The Pirates - Out of their Skulls (1977) & Skull Wars...Plus (1978)

(U.K 1976 - 2010)

The Pirates were a British pub rock band and a continuation of the 1960s rock and roll group Johnny Kidd & the Pirates, which originally lasted from 1959 until Kidd's death in 1966. In 1976, a new version of Johnny Kidd & the Pirates, including former band mates Mick Green, Johnny Spence, and Frank Farley formed, which toured in different variations until Green's death in 2010.

"The Pirates have not only been extolled as Brit-Rock's seminal R&B combo, but precursors of just about everything from the electric power trio to pub rock and the frenetic end of punk". Thus spoke the NME in late 1978, by which point the reformed band - Mick Green on lead/rhythm guitar, Johnny Spence on lead vocals and bass, Frank Farley on drums - were hard gigging regulars on the pub rock circuit. 

L-R: Frank Farley, Mick Green, Johnny Spence

Johnny Kidd's former backing outfit were warmly embraced by the new breed, with Wilko Johnson hailing Green as his mentor (his band had taken their name from Pirates 1964 B-Side 'Dr.Feelgood', while Green had written their album tracks "Oyeh!" and "Going Back Home"). Issued in October 1977, the live/studio set 'Out of Their Skulls' made the UK album charts, while the band also appeared on the compilation album 'The Hope & Anchor Front Row Festival'

L-R: Mick, Spence & Wilco (guesting on stage)

They then cut a fearsome non LP studio remake of their 1960 classic "Shakin' All Over", issued as a single just ahead of their second album 'Skull Wars' [the A & B sides are included as bonus tracks]

Embraced by both musicians and punk crowds, The Pirates laid waste to the nation’s gig circuit. In between times, they managed to capture their live mix of punk-shot compositions such as "All In It Together" and their own rock’n’roll classics on three albums (Out Of Their Skulls, Skull Wars and Happy Birthday Rock’n’Roll), catalysed by renowned back-to-basics producer Vic Maille.

The trio split after record company disinterest and Green’s elevation to session royalty, before his sad death in 2010. When Mick Green died in January 2010 a month short of his 66th birthday after a long illness, British music lost one of its best known session musicians.

Green spent the 1980s and 1990s touring the world and recording with Paul McCartney, Bryan Ferry and Van Morrison, but will always perhaps be best known as the guitarist in the early 60’s rock ‘n’ roll group Johnny Kidd and the Pirates.

By the time Green joined the Pirates in early 1962, shortly after Johnny Spence (bass guitar) and Frank Farley (drums), both of whom he had grown up with him in Wimbledon in South London, Kidd, another Londoner, had already had his biggest hit with a previous incarnation of the group and the 1960 number one hit, ‘Shakin’ All Over’.

Green & Spence

Album Review
The Pirates - Out Of Their Skulls [Warner Bros. BSK 3155]
(By Shapiro:  Rolling Stone, April 20, 1978. p40)

I confess an affection for the Pirates' first American album, 'Out Of Their Skulls', that far exceeds its criteria worth. A three-piece band of the British pub-rock persuassion., the Pirates have been around since the early Sixties. Now they are picking up pedantic bits from R&B standards and pummeling them into the New Wave format.

Mindful that R&B is an old genre that's found a new audience, this outfit orchestrates like an electric washboard ensemble. No horns, no strings, no fancy harmonies. "Drinkin' Wine Spo'De'O'De" - a clever misspelling - is a strong indication of the Piarates' roots; the song's been recorded by pratically every R&B artist worth his bourdon. The Pirates jumble its beat but leave its dancing spirit intact, perhaps even enhanced, with their enthusiasm.

Lead singer Johnny Spence (in the instant tradition of Richard Hell and Tom Robinson) growls and gargles as if he'd swallowed a luffa mitt and is enjoying the sensation of relieving its itch. On both the live and studio sides of the LP, the lyrics and guitarist Mick Green's passion for repetition make less sense than the heady emotions they actually convey. Green plays simultaneous lead and rhythm guitar in a sharp, choppy manner that reminds me of John lennon. (Who influence whom?)

At any rate, the Pirates are providing joy and sustenance, and Out of Their Skulls is a record that will outlive its value as mere 'product'. Like they say: "We'll be together/Till the very last shows". Amen.

This post consists of MP3 (320kps) ripped from Vinyl and CD sources (found on the web many moons ago). Full album artwork and label scans are also included, along with a copy of the Rolling Stone album review for 'Out of their Skulls'.

I bought both albums back in the late 70's but sadly (and stupidly) sold them to a 2nd hand record dealer for much needed cash back in the 80's. I suspect I sold them for less than face value at the time, and on reflection they would be worth far more now, especially as I could have provided FLACs for this post.  

I think I must have been 'Out of my Skull' at the time !

'Out Of Their Skulls' Track List:

Side1 (Live Side - Nashville Rooms, London, April '77)

01 Please Don't Touch 2:02

02 I Can Tell 2:19

03 Peter Gunn 2:02

04 Lonesome Train 3:01

05 Shakin' All Over 2:24

06 Milk Cow Blues 3:03

Side 2 (Studio Side - Rockfield, Wales, March '77)

01 Drinkin' Wine Spo' De' O' D 2:56

02 Do The Dog 2:37

03 Gibson Martin Fender 3:26

04 Don't München It 3:33

05 That's The Way You Are 2:42

06 You Don't Own Me 2:47

Out Of Their Skulls Link (82Mb)

'Skull Wars' Track List:

Original Album

01 Long Journey Home (Original Mix)  3:43

02 Dr. Feelgood  1:58

03 All In It Together   3:17

04 Johnny B. Goode's Good 2:27

05 Johnny B. Goode (Live)  4:06

06 Talkin' 'Bout You (Live)  3:10

07 I'm In Love Again (Live)  3:12

08 Voodoo 2:33

09 Four To The Bar 2:51

10 Honey Hush (Live)  2:26

11 Diggin' My Potatoes  3:36

12 Shake Hands With The Devil (Original Mix)  3:32

Bonus Tracks

13 Shakin' All Over (Single Version)  2:59

14 Saturday Night Shoot-Out (B-Side Single)   3:52

15 Sweet Love On My Mind (Studio Version)  3:20

16 Gibson Martin Fender (Live)   3:25

17 Don't München It (Live) 3:20

18 You Don't Own Me (Live)  3:09

19 Long Journey Home (US Mix)  3:34

20 Shake Hands With The Devil (US Mix)  3:32

The Pirates were:

Bass, Lead Vocals – Johnny Spence

Drums, Backing Vocals – Frank Farley

Guitar, Backing Vocals – Mick Green

Skull Wars Link (147Mb)

The Eric Burdon Band - Sun Secrets (1974) plus bonus 'Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood' CDS (2001)

(U.K 1960 - Present)

Born in 1941, Eric Burdon was – along with his band The Animals – one of the most important standard bearers of the British Invasion of America, right after The Beatles and ahead of The Rolling Stones, The Who and The Kinks. Their 1964 interpretation of “House of the Rising Sun” was a global hit and inspired Bob Dylan (who recorded an acoustic version on his first album) to go electric and hit the stage from then on backed by a rock band.

Eric Burdon is a street kid from Newcastle upon Tyne. He burnt the midnight oil in the nightclubs on the docks. Had music not intervened, he might well have slipped into a career as a petty criminal, the kind of English gangster so aptly parodied by Guy Ritchie in films like Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. But Burdon’s voice was his ticket to escape that bleak industrial destiny, and his “We Gotta Get out of This Place” went on to inspire Springsteen’s “Born to Run”.

Eric Burdon 1973

Burdon was always an incurable hothead, prone to rages and no stranger to breaking contracts, a situation that would make him a lifelong underdog and impede his path to world stardom. By the end of the 70s he was so broke that he was living in a car on Sunset Strip.

Burdon regularly changed both his band and musical style. Alongside his passion for original American blues, he got together in the late 60s with black LA band War – itself a political statement in the Black Panther era – and, inspired by Charlie Parker, John Coltrane and Rahsaan Roland Kirk, expanded his musical spectrum with jazz and funk.

This project was not meant to last for long, though. Constant quarrels with Record Companies and Eric’s continuous abuse of drugs and alcohol made him break up with WAR and decide to get on with a solo career. 

This turn brought him in touch with guitarist Aalon Butler (labelled by some as the reincarnated Hendrix) with whom he recorded and released “Sun Secrets” in 1974 and a followup record "Stop" in 1975.

Eric Burdon’s creative output has made an important and profoundly authentic contribution to popular culture. Together with Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones, he counts as one of that legendary generation’s last men standing.

Sun Secrets

Sun Secrets is an album by the Eric Burdon Band recorded in 1973 and released in December 1974. It includes some re-recording of songs, with which lead singer Eric Burdon topped the charts a few years before. The band included Aalon Butler on guitar, Randy Rice on bass and Alvin Taylor on drums.

“The Real Me”, “Ring of Fire” and “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” were released as singles. The album peaked at No. 51 on the Billboard 200 chart in 1975.

Sun Secrets relies heavily on his experiences with The Animals and WAR era, albeit with a twist. In this album, Eric buries his blues roots as deep as he can and performs, among others, classic Animals hits like "It’s My Life" (opening cut), "Don’t let Me Be Misunderstood" and "When I was Young", although in a unique, angry and aggressive way, with a rock energy that startles.

He seems to denunciate his own past, twisting it in purpose, trying, maybe, to change the way things flow, already knowing that he cannot. Johnny Cash’s hit "Ring Of Fire" arrangement in this album is given in such a way that it proves beyond any doubt what Eric was like at those times and the way that he looked upon himself as an artist. "The Real Me" and "Letter from The Country Farm" show the most heavy, melancholic and isolated Eric ever, while the instrumental title track "Sun Secrets" seems alittle out of place, although it does close the album with a level of calmness and resolve.

Released without Eric Burdon's authorization, Sun Secrets is nothing for the singer to be ashamed of artistically. With approximately 24 minutes per side, Sun Secrets is a far cry from The Black Man's Burdon and the rhythms of the group War. As Mountain guitarist Leslie West would do a year after this when he formed the Leslie West Band, Burdon beats him to the punch with a self-titled group that rocks -- rocks harder than the Animals, rocks harder than War.

In short, this album is innovative reinvention, with a three-piece unit blitzing behind its singer as he reinterprets Animals classics like "When I Was Young," "It's My Life," or the Hendrix/Cream riff-laden version of "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood,".

The tragedy of it all is that, according to the singer's biography, 'Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood' by Eric Burdon with J.Marshall Craig (Thunder's Mouth Press), Burdon did not want this material made public. The tapes were signed to Capitol and released without his permission.

In Eric's words: "Our L.A rehearsal tapes were released as an album called Sun Secrets. Fucked once more !"

Produced by Jerry Goldstein, these "recordings" feature the original lineup of what he says in his book is "The first in a long series of Eric Burdon band(s)." Capitol released two different versions of this disc -- the full-length commercial LP, and a "Radio Programming Aid" which has edits of everything except for the 13-minute Burdon co-write "Letter From the Country Farm." It's disheartening to read the agony for the star during these sessions and the touring from this period in his life, but it's refreshing to hear in these grooves that under adverse conditions the star still comes out on top artistically. [Extracts from urbanaspirines and therockasteria]

This post consists of FLACs ripped from my Vinyl pressing (purchased from the La Trobe University Union Record Store in the late 70's) and includes full album artwork for Vinyl & CD, along with label scans.  I've always enjoyed listening to this album, especially Burdon's rework of the Animal tracks, but could never fathom why the album was named after the weakest track on the album. Another Capitol blunder I guess.

For your enjoyment, I am also making available a FLAC rip of the 3 track 'Collectors CD' (pictured above) that accompanied Burdon's Autobiography "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood", which I purchased over 20 years ago. All tracks were re-recorded specifically for the book I believe.

Tracks:

01 - It's My Life

02  - Ring Of Fire

03  - Medley : When I Was Young / War Child

04  - The Real Me

05  - Medley : Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood / Nina’s School

06  - Letter From The County Farm

07  - Sun Secrets 

The Eric Burdon Band were:

Eric Burdon - Vocals

Aalon Butler - Guitar

Randy Rice - Bass

Alvin Taylor - Drums

Sun Secrets Link (248Mb)

Collectors CD Tracks:

01 - Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood

02 - Lionize

03 - House Of The Rising Sun

Bonus Collector CD Link (112Mb)

Mother Goose - Lost Songs (1984)

 (New Zealand 1975 - 1985)

Mother Goose formed in Dunedin, New Zealand in September 1975. After 10 months touring NZ, the band moved to Australia in late 1976.

Renowned for their high-energy, madcap stage show combined with exceptional musicianship, Mother Goose built up a huge following in Australia, and broke live attendance records across Australasia.

Consequently, the band was signed to Mushroom Records in 1977. Their first single ‘Baked Beans’ was a big hit, and their debut album ‘Stuffed’ in 1977 received critical acclaim.

After a 9 month stint in the USA in 1978, the band returned to Australia in early 1979. They continued touring for the next 6 years (including a Canadian tour in 1984), and released 2 more albums: ‘Don't Believe in Fairytales’ (1979) and ‘This is the Life’ (1982). 

Mother Goose in the early 1980s

In 1982, these New Zealanders based themselves in Perth and recorded their third album at Planet Sound Studios... they also picked up a new keyboard player (Neil Shilkin) after seeing him play in a piano bar, replacing founding member Steve Young who had recently decided to party ways with the band.

Ray Columbus awards Steve Young
the 1982 APRA Silver Scroll
for 'I Can't Sing Very Well'

Before Steve left the band, he was awarded the APRA Silver Scroll in 1982 for the song "I Can't Sing Very Well" [definately a tongue in cheek song] which was released as a single, and did not appear on any of their albums.  

To view the original video clip for "I Can't Sing Very Well", see HERE  

The most recent release for Mother Goose is the fourth, never previously released recordings, from 1984 called 'Lost Songs', released through Laneway Music 2020. [extract from Laneway Music]

They continued touring Australia and Canada until they called it a day in 1985.

Three members of Mother Goose [Peter Dickson, Dennis Gibbins, Marcel Rodeka] still play together in Dunedin, in a classic rock and blues outfit called Argus.

Mother Goose reformed again on March 23rd 2007, to play a Re-Sound reunion concert featuring Peter Dickson, Marcel Rodeka, Denis Gibbins, Craig Johnston, Kevin "Dwarf" Collings [Pictured  Below]

As Mother Goose are Kiwis they don't feature heavily in Ian McFarlane's works, but there are two good websites where you can dive into their background:  Sergent.com  and  Audioculture.co.nz

This post consists of FLACs sourced from the web (thanks to Anticubais) and includes limited artwork.

I was lucky enough to see Mother Goose perform on multiple occasions during my University days and to this day, still believe they had one of the best 'stage acts' in the business, backed by talented musicians and catchy songs. You will also find their earlier albums posted on my blog HERE  

As a bonus, I am also including the rare single "I Can't Sing Very Well" as a bonus track. Their Canadian Tour in 1984 used this song title to promote their tour [See Below]

Tracklist:

01. Find a Way Out (03:38)

02. WhyDiddyDie (03:38) 

03. Love Never Works Out (03:14)

04. Take Care (04:02)

05. Heartbeat (03:14)

06. Lost at Sea (04:04)

07. Outlaws of the Century (03:25)

08. Weekends in Paris (04:30)

09. One Step Forward (03:36)

10. Death Defying Leaps (03:38)

11. Dirty Weekend (03:20)

12. Ain't it Funny (03:54)

13. Another Weekend in Paris (03:20)

14. I Can't Sing Very Well (3:36) [Bonus Track]

Mother Goose Link (387Mb)

Dancing Daze - Rock Soundtrack from the ABC TV Series (1986)

 (Various Australian Artists 1986)

Dancing Daze is a 1986 Australian mini series about two sisters from Wagga Wagga who leave their family pig farm to make it as dancers in the big city. The ABC series stars Meryl Tankard as Phoebe Green and Patsy Stephen as Kate Green.

A Dancing Daze soundtrack was released in February 1986, featuring a high profile list of Australian artists and musicians. A second soundtrack album featuring the Sydney Symphony Orchestra was also released. At the ARIA Music Awards of 1987, Wendy Matthews was nominated for the ARIA Award for Best Female Artist for the title track. Martin Armiger was also nominated for ARIA Award for Best Original Soundtrack, Cast or Show Album for the album.

Over time, Dancing Daze has been compared to the successful Australian musical mini series called 'Sweet and Sour', which aired on the ABC TV in 1984 and was based on a fictional band called the Takeaways who were trying to break into the Sydney music scene.

Alexandra Heller-Nicholas discusses Dancing Daze in more detail:

While Sweet and Sour’s place as an iconic 80s Australian cult pop culture phenomena is firmly established, Dancing Daze has for all intents and purposes simply vanished. A number of attempts to source the series has come up empty handed, and there are whispers that it is highly likely to remain unattainable due to a complex web of copyright clearance complications. So all I have for now at least is my memories – hazy, distant, and framed through the admittedly heavily distorted lens of childhood nostalgia – and the small handful of newspaper and magazine articles and interviews that remain.

Dancing Daze Cast
(Note: impossible to find a profile photo for Laurence Clifford)

Reading back, here’s what I have cobbled together about the broader plot: Dancing Daze followed the story of two sisters Phoebe (Meryl Tankard) and Kate (Patsy Stephen), who move to Sydney to pursue their dreams of becoming famous dancers. They grew up in the regional New South Wales town of Wagga Wagga, raised by their aunt and uncle on a pig farm after the mysterious disappearance of their mother (herself an entertainer). With big dreams and little grasp of the realities of life in the “big smoke”, they find themselves developing a community of new friends centred around the Casanova Club, the place to be in the swinging sixties but now neglected and reduced to near-ruins. With their friend Joe (Laurence Clifford) and piecing together the disappearance of their mother through the backstory of the shady Mr Isaacs (Norman Kaye), the girls discover as much about their past as they do their future on their journey towards fame and fortune.

Martin Armitage

Shot in the ABC Studios and on location in Sydney and costing approximately $250,000 to make, each episode ran for approx. fifty minutes. Devised by Chapman and writer Michael Cove, Chapman brought choreographer Chrissie Koltai on board who, despite having no television experience, was a member of the Sydney Dance Company, had taught at both Sydney’s esteemed National Institute of Dramatic Art and the Aboriginal Islander Dance Theatre, and was the choreographer for the Divinyls’ “Pleasure and Pain” music video the previous year. 

The series’ music director was Martin Armitage, who had worked with Chapman on Sweet and Sour, and who was a successful music producer in his own right as well as one-time guitarist of seminal Australian rock band The Sports. Music for the Dancing Daze rock soundtrackincluded artists like Sharon O’Neill, Jenny Morris, Steven Cummings (also from The Sports), Greg Macainsh (from Skyhooks), David Briggs (from LRB) and one-time Beach Boys member Ricky Fataar.

Lance Curtis and Meryl Tankard

If there was one big name involved in Dancing Daze, however, it was dancer Meryl Tankard in the role of Phoebe.  Born in Darwin and raised in Melbourne, Newcastle, and Penang, Tankard joined the Australian Ballet School in 1973 and joined the company in 1977. After a three-hour audition, she became a soloist with the legendary Wuppertaler Tanztheater of Pina Bausch, a figure memorialised in Wim Wenders 2001 documentary Pina. Homesick, Tankard returned to Australia in 1984, beginning work on Dancing Daze shortly after. “The whole story of Dancing Daze is very close to home for me”, Tankard told Katherine Tulich in an interview for Countdown Magazine. “When I came back to Australia from Germany, I was trying to find something to fit into. The only way to do that is to do it myself, which is exactly what the Green Sisters do.” She continues, “More people know me overseas than here […] most people don’t know who Pina Bausch is, so it’s like starting again.”

Dancing Daze Chorus Line

As Campion describes it, the concept was fairly straightforward: “It was the classic story of a group of young people who, in 1986, want to make a dance troupe”, a description mirrored by many critics at the time of its broadcast. Paul Kalina, for example, noted that like Sweet and Sour, Dancing Daze “celebrates the trials of youth pursuing its ambitions and realizing goals that, previously, were only dreamt of”. But it was precisely how Dancing Daze brought this to life that impressed other critics and that resonates so profoundly with me personally on this strange little journey of recollection. 

Barbara Hooks describes the series’ opening scene (one I either vaguely remember or have simply conjured up via wishful thinking) where we first meet Phoebe and Kate “as ankle biters on their aunt and uncle’s farm giving an impromptu concert to anyone who will watch, including a piglet.” The fairy tale quality of descriptions like this – Kalina even calls it “essential ‘wish-upon-a-star’ stuff” – make it clear why it would have appealed to me as a child. But perhaps there was just something more simply about its very energy that I tapped into as a kid: as Hooks put it, “Dancing Daze is, in the parlance of the young, an ‘ace’ show.”

In retrospect, this “aceness” had a fundamentally gendered quality. In her enthusiastic review, Susan Molly pegged that the secret to its success was that “Dancing Daze has slotted into the 80s mood of fun, happy endings and fantasy adventure as much as Madonna did when swishing round in that Girls’ Own Annual Desperately Seeking Susan, or as Cyndi Lauper did when she sang ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun’.”

Kate (Patsy Stephen) and Phoebe (Meryl Tankard) in their tulle frocks

The image I recall most strongly of watching the series as a child is that of two young women in explosively frothy 80s tulle frocks leaning on a tree in a Sydney park, dreaming of becoming famous dancers, and declaring in delighted, determined unison: “fortune favours the bold!”. 

Forgotten as it may be, Dancing Daze also consolidated the professional collaboration between Campion and Chapman, which spawned some of the most important and enduring Australian films ever made through the sheer force of their joint will. Eradicated as they may be from the Australian popular imagination, Kate and Phoebe were ultimately proven right: fortune favours the bold.  [Extract from - Stardust Memories: Cinephilia and Nostalgia, Issue 87. 2018]

Soundtrack Blues Review

Rock by Lisa Wallace
(Canberra Times, 16th Feb, 1986)

Soundtracks can be a problem, especially if you have not had the advantage of viewing the accompanying movie, series or episode. Such is the dilemma with 'Dancing Daze'.

The series begins on the ABC tonight, following the adventures of two talented sisters as they seek fame and fortune in the world of contemporary dance, and if the talents assembled on film arc as good as the talents harnessed on this piece of vinyl, the show should be a grand success.

Under the talented wing of Martin Armigcr, one-time guitarist for The Sports and musical producer of Auntie's 'Sweet and Sour' series, we have Marc Hunter, Jane Clifton, Jenny Morris (pictured left) , Mark Williams and Wendy Matthews (pictured below). But perhaps it's the names behind the songs that give strength to this latest ABC offering.

Sharon O'Neill, Rick Fataar, Jennifer Hunter-Brown, Steve Cummings, Greg McAmish (Ed. Should read Greg Macainish) are all contributing songwriters, and as you can imagine, the backing vocals and supporting bands are top notch.

There are a few forgettable songs on the album — notably 'Can I Dance' and 'Second Opinion' — but a few others could well make their way up the treacherous top 10 in days to come.

Marc Hunter (pictured left) makes a welcome reappearance on vinyl with two offerings, one a very unHunterlike ballad, but the second, 'Phoebe' is a better, saxier, bluesier number more reminiscent of late nights in Stranded or the Strata.

The title track 'Dancing Daze', written by Sharon O'Neill is very Kim Wilde-ish, resurrected on side two, as these type of albums seem to do, in a slower, more instrumental version.

Unfortunately Jane Clifton's (pictured right) short foray on to the album, 'Disaster' is one — very jagged and rasping, nothing like her best. In fact all the "known" stars appear quite restrained, whether by their lyrics or boredom with the project I can only guess.

So, after all that rousing praise, I have to say this is not a bad album, perhaps a touch indulgent and a wee bit repetitious, but as already lamented, it is hard to imagine the scenes which would accompany such boppy numbers as 'Dare to be Bold' and the jovial 'Casanova Club'. Once onscreen, they may well take on a life of their own and please both eye and ear.
Perhaps.

Also available through ABC records is the "classical" version of 'Dance Daze', featuring the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, conducted by David McBride with guest appearances by Jane Clifton, Jason Morphea, Chris Abrahams and The Green Sisters.
Tracks include 'Adagio for Strings', selections from 'Swan Lake' and 'Prelude to Parsifal'.

[Article sourced from trove.nla.gov.au]

Dancing Daze - 1986 Australian TV Promo

It is also worth noting that "Dancing Daze" / "Last Chance To Dance" was released as a 7'' single in 1985, and also as a 12" single featuring an extended mix of Dancing Daze on purple vinyl. "Might Have Been" / "Second Home" was released as a follow up 7" single in the same year. [See Below]

Single Releases

This post consists of FLACs ripped from vinyl and includes full album artwork and label scans.  A big thank you to blog follower Dominic Tolli for generously offering this high quality rip and assorted references for today's post.  Thanks mate.

From a collector's point of view, this album is desirable for many reasons: Its importance as a close cousin and followup release to the iconic Sweet and Sour show and the inclusion of two rare tracks by Marc Hunter, which have not appeared in any other shape or form.   This album is definately a worthy addition to your record collection if you can find a copy.  This album was also released on cassette (see below), however it has never been released on CD, surely an oversight on the part of the ABC !

Track List:

A1 Wendy Matthews, Jenny Morris – Dancing Daze (Sharon O'Neill)

A2 Mark Williams – Can I Dance (Mick Walter - Glen Muirhead - G. Lungren)

A3 Mark Williams – Second Opinion (Jenny Morris - Richard Fataar)

A4 Wendy Matthews –  Dare To Be Bold (Sharon O'Neill)

A5 Marc Hunter – You're So Curious (Jennifer Hunter-Brown - Michael Hegarty)

A6 Jane Clifton – Disaster (Stephen Cummings - Dean Richards)

B1 Mark Williams – Against The Dance (Martin Armiger)

B2 Martin Armiger, Sherlie Matthews –  I Love It When We're Dancing (Greg Macainsh - David Briggs)

B3 Jenny Morris, Mark Williams, Wendy Matthews –  Might Have Been (Martin Armiger - Michael Cove)

B4 Marc Hunter –  Phoebe (Martin Armiger)

B5 Larry Van Kriedt –  Casanova Club (Larry Van Kriedt)

B6 Wendy Matthews –  Lost In A Dancing Daze (Martin Armiger)

Musicians:

Alto Saxophone – Tony Buchanan

Backing Vocals – Maggie McKinney, Mark Williams, Naomi Eyers, Wendy Matthews

Bass – Clive Harrison, Jeremy Alsop, Lloyd Swanton

Drum Programming, Keyboards, Guitar, Producer – Martin Armiger

Drums – Ricki Fataar

Guitar – Larry Van Kriedt, Mark Punch

Keyboards – Chris Abrahams, Glen Muirhead, Rick Chadwick

Tenor Saxophone, Baritone Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone – Jason Morphett

Trumpet, Flugelhorn – Kevin Dubber

Dancing Daze Link (279Mb)

REPOST: Shane Howard - Back To The Track (1988)

(Australian 1975 - Present)

Shane Howard is a multiple ARIA award-winning musician. He is recognised as one of Australia's best songwriters and is widely known in Australia and overseas. In 1982, Shane's anthem "Solid Rock" from the album "Spirit of Place", (recorded with his legendary band "Goanna"), reverberated across the airwaves and it still does today. It was one of the first songs of its idiom to broach the subject of Aboriginal rights in Australia and impacted powerfully on a whole new generation of writers and musicians that followed. The album was released in 35 territories worldwide.

Shane was awarded a Fellowship by the Music Fund of the Australia Council (2002) in acknowledgement of his contribution to Australian musical life. A prolific songwriter, Shane and his songs champion the cause of the underdog and provide meaningful insights into the human spirit. The songs interpret the Australian landscape in a way that has helped to build a bridge between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples. Shane's songs also pay homage to the culture of his Irish ancestors . Shane has been a great contributor to various social justice causes, and in environmental issues such as the campaign to preserve the Franklin River. He combines a deep understanding of poetic and musical folk traditions and captures something essential of the spirit of Australia in words and music [extract from Emmanuel College Alumni]

Tracks Of My Years

Story by Vincent Maskell
(Published in Juke. 10 December 1988)

Postscript: In an interview in The Age on October 9, Shane Howard said: “The collapse of Goanna was accompanied by the collapse of my marriage and just about everything else. The world fell apart and I was left with a crippling debt and probably PTSD. Corporate shenanigans played a big part in Goanna’s demise…”

Far North Queensland. Down a rough, steep gravel road and up the driveway marked by a small and yellow painting of the big red rock, Uluru. Shane Howard stands up after inspecting his little vegie patch, looks out to the range and says slowly, "It's a long way from the urban principle, hey?"

As the conversation unfolds, 'the urban principle'reveals itself to include corrupt politicians, foul air, high-rise commission flats, continuous noise, heart-breaking burglaries and parts of the music industry that are, to put it mildly, less than attractive, in short, the metropolitan jungle.

Shane Howard's vegetable garden is borne from tough, hard clay. If he lived just over the range, where the rainforest is, the vegies would go beserk. As it is, he's come up with a pretty healthy crop that includes broccolli, cabage, celery, carrots, capsicums and his current favourite, Roma tomatoes.

In a way, Howard's career in music has been a bit like his gardening. He's had to work hard and long in a tough climate, with the odds - and the musical trends - stacked against him.

Goanna 1983 - Shane Howard Centre

When his band, Goanna, finally broke through - in the magic and manic summer of 1982/83 - everything just grew. And grew, and grew.

And became so big that Goanna eventually collapsed in a terrible mess, leaving Howard just short of a nervous breakdown.

Success was one of the main factors that strangled the Goanna band. Success, like the wrist-thick vines in the rainforest that curl and curl and choke the strongest trees. It's a jungle out there, over the range.

"Gotta get back/To the track/You came on/Where the road/Reaches into the sun/Heading back down the track/Back down the track/You came on"

Shane has just released his first solo recording. It's as independant a project as you'll get. The acoustic songwriter penned eight of the nine tunes on the 'Back To The Track' cassette. He produced the songs, designed the cover and did the packaging, right down to the cutting, folding and stapling together the pocket-sized lyric booklets. Lately he's been door-knocking the Cairns record shops. The initial pressing was 500 copies and that's a long way from 'the urban principle' that saw Goanna's first album, 'Spirit Of Place' clock up sales around the 200,000 mark.

Howard swaps Ray Charles for Robbie Robertson in the tape player and then feeds kindling into the fire-place of the his small, ramshackle home. "I approached several record companies," he explains, "But they were hung up on either the Goanna history or the fact that I don't have a manager. I wanted to get the songs out quickly and figured I may as well do it myself. It's been a learning process, hey?" he says, concluding with that characteristic ending to his sentences.

'Back To The Track' was recorded in piece-meal fashion, with Howard making trips to Melbourne to play gigs to get money to buy recording time [at the Sing Sing Studios, Melbourne]. The cassette doesn't have the lint-free crispness of Oceania, Goanna's largely-forgotten second album, but it does have an earthy friendliness to it. "Mainly, I wanted to create a nice atmosphere: the sort of thing that you can have a listen to, but also the sort of albnum you can just have on in the background. And I think it's got that warm feel to it."

Cassette Release

Players on the album include drummer Dave Stewart, vocalists Marcia Howard anmd Rose Bygrave (herself currently working on a solo effort). Much of the mood of the songs comes from the harmonica-blowing of Steve Gilbert, a North-Queensland musician who plays with the Barron River Drifters. Guitarist Simon Curphy also chips in with some nice touches.

The songs range from the brooding tone of "Mother Earth" (reminiscent of Van Morrison's low-pulse pastoral pieces) to the jaunty rhythms of the title track. Perhaps the album's best song is "Come On Make Me", a sensitive, understated glimpse of a woman about to leave her man.

Aboriginal issues come up on "One Eye Johnny", the tale of a happy-go-lucky character, and on "Long Way Away From My Country", written by Broome songwriter, Jimmy Chi.

Bart Willoughby, of No Fixed Address, shares songwriting credits with Howard on the album opener, the pretty "Just A Feeling".

"They were standing on the shore one day/Saw the while sails in the sun/Wasn't long before they felt the sting/White man, white law, white gun"

"Solid Rock" was virtually a hard-rock land rights anthem from a band with an acoustic background. The song had a didjeridoo intro, whalloping beat and a cutting, angry lyric that proceded by several years, Midnight Oil's bicentennial theme song, "Beds Are Burning".

Shane Howard thought this song "might go to about number 37 on the Melbourne charts". It went number 1 nationwide, as did the 'Spirit Of Place' album.

Goanna was hurled into success and, with it, turmoil. The band had always been a crowded house, with a few core members as the foundations. When the success came, even the foundations started to shake.

"Before everything started to happen", recalls Howard, stretching his memory back six years, "the biggest decision we had to make was whether a certain chord fitted into a certain song. And even that was hard enough, hey. But suddenly we're getting calls from the American record company and they're asking questions like, 'What kind of legal and monetary infrastructure have you got for a Statewide promotion? It was just too much."

(Not the least of the band's problems at the time was their manager. He had a machine-gun mouth that could rattle off a million words to the minute. At times his behaviour was somewhat at odds to that of a band that supported various social and environmental issues. On one occasion he threatened to break the arms and legs of this writer. Another time he abused a small Sunday night audience for not bringing the roof down with thunderous applause).

'Oceania' did not come out until early '85, by which time the band, seemingly, had been forgotten by the masses. Howard claims, though, that it sold 40,000 copies. It was an attractive collection of songs, mirroring Howard's travels overseas. He believes it is a far superior album to 'Spirit Of Place'.

However, music industry politics and personal conflicts continued to mount up. Howard headed towards a breakdown and Goanna headed towards oblivion.

For all intents and purposes Goanna appeared to have 'publicly vanished', as Howard puts it. "But we were still touring, mainly through regioonal and country areas." The last gig under the Goanna banner was at Tamworth, in January '87 and it's possible that Goanna will play again. Sometime, somewhere, away from the city.

Since Goanna's Tamworth show, Shane Howard has been trusting his songs to just his voice and his acoustic guitar. ("I lost all my electric equipment in a burglary and took it as an omen that I should stay an acoustic performer"). He found his first effort doing gigs in Kings Cross, which was "pretty grueling" but had a better time of it playing at a restaurant at Airey's Inlet, on The Great Ocean Road, Victoria. ("I'd just go through about every song I'd ever written. It was good practice and not a bad way to try out new, or unfinished material.") He's also busked in Darwin, where a guy nicked his money, only to return later and share a flagon of wine. he also fronted Shane Howard And The Big Heart Band for a little while.

"Down on your good luck/Pack up the old truck/Head for the great Wowhere/And Hope/And pray help'll come in time"

This post consists of FLACs ripped from Vinyl and includes full album artwork for Vinyl, CD and Cassette, along with a copy of the JUKE article transcribed above.   [It was my intention to provide my own FLACs for this post, however my cassette copy did not survive the test of time, and background fluttering noises were present in the captured music. Thanks to Sunshine for saving the day with his excellent FLACs, to replace my previous MP3's].

It should be noted that my cassette cover scans include full lyrics for all tracks on the album (not supplied on Vinyl and CD releases)

This solo release by Howard (his first) is one of his finest in my opinion, along with the follow up album River, and the opening track "Just A Feeling" my personal favourite. I hope you enjoy this album as much as I do.

- New Improved Rip - 

Track Listing:

01 Just A Feeling  5:21

02 Big City Blue  3:16

03 Mother Earth  3:22

04 One Eye Johnny 4:10

05 Long Way Away From My 

       Country *  3:34

06 Back To The Track  3:02

07 Brothers & Sisters  5:16

08 Make No Mistake  3:48

09 Come On Make Me  4:45

All songs written by Shane Howard except * written by – Jimmy Chi

Vocals/Acoustic Guitar: Shane Howard, 

Bass:Pasquale Monea, Bass: Spiro Phillipas, 

Bass Guitar: Jo Imbrol, Bodhrán: Simon O'Dwyer, 

Didgeridoo [Didj]: Shane Howard, 

Drums: Dave Stewart, 

Electric Guitar: Phil Butson, 

Electric Guitar: Simon Curphy, 

Piano/Strings: Marcia Howard, 

Harmonica [Mouth Harp): Steve Gilbert, 

Harmony Vocals: Marcia Howard, Rose Bygrave, Simon Curphy, 

Keyboards [Additional]: Rose Bygrave

Shane Howard Link (231Mb)

New Link 04/10/2026