A short history of Icehouse ° Where is Iva Davies now?
I first met Iva Davies in a Melbourne pub early in 1980. Walking past a small hotel one afternoon, I heard a cover band belting out a David Bowie song, so I went in.
Standing just inside the door to let my eyes adjust to the light, I was aware of a guy standing next to me. Next second, he started singing … he was in the band! We both laughed and had a chat during his break.
A month or so later, the band ‘Flowers’ released their first single “Can’t Help Myself” and an album called ‘Icehouse’. When I saw Iva singing on the television, I remembered “Hey, it’s that guy!”
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A short history of Icehouse
Iva Davies and Icehouse have produced eight top-ten albums, twenty top-forty singles in Australia, multiple top-ten hits in Europe and North America. Icehouse album sales are over 28-times platinum in Australasia alone. Icehouse was inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame in 2006.
Iva Davies is the professional name of Ivor Arthur Davies, born on 22 May 1955 in Wauchope, NSW, Australia. Both his parents were musical and Iva’s father was an amateur singer in choirs. The young Davies was a musical prodigy, specialising in the oboe and studying at the Conservatorium of Music. Davies played casually with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra including for the first opera to be performed at the Sydney Opera House.
Iva Davies formed his band ‘Flowers’ in Sydney in 1977. He had to change the name in 1981 due to legal reasons as there was a Scottish band called ‘The Flowers’, so he called his new band ‘Icehouse’ after his cold flat and his debut album.
The iconic Icehouse song ‘Great Southern Land’ was written in 1982 for his second album, ‘Primitive Man’ although it wasn’t the most popular song from that album at the time.
‘Great Southern Land’ was a Top 5 hit in Australia, but the single, ‘Hey Little Girl’ made their name internationally, peaking at No.7 in Australia, was a number one hit in Switzerland, and made the charts in Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, UK, and U.S.
David Bowie heard ‘Hey Little Girl’ on the radio and asked Icehouse to support Bowie on his 1983 Serious Moonlight Tour, playing to crowds of 70,000 every show. Bowie told Davies “You never know who will be listening”.
Whilst in Europe, Icehouse also played 5 gigs in Germany, called ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream 1983’. Also on the line-up was Crosby, Stills & Nash; Mike Oldfield; Peter Tosh; Van Morrison and Robert Palmer.
Icehouse’s 1984 album ‘Sidewalk’ 1984′ included two tracks used for the Russell Mulcahy film Razorback.
Joe Camilleri played saxophone on the Sidewalk album and toured Europe for 9 months with Icehouse promoting the album. Camileri’s haunting sax features on the songs ‘Don’t Believe Anymore’ and ‘This Time’.
During the Sidewalk Tour gig at the ANU Bar in Canberra, it was obvious that Camilleri and Davies were not getting along. In 1985 I individually asked both Camilleri and Davies what happened. They were both gracious in their reply and said basically the same thing:
“That tour went on too long. We have different playing styles. Iva likes to play the songs exactly the same way each night. I’m a bit more free and go with the flow,” Joe Camilleri explained.
Davies’ early years in an orchestra gave him a discipline uncommon in a pub rock band. The band delivered every night.
His classical music education led to a job transcribing sheet music for music publishers to register the copyright on the sheet music and lyrics, but some bands couldn’t write musical score.
“I wrote the Little River Band and Cold Chisel songbooks and Elvis Costello’s first album. I wrote down hundreds of songs. I couldn’t always understand the lyrics and sometimes I had to make up words to fit. A lot of songs were registered like ‘Boys Light Up’ and ‘Capricorn Dancer’ which probably have the wrong lyrics in them,” Iva Davies said.
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Sydney Dance Company ‘Boxes’
Davies composed the score for the 1985 Sydney Dance Company production of Graeme Murphy’s work ‘Boxes’ mainly using Fairlight synthesiser. Davies appeared on stage during the performance with Janet Vernon and the dancers. Bob Kretschmer played guitar and Masaki Tanazawa on percussion. Boxes performed at the Sydney Opera House for three weeks in November 1985.
Coincidentally, my flat mate was working as a stage manager on another show at the Opera House while Boxes was on. He had been talking with one of the dancers, Tonia Kelly, in the Opera House’s Green Room, but says he “was nearly killed in the rush” when Iva walked in and wanted her attention.
Iva Davies married Tonia Kelly in 1990, then principal dancer at the Sydney Dance Company, and they divorced in 2010. They have two children, Brynn (born 1993) and Evan (born 1996).
“In 1995, after I had stopped actively touring, I wrote another ballet for the Sydney Dance Company, “Berlin”. The two ballets, “Boxes” and “Berlin” are the Sydney Dance Company’s most successful works to date. When Graeme Murphy, the creator of the company, Artistic Director and choreographer retired in 2007, he chose a return season of “Berlin” to finish with” Davies said.
1987’s Man of Colours album
Icehouse’s best-selling album is 1987’s Man of Colours, with over 700,000 albums sold. It was No. 1 on the Australian album charts for eleven weeks.
Man of Colours was the first Australian album to have five singles charting in the top 30: “Crazy” peaked at No. 4, “Electric Blue” hit No.1 (it was co-written by Davies and John Oates of U.S. band Hall & Oates), “My Obsession” No. 12, “Man of Colours” No. 28 and “Nothing Too Serious” No. 29.
Electric Blue
Davies met John Oates of Hall & Oates fame in the Adelaide airport waiting lounge and they instantly hit it off. Oates came to Australia for ten days to work with Davies in his studio and they co-wrote ‘Electric Blue’. The title “Electric Blue” was a phrase included in an early T-Rex song called “Jewel”
“Her thoughts are gold, Her eyes electric blue, Her thoughts are gold, Her eyes electric blue, She sleeps upon the dreams, Of me and you.” – Marc Bolan
Icehouse stopped actively performing in 1994, but resumed again in 2010.
“The Ghost of Time”, a 25-minute expanded orchestral piece based on and including my 1982 song “Great Southern Land”, which was commissioned by the City of Sydney to be performed on the forecourt of the Sydney Opera House in the 25 minutes leading up to the countdown of the Millennium. The performance which featured myself, virtuoso violinist Richard Tognetti, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Taikos (Japanese Taiko drumming ensemble based in Sydney) was broadcast on international television to an estimated 4 billion people”.
“The Ghost of Time” was being watched by Australia film director Peter Weir, who approached me in 2003 to create similar music for the score of his highly successful blockbuster move Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. The film went on to achieve ten Oscar nominations,” Iva Davies said.
Icehouse were pioneers of synthesizer music
Iva Davies is a pioneer of synthesiser music, using Fairlight CMI (short for Computer Musical Instrument), Sequential Circuits Prophet-5, Mini Moog synthesizer, and a Linn drum machine. The song ‘Hey, Little Girl’ features the first Linn Drum Machine technology, which was personally delivered to Davies by the inventor, Roger Linn.
“By far, the most exciting part of that time was the explosion of music technology. It seems almost by accident that I ended up being an unwitting pioneer of a lot of that technology. The first album (Icehouse by Flowers) was probably one of the first albums recorded with a “click” track, which is now industry standard practice. I can be sure of this as we had to generate a tempo click in quite a convoluted way, using a white noise burst from a Mini Moog synthesizer which was triggered by a simple clocking add-on unit called a “Sample & Hold”. This “click” sounded roughly like a strike on a closed drum hi-hat, and can be heard in the fading moments of the recording of the song “Icehouse” on that album, as I deliberately left it in the mix” said Iva.
“The third album Sidewalk features the very first sampler technology. This, believe it or not, was an Australian invention, created in the Sydney suburb of Fairlight. Sampler technology was probably, apart from the actual invention of recording itself, the most influential piece of technology in the history of music. The Computer Musical Instrument, or Fairlight, was an extraordinary technological achievement at the time. By complete accident, our management’s offices were on the second story of the actual work space where the Fairlights were assembled by hand in Sydney. In 1982, this machine was a $32,000 investment for me, but proved to be well worth it.”
“Although other Fairlight users are perhaps more high profile than I was at the time, notably Peter Gabriel and Stevie Wonder, I am listed among the handful of very early users, and this was acknowledged when Fairlight celebrated an anniversary in 2006.”
“Our fourth album Measure for Measure is one of the first three fully digital recordings ever made, which of course was created for the then brand new technology of compact discs (CD’s). It was recorded on the first digital multi-track tape machine, The Mitsubishi 32 track, and then mixed to Mitsubishi digital 2 track. I believe the other two albums were one by Dire Straits, and, believe it or not, one by Cliff Richard!”
Professional wig maker Bob Kretschmer joined Icehouse on guitar and backing vocals on Icehouse’s second album, ‘Primitive Man’ in 1982, an association with Davies which lasted until the end of the decade. Kretschmer has since moved to Los Angeles to make wigs on films for Marlon Brando (The Island of Dr. Moreau), Leonardo di Caprio (Django Unchained), Johnny Depp (Pirates of Caribbean) and many others.
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Icehouse use of MTV & music video director Russell Mulcahy
Davies understood the need for a pop musician to take advantage of the MTV and worked with the world’s best music video director, Russell Mulcahy, another Australian.
Mulcahy directed the music videos for the Icehouse singles: ‘We Can Get Together’ & ‘Icehouse’ 1981, ‘Hey Little Girl’ 1982, ‘Street Cafe’ 1983, and ‘Taking the Town’ in 1984.
Mulcahy’s landmark video for The Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star” was the first music video played on MTV in 1981. Mulcahy worked with super bands including AC/DC, Supertramp, Elton John, Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, Culture Club, Sex Pistols, Billy Joel, The Motels, Spandau Ballet and Ultravox, Fleetwood Mac and he won two Grammy Awards for his work with Duran Duran.
When it came time for Mulcahy to shoot his first serious feature film, ‘Razorback’, Russell Mulcahy said “Iva … was the only choice I could think of in this country. He was perfect because his style of music is just right for the film: a mixture of the primitive and the modern. He saw some storyboards, read the script and worked out a theme from that. I then showed him a rough cut of the film and he used a Fairlight computer to do the rest of the score”.
Icehouse live at the Westenfalenhalle, in Dortmund, Germany on June 24th, 1984. Joe Camilleri toured Europe for 9 months with Icehouse on their Sidewalk Tour. Setlist: 1. This Time 2. Sidewalk 3. Hey Little Girl 4. Love In Motion 5. Stay Close Tonight 6. Don’t Believe Anymore 7. Dusty Pages 8. Street Cafe 9. Can’t Help Myself 10. Taking The Town
Iva Davies tested positive to COVID-19.
ICEHOUSE and promoter Live Nation announced the postponement of ICEHOUSE’s Great Southern Land 2022 – The Concert Series at the Brisbane Riverstage on November 26, rescheduled to Saturday, 18 February, 2023.
Iva Davies said: “Despite getting good care from my doctor since I was diagnosed with Covid-19, my condition hasn’t improved. As with so many other Covid sufferers, the effects of the infection are lasting a lot longer than I hoped. The difficulties I am having with breathing mean that I cannot sing for the duration of an ICEHOUSE performance. The band and I are hugely disappointed not to play Riverstage as we have a long history with the venue – it has always been a special venue for its location plus the Brisbane crowds are always welcoming. We always want to give the concert-goers the best ICEHOUSE performance but as that isn’t going to be possible next weekend, we have made the very difficult decision to postpone until February by which time we will be able to deliver the full ICEHOUSE concert in good health to our Brisbane friends and fans. I want to thank everyone who has sent well-wishing messages for my recovery.”
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