Something a bit different today. An Indie pop gem from an underground powerhouse in Australia.
Greasy Pop Records was started in Adelaide by Perth Native Doug Thomas. Throughout the 1980s they put out a bunch of sought after and slept on rock, punk and pop records from a bubbling South Australian scene.
This record, the only release by The Artisans, came in 1990, when the label was starting to move into punk and garage rock. Don't Have To Choose is full of naivety, hope and youthfulness. While the band members must have got older, this serves as a snapshot of their forays into indie music experimentalism.
The catalogue of Greasy Pop Records, similarly, provides a relevant window into the South Australian underground in the 1980s. While you might think it would be all Cold Chisel or The Angels, there were passionate alternative artists making genuinely interesting music.
Long resident in my bag finally sees the light of YT today.
I think I maybe first heard Finn play this on his incredible Sunday Club show on NTS. I started listening to the digitally available Sole Music versions, but they've got nothing on the old Simplex cuts. I got to pick up a copy in Shepparton and been running it regularly ever since.
Simplex had prolific output in the mid 90s, a bunch of stuff that went under the radar. By the end of the decade they had put hits from the likes of Blaze out, before they faded into obscurity.
All the Deep Down cuts are bouncy, hypnotic garage house. The Mid Day side is more stripped back than the full on Deep Down mixes. In the Dub, the vocals are echoed out to perfection. Sometimes you get just a vocal stab, or a long crescendo, but more often than not it's that haunting mantra, deep down.
It's a banger that hangs around in my head and is never far from being on my turntable. Hope you're into it too.
I can't manage to dig up anything on Smoove Society. Can't even track down a name. All I know is the two tracks on this record are bangers.
Dance Floor (Full Lenght) is energetic and fun. There's elements of UK rave classics, a driving bassline, chaotic percussion and a vocal sample that's both haunting and inviting.
It's a real under the radar European house gem, complete with a playful typo.
Had a mega week covering three shows on PBS this week!
First up, incredible honour to cover Mike Gurrieri's Mystic Brew. Brought some old street soul bits and went into soulful house! Click the photo to listen.
Then had the chance to cover Pony's Chronicle's of Kick Ons. Four hours of all sorts! Jazz, New Wave, wonky Disco and finishing with some nice new age morning business. Hit the pic!
Back into some house music on the channel now, with some UK sleepers from the Eukahouse label.
Known in my head for releasing lots of work by Nils Hess and Nathan Coles under their 'Get Fucked' alias, Eukahouse was seminal in shaping the tasteful tech house of the late 1990s and early 2000s.
This particular release seems to have slipped through the cracks as opposed to many of the other well revered, often highly priced, Eukahouse records.
Maybe that's because there's not a lot of information about Angel's House. No other releases, no other credits, just this incredible record.
The Ground really is a beautiful tune. A bubbling bassline underscores stripped-back acoustic piano, and you can really hear the Detroit influence in the glimmering and chaotic drum programming.
Similarly, all amazing elements of a deep house classic come together for Santonio (Shame Myself Mix). More driving, the strings that ripple across the high end are sure to force hands into the air. Organic bongo percussion rolls are although worthy of note.
I really find it hard to believe that this gem slipped through the cracks given the amount of attention that Eukahouse has got over the last few decades. But as usual, I'm selfishly glad that it did, because I get to share it with you instead!
Along with a string of singles released on the same Flamingo Label, Dee also went on to work with the likes of seminal DJ Paul Mac and there are also claims I couldn't substantiate that she taught Nikki Webster.
Move On You is a moody, a new wave ballad that never was. Beautiful pads and keys echo across a haunting riff that seems inches away from being a chart topper like We Can Get Together or Send Me An Angel.
Something a bit different this week, a jazz cut from an op shop CD that I have playing a lot recently and I think needs to see the light of day.
Late jazz musician Ken Schroeder was a regular with a number of small groups in the Melbourne scene from the late 1960s up until his passing last year.
He was a well-loved saxophone player and arranger and the tracks on this live album Afternoon In Libya are all his own original compositions.
Recorded at a bar in Melbourne in June 1989, many of the tracks have a very big band, post-pop sound, but I like that Hope has something of a more spiritual tone and less urgency.
Schroder contributes some sterling solos on both alto and baritone sax. Rob Glaesemann also shines on tenor and Ian Hellings stands out on trumpet. But the most impressive player is guitarist Doug De Vries, who holds the piano-less rhythm section together and excels as a soloist.
I think in Hope you can really see all of these players combine for a contemplative, ethereal eight-minute jazz journey and I am stoked to have it as part of the channel. Vale Ken Schroder.
In other news, it's Radio Festival time at PBS 106.7 FM!
Now is the best time of the year to become a part of the PBS family, because you have the chance to win a bunch of different and amazing prizes just for becoming a member.
To celebrate and chat about it, Ponie asked me to be on her show The Chronicles of Kick Ons this morning and we played a bunch of music and chat about the amazing perks of being a PBS member.
Some private press Australian AOR up on the archive now.
Pulled this out of a five dollar bin and was struck by the cover photo taken on Sydney's Pyrmont bridge.
Rare to see a true self-funded release just sitting around with such little information. There's no release date and Claire isn't even credited with a last name!
A number of working musicians featured who also played on bits and pieces for Australian groups in the 70s and 80s, but really there's nothing particularly notable about this release apart from it's obscurity and this tune.
Room In My Heart is undoubtedly the standout track here. While others are pretty run of the mill op shop pop, it has beautiful balaeric charm and is a real underground earworm.
Another reminder than you never know what might be hiding on a record that hasn't had the appreciation it deserves.
Stoked to present to you guys my mix for the incredible Space'd Ensemble crew!
A collection of a bunch of the records I have been playing at home, on radio and at bars, it's feels really lovely to be given the trust and freedom by Space'd to be able to put it all together for 120 odd minutes.
There's a bit of everything that I hold dear, 80s rock. Street Soul bargain bin bits, dancehall and ragga dusties and of course, house music.
In that spirit hopefully this mix works for a lot of places. A long drive, drinks with friends, a slow morning with the cryptic or cooking up a storm. Any time you can find to listen means a lot to me!
Click the photo below:
Also Melbourne crew come down and support local this record store day @ Skydiver!
Feeling in over my head to be on this incredible lineup.
I noticed that the only CD they had been credited was on a compilation for Australian music retailer Sanity, compiled by DJ Andy Glitre.
John McCall again featured on this remix and I wondered, was he something of a third member of the group?
Furthermore, almost all of the other tracks on the Rhythm Method compilation had previously been released elsewhere. Why put this track only out on such a strange commercial compilation?
Intrigued, but equally confused and bereft of information, I tracked down a copy of the CD and reached out to Robert Goodge to find out about the story of Moisture Rich Foundation.
Goodge said that Moisture Rich Foundation was one of the many projects he and Main undertook once Gavin Callander moved interstate and Filthy Lucre ended.
"John McCall was what you could call a session player," Goodge wrote, "we got him in to do some solos on stuff..the group was really just Paul and myself."
He said they produced a bunch of stuff together, some of which they sold to Groovilcious and Strictly Rhythm in New York.
"Andy Glitre lived in [Melbourne] for a while and Paul and him were good friends," Goodge wrote.
"I knew him from his Sydney days [because] I used to play up there a lot in I'm Talking and we often played the nightclubs."
"He just asked if we had something he could use," Goodge continued.
"He gave us $90 and said 'thats it you don't get a royalty or anything,' but then it just sank without a trace."
"We were probably the only people who made any money off it anyhow."
I asked if the two of them set out to make particularly deep house, something which was rare with Australian releases at the time.
"No we were just trying to do music, no creative goals in particular other than do something that people liked," Goodge replied.
"We liked dubby stuff, Paul was really into a lot of underground stuff, so we weren't trying to be commercial which made it hard [because] the OZ music biz didn't want anything like that.
"Australia back then was very isolated if you were trying to do anything out of the ordinary."
Moods (McCalls 'N' All Mix) is definitely out of the ordinary for Australian house music of 1999. There's mellow ambient pads and layered quasi-latin percussion, before we get to some squelching acid and McCall's solo that is front and centre on the original mix.
It's deep, unhurried house music which seems to carry that sentiment that Goodge and Main were just out to create something people liked.
Hopefully by featuring it on the channel it can find the audience it truly deserves!
2 Dope Productions is one of the many aliases of Ricky Morrison and Martin Watson. Together under this moniker and various others they produced all the output for Mighty Rider records.
Ricky Morrison also had a considerable career as a solo producer, appearing on hundreds of records across labels like Strictly Rhythmn, Cutting Traxx and Azuli.
Martin Watson had a less commercially successful career, but his under the radar dub productions for the small Dredbeat Records are seriously good finds, combining elements of hip-hop, ragga and dancehall.
The Mighty Rider EP was the label's first release in 1991, apparently taking tracks from a forthcoming album Spreading the Message, which never saw the light of day.
In a style that seemed to be all the rage at the start of the 90s in the UK, one side is early house groovers and the other is downtempo chillers. Body Work, also from the a-side is also particularly good.
Driftin has funky bongos, great solos and vocal chops over a grooving bassline. A underground classic.
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