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The Shape I’m In

Can anyone comment on this video? During the seventies Caboose toured Australia from Adelaide to Darwin. This song was played nightly. They were the frugal days when we learned how to survive on a mug of muesli, a lid of lentils, tempting thighs and herbal wraps. We were all in good shape.

Julian and Bruce Evening


Almost everyone had packed up and returned to their abodes by early evening. A few remained and Bruce and Julian decided to stay overnight at the venue (Wayne’s place).

Julian grabbed his guitar, skilfully played and sang several songs into the night. The smoothness and richness of Julian’s voice is noticeable even though the audio was captured with just a camera microphone.

You will hear a few interjections from a drunken friend. It got more annoying as the evening progressed. About four segments were recorded on the original clip which ran for around 20 minutes. However the interference from the drunken out of sync participant rendered the remainder of the shoot a bit of an embarrassment. Sorry.

In this clip there should have been an earlier camera pan to timely capture Bruce’s scatting but the cameraman was distracted while making an effort to alert the drunk to the fact that we were recording.

Illusion – The High Revving Tongues

The track “Illusion” written by lead guitarist Mike Balcombe in the mid sixties, is remembered as an early example of New Zealand psychedelia.

It was recorded by Wahanui Wynyard at Astor Studios. The band entered into the “National Battle of the Sounds” competition in 1967, where they placed second.

Rain And Tears – High Revving Tongues

This was the group’s second single. “Rain and Tears” began climbing the national charts in New Zealand.

After about eight months of performing in various clubs in Sydney “The Tongues” were called home by manager Eldred Stebbing to promote “Rain and Tears” and support its entry into the Loxene Golden Disc Award.

“Rain and Tears” climbed to number one on the national pop charts and the band won the group section of the Loxene Gold Disk Awards in 1969.

Photos From the 70’s

Here they are. Nostalgic photos from the past. Bruce emailed these pics to me just before the reunion in May 2014.

 

John’s Pics

The HR Tongues possessed an enthusiasm for onstage pyrotechnics arranged and engineered by the bassist John Walmsley. Mock up amplifiers and prop guitars would be ignited in mid performance along with loud sound effects, smoke bombs and other unexpected pyrotechnics that would keep the audience keyed-up.

Here are some of John’s pic’s from the Tongues era.
On returning to New Zealand John Walmsley decided to leave the Hi-Revving Tongues and head back to Australia.

Bassist Graeme Thompson took over from John Walmsley and at around the same time Richard Sinclair replaced Rob Node on drums.

The Last Gig

In 1972 Caboose performed their last gig at the Coolangatta Hotel on the Gold Coast. Doug Smith was the lead vocalist at that time. The band was accompanied by a light show which included slide projectors, effects projectors, kaleidoscopes, epidiascopes (overhead projectors) strobe lights, mirror balls and spot lights manually operated by Wayne and his lady Edwina.

Gobbles Night Club Coolangatta Hotel

Gobbles Night Club Coolangatta Hotel

It was Bruce’s idea to have all the band members including those from the Hi-Revving Tongues meet at the Coolangatta Hotel on May 3rd 2014.
Below are some of the pics taken at the Caboose Hi-Revving Tongues reunion dinner. Just click on any pic to enlarge it and watch slide show.

Wayne’s Band Pics

Yes this is a photo gallery of pics taken during the late 60’s. Most of these images of the Krescendos band were provided by bass player Frank Muscat.

When Wayne made a surprise visit to Frank at his home in Mackay, Queensland in April 2016 Frank got out his well preserved photo album. The pair hadn’t met for just over 20 years. That was a real blast from the past and the two of them scanned the photos from the album digitizing memories of their past band days.

Click/Tap on any medium size to enlarge it and continue viewing.