Current Traffic

Monday 26 January 2015

Post 555 - Cyril B. Bunter Band - 2JJJ Live EP

If you wanted to experience Cyril B. Bunter Band in their own natural habitat, the only place to be was The Welcome Inn, the first bar up from the docks at the dirty end of Sussex Street. A fine standalone toilet tile pub where the band could turn up and play Loud, with no neighbours to complain. For almost five years from 1972, every Friday and Saturday, The Bunters, lit only by a couple of lights, would crank out set after set of filthy, blues-drenched boogie, always with the little front bar packed fit-to-bust: Usually three or four hundred sweaty people squeezed into a room that comfortably held maybe a hundred heads. There was no stage, the band played on the floor hard up against the wall, eyeball-to-eyeball with the front row of fans just three feet away. The regulars congregated from all points on the weekends from Bondi, Botany and Blacktown, from Clovelly, Cronulla and Collaroy, Manly and Maroubra, and everyone just had a ball. Spreading their wings beyond their Surry Hills/Bondi roots, The Bunters went on to become friends and touring partners with many great’s. Between ‘77 and ‘85, they performed on endless roads how tours including three national tours opening for “John Mayall’s BluesBreakers” and four tours with “Canned Heat”. After becoming fast friends with the band during three tours together, “George Thorogood and the Destroyers” recorded The Bunters’ song “Boogie People” as the title track of their 1985 album. Melbourne’s king of the blues, “Dutch Tilders”, travelled the Hume and Pacific Highways with The Bunters as his backing band during the same period. Recordings from the Bunters was scarce, their focus was always purely on the live connection, their sole studio album, “Mad Money In High Places”, available only at these shows. Original only ever one pressing a 1000 copies, and it sold out quickly. Here to download from a 2JJ Studio 221 concert, recorded in Glorious Mono around Dec. 1980 - Jan.1981 is the rare “2JJJ Live EP” (Z-OO1) released on Porksword Productions and produced Keith Walker and Jeff Baker.    mp3

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks Oz

Never got to see the Bunters but I know they are back performing so I might eventually get to hear them.

This will fill the gap.

Regards

Rhod

Unknown said...

saw them last year - brilliant - thanx for the music