Make no mistake Amphlett is the only female rock singer of
any consequence this country has produced.
As the lead vocalist of the Divinyls she was, with just a couple of
exceptions, almost the only female of any consequence during the great pub band
explosion of the 1980s. None of that era’s
major acts – Midnight Oil, Cold Chisel, INXS, Hunters & Collectors, The
Hoodoo Gurus, Split Enz, The Church, The Sports, Mental As Anything, Died
Pretty, The Beasts Of Bourbon, Mondo Rock, Men At Work, Paul Kelly & The
Coloured Girls/Messengers, Dragon, Mi-Sex among many others – had women in
their bands. (Moreover, only INXS used
female backing singers, and even then on occasion, in live performance.) Bands
with female members – The Go-Betweens, The Triffids and The Moodists/Dave
Graney and The White Buffaloes – spent the great bulk of the decade in London
where mixed gender, or indeed all female bands were more plentiful. Back home, the Divinyls and Chrissy basically
had only Do Re Mi (led by Deborah Conway), The Eurogliders (with Grace Knight)
and I’m Talking (with Kate Ceberano) for company. Every other mixed gender band – The Clouds,
The Hummingbirds, The Baby Animals, Magic Dirt, even the version of The Black
Sorrows with Linda and Vika Bull, and many, many others – were formed in the
wake of these bands.
But with the greatest respect to Do Re Mi, whose Conway
penned songs were then too confrontationally feminist to attract sustained mainstream
success, The Eurogliders, a more traditional pop band that lasted only for a
few years in its original incarnation and I’m Talking, a pioneering funk/dance
band in era when Australians wanted to rock, it was the Divinyls and Amphlett in
particular that was able to win over and sustain a mass audience. Chrissy
did this by constructing a persona, the wild rock chick dressed in a school
uniform which punters immediately associated with another wildman, AC/DC’s
Angus Young. But this would not have
succeeded without her voice –strong and breathy and reminiscent in some ways of
Renee Geyer, just about her only available local role model – which suggested a
confident and assertive yet, at times, vulnerable woman. The liberal deployment of a sneering tone and
“oy’s” simultaneously suggested that she could be accepted on equal terms as
one of the boys.
This might partially explain why she never made a solo
album. The Divinyls were less a band but
more a duo between Chrissy and Mark McEntee on lead guitar. They made for an intriguing combination on
stage – Chrissy usually projecting far more menace than her on stage foil – and
as such they were a phenomenal live act who could more than hold their own
against any other act. I never missed an opportunity to see them live with the exception of their final reunion tour and never saw a dud show. They were one of
the few – if not the only – local band I ever saw who never shared a double bill with another
major local act from the era. Perhaps other bands realised
the futility of doing do. Joan Jett And
The Blackhearts gamely gave it a try for one Australian tour but, at the show I
saw, were comprehensively blown off the stage by the main act.
And yet, despite the overwhelming positive nature of the
reportage about her legacy, it would appear that the merit of The Divinyls
catalogue is not so clear. The compilers
of The 100 Best Australian Albums a couple of years ago, for example, could
not find a spot for any of their albums, an extraordinary decision considering
Amphlett’s status in Australia’s music history and McEntee’s brilliance as a
guitarist. In some respects I can
understand this as their albums weren’t always sequenced all that well; the first three albums are all frontloaded by
the successful singles from it making them sound a bit like singles
compilations plus filler. Even more
incredibly has been the failure of the industry to release a live recording
that comes even close to documenting their live work. Divinyls Live is a slipshod affair marred by an
appalling sequencing of tracks which in no way reflects a typical gig.
But the day demanded I pay my respects and whilst I would
have preferred to listened to a primo live performance, settled for their
first three albums;
(# 304) Divinyls –
Desperate (US edition) (1983)
The first Divinyls release was the Music From Monkey Grip
mini album. The original Australian
relase of Desperate did not include these tracks. The US version which I have currently
brings together some tracks from both releases.
Whoever did this deserves to be shot.
Elsie – a superb vehicle for McEntee’s guitar playing – does not contain
the instrumental reprise from Monkey Grip and Desperate’s original – and wholly
appropriate – opener, a cover of The Easybeats’s I’ll Make You Happy, is inexplicably
relegated to the final track at the expense of explosive Don’t You Go Walking. The frontloading of singles began here with
the albeit magnificent combination of Boys In Town, Only Lonely (both from
Monkey Grip), Science Fiction and Siren (Never Let You Go). Hopefully, there will be a reissue one day that
places Monkey Grip and Desperate on the one disc which would automatically become the definitive
Divinyls studio release.
(# 305) Divinyls – Temperamental
(1988)
This was their third full length album, and probably their
best album, front loaded this time with the title track, Back To The Wall, Hey
Little Boy (a cover of a 60’s American hit called Little Boy) and the tough ballad
Punxsie. There are some gems buried in
the remaining tracks, including Fight which has a feel not unlike that found on
Keith Richards’ solo albums, Better Days, the sleazy Dirty Love and Runaway
Train on which McEntee gets his guitar to sound like bagpipes.
(# 306) Divinyls –
What A Life! (1985)
Although this was their second full length album, I kept it
till last. It’s led off by the wonderful
Pleasure And Pain (the title of Amphlett’s 2005 autobiography), Sleeping
Beauty, Good Die Young and the magnificent Guillotine Day, a reliable highlight
of their shows from this point onwards. My Diary ends the album today on a poignant
note but it’s In My Life that is the standout.
In my view the absolute high water mark of their career, it contains
the perfect match of a never better Amphlett vocal over a careening McEntee guitar
what is practically a solo from most of the last two minutes of the tune. Remember them this way.
After that I tried to think of artists directly inspired by
them and, completely forgetting about The Baby Animals until I started writing
this posting, landed on:
(# 307) Magic Dirt – Friends
In Danger (1996)
In my mind, Magic Dirt’s Adalita Srsen is the modern version
of Chrissy Amphlett. Like Chrissy,
Adalita was born in Geelong, formed Magic Dirt with a male (bass) guitarist
Dean Turner with whom she was romantically involved for a while and whose first
release was also a mini album. Also a
dominant presence on state to the exclusion of her band mates, Adalita exudes
the same type of confidence and vulnerability but without needing to go to the
extremes that Amphlett probably needed to go.
The similarities end there. Their
first full length album, Friends In Danger, is an uncompromising alternative
album featuring a number of tracks with slow and loud guitars and songs like
that summed up on the aptly titled Heavy Business. The highlight is the 8 minute dirge
Bodysnatcher which appears to deal with child abuse allow with the much more
accessible Sparrow.
(# 308) The
Go-Betweens – Spring Hill Fair (1984)
I played this largely in tribute to the band’s Lindy
Morrison who was the drummer on all of their key albums in their
first stint up to their first break up in 1989.
This was their third album and the one which immediately foreshadowed
the magnificent albums that were to follow – Liberty Belle And The Black
Diamond Express, Tallulah and 16 Lovers Lane.
More, importantly, this was the
first Go-Between album I purchased having been taken largely on the strength of
its singles Bachelor Kisses, and Man O’Sand To Girl O’Sea as well as You Never
Lived and the beautiful Draining The Pool For You.
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