453. Hot Love by T. Rex 1971

This came out when I fist really started taking notice of the pop charts and when I first started buying pop papers. I was at the the local newsagent in Blackburn South trying to decide which one to get. My money came from taking back my brother Coke and soft drink bottles in the days when you got a 20 cent refund on each bottle. There were two music papers. Rolling Stone and Go-Set. Rolling Stone was folded into this A4 size quasi magazine. Go-Set was big and bright although in retrospect it had very limited colour. I bought Go-Set. Pop music for me. I quickly turned to the charts. There were my 2 favourite records sitting near the top. Hot Love and Dave Edmund's I Hear You Knocking. Eleanor Rigby by the Zoot was up there too.

At the time my record collection was limited to presents my Mum bought me or sales at Coles where they'd sell off old chart hits for 25 cents. So I had to wait until this came out on a compilation. Which didn't take very long. However while I waited for Bolan Boogie to come along I'd spend all day waiting for it to come on the radio. Being a chart hit it was on regularly. And it was sound that just cut through the airwaves. Simple and exciting.

Glam rock was an exciting development in music at the time. Before that I was really just following the bands and music my older brothers had been into. The Beatles and the Stones. Glam rock was the seventies. It something new and cool. And the older kids didn't care for it. Brilliant.

I replaced my John Lennon poster with a Marc Bolan poster. Then Slade. And then along came Bowie.

452. Leilani by Le Hoodoo Gurus 1982

First place I heard this record was at the Batcave. Ronny was playing it in between bands. Brilliant sound and had everyone up dancing straight away. Something quite instant about it. A cross between a glam single like Cozy Powell's Dance with The Devil, sixties beat. Tiki culture and maybe a bit of Adam and the Ants. Worked a treat.
A week later they were booked for their first Melbourne gigs and they were to support Little Murders at the Prospect Hill Hotel on a Monday night. Doesn't sound like much but Monday nights at the Prospect Hill were incredibly popular. Hundreds of punters getting drunk and going wild. It was a great gig to get because you were in there for a month. They used to have pillars in front of the stage and guys would try and climb up their smooth rounded sides.
Le Hoodoo Gurus were booked but pulled out at the last minute although we did play with them a week or so later at the Jump Club. The crowd loved them. The sound was like a sheet of white hot pop. And no bass guitar. Maybe the sound incredibly trebly and I guess even more pop.
We never played with them again but I managed to see them a lot of times. A gig at the Armadale when the lineup had changed considerably being a particular standout. Mainly for two covers they did. Glen Campbell's Galveston and the Kingsmen's That's Cool That's Trash.
As a footnote my neice called her daughter Leilani. Also teh brilliant Prospect Hill nights ended in disaster when someone left the back door open and we lost a heap of gear which basically crippled the band.

451. Racing In The Street by Bruce Springsteen 1978

With Bruce Springsteen fever mounting in Melbourne I found myself recalling that first time I saw him back in the early eighties. He was playing at the Royal Showgrounds, the same place we'd be seeing a lot of Big Day outs in the future. Also the same place I saw Slade and Status Quo back in the 70s. Tonight was all about Bruce though. I can't remember a support act. But would there of been time anyway. Because Bruce played for at least three hours and it was so intense and exciting and unmissable that we couldn't leave our places up near the front. Not even to go to the toilet.  Which almost caused a terrible incident when my friend in refusing to go actually took a leak where we were standing. Surely one of the maddest things I've ever seen anyone do. I don't think anyone noticed they were so keen on watching Bruce. Except for one guy. Who looked like he was going to kill my friend and then decided anyone who would do such a thing was probably not one to mess with. I guess it was all Rolling Stones "We'll piss anywhere" moment relived inside a 30 000 crowd.

A glitch. I don't know. The concert was unbelievably good. And this song stood out. From the monologue that preceded it where he talked about buying a car in Richmond to the song itself which was propelled by a giant crowd singalong.

I wasn't a big fan of the song before this night. Too much talk about cars which I didn't get. But live it just resonated. And the crowd singing  Tonight Tonight. And the girl with her pretty dreams all torn. And it was just magic.

450. Here Comes Your Man by The Pixies 1989

I was sorting out my singles on the weekend and I came across this one lurking in the back of the box. Picture sleeve yes. But only the front of the cover. So I spent a hour searching through all my singles looking for the back cover eventually finding it precariously stuck to the back of Depeche Mode's Just Can't get Enough. 

Since both singles spent a lot of time together in my DJ boxes I guess it was quite apt. The Pixies was one of the bunch of songs I always seem to associate with the short lived nightclub Ronny and Michael set up called KAOS in North Melbourne. They already had the Beehive working quite well over at the Carron Tavern but KAOS was going to be bigger. It was at the old Carnaby Inn. In the early 80s Little Murders played there. Then there was a massive club there whose name escapes my mind. Was it Therapy? No.Not important enough to go and research but I did get thrown out of there one night. For causing a nuisance. 

Well.... they were wild and woolly days.

A new club needed new records. And this was one of them. It was the first time I'd heard of the Pixies. But it was an instant like. Played this record to death for 20 years of DJing. Still not sick of it or the accompanying album.

KAOS didn't last very long. Despite having a brilliant poster and great music the writing was on the wall on the first night when they started closing rooms. And each week they would shut off another room so we were just in the one room after plans of opening an entertainment complex. 

When it closed I had nothing to do on a Saturday night for the first time since 1979. 

449. New Guitar in Town by The Lurkers

Another single from the bunch I bought at a little newsagent in Lytham St. Annes back in 1979.  I was crossing the bridge on my way to the local post office and dropped in to buy the paper when I spotted a rack of 7 inch singles for 20 p each.  I bought about 50 of them.  Half I didn't know.
 Some I just knew the band names. I had a couple of Lurkers singles already. Wasn't terribly impressed because they weren't in the same league as the Clash. Or The Jam. But I loved this record. And I still love playing it. It's actually more of a power pop single.
I've just got this old Technics stereo turntable fixed after buying it 4 years ago from the local op shop. Big speakers. retro look. One of the first Quadrophonic units. But the turntable didn't work. I finally bit the bullet and took it to a repair shop in Box Hill. Just needed a needle and a belt. Now I'm happily playing these great singles. Kids don't understand why I like keep going back to the record player to put on 7 inch after 7 inch.  Though I think my daughter Ruby does. She's got her own record player in the bedroom. She plays my cast offs and old KTel compilations like Ripped etc. Really there's nothing like vinyl. Snap, crackle and pop.

448. She Bangs The Drum by the Stone Roses 1989

At the end of the Eighties it seemed we had lived through a decade which was a little bit grey and a little bit serious. That's just in retrospect because at the time we were having a great time all the time. It's just that when The Stone Roses came on the scene it was like a ball of technicolour sunshine. Everything seemed to change. It was like a door being opened where you could actually like dance music and rock music together. And as a DJ  it made sense to play James Brown next to Primal Scream.
In 1990 we opened Lizard Lounge and made a small replication of what we thought was going on in London. We hung sheets up. Bed sheets I bought from this cheap material shop in Glenhuntly. And put up slides we thought were groovy. We found an oil lamp projector. Bubbles. lollies passed around. It was the second summer of love. Stone Roses were the band.
It took another 5 years before they actually came to Melbourne and played the Metro in Bourke Street. Terrible gig. Though not as bad as the Massive Attack gig at the same venue.
So expectations weren't incredibly high for the Stone Roses gig at Festival Hall last Thursday. And when they kicked off with I Wanna Be Adored and it sounded a little shaky we started to get a bit worried. That it was carried along by the whole place singing saved the day. But gradually it all came together and despite putting the boot into Fools Gold (and I blame our familiarity with the record on that one) the night was magical. The power pop magic of She Bangs the drum being a definite highlight. It was the song where the floor just bounced. The place went mad. Even I found myself with my arms aloft.
It was intolerably hot. It was summer and the Stone Roses lifted the the crowd ten feet tall. Leaving the venue everyone was just beaming!

447. Tears Me In Two by The Stems 1985

In 1985 Little Murders were on their last legs. The gigs were great and we could still headline a gig like the Venue and pull 500 people. But we were playing 4 times a week and we were so busy we didn't realise we were on some kind of treadmill. I remember getting in a pushing argument with a friend and once loyal fan who said we were now a "square" band. 

Something was wrong. So we fired our manager and got Paul Kelly's manager Peter Davies to look after us. He loved us but suggested we change our name to The Bleeding Hearts. The name of a band I used to go and see back in 77. We felt that was a bit dodgy. Good name but I don't think you could do it. Our next band meeting their was a bunch of Bleeding Hearts posters on the carpet. We were a little taken aback. I think this was the last straw for our guitarist Rod and he left us and went back to the Pete Best Beatles eventually ending up with Dave Grayney's Coral Snakes.

Our manager then starting holding auditions for every other position in the band. Weddings Parties Anything blossomed from those auditions. They went on for weeks. Even girl singers came in. It was a strange time. I decided to end the band. Didn't bother to tell the manager and organised our final gig at the Venetian Room. It was packed. It was emotional. It was almost Christmas and we actually got to keep the money we made and share it with the band. 6 times our band wage.

The frustrating thing was hearing all this great stuff like the Stems and the Lime Spiders and Huxton Creepers.  I first heard Tears Me In Two at the Venetian Room  and I was knocked out by how the sound just leaps out of the speakers. How can you not dance? 

In the early days of Rubber Soul after the initial blast off and when the numbers slumped we tried adding Sixties influenced songs like this to the DJ list. No matter how great a song we quickly came to our senses and just played the real thing.