Love Gone Wrong - Always The Bridegroom

John Kennedy's Love Gone Wrong 1987 debut Lp
"Always the Bridegroom" is a lost gem, from a band which
never got the recognition they deserved.
I've tried to address this by posting this rip from my vinyl copy of this
wonderful record. This album described as "country tinged, light
guitar,Brisbanish veranda sound" in a review at the time, is a mature
progression of this Brisbane lad gone to Sydney to crack the big time
and theres no doubt where he's coming from the opening song

Hey Steven - John Kennedy and Cory Messenger

"Hey Steven, what am I doing here
I should of left school when I was 15,
and got a job as an apprentice bricklayer.
Weekends of bear and football,
would have made a man out of me.
Nothing lay beyond that as far as I could see.

Hey Steven, where did I go wrong,
I should of had a girl pregnant when I was 18,
and be married with a kid before too long.
The Acacia Ridge assembly line never had a hold on me
and when GMH shut down its plant there was no redundancy.
Hey Steven, I'm leaving Brisbane"




In the video clip below "Brisvegas" John refers to this song, as
"I must have sung that song about leaving Brisbane,
one too many times"
As he struggles to understand why His old home
town has passed him by. It seems to be a common complaint
amongst the ranks of Brisbane's talented.






BrisVegas


Track list
01 Hey Steven
02 The eyes have it
03 When evening comes
04 You will find
05 I was confused
06 The singing city
07 Better days
08 World upside down
09 Stay
10 Strangers kiss
11 Hope takes a holiday
12 I want you

Download Here



A set list from the band around the time I still have.

Love Gone Wrong from bridegroom inner sleeve




The Singing City

John Kennedy - The Singles

Of the select few musicians to come out of Brisbane, John Kennedy
remains in the top 5. When the Pig City Festival lineup was
announced last year, John or his first band JFK and the Cuban
Crisis was the one name I really missed.
Don't get me wrong it was a unbelievable line up, but
that would of been perfect. First if you don't know anything about
the man heres a comprehensive bio from the brispop site.



John Kennedy the musician, was a five year old in Liverpool the
day the President died. In Australia at the age of ten,
he took the confirmation name of Francis to complete the
famous "J.F.K." moniker. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
The joke has long since worn off for him,
but it still takes some explaining.
A young enthusiastic journalist once described John Kennedy
as a humble genius. Kennedy is neither a genius nor
particularly humble. He is the writer of many fine songs
using a collection of pop, country, folk and rock influences
to create the hydrid style he calls Urban and Western.
Kennedy formed his first band in Brisbane, Australia in ´80.
His family had migrated from England in the mid-´6o’s and he
was raised in the suburban wastelands on a diet of radio pop
music. At the beginning of the 80´s, Kennedy brought his
pop melodies and ideas to the flourishing post-punk
Australian indie music scene.
His name alone should have brought him commercial success.
It didn´t, but he continued to release a series of successful
independent records.
The penchant for funny names continued with his first band
"J.F.K. and the Cuban Crisis". "The Crisis" and his mid-80's
Sydney band "John Kennedy's Love Gone Wrong" became
self-fulfilling prophecies. An invitation to perform at the
inaugural Berlin Independence Days independent music
conference in ´88 provided the incentive to leave Australia.
In Berlin in the early '90's, Kennedy tried a more positive
approach and formed "John Kennedy and the Honeymooners".
Despite the optimism, the honeymoon ended and Kennedy
went on to perform as a solo act.
Since Berlin he has lived and made music in Hong Kong,
Holland and London; living by the motto “
Have Songs, Will Travel”. Kennedy returned to Sydney at the
start of the new millenium, has a new band, album and label
and lives once again in Sydney's inner-western suburbs.



These are the singles released between 1984 and 1989 on waterfront
and red eye records in Sydney. They are wonderfully packaged,
both king st and miracle have photos attached to the cardboard
sleeve and big country has one of those plastic things you could
trace aroundthat used to come out of cereal boxes when I was a kid.
There's the Love gone Wrong Singles and a couple of rare tracks
released on a mini album, the Us version of Big Country and a Flex
disc give away A time for giving.
Fantastic music from the man who sung about himself
"I could have been a contender"
and should have.

Track list

JOHN KENNEDY singles 84 - 89

WATERFRONT RECORDS
(SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA)
Sept. ´8401 - Forget
02 - The End Of The Affair
7"Single - DAMP 11

Mar. ´85 "03 - Miracle in Marrickville
04 - Two People
7"Single - DAMP 15

RED EYE RECORDS (SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA)
John Kennedy´s Love Gone Wrong
Dec. ´8505 - King Street
06 - To Forget
7"Single - RED 7

Jul. ´8607 - Big Country"
08 - You Brought It All Back To Me
7"Single - RED 10

Sept. ´8709 - The Singing City
10 - Love Gone Wrong
11 - Theme From Love Gone Wrong (instrumental)
7"Single - MB 20037Love Gone Wrong
May ´8812 - World Upside Down
13 - Better Days 7"Single - MB 20097
Love Gone Wrong

Oct. ´88 John Kennedy and Billy Baxter
14 - To Love Somebody
15 - Tourists In Heaven
7"Single - MB 20137

John Kennedy´s Love Gone Wrong
Jan. ´89 "16 - Out Of Town"
17 - Miracle in Marrickville (Acoustic)
18 - You Brought It All Back To Me (Acoustic)
7"Single - MB 20217

From the LP "Woe to go"
RED EYE RECORDS, RED 11, Sept 86
John Kennedy´s Love Gone Wrong
19 - A time for giving
20 - Big country(us version)Download here