Lifestyle
Shake Some Action: the bands I hated but now love
Author Stuart Coupe has written a book about the glory days of music journalism, when he went backstage with Bruce Springsteen, hung with Debbie Harry from Blondie on the streets of Adelaide and hated bands like Cold Chisel and Fleetwood Mac. He’s shared this excerpt from his new book Shake Some Action (which is as good as his other books).
Music tastes ebb and flow over time
As with most music, things ebb and flow in my listening.
Things that I either disdained or simply didn’t get have come into focus and meaning with the passing of time - while other things have faded.
Like Fleetwood Mac. F__k, we hated them in the punk era.
Rumours? You must be kidding. They were the enemy. Coke-snorting, laidback no-talents. Oh yeah, we hated the Mac. Why? We thought they were overblown. Overproduced and complacent - especially compared to the raw directness of punk.
Along with other artists who epitomised the excesses of the 1970s, Fleetwood Mac were the target we needed to have. It was also, though, because we weren’t listening.
Or maybe we simply hadn’t had enough life experience to get the nuances that were underneath the sheen of their songs. (Plus, we were also a bit jealous of their lifestyle and couldn’t afford their drugs.)
Fleetwood Mac didn’t change. I did. I love early Peter Green-era blues Fleetwood Mac. I mean, that was wild. ‘Albatross’ was a big record when I was growing up and the groovers who were into Hendrix and Cream also dug the Mac in that era.
As for the Los Angeles ‘70s stuff, I love it to death now. I finally saw the band live a few years ago and was just gobsmacked. I was chatting to a couple of style-conscious kids and we got talking about Fleetwood Mac. They were telling me how hip the Mac were, and were stunned when I explained that there was a long period of time when the Mac were not ‘cool’. And if you listened to them, you certainly didn’t tell anyone.
Page 54: where Stuart explains how music tastes evolve over time
Then there are bands like Cold Chisel. It’s a go-figure thing. I loved Rose Tattoo, to an extent the late-70s Angels, The Sports, Mental as Anything, Divinyls, Jo Jo Zep and the Falcons, and the bulk of other classic Australian pub rock’n’roll bands. But I didn’t get Chisel.
They knew it too, as I’d never written about them and had been fairly overt in conversations with others about how I didn’t understand what the fuss was all about. Opinions seemed to travel fast in those circles, especially as one of the people I mouthed off to was a senior figure in promotions and publicity at their record company.
I remember one day being in the restaurant at the Sebel Town House doing an interview with John Farnham.
Someone introduced me to Don Walker and Jimmy Barnes. They didn’t say anything, weren’t rude, but their body language and deadpan facial expressions spoke volumes. This prick hates us. F__k him. And that’s how it stayed with me and Chisel for some time.
That was until years later, when I really started to listen to and engage with their music and songwriting.
I’ve now seen Chisel and the individual band members perform multiple times: at the Sydney Entertainment Centre and outdoors in Tamworth, Don Walker at the Camelot Lounge, Ian Moss at the Enmore Theatre.
I even managed to get into a Barking Spiders (aka Chisel) warm-up gig at the Factory Theatre in Marrickville. There hasn’t been a dud show amongst them – and whilst I’m hanging out even more to see The Dirty Three play again, the desire for another Chisel gig isn’t too far behind.
And the thing is, Cold Chisel haven’t changed. I have. I like that.
