Listen on your laptop. Listen Sound Quality on your iPhone. Sound Quality . Listen on whatever you like. Sound Quality . It's the podcast, aha! Sound Quality . Listen on your laptop. Sound Quality . Listen on your iPhone. Sound Quality . Listen on whatever you like. Sound Quality . It's the podcast, aha! Sound Quality . Hello everybody.
Welcome to the Sound Quality Podcast. Before we begin, we'd just like to acknowledge this podcast is being recorded on Wurundjeri land and we'd like to pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging. Sovereignty was never ceded, always was, always will be.
Welcome to the Sound Quality Podcast. My name is Neale sitting beside me is Mr. Jack Hewitt, and then sitting further away from me is Miss Chloe, otherwise known as Douzey . [00:01:00] Welcome to this, this idea. What we're doing here is all three of us musicians of one type or another, and we all have a very deep love of music and specifically Australian music.
So we thought we'd all choose a song each. From different kind of epoch and, different style and then speak about that song, what it means to us and how much the other two's music taste sucks. So we'll we'll, carry on with that. Big words, coming , from you.
Sound Quality. Sound Quality.
I have chosen for the pilot episode, Thelma Plum and her song, I'm Not Angry Anymore. Which was released in 2019. So my song is Muph and Plutonic Paracetamol. And the year is 2004. And I've chosen My Pal by Australian band GOD, which stands for Guitar Over Ride for those that don't know. That was released in 1988.
We should [00:02:00] mention, by the way, that you won't be able to hear the songs that we're talking about in the podcast, obviously for kind of copyright reasons but we will be putting together a Spotify playlist. Sound Quality! Sound Quality! Sweet! So Thelma amazing. She is a, I'm going to totally trash this pronunciation, but she's an indigenous Gamilaraay woman. And she grew up in Brisbane and she went to that fancy Brisbane music school where a lot of artists have come out of like Sahara Beck and Asha Jeffries . But yeah, there's a few, actually my bassist went to it as well. She's like a conservatory kid. It's just a lot of musicians have come out of this one school in Brisbane.
I don't even know what it's called. So it's like the Brisbane version of VCA or something? Yeah, something like that. Something like that. Anyway so, I chose this track. It's on her album that came out. And I would like to compare Thelma Plum [00:03:00] to Taylor Swift. I think she is like the Australian Taylor Swift.
I feel like she is getting slept on. Her songwriting is, you know, Stevie Nicks level. And her voice, so she has a very particular voice trill that she does. And in this song, it actually is quite emblematic of this voice trill that she has that is beautiful. Particularly on the word push, I think I wrote down.
This album is called Better in Blak paul McCartney wrote on one of her tracks just randomly. He just came in the studio and listened to her voice and was like, I'm going to lay some guitar down. So she's already working with big hot shots. And she seems like just nothing bigger than Paul McCartney.
Yeah. So I just, I feel like I'm like, I can't even describe how amazing she is, but she even had her own. MTV award Taylor Swift moment because I feel like she's also embedded in Australian [00:04:00] culture and the Me Too movement as well. So what you mean? What, did fucking Kanye get up there and like? Yeah!
I think she had her own moment, but of course in Australia everything's a bit less capitalised and shown on the screens, but she even had this moment with an artist that she called out on her like Facebook or something. And that really started a conversation about inequality of women. I think this song is really amazing because it has a sort of voice of self acceptance and moving on.
And she's basically saying F you to the industry. I'm happy now I've made peace with this moment, which I wish to have one day. There's something musically really interesting going on in that track. Which is that there's essentially, in a real basic sense, this kind of percussion that's working on a clave, like a dancehall kind of clave.
And then what is essentially a very stripped back drum and bass break, right? And for the hooks and stuff. And you can hear the dynamics of the drums get louder and softer as [00:05:00] it goes. And it actually, and then with the instrumentation behind it. It would actually lend itself to being a really beautiful liquid drum and bass tune like you could almost imagine it.
Yeah, totally. Maybe you should do a remix. The tempo is correct, right? You've got the nice kind of lilting vocals over the top and then the chords could easily be either lifted or reconstructed in some way to make a really nice kind of seven minute LTJ Bookum style drum and bass tune. I don't know what any of this is.
But that song lends itself. To that kind of treatment as well. So, I wouldn't be able to say whether that was the intention or not. But it's certainly in there. I like the instrumentation and the percussion. The drumming's great. And you're right about her voice. Like, her voice is just amazing, right?
Like, really, really good. I spent hours in my room trying to mimic it when I was a teenager. Yeah, right. With her first couple of tracks. And I, yeah, I absolutely adore her and she seems like such a genuine person as well. Oh, she has another song on this [00:06:00] album called Homecoming Queen. And this is where I love that she combines my two favorite things, which is fun with education.
And so in Homecoming Queen she says In 1967 I wasn't human and in 1994 I was born. And I think that really struck a chord with me because, you know, you kind of hear about, Oh yeah, indigenous people used to be considered the flora and fauna. But when you put a date like that, that makes it so much more real and she compares it as well as in 1967 to 1994, aren't that many years apart.
And I just think that kind of one sentence in a song, that's a very sweet. song about being a teenager. Yeah. It really struck, like it, it educates the people listening to it because it's like, Oh wow, like this this prejudice existed in our living lifetime. We're only one generation removed from that.
Literally like my parents were literally [00:07:00] 10 years old when that 1967 happened. Yeah, exactly. You know, the white Australia policy existed until what? 1970. It was, it was gradually dismantled as, as time went on, but yeah, like, you know, the, the repercussions of that still exists to this day. Just to put that into perspective, 1967, that occurred less than 10 years before I was born.
I was going to say, how old were you? But just put that in perspective that like there's from, from. The point of the 67 referendum to us sitting here now, there's only, there's less than a 10 year gap between that and my birth. So you're looking at someone who has been alive for a fairly long time now, as is frequently mentioned.
That situation of indigenous people being considered human was less than a decade old [00:08:00] by the time I was born. Yeah, and so when you think about Australian history, you really have to keep it in your head that you know a lot of this stuff, things like the Stolen Generation didn't happen. 500 years ago.
No. It happened in my lifetime. Yeah. Right? And so the repercussions of all of this are still ongoing. The massive generational trauma is just ongoing. Oh, absolutely. And, And it is because it seems like we have this kind of mistaken assumption that, oh, that all just happened a million years ago, when it just didn't.
It happened. I mean, there's people alive today who were part of the Stolen Generation. And they're not terribly old men and women either. You're not talking about people in their nineties. You're talking about people in their sixties and fifties. Right. So. You know, this, this perception we have that, ah, well that was all back in the day and nobody was alive when it happened.
But nobody was, is alive now that it happened. And honestly, like, I feel like World War II was shoved down our throats [00:09:00] throughout high school. But, I feel like Do you want a fun fact about World War II? On the topic of this? Yeah. The first the first official protest Against Nazi persecution of the Jews was a man named William Cooper, who was the head of, I'm going to get the name wrong, but it was like essentially an indigenous rights kind of organization.
And he wrote an official letter of protest or a letter of solidarity with, towards the German Jewish people. It was the first Australian leader to say, we think the Nazis are fucked. And it's like 9 38 or something like that. Yeah. 1938. Wow. So he's way ahead. Right. So the war starts in 39. Right. And we don't enter it, I think till 40.
Yeah. So this guy already podcast way ahead of everybody. on this stuff. [00:10:00] And because of, coming from an indigenous background, he clearly understood what being a prosecuted minority felt like, right? So, so yeah, really interesting to think that like, you know, you've got a situation where this man of obvious, obvious integrity and intelligence took a stand on behalf of others when even in their own country, they were considered part of the fucking landscape, you know what I mean?
And so when you talk about, you go to high school and all you learn about is like the diggers and the Anzacs and like all due respect, of course, but it's like, yeah, man, there's my song is Paracetamol by Muph n Plutonic. I was probably about 13 or 14 when I first heard this song so this Album, the album is Hunger Pains came out in 2004 And I can remember vividly walking into JB Hi Fi with my dad and I was going through my Aussie hip hop phase being like, all right, what Aussie hip hop are you?
[00:11:00] You're going through it? You're going through your phase? Yeah, that's it, that's it, man, you know? That's been going for Yeah, it's still going, it's still, I must admit, I'm still, it's never, it's never gonna, it's never gonna leave me, it's never gonna leave me. It's like when my grandma on her deathbed was like, so when is this?
Phase of colored hair going to change. Well, I'll, and I'm like, it's been five years, grandma, I'll be, I'll be like your grandma and I'll be on my deathbed going, yeah, Muph n Plutonic . Yeah. Right. But yeah, so yeah, I was, I vividly remember walking into JB Hi FI being like, all right, what Aussie hiphop I'm gonna listen to next.
And they only had a real, this was 2004. Yeah. So. They only had a really small catalogue of artists. Just like one rack. Yeah, literally. I'd only, I'd only heard The Calling, Hiltop Hoods , and maybe, I think it was like one of the Pegz album or something like that early, early on. And so I saw these two dudes just on the cover.
There actually wasn't a didn't say who they were, didn't have like the, the title of the album. It just had Muph n Plutonic looking kind of, you know, staunch and [00:12:00] hectic a little bit. But I was like, who, who are these dudes? And I saw on the back of it, it said obese records and I was like, Oh, cool.
This is obviously some stuff took at home and this, this song, I guess, really, I guess spoke to me as a 13, 14 year old, quite anxious. You know, socially awkward kid who was going through, I guess, a lot. You know, it was my, what, second year in high school or whatever. And I, you know, didn't have the best experience in high school.
Did not. As, as many people do. I'm sure all of us do. No, high school sucks. You know what I mean? Yeah, and just hearing for the first time an actual Australian MC. Not only that. But you could just tell this dude was Melbournian too. Yeah. Something so relatable from a hip hop perspective. So I'd been a hip hop head at that point for about two years.
Mm. And you know, before then I'd listen to American stuff like, you know, your Tupac's, your 50 Cent's, your Eminem's or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But me hearing this kind of stuff for the first time blew my mind. It blew my mind that, yo, [00:13:00] Australians can not only be this poetic and like beautiful about this stuff.
But also This dude Muph is like vulnerable and he's like talking about stuff that I'm going through like feeling anxious and feeling like Like the line he has about a better man, like still kind of hopeless like, you know that kind of Instilled into me of like yo, I feel hopeless a lot of time as a young kid Yeah, like there's hope for me if there's hope for him, you know, and I could I could see myself like As corny as it sounds, I can see myself in him, like, you know, like, in the lyrics.
Yeah, totally, which I feel like any artist you listen to at that age is like, you're trying to find your identity. You're trying to emulate, yeah, you're trying to emulate, you know, the artist that you kind of look up to. And, you know, from that moment on, it kind of sparked into me, like, and it was, it was literally the first time hearing that.
Literally the first time me hearing Mokko Tori. I think it really instilled into me that, yo, I could, I could See myself doing this, but yeah, so yeah, me hearing that as a first time as a kid just blew my mind and actually [00:14:00] opened, it literally opened my world to the possibilities of literally what I am now, you know, there's, there's something in the something that I came around to, it took a minute, but the whole concept, and it kind of applies to what you're talking about as well, Chloe, the, like, you can't be what you can't see, right, and I think that people like, you know, Muph n Platonic are really kind of important in paving the way for, you know, for Australian rappers for, for, cause there was prior to that, you know.
There was just so much fucking cringe around rapping in an Australian accent, you know, what the fuck are you going to talk about? Oh, they called it skip hop or whatever. Yeah. I even remember in JB Hi Fi, it literally said skip hop, it didn't actually say Australian hip hop. So is it, why skip? Is that like skipping?
Skipping. Skipping. Yeah. Skippy the bloody kangaroo man. So Oh my goodness! So you've got this style of music that already [00:15:00] has massive problems in the mainstream because Well, as we'd be previously discussing, there is a kind of high degree of racism going on. So anytime you have angry black people speaking their minds, people find all sorts of nifty excuses not to listen to it, right.
Or to denigrate it or whatever. And then you have this problem of suburban white Australian kids listening to it because, and rightly so, because it's fucking dope and then wanting to emulate that, you know, that works with music all over the world. Like, you know, you just. I think I said to both of you guys before, there's like a really heavy Cambodian death metal scene.
Oh yes! You know what I mean? I have read about that! It's thriving! Absolutely thriving! And so, what the fuck Cambodia has to do with death metal, I don't know. But clearly somewhere, clearly something happened. Someone got a tape, someone got a record, someone got a CD drive full of tunes. And then a bunch of Cambodian kids just decided that, well fuck it, we're going to make death metal bands now.
And so there's a whole thriving scene there, and I think that [00:16:00] music kind of germinates like that all over the world, but hip hop really did that, like really took over the entire globe in the like 90s and 2000s, and it's almost like you needed people like Muph n Platonic to just kind of be the first ones through the door, you know, take the hits.
Oh, like, yeah, regionize it, like, and actually Speak to, to kids like me who, who weren't the tough kids, who were literally the kids getting bullied in high school or whatever, you know, and to actually be like, yo, no, you don't have to be tough when you rap, you just have to speak how you're feeling. And that's what rap is to me, like speaking your, you know, as corny as it sounds, your truth, you know what I mean?
But if your, if your truth is running from the Met pigs Herstie line, then that's what your truth is, right? Do you know, I was going to ask, do you know what the sample is? I don't, oh, actually, you know what, I actually don't, it'll, it might be on whose sample, I don't know what the sample is, but the funny thing was, I actually heard the sample on a Sean [00:17:00] McAuliffe program episode, believe it or not, way back in the day, like, and it blew my mind.
Like, just like, I think it was just watching it on YouTube one day. That's the Paracetamol sample. So it must be from some kind of like, I don't know, library sample classics or something. Yeah the, who sampled? Yeah, oh yeah, it'll be on. It's been around for years. Yeah, yeah. The I like the Life is a Shorty Shouldn't Be So Rough scratch as well.
yeah, yeah, yeah. The scratching, like, it's pretty funny listening to it there. You can hear it's like, it's old school. Scratching, but it sounds like it's pre, like, pre Serato, pre Tractor, it came off wax. Yeah, well, it would be, because what, 2004, or whatever, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, like, you can kind of hear that it's done in two, kind of two sections.
It should, it should be mentioned, though, that, like, Platonic, you know. He crafted an entire Melbourne sound. Are they gigging today? Not them, I think, yeah, I don't know. I listen, there was a podcast by the I think it's [00:18:00] Beers, Beats and the Biz. Yeah. Muph did an interview with them a couple of years ago.
Well, they're getting sampled by modern people. I think, honestly, I think he's just like a dad and stuff now, you know what I mean? Yeah. Doing his thing or whatever. They've been, they're sampled by Horror Show. Yeah, yeah. Cause they're legends, but yeah, they don't, they don't tour anymore. But Plutonic has gone on to be, like, one of our Best producers.
Yeah. Like he's done full instrumental records. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. He's worked with everybody and their mom, he drums for Hilltop Hoods. Yeah. He worked. Yeah. He's an amazing drummer. Yeah. And so I think it's kind of cool that from, you know, a couple of kids from Altham, you know, have like hoods tour the US man, like, you know Mm-Hmm.
I've seen the hoods with platonic man. Yeah. And he smashes. Yeah, absolutely. Cool. Smashes. Yeah. So actually, yeah. I think it's, it's, it's a, it's a great thing. Yeah. And his work is beautiful, man. Like really beautiful hip hop. Yeah. He's, he's, yeah, he's produced some like classics as all he did back then for Pegz , which is also one of my favorite Yeah.
Australian hip hop songs of all time. Sound. Sound, the song I chose. Is, is [00:19:00] slightly older than the other two choices by a couple of decades. And it's My Pal by a band called God. And God stands for guitar overdrive. And they were a band in the very kind of late 80s, 87, 88, 89, around there.
They didn't last very long. I think probably three years, if they were lucky. What's really amazing, about this band is that they're all 15 and 16 at the time that they both record that song. Oh my goodness. And then the follow up album for Lovers Only, which is sitting in my record pile over here.
These young kids who just kind of really got into, you know, like proper guitar rock and, you know, kind of garage rock and stuff. And the band's notable because What you have is both Joel Silbershire and Tim Hemonsley in the band who then went on to, [00:20:00] like Hemonsley especially, went on to play bass in Bored for some time and Bored were a like an absolutely amazing kind of garage slash punk rock band from Geelong and were personal heroes of mine, you know, as a, as a kid growing up in Geelong, where I come from you know, Dave Thomas, the guitar player from, from board was just like Al Hendricks, basically, like he was just that good that, you know, he just should have been, you know just amazing.
So Hemonsley went on to play with Bored and then started his own band called The Powder Monkeys that were just phenomenal in their own right and Silbershire went on to Playing a whole bunch of other stuff, most notably a band called Hoss, who have a great record called You Get Nothing and one of my favorite song titles of all time, which is I Wanna Kill Your Boyfriend, which is a fucking great song.
It's got this amazing sax solo in it. It's this real rough and ready, like, revenge story, and then this awesome sax solo through the [00:21:00] middle of it. It's a great riff. But what's cool about it as well, that song, is that it is one of the all time great Guitar riffs as well. Just that boom, da na da na da, da na da na na na na Well I was going to say that was probably the thing that stood out the most for me is that Yeah.
Yeah, I've already got it in my head I guess. And it goes through the entire song. Like it doesn't it's never not there. So it's always driving the song. It's always driving the song, and then the chords change behind it. And so it's just this like magic line that You can get under your fingers pretty quickly, but it sounds amazing.
You know, you really sound like, you know, what you're doing kind of thing. And then all the chords change underneath it. And I just think it's extraordinary that a bunch of 15 year olds, you know, that's crazy. When I was 15, I couldn't even rap on beat. I didn't even know what a kick, hi hat or snare was.
I was just rapping anyway and thinking, yeah, it's all right. And you know, I'm, I'm rhyming. Fix it in post. Yeah. So, I mean, they, [00:22:00] they wrote this amazing song and then for lovers only is also like a great, just, you know, balls out garage kind of punk record. But something I really love about this song as well is like, you can abs Tim Hemsley who went on to play on board and powder monkeys was a phenomenal bass player.
And you can actually hear in that song, like the monster that he's going to become, like if you actually listen to the bass work, it moves around a lot. Like he's walking and he's kind of moving it. He like never just, well, he does sit on root notes a bit, but it's also really driving. Like he's pushing the song forward.
So you can just kind of hear like the, just the, the sheer raw talent in the band, especially given what they then went on to do. Is it's just phenomenal and it's been covered by, I mean, Magic Dirk covered it. You know and most recently Jack Harlan and the Dead Crows covered it or another kind of favorite local band of mine.
Bored covered it, which I've probably got a copy of as well. Bored as in B O A R D or Bored as in B O R [00:23:00] E D? B O R E D exclamation mark. It's gotta be that, doesn't it? You know what I mean? Violent Soho covered it, Peabody covered it. And it's just funny you said violence because my comment was going to be I can very much hear the influence on modern punk rock.
Yeah. Because I was like, they have a violent Soho vibe. They've got a bit of King Gizzard vibe. Yeah. So they're like, they're like ground zero for that stuff. Yeah. And you kind of between them and Bored, it was like, they kind of kick off. They're, they're only just ahead of the grunge explosion, like they're just ahead of it.
Oh yeah, 90s. Yeah, 90, 91. So you got bored, you know, pounder monkeys who just bring this high octane kind of garage rock sound to the Melbourne scene. I mean it did exist prior to that. It should be said that like they weren't the first kind of. Punk band or anything. I mean, there's great punk bands before that.
Vicious Circle. Everything is a remix. Yeah, yeah. But then you also have going back even further, of course, you get all the way back to Radio Birdman and shit like that, but [00:24:00] That idea, you can't be what you can't see, right? So a bunch of teenagers who picked up guitars, you know, those guys made it onto like ABC TV and shit.
There's like live versions of, of them doing it. And they wouldn't have been able to actually go into menus because they wouldn't have been available. Well, they did. Yeah, which is great. They did, but you know, I feel like things were a bit less fair in the 80s. But also, but they'd have to, you know, probably have to get their mums to drive them to the gigs and stuff.
I've spoken to people who saw them and stuff and apparently the word was they were either, like, they were either completely brilliant live, or they just Just train wrecked like motherfuckers. It's like a gamble to go see the show. So you never saw him live or anything like Dude, I was like, what, ten?
88? I wasn't like, you know, 25, kicking around. Like, you know What, 75? Sorry, I put it out. I actually know I wasn't. Neale was born in 1888. 1888. So no, I [00:25:00] never, I saw the Powder Monkeys and Board a number of times over the years and they were just amazing as you'd expect. Like I mean, yeah. So what, yeah, 88, you would have been what, like 13, 14, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Same age when I heard Muph & Plutonic so there you go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I just think, you know, again, kind of the Board connection for me is, is what makes it really special personally in that, like I said, I mean, for, But for me growing up and getting into kind of, you know, I, I just hated mainstream music and pop music from the jump.
Like I just never gave a shit about the radio, but I always knew there was something underneath that was more. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I just knew there was something there, but I didn't know how to find it. And all of a sudden, you know, people I went to school with and whatever started getting cool records, you know, and yeah, and Dave Thomas is just responsible for.
Both, like, people picking up guitars and being like, this guy's a [00:26:00] monster, like, how the fuck do you play like that? but it was also just a massive booster of Geelong bands. Like he just loved the fact that people wanted to throw bands together, he'd put shows on for them and record them.
Geelong, for my money, like, you know. The Geelong bands in the kind of the nineties and stuff were taking it to the Melbourne bands in a big way. And you know, that's true because I mean, you know, Magic Dirt is still a thing to this day. Yeah. Magic Dirt are phenomenal. Right. And Dave Thomas actually played with Magic Dirt for a while after board he's unfortunately passed away now.
But. The yeah, and I think that that that idea of like support your local scene and support your regional scene Has kind of permeated through my whole life and in things that I've done, you know Like I've always been obsessed with kind of like, you know, like burn city music fuck Sydney fuck Brisbane Yeah, it's all about Melbourne and DYI And it's all the same thing.
I mean, it's all the you know, anytime and it worked [00:27:00] It's in Australian hip hop, right? So you know, and especially Melbourne, Australian hip hop, Melbourne hip hop, it was, it all just came out of dudes who kind of figured out ways to record, figured out how to get turntables and samplers and a couple of decent mics and, you know, like make their own stuff outside of, You know, needing to go into Sing Sing Studios or whatever, you know and the, the whole kind of garage thing in, in punk rock and loud, obnoxious guitar music generally has a lot of that in it.
And you kind of find that that's why it all sounds so kind of. Well, for me anyway, just kind of magical and fucking raw and makes me want to go break stuff when I listen to it. It's because it is just, you know, four dudes in a room, right? It's not multi tracked. It's not clean. It's not, you know, Having their guitars turned down to get a nice tone.
It's just go set up. One, two, three, four, banging out. And I just really kind of appreciate that stuff. And as I get older, I'm just going further and further [00:28:00] back into that. And so, yeah. But I think just one of the all time great riffs, and it just leads to so much. other stuff. It's just this ground zero tune.
Cause you watch the footage of God, right? You should look it up on YouTube. Cause it's hilarious, right? Cause Joel Silbershire has a real like hard bit and rock voice, right? Even, even back then, they were 15 and that voice on there is very deep. That does not sound like a 15 year old at all. I don't like no one.
All of that. I thought it was some strung out dude. I love if he gets off the microphone and he's got like a little. Fifteen year old boy, that hasn't been broken. That's the thing, you look at him live, right? And you're like, what the fuck, man, what are these little kids doing? And then Silvershare's got this, you know, You're my only friend!
Kind of voice going on. And it's just like, god damn, where did that come from, right? And by all accounts was, you know, a very nice, bright switched on dude. [00:29:00] So that wraps up the pilot episode of the Sound Quality Podcast featuring myself, Neale , Douzey , otherwise known as Chloe and Mr Jack Hewitt. We very much hope you enjoyed what you heard.
We do apologize for all the weird, wonderful tangents we took along the way. Thank you very much for listening and hopefully we'll catch you again soon. Cheers.