505. Walk On The Wild Side by Lou Reed 1972

This was my introduction to the world of Lou Reed back in 1972. I'd read about him from interviews in Melody Maker and the New Musical Express with David Bowie. But no one I knew had Velvet Underground records and neither did the local record shop. I'd have to wait a few years for those and a world of second hand shops and Monash Records with their large heavy cardboard sleeve cut outs.
But it started here with this song suddenly being played on the local radio station 3AK. And it was so different and other worldly. Almost like jazz. And what was he singing about? He was taking us to somewhere else. Somewhere a little more dangerous and not really anything to do with the bright sunshine of the Melbourne suburbs.
So we played this music at night or with the shades down often adding a stick of incense to the mix. My friend lent me a kind of spinning light like you would find on the top of a police car. I'd have that going and fairy lights from our Christmas tree hung on the wall. And I'd always prop the album cover up against the record player. As if to announce what was playing.
Transformer was massive. The first real party I went to. One where you had to cross town. To Carlton all the way from Nunawading. Where there were lots of people you didn't know. And the girls looked exotic. This album was playing as I walked in. The whole album. Another world.

504. Only You Can do It by Francoise Hardy 1966

Okay, she had a lot better songs. Songs that I like better. And she was cool and had her picture taken with Brian Jones and Bob Dylan. And she was French. And every now and then I go into a French mood and start pulling out my France Gall and Bridgette Bardort/Serge Gainsbourg records and the delightful Francoise. But before all that and before I bought records because their sleeves were cool I was in love with this song when I was still in primary school over in Nunawading South. Was it a big hit in Australia? I haven't got a clue. It was a big hit for me. I had a thing for girl singers and their pop tunes early in love. I had a massive crush on Sandie Shaw,Marianne Faithful and even liked Cilla Black.
Mind you I didn't get to own the record until about 13 years later when I found the Francoise Hardy in English album in a bargain bin at a record shop in 1979. Although I played the song off the LP itself it probably took me until years later  to start appreciating just how good some of her other songs were. I was playing one a few years back and my daughter Melody started singing along. Seems they started learning it in French class at her High School. Now that's cool.

503. The Cutter by Ech and the Bunnymen 1983

Two major bands came out of Liverpool in the early eighties. Teardrop Explodes and Echo and the Bunnymen. I was firmly in the Teardrop Explodes camp. The Bunnymen were a little too pretentious for me. But looking back it was the age of pretension and they were all as bad as each other. Nevertheless my opinions about them changed dramatically with this slice of heavenly pop. From the Eastern strings that open the record to the pyschadelic and almost Beatlish tone that runs throughout it just never stops. Banging along like a train.
This made a popular single to put on at just about every nightclub I played at. And through massive speakers like the ones we had in the first few years of the Lizard Lounge it was a massive. I think it was an old band PA stack that had been left behind. Though it had been a country rock venue before we took over. Stick The Cutter through those and you were transported. Forget the sticky carpet and the dingy atmosphere The Cutter put you somewhere else. I never had a clue what the song was about though.

502. Rebel Rebel by David Bowie 1974

In 1974 I was completely besotted by David Bowie. I had all the records going back to the rubbish he made at Decca (except I never had The laughing Gnome and I still don't) Posters on the walls and two scrapbooks full of cuttings which I still have tucked away in some cupboard. Rebel Rebel was another classic single and definitely sounds a lot better on it's 7 inch version rather than the Diamond Dogs version. For a while it was mine and Lynne Wilson's song when I went out with her that year. She was going through a rebellious stage ending with her cutting her hair dead short at the end of the year. We broke up at the playground round the corner from where our drummer Duncan lives in Nunawading. I don't think her Dad ever liked me. I also used to buy her Gary Glitter eps but they don't bring back any memories thank god.
7 years later Little Murders are playing a regular gig at the Continental Hotel in Sorrento involving 3 half hour sets with a newish line up once a month. So while I write most of the stuff we play we found a need to add a few different covers. Up until then I'd only ever covered sixties and soul hits but I thought it was time to gently push us into the seventies. So we added Rebel Rebel . Great riff and the very drunken surfers really went mad for it. The floor would end up 3 cm deep in spilt beer. There's only really one verse to sing then a lot of ad libbing at the end. What a great gig that was. The drive home in the middle of the night trying to get to the Jump Club before it closed was often a bit hairy though.

501. Going Down To Liverpool by The Bangles 1984

The Bangles had a few great pop singles and I must admit to having a bit of a crush on Susannah Hoffs. It was the eyes that got me. And the guitars and the power pop sounds on some of their best songs. I found this song on their first major label album "All Over The Place".
This one was written by Kimberley Rew who wrote the omnipresent "Walking on Sunshine" while he was with Katrina And The Waves. Which was also quite a good song until it was played to death forever.
The Bangles were one of those bands we played at Barbarellas during our poppy guitar sets. The first time we heard them was the single Manic Monday which was written by Prince. Which was a big deal at the time. He was going through his Paisley phase. Manic Monday was great too. But they lost us with Walk Like An Egyptian and Eternal Flame.
Still I enjoy listening to Going Down to Liverpool. It's one of those songs where you feel like putting together a mix tape just so you can have it playing in the car when it's needed. When the suns out and you need some shiny guitars to guide your way.

500. Alex Chilton by the Replacements 1987

I heard this song so many times before I knew who sang it. And I loved this song. But I was always hearing snatches of it on the radio but I always missed the tag where they revealed the name. Usually because they either talked about it before or because there was like 5 in a row. But it was familiar from the first listen.
It's a great guitar pop/rock band saluting another great guitar pop/rock band. Big Star. Who kind of laid down some of the guidelines for pure seventies power pop. And Big Star was a band I got into the same time as The Replacements. So I kind of don't know which came first. Rod, our guitarist in Little Murders had the double CD of Big Star and as I was sharing a house with him it was pointless to buy another copy so I went out and bought a Replacements CD. All For Nothing/Nothing For All. An album which as been pointed out to me numerous times is a best of Stones album without their early hits. Anyway it's a great album despite that. It would take me a few years more to hear their early songs but I'm still quite taken with my first purchase. Alex Chilton, Bastards of Young, Left of the Dial. Too many to mention. Kind of stuff that makes me want to pick up and guitar and maybe a bottle of Jack Daniels. Wait a minute...that might be Keith Richard invading my soul.
A few years later I was over in the UK and Teenage Fanclub had just released The Concept. And they easily fit into the guitar pop sound of their American predecessors. Guitars and great pop songs. Nothing better.

499. Heat Wave by Martha Reeves & The Vandellas 1963

Alright it's freezing outside and the night is as black as coal but I put this record on and it's like instant sunshine. Back in the seventies I was a little mad for the Sound of Motown and it was bands like the Vandellas that got me shaking rather than the pure pop of the Supremes. Certainly I liked the Supremes and they had some massive hits but there was a bit more soul and foot stomping lingering in the Motown vaults.
In fact the only Motown star I've ever seen was Diana Ross. I was in London around 1995 walking around the town with a friend I had hooked up with over there. We were in Kensington when there was this massive rush of photographers running down the street. And it front of them was Ms. Ross with big hair and and a flowing red dress. And it was mayhem. Shouts of "Turn This Way" and "Who are you meeting?" and it went for 30 seconds and was over. The paparazzi melting back into the shadows.
Back to Heat Wave. I first heard it on a Who album. The Jam also covered it. They were my two favourite bands at the time so they led me to Martha and the pure joy of dancing to Heat Wave in a sweaty club on a Wednesday night in Richmond. Or a packed Rubber Soul where drinks were spilled as the floor heaved to sixties classics.

498. Blue by the Fine Young Cannibals 1985

Johnny Come Home by the Fine Young Cannibals was a big dance floor hit back in 1985. I almost think it was the bit where the guitarists dropped to their knees during the film clip that really sold the song. Great song. Was Blue better? I don't know It was different and wasn't a dance floor filler. But it reminds me of DJing at Barbarellas in Smith Street Collingwood. Before that club I'd only DJed up to midnight at Rubber Soul. This one went to 5 in the morning. And it was mental. Queues around the block before opening. And we played everything. Whatever took our fancy and kept people on the floor.  Of course going so late it was harder to go out for a drink after the club because by the time we'd finished the place was almost emptied out. Made it even harder to chat up girls. You might talk to a girl half way through the night just to see them leave halfway through a set.
One night I was particular smitten by a girl I was talking to. She reminded me of Cindi Lauper in that clip for Girls Just wanna Have Fun. The bit in the clip where she actually opens her eyes.
I found out what songs she liked. Bought her a few drinks. Went back to the DJ booth. Near the end of my set I noticed she was leaving.  I liked her but I didn't have any way of contacting her if she left now. As she was halfway to the door I put on a song she had spoken about. Blue by Fine Young Cannibals. She turned around and brought her friend back onto the dance floor. I got Adam Duncan who I DJed with to take over and I went over to dance with her. I think she recognised my attempt to catch her before she left. She wasn't put off by my dancing. She gave me her phone number before she left for real. We ended up seeing each other for a short time. Eighties romance.

497. Throw Your Arms Around Me by Hunters and Collectors 1984

The second gig Hunters and Collectors played after their triumphant debut at the Ballroom a week previously was on a bill with Little Murders at the Jump Club on a Wednesday night. It was a benefit gig for RRR and was part of their Radiothon. The Hunters were the middle band and we were on last. We were quite popular in those days. The place was packed when I got there so I thought it was going to be a great night. On a Wednesday! The Hunters played and I couldn't beleive how good they sounded. Just amazing. A real modern sound which made me feel I was playing stuff from the stone age. They had a gas cylinder on stage. They had these mighty rhythms banging away.
They finished their set to rapterous applause and left the stage. Unfortunately this was also the time the majority of the audience left the building. So we were playing to a small crowd on a Wednesday night. Where minutes before there were a few hundred. It felt rubbish. After the gig  John Archer, the Hunters bass player was packing away the PA and apoligising for the audience leaving. We had worked with John many times as we were always hiring his PA. He made some excuses for the crowd but I knew when I saw them it would be impossible to follow the Hunters.
A month later we were supporting them at RMIT Storey hall.
I didn't think they captured that live sound on their early records and I was still into guitar pop not Teutonic Rhythms so it was a surprise a year or so down the line when I heard this record. This is the first of many versions they released. To me it sounded like a Byrds song. Just a great melody. Great lyrics. I remember playing it to Mick Barclay who loved it and who ended up getting on stage a few months later with the Hunters and doing backing vocals on this song.

496. Sad Girl by The Stems 1987

Lately I've going to a lot of garage sales and record fairs trying to get my singles collection in order. Which means I want the best pop tunes ever made on 7 inch plastic ready to pop on the record player. Then I have to sort them out so they're easy to find. This can leave a mess of records on the dining room table. This turned out alright because we have a cleaner who pops in every few weeks to give the place a shine. She saw the place full of records and said she had a box of records she was getting rid of.  I wasn't expecting much but after I saw the first two singles I knew there would be some beauties. All mint and in plastic sleeves. A lot of them guitar bands from the eighties like The Stems, The Johnnies and the Lime Spiders. Fantastic.Sometimes you just luck out. Like yesterday a few doors away someone threw out about 100 comics and Mad Magazines. On their nature strip. Me and my son were so happy. 

Sad Girl became a particular favourite of mine after seeing them at the Corner Hotel a few years back. Their bass player Julian had a new band called the Level Spirits and they had supported Little Murders at our record launch. So he kindly put us on the door for the Corner Show. We did buy a poster though and put it up in the kitchen. 

Sad Girl is the one that went off. And the one I sang all the way home. And three years later I have the single. But even better the b-side is "The Beach" A song that is covered by my mate Poz's band The Squad. And they do a great version. And dig this. The last gig the Squad played at the Tote Julian played guitar for them. 

495. People Say by the Go Betweens 1979

I loved the first Go Betweens single "Lee Remick" but I really loved the second single "People Say" and the b-side "Don't Let Him Come Back" Of all those early bands they were the ones I never got to see live though I did see Grant McLennan at the Central Club when Mick Barclay was drumming with him. And I have to admit I always preferred Grant's songs on the albums. But that's a lie because there's some seriously great Robert Forster songs. They seemed to take turns with their songs on the albums.
I did get to meet the band one night at some party on Spencer Street in this underground venue near the station. Pleasant chit chat and obviously they had never heard of Little Murders. But I did all the fan stuff and retreated quickly. Years later I would me mistaken for Grant at Inflation when a guy asked me why I was down from Sydney. This happened a few times although I never saw the resemblance myself. I think it was my short hair, my stature and the denim jacket I wore.
No matter. I've always had a soft spot for the Go Betweens. There first records were Australian Indie classics. They recorded cool pop songs. They would end up being on the Postcard label and recording in Edinburgh. This one came out around the same time as my first single. It would have been in my stack of singles next to my record player. Tidily packed away in old wine cask boxes. In with the Saints and Little Murders and Clint Small.

494. New Race by Radio Birdman 1977

1977. The Tiger Lounge, Richmond. I was trying to get my band Subway up and running since our  change from disjointed folk rockers to punk idealists. Bruce Milne had introduced me to Rob Wellington with the idea he might play bass with us. After hearing the band he quickly turned us down. We were pretty bad. He would come back a few months later and offer to play lead, write songs together and change the name of the band to The Fiction. Which is what we did.
We celebrated the birth of our new band with a trip to see Radio Birdman at the Tiger Lounge. And what a gig it was. The place went mad. Rob even pogoed for a short while. He was the first pogo dancer I had ever seen.
The band rocked through New York Dolls Personality Crisis. Rob Younger was wearing eye liner and he smeared it down his face while he rolled on the floor. It was just majestic. And all the Melbourne punk scene were there. Nick Cave and the Boys Next Door. The Negatives. Everyone.
The highlight for me was New Race. Yeah Up. Which sent the crowd wild. Bumping into each other. Spilling beers. I bought the album not long after. But it was nothing to seeing them live. Melbourne 1977. There was something in the air. I had to get my band on stage.

493. Wasted Little DJs by The View 2006

I was checking out Facebook on the computer and playing Tunes in the background when this song came on. My wife Liz was in the kitchen reading the paper or something like that and called out "Turn it up! I like this song"
I guess being someone who DJed for around 20 years it still gives me a buzz when someone likes a song I put on. Especially when playing a song that's maybe not so mainstream. I've played plenty of crappy songs when drunk girls on Hen's nights have slobbered their undying love for a particular piece of popular crap that they wouldn't remember in a few months. Or a classic which you just played 2 songs ago and they want it again. No, I like it when you play a Serge Gainsbourg song when the dance floor is packed and the crowd keep dancing and someone comes over and compliments you on your choice of song.
Wasted Little DJs comes from that time when there were a lot of guitar bands making a racket over in Blighty. Following the lead of the Libertines came Scotland's The View. I bought a few of their CDs and hunted down demos and such. I loved their sound. Another band that soundtracked the summer of 2006/2007.

492. Geno by Dex'ys Midnight Runners 1980

Dexy's previous single Dance Stance was a massive hit down at Kommotion the Mod club we had down at a small pub in Richmond. Just before the bridge that crosses the river into Chapel street. The small but very cool Mod crowd would gather there every Wednesday night to show off their scooters, dance, drink beer and when the night really got going climb to the top of the speakers and throw oneself into the arms of the crowd. Only once did that go wrong.
Dexy's fit right into the scene we were creating which included soul, ska and bands like the Jam and the Who. So we couldn't wait til they brought out a follow up. Which came in the form of "Searching For The Young Soul Rebels" I guess what we didn't expect was Geno which was released a single off the album becoming a lot bigger than we thought it would. The radio stations picked it up. As did Countdown. And so every party we went to Geno was playing. And everyone was singing along. Maybe this Mod thing was going to take off. As long as they didn't hear the Merton Parkas. A hit single  by what we thought was a cult band. Brilliant. Even the Jam were played on Countdown. Good times indeed.
Dexy's next big hit in Australia was "Come On Eileen" And that's what they're known for. Too Tye Ay fiddles and banjos. Which is another song I could write about. But I would be just reflecting on how I played it so many times ..so many times.

491. Slave Girl by the Lime Spiders 1984

In 1984 just as the wheels were coming off the Little Murders wagon a whole bunch of new guitar bands started appearing on the scene. Everyone of them sounding as if they had spent a lot of time listening to the brilliant Nuggets double album of 10 years before. The same one I was digging into back in 1977 to get my musical ideas together. And bands are still drinking from that well. And why not? It's a deep rich well full of musical escapades.
The copy I have is pretty much worn to the bone and the cover is ragged and smells of night clubs. It's first airing would have been the Venetian Room in the city. I was playing records semi regularly and it ended up being the place Little Murders did their final show. Well one of their final shows. Then it would have moved to Barbarellas then onto The Beehive and KAOs before ending it's days in retirement at the Lizard lounge. To be replaced by a pristine CD copy.
I would always play this together with the Stems "Tears Me In Two" I found them fitting together very well in the set. probably chased up with a Hoodoo Gurus track. All those guitars. Wonderful. A great way to block out the sound of Duran Duran.

490. Billie Jean by Michael Jackson 1982

In 1982 if I wasn't playing gigs with Little Murders I was out at nightclubs. I was playing 4 or 5 nights a week but sometimes at 3 in the morning we might get into a club. Or there was always clubs open Mondays or Tuesdays or...well every night of the week there was something on. God knows how I got through my day job without falling over. And in 1982 this was the song you heard everywhere. And despite not being really keen on Michael Jackson at any time except for the Jackson 5 back in 1970 the opening of Billie Jean still sounds amazing. 

The drums followed by that bass line. Or is it keyboards doing that walking riff. And it can put me in a number of places. Whether it be a our guitarist Roddie's party when he pulled out Thriller and and told me how great it was. Or walking into Therapy in West Melbourne and watching the crowd tumble onto the dancefloor. Or maybe it's just all thhose Countdown episodes that played the film clip endlessly. Til later on when if things need a danceable curve we'd throw on Billie Jean to a rapterous reception. It is a great song. And a great sound.

489. Girls Talk By Dave Edmunds 1979

This came out the same time as Cruel to Be Kind and though they are solo singles by Dave Edmunds and Nick Lowe they kind of fall into the realm of being Rockpile songs. And what songs they are. Just love listening to them both. They never get dated. Acoustic guitars. great melodies.
Of course Girls Talk was written by Elvis Costello but this is the version that does it for me. Actually Elvis' efforts to reclaim the song later on didn't amount to much. Reminded me of David Bowie who kept doing versions of All The Young Dudes on live recordings and B-sides but never getting anywhere near the definitive version by Mott The Hoople.
This song takes me back to sunny days in Collingwood. My girlfriend lived near the pub that was used in the TV series the Sullivans. We never went there. We went down the local milk bar because the owner kept pulling sixties toys still in their boxes and putting them out for sale. I bought 20 Monkeemobiles for $5 each and Bruce Milne and I sold them through Missing Link. The they played a song which didn't work until a used a transformer from a train set to inject a bit of electricity into them.
But I digress. Rockpile came and played at The Venue. I was playing a gig that night down in Welshpool and missed them. I heard it was terrible. The band apologized at the next gig they did. Great musicians but it just went wrong. Still I wish I'd seen it for myself.

488. (I Wish It Could Be) 1965 Again by the Barracudas 1980

Because for a while there we did! Wish it was 65 or 66 or 67. Well anything but 1980 it seems. The Mod movement in Melbourne was starting to move along with scooters appearing fast and furious. Especially when South Melbourne council decided to sell off all their Rabbit scooters that were scooped up by a number of Mods who couldn't afford or get their hands on a Lambretta or a Vespa. We looked for sixties suits and shoes in Op Shops at a time when they were full of cool stuff. I was dressed totally in second hand clothes. Where else could you get button down shirts.
We were listening to soul and ska and the new Mod bands from the UK. My band had morphed from a punk band into a Mod band without bothering to change our name.
And with the action starting to gather speed this record came out. For some it was just a joke. Which was not helped by the horrible front cover. Luckily on the back they looked cool.But for a few of us it was a party record summing up our new strange experience of digging up the past. In retrospect it fits more into the scene about to happen with the paisley brigade of the early eighties and bands like the Hoodoo Gurus. But I loved the lyrics to this song. It was a three minute of everything cool about the sixties. California style.
I loved this record. And it's parent album "Drop Out with the Barracudas" I even pinched one of their song titles "Don't Let Go"
On the weekend I bought a surfboard at a garage sale. Maybe my band should do a similar pose to the cover.

487. It's All Over Now by the Rolling Stones 1964

When I first started playing guitar and forming bands my musical bible was a book called The Rolling Stones for Easy Guitar. This is where I learned to play songs. And at first to write songs using the chord sequences and putting new melodies on top. In my first band, which we called Feathers, I attempted to sing The Last Time. Only once. At a Pizza Hut in Doncaster. And it was horrible. Put me off covers for ages. Feathers was a three piece that did 3 gigs one being a radio show where our prize was a bunch of Joan Armatrading singles.  Then we lost members and added new ones and became Subway. Me, Ken and Vic went on to form The Fiction.
But first we had to do the real rock and roll thing and debut our 5 piece at the Bayswater Youth Club. My aversion to destroying classic songs meant most the set we played was original songs. Which didn't go down well.  And their were a few covers. Which probably didn't go down well either. After we played "It's All Over Now" a song I picked because I could play it basically one of the crowd called out "Play some Rolling Stones!" Nice one. I started explaining we had just played one until I realised he was having a dig. I can't repeat the reaction to our version of Paperback Writer. I do have the cassette somewhere. It sounds like an out of tune Velvet Underground covering Beatles songs. Everything that felt good in rehearsal was laid bare on stage. I felt we'd never play again. At least not in Bayswater.
A few weeks later we bumped into Bruce Milne at a set of traffic lights on the way home from the Tiger Room. I found out there were others out there who knew about The Stooges and New York Dolls and punk. The next rehearsal I outlined a new vision for the band. The guitarist left and we fired my girlfriend who was the back up singer. We brought in a new guitarist who couldn't play and a bass player who never turned up to gigs. We were ready!

486. Save Me by Aretha Franklin 1967

In 1978 I was living in North Fitzroy on the bottom flat of this horrible plain ugly block of flats. Big wide windows overlooked the car park. So the venetian blinds stayed drawn most of the time. And upstairs would have kids come over on Sunday mornings and bang about above me. Which was painful. I didn't have a phone but I had plenty of pubs where we you could catch up and install beer filled lines of communication. God knows how we organised anything. But we did.
So coming to this cramped spot from the leafy Eastern suburbs was quite a culture shock. And it was good to get out of there. And get to the parties that were going on in big houses in Carlton where the Uni students gathered.  These houses were amazing places. Long hallways. Rooms just for dancing. Sometimes with a window into another room where you could pass drinks through. Floorboards that bounced. Plenty of quiet corners for a snog if you got lucky.
It was one of these parties I got my first real taste of Aretha Franklin. Someone had put Save Me by the Saints on the record player. They covered it on Prehistoric Sounds. It must have been the guy who lived there who came running down the corridor jumping over outstretched legs and empty VB cans. A few seconds fumbling with the record player and The Saints came off and then the real version came on. The sound went up. And it was majestic. Like I was in another world. It was like I woke up. And it didn't stop there. He put Green Onions on next. It was just so good. Then somebody else got themselves on the record player. But for the next few days we talked about those soul records and where we could find a place to play more of the stuff.

485. Elevator Driver by the Masters Apprentices 1968

1968. First year of High School. Out go watching cartoons at 6:30am in the morning. The only time you could see those weird Marvel ones where the characters didn't actually move. Straight out of the comic strip. In came GTK and pop shows on Channel 2 on a Saturday afternoon. 

This is one of the first videos I can remember watching. Well maybe not the first but I'm not going to count the Beatles because they were kind of omnipresent. I used to love watching this video. It was like all the weird films they would show at school under the name of art. Girls running through grave yards. Over exposed images. Mad men. My first taste of psychedelic Australian rock. A fantastic band that should of been massive overseas. Like the Easybeats should of. 

Actually I used to think it was the cemetery in the video was the one next to my school. Box Hill cemetery. Our art teacher used to send us over there to draw angels and take photos. Later we used to take girls there so we could dare them if they would kiss you while sitting on a grave. We'd carefully place our transistor radio on the headstone. We thought we were cool but it was the only place to hang out where no one bothered you. Otherwise we found the sheds a cool place to smoke. There never seemed to be anyone around. Even fights between rival schools were arranged at the cemetery. then they started building shopping malls and everything changed.

484. In Every Dream Home A Heartache by Roxy Music 1973

Back in 1977 when the Subway were coming together I was writing songs at a furious rate. Some alright. Some atrocious. But with Rob Wellington joining the band and changing the name to the Fiction and also bringing his own songs in I was working harder and harder to get that punk sound.  And to get more of my songs in the set. We rehearsed above his Dad's factory in Nunawading. Great place. It had carpet and clean toilets.  We recorded one cassette there. Which is still a great little reminder.
One of the songs I brought to the band was called "Robot Love" Rob thought it was great. Although he always thought it was a punk style version of Heartache until he actually read the lyrics. He thought it should have been a robot replacing the blow up doll in Roxy's song. I even tried to rejig the lyrivcs to accomadate him but couldn't get it to work. Who's going to make love to a robot?
A few years later Stuart used the song to create a theme song for Bruce Milne's Fast Forward cassette magazine. 30 years later a band called Sputnik Penguin recorded their version and put it up on their MySpace page. The drummer was Vic from the Fiction.
With "Every Dream Home a Heartache" I've seen Roxy Music do it 3 times in concert. It never fails to blow me away. When I first bought the album back in the early seventies I didn't pay the song too much attention. I was into the faster bits. Then I went to Festival Hall in 1975 and heard the song live. And yes it "blew my mind". Just that tense build up and then Kaboom!

483. Between You and Me by Graham Parker 1976

A classic Graham Parker song. From his first album where he was kind of the UKs future of rock. That is until Elvis Costello came along and stole his thunder. Oh and the punk thing too. So Graham Parker gets lumped in with the pub rock bands. Not that there's anything wrong with that at all. Just at the time we were all a bit excited with the Pistols and the Clash.
Still he seemed to do alright after that first flush of punk becoming part of the New Wave...kind of. I saw him down at Kingston Rock in Richmond and was very excited despite me leaning against the wall watching the Sports and trying to look cool. His records were great. And the Sports introduced them to me when they played the first album before they went on one night at Martinis. Long before anyone had heard of him. Big speakers . Cool sound.
Maybe this song didn't hit me that night but when I got the record "Howlin Wind", Between Me and You became a particular favourite. I suppose when you're young you go through a lot of break ups. You fall in love every other week. Sometimes they last a bit longer. And eventually it falls apart. And then there's just the bits and peices of shared memory. And it's all quite dramatic.
But it's not just that which gets me about this song. There's a moment at about 1:18 where his voice seems to stumble. Quite emotional. Gets me every time.

482. Feel Good Inc. by Gorillaz 2005

I had my music on random play the other day and this song came on and instantly took me to the night my son Remi was born. Like all the kids in my family he waited until the early hours of the morning to say hello. So I spent my time holding Liz's hand or getting coffee from the small waiting room with it's small box of Nescafe. They were playing videos on the television but it wasn't Rage. I don't know what it was. Some short lived video show late at night. At one stage I walked in and "windmill, windmill" seemed to float through the room. Fantastic chorus and Damon Alban from Blur. I'm half asleep watching these windmills float across the screen. I walk back and Remi is about to make his entrance.
The idea behind Gorillaz was fantastic. In the early 90's I was trying to convince people that we should form a cartoon band. Release my songs like that. No need to go on the road or identify players or anything. Just like the Archies. Even the style that eventually was used due to Jamie Hewlett being the artist was close to what I would have liked. I was a big Tank Girl fan. I bought the comics regularly. When I went to London in 91 I went down to their base of operations and bought t-shirts and badges and said hello. It was long bus ride into the furthest reaches of London. I wanted to tell them but I didn't know if I should that we were using Tank Girl to promote the Lizard lounge. She was part of the Logo that appeared in ads and on the front wall and the dancefloor...well..everywhere. I didn't know if they'd be impressed or I would be in trouble. In retrospect I should have said something.

481. Mary Mary by the Monkees 1968

Here's another song Little Murders used to cover back in the day. And like Monterey by the Animals it's basically a two chord song. And this basically makes it the third Monkees song we covered. A little while ago there was a radio special on the Little Murders and one of the DJs noted that we covered a lot of Monkees songs to which I protested strongly. Well I guess I was wrong.
I love the Monkees and never get why they are so underrated. And it all goes back to when it was revealed that they didn't play instruments on their records. And they were the first manufactured band in that they auditioned for a TV show. None of that bothers me. Lots of bands used session musicians.
It's what's on the plastic. The Monkees sound was defined by Micky Dolenz's great voice. And Mike Nesmith wrote some pretty cool songs. Like Mary Mary and Tapioca Tundra and many more.
We learned Mary Mary when we started playing the Continental Hotel in Sorrento once a month. We used to have these regular gigs that happened once a month in far off places. At the Continental we played 3 sets. So that was plenty of songs. So we added a few covers. This went down a storm. The place was always packed. The crowd was always hyper. The beer would flow. The end of the night saw the dance floor look like a twister had gone through the room. In between sets the DJ played great music so no one left the dance floor for over 3 hours. Spirits were definitely high. Because it was a surfer crowd I even wrote a song called Walking On Water. My first surf tune.
After the gig we'd jump in the Mazda with the broken window and drive back to The Jump Club to see the last band for the night.

480. Monterey by The Animals 1967

Down at the local Op Shop yesterday when I came across this single trapped amongst all it's 12 inch siblings. They actually call the place the Posh Op Shop for some strange reason. Because it's not that posh. Just a lot more stuff. I saw the van for the shop down in Hampton the other day so maybe they collect their goods from Brighton and Hampton if they can actually be termed Posh suburbs anymore.
Anyway I bought the single for 50 cents took it home and washed it and it sounded brilliant. It's another song that takes me back to Fulton road Blackburn South where my brother had a record player sitting between our single beds. Sunday mornings waking up to the crisp sounds of vinyl crackling in my ear. This was always one of my favourites though I always thought it came in two parts. Monterey into San Franciscan Nights. Because that's how I always heard them. Together.
It's always one of those songs I've tried a few times to rewrite myself. I just like the repetition of those two chords. Similar to the Byrds "Rock and Roll Star" and The Shoes  "Tomorrow Night"
I used to get a kick listening to the references to other sixties icons. Prince Jones moving amongst the crowd. The Who. Hendrix. Ten thousand electric guitars indeed. I kind of used that in one of my songs.  And I haven't even mentioned the great rhythm section that powers this beast. Brilliant.

479. 7 Heures du Matin by Jacqueline Taleb 1967

Ever since I tried to sort out my records in the garage over a year ago and found that quite a few were missing I've been busy scouring Record Fairs looking to replace albums that had disappeared. Now I've just got into the habit of vinyl shopping so when markets appear on the calendar I'm there. At first I walked slowly round sifting through the records and not engaging with the sellers. Now it's a time to catch up and talk music. And I've moved away from albums and I'm looking for brilliant 45s. Last market I was at I ran into Paul Elliot whose Polyester Records released 100 Drugs by my band. Also ran into Bruce Milne who owned AuGoGo Records which released our early singles and first album.
Asking after his wife Adele he informed me she was now playing bass in a French sixties pop YeYe band called Le Minijupes. Which got him on to raving about a song referencing Paul McCartney coming over to help with some teenage girls homework.
Intrigued when I got home I googled the bits of info he gave me and found it to be "7 Heures Du Martin" by Jacqueline Taeib. A song I loved already. The bit I would refer to though is her "talking bout My G-g-g-g-generation" So I started playing this song again. Every now and then I go through a French Pop phase so I moved onto France Gall and Bridgette Bardotte and Francoise Hardy. Compiling a playlist on iTunes and running it through Apple TV the house was filled with French pop. Until the family can't take any more and plead for some English words. I should have played the English version of this I guess.

478.On and On by the Longpigs 1997

There's a scene at the end of "Face" the 1997 UK gangster movie where Robert Carlisle realizes everything has gone to hell. This song is playing. Damon Albarn has a bit part in the film which is appropriate because this was the winding down of Britpop and Oasis were stomping all over Blur. Longpigs were kind of Britpop with a foot in the Radiohead door. With a few classic songs.
Good enough for me to not only buy the album but when they came out to Australia I bought tickets to the show. Mind you it was at the Mount Evelyn Hotel in Brunswick Street Fitzroy. Basically the same size venues Little Murders are used to. We've even played there many years ago. A few months before we'd seen Muse supporting Ash there. If I had known how big Muse would get I would have taken more notice and not spent so much time at the bar.
Same thing with U2 back in 1979 when they were supporting the Dolly Mixtures. I wrote a live review for a Mod Magazine and that one and didn't even mention U2 who I though were a bit of a throwback to pub rock bands that punk had got rid of.
Anyway Longpigs played this small venue with a good crowd and a good sound. The guitarist Richard Hawley was brilliant but I couldn't get over him having a moustache. Always been offended by musicians with moustaches. I got to meet Tim Rogers for the first time so I'm guessing I was with Poz because I don't know of anyone else who would have introduced me. He was big at the time with You Am I having number 1 after number 1 album.
I have a mental image of the gig. But when I hear this song I see Robert Carlisle in a road side restaurant watching everything slip through his hands.

477. She Loves You by The Beatles 1963

I was only six years old when this came out but it sticks in my mind because of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Maybe one of the strongest hooks in modern music. I mean we were all singing along. Before this I think my favourite songs were Little White Bull by Tommy Steele or down the scout hall singing Onward Christian Soldiers. After this I was pop mad. Not that I got to see much of it. I mean it still wasn't up there with playing soldiers or reading my Beano comic. But it was good place to start.
and living in Blackpool there was music going all the time. Bingo Halls and amusement arcades banging out the treble sounds of the hit parade. All from the glorious North which had taken over the charts with the advent of The Beatles. And they were always in town playing the Piers or the Wintergarden.
No wonder I was so sad when we left in 1965 to move to Australia. Little did I know that I was leaving the epicentre of Pop culture. Okay it wasn't London or New York. But to me Blackpool seemed so exciting and glamorous and I couldn't wait to get back. In reality it was a bit like Coronation Street with fairy lights. But I still love the place. I think it's the tower that does it.
I've the this song so many times I thought I might not be able to listen to it again. But I put on the record . In Mono of course. And it sounded fantastic! All rush and go. A band on the rise.

476. I Need A Million by the Laughing Dogs 1979

I first heard this song played by the Boys Next Door back in the late 70s. I swear they were playing this song back in 1978 however the record it's on didn't come out until 1979. And even if they did start playing it in 1979 it's hard to imagine they would cover something that just came out.
Be that as it may Nick Cave and the Boys Next Door were miles ahead of the other bands on the scene back in the late 70s. Nick was and still is pure charisma. When I got my first car, a Datsun Bluebird, they were one of the first bands I saw. Rob Wellington took me to a church hall in Springvale to see them. And they were mesmerising. I didn't get a chance to explore any other kinds of music because this was where I wanted to be. My band, the Fiction was supporting them six months later.
Early BND gigs were full of covers. "I'm Eighteen" "Andy Warhol" & " These Boots are Made for Walking" were just a few. "I Need A Million" was another. And they just nailed it. I wanted to get the song but I couldn't find a copy anywhere. And when I did track it down it didn't have the urgency that BND gave to it on stage at places like the Tiger Room. I always felt I had the wrong version. There was a better version out there somewhere.
But it's a great song. Up there with all the other revered classic punk building blocks.  Even better now it's less easy to compare it to the past.

475. Keep On Running by Spencer Davis Group 1965

In the sixties when I first heard songs like these I was far too young to appreciate how good they were. My pop mind wasn't opened until The Monkees. It took until the last days of Ziggy Stardust and the end of Glam Rock for me to to really get into the sixties. And each new track just knocked me out out. So it was with Keep On Running which just pounded along. However it would be another long wait before we started opening clubs where we could play this stuff.
In 77/78 when punk was taking off in Melbourne there were a lot more parties than gigs on the weekend. Most punk bands played week nights. Parties seldom were great although they did have their moments. Half the time it was scavenging for alcohol. Or fighting over who got to put the music on. I was already in the habit of making up mixtapes of sixties singles. Pop singles like the Who and Small Faces and the Beatles. I would come across followers of the Doors or The Stooges or Kraftwerk. Many of the punks weren't into sixties pop. I wasn't into the Doors. And I certainly didn't want to hear a whole album of Stooges at a party. Despite the rocking "No Fun" et al we had to listen to the dirge too. I didn't win out. My tapes were ejected. I had to make a move before I got ejected too.
Me and my friends had to and find a place  where we could hear the Small Faces and the Stones. Eventually we created our own scene. The Melbourne Mod revival starts here.

474. I Only Want You by Eagles of Death Metal 2004

After seeing the Black Angels at the Palace I was not feeling the greatest and was hoping that someone would pour me into a cab. My friend Mark had other ideas and after fruitlessly searching for his cousin Billy who had disappeared into the ether Mark decided we needed to go somewhere else. The somewhere else being the Cherry Bar in AC DC Lane.
How could I refuse? In fact the cold Melbourne air was waking me up. And I thought I looked sharp. Not that the bouncer at Cherry Bar agreed. He didn't like the idea of my tie but he though the black denim jeans and Doc martens put me over the line. I should of mentioned I played there a few months back but that might have sounded desperate. Anyway we were in.  Almost immediately it felt like Rubber Soul as they played sixties guitar hits and Doors and Led Zeppelin. It actually seemed like the ghost of Ronnie held court above the turntables. He would have loved this place. Actually the time we played there a few ex Rubber Soul punters had come up to me and chatted about the old days. Well there's no old days in great rock music.
In between the Deep Purple and The Who they played this song. It sounded familiar but I had to use my iPhone to scan it. Because it sounded so damn good. It rocked. Eagles of Death Metal. I didn't know much about them but the next day I was on Spotify digging their music and trying to find their albums on vinyl. They're my new favourite band.

473. Don't Play With Guns by Black Angels 2013

Speaking of new music a friend of mine Mark T. was telling to me about Tame Impala a few months back and then got onto this band called the Black Angels. Part of the new psychedelic movement I guess. I wasn't sure I wanted to go back there again. But I jumped onto Youtube I gave them a listen and found this track. Which led me to their brilliant Indigo Meadow album which in turn led to me buying my first 2013 album on vinyl and last Friday heading out with Mark and his cousin Billy to see the band.
That we started the night with a few bottles of great Shiraz at a duck restaurant in Chinatown before strolling up to the Palace put us in good spirits. The exorbitant amount we paid for beers, vodka shots and Black Ice nearly blew the fun away but we were in too much of a good mood. And we somehow ended up at the front. And I've never been in the front row for anything unless you count the time I took my kids to see the Hi Five. But here I was holding on to the barrier. Listening to the support bands. Leaving the front to queue up for a smoke. There was a line of people waiting to go into the smoking area. Never seen that before. I smoke rarely now but this was the kind of gig where it felt almost right. Except for the 10 minute wait. And the fact that no drinks were allowed in the smoking area. Which kinda defeats the fun a bit.
Black Angels came on and it was a blast. Total sound. They did all my favourite songs first and then seemed to get into a groove which was just mesmerizing. Which could have been the alcohol because I was starting to find the stairs a bit elastic. I retreated to the balcony for the second half and just watched the band and the audience interact. With these trippy visuals on screen it just felt good. But I was guessing I might not feel so good tomorrow morning.

472. Elephant by Tame Impala 2012

At first I was catching up with all those great albums of the 90s that I only had on CD. Stuff like Teenage Fanclub and Blur and Radiohead. But I need to buy a bit of vinyl that was little more current. Something I didn't have on CD. So I bought Tame Impala "Lonerism" Mainly because this song grabbed me a few months back. It reminded me of the old Glam singles with a touch of Syd Barrett Pink Floyd with a bit of Beatles thrown in. It was just a great pop song. It made me wish I was still running a nightclub because i knew if I put this on the dance floor would go mad.
And my daughter Ruby is well into Tame Impala too and it's a great feeling when one of your kids likes the same music you do. Then again Ruby is the one with the record player and the stack of vinyl. At 11 years old that's pretty groovy. And she loves Tame impala. Especially the song "It Feels Like We Going Backwards"
I've broken the barrier now. When I buy new music it's only going to be vinyl. I want those big covers. And the sound when the needle hits the groove. I want to interact with my music.

471. Pictures of Lily by The Who 1967

Of course these blog entries could be filled with Who songs and at the end I guess there will be quite a few. So how to pick them? Well this one comes to my notice because I was at the Camberwell Market for the first time in years this morning. I like taking my kids Ruby and Remi to the markets because they like looking through the junk. Anyway there was loads of vinyl there. A lot of the albums I already had but a lot of singles there. But no one was caring much about the singles and they were to be found lying sadly next to their 12 inch cousins wrapped in their shiny plastic while some of the 7 inches didn't even have sleeves. Very cruel but very rewarding as I came away with some beauties including the Who's Pictures of Lily. For a dollar.
And because I've finally fixed up my automatic record player from the 70s it's now a pleasure to play singles at home. The needle lifts off at the end of the record. I don't have to run over to the turntable to lift it off before it goes round and round.
Pictures of Lily was another sixties tracks introduced to me by my mate Pete's brother Phil. He had all these compilation tapes of sixties songs I'd never heard of back when I was 16. I thought The Who were all about Baba Riley and Tommy and then I heard these pop songs and I was hooked. The music is just so exciting and Roger Daltrey hasn't got his rock voice yet. And the drums and guitars. It all seems so effortless and majestic and makes you want to play it loud. Real loud. Oh Lily.

470. No Fun by The Stooges 1969.

I have to admit that I really didn't hear the Stooges doing No Fun until after I bought the Sex pistols covering the song on the back of Pretty Vacant. The Pistols did a great copy but the Mod inside me made me go search out for the original. Which I've done with most songs and usually they've turned out to be a whole lot better. I say usually because there are a few that get transformed into something a lot better. Badfinger"s "Without You" being the obvious one. Nillson just took it and owned it. Dave Edmunds version of Elvis Costello's Girls Talk and Mott the Hoople completely owning All The Young Dudes even though Bowie has tried to take it back many times.
So I went looking for The Stooges and it didn't take long. Even in Box Hill there was a wind blowing and these alternative records were turning up all over the place. Got it back to my brother's house in Blackburn where I was staying for the last few months of college. My Mum had gone back to the UK so I was fending for myself. My brother Tony and his wife were cool though. They loved the idea of a band rehearsing there and let Subway my first band take over the master bedroom. One of our first gigs was in the Living Room.
But I digress. Loved the Stooges first album. It was a toss up between No Fun and "I wanna be your dog". But No Fun led me to the Stooges. However my first punk song was a rip off of "Dog". 1969 was pretty groovy too. But it was No Fun that I got Subway to play. It was only two chords. and my favourites as well. A to D. It was just so exciting buying these buried classics. Though the MC5 didn't grab me though. Except the name. That was cool.

469. Jump by Aztec Camera 1984

For that old girlfriend who complained that I was wasting money on buying singles because I never listened to the B-sides here's a record I bought just for the b-side. Aztec Camera doing a kind of mellow version of Van Halen's Jump. Not that the original is bad but Roddy Frame changes the whole meaning of the song and produces a real gem of a song.
I liked Aztec Camera but was never a fan of the band. I was more into Orange Juice. My friends with the nicer cars liked Aztec Camera. I heard this on the radio while driving to the Fawkner Club Hotel in South Yarra to have dinner one night. The Fawkner Club was a popular hangout in 84. We wore white shirts and 501s. We lived local. we listened to RRR and Scottish pop bands. We were in transition. We'd have dinner and maybe later on move down to the Red Eagle. We drank Elephant beer and lost our car keys. It was a great time.
I think this was the first time I'd heard a rock song by an mega American band taken over by a small Indie band and played acoustically. To me it was a relevation. I love learning rock and pop songs which ae normally fast and slowing them down with my acoustic guitar. Even better if I lay my hands on a 12 string.

468. Strange Magic by ELO 1975

In the early seventies and before punk happened I was a bit of an ELO fan. I remember getting the New World Record as an Easter present from my Mum. She had stopped buying me Chocolate Eggs and instead would buy me an album. Alladin Sane by Bowie was probably the most memorable. I was miffed that I had to go away for Easter and wouldn't be able to play it til I got back.
But this wasn't from that album. It was from "Face The Music" which I didn't have and wasn't interested in after my mate Alan played it for me. A cassette he had picked up for 50 cents in Thailand. It seemed a little too bright after Eldarado which I loved. So I've always had this weird love \/hate thing with ELO. And when 1977 came along I hated them completely and didn't listen to their music again until 1999.
What made me go back and have another listen.? I went to see this film called "The Virgin Suicides" an d there's this moment when this song comes on and the cinema just filled up with this incredible sound. It sounded amazing. But then a lot of songs sound great pumping out of cinema speakers. But it made me go back and have another listen to ELO. I'd long ago thrown away the New World Record but I still had Eldarado. And I bought a greatest hits CD. And finally realised how great Jeff Lynne was. He still managed to put out a bit of rubbish though. Still can't go near those later ELO records.

467. Hot Dog (Watch Me Eat) by Detroit Cobras 200I

The first time I heard this song was on one of those give away CDs that every music magazine in the UK seems to have mounted to the cover nowadays. That it appeared on a CD dedicated to songs played on Bob Dylan's Radio Show made it even more intriguing. That the one song led me to another and another is one of the things I love about music and the places you find it.
After hearing Hot Dog I discovered I already had a few Detroit Cobras littered about my iTunes. Ya Ya Ya was even my ring tone for a while. But now I went scouring the Internet for more of their stuff. And everything I found was just a joy. And because they weren't a huge band all their stuff hadn't been uploaded so I had to buy the stuff. And it took some work. The music store I used to go to did have a label with their name on it, but the space where the CD was supposed to be was empty.
It took a bit of work but I tracked them down. And it's great driving music because the kids love it too. Everyone song is a hit. There is something about this simplistic garage meets blues rock and roll that the kids really get into. And they don't notice the sexual innuendo in Hot Dog.
Detroit Cobras happily sit next to the Modern lovers and the Ramones as great alternative, dare I say, car driving family rock and roll singalongs. Also brilliant to dance to when the kids are in bed and you're on your second bottle of red.

466. Antmusic by Adam and the Ants 1980

In 1980 we thought ourselves very cool in mod outfits dancing to groovy tunes like Green Onions or jumping around to My Generation. But there was other music out there. The Clash were still a major part of our lives. Ska music was bursting through. And then there was Adam and the Ants and Antmusic.
I first saw the film clip on Countdown, early Sunday evening. I knew about Adam Ant.from early Roxy meets punk records. But this was completely different. and mesmerising. All those colours. Pirates and Indians mixed in together. And the warrior paint across his nose. To quote the Clash  "He punched a hole in the radio when it hadn't sounded good all week!"
We had a Mod club down at the Prince Alfred and we played it. And I played it for the next 30 years. It's a great song.
A few months back Jason who used to DJ at the Beehive and went on to run Twister got a gig DJing at the Adam and the Ants concert. He invited Dan and I along. He played some great rock a billy which I guess was Adam's roots. Adam came on and played a great set. With a whoomping version of Stand and Deliver. Hit after hit until it seemed he had no more. And he didn't. For the last part of the show he'd played all the hits and was beginning to just go on. So Dan and I left. But that first 40 minutes was a killer.

465. Solsbury Hill by Peter Gabriel 1977

Amongst all the chaos and anarchy that 1977 brought with the advent of punk rock there were a few songs that slipped through that came from sources I would never have looked at. Genesis was a band I never had time for and after buying one of their albums it took me less than a week to get it back to the second hand shop I bought it from. The album I bought did have a major fault. Both sides were exactly the same! That it took me a few plays to even realise. This shows how much I cared about it. I guess that copy might be worth a fortune now. As misprints usually are.
So I was unprepared for how much I would like Solsbury Hill. Completely different to Genesis. Actually the records Genesis brought out after Peter Gabriel left are completely different to their old stuff too as Phil Collins took over the driver's seat.
But Solsbury Hill resonates with it's strange rhythm pattern and it's life affirming lyrics. I know it might seem a little corny but I have used this song to motivate me to make leaps and changes. He just nails the feeling of leaving. Getting out of a rut. Not in an angry shouty way which the punks were doing. But making it joyful. Mind you I was a shouty punk in those days playing dives into the wee hours.
I did eventually find a Genesis song I liked  "I Know What I Like (in your wardrobe)"

464. Song 2 by Blur 1997

Hit record written all over this one. I remember hearing it first on it's parent album and really like having my socks knocked off. A perfect piece of rock and roll British grunge from a band we'd almost give up on. Well after the cute and quite sickly Country Life single which we like liked for about the length of the film clip and then realizing that the Oasis album was so much better Blur looked like they were going nowhere. But they turned it around and started making some really interesting and cool songs. This was a standout.
Just the first few treated drum beats at the beginning, and I'm not even sure they're real drums, and I'm taken back to the Lizard in the late Nineties. The punters would scramble onto the dance floor for this one and when there was no more floor they'd be pushing against the tables that ringed the floor. Or they 'd be dancing down in the lower bar area. The lights would swirl and the beers would be held aloft as Damon came in with his Wooh Hoo and we'd be off. For 2 minutes they'd go mad while the DJs would frantically look for something to follow it up with.
I seem to remember it only got to number 2 on the national charts both here and a few other places in the world. A slightly cosmic joke or just my imagination?

463. Like Eating Glass by Bloc Party 2004

In 2004 I had just about quit all DJing except for a party or a wedding here or there. Mostly I would build some mix tapes that party hosts could put on at intervals during the night. Later I would just pass over mp3s.
So for a long time before this I was listening out for records that would play well on the dance floor. Now I was free to go out and listen to stuff just for sheer enjoyment. This was a time when a fresh crop of bands were coming out of the UK with a sound I really liked. On my iTunes playlist I called it the new Britpop. Probably not a great idea after the slagging that the old Britpop gets now.
The first album I bought was Silent Alarm by Bloc Party. I can't remember which track initially peaked my interest but when I first put the album on I was gob smacked by the first track "Like Eating Glass" I'm a sucker for good drumming and this was just totally wild. It made we want to go and find my Mum's old knitting knees and start banging away on biscuit tins. And it's not just the drums. It's the Robert Smith type whine on the vocals and the guitars like wailing sirens. It's just magic.
Little Murders didn't really have a drummer at the time. Which was lucky because I might have pushed this frenetic style onto them. The band after a couple of albums and a support slot for Buzzcocks at the Prince of Wales went very quiet and just did acoustic gigs finally ending up with me doing solo shows. So I had plenty of time to listen to new records. And enjoy them.

462. Pictures Of Matchstick Men by Status Quo 1967

The first thing anyone would do on the guitar back in the late sixties was play the riff from Pictures of Matchstick Men. It was just something you had to do. And if you haven't got a guitar then you just pretend. It's just fantastic. I would play it on my first guitar which was some no brand super light thing with strings that would cut grooves in your finger. It would take a few more years before I managed to get myself a guitar that felt good.
A mate of mine from the local youth club. I recall his name to be Jimmy Page. But it could have been something different. Though his last name was Page but for the life of me the only first name I could think of is Jimmy.
He sold me is Ibanez Les paul. It had a case.  It was heavy. It was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. It was black with white trimmings. When I became a Mod I decorated it with arrows using electrical tape. Same stuff I would put on my shirt. Copied from Paul Weller on the modern world album.
I'd throw it around on stage and despite knocking off a machine head it survived rough treatment. I got new pick ups.
Then the day I got my first telephone ever. This would be 1980. Never had a phone before. God knows how I ever found out about gigs. That day, thiefs broke into my flat in Fitzroy and stole the guitar, a carton of Kent cigarettes, a six pack of beer and it looked like they had a bit of a party too. Bastards.
Luckily that was all they took. All my records remained. Including this one.

461. Hurdy Gurdy Man by Donovan 1968

Another song I picked up on my crystal wireless. Built it myself from a kit I purchased in Box Hill. One ear plug. Wires wrapped around any piece of metal I could find. Bring in sounds from the air. The idea of sounds and images floating around in space to be collected by a simple antenna used to do my head in.
In 1968 I was in Form 1 at Box Hill High School. I had just begun to really start buying records and had my first few albums. Mostly something I picked up second hand or given to me. It would be another year before I would walk into a record shop and actually buy an album. Or even 1970 when I took my money and laid over a counter to buy an album. I think it was the Beatles last album in a box. "Let it Be' and from there I worked back through the Beatles. But I digress.
Hurdy Gurdy man was probably the first really hippy psychadelic I really got to hear and love. It was like something that came from outer space. I loved Donovan's voice. The guitar that quietly goes mad in the background. Jeff beck if I recall rightly. It made me a massive Donovan fan. I tracked down his albums and found them maybe a little too jazzy or folky or out there for my teenage tastes. So I stuck with the greatest hits. Until I discovered Barabajacal. That was a killer of an album.

460. Desolation Row by Bob Dylan 1965

In the mid seventies when I was trying to learn guitar and do something or anything with music I really got hooked on Bob Dylan music especially stuff before his motorbike accident. The music that came after that was kind of spoiled by a change in vocal stylings that wasn't fixed until Blood On The Tracks.

I bought this big blue songbook which had all the songs of Bob Dylan up until that time. And I would play those songs that I did know and whose chords I could play relentlessly. Most of the time they were the only songs I played which sounded remotely like the originals. I guess it was the strumming. When I ventured over to the Kinks and the Beatles I had lots of trouble. Dylan was my teacher. Also when it came to writing songs. 

Because I found it hard to play other people's songs I had to start writing my own. I started with with imitations of Dylan. And one of the most imitated song I probably did was Desolation Row. I was obsessed with this song. All 11 and a half minutes of it. And I would write my own epics based on poetry I had been writing to impress this girl I knew at teachers college. Songs like the Revolution Girl, State of Execution and the Life and Death of a Hong Kong Prostitute might have entertained me when writing but performing them in a Doncaster Pizza parlour was never going to work out. Especially when teamed up with John Lennon's Working Class hero.

459. Boppin' the Blues by Blackfeather 1971

In 1971 I was in Form 3 at Box Hill high school. A boys only school that had a few years before had changed it's name from Box Hill Grammar. Not sure why but maybe because it had become just a little bit rougher. It was a bit of a grind and made worse because I was always the smallest in the year level. so I always got bottom locker. Which meant I was constantly stood on by the school skinhead fraternity. Mainly because my hair was growing half way down my back.
There was some respite from all this crap though when at lunchtimes a bunch of us would go to the music portable situated at the back of the school next to the train lines and Box Hill cemetery. Half the time it was playing records and talking rubbish but one day one of the students whose name escapes me starting banging out the opening piano bit of this record. I was mesmerized. It sounded so good. When  he had finished we all begged him to play it again. Which he did about 10 times.
Later they formed a band. I wasn't in it. I was trying to learn drums and was proving hopeless banging away on my rubber matt. Soon gave it up through lack of co-ordination. Anyway it was just cool to hang out with the older kids rocking through Jumping Jack Flash. I got to go to their first gig in a friends backyard. They even built a stage. It was brilliant. Two days later I rode my bike down to Box Hill and found a music shop a few doors from my previous hangout, the slot car racing shop and bought a cheap electric guitar which came with a Corona amp. A good substitute for the tennis raquet I'd been using previously.

458. Aliens in our Midst by the Twinkeyz 1977

Back in 1977 & 1978  I would go round to Bruce Milne's place in Hawthorn to drink coffee and talk about music. Each time I went round he would play me something new that he'd dug up from the USA or the UK. He played the Boys "First Time " single and pointed out how the vocals were non existent in the mix. (and if you were the vocalist how would you like that? ) The Residents and how magnificent they were though I never understood that band but I could see how they led to early Devo. Modern Lovers who just blew my mind. And in a similar vein were the Twinkeys with this slice of neo Velvet Underground masterpiece of low fi indie out there rock and roll.
These were the days when if you liked a record you'd either tape it it or go searching for it in every record shop in Melbourne. I didn't want to start taping any of Bruce's stuff because he had so much of it. The walls of his abode were lined with fruit crates full of records. Biggest collection I'd ever seen. Where would one start or for that mind stop taping all this brilliant hard to get stuff. I knew that was out of the question. So I looked. Then I found a copy in some cheap bin in a now forgotten store. Second hand. A bit worn. But that just added to the pleasure. It seems to change speed a bit but listening to the recording someone else posted on YouTube I think that's what the record really does sound like. Anyway it's a thing of beauty with it's sub Lou Reed lyrics about rubber hoses and cross dressing. I even like the "alien" backing vocals. brilliant!

457. Can The Can by Suzi Quatro 1973

1973. I was being dropped off at my house in Blackburn South after a night out with my friends. The car was packed and I was the first person to be dropped off which I hated because I imagined the fun continuing in the car until they all got home. But as we pulled into Fulton Road off Middlesborough Road Can The Can came on the radio. It was just mind-blowing for my teenage mind. There was no way I was getting out of the car until the song had finished. It was this over-the-top brilliant sound. Just magnificent. I loved Glam pop. Not just Bowie and T.Tex but all that Chinni Chap stuff. They had these amazing sounds and gobbledygook lyrics which seemed to make sense even when they didn't make sense. Still haven't got a clue what Can the Can means.
A few nights later I saw the clip on GTK. Getting to Know was like a 10-minute music program at 6:30 p.m. every night on Channel 2. I watched it religiously every night after tea. Black and white of course. High contrast. Incredibly exciting with Suzi's hair being blown back by some giant off-screen fan. The band looked a bit rough. But she looked so cool.

456. Tears of A Clown by The Beat 1979

Little Murders had just released our debut single and started playing around Melbourne at venues like the Champion and the Ballroom. We also played up in Daylesford once a month. We were a new band.
We started playing in August and in December I flew off to the UK for a 6 week holiday. By this time I was really into the Mod thing and was looking forward to getting myself kitted out out with clothes and records.
What I wasn't really aware of before I got there is the Two Tone revolution about to take place all over the UK charts. It was a Thursday night in deep darkest Britain when the Top of The Pops came on and 3 ska bands were on. The Specials, Madness and The Beat. For a TV show it was quite exciting to see these bands who dressed up like Mods and played this exhilarating pop music that you could dance to. And compared to rubbish like the Merton Parkas "You Need Wheels" these bands were planets ahead. The first ska track from these modern bands that really got to me was "Tears of a Clown". The rhythm just pushed it along to a point where you just had to dance. As I would when I got to Edinburgh a few weeks later and they played it between sets at a Purple Hearts gig at Clouds.
It was a great time for record buying. The new Jam  (Setting Sons) and The Clash (London Calling). Cool Mod singles like Millions like Us by the Purple Hearts. Secret Affair. Tons of soul compilations that were swiftly put out when Mod hit the music pages. All the TwoTone Records. It was brilliant.