Onstage with the "Searching For Charlie Owen" show at Sydney's MoshPit Bar in 2023.
Photo by Lucia Rossi
When it's been called techno, it's very loosely techno, what I do. I've been doing it for a long time. Everybody's always sat around, back when I was a kid, with any keyboard that could repeat something and played along to it on your guitar. It's as simple as that, that's about the size of it.
So yeah, I've got a couple of synthesizers and I've got my guitar and I use some recordings of some solos and mix them together. I don't beat mix; it's not based on the beat ethic, it's more based on the mixing ethic of DJing, which I love and the joining on. It's not the songs, it's the joining, the cross matching of different ideas, which is kind of a jazz concept in itself anyway, so that's how I explain it and that's my interest in it too.
JM: So originally when you started doing it, it was just something you were doing for your own interest, not planning to perform it publicly?
CO: No, the original idea was I was trying to get away from music being only based around a pub and being based around a 45-minute set, or an hour set, or even a three-minute song, like what the fuck is that about? Even though I can also appreciate that side of it, it's just to delve into things and so I was set up in this room I'd moved to in this house - any toys I could find and all this equipment and I was just going to play there for fun, it wasn't really designed to leave the room, it was just more designed, not as a bedroom thing, but to try and write music, not trying to be a song writer, but trying to write music on that level.
I must say that that is another side of the loose term "techno" which is a great thing that that has, like jazz music, where composition is not based on the three-minute song, except for the pop techno you hear on the radio, so it's interesting on that level. It's like African music in that sense - things that change and go from here to there; it's not a specified time or anything like that.
That's how it led me there, basically I just wanted to play at home and just be mucking around and then we had a few parties and people jammed on real instruments in the lounge room. My room's next to the lounge room and I would play along with them with electronics and then joined them all together. Then we sort of had a semi band called "The Dancing Assassins" for a while, which was all the people that used to play there (and which still occasionally rears its head) but it slowly came out of the house basically, until I just do it by myself now which is fun.
The other thing is I broke my arm about three months ago and I couldn't play my guitar and I thought, "Here's a handy time to be doing this, you only use one hand to push a button". I thought, "I can do this with my hand tied behind my back", so to speak, but it's pretty hard with my cast, trying to turn the synthesizer down with my nose [gesticulates with his nose].
Performing that music, or performing on the dobro or playing electric guitar has no difference inside me when I'm playing. It's not of an interest... I'm not a fan of the music in that sense, I don't play music for that reason. I do become a fan of things, there's things you can do...
JM: Okay, but for want of a better a word I'm going to keep calling it techno. The difference between that and what you're doing with Maurice Frawley and the Working Class Ringos (where it seems like you're playing every stringed instrument except the guitar)...
CO: And this one I'm doing every sort of keyboard instrument except the guitar! Well, the funny thing is that one of the tracks, which was the first track I put together with my so called techno act, uses a loop from Des [Hefner], the drummer from the Ringos, off the Ringos' album, which is quite funny because obviously it's a folk band, but I really don't see the difference. In fact that's one of the fascinations I have for it.
All music is so closely related. Like shit music is the same as other shit music and great music is the same as other great music on this level that I appreciate music on and I think that most people kind of do, except you get caught up in fashion - it's impossible not to in this world. Still, inside, there are people who secretly think, "Yeah, I love that song", but they wouldn't admit to it.
JM: So how did you meet up with Maurice Frawley?
CO: I'd moved down to Melbourne from Sydney because my girlfriend was doing a course here and I'd come back from a tour or something and an old school friend of mine was playing saxophone with Maurice at the time. I'd gone out to see him and I was sitting there one day; he was in another band, it was sort of an electric old school rock'n'roll band...
JM: Was that the Olympic Sideburns?
CO: No, it was after that, it just another band he had. I didn't know he was from the Olympic Sideburns or anything like that and I was just there and I got to know him. I couldn't stand that band to be honest, but within that I thought jeez this guy writes fantastic songs. That's how I got to know him and then one day I said, "I've got this lap steel guitar, maybe we should..." and he goes, "I know this double bass player we play with sometimes" and that's how it started.
He and the bass player were doing a gig, totally just acoustic guitar and double bass, no P.A. or anything like that, in this little bar on Saturday mornings and I said, "I'll come along and play my slide". I hadn't bought the dobro by then, it was just the lap steel that I'd had since I played with Louis Tillett. So it happened like that and I thought, "I'm sick of playing a lead break in every song you know... so I'll do a lead break in every song on a dobro now". Dobromania! Hence now I'm sick of that one (no, that's not true).
JM: What Maurice Frawley and the Working Class Ringos are doing is like one kind of "country". People used to talk about "country rock", which was briefly trendy and is now much despised, but I find what he's doing reminds of the countrified Rolling Stones, say around the time of "Beggars Banquet", particularly songs like "No Expectations" and "Dear Doctor".
CO: It's closer to that than it is to country rock, but it's also close to country more in an Australian sense. It's a funny thing to say that; not Australian country music or not Australiana or anything.
Maurice isn't a fan of any style of music, or that style of music, he just sort of... basically he is a country boy, you really kind of notice it sometimes in his music, but when we say we're a country band, we're not really talking about country music; it's not like we have a pedal steel and play like donka dinka donka dinka...
JM: ...or that you're dying to play at the Ole Opry in Nashville...
CO: Yeah, it's not that sort of thing and it is musically close to that Stones thing or a Dylan thing, I suppose, that's natural for any singer songwriter on acoustic guitar, but it's also closer to sort of hillbilly or jug music... a jug/folk sort sound which we've tried to incorporate, even when we're playing the slowest beautiful songs that he writes, in some way we're trying to think how can we imagine, like a jug band, but playing slowly... singing like bubbles coming up through water, if you know what I mean. It's hard to explain, but that's the way we sort of approach it.
With Tex.
JM: You've also been doing a lot of work with Tex Perkins, whose music is also a kind of "country", but isn't traditional country or anything like the Maurice Frawley type country.
CO: No, well leading up to the first record I did with him, the "Tex, Don, Charlie" record... I think I might have done something with him before, but that record - no, that was the first record with him! - the Ringos had already established that sound and in a way the Ringos influenced that record a real lot too. Apart from anything else, Shane (Walsh) played the bass and he plays bass in the Ringos and every time he plays in a band he's instrumental in the sound of it, because he's such a potent appeal. I don't know if that's the best way I can put it. He doesn't play a lot, but it's really strong...
JM: He seems to have a pretty strong presence on stage, just from what I've seen when I've seen the band play.
CO: Yes and when he's playing on recordings you can always hear the way Shane plays, but it is another style of country. Since that, Tex and I have moved away from country and I use some of my electronic concepts in it, even when we're still using acoustic instruments, or in the recording process with Tex.
We've done two records and at the moment I'm in the middle of a third one with him, we're about to start recording. The first one was more or less like "Tex, Don, Charlie" in a way, but looser, a bit more rock, Dirty Three-esque, because it had Jim White and Warren Ellis in there and the second one was where we started getting away from the country. It had that loose sort of thing, but not going reggae or anything; not all rock, but we found a little path to follow and that's what the new one's doing, following that path. We're both quite happy, well I am. It was great last week, we were up there for a week at his place squashing the songs into... a rolled up piece of paper.
JM: Is he going to record them before you play them live, or is he going to take them out and try them live?
CO: We already did. We played a couple of gigs up there. We've played four of them live. I don't know about the rest. We're starting recording next week so some of them obviously... some we may make up in the studio. It's a process making a record, we're not some band who's been playing songs for a year and then "Let's go and record 'em".
The idea is to make music, it's not a... it's just another way of doing it. Not that any way's better than any other, it's just that there are different ways of doing it; they're all equally as valid. I'm just saying it's terrible to record a song after you've squashed all the life out of it by playing it in pubs for six months on a tour.
Sure you get it right and make it really pleasing, but it'll be down to the lowest common denominator; no little fun bits, no good bits, nothing to make you prick your ears up. Probably have a big hit! But it's not very interesting.
JM: Sometimes though music goes the other way. You'll hear a band's record and then you'll catch up with them after they've been playing the songs live for a year and all the songs have changed and blossomed and the band are wishing they'd played the songs longer before they recorded them.
CO: Yeah, but that's what I'm saying; it works both ways though. It can be the other way round. It's probably happened to lots of music that we know, that maybe originally was fabulous, but we know it now as this blech... and it happens a bit when you know of a band and "I used to love this song, I used to go see 'em..." and then you hear the song again on the radio and you think "This doesn't sound any good, maybe it's because it's on vinyl and not on CD, maybe it's because of this...". No, maybe it's because you used to see them live and there's something about the live music, early on before they recorded it.
There was one band in particular that I used to think of like that and that was the Sunnyboys. I used to love them early on live, but once the album came out it was all so tamed up and slicked down. Sure it was the biggest hit and showed the songwriting craft and all that crap, but you listen to it now and where is the spirit? Even though it is fantastic and you know I'm not criticising it, I'm just saying that from my memory before it was recorded, I loved it like that.
So anyway, it depends what music you make too and the music that we make, at the moment we're doing like this process where we get the songs, we rehearse them up like a band and go and play them or play them together and then go and record them and pull them apart, put them back together and hopefully, like the last album, they just end up sounding really quite simple and plain, but I don't know, you just... make the song fast for a while, then you make it... feast for a while, then you starve again it for a while; it's all different.
It's very good working at the moment with Tex, it's good fun, we're using all these different elements without actually trying to do any particular style, we've just found a style that we know we're trying to do; it's not morbid and slow, it's not fast and happy, you can't really call it anything like that, it's just that it's the thing we're doing. Yeah, it's acoustic based, but what's that got to do with anything? There's electric guitars just as much, synthesizers... that's why it's fun.
Tex Don and Charlie. Out of order. Because it's Don, Tex and Charlie in this promo shot.
JM: I noticed that when you're playing, the last couple of times I've seen you play with Tex, everyone in the band seems to be swapping instruments... you might move over to the keyboard and some else plays your guitar...
CO: Well that's got, in a way, a concept behind it. When we first started to do this, I didn't want to get this sound like... For instance we don't record with a bass player per se. Not anything against bass players, but we didn't want to have a bass player, or a drummer. In fact, I did the first tracks on the drums and some drums got put on after and sometimes we did get bass players in, but the idea was to not get this sound where that's this, that's that... So the band has the whole sound we wanted to create, not like... it's hard to explain it, but anybody who plays music has a way of playing music and rather than showing it [just] on their instrument, it would be more in their style on any instrument.
None of the music we play is any too hard for anyone to play, I mean one fingered piano playing... we all play at different moments anyway, so plunk plink plunk plunk plunk and we're just trying to put it all together, but I think that's good for the sound of the group, so then when it changes you can change the whole flavour and the whole taste, but it doesn't actually change.
Murray's playing the bass now instead of his guitar and he has a certain way that he pulls the time or whatever and no one has to notice this, but as an audience hopefully just at some point say, "Ah, I like this" or whatever. So it's about the live musical experience. In the studio it may not be happening like that. I mean I do a lot of the recording in the studio, or whoever happens to be there at the time. You want to do that bit... but live it's not like that; it's, "Hmm, who'd be good on this song?", or (laughing) "He doesn't like this song, so make him play that one!"
JM: Would you say then that the Tendrils shows and records that you've done are maybe tending towards the ultimate extension of that approach? It seems to me that when it's just you and Joel [Silbersher] and even when you add a drummer, there's a lot more experimentation and bouncing of musical ideas off each other and reflecting back off each other?
CO: Tendrils sounds like that, but in fact all that bouncing off each other is not in the playing. We've got that music to such a great place that it sounds like yeah we're bouncing off each other and reflecting, but really we're kind of playing the same thing all the time.
I've never really been in a band that plays that much exactly the same, but the emotion between each other changes dramatically. Some songs will be "whoo...er" and others'll be "er...ah", but it'll be the same physical notes we're playing. That's why it's really entertaining to play in that group because I know that sometimes when we add drums we go, "look we're doing it this way or that way, but no that bit's gotta be exactly the same". It's a bit like being in some daggy ‘80s pop band. Fuck, how did we get to this point, dammit? That's why we stopped playing... it got too far... (smiling) No, we do still do a few a gigs. It's good actually, but Joel's been working on his solo album, which he just finished last week and you know, I went techno, ruined everything...
JM: (chuckling) Well, I wouldn't say that.
CO: I don't know if you've seen any of the gigs I've done to date, but most of them have been really good fun. They weren't "gigs", because I started doing them on a Monday afternoon, starting at four o'clock and going to eight o'clock at the Duke of Windsor [Hotel].
JM: Was that the "Start Your Week Off On A Bad Note"?
CO: Yes and it was good, because I didn't do any "sets", I just started playing and sometimes I'd mix in a record, so I could have a break while the record was going and then "Oh, I like that bit of the song", so I'd go and join in with it and then mix it out and I'd play basically non-stop until about eight. Generally there was poetry after me, but a few times the poetry reading wasn't on.
A couple of times I played until 10.30 or 11 o'clock, seven hours and just keeping it going with no sets or songs and that's why it was rewarding, because what I'd set out to do was to get rid of this idea... It's all a bit of a wank, the rock performance and everything, even though it's a necessary wank I suppose, because it's what it is. Music also exists for everybody on another level, like this stuff in the background [referring to the light techno muzak being played over barroom P.A.], it doesn't all have to be shit too.
JM: So how do you feel generally about playing with other guitarists? In the New Christs you were on your own, but in most other situations where I've seen you play, there's often been another guitarist. Do you find it's good and/or interesting to trade ideas?
CO: In the New Christs, that was my decision. I said, "Look, yeah I'd like to do this, but I don't want the two guitarist thing". I have never really liked playing with another guitarist. That's why with Louis [Tillett] it's generally just me and him, sometimes with Penny [Ikinger], but Penny was more involved with the Wet Taxis side of Louis.
With acoustic guitarists it's different... in acoustic based music I don't approach it that way. I don't really like playing the dual lead and bouncing ideas across that much. I prefer just to be the only guitar player, unless it's an acoustic guitar strum thing where that's involved... Most of the times that's why the instruments change around in the Tex thing too, to keep it so it doesn't ever get to that point. Even though that point's fine.
I do actually do this gig with the Large Number Twelves, which is with three guitars, but in that band I just stand around until the lead break, which is lots of fun. They play right next to this bar, so I lean up next to the bar and then "here it comes", do bida do bida do do do [Charlie launches into some covert air guitar].
They exist in this world before punk rock existed. Wonderful, two brothers from up in Bendigo and they write these fantastic songs that are like a band would play if punk rock never happened. I guess it's like John Lennon-y, but not Beatles-y, Dylan-y, Stones. All that flavour, but they've got this sort of special thing, I don't know... they're hillbillies, but it's great because I just stand there next to the bar.
After I'd played dobro for ages I had to start playing electric guitar again. I think it was for the Beasts Of Bourbon and I hadn't played guitar for ages. I lived down the road from them and I said: "Can I come up on Sundays and just play some lead for a while, because I've got to get some practice?" and they said, "Yeah, no worries mate, that'll be fun" and suddenly, "Ooh, this is really good fun!", so I kept doing it and it's really good. We play at the same place on Sunday afternoons; when we go and play other places it doesn't seem to work as well, so we just stick there.
JM: Are you doing much "for hire" studio work at the moment, or is it mainly just with people you know?
CO: It's only ever with people I know. I've never done it otherwise. I suppose the only period was that early Melbourne period in the early to middle of the nineties, when all the solo albums got made. Spencer started his and I did mine, blah, blah, blah, I did a few, but that was all just with friends, that circle of friends that became known as the "Melbourne Music Mafia".
JM: I have heard that term.
CO: That scene around Atlantis Studios that all those people [were in] and everyone playing on each other's records... and it was great, fabulous, a fabulous time.
JM: I really liked your solo album ["Vertigo and Other Phobias"]. Is there any possibility that you'd go back and do something like that again?
CO: Well, when I play live I play a couple of those songs. "Cry" I still play exactly the same as on the album and "Wilt". I alter them a little just as anyone will with songs that are old. I don't think anything I do, even though I change forms and genres and all that, I don't think it is ever that different to the other thing, so when you ask me that question I go, "Yeah I'm playing that music all the time".
In my head, even when I'm sitting there playing with the Ringos, it might be the same as a New Christs solo in Spain where I threw my guitar into the audience. If it's coming from the same place, the style, the environment, the place is all secondary to me.
JM: Unfortunately, from my perspective of living in Sydney, you haven't been coming up and playing all that often recently. I guess breaking your arm has been a large part of the problem.
CO: Yeah, we had quite a few things. The Ringos had a few things going, I was coming up to play this electronic thing. I was going to be there for the Big Day Out, not doing the Big Day Out, but doing something at this little pub in Surry Hills, by myself, playing all day. I thought that was a good idea, because none of my friends could afford to go to the Big Day Out.
But then I broke my arm and all this stuff started happening, so it's only really been recently, like the one I played last week and that was the first time I'd done a full gig with my arm out of its cast, on the dobro with the Ringos, which is the one which is hard to play with that broken arm and the piano's been a bit tricky... it was a bit of a shock.
JM: So is there a chance we'll see you up in Sydney later in the year?
CO: Oh yeah, we're planning some Ringos trips. Tex'll probably play there, but I'd like to go up there with this other thing that I've been doing.
JM: I'm certainly keen to hear what it's actually like.
CO: The other thing is trying to find a place to play. Playing from four to eight on a Monday afternoon was perfect for it. It's not like an hour's set type thing, but it's not a dance party gig either, so it's a matter of working out...
That's why the Big Day Out thing was a good idea and hopefully it would have been pissing with rain! I'm trying to plan a rainy day, when everybody's out of town and some idiot wants to put on a gig. That's what I'm waiting for in Sydney. (laughing) Sounds like quite a common night in Sydney! I don't want to be a part of a "rock" night. I want to just put on one thing. I might bring up this other band with me from Melbourne...
JM: I'm more and more intrigued. I hope that works out.
CO: Yeah, I'll get it together.
JM: So what sort of gear do you use? Before you answer, I've got to warn you that I'm not that technically minded.
CO: Neither am I!
JM: Oh c'mon, now you're being too modest by far. Ken Shimamoto, the Bar's frontline reporter in the US (and the only competent musician on the fulltime staff) is very keen to learn what you use.
CO: I use all sorts of gear, for every different reason. My main electric guitar that I use is a Telecaster Deluxe, a black one; the brown ones are really awful. That might sound like a joke, but these guitars that I play, they're generally pretty unpopular. Hardly anyone used them. I think they were made for like three years, from '69 to '71 or something like that and all the brown ones I've touched are crap.
They've got that old stumpy, fat neck that's really horrible and I've never played another black one, but my black one is fantastic. So I've just come to this conclusion that all brown ones with the two humbuckers suck and all the black ones are good.
I bought that guitar when I was in the New Christs in about '85 or '86, really early on. We'd gone up to Brisbane and I was talking to some mates and I said, "I really want to buy a guitar" and he's gone, "I know this guy, he's got a guitar, an old Telecaster I think" and I've gone, "That's what I want. Ring him up and ask him if it's black". This was before I knew about the black and brown thing and he goes, "Yeah it's black". "Ask him how much!", "$450", "Shit. Okay, I'll buy it" and I went over there and bought it. I didn't really know much about... I don't know much about gear. What I'm saying is that I found that for that reason and it's turned out to be a great guitar.
That's my main guitar. I've got a couple of others, that and a beautiful old Vox, but it's not a normal Vox, it's got the old British Bulldog speakers in it and it's really heavy. In the New Christs I used these two old ‘63 and ’64 Marshalls, which were just beautiful. That's my main electric set up.
My lap steel is a beautiful old Rickenbacker, but it's a "Rickenbacher" R-i-c-k-e-n-b-a-c-h-e-r. His name was Aldo Richenbacher and he had to change his name when the Nazis came to power. I discovered it and that's an old guitar, but another one was given to me for producing a record from a friend and I lucked up on it and it's a beautiful old instrument.
My dobro: I had this money to go and pay Atlantis Studios and I walking up the street with Maurice, this was just after I'd met him, and I said to him, "I've got to get a dobro one day" and we walked past this music shop and there was this old dobro! I knew nothing about them, never really even played a dobro and bugger, look at that; looked at this money in my pocket; walked away; walked back; went in and bought the dobro; told the guy at the studio... and it was about a year later in the studio playing the dobro and he goes, "Jesus Charlie, I'm glad you never paid that bill!". That's an old 1932 dobro. Those are my main instruments.
JM: Do you use much in the way of pedals when you're paying electric?
CO: The ones I try to use are purely to boost and the traditional ones like a wah wah, but generally I'll do anything to create a sound if we're recording. Live if we have to get a sound, I'll do anything to get someone to create that sound for me. My passion for playing live is actually for playing the music, but I have no problem with that whatsoever. "That's a great idea, Joel! Plug your guitar through this and that and that and then let's do that!". So we use anything, whatever you need to get a sound.
I have no favourites, but I'm not fond of old fuzz pedals, because what happens if you want to get a different sound? If you want to get an old fuzz pedal, you can get an old fuzz pedal, but you've got to appreciate a sound on its own merits, rather than looking for a pedal. That's where it starts to come into fashion in my eyes. Even if it's not, in my eyes it is and I wouldn't want to be swayed.
JM: Sounds like you've got a real knack of attracting good instruments to you.
CO: Yeah, it's been great. I've got quite a few other things, like acoustic guitars and shit like that. There's a little other one, the red one, an all red acoustic that I play. I bought that really early on. That's another one that's a special guitar to me and I love it. Every time I play it in the studio it sounds fantastic, but other people play it and they break a string or something and they go, "Aw God Charlie this is a piece of shit, what in the hell is this?". Well, horses for courses, each to their own.
With Rob Younger on tour with the New Christs in Paris in 1989. Patrice Rollo photo.
JM: That actually reminds me of a story I heard from Didier Georgieff, about when you and Louis did that track for his "Storming the Citadel" tribute to Citadel Records.
CO: Yep, I remember that.
JM: He said there was a shitty looking old amp in the corner of the studio that no one wanted to use. A couple of people had plugged into it, but didn't like the sound they got and everybody else just looked at it and decided it was crap and they weren't going to touch it. When you and Louis arrived, you just walked up to it, plugged in, fiddled with the knobs for a few seconds and got the most marvelous sound out it, better than anyone else could get out of their own regular gear. So it's got more to do with the hands of the player than the instrument in those hands.
CO: Yeah, my "thing" is in my hands, which is why when I broke my wrist it was a bit frightening. I've pursued that my whole life. I'm aware I can get a sound, but it's only the sound that I want and that suits me. It might not be right for somebody else.
With the guitar swapping in Tex's band and in other bands, when it gets round to "Which guitar will I use?", it's generally "I'll use Murray's" and it's not out of respect for me or my instrument, it's more like, "It's a bit hard to play that one, it always sounds so crappy". Hopefully it is in my hands; that's good if it works that way.
I remember that session though. It was a lot of fun and what was great about it was having Rob Younger produce it. We were doing a New Christs song ["Headin' South"] that we never really nailed on the [original] recording, so that was very funny with Rob producing it.
JM: At the end of the session, didn't he say something like "Charlie, why didn't you play like that when we tried to record it?"
CO: I don't think that was my fault back then...
JM: So what made you pick up a guitar and start playing at the very beginning and when was the beginning?
Chris Clow photo.
CO: I was very young. My Dad played the piano and my Mum was a painter. We had music and art around us our whole lives. I was the youngest at that stage and the girls were painting and singing. They're both painters. Dad had shown me a couple of things on the piano, just mucking around... this is how you play a "C" chord; if you can work that out, then you can work out what a "D" chord is.
Basically really early he said the right thing to me. He's not a teacher or anything, he's a captain in the navy, but he said the right thing to me to make me work out the basic maths of the piano, so I played piano first.
Then my sister bought one of those guitars with a book saying "Three Easy Lessons". I think she did the first lesson, then she chucked the guitar downstairs and I found it down there one day and I just started mucking around. I was really, really young, like eight or nine, pretty young, and I started learning it straight away. Dad showed me a few chords and then next day I think I said, "No, you play it this way...". It was just like straight away.
Then we had our first band called the Hot Dogs. Me and this mate from down the road did a concert for our parents. We played "Walk, Don't Run", but I could only play the derm de de derm de de derm de de derm derm, that's all. We did that bit round and round, a bit like a loop (see I've always been into this loop business).
I didn't pick up the guitar or start playing rock music or anything for any reason. It was just that I was brought up that way. It was sort of weird. You'd go down to the beach on the weekend with Mum and she'd bring out the things and we'd have to paint pictures down there. Jesus how embarrassing, when all my friends were off trying to find cigarette butts to smoke and that... painting bloody pictures, but that was just what we did.
Then I moved to Canberra and there was an older friend at school who was kinda good at guitar and he used to help me play and then we used to go to the folk clubs and play there when we were about 12 or 13. There was a place in Canberra called the Griffin Centre, it's still there now. I think they still have little youth club things going on. We'd go there and drink green ginger wine outside. They were right, what they said about music - it leads to no good. Thankfully!
JM: Did you have any particular influences along the way? Did you hear other guitarists and think, "I'd like to be able to play like that"?
CO: No, the influences have been generally bits of people's music. Probably the most major influence is the way John Coltrane plays a ballad. You could pick any of them, as long as there isn't a singer with him. That and Django Rhienhardt's irreverence, whereas John Coltrane's reverence... those two things have probably been the biggest influence.
In rock music there hasn't really been much, except "Oh, I like that song", "I like that bit". I don't have a favourite record. Sometimes I'll like records, but those are the two things that have always stuck with me. There are no guitarists that I would say, "Ah, I love every minute of it!". It would be easier for me to name a piano player that I like every minute of than a guitarist, mainly because I've played piano just as long as I've played guitar.
I became a guitarist by default really, because when I moved to Brisbane from Canberra I got there and didn't know anybody and just sat around in my room playing guitar. I was a bit lonely really and then one day in the music class they said, "Everyone bring in your instrument, whatever you can play", so I took my guitar in and on the way to school...
I didn't like anyone there and no one really liked me; I thought it was straight and fucked... and down the back of the school bus (because I had to get on the fucking school bus right at the beginning of the bus route; it was horrible and I hated it) I was sitting there playing my guitar and I met this guy who was the saxophone player in the Ringos when I moved to Melbourne (who since doesn't really like me any more because he claims I sacked him from the Ringos, which I kinda did; he kept singing in Maurice's ear and playing saxophone solos too much, but he was a naturally talented guy and a great friend... but everything changes...).
JM: Sounds like music very much comes first with you.
CO: Yeah and it's a shame that some things get fucked up. I didn't even realise at the time that that was what was happening. Later I realised and oh yeah, oops... So anyway, I met him and no one else at school could play guitar at all and they're trying to put this band together and "Yeah, I'll do it, I can play". I sort of ended up being a guitar player.
I think I'm basically adept at music, I don't see myself as a particularly good guitar player. If I have to learn things, sometimes it takes me a long time. Maybe it's just that what I see as to be a good guitar player is different to what others see. It's not technical proficiency I'm after, it's being able to go straight from my ears to be able to express it without pause, which is I guess the Coltrane thing. Spontaneous improvisation; it can be so deep and emotional, yet say on Django's side so hysterically funny and disrespectful and fuck you at the same time.
JM: So what was your first actual rock'n'roll band?
CO: Well, the Hot Dogs.
JM: [sound of gentle rustling of papers] I'm going to cheat a little, I downloaded a couple of bibliographies off the internet.
CO: Well you won't get much off the internet about me. It's all wrong. I went through it the other day, all that stuff, I've got to update it all... What does that say?
JM: Ninja Skill.
CO: That was a rock band up in Brisbane I joined. The singer was like an Elvis Costello kind of character. They were friends of mine. I was mainly working in theatre up there and jazz; I had my jazz groups and improvisation groups. One was even called Om, that's how into Coltrane I was ("Om" being a Coltrane album), but it stood for Original Music Ensemble actually. That was my little play on words because I was a really clever teenager...
Those are my first formative groups, those improvised groups, with Mark Symonds who was living in Sydney. He was a legendary Sydney saxophonist, the most incredible jazz musician this country will ever produce. He's an incredible musician, really great; don't know where he is now. I lost track of him.
Those were my first groups. Up there, there was also this other thing called the Fabulous Dingo Family. That was just after Azaria got taken and we supported Norman Gunston at his concert... We did all sorts of things. In those days we weren't really considered rock.
It was after the rock period of Brisbane, in this sort of dip area, where a lot of people had left and moved to Sydney and a lot of jazz was going on and theatre and stuff, but no one considered... there wasn't that much the idea of going to the studio and making records or anything, it was more like just doing stuff and being more proactive rather than... in some ways we never really considered it, which is always a shame now in retrospect, but it was the environment my group was in. I wasn't involved with the rock crowd up there at all really, rather the theatre crowd and the jazz scene.
Then I moved to Sydney and the first album proper I did, apart from little things up in Brisbane, was a compilation album for this girl called Meera Atkinson, who was a poet, which was produced by Rob Younger and it had like Ron Peno, me, Louis, Brett Myers...
JM: Just about everyone who was on Citadel at the time.
CO: Yeah and that's when I met Rob and Rob said, "Do you want to join this band?" and I said, "What band?" and he said, "It's called the New Christs". I'd barely even heard of Radio Birdman. I still don't remember even the band I saw last night, the name of it, I almost purposely never really take them in, but I've since realised that I had seen New Race on their tour up there. So that's how I met them. In a way, really the New Christs was my first rock band.
With Lous Tillett on the cover of their "MIdnight Rasin" album.
JM: Where does Paris Green fit in?
CO: I was in Paris Green before that, yeah I suppose Paris... but then if I go back to Brisbane, Ninja Skill, but before Ninja Skill there was the Truck Driving Gurus and before the Truck Driving Gurus there was Dave and the Spectators, which was another group.
Actually we nearly won the Queensland rock awards. We were doing this really obscure, fabulous song and we were rocking on and it was all going great. We got in the finals doing this song and this guy's gone, "Let's sign 'em up, sign 'em up" and then he goes, "Oh, it's a cover? Aw fuck 'em". Somebody heard this conversation and it was like, "Oh damn, we missed our big break". God, thank goodness! It was a fun band though.
I've been playing music my whole life. I had bands in high school, junior school, primary school. There was a school band and I convinced the teacher to let me have this little room for band rehearsals. I've just always done it. I was putting on concerts for my folks as a kid. I've just always done it.
JM: So where does Tango Bravo fit into all of this?
CO: Never heard of them.
JM: [after what is termed in the classics a "pregnant pause", during which we stared eye to eye at each other and the temperature in the room seemed to go down a couple of degrees] Someone has assured me that he's got a picture sleeve featuring your name and youthful visage on it (and you're the only band member who doesn't look like a new romantic).
CO: I was tripping that day. It was my birthday. I was playing a lot with Tony Buck in those days, when I'd just moved to Sydney and I was very poor. He was in this commercial pop thing. He used to like all sorts of funny music that guy. He said, "Do you want to do this stuff or not?" and I said, "Yeah, I'll do it" and I was just doing it, this horrible pop music. We'd do supports for the Venetians.
Tony and I were friends and I didn't think about it, I didn't even care really and then it got to this point where there was going to be an appearance on “Countdown” and this five grand we'd all been promised had never shown up and I think we only did a couple of gigs, but we'd gotten some deal to make a single and I just went, "No, this shit's too much". I suddenly realised "No way, I'm outta here" and I left 'em in the lurch. It was pretty funny really.
JM: So how did you find working in the Paris Green environment? I guess that must have been right up your street, with people continually dropping in and improvising.
CO: There was a core band. There was Louis Tillett singing, the late but wonderful Jaime Fielding playing piano/keyboards (he'd just gotten the DX7 in those days and it was very flash - you could run your finger along the change of setting while he was playing a solo), Raoul Hawking playing the bass and Louis Burdett, another brilliant musician, playing the drums. That was kind of the band. It had started before, with Greg Jordan playing guitar and Diane [Spence] playing sax and then there was this big period where I joined.
It was a band; there are a couple of recordings around of a few things, there's two I know of, maybe one on Louis [Tillett's] retrospective ["To Ride A Dead Pony"], one on "A Minute To Midnight" [a long out of print compilation on Adrenalin Records].
JM: A band played as Paris Green a couple of years ago...
CO: Well Paris Green was always a collective, anyone could do it, but there was this period when that was the core line up, but yeah, we'd take pride in it if we could go through a whole gig without actually playing when everybody would sit in. We could get drunk for the whole night. Also, it generated some great music on Monday nights there at the Sandringham. It'd be packed with people out on the street. That's another one where the stage is right up next to the bar.
JM: Everybody gets misty eyed about the Sandringham, but I always thought it was a terrible place to see music, especially if you were stuck right up the back, as I always seemed to be.
CO: Yeah, a real misery.
JM: There was that bar right in the middle and the bar staff were always in the way and other punters were always in the way...
CO: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was horrible, but we played some great music there. Mainly between Louis and Louis and I, we just had some great nights. Just the highest energy, but coolest drumming. He can play like...
We had this one band, Louis [Burdett] and I once, called Impropop (he comes up with the worst names). It was kind of trying to do techno I guess and he used to play these beats, no changes and so hard and the kick drum changing like when they're mixing a record where it's out of time like bup pa bup pa, that sort of sound and he'd be hammering it so hard... fuck, no one can do that; it was just fabulous!
No one liked us of course and we were all tripping the whole time; we never got any gigs and got booted out of places, but it was fun for about three or four gigs. That was a great time in Sydney when you could do those things at those different little venues here and there and it was really good.
Singalong with Charlie. Studio 150 photo.
JM: People look back on that period now and just seem to see "pub rock" and "Aus rock" (or "Oz rock"), but it was so much broader.
CO: Oh yeah, this was far away from the pub rock scene. I'm talking about the upstairs place on the corner of Taylor Square, down in Whitlam Square, the Black Cat or something, which was really just a little room.
Those sorts of places or some disco at the Cross that decided "Hmm, let's put on bands" and we'd get a gig there and no one would show up and it'd be dodgy and weird and we'd play this great music and the few people that would be there would be a part of this whole scene; later they'd be in bands themselves. It's all good productive stuff that and it's a shame that people don't want to have empty gigs.
JM: Surely some people find it disheartening if they're only playing to a handful of people, like their girlfriends and a couple of workmates.
CO: We were more on a "we're pioneers" attitude. I remember Diane Spence going through this period where she decided to give up saxophone and play electric violin. We had violin, guitar, Tony Buck playing the drums and somebody else playing percussion. I don't think we had a bass player. Looking back on it now, God that must have been fabulous music; maybe it was terrible, but the idea of going out and doing it was really good. No pop songs, not even an idea that maybe it would get played on Triple J. Fuck that. If I was in a rock band I'd go "Fuck Triple J, I'll play for my own enjoyment", because that's the way I used to feel in those days about things.
JM: Isn't part of the trouble today that people hear Triple J and think that's what music is, that's what you're meant to be playing if you want to be a musician?
CO: They're just part of the system, everybody is, but let's not get into that...
JM: So, none of those gigs was ever recorded? No one ever thought of plugging a cassette into the mixing desk and taking a copy for reference; just to see how it sounded?
CO: Nope, nope. Lenny Bastiaans is the only one who used to do stuff like that, like record gigs, but Lenny and Louis [Burdett] had an on and off relationship, so half the time one wouldn't show up or it'd end up with Louis trying to punch him with his cymbal so to speak, like hitting the cymbal right next to his ear, so it'd just deteriorate into just crap, but that was also part of the flavour of that time too.
JM: About that last Paris Green gig I mentioned a while ago, that was Louis Tillett, Louis Burdett, Dianne Spence, Floyd Vincent on guitar and I think Raoul was the bass player. The reason I mentioned it was that they were also flogging off a CD EP that consisted of five songs done in a studio in about 1986 I think, including a couple that were re-recorded for Louis's later solo albums.
CO: Jeez I wish I had that. That's actually a pretty good recording I reckon. I know that one. Yeah, that's right, there is that around. It's got "I'm Down" on it. It's probably got that Allen Toussaint song we do, "On Your Way Down". It's all pretty down, I'm down, on your way down... "Parchman Farm", is probably on there.
JM: "Persephone's Dance" is on there. [the actual track listing is: I'm Down, Parchman Farm, Buzzard Luck, Shotgun Blues, Persephone's Dance]
CO: "Persephone's Dance"... yeah, that's a good studio recording, Diane's really howling on that one; that's a ripper. I've been listening to Alice Coltrane a bit lately. I can't help thinking about Yoko and John and Alice and John and how successful Alice was with holding the flame and how awkward it's been with Yoko. Nothing against Yoko, it's just been awkward for her and both of these men seen as spiritual kind of figures...
But anyway, I thought about that because Diane Spence is the only person I know who can capture that Pharaoh Sanders sound. Most of the time, if you can't play like Pharaoh Sanders, it sounds like blech, but somehow he can make it fluid and beautiful and she can do this too.
JM: Yeah, it's a pity she's been keeping a low profile lately. She hasn't been playing around town for a coupe of years.
CO: No.
JM: So you'd moved down to Sydney, you'd met up with Rob Younger, been invited to join the New Christs...
CO: They said, "All we're doing is making this record and going over and doing a tour of Europe. It'll only take six or seven months" and I said, "Yeah, I'll do that".
JM: So was that a full album they were talking about at that time?
CO: No, that's when we did the first singles. We did "The Black Hole" and "Addiction", then the double single with "Dropping Like Flies", "I Swear", all that stuff... It was those recordings; on the strength of that. But Louis [Burdett] quit before we went, which was a shame, but then Nick Fisher joined which was fabulous because he was really good, but the first recording we did with him wasn't very successful. That was the song that Rob and I ended up... it wasn't because of him, it was just that we hadn't settled in as a group. So he came with us overseas, then we did the "Distemper" album, went overseas again, and again and again, then went to Spain...
JM: You toured almost every year.
CO: Yeah, yeah and at the same time I was recording with Louis [Tillett] and going over there with Louis as well and at the same time touring with the Divinyls, to support this music habit. The Divinyls were great actually. Of all the Oz Rock bands, they were great. She [Christina Amphlett] was fabulous, some gigs we did were unreal.
JM: But after that first album it was really just Christina and Mark McEntee.
CO: Even before that it was really Mark's, though I guess Bjarn [Ohlin, keyboards and guitar] at the beginning also had a lot to do with it.
JM: So how did you end up playing with them?
CO: By accident. They were doing a couple of gigs in Sydney and they couldn't afford to fly this guy Dwayne out from L.A. So Chrissie goes to the manager, "I want a guitar player. All I care is that he's short and blonde". They rang up Floyd Vincent and Floyd couldn't do it for some reason and Floyd goes, "Aw, tell Charlie to go, he'll be alright", so they sent me along.
I'd been up all night the night before and I go over in this Mercedes Benz to this big house over there and meet these two. They're eying me over and I don't know what's goin' on here so I said to their manager, "Gimme a tape and I'll go out and sit in your car out the front". So I go out the front, put the tape in and promptly fall fast asleep. I told this to Chrissie and they go, "Oh yeah, he'll do for these gigs and then we'll get rid of him", but they liked me and I got on famously with Chrissie straight away and Mark is a very good guitar player and musician, so we hit it off on that level and I played with them all the way through then, except for a couple of times when I couldn't do a few gigs and they'd have to get someone else as sort of their live M.D. It was great fun.
JM: They haven't played for a few years now, although I don't remember ever seeing a formal announcement that they were breaking up.
CO: No, their last tour was when I was on tour with the Beasts [Of Bourbon]. I'd left them because the Beasts had done a record and then we were on tour. I recorded their last album.
JM: So that was 1996?
CO: Earlier than that I think, '95. No '96, maybe you're right. That album ["Underworld"] wasn't very successful and it was a pretty crappy album. I played on it. It wasn't crappy, but it didn't... I dunno, but I'm still in touch with Chrissie, I see her quite regularly.
JM: Are they still thinking of doing music or have they gone onto other things completely?
CO: Aw no, Chrissie works on music over in the States with Charlie [Drayton] and recording and toying with this and that. She's not doing the theatre thing anymore. I reckon it would be great if the Divinyls did a tour. I don't see any problem with it, it's not like we ever broke up anyway.
JM: It's funny, a lot of groups are like that. They never officially break up, they just stop doing stuff together in public.
CO: Well, it was a full on few years for that group really and it was great. I reckon it would be great to do it again anyway. I'd have no problems about that. If I was doing a tour with Tex I would have to do that tour. Not that there's a hierarchy or anything, but some things are more important than others. I mean, with Divinyls I never wrote any of their music or anything like that; I was part of their live world..
JM: So the Beasts Of Bourbon thing that you went on with, did that come about because you already knew Tex?
CO: Yeah, basically. He wanted to do something and Kim [Salmon] didn't want to do it; they said, "Do you want to do it?" and I said, "Sure, it'll be fun" and I did and it was great.
JM: Pretty much everyone in the Beasts has ended up in Melbourne, although most of them first made their mark in Sydney... Or had people started moving to Melbourne already by then?
CO: Well, it was a Sydney thing at the beginning because Spencer P. Jones was living there and Kim had come over from Perth.
JM: And Tex had come down from Brisbane.
CO: Yeah and there were other people involved early on that were Sydney people, so it was more a Sydney thing at first. It was only a Melbourne thing later because everyone ended up down here. I didn't know Tex in Brisbane or Sydney. We met and became friends later.
The first time I met Tex properly was when I was on tour with the New Christs, in Stockholm I believe, and the Beasts Of Bourbon and the New Christs played this gig together. That was a good night, a fabulous night! Spencer's still got a bottle of "Black Death" from that night. That was all good, but it all ended in tears. You know... as all great rock bands should.
JM: At least you got a fair number of overseas trips out of it!
CO: Out of music? Sure.
JM: What was the best band to tour with?
CO: Every tour is fraught with danger. It doesn't matter who you go with or what happens, all sorts of adventures happen. It doesn't matter whether you're going to Sydney for the weekend. So it's impossible to say.
I've been on tours where it's all been laid on and other tours where there's been nothing laid on. They're not better for any reason. Some of the best tours we do, generally most years, the Ringos pack all our stuff into a van and we go up to Hervey Bay [in Queensland] and play a couple of nights up there and that's fantastic and then we just slowly dribble back down the coast.
The second Tex, Don, Charlie tour was great fun. It's all part of a life really. Otherwise you'd start complaining about things when things aren't good. I'm not really into that whole complaining about... You're right, I got a lot of trips overseas and that was great. There's good and bad that goes with being in music for a long time. You can't always expect to be successful. If you're striving to be a star and that's what you're going for then fuck, go for it, but music's what I chose to do. It's not like, "Oh well, it's not working very well now, I'll go and get a job". I couldn't anyway; I've never had one.
JM: Outside of music?
CO: Nope, so I'd be sort of fucked really.
JM: I was thinking more in terms of taking your music overseas to different audiences. Which ones gave the best reactions or connected with the music the most?
CO: Aw, it's impossible to say. I'd say "Louis & Charlie" have done some particularly special gigs. There's a couple in particular I can remember, one of them being the show we did at the Metro a long time ago, where we had a whole line up of people with us.
I don't know if you remember this gig. It started off with, I think, Noah Taylor solo, Conway Savage and Suzie Higgie [ex-Falling Joys], the Cruel Sea instrumental... it was all put together in the last week before. It was our record launch and I got Chrissie and Mark to do this song from the Divinyls and it was a whole bunch of different songs and a friend of mine, Bronstantine Karlarka from the Wet Taxis, played a classical piece, you know that Sam and Dave, no not Sam and Dave, (sings) "She was a rich cunt...", anyway a very vulgar piece of music that was excellent. That was a particularly special night. I don't have a cultural cringe at all!
Then there was another one I remember particularly of Louis and me in Berlin, but not because it was Berlin or anything, it was just a particularly special performance. There's other ones which have been like say the Greyhound here, which was just as good as Tex, Don, Charlie's biggest shows. I don't have a favourite, it's so different from night to night in any band.
One night you might be thinking, "This is the greatest!"; next night, "Fuck what happened, how come this is all so distant?". So I couldn't say, because they are all so different that it's a different reaction that you're getting or trying to get. I've had horrible tours though. It's easier to say which were the real shit ones, but I'm not going to say that. None of them really are, there's good things in most; if you choose to do it, otherwise don't do it.
JM: Do you find though that there is generally a difference or not a difference? When you play here then over a period you must end up playing to the same people, so they know you and they know your music, whereas overseas it can be night after night of fresh audiences.
CO: It doesn't take long to realise that it's the same people over there too. It's a small place this world, but the other thing is I play with my eyes closed so I can't tell. I'm saying that as a joke, but in a way my eyes are closed. I don't always play here to the same people,
I'm constantly moving around and playing other places. I don't really find that a problem, in fact I'd like it if we played the same place every week and the same people came along. Paris Green was a bit like that, the music could be so different that we could be a million miles away next week from the week before. Even though we were doing the same songs for like ten years. It's not like we were "jazzing" them, it was just different, whatever we felt like without being "jazzy" about it. Jazz has got a bad name, a bit like techno.
JM: Yeah, but even people who don't like jazz will say that it's cool, whereas techno... if you don't like it there's no qualms about saying it's crap.
CO: It's funny now as you walk past shops it's coming out [the door] and it's like, "Are you guys still playing techno?". It'll get like that soon and then they'll be on a similar level with old school rock'n'roll! Old school rock'n'roll, jazz and techno!
JM: Are you still doing "Start Your Week Off On A Bad Note"?
CO: Not at the moment, because I'm working on Tex's record. That'll take up about the next month I guess and within that time I won't be doing anything else, but when I've finished that and come back, I'll do some more of those in Melbourne and hopefully Sydney and completing the album I'm going to do, which should be fun. It's going to be a mixture album, but that's yet to be done. I've got half of it recorded, that's what I've used live, these tracks I've recorded; and mix them and break them up. The other elements will be just guitar - a music record.
JM: You were also doing something at one stage with "Feldon's Music Club".
CO: That's a club me and my girlfriend put on and it's based along these lines we've been talking about. It's a bit like when you're sitting around with your friends and going, "I wish there was a place where we could go and see that". It's a bar that's generally not open, it's not like a hang for anybody, there aren't regulars there or anything. It's normally a sort of disco, a suburban disco, but it's a great little room and the guy who runs it is good and it's got this little DJ booth and a little stage with lights. It's a mixture. We put on bands who haven't played yet, but it's not a forum for new bands.
I did my first live techno there, my first proper electronica one I should say, and Shane Walsh's new band and Kylie [Greer], my girlfriend who runs the club, she played solo; she'd never played piano live before. We have a DJ, Kylie's sister Lani, who normally does sort of techno/house DJing at house parties, rent raves and all that. She's got into this whole idea too, so she got into this trying to play slow without being "chill", so it's got this sort of flavour and Brian Hooper, he did his first gigs there and he did like the same song three times: once by himself, once with a backing track and once with someone else playing guitar.
You know, it's experimental but it's an interesting night out and the other night we had a launch of three independent videos. People don't play long sets, there's no demand to play 45 minutes. It's a night to go and see stuff. It's interesting, but not loud, although it can be sometimes. It's just an anti-rock gig, but without it being a lounge bar. It's not comfy or anything, it's cold and it's got a concrete floor! It's got this good light that flashes around randomly.
Sometimes we put on movies, if the band's a bit boring. It's really good fun. We've done about five or six of those and they've all been interesting.
JM: Do you also still play regularly, or semi-regularly, on Sunday nights?
CO: That's the Large Number Twelves, the band that exists before punk rock.
JM: It sounds like you're going out and making lots of opportunities for you (and everyone else) to try different things.
CO: I'm not trying to, I'm just "do". When nothing's happening I just go, "Fuck, I'm bored. I better go and do something", because I need to do something, not because I'm trying to raise my profile or anything. I'd rather go and play on Sunday with the Large Number Twelves than sit at home and watch "Big Brother" (not that I'd ever watch "Big Brother"), although the National Geographic channel can be pretty good on a Sunday...
JM: Aside from the next Tex Perkins album, what else do you see on the horizon
CO: After Tex's album, there's my album and then the Ringos will be making a new album. Before the end of the year, all those three should be completed.
JM: Are the Ringos actually signed with anyone at the moment?
CO: Not currently, no.
JM: Pity. The last time they came though Sydney I didn't buy any of their albums at the gigs and I'm regretting it now, because they don't seem to be in any of the indie shops either.
CO: Well, we're in a difficult situation because we're signed with a label that's just been very unhelpful, to put it politely. I'd like to get all the records and put them out in a little indie box set, make it cheap and find a label that would like to put out our music. People love us all over the place, we can go and play in the smallest towns in Australia and people come up and go, "Oh the Ringos, fabulous".
When you talk about some of the great gigs, the Ringos have done these gigs where people come up to you and say, "God, I was going to kill myself last week...", you always hear those sort of stories, but when they come to you, it's beautiful.
The Ringos will always have a little place to play, even though we have internal problems like a family. We have our struggles, but between Shane and Maurice and Des and I it's pretty good, we all love it for the same reasons, but it would be good to have a label. I can't understand why all the labels baulked at us last time, so then we're on this little label which can only get rid of about ten records anyway and then other labels are approaching us now going, "Well, you didn't sell many last time", but that's not because... it's very difficult.
JM: So the number you've sold isn't any measure of the how many people might have bought them if they'd had the chance.
CO: Yeah, that was our problem. It was the worst example of independent record company dealings I've ever... and I've been on independent record labels my whole life, except for one or two, but God, it was outrageous.
JM: I won't make the mistake of letting 'em go past the next time around.
CO: There's a few still around. Empire was the label and you can still find a few. I don't know where. I can't even face the people there, I'm so pissed off about what they did, they way they dealt with it and everything, but I don't want to badmouth them... we were probably ready for a different sort of deal from what they were able to offer.
JM: On a lighter note then, Paul Kelly's got a song called "Charlie Owen's Slide Guitar".
CO: [muttering under his breath] Aw, Jesus...
JM: What do you think about being immortalized in that way?
CO: The first time I got asked that question, I must have been a bit pissed I guess. I said, "I don't need a fuckin' song to get immortalized!", but I was only joking when I said that. Maurice and I were doing a gig supporting Paul and Spencer at the Bendigo Town Hall, quite a long time ago.
Maurice and I drove up in the back of some friend's car and we did our gig, then they were going up to do their gig; it was just those two and us two, no band or anything. Just one of those gigs at the town hall, very funny gigs those gigs. We were downstairs backstage and waiting through their set. We started drinking and all that and then they came down after their set and they started drinking too because it was one of those cold nights, audience wise and everything.
So we all settled down dreading the drive back to Melbourne, all sitting downstairs getting pissed. Then the guitars came out and we all started playing songs. Spencer goes, "Paul, play the new song". Paul goes, "Nah, nah". "Paul, play the new song". "Nah, nah, nah". "Paul, play the new song". "Alright". Then they start playing this song, so I run out and get my guitar, thinking, "Paul's playing a new song, I'll get my dobro" and I run back in and he's singing this song about me going and getting my guitar and you know...
I was only half listening and I thought, "Ah, they're taking the piss out of me, the pricks. Fuck you, I'll sit here and play my slide guitar", so I start playing this big lead break over the top of it. Then we moved on and he played the song and I basically took very little notice and just thought they were taking the piss out of me; it's not the first time someone's taken the piss out of me.
It wasn't until a couple of days later that someone said to me, "Do you know what was going on there the other night, Charlie?" and I said, "When we were getting pissed and they were taking the piss out of me, the bastards?".
"No, Paul's written this song about you". I said, "No, no, no, no. We were just sitting around making up lyrics and stuff". "No, he has written this song about you". "Really?" Then he rang me up and said Charlie, blah, blah, blah and I said, "Well you have to live with it, not me!".
I am very flattered. I'm very fond of Paul; he's a wonderful, wonderful guy. I admire him in many ways as well. He's wonderful, a wonderful human and yeah, I was flattered and touched, too.
Anyway, people have songs written about them all the time, but it's generally about how much drugs they do and how fucked up they are, so on that level I thought it was good, although Spencer told me that they were over in America playing on tour and someone came up and said, "My God, has Charlie Owen died?". "No". "Well, why'd you write a song about him then?".
JM: I guess people might take it more than one way.
CO: But there's a story in there. It's more about him than anything else; he just happens to use my name. [with mock indignation] Using my name to get famous, that's all he's doing!
JM: There's one band on this list I dragged off the internet that I see we haven't covered yet and that's Catfish.
CO: That's Don Walker. I've known Don since back playing with Wet Taxis or Paris Green. I know, I sat in with Wet Taxis at the Piccadilly Hotel one day. Don had always been a friend of Louis [Tillett], because he lived down the road from where Paris Green played before I was in it [before the move to the Sandringham]. Paris Green used to play from 12 [midnight] to 5 [am] Friday, Saturday nights in the Cross.
So I always used to go along and see Louis and like Louis, being a piano player himself, and then he asked me if I wanted to do some playing and I've been friends with him ever since and I've played on quite a few of his records here and there and on live tours. I don't play with him as his guitarist, I just do things occasionally with him. He's a good friend and another person who's a good guy.
He comes from a different approach to music, like Paul. Most of my friends who I admire in that sense do. I don't seek out like minded beings, you're sure to be disappointed. Anyway, Catfish was the name of his band, but then he changed it to "Don Walker", which is much better. I did a recording with him not so long ago, a couple of songs for his new album. I only do sessions now for people I know basically.
You know one you've missed out on?
JM: No, who, which?
CO: I did a period playing with Rene Geyer.
JM: Jeez, Rene Geyer? I didn't know that.
CO: That was the fun-est of all; it was great! We went up to Broome and Port Hedland and Mt Tom Price in a little car. Her and me and Bruce Haymans on keyboard. It was fabulous, a mixture between Tendrils, Louis & Charlie and Rene's soul thing.
We did some great gigs. It's weird, the first one we did she had an acoustic gig booked and decided, "Charlie, would you like to play with me?". "Yeah, sure Rene, that would be an experience", and we were meant to have some other person play with us and then he ended up not being able to play and I said, "Rene, I'll be right, I can play by myself, I'll just rock out", and I took my electric guitar along and a little amp and she just had her vocals and she goes, "Are you sure this is going to be alright?", "Yeah, let's go!" and I just played like I was playing full on with a big rock band and she was soul funkin' her way out like she does and it was a marriage made in heaven, it was a wonderful gig.
We'll do one of those again one day, just guitar and her singing. Reminded me of Louis and I when we'd do gigs occasionally, with just guitar and just him singing; I played heavy guitar, not "lite" guitar; using the jazz idea of playing the bass, but still playing like the left hand is a rock guitar, the right hand is a noise guitar.
JM: I don't think I've actually seen you and him [Louis] playing without him playing the keyboards.
CO: Mainly at Paris Green gigs we'd do that and down at the Pismo Bar we used to do it a bit, when that was running, more because he'd be "I don't feel like playing piano"...
JM: It's a funny thing, but it seems to me that if there's ever another piano player in the room then he's very happy for him/her to play and he just sing. He's got a great voice as well.
CO: It's also hard in that style of music, with big solos all the time, and he's not really a soloist, he plays his feel and sings. It was good when we did a few Paris Green gigs where he'd have piano and Jamie would have a keyboard, that was a good way to do it. Then after the guitar solo, he wouldn't have to go into a piano solo; not that he can't play, he'd just been singing and it's meant to go around, so another soloist was always good. He's in Greece at the moment, touring with the Dirty Three, like a double bill.
JM: I knew he'd gone overseas, but I thought he was going to Germany to promote his new album first, or perhaps he's doing that later.
CO: Germany and Greece are his main areas, but he's living in Greece. It's just a flight there [to Germany], but at the moment he's traveling around regional Greece with the Dirty Three, which would be wonderful. They've done quite a few. On their first trip over there, we gave them a few gigs with "Louis & Charlie" and it was just great. They did another one with us there, with the Bad Seeds, in Athens and Thessalonica.
That'd be great round there, I reckon the Greek people would really love that, because a lot of people there really love Louis and the Dirty Three. They've latched onto them quite quickly, relative to say Germany.
JM: So I guess that brings us pretty much up to date then?
CO: It's funny, it's been the quietest six months of my whole career, mainly because of my broken arm, but also because I went into this electronic thing. It was a bit like doing a solo project again, I didn't outwardly go and try to do any other sort of music. The Ringos haven't been playing much, or Tendrills, which are the ones that generally I keep bubbling along.
You missed a couple of good records though, like the Conway Savage album. Have you heard the last Conway Savage album, "Nothing Broken"? It's fabulous. We were going to go on a tour around Europe. We were about to leave on September the 19th or something and then that silly shit happened...
And that unfortunately is where the tape ran out. Like some degenerate boy scout, I had come well prepared with plenty of extra blank tapes (not to mention spare batteries, a back up microphone, a screwdriver, a clean hankie and a combined bottle opener and corkscrew), but Charlie decided that he'd done enough talking on the record for one day and wouldn't let me slip a new tape into the machine.
Normally we end a Bar interview by asking what the interviewee prefers to drink, but since Charlie had been drinking Guinness when I arrived and had stuck to it throughout the interview, his preference was obvious. So I bought him another one and we chatted for a while longer, but off the record; posterity's loss was definitely my gain.
