I knew Goat‘s new album, Oh Death, was going to be a treat when it opens with a sample of a song from the film The Undertaker and His Pals.
That track is “Soon You Die,” and it brings back Goat back after a year with so much fuzz that you might think your speakers are faulty. The lyrics are about the inevitable coming of death to us all, but how it’s really nothing to worry about when you stop to consider it. “Soon you die, but don’t you cry, ’cause there’s still time to go party.” It’s great to hear the strange, intoxicating sounds that only Goat can seem to create on guitars – even as they fade out and leave you wanting more.
“Chukua Pesa” brings back their love of Middle Eastern instrumentation, rhythms, and vocal stylings. “Under No Nation” has Goat proclaiming, with groovy hand percussion and sweat lodge dance beats (and plenty of wild, acid jazz saxophone), that they’re free of labels, borders, and limits imposed by others or themselves. If you aren’t moving by the time “Do the Dance” comes along, you certainly will be after it starts.
It wouldn’t be a Goat album if there wasn’t at least one song with the word “goat” in the title, and Oh Death has two. The first is the weird, drunken hornets’ next “Apegoat” instrumental and the second is “Goatmilk” – a space-age psych-lounge cut. It perfectly flows into “Blow the Horns” – a call to beings above and beyond us whose guidance we can all use right now.
“Remind Yourself” is a reminder that we can only bring peace from within. In order to project peace, we must first remember that we have it all within us. It’s there, we often just choose, consciously or not, to not accept it. The mix of distorted guitars with clear marimba beats is a wild one. The brief instrumental of “Blessings” drifts into “Passes Like Clouds” – a lovely instrumental to remind you that thoughts, pain, pleasure, life, and, yes, death, all eventually drift away and reform like clouds. Thich Nhat Hanh once said that we are like clouds and “A cloud never dies.” Goat knows this, too, and they want to share that knowledge with us.
Strange, beautiful, psychedelic, and mesmerizing – King Buffalo‘s newest album (and fifth in just the last two years), Regenerator, is another stunning work from them.
Starting with sunrise synths on the opening title track, the album lifts you off the ground much like the cover image astronaut being pulled up from an alien world. The song’s lyrics tell of embracing the sun and Sean McVay‘s guitars seem to reach escape velocity in order to do it. The drums on “Mercury” at first sound like they can’t decide which time signature they want, but you soon realize that Scott Donaldson is playing at such a high level that he’s weaving intricate patterns like a bee creating a hive.
Dan Reynolds cranks the bass fuzz on “Hours,” a song quite suitable for blasting while you’re dodging asteroids in your star fighter. “Interlude” keeps the cosmic vibes rolling as we emerge from the asteroid belt and cruise past a swirling nebula. “Mammoth” is about leaving the past behind so we, like a mammoth, don’t get frozen in it and stuck there forever. It’s a heavy-psych Zen lesson.
McVay’s guitars on “Avalon” have a lovely psych-shimmer to them throughout it as he sings about his hopes of finding paradise after death. “Firmament” brings us back to the ground for just a moment before another, final liftoff. “I have become one with the great eternal blue sky,” McKay sings, and you believe him – especially when the massive bass riffs and Donaldson’s hammering drums join him in orbit.
You’ll likely join them as well when you hear this record.
The debut EP from Austin, Texas’ Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol, Burger Time Classics, is a protein-packed wallop in just six songs.
I mean, the opening chords and vocals of “Born to Lose” alone will smack you upside the head – and that’s before the heavy snare pounding and cymbal sizzling enters the fray. “Dickhead” starts sounds like an old Weezer track they never released and then drops chugging guitars that Weezer still dreams of playing.
“Maggot” is almost sludge metal. “Kill for the Thrill” is so hot and that it’s practically charbroiled. It’s hard to tell which instrument is putting out the most volume in it. The title of “All Beef, Patty” is not only funny, but it also lets you know what’s in store for you over the next three minutes and thirty-seven seconds: pure beefy rock with a little extra grease. “Maniac” has touches of thrash metal sprinkled in for good measure.
Today, Bass Drum Of Death share ‘Head Change’, the Zeppelin-esque third song taken from their forthcoming album, Say I Won’t, released January 27th via Fat PossumRecords. Bandleader John Barrett says of the track,”We kind of wanted a mid-tempo psych stomper, and really didn’t change a whole lot from the demo. We added the dueling guitar bridge in the studio spur of the moment, and it ended up being one of my favorite parts on the whole record.” Watch the videoHERE.
The band shared two tracks previously, the midtempo bruiser ‘Say Your Prayers‘ (a collaboration with Mike Kerr of Royal Blood) and the hi-octane ‘Find It‘ (the video features live footage from the band’s sold out New York show in June of this year). Say I Won’t, comes at a time of massive change for Barrett, having relocated from New York to his hometown of Oxford, Mississippi during the pandemic. The record is also a homecoming of a different sort, with the band rejoining the ranks of Fat Possum, also in Oxford, the label that released their first record GB City in 2011.
The point of an odyssey is to return home changed—still the same person, but deepened somehow, wiser and better, wearing your traveling scars proudly. Bass Drum of Death’s new album is the end result of a journey that took singer and bandleader John Barrett from a small town in Mississippi and sent him across the world and back home again. The music still rips, with blown-out guitars and drums, and the melodies are catchier than ever, hollered in Barrett’s trademark yelp. But the music hits differently now, more at peace with itself, propelled by a new swagger. Say I Won’t is the record of a veteran band finding its stride and leaning into it, stripping back the excess and finding the raw core of their sound.
“Moving back to Oxford was a much-needed reset,” says Barrett. “When I started, I just wanted to play in a punk band and drink beers and travel around. I didn’t really think much past that. And I got really burned out. When I moved back home, I started writing songs again, just for fun. I realized I wanted this record to have more of a hometown feel. The switch back to Fat Possum was easy. It’s much better working with people I know and love and love everything they do.”
Say I Won’t is the first Bass Drum of Death album written, demoed, and recorded with the touring band instead of Barrett doing everything on his own. He found a freedom in working with collaborators that wasn’t available to him before, opening different aspects of the songwriting. It was a process of live recording, layering on different parts and overdubs, and then stripping it all back to the bones of the song, keeping the raw wild heart of the music intact.
“My first two records were made entirely by me alone with my gear, my laptop, and a Snowball USB mic,” says Barrett. “They were just made quickly, cheaply, as an excuse to tour. I wanted to take my time with this record. Make something good that I was proud of in itself.”
The band recorded the new record with Patrick Carney of theBlack Keys at Audio Eagle Studios in Nashville and the result is a groove-oriented, 1970’s-indebted collection of rock songs, with tempos set for cruising and scuzzy guitars galore. There’s an energy and vitality to the music that feels in line with the best of the Bass Drum songs, but with an added boost that comes from new bandmates and a new perspective.
The album finds a reinvigorated Barrett firing at all cylinders, backed by his best band yet. It’s Bass Drum of Death at their loosest and scuzziest and most tuneful, a true rock record in all the right ways. It’s a throwback by way of moving forward, sporting a maturity and swagger that comes from a decade of playing music on the road and surviving to tell about it. More than anything, Say I Won’t is a blast to listen to, music built for driving with your stereo cranked.
“I had to relearn that making music is fucking fun,” says Barrett, “and you should have fun doing it. If it’s miserable, what’s the point?” He laughs. “But man, when a song hits, it’s the best feeling in the world. That’s what this record is about. Getting back to that good place and staying there.”
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard are one of the greatest and most ambitious working rock bands today. This year alone, they’ve released six incredible albums and played sold-out shows all across the world (including three nights at the iconic Red Rocks Amphitheatre and a packed show at New York’s Forest Hills Stadium), earning themselves an insatiable following. Today, they announce a 2023 North American residency tour, which will be their only shows stateside next year, plus cinema screenings of CHUNKY SHRAPNEL, their full-length concert film directed by John Angus Stewart and distributed to cinemas by Abramorama. The band will play three consecutive shows in select cities, and then will cap off with a 3-hour marathon show at Los Angeles’ Hollywood Bowl. As pointed out in their encompassing SPIN feature, it doesn’t matter if the band is playing “in the California desert, an amphitheatre carved into the Rocky Mountains, or a tennis stadium in Queens, the Australian sextet is blowing more minds than ever, one fan at a time.” Tickets are on sale this Friday at 1pm ET.
CHUNKY SHRAPNEL is a feature length live music documentary from King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, directed by John Angus Stewart. Literally bringing the audience onto the stages of their 2019 tour across Europe and the UK, CHUNKY SHRAPNEL offers a uniquely immersive experience never before captured on film, a musical road movie dipped in turpentine. Screenings will largely take place one night only on December 7th. A full list of cities and dates can be found here.
TOUR DATES (new dates in bold) Sat. Dec. 10 – St. Kilda, AUS @ The Palace Foreshore Thu. Dec. 29 – Tauranga, NZ @ Wharepai Domain Sat. Dec. 31 – Wanaka, NZ @ Rhythm & Alps Wed. Jan. 4 – Auckland, NZ @ The Matakana Country Park Fri. Jan. 6 – New Plymouth, NZ @ Bowl of Brooklands Thu. Mar. 2 – Paris, FR @ Zenith Fri. Mar. 3 – Amsterdam, NL @ Gashoulder – SOLD OUT Sat. Mar. 4 – Tilburg, NE @ 013 – SOLD OUT Mon. Mar. 6 – Malmo, SE @ Plan B – SOLD OUT Tue. Mar. 7 – Stockholm, SE @ Munchenbryggeriet – SOLD OUT Wed. Mar. 8 – Oslo, NE @ Sentrum Scene Thu. Mar. 9 – Copenhagen, DK @ Den Gra Hal Sat. Mar. 11 – Warsaw, PL @ Progesja – SOLD OUT Sun. Mar. 12 – Prague, CZ @ Lucerna Velky Sal Mon. Mar. 13 – Vienna, AT @ Gasometer Wed. Mar. 15 – Milan, IT @ Alcatraz Thu. Mar. 16 – Zurich, CH @ X-Tra Fri. Mar. 17 – Lausanne, CH @ Les Docks Sat. Mar. 18 – Wiesbaden, DE @ Schlachthof Mon. Mar. 20 – Brussels, DE @ Cirque Royale – SOLD OUT Wed. Mar. 22 – London,UK @ Brixton Academy Thu. Mar. 23 – London, UK @ Brixton Academy Thu. Mar. 30 – Sydney, AUS @ Big Top Luna Park Thu. Apr. 6 – Byron Bay, AUS @ Tivoli Fri. Apr. 7 – Byron Bay, AUS @ Byron Bay Bluesfest Thu. June 1 – Grundy County, TN @ The Caverns Underground Fri. June 2 – Grundy County, TN @ The Caverns Underground Sat. June 3 – Grundy County, TN @ The Caverns Amphitheater Wed. June 7 – Morrison, CO @ Red Rocks Amphitheatre Thu. June 8 – Morrison, CO @ Red Rocks Amphitheatre – EARLY SHOW Thu. June 8 – Morrison, CO @ Red Rocks Amphitheatre – LATE SHOW Sun. June 11 – Chicago, IL @ The Salt Shed Mon. June 12 – Chicago, IL @ The Salt Shed Tue. June 13 – Chicago, IL @ The Salt Shed Fri. June 16 – Carnation, WA @ Carnation Farms Sat. June 17 – Carnation, WA @ Carnation Farms Sun. June 18 – Carnation, WA @ Carnation Farms Wed. June 21 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Hollywood Bowl – 3 HOUR MARATHON SET
London-born-and-raised musician and producer Eaves Wilder presents her second single, “Morning Rain,” via her new label, Secretly Canadian. Wilder fuses “indie rock tropes with pop to create a raucous yet melodic sound” (Clash). While her first single, “I Stole Your Jumper,” was described as “cool and vengeful” (Brooklyn Vegan), “Morning Rain” airs more on the melancholic side. It finds the 19 year old toying with the struggle of returning to school. Growing up, Eaves spent more time doodling pianos in her workbooks than paying attention to her teachers. Frustrated with having to allow another person to take control of her day, she’d long to be at home, writing music in her bedroom. “For me, school was something that postponed life from starting. I spent the entire time trying to get out of it. You spend 18 years memorizing so much information and then they turn around and expect you to know who you are and what you want, but you’re not given a chance to really figure that out.”
Eaves Wilder began songwriting around the age of eight, harnessing an early obsession with ‘60s Motown records and the left-field pop of Lily Allen. She plastered pictures of her idols on her bedroom wall, but realized in her mid-teens that it was lacking any women. From then on, she made an active effort to get into more female musicians, coming across the riot grrl movement, a discovery that completely changed her life.
She began filing her own teenage obsessions into her collection and while doing so, uncovered the ugly sides of the music world, but also empowerment in the punk feminist fanbase; how artists took ownership in male dominated spaces, and what a powerful tool community could be. Online, and in real life at shows, Eaves saw these elements in the contemporary fan bases of the bands she loved. She became captivated by the idea of reclaiming the worth of the fan girl (which she considers herself to be) and how one can be hyper-feminine without the baggage that comes with it.
Since that self-realization, Wilder has been recording, producing and releasing her own music since the age of 16. Her honest and deceptively cutting lyrics have earned widespread praise from UK tastemakers, including The Sunday Times, NME, Clash, DIY, Dork and The Line of Best Fit, which hailed Eaves as “a star on the rise” (The Line of Best Fit). Signing to Secretly Canadian in 2021, something she waited until she was 18 to do because she thought it would be “uncool” to have her mom sign her record deal for her, Eaves has now swapped her bedroom for the studio, spending 2022 co-producing a run of new music with Andy Savours (Arctic Monkeys / Black Country, New Road / Rina Sawayama).
Motörhead, the iconic Godfathers of heavy metal, released their 23rd (and final) studio album Bad Magic in 2015. Instantly hailed as one of the best the beloved trio had recorded in many years, Bad Magic: SERIOUSLY BAD MAGIC enjoys a bonus-packed refresh, adding two previously unreleased tracks from those furious sessions:
“Bullet in Your Brain”and “Greedy Bastards” as well as a snarling, fangs-out live performance from that subsequent tour at the giant MtFuji Festival in Japan in 2015. Fans will also get “War, Love, Death and Injustice”, an audio interview with Lemmy conducted by Motörhead expert Robert Kiewik during the tour, and should the desire to have a chat with Lem or anyone beyond this mortal coil arise, the box-set will exclusively contain a MURDER ONE ouija board (complete with the Ace of Spades planchette to spell out the conversation).
A new video for “Bullet In Your Brain”, featuring exclusive, never before seen footage of Motörhead in the studio for the Bad Magic sessions, is available right now. A foot-down, fist-pumping, Lemmy-bass-driven stomper with a deliciously dirty Campbell riff, and Dee-driven dynamics, both the song and footage are a tremendous treat for fans who have craved new Motörmaterial.
At the time of its release back in 2015, Bad Magic arrived as a massive kick in the teeth for anyone who believed Motörhead were going to amble along into a peaceful little pasture containing fluffy little lambs, folk music and perhaps the odd medieval lute here and there. Big-rig head crushers such as “Thunder & Lightning” and “Teach Them How To Bleed” brought such people to their knees begging for forgiveness, as the album unfurled into their toughest, leanest, meanest and most uncompromising album in aeons. Much of this came down to long-time producer Cameron Webb getting the band to record live at NRG North Hollywood, Maple Studios and Grandmaster in California together for the first time in the Kilmister/Campbell/Dee era, and from the crackling punk energy of “Electricity” to Brian May of Queen’s scintillating guest-appearance on “The Devil”, a vast wealth of aggression, attitude, and excellent songwriting was cultivated in that furious working environment. Phil Campbell didn’t just record possibly his finest guitars, he threw down most certainly his best solos for decades, while Mikkey Dee’s drumming found new tribal resonance with the Motörhead sound he had helped nurture. There was also one of Lemmy‘s rawest lyrical life reflections on “Till The End”, and a cover of TheRolling Stones’ “Sympathy For The Devil” which made the song feel like one of their own. One of the hidden gold-dust additions to Bad Magic: SERIOUSLY BAD MAGIC, is Motörhead’s famous, and internationally acclaimed, version of David Bowie’s classic “Heroes”. Originally slated for inclusion on the last release only to be withdrawn at the last minute, it was a cover version which Lemmy had a great affection for, and as such its inclusion here is both fitting and just.
Bad Magic: SERIOUSLY BAD MAGIC will be released on Double 12” Vinyl, CD Digipak with Bonus Disc, Limited Edition Boxset, Digital Download and Streaming. The Limited Edition Boxset will contain the CD Digipak with Bonus Disc, Double 12” Vinyl, exclusive Lemmy War, Love, Death and Injustice audio interview on 12” vinyl and exclusive edition Motörhead – MURDER ONE Ouija Board and Planchette. Pre-order all formats at this location
Bad Magic: SERIOUSLY BAD MAGIC Track List:
1. Victory Or Die
2. Thunder & Lightning
3. Fire Storm Hotel
4. Shoot Out All of Your Lights
5. The Devil
6. Electricity
7. Evil Eye
8. Teach Them How To Bleed
9. Till The End
10. Tell Me Who To Kill
11. Choking On Your Screams
12. When The Sky Comes Looking For You
13. Sympathy For The Devil
14. Heroes
15. Bullet In Your Brain
16. Greedy Bastards
Live at Mt Fuji Rock Festival 2015 – Sayonara Folks! Track List:
1. We Are Motörhead
2. Damage Case
3. Stay Clean
4. Metropolis
5. Over the Top
6. String Theory
7. The Chase is Better Than the Catch
8. Rock It
9. Lost Woman Blues
10. Doctor Rock
11. Just ‘Cos You Got the Power
12. Going to Brazil
13. Ace of Spades
14. Overkill
Keep your mind open.
[It might be seriously bad magic if you don’t subscribe.]
Failure, the Los Angeles trio of Ken Andrews, Greg Edwards and Kellii Scott, have announced their first ever streaming concert film: “We Are Hallucinations.”
The concert film features a set list that spans the band’s six albums and captures the magic of Failure’s live performance.
The one-time only event debuts on Dec. 15 at 12:00 pm pacific/3:00 pm eastern/8:00 pm UK/9:00 pm EU, and remains available through Dec.18. Viewers have three full days from the time of purchase to watch the film at any time, and as often, as they would like. Tickets as well as a limited-edition commemorative poster, newly released vinyl variants for each of the band’s six albums, as well as various merch items, are available now via linktr.ee/failureband.
“This film is comprised of performances from our Summer 2022 Wild Type Droid tour of North America,” explains Greg Edwards. “It’s crazy that we have never made a concert film before, but I think this will really stand as a definitive document of the dynamic between the three of us on stage and the connection we have with our fans.”
The Black Angels don’t get enough credit for the design of their album covers. The artwork is always mind-bending on them. Take, for instance, the cover of their newest record, Wilderness of Mirrors. It looks like a bunch of repeating right angles in various patterns, like a gigantic maze you can neither enter or exit. You feel like something is there, however. Then, you look at it just right, or look at it while you move it one way or another, and the message in the art reveals itself.
It’s the same with their music. Their songs are often multi-layered or have things you seem to hear only when in certain states of mind, in certain environments, or during certain types of weather.
“With a Trace” starts sounding muted and then bursts forth with hypnotizing fuzz. “History of the Future” has both a wonderful title (a meditation on how something will be perceived before it even exists) and some of the heaviest guitar riffs and drums on the record. It’s difficult at times to determine if Stephanie Bailey‘s beats or Christian Bland‘s guitars are dominating the song because they swing back and forth like Godzilla fighting King Kong.
“We can watch it all go to hell,” Alex Maas sings on “Empires Falling” – a song about the rage and cries for justice (“Our country’s bleeding from street to bloody street.”). It swirls and roars, serving as both a call to action and a warning. “El Jardín” is a psych-rock love song, the kind that The Black Angels do so well – a tale of love, mystery, probably death, and acceptance of whatever outcome the universe has planned.
On “La Pared (Govt. Wall Blues),” they sing about the impermanence of things that seem indestructible at first, and the rage they felt at a border wall being built in their home state of Texas (“You can build this wall of hate, but we’ll never separate.”). “Firefly” includes sexy French vocals in another song about lost love. “Make It Known” and “The River” are cool psych-drifts, the latter of which names Syd Barrett, Roky Erickson, and other psychedelic legends.
The title track has a dangerous swagger to it and sounds like it belongs in an A24 Studios horror film. “I’ve been trying to warn you, here and now, and always,” Maas sings on “Here & Now” – a dire warning about what we’re doing to Mother Earth. “100 Flowers of Paracusia” has an ethereal feel to it that floats back down to Earth with Morricone-like guitar chords.
“A Walk on the Outside” is a lyrical riff on Lou Reed‘s “Walk on the Wild Side,” and the heavy bass and wild synths spin around you like a kitten chasing a shoestring held by a little kid. “Vermillion Eyes” lifts you off the ground and lets you float there without worry. The soaring guitars on “Icon” then send you into outer space as Maas mentions Nico and The Velvet Underground (from whom the band get their name, in case you weren’t aware) and you’re soon lost in a neat state of being that’s difficult to describe. The album ends with “Suffocation,” an interesting name for a final track on an album about facing what’s within us (whether we want to or not) and breaking free of illusion. The track isn’t suffocating at all. It’s uplifting by the end. The Black Angels leave us with hope that we can remove our metaphorical masks and walk out of the wilderness we’ve created into something real and meaningful.
It’s their best album in a while – and that’s saying something since they’ve yet to release a bad record.
Midnight Oil are the 29th act to throw support behind Support Act’s Roadies Fund through the Australian Road Crew Association (ARCA)’s awesome Desk Tape Series.
The Series was created by ARCA to raise funds to provide financial, health, counselling and well-being services for roadies and crew in crisis.
The recordings are made off the sound desk by a crew member. MIDNIGHT OIL LIVE at the OLD LION, Adelaide 1982 was recorded by Mark Woods, and is another fantastic tribute to the great sounds engineers produced for the early Aussie pub rock scene. This live tape is released on ARCA’s Black Box Records through MGM Distribution and on all major streaming services.
THE BAND
Peter Garrett – lead vocals Peter Gifford – bass, vocals Rob Hirst – drums, vocals Jim Moginie – guitars, keyboards Martin Rotsey – guitars
CREW
Mark Woods (sound) Michael Lippold (stage/ production manager) Ron “Wormy” James (lights)
TRACK LISTING
1 Written In The Heart 2 Brave Faces 3 Armistice Day 4 I’m The Cure 5 Bus To Bondi 6 Quinella Holiday 7 No Time For Games 8 Burnie 9 Cold Cold Change 10 Powderworks 11 Koala Sprint 12 Back On The Borderline 13 Don’t Wanna Be The One 14 Wedding Cake Island 15 Stand In Line 16 No Reaction
The MIDNIGHT OIL LIVE at the OLD LION Adelaide 1982 live tape and all the ARCA Desk Tape Series recordings are available through Black Box Records – ARCA (australianroadcrew.com.au) and the following: Amazon, Anghami, Apple Music / iTunes, Boomplay, Black Box Records, Deezer, MGM, Pandora, Shazam, Spotify, TenCent, Tidal, TikTok, YouTube Music.
The Old Lion show on Friday March 26, 1982 was part of a two-week run through Victoria and South Australia. At that stage, the band were doing 180 shows a year, and firing on all eight cylinders.
Rob Hirst admits: “I’m exhausted listening back to the tape, it’s relentless! We were, excuse the pun, a well-oiled machine, angry young men against the world.”
Mark Woods, who filled in as sound engineer on the run, called it the “Speed and Dust Tour.” It was hot and the tour moved at a frantic pace. Woods had just finished a run with Men At Work, with two weeks off before MAW’s first US visit. When the Oils’ run ended in Whyalla in regional South Australia, he drove 14 hours overnight without sleep back to Melbourne, in time for the Los Angeles flight with Men At Work.
Woods didn’t mind: he was a massive fan. “I thought they were the best band in the world. On this run they were at their absolute peak. Much of the set was from Place Without A Postcard, which was just released four months before, so the songs sounded fresh. It wasn’t that they were loud, it was the power. They weren’t ‘screamy’ or harsh listening, they just had a very full solid big fat sound.”
“They were all red hot players”, Woods recalls, citing how Jim Moginie and Martin Rotsey’s guitars intertwined, and how the Peter Gifford/ Rob Hirst rhythm section locked in.
“I loved Giffo’s playing, he was the perfect bass player for them and at his best on this tour. There was something about his beat which worked well with Rob’s drums, they were right on the beat, really driving it forward.”
Gifford left a few years later to become a businessman in Byron Bay. Michael Lippold spent as much time on stage as the band, unravelling Pete’s mic leads from the guitarists’ legs as he danced manically about. Hirst’s drum kit had to be nailed down. Not only did he attack them with exuberance, breaking pedals and sticks, but he’d also jump into the air off his stool for greater power when he landed.
Listening to the Old Lion tape, Hirst chuckles, “It reminds me of the breakneck speeds we used to play those songs! The album versions chugged along but the live versions were 30% to 40% faster, if not faster. It’s almost as if we couldn’t wait to get to the (hire cars) and fishtail out of there!”
Also giving him a buzz on the tape were how the guitars sounded so distinctive and Garrett’s onstage patter recalling which politician or issue was irritating him in 1982. The tape shows how the Oils were starting to musically move around at that time. In 1981 when famed English producer Glyn Johns (Stones, Who) saw an Oils show at Selinas in Sydney, he invited them back to England to record in his new studio in Surrey.
“It was supposed to be our big break,” Hirst relates. “It wasn’t.” Hirst says Johns expected them to arrive with 12 fully formed songs, but he and Moginie, as the Oils’ main writers, had been unable to write songs due to the band’s hectic touring schedule. Even worse, Johns failed to capture the Oils’ live roar on the record.
Hirst: “The creativity and the song writing was getting stronger. But we were frustrated with the sound on the albums so far. They didn’t grab you by the throat and wrestle you to the ground. It was only working with Nick Launay (in 1982, on the 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 album) and disassembling the Midnight Oil live sound in the studio and starting again that we started to understand studio craft.”
Johns had a deal with A&M Records in America to release his productions. A&M wanted the Oils to go back to the studio and cut a single for the American market. The Australians gave them a two-finger salute and returned to Sydney.
The Old Lion tape captures how some of Postcard songs should have sounded. “Armistice Day” was an example of their new found song writing depth.
“I’ve always been obsessed with my family’s military history,” the drummer explains. “Songs like ‘Forgotten Years’ were about my father and grandfather’s military service. We knew as soon as we recorded ‘Armistice Day’ that no matter what happened to the rest of the album, it was going to be the lead track.”
“I Don’t Wanna Be The One” was in the spotlight when the Oils were inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2006.
LIVE At The Old Lion Adelaide 1982 is the latest initiative by the Oils to support roadies and crews in crisis. Hirst readily admits that the members relied heavily on their crew, “we had the best sound and lighting guys in the business. It is the crew that helps with any band’s success.”
On their farewell tour in 2022, Hirst’s drum tech for nine years, Clem Ryan, wanted to sit it out. Rob rang him, “I’m not doing this tour until you’re doing this tour.” Long-time front of house Colin Ellis wanted to retire before the run. They talked him out of it. “Retire? You’re younger than us!”
LIVE At The Old Lion Adelaide 1982 also highlights how dedicated the fans were.
Woods recalls: “Big lads, well charged up, a happy blokey crowd which sang along, boisterous, rowdy but never unpleasant.”
