Almanac Music: The Indelible Mike Rudd Turns 80!
THE INDELIBLE MIKE RUDD TURNS 80!
Rudd on stage aged 80.
It was with some surprise but indeed a great honour to recently receive a formal invitation from Mike Rudd to attend his 80th birthday celebration with 130 close friends and family at the Oakleigh Carnegie RSL Music Hall (Caravan Club) last Sunday night.
Having been a devotee of all things Rudd from around 1975 to this day I gleefully accepted so Rebecca and I made our way down from Sydney to join the celebration.
The room was jammed packed with some Australian music royalty including Sam See, Glyn Mason, Pat ‘The Bop Girl’ Wilson, Phil Manning and Tim Gaze. Gaze departed Tamam Shud in the early 70’s to join Rudd’s first iteration of Ariel in 1973 and of course delivered a stunning lead guitar performance on the brilliant A Strange Fantastic Dream album.
Tim Gaze with Mike Rudd’s Ariel 1973 -GTK
Brendan Mason and Kerry McKenna, the original guitarist and bass player from Madder Lake were also in attendance and I had great joy in meeting them and telling them of the time my school ‘garage band’ was the support act to the Madders at a Mitcham High School dance back in 1976. I told them I couldn’t remember much about the night, but I do recall how loud they were. They both chuckled and said, “yeah we played real loud in those days!”
I left the conversation congratulating them on their contribution to Australian music and how I still regularly play Still Point and Butterfly Farm on the streaming services. Indeed, they were particularly chuffed when I told them I thought the Salmon Song was one of the great opening tracks to an Australian album.
These boys played loud back in the day. McKenna and Mason from Madder Lake.
Even Rebecca got into the act notwithstanding she had no idea who all these 70’s music icons were – she was born way back in 1978 and with no disrespect thought she was at an aged care home. But she did spot one of her most admired female vocalists. You see John Farnham’s long-standing female back up vocalists the brilliant Lisa Edwards was in attendance and so of course the obligatory selfie was taken. In fact, you would have thought Lisa was a long-term friend not been seen for years following the animated embrace she enjoyed.
Despite having never met Lisa gives Rebecca a loving embrace.
Back to Rudd. He and his band performed two sets of marvellous music tracing his journey from Chants R&B out of Christchurch, to the Party Machine, Spectrum, Indelible Murtceps, Ariel and beyond. He even threw in a couple of John Mayall classics who was a huge influence on the young Rudd.
As Pat Wilson eloquently put it, “Mike is 80 years young and seriously it’s difficult to put that number next to the man. I’ve known Mike for a very long time and he’s pretty much still that same guy. Witty, wordsmith, fabulous musician and now that Maria is in his life very happy. He and the band put on a great performance. Mikes range is the same as it ever was. So, here’s to you my friend…happy birthday.”
It has been a mystery to me as to why Mike Rudd has not been inducted into the Ariah Hall of Fame. Earlier this year, I took it upon myself to ‘nominate’ him and forwarded the below correspondence:
I have no doubt you receive a plethora of correspondence from across the music industry surrounding the ARIA Music Awards and the ARIA Hall of Fame.
I am not one who would normally write formal correspondence to a person of your standing to advocate on behalf of an individual(s) or a cause, however I feel compelled to write to you regarding a true icon of the Australian music industry for over six decades in Mike Rudd.
Mike Rudd unequivocally meets all the principal parameters considered by the ARIA Board when determining induction into the ARIA Hall of Fame.
Mike has been a part of the Australian music scene since his arrival in Australia in the mid- ‘60s when his New Zealand band Chants R&B arrived in Melbourne from Christchurch in 1966. After the quick demise of Chants in Australia, Mike remained in Melbourne and joined Ross Wilson’s band The Party Machine as its bass player around 1967/68.
In 1969 Mike formed his first band Spectrum (at the same time Wilson formed Daddy Cool) with his long-time collaborator Bill Putt and became the premier Australian progressive rock band of the time largely due to the musically inventive first album, Spectrum Part One. Spectrum released four albums and seven singles including the 1971 National No 1 hit I’ll Be Gone.
The breakthrough television film clip that accompanied the I’ll Be Gone (aka Someday I’ll have Money) single release was a landmark in Australian television music history and was soon followed by Daddy Cool’s film clip to Eagle Rock – both directed and produced by Chris Lofven. Spectrum soon went on to record Australia’s first rock double album in Milesago with its iconic cover art by Ian McClausand and was the first Australian rock album recorded on a 16-track recorder.
Spectrum morphed into the more commercially focused The Indelible Murtceps, (Spectrum backwards) with both bands occasionally appearing on the same bill at the famous TF Much Ballroom. The Indelible Murtceps’ debut single Esmeralda issued in 1972 peaked in the National Top 40 and appeared on their studio album Warts Up Your Nose released in 1973 and made the Top 20.
When Spectrum split in 1973, Rudd and Putt formed Ariel with guitarist Tim Gaze and drummer Nigel Macara, both from Tamam Shud, and produced one of the finest Australian albums of the era in A Strange Fantastic Dream.
The album gained critical acclaim in the United Kingdom and Ariel was invited by EMI to record their next album at Abbey Road Studios. Geoff Emerick, who had worked with The Beatles, was the mixing engineer for Ariel’s second album, Rock & Roll Scars.
Ariel boasted some of Australia’s finest musicians, including Harvey James, (Sherbet), Glyn Mason, (Stockley, See, Mason) and Iain McLennan and Tony Slavich (Richard Clapton Band) and produced five albums and eight singles from 1973 to 1977.
Post Ariel, Rudd and Putt formed a succession of bands in the 1980s and continued to produce albums and perform live. Mike and Bill’s musical collaboration spanned 44 years until Bill’s untimely death at home in 2013.
Nearly all of Mike’s back-catalogue was re-released on Spotify and iTunes in 2015.
At the age of 79 years, Mike Rudd continues to perform with his current iteration of Spectrum, playing alongside ‘70s contemporaries Madder Lake and Phil Manning as they celebrate 50 years since the Sunbury Music Festivals.
In 2024 Mike’s seminal I’ll Be Gone appeared on the acclaimed miniseries Boy Eats Universe highlighting the lasting impact and legacy of one of Australia’s most culturally defining pieces of music of our generation. Released in 2023, Craig Horne’s biography on the life and times of Mike Rudd, I’ll Be Gone, further reaffirms the song’s significance, evoking the political and cultural upheaval in Australia at the time.
I have attempted to provide a concise overview of Mike’s career encapsulating his longevity in the industry, the musical and cultural impact of his work over six decades and the innovation he bought to the industry as Australian music started to truly mature in the 1970s.
In considering the next inductee(s) for the 2025 ARIA Hall of Fame I implore the Board to consider one of Australia’s most enduring, innovative, and culturally significant musicians and lyricists of our time in Mike Rudd.
Thank you for your consideration.
I hope in the not-too-distant future the powers to be at ARIA see fit to acknowledge the enormous contribution this man has made to Australian music spanning 60 years.
And in closing off the show on Sunday night Mike told his audience he looks forward to seeing them all again at his 90th!
Lets hope so.
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Great stuff, Richard. I’m a Rudd/Spectrum/Ariel fan from way back too. They came along in my tertiary education phase. I saw Spectrum share a night with Daddy Cool in the refectory at Flinders Uni in the early 70s – a memory that sticks with me over half a century later. I seem to recall that, between them, the two bands played for well over two hours – for $1 a ticket! A group of friends gave me ‘A Strange Fantastic Dream’ for my 21st birthday. What an album! Gaze on ‘Garden of the Frenzied Cortinas’ is top quality guitar playing. Rudd for HoF? Definitely! Long overdue. Cheers to Mike, a true legend.
Fantastic read. I loved that song, Some Day I’ll Have Money — played loud into the cold night around the fire at backyard parties, holding your breath and passing the joint. Great photo, Mike standing there 80 years young playing his classic harmonica riff. Gold.