''I never expected much out of it all anyway,'' says Rob Younger about the music industry that, for the most part, shunned Radio Birdman's seminal days in the mid to late 1970s.
It was passionate fans, genuine rock 'n' roll aficionados and fellow musicians around the hotbed of activity at Sydney's legendary Funhouse, upstairs at the Oxford Hotel, who helped build the particular scene that Younger's band spearheaded. It was that movement that encouraged him.
Rob Younger (third from left) is on the road with Radio Birdman in September and October.
Four decades on, he and co-founding member Deniz Tek can still feel the 'outsider' tag they were branded with all those years ago, having this year looked on as the ABC rejected an option to broadcast Jonathan Sequeira's superb documentary Descent Into the Maelstrom. ''There's been a lot of furious activity, people trying to get it on TV,'' Younger observed wryly. ''Maybe one day they'll screen it, but I wouldn't get to worked up about it.''
Not that Younger is dismissive of Sequeira's film, quite the opposite, suggesting it is ''a worthy depiction of the band … a good documentary that deserves to be shown,'' beyond its recent cinema screenings around the country.
Even deputy Labor leader Anthony Albanese, a staunch Australian music fan, stood up in Parliament recently to urge the ABC to reconsider it's decision to not screen Sequeria's film. ''In the words of Radio Birdman’s Aloha Steve and Danno, I say to the ABC, get out an APB and purchase the broadcast rights to Descent Into the Maelstrom – The Radio Birdman Story,'' Albanese said.
''The creation of the band by Deniz Tek and Rob Younger in Sydney in 1974 cemented the foundation of Australian punk rock, laid by Chris Bailey and Ed Kuepper of the Saints, a Brisbane band, in the very same year. Radio Birdman’s visceral performances attended by thousands are an important part of Australian musical history, not to mention the release of their first full length studio album Radio’s Appear in 1977.''
Albanese's punk rock reference to the music played by Radio Birdman may not be entirely accurate, but the sentiment could not be more spot on. ''I heard years ago he was a fan of the band,'' Younger says. ''And I've been immortalised now in Hansard, so how bad can it be.''
Rob Younger says the band had their share of rejection: “We used to get slung out of a lot of places.”
Yes, Radio Birdman and the Saints were at the cutting edge of Australia's music scene in the mid `70s, albeit a scene far removed from the mainstream. Those getting turned on by Birdman's explosive Burned My Eye or Monday Morning Gunk probably weren't paying much attention to Skyhooks or Air Supply, but there was a sharp difference too between the Saints' punk rock edge and Radio Birdman's twin guitar attack, complete with Pip Hoyle's decidedly un-rock keyboards and Younger's incendiary live appearances on stage.
''You've got to get into it,'' Younger says, adding ''there's a physicality to the whole thing'' when it comes to delivering rock 'n' roll on stage. Fans of the band, however, were easier to satisfy than publicans and various others the band bumped up against in their earlier years.
''Getting kicked out of venues and being rejected on various fronts … the shit we went through when we started out, it was draining,'' Younger says, with barely veiled contempt for an industry that preferred the existing order of things to Radio Birdman's confrontational, outlaw style which included a couple of epic nights at Paddington Town Hall in late 1977. Those shows toward the end of the band's first incarnation were recorded, the latter appearing a few years ago as part of a box set of Radio Birdman's recorded work.
More recently the soundtrack to Descent Into the Maelstrom was released, including a wide selection of Radio Birdman songs along with the likes of the Flamin' Groovies' Shake Some Action, the Easybeats' Friday On My Mind, Masters Apprentices' War Or Hands Of Time and Richard Hell and the Voidoids' Blank Generation. Most of the soundtrack, which was also on the jukebox at the Funhouse, came from Younger's record collection at the time.
In a career that's included playing and recording with the New Christs, as well as his production work with the likes of Died Pretty, the Stems, Lime Spiders and many more, Younger's kept coming back to Radio Birdman at each stage of their reincarnation since the mid `90s.
Radio Birdman, circa 1978, with Pip Hoyle, back left, and Deniz Tek at front.
The band's upcoming European tour will start after a string of Australian shows this month and early next month, including back-to-back nights at the Manning Bar in Sydney with Spain's Los Chicos and Brisbane's own rock 'n' roll outlaws, Hits.
''Los Chicos are great guys, we've played with them a couple of times and Hits engage on a lot of levels,'' Younger says, pausing before adding ''they're a f—ing great band, I liked them from the first time I ever heard them.''
In Anthony Albanese's words, Radio Birdman's journey was ''also integral to the development of the independent music scene here in Australia'' and it's that scene that Younger is most passionate about, whether it's him out front of Radio Birdman, the New Christs, or championing a young band finding their own feet in an uncompromising industry.
''We might have a bit of a jaundiced viewpoint about the music industry, speaking for myself,'' he says, ''but it was hard to keep people happy in those days. There's more love in the room now.''
Radio Birdman play the Croxton Bandroom in Thornbury on September 27 (with Los Chicos and Adalita); The Triffid in Brisbane on September 28 (with Los Chicos and Hits); The Gov in Adelaide on September 30 (with Los Chicos); and The Manning Bar in Sydney on October 5 and 6 (with Los Chicos and Hits). Tickets from oztix.com.au
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