27Feb2002 -
AUSTRALIA: Memorabilia
auction<return
to top>
NORTHSIDE Family and Early Childhood Services (FECS) support group
will hold its Art Meets Sport celebrity auction in Brisbane City
Hall Sherwood Room on March 22.
Rugby league international Darren Lockyer has signed the shorts
he wore during Queensland's victory in State of Origin I 2001, when
he scored a try in the first minute of the game.
Other memorabilia comes from names such as award-winning novelist
Kate Grenville, the world's fastest man, Maurice Greene, athletes
Tatiana Grigorieva and Betty Cuthbert and rockers Killing Heidi.
Northside FECS treats 160 disabled infants and toddlers from an
area which covers Karana Downs through to Caboolture and includes
Redcliffe.
The fundraiser will collect money for video equipment to let working
parents watch their children's daytime therapy sessions at FECS.
Tickets to the auction cover cocktail food and complementary wine,
beer and soft drinks.
Cost is $40 or $35 a head for groups of 10 or more.
Phone support group co-presidents Frances Fitzgerald on 3857 2586
or Sharon Cameron on 3314 7334.
(c) 2002 Nationwide News Pty Limited
http://www.news.com.au.
Source: NORTH WEST NEWS 27/02/2002 P14
20Feb2002
- AUSTRALIA: Pledge
to boost FReeZA <return
to top>
By KATE HAGAN.
FUNDING for drug and alcohol-free events would be increased by 50
per cent under a future Liberal government, Mordialloc Liberal MP
Geoff Leigh has promised.
Mr Leigh's commitment follows a decision last month by the Bracks
Government's to cut FReeZA funding from $1 million to $700,000 for
the first half of this year, affecting the Kingston program and
more than 60 others across the state.
The State Government has previously funded Kingston to run three
events every six months, and the council has staged a fourth.
Kingston youth services co-ordinator Judy Clarke said there would
be no change to the Kingston program until the end of the financial
year, when FReeZA would be reassessed by the Government.
But Mr Leigh accused the Government of "attempting to destroy
this important youth initiative established by the former Liberal
government".
He said a future Liberal government would boost funding for the
FReeZA program to $3 million a year, and secure recurrent funding
at this figure so the program was not run on a year-to-year basis.
"At a time when the Government is struggling to deal with the
crisis of young people chroming, Premier Steve Bracks should not
be cutting back on funding for young Victorians.
"The Government is also restricting young Victorians' opportunities
to excel as musicians and performers Victorian group Killing Heidi
got one of their first breaks through FReeZA events."
State Government spokeswoman Melissa Arch said the future of the
FReeZA program was undecided, but the Government was committed to
supporting drug and alcohol-free entertainment for the state's young
people.
(c) 2002 Nationwide News Pty Limited
http://www.news.com.au.
Source: MORDIALLOC CHELSEA NEWS 20/02/2002 P7
11Feb2002
- AUSTRALIA: The Guide
- Switched on <return
to top>
By Sue Javes.
RADIO NEWS - Triple M's muso muster
Triple M is auditioning rock musicians to co-host a new three-hour
version of the Homegrown music show with Leigh Kuhlmann on Sunday
nights.
Pat Davern from Grinspoon, Tim Freedman (right) from The Whitlams,
Sarah McCleod from Superjesus and Jesse Hooper (below right) from
Killing Heidi are some of the names on Triple M's list of would-be
presenters, with Davern considered the front-runner at this stage.
Renamed The Local, the new show will focus on three unsigned bands
each week, with the established artist offering commentary and advice.
Similar to Triple J's successful Unearthed competition, amateur
musicians are invited to send in their cassettes for possible airplay,
with the best band appearing on the Triple M New Stuff CD.
Source: SYDNEY MORNING HERALD 11/02/2002 P4
10Feb2002
- AUSTRALIA:
Rock world heats up for Chilli and mates <return
to top>
By PAUL STEWART.
Big success has arrived suddenly for A Space Like Alice, as PAUL
STEWART reports AFTER five years slogging it out around Victoria,
major success has come with a rush for A Space Like Alice.
The band have landed the big record deal, hooked up with some of
the best managers and have commercial stations trying to outdo each
other in support.
The band's singer, Chilli, said he always hoped success would come
the band's way, "but not as quickly as it has been lately".
"The other day we played at a FOX FM beach concert in front
of 10,000 people, and it felt great," he said.
"I suppose the biggest crowd we had played to before this was
about 500. We could get use to playing stadiums."
NOVA, MMM and FOX FM have been playing the band's debut single,
Compensate.
Chilli said A Space Like Alice's members had been playing in bands
together for about seven years after all growing up in the Diamond
Creek-Eltham area.
"We did play in a band called Transistor, but we found out
there were a couple of other bands called that" he said.
"I met our guitarist, Scott, with his girlfriend down at Phillip
Island one holiday, and one night we just started jamming together.
"He soon rang me up and said, `Let's form a band together'."
A Space Like Alice members have been reared on the likes of Radiohead,
the Ramones, Pink Floyd, New Order and Soundgarden.
Chilli said the band were "more than happy" to be signed
to management outfit Wah Wah Music, the same company that looks
after the affairs of Killing Heidi, Australia's most successful
young band.
"Wah Wah is great because it is like a small family,"
he said. "The company's director, Paul Kosky, just does not
sign anyone - he's obviously pretty fussy, otherwise he would have
15 acts on his label.
"Killing Heidi have been great to us - very supportive - and
we plan an east coast tour with them soon."
Chilli said the band would release a debut album, Life Is Sci-Fi,
in April.
"Success has been the goal from the start," he said. "Everyone
had to commit themselves to the band above all else.
"We always said we'd be signed by the year 2000, and we were.
We've been ticking things off since then - radio play, recording
the album, making a video.
"Our goal now is just to play to as many people as possible
because our strongest aspect has always been our live show."
A Space Like Alice will perform at the Prince Of Wales, St Kilda,
on Thursday night.
Another new young outfit with a great single out are the Cliffy
Davis Goodtime Band.
The band will launch Brand New Sound. on Friday night at A Bar Called
Barry, Smith St, Collingwood.
(C) 2002 Herald and Weekly Times Limited.
Source: SUNDAY HERALD SUN 10/02/2002 P96
04Feb2002
- AUSTRALIA: Lukewarm FreeZA
<return
to top>
THE State Government has conceded it has reduced funding for a youth
rock program that has in the past launched such successful bands
as Killing Heidi.
A Government spokesman said state funding had increased for the
program from $1 million to $2 million when the Labor Party first
came to office.
But the latest funding for the FreeZA program had been scaled back
to $1.7 million, he said.
FreeZA provides drug-free and alcohol-free entertainment, lets young
people run events and gives aspiring musicians a break into the
industry.
"The Government is committed to a FreeZA-like program now and
in the future," the spokeman said.
About 80 people, including the Youth Affairs Council of Victoria,
rallied outside Parliament House to protest against the cuts on
Saturday.
Killing Heidi, a brother and sister band from Violet Town, got one
of their first breaks through FreeZA.
(C) 2002 Herald and Weekly Times Limited.
Source: HERALD SUN 04/02/2002 P22
03Feb2002
- AUSTRALIA: Evolution
of THE ROCK CHICK <return
to top>
By ADAM ZWAR.
They play guitars rather than tambourines, prefer water to whisky
and won't take crap from anyone. After years on the sidelines, a
new breed of rock chick has seized centre stage. Just don't call
them sweetheart, writes ADAM ZWAR It was a muggy Cairns night in
December 1990, when I first came face-to-face with Suze DeMarchi.
I'd had a crush on the Baby Animals' "frontperson" for
months. She sang with the grunt of a female Doc Neeson and pranced
across the stage in black leather pants that seemed moulded to her
legs. It was too much for the bloke beside me. "I love you
Suze," he yelled.
DeMarchi crouched in front of him, holding her fist centimetres
from his face. For a moment, the gesture seemed to be one of curious
solidarity. Then she stretched out her middle finger and just about
shoved it up his nose. The audience was delighted, DeMarchi stalked
off and the band launched into its next song.
I needn't have felt sorry for my stone-washed comrade. When I looked
sideways he was glowing. He had just been part of a true rock moment.
Better still, a rock-chick moment.
Back in those pioneering days, you were more likely to find an Australian
woman on a building site than up-staging the men who rocked 'n'
rolled. It was a boys' club then and if girls didn't rattle tambourines
or dress like streetwalkers, they had little chance of landing a
record deal.
How times change. Take a lineup of today's biggest and most credible
Australian bands and, often as not, there will be a rock chick strutting
her stuff. Not a pop diva with designer lycra and coiffed hair,
singing other people's tunes, but a genuine member of the band with
a guitar or drum kit, a swag of song-writing credits and a whole
lot of attitude.
Killing Heidi has Ella Hooper who, in just two years, has risen
from being a country schoolkid to the face of Australian rock. There's
little doubt her dreadlocks and gender lent glamour to a band that
sold more than 300,000 albums on debut. Their 2000 single, Mascara,
was the first by an Australian band to top the charts since Savage
Garden's 1997 hit, Truly Madly Deeply.
The Superjesus have Sarah McLeod, the ARIA-winning singer-guitarist
who, although she discourages comparisons, is cut from the DeMarchi
cloth, bringing audiences to heel with a mix of brute power and
feminine charm. Spiderbait has singer-bass guitarist Janet English
who, along with Magic Dirt's Adalita Srsen, pioneered the post-Baby
Animals rock-chick push and provided a role model for girl rockers
everywhere. Then there's Something for Kate bass player Stephanie
Ashworth, singer-keyboardist Becky Thomas from the now defunct Mavis's
and West Australia's all-girl outfit, Lash.
It's important to note that this generation of rocking women are
not slaves to the air-punching and pelvis thrustings that defined
the Suzi Quatro-Melissa Etheridge power-rock era. They prefer individuality
to the time-honoured rock chick uniform of leather pants and muscle
shirts and are inclined to drink water rather than vodka.
If only their Oz rock-sisters of the 1960s, '70s and '80s could
have enjoyed a fraction of their profile. While Janis Joplin, Suzi
Quatro, Joan Jett, Patti Smith and Chrissie Hynde belted their way
to the top in the US and Britain, only DeMarchi, the Divinyls' Christina
Amphlett, funk rockers Do Re Mi and rock diva Wendy Saddington registered
a blip on the Australian rock radar. Pop, of course, was a different
story with an assembly-line of princesses that began with Christie
"Goosebumps" Allen and continues with Kylie Minogue. We've
also had our share of jazz and soul divas - take a bow Renee Geyer
and Kate Ceberano.
Before DeMarchi, being a rock chick was a ground-breaking and often
risky vocation. These were women who forewent the tambourine for
the guitar, growled instead of trilled and preferred whisky to champagne.
It also helped if they took drugs, married deadbeats, questioned
their sexuality and didn't sleep. Tough life. But it sure beat the
ignominy of fainting in the crowd or stripping stage-side at Chisel
concerts.
"Back then, girl singers were not given the opportunity,"
says rock historian and The Panel's music director Billy Pinnell.
"Why? The answer would be that record companies didn't think
albums by women would sell. It was the attitude of the time. Women
were just not given a chance."
"In those days if you were a woman singer you had to be all
babed-up and sexied-up to cut the mustard," says Triple M DJ
and former program director, Lee Simon. "You know, in a really
frilly, slutty kind of way like Cheetah, who, incidentally, were
really good singers. Whereas, if you were a bloke, it didn't matter
if you looked like Bon Scott.
"In Chrissie's (Amphlett) case, the school uniform and all
the other stuff appealed to the less (worthy) interests in us all.
I'm sure these women tolerated the sex-goddess thing because it
was a means to an end rather than what they set out to do."
It was DeMarchi, says Pinnell, who convinced Australian record companies
that women without gimmicks could "shift" albums just
as well as the blokes. With monster hits like One Word and Early
Warning, The Baby Animals' first album shot to No. 1, selling more
than 400,000 copies. At the time it was Australia's biggest ever
selling debut album.
"Suzie Demarchi had to be taken seriously," says Pinnell
of the rocker who now lives in the US with her husband and daughter.
"I'm sure she broke the doors down for a lot of singers. I'm
sure it was easier for a female singer to go to record companies
with a demo after the Baby Animals had made it. She's very, very
important in the scheme of things."
"Suze was definitely a front man," says Simon. "She
wasn't banging on a tambourine or balancing out what was happening
on stage. She was an actual, genuine, bona-fide member of a rock
band."
But the new generation is setting its own rules. Today's rock chicks
reject the lifestyle of their predecessors for the sake of career,
staying alive and re-educating the chauvinist "old-school".
They don't mind if you call them "baby" - just keep clear
of "sweetheart".
Katie Noonan, from Brisbane band George, has declared the backstage
area at her gigs a drug-free zone. She also discourages her audiences
from smoking, claiming it's bad for her voice: "I was getting
sick of breathing in the smoke. If people complain, I just ask if
their workplace encourages smoking. 'Well this is mine'."
Bon Scott would turn in his grave. It shouldn't really surprise
us - these are the type of sensible, self-preserving initiatives
women bring to most workplaces. But rock 'n' roll was never supposed
to be like that. It was always a stunt-yard where the players drove
their bodies and minds to the limit. And if you survived, it didn't
necessarily mean you'd won.
So the girls won over the record companies and the skittles began
to fall. Bookers, promoters, fellow musicians - the obstacles were
steadily removed (although some ramparts remain). But the biggest
challenge was the roadies. For decades, it was their job to keep
enthusiastic females behind the barriers. And the few women invited
backstage - or into the hotel room - were seen purely as sources
of pleasure and sustenance. They were not performers or artists,
merely grease to help the rock world go round.
In the ABC documentary on Australian rock, Long Way To The Top,
Helen Carter, bass guitarist with '80s band Do Re Mi recalled how
it used to be. She described the abuse she and Deborah Conway received
during gigs: "You'd get these men standing in the audience
saying, 'Sit on my face'. You know, we did feel that it was very
unfortunate sometimes that the focus of the band was tits."
But by 1992, the girl had become the star. She was articulate, didn't
take lip from the roadies and, like the rock blokes before her,
complained when the mixing was not right, her guitar was out of
tune, and foldback too soft. The roadies were confused. "I
remember them saying, 'Just come over here Sweetheart'" says
McLeod from the Superjesus. "In the early days I found that
they could be a bit more derogatory to you because you're a woman
and I had a couple of run-ins with them. I had an altercation with
one when we were supporting the Hoodoo Gurus. He was really rude
to me. So I had a big go at him. From that time on we were really
good mates."
But Adalita Srsen from Magic Dirt believes the rock industry is
still littered with chauvinists. "I've definitely noticed a
lot of sexist attitudes from both males and females," she says.
"I've copped a lot of shit. I guess I protected myself from
arseholes by just being me. I came from a background where you had
to be tough. I've had run-ins with roadies and promoters. You just
don't take it. You just tell them where it's at. You say, 'Get f-ed.'
And they say, 'Get f-ed'. Then you go off and you play. And they
say, 'God, you were good.' I'm not one to war with people. I like
a bit of peace. But you have to let them know you won't take it."
In the bad old days, a rock band was seen as a type of gang that
boys joined so they could meet girls and get laid. But it's obviously
not the same for girls, is it? Katie Noonan believes people are
disillusioned if they think being a rock star is all about sex.
She certainly didn't join a band to get laid, nor did anyone she
knows. "That is something I've never seen or been a party too,"
she says. "I reckon that it's bullshit most of the time. I'm
not whingeing, but touring is a pretty hard slog, the last thing
you've got energy for is that."
Superjesus Sarah MacLeod says she gets plenty of guys hanging around
her hotel room door. But girl rockers call groupies stalkers. Says
Adalita: "I've had people who will do anything to get backstage
or into your hotel room. Some really crazy ones of both sexes."
Lee Simon believes the time has arrived for the industry to salute
its female pioneers. "Being taken seriously as a female, contemporary
Australian rock musician has been a long and arduous journey and
those who are succeeding today owe a lot of thanks to those behind
them," he says.
Sarah McLeod from the Superjesus used to hate being compared with
Suze DeMarchi. Now that she has earned a profile of her own, McLeod
is finally happy to talk about the former Baby Animal and of the
inspiration she gave girl rockers around the country. "I once
got an email from (DeMarchi) saying, 'I'm a big fan. I really like
your stuff. I play your CD all the time'. I was floored," says
Sarah. "I couldn't believe it. I wanted to print it out and
put it in my scrapbook. But our drummer deleted it accidentally."
This was not the salute Simon had in mind. But would DeMarchi care?
Nah.
Water off a duck's back, mate.
She's a rock chick, after all.
WE DON'T EAT QUICHE Ten things real rock chicks never do: 1. Wear
lycra 2. Play the tambourine 3. Schmooze - desperation just doesn't
suit 4. Have a nervous breakdown 5. Date soap stars 6. Cry at awards
nights 7. Pose nude 8. Have multiple wardrobe changes 9. Mime on
stage 10. Have babies (at least not until they retire) Who are their
heroes? KATIE NOONAN International: Patti Smith, Janis Joplin, Tori
Amos, Madonna, Alanis Morrisette.
Australian: Christina Amphlett, Judith Durham, Go Betweens.
"This is going to sound very daggy, but I've also taken a lot
from my Mum who is a dramatic soprano. She's worked for the Australian
Opera and Queensland Opera as well as overseas."
SARAH McLEOD International: Chrissie Hynde, Bjork and PJ Harvey.
Australian: Christina Amphlett, Suze DeMarchi.
"They are really strong role models. They're not butch in any
way. Just really sexy and feminine. A lot of American voices sound
really similar, I'm not into that."
ADALITA SRSEN International: Kate Bush, Blondie, The Pretenders,
David Bowie.
Australian: "I'd like to do a Ratcat cover." "I listened
to the radio a lot. Couldn't afford to buy records."
FIRST THERE WAS JANIS It's not much more than a decade since Aussie
rock was a boys' club. But female rock aspirants found inspiration
elsewhere, until our own pioneers led the charge.
1960s Janis Joplin, the first true rock chick, died of a drug overdose
in 1970.
1970s America has Stevie Nicks and her witchy robes, and leather-clad
power rocker Suzi Quatro.
1980s Australia's rock sisters find themselves confined to tambourine-tapping,
unless they vamp it up like The Divinyls' Chrissie Amphlett.
1990s Suze DeMarchi's hit debut album with The Baby Animals forces
the Australian music industry to take women performers seriously.
2000 Ella Hooper of Killing Heidi tops the charts with Mascara,
the first Australian single to reach No. 1 since 1997.
Now Stephanie Ashworth of Something For Kate continues the charge
with a debt to her pioneering sisters.
(C) 2002 Herald and Weekly Times Limited.
