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Op donderdag 22 februari 2007 16:48 schreef ranja het volgende:Radio Birdman kom ik trouwens wel in grote hoeveelheden tegen op de platenbeurs altijd maar geen idee wat het is
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History - The Radio Birdman Story
Radio Birdman was started by Deniz Tek and Rob Younger inmid 1974 in Sydney...a time when the music around themseemed to be at a dead end. The scene was bereft oforiginality, the music driven by conformity with marketing values, drugs, and worn-out post-60's fashion trends. The
two friends had recently departed other bands: the Rats, which had split up under the strain of personal conflicts; and TV Jones, which had unceremoniously dumped Deniz along with his musical direction and attitude,intending to move on to greener and more commercial pastures with a replacementsinger/guitarist, Paul Green.Sharing a hole in the wall in a blighted neighborhood in Darlinghurst as well as a deep love for records and a particular brand of hard, honest rock androll, Rob and Deniz envisioned a band which would break rules and have no regard for the status quo of the rock business of the time. They enlisted the help of classical keyboardist Pip Hoyle, a student friend of Deniz who had also fallen by the wayside of TV Jones, and Ron Keeley, who had shared a student house with Deniz two years before. They had remained close, and it was Ron, as the Rats' drummer, who first introduced Deniz to Rob.
Ex-paratrooper Carl St.John Rorke, the Rats bass player, completed the lineup, bringing his red Studebaker Hawk,black Burns Bison bass, and ever present pack of Winstons.
While it took months to take shape and years to evolve,there were a few unusual things about Radio Birdman that were notably present at the start. The band would play extremely hard and with maximum effort from the members at all times,as though their lives were at stake. It was to be an art form created from passion, with minimal format or structure, which was allowed to go in any direction at any time. This would include forays into improvised visual as well as sonic realms.At any moment theatre or dance, even poetry reading, could occur. No two performances were the same. Each performance could have ...
and many people thought should have... been their last.
The establishment reacted predictably. There were many doors slammed shut,engagements cancelled after the first song, often with the threat of actual physical violence and destruction as club bouncers were turned loose on the band itself. The band, steadfastly refusing to compromise, had to resort to putting on its own shows in small community halls and the like. Later, they found a pub upstairs in Taylor Square which allowed them to perform without restrictions. This was the Oxford Tavern. Eventually the band took over it's management, renaming it the Oxford Funhouse, and made it available for other like minded groups who followed...giving priority to worthy but out of the mainstream bands who had, like Radio Birdman, been denied access elsewhere. Over time, members came and went. Carl departed, to be temporarily replaced by Chris Jones and permanently by Warwick Gilbert. Warwick had known Rob since school days, and had been the firestorming lead guitarist in the Rats. Being a guitarist with his own style, and translating this to bass, he brought a new element that became integral to the Radio Birdman sound. Welded to Rons drumming, it became the foundation: like concrete and steel, yet fluid and unpredictable. Pip left, to be replaced by a second guitarist, the teenaged guitar wizard Chris Masuak...given the handle "Klondike" based on his murky Canadian origins. The middle period sound, with driving dual guitar attack over a wild rhythm section, became much more focused and intense. Out of the chaotic early days evolved new structure. With the new lineup, the days of free form sound, imploding televisions, readings from the Last Poets ... the days of performance art and experimentalism... had yielded to a new commitment to high-octane hard rock as all the elements came together in a unified look and sound...the shows became rituals. An exclusive scene had developed, at its center the couple of dozen friends and fans who were there from the beginning. The scene had the trappings of a cult: a look, a way of dressing, a symbol, even a new language. Along with this, a much hipper -than-thou attitude to everything and everyone. In 1976, The Funhouse and these people became the nidus for the incipient crystallisation of the Sydney punk scene ... a transformation that occurred in many cities of the world simultaneously, like a chemical reaction that takes off when all of the right components and conditions are there. Like a growing fractal, as the patterns of Radio Birdman coalesced into a powerful unity when all the right members were in place, the Sydney scene then took off, aligned in much the same way. Even though the purported founders were never really a punk band, they seemed to provide the heat required to set off the explosion. Radio Birdman recorded an ep, Burned My Eye, and an album Radios Appear, both low budget recordings made piecemeal at the 24 track Trafalgar Studios in Annandale, on days when the studio had no paying clients...tediously trucking in all the gear and going through detailed setup, just to spend a few hours that might or might not be productive on any given weekend, often tearing down the gear in mid session to go perform at the Funhouse. When vinyl emerged from this process, the band and the studio created their own label and the records were self distributed, at a low price, effectively cutting out the middle men. Radios Appear was critically acclaimed, getting 5 stars in the Australian Rolling Stone edition...but sales were limited by absence of mainstream marketing and traditional distribution. The band essentially remained underground. Around this time they began to play in other cities .... Weeklong trips were taken to Canberra, Melbourne, Adelaide. Pip rejoined the band. The trademark sound, forged by the two guitar lineup, was now enhanced by keyboards without being fundamentally changed. When Sire records president Seymour Stein was in Australia to sign the Saints, he saw a Radio Birdman show at the Funhouse. He was so taken by the experience, he licensed Radios Appear for the world from Trafalgar, signing the band to a world recording contract as well.
The band wanted to rectify some of the things they didn't like about the album, which had been recorded under less than ideal conditions over a long period of time, during which the band had been constantly improving and refining their approach. so, with the new resources provided by Sire, they went back to Trafalgar and re-recorded some of the tracks...notably, New Race and Anglo Girl Desire..., and replaced other tracks with newer songs they had been playing live. So the second edition of Radios Appear is actually a hybrid, keeping what the band saw as the best of their earlier recordings, with the best of the newer live material, and a fresh album cover, with the final lineup incorporating Pip.
The band's publicity, much of it negative, extended beyond their small circle and spilled like toxic waste from the mainstream press. The scene began to attract fringe dwellers and people with other, darker, agendas. The Sydney Hells Angels chapter was hanging out at the Funhouse. The shows became overcrowded and unstable past the point of safety, and violence became more commonplace. False allegations of vile crimes, and threats of reprisals for events that never actually happened were leveled at band members. Finally, they stopped playing in Sydney altogether in mid 1977, forced to take an extended leave of absence.
They returned for a short tour of Australia in Nov/Dec 1977, after Deniz and Pip completed their university studies,ending up with two self-promoted shows at the Paddington Town Hall in Sydney. The shows were explosive, with over 2000 fans and the band releasing the pent-up energy of the previous six months of absence. Some of this energy was captured with a sixteen track mobile recording unit, yielding exceptionally good live material that has never been released. Following these shows, the band departed for England. They toured Europe and England, both doing their own pub gigs and opening shows for the Flaming Groovies, label mates on Sire. The band was disconcerted to be back to square one in a new country after their skyrocketing success on their own terms in Australia. England then was in the latter stages of decay of it's own punk scene, and the punters there didn't know what to make of Radio Birdman...who's fashion sense clearly didn't fit in with the flavour of the day. Melody Maker and NME wrote anti-Australian articles. In mid tour, due to financial problems with the company, Sire dropped all but four of their most successful acts...Radio Birdman was without a label. They soldiered on through the long months of the tour anyway, relying on the good graces of the distributor, Philips, for support which was to be short lived as well. Radios Appear simply did not appear ... in stores or on the radio. Because of the label problems, boxes of thousands were abandoned in warehouses, later to be destroyed or find their way to cutout bins around the world. The weather was bad. The van was small. Management was divisive. The tour seemed endless. They got sick, both physically and at heart. Personal conflicts loomed large. Despite all of these problems, the band recorded a second album at Rockfield Studios in Wales, mostly because Sire had neglected to cancel the sessions. This album became "Living Eyes", and was recently re-mixed and mastered with excellent sound quality for RedEye/PolyGram Australia.
Radio Birdman were a volatile mix. The chemistry of the members: Rob Younger, Deniz Tek, Chris Masuak, Warwick Gilbert, Pip Hoyle and Ron Keeley, combined to form a whole that was much greater than the sum of the parts.
In effect, a new entity was created, whose lifespan and trajectory was dismally short.
The breakup occurred following a long slide into despair by some members, while others could only look on helplessly...and finally look uncaringly away and move on. As hot as the band glowed, it was inevitable that it would relentlessly burn out it's components. The dying band hung on until the last scheduled show, at Oxford University, finally giving up the ghost in June of 1978. For decades following this event, a wave of influence was unleashed which has encompassed the earth. An entire sub-subculture, tied loosely to the surf and skateboard movement, with tiny enclaves all over the world, has formed based on the cult of Radio Birdman. They are considered seminally important in the development of music in Australia, and their most dedicated fans are often musicians in other bands that are successful today.
Radio Birdman reformed in January of 1996 with all original members, and did two national tours of Australia over the ensuing year.
Both critics and fans old and new felt that they more than lived up to their legend. They recorded a live album, Ritualism, on the first of these tours. It was only available by mail order on their own Crying Sun Records label, another low budget but high quality DIY project which is consistent with their earlier work both sonically and philosophically.
Some excellent 16 mm film and video exists of the band. This material has circulated worldwide in the bootleg video market and shows the band in 1976 and 1977 at or near it's peak. For readers interested in a more comprehensive study of the band it is suggested that they get hold of and read Vivien Johnson's Radio Birdman biography, available through Citadel Records mail order.
WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
While serving in Hawaii, Tek's Navy call-sign of Iceman was appropriated by visiting screenwriters for a character in the hit movie Top Gun. He's now an ER doctor in Billings, Montana, recording or touring for part of each year. Younger continues making music with ever-changing line-ups of his band, the New Christs. Hoyle is Director of Clinical Services at on eof Sydney's largest hospitals. Keeley is a freelance writer, based in the UK. Masuak is a naturopath, while Gilbert is an animator for Disney.
Ga je schamen Ranja
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Ik noem een Tony van Heemschut,een Loeki Knol,een Brammetje Biesterveld en natuurlijk een Japie Stobbe !