john kennedy

The replay of last week's Thursday Evening Gunk, the I-94 Bar Internet show, is here so kick back and watch. Host Chris Virtue of 2RRR speaks to Sydney's King of Urban and Western, John Kennedy, and bassist Phil Hall (Dropbears, Sardine v, Lime Spiders) about the John Kennedy's 68 Comeback Special album "Raining Treasure Vol 2" before a set by the band.

This Thursday at 8pm Sydney time go to the Moshpit Bar Facebookfor the "Chicks Who Rock" episode, in which guest host Heather Goodman of Orbital Radio will talk to Jess Finlayson (Rasing Ravens, Nitrocris) and Bianca Kotoulas of young Sydney band Euterpe about the Sydney scene and women bands.  Join the Facebook event here.

Raining Treasure 2: More Australian Indie Gold Covers – John Kennedy’s 68 Comeback Special (MGM/Foghorn)

Tribute bands are mostly a blot on the musical ecosystem, right?. OK, they provide a fertile spawning pond for young players and pay bills for the oldsters, but most cover acts faithfully mimic role models just to milk money from morons.

This isn’t about the odd cover thrown into a set of originals because the drummer and the rhythm guitarist like the song or the band jammed out a loose approximation of a chart hit at rehearsal two nights earlier and wants to be ironic.

No, this is a gripe about hacks making money by mindlessly sating the appetites of dim RSL club masses who don’t know what they like but sure do like what they know. These people dance when they should know better or clap hopelessly out of time in the way that only middle-aged white people can.

Which is not territory into which “Raining Treasure 2” ventures on this eclectic collection of songs by Aussie bands of the ‘70s and ‘80s .

Always the Bridegroom – John Kennedy’s Love Gone Wrong (Foghorn)

This 1987 album was a much-maligned chapter in Sydney artist John Kennedy’s back pages. For a few understandable reasons. The first long-player for Kennedy and his then-band, Love Gone Wrong, got a mixed critical reaction. Its sonic character rankled the band leader, and it presaged the line-up’s dissolution.

The story’s all there in Kennedy’s breezy liner notes (“The Album That Killed My Career”) and a few things stick out: The band was a relatively new line-up and lacked confidence. They’d tried too hard in preceding demo sessions that failed to raise interest from major labels, and the studio approach for the album’s recording killed any prospect of a vibe by using a click track to guide drummer Vince Sheehan.

The next release on I-94 Bar Records will be “Live at The Marrickville Bowl” by John Kennedy and The New Originals on November 15.

The album captures the farewell gig by urban and western troubadour Kennedy and his all-star band, performed under the Copperart ceiling of the beloved Marrickville Bowling Club in Sydney’s inner-west in May 2022.

Kennedy upped stakes and relocated to Spain shortly after the sold-out show, unaware that in-house soundman Richard Ball had captured the gig on hard drive. A post-show listen by bassist Phil Hall (ex-Dropbears, Sardine v and Lime Spiders) confirmed that something special had been recorded. He and Kennedy oversaw some minor polishing before Melbourne’s Ernie O sprinkled his mastering magic dust.

Kennedy’s band, The New Originals was Hall, Murray Cook (Wiggles, Soul Movers) and Matt Galvin (Barbarellas, Scruffs, Happy Hate Me Nots) on guitars and longtime drummer Pete Timmerman.   

Kennedy will support CD’s release with a string of homecoming gigs with The New Originals and also in solo mode in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne in December and January.

It’s a brilliant idea so why didn’t someone do it before?

What’s that? you say. Record a bunch of iconic, mostly Sydney, underground songs in a way that honours the originals but makes them their own – at least for a few minutes.

UK-born, Brisbane-bred John Kennedy became a fixture on Sydney inner-city scene in the 1980s after cutting his musical teeth in his hometown. His distinctive “urban western” songs, and his bands JFK and The Cuban Crisis and John Kennedy’s Love Gone Wrong, earned him a healthy niche in a city that back then was groaning with musical talent.

John Kennedy was always backed by excellent bands and inevitably joined his peers in spreading their versions of the word on the national touring circuit, before moving overseas for a time. He and various line-ups of his John Kennedy’s ‘68 Comeback Special have been kicking around the now skeletal Sydney scene (read: Inner-Western Delta) for the last decade or so.

_{Mark Roxburgh fronting Joeys Coop. Murray Bennett photo}

In no particular order a bunch of music and music related things that have grabbed my attention. Some of it is shit and some of it I’m ambivalent about but all of it has fed my passion for music.

A.I. and music @ Skynet
I was researching AI and design about five years ago and saw that much of what designers did would soon disappear and design would split into two camps – bespoke design “crafted” by people or mass-produced design generated using AI via the prompts written by people. I suspect music will follow a similar path. 

People will still write and play songs the old fashion way and it will probably be a bit of a niche / bespoke activity. A lot of mediocre mass-produced music will be generated using AI via the prompts written by people. We’ll probably hear more of it in things like corporate videos or ad jingles and the ubiquitous Tik Tok videos to begin with but I suspect it will eventually dominate the popular music landscape. The precursor to this is of course sampling. 

The advent of sampling has led to a huge growth in genres of music that is not written so much as it is cut and pasted together. Honing one’s prompt craft to get a song out of AI is the next logical step. The soundtrack of Skynet. Meantime I’ll still write and sing songs no one will listen to apart from 15 blokes of a certain age in a dodgy bar somewhere.

The second instalment of “Raining Treasure”, the rather excellent countryfried salute to Sydney underground rock and roll’s heyday by Sydney’s Urban and Western master, John Kennedy, is on its way.

A crowdfunding campaign is in full swing and rewards range from autographed copies with your name on the cover to a show in your own home.  

You can make sure you’re part of the action with John and his band The 68 Comeback Special by going here.

The second in a series, “Raining Treasure Vol 2” will features covers classic ‘70s and ‘80s songs (and obscurities) by The Boys Next Door, The Riptides, The Passengersand  Radio Birdman.How do you say Yeah Hup with a country twang? 

Flaming Hands vocalist Julie Mostyn-Gilbert is a guest on the album and is pictured at the recording session with Kennedy.