Dirty, Dirty

Jim Keays’ ‘Dirty, Dirty’ is a cold hard slap in the face for anyone that suggested old rock dogs should be put out to pasture, writes PATRICK EMERY.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]

It may have been Daryl Braithwaite who once publicly lamented the premature retirement age foisted upon rock stars by a fickle music industry. In the aftermath of The Easybeats’ decline in popularity – admittedly, triggered more by changing popular tastes than the age of the band members – George Young and Harry Vanda wrote the rueful pop classic ‘Yesterday’s Hero’, released subsequently by John Paul Young (who, prophetically, would suffer the same fate within years of his own success). A tradesperson can graduate from apprentice to successful business owner, a lawyer can make their way to the hallowed ranks of the judiciary and many a politician has received the plum diplomatic posting of their choice. In rock’n’roll, however, such lifetime rewards are the exception, never the rule.

Even Jim Keays would admit that his career peaked many years ago. Keays joined the fledgling Mustangs in Adelaide in the early 1960s, transforming a backroom instrumental band into one of Australia’s most successful and notorious rock’n’roll bands. With the departure of Mick Bower, Keays became arguably the band’s driving force, leading the Masters into its classic heavy-rock era, and the progressive-psychedelic phase that would signal its initial break-up in the early 1970s.

In the ensuing decades, Keays has juggled leading his own band, participating in the occasional Masters’ reunion, writing his memoirs and teaming up with contemporaries Darryl Cotton and Russell Morris, playing sold-out shows of ’60s and ’70s classics to a legion of more “mature” rock’n’roll fans.

In that context, Keays’ decision to record and release an album of obscure garage, psychedelia, rock and soul tracks, as Humphrey Appleby might observe, is a courageous one. Indeed, the mere concept of hearing a 65-year-old man describing illicit transactions and peep-show excursions in the cover of Canadian garage band The Haunted’s ‘125’ arguably pushes the envelope well beyond polite society would permit. (Unless, of course, you’re listening to dirty old blues records of yore where it’s arguably part of the shtick.)

Keays is blessed with a backing band that was pre-destined to pump blood vigorously through the veins of his chosen repertoire. Davey Lane (You Am I, Pictures) has played every ’60s lick known to man, woman and garage rock child, while ex-Pictures drummer Brett Wolfenden knows his way around the primitive beats of the era better than Keith Moon knew the layout of his bathroom cabinet. Ted Lethborg – the instigator of the project – turns up on bass, apparently because he was determined not to miss out on all the fun.

And the results are raw, authentic and as abrasively perfect as a rock’n’roll record should be. Keays’ voice is in impeccable condition: on The Chambers Brothers’ ‘Time Has Come Today’, he packs a vocal punch with the power of Who’s Next-era Roger Daltrey. On ‘Golden Dawn’s Starvation’, he’s back in the King’s Head Hotel on Pulteney Street, Adelaide, with his old Mustangs mates. ‘Do Ya’ (recorded originally by The Move, and subsequently by Jeff Lynne’s commercially successful Electric Light Orchestra) snarls like a battle-hardened pub rock rocker, while The Flamin’ Groovies’ ‘Whiskey Woman’ is drenched with liquor and the pain of life’s experience, and Crazy Horse’s ‘Dirty Dirty’ swaggers with ’70s rock attitude.

“The results are raw, authentic and as abrasively perfect as a rock’n’roll record should be.”

‘Tell Me When It’s Over’, a comparatively recent song recorded originally by The Dream Syndicate in the 1980s, is reworked via The Byrds and You Am I. Keays pays subtle tribute to a fallen contemporary with ‘Midnight Bus’, a track popularised in Australia in the early 1960s by Betty McQuade. ‘Come See Me (I’m Your Man)’ is the utopian garage rock track recorded by a group of snotty youths with ne’er a care for the omnipresent demands of the man. Wimple Witch’s ‘Save My Soul’ provides the opportunity for Keays to bask once again in the glistening acid rock world of the Masters’ mid-period. And even the notoriously cantankerous Van Morrison might even nod grumpily in admiration at the cover of Them’s ‘Mystic Eyes’.

On the eve of his 30th birthday Pete Townshend was asked how someone who’d once written that he hoped he’d die before he got old could still be playing rock’n’roll. With a touch of the metaphysical, Townshend remarked that being old was a matter of the mind, not the body. Jim Keays isn’t old – he’s just been around longer than just about anyone else, and he’s still got what it takes.