Keith Glass | |
---|---|
Birth name | Keith Robert Glass |
Also known as | Onie J. Holy |
Born | 17 September 1946 |
Origin | Brighton, Victoria, Australia |
Genres | Country, folk, soul, R&B, pop, baroque rock |
Occupation(s) | Musician, record label owner, producer, journalist |
Instrument(s) | Guitar, vocals, bass guitar |
Years active | 1963–present |
Labels | Missing Link, Au Go Go, Virgin, Larrikin, Massive |
Keith Robert Glass (born 17 September 1946) is an Australian country music singer-songwriter, guitarist, musical theatre actor, record label owner, producer and journalist. In April 1967 he formed a soul music group, Cam-Pact, which released four singles and an extended play, Something Easy. He left by June 1969 to appear in the Australian stage production of Hair as Berger (replaced by Reg Livermore in 1970). As a solo artist Glass released country and R&B albums, Going Over Old Ground (1989), Living Down My Past (1991), Smoke and Mirrors (1997), Southerly Buster (3 May 1999), Australian Soul (19 July 2001) and Miss Ala (26 October 2005).
In 1977 Glass and David Pepperell founded Missing Link Records, the following year he signed and managed The Boys Next Door, a punk band, featuring Nick Cave, Mick Harvey, Phill Calvert and Tracy Pew. Glass co-produced the group's 1980 album, The Birthday Party , before they relocated to London and changed their name to match its title. In October 1981 Australian music journalist, Glenn A. Baker, described the Missing Link label in Billboard which was "recognised for the cornerstone upon which much of Australia's new wave music movement has been built ... [Glass'] understanding and appreciation of the grass roots level of rock music is considered impeccable".
Keith Robert Glass was born on 17 September 1946, [1] [2] and he received guitar lessons at Lou Toppano's Music School on his Maton Alver acoustic guitar. [3] From 1958 Glass attended Brighton High School. [4] In 1963 The Rising Sons were formed as a R&B band in Brighton with Glass on lead guitar, and three Brighton Grammar School students: Clive Davies on rhythm guitar, Dennis "Fred" Foster on drums and Russell Naughton on bass guitar. Their first gig was a dance for Brighton Grammar School. They played cover versions of instrumentals by The Ventures, Duane Eddy and The Shadows. They recorded material but none was released. Glass attempted first year of a law course at University of Melbourne but transferred to RMIT and starting a design course. By late 1965 The Rising Sons had disbanded. [3]
In 1966 Glass and Foster formed a folk, baroque rock group, Eighteenth Century Quartet, with Frank Lyons on bass guitar; Hans Poulsen on guitar, vocals, bouzouki and mandolin; and John Pugh on guitar, violin, autoharp, harmonica and backing vocals. [5] After issuing their debut single, "Rachel" in October, Poulsen left for a solo career. Glass wrote and sang lead on their second single, "Am I a Lover?" (December). Their live work "bore no relationship to the earlier folk-rock trappings" and they "began playing more uptempo soul/R&B/rock material". [5] The group disbanded in March 1967. [5]
In April 1967 Glass and Pugh formed a soul music group, Cam-Pact, with Mark Barnes on bass guitar, Bob Lloyd (aka Bob Tregilgas) on drums, and Chris Stockley on guitar. [6] [7] They released four singles, "Something Easy" (March 1968), "Drawing Room" (May), "Good Good Feelin'" (September) and "Potion of Love" (June 1969) and an extended play, Something Easy. In late 1968 Barnes had left and Glass took on bass guitar before he and Stockley also left by mid-1969. [6] Stockley joined Axiom and from June that year Glass appeared in the Australian stage production of Hair as Berger (replaced by Reg Livermore in 1970) starting an 18-month run in Sydney. [8] In 1970 after finishing Hair, Glass returned to Melbourne and formed country rock group, Sundown, with Barnes (ex-Cam-Pact); Broderick Smith on lead vocals and harmonica, Kerryn Tolhurst on guitar; (both ex-Adderley Smith Blues Band); and Barry Windley on drums (Chessmen, Cherokees, Quinn). [8] The group only issued one single, "This Country of Mine" (June 1972), before disbanding. The track was written by Glass and was later recorded by Slim Dusty. [1]
In 1971 Glass and David Pepperell (journalist, and vocalist of The Union) founded the Melbourne Import record store, Archie & Jughead's, [9] which specialised in imported albums from Europe and America. [7] [10] In September 1973 Glass travelled to the United States to make business contacts for the store and with a view to getting his own songs published. [11] Since 1977 he has pursued an intermittent solo career generally as a country musician. [8] One such project was Keith Glass Band, an R&B and country rock group, which included Wayne Duncan on bass guitar (ex-Daddy Cool), Robert Souter on drums and Les Stacpool on guitar. [8] With the addition of Wayne Burt (Daddy Cool, Jo Jo Zep & The Falcons) on guitar in October that year, the group's name changed to The Living Legends. [8]
In 1978 the retail store was renamed Missing Link Records. In 1977 Glass and Pepperell had also founded an independent record label of the same name. [9] [12] Pepperell departed in 1978 and Glass signed The Boys Next Door, a punk band featuring Nick Cave, Mick Harvey, Phill Calvert and Tracy Pew, for whom Glass was also the manager. [8] Missing Link issued the band's first EP, Hee Haw (1979) and the album, The Birthday Party (November 1980). [8] Glass co-produced the album with The Boys Next Door and Tony Cohen. By the time of its release the group had relocated to London and renamed themselves as The Birthday Party. [13] In May the label issued Ed Kuepper's alternate jazz-rock group, Laughing Clowns's debut eponymous EP, which was also engineered by Cohen.
In October that year Australian music journalist, Glenn A. Baker, writing for Billboard described the label which was "recognised for the cornerstone upon which much of Australia's new wave music movement has been built ... [Glass'] understanding and appreciation of the grass roots level of rock music is considered impeccable". [9] In November Missing Link Records promoted a concert at Sydney's Paris Theatre by Laughing Clowns and The Birthday Party – they were supported by Brisbane group, The Go-Betweens. [14] Glass signed them to his label, which issued their fourth single, "Your Turn My Turn", in April 1981 and followed by their first official album, Send Me a Lullaby , in November. [14] The retail store had been run by Glass with his then-wife Helena Glass until they sold it late in 1981 to siblings Nigel and Diane Rennard. [9] [15] In July the following year Baker reported that Glass had been fined $750 for having sold US punk rockers, Dead Kennedys' 1981 single "Too Drunk to Fuck" in his store. [16] The judge, Patrick Street, described the track as "the vilest of trash ... likely to deprave and corrupt" – Glass responded that the store had held some 40 recordings that were similar. [16]
In late 1981 and early 1982 Glass was observing Cohen who was working in AAV studio in Richmond with The Birthday Party on their album, Junkyard (May 1982) when they were visited by The Go-Betweens. [17] A jam session resulted in a single, "After the Fireworks", released by a short-lived super-group, Tuff Monks, which included members of both The Birthday Party and The Go-Betweens. [17] [18] Glass later recalled:
Sessions for ... Junkyard were turning into a disaster. [The Birthday Party] was ill prepared and drugged up. Enter a few Go-Betweens to the sessions and a night of tomfoolery produced a whopping big session bill and a track eventually released on Au-Go-Go called 'After the Fireworks'. Lacking any B side to go with it, we resorted to a backwards vocal remix titled 'After, After the Fireworks'. Opportunist? Exploitive? We had bills to pay.
— Keith Glass, The Missing Link Story (2004), by Various Artists. [19]
Glass worked as a songwriter in Nashville before returning to Australia in 1986. Under the pseudonym, Onie J. Holy, he issued an extended play, God, Guns and Guts, on Au Go Go Records. [8] He followed with country, blues groups: Keith Glass Honky Tonk Band and Keith Glass and the Tumblers. [8] Glass contributed three tracks to the soundtrack for the Nadia Tass-directed film, Rikky and Pete (1988). [8]
In 1988 he signed with Virgin Records and issued his solo album, Going Over Old Ground, the following year. [8] In 1990 Glass co-produced the album, Two Roads: Live in Australia by US country rockers, Butch Hancock and Jimmie Dale Gilmore. [20] In 1991 he released another solo album, Living Down My Past. [8] He made several appearances at the Tamworth Country Music Festival in the early 1990s. Glass co-hosted a radio program, High in the Saddle, with Dave Dawson on 3RRR-FM. [8] From the mid-1990s he was a member of the country music trio, Hamilton Glass and Young: with former Brighton High School mate, Mick Hamilton on guitar, and Gary Young (Daddy Cool, Jo Jo Zep & The Falcons) on drums. [8] They issued three albums: Rocking Cowboy (Larrikin Records, 1993), Songs the Radio Taught Us (Massive, 1995) and Unidentified Playing Objects (Massive, 1996). Glass' third solo album, Smoke and Mirrors, appeared in 1997. [8] Two years later he issued, Southerly Buster (3 May 1999). [20]
In 2000 Glass and Hamilton combined for a CD, Clutching at Straws. [21] On 19 July 2001 his next album, Australian Soul, appeared. To promote its release he toured North America with dates in southern US states and then in Canada – where he played with his namesake Keith Glass (William Keith Glass), [22] guitarist for Prairie Oyster. [23] In November he performed at the Frank Brown International Singer Songwriter Festival in Mobile, Alabama. [24] From April 2002, Glass wrote for country music journal, Capital News. [25] [26] Also that year he produced Last Train... From Tennessee to Taree – a tribute album for US-born blue grass and skiffle artist, Johnny Duncan – which included two tracks written by Glass. [20]
By 2004 Glass relocated to Mobile, [24] where he recorded his next album, Miss Ala (26 October 2005). [23] In June 2008 he told The Sydney Morning Herald that his favourite Australian album was The Reels' debut eponymous album (1979): "[they] changed my life. From the first night I saw them on Countdown and went to the gig straight afterwards, they enchanted me. So clever, so cutting and quite XTC now I look back on it. The jerky new wave sounds and the image took me in from day one". [27] In May 2011 Glass and Hamilton issued an album, The John Laws Experience, using lyrics originally written as poetry by former radio commentator, John Laws. [28] Glass opened a record store, Mobile Records, in April 2012, stocking vinyl albums. [24]
The Birthday Party were an Australian post-punk band, active from 1977 to 1983. The group's "bleak and noisy soundscapes," which drew irreverently on blues, free jazz, and rockabilly, provided the setting for vocalist Nick Cave's disturbing tales of violence and perversion. Their 1981 single "Release the Bats" was particularly influential on the emerging gothic scene. Despite limited commercial success, The Birthday Party's influence has been far-reaching, and they have been called "one of the darkest and most challenging post-punk groups to emerge in the early '80s."
The Dingoes are an Australian country rock band. They were initially active from 1973 to 1979, and reformed in 2009. Initially based in Melbourne, the band relocated to the United States from 1976. The most stable line-up comprised John Bois on bass guitar, John Lee on drums, Broderick Smith on vocals and harmonica, Chris Stockley on guitar, and Kerryn Tolhurst on guitar. Mal Logan on keyboards joined after Stockley was hospitalised when shot in the stomach by Melbourne drug-dealer, Dennis Allen, who was attempting to gate crash a party. The Dingoes' debut single, "Way Out West", was released in November 1973, and peaked in the top 40 of the Australian Kent Music Report singles chart. Subsequent singles were "Boy on the Run", "Smooth Sailing", and "Into the Night", which did not reach the top 50. They had three top 40 albums, The Dingoes in 1974, Five Times the Sun in 1977, and Orphans of the Storm in 1979.
The Go-Betweens were an Australian indie rock band formed in Brisbane, Queensland, in 1977. The band was co-founded and led by singer-songwriters and guitarists Robert Forster and Grant McLennan, who were its only constant members throughout its existence. Drummer Lindy Morrison joined the band in 1980, and its lineup would later expand to include bass guitarist Robert Vickers and multi-instrumentalist Amanda Brown. Vickers was replaced by John Willsteed in 1987, and the quintet lineup remained in place until the band split two years later. Forster and McLennan reformed the band in 2000 with a new lineup that did not include any previous personnel aside from them. McLennan died on 6 May 2006 of a heart attack and the Go-Betweens disbanded again. In 2010, a toll bridge in their native Brisbane was renamed the Go Between Bridge after them.
Tuff Monks were a short-lived band consisting of Nick Cave, Mick Harvey and Rowland S. Howard with Robert Forster, Lindy Morrison and Grant McLennan. Their only release was the 1982 7" 45 rpm single "After the Fireworks", on the Australian label, Au Go Go Records. The lead track was co-written by Cave, Forster and McLennan.
The Loved Ones were an Australian rock band formed in 1965 in Melbourne following the British Invasion. The line-up of Gavin Anderson on drums, Ian Clyne on organ and piano, Gerry Humphrys on vocals and harmonica, Rob Lovett on guitar and Kim Lynch on bass guitar recorded their early hits. Their signature song, "The Loved One", reached number two on Australian singles charts and was later covered by INXS. In 2001 it was selected as number six on the Australasian Performing Right Association's (APRA) list of Top 30 Australian songs of all time. Their debut album, The Loved Ones' Magic Box, was released late in 1967 and included their other hit singles, "Ever Lovin' Man" and "Sad Dark Eyes". They disbanded in October 1967 and, although the band's main career lasted only two years, they are regarded as one of the most significant Australian bands of the 1960s. They reformed for a short tour in 1987 which provided the album Live on Blueberry Hill. Humphrys lived in London from the mid-1970s until his death on 4 December 2005. On 27 October 2010, the Loved Ones were inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame.
Douglas John Ford is an Australian rock guitarist and songwriter since the mid-1960s. He was lead guitarist of rock n roll group, the Missing Links (1965–66), then during 1968–72, he joined the pop-rock band, the Masters Apprentices. He established a writing partnership with that group's lead singer, Jim Keays. Ford participated in some of the reunions of the Masters Apprentices from 1988 to 1991 and 1997. At the ARIA Music Awards of 1998 the group were inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame.
Missing Link Records was an Australian-based independent record label established in 1977. The Missing Link label was created by Keith Glass and David Pepperell who were the owners of a Melbourne record store of the same name. The name was taken from a 1960s Australian rock band, The Missing Links. The label's initial releases were two retrospective 7-inch singles, "The Ultimate Garage Band" by The Union and "Living in the 60's" by Cam-Pact, both of which band from the 1960s that the owners had respectively performed with. Following a few more releases Pepperell departed and the label took on a new contemporary release program to reflect the punk-new wave movement of the late 1970s. According to rock music historian, Ian McFarlane, "[it] was a cornerstone organisation on Melbourne's independent scene of the late 1970s". The label became influential through the release of both Australian and overseas material, scoring a top 20 hit single with the local release of The Flying Lizards kitchen electronic version of "Money" (1979), when it was passed over by Festival Records.
Mick Turner is an Australian musician and artist. He is the founding mainstay guitarist for Dirty Three and has had art exhibitions around Australia and internationally. Previously he was a member of the Sick Things, the Moodists (1983–84) and Venom P. Stinger. He has released four solo studio albums, Tren Phantasma (1997), Marlan Rosa (1999), Moth (2003) and Don't tell the Driver (2013).
Lobby Loyde, also known as John Barrie Lyde or Barry Lyde, was an Australian rock music guitarist, songwriter and producer.
The Flying Circus were an Australian pop and country rock band with founding mainstays, Doug Rowe on lead guitar and vocals and Colin Walker on drums. They had three top 30 pop hits, "Hayride", "La La" and "Run Run Run", in Australia from 1968 to 1971. These were not typical of their live work nor later recordings. They re-located to Canada from 1971 to 1974 where they achieved chart success with "Old Enough " and "Maple Lady". Doug Rowe died in July 2015.
It's Still Living is a live album by The Birthday Party recorded at the Astor Theatre in St Kilda, Victoria on 15 January 1982, and released in May 1985. The initial LP release in 1985 by the band's former manager and backer Keith Glass, on his Missing Link label, was not sanctioned by the band. The sound quality of the recording is poor and it is marred by technical glitches. In 1991 the album was re-released on the Virgin label, with the LP being released on green vinyl.
The Vibrants were an Australian pop rock group that started as Bobby James and the Vibrants in Adelaide in 1962. James, their lead vocalist, left in 1965 to form the Bobby James Syndicate. As the Vibrants, two of their singles peaked in Go-Set Australian National Charts top 20: their cover versions of "Something About You Baby" and "My Prayer" (September). At the end of 1973the Vibrants disbanded.
Broderick Smith was an English-born Australian multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter and sometime actor. He was a member of 1970s bands Sundown, Carson and the Dingoes, the 1980s Broderick Smith's Big Combo, and he recorded and performed solo and in duos. He acted on stage in the 1973 Australian version of the rock opera, Tommy, and in minor roles in the 1990s TV series Blue Heelers, Snowy River: The McGregor Saga and State Coroner. Smith was involved with the writing of some 200 songs and ran workshops on song writing, harmonica and vocals. He was the father of Ambrose Kenny-Smith, who has provided vocals, harmonica and keyboards for the rock band King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard since 2011.
Kerryn William Tolhurst is an Australian country rock musician, songwriter and producer. He was based in the United States from late 1970s to the late 1990s, although he periodically returned to Australia. He was a founder of the Australian group, the Dingoes and co-wrote their top 40 hit single, "Way Out West". It was covered by fellow Australians, James Blundell and James Reyne in 1991, which reached No. 2 on the ARIA Singles Chart. He also formed a short-lived group, Rattling Sabres, and wrote their single, "All Fired Up" (1987). The track was reworked by Pat Benatar and released as her single in June 1988, which peaked at No. 2 in Australia and reached the top 20 in the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand.
Gregory Raymond Quill was an Australian-born musician, singer-songwriter and journalist. He lived in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and was an entertainment columnist at the Toronto Star newspaper from the mid-1980s until his death in May 2013. In Australia he came to popular fame as a singer-songwriter for the country rock band Country Radio (1970–73). Their biggest hit, "Gypsy Queen", co-written by Quill with bandmate Kerryn Tolhurst, was released in August 1972 and peaked at No. 12 on the Go-Set National Top 40. After getting an arts grant, Quill travelled to Toronto in 1974 and by the mid-1980s had become a journalist with the Toronto Star. By 1983 he was married to Ellen Davidson, a public relations executive. Greg Quill died on 5 May 2013, at the age of 66, from "complications due to pneumonia".
Philip John Manning is an Australian blues singer-songwriter and guitarist. Manning has been a member of various groups including Chain and has had a solo career. As a member of Chain, Manning co-wrote their January 1971 single "Black and Blue" which became number one on the Melbourne charts and also Judgement, which reached number two in Sydney. The related album, Toward the Blues followed in September and peaked in the top 10 albums chart.
Cam-Pact was an Australian soul and psychedelic pop band which formed in April 1967. Originally they performed as The Camp Act but soon changed to Cam-Pact. Although little known outside Melbourne at the time, the various lineups of the group featured a number of young Melbourne musicians who went on to become significant figures on the Australian music scene, including Ray Arnott, Keith Glass, Chris Löfvén, Russell Smith, Robert Lloyd, and Chris Stockley. Cam-Pact issued five singles and three extended plays on Festival Records before disbanding in March 1970.
The Moods were an Australian garage rock band from Melbourne, who were active during the 1960s. They became of the most popular groups in the Malbourne area and released two singles for HMV Records, including the song "Rum Drunk", which is now regarded as a garage rock classic. "Rum Drunk" and several of their other songs have been included on various compilations.
Raymond Charles Burton is an Australian musician and singer-song writer. He was briefly a member of rock 'n' rollers the Delltones (1965–66) on vocals, pop group the Executives (1968–69) on guitar and vocals, progressive rockers Leo de Castro and Friends (1973) on guitar, and jazz fusion band Ayers Rock (1973–74) on guitar and vocals. In 1971, Burton was working in the United States where he co-wrote "I Am Woman" with fellow Australian Helen Reddy, which became a number-one hit for her on the Billboard Hot 100 late in the following year. Another song written by the pair, "Best Friend", was sung by Reddy while she was also acting in a disaster film, Airport 1975. As a solo artist, Burton issued an album, Dreamers and Nightflyers, and two associated singles, "Too Hard to Handle" and "Paddington Green", in 1978 in Australia. He returned to the US, where he worked as a song writer.
Galadriel were an Australian progressive rock group formed in 1969 by Garry Adams on guitar and vocals, Doug Bligh on drums, Gary Lothian on lead guitar, Mick Parker on bass guitar and flute, and Jon "Spider" Scholtens on lead vocals. According to Australian musicologist, Ian McFarlane, their debut self-titled album from May 1971 is, "one of the rarest major label progressive rock albums of the early 1970s... songs ranged in style from bluesy hard rock to jazzy ballads ." The group broke up in 1972. Galadriel was re-released in 1995, on CD, by Vicious Sloth Collectables.
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