When You Play Your Own Wedding In Five Different Bands

All weddings feature music — usually provided by someone else — but if you’re a legendary rock’n’roll musician, why not soundtrack your own big night? Perth scene mainstay James Baker is getting hitched to his lovely bride-to-be Catherine Podger, and instead of a typical reception they’re holding a gig at the Rosemount Hotel titled I’m Flipped Out Over You, which involves five bands — Le Hoodoo Gurus (the recently-reformed original line-up of Hoodoo Gurus), The Scientists (billed as Frantic Romantics), The Dubrovniks, The Television Addicts (the current incarnation of The Victims) and The Painkillers — alongside some esteemed friends such as Spencer P Jones (in solo mode). All five of those great rock bands feature Baker behind the kit, so it’s shaping up as an epic night in every sense of the term.

“It’s going to be a big day,” he laughs. “I’m in five bands playing on the night, that must go in the Guinness Book Of Records! It sounded funny to start with, but I kept on adding more bands — I only started out with three on the bill, and now it’s ended up with five. It’s only half-hour sets, so it’s not too strenuous.

“One of our songs from The Dubrovniks got covered by a local Greek band and it went into the Top 5 in Greece, which is unheard of."

“I’ve had a ball with all of them — they’re all different. The Painkillers are good, even though not many people know about them. We rehearsed with The Dubrovniks the other day and they sounded the best they’ve ever sounded. We’ve just played shows with all of Le Gurus and The Scientists and The Victims recently, so it’s going to be great fun. The Dubrovniks haven’t played since about ‘92 though — the last gig was in Athens, and Athens is going to be the first gig of our upcoming tour to Europe. It’s a honeymoon-cum-small tour — we’re playing three gigs in Greece, a festival in Spain and a couple of shows in Austria.”

The well-overdue return of The Dubrovniks and their impending European sojourn came about in awesomely strange circumstances.  

“One of our songs from The Dubrovniks got covered by a local Greek band and it went into the Top 5 in Greece, which is unheard of,” Baker marvels. “It’s an obscure song too, one Boris [Sujdovic] wrote called Like Fire. They phoned up and said, ‘You must come!’ and then we got the Spanish festival. And they’re paying us good money too! All our wives and girlfriends are coming, so it will be just a party. Last time we went over we played about sixty-two gigs, and after that you don’t want to play the sixty-third one — this time is only six gigs so it’s stress free. We might make a live album out of it too.”

And the party’s not all about the past, the happy couple having recorded a new single for their wedding titled Ain’t Gonna Let You Go (free for first 350 payers). “It looks great; it’s on lime green vinyl and it’s a song I wrote about Cathy but she sings it,” the happy groom gushes. “It’s a great song — it’s trashy, like something off Nuggets. It’s not a romantic ballad!”