Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Notes from Pig City

The Scientists: solid gold

Back in the early 1980s, Kim Salmon once claimed his group the Scientists played the devil’s music. Over a couple of chords and a minimalist beat, they could whip up a furious storm approximating the title of one of their songs: Solid Gold Hell. Their hair was ridiculous (think big) and their clothes were gorgeous.

Ahead of a long-delayed national tour to promote Negativity, the band’s first full-length album since breaking up in 1987, Salmon – whose hair is, if anything, wilder than ever – has finally created a Facebook page for his old band. Going through old photos, he can now see the Scientists for who they were: “This skinny bunch of cute boys that made this really hideous noise.”

After innocent beginnings in Perth, and an early appearance on Countdown, Salmon moved to Sydney in 1981. There he formed a new version of the Scientists, which began thrilling, terrifying and occasionally repelling inner-city audiences. In a rare trip to the suburbs, they had cans of beer hurled at them by Angels fans; soon after, they moved to London.

Salmon wrote for the unique characters in the band, particularly drummer Brett Rixon, as if they were his muses: trying to capture their peculiar mix of sullen apathy and bursts of self-destructive energy.… Read more..

Champagne (music) television

Music / March 22, 2021 / 5 minutes of reading

Last year’s debut of The Set on ABC television – a house party style music variety show, with the tagline “live music has a new home” – was an attempt to plug a gaping hole in the national broadcaster’s programming: for a long time, live music had indeed lacked a home on our television screens.

The gap had grown so wide that it had generated its own nostalgia. We’ve had a TV mini-series on Countdown’s Ian “Molly” Meldrum, as well as Classic Countdown, and a recent documentary on the ABC’s late-’90s music television program Recovery (to go along with its reboot on YouTube, Recovered, with original hosts Dylan Lewis and Jane Gazzo).

As the Guardian takes a deep dive into the defining moments of Australian TV history – for better or worse – here are five from the glory days of local music programming. Please add your own favourites to the comments below – or nominate them in our poll.

#5: A water cooler moment: Madison Avenue at the 2000 ARIAS

Award shows are usually predictable affairs, and the ARIAs are no exception: little is left to chance and controversies – such as when Itch-E & Scratch-E’s Paul Mac thanked the dance duo’s ecstasy dealers in 1995 – often hit the cutting room floor before broadcast.… Read more..

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