Neo-Magics - Leaving on a Jet Plane EP

Neo-Magics played at an art school party on Saturday 2nd November 1985 at a share house in Dryandra Street, O’Connor (an inner-city suburb of Canberra). They played a whole bunch of Velvet Underground covers and possibly “Hang On Sloopy” or “Louie Louie” or maybe neither. Forty odd years later, I get permission from one of the other band members (Lindsay, the original Plunderers drummer) to keep the flame alive.

The lead-off track is John Denver’s “Leaving on a Jet Plane”, taken from Neo-Magics album Yes! We Have Bananas, which is sung by Tandarra Rothman (her debut lead vocal!).

The other four songs are the last of the recordings which began in 2018 and were completed in 2026. “You Kept Me Waiting” was originally recorded by Dave Edmunds for the Stardust movie in 1974. “Damage”, written by Tim Rogers and appeared on You Am I’s Dress Me Slowly in 2001. It is my favourite You Am I song and I’d always wanted to do a version of this in the Gloomchasers - but that never happened - so here is my ‘electric bluegrass’ version which includes a Peruvian panpipe. “Problem Child” is my all-time favourite AC/DC song and, lastly, I just had to do a version of the world’s most covered song, “Yesterday” by the Beatles, also done in an electric bluegrass fashion.

The only song from these 2018 recordings that hasn’t been released was a cover of Elvin Bishop’s “Fooled Around and Fell in Love”, where I tried to do it like the Velvet’s “Ferryboat Bill” but it was a bit of a fail.