Out now on Dave Laing's always great Grown Up Wrong label from Australia: archival albums from bona fide '70s Tasmanian popstars and Beatles freaks Beathoven and long-lost 1979-'80 Sydney powerpop outfit The Breakers.
Beathoven’s “Beathoven at Pascoe Vale High” and The Breakers’ “Night After Night” are out on vinyl now with CD editions due in May. The CDs include numerous extra tracks, and all can be ordered here.
Beathoven have long been regarded as “the revivalists who got away” and later morphed into the Innocents. Beathoven’s recorded legacy in the day was slim, consisting just two singles, but they also put down numerous demos, some of which were released on a Raven Records Beathoven/Innocents compilation in the ‘80s.
Frequently described as "the Bay City Rollers of Tasmania", Beathoven were a mid-'70s phenomenon on the Apple Isle who moved to the Australian mainland in '77, hoping to break nationally. Unsuited to the pub circuit, the band decided to play high schools to get themselves heard.
It worked and this recording helped them get a deal with EMI. Bizarrely, however, the label wanted them to ditch the early Beatles style and they went unpromoted while the band amassed a legion of school-age fans .
After a second single "Shy Girl", a couple of Countdown appearances and a Best New Group nomination on TV's Countdown Awards (which caused a small riot when another group won) Beathoven were cut loose. They were still label-less when Fowley met them in Melbourne in 1978 and the next chapter began as The Innocents.
“Beathoven at Pascoe Vale High School 1977” sounds like the Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl transposed to lunchtime at a '70s suburban Melbourne high school. It was recorded in stereo.
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The Breakers were Ol' 55 songwriter/bassplayer/heartthrob Jimmy Manzie and drummer Geoff Peterkin (who driumemd for the Hitmen) and Babeez/ News guitarist Jarryl Wirth. Formed in '79 under the long distance guidance of infamous LA producer-cum-svengali Kim Fowley (Runaways, Hollywood Stars), they appeared in the film “Puberty Blues”.
The Breakers only released one single but recorded enough demos for an album, which is presented here.
The vinyl brings together 14 of the The Breakers' best tracks, all studio recordings bar great live recordings of the News classic "Sweet Dancer Au-Go-Go" and a great and otherwise unrecorded original called "Can You Hear Me Singing On The Radio". Included is ‘The Girl with Stars in Her Eyes" which the band performed onstage in a Sydney pub for the cult Australian film "Puberty Blues".
Also included are superior demo versions of the two tracks featured on their sole single, "When I'm On TV" (which they performed on Countdown) and "Lipstick And Leather", the latter a Manzie-Fowley co-write which was later demoed by KISS.
You'll hear echoes of The Innocents, Cheap Trick, The Cars, The Rubinoos, The Records, The Quick and even Candy and Redd Kross.
The LP features a four-page full colour 12x12 insert featuring numerous images, press clippings and lengthy liner notes by Dave Laing, who compiled and annotated last year's acclaimed "I Wanna Be A Teen Again: North American Power Pop of the '80s" 3CD set for Cherry Red. The CD features the same contents converted to a 16-page booklet.
