it onto the cassette so I could play it in my car. This was Saturday night music. Pre-gig warm-up.

As for Search and Destroy I would never be able to pull that off. I saw Radio Birdman play it at the Tiger Room and it crashed the place. I knew my path was going to be a little different.

Radio City by Big Star 1974

 In the early 90s, I was living in the first house I ever bought. Well, there have only been two. I bought a house in John Street in Elwood next to the canal. Great place and a great walk to the beach. At first, I didn't particularly want to live there alone. So I got my old bandmate Rod Hayward in to share the place with me.

I met Rod back in 1982 when the third version of Little Murders broke up after a tour of Sydney. Rod came from the band the Pete Best Beatles who I loved to go and see. Bit of a comedy cabaret band, At the same time, we got Mick Barclay (Japanese Comix) on drums and Chris Hunter (Cuban Heels) on bass. The 1982-1985 Murder line-up was magic from the word go.

With the eventual breakup in 1985, Rod went back to the Pete Best Beatles for a while before joining Dave Grayney's band (White Buffaloes and Coral Snakes) and from there to overseas tours and gold records. That's his wonderful guitar work on Dave's track "You're Just Too Hip, Baby" From there to Lisa Miller and back to Little Murders for the last 20 years. He is the guitar man.

But going back to 1991 when Rod moved in he brought along a double CD of Big Star which was the first two albums. I had never really listened to them before or if I did I had only heard bits and pieces and their "hits". So this was a revelation. We'd sit and play chess, drink beer and listen to Big Star. Songs would leap out of the speakers. September Gurls, I'm in Love with a Girl, Back of My Car. I could have put down their first album too but Radio City seems to be the one I go to first when listening to Big Star.

Bryter Later by Nick Drake 1970

 The music of Nick Drake kind of seeped into my world bit by bit and song by song over the years. Either by compilations or movie soundtracks or journalists writing pieces about his work. But it was a recording of Northern Sky by Anna Burley of the Killjoys that really piqued my interest and got me to buy this album, Anna's version is brilliant and I'm still playing her recording God knows how many years since my friend and producer Craig Pilkington passed it onto me. I've been working with Craig and Audrey Studios since the mid-90s and Anna has sung on every Little Murders album since "We Should Be Home By Now". Hers is the voice that probably makes my voice on our albums a little more bearable to listen to. Especially when she is joined by some of the other great voices that I surround myself with. Bruce Minty, Mick Barclay and Chirpy to name a few. Craig is no slouch in the vocal department too.

So I bought Bryter Later and loved the atmosphere Nick Drake creates. Very English Autumn weather, the music and the imagery combining to place me in some other place and time. Sitting indoors while the sky drizzles down the outside window. I bought both his other albums. He only made three before dying in 1974. They are all great albums.

Northern Sky is still my favourite Nick Drake song. On the original, there is this kind of folk-pop breakdown at the halfway mark where the piano just lifts the song. It has this emotional impact that gets me every time. 

Tea For The Tillerman by Cat Stevens 1970

 

I was in Form 3 at Box Hill High School in 1970. I was besotted by records and sometimes I would talk about records I wanted as if I really owned them. Such was the case with Tea For The Tillerman by Cat Stevens. I had looked at the back cover in the record store so many times that I knew all the songs in order which helped in my subterfuge. When my friends at school talked about it I knew the song order on both sides. For a long time, I knew a lot of song orders of records. I used to take a lot of pride in knowing that.

I couldn’t swim so that year for a sport I was sent to a swimming pool just off Elgar Road in Box Hill North. I was going to get my Herald Swimming Certificate. After a number of weeks, I managed to swim the distance and collect my certificate. To tell the truth, my foot touched the floor as I was swimming but I wasn’t caught. 

I had to ride my bike from school to the centre. On the last week of the course I was speeding down Elgar Road when I hit a pothole and me and my bike hit the ground. There was a bus behind me that kept going so I was basically run over by a bus. Well, a little. I was 14. I wasn’t frazzled. I looked up to see the undercarriage of the bus. I dragged myself and the bike out from under the bus told the passengers who had come out to see me that I was alright and went onto the pool. And got my Herald Certificate. 

When I got home Tea For the Tillerman was on my bed in a brown paper bag. My mum knew how much I wanted it and had bought it for me that day. I didn’t tell her that day about being run over by a bus. Not even sure I told her about the Herald Swimming Certificate. I played that record until it was worn out. 

20 years later I’m in a rented Peugeot driving across the former East German border and Tea for The Tillerman was the only cassette we had. Still sounded good.

Daddy Who? Daddy Cool by Daddy Cool 1971

 In 1971 I was 15 years old. The big thing to do on a Sunday afternoon was to go to Ringwood Iceland Ice Skating Rink which meant a bus ride to Laburnum Station followed by a train ride to Heatherdale Station which was the closest to Iceland.

I tried to look as good as I could at that age making sure my jeans weren’t ironed and I didn’t have sweat stains under my armpits. I was fond of a pink shirt I used to wear. My friends and I would go round and round to the latest pop hits. One afternoon I went down onto the icy layer of water and the dye on my jeans bled into the shirt so that was the end of the pink shirt/blue jeans look.

The aim was to get a girl to hold your hand as you circled the rink. Preferably one that wouldn’t fall over and bring you down with her. We all heard stories of the poor kid who fell over and had their fingers sliced off by a speed skater.

One day someone did hold my hand. And we skated together for ages. And she lived somewhere near me. So her friends and my friends caught the train to Laburnum and then walked all the way up Middlesborough Road to the garage on the corner of my street. There was a phone booth on Fulton Road and we stood together in the small space and I showed her how you could ring a number that played the hit of the week. That week it was “Come Back Again” by Daddy Cool. It was like a summer day and started to get warm inside that small space. We stepped out and she told me she had to go and so she and her friends walked off. My friends went back to their side of Middlesborough Road. It was a perfect day. I never saw her again. I always looked out for her in Iceland but to no avail. 

And the Daddy Cool record was playing everywhere I went. And it sounded so good on the transistor radio.