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S
P E C T R U M
The
Official Biography |
Mike Rudd’s
bands, Spectrum, The Indelible Murtceps
and Ariel were highly respected in the ‘70s
and inspired many of today's popular music
icons. Spectrum's 1971 national number one
hit, I’ll Be Gone (Someday I'll
have money), still features on radio
playlists and inspires crowds to sing along
all around the country.
Spectrum was formed in 1969 and
today still features founder-member and
principal songwriter Mike Rudd on vocals,
guitar and blues harp. Drummer Peter ‘Robbo’
Robertson joined Mike and Bill in 1997 when
they’d decided to resume the Spectrum
name and keyboardist Daryl Roberts joined
a few years later, evoking the original
organ-based Spectrum line-up. Bassist Broc
O’Connor joined Spectrum after Rudd’s
long-term musical partner Bill Putt’s
unexpected death in 2013.
Mike Rudd and Bill Putt's early bands played
alongside such legendary ‘70’s
artists as Deep Purple, Manfred Mann, The
Kinks, Joan Armatrading, Leo Sayer, Garry
Glitter (!) and Marc Bolan as well as playing
all but one of the legendary Sunbury Festivals.
Ariel recorded at London’s famous
Abbey Road Studios in the ‘70s (Rock
& Roll Scars) and artists as diverse
as John Williamson and Manfred Mann (see
the discography) have recorded versions
of Rudd’s I’ll Be Gone.
In 2001, thirty years after it was a number
one hit, I’ll Be Gone was
honoured by being included in the APRA’s
list of the top Australian songs of the
last 75 years (it came in at No.13). I’ll
Be Gone was featured in the ABC TV’s
A Long Way To The Top series and
the band was included on the fabulously
successful Long Way To The Top tour, which
toured the nation in 2002.
Spectrum released five albums up until 1973,
including Spectrum Part One and
the double album Milesago, followed
by The Indelible Murtceps’ quirky
Warts Up Your Nose. Ariel released
a similar number of albums including A
Strange Fantastic Dream and Rock
& Roll Scars, (the latter about
to be reissued by Aztec Records).
After Ariel’s break-up in 1977 other
bands followed, notably Mike Rudd and the
Heaters (The Unrealist) and the
ambitious WHY project, which incorporated
synchronised video projection into their
live performances with an erratic drum machine
called Weird Harold. In 1983 the band spent
some time recording at Klaus Shulze’s*
I.C. studio in West Germany and travelled
round Europe recording their experiences
to use in their live shows.
Then, in 1995, after a ten-year hiatus from
playing live, Mike and Bill re-emerged as
a duo with an acoustically skewed new CD,
Living on a Volcano (three-times the
Herald Sun’s critics’ choice)
that saw the pair maturing as songwriters,
producers and instrumentalists.
Later in the ‘90s, Mike and Bill teamed
up briefly with the late Paul Hester, another
long-time Spectrum fan, which culminated
in an appearance on ABC TV’s Hessie’s
Shed. In 1999, Spectrum released Spill
- Spectrum Plays The Blues, a CD that
revisits Rudd and Putt’s blues roots.
Spill features such famous guests as Men
at Work’s Colin Hay, (who says of
Rudd and Putt ‘those guys are my heroes’),
and ace blues harpist Chris Wilson, another
unabashed Rudd /Putt fan. The second highly
entertaining Spectrum Plays the Blues CD,
No Thinking, features musical guest,
long-time buddy Ross Wilson amongst others.
*
Check out Klaus
Schulze story
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S
P E C T R U M
The
Official Biography |
Aztec Music has re-issued two seminal Spectrum
albums, Spectrum Part One and the
acclaimed double album, Milesago,
which has reminded '70s aficionados and
music critics alike what an important band
Spectrum was in the Australian rock scene.
The live recording of Ariel’s final
performance, Ariel Aloha – More
From Before has just been re-issued
on Sandman Records. More recently still
Spectrum has embarked on releasing the Breathing
Space series of EPs and is on the point
of releasing the fourth in the series. Work
is in progress to complete a blues album,
It’s a Lottery dedicated to the
late Bill Putt.
But playing live is what Spectrum is all
about. Mike and Bill played alongside each
other since 1969 (!) and understandably
there seemed to be some kind of empathetic
communication on stage that now Robbo, Daryl
and Bill’s replacement on bass guitar,
Broc O’Connor seem to share, as Spectrum
switches seamlessly from blues, to rock,
to almost ambient music without losing focus.
Newer songs, like Xavier Rudd is Not
My Son, Rocket Girl and Silicon
Valley slip right into the eclectic
Spectrum mix, before the audience is treated
to a guided tour of Spectrum classics, including
such weird and wonderful tracks as Fly
Without Its Wings, the Crab Saga,
We Are Indelible and much, much
more (never forgetting I’ll Be
Gone of course). In the Spectrum Plays
the Blues set, even the most predictable
blues classics come alive with Rudd’s
distinctive vocals and harmonica playing..
Over the past few years Spectrum has played
the Port Fairy Folk Festival, the Goulburn
Blues Festival, the Dandenong Ranges Folk
Festival, the Queenscliff Music Festival,
the Sydney Opera House, the Tamworth Country
Music Festival (!), the Healesville Sanctuary
Unplugged Concerts, the Arts Centre Lawn
Concerts, the Melbourne Zoo Concerts, the
Bridgetown Blues Festival in WA - as well
as the odd gigs in NZ and California.
Mike & Bill memorably guested with the
late Billy Thorpe playing I’ll
Be Gone at the Tsunami Benefit at the
Myer Music Bowl, and Spectrum played at
the Lobby Loyde benefit, as well as the
Melbourne International Music & Blues
Festival, the Canberra Blues & Rock
Festival and the Thredbo Music Festival,
(the two live tracks on the No Thinking
CD were recorded at Thredbo), and the 2009
Byron Blues Festival. In 2014 Spectrum Plays
the Blues played the Sydney Blues &
Roots Festival.
In the last few years Mike has also enjoyed
a parallel solo career with appearances
on the ABC's Specks and Specks and
SBS' RocKwiz TV shows, the latter
with a much talked about duet with Jess
Cornelius of the Roy Orbison classic Crying.
Mike's also made cameo appearances on the
Morning of the Earth stage show (with
Ariel guitarist Tim Gaze) and Ross Wilson's
Five Decades of Cool show, both
culminating with the Byron Blues Festival
appearances.
Mike's also been involved with a couple
of reunions in New Zealand of his first
band, Chants R&B, and the resultant
Rumble & Bang documentary has
been shown at the 2012 NZ Film Festival
featuring live footage from the 2010 gigs
in Christchurch as well as previously unseen
footage from the early '60s and a host of
interviews with most of the original members
of the band and fans.
Spectrum and Spectrum Plays the Blues continue
to tour Australia as well as make the occasional
overseas visit. They are enthusiastically
received wherever they play and obviously
enjoy what they do as much as their audiences.
See and hear them - and be inspired!
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