Every town is a funky adventure with Pseudo Echo
They had a huge hit with their version of Funky Town and, yes, it will be on the playlist when Pseudo Echo embarks on a national tour in February.
Life moves pretty quick. Ferris Bueller might have said it, but we all know it. I’m wondering if it’s on Brian Canham’s mind as we discuss the upcoming tour for his band, Pseudo Echo.
The tour begins at Miami Marketta on the Gold Coast on February 7, followed by the Princess Theatre Brisbane on February 8, with a show at The Gov in Adelaide on February 22 and, after numerous other gigs across the country, winding up in Sydney on May 10.
It’s 40 years since the group released their second album Love an Adventure. And that’s what the upcoming tour dates will focus on. Pseudo Echo will play their other hits, of course, but it’s their 1985 album from which the tour takes its name.
Starting life in Melbourne, Pseudo Echo broke into the national pop psyche after an appearance on ABC TV’s Countdown. What made that appearance unique was that Pseudo Echo didn’t have a record deal at the time. They were just another band in a long line of Melbourne hopefuls before Molly Meldrum popped his head into one of their gigs.
“That was pretty serendipitous,” Brian Canham says. “As an 18-year-old, I’d seen Molly regularly DJ at clubs and he kind of knew my face. He knew me as this quiet kid who sat on the sidelines, didn’t drink much, didn’t say much and just listened. Move forward two or three years and it turns out we’ve got a mutual friend. She said, ‘I’ve got to give him a demo of you guys, because I think he’ll really like it’. So, she handed him a demo.
“Things moved slowly – no email, no mobile phone. Carrier pigeons were probably quicker. So, we didn’t hold our breath. Turns out, he’d heard our demo and he turned up to one of our gigs randomly. Luckily, it was a great gig.
“It was our first headline show, and we just saw the cowboy hat in the crowd and we went, ‘Wow, Molly’s here. How cool’. He made his way backstage and had a chat to us. Within a couple of days, he called our manager and said, ‘Look, I want to put the boys on Countdown’. That was the most amazing and surreal news. I used to watch Countdown like everybody else every weekend. Molly really went out on a limb and he introduced us to the bloody world. He couldn’t have propelled us quicker into stardom if he tried.”
While pub rock ruled Australian venues in the early 1980s, Canham and co took their more adventurous musical cues from MEO 245, Mi-Sex, Icehouse and early INXS. International bands also had a profound effect on Pseudo Echo.
“Overseas artists were a different kettle of fish,” Canham says. “They were way ahead of us – bands like Ultravox, Simple Minds, Human League. Later influences for me were early Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet.
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After the success of their first LP, Autumnal Park, Love an Adventure was released a year later in 1985. The album spawned the singles Don’t Go, Living in a Dream and the title track. It was re-issued a year later to include their monster hit, Funky Town. To mark the anniversary, the band will play the album in its entirety.
“It’s funny, because there are songs on the record that we have never played, or we haven’t played them since 1985,” Canham says. “That’s going to be fun. The album will also be available on CD and on streaming. And there’s a limited edition translucent blue vinyl copy, which is being released too.
“We’ve also re-mixed the title track, which is probably the most re-recorded and remixed song of Pseudo Echo’s career. It’s called Love an Adventure (Machine Remix). It’s got slightly more guitar. It’s a little bit heavier but very synth-wave as well.
“We’ll be releasing more machine mixes for other tracks. And then from there I would like to do a new album of entirely new material with a sound that’s a natural progression to where we left off.”