An 80s Newspaper Clipping

A few weeks ago, I was flicking through my copy of Skeleton Crew and found this newspaper clipping.  I can only assume I ripped it out of the Kettering Evening Telegraph (dated 20th September 1986 - 36 years ago!) to take into work so my friends & I could plan what we were going to see at the cinema.  We went a lot in those days.

Just look at that terrific selection of films!    While Cobra was the first 18 certificate I got into (as I wrote about here, though according to my diary I saw it in Corby), I managed to see The Evil Dead, Rocky IV and Karate Kid 2 at one of the venues shown, at those astonishing prices (I remember a double-bill would cost £2.50 except, I presume, on Mondays and Thursdays).

I loved these places and they held a lot of history for me.  Dad took me to see my first James Bond film at Corby cinema (as I wrote about here), I saw a lot of great films at Kettering (Dad took me and Claire to Star Wars, Nick & I saw Raiders Of The Lost Ark, which I wrote about in What Gets Left Behind, Dad & I saw ET, the list goes on) and when Bentley’s opened it quickly became a favourite.

Attendance must have been falling (probably not helped by the fleapit nature of these cinemas, well past their prime) but the independents were clearly knackered and on their last legs when the multiplexes arrived and did away with them.  Sixfields in Northampton dealt the first blow and the Odeon in Kettering finished the job.  I'm not a big fan of the multiplex (I still go to them, obviously) because to me they feel like heartless, sterile places, more interested in selling food and drinks than anything else.  Yes, Kettering Ohio had holes in the ceiling and seats were missing and it was often better to sit down in the dark so you couldn’t see the state of your seat, but it felt real, like a proper cinema, where everyone there cared about the films.

On the bright side, independent cinemas have made something of a comeback and we often go to the Northampton Filmhouse (which was originally called the Errol Flynn), where Jon & I saw a brace of Hitchcock, Alison & I watched the INXS Live Baby Live film and I took Dad to see Dunkirk where the soundtrack almost rattled the speakers off the wall - it's small and comfortable, well run and shows an eclectic range of films.

 And yes, I know I sound like a dinosaur.

Another clipping I kept, this one from 1982
If we fancied a change, we'd sometimes go to the ABC Northampton (now a Jesus Army Centre) or the Palace Wellingborough (now a pub called The Cutting Room).  Later, when we had our own cars, we'd go to the midnight movie at The Point in Milton Keynes (the only multiplex I ever had any fondness for, it now stands by the MK shopping centre looking knackered and forlorn).

I took this picture in 2005, knowing that the building
would eventually be knocked down and wanting to
have a record of it...

Kettering Ohio started life as the Savoy Cinema, opened as a dual purpose cinema and theatre on 21st May 1938 with Spencer Tracey in The Big City plus a variety show on stage. It was built over the remains of the Coliseum Theatre which had opened in 1910 but burned down in 1937.

The Savoy had 1,150 seats in the stalls and circle as well as a full stage (the Northampton Repertory Company performed regular seasons between 1949 and 1951) and was taken over by Clifton Cinemas on 25th August 1944.  In 1968 the circle was split off to make a smaller (485 seat) cinema called the Studio, with a bingo hall taking over the stalls and stage area.  In 1973 the screen was split into two (known as Studio 1 & 2, seating 160 and 140 respectively).  After briefly closing in 1986, it re-opened as the independent Ohio and finally closed in 1997 when the Odeon opened.

The Ohio is a key location in my novel In The Rain With The Dead (Magellan, the baddie, makes his base there) and I wrote about the cinema as it was being demolished in 2014.



Bentley’s of Burton Latimer was originally The Electric Palace, which opened in August 1914 with an auditorium that seated 500.  It became a Watts Cinema in 1938 but closed in 1960.  In 1985, Ashley Wyatt bought the building, renovated it and opened Bentley’s as a 182-seat cinema in January 1986 though it closed the following year.  It was re-opened in 1994 by Brian McFarlane (who owned the Ohio) but closed soon after.  The venue is now an Italian restaurant.

You can just see the wording "cinema" on the back of the auditoriums.
Photograph from the late 80s.

The Forum Cinema opened on 7th April 1973 as a Jerry Lewis Cinema (part of the US based Network Cinema Corporation), featuring two screens (each seating 325) as part of a new shopping centre being built in Corby.  It was almost immediately bought out by the Walker chain, re-named Oscar cinema and then, in 1980, Focus cinema before Ashley Wyatt took it over in September 1983 and renamed it Forum Cinema.  The number one screen was eventually twinned, with number two becoming a laser quest games centre and the cinema closed (to become an over-25’s nightclub called Talkies) on 24th September 1992.  The Forum Cinema site was demolished in the summer of 2005 when the shopping centre was rebuilt.

I like to think I sound like a wistfully melancholic dinosaur now...

sources:
Cinematreasures.org - Savoy, Kettering
Cinematreasures.org - Forum, Corby
Cinematreasures.org - Bentleys, Burton Latimer

Kiss The Dirt (Falling Down The Mountain), by INXS, at 35

In August 1986 (a year I thoroughly enjoyed, as I wrote about here), INXS released the superb Kiss The Dirt (Falling Down The Mountain), the third single from the excellent Listen Like Thieves album.

Kiss The Dirt (Falling Down The Mountain) was written by Andrew Farriss & Michael Hutchence and released in Australia on 3rd March 1986 - in the UK we had to wait until 30th August.  It was backed with Six Knots, written, performed and produced by Kirk Pengilly (it lasted 51 seconds) and The One Thing (Live), written by Farriss & Hutchence and mixed by Mark Opitz.

The third of four singles from the album (following This Time, released in 1985 in the US and Europe and What You Need in August 1985 - the first Australia/New Zealand release - and followed by Listen Like Thieves, released in the UK in 1985 but 1986 in Australia), it peaked at number 15 in Australia, 42 in New Zealand and 54 in the UK.

Falling down the mountain

End up kissing dirt

Look a little closer

Sometimes it wouldn't hurt

The video was filmed in South Australia in two locations.  The white salt lake was at Lake Heart, while the red desert scenes were filmed at Moon Plains, which was also the location for Mad Max 3.  It was directed by Alex Proyas who started his career making pop videos before moving to Hollywood and making, amongst others, The Crow (1994), Dark City (1988) and I, Robot (2004).

Listen Like Thieves was released on 14th October 1985 and is widely considered to be the international breakthrough album for the band.  It was produced by Chris Thomas, who had previously worked with The Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Sex Pistols (on Never Mind The Bollocks) and Elton John and of whom Richard Clapton said, “INXS met their match - he was the only producer they've ever had who told them what they needed to hear.”  Michael Hutchence later said, “This is what we've been trying to do one way or another for a few years now, that is to make an album that is purely just form and function of the songs. It has no artistic pretensions.”  The album was recorded at Rhinoceros Studios in Sydney from June to August 1985, after initial sessions in March, finishing in August 1985 and including a break for a South American tour.  The album spent two weeks at number 1 on the Australian Kent Music Report Albums Chart, peaked at number 11 on the US Billboard 200, 24 on the Canadian RPM 100 Albums and 46 on the UK charts.  I wrote about the album here, on its 30th anniversary.

The four singles released from the album all had accompanying videos.

This Time was directed by Peter Sinclair and produced by Godley & Crème

Kiss the Dirt (Falling Down the Mountain) was directed by Alex Proyas and produced by Andrew McPhail.

What You Need and Listen Like Thieves were directed and produced by Richard Lowenstein, continuing the successful collaboration that had started on the previous album, The Swing, with his videos for Burn for You (which won the 1985 Countdown Music and Video Awards for Best Promotional Video), Dancing on the Jetty and All The Voices.  Lowenstein would go on to establish a long term relationship with the band until Hutchence’s death.


sources:
INXS: Story to Story: The Official Autobiography, by INXS & Anthony Bozza
Burn: The Life and Times of Michael Hutchence and INXS, by Ed St. John
Official Charts (UK) information
Discogs release information
Wikipedia

Summer XS, 30 years on

Following the huge international success of their album Kick, INXS toured it extensively starting in August 1987 and running through to November 1988 (including five UK dates during June).  Understandably burned out by the end, the band took a year off during which most members started musical side projects, before reconvening to record X, which was released in September 1990.

INXS, 1991
from left - Jon Farriss (drums/keyboards), Garry Gary Beers (bass), Tim Farriss (guitar), Michael Hutchence (vocals), Andrew Farriss (keyboards, guitar, harmonica), Kirk Pengilly (guitar, saxophone, vocals)

On the strength of Kick, the profile of the band had been steadily rising and it’s perhaps difficult now to remember just how big INXS were at that time.  Kick peaked at number 2 in Australia, number 9 in the UK and number 3 in the US album charts and was certified Platinum in Australia (x7), the UK, the US and Switzerland, was a Gold record in France, Germany and Hong Kong and Diamond in Canada (a category Tim Farris later admitted he didn’t even know existed - it apparently represents sales of 1m).  Total sales to date are approximately 12.8m copies.

X had a lot to live up to and opened well, reaching number 2 in the UK and number 5 in the US charts, racking up plenty of sales along the way - Platinum in Australia (x2), the US (x2) and the UK, hitting Gold in Germany and France.  Combined with the X Tour, it managed to spend an aggregate of eight months on the UK chart, returning to the Top 40 in July 1991.

In 1988, Michael Hutchence met soap-opera star and singer Kylie Minogue and when they ran away together in 1989, it brought the band to a whole new audience and level of publicity.  In 1991, INXS received a Grammy nomination for 'Best Rock Performance by a Group', whilst USA Today reported they were tied for second place as 'musical artists with the most videos played on MTV' (at the time, they had 37 different clips).  At the 1991 Brit Awards in March, INXS won 'Best International Group' (having previously been nominated in 1989) and Hutchence won 'Best International Male'.  They were also recognised as 'Best International Band' at the first Australian Music Awards.

The X Tour kicked off in October 1990 at the Mackay Entertainment Centre in North Queensland.  It hit the UK on November 25th with two nights at London Docklands Arena, a four night run at Wembley Arena, four nights at Birmingham NEC (where Alison & I would see them in 1997 as part of the Elegantly Wasted Tour), one night each at SECC in Glasgow (should have been two but the first was cancelled by weather), Manchester GMEX, Brigton (The Brighton Centre) and Bournemouth (Bournemouth International Centre) before two nights at The Point Theatre in Dublin.  The UK dates ended in January and, in all, the tour played to 1.2m fans through 80 cities over four continents.

After a successful ‘homecoming’ leg in Australia during April and May, INXS returned to Europe for a series of headlining festival shows from 28th June through to 16th July, the highpoint of which (according to most band members) was the 13th July sold-out show at Wembley Stadium.

So the stage was set, with Summer XS taking place six years to the day after Live Aid had been staged at Wembley Stadium, as INXS continued to enjoy rock giant status both in the UK and around the world.  And I was there.

My now slightly sun-bleached ticket - look at that price!

Saturday 13th July 1991 was warm but overcast.  I’d stayed up late the night before to watch the excellent Dogs In Space, which starred Michael Hutchence and was written & directed by Richard Lowenstein, who directed a lot of INXS videos from Burn For You onwards (his latest was Suicide Blonde, from the X album).  I was quite excited, since my then-girlfriend Liz (who had seen INXS at one of their Wembley Arena gigs in late 1990) had talked me into going to see the show and raved about them - slightly older, she was a fan of long-standing.  I knew of them, of course - I started going to nightclubs in 1986 so I was around as Kick broke out - and I bought X on vinyl a couple of weeks before the gig and really enjoyed it.

Me & Liz, 1991 - I wore that t-shirt a lot!

I picked up Liz and then her friends teenaged daughter (who took her friend), we piled into my Fiat Panda and took off down the M1, listening to an INXS mix-tape Liz had made.  By the time we reached the North Circular, we were all singing along as the signs for Jellyfish, one of the supporting bands, started to appear.  In fact, they were on pretty much every lamp-post we passed.

We parked in the multi-storey next to the stadium, crossed the bridge, found our gate and settled down as we waited to be let in.  The girls were chatty, Liz & I talked and watched the world go by, we went on memorabilia buying sprees and ate our lunch.  Finally the gates opened and we legged it - it was the first time I’d ever been to Wembley so of course I took the opportunity to run onto the (covered over pitch) and pretend I was representing England.  As did so many other blokes my age it became silly.

The four of us made our way towards the front and found some seats to the left of the stage, close enough that we could see people up there (if not clearly), though the huge video monitors would also come in handy as the day wore on.  The festival feel was maintained by having a whole host of bands on the programme which started in the early afternoon (INXS came onstage at about 8.45).  Another of my main reasons to go was the fact that Debbie Harry was playing and I’d been a Blondie fan since the late 70s, though I'd been too young to get to any of their concerts.

The Summer XS line-up was:
Jellyfish - don’t remember anything of their set at all, though they were apparently “a melodic San Francisco rock band” (and got in trouble for plastering their posters everywhere)
Roachford - who were excellent, I went onto the pitch for a dance when they played
Jesus Jones - didn’t like them before I went, didn’t like them any better when I left
Deborah Harry - who I adored.  I left the girls in the seats and pushed my way as far to the front as I could possibly get and then rocked out with the best of them.  She played 11 songs and ended her set with the superb “Atomic”.  Fantastic.
Hothouse Flowers - who were better live, I thought, than when I’d heard them on the radio

The INXS show was being recorded as part of the Live Baby Live project, under the supervision of Mark Optiz and the band’s manager, Chris Murphy decided it should be filmed as well.  In an interview at the time, he said that although he thought X was good “the band had grown lazy, the new songs were too slick and too much like Kick.  I was worried.  I knew I had to do something to bring it back to the basics, back to the strengths of the band.  Doing the film and releasing the live record accomplished that.  It was a way to remind the public of how powerful INXS was live, in case they’d written them off as a band who only released pop songs.”

INXS spent £250,000 filming the concert whilst Murphy convinced Polygram, their European record label, to stump up the rest.  On the night, the fact the band was barely breaking even on the show weighed heavily on Andrew Farriss, though he has since revised his opinion.  “I am so glad we did it,” he said in interview with Anthony Bozza.  “Thank God we did, that same band is not here any more.  Michael is not here any more.”  Andrew was so overcome with expectation of the event, he famously escaped to a bathroom where he spent ten minutes alone, enjoying a beer and smoking a cigarette.  In documentary footage, Michael Hutchence comments that the gig is making £1m and he was only getting £5k of that.

Murphy hired David Mallet to film the concert and he used sixteen 35mm cameras, including two on roving helicopters, to capture everything.  At the time, Mallet was an up-and-coming talent who’d cut his teeth on promo videos for Queen (Bicyle Race in 1978 and I Want To Break Free in 1984, which Brian May credits with the band losing US fans), Blondie (Hanging On The Telephone in 1978), a host of Bowie videos (including the iconic Ashes To Ashes in 1980) and many more.  His work on Bowie’s Glass Spider tour in 1988 and Madonna’s Blond Ambition in 1990 convinced Murphy he was their man.  Mallet also shot the video for Shining Star in 1991 and has since gone on to a strong career in concert films.

By the time INXS came on stage, I was ready.  Opening with two big songs from Kick got me into it straight away and they followed up with a few songs from X that were fresh in my mind but it was Original Sin that locked it for me, vibrant and alive with the all-out jam session at the end.  I do remember loving the rest of the gig, I remember being invigorated by the whole thing though I must confess that most of my memory of the show itself now comes from the DVD.  But no matter - as Mark Opitz said in interview, the band were incredible on the night and they were.  In fact, watching the film again (as I did when I wrote this post), they were clearly on fire and for a first gig by a band relatively new to me, I couldn’t have asked for anything better!

Lately (with a beautiful sax part opening from Kirk Pengilly) followed Original Sin in real life but it was never filmed (it’s an extra on the DVD).  Then came The Loved One, which remains one of my all-time favourite songs and it was launched with an introduction from Hutchence.  “This is a big gig.  Really happy to be here, la-di-da-di-dah - this is the biggest pub we’ve ever played.  Is this what they call a fucking rave or what?”

The show is superb - in sound and vision - and Mallet’s cameras catch it well, with plenty of highlights to savour.  During the opening to Mystify, the crowd sing along so Hutchence stops and holds out the microphone towards them and they bounce around once the band kicks in.  How cool must it be to see an audience do that for one of your songs?  There’s the moshpit run during Wild Life, the crowd going mad for Suicide Blonde, Hutchence kissing Andrew Farriss at the start of What You Need (which also includes the "play the fucking riff, Timmy!” incident).  Kick, Need You Tonight and Never Tear Us Apart sound huge and the set concludes with the best version I’ve ever heard of Devil Inside - the band always used to close on Don’t Change and whilst that would have been good, it really works well as it is.

“We had already headlined at plenty of stadiums and festivals, but this was different. Wembley is the most prestigious stadium in Europe - if not the world - and it was going to be magical. There were 16 cameras, 72,000 extremely psyched people and some great opening bands and we were ready to turn Wembley Stadium into the biggest pub on the planet.”
- Kirk Pengilly

“For us as Australians, Wembley was always thought of as one of those places you knew you that you wanted to play - if you were lucky.  To even have the opportunity to perform there was a dream.  There were something like 200 people backstage which was a bigger crowd than some of the pubs we'd played in! It was nuts and I couldn't really take it all in.”
- Andrew Farriss

“This gig was a prize; it meant that all those years of touring, playing gigs the world over paid off this one night.  We had played many concerts that were bigger but selling out Wembley Stadium was a prestigious hallmark for us, especially considering England’s affection towards INXS took years to develop.”
- Jon Farriss

“When we took part in Live Aid in 1985 it was made all the more special knowing that our performance was being projected onto the large screens at Wembley Stadium.  Wembley was the pinnacle of venues around the world, the place you read about in music magazines growing up in the 60’s and 70’s.  To sell out Wembley Stadium was certainly a dream come true.”
- Garry Gary Beers

“It was INXS Day on BBC Radio, MTV, you name it, we were everywhere you looked or listened, it was kind of surreal, which is always a good thing.  The whole gig was kind of like a big pressure cooker of 'let's see just how nervous we can make the band', but the tension had the opposite effect on me. I had to struggle to keep the smile off my face.”
 - Tim Farriss

Selling out Wembley Stadium was a big deal - AC/DC are the only other Australian band to do the same.  INXS had played the venue before, supporting Queen during the “Kind Of Magic” tour in July 1986 (which I didn't see, though had the opportunity to - really wish I had done now).

According to Billboard magazine, the concert grossed £1,426,617 and the audience was a sell-out capacity of 73,791.

The day after arguably one of their biggest gigs ever, the band and Mark Opitz recorded Shining Star (which Andrew Farriss had written on the road) at London’s Metropolis Studios.

* * * * *
Live Baby Live, the live CD and concert film video, were both released on 11th November 1991 (when I bought my copies). The film, which looks glorious but isn't in widescreen (presumably since TV's weren't set up for that then)  is well-edited and perfectly captures the scale of the event (shots of the crowd and stadium) without missing any of the intimate bits - such as the little nods between Kirk Pengilly and Tim Farriss (plus the fabulous ear signals during What You Need as Hutchence sings “Hey you, don’t you listen” and Kirk gestures to Tim, who had screwed up his riff).  It also captures the sheer energy of the show, the tightness of the musicianship and the real sense of camaraderie amongst the band.  For me, watching it on VHS back in the day was a revelation - I thought I’d picked up a lot from the video monitors (and I thought Kirk was the coolest thing ever in his red suit and black shades) - but I clearly hadn't.  I'm happy to say that even now I still find new bits every time I watch it.

Track Listing:

"Guns in the Sky"
"New Sensation"
"I Send a Message"
"The Stairs"
"Know the Difference"
"Disappear"
"By My Side"
"Hear That Sound"
"Original Sin"
"The Loved One"
"Wildlife"
"Mystify"
"Bitter Tears"
"Suicide Blonde"
"What You Need"
"Kick"
"Need You Tonight"
"Mediate"
"Never Tear Us Apart"
"Who Pays the Price"
"Devil Inside"

On the re-issue, there’s an excellent 40 minute behind-the-scenes documentary which shows the band in preparation for the gig with a real sense of nervous excitement about them all, which is refreshing to see.

The Live Baby Live album reached number 8 in the UK, number 3 in Australia and number 72 in the US (though it sold over 1m copies there).  Shining Star, the single recorded directly after the concert and the only new material on the album (it’s heard over the closing credits of the DVD), was released on 2nd November.  It reached number 31 in the UK, number 21 in Australia and 14 in the US Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart.  The CD single was backed with live versions of Send A Message (from Summer XS), Faith In Each Other (Sydney 1990) and Bitter Tears (Paris 1991).

The album - produced by INXS and Mark Opitz - featured several songs recorded at Wembley, as well as highlights from gigs in Paris, Dublin, Glasgow, Rio de Janeiro (“Hey, hey Rio?” before launching into Suicide Blonde), Montreal, Spain, Switzerland, Melbourne, Sydney, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Las Vegas.

Track Listing:

"New Sensation"
"Guns in the Sky"
"Mystify"
"By My Side"
“Shining Star”
"Need You Tonight"
"Mediate"
“One X One”
“Burn For You”
“The One Thing”
“This Time”
"The Stairs"
"Suicide Blonde"
"Hear That Sound"
"Never Tear Us Apart"
"What You Need"

Summer XS memorabilia - taken from the DVD insert

Part of the DVD documentary, showing the audience gathering.  I wonder if I'm in one of those shots?

An excellent gig and an excellent memory, a great band at the top of their game and I'm chuffed to have been there.

* * *
The show (with Lately now included) was released on vinyl in 2019 and so was the film, re-edited in HD from the original negative to give a proper widescreen presentation.  Alison & I went to see if at the Northampton Filmhouse and it was bloody brilliant (I wrote about it here).

“We were just six blokes from Australia that treated Wembley Stadium like just another pub gig,” Tim Farriss wrote in the liner notes.  “We went in with a PA and a few lights and played our asses off. No ego ramps, no back-up singers, no props, no grand pianos, just the six of us – and the audience went nuts! That’s all we needed!”

sources:
band interviews from the Live Baby Live DVD re-issue liner notes, no credit (released by Sanctuary Visual Entertainment)
INXS: The Official Inside Story Of A Band On The Road, text by Ed St. John
Gig information from Billboard Magazine
Story To Story: The Official INXS Autobiography, by INXS and Anthony Bozza

Just Keep Walking, by INXS, at 40

Forty years ago, INXS released their second single to help promote their debut album in October 1980.

Just Keep Walking was written by the band as a whole (a credit tactic their manager Chris Murphy suggested), backed with Scratch and released in Australia and New Zealand in October 1980 and in the UK, by RCA, in May 1981.  It was the only single release from the album and would eventually go gold (selling over 35,000 units) though it took a good few years to do so.

The band had released their first single, Simple Simon/We Are The Vegetables, in May 1980 and performed it live on an afternoon kids show called Simon Townsend's Wonder World (their first TV appearance).  Just Keep Walking, their second single, became something of a pub anthem locally and also broke into the Australian Top 40 (peaking at number 38), leading to them appearing on Countdown for the first time.

Clever words on smooth tongue talking 

Shove it brother 

Just keep walking 

The video was directed by Gary Page, a friend of Michael Hutchence's and shot in one day in September in a warehouse in Sydney, on a budget of "about A$1,200" (according to Kirk Pengilly, introducing it on the I'm Only Looking DVD).  The plastic floor and wall concept was designed by Hutchence (according to Pengilly) to represent a "room within a room".

Andrew Farriss wrote, on the INXS Anthology Liner Notes: "The song lyrics were about life on the road and the pubs: Green grass fields and earth, broken bottles bricks and dirt. By the time we started recording our first album, I had written the lyrics already and showed them to Michael. He liked the line:  Clever words on smooth tongue talking, shove it brother, just keep walking. We knew it would connect with the workers and drinking mob in the pubs."

Tim Farriss told journalist David McGee in June 1983 that the lyric Shove it, brother/Just keep walking "sort of summed up our attitude. We took on an 'angry young man' status because we were working our guts out and still starving."

INXS was released in Australia on 13 October 1980.  Recorded at Trafalgar Studios in Annandale, Sydney, it was co-produced by the band and Duncan McGuire and because of the low budget (Deluxe Records gave them $10,000 to make the whole album), they had to record between midnight and dawn (often after playing live shows earlier in the evening).

I like the album, though it's a very different sound to the one that would make INXS a world-beating group.  Alison isn't so keen on its New Wave-ska-pop style and she's not alone...

I'm not a great fan of the first album. It's naïve and kinda cute, almost. It's these young guys struggling for a sound. All I can hear is what was going to happen later and it's probably an interesting album because of that. Just Keep Walking was the first time we thought we'd written a song. And that became an anthem around town. It's funny, I remember kids in pubs saying it and hearing it on the radio the first time. We'd never heard that before.

- Michael Hutchence

The band's first appearance on Countdown, 5th October 1980.


sources:
Discogs release information
I'm Only Looking DVD
Michael Hutchence quote from Burn: The Life and Times of Michael Hutchence and INXS, by Ed St. John
INXS Anthology Liner Notes
Wikipedia

Suicide Blonde, by INXS, at 30

Thirty years ago, on 15th September 1990, INXS released Suicide Blonde, their first single in over 18 months (following Mystify), from their forthcoming album X.

Suicide Blonde was written by Andrew Farriss & Michael Hutchence and released in September 1990 across the world.  The b side for the 7” was Everybody Wants U Tonight written by Jon Farriss.

The first of five singles from the album (followed by Disappear, released in December, By My Side in March 1991, Bitter Tears in July 1991 - to tie in with the Summer XS gig which I wrote about here -and The Stairs, only released in The Netherlands in November), it peaked at number 2 in the Australian charts, number 1 in Canada, New Zealand and the US, went Top 10 in The Netherlands and Ireland and peaked at number 11 in both the UK (where it spent 6 weeks on the charts) and Switzerland.  It was certified Gold in Australia (over 35k units) and the US (over 500k units).

Save you from your misery like rain across the land

Don't you see the colour of deception

Turning your world around again

You want to make her, suicide blonde

Love devastation, suicide blonde

The video reunited the band with Richard Lowenstein, who’d been responsible for the very successful (and, indeed, award-winning) videos from Kick and in the meantime had worked with U2 and Hutchence’s side project Max Q.

The song was written as the band reconvened after a year away.  By all accounts it was a fairly fractious time for a while, since all the members had pursued other projects and Michael Hutchence was enjoying a new level of international fame as he dated Kylie Minogue, then best known for her performance on Neighbours.  There are reports she gave him the inspiration for the title, as she was making The Delinquents (1989) while he and Andrew Farriss were writing - the role required Minogue to dye her hair platinum blonde.

A distinctive part of the record (single and album) was the mouth organ (or blues harp) - Farriss had been experimenting with the sound on his keyboard and suggested using it to the band.  In a 1990 interview with DeWitt Nelson he said, "when I met up with Michael we started putting some stuff on tape and demos and we thought hmmm, this is an interesting sound."  In the same interview, Hutchence said, "[Charlie Musselwhite] was actually playing around Australia... he's a real nice southern gentleman."  They arranged to meet when he played in Syndey and Musselwhite readily agreed to collaborate.  Rather than play on the live recording, he laid down some samples which Farriss built into the song (and played on the harmonica during the X tour) though he did play live on two album tracks, Who Pays The Price and On My Way.

X was released on 25th September 1990 and marked the third (and final) collaboration with producer Chris Thomas.  Recorded at Rhinoceros Studios in Sydney during 1990, with initial rehearsals starting in November 1989, it marked the end of a year-long sabbatical for the band following their huge Kick World Tour which ran through 1987 and 1988.  It reached number 1 in Australia, number 2 in the UK and New Zealand and went Top 10 in The Netherlands, France, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland and the US.  Saleswise, it was certified Platinum in eight countries (including the UK) and Gold in two.

The album yielded four videos, with Suicide Blonde being included on the 1990 VHS release INXS: Greatest Video Hits (1980-1990).  X, Bitter Tears and By My Side were all directed by Richard Lowenstein, while Claudia Castle directed Disappear.

One month after the release of X, INXS began preparations for their next world tour and I was lucky enough to get to their UK leg and see their Summer XS gig at Wembley (which I wrote about here).

sources:
INXS: Story to Story: The Official Autobiography, by INXS & Anthony Bozza
Discogs release information
DeWitt Nelson interview (1990)
Official Charts (UK)
Wikipedia

Devil Inside, by INXS

Since it's 32 years old this week, I'm taking a look at INXS' Devil Inside, a single I think best encapsulates not only the excellent Kick album but also the time period.

Devil Inside, the second single (following Need You Tonight) from Kick (which I wrote about here), was released on 8th February 1988 in Australia and 13th February 1988 for the rest of the world.  Recorded at Rhinoceros Studios in Sydney during 1986, it was written by Andrew Farriss & Michael Hutchence, produced by Chris Thomas and mixed by Bob Clearmountain.

It’s highest worldwide chart position was number 2, on the US Billboard Hot 100 for a fortnight (held off the top spot by Billy Ocean’s Get Outta My Dreams and Whitney Houston with Where Do Broken Hearts Go), going on to spend seventeen weeks on the chart.  It peaked at number 6 in Australia, 20 in France, 25 in Ireland and 47 in the UK (spending five weeks on the charts here).

Here come the world

With the look in its eye

Future uncertain but certainly slight

Look at the faces listen to the bells

It's hard to believe we need a place called hell

The song, part of the first batch for Kick, was written in July while the band was on the If You Got It, Shake It World Tour in 1986.  Andrew Farriss said, “The band was staying at a hotel in Edgware Road in London.  That’s where I wrote the riff - I put it on a demo in my room.  I worked out the chords, played everything for Michael and he said, ‘That’s really good, let’s run with it.’”

The band enjoyed playing the song live - “if you know the right parts,” Farriss said, “you can pretty much play this song as a bar band” - and Chris Thomas managed to preserve that in the recording.  The song quickly became a staple of concerts and it closed the Summer XS gig at Wembley in July 1991.

Joel Schumacher directed the video, a situation which arose from the soundtrack for his film The Lost Boys, released in 1987.  INXS contributed two songs, both of them collaborations with Jimmy Barnes - Good Times (a cover of the Easybeats song from 1968) and Laying Down The Law (co-written by INXS and Barnes) - which were originally recorded to publicise the Australian Made concerts from December 1986 to January 1987.  Since the music budget for the film wasn’t big enough but Schumacher wanted INXS, he agreed to direct a music video for them and they held him to the offer.

The video was filmed over two nights in mid-November 1987 at the Balboa Island Arcade & Boardwalk in Newport Beach, Southern California.  The production utilised three locations - the Balboa Saloon, as well as the Playland and Funzone arcades - and shot from 8pm to 4am (INXS had to leave for Canada after the second night of shooting for a concert).  The boardwalk was kept open to the public who were encouraged to be involved as unpaid extras, whilst the bodybuilders, bikers, businessmen, the fortune teller and the transvestite were all actors brought in for the shoot.

Kirk Pengilly said, in interview, that he didn’t like the video feeling it was “too American” but I love it and the song equally - both, to me, pretty much encapsulate the 80s in terms of sound and vision.

Devil Inside was nominated for Best Editing in a Video at the 1988 MTV Video Music Awards, but lost out to Need You Tonight (which swept the awards, winning five trophies).

The song was issued on vinyl and CD.  The 7” single and a 12” Maxi-single both contained the single version (at 5:11, the album version run 3:55) and On The Rocks, with the 12” version also including a Devil Inside remix (6:36).  The CD single was identical to the 12”.

Kick was released on 19th October 1987 and remains the bands most successful album, with almost 14m units sold.  It was produced by Chris Thomas (his second of three INXS albums) and recorded at Rhinoceros Studios in Sydney and Studio De La Grande Armée in Paris.  It spent 85 weeks on the ARIA album chart (peaking at number 2), 81 weeks on the US Billboard chart (peaking at number 3) and 103 weeks on the UK album chart (peaking at number 9).  I wrote extensively about the album on its 30th anniversary and you can read the blog post here.

The albums was supported by the enormous Kick World Tour which started at East Lansing in Michigan on 16th September 1987 and took in America, Canada, the UK, Europe, Japan, New Zealand and Australia.  The tour ended on 13th November 1988 at the Sydney Entertainment Centre, having played to more than 3 million people.

This performance was shot at Summer XS, Wembley Stadium, 13th July 1991 - a concert I was lucky enough to attend - and later released on the "Live Baby Live" DVD, directed by David Mallet.  Talk about a great way to close a show!

sources:
Music Radar.com - Andrew talks KICK, track by track

Tales Of Balboa: Alan Sandoval on the video shoot

LA Times: filming the video 

The Eleventh Annual Westies - review of the year 2019

Well, here we are again (seriously, where does the time go, eh?), gearing up for Christmas and all things festive, which means it's time to indulge in the annual blog custom and remember the good books of 2019.

Once again, it's been a great reading year for me with a nice mixture of brand new novels, a few books that have languished on my TBR pile for too long, some good second-hand finds (which jumped straight to the top of the pile) along with some welcome re-reads.

As always, the top 20 places were hard fought and, I think, show a nice variety in genre and tone - if I've blogged about a book before, I've linked to it on the list.

Without further ado, I present the Eleventh Annual Westies Award - “My Best Fiction Reads Of The Year” - and the top 20 looks like this:







1:   Daisy Jones & The Six, by Taylor Jenkins Read
2:   The Whisper Man, by Alex North
3:   Summer On A Small Island *, by Sue Moorcroft
4:   Let It Snow, by Sue Moorcroft
5:   Closer Still, by Richard Farren Barber
6:   Mistletoe, by Alison Littlewood
7:   The A-Team: When You Comin' Back, Range Rider?, by Charles Heath
8:   The Family, by Louise Jensen
9:   The Hunting Party, by Lucy Foley
10:  The Devil's Dice, by Roz Watkins
11: Grave Descend, by Michael Crichton
12: The Puppet Show, by M. W. Craven
13: Elevator Pitch, by Linwood Barclay
14: My Best Friend's Exorcism, by Grady Hendrix
15: Clean Break, by Tammy Cohen
16: Something In The Water, by Catherine Steadman
17: The Professionals 4: Hunter Hunted, by Ken Blake
18: The Banker's Wife, by Cristina Alger
19: Final Girls, by Riley Sager
20: Sleep, by C. L. Taylor

* This is Sue's Avon book for next summer, which I read to critique and will be published in May 2020.

The Top 10 in non-fiction are:

1:   The Killers: Days & Ages, by Mark Beaumont
2:   Till The Cows Come Home, by Sara Cox
3:   With Nails, by Richard E. Grant
4:   INXS - Band On The Road, by INXS and Ed St John
5:   Game Over, by Dan Whitehead
6:   Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life, by Eric Idle
7:   Cinefex 36, by Don Shay et al
8:   Making Movie Magic, by John Richardson
9:   Making A Monster, by Al Cummings & Sue Roy
10: Bohemian Rhapsody, by Lesley-Ann Jones

Stats wise, I’ve read 76 books - 42 fiction, 18 non-fiction, 9 comics/nostalgia/kids and 7 Three Investigator mysteries.

Of the 69 books, the breakdown is thus:

9 biography
12 horror
8 film-related
3 drama (includes romance)
25 crime/mystery
3 sci-fi
3 nostalgia
6 humour

All of my reviews are posted up at Goodreads here


Just in case you’re interested, the previous awards are linked to from here:
2018
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009

Live Baby Live: INXS on the big screen!

Last week, Alison & I were lucky enough to revisit the excellent INXS concert film Live Baby Live at the cinema, when it showed ‘for one night only’.

Live Baby Live is the film of the iconic 1991 Wembley Concert (the gig itself was called Summer XS and I wrote extensively about it here).  As Tim Peacock on udiscovermusic put it, “Six years to the day after Live Aid, London’s famous Wembley Stadium played host to a second concert [that] would go down in history. On 13 July 1991, Aussie superstars INXS delivered the show of their lives at Wembley, with their career-defining gig captured in all its widescreen glory by a spin-off concert film and live album – both of which were titled Live Baby Live.”
Having thoroughly enjoyed the concert - I became a firm fan of the band before we were halfway through the gig - I snapped up the album when it was released in November 1991.  David Mallet’s film version, shot with sixteen 35mm cameras (including one in a helicopter), was released the same day and I duly picked up the VHS, watching it over and over again.  When a special edition DVD was released in 2003, I bought that and Alison & I have watched it at least once a year since (it includes an excellent behind-the-scenes documentary, if you’re interested).  Both the VHS and DVD editions were cropped to 1.33:1 aspect ratio to fit the then TV standard 4:3 size (because, of course, back then TV screens were almost square) and I never thought anything about it.

For the cinema release, Chris Murphy - the band’s long-time manager - spent a decade looking for the original 35mm elements, according to Andrew Trendell of the nme and managed to find most of it in Australia.

“When you’re working on a project for so long, there’s the fear ‘What’s everyone going to think?’ That turns into astonishment,” said Murphy. “Watching it back, Michael is better than even I thought he was - how he managed the stage. His voice became more powerful as the gig went along. It was extraordinary to watch - the crowd and band were as one.”

The concert has been fully restored from the original print with a new widescreen 4K Ultra HD version created in 1.78:1 ratio (which’ll fit nicely on 16:9 televisions!).  It also includes the full version of Lately - a previously unseen ‘lost’ track, included as an audio-only extra on the DVD - marking the first time the concert has been released with the full original setlist.

A brand new Dolby Atmos audio mix was prepared by Giles Martin and Sam Okell at Abbey Road Studios and released as a triple vinyl album (which sounds fantastic, I bought it the day it came out) and double CD.

The UK showing was set for Wednesday 27th November.  We saw it at the Northampton Filmhouse and Alison & I turned up in our INXS t-shirts (I wore the one I got from Wembley back in 1991), having listened to the CD on the drive there.  From the opening, as the band rushes the stage to Jon Farriss’ drum beat to Michael Hutchence doing his victory salute at the end, the experience was incredible.  The film quality is superb, the image pin sharp for the stage scenes (not so clear for the helicopter shots), to the extent you can read the guitar plectrums easily and the widescreen presentation adds in a lot of detail.  The sound, also, was thunderous and that was just what it needed.

left - in 1991 with my then girlfriend Liz, who I attended the gig with and - right - at home in 2019

“The whole band was on fire that night”, writes Garry Gary Beers in the liner notes.  “Michael was so good, he sang his heart out and gave every person in the crowd a night to remember for all time. He truly had that amazing ability to make the biggest shows as intimate as the pubs we grew up in musically.”

“We were just six blokes from Australia that treated Wembley Stadium like just another pub gig,” Tim Farriss wrote in the liner notes.  “We went in with a PA and a few lights and played our asses off. No ego ramps, no back-up singers, no props, no grand pianos, just the six of us – and the audience went nuts! That’s all we needed!”

Music producer Giles Martin said of the gig that the crowd had just witnessed “one of the biggest global sensations at the height of their powers” and on the strength of this and my memories, he’s absolutely spot on.

This is a definite Blu ray purchase.  Thanks for the memory, INXS!

Burn For You, by INXS, at 35

Thirty-five years ago, to promote their new album, INXS released one of my favourites of their songs, the excellent Burn For You.

Burn For You was written by Andrew Farriss & Michael Hutchence and released in Australia and New Zealand on 26th July 1984 (it never saw release in the UK), with Jenny Morris providing backing vocals.  The single had Johnson’s Aeroplane, written by Andrew Farriss, as the b side.

The third of four singles from the album (following Original Sin, in December 1983, I Send A Message in March 1984 and before Dancing On The Jetty in October 1984), it peaked at number 3 on the Australian chart and 29 on the NZ chart.

Tilt my hat at the sun

And the shadows they burn dark

Light me and I'll burn for you

And the love song never stops

The song was also notable in that it saw the start of the band's ongoing - and very productive - relationship with film director Richard Lowenstein.  Michael Hutchence had been the first to notice his work, after being impressed by the Talking To A Stranger video Lowenstein had made for Hunters and Collectors and was keen for the director to work with INXS.

  

Chris Murphy set up a meeting with the band, who were then on tour in north Queensland and Lowenstein, who was getting ready to go to the Cannes Film Festival, flew up specially from Melbourne with his small crew.  They met poolside "at a hotel in a surf town" and Lowenstein was convinced he’d made a mistake.  “I came face to face under the Queensland sun with six bronzed males and their girlfriends, wearing Hawaiian shirts and board shorts,” he told The Independent.  “The most effusive of these males stood up and loped over, shaking our hands with an eager puppy-dog gleam and a smile to die for. He said his name was Michael.”  He told Anthony Bozza, in INXS: Story to Story, that Michael “was so gracious and nothing at all that I expected”.  Very different in looks, the two men quickly realised they were on the same wavelength and the meeting marked the start of a lifelong friendship.  “We immediately started talking about what we could do for [Burn For You],” Lowenstein told Bozza, “[and] I found out right away that he and I did see things alike.”

The video, shot over the course of a week, is a clever mixture of live concert footage, some arty running about in trees and wonderful behind-the-scenes footage, capturing the band and their friends clearly enjoying themselves and each others company.  Filmed in four steadily larger towns (all marked on screen), from Mackay in Queensland to London, it also benefits from what would become an INXS/Lowenstein signature, namely key animation from Lynn-Maree Milburn.  

I really like the video, it feels warmly nostalgic, it’s nice to see the band on the cusp of becoming big and it’s great to see London in the early 80s - there’s footage from a concert at the Astoria Theatre on Charing Cross Road, which was demolished in early 2009.

Andrew Farriss wrote, on the INXS Anthology Liner Notes: "This was one of the earlier songs Michael and I had written for The Swing. The chorus was pure pop, and Kirk's acoustic guitar part gave the track a different sound from the rest of the album. Up to this point we had used very little acoustic guitar in our recording. Backing vocal harmonies on the chorus were helped by our friend Jenny Morris, who was later to tour with us on the following album, Listen Like Thieves."

Burn For You went on to win Countdown Awards for "Best Group Performance In A Video" and "Best Promotional Video".

The Swing was released in April 1984 and became the band’s first number one album on the Australian charts.  It was produced by Nick Launay (except Original Sin, which Nile Rodgers produced) and recorded at The Manor Studio in Oxfordshire during December 1983 with later sessions at Rhinoceros Studios in Sydney (Original Sin was recorded at The Power Station in New York during September 1983).  It reached number one on the Australian chart, number 27 in Canada, 37 in the Netherlands, 6 in New Zealand and 52 in the US.  I wrote about Original Sin, the breakout success of The Swing, here on its 30th anniversary.

The album yielded seven videos, which were later released on VHS as The Swing And Other Stories.

Original Sin and I Send A Message were both directed by Yasuhiko Yamamoto and filmed in Tokyo, the latter at the Buddhist temple in Main Old City Park.

Burn for You, Dancing on the Jetty and All The Voices were directed by Richard Lowenstein (the latter included footage from his film Strikebound).

Melting In The Sun and Love Is (What I Say) were directed by John Hillcoat.

The song was included as part of INXS' set for the Australian Made tour, the same-name concert film of which was directed by Richard Lowenstein.  This footage was taken from the performance at Endeavour Park, Syndey, on 24th January 1987.



sources:
INXS: Story to Story: The Official Autobiography, by INXS & Anthony Bozza
The Independent interview with Richard Lowenstein
Discogs release information
Wikipedia