CASSETTE CULTURE PART III

Time to shake out the dust in my bones, dig through the drawers and on top of the cupboards and reload the K-Tel cassette selector with some more weaponry!

AEROSMITH – BEST OF one of them cheap series from the late 80s that all the majors seemed to be pumpin’ out at the time – only ten tracks but hell, it’s all the good early stuff – Dream On, Back In The Saddle, Walk This Way, Draw The Line… it does the job

DEEP PURPLE – BURN Fuck Machine Head!! This is the fucken album you should all have! With Coverdale singin;. Blackmore smokin’ the fret board, songs that nail you to the wall – this had the lot! Burn, Mistreated, Might Just Take Your Life… the fuggin’ real deal!

JIM CROCE – GREATEST HITS Complete with inserted lyric sheet, I picked this up for 20c somewhere and it doesn’t even have the song I wanted on it! But hell, it’s got plenty of other good shit. Croce’s trouble is that (A) he’s dead and (B) in Australia all he’s known for is Bad Bad Leroy Brown. Well lemme tell ya the son of a bitch nailed a lot more than just that pain in the ass song… Operator, Rapid Roy, Roller Derby Queen… just to name a few. And the damn song that wasn’t on here - Box No. 10… a great songwriter, a great voice… specially with a touch of bourbon in yr gut and the blues in yr throat.

V/A - FANTASTIC K-Tel compilation from very early 70s with the likes of Slade, Gazza, Free, Dingoes and a mess more. A strange mix as they always were but hell it brings back some memories – not always good ones but that’s my childhood right there…

COLD CHISEL – RADIO SONGS Everyone hates these guys cos of Barnesy! Well fuck you. When I was 12 or 13 this stuff was raw and loud and made perfect sense to an alienated kid in the mid 70s. The fact they made money and had hit singles seems to mean they can’t be ‘cool’… I don’t really care, I’d still rather get drunk as fuck and sing Goodbye Astrid Goodbye more often than not. This is bogan rock, nothing more, nothing less… and I’m embracing my roots cos I for one am damn proud of them.

WHITESNAKE – SLIP OF THE TONGUE/ SELF TITLED (1987) Maxell SLN90 tape I bought at a garage sale with two albums from the king of the long haired, botoxed rock and roll crowd of the 80s – David Coverdale. I mean really how can you not like a man that names his band after his dick, who has guitar slingers like Steve Vai on board and who got to bang Tawney back when she was still young and good lookin’. A role model for all of us. And more damn hooks that a Japanese Whaling Fleet.

ZODIAC MINDWARP – TATTOOED BEAT MESSIAH “Well I love TV and I love T.Rex, I can see thru your skirt, I got x-ray spex” what more do you need to know? Dirty, sleazy, glam rock bastards who understood what it was all about. And with a twisted sense of humour to boot. Couldn’t have existed any other time except the 80s but hell he made it fun for awhile.

CHARLEY PRIDE – GREATEST HITS One of many best of albums for the black country crooner – and sure there’s plenty of them sappy love songs but there’s also Miller’s Cave, The Snakes Crawl At Night, Kaw Liga and Crystal Chandelier so for 25 damn cents I ain’t complainin’. And on Sunday mornings, there’s not much better than Charley’s croon to slowly drag you back to yr senses.

JOHNNY CASH – GREATEST HITS VOL 1 ‘Cept of course for JC. This early comp has the good shit – Ring Of Fire, I Walk The Line, Ballad Of Ira Hayes… doesn’t get much better does it?

ANGELS – FACE TO FACE Another iconic Aussie pub band that cops flack for bein’ popular but hell, ain’t too many that done it better. And this early album o’ theirs is close to the best they did… Take A Long Line, Marseilles, After The Rain, Comin’ Down… fuck it’s all gold, it’s angry but it’s controlled and it hits the right spots. Beer drinking, front bar, fist pumping juke box rock and roll!

V/A – TRUCKSTAR MUSIC One of a bunch of cheap tapes I picked up from the scout hall, half of which didn’t even play but that’s the way it goes. Dave Dudley, Skeeter Davis, Red Simpson - lots of familiar country drivin’ tunes like Six Days On The Road and Give Me 40 Acres… sure as shit ain’t the best thing I ever picked up but far from the worst… if only it had Teddy Bear on it…

V/A – COUNTRY BALLADEERS Same batch but with the real deal goin’ off. Marty Robbins, Johnny Cash, Glen Campbell (Wichita Lineman – does it get any better?), Lefty Frizell – with this comp you get the feeling someone with some knowledge was around to put it all together… can’t go wrong and another Sunday morning ‘what the fuck is that mess on my shoes?” type o’ cassette.

MOTORHEAD/METAL CHURCH – BEST OF/ THE DARK One I put together myself way back in the day… and one I still crank up. The Dark was The Metal Church at their early peak – loud and aggressive and seminal… the Lemmy collection is one of many but this has a fair selection including the classics – Ace Of Spades, Jail Bait, I Got Mine, Over The Top, even Louie Louie… makes for a great way to wake the neighbour’s dogs!!

GLEN MILLER – CHATTANOOGA CHOO CHOO Not as good as listenin’ to Glenn on 78 but a dozen of his better known swing toons on tape and hell, I like the sweet simple style he had – the fucker could swing, what more do you want?

KEVIN BLOODY WILSON Another garage sale find Teac 60 minute tape of the bogan comedian who’s makin’ a fortune outta bein’ as blatantly rude, dumb and as funny as yr best mate on a Saturday night after the footy when all the wives have left and yr standing around the fire drinkin’ someone else’s bundy and cola cans cos they’re flaked on the front lawn. Love this bastard!

T.REX / ADAM ANT – VERY BEST OF A split tape compilation with ten Bolan tracks from Metal Guru thru to Laser Love plus 8 of Adam’s finer moments on the other side. Not sure why it was released or who decided to slap these two together but hell it saves having to look for the singles I guess. (I mean Ants – already got damn near all the T.Rex stuff but I couldn’t just leave the tape there lonely on the table could I?)

V/A – MUSIC FOR DEMENTED JELLYBEANS Back when I was 17/18 me and some mates, inspired by The Warriors and after seeing a pack of 12 year olds who called themselves The Cobras, formed a street gang, well – a car gang or something… we called ourselves Demented Jellybeans – named for our dress sense and our love of Monty Python… this tape was the soundtrack that I put together for our nights cruising the streets looking for girls, action, The Cobras or anything else to wash away the sawdust and blandness of our lives. Kiss, AC/DC, Thin Lizzy, Skyhooks, The Goons, Bowie, Ramones, Dead Kennedys, Slade and more besides… I still play this tape all the time though it loses something in translation now… we all got older, none of us wiser but the music still reminds me what it was like back then… a soundtrack for a nostalgic old drunk… hell of a way to be remembered.