| Author | Message | ||
     admin (Admin) |
Subject : Hoodoo Gurus Reformed. Author : Mark Date : 30/11/2003 09:49:18 Not new news, but according to 'The Age' (November 21) newspaper in Melborne: "Hoodoo Gurus have been picked up by Capitol/EMI and will release an album, Mach Schau (produced by Kim Salmon), next year - six years after calling it a day". Does anyone have the details of the new personal line-up? I was pleased to hear from Lindy that it will not include Clyde Bramley, who was one of the founding members of the Hoodoo Gurus. Clyde (Bass Guitar) along with Amanda Brown (Muti instrumentalist) and Peter Jones (x-Cosmic Phycos) are all in a band with Lindy, currently rehearsing under the name UNIT. I was also pleased to hear that she and Amanda are still close friends and that she has not lost her bass player as a result of the Hoodoo Gurus reformation. ------------------------------------------------- Subject : Hoodoo Gurus Reformed. Author : david nichols Date : 01/12/2003 21:51:11 Like the rest of everyone I am quite confused by this as the HGs have more or less (3/4 of the last line-up) been playing round as the Persian Rugs for a while. I saw their most recent video on Rage and thought they were actually pretty good - better than the HGs in their final years - though personally I thought that 'Big Deal' single they put out in the late 90s was one of their best records altogether. The HGs were an interesting anomaly because they were so trash aesthetic but somehow managed to make it work commercially - there's stuff on their early albums that sounds like The Cramps (well, I'm thinking of Dig it Up) and unsurprisingly they quite often sounded a bit like the Scientists. They certainly had some classic moments. Can I just make another point, that is probably self-evident to everyone (but Mike complimented me so nicely in another posting that I suddenly feel interesting). The reason indie people don't tend to wax euphoric about the H Gurus, or Hunters and Collectors for that matter (and a million other bands worldwide who started indie and interesting and then crossed over - REM are another good example that spring to mind), is that they went all commercial and successful and stuff - and we've suppressed the memory that we used to think they were really cutting edge. How would we here at GoBs fan central feel about the GoBs if they really had cracked the charts... if our friends who knew nothing about the GoBs knew their one big hit...? I am not asking 'are we poseurs' because I know we're not, but I am saying for instance that there's no way I could have got up publisher interest for a book on the GoBs if they were one-hit wonders rather than no-hit wonders - see what I mean? No-one's written a book about the Hoodoo Gurus, or Hunters and Collectors, but both groups must have sold 100 times as many records as the Go-Betweens. Then again, people do buy books about REM. Anyone able to clarify my thoughts into a cohesive theory? ------------------------------------------------- Subject : Hoodoo Gurus Reformed. Author : valley boyDate : 02/12/2003 00:06:52 This is topic that could run and run David! If the gb's had made it big this website would probably suffer as they'd have a major label one with very little personality. Perhaps the very thing that attracts us to their music is that they never made it big. I've only ever met one person who really likes them so they remain 'my band' despite the awfulness of what this means. I'm always amazed that people want to read another book on the Beatles or Dylan or Bowie or Nirvana. There are a whole heap of reasons why they never made it big - record company problems, radio problems, the 1980's etc. Would rem have made it so big if they'd repeatedly swapped labels, changed location etc? I think not. Not sure if i've answered anything here - probably not. The attraction of the gb's does go beyond the songs though. You can only ever really love bands that have this life beyond their songs. Otherwise it's just background music isn't it? ------------------------------------------------- Subject : Hoodoo Gurus Reformed. Author : valley boyDate : 02/12/2003 00:14:09 And one other thing - do indie bands really cross over or does the mainstream just broaden (or narrow?) and change? Phil Collins still sounds the same as he did 15 years ago but is nowhere near as successful. Radiohead are making the most uncommercial music of their career yet are the face of mainstream music and have the sales to support this. And what does crossing over mean? More sales, magazine covers and hits? If so mainstream music is mainly hip hop and rap based. Perhaps Robert and Grant should buy a drum machine and start 'shooing up the hood'. ------------------------------------------------- Subject : Hoodoo Gurus Reformed. Author : Mark Date : 02/12/2003 11:13:22 I agree with the "trash aesthetic" observation. Somewhere in the mid-eighties, someone got an idea into their head that 'hippie chic' was a credible fashion statement. The HGs took that idea to it's logical conclusion and made a recording career on the strength of it. I thought it ironic that HG's most popular & successful album was titled 'Mars Needs Guitars' and I thought "Well, the women need 'em as well!" (in Roman Mythology, Mars is a symbol for masculinity. The title then becomes 'Men Need Guitars'). I was displeased to hear that the 'indie' virus has now transmuted into "indie people". It is just amazing how far a record label can go (explicit smilie face may be required here). As for the opinion that was sort. I would be very happy if the GBs "cracked the charts" even if it meant that they had to employ some commercial construct to do so. I would forgive them. It would open a door that leads to a path littered by past recordings and would bring to the people drawn in, some of the same joy that they have so far brought to me. Why hope for less? ------------------------------------------------- Subject : Hoodoo Gurus Reformed. Author : david nichols Date : 03/12/2003 06:29:22 I agree, there are multiple issues there. Some hugely successful artists lose momentum (Phil Collins is a great example. Another good one is Leo Sayer - he was so massive once!) Does the mainstream broaden? I don't think so, exactly. I think that some cutting-edge things become mainstream - Nirvana bringing some version of the punk attitude into the charts is the best example - because the mainstream absorbs them. It's such an interesting subject to me, when a band bails out of the so-called indie world into the so-called mainstream. And if they can't claw their way up in the new milieu, nine times out of ten there's no going back. Radiohead may be making 'very uncommercial' yet peculiarly commercial music, but to my narrow and bigoted taste they're still just plain horrible, and so they fit well with most million-selling rock groups. ------------------------------------------------- Subject : Hoodoo Gurus Reformed. Author : Michael Murphy Date : 09/01/2004 17:05:10 Having spent a couple of years in Oz a decade ago, I'm glad to hear Rage is still on the go. Personally, I think the beauty of groups like the Go Betweens, Hunters and the Gurus is precisely that they are less commercially successful. It's a bit like having this brilliant secret that few people know, and you can cherish it as such. Interesting that the current "Best Of" REM compilation contains nothing from before 1987, the period in which they did a lot of their best work. ------------------------------------------------- Subject : Hoodoo Gurus Reformed. Author : jeffDate : 09/01/2004 17:23:09 In a way I'm kind of glad the Go-Betweens never had that top 10 hit. It usually spells the kiss of death, at least for bands who aren't commercially inclined. For example, take the Church. Here in the US, they were completely unknown outside of the indie/college radio scene until they had a pretty big hit with "Under the Milky Way," back in 1988. That song practically made them a house-hold name, and you could even hear the song in super markets. After that, they went back into their relative obscurity, and (at least in the US) everyone save for the most hardcore Church fanatics were completely unaware that the Church kept making records. MTV's 120 minutes didn't even pay much attention to the Church after their failure to yield another hit (though I remember seeing them play a Jack Frost video, at the time of the first album). The Hudu Guru's had a similar fate, although their songs that had any impact on the US ("Come Any Time" or whatever it was called) never had the same impact as "Under the Milky Way." There was quite a buzz about them in the US in the late 80s, and then nothing. (I should also note that in the US, the onslaught of grunge in the early 90s effectively killed off any mainstream interest in what would have been perceived as 80s relics like the Church or the Hudu Gurus, or the Go-Betweens for that matter. Only REM managed to get through that era unscathed). I just think it would be difficult for a band to have a taste of that kind of success after working so hard, only to have it pulled out from under them a year later, winding up back where they started, only more in debt. ------------------------------------------------- Subject : Hoodoo Gurus Reformed. Author : jerry Date : 09/01/2004 19:19:27 surely the i.r.s. years were covered by the previous best of that came out in 1991 |