Various Artists - "Kaptain Kavemen From Brisbane"

Artist: Various

Genres: 60's R&B, Rock'n'roll, Garage Rock, MOR

Label: Soundtrack Productions

Catalogue Number: STR-90,001

Producers: Andrew Ainsworth and Greg Cuffe

Artwork: Andrew Ainsworth

Track Listing:

Side 1

1. Geoff, Tony & Bob Ad - (The Down & Out)

2. I'm Not Talking - (The Down & Out)

3. Got My Mojo Working - (Jim Diamond & The Lancers)

4. Take A Look Around - (Bobby Dean & The Worried Minds)

5. Down And Out - (The Down & Out)

6. Good Morning Little School Girl - (Johnny B. Goode & The Feelgoods)

7. Purple Haze - (Thursday's Children)

Side 2

1. Nine Times Out Of Ten - (Jim Diamond & The Lancers)

2. Mama Keep Your Big Mouth Shut - (The Southtown Moods)

3. Tell Me (What's Going On) - (Bobby Dean & The Worried Minds)

4. There's No Use - (The Leather Souls)

5. E Too D - (The Chelsea Set) 

6. I'll Wait And See - (The Down & Out)

7. The Old Oak Tree - (Unknown)

Soundtrack Productions was widely reputed to be Brisbane's first ever independent record label. Originally established in 1965, its offices and studios were located on Moncrief Road in Cannon Hill which was originally the site of a bakery.  Soundtrack was more noted for providing a recording service for musicians rather than being a prolific label.  Indeed, during the time of its tenancy it released only a handful of records, the rest being demo recordings to send to radio stations.  The most famous of its demos came from boisterous R&B band The Purple Hearts who made a couple which eventually were commercially released on CD in 2007.

In 2014, whilst researching the history of Brisbane rock and pop music, I suggested to my 60's loving music kindred spirit Andrew Ainsworth that we get our heads together to revive the label to bring a lot of obscure local artists to contemporary pop and rock music awareness.  He agreed to do so, and the next three years were a labour of love between himself and Gold Coast music retailer Greg Cuffe in unearthing a goldmine of rare recordings which only got a few plays on the commercial radio stations of the time like 4BC and 4KQ.  

R&B band The Down & Out take up much of the limelight in this album with some good primitive vibes, whilst Bobby Dean & The Worried Minds adopted a more moderate guitar rock approach with their single "Take A Look Around" b/w "Tell Me (What's Going On)".

Thursday's Children do a vigorous and urgent cover of Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze" and The Southern Moods cover of "Mama Keep Your Big Mouth Shut" is right up there with the cover that The Missing Links did, but still keeping their own identity on it.

The album closes off with an unknown act doing what is one of the strongest tracks on the album "The Old Oak Tree", and signalling there is more to come from the vaults from a lot of yet to be identified acts.

This album was recorded in mono and minimally remastered from the original recordings so there are some audio issues for people who are used to clean digitised sound.  It has also been released in orange and splatter coloured vinyl as well as the default black, and the latter were given a minimal release mainly for the artists involved in the original recordings.

If you are a 60's music bookworm, then come and add to your collection with this album, and I suspect the general rock music fan who listens to Little Steven's radio show on Triple M as well as Nowhere To Run on 4ZZZ will love it too.

Stay tuned for more releases from this label.

5/5