With a special show together this Wednesday night at the Brunswick Ballroom, Grinspoon's Phil Jamieson and You Am I's Davey Lane play together in a rare one-off that is gonna be a joy for fans of both guys' bands and their respective solo stuff. To get the mutual lovefest started, we asked both Phil and Davey to name three favourite tracks from the other and tell us why they dig 'em. Here's what they came up with.
In a just universe, this would be an Australian classic. You could imagine it dressed up in INXS’s clothes, or - with a less sentimental or melancholic bent - Midnight Oil’s. Kapow is testament to Philip’s pop nous – distilling things down to a gloriously direct chord structure and melody, with a universal sentiment. Which is why it sounds like a classic Australian song. Though I gotta tell you, my favourite song of his hasn’t been released yet. Hold onto your hats!
A lot of Australian music fans are under the misconception Phil is solely the finger-pointing, strutting Champion, the Hard Act To Follow, the Thrice Dead Cat. He is all of those things, don’t get me wrong, but Rubberband sums up the Phil that I know – a caring, soulful, tender, deep-thinking chap. I hope he doesn’t take this the wrong way, but fuck it, I’m gonna say it – to me this is reminiscent of the best of latter-day solo Macca – it wouldn’t be out of place on Chaos And Creation In The Backyard or Memory Almost Full.
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I don’t wanna boast, but I heard this song before any of y’all did. I heard it many times before any of y’all did. Me dearest Tim Rogers and I were staying at the Adina in Surry Hills, Sydney, and Phil excitedly came by with the newly mastered CD (remember them?) of the new Grinspoon single. Over the course of five, maybe six hours, we got royally pissed around the table and listened to his new song, I’d hazard a guess, two dozen times, indelibly printing it in all its glory into Lane ‘n Rogers’ noggins. We knew (as did Phil) it was gonna be a big hit. I was reminded of George Martin saying to his lads just as they recorded Please Please Me - 'Gentlemen, you’ve just recorded your first number one.' As the intoxicants wore off and Tim and I started to fade, Phil bid us adieu. He was galvanised by his soon-to-be hit single and the advancing wee hours were not going to slow him down. I swear as I was falling asleep I heard it playing from the room next door….
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A delicious piece of pop psychedelia with Davey's gorgeous lyrics and his tricky-but-doesn't-seem-tricky songwriting nous. An adorable track with a soaring chorus and I can listen to it over and over again. One of Davey's finest - from way back in 2013 - and I can't wait to hear it on Wednesday night!
Arguably one of the best cuts on his latest album, also called Leave It To The Moderns. Because I sing on it! Not that you can hear me - I've been mixed way back. When Davey first played it to me I was flabbergasted with how good it was. A garage-y slice of heaven. His vocal is insane - kind of like a Graham Coxon thing for me. A ball-tearingly great song; hopefully I'm allowed to get up and sing it with him on Wednesday!
This one is on the latest You Am I album The Lives of Others. It's a classic power pop song. It's got a great lyric, great guitar, sublime production - all credit to Davey - and it's another example of his broad scope of songwriting.