The 1980 Listening Post - Icehouse - Icehouse

 Icehouse - Icehouse

#384

October 10 1980

Icehouse (Known as Flowers here)

Icehouse

Genre: Somebody listened to a LOT of Bowie and Numan

4 out of 5

Highlights:

We Can Get Together

Sister

Walls

My wife is a classically trained Oboist. Yep. That’s a true thing. 

And, while she can’t “jam”, I always want her to pull it out and play along with me on guitar. She won’t do it. 

But she often likes to joke that every rock band needs an oboe. 

She’s totally not serious. She doesn’t think Oboes rock. 

Iva Davies not only plays the Oboe but he plays one on THIS record. 

Actually, this hews closer to Numan than Bowie. But it was always obvious that Numan was keying off Bowie, right? 

I think this puts Icehouse squarely at the foundation of “New Wave” as we would come to know it with pastel triangles and Beatle boots and rock gods standing assertively at their keyboards. 

Davies has a penchant for the toe tappiness of New Wave but the problem with that is it often becomes repetitive and uninteresting. But then he tosses a Jew’s Harp in (“skin”) and, dammit, my ear perks up. Is it a gimmick? Sure. Did it work? Yep. 

“Nothing to Do” is the best Lou Reed song I’ve heard since The Velvets. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/icehouse-30th-anniversary-edition/1442982884

The 1986 Listening Post - Icehouse - Measure for Measure

Icehouse - Measure for Measure

#141/1306

April 21 1986

Icehouse

Measure for Measure

Genre: SynthRock

3.5 out of 5

Highlights:

Cross the Border

It’s always hard to review a record when you know someone in the band. Even if it’s a peripheral relationship.

But I don’t think anyone would disagree that this Icehouse offering is just like the past Icehouse records and that this sound is sort of played out. 

That said, they sound more contemporary than, say, A Flock of Seagulls. Probably because they are Australian. They SOUND like an Australian rock band. Hell, “Cross the Border” could be an audition for INXS. 

And the single “No Promises” was pleasant enough. But for most of the album they really wanna sound like Australian David Bowies, especially on “Lucky Me”. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/measure-for-measure/527099712

The 1984 Listening Post - Icehouse - Sidewalk

Icehouse - Sidewalk

#165

June 25 1984

Icehouse

Sidewalk

2out of 5

Highlights:

Taking this Town

The general consensus is that this is an awful record, significantly worse than the band’s Primitive Man, which I thought was incredibly mediocre.

I actually like the first track, the driving “Taking this Town”…a few years ago a woman I knew from the Prodigy days, not the band, the computer service, from the Queen boards lost her husband and, eventually, married a friend of mine whose I also met on that service.

They divorced but he remained close and she stayed in my life, peripherally. Even came to see my band with her daughter. 

Then we lost touch until one day I mentioned on Facebook that I was no longer in need of the window AC units that my wife and I had in the garage since we installed central air. She asked if she could buy one, since they were cheap. Her new husband showed up and bought one. Nice guy. 

He was the keyboardist for Icehouse on this album. 

I don’t know how I feel about that story. Kind of how I don’t know how I feel about this band. Or this album. It’s not as awful as others say. But it’s not great. Iva Davies definitely sounds like he thinks he’s the shit. He is not. he’s another in a long line of synth-rockers only Icehouse had some big guitars to go along with the swirling keyboards. But, man does he wish he was David Bowie. I wish he would stop making albums. 

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/sidewalk/537888908