irenzero

Under the Ashes: A compact Collection of Radio Birdman Recordings

In aug of 2001 I wandered into Dirty Records in Gothenburg Sweden, and stumbled across this 2 CD set of Killer Rock and Roll Jams. I plunked down the 280 Kroner (about $28) for the set, and to this day it's one of those purchases where I has the presence of mind to buy something before it vanished from sale forever.

Radio Birdman were founded in Australia in the early 1970's. Ann Arbor, MI native Dez Tek had moved down under to go to med school and play music. He has witnesses the Ann Arbor rock heyday of The MC5 and the Stooges and wanted to tap into that energy himself. His other big influence was the Instro Rock group The Ventures, so he pulled that Surf element into the High Energy rock vortex of all that Ann Arbor stuff and a dash of Early Blue Oyster Cult to make an unique punk-surf-rock sound that was all their own.

The set doesn't include every Radio Birdman track, but It has all the important ones. Their covers of the Stooges 'TV Eye' and the 13th Floor Elevators 'You're Gonna Miss Me' are the only non-birdman penned tracks, and are mere filler when played along side their classics: 'I - 94', 'Burn my Eye', 'What Gives?', 'Do the Pop', 'New Race', 'Aloha Steve and Dano', and 'Anglo Girl Desire' and that just the first disc of this set.

The songs themselves are important in that they all are solid tunes, and that they cover the whole range of sound with in the Rock genre. You have the loud, fast and breakneck rave up's like, T.P.B.R. Combo, Do the Move and Change, and 455 DS, right next to the atmospheric slower tunes: 'Man with Golden Helmet', 'Breaks my Heart' and 'Time to Fall'. What they all have in common was that they never lost their energy and drive.

I haven't played this set much lately, I picked up the Reissues of Radio Birdman's 2 album with bonus disc's featuring their ep's. However that fall I spent in Sweden, when ever I was lonely for the streets of Ann Arbor I would slip Radio Birdman into my stereo and blast the Ann Arbor/Detroit triple play of: I 94, Murder City Nights, and Love Kills and know why I had to leave, why I hate my hometown and why I love it. Any record that can do that, will stay with me for the rest of my life.


Notes:
1. Under the Ashes is out of print but Sub Pop issued The Essential Radio Birdman a year or two back, and that's a solid intro to the band. The Reissues albums are also around if you have a good local record seller.







2. My otherwise sensible bother prefers the Under the Ashes set to all the other Radio Birdman releases, including the 2 LP set of their albums that I found for him in Stockholm.

3. Mazinga (who you have never heard of) are the only other band that I can think of that managed to combine the surf, punk, Ann Arbor rock, and heavy metal sound into something coherent. They had heard of Radio Birdman, but not listened to them until late in their life span, when I handed them a tape of Radio Birdman.

4. if you read all of this, thanks, and please respond.