Broadcast 2025-08-25

Fuzz guitar and tight quirky drumbeats, now that’s a way to start a song.

Norman Greenbaum, except as a love song?

This is not about a spirit in the sky, it’s more mellow, suiting its theme.

There’s no doubting what that theme is – you’re adorable.

First, last, always.

It takes a couple of verses for the instrumental to vary and emit a lead over the lyrics.

I love the analogies …

Chelsea boots – but I know the song is more recent than the 60s, and here we wore Blundstone’s anyhow.

A velvet armchair, who does not have their favourite armchair?

This is not about world peace, but a world at peace.

Very clever, great music, lyrics and extremely well put together and produced.

It’s (dare I say) adorable.


Snarsky Circus Lindy Band - You're So Adorable - Tempo Review

Broadcast 2025-08-25

There’s no denying it, this really generates that strut feeling from the first bar.

For all that, there is no overbearing instrumental, an attempt to crash through and impose.

The feeling is not of crashing through, but of being unquestioned, undoubted, unchallenged.

“We’re looking good, we’re feeling fine.”

“I’ve been waiting on you all of my life!”

There is a reliance on percussion, more than once the song drops back to a simple, minimally adorned percussion, maintaining the rhythm between sections.

The bass emphasises the percussion, and the melody is taken by the remainder of the band.

Love and relationships are taken for granted.

The singer is the pivot that the world revolves around.

“We’re feeling fine.”

The royal “we” of course.


Lennon Wells - Baddie - Tempo Review

Broadcast 2025-09-01

What a track! I don’t want to review it, I just want to listen to it again!

This was produced by Syd Green, well known for his work with Casey Chambers and 19Twenty.

He’s really done justice to this track.

The sound is sparse, but majestic.

Acoustic and resonator guitar, with drums giving their best and the resonator, as only resonators can be.

It’s fantastic.

The story told by the song is tragic and enigmatic, ending with a feeling of loss.

The song is all about roots and relationships, indivisible and fundamental.

The question “What are you now to me?”

We know this is about a woman returning to country, feeling that she sees it as it was, but something has changed.

“Layers of memories floating round”

She sings, “It is my greatest fear that I lose the sense to see all you gave to me.”

Her cry is for them to “Heal the sense to see, all you gave to me.”

But she continues, “What would they say, if we had the time, just for a day, would they turn and sigh, disappointment in their eyes, shake their heads and cry, how would I be?”

Finishing with a terribly bleak question “did I ever belong here?”




Stiff Gins - Roots - Tempo Review

Broadcast 2025-09-01

We’ve all had red letter days, a day with an event of significance, but this is a black letter day – a little more menacing.

The instrumental line really is a classic 70s sound, trust me, I was there!

There’s some sounds I’ll never forget. We thought spring reverb was so good. You could bash the top of the amp and get a noise like a John Cage prepared piano. Enough of that.

It’s a great sound, and right on the money for the feel of this song.

Yes, there are the old analogue sounds, but the mix of modern effects takes them just a little bit further. There were limits back in the day.

The lyrics paint a picture of how things escalate leaving a sense that there was an alternative, but only if you could see the future way back in the beginning, whenever that was!

“Kneel in the hay, hay in the barn, barn burning down, well it’s a black letter day.

The song points out that you should “Watch yourself when you go too far”

Hide in your mind …


Sean Power and the Main Street Band - Black Letter Day - Tempo Review

Broadcast 2025-09-01

Capaldi’s version of this was a piano plus vocal, the vocal contributed all the emotion, rather than instrumental swells and chords.

The instrumental in this re-interpretation is more complex.

During the verses, it is minimal, perhaps even less than Capaldi’s piano, and only steps up when the chorus comes.

This instrumental emphasis substitutes for Capaldi’s rougher chorus vocal.

In all the feel of the song is familiar, without it being a cover. A different approach keeps the feel of the original very effectively.

Enough of the comparisons …

The strength of this version is the instrumental. There’s what is almost a simple harmony, just a single tone where the chord changes would be.

This provides a subtle but strong level of support to the vocal, without ever intruding. It works exceptionally well.

The entry of a fuller instrumental adds a melodic harmonising to the chorus.

A complex simplicity that works because it is not a constant.

This is a new song, a re-interpretation, not a cover.


Benny Elder - Someone You Love - Tempo Review

Broadcast 2025-09-01

It’s a long time ago, but I think I actually hear a seventies sound to this. It would have been a pretty avant guard seventies sound, buy nevertheless, that lead guitar pretty much solo throughout the song is, for me, evocative.

Songs back then tended to be assertive, and most were without any analysis or polemics.

That’s not the case here, it’s heart on a sleeve time!

Mind you, I love the grouping of philosophers chosen – Proudhon the anarchist, Nietzsche beloved of authoritarians, and Socrates, the ethicist.

A philosophy joke?

One of the central lyrics really speaks to me – “I believe that music unites us, I believe religion divides us.”

Music, in all it’s forms and manifestations definitely unites us. 

Play on!


Girl Monstar - Blue Cat Green Eyes - Tempo Review

Broadcast 2025-09-08

This track has that lovely classic growling blues feel to it. 

Is that guitar Jeff or Allison? Does it matter, the combination is what’s being heard here, and that’s a whole different level.

There’s a solid immutable guitar beat from one end to the other, and everything hangs from that.

That solid theme continues through the break, initially unadorned, but then we have individual guitar melodies in the left or right channel.

Each of those guitars seem to be playing with each other, swapping the lead, a debate if you will.

Their vocal harmony has that polish of musicians who have a long history of performing together and each knowing where the other would go. Of course there’s a raft of experimentation and practice behind making it sound so elegant.

The song itself is on a traditional topic, hard grinding work.

The singer says they are “Alone in my work and my worries.” 

They’re “heavy in my living hell” and it “burns like no other.”

They’re getting support by leaning on their sugar, but there’s a kick at the end, “for my love is for another!”

This elegant and clever music is why I’ll always welcome a new track from them individually, or even better, together.


High Ace - Leaning On My Sugar - Tempo Review

2025-09-08

It might be 40 years or more later since the original release but there is no mistake about this being a reinterpretation of Chaka Khan’s work. 

The beat is much slower, the whole song is more relaxed, no doubt the source of the “post coital” comment by Batchelor.

This reworking has taken it somewhere else, a hint of reggae maybe?

It almost feels like the instrumental was developed from scratch, using only the original lyrics.

If you are working with an existing song which you admire, then this is the way to do it.

It’s fresh, it’s imaginative.

Given the 40 year gap, a new generation might see this as the definitive version.

This is excellent work, I’ll be keeping my eye out for more from Johnny Batchelor.


Johnny Batchelor - Ain't Nobody - Tempo Review

Broadcast 2025-09-08

Wow!

I read the release notes for this, and it mentioned Jungaji singing with his son Dean Brady, credits for guitar, bass, keys, drums and so on and so forth.

What I did not expect was the amazing production which has gone into this song.

It’s really easy to push production too far, but this is superb. 

It’s a classically strong backing, I almost felt that I was in the middle of an operatic aria.

It has a strong presence with a massive impact.

The strength of this song matches the interpretation of kalkurr meaning the Milky Way with all its vastness.

The song says, and I apologise in advance for my pronunciation

Junjulkurr bordigular
Yinya gurrindah nyigu

There’s a big change
And it’s coming now

This song is a part of that change.


Jungaji - Kalkurr - Tempo Review

Broadcast 2025-09-08

Finger picking guitar, chrome sandwich, mandolin, and a strings section.

You could pitch that as a country band, but it’s not.

There’s hints maybe, but the essence of this song is the sound of the 1970s folk era.

I can definitely hear Bert Jansch.

The guitar is fast and accurate, the mouthorgan provides a melodic addition along with the violin. 

All in all this is a clearly expressed and well performed piece.

This song amounts to a protest against the Protestant work ethic. That won’t get any complaints from me.

They lyrics are clever and well structured and come through clearly, a well produced track.

The theme is a classic one in the Australian ethos – drop it all and hit the road outback. 

C J Dennis gave an alternate view of the benefits in his poem “The Swagman” contrasting the exuberance of a young boy with the resignation of an old swagman.

Which one is right? This song is a contribution to that debate.



Pete Hawkes - I've Changed My Mind - Tempo Review

Weekly uploads of reviews and interviews from the program, "Tempo". "Tempo" is a weekly radio program presented by John Lamp, highlighting a wide range of music and music reviews on 94.7 the Pulse in Geelong, Wadawurrung country. John has been involved in community radio since 1976, initially with a music program "Parcel of Rogues" on 7CAE-FM in Hobart, Tasmania. After moving to Geelong, he joined 94.7 the Pulse on the program "Folks Alive", which morphed into "~meanderings~." John then spent a decade on the station Boards of Management before returning to the air in 2022 with his new program "Tempo." Full programs can be accessed at the link below.

New tracks tagged ##947thePulse #Radio #CommunityRadio #CBAA #TempoOnThePulse #Geelong #Australia #MusicReview #Review #WadawurrungCountry