Aussie Music – Think Bensonium

Day 475: Reckless, Australian Crawl

Roderick Benson — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 23:00:11 +0000

Staying with Aussie bands this week here is another hit from the band Australian Crawl. The line I really like in this song is about the Manly ferry making its way to Circular Key. For anyone who grew up on the Northern Beaches of Sydney, the Manly Ferry was certainly a part of the Northern Beaches of Sydney “experience” along with sun, sand, surf and traffic jams!.

Day 474: Forever Now, Cold Chisel

Roderick Benson — Tue, 06 Jul 2021 23:00:00 +0000

Another classic from the Aussie band Cold Chisel. Unfortunately the audio quality on this video isn’t great but the song is well worth listening to if you have not heard it before.

Day 470: I send a message, INXS

Roderick Benson — Fri, 02 Jul 2021 23:00:08 +0000

Ok time for another INXS song. This is another song that I changed the lyrics of to create a joke song for a St Paul’s fellowship weekend away all the way back when this song was first released on the radio in 1984. As with the 1985 song, which was to the Beach Boy’s classic California Girls, I still have the original piece of paper on which I first penned the joke lyrics to this song all those years ago.

The first verse and chorus of this song went:

At Galstone, I think its true
The water’s freezing I think it gets through
Oh I wonder how they design
The showers to be so unkind

Chorus
I miss my bathroom
I miss the fun
Of having a shower
Whose temperature is 31

Day 459: Jurassic Park, Stand Atlantic

Roderick Benson — Tue, 22 Jun 2021 16:25:31 +0000

OK so today I went for my first swim at Grand Central. The last time I swam there was the same week Covid Island Disc started as this was the last time the pool was open before the UK went into lockdown. Although the pool opened again in 2021, I have been back until today

During my swim however I struck up a conversation with a bloke who was in my lane called Matt and it turned out he managed different bands. He picked up on my Australian and then told me about some of the Australian bands he managed. One of them apparently is quite big in Australia and appears regularly on the alternative Sydney rock station Triple J. Anyway, the band is called Stand Atlantic and this is one of their Youtube hits.

Day 435: Crazy, Icehouse

Roderick Benson — Fri, 28 May 2021 23:00:07 +0000

So let’s kick of week 63 with a song from the Australian group Icehouse. The video to this song is also pretty cool although I think Iva Davies got the opening idea of his video from the horror movie Play Misty For Me. For any Sydneites out there, enjoy the scenes of our beautiful city.

Day 425: My baby, Cold Chisel

Roderick Benson — Tue, 18 May 2021 23:00:28 +0000

Time for some more Aussie music I feel. This is another classic from Cold Chisel and the video is well worth taking the time to watch. Some great footage of 70s Sydney chicks and a great sax solo to boot.

Day 413: Firewood and Candles, Paul Kelly

Roderick Benson — Thu, 06 May 2021 23:00:18 +0000

In 2018 I took my daughter Grace to see Paul Kelly in a pub in the Northern quarter of Manchester. If we were to see him in Australia, we would be in a many thousand seat venue however because he is not really known in the UK we had the privilege of seeing him a venue which held at most about 150 people. It was absolutely great. At the time his latest album “Life is Fine” had only recently been released and this was the third song on the album which he played as his third song in the concert since he literally played every song on the new album; something he could do because every song on the album is top quality and so makes great concert material.

Day 394: Don’t tear it down, Spy versus Spy

Roderick Benson — Sat, 17 Apr 2021 23:00:28 +0000

This Aussie band makes its long overdue debut today in Covid Island Discs. This song is probably their most famous. A song that if you grew up in Australia in the 70s/80s, you will know because it was regularly played on Aussie radio and at those brilliant teenage parties that form such wonderful memories for me as a now “50 something” year old. Perhaps the “Don’t tear it down there is life it yet” could be applied to all us old fogies as we enter the twilight years of our lives.

Day 393: Death Defying, Hoodoo Gurus

Roderick Benson — Fri, 16 Apr 2021 23:00:33 +0000

The dark theme of Lana Del Rey’s song Chemtrails over the country club reminded me of this Aussie classic by Hoodoo Gurus. A really rocky song with the rather dark chorus: “All my friends are dead or they’re dying and our laughter turns to crying, it’s death defying“.

Day 382: It’s a long way there, Little River Band

Roderick Benson — Mon, 05 Apr 2021 23:00:25 +0000

So poor old Little River band has thus far only be cited once in Covid Island Discs and that was all the way back in April 2020 when it was my 20^th wedding anniversary. The song I cited that day was Happy Anniversary Baby which I must confess is not what I would call one of their best songs. This song however was the opening track on their debut self-titled album “Little River Band” and is a great little number. This particular version of the song is sadly a little truncated by a radio interview of the band at the end of the video clip. However, the radio interview brings back an interesting childhood memory for me which involved my older brother using this song and wiring up our Dad’s sound system so it could play music down the telephone line. He then rang random sydneysiders and pretended to be a disc jocky telling them they had won a prize if they could just answer an LRB-related question. Can’t remember if many of those we called fell for his trick now but I remember I found it hilariously funny at the time.