i94bar1200x80

mike rudd

  • i ll be goneI’ll Be Gone: Mike Rudd, Spectrum and How One Song Captured a Generation

    By Craig Horne (
Melbourne Books)

    Craig Horne’s biography of New Zealand-born musician Mike Rudd comes with a lofty sub-titular proposition: "How One Song Captured a Generation". That song is Spectrum’s chart-topping 1971 hit, "I’ll Be Gone".

    Horne’s biography is a valuable contribution to Australasian musical history. While Rudd’s trajectory as a musician and songwriter is common to many musicians, Horne’s methodical research and oral history charts the highs and lows of Rudd’s career in impressive detail.

    Save for a few cursory mentions in John Dix’s chaotic history of New Zealand music, “Stranded in Paradise”, Rudd’s Christchurch r’n’b band, Chants (or Chants R’n’B), the frenetic band whose parochial popularity provided the basis for Rudd’s move across the Tasman in the late 1960s, is largely absent from the pages of musical history.

    Rudd’s tenure in Ross Wilson’s Party Machine, covered previously in Horne’s biography of Daddy Cool, is recounted from a more nuanced, Rudd-oriented perspective. Spectrum rises, plateaus, recalibrates and fades away. Ariel teeters on the edge of commercial success, only for the record company to lose interest.

  • rudd and gazeIt’s a pairing for the ages: Master guitarist Tim Gaze (Tamam Shud, Khavas Jute) and Mike Rudd (Ariel, Spectrum) are doing a special run of shows in south-east Queensland and northern New South Wales in May.

    Rudd is best known for his work with Spectrum and that undeniably classic Australian song “I'll Be Gone”. He went on to front another metamorphosis of Spectrum in Indelible Murtceps and also Ariel, who found chart success with “Jamaican Farewell”.

    These days, Mike plays as a duo with George Butrumlis and tackles songs that, for one reason or another, don't get played in the group setting. Outrageous songs like “Excuse Me Just One Moment” from Murtceps' “Warts Up your Nose” album and “Confessions of a Psychopathic Cowpoke” from Ariel's “A Strange Fantastic Dream” album, a song that was famously banned from airplay.

    Opening the evening will be Tim Gaze who will take audiences on a trip re-visiting moments of his journey where he has regularly been referred to as one of Australia’s finest and inspiring guitarists.

    These shows are proudly presented by SoundPressing.

    Mike Rudd + Tim Gaze
    MAY
    2 - The Citadel, Murwillumbah, NSW
    Tickets
    3 - The Junk Bar, Brisbane, QLD
    Tickets
    4 - Banshees Bar, Ipswich, QLD
    Tickets