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: Stiletto - Licence To Rage (1978) plus Bonus Tracks

(Australian 1976-1978)
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Stiletto formed in the Autumn of 1976 and quickly gained a reputation of being a strong feminist band. At that point, their line-up included singer / songwriter Janie Conway on guitar and vocals and Marney Sheehan on bass. Shortly after Chris Worrall joined the band", Janie left. She did some demo tapes, produced by Mike Rudd for EMI, played as a duo with another singer/songwriter, Marney Sheehan (ex-bass player in the original Stiletto line-up) and, finally, in late '78, formed her own rock band, Janie Conway's Scarlet.
Stiletto first appeared on vinyl in July 1977 when they provided the B-side, 'Nights In Parlour', to Red Symon's single "Only A Flipside'. Later in the year, they gained prominence with the release of the Oz Records compilation album, Debutantes, to which they contributed three songs.
Their first wholly Stiletto single, 'Bluebirds', written by Andrew, was followed in August '78 by their debut album, 'Licence to Rage' — unfortunately to become their only LP. Two tracks from the album, 'Goodbye Johnny' and 'Woman In A Man's World' were released as a single (Oz label) in the same month.
In November it was announced that one of their songs, 'Women In Trouble', was to be used on a film soundtrack (other tracks by the band had been used previously on movies). This news was accompanied by some not so good tidings — they were dropped by their record company, EMI. Regrettably, this seemed to precipitate their dissolution.
Chris Worrall left to join Paul Kelly and the Dots. He was replaced by Chris Dyson (ex-High Rise Bombers) and briefly the band seemed to rejuvenate, and even appeared as special guests on Elvis Costello's Melbourne show; but early in 1979 the final decision to split was made.
Jane, Andrew and Celeste appeared in a rock musical,Mickey's Moomba, at the Pram Factory in February-March '79. (Andrew and Celeste in the backing band and Jane in a singing-acting role. Andrew also wrote some of the show's music.) Chris and Eddie were to join a reformation of the Melbourne new wave band, News, but in early '79 were playing with the Romantics [extract from Noel McGrath's Australian Encyclopedia of Rock (1978-79) Yearbook, p94-95]
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Pub Bands - An Ocassional Guide
(Article by Jenny Brown, 'Bottom Line' Newspaper - March / April 1978, p12)
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Half man, half woman! C'est Stiletto, one of Melbourne's few truly underground bands, burrowing upwards toward the light of widerr recgnition.
Stiletto, whilst pretending to a certain cool, are closet flamboyants. Lots of colorand imagery, scrambled genders, and a sort of shivering toughness which has definite appeal.
Constant revolving in the club 'n' pub circuit has polished this sharp little gem of a band until crikey they can really rock. There's been the odd line-up casuality, but always the replacements have been well selected, eventually beefing up the band.

The line-up (at this time) is now Jane Clifton (vocals), Celeste Howden (bass), Chris Worrell(guitar), Andrew Bell (guitar) and Ed Van Roosendale (drums).
Stiletto's repetoire contains some very incentive originals, with a dyed-in-the-wool Melbournian 70's feel. Their interest in women's blues has labelled them a feminist band, but those who think the female members dominate the group may be surprised to know the guitarist Andrew Bell penned the tragicomic "Women In Trouble" (about the long distance adoration and eventual spurning "I wouldn't fuck you with a dog's dick" etc. of an impervious female passer-by building site workers). Also notable are "Premenstrual Blues", "Cream" and many more.

By no means are Stiletto going to set the world alight, but they have earned their tracks on the 'Debutantes' album released by Oz Records this November. They also have the flip-side of Red Symons "It's Only a Flip Side", the single from the album, with 'Nights in the Parlour'.
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Interview with Jane Clifton (circa Music Makers, June 1979,    The Toorak Times)

When Jane Clifton talks about Stiletto, you can’t help but get the feeling that she looks back on her days in a rock’n’roll band not so much with regret as with a wisdom and a knowledge that she didn’t have when the band started.

Comfortably settled into a circuit of activities that includes acting, swingtime/jazz singing, and a late night spot at the Last laugh Theatre Restaurant, she can probably afford to feel that way. But the Stiletto sag, starting off with so much enjoyment and ending in so much disappointment, still looms large in her mind.
“One of the great failings of Stiletto,” says Jane matter-of-factly, “was there was no single central figure to say this is the way ahead, this is the music we’ll play, these are the ideas we’ll have.”

“I firmly believe now that the most successful – in the commercial sense – rock and roll ventures have a typical structure, where there is a central person with an idea around whom other people cluster .“
She pauses a moment, then settles back into her armchair. It’s obviously a long story, and no longer worth telling in too much detail.
“ Like, in the beginning of Stiletto, we just fell into the band. It may have been that the five of us who ended up being together actually chosen people, we might not have chosen each other, for a lot of reasons.”

‘But,” adds Jane with a wry smile, “Stiletto was the band where I finally got to do the whole rock and roll trip, working four or five nights a week, touring…and getting exploited.”
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Jane Clifton’s current relationship with rock’n’roll is what you might call a trial separation. “Right now I don’t think I’ll ever do that trip again,” she says.

“I don’t think I’ll ever give myself totally to rock’n’roll.”
The question of talent versus timing-and-luck comes up. To Jane,the latter is the crucial ingredient, one with which Stiletto was not blessed.
“We were always out of phase.”
“We released ‘Bluebirds’ at the height of when punk was in vogue, so we were stuffed on that one. ‘Bluebirds’ was the pinkest thing we could possibly have put out!”
She laughs it off. Time heals all wounds.

Jane Clifton (vocals), Celeste Howden (bass)

“Then we released ‘Goodbye Johnny’, but by then the wave was over.”

“Our lyrics were out of phase too.”
But Jane, I always thought that was the one thing about Stiletto that was IN phase!
“They were to start with,” answers Jane, ‘and we were singing about interesting stuff that would never be popular within mainstream commercial rock.”

Stiletto never did quite achieve what they wanted i.e.general acceptance. Compounded by an album, as Jane admits, never quite lived up to the promise the band had shown, the band, the concept, and the hopes folded.So how does she come to be performing with a jazz band doing Cole Porter material and the like?
The answer is simple.

She’d always enjoyed slipping into a torch song; even with Stiletto (‘Second Home’ and ‘Nights in Parlour’ were amongst their best songs).

When management of The Flying Trapeze Theatre Restaurant convinced her to take part in their fifth birthday celebrations, her spot was so successful that offers of work began coming in virtually of their own accord.

“Everybody kept saying ‘keep doing it’, and I kept getting offered gigs…it was exactly the same way Stiletto started, totally by accident and seeming like a nice idea.”

“I intend keeping it that way,” continues a worldly wise Jane. “With Stiletto we pushed the idea too far, kept it going too long. With this, as soon as the idea runs out or I get sick of it – I’m going to finish it.”

The obvious question is, do you feel more at home performing this style of music than you were in the rock band?

“Well, they’re both parts of what I wanted to do, Like, I don’t totally think of having left rock behind, but I’d never do it as part of a band.”

‘At the moment I’m getting another part of me out of my system, and learning a whole lot about jazz. Which, for me, is just great.”.  The smile on her face confirms that.
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This post consists of FLACs ripped from my vinyl wuth full album artwork and label scans.  I have also chosen to include 3 bonus tracks, taken from the Aussie compilation album 'Debutantes' (produced by Red Symons) to sweeten the deal. Oh, and keep your ears out for the track "Cream" which has a distinct 'Skyhooks' sound about it, with Jane sounding a lot like Shirley Strauchan.

As an extra bonus for this REPOST, I am also including 2 demo tracks that Stilleto made for their record company in 1977, which never made it on their LP. Thanks to Sunshine for these demos.

Stiletto were certainly an under rated band who deserved greater success and better treatment from their record company. So grab a copy of this rare Aussie album while you can and know that with it comes a License To Rage !

New Improved RIP! with extra bonus tracks

Track Listing

01 - Public Enemy No.1
02 - Licence To Rage
03 - Woman In A Man's World
04 - Bluebirds
05 - Not Too Young For Joy
06 - Goodbye Johnny
07 - Middle Of The Bed
08 - 2nd Home
09 - Rozalyn
10 - The Man (Bonus Track) *
11 - Cream (Bonus Track) *
12 - Nights In Parlour (Bonus Track) *

13 - Dollar Go (Bonus Demo Track) +

14 - Housewife's Son (Bonus Demo Track) +

* Bonus tracks taken from the 1977 compilation 'Debutantes

+ Bonus Demo Tracks 1977 [Thanks to Sunshine at AusRock]
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Band Line-up:
Andrew Bell (Guitar)
Jane Clifton (Vocals)
Celeste Howden (Bass, vocals)
Eddie Van Rosendall (Drums, vocals)
Chris Worrall (Guitar, vocals)
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Stiletto Link (314Mb)

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