Richard Ploog | |
---|---|
Birth name | Richard John Ploog |
Born | Adelaide, South Australia, Australia | 29 October 1962
Genres | Rock |
Occupation(s) | Musician, songwriter |
Instruments | Drums, percussion, backing vocals |
Years active | 1980–present |
Labels | Carrere, Capitol |
Associated acts | The Church, Beasts of Bourbon, Damien Lovelock, Peter Koppes, Groom Epoch |
Richard John Ploog (born 29 October 1962) is an Australian drummer, songwriter, producer and singer who was a member of rock band The Church between 1981 and 1990. Ploog also drummed for Beasts of Bourbon in 1983, Damien Lovelock in 1988 and with fellow The Church member Peter Koppes in 1991 for an album and tour. He is the father of Irie Ploog.
Richard John Ploog was born on 29 October 1962 and is from Adelaide, South Australia. As a drummer, he joined various bands including, The Name Droppers, The Brats and Exhibit A. [1] In early 1981, at the age of 18, he replaced The Church's founding drummer, Nick Ward. In April the band released their debut album, Of Skins and Heart and the associated single, "The Unguarded Moment", which had been recorded late the previous year with Ward. [2] Ploog's first recording with The Church was the five-track double single, "Too Fast for You" released in July. When Of Skins and Heart was released internationally (Carrere for Europe, Capitol for North America) it was re-titled as The Church with "Tear It All Away" replacing original track "Fighter Pilot...Korean War". [1] [2] On early record covers of The Church, Ploog was incorrectly credited with all the drumming—Ward is not listed.
Aside from drumming, Ploog also contributed song writing to The Church's releases. [3] He also became involved in various side projects. Firstly, with Beasts of Bourbon as a drummer in 1983 and then performing with its members, Tex Perkins on vocals and Kim Salmon on guitar and harmonica, as Salamander Jim in February 1984. [4] He worked on The Celibate Rifles' vocalist Damien Lovelock's debut solo album, Wig Wig Wig Wig World in 1988. [5]
Ploog left The Church after recording their seventh album, Gold Afternoon Fix which was released in February 1990. [2] According to Steve Kilbey, he left the band "because of musical personal differences." He was replaced by Jay Dee Daugherty (ex-Patti Smith Group). Ploog joined The Church member Peter Koppes' group The Well to tour and record From the Well (1990) and Iridescence (1991). [2]
Ploog has also drummed for The Wigmen, The Deadly Hume, Funkicide, [1] and The Sleep-ins. [6]
Ploog returned to live drumming in 2013 with a series of gigs accompanying Steve Kilbey and Mark Gable.
He is also a member of Groom Epoch. The band have released three albums, Scalar Trails (2014), Solar Warden (2018) and Initiation (2019).
The Crystal Set were an Australian indie rock group formed in March 1983. By 1987 the line-up was Russell Kilbey, Phillip Maher, Davey Ray Moor and Tim Seckhold (drums). In April 1988 Moor was replaced by Craig Hooper, who was replaced in turn by Luke Blackburn, in May 1989. The group issued two studio albums, From Now On and Almost Pure, before disbanding later that year. Russell Kilbey is the younger brother of the Church's mainstay, Steve Kilbey.
Steven John Kilbey is an English-Australian singer-songwriter and bass guitarist for the rock band The Church. He is also a music producer, poet, and painter. As of 2020, Kilbey has released 14 solo albums and has collaborated on recordings with musical artists such as Martin Kennedy, Stephen Cummings and Ricky Maymi as a vocalist, musician, writer and/or producer. Ian McFarlane writes that "Kilbey's solo recordings [are] challenging and evocative. They ran the gamut of sounds and emotions from electronic and avant-garde to acoustic and symphonic, joyous and dreamy to saturnine and sardonic".
The Church are an Australian rock band formed in Sydney in 1980. Initially associated with new wave, neo-psychedelia, and indie rock, their music later came to feature slower tempos and surreal soundscapes reminiscent of dream pop and post-rock. Glenn A. Baker has written that "From the release of the 'She Never Said' single in November 1980, this unique Sydney-originated entity has purveyed a distinctive, ethereal, psychedelic-tinged sound which has alternatively found favour and disfavour in Australia." The Los Angeles Times has described the band's music as "dense, shimmering, exquisite guitar pop".
Kim Leith Salmon is an Australian rock musician and songwriter from Perth. He has worked in various groups including The Scientists, Beasts of Bourbon, Kim Salmon and the Surrealists, Kim Salmon and the Business, and Darling Downs. Australian rock musicologist, Ian McFarlane, described Salmon as one of the first Australians to "embrace wholeheartedly the emergent punk phenomenon of the mid-to-late 1970s" with The Scientists. He declared that Beasts of Bourbon were "masters of uncompromising gutbucket blues and hard-edged rock'n'roll". In 2004 Salmon was inducted into the West Australian Music Industry Association Hall of Fame and in 2007, into the Music Victoria Awards Hall of Fame.
Peter Koppes is a guitarist, best known as a founding and almost-continuous member of Australian independent rock band The Church. He is a multi-instrumentalist, also playing mandolin, drums, piano, and harmonica. He has also released various solo albums and various recordings with his group The Well (1989-1995.) Koppes lives on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland where he also produces albums and conducts seasonal 'song writing' and 'performance for demo recording' short courses at Nambour TAFE, as well as offering private tuition in guitar, drums and song writing. His daughters are Tatiana 'O' Koppes and Neige Koppes who have their own band, Rain Party.
Beasts of Bourbon were an Australian alternative rock/blues rock band formed in August 1983, with James Baker on drums, Spencer P. Jones on guitar, Tex Perkins on vocals, Kim Salmon on guitar and Boris Sujdovic on bass guitar. Except for mainstays Jones and Perkins, the line-up changed over time as the group splintered and reformed several times. Their debut album, The Axeman's Jazz, was the best selling Australian alternative rock album of 1984. Their debut single, "Psycho", was a cover version of the Leon Payne original, and was the best selling Australian alternative rock single for that year. The group disbanded by mid-1985 and each member pursued other musical projects.
Of Skins and Heart is the debut album by the Australian psychedelic rock band The Church, released in April 1981 by EMI Parlophone. It peaked at No. 22 in the Australian Kent Music Report Albums Chart.
The Blurred Crusade is the second album by the Australian alternative rock band The Church, released in March 1982 by EMI Parlophone. Moving away from the new wave leanings of their debut, it was stylistically more complex and "a smoother, fuller release". "With its mystical lyrics the second album ... brought the group's own style more into focus". The album peaked at No. 10 on the Australian Kent Music Report Albums Chart and "Almost With You" reached No. 21 on the related Singles Chart.
Seance is the third album by the Australian psychedelic rock band The Church, released in 1983. More atmospheric and brooding than its predecessor The Blurred Crusade's jangling psychedelia and upbeat rock, it shows a greater use of keyboards, with the guitars taking largely textural roles on many songs. While numerous tracks have become fan favorites over the years, the album saw considerably less success in Australia than previous releases and had limited exposure internationally. Apart from the psychedelic noise experiment "Travel By Thought", which prefigures the band's extended improvised tracks of the 1990s and beyond, all songs were written solely by Steve Kilbey.
Persia is the fourth extended play by the Australian psychedelic rock band the Church, which was released in August 1984. It was the follow-up to their earlier 1984 EP Remote Luxury, and continued in a similar stylistic vein.
Remote Luxury is the first compilation album by the Australian psychedelic rock band The Church, released in 1984. The band had recently signed to Warner Bros. in the United States and their new label decided to re-release the band's most recent Australian material, the Persia and Remote Luxury EPs, as an album with a new running order. They also released "Constant In Opal" as a single in the U.S.. The version of "No Explanation" included here has a 20-second instrumental jam at the beginning.
Heyday is the fourth album by the Australian alternative rock band The Church, released in November 1985. The album marked the first occasion when group compositions dominated one of the band's releases. Steve Kilbey has said: "The demo situation was getting to us - me writing the songs on my eight-track and bringing them along to the band. It sounded too stiff. We'd reached this new energy level on stage which by far superseded anything we'd ever recorded, so we knew the only way to get sounding like that was for the whole band to write together."
Starfish is the fifth album by the Australian rock band The Church, released in February 1988 by Mushroom Records in Australia and by Arista Records internationally. The band's international breakthrough album, Starfish went gold in America and has remained their most commercially successful release. The album sold 600,000 copies in the United States alone. The first single, "Under the Milky Way", charted on the US Billboard Hot 100, peaking at #24, and at #2 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, leading to significant exposure of the then relatively underground Australian act. In Australia "Under the Milky Way" climbed to #22, and Starfish reached #11 on the album charts.
Gold Afternoon Fix is the sixth album by the Australian alternative rock band the Church, released in April 1990. It was their second album for Arista Records in the US and was expected to capitalise and build on the success of 1988's Starfish. The album saw considerable promotion upon its release, but despite moderate success in the US, with the single "Metropolis" reaching the top of the Modern Rock Tracks chart, the release failed to deliver mass commercial appeal.
The Celibate Rifles were an Australian punk rock band which formed in 1979 with a line-up that included mainstays Dave Morris on rhythm guitar and Kent Steedman on lead guitar, within a year they were joined by Damien Lovelock on lead vocals. They released their first album, Sideroxylon, in April 1983 on the Hot Records label. The band has toured both America and Europe extensively, and released their ninth studio album, Beyond Respect on 19 July 2004. In 1985 the group's style was described as post-Radio Birdman sound which is "a combination of fast, guitar-driven, hard rock and power pop". In November 1987 Sounds magazine's Roger Holland described their album, Roman Beach Party as showing the group's "sawn off rock potential all the way down to the bleached white of the bone, the lyrics reveal all the anger, insight and humour that makes [them] one of the most powerful rock bands in the world today". In April 1994 The Celibate Rifles issued Spaceman in a Satin Suit which according to Australian rock music historian, Ian McFarlane "was [their] best studio album since Blind Ear". Lovelock undertook a solo career and issued two albums as well as becoming a TV sports presenter prior to his death in 2019.
Forget Yourself is the fifteenth album by the Australian alternative rock band The Church, released in October 2003. It was recorded at drummer Tim Powles' Spacejunk studios in Australia and features many straight-to-tape recordings with few overdubs.
Sometime Anywhere is the ninth album by the Australian alternative rock band The Church, released in May 1994.
Hologram of Baal is the eleventh album by the Australian alternative rock band The Church, released in September 1998.
Jammed is the sixteenth album by the Australian alternative rock band The Church, released in August 2004. It was their second album of entirely improvised material, following the Bastard Universe bonus disc from Hologram of Baal and consists of only two extremely long tracks. It was only available from the band's website or at their gigs and is now out of print.
Damien Richard Lovelock, known familiarly as Damo, was an Australian musician, sports broadcaster and writer. He fronted the hard rock band The Celibate Rifles from 1980 as their lead singer-songwriter and later issued two solo albums. He was also a sports broadcaster, an author and yoga instructor.