I thought it might be a good idea for people to listen to the music I'm writing about as they read. Im going to strive to do this for each blog.
One of the first friends I made in Mt. Gambier was a kid named Steve. We met through the soccer team I joined. He was a tall red head who was hard as nails, even as 10 year old. I’m not sure exactly how we became friends, but we bonded over soccer and our love of joking around. He had two younger siblings, a brother and a sister and came from divorced parents like me. I think because I was the new kid in town, our parents helped us become friends, they’d let us go around each other’s house’s quite frequently. His brother became friends with mine and our sisters also became friends. We became one big crazy family.
Steve and I were 10 and 9 respectively. We’d sometimes listen to the radio while we played, usually outside kicking a ball. The house we were renting at the time was a huge limestone built house. It was beautiful. The ceilings seemed to be 20 metres high. We had a massive backyard with a big fuck off walnut tree right next to the back fence. The amount of times we climbed that and one of us kids would come crashing down, just missing certain death by impalement on the steel fence was insane, it was a weekly occurrence.
As my mum was an only parent, she’d sometimes struggle being in 4 places at once. Steve’s mum or dad (depending on where he was staying) would sometimes pick me up and take me to trainings. For those of you who know nothing about Mt. Gambier, it’s freezing and rains more often than not. On this particular night it was pissing down. Steve and his dad came and picked me up to take me to training.
Because of the heavy rain, training had to be moved to a swimming pool. Being kids this just meant an hour of fun in a pool, the word training is loosely used in this situation. After an hour of mucking around, “training” had finished. We jumped into Steve’s dads car and took off.
The cassette player (yeah, I'm old) in the car kicked into life. Steve and I were mucking around in the backseats but were interrupted by the sound of a snare drum. A repetitive snare roll with the bass drum stomping out the downbeats. Then a voice...
"Are you ready Steve? Uh-huh
Andy? Yeah
Mick? Okay
Alright fellas, let's gooooo"
Steve and I started dancing and singing along to the sounds coming out of the speakers. It was Sweet's hit 'Ballroom Blitz'. Im not sure if this was the first time I had heard Sweet, it definitely wasn't the first time Steve had, but it is the earliest memory I have of them. Steve's dad seemed to love the fact we liked his old timey music, but we didn't just like them, we loved them.
For those not in the know, Sweet were an English band from the 70's. They were glam rock, camp, fun and upbeat, the perfect soundtrack to our childhood. Some of the lyrics seemed nonsensical (Wig Wam Bam anyone?), which just added to the youthfulness of their sound. I'd say one of their main characteristics was their vocals. Some of the notes those guys would hit were insane, think Bohemian Rhapsody but on steroids. Fox On The Run is usually the song people know them for, as well as the aforementioned Ballroom Blitz, which was in the movie Wayne's World. Fox On The Run is Sweet's most complete song as it has a bit of everything, the high vocals, hard hitting drums, sci-fi sounding synths and a chorus that burrows into your brain and never leaves. Alexander Graham Bell was a personal favourite. It stood out to me as it was a little slower than the other songs. It had a focus on the groove unlike their other songs. It opens with a trumpet and had some great orchestral parts throughout the song. Listening back to it now it reminds me of The Beatles. Steve's favourite was The Lies In Your Eyes. It was more of a straight forward rock song which featured their trademark high vocal melodies. It's also catchy as fuck. Little Willy was a favourite (for obvious reasons), and Co-Co and Poppa Joe were just the funnest songs to kid around too, they just oozed having a good time.
I remember there were times when Steve was at my house, we'd go in my room, put on 'The Ballroom Blitz & More Sweet Hits' cassette, and just have a dance, it was our kind of disco. We'd turn the lights out, grab torches or whatever kind of light source we could scavenge and just go full disco inferno. We used to grab our soccer socks, roll them up into a tight ball and jump on the beds throwing it to/at each other. We thrashed that cassette.
Nearly two decades later we would actually get to see our childhood music heroes play live on stage... 3 times. Those three nights were fucking brilliant. Although it wasn't the whole band (Two members had died and the other two started their own versions of Sweet), they were fantastic and yes, they still could hit those high notes. One of those shows was the after party concert for the V8 supercars Clipsal 500 race 2011. My partner, Rachel was a hairdresser for the grid girls and had free entry. I was going to buy a ticket for the concert as Steve already had one, but Rachel was adamant she could get me in. When the gates opened for the concert I met her out the front and she handed me a lanyard that clearly stated it was a pass for the race and not the concert. I started to freak out that I was going to miss the show, but she was not worried. She produced a marker from her bag, then proceeded to copy her stamp from earlier that day onto my hand. I was nervous this wasn't going to work but she was confident. As we walked to the ticket checkpoint Rachel flashed her lanyard and her stamp, they waved her through, I followed suit and they waved me through. It actually worked. Its amazing where a quickly flashed lanyard can get you...
Sweet brings back fond memories of being a kid and I can't help but smile about that period of time. Moving to a completely new town where you have no family (outside your immediate family) and friends is pretty daunting, but all I have is great memories. Steve and the soccer club (International) made the move for my family and I as smooth as I could of hoped for. He will probably feature a bit throughout my blog as he is one of the main 3 or so friends who helped not only shape my musical tastes, but me as a person. We are still to this day best mates and we both still love Sweet.
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