“Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Okeh Club. We’re featuring here tonight the king of rock n’ roll and when I say the king of rock n’ roll I mean his majesty! A big round of applause for the one and only Little Richard!” Whether you agree with the emcee’s exalted claim in the intro for this album or not there’s no doubting Little Richard’s phenomenal … [Read more...]
Learning To Crawl – Pretenders
The Pretenders, what a band! The original line up of Chrissie Hynde (rhythm guitar, vocals), James Honeyman-Scott (lead guitar), Pete Farndon (bass) and Martin Chambers (drums) only managed to survive through two albums before Jimmy and Pete lost their lives through drug abuse. Learning To Crawl was the band’s third album and while only half of the original line up remained, … [Read more...]
Parallel Lines – Blondie
The phone rings twice. Pause. Then Debbie Harry launches into “I’m in the phone booth, it’s the one across the hall…” the driving power pop and immediacy of Hanging on the Telephone hits you right between the ears. It’s the perfect entrée to one of the great summer soundtracks that is Parallel Lines, an album I recall with great fondness as a substantial part of my summer of … [Read more...]
East – Cold Chisel
Cold Chisel, one of the most dynamic live acts Australia has ever produced. A band of outsiders driven to succeed at any cost and a band that lived as they played – hard and fast. A band of fractious temperaments that could implode at any moment and often did. If ever an Australian band embodied the sex, drugs and rock and roll ethos it was Cold Chisel and their record company … [Read more...]
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 – Midnight Oil
It’s the summer holidays and I’m in the heart of Midnight Oil’s turf on Sydney’s northern beaches. The house where I’m staying is just off Powder Works Road, the winding piece of bitumen that paved the way down to the coast and brought the wax heads from the city’s leafy north shore and beyond down to the nirvana of one of Sydney’s best breaks. It’s also the road that gave name … [Read more...]