Parts 1 to 5

Riley Jordan – It’s all rock and roll to me – Part 1

While most of my friends were watching the Brady Bunch or out riding their horses, I had a secret world. Central Victoria in the late 1970′s was not exactly the mecca of rock and roll. It was a strange and beautiful country, sheep, cows and rampant binge drinking on Friday and Saturday nights.

It’s funny how circumstances shape you. The high school that I went to, serviced a wide hinterland, of the mainly anglosaxon farming community. My best friends inevitably lived in country towns, that were maybe 20km+ away from me. My parents were flat out running the local general store (and later a small grocery/veg shop) and had no time, to run me around for socializing.

I never begrudged this, it was country life, no problem…I will amuse myself elsewhere. Enter Singing and Guitar!!! I set my stubborn sights on a career in music very early on.

An old dude used to come into the shop. He was a sax player and after getting to know him, my brother and I were invited over to his house for a jam. What’s a jam?? To play some music he said.

I was about 14 at the time. Next Wednesday night. No worries, we’d be there.

More in the next installment.

It’s all rock and roll to me – part 2 – Enter Sax Man

The old dude, or as I will call him “Sax man” lived in a rambling turn of the century house, half of which was still not wired for electricity. He was landed gentry and every time he ran out of money (due to an extensive career in music), he would sell another 40 acres. In his salad days he had been a top player, much in demand. I was only about 14 years old at the time, so the famous people who he had played with meant little to me. I seem to remember the name Graham Lyle and that’s about all.

Sax man must have been really old (about 50ish) and was sharing the good life with a slim brunette of about 30 (Sax woman). I remember my first visit. My brother and me and a couple of friends (Axe man and Curly top) all siting around the funky old kitchen with a cuppa in the hand and a stories from the mouth. Then into the lounge and everybody reaches for their instruments; except me.

I had sang a little and played acoustic guitar and it seemed all the positions were taken. Sax (Sax man and Sax Woman), drums (brother), guitar (axe man), vocal (curly top) and me (unknown).

It was then that a bass guitar appeared from nowhere like an apparition in the night and gently landed in my arms. Ahh love at first site. From the first note I dug it.

You know, there’s a kind of arrogance that guitarists have towards bass players, like it’s an instrument not worthy of their attention, but the bass is born within. It is such a subtle instrument to get right. It may not be flashy but it makes people move from miles around…..if you have the gift.

Anyway, as the open fire cracked in the 6′ tall fireplace, we tuned up and made out first attempts at mastering ‘Sax man’s’ repetoire. Trad Jazz?? What’s Trad Jazz????

It’s all rock and roll to me – Part 3 – Axe man and Curly top.

I’m getting ahead of myself here. Before ‘Sax man and Woman’ were ‘Axe man’ and ‘Curly top’. Axe man was a guitarist who seemed to do nothing but play drills on the guitar, whether talking, eating or on the can. He also had a high opinion of himself, all of which is so unusual for a lead guitarist.

I first met him through guitar lessons and for all of the years that we knew each other, we would but heads. I was only 12 or 13 when we first met and so ill equipped to handle the ego of a 25 year old. I did my best but inevitably came off the loser.

Curly top was his new wife. Looking back I can see that she married (A) Because she loved him and (B) because it was the only respectable way to lose your virginity at that time. Curly top came from a religious background which seemed to haunt her rather than nourish her soul. (Many years later, I came across a guy who had shared a house with her, to find out that she and Axe man had divorced and that she was a practicing lesbian.)

Curly was quite a good singer and ruthless axe man was quick to remind me of this, in his own subtle, sledge hammer way.

Regardless of all these undercurrents, my brother and I became friends with them and we would lob around to their homey shack, once or twice a week. I can vividly remember us of all sitting in their 70s style lounge room, singing for hours on end. Both Axe and Curly were very good harmony singers, so I spent a lot of this time trying to figure out how to sing harmony so we could do 4 part. I was failing more than I was succeeding but I was learning.

Riley Jordan – It’s all Rock and Roll to me – Part 4

Back to the Trad Jazz band. I was introduced to one of the loves of my life – the bass guitar and soon I was inventing all kinds of weird stuff to go under all these tunes that I had never heard of. Satin doll, one note samba and many more which I have now forgotten.

The thing about jazz music is that it is very inventive music and it’s great fun for the player but it’s an acquired taste for the listener. There’s a great joke that sums it all up. How do you make a jazz band? Throw a blues band down the stairs. At this point I was just a little sponge, taking it all in and not judging anything.

Sax man was amazing however, he had about 700 songs in his head. While we were all eyes glued to chord charts, he was just peeling tunes off the top of his head like ripe bananas.

I was in my own special world. By day I would go to school, do my sums and stand in assembly, enduring all the boring stuff and by night I would hang out in a dilapidated old mansion with these funky grown ups, laying down riffs and being “like” a hippie muso.

Sax man had an interesting hobby. I didn’t find this out till much later, but he would play war games with these tiny metal soldiers. He had thousands of them. Over the years, he had hand painted them one by one with various regimental colors. He and his mates would get together for the weekend and move them around and recreate famous battles. I don’t know how. Did they roll a dice?? Anyway, they were tucked away in the other wing of the house, the one with no power and the layers of dust on everything.

I loved this old place, during rehersals, when I had a minute I would rifle though the bulging book shelves in the old wing to find first edition hard cover books dating back to the 1800′s. Every kid should have a place like this to hang out at.

Riley Jordan – It’s all rock & roll to me – Part 5

The fog was coming in fast. We had been up on hanging rock for a couple of hours and it was about one hour from sun set AND this fog had come from out of nowhere. We had been singing harmonies all afternoon. There was a special hidey place. One that only we knew about. A hollow rock that we would all crawl into. (Axe man, Curly top, my brother and I). Where the acoustics were fine and we would sing and sing. “All around my hat, I will wear the green willow….”, Simon and Garfunkel, The Eagles, Crosby Stills Nash & Young. Any tune from the day that would lie easily under 3 parts.

But now we were caught on this ancient volcanic plug, going round in circles, the fog slowly masking any landmarks and deep shafts awaiting the unsuspecting.

There are three levels on hanging rock. The second level looks very similar from many points and it can be hard to spot the passage down to the first.

My mind went to the story of ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock’. The story of 3 girls who disappear at the rock on Valentines Day 1900. I went to the school featured in that famous book by Joan Lindsay and I distinctly remember the headmaster saying that he checked the records and that the story was not true.

That was not going to help us now. Round and Round and Round…
As the light started to fade we made our way down to base camp. Tired, hungry and a little shaken. I still have vivid memories of the harmonies we sang, in the hollow rock, on the extinct volcano.

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