LET THE BIBLE BELT COME AND SAVE MY SOUL

Let’s get this straight. Spring is in the air, and I need a lover that won’t drive me crazy. Somebody who knows the meaning of, hey hit the highway. We all know the song. 77? Maybe 79? A young Johnny Cougar managed by Rod Stewart’s people if my memory is correct. Shaped for the big time. Gonna make it. The non radio edit of I Need A Lover has a long intro. It’s great. It’s of the time. I’m thinking now of a mash up of that into Thin Lizzy Boys Are Back In Town. I dream of mash ups of so many songs. I know songs. I know riffs. It may be a good disease I have but I recall licks, rockin’ turnarounds, pauses, drum fills, finger snaps, all kind of nuisances that are key to recollection I suppose. Dashboards and steering wheels beware.

Anyways. I liked that song. I also liked Jack & Diane. And Hurts So Good. And Miami. Just the other day after hearing Jack & Diane on the 2UE, the great AM station in Sydney, it just dawned on me that JC sings “Let the bible belt, come and save my soul”. I think for the last 40 years I’ve been mumbling fuck knows what for that line. Anyways. Wild how that happens. So Johnny Cougar is now John Cougar at this point and it’s 1983. For me, it late high school and serious football in the outer burbs of Melbourne, yearning and beer, and probably weed for me….and Cold Chisel are breaking up. 17 years of age. I say who you are at 16 is who you are forever, but 17. Maybe not. We’ll see.

So a few years later it’s 1986 and it’s John Cougar Mellencamp in name. Scarecrow. Rural America. Kinda like Gippsland with more hats and western shirts and fiddles and bolo ties and not so cold and wet in winter. Dandenong is on the edge of Gippsland back then. Loved that Scarecrow record. Maybe rock n roll combined with some distant country feeling is being understood by me. I’m in the biz of music by then, touring with bands. Saw a Mellencamp Scarecrow tour show in Sydney from memory. It was a hot, hot ticket I seem to recall. Kinda like say a Charley Crockett on his first tour but bigger. Springsteen loomed large with Born In The USA still realising singles and Mellencamp was clumped in as a new Dylan like Bruce.

And Johnny just keeps the hits a coming, but now it’s John Mellencamp. Up next The Lonesome Jubillee, with Cherry Bomb, Paper In Fire, Check It Out and I’m on his national tour slingin’ the cotton. Had zero interaction with JCM, but felt pretty special touring the country and having my name in a tour itinerary and sitting in catering with the band, and getting to know the excellent roadcrew, and seeing the show every night.

Not long after that tour, I would do my first trip to the USA. I actually didn’t really even know where places were, but grabbed San Francisco, New York, Dallas, New Orleans and LA as the towns I would visit, working my way around the country in that order.

In New York, The Boss was playing Madison Square Garden. Tunnel Of Love tour. It was his first tour after the huge Born In The USA, he has a new wife (that wouldn’t last) but just have a look at the setlist. I’d take it any day now. As you do , I took the lift down to the backstage area with Mighty Max Weinberg in it only to be greeted by a carnival type vibe for the VIPs and guests. There were amusement rides, clowns and popcorn and hot dogs! Hooked up!! I’d toured with Billy Joel not long before this and his people are Bruce’s people. This would serve me well over the years to be able to show up unannounced (pre internet and mobiles remember) and ask for them at stage door and waltz on in!

In Dallas I visited well, The Dallas house of course, so small. I also spent a lotta time at my mate Laser’s house. He did well, lasers for ZZ Top when they toured Oz and we partied. And I still think of the Bloody Mary I had on the tourist paddle steamer in New Orleans as the best I’ve ever had. I still have the Felix’s Oyster Bar shirt from there, and memories of my first muffaletta from Central Grocery. These things didn’t seem cringey or touristy back then. The French Quarter and side bits of it did feel spooky and scary. You could feel the voodoo!

Then it’s back to the West Coast (why do Americans talk in compass directions and we don’t?). Wildly enough upon arriving into LA I bumped into an Aussie (actually Kiwi, but you know how it goes) mate who had been on the recently completed Mellencamp tour. For some reason, we both had our tour laminates with us and saw the tour was playing down the coast at Irvine Meadows. So what do we do? Well, we rocked up with our laminates and in we strolled to be treated like long lost pals….we actually ended up staying in the tour manager’s hotel room that night as they split for the next town. American hospitality. Backstage in the VIP bar there was this dude roaming around, wearing Wayfarers and a leather jacket and looking cool, I actually bumped him by accident. Oh shit, that’s Bruce Springsteen! A lotta things coming together at the point in my mind. Full circle being one of them….but really, it’s just a trend and lifestyle you throw yourself into. Intentionally or not. Open your eyes, ears and mind and it’s all there.

At this point I was still living at home, and home meant Dandenong in the outer burbs of Melbourne. Why move when you’re on the road all the time. Home to my Dandenong mates, and Cold Chisel reminisincing probably, and bongs. So yeah, Cold Chisel. They’re gonna tour again soon. 50 years as a band. I’ve had the fortune from going from being a super fan, to their merch guy, occasional art director, and like to think, comrade in their world. I have Don’s, Jim’s, Mossy’s, Steve’s (RIP sweetheart friend) and Charley’s number in my phone. Still chuckle every time I see em. I have shared experiences, deep and/or meaningful with my teenage heroes which is mind blowing. My first ever tour as a promoter was with the late, great Tony Joe White. I nervously asked Don Walker to open the shows, he agreed. Sometimes you just take life with ya. My name is in the thank you’s on a few records. I wrote the liner notes for the Circus Animals reissue some years ago, which is crazy. And then there’s that photo. The photo that maybe says what life’s journey was all to be about.

It's 1983, October. We are a solid group of fit, tough mates playing for the Dandenong Football Club in the Under 19s in the VFA. We are a very, very good team. Never been fitter in my life. And I’m the music guy. I recall nearly being dropped ‘cause I had to leave training to go to a Skyhooks reformation gig that year. Anyways, season is over (we lost the Grand Final at the Junction Oval….we all played like idiots that day…still can’t explain it). I’ve purchased tickets for the music lovers in the team and associated mates. We go to the first of the Cold Chisel Last Stand shows at the now defunct Sports & Entertainment Centre in Melbourne. We are either the first people there, or in the first few. We have VB stubbies. We smash lots of them and we enter the show eventually. It’s unreal of course. My early concert experiences were a blur. I kinda can’t remember them like a do now. Maybe I was just so overwhelmed, who knows, but I have since found my setlist notes and photos I took, so I must have at least been conscious. It’s a killer night. The next week Juke Magazine comes out with a front cover and whole section on the shows. I double take as I see my mates in what has become one of the all time classic pics of Cold Chisel. There’s Yarkie. My best mate growing up. His musical family is the reason I probably end up doing what I do. I can see Stork (2nd ruckman of the Redlegs) I can’t make out Slim or Warbo, but can see Brett Shannon on someone’s shoulders. I’ve recently lost a bet that he is on Rob Walton’s shoulders. Anyways, they’re all there, but where am I?? You can’t see my cut off blue exacto sweatshirt that I had perfectly drawn the Cold Chisel logo the back. You can’t see the glory of my headband. It’s kinda sad that I can’t see myself, but I realise now my time with the band, and music and the rock and roll life was to come.

Hold on to 16 as long as you can.

Side note: If you have got this far and are thinking, fuck Mellencamp, just remember this. He, along with Willie Nelson and Neil Young started Farm Aid in 1985. Still runs to this day. I went last year to Evansville, Indiana and saw it. Watched them and a load more play, as well as this guy Bob Dylan, with this backing band call The Heartbreakers. It was only a 3 song set, but it was also the first time Bob had strapped on a guitar for 15 years or more.