Episode 28 transcript

Note: this transcript is AI-generated, and as such, it may contain spelling or grammatical errors.

[00:00:00] Chad: Greetings and welcome back to the Aural Mess podcast. My guest this week, and I'm very excited to have him on is Jon Williams. Jon and I have known each other since 2003. We actually worked together, um, and have stayed friends ever since. So, Hey, Jon.

[00:00:20] Jon: Hey, Chad.

[00:00:22] Chad: So why don't you tell the audience just a bit about yourself?

[00:00:25] Jon: Sure. So I think, firstly, I'm originally from Australia, although I emigrated to the U. S. many, many years ago. So I'm a U. S. citizen and a dual citizen. Uh, grew up in Australia. So my My, uh, young life and my early adulthood life was in Australia, but then my mature life, my family life, my business life was in the United States.

[00:00:50] Jon: So, um, grew up listening to Australian music, which I'm excited to talk to you, talk about, but I'm these days mostly listened to and play us music. So, um, weren't music in the U S when I turned 40, when my son was born. Always wanted to play guitar, told myself how to play guitar, uh, and then I ended up learning guitar, mandolin, banjo, and keyboards, and played in two bands for a while.

[00:01:20] Jon: So, and mostly playing 60s and 70s American rock, because I couldn't get my band to play anything Australian, they'd never heard of it before. And, uh, I also played in a folk band where I could sneak in the occasional Australian song, because they wouldn't know the difference anyway, so.

[00:01:39] Chad: Right. So you didn't start playing guitar till 40. I don't think I realized that.

[00:01:42] Jon: Yeah. No, it was, it was funny. All right. So here we go. Truth. I pretended that I could play guitar. I told people I was, it was like one of those teenager things where I had fantasy in my head. You know, I did a, uh, two guitar lessons. I couldn't, my fingers didn't work. And it was this, One, and I wanted my kids to be interested in playing music. And I'm like, I could be the dad that just tells them to learn the piano, or I could be the dad that just plays the guitar in front of them and see what happens. And by the way, both of my kids both play piano and guitar.

[00:02:18] Jon: They, they love it. Yeah.

[00:02:21] Chad: Oh, that's cool. Yeah. I, I also started out telling people I could play a guitar and I knew like three courts, you know, because that's really all you, all you need, right. Especially for some of the earlier music. So yeah, it works. Um, so what kind of stuff are you listening to nowadays? Like what's on your current playlist and you know, what have you been playing just, just for pleasure on the guitar?

[00:02:40] Jon: Yeah, so in the U. S. bands like War on Drugs, a big band that I'm into, uh, although it's not a band, by the way, it's one guy, I don't know if you know the,

[00:02:52] Chad: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:02:53] Jon: and, um, I'm really into Crowded House. So, Crowded House had big hits in the 80s. In the US, um, and then, um, the Neil Finn was the lead, he was also in a band called Split Ends that we'll, I guess we'll talk about in Pub Rock. Um, and then, um, he went solo and then he now plays with his two sons.

[00:03:22] Chad: Oh, wow.

[00:03:23] Jon: Yeah. So he's rejuvenated his band. And he released an album in 2021. and an album in 2024. He's got all this new music. It's just as melodic as the original Crowded House stuff and I went saw him on tour last year and he's got his one son's on drums and one son's on guitar and his uh, his older son is doing the harmonies that his brother did on all the Crowded House recordings.

[00:03:48] Chad: Oh, cool.

[00:03:50] Chad: I did not know that was going on. I'm gonna have to check that

[00:03:52] Jon: Yeah, and, and his brother, Tim Finn, who's 10 years older than him, was the, uh, band leader for, uh, Split Enz,

[00:04:02] Chad: Right.

[00:04:02] Jon: and, uh, Neil Finn actually joined Split Enz for a few years when he turned 18, and then he actually wrote their big hits, I've Got You, you know, that, this,

[00:04:12] Jon: right? And

[00:04:13] Jon: then he went and formed Crowded House, so.

[00:04:15] Chad: And neither of which are Australian bands, by the way, but I think people don't realize that. So we'll get there. We'll get there. I don't want to ruin, ruin the, uh, I don't want to give any spoilers. So we're going to talk about it. And this was a great idea and I'm glad you brought it to me.

[00:04:28] Chad: We're going to talk about Australian rock and what that means. And, you know, sort of go through a little bit of the history of, although I don't think either of us are experts, but, um, you made me this really great playlist. Um, to sort of give me a feel for some of these bands and I'd never heard of probably 80 percent of them, you know, I think maybe three that were on your playlist or maybe even four, um, I had heard of, or, you know, actually heard before. So it was, it was great for me to be able to discover this whole new sort of, you know, area, genre of music, if you will. Um, so you grew up in Melbourne and you know, so you grew up listening to some of these bands and then, you know, tell me about how you first came across some of them, just radio or

[00:05:10] Chad: friends playing them.

[00:05:11] Jon: yeah. So, um, first ones I heard were on the radio before I was old enough to go to pubs. By the way, started going to pubs at 15, which is a very Australian thing.

[00:05:22] Jon: Um, and, uh, so Russell Morris, um, was one of the first, had a big song called the real thing. Would have been a hit in the U. S. if it had made here, but it didn't. By the way, there was no way to bring any of this music to the U. S. There was no, no mechanism for doing it. Um, and the thing about that song is it was very well produced. Like there was a lot of studio musicians in it and well produced and layered. And that's when Australians for the first time figured, Ah, we don't just have to be playing all together like we can actually do some layered recordings.

[00:06:00] Jon: So that's why that was significant and turned out the person who produced it, Molly Meldrum ended up becoming the Dick Clark of the Australian music show called Countdown.

[00:06:13] Jon: So that, and that was like another five years later. So it was like a Coincidence or he somehow got into that job. And he, he ended up becoming the tastemaker for all Australian popular music for about 10 years on

[00:06:27] Jon: the ABC, which is the Australian equivalent of the BBC.

[00:06:31] Jon: So,

[00:06:33] Chad: Yeah.

[00:06:34] Jon: another, another band that I never saw live, but heard on the radio was called Daddy Cool. I think they got it from an American band, or I don't know where they derived the name. But they uh, they had this cool song called Eagle Rock, which was like a blues hook. with with really great melodies.

[00:06:52] Jon: Again, huge in Australia, never made it here. Uh, and then, um, now we start getting into bands who I saw in the pub rock era, where I'd actually go to a pub. They wouldn't even stay, they weren't even standing on a stage. It was like a

[00:07:09] Jon: dais.

[00:07:10] Chad: the corner.

[00:07:10] Jon: and you'd

[00:07:11] Jon: be like this close to them

[00:07:13] Jon: and they would play that. Skyhooks was um, such a band although they became very, they became famous. Their shtick was um, they were glam rock so they were copying Bowie and Iggy Pop and others and dressing and capes and makeup and all of that.

[00:07:32] Chad: It's funny without even seeing them when I heard that a couple songs from them you put on the playlist I was pretty much reminded of like the sweet and Bowie like they definitely have that glam Sound so it's it's it's funny with that you say that and I didn't even see them But I picked up that vibe almost immediately.

[00:07:49] Chad: I was like, okay

[00:07:51] Jon: It's funny because they were very performative. That was their thing.

[00:07:55] Jon: And the lead singer, uh, the band disbanded like, I think they're only together like five years, but the lead singer became a famous, uh, Saturday morning, he ran a Saturday morning children's show, became famous, national, and like people didn't even know he used to be in a rock band. And then the guitarist actually became his co anchor as well and they didn't, they

[00:08:23] Jon: and they didn't do anything to do with the band. So, but you know, it shows they were really performers and they became national celebrities. So, um, so I would say the quintessential Australian pub rock band is Cold Chisel.

[00:08:40] Chad: Okay. They seem like one of the most well known, just from a little bit of research that I did. Like, every website was talking about them as sort of the, one of the main bands in that scene. So,

[00:08:51] Jon: yeah.

[00:08:52] Jon: they were kind of raw. They were loud, they had piano, they had a little bit, they had melodies going, and uh, they could just, they kind of had that irreverence. So I'm trying to describe pub rock, it's not like fandom, it's kind of like a big brawl. I don't know how to describe it, it's like a, a mosh, but not a mosh, but people are dancing and listening but they're not like adoring fans.

[00:09:22] Jon: It's like we're all just in the pub together. I don't know. It's, it's a little hard to describe. It's different now. And they're all famous and older and famous, but, um, you know, you pub and Jimmy Barnes, who is the lead singer of Coal Chisel is now. Australia famous, he sings every Christmas special, every this special, they did a big COVID special, he was the star, you know, and he had a big solo career after, but a super powerful voice. So,

[00:09:56] Chad: Yeah, their stuff seemed to be, like you mentioned, they had the melodies and the piano, um, they, they sounded to me a bit more sophisticated, at least, you know, compared to some of the other bands on the playlist, for sure. They had like a, like a richer sound.

[00:10:09] Jon: yeah, and they had a richer sound with the piano. And by the way, the piano player. forgotten his name now, also sang. So they had two singers, right? So they had that and they also had more of a message. So their, their lyrics kind of remind me a little bit of Springsteen. I mean, I'm making a big leap between Australia and the amazing Bruce Springsteen, but you know, they had songs about Vietnam, you know, and the, the challenges there. Um, they actually met, had a song called Saturday night I shared with you, which is actually about. Pub rock,

[00:10:42] Chad: Right?

[00:10:43] Jon: happens on a Saturday night in Australia and everyone goes out and you know, so their songs had a little bit more meaningful meaning to them. So

[00:10:53] Chad: Yeah, more, more appeal to the masses, right?

[00:10:55] Jon: totally, totally there. Like if you, there's probably not a person in Australia that doesn't know called chisel. And by the way, when I go back and visit my family in Australia, Like, we have the, the classic rock station here in the us. That's why class, all of these songs just get played over and over again. in every, on every radio station, there's not that many of them. Right. So they just get played over and over,

[00:11:20] Chad: right. right. All right. So next on the playlist, we have the angels. Um, they have this like boogie kind of feel. And by the way, a lot of the pub rock bands, I think we're known for that, right? Sort of that shuffle boogie

[00:11:36] Chad: kind of beat. Right.

[00:11:39] Jon: yeah. By the way, um, uh, I didn't realize this when I said this to you. I did some research. They were discovered by AC DC.

[00:11:47] Chad: Oh, wow. Okay.

[00:11:48] Jon: Yeah,

[00:11:49] Jon: so ACDC was also, we didn't talk about them because they're famous, but they were also a pub band, but by this stage, they're starting to have hits. And, uh, someone from ACDC saw the Angels in a pub and, like, helped them get on a label.

[00:12:06] Chad: Oh, wow. Well, it makes sense. There's a connection there because AC DC's early albums are really blues boogie kind of based, right? Like they've got that sort of chugging rhythm and you know, it's, it's the, the guitar hooks. I mean, it's, it fits. So it makes sense that they would, they would sort of have an affinity.

[00:12:23] Jon: Yeah, these, the, I'm trying to, you know, give you this view of pub rock. It's, I kind of have it as, by the way, I can't, I don't think I ever went to see a pub rock show where a fight didn't break out.

[00:12:38] Chad: Of course.

[00:12:39] Jon: All right. So you've got the focus is the pub. There's too much drinking. By the way, Australia is less that way now, but back 70s and 80s this is just people drank to excess

[00:12:54] Jon: and there was fighting and and bands weren't like look I guess they were trying to get signed or they were trying to grow and expand as bands but that's not that wasn't our experience right we were just seeing them in a pub is

[00:13:17] Chad: them like in between sets, just like, you know, walking over to the bar and having a pint and then going back on stage, right? Like, yeah.

[00:13:23] Jon: Yeah, so I saw Cold Chisel at a hotel in Ocean Grove in the middle of nowhere in a beach town with like 10, 000 people in the middle of nowhere, like Cold Chisel, who's now one of the most famous bands in, you know, so is that, you know, and, and by the way, a lot of Australian acts, today's acts still do the pub, the pub circuit.

[00:13:50] Jon: It's

[00:13:51] Chad: Oh, wow.

[00:13:51] Jon: still, a thing. So, um, so I love the angels. Um, they, Hey, Chad, I forgot to ask you. We let to swear on this podcast.

[00:14:05] Chad: Yes. Swear to your heart's content,

[00:14:07] Jon: All right. So, all right. So there's an angel song called, am I ever going to see your face again? And the song goes, Am I ever gonna see your face again? And then there's dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun in the record, right?

[00:14:25] Jon: So there was nothing. It was singing guitar, singing guitar. So the audiences added lyrics to it. And if you watch it on YouTube, You'll be able to see now what the audience do. So I'll, I'll do it that with what the audience says. So now it goes, am I ever gonna see your face again? No way. Get fucked. Fuck off.

[00:14:47] Jon: And am I ever going? And it just goes off and, and like, you know, then we sing it like hold the microphone out in between to get, and someone did that in a pub once and then that

[00:14:59] Jon: became

[00:15:00] Chad: caught

[00:15:00] Chad: on. Isn't that funny how it becomes like, you know, one pub and then somebody goes to someplace else and then the band starts to expect it. And like, before you know it, the whole country's doing it. Like it's, you know, same with like Money, Money, right. Billy Idol. Um,

[00:15:14] Chad: Hear that, hear that in a bar.

[00:15:16] Chad: I mean, back in the eighties, you know, nineties when I was actually legal, but I, like you, I was going to bars before I was legal. Um, you know, there was a cover band. I remember that I used to go see and they used to do Mony Mony and it was, Hey, motherfucker, get laid, get fucked. Right? Like it's just, it's just all these different chants that it's just unreal.

[00:15:33] Chad: And like, how do people know how to do it? Don't know, but it's any place you go, people knew that, that Pete, that part of the song.

[00:15:41] Jon: Yeah, the um, there's a, there's a, so the same, I, I think the same in the U. S. in Australia now these bands are touring, you know, and a lot of baby boomers are going to see them and next Gen X and so forth. And so now they get big crowds at these and they usually in an outdoor festival. So, um, so that's where you can hear these recordings of them now.

[00:16:06] Jon: And, um, I, I, I got to go to one last year when I was in Shreds called One Electric Day. So it's one whole day in this beautiful field at this mansion outdoors,

[00:16:21] Jon: people setting up garden chairs, and then these old bands coming in and playing. It's like fantastic.

[00:16:27] Chad: Sounds like a lot of fun.

[00:16:28] Jon: yeah. Um, yeah, so Angels never made it to the U.

[00:16:33] Jon: S. Cold Chisel never made it to the U. S. I think they tried, but there was no

[00:16:38] Chad: Well, let's talk about that for a minute because the article that I read, um, and this is more largely Wikipedia, but I did find some other, um, you know, music websites and stuff that we're talking about this, but I guess, um, During the pub rock era of Australian music, I guess the rock artists had a hard time getting played on the radio, even in Australia, let alone getting exposure outside the country because, you know, they, they just weren't, like you said, they weren't able to cross over.

[00:17:08] Chad: And I don't know why that is.

[00:17:10] Jon: Yeah, I don't know why that is either, and some of them, some of them tried. Um, I think you, you and I talked about some of the successes, which I'm a little bit embarrassed about. So, um, Little River Band and their, like, anything that was mellow. I'm trying, I've forgotten the name of the band, um, I'm All Out of Love.

[00:17:33] Jon: I'm all out of

[00:17:34] Chad: Oh, air supply.

[00:17:35] Chad: God. Yeah. I forgot they're Australian. Yeah.

[00:17:37] Jon: and, and even Men at Work. I mean, Men at Work, you know, okay, I'm from a land down under, catchy tune. But it doesn't match any of these. bands, you know, and, and they were late too. So it was almost like they were trying to fit into a niche and, you know, a band not, uh, towards the bottom of the, of the list.

[00:18:01] Jon: I'll just talk about the U S I don't want to talk about their music yet. Uh, but in excess, do you know how in excess broke in the U S actually went to university, to colleges And played and then got picked up on the college radio because they knew there was no path for Australian bands on

[00:18:22] Jon: mainstream radio.

[00:18:23] Jon: And it was a big gamble that paid off.

[00:18:27] Chad: Yeah, and big time.

[00:18:29] Jon: yeah, there's a, there's a, there's a, uh, a documentary drama about INXS that goes through how they did that and the risks they took and stuff.

[00:18:40] Chad: Oh, wow. I wasn't, I didn't know that. So that, that's interesting how some of these bands were able to make it. But like you said, within excess, it was just sheer determination. They were like, okay, we're going to fly over. We're going to play colleges and, you know, we'll, we'll get picked up that

[00:18:52] Chad: way. And for them, for them, at least it worked.

[00:18:54] Jon: and by the way the reason why ACDC which started in Australia, but became huge in the UK is because there was no path To the US. I

[00:19:04] Jon: mean ACDC would have been perfect in the US

[00:19:08] Jon: ZZ Top and all the other heavy bands but There was no path. So they went to the UK because there was a path There because some of these performers have been able to make it in in the UK

[00:19:21] Jon: So,

[00:19:23] Chad: Huh. Interesting. So yeah, we'll talk about some of the big name bands and, and you told me you have a pretty funny story to tell. So we'll save that for a little later. But, um, let's, let's take a step back actually. And then we can talk about the other half of the playlist. But, um, I guess. The whole Australian rock origin really coincided with rock and roll hitting the U.

[00:19:47] Chad: S. Right? So according to the articles that I read, there was sort of like three waves. There was this first wave from the fifties into the early sixties. Melbourne was the pop capital. Um, just like every other place in the world, you had a lot of groups that were sort of copying You know, um, Bill Haley

[00:20:06] Chad: and Holly, uh, Buddy Holly, rather, and, you know, that, those kinds of people, um, but I guess, um, I know we said, neither of us had ever heard of any of these artists, but, um, Johnny O'Keefe, 1958.

[00:20:19] Jon: heard of, I've heard of

[00:20:20] Chad: Oh, oh, okay. I don't think I mentioned him

[00:20:22] Jon: Yeah, Johnny O'Keefe. He, he was kind of a Jerry Lewis lookalike. You know, he had the Jerry Lewis shake and yeah. And by the way, he was re taking American hits and redoing them.

[00:20:35] Jon: So, yeah.

[00:20:37] Chad: Well, that seems to be the thing in this first wave. So there was somebody named Frankie Davidson, Les Welch, Vic Cebrino, the Schneider sisters. These were all between like 54 and 56 it looks like. And they were the first sort of rock artists that, you know, Gained some popularity, at least in Australia.

[00:20:55] Chad: Then you move into the second wave, 64 to 69, and that carried with it a lot of copycatting of, and again, like they did here, of the British invasion bands. So you had a lot of Beatles covers. You had a lot of, um, you know, I guess, uh, early folk kind of stuff going on. But one of the big bands that came out of that second wave, which again, um, a lot of Americans, myself included.

[00:21:19] Chad: Don't realize or didn't realize. And maybe until later that the Bee Gees had this whole other career before Saturday Night Fever, right before disco, because that was really their entree into American music and radio. They were huge in the UK. They were huge in their native Australia, but never really hit.

[00:21:34] Chad: I don't think that large in the U S until was that 77 when Saturday Night Fever came out.

[00:21:41] Jon: Yeah, and they were mellow. You know, they were

[00:21:42] Jon: more in the, I would call them kind of like, the Carpenters, kind

[00:21:47] Jon: of that type of mellow.

[00:21:48] Chad: Yeah. A little folky.

[00:21:49] Jon: had, yep, yep. But very talented.

[00:21:52] Jon: So did all their own songwriting and just, just amazing, amazing stuff. So, um, hey, I just thought of another one in the second wave.

[00:22:01] Jon: Uh, the Easy Beats.

[00:22:03] Chad: Ah, okay.

[00:22:04] Jon: There's a, what's their, what's their big hit?

[00:22:06] Chad: Uh, don't know. Let me see if I can find it real quick.

[00:22:11] Jon: it's not coming, it's not coming to me. And there's another band called

[00:22:23] Chad: Can't find a song name.

[00:22:24] Jon: Billy Thorpe, Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs

[00:22:28] Chad: Ah,

[00:22:28] Chad: okay.

[00:22:29] Jon: one. Um, uh, let's see if I can

[00:22:36] Chad: Yeah, I feel like I saw that somewhere. That wasn't on your playlist, but that, that came up in my research. I remember that name because I thought it was a cool name.

[00:22:43] Jon: Billy Thorpe and the

[00:22:44] Jon: Aztecs, Yeah.

[00:22:44] Jon: and I, you know, Jerry and the Pacemate, you know, they're just

[00:22:48] Jon: copying, just copying everyone, right?

[00:22:50] Chad: Sure. Sure.

[00:22:51] Jon: crazy.

[00:22:53] Chad: We'll have to put some easy beats. Um, so every episode

[00:22:55] Chad: that I record of, of the podcast, not only will I share the playlist that a guest shares with me ahead of time, if they do one, which obviously you gave me a great one, but

[00:23:03] Chad: I try to make a playlist of anything we talk about that's not already on that

[00:23:07] Chad: playlist so that people can check out their stuff out.

[00:23:09] Chad: So I'll find the easy beats and put

[00:23:10] Jon: Yeah. So Friday on my mind.

[00:23:13] Jon: Okay.

[00:23:16] Jon: I got Friday on my, she's so pretty.

[00:23:22] Chad: I feel

[00:23:23] Chad: like I know

[00:23:23] Jon: yeah, yeah, Yeah. I'm not doing it justice, but that's the, but I think they were advertised as in uk, you know, they got the suits and the whole, the whole, thing. So.

[00:23:34] Jon: Um, cool.

[00:23:37] Chad: So then we had this third wave, 1970 to 75 ish. And that's, I think, where the whole pub rock thing

[00:23:43] Chad: really got started. Right.

[00:23:44] Jon: totally. You know, in AC, DC, we talked about sky was called chisel the angels. So another band that was just kind of on in that, but a little later, a little bit melodic was called Australian crawl

[00:24:00] Jon: like the, like the swim and very polished, talented musicians, two singers. James Rain was the lead singer, uh, still, he's still performing, um, and Nada, like, right?

[00:24:19] Jon: You, you never heard of Australian Crow before, right?

[00:24:21] Chad: I never had, no.

[00:24:23] Jon: They, they had, they had great songs. They, my favorite one was The Boys Hide Up. know, it's a great song. In the pub with cigarettes, like the boys are out smoking cigarettes.

[00:24:35] Chad: They had a little, to me, they had a little bit of a new wave flavor, um, which I like, you know, and I can totally picture myself, not that I've ever been to Australia, but if I had been, I could picture myself in a pub a beer and a cigarette, listening to those guys and also sunny boy, sunny boys, I put in my notes as sort of in that same vein, I don't know if I'm, I'm close or not.

[00:24:55] Jon: Yes, Sonny Boyz are a little heavier.

[00:24:59] Jon: So Stray Core was a little bit more melodic and sing along. Sonny Boyz was like heavy guitar. They're also channeling a little bit of, uh, surf rock.

[00:25:14] Jon: So

[00:25:14] Jon: Australia had a little bit of surf rock as well. Um, by the way, Sonny Boyz, I, there's a friend of mine, I haven't spoken to forever, who's heavy in the music scene, and he heard the Sonny Boyz on like an alternative rock album that someone put out, and like, 2006 or something.

[00:25:35] Jon: So someone picked it up and brought it to the US. Um, you know, I remember going to see them in 1979, you know, just raw, heavy, like, you know, just awesome. Raw.

[00:25:52] Jon: That's the other thing I would say about pub rock is it's got a, a rawness to it. Right.

[00:26:01] Chad: Yeah.

[00:26:02] Jon: So,

[00:26:04] Chad: It feels like a lot of the recordings could have been done live, right? like

[00:26:07] Chad: like you mentioned that Russell Morris kind of brought the first really layered recording into the studio musician type thing, but it feels like some of these other bands were just, you know, Played for years in the pubs, you know, polished their songs and then just went and laid them down and like one take, you know, or even multiple takes, but it feels more alive and organic and raw, like you said, raw that then it does, you know, polish studio stuff.

[00:26:30] Chad: And I love that because, you know, I'm, I'm all about the, the DIY indie punk kind of ethos when it comes to music sometimes, you know?

[00:26:37] Jon: Cool. Yeah, no, I agree. I think, I actually think a couple of Cold Chiseled songs are actually live songs that they, that they published

[00:26:45] Chad: Ah, okay.

[00:26:46] Jon: So, um, so I threw another band on here. They're in the pub scene. They don't fit. They're, they're more of a fall on to split ends that we didn't talk about from New Zealand, but they're called Mantle is anything.

[00:27:02] Jon: So

[00:27:02] Jon: first of all, I love the name.

[00:27:05] Chad: So do I.

[00:27:06] Jon: Mantle is anything. Just, and, and there's songs. Their songs have such ridiculous, irreverent names and lyrics, so I threw that in. So, um, the big hit was called, If You Leave Me, Can I Come Too? Which I thought was like genius.

[00:27:35] Chad: That's great.

[00:27:36] Jon: yeah. And then the other song I'm gonna have to translate. So, The other song is called the nips are getting bigger.

[00:27:43] Chad: Yeah. I had to look this one

[00:27:44] Jon: have to translate it. So, um, in Australia, when you went to a bar and you got a mixed drink, it's called a mixed drink. Um, that's instead of having a beer, you would have a mixed drink like

[00:27:58] Jon: a Bacardi and Coke. What they did is they held their fingers up to the glass and that was called a nip. So you say one nip or two nips and then The song is the nips are getting bigger like the barman's giving me more alcohol in my

[00:28:18] Jon: in my mixed drink So it's about it's about getting drunk in a in a in a bar. So

[00:28:25] Chad: I love that. And, and by the way, when I looked up mental as anything, I found a great quote and it says that they were founded on a whim by a group of bored art students in search of free drinks.

[00:28:39] Jon: We should talk we should talk a little bit about split ends because we kind of

[00:28:43] Jon: we kind of skipped over them So they started in new zealand

[00:28:47] Chad: Okay.

[00:28:48] Jon: about the same time and they, they were more like David Bowie meets, um, uh, KISS. Like they, they wore costumes, they all had makeup.

[00:29:06] Chad: ends. Did.

[00:29:07] Jon: Yeah, you never

[00:29:08] Jon: saw them before they were

[00:29:09] Chad: no, I only know they're like 80s, you know, like the, like the new wave stuff.

[00:29:15] Jon: No, they have before the eighties. They have like, they have like four al three albums be before that. And um, and the music is like, they have trombones and tubers

[00:29:34] Jon: and weird and there's some songs of There's, and, and then it goes like atonal and they walk clown. My, like, they

[00:29:46] Jon: did all

[00:29:47] Chad: no idea.

[00:29:47] Jon: yeah, alright, so, so, they did all that, right, and, and so here's the, here's the story of Neil Finn, who started Credit House. So he was a teenager, and he went to all the split ends. Concerts, right? So pub, you know, when you sneak into pub, whatever and

[00:30:04] Jon: go. And then they wouldn't let him join until he turned 18 and his brother's 28. And then he joined. So if you look up, um, a song, I see red, which is the first song, um, that he wrote with them and saying he's in full So him and his old brother in full makeup and they're doing, you know, robotic actions and all the stage acting. And then the next song they did was I Got You,

[00:30:39] Chad: Right.

[00:30:40] Jon: which is

[00:30:41] Jon: now, now, yeah, now it's pop.

[00:30:44] Chad: Yep.

[00:30:45] Jon: But everything before that was funky, weird, like, Interesting. It's a little

[00:30:53] Jon: hard to listen to. I mean, I like it cause I've listened to it a lot, but

[00:30:57] Chad: Would you liken it to like progressive kind of like Genesis ish? It says sort of what it sounds like from how you're

[00:31:04] Jon: yeah, progressive, but a little bit more irreverent.

[00:31:08] Jon: So maybe, um, a bit of Frank Zappa type, but not that extreme, but just

[00:31:15] Jon: experimenting with different sounds and different instruments. They had two percussionists, you know, there was eight of them.

[00:31:22] Chad: Oh, wow.

[00:31:24] Jon: Yeah, it

[00:31:25] Chad: definitely after this going to have to go listen to some of

[00:31:28] Chad: that. I had no, I

[00:31:29] Jon: So, so then, so then, Neal Finn starts writing, so they didn't become mainstream until Neal Finn was writing the songs,

[00:31:39] Jon: and now we're in the 80s, and then he's like, oh I'm gonna go do my, you know, I don't wanna wear makeup and, you know, I'm gonna go do my own thing. So, one of the amazing stuff about Neal Finn's Crowded House music is the harmonies. So the person who sings all the harmonies on those first two albums is Tim Finn, his brother, who gets a credit on the album, but was never part of Crowded House.

[00:32:09] Chad: Huh.

[00:32:11] Jon: So, you know, he's, he's quintessential to the Crowded House sound, but he was never officially a band member of them.

[00:32:20] Chad: Interesting.

[00:32:21] Jon: and it's a little bit, it's a little bit of a sad story. He's the older brother. You know, and then his younger brother became more popular. I

[00:32:30] Chad: Kind of leapfrogged him. Yeah.

[00:32:32] Jon: I went and saw Tim Finn on one of my trips back to Australia, like 2004. And we went and saw Tim Finn and he'd do one of his songs and everyone would clap.

[00:32:40] Jon: And then he'd do a Kraut in the House song and everyone would go crazy. He didn't write them. So

[00:32:46] Chad: During the pandemic, I was teaching myself, uh, don't dream it's over on acoustic because I was, I had this

[00:32:54] Jon: that's hard.

[00:32:54] Chad: start recording. Oh yeah. The chords are pretty complicated. I found a simplified version of it somewhere online and I was able to stumble through it. But yeah, it's, it's not an easy song.

[00:33:04] Jon: The vocals, I mean. The vocals on all of those songs, Crowded House songs, are so hard. It's

[00:33:10] Jon: like, he's so melodic. He's still melodic today. He's playing in Pierce 17, I think.

[00:33:16] Chad: Oh, wow.

[00:33:17] Jon: uh, this September, I think. Again, with his two sons.

[00:33:21] Jon: So, and his original. His original, um, bassist, um, is, is there as well. So

[00:33:28] Chad: Are you going to go?

[00:33:30] Jon: it's uh, no, I saw him last year. His, um, his, uh, bassist is Nick Seymour, who's born in Australia and I don't have this band, but his brother Mark Seymour started a famous band in, in Australia. Ah, blanking on the blanking on the name. band, um, uh, hunters and collectors,

[00:33:57] Chad: Ah, okay.

[00:33:59] Jon: just, uh, that's what, what you called that the post third wave, Right.

[00:34:03] Jon: After the pub rock, he was part of that hunters and collectors. I think I have one group in here. That's, that's part of that. The hooters we get to. All right. But before we get to that, I want to talk about a band that everyone's heard of midnight oil.

[00:34:18] Chad: Yeah. I was going to ask about them. Same story. Right? I think like, you know, Yanks, like myself just became aware of them in like 85, 86, when they hit MTV with beds are burning was the big hit. Right.

[00:34:31] Chad: And it was like, Oh, this is a great new band. And everybody's like, no, they're not a new band. They've been around since the seventies.

[00:34:37] Jon: Yeah, so they were pub rock band. Um, a friend of mine, uh, who, a little older than me, he had a band. He remembers lending his instruments to Midnight Oil cause they didn't have instruments, right?

[00:34:52] Jon: So in Sydney, this is in Sydney, and they, they were like surf rock, pub rock. Um, and their first couple of albums never got released in the US.

[00:35:03] Jon: So In fact, you couldn't listen to them until they were finally on Spotify and, and, and other, other places. And they don't sound anything like Beds are Burning, like,

[00:35:14] Chad: The one, the tracks that you put on the playlist, I love them and I would never have known it was Midnight Oil if, you know, the name wasn't there.

[00:35:20] Jon: yeah, it's really heavy guitar. Cause they always had two guitars playing really heavy with, with the bass, um, and, and heavy drums. So that you can really hear the punk rock sound in their first two albums. Then they start to, Get a little bit more pop. You still have a message. I mean, their music always has a message.

[00:35:40] Jon: That's their, that's their thing,

[00:35:42] Jon: but it, it no longer has that public. So my other Midnight Oil story is, uh, I was in university as a freshman and I went to, um, it was called the Med Ball. So the medical department, medical students put on a ball and we went there and, uh, Midnight Oil was the People like, hate, like ignoring them, like,

[00:36:10] Jon: we can't dance to this, you know. And this is with their, their pub rock stuff. So, and I think they're like, fuck you, you know, it was like something like that. They didn't care. They were just getting paid.

[00:36:20] Jon: So. And, uh, I think the other one I saw that year was, I saw, um, uh, what, what was the, what was, we were, we were talking, went down under, what was the band?

[00:36:38] Chad: Oh, man at work.

[00:36:40] Jon: I saw Men at Work open for Cold Chisel and I'm like, yeah, they're okay. And then Cold Chisel came on. I'm like, yeah, great. And then Men at Work with a supporting band for Cold Chisel.

[00:36:50] Jon: It kind of gives you that, gives you that. how it was different in Australia than

[00:36:55] Jon: over here, right?

[00:36:56] Jon: So, um,

[00:36:58] Chad: when Men at War came out, I feel like at first they were almost seen as like a novelty act. Right. Because of the song Down Under and, you know, um, but you know, to be fair, they introduced the U S to, to a lot of Australian culture just through the lyrics to their song. And then they had another great song called Overkill.

[00:37:14] Chad: So like, I think they were, they had some depth, they had some talent, but it's just that they broke through with, with the bullshit song first. Right.

[00:37:23] Jon: yeah. So, um, do you know that Colin Hay actually tours

[00:37:29] Chad: Yes.

[00:37:30] Jon: Have you, have you seen him?

[00:37:31] Chad: No, uh, just clips on YouTube and stuff, but he sounds great.

[00:37:35] Jon: He, so he had, he had a couple of hits that made it onto Scrubs,

[00:37:41] Chad: Huh.

[00:37:41] Jon: you know, Scrubs,

[00:37:42] Jon: the TV show.

[00:37:43] Jon: He had a couple of hits as a soloist. They're on that and actually charted and he tours, he does man at work songs. He does some of his scrub songs, which are a bit more, you know, singer songwriter stuff, but he tells stories. So it's like half performance, half storytelling when he performs.

[00:38:05] Chad: Okay.

[00:38:06] Jon: He is so angry.

[00:38:10] Chad: Really?

[00:38:10] Jon: how famous Men at work were and how many albums and singles they sold And how much money he didn't make

[00:38:19] Jon: out of the whole thing

[00:38:21] Chad: yeah. Sadly, that's very common, and that's awful.

[00:38:25] Jon: Yep, he said didn't make a dime said I made a I made not a dime He said the reason i'm the reason i'm here today is because I didn't make any money and I gotta perform Although he seems to like performing. So You

[00:38:38] Chad: Yeah, the same story with a couple other artists that I really like. Um, Lloyd Cole, um, you know, they were Lloyd Cole and the commotions were huge in Britain in the early eighties. You know, they sort of burned out. They only were together for like four years, five years. Um, but then Lloyd had a couple of pretty successful solo albums.

[00:38:56] Chad: He never really hit in the U S um, but nowadays he still has to support his family by touring. Um, he says he makes no money from releasing independent records, you know, just, he barely makes enough to cover his costs. Um, so he's still playing out, you know, as, as much as he can. He's touring Europe. He tours the States once in a while.

[00:39:18] Chad: Um, what's interesting is a couple of years ago, he started a Patreon and his Patreon is really cool because if you paid at a certain membership level, he was publishing all of these. He took like meticulous notes throughout all the recording sessions for the commotion. So he still has all the original notebooks from like the eighties that he wrote lyrics in for songs like scratch pad ideas for things and chords and, um, recording notes and who was, you know, producing that day and, you know, just things like that.

[00:39:49] Chad: And it's really fascinating. I think he's almost running out of material because he's gotten through all the commotion stuff and he's probably a little more than halfway through his solo career. I think he just started posting. I forget which album, um, some of the rough cut demo DAT study captain and stuff like that.

[00:40:06] Chad: But I'm just like, well, at some point he's going to be caught up and I don't know what else he's going to, he's going to post, but it's kind of cool because he'll have sort of like a, like an archive of all of his, his, his work. Right. So I think it's interesting,

[00:40:17] Chad: but it's kind of cool.

[00:40:18] Jon: so there's an Australian performer that I didn't, that we haven't talked about, huge Australian, doesn't, he's, he's, I describe him as the Bob Dylan of Australia.

[00:40:31] Chad: Okay.

[00:40:31] Jon: His name is Paul Kelly. All right, you've never heard of him.

[00:40:37] Jon: And while we had a band and then performed solo, performed acoustic, and then he did a country band, and then he did this band, and he's like an icon, an Australian icon. And um, I go to see him when he tours, he tours in the U. S., by the way, me and 90 other people go see him.

[00:41:01] Chad: Right.

[00:41:02] Jon: I went and saw him in Australia on one of my trips, 5, 000 people, and uh,

[00:41:07] Jon: yeah. And I'm in the back, whereas I got photos of him like 15 feet away from me while I'm like, because no one knows, no one

[00:41:16] Chad: Same with Lloyd Cole. I saw him at a church in Montclair, New Jersey, and it was like 50 people, you know, and I was like three, three pews back from the stage. It was great. But yeah.

[00:41:26] Jon: And so what he did, which was interesting, is he took his entire catalogue, because he's very prolific, um, and he published the A to Z recordings.

[00:41:38] Chad: Oh, wow.

[00:41:39] Jon: So he did, and he did it once a month for 26 months. So he did, here's all my songs, start with A, and he made them available. online.

[00:41:48] Jon: And he's like, next month, here's all my songs starting with B. And then when he toured, he actually took him two, two or three nights. He actually did the songs in

[00:41:59] Chad: Nice. That's cool.

[00:42:02] Jon: It was an interesting way to mix up your catalog and then you get

[00:42:05] Jon: old and new. And so it'd be interesting if you heard white Beatles or Rolling Stones, if, if you did it in alphabetical order and see how it comes out.

[00:42:16] Chad: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:42:18] Jon: So, we were also talking about, you know, men at work didn't make any money, there wasn't really an avenue, so there was a band that nearly made it here called Little River Band.

[00:42:29] Chad: Yes.

[00:42:30] Jon: Kind of, kind of rock, kind of not, kind of yacht rock.

[00:42:36] Chad: I was gonna say they're kind of in the yacht rock camp a little bit.

[00:42:39] Jon: Yacht rock. By the way, do you know their song Reminiscing?

[00:42:42] Chad: Of course,

[00:42:43] Jon: Do you know that's the number one played song on the radio ever?

[00:42:47] Chad: really

[00:42:48] Jon: Yeah,

[00:42:49] Chad: anywhere

[00:42:50] Chad: around

[00:42:50] Jon: think so. No, in the US

[00:42:53] Chad: I didn't know that.

[00:42:54] Jon: Yeah. So I read that. I might be wrong, but I read that somewhere, you know, when it's got that Musak feel to it, like you might hear it in an elevator. So get this. So they toured, didn't make a lot of money. Um, we'd sing a left. who wrote songs. They got this other guy you never heard of called John Farnham. So he's almost as famous as Jimmy Barnes and Paul Kelly. John Farnham. Again, you never heard of him. Um, and uh, he sang with them for like another five years and they continued to chart.

[00:43:30] Jon: And then that went south and then these guys didn't have any money and they're like, what are we going to do? So they, they had picked up a bass player from Nashville. Like they lost a bass player and they won two of them and they picked this guy up and he's like, Oh, can I like buy the website and the rights from you guys?

[00:43:54] Jon: And they said yes. They didn't know what they were saying yes to. So the Little River Band is now based in Nashville, Tennessee.

[00:44:02] Chad: really?

[00:44:04] Jon: the original Little River Band has lost all naming rights. They got inducted into the Australian Aria Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and they had to be inducted as the original Little River

[00:44:15] Chad: Oh my God.

[00:44:16] Jon: because they didn't have rights for the name.

[00:44:18] Jon: Uh,

[00:44:21] Chad: that sucks.

[00:44:25] Jon: it's a funny story. I went and saw them last year and I didn't, I actually didn't know all of this story and I'm like,

[00:44:32] Chad: Right,

[00:44:32] Chad: those aren't the original

[00:44:33] Jon: aren't yeah, this doesn't, and they were saying things about the songs. Like, this song is, was, was written dedicated to in the American Armed Forces. I'm like, it was written in Australia.

[00:44:43] Jon: Come

[00:44:44] Chad: Yeah, right.

[00:44:45] Jon: like, what, what is this? So, so, um,

[00:44:54] Chad: hard rock kind of stuff. Like Rush is his favorite band and you know, he likes Kiss and Iron Maiden and I forget it's, it's escaping me. I want to say foreigner. And he went to see Foreigner and he said he couldn't believe how cheap the tickets were and he gets there and, you know, the curtain goes up and it's like, who are these guys?

[00:45:13] Chad: There wasn't a single original member. I think it was, it might've been a different band, but let's just say it was Foreigner. And he's like, why the hell did I come see this? Like there's not a single original member of the band on the stage right now. This is ridiculous. Yeah,

[00:45:29] Jon: that where it's not the original people and the original people are still alive but they don't, you know, they've lost the rights.

[00:45:36] Chad: Right. Uh, unreal.

[00:45:39] Jon: um, yeah, so you enjoyed that Midnight Oil, the, the, the old stuff,

[00:45:44] Chad: Yeah, I really did. And I've always liked them. Like, you know, I, I like the stuff that was on the radio, the, you know, the, the eighties albums that I listened to years ago and still, you know, comes up once in a while, but yeah, I really liked the older stuff that I wasn't aware of until just now. Yeah,

[00:46:03] Jon: In, uh, was it the Q Hotel in Melbourne? I went and saw them, dragged my friends. It was, you know, five of us and like thirty five other people. You might not have heard of this band before. In Excess, I don't know if you've ever heard of them.

[00:46:19] Chad: maybe.

[00:46:20] Jon: And they had one album out. I somehow, I don't know why I bought the album. I bought the album and they had this hit song called Just Keep Walking. Sorry, which never made it to the U. S. I don't think,

[00:46:33] Chad: No, never heard it until you put it on the playlist.

[00:46:35] Jon: and it's, You can hear kind of the future in excess, but it's

[00:46:39] Jon: got a little bit of that raw, Boom, bada, bong, like that raw, you know, beat to it.

[00:46:46] Jon: So, um, yeah, and then they, they took off. I mean, you know, they weren't, they did, they, they, did the pub circuit on a regular, and it was hard. They didn't, they didn't make a lot of money doing it. It was hard work.

[00:46:59] Jon: It was really hard work.

[00:47:01] Chad: Yeah, they didn't hit here until Shabu Shabah came

[00:47:04] Jon: Right, and That was the college. that was what we talked about before. the college there's a whole strategy they did. It was a big risk. They spent a lot of money, but not with the big record labels or the big usual promotion

[00:47:18] Jon: mechanisms, so

[00:47:20] Jon: it

[00:47:20] Chad: you know, when they first hit here, it was, I heard them on college radio. They weren't on the mainstream radio stations right away. They were, you know, they were playing on all the independent stations. So, um, uh, what's the song? Um, The big hit off that album, I can't think of the name right now.

[00:47:35] Chad: It's dream on white boy,

[00:47:38] Jon: yeah.

[00:47:39] Chad: on black girl. I can't think of the name of the song, but that's that song for whatever reason, um, was, was the first time I think I heard it in excess. And I was like, Ooh, I like this.

[00:47:47] Chad: Of course, me being stupid back then. I didn't know it was in excess. I thought it was inks.

[00:47:51] Jon: incisus. ha

[00:47:53] Jon: ha

[00:47:53] Chad: My cousin and I used to, Listen to them and go, Ooh, inks is, you know, cause a lot of times they wouldn't announce the name of the artist after the song on the radio. Cause they play like three, four in a row and we wouldn't pay attention.

[00:48:03] Chad: So yeah, for a while it was inks is in my

[00:48:06] Jon: Oh, it's better than inks the inks. So I threw, I'm now mentioning a band that's kind of post pub rock, but a band I really like called the Hoodoo Gurus.

[00:48:20] Chad: I knew of them. I've heard them before.

[00:48:22] Jon: now, I, do you know where they got their name from? Hm?

[00:48:28] Jon: All right. Do you know a show called Get Smart with Maxwell, the,

[00:48:34] Jon: the special agent? 80, 86,

[00:48:37] Jon: Get Smart. There was an episode with a band that Chaos had had that programmed teenagers to like do bad things. And the name of the band was called the

[00:48:55] Jon: Hoodoo Gurus and their song was Thrill, thrill, thrill, kill, kill, kill They were like trying to program teenagers at rock concerts

[00:49:06] Jon: and That's where the Hoodoo Gurus got their,

[00:49:08] Chad: That's amazing.

[00:49:09] Jon: name from Um, and they, they're kind of, by the way they're touring I think they were touring in the US last year or this year Um, so And they're, they're kind of like surf rock,

[00:49:22] Chad: Damn.

[00:49:23] Jon: right?

[00:49:23] Jon: So it's a little bit, you know, echo y, reverb y, you know, core response with the guitar, vocals and stuff. So,

[00:49:33] Chad: I remember hearing them on college radio too, late eighties. I think the song what's my scene was,

[00:49:39] Chad: was all over the place here for a while. So that, that was, I think the first song that I was aware of from them, but I'll tell you what, when I listened to them again, um, you know, because of your playlist, um, I liked them enough that I went and listened to some other tracks and I put, uh, there's a song called 1000 miles and I put that on my sort of like, you know, car rotation playlist.

[00:49:57] Chad: Great track.

[00:49:59] Jon: cool.

[00:50:00] Jon: No, they have, they have some great, some great stuff. So, um, so, uh, you know what? We didn't talk about. current Australian groups.

[00:50:12] Chad: Yeah, let's do it.

[00:50:13] Jon: Yeah, now this is, you know, luckily I have young relatives in Australia, so that's,

[00:50:19] Chad: Let me keep you hip.

[00:50:20] Jon: yeah, that's, that's, so have you heard of King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard?

[00:50:26] Chad: Yes, but I didn't know they were Australian.

[00:50:28] Jon: Australian!

[00:50:29] Chad: Okay.

[00:50:30] Jon: Yeah, they played Red Rocks, um, last year or this year. So, um, um, now, here's another band, uh, Teske! T S K

[00:50:43] Chad: Oh yeah, yeah, okay. I've heard of them too. I think my daughter has them on one of her playlists.

[00:50:48] Jon: Australian

[00:50:49] Chad: Oh, huh.

[00:50:50] Jon: They don't sound Australian at all They sound like big heavy blues like

[00:50:55] Jon: they're from the south or they're like they don't sound that way

[00:50:59] Jon: at

[00:51:00] Chad: Right, right.

[00:51:01] Jon: um, yeah, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard are super popular I find it a little hard to listen to, not my, not my

[00:51:08] Chad: Yeah, not my speed either.

[00:51:09] Chad: Tusky Brothers I like though.

[00:51:11] Jon: Yeah, really good. Um, uh, yeah, don't, don't have any other current Australian bands, but the pub rock scene is still, still there.

[00:51:24] Jon: They still, they still do it a little different, but still trying to preserve it. So,

[00:51:31] Chad: Nice.

[00:51:32] Jon: so it'd be interesting if, uh, wonder what would have happened if there had been a channel for this music to the U. S.

[00:51:43] Chad: Yeah, I wondered the same thing. And again, like I still don't know fully why they weren't able to cross over. I think there just must not have been the, the, the business mechanisms in place in Australia to do all the promotion and maybe not, maybe the money wasn't there to send them overseas or, you know, do the international promotion they had to do to get them on the radio and other countries.

[00:52:03] Chad: But, you know, if, if that's the reason that's unfortunate, because there's so much good music that came out of that, that 10 year period or whatever it was.

[00:52:11] Jon: and that, you know, they were listening, they were listening to American and UK music and then doing their own versions and, you know, influencing each other and, um, you know, by the way, some of it was big in Denmark,

[00:52:26] Chad: Really? Right.

[00:52:29] Jon: of it, you know, there was some weird crossover, you know, from some of the European countries. with Australian music as well. So, um, so, you know, but that, you know, that, that didn't amount to anything monetary or famous otherwise for, for, for these performers. So,

[00:52:51] Chad: Huh.

[00:52:52] Jon: so, um, so yeah, I, I guess it's so different these days, you know, like everything happens everywhere all at once,

[00:53:04] Chad: Right.

[00:53:04] Jon: um,

[00:53:05] Chad: Well, the internet, you know, I mean, I was just talking about this, um, on the last episode that I recorded that hasn't come out yet, but I was talking to somebody and we were talking about just how music has proliferated because of the internet, right? Not only Commercial released music, but stuff that's just somebody records on a laptop in their bedroom and it goes viral.

[00:53:26] Chad: Um, it's so much easier. We're talking about bootlegs is what sort of spurred this whole conversation. And we were talking about how in the 70s and 80s, if there was a live album that wasn't official or, you know, If there was like alternate takes or, you know, abandoned songs that didn't make it on an album, you'd have to go hunt down a bootleg version someplace.

[00:53:45] Chad: Right. And who knows how these things even leaked out into the market, but you could find them, you know, their record stores that specialize in this kind of stuff. Um, but nowadays, you know, you can literally just go on the internet and Google, you know, Steely Dan, uh, LA. 1974, like whenever they played and, and there's a recording, right?

[00:54:04] Chad: And you can download it. So I think, um, things have changed greatly because of the, the, the ubiquitousness of, of, and the availability of music.

[00:54:16] Jon: Yeah. Yeah. Even, even the crossover artists. So I left out something with that. Um, crowded house, Neil Finn story when I was telling, there's actually an American connection to

[00:54:28] Chad: Really? Okay.

[00:54:29] Jon: so I don't know if, you know, um, when Lindsay Buckingham was, um, pushed out of Fleetwood Mac. Do you remember, you

[00:54:37] Chad: Yeah.

[00:54:38] Jon: Yeah. Um, So that, that, um, Mick Fleetwood asked Neil Finn to join the band.

[00:54:45] Jon: Yeah. So, um, he went to New Zealand for a week to talk Neil Finn into, into joining the band.

[00:54:55] Jon: He actually played drums. Neil was recording an album at this time. So he actually said, I'm going to play drums on one of your tracks. Neil Finn is like, Whoa. And then when he left. Mick's like, so you in? And he's like, I'm not sure. So he's like, I'm not sure. And he was talking to his family about it. And he's like, well, I've got my own rock band. It's not my rock band. And they were like,

[00:55:25] Chad: Are

[00:55:25] Jon: Fleetwood Mac. It's everyone's dream to go play with a band like Fleetwood Mac. Um, so he joined them and then Mike Campbell, who was the guitarist for Tom Petty. Tom

[00:55:38] Jon: Petty had passed in 2019. And, um, 2018. And so the two of them had Lindsey Buckingham's. And he did that for, uh, 14 or 18 months. He said that read that's what where he got this creative thing to go back to the studio, do more, play with his sons.

[00:55:59] Jon: He's like that completely rejuvenated,

[00:56:02] Jon: rejuvenated him. Yeah.

[00:56:04] Chad: That's so cool.

[00:56:06] Jon: Yeah.

[00:56:06] Chad: There's a great sequence. Um, did you ever watch? There was a series. I forget what network it was on. I want to say it was like FX or one of these. Um, The show was called The Americans and it was about two, uh, spies that were Russian spies, like in the seventies. Great show.

[00:56:25] Chad: It lasted maybe three or four seasons.

[00:56:27] Chad: It was

[00:56:28] Jon: yeah. With the, I know the female actress.

[00:56:30] Jon: Yeah, Yeah. With Americans with a K. Yeah.

[00:56:32] Chad: Yeah,

[00:56:32] Chad: she was Felicity. I can't think of

[00:56:35] Chad: her, her real name. Um,

[00:56:37] Chad: anyway, yeah,

[00:56:38] Chad: she's fantastic. And I can't think of the guy's name, um, who was the husband, but there's this sequence in the opening episode of one of the seasons and it was choreographed. Like, it was like a one shot kind of thing.

[00:56:51] Chad: Oh, maybe not a one shot, but it was just like this, this really well edited, let's just say sequence that was set to the song, uh, don't dream it's over. Right. Because it was sort of like filling you in on what happened in the last like year since the,

[00:57:04] Chad: the, the previous season had dropped. It kind of time warped a little bit and it was just so well done.

[00:57:09] Chad: And to hear that song in a TV show, it was like, ah, it was just perfect.

[00:57:12] Jon: Awesome.

[00:57:14] Jon: Great song. Probably, probably one of the best songs to come out of Australia. New Zealand. New Zealand Australia. You know, Australians still have a chip on their shoulder when it's New Zealand. New Zealanders have a chip on their shoulder when it's Australia. So,

[00:57:28] Jon: can't help it.

[00:57:30] Chad: Nice. Well, anything else, John, what else do you want to cover? I mean, we've got a few minutes left. If you want to touch on any other topics.

[00:57:37] Jon: Um, I guess just back to, I got to bring up Paul Kelly again,

[00:57:45] Jon: by the way, I've learned almost, he's got more than a hundred songs in his repertoire. I've learned almost all of them.

[00:57:54] Jon: So on guitar. Yeah. Yeah. It's great. Great thing to play at a, at a open mic because it looks like I'm in an original song right and they're really good songs no one's ever heard of them before so

[00:58:07] Chad: But do you play them in alphabetical order? That's the question.

[00:58:10] Jon: no I just play one or two of them I don't but uh so here's another Australian music trivia you know big in Australia you guys have no idea but um so Paul Kelly and Neil Finn from Crowded House got together and did a set of performances around the country playing each other's songs

[00:58:34] Chad: Oh,

[00:58:34] Chad: wow.

[00:58:36] Jon: So they had a backing band. Neil had not reformed Crowded House because he only just reformed it after the, um, after the experience he had with, um, playing with Fleetwood Mac. And they toured Australia and New Zealand. And they would sing each other's songs. That was the thing because they're probably two of the most famous Australian New Zealand songwriters and they went around um, performing each other's song. Packed,

[00:59:03] Jon: like stadium

[00:59:04] Chad: can imagine. Yeah.

[00:59:05] Jon: So

[00:59:07] Chad: Cool.

[00:59:07] Jon: yeah. I would say I'll have to, I'll have to send you something Paul Kelly. It's a little, it's a little different. It's not, he tried the pub rock thing but he was really just a good singer songwriter so it didn't work for him.

[00:59:19] Chad: Hey, nothing wrong with that. Yeah. And you know, we talked about a bunch of artists that didn't make it onto your playlist. So I will compile a playlist and publish that and I'll send you a copy obviously with, you know, with some, some of those songs as well. And some of those artists that people can check them out.

[00:59:34] Jon: Cool. Well,

[00:59:35] Jon: thanks for having me.

[00:59:36] Chad: Yeah. Thanks for being on. This was fun.

[00:59:38] Jon: Great. Awesome.

[00:59:41] Chad: cool. Well, we'll have to have you back at some point and we can dig into a different topic.

[00:59:45] Jon: Sure. Absolutely. We didn't talk about tech. I think it's the first time we've, we've not talked about technology. We didn't tell everyone that you and I work together in technology, right? That's

[00:59:54] Chad: That's right. We did not mention tech. Yeah. Yeah. So Jon was the CTO and I was the IT manager at a, at an advertising agency in New York. That's how we met. So we'll, we'll, we'll tell that story a different day. Great. Well, thanks again, man. I'll talk to you soon.

[01:00:10] Jon: All right, cheers.

[01:00:11] Chad: See ya.