The Lorikeet, or should I say the Rainbow Lorikeet which is the full name, so it should be "R" really but anyway you'll maybe note that I've completely missed the last letter "K" out so you could say I don't know my alphabet but there are reasons. Well, one big fat reason really because when I made my list there are no albums under that letter. Maybe the closest would have to be the Chad's Tree album called Kerosene but it was included on a reissue with all their recordings called Crossing Off The Miles which is under "C" already. So for the letter "K" I was going pick the Kookaburra as the bird and pick out some YouTube clips or something but because this is taking forever, as I keep repeating in every post it will not matter missing one letter out, will it? I love Lorikeets because they're everywhere. Well, in Perth you can't go anywhere with out seeing and hearing them too, another very loud Aussie bird.
Only two albums for this post but these albums could be two of the most obscurer albums so far in my list, what do you think?
Live by Venom P. Stinger
This one was only ever put out on vinyl in a very small pressing but if you do get it, like myself you'll play it over and over and oh my god it looks so amazing spinning around on you record player, it's see-though green vinyl! The title Live is misleading too because it's not live in front of a crowd or live on stage at a gig but live recorded in a radio station which was live on the air at the time because there wasn't many recordings of them. It was such a great set they just released it. This band also contains two Dirty Three members and this was only a year or two away from them forming, Jim White on drums and Mick Turner on guitar and how much different they sounded in the early 90's. Lowercase by Bluetile Lounge
This one is also long not available too or deleted CD but was distributed by Sub-Pop in the mid 90's and possibly more known in the U.S.A. than in the whole of Australia but in Perth at the time if you liked live indie music you will or should remember them. They built a small local following and now are a some what legendary cult band. I would not known where in hell you could get this album now but they did release a second after this debut album which I think is still around, somewhere maybe but in the late 90's they broke-up. This album is so great and would be in my top ten greatest albums of all-time, maybe even top five and that's in the world not just Aussie albums but I think there would be more Aussie stuff in my list anyway.
Stay tuned for the letter "M" soon...
Jacana or it's full name Comb-crested Jacana, Wikipedia says that this bird is only in the northern and eastern states but I'm so sure I've seen it around here but I must be wrong and mistaking for something else. I have to figure it out and get back to you about it. Above is again another of John Gould's Birds of Australia.
Well these are five albums under the letter "J"so might has well get on with it.
James Reyne by James Reyne
His solo self titled debut album is the closest thing to John Farnham's Whispering Jack in my list here, released around the same time and in my opinion has better songs. James was always a better songwriter too, he was also with Australian Crawl who split up just before this record. It was another one of my earliest albums I got and if I remember right it was on vinyl. I still love it but I've got it on CD now. I don't know why they changed the the front cover photo, it's dated very well for a mid-80's album. Jean Lee and the Yellow Dog by Ed Kuepper
The second solo Ed Kuepper album on my list and fourth time after The Saints and Laughing Clowns boxsets. This is his last album of new songs which came out five years ago now, mostly he's been releasing live recording in that time. He was very prolific after he went solo with almost an album every year from the mid-80's through the 90's and only slowing down in the 2000's. The songs were somewhat based around the story of the last female murderer Jean Lee to be executed in Australia in the 1950's.
Jingles by Regurgitator
This is Regurgitator's best of compilation album from the early 2000's so it's got all the 90's stuff you could possibly want all in the same place, including songs from the early singles, EPs and the first three albums. Which saying it like that sounds like not much but it's a packed, totally full at twenty-one tracks and all the best songs well, it's all the ones I remember. They are still going today but with a different drummer so it's really not the same band. If you've seen them live back in 90's this would be the making of their greatest setlist and man they were crazy live too. Jungle Blues by C.W. Stoneking
He was born in Darwin, Northern Territory but this his second album was recorded in Melbourne. He's singing about Africa and America which is a really Aussie thing to do. Most people in this county think it's better somewhere in the world other than where they are right now, or are planning to travel oversea or just both and bitch about Australia in the meantime. True to form C.W. Stoneking jumped ship soon after this album and has been playing these songs everywhere else but here and we will have to wait to see what he does next. By the way, Jim White from the Dirty Three plays the drums on this album too. Junk by The Gin Club
The double album is a rare thing but with eight members in The Gin Club and all are songwriters so it makes perfect senses here. Like most great double albums this one is totally epic, the way it should be but I guess I understand it's too much for most people to take in all in one go. I will say if this band was from America they would be huge. It's like most Aussie bands shouldn't think too big and in this case big in songwriting, do you know what I mean? Like say The Drones should be too. Hey, The Drones should do a double album next... I wish.
Well, above now is a Satin Bowerbird, or for short just a Bowerbird which is again from the John Gould's The Birds of Australia.
OK, last week was my one year anniversary of my blog which I started with a post about one of my classic albums and it was going to be series but I only did one album. All these albums here could be in my classic albums series so maybe I'll get back to it after posting the A to Z: 100 Best Australian Albums list. I think I could write a lot more about each of these albums but I did promise to keep it short so I will.
The Best of the... by Hard-Ons Right, here's a best of album which I think is justified because the Hard-Ons always put out a lot of 7" singles, Mini-albums or EPs and was really a D.I.Y. band when they started in the 80's. This compilation is of all the most important early work by them. The only band I've seen live which brought the ceiling down on the crowd, literally but that still didn't stop them playing, I have to tell that story in full at a later date.
Big Name, No Blankets by Warumpi Band One of the greatest bands from the 80's which are totally unfortunately forgotten now. In my opinion they should be remember like Midnight Oil but are not, maybe just as their footnote which is totally unfair. At least no one in this band turned into a shit politician, I don't know how people listen to them without thinking about that. Warumpi Band have a long off-on history but have a very short recording out-put which can't help, I guess. This is thier debut album from 1986 and I recommend it to anyone who listened to that other band, this is better.
Blood Red River: 1982-1984 by The Scientists Before these reissues The Scientists albums were so hard to find with Sub Pop in America having only one compilation album of their huge recording out-put but now in the last few years all of it became available. This one is of the middle years and the best, well maybe, at least the best place to start with but off course you should go get the earlier and later recordings as well. Kim Salmon is very prolific but so underrated too and not the last time he will appear here.
Body Language by Kylie Minogue Kylie really gets to much of a bad rap for being one of the biggest singers, if not the biggest music star ever from Australia, it's that tall poppy thing. I love Kylie and I don't care what anyone says. Her 2003 album Body Language is her masterpiece, in my opinion, which came two years after the run-away success of her single "Can't Get You Out Of My Head" and the previous album, Fever plus a couple of years before her cancer scare.
Hello and welcome, This is my first blog. I've been posting journals on last.fm but this is hopeful the first in a new series. I'm going to pick out my favorite and most beloved albums and write all about them. It's really just an exercise for me to keep writing which I'll elaborate about later.
How do you I write about a band who doesn't have lyrics, or a singer and plays instrumental music? Well, I don't know how to write and spell so it should be easy, shouldn't it? I was diagnosed with dyslexia but I did finish year 10 high school with pretty basic English skills. The last few years I've had a writing tutor to help me but that has finished now so this is the first real one by myself but I know I'll have to get someone to edit it a bit after.
After High School ended badly, I hung out in the small town I grew up in for a little while but moved to the city as soon as I could. To Perth where I was born, so it felt like I was coming home. Since about the age of 16 I was taking six hour bus rides to the city to see gigs & concerts and get a CD or two because I couldn't get anything back where I lived.
I'm a 90's kid so everything is on CD. People have forgotten or just never known how hard it was pre-internet or post-Nirvana breaking the mainstream but maybe it was just me living at the arse end of the world.
The first night in the big city (it's really not that big). After unpacking I was going out and that night was one of those life changing moments not for the band I was planning on seeing but the support band stealing the show and destroying everything I thought about music. It was of course the Dirty Three and how do I sum it up? It's like when you see a nuclear bomb wipe away everything in it's path on the TV. The way it started was the most unlikely way to start a gig and the band members didn't even look like roadies, let alone musicians. Who I thought was the singer started talking and talking about it being their first time in Perth and wouldn't shut-up while the other two - one with his guitar and the other behind the drum kit looked on totally bored. After giving the longest ever introduction speech by a support band they started to play. The tracks seemed to go for half an hour each like time slowed down for them but most likely they were ten minutes, give or take. The pub wasn't even half full and most people were around the bar or pool tables missing who were going to become one of the greatest bands of the 90's. I got the self-titled debut album Dirty Three at the front door so it must have been early to mid-90's. I would still call Dirty Three the greatest live band I've ever seen and I've seen every show they have played here in the western capital.
I could have chosen that debut album but I think it would be runner-up to Whatever You Love, You Are as my favorite and most beloved Dirty Three album, I could listen to it forever. It was released in early 2000 but recorded in July 99. Making it the first "Classic" album of the 2000's and the fourth in a row of a great run of albums. Starting with that debut self-titled album then the recorded over-seas trilogy of Horse Stories, Ocean Songs and Whatever. I'm not counting Sad & Dangerous because it's basically home recorded demos. Everything changed for Dirty Three after the Whatever album so She Has No Strings Apollo and Cinder both have their great moments but less consistent as albums. Cinder sometimes wins out because of shear volume of songs, nineteen in all plus Cat Power's Chan Marshall singing the first ever lyrical vocal on a Dirty Three album. Ocean Songs also has been picked out of the batch of albums for the Don't Look Back concert series and I can understand why some people like it better. Made with "Don't call me a producer" Steve Albini and in the U.S.A., Aussies love it when bands go to American to made albums and Americans love to have them there too. It's quieter and nicer and easier album to get into and adding the piano helps with that too. It could be called the saddest album too. Did you know Dirty Three were in the recording studio when news bloke that Princess Diana died in a car crash?
But I think Whatever You Love, You Are is by far the better album. The leader and violinist Warren Ellis said the band gave up trying to have hit album after Ocean Songs and with that I think they got to their plateau with this album by letting them go to the next level. I do admit it's a hard record to get into but it's very rewarding if you do. It's so much more epic and extreme with all the lengths of the songs going beyond the five minute mark. The shortest track is just over six minutes "Some Things I Just Don't Want to Know" and the first two tracks at six minutes plus "Some Summers They Drop Like Flys" and "I Really Should've Gone Out Last Night". The last two tracks going up to the seven and half minutes. "Stellar" and "Lullabye for Christie". "I Offered It up to the Stars & The Night Sky" almost reaching an unbelievable fourteen minutes. As you can tell even the song titles are vast and elephantine. Only six songs would normally be an E.P. but the total time just drops short of fifty minutes. Ellis playing with his new toy, an effects pedal which adds on top of one another until it sounds like a symphony of crazy fiddle players. The first time I saw them play these songs he continued adding until it sounded something like standing next to a jumbo jet taking off with half the crowd putting their fingers in their ears to block the feedback out and a couple leaving as fast as they could run out the door.
Joe Mckee of Aussie band Snowman called Whatever "The most visually evocative Australian record ever ". With the guitarist who does all the painting for the album covers. Mick Turner's "Landscape" painting of Melbourne jetty and beach, the only real or non-abstract album artwork on a Dirty Three cover.
This is second album to be recorded in England, this time it was on the banks of the Thames. In a studio which was build by The Who's Pete Townshend but at the time of recording was owned by Cocteau Twins' Robin Guthrie. Would it sound odd to say if The Who and Cocteau Twins somehow could have a lovechild it might be like Dirty Three's Whatever You Love, You Are. There were two tracks recorded at the same time but which were only available for sale at their shows and tours on Lowlands album. The two songs are "Cottonhead" and "Three Mile Creek" which would have taken it up to eight tracks which would be closer to a normal amount on most albums at the time. It would have taken the album up to sixty minutes but I for one am glad these two were left off, they wouldn't work with the rest.
"It kills me that album" is what Will Oldham aka Bonnie 'Prince' Billy said on the Dirty Three Documentary and Mick Harvey added "Whatever could be even better than Ocean Songs" which leads me into the last bit of this blog. Warren Ellis said in Perth at the beginning of this year that it would be the last time they play the Ocean Songs album in Don't Look Back concert series so why not do Whatever You Love, You Are album with the Don't Look Back concert series next? It's the ten year anniversary this year too and since that show here in Perth they haven't done one show. It doesn't seem like we are ever going to get a new album with Ellis joking they finished their new album and "it's a dance music record this time". I'm hoping they continue as a live band, he did say "see you next time". Warren Ellis apparently didn't want to do the Ocean Songs shows but Mick Turner and Jim White out voted him and talked him into doing it, so the story goes.
Maybe I'm wishing for something that is not ever going to happen but I wouldn't be the only one who would love to see Whatever album played in full in the next couple of years. Then again I really can't see them doing anything with the three member on different sides of the world. Ellis in Paris, White in New York and Turner the only one in Melbourne. Ellis has become Nick Cave's "side-kick" White playing drums for everyone from PJ Harvey, Cat Power, Nina Nastasia, Marianne Faithfull, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy etc. Turner doing his paintings and solo shows too, playing lately with Jeff Wegener which is funnily Jim White's favorite drummer of all-time. Nick Cave & Warren Ellis' first soundtrack together came out just after Cinder and included a couple of tracks with White and Turner. Now it's been over five years since that last Dirty Three album. It's a bit unfair calling them a nostalgia act just yet but surely one or two months in the next couple years or so could be put aside and made into a Whatever You Love, You Are album played in its entirety tour, a part of the Don't Look Back concert series.
Anyway it's most likely wishful thinking, I wouldn't be surprised if Dirty Three never played live again but who knows maybe they're are working on a comeback album. There was no promo video clips for this album, not that they made it on to MTV before. I did find someone uploaded a live version of "Some Summers They Drop Like Flys" to youtube taken from the bonus VCD on the Taiwan edition of Whatever. Ellis introduces this song sometimes as being "about coming home to find everyone he knows has gone and died."
Dirty Three's Whatever You Love, You Are track listing
1. Some Summers They Drop Like Flies – 6:20 2. I Really Should've Gone Out Last Night – 6:52 3. I Offered It Up to the Stars and the Night Sky – 13:40 4. Some Things I Just Don't Want to Know – 6:08 5. Stellar – 7:30 6. Lullabye for Christie – 7:46
Stay tuned for the letter "M" soon...
