Underrated Live Albums #4: Redgum - "Caught In The Act"

Where the hell are Redgum these days when we need them?

In an age where politicians in this country are either embarrassing, uninspiring or just batshit-boring, we need Redgum more than ever. We need a band not afraid to poke fun at the party political, satirise the policies and lampoon the people who stride the corridors of power and who are supposed to lead the nation through its struggles.

Some would argue that we can take our pollies to task quite nicely on our own, thanks to the Twittersphere (ever seen the #auspol thread lately?). But when Redgum started out there were very few Australian acts who dared to be so outspoken on sensitive issues, call the government out in direct terms and to write songs that sing of the plight of the downtrodden and the forgotten.

Redgum's one and only live album was released in 1983, recorded in front of a rambunctious crowd at the Rose, Shamrock and Thistle Hotel in Rozelle in Sydney. The band are alive, playing their hearts out and give the crowd everything they have. Their songs are pointed and forthright, the monologues are at turns sardonic and funny, and the live recording is superbly recorded.

The problem however, is that after many years after its release, it can be a little bit difficult to work out what they are talking about. You see, Redgum's problem was that not only did they sing about topics that are still a problem today, they spoke about issues affecting the people of the time. This instantly dates the album and it makes it somewhat harder to relate to years down the track. In fact, the first statement on the record ties it inextricably to 1983 before a note of music has even been played. John Schumann starts out by greeting the crowd and says

Ladies and Gentleman, we haven't seen you since the March the 5th result...

Now, when I purchased my own second hand vinyl copy of this album in 2005, I hadn't heard the record since the mid-1980s. I couldn't remember what the hell happened on March the 5th that year, let alone what was the major news story of the day. Upon further reflection, the "March the 5th result" was when the then current federal Liberal government led by Malcolm Fraser lost the election by a landslide to the Labor party, led by Mr Charisma himself, Bob Hawke. Mr Hawke himself would come in for his own piece of satire a few years after this one, so really the Liberal party are mostly the targets of the barbs on this one.

Two of the songs on this album stretch out over 9 minutes and are padded out with some humourous and amusing shaggy dog stories. Each song here is preceded with a short explanatory note from the band for listeners to get an idea what the song is about, as all good folk groups do. Topics include the horrors of war ("I Was Only 19"), the selling out of our country's natural resources out from underneath us ("Lear Jets Over Kulgera", "Nuclear Cop"), the upper class "born to rule" mentality certain sectors of the community have ("Beaumont Rag), apathy ("It Doesn't Matter To Me"), corporate greed ("Caught In The Act"), rampant consumerism ("Fabulon"), poverty ("Brown Rice and Kerosene", "Where Ya Gonna Run To") and even some optimism for a brighter future ("The Long Run").

There is plenty of great music here and plenty of topical songs that are still relevant to the political debate today, especially a song like "Nuclear Cop" or "It Doesn't Matter To Me". It is a lot of fun for a topical album. There's plenty of laughs and plenty of tears along the way too. If nothing else, the gentle listener will get a better understanding of Australian geography and it would be wise to keep a detailed map handy to work out where places like Beaumont, Nareen, Kingoonya, Puckapunyal, Cairns, Canungra, Kulgera, Pine Gap, Hawker, Pimba, Wyalla, The Diamantina River and many others.

It is also worth noting that the version of "I Was Only 19 (A Walk In The Light Green)" is NOT the #1 hit single studio version, but rather a live version from the same concert. The single version is available on a number of compilation albums, the best of which is "The Essential Redgum".

The CD version of the album contains all 15 tracks but the original vinyl version which is still common and fairly cheap, but it had a strange format. Using the CD track list as a reference point, the original LP had tracks 1-5 on side one, track 6 as the A-side of a "bonus" 7-inch single, tracks 7-8 on the b-side of the single and tracks 9-15 on the second side of the LP. For the sake of continuity, that is the sequence that the album should be played in. However, on the second-hand market, the LP is easy to come by but it is usually without the bonus single. The orphaned "Caught In The Act" single with "Stewie" and "Lear Jets Over Kulgera" on the b-side is also fairly common if your LP doesn't have a copy, but any and all prospective buyers should be aware that you really need to have both.

Or, you could just listen to it here on Spotify below. Enjoy!

The Musical History of Adelaide Part 2

Welcome to Part Two of our stay in Adelaide during our Rock Around Australia trip.

Paul Kelly
It is beyond difficult to sum up the career and music of Paul Kelly in a short paragraph. However, Adelaide's bard du jour has been making uniquely Australian music for 35 years and he shows no signs of slowing down. He sings in a unique local drawl and his lyrics are fuse Dylan's wit and wordiness with, at times Tom Wait's world-weariness. As Molly Meldrum used to say, "Do yourself a favour" and check out some of his back catalog. Start here:



Cold Chisel
Cold Chisel started life under the name of Orange, and started gigging in Adelaide in 1973 before finally settling (if you could call it that) in Sydney in 1977. Fronted by Scottish-born singer Jimmy Barnes, their sound was shaped by Soul music and the blues, but it developed a tougher, more ragged edge from being in competition nightly on stage with bands like AC/DC and The Angels. The band went on to become one of the biggest selling bands in Australia, selling over 6 million records to a population of 23 million people.



Redgum
Redgum was started by four students of Adelaide's Flinders University in 1975. They have a strong satirical bent to their songs, which generally have a strict folk flavour. The subject matter of their songs often tackles corrupt politicians, unemployment, foreign ownership of Australian assets, consumerism and more. Their biggest hit was the story of two Vietnam Vets (a subject kept very much under the rug at the time) called "I Was Only 19" in 1983. Their second biggest hit is linked below, the playful skewering of youth tourism to Indonesia (as it seemed everybody was doing in 1984), "I've Been To Bali Too". They split in 1986.



Exploding White Mice
Exploding White Mice take their cues from the hard driving punk sound of The Saints and Radio Birdman. They started their career on influential Adelaide indie label Greasy Pop belting out fast three chord originals and covers of 60s instrumental and garage pop hits. They may not be household names in Australia but they made a healthy income from touring in Europe. They called it a day in the mid-1990s.



Swoop
Swoop made a name for themselves by taking the groovy retro funk of Sly and the Family Stone and Parliament/Funkadelic into the grunge era. They worked the groove hard and added some rap for good effect. The band issued the independent debut LP "Thriller" in 1993 before signing with a major label in 1994 to release their heavily funkified sophmore LP "The Woxo Principle". By this time, the rap influence was watered down somewhat, and there were some more sunshine pop and psychedelic influences contained within. The band issued another single in 1997 "Teenage Funkazoid" but since then very little has been heard of them...

10 Songs that Describe the 1980s

The 1980s were the "Me" decade, which came with two sub-themes to it:

1. "Look at me!"
and
2. "It's Mine. What's mine is my own, and whatever else I can get, by any means legal or otherwise, is mine as well".

Point 1 explains the outlandish clothes, the big hair, flashy cars and the like that was the fashion. But along with point 2 there was a real developing sense of corporate greed during the period, which culminated in the stock market panic of 1987.

In the early 1980s I was in grade school in Newcastle, NSW, but it seemed everybody between the ages of 18 and 24 all worked at the BHP steelworks, or steel-related industries in town.

The times were marked in other countries (less so than here) of a real rift between the Haves and the Have-nots. Thatcherism and Reaganomics seemed to push the concept of open markets and a sense that whoever earns it, gets to keep it. Whomever is cunning enough to play the game right and gets to the top first wins the lot. It also meant a lot of pain for smaller families, especially when interest rates in Australia hit 17% in the late 1980s...

Midnight Oil – Don't Wanna Be The One
There could have been a number of other Oils tracks I could have chosen, but this one speaks volumes on the realities for those at different positions on the corporate food chain. "We end up in home units with the brick wall view..."

Redgum – Lear Jets Over Kulgera
This song heralded the start of the resources boom in Australia, with foreign investment making a motza out of the "poor young mineral-rich country". This track wins an extra credit badge for working the word "giegercounter" into the lyric.

Billy Bragg – Between the Wars
A vocal critic of Margaret Thatcher, Billy Bragg sang songs in support of ordinary workers lost in the shuffle of the push towards corporatisation and privatisation. This didn't just happen in Britain, but all over the world, and this is a timely reminder without the workers, executives and upper management don't make a profit.

Warumpi Band – Blackfella/Whitefella
Indigenous people of Australia, up until the 1980s were un-mentioned, under-represented sub-class who struggled to get their voices heard in the media. Some bands prior to Warumpi were making noises along similar themes (Goanna's "Solid Rock" being one example) but this one is the most powerful and influential. This begat "Beds Are Burning" by the aforementioned Midnight Oil.

Spandau Ballet – Gold
The 80s were characterised by the chase for money, and more of it, heralding a new age of decadence and excess.

Tears For Fears – Shout
For all the money, parties and celebration, a lot of people still weren't happy and the rise of the expensive therapist started.

Frankie Goes To Hollywood – Two Tribes
This track is included because during the 1980s you had two superpowers, the USA and the (then) USSR flexing their collective military muscles in each others direction, daring each other to push the button that could blow the planet into smithereens.

Frank Zappa – Valley Girl
The "look at me" culture of the San Fernando Valley can be seen as a metaphor for the the fashion of the times - big outfits and even bigger hair. This Zappa parody was is precisely what "Clueless" was in the mid-1990s.

Metallica – Master Of Puppets
The corporate drug culture is probably something that was not openly discussed at the time, but it was prevalent. This theme was tackled by Frank Zappa on "Cocaine Decisions" but Metallica did it the best with this powerful and emotive anti-drug anthem.

Prince – Sign 'O' The Times
Touches on the fallout of era's behaviour: drugs and hedeonism, AIDS and poverty, bad hangovers and money going around and around and around and.....