Grinderman

YOURZ

This is not just dirty, this is absolutely filthy.  It is dark, raw and impassioned and the grimiest thing Nick Cave has done since The Birthday Party.  Recorded in just four days but compellingly well-produced by Nick Launay and the band, this ticks all the alternative blues boxes and then some.

Right from the opener, Get It On (not a cover of the old T-Rex hit either), there is no doubting the rabidly raw vision of this group, also comprising of some of Cave's Bad Seeds; Warren Ellis, Martin Casey and Jim Sclavunos.  Cave's gothic-blues lyrics couldn't have found a more well-suited home while his voice has never sounded better and his delivery is of an energy and passion of a man at least half his age (not that us old blokes are passionless, mind).

More than anything else, it is the way Cave and company continue to push their creativity and themselves to extraordinary lengths (Nick eschews his first instrument, piano, for guitar, which he admits he plays rudimentarily at best).  The rest of the band have said in various interviews it is this element, more than any other single thing, that informs the overall sound of Grinderman.

There are some tracks on this album that have goth-classic written all over them with Depth Charge Ethel, I Don't Need You (To Set Me Free), No Pussy Blues and Honey Bee (Let's Fly To Mars) being particular favourites of mine.  I don't think I could ever hear enough of this.  Grinderman 2, the followup, is now officially on my must-have list.

VERDICT: TURN IT UP

MINE

When I first started listening to this CD I thought - he's done it!  Nick Cave has found a band that will bring him to his vocal nadir!  But actually, that's only the first track.  The rest of it - wait for it - is not too bad.  Especially song 2 - No Pussy Blues - which was hysterical.

So while I haven't changed my mind about Mr Cave's musical chops, I won't be putting this one in the rubbish bin - yet.

VERDICT: TURN IT DOWN

For more information go to http://www.grinderman.com/



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

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)