classic and rare Australian popular music from the 1950's, 1960's. 1970's and beyond..including rock and roll, pop, beat, rock, surf and progressive, plus contemporary artists, new releases, reviews and other fun stuff

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Showing posts with label Pop-Rock. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pop-Rock. Show all posts

Saturday, November 30, 2024

The Soundtracks Collection - part one

 


Aussie movies are as much a part of our culture as is the music. I am starting a series of a selection of soundtracks from movies featuring Aussie artists and songwriters. Here's the first.


 
Bootmen - Original Soundtrack Recording (2000)

1 The Living End– All Torn Down 4:09
2 You Am I– Rumble 2:38
3 Cezary Skubiszewski– Opening Sequence 2:00
4 The Living End– Bloody Mary 3:44
5 Regurgitator– Strange Human Beings 4:23
6 Paul Kelly – Tease Me 4:07
7 Banana Oil– My Family 3:36
8 Grinspoon– Sign Post 3:25
9 Cezary Skubiszewski– Love Theme 2:05
10 Deborah Conway– Radio Loves This 3:43
11 Custard– Hit Song 2:24
12 Supaskuba– Giveway 3:40
13 Grinspoon– Better Off Dead 3:20
14 Deadstar– Don't It Get You Down 3:35
15 Paul Kelly – Nothing On My Mind 4:55
16 Icecream Hands– Nipple 3:40
17 Deadstar– Deeper Water 4:23
18 Cezary Skubiszewski– Finale Part 2 2:36
19 Oblivia– Shiver 4:21
20 Leonardo's Bride– Even When I'm Sleeping 3:56
21 You Am I– Junk 2:40
22 Dein Perry– Tap Forge 2:03




1 Fun Lovin' Criminals– Fun Lovin' Criminal
2 Willy Zygier, Gerry Hale– Goat
3 The Grid– Swamp Thing
4 City High– What Would You Do?
5 Jazibel, Vassy– I Can See Clearly Now
6 Willy Zygier, Gerry Hale– Campfire
7 Suiteaz– Back For Good
8 Willy Zygier, Gerry Hale– Leaving The Farm
9 Katalyst– Outlaw Illusionist
10 The Cruel Sea– I Made A Friend
11 Willy Zygier, Gerry Hale– Penicillin
12 Tripod– Kelly From The Block
13 Willy Zygier, Gerry Hale– Whorehouse
14 Scarface – On My Block
15 Geto Boys– Damn It Feels Good To Be A Gangsta




1 Spiderbait– Calypso 1:52
2 Jebediah– Simple 3:45
3 Automatic – Pump It Up 3:19
4 The Living End– From Here On In 2:42
5 Leonardo's Bride– Even When I'm Sleeping 3:54
6 Ratcat & John Paul Young– I Hate The Music 3:44
7 Grinspoon– Just Ace 1:49
8 Turnstyle – I'm A Bus 3:00
9 Ammonia – Keeping My Hands Tied 3:33
10 Hot Rollers – Wickerman's Shoes 2:09
11 Monique Brumby– Up & Down 3:32
12 Even– Don't Wait 4:12
13 Needle Drop– Miss Me When I'm Gone 4:28
14 Sister Madly – Something Deep 3:17
15 You Am I– Purple Sneakers 3:30

Thursday, November 21, 2024

Skyhooks - A Collection

 


Skyhooks were an Australian rock band formed in Melbourne in 1973. Their classic lineup (1974–1977) comprised Graeme "Shirley" Strachan (vocals), Greg Macainsh (bass and backing vocals), Red Symons (guitar, vocals, keyboards), Bob "Bongo" Starkie (guitar and backing vocals), and Imants "Freddie" Strauks (drums).

Known for their flamboyant costumes and makeup, their music addressed a variety of issues including drugs, sex, and the gay scene while frequently referencing Australian places and culture. Evolving from a series of groups with Macainsh and Strauks in the late 1960s and early 1970s, they rose to national prominence when their debut album Living in the 70's (1974), which was initially a moderate success upon release, gained unprecedented popularity the following year, aided by the nascent ABC music show Countdown; the album topped the Australian Kent Music Report chart for a record-breaking 16 weeks and sold over 200,000 copies, becoming the best-selling Australian album at the time. Their second album Ego Is Not a Dirty Word (1975) topped the Kent Music Report for 11 weeks.

Symons and Strachan left in 1977 and 1978 respectively and became media personalities; Symons was replaced with Bob Spencer and Strachan was replaced with Tony Williams, before they disbanded in 1980. The classic lineup reunited four times in the ensuing years, with reunions in 1990 and 1994 producing new material, including the number-one song "Jukebox in Siberia" in 1990. Strachan died in a helicopter crash in 2001; original lead singer Steve Hill, who left and was replaced by Strachan, died in 2005, and original guitarist Peter Starkie died in 2020.

Music historian Ian McFarlane stated that the band "made an enormous impact on Australian social life". In 1992, the group was inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame. In 2011, the Skyhooks album Living in the 70's was added to the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia's Sounds of Australia registry.




























Skyhooks/Daddy Cool




Wednesday, October 2, 2024

All Fired Up - The Lost Treasures Of Australian Music 1970-1990

 


All Fired Up is a collection of Australian rock rarities released by ScreenSound Australia, the National Screen and Sound Archive, which features "hits, near misses and obscurities" of Australian music. The lineup includes famous Australian acts such as Mondo Rock, Icehouse, Redgum, Richard Clapton, John Paul Young, Ted Mulry and Goanna, and is especially welcome for the inclusion of some long-lost rarities by cult acts like Friends and Mandu.

The compilation presents an eclectic sampling of OzRock from the 70s to the 90s, and many tracks, most lifted from the B-sides of rare singles, have never before been released on CD. These include the original Australian version of the Pat Benatar hit All Fired Up (performed by Rattling Sabres), the Franklin Dam protest song Let the Franklin Flow performed by members of bands Goanna and Redgum, and the novelty song How About a Beer for the Horse performed by John Paul Young and the All Stars under the jokey guise of 'Sandshoe Willie and The Worn Out Soul Band'. The tracks were selected by Canberra music historian and radio presenter Paul Conn, author of 2000 Weeks: The First Thirty Years Of Australian Music And Then Some.



1 Rattling Sabres– All Fired Up
2 Sharon O'Neill– Power
3 Friends – B B Boogie
4 Richard Clapton– Goodbye Barbara Ann
5 The Chinless Elite – I Heard It Through The Grapevine
6 Sandshoe Willie & The Worn Out Soul Band– How About A Beer For The Horse
7 Mario Millo– Rebecca
8 Gordon Franklin And The Wilderness Ensemble– Let The Franklin Flow
9 Mondo Rock– Il Mondo Cafe
10 Redgum– Roll It On Robbie
11 Mandu– To The Shores Of His Heaven
12 Doug Parkinson– Arcade
13 Split Enz– Two Of A Kind
14 Ted Mulry– So Much In Love
15 Flowers – Sorry

Sunday, January 19, 2020

So You Wanna Be A Rock'n'Roll Star - various Australian artists...the last and first post

The Aussie Music Blog is winding down and I won't be posting any more. Thank you to all the visitors and readers who have stopped by over the years and left supportive comments, I do appreciate them. 

For this last post I am sharing again the very first post from this blog (originally posted in December 2012), the compilation album "So You Wanna be A Rock'n'Roll Star", one of the most popular posts from the blog. This now very rare 82 track compilation presents some of the more popular and obscure music from the 1960's and is the perfect anthology for fans of classic Australian music. This version is in FLAC with all artwork. The MP3 version can be found on the original post HERE.






 


Monday, June 3, 2019

Australian Celebration...various artists compilation album from the 90's



Tracklist:
01 –Deborah Conway It's Only The Beginning
02 –Hunters & Collectors Holy Grail
03 –Paul Kelly & The Coloured Girls To Her Door
04 –Jimmy Barnes Stone Cold
05 –Archie Roach From Paradise
06 –Kate Ceberano Think About It
07 –Ian Moss Tucker's Daughter
08 –Peter Andre Gimme Little Sign
09 –Rockmelons That Word (L.O.V.E)
10 –Models Barbados
11 –Yothu Yindi Tribal Voice
12 –Frente! Ordinary Angels
13 –Kylie Minogue Celebration
14 –The Badloves Lost
15 –Toni Pearen I Want You
16 –Neil Murray Holy Road
17 –Nathan Cavaleri Josh's Boogie
18 –Roxus Where Are You Now ?
19 –Skyhooks Million Dollar Riff
20 –The Angels Love Waits








Monday, March 11, 2019

The Glory Days of Aussie Pub Rock Vol.2....various artists compilation


Volume 2 of The Glory Days of Aussie Pub Rock gathers once again gathers the cream of Aussie Rock from the 70's, 80's and 90's. 

It features different tracks from the much the same list of big names as last time and much much more. That list of big names is massive. Cold Chisel, The Angels, Men at Work, Australian Crawl, the Sports, Jo Jo Zep & The Falcons, Mental As Anything, Split Enz, Sunnyboys, Screaming Jets, Rose Tattoo, the Radiators, Paul Kelly & The Coloured Girls, the Dingoes, Ian Moss, Goanna, Dragon, Flowers, Noiseworks, Hunters & Collectors, Skyhooks (their lone post-Shirl hit 'Over the Border'), Baby Animals, Billy Thorpe & the Aztecs, TMG, Dragon, Dave Warner's From the Suburbs, Choirboys, Richard Clapton, the Saints, the Reels, Mi-Sex, Mondo Rock, the Models, The Badloves (with Jimmy Barnes), Matt Finish, V Spy V Spy, Uncanny X-Men, Warumpi Band, Weddings Parties Anything, Russell Morris, Black Sorrows; all these and more are represented by tracks that not only shook pub walls back in the day but pumped out of transistor radios and, in most cases, Sunday night ABC TV screens too. 

Also featured are plenty of big names who weren't included last time, including the Hoodoo Gurus, Jim Keays with his 1975 remake of 'Undecided', Ol'55, Kings of the Sun, Daddy Cool (with the rare 1975 comeback single 'All I Wanna Do Is Rock'), Little River Band, Mother Goose, Kevin Borich Express, Rose Tattoo slide guitarist Peter Wells' brilliant 'Between the Saddle and the Ground', Little Heroes with 'One Perfect Day', indigenous reggae-rock trailblazers No Fixed Address with 'Black Man's Rights', Vika & Linda rocking up a storm on a song that Paul Kelly wrote but never recorded with the Dots 'I Didn't Know Love Could Be Mine', Sydney '80s faves Flaming Hands, the Riptides and Dynamic Hepnotics, Melbourne mainstays Nick Barker & The Reptiles, Mike Rudd & the Heaters and the Spaniards (featuring Billy Miller & Mick Pealing), and glam-era pub favourites Hush, Taste and Supernaut. 

Other noteworthy tracks include rare singles by Stars (1976's 'With A Winning Hand', which never appeared on an album) and post-Ol'55 power poppers the Breakers who featured in the original 'Puberty Blues' movie, and the first ever reissue of anything by Gary Young & the Rocking Emus (the great single 'Rockabilly Heaven', featuring the great Daddy Cool/Jo Jo Zep drummer together with late fellow DC members Wayne Duncan and Ross Hannaford). There's also the rare but great 1971 single 'If You Got It' by legendary Adelaide group Fraternity, featuring Bon Scott on vocals. 

The collection ends with the Party Boys and John Swan - John had replaced Bon in Fraternity - who together give us an idea of what AC/DC might've sounded like if Swanee had also replaced Bon (or Brian) in AC/DC, with a ripping 'High Voltage.'

A sheer smörgåsbord for lovers of classic Aussie Rock!

see also blog post for Vol.1: https://theaussiemusicblog.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-glory-days-of-aussie-pub-rockvol1.html

available on Amazon HERE:





Saturday, November 17, 2018

Normie Rowe....Frenzy! The 50th Anniversary Collection...30 track compilation


Norman John Rowe AM (born 1 February 1947) is an Australian singer and songwriter of pop music and an actor of theatre and soap opera for which he remains best known as Douglas Fletcher in 1980s serial Sons and Daughters. As a singer he was credited for his bright and edgy tenor voice and dynamic stage presence. Many of Rowe's most successful recordings were produced by Nat Kipner and later by Pat Aulton, house producers for the Sunshine Records label. Backed by his band, The Playboys, Rowe released a string of Australian pop hits on the label that kept him at the top of the Australian charts and made him the most popular solo performer of the mid-1960s. Rowe's double-sided hit the A-side, a reworking of the Doris Day hit "Que Sera Sera" /with b-side "Shakin' All Over" was one of the most successful Australian singles of the 1960s.

Between 1965 and 1967 Rowe was Australia's most popular male star but his career was cut short when he was drafted for compulsory military service (called National Service in Australia) in late 1967. His subsequent tour of duty in Vietnam effectively ended his pop career and having never been able to recapture the success in music he enjoyed at his peak in the 1960s, instead carving out a career in theatre and television.




more on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normie_Rowe



Tuesday, October 30, 2018

Samskara Radio release debut single 'Can't Kill The Radio'..catchy 80’s infused electro-pop rock


Simon Marrocco debuts the release of his new music project Samskara Radio, with a catchy 80’s infused electro-pop rock single ‘Can’t Kill The Radio’. 

Have a listen to ‘Can’t Kill The Radio’ here: https://soundcloud.com/samskararadio

Can’t Kill The Radio’ is about being confronted with some of lives biggest truths. When we hit rock bottom we start to question who we are and what has led us to be the person we are today; through all of life’s experiences of achievements, relationships, teachings and travels around the world. We are forced to surrender our level of control over what we think we can control, but really can’t. Words can just be labels and the concepts that we learn from childhood can’t really hurt us. The person we have been taught to create in our head is a projection on the screen of life and the screen never really changes. Life lives through us and living life new every day is the key. The field of creativity happens in the now. Being kind to yourself and others, enjoying life and the beauty that is all around us is in fact a form of art itself.




The track was engineered by Troy Borg at Sunnyside Studios, mixed by Michael Badger at Jaya Jaya Music (with credits such as King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard’s ARIA award winning album Nonagon Infinity) and mastered by David Briggs at The Production Workshop. Cover artwork designed by Frank Kruse.




Simon has always been surrounded by music; through his younger years growing up in his birth town of Lenola, Italy and in Melbourne after his parents migrated to Australia when he was just 8. He sang in Choirs then started writing his own songs with his acoustic guitar which transitioned to performing at folk venues in Melbourne. By the early 80’s, Simon was performing in successful bands who were busy backing some huge names in music with the likes of John Farnham, The Angels and The Sunny Boys.

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/samskararadio
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/samskararadio/ 
Soundcloud https://soundcloud.com/user-842797994 
Twitter https://twitter.com/SamskaraRadio 
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX9JYni_YHwyv1ex0plRQSw

Friday, September 28, 2018

HOUSEHATS destructive music video for ‘I'VE BEEN BROKEN’...cool video, awesome track!


Melbourne-based trio Househats recently released music video for ‘I’ve Been Broken’ directed by Jack Rintoul (Wendyhouse).

Shot in a studio in Melbourne, ‘I’ve Been Broken’ sees both Househats and director Rintoul on their music video debut. Keeping within the theme of the song, the clip features inanimate objects being broken down and destroyed, and warped beyond reality.   



Drummer and vocalist Joshua De Laurentiis on shooting the video:

We shot this the morning after we played a show at The Corner Hotel with Painters and Dockers, so I was pretty dusty, as we all were, which was fitting considering we literally smashed a bunch of stuff into dust”.

Since the release, the track has seen spot play on triple j, added to rotation on triple j Unearthed and strongly supported by community radio stations FBi, 4ZZZ, SYN FM, Radio Adelaide and 2SER.

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Saturday, September 15, 2018

Zoot Locker..The Best of The Zoot 1968-1971..featuring Rick Springfield, Darryl Cotton and Beeb Birtles


Zoot were a pop-rock band formed in Adelaide, South Australia in 1965 as Down the Line. They changed their name to Zoot in 1967 and by 1968 had relocated to Melbourne. They had a top five hit on the Go-Set national singles chart with a heavy rock cover of The Beatles' ballad "Eleanor Rigby" released in 1970; but they disbanded in May 1971.

Mainstay bass guitarist, Beeb Birtles, was later a founder of Little River Band in 1975 and guitarist singer-songwriter, Rick Springfield, who moved to the United States in 1972, achieved international fame as a solo artist, songwriter and actor.

Although Zoot were a popular band during the late 1960's, critics labeled them as teenybopper or light bubblegum due primarily to the Think Pink – Think Zoot publicity campaign devised by their management. After relocating to Melbourne in mid-1968, Zoot signed with Columbia Records/EMI Australia and were managed by Wayne de Gruchy. They recorded their first single, "You'd Better Get Goin' Now", a Jackie Lomax cover with David Mackay producing.



Zoot's second single, "1 × 2 × 3 × 4" was released in December and charted on the Go-Set National Top 40 Singles Chart. By early 1970, band members had tired of the garish pink outfits and associated harassment and physical abuse, hence, to rid themselves of the bubblegum/teen idol image, they burnt their outfits on TV music show, Happening '70. Zoot then promoted their fifth single "Hey Pinky", released in April, with an advertisement in Go-Set which featured a nude picture of their bums. "Hey Pinky" was a hard charging guitar oriented song but it failed to chart.

They released a hard rock cover of The Beatles' song, "Eleanor Rigby" which became their most popular single when it peaked at No. 4 in March 1971. It remained in the Top 40 for twenty weeks and reached No. 12 on the Top Records for the Year of 1971. Their next single, "The Freak" / "Evil Child", another hard rock song, was released in April and peaked into the top 30.




Monday, March 19, 2018

Melbourne-based indie-punk group Househats drop new party jam 'Stop'



Following on from their critically praised debut cut 'All Together', Melbourne-based indie-punk group, Househats, have just unveiled their new single 'Stop' - recorded and mixed by the same All Together team of Dan Caswell (Horace Bones, DIET.) and Michael Badger (King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, IV League).

Taking cues from the trio's staple influences Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Omni and Parquet Courts, 'Stop' combines elements of garage-rock and post-punk, while also blending well-crafted pop sensibilities, that are sure to inspire many rowdy house party sing-a-longs.




Drummer Joshua De Laurentiis describes the motivation behind the track:

"Life can often just get away from you, and Stop is about really dialling back the hectic speed in this age of post-millennial malaise and trying to get yourself back on track"

Debut single 'All Together' was strongly supported across all of the triple j platforms (with high rotation on triple j unearthed and multiple spins on some of triple j's biggest programs Goodnights, 2017 with Richard Kingsmill, Home & Hosed) along with love from worldwide radio and tastemaker blogs.

They've shared stages with The Gooch Palms and Mike Noga (The Drones), and to coincide with this release, Househats will perform at Sydney Road Street Party, Cruisin' For A Boozin' and By The Meadow.


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Sunday, February 25, 2018

Feeding the Future...Australian contemporary music sampler from early 90's



This compilation sampler was released in 1994 in conjunction with Australian music day for that year. An 18 track eclectic mix of contemporary artists of that time including Culture Shock, Defryme, Chocolate Starfish, Skunkhour, Stephen Cummings, The Sharp, Tiddas and Marcia Hines.



Wednesday, October 18, 2017

Sydney-based indie-rock quintet Georgia June unveil debut single ‘COOL’ and accompanying video



Sydney-based indie-rock quintet, Georgia June, have just unveiled their debut single ‘Cool’ and accompanying video.

Recorded by Ayad Al Adhamy (Passion Pit, Team Spirit) and Joel Witenberg (Surf Rock is Dead) at New York's Diamond City Studios, 'Cool' is full of angst and honest expression. Georgia’s passionate vocals are complimented by catchy guitar riffs and crisp bass lines, resulting in a candid indie anthem. The spirit of fem-rock icons like Joan Jett, Blondie and Chrissy Amphlett manifests in her powerful lyrics and nonchalant attitude.



June describes the recording process and inspiration behind ‘Cool’ –

“Recording the track at Diamond City was such an insane experience, the song was written in Sydney after an Uber ride home from a house party and it was amazing to bring it to life in NYC. Cool is supposed to be a satire on the notion of being popular and fitting in to a particular social hierarchy, I’ve always been super nerdy so the video and song for this was just a play on that.”

The vintage-inspired film clip depicts a teenage girl dealing with the pressures of growing up and adolescent relationships, interspersed with montages of Georgia performing alongside her fellow band members. In a sense, it displays a young woman bestowing words of wisdom upon a younger, more naïve version of herself.

The band’s debut single emerges after Georgia’s recent three-month stay in New York, where she was mentored by Billboard Magazine. Honing her craft over years of performing around Sydney’s Inner West neighbourhoods and playing at the recent King Street Crawl, the nineteen year old songstress is already an accomplished musician.


FOLLOW GEORGIA JUNE

Friday, September 29, 2017

THE ART release stunning, cosmic video clip for new single "Thinking About the Universe"



THE ART’s latest abstract has arrived in the form of the official music video for their latest single, Thinking About The Universe, shot by The Media Collective (producer Sze Wun Lau, director Tanzeal Rahim, and DOP Andrew Grant) in Sydney as the band prepared for their East Coast tour of the same name, in support of their latest album, All in the Mind.

Thinking About The Universe, written by Azaria Byrne, is about being in another dimension while surrounded by murmurs of the mundane, with a brattish retaliation to wasted words and dross.  Known for their pandemonium and anthemic songwriting, The Art deliver their honest and expressive lyricism with a sonic diversity that always leaves their live audience wanting more and more – and is anything but mundane. 



ALL IN THE MIND is available now via iTunes (for digital) and the SFR Store (for physical and fan bundles). 
 

GET ALL IN THE MIND BY THE ART:
SFR Store (fan bundles) | http://bit.ly/TA-AITM-SFR
iTunes | http://bit.ly/TA-AITM-iTunes
 

FOLLOW THE ART
Website | Facebook | Insta | YouTube

download FREE information sheet HERE

Saturday, September 2, 2017

Keep On Rockin'...Australian Pop of the 70's compilation album..original artists



This eclectic mix of 45 tracks from the early to mid 1970's has everything from rock, pop, soul, country, progressive, glam, punk and singer-songwriters. The collection of artists range from solo performers like Brian Cadd, Doug Ashdown, Renee Geyer, Kevin Johnson, Russell Morris, Richard Clapton and Jon English to groups like TMG, Flake, Ariel, Stars, Ol'55, Mississippi, Supernaut, Railroad Gin, King Harvest, Finch and Rabbit. For fans of 70's Aussie music this is an essential collection.