Mixed relations - Take It Or Leave It

In 1988 Bart Willoughby founding member of the legendary
No fixed Address was asked to join the newly formed Yothu Yindi
as drummer on their Diesel & Dust tour, visiting 73 cities throughout
the USA on what Willoughby thought was a very strenuous tour.
In 1989 Willoughby left Yothu Yindi and formed his new band
Mixed Relations. This band gave him the opportunity to come out
from behind the drums and develop his music into a big sound
fueled by some of the best musicians, black and white, in the country.
The band also released an album.
The song "Take It Or Leave It" is a true anthem.
One of those songs that has a power that transcends what
is normally associated with music, hear it to believe it.
But they're all fantastic songs and "My Father/Devil Man"
is an incredible almost 7 minute masterpiece.
Which isn't to say the other 2 songs aren't equally
good, cause they are Childrens Tomorrow/Hard Love
is an equally long and incredible love song unlike
any love song you have ever heard and
"Salvation" is perhaps his best song outside
"Message For Young and old"
Bart has the ability to speak direct to the heart
and is a true spokesman for his people and
his generation.

Take It Or Leave It - Bart Willoughby

Walking on this land for a long long time
Gives us the power of dreamtime all the time
Walking and talking and finding out whats right
Gives us the power of dreamtime all the time, why!!

We go back further than you think,
Further than the city
We go back further than you think,
Further than the cities been

Take it or leave it, its the truth.
Take it or leave it, its the truth.

We've got to make our solution without confusion
Got to tell the kids, Got to tell the kids'
Where they really come from.
We can't sit around now and wait for the
weather to change
We got to make our move with a
little help from our friends

Take it or leave it, cause you know its the truth.
We got our own foundation and that's our blues
We've got to resist now so we can exist
A matter of mind, a matter of time,
it doesn't really matter
cause we're not blind

We go back further than you think,
Further than the city
We go back further than you think,
Further than the cities been

Take it or leave it, its the truth.
Take it or leave it, its the truth.

Track List
01 - Childrens Tomorrow/Hard Love
02 - Take It Or Leave It.
03 - My Father/Devil Man
04 - Salvation.

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Kev Carmody - Freedom

Kev Carmody is a living legend here in Australia,
often referred to as the Australian Bob Dylan.
He released a debut album in 1988, Pillars of Society,
it was unlike anything previously heard from
black Australia. Instead of the country/rock/reggae
that was typical at the time of most Aboriginal bands,
Kev's songs were thoughtful folk-based stories
with insightful, politically aware lyrics.
Songs like ‘Thou Shalt Not Steal’ quickly established him
as a powerful new voice in Australian Indigenous music.
His iconic 1993 duet with Aussie troubadour Paul Kelly,
‘From Little Things Big Things Grow’ is rightly
considered a national classic.



Kev Carmody grew up on a cattle station near Goranba,
70km west of Dalby in the Darling Downs area of south eastern
Queensland. His early childhood was simple but happy.
He saw few children until the age of seven, mixing mostly with
stockmen. The family, although poor and despised by the local
white community because of their “mixed marriage”
(his father was “mad Irish, fighting Irish” and his mother a Murrie)
lived largely off the land growing vegetables near the house
and hunting and catching everything from kangaroos to fish.
In 1956, when he was ten, Carmody was taken from his parents
and sent to a "Christian school" which he has described as
"little more than an orphanage". Although he often talks
about the school it has rarely entered his songwriting.
After school Kev returned to his rural roots working for
seventeen years as a back country laborer doing everything
from bag lumping to wool pressing.
He told one newspaper that his musical career was
"a far cry from the 15 year old who thought he'd spent
the rest of his life pressing wool.
Mind you, I had a job then,
I was actually making bloody money.
Not with this music caper...."
When he was 33 he got the opportunity to go to University
where he studied history eventually progressing to work
on a PhD. His thesis topic, not surprisingly,
was the history of the Darling Downs between 1830 - 1860.
His career in music started while he was at University.

I've got so many stories to tell about Kev,
I've seen him play so many times
since the 80's. He doesn't play much anymore, he has
trouble playing with arthritis these days.
I've met him a couple of times, saw him play a gig not
15 mins drive from my house, drove from Brisbane to
Lismore once(4 hrs) to see him play a gig in a little church
to maybe 30 people and the last time I saw him was at the
pig city festival, where he had everyone singing along by
the end. In the early days of the Maleny/Woodford folk
festival he was an incredible support, always there for the
whole thing and playing heaps.
In the 90's I played in a Latin American band, I was the
only non Latin member and we covered "Thou shall not steal"
which was our only English singing song.
That was my big moment as I sung it.
In 1989 Kev met up Bart Willoughby and his
new band Mixed Relation's, to record this
version of "Thou shall not steal."
During the rehearsals another song started
to develop. 4 years later, that jam session
became the song.

Tracklist
01 - Freedom
02 - Freedom Radio Edit
03 - Thou Shall Not Steal




From Little Things Big Things Grow - Make Poverty History

Thou Shalt not Steal - Kev Carmody

1788 down Sydney cove
The first boat people land
Sorry boys our gains your loss
We’re gonna steal your land
And if you break our new British law
Be sure your gonna hang or work your
lives like our convicts
With a chain on your neck and hand

CHORUS
And they told us
Woah black woman thou shalt not steal
Hey black man thou shalt not steal
We’re gonna civilize your black barbaric lives
And we’ll teach you how to kneel
But your history couldn’t hide the genocide
The hypocrisy that was real
For your Jesus said you’re supposed to give
The oppressed a better deal
We say to you
yes our land thou shalt not steal
Woah Our land you better heal

With your science and technology
You can make a nuclear bomb
Development has increased its size
Three million mega ton
And if you think that’s progress
I suggest your reason is unsound
You should have found out long ago
You best keep it in the ground

CHORUS

Job and me and Jesus Sittin underneath
that Indooroopilly bridge
Watchin’ that blazin’ sun go down
Behind a tall tree'd mountain ridge
The land’s our heritage and spirits here
The rightful culture's black
And we’re sitting here just wondering
When we gonna get our land back

CHORUS

Well you talk of conservation
Keep the forest pristine green
But in 200 years your materialism
Has stripped the forest clean
And a racist contradiction
that's understood by none
but mostly their left hand holds the bible,
And the right hand holds the gun

CHORUS



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No Fixed Address - From My Eyes 2008 limited Ed

When I saw the legendary No Fixed Address play a couple of
Months ago at the Dreaming festival I picked up this.
A limited edition Cd copy, with extra tracks of the classic
Ep "From My Eyes." I've had a request for this so here
it is. This expanded version is now more like an album.
I doubt this will be commercially available and this copy
appears to be a home made job, with photocopied cover.
All the same it is a classic and is the place from which
all contemporary Australian indigenous music begins.
Check out my earlier posts on this band in the archives
if you missed them and my post on the Dreaming festival.

Track list
01 - We Have Survived
02 - From My Eyes
03 - Stupid System
04 - I Can't Stand And Look
05 - Sunrise
06 - Pigs
07 - 40,000 Years
08 - Greenhouse Holiday
09 - Stand Up

Download Here

David Bridie is one of Australia's most important artists, from
his ground breaking work with Not Drowning Waving,
his equally important work with My friend the Chocolate
Cake and his solo and soundtrack work.
Its his solo work I'll concentrate on in this post.
David has just released his 3rd solo Lp "Succumb" which I
haven't heard yet, but is getting rave reviews.

In mid-2000, Bridie released his first solo album,
Act of Free Choice, on three tracks collaborating again with
NDW's John Phillips, who lives in Europe and sent his
contributions via the Internet.
The brave new world of computer technology has returned
Bridie to the kind of experimental music the earlier
Not Drowning Waving had been noted for. Only now,
so much more is possible. Weaving around Bridie's voice
and electric piano are a universe of found sounds,
anything from Papua New Guinea conch shells to morse code
intercepted on short wave radio, with bass and drums
added over the top.
In 2003 he released Hotel Radio, he also released a number
of cd singles with extended remixes and new tracks todays
post is a collection drawn from these sources.
This is music that pushes into new territory, that is cutting
edge, that combines technology with world music and
Bridie's own political ideals, into something special.
Included is David and Bart Willoughby singing Bart's
classic song "Message for young and old"

Track List
01 - Dive (Marius Single Mix)
02 - Hotel Radio (radio version)
03 - Message For Young And Old
04 - Sad
05 - Nation (Of The Heartless Kind) (the ether mix)
06 - Act Of Free Choice
07 - Drive On
08 - King Bluster
09 - 15 Nuns Lie Floating In The South Pacific Sea
10 - The Koran (Royal Belleville Mix)
11 - Float FF5 Flambe Version

Download here



David Bridie - Act of Free Choice