Richard Clapton - Best Years Of Our Lives

MINE

Another Aussie name that's indelibly etched on my teenage years, Richard Clapton (or Dick Clap as the less-mature of my friends would have it) is probably our answer to the wave of West Coast sound that washed over us in the late 70s.  

It gave us the feeling we could compete on that stage - with the same lazy-sounding but effortlessly-executed riffs, and lyrics that told us of our East Coast mentality, name-checking Sydney's Palm Beach Road, Bondi Lifesaver and Oxford Street - along with the Tropic of Capricorn, which slices through the top third of our wide brown land.  You see, we share the same Pacific Ocean as the US - just seen from a few thousand miles in the other direction.  We had the same surf culture and the music - and for the first time I think we were starting to understand that despite our British roots, the colonials Down Under had a lot more in common with California than Cornwall.

Richard Clapton's notoriously shy, hiding behind those dark shades in every public appearance, but he's a well-deserved Hall of Famer in the Australian music scene.  And he has a warm, rich voice, that hasn't faded a bit, 40 years down the track.  I'd go and see him perform tomorrow, if I could.

VERDICT: TURN IT UP down in the lucky country

YOURZ

First of all, another big confession: I am not an Eric Clapton fan.  Cream was cool but Clapton's solo work has never done impressed me.  Oh, sure, I acknowledge his ability as a guitarist is without doubt but I find most of his songs to be fairly boring, with notable exceptions, of course.

But Australia has its own Clapton, an artist I much prefer and a man responsible for writing some of our finest songs, including Capricorn Dancer, Deep Water, Lucky Country, I Am An Island and Girls On The Avenue.  Allegedly taking his stage name by combining names of his two favourite artists, Keith Richards and Eric Clapton, his reputation is well deserved.

While growing up in the 70s in the same hometown as Clapton (this being Sydney), his face and music were one of the regular, few Australian constants in a market place saturated with overseas acts.  And while the boy I was then had little appreciation for his songwriting skills, as I've aged, so have my tastes.  The songwriter in me knows brilliance when he hears it.  And age hasn't diminished Clapton's abilities either.  A recent live performance on a local television show only confirms this as he is still as vibrant and dynamic a writer and performer as he ever was.

VERDICT: TURN IT UP 

For further information go to http://www.richardclapton.com

Prince And The N.P.G. - Diamonds And Pearls

YOURZ

Prince is responsible for writing The Cross, one of my all time favourite songs.  While I don't mind the original version, it is the cover version done by Aussies Died Pretty that blows me away.  And I've only ever seen them do it live.  (You can hear it here)  Still, sometimes great songs need to be covered before you realise how great they are.  But I've always had mixed feelings about Prince.  Some of his songs, as far as I'm concerned, are near genius while others are, well, I'll be polite and say less so.  Way less...

Diamonds And Pearls, unfortunately, falls in the latter realm.  Most of this album, released nearly 20 years ago now, makes me cringe and want to stick my fingers in my ears.  But there are a couple of cool tracks, though, like Gett Off, which is sticky sex turned into music and Cream, which is foreplay put to music.  But then, he has always had a way of being able to turn the sensuous into music.  But the pay off for this is having to put up with the schmaltz as well, something I'm not prepared to do.  Two songs does not make an album, as far as I'm concerned, so, sorry babe, but I'm gonna vote to...

VERDICT: THROW IT OUT

MINE

Getting this album out of the drawer just made me angry.  Not because of the CD - it's OK, I guess - but because it revealed to me that for the THIRD time in my life I'm going to have to buy 1999.  Because it's gone, to who knows where.  Did I leave it at a party?  Did I lend it to someone who hasn't returned it?  Whatever the reason, my favourite Prince album is gone - again.  I lost it the first time in the infamous Surry Hills robbery that lost me Neneh Cherry.  And it was replaced pretty soon afterwards, as I recall.  But it's been a while since I dragged it out of the drawer and now it's not there (sob).

But all of this isn't telling you what I think of Diamonds and Pearls.  Prince's sex album.  Really, if you're playing Gett Off to anyone, you better be ready to get at least semi naked and get busy right then and there - that song isn't sexy, it sticks its hand down your pants and makes you jump.  And a lot of the other songs are either about getting it on, or of staring lovingly into someone's eyes.  Hip-hop fans will like Jughead and I generally only enjoy a couple of other tracks - Thunder and Cream.  It's not his best - but I'd vote we also get his greatest hits albums (YourZ sez: sounds good to me), because his Royal Purpleness has done some damn fine work over the years.  Not including movies, I hasten to add.

VERDICT: TURN IT UP if you're in that kind of a mood (wink wink)

For more information: http://www.last.fm/music/Prince (dude doesn't have a site - how cool is that!)

Sidewinder - Tangerine

MINE

Y'know, while we're doing this review-a-day thing I generally play my cards pretty close to my chest when it comes to music bought by YourZ that I'm not really familiar with.  I like to let him wait until I've written it down before he really discovers how I feel.  But when I heard Tangerine, I couldn't wait to come home and confront him, saying "How fucking good are Sidewinder?" (I'm trying to cut down on my profanity so you can tell I was moved.)

Side note: is a band a singular or a plural?  Do I say: How good is Sidewinder or: How good are Sidewinder?  Weirdly I would say R.E.M are touring next year but Bon Jovi isn't.  Thoughts?

This album is O-L-D... 1997 and recorded when they were young lads from our hometown Canberra (the nation's capital).  I'm horrified they never made it past this album, which sounds like the guys from Cream, the Byrds and the Beatles all had kids together who formed a band.  The songs Titanic Days and Here She Comes Again are particularly gorgeous.  I will play this album over and over agian, and I'm furious I didn't know about it before.

VERDICT: TURN IT UP

YOURZ

I was at the very first live show Sidewinder did, at a long-gone venue in Canberra called The Terminus Tavern.  It was a Sunday afternoon gig and friends (hi Nadine and Tim), who were in the headlining band, told us about this great young act and said my friends and I should make sure we get there early to see them.

Well, my friends weren't wrong - this band were young.  I think Martin was all of 14, although he looked somewhat older, while his big brother, Nick, may have been 16.  But as these kids played their set, everyone there soon realised that, despite their ages, this band had more potential than most of the other bands on the scene at the time.  And how right we were.

Sidewinder went from strength to strength, developing both as songwriters and performers.  I can't tell you how many times I saw them perform, first as support to the band I was in at the time then as headliners of their own shows.  We all loved them but we were also envious of their natural abilities and shining talents. Once they started recording, they outgrew Canberra very quickly and became a well-established name, not just locally, but Australia-wide.

On the recording front, they took their time and released a number of EPs, attempting to find their feet in the studio.  Their earliest, T Star, while probably not as confident as they would have liked, showed so much promise, it was scary.  This promise continued to show with the EPs that followed, Yoko Icepick and The Gentle Art Of Spoonbending and started to fully blossom on their first album, Atlantis.

But it wasn't until the first singles from Tangerine emerged that this promise really bloomed.  Titanic Days and Here She Comes Again were both huge songs, but also served to not only show the path the band had taken to get to where they were but also to show the direction they were heading.  When the album came out, local music press fell over itself trying to describe the depth and scope of the album.  From the beautiful, summery Sunshine In My Pocket (which Martin previewed on my guitar in my lounge room one afternoon) to the trippy Mad Women Of The Universe, as well as great rock tracks like God and Intensify, there was so much to take in.

What it showed to those of us who knew the band so well was the promise we knew they had absolutely realised.  But it was so much more than this, more than any of us expected.  And we were stunned.

Listening back to Tangerine now, I still feel stunned.  It's every bit as brilliant as I remember it but perhaps even more so because it still sounds so fresh, inventive and, more than anything else, relevant.  What pains me so much about this is that Sidewinder didn't last beyond this magnum opus.  Despite the promise, despite the blooming and the brightest of futures, they didn't last.

Tangerine is not just a Forgotten Gem (although it was hardly forgotten) but is quite possibly still one of the best pieces of music I own.  I was proud to call them friends.  And I still miss them.

VERDICT: TURN IT UP

For more information: http://www.halfacow.com.au/artists.php?page=artist_bio&artist=A028