Forays Into Forgotten Vinyl - Vinyl Tidings

YOURZ

Mine and YourZ truly were weaned on a diet of flat black plastic growing up.  As we moved from teen petulance to young adult… well, erm, petulance, our vinyl collections were suddenly usurped by digital interlopers called CDs.  Because we (and yes, I have the courage, in this instance, to speak for both of us) are attracted by bright shiny things, our poor vinyl collections were superseded.  

Also out were the good old reliable turntables, replaced first by CD players then by DVD players.  We loved the new technology because we could pogo, mosh and/or bump'n'grind in front of the stereo without any fear of a causing a skip, jump or scratch.

Unlike most, however, we couldn’t let go of our albums.  When we combined households years ago, we both dragged two crates of records into the mix as well.  We used the full as speaker stands but found the more we looked at them, the more we longed for a record player.

Then late last year, Mine purchased, for a modest price, a Technics SL-D2 direct drive turntable (which apparently was considered quite good in its day).  Soon after, she also got a great preamp as a Christmas present. And this is where the music part of this post starts.

Christmas Day, instead of traditional carols, we played every single Midnight Oil album and the one single we owned.  It was like listening to a time machine, a powerful reminder of days gone by.  We listened to lots of other music too - The Flowers, Divinyls, John Kennedy, Paul Kelly, The Hollowmen and INXS, to name just the Australian acts (or at least those we could remember - we had a very jolly Christmas).  But it was Midnight Oil who ruled the day.  

We started with Place Without A Postcard, followed by Head Injuries, then 10, 9, 8..., Red Sails In The Sunset and the Power And The Passion single with a dub version on the B side - not necessarily in the right chronological order, but close.  As I listened, I felt connected with a time when life was stretched way out in front of me, brimming with all sorts of possibilities.  It teased me with the exuberance of youth I no longer have while reminding me of how good I have it now.  It was also the perfect way to spend a Christmas Day with the one I love.

VERDICT: Vital

MINE

While many of my friends and acquaintances have chosen to throw away their vinyl collection, I've never been able to my records go.  While more and more old music is re-released on CD and for download, many of the albums I loved in my youth miss out.  So for some time now, I've trawled the pages of eBay looking for my holy grail - a Direct Drive turntable in good condition at a reasonable price.

I have to confess that I bought this particular model because it was one I'd used before.  In fact, when my first husband bought it sometime in the late 70s it was very expensive and state-of-the-art.  I love the fact that it has a series of black lines on the side of the platen - so you can adjust the speed for pin-point 33 and 45 rpm speeds.

When I first bought it, we went in search of a phono preamp and picked one up for a very small sum.  Be warned, cheap preamps aren't worth the cash, and we abandoned our first vinyl session pretty quickly after finding a bass hum - probably because it wasn't earthed.  But Christmas Day dawned and the first crisp, clear notes rang out.  As did the hisses and crackles from long-ago times, and the odd jump as we re-learned to tip-toe past the turntable. (Do you have the same song in your head that I do?)

What I thought was remarkable about the rest of that day wasn't that we chose to play all our Midnight Oil (come on, Peter Garrett is our federal MP!) but that there were very few arguments about what we were going to play.  We pulled out lots of albums, scattered them all around the room and had a hoot of a time.  We danced (well, I danced), sang and generally carried on as if we were 20 years younger.

More please.

VERDICT: Vital

INXS - The Swing

MINE

There's possibly no other band that reflects my young adulthood better.  I loved INXS - from the moment I first saw them on Countdown, performing their third single, their cover of The Loved One. For some reason I missed the first two singles, but I made up for that shortly afterwards by buying their first album and playing it to death.  

Then, just before they hit worldwide, I took a trip overseas and caught up with a friend who was living in Paris.  I bought her Shabooh Shoobah as a gift - some real Aussie music she wouldn't get in France.  And then they first began to get some UK heat with that album and the next - the one we're reviewing right now.  Of course they didn't make it big in the US till Listen Like Thieves, but their back catalogue in a lot of ways I find more full of life, more entertaining, than anything they did for the stadium crowd.  

I've seen them play in a small pub in Canberra, when all my girlfriends thought Michael Hutchence was ugly, because he was rather a spotty-faced youth back then.  Having suffered badly from acne myself, I just looked at the charisma.  I met my first husband at an INXS gig at the Uni bar in Canberra.  One of my friends was working at a Sydney bar where Michael got into a lot of strife by turning up wasted and pulling the "Don't you know who I am?" deal with the bouncer who wasn't about to let him in.  And I was working on radio the day he was found dead in his Sydney hotel room.  That hurt.

Although YourZ and I watched the TV show the band put on to "find their new lead singer" and thoroughly enjoyed it, INXS without Michael just isn't INXS.  Sorry, guys.

VERDICT: TURN IT UP

YOURZ

In the 70s, I lived on the northern beaches of Sydney, the same area where bands like Midnight Oil and INXS first started.  I remember sneaking into the Royal Antler hotel at Narrabeen to see the Oils perform a blistering set.  I don't recall if INXS supported them at this gig but to be honest, I wasn't really interested in any one else other than the Oils.  But INXS got there start doing lots of supports with them, so it is feasible they were on the same bill that night.  It wasn't until some years later that I 'discovered' them for myself.

Like Mine, this discovery started when I heard The Loved One.  Not too long after, I got a copy of their first compilation, INXSIVE, featuring their first singles as well as highlights from their first two albums.  Listening to this compilation and their third album, Shaboo Shoobah, sold me completely on the band.  The follow up, The Swing, was every bit as good as their previous but even more so.  By now, the band had developed a sound and style completely their own and, as it usually goes, spawned a whole bunch of imitators.  But none of those could hold a candle to INXS.

The Swing was the first album the band recorded overseas, enlisting the production skills of Nile Rodgers for the first single, Original Sin, and Nick Launay for the rest of the album.  It became their first major hit album, both in Australia and overseas and produced some of their most enduring hits with tracks like Dancing On The Jetty, I Send A Message and the title track.  And while the follow-up, Listen Like Thieves, is considered the album that broke them world wide, for me, it is the raw energy of both Shaboo Shoobah and The Swing that I still find unbeatable.

VERDICT: TURN IT UP

For more information: http://www.inxs.com/

In our collection, we also have Shaboo Shoobah

The Church - Deep In The Shallows: Classic Singles Collection

YOURZ

With the recent sad death of former member of The Models, James Freud, I've been looking back at some of the music I loved when I was a young man.  Of course, The Models were a big favourite (as I've already said in our review here) but right up there was bands like INXS, who we'll be reviewing later this week, and The Church.

Of all the bands I loved back then, though, it was The Church who influenced me the most.  I distinctly remember being blown away by The Unguarded Moment as a very impressionable teenager.  It is still one of my favourite songs.  Steve Kilbey and co not only sounded like a band I wanted to be a part of but looked like I wanted to look too, kohl-eyed and wearing stove pipe jeans, paisley shirts and winkle-picker boots.  I dressed that way for quite a number of years.  But grunge and all it encompassed, put paid to that look.

Then there is the elegantly simple beauty of Under The Milky Way, a song I learnt as soon as I heard it and have played many times, both for my pleasure and for a paying audience.  It is the kind of track songwriters wish they could write, one that will remain a timeless treasure.

But this definitive collection is much more than the sum of these two songs.  It stretches the length of their career, from first album, Of Skins And Heart, released in 1981, to Uninvited, In The Clouds, released in 2006.  Listening to these tracks, I can't help but feel the same sense of wanting to be a part of it as I did when I first heard tracks like Almost With You, When You Were Mine and Tantalized.  I will admit that I don't carry the same torch for them as I did back then.  I think it burnt out after their 1990 release, Gold Afternoon Fix, which contained the wonderful Metropolis.  But like a long lost love, they've never been far from my thoughts.  And this collection only serves to remind me of those beautiful lost days long ago. 

VERDICT: TURN IT UP

MINE

I've never really been a Church fan - not that I didn't like the music, just that I didn't go out of my way to buy their albums.  Which is kind of weird, because I've always been the sort of person who purchases music put out by friends and aquaintances - you know, a kind of gesture of solidarity.  It's led to more than one dud in the collection!

And yes, I do have a vague personal connection to the Church.  You see, the final two years of high school in Canberra are separate from the first four, and is consolidated in what are called Colleges.  I went to a college that most of my high school didn't go to.  But I spent a fair amount of time socialising with them still, and that brought me into contact with a guy called Russell, who is the brother of Steve, who is the lead singer of the Church.  OK?  I've also just found out thanks to Wikipedia that a guy who went out with my best friend in high school also played keyboards on two of their albums, so that's another link.

Anyway, I hadn't listened to the double CD before today, and there are a lot of singles on it that just passed me by.  I love their breakthrough hit, Unguarded Moment, and remember going to see them just after that came out.  Almost With You, Tantalized, Under the Milky Way and Metropolis are all familiar - but the rest are drawing a blank.  Not a bad blank, some sound terriffic - but not as good.

VERDICT: TURN IT DOWN

For more information: http://www.thechurchband.com/

Jenny Morris - Shiver

MINE

Urgh.  I was really hoping I'd enjoy this more, given that I was a staunch fan of Ms  Morris in the 80s and saw her performing live several times.  But I guess this is the reason the CD's stayed in the drawer, unplayed, for so long.  These songs really don't age that well - except for Aotearoa, which will always be a firm favourite.

I fell in love with Jenny's voice when she was a member of QED in the early 80s, with her fragile-yet-powerful vocals showcased on the single Everywhere I Go.  (Ooh, dig the keytar!)  But it was her first album, Body and Soul, that I loved the most.  It's not in our collection because I had it on a cassette... and so while I'm voting to turf Shiver, I must dig around and see if I can buy Body and Soul again and listen to You I Know ( a Neil Finn song).

VERDICT: THROW IT OUT

YOURZ

I was quite surprised by how many of the songs on Shiver.  Actually, its a bit scary because I have never owned anything by her nor have I ever been a fan.  It means I heard these songs played on radio so many times, they've become part of me.  No wonder I can't remember my birthday with shit like this cluttering up my memory.

There is no doubting the Andrew Farris (of INXS) influence.  In fact, a number of the tracks are co-written with him.  These kind of sound like INXS-lite.  Tragic, really.  The only real highlight is her version of Paul Kelly's 'Street Of Love' too but I enjoy the original version too much to enjoy her cover of it.

VERDICT: THROW IT OUT

For more information: http://www.jennymorris.com

Models - The Pleasure Of Your Company

YOURZ

In the early 80s, I was lead singer in a covers band, playing mostly Australian songs with sets designed for pub crowds more interested in drinking than anything else.  But we took ourselves seriously enough to want to make our shows interesting and updated our set regularly.  We tried to add a few Models songs to our set but gave these away for less stylistic numbers (another way of saying we made them sound shit).

The Pleasure Of Your Company, for me, was the pinnacle album of Model's career.  After this one came the much more accessible and popular Out Of Mind Out Of Sight, which saw a big change in both songs and sound for the band.  Out the door were the more avant garde tracks to be replaced by fairly straight new wave rock.  I wasn't devastated but I was very disappointed.

I still have the 12" vinyl version of I Hear Motion somewhere, with the dub recording on the B side but hearing it on this is probably more than enough.  For me, it was more about the album tracks anyway - songs like No Shoulders No Head, Watch Your Mouth and God Bless America - great songs made vital by the times. And while the sound might be dated (the snare sound particularly), it is also arguably one of the best recording of the time too.

VERDICT: TURN IT UP

MINE

While it's not the longest distance I've ever travelled to see a band, the Models are right up there in the long-distance stakes.  Your see, in 1985 I was living in Bendigo, inland Victoria and about 100 years away from civilization.  In reality it was about 150 kilometres from Melbourne and yes, occasionally we would go to Melbourne for the evening and then drive home.  Ah, youth.

Not that I saw the Models in Melbourne.  No, the road trip to Shepparton is about 100 ks from Bendigo and I went there with my friend Jacquie (who was a serial fantasist who convinced me she'd been married to a wife-beater who managed to kill himself drink-driving but then this turned out to be all in her head, but that's another story).  This was on the Out of Mind, Out of Sight tour, which was post-Pleasure of Your Company.  I don't remember much about the gig, apart from us hanging around afterwards and seeing lead singer James Freud getting something to eat in the pub bistro, accompanied by his then-girlfriend (I guess) who was possibly the most attractive Asian girl I've ever seen.

Anyhow, listening to this album certainly brought that back to me, but while I know YourZ has a soft spot for this album, it's just so - 80s!  In fact, listening to the guitar/drum/synth sound I thought - hey, that's INXS only not as good - and of course producer Nick Launay went on the produce The Swing for INXS the following year.  While the first song, I Hear Motion, is still pretty good, the rest of it just sounds dated to me.

VERDICT: TURN IT DOWN

For more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Models_(band)

Eskimo Joe - A Song Is A City

MINE

OK, here's my theory about Perth.  The Westralian capital was accidentally built on a convergence of musical ley lines, so that anyone who starts a band here is instantly three steps in front of anyone else in the country.  How else can you explain the proliferation of artists from a city that has a quarter the population of Sydney and yet seems to spew forward the most amazing talents?

Eskimo Joe is a case in point.  Quite simply, neither YourZ or Mine(self) can understand why they're not headlining stadiums across the world. Kayven Temperley's voice is outstanding, thier compositions and arrangements are truly world-class, and while I can't really remember their live performance - I haven't seen them since 2005 Big Day Out - YourZ assures me they deliver as well in the flesh as they do on CD.  Although I was momentarily stumped when track 3 - Life is Better With You - sounded just like 72 by Turin Brakes.

But all I can say is world, get amongst this band.  They're well worth it.

VERDICT: TURN IT UP

YOURZ

My theory about Perth is slightly different to Mine.  Primarily, I think it is the isolation factor, with Perth being particularly remote.  Bands there don't know much else except each other.  Apart from the huge acts who can afford to get tour there, they only really have each other.  This makes for a particularly supportive music community and inspires all to greater heights.  Either this or they want so badly to get over to the other side of Australia to play, they work doubly hard to 'make' it.

Whatever it is, I'm glad of it.  Some of my most favourite Australian bands found their feet in Perth, including INXS (as the Farriss Brothers), Karnivool, Jebediah, The Sleepy Jackson and this band, Eskimo Joe.  While I was writing the recent Grant Lee Buffalo review (see it here), I commented to Mine that they reminded me of someone else and lo, here it is.  The comparisons are the wide sounding, epic quality both bands have, along with detailed arrangements and awesome production.  But it is there the comparisons end.

Eskimo Joe are a natural successor to bands like the aforementioned INXS, sounding quintessentially Australian yet more so at the same time.  A Song Is A City is a pearl of an album - every track on this album is a fucking winner with superior musicianship, killer vocals and arrangements as well as lush production.  As Mine says, why Eskimo Joe aren't fucking enormous around the world is a big question and the answer is beyond me.  

VERDICT: TURN IT UP, tell your friends, buy their back catalogue and make them HUGE!




For more information go to http://www.eskimojoe.net/

In our collection we also have Black Fingernails, Red Wine

Kylie Minogue - Fever

MINE

La la la, la la la-la la.... you know how it goes. Or maybe you don't. Maybe you've lived under a rock as far as La Minogue is concerned, but I certainly haven't. In fact I've seen her live in concert - just the once - and it was truly spec-frackin'-tacular. OK, it's pure, disposable pop. So what? You know you can't get it out of your head, boy your lovin' is all I think about....

Fever is the album that broke her in the US and yet I've been a fan since way, way back. Not quite back to Loco-Motion days, but definitely since Michael Hutchence from INXS introduced the world to SexKylie. Better The Devil You Know is still one of my all-time favourite dancefloor tunes. (How many times, Kylie? "A hundred times or more...")

There's no denying she's easy on the eyes and does great video - check out Confide In Me, Did It Again, Spinning Around (those shorts!), and OMG the Barbarella takeoff of Put Yourself In My Place. (Look out, that's the raunchy version).

It's not often I buy a Kylie album, generally preferring to grab the greatest hits or Live versions, because as a pop princess, the singles are what it's all about. This album's as expected - a couple of real killers, plus some fillerish stuff. No real duds, which is a bonus. This is a woman who knows her (gay-friendly, dancefloor-oriented) market and caters to it. Bravo.

VERDICT: TURN IT UP (put your hands in the air)

YOURZ

Oh, lawdy, while I love the idea of what Mine and YourZ(truly) is doing with this blog, I must admit I was concerned that I'd be stuck having to review music such as Ms Minogue's Fever.

I have nothing against her. In fact, to use a tired cliche, I have something I would definitely like to hold against her - ME! Yeah, I know, me and most red-blooded men on the planet. I think she is sexy as any trouble you could want and smart to boot.

The music has some smart moments too, but for the most part, it sounds all a bit the same, really. What really does my head in are the lyrics. It is all about being adored and loved and is full of hooky choruses that, sure, might sound great on the dance floor but do absolutely nothing for me.

I guess I have to question Mine's judgement when she said in our very first review of Lily Allen that she is 'all about the lyrics'. For the most part, the lyrics La Minogue sings are modern-day love poems for teen girls. This is definitely territory I've never walked through, let alone spent any time in, thankfully.

Having said all this, I have no problems turning the sound down and watching just about any of her videos. Nope, no problem at all.

VERDICT: TURN IT DOWN



For more information: http://www.kylie.com/

In our collection we also have Kylie - The Rhythm Of Love and Kylie - Intimate And Live