FEATURED AUDIO:

Recorded during a reheasal in the legendary Soundworks rehearsal rooms in Bayswater, November 1990.

From another Soundworks rehearsal, this time from the night of Wednesday March 11 1992.

Two songs from the Beat Bongo Maniacs gig at the Ozone in Northbridge, Friday October 13 1990.

The best available version (taken from a rehearsal) of this terrific three minute pop song, composed by Craig Weighell. Seldom heard, this song was only ever performed during the Beat Bongo Maniac's last run of gigs in April and May of 1992.

An interesting and reasonably earnest interview with Adrian, Val and John on Fremantle's local FM station 100 FM on Wednesday April 15 1992.

LIVE AT THE OZONE (13/10/90)

Dancin' Till Dawn / Scat / Music To Watch Girls By / Beat Bongo Maniac / Mexican Wake Up Call / Feel For The Land / Spiderman / Yeah Yeah / Coca-Cola Is Coke / George Of The Jungle / The Girl From Ipanema / Route 66 / Humphrey B. Bear / Turn Into Tomorrow / Tintin In Acapulco / Scat / Beat Bongo Maniac (reprise)

This desk tape of the Beat Bongo Maniac Mk II's debut gig is the only known live recording of the band. As it happens, it's a pretty good show, with a lively audience (one girl in particular screams at the end of every song), and the band is performing well. Loose, but plenty of inbetween song banter. As to the recording, the instrument balance is the usual hit-or-miss that one expects from a raw desk tape, but it has an adventurously wide stereo spread. There is some wowing on the second half of the first side of the source cassette though. The first song, "Dancin' Till Dawn", was not recorded on the night (owing to Forgetful Mixer Syndrome), and has been substituted on this album with the rehearsal version heard on "Rehearsals Volume 1".

REHEARSALS VOLUME 1

(October 1989 rehearsal:) Music To Watch Girls By / Scat / Dancin' Till Dawn / Yeah Yeah / Feel For The Land / Beat Bongo Maniac / Mexican Wake Up Call / Humphrey B. Bear / Turn Into Tomorrow / Coca-Cola Is Coke / (25/9/90 rehearsal:) Dancin' Till Dawn / George Of The Jungle (1) / George Of The Jungle (2) / George Of The Jungle (3) / George Of The Jungle (4) / Spiderman (1) / Spiderman (2) / Mexican Wake Up Call

This volume features recordings from two different band rehearsals. The first, recorded at a rehearsal room in Osborne Park called called R & R, is a song-by-song runthrough of the band's set for their debut gig at the Old Melbourne Hotel's "Jack Kerouac Night" on Saturday October 21st 1989. This recording was made with a split feed of a PZM microphone and the output of the mixing desk in the rehearsal room taping onto a Tascam Portastudio with Dolby Dbx noise reduction, the tape then being remixed in a studio and processed with reverb. The result is a fairly balanced sound, although perhaps a little muddy. It is the only recording available of the Beat Bongos Mk I incarnation. The second rehearsal is from a cassette Walkman recording of the Mk II line-up rehearsing at the Ozone on a Monday night when it was closed), a few weeks before their first gig since the previous year's "Jack Kerouac Night" at the Old Melbourne. Here, the band is primarily focusing its attention on refining two new songs - a pair of TV cartoon themes.

REHEARSALS VOLUME 2

(October 1990 rehearsal:) Spiderman / George Of The Jungle / Girl From Ipanema / Route 66 / (October 1990 recording session:) Radio promo recording session / (13/10/90 soundcheck:) Music To Watch Girls By / The Girl From Ipanema / Route 66 (first part only) / (November 1990 rehearsal:) Spanish Flea / The Getaway / Turn Into Tomorrow

This volume continues from the last, gathering together the rest of the Beat Bongos Mk II rehearsal recordings from the latter part of 1990. The first batch comes from a weekend afternoon rehearsal at R & R. Following that is about twenty minutes of the band recording a radio promo spot for their upcoming Ozone gig (the debut of the new line-up) to be aired on student radio station 6UVS. The third recording is taken from the band's soundcheck on the afternoon of the gig itself. The last batch of songs hail from a recording taped at a rehearsal session at Soundworks in Bayswater some weeks later. Here, the band is rehearsing new material to work into their repetoire - "Spanish Flea" and Georgie Fame's "The Getaway". This is the only extant recording of the Beat Bongos performing these two songs.

REHEARSALS VOLUME 3

100 FM radio interview (15/4/92) / (11/3/1992 rehearsal:) Jam ("That's Life") / Turn Into Tomorrow / Take 9 (Klus Theme) / A Taste Of Honey / Coca-Cola Is Coke / Feel For The Land

The first track is an interview with Adrian, Val and John on Fremantle radio station 100 FM to promote the third and final line-up of the Beat Bongo Maniacs and their short season of gigs commencing in April 1992. The rest of the disc is a rehearsal session taped at Soundworks in Bayswater from a month before. It begins with a 10 minute instrumental jammed version of a song known to some of the band members as "That's Life", then continues with runthroughs of established songs and rehearsals of new material such as "A Taste Of Honey" and "Take 9" (the latter being an instrumental composed the previous year by Val Adrian and Trevor for local artists Rodney Glick and David Solomon for their "Klus" project).

REHEARSALS VOLUME 4

(13/3/92 rehearsal:) messing around / Yeah Yeah / Tintin In Acapulco / Beat Bongo Maniac / Coca-Cola Is Coke / Take 9 (Klus Theme) / Feel For The Land / Mexican Wake-up Call / TIntin In Acapulco / Route 66 / (25/3/92 rehearsal:) Swing Jam / Spiderman / Beatsville / JB's Love Tune

The first session takes place at Soundworks on the eve of the band's first live show in over a year, and is a fairly no-nonsense attempt at running through the repertoire and trying to time how long it will take on the night. The second session was taped in the loungeroom of a house in Subiaco that Craig and Mike Fitzgerald used to rent, and it was a location that this incarnation of the Bongos would use frequently around this time. On this occasion, two weeks since the last recording, my cassette Walkman captures a jam, a runthrough of "Spiderman", a rehearsal of a new song of Craig's called "Beatsville", and a rehearsal of an even newer song of John Bannister's which went under the working title of "JB's Love Tune".

REHEARSALS VOLUME 5

(1/4/92 rehearsal:) messing around /Spiderman / Beatsville / Tintin In Acapulco / JB's Love Tune / (home demo:) JB's Love Tune / (8/4/92:) Jam ("Do What You Do") / Jam ("I Keep Thinking It's Thursday") / Yeah Yeah / Spiderman / Jam ("I Don't Know") / Swing Jam

Two more Soundworks rehearsal sessions. The first consists of rehearsals of some of the newer songs as well as some older ones - "Spiderman" and "Tintin In Acapulco" seem to crop up quite frequently in these volumes for some reason or other. The second session features some interesting jams - Vals' Bluesy "Do What You Do", and the rambling, jungly "I Keep Thinking It's Thursday". My Walkman batteries were flat when I taped on this day, and the last two songs suffer badly from distortion. And in fact the batteries finally run out during the last track, which endly in a comical fashion by starting to speed up faster and faster until it abruptly stops. This volume also includes a home-studio demo of "JB's Love Tune" that I recorded on the same night as the April 1st rehearsal session.

REHEARSALS VOLUME 6

(13/4/92 rehearsal:) Jam ("Freedom For All The People") / Jam ("Let's Go Fishing") / Right Now / Beatsville / Darrel spits the dummy / Tintin In Acapulco / JB's Love Tune / (15/4/92 rehearsal:) Jam ("Coffee Song") / Blues Jam / Jam ("Safari") / Jam ("Don't You Ever Stop") / Right Now / Beatsville / Jam ("House Of The Rising Sun") / JB's Love Tune / Beatsville / JB's Love Tune / listening to the radio

These two sessions represent the last recordings of the Beat Bongo Maniacs. The first session is from a Soundworks rehearsal, and features a typical mix of extended jams (a dodgy faux-reggae groove called "Freedom For All The People") and rehearsals of the usual songs, including a cover of the Ray Charles song "Right Now" sung by Val. The second session was taped at the house in Subiaco that Craig and Mike shared (along with Darrel). The most interesting jam from this date is an embryonic version of an instrumental that eventually became known as "Safari" when it was recorded a few months later by Adrian, Val and myself. There are more rehearsals of "Right Now" and the other two new songs "Beatsville" and "JB's Love Tune". The mood seems quite relaxed, considering it is the night before the first of a series of live gigs, and the band only stops playing to listen to the broadcast of a radio interview recorded earlier that day featuring three of the Beat Bongos (this interview is on the start of Volume 3).