James Baker was, as the title of his last solo release declared, Born To Rock. The musician, who died on Monday night aged 71, was the big beat behind the drums for a long list of influential Australian garage-rock bands including Hoodoo Gurus, Beasts of Bourbon, the Scientists, the Dubrovniks and the Victims. But his […]
The Ballad of James Baker, 1954-2025 Read More »
There’s a classic Looney Tunes cartoon where Daffy Duck presents an act no other performer ever dared to emulate. Warning those with weak constitutions to leave the theatre, Daffy – dressed in a Lucifer onesie – consumes gasoline, nitro, a “goodly proportion” of gunpowder and uranium-238, then swallows a match and blows himself to smithereens. Cheered
Hoodoo Gurus’ Stoneage Romeos: still death-defying Read More »
For a brief moment in the mid 1980s, when huge crowds packed Australian sporting stadiums for 50-over cricket matches, signs reading “Like Wow – Wipeout!” began appearing in the outer, usually when a six sailed into the crowd. It was a reference to the hit song by the Hoodoo Gurus. Singer Dave Faulkner told an
Paul Kelly: “I never heard back from Warnie” Read More »
There’s a moment at the beginning of the Hoodoo Gurus’ new album, Chariot Of The Gods, where Dave Faulkner sounds like he’s stuck in the corner of a bar. You can hear clinking glasses and the hum of a crowd, chattering over Faulkner as he strums one of the Gurus’ classic hits, Come Anytime. At
The Hoodoo Gurus’ “bogan Sgt Pepper” Read More »
Now it starts to get hard! This is where I start to become ultra-conscious of who and what’s getting left out. The songs get harder to put in any kind of order. And I haven’t made it any easier for myself – I found I’d written Nick Cave’s The Mercy Seat down twice in my
The Great Australian Songbook IV (20-11) Read More »