STACK #124 Feb 2016

MUSIC

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DID YOU KNOW? The Go Betweens are immortalised in Brisbane by The Go Between Bridge, connecting West End and Milton.

Led Zeppelin Physical Graffiti Six albums into one of the most popular reissue campaigns of recent years

comes the guvnors’ landmark double-disc mothership, precisely 40 years after its first descent and freshly stocked with, er, Brandy & Coke . That’s the opening cut on this round’s bonus disc: an “initial rough mix” of the Stevie Wonder-inspired funk slam we’ve known since ‘75 as Trampled Under Foot . Jimmy Page’s shearing lead guitar overdub is palpably absent here, and an early instrumental version of Sick Again and the indelicate stomp of Everybody Makes It Through (later In the Light ) are intriguing works in progress. If the other four alt-mix curiosities are less essential, maybe that’s because Page’s remaster is so definitive over the original 15 tracks which, for those who came in late, roped in a handful of earlier album outtakes to comprise the most fulsome overview of Zeppelin’s fully audacious parameters, from blues, metal, folk, funk and country to, well, Kashmir . Warner Music mark, The Roxbox! is it! The 78 (!!) tracks kick off with the superhero Swedish soft-rock duo’s first, synthy- slick single of ‘86, Neverending Love . The fourth disc updates the 2006 issue with tracks from their recent reunion albums, Charm School and Travelling . To the casual ear it climaxes early with the business half of their global breakthrough Look Sharp! , and fully two thirds of Joyride – which rode a wave so high in ‘91 that over-excited punctuation would have been gilding the lily. Stealthy schlock- pop veterans since the late ‘70s, Marie Fredriksson and Per Gessle’s formula was so flawless by this time, that even their demos ( Cry , Love Spins ) sound like finished product. Additional fan-bait across these four discs include a fistful of B-sides, soundtrack tunes and an acoustic cover of the Beatles Help! — recorded at Abbey Road!!! Warner Music • Judas Priest Defenders of the Faith • JohnnyWinter Live from Japan Coming Soon Roxette The Rox Box Forty-six million albums! Twenty-five million singles! If ever a greatest hits set deserved an exclamation

This month Michael Dwyer bathes again in the striped sunlight sound of The Go-Betweens.

T he Queensland Uni English

songs Lee Remick and 8 Pictures, and absolutely everything that slipped behind the busted band room sofa of those fetchingly naïve early years, from the impenetrable off-mic murmur and bark of The Clowns are in Town to the plinking and tumbling surrealism of The Sound of Rain and the jaunty domestic reportage of Secondhand Furniture . The bridge between the odd couple of Oz pop remains a conundrum for the ages: knowing Dylan-cum-Patti Smith wordplay with aesthetic pointers ranging from French new wave cinema to the NME – with perfectly brittle glue from the skeletal rhythmic counterpoints of Lindy Morrison and Robert Vickers. Forster’s notes lead a slew of essays by friends and fans and a detailed history amply illustrated with handwritten lyrics and awkward photos of one of the least likely legends of the global rock underground. Domino/EMI/Universal

class in which he first met Grant McLennan was called EN103.

The following semester’s drama unit was EN170. Robert Forster’s attention to portentous minutiae from 39 years ago is fair warning of what to expect from this overdue and apparently exhaustive reissue series. Volume 1 spans only the Go-Betweens’ first three albums of 1982 to 1984 – Send Me a Lullaby , Before Hollywood and Spring Hill Fair – each remastered and repressed on vinyl for the first time since. They’re appended with a newly compiled LP of non-album singles and four CDs (71 tracks!) of rarities reaching back to ‘78, all loaded into a big green box with a 112-page book. This covers the first third of a story that began with EN103 – the core duo’s first furtive steps through a shared teenage fascination with books, film and music – and ended with McLennan’s premature passing in May 2006. So cue, for now, languorous McLennan classics Cattle and Cane and Bachelor Kisses , comically maladjusted Forster love

FEBRUARY 2015 JB Hi-Fi www.jbhifi.com.au/music

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