Showing posts with label AUSTRALIA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label AUSTRALIA. Show all posts

5.21.2017

RADIO BIRDMAN: MY GANG DADDY-O! WRITTEN BY CHRIS KLONDIKE MASUAK


Chris Masuak May 21, 2017

Radio Birdman used to mean something...used to stand for something! The band attached concepts like “brotherhood”, “honour”, “loyalty”, and “integrity” to itself while slowly but surely disappearing into the kind of vanity driven and posturing black hole that we used to disdain.

I had just been instructed that I “was not invited to participate” in the upcoming tour to promote the band’s “definitive boxed set” and I was certainly not interested in facilitating the ongoing personal fantasy that the band’s history had been relegated to.


However, the filmmaker Jonathan Sequeira assured me that no one was calling the shots on this project except him! No one had the power of veto…there was no one (and the emphasis was on a particular “one”) running interference.



So, I thought sure…if I’m going to make an asshole of myself at least I’ll be in good company!

Jonathan was circumspect. He never let on what the other guys had to say. He was letting us all reveal ourselves for who we were despite ourselves. He was assiduously objective.

It was crazy timing! Like I said…I had only just “officially” fallen out of favour. It was inevitable and a long time coming and a relief when it finally did. In that culture you’re a bully or you’re a sycophant or you’re simply not in the gang.



I didn’t miss it.

But, it reminded me that it was great being in the gang in the old days. We were comrades, fighting a real and (we truly believed) noble fight. We were different and my new teachers and role models and heroes were patient and tolerant and kind to their young and naïve bandmate.

We were champions of a music that no one else knew about. I learned about all this stuff through the guys and because of my more formal musical training, I had something to give back.

I think that this documentary will capture a sense of that early unity and the genuine excitement that we felt for our music.

I know that the audience felt that, too! I had been in the audience and knew what it was like to be swept along on a tsunami of sound and energy.


In later years I would meet and play with some of the guys who we admired and who we helped introduce into the culture. Ron and Scott from The Stooges, Wayne and Dennis from the MC5. God, I even played in a band that blew Iggy and his band offstage night after night on his first tour of Australia!

I related to them like normal people. It felt like we were friends at the time.

I don’t know if they ever realised how much Radio Birdman did for them. Even before Birdman, Warwick, Ron, and Younger were playing their music in The Rats. I mean…who did that in those days?!

I didn’t really hear any of that stuff until I started hanging out with the guys, even though I’d seen the Raw Power ads and reviews in Time magazine and seen The New York Dolls album covers in record stores back in Canada.


Back at the Birdman “clubhouse” we were always listening to The Stooges, The MC5, The New York Dolls, Alice Cooper, The Velvet Underground, The Rolling Stones and surf music. The Blue Oyster Cult helped up the ante just that little bit!

It was a real education. We were filtering all that stuff through our collective hands and making new music in the process. Those were thrilling times!

And, we were a gang. No one else could join. Everyone wanted to.

We were a gang and an alchemical reaction. I think that the documentary will finally make that clear. I think everyone’s getting a bit tired of that tired lone gunman's attempts at re-imagining the band’s history.
Chris Masuak

10.04.2014

RADIO BIRDMAN 2014 TOUR DATES!



Radio Birdman, one of the pioneers of the high energy rock ‘n’ roll scene in Australia, will be playing a limited number of shows this coming October and November. These shows will be a unique opportunity to catch this legendary Australian underground band whose flame has influenced a multitude of current contenders.

The line up will feature founding members Rob Younger, Deniz Tek, and Pip Hoyle, longstanding bassist Jim Dickson and returning Radio Birdman drummer Nik Rieth. Guitarist Dave Kettley of the New Christs will join on guitar.

To make things ever better the band will be reissuing their formidable back catalogue, the demand for which never ceases.


The reissue of the band’s material is initially in the form of a limited edition CD box set, out now. The box contains the three studio albums Radios Appear (Trafalgar and Sire versions) and Living Eyes, all remastered from original tapes. Each of these albums will be accompanied by a standalone bonus disc. Much of the bonus disc material is previously unreleased and will provide a treasure trove of material for diehard fans.

http://www.citadelmailorder.com/mailorder/discs/radio_birdman_the_box.jsp?source=radio_birdman_the_box_new

To cap off the box set there is a previously unreleased live concert recorded at Paddington Town Hall in 1977 just prior to the band's departure for the UK. This live recording has been mixed from master tapes that have languished forgotten for decades. The result is a totally wild and raw release that captures the band’s true primal energy. We’re sure it will prove to be the jewel in the crown for the box set.

The studio albums will also be reissued on vinyl, these being staggered over the months leading up to Christmas.

Live At Paddington Town Hall will come out on vinyl too as a double gatefold LP.

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