INXS Get Their Day On The Green

I’m not sure what to think about this one. It’s obvious that INXS will never again be the vitally exciting pop-rock band that they were and there’s a strong argument to suggest that they are tarnishing their legacy with every show they perform. Some band s can survive the loss of a lead singer and there’s many would suggest that INXS is not one of them.

But there’s no doubt that there’s still an audience wanting to hear those hits and A Day On The Green might just be the best environment to set aside your doubts and just enjoy a night of hits that you wont forget.

The next chapter in the illustrious career of INXS is about to begin, with the announcement of their first Australian tour in four years exclusively for A Day On The Green in support of their new album.

The band with special guest JD Fortune (so is he or is he not a member of the band?)  will play their only Australian shows at wineries nationally in January/February next year. The tour includes two special concerts in NSW on Australia Day-eve Tuesday January 25 in Mudgee and on Australia Day Wednesday January 26 in Bowral.

Joining INXS will be US Grammy-Award winners Train, whose blues and folk-infused rock has propelled them to the top of the charts around the world.

The reformed Baby Animals and ARIA Hall of Fame inductees Models complete this line-up.

The upcoming INXS album heralds a new beginning with guest vocalists joining the five band members to rework classic INXS songs into new incarnations. The project has been in progress  for the past year, with Ben Harper’s version of ‘Never Tear Us Apart’ released last month as the first tantalising taste of what is to come.

Tracks have been recorded by Rob Thomas (Matchbox 20) Pat Monahan (Train), Kav Temperley (Eskimo Joe), hip hop star Tricky and JD Fortune (which I guess means he’s not a member of the band) , with more to be announced.

One of the artists featuring on the INXS album, Patrick Monahan and his band Train will take up the support slot on all shows except Rutherglen, VIC. Due to prior commitments, Train need to return to the US and will unfortunately miss the last show of the tour.

The Baby Animals roared into Aussie rock history with their 8 times platinum self-titled debut album in the early 90s, with hits like ‘Early Warning’, ‘One Word’ and ‘Rush You’ firmly establishing the band, and its charismatic front woman Suze De Marchi.   After disbanding in 1996, they made a hugely popular return in 2008, and again earlier this year in the ‘Rock N Roll
Symphony’ national tour with Chrissie Amphlett and Diesel.  Suze has recently returned to Sydney after decades in the US, and with original Baby Animals partner Dave Leslie is working on new material and keen to hit the stage again.

The announcement that Models would be inducted into this year’s ARIA Hall Of Fame is recognition of the status this pioneering Melbourne band has always held. Led by Sean Kelly and emerging from the post new wave scene, Models’
produced ground-breaking albums ‘The Pleasure Of Your Company’ and ‘Out Of Mind Out Of Sight’.  They have played occasional shows over the past decade, and with Mark Ferrie (bass), Andrew Duffield (keys), Barton Price (drums)
will make their A Day On The Green debut on this tour.

Tour dates are:

Tuesday Jan 25         Robert Oatley Vineyards, Mudgee NSW (*Australia Day
eve)

Wednesday Jan 26     Centennial Vineyards, Bowral NSW (*Australia Day)

Saturday Jan 29         Bimbadgen Estate, Hunter Valley NSW

Sunday Jan 30           Sirromet Wines, Mt Cotton QLD

Thursday Feb 3         Kings Park & Botanic Garden, Perth WA

Saturday Feb 5          Annie’s Lane, Clare Valley SA

Sunday Feb 6            Rochford Wines, Yarra Valley VIC

Saturday Feb 12        All Saints Estate, Rutherglen VIC **  Train does not
perform.

TICKETS ON SALE MONDAY OCTOBER 11

Models – The Gershwin Room, The Espy

In all probability the current incarnation of Models will be a fleeting footnote on the bands history, a single entry on the band’s Wikipedia page that says “In 2010 a line-up consisting of Sean Kelly, Andrew Duffield, Barton Price and Mark Ferrie played a single, well received show at the Esplanade Hotel in Melbourne. This was to be the final show in the band’s history.”

Yet the consensus among the small but well informed Models focus group (which seemed to be reflected in the large and very enthusiastic audience) was that this incarnation was as good, nay, superior to any we had witnessed in the bands 30 year history.

It makes you wonder what creative and musical peaks this line-up could reach if the got it into their collective heads to persist beyond this show.

Musically they were outstanding. Each member contributed to the re-incarnation of these songs into a more muscular, more flexible (but no less interesting) version of their former selves. Each player individually has evolved into a better player but collectively the whole far exceeds the sum of even these improved parts. Sean Kelly’s guitar playing – even when only availing himself of the services of five strings – was better and more confident than I remembered, and the quirky, yet very ‘musical’ keyboards of Andrew Duffield made me realise what a loss he was when he drifted from the bosom of the band after it’s initial foray into our consciousness.

But the real “one and one makes three” aspect of this line-up was the rhythm section of  Price and Ferrie who had never recorded together and yet seemed obviously the best bass and drums backline the Models never had.

The songs played were drawn largely from the albums Alphabravocharliedeltaechofoxtrotgolf, Local and/or General and the EP Cut Lunch. While most fans would have left rejoicing about the setlist it’s only the day after when you realise what they left out.

They played the whole first side of Local and/or General but nothing from Side 2, which may have simply been a co-incidence. We were treated to Pate Pedestrian and Happy Birthday IBM from Alpha Bravo but not Pull The Pin, Kissing Around Corners and Uncontrollable Boy. The Cut Lunch EP contributed Two Cabs To The Toucan, Atlantic Romantic and the title track, but Man O’ Action missed out.

Big On Love and Evolution (from Out of Mind Out of Sight and Media respectively) were two surprising inclusions and were perhaps a gesture of Kelly reclaiming those albums.

Of course the encore which offered up (among others) Telstar was enough to make a group of (fast approaching) 50 year old men very, very happy and possibly bought a collective tear to the collective eye of those collected in the Gershwin.

There is certainly another show’s worth of songs that didn’t get an airing tonight, especially when you count the plethora of more obscure live hits (after a fashion) that are lurking ominously on the Models Melbourne album.
Accordingly the Models focus group was left demanding not just an encore but a whole extra performance.

Is it simply the nostalgia talking?

I don’t think so – the era of Models from which the majority of tonight’s set was drawn came from a time when the band, and Kelly in particular, were ahead of their time. They have a body of probably fifty songs that are as smart, adventurous, quirky, intelligent, humorous and endearing as any of the new bands of today who are operating in a new-wave/pop/punk/artschool influenced way. There is absolutely no reason why they couldn’t record a new album of new songs and merge them into this remarkable catalogue and add to their legacy.

To a casual fan of Australian music tonight’s setlist contained a number of songs that a casual fan would have expected to hear. They weren’t missed, not even slightly, and the audience at tonight’s show lapped up what was on offer in the knowledge that this was the band Models always should have been.

But it’s a different world now – it’s not about record sales, expensive videos, high-priced producers and recouping label advances anymore. This incarnation of the Models could be a highly successful cottage industry by recording new songs when they have them, touring that wonderful catalogue of songs, in this brilliantly talented and coherent configuration and selling t-shirts and compilation CD’s to people like the small, but highly insightful Models focus group.

I hope they do that and I’m know I’m not alone.

Models’ Sean Kelly Interview

I must have seen Models about 50 times in my early gig going days and rarely did they disappoint. In recent years there has been a couple of revisitations of  Models legacy and they haven’t always been fulfilling. But in 2010 Sean Kelly has got the band back together and this time it’s the line-up that long time fans have wanted to see.

Sean Kelly, Andrew Duffield, Mark Ferrie and Barton Price may well be the definitive Models line-up and as Sean agrees there is something odd about that.

HHMM: It’s good to see you getting the band back together

SK: Yeah, we seem to have these kind of intermittent reunions. I dunno, I always think that maybe they are gonna last and so I’m thinking that again. Last time I did some work with this line-up it was really well received. We did a few shows in Sydney and a few festivals and it was a lot of fun.

HHMM: I read somewhere that you maintain the view that Models never really broke up which I guess is true. It’s kind of hard to break up with yourself.

SK: (laughs) Yeah, I was thinking about that because initially when we took that really long break in 1987 James Freud announced that we had broken up and I remember thinking, “Hang on, not only is that not true but its not really his call”, but the fact is I don’t think we did a single show in the decade of the nineties so it maybe is drawing a slightly low bow to say we never broke up. But you are right, I’ve kept doing stuff. Maybe we did do something sneaky in the 90’s but I cant remember it.

HHMM : How do you reflect on the fact that its now 30 years since the AlphaBravo album was released. It scared the shit out of me last night when I thought about it.

SK: I kinda dealt with that one because we had an unofficial thirtieth anniversary two years ago. It was actually something that a publicist came up with, it wasn’t our idea to be doing thirtieth anniversary shows. I remember at the time that there hadn’t been a gold watch or anything after twenty five years. I remember the early days so vividly but it is so long ago now and in fact a lot of our peers from that era aren’t even around any more. And I don’t mean just that they are not playing in bands but there are a lot of deceased old buddies. It’s an old cliché but it’s good to be anywhere and I wouldn’t be dead for quids.

HHMM : In recent days I’ve had quite a few people say to me that this line-up of Models is the definitive line-up which is quite amusing because I don’t think this line-up ever made a record together.

SK: You’re absolutely right and if anything by having Barton and Mark play together we are effectively creating something new from the essence of the band. It was particularly exciting when we did it two or three years ago because Mark like the rest of us has just kept playing and before he joined the Rockwiz Orchestra he had pretty much forged a niche for himself as a bluesman. We had worked together on a couple of projects over the years and I just love working with him. And Barton’s still my favourite drummer around so its really exciting to get something new out of the essence of the band.

HHMM : For my peer group our memories of models gigs revolve around suburban pubs like The Sandringham Commodore, The Prospect Hill and The Armadale. Were you conscious then of trying to get the band out to the suburbs because when you think about it now there isn’t a lot of gigs out there now.

SK: It’s interesting. I think it just kind of reflects the opportunities that were around then that aren’t around any more. If anything it was to a certain extent driven by our management and booking agencies because then we seemed to be on a never-ending tour any venue available in Australia really. Now we book something three months ahead and work towards it.  But I think we were lucky to play in venues like that because quite often you were playing to pretty wild audiences you weren’t that interested in pop music or electronic music or punk music. A lot of performers and artists back then didn’t perform live that much, it was all about marketing records and stuff. I just think we were very lucky to have a circuit to work on and learn the tricks of the trade.

HHMM: It’s kind of ironic that after all that time battling with audiences who didn’t really like the music you were doing, when those suburban audiences finally embraced the band en masse, it was the beginning of the end.

SK: (laughs) Yeah, yeah, I see what you mean. It’s a long time ago now but you’re right. When I venture out to RSL’s with various retro projects and I tend to get more requests for Barbados than say Happy Birthday IBM.

HHMM: Would it be fair to say that the upcoming shows are a shameless attempt to capitalise on Mark Ferrie’s fame as a television star?

SK: (laughs) I’m surprised we didn’t think of that earlier as our angle. We could exploit that! No, it’s more about the unique interplay between the four of is musically. There’s definitely an excitement about the chances of developing it and perhaps re-inventing ourselves yet again. There is an expectation that we will play songs that people want to hear as well and we will but not all of them.

HHMM : My personal Models stalwart focus group have asked me to request Golden Arches, Owe You Nothing and Body Shop.

SK: Whoah! Well there is a very good chance we will be looking at those three. We are probably going to play some stuff from Alpha Bravo that we have never played before. We are not going to play the same set we did together a year or two ago. There will be a bit of a new feeling to it and a few surprises from yesteryear.

HHMM: The songs that made their way on to the Models Melbourne compilation certainly bought to light some live favourites that never got recorded. Were you involved much in that album.

SK: The main impetus behind it was Mark Burchett. Basically in collaboration with me he complied those songs. We had about twenty on it and we’d culled that down from another twenty possibilities. There was talk for a while that the band had a bunch of songs that could have been our first album because when we did Alpha Bravo we pretty much dumped a lot of material and recorded new stuff. But what is significant about the Melbourne album is that it not only had evidence of that but also of the period between Local And/Or General and The Pleasure of Your Company. There was also a transition going on there and yet another bunch of songs that could have been an album. So Models Melbourne album actually has songs from those two periods not just the pre-Alpha Bravo songs. And the songs between Local And/Or General and The Pleasure of Your Company are songs that kind of smoothed the transition. If one is interested in that.

HHMM: Given that good songs did slip through the cracks is there one Models album to you that best captures the band? I’ve had people suggest that its actually the mini-album Cut Lunch that best does that.

SK: It’s interesting, to simplify things I’ve always thought of us as having the Sydneycentric line-up and the Melbourne centric line-up. We actually moved to Sydney in about 1984 and we were based up there until we stopped working together. So for convenience I’ve referred to them as the Melbourne and the Sydney line-ups. It’s really hard to say what is the definitive release from the Melbourne line-up although Cut Lunch probably is a good contender because it has the link to the post-punk era and yet it has the completely unorthodox chordal structures and strange lyrics and vocals etc. I like the fact that we can be considered quite eclectic because there are songs from that era that were quite poppy and catchy as well. I’m thinking of songs like IBM, Two Cabs and 2 People Per Sq KM.

HHMM: Atlantic Romantic?

SK: Oh yes, of  course. I forgot that one but we always get requests to play that one. Significantly the record company made our catalogue available on I Tunes in the last year or so and its been kind of fun checking that out because you can see what songs people are buying when they can buy them one song at a time. I haven’t checked it out lately but I think it was those ones we mentioned that people were buying.

HHMM: Would you be a wealthy man if you had a dollar for every time someone described you as “quirky”.

SK: (laughs) Yeah, I think I would be.  I’m comfortable with that because I don’t really like mainstream, homogenous songs kinda stuff. I like to try and be unconventional and play with the parameters that one is facing when you are writing music. I am lucky because I got to work with a lot of very creative and artistic musicians. I’ve always focussed on the music but I’ve worked with people that really cared about the graphics and the image of the group.

HHMM: My small but very well informed Models stalwarts focus group express the view that half the fun of going to the shows was to see what Sean would say between songs. Were you aware of that?

SK: I’d probably forgotten that, but I remember that now. The weird thing now is that when I perform these days I actually try to enjoy myself and look like I’m having fun. I think its an easy way to get through these high pressure situations by diffusing them with some humour. I actually played Cut Lunch with a band at a party last weekend and people weren’t really into it. People would be dancing every now and then, but when we played Cut Lunch it was a really stark rendition and not very appropriate for a party. I had a brainwave during the song and came up with one of my best back announcements for ages. As the last chord was fading out I said “Makes you feel like MasterChef”. I may try and develop that with Models and pretend that I have submitted it as a potential alternative theme or something.

HHMM: It’s interesting that this line-up of the band consists of musicians who have never stopped playing which is a bit surprising when you consider that the band started out as this left field avant garde, inner city kind of band…

SK: …who couldn’t really play! There was an attitude back then that suggested you didn’t have to be able to play, just get up and make a bit of noise. That didn’t really apply to us. Although I couldn’t play very well back then I had been learning for a few years and I think that goes for the other guys in the band. With this line-up we’ve all continued for a decade or so playing performing and practicing we have all improved a lot and when we play these old songs they do sound as good as they did. They are chords and arrangements and we attack them but if anything we can inject a little more finesse to them now.

MODELS are performing 2 shows in the near future

You can catch Models at the Espy Gershwin Room. Friday Aug 6 with support from Clare Moore’s new all female outfit The Dames plus the Minibikes.

Models also appear as part of a special literary/musical mash-up with American author Brett Easton Ellis at the Oxford Art Factory in Sydney on Tuesday 10th August.

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