80s Dreamer

Teenage Radio Stars - ZIGZAG 1979 clipping

2012-01-27T15:23:00.002+11:00

Teenage Radio Stars - snippet from uk-based Punk magazine ZIGZAG Jan/Feb 1979, cover below

Duran Duran to tour Australia in 2012

2011-11-29T14:41:00.002+11:00

Tour announcement! Playing in VIC, QLD, NSW, SA, WA in March 2012. Check ticketmaster for details. Presale starts 8/12 and sale starts a week after that. Playing vineyards as well as regular venues!

DD will be showing off their great new album "All you need is now" and the current single "Girl Panic"

Girl Panic - official video

All you need is now - official video

This new album more than makes up for the disaster that was "Red Carpet Massacre".

Check out the David Lynch produced live clip for my favourite album track, "The man who stole a leopard" - featuring Kellis on backing vox - seriously!

The man who stole a leopard - David Lynch directs

Massive 80s-90s line-up hits in March 2012

2011-11-25T15:04:00.001+11:00

Noiseworks, Ian Moss, Clapton, Dragon, 1927 and Choirboys touring NSW, VIC and SA next March!

Ticketmaster presale now on (until Monday 5th December 5:00pm), at which time the events go public.

Presale password: TOUCH
http://www.adayonthegreen.com.au/index.php?action=news&nid=2092

Coming to Bimbadgen Estate, in Hunter Valley, NSW, Australia -

I'm so there!

George Michael to tour SYMPHONICA in Australia 2012

2011-11-22T12:54:00.000+11:00

Australian tour dates as of today are -

March 31 - Swan Valley Estate - Sandalford, Australia

April 3 - Entertainment Centre - Adelaide, Australia

April 7 - Hope Estate - Hunter Valley, Australia

April 9 - Rod Laver Arena - Melbourne, Australia

April 14 - Allphones Arena - Sydney, Australia

April 17 - Entertainment Centre - Brisbane, Australia

Dates are not officially announced as yet.

New Years Eve 2011

2011-11-16T10:59:00.002+11:00

The ultimate 80s event is coming soon to Sydney!

Venue: GLEBE ISLAND, Sydney Harbour

Event: NEW YEARS EVE 2011 -> 2012

Featuring Culture Club, Pet Shop Boys, Pseudo Echo, Jamiroquai, and Guy Sebastian.

Culture Club will play after the midnight fireworks.

AMAZING! Sounds like a blast!

http://www.sydneyresolution.com/

http://video.perthnow.com.au/2167695732/Culture-Club-reunite-for-Sydney-NYE-gig

80s Rewind festival moves to Sydney ('Gong Gone!) then cancelled!

2011-10-13T15:33:00.007+11:00

EVENT CANCELLED - ignore below!

This just in. The 80s Rewind Festival scheduled for the weekend at the end of October, originally in Port Kembla (NSW), is now moved to the Hordern Pavillion at Sydney!

Also, some bands have been cancelled by the promoter, I guess due to space... Human League and Kool and the Gang, Sister Sledge and The Straits are cut, for instance!

New line-up -

Saturday
Kim Wilde
Ross Wilson
Midge Ure (Ultravox)
Pseudo Echo
Cutting Crew
T’pau
The Real Thing
Nik Kershaw

(1 more Australian act to be announced)

Sunday
Bananarama
Right Said Fred
John Paul Young
ABC
Go West
Tony Hadley (Spandau Ballet)
Mental as Anything

(2 more Australian acts to be announced)

Modern Girl - LOGO

2011-09-05T23:43:00.000+10:00

Just mucking around with the logo... I wonder if this is an actual font, or just someone's handwriting...

ICEHOUSE / HALL & OATES pre-sale

2011-08-28T13:53:00.003+10:00

The Hall and Oates / ICEHOUSE presale is up right now!

http://www.ticketmaster.com.au/Hall-and-Oates-tickets/artist/848102?tm_link=edp_Artist_Name

The presale password for many of the sales is MANEATER.

Verified so far is Sydney Entertainment Centre and the Melbourne Convention Centre

If you buy today, before the actual presale starts (midday tomorrow), you can easily get front-row seats for any of the gigs! Now *that's* CRAZY :)
Good luck!

80s Rewind hits Wollongong, NSW

2011-07-23T11:59:00.001+10:00

The 80’s Rewind Festival has been a huge success in the UK since its launch in 2009, attracting over 70,000 people.

This year from October 28 to 30 Australia will get its very own taste.

This iconic 80’s Rewind Festival will be heading to Wollongong for a one off 3 day spectacular at Bluescope Field at Kembla Grange.

The Festival will boast the biggest live outdoor line up of local and international 80’s recording artists and performers ever, as well as loads of other festival fun including your choice to either camp it or glamp it.

The line up for Australia’s very own 80’s Rewind Festival is:

Friday, 28th October
TBA

Saturday, 29th October
Kool and the Gang
Sister Sledge
Bananarama
ABC
Midge Ure
Ross Wilson
Mental As Anything

Sunday, 30 October Human League
Tony Hadley
Nik Kershaw
Go West
John Paul Young
Pseudo Echo

http://www.rewindfestival.com.au/

James Freud - Photos from 1980

2011-07-13T08:26:00.000+10:00

James Freud and Berlin - Enemy Lines (lyrics)

2011-07-01T00:26:00.002+10:00

Enemy Lines
(words and music: James Freud)

Hide me behind your enemy lines
Hide me behind your enemy lines

Mein schöner Liebling
Et c'est soir, et c'est soir
Do you think you're soldier blue, soldier blue?
And where's your gun to God, my love?
Do your commands come from above
Do your commands come from above
To you, to you, to you

CHORUS

Won't you hide me
Behind your enemy lines
You better hide your love
Behind your enemy lines
You better hide your love
Behind your enemy lines (oh yeah)
Behind your enemy lines (oh yeah)
Do I look so insecure, so unsure?
I'm really someone can't you see, I am me?
And I need something I can be

Do your eyes tell what they feel
Do your eyes tell what to feel
Do you, do you, do you

* CHORUS *

You had to be, you had to be a star
Did you want to be?
You had to be, you had to be a star
Did you ever be a star, did you ever be a star
Why did you ever be a star, oh?

*CHORUS*

---
TRIVIA!

The first line is German, and translates to 'My lovely darling'
The second line is French, and translates to 'And it is evening'

Interesting, eh?

Moving Pictures - Dee Why RSL 2011 tour warm-up gig

2011-06-09T16:30:00.002+10:00

Just received this email from Empire Touring -

Hi there,

You have purchased tickets for the Moving Pictures concert at the State Theatre on Saturday July 30 and you are in for a big night! They will be playing all of their hits, and the band are very, very excited.

We thought we would let you know that the band have just decided to do a special warm up show in their old stomping grounds of the northern beaches.
They will be playing a secret show at the Dee Why RSL on Wednesday 27th July. This show will have an extremely limited capacity but we are giving you the chance to purchase tickets first.

Tickets for this show are $30 and you can purchase directly from the Dee Why RSL by phoning 02) 9454 4000 or via www.dyrsl.com.au.

We hope to see you there.

The Empire Touring Team

Models - Hold On (lyrics)

2011-05-28T12:01:00.004+10:00

Hold On
(Music and Lyrics by James Freud)

I can see the white cliff
Falling from the plains
Rolling down to the sea
There's an old tree by the window
And the wind beats hard when
the sun goes down,
Down, down, down, in my own town

Chorus:

And when the morning comes
I won't be around
But if you say the word
I would always stay
And you, hold on to what you've got

I can still remember driving in the rain
Looking out of an eighteen year old
Through a hurricane
Then the days were longer
Was there something in a kiss
Well I don't know if it's this old place
Or you I'm gonna miss

(Chorus)

Now Here in the heart of the city
That big machine keeps rolling on
The rains still falling down
And I look out over my street
That got caught up in the win
They broke some guy who lived down
the block, and threw him back again

(Chorus)

Gary Numan - Australian tour interview 2011

2011-05-26T23:32:00.005+10:00

'The moment I gave up, things started to get better.' - Gary Numan

It's early on a Friday morning in Sussex, south-east of London. What do you think local resident Gary Numan could be up to? Is he cowering in his car with all the doors locked, obsessively picking at his black nail polish, contemplating a doomed future while moping that his only companions are machines? Not even close.

"I just dropped the kids off at school, so it's a bit of an early start for me today, actually," he says, sounding like a cheery suburban family man. "They all go to the same place, which is handy. It's a Steiner school, one of those hippie sort of places. The oldest one goes to school proper and the two younger ones go to kindergarten."

His daughters' names are Raven, Persia and Echo. Thank goodness some things fit with the eccentric electro-goth Numan stereotype.

At 53, Numan has been lionised as a pop star, pilloried as a money-hungry Tory, mocked by the critics, kicked on his rapid slide down the popularity ladder, ignored during his years of obscurity and then reassessed as a pioneer in his field.

His trip from synth-pop lost boy to electronic elder statesman has had some strange twists, from multiple hair transplants to aerial acrobatics to marrying one of his fans. And as Numan is one of the most polite aliens you could hope to meet, he is willing to talk about it all at length. (With that said, even though Numan gladly went into the gory details of his transplants, I won't relay the information as you may be reading this over breakfast.)

After flirting with punk, Gary Webb splashed down into the pop scene in 1979 like a synthesiser-wielding android. He had changed his surname to Numan, applied thick black eye make-up and written songs about alienation, paranoia and a modern world where being human was a dangerous occupation. He debuted under the Tubeway Army moniker, released the Replicas album and had a No. 1 British hit with Are "Friends" Electric?, an irresistibly creepy song with a chilly synth melody behind Numan's detached vocal about plug-in companions. The lead single from the follow-up album, The Pleasure Principle, released under the Numan name, was Cars and it became a hit on both sides of the Atlantic and in Australia, turning Numan into a star who amassed a multimillion-dollar fortune.

At the time, he was 21 and living with his parents. His mother ran his fan club and his father, a bus driver for British Airways at Heathrow Airport, was his manager. They hadn't had an easy time with their son. He had been expelled from a couple of schools, had behavioural problems, was sent to a child psychologist and put on Valium and Nardil for a year when he was 16.

Although it has not been clinically diagnosed, Numan is sure he has Asperger's syndrome.

"I always found it very difficult to make friends and I was very awkward in social situations," he says. "I had trouble communicating and I seemed to offend people without meaning to. I just accepted that this was the way things were. I have no problem talking to you now but if I was to meet you outside of the interview situation, you'd find me very odd. I wouldn't know what to say and I'd get tongue-tied."

Numan channelled all this into his robotic stage persona. His interviews at the time were skin-crawlingly awkward. However, a particularly stilted exchange with the always-stilted Ian "Molly" Meldrum on ABC TV's Countdown in 1979 revealed a young man with his finger on the pulse. Numan said his music was different because the synthesisers were not just being used for background colour, they drove the songs and he noted that "the people who take command of the visual side of their music will take prominence".

These comments proved prescient, coming just before synth-pop took over the charts and two years before MTV made its debut.

Still, the critics were merciless. British music writer Charles Shaar Murray described him as "embodying all of David Bowie's faults and none of his virtues". Numan was too busy enjoying the spoils of success to care, speeding around London in his white Corvette (a present from his record label) and stirring up controversy by saying he loved making money and that he supported the then British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher.
Then, in 1981, he announced his retirement from live performance after a series of shows at Wembley Arena. The retirement didn't last long and, unfortunately for him, neither did the success.

What went wrong?

"I think ... I think ..." he says, before trailing off and then laughing. "I think it's actually a big job trying to summarise exactly what went wrong. From the mid-'80s onwards, the quality of my songwriting definitely dropped and became quite one-dimensional. I started to panic and I started writing music to try to save my career.

"I wasn't writing for the people who liked Gary Numan any more. It was entirely my fault. It was a real lack of moral fibre. I should have stayed true to what I wanted to do.

"Once you've been No. 1 and you've had all the trappings of success that come with it, no matter how briefly, once that slips away, you think you've blown it and you'll try anything to get it back."

His rapid descent, in both his own mind and public opinion, coincided with him indulging a new passion that saw him take to the skies. Numan became a display pilot, performing aerial acrobatics in World War II combat planes at European air shows. The music press had a field day in 1981 when his attempt to fly around the world was interrupted by a forced landing in India that found him under suspicion of spying and smuggling. Much as when Duran Duran singer Simon Le Bon's yacht capsized four years later, it was seen as an example of a spoilt pop star with too much money and not enough sense.

By the late '80s, the only people who still believed in Numan were his obsessive fans, known as Numanoids. One of them was Gemma O'Neill, who was only 11 when Cars was a hit. As a 14-year-old, she cheerfully told a school careers counsellor that the only job she was interested in was that of Gary Numan's wife.
She fulfilled that ambition in 1997 and Numan credits her with lifting his career out of a tailspin.

"By 1992, I'd bottomed out so badly that I thought, 'F--- it, that's the end of that,"' he says. "Gemma told me I should write songs for the love of it again. I didn't have a record deal and I didn't think I'd ever have one again, so I went into my home studio by myself and made an album called Sacrifice. The moment I gave up, things started to get better. It was a very big lesson for me."

He admits the music he writes now is darker, heavier and not nearly as radio-friendly as his early work. He's fine with that. Besides, something started happening about 15 years ago.

People such as Trent Reznor, Marilyn Manson and Dave Grohl began citing him as an influence. Others started sampling his past work and having hits, including Basement Jaxx's Where's Your Head At? and the Sugababes's Freak Like Me. The surreal English TV comedy show The Mighty Boosh dropped so many references to Numan that he made a cameo appearance. Does all of this make him feel justified?

"I don't know if justified is the word, because I never thought I was anything special," he says. "In the early days, I was a big Ultravox fan and I don't think any of my albums were ever as good as Systems of Romance. Later on, I looked up to Depeche Mode's Songs of Faith and Devotion as something to aim for but I never came close.

"But I was thrilled when I started to read about people saying I had an influence on them, especially someone like Trent Reznor, because I really respect Nine Inch Nails. As for The Mighty Boosh, I was a genuinely huge fan and they're lovely people. I'd say 90 per cent of younger people who know who I am have come via [it].

"All of these things made a massive difference to my career and my confidence. When it started happening, I'd had many bad years and I didn't have the highest level of credibility. It boosted the way I felt about myself. I was very grateful for it. I still am."

Gary Numan plays The Pleasure Principle album and other songs from his career at the Enmore Theatre on May 13.

Numan behaviour (side-bar)

- David Bowie has reportedly said, "Gary Numan has written some of the finest things in British pop," but in the early '80s he had him thrown off the set of a British TV show. "I used to get into fights at school protecting his name," Numan says. "Then, all of a sudden, this bloke I'd adored for years was throwing me out of a building ... It really upset me."

- The Mighty Boosh's Noel Fielding, whose character Vince Noir is a Numan fanatic: "He's a proper pop star - the look, his weird voice, the songs. I like the fact that he's got a pilot's licence."

- Numan was a guest on Nine Inch Nails's 2009 farewell tour, singing his songs Cars and Metal. Says Trent Reznor: "After hearing Gary Numan's Cars, I knew I wanted to make music with synthesisers. Numan's early albums painted an emotional place that wasn't pleasant to be at. It seemed like creepy science fiction."

Source - (link)

Moving Pictures - Alex Smith Youtube promo video

2011-05-08T13:42:00.000+10:00

Thanks heaps to Diane Curran (http://www.dianecurran.wordpress.com/) for the link, c/- Empire Touring.

MOVING PICTURES - Daily Telegraph 2011 article

2011-05-08T11:09:00.001+10:00

A return to Innocence for iconic Eighties band Moving Pictures

More than a quarter of a century since they last saw one another, members of Sydney's Moving Pictures are reforming the band to mark the 30th anniversary of their debut album Days Of Innocence.

Speaking to Insider from his London home, frontman Alex Smith says he's looking forward to hitting the road again with original bandmates Andrew Thompson, Charlie Cole, Garry Frost and Ian Lees plus Mark Meyer, although he jokingly admits he's not sure how the initial reunion will go.

"This group, this line-up and this band hasn't been in the same room together since 1984 ... I'm just going to play it by ear - same as I used to do every day in the past," he said. "It will be like, 'What are we here for? We're here to play and have a great time'.

"The major thing I want to do is laugh. Ninety-five per cent of our time was spent laughing and I think that's going to be one of the things that hopefully will still be there.

"We're just going to have boxes of Kleenexes everywhere and somewhere to park the Zimmer frames."

Best known for their hit What About Me, which topped the ARIA singles chart for six consecutive weeks in 1982, and reached No.1 again in 2004 when covered by Australian Idol runner-up Shannon Noll, Moving Pictures gained further international notoriety when their track, Never, featured as the musical backdrop for Kevin Bacon's dance solo in the 1984 movie Footloose.

Smith says this, ironically, ended up marking the band's downfall.

"That was kind of like a sore point," he said. "We got asked to do it, but we've never seen a dime from it.

"It kind of soured our relationship (in the US), which was the thing that eventually led to the downfall of the band. Footloose was like a poison chalice for us. You can imagine how much money the bloody thing made."

Moving Pictures will play the State Theatre on Saturday July 30.

Tickets are available through ticketmaster.com.au.

Link to original article

MOVING PICTURES - touring in July 2011

2011-05-08T10:31:00.009+10:00

By some strange coincidence, Moving Pictures are touring in their original line-up to celebrate the 30-year anniversary of the release and subsequent success of 'Days of Innocence'.

They are playing twice at Lizottes, in Newcastle, once in Sydney, and once in Melbourne.

If you're a fan, don't miss this, as Alex lives permenantly in London, and it was made clear years ago that Garry wouldn't tour with him again - this is once in a lifetime! Pre-sale commences this Tuesday 10th May.

Link to touring company press release

Link to touring company initial stop-press

Link to ticket purchase information (Ticketmaster)

Link to ticket purchase information (Lizottes)

Interesting interview with Alex Smith, May 2011

Link to Days of Innocence album - buy the compilation if you like it!

NB: tickets to Lizottes are already on sale!

Presale password: tba

MOVING PICTURES - Matinee

2011-05-03T00:41:00.005+10:00

This rather rare Moving Pictures sophomore album has been found! For some reason blogger isn't allowing me to upload pictures... weird...

Artwork
Album

Never (live mime on Countdown) - don't miss Alex's words at the end!

Where they belong (promo video featuring Nicole Kidman!)

Live videos -

This must be love (Live on Triple-M)

Talk that Walk

2011-04-28T23:30:00.001+10:00

An interesting and under-rated band appeared in 1986 called Talk that Walk.

Not too much information seems to be available on this band, apart from the following -

One single released in 1986 - Surface Tension, appears to have entered top 40 in Victoria, Australia upon release, but not sure if charted elsewhere, perhaps explaining their single entry release.

Band members were -

Clive Young - vocals

Nick Lowes - bass/backing vocals

Dean Walliss - synth/backing vocals

Tony Lugton - guitar/backing vocals

Bill Wall - drums

(although this line-up was to change shortly after recording the single, according to the Sounds interview below)

Tony Lugton is well known for being one of the original members of great 80s synth new-wave band Pseudo Echo. Tony performed on the Autumnal Park album, but due to a split in either musical direction or money (depending on which source you believe), he left them and joined Propaganda and Talk that Walk. Tony actually appeared in an incarnation of James Freud's Berlin!

Clive Young actually had better chart success a couple of years later as a solo artist, and apparently still sings and writes these days (refer here for more info).

Apparently Talk that Walk actually toured schools with Pseudo Echo during 1986/1987.

Videos found -

Surface Tension (promo)
Surface Tension (countdown)
Sounds interview with Tony and Clive

Details on single release -

WEA 7-258470 / MX212593/4 - 1986 (although picture sleeve is dated 1987).
A side - SURFACE TENSION - length 2:57, produced by Spencer Lee, recorded at Paradise Studios
B side - HARVEST TIME - length 5:23, produced by Peter Leslie & Talk that Walk, recorded at Townhouse Studios

Lyrics as lifted from picture sleeve -

Snapping of the surface tension
Splitting of the fibres
Changing motion without warning
Calling you.
So, time slapped your face again
Puts you in its case
And then it drills a little hole to hold onto.

Talk a little harder
Maybe work a little harder
Be a walking inspiration
So, hide in your face again
Fill a little space
It's what you want to do.

Well I remain a prisoner
Inside a dying man
Temptation is so sweet
That I taste it while I can.

Ah, that's surface tension.

[REQUEST] Moving Pictures - The Last Picture Show

2010-12-02T23:04:00.004+11:00

Australian band Moving Pictures formed in 1978, and after much touring, in 1981 released the much lauded 'Days on Innocence' - their killer debut album. It and their mainstay single 'What About Me?' stormed up both the album and singles charts. Many singles were spawned from this album, indeed most tracks are well known to this day.

Matinee was the 1983 follow-up, which gave out a couple of lesser known but no less great songs. Curiously, this album has never been released on cd to this day - or even mp3 on blogspot for that matter!

In one last wonderful moment of excellence, in 1987, Moving Pictures toured Australia, and eventually released the fruits of this tour as 'The Last Picture Show'.

The tracks on this album were as follows -

BACK TO THE STREETS
DESPERATION POINT
EVERY WALKING HOUR
SWEET CHERIE
SHOUT
WINGS
IN LOVE AGAIN
RIGHTS OF MAN
WHAT ABOUT ME

A curious selection of tracks to be sure. What I'm asking for here is if anyone has this album, and if they'd be keen to share it here (or on their own blog). Drop me a comment, and I'll link accordingly. Desperate for both this album and Matinee.

Interesting band links follow -

Where are they now?
Wiki entry
Video - What About Me?
Video - Nothing to do (live)
Video - This must be love (live)
Video - Wings (live)
Video - Sisters of Mercy (live)
Video - What About Me? (countdown mime)

James Freud interview - Juke Magazine (1980)

2010-09-13T22:34:00.008+10:00

James Freud - Breaks Silence on the Numan Case

Freud and Numan : Were they electric friends?

"Naturally, I was a bit disappointed, but a lot of it was my decision. If I'd come out with the album I did record, I think I would have killed everything. I would have just been a Gary Numan clone more or less... I would have been a Gary Numan clone of a Bowie clone!

James Freud is in good humour, despite having just experienced three months which began with a bang and fizzled out, like a damp skyrocket. The fuse was lit with great anticipation and excitement, rose feebly a couple of feet in the air then fell limply to the ground.

Far from being limp, James is still bubbling. He arrived back in Australia from England to find his single, "Modern Girl", sitting comfortably in the Top Ten and his debut album, Breaking Silence, receiving complimentary reviews.

He's now busy rehearsing with his band - at last reports called Berlin (ex-Teenage Radio Stars, ex-Ego, ex-Radio Stars) - in preparation for live work.

A new single is also being culled from the Breaking Silence album - "Enemy Lines".

The single recorded in Sydney with Gary Numan - titled "Automatic Crazy" - is being kept on ice for possible future use, probably on a follow-up LP.

But the question most asked of James since he stepped from the flight from London was: Why? Why did he walk away from a world tour with Gary Numan? What happened to the album that Numan produced? What went wrong?

"What happened was, the album we did with Gary ended up sounding too much like Gary Numan, so we've come back to re-do the album for a start. We're going to use about 50-percent of it.. We're going to add things on to it and record about five new tracks. We also had trouble getting a new record deal because everything was so rushed.. We had to get it together in time for the start of the tour and there just wasn't enough time".

"It just wasn't worthwhile doing the tour unless we had a good record to put out. The record companies were waiting to hear what we'd done with Gary and we really didn't want to play it to 'em".

"The tour would have cost money to do and without a record company behind us, we couldn't do it".

In fact it would have cost James around $25,000 to do the British leg of the Numan tour alone. God knows how much the other dates around the world would have cost.

It's an economic fact of life that supports acts have to pay - for accomodation, for transport, for equipment, etc.

"There were a lot of record companies really, really interested, but because there was such a rush to get it all together, all of a sudden they went cold, because the market over there, the whole business, is in a really depressing state".

"They're just putting off people left right and centre and they're being really careful.. they're pondering on everything and we had to get the deal together really quickly because we needed the money, and they were too scared.".

Has James learnt anything from the Numan Experience?

"Yeah, I think I've learnt a lot.. putting it into words is another thing. For a start, I've learnt to appreciate Australia!"

"But as for studio techniques, I don't think I've really learnt anything. I think we're quite advanced - I don't think the rest of the world has got that much on Australia as far as studios, equipment and recording techniques go".

James is less enthusiastic about Gary Numan's studio techniques. "I thought at first, before I went over, that Gary's sort of sounds, combined with mine, would be quite interesting. I thought it'd be an interesting combination."

"Instead, it turned out to be a dirgy combination - it just didn't do the business. I've got my own sound, and I understand my own music".

"At first I thought, oh yeah, it's a good opportunity, everything's gonna be great - but always, with things like that, you know if it's gonna work out or not. No matter what it seems like on the surface, you get a gut feeling".

"We couldn't really forsee it happening the way it did. But I've learnt a lot - I've learnt to understand myself a lot better".

James also came to understand Gary Numan a lot better. For about a month, he lived at the Numan family home - Gary still lives with his mother and father.

"I was living at his house for about a month and I got quite bored there because he never goes out anywhere, he doesn't take any drugs.. he doesn't drink or anything. So we were just sitting around the house, drinking cups of tea and recording all the time. He lives with his mum and dad. His mum hasn't been for a night out in something like 18 years and he's got an adopted brother."

"I became quite disillusioned with how that whole thing really is. I mean, you'd think in the position that he's in, that life is a lot different, but it isn't really. His own paranoia stop him from going out anywhere.. they might be real paranoias".

Life at home with Gary might have been boring - but working with him in the studio was.. interesting.

"In the studio with Gary at times it did get very tense. I couldn't really describe the feeling that was there.. but, like, I'd say I didn't like something he was doing and there'd be silence in the room for 10 seconds or so and no-one would dare speak or anything".

"Then he'd say 'alright', put down his guitar and walk out of the studio for a little while, and then he'd come back".

"But that happens with everyone".

"I heard an amazing tape at the studio.. it was of the Troggs in the studio recording and they were calling each other every name under the sun, like: 'you stupid f... c..., can't you get it right', 'you f... do it, you c...', I'll f... punch your face in you c...' and you could hear guitars being thrown around.. it was great to hear".

"Gary is really just like everyone else and everyone gets upset".

"When I recorded Breaking Silence, I was the one in command of it, but this time Gary, as producer, took the leading role. He got the final decision more or less on everything, plus I was using his musicians - his uncle was playing drums and Paul Gardiner the bass player and Gary was playing guitar - and their usual style is playing Gary's music and trying to play my music it just didn't work out. Maybe if I'd had my musicians I could have had a lot more control".

Why not take to England?

"Gary thought his uncle was a better drummer than mine and he didn't think the rhythm section was together, but in actual fact they're one of the best around. They're very good and I admire them a lot. But Gary thought his rhythm section would do it better".

James maintains that he and Gary are still friends and parted with no animosity. But what does James think of Gary's music?

"I liked his early albums, but I've gone off them a but now, but I go off any record after a while. I don't think Gary's progressed a lot since his first album.. they're a bit samey".

"I think his music becomes a bit monotonous after a while.. I think he's scared to try anything new. I don't know whether he is scared but a problem is that he has too much control".

"It's good to have control, but he's got two brilliant keyboard players yet he insists on doing all the keyboards himself, except some piano work".

"So all you have is one person's ideas going on to the tracks when if you have got good musicians, they've got good ideas of their own and if you use their ideas you can only get good out of it".

One would expect James to be a little disillusioned and let down by the failure of the Numan Experience to fulfil its initial promise.

But, on the contrary, he sees it as a learning experience - a rare opportunity too good to pass up. Now it's back to work, promoting his debut album, doing the rounds of press radio and TV, rehearsing for live work and so on.

Despite witnessing, first-hand, life at the top - the life of Gary Numan - James is still determined to achieve success.

"I've always wanted to succeed in music... since I was about five or six. I had all these Cliff Richard records my uncle gave to me.. and the Beatles. I used to have one of those plastic Beatle wigs and a tin guitar when I was five... I really can't find the centre of the motivation - it was just there".

The influence of Cliff Richard is hard to relate to James as he stands now.. but English music has definitely shaped James' ideas.

"I've never really listended to anything American - except Velvet Underground and Television. I think English music is far more progressive and it's always searching for something new."

"America has always just plodded along. They're got MOR and then they've got Ted Nugent and Kiss.. they never do anything inventive. From England, though, you get Roxy Music, and Eno and Robert Fripp.. all the people who've been really creative and inventive".

"England seems to revolve around the art school type thing".

-- interview from JUKE MAGAZINE, 1980 - originals in-hand.

James Freud and the Radio Stars - live in 1980

2010-08-30T08:09:00.002+10:00

James Freud & the Radio Stars, live at Bridgewater Hotel, Adelaide 22/05/1980.

This performance, the 2nd on the same night, was captured to soundboard.

If anyone can pass me a link for the 1st performance, ie the real one at the Adelaide Opera House, I'd appreciate it!

Tracklist for the Bridgewater Hotel performance -

1. Telephone

2. Paint It Black

3. Butane Babies

4. Nineteen Again

5. Mean Modulator

6. Tragic Tales

7. Enemy Lines

8. Falling

9. Girls In Drag

10. Watching You

Link

James Freud - Breaking Silence

2010-08-06T16:11:00.001+10:00

A gentle reminder, if you didn't see this on the links page...

Go here for the James Freud debut album!

The blog above are also posting a bunch of excellent Models b-sides - be sure to tune in over there!

Models touring in 2010

2010-08-04T22:44:00.001+10:00

From HeyHeyMyMy article -

I must have seen Models about 50 times in my early gig going days and rarely did they disappoint. In recent years there has been a couple of revisitations of Models legacy and they haven’t always been fulfilling. But in 2010 Sean Kelly has got the band back together and this time it’s the line-up that long time fans have wanted to see.

Sean Kelly, Andrew Duffield, Mark Ferrie and Barton Price may well be the definitive Models line-up and as Sean agrees there is something odd about that.

HHMM: It’s good to see you getting the band back together.

SK: Yeah, we seem to have these kind of intermittent reunions. I dunno, I always think that maybe they are gonna last and so I’m thinking that again. Last time I did some work with this line-up it was really well received. We did a few shows in Sydney and a few festivals and it was a lot of fun.

HHMM: I read somewhere that you maintain the view that Models never really broke up which I guess is true. It’s kind of hard to break up with yourself.

SK: (laughs) Yeah, I was thinking about that because initially when we took that really long break in 1987 James Freud announced that we had broken up and I remember thinking, “Hang on, not only is that not true but its not really his call”, but the fact is I don’t think we did a single show in the decade of the nineties so it maybe is drawing a slightly low bow to say we never broke up. But you are right, I’ve kept doing stuff. Maybe we did do something sneaky in the 90’s but I cant remember it.

HHMM : How do you reflect on the fact that its now 30 years since the AlphaBravo album was released. It scared the shit out of me last night when I thought about it.

SK: I kinda dealt with that one because we had an unofficial thirtieth anniversary two years ago. It was actually something that a publicist came up with, it wasn’t our idea to be doing thirtieth anniversary shows. I remember at the time that there hadn’t been a gold watch or anything after twenty five years. I remember the early days so vividly but it is so long ago now and in fact a lot of our peers from that era aren’t even around any more. And I don’t mean just that they are not playing in bands but there are a lot of deceased old buddies. It’s an old cliché but it’s good to be anywhere and I wouldn’t be dead for quids.

HHMM : In recent days I’ve had quite a few people say to me that this line-up of Models is the definitive line-up which is quite amusing because I don’t think this line-up ever made a record together.

SK: You’re absolutely right and if anything by having Barton and Mark play together we are effectively creating something new from the essence of the band. It was particularly exciting when we did it two or three years ago because Mark like the rest of us has just kept playing and before he joined the Rockwiz Orchestra he had pretty much forged a niche for himself as a bluesman. We had worked together on a couple of projects over the years and I just love working with him. And Barton’s still my favourite drummer around so its really exciting to get something new out of the essence of the band.

HHMM : For my peer group our memories of models gigs revolve around suburban pubs like The Sandringham Commodore, The Prospect Hill and The Armadale. Were you conscious then of trying to get the band out to the suburbs because when you think about it now there isn’t a lot of gigs out there now.

SK: It’s interesting. I think it just kind of reflects the opportunities that were around then that aren’t around any more. If anything it was to a certain extent driven by our management and booking agencies because then we seemed to be on a never-ending tour any venue available in Australia really. Now we book something three months ahead and work towards it. But I think we were lucky to play in venues like that because quite often you were playing to pretty wild audiences you weren’t that interested in pop music or electronic music or punk music. A lot of performers and artists back then didn’t perform live that much, it was all about marketing records and stuff. I just think we were very lucky to have a circuit to work on and learn the tricks of the trade.

HHMM: It’s kind of ironic that after all that time battling with audiences who didn’t really like the music you were doing, when those suburban audiences finally embraced the band en masse, it was the beginning of the end.

SK: (laughs) Yeah, yeah, I see what you mean. It’s a long time ago now but you’re right. When I venture out to RSL’s with various retro projects and I tend to get more requests for Barbados than say Happy Birthday IBM.

HHMM: Would it be fair to say that the upcoming shows are a shameless attempt to capitalise on Mark Ferrie’s fame as a television star?

SK: (laughs) I’m surprised we didn’t think of that earlier as our angle. We could exploit that! No, it’s more about the unique interplay between the four of is musically. There’s definitely an excitement about the chances of developing it and perhaps re-inventing ourselves yet again. There is an expectation that we will play songs that people want to hear as well and we will but not all of them.

HHMM : My personal Models stalwart focus group have asked me to request Golden Arches, Owe You Nothing and Body Shop.

SK: Whoah! Well there is a very good chance we will be looking at those three. We are probably going to play some stuff from Alpha Bravo that we have never played before. We are not going to play the same set we did together a year or two ago. There will be a bit of a new feeling to it and a few surprises from yesteryear.

HHMM: The songs that made their way on to the Models Melbourne compilation certainly bought to light some live favourites that never got recorded. Were you involved much in that album.

SK: The main impetus behind it was Mark Burchett. Basically in collaboration with me he complied those songs. We had about twenty on it and we’d culled that down from another twenty possibilities. There was talk for a while that the band had a bunch of songs that could have been our first album because when we did Alpha Bravo we pretty much dumped a lot of material and recorded new stuff. But what is significant about the Melbourne album is that it not only had evidence of that but also of the period between Local And/Or General and The Pleasure of Your Company. There was also a transition going on there and yet another bunch of songs that could have been an album. So Models Melbourne album actually has songs from those two periods not just the pre-Alpha Bravo songs. And the songs between Local And/Or General and The Pleasure of Your Company are songs that kind of smoothed the transition. If one is interested in that.

HHMM: Given that good songs did slip through the cracks is there one Models album to you that best captures the band? I’ve had people suggest that its actually the mini-album Cut Lunch that best does that.

SK: It’s interesting, to simplify things I’ve always thought of us as having the Sydneycentric line-up and the Melbourne centric line-up. We actually moved to Sydney in about 1984 and we were based up there until we stopped working together. So for convenience I’ve referred to them as the Melbourne and the Sydney line-ups. It’s really hard to say what is the definitive release from the Melbourne line-up although Cut Lunch probably is a good contender because it has the link to the post-punk era and yet it has the completely unorthodox chordal structures and strange lyrics and vocals etc. I like the fact that we can be considered quite eclectic because there are songs from that era that were quite poppy and catchy as well. I’m thinking of songs like IBM, Two Cabs and 2 People Per Sq KM.

HHMM: Atlantic Romantic?

SK: Oh yes, of course. I forgot that one but we always get requests to play that one. Significantly the record company made our catalogue available on I Tunes in the last year or so and its been kind of fun checking that out because you can see what songs people are buying when they can buy them one song at a time. I haven’t checked it out lately but I think it was those ones we mentioned that people were buying.

HHMM: Would you be a wealthy man if you had a dollar for every time someone described you as “quirky”.

SK: (laughs) Yeah, I think I would be. I’m comfortable with that because I don’t really like mainstream, homogenous songs kinda stuff. I like to try and be unconventional and play with the parameters that one is facing when you are writing music. I am lucky because I got to work with a lot of very creative and artistic musicians. I’ve always focussed on the music but I’ve worked with people that really cared about the graphics and the image of the group.

HHMM: My small but very well informed Models stalwarts focus group express the view that half the fun of going to the shows was to see what Sean would say between songs. Were you aware of that?

SK: I’d probably forgotten that, but I remember that now. The weird thing now is that when I perform these days I actually try to enjoy myself and look like I’m having fun. I think its an easy way to get through these high pressure situations by diffusing them with some humour. I actually played Cut Lunch with a band at a party last weekend and people weren’t really into it. People would be dancing every now and then, but when we played Cut Lunch it was a really stark rendition and not very appropriate for a party. I had a brainwave during the song and came up with one of my best back announcements for ages. As the last chord was fading out I said “Makes you feel like MasterChef”. I may try and develop that with Models and pretend that I have submitted it as a potential alternative theme or something.

HHMM: It’s interesting that this line-up of the band consists of musicians who have never stopped playing which is a bit surprising when you consider that the band started out as this left field avant garde, inner city kind of band…

SK: …who couldn’t really play! There was an attitude back then that suggested you didn’t have to be able to play, just get up and make a bit of noise. That didn’t really apply to us. Although I couldn’t play very well back then I had been learning for a few years and I think that goes for the other guys in the band. With this line-up we’ve all continued for a decade or so playing performing and practicing we have all improved a lot and when we play these old songs they do sound as good as they did. They are chords and arrangements and we attack them but if anything we can inject a little more finesse to them now.

MODELS are performing 2 shows in the near future

You can catch Models at the Espy Gershwin Room. Friday Aug 6 with support from Clare Moore’s new all female outfit The Dames plus the Minibikes.

Models also appear as part of a special literary/musical mash-up with American author Brett Easton Ellis at the Oxford Art Factory in Sydney on Tuesday 10th August.

Link: Models Sean Kelly interview July 2010

(this article is posted a day late and a dollar short, but at least it is up for the file! I'm going to the Sydney one - wish I could go to the Melbourne one - sounds like a cracker!)

Spandau Ballet in Australia - Review April 23rd 2010 Sydney

2010-04-26T15:28:00.002+10:00

THERE was always a whiff of mockery around Spandau Ballet. Back in the glossy '80s, along with the likes of Duran Duran in particular, Spandau Ballet would teeter on, and sometimes jump over, the edge of ridiculousness.

That isn't to take away from whatever pleasure was to be had with them – and I'm not even talking about the kilts when they were synthy New Romantics, the unfeasibly deep tans when they were Harry High Pants funksters or the "right classy innit" double-breasted suits nearer the end, before they became "rock". Though even thinking about that never fails to make me giggle.

Fair's fair: a show which starts brilliantly with the silly but still punchy synth dance of To Cut a Long Story Short ("questions, questions, give me no answers") and soon after offers up the almost as funky if more stupid Highly Strung ("she used to be a diplomat/now she's down the laundromat") and can finish two hours later with the soul schmaltz of True ("I bought a ticket to the world/now I've come back again") and the high cheese count of Gold ("Always believe in your soul/you've got the power to know/you're indestructible") may have tosh – and tosh with awful lyrics – but it's tosh you find it very hard not to sing along with.

Actually, if you've seen both Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet in reformation tours in recent years you can't miss the world of difference between the two relics. For a start, Spandau Ballet have a frontman who, while these days looking like Blocker Roach (though in a well-cut suit you wouldn't find ... at Lowes), can actually sing, powerfully and well. Then while the Brummies struggle to string together two good songs, these Londoners can play extremely well and give you five or six more than tolerable tunes – not least of them Chant No. 1. That's even allowing for a long and painfully dull section mid-show where they went earnest rock band on us, proving they need that element of mockery to hover around.

And unlike any number of reformation tours, such as Fleetwood Mac, the Eagles or the Pixies, this is a band who actually seem to like each other again and couldn't be happier to be here getting this kind of unbridled, gushing love.

So yeah, we can laugh, occasionally grimace and sometimes shake our heads in disbelief, but Spandau Ballet were good. This much is true.

Source:

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/this-much-is-true-these-80s-relics-rock-20100425-tli1.html

Spandau Ballet - an Australian update

2010-04-04T17:20:00.006+10:00

As one of the defining bands of the 1980s, Brit pretty boys Spandau Ballet had the sculpted hairstyles and preposterous outfits. But most of all, insists bassist Martin Kemp, they had the tunes.

"That's why we're back on tour today," Kemp says. "You can't have a band that lasts that long and is that successful just based on the way you look or if you can put a poster up on a girl's bedroom wall or any of that - it's about the songs. And that's what Spandau was about."

Yes, the group behind such stone-cold cheese-pop classics as Gold and True are back and, having re-formed only last year after splitting up in 1990, they're making up for lost time with a crowd-pleasing show.

"Usually when you go out on tour you do kinda six or seven songs from your new album and then you kinda do a few hits from the different old albums," Kemp says. "This time it's complete wall-to-wall hit records. I think that's why everybody in the audience is having so much fun with it."

Kemp sounds relieved to report that the band is having fun too, which is pretty impressive when you consider that for much of the 1990s and '00s, the only time singer Tony Hadley, drummer John Keeble and multi-instrumentalist Steve Norman saw him and his guitarist brother Gary was in court because of a stoush over songwriting royalties.

"It was traumatic for everybody," Martin Kemp says. "But I remember the first gig that we did in Dublin when we got back on the road: just before that curtain dropped and the band were back on stage was the most incredible feeling that we'd all got that far, because for 20 years, y'know, no one spoke to each other.

"To actually stand on stage with those guys that I've known since I was 13 and start touring again was unbelievable."

The question was whether they would be able to reclaim the popularity they enjoyed in the '80s.

"It was a funny old thing," he says. "Back in October, when we first put the shows on, we really didn't know how it was gonna go. The band was, like, super successful in the '80s but we hadn't done anything for 20 years, so it was kind of like, just put your toe in the water and see what happens.

"When a band usually puts a show on, they can judge how many tickets they're gonna sell because of what number you are in the charts or how many records you're selling but we didn't have any of that. So it was kind of, put one show on, put another on ... and in the end it was the biggest tour that we've ever done in Britain."

One of the more endearing qualities of Spandau Ballet - just look at their old video clips for proof - was the band's apparently healthy sense of their own ridiculousness. The observation makes Kemp chuckle.

"But at the time we didn't think it was ridiculous," he says. "We thought it was for real!"

Even when they moved from the vanguard of the new romantic underground (early Spandau singles Chant No. 1 and To Cut a Long Story Short still sound cool) to the upper reaches of charts worldwide with the likes of True?

"Well, the only bands that ever survive are bands that evolve. If you start out as a cool band and you're only playing to kind of these small clubs, is that what you wanna do forever?" says Kemp. "Every band wants to be the biggest band in the world and you have to kind of choose your route to get there. In the end we turned out to be one of the biggest bands of the 1980s.

"Y'know, most bands have success over three or four years. Spandau had a complete decade of it."

Spandau Ballet play at Rod Laver Arena on April 21. Fellow 1980s stars Tears for Fears are the support act.

source: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/true-believers-20100403-rknu.html

Early Models trivia

2010-01-16T14:02:00.001+11:00

In my constant and frankly exhausting search for Models vinyl and other recordings, I talked today with a prominent record dealer, specialising in recordings from those days, and he had a few things to say -

Barry Earl was owner of Suicide Records
Barry Earl was also personal manager of Colin McClinchley
Colin McClinchley's alter-name is James Freud
Barry Earl co-produced James Freud and the Radio Stars debut lp
Suicide Records was an unofficial offshoot of Mushroom Records
Mushroom Records may or may not have applied pressure on Models circa 1981 to allow James Freud into the band
James Freud apparently had more than a fair share of the royalties from Models, according to sighted contracts from the source
It is well known that money was the main reason for the various personnel movements and eventual demise of Models

Interesting. Some of these I knew, and some I suspected, but one I didn't know. I'll leave that to you to guess.

Roland S Howard of Boys Next Door passes on...

2009-12-31T14:58:00.001+11:00

So sad... died 30th December, whilst waiting for a liver transplant.

Links of worthwhile reading -

Mess and Noise
Herald Sun
The Age

Models Interview circa 1986 (Molly Meldum)

2009-11-23T23:28:00.002+11:00

Found a great interview with Sean Kelly and James Freud from around 1986 up on youtube.

7 minutes long, quite worth watching, for the Models fans out there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zma5B0CsPCA

Enjoy!

Spandau Ballet and Tears for Fears tour AUS & NZ

2009-11-22T11:11:00.001+11:00

APRIL 2010
17 - Perth, Caversham Sandalford Winery
19 - Adelaide, Entertainment Centre
21 - Melbourne, Rod Laver
23 - Sydney, Entertainment Centre
24 - Newcastle, Entertainment Centre
27 - Brisbane, Entertainment Centre
29 - Auckland, Vector Arena

Source is http://www.remembertheeighties.com/ (love this site!)

The word is that both bands will be participating in VFESTIVAL 2010, but this is unconfirmed, more word-of-mouth and common-sense.

MODELS site online!

2009-06-25T10:33:00.001+10:00

The unofficial MODELS fan site has launched! There are heaps of photos already. A detailed discography is in progress, and there will be a section for song lyrics.

Check it out!

http://handonhandle.ning.com/

Have a great one!

Spandau Ballet reform and are to release new material!

2009-06-01T22:51:00.001+10:00

True Friends Again(link: http://www.smh.com.au/news/entertainment/music/true-friends-again/2009/05/23/1242498975781.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1)
May 24, 2009
Spandau Ballet tell Celia Walden how they mended rifts to hit the road again.

It's 1AM on Nikki beach in Cannes. Seagulls circle overhead and Tony Hadley is singing the first few bars of True in my ear. Recognising the voice through the din of the club, two micro-skirted girls wander over.
"You're not? Oh, my God - you are!"

"I am," Hadley agrees.

"Do you know that True is my favourite karaoke song ever?"

Spandau Ballet get the karaoke comment a lot - that, and men expressing their heartfelt thanks to the band for providing the soundtrack to adolescent fumbles and later proposals.

What do the boys feel when they hear one of their hits?

"I think pride is the word," says songwriter Gary Kemp.

"Yeah," says Hadley. "I'm just glad I wasn't in Kajagoogoo. Everybody wants to leave a mark in their lives and we've left ours."

You can't argue with that. Spandau Ballet's '80s power-pop ballads and new romantic look defined a generation. When the band broke up in 1999, the records kept selling - 25million to date. Then, a decade ago, during a court case when three of the five-piece band tried to sue Kemp for unpaid royalties, Hadley insisted that "hell will freeze over before we get back together".

"It must be bloody cold, then," Kemp chuckles.

The band announced their reformation two months ago, deciding that there was no better place than the Cannes Film Festival to promote their world tour.

With the band's combined age of 241, there was always a worry that my "night with Spandau Ballet" could have turned into Horlicks back at the hotel but a 10-year break from pop-star antics means that Tony Hadley, Gary Kemp and brother Martin, John Keeble and Steve Norman are raring to go.

Hadley, once pale and effete, is now a thickset, amiable-faced 48-year-old, while 49-year-old Gary's features have turned from raffish to faintly villainesque. Martin, the blithely good-looking former EastEnders star and youngest of the bunch at 47, fills the "little brother" role in the group.

"What we've missed the most is the banter," he says, revealing a rack of white teeth. "There was a huge part gone from my life after we split up."

Saxophonist Steve Norman says: "When you talk to footballers who have retired, they never say that they miss playing the game; they miss the dressing room and the camaraderie, and it was the same with us."

Still, there must have been a night of grievance-airing.

"A night?" Hadley blasts. "More like two years of it. There were plenty of times when Gary and I ended up abusing each other, but we got through it."

Gary says: "It took us a while to realise that it's not defeat to go back, it's victory."

It is also, of course, the promise of serious cash. In a climate when jumpsuits are back in fashion, Spandau Ballet saw a chance to make a Take That-style comeback. "There are all these comparisons with Take That," Gary says, "but we're really different to them. We are a band. There's a guitar player, a drummer, singer, bass; that's a very different thing to be a part of. People yearn for the '80s because pop music was so fantastic in those days."

Hadley signs an autograph for a pretty Italian fan whose wedding dance, she volunteers in broken English, was to True. "It's amazing the effect that song had," Gary says. "I remember Kevin Costner saying, 'That was my wife and I's most important record."'

Keeble says: "It's crazy how many fans have stayed with us from the first time around."

Will the boys be donning the eye make-up and stonewashed jeans for their tour? "We do want to grow old reasonably gracefully," Hadley says. "There's nothing worse than 48-year-old rock musicians trying to dress like 20-year-olds.

"And this time, we're in it for the long haul. What the past 10 years have taught us is that we will never have a hiatus again." And they all toast the sentiment.

"Mainly because we are too old …" Gary laughs. "We will always be part of Spandau Ballet from now on."

MODELS - The Other Side of the Cassette

2009-03-13T19:53:00.002+11:00

Now, here is something interesting...

As you may know, Models released a bunch of pretty damn fine b-sides to their Out of Mind Out of Sight range singles (those being Big on Love, Barbados, Out Of Mind Out of Sight, Cold Fever, King of Kings). The majority of these b-sides were released on side 2 of the Out of Mind Out of Sight cassette - I have two of these, so can verify this fact. Three remixes of the first three singles appear there too (this is like the CD release, except for the b-sides).

Now, it seems a Radio-Only release with a weirdly inverse cover was released, with those same remixes (nothing rare there), but also with the b-sides that appeared on the cassette... ergo the album / EP name 'The Other Side of the Cassette'.

Ultra-rare, never seen or heard of this before. I won it on ebay so it should be here soon for me to take better scans of.

Tracklist -

A1 Out of Mind Out of Sight (12" version)

A2 Big on Love (12" version of OZ single)

A3 Barbados (12" version)

B1 Tropic of Cancer

B2 Preacher of the Black Lagoon

B3 Blue Moon

B4 Steamroller Blues

A few photos from the auction appear here, for the file and to spike your interest! Better ones coming soon! (is anyone reading this?)

BOHDAN - Fear of Flying

2009-03-11T17:14:00.001+11:00

Bizarro find of the week!

Bohdan X is the stage name of British-born former punk rock singer, Bodhan Kubiakowski, in the Australian bands JAB and Bohdan and the Instigators, both features of the emerging punk rock scene in Melbourne, Australia in the late 1970s. He was also a highly successful DJ on Melbourne's 3RRR radio station from 1978-1995.

The reason for mentioning this on the blog? Well, it seems apart from the obvious links to MODELS via JAB (care of the Suicide Records compilation LETHAL WEAPONS), the supporting musicians on his first solo EP are no less than 3/4 of the MODELS at the time!!

This must've been a litmus test for Sean Kelly and Andrew Duffield to work with James Freud! The singles On (official) and Radio Controlled (unofficial) would've come shortly afterwards! And then I Hear Motion and the resulting album! What a cool find!

But, I cannot seem to source any mp3 for this one! Any help appreciated! Has anyone heard this EP? What's it like?

Information from DISCOGS below -
Bohdan - Fear Of Flying
Label: Rumur Records
Catalog#: RUME 001
Format: Vinyl, 12", EP, 45 RPM
Country: Australia
Released: 1983
Genre: Electronic, Rock
Style: New Wave

Credits:
Backing Vocals - Sean Kelly
Bass - James Freud
Drums, Backing Vocals - Calum McAlpine
Engineer - Chris Thompson
Guitar - Bruce Friday
Keyboards, Producer - Andrew Duffield
Saxophone - Wilbur Wilde
Written-By, Producer, Vocals - Bohdan
Notes: Recorded and mixed at Richmond Recorders, Melbourne, Victoria

Tracklisting -A1 We Are Different
A2 No No No
B1 Son Of Sam
B2 Fear Of Flying

A small amount of information is available here.

JAMES FREUD AND THE RADIO STARS - Modern Girl

2009-02-09T09:46:00.003+11:00

written by James Freud

As she crosses the floor she knows
(what does she know?)
She's seen it before and she goes
(where does she go)
There she stood
This fancy fashion creature
And everybody knows
She is my little Senorita

Because I fell in love
With a modern girl
Fell in love
With a modern girl
With a modern girl

As she crosses the street where she lives
(where does she live)
Nobody knows what she gives
(what does she give)
Where she walks
The hands reach out to greet her
And no one seems to understand
My little Senorita

Well I fell in love
With a modern girl
Fell in love
With a modern girl
With a modern girl

(instrumental break)

As she crosses the floor she knows
(what does she know?)
She's seen it before and she goes
(where does she go)

There she stood
This fancy fashion creature
And everybody knows
She is my little Senorita
Because I fell in love
With a modern girl
Fell in love
With a modern girl (la la la la lah)
With a modern girl (la la la la lah)
With a modern girl (la la la la lah)
With a modern girl (la la la la lah)
With a modern girl (la la la la lah)

Original Promotional Video

MODELS - Two Cabs to the Toucan

2009-01-31T15:16:00.001+11:00

Written by Sean Kelly and Andrew Duffield

Incoming Taxi
Come in yellow
Incoming Taxi
Come in black cab

Hail all black cabs
Private house?
We're an Independent
Hand on handle

(chorus)

Not to the Airport
Not to the Can (You never know)
Not to Tel Aviv
Unwelcome in Japan

Back to the back-seat
Directions to the Man
Parramatta rank
Parramatta (Four cabs, Three cabs...)
Two cabs to the Toucan

(Repeat)

Two Cabs to the Toucan (short video)

Cut Lunch (long promo, including all tracks and interviews)

Trivia -

There are at least two different versions of Two Cabs to the Toucan. The first, released on CUT LUNCH (and "Models COLLECTION" and also "Models and Friends") is 3:19. The second appears on the UK release of Local and/or General, and was remixed by Steve Brown, coming in at 3:48!!

Two Cabs was never officially released as a single, although I do possess a rare double-A side 7" vinyl of it, with the flip being a track by Jo Zep and the Falcons. Weird, eh?

MODELS - Man 'o Action

2009-01-31T15:06:00.001+11:00

Written by Sean Kelly

Man 'o Action
Inane fool
Per fer vid um
Abandon
Open Fire

Words are faster than man o' action

--

This track was actually re-recorded for re-release on all versions of the Local and/or General album.

MODELS - Atlantic Romantic

2009-01-31T14:28:00.001+11:00

Written by Sean Kelly and Andrew Duffield

She said that I didn't fit her description
She said that I wasn't even handsome
I'd think that she is so romantic
I'd follow her across the Atlantic

(chorus)

She said that I was the only one
She said "My favourite boy"
She said it to me in a nice way
In a polite way
Over and out

She said that I didn't fit her description
She said that I wasn't even handsome
I think that she is so romantic
I'd follow her across the Atlantic

(chorus)

She said that I didn't fetch her prescription
She said that I wasn't even handsome
I think that she is so specific
I'd follow her across the Pacific

(repeat chorus)

Atlantic Romantic live on Countdown ABC Australia (1981)

Cut Lunch mini-slices (from the rare promo video)

There are at least two versions of Atlantic Romantic. The first appears on the original UK-recorded Australia-released album (Local and/or General). The second is on the UK-release of the same album, with every track remixed by Steve Brown. Interesting!

MODELS - rare song lyrics!

2009-01-31T14:20:00.001+11:00

This blog will mainly follow New-Age, Post-Punk, Pre-Pop, New Romantics.

One of my favourite bands from way back is MODELS. Some folk refer to them as 'THE MODELS', but the band-members are adament that this is not their real name (despite some records I have being labeled as 'THE MODELS'.

MODELS are quite well renowned for their cryptic and sometimes quite unintelligible lyric, particularly pre-James Freud. Not including lyrics on the LP (or CD/CASS) tip-in sheets magnified this view.

I'm going to start slow, but first up are a couple of previously unavailable song lyrics, for tracks from their pre-James Freud days, off the 'CUT LUNCH' 10" EP.

I've seen many attempts at lyrics off 'CUT LUNCH', and I feel this will satisfy the readers thirst for lyrical content.

As mentioned, the CUT LUNCH releases never included a lyric sheet of any kind. But interestingly, for the UK release of 'LOCAL AND/OR GENERAL', there was a lyric sheet. Not only that, but a couple of tracks from the Australian release were dropped, and remixed versions of ATLANTIC ROMANTIC, TWO CABS TO THE TOUCAN, and MAN 'O ACTION were included - along with the lyrics! So they'll be up for your perusal today.

Thanks for reading!