Saints on Flashez

Flashez was an Australian music TV show, not a man in a raincoat. This is worth watching.

"Lipstick On Your Collar" - The Saints

Been digging that limited edition Live in Brisbane 2007 CD by the Saints, so here's something to remember them by in their time in London 30 years earlier. It reminds me that I liked Slovenly Chris Bailey better than today's Lord Byron Chris Bailey.

I Wanna Be Your Dog

Hiawatha Bailey of the Cult Heroes joins Scott Morgan and Powertrane for a run through of "I Wanna Be Your Dog" from the Ron Asheton Tribute at the Blind Pig in Ann Arbor recently.

New Saints live album hits the spot

Just in from Sydney retailer Mojo Music is news of a live Saints reformation album. I'd heard whispers about this but it's slipped out almost unannounced. I wasn't at the Pig City show in Brisbane but I've heard it and it's a damn fine gig.

On July 14th 2007, 6,000 people celebrated the band and their legacy in a concert called “Pig City – Brisbane’s Historic Soundtrack”. The show came about after author Andrew Stafford was approached to transform his book on the history of Brisbane music, Pig City, into a festival. Stafford says the set lived up to lofty expectations. "They ripped into" Swing for the Crime", and like most of the people in the place, I just couldn't believe it was happening," he said. "When they hit the horn solo, I died. And went to heaven."

Chris Bailey, Ed Kuepper and Ivor Hay walked on stage to thunderous applause as a thank you and the band repaid the faith with a set that nailed your head to the back wall. This was not a nostalgia show, this was a band playing at the peak of their powers and showing what made them so relevant and so inspiring to a world of bands from The Go-betweens to Birthday Party to The Hives.

From the first strains of “Swing For The Crime”, through “I’m Stranded”, “Know Your Product””Messing With The Kid” and finishing off with their unique version of “River Deep Mountain High", this was the Saints fulfilling their promise in front of an adoring crowd. As Ivor Hay said “We had unfinished business and Pig City was the way to do it”. Originally only available for sale at The Stranded and All Tomorrow's Parties shows, it's now been repressed as a one off retail version of only 1600 copies. Buy now or miss out.

Click here to hit up Mojo Music for a copy.

Saints, Clowns on ATP Australia bill

The All Tomorrow's Parties is coming to Australia in January with performances by the reformed Kuepper-Bailey Saints and the Laughing Clowns among the highlights. Nick Cave is curator and will play the three-part festival with his Bad Seeds. Full line-ups are to be announced but the acts already unveiled include Spiritualized, Robert Forster and Rowland S Howland. Sydney Harbour's Cockatoo Island, Brisbane and Mt Buller, Victoria, will be the venues. Details here.

Pig City (2): Swing For the Crime

The Saints doing "Swing For the Crime" at Brisbane's Pig City festival a few weeks ago:

As to the vexed question of whether this will be a one-off, no solid mail although it seems as if the Big Day Out conglomerate would be the only people able to stump up what's said to be substantial money required to make it happen again.

There was a flurry of excitement in the US, post-Pig City, when "The Saints" were billed to do a show at Spaceland in Los Angeles this month, but it turned out to be Chris Bailey's three-piece version and not the "original" band. That gig (and a handful of others) fell through because of visa paperwork. It has to be said that the latest "Saints" album "Imperial Delirium" doesn't sound too bad while it's immediate predecessor wasn't crap (with the Church's Marty Wilson-Piper on guitar) either.

And in honour of what's occuring in Brisbane tomorrow night

If you haven't heard, the (sort of) original Saints are reforming at the Pig City festival. Here's what those of us unable to make it are missing:


I say "original" because the version that started in Ed Kuepper's garage had drummer Ivor Haye on bass. But let's not be pedantic. The line-up will be sans bassist Kym Bradshaw who apparently is not on talking terms. But there will be a brass section and I bet they do "Know Your Product":