Do Go On - Do Go On Presents: Listen Now with Matt and Sam

Episode Date: December 8, 2019

It's another episode of Do Go On Presents! This week we are presenting Matt's new podcast, Listen Now with Matt and Sam, a music podcast, with the first season exploring the back catalogue of Australian pub rock legends Cold Chisel, enjoy!You can find more of Listen Now with Matt and Sam here:https://play.acast.com/s/listen-now/https://www.planetbroadcasting.com/our-shows/listen-now/https://www.facebook.com/ListenNowPod/https://twitter.com/ListenNowPodhttps://www.instagram.com/listennowpod/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Melbourne and Canada, we got exciting news for you. And we should also say this is 2026. Jess, what year is it? 2026. Thank God you're here. Right now, I'm in Melbourne doing my show with Serenji Amarna, 630 each night at the Cooper's Inn Hotel, having so much fun. We'd love to see you there.

Canada, we are visiting you in September this year. If you've somehow missed the news, we are heading up Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, and Toronto for shows. That's going to be so much fun. Tickets for all this stuff, I believe, are online. And I'm here too. This podcast is part of the Planet Broadcasting Network. Visit planetbroadcasting.com for more podcasts from our great mates.

Oh, hello there. And welcome to DoGo One Presents. Oh, yes. We've slipped on the old smoking jackets. We're sitting in a library full of leatherbound books. We've got a fire crack, crack, crackling. And we're feeling all right. I don't know if you can hear it, but there's a bit of soft jazz playing in the corner.

There's also a little boy trapped in a glass cabinet next to me. He's scatting. Yeah, he's done a lot in there. Don't ask questions about that. Sorry, scarring. Help me. There's nothing, that's nothing classier. When you have that kind of wealth that you can trap a small boy.

I love trapped in little boys. That's opulence. And that's what we're all about here at Dukon Presents. And today, what are we presenting? We're presenting the newest show in the Dugo One family of podcasts. It's called Listen Now with Matt and Sam. I'm the titular Matt. Did you know that?

Really? I knew you were titular. I'm titular as. It's a show I do with my cousin Sam and we're going through albums, music albums. This first season is about the classic Australian pub rock band, Cold Chisel. And in this episode that we're presenting, it's the first. first proper episode and in it we talked about the history of pub rock in Australia as well as the formation of cold chisel the band and cold chisel's frontman is of

course jimmy barnes that we had sam from listen now a few weeks ago do a report a fantastic report on the crazy life of one of Australia's biggest rock legends and it just during the week we're in the town of his birth in Glasgow which was really cool yeah what a beautiful cool city Glasgow is but yeah so this episode kicks it off and then after this episode if you want to go over and subscribe to listen now with Matt and Sam we go through their back catalogue

album by album and so just the first half of the episode is a bit of, is about where the band were and sort of a bit of history of the band from the time. Review the album and then we go through and play a bit of each track. So it's a buddy pretty good time. And Jess and I were on a recent episode where we talked about a live album.

You're actually going to be on this week's episode. It all ties in. Because we recorded that before we left for the UK. And that was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed that. And I enjoyed listening to the Colchisal album. Yeah, that's great. So, yeah, if you enjoy this,

subscribe and you'll be able to hear the episode with Jess and Dave coming up this Monday. Anyway, let's kick into that episode with me and Sam. Listen out, episode one. Welcome to Listen Now, the podcast where we go through the back catalogs of some of the most important and rock on us bands of all times. time. With me as always, it's my co-host, Sam Tonkin. Gide, mate. How are you? Pretty good, Sam. Thanks so much for joining us as it is your job to do that. So this is really the first

proper episode. Are you excited? Yes. Could you, hey, could you talk to the motherfucking mind? It's my first time. I'm so sorry. Hey, no, that's just one of the key things is for people to be able to hear you. That is the point of a podcast. So we're starting with Australian Pub Rock Legends, cold chisel. Yes, my boys. And why are they your boys? Why did you want to start with them? Just sounds of your childhood, you know.

Remember sitting on the back porch, dad's doing the lawns, and I'm sitting there with a lemonade, pre 18 years old, and just listening to the chis. Listen to the chis, getting your chis on. Yeah, I think my memories are pretty similar. It's funny because,

even though you're a little bit younger than me, this band was formed like a decade before I was born. And they broke up pretty much as I was born. Yeah. And they broke up before you were born. Well before. So it is, it's funny that they, I mean, there's probably listeners who are listening from outside of Australia

who might not be as familiar with them. But yeah, in Australia, they kind of, it's just, it's in your DNA. If you grow up Australian, you'll love the, you'll, you might not necessarily. really love them, but you'll definitely know them. You'll have an opinion on them regardless. Yeah.

If you go to any sort of celebration, there will be some of their classic songs playing there. At least two, surely. But yeah, I think personally my old man came home at some point. I think he bought the 1991 greatest hits they released called Chisel, which had just, the cover was just like a close-up photo of gold and the word chisel on. it and that was that was an album that was just played over and over at our house yeah so I really only know but you know the hits or until relatively recently I was a kind of a as a big hits fan of Chisle but so that's been really fun to be delving deeper into the back catalog yeah was

it the same with you no not so much I was a bit more um we'd spend a lot of time listening to good old triple M um and you know cold Chizzle is probably one of the biggest featured bands which is why probably a lot of people are sick of hearing them. Triple M being the National Rock Station of Australia. For lack of a better word, you'd call it like the Australian. Australian. For lack of a better word. Proper Australian was the best word.

True blue, bloody ripper, fair income. Triple M. I looked up at one point because, you know, there's a classic Australian song called True Blue. And it's a song about all about things that are real Australian. True blue, is it me and you? Is it mum and dad? Is it a cockatoo?

But I looked it up. The origin of the phrase true blue is English. Isn't that the most of our origins? I was just like, I think it's so funny that we're like, yeah, true blue Australian. Even the term is not Australian. That sounds about right. And yeah, he re-recorded that song. Because John Williamson, John Williams.

One of them does Star Wars. One of them does Australiana. John Wilms. Johnny W. Yeah, yeah. Oh, mate, Johnny. Jaydubs. Jaydubs.

He re-recorded it because in the original version it mentioned Vegemite. And then he found out that Vigemite was known by Australians. So he re-record it without Vigemite. Haven't they just been bought back by Stamonds? They have. So he's going to have to re-re-re-record it. Re-re-re-recorded it. Re-re-re-re-rerererecorded.

Yeah. Anyway, not, I don't know if we'll ever do J. Dubbs in his back catalogue. I imagine it's pretty vast. We can, yeah, we could probably just dissect that entire song and just discuss. He's got his hits like True Blue. Yeah, and the list goes on. And followed up by re-recording of True Blue. But did he also, I mean, I think he does have a lot of albums, but one of them, I think is, doesn't have another song or is it the same song? Whereas give me a home among the gum trees with lots of plum trees. Is it not?

Maybe it isn't. I don't know. Or is it? That's not the same song though, is it? No, no, no. Kangaroo. Clos line out the back. Barrandary out the front.

An old rocking chair. I got one with a bit, Cap and Kim on my accent then. Australia. Australia. But yeah, cold chisel. So we had the greatest hits and I, I mean, it's just packed out with hit songs. So it was interesting to me as I went through the back catalogue to place where these songs came in it. Yeah.

Like they're probably their most iconic song and some call it like an unofficial Australian anthem, Ksan or Ksan. KSAN, I believe. Is on, it's their, off their very first album, track two of the first album, which we'll be talking about next week. So we don't really need to jump ahead into the albums, I suppose, now. But it is, it is interesting to have found that, you know, after the fact. They've also reformed now. Hey, here's some news. I just bought a ticket to see them live next year for the first time.

Yes. I just got in the pre-sale like an hour ago. Amazing. Oh, it's going to be a ripper. It's real synergy. So I'm looking forward to seeing them live and then we can bloody talk about that on the show as well. Supported by another Australian legend, Paul Kelly. Yes, Paul Kelly.

So that's going to be sick. So they're kind of a pub rock band. And I think it's maybe important in this first episode to talk a bit about them. Like I should also say, for those who don't know, which would be most people listening, you're my cousin. So Chisle has sort of been growing up family events. Every single one would have Chisle. And for some reason, in the last 10 or so years, that has all sort of come together in one song.

That is Bow River. Live version, preferably. Yeah. Live version. Yeah, the one off Barking Spires. Barks spiders. There's a bunch of different versions of it, but that is the banger. And that is also where we got the name of the show.

The first line on that song is Listen Now. Listen now. Which I only recently found out because I used to think it was, listen out to the women. Listen out to the men. But it's not that at all. Classic Mawsey. Listen now.

To the wind babe. Listen out to the rain. I got the. I'm going to get the. listen part, right? That's like half of it. Other people, so I wonder if some American listeners or people from overseas, if they don't know, Jimmy Barnes is the front man of the band.

Ian Moss is sort of a, almost like the co-front man slash guitarist. He sings a chunk of the songs. Yeah, especially when Jimmy was having temporary hiatus, hi-a-ti, for plural. Front man. But Jimmy Barnes, for those who don't know him, Maybe you would have known him from a couple of years ago. He became a bit of an internet meme when he sang a little cameo part on a Kieran J. Callanenan song.

I don't know if sing is. All right. Well, I'll play a little. Well, listen now. Yeah, listen now. Hear this. It just keeps going. It's pretty good.

And the film clip's so fun as long as it's like Jimmy Barnes with a big cowboy hat superimposed over mountain ranges. It's like it's the Australian version of Beyonce singing on top. You know, she just keeps going, baby, it's you. And it just keeps going. Jimmy Barnes is our Beyonce. Oh, I almost repeated the whole thing. Someone just cut his sections in together into one big part. It's real fun. So apparently you were telling me, I didn't realize this, but it got taken the piss out of on some American late night night talk shows. It was huge memeery made out of it. Everyone's like, who is this random old bloke? Kind of like when Kanye and what's his name, Paul McCartney did a song

and everyone's like, wow, Kanye, thanks for giving this old guy a shot. Surely a lot of that was ironic. And surely Jimmy Fallon was also being ironic. Obviously he knows Jimmy Barnes. Barnesy. Barnesy. You know Barnesy? You know, who doesn't know Barnesy?

Who doesn't know Barnsey? Sorry, if you don't know Barnsey, this is Barnsie. That's just him saying, hey. Oh, Barnsie. Yeah, oh, Barnsie, you're in. Barnsie, get it. Hey, Barnsey, what's up? Just trying to do one second.

So good. I love Barnsey. So good. I'm an icon in every sense of the word. Like, he's now like an old estatesman of Australian rock. Yep. And he talks, people listen. He's had huge best-selling books, bios in the last couple of years,

split up into his childhood and adulthood. Basically, yeah, pretty much the first one is a journey of, I think it's like subtitled a journey of running out of time. Oh no, Journey of Running Away. And then it finishes right as he essentially jumps on the van to join the band. Wow. And then the start of the second one,

which I think is the journey of running out of time, it's from the band onwards. And it is just an absolute hellfire ride, like from Day Dot right to the end of it. And I cried like, I don't know, 89 times during it. It was very emotional. That's a pretty weep heavy. read. Every 13th page, one tear, approximately.

You know, there's a lot of blood, sweat and tears. When Barnsey's sort of, his life story, I imagine. A lot of sweat most of them. He famously sort of played his shows drinking, swigging straight vodka from the bottle. Straight vodka, yeah. And you watch the clips, you're like, Jesus Christ, like, in your younger days when you, you know, partying, even a, no one does straight shots of vodka. It's mixed with cranberry. Real adult.

Come on. Sugar coat that shit. Get some sugar energy in there too. Make yourself feel worse tomorrow. Let's party. Yeah. Sugar high, sugar low.

Yeah, the magic's of early 20s. I was going to say teenagehood, but no, I was much later than 12. Yeah, you're old enough to know better. Yeah. Twelve,

I'll give you a puff. All right, you're swigging vodka cranberry from the bottle, but you are 12. Yeah. Just one, maybe two. Okay, but now that you're 16, you should know better.

Yeah, get onto the UDLs like a real adult. How old are you? Is that a personal question? You never ask a lady that. I am offended. Sorry, I am 29. 29. Yeah, past it.

Yeah, now I like a nice charade in the winter. With cranberry. Just a garnish. Yeah. And a savvy bee in summer because we're all class. Do you still hit up the pubs? I grew up going to pubs from childhood into my... right into my 20s.

I still, I love pub culture still. Yeah. And that's, that's kind of where Chisle were born out of. Yeah. Pub rock scene.

Pub rock aptly named. They, maybe even, would you call them the, are they the poster boys for pub rock? If I think pub rock, Ozzy pub rock, it is,

yeah, well, because I kind of, I always assumed it was, Pubrock is just Australian. But I was reading that there is, uh, there was an English pub rock scene that was,

did not last as long. That makes sense. pubs are another thing we've stolen from the English. True Blue, Dinky Dye. Yep, that's right. I mean, even Jimmy Barnes was born in Scotland. Yeah. He still has a Scottish accent.

And then Les, Les was Polish, isn't he? And someone else in the band was born in England. Steve Press, which was from Liverpool. Liverpool. Liverpool. So, and that's another thing I love about this band is, and I didn't realize this that much, sort of Don Walker's famously the main songwriter, is the keyboardist. and lyricists.

But majority of the members of the band, and the line-up did rotate a little bit over the years, but they, like, I think maybe five of them wrote a hit song. Yeah, yeah. They really, like, shared it across the board. Yeah. How do you manage to get so many talented people in one group? Love that.

I think that's so cool. But anyway, I found a few little articles talk a little bit about pub rock. This is the opening paragraph about pub rock from Loudmag. Any of these articles I quote from will put in their description notes if people want to read more on it. But this is from Loudmag. Let me see if I got the authors name, Brian Giffon. And he writes, In the mid-70s, a musical and social phenomenon took hold of Australian youth.

It latched on in the pubs across the cities and moved into the suburbs and country towns, ebbing and flowing across two decades. Between late 1976 and until the early 90s, rock music informed almost every part of Australian musical culture. It dominated the sales charts, filled TV screens and radio airwaves, and the bands who made it filled the pubs across the land every night of the week. Pub rock was, in the words of veteran Australian rock writer Anthony O'Grady, a revolution in Australian popular music.

It sounds like a real, like, proper way to say it was just like a real bloody good time. It was big, yeah. It is, like, you think of all, like, classic Aussie bands from basically the generation before our time. And it was, it was all, yeah, it was pub. Yeah, just sounds like, the best way to describe it, I think, it just sounds like dirty, sweaty, small place, really loud, lots of beer, sticky floors. Like, that is just the best way to describe it, I guess. Totally. It is what it, like, it is what it sounds like.

Yeah. If you, what's Pub Rock? If you go, what do you imagine if you hear Pub Rock? It's probably that. Yeah. And it, yeah, I do love music scenes that come out. They're like formed by their surroundings. Yeah.

Sort of almost by necessity. This is just what it had to be. Yeah. And that is what this kind of style is. I found this website Wikipedia online and it's like a really good sort of information source. Is that a new, new website? I, as far, it's new to me. Amazing.

So, you know, I'm not saying I'm up to date with everything. But as far as I know, Wikipedia is a brand new thing. And I think it maybe is about to sweep the nation. Maybe even, I don't know if international listeners have it yet, but check it out. I might have called it early. Yeah. Do we get royalties for? I wonder if Wikipedia might even advertise.

Yeah. Is that how copyright works? You find something that someone else has made and go, we'll have that. Look, I would not claim to be any. sort of genius with laws, but from what I, you know, understand. Yeah. Are you culturally appropriating Wikipedia? I don't understand that phrase quite obviously.

Anyway, from Wikipedia, this is what it says about pub rock. It says pub rock or Australian pub rock is a style of Australian rock and roll, popular throughout the 70s and 80s and still influencing contemporary Australian music in the 2000s decade. Beautifully phrased. The term came from the venues where most of these bands originally played in a city and suburban pubs. These often noisy, hot, small and crowded venues were not always ideal as music venues and favoured loud, simple songs based on drums and electric guitar riffs. That's a pretty good. Yeah, that's what I've been sort of reading about this. That's what it sounds like basically pubs became they started craving live music and they so all of a sudden

all these bands had places to play and then but the crowds didn't know them they they weren't releasing music in the early days so they created a sound that were you know it was anyone could dance to anyone could have fun with and that's kind of where the sound came from a little bit yeah and I think kind of something that I've only recently kind of considered is that probably the majority of the people at the pubs is the blue collars. And you would really relate pub rock to blue collar work as a lot of the themes that run through that kind of music. Like the lyrics end up sort of going that way. Yeah, totally. Jimmy Barnes is one of his biggest solo songs.

Jimmy Barnes is the singer of. Yeah. Colchizzle. I don't know if we covered that. I couldn't remember. Barnesy. Barnsey as he will be known as now. Yeah, I think he refers to himself as Barnsy.

Barnsie's here. I hope so. Yeah, I reckon he would. I reckon if Barnsie was here, he'd say Barnsie was here. He'd also probably say, oh, Barnsey. Hey, Barnsey. Hey, how's it going? That's his three-kilometer warning, though.

Yeah, if Barnsie's on his way, he's climbing up over that mountain ridge over there and then off yonder. Yeah, instead of the coup of. The traditional Australian call out is just a, ah, ah! Echo. Yeah. Ah!

It's getting close. So, yeah, so the sound came out of the venues. And also, they were sort of, the sound systems weren't that great? So they had to, they couldn't write intricate simple songs. Well, they were simple songs, but they had to be big and bold as well. Yeah, essentially, if you're going to play some, like, beautifully mechanical, technically perfect guitar solo. The speakers have probably blown up

halfway anyway. So all they're going to hear is just like so just, you know, three simple chords, four simple chords, that's all you need. Drums. Drums and guitar. So Wikipedia, which is the website I was talking about before.

The new website, yeah. It goes on to say, the Australian version of pub rock incorporates hard rock, blues rock, and or progressive rock. In the encyclopedia of Australian rock and pop from 1999, Australian musicologist Ian McFarlane described how in the early 1970s

Billy Thorpe and the Aztex as well as Blackfeather and Buffalo Pioneered Australia's pub rock movement. So I guess that's like proto pub rock almost. They're sort of they're the godfathers of pub rock in Australia. Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs in particular is still, his legacy is still big. He's seen as one of the most important Australian. Blackfeather and Buffalo I'm not as familiar with.

as in I've never heard of them. Yeah. Which makes me curious, I love to have a look into them. Continuing on the article, the emergence of the Australian version of the pub rock genre and the related pub circuit was the result of several interconnected factors. From the 50s to the 70s, mainly because of the restrictive state liquor licensing laws.

Only a small proportion of live pop and, rock and roll music in Australia was performed on licensed premises. Mostly private clubs or disco texts, yes. The majority of concerts were held in non-licensed venues, like community church or municipal halls. It was a different time back then. Can you just imagine cold chisel in their vodka-swigging heyday at a church hall? After the show, we're selling cupcakes.

Fund our next act, please. Yeah. And also our next vodka. Yeah, he's swirling instead, Earl Grey Tea from a bottle. Just some holy water. Yeah. During the 60s, however, Australian states began liberalising their licensing laws. Sunday observance acts were repealed.

So it used to be like church ruled. So, I mean, church rules, man. Yeah, you church. You couldn't, like Australia shut down on Sundays apparently. Yeah, it was a lot of country towns. I still like that. It's the day to observe. Jesus. It's the holy day. It's the Sabbath. But they started repealing those in the 60s

pub opening hours extended. I wonder if this was around the time of the six o'clock swill, which was like a little period of Australian time where pubs closed just after six or at six. So all the businessmen or all the working men would flock into the pubs. Women weren't allowed in and they just chugged down a bunch of beers in a row and then get kicked out onto the streets and essentially New South Wales now. Yeah, just what? Yeah, I think they might have even, I think they've looked at repealing those. They have.

Yeah, I think they're opening them back, opening Sydney back up for business. So essentially what you're saying is that they had happy hour without the happiness. They just had hour. Yeah, it was an hour of power. Yeah. And like everyone's stressing out like, quick, we better skull these beers. you know, it's for the safety of everyone. Yeah.

Make everyone drink real fast. And then put them back out on the street. Put them out on the street. Also at the same time. When they can figure out the differences. Yeah. Like gentlemen. Yeah.

So they were starting to repeal a lot of these old laws. And then also in the 70s, they dropped the legal age from 21 to 18. And concurrently at this time, members of the baby boomer generation, who back then were like, you know, it's funny to think they were the kids. That's how time works, Matt. I'm like, wait, baby boomers were young ones. Baby boomers are 60 plus only ever. Yeah, I'm confused.

So they were the main audience for pop and rock music and they were hitting their late teens, early 20s, and also now able to hit the pubs. Get beved. So pub owners soon realized that providing live music which was often free would draw young people to the pubs in large numbers and regular rock performances soon became a fixture at many pubs. Many city and suburban pubs gain renowned for their support of live music

and many prominent Australian band including ACDC, who most will know, Colchisle, the Angels and the Dingoes developed their style at these venues in the early days of their careers. Ian McFarlane, the musicologist described how ACDC took the raw energy of Aussie pub rock and extended its basic guidelines, serving it up to a teeny bop countdown audience and also still reap the benefits of the live circuit by packing out the pubs. That's an interesting idea that ACDC had that the catchy teeny bop element in there, which I'd never really considered.

Did you know much about cold chisels, weird relationship with countdown? So countdown was like a, it's still seen as kind of a. legendary music TV show. Moly Melbourne. Yeah, on the national, you know, national broadcast or ABC. And it was, I think it was on Sunday nights. I think so. And they'd count down the big songs for the week.

And they'd also have like live in inverted commas performances. They're all mimed. And Chisle were never really asked on. And then mid-career, they were having a lot of success and all the biggest band in Australia. And they were invited on. and they're like we don't want to come and wear a live pub rock band we don't want to come and mime to our songs it would be ridiculous and then they ended up coming on uh for the countdown awards so where they won a lot of the awards and they um in classic machoish sort of a rock and roll

style they trashed they played their song added extra lyrics into the song which was sort of poking fun of countdown and then um smashed up uh the amps and drum kit and everything. There's a bit of a stick it up, yeah. I guess so, which is like, I think younger me would have been like, yeah, cop that dickets. And I'm like, oh, so you're, you're upset because they didn't put you on the show when you weren't a big band and then they had your own. That's just how that show worked.

It was about the big bands. But it was also about breaking bands. I don't know. It would be like, hey, now that we're popular, you think you're going to break us. We've been broken. We didn't need you. I can sort of, I guess I can see both sides of that. Me as a uni student, I'm like, oh, that gear would have been so expensive.

Yeah. Yeah, I was like, wait. So much money wasted. Does that, do we have to pay for all that? Yeah. Yeah, and then, so he also McFarlane says that he found that cold chisel fused a combination of rockabilly, hard rock and rough house, soul and blues that was defiantly Australian in outlook. Rough House is very apt, I think.

Other important bands that came out of the pub rock scene, maybe some of these are arguable, but include in excess, Midnight Oil and Rose Tattoo. They're all very different bands from each other. Yeah, I'm trying to think who else we'd put in there. We've got, like, Huda Gurus, yeah, midnight oil as always. Australian crawl. Devinals usually get mentioned.

Baby animals usually get a call in, screaming jets, noise works. Skyhooks was more 70s. So Skyhooks was a bit earlier though, I think. I sort of kicked up. I think according to this article, I reckon it really kicked up in 76. Oh, okay. So that's pretty timely for them.

Choir Boys who had one run to paradise. One song, but I can remember. Also, it was a banger though. The, um, yeah, where would these bands have played before that? That's,

I was thinking the same thing. Like, the church halls and stuff? Was it just the church halls? I don't think Skyhooks were ever going to, it must have been to do with the pub scene. I think that it's almost like that if you're an Aussie band in that time, you probably came out of that scene. Yeah, I'm just trying to think. I remember someone saying they saw someone of the baby boomer generation,

saying that they saw, I reckon it was like ACD at like Marabin Town Hall or something back in the day. My old man saw them in the Bond Scott era at Monash Union, just in the common area. Wow, that would have been, oh, you can't even imagine that. I went to Monash and I think the biggest, I'm trying to think who the biggest band we would have had. I feel like it might have been 28 days or something like that. Is that rip it up? Rip it up, yeah. It doesn't feel, I love 28 days, but it does, it doesn't feel like a fair trade.

We had the Androids come and sing, do it with Madonna, do it with Madonna. At my all-girls Catholic high school. Great. Madonna being the mother of Jesus. Yeah. Well, we're Catholic school. You're right. That makes sense.

So I think the nuns would have been like, oh, do it. Yeah, pray with Mother Mary. We actually did have a nun as our principal at a time too. That's great. That's so good. I found it cool. We probably should turn our attention a bit more to Chisle in particular. Oh, yep.

They're being the topic of discussion. I found. a cool little bio article on the ABC's website, ABC.net.com.com.com.com. And via their rage. Are you a rage fan? So rage is a bit of an Australian music icon as well, institution. Friday and Saturday nights overnight, they just play music clips. On the Saturday night, they'll have guest posts. I never watched it. And I remember being like, you know, 10, 11, 12 or whatever and watching, I'm embarrassed to say, video hits on a Saturday morning before swimming lessons, and you'd have to wait for rage to finish.

And I'd be like, what's this alternative stuff? Except at the time, I did not know what alternative was. So I'm like, this is not a good song. Yeah. Put some Hanson on. Get me some mbop for my day. That's great. I used to get home after going out.

I mean, probably still do occasionally and flick it on ABC and watch for a while. There used to be a trap I'd get in. After a bigish night, I'd get home in the middle of the night, and I'd be like, all right, next bad song, I go to sleep. Or vice versa, next, all right, one, I just want to see one, one banger, then I'm going to sleep. Yep. And then you just end up watching for hours and hours.

Is this going to make me sound old? I used to get home and watch Rage on my black and white TV. Yeah. Sometimes I'm like, yeah, we're like similar the same age. And then I'm like, oh, no, you're... Isn't that, that is pretty wild because... How old are you? What's the age difference?

I'm 35. Well, I'm 35. I do another podcast called Do Go On and my co-hosts are 29 on that as well. So I'm very familiar with this old man sort of dynamic. Yeah, that's six years. But the... Significant, apparently. The black, I don't know why I had.

I think it was my old man. It would have been old when my dad had it. But it just, it was like our second TV. I ended up having it in my bedroom. Was it one of those giant box ones that weighed three tons? It was tiny. I remember when I'm like, I'll keep this forever. There was something kind of romantic about it somehow.

But I remember my dad eventually was like, you've got to let it go, mate. I'm like, I don't want it. It's cool. He's like, you just got to let it go. And he took it to the bin. And I remember the bin was kind of full and he just dropped it at the top and it just mushed all the rubbish down in the big green bin. The green bin.

Yeah, you know, the rubbish bin. Oh, yeah, the normal. They're green. Olive-y. In Marabin, they were green. They're still green. I don't know what they were like on the other side of Santa Road where you grew up. In East Bentley.

We were the Pover version. You were in Bentley. I was East Bentley. Really? Yeah, East Bentley was Pov town, apparently. That's interesting. There's times I go back now. Dad still lives there and I'm like,

oh, East Bentley's come a real long way. I could save for two lifetimes and not buy a house there now. It's brutal. It's brutal. It's brutal. Hey, baby boomers. Yeah. These kids, these baby boomer kids who are starting to go to pubs and also buying houses for 10K. Yeah. Anyway, so I found this article on the ABC slash rage website. And I think it was really good. It taught me a fair bit about it that I didn't know. So I'll read it out a bit by bit. Let's go through this. So cold chisels origins stem back to Adelaide in 1973. So I didn't, I don't, I kind of always think of them as, as Sydney band, but I did have a vague knowledge that they had an Adelaide origin.

And that is where they all met. I didn't know this though. They were originally named Orange. That I, well, I read Jimmy Barnes as autobiog. So these are facts that I learned in the last 18 months. You're going to have them all in your head already. So the band started out as a heavy metal cover band consisting of bassist Les Ketch. Marik, keyboardist Don Walker, guitarist Ian Moss, and drummer Steve Presswich. It was not around, not until around the end of 1973, that the 17-year-old Jimmy Barnes joined the group as vocalist. 17. Also, if we have any Polish listeners that want to correct us on how to pronounce

Les's surname, that would be wonderful and greatly appreciated. Also, if you're not familiar with Jimmy Barnes' vocal style, it goes a little something like this. I'm not going to lie, the more I listen to it, the more. I like it. I love it's a banger. We probably should play some actual cold chisel at some point so people know what they sound like.

Maybe, yeah, I'll find a, I'll find that, the Bow River that we love to play a little bit in a minute from the bloody barking spiders. But let me go on with his bias. So Jimmy Barnes joins it. He joins us a 17-year-old. I didn't know that. The group changed its name several times before settling on cold chissel. Do you remember any of the other names?

I don't list any here. Orange is the most memorable of them. Orange. They set her on cold chisel, which was the name of one of their songs. During this time, Barnes had a volatile relationship with the rest of the band, and he left the group several times, most notably to replace Bond Scott in the group fraternity in 1975. So Bond Scott left fraternity to join ACDC.

A little known band. I'm not sure if people have heard of it. There was a rumor and it probably still floats around that Jimmy Barnes almost fronted ACDC, but I've heard Jimmy Barnes and interviewed debunk that. But yeah, that's probably what has been confused there. Oh, yeah, Sam showing me some great. So that's... That's Jimmy.

They used to wear face makeup. Right. Just for a very brief period. Those are the 70s? Yeah, is that, was Kiss wearing... Kiss must have been, yeah, 70s as well. So I wonder if that was inspired. Because they were trying to, by the looks of it, they were trying to dress a little bit glam rock.

And then they were kind of like, nah, this is bullshit. And then went proper Australia. So when Barnes would leave the group, Mossie took over on vocal duties. And Mossie, on the other hand, has, well, maybe that's a good opportunity to play some of this Boe River. So Mossie probably, I feel like things maybe about a quarter or a third of Chissel's songs. Yeah, I reckon that's fair. And this is, let's play a little bit of the start of Bo River. It's a lot smooth.

Our favorite version of it. It's from the 1983, 1983 barking spider's live. I thought it was 77. Oh, my memory is. But he's just like very different. So Barnesy is sort of, I've heard him described as like honey and gravel. Yes. He does have sort of two tones there.

But Mossy's just all honey. Just honey. And that's also his guitar sound as well. Once he gets into it there, I'll keep telling you about it. The group, consolidated their lineup in 1975 with Cash Murrick leaving the group

and being replaced by Phil Small. Barnes' older brother John Swan was also a member of the group at this time. Doing a bit of backup vocals and percussion. Here we go, it's mossy. It's just beautiful.

Listen now. Yeah. Bit of Barnsie in the background there. With harmonies. I always hear that every time. Sorry, everybody for ruining it. Oh, he can't, he can't not sing along to it.

It's just so good. But on the, on the album version, he doesn't, he doesn't take his time like he does here. It's making so much better. And you can hear the crowd getting wrong footed by it as well. Yeah, just joking. Hear like, and that, that little echo sound on the guitar? Fuck, it's so good.

Anyway. Um, so, so, yeah, Barnes's older brother, John Swan. So Swan was Barnes's birth name. I think it's his dad's name. It was his birth father's name. And his parents had a very volatile relationship. And his mom, I think she only remarried once, but she was with a few other people throughout his childhood.

But this one bloke, Reg Barnes, was like essentially the angel sent from heaven. And he talks quite a lot about it in his book, in working class boy, I think it is, the first half. Yeah. And he kind of talks about how this guy basically, He was sent from heaven. He kind of got his mom straightened out a bit, and he was just like the right person at the right time. Like, you know, Jimmy is a young bloke.

Was it starting to go a bit wild, and Reg was just trying to, like, guide him into the right path. And he credits a lot of his good qualities to Reg. And decided to change his name to Barnes in memory of. That's great. So his older brother, obviously, John Swan, already locked in on that name. I think he sort of, he performs under the name Swanee, I think. Swanee, yeah, they're known as Swanee.

But also, if you've got a rhyming name like that, surely you're not going to change it. John Swan. Yeah, that sounds like a made-up name. So he was only in the band briefly because there were several violent incidents and he was kicked out of the group. The violent incidents is something that runs through the Swan family name. I think their dad was a boxer back in the day. And that was all of them.

We're fighters. We talk with our fists. Yeah, it's Scotland. The band members have diverse backgrounds with only Phil Small actually born in Adelaide. So they all met in Adelaide, but Barnes was born in Scotland, press which in Liverpool, UK, Moss in the Northern Territory. Alice, yeah. And I was to say Tex Walker.

Don Walker originally from Queensland. Oh, I thought he was born in like rural New South Wales. He might have moved around a bit, but apparently originally from Queensland. There you go. Don't make me doubt myself. I'll double check. Is this from Wikipedia? I feel like it's super reliable. This is from the ABC. Oh, surely. Yeah. If anyone's going to know, it would be our ABC. Our ABC. Just confirming on Wikipedia, what says he was born in Queensland as well. So that's good enough for me. I take that back. It's the big two ABC and Wikipedia both say. You can't doubt that. No. May of 1976, Cold Chissel relocated to Melbourne, but found little success and moved to Sydney in November. So yeah, that's interesting.

They could have been a Melbourne band. I imagine that would have been a very, ended up in a very different band if they came in. Yeah. Just because, you know, so many of their lyrics of their big songs are painting Sydney pictures. Yeah. I'm talking about Sydney pubs and different events from Sydney. Yeah, it'd be interesting to look at what the pub culture was like between the two cities back in the day. Yeah.

I imagine similar, but just the. these slight differences make. Because also it's interesting, it's like they struggled in Melbourne and then went up to New South Wales and had a lot of success. Although I have been listening to a bunch of interviews with Jimmy Barnes recently. And he talked about how they didn't get a lot of love in Sydney. It was actually touring up and down the East Coast in the regional areas, like Newcastle. Newcastle, yeah, it gets mentioned a lot, actually.

More of the working class town. So Newcastle is a big steel work city. and one of their big early live songs, it was called Shipping Steel. Surely that is a direct reference. Yeah, I've never thought about that, but I will look into it for when that album comes up. Which is, yeah, will be the next app.

During this time, the band still mostly performed covers for gigs, but in the background Walker was developing his talents as a songwriter and creating original songs. So he's, like if you think of, chisel songwriting you think of Don Walker, even though they all chipped in with their own songs as well. But he, on any given album, he would have written the bulk of them. I think on the first album, maybe even all of them. All and then Jimmy Barnes co-wrote the first song Julietette, but everything else was Don Walker. She's a banger.

Anyway, we'll talk about that next episode. She's looking out of her. SELC. Getting excited. So his material was all based around the concerns of the hardworking student underclass. And I think I've heard him mention that it was just, you know, they were writing for the audiences they were performing to as well as the, he'd write a lot of his songs about people he'd met, you know? Yeah, because I think, don't work. Like Kay sounds about a couple of war vets. He knew. Yeah, so he came back suffering PTSD prior to PTSD being acknowledged. And I heard him say in an interview, he goes, if he knew that it was going to become, you know, an Australian anthem, he probably would have written.

it a bit differently. I'm not sure exactly what he means by that. No. If maybe it was, maybe he felt like he opened, he told too much of a story of these guys or I'm not sure. I'm not sure how we, how we meant that. The songs hit a nerve and the band quickly developed a solid and loyal fan base. Six months later in May 1977, Barnes announced he was quitting cold chisel in order to join his brother Swan in the band Feather. Oh, that's interesting because I believe when I was reading about the band feather,

you know how just before I mentioned black feather? That's, they morphed into feather. Oh. But they changed their name because they had no original members anymore. I don't know if that was like a thing back then. It was like the small faces in England became the faces. I think it's like a bands would just tweak their name due to. Yeah, kind of.

Keep the somewhat of a fan base and just be like, oh, we've just... We're a bit different now. Now we've got Rod Stewart or whatever that thing was. So, yeah, so that's interesting that one of the key bands at the birth of Pub Rock, his brother Swan, ended up being a member of. And then, and also Jimmy Barnes was too. And I think if that was the band, I was... I think if that's the band that I heard him talk about,

He mentioned that they were doing great. One of the bands he left Chissel for a bit. Apparently we're doing real great for six months, building up a huge audience and getting some good reviews. And I heard Jimmy Van say something like they, one reviewer called them like deep purple on methadone or something like that. And he goes, we like that. We like that.

But then he said they took a break for a couple of weeks that ended up just being an ongoing break. And then he goes, oh shit, cold chiseler doing a. real well. He went down and he saw him play with Mossie fronting them. And apparently goes to him after the gig, he's like, hey, any chance I can get back in. And he goes, they sort of ummed an R for a bit. And I think it was just to get at me. But they eventually said yes. And then he said, from then on, they really buckled down and took it very seriously. This ABC article goes to say, a farewell performance took place in Sydney that went so well. The singer changed his mind.

And the following month, cold chisel was signed to the Warner Music Group. And from that came their self-titled debut album, which we will get onto in the next episode. It's an interesting story because they, I mean, just a bit of a spoiler alert, but they end up breaking up. How many times? Yeah, for good, they broke up really after, what, five studio albums, was it? Yeah, something like that. And then quite a long hiatus, and then they've had, they'll reform and release an album every now.

They've done three since then. But they, just an explosive little time. And it's a real arc. So I'm looking forward to going through this story on this podcast. Because they sort of, they climb up and then things happen in it. And obviously it all falls apart in the end. But it's it. I found it to be a very interesting story.

And I'm looking forward to going through it, talking about it a bit as we go. Yeah. Yeah. Do anything else we want to cover off in this first episode? I guess for listeners, if we'd love to hear from you if you've big chisel fans. Yep. Or if you don't know anything about them and maybe being inspired to give him a listen now, maybe that's a fun way to do it.

It's like a book club. It's an album club. Just give the self-titled album a listen over the next week and a bit before we can all talk about it together. But if you want to get in contact with us, we've got an email address, which is Listen NowPod at Gmail.com. And we'll be Listen Now Pod on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram as well. If you want to get in contact, any sort of thoughts? I'd love to hear from people who maybe aren't from Australia and are just hearing it for the first time what they think about them. But also I'd love to hear from long-time fans what they reckon as well.

I'd like to hear from people who aren't from Australia who have heard of them as well. Oh yeah, because they did they did tour Europe and America. They tried real hard to crack Europe and America. And they had, you know, small successes in those places, but also just things. Different worlds. Different worlds and. Slash Jimmy Barnes. Yeah.

Volatile. Yeah, a bit volatile, possibly hurt them a little bit as well. Yeah. But yes, thanks so much for joining. Is anything else you want to say, Sam, before we piss off? Just give a listen to Bo River live version, Barking Spiders. Let us know what you think. Let us know how it makes you feel.

Yeah, deep down. Maybe listen to the album version as well. Oh, yeah. See what you reckon. But we might even do a full episode on the Barking Spiders Live album at some point. Because they have a few iconic live albums, which we might feature as well. But yeah, let us know what you want to hear. Maybe if you've got ideas for bands that we could look at in the future as well.

I think maybe as we're coming towards the end of this season, we might put up a few other options and see and let the bloody listeners have this. Yeah, I've been hogging this bloody mic, Sam. You're the experienced one. That's all good. Hello. Today is. Do you want to shout out your social media if they want to follow you anywhere? No, because it's not very interesting and it's mostly my cat.

Okay, well, any cat fans. Samatong, if you want to see my cat. Yeah, great. I know there are cat heads out there. What about you, Matt? Any shoutouts? Yeah, well, I've got my other podcast do go on, which you can check out on the podcast networks. And also my social media is at Matt Stewart comedy on Instagram and Facebook, and also Matt Stu underscore art on Twitter, because that's where I do my real art stuff.

Twitter is a place of art. That's right. Any last words from you, Jimmy? Yep. That's him leaving. See you, bud. Well, this might be our first post on social media or be this video. Make sure you watch it with the volume at max. Totally. All right, well, we don't have a sign off or anything. What do we say? It's got to be some sort of Listen Now related thing or we just say hey.

Surely it's just, ha. Anyway, thanks so much for joining us here on Listen Now. We'll see you next time. Bye. Later. Oh, yes. What a fine piece of podcasting. Maybe one of the finest ever.

I reckon top four. Top four, all time. If you enjoyed it, check it out. You can search on your podcast app, but listen now with Matt and Sam, or there'll be a link to the ACAST site. In this show's description, you can also find it on Spotify and all sorts of places.

Pretty much all places. Yeah, you're resourceful. Yeah, figure it out. Bogle it, you'll be right. I believe in you very much so. Thanks for tuning in. I love doing these Listen Now Presents because I never get to wear this jacket otherwise. Yeah, it's really, it's good to finally put them to use because I do worry sometimes they're a waste of money.

Yeah. They were very expensive. And I nearly never get to drink brandy. Yeah. Or cognac. You can't do it. You can't do it. You can't do it.

With a bit of Coke. Oh, we see to give it a fizz. Oh, fantastic. What a beautiful digestive. Yeah. Nothing classier. after we've had a plate full of hors d'oeuvres, which is one of the classier things.

Those little puffy, what are these puffy ones I'm holding here, Dave? Puff balls. Puff balls. Oh, delicious. Yum, yum, yum. Oh, they puffing in your mouth, not in your hand. That's what I love about them. Anyway, yeah, so you can check out Listen Now,

and you can find it on social media at Listen Now Pod, on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, and Listen NowPod at Gmail. com if you want to email us. Anyway, that wraps up another fine episode of Duke-Go and Presents. How do we wrap these up? We haven't done one in a while. Just say, uh, say-sianara.

Oh, is that what we say? Yeah. Sianara. Sianara. Sianara. No, Matt, you have to go up at the end. Sionara? No, like Scyonara.

That seems like it's up and then down. Okay, up and then down. Sianara. Nailed it. All right. Later. This podcast is part of the Planet Broadcasting Network. Visit planetbroadcasting.com for more podcasts from our great mates.

I mean, if you want, it's up to you. Don't forget to sign up to our tour mailing list so we know where in the world you are and we can come and tell you when we're coming there. Wherever we go, we always hear six months later, oh, you should come to Manchester. We were just in Manchester. But this way you'll never miss out. And don't forget to sign up, go to our Instagram. click our link tree.

Very, very easy. It means we know to come to you and you'll also know that we're coming to you. Yeah, we'll come to you. You come to us. Very good. And we give you a spam-free guarantee.