The Rock Island Linesmen
Regular guests at The Cornish Arms

Take a tea chest bass, a washboard and an acoustic guitar and what have you got? A skiffle band! You know ... like The Beatles before they were The Beatles when they were The Quarrymen and were still pimply-faced schoolboys. Like Lonnie Donegan! Songs like It Takes A Worried Man, Frankie and Johnnie, Rock Island Line, Don't You Rock Me Daddio, Mule Skinner Blues, Midnight Special.

Let's travel back in time to the early 1950s in The Old Dart, The Mother Country, Dear Old Blighty (not Malcom, England!) ...

As England attempted to recover from the ravages of World War 2 it was a dreary, grey, miserable place with rationing still in effect years after the official end of the war. From America came a vibrant, exciting, youthful new music ... Rock 'n' Roll! The youth of England were besotted, but there was a problem. You needed electric guitars and drumkits to play rock 'n' roll and in the slums of The East End or Leeds or Liverpool, the chances of getting your hands on a Fender or a Gibson were as remote as those of landing a man on the moon.

So what do you do? You play rock 'n' roll rhythms on the instruments you have to hand ... the aforementioned tea chest bass, washboard and acoustic guitar. Skiffle!

Now let's fast forward to Melbourne 2000 ...

Singer/drummer Gary Adams (The Whittle Family, Pete Best Beatles, Clip Clop Club) says to his guitar-playing friend Tom Roberts (Bachelors From Prague, The Feeling Groovies) ...

"I'm thinking of doing a skiffle band".

"Well count me in," said Tom.

They bought a copy of The Skiffle Sessions CD (Lonnie Donegan and Van Morrison live in Belfast, 1999) and started learning the tunes. Marissa McGee started learning with them. One day a tea chest bass player named Betty turned up. Pretty soon her boyfriend Rob joined on piano accordian. A band is born!

Their first gig was at the local school fete. What to call themselves? The Skiffle Kings? Skuffle? Marissa said, "The Rock Island Linesemen!" and that one stuck.

They were soon booked to do the Wombat Houising Co-Op's annual general meeting - their first paid gig!

They then started playing at The Cornish Arms Hotel in Brunswick and the crowds grew. Paul Thomas (WPA, Huxton Creepers, Custard) soon joined on guitar.

Every band member sings and the joint rocks to a repertoire of Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Loudon Wainright and others. Gary throws in some of his own tunes like Mont Alber Hedge Burners, Drinking and Thinking.

Always thinking laterally, they perform an old reggae tune called Two Hits and the Joint Turned Brown (a tribute to Bob Marley). Johnny O'Keefe's 'Shout' is a showstopper. With two women in the band, how could they avoid learning 'Hit The Road, Jack'? They even set a 19th Century Australian poem by Adam Lindsay Gordon to music.

Now your death metal or hip op-acid-house-r&b-rap, or even your Christian adult MOR are all excellent musical forms, but if you want to hear some real music, out there on the cutting edge ... well ... there's only Skiffle and The Rock Island Linesmen, man.