Welcome to another edition of Musical Musings.
The Whitlams
The Whitlams are one of this country’s best-loved bands. Taking out the #1 spot in 1997 with their song No Aphrodisiac on Triple J’s Hottest 100, as well as garnering Song of the Year at the ARIA Music Awards of 1998, secured the band’s place in Australian music history. Since then, the band has continued to tour heavily and release albums to much commercial success and acclaim. The band will be part of the bill at this month’s Riverboats Music Festival, which will be held the weekend of February 17 to 19 at Victoria Park Reserve in Echuca.
Principle songwriter and singer Tim Freedman has an amazing gift in capturing the human condition in his lyrics, especially when it comes to expressing the importance of friendship. A fine example of this is found on the band’s most recent album, Sancho.
“I’ve always enjoyed writing songs about male friendship,” Freedman told me when I spoke to him last week.
“Sancho is the latest one that I’ve released, which is about our tour manager, who passed away, but going all the way back to the Eternal Nightcap album, I sang songs also about a fella called Charlie.
“It's strange that I think they’re the songs that people put their arms around each other and sing along to, at the top of their voices.
“It's a wonderful theme and really just about how much and how important we are to each other, not in a romantic sense but just more in a human sense.”
How does Freedman look back at Eternal Nightcap today, having recently reached its 25th anniversary?
“I’m very fond of it because it just captures the whole decade of my twenties,” he says.
“And the way people sing along to it, I can tell that it also captures a lot of people’s twenties for them as well.”
Having last performed in Echuca at the 2015 Riverboats Music Festival, the band is looking forward to returning this month. So, what can fans expect?
“Since it’s the 25th anniversary, we’ve been playing the whole Eternal Nightcap album,” Freedman says.
“But because we’re just doing a one-hour show, we’ll do three quarters of Eternal Nightcap and the other quarter will be our best songs of the other six albums.”
Freedman fondly recalls a visit to Shepparton more than a decade ago.
“All I remember is that it was in a pub downstairs,” he says.
“And that I ended on the balcony talking to someone about water skiing at 4am!”
The band hopes to return to the region later this year with the view of undertaking regional pub shows to warm up for a national tour in October.
Tim Freedman Fun Fact: Did you know prior to forming The Whitlams in 1992, Freedman did a stint playing keyboards on tour for legendary Aussie bands The Sunnyboys and The Hummingbirds.
New releases
Canadian country music legend Shania Twain returns with her sixth album, Queen of Me, which is released tomorrow. It’s been six years since Twain’s last album, in 2017.
Also out tomorrow is The Candle and The Flame, the eighth solo album by renowned Australian singer-songwriter Robert Forster, who was also founding member of iconic indie-rockers The Go-Betweens.
And releasing their sixth album are American pop-post-punk rockers Paramore led by vocalist Hayley Williams. Titled This Is Why, the album will be in stores next week.
Vale Renée Geyer
A supremo of jazz, blues and soul, and an icon of the Australian music industry, Renée Geyer sadly passed way a few weeks back. I had the privilege and honour of being her support act at her last four sold-out shows, with her last ever live show at Bird’s Basement in Melbourne in late December. Before her untimely passing, Renée was looking forward to another year of solidly booked shows and had invited me back again to be her support act.
An ARIA Hall of Famer, Renée was feisty, loyal, fiercely independent and lived her life and career on her own terms. A truly inspiring woman of the highest calibre. A poll conducted in 2013 also ranked her as the seventh-best Australian voice of all time. Her passing has left a huge void in Australian music, but her music will live on. Expect a re-release of her greatest hits album, The Ultimate Collection, to hit the streets very soon, with reissues of her albums also in the works.
Fun Fact:
In 1978, the original The Supremes member Mary Wilson hired singers Karen Jackson and Kaaren Ragland and toured Australia in June 1978 as The Supremes and performed a show at the GV Hotel on June 25.
Readers can send feedback, suggestions, share their stories etc to: MusicalMusings@mmg.com.au
Until next time, keep on rockin’.