sex symbol

Melbourne Age 23 May 1985 p. 22

'New bile' - good one! 

I played Flame Fortune's 'Sex Symbol' on the radio tonight and it just occurred to me yet again - this is actually a really brilliant single that doesn't get its due. I am not sure why but I suppose it's because there's a perception (the truth of which is unknown to me) that Flame was a hookup of Michael Hutchence's who followed him back to Sydney and he insisted, or somehow it happened anyway, that she be given a record deal. He produced the record and assembled some men from famous bands to play on the record. These were people with serious capacity in terms of making chartable records, but I have no idea if they were just playing what they were told (by Flame or by Hutchence or...?) or whether it was a group effort. In a way, doesn't matter. It's just an amazing record that deserves a lot more than derision. The most it got was snide two-bob-each-way articles like the above. I wrote one myself (or rather, I interviewed Flame for Smash Hits, and was told to sit on the interview recording in case she became huge, but she didn't). 

happy birthday

Today is Michael Hutchence's 50th birthday and Flinders Street Station's 100th birthday. Neither is really alive and yet both have a place in our hearts. I like three things Hutchence did: that song with Don Walker, that film with Richard Lowenstein, and the Max Q album. Oh, and Full Moon, Dirty Hearts, most of it anyway. I like many more things FSS did and still does. Happy birthday, you two fine old men.

walker hutchence speed kills

I have been greatly enjoying Don Walker's book Shots. Some of it is pretty grisly. But that's Don Walker. I like this track too. The last time I saw it on YouTube some bright spark had cut the Walker half of the song out, thus creating bad art. Much of DW's solo work and the work he released under the name Catfish is very fine.