A to Z: 100 Best Australian Albums so "I" is for...

The Ibis or the Straw-necked Ibis is another bird I can see flying around where I live all the time. They're an odd looking bird or not a pretty one but who cares about that really. All adults have distinctive straw-like feathers on their neck which how they get their name and no feathers on the top of their heads. Their wings look black in the above image but they're (or can be) all-sorts of shinny colors in the right light. Once again the above image is from John Gould's Birds of Australia.

So on with my next albums under the letter "I" which is another vowel and only three this time which is a good thing I was reading that you're suppose to keep your blog post short because people can't or wouldn't read long ones, is that true?

Ill At Ease by The Mark Of Cain
Adelaide's finest band with their break through album, their third album and with only another one album after this one you could say it's going to be their peak. Over the last couple of years they have been talking about a new album but it's been a long time coming, ten years plus now. Back to the mid-90's and Henry Rollins moved to Adelaide for a couple of months to be their producer because basically he wanted a new album by them, he is their biggest fan. I still remember seeing them at a small club and he was there hiding behind the amp tower doing the famous Henry Rollins dance, if you can call it that because imagine him on Dancing With The Stars doing that. Anyway it was hard picking which The Mark Of Cain album but it has to be this one. 


In The Pines by The Triffids
This would have been recorded around the time of my ten birthday and only an hour or two away from where I grew up but I didn't know anything about The Triffids back then. I love them now and this one has to be my favorite album by them. It's the only album to be recorded in Western Australia too and the reissue from a few years ago included everything recorded at the time. It's David McComb's songwriting at his best. Some of these songs were already going to be used for the next planned album so it was somewhat dismissed at the time because it is 8-track cheap recording, just something to do before going into the next real studio. Ravensthorpe is in the middle of nowhere and unless you've come to W.A. you don't know what that means, it's days and hours and hours of driving to get anywhere here and when you get somewhere out in the country it's usually got nothing anyway not even trees sometimes.


Inner City Sound by Various Artists
Based on Clinton Walker's book of the same name which is somewhat of a bible of early Aussie punk rock with this double CD featuring an endless amount of bands from the late 70's and early 80's. With 28 songs on disc one and 20 on disc two. So it features some of my favorite tracks by my all-time favorite bands like Primitive Calculators, Laughing Clowns, The Scientists, Sacred Cowboys, Essendon Airport, X, The Lighthouse Keepers, The Saints which have two tracks, the above band The Triffids plus a few big names you will know like The Go-Betweens, Hunters & Collectors, Severed Heads, The Boys Next Door and The Birthday Party but the biggest treat is Rowland S. Howard singing Shivers with his early band Young Charlatans, it's worth it just for that one song. Stay tuned for the letter "J" soon...

A to Z: 100 Best Australian Albums so "H" is for...

The Harrier, or it's the Swamp Harrier above and I'm back using John Gould's Birds of Australia again. Swamp Harrier is a bird that's in least concern in conservation status which is a great thing really but people do like to talk about about all the Endangered or even the Extinct species and I did last time with Gouldian Finch. I remember visiting the museum of W.A. and I loved going to the Bird gallery all the time. They have all the birds in Western Australian taxidermied but it seem only the tourists from somewhere else would look at these birds and local people looked at the extinct display in the corner and I would hear things like, "I want to see something I don't see everyday when I come to the museum" or "This is a boring room, let's see what's next" and after a while of hearing this I've stopped going because it was depressing listening to people talk like that, or just start wishing the human race was extincted.

Anyway back to the music and the letter "H" which seems like it's got the most amount of albums so far in my little count down, reaching double figures with ten so that's why its taken so long in between posts.

Havilah by The Drones
Well, here are The Drones again with their last album from 2008, a long time ago now and this time at their own home studio. Joining them as a full new member was Dan Luscombe with Mike Noga on his second album and of-course Fiona Kitschin and Gareth Liddiard have been here from the start.

Henry's Dream by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
With two more Aussie members joining the band Martyn P. Casey and Conway Savage make it the most ever but really can we call Cave an Aussie anymore? He's lived almost all of his adult life in England, and do you know how many albums he has done in Australia? I mean the full album? Well, only two albums Kicking Against the Pricks and Nocturama, which are not great records and that's pretty fucking lame for someone who calls himself an Aussie. Anyway this one was recorded in the U.S.A. but only mixed here. I've picked this because if I was to choose only one Bad Seeds album to listen to this would be it.   

Here Come The Lies by The Drones
Here's where it all started with the debut album from 2002, the band members at this point were Gareth, Fiona Kitschin, Rui Pereira and early drummer Christian Strybosch plus listed in the liner notes are Matt Heydon plays "Mr Whippy piano on New Kind of Kick" and Craig Williamson "his swollen eggs on The Cockeyed Lowlife of the Highlands" whatever that means.


Hey Believer by Kim Salmon with STM
The first of two albums in this post and he's already been here in my list four times, if you didn't know, with From One To Another by The Darling Downs, Dirty Three by Dirty Three, Blood Red River by The Scientists and The Axeman's Jazz by Beasts of Bourbon. This record from the mid-90' was at the time the closest he came to doing a solo album but six of these tracks included and band called STM who was the late Andrew Entsch on Doulbe Bass and Dirty Three's Jim White and Warren Ellis.

High Voltage by AC/DC
This debut album was like the blueprint without really even thinking about it, they were just another rock n roll band starting out, nothing more. I remember having the Aussie version on cassette tape with a different tracklisting, as one of my first albums I bought myself but you can't get that anymore, I wish you could. Most of Bon Scott's lyrics made more sense the older I got but they were never as good as this album. Of course they became one of the biggest heavy rock bands in the world with one of the highest selling albums of all-time but thier early stuff is always better, everytime.  

Hit Me With The Surreal Feel by Kim Salmon & the Surrealists
The debut album of The Surrealists and Kim Salmon. After The Scientists broke-up he formed a trio line-up with Brian Hooper on bass and Tony Pola on drums. Recorded with microphones randomly placed around the studio and recorded on just a four-track in his home town of Perth before packing up and heading east. Other than tours he's never come back finally setting up home in Melbourne a few years later. I like the fact I've sandwiched Kim Salmon's albums in between AC/DC and also The Drones in between Nick Cave but both I would argue are more Aussie than the bigger names and that's what my list is all about.

Honey Steel's Gold by Ed Kuepper
Ed Kuepper left The Saints after just three albums to form his new band, Laughing Clowns who broke-up. This is one of his solo albums after almost ten years playing under just his name. Original release in 1991 with a killer band line-up of Mark Dawson on Drums, Sir Alfonso on Bass and The Necks' Chris Abrahams on Piano and Organ, also the first he worked with his long time co-producer, Phil Punch. Can I call it one of the best break-up albums of all-time, it's like the Aussie's Blood on the Tracks.

Hoodoo You Do by The Devil & Abbe May
Right this is Abbe May's second album but the only one to be released under this name. It's her totally Blues album so off-course it's got the main star the Devil, himself which is more a heavy metal thing now. Most people compare her to an Female English songwriter but I would say she is more like the bloke who she broke's heart in the late 90's. Yes, I'm talking about Nick Cave again not PJ Harvey and I would argue she's the new Nick Cave. It's seems to me both are pretty much doing the same thing in the last couple of years but it's wicked coming from a young lady but just silly coming from an old man plus she would murder him in a guitar duel. Then again it's really very silly comparing artists and I'm just on a I hate Nick Cave rant tonight.

Horse Stories by Dirty Three
The second  Dirty Three album or is it the third if you count the demo tape that was turned into the album Sad & Dangerous but anyway it's the second on my list. On the DVD doco from 2007 Warren Ellis was saying it he didn't want to or/and could have not released it at the time, I can not think of that time in the mid 90's music landscape without this album. I wish they would stop being just a side project to all of Nick Cave's stuff too and it's so great to have them back with a new album. Ellis should file his divorce papers next and come back to his first love, Dirty Three and make it a full time band again. I'll never forgive Cave for fucking up one of the greatest bands of all-time but I also remember Ellis talking about working with Charlie Marshall in the mid-90's, how amazing it was and what an honor to work with such a great songwriter like him but who knows who he is now? my point is, it was inevitable if someone like Nick Cave came along.


Hourly, Daily by You Am I
This would have to be my favorite You Am I album and it's for the simple reason that it's their first album recorded in Australia. Tim Rogers, Andy Kent and Russell Hopkinson stopped going oversea to do their albums and this is the third album, the two album before were both done in the U.S.A. with Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo. Roger's songs also look closer to home e.g. daily life from waking up in the morning to saying goodnight. You really couldn't find a more Aussie looking album cover because when you look out a window or walk down the street that is what you would see. This albums got nothing to do with Nick Cave, thank fuck but from now on I promise to NOT say his name anymore on this blog, he just pisses me off now. I'll have to write about all these albums again without him so sorry about that.

Stay tuned for the letter "I" soon...