Sydney friends living in London, are putting on a Sunday club event, starting at 2pm, going through till 2am, with a BBQ at 5pm. They will be mixing up electronica, dub, deep-house, minimal and techno sounds for your enjoyment.
Ant (ARB2.5), Brad (Product) and I did a regular decoded_ club night in Sydney for a while, on a Thursday night at The Burdekin here in Sydney, a few years back. It’s excellent to see the guys have got something happening in London, now that they are both living there.
Yes, decoded_ is also the name for my defunct Internet radio show, and this blog.
Great to see Dave Choe added to the line-up too, as well as being a great DJ, he’s also half of the crew behind all the excellent Glitch club nights and parties in Sydney over the years. He moved to London a year ago.
All these guys know and play great music, and are great mates. I highly recommend checking this out if you’re in London town. A chance to catch up with some really friendly Aussie crew too.
Sad news yesterday. James Freud, bass player, singer, song writer with The Models and of James Freud & The Radio Stars – ‘Modern Girl’ fame in 1980, author and manager of his sons’ band ‘Attack Of The Mannequins’, has taken his own life at his home in Melbourne. The week prior, The Models were inducted into the ARIA Hall Of Fame, James Freud was absent from the ceremony.
I’ve been a fan of The Models since the mid-late 1980s. I started with the later albums; ‘Out Of Mind, Out Of Sight’ and ‘Media’ and worked my way back through their earlier albums and EPs. I have a lot of it on vinyl, collecting most of the 12″ remixes of their singles too.
The Models – The Pleasure Of Your Company
Their 1983 album ‘The Pleasure Of Your Company’ ended up being my favourite, with songs/singles like ‘I Hear Motion’ and ‘God Bless America’. The songs and sounds on that album were a huge influence and inspiration to me, as I was getting into playing keyboards/synths, sampling, sequencing, making music and playing in bands. I loved James Freud‘s bass lines, and Andrew Duffield‘s keyboard parts/sounds. I’d love to know what synths he was using back then. I was also a big fan of that Nick Launay and Mark Opitz sound, the guys who produced, mixed and remixed a lot of The Models music. The sound is probably what inspired me to do a year diploma at the School Of Audio Engineering, fresh out of high school in 1989.
I only got to see The Models perform live once, when I was 16 years old, on a blistering hot new years day in 1987 at Thebarton Oval, the Adelaide leg of the massive Australian Made tour. I was really disappointed when The Models split up the following year.
Probably my favourite INXS performance was that day/night at the Australian Made concert too. I still get spine tingles remembering how INXS started with ‘Melting In The Sun’, which we were that day. The VHS video release of the concert starts with it:
When The Models played the Adelaide Australian Made concert, their keyboardist Roger Mason had broken an arm just prior, and played one handed, I believe a lot of his keyboard parts had to be sequenced for the set, with drummer Barton Price locked to a click track in headphones.
The video for ‘Hold On’ by The Models was filmed at the Australian Made concerts in the other states.
I actually met James Freud in 1989, shook his hand, had a chat for a couple of minutes, got him to sign a CD, after his gig at the Old Lion Hotel in Adelaide, promoting his solo ‘Step Into The Heat’ album. It was not a well attended gig, but he was in great spirits, and I found him to be a friendly guy. He was chuffed I had bought and brought the CD along to have it signed.
I even saw The Clampetts, a country and western side project for The Models founder Sean Kelly and keyboardist Roger Mason, perform live, in the tiny front room of The Exeter Hotel in Adelaide probably a year prior.
Thanks for all the great music and awesome bass lines James Freud, you’ll be missed, and never forgotten, R.I.P.
