Frieze was a curious side-track in the continuing careers of
Beeb Birtles and Daryl Cotton, who came to fame as members of Zoot. After Zoot
split in 1971 lead guitarist Rick Springfield launched his solo career and
headed off the United States. Cotton and Birtles were approached through their
management by a Melbourne advertising agency. One of the agency's national
accounts was the clothing company, Frieze Brothers' Suits, who wanted to employ
a pop group to help promote their products.
Beeb recalls "They wanted Darryl and me to form another group which
they wanted to call Deep Frieze. The gimmick was that they wanted every guy in
the band to be named after a type of material, meaning cloth material. So
obviously Darryl Cotton was fine but they wanted me to call me Terry Lean and I
was to have a brother called "Crimp" (as in Terylene and
crimplene)."So we're sitting there thinking, hang on, we've already been
through "Think Pink - Think ZOOT" and these guys are wanting us to do
a similar, if not worse, thing. We promptly told them that to pursue this kind
of idea; they would get laughed out of the country. Instead we talked them into
doing a duo using just Darryl and myself and calling ourselves Frieze."
With financial backing from Frieze, they bought a station wagon, a sound system
and a tape recorder, which they used to provide pre-recorded backing for their
shows and, of course, they were fitted out with a wardrobe of Frieze suits.
They performed mostly in shopping malls, performing songs while male models
showed off the latest Frieze suits. They played popular hits of the day
including songs by Crosby, Stills & Nash and Young and they also did an
Everly Brothers medley. During the latter stages of the group, they drafted in Brisbane
band Burke & Wills as their backing group. Frieze lasted almost exactly one
year, from June 1971 to June 1972. Their first single, a cover of Barry Mann
and Cynthia Weil's "Feelings" ’71 (which can be found at post # 39) ,
came out on Robie Porter's Sparmac label and managed to scrape into the lower
reaches of the Melbourne chart. They were then signed up by the newly
established Australian division of Warner Brothers Records. Frieze recorded two
singles for Warner which was released during 1972; Frieze's first single for
Warner had Daryl's "Try Yourself" on the A-side, backed by one of
Beeb's , "You and I". The third and last Frieze single featured two
songs by Daryl “Why Do Little Kids Have To Die", backed by "Jimmie
and Jessie". The duo also recorded
a full album, titled 1972 B.C. (WS 20006) here for you to download, It was
produced by Brian Cadd; the LP did not feature Burke & Wills; the album
line-up included several of the same musicians who had recently worked with
Cadd on Russell Morris' acclaimed “Bloodstone” LP, Cadd on keyboards, with
guitarist Phil Manning and bassist Barry "Big Goose" Sullivan,
drummer Ray Arnott , session guitarist Charlie Gould and renowned jazz and
session flautist/saxophonist Graham Lyell. By mid-1972 Birtles had grown tired
of act and he told Cotton and manager Jeff Joseph that he was quitting, so the
duo split; in July Cotton left for the USA. Meanwhile, Jean Gair offered
Birtles a job answering phones at the AMBO office for $50 a week. It was there
that he took the call that changed his life, he answered the phone one day and
a voice said, "Yes, I was wondering if you could help me, I'm trying to
get in touch with Beeb Birtles?" The voice belonged to musician Graeham
Goble, formerly of Adelaide folk-rock group Allison Gros, who wanted Beeb to
join his new band Mississippi. Beeb accepted, although Goble wanted him to play
guitar rather than bass. The other members of Mississippi reportedly opposed
this at first but Goble threatened that he would quit if Birtles wasn't hired.
The rest is history. Birtles and Goble formed a successful musical partnership
that endured through Mississippi and eventually led to worldwide success with
Little River Band. A big thanks once again to Graham who weaved his magic making
it possible to post this LP here on the Blog.
