Music fans are filthy over a lost legacy. Meanwhile, IA music maestro David Kowalski finds other bands leaving heavy footprints — like Fuzz Lightyear.
AC/DC GUITARISTS' CHILDHOOD HOME GUTTED
A big hubbub has been made about the previously National Trust-listed Burwood NSW house, once owned by the Young family, which was razed recently.
The Young family home housed eight children, three of whom went on to change the face of Australian music.
They included George, who formed the Easybeats — he went on to produce records for John Paul Young (no relation), Stevie Wright and The Angels, as well as his own music made with Harry Vanda in Flash and the Pan. And Malcolm and Angus, both of whom formed a little beat combo called AC/DC.
The outcry has mostly been around preserving the house as a monument to Australia’s musical history and the great legacy left by the Youngs. Being recognised by the National Trust list did not mean the home was heritage-listed. Therefore, it was not protected by law from demolition.
Developers claimed they had no idea of the significance of the place and have pledged to make a space in their new development for fans to remember the band.
Social media outcry has been mixed. Everything from 'if the Young brothers really valued it, they have enough money, they could have bought it themselves' to 'this is an utter disgrace'.
We’ve seen a lot of significant history go by the cultural wayside, both here and elsewhere.
For example, the old Festival Records recording studio in Pyrmont is now a supermarket. In London and other parts of the UK they have blue plaques which recognise significant cultural landmarks that have since been redeveloped.
The Americans seem to do this a lot better than we do. This modest house in Burwood probably could have been something significant, too.
However, can everything deemed historically significant be preserved as a tourist attraction? At the end of the day, real estate developers will do what they will with their properties, whether we like it or not. At least Australian music is getting some press...
FUZZ LIGHTYEAR
It is a new year and while new things may be in the pipeline, some things never change.
For one, I still fall for a band with a punning title. A band from Yorkshire in England – Leeds, to be precise – has crossed my path, with the clever name Fuzz Lightyear.
Released through hip indie label Nice Swan – whose roster also includes favourites of mine Hallan and English Teacher – Fuzz Lightyear lives up to its name by laying on some heavily processed guitar noise that sounds like it comes from another galaxy.
The band's website says its mission is to be the 'the loudest, fastest and most visceral force in the Leeds underground scene', and if its second single 'Visual Effect' is anything to go by, you can take that to the bank.
CHUCK D BEGS: NO MORE 'BURN HOLLYWOOD BURN'
Most of us will have seen the horrifying devastation caused by unseasonal wildfires in California, burning uncontrollably through heavily built-up areas.
Sadly, it is an indictment on the state of our polarised society that Hip Hop legend and founder of Public Enemy, Chuck D, has had to make an impassioned statement imploring TikTok and other social media users to stop using his 1990 track 'Burn Hollywood Burn' in their videos.
The track was originally designed to raise awareness and potentially bring about change to the inequality existing between black and white actors in the film industry, whereby African American actors were more likely to be given roles as subservient characters, as opposed to lead roles or roles as doctors or lawyers.
As Chuck eloquently explained on Instagram, it was not designed to showcase the devastation suffered by innocent people on the West Coast.
It has become something of a sport for social media users to lambast the "elites” in California. However, this is off-colour. The problem for artists is that once the artwork is in the public sphere, it’s extremely difficult, nigh on impossible, to control who does what with it on the web.
Here's a novel thought: think before you post, people...
VALE GARTH HUDSON: LAST SURVIVING MEMBER OF THE BAND
Unfortunate news: the last surviving member of The Band, Garth Hudson, has joined his bandmates in the great gig in the sky.
The Band, as they were most famously known, first found fame as The Hawks, the backing band to Canadian rock singer Ronnie Hawkins. They were picked up by future folk-music legend Bob Dylan in the mid-'60s for a fateful world tour, playing electric music to howls of protest from audiences across the globe.
After famously decamping to a house – nicknamed Big Pink – in the Woodstock region of upstate New York, they created music the likes of which caused a generation of musicians to rethink their approach to music-making.
Hudson was the principal keyboard player in The Band. However, like all others in the group, he was adept at playing a number of instruments, including saxophone, organ, sousaphone, accordion and trombone.
He was influential in using the wah-wah pedal to alter the sound of his keyboard — firstly on the 1969 track 'Up On Cripple Creek' — a trick later used by Stevie Wonder on his track 'Higher Ground'.
Garth plied his trade on his instrument of choice, specifically a piano-styled instrument, like a man possessed. Fingers rolling up and down the keys like giant spiders, he would crouch, hunched over his instrument in pure musical ecstasy, creating a complex web of sound that was totally unique and almost super-human.
As we celebrate the cinematic rebirth of the Bob Dylan story in the new film A Complete Unknown, let’s remember one of the musicians who was instrumental in helping Dylan shift from local legend to superstar.
Thank you, Garth, for your incredible music. Vale.
ALERT 'THE MEDIA'
I have discovered yet another band for which it is almost impossible to do a successful Google search. The good thing is, I’ve found it so that you don’t have to.
It's a Brisbane band called The Media. And they've cleverly named their debut EP Pilot, as in the first episode of a series.
A description from their bio states:
'Their songs have huge guitars intertwining effortlessly with dualling melodies and walls of layered distortion, fuzz, reverb and modulation.'
The track 'Hey There' builds slowly up with layered vocal harmonies to a big guitar-washed climax.
This EP was recorded at the band members' homes and they have created a sound on this release that is huge enough to earn them an eviction notice. Can’t wait for the next episode.
Until next time…
LISTEN TO THIS WEEK'S SPECIALLY CURATED PLAYLIST BELOW:
David Kowalski is a writer, musician, educator, sound engineer and podcaster. His podcasts 'The Sound and the Fury Podcast' and 'Audio Cumulus' can be heard exclusively HERE. You can follow David on Twitter/X @sound_fury_pod.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
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