Icehouse (originally called Flowers) were one of the most celebrated Australian bands on the pub circuit until 1980, when their debut album Icehouse received critical acclaim and rocketed up the national charts. It started a musical journey that captured the sound of an era and a country, and helped catapult Icehouse to top Airplay all over the world, sell over nine million albums, print eight top 10 albums and over thirty top 40 singles, including Crazy Electric Blue and the unofficial national anthem Great Southern Land. Fronted by the legendary Iva Davies, Icehouse helped to shape the way we play music in this Great Southern Land (get it), so the JD Set has hand picked some of the country’s hottest young artists to explore that legacy and put their own spin on what are still killer tunes after all these years.
The project is being driven by Art vs Science. Since bursting onto the scene in 2008 and delighting dancefloors with baffling hits like Parlez-vous Francais and Flippers, they’ve gone from irrepressible to unstoppable., with their debut album The Experiment reaching number two on the ARIA album charts and earning a place in Triple J’s Hottest 100 Australian Albums of all time. The Sydney trio have earned their stripes, and with their unique brand of experimental rock, are perfect to run this marriage of old and new schools, and pay a little tribute to these legends of Australian Rock.
Recently, Beat tagged along as Dan from Art Versus Science caught up with Iva for a chat.
“I used to think that I wrote as an observer, not about things that happened to me or affected me,” says Iva. “Now, as I’ve been looking back as we’ve been reissuing the recordings, I realise they were a lot more autobiographical than I’d first intended (and) it varies from song to song and time to time. Sometimes just a sound will inspire an idea; sometimes it will be specific to an instrument.”
Iva’s legacy can be heard in the lyrics of a whole generation of songwriters, including the artists paying tribute to icehouse at the JD Set. For the record, when Dan asked what Iva’s favourite song by another artist was he nominated Lennon’s Imagine as the song he wishes he could have written.
Joining the lads on this great experiment will be two of Australia’s greatest young front women, Kate Miller-Heidke, and Patience Hodgson of the Grates, as well as Tim Derricourt, the guitarist and vocalist of experimental pop outfit Dappled Cities. Together with Art vs Science, they’ll bring their considerable musical chops and genius for experimentation to reinvent and revitalise the classic tunes from Icehouse.
For the younger artists like Dan, this is a chance to get up close and personal with a musical hero, someone they have been listening to their whole lives, a chance that Iva had himself when he played alongside David Bowie, Roxy Music and Brian Eno. Iva notes that even with the proliferation of musical choice available these days, heaps of kids keep calling back to the classics for their kicks.
“There’s so much more to choose from these days, so much available online. The irony is that the 25-year-old generation seems to be discovering ‘old school’, so I daresay that I might be listening to exactly what I was when I was that age anyway.
And with Icehouse just announced to play the Meredith music festival, rumours are running hot that Davies might grace the JD Set with a little of the original magic himself. He won’t confirm either way, but reminisces fondly on playing shows back in the 70s and 80, as well as the health of the live scene today.
“In Sydney it was a choice between The Bondi Lifesaver and The Royal Antler; Melbourne -The Crystal Ballroom – the venues would be jammed, sweat dripping off the walls and everyone just knew how to have a great time … prior to the early ’90s the local festival circuit was irregular and not nearly as well run or exciting.”
