Yah, so, below is a snippet of lyrics from The Stooges song 1970, see if you can spot the error. I have italicized the error cause I don’t have all fucking day to wait on you, dummy.
Outta my mind on a Saturday night
1970 rollin’ in sight
Radio Birdman up above
Beautiful baby, be my love
Radio Birdman? How can you hear Radio Birdman there? Why would you ever assume someone, even Iggy Stooge, would be high or odd enough to consciously choose Radio Birdman as a lyric? Australians are weird, man.
One thing I have always found interesting about music is when you turn up cool shit you didn’t know existed from places and times you wouldn’t have expected. When I first heard Minor Threat and found out they wrote a lot of their shit before I was in kindergarten, I was shocked. I felt like people had gone out of their way to keep that noise a secret from me for all those years. When I first started listening to The Clash, I wrote down all the musical references they made and tracked them down, cause if Joe Strummer signed off on you, who was I to argue? Along the way the crew and me stumbled across albums from bands from times and places I didn’t think had cool shit, times like the ‘60’s and places like Europe. You know, except for Germany. Music from Germany is incessantly suck. Sorry Die Toten Hosen.
Even Australia. I like Australia. Always did. Admire their dedication to beer and not-working, admire their make-up of the descendants of people the English found too fucked up to keep around close to their laughably ugly royalty but not actually worth killing. I knew they had massive cans of beers and kangas and Kylie Minogue and so on, but ‘cept for The Birthday Party, I didn’t think they had much punk rawk.
A while back I got into The Saints after years of hearing bout them and they mentioned Radio Birdman. A couple weeks ago I noticed a re- issue album of Radio Birdman’s “Radios Appear” and I picked it up. Fuck. They were awesome.
First off there were 6 of them. Secondly they used to have a biker audience. I don’t agree with the lifestyle but the bikers tend to have good taste in music. Think about it. Thirdly they wore uniforms with armbands with their own weird symbol. Now, had this been a British band, I would be quick to say fuck them for that reason alone. But they were Aussies. That makes it not just okay, but awesome. Can’t say why, just does.
Like The Saints, Radio Birdman made a kind of garagey melodic punk. It wasn’t avante guarde like The Birthday Party but it was fucking on-point, music to have a Friday night to. Likely you have heard Radio Birdman songs and not even known it, they have been covered, sneakily, all over the place. The reason why is that they made good, quick tunes to jump around to. What else do you want?
“Radios Appear” was re-issued a while back on heavy-gauge vinyl by 4 Men With Beards. That’s the name of the label, not just 4 homeless cats with a press. Or maybe it is a company made up of 4 homeless cats with a press. Either way, pick it up. Cause Radio Birdman was the business. Even if they couldn’t hear for shit. Cause, remember? The beginning of the article? Ahh fuck it.
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And if it weren’t for the Damned covering 1970 we wouldn’t have been put on to The Stooges and “Fun House”… My favorite part about music is all the places and bands you discover off of just one song. Now help me out FSSers… I have a New Bomb Turks cover of Radio Birdman’s Do The Pop and I’m sure there’s another band that covers their song Hand of Law but for the life of me I can’t remember who. Hit us up if you know…or don’t. It’ll come to me eventually.