BayWatch meets Midnight Oil

Eighty Australian musicians will gather tonight at the Enmore Theatre for a sensational night of Rock'n'Roll.
It's to aid Doc Neeson of The Angels who has been diagnosed with brain cancer. Doc will perform on stage and joining him : David Hasslehoff who flew into town on Saturday and Environment Minister Peter Garrett MP.

Doc Neeson                                                                                                                                                          



**********************
 One rumour that has been gaining traction amongst New York circles is that the marriage between media mogul Rupert Murdoch and Wendi Murdoch is going through a rocky patch.  Our spy disguised as a New York society snapper says he was told that one very . 

senior Fox executive had told fellow guests at a recent up market and up-town dinner party that he felt the marriage may be nearing an end as the pair were almost living separate lives

Prime Ministers, Book Launches and Slapped Faces

Last Monday Sue Pieters-Hawke launched her book Hazel: My Mother's Story at the SH Erwin Gallery and it was a fairly quiet affair.

Hazel & Bob in happier days

There was none of the fanfare that accompanied the launch of the book her step-mother Blanche d'Alpuget authored -Hawke, The Prime Minister about Sue's dad, former Prime Minster Bob Hawke who is still regarded as the most popular leader Australia has ever had.

The current PM Julia Gillard did the honours for Blanche's tome in front of a number of notable guests like actors Geoffrey Rush and Rhys Muldoon and former Midnight Oil front man Peter Garrett who is now the Minister for Education.

Last June it was alleged that Blanche and Sue had encountered each other in the Qantas's exclusive Chairman's Lounge at Brisbane Airport and each had slapped the other's face before being separated by authorities. Both denied the claim but witnesses say the incident was fairly heated although it's claimed the two have since made up.

Blanche, Julia & Bob

Despite this neither Bob Hawke nor Blanche attended Sue's book launch which Pieters-Hawke has written in retaliation to d'Alpuget's impliction that Hazel only stayed married to Hawke while he was PM so she could stay in The Lodge at Canberra and enjoy her role as first lady. 

Sue Pieters-Hawke's book covers Hazel's life from a schoolgirl in Perth, her life with Bob -''the love of her life'' - her career in welfare, life at The Lodge and her sad decline into Alzheimer's disease in 2001.
                                                 *************************

Meanwhile the man who deposed Bob Hawke in a party room coup, former PM  Paul Keating launched his own book After Words on Sunday.
Keating, who was dubbed The Lizard of Oz by the British media in 1992 who accused him of manhandling HM The Queen has likened Australia to "a child clasping at the Queen's coat-tails, waving an embarrassing little flag' in a Daily Telegraph report.

                                        
                                                 *************************

Not to be left out, former PM Kevin Rudd, himself deposed 2 years ago by Julia Gillard has been entertaining a crowd at a function following a meeting of Foreign Ministers at the CHOGM conference in Perth. The audience demanded Rudd break into song but he informed them "I sing like a cow".
(What does a cow sound like when it sings?)

Who is Rhys Muldoon ?

Rhys Muldoon & Peter Garrett at the Hawke book launch

Who is Rhys Muldoon ?.

The quick answer is a very successful actor. A former host of a kid's TV show Muldoon has acted in numerous critically acclaimed roles including the Oscar nominated The Saviour in 2006 and Bitter and Twisted, the hit of the 2008 Tribecca Film Festival.

But perhaps one role could have revealed a political side to Muldoon. In the Melbourne and Sydney productions of the David Hare play Stuff Happens he played the lead role of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

On Tuesday night as our exclusive picture shows, Muldoon was at the Blanche d'Alpuget's book launch of her new title Hawke The Prime Minister. He stood and chatted with Environment Minister and former Midnight Oils front man Peter Garrett MP.

Now it appears he is also a close personal friend of former PM Kevin Rudd, recently ousted by Julia Gillard who launched d'Alpuget's book. And if we believe an article in tomorrow's Australian newspaper Muldoon is so close to Rudd he may have been advising him on certain matters during his tenure as PM. He and Rudd also penned a children's book together-Great Australia Day Kerfuffle.

What does all this mean ?. Well we have no idea but it does add to the amazing publicity campaign-planned or unplanned that is certain to push Hawke The Prime Minister into the number one book spot.

As media reports continue unabated with Labor tribes lining up on either side to support former PM Paul Keating or Bob Hawke the relationship between the 2 former political allies seems busted beyond repair. Or is it ?.

Keating say he hasn't previously considered writing his own book about his term as PM from '91 to'96 and as the World's Greatest Living Treasurer ( an honour accorded by a host of financial publication editors around the world) from 1983 to 1990.

If he puts pen to paper now his book is also bound to be a bestseller. Perhaps Hawke will return the favour.

Festival wash out

Oh dear. The punters are most displeased. On a summer's night as rain poured down a much anticipated event seems to have gone down like a lead balloon.

The Sydney Festival has posted the following on it's website about the Rogue's Gallery concert on the Opera House forecourt.

"Sydney Festival is disappointed that Rogue's Gallery did not live up to expectations for some audience members.

Rogue's Gallery is our third collaboration with acclaimed producer Hal Willner, following the immensely popular Came So Far For Beauty (2005) and Lou Reed's Berlin (2007).

Rogue's Gallery came to Sydney Festival with a track record of previous shows at London's Barbican Centre, Newcastle's The Sage Gateshead and Dublin's Analog Festival, where it was warmly received by both public and media. Willner conceived the Sydney version on the same principles. His method is to bring together an eclectic range of artists for a short but intensive rehearsal period resulting in an event characterised by performances of spontaneity, risk and surprise."

Rogue's Gallery is a sea shanty with sailors,convicts, travellers and all the hardships, horrors, lusts and romance that went along with life at sea.It was conceived by actor Johnny Depp and amongst others it starred Marianne Faithfull (Quintessential rock survivor!),Tim Robbins (Hollywood superstar and musician!),Todd Rundgren (producer and legendary purveyor of deft pop gems!) and our very own Peter Garrett (former front man for Midnight Oil and current Federal Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts ).

Amongst the comments on the Festival's website :

"There was only one good thing about Rogues' Gallery for me; Kate St John playing an oboe in the first number. The rest of the show was really disappointing."

"Marianne Faithful had some presence, despite being out of time out of tune and forgetting the words, but the rest of what I saw made me cynical about old rockers"

"I felt sorry for some of the performers who did bring professionalism and inspiration to this second-rate event. In addition to poorly rehearsed and indifferent performances,"

"This was a very very disappointing event. It felt like being at the rehearsal for a rather bad high school concert."

"Ms Faithfull seemed to be under the weather (no pun intended) and had to hum when she couldn't find the words to read and Mr Robbins appeared to be chewing gum."

" It was a complete rip-off. When you pay $145 you expect professionalism and a class act."

Here's Todd Rundgren in top form:

"Why'd ya let her suck your cock.."

  It's a line from our favourite Marianne Faithful song Why'd Ya Do It written by the great poet Heathcote Williams. Why Williams never wrote another song for Faithful is a mystery.

 Hopefully she will sing it plus a batch of songs from that brilliant album Broken English when she performs at the Sydney Opera House on the 3rd February. Faithful's tour begins in Queensland on the 30th January.

The shows, with her full touring band, will showcase her critically acclaimed new album Easy Come, Easy Go  as well as drawing from the wealth of material from her expansive career.

  Reputedly Marianne dictated many of the words of Why'd Ya Do It to Williams when she found out her then boyfriend Ben Brierly, of the punk band The Vibrators was having an affair with a neighbour in Chelsea.

     And little did tSS know when we called in for Christmas lunch at that neighbour's house one year, that the owner would soon feature in a song that outraged the BBC which refused to give it airplay. They settled for the much more acceptable Ballad of Lucy Jordon.

       The house, a 4 storey mansion, was being rented at the time by the late brilliant Australian make-up artist Richard Sharah who created Zandra Rhode's amazing look.  During lunch Marianne called in for a few drinks and carried a bucket-to collect some coal from the cellar. She was down on 'er uppers at the time.     

           She transported at least 6 bucket loads of coal backwards and forwards from memory, saying "fuck the cow-she'll never miss it !". So Dickensian.

                 And she didn't even know at that stage that Ben was knocking off Sharah's landlady !

We aren't too sure about Marianne's heavily air-brushed publicity snap above-we prefer our own pic (at top)taken with Richard Sharah that Christmas day when she was on the coal shuttle.
               There is also a heavy rumour running about town the Environment Minister Peter Garrett-currently avoiding the media over the Whale War between Japan and Greenpeace and the ramming of the Ady Gil yesterday- is going to join Marianne on stage. Perhaps he'll do a duet on Why'd ya do it and dedicate to Japan. Or maybe the Ady Gil.

Here's Faithful's live version of Why'd ya do it but it has a habit of disappearing from youtube and below is our glorious Federal Minister of the Environment, the Hon Peter Garrett MP in one of his Midnight Oil Moments

="allowFullScreen" value="true">