Showing posts with label RADIO BIRDMAN. Show all posts
Showing posts with label RADIO BIRDMAN. Show all posts

8.01.2020

JAMES WILLIAMSON AND DENIZ TEK TO RELEASE NEW LP TWO TO ONE


Los Angeles, CA – Legendary proto-punk guitar heroes, James Williamson & Deniz Tek, have joined forces for a brand new, odds-defying studio album, Two To One, set to be released September 18 by Cleopatra Records. An inductee into the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame, Williamson was the guitarist and co-songwriter for one of the most iconic and influential albums of all-time, Iggy & The Stooges Raw Power, while Tek launched and occupied the same role for what became Australia’s ground zero for the punk movement with his band, the revered Radio Birdman. The album features 11 all-new original compositions highlighted by the first single “Stable” and the explosive lead-off track “Jet Pack Nightmare.”

Watch the video for “Stable”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OwkUzeJzpo



Williamson had this to say about the project; “It was really a lot of fun working with Deniz to make a no-frills, good old-fashioned guitar album. Took me back to Raw Power and Kill City days. Deniz comes from a very similar approach to music that I do, both of us have had many years of experience in Detroit and Ann Arbor, Michigan.”

Tek adds: “Raw Power shaped my path as a young guitar player. It was great to partner up with James to make this album. Everything fell into place beyond expectations – the songs, the band, the production, and even the timing. I am very happy with it.”

Two To One will be available on CD, digital and in your choice of red, blue, yellow or classic black vinyl!

Order the album HERE

10.30.2018

VIVEIRO ROCKS! GUEST POST FROM CHRIS KLONDIKE MASUAK


Today's guest post is from Chris Klondike Masuak Canadian-born Australian rock musician, guitarist, songwriter and record producer.

I pick Pony Boy up from the bus stop after school most days.

If it’s sunny I wait sitting on a brick wall swinging my legs and looking out over a 12th-century convent to the low green coastal mountains, disappearing into soft haze.

The bus swings round the corner pretty much right on the button and Pony Boy bursts out, talking a mile a minute about how he didn’t do anything at school.


We’ll stop at a bar on the way home. Spanish bars aren’t the frosted glassed sleazy dives we used to stand in fear and wonder outside of as kids in northern Canada. He’ll continue his monologue over hot chocolate and churros, stopping occasionally to talk to one of the patrons in whatever language suits them, which in this joint usually means “Deep Galego”.

Most of the old folks in town know Pony Boy. On those sunny days they’ll all be out sitting along the walkway beside the bay in the precious sunshine. He’ll stop and say hello to them, making sure that the ones who don’t see so well know it’s him. He shakes their hands or gives high fives. They’ll talk for a while about this and that while I stand back and watch.

If we don’t notice them when we walk past, they’ll wave and yell “Hola!”. He waves back and yells, telling them where we’re going.

We seem to have become a fixture. If I’m out on the street by myself, people I don’t even know will ask “You’re by yourself today? Where’s your boy?”

As we walk along he keeps up a running monologue, mostly about the various ways you can defeat zombies or the mechanical attributes of the robots he likes to build.


We’ll usually end up walking along beside the water to the music school and we’ll stand outside for a while, playing by the antique cannons and listening to the students clamouring away.

Violin concertos, bagpipes, rock bands...it’s the luck of the draw on any given day.

Some days we’ll walk further along the waterfront to the sports centre.

In July you can forget about swimming for a few weeks. Viveiro is home to Resurrection Fest, one of Europe’s biggest metal/thrash festivals. When that’s on, it’s impossible to get to the pool. It’s annoying.

A couple of years ago Motorhead did their final concert there. Last year Iron Maiden played. This year it was KISS and Scorpion.


We can hear it all from my place at the far end of the bay..

During the festival our medieval fishing village is choked with people. At first the locals were worried about all those strange kids with tattoos, piercings, dressed in black.

These days, they don’t even bother calling in any extra police. The 60,000 concert goers cause less trouble and are infinitely more polite than any couple of drunken Brits!

In August there’s a giant festival stage set up in the town plaza. Every night music drifts out across the water and echoes against the hills.

The bars are overflowing and while you listen to the concerts you can fill up on the free tapas!

The other night I was making my way back home after playing a Rock 4 West Papua benefit. It was 4 AM and the streets were still buzzing with activity. Some kids recognised me and yelled “Hey, Masuak!”

Without even trying, Viveiro Rocks!

10.01.2018

CHRIS MASUAK AND THE VIVEIRO WAVE RIDERS NEW RELEASE BRUJITA!


Chris "Klondike" Masuak is a pioneer of Australia's underground rock and roll scene, a guitar hero and a member off the Australian Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Canadian-born and Australian-raised, he joined seminal Sydney band Radio Birdman as a teen, went on to Australia's hardest working act, the Hitmen, and tasted US chart success with the Screaming Tribesmen.

Masuak honed his craft in the teeming Oz pub rock scene and now divides his time between Australia and Spain.

"Bruita" is his third solo band album on Sydney label I-94 Bar Records. It's a return to his rock-pop roots and shows his songwriting smarts and soulful yet powerful guitar style.



Chris Masuak (Radio Birdman, Screaming Tribesmen, New Christs, Hitmen) has a new album recorded with his crack Spanish band, The Viveiro Wave Riders.

"Brujita" is a return to hard rock-pop roots for Masuak. Propelled by a nimble engine room and Klondike's scorching guitar, it's a rock and roll record tempered by his trademark melody lines and pop smarts. It features 12 tracks (two of them exclusive to the CD edition) and most of them are instant anthems.



From the rollicking "Viveiro Rocks" to the raucous ode to Detroit's diva, "Niagara", this is an album of high-energy rock-pop rifferama. From the stinging Birdmanesque "No Younger" (based in part on a song Chris wrote for the Birdmen back in 1996) to the Flamin'-Groovies-meet-the-Dictators swagger of "Another Lost Weekend" (a re-recorded version of a vinyl single) to the acidic reflection of "Bird Brain", it's a gem.


Purchase/Download Brujita HERE

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

10.09.2014

DENIZ TEK MEETS BLUE COUPE!


 Deniz Tek guest post:

 DENIZ TEK PLAYS GUITAR ON BLUE COUPE'S MILLIONS MILES MORE

I was playing a show with my band a couple of years ago at Bowery Electric, just a block away from the old CBGB's. Al Bouchard, BOC drummer, showed up. After the show I joined him at the bar and we had a good time catching up. (The last time I had seen him was when Radio Birdman played in NYC in 2006)


He told me he about his band, Blue Coupe, with his brother Joe and Dennis Dunaway, the original Alice Cooper bass player. BOC and Alice were two of my favorite bands. (We named our first album Radios Appear after a BOC line from the song "Dominance and Submission")



1. Prophets Dukes and Nomads 3:32
2. Hellfire Hurry 3:47
3. Hallow's Grave 3:51
4. Everybody Goes Insane 4:04
5. I'll Forever Stick Around 3:36
6. Modern Love (Stalking Time) 4:52
7. Used Car 3:56
8. Supernatural Love 4:01
9. Train of Thought 4:00
10. Ain't Dead 3:31
11. Ride With Me 3:54
12. Devil's Highway 3:51
13. More Cowbell (Gotta Fever) 2:55


Over the years I've been inspired by and covered many of their songs. I was intrigued by the idea of "Blue Coupe". I had already heard about them from pal Andy Shernoff, who had done a few shows with them up in Canada, and was writing some material for them. Al asked if I would be willing to contribute some guitar to the next album which was to be Million Miles More. I said sure thing.

 Buck Dharma and Deniz Tek 
Sydney April 2013 Photo © Anne Laurent

A couple of months later Al sent me audio files for the track, "Supernatural Love", a beautiful pop song written by Andy. It was right up my alley. I spent an afternoon in Bob Brown's studio recording guitar parts for it, sent it back, and some months later it showed up on the album. I was pleased and honored to get to play on an album with these icons of rock and roll, and to be a featured guest along with guys like Buck Dharma, Alice Cooper, and Ross the Boss.

These days, it's common to be recording not in the same room or same city, but often, not even in the same country as the other musicians. Sure is convenient, but not very good for comradeship or photo opportunities... so, unfortunately, there are no photos ! Deniz Tek


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.

8.24.2014

RADIO BIRDMAN AUSTRALIA 2014 DATES




RADIO BIRDMAN AUSTRALIA 2014 DATES

Original members Pip Hoyle, Rob Younger, and Deniz Tek 
will assemble a new lineup for a limited run of concerts 
around Australia in November 2014.


Friday 31st October - NEWCASTLE
Saturday 1st November - SYDNEY
Sunday 2nd November - MELBOURNE
Monday 3rd November - MELBOURNE
Friday 7th November - BRISBANE
Saturday 8th November - ADELAIDE
Sunday 9th November - PERTH

3.04.2014

SONICS RENDEZVOUS BAND: DENIZ TEK PART TWO


Ron and I began to work on songs and were often hanging out at his Mom's house on Highlake Rd on the west end of Ann Arbor, where he was living. Ron had contact with some other local musicians, and was trying to put something together. This was before Destroy All Monsters, and not too long after the New Order. We would sit in the TV room (the TV was on continuously) and have drinks until 4 or 5 AM, and go down to the basement to jam.

 
There was a singer in Ypsilanti...a bit too much of a "rock god" type for me, and Rob King who would later drum in Destroy All Monsters, and Dennis "Machine Gun" Thompson, from the MC5, who was living in downriver Detroit.

 
Dennis was with Ron in the New Order, and would be part of our New Race project in 1981. We jammed with Dennis a few times, and made some tapes.


Wayne Kramer had just gotten out of prison, and came by while we were jamming in a studio and making tapes. He was doing something with Brits Mick Farren from the Deviants, and Larry Wallis guitarist of the Pink Fairies. Soon after that Wayne would form Gang War with Johnny Thunders, more or less a debacle in which Thunders was usually too smashed to play, but it still offered a good opportunity to see the great Wayne Kramer at very small clubs.


Here, at last, was the energy source. It seems that it never dies, but like an artesian water source it sometimes goes underground and reappears later, elsewhere. It can have multiple tributaries and it needs to be replenished from time to time, not just taken from. You take, but you have to give back. It goes on.
 

I would see Sonics Rendezvous as often as possible from then on. I was collecting tons of raw inspirational material to take back with me to Radio Birdman. In all the shows I went to, that was always foremost in my mind. There had been no mentors .. not even peers … for a long time. No one to gain knowledge from. No one to inspire my muse.

 
Radio Birdman was completely and utterly isolated in the first months of 1976. Staying on that island without contact for too long could have caused the inspiration to fade, dry up, blow away. The vision could lose clarity, dissipate.


My band had not yet achieved full power, and I knew I needed new influences to help it go to the next level. For me, Sonics Rendezvous made the difference. It was like finding a clear cold mountain spring in a trackless desert.

By around February (1976) it was time to return from the Michigan snow to the blast furnace heat of Sydney. In those days the transpacific routes were mostly flown by DC-10s or early model 747s which had to make one refueling stop between LA and Sydney. Continental stopped in Samoa, Qantas stopped in Fiji, and United stopped in Honolulu.


I flew on all these routes, whatever ticket was the cheapest at the time. I was able usually to write material for songs on these long tedious flights, so as to make some productive use of the time. Sometimes I'd get off for a couple of days in these places and look around. I had a friend in Honolulu, John Berger, and sometimes we would go into town and see bands in between these flights.


Once I stopped in Fiji and hitchhiked into the countryside, wandered off the road into the jungle and enjoyed generous hospitality in a small village. Guys spent evenings listening to the radio, playing cards and drinking raw grey muddy kava juice ... the chief was all too happy for this skinny white guy with a guitar to join in the circle and share some laughs as the kava bowl got passed around.

epilogue
Arriving in Sydney I went straight over to Radio Birdman manager George Kringas' house in Blues Point. I wanted to get back into rehearsals and get ready to record. I got a shock when I went to the bathroom. There was a dead lamb in the bathtub that seemed to be staring at me. Band sidekick Mark Sisto had bought it. It was waiting in the bath because of drainage, later to be roasted on a spit, for my homecoming party that night.

READ PART ONE DENIZ TEK SEES SRB 

★Deniz Tek, from Ann Arbor, Michigan, is a prolific guitarist, singer and songwriter currently based in Sydney, Australia. His career in music, grounded in late-60's Detroit, extends through several decades and across continents. He is best known as a founding member of the influential Australian independent rock band Radio Birdman.

In 2007, Deniz was inducted into the Australian Music Hall of Fame, and in 2012 was voted number 7 in the top 100 Australian guitarists of all time.★




1.31.2014

DETROIT DOWN UNDER: DENIZ TEK'S STORY


** Deniz Tek has done SO much to promote Detroit Rock n Roll 
around this planet! Dr. Tek is our legend piece today......***

Deniz Tek is an American singer, guitarist and songwriter and a founding member of Australian rock group Radio Birdman. He has played in many of the underground rock bands of the 1970s including Australian bands The Visitors, and New Race but is most known for exerting his burning Detroit style guitar influence over the punk rock genre in Australia.

Tek was raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. He spent 1967 in Sydney, Australia with his family and was greatly attracted to the Australian landscape, moving there permanently in 1972 to begin his medical studies at University of New South Wales in Sydney.


Dr. Deniz Tek is a trained ER doctor and ex-navy flight surgeon who currently splits his time working in emergency departments in hospitals in NSW, Australia and Hawaii, USA while still taking time to record and tour.
 

In the late '60s, Ann Arbor became somewhat of a nexus for rock music, hosting festivals which drew performers from all around the world such as Pink Floyd, Janis Joplin, Johnny Winter, Captain Beefheart, and a personal favorite of Tek's, The Rolling Stones.


Tek was heavily influenced by the underground scene of Ann Arbor, which included bands such as The MC5, The Stooges, The Rationals, Frost, Mitch Ryder, Carnal Kitchen with Steve Mackay, The Up, SRC plus jazz greats Pharoah Sanders, Sun Ra, Archie Shepp and Yusef Lateef.


IN 1972 when Deniz moved to Australia he took his love of Detroit Rock n roll with him introducing thousands of young Aussies to our favorite music and taught them about our corridor to the City I 94...


1974-78 Tek proceeded to form a new band with long time friend Rob Younger, with the addition of Chris "Klondike" Masuak, Warwick Gilbert, Pip Hoyle and Ron Keeley, and called themselves Radio Birdman, after a misheard Stooges lyric.

 
The Radio Birdman sound was unconventional and raw... it echoed the Motor City influences of Tek's youth. 
 

Birdman are often attributed with the initiation of the Australian indie rock scene, as after being repeatedly rejected from various clubs and bars in the Sydney area, Birdman took it upon themselves to record and release their first recording Burn My Eye, and distribute it out the back of the band members' station wagons.

 
Radio Birdman began a world tour in 1977 traveling to England and playing a few shows around London as well as recording their second album Living Eyes, until in 1978 the band broke up mid-tour.


READ MORE ON WIKI

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