THE COMPLETE HAVOC SINGLES 1971-1973 - Various Artists (Aztec Music)
Let's start a campaign for honesty in liner notes. Two-CD set "The Complete Havoc Singles" contains a few turkeys and archivist Ian McFarlane's accompanying screed isn't afraid to baste them. More power to that The true Barry Crockers (shockers, if you're reading this outside Australia) are thankfully thin on the ground and this compilation of the seven-inch output of a shortlived but important Australian label shows it to be an idiosyncratic sounding board for some of the country's most influential and/or interesting recording artists.There was a time when vinyl singles were the flagships of a label and their B sides were to the left of centre, a chance to do something different. And so it goes in many cases here. Havoc was a home to Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs with two of their albums going out on the imprint. Love him or hate him (I'm sort of ambivalent), Thorpey was impossible top ignore as Australian rock started taking big steps in the early '70s and it's no coincidence that when he left the fold, Havoc folded its tent.
I neither know or particularly care how many children singularly-named folk artist Jasmine went on to produce, but she came up with a public ode to female masturbation a good 20 years before the Divynils' Chrissie Amphlett was touching herself in the upper reaches of the prudish American Top 40. For that she deserves a mention. "Twenty Mile Zone" is an odd choice for a label's debut single and I'm not sure how much CD player time it or its B side, "Beware of Young Girls", will be getting. Ditto her three Christmas songs that pop up later on Disc One.
"Midnight Witch" by Ash comes throbbing out of the speakers like Jasmine's leery school counsellor with its latter-day Master Apprentices-touched take on heavy English rawk. Black Sabbath was all the rage around this time and you can't half tell. It's the stuff punk rock swore to destroy but it's still living and breathing today. The flip ("Warrant") is from the same school. A guilty pleasure but Buffalo did it better and heavier.
Talking about heavy, I've heard worse things than power-trio Chook, who contribute "Cold Feet and "Tables Turn". This is actually in the same neighbourhood as Buffalo with chunky riffing and cutting solos. I like the B side best and for once the songs are as good as the band moniker. Members went on to play with Keith Lamb and Buster Brown.
Whatever your take on Thorpey and his ultimate heavier-than-lead hard-boiled boogie path - hey, I'm ambivalent - deep down he was just a hippie. "The Dawn Song" shows as much and could have been recorded by a similarly-minded post-Buffalo Springfield Neil Young, had he moved Down Under to Suck More Piss and toke up with the Aztecs instead of riding a hearse around the streets of late-'60s L.A. and hooking up with Crazy Horse. Lobby Loyde (who taught Billy how to play "rock and roll guitar" - as opposed to how to play "guitar") was as much a hippie, maybe more, so don't be surprised by his (The Wild Cherries') ocean eco anthem, "I Am The Sea (Stop Killing Me)". As a piece of production, it's ace, with lush acoustic guitars and plectrum-percussed piano strings. "Daily Planet" (the flip) equally so.
Which inevitably leads us to the role of Gil Matthews firstly as Havoc's in-house producer and then as the most enduring and best drummer The Aztecs had. Mathews' hand is on all of this (he owns re-issuer Aztec Records) and he even got to put out a solo single on Havoc, the credible acoustic pop "Little Dove" b/w the groovy instro "Gil's Thing".
Michael Turner in Session were a slick Brisbane band posing as heavy whose "Just Around Midnight" sounds too melodramatic for mine and the B side "Pattern Of My Life" has a chord too many.
Carson were a hard blues band led by future '80s journeyman Broderick Smith. Greg Sleepy Lawrie's edgy guitar playing has much to recommend and "Travelling South" is a strong cut.
On the other hand, the twee strings and sugary confection that is Mark Justin and "Hey Na (I Think I Love You)" b/w "Time To Live") makes a case for mercy killing becoming legal. Robbie Snowden ("Looking in The Lake") should have been tied to a fridge and dumped in it along with that fucking silly kazoo he played. Les said about its A side "Hot Pants Sue" the better.
On to Disc Two and I might "meh" at some of Thorpey's indulgences but I dips me lid in the direction of "Most People I Know Think That I'm Crazy". Its classic status can't be denuded no matter how many times it turns up on "Twenty-Five Father's Day Favourite Aussie Shitfaced Barbecue Tunes" compilations or gets the singalong treatment in matinee sessions by hack Midday Show refugees in suburban poker machine palaces. (On that subject, can someone tell me why old white people with blue rinsed/grey hair in RSL club audiences couldn't clap along in time if their disabled parking sticker depended on it? No? Thought not.)
The rarely-heard B side "Regulation 3 Puff" (shock! horror! drug reference!) is a jazzy Aztecs jam with smoking guitar licks from guest Lobby Loyde. At neatly 8min it's probably stretching it but it has a certain groove that's worth hooking into.
I could do without the Christian pop of future Cats cast member Jeff Phillips' "Gloria" (naught to do with Them or Jesus dying for somebody's sins but not Patti Smith's) but it's here for completeness as well as its rarity, being a single the label pulled locally in hope of a better deal offshore. The B side is a hack cover song.
Billy Thorpe might have disowned "Believe It Just Like Me" as a too-obvious attempt to clone "Most People" (and it is) but it's fairly typical and much-loved Aztecs raunch-pop. I find the flip ("Get The Hell Out Of Here") fairly redundant. Your results may, of course, diverge.
"Liberate Rock" was the Coloured Balls single that should have been a precursor to an album recorded at the same time but sat on the shelf for four years. It's a plodder - the sound of a new band finding its feet and well short of their best tuneage - but still an important inclusion. "Slowest Guitar on Earth" is the fun and fried boogie on the B side. Sir Lobby gets another guernsey with the Coloured Balls' great "Mr Mean Mouth" b/w "Love Me Girl" and was obviously a marquee player for Havoc, especially in their hometown of Melbourne.
Brisbane's Everton Park played so-so pop that hasn't dated that well. Star Spangled Banger was an offshoot of garage band The Sect and peddle an affected but OK brand of hippie pop on the A side ("Star Spangled Banger") and a soppy ballad on the B ("Sailing".)
Thump'n Pig & Puff'n Billy was a band headed by Aztecs keys man Warren "Pig" Morgan and Thorpey. "Captain Straightman" lives by Morgan's thumpin' piano line and chugging fee (Gil Mathews and Chain bassist Barry "Big Goose" Sullivan" in the engine room) and is a revelation, not having heard the original or re-issue of the band's sole album. I find Billy's vocal on "Bow My Head" a touch over-wrought but it's a solid song regardless.
A pair of bonuses close the thing down; "Don't Worry" by Caron is a straight-up blues with country undertone and comes from a label sampler. Broderick Smith's vocal is a good 'un, delving into bullfrog range. The other is a song called "They've Cut Down All The Trees" and comes across as Tommy Leonetti in a tie-dye shirt. It's from an obscure movie soundtrack.
Aztec are doing important work by documenting so much lost or obscure '70s Oz rock. Patchy in places it may be, but "The Complete Havoc Singles" adds to that legacy.- The Barman
