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"An excellent collection of early 70's Australian Rock / Pop/." (Rock On Vinyl)
"Aztec Music prides itself on preserving Australia's rich music history and with this release, they do it with class and style." (This review)
This is album review number Two Hundred in the series of retro-reviews of both vinyl and CD albums from my collection.
The series is called Cream of The Crate and each review represents an album that I believe represents significant musical value, either because of its rarity, because it represents the best of a style or styles of a music or because there is something unique about the music, the group or the particular production. The first fifty reviews were based on vinyl albums from my collection, with the following fifty on CD albums from my collection, the final one hundred have been a mixture of vinyl and CD. Links to all these reviews can be found at the bottom of the page.
This is the final retro-review in what has been a series based upon albums in my collection and while my collection goes on, these reviews are taking a break.
It is appropriate that the final retro-review is on an Australian album, as I have tried to make every fifth review one on an Australian artist and an album from my collection.
This final album is a wonderful CD album that has never been released on vinyl and features 17 artists and groups, and if we count variations on one artist, there are 19 artists and groups. The CD album is titled - The Complete Havoc Singles [1971 - 1973]. It was released on the Aztec label in 2008 with the identifying code of AVSCD035. The album has 41 tracks across two CD's with 23 tracks on CD #1 and 18 tracks on CD #2.
If we want to be technical, the set has 39 tracks plus, what have been labelled as two bonus tracks, being the last two on CD #2.
The finish on both the CD cover and the enclosed booklet is excellent!
The two CD's come in a cover that opens out so there are in fact four inner faces. When you open it out at first, we see a composite picture of all the artists that recorded on the Havoc label as presented in this CD set.
The inner two faces hold the two CD's, the extreme left hand side are the lyrics to the Wild Cherries "I Am The Sea" and the extreme right hand side is a list of credits and dedications. The card is quality thickness and high quality gloss finish, and the artwork on the cover and CD's and the overall design is top class.
In fact the quality of the material in the 12 page double sided booklet is of a high quality and is only equaled to the quality of the CD mastering. My only criticism, is that maybe a few artist pictures could have been added, but I have to admit, I wouldn't want to nominate what to cut out of the provided material to allow for them.
Many interesting things happened in the Australian music scene in the 1900's and one such event was the formation of a number of local record labels that had an impact not only upon the release of music in the 1960's but through into the 1970's. These independent labels - independent from the major labels of the day, played a very large part in distributing music that might not have otherwise been heard and certainly allowed more Australian artists to be heard.
In fact the majors like Festival, saw the advantage of actually starting up their own "indie" labels such as Leedon, Sunshine, Clarion and many more in a trend that went right through the 1970's.
Havoc Records was such an indie label that sprung up in the 1970's and the accompanying booklet tells the story, which I will summarise.
Gil Matthews was the driving force behind the havoc project when he was appointed in-house producer and engineer. Gil came with considerable "street cred" and was mainly known for his drumming, his absolutely ace drumming, although he also played guitar. In fact it is said that Gil could read drum music before he could read words. It would appear as though his first "name" Australian group was Levi Smiths Clefs, followed by several years with Billy Thorpe and also with Kevin Borich and Mondo Rock.
Levi Smith Clefs with Gil on drums
Gil also demonstrated a wonderful ear for production and along with the skills necessary for engineering, and the installation of upgraded eight-track Sound Studio 31 in Jolimont (you need to remember eight-track was quite cutting edge in those days), he was set to record everything from jingles to singles.
The booklet tells us that Havoc only released 19 singles, which make up this set, and five albums. The notes say they were an eclectic lot, snd that is by no means an understatement. The unkindest description would be a "mish-mash" of styles, but a far kinder description is that these represent an eclectic collection - Oh hang on! That's exactly what the notes say.
Ian McFarlane wrote the booklet notes and did a great job. I pride myself in having a reasonable knowledge of Aussie rock history but I found browsing through his notes some facts and details that had escaped me, and I have to say, he has a great style of writing.
It is actually hard to work out . . . even enjoy, some of the tracks. I mean to say when you have the likes of mighty powerful material from Billy Thorpe, the Coloured Balls, the Wild Cherries and quality tracks by Carson and Gil Mathews, listening to the likes of Jasmine singing ballads about Christmas is a bit hard to take.
So while we have been given some absolutely superb material, we have some quite cringe-worthy material, and a smattering of interesting and quite good pieces in between.
It seems when Thorpie left Havoc in 1973 to go across to Warner/Atlantic, and other principal of Havoc, Wayne De Gruchy (who had also been heavily involved in the 60's Oz music scene) resigned to concentrate on managing the Coloured Balls, Havoc folded.
Booklet plate
Track Listing
Disc 1
JASMINE
1. Twenty Mile Zone
2. Beware Of Young Girls
ASH
3. Midnight Witch
4. Warrant
BILLY THORPE & THE AZTECS
5. The Dawn Song
6. Time To Live
MARK JUSTIN
7. Hey Na (I Think I Love You)
8. Suzanne
CHOOK
9. Cold Feet
10. Tables Turn
THE WILD CHERRIES
11. I’m The Sea (Stop Killing Me)
12. Daily Planet
GIL MATTHEWS
13. Little Dove
14. Gil’s Thing
CARSON
15. Travelling South
16. Moonshine
JASMINE
17. On The Eve Of Christmas
18. Christmas Day
19. We’re So Happy At Christmas
MICHAEL TURNER IN SESSION
20. Just Around Midnight
21. Pattern Of My Life
ROBBIE SNOWDEN
22. Hot Pants Sue
23. Lookin’ In The Lake
Disc 2
THE AZTECS
1. Most People I Know Think That I’m Crazy
2. Regulation 3 Pufff
JEFF PHILLIPS
3. Gloria
4. Come Go With Me
AZTECS
5. Believe It Just Like Me
6. Get To Hell Out Of Here
LOBBY LOYDE & THE COLOURED BALLS
7. Liberate Rock
8. Slowest Guitar On Earth
EVERTON PARK
9. Priscilla
10. Nimble Bones
STAR SPANGLED BANGER
11. Star Spangled Banger
12. Sailing
LOBBY LOYDE & THE COLOURED BALLS
13. Mr. Mean Mouth
14. Love Me Girl
THUMP’N PIG & PUFF’N BILLY
15. Captain Straightman
16. Bow My Head
Bonus Tracks:
CARSON
17. Don’t Worry (from Australian Rock 71-72)
DAVID PICKARD
18. They’ve Cut Down All The Trees (from A City's Child)
So, that brings me to the task of choosing tracks to discuss. What we have is each single broken down so that #1 is the "A-side" and #2 the "B-side". First up is Jasamine, and frankly it is somewhat a shame that this became the debut single for the Havoc label, I'm stunned! This single is quaint, but who the hell is Jasamine? Featuring a female voice, was she Jasamine? or is it as the notes suggest, was it the name of a studio band. Look it's a harmless track and as I said, quaint. It tells the story of a woman picked up driving by a motorcycle cop, who picks her up because she was screaming. Insanity? Hell, it doesn't quite cause that effect on me, its far to passive - but enough said except, because there is worse to come!
That takes us through to Ash and track 3 - Midnight Witch. I have to agree with the liner notes - this was more like what we might have expected from an indie "rock" label - pity it wasn't the first single released on the Havoc label - not the best track on this CD set by any means but it is a power track. Written by Doug Ford, it has elements of the English power rock sound a la Black Sabbath and Deep Purple. Fuzz leads prevail, and it has a powerful down beat. As the liner notes say, "psychedelia meets progressive rock".
Ash
I'm not going to play it for you, as there is a live clip of the band doing the track on Youtube, so you can find that below in the video clips section. It is a very good effort!
Next up is Billy Thorpe and The Aztecs. Hell, what can I say about an icon of Australian music that hasn't already been said? One thing was he and the Aztecs might well have been at the top of their game in 1971 when this single was recorded. The line-up for this single was Billy (of course), Warren "Pig" Morgan on piano, Paul Wheeler on bass and Steve Innis on drums (a short lived stay with the group).
In fact Steve while a good drummer, was simply delivering what the Aztecs wanted, while waiting for Gil Mathews to take over, they actually recorded side 2 - Tables Turn, they used another drummer. Who that was, seems to be a bone of conjecture, with Go-Set reporting that Laurie Prior from Healing Force was the drummer, but according to the liner notes, Gil's memory says that Wild Cherries drummer, Johnny Dick was around at the time, and it was he that sat on the drums!
Side 1 - The Dawn Song is actually a ballad, with swirling orchestral strings and this part honestly does nothing, well very little, for me until we get to the 1':39" point, and the tempo and whole mood of the track changes and it is quite exciting, but I wish to hell they had kept the orchestra away from returning a second time. Certainly by tracks end the song had redeemed itself.
However side 2 is what we might have expected from the first Thorpe effort on Havoc. Time To Live - It's not a raging rocker, in fact it's a medium tempo piece that is quite dramatic in its feel. Some folk have pointed out that there is a descending run at the 0:54 point that is very reminiscent of a run in Pink Floyd's Echo's. Given what we have just gone there with Led Zepplin and there "rip-off" of a Spirit track - let's leave this alone. Pig Morgans piano playing is delightful and Billy's guitar work, especially 2/3rds through, is sublime!