Ed Kuepper in the City

Ed Kuepper is is without a doubt, one of Australia’s most influential musicians, and only a few dedicated Ed Heads are able to keep pace with his prodigious output.

Since 1985, the ARIA Hall of Fame inductee and two times ARIA award winner has recorded 20 studio albums under his own name.

Now, for one night only Kuepper will be performing highlights from his fifty year recording career as part of his national The Exploding Universe of Ed Kuepper tour.

For the first time since 2009, Kuepper’s solo material will be supported by a live band consisting of Peter Oxley, bass, Eamon Dilworth, brass, and his old musical comrade, Alister Spence on piano.

The show’s repertoire will lean towards material from his classic solo albums Electric Storm (1985) and Honey Steel’s Gold (1991), both of which have been remastered and reissued and have once again entered the ARIA charts.

Kuepper’s career began in a suburban Brisbane high school where he met Chris Bailey and Ivor Hay, with whom he would go on to form The Saints.

Named after novelist Leslie Charteris’s character, Simon Templar (a Robin Hood type hero nicknamed The Saint), the band won International recognition and acclaim with their first single (I’m) Stranded, with Bob Geldorf proclaiming them to be the founders of the punk music scene along with The Sex Pistols and the Ramones.

After doing the hard slog in Europe and the UK the band broke up due to differences between Kuepper and Bailey, with Kuepper soon forming the jazz rock ensemble The Laughing Clowns in 1979.

A darling of the critics the Clowns never gained the notoriety of The Saints, but would become hugely influential to musicians such as Nick Cave and go on to having international cult status.

After three acclaimed but slow selling albums recorded over five years, the Clowns left the tent and from 1991 to ’95 Kuepper concentrated on The Aints, a hard hitting band that excelled in feedback and was used to explore material he had written between 1969-1978.

At this stage Kuepper was releasing up to three albums a year, an output that would be the foundation of his prolific solo period to come.

In the ensuing years Kuepper would reunite with Bailey and sometimes Hay for various versions of The Saints that would often feature on the bill for selected All Tomorrow’s Parties festivals.

After a long and eventful years, with no fallow period, Kuepper can take a well deserved long service victory lap.

While this will not be the last we see of Ed Kuepper, the almost sold out seated City Recital Hall gig is likely to be the last chance for Sydney to see him this year.

September 21

City Recital Hall, 2 Angel Place, Sydney

www.cityrecitalhall.com