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Wednesday 28 February 2018

Karen Knowles - 2006 - The Best Of FLAC


CD 1 Why Won't You Explain/Amazing Grace/The Heart Of Me/I Remember/Rock Me/The Rose/You Are The Reason/La Vie En Rose/I Never Said I Love You/It's A Real Good Feeling/Danny Boy/One Step From Your Arms

CD 2  Free To Be Lonely Again/Pretend/Let Me Your Entertainer/What Will I Write/I'm In Love For The Very First Time/Vincent/Love On The Line/Loves Us All/Oh My Papa/There's A Town/When A Child Is Born/Hold Me

Thanks to Brian

Karen Knowles - 1983 - Wish I Was Loving You REPOST


Why Won't You Explain/You Are The Reason/When A Child Is Born/Oh My Papa/Hold Me/La Vie En Rose/Vincent/Love Us All/Amazing Grace/Wish I as Loving You/Let It Be Me/Just For That/What's Another Year/I Never Said I Love You/Pretend/The Rose/The Heart Of Me/All The Tea In China




Karen Knowles' extensive and successful career as a performer, producer and director of her own entertainment company now spans over twenty-five years.Her performance career began with the award winning television program Young Talent Time where she quickly achieved national recognition and acclaim for her weekly appearances and regular request segments. She soon caught the eye and ear of Ron Tudor, a great pioneer in the Australian record industry, who signed her to his Fable label in 1980.
Success was swift - Karen soon made history by becoming the first Australian schoolgirl to receive a Gold record with her first Top Ten hit single Why Won’t You Explain. The following album You Are The Reason reached Platinum status, making her the highest selling female artist in Australia for two consecutive years. She then released her second record Loves Us All which achieved gold status, the Top 30 single You Don’t Know Love and The Third Time album.

Monday 26 February 2018

Bobby Bright - 1975 - Bobby Bright FLAC


Keep On Rockin' Part 1/Sweet Dream Baby/Bali Bagouse/When A Man Loves A Woman/Mr. Music Man/What's Going On/Cosmic Capsule/You're The Reason/Hero (King Of The Movies)/Waitin' On The Man/Boogie Man/Keep On Rockin' (Part 2)




One of the first rock singers to make an impression in Adelaide, Bright sang with "Bobby Bright and The Beaumen".  He later moved to Melbourne and released two solo singles on the W&G Records label in 1963.

 

Bobby & Laurie were a popular Australian singing duo of the 1960s, featuring Laurie Allen (vocals, guitar, keyboards) and Bobby Bright (vocals, guitar). Their regular backing band were The Rondells. The pair formed one of the leading acts in the first wave of the Australian 'beat pop' era between 1964 and 1967, alongside contemporaries such as Billy Thorpe & The Aztecs, Ray Brown & The Whispers, The Easybeats and Normie Rowe. They became one of the most popular and successful acts of their day.

Bobby Bright and Laurie Allen made their first TV appearance together on The Go! Show and then started recording for Go Records, an offshoot from the show. Bobby & Laurie scored four Top 40 hits in their hometown Melbourne then switched to Alberts were they topped the Australian chart for five weeks with the classic ‘Hitch Hiker’ in May and June 1966.

Bobby & Laurie toured with The Dave Clark Five, The Seekers and P.J. Proby but after three years in 1967 the pair split.

 Bobby in the production of "Tommy"

 After the break-up Bright worked in cabaret as well as some acting parts, including an appearance on television cop-show Homicide. In 1968, he became a disc-jockey at Melbourne radio station 3XY. The pair reunited on the radio program in February 1968 and shortly after made a return to the charts with a country music styled song Carroll County Accident. This was followed by Looking Through The Eyes of Love, but they had split again by late 1971.  Bobby resumed acting and singed a solo contract with RCA. In 1973 he appeared in the famous Melbourne concert production of Tommy. In July 1976 he released a self-titled album. He also wrote and recorded music for commercials. In 1994 he had a role in in Ana Kokkinos's dramatic feature film Only The Brave.   Thanks to Sunshine

Friday 9 February 2018

Mark Holden - 1979 - Moments (1995) FLAC


Carry Me Down/Never Gonna Fall In Love Again/I Wanna Make You My Lady/Last Romance/Hey My Love/Took My Heart To The Party/Reach Out For The One Who Loves You/Let's Go Dancing/Where Are You Girl/Sweet Morning Smile In Your Eyes,You Set My Dreams To Music/Firefly/Let Me Love You Once Before You Go


Mark Ronald Holden (born 27 April 1954) is an Australian singer, actor, TV personality, record producer, songwriter, and barrister. He was a pop star in the 1970s and had four top 20 hit singles, "Never Gonna Fall in Love Again" (May 1976), "I Wanna Make You My Lady" (September), "Last Romance" (November) and "Reach Out for the One Who Loves You" (October 1977). Holden regularly appeared on national pop music show, Countdown. Holden is remembered for his clean-cut image, his white dinner suit and his penchant for handing out carnations to girls on the set of the popular television show Countdown – he was nicknamed "The Carnation Kid". In the 1980s he worked as a songwriter in Los Angeles providing material recorded by Meat Loaf, Joe Cocker, Gladys Knight, Bob Welch and Steve Jones. He was one of three original judges on the TV series Australian Idol (2003–07) and the first season (2005) of The X Factor.

Tuesday 6 February 2018

Axiom - 2004 - The Axiom Archive 1969-1971 FLAC


Arkansas Grass/Baby Bear/Ford's Bridge/Samantha/Take It Or Leave It/A Little Ray Of Sunshine/Yesterday, Today And Tomorrow/Mansfield Hotel/Can't Let Go Of This Feeling/Country Pickin'/Once A Month Country Race Day/Fool's Gold/Who Am I Gonna See/Same Old Country Song/My Baby's Gone/Father Confessor/Hold The Phone/Sailing Ships/Talking About It/Time And Time Again/Longest Day/Matter Of Time/Show Me The Way (Brian Cadd & Don Mudie)/24 Rolling And Tumbling Down (Brian Cadd & Don Mudie)





Formed in Melbourne in 1969, Axiom were arguably Australia's first true supergroup. Yet, in spite of a wealth of talent and promise, some notable chart successes and two superb Albums of original material, they failed to achieve lasting popularity, due in part to waning public support in Australia as they vainly tried to crack the fickle English market, and the band fizzled out after less than two years. Nevertheless, Axiom deserve to be recognised as an important musical bridge between Sixties pop and Seventies rock in Australia, as one of the first serious attempts to make Australian rock with international appeal, and as one of the finest bands of their time.

Axiom was formed by Brian Cadd and Don Mudie, both former members of leading Melbourne popsters The Groop. Cadd, who began his career with Melbourne's The Jackson Kings, was already a prominent singer, songwriter and keyboard player. Besides his success with The Groop, he wrote hits for other acts, including "Elevator Driver" for the Master's Apprentices and "When I Was Only Six Years Old" for Ronnie Burns (which was also a UK hit for Paul Jones) and both he and Mudie worked as session players on a number of important recordings including the Russell Morris' classics "The Real Thing" and "Part III into Paper Walls".                  
                                                                                                  The Groop Mudie and Cadd far right.

 After linking up in The Groop, Mudie and Cadd formed a successful songwriting partnership that carried on through Axiom and beyond. Shorrock was the former lead singer of The Twilights; Lavery was from Perth's (in)famous The Valentines; Stockley was from leading Melbourne group Cam-Pact.

The formation of Axiom was apparently somewhat controversial, and there have been suggestions (probably based on reports in Go-Set) that Cadd & Mudie had deliberately engineered the break-up of The Groop in order to be able to form Axiom. The offer was evidently an attactive one -- Lavery and Stockley quit their respective bands and Shorrock withdrew from managing Melbourne band The Avengers to join. The Groop split after Mudie and Cadd had conducted lengthy (and apparently secret) negotiations to recruit Terry Britten who, like Shorrock had been a member of the recently defunct Twilights. They were unsuccessful in snaring Britten, but this evidently enabled them to make the link that resulted in the recruitment of Shorrock.

Axiom signed to Ron Tudor's Fable Records. Their first single "Arkansas Grass" (co-written by Cadd and Mudie) was an immediate hit, reaching #7 in December 1969. Cadd, like many other Aussie musicians, had been deeply influenced by the trend towards a fusion of country and folk elements with rock, spearheaded by acts like Dylan, The Byrds, Crosby Stills & Nash and especially The Band. Songs like "Arkansas Grass" show how well and how quickly Axiom mastered the idiom, and proved that they were able to create material that could stand up against (or indeed pass for) that of any major American group.


                          Chris Stockley sitting on the Tarax sign with his band CamPact

                           

Axiom, and Brian Cadd in his later solo work, have sometimes been criticised for the overt "American-ness" of some of their songs. There is no denying it, but there are several important factors that need to be understood when considering why Cadd and Mudie took to this style so enthusiastically. It's tempting to think that they had the US market in mind but Brian Cadd . Moreover, The Groop had been leading local proponents of soul and R&B, but Australian radio's entrenched resistance to black music -- even of the homegrown variety -- made it clear that this route would soon be a musical dead-end, at least in commercial terms (and it was not until the advent of disco in the late 1970s that this changed). 

 The Twilights Shorrock second from the left. 

 Brian Cadd was by no means the only ones smitten by the charms of innovations of The Band. George Harrison and Eric Clapton have openly admitted that lyrical honesty and the rootsy, organic musical style of The Band's first two LPs completely transformed the direction of their own music (a fact clearly in evidence on Clapton and Harrison's early solo albums) and as well a providing a rich new musical vocabulary, The Band caught the ears of many songwriters with their use of American Civil War imagery (also prominent on "Arkansas Grass"). The currency has faded now, but at the time it provided a convenient allegory that writers like Cadd and Mudie could use to refer to the controversial war then raging in Indochina, without facing the very real risk of having their anti-war messages censored by record labels or denied airplay by radio.

Doug Lavery left the band in early 1970 to join The Mixtures and was replaced by Don Lebler (ex-The Avengers). Axiom left for London in April with publishing deal from Leeds Music and reported record deal offers from both Apple and Decca. Their attempts to break into the English scene were understandable in the context of the time, but in retrospect their material clearly suggests that they would have been much more likely to succeed in America (as LRB would ultimately prove). Indeed, the latter part of their career suggest that they were heading in that direction, as so often happened, it seems that they lacked the necessary management and record company support.
                                                                                                        
                                                                                                  Doug Lavery in the Valentines drums.

 They released their second single "Little Ray of Sunshine" just prior to leaving for England. Although it's long been claimed that it was written about the birth of Brian's daughter, this is not true. In his interview with Debbie Kruger for her excellent 2006 book Songwriters Speak, Brian revealed the true story behind the writing of the song:

"... there was a couple and we all knew both of them; they were part of our circle. They were a fabulous couple. Towards the end of their time together they got pregnant. By the time this kid was born their relationship was acrimonious, horrifying. Everyone divided up into her camp or his camp and it was dreadful. And in the midst of all this, this fabulous little kid was born, and nobody seemed to notice. I hated it. It was terrible. And I thought, 'You know, regardless of anthing else, you guys made this. She's come into the world, and she's gorgeous. And it's such a shame in a way that you can't be affected by this like most people when this ray of sunshine comes into their life and changes everything about them ... " (1)

 Don Lebler drumming with the Avengers.

 "Little Ray of Sunshine" shot to #5 in April 1970 and has since become a standard. Their first two Axiom singles are rightly considered classics, and the latter, a perennial favourite, has become one of Glenn Shorrock's trademark songs, and was even celebrated with its own stamp in Australia Post's 1998 "Australian Rock" stamp series. It was followed by Axiom's brilliant debut LP Fools Gold, which was both widely praised and a significant commercial success, reaching #18 on the album chart in June.

Fool's Gold unquestionably ranks as one of the best and most original Aussie albums of the period, and (in my opinion) one of the best Australian pop-rock albums ever. It was also a significant step forward in creative control, being one of the very first Australian rock albums released on a major label that was produced by the artists themselves. Axiom was able to take advantage of the great improvement in sound provided by the new 8-track facilities at Armstrong's Studios, which showcased a selection of superb songs, brilliantly performed. Like the equally overlooked 1970 LP Prepared In Peace by Flying Circus, Fool's Gold was an important bridge between pop and country rock, and another notable feature is the closing track, "Who Am I Gonna See?", which is probably the first Australian pop-rock recording to use a didgeridoo in the arrangement.


 Although there is a strong American flavour to many of the songs, Fool's Gold anticipated the approach taken by later acts like The Dingoes and Skyhoooks, and features some of the first examples of Australian pop songwriters tackling distinctly Australian themes and using local references, notably on the tracks "Mansfield Hotel" and "Once A Month Country Race Day". Ironically, Brian Cadd revealed to Debbie Kruger that the Australian reference in the song "Ford's Bridge" (named after a town in Queensland)  it was in fact the result of pressure from outside the band:

" ... we wrote a song, which must have been all the stuff that I had left in my head from 'Arkansas Grass', which I called 'We Can Reach Georgia by Morning'. We had done some rough mixes and somebody played some of them to Stan Rofe and Rofe got right off his bike about it and said that it was absolutely unconscionable for us to use Georgia and why couldn't we use an Australian name? So I succumbed to the browbeating of everybody, and we found in the atlas a place in Northern Queensland called Fords Bridge, which had the right meter for the words ... I never really got over that. It really hurt me, It annoyed me ... I just got very annoyed with the parochialism. When it reached out and touched me and made me change a word in a song. I hated it." (2)

Soon after arriving in England, Axiom signed a three-year contract with Warner's Reprise label. Evidently Warners were sufficiently impressed to assign the making of band's third single to legendary American-born producer Shel Talmy (The Kinks, The Who, Creation, Manfred Mann, The Easybeats). The single "Father Confessor" was released in July, but after the spectacular success of the first two singles, this one curiously failed to chart at all in Australia, probably due to the effect of the recently imposed 1970 Radio Ban.


 In September Warners flew them to Los Angeles where they recorded the remaining tracks for their second LP If Only... with Talmy. They returned to Australia for a few months in November 1970 and then headed back to England in February 1971. If Only was released in March 1971, just after the band split. Talmy was interviewed by music writer Richie Unterberger in 2000. Almost thirty years down the track, he still spoke of Axiom group and the album in glowing terms:

"Warner Brothers hired me to record them. Super-duper band. It was a super album. Two weeks before the album was to be released on Warner, they decided to break up. And they did, and Warners said, "Bye!! If you think we're promoting this album, you're out of your fucking minds!" I was real pleased with that album. It was fun to do, they were talented, the songs were great."

Coming from the man who produced such classics as "My Generation", "You Really Got Me", "Friday On My Mind" and "Waterloo Sunset", this is high praise indeed.

Axiom had their third and last Aussie hit in early 1971 with the first single lifted from the LP, "My Baby's Gone" (the verses of which bear a suspicious resemblance to the 1980s World Party hit "Ship of Fools"). The only surviving videos of the band are performances of the song from Happening '71 and the shortlived Channel 9 pop show Move, and they also filmed a promotional clip for the song, one of the first such clips made in colour in Australia. Given that Australia wasn't to get colour TV for another four years, this was clearly done with overseas markets in mind. When released in January, the single did extremely well -- it was Top 10 by February, peaking at #8, a fact that is at odds with conventional wisdom, which says that interest in the band was waning while they were away in England.

 Unfortunately the difficulties of slogging it out in England and cracking the international market undoubtedly took their toll, and it seems there was growing tension within the band by the start of 1971 and Lebler and Mudie both quit, following Doug Lavery into The Mixtures in March, which precipitated the band's break-up. Sadly, as Shel Talmy relates, this came only two weeks before If Only... was released. One can only speculate on the result if they had been able to stay together to promote it. Both album and single were released later that year in America but in the absence of the band, they sank without trace.

Sunday 4 February 2018

$kyh00ks - 1975 - Eg0 Is Not @ Dirty W0rd FLAC


Ego Is Not A Dirty Word/Love On The Radio/Saturday Night/Love's Not Good Enough/The Other Side/Smartarse Songwriters/Mercedes Ladies/All My Friends Are Getting Married/Every Chase A Steeple/Private Eye



Ego Is Not a Dirty Word was the second album released by Australian pop rock band, Skyhooks, in July 1975. The album was the follow-up to their highly successful debut album, Living in the 70's (1974). As with the former album, it was also produced by Ross Wilson.

The album spent 11 weeks at the number-one spot in the Australian Kent Music Report Albums Chart and sold 180,000 copies. Two singles were lifted from the album, "Ego Is Not a Dirty Word" and "All My Friends are Getting Married". Greg Macainsh penned (or in the case of "Love on the Radio", co-wrote, with original singer Steve Hill) every track except "Every Chase a Steeple", which was written by guitarist Red Symons. Unlike on other Symons-written tracks "Smut" and "Mumbo Jumbo", lead singer Shirley Strachan provided vocals.

The American release of the album contained "Horror Movie" and "You Just Like Me 'Cause I'm Good in Bed" from their first album in place of tracks 9 and 10. The album was re-released by Mushroom Records in 1997.

Skyhooks were an Australian rock band formed in Melbourne in March 1973 by mainstays Greg Macainsh on bass guitar and backing vocals, and Imants "Freddie" Strauks on drums. They were soon joined by Bob "Bongo" Starkie on guitar and backing vocals, and Red Symons on guitar, vocals and keyboards; Graeme "Shirley" Strachan became lead vocalist in March 1974. Described as a glam rock band, because of flamboyant costumes and make-up, Skyhooks addressed teenage issues including buying drugs "Carlton (Lygon Street Limbo)", suburban sex "Balwyn Calling", the gay scene "Toorak Cowboy" and loss of girlfriends "Somewhere in Sydney" by namechecking Australian locales. According to music historian, Ian McFarlane "[Skyhooks] made an enormous impact on Australian social life".

 Skyhooks had #1 albums on the Australian Kent Music Report with their 1974 debut, Living in the 70's (for 16 weeks), and its 1975 follow-up, Ego Is Not a Dirty Word (11 weeks). Their #1 singles were "Horror Movie" (January 1975) and "Jukebox in Siberia" (November 1990).

Symons left Skyhooks in 1977 and became a radio and television personality. Strachan had solo releases since 1976 and finally left the band in 1978 and was also a radio and television presenter. With altered line-ups, Skyhooks continued until they disbanded on 8 June 1980; they briefly reformed in 1983, 1984, 1990 and 1994. In 1992, Skyhooks were inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame. Lead singer, Strachan died on 29 August 2001, aged 49, in a helicopter crash while solo piloting. Their original lead singer, Steve Hill, died in October 2005, aged 52, of liver cancer.