#243: The Sun Is Shining
Merry Christmas to all and sundry, and as a little gift I thought I'd scan and share this flyer for all of those who visit here for classic Aussie stuff.
I doubt that many of these flyers still exist, indeed I had no idea that Tully even had a television show, but I'm not overly surprised. By the late 1960s it seemed that the ABC were giving anyone a tv show of their own, most are long gone now, sadly enough, but some remain. I'm not sure which category Tully fall into, as evidenced by this paragraph from the excellent Milesago site: "In June/July 1969 the band got two major breaks that brought them to the forefront of the Australian music scene. One was the commissioning of a series of six half-hour ABC-TV programs starring Tully. Called Fusions, it was the brainchild of former ABC current affairs producer Bill Munro. The series originally featured lighting design by UBU's Aggy Read, although this partnership was terminated due to budget restrictions after the first two episodes. One of Tully and Reid's collaborations for the series was a 15-minute music/image improvisation on Tully's Bicycle (although UBU News reported at the time that the ABC studio crew were less than accommodating, refusing dim the main studio lights during the filming of a strobe sequence, rendering it largely ineffective). We can only hope that the series has survived, but there is good reason to fear that it has been destroyed during the ABC 'economy drives' which resulted in vast amounts of ABC videotaped programs from that era being wantonly destroyed."
And there you have it. I was at the ABC when one of the 'economy drives' took place, and I was handed several duped VHS videotapes of various Countdown episodes with the idea of taking them home and keeping them, thus protecting the shows from being lost forever. In hindsight I should have taken more, but I was aware that people in Melbourne were taking takes of Countdown and storing them at Molly Meldrums house (or so the story said) for safekeeping. Highly illegal, but then the destruction of history and culture should be even more so illegal, and frankly, if I had my time again I'd take more than one car load. Somewhere, in a box in the carport, are those original dupes of Countdowns, but I expect that most of the shows are back with the ABC archives, although I do have the four part U2 special from 1989/1990 here somewhere and over the next few weeks as I clean up, and clean out, the carport, I hope to come across more stuff like this, and rest assured, I won't be ditching too much of it into the bins.
Until then, here's the Tully flyer, in glorious 300dpi! Click, save and share.
I doubt that many of these flyers still exist, indeed I had no idea that Tully even had a television show, but I'm not overly surprised. By the late 1960s it seemed that the ABC were giving anyone a tv show of their own, most are long gone now, sadly enough, but some remain. I'm not sure which category Tully fall into, as evidenced by this paragraph from the excellent Milesago site: "In June/July 1969 the band got two major breaks that brought them to the forefront of the Australian music scene. One was the commissioning of a series of six half-hour ABC-TV programs starring Tully. Called Fusions, it was the brainchild of former ABC current affairs producer Bill Munro. The series originally featured lighting design by UBU's Aggy Read, although this partnership was terminated due to budget restrictions after the first two episodes. One of Tully and Reid's collaborations for the series was a 15-minute music/image improvisation on Tully's Bicycle (although UBU News reported at the time that the ABC studio crew were less than accommodating, refusing dim the main studio lights during the filming of a strobe sequence, rendering it largely ineffective). We can only hope that the series has survived, but there is good reason to fear that it has been destroyed during the ABC 'economy drives' which resulted in vast amounts of ABC videotaped programs from that era being wantonly destroyed."
And there you have it. I was at the ABC when one of the 'economy drives' took place, and I was handed several duped VHS videotapes of various Countdown episodes with the idea of taking them home and keeping them, thus protecting the shows from being lost forever. In hindsight I should have taken more, but I was aware that people in Melbourne were taking takes of Countdown and storing them at Molly Meldrums house (or so the story said) for safekeeping. Highly illegal, but then the destruction of history and culture should be even more so illegal, and frankly, if I had my time again I'd take more than one car load. Somewhere, in a box in the carport, are those original dupes of Countdowns, but I expect that most of the shows are back with the ABC archives, although I do have the four part U2 special from 1989/1990 here somewhere and over the next few weeks as I clean up, and clean out, the carport, I hope to come across more stuff like this, and rest assured, I won't be ditching too much of it into the bins.
Until then, here's the Tully flyer, in glorious 300dpi! Click, save and share.
Comments
First the station does an audit and that's dry apart from the odd mislabeled can or tape shoved down the back of a cabinet. Then episodes or even entire runs get returned from other domestic or international broadcasts, when they get their act together. Both of these ships may have sailed in regards to the ABC, with their Gore Hill/Ultimo co-location.
I flew to Sydney to get raw material for my MA thesis, only to have the ABC cheerfully show me how they were destroying the records rather than releasing them.
Have you checked out Troy Walter's site? ~Martin
http://1970scountdown.atspace.com/