The Easybeats: The Solo Years (aka The Further Adventures of Messrs Cahill, Diamonde, Fleet and Vaughan, and in particular Messrs Vanda, Wright and Young). Following on from Paulisdead's excellent "The Easybeats: Album by Album" thread (see here: http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/the-easybeats-album-by-album-thread.314263/ for the beginning and post # 542 on page 22 of part two of that thread here http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threa...album-thread-pt2.337836/page-22#post-10535844 for the point where this thread branches off on its own; see also all the posts in between to get the story so far!), this thread will attempt to tackle the various activities of the members of The Easybeats (primarily Harry Vanda and George Young, as the most active and productive) in the period between The Easybeats' dissolution and the 1986 reunion tour (and possibly beyond, if we can get that far). The primary focus will be on Vanda and Young's work as writers and producers - first in London during the legendary, so-called "four year binge" and later in Sydney as house producers for Alberts Productions (plus the odd outside commission). The thread will also cover their work as performers (up to and including the multiplicity of Flash and the Pan recordings), together with sideways journeys to look at the more interesting (but by no means all) of the many covers that their work has attracted. This thread will not (for the most part) cover post-1969 revivals of the pair's (or Stevie Wright's) Easybeats oeuvre, as these will be picked up on the ongoing pages of Paulisdead's thread, starting at post # 517 on part 2, page 21 here: http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/the-easybeats-album-by-album-thread-pt2.337836/page-21 . The only exceptions to this will be where the revival features one or more of The Easybeats as either performer (e.g. Stevie Wright's remakes of several Easybeats classics) or producer (e.g. John Paul Young's cover of "St Louis", which will be covered here. A secondary focus will be on the solo career of Stevie Wright, with its exhilerating highs and devastating lows (placing rather more emphasis on the former), both with and without his former colleagues. For the sake of completeness, there will also be occasional deviations to consider the known post-Easybeats activities of Tony Cahill and Mike Vaughan and, if any interesting facts come to light, those of Dick Diamonde and Snowy Fleet. There may from time to time also be the odd sidebar to fill in the back history of some of the other key players in the saga - not strictly Easybeats-related but necessary to round out the story. These will not be strictly chronological but will be inserted into the thread to add the necessary colour, depth and detail as we go along. Contributions to any or all of the above are always welcome - I don't claim to be an expert. However, given the long and complex saga that will undoubtedly unfold, it would be helpful if contributors could limit posts to current topics or to add supplementary information to topics already covered, and to avoid jumping forward in the story unless absolutely necessary. So, with preliminaries out of the way, my next post will get down to business and clear away the fallout from The Easybeats' implosion.
As already noted in post # 441 of the second part of Paulisdead's "The Easybeats: Album by Album" thread (see here: http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/the-easybeats-album-by-album-thread-pt2.337836/page-18 ), the collapse of The Easybeats in late 1969 saw the band scattered across the globe. Always the most homesick of the band, Stevie Wright stayed in Sydney. So too did Dick Diamonde, with his new wife, at least for a short while. Harry Vanda, George Young and Tony Cahill all returned to London, as did manager Mike Vaughan. According to Vanda and Young biographer John Tait, the band had "signed out of the name" in Sydney in 1969, presumably leaving it in the hands of Vaughan, although there is little evidence that he attempted to make use of it. The accuracy or otherwise of this account was covered on post # 443 of part two of the Easybeats: Album by Album thread (see here: http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/the-easybeats-album-by-album-thread-pt2.337836/page-18 ); suffice it to say that it is more likely that the name, together with $85 000 of accumulated debt (largely unrecouped advances) ended up with Vanda and Young (see post # 445 of part two of The Easybeats:Album by Album thread: http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/the-easybeats-album-by-album-thread-pt2.337836/page-19 ). There are rumours in circulation that at some point Vanda and Young considered reviving the band by bringing in Grapefruit's George Alexander (aka George's elder brother Alex Young). This may have been a vague idea formulated in the hope that the final Easybeats' single ("Who Are My Friends", issued in May 1970; see post #536 of part two of The Easybeats - Album by Album thread here: http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/the-easybeats-album-by-album-thread-pt2.337836/page-22 ) might generate some interest but nothing came of the idea. Whether this was because the single flopped and they decided to abndon the idea or because they no longer owned the name and so couldn't use it is unknown, like much of the story of this period. Whatever the case, the band was consigned to the history books and the pair moved on. Oddly, while The Easybeats had gone out of business, the Staeb Productions company that they owned (or had owned) with Mike Vaughan remained a going concern into 1970, with two singles surfacing in early 1970 carrying this credit. Neither had anything to do with Vanda and Young, although Vaughan may have had a hand in one or both. These odd releases, one apiece from Aussie country-rockers Eureka Stockade and Scottish rocker Danny McCulloch, were covered in part 2 of Paulisdead's Easybeats Album by Album thread in post # 480 (see here: http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/the-easybeats-album-by-album-thread-pt2.337836/page-20 ). Together with those final Easybeats 45s, these were the last releases to bear the Staeb Productions imprint. It seems that the company was wound up, or at least put on ice, at some point in 1970, and Vaughan left London for New York, where, according to John Tait, he opened a bar. Quite how Vaughan emerged from the rubble with the money to do this when the rest of the band ended up broke is unclear, but it probably did little to repair the band members' ailing relationship with their manager. With the "Friends" LP and its extracted singles having fulfilled The Easybeats' contractual obligations, the Polydor contract also came to a close in early 1970, leaving the individual Easybeats free to sign new deals elsewhere if they wished, either as solo performers or as part of new bands.
Wow. Just... Wow. Let me be the first to wish you luck in this new thread Gareth. This is pretty much uncharted territory: I don't think we've ever yet seen a comprehensive discography on Vanda and Young's post-Easybeats activities and so this is something I think we'll all be looking forward to. Exciting too, to think that this will be a companion thread to Paulisdead's excellent on-going effort. Best wishes, ~Bill.
Thanks, Bill. I'm not convinced I can deliver a comprehensive discography, but with the help of others, I think we can get pretty close. We'll see how we go.
Well, as they stuck with Alberts and Alberts stuck with EMI until well into the 1980s, I have you somewhat covered there. Otherwise, I have no idea about this period! Good luck with the thread, Gareth!
After the band dissolved, three of the six former Easybeats disappeared from public view, at least for a short while. Original drummer Snowy Fleet had left in 1967 to set up home in Perth, as noted on post #441 on page 18 of part one of the Easybeats:Album by Album thread. He subsequently spent time working in local radio, and a note on page 67 (the international news section) of US trade magazine "Billboard" for 14 October that year makes reference to two planned shows for local television (see here: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=qiIEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA67&lpg=PA67&dq="snowy fleet" perth radio&source=bl&ots=M3X7xT6INS&sig=hvVM9jdiBCU6lBl1woBfA3NoG9U&hl=en&sa=X&ei=keGCU-6UPIzaOOezgagK&ved=0CDUQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q="snowy fleet" perth radio&f=false) although these do not appear to have come to fruition. By the end of the decade, Snowy had abandoned any connection with the music industry and had set himslf up as a builder. Bassist Dick Diamonde, burned out by the band's years in England, dropped out of sight to, as Glenn A. Baker put it in the notes for "Absolute Anthology", "get his head together". With his new bride busy in the Sydney production of "Hair", he remained on the fringes of the music industry, but he was in poor shape, struggling to reconcile his parents' desire for him to return to the Jehovah's Witness faith with his enjoyment of rock 'n' roll and his experiences in London. It has never been clear whether Dick's problems were compounded by drug use, but George Young's later (1976) recollection that by 1969 the band were "pretty much stoned off their nuts" suggests that this may have been the case. Baker indicates that Dick moved up the New South Wales coast to recover, but with his wife working in Sydney, this is questionable, at least for this period. John Tait gives a different account, saying that Dick and Charlene moved to Amsterdam when Charlene landed a role in the Dutch production of "Hair". A website dedicated to the various productions of "Hair" around the world does indeed list Charlene Collins as being in the Amsterdam production, although it does not say when. (The site is here: http://www.orlok.com/hair/holding/Hair.html, the page mentioning Charlene is here: http://www.orlok.com/hair/holding/misctuff/x_cast.html). It is therefore unclear whether or not she is on the album made of the production - an album of great interest to progressive rock fans as it features an early lineup of Focus amongst the musicians (just as Tully had played on the Australian version). It would however appear that Tait is right, and that Dick moved to Amsterdam at some point in 1970. Latter-day drummer Tony Cahill had been reluctant to do the Australian tour as he was apparently involved in an underground film being made at the time. With The Easybeats virstually at a standstill (other than the "St Louis" single) in 1969, it is unsurprising that Tony sought out other ventures. He appears to have fallen in with the Australian hippy collective in London (Richard Neville et al), and to have spent much of 1969 in The Pheasantry, a Kings Road, Chelsea building housing studios and a nightclub. Among the doyens of the underground largely resident in or around the building were Eric Clapton, feminist writer Germaine Greer, pop artist Martin Sharp, photographer Robert Whittaker and film maker Philippe Mora, who filmed most of "Trouble in Molopolis" in the building. Tony was, with Jamie Boyd, responsible for providing the music for the soundtrack (only Boyd is credited on the IMDB website but Tony is credited as musical director on the film poster). The film, which was co-produced by an uncrdited Eric Clapton and featured "every Australian (Mora) knew pulled into the picture", premiered at the Paris Pillman cinema in Chelsea at a benefit for "Oz" magazine, an event made all the more memorable when the film's star John Ivor Golding defecated in the front row and then passed out into an alcohol-induced coma. Tony was apparently in poor shape after the Australian tour, although the photos from the tour do not suggest this. According to John Tait, Tony was a respected enough drummer for John Mayall to offer to keep the vacant Blues Breakers' drum stool open until he had sorted out his drug problems, whatever they were. Tait actually says that Tony was in such a state that he could no longer drum in the style for which he had become famous, but as he had just done so during The Easybeats' final Australian tour, this seems to be nonsense, unless he destroyed his health completely on his return to the UK. It is however true that for much of the 1969-70 period, John Mayall performed and recorded in a Blues Breakers line-up that had no drummer, turning out the 1969 album "Empty Rooms" and the 1970 set "U.S.A. Union". Whether this was because he was waiting for Tony to rebuild his strength or not, the chronology does fit Tait's narrative, and as his source was probably Tony himself, it is quite possible that Mayall made the offer - and given Tony's pre-Easybeats history in The Purple Hearts, it is easy to see how he might have been attracted by Mayall's offer. Whatever the truth of things, Tony, with the help of Germaine Greer, certainly underwent some form of rest cure and / or therapy on his return frm Australia (Tait says "cold turkey", which suggests that Tony was on hard drugs, possibly heroin), and during his convalesence, he learned to play bass guitar. Thus refreshed and enthused by his new instrument, he abandoned the drums (forever, according to Tait, but the evidence does not support this, as we will see later on), turned down Mayall's offer (or perhaps the mercurial Mayall, by now resident in the US, got tired of waiting for him) and instead accepted the vacant bass guitar slot in Python Lee Jackson, a one-time Australian soul / r&b outfit who had split up in 1967 before reforming in England in 1969 as a more progressive outfit. We shall hear from them again later.
I saw "Trouble in Molopolis" at a film festival. The theme song was a sort of big ballad Bond theme 'sung' by Germaine Greer and the plot had something to do with the mayor of Molopolis trying to ban milk. Beware.
imdb also says the film was shot on the 35MM short ends of Performance, given to Philippe Mora by producer Sandy Lieberson. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0244268/combined The film even revieved a certification from the British Censors: http://www.bbfc.co.uk/releases/trouble-molopolis
Just reading that film poster again - it credits Tony Cahill as "Musical Director" but notes that the music was composed by Jamie Boyd and Mick Liber - the latter would work alongside Tony again in 1970 as part of the reformed Python Lee Jackson....... TBC.........
An interview with producer Wally Waller about Marcus Hook Roll Band reissue. http://www.discussionsmagazine.com/...mportCDs&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=rss
Of the more "high profile" Easybeats, Stevie Wright's immediate post-Easybeats activities are (oddly) the most confusing and the hardest to pin down, although for very different reasons to those concerning Tony Cahill, Snowy Fleet, Dick Diamonde and Mike Vaughan. In those cases, information is sketchy and has to be pieced together; in Stevie' case there is rather too much information, and some of it, at least, appears to be unreliable, inconsistent and contradictory. While the rest of the band and its entourage scattered to Perth (Snowy), London (Harry, George and Tony), New York (Mike) and Amsterdam (Dick), Stevie had never really enjoyed living in London and with his girlfriend Gail chose to settle back into the city where it had all began. Having been a singer since his early teens, Stevie had never known anything else, although he had, in the early days, held down a day job selling menswear. According to his authorised biographer Glenn Goldsmith, Stevie had no desire to front another band - he had hit the top with The Easybeats and the thought of starting over with a new band did not appeal. Goldsmith also makes the comment that Stevie remained contractually tied to Alberts and to Polydor and so could not record in any case, but this would not have prevented him from performing. (Goldsmith is wrong when he describes those contracts as being for Australia / New Zealand and the rest of the world respectively; Stevie was only signed to Alberts for publishing. Polydor had exclusive recording rights until The Eaybeats' deal was achieved, which was not until the "Friends" album and its attendant singles had been released - the last of these did not appear in Australia until May 1970, so Stevie could not have launched an independent solo career until after that.) However, Goldsmith also states that Stevie received an invite to appear at the "Pilgrimage of Pop", a three-day music festival at Ourimbah showcasing the best of the underground bands in both Sydney and Melbourne, and promptly assembled a new band, Rachette, to back him at the festival, due to be held in January 1970. According to some accounts (notably Goldsmith and the milesago website, but interestingly not rock encyclopedist Ian MacFarlane), the new band made their concert debut at the festival, held over the Australia Day weekend. An account of the festival can be found on post #481 of The Easybeats- Album by Album thread here: http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threa...album-thread-pt2.337836/page-20#post-10473881 with additional detail courtesy of Milesago here: http://www.milesago.com/festivals/ourimbah.htm. Selected tracks recorded at the festival were also broadcast on ABC-TV's "G.T.K." programme (as noted in Wendy Saddington's Go-Set page, 28th February 1970), but it is not known which bands were featured, and the available list of runsheets for the show for early 1970 is incomplete; it is not known of any of this footage survives. A film was also made of the festival - an event seen at the time as being "Australia's Woodstock" - under the title "Once Around the Sun" but Rachette were not featured. And herein lies the problem with this account. This event preceded the final Easybeats releases, although no announcement of the split had been made. Surely an appearance by Stevie fronting a band other than The Easybeats would have been seen as newsworthy, regardless of who else was playing. Yet the band do not appear in the film; nor are they listed in the advertising for the festival. There is a lengthy review of the event in Go-Set (7th February 1970) which does not mention Rachette either. Again, this would be surprising if they had played, as it was only three months after The Easybeats' final shows and no split had been announced. While I can accept that they might not be in the advert, and I can accept (with more difficulty) that they do not appear in the film, I do not believe for one minute that any review of the festival would have failed to mention something as notable as the debut performance of Stevie's new band. There are also some photos purporting to be from the festival doing the rounds on the internet, including one of a long-haired man seated at a keyboard which is captioned on some sites (see here: https://www.facebook.com/brisbanewa...4747383968715/396173527159434/?type=3&theater) as being Stevie, but anyone familiar with Stevie's appearance during the 1969 Australian tour (or ever) can see that this is not him (Stevie didn't play keyboards anyway). Adding to the general confusion is the fact that so far as I can tell (I do not have a full set of issues) Stevie did not appear in the pages of Go-Set after the end of The Easybeats' tour, until a brief "Pop Stars Speak Out" segment appeared on 25th April 1970. There was no mention of Rachette in the segment, although that could be largely contextual, given the content of the piece. Rachette did not make any televison apperances until October 1970 (which we will get to in due course). If they had formed in late 1969, this would be a staggeringly long time to wait for a band fronted by one of the country's biggest pop stars - and even then, they were only shown rehearsing. Surely, if they had been together for nearly a year by then, they would have been given the chance to perform on screen. Not only that, but in the Go-Set issue published 7th November 1970, there is a brief comment in the "Trucking Around" column that says: "Remember Little Stevie? He's hoping to record again now that the ban's off ... Stevie has formed a new band called Rachette and is also producing several singles for other artists...". (This last statement is also partly true, but we'll get to that in due course.) A lengthier piece on the band then appeared a few weeks later. Add to this the fact that there actually IS evidence of Rachette playing another festival twelve months later (we'll get to that eventually too), and the fact that most writers over the years have referred to Rachette as being "short-lived". I find it hard to believe that a short-lived band could have played two festival gigs, twelve months apart, and apparently nothing else, especially as they are mentioned as a NEW band in Go-Set in November. If this is the case, then the assumption made by many writers that Rachette played the Ourimbah festival in late January 1970 is, in my view, incorrect. I believe that they did NOT play this festival, as I believe they had not even been formed at this stage - and I think someone, somewhere has confused the 1970 and 1971 festivals, leading to an erroneous source claiming Stevie for the 1970 event; an error repeated over and over down the years to the point that even Stevie came to believe it (as he, presumably, told Goldsmith). As to what exactly he WAS doing..... well.........
The short answer is: not a lot. Having been an Easybeat since he was 14, Stevie had little clue what else he could do, and so he appears to have done very little in the early months oof 1970. He received some money from the final Easybeats' tour (Tait, channeling Harry, Dick or Tony, says $800; Goldsmith, from Stevie, says $2000) but it was not enough to allow him to retire. His girlfriend Gail got a job in PR and kept them both alive over the early months while the final Polydor releases came and went, after which Stevie was free to start again, if he wished to do so. The problem was, according to Goldsmith, that he didn't fancy the thought of starting over again, grinding out a residency somewhere in the hope of getting a deal. Added to that, the record ban effectively meant that unless he signed with an independent label, anything he did record would be barred from airplay in any case, so it was hardly the best time to set off on a solo career. He did apparently consider joining Harry and George in England, but he really wasn't keen to go back overseas. All of which meant that, as far as music (or anything public) was concerned, Stevie just disappeared. So far as is known, his only appearance in the public eye came in the 25th April issue of Go-Set when he was interviewed for a "Pop Stars Speak Out" column, grappling with the current dilemma of balancing entertainment with playing music with meaning. There was no reference to current activity, or even to The Easybeats" apparent disappearance (no announcement of the split had been made), just a few words from someone who still qualified as a "pop star" despite an apparent lack of activity. But Stevie would return to music within a few months - as we shall see when we get there.
While Stevie and Dick kept a low profile, Snowy worked on his building business and Tony concentrated on getting his health back in order, the key question was what Harry Vanda and George Young would do next. At the dawn of the seventies things looked bleak for Vanda and Young - not for nothing did George Young once describe this period as one of "drinking and starving". Shouldering the burden of The Easybeats' debts, the pair were also briefly involved in some form of imbroglio with Alberts over publishing, which was either the cause or a symptom of the pair's attempt to masquerade under the pseudonym "B. Russell" for songwriting purposes (see the discussion at post # 158 of part 2 here: http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threa...y-album-thread-pt2.337836/page-7#post-9972079 ). By early 1970 though, they were free of their five-year publishing contract with Alberts and able to seek out local publishers, as they had done during The Easybeats' career, and even, if they wished, to sign for a new publisher in Australia. Hard evidence for what work was done where is hard to come by for this period, but it appears that at least some of that year's sessions took place in Orange Studios in New Compton Street, a modern set up established in 1968 (for info on the studio, see here: https://www.orangeamps.com/heritage/legacy-companies/orange-studios/ ). This suggests that the Moscow Road studio set up that had produced most of the "Friends" LP may no longer have been available; perhaps the equipment had been sold to help pay off the debts, or perhaps the trio had just done a session for someone else and recorded their own tracks in unused session time already paid for by sinebody else. Teaming up with George Alexander, Vanda and Young formed an independent production company called Shock Productions, intending to write, produce and record songs which they would then shop around to labels who might be interested. At least, this is the way this story has always been presented; as ever, the facts do not entirely support this, as the trail of releases will show. Exactly how Shock Productions operated is unclear. This period has been briefly described by Glenn A. Baker in the various sets of liner notes and in the "Rolling Stone" article, by rock encyclopaedists Noel McGrath and Ian McFarlane, by John Tait in his biography of Vanda and Young, by Mike Vaughan in a 1976 interview with US magazine "Trouser Press", by Harry Vanda in an interview for John Tait's book, and in more depth by George Young in the 1976 "Rolling Stone" interview. For various reasons which will become clear as we go through this thread, I believe that all of these accounts offer over-simplifications, and none give a true picture of the way the trio worked, but it is worth revisiting these accounts in part before looking at the actual output. Glenn A. Baker: "... Harry and George returned to England where, despite a severe lack of financial backing, they began re-establishing themselves as producers and songwriters...." ("13 Years of Rock and Roll", in "Rolling Stone", Rolling Stone Australia, Sydney, 1976, p40); "....Harry Vanda and George Young returned to England to begin their now-legendary careers as session players producers and sometime pop-stars, a period which George fondly remembers as "the four year binge". They played on so many sessions that they can't begin to remember them all. Their efforts were released under a variety of group names .... These recordings were casual, goodtime and usually drunken collaborations with various London friends, never seriously intended for competitive commercial success. Most of these mysterious Vanda-Young tracks were not even recorded in a studio but in George Young's London flat ...." (Liner notes to "The Vanda and Young Story Volume 1", Albert Productions, Sydney, 1976); ".... Vanda and Young worked in England for 4 alcohol-soaked years as freelance writers / producers / singers, cutting numerous obscure singles under an assortment of assumed identities.... (Liner notes to "Absolute Anthology", Albert Productions, Sydney, 1980, p10); "... years of alcoholically induced musical exercises, such as producing .... songwriting .... and occasial recording ..." (Liner notes to "Albert Archives", Albert Productions, Sydney, 1980, p2). Noel McGrath: "... (Vanda and Young) found work as independent producers, musicians and songwriters. They also formed a session group to work on the co-op style label Youngblood, and set up a buy-a-session situation. The idea was that the financier could pay for a session and the group would provide the songs and the playing. The result could be released under any name.....". ("Noel McGrath's Australian Encyclopedia of Rock and Pop" (2nd edition), Rigby Publishers, Melbourne, 1984, pp126-7.) Ian McFarlane: "Vanda and Young returned to the UK to work fot three years as freelance producers/songwriters/musicians...." ("The Encyclopedia of Australian Rock and Pop", Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1999, p.193); ".... They also issued a series of obscure singles in tne UK under various pseudonyms......". (p. 226) John Tait: ".....(Vanda and Young) continued their process of writing and recording in George's little (Moscow Road) studio....." ("Vanda and Young: Inside Australia's Hit Factory", University of New South Wales Press Ltd, Sydney, 2010, p122.) "...... With landlords breathing down their necks and debts hanging over their heads, the incentive was to get working and make some money.... It was a hand to mouth existence for them - anything to make a dollar (sic.) and feed the family. They even tried busking..... They feverishly wrote songs for themselves and others in any style that was required...." (p123). "....When the duo supplied the song, they would always volunteer to play on it as it meant immediate payment as session musicians, whereas royalties took a long time to filter through....." (p124). "There were two songwriting sources within their group: Vanda/Young and Alex Young (aka George Alexander). To share royalties as equally as possible, they made sure that if a Vanda/Young song was the A-side, then an Alex Young song would be the B-side, and vice versa" (pp125-6). Mike Vaughan: "... (Vanda and Young) started to write and produce, and formed their own publishing company, Friday Music, and released some one-off records.... They played some themselves, they gave some to other groups, but nothing of substance ever happened to anything...". (Interview quoted in article "Rockin' Down Under" by Jim Green and Dave Schulps, Trouser Press, Volume Three, No. 5, New York, 1976, p18.) Harry Vanda: "In those days you'd try to get a deal with a company and they would give you an advance, which you would immediately go out and spend. It was basically to keep the rent man off the door. We had the option to take the single and promote it or otherwise they could put whatever faces they wanted to it". (Interview for Tait's book, quoted on p125). George Young: "... So Harry and I were back in England, flat broke,we were just skint, so we thought we would get to and produce some records. We had no money but we had a few friends who had access to studios. We didn't get into production though, straight away. .... Harry and I had more or less a four year binge - more or less just having a laugh. First we did a couple of tracks on a co-operative record label. We got three or four musician friends of ours, went into a studio and did a deal. We would supply all the songs, production, musicians etc and they would supply the money and the booze......" (Interview for the "Rolling Stone" article by Glenn A. Baker noted above, p 44). Where does all this leave us? Well, to my mind, a couple of things stand out. Firstly, the role of George Alexander in all this activity has been seriously underplayed in most accounts, with only John Tait giving correct weight to his important contribution. This may be due to the Australian bias of most of the writers, but Alexander contributed half of the material, handled at least some of the production duties (as we shall see) and provided the connection to most of the musicians; without him, Harry and George would REALLY have struggled. Secondly, the oft-cited account of what McGrath described as a "buy a session" arrangement is not strictly correct, although it may describe some of what went on. Harry describes the trio making records then shopping them - i.e. AFTER the session, which presumably they paid for themselves - while George describes something more akin to McGrath's description. The truth appears to be that, while they DID make some recordings independently and then shopped them around, they also did deals with record labels just like anyone else. The releases that appeared in 1970-73 reflect both of these approaches. However things were arranged, what is clear is that the trio assembled a gang of like-minded (mainly Scottish) individuals, including drummer Eddie Sparrow, bassist Archie Leggatt, trumpeter Bobby Patrick, saxophonist Howie Casey, bassist Ian Campbell (who would sometimes also handle lead vocals) and (interestingly) interim Easybeats drummer Freddie Smith (who had kept the seat warm during the "Good Times" sessions between Snowy Fleet's departure and Tony Cahill's arrival - Smith and Patrick had also previously played with George Alexander in his pre-Grapefruit band, Bobby Patrick and the Big Six). Guitars were handled by Vanda and Young (who between them could handle most instruments, and sometimes did on demos), keyboards by George Young and guitar and saxophone by George Alexander. Thus constituted (it is not clear which musicians appeared on which releases, although it is likely that Alexander, Vanda and Young appeared on all releases, with the others helping out from time to time in varying combinations), they got down to work, spending what little cash they had on studio time (initially at least at Orange Studios) to get them up and running. By the summer of 1970, the first releases from the new team were ready to grace record racks in the UK, and the legendary "four-year binge" began.
19 June 1970 MOONDANCE: Lazy River (Vanda-Young) / Anna St Claire (Alexander) UK A&M AMS 792. A-side published by Mecolico (whoever they are!); B-side published by Apple Publishing. Although it is difficult to be entirely sure, it appears that this was the first product prepared for release by the new Vanda-Young-Alexander partnership (it was issued on the same day as the second one, but I have a reason to believe that they were recorded in this order; a reason that I will come to when I discuss the next release). Setting the template for their operations over the next couple of years, the single featured one song by Harry and George and one by George Alexander. The production credit read "A Shock Production", indicating that it was an independently produced record, rather than being produced by or for A&M. Why the name "Moondance" was chosen for the artist name is unknown - it may have been inspired by the Van Morrison LP of that name, which had been issued at the end of February. According to Noel McGrath, the label purchasing (or leasing) material from Shock Productions was able to release it under any name they chose, so it may be that neither Vanda, Young nor Alexander had any say in the matter. Musically, "Lazy River" continued the laid back feel of the "Friends" material, with a pleasantly lazy groove, tinkling piano, lightly strummed guitars and a catchy chorus to help it along, and was by some distance the stronger of the two songs. This is not to diminish the charms of "Anna St Claire", which was a charming, Beatlesque pop song and a worthy successor to Alexander's work wth Grapefruit, but it lacked the easy commerciality of its running mate. All up, it was a strong single and an excellent way to kick off Harry and George's post-Easybeats career. Sold to A&M for release, hopes must have been high for a hit, but if so, then once again, the pair were to be cruelly disappointed, and the record passed by virtually unnoticed. At least in the UK. Continental Europe (especially the northern countries) had always been more supportive of The Easybeats' oeuvre than the UK, and A&M sought to build on this established fanbase, issuing the single in The Netherlands (14 690 AT) and in Germany, Norway and Sweden (with the UK catalogue number). The Dutch version came in a decorated sleeve; the German and Scandinavian version came in a picture sleeve featuring a photo of two smiling musicians, one dark-haired and one blond, sitting in a recording studio - but whoever they were, they were most certainly NOT Harry and George. Despite this odd marketing approach, the record flopped across Europe, except in Sweden where it received good airplay. As noted in post #118 of part two of the Easybeats: Album by Album thread (see here: http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/the-easybeats-album-by-album-thread-pt2.337836/page-5), the Swedish chart at this point mixed albums and singles together, and by 1971 few singles were making the top thirty, but on the popular radio show Ti i Topp, where "St Louis" had proved popular in 1969, "Lazy River" was entered for contention on 28th November 1970. It failed to win a place in the top ten, landing at #13 (two places higher than "St Louis") but its placement in the programme at all was testament to a continued Swedish love for the works of Vanda and Young, a fondness that would deliver rich rewards in the years to come. Although A&M was an American label, based in Los Angeles, the single does not appear to have been issued in the US, perhaps being given a miss after it failed to register in the UK. It also went unissued in Australia (at least for now - "Lazy River" would surface there in late 1971 in odd circumstances, but we'll get to that later), even though A&M had an office there and a good distribution deal with Festival. Given that every Easybeats release except the final one ("Friends") had charted in at least one of Australia's main cities, the decision not to issue the new single there seems odd to say the least, and the reasons behind the decision remain unknown. It may be that the infamous record ban on major record comapnies (which included Festival) between May and October 1970 led A&M to dismiss the record's chances (without airplay, who would hear it?), although this didn't stop hundreds of other records from being released - it could always have been advertised in Go-Set, or held over until the ban ended. Alternately, it may be that Shock Productions had only licensed the record to A&M for European release, and didn't bother to seek a licensee in Australia or the US, although this both seems unlikely and flies in the face of the generally accepted account of these years being a period where releases were sold outright to whoever would buy them (this description appears to originate with Noel McGrath, and could be an over-simplification). It may also be that there were problems with publishing - while Alexander's deal with Apple covered the Australian market, Vanda and Young's deal with the mysterious Mecolico did not, and with the pair in dispute with Alberts over the "B. Russell" affair, it may be that Ted Albert blocked the release. Not only did the record go unreleased in Australia but, incredible as it seems, neither this nor any of the year's subsequent Vanda and Young efforts were ever acknowledged in the pages of Go-Set, a massive contrast to the 1966 coverage of "Friday on My Mind" that prompted its rush release back in Australia. Even Molly Meldrum seemed ignorant of the record's existence, and he fails to mention any of the pair's post-Easybeats work in a 26th September 1970 column largely dedicated to the work of Australians overseas. Whatever the reason, the single failed to appear outside Europe and is today extremely hard to find, in any A&M pressing. "Lazy River" would, as noted above, be reissued in Australia later in the decade, although that single would be slightly diffent from the Moondance version (I'll go into that when I get there; the version on the 1976 LP "The Vanda and Young Story Volume 1" (Drum BALP 10291) is the same as the UK single). "Anna St Claire" has never, so far as I know, been reissued anywhere.
The release of ‘Lazy River’ would have no doubt been a happy occasion for remaining Easybeats fans at the time. A typically well-constructed Vanda-Young pop effort, it sounds much like an Easybeats record what with George’s distinctive vocals, so similar to those heard on the “Friends’ album. Backed by a chorus of Georges and Harrys, it would, as Garethofoz and Richcraft have said on The Easybeats Thread itself, fit comfortably as a part of the “Friends” album, though it sounds more like a studio recording (almost certainly Orange Studios) than a home-made effort. The lyrical image of “The River” as the source and sustainer of life, gives the song a pastoral air and a sense of peace-of-mind. As Richcraft has noted, this River appears in two earlier “Friends” selections (‘Who Are My Friends’ and ‘Tell Your Mother’), in the former as a source of comfort and in the latter as a picture of “home.” It also exists in the imagination of the psychedelicized protagonist in ‘Land of Make Believe’ (“In the grass by my mind’s flowing river…”) and it’s earlier appearance there makes it tempting to cite it as a viable, though short-lived, theme in the duo’s lyrics. The instrumentation of the track is simple and well-suited to the song itself. Harpsichord, acoustic guitars, bass and drums (probably George) underpin the double-tracked vocal as the song unfolds. A tambourine appears at the first chorus and a mellotron is introduced beginning at the second verse. Following the single-vocal bridge, the song shifts up a step at 2:00, and handclaps begin to punctuate the rhythm alongside an added vocal chorus, all typical Vanda-Young musical production tricks and familiar to the ears of Easybeats listeners. An effective yet simple recording, this one is a dark-horse favorite and holds up well after repeated listening. On the one hand it could be viewed as a valedictory Easybeats release; someone else, however, might regard it as the very first Flash and the Pan recording. (Not me.) Either way, a promising start to the solo careers of the two former Easybeats.
Near as I can determine “Mecolico” was not really a music publisher at all. The “Mechanical Copyright Licences Company Ltd,” was one of the British Performing Rights Societies (similar to BMI / ASCAP in the US, APRA / AMCOS in Australia, GEMA in Germany, SACEM in France, etc.). Its purpose was the collection and distribution of royalty fees due to artists from Gramophone Companies. It was later assimilated into a newer organization which is now known as “PRS for Music.” ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRS_for_Music ) The presence of this notation on the record label would serve as an indication that the work was under copyright but the actual publisher was as yet to be determined or named. The probability is that Vanda and Young, hoping to sell their recorded efforts to a variety of labels, were unwilling to enter into an exclusive contract with any one particular British publisher. This would leave the publishing of each composition available to any label willing to release the record, a useful bargaining chip. (For example, subsequent releases on the Young Blood label were published by “Young Blood Music.”) Later on, the songwriters would form their own UK publishing venture, Friday Music.
