Mike Rudd & Bill Putt's videos
It had to happen - and it has. Here are all the video clips I can muster for the moment on the one page. If you wanna check them out on YouTube, go to www.youtube.com/elbide

Judith Durham - and Spectrum - perform Summertime
13.10.09 - It's one of those once in a lifetime opportunities, and I'm really quite chuffed the Wrokdown cameras captured this beautiful performance by Judith of the Gershwins' classic with Spectrum doing the back-up. Many thanks to Wrokdown's Anita Monk for providing the Wrokdown footage and to Judith's management for giving permission for us to upload it to YouTube for the world to enjoy.
Incidentally, I've had a lot of very lovely feedback about the RocKwiz duet with Jess Cornelius. Why not check it out for yourself?

Xavier Rudd Is Not My Son
7.8.09 - Thanks to Wrokdown's producer, Anita Monk, there's a 'bed' of the band performing the song in relaxed mode at the Wrokdown taping last month, over which the antics of Mr Morris Nylon, Strathie Bill, Capt. McTubby and Chopped Liver have been lain. The song's title means that the clip is rubbing shoulders with yer actual Xavier Rudd clips on YouTube - I wonder if that'll eventually provoke a response from the man himself? We've never been introduced, although we met up with his parents and siblings a few years ago at the Torquay Golf Club.

Aussie Girl - Countdown style
30.8.09 - 3D Radio's Michael Hunter dug this one up for me, and it provides a camparatively restrained counterbalance to the official clip - and probably got seen by ten times the audience. Still didn't do much good for the sales though.. One of the songs I'm considering revising for a Libreration Blue-type treatment.

Laser Lover
27.8.09 - Lairie Tunnicliffe loves this period of the band's career.(see the Correspondence page) To quote: '..its a disgrace that this 80's electro-pop group is trading on your name. This group obviously set the drum machine to 120 beats per minute and recorded one long song with all the typical synth/keyboard sounds/lines, and carved it up into 12 tracks.'
I'd forgottten that we released Laser Lover as a single. Almost disco/reggae in feel and a cute sci/fi conceit, but like Laurie now, nobody in the '80s bought The Heaters' as a pop band either..

I'll Be Gone again - but wth a twist!
3.7.09 - This was given to me by my mate Trevor Leedon, who bought it from the Camberwell Market. Play it through and see if you notice something odd..
Did you pick it? The reprise was supposed to be the second verse, (and I actually mime the second verse), but what is actually played is the first verse. I have the vaguest memory that the backing might've been from a tape supplied to Move by EMI, but I don't really know. Curious though..
Incidentally, a fashion note: Bill's wearing a wrist watch (!) and it appears I'm wearing socks with my sandals

Spectrum 1972 - Everybody's Walking Sideways
27.6.09 - Another contribution from the ABC's Simon Kain, although the more I look at, the more I suspect it's not a GTK recording. I'll have to check the original correspondence and see if there's a hint as to what show it might be. Everybody's Walking Sideways is from the Sideways Saga suite on the Milesago album and it was a curious song to choose. I'll get back on this..
I'm now thinking it was Dick Williams' Hit Scene on ABC TV. More to come..

Chants R&B Wild Things Spectacular
25.6.09 - I had an e-mail from Al Parks in Christchurch the other day, still waxing lyrical about the show we did there in 2007 and wondering if we might repeat the effort at some stage. It provoked me into having a look at the DVD that John Baker (Velvet Tiger) produced of the show we were part of at the Monte Christo Room in Auckland, along side such luminaries as Ray Columbus, The Breakaways (who appeared with us in Christchurch), Pete Nelson & The Castaways and others. It's raw and loud - but there's something exciting about it..

Spectrum plays the GTK theme
24.6.09 - I was compelled to make an attempt to tidy up and to some extent catalogue the CDs and DVDs cluttering up my living space. I found this particular DVD that the ABC's Simon Kain had sent me and which I'd intitially turned down because of synch. issues.
It's not that substantial, and frankly, it's not that good - the anarchic Fugs-type approach I had in my head doesn't really come off. Still, it's a slice of history..

WHY on Hey, Hey It's Saturday
17.6.09 - Even rarer than WHY playing on the Daryl Somers Show, (below), is this clip of WHY on Hey, Hey It's Saturday playing Percy Grainger, a track from the unreleased (in Australia) album, Present Tense. (It's a long, painful story, that will probably never be told). In an all-too typical case of failure of imagination, this song is uncomfortably shackled in its '80s power-pop shoulder pads, whereas it should have been given the vaudeville straw hat treatment. By the time we get to the rather childish punchline, you just don't care. Daryl and the ostrich have fun with it..

WHY on the Daryl Somers Show!
15.6.09 - It must be more than a year ago that I got a data disk from ex-Heaters/WHY keyboardist Tony Fossey, but it wasn't till last week that I got around to checking it out. We used to snigger at Tony for religiously keeping a record of everything, but now I'm grateful - there are some real treasures. The Daryl Somers show didn't last long, but this clip probably demonstrates better than anything else on record what WHY was attempting to do. There's a bit of tape wow at the start and guitar hoemorrhaging in John Moon's solo, but that just adds to the live-ness.

The Heaters live at the Mushroom Evolution concert
18.5.09 - Thank goodness! A live clip to balance the extraordinary silliness of the promotional videos. Thanks to the indefatigable RettroDood for digging up another Rock Arena clip.
More to say when I get my breath back..

The Heaters - I'm An Animal
18.5.09 - RettroDood strikes again! Incredibly, this is an even hammier experience than the other clips he's unearthed. Our old friend Howard Gable, who produced this single and The Heaters' The Unrealist album, had persuaded us that we should get into putting eye-makeup on (kajal) for our live performances - so we used it on the clip as well! I seem to remember the live part was filmed at the Bombay club. I'll think of something else interesting to say about it eventually.. The Countdwn version is much better - see nearlyoutofideas on YouTube.

WHY's Woman of Steel
12.5.09 - It was Daz (again) who alerted me to this track on the illustrious RettroDood's YouTube site. I'm not sure that Tony Fossey actually played any live gigs with WHY - maybe the short-lived Hey Hey It's Saturday Night. WHY enjoyed an equally asteroid-like career, plummeting through the thin Australian atmosphere before plinking harmlessly onto a Melbourne pavement.
This was the only one John Kapek managed to salvage from the Present Tense album. It was recorded on analogue, converted to digital and then released on 12" vinyl - go figure..

Rosewood
2.5.09 - This is a very touching musical and visual tribute by Bill to his partner Rosemary and her property Rosewood in the fire-ravaged hills and valleys of Strathewen, an hour or so north east of Melbourne. The first half shows Rosewood as it was before the fires - then, bookended with Rose's prescient painting of the hill that overlooks the property, the mood becomes more sombre as Bill's photos show the same scenes a week or so after the fires (20.2.09). You get an inkling of how brave Bill was in saving Rosemary's house, and how lucky he was to have simply survived when so many in the vicinity perished.

Australian Girl
21.4.09 - I just rang Daz to get a phone number and he was foaming at the mouth about The Heaters' Australian Girl clip up on YouTube. Well, I've got the Countdown 'live' version at home, but I'm obliged not to share it with you, which is a shame, because I have to say it's a fraction less embarrassing than this version. It gets one wondering what happened to all those girls - if any of you are out there from the day we recorded the clip down in Oakleigh in 1980, get in touch. Incidentally, that's Ariel's Tony Slavich on keys, Paul Grant on guitar, (respect), and the ever-affable Manny Paterakis on drums

Make Your Stash
14.3.09 - Daz tipped me off about this other Rettrodood discovery - the second lineup of Spectrum on GTK with Ray Arnott on drums, and quite a (subtly) different version to the orginal on the Part One album.

Disco Dilemma
9.3.09 - I got told about this clip being on YouTube last week and I got pretty excited. I don't have a copy of the single or the video and I've been thinking we should incorporate the song in our set list - Disco Dilemma was our third biggest seller aftrer IBG and Jamaican Farewell.
I put in an unintentionally camp performance, (in my white pan makeup), as the rest of the band tries to look enthusiastic. I've forgotten who directed the clip, but Angie Keith, a friend of ours did the classy dance sequence. The dancing mightn't be very disco, but neither is the song.
Thanks to RettroDood for finding this and putting it up

Pedro the goat
4.2.09 - There's really nothing sinister about Bill's relationship with Pedro the goat, despite Bill being trapped for days at a time at Rosewood, his partner Rosemary's property at Strathewen miles away from anywhere. (Scroll down to see Bill's The Valley of Ewen video below). This is a charming little song written by Bill and realised on video with Bill's usual efficiency - not to mention with the essential complicity of Real Guitar's all-round nice guy, Brenden Mason

I'll Be Gone - at last!
13.1.09 - I could say the original and the best, but actually this is even better than the original! Some of you children wouldn't even know what 'mono' (monaural) is, but the original I'll Be Gone's release in 1971 pre-dated stereo in Australia.at least, so a couple of years ago I had the notion of re-striping the stereo edit of I'll Be Gone onto the original and much-loved black & white film clip, directed by Chris Lofven all those years ago. Which is where the National Film & Sound Archives came in, and they painstakingly interpolated extra frames to bring it back to a realistic pitch. After nearly two years of perseverance, I'm sure you'll be happy with the result.

Funky Road interview
11.12.08 - I'd forgotten entirely about this interview and the programme (Funky Road) for which it was recorded for that matter. My sibilant 's' (that would have to be rectified if I wanted to pursue a career as a teacher I was told) is prominent, as is Glyn's discomfort at being asked about our writing together (we never did that really). I wonder what happened to Stephen MacLean?

Launching Place
11.12.08 - I mentioned this a while back but have just got round to adding it to the assortment of clips on this page. Simon Kain from ABC Archives mentioned he'd like to use this clip to introduce their website page of Music Collections and has given us permission to use it and a couple of others here. This is a classic performance from a 1970 edition od GTK featuring a very young Mark Kennedy and the unique Hammond organ stylings of Lee Neale.

Another I'll Be Gone..
10.11.08 - I almost forgot - Peter Laffy got in touch to remind me that we'd been filmed at the New Capers' lauinch of Breathing Space back in buggered if I can remember earlier this year. This is a particularly pedestrian version of the B version of IBG, notable for the inclusion of Nic Lyon on bass and Tim gaze on guitar, but also a dud reed on my E harp, which only ever gets a workout on this song. Laff said he was sending me some DVDs of the whole show, but in the meantime you can go and check out some more footage on the webite when I remember whatever the address is..

I Just Wanna Make Love To You
8.10.08 - 3D Radio's Michael Hunter chose anorther murky venue to shoot off some film, (see San Andreas at the 'Sheaf below), when he shot Spectrum manfully trying to overcome a squishy bottom end at Adelaide's Rob Roy Hotel recently. (See September's Stop Press for a gig report).
I think by the time we got to this number we'd revved up a bit, having seen the light at the end of the tunnel.
Michael has got some more footage from the same show on his YouTube possie. If you want to see this clip in slightly better fidelity, go to YouTube

Jamaican Farewell
8.10.08 - Same story with this boomy version of Jamaican Farewell, but interesting enough I suppose. The night at the Rob Roy Hotel was organised by David Minear in aid of Support Act Ltd, which you can find out more about on their website. David would dearly have loved to have had some more people turn up on the night, but was a really good sport about it and showed up at the Wordleys on the Sunday arvo.
Again, slightly better fidelity might be obtained by going to Michael Hunter's YouTube site.

The Valley of Ewen
18.6.08 - Brenden Mason popped up on my doorstep this morning, thrust a disc into my hand and fled back to Real Guitars. So, here it is at last for your viewing pleasure, featuring quite a bit of me as it turns out, as well as the fiddle-playing Lance O'Reilly. If you want to see this clip, and any of the others on this page for that matter, in its pristine condition, go to our site on YouTube

Rocket Girl - the sequel
3.4.08 - For whatever reason, this never got shown at the Capers' launch. Which is a shame, 'cause I think it's funny. Well done Mazz! For better quality, go to Mazz's YouTube site

Mike on Wrokdown
14.2.08 - Wendy Stapleton does her best with Rambling Mike Rudd, but he just rambles on and on till the collective snoring almost drowns out the interview. Anita Monk's worthy agenda with Wrokdown is to track the latter-day careers of active musicians and artists from the sixties and seventies and apprise the great unwashed of the same. This particular episode has been shown twice on Channel 31 and may even have helped our crowds (Wendy played the previous Sunday) at the Mordialloc Sporting Club. Or not..

Chants R&B on TV3
9.12.07 - Miranda Worthington read my bit in the Chants R&B diaries where I said I'd not seen the TV3 interview with Trev and me and didn't know whether it actually had seen the light of day. Mazz saw it first by accident when it was initially re-broadcast on Foxtel, and then discovered it on YouTube. So, here it is, complete with their mistakenly identifiying me as Mike Judd. (They love a musical dynasty in NZ). Thanks Mazz!

ICANS - Mike and Dick's entrant in the Pigdon Five-minute Film Festival
It didn't win the Oscar, but I believe that it won a lot of friends in the audience on the night. Unfortunately, owing to a prior commitment at the Wild Thyme Café I couldn't be there, but Dick said his daughter Elizabeth wasn't actually embarrassed by it, so he's deliriously happy. Incidentally, we owe a debt of thanks to Bill Dettmer, who added to the reality and drama of the crucial opening scene by loaning us his ambulance - and himself.

Bill's Zippo Blues
Everytbody loves Bill, and everybody seems to love this clip! This is Bill's unique contribution to the world of advertising - the Zippo people actually like this a lot. Our mate Brenden Mason deserves a gong for producing the clip, and putting the finishing touches on the recording - not to mention putting up with Bill.