26march2012
1975, seems like the next starting point, which starts with the end of a cyclone, named Tracy in Darwin. me, just hanging round the carnival that came every school holiday. they had a day where all proceeds went to the cyclone sufferers, most of evacuated to somewhere else, as i remember. i was looking forward to getting my first dole check, didn't happen. i went all that time , like 4 weeks or something not to get it. apparently, i ticked a box wrong , maybe this was the story of my life. i had a few apprentice jobs lined up, i got one in the mines as a fitter and turner, didn't start till January something. i think the question was are you ready for full time employment i ticked no, cause of the mine job. i should have ticked yes, i done myself out of weeks of dole.
29march 2012
looking back and thinking about it , the carnival thing was more early on than this, i had other friends and we'd hang two miles away at figtree riding bikes and such, the carnival was more a 7 till 10 thing, and at that time money was not a big part , cause you didn't have much, basically scrounging. there was bottles , copper wire , rabbits, and the paper in the phone box trick. when i remember those days of sharing things like cigs, you'd never share these days like that, maybe the youngsters do, and the price now is ridiculous, i don't smoke no more anyways, but a lot of 1975 was spent smoking marlboro and winfield. people would come up and ask for a drag of your fag , and drag the guts out of it, i hated that. they'd check out the name typed on the bottom , not many smoked marlboro, they called them sterile sticks and wouldn't like them . so that was ok.
31march2012
on the music front, i had a few lps as mentioned before, these consisted mainly of lps from the australian cbs recorded club, advertised on the back of certain magazines , you got a number of records (6 in my case) for like $1.99, then you had to buy 1 a month for however long , 1 year i think, at their price, $1 more than the shop, i got a lot of zappa , alice cooper , pink floyd and such from there. on the local front, on the telly was sound unlimited with graham webb and donny sutherland, countdown was just starting really, i didn't go too much on that but watched it anyways , probably for 1 song if that. the big hits in aussie acts where, sherbet - summer love, john young(later jpy) - yesterdays hero, you know i use to like his pasadena song a few years before, mostly vanda and young written ditties. skyhooks with horror movie, i loved this when i first heard it on 2sm radio months earlier , a big hit on countdown, i also liked sherbets, free the people in 1971, i didnt really go much on the later stuff. acdc had the high voltage album out, i never had that although i did play the b side of a single called soul stripper on the jukebox some places, which was also on that album. as far as albums went there was very few australian albums with more than 3or 4 songs which were any good, mainly singles. the albums which i did have were hush alive and buffalo - volcanic rock, and these where later from the record club.
3april2012
don't know if that pilot song January was a hit then or the next year but it sure was hanging on me. other things i remember were joe cocker and alice cooper both in trouble in aussie land . with the mine job , i should have learn t from the tick on the dole form. i passed the test with 96%, the guy wondered why i only got average mark in the s.c., that's pretty easy i wagged the last 4 months of school , the work i did in the first months helped me just scrape in, i didn't give a shit, but that's 1974. i did the medical out the joint coal board bellambi, blow as hard and as long in these little dunny roll things and keep the pen flowing along the paper, piss in a beaker. then, came the interview with the hierarchy of the pit. old codgers, different world, boats on weekends, houses and shit, i had none of it, sad really. on the way home from up the mountain , i waved at the the bus to stop, the old prick just kept going, long walk home , but i got the job. i'll tell you something if i had a bit better home life things would have been different, maybe it's cliche , but it's all so true. they were real jerks at the mine, you don't know how sad it is to write this. not a happy time.
4 april12
most of the other apprentices were sparkies and only a few fitters, they all started weeks earlier and had fitted in already. the big cruel was to be greased the first week, today this practice would be criminal , though i bet it still goes on, i copped it pretty bad from one arsehole sand and graphite grease, them big bosses just looking on . well that was over with, i wasn't all that healthy, i had asthma attacks regularly since i was young and did smoke. the mine wasn't really good for me, misfit. i never missed a day. i only lasted 3 months , i got an ear ring a they couldn't handle it , i was doomed,
6april12
there are always other involved with incidents , with the mine, i could go on, but i have to move. all i can say really, is i didn't say. i told the old man when it was to late, probably to avoid the row. thanks to hitler , he flow off the handle, as always. not for the first time i was out somewhere else. them days there was only the street, none this shit they have today. i done it tough for a week or so, decide to go home when there was just mum there. she was sick with worry, and told me to stay, the old man didn't matter. so i was, i wont say home, but i was there. i eventually got the dole of $26 a week, it was weekly then.
8april12
the dole money helped to pay my record club debt , which was stopping me from buying any other releases elsewhere. i was just going home late, sleeping, then hitch into town and hang around pool halls, dead end. this went on and on , at one stage i was 7 and a half stone, didn't eat much. when i think about it, i left the mine in may, a few things happened in that time at the mine, quite a few really. one in particular comes to mind, the old man probably got tried of driving me to work in the morning, he bought another shitbox , and rather sell the old one he gave it to me. i couldn't drive , anything really, it was a manual. i told some dickhead mates, they done the old come on lets do it over and over. i should of not even been hanging with them dickheads, we'd just hang at the pool joints till late , and i'd have to go to work in the morning all fucked up. i talked the old man into letting me have the car on friday night, i had a friend with a licence. i dont know who was more a dickhead me or the ol boy, i got the car. i had heard of a band called hawkwind , if you listen to them it was like tripping, from one of the sparkie apprentices. so, my big plan was to buy this hawkwind stuff and drive around like tripping, i had my sister's cassette player, we drove into town a big pile of us, i bought the space ritual tape, played it , waiting to see if it was like tripping, what a gip. we drove all round the place, the dickheads enjoying driving my car, we drove to sydney and back till real early like 2am. one by one they all got dropped off , till there was only 2 of us the other guy lived in dapto, he drove there and left me , i couldn't drive, i tried but was shit at manual , i was only young, the guy said he'd drive me home in the morning. he drove down near the pub a left me there. i walked home and told the old man. that was the end of the car.
13 april 2012
that car incident comes to mind when i see that simpsons episode, when bart got the licence, similar. there's lots of them early episodes that have things that have common with my adventures. i get teary sometimes watching that show , probably the dysfunction. getting back to this, i could go on with them dickheads, but there's plenty more where they came from. i drifted into another scene in a pool hall/snooker room in town just a couple of school friends , and other pool hall dudes. it had always been a friday night thing, now, it was everyday. playing snooker, kelly pool and pinball. i also started to hang out with some german dudes down the road , from my olds place, in between us was a border line, so they went to dapto and we went to figtree high school. here is where i first heard the plastic ono album, the elder brother had a good record collection. i had to have that album, it spoke to me, it wasn't in the shops had to order it and wait, as i remember $5.95 with an extra lyric sheet, and a little bit of censoring in a few words, that was ok though , i played that album for awhile after i got it. working class hero some lines in that were me, i'm no hero though. they hurt you at home and they hit you at school.
15 april 2012
the timing could not have been stranger when i ordered that album , as i remember. the guy in the record shop said i was lucky to order it when i did, for some reason it was the last or something. anyways one of them dickheads got a half house in town, so the boys from boystown had a home , fagans lair. them dickheads were always in and out of boys homes. the funny thing with me going there, he got me to make some bake beans on toast , and for some reason i got my appetite back and started eating again. they had a few albums there mainly david bowie. they got welcome to my nightmare and venus and mars, thats where i first heard them albums. on my way to there one day i noticed an apple record on a turntable in a department store , display type of thing, john lennon , rock'n roll , although it didn't have a cover , i got it, they didn't like it much. i loved stand by me, but at that time it didn't fit in with the times, even today some of them songs can't be compared with the originals. i thought stand by me was his, actually i thought most of it was. i liked just because too, still do. i think it's as good as the original.
18april 2012
the john lennon rock 'n roll didnt really get a play all that much, 3 songs don't make an album. with the record club it was hard cause you didn't really know if the record was good or not, a few hit and misses, the hush alive was a miss, as was this lot santana welcome, status quo piledriver, alice cooper muscle of love although it did have 1 song i liked. i just got greatest hit things after awhile like alice cooper greatest , i got love it to death that was ok, and wish you where here and ian hunters solo that had a couple on it, led zepplin 2 and 4, when they brought out presence , i sort of went off them a bit, the physical graffiti was a bit out of the reach in the finance department, i loved apostrophe and overnite sensation by frank, but blew it on a few other of his releases that didn't cut. i had a few albums before this, but these mentioned here were mainly 1975 .i thought i bought a single this year but i never did.
19 april 2012
the fashion at that time, say for teenages to early twenties, was long haired hippy look, parted in the middle. there was skinheads mainly in sydney, and sharps or sharpies ,they had hair styles a bit like mullets of today, but short on top and a bit long in the back. the guy who had the half house flat was a bit of a sharpie, he had the word sharp tattooed on his fore arm , sad looking thing that. started off okay, then drifted down , so the r and p were about half inch under the s , rather than straight across. i just wore levis or californians , type of corduroy material type of levis other than denim. thongs or dessert boots. western shirts were popular and lumber jackets and duffel coats. t-shirt with pocket for the cigs. others wore pjs a brand of baggy jeans. there was high platform thongs(flip flops) and scaps or slaps or something , soft material amd strips of bamboo, they always broke. ugg boots had been around for a few years, so was most that has been mentioned. other jean types were amco and lee , amco had bogarts , flaired jeans with a crease sewed down the centre and trouser type pockets , i had them , also. i had them ruff tats too on my arm since 1971, i got them covered later that year, with brought ones up kings cross.
21april2012
i asked this bloke today about those thong things, and they were called slaps. funny they were popular, but flimsy things , we used to fix them with safety pins. when i was finishing at the mine , there was talk about another bloke who lasted 10 months and couldn't handle it or something . strange coincidence i actually hang around that guy at the pool hall. he was a bit older than me by a few years, a hippy really, thought i can play catch up but never make it, thats something that really shitted me with hippies. his reasons for leaving the mine, i dont think i ever really got an answer, although we sometimes we hung out together, i never felt part of that scene, he had all the , or his sister did, john lennon albums, i said i bought the first one, and it was, some other ones better, anything you can do i can do better. being my age in 1975, you got that.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Monday, March 19, 2012
continue
20march 2012
continue? yeah i thought about this , you know most just wanna read the little richard thing or get the john peel. that's okay i would probably do the same, my blog ain't so different from the other thousand million . there's just one little difference from the others and that's me, and me is why i'm doing this. it's for me by me to me, and if i get a reader or someone gets something out of it ,well fine. this blog is called continue so i'll keep continuing, the band blog will continue sometime, the relevance just happens and continues. you know , i could easily make this a book, that's not really the intention . it's the continuing boredom of the internet in general, i'm sure there's someone somewhere, who's real interesting , but i cant be bothered with it all.
10april2012
looking for something , i came across some old tapes i transferred to mp3 , everyone done a version or tried to play the house of the rising sun, here's mine , use the password rsun96
continue? yeah i thought about this , you know most just wanna read the little richard thing or get the john peel. that's okay i would probably do the same, my blog ain't so different from the other thousand million . there's just one little difference from the others and that's me, and me is why i'm doing this. it's for me by me to me, and if i get a reader or someone gets something out of it ,well fine. this blog is called continue so i'll keep continuing, the band blog will continue sometime, the relevance just happens and continues. you know , i could easily make this a book, that's not really the intention . it's the continuing boredom of the internet in general, i'm sure there's someone somewhere, who's real interesting , but i cant be bothered with it all.
10april2012
looking for something , i came across some old tapes i transferred to mp3 , everyone done a version or tried to play the house of the rising sun, here's mine , use the password rsun96
9june2012
today i went round to see the bloke who had the cardboard record , mainly to find out a few things. if you dont know, i do some charity work fixing old computers . this new guy in for a few weeks, we started talking about where we're from and such, he lives out my old suburb. coincidence , too many, get this, he moved there in 1983, i moved out 1983. from where he moved is the same street as the old bloke with the cardboard record, next door actually. later, that night i was thinking about it , then i realized the old codgers mother lived across the road from where the new guy lives now, weird or what. for those of you who read my blogs, the distance between both places is 5 miles, not just around the corner. this new guy might mean something in my journey, then again it might just be some inspirational blog story or something. most days weird shit like this happens(i dont like that word it this contents), sometimes i can work it out other , it's a time thing, meaning you work it out later when it dont matter.
12june2012
lately i've thought i should continue here and confuse for awhile. you know i can continue as long as i'm alive , the story does not go away, today is significant for me in a way. i bought some cards on ebay, that dont mean that much, just a little, in the sentiment department. the cards are of a brand called stamina, they made school clothes of quality , and in the pocket was a pack of cards, not the full set, but some. my first day of school and someone pick pocketed my pack, i always wondered about them cards. so now i have some, if it means anything.
19june2012
patti smith hole .ewollongong, use psew password
12june2012
lately i've thought i should continue here and confuse for awhile. you know i can continue as long as i'm alive , the story does not go away, today is significant for me in a way. i bought some cards on ebay, that dont mean that much, just a little, in the sentiment department. the cards are of a brand called stamina, they made school clothes of quality , and in the pocket was a pack of cards, not the full set, but some. my first day of school and someone pick pocketed my pack, i always wondered about them cards. so now i have some, if it means anything.
19june2012
patti smith hole .ewollongong, use psew password
hole . ewollongong
12sept2012
i seen one of them young guys , you know the fuckme song in the other blog. he's still smoking and sounds wheezy , well his mother died on the 7 sept 2012, 81years, r.i.p.
29may2013
here is my little hovel hideout page, when i make an entry all the spyeyes come a -looky. it has happened a few, what they think , who knows , post but where. this page was good , cause not many checked it out. i've been thinking about the next blog, and finish the lynore later.
26dec2013
john lennon doing bob dylan , use password: makeup
26dec2013
john lennon doing bob dylan , use password: makeup
j.l.dylan
6jan2014
audio of everly aust tour 1971 code:- bro71
everly bros aust tv mp3 1971
3march2014
i find it really annoying, like spy eyes. them couple of dudes seem to be really interested in my blog, but wont come into the open. it just pisses me off and think why bother . invisible shits
28jan2015
here is where i say how i feel about my blog. of late, i haven't felt like doing anything much in the form of extending the blog further. the couple of spy eyes are still there, i wonder what they think. with this blog i just go with the flow of it, the story is already written, it's just a case of remembering it really.
20april2015
so how do i feel at this point in time about the blog. you might think i have a negative view about it. it's more of frustration really, the spy eyes and go ogle get my stories for jack shit, sure i can prostitute it. i have no problem just telling the stories for nicks. it's the annoying spys, why not just follow me. they don't realise , their the ones who fuck most things. there no difference from them and dickheads who stand at the magazine stand reading shit. i don't care who you are follow me or fuck off, i don't like what you are doing.
27june2015
the vampires are still just looking. i'm probably gonna stop because of them.
22april2016
i deleted a post through not knowing if i wrote the truth. not on my part but hear say. through out my life there has been hear say, white lies , call them what you like. they cause a lot of trouble. for that reason i thought it be better to delete the post.
16sept16
i haven't been feeling like doing anymore blogging. not interested in it much
14sept17
it's been a struggle getting it together since the heart attack. i hope to add more to the blog
28jan2015
here is where i say how i feel about my blog. of late, i haven't felt like doing anything much in the form of extending the blog further. the couple of spy eyes are still there, i wonder what they think. with this blog i just go with the flow of it, the story is already written, it's just a case of remembering it really.
20april2015
so how do i feel at this point in time about the blog. you might think i have a negative view about it. it's more of frustration really, the spy eyes and go ogle get my stories for jack shit, sure i can prostitute it. i have no problem just telling the stories for nicks. it's the annoying spys, why not just follow me. they don't realise , their the ones who fuck most things. there no difference from them and dickheads who stand at the magazine stand reading shit. i don't care who you are follow me or fuck off, i don't like what you are doing.
27june2015
the vampires are still just looking. i'm probably gonna stop because of them.
22april2016
i deleted a post through not knowing if i wrote the truth. not on my part but hear say. through out my life there has been hear say, white lies , call them what you like. they cause a lot of trouble. for that reason i thought it be better to delete the post.
16sept16
i haven't been feeling like doing anymore blogging. not interested in it much
14sept17
it's been a struggle getting it together since the heart attack. i hope to add more to the blog
Monday, March 5, 2012
a band
5march2012
when i look back through the sixties there was a few bands around, young friends had elder brothers in bands, some backyard jams, i remember one or two. it wasn't hitsville but it was there, at that time we were involed in vietnam. my teenage years were not the best, there's a song from a womans point of view, my mother worked in the rag trade and did sew my jeans , my father was a gambler and a drunk. they were hard years for this little fella. by 1975, i was pretty much the same streetboy that rodriguez sang about. sometime around this, a friend asked if i wanted to be in his band, they needed a singer so the main singer/ guitarist could concentrate on guitar and backing vocals, i thought about . i was pretty much in a mess at that time, i declined , no self confidence probably 16 or 17 at that time , i was old
6march12
i forgot to mention the main influence for that band was ted nugent, i was never really into him, i did get the album with stranglehold on it , that's as far as it got. i was more into pink floyd, alice cooper, hawkwind space ritual ,black sabbath paranoid & vol4, frank zappa a bit later on. i swapped schools out for sticky fingers around 74. getting back to this band blog, guys around me were also trying to play the guitar, i dont think they were much, cause i dont remember any of the stuff, probably just strumming , all too much for me. around 76 i began to hang around my suburb , rather than the streetlife of town.
7march12
it was during this time i actually hung around some young foes from school and other. what is termed fun parlors, pinny shops or pool halls were the hang of choice. i had my first taste of rock 'n roll in such a place, we had one in the early 60s , i mean early 61. i apparently got an electric shock from a jukebox , so they reckon. i was no stranger from these kind of places, a gap from say 63 to 68 or something. from 69 on i played heaps of pool and pinnies. i remember these young guys buying an acoustic and couldn't tune it , they asked the shop keeper to tune it, they wanted to play pink floyds wish you were here. i had that in 75 , i remember the big thing was double j radio playing the whole album first week out. it took me years to like that album , i used to play a few tracks and lift the needle. them guys spent hours just strumming rubbish , at best there was a vague version of dueling banjos , no pink floyd though. me, i didn't bother with such nosense, although some young guy left an electric and ones place , i borrowed it for couple of weeks that was ok. then the guy wanted it back, all he played was my sharona. i thought them guys were getting in to it too late, no songs just racket, i did have a song i played with the top two strings ,e and a. a little rhythmic ditty called fuck me suck me , which i played for them for about 10 minutes till his mother told me to stop that noise. funny thing is i seen one of them years later he said he used that rhythm in a ditty he wrote, i said it probably wasn't as good as my fuck me suck me. they did get on the acoustic front , numbers by neil young , bob dylan knocking on heavens door was their big play, jimi hendrix hey joe and all along the watch tower . you know that stuff.
8march12
you know these things happened between 75 and late 79 , a lot of things happened in that space of time, so the accuracy on whether something happened before another maybe out a bit. like the time at which they got their guitars and actually played anything proper may have been quite sometime. me, personally didn't hang with them also often , me being somewhat of a loner and also different stuff like trail bikes and such, like the pub. at my 21th them guys turned up at my grandmothers place, still old fashion wood shove and that, i lived there for a few years till i was about 14. one of them guys was actually playing quite good type classical guitar, doing mr bogangles , american pie etc. i thought he was wasting his time just playing that stuff , but he seemed happy with it.
11march2012
so here i am back in 1980, i split up with my girlfriend , was at home feeling bored. my little sister had these hobby tex things like tubes of toothpaste and my mother being in the rag trade was always bring home t-shirts and things like underpants , so i was okay in that department. i decided to hobby tex a t-shirt , but what? i was listening to the bollocks album , i put the cover in a yellow t-shirt and traced sex pistols and coloured it in with the hobby tex. it came out quite good, i thought to wear it around here, i dont know, bit dodgy . i went to the pub in town , i had it under something else, after a few beers i took the jumper off , or whatever it was. the whole atmosphere at me changed , like i dont know, strange in a good way. got talking to a few different people , one guy had like sandshoes with two tone squares textaed on them. he said, he was in a band and they played a sex pistols song submission, he asked me if i knew who sang it, cause it was different. i wasn't sure, i thought rotten, that's about as much as i knew, not much. he said they were playing here in a few weeks and i should check them out.
14march12
now it begins to be complicated, yeah i did see them, they were my age, the mixer was an old foe from primary school , he went to public(different from english, low generic), i went to catholic . he and a few mates spotted me going through the park to my grandmothers for lunch, we had a bit of a blue. i went to the same high school though, i wasn't that tough there, with all the home problems, bit low on the confidence. anyways the mixing wasn't so good . that band was mostly my age excepting for the drummer , who was even too young to get into the pub, a good drummer though, they were different from most local pub bands. the local bands just played covers, the one that was flogged to death was j.j. cales' cocaine, i mean i had that troubadour album, but i really got sick of that song. on occasions a sydney band would play, they weren't bad, there's was a local , i think they were local, they played the traps, called johnny demon dance band or something. they had a song called, you make me spew. they weren't bad, more of a novelty really. i think the guitarist went to england and join a band called nine below zero. i'm not quite sure of that but i think yes. that was what i heard , i had a few beers with that bloke anyways. i did a google to find out all i found was this johnny demon and the devils ,they changed their name .
15march2012
i'm going a bit off track here, i told you it was complicated, see how i go. this has got to do with johnny demon and the devils. there was another band called johnny devlin and the devils around the late 50's . i 've got him doing blue suede shoes with a young backing group called the bee gees, yeah them. i'll have find it on festival . anyway , the cheap alternative to 45s for awhile was rock n roll on cardboard , here's johnny on cardboard , cardboard rock , use devils2 for password. i'll have to get a photo of them 2 items for here, i think i gave the cardboard record to an old codger, when he was 16 he was a fan. i'll see
17march2012
as you'll find with me everything has relevance to and from the past, the future may also be there it depends on how and who reads it. i looked for the blue suede shoes 45, no luck, hey St. Patrick it's your day where's me luck, maybe i need a beer. i did find another cardboard record , sea of love b/w the shape i'm in , i think that's the johnny restivo number , by peter ash and the rockets with the satellites. i thought i better explain the cardboard records . there a bit like the later flex discs (very thin plastics) that came mainly with magazines of that era. the cardboard were put out by penguin and sold for 3/6 , at newsagent , record bars and department stores, 33 1/3 rpm and will play 500 times without damaging the needle. remember the paddle pop story the competition ends in may, john delvin lives out corrimal where paddle pops were invented. i'll get back to the band later.
18march 2012
so much the the band blog , probably have to start another blog. as with anything that involves money, so the locals want a piece of the action, whatevers a hit elsewhere . so begins the cover band wagon, from bandstand to wheel of fortune. devlin was a new zealander , one of the first of a long list to hit our shore. i think things got bad in the early 70's with djs only playing local versions of os hits, you know the story cause its still going on, one way or another. one of the biggest in the 50s was crash craddock who was suppose to be a big hit in the states, they never heard of him, i think the real craddock was gene vincent, who had success here anyways, but not as much as crash. i'll leave this blog with a pub band from probably sydney , who played the wollongong pub heaps of times in 1980 and before , this ep was on the jukebox by request and played to death,
ps
i did a google of the layabouts, not much, just a few later ones even a detroit band, and the bushwackers credited with marijuana australiana, which is on the above ep.
when i look back through the sixties there was a few bands around, young friends had elder brothers in bands, some backyard jams, i remember one or two. it wasn't hitsville but it was there, at that time we were involed in vietnam. my teenage years were not the best, there's a song from a womans point of view, my mother worked in the rag trade and did sew my jeans , my father was a gambler and a drunk. they were hard years for this little fella. by 1975, i was pretty much the same streetboy that rodriguez sang about. sometime around this, a friend asked if i wanted to be in his band, they needed a singer so the main singer/ guitarist could concentrate on guitar and backing vocals, i thought about . i was pretty much in a mess at that time, i declined , no self confidence probably 16 or 17 at that time , i was old
6march12
i forgot to mention the main influence for that band was ted nugent, i was never really into him, i did get the album with stranglehold on it , that's as far as it got. i was more into pink floyd, alice cooper, hawkwind space ritual ,black sabbath paranoid & vol4, frank zappa a bit later on. i swapped schools out for sticky fingers around 74. getting back to this band blog, guys around me were also trying to play the guitar, i dont think they were much, cause i dont remember any of the stuff, probably just strumming , all too much for me. around 76 i began to hang around my suburb , rather than the streetlife of town.
7march12
it was during this time i actually hung around some young foes from school and other. what is termed fun parlors, pinny shops or pool halls were the hang of choice. i had my first taste of rock 'n roll in such a place, we had one in the early 60s , i mean early 61. i apparently got an electric shock from a jukebox , so they reckon. i was no stranger from these kind of places, a gap from say 63 to 68 or something. from 69 on i played heaps of pool and pinnies. i remember these young guys buying an acoustic and couldn't tune it , they asked the shop keeper to tune it, they wanted to play pink floyds wish you were here. i had that in 75 , i remember the big thing was double j radio playing the whole album first week out. it took me years to like that album , i used to play a few tracks and lift the needle. them guys spent hours just strumming rubbish , at best there was a vague version of dueling banjos , no pink floyd though. me, i didn't bother with such nosense, although some young guy left an electric and ones place , i borrowed it for couple of weeks that was ok. then the guy wanted it back, all he played was my sharona. i thought them guys were getting in to it too late, no songs just racket, i did have a song i played with the top two strings ,e and a. a little rhythmic ditty called fuck me suck me , which i played for them for about 10 minutes till his mother told me to stop that noise. funny thing is i seen one of them years later he said he used that rhythm in a ditty he wrote, i said it probably wasn't as good as my fuck me suck me. they did get on the acoustic front , numbers by neil young , bob dylan knocking on heavens door was their big play, jimi hendrix hey joe and all along the watch tower . you know that stuff.
8march12
you know these things happened between 75 and late 79 , a lot of things happened in that space of time, so the accuracy on whether something happened before another maybe out a bit. like the time at which they got their guitars and actually played anything proper may have been quite sometime. me, personally didn't hang with them also often , me being somewhat of a loner and also different stuff like trail bikes and such, like the pub. at my 21th them guys turned up at my grandmothers place, still old fashion wood shove and that, i lived there for a few years till i was about 14. one of them guys was actually playing quite good type classical guitar, doing mr bogangles , american pie etc. i thought he was wasting his time just playing that stuff , but he seemed happy with it.
11march2012
so here i am back in 1980, i split up with my girlfriend , was at home feeling bored. my little sister had these hobby tex things like tubes of toothpaste and my mother being in the rag trade was always bring home t-shirts and things like underpants , so i was okay in that department. i decided to hobby tex a t-shirt , but what? i was listening to the bollocks album , i put the cover in a yellow t-shirt and traced sex pistols and coloured it in with the hobby tex. it came out quite good, i thought to wear it around here, i dont know, bit dodgy . i went to the pub in town , i had it under something else, after a few beers i took the jumper off , or whatever it was. the whole atmosphere at me changed , like i dont know, strange in a good way. got talking to a few different people , one guy had like sandshoes with two tone squares textaed on them. he said, he was in a band and they played a sex pistols song submission, he asked me if i knew who sang it, cause it was different. i wasn't sure, i thought rotten, that's about as much as i knew, not much. he said they were playing here in a few weeks and i should check them out.
14march12
now it begins to be complicated, yeah i did see them, they were my age, the mixer was an old foe from primary school , he went to public(different from english, low generic), i went to catholic . he and a few mates spotted me going through the park to my grandmothers for lunch, we had a bit of a blue. i went to the same high school though, i wasn't that tough there, with all the home problems, bit low on the confidence. anyways the mixing wasn't so good . that band was mostly my age excepting for the drummer , who was even too young to get into the pub, a good drummer though, they were different from most local pub bands. the local bands just played covers, the one that was flogged to death was j.j. cales' cocaine, i mean i had that troubadour album, but i really got sick of that song. on occasions a sydney band would play, they weren't bad, there's was a local , i think they were local, they played the traps, called johnny demon dance band or something. they had a song called, you make me spew. they weren't bad, more of a novelty really. i think the guitarist went to england and join a band called nine below zero. i'm not quite sure of that but i think yes. that was what i heard , i had a few beers with that bloke anyways. i did a google to find out all i found was this johnny demon and the devils ,they changed their name .
15march2012
i'm going a bit off track here, i told you it was complicated, see how i go. this has got to do with johnny demon and the devils. there was another band called johnny devlin and the devils around the late 50's . i 've got him doing blue suede shoes with a young backing group called the bee gees, yeah them. i'll have find it on festival . anyway , the cheap alternative to 45s for awhile was rock n roll on cardboard , here's johnny on cardboard , cardboard rock , use devils2 for password. i'll have to get a photo of them 2 items for here, i think i gave the cardboard record to an old codger, when he was 16 he was a fan. i'll see
17march2012
as you'll find with me everything has relevance to and from the past, the future may also be there it depends on how and who reads it. i looked for the blue suede shoes 45, no luck, hey St. Patrick it's your day where's me luck, maybe i need a beer. i did find another cardboard record , sea of love b/w the shape i'm in , i think that's the johnny restivo number , by peter ash and the rockets with the satellites. i thought i better explain the cardboard records . there a bit like the later flex discs (very thin plastics) that came mainly with magazines of that era. the cardboard were put out by penguin and sold for 3/6 , at newsagent , record bars and department stores, 33 1/3 rpm and will play 500 times without damaging the needle. remember the paddle pop story the competition ends in may, john delvin lives out corrimal where paddle pops were invented. i'll get back to the band later.
18march 2012
so much the the band blog , probably have to start another blog. as with anything that involves money, so the locals want a piece of the action, whatevers a hit elsewhere . so begins the cover band wagon, from bandstand to wheel of fortune. devlin was a new zealander , one of the first of a long list to hit our shore. i think things got bad in the early 70's with djs only playing local versions of os hits, you know the story cause its still going on, one way or another. one of the biggest in the 50s was crash craddock who was suppose to be a big hit in the states, they never heard of him, i think the real craddock was gene vincent, who had success here anyways, but not as much as crash. i'll leave this blog with a pub band from probably sydney , who played the wollongong pub heaps of times in 1980 and before , this ep was on the jukebox by request and played to death,
the layabouts - loose & lively ep, piranha records
ps
i did a google of the layabouts, not much, just a few later ones even a detroit band, and the bushwackers credited with marijuana australiana, which is on the above ep.
11nov2016
i don't know what i wrote about there, couldn't give a stuff. as i think about it , the truth is, i'm not like them people
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