When did we start saying "I'm going to go see that band tonight"? Was it when PeteTownsend smashed his guitar? When GG Allin smashed his face on the stage? When AC/DC inflated Rosie? Who can say, but one thing's for sure - somewhere along the way, listening became secondary to looking.
In the case of Melbourne's Little Red, however, people would filter out of their early shows, raving about the harmonies, the guitar tones, the whip-crack drums. Sure, the suits were cute, and the smiles were mile-wide, but here was a band who had so expertly cultivated their sound that you just wanted to shut your eyes and let it wash all over you.
It's fitting, then, that their debut long player is called Listen To Little Red. It's as much a throwback to the days of naively didactic album titles as it is a command: once that bouncing bassline of Coca Cola hooks you in, you won't be able to do anything but listen (and maybe, dance).
Since they first appeared on the live circuit a year or so ago, Little Red have played at nearly every music festival in the country, and with just about every band you'd care to mention, but most of us were waiting patiently for the day when we could listen to Little Red in the comfort of our own conversation pits.
Recorded with producer/engineer Steven Schram and released on the band's own Hooch Hound Records, Listen To Little Red polishes up the band's live favourites and adds some fine new sounds to the catalogue.
In the former category, the space-race R&B of Speedo and the (frat) party-starting Little Annie and Jackie Cooper sound fresher than ever. In the latter, "side two" kicks off with Stare In Love, which would be as at home on Beserkley or Stiff Records as it is on Hooch Hound, and the bittersweet bookend, Autumn Leaves, as touching a paean to the end of summer as anything from Brian Wilson's sandbox.
The record sounds clean and fresh and ready and willing, like it's turned up to take your daughter to the junior prom with a refrigerated corsage and a souped-up convertible waiting outside. But this is no retro freakfest; it's timelessness.
As Dom sings on Stare In Love, "Simple little things say a lot about a man", and you could easily replace "man" with "band" and find yourself with Little Red's mission statement. Listen To Little Red is as accurate a summation of a band's powers as you can get. There are no stunt guest artists here, no fiddly production, no electrorock keyboards or "Eastern period" sitars. Such simplicity teeters close to the brink of unfashionability if you ask any of the million-member, fifty-instrument "ensembles" doing the rounds today, but it shows that Little Red have the guts to let their songs speak for themselves.
It's hard to pinpoint just what makes a band great these days. In fact, it's questionable as to whether we ever really knew; after all, once upon a time it was hep for the Daily Mirror (in 1964) to describe the Rolling Stones as "on the beat with Not Fade Away, which is in the modern idiom" - hardly an illustrious critical beginning to the 40-year rock'n'roll juggernaut that Jagger and Richards et al would become. And, on the flipside, my Dad once took a bet that Gerry & The Pacemakers would be bigger than The Beatles. Good one, Dad.
The point is, ignore the hype all that matters is music. And if it's music, great music, that you're after, you will find it when you Listen To Little Red. Particularly if that's all you listen to.
Clem Bastow, June 2008
MOBILE PHONE REQUESTS for Little Red can be made by:
Syn 90.7FM TEXT: 0427 767 767 or CALL: 61 3 9925 9907
PBS 106.7FM CALL: 61 3 8415 1067 www.pbsfm.org.au
POWER FM Ballarat SMS: 191918 Code Word: HOT 20 Then name and song.
STAR FM Text: STAR +_Song name to 19 19 18
JJJ National TEXT: 1975 7555 or call 1300 0555 36 www.abc.net.au/triplej/requests
Triple R 102.7FM Phone 61 3 9388 1027 www.rrr.org.au
Watch our new clip "Coca Cola"
