Billy Thorpe - Children Of The Sun (1979) + Bonus Single

 (Australia 1956 - 2007)

The album 'Children of the Sun' was released in 1979 and screamed up the US charts. It was a massive success. Billy Thorpe went off on a huge tour with Aztec drummer Gil Matthews and the legendary Leland Sklar playing bass. Then his label, Capricorn Records, went into receivership and the momentum was lost. It was a fantastic success as it was, but it could have been so much more. It was ahead of its time - experimental 'space rock'.

BILLY relates how he ended up in America and met his producer, Spencer Proffer.....

In 1974, the first ever international song competition was held in Albany, New York. I received a call from Helen Reddy, who was phoning live from the Johnny Carson Show in Los Angeles, telling me I'd won one of the categories. They flew me over. The event turned out to be a three day performance at the Albany Bowl. 

Billy with his curly long hair

The Eagles were there, Ray Charles, Richie Havens, Loggins & Messina, the Pointer Sisters, Jose Feliciano, Helen Reddy and about a dozen other major acts, all staying in the same hoteI. It was a hell of an introductlon to the US Music business. After that trip, I realised, I wanted to go overseas. I'd had a career as a child in Brisbane, then with the Aztecs in Sydney, then the Melbourne years, a national TY show, gold and platinum records. I've always thrived on change, and learned a long time ago that the secret of longevity was to reinvent yourself creatively over and over. 

So, by 1976, I'd done everything I could with the Aztecs, and in September that year I left Australia for the US with my wife Lynn and four year old daughter Rusty. I went for a year and stayed for twenty-five.

After the first year, I had a publishing deal with Arista. My green card application contained recommendations from Olivia Newton-John and Barry Gibb. So I was in. Then I met the guy who really helped change the course or my life and my future. His name was Spencer Proffer: a record producer, the youngest guy to pass the California bar exam, the head of United Artist Records at twenty-something and producer of 'Acid Queen' for Tina Turner amongst other things. A great writer and the perfect ear for what I was trying to say.

Record Store Display

Within a month of meeting the Proff, we wrote the song 'Children of the Sun'. That one song led into the 'Children of the Sun' album and we spent a year recording it at Spencer's Pasha Studios in Los Angeles. The record took off big-time in late 1979, and I was away. I can never thank the Proff enough, as well as his longtime engineer, Emmy-Award winner and great guy Laurence 'Larry' Brown. 

All things considered, the early 1980s were a very successfull period in my life in the USA, but musically I'm stiIl not really sure what the 80s was all about. After the extraordinary originality and happenings of the '6Os and early '70s, the '80s was a let down. Yacuous and pretentious. Didn't move to the next step. For the most part, popular music and culture seemed to exist for the sake of itself and business.

After starting the '8Os in the US with a hit album 'Children of the Sun', and playing shows all over the States, I recorded three more albums. The first, 21st Century Man, was a sequel of sorts to Children of the Sun. Then came Stimulation and East of Eden's Gate. As a whole, other than parts of Children of the Sun, I wasn't crazy about any of my US albums. I was definitely chasing or being encouraged to chase the success and groundswell that 'Children of the Sun' had created.. Regardless, tracks from all the albums reached the top ten in many US states and in Canada. The 21st Century Man and Stimulation LP's reached the top forty and the Children of the Sun LP was number one in over forty US states and Canada.

During this period I had the great pleasure of playing with some of America's finest, such as bass legend Leland 'Lee' Sklar (James Taylor, Jackson Browne), who recorded the Children of the Sun and 21st Century Man albums. Touring with the trio with Lee and Aztec maniac drummer Gil 'Rats' Matthews was killer. I also played and recorded with the legendary musicians Jim Keltener, Russ Kunkel, Abraham Laboriel and Jimmy Johnson, had a band with Jimmy and Joe Walsh for about five minutes and also recorded with Earl Slick; Jim Capaldi, Rick Marotta, Buzzy Feiten, Carmine Appice, Bob Glaub, Kai Winding, Neil Bogart and many others.

But the music scene had changed.. Video and make-up strangled the radio star. So much of the new '8Os music was as diabolical shite, and so was what I was doing. I hated the new music and had no connection to it or the audiences that followed it. Nor they to me.

Gil Matthews, Billy and Lee Sklar

SPENCER PROFFER - Billy's US record producer and manager

I loved Billy. I made four albums with him. He was very dear to me. We really clicked - artistically, culturally, intellectually and spirituary. Our relationship wasn't just a gig where I was his producer; we were real partners in a quest for artistic excellence and vision.

When Billy first came to America, I met him at a party put on by Mickey Shapiro, Fleetwood Mac's attorney. I was a kid in my twenties and Billy was only a couple of years older. We talked guitars, we talked rock, we talked music. We really, really hit it off, because Billy was a pure musician, a real artiste, and I'm a fan of real music and I had a pretty decent history of producing rock'n'roll (for artists including Heart, Cheap Trick and Tina Turner).

Billy with producer Spencer Proffer

At the time, somewhere around 1977, Billy was talking to Alan Parsons about possibly working with him. He was searching for a kindred spirit to collaborate with. We started hanging out and got together one night and saw the movie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Both of us had this predilection for outer space. I was reading Cosmos by Carl Sagan, and Bill had a great knowledge of extraterrestrial fantasies. The movie ended when aliens had made contact with Earth, but no one knew what happened next. We went back to my house, picked up a couple of guitars, had a bottle of wine, had some cognac, got a little looped, and wrote this song that took the last scene from Close Encounters to the next level. The song was called 'Children of the Sun'.

We created this fictional race of friendly aliens from another galaxy who were watching Earth self-destruct. They make contact to see what the Earthlings want to do, and give us the option to leave because the world is blowing up. By the end of the song, everyone has left. We decided there could be a journey to this new fictional planet, where Earthlings would intermingle with people from this new planet and start a whole new race. That was the genesis of the 'Children of the Sun' album. We wrote that song and it turned out to be an epic. I thought it was so cool, and I owned my own recording studio called Pasha, at the time. We said, 'Let's put unit together and record this as a work.'

Left to Right- Billy Thorpe, Laurence 'Larry' Brown, Spencer Proffer

We loved The Dark Side of the Moon and the Alan Parsons Project, so we thought we could take those sorts of sensibilities and make a real hard-rock version. Through various social connections, Billy and I hooked up with Lee Sklar, who was playing bass at the time with Crosby, Stills & Nash; and Alvin Taylor, who was George Harrison's drummer and had just come off the road with Eric Burdon. 

We got together one afternoon in my studio and said, 'Let's just jam,' and everyone hit it off like you wouldn't believe. That became the rhythm section for the Billy Thorpe band. We cut  'Children Of the Sun' as a seven minute epic and it turned out really, really tripped out and unique. We decided to build an album around it. We spent eleven months synching up two 24-track machines and we made this album with Alvin and Lee, which Billy brilliantly planned and wrote.

Our hope at the time was pretty ambitious: to ultimately turn it into a live concert play that could be enacted with visuals on stage and, you know, maybe one day when we grew up, we could take something this tripped-out to Broadway. There was even talk at the time with a guy who was running NBC television about turning Children of the Sun into a four-hour miniseries for television. What we ultimately wound up doing was developing a computer-animated laser choreography of the album. I was friendly with the guys who started the whole laser light show technology here in Los Angeles, so Billy and I thought, 'How cool would it be to make this an audiovisual experience for kids by creating a laser light version of the album and bringing the characters to life with computer-animated images, showing it in planetariums?'

And that's what we did. We had the Children of the Sun album played in planetariums across North America. We cross-promoted the shows with the album: people who wanted to buy the record would get a buck off on the laser show, people who saw the laser show would be driven to retail. This was thirty-plus years ago, before it was cool to do this kind of thing. It was very successful at the time. 

After a lot of prodding, the Children of the Sun album got to number one on rock radio across America. lt took an awful long time for it to catch on, it was so ambitious, but for any station that had the balls to play it, it went to number one on request because of Billy's unique voice, his guitar-playing ability, and I had made a pretty unique record of it too. Unfortunately, when that album got to number one, Capricorn Records, the label distributing the record, went bankrupt. We stalled in the trajectory of taking the album beyond 500,000 units. It was a moment in time. We had the laser show happening, we had Billy out on tour selling out 5,000 seat venues - we really felt we were on our way to one of the biggest records of the decade.

We were never able to take it to its logical conclusion but boy, did we have a lot of love in the music and media community. We didn't make a ton of money but we got tremendous press, tremendous accolades.

I put Children of the Sun in my personal top three albums that I have produced, but every single record I made with Billy, every song I cut with him, every song I co-wrote with him, I can still get off listening to them today. I think so fondly, so reverentially and respectfully of Billy. He was a pure artiste and I had nothing but love and respect for him because of that.

Billy's 2nd Tour Group with Linda Ronstadt's Tour Bus

GIL 'RATS' MATTHEWS - Aztecs' drummer

The difference between Billy and me is that I'm a pessimist and he was a complete optimist. If there was ever anything happening, Billy would be frothing at the mouth about how good it was going to be, how many people were going to be there, how much money there'd be and everything else. And I'd be like, 'I'll believe it when I see it.'

After the Aztecs folded and Billy moved to America, we all went our separate ways. Then I got a call and the lunacy started once again.

It was 1979 and I was playing with Mondo Rock. We had a number-one single in Australia with a song called 'State of the Heart', which I performed on and produced. We were playing a show in the snow up at Mount Buller in Victoria and I heard over the PA system: 'International phone call for Mr Matthews.' And I thought, 'Aw, what the fuck is this?'

Warren 'Pig' Morgan & Gil 'Rat' Matthews

So I answered the phone and it was Billy with complete verbal diarrhoea: 'You've got to get over here, Rats, the album is number one, gonna do a six-month tour, playing with Lee Sklar, gonna tour in a bus with a bathroom and lounge, you've got your own roadie, it's gonna be awesome, get on a plane, the album's number one!'And so on. There was no break between his sentences - they seemed to all run into each other and overlap. I couldn't get a word in. 

When I did, I said, 'Billy, I'm up at Mount Buller and I'm happy, I'm enjoying it.' And he just started up again: 'The album's number one, Lee Sklar, six-month tour, huge PA, David Bowie's lighting guy . . .'

Lee's Rig For The Album

I guess I gave in, because I quit Mondo Rock and went to LA. I let him talk me into it, and I've only got Billy to thank for it. When I arrived in LA, Billy picked me up at the airport in the Bricklin - his concept sports car. He gave me the rave: 'Oh, it's got a 351 and the doors are operated by air and it's one of only 150 made.' The first thing that happened was the doors wouldn't go up at the airport, so we had to climb in through the back with my bags. I was just laughing.

He took me to the Century Plaza Towers where Capricorn Records had a private suite and Children of the Sun was a pretty big deal. A band started playing on stage in the convention room, and it was the Blues Brothers.

I went from watching Jo Jo Zep at Bombay Rock in Melbourne one night to watching the Blues Brothers in LA the next. It was the start of the best experience of my life. We did three tours. The second tour was actually with Warren Morgan on organ, me on drums and Billy Kristian, who's a New Zealander, on bass, so it was basically all-Australian.

Billy's 2nd Tour Group featuring Warren Morgan & Gil Matthews

But my fondest memory of that time came during the first tour for the Children of the Sun album, when it was just me, Billy and the legendary Lee Sklar on bass. We were playing this huge show at the Rose Bowl in Dallas, Texas. It was an open-air venue, probably on a scale with the Melbourne Cricket Ground. It was a hot daytime gig, with about 65,000 people. The album was number one in Texas. The line-up for that show included head liners Rush, plus Little River Band. There was actually a bit of a confrontation between Billy and LRB's singer, Glenn Shorrock, because LRB were huge in the States, but because Bill's album was number one in Texas, he wanted LRB to support us. There were words between Billy and Glenn but, from memory, LRB did end up supporting us.

Lee Sklar and Billy at the
Rose Bowl in Dallas

'Children of the Sun', if you listen to the record, starts off with about four minutes of sound effects before the first guitar riff comes in. When we did the tours in America, we used to start the show with the sound effects off the record. We'd be sitting in the wings waiting for the sound effects to finish, at which time I'd do a drum intro.

At this time Billy had grown his hair pretty long, similar to the cover of  'Children of the Sun'. He was impeccably dressed, and we had a couple of back-up singers. The show started off. Here were 65,000 people and they were all really revved up for it because the album was number one. So, the sound effects started, I did a couple of drum fills, Billy walked out on stage, the guitar went up in the air for the big massive opening chord, he brought his hand down across the strings and . . . nothing. Nothing came out.

There were roadies running around everywhere and I distinctly remember turning to Lee Sklar and saying, 'Jesus, nothing's changed.' So we had to start the show again. It was just almighty.

This post consists of FLACs ripped from CD and includes full album artwork for both CD and vinyl, along with label scans. As a bonus, I am also including the Canadian single release of the title track, which features 2 edits of the infamous track (labelled as long and short versions). Thanks to Sunshine for the single rip.  

It is my intention to post Billy's follow up album "21st Century" in the near future, so stay tuned and 'Keep Rockin'.

[Extracts from Billy Thorpe ' Keep Rockin' - Celabrating an Australian music legend. By Lynn Thorpe & Dino Scatena 2010. p159-171]

Track List:

01 Wrapped In The Chains 3:38

02 Dream Maker 3:45

03 Simple Life 5:38

04 Goddess Of The Night 4:22

05 Children Of The Sun 6:45

06 We're Leaving 3:53

07 We Welcome You 4:42

08 Solar Anthem 0:55

09 Beginning 4:15

Bonus Single

10 Children Of The Sun (Long version) 5:39

11 Children Of The Sun (Short version) 4:36

Billy Thorpe - Vocals & Guitar

Leland 'Lee' Sklar - Bass

Alvin Taylor - Drums

Larry Brown - Engineer, Percussion, Synth & Sound Effects Programming

Mike Boddicker - Additional Synth Programming & Playing

Phil O'Kelsy, Steve Kilpner, Randy Bishop - Background vocals

Spencer Proffer - Producer

Billy Thorpe Link (300Mb)

W.O.C.K On Vinyl: Andre L'Escargot And The Society Syncopators (feat. Glenn Shorrock) - Purple Umbrella [45] (1971) + Glenn Shorrock - Let's Get The Band Together [45] (1971) & Rock 'n' Roll Lullaby [45] (1972)

Before things get too serious here at Rock On Vinyl, I thought it might be fun to post a song / album at the end of each month, that could be categorized as being either Weird, Obscure, Crazy or just plain Korny.

Glenn Shorrock is an English-born Australian singer-songwriter. He was a founding member of pop groups 'The Twilights', 'Axiom' and 'Little River Band' as well as being a solo performer during various stages of his musical career.

Glenn started singing for the Australian band 'The Twilights' in 1964, eventually clocking up eight consecutive national hit singles including "Needle in a Haystack" and "What's Wrong With The Way I Live". After the Twilights, he helped form another Australian band with mate Brian Cadd called 'Axiom', which evetually released three top 10 hits:  "Arkansas Grass", "Little Ray of Sunshine" and "My Baby's Gone". 

Axiom toured both Australia and England over a 2 year period, but when Axiom decided to go back to Australia for the second time in 1971, Glenn decided to exit the band and said 'goodbye', choosing to remain in England. Like a lot of other people at the time, he was trying to find himself - his marriage had broken up and he was heavily into meditation, macrobiotic food and all that. He was looking for something to do and Carry Spry, who was in London with The Groove (Eureka Stockade), came to his aid. At that time he was hanging out with other Australians, like the Master's Apprentices, and that's when his relationship with Glenn Wheatley began. 

Carry managed to get Glenn a deal with the management record company MAM, which was owned by Gordon Mills, the manager of Tom Jones, Englebert Humperdinck and Gilbert O'Sullivan. He negotiated a good contract with MAM which paid a weekly wage rather than a big advance. Signed to MAM's publishing arm (which was to eventually prove rather profitable for them), Glenn recorded a considerable number of demos but released only three singles for MAM. Into the picture had stepped Twilights producer McKay, who was also based in London; and the Decca group Quartet, which comprised former Adelaide comrades Terry Britten (his old mate from The Twilight days), Kevin Peek, Alan Tarney and Trevor Spencer (all ex members of The James Taylor Move)

The first single cut by this collective under Glenn's name, "Let's Get The Band Together", stiffed (perhaps because he didn't have a live band together) but the second, Mann and Weil's lovely "Rock'n'Roll Lullaby", at least picked up reasonable airplay. Glenn described the flipside, "When God Plays His Guitar" as 'a pretty good indication of where his head was at around that time.'

Another Shorrock MAM single, the mock-French "Purple Umbrella", was recorded under the alias of Andre L'Escargot & His Society Syncopaters, with his Decca group Quartet backing band. The A-Side was written by Frisco & Head, while the B-Side "Petunia" was written by Shorrock. This single is not well known (probably due to the alias name used by Glenn's group) and has become very much a rarity for record collectors, along with his earlier solo releases.

So for this WOCK post, I am ending the drought on these rarities, and I'm providing all three for your enjoyment.  So, it's not rocket science which box this months WOCK post ticks - Obscure, but also just alittle Weird, based on the group alias he chose for his second single. All singles have been ripped to MP3 (320 kps) and artwork has been included where available.

Single 1971

Glenn Shorrock

01 - Let's Get The Band Together

02 - Contemporary Caveman

Single 1971 

Andre L'Escargot And The Society Syncopators (feat. Glenn Shorrock)

01 - Purple Umbrella

02 - Petunia

Single 1972

Glenn Shorrock

01 - Rock 'n' Roll Lullaby

02 - When God Plays His Guitar
 

Rare Glenn Shorrock Singles (43Mb)

Elvis Costello - Unlicensed [KBFH Live at the The Spectrum, Philadelphia, 11 August 1984] (1994) Bootleg

(U.K 1970 - Present)

In 1984, Elvis Costello and the Attractions released their album 'Goodbye Cruel World' and toured to support it. The album was their last with the original lineup of the Attractions, and it was recorded during a period of tension and disagreement, resulting in a commercially-oriented pop album. The tour included new arrangements of older songs, the single "The Only Flame in Town," and additions like Gary Barnacle on saxophone.

This post features a combined King Biscuit Flower Hour / Grizzly Growl broadcast of a concert with Elvis Costello And The Attractions at the The Spectrum, Philadelphia, 11 August 1984.
Nick Lowe and His Cowboy Outfit (which also featured Paul Carrack and Martin Belmont) opened the show.

This particular concert, in various forms, has been the source of a number of different bootlegs over the years. Unfortunately, none of them are complete. Although 28 songs were played, the known bootlegs contain anywhere from 11 to 23 songs. This particular release only contains 11 tracks, however if you want to hear a 23 track rendition of the concert, then I suggest you pop over to Wolfgang's website which features the legendary archives of concert promoter Bill Graham (born Wolfgang Grajonca).

Recorded on the tour promoting his 'Goodbye Cruel World' LP, this classic King Biscuit Flower Hour performance shows the musical transition Elvis Costello was going through during the mid-80s. His band, the Attractions, had received a facelift with the addition of Gary Barnacle on sax that brightened up many of the new songs in the show, and Costello himself somehow juggles his trademark new-wave sound with the more sophisticated and complex songs he had begun writing and recording at the time.

The classic Attractions line-up consisted of Steve Nieve on keyboards (who, on this tour only, called himself Maurice Worm for some unknown reason), Pete Thomas on drums and Bruce Thomas on bass. Costello and the Attractions had been popular for nearly seven years when this tour was launched, but he had already written and recorded ten albums of mostly short songs. Needless to say, there was a wealth of material to choose from on this tour and some of his greatest songs are featured here. At the time, Costello was enjoying one of the last chart hit singles he would have in his career with "The Only Flame In Town." (see pictured above)

Specific highlights include "Watching The Detectives", "Girls Talk" and "Allison", and of course the always energetic "Pump It Up."

Review (Taken from the Elvis Costello Wiki)

Another Grizzly Growl / KBFH broadcast (why on earth tape two consecutive nights from an artist known for varying his sets considerably during the course of a tour?) and so we get a similar performance and sound which is obviously very clear and professional but just a little too familiar. The band launch into “Let Them All Talk” along with Gary Barnacle’s sax squeals and the pace seems a little modest for an opening track.

A powerful “The Greatest Thing” follows by a frolicking “Mystery Dance” (missing here) though the teasing of the audience with prolonged pauses isn’t yet developed here. The song immediately segues into “Shabby Doll” but the original masters of this recording fail to completely remove the song “Shabby Doll” so we just get a couple of seconds of Bruce’s bass note before the edit takes us into “Girls Talk”. The next two following tracks could not be more marked in terms of verve and musical frission with memories of 1977 and 1978 recalled with “Lipstick Vogue” neatly seguing into “Watching The Detectives”.

Concert Ticket Stubb

I actually bought a transcription L.P. of the KBFH recording of this concert in the late eighties for an absolute fortune - probably pre-1986 (before I got married!) and I’ve just played it for the first time in decades and I’m impressed by the quality of the vinyl at that time.  [Review by area51GM]

This post consists of FLACs ripped from my 'Unlicensed' CD Bootleg, featuring 11 tracks from this KBFH FM broadcast, and uncludes full album artwork. This bootleg has been released under various titles, and some of their respective covers are shown below.

Track List

01 Let Them All Talk 2:56

02 Greatest Thing 3:08

03 Girls Talk 4:01

04 Lipstick Vogue 4:22

05 Watching The Detectives 6:04

06 Club Land 5:52

07 Everyday I Write The Book 4:23

08 The Flame In Town 3:37

09 Getting Mighty Crowded 3:31

10 Allison 4:10

11 Pump It Up / Ain't That A Lot Of Love

/Tears, Tears And More Tears   8:12

Elvis Costello & The Attractions:

Elvis Costello - vocals, guitar; 

Steve Nieve - organ; 

Bruce Thomas - bass; 

Pete Thomas - drums;

Gary Barnacle - sax, flute.

Elvis Costello Link (296Mb)

REPOST: Rose Tattoo - Live at Hordern Pavillion (1978) Bootleg

(Australian 1976-1985)
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Rose Tattoo's performance at Sydney's Hordern Pavilion for Live-to-air broadcast on the soon-to-be national broadcaster, 2JJ. The performance is some time in 1978, and clearly well before the release of their first album in November of that year, given the amount of covers (including a most obscene version of Willie Dixon's "Hoochie Coochie Man"!) they play. This often circulates as being from 1976. An excellent, and I think unique, early Tatts soundboard show, there are a few pops and flashes of static, and the sound is not crystal clear, but it's a very good recording overall. A second of static/silence in track 3 has been eliminated by substituting the same notes from elsewhere in the song.

There seems to be an awful lot of good rock and roll that comes from Australia. Maybe a lot of it gets overlooked in the US because Australia is so far away and we just don’t hear about the bands that work for years but don’t get the big breaks like AC/DC or Silverchair.

Rose Tattoo is one of those bands that never really got that big break in America. They came out of Sydney, Australia, following in AC/DC’s footsteps. The Tatts officially got together in 1976, three years after AC/DC, and released their debut album in 1978, again, three years after AC/DC had led the way with their debut.

I mention the AC/DC connection for a couple of reasons: The bands’ histories are somewhat tied together in that AC/DC drummer Phil Rudd had played briefly in a band called Buster Brown with Rose Tattoo’s singer “Angry” Anderson. The Tatts also made their first public appearance at the rock club Chequers, where several years earlier AC/DC had kicked off their own career. As Rose Tattoo were getting started, they received a fair amount of support from their “older brothers” in AC/DC. Harry Vanda and George Young, who had also produced AC/DC, produced Rose Tattoo’s first four albums. And George Young is, of course, older brother to Malcolm and Angus Young.  

The following is  an extract from 'Angry: Scarred For Life' by Karen Dewey, Iron bark Publ, 1994 
In 1978, ACDC were huge in Australia and were just beginning to take off overseas. They were being handled by Alberts of Sydney, so with all the common gigs, it didn't take long for the Alberts producers to take an interest in Rose Tattoo. They came along to a gig one night, and within a week, Rose Tattoo had an offer to join the Alberts stable.
Angry was totally committed. He loved the lifestyle. He loved Rose Tattoo. He loved the boys club. As he says, it was a special time in the music industry. "In those days there was a real brothers in arms mentality. There was a real camaraderie. You know, members of Sherbert used to come and watch the Tatts. So did members of Ted Mulray Gang, John Paul Youngs band at the time, and other bands who seemingly had nothing in common with us. And vice versa. I've always loved Sherbert, but the reason I so publicly put shit on them in those days was because Angry Anderson, the frontman for Rose Tattoo, would not be expected to love Sherbert, where in truth, I loved pop music. Also, I liked Sherbert because I thought they were better than a lot of the other bands around at the time."Rose Tattoo cut their first single with "Bad Boy (for love)" on the A side, and "Snow Queen" on the B side. Almost as soon as the single was finished, lan Rilen decided to quit the band. That made an opening for Geordie, who'd been hanging around on and off since the band had first started. With Geordie, the boys recorded their first album...it was released under the name of "Rose Tattoo" in Australia, but overseas it had a more punchy title. The importers called it "Rock n' Roll Outlaws".
As soon as the album was out, Rose Tattoo hit the road. They spent the next year living literally out of a suitcase, touring the length and breadth of Australia. They played at just about every pub and club in every small town. They were a small-time band, so they still had to rough it with most things. "First we travelled in a kombi, then in a series of cars...later on when the band got more of a profile we hired cars and vans. I can remember, like so many other people in this country, doing trips to Melbourne where you'd pack the van or the truck so that there was three feet between the top of the stack and the roof where you could put mattresses and the band could sleep. 
.
In the early days we only had one roadie, and Geordie and I used to do the rest. We enjoyed it because it was such physical work."They were very much a boys' drinking band. They were seen as brute macho, so they were recognised as blokes' territory. In all the early photographs, it's hard to spot a female face in the first few rows of the audience. There's just rows of men, reaching out to Angry, faces twisted with the noise, and the heat and the push from the crowd behind.

They started making big news. Towns geared up for their arrival weeks in advance. In many places having Rose Tattoo arrive in the main street was something like playing host to a freak show. Angry and the boys looked out of place enough in the city, but in some of the country towns, they stood out so severely they looked more like they came from another planet. Loyal fans turned up everywhere, and word travelled quickly about the sensation they were causing at live gigs.
The band went through good times and bad times. "We broke up and reformed all the time...we were irrational, taking lots of drugs, doing lots of booze, living on the road. We shuffled members, and we'd have a disagreement and walk out saying 'That's it', but two weeks later we'd be crying on each other's shoulder and looking forward to the next tour."  (p97-98)
Just as the first album was climbing slowly up the charts, Rose Tattoo got a new manager. His name was Robbie Williams. He was a committed rock promoter, who had tremendous faith in the band. He believed wholeheartedly they could make it to number one worldwide. He had absolute confidence in Angry as a dynamic frontman, and he believed he had the talent and charisma to be the next big name in rock.
.

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Once with the band, Robbie decided he was there for the long haul. Rose Tattoo weren't an easy band to manage. They were unreliable, irrational, and usually drunk, but he believed in the band, so he ended up staying until the very last gig years later.
The band's profile grew, and as they got bigger, Angry's stage antics got wilder. He became as extravagant and as outrageous as the crowd wanted him to be. They'd yell for blood, sweat and tears, and Angry would deliver. He was the tragic, drunken outlaw, the bad boy of rock and roll at his worst. No one knew what to make of him. He was dangerous, radical, and stupid. He had one trick on stage that shocked even the hardest fans. "When we wrote the album there's this song on it called 'Suicide City'. It's about Canberra because Mick told me that there was this article talking about how Canberra has the highest suicide rate of any Australian city. 

So we wrote a song about it. We used to do this as the last song in the set. So what I used to do...I'd sometimes put a plastic bag over my head till I passed out. All the audience can see is the eye sockets, and the plastic bag pumping in and out over the mouth. The crew would all rush over after I'd passed out, and thump my chest."
He had another trick too, which was just as obscene. "At the end of 'Suicide City' it gets into a really crazy thing. It's supposed to be insanity, and I'd strangle myself with the microphone cord until I passed out."
This was the dark side, the madman. It was the side that frightened everyone, even Angry himself. Pete used to talk about it, saying there was something magic in the drama of rock and roll. He used to say, "You know you've made it as a rock performer when the crowd comes just to see whether or not you die." As Angry says now, there's no doubt that's why some of the fans were there. If it ever happened, they wanted to play their ghoulish part in history. And, the fact was, if there was an Australian rock star likely to go to those extremes on stage, Angry Anderson would surely have taken honours on top of the list. (p102-104)
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This bootleg post contains FLACs sourced from the web many moons ago (thanks to the original uploader) along with full album artwork and all photos displayed above. This is truly a rare early recording of the Tatts when they were just starting out, and thanks to blog follower jrgardy the date for this gig has been identified as Jan 1st, 1978 (see Setlist), a gig not to be missed.

      New Improved Rip !
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Track Listing
01. Astra Wally
02. Bad Boy For Love
03. Hoochie Coochie Man
04. You Really Got Me
05. Sweet Love

Only a 26 minute show but very rare radio broadcast at the time when founding member, bass player Ian Rilen was around
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Rose Tattoo Link (174Mb)
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Southern Lightning - Down The Road (1986) + Bonus Single

(Australian 1978 - 1988, 2014-2020)

Southern Lightning were a heavy blues band from Melbourne comprising of Dave Hogan (vocals, harmonica), Nik Guselev (bass), Louie Black (drums) & Manny Seddon (guitar). This album was produced by Trevor Courtney & John French. Southern Lightning had a very similar sound to George Thorogood & The Destroyers, and Dave Hogan's vocals could be easily mistaken for Thorogood's anyday.

Southern Lightning were formed in November 1978, when drummer Louie Black put an ad in Rolling Stone looking for a harmonica player and guitarist. It read: “Please, please if you do not know blues do not waste our time.” Adding Nik Guselev on bass, Dave Hogan on vocals and harmonica and Manny Seddon on guitar, Southern Lightning quickly made an impact on the club and festival scenes becoming Melbourne's premier blues rock band on the pub based live music circuit. Southern Lightning opened on tours for B.B. King, Canned Heat, Roy Buchanan, John Mayall and Long John Baldry. During this period they recorded two albums: 'Down The Road' in 1986 and 'Southern Lightning' in 1987.

Southern Lightning

In 2020 a compilation 'Muddy Waters Blues' was released comprising their first two albums remastered from the original vinyl, together with bonus live tracks from a 2014 Reunion (with John Stax on bass), and a laidback 2019 revisiting of "Muddy Waters Blues" by Dave Hogan and Manny Seddon, cut at Manny's home studio. [Info thanks to Kimbo at History Of Australian Music]

Stop Press: There was a lead up article published by Beat in 2014, regarding the proposed release of the compilation by the reformed band, and is worth a read

Band Members

During their time together they only released 2 singles and 2 studio albums, as detailed below:

SINGLES
''Down The Road / Stones In My Passway'' 1986 Cleopatra
''Moonlight Street / Don't Call Me Mister'' 1987 Cleopatra

ALBUMS
'Down The Road' 1986 Cleopatra
'Southern Lightning' 1987 Missing Link
Compilation 'Muddy Waters Blues' 2020 Implant Media

Southern Lightning On Stage

This post consists of Mp3's (320) ripped from vinyl (thanks to BrianL at Midoztouch2) and includes artwork and label scans. As a bonus, I am also including their single which was taken from their LP - "Down The Road"/"Stones In My Passway" - however the 2 tracks have been ripped to FLAC (thanks to Tygerhead at Heavy Metal Rarities). 

My favourite tracks are "Muddy Waters Blues" and "Blues For Breakfast" which feature some great vocals, harp, guitar work, and the wonderful Robert Johnson blues standard "I Believe" which closes the album.  The only disappointment is the low resenance of the recording, requiring a higher than normal volume setting to really enjoy this album.  Perhaps the remastered released in 2020 might have a better sound, but regrettably, I have yet to source a copy. 

Track Listing:

01 I Ain't Superstitious

02 Down The Road

03 Muddy Waters Blues

04 Shame Shame Shame

05 Stones In My Passway

06 Love Shock

07 Blues For Breakfast

08 I Believe

Band Members:

Dave Hogan (Vocals, harp)

Manny Seddon (guitar)

Nick Guselev (bass)

Louie Black (drums)

Southern Lightning Link (154Mb)

REPOST: Peter Cupples - Fear Of Thunder (1982) + Bonus Tracks

(Australian 1981 - 1984, 1995 - Present)

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Peter Cupples has been delighting Australian audiences for three decades. Originally with ‘Stylus’ in the late 70’s, then through the 80’s with the Peter Cupples Band featuring the likes of ‘David Hirshfelder’, ‘Virgil Donati’, ‘Ross Ingles’ and ‘Rob Little’.
Cupples is known by most singers as ‘the singers singer’ and is widely respected by his peers.
Some of his biggest fans come from far and wide ‘Bill Schnee’ producer of ‘Boz Scaggs’ Amy Grant’and ‘Huey Lewis and the News’, ‘legendary horn arranger ‘Gerry Hay ’ and ‘Harvey Mason’ to name a few.

He was the first white singer to sing on the Motown label with ‘Stylus’ and has always maintained a deep respect for soul music. Over the last few years Cupples has released two albums, a standards album entitled ‘About Time’ and another home grown album called ‘The Golden Miles’ where Cupples does his own arrangements of Aussie classics. My favourite is Goanna's Solid Rock - have a look at this video below.

So how did the Peter Cupples Band form? [extract from his now defunct website]
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As Stylus slowly broke up I started working on some new musical projects. A small band evolved and we took up a residency at The Hatters Castle in Melbourne. There was myself, Sam McNally, Mark Myer and Joe Creighton. I was happy to be off the road back at home and playing regular local shows. The touring had really worn me out, and this was where I wanted to be at this time in my life. Mark and Sam moved to Sydney and were replaced by two superb musicians, David Jones and David Hirschfelder. They had been playing in the critically acclaimed jazz outfit Pyramid with Bob Vinier on horns.

We hooked up with Mike Clarke on Bass, Linda Cable and Bill Harrower and started playing at the Grainstore Tavern. This band was musically superb. We played a number of my songs and often just belted out an extended blow session of sounds. We were creative and instinctive and this was a great time for me musically. The two Davids and Bob, along with Mike's work, formed an amazing outfit. This band pushed me to write some different music. I moved away from the soul genre and I wanted to explore new frontiers with my writing. This was the time that "Fear Of Thunder" was born. The song itself was really out there. It was exciting and different. It was me expressing the new direction that I had discovered around this time. It didn't fit into any specific musical category and, hence it was when recorded, a difficult record to pitch commercially. It was rock, pop, soul, reggae…. A publishers dream and a record companies nightmare!!
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I was, and still am, very proud of the 'Fear of Thunder' album. or as I like to call it FOT. It was a vehicle for all of the musical influences of my career to date, and it was a new direction for me going forward. I had written these songs over a period of about 2 years, and was waiting for the opportunity to put them down in the studio.
The players on the album, read like a Who's Who of Australian music at the time. Besides David Hirschfelder, Ross Inglis, Rob Little and Virgil Donati, the album featured Tommy Emmanuel, David Jones and many other world class players.
The styles were abundant. There was rock, pop, ballads, reggae, soul and funk. Yet it flowed from song to song, and despite its diversity of sounds and moods,it was all very much a cohesive set of contemporary tunes.
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.From the rock of the title track and "Our Evolution" to the ballad "I Remember". The sweet soul Stylus sound of "Sweet Summer Nights", with Ashley and Sam providing a familiar feel, and the boppy "Blame It On the Weather", a song also released by John Farnham around this time. "Here We Are" was a magic studio track that sounded just right from the start in much the same way that "Make Believe" had some 7 years earlier.
It was a kaleidoscope of sounds and images that had flowed out of me during this musically exciting period of my life. People still come up to me, 20 years later, and tell me that 'Fear Of Thunder' is their favourite Cupples album of all time.
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The band played the Melbourne pub band circuit in the early 80's when pub rock was big business around town. We loved what we were doing, and we felt that we were forging ahead and defining new trends in music. We had a decent publicity machine behind us, and generated a good amount of interest in Australia and overseas. We supported some top overseas artists and received critical acclaim. The album and singles sold well, particularly in Melbourne, but we never received the commercial success that we needed to take the band to the next level.

We never managed to put together the sound that was needed for a big Aussie hit. Maybe we were a bit too different, maybe the timing wasn't right.. - it's hard to say - but we were playing the music we loved playing, and our loyal fans followed us around the circuit as we continued in our pursuit of success.

We started working towards the second album "Half The Effort Twice The Effect". The songs had already become part of our set, and the fans had received them well. We had enough material to put down a follow up to F.O.T. It was just a matter of working out with the record company which direction the album would take.
However, for the second time in my career I had reached a stage where the constant drain and grind of touring had worn me down. Similar to the end of the Stylus years, this period in the Peter Cupples Band signaled to me that it was time for a new direction in life.
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Peter was still gigging back when I first posted this album on the blog back in 2011, doing mostly solo stuff but also tied up with the legendary Jon English to form "Uncorked". They embarked on producing a lifestyle type program based around our music, wine, food and travel, all rolled in together. They played together at a number of vineyards, and filmed a pilot special in Tasmania earlier that year. They were hoping to expand the show, to cover the other parts of Australia, if they secured a network deal 
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The post is a vinyl rip in FLAC format taken from my pristine copy of the album. I have included full album artwork for vinyl only, along with a selection of photos. Also included are a couple of singles, his big hit "Believe In Love" and a non-album B-Side track "Dryin' Time (thanks to Sunshine).
Although the album was released on CD back in 2005, it is no longer available from Cupples website which now appears to be defunct.
Nevertheless, there are more recent titles available, so have a look at his Facebook Page
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                      New Improved Rip !

Track Listing

01. Fear Of Thunder
02. Here We Are
03. You Never Know
04. Later Tonight
05. Our Evolution
06. Blame It On The Weather
07. I'm On Fire
08. I Remember
09. Sweet Summer Nights
10. I'm Into You
Bonus Tracks
11. Believe In Love (A-Side Single)
12. Dryin' Time (B-Side Single)
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Band Members:

Vocals – Peter Cupples
Keyboards – David Hirschfelder
Bass – Mike (Kelly) Clarke, Robert Little, Roger McLaughlin
Drums – Trevor Courtney, Virgil Donati
Guitar – Peter Cupples, Ross Inglis, Tommy Emmanuel

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Peter Cupples Link (390MB) 

New Link 11/11/2025