The Icemen is a band I was not even aware of until recently, even though I knew three out of the four musicians involved. I recently ran into a gentleman by the name of Dave Owens at a memorial concert for the late great Johnny Norman. I knew of Dave as he was a member of Mad Gorilla but we’d never said more than a few words to each other a very long time ago. Dave was kind enough to get in touch with me and sent me a wonderful film clip of the Icemen shot in 1986.
It’s a true classic but I’ll let Dave take over:
“I got together with a friend of mine to transfer the VCR copy to DVD of “The Iceman” video we shot way back in 1986!. As I explained there are a few lines and crap on my copy but because it was shot in negative it may add to the effect funnily enough.
Shot by Coby Van Dorenstein on a hand held camera at Kurnell sand dunes, it features all 4 members – John Norman on Drums & Vocals, Paul Swain on Bass & Vocals, Mark Flack on Guitar & Vocals and Dave Owens on Guitar & Vocals – miming to a stereo recording we did at Mark’s place. I still have a stereo cassette of 12 original songs the band recorded at Mark’s place on his 4 track desk that I must get around to dubbing on to a CD for posterity.
Imagine – we had no gigs but we had an album’s worth of original tunes as well as an amateur video!! We were ready to go – and then I pursued a day job in Melbourne.
John & Paul kept playing in other bands as did Mark with the Gorilla’s. They went for another 6 years after i left and how about all the muso’s that went through Mad Gorilla after the original lineup changed?
Anyway, The Icemen DVD is enclosed as well as some happy snaps of you at Johns Benefit.”
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
“Cool” film clip …. sorry I just had to say that!!
Great song and a drum solo too, what more could you ask for?
I would love to here more of the songs, shame nothing ever came of it, sounds like the kind of thing I would buy.
Thanks for posting, cheers.
Gotta love a song with a drum solo, eh Greg? That is the late, great, Johnny Norman. A lovely bloke and a downright funny bugger. Don’t think I ever saw him without a smile on his face. Sadly missed but fondly remembered.
I’m really grateful to Dave Owens for sending this to me.
Nice words Mark, I hope they say something as nice about me when I’m gone!!
Yep we had alot of fun writeing and recording these didn’t we Dave , The Vidio was shot in normal Vision and was later converted to negative by Mark , to block out the refinery in the background but wish we had kept it normal ,I wrote and sang this one and about 18 others Dave did about 6 or 7 of his all fun , i converted the tape of the album to cd a few years back , needs some enhancement though , i added studio recordings of the Bands we did after that (Westcoast ) with Me , Mark Flack , Chrissy Fabri , Jeff Hale and Demi on Drums recorded at Glebe point studios ,And an early recording With Me John Norman Archie Endsor Janet Mexom and Mario(The Fly)Alesandros as (Heatwave) ,that was recorded at Kanangra Studios in Parramatta Hey Dave post up the one we did of yours on Captain Cook reserve across from the Opera House it was very funny we climbed over the barriers and and shot it with hundreds of people watching us LOL Great memories thanks Dave , and for your albums you sent i hadn’t got around to letting you know they arived safe , love em …Paul