Saturday, November 1, 2008

Ups & Downs - Sleepless

A Request from Andrew here in Brisbane.
Formed in 1983 Brisbane band Ups and Downs played a brand of
ethereal, well-crafted,jangly guitar pop that called to mind
Australian post-punk icons The Church.
The bands influences also extended to overseas groups like
Cocteau Twins, REM,Siouxsie and The Banshees
and The Flamin' Groovies.Indeed, the name Ups and Downs
was derived from a track on the Flamin' Groovies 1978 album, Now
and they supported them On their Australian tour of 1987.
This album was recorded in the summer of '86 at Sydney and
gives us the fantastic songssuch as The living Kind, their
cover of Neil Diamond's Solitary Man, In The Shadows and
The Perfect Crime.
In the year 1990, Greg and Darren Atkinson split up the band
and formed “Big Heay Stuff”.
The band reformed last year to play at the Pig City gig here
in Brisbane and were fantastic, another highlight.

Track list
01 Sleepless
02 The Living Kind
03 Hearts
04 Alarming Situations
05 In The Shadows
06 Solitary Man
07 Where Is The Sun
08 The Perfect Crime
09 Traveling


Download Here





Ups and Downs - The Living Kind



Ups and Downs - Solitary Man

12 comments:

Andrew McMillen said...

Thank you so very much! Will listen keenly, several times I imagine :)

Anonymous said...

I've been thinking about these guys lately - so great to hear this.

Trying to describe their music was where I learned that a guitar could be jingly jangly. It's one of those records which was in a shared-house shared rotation collection, so I never did get my own copy. I have distinct memories of giving their album having a greeny sort of cover - was that the back?

Oddly, the download seems to be seven tracks rather than nine.

Cheers,
Duncan.

bob nebe said...

Your right Andrew I've got some more,
great Brisy band.You may have to re download however(see below)

Thanks Duncan for alerting to the fact that I've short changed you all 2 tracks. I'll have it fixed soon, sorry to all who have to download again
ciao bob

Anonymous said...

I LOVED this album when it came out....used to read about them in the UK mag "Bucketful of Brains" which championed this kind of guitar pop.....Whilst visiting Australia in 1988, I got to see them in Sydney right before the "Underneath the Watchful Eye" LP came out....they'd changed their sound a bit, but were still great.....does anybody have gathered any of the single b-sides and 12" tracks like the ones on "The Living Kind" disc? Love to hear all that stuff digitally too.......keep up the great blog-love to hear if there is any unreleased stuff by the Crystal Set out there....Jim, Boston, MA, USA

yob_tva said...

flaming groovies at the old love inn if i remember - building still there and probably due for redevelpment

Anonymous said...

Thanks so much for this - I've been looking for Ups & Downs music for ages. All I'd been able to find until now was the one track on the Triple Zed compilation. You beauty!

Tiger Tiger said...

Thanks for this post! I first heard The Living Kind on the Tales From The Australian Underground comp. and have loved that song since. This album sounds great.
You are doing a great job on this blog btw!

bob nebe said...

No problem tiger, thanks for your kind words. What happened to twilight zone?
Loved that blog
ciao bob

Tiger Tiger said...

Hey Bob,
Twilightzone was removed from blogspot b/c some people complained it was infringing on copyright law blah, blah, blah...bunch of drongos. There was a big "uproar" over it. I'm sure you can find many blog discussions if you google it.
Anyway it is back up and running where RYP continues uploading rare and long out of print goodies at:
http://twilightzone-rideyourpony.blogspot.com

P.S. If you haven't heard it already check out the latest album from Steve Kilbey called "Painkiller". A stunning album from start to finish.

bob nebe said...

Thanks for the quick reply Ive adjusted my links accordingly,
Steve's new lp is fantastic alright.
I hope I stay under the radar here, its a bastard thing to happen esp when the stuff your uploading is rare and out of print.
Great to see your back and fighting
ciao bob

Anonymous said...

That's another great cover of the Neil Diamond song!

burningwheel said...

Do you remember which issues of bob?