Dire Straits: Heavy Fuel

Two things can be said for 70’s rock: It was big, and it had tight pants. Boston, Foreigner, Queen, Genesis and/or Phil Collins filled the worlds biggest venues with a clean, super produced sound we now know as Stadium Rock. Mark Knopfler (pron. Noff-ler) along with his brother Dave also had a band, but they had other ideas.

Dire Straits formed around the idea of classic rock without the frills. By the time they got started the 70’s were winding up and Punk was the new black. In stark contrast to early Punk rockers, the boys asked publicans to turn them down so the punters could talk amongst themselves. This humble approach paid off with their debut self titled album going multi-platinum.

Flash forward to 1991 and a single largely ignored in the U.S. but popular at home in the UK and Australia. Heavy Fuel from the album ‘On Every Street’ popularizes the phrase "You gotta run on heavy fuel (if you want to run cool)." It comes from the novel ‘Money’ by Martin Amis. I run on heavy fuel, how about you?

Things of Stone and Wood: Happy Birthday Helen

Aussie Top Gear isn’t the only thing that’s gratuitously Melbournian (despite being filmed in Sydney?). Things of Stone and Wood’s ‘Happy Birthday Helen’ mirrors its birthplace so much it spawned a sketch on The Late Show, ‘No More Melbourne Clichés.’

Released in 1992, the song is about Greg Arnold's then girlfriend and wife, Helen. The single earned them an ARIA in ’92 and a place on the Triple J Hottest 100 in '93. The problem with bands that cross over from folky waa-waa music is they have a tendency to go back. Things of Stone and Wood is no exception.

‘Junk Theatre’ broke the surface in ’94, yeilding one solid single, however their grass roots politics had crept back in and sales bombed. Sony jumped ship ahead of the subsiquent 5 albums that bring us to 2003. In ’07 Greg released his second solo album ‘Lost Marie.’ To date I haven’t heard anything from it. We know they can do great things. As it stands now he’s producing, let’s hope he can supress his folk roots… and Melbourne.

PS: It's easy to be a critic, but I must admit, I never wrote a song like that.