Alison Is Still Happening
I know I have said this before but one of the best things about living in inner city Melbourne is there are classic pubs that offer something for everyone most nights of the week.
Great musicians often play in small venues, usually for free on Sunday afternoons. Venues like The Old Bar, The Standard and The Gem to name three great examples. Last Sunday I saw a band from NSW called Victoria play their new album. The band is, I guess, a sort of an OZ Alternate Rock supergroup because their members are Cameron Emerson-Elliott (Youth Group), Alison Galloway (Smudge), Patrick Matthews (The Vines, Youth Group), and Max Doyle (Songs),
Their new album is called Treats and you should give it a listen. Live, as you can expect from seasoned veterans, it was a top show of what I would call power pop or maybe 90s indie pop if you will. Cover charge was, well there was no cover charge, and The Gem is a great venue, intimate, authentic and two blocks off the No. 86 tram line. Now I got to say the crowd was about 50 years old on average so obviously we knew what we wanted and got it delivered 100%. Unfortunately, there were very few young ones listening. For them, I guess except for Taylor Swift, guitar driven songs with good melodies and lyrics, and a verse, chorus, verse structure are not where it’s happening. It breaks my heart, but as I say to my daughter, it’s your world now so…
Anyway the additional thrill for me was to be able to write the headline for this blog because way back in arguably the last golden age of power pop, the drummer Alison Galloway was someone to know. She was a member of the cool Sydney band Smudge that released a number of great EPs that included very catchy tunes like “Don’t Want to Be Grant McLennan” and “Divan” and of course her band mate was Tom Dalton who was a good friend and co-writer with the very talented if wasteful Evan Dando in The Lemonheads during the early 90s.
Remember the song “Alison Is Starting To Happen” on their breakthrough album, Its A Shame About Ray? Well that is supposedly about this Alison. It was a great period for music, not only grunge with Nirvana etc, but also the quality of power pop on display was epic. In the UK bands like Teenage Fanclub, in the USA The Lemonheads, Red Kross, Matthew Sweet, The Posies, Juliana Hatfield and in Australia, The Hummingbirds, Ratcat, Custard, Smudge and a little later, Even.
The band Victoria are in the same fantastic vein and who knows maybe it’s time for another Power pop surge. They could do it. Alison is still happening.
Photo by me. Not my best effort, barely see the band, a man bun is front and centre and you can’t see Alison! Had one job…
