The first Tuesday of March means another Tuesday tipple, and I did have this intro written out before Michael Gudinski passed away this morning, so here’s my historical musical note of the day, which does at least tie-in to Mushroom Records:

Today marks 40 years since one of the great Antipodean one-hit wonders went to No.1 – The Swingers’ Counting The Beat, which was released by Gudinski’s Mushroom Records, held the top spot for 3 weeks in March (Before it was bumped off by Antmusic) and finished as the End Of Year No.1 in Australia for 1981.

There are so many strange features of the song and the memorable music video (Shot by Ray Argall) that came with it:

The people dancing at the end of the video were just people from a drinking bus, who were given 15 minutes to go wild on a surprise visit to the set.

The three songwriters; Phil Judd (Lead vocals and guitar) founded Split Enz with Tim Finn, Buster Stiggs (Drums) was in the band After Hours with a young Neil Finn, until Neil replaced Judd in Split Enz in 1977, and Bones Hillman (Bass), who was a bandmate of Stiggs in The Suburban Reptiles, would eventually replace Peter Gifford in Midnight Oil in 1987.

It was recorded in August of 1980 and mixed in November, and by the time the single was released, Stiggs had left the band due to personal differences.

Unable to replicate the massive success of Counting The Beat, The Swingers broke up in 1982, as Judd pursued an uneventful solo career, Stiggs spent a year drumming for Models, after which he spent the final years of his life in Perth where he died in January 2018 due to multiple myeloma, and Hillman later moved to the US after his years with the Oils, where he died from cancer in November of last year.

Of course, the song is also remembered in Australia thanks to appearing in Kmart’s marketing campaigns at the turn of the new millennium:

Ah, hearing ‘La Da De Da’ just makes me want to go to Kmart and pick up a bargain on a garden hose.

There won’t be a Manning Jack Attack report this week

Unfortunately, the forecast for Perth tomorrow (Storms and heavy rain) means that for the first time in living memory, a Wednesday social bowls night at Manning Memorial has been cancelled due to bad weather…. Which does go to show how fortuitous we’ve been in this part of the world:

Attention : All Jack Attack Players

Due to recent heavy rain and the forecast for more heavy rain tomorrow it has been decided to cancel this week’s (Week 3) Jack Attack.

Please note even if the rain stops by 6.30pm tomorrow it is likely the grass greens will be too wet to play (without causing damage)

New Fixture Dates:

Week 3          10^th March

Week 4          17^th March

Week 5          24^th March

Week 6          31^st March (all teams will play finals on this date)

To give you an idea how interrupted this has been, the competition was originally set to begin on February 3 and end on March 10.

Fancy that – 9 weeks of play for the price of 6… No wonder we call Richard ‘Half’ Price!

The other disappointing part of bowls being called off

The Trevor Chappells were going to get Ron back this week, and Ronni was going to play for us again…

WE HAD THE TWO RONNIES SET TO GO.

Life really does not want this to happen, does it?

A REMINDER: Honour Rampage is BACK for some late night madness tomorrow night

Race 9 at Cannington TOMORROW, 9:12pm local time, she is up in grade and it shows in the price ($7.50), but she’s got the favoured Box 8 going for a hat-trick of wins….

If you want some midnight madness, simply watch and marvel as the other dish lickers quiver at the sight of the crossing Rampager.

Bit of an error from Gilbert ‘Grape’ Gardiner

I was cruising through Racenet when I noticed this headline:

“Hawkes chases second Australian Cup triumph”

“Hawkes’ father John won the greatest Australian Cup with the champion Lonhro in 2004.”

Yes, that is true, Lonhro rose like Lazarus and came back to beat Delzao in his Melbourne swansong, but come on, how could you forget that John Hawkes trained Octagonal to win the race in 1997!

A pox on that editor for ignoring the great Occy.

Anyway, I’m comfortably backing Fifty Stars to go back to back in the Australian Cup, and September Run should have the Newmarket field by the gonads.

Marky Mark’s going funky a fortnight before he gets re-elected as Premier

I agree with the Premier – We should be supporting local criminals and keeping our illicit drugs grown in WA – After all, it’ll keep the WA Police in work, and our pollies seem to love that.

Anthony Seibold saying that it’s easy to have a go at him because he’s educated

“In regards to what’s been said about my coaching style… I think I’m an easy one to have a go at because I am educated and being an academic and being a lecturer at university and so on.”

There was another major anniversary in Australian cricket this week

Aside from last Thursday being 20 years since Sir Donald Bradman passed away, yesterday (March 1) marked 100 years since Warwick Armstrong’s Australians completed a 5-0 whitewash in the 1920-21 Ashes series against the touring MCC/English team, winning the 5th Test at the SCG by 9 wickets.

The 1920-21 series was the first instance of a 5-0 series defeat in Test cricket history, and would remain the only 5-0 whitewash in an Ashes series until Ricky Ponting’s Australians managed it a mere 86 years later in 2006-07.

The most interesting fact about the portly Warwick Armstrong – He carried the nickname ‘The Big Ship’ thanks to his 191cm and 133kg frame, making him one of the heaviest players in Test cricket history… if Channel 7 were around in the early 20th Century, he would’ve just been nicknamed Big Boy.

Now that’s the Kepler Bradley I remember

That said, at least Kepler didn’t seriously injure himself in the process.

My thoughts on the opening Supercars round

Fun fact – That was the 7th time Bathurst has hosted a sprint round of the Australian Tour Championship (1966, ’69, ’70, ’72, ’95, ’96), and until Shane van Gisbergen on Sunday, a Holden driver had never claimed a pole position in any of those rounds.

So on to my argument, The Giz dominated Bathurst for the second time in 5 months, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he swept Sandown as well with Triple 8’s recent history at the track, but to be honest, after watching both days, I think this trip to Mount Panorama showed that The Mountain, at 6.2km/2:00 a lap, just isn’t really a track that lends itself to sprint racing in this current generation of Australian touring cars.

With an event like the old Adelaide 500, you had that exciting build-up, plus the gruelling physical component of 2x 78-lap races for the drivers over one of the best street circuits in the world, but at Bathurst, 250km is just 40 laps, and after years of watching the Bathurst 1000, it almost felt too short.

It feels like when NASCAR ran the Brickyard 400 on the Indianapolis oval – Sure it was racing on the hallowed Brickyard, but it wasn’t the Indianapolis 500 – In the same way, racing at Mount Panorama just doesn’t feel the same unless it’s the Bathurst 1000.