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Icehouse
Every
period of music has an act which captures the essence of its time, like the
Easybeats did in Australia in the 60s, and Little River Band did in the
70s. In the 80s the group which best drank in the musical character of the
day and made its own contribution was Icehouse, with music output largely
generated by the group's leader and singer Iva Davies.
Actually
born "Ivor" Davies, he started his career studying the oboe at
the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music and playing in the ABC National
Training Orchestra. The popular music his peers were listening to didn't
impact on Davies until his late teens, as if suddenly his eyes were opened
to another music world which had been kept from him.
In 1975 he signed a solo recording deal and
released a glam-pop single, 'Leading Lady'. On the label his name had
incorrectly been misspelt as "Iva" Davies, and he decided to go
with it as his professional name. When a second single didn't turn him into
an instant star, Iva made his living writing manuscripts for music
publishing companies while undergoing a personal education, following David
Bowie and Roxy Music back to their roots, T.Rex, the Kinks, Iggy Pop, Lou
Reed, etc.
Iva
taught himself to play guitar, dressed himself in black leather and with
another music student Keith Welsh formed Flowers, dedicated to the great
groups and songwriters of the 60s and 70s. They were immediately recognized
for their note-for-note versions of classic rock songs, everything from the
Easybeats to the Sex Pistols, and after a period of gigging (while keeping
days jobs around changing line-ups) Iva and Keith threw their jobs in to
tour nationally. Eventually Flowers was commanding the highest performance
fee for a band not signed to a record company.
Flowers
finally signed a record contract in 1980
with independent Regular Records. By then Flowers had begun introducing
original material to their repertoire, mainly written by Iva. The first single,
'Can't Help Myself', clearly influenced by the material Flowers had cut
their teeth on, became an instant national hit. The second single 'We Can
Get Together' did even better. Their debut album, with not one cover song
in sight, was called 'Icehouse'. The name came from the first track, a song
by Iva Davies, inspired by two large old mansions in the suburb of
Lindfield on Sydney's North Shore. In one, Iva himself occupied a rather
cold gloomy flat. The other, a few doors away, was used at the time as a
half way house for convalescing psychiatric and drug affected patients. The
album name had little to do with the bright, accessible pop on the record.
'Icehouse' became one of Australia's biggest selling albums of 1980. There
was even interest internationally.
To avoid
confusion with similarly named artists the group was released
internationally as Icehouse. After dropping in on New Zealand where the
album had gone double platinum, Icehouse headed for Europe and Canada.
On the
way to a second album Icehouse released 'Love In Motion' It was later
discovered that Iva had recorded the single all by himself between gigs in
London. Icehouse was already a group in name only. The second Icehouse
album was virtually a solo Iva Davies release, recorded in both Sydney and
Los Angeles and co-produced by Keith Forsey, disco producer Giorgio
Moroder's assistant. While there wasn't a group as such on the record, the
sound remained the same, and 'Primitive Man' became a No.1 album and
generated more hits, 'Great Southern Land' and 'Hey Little Girl'.
While he
was a perfectionist who wanted his way in the studio and on stage, Iva was
still eager to represent himself as a group, and formed a new line-up to
tour the album both in Australia and internationally. In keeping with the
band's place in world music, two of the new group were English musicians.
The new band made its first performance almost a year to the day since the
previous line-up gave their last. 'Primitive Man' was followed by
'Sidewalk', an even more 'solo' album, Iva also producing without outside
help, and only bringing in the band members at the very last minute.
Completely on his own, Iva Davies wrote and recorded the soundtrack to
'Razorback' entirely on the Fairlight synthesizer
The next
group album, 'Measure To Measure' however was the product of at least two
minds, Iva's and that of Icehouse guitarist Robert Kretschmer. Iva and
Robert had collaborated on writing and performing the music for the ballet
'Boxes' and kept going for 'Measure To Measure'. Production of the tracks
was divided between two eminent and carefully chosen British producers -
Rhett Davies (who had produced Brian Ferry and Roxy Music and also worked
with Brian Eno) and David Lord, who had worked with Peter Gabriel, XTC, and
Echo and the Bunnymen). The album was recorded mainly in England, much of
it at a studio owned by Brian Ferry and Brian Eno. After emulating these
artists with Flowers, Icehouse was now one of them. Iva Davies' music had
come full circle. The album title referred to Iva's desire to keep
everything in balance, 'Measure For Measure'.
In
Icehouse terms the next album followed a mere sixteen months later, the
shortest gap between Icehouse albums, with David Lord again at the
controls. The songs were written within the space of just three months.
Those facts might explain why 'Man Of Colours' was the most focussed
Icehouse record yet. With half a million sales in Australia it became the
second biggest selling Australian album, an achievement overshadowed by the
previous year's 'Whispering Jack' from John Farnham, Australia's biggest
selling album of all time. 'Man Of Colours' was the first Australian album
to generate five Top 40 hits, including a No.1 with 'Electric Blue'. 'Man
Of Colours' was also Icehouse's best performing album internationally.
Icehouse
rewarded itself for the success of 'Man Of Colours' with a compilation
album 'Great Southern Land', including a couple of new tracks from the
sessions towards the next album. Everything that could go wrong with the
progress of that album did go wrong. Just before entering the studio, David
Lord, the producer who had been so successfully involved with the previous
two studio albums was unavailable. After some delay the services of another
English producer, Nick Launay, were obtained. Then, for a variety of
reasons - tours, promoting the compilation album - the recording itself
extended over a longer period than usual. Then there was the problem of the
album itself. The first single, 'Big Fun' seemed to be making fun of Australians
themselves. If it was satirical the joke was lost of radio programmers.
Called 'Code Blue' the album's songs were each ambitiously inspired by some
element of Australian heritage places, characters, attitudes, events.
The
album itself was eventually released within days of the tenth anniversary
of the first album's release. Together all the facts surrounding its
release conspired to make 'Code Blue' the poorest selling Icehouse album. End
of era. After years in the spotlight Iva Davies chose to adopt a low profile.
1993’s ‘Big Wheel’ was recorded at Iva’s home in Whale Beach with Davies on vocals, guitar, bass guitar and keyboards,
David Chapman on guitar, keyboards and backing vocals, and Paul Wheeler on drums,
percussion and backing vocals. The album furthered Iva’s interest in
technology, one of the first records released in Australia in dual CD/interactive
computer disc configuration. Released on Iva’s own label ‘Big Wheel’ was
the first Icehouse studio album not to reach the Top Ten on the Australian
album charts.
For years now Iva stepped even further from his
Icehouse persona – he’d always seen himself more as a musician than an
entertainer. There was always more
to Iva than Icehouse. Between Icehouse albums in the 80s he’d successfully worked
on a ballet with the Sydney Dance Company. In 1995 he re-ignited that
relationship by recording an album of cover songs as the score for the
Sydney Dance Company’s ballet ‘Berlin’ and performed these songs - and some
of his own- each night of the performance with the Icehouse line-up of the
day. It was Iva going full circle, back to re-rendering his musical heroes,
as he’d done in the early days of Flowers.
In 1985 he’d created the soundtrack to the film ‘Razorback’.
He now returned to that world too, winning awards for the soundtrack to ‘Master and Commander: The Far Side of
the World’ (2003) and the mini-series ‘The Incredible Journey of Mary Bryant’ (2005).
Icehouse itself resurfaced in 2011. In April
Universal announced the acquisition of the catalogue. Later in 2011 Icehouse started playing
live gigs again.
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