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Thursday 30 October 2014

Post 535 - Carrl & Janie Myriad - Last Saturday (We Fell In Love Again) - I've Got My Heart Set On You

Obscure folk duo, Carrl & Janie Myriad were a popular husband & wife duo on the Melbourne circuit in the early 70's. Carrl & Janie went on to form one of our first country/folk bands, the self-named Myriad.  For a long time the band held a residency at the famed Station Hotel in Prahran, They released this single for Fable Records in 1970 “Last Saturday (We Fell In Love Again” b/w “I’ve Got My Heart Set On You” (FB-003). In 1972 they released their only LP “Of All The Wounded People”, released on Spin records.  Carrl & Janie separated & Janie reverted to her maiden name Janie Conway, helping to form, with Jane Clifton, another popular band of the late 70's, Stiletto. Janie is also the sister of Mic & Jim Conway of Captain Matchbox. I recently seen this single on EBay for $146.00 I think I paid about $3.00 for mine. 

Tuesday 21 October 2014

Post 534 - Frieze - 1972 B.C.

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. 

Monday 20 October 2014

Post 533 - Heart 'N' Soul - Hot Boogie Band LP

Heart'N'Soul started out as a dinner-suited club/cabaret band in Sydney in 1967 but it soon evolved into Australia's first -jazz-rock 'big band' and the first local group to perform what has become known as jazz-rock fusion. Like several other larger outfits of the period, they were strongly influenced by 60s soul acts on Motown, Stax and Atlantic, and probably also by the soul-jazz-rock excursions of American band Blood Sweat & Tears. The original line-up consisted of the Willington brothers, Phil Prideaux, Percy Ohrling, Rory Thomas, Graham Lewis and Leith Corbett. Among the noted musicians who passed through the ranks were Keith Barr, session stalwart Bobby Gebert (piano), Eric Cairns and Les Gough, jazz legends John Pochee and Bernie McGann, the late Larry Taylor (aka Larry Duryea) who later joined Tamam Shud and Arthur Eisenberg,  Keyboard player Peter Sheehan, who joined during 1970, had come from NZ band Freshwater, for whom he had co-written the A-side of their single "Satan" / "Satan's Woman", which was about the Charles Manson murders.  Heart’N’Soul by then renamed "The Heart'n'Soul Hot Boogie Band" -- was one of the first acts signed to Festival's new progressive label Infinity, which was launched in January 1971. When they recorded their “Hot Boogie Band” (SINL 934098) LP here for you to download, the group had expanded to twelve members, but sadly it had split by the time the album and its accompanying single "Hot Boogie Band" / "Earthrise" were released as part of Infinity's inaugural issue in January 1971. Thanks to Micko with the help with the art work.

Saturday 4 October 2014

Post 532 - Robin Jolley - Midnight Woman – Rock ‘N’ Roll Star

Robin Jolley started singing with the Melbourne group “Windy & Warm” whilst in his mid teens. Neville Kent discovered him and enticed him to come to Hobart where he got him off the ground as a solo singer. The next step was a record deal, in 1972 he returned to Melbourne in the search for one. Radio DJ Paul Konik introduced him to Brian Cadd  which presented him with a song called “Marshall’s Portable Music Machine” which Brian had co-written with Don Mudie. Cadd and Konik produced the single and it was snapped up by Fable Records. Robin released five singles and a EP and LP for Fable and three other singles. Here to download is his 1976 single for Festival Records “– Midnight Woman” b/w ‘Rock ‘N’ Roll Star” (J-6410). The single was produced by Larry Murray and John French. The A side was penned by New Seekers Marty Kristian with the B side written by Ian Mason from Kush. In May 1977, Jolley became a vocalist with Melbourne band the Echoes.