Musical Musings | Modern English finally hit Aussie shores!

“Australia's one of the places I’ve always wanted to go,” guitarist Gary McDowell told me last week.

“There are a few places we haven’t been.

“We've never been to Japan, yet most of the musicians I know have all played Japan.

“We’ve mostly toured the United States.

“We went to the Philippines once and did a few shows there, and we didn’t realise we had quite a huge following over there.”

McDowell is also looking forward to soaking up more of the Australian culture, especially learning more about the didgeridoo, something that is close to McDowell’s heart.

“About 30 years ago, I started playing didgeridoo and going out busking with the didgeridoo and some fire jugglers in London.

“It was in between the band stuff when we weren’t working.

“I did that for about a year and a half, and it was great.

“Just playing out in the street, and jamming every night with complete freedom.”

Though the group has split and reformed on several occasions over the years, the core line-up has remained fairly intact since first forming in the late ’70s. McDowell credits this to the group’s members all taking time apart at times.

“Getting away from each other for a while is the secret to our longevity,” McDowell says.

“In between the splits, they did their own thing and I did my own thing.

“Then, in 2010, while I was living in Thailand at the time, I got a call saying, ‘we’re putting the band back together’ and was I was interested?

“I said, ‘Yeah, I’ll give it a go’.

“And 14 years later, here we are, still going strong.”

McDowell believes punk rock ushered in an era that inspired many to pick up an instrument and join a band regardless of their ability.

“It started with all the punk rock bands, as no-one could play,” he says.

“If you listen back to that early stuff, it was awful, but it was creative.

“People were just getting out there and doing it because that’s what they wanted to do.

“And then moving into it afterwards, learning what you’re doing and trying to perfect it a bit more than when you started.

“It gave all of us a lot of freedom.”

Modern English are touring Australia with The Buzzcocks this October and November. Their latest album 1234 is out now.

Music news

Taylor Swift is officially the world’s richest female musician, with her fortune now an estimated $1.6 billion. Much of her fortune is due in part to her recent ‘Eras Tour’ and the huge demand and the popularity of her recent re-recordings of her album catalogue.

Are the Foo Fighters over? After the recent revelations of frontman Dave Grohl’s affair, numerous reports are circulating that the group will take an ‘indefinite hiatus’.

The biggest music news this week is that Brit-pop legends Oasis have finally announced their Australian leg of their 2025 reunion world tour. The Australian dates announced are for Melbourne’s Marvel Stadium on October 31, 2025, followed by Sydney’s Accor Stadium on November 7. It is expected the group will add further dates to their world tour. All the dates so far, for the group’s UK and North American shows, have sold out.

Live review: Andy Summers

Melbourne Recital Centre, September 24.

Andy Summers secured his place in music history as guitarist with English rock group The Police, who in the late 1970s and early ’80s were one of the biggest bands on the planet. Summers also developed a passion for photography while touring with The Police. His innovative streak runs not only through his various musical projects he has undertaken post The Police but also in his photography endeavours, as tonight’s show best showcased. Dubbed ‘An Evening with Andy Summers’, it was a multimedia experience for the musically minded; a perfect blend of imagery with sounds that created a cinematic musical experience unlike any other.

The show offered up a fascinating bird’s-eye view of other cultures and music that the now 81-year-old experienced via his many tours and visits to countries over the course of his illustrious, long career. Those cultural elements were expressed fully in his musical compositions he performed, via a selection of material from his solo outings along with a handful of Police classics. The performance of each song was back dropped by a curated collection of photos from Summers’ private collection, further illustrating the song’s backstory. For example, The Last Dance of Mr X was accompanied by snapshots from Summers’ visits to China, while The Police staple Message In A Bottle exhibited various nostalgic images from The Police’s heady touring days of old.

In between, Summers shared anecdotes which were underscored by his dry wit. The way Summers presented the reworking of The Police material within the context of his solo show, by his playing of the melody lines while accompanied by backing tracks, gave the music a new lease of life. Many of his six-string string excursions were improvised and showed the depth of Summers’ guitar talents. It was certainly a pleasant and enjoyable evening.

This week’s global jazz and blues album charts

Australia No.1: Bewitched — Laufey

UK No.1: Dance, no-one's Watching — Ezra Collective

United States No.1: Bewitched — Laufey

Fun fact

The origin of the word ‘jazz’ derives from the word ‘jasm’ a slang word used to describe ‘energy, vitality, and spirit’, a term the Oxford English Dictionary traces back to 1860. One of its earliest appearances in print was via a 1912 article in the Los Angeles Times that quoted a baseball player describing to a reporter his curveball (a type of throw) as, “a jazz ball because it wobbles, and you simply can’t do anything with it”.

Joe Matera is a local singer-songwriter, recording artist, guitarist and music journalist providing readers with all the latest music news.