Issue 4 (2)

I’m back!
And I don’t mention
the Mighty Tiges once!! (oops..)
Hello and welcome. After one month and one day with a lower back problem,
I am at last back in the land of the vertical. I cannot express the joy I
feel to be be TALL again and of being able to do THINGS. But, let me tell
you… after all that long time being idle, I came back ready to do EVERYTHING!
All charged up and full of beans (or should that read full of shit?) Anyhoo,
so it’s back to work, meaning lots of studio recording with a smattering of
good gigs thrown in. Last Thursday we did a gig which was recorded and filmed
for a DVD, which is soon to be released (or so we’re told). It features a
few of our old mates and a few people I had not seen before. It gave us a
chance to use a few extra players i.e. Jimmy Sloggett (kb and sax),
Pip Robinson (flute) and Brenden Mason (guitar). I even got to debut on lap
steel (open E tuning) during the free-for-all finale. A good time was had
by most. read
more

Dealer of the month
17.11.03 Brenden
Mason, seen here cradling a Gibson Super 400 he’s currently restoring,
is our dealer of the month. Again, not a CD retailer, but a partner in the
well known guitar retail and repair shop,

back to the top

Real Guitars, located in High St Glen Iris. Brenden looks after Bill’s and
my guitars and so comes highly recommended. There’s a great range of guitars
of every persuasion on display, so it’s worth a visit just to check them out.
I guess I’ve been taking my guitar (and mandolin) problems to Brenden for
fifteen or more years now, so that makes me either a satisfied customer or
someone determined that he’ll get it right eventually.
Ian Holding (now that’s the name of a dealer!) is Brenden’s partner.
Ian rides a motor bike to work, which signals an underlying optimism if nothing
else.
Brenden was one of the founding members of Madder Lake, which explains the
enormous toilet bag he carries around. He’s now providing tasty guitar licks
for Forever Young and does the occasional gig with the Blackfeather reincarnation.
He’s even played a few songs with Spectrum at the Seasons of Change gig.
Real Guitars 1535 High
St Glen Iris (03) 9885 0020

Robbo’s Blah
#1
Hello everybody. Welcome to my very first Robbo’s BLAH….isn’t it exciting
(yeah right). First off I must say that I’m still getting over the second
Grand Final loss in a bloody row and I was there for both of them…*!#!*?#%!#!*?%#!BRISBANE!!!
My black & white Collingwood heart is still hurting (shut up Bill and
stop laughing Mike).All I can say now is GO WALLABIES!!!!
Musically I’ve been keeping kind of busy with teaching, gigs, recording and
rehearsals for various projects and hopefully with the warmer months ahead
the gig scene will improve and Spectrum might get more gigs…YAY!

On a final note, if there’s anyone out there interested in learning to play
drums and/or percussion, I am available for tuition. You can contact me via
the website or at a gig or by e-mail on peter_robbo59@hotmail.com
I’m going to go now…it’s been fun and I’ll catch up with you next time.
Come and say Hi at a gig real soon. Cheers….Robbo

The Promoters
I’ve taken this month’s theme title from a recent book
by Stuart Coupe about the Australian music industry. It semed particularly
relevant because Bill and I have just returned from a couple of days in Queensland
where we were the only musicians invited to help celebrate Phil Jacobsen’s
60th birthday – unless you count guys who sing and strum guitars to pre-recorded
backings as musicians, and I don’t. (It’s a moot point anyway – we were invited,
and they were, somewhat depressingly, employed). Perhaps I should explain
that Phil Jacobsen was Spectrum and Ariel’s manager in the ’70s. In fact,
Phil acknowledged in his birthday speech that it was my asking him to be Spectrum’s
manager that changed him from a typical boring accountant to one of the most
powerful men in the Australian music industry. Mike Gudinski, Frank Stivala
and Michael Chugg, the unholy trinity of Australian Rock, were at the party,
and Phil was

(and still is) the largely unseen presence that makes their risky and occasionally
outlandish deals stick (It was kind of heart-warming to see the re-uniting
of Chuggy and Gudinsky over the two days – there’d been some sort of feud
happening and they hadn’t talked to each other for some time apparently).
Anyway, Bill and I were greeted by all and sundry like long-lost bosom buddies.
You could see them relax when they saw us. Tame musos. There were
some odd moments though. For instance, Chuggy was shocked to hear from Bill
about Barry Sullivan’s death. There wasn’t anything about it in the straight
press, but this is a man with his finger on the pulse and he hadn’t heard?
But it’s when you try and engage these men in conversation that you discover
how short their attention span is if the talk isn’t about money – or, in Philip’s
case, money and horses. That’s not to say they’re not often funny and outrageous,
and even occasionally very generous and genuinely concerned, it’s just that
they’re mostly rude and obnoxious and preoccupied with one-upping each other.
It’s simply the reality of the symbiosis. Musicians, and artists in general,
are more concerned with their art and having a good time with their art, than
about money. That’s why there are promoters, agents and managers. (And record
companies for that matter).
The highlight of the trip was when we got in touch with Ian ‘Harv’ Harvey,
an old mate who lives just out of Eumundi. I’ve actually known Harv’s wife
Jeni for longer than Harv – she was Paul Grant’s girlfriend in the Instant
Replay days, and my late wife Helen took a shine to her then. Harv and Jeni
have been going through some tough times lately, with the result that Harv
is effectively living on his own. He’s recently got up a second band called
the Pleasure Kings, and he played us a CD of part of a live performance they’d
recorded just a couple of weeks earlier. He’d taken the sound unaltered direct
from the FOH desk, and I have to say it was absolutely stunning – both from
a sound and performance perspective.
Harv’s mate Eddy (Eddy Van Driver) arrived, and it was decided we’d drive
up to Noosa in Harv’s jade green Parisienne and have lunch. It felt like we
were cruisin’ in our own American Grafitti movie (the Parisienne is enormous
and has no seat belts), and it proved to be a very pleasant, and probably
very necessary interlude from the jostling of egos back at the party.
That night we were back in Noosa for the second stage of the extravaganza.
Bill and I had brought our guitars and harps with us in case the opportunity
presented itself for us to perform for Phil as our joint birthday gift. (Phil
had very kindly paid our return airfares, but we still couldn’t afford a gift
of any significance). We toyed with the idea of following Phil around all
day like a couple of really annoying minstrels, and we had actually accompanied
him with some of Bill’s instrumentals as he had a fag on the verandah that
morning, but Eric Robinson had something more formal in mind for the restaurant.

That night the speeches from Eric, Chuggy and Gudinski were typically crude
and funny – and very revealing. Phil’s softer, family-oriented side was exposed
in a joint speech from his daughters Kate and Emma, and there was a very funny
race call done with a number of Phil’s (and the Dundas Lane consortium’s)
horses involved, but…
read
more

Chuggy meets Putty
The
people you meet when you haven’t got a gun! Chuggy waves to the camera as
he weaves along Phil Jacobsen’s verandah in Verrierdale Qld. All the music
industry heavies were there to wish Phil a happy 60th birthday – and so were
Bill and I. Find
out more

Seasons of Change
For
a full wrap-up of the Seasons of Change concert, check out Stop
Press (pic – Bob Spencer does ‘Rosie’) (Mind you, I missed Kerri Simpson’s
performance, so it’s not a totally full wrap-up, but it’s a reasonably comprehensive
full wrap-up..)

Events Warehouse gig
Mike had an uncertain
day with his balance, at one stage tripping over a lead and sprawling headlong
onto the polished wood floor – but otherwise, the EW gig was an outstanding
success. Read about
it..

This month’s highlights
in

Holy Christmas
Batman! What happened to the year?
18.11.03
I have to admit it – this time of the year really pisses
me off. Why can’t we let Christmas just sneak up on us, instead of starting
two months out with the guilt-inducing commercial claptrap that hammers at
our fragile psyches? But what galls me the most are the endless ranks of talentless
children who feel obliged to inflict their instrument of choice on a hapless
public, tunelessly garbling the same bloody carols from every conceivable
shopfront. Parents should not encourage this tendency, even though it’s nice
to get the little, and not so little darlings out of the house. It simply
adds to the general air of grumpiness and panic that pervades the streets
as we last-minute-larries buy boxes of cheap Christmas cards to send to our
annually rediscovered relatives and OS acquaintances.
Christmas as we know it is a joke. So we have a holiday. Hooray. But let’s
drop the religious connotations and the northern hemisphere depths-of-winter
trappings, and create in its stead a real Aussie celebration of mateship and
over-indulgence – with NO CAROLS!!!!!!!!!!

G’day
18.11.03 Well, here we are again – another month’s deadline missed
by a mile. This home page will probably have to do into the New Year. You
can still catch up with all the latest news in Stop Press and the gigs are
still on the Gigs page.
I’ve been getting some good correspondence re’ the downloading
and related issues – keep the e-mails rolling in!