Vale Rocking Horse. .. .

Ad from Ratsack fanzine : vol2-crastak .page 24 circa '82

Sad news that Rocking Horse records may be closing down soon. :(
http://www.couriermail.com.au/entertainment/iconic-record-shop-rocking-horse-put-out-to-pasture/story-e6freq7f-1226083470847
I think that there are a couple of key ingredients every city needs to maintain a healthy live music industry. People who want to (and can) play music. Places to play the music, and places to explore music. Sadly all those indy record shops that I grew up with have disappeared and no doubt the city is worse off because of it. The market has certainly changed over the last few decades and the specialty shops have struggled to survive. Even up to the 90's it was hard work finding past releases or overseas and local indy music. When cds became evryday the major labels really jumped on the reissue market but b4 then it was a struggle to get old LPs of your fav artists. It was secondhand (often at inflated collectors prices) or imported from more adventerous label manufactures. No ebay/ amazon/ myspace. just the indy shop guys who slaved over industry mags all day to stock the finest goods any punter could wish for. My first Rocking Horse experience was scoring a couple of Joy Division boots.. brilliant covers - shittty as audio live quality but i was stoked!
Many years have I flicked records and cds at places like Kent records (Bruce Anthon yer a freakin genius), Skinnys (various owners and staff) and Rocking Horse. Where are all those unemployable musos going to get work now???  sad days indeed.
The old girl is in palliative care for a few weeks so drop in and give your respects and she may even offer up a bargain or 2 to remember her by. Maybe if enuff ppl spread the love she will spark back to life! Good luck in the future Warick and thanks for the effort these past decades.

A couple of pages worth of ads for old brisbane record shops from Time Off street press 25 september 1987.

update:  Well it seems lots of love was spread and the shop trades on...  hopefully the customers keep frequenting the shop and this near death experience wasn't in vain... I'm suprised at how many ppl saw this blog post as a death sentence as opposed to a wake up call. Yes the shop very well could have closed but ppl needed to be motivated to show their respect for an iconic institution (not just some faceless retailer)..Stay motivated ppl!.. use it or lose it!.. keep up the good work RRR!
http://www.couriermail.com.au/business/rocking-horse-records-saved-from-closure-at-11th-hour-by-mysterious-benefactor/story-e6freqmx-1226100872924

Go Betweens - Oceans Apart article Rave mag 2005

Another street press article this time from Rave magazine 2 august 2005 page 10. It features Grant talking about the Oceans Apart cd. Also sneaked in the photo from the cover and a side box mentioning dvd recording at the tiv.

Laughing Clowns article 1985

This article comes from an encyclopedia of sorts published about 1985 from Rolling Stone. Worth tracking down if you can find one second hand. The article was written by Ed St. John and pic by Laura Lee.

Ed is still very hands on with his own promotion, record company business prefering to stay outside the majors clutches. Reminds me alot of the Zappa approach in Barking Pumpkins label after he got rogered by a major label. Lately Ed has almost gone a 'radiohead new media' approach to keeping in with the fans. Well worth tracking down on facebook and his very own utube channel.

Go Betweens - Bright Yellow, Bright Orange article Rave 2003

This article is from the Brisbane street press called Rave Magazine from 24th June 2003- page 13.
It features an interview with Robert Forrster regarding the Bright Yellow, Bright Orange cd.

Rotten Records

Mark has sent me a little piece of Brisbane music history,

I heard about this shop but I didn't start trekking into

the city to by import records until it had closed and

the legendary Rocking Horse Records had opened its

doors in Adelaide st.

Rocking Horse is still going strong some 30 something

years later and is as important to the local music scene

here as 4ZzZ.

I have many fond memories of discovery and the like

with record shops like these that have almost gone the

way of the dinosaur. My favourite would be going into

rocking horse to hopefully get an import copy of Broken

English in between vice squad raids and being successful!

Thanks Mark

Here is something you may want to include in your blog,

a plastic record sleeve from Rotten records.

This shop operated for short while in the late 70s at

145 elizabeth st in the city.

It was run by Steve kunde who you see these days

running vintage stalls at places like Greaze fest.

I remember going there after school and it had all the

latest punk singles from UK,US etc.

It was very cutting edge at the time

for sleepy old Brisbane.

Regards,

mark

the SCREAMING TRIBESMEN ARE BACK !!!!!!!

Time Off - 1st July 1988 page6

It's been pointed out to me these last few days that I am exhibiting a certain 'skip in my step', and a permanent " ridiculous grin". PPl are asking if I'm on the gear or summin- "NO!" I reply- I'm just REALLY FUGGIN HAPPY THAT THE TRIBESMEN ARE BACK !!!!!
I've dug up a few old press clippings I'm hoping someone of note will right click/save and pass over to the new official tribesmen web site - link here

Time Off - 4th december 1987 page7

This is the first time since 1987 that this line up has played together and if you miss it we've no idea when it will be seen again, if at all... It's guitars, it's garage, it's punk, it's pop, it's hip, it's real. It is The Screaming Tribesmen.  info from -http://www.thegatheringfestival.com.au/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saturday 17th September 2011

18 Bands... 3 Stages... 2 Bars... Good times!

Old Museum, Brisbane, QLD

 

The gathering festival looks like a winner to me. The manifsto page of its creator Jason Castle found here, rings a lot of bells in a kindered spirit kinda way. Reminds me a lot of the early livids that became much more than another big day out extravaganza in that it was a chance for ppl to gravatate from all over oz to meet up over a day of hand picked indy acts....  sadly later to become a mid year big day out...  nothing against BDO, but 2 of the same at the cost of the other was always a bit sad to me.
All these years later the gathering looks like it could develop into something the original livids held unique.. Good luck gathererers!!! (penciled in as the chuck2011- 100% fucking awesome award)

On the Street - wed 24th September 1986 page9

Time Off 25th September 1987 page4

Time Off 18 December 1987 page10

Time Off 26 january 1989 page8

Time Off - 26 January 1989 page7

Time Off - 29 September 1989

update:
not the most favourable review - prolly not for the official site, but interesting in that Tex doesnt like the detriot sound much.

from page 6 crastak- vol2 of the amazing ratsack fanzine
originally posted here  back in Dec 2009

'On the Street' 3rd May 1989 page3

the 279 club- Exchange Hotel circa 1981

The Exchange Hotel is a different animal now  lol..

 I'm guessing these posters are from 1981 by the dates.
It's really hard to find any tangible evidence that brisbane band the '31st' ever existed- no recordings were ever pressed. Gary Williams talks about hearing a demo/ practice tape during the wonderful brisbane music 4zzz event 'eternally ours' :that was luckily taped and much later posted here on sss - link, but to date no release or leaked tape of 31st sounds has surfaced. Lots of stories exist about the 31st as it had some magical key elements and most notabily its members Ron Peno(link to new song) and Mick Medew penned the classic anthem -igloo, later resurfacing as a screaming tribesmen song....
anyhoo.. I'm mentioning it here cos some of these posters mentions live dates that the 31st performs with contemporaries the End, J.f.K. and cuban crisis and Out of Nowhere etc...
also worthy of noting is the go-betweens supporting xero!

Livid festival review 1989

Those early Livid festivals where the finest :)

http://www.livid.com.au/posters.asp has some nice posters for some of the best ones.

The Humans - Teen Idol

I don't know much about these peeps circa 1979.. I think that Tim Collett the guitarist and vocalist went onto the band 'the Convertibles' that played around town for years and released a 12" in 1989 { cant find my copy:(}.
I was under the impression the Humans had a harder punk sound b4 I located this single at a Vinnies a few decades ago. I remember getting this home and putting it on the turntable and thinking "fuk-done my fiddy cents on this one .." I've actually come around to thinking it's a couple of classy pop songs these days..
A year or two after this release Graeme Hutchinson would join on drums and later move to the 'Riptides'.
http://www.ganggajang.com/calpages/rptds_hs.htm mentions this in it's history page.

ad 'time off' 27may 1988

 Download here.

the Go-betweens - Rachel Worth article -'scene' september 2000

This is part 1 of 2 articles discussing the 'Rachel worth' release in 2000 from a brisbane street press called 'Scene'... as yet I can't locate part2 of the article but I'll keep searching the dungeon just in case... an interesting insight to this cd.

the Girlies -update

Girlies ad Time Off october 1987

this is an update to the post -  http://stripedsunlight.blogspot.com/2010/10/girlies.html that didnt include any music files..  well if yer like me and hadn't checked the comments section lately you may have missed that the http://www.myspace.com/thegirliesonline page now has a link for all the Girlies recorded history. click that sheeet NOW!