|
Post by jno on Sept 22, 2022 3:19:02 GMT
Incidentally, if you can manage to watch the 'Colin Hay - Waiting for my Real Life' documentary this is one of the best music documentaries I've seen in a very long time. P.S. it's on a certain video site we all know. I remember this coming out and it only being available to view in the US at the time, and subsequently forgot about it. Mrs Coyote is away for a few days next week so it will definitely be getting an airing on the smart TV at Coyote Towers You won't regret it coyote, it's a great documentary and nice to see other members of Men At Work contribute throughout. 'Overkill' very likely to be in my own band's set very soon, I hope. What I love about Men At Work is how simple most of it is to play on guitar, which is why CH gets away with his acoustic set. That said, although not difficult to play - the original solo on "It's A Mistake" is a little tricky understand due to the chord changes underneath it. As a complete guitar nerd I can tell you that 'Overkill' and the end of 'It's A Mistake', employ more or less exactly the same chord changes/intervals, albeit in different keys and the latter just being slower. CH used the same thing in both songs to great effect. The hardest part of playing Men At Work is matching CH's vocal range, boy can he can hit those high notes with passion and I'm glad someone mentioned this on this documentary too. He's lucky to have songwriting skills and a distinctive top voice to sing his tunes.
|
|
|
Post by jno on Sept 27, 2022 7:20:26 GMT
For those that don't know the absolute original version of Down Under, originally a B-Side, here it is, something very cool about this stripped back version:
|
|
|
Post by Portland Road on Oct 1, 2022 5:08:31 GMT
That's an interesting version jno, a bit less commercial pop than the hit single version, and in a reggae-style similar to The Police in the early-80s.
|
|
|
Post by coyote on Oct 2, 2022 0:30:36 GMT
It's deliberately understated in its sound, typical of bands I saw while in Australia and carried on in very successful Antipodean acts like Tame Impala. But all the elements are there that made it to the hit version and it shows the absolute value of a good producer. Indeed in the CH documentary he says the first thing he did was to move the flute part to the beginning.
On which subject I enjoyed the 2015 film and learnt some interesting stuff, including that CH seems to be on good terms with his ex-wife and the extent of his drug and alcohol problems. But - and this is from someone who's seen Colin's solo show live 5 times - even I found it overly-sycophantic at points, I mean how many nonentities do you need to drag out to say that CH is a poet of a generation or other such claptrap. The best bits for me were finding out what Largo was and how it was, that Col still owns a house in St Kilda (Melbourne-by-sea) and to hear how Zach Braff got him to 'Scrubs' from Zach's perspective.
I did wonder when some of the interviews were filmed knowing CH's more recent history with Strykert and how the bass player and drummer departed fairly acrimoniously in the 1980s. And I will now always see Adam Hills as "that bloke whose show brought about the court case". As Colin said, AU$ 4.5 million and nobody won, and the stuff about Greg Ham was very sad.
I'd be interested to go to Largo if I ever went back to LA - CH still plays there quite often and he tells a great story about how he persuaded Paul McCartney to stay for 3 songs (knowing full well that 3 songs in his set is at least half an hour with all the jokes/chat) which led to Paul inviting himself to Colin's for dinner and ending up with a Beatle doing his washing up. I've mentioned it earlier on this thread but it's well worth a look if you can find it on youtube.
|
|
|
Post by jno on Oct 3, 2022 3:37:06 GMT
I'd be interested to go to Largo if I ever went back to LA - CH still plays there quite often and he tells a great story about how he persuaded Paul McCartney to stay for 3 songs (knowing full well that 3 songs in his set is at least half an hour with all the jokes/chat) which led to Paul inviting himself to Colin's for dinner and ending up with a Beatle doing his washing up. I've mentioned it earlier on this thread but it's well worth a look if you can find it on youtube. I think this is the video, I watched it recently, great stuff: I ordered Men At Work's final album 'Two Hearts' on CD from discogs the other day. I've never heard this final album in is entirety.
|
|
|
Post by jno on Oct 11, 2022 19:47:53 GMT
Colin Hay has a few dates in the UK in 2023.
|
|
|
Post by Portland Road on Nov 5, 2022 5:19:45 GMT
Thank you to jno for alerting me to the above documentary movie about Colin Hay. It details his early life, moving with his family from west Scotland to Australia, forming Men At Work, their (all too brief) period of global success, and then Colin's life thereafter, where he has a low-key, but happy career in just being himself. I do think that Men At Work did not gain the lasting success they deserved. Emerging in 1980-81, they were contemporaries of e.g. U2, Simple Minds, Depeche Mode and UB40 and were justified in having similar chart longevity. Maybe in being Australian it went against them, in the sense that non-UK/US music was seen as less-important at that time? Also, the first album from 1981 finally gained global recognition at the time the second album was being released, hence there was (to quote the song title) an 'Overkill', and this was followed by the general move-away from guitar-based chart hits. So by 1985, Men At Work were old-hat . To be fair, most acts whose music was New Wave-derived were in the same boat by then, with mainly those embracing goth as a sound and fashion movement still having some success (The Cure, Siouxsie, The Damned etc).
|
|
|
Post by jno on Nov 18, 2022 5:10:09 GMT
This just has to be the Christmas No 1
|
|
|
Post by wayne2467 on Jan 17, 2023 19:17:43 GMT
“ who can it be now” “ overkill” is good too
|
|
|
Post by jno on Jan 18, 2023 4:38:07 GMT
“ who can it be now” “ overkill” is good too This is great too Wayne: + I'm off too see Colin live in February!
|
|
|
Post by jno on Jan 20, 2023 8:34:58 GMT
|
|
|
Post by azza200 on Jan 21, 2023 20:56:32 GMT
This is an underrated overlooked song
|
|
|
Post by jno on Feb 7, 2023 22:54:28 GMT
Just got back from Colin Hay's gig in Bristol. Superb, the place was pretty much sold out. Mostly new songs, some Men at Work hits (his acoustic detuned version of Who Can It Be Now? was fantastic) and hilarious stories in between. If you get a chance to see Colin, he's absolutely hilarious.
|
|
|
Post by Arch Stanton on Feb 8, 2023 7:08:11 GMT
Just got back from Colin Hay's gig in Bristol. Superb, the place was pretty much sold out. Mostly new songs, some Men at Work hits (his acoustic detuned version of Who Can It Be Now? was fantastic) and hilarious stories in between. If you get a chance to see Colin, he's absolutely hilarious. The question is did you finally find somewhere to stay after the gig, or did you have to sleep in the streets.
|
|
|
Post by Portland Road on Feb 11, 2023 0:40:49 GMT
Another friend of mine has also just seen Colin on this tour, and gives an equally good review.
|
|
|
Post by jno on Feb 11, 2023 2:51:42 GMT
Another friend of mine has also just seen Colin on this tour, and gives an equally good review. A definite 9.5 out of 10 for me. Man at Work, in Bristol, sorry for the poor quality pic... The only negative, minus half a point, for me is that he didn't play my favourite tune "It's A Mistake". I know (as he's said this in an interview) that he thinks this one is hard to do as a solo artist. It's true, BUT (as guitarist myself for 35 years) I know he could rearrange it so he could put this one in his solo set - without sounding nerdy his first two chords could be moved down the neck to make it solo artist friendly. Col, if you're watching, if I can do it, so can you.
|
|
|
Post by Arch Stanton on Feb 11, 2023 7:03:44 GMT
Another friend of mine has also just seen Colin on this tour, and gives an equally good review. A definite 9.5 out of 10 for me. Man at Work, in Bristol, sorry for the poor quality pic... The only negative, minus half a point, for me is that he didn't play my favourite tune "It's A Mistake". I know (as he's said this in an interview) that he thinks this one is hard to do as a solo artist. It's true, BUT (as guitarist myself for 35 years) I know he could rearrange it so he could put this one in his solo set - without sounding nerdy his first two chords could be moved down the neck to make it solo artist friendly. Col, if you're watching, if I can do it, so can you. He knows that song is the worst one they ever did. I heard they only wrote it as a joke and hated it. They put a hidden clue in the title apparently. Of course he tries to be diplomatic about it by lying about it being a difficult solo song and he loves all his fans, except those that who are dingo brained enough to like that song the best. Oh, and Colin gets annoyed by upstarts who think they can tell him how to play guitar. He thinks those fans in particular are total dorbas. Just sayin jno…
|
|
|
Post by azza200 on Feb 12, 2023 1:00:23 GMT
I nearly got a ticket to see him in London on my Birthday but I never did but I would of not been able to go due to the train strikes but I would like to see him if he tours the UK again
|
|
|
Post by Portland Road on Feb 18, 2023 9:01:51 GMT
Yes, the random rail strikes are making it difficult to commit to buying tickets for shows in London.
|
|
|
Post by coyote on Feb 22, 2023 0:10:12 GMT
E4 are using a version of 'Down Under' as the trailer music for 'Married At First Sight Australia' . Another $400 cheque in the mail at Laurel Canyon (watch Colin's 'Down Under' stories on youtube if you haven't seen him live)
|
|
|
Post by jno on Mar 23, 2023 8:44:45 GMT
John Rees, bass player with Men At Work now plays in band called beggs2differ - here is a video of them on YouTube playing a much underappreciated song "When the War Is Over" by Australian band Cold Chisel (definitely check out the original):
|
|
|
Post by jno on Nov 17, 2023 7:25:23 GMT
What a great cover this is, blatant Colin Hay fandom post here:
|
|
|
Post by Portland Road on Nov 24, 2023 8:59:01 GMT
Peter Gabriel will be watching that and thinking "who can it be now....?"
|
|
|
Post by jno on Nov 24, 2023 19:32:53 GMT
Peter Gabriel will be watching that and thinking "who can it be now....?" Definitely the acoustic version though, oops another fanboy post
|
|
|
Post by billymedhurst on Nov 24, 2023 20:26:08 GMT
I didn't realise that Men At Work are so popular - I've barely given them a second thought over the last 40 years or so....
|
|