Sitars, theremin and mellotron, backwards guitar, phasing and fuzz, fringes and mohawks, paisley, black, velvet and leather, feedback, bass and drone, beads, berets and safety-pins, Shindig! and Creem, 3 chord wonders, teenage symphonies and snarl, Rickenbacker, Farfisa and 4-track recorders... onstage at CBGB's, Max's Kansas City or the Trip, the Roundhouse, the 100 Club or the Crystal Ballroom, Catcher's, Big Daddy's or the Squatters Arms.... and the Cat and the Brat on 3D Radio!
Three D Radio announcer, MeganCat (up until recently with her husband, the late Peter Brat)lives in "The BratHaus" a rural seaside home about 100km from Adelaide on South Australia's scenic Fleurieu Peninsula. Veteran musician Peter, and artist/musician Megan, were long-time DJs onThree D Radio 93.7fm, Adelaide's eclectic independent music station. Together Peter & Megan, known as "The Cat and The Brat" created this blog to allow listeners to review the playlists of their radio show, "Technicolour Dreaming", watch clips of selected songs and simply join them in the enjoyment of their favourite music... psychedelia, 60's garage, surf, punk/post-punk, pop, folk-rock, glam, 'Krautrock', goth, 80's electro... and much more!
But The Cat is carrying on the tradition, with guest co-presenters, and "Technicolour Dreaming" will continue in the same format, drawing from the huge "Cat & Brat" music collection, with the addition of new releases and reissues to keep things current. The Brat is hugely missed, but the show must go on, as he wanted...
I always try to cover as much ground, globally-speaking, as possible -
this week's offerings included music from Israel, Japan, Russia, France, Iceland,
and the Netherlands, and of course the USA, UK, and Australia,
including several tracks from the home of Three D Radio,
Adelaide, Australia.
So here's the play-list, plus quite a few clips for your visual edification...
The Churchills - So Alone Today / Debka ("Churchills" LP 1969 Tel Aviv, Israel)
David Bowie - Speed of Life ("Low" LP 1977 UK)
Subtract-S - Mb Ph ("Love From Outer Space" 2012 Adelaide, Australia)
Nuvo Bloc - Western Drugs (demo 1981 Adelaide, Australia)
Exhibit A - Confusion (demo 1982 Adelaide, Australia)
Kikagaku Moyo - Streets of Calcutta ("Forest of Lost Children" LP 2014 Japan)
Sun Dial - Let It Go ("Fazer" EP 1992 UK)
Polska Radio One - Time Eternity ("Cosmos Inside" 2013 Yekaterinburg, Russia)
White Fence - Wolf Gets Red Faced ("For the Recently Found Innocent" 2014 Los Angeles UK)
Soft Hearted Scientists - At Night the Quarry Glows Like A Mother Ship
("Uncanny Tales From the Everyday Undergrowth" 2016 UK)
Liverpool Scene - Batpoem ("Amazing Adventures Of..." LP 1968 UK )
Jacques Dutronc - Hippie Hippie Hourrah (7" single 1968 France)
Balthazar - La Marche Des Travailleurs (7" single 1968 France)
Jane et Julie [Barry Green]- Notre homme a moi (7"single b-side [to "Boomerang"] 1972 France)
Mandrake Paddle Steamer - Strange Walking Man (7" single 1969 UK)
The Brian Jonestown Massacre - Mandrake Handshake ("Thingy-Wingy" Mini-Album 2015 USA)
Dead Skeletons - Dead is God ("Orð" 2012 Reykjavík, Iceland)
Royal Chant - Dick Move ("War Cry of Failure" 2015 Sydney, Australia)
Tooth and Tusk - Nothing Makes Sense (CD Single 2015 Melbourne, Australia)
David Bowie - Pictures of Lily ("Substitute -The Songs of the Who" compilation 2001 UK)
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - Paper Mache Dream Balloon ("Paper Mache Dream Balloon" 2015
Sydney, Australia)
The Mynd Gardeners - Where Tomorrow Lands ("The Acyd Raindrop Umbrella" 2012 Adelaide, Australia)
The Salt - Lucifer (7" single 1968 USA)
Moon Duo - Mazes ("Mazes" 2011 San Francisco USA)
Frowning Clouds - Do Like Me ("Listen Closlier" 2009 Geelong, Australia)
The Mops - Inside Looking Out ("Psychedelic Sounds in Japan" LP 1968 Japan)
The Molting Vultures - It's What I Wanted ("Drop In and Go" 2009 Adelaide, Australia)
Adjeef the Poet - Iekk! (Eek!), I'm a.... Freak (7" single 1967, The Netherlands)
The Sand Pebbles - All My Life (I Love You) ("Ghost Transmissions" 2004 Australia)
The Break - Cylinders ("Church of the Open Sky" 2010 Australia)
Just when you think that the recent spate of musical heroesdeparting this earth has abated, along comes a very big lightning bolt from the blue - David Bowie has joined them. Not a promising start for the year, but a fitting reason to re-listen to Bowie's collected works, and play some favourites on the radio. Indeed, on the day in question, by the time 1pm had rolled around, there had been a massive 29Bowietracks aired, with not a single repetition amongst them! Just goes to show that Bowie's different stylistic twists and turns appealed to a very wide range of fans over the years. Sadly, so many inspirational musicians are approaching an age where their mortality is becoming more and more apparent - as a friend recently wrote, someone should go find Keith Richards and roll him up in bubble-wrap, pronto!
..and here's the playlist for this week's show, clips and all...David Bowie - Scream Like a Baby ("Scary Monsters" LP 1980 UK)
Vespero - Scream thy Last Scream [Pink Floyd] ("A Momentary Lapse of Vinyl" 2014 Russia)
Soft Hearted Scientists - Mount Palomar ("Uncanny Tales from the Everyday Undergrowth" 2015 reissue Wales UK)
Wild Pink Yonder - Two of a Kind [Syd Barrett] ("A Momentary Lapse of Vinyl" 2014 UK)
Crystal Jacqueline - Somebody to Love [Jefferson Airplane] ("Sun Arise" 2015 UK)
Soft Hearted Scientists - Diving Bell ("Uncanny Tales from the Everyday Undergrowth" 2015reissue Wales UK)
With Michael Hunter in the Technicolour Dreaming chair for the week, the music ranged from the Croatian psych pop of Pridjevi to stoner psych metal (OHHMS) and a couple of examples of psy-chill and psy-dub. This came via some unreleased demos of 1960s Australian rock from The Wild Cherries and The Down'N'Out and live unreleased Screaming Believers, with a nod to Peter Brat with one of Rashamra's hit singles and a mash-up of The Cure and The Commodores (!) via BRAT Productions (no relation). No wonder the Sapphire Thinkers felt a bit strange by the end! Pridjevi - 1. Svijet Na Dlanu 2. Lucifer
I Ja ("Pridjevi" 2014 Croatia)
Ancient Sky - 1. Garbage Brain 2. Protection ("Mosaic" 2015 US) New Zealand Avengers - Love Hate Revenge (7" single 1968 NZ)
Wild Cherries - Alice Is (Coming Through) (unreleased demo 1968 Australia)
Jim Keays - Shake Some Action ("Age Against The Machine" 2015 Australia) John Michael Roch - 1. Sky 2. Silver Rain ("With You In My Arms" 1976, reissued 2015 US) Trembling Bells - 'Tween The Womb And The Tomb ("The Sovereign Self" 2015 Scotland) OHHMS - Dawn Of The Swarm ("Cold" 2015 UK) Normala - Dreamwards Again ("The Return Of Quetzalcoatl" compilation 2011 UK)
Digital Conception - The Mystical Quest ("The Return Of Quetzalcoatl" compilation 2011 UK) Rashamra - Mr Timekeeper (7" single 1972 Australia, Adelaide) The Down'N'Out - I'm Not Talking (unreleased demo 196? Australia, Brisbane) Screaming Believers - Baby You Flirt (station live to air 1982 Australia, Adelaide)
Koral & the Goodbye Horses - Pony (Nocturne For A Night Drive) ("Nocturnes" 2015 Australia, Adelaide) BRAT Productions - Easy Heaven (mash-up of The Cure & The Commodores 2015 UK) David Bowie - Width Of A Circle ("The Man Who Sold The World" 1971 UK)
Pridjevi - Pjesma
O Drvecu ("Pridjevi" 2014 Croatia) Sapphire Thinkers - I Feel A Bit Strange ("From Within" 1968 US)
We began the
show with one of our favourite recent earworms, the wonderful “Persuaded” by Groovy
Uncle which features the Shirley Bassey-style
voice of new recruit, Miss Modus... great
stuff! From there we ventured into the usual mix of old and new, soft and loud,
here and overseas, plus a few semi-obscurities such as Sapphire
Thinkers , Space Yacob and the Giant Yeti
and the Glass Familyto shake
things up. We also said “Vale!” to Kim Fowley and Leonard
Nimoy aka Mr Spock who both passed
away recently, before moving on with our “Compilation
[boxset] of the Week”, namely “Children of Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from
the Second Psychedelic Era, 1976–1995”, the third in the “Nuggets”
4-CD boxset series put out by Rhino Records,
from which we played a selection of faves, including the
Church, which featured a very young Richard
Ploog [ex-Brats] on drums... but only
in the film-clips, since the song had already been recorded using the drummer
he replaced. Richard of course went on to
play for almost a decade with the Church
during their heyday years, notching up many “best
drummer” awards in the process. We finished with a trip back to the
mid-70’s to the second Roxy Music LP and an
instrumental from DavidBowie’s brilliant “Low”
album.... and regular listeners will know how much the
Cat & the Brat love a good instro!! So until next time....
..... here is the playlist plus
moving pictures, including that first “Countdown”
TV appearance of Richard in the
Church, plus Bowie
playing “Warszawa” live in Japan in 1978, and the Times’
nod to cult TV show “The
Prisoner” – enjoy!
Groovy
Uncle featuring Suzi Chunk and Miss Modus - Persuaded (Vocal version)
("Persuaded"
LP 2014 UK)
Moon Duo - Animal (digital
single 2015 USA)
the
Watchmakers - To Be
Part of You (7" single b-side [to Before
Questions Became] 2014 UK)
Sapphire
Thinkers - From
Within ("From Within" LP 1968
USA)
the Glass
Family - Guess I'll Let You Go
("Electric Band" LP 1967 USA)
the
Citradels - Another
Dream Theme ("Nepenthe" 2014
Melbourne, Australia)
the
Murlocs - Adolescence
(digital single 2015 Geelong, Australia)
the
Liminanas - La
fille de la ligne 15 (7”single 2013 France –
taken from "I've Got Trouble in Mind : 7" and Rare Stuff -
2009/2014" anthology 2014 France/USA)
the
Amazing - Defect
("Wait For A Light To Come" EP 2010 Sweden)
ZX+ - She's a Rainbow [Rolling Stones cover] (“Fruits de
Mer present ‘Strange Fruits and Veg’" promo compilation 2015 UK)
the
Chemistry Set - We Luv
You [Rolling Stones cover]
("This Day will Never Happen Again" 2011 UK)
