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with a slightly Cuban edge. A track like Non
Compliance sums up much about Mooroolbark.
"It aspires to the unexpected. It reminds me
of the sayin that 'good artists spend their time
trying to create beauty'. It started a lot more
straight ahead." The final track, Mooroolbark
1974, speaks to the idea of both coming full circle
and coming home. It features an eight-year-old
McCall, playing a piano vamp in 1974. "I found
this tape that had 'Barney 1974' scrawled over a
Mozart cassette when I went through my stuff in
NY. My family remembered it!"
092 JULY 2015 JB Hi-Fi
visit NEWS MUSIC
Even at the age of 70, The Who’s Pete
Townshend just can’t seem to get rock
operas and concept albums out of his system.
1969’s legendary Tommy was infamously made
into a film by Ken Russell in 1975, and later
became a Broadway musical. The songs from
Lifehouse, a concept album about human/
technological interaction through music before
the internet, cropped up on Who and Townshend
solo albums for years. And now, Townshend has
overseen the adaptation of his possibly most
coherent and acclaimed work for a classical
audience, in the form of Quadrophenia. Originally
a double album that looked back on the mod
era of the early ’60s, the album storyline was
very successfully adapted as a film in 1979,
starring Phil Daniels and Sting. While Townshend
has had The Who play the whole album live
in concert, this re-work is a fully orchestrated
version that’s been recorded with the Royal
Philharmonic Orchestra and London’s Oriana
choir. British tenor Alfie Boe (born in 1973, the
year the original album was released) features
on the album, as does Townshend (on guitar and
occasional vocals). The orchestration has been
completed by composer and songwriter Rachel
Fuller, who is also Townshend’s partner.
Who classic gets the classical treatment
You might have already caught Sydney’s Gang of Youths live,
or found yourself enjoying their rightly acclaimed cover of
LCD Soundsystem’s All My Friends (it’s a belter, take it from
us). Throughout August and September they’re taking their
album The Positions out on the road (and expanding to a five-
piece for this tour). They’ll be joined by fellow Sydneysiders I
Know Leopard, and the new solo project for The Cairos' lead
singer Alistair Richardson, which he’s dubbed 'Zefereli'.
continued
Q1/ Your films document the Punk and Metal scenes
in LA in the '80s, and they led to a Hollywood career.
But you've held off re-releasing them for a long time,
why?
I was just going to live my life without movies and go
ahead and die and then if my daughter Anna wanted to put
the Decline movies out, she could. Four years ago I asked her
to come and help me to do various other work, and she said
'I’m not going to do anything with you until we do the Decline
DVDs'. I was, like, ‘oh my God, what a nightmare’. None of
those extras would’ve been there if Anna didn’t find them,
because I didn’t even want to do this.
Q2/ So what did you learn going back and revisiting
all this?
That’s a very deep question! I learned it’s not really about
‘making it’, and it’s not really even about making movies.
Life is just all about lessons and if you don’t have a way of
helping the world get better, then your life is useless. I don’t
really care about the movies anymore, I’ll be honest with you.
Q3/ Kickboy, from Slash Magazine, that evolved into
Slash Records, is no longer with us. Tell me about him.
A very colourful, unique character. I loved him so much.
He and his wife, Philly, they were very special people. I think
it is important that today’s generation and future hopefully
will be able to look at that, and think ‘if we hadn’t shot it, I
guess then nobody would know about them.’
Q4/ Part Two: The Metal Years was shot around Los
Angeles in 1987 with Aerosmith, Poison, Kiss, etc.
In hindsight it's very funny. Did you see it like that at
the time?
I didn’t want to make the film as funny as it was, and I
have to give credit or blame, I’m not sure which, to Jonathan
Dayton and Valerie Faris, who were the producers. They
viewed it as far more comedically entertaining than I did.
I went ‘wow, this music is cool’. But yeah, the comedy that
came out of that, I think we have to give credit more to John
and Val than to me. But on the other hand, that movie was
the reason I got the job to direct Wayne’s World.
Q5/ A young Pat Smear is seen in Part One, with The
Germs. When you see him today in Foo Fighters, how
do you feel?
I just see the success and life fulfilment he’s had.
Unfortunately many of the players didn’t have that. Anna was
smart enough to say, when Dave Grohl wanted to borrow
some of our footage, 'Well, why don’t you get him to do DVD
commentary for the first Decline?' And he was
awesome when he did it for us. With Pat, I’m
ery pleased he’s done that: I wish that all of
hose people could’ve done that. But that’s just
ot the way the world works.
The Decline of Western Civilisation is
out now through Via Vision/Madman
McCALL CALLS HOME
Although he's always worked in a relatively
quiet way, Australian jazz composer and
pianist Barney McCall has worked with some of
contemporary music's brightest lights, including
Aloe Blacc and Daniel Merriweather. Currently
he is Sia's musical director. After returning home
to Australia after an extended sojourn in New
York City (where he worked with legends Dewey
Redman and Fred Wesley), he's made an album
whose title specifically invokes the place he grew
up – Mooroolbark, Victoria (about 37km east of
Melbourne). It's an area with a 50,000-year-old
Aboriginal cultural history that's been largely
decimated by European settlement. "It was
written in New York," McCall tells STACK. "I came
back to do the recording, I saw how my old VCA
friends had evolved, and that’s when I called it
Mooroolbark. It's not necessarily a meditation on
Mooroolbark, it's more about coming full circle,
saying 'that’s why I’m here'." Working with
French percussionist Mino Cinélu, McCall has
fashioned an album of quietly riveting melodies
Mooroolbark is out now
via Universal Music
Gang of youths in position
penelope spheeris
Director: The Decline of
western civilisation
pts 1-3
Gang of Youths tour August 5 to September 19 nationally,
venues and dates at