Ringside by Rod Willis

Author:Rod Willis [Rod Willis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2023-09-09T00:00:00+00:00

12

COUNTDOWN TO AMERICA

The TV Week/Countdown Music Awards were viewed by the general public and the mainstream music industry as the pinnacle of success. In 1980, Chisel had won awards for Best Australian Album and Best Cover Artwork for Breakfast at Sweethearts; this year it was set to be Chisel—and then daylight. The band had been invited to perform at the awards finale, which would be staged on 16 March 1981 at Sydney’s Regent Theatre. Warners were frothing at the mouth over the prospect of an avalanche of gold statues and even bigger sales of East.

After our walkout from Countdown in 1978, I’d managed to convince the band to make four appearances on the show, miming songs from Breakfast and East. (Jim sported his famous headband during a performance of ‘Cheap Wine’.) There was no question that those appearances broadened the band’s reach and increased record sales. I figured that when it came to Countdown, we were in control and happy to play the game, but on our terms.

Of course, if you dabbled with the devil—in this case, the world of mainstream pop—there were consequences. The reality was that I wanted the band out of the Countdown loop, but there was no clear way of doing that apart from a very messy public divorce. Cold Chisel was a rock band, not a pop act, and their success was underwritten by years of hard slog in the pubs and clubs of Australia. The fear of being anointed ‘pop gods’ by Countdown placed them in a tricky position. If they refused to perform at the awards, they’d be seen to be thumbing their nose at their fans; if they did go on, they’d be seen as the latest player in the old pop game.

I called the band together for a meeting and discussed the invitation to appear at the awards. The immediate reaction from some quarters was predictable.

‘Fuck them. Not interested.’

I understood that. To the band, Countdown was just one factor in their success. What did they owe Countdown? The band also expressed some concerns about the role of TV Week in the awards. What did they have to do with Australian music? None of the big American awards—the Grammys, the American Music Awards, the Oscars—had a major sponsor. I also believed that we really didn’t need Countdown anymore: the band had the momentum, it had the live market pulsing, and radio was totally on board. So the question was: how could we extricate ourselves from this association? What we needed was a positive solution, not a reactive one.

After a fair amount of discussion, we reached a decision: ‘We have to perform live. No miming. And if they say no, we’re not playing.’

With that agreed, I approached the ABC and managed to persuade them to let the band play live. ‘They won’t be collecting their awards on the night,’ I advised them, ‘because they’re saving themselves for the grand finale. It’ll bring the house down.’

If only the people at Countdown knew how true that would be.

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