This picture stolen from https://historyofaussiemusic.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-numbers.html but I am pretty sure that this 'history of aussie music' site quotes extensively from an article I wrote for Mess+Noise without crediting me and even if it wasn't me that wrote it, whoever wrote it isn't credited... 

I've been listening to the Numbers CD Numerology in the car. It's a 2008 compilation released on Aztec which brings together most of the two Numbers albums, The Numbers and 39-51, alongside an EP that predates them. 

I could be wrong - this never occurred to me before and I don't know why it has now - but the first album now seems to me to be skeletal and undercooked, and the second album is a lot more polished and worthy. But in both cases it strikes me the band was let down by production - I normally never say things like that - and hung out to dry. It's weird because they had decent producers (Cameron Allan for the first, Graham Bidstrup for the second). 

They had two big hits in 1980, nowhere near as big as, you know, Dire Straits but their biggest hits. 'The Modern Song' is, by standards now and I suspect then, bizarrely stark. Annaliese's vocal is way back in the mix, the whole thing seems muffled and weird. 'The Modern Song', their other hit, is a little more conventional in sound, a mid-tempo pop number, with some catchily strange lyrics. But personally if I'd been the producer (I was 15 and very cluey) I would have put more instrumentation on there to bring out the best of the tunes, and I would have sent Chris Morrow to Byron* for a week to work out some endings for these songs and also some middle 8s or similar - just something to make them more punchy and memorable. They already are punchy and memorable, and Simon Vidale's drums are massive both in volume and impact, but the spare nature of these recordings just makes them seem threadbare rather than vital. Worst offender actually is 'Mr President', which was my favourite of their singles in this early phase - such a great record, but half the record it could be, mainly because its chorus is unvaried and the whole thing, once again, doesn't end with any aplomb. It needed aplomb. 

The singles off the second album are way better. 'Big Beat' is probably my favourite,  though 'Jericho' is brilliant too. 'Alone' is once again let down, IMO, by the production. Both these albums really sound like someone got the band into the studio to bash out their live set, and as a live set, you get all the tricks - they're such memorable tunes and the lyrics are often calculated to make you go 'huh?' 

I have heard some tracks of The Numbers in a later incarnation when they were joined by John Bliss and Colin (Polly) Newham formerly of The Reels. Now, that was an amazing version of the group, and I only wish they had recorded properly because it was incredible. 

I'm aware it's lame as to criticise something 45 years later like it's anyone's fault. I don't even know why I bothered starting writing this. I just really like them. If they'd signed to Mushroom or something like that, it all might have been very different. Look, I probably just don't get it. 

Anyway TIL there was a British release by The Numbers which seems to be a blend of the first two albums. I'm almost tempted to buy a copy and listen to it just to see if anything is different in the sound or perhaps even recording - ? I'm like that. 

*Or Bulgaria, just away somewhere to consider what could add to these great songs. 

do you remember the garry mcdonald show

Sydney Morning Herald 27 August 1977 p. 10

Well me, I vaguely remember it and I've always felt a little bit deprived that it has never really been available since it first emerged almost 50 years ago, but I also think, now's kind of the time for it to be seen again, because apart from anything else, it deserves reappraisal now all the fools above are, if not gone, probably a bit less upset. 

Sydney Morning Herald 'Monday Guide' 25 July 1977 p. 1

There should be a word for the kind of memory I have of the show's Harry Butler parody - like, I know it happened and not because someone told me. I also remember the Mo McCackey episodes and that he tried to avoid bringing Norman Gunston in but ultimately he couldn't avoid it, and he did bring him in, in later eps. 

Anyway it's all at the National Archives and I'm going to watch a few. I'll tell you all about it when it happens. Oh, and here's one more religious objection:

Melbourne Age 24 August 1977 p. 12

flook in the perth daily news 17-31 march 1952

It was an odd experience to see the Cyril breakfast-cement mixer sequences above because I've seen them before, somewhere - I vaguely remember them illustrating an article about Flook. 

 

doctor who missing episodes

 

Australian Women's Weekly 24 Mar 1965 p. 18

I have to admit the podcast about missing Dr Who episodes from the 1960s is a real guilty pleasure for me. Apparently there are now just under 100 missing episodes, because they just found a couple more, and they got Peter Purves (I had no idea that he had been a cast member of Dr Who)* to watch a couple under false pretences, so they gazumped him, but he enjoyed it. 

I lost interest in Dr Who in about 1977, gained minor interest in its revival whenever that was, but I am not in any sense a whothusiast. But I do love hearing people nerd out over nerdy things, and the men (all men - yes, all men) who staff the missing eps podcast are a beautiful blend of pedantic, cosy-complacent and smug, unashamedly obsessed and sometimes amusingly critical (not of themselves but of choices made in Dr Who 60 years ago - hold the front page!). I also enjoy hearing experts exert themselves imaginatively trying to figure out what did or didn't happen in particular episodes where they might only have images or sound or text (scripts) to help them along. (Wondering what that noise is - did actor x stumble on the way to the cell door? Etc). 

I also love the way it lifts a lid on film collectors.** So, I just read a press release from the organisation that found the two 'new' missing eps in the private collection of a man (now dead) who owned films, looked after them very well, had no interest whatsoever in Dr Who, but had six episodes of it in his collection... freak. Presumably he didn't watch them, but in that he is no freak, because I have tried to watch Dr Who from back then and if you don't know, I gotta tell you, it is boring hackneyed rubbish. If it hadn't held on through to the end of that decade and, I guess, John Pertwee it would be remembered now as nothing more than a stilted, silly exercise, daleks or no daleks. 

But you know, boring hackneyed silly rubbish is pretty much the main game for humanity, so, respect. 

*When my family lived in Britain in the mid-70s PP was one of the presenters of Blue Peter, a show I did not mind watching, but now in my memory I get him mixed up with the other male presenter, John Noakes, and then I think of that Derek and Clive sketch of 'I'm Alfie Noakes' 'No I'm Alfie Noakes' and then ultimately it all falls in a heap of messy shallow memories of names of things. I just went on wikipedia to check the spelling of Peter Purvis' name (luckily - because I had got it wrong) and found this beautiful piece of writing about another Blue Peter presenter, Valerie Singleton: 'To say how long Valerie Singleton was a presenter for is up for debate. Some people say it was 3 September 1962 to 3 July 1972. Making her time on the show 9 years, 304 days. But some people say it was 3 September 1962 to 20 October 1975 making it 13 years, 47 days. Some people say she presented the show till 29 December 1975 making her time on the show it 13 years, 117 days. Some people go as far and say she was a presenter till 7 June 1981 making her time on the show as 18 years, 277 days' I particularly like that there is no full stop at the end of that sentence. 

** It also lifts the lid on how the BBC sold shows throughout the Commonwealth in the 60s-70s and where shows went - Australia bought them, then sent them on to Zambia, or whatever. Nutty people are trying to trace them all over the place. Also, there are amazeballs theories about various collector types who reputedly have various eps, but won't admit it. So funny (not to the presenters of that podcast, not really, though they try to appear amused). 

northcote folly

You know I can boast about my skills in research but I wonder if I could ever add anything to the story of this item. It's been around for a  long time and it's crazy. I wonder if there is anything in the City of Northcote archives that might explain a little. 
 

Update 24 March 26:

I can't be too harsh about this, because it did take me over a week to notice. But on that website I linked to above, there are images of the folly in its original (? or at least a former) location, and when you hover over the images you get a kind of a caption or whatever it's called. Alt text. Well, 

The surmise here is that the second image 'appears to be the same folly' as the first. But hell, it's exactly the same picture, unless perhaps that man sat on that bench every day to read his flamin' paper!

Anyway, I ordered the relevant file from the PROV, or as close as I can get to the relevant file, because the parks files for 1925-1940something are suspiciously missing. Cover up. 

flook in the perth daily news 1-15 march 1952

 

I apologise for falling down on my Flook duties a bit, I have been distracted by work. So, not a lot of consequence storywise is happening here but the drawing is incredible, absolutely top-notch. To think that these drawings would almost certainly just be thrown away afterwards is a bit horrible to contemplate. 

You might recall some time ago I relayed the possibility that Wally Fawkes was a bit of a pot smoker when he was at work. I think the Nelson's Column stuff might reinforce that likelihood, not necessarily because it's almost psychedelic and trippy but just the general intense concentration that some people find is aided by soft drugs. 

More in a week or so... 

i was made for these times

 

I don't know who this person is, perhaps he's AI? He seems to go to some pains to keep his identity a secret, in any case, which is his business, or the business of his creator. Anyway, because I'm sixty, white, and like (or am interested in) some things, youtube shoves this channel in my face all the time, so I finally decided to watch one. Well look he might be AI, but his opinions (as exemplified here) are as rote a collection of perceptions as anyone of his age (I am a bit concerned because he's apparently not even 60, at least 1968 is in his URL, and yet he looks like that) could possibly have on as boring a bunch of records as you could imagine someone opining on. I mean obviously when you start out to compile a list of the ten worst albums ever that a mass audience (of middle aged men) is going to respond to, you naturally draw from a small pool of 60s-70s rock stars, each of whom have some extreme or other in their catalogue. So he goes in on Loaded (making the typically stupid observation that, had it been a Doug Yule solo album it might have been ok - so - fuckwit - it's actually an ok album but it's just in the wrong sleeve? That seriously makes it amongst the ten worst albums ever??!), Two Virgins, Landing on Water (admittedly I can't comment, never heard it) Down in the Groove (ditto) Cut the Crap (see what I mean about predictable as?!) Mardi Gras (Creedence, I have to admit I now want to hear that), Leather Jackets (an Elton John album) and three others, I don't remember. Oh a Van Morrison album of recent vintage. 

I guess in the present day you can always find some rarified piece of crap that will tell you anything you want to know, or don't. It's all geared to some of us. This sucked, but I watched it (distractedly) and just as was the case with the fool I caught on threads yesterday posting 'ten random songs' which just happened to all be by white men, bar one, it doesn't matter to the algorithm whether I hated it or loved it, point was I engaged with it, and so I will be getting more soon. Fuck my luck!

I wouldn't start to try a worst albums list, not because it's subjective, though that's reason enough. Frankly I just know the worst album is not the low point in a great musician's career, it's the best album by a terrible artist. Dark Side of the Moon, say, or something like that. Although most major artists aren't that terrible, even if they're bland - they still, by definition, have something to keep people interested. I can't stand Floyd or Mac but I know they, too, have the juice for many-most people at least in my age/ethnicity bracket. It's not a terrible situation. 

Anyway I hate this fake guy, I hate his delivery, I hate him constantly reading shit off to the side and I don't ever want to see his head again or hear his English voice.