Upon reflection, it was something of a golden age. Acid wash jeans were in the ascendency, hair spray was plentiful and the synthesizer had finally won the respect it so richly deserved. Whilst we now recognize 1986 as the very peak of the human condition, it didn’t happen by chance. No, people – this state of enlightenment was achieved through neither slothful meditation nor dumb luck but, rather, by sheer hard graft by four men collectively known as ‘Pseudo Echo’.
Upon reflection, it was something of a golden age. Acid wash jeans were in the ascendency, hair spray was plentiful and the synthesizer had finally won the respect it so richly deserved. Whilst we now recognize 1986 as the very peak of the human condition, it didn’t happen by chance. No, people – this state of enlightenment was achieved through neither slothful meditation nor dumb luck but, rather, by sheer hard graft by four men collectively known as ‘Pseudo Echo’.
At the dawn of rock and roll, all the heavy hitters were piano players. Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Victor Borge – piano players to a man. But as rock music developed through the sixties and seventies, the piano was eclipsed by the rise of the electric guitar. It’s not hard to see why. There’s something about a Gibson SG or Fender telecaster that is effortlessly cool. It doesn’t matter how dorky you are, strapping on an electric guitar changes everything. Young men understand this inherently and for decades have cured their social awkwardness by way of Stratocasters. By contrast, the role of piano or, if you prefer, ‘keyboard’ player became something of a rock and roll afterthought, generally filled by the dorkiest member of the group. I speak not just as a keyboard player but as a keyboard player who owns a bunch of guitars.
Pseudo Echo changed all this through their fearless use of the key-tar. In an age of pub rock, the importance of Pseudo Echo cannot be overstated. Unless of course you claim that they constitute the greatest discovery in the field of science since the neutron; in which case that would definitely be over the top. However, if you said that they wore their electronic influences proudly on the sleeves of their string vests, then you’d be right on the money. They even took their name from a synthesizer effect – that’s how synth-centric they were.
Their debut album, Autumnal Park included hits such as ‘Listening’ and ‘A Beat for You’. What made it interesting is that it was music that could have come from anywhere. It sounded international. What’s more, it smelt strongly of synthesizer. Suddenly, every kid that was ever forced to take piano lessons could imagine a career for him or herself as a professional musician. But whilst their first album turned them into Australia’s second most popular group after INXS (that’s according to Wikipedia – tellingly, this claim comes with the bucket of cold water that are the words ‘citation needed’), it was their second album – ‘Love an Adventure’ that launched them into the stratosphere.
The classic line-up of the band – Brian Canham, brothers Vince and James Leigh and the wonderfully titled ‘Pierre Pierre’ – were now operating at full steam. (In the eighties, nothing said ‘special’ quite like a double-barreled name. Aside from Pierre Pierre, there was Gary Garry Beers from INXS. The extra ‘Gary’ was ‘for effect’. This should not be confused with bands that were so diabolically awful that they had to be named twice. In this rogue’s gallery you’ll find the dreadful Duran Duran and the just plain awful Mr. Mister.)
The album ‘Love An Adventure’ may well be Pseudo Echo’s masterpiece. Besides the title track, it included the hit that drove the kids in the Countdown audience absolutely mental; ‘Don’t Go’. During this time, their unbridled use of the key-tar totally redefined what it was to play keyboards in a band. It was then, however, that fate intervened. When the American version of their magnus opus was released, it included a cover of the Lipps Incorporated song ‘Funky Town’. The song was an absolute sensation; becoming a top 10 hit in Australia, the UK and the US. Significantly, it showed off a side to the band that had previously been buried under mountains of key-tar. Namely, Brian Canham’s guitar playing.
Prior to that time, I was unaware that Brian could even play guitar, much less shred an eye-gouging solo. But he could and he did, and whilst there was still plenty of key-tar to keep the purists happy, it heralded the kind of success that ultimately ruins you. Not that this was clear at first. To begin with, the success of Funky Town created a sense of confidence, especially in Melbourne, that just can’t be bought. Those that mattered knew, implicitly, that Funky Town was a very real place (albeit one that was, in fact, named ‘The Chevron’) and that the clutching of the song to the public’s collective bosom heralded its coming of age.
Emboldened by their success, the band made a career ending decision to abandon the key-tar in favour of more heavy guitar riffage. Worse still, they replaced their mullets – which along with the key-tar had defined the band – with something more head-banger friendly. In doing so, they did not so much succeed in reinventing themselves as they did in alienating anyone who had ever bought their records. Having flirted with success, they ended up marrying commercial failure. The album ‘Race’ sank quicker than a concrete submarine. The band did the honourable thing and broke up shortly thereafter.
It’s a pity that we don’t have an equivalent to the Smithsonian in this country. If we did, then the shiny red key-tar of Pseudo Echo would surely be a part of it. And as for where to build such a museum, the answer is simple: build it in Funky Town.