Oils

@ said:
The Oils were a band I've grown into as I've become older. Didn't mind them in my teens but I was more interested in listening to grunge and metal than anything else.

Many of their songs tell great stories. The Wittenoom asbestos mines in Blue Sky Mining, European colonisation in Short Memories, Armistice Day speaks for itself.

**It takes great skill to write songs about these sorts of subjects and write great music to it**.

That lack of great music has turned me off more recent genres like disco, grudge, metal, hip hop etc. especially after the great sixties and more so after the Kinks in 1970.

Hear this album out - my worn out vinyl I still treasure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MR52MIJuZJY&list=PL40xdWb-2paf3N_48AI9WOgqKoIEs8I_I&index=2
 
That Kinks album of 1970 had gay hit song Lola 50 years before gay marriage becomes legal and when homosexual acts were still illegal in many Oz states.
 
Love the 'Óils' but saw them live at the Northern(Great Northern?) Hotel in Byron back in the 1980's and they were terrible.We drove down from the Gold Coast for the night and it was a shocker of an evening,they performed in that big barn like room the Hotel had back then,Garrett was pissed or doped or both and the packed crowd were yahooing and carrying on where you couldn't hear properly.
That was the first time the four of us had seen them live and we were just shaking our heads that a top flight Oz Band could perform like that.
 
Saw them at Blacktown RSL for $20\. I would still rank it as one of my best concerts ever.

People may also remember Wave Aid, that was such an awesome concert… everyone was volunteers. So everyone just crowd surfed and got on shoulders, I saw a security guard just shrug his shoulders "hey I am not paid for this". Absolute Child on the big screen just egging everyone on.... "PLEASE GOD"!

Love them as a band. While I can say Peter Garrett disappointed me in Labor, he gave it a go.

to my mind they outdo REM and other similar bands. When triple M voted the dead heart as Australia's Nr1 all time rock song it said something about rock. Sure we love ACDC and nothing will take away a great bass thumping song, but to see the meaning here it is far greater.
 
I can understand the affection that people have for the band as they wrote some good tunes but personally I cant stand them. Bunch of whiners. Having Butler with them would have only made the whole thing more tedious.
 
In spite of the total lack of commercial success in the US, they are surprisingly well regarded. I have heard Beds Are Burning and Dead Heart on the radio. They were even on the music rotation at Walmart Stores for a while.
 
They are good, but Garrots foray into politics took a fair bit of the shine off the band for me and now the songs seem limp. I guess it was like dating your dream girl only to find out that she is a dud.

I still think bands like (no specific order) You am I, powder finger, hoodoo gurus, Aussie crawl, men at work, dragon, inxs, LRB, divinyls, ac/dc, h & c, cold chisel, the church …............
are more credible than midnight oil given they never sold out. Which in my opinion is what garret did to,a,degree.

While I wouldn't pay to see them anymore they do put on a great show.
 
@ said:
@ said:
Colour me surprised.

Always following me around trying to score points. Are you upset that I challenged your uneducated posts in an earlier thread? Grow up son.

Not really, just not surprised that you don't like a band that is politically active and doesn't align with your position on the political spectrum. I can understand especially when Garrett's foray into politics probably cheapened his political activism a little as well.
 
You all forget what Rod Hirst stated, they were not Peter's songs but his, Peter was mainly the front man as far as the groups was concerned.
 
@ said:
You all forget what Rod Hirst stated, they were not Peter's songs but his, Peter was mainly the front man as far as the groups was concerned.

The problem I have is it was Garrett's voice singing those words and a lot of what he was saying I agreed with. I would find it hard to listen to him sing those songs after the compromises he HAD to make to function in a major party.
 
@ said:
@ said:
Colour me surprised.

Always following me around trying to score points. Are you upset that I challenged your uneducated posts in an earlier thread? Grow up son.

Trust me. No ones following you around. Last time I replied to something you posted, you said pretty much the same thing to me as you're saying to CB. Lots of posters have been on here a long time and do happen to comment on multiple threads.
CB's been on here for years. I've noticed he doesn't bother posting to "score points". The worst thing you could accuse him of is "calling a spade a spade".
 
@ said:
@ said:
You all forget what Rod Hirst stated, they were not Peter's songs but his, Peter was mainly the front man as far as the groups was concerned.

The problem I have is it was Garrett's voice singing those words and a lot of what he was saying I agreed with. I would find it hard to listen to him sing those songs after the compromises he HAD to make to function in a major party.

Though Garrett was in politics and led the Nuclear Disarmament Party he was not a lifetime political animal, he was essentially a rock singer. It does not surprise me that he was not up to the argy bargy of strongly sticking to one's principles once in the ALP. It is an obstinate animal that holds out. The more principled of the ALP ministers have a lifetime of campaigning on issues thus will fight it out to the end - come hell or high water. I honour those who do carry on because they sacrifice a lot of personal and political life. The cause becomes more important than themselves.
 

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