Keish de Silva - Notes from Pig City

Still going hard

If you were growing up in the Australian suburbs in the 1980s and early 1990s and had any interest at all in what later became known as alternative music, you have probably heard the Hard-Ons. Against considerable odds – starting with their name – the band once racked up an astonishing run of 17 consecutive No. 1 songs on the independent charts.

It’s tempting to say they’re back. But the priapic Hard-Ons never really went away. They did break up in 1994, but bassist Ray Ahn and guitarist Peter Black (known to all as Blackie), soldiered on as Nunchukka Superfly. They reunited with singing drummer Keish de Silva in 1997, but de Silva quickly became disenchanted and moved on again.

Still, the band carried on, with Murray Ruse on drums and the prolific Blackie singing. Actually, prolific doesn’t begin to describe Blackie: the influential guitarist recorded a song every single day in 2016, adding a cover of Deep Purple’s Smoke On The Water on New Year’s Day 2017 for good measure.

It’s de Silva – whose honey-sweet vocals and energetic drumming style was a big part of the band’s appeal – who’s back, with the release of the band’s 12th studio album So I Could Have Them Destroyed today.… Read more..

Richie Ramone: Too tough to die

Music / April 25, 2016 / 3 minutes of reading

You can understand Richie Ramone not wanting to walk under ladders, much less wanting to open that door, and absolutely not wanting to go down to the basement. “I thought there was a curse,” he admits. “I was really careful walking down the street, you know, because everybody went that young.”

Born Richie Reinhardt, the Ramones’ third drummer is one of three surviving members of the quintessential New York punk band. All four original “brothers” (Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee and Tommy) are now long gone, as well as artistic director Arturo Vega, who designed the group’s iconic logo.

But, while he may not be an original, Reinhardt – who is touring Australia as part of the 10^th anniversary of the Cherry Rock Festival in May – is still more a Ramone than you or I will ever be. He stayed with the band for five years and 500 shows during the mid-’80s, playing drums on three albums.

The first of them, perhaps prophetically, was Too Tough To Die, easily the best record from the Ramones’ troubled middle period. Joey himself once said Richie’s arrival saved the famously volatile band.

“When you get somebody new, everybody is on their best behaviour and it’s a shot of new blood, and that’s what they needed at the time,” Reinhardt says.… Read more..

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