The Models

Models LIVE at the Overlander Hotel in Shepparton in 1980, is the 20th release of the Australian Road Crew Association’s (ARCA) Desk Tape Series.

Models are the 20th act to throw their support behind the Australian Road Crew Association’s live Desk Tape Series.

The Series was created by the Australian Road Crew Association (ARCA) to raise funds to provide financial, health, counselling and well-being services for roadies and crew in crisis.

Thanx to Rod and Desi for the cover photo, Mark Woods for the recording, Nprint for the cover artwork, Phil Dracoulis for the mastering and Models for supporting roadies and crew.

The recordings are made off the sound desk by a crew member – in this case Mark Woods, their long-time sound engineer who joined them in their very early days.

The Models LIVE at the Overlander Hotel 1980 live tape and all the ARCA Desk Tape Series recordings are available through Black Box Records – ARCA (australianroadcrew.com.au) and the following:

https://ffm.to/liveattheoverlanderhotel1980  (Please paste into browser if it fails to work)

Models LIVE At The Overlander Hotel 1980 was recorded two years after the band formed in Melbourne.

Audiences insist there have been two totally different Models through the years.

There was the early art-rock industrial line-up which was miles ahead of US bands like Nine Inch Nails, and the later chart busting version with ‘Barbados’ and ‘Out Of Mind Out Of Sight’.

But Models have always insisted their approach to their music has remained the same. By the time of The Overlander Hotel tape, the “quirky” version was drawing big crowds to inner city venues in Melbourne and Sydney. Record companies were already circling but the band wanted to release its first album independently to keep creative control.

“We were different to other bands at that time, so we stood out,” recollects bassist Mark Ferrie.

“From the very beginning there was a basic connection between the four of us. We were playing 4 to 5 times a week.

“We certainly could play. We were unconventional and experimental, definitely ambitious, we felt we were on the cusp of something that was going to break through.”

Adds Mark Woods, who was doing sound for the band Phones before getting the call to mix Models at Marijuana House, Fitzroy in early 1979. “I loved the band from that first show, quirky songs, they played well and generated a lot of energy onstage.”

Models were formed in August 1978 by singer and guitarist Sean Kelly, who’d emerged in the punk era in Spred and Teenage Radio Stars with school mate James Freud.

With Models, Sean Kelly expanded his musical palette, to include David Bowie, Lou Reed, Eno and Roxy Music, thus augmenting his earlier influences, Top 40, classical music, show tunes and the theatre record collection of his parents.

Sean, who started living in boarding rooms at 15 to make his way in life would remember, “I was like a sponge. Anything black soulful or experimental or funky. I became really eclectic so I’m lucky I cut my teeth on those.”

Sean started playing piano and drums but switched to guitar. Mark Ferrie notes how Sean’s unique approach to guitar playing added to Models’ distinctive sound.

Original drummer Johnny Crash (aka Janis Friedenfelds), who died in on January 24, 2014, came from Adelaide’s electro-industrial scene and proved himself a dynamic addition.