Reasons To Be Cheerful part Nein Nein Nein

Radio Birdman – Hand Of Law

That introduction, the bass kicks off, the drum comes in and then the guitar riff… fuck me, it’s just about perfect really.   And here I am 40 years later still hearing that song and finding it fresh and exciting and it hits me right in the heart and brain and makes me smile still… all these years and still I can’t help but feel the power and energy and the moment. 

I still own the original cassette copy of Radios Appear that I bought back in the day when I was like 15 and discovered this band and a whole new world opened up.  1978/79 and my mate Mike and I would trek out to the caves with the Radio Birdman tape and my “newest” cassette player, the third one I’d owned by then. Another beat up second hand Sony I think, but unlike my second player, this one didn’t have dual decks but did have a working battery pack and didn’t need electrical tape to hold it together. (Always a bonus) The tape deck would rest on my shoulder and we’d listen to the rumble, the power as we trekked the couple of miles out of town through the pine forest to our hideaway one of many we’d had over the years, forts we’d built from fallen pine trees and branches, dug outs in the soil, old sheds lost in the forest, this time we had a pothole/cave we had made into a fort, a secret space, even putting posters on the wall down there and bringing candles and dirty magazines and food.  Radio Birdman would echo off the damp walls, the sound crashing and swooping all around us and it all made perfect sense.  It would be in the high 30s outside, so hot you could barely think but down here in our cave, accessible only by climbing down a tree branch, surrounded by rock posters and teen goddesses, with the music blaring, it was a cool low 20s and we would lay back smoking and laughing and listening intently to Rob Younger’s scream, Deniz Tek’s guitar, trying to decipher words and meaning, not caring about the heat or the flies or what the future held for us.  There were no thoughts of sawmills or log trucks, no petrol pump jockeys or supermarket shelves down here just cool air and loud guitar, rock and roll escapism and the sounds of birds up above in the trees, flies buzzing lazily waiting for us to surface, the world lazily waiting for us to come up for air.

And we’d always have to come back up, if just to piss but while we were down there, no one could find us or tell us what to do, there were no teachers asking for answers, no parents questioning our intentions, no girls laughing at us, no pressure, no purpose, just the blistering Detroit influenced rock and roll that promised a different world, that signaled the change that was coming, the possibilities… we just had to find it.  

Play It Loud!!

Reasons To Be Cheerful Part Ate

Motley Crue – Shout At The Devil.

 Motley Crue’s Shout At The Devil was another of those ‘chance’ teenage discoveries. I recall seeing a film clip on late night tv of them covered in fake blood and looking satanic and evil.  Well at least evil to a 17 year old kid living in a country town. And come on I was a Kiss fan already, I loved Skyhooks and Sweet and glam so I was already predisposed to the flash and arrogance and dressing up – the escape.  And at 16/17 it was metal and punk that were really providing that route so the Crue fitted in perfectly. Especially the early days/daze before they sobered up and really became platinum hit makers.  This was a different beast, a sloppy, drunk, drug fucked beast that wandered around in leather and sweat and smeared makeup looking for all money like they just needed another beer or snort to feel better, to perform better.  It was like a Saturday night cabaret band had suddenly found fame and didn’t know what the fuck to do with it. When I saw the cassette at the local whitegoods store cum record shop I had to have it.  My cousin Pete and I fell for ‘em hard.  We loved that album for awhile there, played it constantly, sang it, mimed it, played air guitar along with it.

On weekends we’d throw that tape in the car cassette deck, pop the sunroof, sip from the badly hidden hip flasks and beercans and just cruise the mainstreet of Millicent with Vince squealing over that raucous rhythm section and us playing air guitar and shouting at the devil, hoping one of the girls might find our rebellion cute.  They never did.

I still own that very copy of the cassette, the one that we flogged to death in the car as we drove up and down the mainstreet drunk every Friday and Saturday night trying to find girls, visions, anything that would help us get to the next stop on the way.  Hard to believe now I know but back then, much like Kiss, they were a band that alienated people and separated yr friends from yr foes.  They weren’t punk but this was country South Australia, they were alienating enough to be just what we needed. Ugly and discordant enough to be a dividing line between the cool kids and us fuck ups. What else could you want?  cheese with the devil