Jo Jo Zep & TheFalcons
The Spiegeltent,Melbourne
December 3, 2008
It’s the late ‘70s and weare crammed into Martini’s in Carlton. This small room was to become one ofMelbourne’s most important venues of the era but it is like a lot of others inthat they manage to shoehorn as many people as possible into the smallest spaceavailable. It is always hot, sweaty and jumping.
I still often pass therelatively non-descript building. It is no longer a pub. I recall the gigs andthe search for a parking spot on a Friday night. It is hard to imagine thisunprepossessing structure as a palace of rock ‘n’ roll dreams. This was in thedays before people started dividing music into immutable categories, when punkwas just grungier rock and you could listen to a blues band one week and anavant-garde band the next and think of them as just different sides of the onecoin.
We were to see many bandsin that room – Paul Kelly & The Dots, Ed Kuepper’s amazing Laughing Clowns– but the favourite was Jo Jo Zep & The Falcons, fronted by the energeticand charismatic Joe Camilleri, who never seemed able to decide whether he wasMick Jagger or Howlin’ Wolf. He was helped by having one of the nation’slegendary drummers, two great guitarists and another great sax player in theband to augment his own playing.
For a while they were thenation’s premier rhythm and blues band. Lots of rhythm, a bit of blues. Theydrew on Otis Redding, Joe Liggins, The Rolling Stones. There probably hasn’tbeen another band come along here to challenge them in that field. ElvisCostello liked Joe’s song, ‘So Young,’ so much that he played it in concert andeven recorded it. Apart from Daddy Cool, who had broken up years earlier, thiswas my favourite Australian band.
Maybe three and a halfyears later I saw the band playing at the pub in the Snowy Mountains town ofJindabyne, driving down the mountain from Thredbo with my wife and two friends.There were maybe 30 people there. I got to meet and talk to all the bandmembers because for a long-time before the gig started we were the only peoplethere. It was kind of embarrassing for the band and a sign that things werecoming to an end.
Soon after Joe Camillerichanged the line-up called it Jo Jo Zep, recorded a sophisticated dance albumand then disbanded. From that point on, he controlled everything he was involvedin. After a short hiatus he formed the Black Sorrows. By this stage he couldn’tdecide if he was Van Morrison or swamp pop star Johnny Allen, later he addedThe O’Kanes and Garland Jeffreys to the personae. Somehow, he synthesised itall.
Over the past five yearsCamilleri has resurrected Jo Jo Zep & The Falcons. I saw them at theirfirst official reunion gig Great Southern festival in Narooma six years ago andthey were great. The memories were left in tact. They didn’t embarrassthemselves – or us. A few years back they even recorded a new album that wassnapped up by their die-hard fans and quickly disappeared. Ostensibly a Jo JoZep album, it was really a Joe Camilleri album recorded with his old bandmates.
But a few days before this‘comeback’ show at The Spiegeltent, as part of Camilleri’s three-concertretrospective Medicine Show
series, I was questioning the need for ‘heritage’ bands (to use the fashionableterm) to get back together. I don’t get too nostalgic about the ‘good old days’because many of them weren’t. There is so much good music around now that ifyou are going to comeback then you better not waste my time. Life is too short.
A few days earlier I hadseen Madderlake at the Queenscliff Music Festival. Their hit song ’12 PoundToothbrush’ annoyed me when it was first released and it hasn’t got any better.I recall cringing to it when they played it as support on the Rolling Stones1973 tour here. It’s a personal thing. These days, Madderlake is an okay boogieband featuring a bunch of competent musicians who are, but should not be,recording a new album.
On the other hand, Jo JoZep & The Falcons is a tightlywound outfit, even thirty years after their initial recordings, featuring agroup of highly skilled musicians, a charismatic lead singer and a great backcatalogue that includes a string of hits. The fact that they sound as good, ifnot better, than in their heyday is possibly due to the fact that neither theynor their audience are drinking near as much as we once all did. It is no idleboast to claim that they are still Australia’s best r&b band, and even Icannot think of too many current competitors.
The fact that all of theJo Jo Zep members are still regularly playing and recording is also obvious.(Madderlake, please note). Apart from fill-in bass player Joe Creighton (not abad substitute) this was one of the classic line-ups of the band. I hadforgotten what a great guitarist Tony Faehse was but his playing here was areminder. Jeff Burstin, the quiet achiever, complemented Faehse and that twinguitar attack sounded terrific. Drummer Gary Young (ex-Daddy Cool) seemed tohaving the time of his life – but then again he almost always does.
Wayne Burt would have madea surfeit of guitarists and he had already played on the ‘influences’ show theweek before. When Joe pointed out that he was always the first to leavewhatever band Joe recruited him before, he noted, ‘I was the canary in the coalmine.’
Then there is thevertically superior Wilbur Wilde, a highly under-rated sax player. Don’t lethis humour disguise the fact that he is one of our finest players. This eveningMr Wilde was recovering from an illness and was thus seated. At times he seemsto be almost uninterested, staring into the distance appearing deep in thought- and then he bursts into life with a blistering solo.
The one disturbing factabout Wilde’s appearance is that when he is in pensive mood he resembles ourformer Federal Treasurer pondering his failure to challenge his leader. I wasreminded of Camilleri’s story of how at the end of his time in the band Wilde,as a sign of his disdain, started to play the keyboards with his nose.
Given the passage of time,all old scores have either been settled or forgotten and these older men havethe chance to prove once more that there is some life in old dogs yet.
They ran through a setlist that brought back many memories for fans, some of whom looked as thoughthey had not been to a gig since those days at Martini’s!
The brief ‘Taxi Mary’period of the band’s Jo Jo Zep incarnation was wisely ignored. It was possiblythe only time Camilleri set out to win a commercial audience rather than buildit and let them come to him. At this stage he probably thought he was KidCoconut.
Early on they played my favouritesong of all time, Otis Redding’s ‘Security,’ their version based not on Otisbut on the one that was the sole hit for Thane Russal & Three back in1965-66. Joe repeated ‘The Honeydripper’ from last week’s show (his influences)and he was to encore with another repeat, Chuck Berry’s ‘Down The Road Apiece’(also recorded by The Stones). There was a slashing version of ‘So Young,’ ofwhich Elvis (Costello) would have heartily approved and songs such as ‘YoungGirl,’ ‘I Need You Loving,’ ‘Confessin’ The Blues’ (Stones again).
Yet two of the band’sbiggest radio hits remain as the highlights because they still sound so greatand they have possibly never been played better live: the bouncy ska-drenched‘Hit & Run’ and the rocking ‘Shape I’m In.’ Both songs signatures andanthems.
By the end of the eveningthe only signs that the band had aged were the obvious physical ones and thefact that their puffing, perspiring leader, clad in tight shirt, appeared as ifmight keel over towards the end of the hour and a half gig. I am pleased toreport he survived.
I mark it as one of themost enjoyable shows I have seen this year. At the end of the evening I waswishing that there was some way you could get younger audiences to hear thisband. After al, if they are prepared to listen to Sharon Jones & Dap Kingsand Eli ‘Paperboy’ Reed, why not Jo Jo Zep & the Falcons.
This week’sshow features The Black Sorrows’ years with: Joe Camilleri - vocals/sax/guitar,George Butrumlis - accordion, Joe Creighton - bass,
Claude Carranza - guitar, Ed Bates - pedal steel, Tony Floyd– drums, Vika and Linda Bull – vocals, and,
Jen Anderson – violin.