Following the highly acclaimed 13th series of RocKwiz (RocKwiz Salutes The Decades) Australia’s favourite television music trivia show is once again going on the road to present Rockwiz Live! Salutes The ARIA Hall Of Fame.
Since 1988, the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) has inducted 73 artists into its annual ARIA Hall of Fame, honouring performers, songwriters and others who have made a lasting impact on music culture in Australia.
RocKwiz maintains a close relationship with ARIA and has always featured Hall Of Fame artists and drawn from their repertoire over its ten-year history. In 2010, RocKwiz produced the broadcast of the legendary ARIA Hall Of Fame awards night.
To celebrate the ARIAs and Rockwiz, the crew will be bringing their live shows, in theatres and concert halls around Australia, and will feature some of your favourite Australian music legends performing their hits, alongside the brightest and best contemporary artists interpreting genuine Australian classics. As usual, four contestants will be drawn from the audience on the night to sit alongside rock and roll royalty and participate in the madness and mayhem that is RocKwiz Live!
To celebrate this upcoming tour we caught up with one of the brains behind this musical institution that is Rockwiz comedian, writer and music wiz Mr Brian Nankervis to chat about the records that changed his life.
Brian’s First Ever Album
“I joined the Australian Record Club when I was about fourteen. Filled in the forms, persuaded my parents to write a cheque, posted the envelope and the long wait began.
Racing home from school each day, desperate to find a cardboard package waiting for me on the kitchen table. Finally the great day arrived, three brand new, twelve inch, long playing LP records on beautiful black vinyl that I had chosen from the enticing catalogue … and they were mine!
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Simon and Garfunkel’s soundtrack to The Graduate (1968), The Best Of The Who and, best of all, Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited (1965), a record I played over and over and over. ‘Like A Rolling Stone’, ‘Desolation Row’ ‘Ballad Of A Thin Man’ and ‘From A Buick 6’ which I used to play before going out to parties or to friend’s houses. To a quiet boy from a conservative home, Highway 61 was a powerful, mysterious and seductive introduction to a whole new world.”
First Album Bought With His Own Money
“Probably a Beatles single from the record section in the local hardware shop. I had a little portable record player and if I close my eyes and summon the memories of my tiny bedroom with the chenille bedspread and the venetian blinds, I can just about smell that record player and see the spinning 45, on the Parlaphone label.
I think it was ‘I Feel Fine’, but it may have been ‘She’s A Woman’. Our next door neighbour, Merrilee, was a member of The Beatles fan club and she sometimes gave me Beatles singles that she already had. Maybe an EP with John, Paul George and Ringo jumping off a wall!”
Album That Made Brian Fall In Love With Music
“There’s been so many, but the Rolling Stones greatest hits album, High Tide and Green Grass (1966) was an important one. All the early hits and a few pages of colour pictures of The Stones in all their groovy glory.
My cousins, Bill and Peter, were mad on The Stones. We used to visit them on Sunday afternoons and spend hours in their den, listening to the Stones. ‘Satisfaction’, ‘Paint It Black’, ‘Get Off My Cloud’, ‘Little Red Rooster’. One day I asked about The Beatles and they just laughed. Once again, it was another world and part of me was drawn to the danger, the difference, the sense of rebellion and energy. And those guitars and Mick Jagger’s singing and harmonica playing.”
Most Played Album
“Again, there’s a few. Astral Weeks (1968) by Van Morrison, Gossip (1986) by Paul Kelly, Time Out Of Mind (1997) by Bob Dylan.
Recently I played The Stones’ Exile On Main Street and as each song finished I instantly began singing or humming to myself the opening notes or the riff or the melody of the next song. A sort of unconscious, innate knowledge of what was about to happen, just before it actually happened! Bizarre, but it made me realise just how often I’ve played that album!
Recent Albums Bought
“I’ve bought a few lately, the debut album by Marlon Williams. Age Against The Machine (2015) by the late, great, Jim Keays, Melbourne Florida (2015) by Dick Diver and The Twerps’, Range Anxiety (2015).”
Greatest Album Of All Time
“Too many to choose from, but if you insist … Blonde On Blonde (1966) by Bob Dylan.”
Record ‘Go Tos’
Party record: “It depends on the setting, the demographic or the hour, but after the last RocKwiz recording earlier this year, someone put on Sam Cooke’s Live At The Harlem Square Club (1963) and I couldn’t have been happier.
Sunday morning record: “Joni Mitchell – Blue (1971)”
Nostalgia record: “Bobby and Laurie – Hitch Hiker (1966)”
Tour Dates
Wednesday, 30 September 2015 Llewellyn Hall, Canberra
Thursday, 1 October and Friday Oct 2 2015 Anita’s Theatre, Thirroul
Saturday, 3 October 2015 Civic Theatre, Newcastle
Friday, 9 October 2015 Palais Theatre, Melbourne
Saturday, 10 October 2015 Costa Hall, Deakin University, Geelong
Friday, 16 October 2015 Enmore Theatre, Sydney
Saturday, 17 October 2105 The Concourse Concert Hall, Chatswood
Thursday, 22 October 2015 Jupiter’s Theatre, Gold Coast
Saturday, 24 October 2015 Concert Hall QPAC, Brisbane
Sunday, 25 October 2015 Empire Theatre, Toowoomba
Saturday, 31 October 2015 Riverside Theatre, Perth
Saturday, 7 November 2015 Thebarton Theatre, Adelaide
Friday, 13 November 2015 Wrest Point Entertainment Centre, Hobart
