June 2023

Jukebox Memory – looking back with John Dowler

In celebration of the release of a covers EP Jukebox Amnesia by John Dowler’s Vanity Project, Half A Cow wanted to know what were the first musical loves of the young John.

Keen to know what bands John saw in the 60s, I was expecting Machine Gun Kelly’s Rejects at a Youth Club in suburban Adelaide, not pretty much every band that played shows in England when John lived there. I asked him if he saw Brinsley Schwarz (one of my all-time faves) and he said he had, underneath an overpass in Ladbroke, adding, “they sounded uncannily like The Band.” Now, there’s proof he had seen them!

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Nic: You are releasing an EP of covers I assume you loved when you were a teenager. It’s like a mini Pinups. Why these four?

John: The EP was very much a spur of the moment endeavour. As subscribers to RRR in Melbourne, we won two days of studio time in a small studio in the Dandenongs. Rather than use original songs already earmarked for the next album, we decided to learn and record four covers. Two that I remembered from Top 40 radio in Adelaide in 1966/67 and two that I got into when I first arrived in London in early 1969. The original versions of “Wars Or Hands Of Time” And “Psychotic Reaction” were heavily influenced by the Yardbirds, “Could You Would You” was the opening track on Them’s second album, Them Again, a great album that I discovered in 1969 and “Love Story”, a single by Jethro Tull that I must have heard on the John Peel Show.

Nic: What was the first record you bought? And do you remember where from?

John: The first record I bought was “I Want To Hold Your Hand” by the Beatles which I found in the local electrical appliance store in Jetty Road, Glenelg.

Nic: Were the record stores good in your town?

John: In the 1960s there was only one import record shop in Adelaide, the Record Man, which specialised in classical and jazz records, so all of my purchases were from department stores or electrical appliance shops. The era of specialised import shops didn’t dawn until the seventies.

Nic: Who were your favourite bands?

John: Firstly, the Beatles, the Kinks and Donovan (the Epic albums) and then I had a fanatical Blues phase with Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac, John Mayall and Cream. And finally from 1969 onwards, the Byrds and the Beach Boys, the Velvet Underground and Buffalo Springfield.

Nic: Were you a big record collector?

John: I probably had around 1200 LPs by the 1980s, but now only about a dozen now. I do have around 12,000 CDs (my format of choice).

Nic: What was the home stereo/record player like in your house when you were a kid?

John: My parents purchased a stereogram in 1963 which comprised a turntable, a radio and a reel-to-reel tape recorder with which I could record directly from the radio in pristine (for the time) sound.

Nic: Did the local radio station please your tastes?

John: Music fans were pretty well served in Adelaide in the 60s with 5KA,5DN and 5AD all churning out top forty hits around the clock. By 1968 5KA had introduced a nightly 3 hour (!) Underground Sounds show which showcased otherwise obscure acts like Blues Magoos, Blue Cheer and many other psychedelic mavens.

Nic: What was your parent’s taste in music like? Did they play records?

John: Music was played a lot in our house. We were an Irish family, so there was a lot of Irish music but my parents also loved Sinatra, Perry Como and Bing Crosby.

Nic: In the States, a lot of budding musicians had their ‘wake up moment’ when the Beatles played on the Ed Sullivan show in 1964. What was yours?

John: I’m pretty sure my musical awakening occurred when I first heard/saw the Beatles on TV, although I can recall being enthralled by the Everly’s “Cathy’s Clown” from a few years earlier.

Nic: Who were the bands you saw when you were a teen? All shows back then were all-ages weren’t they?

John: I remember my first big concert which was the Rolling Stones at Centennial Hall In February 1966, supported by the Searchers and the Twilights. By 1968 I looked old enough to get into notorious disco/nightspot Big Daddy’s. There I saw the James Taylor Move and the first incarnation of Thorpie’s heavy power trio on multiple occasions. When I arrived in London in January 1969, the floodgates opened: I saw John Mayall, Family, Traffic, King Crimson, Fairport Convention, CSNY, the Stones, Blind Faith, the Byrds, the Burritos, Grateful Dead, Joe Cocker, Neil Young, Procol Harum, Soft Machine, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Derek & the Dominos,and the list goes on and on…

Nic: As the 60s turned into the 70s, did you venture deep into prog?

John: Funnily enough, it’s only in the last ten years or so that I’ve come to appreciate quite a few prog artists: Genesis (nothing after 1976), King Crimson, Patto, Porcupine Tree, Gentle Giant, Van Der Graaf Generator and many, many more.

Nic: And were then saved by punk?

John: I was still young enough when punk came along to appreciate the music for what it was. I don’t think it influenced me musically, but what it did do was produce a whole new audience that was receptive to new ideas that challenged the status quo. A band like Young Modern could play to audiences with open ears and fewer preconceptions, and could find room under the newly created umbrellas of “New Wave” and “Power Pop” to proselytise and thrive.

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Jukebox Amnesia by John Dowler’s Vanity Project is out now on CD, Bandcamp and the streamers.